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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories, by 
+Guy de Maupassant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Posting Date: October 5, 2014 [EBook #7114]
+Release Date: December, 2004
+First Posted: March 11, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNE VIE, A PIECE OF STRING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+
+UNE VIE
+
+A Piece of String
+And Other Stories
+
+
+Translated by
+Albert M. C. McMaster, B.A.
+A. E. Henderson, B.A.
+Mme. Quesada and Others
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "JEANNE"]
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY POL. NEVEUX
+
+UNE VIE (The History of a Heart)
+   I. The Home by the Sea
+  II. Happy Days
+ III. M. de Lamare
+  IV. Marriage and Disillusion
+   V. Corsica and a New Life
+  VI. Disenchantment
+ VII. Jeanne's Discovery
+VIII. Maternity
+  IX. Death of La Baronne
+   X. Retribution
+  XI. The Development of Paul
+ XII. A New Home
+XIII. Jeanne in Paris
+ XIV. Light at Eventide
+
+A VAGABOND
+
+THE FISHING HOLE
+
+THE SPASM
+
+IN THE WOOD
+
+MARTINE
+
+ALL OVER
+
+THE PARROT
+
+A PIECE OF STRING
+
+
+[Illustration: Guy de Maupassant]
+
+
+GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+A Study by Pol. Neveux
+
+"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a
+thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to José Maria de Heredia on
+the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid
+solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which,
+for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the
+fertility of a master hand produced poetry, novels, romances and
+travels, only to sink prematurely into the abyss of madness and
+death....
+
+In the month of April, 1880, an article appeared in the "Le Gaulois"
+announcing the publication of the Soirées de Médan. It was signed by a
+name as yet unknown: Guy de Maupassant. After a juvenile diatribe
+against romanticism and a passionate attack on languorous literature,
+the writer extolled the study of real life, and announced the
+publication of the new work. It was picturesque and charming. In the
+quiet of evening, on an island in the Seine, beneath poplars instead
+of the Neapolitan cypresses dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the
+continuous murmur of the valley, and no longer to the sound of the
+Pyrennean streams that murmured a faint accompaniment to the tales of
+Marguerite's cavaliers, the master and his disciples took turns in
+narrating some striking or pathetic episode of the war. And the issue,
+in collaboration, of these tales in one volume, in which the master
+jostled elbows with his pupils, took on the appearance of a manifesto,
+the tone of a challenge, or the utterance of a creed.
+
+In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they
+had confined themselves, beneath the trees of Médan, to deciding on a
+general title for the work. Zola had contributed the manuscript of the
+"Attaque du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five
+young men gave in their contributions. Each one read his story,
+Maupassant being the last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a
+spontaneous impulse, with an emotion they never forgot, filled with
+enthusiasm at this revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous
+words, acclaimed him as a master.
+
+He undertook to write the article for the Gaulois and, in coöperation
+with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are
+familiar, amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste
+for mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential
+point, he said, is to "unmoor" criticism.
+
+It was unmoored. The following day Wolff wrote a polemical
+dissertation in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume
+was a brilliant success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty,
+the honesty of effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the
+other stories. Relegated to the second rank, they passed without
+notice. From his first battle, Maupassant was master of the field in
+literature.
+
+At once the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate
+regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought
+information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly
+straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at
+the present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient
+heroes whose origin and death are veiled in mystery.
+
+I will not dwell on Guy de Maupassant's younger days. His relatives,
+his old friends, he himself, here and there in his works, have
+furnished us in their letters enough valuable revelations and touching
+remembrances of the years preceding his literary début. His worthy
+biographer, H. Édouard Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the
+writings, condensing and comparing them, has been able to give us some
+definite information regarding that early period.
+
+I will simply recall that he was born on the 5th of August, 1850, near
+Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil which he describes in Une Vie....
+
+Maupassant, like Flaubert, was a Norman, through his mother, and
+through his place of birth he belonged to that strange and adventurous
+race, whose heroic and long voyages on tramp trading ships he liked to
+recall. And just as the author of "Éducation sentimentale" seems to
+have inherited in the paternal line the shrewd realism of Champagne,
+so de Maupassant appears to have inherited from his Lorraine ancestors
+their indestructible discipline and cold lucidity.
+
+His childhood was passed at Étretat, his beautiful childhood; it was
+there that his instincts were awakened in the unfoldment of his
+prehistoric soul. Years went by in an ecstasy of physical happiness.
+The delight of running at full speed through fields of gorse, the
+charm of voyages of discovery in hollows and ravines, games beneath
+the dark hedges, a passion for going to sea with the fishermen and, on
+nights when there was no moon, for dreaming on their boats of
+imaginary voyages.
+
+Mme. de Maupassant, who had guided her son's early reading, and had
+gazed with him at the sublime spectacle of nature, put off as long as
+possible the hour of separation. One day, however, she had to take the
+child to the little seminary at Yvetot. Later, he became a student at
+the college at Rouen, and became a literary correspondent of Louis
+Bouilhet. It was at the latter's house on those Sundays in winter when
+the Norman rain drowned the sound of the bells and dashed against the
+window panes that the school boy learned to write poetry.
+
+Vacation took the rhetorician back to the north of Normandy. Now it
+was shooting at Saint Julien-l'Hospitalier, across fields, bogs, and
+through the woods. From that time on he sealed his pact with the
+earth, and those "deep and delicate roots" which attached him to his
+native soil began to grow. It was of Normandy, broad, fresh and
+virile, that he would presently demand his inspiration, fervent and
+eager as a boy's love; it was in her that he would take refuge when,
+weary of life, he would implore a truce, or when he simply wished to
+work and revive his energies in old-time joys. It was at this time
+that was born in him that voluptuous love of the sea, which in later
+days could alone withdraw him from the world, calm him, console him.
+
+In 1870 he lived in the country, then he came to Paris to live; for,
+the family fortunes having dwindled, he had to look for a position.
+For several years he was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine, where he
+turned over musty papers, in the uninteresting company of the clerks
+of the admiralty.
+
+Then he went into the department of Public Instruction, where
+bureaucratic servility is less intolerable. The daily duties are
+certainly scarcely more onerous and he had as chiefs, or colleagues,
+Xavier Charmes and Leon Dierx, Henry Roujon and René Billotte, but his
+office looked out on a beautiful melancholy garden with immense plane
+trees around which black circles of crows gathered in winter.
+
+Maupassant made two divisions of his spare hours, one for boating, and
+the other for literature. Every evening in spring, every free day, he
+ran down to the river whose mysterious current veiled in fog or
+sparkling in the sun called to him and bewitched him. In the islands
+in the Seine between Chatou and Port-Marly, on the banks of
+Sartrouville and Triel he was long noted among the population of
+boatmen, who have now vanished, for his unwearying biceps, his cynical
+gaiety of goodfellowship, his unfailing practical jokes, his broad
+witticisms. Sometimes he would row with frantic speed, free and
+joyous, through the glowing sunlight on the stream; sometimes, he
+would wander along the coast, questioning the sailors, chatting with
+the ravageurs, or junk gatherers, or stretched at full length amid the
+irises and tansy he would lie for hours watching the frail insects
+that play on the surface of the stream, water spiders, or white
+butterflies, dragon flies, chasing each other amid the willow leaves,
+or frogs asleep on the lily-pads.
+
+The rest of his life was taken up by his work. Without ever becoming
+despondent, silent and persistent, he accumulated manuscripts, poetry,
+criticisms, plays, romances and novels. Every week he docilely
+submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his
+mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to
+assist the young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make
+chefs-d'oeuvre immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious
+research and to use direct observation and who inculcated in him a
+horror of vulgarity and a contempt for facility.
+
+Maupassant himself tells us of those severe initiations in the Rue
+Murillo, or in the tent at Croisset; he has recalled the implacable
+didactics of his old master, his tender brutality, the paternal advice
+of his generous and candid heart. For seven years Flaubert slashed,
+pulverized, the awkward attempts of his pupil whose success remained
+uncertain.
+
+Suddenly, in a flight of spontaneous perfection, he wrote Boule de
+Suif. His master's joy was great and overwhelming. He died two months
+later.
+
+Until the end Maupassant remained illuminated by the reflection of the
+good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the
+dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of
+Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither
+work, nor glory, nor slow moving waves, nor balmy nights.
+
+At the end of his short life, while his mind was still clear, he wrote
+to a friend: "I am always thinking of my poor Flaubert, and I say to
+myself that I should like to die if I were sure that anyone would
+think of me in the same manner."
+
+During these long years of his novitiate Maupassant had entered the
+social literary circles. He would remain silent, preoccupied; and if
+anyone, astonished at his silence, asked him about his plans he
+answered simply: "I am learning my trade." However, under the
+pseudonym of Guy de Valmont, he had sent some articles to the
+newspapers, and, later, with the approval and by the advice of
+Flaubert, he published, in the "République des Lettres," poems signed
+by his name.
+
+These poems, overflowing with sensuality, where the hymn to the Earth
+describes the transports of physical possession, where the impatience
+of love expresses itself in loud melancholy appeals like the calls of
+animals in the spring nights, are valuable chiefly inasmuch as they
+reveal the creature of instinct, the fawn escaped from his native
+forests, that Maupassant was in his early youth. But they add nothing
+to his glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules
+Lemaitre said. To mould the expression of his thought according to the
+strictest laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his
+aim. Following the example of one of his comrades of Médan, being
+readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of
+sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the
+chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines.
+However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having
+published. His encounters with prosody had left him with that
+monotonous weariness that the horseman and the fencer feel after a
+period in the riding school, or a bout with the foils.
+
+Such, in very broad lines, is the story of Maupassant's literary
+apprenticeship.
+
+The day following the publication of "Boule de Suif," his reputation
+began to grow rapidly. The quality of his story was unrivalled, but at
+the same time it must be acknowledged that there were some who, for
+the sake of discussion, desired to place a young reputation in
+opposition to the triumphant brutality of Zola.
+
+From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire
+press, set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from
+all influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With
+a quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which
+he himself was not aware, but which was so universal, that no
+contemporary author during his life ever experienced the same. The
+"meteor" sent out its light and its rays were prolonged without limit,
+in article after article, volume on volume.
+
+He was now rich and famous.... He is esteemed all the more as they
+believe him to be rich and happy. But they do not know that this young
+fellow with the sunburnt face, thick neck and salient muscles whom
+they invariably compare to a young bull at liberty, and whose love
+affairs they whisper, is ill, very ill. At the very moment that
+success came to him, the malady that never afterwards left him came
+also, and, seated motionless at his side, gazed at him with its
+threatening countenance. He suffered from terrible headaches, followed
+by nights of insomnia. He had nervous attacks, which he soothed with
+narcotics and anesthetics, which he used freely. His sight, which had
+troubled him at intervals, became affected, and a celebrated oculist
+spoke of abnormality, asymetry of the pupils. The famous young man
+trembled in secret and was haunted by all kinds of terrors.
+
+The reader is charmed at the saneness of this revived art and yet,
+here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of
+nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the
+supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most
+commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as
+the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being
+alarmed, he thinks that the author must be gifted with infallible
+intuition to follow out thus the taints in his characters, even
+through their most dangerous mazes. The reader does not know that
+these hallucinations which he describes so minutely were experienced
+by Maupassant himself; he does not know that the fear is in himself,
+the anguish of fear "which is not caused by the presence of danger, or
+of inevitable death, but by certain abnormal conditions, by certain
+mysterious influences in presence of vague dangers," the "fear of
+fear, the dread of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible
+terror."
+
+How can one explain these physical sufferings and this morbid distress
+that were known for some time to his intimates alone? Alas! the
+explanation is only too simple. All his life, consciously or
+unconsciously, Maupassant fought this malady, hidden as yet, which was
+latent in him.
+
+Those who first saw Maupassant when the Contes de la Bécasse and Bel
+Ami were published were somewhat astonished at his appearance. He was
+solidly built, rather short and had a resolute, determined air, rather
+unpolished and without those distinguishing marks of intellect and
+social position. But his hands were delicate and supple, and beautiful
+shadows encircled his eyes.
+
+He received visitors with the graciousness of the courteous head of a
+department, who resigns himself to listen to demands, allowing them to
+talk as he smiled faintly, and nonplussing them by his calmness.
+
+How chilling was this first interview to young enthusiasts who had
+listened to Zola unfolding in lyric formula audacious methods, or to
+the soothing words of Daudet, who scattered with prodigality striking,
+thrilling ideas, picturesque outlines and brilliant synopses.
+Maupassant's remarks, in têtes-à-têtes, as in general conversation,
+were usually current commonplaces and on ordinary time-worn topics.
+Convinced of the superfluousness of words, perhaps he confounded them
+all in the same category, placing the same estimate on a thought nobly
+expressed as on a sally of coarse wit. One would have thought so, to
+see the indifference with which he treated alike the chatter of the
+most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of
+the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life
+work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical
+anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move
+him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical
+joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the
+pleasure of hoaxing and mystifying people.
+
+He appeared besides to look upon art as a pastime, literature as an
+occupation useless at best, while he willingly relegated love to the
+performance of a function, and suspected the motives of the most
+meritorious actions.
+
+Some say that this was the inborn basis of his personal psychology. I
+do not believe it. That he may have had a low estimate of humanity,
+that he may have mistrusted its disinterestedness, contested the
+quality of its virtue, is possible, even certain. But that he was not
+personally superior to his heroes I am unwilling to admit. And if I
+see in his attitude, as in his language, an evidence of his inveterate
+pessimism, I see in it also a method of protecting his secret thoughts
+from the curiosity of the vulgar.
+
+Perhaps he overshot the mark. By dint of hearing morality, art and
+literature depreciated, and seeing him preoccupied with boating, and
+listening to his own accounts of love affairs which he did not always
+carry on in the highest class, many ended by seeing in him one of
+those terrible Normans who, all through his novels and stories,
+carouse and commit social crimes with such commanding assurance and
+such calm unmorality.
+
+He was undoubtedly a Norman, and, according to those who knew him
+best, many of his traits of character show that atavism is not always
+an idle word....
+
+To identify Maupassant with his characters is a gross error, but is
+not without precedent. We always like to trace the author in the hero
+of a romance, and to seek the actor beneath the disguise. No doubt, as
+Taine has said, "the works of an intelligence have not the
+intelligence alone for father and mother, but the whole personality of
+the man helps to produce them...."
+
+That is why Maupassant himself says to us, "No, I have not the soul of
+a decadent, I cannot look within myself, and the effort I make to
+understand unknown souls is incessant, involuntary and dominant. It is
+not an effort; I experience a sort of overpowering sense of insight
+into all that surrounds me. I am impregnated with it, I yield to it, I
+submerge myself in these surrounding influences."
+
+That is, properly speaking, the peculiarity of all great novelists.
+Who experiences this insight, this influence more than Balzac, or
+Flaubert, in Madame Bovary? And so with Maupassant, who, pen in hand,
+is the character he describes, with his passions, his hatreds, his
+vices and his virtues. He so incorporates himself in him that the
+author disappears, and we ask ourselves in vain what his own opinion
+is of what he has just told us. He has none possibly, or if he has he
+does not tell it.
+
+This agrees admirably with the theory of impassivity in literature, so
+much in vogue when Maupassant became known. But despite that theory he
+is, if one understands him, quite other than
+
+        "A being without pity who contemplated suffering."
+
+He has the deepest sympathy for the weak, for the victims of the
+deceptions of society, for the sufferings of the obscure. If the
+successful adventurer, Lesable, and the handsome Maze are the objects
+of his veiled irony, he maintains, or feels a sorrowful, though
+somewhat disdainful tenderness, for poor old Savon, the old copying
+clerk of the Ministry of Marine, who is the drudge of the office and
+whose colleagues laugh at him because his wife deceived him, _sans
+espoir d'"heritage."_
+
+Why did Maupassant at the start win universal favor? It is because he
+had direct genius, the clear vision of a "primitive" (an artist of the
+pre-Renaissance). His materials were just those of a graduate who,
+having left college, has satisfied his curiosity. Grasping the simple
+and ingenious, but strong and appropriate tools that he himself has
+forged, he starts out in the forest of romance, and instead of being
+overcome by the enchantment of its mystery, he walks through it
+unfalteringly with a joyful step....
+
+He was a minstrel. Offspring of a race, and not the inheritor of a
+formula, he narrated to his contemporaries, bewildered by the lyrical
+deformities of romanticism, stories of human beings, simple and
+logical, like those which formerly delighted our parents.
+
+The French reader who wished to be amused was at once at home, on the
+same footing with him.... More spontaneous than the first troubadours,
+he banished from his writings abstract and general types,
+"romanticized" life itself, and not myths, those eternal legends that
+stray through the highways of the world.
+
+Study closely these minstrels in recent works; read M. Joseph Bédier's
+beautiful work, Les Fabliaux, and you will see how, in Maupassant's
+prose, ancestors, whom he doubtless never knew, are brought to life.
+
+The Minstrel feels neither anger nor sympathy; he neither censures,
+nor moralizes; for the self-satisfied Middle Ages cannot conceive the
+possibility of a different world. Brief, quick, he despises aims and
+methods, his only object is to entertain his auditors. Amusing and
+witty, he cares only for laughter and ridicule....
+
+But Maupassant's stories are singularly different in character. In the
+nineteenth century the Gallic intellect had long since foundered amid
+vileness and debauchery. In the provinces the ancient humor had
+disappeared; one chattered still about nothing, but without point,
+without wit; "trifling" was over, as they call it in Champagne. The
+nauseating pabulum of the newspapers and low political intrigue had
+withered the French intellect, that delicate, rare intellect, the last
+traces of which fade away in the Alsatian stories of Erckman-Chatrian,
+in the Provençal tales of Alphonse Daudet, in the novels of Emile
+Pouvillon. Maupassant is not one of them. He knows nothing about
+humor, for he never found it in Life....
+
+His ambition was not to make one laugh; he writes for the pleasure of
+recalling, without bias, what, to him, seems a halfway and dangerous
+truth.... In his pessimism, Maupassant despises the race, society,
+civilization and the world....
+
+If Maupassant draws from anyone it is Schopenhauer and Herbert
+Spencer, of whom he often speaks, although one does not know if he
+studied them very deeply. In all his books, excepting, of course, in
+the case of lines from the great tragic poets, one finds only one
+credited reference, which in to Sir John Lubbock's work on ants, an
+extract from which is introduced into Yvette.
+
+No one was less bookish than himself. He was a designer, and one of
+the greatest in literature. His heroes, little folk, artisans or
+rustics, bureaucrats or shopkeepers, prostitutes or rakes, he places
+them in faintly colored, but well-defined surroundings. And,
+immediately, the simplified landscape gives the keynote of the story.
+
+In his descriptions he resists the temptation of asserting his
+personal view. He will not allow himself to see more of his landscape
+than his characters themselves see. He is also careful to avoid all
+refined terms and expressions, to introduce no element superior to the
+characters of his heroes.
+
+He never makes inanimate nature intervene directly in human
+tribulations; she laughs at our joys and our sorrows.... Once, only,
+in one of his works, the trees join in the universal mourning--the
+great, sad beeches weep in autumn for the soul, the little soul, of la
+petite Roque.
+
+And yet Maupassant adores this nature, the one thing that moves
+him.... But, in spite of this, he can control himself; the artist is
+aware of the danger to his narration should he indulge in the
+transports of a lover.
+
+With an inborn perception, Maupassant at once seizes on the principal
+detail, the essential peculiarity that distinguishes a character and
+builds round it. He also, in the presentation of his character,
+assumes an authority that no writer, not even Balzac, ever
+equalled....
+
+He traces what he sees with rapid strokes. His work is a vast
+collection of powerful sketches, synthetic draftings. Like all great
+artists, he was a simplifier; he knew how to "sacrifice" like the
+Egyptians and Greeks....
+
+Thanks to his rapid methods the master "cinematographed," if I may use
+the word, inexhaustible stories. Among them, each person may find
+himself represented, the artist, the clerk, the thinker, and the
+non-commissioned officer.
+
+Maupassant was always impatient to "realize" his observations. He
+might forget, and above all, the flower of the sensation might lose
+its perfume. In Une Vie he hastens to sum up his childhood's
+recollections. As for Bel Ami, he wrote it from day to day as he
+haunted the offices of Editors.
+
+As for his style, it is limpid, accurate, easy and strongly marked,
+with a sound framework and having the suppleness of a living organism.
+
+Very industrious and very careful at first, Maupassant, in the fever
+of production, became less careful. He early accustomed himself to
+composing in his mind. "Composition amuses me," he said, "when I am
+thinking it out, and not when I am writing it." ... Once he had
+thought out his novels or romances, he transcribed them hurriedly,
+almost mechanically. In his manuscripts, long pages follow each other
+without an erasure.
+
+His language appears natural, easy, and at first sight seems
+spontaneous. But at the price of what effort was it not acquired! ...
+
+In reality, in the writer, his sense of sight and smell were
+perfected, to the detriment of the sense of hearing which is not very
+musical. Repetitions, assonances, do not always shock Maupassant, who
+is sometimes insensible to quantity as he is to harmony. He does not
+"orchestrate," he has not inherited the "organ pipes" of Flaubert.
+
+In his vocabulary there is no research; he never even requires a rare
+word....
+
+Those whom Flaubert's great organ tones delighted, those whom
+Theophile Gautier's frescoes enchanted, were not satisfied, and
+accused Maupassant, somewhat harshly, of not being a "writer" in the
+highest sense of the term. The reproach is unmerited, for there is but
+one style.
+
+But, on the other hand, it is difficult to admit, with an eminent
+academician that Maupassant must be a great writer, a classical
+writer, in fact, simply because he "had no style," a condition of
+perfection "in that form of literary art in which the personality of
+the author should not appear, in the romance, the story, and the
+drama."
+
+A classic, Maupassant undoubtedly is, as the critic to whom I alluded
+has said, "through the simple aptness of his terms and his contempt
+for frivolous ornamentation."
+
+He remains a great writer because, like Molière, La Bruyère, and La
+Fontaine, he is always close to nature, disdaining all studied
+rhetorical effect and all literary verbosity.
+
+For applause and fame Maupassant cared nothing, and his proud contempt
+for Orders and Academies is well known.
+
+In a letter to Marie Bashkirtseff he writes as follows:
+
+"Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, women, events. This is
+my true confession of faith, and I may add what you may not believe,
+which is that I do not care any more for myself than I do for the
+rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent
+to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I
+pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I
+can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade."
+
+And in a later letter:
+
+"I have no taste that I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire
+that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or
+laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give
+myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me
+to spend it."
+
+And again:
+
+"As for me, I am incapable of really loving my art. I am too critical,
+I analyze it too much. I feel strongly how relative is the value of
+ideas, words, and even of the loftiest intelligences. I cannot help
+despising thought, it is so weak; and form, it is so imperfect. I
+really have, in an acute, incurable form, the sense of human
+impotence, and of effort which results in wretched approximations."
+
+For nature, Maupassant had an ardent passion.... His whole being
+quivered when she bathed his forehead with her light ocean breeze.
+She, alone, knew how to rock and soothe him with her waves.
+
+Never satisfied, he wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled
+incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters
+of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted,
+bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves
+rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its
+scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and,
+finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, but
+simply to enjoy the delight of grand, pure outlines. Africa, the
+country of Salammbô, the desert, finally call him, and he breathes
+those distant odors borne on the slow winds; the sunlight inundates
+his body, "laves the dark corners of his soul." And he retains a
+troubled memory of the evenings in those warm climes, where the
+fragrance of plants and trees seems to take the place of air.
+
+Maupassant's philosophy is as little complicated as his vision of
+humanity. His pessimism exceeds in its simplicity and depth that of
+all other realistic writers.
+
+Still there are contradictions and not unimportant ones in him. The
+most striking is certainly his fear of Death. He sees it everywhere,
+it haunts him. He sees it on the horizon of landscapes, and it crosses
+his path on lonely roads. When it is not hovering over his head, it is
+circling round him as around Gustave Moreau's pale youth.... Can he,
+the determined materialist, really fear the stupor of eternal sleep,
+or the dispersion of the transient individuality? ...
+
+Another contradiction. He who says that contact with the crowd
+"tortures his nerves," and who professes such contempt for mankind,
+yet considers solitude as one of the bitterest torments of existence.
+And he bewails the fact that he cannot live just for himself, "keep
+within himself that secret place of the ego, where none can enter."
+
+"Alas!" said his master, "we are all in a desert." Nobody understands
+anyone else and "whatever we attempt, whatever be the impulse of our
+heart and the appeal of our lips, we shall always be alone!"
+
+In this gehenna of death, in these nostalgias of the past, in these
+trances of eternal isolation, may we not find some relinquishing of
+his philosophy? Certainly not, for these contradictions accentuate all
+the more the pain of existence and become a new source of suffering.
+
+In any case, Maupassant's pessimism becomes logical in terminating in
+pity, like that of Schopenhauer. I know that I am running foul of
+certain admirers of the author who do not see any pity in his work,
+and it is understood that he is pitiless. But examine his stories more
+closely and you will find it revealed in every page, provided you go
+to the very bottom of the subject. That is where it exists naturally,
+almost against the desire of the writer, who does not arouse pity, nor
+teach it.
+
+And, again, if it remains concealed from so many readers, it is
+because it has nothing to do with the humanitarian pity retailed by
+rhetoricians. It is philosophical and haughty, detached from any
+"anthropocentric" characteristics. It is universal suffering that it
+covers. And to tell the truth, it is man, the hypocritical and cunning
+biped who has the least share in it. Maupassant is helpful to all
+those of his fellows who are tortured by physical suffering, social
+cruelty and the criminal dangers of life, but he pities them without
+caring for them, and his kindness makes distinctions.
+
+On the other hand, the pessimist has all the tenderness of a Buddhist
+for animals, whom the gospels despise. When he pities the animals, who
+are worth more than ourselves, their executioners, when he pities the
+elementary existences, the plants and trees, those exquisite
+creations, he unbends and pours out his heart. The humbler the victim,
+the more generously does he espouse its suffering. His compassion is
+unbounded for all that lives in misery, that is buffeted about without
+understanding why, that "suffers and dies without a word." And if he
+mourned Miss Harriet, in this unaccustomed outburst of enthusiasm, it
+is because, like himself, the poor outcast cherished a similar love
+for "all things, all living beings."
+
+Such appears to me to be Maupassant, the novelist, a story-teller, a
+writer, and a philosopher by turns. I will add one more trait; he was
+devoid of all spirit of criticism. When he essays to demolish a
+theory, one is amazed to find in this great, clear writer such lack of
+precision of thought, and such weak argument. He wrote the least
+eloquent and the most diffuse study of Flaubert, of "that old, dead
+master who had won his heart in a manner he could not explain." And,
+later, he shows the same weakness in setting forth, as in proving his
+theory, in his essay on the "Evolution of the Novel," in the
+introduction to Pierre et Jean.
+
+On the other hand, he possesses, above many others, a power of
+creating, hidden and inborn, which he exercises almost unconsciously.
+Living, spontaneous and yet impassive he is the glorious agent of a
+mysterious function, through which he dominated literature and will
+continue to dominate it until the day when he desires to become
+literary.
+
+He is as big as a tree. The author of "Contemporains" has written that
+Maupassant produced novels as an apple-tree yields apples. Never was a
+criticism more irrefutable.
+
+On various occasions he was pleased with himself at the fertility that
+had developed in him amid those rich soils where a frenzy mounts to
+your brain through the senses of smell and sight. He even feels the
+influence of the seasons, and writes from Provence: "The sap is rising
+in me, it is true. The spring that I find just awakening here stirs
+all my plant nature, and causes me to produce those literary fruits
+that ripen in me, I know not how."
+
+The "meteor" is at its apogee. All admire and glorify him. It is the
+period when Alexandre Dumas, fils, wrote to him thrice: "You are the
+only author whose books I await with impatience."
+
+The day came, however, when this dominant impassivity became stirred,
+when the marble became flesh by contact with life and suffering. And
+the work of the romancer, begun by the novelist, became warm with a
+tenderness that is found for the first time in Mont Oriol....
+
+But this sentimental outburst that astonished his admirers quickly
+dies down, for the following year, there appeared the sober Pierre et
+Jean, that admirable masterpiece of typical reality constructed with
+"human leaven," without any admixture of literary seasoning, or
+romantic combinations. The reader finds once more in his splendid
+integrity the master of yore.
+
+But his heart has been touched, nevertheless. In the books that
+follow, his impassivity gives way like an edifice that has been slowly
+undermined. With an ever-growing emotion he relates under slight
+disguises all his physical distress, all the terrors of his mind and
+heart.
+
+What is the secret of this evolution? The perusal of his works gives
+us a sufficient insight into it.
+
+The Minstrel has been received in country houses; has been admitted to
+"the ladies' apartments." He has given up composing those hurried
+tales which made his fame, in order to construct beautiful romances of
+love and death.... The story teller has forsaken rustics and peasants,
+the comrades of the "Repues franches," for the nobility and the
+wealthy. He who formerly frequented Mme. Tellier's establishment now
+praises Michèle de Burne.
+
+Ysolde replaces Macette. In "l'Ostel de Courtoisie," Maupassant
+cultivates the usual abstractions of the modern Round Table:
+Distinction and Moderation; Fervor and Delicacy. We see him inditing
+love sonnets and becoming a knight of chivalry. The apologist of
+brutal pleasures has become a devotee of the "culte de la Dame."
+
+Everywhere he was sought after, fêted, petted.... But Maupassant never
+let himself be carried away by the tinsel of his prestige, nor the
+puerility of his enchantment. He despised at heart the puppets that
+moved about him as he had formerly despised his short stories and his
+petit bourgeois. "Ah," he cries, "I see them, their heads, their
+types, their hearts and their souls! What a clinic for a maker of
+books! The disgust with which this humanity inspires me makes me
+regret still more that I could not become what I should most have
+preferred--an Aristophanes, or a Rabelais." And he adds: "The world
+makes failures of all scientists, all artists, all intelligences that
+it monopolizes. It aborts all sincere sentiment by its manner of
+scattering our taste, our curiosity, our desire, the little spark of
+genius that burns in us."
+
+Maupassant had to bend to the conditions of his new life. Being well
+bred, he respected, outwardly at least, the laws of artificiality and
+conventionality, and bowed before the idols of the cave he had
+entered....
+
+If Maupassant never became the slave of worldly ideas, the creature of
+instinct that was part of his being acquired the refined tastes of the
+salons, and the manners of the highest civilization.
+
+The novelist lived for some time in these enchanted and artificial
+surroundings, when, suddenly, his malady became aggravated. He was
+tortured by neuralgia, and by new mysterious darting pains. His
+suffering was so great that he longed to scream. At the same time, his
+unhappy heart became softened and he became singularly emotional. His
+early faculties were intensified and refined, and in the overtension
+of his nerves through suffering his perceptions broadened, and he
+gained new ideas of things. This nobler personality Maupassant owes to
+those sufferings dear to great souls of whom Daudet speaks. This is
+what he says:
+
+"If I could ever tell all, I should utter all the unexplored,
+repressed and sad thoughts that I feel in the depths of my being. I
+feel them swelling and poisoning me as bile does some people. But if I
+could one day give them utterance they would perhaps evaporate, and I
+might no longer have anything but a light, joyful heart. Who can say?
+Thinking becomes an abominable torture when the brain is an open
+wound. I have so many wounds in my head that my ideas cannot stir
+without making me long to cry out. Why is it? Why is it? Dumas would
+say that my stomach is out of order. I believe, rather, that I have a
+poor, proud, shameful heart, that old human heart that people laugh
+at, but which is touched, and causes me suffering, and in my head as
+well; I have the mind of the Latin race, which is very worn out. And,
+again, there are days when I do not think thus, but when I suffer just
+the same; for I belong to the family of the thin-skinned. But then I
+do not tell it, I do not show it; I conceal it very well, I think.
+Without any doubt, I am thought to be one of the most indifferent men
+in the world. I am sceptical, which is not the same thing, sceptical
+because I am clear-sighted. And my eyes say to my heart, Hide
+yourself, old fellow, you are grotesque, and it hides itself."
+
+This describes, in spite of reservation, the struggle between two
+conflicting minds, that of yesterday, and that of to-day. But this
+sensitiveness that Maupassant seeks to hide, is plain to all
+clear-seeing people.
+
+He soon begins to be filled with regrets and forebodings. He has a
+desire to look into the unknown, and to search for the inexplicable.
+He feels in himself that something is undergoing destruction; he is at
+times haunted by the idea of a double. He divines that his malady is
+on guard, ready to pounce on him. He seeks to escape it, but on the
+mountains, as beside the sea, nature, formerly his refuge, now
+terrifies him.
+
+Then his heart expands. All the sentiments that he once reviled, he
+now desires to experience. He now exalts in his books the passion of
+love, the passion of sacrifice, the passion of suffering; he extols
+self-sacrifice, devotion, the irresistible joy of ever giving oneself
+up more and more. The hour is late, the night is at hand; weary of
+suffering any longer, he hurriedly begs for tenderness and
+remembrance.
+
+Occasionally, the Maupassant of former days protests against the
+bondage of his new personality; he complains that he no longer feels
+absolutely as formerly that he has no contact with anything in the
+world, that sweet, strong sensation that gives one strength. "How
+sensible I was," he says, "to wall myself round with indifference! If
+one did not feel, but only understand, without giving fragments of
+oneself to other beings! ... It is strange to suffer from the
+emptiness, the nothingness, of this life, when one is resigned, as I
+am, to nothingness. But, there, I cannot live without recollections,
+and recollections sadden me. I can have no hope, I know, but I feel
+obscurely and unceasingly the harm of this statement, and the regret
+that it should be so. And the attachments that I have in life act on
+my sensibility, which is too human, and not literary enough."
+
+Maupassant's pity now takes a pathetic turn. He no longer despises,
+but holds out his hand to those unfortunates who, like himself, are
+tormented on the pathway without hope. The tears that he sees flow
+make him sad, and his heart bleeds at all the wounds he discovers. He
+does not inquire into the quality or origin of the misfortune. He
+sympathizes with all suffering; physical suffering, moral suffering,
+the suffering caused by treachery, the bitter twilight of wasted
+lives....
+
+His mind has also become active. He desires to dabble in science. One
+day he studies the Arab mystics, Oriental legends, and the next, he
+studies the marine fauna, etc. His perceptions have never been so
+clear. His brain is in continual activity. "It is strange," he
+acknowledges, "what a different man I am becoming mentally from what I
+was formerly. I can see it as I watch myself thinking, discovering,
+and developing stories, weighing and analyzing the imaginary beings
+that float through my imagination. I take the same enjoyment in
+certain dreams, certain exaltations of mind, as I formerly took in
+rowing like mad in the sunlight."
+
+For the first time, his assurance as a writer wavers. As his last
+volumes show, he is endeavoring to transform, to renew himself. He
+acquires a desire to learn the secrets of obscure and precious hearts,
+to visit unknown races. He has lost his magnificent serenity....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As his malady began to take a more definite form, he turned his steps
+towards the south, only visiting Paris to see his physicians and
+publishers. In the old port of Antibes beyond the causeway of Cannes,
+his yacht, Bel Ami, which he cherished as a brother, lay at anchor and
+awaited him. He took it to the white cities of the Genoese Gulf,
+towards the palm trees of Hyères, or the red bay trees of Anthéor.
+
+It was during one of these idle cruises on the open sea, outside of
+Agay and Saint-Raphael that he wrote "Sur l'Eau."
+
+It was on the sacred sea of the old poets and philosophers, on the sea
+whose voice has rocked the thought of the world, that he cast into the
+shadow that long lament, so heartrending and sublime, that posterity
+will long shudder at the remembrance of it. The bitter strophes of
+this lament seem to be cadenced by the Mediterranean itself and to be
+in rhythm, like its melopoeia.
+
+"Sur l'Eau" is the last Will and Testament, the general confession of
+Maupassant. To those who come after him he leaves the legacy of his
+highest thought; then he says farewell to all that he loved, to
+dreams, to starlit nights, and to the breath of roses. "Sur l'Eau" is
+the book of modern disenchantment, the faithful mirror of the latest
+pessimism. The journal written on board ship, disconnected and hasty,
+but so noble in its disorder, has taken a place forever beside Werther
+and René, Manfred and Oberman.
+
+He had for a long time, to his sorrow, seen his health failing under
+the attacks of an obscure malady which left him with a sense of the
+diminution of his powers and a gradual clouding of his intellect.
+Symptoms of general paralysis set in, at first mistaken for neurotic
+disturbances. He changed greatly. Those who met him as I did, thin and
+shivering, on that rainy Sunday when they were celebrating the
+inauguration of Flaubert's monument at Rouen would scarcely have
+recognized him. I shall never forget, as long as I live, his face
+wasted by suffering, his large eyes with a distressed expression,
+which emitted dying gleams of protest against a cruel fate....
+
+Maupassant retired to Cannes not far from his mother. He read medical
+books and, in spite of what they taught, persisted in attributing his
+sufferings to "rheumatism localized in the brain," contracted amid the
+fogs on the Seine....
+
+Vainly he endeavored to work, he became gloomy and the idea of suicide
+impressed him more and more....
+
+The months passed, however, and in June he was able to go to Divonne
+to take a cure. After a very characteristic attack of optimism, he
+suddenly appeared at Champel and astonished everyone by his frightful
+eccentricities. One evening, however, he felt better, and read to the
+poet Dorchain the beginning of his novel "The Angelus," which he
+declared would be his masterpiece. When he had finished, he wept. "And
+we wept also," writes Dorchain, "at seeing all that now remained of
+genius, of tenderness and pity in this soul that would never again be
+capable of expressing itself so as to impress other minds.... In his
+accent, in his language, in his tears, Maupassant had, I know not
+what, of a religious character, which exceeded his horror of life, and
+his sombre terror of annihilation."
+
+At the end of September he again visited Cannes, but the fatal day
+predicted by the physician was at hand.
+
+After several tragic weeks in which, from instinct, he made a
+desperate fight, on the 1st of January, 1892, he felt he was
+hopelessly vanquished, and in a moment of supreme clearness of
+intellect, like Gerard de Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate
+than the author of Sylvia, he was unsuccessful. But his mind,
+henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness," had entered into eternal
+darkness.
+
+He was taken back to Paris and placed in Dr. Meuriot's sanatorium,
+where, after eighteen months of mechanical existence, the "meteor"
+quietly passed away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNE VIE
+
+OR, THE HISTORY OF A HEART
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HOME BY THE SEA
+
+The weather was most distressing. It had rained all night. The roaring
+of the overflowing gutters filled the deserted streets, in which the
+houses, like sponges, absorbed the humidity, which penetrating to the
+interior, made the walls sweat from cellar to garret. Jeanne had left
+the convent the day before, free for all time, ready to seize all the
+joys of life, of which she had dreamed so long. She was afraid her
+father would not set out for the new home in bad weather, and for the
+hundredth time since daybreak she examined the horizon. Then she
+noticed that she had omitted to put her calendar in her travelling
+bag. She took from the wall the little card which bore in golden
+figures the date of the current year, 1819. Then she marked with a
+pencil the first four columns, drawing a line through the name of each
+saint up to the 2d of May, the day that she left the convent. A voice
+outside the door called "Jeannette." Jeanne replied, "Come in, papa."
+And her father entered. Baron Simon-Jacques Le Perthuis des Vauds was
+a gentleman of the last century, eccentric and good. An enthusiastic
+disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he had the tenderness of a lover
+for nature, in the fields, in the woods and in the animals. Of
+aristocratic birth, he hated instinctively the year 1793, but being a
+philosopher by temperament and liberal by education, he execrated
+tyranny with an inoffensive and declamatory hatred. His great strength
+and his great weakness was his kind-heartedness, which had not arms
+enough to caress, to give, to embrace; the benevolence of a god, that
+gave freely, without questioning; in a word, a kindness of inertia
+that became almost a vice. A man of theory, he thought out a plan of
+education for his daughter, to the end that she might become happy,
+good, upright and gentle. She had lived at home until the age of
+twelve, when, despite the tears of her mother, she was placed in the
+Convent of the Sacred Heart. He had kept her severely secluded,
+cloistered, in ignorance of the secrets of life. He wished the Sisters
+to restore her to him pure at seventeen years of age, so that he might
+imbue her mind with a sort of rational poetry, and by means of the
+fields, in the midst of the fruitful earth, unfold her soul, enlighten
+her ignorance through the aspect of love in nature, through the simple
+tenderness of the animals, through the placid laws of existence. She
+was leaving the convent radiant, full of the joy of life, ready for
+all the happiness, all the charming incidents which her mind had
+pictured in her idle hours and in the long, quiet nights. She was like
+a portrait by Veronese with her fair, glossy hair, which seemed to
+cast a radiance on her skin, a skin with the faintest tinge of pink,
+softened by a light velvety down which could be perceived when the sun
+kissed her cheek. Her eyes were an opaque blue, like those of Dutch
+porcelain figures. She had a tiny mole on her left nostril and another
+on the right of her chin. She was tall, well developed, with willowy
+figure. Her clear voice sounded at times a little too sharp, but her
+frank, sincere laugh spread joy around her. Often, with a familiar
+gesture, she would raise her hands to her temples as if to arrange her
+hair.
+
+She ran to her father and embraced him warmly. "Well, are we going to
+start?" she said. He smiled, shook his head and said, pointing toward
+the window, "How can we travel in such weather?" But she implored in a
+cajoling and tender manner, "Oh, papa, do let us start. It will clear
+up in the afternoon." "But your mother will never consent to it."
+"Yes, I promise you that she will, I will arrange that." "If you
+succeed in persuading your mother, I am perfectly willing." In a few
+moments she returned from her mother's room, shouting in a voice that
+could be heard all through the house, "Papa, papa, mamma is willing.
+Have the horses harnessed." The rain was not abating; one might almost
+have said that it was raining harder when the carriage drove up to the
+door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs,
+supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall
+housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of
+the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but
+eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second
+daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie,
+and her chief duty lay in guiding the steps of her mistress, who had
+grown enormous in the last few years and also had an affection of the
+heart, which kept her complaining continually. The baroness, gasping
+from over-exertion, finally reached the doorstep of the old residence,
+looked at the court where the water was streaming and remarked: "It
+really is not wise." Her husband, always pleasant, replied: "It was
+you who desired it, Madame Adelaide." He always preceded her pompous
+name of Adelaide with the title madame with an air of half respectful
+mockery. Madame mounted with difficulty into the carriage, causing all
+the springs to bend. The baron sat beside her, while Jeanne and
+Rosalie were seated opposite, with their backs to the horses.
+Ludivine, the cook, brought a heap of wraps to put over their knees
+and two baskets, which were placed under the seats; then she climbed
+on the box beside Father Simon, wrapping herself in a great rug which
+covered her completely. The porter and his wife came to bid them
+good-by as they closed the carriage door, taking the last orders about
+the trunks, which were to follow in a wagon. So they started. Father
+Simon, the coachman, with head bowed and back bent in the pouring
+rain, was completely covered by his box coat with its triple cape. The
+howling storm beat upon the carriage windows and inundated the
+highway.
+
+They drove rapidly to the wharf and continued alongside the line of
+tall-masted vessels until they reached the boulevard of Mont Riboudet.
+Then they crossed the meadows, where from time to time a drowned
+willow, its branches drooping limply, could be faintly distinguished
+through the mist of rain. No one spoke. Their minds themselves seemed
+to be saturated with moisture like the earth.
+
+The baroness leaned her head against the cushions and closed her eyes.
+The baron looked out with mournful eyes at the monotonous and drenched
+landscape. Rosalie, with a parcel on her knee, was dreaming in the
+dull reverie of a peasant. But Jeanne, under this downpour, felt
+herself revive like a plant that has been shut up and has just been
+restored to the air, and so great was her joy that, like foliage, it
+sheltered her heart from sadness. Although she did not speak, she
+longed to burst out singing, to reach out her hands to catch the rain
+that she might drink it. She enjoyed to the full being carried along
+rapidly by the horses, enjoyed gazing at the desolate landscape and
+feeling herself under shelter amid this general inundation. Beneath
+the pelting rain the gleaming backs of the two horses emitted a warm
+steam.
+
+Little by little the baroness fell asleep, and presently began to
+snore sonorously. Her husband leaned over and placed in her hands a
+little leather pocketbook.
+
+This awakened her, and she looked at the pocket-book with the stupid,
+sleepy look of one suddenly aroused. It fell off her lap and sprang
+open and gold and bank bills were scattered on the floor of the
+carriage. This roused her completely, and Jeanne gave vent to her
+mirth in a merry peal of girlish laughter.
+
+The baron picked up the money and placed it on her knees. "This, my
+dear," he said, "is all that is left of my farm at Eletot. I have sold
+it--so as to be able to repair the 'Poplars,' where we shall often
+live in the future."
+
+She counted six thousand four hundred francs and quietly put them in
+her pocket. This was the ninth of thirty-one farms that they had
+inherited which they had sold in this way. Nevertheless they still
+possessed about twenty thousand livres income annually in land
+rentals, which, with proper care, would have yielded about thirty
+thousand francs a year.
+
+Living simply as they did, this income would have sufficed had there
+not been a bottomless hole always open in their house--kind-hearted
+generosity. It dried up the money in their hands as the sun dries the
+water in marshes. It flowed, fled, disappeared. How? No one knew.
+Frequently one would say to the other, "I don't know how it happens,
+but I have spent one hundred francs to-day, and I have bought nothing
+of any consequence." This faculty of giving was, however, one of the
+greatest pleasures of their life, and they all agreed on this point in
+a superb and touching manner.
+
+Jeanne asked her father, "Is it beautiful now, my castle?" The baron
+replied, "You shall see, my little girl."
+
+The storm began to abate. The vault of clouds seemed to rise and
+heighten and suddenly, through a rift, a long ray of sunshine fell
+upon the fields, and presently the clouds separated, showing the blue
+firmament, and then, like the tearing of a veil, the opening grew
+larger and the beautiful azure sky, clear and fathomless, spread over
+the world. A fresh and gentle breeze passed over the earth like a
+happy sigh, and as they passed beside gardens or woods they heard
+occasionally the bright chirp of a bird as he dried his wings.
+
+Evening was approaching. Everyone in the carriage was asleep except
+Jeanne. They stopped to rest and feed the horses. The sun had set. In
+the distance bells were heard. They passed a little village as the
+inhabitants were lighting their lamps, and the sky became also
+illuminated by myriads of stars. Suddenly they saw behind a hill,
+through the branches of the fir trees, the moon rising, red and full
+as if it were torpid with sleep.
+
+The air was so soft that the windows were not closed. Jeanne,
+exhausted with dreams and happy visions, was now asleep. Finally they
+stopped. Some men and women were standing before the carriage door
+with lanterns in their hands. They had arrived. Jeanne, suddenly
+awakened, was the first to jump out. Her father and Rosalie had
+practically to carry the baroness, who was groaning and continually
+repeating in a weak little voice, "Oh, my God, my poor children!" She
+refused all offers of refreshment, but went to bed and immediately
+fell asleep.
+
+Jeanne and her father, the baron, took supper together. They were in
+perfect sympathy with each other. Later, seized with a childish joy,
+they started on a tour of inspection through the restored manor. It
+was one of those high and vast Norman residences that comprise both
+farmhouse and castle, built of white stone which had turned gray,
+large enough to contain a whole race of people.
+
+An immense hall divided the house from front to rear and a staircase
+went up at either side of the entrance, meeting in a bridge on the
+first floor. The huge drawing-room was on the ground floor to the
+right and was hung with tapestries representing birds and foliage. All
+the furniture was covered with fine needlework tapestry illustrating
+La Fontaine's fables, and Jeanne was delighted at finding a chair she
+had loved as a child, which pictured the story of "The Fox and the
+Stork."
+
+Beside the drawing-room were the library, full of old books, and two
+unused rooms; at the left was the dining-room, the laundry, the
+kitchen, etc.
+
+A corridor divided the whole first floor, the doors of ten rooms
+opening into it. At the end, on the right, was Jeanne's room. She and
+her father went in. He had had it all newly done over, using the
+furniture and draperies that had been in the storeroom.
+
+There were some very old Flemish tapestries, with their peculiar
+looking figures. At sight of her bed, the young girl uttered a scream
+of joy. Four large birds carved in oak, black from age and highly
+polished, bore up the bed and seemed to be its protectors. On the
+sides were carved two wide garlands of flowers and fruit, and four
+finely fluted columns, terminating in Corinthian capitals, supported a
+cornice of cupids with roses intertwined. The tester and the coverlet
+were of antique blue silk, embroidered in gold fleur de lys. When
+Jeanne had sufficiently admired it, she lifted up the candle to
+examine the tapestries and the allegories they represented. They were
+mostly conventional subjects, but the last hanging represented a
+drama. Near a rabbit, which was still nibbling, a young man lay
+stretched out, apparently dead. A young girl, gazing at him, was
+plunging a sword into her bosom, and the fruit of the tree had turned
+black. Jeanne gave up trying to divine the meaning underlying this
+picture, when she saw in the corner a tiny little animal which the
+rabbit, had he lived, could have swallowed like a blade of grass; and
+yet it was a lion. Then she recognized the story of "Pyramus and
+Thisbe," and though she smiled at the simplicity of the design, she
+felt happy to have in her room this love adventure which would
+continually speak to her of her cherished hopes, and every night this
+legendary love would hover about her dreams.
+
+It struck eleven and the baron kissed Jeanne goodnight and retired to
+his room. Before retiring, Jeanne cast a last glance round her room
+and then regretfully extinguished the candle. Through her window she
+could see the bright moonlight bathing the trees and the wonderful
+landscape. Presently she arose, opened a window and looked out. The
+night was so clear that one could see as plainly as by daylight. She
+looked across the park with its two long avenues of very tall poplars
+that gave its name to the château and separated it from the two farms
+that belonged to it, one occupied by the Couillard family, the other
+by the Martins. Beyond the enclosure stretched a long, uncultivated
+plain, thickly overgrown with rushes, where the breeze whistled day
+and night. The land ended abruptly in a steep white cliff three
+hundred feet high, with its base in the ocean waves.
+
+Jeanne looked out over the long, undulating surface that seemed to
+slumber beneath the heavens. All the fragrance of the earth was in the
+night air. The odor of jasmine rose from the lower windows, and light
+whiffs of briny air and of seaweed were wafted from the ocean.
+
+Merely to breathe was enough for Jeanne, and the restful calm of the
+country was like a soothing bath. She felt as though her heart was
+expanding and she began dreaming of love. What was it? She did not
+know. She only knew that she would adore _him_ with all her soul
+and that he would cherish her with all his strength. They would walk
+hand in hand on nights like this, hearing the beating of their hearts,
+mingling their love with the sweet simplicity of the summer nights in
+such close communion of thought that by the sole power of their
+tenderness they would easily penetrate each other's most secret
+thoughts. This would continue forever in the calm of an enduring
+affection. It seemed to her that she felt _him_ there beside her.
+And an unusual sensation came over her. She remained long musing thus,
+when suddenly she thought she heard a footstep behind the house. "If
+it were _he_." But it passed on and she felt as if she had been
+deceived. The air became cooler. The day broke. Slowly bursting aside
+the gleaming clouds, touching with fire the trees, the plains, the
+ocean, all the horizon, the great flaming orb of the sun appeared.
+
+Jeanne felt herself becoming mad with happiness. A delirious joy,
+an infinite tenderness at the splendor of nature overcame her
+fluttering heart. It was _her_ sun, _her_ dawn! The beginning
+of _her_ life! Thoroughly fatigued at last, she flung herself down
+and slept till her father called her at eight o'clock. He walked into
+the room and proposed to show her the improvements of the castle, of
+_her_ castle. The road, called the parish road, connecting the
+farms, joined the high road between Havre and Fécamp, a mile and a
+half further on.
+
+Jeanne and the baron inspected everything and returned home for
+breakfast. When the meal was over, as the baroness had decided that
+she would rest, the baron proposed to Jeanne that they should go down
+to Yport. They started, and passing through the hamlet of Etouvent,
+where the poplars were, and going through the wooded slope by a
+winding valley leading down to the sea, they presently perceived the
+village of Yport. Women sat in their doorways mending linen; brown
+fish-nets were hanging against the doors of the huts, where an entire
+family lived in one room. It was a typical little French fishing
+village, with all its concomitant odors. To Jeanne it was all like a
+scene in a play. On turning a corner they saw before them the
+limitless blue ocean. They bought a brill from a fisherman and another
+sailor offered to take them out sailing, repeating his name,
+"Lastique, Joséphin Lastique," several times, that they might not
+forget it, and the baron promised to remember. They walked home,
+chattering like two children, carrying the big fish between them,
+Jeanne having pushed her father's walking cane through its gills.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HAPPY DAYS
+
+A delightful life commenced for Jeanne, a life in the open air. She
+wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their
+sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor
+of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant
+sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow rocking
+her spirit.
+
+A love of solitude came upon her in the sweet freshness of this
+landscape and in the calm of the rounded horizon, and she would remain
+sitting so long on the hill tops that the wild rabbits would bound by
+her feet.
+
+She planted memories everywhere, as seeds are cast upon the earth,
+memories whose roots hold till death. It seemed to Jeanne that she was
+casting a little of her heart into every fold of these valleys. She
+became infatuated with sea bathing. When she was well out from shore,
+she would float on her back, her arms crossed, her eyes lost in the
+profound blue of the sky which was cleft by the flight of a swallow,
+or the white silhouette of a seabird.
+
+After these excursions she invariably came back to the castle pale
+with hunger, but light, alert, a smile on her lips and her eyes
+sparkling with happiness.
+
+The baron on his part was planning great agricultural enterprises.
+Occasionally, also, he went out to sea with the sailors of Yport. On
+several occasions he went fishing for mackerel and, again, by
+moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved
+to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts
+of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long
+time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof
+of a belfry or the Fécamp lighthouse, he delighted to remain
+motionless beneath the first gleams of the rising sun which made the
+slimy backs of the large fan-shaped rays and the fat bellies of the
+turbots glisten on the deck of the boat.
+
+At each meal he gave an enthusiastic account of his expeditions, and
+the baroness in her turn told how many times she had walked down the
+main avenue of poplars.
+
+As she had been advised to take exercise she made a business of
+walking, beginning as soon as the air grew warm. Leaning upon
+Rosalie's arm and dragging her left foot, which was rather heavier
+than the right, she wandered interminably up and down from the house
+to the edge of the wood, sitting down for five minutes at either end.
+The walking was resumed in the afternoon. A physician, consulted ten
+years before, had spoken of hypertrophy because she had suffered from
+suffocation. Ever since, this word had been used to describe the
+ailment of the baroness. The baron would say "my wife's hypertrophy"
+and Jeanne "mamma's hypertrophy" as they would have spoken of her hat,
+her dress, or her umbrella. She had been very pretty in her youth and
+slim as a reed. Now she had grown older, stouter, but she still
+remained poetical, having always retained the impression of "Corinne,"
+which she had read as a girl. She read all the sentimental love
+stories it was possible to collect, and her thoughts wandered among
+tender adventures in which she always figured as the heroine. Her new
+home was infinitely pleasing to her because it formed such a beautiful
+framework for the romance of her soul, the surrounding woods, the
+waste land, and the proximity of the ocean recalling to her mind the
+novels of Sir Walter Scott, which she had been devouring for some
+months. On rainy days she remained shut up in her room, sending
+Rosalie in a special manner for the drawer containing her "souvenirs,"
+which meant to the baroness all her old private and family letters.
+
+Occasionally, Jeanne replaced Rosalie in the walks with her mother,
+and she listened eagerly to the tales of the latter's childhood. The
+young girl saw herself in all these romantic stories, and was
+astonished at the similarity of ideas and desires; each heart imagines
+itself to have been the first to tremble at those very sensations that
+awakened the hearts of the first beings, and that will awaken the
+hearts of the last.
+
+One afternoon as the baroness and Jeanne were resting on the beach at
+the end of the walk, a stout priest who was moving in their direction
+greeted them with a bow, while still at a distance. He bowed when
+within three feet and, assuming a smiling air, cried: "Well, Madame la
+Baronne, how are you?" It was the village priest. The baroness seldom
+went to church, though she liked priests, from a sort of religious
+instinct peculiar to women. She had, in fact, entirely forgotten the
+Abbé Picot, her priest, and blushed as she saw him. She made apologies
+for not having prepared for his visit, but the good man was not at all
+embarrassed. He looked at Jeanne, complimented her on her appearance
+and sat down, placing his three-cornered hat on his knees. He was very
+stout, very red, and perspired profusely. He drew from his pocket
+every moment an enormous checked handkerchief and passed it over his
+face and neck, but hardly was the task completed when necessity forced
+him to repeat the process. He was a typical country priest, talkative
+and kindly.
+
+Presently the baron appeared. He was very friendly to the abbé and
+invited him to dinner. The priest was well versed in the art of being
+pleasant, thanks to the unconscious astuteness which the guiding of
+souls gives to the most mediocre of men who are called by the chance
+of events to exercise a power over their fellows. Toward dessert he
+became quite merry, with the gaiety that follows a pleasant meal, and
+as if struck by an idea he said: "I have a new parishioner whom I must
+present to you, Monsieur le Vicomte de Lamare." The baroness, who was
+at home in heraldry, inquired if he was of the family of Lamares of
+Eure. The priest answered, "Yes, madame, he is the son of Vicomte Jean
+de Lamare, who died last year." After this, the baroness, who loved
+the nobility above all other things, inquired the history of the young
+vicomte. He had paid his father's debts, sold the family castle, made
+his home on one of the three farms which he owned in the town of
+Etouvent. These estates brought him in an income of five or six
+thousand livres. The vicomte was economical and lived in this modest
+manner for two or three years, so that he might save enough to cut a
+figure in society, and to marry advantageously, without contracting
+debts or mortgaging his farms. The priest added, "He is a very
+charming young man, so steady and quiet, though there is very little
+to amuse him in the country." The baron said, "Bring him in to see us,
+Monsieur l'Abbé, it will be a distraction for him occasionally." After
+the coffee the baron and the priest took a turn about the grounds and
+then returned to say good-night to the ladies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+M. DE LAMARE
+
+The following Sunday the baroness and Jeanne went to mass, prompted by
+a feeling of respect for their pastor, and after service waited to see
+the priest and invite him to luncheon the following Thursday. He came
+out of the sacristy leaning familiarly on the arm of a tall young man.
+As soon as he perceived the ladies, he exclaimed:
+
+"How fortunate! Allow me, baroness and Mlle. Jeanne, to present to you
+your neighbor, M. le Vicomte de Lamare."
+
+The vicomte said he had long desired to make their acquaintance, and
+began to converse in a well-bred manner. He had a face of which women
+dream and that men dislike. His black, wavy hair shaded a smooth,
+sunburnt forehead, and two large straight eyebrows, that looked almost
+artificial, cast a deep and tender shadow over his dark eyes, the
+whites of which had a bluish tinge.
+
+His long, thick eyelashes accentuated the passionate eloquence of his
+expression which wrought havoc in the drawing-rooms of society, and
+made peasant girls carrying baskets turn round to look at him. The
+languorous fascination of his glance impressed one with the depth of
+his thoughts and lent weight to his slightest words. His beard, fine
+and glossy, concealed a somewhat heavy jaw.
+
+Two days later, M. de Lamare made his first call, just as they were
+discussing the best place for a new rustic bench. The vicomte was
+consulted and agreed with the baroness, who differed from her husband.
+
+M. de Lamare expatiated on the picturesqueness of the country and from
+time to time, as if by chance, his eyes met those of Jeanne, and she
+felt a strange sensation at the quickly averted glance which betrayed
+tender admiration and an awakened sympathy.
+
+M. de Lamare's father, who had died the preceding year, had known an
+intimate friend of the baroness's father, M. Cultaux, and this fact
+led to an endless conversation about family, relations, dates, etc.,
+and names heard in her childhood were recalled, and led to
+reminiscences.
+
+The baron, whose nature was rather uncultivated, and whose beliefs and
+prejudices were not those of his class, knew little about the
+neighboring families, and inquired about them from the vicomte, who
+responded:
+
+"Oh, there are very few of the nobility in the district," just as he
+might have said, "there are very few rabbits on the hills," and he
+began to particularize: There was the Marquis de Coutelier, a sort of
+leader of Norman aristocracy, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville,
+people of excellent stock, but living to themselves, and the Comte de
+Fourville, a kind of ogre, who was said to have made his wife die of
+sorrow, and who lived as a huntsman in his château of La Vrillette,
+built on a pond. There were a few parvenus among them who had bought
+properties here and there, but the vicomte did not know them.
+
+As he left, his last glance was for Jeanne, as if it were a special
+tender and cordial farewell. The baroness was delighted with him, and
+the baron said: "Yes, indeed, he is a gentleman." And he was invited
+to dinner the following week, and from that time came regularly.
+
+He generally arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon, went to join
+the baroness in "her avenue," and offered her his arm while she took
+her "exercise," as she called her daily walks. When Jeanne was at home
+she would walk on the other side of her mother, supporting her, and
+all three would walk slowly back and forth from one end of the avenue
+to the other. He seldom addressed Jeanne directly, but his eye
+frequently met hers.
+
+He went to Yport several times with Jeanne and the baron. One evening,
+when they were on the beach, Père Lastique accosted him, and without
+removing his pipe, the absence of which would possibly have been more
+remarkable than the loss of his nose, he said:
+
+"With this wind, m'sieu le baron, we could easily go to Étretat and
+back to-morrow."
+
+Jeanne clasped her hands imploringly:
+
+"Oh, papa, let us do it!"
+
+The baron turned to M. de Lamare:
+
+"Will you join us, vicomte? We can take breakfast down there."
+
+And the matter was decided at once. From daybreak Jeanne was up and
+waiting for her father, who dressed more slowly. They walked in the
+dew across the level and then through the wood vibrant with the
+singing of birds. The vicomte and Père Lastique were seated on a
+capstan.
+
+Two other sailors helped to shove off the boat from shore, which was
+not easy on the shingly beach. Once the boat was afloat, they all took
+their seats, and the two sailors who remained on shore shoved it off.
+A light, steady breeze was blowing from the ocean and they hoisted the
+sail, veered a little, and then sailed along smoothly with scarcely
+any motion. To landward the high cliff at the right cast a shadow on
+the water at its base, and patches of sunlit grass here and there
+varied its monotonous whiteness. Yonder, behind them, brown sails were
+coming out of the white harbor of Fécamp, and ahead of them they saw a
+rock of curious shape, rounded, with gaps in it looking something like
+an immense elephant with its trunk in the water; it was the little
+port of Étretat.
+
+Jeanne, a little dizzy from the motion of the waves, held the side of
+the boat with one hand as she looked out into the distance. It seemed
+to her as if only three things in the world were really beautiful:
+light, space, water.
+
+No one spoke. Père Lastique, who was at the tiller, took a pull every
+now and then from a bottle hidden under the seat; and he smoked a
+short pipe which seemed inextinguishable, although he never seemed to
+relight it or refill it.
+
+The baron, seated in the bow looked after the sail. Jeanne and the
+vicomte seemed a little embarrassed at being seated side by side. Some
+unknown power seemed to make their glances meet whenever they raised
+their eyes; between them there existed already that subtle and vague
+sympathy which arises so rapidly between two young people when the
+young man is good looking and the girl is pretty. They were happy in
+each other's society, perhaps because they were thinking of each
+other. The rising sun was beginning to pierce through the slight mist,
+and as its beams grew stronger, they were reflected on the smooth
+surface of the sea as in a mirror.
+
+"How beautiful!" murmured Jeanne, with emotion.
+
+"Beautiful indeed!" answered the vicomte. The serene beauty of the
+morning awakened an echo in their hearts.
+
+And all at once they saw the great arches of Étretat, like two
+supports of a cliff standing in the sea high enough for vessels to
+pass under them; while a sharp-pointed white rock rose in front of the
+first arch. They reached shore, and the baron got out first to make
+fast the boat, while the vicomte lifted Jeanne ashore so that she
+should not wet her feet. Then they walked up the shingly beach side by
+side, and they overheard Père Lastique say to the baron, "My! but they
+would make a pretty couple!"
+
+They took breakfast in a little inn near the beach, and while the
+ocean had lulled their thoughts and made them silent, the breakfast
+table had the opposite effect, and they chattered like children on a
+vacation. The slightest thing gave rise to laughter.
+
+Père Lastique, on taking his place at table, carefully hid his lighted
+pipe in his cap. That made them laugh. A fly, attracted no doubt by
+his red nose, persistently alighted on it, and each time it did so
+they burst into laughter. Finally the old man could stand it no
+longer, and murmured: "It is devilishly persistent!" whereupon Jeanne
+and the vicomte laughed till they cried.
+
+After breakfast Jeanne suggested that they should take a walk. The
+vicomte rose, but the baron preferred to bask in the sun on the beach.
+
+"Go on, my children, you will find me here in an hour."
+
+They walked straight ahead of them, passing by several cottages and
+finally by a small château resembling a large farm, and found
+themselves in an open valley that extended for some distance. They now
+had a wild longing to run at large in the fields. Jeanne seemed to
+have a humming in her ears from all the new and rapidly changing
+sensations she had experienced. The burning rays of the sun fell on
+them. On both sides of the road the crops were bending over from the
+heat. The grasshoppers, as numerous as the blades of grass, were
+uttering their thin, shrill cry.
+
+Perceiving a wood a little further on to the right, they walked over
+to it. They saw a narrow path between two hedges shaded by tall trees
+which shut out the sun. A sort of moist freshness in the air was
+perceptible, giving them a sensation of chilliness. There was no
+grass, owing to the lack of sunlight, but the ground was covered with
+a carpet of moss.
+
+"See, we can sit down there a little while," she said.
+
+They sat down and looked about them at the numerous forms of life that
+were in the air and on the ground at their feet, for a ray of sunlight
+penetrating the dense foliage brought them into its light.
+
+"How beautiful it is here! How lovely it is in the country! There are
+moments when I should like to be a fly or a butterfly and hide in the
+flowers," said Jeanne with emotion.
+
+They spoke in low tones as one does in exchanging confidences, telling
+of their daily lives and of their tastes, and declaring that they were
+already disgusted with the world, tired of its useless monotony; it
+was always the same thing; there was no truth, no sincerity in it.
+
+The world! She would gladly have made its acquaintance; but she felt
+convinced beforehand that it was not equal to a country life, and the
+more their hearts seemed to be in sympathy, the more ceremonious they
+became, the more frequently their glances met and blended smiling; and
+it seemed that a new feeling of benevolence was awakened in them, a
+wider affection, an interest in a thousand things of which they had
+never hitherto thought.
+
+They wended their way back, but the baron had already set off on foot
+for the Chambre aux Demoiselles, a grotto in a cleft at the summit of
+one of the cliffs, and they waited for him at the inn. He did not
+return until five in the evening after a long walk along the cliffs.
+
+They got into the boat, started off smoothly with the wind at their
+backs, scarcely seeming to make any headway. The breeze was irregular,
+at one moment filling the sail and then letting it flap idly along the
+mast. The sea seemed opaque and lifeless, and the sun was slowly
+approaching the horizon. The lulling motion of the sea had made them
+silent again. Presently Jeanne said, "How I should love to travel!"
+
+"Yes, but it is tiresome to travel alone; there should be at least
+two, to exchange ideas," answered the vicomte. She reflected a moment.
+
+"That is true--I like to walk alone, however--how pleasant it is to
+dream all alone----"
+
+He gazed at her intently.
+
+"Two can dream as well as one."
+
+She lowered her eyes. Was it a hint? Possibly. She looked out at the
+horizon as if to discover something beyond it, and then said slowly:
+
+"I should like to go to Italy--and Greece--ah, yes, Greece--and to
+Corsica--it must be so wild and so beautiful!"
+
+He preferred Switzerland on account of its chalets and its lakes.
+
+"No," said she, "I like new countries like Corsica, or very old
+countries full of souvenirs, like Greece. It must be delightful to
+find the traces of those peoples whose history we have known since
+childhood, to see places where great deeds were accomplished."
+
+The vicomte, less enthusiastic, exclaimed: "As for me, England
+attracts me very much; there is so much to be learned there."
+
+Then they talked about the world in general, discussing the
+attractions of each country from the poles to the equator, enthusing
+over imaginary scenes and the peculiar manners of certain peoples like
+the Chinese and the Lapps; but they arrived at the conclusion that the
+most beautiful country in the world was France, with its temperate
+climate, cool in summer, mild in winter, its rich soil, its green
+forests, its worship of the fine arts which existed nowhere else since
+the glorious centuries of Athens. Then they were silent. The setting
+sun left a wide dazzling train of light which extended from the
+horizon to the edge of their boat. The wind subsided, the ripples
+disappeared, and the motionless sail was red in the light of the dying
+day. A limitless calm seemed to settle down on space and make a
+silence amid this conjunction of elements; and by degrees the sun
+slowly sank into the ocean.
+
+Then a fresh breeze seemed to arise, a little shiver went over the
+surface of the water, as if the engulfed orb cast a sigh of
+satisfaction across the world. The twilight was short, night fell with
+its myriad stars. Père Lastique took the oars, and they saw that the
+sea was phosphorescent. Jeanne and the vicomte, side by side, watched
+the fitful gleams in the wake of the boat. They were hardly thinking,
+but simply gazing vaguely, breathing in the beauty of the evening in a
+state of delicious contentment; Jeanne had one hand on the seat and
+her neighbor's finger touched it as if by accident; she did not move;
+she was surprised, happy, though embarrassed at this slight contact.
+
+When she reached home that evening and went to her room, she felt
+strangely disturbed, and so affected that the slightest thing impelled
+her to weep. She looked at her clock, imagining that the little bee on
+the pendulum was beating like a heart, the heart of a friend; that it
+was aware of her whole life, that with its quick, regular tickings it
+would accompany her whole life; and she stopped the golden fly to
+press a kiss on its wings. She would have kissed anything, no matter
+what. She remembered having hidden one of her old dolls of former days
+at the bottom of a drawer; she looked for it, took it out, and was
+delighted to see it again, as people are to see loved friends; and
+pressing it to her heart, she covered its painted cheeks and curly wig
+with kisses. And as she held it in her arms, she thought:
+
+Can _he_ be the husband promised through a thousand secret
+voices, whom a superlatively good Providence had thus thrown across
+her path? Was he, indeed, the being created for her--the being to whom
+she would devote her existence? Were they the two predestined beings
+whose affection, blending in one, would beget love?
+
+She did not as yet feel that tumultuous emotion, that mad enchantment,
+those deep stirrings which she thought were essential to the tender
+passion; but it seemed to her she was beginning to fall in love, for
+she sometimes felt a sudden faintness when she thought of him, and she
+thought of him incessantly. His presence stirred her heart; she
+blushed and grew pale when their eyes met, and trembled at the sound
+of his voice.
+
+From day to day the longing for love increased. She consulted the
+marguerites, the clouds, and coins which she tossed in the air.
+
+One day her father said to her:
+
+"Make yourself look pretty to-morrow morning."
+
+"Why, papa?"
+
+"That is a secret," he replied.
+
+And when she came downstairs the following morning, looking fresh and
+sweet in a pretty light dress, she found the drawing-room table
+covered with boxes of bonbons, and on a chair an immense bouquet.
+
+A covered wagon drove into the courtyard bearing the inscription,
+"Lerat, Confectioner, Fécamp; Wedding Breakfasts," and from the back
+of the wagon Ludivine and a kitchen helper were taking out large flat
+baskets which emitted an appetizing odor.
+
+The Vicomte de Lamare appeared on the scene, his trousers were
+strapped down under his dainty boots of patent leather, which made his
+feet appear smaller. His long frock coat, tight at the waist line, was
+open at the bosom showing the lace of his ruffle, and a fine neckcloth
+wound several times round his neck obliged him to hold erect his
+handsome brown head, with its air of serious distinction. Jeanne, in
+astonishment, looked at him as though she had never seen him before.
+She thought he looked the grand seigneur from his head to his feet.
+
+He bowed and said, smiling:
+
+"Well, comrade, are you ready?"
+
+"But what is it? What is going on?" she stammered.
+
+"You will know presently," said the baron.
+
+The carriage drove up to the door, and Madame Adelaide, in festal
+array, descended the staircase, leaning on the arm of Rosalie, who was
+so much affected at the sight of M. de Lamare's elegant appearance
+that the baron whispered:
+
+"I say, vicomte, I think our maid admires you."
+
+The vicomte blushed up to his ears, pretended not to have heard and,
+taking up the enormous bouquet, handed it to Jeanne. She accepted it,
+more astonished than ever. They all four got into the carriage, and
+Ludivine, who brought a cup of bouillon to the baroness to sustain her
+strength, said: "Truly, madame, one would say it was a wedding!"
+
+They alighted as soon as they entered Yport, and as they walked
+through the village the sailors, in their new clothes, still showing
+the creases, came out of their homes, and shaking hands with the
+baron, followed the party as if it were a procession. The vicomte, who
+had offered his arm to Jeanne, walked with her at the head.
+
+When they reached the church they stopped, and an acolyte appeared
+holding upright the large silver crucifix, followed by another boy in
+red and white, who bore a chalice containing holy water.
+
+Then came three old cantors, one of them limping; then the trumpet
+("serpent"), and last, the curé with his gold embroidered stole. He
+smiled and nodded a greeting; then, with his eyes half closed, his
+lips moving in prayer, his beretta well over his forehead, he followed
+his surpliced bodyguard, walking in the direction of the sea.
+
+On the beach a crowd was standing around a new boat wreathed with
+flowers. Its mast, sail and ropes were covered with long streamers of
+ribbon that floated in the breeze, and the name, "Jeanne," was painted
+in gold letters on the stern.
+
+Père Lastique, the proprietor of this boat, built with the baron's
+money, advanced to meet the procession. All the men, simultaneously,
+took off their hats, and a row of pious persons wearing long black
+cloaks falling in large folds from their shoulders, knelt down in a
+circle at sight of the crucifix.
+
+The curé walked, with an acolyte on either side of him, to one end of
+the boat, while at the other end, the three old cantors, in their
+white surplices, with a serious air and their eyes fixed on the
+psalter, sang at the top of their voices in the clear morning air.
+Each time they stopped to take breath, the "serpent" continued its
+bellowing alone, and as he puffed out his cheeks the musician's little
+gray eyes disappeared, and the skin of his forehead and neck seemed to
+distend.
+
+The motionless, transparent sea seemed to be taking part meditatively
+in the baptism of this boat, rolling its tiny waves, no higher than a
+finger, with the faint sound of a rake on the shingle. And the big
+white gulls, with their wings unfurled, circled about in the blue
+heavens, flying off and then coming back in a curve above the heads of
+the kneeling crowd, as if to see what they were doing.
+
+The singing ceased after an Amen that lasted five minutes; and the
+priest, in an unctuous voice, murmured some Latin words, of which one
+could hear only the sonorous endings. He then walked round the boat,
+sprinkling it with holy water, and next began to murmur the "Oremus,"
+standing alongside the boat opposite the sponsors, who remained
+motionless, hand in hand.
+
+The vicomte had the usual grave expression on his handsome face, but
+Jeanne, choking with a sudden emotion, and on the verge of fainting,
+began to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered. The dream that
+had haunted her for some time was suddenly beginning, as if in a kind
+of hallucination, to take the appearance of reality. They had spoken
+of a wedding, a priest was present, blessing them; men in surplices
+were singing psalms; was it not she whom they were giving in marriage?
+
+Did her fingers send out an electric shock, did the emotion of her
+heart follow the course of her veins until it reached the heart of her
+companion? Did he understand, did he guess, was he, like herself,
+pervaded by a sort of intoxication of love? Or else, did he know by
+experience, alone, that no woman could resist him? She suddenly
+noticed that he was squeezing her hand, gently at first, and then
+tighter, tighter, till he almost crushed it. And without moving a
+muscle of his face, without anyone perceiving it, he said--yes, he
+certainly said:
+
+"Oh, Jeanne, if you would consent, this would be our betrothal."
+
+She lowered her head very slowly, perhaps meaning it for "yes." And
+the priest, who was still sprinkling the holy water, sprinkled some on
+their fingers.
+
+The ceremony was over. The women rose. The return was unceremonious.
+The crucifix had lost its dignity in the hands of the acolyte, who
+walked rapidly, the crucifix swaying to right and left, or bending
+forward as though it would fall. The priest, who was not praying now,
+walked hurriedly behind them; the cantors and the musician with the
+"serpent" had disappeared by a narrow street, so as to get off their
+surplices without delay; and the sailors hurried along in groups. One
+thought prompted their haste, and made their mouths water.
+
+A good breakfast was awaiting them at "The Poplars."
+
+The large table was set in the courtyard, under the apple trees.
+
+Sixty people sat down to table, sailors and peasants. The baroness in
+the middle, with a priest at either side of her, one from Yport, and
+the other belonging to "The Poplars." The baron seated opposite her on
+the other side of the table, the mayor on one side of him, and his
+wife, a thin peasant woman, already aging, who kept smiling and bowing
+to all around her, on the other.
+
+Jeanne, seated beside her co-sponsor, was in a sea of happiness. She
+saw nothing, knew nothing, and remained silent, her mind bewildered
+with joy. Presently she said:
+
+"What is your Christian name?"
+
+"Julien," he replied. "Did you not know?"
+
+But she made no reply, thinking to herself:
+
+"How often I shall repeat that name!"
+
+When the feast was over, the courtyard was given up to the sailors,
+and the others went over to the other side of the château. The
+baroness began to take her exercise, leaning on the arm of the baron
+and accompanied by the two priests. Jeanne and Julien went toward the
+wood and walked along one of the mossy paths. Suddenly seizing her
+hands, the vicomte said:
+
+"Tell me, will you be my wife?"
+
+She lowered her head, and as he stammered: "Answer me, I implore you!"
+she raised her eyes to his timidly, and he read his answer there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MARRIAGE AND DISILLUSION
+
+The baron, one morning, entered Jeanne's room before she was up, and
+sitting down at the foot of her bed, said:
+
+"M. le Vicomte de Lamare has asked us for your hand in marriage."
+
+She wanted to hide her face under the sheets.
+
+Her father continued:
+
+"We have postponed our answer for the present."
+
+She gasped, choking with emotion. At the end of a minute the baron,
+smiling, added:
+
+"We did not wish to do anything without consulting you. Your mother
+and I are not opposed to this marriage, but we would not seek to
+influence you. You are much richer than he is; but, when it is a
+question of the happiness of a life, one should not think too much
+about money. He has no relations left. If you marry him, then, it
+would be as if a son should come into our family; if it were anyone
+else, it would be you, our daughter, who would go among strangers. The
+young fellow pleases us. Would he please you?"
+
+She stammered, blushing up to the roots of her hair:
+
+"I am willing, papa."
+
+And the father, looking into her eyes and still smiling, murmured:
+
+"I half suspected it, young lady."
+
+She lived till evening in a condition of exhilaration, not knowing
+what she was doing, mechanically thinking of one thing by mistake for
+another, and with a feeling of weariness, although she had not walked
+at all.
+
+Toward six o'clock, as she was sitting with her mother under the plane
+tree, the vicomte appeared.
+
+Jeanne's heart began to throb wildly. The young man approached them
+apparently without any emotion. When he was close beside them, he took
+the baroness' hand and kissed her fingers, then raising to his lips
+the trembling hand of the young girl, he imprinted upon it a long,
+tender and grateful kiss.
+
+And the radiant season of betrothal commenced. They would chat
+together alone in the corner of the parlor, or else seated on the moss
+at the end of the wood overlooking the plain. Sometimes they walked in
+Little Mother's Avenue; he, talking of the future, she, with her eyes
+cast down, looking at the dusty footprints of the baroness.
+
+Once the matter was decided, they desired to waste no time in
+preliminaries. It was, therefore, decided that the ceremony should
+take place in six weeks, on the fifteenth of August; and that the
+bride and groom should set out immediately on their wedding journey.
+Jeanne, on being consulted as to which country she would like to
+visit, decided on Corsica where they could be more alone than in the
+cities of Italy.
+
+They awaited the moment appointed for their marriage without too great
+impatience, but enfolded, lost in a delicious affection, expressed in
+the exquisite charm of insignificant caresses, pressure of hands, long
+passionate glances in which their souls seemed to blend; and, vaguely
+tortured by an uncertain longing for they knew not what.
+
+They decided to invite no one to the wedding except Aunt Lison, the
+baron's sister, who boarded in a convent at Versailles. After the
+death of their father, the baroness wished to keep her sister with
+her. But the old maid, possessed by the idea that she was in every
+one's way, was useless, and a nuisance, retired into one of those
+religious houses that rent apartments to people that live a sad and
+lonely existence. She came from time to time to pass a month or two
+with her family.
+
+She was a little woman of few words, who always kept in the
+background, appeared only at mealtimes, and then retired to her room
+where she remained shut in.
+
+She looked like a kind old lady, though she was only forty-two, and
+had a sad, gentle expression. She was never made much of by her family
+as a child, being neither pretty nor boisterous, she was never petted,
+and she would stay quietly and gently in a corner. She had been
+neglected ever since. As a young girl nobody paid any attention to
+her. She was something like a shadow, or a familiar object, a living
+piece of furniture that one is accustomed to see every day, but about
+which one does not trouble oneself.
+
+Her sister, from long habit, looked upon her as a failure, an
+altogether insignificant being. They treated her with careless
+familiarity which concealed a sort of contemptuous kindness. She
+called herself Lise, and seemed embarrassed at this frivolous youthful
+name. When they saw that she probably would not marry, they changed it
+from Lise to Lison, and since Jeanne's birth, she had become "Aunt
+Lison," a poor relation, very neat, frightfully timid, even with her
+sister and her brother-in-law, who loved her, but with an uncertain
+affection verging on indifference, with an unconscious compassion and
+a natural benevolence.
+
+Sometimes, when the baroness talked of far away things that happened
+in her youth, she would say, in order to fix a date: "It was the time
+that Lison had that attack."
+
+They never said more than that; and this "attack" remained shrouded,
+as in a mist.
+
+One evening, Lise, who was then twenty, had thrown herself into the
+water, no one knew why. Nothing in her life, her manner, gave any
+intimation of this seizure. They fished her out half dead, and her
+parents, raising their hands in horror, instead of seeking the
+mysterious cause of this action, had contented themselves with calling
+it "that attack," as if they were talking of the accident that
+happened to the horse "Coco," who had broken his leg a short time
+before in a ditch, and whom they had been obliged to kill.
+
+From that time Lise, presently Lison, was considered feeble-minded.
+The gentle contempt which she inspired in her relations gradually made
+its way into the minds of all those who surrounded her. Little Jeanne
+herself, with the natural instinct of children, took no notice of her,
+never went up to kiss her good-night, never went into her room. Good
+Rosalie, alone, who gave the room all the necessary attention, seemed
+to know where it was situated.
+
+When Aunt Lison entered the dining-room for breakfast, the little one
+would go up to her from habit and hold up her forehead to be kissed;
+that was all.
+
+If anyone wished to speak to her, they sent a servant to call her, and
+if she was not there, they did not bother about her, never thought of
+her, never thought of troubling themselves so much as to say: "Why, I
+have not seen Aunt Lison this morning!"
+
+When they said "Aunt Lison," these two words awakened no feeling of
+affection in anyone's mind. It was as if one had said: "The coffee
+pot, or the sugar bowl."
+
+She always walked with little, quick, silent steps, never made a
+noise, never knocking up against anything; and seemed to communicate
+to surrounding objects the faculty of not making any sound. Her hands
+seemed to be made of a kind of wadding, she handled everything so
+lightly and delicately.
+
+She arrived about the middle of July, all upset at the idea of this
+marriage. She brought a quantity of presents which, as they came from
+her, remained almost unnoticed. On the following day they had
+forgotten she was there at all.
+
+But an unusual emotion was seething in her mind, and she never took
+her eyes off the engaged couple. She interested herself in Jeanne's
+trousseau with a singular eagerness, a feverish activity, working like
+a simple seamstress in her room, where no one came to visit her.
+
+She was continually presenting the baroness with handkerchiefs she had
+hemmed herself, towels on which she had embroidered a monogram, saying
+as she did so: "Is that all right, Adelaide?" And little mother, as
+she carelessly examined the objects, would reply: "Do not give
+yourself so much trouble, my poor Lison."
+
+One evening, toward the end of the month, after an oppressively warm
+day, the moon rose on one of those clear, mild nights which seem to
+move, stir and affect one, apparently awakening all the secret poetry
+of one's soul. The gentle breath of the fields was wafted into the
+quiet drawing-room. The baroness and her husband were playing cards by
+the light of a lamp, and Aunt Lison was sitting beside them knitting;
+while the young people, leaning on the window sill, were gazing out at
+the moonlit garden.
+
+The linden and the plane tree cast their shadows on the lawn which
+extended beyond it in the moonlight, as far as the dark wood.
+Attracted by the tender charm of the night, and by this misty
+illumination that lighted up the trees and the bushes, Jeanne turned
+toward her parents and said: "Little father, we are going to take a
+short stroll on the grass in front of the house."
+
+The baron replied, without looking up: "Go, my children," and
+continued his game.
+
+They went out and began to walk slowly along the moonlit lawn as far
+as the little wood at the end. The hour grew late and they did not
+think of going in. The baroness grew tired, and wishing to retire, she
+said:
+
+"We must call the lovers in."
+
+The baron cast a glance across the spacious garden where the two forms
+were wandering slowly.
+
+"Let them alone," he said; "it is so delicious outside! Lison will
+wait for them, will you not, Lison?"
+
+The old maid raised her troubled eyes and replied in her timid voice:
+
+"Certainly, I will wait for them."
+
+Little father gave his hand to the baroness, weary himself from the
+heat of the day.
+
+"I am going to bed, too," he said, and went up with his wife.
+
+Then Aunt Lison rose in her turn, and leaving on the arm of the chair
+her canvas with the wool and the knitting needles, she went over and
+leaned on the window sill and gazed out at the night.
+
+The two lovers kept on walking back and forth between the house and
+the wood. They squeezed each other's fingers without speaking, as
+though they had left their bodies and formed part of this visible
+poetry that exhaled from the earth.
+
+All at once Jeanne perceived, framed in the window, the silhouette of
+the aunt, outlined by the light of the lamp behind her.
+
+"See," she said, "there is Aunt Lison looking at us."
+
+The vicomte raised his head, and said in an indifferent tone without
+thinking:
+
+"Yes, Aunt Lison is looking at us."
+
+And they continued to dream, to walk slowly, and to love each other.
+But the dew was falling fast, and the dampness made them shiver a
+little.
+
+"Let us go in now," said Jeanne. And they went into the house.
+
+When they entered the drawing-room, Aunt Lison had gone back to her
+work. Her head was bent over her work, and her fingers were trembling
+as if she were very tired.
+
+"It is time to go to bed, aunt," said Jeanne, approaching her.
+
+Her aunt turned her head, and her eyes were red as if she had been
+crying. The young people did not notice it; but suddenly M. de Lamare
+perceived that Jeanne's thin shoes were covered with dew. He was
+worried, and asked tenderly:
+
+"Are not your dear little feet cold?"
+
+All at once the old lady's hands shook so violently that she let fall
+her knitting, and hiding her face in her hands, she began to sob
+convulsively.
+
+The engaged couple looked at her in amazement, without moving.
+Suddenly Jeanne fell on her knees, and taking her aunt's hands away
+from her face, said in perplexity:
+
+"Why, what is the matter, Aunt Lison?"
+
+Then the poor woman, her voice full of tears, and her whole body
+shaking with sorrow, replied:
+
+"It was when he asked you--are not your--your--dear little feet
+cold?--no one ever said such things to me--to me--never--never----"
+
+Jeanne, surprised and compassionate, could still hardly help laughing
+at the idea of an admirer showing tender solicitude for Lison; and the
+vicomte had turned away to conceal his mirth.
+
+But the aunt suddenly rose, laying her ball of wool on the floor and
+her knitting in the chair, and fled to her room, feeling her way up
+the dark staircase.
+
+Left alone, the young people looked at one another, amused and
+saddened. Jeanne murmured:
+
+"Poor aunt!" Julien replied. "She must be a little crazy this
+evening."
+
+They held each other's hands and presently, gently, very gently, they
+exchanged their first kiss, and by the following day had forgotten all
+about Aunt Lison's tears.
+
+The two weeks preceding the wedding found Jeanne very calm, as though
+she were weary of tender emotions. She had no time for reflection on
+the morning of the eventful day. She was only conscious of a feeling
+as if her flesh, her bones and her blood had all melted beneath her
+skin, and on taking hold of anything, she noticed that her fingers
+trembled.
+
+She did not regain her self-possession until she was in the chancel of
+the church during the marriage ceremony.
+
+Married! So she was married! All that had occurred since daybreak
+seemed to her a dream, a waking dream. There are such moments, when
+all appears changed around us; even our motions seem to have a new
+meaning; even the hours of the day, which seem to be out of their
+usual time. She felt bewildered, above all else, bewildered. Last
+evening nothing had as yet been changed in her life; the constant hope
+of her life seemed only nearer, almost within reach. She had gone to
+rest a young girl; she was now a married woman. She had crossed that
+boundary that seems to conceal the future with all its joys, its
+dreams of happiness. She felt as though a door had opened in front of
+her; she was about to enter into the fulfillment of her expectations.
+
+When they appeared on the threshold of the church after the ceremony,
+a terrific noise caused the bride to start in terror, and the baroness
+to scream; it was a rifle salute given by the peasants, and the firing
+did not cease until they reached "The Poplars."
+
+After a collation served for the family, the family chaplain, and the
+priest from Yport, the mayor and the witnesses, who were some of the
+large farmers of the district, they all walked in the garden. On the
+other side of the château one could hear the boisterous mirth of the
+peasants, who were drinking cider beneath the apple trees. The whole
+countryside, dressed in their best, filled the courtyard.
+
+Jeanne and Julien walked through the copse and then up the slope and,
+without speaking, gazed out at the sea. The air was cool, although it
+was the middle of August; the wind was from the north, and the sun
+blazed down unpityingly from the blue sky. The young people sought a
+more sheltered spot, and crossing the plain, they turned to the right,
+toward the rolling and wooded valley that leads to Yport. As soon as
+they reached the trees the air was still, and they left the road and
+took a narrow path beneath the trees, where they could scarcely walk
+abreast.
+
+Jeanne felt an arm passed gently round her waist. She said nothing,
+her breath came quick, her heart beat fast. Some low branches caressed
+their hair, as they bent to pass under them. She picked a leaf; two
+ladybirds were concealed beneath it, like two delicate red shells.
+
+"Look, a little family," she said innocently, and feeling a little
+more confidence.
+
+Julien placed his mouth to her ear, and whispered: "This evening you
+will be my wife."
+
+Although she had learned many things during her sojourn in the
+country, she dreamed of nothing as yet but the poetry of love, and was
+surprised. His wife? Was she not that already?
+
+Then he began to kiss her temples and neck, little light kisses.
+Startled each time afresh by these masculine kisses to which she was
+not accustomed, she instinctively turned away her head to avoid them,
+though they delighted her. But they had come to the edge of the wood.
+She stopped, embarrassed at being so far from home. What would they
+think?
+
+"Let us go home," she said.
+
+He withdrew his arm from her waist, and as they turned round they
+stood face to face, so close that they could feel each other's breath
+on their faces. They gazed deep into one another's eyes with that gaze
+in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown
+of each other's being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and
+persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life
+be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness,
+or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble
+tête-à-tête of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had never
+yet seen each other.
+
+Suddenly, Julien, placing his two hands on his wife's shoulders,
+kissed her full on the lips as she had never before been kissed. The
+kiss, penetrating as it did her very blood and marrow, gave her such a
+mysterious shock that she pushed Julien wildly away with her two arms,
+almost falling backward as she did so.
+
+"Let us go away, let us go away," she faltered.
+
+He did not reply, but took both her hands and held them in his. They
+walked home in silence, and the rest of the afternoon seemed long. The
+dinner was simple and did not last long, contrary to the usual Norman
+custom. A sort of embarrassment seemed to paralyze the guests. The two
+priests, the mayor, and the four farmers invited, alone betrayed a
+little of that broad mirth that is supposed to accompany weddings.
+
+They had apparently forgotten how to laugh, when a remark of the
+mayor's woke them up. It was about nine o'clock; coffee was about to
+be served. Outside, under the apple-trees of the first court, the bal
+champêtre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all
+that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a
+grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle
+shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins
+and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The
+boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the
+instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the
+unrestrained voices seemed to fall from the air in shreds, in little
+fragments of scattered notes.
+
+Two large barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two
+servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to
+refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of
+the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every
+one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of
+illuminated foliage this wholesome and boisterous fête made the
+melancholy watchers in the dining-room long to dance also, and to
+drink from one of those large barrels, while they munched a slice of
+bread and butter and a raw onion.
+
+The mayor, who was beating time with his knife, cried: "By Jove, that
+is all right; it is like the wedding of Ganache."
+
+A suppressed giggle was heard, but Abbé Picot, the natural enemy of
+civil authority, cried: "You mean of Cana." The other did not accept
+the correction. "No, monsieur le curé, I know what I am talking about;
+when I say Ganache, I mean Ganache."
+
+They rose from table and went into the drawing-room, and then outside
+to mix with the merrymakers. The guests soon left.
+
+They went into the house. They were surprised to see Madame Adelaide
+sobbing on Julien's shoulder. Her tears, noisy tears, as if blown out
+by a pair of bellows, seemed to come from her nose, her mouth and her
+eyes at the same time; and the young man, dumfounded, awkward, was
+supporting the heavy woman who had sunk into his arms to commend to
+his care her darling, her little one, her adored daughter.
+
+The baron rushed toward them, saying: "Oh, no scenes, no tears, I beg
+of you," and, taking his wife to a chair, he made her sit down, while
+she wiped away her tears. Then, turning to Jeanne: "Come, little one,
+kiss your mother and go to bed."
+
+What happened then? She could hardly have told, for she seemed to have
+lost her head, but she felt a shower of little grateful kisses on her
+lips.
+
+Day dawned. Julien awoke, yawned, stretched, looked at his wife,
+smiled and asked: "Did you sleep well, darling?"
+
+She noticed that he now said "thou," and she replied, bewildered,
+"Why, yes. And you?" "Oh, very well," he answered. And turning toward
+her, he kissed her and then began to chat quietly. He set before her
+plans of living, with the idea of economy, and this word occurring
+several times, astonished Jeanne. She listened without grasping the
+meaning of his words, looked at him, but was thinking of a thousand
+things that passed rapidly through her mind hardly leaving a trace.
+
+The clock struck eight. "Come, we must get up," he said. "It would
+look ridiculous for us to be late." When he was dressed he assisted
+his wife with all the little details of her toilet, not allowing her
+to call Rosalie. As they left the room he stopped. "You know, when we
+are alone, we can now use 'thou,' but before your parents it is better
+to wait a while. It will be quite natural when we come back from our
+wedding journey."
+
+She did not go down till luncheon was ready. The day passed like any
+ordinary day, as if nothing new had occurred. There was one man more
+in the house, that was all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CORSICA AND A NEW LIFE
+
+Four days later the travelling carriage arrived that was to take them
+to Marseilles.
+
+After the first night Jeanne had become accustomed to Julien's kisses
+and caresses, although her repugnance to a closer intimacy had not
+diminished. She thought him handsome, she loved him. She again felt
+happy and cheerful.
+
+The farewells were short and without sadness. The baroness alone
+seemed tearful. As the carriage was just starting she placed a purse,
+heavy as lead, in her daughter's hand, saying, "That is for your
+little expenses as a bride."
+
+Jeanne thrust the purse in her pocket and the carriage started.
+
+Toward evening Julien said: "How much money did your mother give you
+in that purse?"
+
+She had not given it a thought, and she poured out the contents on her
+knees. A golden shower filled her lap: two thousand francs. She
+clapped her hands. "I shall commit all kinds of extravagance," she
+said as she replaced it in the purse.
+
+After travelling eight days in terribly hot weather they reached
+Marseilles. The following day the _Roi-Louis_, a little mail
+steamer which went to Naples by way of Ajaccio, took them to Corsica.
+
+Corsica! Its "maquis," its bandits, its mountains! The birthplace of
+Napoleon! It seemed to Jeanne that she was leaving real life to enter
+into a dream, although wide awake. Standing side by side on the bridge
+of the steamer, they looked at the cliffs of Provence as they passed
+swiftly by them. The calm sea of deep blue seemed petrified beneath
+the ardent rays of the sun.
+
+"Do you remember our excursion in Père Lastique's boat?" said Jeanne.
+
+Instead of replying, he gave her a hasty kiss on the ear.
+
+The paddle-wheels struck the water, disturbing its torpor, and a long
+track of foam like the froth of champagne remained in the wake of the
+boat, reaching as far as the eye could see. Jeanne drank in with
+delight the odor of the salt mist that seemed to go to the very tips
+of her fingers. Everywhere the sea. But ahead of them there was
+something gray, not clearly defined in the early dawn; a sort of
+massing of strange-looking clouds, pointed, jagged, seemed to rest on
+the waters.
+
+Presently it became clearer, its outline more distinct on the
+brightening sky; a large chain of mountains, peaked and weird,
+appeared. It was Corsica, covered with a light veil of mist. The sun
+rose behind it, outlining the jagged crests like black shadows. Then
+all the summits were bathed in light, while the rest of the island
+remained covered with mist.
+
+The captain, a little sun-browned man, dried up, stunted, toughened
+and shrivelled by the harsh salt winds, appeared on the bridge and in
+a voice hoarse after twenty years of command and worn from shouting
+amid the storms, said to Jeanne:
+
+"Do you perceive it, that odor?"
+
+She certainly noticed a strong and peculiar odor of plants, a wild
+aromatic odor.
+
+"That is Corsica that sends out that fragrance, madame," said the
+captain. "It is her peculiar odor of a pretty woman. After being away
+for twenty years, I should recognize it five miles out at sea. I
+belong to it. He, down there, at Saint Helena, he speaks of it always,
+it seems, of the odor of his native country. He belongs to my family."
+
+And the captain, taking off his hat, saluted Corsica, saluted down
+yonder, across the ocean, the great captive emperor who belonged to
+his family.
+
+Jeanne was so affected that she almost cried.
+
+Then, pointing toward the horizon, the captain said: "Les
+Sanguinaires."
+
+Julien was standing beside his wife, with his arm round her waist, and
+they both looked out into the distance to see what he was alluding to.
+They at length perceived some pyramidal rocks which the vessel rounded
+presently to enter an immense peaceful gulf surrounded by lofty
+summits, the base of which was covered with what looked like moss.
+
+Pointing to this verdant growth, the captain said: "Le maquis."
+
+As they proceeded on their course the circle of mountains appeared to
+close in behind the steamer, which moved along slowly in such a lake
+of transparent azure that one could sometimes see to the bottom.
+
+The town suddenly appeared perfectly white at the end of the gulf, on
+the edge of the water, at the base of the mountains. Some little
+Italian boats were anchored in the dock. Four or five rowboats came up
+beside the _Roi-Louis_ to get passengers.
+
+Julien, who was collecting the baggage, asked his wife in a low tone:
+"Twenty sous is enough, is it not, to give to the porter?" For a week
+he had constantly asked the same question, which annoyed her each
+time. She replied somewhat impatiently: "When one is not sure of
+giving enough, one gives too much."
+
+He was always disputing with the hotel proprietors, with the servants,
+the drivers, the vendors of all kinds, and when, by dint of
+bargaining, he had obtained a reduction in price, he would say to
+Jeanne as he rubbed his hands: "I do not like to be cheated."
+
+She trembled whenever a bill came in, certain beforehand of the
+remarks that he would make about each item, humiliated at this
+bargaining, blushing up to the roots of her hair beneath the
+contemptuous glances of the servants as they looked after her husband,
+while they held in their hand the meagre tip.
+
+He had a dispute with the boatmen who landed him.
+
+The first tree Jeanne saw was a palm. They went to a great, empty
+hotel at the corner of an immense square and ordered breakfast.
+
+After an hour's rest they arranged an itinerary for their trip, and at
+the end of three days spent in this little town, hidden at the end of
+the blue gulf, and hot as a furnace enclosed in its curtain of
+mountains, which keep every breath of air from it, they decided to
+hire some saddle horses, so as to be able to cross any difficult pass,
+and selected two little Corsican stallions with fiery eyes, thin and
+unwearying, and set out one morning at daybreak. A guide, mounted on a
+mule, accompanied them and carried the provisions, for inns are
+unknown in this wild country.
+
+The road ran along the gulf and soon turned into a kind of valley, and
+on toward the high mountains. They frequently crossed the dry beds of
+torrents with only a tiny stream of water trickling under the stones,
+gurgling faintly like a wild animal in hiding.
+
+The uncultivated country seemed perfectly barren. The sides of the
+hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun.
+Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a
+little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all
+carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons,
+but redoubtable in their hands.
+
+The pungent odor of the aromatic herbs with which the island is
+overgrown seemed to make the air heavy. The road ascended gradually
+amid the long curves of the mountains. The red or blue granite peaks
+gave an appearance of fairyland to the wild landscape, and on the
+foothills immense forests of chestnut trees looked like green brush,
+compared with the elevations above them.
+
+Sometimes the guide, reaching out his hand toward some of these
+heights, would repeat a name. Jeanne and Julien would look where he
+pointed, but see nothing, until at last they discovered something
+gray, like a mass of stones fallen from the summit. It was a little
+village, a hamlet of granite hanging there, fastened on like a
+veritable bird's nest and almost invisible on the huge mountain.
+
+Walking their horses like this made Jeanne nervous. "Let us go
+faster," she said. And she whipped up her horse. Then, as she did not
+hear her husband following her, she turned round and laughed heartily
+as she saw him coming along, pale, and holding on to his horse's mane
+as it bounced him up and down. His very appearance of a "beau
+cavalier" made his awkwardness and timidity all the more comical.
+
+They trotted along quietly. The road now ran between two interminable
+forests of brush, which covered the whole side of the mountain like a
+garment. This was the "Maquis," composed of scrub oak, juniper,
+arbutus, mastic, privet, gorse, laurel, myrtle and boxwood,
+intertwined with clematis, huge ferns, honeysuckle, cytisus, rosemary,
+lavender and brambles, which covered the sides of the mountain with an
+impenetrable fleece.
+
+They were hungry. The guide rejoined them and led them to one of those
+charming springs so frequent in rocky countries, a tiny thread of iced
+water issuing from a little hole in the rock and flowing into a
+chestnut leaf that some passerby had placed there to guide the water
+into one's mouth.
+
+Jeanne felt so happy that she could hardly restrain herself from
+screaming for joy.
+
+They continued their journey and began to descend the slope winding
+round the Bay of Sagone. Toward evening they passed through Cargese,
+the Greek village founded by a colony of refugees who were driven from
+their country. Tall, beautiful girls, with rounded hips, long hands
+and slender waists, and singularly graceful, were grouped beside a
+fountain. Julien called out, "Good evening," and they replied in
+musical tones in the harmonious language of their own land.
+
+When they reached Piana they had to beg for hospitality, as in ancient
+times and in desert lands. Jeanne trembled with joy as they waited for
+the door to be opened after Julien knocked. Oh, this was a journey
+worth while, with all the unexpected of unexplored paths.
+
+It happened to be the home of a young couple. They received the
+travellers as the patriarchs must have received the guest sent by God.
+They had to sleep on a corn husk mattress in an old moldy house. The
+woodwork, all eaten by worms, overrun with long boring-worms, seemed
+to emit sounds, to be alive and to sigh.
+
+They set off again at daybreak, and presently stopped before a forest,
+a veritable forest of purple granite. There were peaks, pillars,
+bell-towers, wondrous forms molded by age, the ravaging wind and the
+sea mist. As much as three hundred metres in height, slender, round,
+twisted, hooked, deformed, unexpected and fantastic, these amazing
+rocks looked like trees, plants, animals, monuments, men, monks in
+their garb, horned devils, gigantic birds, a whole population of
+monsters, a menagerie of nightmares petrified by the will of some
+eccentric divinity.
+
+Jeanne had ceased talking, her heart was full. She took Julien's hand
+and squeezed it, overcome with a longing for love in presence of the
+beauty of nature.
+
+Suddenly, as they emerged from this chaos, they saw before them
+another gulf, encircled by a wall of blood-red granite. And these red
+rocks were reflected in the blue waters.
+
+"Oh, Julien!" faltered Jeanne, unable to speak for wonder and choking
+with her emotion. Two tears fell from her eyes. Julien gazed at her in
+astonishment and said:
+
+"What is the matter, my pet?"
+
+She wiped away her tears, smiled and replied in a rather shaky voice:
+
+"Nothing--I am nervous--I do not know--it just came over me. I am so
+happy that the least thing affects me."
+
+He could not understand these feminine attacks of "nerves," the shocks
+of these vibrant beings, excited at nothing, whom enthusiasm stirs as
+might a catastrophe, whom an imperceptible sensation completely
+upsets, driving them wild with joy or despair.
+
+These tears seemed absurd to him, and thinking only of the bad road,
+he said:
+
+"You would do better to watch your horse."
+
+They descended an almost impassable path to the shore of the gulf,
+then turned to the right to ascend the gloomy Val d'Ota.
+
+But the road was so bad that Julien proposed that they should go on
+foot. Jeanne was delighted. She was enchanted at the idea of walking,
+of being alone with him after her late emotion.
+
+The guide went ahead with the mule and the horses and they walked
+slowly.
+
+The mountain, cleft from top to bottom, spreads apart. The path lies
+in this breach, between two gigantic walls. A roaring torrent flows
+through the gorge. The air is icy, the granite looks black, and high
+above one the glimpse of blue sky astonishes and bewilders one.
+
+A sudden noise made Jeanne start. She raised her eyes. An immense bird
+flew away from a hollow; it was an eagle. His spread wings seemed to
+brush the two walls of the gorge and he soared into the blue and
+disappeared.
+
+Farther on there was a double gorge and the path lay between the two
+in abrupt zigzags. Jeanne, careless and happy, took the lead, the
+pebbles rolling away beneath her feet, fearlessly leaning over the
+abysses. Julien followed her, somewhat out of breath, his eyes on the
+ground for fear of becoming dizzy.
+
+All at once the sun shone down on them, and it seemed as if they were
+leaving the infernal regions. They were thirsty, and following a track
+of moisture, they crossed a wilderness of stones and found a little
+spring conducted into a channel made of a piece of hollowed-out wood
+for the benefit of the goatherds. A carpet of moss covered the ground
+all round it, and Jeanne and Julien knelt down to drink.
+
+As they were enjoying the fresh cold water, Julien tried to draw
+Jeanne away to tease her. She resisted and their lips met and parted,
+and the stream of cold water splashed their faces, their necks, their
+clothes and their hands, and their kisses mingled in the stream.
+
+They were a long time reaching the summit of the declivity, as the
+road was so winding and uneven, and they did not reach Evisa until
+evening and the house of Paoli Palabretti, a relative of their guide.
+
+He was a tall man, somewhat bent, with the mournful air of a
+consumptive. He took them to their room, a cheerless room of bare
+stone, but handsome for this country, where all elegance is ignored.
+He expressed in his language--the Corsican patois, a jumble of French
+and Italian--his pleasure at welcoming them, when a shrill voice
+interrupted him. A little swarthy woman, with large black eyes, a skin
+warmed by the sun, a slender waist, teeth always showing in a
+perpetual smile, darted forward, kissed Jeanne, shook Julien's hand
+and said: "Good-day, madame; good-day, monsieur; I hope you are well."
+
+She took their hats, shawls, carrying all on one arm, for the other
+was in a sling, and then she made them all go outside, saying to her
+husband: "Go and take them for a walk until dinner time."
+
+M. Palabretti obeyed at once and walked between the two young people
+as he showed them the village. He dragged his feet and his words,
+coughing frequently, and repeating at each attack of coughing:
+
+"It is the air of the Val, which is cool, and has struck my chest."
+
+He led them on a by-path beneath enormous chestnut trees. Suddenly he
+stopped and said in his monotonous voice: "It is here that my cousin,
+Jean Rinaldi, was killed by Mathieu Lori. See, I was there, close to
+Jean, when Mathieu appeared at ten paces from us. 'Jean,' he cried,
+'do not go to Albertacce; do not go, Jean, or I will kill you. I warn
+you!'
+
+"I took Jean's arm: 'Do not go there, Jean; he will do it.'
+
+"It was about a girl whom they were both after, Paulina Sinacoupi.
+
+"But Jean cried out: 'I am going, Mathieu; you will not be the one to
+prevent me.'
+
+"Then Mathieu unslung his gun, and before I could adjust mine, he
+fired.
+
+"Jean leaped two feet in the air, like a child skipping, yes,
+monsieur, and he fell back full on me, so that my gun went off and
+rolled as far as the big chestnut tree over yonder.
+
+"Jean's mouth was wide open, but he did not utter a word; he was
+dead."
+
+The young people gazed in amazement at the calm witness of this crime.
+Jeanne asked:
+
+"And what became of the assassin?"
+
+Paoli Palabretti had a long fit of coughing and then said:
+
+"He escaped to the mountain. It was my brother who killed him the
+following year. You know, my brother, Philippi Palabretti, the
+bandit."
+
+Jeanne shuddered.
+
+"Your brother a bandit?"
+
+With a gleam of pride in his eye, the calm Corsican replied:
+
+"Yes, madame. He was celebrated, that one. He laid low six gendarmes.
+He died at the same time as Nicolas Morali, when they were trapped in
+the Niolo, after six days of fighting, and were about to die of
+hunger.
+
+"The country is worth it," he added with a resigned air in the same
+tone in which he said: "It is the air of the Val, which is cool."
+
+Then they went home to dinner, and the little Corsican woman behaved
+as if she had known them for twenty years.
+
+But Jeanne was worried. When Julien again held her in his arms, would
+she experience the same strange and intense sensation that she had
+felt on the moss beside the spring? And when they were alone together
+that evening she trembled lest she should still be insensible to his
+kisses. But she was reassured, and this was her first night of love.
+
+The next day, as they were about to set out, she decided that she
+would not leave this humble cottage, where it seemed as though a fresh
+happiness had begun for her.
+
+She called her host's little wife into her room and, while making
+clear that she did not mean it as a present, she insisted, even with
+some annoyance, on sending her from Paris, as soon as she arrived, a
+remembrance, a remembrance to which she attached an almost
+superstitious significance.
+
+The little Corsican refused for some time, not wishing to accept it.
+But at last she consented, saying:
+
+"Well, then, send me a little pistol, a very small one."
+
+Jeanne opened her eyes in astonishment. The other added in her ear, as
+one confides a sweet and intimate secret: "It is to kill my
+brother-in-law." And smiling, she hastily unwound the bandages around
+the helpless arm, and showing her firm, white skin with the scratch of
+a stiletto across it, now almost healed, she said: "If I had not been
+almost as strong as he is, he would have killed me. My husband is not
+jealous, he knows me; and, besides, he is ill, you know, and that
+quiets your blood. And, besides, madame, I am an honest woman; but my
+brother-in-law believes all that he hears. He is jealous for my
+husband and he will surely try it again. Then I shall have my little
+pistol; I shall be easy, and sure of my revenge."
+
+Jeanne promised to send the weapon, kissed her new friend tenderly and
+they set out on their journey.
+
+The rest of the trip was nothing but a dream, a continual series of
+embraces, an intoxication of caresses. She saw nothing, neither the
+landscape, nor the people, nor the places where they stopped. She saw
+nothing but Julien.
+
+On arriving at Bastia, they had to pay the guide. Julien fumbled in
+his pockets. Not finding what he wanted, he said to Jeanne: "As you
+are not using your mother's two thousand francs, give them to me to
+carry. They will be safer in my belt, and it will avoid my having to
+make change."
+
+She handed him her purse.
+
+They went to Leghorn, visited Florence, Genoa and all the Cornici.
+They reached Marseilles on a morning when the north wind was blowing.
+Two months had elapsed since they left the "Poplars." It was now the
+15th of October.
+
+Jeanne, affected by the cold wind that seemed to come from yonder,
+from far-off Normandy, felt sad. Julien had, for some time, appeared
+changed, tired, indifferent, and she feared she knew not what.
+
+They delayed their return home four days longer, not being able to
+make up their minds to leave this pleasant land of the sun. It seemed
+to her that she had come to an end of her happiness.
+
+At length they left. They were to make all their purchases in Paris,
+prior to settling down for good at the "Poplars," and Jeanne looked
+forward to bringing back some treasures, thanks to her mother's
+present. But the first thing she thought of was the pistol promised to
+the little Corsican woman of Evisa.
+
+The day after they arrived she said to Julien: "Dear, will you give me
+that money of mamma's? I want to make my purchases."
+
+He turned toward her with a look of annoyance.
+
+"How much do you want?"
+
+"Why--whatever you please."
+
+"I will give you a hundred francs," he replied, "but do not squander
+it."
+
+She did not know what to say, amazed and confused. At length she
+faltered: "But--I--handed you the money to----"
+
+He did not give her time to finish.
+
+"Yes, of course. Whether it is in my pocket or yours makes no
+difference from the moment that we have the same purse. I do not
+refuse you, do I, since I am giving you a hundred francs?"
+
+She took the five gold pieces without saying a word, but she did not
+venture to ask for any more, and she bought nothing but the pistol.
+
+Eight days later they set out for the "Poplars."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DISENCHANTMENT
+
+The family and servants were awaiting them outside the white gate with
+brick supports. The post-chaise drew up and there were long and
+affectionate greetings. Little mother wept; Jeanne, affected, wiped
+away some tears; father nervously walked up and down.
+
+Then, as the baggage was being unloaded, they told of their travels
+beside the parlor fire. Jeanne's words flowed freely, and everything
+was told, everything, in a half hour, except, perhaps, a few little
+details forgotten in this rapid account.
+
+The young wife then went to undo her parcels. Rosalie, also greatly
+affected, assisted her. When this was finished and everything had been
+put away, the little maid left her mistress, and Jeanne, somewhat
+fatigued, sat down.
+
+She asked herself what she was now going to do, seeking some
+occupation for her mind, some work for her hands. She did not care to
+go down again into the drawing-room, where her mother was asleep, and
+she thought she would take a walk. But the country seemed so sad that
+she felt a weight at her heart on only looking out of the window.
+
+Then it came to her that she had no longer anything to do, never again
+anything to do. All her young life at the convent had been preoccupied
+with the future, busied with dreams. The constant excitement of hope
+filled her hours at that time, so that she was not aware of their
+flight. Then hardly had she left those austere walls, where her
+illusions had unfolded, than her expectations of love were at once
+realized. The longed-for lover, met, loved and married within a few
+weeks, as one marries on these sudden resolves, had carried her off in
+his arms, without giving her time for reflection.
+
+But now the sweet reality of the first days was to become the everyday
+reality, which closed the door on vague hopes, on the enchanting
+worries of the unknown. Yes, there was nothing more to look forward
+to. And there was nothing more to do, today, to-morrow, never. She
+felt all this vaguely as a certain disillusion, a certain crumbling of
+her dreams.
+
+She rose and leaned her forehead against the cold window panes.
+
+Then, after gazing for some time at the sky across which dark clouds
+were passing, she decided to go out.
+
+Was this the same country, the same grass, the same trees as in May?
+What had become of the sunlit cheerfulness of the leaves and the
+poetry of the green grass, where dandelions, poppies and moon daisies
+bloomed and where yellow butterflies fluttered as though held by
+invisible wires? And this intoxication of the air teeming with life,
+with fragrance, with fertilizing pollen, existed no longer!
+
+The avenues, soaked by the constant autumnal downpours, were covered
+with a thick carpet of fallen leaves which extended beneath the
+shivering bareness of the almost leafless poplars. She went as far as
+the shrubbery. It was as sad as the chamber of a dying person. A green
+hedge which separated the little winding walks was bare of leaves.
+Little birds flew from place to place with a little chilly cry,
+seeking a shelter.
+
+The thick curtain of elm trees that formed a protection against the
+sea wind, the lime tree and the plane tree with their crimson and
+yellow tints seemed clothed, the one in red velvet and the other in
+yellow silk.
+
+Jeanne walked slowly up and down petite mère's avenue, alongside the
+Couillards' farm. Something weighed on her spirit like a presentiment
+of the long boredom of the monotonous life about to begin.
+
+She seated herself on the bank where Julien had first told her of his
+love and remained there, dreaming, scarcely thinking, depressed to the
+very soul, longing to lie down, to sleep, in order to escape the
+dreariness of the day.
+
+All at once she perceived a gull crossing the sky, carried away in a
+gust of wind, and she recalled the eagle she had seen down there in
+Corsica, in the gloomy vale of Ota. She felt a spasm at her heart as
+at the remembrance of something pleasant that is gone by, and she had
+a sudden vision of the beautiful island with its wild perfume, its sun
+that ripens oranges and lemons, its mountains with their rosy summits,
+its azure gulfs and its ravines through which the torrents flowed.
+
+And the moist, severe landscape that surrounded her, with the falling
+leaves and the gray clouds blown along by the wind, enfolded her in
+such a heavy mantle of misery that she went back to the house to keep
+from sobbing.
+
+Her mother was dozing in a torpid condition in front of the fire,
+accustomed to the melancholy of the long days, and not noticing it any
+longer. Her father and Julien had gone for a walk to talk about
+business matters. Night was coming on, filling the large drawing-room
+with gloom lighted by reflections of light from the fire.
+
+The baron presently appeared, followed by Julien. As soon as the
+vicomte entered the room he rang the bell, saying: "Quick, quick, let
+us have some light! It is gloomy in here."
+
+And he sat down before the fire. While his wet shoes were steaming in
+the warmth and the mud was drying on his soles, he rubbed his hands
+cheerfully as he said: "I think it is going to freeze; the sky is
+clearing in the north, and it is full moon to-night; we shall have a
+stinger to-night."
+
+Then turning to his daughter: "Well, little one, are you glad to be
+back again in your own country, in your own home, with the old folks?"
+
+This simple question upset Jeanne. She threw herself into her father's
+arms, her eyes full of tears, and kissed him nervously, as though
+asking pardon, for in spite of her honest attempt to be cheerful, she
+felt sad enough to give up altogether. She recalled the joy she had
+promised herself at seeing her parents again, and she was surprised at
+the coldness that seemed to numb her affection, just as if, after
+constantly thinking of those one loves, when at a distance and unable
+to see them at any moment, one should feel, on seeing them again, a
+sort of check of affection, until the bonds of their life in common
+had been renewed.
+
+Dinner lasted a long time. No one spoke much. Julien appeared to have
+forgotten his wife.
+
+In the drawing-room Jeanne sat before the fire in a drowsy condition,
+opposite little mother, who was sound asleep. Aroused by the voices of
+the men, Jeanne asked herself, as she tried to rouse herself, if she,
+too, was going to become a slave to this dreary lethargy of habit that
+nothing varies.
+
+The baron approached the fire, and holding out his hands to the
+glowing flame, he said, smiling: "Ah, that burns finely this evening.
+It is freezing, children; it is freezing." Then, placing his hand on
+Jeanne's shoulder and pointing to the fire, he said: "See here, little
+daughter, that is the best thing in life, the hearth, the hearth, with
+one's own around one. Nothing else counts. But supposing we retire.
+You children must be tired out."
+
+When she was in her room, Jeanne asked herself how she could feel so
+differently on returning a second time to the place that she thought
+she loved. Why did she feel as though she were wounded? Why did this
+house, this beloved country, all that hitherto had thrilled her with
+happiness, now appear so distressing?
+
+Her eyes suddenly fell on her clock. The little bee was still swinging
+from left to right and from right to left with the same quick,
+continuous motion above the scarlet blossoms. All at once an impulse
+of tenderness moved her to tears at sight of this little piece of
+mechanism that seemed to be alive. She had not been so affected on
+kissing her father and mother. The heart has mysteries that no
+arguments can solve.
+
+For the first time since her marriage she was alone, Julien, under
+pretext of fatigue, having taken another room.
+
+She lay awake a long time, unaccustomed to being alone and disturbed
+by the bleak north wind which beat against the roof.
+
+She was awakened the next morning by a bright light that flooded her
+room. She put on a dressing gown and ran to the window and opened it.
+
+An icy breeze, sharp and bracing, streamed into the room, making her
+skin tingle and her eyes water. The sun appeared behind the trees on a
+crimson sky, and the earth, covered with frost and dry and hard, rang
+out beneath one's footsteps. In one night all the leaves had blown off
+the trees, and in the distance beyond the level ground was seen the
+long green line of water, covered with trails of white foam.
+
+Jeanne dressed herself and went out, and for the sake of an object she
+went to call on the farmers.
+
+The Martins held up their hands in surprise, and Mrs. Martin kissed
+her on both cheeks, and then they made her drink a glass of noyau. She
+then went to the other farm. The Couillards also were surprised. Mrs.
+Couillard pecked her on the ears and she had to drink a glass of
+cassis. Then she went home to breakfast.
+
+The day went by like the previous day, cold instead of damp. And the
+other days of the week resembled these two days, and all the weeks of
+the month were like the first week.
+
+Little by little, however, she ceased to regret far-off lands. The
+force of habit was covering her life with a layer of resignation
+similar to the lime-stone formation deposited on objects by certain
+springs. And a kind of interest for the thousand-and-one little
+insignificant things of daily life, a care for the simple, ordinary
+everyday occupations, awakened in her heart. A sort of pensive
+melancholy, a vague disenchantment with life was growing up in her
+mind. What did she lack? What did she want? She did not know. She had
+no worldly desires, no thirst for amusement, no longing for
+permissible pleasures. What then? Just as old furniture tarnishes in
+time, so everything was slowly becoming faded to her eyes, everything
+seemed to be fading, to be taking on pale, dreary shades.
+
+Her relations with Julien had completely changed. He seemed to be
+quite different since they came back from their honeymoon, like an
+actor who has played his part and resumes his ordinary manner. He
+scarcely paid any attention to her or even spoke to her. All trace of
+love had suddenly disappeared, and he seldom came into her room at
+night.
+
+He had taken charge of the money and of the house, changed the leases,
+worried the peasants, cut down expenses, and having adopted the
+costume of a gentleman farmer, he had lost his polish and elegance as
+a fiancé.
+
+He always wore the same suit, although it was covered with spots. It
+was an old velveteen shooting jacket with brass buttons, that he had
+found among his former wardrobe, and with the carelessness that is
+frequent with those who no longer seek to please, he had given up
+shaving, and his long beard, badly cut, made an incredible change for
+the worse in his appearance. His hands were never cared for, and after
+each meal he drank four or five glasses of brandy.
+
+Jeanne tried to remonstrate with him gently, but he had answered her
+so abruptly: "Won't you let me alone!" that she never ventured to give
+him any more advice.
+
+She had adapted herself to these changes in a manner that surprised
+herself. He had become a stranger to her, a stranger whose mind and
+heart were closed to her. She constantly thought about it, asking
+herself how it was that after having met, loved, married in an impulse
+of affection, they should all at once find themselves almost as much
+strangers as though they had never shared the same room.
+
+And how was it that she did not feel this neglect more deeply? Was
+this life? Had they deceived themselves? Did the future hold nothing
+further for her?
+
+If Julien had remained handsome, carefully dressed, elegant, she might
+possibly have suffered more deeply.
+
+It had been agreed that after the new year the young couple should
+remain alone and that the father and mother should go back to spend a
+few months at their house in Rouen. The young people were not to leave
+the "Poplars" that winter, so as to get thoroughly settled and to
+become accustomed to each other and to the place where all their life
+would be passed. They had a few neighbors to whom Julien would
+introduce his wife. These were the Brisevilles, the Colteliers and the
+Fourvilles.
+
+But the young people could not begin to pay calls because they had not
+as yet been able to get a painter to alter the armorial bearings on
+the carriage.
+
+The old family coach had been given up to his son-in-law by the baron,
+and nothing would have induced him to show himself at the neighboring
+châteaux if the coat-of-arms of the De Lamares were not quartered with
+those of the Le Perthuis des Vauds.
+
+There was only one man in the district who made a specialty of
+heraldic designs, a painter of Bolbec, called Bataille, who was in
+demand at all the Norman castles in turn to make these precious
+designs on the doors of carriages.
+
+At length one morning in December, just as they were finishing
+breakfast, they saw an individual open the gate and walk toward the
+house. He was carrying a box on his back. This was Bataille.
+
+They offered him some breakfast, and, while he was eating, the baron
+and Julien made sketches of quarterings. The baroness, all upset as
+soon as these things were discussed, gave her opinion. And even Jeanne
+took part in the discussion, as though some mysterious interest had
+suddenly awakened in her.
+
+Bataille, while eating, gave his ideas, at times taking the pencil and
+tracing a design, citing examples, describing all the aristocratic
+carriages in the countryside, and seemed to have brought with him in
+his ideas, even in his voice, a sort of atmosphere of aristocracy.
+
+As soon as he had finished his coffee, they all went to the coach
+house. They took off the cover of the carriage and Bataille examined
+it. He then gravely gave his views as to the size he considered
+suitable for the design, and after an exchange of ideas, he set to
+work.
+
+Notwithstanding the cold, the baroness had her chair brought out so as
+to watch him working, and then her foot-stove, for her feet were
+freezing. She then began to chat with the painter, on all the recent
+births, deaths and marriages of which she had not heard, thus adding
+to the genealogical tree which she carried in her memory.
+
+Julien sat beside her, astride on a chair. He was smoking, spitting on
+the ground, listening and following with his glances the emblazoning
+of his rank.
+
+Presently old Simon, who was on his way to the vegetable garden, his
+spade on his shoulder, stopped to look at the work; and as Bataille's
+arrival had become known at the two farms, the farmers' wives soon put
+in an appearance. They went into raptures, standing one at either side
+of the baroness, exclaiming: "My! it requires some cleverness all the
+same to fix up those things."
+
+The two doors could not be finished before the next day about eleven
+o'clock. Every one was on hand; and they dragged the carriage outside
+so as to get a better view of it.
+
+It was perfect. Bataille was complimented, and went off with his box
+on his back. They all agreed that the painter had great ability, and
+if circumstances had been favorable would doubtless have been a great
+artist.
+
+Julien, by way of economy, had introduced great reforms which
+necessitated making some changes. The old coachman had been made
+gardener, Julien undertaking to drive himself, having sold the
+carriage horses to avoid buying feed for them. But as it was necessary
+to have some one to hold the horses when he and his wife got out of
+the carriage, he had made a little cow tender named Marius into a
+groom. Then in order to get some horses, he introduced a special
+clause into the Couillards' and Martins' leases, by which they were
+bound to supply a horse each, on a certain day every month, the date
+to be fixed by him; and this would exempt them from their tribute of
+poultry.
+
+So the Couillards brought a big yellow horse, and the Martins a small
+white animal with long, unclipped coat, and the two were harnessed up
+together. Marius, buried in an old livery belonging to old Simon, led
+the carriage up to the front door.
+
+Julien, looking clean and brushed up, looked a little like his former
+self; but his long beard gave him a common look in spite of all. He
+looked over the horses, the carriage, and the little groom, and seemed
+satisfied, the only really important thing to him being the newly
+painted escutcheon.
+
+The baroness came down leaning on her husband's arm and got into the
+carriage. Then Jeanne appeared. She began to laugh at the horses,
+saying that the white one was the son of the yellow horse; then,
+perceiving Marius, his face buried under his hat with its cockade, his
+nose alone preventing it from covering his face altogether, his hands
+hidden in his long sleeves, and the tail of his coat forming a skirt
+round his legs, his feet encased in immense shoes showing in a comical
+manner beneath it, and then when he threw his head back so as to see,
+and lifted up his leg to walk as if he were crossing a river, she
+burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
+
+The baron turned round, glanced at the little bewildered groom and he,
+too, burst out laughing, calling to his wife: "Look at Ma-Ma-Marius!
+Is he not comical? Heavens, how funny he looks!"
+
+The baroness, looking out of the carriage window, was also convulsed,
+so that the carriage shook on its springs.
+
+But Julien, pale with anger, asked: "What makes you laugh like that?
+Are you crazy?"
+
+Jeanne, quite convulsed and unable to stop laughing, sat down on the
+doorstep; the baron did the same, while, in the carriage, spasmodic
+sneezes, a sort of constant chuckling, told that the baroness was
+choking. Presently there was a motion beneath Marius' livery. He had,
+doubtless, understood the joke, for he was shaking with laughter
+beneath his hat.
+
+Julien darted forward in exasperation. With a box on the ear he sent
+the boy's hat flying across the lawn; then, turning toward his
+father-in-law, he stammered in a voice trembling with rage: "It seems
+to me that you should be the last to laugh. We should not be where we
+are now if you had not wasted your money and ruined your property.
+Whose fault is it if you are ruined?"
+
+The laughter ceased at once, and no one spoke. Jeanne, now ready to
+cry, got into the carriage and sat beside her mother. The baron,
+silent and astonished, took his place opposite the two ladies, and
+Julien sat on the box after lifting to the seat beside him the weeping
+boy, whose face was beginning to swell.
+
+The road was dreary and appeared long. The occupants of the carriage
+were silent. All three sad and embarrassed, they would not acknowledge
+to one another what was occupying their thoughts. They felt that they
+could not talk on indifferent subjects while these thoughts had
+possession of them, and preferred to remain silent than to allude to
+this painful subject.
+
+They drove past farmyards, the carriage jogging along unevenly with
+the ill-matched animals, putting to flight terrified black hens who
+plunged into the bushes and disappeared, occasionally followed by a
+barking wolf-hound.
+
+At length they entered a wide avenue of pine trees, at the end of
+which was a white, closed gate. Marius ran to open it, and they drove
+in round an immense grass plot, and drew up before a high, spacious,
+sad-looking building with closed shutters.
+
+The hall door opened abruptly, and an old, paralyzed servant wearing a
+black waistcoat with red stripes partially covered by his working
+apron slowly descended the slanting steps. He took the visitors' names
+and led them into an immense reception room, and opened with
+difficulty the Venetian blinds which were always kept closed. The
+furniture had covers on it, and the clock and candelabra were wrapped
+in white muslin. An atmosphere of mildew, an atmosphere of former
+days, damp and icy, seemed to permeate one's lungs, heart and skin
+with melancholy.
+
+They all sat down and waited. They heard steps in the hall above them
+that betokened unaccustomed haste. The hosts were hurriedly dressing.
+The baroness, who was chilled, sneezed constantly. Julien paced up and
+down. Jeanne, despondent, sat beside her mother. The baron leaned
+against the marble mantelpiece with his head bent down.
+
+Finally, one of the tall doors opened, and the Vicomte and Vicomtesse
+de Briseville appeared. They were both small, thin, vivacious, of no
+age in particular, ceremonious and embarrassed.
+
+After the first greetings, there seemed to be nothing to say. So they
+began to congratulate each other for no special reason, and hoped that
+these friendly relations would be kept up. It was a treat to see
+people when one lived in the country the year round.
+
+The icy atmosphere pierced to their bones and made their voices
+hoarse. The baroness was coughing now and had stopped sneezing. The
+baron thought it was time to leave. The Brisevilles said: "What, so
+soon? Stay a little longer." But Jeanne had risen in spite of Julien's
+signals, for he thought the visit too short.
+
+They attempted to ring for the servant to order the carriage to the
+door, but the bell would not ring. The host started out himself to
+attend to it, but found that the horses had been put in the stable.
+
+They had to wait. Every one tried to think of something to say.
+Jeanne, involuntarily shivering with cold, inquired what their hosts
+did to occupy themselves all the year round. The Brisevilles were much
+astonished; for they were always busy, either writing letters to their
+aristocratic relations, of whom they had a number scattered all over
+France, or attending to microscopic duties, as ceremonious to one
+another as though they were strangers, and talking grandiloquently of
+the most insignificant matters.
+
+At last the carriage passed the windows with its ill-matched team. But
+Marius had disappeared. Thinking he was off duty until evening, he had
+doubtless gone for a walk.
+
+Julien, perfectly furious, begged them to send him home on foot, and
+after a great many farewells on both sides, they set out for the
+"Poplars."
+
+As soon as they were inside the carriage, Jeanne and her father, in
+spite of Julien's brutal behavior of the morning which still weighed
+on their minds, began to laugh at the gestures and intonations of the
+Brisevilles. The baron imitated the husband, and Jeanne the wife. But
+the baroness, a little touchy in these particulars, said: "You are
+wrong to ridicule them thus; they are people of excellent family."
+They were silent out of respect for little mother, but nevertheless,
+from time to time, Jeanne and her father began again. The baroness
+could not forbear smiling in her turn, but she repeated: "It is not
+nice to laugh at people who belong to our class."
+
+Suddenly the carriage stopped, and Julien called out to someone behind
+it. Then Jeanne and the baron, leaning out, saw a singular creature
+that appeared to be rolling along toward them. His legs entangled in
+his flowing coattails, and blinded by his hat which kept falling over
+his face, shaking his sleeves like the sails of a windmill, and
+splashing into puddles of water, and stumbling against stones in the
+road, running and bounding, Marius was following the carriage as fast
+as his legs could carry him.
+
+As soon as he caught up with it, Julien, leaning over, seized him by
+the collar of his coat, sat him down beside him, and letting go the
+reins, began to shower blows on the boy's hat, which sank down to his
+shoulders with the reverberations of a drum. The boy screamed, tried
+to get away, to jump from the carriage, while his master, holding him
+with one hand, continued beating him with the other.
+
+Jeanne, dumfounded, stammered: "Father--oh, father!" And the baroness,
+wild with indignation, squeezed her husband's arm. "Stop him, Jack!"
+she exclaimed. The baron quickly lowered the front window, and seizing
+hold of his son-in-law's sleeve, he sputtered out in a voice trembling
+with rage: "Have you almost finished beating that child?"
+
+Julien turned round in astonishment: "Don't you see what a condition
+his livery is in?"
+
+But the baron, placing his head between them, said: "Well, what do I
+care? There is no need to be brutal like that!"
+
+Julien got angry again: "Let me alone, please; this is not your
+affair!" And he was raising his hand again when his father-in-law
+caught hold of it and dragged it down so roughly that he knocked it
+against the wood of the seat, and he roared at him so loud: "If you do
+not stop, I shall get out, and I will see that you stop it, myself,"
+that Julien calmed down at once, and shrugging his shoulders without
+replying, he whipped up the horses, who set out at a quick trot.
+
+The two women, pale as death, did not stir, and one could hear
+distinctly the thumping of the baroness' heart.
+
+At dinner Julien was more charming than usual, as though nothing had
+occurred. Jeanne, her father, and Madame Adelaide, pleased to see him
+so amiable, fell in with his mood, and when Jeanne mentioned the
+Brisevilles, he laughed at them himself, adding, however: "All the
+same, they have the grand air."
+
+They made no more visits, each one fearing to revive the Marius
+episode. They decided, to send New Year's cards, and to wait until the
+first warm days of spring before paying any more calls.
+
+At Christmas they invited the curé, the mayor and his wife to dinner,
+and again on New Year's Day. These were the only events that varied
+the monotony of their life. The baron and his wife were to leave "The
+Poplars" on the ninth of January. Jeanne wanted to keep them, but
+Julien did not acquiesce, and the baron sent for a post-chaise from
+Rouen, seeing his son-in-law's coolness.
+
+The day before their departure, as it was a clear frost, Jeanne and
+her father decided to go to Yport, which they had not visited since
+her return from Corsica. They crossed the wood where she had strolled
+on her wedding-day, all wrapped up in the one whose lifelong companion
+she had become; the wood where she had received her first kiss,
+trembled at the first breath of love, had a presentiment of that
+sensual love of which she did not become aware until she was in the
+wild vale of Ota beside the spring where they mingled their kisses as
+they drank of its waters. The trees were now leafless, the climbing
+vines dead.
+
+They entered the little village. The empty, silent streets smelled of
+the sea, of wrack, of fish. Huge brown nets were still hanging up to
+dry outside the houses, or stretched out on the shingle. The gray,
+cold sea, with its eternal roaring foam, was going out, uncovering the
+green rocks at the foot of the cliff toward Fécamp.
+
+Jeanne and her father, motionless, watched the fishermen setting out
+in their boats in the dusk, as they did every night, risking their
+lives to keep from starving, and so poor, nevertheless, that they
+never tasted meat.
+
+The baron, inspired at the sight of the ocean, murmured: "It is
+terrible, but it is beautiful. How magnificent this sea is on which
+the darkness is falling, and on which so many lives are in peril, is
+it not, Jeannette?"
+
+She replied with a cold smile: "It is nothing to the Mediterranean."
+
+Her father, indignant, exclaimed: "The Mediterranean! It is oil, sugar
+water, bluing water in a washtub. Look at this sea, how terrible it is
+with its crests of foam! And think of all those men who have set out
+on it, and who are already out of sight."
+
+Jeanne assented with a sigh: "Yes, if you think so." But this name,
+"Mediterranean," had wrung her heart afresh, sending her thoughts back
+to those distant lands where her dreams lay buried.
+
+Instead of returning home by the woods, they walked along the road,
+mounting the ascent slowly. They were silent, sad at the thought of
+the approaching separation. As they passed along beside the farmyards
+an odor of crushed apples, that smell of new cider which seems to
+pervade the atmosphere in this season all through Normandy, rose to
+their nostrils, or else a strong smell of the cow stables. A small
+lighted window at the end of the yard indicated the farmhouse.
+
+It seemed to Jeanne that her mind was expanding, was beginning to
+understand the psychic meaning of things; and these little scattered
+gleams in the landscape gave her, all at once, a keen sense of the
+isolation of all human lives, a feeling that everything detaches,
+separates, draws one far away from the things they love.
+
+She said, in a resigned tone: "Life is not always cheerful."
+
+The baron sighed: "How can it be helped, daughter? We can do nothing."
+
+The following day the baron and his wife went away, and Jeanne and
+Julien were left alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JEANNE'S DISCOVERY
+
+Cards now became a distraction in the life of the young people. Every
+morning after breakfast, Julien would play several games of bezique
+with his wife, smoking and sipping brandy as he played. She would then
+go up to her room and sit down beside the window, and as the rain beat
+against the panes, or the wind shook the windows, she would embroider
+away steadily. Occasionally she would raise her eyes and look out at
+the gray sea which had white-caps on it. Then, after gazing listlessly
+for some time, she would resume her work.
+
+She had nothing else to do, Julien having taken the entire management
+of the house, to satisfy his craving for authority and his craze for
+economy. He was parsimonious in the extreme, never gave any tips, cut
+down the food to the merest necessaries; and as Jeanne since her
+return had ordered the baker to make her a little Norman "galette" for
+breakfast, he had cut down this extra expense, and condemned her to
+eat toast.
+
+She said nothing in order to avoid recriminations, arguments and
+quarrels; but she suffered keenly at each fresh manifestation of
+avarice on the part of her husband. It appeared to her low and odious,
+brought up as she had been in a family where money was never
+considered. How often had she not heard her mother say: "Why, money is
+made to be spent." Julien would now say: "Will you never become
+accustomed to not throwing money away?" And each time he deducted a
+few sous from some one's salary or on a note, he would say with a
+smile, as he slipped the change into his pocket: "Little streams make
+big rivers."
+
+On certain days Jeanne would sit and dream. She would gradually cease
+sewing and, with her hands idle, and forgetting her surroundings, she
+would weave one of those romances of her girlhood and be lost in some
+enchanting adventure. But suddenly Julien's voice giving some orders
+to old Simon would snatch her abruptly from her dreams, and she would
+take up her work again, saying: "That is all over," and a tear would
+fall on her hands as she plied the needle.
+
+Rosalie, formerly so cheerful and always singing, had changed. Her
+rounded cheeks had lost their color, and were now almost hollow, and
+sometimes had an earthy hue. Jeanne would frequently ask her: "Are you
+ill, my girl?" The little maid would reply: "No, madame," while her
+cheeks would redden slightly and she would retire hastily.
+
+At the end of January the snow came. In one night the whole plain was
+covered and the trees next morning were white with icy foam.
+
+On one of these mornings, Jeanne was sitting warming her feet before
+the fire in her room, while Rosalie, who had changed from day to day,
+was making the bed. Suddenly hearing behind her a kind of moan, Jeanne
+asked, without turning her head: "What is the matter?"
+
+The maid replied as usual: "Nothing, madame"; but her voice was weak
+and trembling.
+
+Jeanne's thoughts were on something else, when she noticed that the
+girl was not moving about the room. She called: "Rosalie!" Still no
+sound. Then, thinking she might have left the room, she cried in a
+louder tone: "Rosalie!" and she was reaching out her arm to ring the
+bell, when a deep moan close beside her made her start up with a
+shudder.
+
+The little servant, her face livid, her eyes haggard, was seated on
+the floor, her legs stretched out, and her back leaning against the
+bed. Jeanne sprang toward her. "What is the matter with you--what is
+the matter?" she asked.
+
+The girl did not reply, did not move. She stared vacantly at her
+mistress and gasped as though she were in terrible pain. Then,
+suddenly, she slid down on her back at full length, clenching her
+teeth to smother a cry of anguish.
+
+Jeanne suddenly understood, and almost distracted, she ran to the head
+of the stairs, crying: "Julien, Julien!"
+
+"What do you want?" he replied from below.
+
+She hardly knew how to tell him. "It is Rosalie, who----"
+
+Julien rushed upstairs two steps at a time, and going abruptly into
+the room, he found the poor girl had just been delivered of a child.
+He looked round with a wicked look on his face, and pushing his
+terrified wife out of the room, exclaimed: "This is none of your
+affair. Go away. Send me Ludivine and old Simon."
+
+Jeanne, trembling, descended to the kitchen, and then, not daring to
+go upstairs again, she went into the drawing-room, in which there had
+been no fire since her parents left, and anxiously awaited news.
+
+She presently saw the man-servant running out of the house. Five
+minutes later he returned with Widow Dentu, the nurse of the district.
+
+Then there was a great commotion on the stairs as though they were
+carrying a wounded person, and Julien came in and told Jeanne that she
+might go back to her room.
+
+She trembled as if she had witnessed some terrible accident. She sat
+down again before the fire, and asked: "How is she?"
+
+Julien, preoccupied and nervous, was pacing up and down the room. He
+seemed to be getting angry, and did not reply at first. Then he
+stopped and said: "What do you intend to do with this girl?"
+
+She did not understand, and looked at her husband. "Why, what do you
+mean? I do not know."
+
+Then suddenly flying into a rage, he exclaimed: "We cannot keep a
+bastard in the house."
+
+Jeanne was very much bewildered, and said at the end of a long
+silence: "But, my friend, perhaps we could put it out to nurse?"
+
+He cut her short: "And who will pay the bill? You will, no doubt."
+
+She reflected for some time, trying to find some way out of the
+difficulty; at length she said: "Why, the father will take care of it,
+of the child; and if he marries Rosalie, there will be no more
+difficulty."
+
+Julien, as though his patience were exhausted, replied furiously: "The
+father!--the father!--do you know him--the father? No, is it not so?
+Well then----?"
+
+Jeanne, much affected, became excited: "But you certainly would not
+let the girl go away like that. It would be cowardly! We will inquire
+the name of the man, and we will go and find him, and he will have to
+explain matters."
+
+Julien had calmed down and resumed his pacing up and down. "My dear,"
+he said, "she will not tell the name of the man; she will not tell you
+any more than she will tell me--and, if he does not want her? ... We
+cannot, however, keep a woman and her illegitimate child under our
+roof, don't you understand?"
+
+Jeanne, persistent, replied: "Then he must be a wretch, this man. But
+we must certainly find out who it is, and then he will have us to deal
+with."
+
+Julien colored, became annoyed again, and said: "But--meanwhile----?"
+
+She did not know what course to take, and asked: "What do you
+propose?"
+
+"Oh, I? That's very simple. I would give her some money and send her
+to the devil with her brat."
+
+The young wife, indignant, was disgusted with him. "That shall never
+be," she said. "She is my foster-sister, that girl; we grew up
+together. She has made a mistake, so much the worse; but I will not
+cast her out of doors on that account; and, if it is necessary, I will
+bring up the child."
+
+Then Julien's wrath exploded: "And we should earn a fine reputation,
+we, with our name and our position! And they would say of us
+everywhere that we were protecting vice, harboring beggars; and decent
+people would never set their foot inside our doors. What are you
+thinking of? You must be crazy!"
+
+She had remained quite calm. "I shall never cast off Rosalie; and if
+you do not wish her to stay, my mother will take her; and we shall
+surely succeed in finding out the name of the father of the child."
+
+He left the room in exasperation, banging the door after him and
+exclaiming: "What stupid ideas women have!"
+
+In the afternoon Jeanne went up to see the patient. The little maid,
+watched over by Widow Dentu, was lying still in her bed, her eyes wide
+open, while the nurse held the new-born babe in her arms.
+
+As soon as Rosalie perceived her mistress, she began to sob, hiding
+her face in the covers and shaking with her sorrow. Jeanne wanted to
+kiss her, but she avoided it by keeping her face covered. But the
+nurse interfered, and drawing away the sheet, uncovered her face, and
+she let Jeanne kiss her, weeping still, but more quietly.
+
+A meagre fire was burning in the grate; the room was cold; the child
+was crying. Jeanne did not dare to speak of the little one, for fear
+of another attack, and she took her maid's hand as she said
+mechanically: "It will not matter, it will not matter." The poor girl
+glanced furtively at the nurse, and trembled as the infant cried, and
+the remembrance of her sorrow came to her mind occasionally in a
+convulsive sob, while suppressed tears choked her.
+
+Jeanne kissed her again, and murmured softly in her ear: "We will take
+good care of it, never fear, my girl." Then as she was beginning to
+cry again, Jeanne made her escape.
+
+She came to see her every day, and each time Rosalie burst into tears
+at the sight of her mistress.
+
+The child was put out to nurse at a neighbor's.
+
+Julien, however, hardly spoke to his wife, as though he had nourished
+anger against her ever since she refused to send away the maid. He
+referred to the subject one day, but Jeanne took from her pocket a
+letter from the baroness asking them to send the girl to them at once
+if they would not keep her at the "Poplars." Julien, furious, cried:
+"Your mother is as foolish as you are!" but he did not insist any
+more.
+
+Two weeks later the patient was able to get up and take up her work
+again.
+
+One morning, Jeanne made her sit down and, taking her hands and
+looking steadfastly at her, she said:
+
+"See here, my girl, tell me everything."
+
+Rosalie began to tremble, and faltered:
+
+"What, madame?"
+
+"Whose is it, this child?"
+
+The little maid was overcome with confusion, and she sought wildly to
+withdraw her hands so as to hide her face. But Jeanne kissed her in
+spite of herself, and consoled her, saying: "It is a misfortune, but
+cannot be helped, my girl. You were weak, but that happens to many
+others. If the father marries you, no one will think of it again."
+
+Rosalie sighed as if she were suffering, and from time to time made an
+effort to disengage herself and run away.
+
+Jeanne resumed: "I understand perfectly that you are ashamed; but you
+see that I am not angry, that I speak kindly to you. If I ask you the
+name of the man it is for your own good, for I feel from your grief
+that he has deserted you, and because I wish to prevent that. Julien
+will go and look for him, you see, and we will oblige him to marry
+you; and as we will employ you both, we will oblige him also to make
+you happy."
+
+This time Rosalie gave such a jerk that she snatched her hands away
+from her mistress and ran off as if she were mad.
+
+That evening at dinner Jeanne said to Julien: "I tried to persuade
+Rosalie to tell me the name of her betrayer. I did not succeed. You
+try to find out so that we can compel this miserable man to marry
+her."
+
+But Julien became angry: "Oh! you know I do not wish to hear anything
+about it. You wish to keep this girl. Keep her, but do not bother me
+about her."
+
+Since the girl's illness he appeared to be more irritable than ever;
+and he had got into the way of never speaking to his wife without
+shouting as if he were in a rage, while she, on the contrary, would
+lower her voice, be gentle and conciliating, to avoid all argument;
+but she often wept at night after she went to bed.
+
+In spite of his constant irritability, her husband had become more
+affectionate than customary since their return.
+
+Rosalie was soon quite well and less sad, although she appeared
+terrified, pursued by some unknown fear, and she ran away twice when
+Jeanne tried to question her again.
+
+Julien all at once became more amiable, and the young wife, clinging
+to vain hopes, also became more cheerful. The thaw had not yet set in
+and a hard, smooth, glittering covering of snow extended over the
+landscape. Neither men nor animals were to be seen; only the chimneys
+of the cottages gave evidence of life in the smoke that ascended from
+them into the icy air.
+
+One evening the thermometer fell still lower, and Julien, shivering as
+he left the table--for the dining-room was never properly heated, he
+was so economical with the wood--rubbed his hands, murmuring: "It will
+be warmer to-night, won't it, my dear?" He laughed with his jolly
+laugh of former days, and Jeanne threw her arms around his neck: "I do
+not feel well, dear; perhaps I shall be better to-morrow."
+
+"As you wish, my dear. If you are ill you must take care of yourself."
+And they began to talk of other things.
+
+She retired early. Julien, for a wonder, had a fire lighted in her
+room. As soon as he saw that it was burning brightly, he kissed his
+wife on the forehead and left the room.
+
+The whole house seemed to be penetrated by the cold; the very walls
+seemed to be shivering, and Jeanne shivered in her bed. Twice she got
+up to put fresh logs on the fire and to look for dresses, skirts, and
+other garments which she piled on the bed. Nothing seemed to warm her;
+her feet were numbed and her lower limbs seemed to tingle, making her
+excessively nervous and restless.
+
+Then her teeth began to chatter, her hands shook, there was a
+tightness in her chest, her heart began to beat with hard, dull
+pulsations, and at times seemed to stop beating, and she gasped for
+breath. A terrible apprehension seized her, while the cold seemed to
+penetrate to her marrow. She never had felt such a sensation, she had
+never seemed to lose her hold on life like this before, never been so
+near her last breath.
+
+"I am going to die," she thought, "I am dying----"
+
+And filled with terror, she jumped out of bed, rang for Rosalie,
+waited, rang again, waited again, shivering and frozen.
+
+The little maid did not come. She was doubtless asleep, that first,
+sound sleep that nothing can disturb. Jeanne, in despair, darted
+toward the stairs in her bare feet, and groping her way, she ascended
+the staircase quietly, found the door, opened it, and called,
+"Rosalie!" She went forward, stumbled against the bed, felt all over
+it with her hands and found that it was empty. It was empty and cold,
+and as if no one had slept there. Much surprised, she said: "What! Has
+she gone out in weather like this?"
+
+But as her heart began to beat tumultuously till she seemed to be
+suffocating, she went downstairs again with trembling limbs in order
+to wake Julien. She rushed into his room filled with the idea that she
+was going to die, and longing to see him before she lost
+consciousness.
+
+By the light of the dying embers she perceived Rosalie's head leaning
+on her husband's shoulder.
+
+At the cry she gave they both started to their feet; she stood
+motionless for a second, horrified at this discovery, and then fled to
+her room; and when Julien, at his wit's end, called "Jeanne!" she was
+seized with an overmastering terror of seeing him, of hearing his
+voice, of listening to him explaining, lying, of meeting his gaze; and
+she darted toward the stairs again and went down.
+
+She now ran along in the darkness, at the risk of falling downstairs,
+at the risk of breaking her neck on the stone floor of the hall. She
+rushed along, impelled by an imperious desire to flee, to know nothing
+about it, to see no one.
+
+When she was at the bottom of the stairs she sat down on one of the
+steps, still in her nightdress, and in bare feet, and remained in a
+dazed condition. She heard Julien moving and walking about. She
+started to her feet in order to escape him. He was starting to come
+downstairs and called: "Listen, Jeanne!"
+
+No, she would not listen nor let him touch her with the tips of his
+fingers; and she darted into the dining-room as if she were fleeing
+from an assassin. She looked for a door of escape, a hiding place, a
+dark corner, some way of avoiding him. She hid under the table. But he
+was already at the door, a candle in his hand, still calling:
+"Jeanne!" She started off again like a hare, darted into the kitchen,
+ran round it twice like a trapped animal, and as he came near her, she
+suddenly opened the door into the garden and darted out into the
+night.
+
+The contact with the snow, into which she occasionally sank up to her
+knees, seemed to give her the energy of despair. She did not feel
+cold, although she had little on. She felt nothing, her body was so
+numbed from the emotion of her mind, and she ran along as white as the
+snow.
+
+She followed the large avenue, crossed the wood, crossed the ditch,
+and started off across the plain.
+
+There was no moon, the stars were shining like sparks of fire in the
+black sky; but the plain was light with a dull whiteness, and lay in
+infinite silence.
+
+Jeanne walked quickly, hardly breathing, not knowing, not thinking of
+anything. She suddenly stopped on the edge of the cliff. She stopped
+short, instinctively, and crouched down, bereft of thought and of will
+power.
+
+In the abyss before her the silent, invisible sea exhaled the salt
+odor of its wrack at low tide.
+
+She remained thus some time, her mind as inert as her body; then, all
+at once, she began to tremble, to tremble violently, like a sail
+shaken by the wind. Her arms, her hands, her feet, impelled by an
+invisible force, throbbed, pulsated wildly, and her consciousness
+awakened abruptly, sharp and poignant.
+
+Old memories passed before her mental vision: the sail with him in
+Père Lastique's boat, their conversation, his nascent love, the
+christening of the boat; then she went back, further back, to that
+night of dreams when she first came to the "Poplars." And now! _And
+now!_ Oh, her life was shipwrecked, all joy was ended, all
+expectation at an end; and the frightful future full of torture, of
+deception, and of despair appeared before her. Better to die, it would
+all be over at once.
+
+But a voice cried in the distance: "Here it is, here are her steps;
+quick, quick, this way!" It was Julien who was looking for her.
+
+Oh! she did not wish to see him again. In the abyss down yonder before
+her she now heard a slight sound, the indistinct ripple of the waves
+over the rocks. She rose to her feet with the idea of throwing herself
+over the cliff and bidding life farewell. Like one in despair, she
+uttered the last word of the dying, the last word of the young soldier
+slain in battle: "Mother!"
+
+All at once the thought of little mother came to her mind, she saw her
+sobbing, she saw her father on his knees before her mangled remains,
+and in a second she felt all the pain of their sorrow.
+
+She sank down again into the snow; and when Julien and old Simon,
+followed by Marius, carrying a lantern, seized her arm to pull her
+back as she was so close to the brink, she made no attempt to escape.
+
+She let them do as they would, for she could not stir. She felt that
+they were carrying her, and then that she was being put to bed and
+rubbed with hot cloths; then she became unconscious.
+
+Then she had a nightmare, or was it a nightmare? She was in bed. It
+was broad daylight, but she could not get up. Why? She did not know.
+Then she heard a little noise on the floor, a sort of scratching, a
+rustling, and suddenly a mouse, a little gray mouse, ran quickly
+across the sheet. Another followed it, then a third, who ran toward
+her chest with his little, quick scamper. Jeanne was not afraid, and
+she reached out her hand to catch the animal, but could not catch it.
+Then other mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands, rose up on all
+sides of her. They climbed the bedposts, ran up the tapestries,
+covered the bed completely. And soon they got beneath the covers;
+Jeanne felt them gliding over her skin, tickling her limbs, running up
+and down her body. She saw them running from the bottom of the bed to
+get into her neck under the sheets; and she tried to fight them off,
+throwing her hands out to try and catch them, but always finding them
+empty.
+
+She was frantic, wanted to escape, screamed, and it seemed as if she
+were being held down, as if strong arms enfolded her and rendered her
+helpless; but she saw no one.
+
+She had no idea of time. It must have been long, a very long time.
+
+Then she awoke, weary, aching, but quiet. She felt weak, very weak.
+She opened her eyes and was not surprised to see little mother seated
+in her room with a man whom she did not know.
+
+How old was she? She did not know, and thought she was a very little
+girl. She had no recollection of anything.
+
+The big man said: "Why, she has regained consciousness." Little mother
+began to weep. Then the big man resumed: "Come, be calm, baroness; I
+can ensure her recovery now. But do not talk to her at all. Let her
+sleep, let her sleep."
+
+Then it seemed to Jeanne that she remained in a state of exhaustion
+for a long time, overcome by a heavy sleep as soon as she tried to
+think; and she tried not to remember anything whatever, as though she
+had a vague fear that the reality might come back to her.
+
+Once when she awoke she saw Julien, alone, standing beside her; and
+suddenly it all came back to her, as if the curtain which hid her past
+life had been raised.
+
+She felt a horrible pain in her heart, and wanted to escape once more.
+She threw back the coverlets, jumped to the floor and fell down, her
+limbs being too weak to support her.
+
+Julien sprang toward her, and she began to scream for him not to touch
+her. She writhed and rolled on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison
+came running in with Widow Dentu, then the baron, and finally little
+mother, puffing and distracted.
+
+They put her back into bed, and she immediately closed her eyes, so as
+to escape talking and be able to think quietly.
+
+Her mother and aunt watched over her anxiously, saying: "Do you hear
+us now, Jeanne, my little Jeanne?"
+
+She pretended to be deaf, not to hear them, and did not answer. Night
+came on and the nurse took up her position beside the bed. She did not
+sleep; she kept trying to think of things that had escaped her memory
+as though there were holes in it, great white empty places where
+events had not been noted down.
+
+Little by little she began to recall the facts, and she pondered over
+them steadily.
+
+Little mother, Aunt Lison, the baron had come, so she must have been
+very ill. But Julien? What had he said? Did her parents know? And
+Rosalie, where was she? And what should she do? What should she do? An
+idea came to her--she would return to Rouen and live with father and
+little mother as in old days. She would be a widow; that's all.
+
+Then she waited, listening to what was being said around her,
+understanding everything without letting them see it, rejoiced at her
+returning reason, patient and crafty.
+
+That evening, at last, she found herself alone with the baroness and
+called to her in a low tone: "Little Mother!" Her own voice astonished
+her, it seemed strange. The baroness seized her hands: "My daughter,
+my darling Jeanne! My child, do you recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, little mother, but you must not weep; we have a great deal to
+talk about. Did Julien tell you why I ran away in the snow?"
+
+"Yes, my darling, you had a very dangerous fever."
+
+"It was not that, mamma. I had the fever afterward; but did he tell
+you what gave me the fever and why I ran away?"
+
+"No, my dearie."
+
+"It was because I found Rosalie in his room."
+
+Her mother thought she was delirious again and soothed her, saying:
+"Go to sleep, darling, calm yourself, try to sleep."
+
+But Jeanne, persistent, continued: "I am quite sensible now, little
+mother. I am not talking wildly as I must have done these last days. I
+felt ill one night and I went to look for Julien. Rosalie was with him
+in his room. I did not know what I was doing, for sorrow, and I ran
+out into the snow to throw myself off the cliff."
+
+But the baroness reiterated, "Yes, darling, you have been very ill,
+very ill."
+
+"It is not that, mamma. I found Rosalie in with Julien, and I will not
+live with him any longer. You will take me back with you to Rouen to
+live as we used to do."
+
+The baroness, whom the doctor had warned not to thwart Jeanne in any
+way, replied: "Yes, my darling."
+
+But the invalid grew impatient: "I see that you do not believe me. Go
+and fetch little father, he will soon understand."
+
+The baroness left the room and presently returned, leaning on her
+husband's arm. They sat down beside the bed and Jeanne began to talk.
+She told them all, quietly, in a weak voice, but clearly; all about
+Julien's peculiar character, his harshness, his avarice, and, finally,
+his infidelity.
+
+When she had finished, the baron saw that she was not delirious, but
+he did not know what to think, what to determine, or what to answer.
+He took her hand, tenderly, as he used to do when he put her to sleep
+with stories, and said: "Listen, dearie, we must act with prudence. We
+must do nothing rash. Try to put up with your husband until we can
+come to some decision--promise me this?"
+
+"I will try, but I will not stay here after I get well," she replied.
+
+Then she added in a lower tone: "Where is Rosalie now?"
+
+"You will not see her any more," replied the baron. But she persisted:
+"Where is she? I wish to know." Then he confessed that she had not
+left the house, but declared that she was going to leave.
+
+On leaving the room the baron, filled with indignation and wounded in
+his feelings as a father, went to look for Julien, and said to him
+abruptly: "Sir, I have come to ask you for an explanation of your
+conduct toward my daughter. You have been unfaithful to her with your
+maid, which is a double insult."
+
+Julien pretended to be innocent, denied everything positively, swore,
+took God as his witness. What proof had they? he asked. Was not Jeanne
+delirious? Had she not had brain fever? Had she not run out in the
+snow, in an attack of delirium, at the very beginning of her illness?
+And it was just at this time, when she was running about the house
+almost naked, that she pretends that she saw her maid in her husband's
+room!
+
+And he grew angry, threatened a lawsuit, became furious. The baron,
+bewildered, made excuses, begged his pardon, and held out his loyal
+hand to Julien, who refused to take it.
+
+When Jeanne heard what her husband had said, she did not show any
+annoyance, but replied: "He is lying, papa, but we shall end by
+convicting him."
+
+For some days she remained taciturn and reserved, thinking over
+matters. The third morning she asked to see Rosalie. The baron refused
+to send her up, saying she had left. Jeanne persisted, saying: "Well,
+let some one go and fetch her."
+
+She was beginning to get excited when the doctor came. They told him
+everything, so that he could form an opinion. But Jeanne suddenly
+burst into tears, her nerves all unstrung, and almost screamed: "I
+want Rosalie; I wish to see her!"
+
+The doctor took hold of her hand and said in a low tone: "Calm
+yourself, madame; any emotion may lead to serious consequences, for
+you are enceinte."
+
+She was dumfounded, as though she had received a blow; and it seemed
+to her that she felt the first stirrings of life within her. Then she
+was silent, not even listening to what was being said, absorbed in her
+own thoughts. She could not sleep that night for thinking of the new
+life that was developing in her, and was sad at the thought that it
+was Julien's child, and might resemble him. The following morning she
+sent for the baron. "Little father," she said, "my resolution is
+formed; I wish to know everything, and especially just now; you
+understand, I insist, and you know that you must not thwart me in my
+present condition. Listen! You must go and get M. le Curé. I need him
+here to keep Rosalie from telling a lie. Then, as soon as he comes,
+send him up to me, and you stay downstairs with little mother. And,
+above all things, see that Julien does not suspect anything."
+
+An hour later the priest came, looking fatter than ever, and puffing
+like the baroness. He sat down in an arm-chair and began to joke,
+wiping his forehead as usual with his plaid handkerchief. "Well,
+baroness, I do not think we grow any thinner; I think we make a good
+pair." Then, turning toward the patient, he said: "Eh, what is this I
+hear, young lady, that we are soon to have a fresh baptism? Aha, it
+will not be a boat this time." And in a graver tone he added: "It will
+be a defender of the country; unless"--after a moment's reflection--"it
+should be the prospective mother of a family, like you, madame,"
+bowing to the baroness.
+
+The door at the end of the room opened and Rosalie appeared, beside
+herself, weeping, refusing to enter the room, clinging to the door
+frame, and being pushed forward by the baron. Quite out of patience,
+he thrust her into the room. She covered her face with her hands and
+remained standing there, sobbing.
+
+Jeanne, as soon as she saw her, rose to a sitting posture, whiter than
+the sheets, and with her heart beating wildly. She could not speak,
+could hardly breathe. At length she said, in a voice broken with
+emotion: "I--I--will not--need--to question you. It--it is enough for
+me to see you thus--to--to see your--your shame in my presence."
+
+After a pause, for she was out of breath, she continued: "I had M. le
+Curé come, so that it might be like a confession, you understand."
+
+Rosalie, motionless, uttered little cries that were almost screams
+behind her hands.
+
+The baron, whose anger was gaining ground, seized her arms, and
+snatching her hands from her face, he threw her on her knees beside
+the bed, saying: "Speak! Answer!"
+
+She remained on the ground, in the position assigned to Magdalens, her
+cap awry, her apron on the floor, and her face again covered by her
+hands.
+
+Then the priest said: "Come, my girl, listen to what is said to you,
+and reply. We do not want to harm you, but we want to know what
+occurred."
+
+Jeanne, leaning over, looked at her and said: "Is it true that you
+were with Julien when I surprised you?"
+
+Rosalie moaned through her fingers, "Yes, madame."
+
+Then the baroness suddenly began to cry in a choking fashion, and her
+convulsive sobs accompanied those of Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne, with her eyes fixed on the maid, said: "How long had this been
+going on?"
+
+"Ever since he came here," faltered Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne could not understand. "Ever since he came--then--ever
+since--ever since the spring?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Ever since he came into this house?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+And Jeanne, as if overflowing with questions, asked, speaking
+precipitately:
+
+"But how did it happen? How did he approach you? How did he persuade
+you? What did he say? When, how did you ever yield to him? How could
+you ever have done it?"
+
+Rosalie, removing her hands from her face, and overwhelmed also with a
+feverish desire to speak, said:
+
+"How do I know, myself? It was the day he dined here for the first
+time, and he came up to my room. He had hidden himself in the loft. I
+did not dare to scream for fear of making a scandal. I no longer knew
+what I was doing. Then I said nothing because I liked him."
+
+Then Jeanne exclaimed with almost a scream:
+
+"But--your--your child--is his child?"
+
+Rosalie sobbed.
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+Then they were both silent. The only sound to be heard was the sobs of
+Rosalie and of the baroness.
+
+Jeanne, quite overcome, felt her tears also beginning to flow; and
+they fell silently down her cheeks.
+
+The maid's child had the same father, as her child! Her anger was at
+an end; she now was filled with a dreary, slow, profound and infinite
+despair. She presently resumed in a changed, tearful voice, the voice
+of a woman who has been crying:
+
+"When we returned from--from down there--from our journey--when did he
+begin again?"
+
+The little maid, who had sunk down on the floor, faltered: "The first
+evening."
+
+Each word wrung Jeanne's heart. So on the very first night of their
+return to the "Poplars" he left her for this girl. That was why he
+wanted to sleep alone!
+
+She now knew all she wanted to know, and exclaimed: "Go away, go
+away!" And as Rosalie, perfectly crushed, did not stir, Jeanne called
+to her father: "Take her away, carry her away!" The priest, who had
+said nothing as yet, thought that the moment had arrived for him to
+preach a little sermon.
+
+"What you have done is very wrong, my daughter, very wrong, and God
+will not pardon you so easily. Consider the hell that awaits you if
+you do not always act right. Now that you have a child you must behave
+yourself. No doubt madame la baronne will do something for you, and we
+will find you a husband."
+
+He would have continued speaking, but the baron, having again seized
+Rosalie by the shoulders, raised her from the floor and dragged her to
+the door, and threw her like a package into the corridor. As he turned
+back into the room, looking paler than his daughter, the priest
+resumed: "What can one do? They are all like that in the district. It
+is shocking, but cannot be helped, and then one must be a little
+indulgent toward the weaknesses of our nature. They never get married
+until they have become enceinte, never, madame." He added, smiling:
+"One might call it a local custom. So, you see, monsieur, your maid
+did as all the rest do."
+
+But the baron, who was trembling with nervousness, interrupted him,
+saying, "She! what do I care about her! It is Julien with whom I am
+indignant. It is infamous, the way he has behaved, and I shall take my
+daughter away."
+
+He walked up and down excitedly, becoming more and more exasperated:
+"It is infamous to have betrayed my child, infamous! He is a wretch,
+this man, a cad, a wretch! and I will tell him so. I will slap his
+face. I will give him a horsewhipping!"
+
+The priest, who was slowly taking a pinch of snuff, seated beside the
+baroness still in tears, and endeavoring to fulfill his office of a
+peacemaker, said: "Come, monsieur le baron, between ourselves, he has
+done what every one else does. Do you know many husbands who are
+faithful?" And he added with a sly good humor: "Come now, I wager that
+you have had your turn. Your hand on your heart, am I right?" The
+baron had stopped in astonishment before the priest, who continued:
+"Why, yes, you did just as others did. Who knows if you did not make
+love to a little sugar plum like that? I tell you that every one does.
+Your wife was none the less happy, or less loved; am I not right?"
+
+The baron had not stirred, he was much disturbed. What the priest said
+was true, and he had sinned as much as any one and had not hesitated
+when his wife's maids were in question. Was he a wretch on that
+account? Why should he judge Julien's conduct so severely when his own
+had not been above blame?
+
+The baroness, still struggling with her sobs, smiled faintly at the
+recollection of her husband's escapades, for she belonged to the
+sentimental class for whom love adventures are a part of existence.
+
+Jeanne, exhausted, lay with wide-open eyes, absorbed in painful
+reflection. Something Rosalie had said had wounded her as though an
+arrow had pierced her heart: "As for me, I said nothing, because I
+liked him."
+
+She had liked him also, and that was the only reason why she had given
+herself, bound herself for life to him, why she had renounced
+everything else, all her cherished plans, all the unknown future. She
+had fallen into this marriage, into this hole without any edges by
+which one could climb out, into this wretchedness, this sadness, this
+despair, because, like Rosalie, she had liked him!
+
+The door was pushed violently open and Julien appeared, with a furious
+expression on his face. He had caught sight of Rosalie moaning on the
+stairs, and suspected that something was up, that the maid had
+probably told all. The sight of the priest riveted him to the spot.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" he asked in a trembling but quiet tone.
+
+The baron, so violent a short while ago, did not venture to speak,
+afraid of the priest's remarks, and of what his son-in-law might say
+in the same strain. Little mother was weeping more copiously than
+ever; but Jeanne had raised herself with her hands and looked,
+breathing quickly, at the one who had caused her such cruel sorrow.
+She stammered out: "The fact is, we know all, all your rascality
+since--since the day you first entered this house--we know that the
+child of this maid is your child, just as--as--mine is--they will be
+brothers." Overcome with sorrow at this thought, she buried herself in
+the sheets and wept bitterly.
+
+Julien stood there gaping, not knowing what to say or do. The priest
+came to the rescue.
+
+"Come, come, do not give way like that, my dear young lady, be
+sensible." He rose, approached the bed and placed his warm hand on the
+despairing girl's forehead. This seemed to soothe her strangely. She
+felt quieted, as if this strong peasant's hand, accustomed to the
+gesture of absolution, to kindly consolations, had conveyed by its
+touch some mysterious solace.
+
+The good man, still standing, continued: "Madame, we must always
+forgive. A great sorrow has come to you; but God in His mercy has
+balanced it by a great happiness, since you will become a mother. This
+child will be your comfort. In his name I implore you, I adjure you to
+forgive M. Julien's error. It will be a new bond between you, a pledge
+of his future fidelity. Can you remain apart in your heart from him
+whose child you bear?"
+
+She did not reply, crushed, mortified, exhausted as she was, without
+even strength for anger or resentment. Her nerves seemed relaxed,
+almost severed, she seemed to be scarcely alive.
+
+The baroness, who seemed incapable of resentment, and whose mind was
+unequal to prolonged effort, murmured: "Come, come, Jeanne."
+
+Then the priest took the hand of the young man and leading him up to
+the bed, he placed his hand in that of his wife, and gave it a little
+tap as though to unite them more closely. Then laying aside his
+professional tone and manner, he said with a satisfied air: "Well,
+now, that's done. Believe me, that is the best thing to do." The two
+hands, joined for a moment, separated immediately. Julien, not daring
+to kiss Jeanne, kissed his mother-in-law on the forehead, turned on
+his heel, took the arm of the baron, who acquiesced, happy at heart
+that the thing had been settled thus, and they went out together to
+smoke a cigar.
+
+The patient, overcome, dozed off, while the priest and little mother
+talked in a low tone.
+
+The priest explained and propounded his ideas, to which the baroness
+assented by nodding her head. He said in conclusion: "Well, then, that
+is understood; you will give this girl the Barville farm, and I will
+undertake to find her a husband, a good, steady fellow. Oh! with a
+property worth twenty thousand francs we shall have no lack of
+suitors. There will be more than enough to choose from."
+
+The baroness was smiling now, quite happy, with the remains of two
+tears that had dried on her cheeks.
+
+She repeated: "That is settled. Barville is worth at least twenty
+thousand francs, but it will be settled on the child, the parents
+having the use of it during their lifetime."
+
+The curé rose, shook little mother's hand, saying: "Do not disturb
+yourself, Madame la Baronne, do not disturb yourself; I know what an
+effort it is."
+
+As he went out he met Aunt Lison coming to see her patient. She
+noticed nothing; they told her nothing; and she knew nothing, as
+usual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MATERNITY
+
+Rosalie had left the house. Jeanne felt no joy at the thought of being
+a mother, she had had so much sorrow. She awaited the advent of her
+child without curiosity, still filled with the apprehension of unknown
+misfortunes.
+
+A big woman, big as a house, had taken Rosalie's place and supported
+the baroness in her monotonous walks along her avenue. The baron gave
+his arm to Jeanne, who was now always ailing, while Aunt Lison,
+uneasy, and busied about the approaching event, held her other hand,
+bewildered at this mystery which she would never know.
+
+They all walked along like this almost in silence for hours at a time,
+while Julien was riding about the country on horseback, having
+suddenly acquired this taste. Nothing ever came to disturb their
+dreary life. The baron, his wife, and the vicomte paid a visit to the
+Fourvilles, whom Julien seemed to be already well acquainted with,
+without one knowing just how. Another ceremonious visit was exchanged
+with the Brisevilles, who were still hidden in their manor house.
+
+One afternoon, about four o'clock, two persons, a lady and gentleman
+on horseback, rode up into the courtyard of the château. Julien,
+greatly excited, ran up to Jeanne's room. "Quick, quick, come
+downstairs; here are the Fourvilles. They have just come as neighbors,
+knowing your condition. Tell them that I have gone out, but that I
+will be back. I will just go and make myself presentable."
+
+Jeanne, much surprised, went downstairs. A pale, pretty young woman
+with a sad face, dreamy eyes, and lustreless, fair hair, looking as
+though the sunlight had never kissed it, quietly introduced her
+husband, a kind of giant, or ogre with a large red mustache. She
+added: "We have several times had the pleasure of meeting M. de
+Lamare. We heard from him how you were suffering, and we would not put
+off coming to see you as neighbors, without any ceremony. You see that
+we came on horseback. I also had the pleasure the other day of a visit
+from madame, your mother, and the baron."
+
+She spoke with perfect ease, familiar but refined. Jeanne was charmed,
+and fell in love with her at once. "This is a friend," she thought.
+
+The Comte de Fourville, on the contrary, seemed like a bear in the
+drawing-room. As soon as he was seated, he placed his hat on the chair
+next him, did not know what to do with his hands, placed them on his
+knees, then on the arms of the chair, and finally crossed his fingers
+as if in prayer.
+
+Suddenly Julien entered the room. Jeanne was amazed and did not
+recognize him. He was shaved. He looked handsome, elegant, and
+attractive as on the day of their betrothal. He shook the comte's
+hairy paw, kissed the hand of the comtesse, whose ivory cheeks colored
+up slightly while her eyelids quivered.
+
+He began to speak; he was charming as in former days. His large eyes,
+the mirrors of love, had become tender again. And his hair, lately so
+dull and unkempt, had regained its soft, glossy wave, with the use of
+a hairbrush and perfumed oil.
+
+At the moment that the Fourvilles were taking their leave the
+comtesse, turning toward him, said: "Would you like to take a ride on
+Thursday, dear vicomte?"
+
+As he bowed and murmured, "Why, certainly, madame," she took Jeanne's
+hand and said in a sympathetic and affectionate tone, with a cordial
+smile: "Oh! when you are well, we will all three gallop about the
+country. It will be delightful. What do you say?"
+
+With an easy gesture she held up her riding skirt and then jumped into
+the saddle with the lightness of a bird, while her husband, after
+bowing awkwardly, mounted his big Norman steed. As they disappeared
+outside the gate, Julien, who seemed charmed, exclaimed: "What
+delightful people! those are friends who may be useful to us."
+
+Jeanne, pleased also without knowing why, replied: "The little
+comtesse is charming, I feel that I shall love her, but the husband
+looks like a brute. Where did you meet them?"
+
+He rubbed his hands together good humoredly. "I met them by chance at
+the Brisevilles'. The husband seems a little rough. He cares for
+nothing but hunting, but he is a real noble for all that."
+
+The dinner was almost cheerful, as though some secret happiness had
+come into the house.
+
+Nothing new happened until the latter days of July, when Jeanne was
+taken ill. As she seemed to grow worse, the doctor was sent for and at
+the first glance recognized the symptoms of a premature confinement.
+
+Her sufferings presently abated a little, but she was filled with a
+terrible anguish, a despairing sinking, something like a presentiment,
+the mysterious touch of death. It is in these moments when it comes so
+near to us that its breath chills our hearts.
+
+The room was full of people. Little mother, buried in an armchair, was
+choking with grief. The baron, his hands trembling, ran hither and
+thither, carrying things, consulting the doctor and losing his head.
+Julien paced up and down, looking concerned, but perfectly calm, and
+Widow Dentu stood at the foot of the bed with an appropriate
+expression, the expression of a woman of experience whom nothing
+astonishes. The cook, Ludivine, and Aunt Lison remained discreetly
+concealed behind the door of the lobby.
+
+Toward morning Jeanne became worse, and as her involuntary screams
+escaped from between her closed teeth, she thought incessantly of
+Rosalie, who had not suffered, who had hardly moaned, who had borne
+her child without suffering and without difficulty, and in her
+wretched and troubled mind she continually compared their conditions
+and cursed God, whom she had formerly thought to be just. She rebelled
+at the wicked partiality of fate and at the wicked lies of those who
+preach justice and goodness.
+
+At times her sufferings were so great that her mind was a blank. She
+had neither strength, life nor knowledge for anything but suffering.
+
+All at once her sufferings ceased. The nurse and the doctor leaned
+over her and gave her all attention. Presently she heard a little cry
+and, in spite of her weakness, she unconsciously held out her arms.
+She was suddenly filled with joy, with a glimpse of a new-found
+happiness which had just unfolded. Her child was born, she was
+soothed, happy, happy as she never yet had been. Her heart and her
+body revived; she was now a mother. She felt that she was saved,
+secure from all despair, for she had here something to love.
+
+From now on she had but one thought--her child. She was a fanatical
+mother, all the more intense because she had been deceived in her
+love, deceived in her hopes. She would sit whole days beside the
+window, rocking the little cradle.
+
+The baron and little mother smiled at this excess of tenderness, but
+Julien, whose habitual routine had been interfered with and his
+overweening importance diminished by the arrival of this noisy and
+all-powerful tyrant, unconsciously jealous of this mite of a man who
+had usurped his place in the house, kept on saying angrily and
+impatiently: "How wearisome she is with her brat!"
+
+She became so obsessed by this affection that she would pass the
+entire night beside the cradle, watching the child asleep. As she was
+becoming exhausted by this morbid life, taking no rest, growing weaker
+and thinner and beginning to cough, the doctor ordered the child to be
+taken from her. She got angry, wept, implored, but they were deaf to
+her entreaties. His nurse took him every evening, and each night his
+mother would rise, and in her bare feet go to the door, listen at the
+keyhole to see if he was sleeping quietly, did not wake up and wanted
+nothing.
+
+Julien found her here one night when he came home late, after dining
+with the Fourvilles. After that they locked her in her room to oblige
+her to stay in bed.
+
+The baptism took place at the end of August. The baron was godfather
+and Aunt Lison godmother. The child was named Pierre-Simon-Paul and
+called Paul for short.
+
+At the beginning of September Aunt Lison left without any commotion.
+Her absence was as little felt as her presence.
+
+One evening after dinner the priest appeared. He seemed embarrassed as
+if he were burdened by some mystery, and after some idle remarks, he
+asked the baroness and her husband to grant him a short interview in
+private.
+
+They all three walked slowly down the long avenue, talking with
+animation, while Julien, who was alone with Jeanne, was astonished,
+disturbed and annoyed at this secret.
+
+He accompanied the priest when he took his leave, and they went off
+together toward the church where the Angelus was ringing.
+
+As it was cool, almost cold, the others went into the drawing-room.
+They were all dozing when Julien came in abruptly, his face red,
+looking very indignant.
+
+From the door he called out to his parents-in-law, without remembering
+that Jeanne was there: "Are you crazy, for God's sake! to go and throw
+away twenty thousand francs on that girl?"
+
+No one replied, they were so astonished. He continued, bellowing with
+rage: "How can one be so stupid as that? Do you wish to leave us
+without a sou?"
+
+The baron, who had recovered his composure, attempted to stop him:
+"Keep still! Remember that you are speaking before your wife."
+
+But Julien was trembling with excitement: "As if I cared; she knows
+all about it, anyway. It is robbing her."
+
+Jeanne, bewildered, looked at him without understanding. She faltered:
+"What in the world is the matter?"
+
+Julien then turned toward her, to try and get her on his side as a
+partner who has been cheated out of an unexpected fortune. He
+hurriedly told her about the conspiracy to marry off Rosalie and about
+the gift of the Barville property, which was worth at least twenty
+thousand francs. He said: "Your parents are crazy, my dear, crazy
+enough to be shut up! Twenty thousand francs! twenty thousand francs!
+Why, they have lost their heads! Twenty thousand francs for a
+bastard!"
+
+Jeanne listened without emotion and without anger, astonished at her
+own calmness, indifferent now to everything but her own child.
+
+The baron was raging, but could find nothing to say. He finally burst
+forth and, stamping his foot, exclaimed: "Think of what you are
+saying; it is disgusting. Whose fault was it if we had to give this
+girl-mother a dowry? Whose child is it? You would like to abandon it
+now!"
+
+Julien, amazed at the baron's violence, looked at him fixedly. He then
+resumed in a calmer tone: "But fifteen hundred francs would be quite
+enough. They all have children before they are legally married. It
+makes no difference whose child it is, in any case. Instead of giving
+one of your farms, to the value of twenty thousand francs, in addition
+to making the world aware of what has happened, you should, to say the
+least, have had some regard for our name and our position."
+
+He spoke in a severe tone like a man who stood on his rights and was
+convinced of the logic of his argument. The baron, disturbed at this
+unexpected discussion, stood there gaping at him. Julien then, seeing
+his advantage, concluded: "Happily, nothing has yet been settled. I
+know the young fellow who is going to marry her. He is an honest chap
+and we can make a satisfactory arrangement with him. I will take
+charge of the matter."
+
+And he went out immediately, fearing no doubt to continue the
+discussion, and pleased that he had had the last word, a proof, he
+thought, that they acquiesced in his views.
+
+As soon as he had left the room, however, the baron exclaimed: "Oh,
+that is going too far, much too far!"
+
+But Jeanne, happening to look up at her father's bewildered face,
+began to laugh with her clear, ringing laugh of former days, when
+anything amused her. She said: "Father, father, did you hear the tone
+in which he said: 'Twenty thousand francs?'"
+
+Little mother, whose mirth was as ready as her tears, as she recalled
+her son-in-law's angry expression, his indignant exclamations and his
+refusal to allow the girl whom he had led astray to be given money
+that did not belong to him, delighted also at Jeanne's mirth, gave way
+to little bursts of laughter till the tears came to her eyes. The
+baron caught the contagion, and all three laughed to kill themselves
+as they used to do in the good old days.
+
+As soon as they quieted down a little Jeanne said: "How strange it is
+that all this does not affect me. I look upon him now as a stranger. I
+cannot believe that I am his wife. You see how I can laugh at
+his--his--want of delicacy."
+
+And without knowing why they all three embraced each other, smiling
+and happy.
+
+Two days later, after breakfast, just as Julien had started away from
+the house on horseback, a strapping young fellow from twenty-one to
+twenty-five years old, clad in a brand-new blue blouse with wide
+sleeves buttoning at the wrist, slyly jumped over the gate, as though
+he had been there awaiting his opportunity all the morning, crept
+along the Couillards' ditch, came round the château, and cautiously
+approached the baron and his wife, who were still sitting under the
+plane-tree.
+
+He took off his cap and advanced, bowing in an awkward manner. As soon
+as he was close to them he said: "Your servant, Monsieur le Baron,
+madame and the company." Then, as no one replied, he said: "It is I, I
+am Desiré Lecocq."
+
+As the name conveyed nothing to them, the baron asked, "What do you
+want?"
+
+Then, altogether upset at the necessity of explaining himself, the
+young fellow stuttered out as he gazed alternately at his cap, which
+he held in his hands, and at the roof of the château: "It was M'sieu
+le Curé who said something to me about this matter----" And then he
+stopped, fearing he might say too much and compromise his own
+interests.
+
+The other, lowering his voice, blurted out: "That matter of your
+maid--Rosalie----"
+
+Jeanne, who had guessed what was coming, had risen and moved away with
+her infant in her arms.
+
+"Come nearer," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had
+just left. The peasant sat down, murmuring: "You are very good." Then
+he waited as though he had no more to say. After a long silence, he
+screwed up courage, and looking up at the sky, remarked: "There's fine
+weather for the time of year. But the earth will be none the better
+for it, as the seed is already sown." And then he was silent again.
+
+The baron was growing impatient. He plunged right into the subject and
+said drily: "Then it is you who are going to marry Rosalie?"
+
+The man at once became uneasy, his Norman caution being on the alert.
+He replied with more animation, but with a tinge of defiance: "That
+depends; perhaps yes, perhaps no; it depends."
+
+The baron, annoyed at this hedging, exclaimed angrily: "Answer
+frankly, damn it! Was this what you came here for? Yes or no! Will you
+marry her? Yes or no!"
+
+The bewildered man looked steadfastly at his feet: "If it is as M'sieu
+le Curé said, I will take her, but if it is as M'sieu Julien said, I
+will not take her."
+
+"What did M. Julien tell you?"
+
+"M'sieu Julien told me fifteen hundred francs and M'sieu le Curé told
+me that I should have twenty thousand. I will do it for twenty
+thousand, but I will not do it for fifteen hundred."
+
+The baroness, who was buried in her easy chair, began to giggle at the
+anxious expression of the peasant, who, not understanding this
+frivolity, glanced at her angrily out of the corner of his eye and
+waited in silence.
+
+The baron, who was embarrassed at this bargaining, cut it short by
+saying: "I told M. le Curé that you should have the Barville farm
+during your lifetime and that then it would revert to the child. It is
+worth twenty thousand francs. I do not go back on my word. Is it
+settled? Yes or no!"
+
+The man smiled with a humble and satisfied expression, and suddenly
+becoming loquacious, said: "Oh, in that case, I will not say no. That
+was all that stood in my way. When M'sieu le Curé spoke to me, I was
+ready at once, by gosh! and I was very pleased to accommodate the
+baron who was giving me that. I said to myself, 'Is it not true that
+when people are willing to do each other favors, they can always find
+a way and can make it worth while?' But M'sieu Julien came to see me,
+and it was only fifteen hundred francs. I said to myself: 'I must see
+about that,' and so I came here. That is not to say that I did not
+trust you, but I wanted to know. Short accounts make long friends. Is
+not that true, M'sieu le Baron?"
+
+The baron interrupted him by asking, "When do you wish to get
+married?"
+
+The man became timid again, very much embarrassed, and finally said,
+hesitatingly: "I will not do it until I get a little paper."
+
+This time the baron got angry: "Doggone it! you will have the marriage
+contract. That is the best kind of paper."
+
+But the peasant was stubborn: "Meanwhile I might take a little turn;
+it will not be dark for a while."
+
+The baron rose to make an end of the matter: "Answer yes or no at
+once. If you do not wish her, say so; I have another suitor."
+
+The fear of a rival terrified the crafty Norman. He suddenly made up
+his mind and held out his hand, as after buying a cow, saying: "Put it
+there, M'sieu le Baron; it is a bargain. Whoever draws back is a
+skunk!"
+
+The baron shook his hand, then called out: "Ludivine!" The cook
+appeared at the window. "Bring us a bottle of wine." They clinked
+glasses to seal the matter and the young peasant went off with a light
+tread.
+
+Nothing was said to Julien about this visit. The contract was drawn up
+with all secrecy and as soon as the banns were published the wedding
+took place one Monday morning.
+
+A neighbor carried the child to church, walking behind the bride and
+groom, as a sure sign of good luck. And no one in all the district was
+surprised; they simply envied Desiré Lecocq. "He was born with a
+caul," they said, with a sly smile into which there entered no
+resentment.
+
+Julien was terribly angry and made such a scene that his parents-in-law
+cut short their visit to the "Poplars." Jeanne was only moderately
+sad at their departure, for little Paul had become for her an
+inexhaustible source of happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DEATH OF LA BARONNE
+
+As Jeanne's health was quite restored, they determined to go and
+return the Fourvilles' visit and also to call on the Marquis de
+Coutelier.
+
+Julien had bought at a sale a new one-horse phaeton, so that they
+could go out twice a month. They set out one fine December morning,
+and after driving for two hours across the plains of Normandy, they
+began to descend a little slope into a little valley, the sides of
+which were wooded, while the valley itself was cultivated. After an
+abrupt turn in the valley they saw the Château of Vrillette, a wooded
+slope on one side of it and a large pond on the other, out of which
+rose one of its walls and which was bounded by a wood of tall pine
+trees that formed the other side of the valley.
+
+Julien explained all the portions of the building to Jeanne, like one
+who knows his subject thoroughly, and went into raptures over its
+beauty, adding; "It is full of game, this country. The comte loves to
+hunt here. This is a true seignorial residence."
+
+The hall door was opened and the pale comtesse appeared, coming
+forward to meet the visitors, all smiles, and wearing a long-trained
+dress, like a chatelaine of olden times. She looked a fitting lady of
+the lake, born to inhabit this fairy castle.
+
+The comtesse took both Jeanne's hands, as if she had known her all her
+life, and made her sit down beside her in a low chair, while Julien,
+all of whose forgotten elegance seemed to have revived within the past
+five months, chatted and smiled quietly and familiarly.
+
+The comtesse and he talked of their horseback rides. She was laughing
+at his manner of mounting a horse and called him "Le Chevalier
+Trébuche," and he smiled also, having nicknamed her "The Amazon
+Queen." A gun fired beneath the windows caused Jeanne to give a little
+scream. It was the comte, who had killed a teal.
+
+His wife called to him. A sound of oars was heard, a boat grinding
+against the stones, and he appeared, enormous, booted, followed by two
+drenched dogs of a ruddy color like himself, who lay down on the mat
+outside the door.
+
+He seemed more at his ease in his own home, and was delighted to see
+his visitors. He put some wood on the fire, sent for madeira and
+biscuits and then exclaimed suddenly: "Why, you will take dinner with
+us, of course."
+
+Jeanne, whose child was never out of her thoughts, declined. He
+insisted, and as she could not be persuaded, Julien made a gesture of
+annoyance. She feared to arouse his ugly, quarrelsome temper, and
+although she was very unhappy at the thought that she should not see
+Paul until the next day, she consented to stay.
+
+The afternoon was delightful. They first visited the springs which
+bubbled up at the foot of a mossy rock and then took a row on the
+pond. At one end of the boat Julien and the comtesse, wrapped in
+shawls, were smiling happily like those who have nothing left to wish
+for.
+
+A huge fire was blazing in the spacious reception room, which imparted
+a sense of warmth and contentment. The comte seized his wife in his
+arms and lifted her from the floor as though she had been a child and
+gave her a hearty kiss on each cheek, like a man satisfied with the
+world.
+
+Jeanne, smiling, looked at this good giant whom one would have thought
+was an ogre at the very sight of his mustaches, and she thought: "How
+one may be deceived each day about everybody." Then, almost
+involuntarily, she glanced at Julien standing in the doorway, looking
+horribly pale and with his eyes fixed on the comte. She approached him
+and said in a low tone: "Are you ill? What is the matter with you?" He
+answered her angrily: "Nothing. Let me alone! I was cold."
+
+When they went into the dining-room the count asked if he might let
+his dogs come in, and they settled themselves one on either side of
+their master.
+
+After dinner, as Jeanne and Julien were preparing to leave, M. de
+Fourville kept them a little longer to look at some fishing by
+torchlight. When they finally set out, wrapped up in their cloaks and
+some rugs they had borrowed, Jeanne said almost involuntarily: "What a
+fine man that giant is!" Julien, who was driving, replied: "Yes, but
+he does not always restrain himself before company."
+
+A week later they called on the Couteliers, who were supposed to be
+the chief noble family in the province. Their property of Remenil
+adjoined the large town of Cany. The new château built in the reign of
+Louis XIV. was hidden in a magnificent park enclosed by walls. The
+ruins of the old château could be seen on an eminence. They were
+ushered into a stately reception room by men servants in livery. In
+the middle of the room a sort of column held an immense bowl of Sèvres
+ware and on the pedestal of the column an autograph letter from the
+king, under glass, requested the Marquis Leopold-Hervé-Joseph-Germer
+de Varneville de Rollebosc de Coutelier to receive this present from
+his sovereign.
+
+Jeanne and Julien were looking at this royal gift when the marquis and
+marquise entered the room.
+
+They were very ceremonious people whose minds, sentiments and words
+seemed always to be on stilts. They spoke without waiting for an
+answer, smiling complacently, appearing always to be fulfilling the
+duty imposed on them by their position, of showing civilities to the
+inferior nobility of the region.
+
+Jeanne and Julien, somewhat taken aback, endeavored to be agreeable,
+but although they felt too embarrassed to remain any longer, they did
+not know exactly how to take their leave. The marquise herself put an
+end to the visit naturally and simply by bringing the conversation to
+a close like a queen giving a dismissal.
+
+On the way home Julien said: "If you like, we will make this our first
+and last call; the Fourvilles are good enough for me." Jeanne was of
+the same opinion. December passed slowly and the shut-in life began
+again as in the previous year. But Jeanne did not find it wearisome,
+as she was always taken up with Paul, whom Julien looked at askance,
+uneasy and annoyed. Often when the mother held the child in her arms,
+kissing it frantically as women do their children, she would hold it
+up to its father, saying: "Give him a kiss; one would suppose you did
+not love him." He would hardly touch with his lips the child's smooth
+forehead, walking all round it, as though he did not wish to touch the
+restless little fists. Then he would walk away abruptly as though from
+something distasteful.
+
+The mayor, the doctor and the curé came to dinner occasionally, and
+sometimes it was the Fourvilles, with whom they were becoming more and
+more intimate. The comte appeared to worship Paul. He held him on his
+knees during the whole visit and sometimes during the whole afternoon,
+playing with him and amusing him and then kissing him tenderly as
+mothers do. He always lamented that he had no children of his own.
+
+Comtesse Gilberte again mentioned the rides they all four were going
+to take together. Jeanne, a little weary of the monotonous days and
+nights, was quite happy in anticipation of these plans, and for a week
+amused herself making a riding habit.
+
+They always set out two and two, the comtesse and Julien ahead, the
+count and Jeanne a hundred feet behind them, talking quietly, like
+good friends, for such they had become through the sympathy of their
+straightforward minds and simple hearts. The others often spoke in a
+low tone, sometimes bursting into laughter and looking quickly at each
+other, as though their eyes were expressing what they dared not utter.
+And they would suddenly set off at a gallop, impelled by a desire to
+flee, to get away, far away.
+
+Then Gilberte would seem to be growing irritable. Her sharp voice,
+borne on the breeze, occasionally reached the ears of the loitering
+couple. The comte would smile and say to Jeanne: "She does not always
+get out of bed the right side, that wife of mine."
+
+One evening as they were coming home the comtesse was teasing her
+mount, spurring it and then checking it abruptly. They heard Julien
+say several time: "Take care, take care; you will be thrown." "So much
+the worse," she replied; "it is none of your business," in a hard
+clear tone that resounded across the fields as though the words hung
+in the air.
+
+The animal reared, plunged and champed the bit. The comte, uneasy,
+shouted: "Be careful, Gilberte!" Then, as if in defiance, with one of
+those impulses of a woman whom nothing can stop, she struck her horse
+brutally between the ears. The animal reared in anger, pawed the air
+with his front feet and, landing again on his feet, gave a bound and
+darted across the plain at full speed.
+
+First it crossed the meadow, then plunging into a ploughed field
+kicked up the damp rich earth behind it, going so fast that one could
+hardly distinguish its rider. Julien remained transfixed with
+astonishment, calling out in despair: "Madame, madame!" but the comte
+was rather annoyed, and, bending forward on his heavy mount, he urged
+it forward and started out at such a pace, spurring it on with his
+voice, his gestures and the spur, that the huge horseman seemed to be
+carrying the heavy beast between his legs and to be lifting it up as
+if to fly. They went at incredible speed, straight ahead, and Jeanne
+saw the outline of the wife and of the husband fleeing getting smaller
+and disappearing in the distance, as if they were two birds pursuing
+each other to the verge of the horizon.
+
+Julien, approaching Jeanne slowly, murmured angrily: "I think she is
+crazy to-day." And they set out together to follow their friends, who
+were now hidden by the rising ground.
+
+At the end of about a quarter of an hour they saw them returning and
+presently joined them. The comte, perspiring, his face red, but
+smiling, happy and triumphant, was holding his wife's trembling horse
+in his iron grasp. Gilberte was pale, her face sad and drawn, and she
+was leaning one hand on her husband's shoulder as if she were going to
+faint. Jeanne understood now that the comte loved her madly.
+
+After this the comtesse for some months seemed happier than she had
+ever been. She came to the "Poplars" more frequently, laughed
+continually and kissed Jeanne impulsively. One might have said that
+some mysterious charm had come into her life. Her husband was also
+quite happy and never took his eyes off her. He said to Jeanne one
+evening: "We are very happy just now. Gilberte has never been so nice
+as this. She never is out of humor, never gets angry. I feel that she
+loves me; until now I was not sure of it."
+
+Julien also seemed changed, no longer impatient, as though the
+friendship between the two families had brought peace and happiness to
+both. The spring was singularly early and mild. Everything seemed to
+be coming to life beneath the quickening rays of the sun. Jeanne was
+vaguely troubled at this awakening of nature. Memories came to her of
+the early days of her love. Not that her love for Julien was renewed;
+that was over, over forever. But all her being, caressed by the
+breeze, filled with the fragrance of spring, was disturbed as though
+in response to some invisible and tender appeal. She loved to be
+alone, to give herself up in the sunlight to all kinds of vague and
+calm enjoyment which did not necessitate thinking.
+
+One morning as she was in a reverie a vision came to her, a swift
+vision of the sunlit nook amid the dark foliage in the little wood
+near Étretat. It was there that she had for the first time trembled,
+when beside the young man who loved her then. It was there that he had
+uttered for the first time the timid desire of his heart. It was there
+that she thought that she had all at once reached the radiant future
+of her hopes. She wished to see this wood again, to make a sort of
+sentimental and superstitious pilgrimage, as though a return to this
+spot might somehow change the current of her life. Julien had been
+gone since daybreak, she knew not whither. She had the little white
+horse, which she sometimes rode, saddled, and she set out. It was one
+of those days when nothing seemed stirring, not a blade of grass, not
+a leaf. All seemed wrapped in a golden mist beneath the blazing sun.
+Jeanne walked her horse, soothed and happy.
+
+She descended into the valley which leads to the sea, between the
+great arches in the cliff that are called the "Gates" of Étretat, and
+slowly reached the wood. The sunlight was streaming through the still
+scanty foliage. She wandered about the little paths, looking for the
+spot.
+
+All at once, as she was going along one of the lower paths, she
+perceived at the farther end of it two horses tied to a tree and
+recognized them at once; they belonged to Gilberte and Julien. The
+loneliness of the place was beginning to be irksome to her, and she
+was pleased at this chance meeting, and whipped up her horse.
+
+When she reached the two patient animals, who were probably accustomed
+to these long halts, she called. There was no reply. A woman's glove
+and two riding whips lay on the beaten-down grass. So they had no
+doubt sat down there awhile and then walked away leaving their horses
+tied.
+
+She waited a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, surprised, not
+understanding what could be keeping them. She had dismounted. She sat
+there, leaning against a tree trunk. Suddenly a thought came to her as
+she glanced again at the glove, the whips and the two horses left tied
+there, and she sprang to her saddle with an irresistible desire to
+make her escape.
+
+She started off at a gallop for the "Poplars." She was turning things
+over in her mind, trying to reason, to put two and two together, to
+compare facts. How was it that she had not suspected this sooner? How
+was it that she had not noticed anything? How was it she had not
+guessed the reason of Julien's frequent absences, the renewal of his
+former attention to his appearance and the improvement in his temper?
+She now recalled Gilberte's nervous abruptness, her exaggerated
+affection and the kind of beaming happiness in which she seemed to
+exist latterly and that so pleased the comte.
+
+She reined in her horse, as she wanted to think, and the quick pace
+disturbed her ideas.
+
+As soon as the first emotion was over she became almost calm, without
+jealousy or hatred, but filled with contempt. She hardly gave Julien a
+thought; nothing he might do could astonish her. But the double
+treachery of the comtesse, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone, then,
+was treacherous, untruthful and false. And tears came to her eyes. One
+sometimes mourns lost illusions as deeply as one does the death of a
+friend.
+
+She resolved, however, to act as though she knew nothing, to close the
+doors of her heart to all ordinary affection and to love no one but
+Paul and her parents and to endure other people with an undisturbed
+countenance.
+
+As soon as she got home she ran to her son, carried him up to her room
+and kissed him passionately for an hour.
+
+Julien came home to dinner, smiling and attentive, and appeared
+interested as he asked: "Are not father and little mother coming this
+year?"
+
+She was so grateful to him for this little attention that she almost
+forgave him for the discovery she had made in the wood, and she was
+filled all of a sudden with an intense desire to see without delay the
+two beings in the world whom she loved next to Paul, and passed the
+whole evening writing to them to hasten their journey.
+
+They promised to be there on the 20th of May and it was now the 7th.
+
+She awaited their arrival with a growing impatience, as though she
+felt, in addition to her filial affection, the need of opening her
+heart to honest hearts, to talk with frankness to pure-minded people,
+devoid of all infamy, all of whose life, actions and thoughts had been
+upright at all times.
+
+What she now felt was a sort of moral isolation, amid all this
+immorality, and, although she had learned suddenly to disseminate,
+although she received the comtesse with outstretched hand and smiling
+lips, she felt this consciousness of hollowness, this contempt for
+humanity increasing and enveloping her, and the petty gossip of the
+district gave her a still greater disgust, a still lower opinion of
+her fellow creatures.
+
+The immorality of the peasants shocked her, and this warm spring
+seemed to stir the sap in human beings as well as in plants. Jeanne
+did not belong to the race of peasants who are dominated by their
+lower instincts. Julien one day awakened her aversion anew by telling
+her a coarse story that had been told to him and that he considered
+very amusing.
+
+When the travelling carriage stopped at the door and the happy face of
+the baron appeared at the window Jeanne was stirred with so deep an
+emotion, such a tumultuous feeling of affection as she had never
+before experienced. But when she saw her mother she was shocked and
+almost fainted. The baroness, in six months, had aged ten years. Her
+heavy cheeks had grown flabby and purple, as though the blood were
+congested; her eyes were dim and she could no longer move about unless
+supported under each arm. Her breathing was difficult and wheezing and
+affected those near her with a painful sensation.
+
+When Jeanne had taken them to their room, she retired to her own in
+order to have a good cry, as she was so upset. Then she went to look
+for her father, and throwing herself into his arms, she exclaimed, her
+eyes still full of tears: "Oh, how mother is changed! What is the
+matter with her? Tell me, what is the matter?" He was much surprised
+and replied: "Do you think so? What an idea! Why, no. I have never
+been away from her. I assure you that I do not think she looks ill.
+She always looks like that."
+
+That evening Julien said to his wife: "Your mother is in a pretty bad
+way. I think she will not last long." And as Jeanne burst out sobbing,
+he became annoyed. "Come, I did not say there was no hope for her. You
+always exaggerate everything. She is changed, that's all. She is no
+longer young."
+
+The baroness was not able to walk any distance and only went out for
+half an hour each day to take one turn in her avenue and then she
+would sit on the bench. And when she felt unequal to walking to the
+end of her avenue, she would say: "Let us stop; my hypertrophy is
+breaking my legs today." She hardly ever laughed now as she did the
+previous year at anything that amused her, but only smiled. As she
+could see to read excellently, she passed hours reading "Corinne" or
+Lamartine's "Meditations." Then she would ask for her drawer of
+"souvenirs," and emptying her cherished letters on her lap, she would
+place the drawer on a chair beside her and put back, one by one, her
+"relics," after she had slowly gone over them. And when she was alone,
+quite alone, she would kiss some of them, as one kisses in secret a
+lock of hair of a loved one passed away.
+
+Sometimes Jeanne, coming in abruptly, would find her weeping and would
+exclaim: "What is the matter, little mother?" And the baroness,
+sighing deeply, would reply: "It is my 'relics' that make me cry. They
+stir remembrances that were so delightful and that are now past
+forever, and one is reminded of persons whom one had forgotten and
+recalls once more. You seem to see them, to hear them and it affects
+you strangely. You will feel this later."
+
+When the baron happened to come in at such times he would say gently:
+"Jeanne, dearie, take my advice and burn your letters, all of
+them--your mother's, mine, everyone's. There is nothing more dreadful,
+when one is growing old, than to look back to one's youth." But Jeanne
+also kept her letters, was preparing a chest of "relics" in obedience
+to a sort of hereditary instinct of dreamy sentimentality, although
+she differed from her mother in every other way.
+
+The baron was obliged to leave them some days later, as he had some
+business that called him away.
+
+One afternoon Jeanne took Paul in her arms and went out for a walk.
+She was sitting on a bank, gazing at the infant, whom she seemed to be
+looking at for the first time. She could hardly imagine him grown up,
+walking with a steady step, with a beard on his face and talking in a
+big voice. She heard someone calling and raised her head. Marius came
+running toward her.
+
+"Madame, Madame la Baronne is very bad!"
+
+A cold chill seemed to run down her back as she started up and walked
+hurriedly toward the house.
+
+As she approached she saw a number of persons grouped around the plane
+tree. She darted forward and saw her mother lying on the ground with
+two pillows under her head. Her face was black, her eyes closed and
+her breathing, which had been difficult for twenty years, now quite
+hushed. The nurse took the child out of Jeanne's arms and carried it
+off.
+
+Jeanne, with drawn, anxious face, asked: "What happened? How did she
+come to fall? Go for the doctor, somebody." Turning round, she saw the
+old curé, who had heard of it in some way. He offered his services and
+began rolling up the sleeves of his cassock. But vinegar, eau de
+cologne and rubbing the invalid proved ineffectual.
+
+"She should be undressed and put to bed," said the priest.
+
+Joseph Couillard, the farmer, was there and old Simon and Ludivine.
+With the assistance of Abbé Picot, they tried to lift the baroness,
+but after an attempt were obliged to bring a large easy chair from the
+drawing-room and place her in it. In this way they managed to get her
+into the house and then upstairs, where they laid her on her bed.
+
+Joseph Couillard set out in hot haste for the doctor. As the priest
+was going to get the holy oil, the nurse, who had "scented a death,"
+as the servants say, and was on the spot, whispered to him: "Do not
+put yourself out, monsieur; she is dead. I know all about these
+things."
+
+Jeanne, beside herself, entreated them to do something. The priest
+thought it best to pronounce the absolution.
+
+They watched for two hours beside this lifeless, discolored body.
+Jeanne, on her knees, was sobbing in an agony of grief.
+
+When the door opened and the doctor appeared, Jeanne darted toward
+him, stammering out what she knew of the accident, but seeing the
+nurse exchange a meaning glance with the doctor, she stopped to ask
+him: "Is it serious? Do you think it is serious?"
+
+He said presently: "I am afraid--I am afraid--it is all over. Be
+brave, be brave."
+
+Jeanne, extending her arms, threw herself on her mother's body. Julien
+just then came in. He stood there amazed, visibly annoyed, without any
+exclamation of sorrow, any appearance of grief, taken so unawares that
+he had not time to prepare a suitable expression of countenance. He
+muttered: "I was expecting it, I felt that the end was near." Then he
+took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, knelt down, crossed
+himself, and then rising to his feet, attempted to raise his wife. But
+she was clasping the dead body and kissing it, and it became necessary
+to carry her away. She appeared to be out of her mind.
+
+At the end of an hour she was allowed to come back. There was no
+longer any hope. The room was arranged as a death chamber. Julien and
+the priest were talking in a low tone near the window. It was growing
+dark. The priest came over to Jeanne and took her hands, trying to
+console her. He spoke of the defunct, praised her in pious phrases and
+offered to pass the night in prayer beside the body.
+
+But Jeanne refused, amid convulsive sobs. She wished to be alone,
+quite alone on this last night of farewell. Julien came forward: "But
+you must not do it; we will stay together." She shook her head, unable
+to speak. At last she said: "It is my mother, my mother. I wish to
+watch beside her alone." The doctor murmured: "Let her do as she
+pleases; the nurse can stay in the adjoining room."
+
+The priest and Julien consented, more interested in their own rest.
+Then Abbé Picot knelt down in his turn, and as he rose and left the
+room, he said: "She was a saint" in the same tone as he said "Dominus
+vobiscum."
+
+The vicomte in his ordinary tone then asked: "Are you not going to eat
+something?" Jeanne did not reply, not knowing he was speaking to her,
+and he repeated: "You had better eat something to keep up your
+stomach." She replied in a bewildered manner: "Send at once for papa."
+And he went out of the room to send someone on horseback to Rouen.
+
+She remained plunged in a sort of motionless grief, seeing nothing,
+feeling nothing, understanding nothing. She only wanted to be alone.
+Julien came back. He had dined and he asked her again: "Won't you take
+something?" She shook her head. He sat down with an air of resignation
+rather than sadness, without speaking, and they both sat there silent,
+till at length Julien arose, and approaching Jeanne, said: "Would you
+like to stay alone now?" She took his hand impulsively and replied:
+"Oh, yes! leave me!"
+
+He kissed her forehead, murmuring: "I will come in and see you from
+time to time." He went out with Widow Dentu, who rolled her easy chair
+into the next room.
+
+Jeanne shut the door and opened the windows wide. She felt the soft
+breath from the mown hay that lay in the moonlight on the lawn. It
+seemed to harrow her feelings like an ironical remark.
+
+She went back to the bed, took one of the cold, inert hands and looked
+at her mother earnestly. She seemed to be sleeping more peacefully
+than she had ever done, and the pale flame of the tapers which
+flickered at every breath made her face appear to be alive, as if she
+had stirred. Jeanne remembered all the little incidents of her
+childhood, the visits of little mother to the "parloir" of the
+convent, the manner in which she handed her a little paper bag of
+cakes, a multitude of little details, little acts, little caresses,
+words, intonations, familiar gestures, the creases at the corner of
+her eyes when she laughed, the big sigh she gave when she sat down.
+
+And she stood there looking at her, repeating half mechanically: "She
+is dead," and all the horror of the word became real to her. It was
+mamma lying there--little mother--Mamma Adelaide who was dead. She
+would never move about again, nor speak, nor laugh, nor sit at dinner
+opposite little father. She would never again say: "Good-morning,
+Jeannette." She was dead!
+
+And she fell on her knees in a paroxysm of despair, her hands
+clutching the sheet, her face buried in the covers as she cried in a
+heartrending tone: "Oh, mamma, my poor mamma!" Then feeling that she
+was losing her reason as she had done on the night when she fled
+across the snow, she rose and ran to the window to drink in the fresh
+air. The soothing calmness of the night entered her soul and she began
+to weep quietly.
+
+Presently she turned back into the room and sat down again beside
+her mother. Other remembrances came to her: those of her own
+life--Rosalie, Gilberte, the bitter disillusions of her heart.
+Everything, then, was only misery, grief, unhappiness and death.
+Everyone tried to deceive, everyone lied, everyone made you suffer and
+weep. Where could one find a little rest and happiness? In another
+existence no doubt, when the soul is freed from the trials of earth.
+And she began to ponder on this insoluble mystery.
+
+A tender and curious thought came to her mind. It was to read over in
+this last watch, as though they were a litany, the old letters that
+her mother loved. It seemed to her that she was about to perform a
+delicate and sacred duty which would give pleasure to little mother in
+the other world.
+
+She rose, opened the writing desk and took from the lower drawer ten
+little packages of yellow letters, tied and arranged in order, side by
+side. She placed them all on the bed over her mother's heart from a
+sort of sentiment and began to read them. They were old letters that
+savored of a former century. The first began, "My dear little
+granddaughter," then again "My dear little girl," "My darling," "My
+dearest daughter," then "My dear child," "My dear Adelaide," "My dear
+daughter," according to the periods--childhood, youth or young
+womanhood. They were all full of little insignificant details and
+tender words, about a thousand little matters, those simple but
+important events of home life, so petty to outsiders: "Father has the
+grip; poor Hortense burnt her finger; the cat, 'Croquerat,' is dead;
+they have cut down the pine tree to the right of the gate; mother lost
+her prayerbook on the way home from church, she thinks it was stolen."
+
+All these details affected her. They seemed like revelations, as
+though she had suddenly entered the past secret heart life of little
+mother. She looked at her lying there and suddenly began to read
+aloud, to read to the dead, as though to distract, to console her.
+
+And the dead woman appeared to be pleased.
+
+Jeanne tossed the letters as she read them to the foot of the bed. She
+untied another package. It was a new handwriting. She read: "I cannot
+do without your caresses. I love you so that I am almost crazy."
+
+That was all; no signature.
+
+She put back the letter without understanding its meaning. The address
+was certainly "Madame la Baronne Le Perthuis des Vauds."
+
+Then she opened another: "Come this evening as soon as he goes out; we
+shall have an hour together. I worship you." In another: "I passed the
+night longing in vain for you, longing to look into your eyes, to
+press my lips to yours, and I am insane enough to throw myself from
+the window at the thought that you are another's...."
+
+Jeanne was perfectly bewildered. What did that mean? To whom, for
+whom, from whom were these words of love?
+
+She went on reading, coming across fresh impassioned declarations,
+appointments with warnings as to prudence, and always at the end the
+six words: "Be sure to burn this letter!"
+
+At last she opened an ordinary note, accepting an invitation to
+dinner, but in the same handwriting and signed: "Paul d'Ennemare,"
+whom the baron called, whenever he spoke of him, "My poor old Paul,"
+and whose wife had been the baroness' dearest friend.
+
+Then a suspicion, which immediately became a certainty, flashed across
+Jeanne's mind: He had been her mother's lover.
+
+And, almost beside herself, she suddenly threw aside these infamous
+letters as she would have thrown off some venomous reptile and ran to
+the window and began to cry piteously. Then, collapsing, she sank down
+beside the wall, and hiding her face in the curtain so that no one
+should hear her, she sobbed bitterly as if in hopeless despair.
+
+She would have remained thus probably all night, if she had not heard
+a noise in the adjoining room that made her start to her feet. It
+might be her father. And all the letters were lying on the floor! He
+would have to open only one of them to know all! Her father!
+
+She darted into the other room and seizing the letters in handfuls,
+she threw them all into the fireplace, those of her grandparents as
+well as those of the lover; some that she had not looked at and some
+that had remained tied up in the drawers of the desk. She then took
+one of the tapers that burned beside the bed and set fire to this pile
+of letters. When they were reduced to ashes she went back to the open
+window, as though she no longer dared to sit beside the dead, and
+began to cry again with her face in her hands: "Oh, my poor mamma! oh,
+my poor mamma!"
+
+The stars were paling. It was the cool hour that precedes the dawn.
+The moon was sinking on the horizon and turning the sea to mother of
+pearl. The recollection of the night she passed at the window when she
+first came to the "Poplars" came to Jeanne's mind. How far away it
+seemed, how everything was changed, how different the future now
+seemed!
+
+The sky was becoming pink, a joyous, love-inspiring, enchanting pink.
+She looked at it in surprise, as at some phenomenon, this radiant
+break of day, and asked herself if it were possible that, on a planet
+where such dawns were found, there should be neither joy nor
+happiness.
+
+A noise at the door made her start. It was Julien. "Well," he said,
+"are you not very tired?"
+
+She murmured, "No," happy at being no longer alone. "Go and rest now,"
+he said. She kissed her mother a long, sad kiss; then she went to her
+room.
+
+The next day passed in the usual attentions to the dead. The baron
+arrived toward evening. He wept for some time.
+
+The funeral took place the following day. After pressing a last kiss
+on her mother's icy forehead and seeing the coffin nailed down, Jeanne
+left the room. The invited guests would soon arrive.
+
+Gilberte was the first to come, and she threw herself sobbing on her
+friend's shoulder. Women in black presently entered the room one after
+another, people whom Jeanne did not know. The Marquise de Coutelier
+and the Vicomtesse de Briseville embraced her. She suddenly saw Aunt
+Lison gliding in behind her. She turned round and kissed her tenderly.
+
+Julien came in, dressed all in black, elegant, very important, pleased
+at seeing so many people. He asked his wife some question in a low
+tone and added confidentially: "All the nobility are here; it will be
+a fine affair." And he walked away, gravely bowing to the ladies. Aunt
+Lison and Comtesse Gilberte alone remained with Jeanne during the
+service for the dead. The comtesse kissed her repeatedly, exclaiming:
+"My poor dear, my poor dear!"
+
+When Comte de Fourville came to fetch his wife he was also crying as
+though it were for his own mother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RETRIBUTION
+
+The following days were very sad and dreary, as they always are when
+there has been a death in the house. And, in addition, Jeanne was
+crushed at the thought of what she had discovered; her last shred of
+confidence had been destroyed with the destruction of her faith.
+Little father, after a short stay, went away to try and distract his
+thoughts from his grief, and the large house, whose former masters
+were leaving it from time to time, resumed its usual calm and
+monotonous course.
+
+Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne was almost beside herself, not sleeping
+for ten days, and scarcely tasting food. He recovered, but she was
+haunted by the idea that he might die. Then what should she do? What
+would become of her? And there gradually stole into her heart the hope
+that she might have another child. She dreamed of it, became obsessed
+with the idea. She longed to realize her old dream of seeing two
+little children around her; a boy and a girl.
+
+But since the affair of Rosalie she and Julien had lived apart. A
+reconciliation seemed impossible in their present situation. Julien
+loved some one else, she knew it; and the very thought of suffering
+his approach filled her with repugnance. She had no one left whom she
+could consult. She resolved to go and see Abbé Picot and tell him,
+under the seal of confession, all that weighed upon her mind in this
+matter.
+
+He was reading from his breviary in his little garden planted with
+fruit trees when she arrived.
+
+After a few minutes' conversation on indifferent matters, she
+faltered, her color rising: "I want to confess, Monsieur l'Abbé."
+
+He looked at her in astonishment, as he pushed his spectacles back on
+his forehead; then he began to laugh. "You surely have no great sins
+on your conscience." This embarrassed her greatly, and she replied:
+"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject that is so--so--so
+painful that I dare not mention it casually."
+
+He at once laid aside his jovial manner and assumed his priestly
+attitude. "Well, my child, I will listen to you in the confessional;
+come along."
+
+But she held back, undecided, restrained by a kind of scruple at
+speaking of these matters, of which she was half ashamed, in the
+seclusion of an empty church.
+
+"Or else, no--Monsieur le Curé--I might--I might--if you wish, tell
+you now what brings me here. Let us go and sit over there, in your
+little arbor."
+
+They walked toward it, and Jeanne tried to think how she could begin.
+They sat down in the arbor, and then, as if she were confessing
+herself, she said: "Father----" then hesitated, and repeated:
+"Father----" and was silent from emotion.
+
+He waited, his hands crossed over his paunch. Seeing her
+embarrassment, he sought to encourage her: "Why, my daughter, one
+would suppose you were afraid; come, take courage."
+
+She plucked up courage, like a coward who plunges headlong into
+danger. "Father, I should like to have another child." He did not
+reply, as he did not understand her. Then she explained, timid and
+unable to express herself clearly:
+
+"I am all alone in life now; my father and my husband do not get along
+together; my mother is dead; and--and----" she added with a shudder,
+"the other day I nearly lost my son! What would have become of me
+then?"
+
+She was silent. The priest, bewildered, was gazing at her. "Come, get
+to the point of your subject."
+
+"I want to have another child," she said. Then he smiled, accustomed
+to the coarse jokes of the peasants, who were not embarrassed in his
+presence, and he replied, with a sly motion of his head:
+
+"Well, it seems to me that it depends only on yourself."
+
+She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said, hesitating with
+confusion: "But--but--you understand that since--since--what you know
+about--about that maid--my husband and I have lived--have lived quite
+apart."
+
+Accustomed to the promiscuity and undignified relations of the
+peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought
+he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of
+the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of
+sympathy for her distress, he said: "Oh, I understand perfectly. I
+know that your widowhood must be irksome to you. You are young and in
+good health. It is natural, quite natural."
+
+He smiled, bearing out his easy-going character of a country priest,
+and tapping Jeanne lightly on the hand, he said: "That is permissible,
+very permissible indeed, according to the commandments. You are
+married, are you not? Well, then, what is the harm?"
+
+She, in her turn, had not understood his hidden meaning; but as soon
+as she saw through it, she blushed scarlet, shocked, and with tears in
+her eyes exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur le Curé, what are you saying? What
+are you thinking of? I swear to you--I swear to you----" And sobs
+choked her words.
+
+He was surprised and sought to console her: "Come, I did not mean to
+hurt your feelings. I was only joking a little; there is no harm in
+that when one is decent. But you may rely on me, you may rely on me. I
+will see M. Julien."
+
+She did not know what to say. She now wished to decline this
+intervention, which she thought clumsy and dangerous, but she did not
+dare to do so, and she went away hurriedly, faltering: "I am grateful
+to you, Monsieur le Curé."
+
+A week passed. One day at dinner Julien looked at her with a peculiar
+expression, a certain smiling curve of the lips that she had noticed
+when he was teasing her. He was even almost ironically gallant toward
+her, and as they were walking after dinner in little mother's avenue,
+he said in a low tone: "We seem to have made up again."
+
+She did not reply, but continued to look on the ground at a sort of
+track that was almost effaced now that the grass was sprouting anew.
+They were the footprints of the baroness, which were vanishing as does
+a memory. And Jeanne was plunged in sadness; she felt herself lost in
+life, far away from everyone.
+
+"As for me, I ask nothing better. I was afraid of displeasing you,"
+continued Julien.
+
+The sun was going down, the air was mild. A longing to weep came over
+Jeanne, one of those needs of unbosoming oneself to a kindred spirit,
+of unbending and telling one's griefs. A sob rose in her throat; she
+opened her arms and fell on Julien's breast, and wept. He glanced down
+in surprise at her head, for he could not see her face which was
+hidden on his shoulder. He supposed that she still loved him, and
+placed a condescending kiss on the back of her head.
+
+They entered the house and he followed her to her room. And thus they
+resumed their former relations, he, as a not unpleasant duty, and she,
+merely tolerating him.
+
+She soon noticed, however, that his manner had changed, and one day
+with her lips to his, she murmured: "Why are you not the same as you
+used to be?"
+
+"Because I do not want any more children," he said jokingly.
+
+She started. "Why not?"
+
+He appeared greatly surprised. "Eh, what's that you say? Are you
+crazy? No, indeed! One is enough, always crying and bothering
+everyone. Another baby! No, thank you!"
+
+At the end of a month she told the news to everyone, far and wide,
+with the exception of Comtesse Gilberte, from reasons of modesty and
+delicacy.
+
+What the priest had foreseen finally came to pass. She became
+enceinte. Then, filled with an unspeakable happiness, she locked her
+door every night when she retired, vowing herself from henceforth to
+eternal chastity, in gratitude to the vague divinity she adored.
+
+She was now almost quite happy again. Her children would grow up and
+love her; she would grow old quietly, happy and contented, without
+troubling herself about her husband.
+
+Toward the end of September, Abbé Picot called on a visit of ceremony
+to introduce his successor, a young priest, very thin, very short,
+with an emphatic way of talking, and with dark circles round his
+sunken eyes.
+
+The old abbé had been appointed Dean of Goderville.
+
+Jeanne was really sorry to lose the old man, who had been associated
+with all her recollections as a young woman. He had married her,
+baptized Paul, and buried the baroness. She could not imagine Étouvent
+without Abbé Picot and his paunch passing along by the farms, and she
+loved him because he was cheerful and natural.
+
+But he did not seem very cheerful at the thought of his promotion. "It
+is a wrench, it is a wrench, madame la comtesse. I have been here for
+eighteen years. Oh, the place does not bring in much, and is not
+wealthy. The men have no more religion than they need, and the women,
+look you, the women have no morals. But nevertheless, I loved it."
+
+The new curé appeared impatient, and said abruptly: "When I am here
+all that will have to be changed." He looked like an angry boy, thin
+and frail in his somewhat worn, though clean cassock.
+
+Abbé Picot looked at him sideways, as he did when he was in a joking
+mood, and said: "You see, abbé, in order to prevent those happenings,
+you will have to chain up your parishioners; and even that would not
+be of much use." The little priest replied sharply: "We shall see."
+And the older man smiled as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age
+will calm you down, abbé, and experience also. You will drive away
+from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good
+it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be
+careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather
+stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I
+try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes;
+but you can go and look for the man, and prevent him from deserting
+the mother. Get them married, abbé, get them married, and do not
+trouble yourself about anything else."
+
+"We think differently," said the young priest rudely; "it is useless
+to insist." And Abbé Picot once more began to regret his village, the
+sea which he saw from his parsonage, the little valleys where he
+walked while repeating his breviary, glancing up at the boats as they
+passed.
+
+As the two priests took their leave, the old man kissed Jeanne, who
+was on the verge of tears.
+
+A week later Abbé Tolbiac called again. He spoke of reforms which he
+intended to accomplish, as a prince might have done on taking
+possession of a kingdom. Then he requested the vicomtesse not to miss
+the service on Sunday, and to communicate a all the festivals. "You
+and I," he said, "we are at the head of the district; we must rule it
+and always set them an example to follow. We must be of one accord so
+that we may be powerful and respected. The church and the château in
+joining forces will make the peasants obey and fear us."
+
+Jeanne's religion was all sentiment; she had all a woman's dream
+faith, and if she attended at all to her religious duties, it was from
+a habit acquired at the convent, the baron's advanced ideas having
+long since overthrown her convictions. Abbé Picot contented himself
+with what observances she gave him, and never blamed her. But his
+successor, not seeing her at mass the preceding Sunday, had come to
+call, uneasy and stern.
+
+She did not wish to break with the parsonage, and promised, making up
+her mind to be assiduous in attendance the first few weeks, out of
+politeness.
+
+Little by little, however, she got into the habit of going to church,
+and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial
+abbé. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set
+in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women
+possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human
+interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience,
+his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the
+stuff martyrs were made of; and she let herself be carried away, all
+disillusioned as she was, by the fanaticism of this child, the
+minister of God.
+
+He led her to Christ, the consoler, showing her how the joy of
+religion will calm all sorrow; and she knelt at the confessional,
+humbling herself, feeling herself small and weak in presence of this
+priest, who appeared to be about fifteen.
+
+He was, however, very soon detested in all the countryside. Inflexibly
+severe toward himself, he was implacably intolerant toward others, and
+the one thing that especially roused his wrath and indignation was
+love. The young men and girls looked at each other slyly across the
+church, and the old peasants who liked to joke about such things
+disapproved his severity. All the parish was in a ferment. Soon the
+young men all stopped going to church.
+
+The curé dined at the château every Thursday, and often came during
+the week to chat with his penitent. She became enthusiastic like
+himself, talked about spiritual matters, handling all the antique and
+complicated arsenal of religious controversy.
+
+They walked together along the baroness' avenue, talking of Christ and
+the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Fathers of the Church as though
+they were personally acquainted with them.
+
+Julien treated the new priest with great respect, saying constantly:
+"That priest suits me, he does not back down." And he went to
+confession and communion, setting a fine example. He now went to the
+Fourvilles' nearly every day, gunning with the husband, who was never
+happy without him, and riding with the comtesse, in spite of rain and
+storm. The comte said: "They are crazy about riding, but it does my
+wife good."
+
+The baron returned to the château about the middle of November. He was
+changed, aged, faded, filled with a deep sadness. And his love for his
+daughter seemed to have gained in strength, as if these few months of
+dreary solitude had aggravated his need of affection, confidence and
+tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her
+friendship for the Abbé Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he
+conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that
+evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He
+must be very dangerous."
+
+When he learned from the peasants, whose friend he was, of the
+harshness and violence of the young priest, of the kind of persecution
+which he carried on against all human and natural instincts, he
+developed a hatred toward him. He, himself, was one of the old race of
+natural philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic
+Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a God with
+bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him
+reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to
+farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant priest, the persecutor
+of life.
+
+Jeanne, very much worried, prayed to the Lord, entreated her father;
+but he always replied: "We must fight such men as that, it is our duty
+and our right. They are not human."
+
+And he repeated, shaking his long white locks: "They are not human;
+they understand nothing, nothing, nothing. They are moving in a morbid
+dream; they are anti-physical." And he pronounced the word
+"anti-physical" as though it were a malediction.
+
+The priest knew who his enemy was, but as he wished to remain ruler of
+the château and of Jeanne, he temporized, sure of final victory. He
+was also haunted by a fixed idea. He had discovered by chance the
+amours of Julien and Gilberte, and he desired to put a stop to them at
+all costs.
+
+He came to see Jeanne one day and, after a long conversation on
+spiritual matters, he asked her to give her aid in helping him to
+fight, to put an end to the evil in her own family, in order to save
+two souls that were in danger.
+
+She did not understand, and did not wish to know. He replied: "The
+hour has not arrived. I shall see you some other time." And he left
+abruptly.
+
+The winter was coming to a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the
+country, damp and mild. The abbé called again some days later and
+hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between
+persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he
+said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring
+it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes
+and understand and lend him her aid.
+
+This time she understood, but she was silent, terrified at the thought
+of all that might result in the house that was now peaceful, and she
+pretended not to understand. Then he spoke out clearly.
+
+She faltered: "What do you wish me to do, Monsieur l'Abbé?"
+
+"Anything, rather than permit this infamy. Anything, I say. Leave him.
+Flee from this impure house!"
+
+"But I have no money; and then I have no longer any courage; and,
+besides, how can I go without any proof? I have not the right to do
+so."
+
+The priest arose trembling: "That is cowardice, madame; I am mistaken
+in you. You are unworthy of God's mercy!"
+
+She fell on her knees: "Oh, I pray you not to leave me, tell me what
+to do!"
+
+"Open M. de Fourville's eyes," he said abruptly. "It is his place to
+break up this intrigue."
+
+This idea filled her with terror. "Why, he would kill them, Monsieur
+l'Abbé! And I should be guilty of denouncing them! Oh, never that,
+never!"
+
+He raised his hand as if to curse her in his fury: "Remain in your
+shame and your crime; for you are more guilty than they are. You are
+the complaisant wife! There is nothing more for me to do here." And he
+went off so furious that he trembled all over.
+
+She followed him, distracted and ready to do as he suggested. But he
+strode along rapidly, shaking his large blue umbrella in his rage. He
+perceived Julien standing outside the gate superintending the lopping
+of the trees, so he turned to the left to go across the Couillard
+farm, and he said: "Leave me alone, madame, I have nothing further to
+say to you."
+
+Jeanne was entreating him to give her a few days for reflection, and
+then if he came back to the château she would tell him what she had
+done, and they could take counsel together.
+
+Right in his road, in the middle of the farmyard, a group of children,
+those of the house and some neighbor's children, were standing around
+the kennel of Mirza, the dog, looking curiously at something with
+silent and concentrated attention. In the midst of them stood the
+baron, his hands behind his back, also looking on with curiosity. One
+would have taken him for a schoolmaster. When he saw the priest
+approaching, he moved away so as not to have to meet him and speak to
+him.
+
+The priest did not call again; but the following Sunday from the
+pulpit he hurled imprecations, curses and threats against the château,
+anathematizing the baron, and making veiled allusions, but timidly, to
+Julien's latest intrigue. The vicomte was furious, but the dread of a
+shocking scandal kept him silent. At each service thereafter the
+priest declared his indignation, predicting the approach of the hour
+when God would smite all his enemies.
+
+Julien wrote a firm, but respectful letter to the archbishop; the abbé
+was threatened with suspension. He was silent thereafter.
+
+Gilberte and Julien now frequently met him during their rides reading
+his breviary, but they turned aside so as not to pass him by. Spring
+had come and reawakened their love. As the foliage was still sparse
+and the grass damp, they used to meet in a shepherd's movable hut that
+had been deserted since autumn. But one day when they were leaving it,
+they saw the Abbé Tolbiac, almost hidden in the sea rushes on the
+slope.
+
+"We must leave our horses in the ravine," said Julien, "as they can be
+seen from a distance and would betray us." One evening as they were
+coming home together to La Vrillette, where they were to dine with the
+comte, they met the curé of Étouvent coming out of the château. He
+stepped to the side of the road to let them pass, and bowed without
+their eyes meeting. They were uneasy for a few moments, but soon
+forgot it.
+
+One afternoon, Jeanne was reading beside the fire while a storm of
+wind was raging outside, when she suddenly perceived Comte Fourville
+coming on foot at such a pace that she thought some misfortune had
+happened.
+
+She ran downstairs to meet him, and when she saw him she thought he
+must be crazy. He wore a large quilted cap that he wore only at home,
+his hunting jacket, and looked so pale that his red mustache, usually
+the color of his skin, now seemed like a flame. His eyes were haggard,
+rolling as though his mind were vacant.
+
+He stammered: "My wife is here, is she not?" Jeanne, losing her
+presence of mind, replied: "Why, no, I have not seen her to-day."
+
+He sat down as if his legs had given way. He then took off his cap and
+wiped his forehead with his handkerchief mechanically several times.
+Then starting up suddenly, he approached Jeanne, his hands stretched
+out, his mouth open, as if to speak, to confide some great sorrow to
+her. Then he stopped, looked at her fixedly and said as though he were
+wandering: "But it is your husband--you also----" And he fled, going
+toward the sea.
+
+Jeanne ran after him, calling him, imploring him to stop, her heart
+beating with apprehension as she thought: "He knows all! What will he
+do? Oh, if he only does not find them!"
+
+But she could not come up to him, and he disregarded her appeals. He
+went straight ahead without hesitation, straight to his goal. He
+crossed the ditch, then, stalking through the sea rushes like a giant,
+he reached the cliff.
+
+Jeanne, standing on the mound covered with trees, followed him with
+her eyes until he was out of sight. Then she went into the house,
+distracted with grief.
+
+He had turned to the right and started to run. Threatening waves
+overspread the sea, big black clouds were scudding along madly,
+passing on and followed by others, each of them coming down in a
+furious downpour. The wind whistled, moaned, laid the grass and the
+young crops low and carried away big white birds that looked like
+specks of foam and bore them far into the land.
+
+The hail which followed beat in the comte's face, filling his ears
+with noise and his heart with tumult.
+
+Down yonder before him was the deep gorge of the Val de Vaucotte.
+There was nothing before him but a shepherd's hut beside a deserted
+sheep pasture. Two horses were tied to the shafts of the hut on
+wheels. What might not happen to one in such a tempest as this?
+
+As soon as he saw them the comte crouched on the ground and crawled
+along on his hands and knees as far as the lonely hut and hid himself
+beneath the hut that he might not be seen through the cracks. The
+horses on seeing him became restive. He slowly cut their reins with
+the knife which he held open in his hand, and a sudden squall coming
+up, the animals fled, frightened at the hail which rattled on the
+sloping roof of the wooden hut and made it shake on its wheels.
+
+The comte then kneeling upright, put his eye to the bottom of the door
+and looked inside. He did not stir; he seemed to be waiting.
+
+A little time elapsed and then he suddenly rose to his feet, covered
+with mud from head to foot. He frantically pushed back the bolt which
+closed the hut on the outside, and seizing the shafts, he began to
+shake the hut as though he would break it to pieces. Then all at once
+he got between the shafts, bending his huge frame, and with a
+desperate effort dragged it along like an ox, panting as he went. He
+dragged it, with whoever was in it, toward the steep incline.
+
+Those inside screamed and banged with their fists on the door, not
+understanding what was going on.
+
+When he reached the top of the cliff he let go the fragile dwelling,
+which began to roll down the incline, going ever faster and faster,
+plunging, stumbling like an animal and striking the ground with its
+shafts.
+
+An old beggar hidden in a ditch saw it flying over his head and heard
+frightful screams coming from the wooden box.
+
+All at once a wheel was wrenched off and it fell on its side and began
+to roll like a ball, as a house torn from its foundations might roll
+from the summit of a mountain. Then, reaching the ledge of the last
+ravine, it described a circle, and, falling to the bottom, burst open
+as an egg might do. It was no sooner smashed on the stones than the
+old beggar, who had seen it going past, went down toward it slowly
+amid the rushes, and with the customary caution of a peasant, not
+daring to go directly to the shattered hut, he went to the nearest
+farm to tell of the accident.
+
+They all ran to look at it and raised the wreck of the hut. They found
+two bodies, bruised, crushed and bleeding. The man's forehead was
+split open and his whole face crushed; the woman's jaw was hanging,
+dislocated in one of the jolts, and their shattered limbs were soft as
+pulp.
+
+"What were they doing in that shanty?" said a woman.
+
+The old beggar then said that they had apparently taken refuge in it
+to get out of the storm and that a furious squall must have blown the
+hut over the cliff. He said he had intended to take shelter there
+himself, when he saw the horses tied to it, and understood that some
+one else must be inside. "But for that," he added in a satisfied tone,
+"I might have rolled down in it." Some one remarked: "Would not that
+have been a good thing?"
+
+The old man, in a furious rage, said: "Why would it have been a good
+thing? Because I am poor and they are rich! Look at them now." And
+trembling, ragged and dripping with rain, he pointed to the two dead
+bodies with his hooked stick and exclaimed: "We are all alike when we
+get to this."
+
+The comte, as soon as he saw the hut rolling down the steep slope, ran
+off at full speed through the blinding storm. He ran in this way for
+several hours, taking short cuts, leaping across ditches, breaking
+through the hedges, and thus got back home at dusk, not knowing how
+himself.
+
+The frightened servants were awaiting his return and told him that the
+two horses had returned riderless some little time before, that of
+Julien following the other one.
+
+Then M. de Fourville reeled and in a choked voice said: "Something
+must have happened to them in this dreadful weather. Let every one
+help to look for them."
+
+He started off himself, but he was no sooner out of sight than he
+concealed himself in a clump of bushes, watching the road along which
+she whom he even still loved with an almost savage passion was to
+return dead, dying or maybe crippled and disfigured forever.
+
+And soon a carriole passed by carrying a strange burden.
+
+It stopped at the château and passed through the gate. It was that, it
+was she. But a fearful anguish nailed him to the spot, a fear to know
+the worst, a dread of the truth, and he did not stir, hiding as a
+hare, starting at the least sound.
+
+He waited thus an hour, two hours perhaps. The buggy did not come out.
+He concluded that his wife was expiring, and the thought of seeing
+her, of meeting her gaze filled him with so much horror that he
+suddenly feared to be discovered in his hiding place and of being
+compelled to return and be present at this agony, and he then fled
+into the thick of the wood. Then all of a sudden it occurred to him
+that she perhaps might be needing his care, that no one probably could
+properly attend to her. Then he returned on his tracks, running
+breathlessly.
+
+On entering the château he met the gardener and called out to him,
+"Well?" The man did not dare answer him. Then M. de Fourville almost
+roared at him: "Is she dead?" and the servant stammered: "Yes, M. le
+Comte."
+
+He experienced a feeling of immense relief. His blood seemed to cool
+and his nerves relax somewhat of their extreme tension, and he walked
+firmly up the steps of his great hallway.
+
+The other wagon had reached "The Poplars." Jeanne saw it from afar.
+She descried the mattress; she guessed that a human form was lying
+upon it, and understood all. Her emotion was so vivid that she swooned
+and fell prostrate.
+
+When she regained consciousness her father was holding her head and
+bathing her temples with vinegar. He said hesitatingly: "Do you know?"
+She murmured: "Yes, father." But when she attempted to rise she found
+herself unable to do so, so intense was her agony.
+
+That very night she gave birth to a stillborn infant, a girl.
+
+Jeanne saw nothing of the funeral of Julien; she knew nothing of it.
+She merely noticed at the end of a day or two that Aunt Lison was
+back, and in her feverish dreams which haunted her she persistently
+sought to recall when the old maiden lady had left "The Poplars," at
+what period and under what circumstances. She could not make this out,
+even in her lucid moments, but she was certain of having seen her
+subsequent to the death of "little mother."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAUL
+
+Jeanne did not leave her room for three months and was so wan and pale
+that no one thought she would recover. But she picked up by degrees.
+Little father and Aunt Lison never left her; they had both taken up
+their abode at "The Poplars." The shock of Julien's death had left her
+with a nervous malady. The slightest sound made her faint and she had
+long swoons from the most insignificant causes.
+
+She had never asked the details of Julien's death. What did it matter
+to her? Did she not know enough already? Every one thought it was an
+accident, but she knew better, and she kept to herself this secret
+which tortured her: the knowledge of his infidelity and the
+remembrance of the abrupt and terrible visit of the comte on the day
+of the catastrophe.
+
+And now she was filled with tender, sweet and melancholy recollections
+of the brief evidences of love shown her by her husband. She
+constantly thrilled at unexpected memories of him, and she seemed to
+see him as he was when they were betrothed and as she had known him in
+the hours passed beneath the sunlight in Corsica. All his faults
+diminished, all his harshness vanished, his very infidelities appeared
+less glaring in the widening separation of the closed tomb. And
+Jeanne, pervaded by a sort of posthumous gratitude for this man who
+had held her in his arms, forgave all the suffering he had caused her,
+to remember only moments of happiness they had passed together. Then,
+as time went on and month followed month, covering all her grief and
+reminiscences with forgetfulness, she devoted herself entirely to her
+son.
+
+He became the idol, the one thought of the three beings who surrounded
+him, and he ruled as a despot. A kind of jealousy even arose among his
+slaves. Jeanne watched with anxiety the great kisses he gave his
+grandfather after a ride on his knee, and Aunt Lison, neglected by him
+as she had been by every one else and treated often like a servant by
+this little tyrant who could scarcely speak as yet, would go to her
+room and weep as she compared the slight affection he showed her with
+the kisses he gave his mother and the baron.
+
+Two years passed quietly, and at the beginning of the third winter it
+was decided that they should go to Rouen to live until spring, and the
+whole family set out. But on their arrival in the old damp house, that
+had been shut up for some time, Paul had such a severe attack of
+bronchitis that his three relatives in despair declared that he could
+not do without the air of "The Poplars." They took him back there and
+he got well.
+
+Then began a series of quiet, monotonous years. Always around the
+little one, they went into raptures at everything he did. His mother
+called him Poulet, and as he could not pronounce the word, he said
+"Pol," which amused them immensely, and the nickname of "Poulet" stuck
+to him.
+
+The favorite occupation of his "three mothers," as the baron called
+his relatives, was to see how much he had grown, and for this purpose
+they made little notches in the casing of the drawing-room door,
+showing his progress from month to month. This ladder was called
+"Poulet's ladder," and was an important affair.
+
+A new individual began to play a part in the affairs of the
+household--the dog "Massacre," who became Paul's inseparable
+companion.
+
+Rare visits were exchanged with the Brisevilles and the Couteliers.
+The mayor and the doctor alone were regular visitors. Since the
+episode of the mother dog and the suspicion Jeanne had entertained of
+the priest on the occasion of the terrible death of the comtesse and
+Julien, Jeanne had not entered the church, angry with a divinity that
+could tolerate such ministers.
+
+The church was deserted and the priest came to be looked on as a
+sorcerer because he had, so they said, driven out an evil spirit from
+a woman who was possessed, and although fearing him the peasants came
+to respect him for this occult power as well as for the unimpeachable
+austerity of his life.
+
+When he met Jeanne he never spoke. This condition of affairs
+distressed Aunt Lison, and when she was alone, quite alone with Paul,
+she talked to him about God, telling him the wonderful stories of the
+early history of the world. But when she told him that he must love
+Him very much, the child would say: "Where is He, auntie?" "Up there,"
+she would say, pointing to the sky; "up there, Poulet, but do not say
+so." She was afraid of the baron.
+
+One day, however, Poulet said to her: "God is everywhere, but He is
+not in church." He had told his grandfather of his aunt's wonderful
+revelations.
+
+When Paul was twelve years old a great difficulty arose on the subject
+of his first communion.
+
+Lison came to Jeanne one morning and told her that the little fellow
+should no longer be kept without religious instruction and from his
+religious duties. His mother, troubled and undecided, hesitated,
+saying that there was time enough. But a month later, as she was
+returning a call at the Brisevilles', the comtesse asked her casually
+if Paul was going to make his first communion that year. Jeanne,
+unprepared for this, answered, "Yes," and this simple word decided
+her, and without saying a word to her father, she asked Aunt Lison to
+take the boy to the catechism class.
+
+All went well for a month, but one day Paul came home with a
+hoarseness and the following day he coughed. On inquiry his mother
+learned that the priest had sent him to wait till the lesson was over
+at the door of the church, where there was a draught, because he had
+misbehaved. So she kept him at home and taught him herself. But the
+Abbé Tobiac, despite Aunt Lison's entreaties, refused to admit him as
+a communicant on the ground that he was not thoroughly taught.
+
+The same thing occurred the following year, and the baron angrily
+swore that the child did not need to believe all that tomfoolery, so
+it was decided that he should be brought up as a Christian, but not as
+an active Catholic, and when he came of age he could believe as he
+pleased.
+
+The Brisevilles ceased to call on her and Jeanne was surprised,
+knowing the punctiliousness of these neighbors in returning calls, but
+the Marquise de Coutelier haughtily told her the reason. Considering
+herself, in virtue of her husband's rank and fortune, a sort of queen
+of the Norman nobility, the marquise ruled as a queen, said what she
+thought, was gracious or the reverse as occasion demanded,
+admonishing, restoring to favor, congratulating whenever she saw fit.
+So when Jeanne came to see her, this lady, after a few chilling
+remarks, said drily: "Society is divided into two classes: those who
+believe in God and those who do not believe in Him. The former, even
+the humblest, are our friends, our equals; the latter are nothing to
+us."
+
+Jeanne, perceiving the insinuation, replied: "But may one not believe
+in God without going to church?"
+
+"No, madame," answered the marquise. "The faithful go to worship God
+in His church, just as one goes to see people in their homes."
+
+Jeanne, hurt, replied: "God is everywhere, madame. As for me, who
+believes from the bottom of my heart in His goodness, I no longer feel
+His presence when certain priests come between Him and me."
+
+The marquise rose. "The priest is the standard bearer of the Church,
+madame. Whoever does not follow the standard is opposed to Him and
+opposed to us."
+
+Jeanne had risen in her turn and said, trembling: "You believe,
+madame, in a partisan God. I believe in the God of upright people."
+She bowed and took her leave.
+
+The peasants also blamed her among themselves for not having let
+Poulet make his first communion. They themselves never attended
+service or took the sacrament unless it might be at Easter, according
+to the rule ordained by the Church; but for boys it was quite another
+thing, and they would have all shrunk in horror at the audacity of
+bringing up a child outside this recognized law, for religion is
+religion.
+
+She saw how they felt and was indignant at heart at all these
+discriminations, all these compromises with conscience, this general
+fear of everything, the real cowardice of all hearts and the mask of
+respectability assumed in public.
+
+The baron took charge of Paul's studies and made him study Latin, his
+mother merely saying: "Above all things, do not get over tired."
+
+As soon as the boy was at liberty he went down to work in the garden
+with his mother and his aunt.
+
+He now loved to dig in the ground, and all three planted young trees
+in the spring, sowed seed and watched it growing with the deepest
+interest, pruned branches and cut flowers for bouquets.
+
+Poulet was almost fifteen, but was a mere child in intelligence,
+ignorant, silly, suppressed between petticoat government and this kind
+old man who belonged to another century.
+
+One evening the baron spoke of college, and Jeanne at once began to
+sob. Aunt Lison timidly remained in a dark corner.
+
+"Why does he need to know so much?" asked his mother. "We will make a
+gentleman farmer of him. He can cultivate his land, as many of the
+nobility do. He will live and grow old happily in this house, where we
+have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can one do?"
+
+But the baron shook his head. "What would you say to him if he should
+say to you when he is twenty-five: 'I amount to nothing, I know
+nothing, all through your fault, the fault of your maternal
+selfishness. I feel that I am incapable of working, of making
+something of myself, and yet I was not intended for a secluded, simple
+life, lonely enough to kill one, to which I have been condemned by
+your shortsighted affection.'"
+
+She was weeping and said entreatingly: "Tell me, Poulet, you will not
+reproach me for having loved you too well?" And the big boy, in
+surprise, promised that he never would. "Swear it," she said. "Yes,
+mamma." "You want to stay here, don't you?" "Yes, mamma."
+
+Then the baron spoke up loud and decidedly: "Jeanne, you have no right
+to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and
+almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to your own private
+happiness."
+
+She hid her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively, and stammered out
+amid her tears: "I have been so unhappy--so unhappy! Now, just as I am
+living peacefully with him, they want to take him away from me. What
+will become of me now--all by myself?" Her father rose and, sitting
+down beside her, put his arms round her. "And how about me, Jeanne?"
+
+She put her arms suddenly round his neck, gave him a hearty kiss and
+with her voice full of tears, she said: "Yes, you are right perhaps,
+little father. I was foolish, but I have suffered so much. I am quite
+willing he should go to college."
+
+And without knowing exactly what they were going to do with him,
+Poulet in his turn began to weep.
+
+Then the three mothers began to kiss him and pet him and encourage
+him. When they retired to their rooms it was with a weight at their
+hearts, and they all wept, even the baron, who had restrained himself
+up to that.
+
+It was decided that when the term began to put the young boy to school
+at Havre, and during the summer he was petted more than ever; his
+mother sighed often as she thought of the separation. She prepared his
+wardrobe as if he were going to undertake a ten years' voyage. One
+October morning, after a sleepless night, the two women and the baron
+got into the carriage with him and set out on their journey.
+
+They had previously selected his place in the dormitory and his desk
+in the school room. Jeanne, aided by Aunt Lison, spent the whole day
+in arranging his clothes in his little wardrobe. As it did not hold a
+quarter of what they had brought, she went to look for the
+superintendent to ask for another. The treasurer was called, but he
+pointed out that all that amount of clothing would only be in the way
+and would never be needed, and he refused, on behalf of the directors,
+to let her have another chest of drawers. Jeanne, much annoyed,
+decided to hire a room in a small neighboring hotel, begging the
+proprietor to go himself and take Poulet whatever he required as soon
+as the boy asked for it.
+
+They then took a walk on the pier to look at the ships coming and
+going. They went into a restaurant to dine, but they were none of them
+able to eat, and looked at one another with moistened eyes as the
+dishes were brought on and taken away almost untouched.
+
+They now returned slowly toward the school. Boys of all ages were
+arriving from all quarters, accompanied by their families or by
+servants. Many of them were crying.
+
+Jeanne held Poulet in a long embrace, while Aunt Lison remained in the
+background, her face hidden in her handkerchief. The baron, however,
+who was becoming affected, cut short the adieus by dragging his
+daughter away. They got into the carriage and went back through the
+darkness to "The Poplars," the silence being broken by an occasional
+sob.
+
+Jeanne wept all the following day and on the day after drove to Havre
+in the phaeton. Poulet seemed to have become reconciled to the
+separation. For the first time in his life he now had playmates, and
+in his anxiety to join them he could scarcely sit still on his chair
+when his mother called. She continued her visits to him every other
+day and called to take him home on Sundays. Not knowing what to do
+with herself while school was in session until recreation time, she
+would remain sitting in the reception room, not having the strength or
+the courage to go very far from the school. The superintendent sent to
+ask her to come to his office and begged her not to come so
+frequently. She paid no attention to his request. He therefore
+informed her that if she continued to prevent her son from taking his
+recreation at the usual hours, obliging him to work without a change
+of occupation, they would be forced to send him back home again, and
+the baron was also notified to the same effect. She was consequently
+watched like a prisoner at "The Poplars."
+
+She became restless and worried and would ramble about for whole days
+in the country, accompanied only by Massacre, dreaming as she walked
+along. Sometimes she would remain seated for a whole afternoon,
+looking out at the sea from the top of the cliff; at other times she
+would go down to Yport through the wood, going over the ground of her
+former walks, the memory of which haunted her. How long ago--how long
+ago it was--the time when she had gone over these same paths as a
+young girl, carried away by her dreams.
+
+Poulet was not very industrious at school; he was kept two years in
+the fourth form. The third year's work was only tolerable and he had
+to begin the second over again, so that he was in rhetoric when he was
+twenty.
+
+He was now a big, fair young man, with downy whiskers and a faint sign
+of a mustache. He now came home to "The Poplars" every Sunday, riding
+over in a couple of hours, his mother, Aunt Lison and the baron
+starting out early to go and meet him.
+
+Although he was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him
+as though he were a child, and when he returned to school in the
+evening she would charge him anxiously not to go too fast and to think
+of his poor mother, who would break her heart if anything happened to
+him.
+
+One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul, saying that he
+would not be home on the following day because some friends had
+arranged an excursion and had invited him. She was tormented with
+anxiety all day Sunday, as though she dreaded some misfortune, and on
+Thursday, as she could endure it no longer, she set out for Havre.
+
+He seemed to be changed, though she could not have told in what
+manner. He appeared excited and his voice seemed deeper. And suddenly,
+as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he said: "I
+say, mother, as long as you have come to-day, I want to tell you that
+I will not be at 'The Poplars' next Sunday, for we are going to have
+another excursion."
+
+She was amazed, smothering, as if he had announced his departure for
+America. At last, recovering herself, she said: "Oh, Poulet, what is
+the matter with you? Tell me what is going on."
+
+He began to laugh, and kissing her, replied: "Why, nothing, nothing,
+mamma. I am going to have a good time with my friends; I am just at
+that age."
+
+She had nothing to say, but when she was alone in the carriage all
+manner of ideas came into her mind. She no longer recognized him, her
+Poulet, her little Poulet of former days. She felt for the first time
+that he was grown up, that he no longer belonged to her, that he was
+going to live his life without troubling himself about the old people.
+It seemed to her that one day had wrought this change in him. Was it
+possible that this was her son, her poor little boy who had helped her
+to replant the lettuce, this great big bearded youth who had a will of
+his own!
+
+For three months Paul came home only occasionally, and always seemed
+impatient to get away again, trying to steal off an hour earlier each
+evening. Jeanne was alarmed, but the baron consoled her, saying: "Let
+him alone; the boy is twenty years old."
+
+One morning, however, an old man, poorly dressed, inquired in
+German-French for "Madame la Vicomtesse," and after many ceremonious
+bows, he drew from his pocket a dilapidated pocketbook, saying: "Che un
+betit bapier bour fous," and unfolding as he handed it to her a piece
+of greasy paper. She read and reread it, looked at the Jew, read it
+over again and asked: "What does it mean?"
+
+He obsequiously explained: "I will tell you. Your son needed a little
+money, and as I knew that you are a good mother, I lent him a trifle
+to help him out."
+
+Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not ask me?" The Jew explained
+at length that it was a question of a debt that must be paid before
+noon the following day; that Paul not being of age, no one would have
+lent him anything, and that his "honor would have been compromised"
+without this little service that he had rendered the young man.
+
+Jeanne tried to call the baron, but had not the strength to rise, she
+was so overcome by emotion. At length she said to the usurer: "Would
+you have the kindness to ring the bell?"
+
+He hesitated, fearing some trap, and then stammered out: "If I am
+intruding, I will call again." She shook her head in the negative. He
+then rang, and they waited in silence, sitting opposite each other.
+
+When the baron came in he understood the situation at once. The note
+was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid one thousand, saying close to
+the man's face: "And on no account come back." The other thanked him
+and went his way.
+
+The baron and Jeanne set out at once for Havre. On reaching the
+college they learned that Paul had not been there for a month. The
+principal had received four letters signed by Jeanne saying that his
+pupil was not well and then to tell how he was getting along. Each
+letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate. They were, of
+course, all forged. They were all dumbfounded, and stood there looking
+at each other.
+
+The principal, very much worried, took them to the commissary of
+police. Jeanne and her father stayed at a hotel that night. The
+following day the young man was found in the apartment of a courtesan
+of the town. His grandfather and mother took him back to "The Poplars"
+and not a word was exchanged between them during the whole journey.
+
+A week later they discovered that he had contracted fifteen thousand
+francs' worth of debts within the last three months. His creditors had
+not come forward at first, knowing that he would soon be of age.
+
+They entered into no discussion about it, hoping to win him back by
+gentleness. They gave him dainty food, petted him, spoiled him. It was
+spring and they hired a boat for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne's
+fears, so that he might amuse himself on the water.
+
+They would not let him have a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre.
+
+He was there with nothing to do and became irritable and occasionally
+brutally so. The baron was worried at the discontinuance of his
+studies. Jeanne, distracted at the idea of a separation, asked herself
+what they could do with him.
+
+One evening he did not come home. They learned that he had gone out in
+a boat with two sailors. His mother, beside herself with anxiety, went
+down to Yport without a hat in the dark. Some men were on the beach,
+waiting for the boat to come in. There was a light on board an
+incoming boat, but Paul was not on board. He had made them take him to
+Havre.
+
+The police sought him in vain; he could not be found. The woman with
+whom he had been found the first time had also disappeared without
+leaving any trace; her furniture was sold and her rent paid. In Paul's
+room at "The Poplars" were found two letters from this person, who
+seemed to be madly in love with him. She spoke of a voyage to England,
+having, she said, obtained the necessary funds.
+
+The three dwellers in the château lived silently and drearily, their
+minds tortured by all kinds of suppositions. Jeanne's hair, which had
+become gray, now turned perfectly white. She asked in her innocence
+why fate had thus afflicted her.
+
+She received a letter from the Abbé Tolbiac: "Madame, the hand of God
+is weighing heavily on you. You refused Him your child; He took him
+from you in His turn to cast him into the hands of a prostitute. Will
+not you open your eyes at this lesson from Heaven? God's mercy is
+infinite. Perhaps He may pardon you if you return and fall on your
+knees before Him. I am His humble servant. I will open to you the door
+of His dwelling when you come and knock at it."
+
+She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true
+what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment
+her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church
+the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at
+twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abbé,
+begged for absolution.
+
+He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all
+His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. "You will
+soon feel the effects of the divine mercy," he declared.
+
+Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in
+her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement
+of the consolation promised her by the abbé. The letter ran:
+
+"My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in
+very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have
+anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love
+with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave
+me--five thousand francs--and you see that I am bound in honor to
+return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind
+enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa's fortune, for I
+shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious
+difficulties.
+
+"Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also
+grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you soon.
+
+"Your son,
+
+"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
+
+He had written to her! He had not forgotten her then. She did not care
+anything about his asking for money! She would send him some as long
+as he had none. What did money matter? He had written to her! And she
+ran, weeping for joy, to show this letter to the baron. Aunt Lison was
+called and read over word by word this paper that told of him. They
+discussed each sentence.
+
+Jeanne, jumping from the most complete despair to a kind of
+intoxication of hope, took Paul's part. "He will come back, he will
+come back as he has written."
+
+The baron, more calm, said: "All the same he left us for that
+creature, so he must love her better than us, as he did not hesitate
+about it."
+
+A sudden and frightful pang struck Jeanne's heart, and immediately she
+was filled with hatred of this woman who had stolen her son from her,
+an unappeasable, savage hate, the hatred of a jealous mother. Until
+now all her thoughts had been given to Paul. She scarcely took into
+consideration that a girl had been the cause of his vagaries. But the
+baron's words had suddenly brought before her this rival, had revealed
+her fatal power, and she felt that between herself and this woman a
+struggle was about to begin, and she also felt that she would rather
+lose her son than share his affection with another. And all her joy
+was at an end.
+
+They sent him the fifteen thousand francs and heard nothing more from
+him for five months.
+
+Then a business man came to settle the details of Julien's
+inheritance. Jeanne and the baron handed over the accounts without any
+discussion, even giving up the interest that should come to his
+mother. When Paul came back to Paris he had a hundred and twenty
+thousand francs. He then wrote four letters in six months, giving his
+news in concise terms and ending the letters with coldly affectionate
+expressions. "I am working," he said; "I have obtained a position on
+the stock exchange. I hope to go and embrace you at 'The Poplars' some
+day, my dear parents."
+
+He did not mention his companion, and this silence implied more than
+if he had filled four pages with news of her. Jeanne, in these cold
+letters, felt this woman in ambush, the implacable, eternal enemy of
+mothers, the courtesan.
+
+The three lonely beings discussed the best plan to follow in order to
+rescue Paul, but could decide on nothing. A voyage to Paris? What good
+would it do?
+
+"Let his passion exhaust itself. He will come back then of his own
+accord," said the baron.
+
+Some time passed without any further news. But one morning they were
+terrified at the receipt of a despairing letter:
+
+"My Poor Mamma: I am lost. There is nothing left for me to do but to
+blow out my brains unless you come to my aid. A speculation that gave
+every prospect of success has fallen through, and I am eighty-five
+thousand dollars in debt. I shall be dishonored if I do not pay
+up--ruined--and it will henceforth be impossible for me to do
+anything. I am lost. I repeat that I would rather blow out my brains
+than undergo this disgrace. I should have done so already, probably,
+but for the encouragement of a woman of whom I never speak to you,
+and who is my providence.
+
+"I embrace you from the bottom of my heart, my dear mamma--perhaps for
+the last time. Good-by.
+
+"Paul."
+
+A package of business papers accompanying the letter gave the details
+of the failure.
+
+The baron answered by return mail that they would see what could be
+done. Then he set out for Havre to get advice and he mortgaged some
+property to raise the money which was sent to Paul.
+
+The young man wrote three letters full of the most heartfelt thanks
+and passionate affection, saying he was coming home at once to see his
+dear parents.
+
+But he did not come.
+
+A whole year passed. Jeanne and the baron were about to set out for
+Paris to try and make a last effort, when they received a line to say
+that he was in London again, setting an enterprise on foot in
+connection with steamboats under the name of "Paul de Lamare & Co." He
+wrote: "This will give me an assured fortune, and perhaps great
+wealth, and I am risking nothing. You can see at once what a splendid
+thing it is. When I see you again I shall have a fine position in
+society. There is nothing but business these days to help you out of
+difficulties."
+
+Three months later the steamboat company failed and the manager was
+being sought for on account of certain irregularities in business
+methods. Jeanne had a nervous attack that lasted several hours and
+then she took to her bed.
+
+The baron again went to Havre to make inquiries, saw some lawyers,
+some business men, some solicitors and bailiffs and found that the
+liabilities of the De Lamare concern were two hundred and thirty-five
+thousand francs, and he once more mortgaged some property. The château
+of "The Poplars" and the two farms and all that went with them were
+mortgaged for a large sum.
+
+One evening as he was arranging the final details in the office of a
+business man, he fell over on the floor with a stroke of apoplexy.
+
+A man was sent on horseback to notify Jeanne, but when she arrived he
+was dead.
+
+She took his body back to "The Poplars," so overcome that her grief
+was numbness rather than despair.
+
+Abbé Tolbiac refused to permit the body to be brought to the church,
+despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was
+interred at twilight without any religious ceremony.
+
+Paul learned of the event through one of the men who was settling up
+his affairs. He was still in hiding in England. He wrote to make
+excuses for not having come home, saying that he had learned of his
+grandfather's death too late. "However, now that you have helped me
+out of my difficulties, my dear mamma, I shall go back to France and
+hope to embrace you soon."
+
+Jeanne was so crushed in spirit that she appeared not to understand
+anything. Toward the end of the winter Aunt Lison, who was now
+sixty-eight, had an attack of bronchitis that developed into pneumonia,
+and she died quietly, murmuring with her last breath: "My poor
+little Jeanne, I will ask God to take pity on you."
+
+Jeanne followed her to the grave, and as the earth fell on her coffin
+she sank to the ground, wishing that she might die also, so as not to
+suffer, to think. A strong peasant woman lifted her up and carried her
+away as if she had been a child.
+
+When she reached the château Jeanne, who had spent the last five
+nights at Aunt Lison's bedside, allowed herself to be put to bed
+without resistance by this unknown peasant woman, who handled her with
+gentleness and firmness, and she fell asleep from exhaustion, overcome
+with weariness and suffering.
+
+She awoke about the middle of the night. A night light was burning on
+the mantelpiece. A woman was asleep in her easy chair. Who was this
+woman? She did not recognize her, and leaning over the edge of her
+bed, she sought to examine her features by the dim light of the wick
+floating in oil in a tumbler of water.
+
+It seemed to her that she had seen this face. But when, but where? The
+woman was sleeping peacefully, her head to one side and her cap on the
+floor. She might be about forty or forty-five. She was stout, with a
+high color, squarely built and powerful. Her large hands hung down at
+either side of the chair. Her hair was turning gray. Jeanne looked at
+her fixedly, her mind in the disturbed condition of one awaking from a
+feverish sleep after a great sorrow.
+
+She had certainly seen this face! Was it in former days? Was it of
+late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her
+nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping
+woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up
+in the cemetery and then put her to bed. She remembered this
+confusedly.
+
+But had she met her elsewhere at some other time of her life or did
+she only imagine she recognized her amid the confused recollections of
+the day before? And how did she come to be there in her room and why?
+
+The woman opened her eyes and, seeing Jeanne, she rose to her feet
+suddenly. They stood face to face, so close that they touched one
+another. The stranger said crossly: "What! are you up? You will be
+ill, getting up at this time of night. Go back to bed!"
+
+"Who are you?" asked Jeanne.
+
+But the woman, opening her arms, picked her up and carried her back to
+her bed with the strength of a man. And as she laid her down gently
+and drew the covers over her, she leaned over close to Jeanne and,
+weeping as she did so, she kissed her passionately on the cheeks, her
+hair, her eyes, the tears falling on her face as she stammered out:
+"My poor mistress, Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress, don't you
+recognize me?"
+
+"Rosalie, my girl!" cried Jeanne, throwing her arms round her neck and
+hugging her as she kissed her, and they sobbed together, clasped in
+each other's arms.
+
+Rosalie was the first to regain her calmness. "Come," she said, "you
+must be sensible and not catch cold." And she covered her up warm and
+straightened the pillow under her former mistress' head. The latter
+continued to sob, trembling all over at the recollections that were
+awakened in her mind. She finally inquired: "How did you come back, my
+poor girl?"
+
+"Pardi! do you suppose I was going to leave you all alone like that,
+now?" replied Rosalie.
+
+"Light a candle, so I may see you," said Jeanne. And when the candle
+was brought to the bedside they looked at each other for some time
+without speaking a word. Then Jeanne, holding out her hand to her
+former maid, murmured: "I should not have recognized you, my girl, you
+have changed greatly; did you know it? But not as much as I have." And
+Rosalie, looking at this white-haired woman, thin and faded, whom she
+had left a beautiful and fresh young woman, said: "That is true, you
+have changed, Madame Jeanne, and more than you should. But remember,
+however, that we have not seen each other for twenty-five years."
+
+They were silent, thinking over the past. At length Jeanne said
+hesitatingly: "Have you been happy?"
+
+Rosalie, fearful of awakening certain painful souvenirs, stammered
+out: "Why--yes--yes--madame. I have nothing much to complain of. I
+have been happier than you have--that is sure. There was only one
+thing that always weighed on my heart, and that was that I did not
+stay here--" And she stopped suddenly, sorry she had referred to that
+unintentionally. But Jeanne replied gently: "How could you help it, my
+girl? One cannot always do as they wish. You are a widow now, also,
+are you not?" Then her voice trembled with emotion as she said: "Have
+you other--other children?"
+
+"No, madame."
+
+"And he--your--your boy--what has become of him? Has he turned out
+well?"
+
+"Yes, madame, he is a good boy and works industriously. He has been
+married for six months, and he can take my farm now, since I have come
+back to you."
+
+Jeanne murmured in a trembling voice: "Then you will never leave me
+again, my girl?"
+
+"No, indeed, madame, I have arranged all that."
+
+Jeanne, in spite of herself, began to compare their lives, but without
+any bitterness, for she was now resigned to the unjust cruelty of
+fate. She said: "And your husband, how did he treat you?"
+
+"Oh, he was a good man, madame, and not lazy; he knew how to make
+money. He died of consumption."
+
+Then Jeanne, sitting up in bed, filled with a longing to know more,
+said: "Come, tell me everything, my girl, all about your life. It will
+do me good just now."
+
+Rosalie, drawing up her chair, began to tell about herself, her home,
+her people, entering into those minute details dear to country people,
+describing her yard, laughing at some old recollection that reminded
+her of good times she had had, and raising her voice by degrees like a
+farmer's wife accustomed to command. She ended by saying: "Oh, I am
+well off now. I don't have to worry." Then she became confused again,
+and said in a lower tone: "It is to you that I owe it, anyhow; and you
+know I do not want any wages. No, indeed! No, indeed! And if you will
+not have it so, I will go."
+
+Jeanne replied: "You do not mean that you are going to serve me for
+nothing?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, madame. Money! You give me money! Why, I have almost
+as much as you. Do you know what is left to you will all your jumble
+of mortgages and borrowing, and interests unpaid which are mounting up
+every year? Do you know? No, is it not so? Well, then, I can promise
+you that you have not even ten thousand francs income. Not ten
+thousand, do you understand? But I will settle all that for you, and
+very quickly."
+
+She had begun talking loud again, carried away in her indignation at
+these interests left unpaid, at this threatening ruin. And as a faint,
+tender smile passed over the face of her mistress, she cried in a tone
+of annoyance: "You must not laugh, madame, for without money we are
+nothing but laborers."
+
+Jeanne took hold of her hands and kept them in her own; then she said
+slowly, still full of the idea that haunted her: "Oh, I have had no
+luck. Everything has gone against me. Fate has a grudge against my
+life."
+
+But Rosalie shook her head: "You must not say that, madame. You
+married badly, that's all. One should not marry like that, anyway,
+without knowing anything about one's intended."
+
+And they went on talking about themselves just as two old friends
+might have done.
+
+The sun rose while they were still talking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A NEW HOME
+
+In a week's time Rosalie had taken absolute control of everything and
+everyone in the château. Jeanne was quite resigned and obeyed
+passively. Weak and dragging her feet as she walked, as little mother
+had formerly done, she went out walking leaning on Rosalie's arm, the
+latter lecturing her and consoling her with abrupt and tender words as
+they walked slowly along, treating her mistress as though she were a
+sick child.
+
+They always talked of bygone days, Jeanne with tears in her throat,
+and Rosalie in the quiet tone of a phlegmatic peasant. The servant
+kept referring to the subject of unpaid interests; and at last
+requested Jeanne to give her up all the business papers that Jeanne,
+in her ignorance of money matters, was hiding from her, out of
+consideration for her son.
+
+After that, for a week, Rosalie went to Fécamp every day to have
+matters explained to her by a lawyer whom she knew.
+
+One evening, after having put her mistress to bed, she sat down by the
+bedside and said abruptly: "Now that you are settled quietly, madame,
+we will have a chat." And she told her exactly how matters stood.
+
+When everything was settled, there would be about seven thousand
+francs of income left, no more.
+
+"We cannot help it, my girl," said Jeanne. "I feel that I shall not
+make old bones, and there will be quite enough for me."
+
+But Rosalie was annoyed: "For you, madame, it might be; but M.
+Paul--will you leave nothing for him?"
+
+Jeanne shuddered. "I beg you not to mention him again. It hurts me too
+much to think about him."
+
+"But I wish to speak about him, because you see you are not brave,
+Madame Jeanne. He does foolish things. Well! what of it? He will not
+do so always; and then he will marry and have children. He will need
+money to bring them up. Pay attention to me: you must sell 'The
+Poplars.'"
+
+Jeanne sprang up in a sitting posture. "Sell 'The Poplars'! Do you
+mean it? Oh, never, never!"
+
+But Rosalie was not disturbed. "I tell you that you will sell the
+place, madame, because it must be done." And then she explained her
+calculations, her plans, her reasons.
+
+Once they had sold "The Poplars" and the two farms belonging to it to
+a buyer whom she had found, they would keep four farms situated at St.
+Leonard, which, free of all mortgage, would bring in an income of
+eight thousand three hundred francs. They would set aside thirteen
+hundred francs a year for repairs and for the upkeep of the property;
+there would then remain seven thousand francs, five thousand of which
+would cover the annual expenditures and the other two thousand would
+be put away for a rainy day.
+
+She added: "All the rest has been squandered; there is an end of it.
+And then I am to keep the key, you understand. As for M. Paul, he will
+have nothing left, nothing; he would take your last sou from you."
+
+Jeanne, who was weeping silently, murmured:
+
+"But if he has nothing to eat?"
+
+"He can come and eat with us if he is hungry. There will always be a
+bed and some stew for him. Do you believe he would have acted as he
+has done if you had not given him a sou in the first place?"
+
+"But he was in debt, he would have been disgraced."
+
+"When you have nothing left, will that prevent him from making fresh
+debts? You have paid his debts, that is all right; but you will not
+pay any more; it is I who am telling you this. Now goodnight, madame."
+
+And she left the room.
+
+Jeanne did not sleep, she was so upset at the idea of selling "The
+Poplars," of going away, of leaving this house to which all her life
+was linked.
+
+When Rosalie came into the room next morning she said to her: "My poor
+girl, I never could make up my mind to go away from here."
+
+But the servant grew angry: "It will have to be, however, madame; the
+lawyer will soon be here with the man who wants to buy the château.
+Otherwise, in four years you will not have a rap left."
+
+Jeanne was crushed, and repeated: "I could not do it; I never could."
+
+An hour later the postman brought her a letter from Paul asking for
+ten thousand francs. What should she do? At her wit's end, she
+consulted Rosalie, who threw up her hands, exclaiming: "What was I
+telling you, madame? Ah! You would have been in a nice fix, both of
+you, if I had not come back." And Jeanne, bending to her servant's
+will, wrote as follows to the young man:
+
+"My Dear Son: I can do nothing more for you. You have ruined me; I am
+even obliged to sell 'The Poplars.' But never forget that I shall
+always have a home whenever you want to seek shelter with your old
+mother, to whom you have caused much suffering. Jeanne."
+
+When the notary arrived with M. Jeoffrin, a retired sugar refiner, she
+received them herself, and invited them to look over the château.
+
+A month later, she signed a deed of sale, and also bought herself a
+little cottage in the neighborhood of Goderville, on the high road to
+Montiviliers, in the hamlet of Batteville.
+
+Then she walked up and down all alone until evening, in little
+mother's avenue, with a sore heart and troubled mind, bidding
+distracted and sobbing farewells to the landscape, the trees, the
+rustic bench under the plane tree, to all those things she knew so
+well and that seemed to have become part of her vision and her soul,
+the grove, the mound overlooking the plain, where she had so often
+sat, and from where she had seen the Comte de Fourville running toward
+the sea on that terrible day of Julian's death, to an old elm whose
+upper branches were missing, against which she had often leaned, and
+to all this familiar garden spot.
+
+Rosalie came out and took her by the arm to make her come into the
+house.
+
+A tall young peasant of twenty-five was waiting outside the door. He
+greeted her in a friendly manner as if he had known her for some time:
+"Good-morning, Madame Jeanne. I hope you are well. Mother told me to
+come and help you move. I would like to know what you are going to
+take away, seeing that I shall do it from time to time so as not to
+interfere with my farm work."
+
+It was her maid's son, Julien's son, Paul's brother.
+
+She felt as if her heart stopped beating; and yet she would have liked
+to embrace this young fellow.
+
+She looked at him, trying to find some resemblance to her husband or
+to her son. He was ruddy, vigorous, with fair hair and his mother's
+blue eyes. And yet he looked like Julien. In what way? How? She could
+not have told, but there was something like him in the whole makeup of
+his face.
+
+The young man resumed: "If you could show me at once, I should be much
+obliged."
+
+But she had not yet decided what she was going to take with her, as
+her new home was very small; and she begged him to come back again at
+the end of the week.
+
+She was now entirely occupied with getting ready to move, which
+brought a little variety into her very dreary and hopeless life. She
+went from room to room, picking out the furniture which recalled
+episodes in her life, old friends, as it were, who have a share in our
+life and almost of our being, whom we have known since childhood, and
+to which are linked our happy or sad recollections, dates in our
+history; silent companions of our sad or sombre hours, who have grown
+old and become worn at our side, their covers torn in places, their
+joints shaky, their color faded.
+
+She selected them, one by one, sometimes hesitating and troubled, as
+if she were taking some important step, changing her mind every
+instant, weighing the merits of two easy chairs or of some old
+writing-desk and an old work table.
+
+She opened the drawers, sought to recall things; then, when she had
+said to herself, "Yes, I will take this," the article was taken down
+into the dining-room.
+
+She wished to keep all the furniture of her room, her bed, her
+tapestries, her clock, everything.
+
+She took away some of the parlor chairs, those that she had loved as a
+little child; the fox and the stork, the fox and the crow, the ant and
+the grasshopper, and the melancholy heron.
+
+Then, while wandering about in all the corners of this dwelling she
+was going to forsake, she went one day up into the loft, where she was
+filled with amazement; it was a chaos of articles of every kind, some
+broken, others tarnished only, others taken up there for no special
+reason probably, except that they were tired of them or that they had
+been replaced by others. She saw numberless knick-knacks that she
+remembered, and that had disappeared suddenly, trifles that she had
+handled, those old little insignificant articles that she had seen
+every day without noticing, but which now, discovered in this loft,
+assumed an importance as of forgotten relics, of friends that she had
+found again.
+
+She went from one to the other of them with a little pang, saying:
+"Why, it was I who broke that china cup a few evenings before my
+wedding. Ah! there is mother's little lantern and a cane that little
+father broke in trying to open the gate when the wood was swollen with
+the rain."
+
+There were also a number of things that she did not remember that had
+belonged to her grandparents or to their parents, dusty things that
+appeared to be exiled in a period that is not their own, and that
+looked sad at their abandonment, and whose history, whose experiences
+no one knows, for they never saw those who chose them, bought them,
+owned them, and loved them; never knew the hands that had touched them
+familiarly, and the eyes that looked at them with delight.
+
+Jeanne examined carefully three-legged chairs to see if they recalled
+any memories, a copper warming pan, a damaged foot stove that she
+thought she remembered, and a number of housekeeping utensils unfit
+for use.
+
+She then put together all the things she wished to take, and going
+downstairs, sent Rosalie up to get them. The servant indignantly
+refused to bring down "that rubbish." But Jeanne, who had not much
+will left, held her own this time, and had to be obeyed.
+
+One morning the young farmer, Julien's son, Denis Lecoq, came with his
+wagon for the first load. Rosalie went back with him in order to
+superintend the unloading and placing of furniture where it was to
+stand.
+
+Rosalie had come back and was waiting for Jeanne, who had been out on
+the cliff. She was enchanted with the new house, declaring it was much
+more cheerful than this old box of a building, which was not even on
+the side of the road.
+
+Jeanne wept all the evening.
+
+Ever since they heard that the château was sold, the farmers were not
+more civil to her than necessary, calling her among themselves "the
+crazy woman," without knowing exactly why, but doubtless because they
+guessed with their animal instinct at her morbid and increasing
+sentimentality, at all the disturbance of her poor mind that had
+undergone so much sorrow.
+
+The night before they left she chanced to go into the stable. A growl
+made her start. It was Massacre, whom she had hardly thought of for
+months. Blind and paralyzed, having reached a great age for an animal,
+he existed in a straw bed, taken care of by Ludivine, who never forgot
+him. She took him in her arms, kissed him, and carried him into the
+house. As big as a barrel, he could scarcely carry himself along on
+his stiff legs, and he barked like the wooden dogs that one gives to
+children.
+
+The day of departure finally came. Jeanne had slept in Julien's old
+room, as hers was dismantled. She got up exhausted and short of breath
+as if she had been running. The carriage containing the trunks and the
+rest of the furniture was in the yard ready to start. Another
+two-wheeled vehicle was to take Jeanne and the servant. Old Simon and
+Ludivine were to stay until the arrival of a new proprietor, and then
+to go to some of their relations, Jeanne having provided a little
+income for them. They had also saved up some money, and being now very
+old and garrulous, they were not of much use in the house. Marius had
+long since married and left.
+
+About eight o'clock it began to rain, a fine icy rain, driven by a
+light breeze. On the kitchen table, some cups of café au lait were
+steaming. Jeanne sat down and sipped hers, then rising, she said,
+"Come along."
+
+She put on her hat and shawl, and while Rosalie was putting on her
+overshoes, she said in a choking voice: "Do you remember, my girl, how
+it rained when we left Rouen to come here?"
+
+As she said this, she put her two hands to her breast and fell over on
+her back, unconscious. She remained thus over an hour, apparently
+dead. Then she opened her eyes and was seized with convulsions
+accompanied by floods of tears.
+
+When she was a little calmer she was so weak that she could not stand
+up, and Rosalie, fearing another attack if they delayed their
+departure, went to look for her son. They took her up and carried her
+to the carriage, placed her on the wooden bench covered with leather;
+and the old servant got in beside her, wrapped her up with a big
+cloak, and holding an umbrella over her head, cried: "Quick, Denis,
+let us be off." The young man climbed up beside his mother and whipped
+up the horse, whose jerky pace made the two women bounce about
+vigorously.
+
+As they turned the corner to enter the village, they saw some one
+stalking along the road; it was Abbé Tolbiac, who seemed to be
+watching for them to go by. He stopped to let the carriage pass. He
+was holding up his cassock with one hand, to keep it out of the mud,
+and his thin legs, encased in black stockings, ended in a pair of
+enormous muddy shoes.
+
+Jeanne lowered her eyes so as not to meet his glance, and Rosalie, who
+had heard all about him, flew into a rage. "Peasant! Peasant!" she
+murmured; and then seizing her son's hand: "Give him a good slash with
+the whip."
+
+But the young man, just as they were passing the priest, made the
+wheel of the wagon, which was going at full speed, sink into a rut,
+splashing the abbé with mud from head to foot.
+
+Rosalie was delighted and turned round to shake her fist at him, while
+the priest was wiping off the mud with his big handkerchief.
+
+All at once Jeanne exclaimed: "We have forgotten Massacre!" They
+stopped, and, getting down, Denis ran to fetch the dog, while Rosalie
+held the reins. He presently reappeared, carrying in his arms the
+shapeless and crippled animal, which he placed at the feet of the two
+women.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+JEANNE IN PARIS
+
+Two hours later the carriage stopped at a little brick house built in
+the middle of a lot planted with pear trees at the side of the high
+road.
+
+Four trellised arbors covered with honeysuckle and clematis formed the
+four corners of the garden, which was divided into little beds of
+vegetables separated by narrow paths bordered with fruit trees.
+
+A very high box hedge enclosed the whole property, which was separated
+by a field from the neighboring farm. There was a blacksmith's shop
+about a hundred feet further along the road. There were no other
+houses within three-quarters of a mile.
+
+The house commanded a view of the level district of Caux, covered with
+farms surrounded by their four double rows of tall trees which
+enclosed the courtyard planted with apple trees.
+
+As soon as they reached the house, Jeanne wanted to rest; but Rosalie
+would not allow her to do so for fear she would begin to think of the
+past.
+
+The carpenter from Goderville was there, and they began at once to
+place the furniture that had already arrived while waiting for the
+last load. This required a good deal of thought and planning.
+
+At the end of an hour the wagon appeared at the gate and had to be
+unloaded in the rain. When night fell the house was in utter disorder,
+with things piled up anyhow. Jeanne, tired out, fell asleep as soon as
+she got into bed.
+
+She had no time to mourn for some days, as there was so much to be
+done. She even took a certain pleasure in making her new house look
+pretty, the thought that her son would come back there haunting her
+continually. The tapestries from her old room were hung in the
+dining-room, which also had to serve as a parlor; and she took special
+pains with one of the two rooms on the first floor, which she thought
+of as "Poulet's room."
+
+She kept the other room herself, Rosalie sleeping above, next to the
+loft. The little house, furnished with care, was very pretty, and
+Jeanne was happy there at first, although she seemed to lack
+something, but she did not know what.
+
+One morning the lawyer's clerk from Fécamp brought her three thousand
+six hundred francs, the price of the furniture left at "The Poplars,"
+and valued by an upholsterer. She had a little thrill of pleasure at
+receiving this money, and as soon as the man had gone, she ran to put
+on her hat, so as to get to Goderville as quickly as possible to send
+Paul this unexpected sum.
+
+But as she was hurrying along the high road she met Rosalie coming
+from market. The servant suspected something, without at once guessing
+the facts; and when she discovered them, for Jeanne could hide nothing
+from her, she placed her basket on the ground that she might get angry
+with more comfort.
+
+She began to scold with her fists on her hips; then taking hold of her
+mistress with her right arm and taking her basket in her left, and
+still fuming, she continued on her way to the house.
+
+As soon as they were in the house the servant asked to have the money
+handed over to her. Jeanne gave all but six hundred francs, which she
+held back; but Rosalie soon saw through her tricks, and she was
+obliged to hand it all over. However, she consented to her sending
+this amount to the young man.
+
+A few days later he wrote: "You have rendered me a great service, my
+dear mother, for we were in the greatest distress."
+
+Jeanne, however, could not get accustomed to Batteville. It seemed to
+her as if she could not breathe as she did formerly, that she was more
+lonely, more deserted, more lost than ever. She went out for a walk,
+got as far as the hamlet of Verneuil, came back by the Trois-Mares,
+came home, then suddenly wanted to start out again, as if she had
+forgotten to go to the very place she intended.
+
+And every day she did the same thing without knowing why. But one
+evening a thought came to her unconsciously which revealed to her the
+secret of her restlessness. She said as she was sitting down to
+dinner: "Oh, how I long to see the sea!"
+
+That was what she had missed so greatly, the sea, her big neighbor for
+twenty-five years, the sea with its salt air, its rages, its scolding
+voice, its strong breezes, the sea which she sought from her window at
+"The Poplars" every morning, whose air she breathed day and night, the
+sea which she felt close to her, which she had taken to loving
+unconsciously as she would a person.
+
+Winter was approaching, and Jeanne felt herself overcome by an
+unconquerable discouragement. It was not one of those acute griefs
+which seemed to wring the heart, but a dreary, mournful sadness.
+
+Nothing roused her. No one paid any attention to her. The high road
+before her door stretched to right and left with hardly any passersby.
+Occasionally a dogcart passed rapidly, driven by a red-faced man, with
+his blouse puffed out by the wind, making a sort of blue balloon;
+sometimes a slow-moving wagon, or else two peasants, a man and a
+woman, who came near, passed by, and disappeared in the distance.
+
+As soon as the grass began to grow again, a young girl in a short
+skirt passed by the gate every morning with two thin cows who browsed
+along the side of the road. She came back every evening with the same
+sleepy face, making a step every ten minutes as she walked behind the
+animals.
+
+Jeanne dreamed every night that she was still at "The Poplars." She
+seemed to be there with father and little mother, and sometimes even
+with Aunt Lison. She did over again things forgotten and done with,
+thought she was supporting Madame Adelaide in her walk along the
+avenue. And each awakening was attended with tears.
+
+She thought continually of Paul, wondering what he was doing--how he
+was--whether he sometimes thought of her. As she walked slowly in the
+by-roads between the farms, she thought over all these things which
+tormented her, but above all else, she cherished an intense jealousy
+of the woman who had stolen her son from her. It was this hatred alone
+which prevented her from taking any steps, from going to look for him,
+to see him. It seemed to her that she saw that woman standing on the
+doorsill asking: "What do you want here, madame?" Her mother's pride
+revolted at the possibility of such a meeting. And her haughty pride
+of a good woman whose character is blameless made her all the more
+indignant at the cowardice of a man subjugated by an unworthy passion.
+
+When autumn returned with its long rains, its gray sky, its dark
+clouds, such a weariness of this kind of life came over her that she
+determined to make a great effort to get her Poulet back; he must have
+got over his infatuation by this time.
+
+She wrote him an imploring letter:
+
+"My Dear Child: I am going to entreat you to come back to me. Remember
+that I am old and delicate, all alone the whole year round except for
+a servant maid. I am now living in a little house on the main road. It
+is very lonely, but if you were here all would be different for me. I
+have only you in the world, and I have not seen you for seven years!
+You were my life, my dream, my only hope, my one love, and you failed
+me, you deserted me!
+
+"Oh, come back, my little Poulet--come and embrace me. Come back to
+your old mother, who holds out her despairing arms towards you.
+
+"Jeanne."
+
+He replied a few days later:
+
+"My Dear Mother: I would ask nothing better than to go and see you,
+but I have not a penny. Send me some money and I will come. I wanted,
+in any case, to see you to talk to you about a plan that would make it
+possible for me to do as you ask.
+
+"The disinterestedness and love of the one who has been my companion
+in the dark days through which I have passed can never be forgotten by
+me. It is not possible for me to remain any longer without publicly
+recognizing her love and her faithful devotion. She has very pleasing
+manners, which you would appreciate. She is also educated and reads a
+good deal. In fact, you cannot understand what she has been to me. I
+should be a brute if I did not show her my gratitude. I am going,
+therefore, to ask you to give me your permission to marry her. You
+will forgive all my follies and we will all live together in your new
+house.
+
+"If you knew her you would at once give your consent. I can assure you
+that she is perfect and very distingué. You will love her, I am sure.
+As for me, I could not live without her.
+
+"I shall expect your reply with impatience, my dear mother, and we
+both embrace you with all our heart.
+
+"Your son,
+
+"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
+
+Jeanne was crushed. She remained motionless, the letter on her lap,
+seeing through the cunning of this girl who had had such a hold on her
+son for so long, and had not let him come to see her once, biding her
+time until the despairing old mother could no longer resist the desire
+to clasp her son in her arms, and would weaken and grant all they
+asked.
+
+And grief at Paul's persistent preference for this creature wrung her
+heart. She said: "He does not love me. He does not love me."
+
+Rosalie just then entered the room. Jeanne faltered: "He wants to
+marry her now."
+
+The maid was startled. "Oh, madame, you will not allow that. M. Paul
+must not pick up that rubbish."
+
+And Jeanne, overcome with emotion, but indignant, replied: "Never
+that, my girl. And as he will not come here, I am going to see him,
+myself, and we shall see which of us will carry the day."
+
+She wrote at once to Paul to prepare him for her visit, and to arrange
+to meet him elsewhere than in the house inhabited by that baggage.
+
+While awaiting a reply she made her preparations for departure.
+Rosalie began to pack her mistress' clothes in an old trunk, but as
+she was folding a dress, one of those she had worn in the country, she
+exclaimed: "Why, you have nothing to put on your back. I will not
+allow you to go like that. You would be a disgrace to everyone; and
+the Parisian ladies would take you for a servant."
+
+Jeanne let her have her own way, and the two women went together to
+Goderville to choose some material, which was given a dressmaker in
+the village. Then they went to the lawyer, M. Roussel, who spent a
+fortnight in the capital every year, in order to get some information;
+for Jeanne had not been in Paris for twenty-eight years.
+
+He gave them lots of advice on how to avoid being run over, on methods
+of protecting yourself from thieves, advising her to sew her money up
+inside the lining of her coat, and to keep in her pocket only what she
+absolutely needed. He spoke at length about moderate priced
+restaurants, and mentioned two or three patronized by women, and told
+them that they might mention his name at the Hotel Normandie.
+
+Jeanne had never yet seen the railroad, though trains had been running
+between Paris and Havre for six years, and were revolutionizing the
+whole country.
+
+She received no answer from Paul, although she waited a week, then two
+weeks, going every morning to meet the postman, asking him
+hesitatingly: "Is there anything for me, Père Malandain?" And the man
+always replied in his hoarse voice: "Nothing again, my good lady."
+
+It certainly must be this woman who was keeping Paul from writing.
+
+Jeanne, therefore, determined to set out at once. She wanted to take
+Rosalie with her, but the maid refused for fear of increasing the
+expense of the journey. She did not allow her mistress to take more
+than three hundred francs, saying: "If you need more you can write to
+me and I will go to the lawyer and ask him to send it to you. If I
+give you any more, M. Paul will put it in his pocket."
+
+One December morning Denis Lecoq came for them in his light wagon and
+took them to the station. Jeanne wept as she kissed Rosalie good-by,
+and got into the train. Rosalie was also affected and said: "Good-by,
+madame, bon voyage, and come back soon!"
+
+"Good-by, my girl."
+
+A whistle and the train was off, beginning slowly and gradually going
+with a speed that terrified Jeanne. In her compartment there were two
+gentlemen leaning back in the two corners of the carriage.
+
+She looked at the country as they swept past, the trees, the farms,
+the villages, feeling herself carried into a new life, into a new
+world that was no longer the life of her tranquil youth and of her
+present monotonous existence.
+
+She reached Paris that evening. A commissionaire took her trunk and
+she followed him in great fear, jostled by the crowd and not knowing
+how to make her way amid this mass of moving humanity, almost running
+to keep up with the man for fear of losing sight of him.
+
+On reaching the hotel she said at the desk: "I was recommended here by
+M. Roussel."
+
+The proprietress, an immense woman with a serious face, who was seated
+at the desk, inquired:
+
+"Who is he--M. Roussel?"
+
+Jeanne replied in amazement: "Why, he is the lawyer at Goderville, who
+stops here every year."
+
+"That's very possible," said the big woman, "but I do not know him. Do
+you wish a room?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+A boy took her satchel and led the way upstairs. She felt a pang at
+her heart. Sitting down at a little table she sent for some luncheon,
+as she had eaten nothing since daybreak. As she ate, she was thinking
+sadly of a thousand things, recalling her stay here on the return from
+her wedding journey, and the first indication of Julien's character
+betrayed while they were in Paris. But she was young then, and
+confident and brave. Now she felt old, embarrassed, even timid, weak
+and disturbed at trifles. When she had finished her luncheon she went
+over to the window and looked down on the street filled with people.
+She wished to go out, but was afraid to do so. She would surely get
+lost. She went to bed, but the noise, the feeling of being in a
+strange city, kept her awake. About two o'clock in the morning, just
+as she was dozing off, she heard a woman scream in an adjoining room;
+she sat up in bed and then she thought she heard a man laugh. As
+daylight dawned the thought of Paul came to her, and she dressed
+herself before it was light.
+
+Paul lived in the Rue du Sauvage, in the old town. She wanted to go
+there on foot so as to carry out Rosalie's economical advice. The
+weather was delightful, the air cold enough to make her skin tingle.
+People were hurrying along the sidewalks. She walked as fast as she
+could, according to directions given her, along a street, at the end
+of which she was to turn to the right and then to the left, when she
+would come to a square where she must make fresh inquiries. She did
+not find the square, and went into a baker's to ask her way, and he
+directed her differently. She started off again, went astray, inquired
+her way again, and finally got lost completely.
+
+Half crazy, she now walked at random. She had made up her mind to call
+a cab, when she caught sight of the Seine. She then walked along the
+quays.
+
+After about an hour she found the Rue Sauvage, a sort of dark alley.
+She stopped at a door, so overcome that she could not move.
+
+He was there, in that house--Poulet.
+
+She felt her knees and hands trembling; but at last she entered the
+door, and walking along a passage, saw the janitor's quarters. She
+said, as she held out a piece of money: "Would you go up and tell M.
+Paul de Lamare that an old lady, a friend of his mother's, is
+downstairs, and wishes to see him?"
+
+"He does not live here any longer, madame," replied the janitor.
+
+A shudder went over her. She faltered:
+
+"Oh! Where--where is he living now?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+She grew dizzy as though she were about to fall over, and stood there
+for some moments without being able to speak. At length, with a great
+effort, she collected her senses and murmured:
+
+"How long is it since he left?"
+
+"About two weeks ago. They went off like that, one evening, and never
+came back. They were in debt everywhere in the neighborhood, so you
+can understand that they did not care to leave their address."
+
+Jeanne saw lights before her eyes, flashes of flame, as though a gun
+had been fired off in front of her eyes. But she had one fixed idea in
+her mind, and that sustained her, and kept her outwardly calm and
+rational. She wished to find Poulet and know all about him.
+
+"Then he said nothing when he was going away?"
+
+"Nothing at all; they ran off to escape their debts, that's all."
+
+"But he surely sends someone to get his mail."
+
+"More frequently than I send it. He never got more than ten letters a
+year. I took one up to them, however, two days before they left."
+
+That was probably her letter. She said abruptly: "Listen! I am his
+mother, his own mother, and I have come to look for him. Here are ten
+francs for you. If you can get any news or any particulars about him,
+come and see me at the Hotel Normandie, Rue du Havre, and I will pay
+you well."
+
+"You may count on me, madame," he replied.
+
+She left him and began to walk away without caring whither she went.
+She hurried along as though she were on some important business,
+knocking up against people with packages, crossing the streets without
+paying attention to the approaching vehicles, and being sworn at by
+the drivers, stumbling on the curb of the sidewalk, and tearing along
+straight ahead in utter despair.
+
+All at once she found herself in a garden, and was so tired that she
+sat down on a bench to rest. She stayed there some time apparently,
+weeping without being conscious of it, for passersby stopped to look
+at her. Then she felt very cold, and rose to go on her way; but her
+legs would scarcely carry her, she was so weak and distressed.
+
+She wanted to go into a restaurant and get a cup of bouillon, but a
+sort of shame, of fear, of modesty at her grief being observed held
+her back. She would pause at the door, look in, see all the people
+sitting at table eating, and would turn away, saying: "I will go into
+the next one." But she had not the courage.
+
+Finally she went into a bakery and bought a crescent and ate it as she
+walked along. She was very thirsty, but did not know where to go to
+get something to drink, so did without it.
+
+Presently she found herself in another garden surrounded by arcades.
+She recognized the Palais Royal. Being tired and warm, she sat down
+here for an hour or two.
+
+A crowd of people came in, a well-dressed crowd, chatting, smiling,
+bowing to each other, that happy crowd of beautiful women and wealthy
+men who live only for dress and amusement. Jeanne felt bewildered in
+the midst of this brilliant assemblage, and got up to make her escape.
+But suddenly the thought came to her that she might meet Paul in this
+place; and she began to wander about, looking into the faces, going
+and coming incessantly with her quick step from one end of the garden
+to the other.
+
+People turned round to look at her, others laughed as they pointed her
+out. She noticed it and fled, thinking that they were doubtless amused
+at her appearance and at her dress of green plaid, selected by
+Rosalie, and made according to her ideas by the dressmaker at
+Goderville.
+
+She no longer dared even to ask her way of passersby, but at last she
+ventured to do so and found her way back to the hotel.
+
+The following day she went to the police department to ask them to
+look for her child. They could promise her nothing, but said they
+would do all they could. She wandered about the streets hoping that
+she might come across him. And she felt more alone in this bustling
+crowd, more lost, more wretched than in the lonely country.
+
+That evening when she came back to the hotel she was informed that a
+man had come to see her from M. Paul, and that he would come back
+again the following day. Her heart began to beat violently and she
+never closed her eyes that night. If it should be he! Yes, it
+assuredly was, although she would not have recognized him from the
+description they gave her.
+
+About nine o'clock the following morning there was a knock at the
+door. She cried: "Come in!" ready to throw herself into certain
+outstretched arms. But an unknown person appeared; and while he
+excused himself for disturbing her, and explained his business, which
+was to collect a debt of Paul's, she felt the tears beginning to
+overflow, and wiped them away with her finger before they fell on her
+cheeks.
+
+He had learned of her arrival through the janitor of the Rue Sauvage,
+and as he could not find the young man, he had come to see his mother.
+He handed her a paper, which she took without knowing what she was
+doing and read the figures--ninety francs--which she paid without a
+word.
+
+She did not go out that day.
+
+The next day other creditors came. She gave them all that she had left
+except twenty francs and then wrote to Rosalie to explain matters to
+her.
+
+She passed her days wandering about, waiting for Rosalie's answer, not
+knowing what to do, how to kill the melancholy, interminable hours,
+having no one to whom she could say an affectionate word, no one who
+knew her sorrow. She now longed to return home to her little house at
+the side of the lonely high road. A few days before she thought she
+could not live there, she was so overcome with grief, and now she felt
+that she could never live anywhere else but there where her serious
+character had been formed.
+
+One evening the letter at last came, enclosing two hundred francs.
+Rosalie wrote:
+
+"Madame Jeanne: Come back at once, for I shall not send you any more.
+As for M. Paul, it is I who will go and get him when we know where he
+is.
+
+"With respect, your servant,
+
+"Rosalie."
+
+Jeanne set out for Batteville one very cold, snowy morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
+
+Jeanne never went out now, never stirred about. She rose at the same
+hour every day, looked out at the weather and then went downstairs and
+sat before the parlor fire.
+
+She would remain for days motionless, gazing into the fire, thinking
+of nothing in particular. It would grow dark before she stirred,
+except to put a fresh log on the fire. Rosalie would then bring in the
+lamp and exclaim: "Come, Madame Jeanne, you must stir about or you
+will have no appetite again this evening."
+
+She lived over the past, haunted by memories of her early life and her
+wedding journey down yonder in Corsica. Forgotten landscapes in that
+isle now rose before her in the blaze of the fire, and she recalled
+all the little details, all the little incidents, the faces she had
+seen down there. The head of the guide, Jean Ravoli, haunted her, and
+she sometimes seemed to hear his voice.
+
+Then she remembered the sweet years of Paul's childhood, when they
+planted salad together and when she knelt in the thick grass beside
+Aunt Lison, each trying what they could do to please the child, and
+her lips murmured: "Poulet, my little Poulet," as though she were
+talking to him. Stopping at this word, she would try to trace it,
+letter by letter, in space, sometimes for hours at a time, until she
+became confused and mixed up the letters and formed other words, and
+she became so nervous that she was almost crazy.
+
+She had all the peculiarities of those who live a solitary life. The
+least thing out of its usual place irritated her.
+
+Rosalie often obliged her to walk and took her on the high road, but
+at the end of twenty minutes she declared she could not take another
+step and sat down on the side of the road.
+
+She soon became averse to all movement and stayed in bed as late as
+possible. Since her childhood she had retained one custom, that of
+rising the instant she had drunk her café au lait in the morning. But
+now she would lie down again and begin to dream, and as she was daily
+growing more lazy, Rosalie would come and oblige her to get up and
+almost force her to get dressed.
+
+She seemed no longer to have any will power, and each time the maid
+asked her a question or wanted her advice or opinion she would say:
+"Do as you think best, my girl."
+
+She imagined herself pursued by some persistent ill luck and was like
+an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her
+hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer
+before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the
+wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of
+bad luck--I have never had any luck in life."
+
+Then Rosalie would say: "What would you do if you had to work for your
+living, if you were obliged to get up every morning at six o'clock to
+go out to your work? Many people have to do that, nevertheless, and
+when they grow too old they die of want."
+
+Jeanne replied: "Remember that I am all alone; that my son has
+deserted me." And Rosalie would get very angry: "That's another thing!
+Well, how about the sons who are drafted into the army and those who
+go to America?"
+
+America to her was an undefined country, where one went to make a
+fortune and whence one never returned. She continued: "There always
+comes a time when people have to part, for old people and young people
+are not made to live together." And she added fiercely: "Well, what
+would you say if he were dead?"
+
+Jeanne had nothing more to say.
+
+One day in spring she had gone up to the loft to look for something
+and by chance opened a box containing old calendars which had been
+preserved after the manner of some country folks.
+
+She took them up and carried them downstairs. They were of all sizes,
+and she laid them out on the table in the parlor in regular order.
+Suddenly she spied the earliest, the one she had brought with her to
+"The Poplars." She gazed at it for some time, at the days crossed off
+by her the morning she left Rouen, the day after she left the convent,
+and she wept slow, sorrowful tears, the tears of an old woman at sight
+of her wretched life spread out before her on this table.
+
+One morning the maid came into her room earlier than usual, and
+placing the bowl of café au lait on the little stand beside her bed,
+she said: "Come, drink it quickly. Denis is waiting for us at the
+door. We are going to 'The Poplars,' for I have something to attend
+to down there."
+
+Jeanne dressed herself with trembling hands, almost fainting at the
+thought of seeing her dear home once more.
+
+The sky was cloudless and the nag, who was inclined to be frisky,
+would suddenly start off at a gallop every now and then. As they
+entered the commune of Étouvent Jeanne's heart beat so that she could
+hardly breathe.
+
+They unharnessed the horse at the Couillard place, and while Rosalie
+and her son were attending to their own affairs, the farmer and his
+wife offered to let Jeanne go over the chateau, as the proprietor was
+away and they had the keys.
+
+She went off alone, and when she reached the side of the chateau from
+which there was a view of the sea she turned round to look. Nothing
+had changed on the outside. When she turned the heavy lock and went
+inside the first thing she did was to go up to her old room, which she
+did not recognize, as it had been newly papered and furnished. But the
+view from the window was the same, and she stood and gazed out at the
+landscape she had so loved.
+
+She then wandered all over the house, walking quietly all alone in
+this silent abode as though it were a cemetery. All her life was
+buried here. She went down to the drawing-room, which was dark with
+its closed shutters. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light
+she recognized some of the old hangings. Two easy chairs were drawn up
+before the fire, as if some one had just left them, and as Jeanne
+stood there, full of old memories, she suddenly seemed to see her
+father and mother sitting there, warming their feet at the fire.
+
+She started back in terror and knocked up against the edge of the
+door, against which she leaned to support herself, still staring at
+the armchairs.
+
+The vision had vanished.
+
+She remained bewildered for some minutes. Then she slowly recovered
+her composure and started to run away, for fear she might become
+insane. She chanced to look at the door against which she had been
+leaning and saw there "Poulet's ladder."
+
+All the little notches were there showing the age and growth of her
+child. Here was the baron's writing, then hers, a little smaller, and
+then Aunt Lison's rather shaky characters. And she seemed to see her
+boy of long ago with his fair hair standing before her, leaning his
+little forehead against the door while they measured his height.
+
+And she kissed the edge of the door in a frenzy of affection.
+
+But some one was calling her outside. It was Rosalie's voice: "Madame
+Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, they are waiting breakfast for you." She went
+out in a dream and understood nothing of what they were saying to her.
+She ate what they gave her, heard them talking, but about what she
+knew not, let them kiss her on the cheeks and kissed them in return
+and then got into the carriage.
+
+When they lost sight of the château behind the tall trees she felt a
+wrench at her heart, convinced that she had bid a last farewell to her
+old home.
+
+When they reached Batteville and just as she was going into her new
+house, she saw something white under the door. It was a letter that
+the postman had slipped under the door while she was out. She
+recognized Paul's writing and opened it, trembling with anxiety. He
+wrote:
+
+"My Dear Mother: I have not written sooner because I did not wish you
+to make a useless journey to Paris when it was my place to go and see
+you. I am just now in great sorrow and in great straits. My wife is
+dying after giving birth to a little girl three days ago, and I have
+not one sou. I do not know what to do with the child, whom my
+janitor's wife is bringing up on the bottle as well as she can, but I
+fear I shall lose her. Could you not take charge of it? I absolutely
+do not know what to do, and I have no money to put her out to nurse.
+Answer by return mail.
+
+"Your son, who loves you,
+
+"Paul."
+
+Jeanne sank into a chair and had scarcely strength to call Rosalie.
+When the maid came into the room they read the letter over together
+and then remained silent for some time, face to face.
+
+At last Rosalie said: "I am going to fetch the little one, madame. We
+cannot leave it like that."
+
+"Go, my girl," replied Jeanne.
+
+Then they were silent until the maid said: "Put on your hat, madame,
+and we will go to Goderville to see the lawyer. If she is going to
+die, the other one, M. Paul must marry her for the little one's sake
+later on."
+
+Jeanne, without replying, put on her hat. A deep, inexpressible joy
+filled her heart, a treacherous joy that she sought to hide at any
+cost, one of those things of which one is ashamed, although cherishing
+it in one's soul--her son's sweetheart was going to die.
+
+The lawyer gave the servant minute instructions, making her repeat
+them several times. Then, sure that she could make no mistake, she
+said: "Do not be afraid. I will see to it now."
+
+She set out for Paris that very night.
+
+Jeanne passed two days in such a troubled condition that she could not
+think. The third morning she received merely a line from Rosalie
+saying she would be back on the evening train. That was all.
+
+About three o'clock she drove in a neighbor's light wagon to the
+station at Beuzeville to meet Rosalie.
+
+She stood on the platform, looking at the railroad track as it
+disappeared on the horizon. She looked at the clock. Ten minutes
+still--five minutes still--two minutes more. Then the hour of the
+train's arrival, but it was not in sight. Presently, however, she saw
+a cloud of white smoke and gradually it drew up in the station. She
+looked anxiously and at last perceived Rosalie carrying a sort of
+white bundle in her arms.
+
+She wanted to go over toward her, but her knees seemed to grow weak
+and she was afraid of falling.
+
+But the maid had seen her and came forward with her usual calm manner
+and said: "How do you do, madame? Here I am back again, but not
+without some difficulty."
+
+"Well?" faltered Jeanne.
+
+"Well," answered Rosalie, "she died last night. They were married and
+here is the little girl." And she held out the child, who could not be
+seen under her wraps.
+
+Jeanne took it mechanically and they left the station and got into the
+carriage.
+
+"M. Paul will come as soon as the funeral is over--to-morrow about
+this time, I believe," resumed Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne murmured "Paul" and then was silent.
+
+The wagon drove along rapidly, the peasant clacking his tongue to urge
+on the horse. Jeanne looked straight ahead of her into the clear sky
+through which the swallows darted in curves. Suddenly she felt a
+gentle warmth striking through to her skin; it was the warmth of the
+little being who was asleep on her lap.
+
+Then she was overcome with an intense emotion, and uncovering gently
+the face of the sleeping infant, she raised it to her lips and kissed
+it passionately.
+
+But Rosalie, happy though grumpy, stopped her; "Come, come, Madame
+Jeanne, stop that; you will make it cry."
+
+And then she added, probably in answer to her own thoughts: "Life,
+after all, is not as good or as bad as we believe it to be."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+A VAGABOND
+
+He was a journeyman carpenter, a good workman and a steady fellow,
+twenty-seven years old, but, although the eldest son, Jacques Randel
+had been forced to live on his family for two months, owing to the
+general lack of work. He had walked about seeking work for over a
+month and had left his native town, Ville-Avary, in La Manche, because
+he could find nothing to do and would no longer deprive his family of
+the bread they needed themselves, when he was the strongest of them
+all. His two sisters earned but little as charwomen. He went and
+inquired at the town hall, and the mayor's secretary told him that he
+would find work at the Labor Agency, and so he started, well provided
+with papers and certificates, and carrying another pair of shoes, a
+pair of trousers and a shirt in a blue handkerchief at the end of his
+stick.
+
+And he had walked almost without stopping, day and night, along
+interminable roads, in sun and rain, without ever reaching that
+mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed
+idea that he must only work as a carpenter, but at every carpenter's
+shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on
+account of work being so slack, and, finding himself at the end of his
+resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come
+across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman,
+stonecutter; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells,
+mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for
+a few pence, for he only obtained two or three days' work occasionally
+by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the
+avarice of employers and peasants.
+
+And now for a week he had found nothing, and had no money left, and
+nothing to eat but a piece of bread, thanks to the charity of some
+women from whom he had begged at house doors on the road. It was
+getting dark, and Jacques Randel, jaded, his legs failing him, his
+stomach empty, and with despair in his heart, was walking barefoot on
+the grass by the side of the road, for he was taking care of his last
+pair of shoes, as the other pair had already ceased to exist for a
+long time. It was a Saturday, toward the end of autumn. The heavy gray
+clouds were being driven rapidly through the sky by the gusts of wind
+which whistled among the trees, and one felt that it would rain soon.
+The country was deserted at that hour on the eve of Sunday. Here and
+there in the fields there rose up stacks of wheat straw, like huge
+yellow mushrooms, and the fields looked bare, as they had already been
+sown for the next year.
+
+Randel was hungry, with the hunger of some wild animal, such a hunger
+as drives wolves to attack men. Worn out and weakened with fatigue, he
+took longer strides, so as not to take so many steps, and with heavy
+head, the blood throbbing in his temples, with red eyes and dry mouth,
+he grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing to strike the
+first passerby who might be going home to supper.
+
+He looked at the sides of the road, imagining he saw potatoes dug up
+and lying on the ground before his eyes; if he had found any he would
+have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a
+capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would
+first of all have warmed his cold hands. But it was too late in the
+year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up
+in a field as he had done the day before.
+
+For the last two days he had talked to himself as he quickened his
+steps under the influence of his thoughts. He had never thought much
+hitherto, as he had given all his mind, all his simple faculties to
+his mechanical work. But now fatigue and this desperate search for
+work which he could not get, refusals and rebuffs, nights spent in the
+open air lying on the grass, long fasting, the contempt which he knew
+people with a settled abode felt for a vagabond, and that question
+which he was continually asked, "Why do you not remain at home?"
+distress at not being able to use his strong arms which he felt so
+full of vigor, the recollection of the relations he had left at home
+and who also had not a penny, filled him by degrees with rage, which
+had been accumulating every day, every hour, every minute, and which
+now escaped his lips in spite of himself in short, growling sentences.
+
+As he stumbled over the stones which tripped his bare feet, he
+grumbled: "How wretched! how miserable! A set of hogs--to let a man
+die of hunger--a carpenter--a set of hogs--not two sous--not two
+sous--and now it is raining--a set of hogs!"
+
+He was indignant at the injustice of fate, and cast the blame on men,
+on all men, because nature, that great, blind mother, is unjust, cruel
+and perfidious, and he repeated through his clenched teeth: "A set of
+hogs" as he looked at the thin gray smoke which rose from the roofs,
+for it was the dinner hour. And, without considering that there is
+another injustice which is human, and which is called robbery and
+violence, he felt inclined to go into one of those houses to murder
+the inhabitants and to sit down to table in their stead.
+
+He said to himself: "I have no right to live now, as they are letting
+me die of hunger, and yet I only ask for work--a set of hogs!" And the
+pain in his limbs, the gnawing in his heart rose to his head like
+terrible intoxication, and gave rise to this simple thought in his
+brain: "I have the right to live because I breathe and because the air
+is the common property of everybody. So nobody has the right to leave
+me without bread!"
+
+A fine, thick, icy cold rain was coming down, and he stopped and
+murmured: "Oh, misery! Another month of walking before I get home." He
+was indeed returning home then, for he saw that he should more easily
+find work in his native town, where he was known--and he did not mind
+what he did--than on the highroads, where everybody suspected him. As
+the carpentering business was not prosperous, he would turn day
+laborer, be a mason's hodman, a ditcher, break stones on the road. If
+he only earned a franc a day, that would at any rate buy him something
+to eat.
+
+He tied the remains of his last pocket handkerchief round his neck to
+prevent the cold rain from running down his back and chest, but he
+soon found that it was penetrating the thin material of which his
+clothes were made, and he glanced about him with the agonized look of
+a man who does not know where to hide his body and to rest his head,
+and has no place of shelter in the whole world.
+
+Night came on and wrapped the country in obscurity, and in the
+distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark spot on the grass; it was a cow,
+and so he got over the ditch by the roadside and went up to her
+without exactly knowing what he was doing. When he got close to her
+she raised her great head to him, and he thought: "If I only had a jug
+I could get a little milk." He looked at the cow and the cow looked at
+him, and then, suddenly giving her a kick in the side, he said: "Get
+up!"
+
+The animal got up slowly, letting her heavy udders hang down. Then the
+man lay down on his back between the animal's legs and drank for a
+long time, squeezing her warm, swollen teats, which tasted of the
+cowstall, with both hands, and he drank as long as she gave any milk.
+But the icy rain began to fall more heavily, and he saw no place of
+shelter on the whole of that bare plain. He was cold, and he looked at
+a light which was shining among the trees in the window of a house.
+
+The cow had lain down again heavily, and he sat down by her side and
+stroked her head, grateful for the nourishment she had given him. The
+animal's strong, thick breath, which came out of her nostrils like two
+jets of steam in the evening air, blew on the workman's face, and he
+said: "You are not cold inside there!" He put his hands on her chest
+and under her stomach to find some warmth there, and then the idea
+struck him that he might pass the night beside that large, warm
+animal. So he found a comfortable place and laid his head on her side,
+and then, as he was worn out with fatigue, fell asleep immediately.
+
+He woke up, however, several times, with his back or his stomach half
+frozen, according as he put one or the other against the animal's
+flank. Then he turned over to warm and dry that part of his body which
+had remained exposed to the night air, and soon went soundly to sleep
+again.
+
+The crowing of a cock woke him; the day was breaking, it was no longer
+raining, and the sky was bright. The cow was resting with her muzzle
+on the ground, and he stooped down, resting on his hands, to kiss
+those wide, moist nostrils, and said: "Good-by, my beauty, until next
+time. You are a nice animal. Good-by." Then he put on his shoes and
+went off, and for two hours walked straight before him, always
+following the same road, and then he felt so tired that he sat down on
+the grass. It was broad daylight by that time, and the church bells
+were ringing; men in blue blouses, women in white caps, some on foot,
+some in carts, began to pass along the road, going to the neighboring
+villages to spend Sunday with friends or relations.
+
+A stout peasant came in sight, driving before him a score of
+frightened, bleating sheep, with the help of an active dog. Randel got
+up, and raising his cap, said: "You do not happen to have any work for
+a man who is dying of hunger?" But the other, giving an angry look at
+the vagabond, replied: "I have no work for fellows whom I meet on the
+road."
+
+And the carpenter went back and sat down by the side of the ditch
+again. He waited there for a long time, watching the country people
+pass and looking for a kind, compassionate face before he renewed his
+request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was
+adorned with a gold chain. "I have been looking for work," he said,
+"for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in
+my pocket." But the would-be gentleman replied: "You should have read
+the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village: 'Begging
+is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.' Let me tell you
+that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly
+I shall have you arrested."
+
+Randel, who was getting angry, replied: "Have me arrested if you like;
+I should prefer it, for, at any rate, I should not die of hunger." And
+he went back and sat down by the side of his ditch again, and in about
+a quarter of an hour two gendarmes appeared on the road. They were
+walking slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining
+hats, their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to
+frighten evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance. He knew
+that they were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was
+seized with a sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and
+to have his revenge later.
+
+They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with
+military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the
+goose step; and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have
+noticed him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly,
+and the brigadier came up to him and asked: "What are you doing here?"
+"I am resting," the man replied calmly. "Where do you come from?" "If
+I had to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more
+than an hour." "Where are you going to?" "To Ville-Avary." "Where is
+that?" "In La Manche." "Is that where you belong?" "It is." "Why did
+you leave it?" "To look for work."
+
+The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a
+man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick: "They all say
+that, these scamps. I know all about it." And then he continued: "Have
+you any papers?" "Yes, I have some." "Give them to me."
+
+Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those
+poor, worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave
+them to the soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and
+then, having seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to
+Randel with the dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than
+himself has tricked.
+
+After a few moments' further reflection, he asked him: "Have you any
+money on you?" "No." "None whatever?" "None." "Not even a sou?" "Not
+even a sou!" "How do you live then?" "On what people give me." "Then
+you beg?" And Randel answered resolutely: "Yes, when I can."
+
+Then the gendarme said: "I have caught you on the highroad in the act
+of vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I
+command you to come with me." The carpenter got up and said: "Wherever
+you please." And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even
+before he had received the order to do so, he added: "Well, lock me
+up; that will at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains."
+
+And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be
+seen through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service
+was about to begin when they went through the village. The square was
+full of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal
+pass. He was being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and
+female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with
+hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his
+skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked
+each other whether he had committed murder or robbery. The butcher,
+who was an ex-spahi, declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist
+thought that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning
+passed a bad half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared
+that he was the murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been
+looking for for six months.
+
+In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw
+the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the
+schoolmaster by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so
+here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you
+locked up. Well, brigadier, what is he charged with?"
+
+"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without
+any resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of
+begging, but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are
+all in order."
+
+"Show me his papers," the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread,
+returned them and then said: "Search him." So they searched him, but
+found nothing, and the mayor seemed perplexed, and asked the workman:
+
+"What were you doing on the road this morning?" "I was looking for
+work." "Work? On the highroad?" "How do you expect me to find any if I
+hide in the woods?"
+
+They looked at each other with the hatred of two wild beasts which
+belong to different hostile species, and the magistrate continued: "I
+am going to have you set at liberty, but do not be brought up before
+me again." To which the carpenter replied: "I would rather you locked
+me up; I have had enough running about the country." But the
+magistrate replied severely: "Be silent." And then he said to the two
+gendarmes: "You will conduct this man two hundred yards from the
+village and let him continue his journey."
+
+"At any rate, give me something to eat," the workman said, but the
+other grew indignant: "Have we nothing to do but to feed you? Ah! ah!
+ah! that is rather too much!" But Randel went on firmly: "If you let
+me nearly die of hunger again, you will force me to commit a crime,
+and then, so much the worse for you other fat fellows."
+
+The mayor had risen and he repeated: "Take him away immediately or I
+shall end by getting angry."
+
+The two gendarmes thereupon seized the carpenter by the arms and
+dragged him out. He allowed them to do it without resistance, passed
+through the village again and found himself on the highroad once more;
+and when the men had accompanied him two hundred yards beyond the
+village, the brigadier said: "Now off with you and do not let me catch
+you about here again, for if I do, you will know it."
+
+Randel went off without replying or knowing where he was going. He
+walked on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied
+that he no longer thought of anything. But suddenly, as he was passing
+a small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup
+and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring,
+maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of
+the house like a wild beast.
+
+He said aloud in a grumbling voice: "In Heaven's name! they must give
+me some this time!" And he began to knock at the door vigorously with
+his stick, and as no one came he knocked louder and called out: "Hey!
+hey! you people in there, open the door!" And then, as nothing
+stirred, he went up to the window and pushed it wider open with his
+hand, and the close warm air of the kitchen, full of the smell of hot
+soup, meat and cabbage, escaped into the cold outer air, and with a
+bound the carpenter was in the house. Two places were set at the
+table, and no doubt the proprietors of the house, on going to church,
+had left their dinner on the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef
+and vegetable soup, while there was a loaf of new bread on the
+chimney-piece, between two bottles which seemed full.
+
+Randel seized the bread first of all and broke it with as much
+violence as if he were strangling a man, and then he began to eat
+voraciously, swallowing great mouthfuls quickly. But almost
+immediately the smell of the meat attracted him to the fireplace, and,
+having taken off the lid of the saucepan, he plunged a fork into it
+and brought out a large piece of beef tied with a string. Then he took
+more cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, having
+put it on the table, he sat down before it, cut the meat into four
+pieces, and dined as if he had been at home. When he had eaten nearly
+all the meat, besides a quantity of vegetables, he felt thirsty and
+took one of the bottles off the mantelpiece.
+
+Scarcely had he poured the liquor into his glass when he saw it was
+brandy. So much the better; it was warming and would instill some fire
+into his veins, and that would be all right, after being so cold; and
+he drank some. He certainly enjoyed it, for he had grown unaccustomed
+to it, and he poured himself out another glassful, which he drank
+at two gulps. And then almost immediately he felt quite merry and
+light-hearted from the effects of the alcohol, just as if some great
+happiness filled his heart.
+
+He continued to eat, but more slowly, and dipping his bread into the
+soup. His skin had become burning, and especially his forehead, where
+the veins were throbbing. But suddenly the church bells began to ring.
+Mass was over, and instinct rather than fear, the instinct of
+prudence, which guides all beings and makes them clear-sighted in
+danger, made the carpenter get up. He put the remains of the loaf into
+one pocket and the brandy bottle into the other, and he furtively went
+to the window and looked out into the road. It was still deserted, so
+he jumped out and set off walking again, but instead of following the
+highroad he ran across the fields toward a wood he saw a little way
+off.
+
+He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so
+nimble that he sprang over the enclosure of the fields at a single
+bound, and as soon as he was under the trees he took the bottle out of
+his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as
+he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew
+dim, and his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the
+old popular song:
+
+      _"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
+      To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."_
+
+He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet
+under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels
+as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault,
+got up and began over again. And between each time he began to sing
+again:
+
+      _"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
+      To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."_
+
+Suddenly he found himself above a deep road, and in the road he saw a
+tall girl, a servant, who was returning to the village with two pails
+of milk. He watched, stooping down, and with his eyes as bright as
+those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him, raised her head
+and said: "Was that you singing like that?" He did not reply, however,
+but jumped down into the road, although it was a fall of at least six
+feet and when she saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she
+exclaimed: "Oh! dear, how you frightened me!"
+
+But he did not hear her, for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by
+another requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more
+feverish than alcohol; by the irresistible fury of the man who has
+been deprived of everything for two months, and who is drunk; who is
+young, ardent and inflamed by all the appetites which nature has
+implanted in the vigorous flesh of men.
+
+The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his
+half-open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the
+shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.
+
+She let her two pails fall, and they rolled over noisily, and all the
+milk was spilt, and then she screamed lustily, but it was of no avail
+in that lonely spot.
+
+When she got up the thought of her overturned pails suddenly filled
+her with fury, and, taking off one of her wooden sabots, she threw it
+at the man to break his head if he did not pay her for her milk.
+
+But he, mistaking the reason of this sudden violent attack, somewhat
+sobered, and frightened at what he had done, ran off as fast as he
+could, while she threw stones at him, some of which hit him in the
+back.
+
+He ran for a long time, very long, until he felt more tired than he
+had ever been before. His legs were so weak that they could scarcely
+carry him; all his ideas were confused, he lost recollection of
+everything and could no longer think about anything, and so he sat
+down at the foot of a tree, and in five minutes was fast asleep. He
+was soon awakened, however, by a rough shake, and, on opening his
+eyes, he saw two cocked hats of shiny leather bending over him, and
+the two gendarmes of the morning, who were holding him and binding his
+arms.
+
+"I knew I should catch you again," said the brigadier jeeringly. But
+Randel got up without replying. The two men shook him, quite ready to
+ill treat him if he made a movement, for he was their prey now. He had
+become a jailbird, caught by those hunters of criminals who would not
+let him go again.
+
+"Now, start!" the brigadier said, and they set off. It was late
+afternoon, and the autumn twilight was setting in over the land, and
+in half an hour they reached the village, where every door was open,
+for the people had heard what had happened. Peasants and peasant women
+and girls, excited with anger, as if every man had been robbed and
+every woman attacked, wished to see the wretch brought back, so that
+they might overwhelm him with abuse. They hooted him from the first
+house in the village until they reached the Hotel de Ville, where the
+mayor was waiting for him to be himself avenged on this vagabond, and
+as soon as he saw him approaching he cried:
+
+"Ah! my fine fellow! here we are!" And he rubbed his hands, more
+pleased than he usually was, and continued: "I said so. I said so, the
+moment I saw him in the road."
+
+And then with increased satisfaction:
+
+"Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you dirty blackguard! You will get your
+twenty years, my fine fellow!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE FISHING HOLE
+
+"Cuts and wounds which caused death." Such was the charge upon which
+Leopold Renard, upholsterer, was summoned before the Court of Assizes.
+
+Round him were the principal witnesses, Madame Flamèche, widow of the
+victim, and Louis Ladureau, cabinetmaker, and Jean Durdent, plumber.
+
+Near the criminal was his wife, dressed in black, an ugly little
+woman, who looked like a monkey dressed as a lady.
+
+This is how Renard (Leopold) recounted the drama:
+
+"Good heavens, it is a misfortune of which I was the prime victim all
+the time, and with which my will has nothing to do. The facts are
+their own commentary, Monsieur le Président. I am an honest man, a
+hard-working man, an upholsterer, living in the same street for the
+last sixteen years, known, liked, respected and esteemed by all, as my
+neighbors can testify, even the porter's wife, who is not amiable
+every day. I am fond of work, I am fond of saving, I like honest men
+and respectable amusements. That is what has ruined me, so much the
+worse for me; but as my will had nothing to do with it, I continue to
+respect myself.
+
+"Every Sunday for the last five years my wife and I have spent the day
+at Passy. We get fresh air, and, besides, we are fond of fishing. Oh!
+we are as fond of it as we are of little onions. Mélie inspired me
+with that enthusiasm, the jade, and she is more enthusiastic than I
+am, the scold, seeing that all the mischief in this business is her
+fault, as you will see immediately.
+
+"I am strong and mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me.
+But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin.
+Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that
+she has some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones for
+a man in business. But her character! Just ask about it in the
+neighborhood, and even the porter's wife, who has just sent me about
+my business ... she will tell you something about it.
+
+"Every day she used to find fault with my mild temper: 'I would not
+put up with this! I would not put up with that.' If I had listened
+to her, Monsieur le Président, I should have had at least three
+hand-to-hand fights a month...."
+
+Madame Renard interrupted him: "And for good reasons, too; they laugh
+best who laugh last."
+
+He turned toward her frankly: "Well, I can't blame you, since you were
+not the cause of it."
+
+Then, facing the President again, he said:
+
+"I will continue. We used to go to Passy every Saturday evening, so as
+to begin fishing at daybreak the next morning. It is a habit which has
+become second nature with us, as the saying is. Three years ago this
+summer I discovered a place, oh! such a spot. Oh, dear, dear! In the
+shade, eight feet of water at least and perhaps ten, a hole with
+cavities under the bank, a regular nest for fish and a paradise for
+the fisherman. I might look upon that fishing hole as my property,
+Monsieur le Président, as I was its Christopher Columbus. Everybody in
+the neighborhood knew it, without making any opposition. They would
+say: 'That is Renard's place'; and nobody would have gone there, not
+even Monsieur Plumeau, who is well known, be it said without any
+offense, for poaching on other people's preserves.
+
+"Well, I returned to this place of which I felt certain, just as if I
+had owned it. I had scarcely got there on Saturday, when I got into
+_Delila_, with my wife. _Delila_ is my Norwegian boat, which
+I had built by Fournaire, and which is light and safe. Well, as I
+said, we got into the boat and we were going to set bait, and for
+setting bait there is none to be compared with me, and they all know
+it. You want to know with what I bait? I cannot answer that question;
+it has nothing to do with the accident. I cannot answer; that is my
+secret. There are more than three hundred people who have asked me; I
+have been offered glasses of brandy and liqueur, fried fish,
+matelotes, to make me tell. But just go and try whether the chub will
+come. Ah! they have tempted my stomach to get at my secret, my recipe.
+Only my wife knows, and she will not tell it any more than I will. Is
+not that so, Mélie?"
+
+The president of the court interrupted him.
+
+"Just get to the facts as soon as you can," and the accused continued:
+"I am getting to them, I am getting to them. Well, on Saturday, July
+8, we left by the twenty-five past five train and before dinner we
+went to set bait as usual. The weather promised to keep fine and I
+said to Mélie: 'All right for tomorrow.' And she replied: 'It looks
+like it.' We never talk more than that together.
+
+"And then we returned to dinner. I was happy and thirsty, and that was
+the cause of everything. I said to Mélie: 'Look here, Mélie, it is
+fine weather, suppose I drink a bottle of _Casque à mèche_.' That
+is a weak white wine which we have christened so, because if you drink
+too much of it it prevents you from sleeping and takes the place of a
+nightcap. Do you understand me?
+
+"She replied: 'You can do as you please, but you will be ill again and
+will not be able to get up tomorrow.' That was true, sensible and
+prudent, clearsighted, I must confess. Nevertheless I could not
+resist, and I drank my bottle. It all came from that.
+
+"Well, I could not sleep. By Jove! it kept me awake till two o'clock
+in the morning, and then I went to sleep so soundly that I should not
+have heard the angel sounding his trump at the last Judgment.
+
+"In short, my wife woke me at six o'clock and I jumped out of bed,
+hastily put on my trousers and jersey, washed my face and jumped on
+board _Delila_. But it was too late, for when I arrived at my
+hole it was already occupied! Such a thing had never happened to me in
+three years, and it made me feel as if I were being robbed under my
+own eyes. I said to myself: 'Confound it all! confound it!' And then
+my wife began to nag at me. 'Eh! what about your _Casque à
+mèche?_ Get along, you drunkard! Are you satisfied, you great
+fool?' I could say nothing, because it was all true, but I landed all
+the same near the spot and tried to profit by what was left. Perhaps
+after all the fellow might catch nothing and go away.
+
+"He was a little thin man in white linen coat and waistcoat and a
+large straw hat, and his wife, a fat woman, doing embroidery, sat
+behind him.
+
+"When she saw us take up our position close to them she murmured: 'Are
+there no other places on the river?' My wife, who was furious,
+replied: 'People who have any manners make inquiries about the habits
+of the neighborhood before occupying reserved spots.'
+
+"As I did not want a fuss, I said to her: 'Hold your tongue, Mélie.
+Let them alone, let them alone; we shall see.'
+
+"Well, we fastened _Delila_ under the willows and had landed and
+were fishing side by side, Mélie and I, close to the two others. But
+here, monsieur, I must enter into details.
+
+"We had only been there about five minutes when our neighbor's line
+began to jerk twice, thrice, and then he pulled out a chub as thick as
+my thigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, the
+perspiration stood on my forehead and Mélie said to me: 'Well, you
+sot, did you see that?'
+
+"Just then Monsieur Bru, the grocer of Poissy, who is fond of gudgeon
+fishing, passed in a boat and called out to me: 'So somebody has taken
+your usual place, Monsieur Renard?' And I replied--: 'Yes, Monsieur
+Bru, there are some people in this world who do not know the rules of
+common politeness.'
+
+"The little man in linen pretended not to hear, nor his fat lump of a
+wife, either."
+
+Here the president interrupted him a second time: "Take care, you are
+insulting the widow, Madame Flamèche, who is present."
+
+Renard made his excuses: "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; my
+anger carried me away. Well, not a quarter of an hour had passed when
+the little man caught another chub, and another almost immediately,
+and another five minutes later.
+
+"Tears were in my eyes, and I knew that Madame Renard was boiling with
+rage, for she kept on nagging at me: 'Oh, how horrid! Don't you see
+that he is robbing you of your fish? Do you think that you will catch
+anything? Not even a frog, nothing whatever. Why, my hands are
+tingling, just to think of it.'
+
+"But I said to myself: 'Let us wait until twelve o'clock. Then this
+poacher will go to lunch and I shall get my place again. As for me,
+Monsieur le Président, I lunch on that spot every Sunday. We bring our
+provisions in _Delila_. But there! At noon the wretch produced a
+chicken in a newspaper, and while he was eating, he actually caught
+another chub!
+
+"Mélie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for our
+heart was not in it.
+
+"Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion. Every Sunday I read
+the _Gil Blas_ in the shade by the side of the water. It is
+Columbine's day, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in
+the _Gil Blas_. I generally put Madame Renard into a rage by
+pretending to know this Columbine. It is not true, for I do not know
+her and have never seen her, but that does not matter. She writes very
+well, and then she says things that are pretty plain for a woman. She
+suits me and there are not many of her sort.
+
+"Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and
+very angry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who
+are present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on
+the other side of the river. We knew each other by sight The little
+man began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with
+vexation and his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we
+will come here always, Désiré.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my
+back, and Madame Renard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have
+the blood of a chicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her:
+'Look here, I would rather go away or I shall be doing something
+foolish.'
+
+"And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my
+nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender
+your place! Go, then, Bazaine!'
+
+"I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled
+out a bream. Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then
+my wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see
+her tricks. She said: 'That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing
+that we set the bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us
+back the money we have spent on bait.'
+
+"Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean
+to call us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments
+began to fly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They
+shouted so loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank,
+began to call out by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will
+interfere with your husbands' fishing.'
+
+"The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if
+we had been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on
+the water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the
+same. 'You are a thief! You are nothing better than a tramp! You are a
+regular jade!' and so on and so on. A sailor could not have said more.
+
+"Suddenly I heard a noise behind me and turned round. It was the other
+one, the fat woman, who had attacked my wife with her parasol.
+_Whack, whack!_ Mélie got two of them. But she was furious, and
+she hits hard when she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the
+hair and then _thump! thump!_ slaps in the face rained down like
+ripe plums. I should have let them fight it out: women together, men
+together. It does not do to mix the blows. But the little man in the
+linen jacket jumped up like a devil and was going to rush at my wife.
+Ah! no, no, not that, my friend! I caught the gentleman with the end
+of my fist, and _crash! crash!_ One on the nose, the other in the
+stomach. He threw up his arms and legs and fell on his back into the
+river, just into the hole.
+
+"I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le Président,
+if I had had time. But, to make matters worse, the fat woman had the
+upper hand and was pounding Mélie for all she was worth. I know I
+ought not to have interfered while the man was in the water, but I
+never thought that he would drown and said to myself: 'Bah, it will
+cool him.'
+
+"I therefore ran up to the women to separate them and all I received
+was scratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me
+five minutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragos. When I
+turned round there was nothing to be seen. The water was as smooth as
+a lake and the others yonder kept shouting: 'Fish him out! fish him
+out!' It was all very well to say that, but I cannot swim and still
+less dive.
+
+"At last the man from the dam came and two gentlemen with boathooks,
+but over a quarter of an hour had passed. He was found at the bottom
+of the hole, in eight feet of water, as I have said. There he was, the
+poor little man, in his linen suit! Those are the facts such as I have
+sworn to. I am innocent, on my honor."
+
+The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused
+was acquitted.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE SPASM
+
+The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places.
+The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers
+a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second
+time. The old bathers, the habitués, whose season was almost over,
+glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new
+faces might appear.
+
+This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look
+forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new
+arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.
+We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make
+agreeable acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In
+this life of elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme
+importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself,
+and sociability is the order of the day.
+
+We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see
+people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of
+acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly,
+after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in
+the park where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and
+astonishing merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten
+these new friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.
+
+Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere
+else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very
+quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and
+unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the
+dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the
+memory of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of
+those first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and
+secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of
+that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation
+of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in
+return.
+
+And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are
+all alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the
+appearance of strange faces.
+
+Only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man and a
+woman--father and daughter. They immediately reminded me of some
+of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm,
+the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims
+of fate. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with perfectly
+white hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy;
+and there was in his bearing and in his person that austerity
+peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four
+or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was also very thin, very
+pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out with utter lassitude.
+We meet people like this from time to time, who seem too weak for
+the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to
+walk, to do all that we do every day. She was rather pretty, with a
+transparent, spiritual beauty. And she ate with extreme slowness, as if
+she were almost incapable of moving her arms.
+
+It must have been she, assuredly, who had come to take the waters.
+
+They sat facing me, on the opposite side of the table; and I at once
+noticed that the father had a very singular, nervous twitching.
+
+Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of
+zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and
+after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside
+my head in order not to see it.
+
+I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her
+left hand.
+
+After dinner I went for a stroll in the park of the bathing
+establishment. This led toward the little Auvergnese station of
+Châtel-Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, from
+which flowed so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of
+extinct volcanoes. Over yonder, above our heads, the domes of extinct
+craters lifted their ragged peaks above the rest in the long mountain
+chain. For Châtel-Guyon is situated at the entrance to the land of
+mountain domes.
+
+Beyond it stretches out the region of peaks, and, farther on again,
+the region of precipitous summits.
+
+The "Puy de Dôme" is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is
+the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these
+mountain heights.
+
+It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down a shady
+path, listening to the opening strains of the Casino band, which was
+playing on an elevation overlooking the park.
+
+And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my
+direction. I bowed as one bows to one's hotel companions at a watering
+place; and the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me:
+
+"Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short,
+pretty, and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?"
+
+I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the
+little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall,
+craggy, wooded slopes.
+
+They gladly accepted my offer.
+
+And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.
+
+"Oh," he said, "my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is
+unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one
+time the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another
+time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another
+they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean
+malady, that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack,
+is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator
+of the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather
+inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad."
+
+Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his
+hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:
+
+"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves
+somewhat affected?"
+
+He replied calmly:
+
+"Mine? Oh, no--my nerves have always been very steady."
+
+Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on:
+
+"Ah! You were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I
+try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience
+which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually buried
+alive!"
+
+I could only utter, "Ah!" so great were my astonishment and emotion.
+
+He continued:
+
+"Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some
+time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease
+of that organ, and were prepared for the worst.
+
+"One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had
+fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life
+was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid
+her with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the
+cemetery, where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated
+in the very heart of Lorraine.
+
+"I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces,
+rings, all presents which she had received from me, and wearing her
+first ball dress.
+
+"You may easily imagine my state of mind when I re-entered our home.
+She was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many years.
+I found my way to my own apartment in a half-distracted condition,
+utterly exhausted, and sank into my easy-chair, without the capacity
+to think or the strength to move. I was nothing better now than a
+suffering, vibrating machine, a human being who had, as it were, been
+flayed alive; my soul was like an open wound.
+
+"My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her
+coffin, and aided me in preparing her for her last sleep, entered the
+room noiselessly, and asked:
+
+"'Does monsieur want anything?'
+
+"I merely shook my head in reply.
+
+"'Monsieur is wrong,' he urged. 'He will injure his health. Would
+monsieur like me to put him to bed?'
+
+"I answered: 'No, let me alone!'
+
+"And he left the room.
+
+"I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh, what a night, what a
+night! It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the
+wind, the winter wind, an icy wind, a winter hurricane, blew with a
+regular, sinister noise against the windows.
+
+"How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless,
+crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp,
+inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great
+doorbell, the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.
+
+"I started so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous
+sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a vault. I
+turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was just two in
+the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?
+
+"And, abruptly, the bell again rang twice. The servants, without
+doubt, were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle and descended the
+stairs. I was on the point of asking: 'Who is there?'
+
+"Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the heavy
+bolts. My heart was throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the
+door brusquely, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure,
+standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.
+
+"I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering:
+
+"'Who--who--who are you?'
+
+"A voice replied:
+
+"'It is I, father.'
+
+"It was my daughter.
+
+"I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before this
+advancing spectre. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand,
+as if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have
+noticed--that gesture which has remained with me ever since.
+
+"'Do not be afraid, papa,' said the apparition. 'I was not dead.
+Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut one of my fingers; the blood
+began to flow, and that restored me to life.'
+
+"And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.
+
+"I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my
+throat.
+
+"Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still
+so bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome happiness that
+had befallen me, I made her go up to my room and sit down in my
+easy-chair; then I rang excitedly for Prosper to get him to rekindle
+the fire and to bring some wine, and to summon assistance.
+
+"The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp
+of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead.
+
+"It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then
+abandoned my daughter; for he could not efface the traces of the
+theft. He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into
+its place, feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by
+me, as I trusted him absolutely.
+
+"You see, monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was silent.
+
+The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful
+vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by
+the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back
+from the tomb, and this father with his uncanny spasm.
+
+I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I
+only murmured:
+
+"What a horrible thing!"
+
+Then, after a minute's silence, I added:
+
+"Let us go indoors. I think it is growing cool."
+
+And we made our way back to the hotel.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+IN THE WOOD
+
+As the mayor was about to sit down to breakfast, word was brought to
+him that the rural policeman, with two prisoners, was awaiting him at
+the Hotel de Ville. He went there at once and found old Hochedur
+standing guard before a middle-class couple whom he was regarding with
+a severe expression on his face.
+
+The man, a fat old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed
+utterly dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout individual with
+shining cheeks, looked at the official who had arrested them, with
+defiant eyes.
+
+"What is it? What is it, Hochedur?"
+
+The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning
+at his usual time, in order to patrol his beat from the forest of
+Champioux as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed
+anything unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and
+that the wheat was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was
+going over his vines, called out to him: "Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and
+have a look at the outskirts of the wood. In the first thicket you
+will find a pair of pigeons who must be a hundred and thirty years old
+between them!"
+
+He went in the direction indicated, entered the thicket, and there he
+heard words which made him suspect a flagrant breach of morality.
+Advancing, therefore, on his hands and knees as if to surprise a
+poacher, he had arrested the couple whom he found there.
+
+The mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was
+certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and he began to
+question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak
+voice that he could scarcely be heard.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Nicholas Beaurain."
+
+"Your occupation?"
+
+"Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris."
+
+"What were you doing in the wood?"
+
+The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat paunch, and
+his hands hanging at his sides, and the mayor continued:
+
+"Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?"
+
+"No, monsieur."
+
+"So you confess it?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"What have you to say in your defence?"
+
+"Nothing, monsieur."
+
+"Where did you meet the partner in your misdemeanor?"
+
+"She is my wife, monsieur."
+
+"Your wife?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Then--then--you do not live together--in Paris?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but we are living together!"
+
+"But in that case--you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to
+get caught playing lovers in the country at ten o'clock in the
+morning."
+
+The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he muttered: "It
+was she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a
+woman once gets a thing into her head--you know--you cannot get it
+out."
+
+The mayor, who liked a joke, smiled and replied: "In your case, the
+contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had had
+the idea only in her head."
+
+Then Monsieur Beaurain was seized with rage, and turning to his wife,
+he said: "Do you see to what you have brought us with your poetry? And
+now we shall have to go before the courts at our age, for a breach of
+morals! And we shall have to shut up the shop, sell our good will, and
+go to some other neighborhood! That's what it has come to."
+
+Madame Beaurain got up, and without looking at her husband, she
+explained herself without embarrassment, without useless modesty, and
+almost without hesitation.
+
+"Of course, monsieur, I know that we have made ourselves ridiculous.
+Will you allow me to plead my cause like an advocate, or rather like a
+poor woman? And I hope that you will be kind enough to send us home,
+and to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.
+
+"Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance
+one Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop,
+and I was a saleswoman in a ready-made clothing establishment. I
+remember it as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays
+here occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Levèque, with whom I
+lived in the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had none.
+He used to bring us here, and one Saturday he told me laughing that he
+should bring a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what
+he meant, but I replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous,
+monsieur.
+
+"The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in
+those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to
+encourage him, and I did not. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a
+lovely day, the sort of day that touches your heart. When it is fine
+even now, just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and
+when I am in the country I utterly lose my head. The green grass, the
+swallows flying so swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet
+poppies, the daisies, all that makes me crazy. It is like champagne
+when one is not accustomed to it!
+
+"Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to
+penetrate your body through your eyes when you looked, and through
+your mouth when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each
+other every minute, and that gave me a queer feeling! Monsieur
+Beaurain and I walked behind them, without speaking much, for when
+people do not know each other, they do not find anything to talk
+about. He looked timid, and I liked to see his embarrassment. At last
+we got to the little wood; it was as cool as in a bath there, and we
+four sat down. Rose and her lover teased me because I looked rather
+stern, but you will understand that I could not be otherwise. And then
+they began to kiss and hug again, without putting any more restraint
+upon themselves than if we had not been there; and then they whispered
+together, and got up and went off among the trees, without saying a
+word. You may fancy what I looked like, alone with this young fellow
+whom I saw for the first time. I felt so confused at seeing them go
+that it gave me courage, and I began to talk. I asked him what his
+business was, and he said he was a linen draper's assistant, as I told
+you just now. We talked for a few minutes, and that made him bold, and
+he wanted to take liberties with me, but I told him sharply to keep
+his place. Is not that true, Monsieur Beaurain?"
+
+Monsieur Beaurain, who was looking at his feet in confusion, did not
+reply, and she continued: "Then he saw that I was virtuous, and he
+began to make love to me nicely, like an honorable man, and from that
+time he came every Sunday, for he was very much in love with me. I was
+very fond of him also, very fond of him! He was a good-looking fellow,
+formerly, and in short he married me the next September, and we
+started in business in the Rue des Martyrs.
+
+"It was a hard struggle for some years, monsieur. Business did not
+prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and,
+besides, we had got out of the way of them. One has other things in
+one's head, and thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches,
+when one is in business. We were growing old by degrees without
+perceiving it, like quiet people who do not think much about love. One
+does not regret anything as long as one does not notice what one has
+lost.
+
+"And then, monsieur, business became better, and we were tranquil as
+to the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what went on in my
+mind, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little
+boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers
+which are drawn about the streets made me cry; the smell of violets
+sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart
+beat! Then I would get up and go out on the doorstep to look at the
+blue sky between the roofs. When one looks up at the sky from the
+street, it looks like a river which is descending on Paris, winding as
+it flows, and the swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. These
+ideas are very stupid at my age! But how can one help it, monsieur,
+when one has worked all one's life? A moment comes in which one
+perceives that one could have done something else, and that one
+regrets, oh! yes, one feels intense regret! Just think, for twenty
+years I might have gone and had kisses in the woods, like other women.
+I used to think how delightful it would be to lie under the trees and
+be in love with some one! And I thought of it every day and every
+night! I dreamed of the moonlight on the water, until I felt inclined
+to drown myself.
+
+"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first.
+I knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my
+needles and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain
+never said much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also
+understood quite well that I no longer appealed to any one!
+
+"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the
+country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed
+without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about
+nine o'clock.
+
+"I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's
+heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is
+at present, but just as he was formerly! That I will swear to you,
+monsieur. As true as I am standing here I was crazy. I began to kiss
+him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He
+kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning!
+What is the matter with you?' I did not listen to him, I only listened
+to my own heart, and I made him come into the wood with me. That is
+all. I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth."
+
+The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and
+said: "Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our forests, be
+more discreet."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MARTINE
+
+It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home from church
+along the by-road that led to his house when he saw ahead of him
+Martine, who was also going home.
+
+Her father walked beside his daughter with the important gait of a
+rich farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a short coat of gray cloth
+and on his head a round-topped hat with wide brim.
+
+She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week, walked
+along erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoulders and
+prominent hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a hat trimmed with
+flowers, made by a milliner at Yvetot, and displayed the back of her
+full, round, supple neck, reddened by the sun and air, on which
+fluttered little stray locks of hair.
+
+Benoist saw only her back; but he knew well the face he loved,
+without, however, having ever noticed it more closely than he did now.
+
+Suddenly he said: "Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl, all the same,
+that Martine." He watched her as she walked, admiring her hastily,
+feeling a desire taking possession of him. He did not long to see her
+face again, no. He kept gazing at her figure, repeating to himself:
+"Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl."
+
+Martine turned to the right to enter "La Martinière," the farm of her
+father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned
+round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called
+out: "Good-morning, Benoist." He replied: "Good-morning, Martine;
+good-morning, mait' Martin," and went on his way.
+
+When he reached home the soup was on the table. He sat down opposite
+his mother beside the farm hand and the hired man, while the maid
+servant went to draw some cider.
+
+He ate a few spoonfuls, then pushed away his plate. His mother said:
+
+"Don't you feel well?"
+
+"No. I feel as if I had some pap in my stomach and that takes away my
+appetite."
+
+He watched the others eating, as he cut himself a piece of bread from
+time to time and carried it lazily to his mouth, masticating it
+slowly. He thought of Martine. "She is a fine girl, all the same." And
+to think that he had not noticed it before, and that it came to him,
+just like that, all at once, and with such force that he could not
+eat.
+
+He did not touch the stew. His mother said:
+
+"Come, Benoist, try and eat a little; it is loin of mutton, it will do
+you good. When one has no appetite, they should force themselves to
+eat."
+
+He swallowed a few morsels, then, pushing away his plate, said:
+
+"No. I can't go that, positively."
+
+When they rose from table he walked round the farm, telling the farm
+hand he might go home and that he would drive up the animals as he
+passed by them.
+
+The country was deserted, as it was the day of rest. Here and there in
+a field of clover cows were moving along heavily, with full bellies,
+chewing their cud under a blazing sun. Unharnessed plows were standing
+at the end of a furrow; and the upturned earth ready for the seed
+showed broad brown patches of stubble of wheat and oats that had
+lately been harvested.
+
+A rather dry autumn wind blew across the plain, promising a cool
+evening after the sun had set. Benoist sat down on a ditch, placed his
+hat on his knees as if he needed to cool off his head, and said aloud
+in the stillness of the country: "If you want a fine girl, she is a
+fine girl."
+
+He thought of it again at night, in his bed, and in the morning when
+he awoke.
+
+He was not sad, he was not discontented, he could not have told what
+ailed him. It was something that had hold of him, something fastened
+in his mind, an idea that would not leave him and that produced a sort
+of tickling sensation in his heart.
+
+Sometimes a big fly is shut up in a room. You hear it flying about,
+buzzing, and the noise haunts you, irritates you. Suddenly it stops;
+you forget it; but all at once it begins again, obliging you to look
+up. You cannot catch it, nor drive it away, nor kill it, nor make it
+keep still. As soon as it settles for a second, it starts off buzzing
+again.
+
+The recollection of Martine disturbed Benoist's mind like an
+imprisoned fly.
+
+Then he longed to see her again and walked past the Martinière several
+times. He saw her, at last, hanging out some clothes on a line
+stretched between two apple trees.
+
+It was a warm day. She had on only a short skirt and her chemise,
+showing the curves of her figure as she hung up the towels. He
+remained there, concealed by the hedge, for more than an hour, even
+after she had left. He returned home more obsessed with her image than
+ever.
+
+For a month his mind was full of her, he trembled when her name was
+mentioned in his presence. He could not eat, he had night sweats that
+kept him from sleeping.
+
+On Sunday, at mass, he never took his eyes off her. She noticed it and
+smiled at him, flattered at his appreciation.
+
+One evening, he suddenly met her in the road. She stopped short when
+she saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with fear
+and emotion, but determined to speak to her. He began falteringly:
+
+"See here, Martine, this cannot go on like this any longer."
+
+She replied as if she wanted to tease him:
+
+"What cannot go on any longer, Benoist?"
+
+"My thinking of you as many hours as there are in the day," he
+answered.
+
+She put her hands on her hips.
+
+"I do not oblige you to do so."
+
+"Yes, it is you," he stammered; "I cannot sleep, nor rest, nor eat,
+nor anything."
+
+"What do you need to cure you of all that?" she asked.
+
+He stood there in dismay, his arms swinging, his eyes staring, his
+mouth agape.
+
+She hit him a punch in the stomach and ran off.
+
+From that day they met each other along the roadside, in by-roads or
+else at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with
+his horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.
+
+He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his
+heart and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her, eat
+her, make her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence,
+impatience, rage, to think she did not belong to him entirely, as if
+they were one being.
+
+People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were
+engaged. He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she
+had answered "Yes."
+
+They were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about
+it.
+
+But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He
+did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only
+catch a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the
+sermon, the priest actually published the banns of marriage between
+Victoire-Adelaide-Martin and Joséphin-Isidore Vallin.
+
+Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained
+off. He had a buzzing in the ears, and could hear nothing; and
+presently he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.
+
+For a month he stayed in his room. Then he went back to his work.
+
+But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind. He avoided the
+roads that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees
+in the yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and
+evening.
+
+She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.
+Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from
+childhood.
+
+One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she
+was enceinte. Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he
+experienced, on the contrary, a feeling of relief. It was over, now,
+all over. They were more separated by that than by her marriage. He
+really preferred that it should be so.
+
+Months passed, and more months. He caught sight of her, occasionally,
+going to the village with a heavier step than usual. She blushed as
+she saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace. And he turned
+out of his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.
+
+He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to
+face, and be obliged to speak to her. What could he say to her now,
+after all he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed
+her hair beside her cheeks? He often thought of those meetings along
+the roadside. She had acted horridly after all her promises.
+
+By degrees his grief diminished, leaving only sadness behind. And one
+day he took the old road that led past the farm where she now lived.
+He looked at the roof from a distance. It was there, in there, that
+she lived with another! The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks
+crowed on the dunghill. The whole dwelling seemed empty, the farm
+hands had gone to the fields to their spring toil. He stopped near the
+gate and looked into the yard. The dog was asleep outside his kennel,
+three calves were walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the
+pond. A big turkey was strutting before the door, parading before the
+turkey hens like a singer at the opera.
+
+Benoist leaned against the gate post and was suddenly seized with a
+desire to weep. But suddenly, he heard a cry, a loud cry for help
+coming from the house. He was struck with dismay, his hands grasping
+the wooden bars of the gate, and listened attentively. Another cry, a
+prolonged, heartrending cry, reached his ears, his soul, his flesh. It
+was she who was crying like that! He darted inside, crossed the grass
+patch, pushed open the door, and saw her lying on the floor, her body
+drawn up, her face livid, her eyes haggard, in the throes of
+childbirth.
+
+He stood there, trembling and paler than she was, and stammered:
+
+"Here I am, here I am, Martine!"
+
+She replied in gasps:
+
+"Oh, do not leave me, do not leave me, Benoist!"
+
+He looked at her, not knowing what to say, what to do. She began to
+cry out again:
+
+"Oh, oh, it is killing me. Oh, Benoist!"
+
+She writhed frightfully.
+
+Benoist was suddenly seized with a frantic longing to help her, to
+quiet her, to remove her pain. He leaned over, lifted her up and laid
+her on her bed; and while she kept on moaning he began to take off her
+clothes, her jacket, her skirt and her petticoat. She bit her fists to
+keep from crying out. Then he did as he was accustomed to doing for
+cows, ewes, and mares: he assisted in delivering her and found in his
+hands a large infant who was moaning.
+
+He wiped it off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front
+of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that
+was on the table. Then he went back to the mother.
+
+He took her up and placed her on the floor again, then he changed the
+bedclothes and put her back into bed. She faltered:
+
+"Thank you, Benoist, you have a noble heart." And then she wept a
+little as if she felt regretful.
+
+He did not love her any longer, not the least bit. It was all over.
+Why? How? He could not have said. What had happened had cured him
+better than ten years of absence.
+
+She asked, exhausted and trembling:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He replied calmly:
+
+"It is a very fine girl."
+
+Then they were silent again. At the end of a few moments, the mother,
+in a weak voice, said:
+
+"Show her to me, Benoist."
+
+He took up the little one and was showing it to her as if he were
+holding the consecrated wafer, when the door opened, and Isidore
+Vallin appeared.
+
+He did not understand at first, then all at once he guessed.
+
+Benoist, in consternation, stammered out:
+
+"I was passing, I was just passing by when I heard her crying out, and
+I came--there is your child, Vallin!"
+
+Then the husband, his eyes full of tears, stepped forward, took the
+little mite of humanity that he held out to him, kissed it, unable to
+speak from emotion for a few seconds; then placing the child on the
+bed, he held out both hands to Benoist, saying:
+
+"Your hand upon it, Benoist. From now on we understand each other. If
+you are willing, we will be a pair of friends, a pair of friends!"
+
+And Benoist replied:
+
+"Indeed I will, certainly, indeed I will."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ALL OVER
+
+Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting
+glance at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel in his
+dressing-room and smiled.
+
+He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall,
+slight, elegant, with no sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of
+doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he had a walk, a nobility,
+a "chic," in short, that indescribable something which establishes a
+greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He
+murmured:
+
+"Lormerin is still alive!"
+
+And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited
+him.
+
+On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the
+gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside
+three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch he spread
+out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and
+he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening
+the envelopes.
+
+It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague
+anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did
+they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them
+with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting
+them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from
+them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent;
+further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him a little
+uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced those
+curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?
+
+This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple,
+nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it
+uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: "From whom
+can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify
+it."
+
+He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between
+two fingers, striving to read through the envelope, without making up
+his mind to open it.
+
+Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying
+glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He
+suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me,
+very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often.
+But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it
+be from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking for money."
+
+And he tore open the letter. Then he read:
+
+My Dear Friend: You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now
+twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was young; I am old. When
+I bade you farewell, I left Paris in order to follow into the
+provinces my husband, my old husband, whom you used to call "my
+hospital." Do you remember him? He died five years ago, and now I am
+returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a daughter,
+a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen. I informed you
+of her birth, but you certainly did not pay much attention to so
+trifling an event.
+
+You are still the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told. Well if you
+still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come and
+dine with her this evening, with the elderly Baronne de Vance, your
+ever faithful friend, who, with some emotion, although happy, reaches
+out to you a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no longer kiss,
+my poor Jaquelet.
+
+Lise de Vance.
+
+Lormerin's heart began to throb. He remained sunk in his armchair with
+the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by a
+poignant emotion that made the tears mount up to his eyes! If he had
+ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise, Lise de
+Vance, whom he called "Ashflower," on account of the strange color of
+her hair and the pale gray of her eyes. Oh! what a dainty, pretty,
+charming creature she was, this frail baronne, the wife of that gouty,
+pimply baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut
+her up, kept her in seclusion through jealousy, jealousy of the
+handsome Lormerin.
+
+Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he, too, had been truly
+loved. She familiarly gave him the name of Jaquelet, and would
+pronounce that word in a delicious fashion.
+
+A thousand forgotten memories came back to him, far off and sweet and
+melancholy now. One evening she had called on him on her way home from
+a ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in
+evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the
+weather was beautiful. The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm
+air--the odor of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her
+skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's
+rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A
+little surprised, he asked her why.
+
+She replied:
+
+"I don't know. The moon and the water have affected me. Every time I
+see poetic things I have a tightening at the heart, and I have to
+cry."
+
+He smiled, affected himself, considering her feminine emotion
+charming--the unaffected emotion of a poor little woman whom every
+sensation overwhelms. And he embraced her passionately, stammering:
+
+"My little Lise, you are exquisite."
+
+What a charming love affair, short-lived and dainty, it had been and
+over all too quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this old
+brute of a baron, who had carried off his wife, and never let any one
+see her afterward.
+
+Lormerin had forgotten, in fact, at the end of two or three months.
+One woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a
+bachelor! No matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart,
+for he had loved her alone! He assured himself now that this was so.
+
+He rose, and said aloud: "Certainly, I will go and dine with her this
+evening!"
+
+And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself from
+head to foot. He reflected: "She must look very old, older than I
+look." And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her
+still handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling
+her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far
+distant!
+
+He turned his attention to the other letters. They were of no
+importance.
+
+The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of other days. What was
+she like now? How strange it was to meet in this way after twenty-five
+years! But would he recognize her?
+
+He made his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat,
+which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the
+hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for
+he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his
+eagerness to see her.
+
+The first thing he saw on entering a pretty drawing-room newly
+furnished was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from
+the days when he was a beau, hanging on the wall in an antique silk
+frame.
+
+He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly,
+and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended
+both hands toward him.
+
+He seized them, kissed them one after the other several times; then,
+lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.
+
+Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and
+who, while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.
+
+He could not abstain from murmuring:
+
+"Is it you, Lise?"
+
+She replied:
+
+"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would
+you? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my
+life. Look at me now--or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome
+you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I
+would have exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!' Now, sit down and let us, first of
+all, have a chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up
+daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or, rather, how I resembled
+her--no, it is not quite that; she is just like the 'me' of former
+days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared
+that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now
+it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend."
+
+He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to
+say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never
+seen her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk
+about? Of the long ago? What was there in common between him and her?
+He could no longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly
+face. He could no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet,
+so bitter, that had come to his mind that morning when he thought of
+the other, of little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had
+become of her, the former one, the one he had loved? That woman of
+far-off dreams, the blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to
+call him "Jaquelet" so prettily?
+
+They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,
+profoundly ill at ease.
+
+As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and
+slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.
+
+"I am going to call Renée," she said.
+
+There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; then a young
+voice exclaimed:
+
+"Here I am, mamma!"
+
+Lormerin remained bewildered as at the sight of an apparition.
+
+He stammered:
+
+"Good-day, mademoiselle."
+
+Then, turning toward the mother:
+
+"Oh! it is you!"
+
+In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise
+who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won
+twenty-five years before. This one was even younger, fresher, more
+childlike.
+
+He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart
+again, murmuring in her ear:
+
+"Good-morning, Lison!"
+
+A man-servant announced:
+
+"Dinner is ready, madame."
+
+And they proceeded toward the dining-room.
+
+What passed at this dinner? What did they say to him, and what could
+he say in reply? He found himself plunged in one of those strange
+dreams which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a
+fixed idea in his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea:
+
+"Which is the real one?"
+
+The mother smiled, repeating over and over again:
+
+"Do you remember?" And it was in the bright eyes of the young girl
+that he found again his memories of the past. Twenty times he opened
+his mouth to say to her: "Do you remember, Lison?" forgetting this
+white-haired lady who was looking at him tenderly.
+
+And yet, there were moments when he no longer felt sure, when he lost
+his head. He could see that the woman of to-day was not exactly the
+woman of long ago. The other one, the former one, had in her voice, in
+her glances, in her entire being, something which he did not find
+again. And he made prodigious efforts of mind to recall his lady love,
+to seize again what had escaped from her, what this resuscitated one
+did not possess.
+
+The baronne said:
+
+"You have lost your old vivacity, my poor friend."
+
+He murmured:
+
+"There are many other things that I have lost!"
+
+But in his heart, touched with emotion, he felt his old love springing
+to life once more, like an awakened wild beast ready to bite him.
+
+The young girl went on chattering, and every now and then some
+familiar intonation, some expression of her mother's, a certain style
+of speaking and thinking, that resemblance of mind and manner which
+people acquire by living together, shook Lormerin from head to foot.
+All these things penetrated him, making the reopened wound of his
+passion bleed anew.
+
+He got away early, and took a turn along the boulevard. But the image
+of this young girl pursued him, haunted him, quickened his heart,
+inflamed his blood. Apart from the two women, he now saw only one, a
+young one, the old one come back out of the past, and he loved her as
+he had loved her in bygone years. He loved her with greater ardor,
+after an interval of twenty-five years.
+
+He went home to reflect on this strange and terrible thing, and to
+think what he should do.
+
+But, as he was passing, with a wax candle in his hand, before the
+glass, the large glass in which he had contemplated himself and
+admired himself before he started, he saw reflected there an elderly,
+gray-haired man; and suddenly he recollected what he had been in olden
+days, in the days of little Lise. He saw himself charming and
+handsome, as he had been when he was loved! Then, drawing the light
+nearer, he looked at himself more closely, as one inspects a strange
+thing with a magnifying glass, tracing the wrinkles, discovering those
+frightful ravages, which he had not perceived till now.
+
+And he sat down, crushed at the sight of himself, at the sight of his
+lamentable image, murmuring:
+
+"All over, Lormerin!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PARROT
+
+I
+
+Everybody in Fécamp knew Mother Patin's story. She had certainly been
+unfortunate with her husband, for in his lifetime he used to beat her,
+just as wheat is threshed in the barn.
+
+He was master of a fishing bark and had married her, formerly, because
+she was pretty, although poor.
+
+Patin was a good sailor, but brutal. He used to frequent Father
+Auban's inn, where he would usually drink four or five glasses of
+brandy, on lucky days eight or ten glasses and even more, according to
+his mood. The brandy was served to the customers by Father Auban's
+daughter, a pleasing brunette, who attracted people to the house only
+by her pretty face, for nothing had ever been gossiped about her.
+
+Patin, when he entered the inn, would be satisfied to look at her and
+to compliment her politely and respectfully. After he had had his
+first glass of brandy he would already find her much nicer; at the
+second he would wink; at the third he would say: "If you were only
+willing, Mam'zelle Désirée----" without ever finishing his sentence;
+at the fourth he would try to hold her back by her skirt in order to
+kiss her; and when he went as high as ten it was Father Auban who
+brought him the remaining drinks.
+
+The old innkeeper, who knew all the tricks of the trade, made Désirée
+walk about between the tables in order to increase the consumption of
+drinks; and Désirée, who was a worthy daughter of Father Auban,
+flitted around among the benches and joked with them, her lips smiling
+and her eyes sparkling.
+
+Patin got so well accustomed to Désirée's face that he thought of it
+even while at sea, when throwing out his nets, in storms or in calms,
+on moonlit or dark evenings. He thought of her while holding the
+tiller in the stern of his boat, while his four companions were
+slumbering with their heads on their arms. He always saw her, smiling,
+pouring out the yellow brandy with a peculiar shoulder movement and
+then exclaiming as she turned away: "There, now; are you satisfied?"
+
+He saw her so much in his mind's eye that he was overcome by an
+irresistible desire to marry her, and, not being able to hold out any
+longer, he asked for her hand.
+
+He was rich, owned his own vessel, his nets and a little house at the
+foot of the hill on the Retenue, whereas Father Auban had nothing. The
+marriage was therefore eagerly agreed upon and the wedding took place
+as soon as possible, as both parties were desirous for the affair to
+be concluded as early as convenient.
+
+Three days after the wedding Patin could no longer understand how he
+had ever imagined Désirée to be different from other women. What a
+fool he had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who
+had undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she had put in his
+brandy!
+
+He would curse all day long, break his pipe with his teeth and maul
+his crew. After he had sworn by every known term at everything that
+came his way he would rid himself of his remaining anger on the fish
+and lobsters, which he pulled from the nets and threw into the baskets
+amid oaths and foul language. When he returned home he would find his
+wife, Father Auban's daughter, within reach of his mouth and hand, and
+it was not long before he treated her like the lowest creature in the
+world. As she listened calmly, accustomed to paternal violence, he
+grew exasperated at her quiet, and one evening he beat her. Then life
+at his home became unbearable.
+
+For ten years the principal topic of conversation on the Retenue was
+about the beatings that Patin gave his wife and his manner of cursing
+at her for the least thing. He could, indeed, curse with a richness of
+vocabulary in a roundness of tone unequalled by any other man in
+Fécamp. As soon as his ship was sighted at the entrance of the harbor,
+returning from the fishing expedition, every one awaited the first
+volley he would hurl from the bridge as soon as he perceived his
+wife's white cap.
+
+Standing at the stern, he would steer, his eye fixed on the bows and
+on the sail, and, notwithstanding the difficulty of the narrow passage
+and the height of the turbulent waves, he would search among the
+watching women and try to recognize his wife, Father Auban's daughter,
+the wretch!
+
+Then, as soon as he saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and
+waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that
+every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he
+arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the
+fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all
+the loafers of the neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes
+like shots from a cannon, short and terrible, sometimes like peals of
+thunder, which roll and rumble for five minutes, such a hurricane of
+oaths that he seemed to have in his lungs one of the storms of the
+Eternal Father.
+
+When he left his ship and found himself face to face with her,
+surrounded by all the gossips of the neighborhood, he would bring up a
+new cargo of insults and bring her back to their dwelling, she in
+front, he behind, she weeping, he yelling at her.
+
+At last, when alone with her behind closed doors, he would thrash her
+on the slightest pretext. The least thing was sufficient to make him
+raise his hand, and when he had once begun he did not stop, but he
+would throw into her face the true motive for his anger. At each blow
+he would roar: "There, you beggar! There, you wretch! There, you
+pauper! What a bright thing I did when I rinsed my mouth with your
+rascal of a father's apology for brandy!"
+
+The poor woman lived in continual fear, in a ceaseless trembling of
+body and soul, in everlasting expectation of outrageous thrashings.
+
+This lasted ten years. She was so timorous that she would grow pale
+whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the
+blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more
+yellow and drier than a smoked fish.
+
+II
+
+One night, when her husband was at sea, she was suddenly awakened by
+the wild roaring of the wind! She sat up in her bed, trembling, but,
+as she heard nothing more, she lay down again; almost immediately
+there was a roar in the chimney which shook the entire house; it
+seemed to cross the heavens like a pack of furious animals snorting
+and roaring.
+
+Then she arose and rushed to the harbor. Other women were arriving
+from all sides, carrying lanterns. The men also were gathering, and
+all were watching the foaming crests of the breaking waves.
+
+The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors never returned; Patin
+was among them.
+
+In the neighborhood of Dieppe the wreck of his bark, the
+_Jeune-Amélie_, was found. The bodies of his sailors were found
+near Saint-Valéry, but his body was never recovered. As his vessel
+seemed to have been cut in two, his wife expected and feared his return
+for a long time, for if there had been a collision he alone might have
+been picked up and carried afar off.
+
+Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid
+of him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar
+or a peddler would enter suddenly.
+
+One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her
+husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped
+before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose
+furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction.
+He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with
+a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that
+can talk like a lawyer, three francs!"
+
+A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said: "You ought to buy
+that, you who are rich. It would be good company for you. That bird is
+worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always sell it for
+twenty or twenty-five!"
+
+Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a
+little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was
+opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit
+her finger and drew blood.
+
+"Oh, how naughty he is!" she said.
+
+Nevertheless she gave it some hemp-seed and corn and watched it
+pruning its feathers as it glanced warily at its new home and its new
+mistress.
+
+On the following morning, just as day was breaking, the Patin woman
+distinctly heard a loud, deep, roaring voice calling: "Are you going
+to get up, carrion?"
+
+Her fear was so great that she hid her head under the sheets, for when
+Patin was with her as soon as he would open his eyes he would shout
+those well-known words into her ears.
+
+Trembling, rolled into a ball, her back prepared for the thrashing
+which she already expected, her face buried in the pillows, she
+murmured: "Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he
+has come back!"
+
+Minutes passed; no noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling,
+she stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching,
+ready to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window,
+she saw nothing, and she said to herself: "He must be hidden."
+
+She waited a long time and then, gaining courage, she said to herself:
+"I must have dreamed it, seeing there is nobody here."
+
+A little reassured, she closed her eyes, when from quite near a
+furious voice, the thunderous voice of the drowned man, could be heard
+crying: "Say! when in the name of all that's holy are you going to get
+up, you b----?"
+
+She jumped out of bed, moved by obedience, by the passive obedience of
+a woman accustomed to blows and who still remembers and always will
+remember that voice! She said: "Here I am, Patin; what do you want?"
+
+But Patin did not answer. Then, at a complete loss, she looked around
+her, then in the chimney and under the bed and finally sank into a
+chair, wild with anxiety, convinced that Patin's soul alone was there,
+near her, and that he had returned in order to torture her.
+
+Suddenly she remembered the loft, in order to reach which one had to
+take a ladder. Surely he must have hidden there in order to surprise
+her. He must have been held by savages on some distant shore, unable
+to escape until now, and he had returned, worse that ever. There was
+no doubting the quality of that voice. She raised her head and asked:
+"Are you up there, Patin?"
+
+Patin did not answer. Then, with a terrible fear which made her heart
+tremble, she climbed the ladder, opened the skylight, looked, saw
+nothing, entered, looked about and found nothing. Sitting on some
+straw, she began to cry, but while she was weeping, overcome by a
+poignant and supernatural terror, she heard Patin talking in the room
+below. He seemed less angry and he was saying: "Nasty weather! Fierce
+wind! Nasty weather! I haven't eaten, damn it!"
+
+She cried through the ceiling: "Here I am, Patin; I am getting your
+meal ready. Don't get angry."
+
+She ran down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself
+growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and
+get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: "I
+haven't had my breakfast, by G----!"
+
+And the parrot in his cage watched her with his round, knowing, wicked
+eye. She, too, looked at him wildly, murmuring: "Ah! so it's you!"
+
+He shook his head and continued: "Just you wait! I'll teach you how to
+loaf."
+
+What happened within her? She felt, she understood that it was he, the
+dead man, who had come back, who had disguised himself in the feathers
+of this bird in order to continue to torment her; that he would curse,
+as formerly, all day long, and bite her, and swear at her, in order to
+attract the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she rushed for the
+cage and seized the bird, which scratched and tore her flesh with its
+claws and beak. But she held it with all her strength between her
+hands. She threw it on the ground and rolled over it with the frenzy
+of one possessed. She crushed it and finally made of it nothing but a
+little green, flabby lump which no longer moved or spoke. Then she
+wrapped it in a cloth, as in a shroud, and she went out in her
+nightgown, barefoot; she crossed the dock, against which the choppy
+waves of the sea were beating, and she shook the cloth and let drop
+this little dead thing, which looked like so much grass. Then she
+returned, threw herself on her knees before the empty cage, and,
+overcome by what she had done, kneeled and prayed for forgiveness, as
+if she had committed some heinous crime.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PIECE OF STRING
+
+It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the
+peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked
+slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long,
+crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes
+the left shoulder higher, and bends their figures sideways; from
+reaping the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep
+on their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though
+varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered
+design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like
+balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.
+
+Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope.
+And just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the
+back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large
+baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks. These
+women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their
+erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over
+their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth,
+enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.
+
+Now a char-à-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up
+strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the
+cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.
+
+In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled
+multitude of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high,
+long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the headdresses of the women
+came to the surface of that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices
+made a continuous, wild din, while above it occasionally rose a huge
+burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a
+prolonged bellow from a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.
+
+It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration
+giving off that half-human, half-animal odor which is peculiar to
+country folks.
+
+Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goderville and was
+making his way toward the square when he perceived on the ground a
+little piece of string. Maître Hauchecorne, economical as are all true
+Normans, reflected that everything was worth picking up which could be
+of any use, and he stooped down, but painfully, because he suffered
+from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and
+was carefully preparing to roll it up when he saw Maître Malandain,
+the harness maker, on his doorstep staring at him. They had once had a
+quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever
+since. Maître Hauchecorne was overcome with a sort of shame at being
+seen by his enemy picking up a bit of string in the road. He quickly
+hid it beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches
+pocket, then pretended to be still looking for something on the
+ground which he did not discover and finally went off toward the
+market-place, his head bent forward and his body almost doubled in
+two by rheumatic pains.
+
+He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and
+noisily as it chaffered and bargained. The peasants examined the cows,
+went off, came back, always in doubt for fear of being cheated, never
+quite daring to decide, looking the seller square in the eye in the
+effort to discover the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.
+
+The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken
+out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, their legs tied together,
+with terrified eyes and scarlet combs.
+
+They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices in a decided
+manner with an impassive face or perhaps deciding to accept the
+smaller price offered, suddenly calling out to the customer who was
+starting to go away:
+
+"All right, I'll let you have them, Maît' Anthime."
+
+Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus
+struck midday those who lived at a distance poured into the inns.
+
+At Jourdain's the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast
+court was filled with vehicles of every sort--wagons, gigs,
+chars-à-bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name,
+yellow with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to
+heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose, on the ground and
+their rear in the air.
+
+Just opposite to where the diners were at table the huge fireplace,
+with its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those
+who sat at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens,
+with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast
+meat and of gravy flowing ever crisp brown skin arose from the hearth,
+kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.
+
+All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Maît'
+Jourdain's, the innkeeper's, a dealer in horses also and a sharp
+fellow who had made a great deal of money in his day.
+
+The dishes were passed round, were emptied, as were the jugs of yellow
+cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and his sales.
+They exchanged news about the crops. The weather was good for greens,
+but too wet for grain.
+
+Suddenly the drum began to beat in the courtyard before the house.
+Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at
+once and ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and
+napkins in their hand.
+
+When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a
+jerky voice, pausing in the wrong places:
+
+"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all
+persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on
+the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather
+pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are
+requested, to return it to the mayor's office at once or to Maitre
+Fortuné Houlbrèque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs
+reward."
+
+Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull
+beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all
+began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maître
+Houlbrèque had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.
+
+The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal
+of gendarmes appeared on the threshold.
+
+He asked:
+
+"Is Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, here?"
+
+Maître Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:
+
+"Here I am, here I am."
+
+And he followed the corporal.
+
+The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the
+notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.
+
+"Maître Hauchecorne," said he, "this morning on the Beuzeville road,
+you were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Maître Houlbrèque, of
+Manneville."
+
+The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement, frightened already at
+this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.
+
+"I--I picked up that pocketbook?"
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"I swear I don't even know anything about it."
+
+"You were seen."
+
+"I was seen--I? Who saw me?"
+
+"M. Malandain, the harness-maker."
+
+Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger,
+said:
+
+"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string
+here, M'sieu le Maire."
+
+And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the
+little end of string.
+
+But the mayor incredulously shook his head:
+
+"You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain,
+who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for
+a pocketbook."
+
+The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside
+him as if to attest his good faith, repeating:
+
+"For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's
+salvation, I repeat it."
+
+The mayor continued:
+
+"After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for
+some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropped out of
+it."
+
+The good man was choking with indignation and fear.
+
+"How can they tell--how can they tell such lies as that to slander an
+honest man! How can they?"
+
+His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.
+
+He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his
+testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request
+Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.
+
+At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he
+would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.
+
+The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office the old man was
+surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or
+mocking, as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered.
+And he began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe
+him. They laughed.
+
+He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his
+acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his
+protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he
+had nothing in them.
+
+They said to him:
+
+"You old rogue!"
+
+He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being
+believed, and kept on telling his story.
+
+The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his
+neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the
+string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.
+
+That evening he made the round of the village of Breauté for the
+purpose of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.
+
+He brooded over it all night long.
+
+The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand
+of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at Ymauville, returned the
+pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbrèque, of Manneville.
+
+This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not
+knowing how to read, he had carried it home and given it to his
+master.
+
+The news spread to the environs. Maître Hauchecorne was informed. He
+started off at once and began to relate his story with the dénoûment.
+He was triumphant.
+
+"What grieved me," said he, "was not the thing itself, do you
+understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing does you so
+much harm as being in disgrace for lying."
+
+All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the
+people who passed, at the cabaret to the people who drank and next
+Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell
+them about it. He was easy now, and yet something worried him without
+his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they
+listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks
+behind his back.
+
+On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville,
+prompted solely by the need of telling his story.
+
+Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him
+pass. Why?
+
+He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and
+giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face: "Oh,
+you great rogue!" Then he turned his heel upon him.
+
+Maître Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy.
+Why had they called him "great rogue"?
+
+When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to explain
+the whole affair.
+
+A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:
+
+"Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string."
+
+Hauchecorne stammered:
+
+"But since they found it again, the pocketbook!"
+
+But the other continued:
+
+"Hold your tongue, daddy; there's one who finds it and there's another
+who returns it. And no one the wiser."
+
+The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of
+having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a
+confederate.
+
+He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
+
+He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.
+
+He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more
+cast down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of
+having done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a
+good trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his
+innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck
+to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
+
+He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day,
+each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more
+sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of
+solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the
+string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less
+he was believed.
+
+"Those are liars' proofs," they said behind his back.
+
+He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless
+efforts.
+
+He was visibly wasting away.
+
+Jokers would make him tell the story of "the piece of string" to amuse
+them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his
+story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of
+December he took to his bed.
+
+He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony,
+he protested his innocence, repeating:
+
+"A little bit of string--a little bit of string. See, here it is,
+M'sieu le Maire."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other
+Stories, by Guy de Maupassant
+
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+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<HTML>
+<HEAD>
+<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<TITLE>Une Vie, A Piece of String And Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant</TITLE>
+</HEAD>
+
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories, by 
+Guy de Maupassant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Posting Date: October 5, 2014 [EBook #7114]
+Release Date: December, 2004
+First Posted: March 11, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNE VIE, A PIECE OF STRING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div align="center">
+<h1>GUY DE MAUPASSANT</h1>
+
+<h1>
+UNE VIE</h1>
+
+<h2>A Piece of String</h2>
+<h3>And Other Stories</h3>
+
+<P>
+Translated by<BR>
+Albert M. C. McMaster, B.A.<BR>
+A. E. Henderson, B.A.<BR>
+Mme. Quesada and Others</P>
+
+<hr>
+
+<P>VOLUME I.</P>
+
+<hr>
+</div>
+<P>[Illustration: "Jeanne"]</P>
+
+<h2>
+CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#pol">Introduction by Pol. Neveux</a></li>
+<li>Une Vie (The History of a Heart)</li>
+<li><OL type=I>
+  <LI><a href="#I">The Home by the Sea</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#II">Happy Days</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#III">M. de Lamare</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#IV">Marriage and Disillusion</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#V">Corsica and a New Life</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#VI">Disenchantment</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#VII">Jeanne's Discovery</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#VIII">Maternity</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#IX">Death of La Baronne</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#X">Retribution</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#XI">The Development of Paul</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#XII">A New Home</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#XIII">Jeanne in Paris</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#XIV">Light at Eventide</a></LI>
+</OL></li>
+<li><a href="#vag">A Vagabond</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#fish">The Fishing Hole</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#spas">The Spasm</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#wood">In The Wood</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#mart">Martine</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#over">All Over</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#parr">The Parrot</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#stri">A Piece Of String</a></li>
+</ul>
+<P>
+[Illustration: Guy de Maupassant]</P>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="pol">GUY DE MAUPASSANT</a></h3>
+
+<h4>A Study by Pol. Neveux</h4>
+
+<P>"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a<BR>
+thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jos&eacute; Maria de Heredia on<BR>
+the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid<BR>
+solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which,<BR>
+for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the<BR>
+fertility of a master hand produced poetry, novels, romances and<BR>
+travels, only to sink prematurely into the abyss of madness and<BR>
+death....</P>
+
+<P>In the month of April, 1880, an article appeared in the "Le Gaulois"<BR>
+announcing the publication of the Soir&eacute;es de M&eacute;dan. It was signed by a<BR>
+name as yet unknown: Guy de Maupassant. After a juvenile diatribe<BR>
+against romanticism and a passionate attack on languorous literature,<BR>
+the writer extolled the study of real life, and announced the<BR>
+publication of the new work. It was picturesque and charming. In the<BR>
+quiet of evening, on an island in the Seine, beneath poplars instead<BR>
+of the Neapolitan cypresses dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the<BR>
+continuous murmur of the valley, and no longer to the sound of the<BR>
+Pyrennean streams that murmured a faint accompaniment to the tales of<BR>
+Marguerite's cavaliers, the master and his disciples took turns in<BR>
+narrating some striking or pathetic episode of the war. And the issue,<BR>
+in collaboration, of these tales in one volume, in which the master<BR>
+jostled elbows with his pupils, took on the appearance of a manifesto,<BR>
+the tone of a challenge, or the utterance of a creed.</P>
+
+<P>In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they<BR>
+had confined themselves, beneath the trees of M&eacute;dan, to deciding on a<BR>
+general title for the work. Zola had contributed the manuscript of the<BR>
+"Attaque du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five<BR>
+young men gave in their contributions. Each one read his story,<BR>
+Maupassant being the last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a<BR>
+spontaneous impulse, with an emotion they never forgot, filled with<BR>
+enthusiasm at this revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous<BR>
+words, acclaimed him as a master.</P>
+
+<P>He undertook to write the article for the Gaulois and, in co&ouml;peration<BR>
+with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are<BR>
+familiar, amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste<BR>
+for mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential<BR>
+point, he said, is to "unmoor" criticism.</P>
+
+<P>It was unmoored. The following day Wolff wrote a polemical<BR>
+dissertation in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume<BR>
+was a brilliant success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty,<BR>
+the honesty of effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the<BR>
+other stories. Relegated to the second rank, they passed without<BR>
+notice. From his first battle, Maupassant was master of the field in<BR>
+literature.</P>
+
+<P>At once the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate<BR>
+regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought<BR>
+information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly<BR>
+straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at<BR>
+the present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient<BR>
+heroes whose origin and death are veiled in mystery.</P>
+
+<P>I will not dwell on Guy de Maupassant's younger days. His relatives,<BR>
+his old friends, he himself, here and there in his works, have<BR>
+furnished us in their letters enough valuable revelations and touching<BR>
+remembrances of the years preceding his literary d&eacute;but. His worthy<BR>
+biographer, H. &Eacute;douard Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the<BR>
+writings, condensing and comparing them, has been able to give us some<BR>
+definite information regarding that early period.</P>
+
+<P>I will simply recall that he was born on the 5th of August, 1850, near<BR>
+Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil which he describes in Une Vie....</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant, like Flaubert, was a Norman, through his mother, and<BR>
+through his place of birth he belonged to that strange and adventurous<BR>
+race, whose heroic and long voyages on tramp trading ships he liked to<BR>
+recall. And just as the author of "&Eacute;ducation sentimentale" seems to<BR>
+have inherited in the paternal line the shrewd realism of Champagne,<BR>
+so de Maupassant appears to have inherited from his Lorraine ancestors<BR>
+their indestructible discipline and cold lucidity.</P>
+
+<P>His childhood was passed at &Eacute;tretat, his beautiful childhood; it was<BR>
+there that his instincts were awakened in the unfoldment of his<BR>
+prehistoric soul. Years went by in an ecstasy of physical happiness.<BR>
+The delight of running at full speed through fields of gorse, the<BR>
+charm of voyages of discovery in hollows and ravines, games beneath<BR>
+the dark hedges, a passion for going to sea with the fishermen and, on<BR>
+nights when there was no moon, for dreaming on their boats of<BR>
+imaginary voyages.</P>
+
+<P>Mme. de Maupassant, who had guided her son's early reading, and had<BR>
+gazed with him at the sublime spectacle of nature, put off as long as<BR>
+possible the hour of separation. One day, however, she had to take the<BR>
+child to the little seminary at Yvetot. Later, he became a student at<BR>
+the college at Rouen, and became a literary correspondent of Louis<BR>
+Bouilhet. It was at the latter's house on those Sundays in winter when<BR>
+the Norman rain drowned the sound of the bells and dashed against the<BR>
+window panes that the school boy learned to write poetry.</P>
+
+<P>Vacation took the rhetorician back to the north of Normandy. Now it<BR>
+was shooting at Saint Julien-l'Hospitalier, across fields, bogs, and<BR>
+through the woods. From that time on he sealed his pact with the<BR>
+earth, and those "deep and delicate roots" which attached him to his<BR>
+native soil began to grow. It was of Normandy, broad, fresh and<BR>
+virile, that he would presently demand his inspiration, fervent and<BR>
+eager as a boy's love; it was in her that he would take refuge when,<BR>
+weary of life, he would implore a truce, or when he simply wished to<BR>
+work and revive his energies in old-time joys. It was at this time<BR>
+that was born in him that voluptuous love of the sea, which in later<BR>
+days could alone withdraw him from the world, calm him, console him.</P>
+
+<P>In 1870 he lived in the country, then he came to Paris to live; for,<BR>
+the family fortunes having dwindled, he had to look for a position.<BR>
+For several years he was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine, where he<BR>
+turned over musty papers, in the uninteresting company of the clerks<BR>
+of the admiralty.</P>
+
+<P>Then he went into the department of Public Instruction, where<BR>
+bureaucratic servility is less intolerable. The daily duties are<BR>
+certainly scarcely more onerous and he had as chiefs, or colleagues,<BR>
+Xavier Charmes and Leon Dierx, Henry Roujon and Ren&eacute; Billotte, but his<BR>
+office looked out on a beautiful melancholy garden with immense plane<BR>
+trees around which black circles of crows gathered in winter.</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant made two divisions of his spare hours, one for boating, and<BR>
+the other for literature. Every evening in spring, every free day, he<BR>
+ran down to the river whose mysterious current veiled in fog or<BR>
+sparkling in the sun called to him and bewitched him. In the islands<BR>
+in the Seine between Chatou and Port-Marly, on the banks of<BR>
+Sartrouville and Triel he was long noted among the population of<BR>
+boatmen, who have now vanished, for his unwearying biceps, his cynical<BR>
+gaiety of goodfellowship, his unfailing practical jokes, his broad<BR>
+witticisms. Sometimes he would row with frantic speed, free and<BR>
+joyous, through the glowing sunlight on the stream; sometimes, he<BR>
+would wander along the coast, questioning the sailors, chatting with<BR>
+the ravageurs, or junk gatherers, or stretched at full length amid the<BR>
+irises and tansy he would lie for hours watching the frail insects<BR>
+that play on the surface of the stream, water spiders, or white<BR>
+butterflies, dragon flies, chasing each other amid the willow leaves,<BR>
+or frogs asleep on the lily-pads.</P>
+
+<P>The rest of his life was taken up by his work. Without ever becoming<BR>
+despondent, silent and persistent, he accumulated manuscripts, poetry,<BR>
+criticisms, plays, romances and novels. Every week he docilely<BR>
+submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his<BR>
+mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to<BR>
+assist the young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make<BR>
+chefs-d'oeuvre immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious<BR>
+research and to use direct observation and who inculcated in him a<BR>
+horror of vulgarity and a contempt for facility.</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant himself tells us of those severe initiations in the Rue<BR>
+Murillo, or in the tent at Croisset; he has recalled the implacable<BR>
+didactics of his old master, his tender brutality, the paternal advice<BR>
+of his generous and candid heart. For seven years Flaubert slashed,<BR>
+pulverized, the awkward attempts of his pupil whose success remained<BR>
+uncertain.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly, in a flight of spontaneous perfection, he wrote Boule de<BR>
+Suif. His master's joy was great and overwhelming. He died two months<BR>
+later.</P>
+
+<P>Until the end Maupassant remained illuminated by the reflection of the<BR>
+good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the<BR>
+dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of<BR>
+Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither<BR>
+work, nor glory, nor slow moving waves, nor balmy nights.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of his short life, while his mind was still clear, he wrote<BR>
+to a friend: "I am always thinking of my poor Flaubert, and I say to<BR>
+myself that I should like to die if I were sure that anyone would<BR>
+think of me in the same manner."</P>
+
+<P>During these long years of his novitiate Maupassant had entered the<BR>
+social literary circles. He would remain silent, preoccupied; and if<BR>
+anyone, astonished at his silence, asked him about his plans he<BR>
+answered simply: "I am learning my trade." However, under the<BR>
+pseudonym of Guy de Valmont, he had sent some articles to the<BR>
+newspapers, and, later, with the approval and by the advice of<BR>
+Flaubert, he published, in the "R&eacute;publique des Lettres," poems signed<BR>
+by his name.</P>
+
+<P>These poems, overflowing with sensuality, where the hymn to the Earth<BR>
+describes the transports of physical possession, where the impatience<BR>
+of love expresses itself in loud melancholy appeals like the calls of<BR>
+animals in the spring nights, are valuable chiefly inasmuch as they<BR>
+reveal the creature of instinct, the fawn escaped from his native<BR>
+forests, that Maupassant was in his early youth. But they add nothing<BR>
+to his glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules<BR>
+Lemaitre said. To mould the expression of his thought according to the<BR>
+strictest laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his<BR>
+aim. Following the example of one of his comrades of M&eacute;dan, being<BR>
+readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of<BR>
+sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the<BR>
+chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines.<BR>
+However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having<BR>
+published. His encounters with prosody had left him with that<BR>
+monotonous weariness that the horseman and the fencer feel after a<BR>
+period in the riding school, or a bout with the foils.</P>
+
+<P>Such, in very broad lines, is the story of Maupassant's literary<BR>
+apprenticeship.</P>
+
+<P>The day following the publication of "Boule de Suif," his reputation<BR>
+began to grow rapidly. The quality of his story was unrivalled, but at<BR>
+the same time it must be acknowledged that there were some who, for<BR>
+the sake of discussion, desired to place a young reputation in<BR>
+opposition to the triumphant brutality of Zola.</P>
+
+<P>From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire<BR>
+press, set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from<BR>
+all influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With<BR>
+a quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which<BR>
+he himself was not aware, but which was so universal, that no<BR>
+contemporary author during his life ever experienced the same. The<BR>
+"meteor" sent out its light and its rays were prolonged without limit,<BR>
+in article after article, volume on volume.</P>
+
+<P>He was now rich and famous.... He is esteemed all the more as they<BR>
+believe him to be rich and happy. But they do not know that this young<BR>
+fellow with the sunburnt face, thick neck and salient muscles whom<BR>
+they invariably compare to a young bull at liberty, and whose love<BR>
+affairs they whisper, is ill, very ill. At the very moment that<BR>
+success came to him, the malady that never afterwards left him came<BR>
+also, and, seated motionless at his side, gazed at him with its<BR>
+threatening countenance. He suffered from terrible headaches, followed<BR>
+by nights of insomnia. He had nervous attacks, which he soothed with<BR>
+narcotics and anesthetics, which he used freely. His sight, which had<BR>
+troubled him at intervals, became affected, and a celebrated oculist<BR>
+spoke of abnormality, asymetry of the pupils. The famous young man<BR>
+trembled in secret and was haunted by all kinds of terrors.</P>
+
+<P>The reader is charmed at the saneness of this revived art and yet,<BR>
+here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of<BR>
+nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the<BR>
+supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most<BR>
+commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as<BR>
+the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being<BR>
+alarmed, he thinks that the author must be gifted with infallible<BR>
+intuition to follow out thus the taints in his characters, even<BR>
+through their most dangerous mazes. The reader does not know that<BR>
+these hallucinations which he describes so minutely were experienced<BR>
+by Maupassant himself; he does not know that the fear is in himself,<BR>
+the anguish of fear "which is not caused by the presence of danger, or<BR>
+of inevitable death, but by certain abnormal conditions, by certain<BR>
+mysterious influences in presence of vague dangers," the "fear of<BR>
+fear, the dread of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible<BR>
+terror."</P>
+
+<P>How can one explain these physical sufferings and this morbid distress<BR>
+that were known for some time to his intimates alone? Alas! the<BR>
+explanation is only too simple. All his life, consciously or<BR>
+unconsciously, Maupassant fought this malady, hidden as yet, which was<BR>
+latent in him.</P>
+
+<P>Those who first saw Maupassant when the Contes de la B&eacute;casse and Bel<BR>
+Ami were published were somewhat astonished at his appearance. He was<BR>
+solidly built, rather short and had a resolute, determined air, rather<BR>
+unpolished and without those distinguishing marks of intellect and<BR>
+social position. But his hands were delicate and supple, and beautiful<BR>
+shadows encircled his eyes.</P>
+
+<P>He received visitors with the graciousness of the courteous head of a<BR>
+department, who resigns himself to listen to demands, allowing them to<BR>
+talk as he smiled faintly, and nonplussing them by his calmness.</P>
+
+<P>How chilling was this first interview to young enthusiasts who had<BR>
+listened to Zola unfolding in lyric formula audacious methods, or to<BR>
+the soothing words of Daudet, who scattered with prodigality striking,<BR>
+thrilling ideas, picturesque outlines and brilliant synopses.<BR>
+Maupassant's remarks, in t&ecirc;tes-&agrave;-t&ecirc;tes, as in general conversation,<BR>
+were usually current commonplaces and on ordinary time-worn topics.<BR>
+Convinced of the superfluousness of words, perhaps he confounded them<BR>
+all in the same category, placing the same estimate on a thought nobly<BR>
+expressed as on a sally of coarse wit. One would have thought so, to<BR>
+see the indifference with which he treated alike the chatter of the<BR>
+most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of<BR>
+the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life<BR>
+work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical<BR>
+anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move<BR>
+him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical<BR>
+joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the<BR>
+pleasure of hoaxing and mystifying people.</P>
+
+<P>He appeared besides to look upon art as a pastime, literature as an<BR>
+occupation useless at best, while he willingly relegated love to the<BR>
+performance of a function, and suspected the motives of the most<BR>
+meritorious actions.</P>
+
+<P>Some say that this was the inborn basis of his personal psychology. I<BR>
+do not believe it. That he may have had a low estimate of humanity,<BR>
+that he may have mistrusted its disinterestedness, contested the<BR>
+quality of its virtue, is possible, even certain. But that he was not<BR>
+personally superior to his heroes I am unwilling to admit. And if I<BR>
+see in his attitude, as in his language, an evidence of his inveterate<BR>
+pessimism, I see in it also a method of protecting his secret thoughts<BR>
+from the curiosity of the vulgar.</P>
+
+<P>Perhaps he overshot the mark. By dint of hearing morality, art and<BR>
+literature depreciated, and seeing him preoccupied with boating, and<BR>
+listening to his own accounts of love affairs which he did not always<BR>
+carry on in the highest class, many ended by seeing in him one of<BR>
+those terrible Normans who, all through his novels and stories,<BR>
+carouse and commit social crimes with such commanding assurance and<BR>
+such calm unmorality.</P>
+
+<P>He was undoubtedly a Norman, and, according to those who knew him<BR>
+best, many of his traits of character show that atavism is not always<BR>
+an idle word....</P>
+
+<P>To identify Maupassant with his characters is a gross error, but is<BR>
+not without precedent. We always like to trace the author in the hero<BR>
+of a romance, and to seek the actor beneath the disguise. No doubt, as<BR>
+Taine has said, "the works of an intelligence have not the<BR>
+intelligence alone for father and mother, but the whole personality of<BR>
+the man helps to produce them...."</P>
+
+<P>That is why Maupassant himself says to us, "No, I have not the soul of<BR>
+a decadent, I cannot look within myself, and the effort I make to<BR>
+understand unknown souls is incessant, involuntary and dominant. It is<BR>
+not an effort; I experience a sort of overpowering sense of insight<BR>
+into all that surrounds me. I am impregnated with it, I yield to it, I<BR>
+submerge myself in these surrounding influences."</P>
+
+<P>That is, properly speaking, the peculiarity of all great novelists.<BR>
+Who experiences this insight, this influence more than Balzac, or<BR>
+Flaubert, in Madame Bovary? And so with Maupassant, who, pen in hand,<BR>
+is the character he describes, with his passions, his hatreds, his<BR>
+vices and his virtues. He so incorporates himself in him that the<BR>
+author disappears, and we ask ourselves in vain what his own opinion<BR>
+is of what he has just told us. He has none possibly, or if he has he<BR>
+does not tell it.</P>
+
+<P>This agrees admirably with the theory of impassivity in literature, so<BR>
+much in vogue when Maupassant became known. But despite that theory he<BR>
+is, if one understands him, quite other than</P>
+
+<P>"A being without pity who contemplated suffering."</P>
+
+<P>He has the deepest sympathy for the weak, for the victims of the<BR>
+deceptions of society, for the sufferings of the obscure. If the<BR>
+successful adventurer, Lesable, and the handsome Maze are the objects<BR>
+of his veiled irony, he maintains, or feels a sorrowful, though<BR>
+somewhat disdainful tenderness, for poor old Savon, the old copying<BR>
+clerk of the Ministry of Marine, who is the drudge of the office and<BR>
+whose colleagues laugh at him because his wife deceived him, <i>sans<BR>
+espoir d'"heritage."</i></P>
+
+<P>Why did Maupassant at the start win universal favor? It is because he<BR>
+had direct genius, the clear vision of a "primitive" (an artist of the<BR>
+pre-Renaissance). His materials were just those of a graduate who,<BR>
+having left college, has satisfied his curiosity. Grasping the simple<BR>
+and ingenious, but strong and appropriate tools that he himself has<BR>
+forged, he starts out in the forest of romance, and instead of being<BR>
+overcome by the enchantment of its mystery, he walks through it<BR>
+unfalteringly with a joyful step....</P>
+
+<P>He was a minstrel. Offspring of a race, and not the inheritor of a<BR>
+formula, he narrated to his contemporaries, bewildered by the lyrical<BR>
+deformities of romanticism, stories of human beings, simple and<BR>
+logical, like those which formerly delighted our parents.</P>
+
+<P>The French reader who wished to be amused was at once at home, on the<BR>
+same footing with him.... More spontaneous than the first troubadours,<BR>
+he banished from his writings abstract and general types,<BR>
+"romanticized" life itself, and not myths, those eternal legends that<BR>
+stray through the highways of the world.</P>
+
+<P>Study closely these minstrels in recent works; read M. Joseph B&eacute;dier's<BR>
+beautiful work, Les Fabliaux, and you will see how, in Maupassant's<BR>
+prose, ancestors, whom he doubtless never knew, are brought to life.</P>
+
+<P>The Minstrel feels neither anger nor sympathy; he neither censures,<BR>
+nor moralizes; for the self-satisfied Middle Ages cannot conceive the<BR>
+possibility of a different world. Brief, quick, he despises aims and<BR>
+methods, his only object is to entertain his auditors. Amusing and<BR>
+witty, he cares only for laughter and ridicule....</P>
+
+<P>But Maupassant's stories are singularly different in character. In the<BR>
+nineteenth century the Gallic intellect had long since foundered amid<BR>
+vileness and debauchery. In the provinces the ancient humor had<BR>
+disappeared; one chattered still about nothing, but without point,<BR>
+without wit; "trifling" was over, as they call it in Champagne. The<BR>
+nauseating pabulum of the newspapers and low political intrigue had<BR>
+withered the French intellect, that delicate, rare intellect, the last<BR>
+traces of which fade away in the Alsatian stories of Erckman-Chatrian,<BR>
+in the Proven&ccedil;al tales of Alphonse Daudet, in the novels of Emile<BR>
+Pouvillon. Maupassant is not one of them. He knows nothing about<BR>
+humor, for he never found it in Life....</P>
+
+<P>His ambition was not to make one laugh; he writes for the pleasure of<BR>
+recalling, without bias, what, to him, seems a halfway and dangerous<BR>
+truth.... In his pessimism, Maupassant despises the race, society,<BR>
+civilization and the world....</P>
+
+<P>If Maupassant draws from anyone it is Schopenhauer and Herbert<BR>
+Spencer, of whom he often speaks, although one does not know if he<BR>
+studied them very deeply. In all his books, excepting, of course, in<BR>
+the case of lines from the great tragic poets, one finds only one<BR>
+credited reference, which in to Sir John Lubbock's work on ants, an<BR>
+extract from which is introduced into Yvette.</P>
+
+<P>No one was less bookish than himself. He was a designer, and one of<BR>
+the greatest in literature. His heroes, little folk, artisans or<BR>
+rustics, bureaucrats or shopkeepers, prostitutes or rakes, he places<BR>
+them in faintly colored, but well-defined surroundings. And,<BR>
+immediately, the simplified landscape gives the keynote of the story.</P>
+
+<P>In his descriptions he resists the temptation of asserting his<BR>
+personal view. He will not allow himself to see more of his landscape<BR>
+than his characters themselves see. He is also careful to avoid all<BR>
+refined terms and expressions, to introduce no element superior to the<BR>
+characters of his heroes.</P>
+
+<P>He never makes inanimate nature intervene directly in human<BR>
+tribulations; she laughs at our joys and our sorrows.... Once, only,<BR>
+in one of his works, the trees join in the universal mourning--the<BR>
+great, sad beeches weep in autumn for the soul, the little soul, of la<BR>
+petite Roque.</P>
+
+<P>And yet Maupassant adores this nature, the one thing that moves<BR>
+him.... But, in spite of this, he can control himself; the artist is<BR>
+aware of the danger to his narration should he indulge in the<BR>
+transports of a lover.</P>
+
+<P>With an inborn perception, Maupassant at once seizes on the principal<BR>
+detail, the essential peculiarity that distinguishes a character and<BR>
+builds round it. He also, in the presentation of his character,<BR>
+assumes an authority that no writer, not even Balzac, ever<BR>
+equalled....</P>
+
+<P>He traces what he sees with rapid strokes. His work is a vast<BR>
+collection of powerful sketches, synthetic draftings. Like all great<BR>
+artists, he was a simplifier; he knew how to "sacrifice" like the<BR>
+Egyptians and Greeks....</P>
+
+<P>Thanks to his rapid methods the master "cinematographed," if I may use<BR>
+the word, inexhaustible stories. Among them, each person may find<BR>
+himself represented, the artist, the clerk, the thinker, and the<BR>
+non-commissioned officer.</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant was always impatient to "realize" his observations. He<BR>
+might forget, and above all, the flower of the sensation might lose<BR>
+its perfume. In Une Vie he hastens to sum up his childhood's<BR>
+recollections. As for Bel Ami, he wrote it from day to day as he<BR>
+haunted the offices of Editors.</P>
+
+<P>As for his style, it is limpid, accurate, easy and strongly marked,<BR>
+with a sound framework and having the suppleness of a living organism.</P>
+
+<P>Very industrious and very careful at first, Maupassant, in the fever<BR>
+of production, became less careful. He early accustomed himself to<BR>
+composing in his mind. "Composition amuses me," he said, "when I am<BR>
+thinking it out, and not when I am writing it." ... Once he had<BR>
+thought out his novels or romances, he transcribed them hurriedly,<BR>
+almost mechanically. In his manuscripts, long pages follow each other<BR>
+without an erasure.</P>
+
+<P>His language appears natural, easy, and at first sight seems<BR>
+spontaneous. But at the price of what effort was it not acquired! ...</P>
+
+<P>In reality, in the writer, his sense of sight and smell were<BR>
+perfected, to the detriment of the sense of hearing which is not very<BR>
+musical. Repetitions, assonances, do not always shock Maupassant, who<BR>
+is sometimes insensible to quantity as he is to harmony. He does not<BR>
+"orchestrate," he has not inherited the "organ pipes" of Flaubert.</P>
+
+<P>In his vocabulary there is no research; he never even requires a rare<BR>
+word....</P>
+
+<P>Those whom Flaubert's great organ tones delighted, those whom<BR>
+Theophile Gautier's frescoes enchanted, were not satisfied, and<BR>
+accused Maupassant, somewhat harshly, of not being a "writer" in the<BR>
+highest sense of the term. The reproach is unmerited, for there is but<BR>
+one style.</P>
+
+<P>But, on the other hand, it is difficult to admit, with an eminent<BR>
+academician that Maupassant must be a great writer, a classical<BR>
+writer, in fact, simply because he "had no style," a condition of<BR>
+perfection "in that form of literary art in which the personality of<BR>
+the author should not appear, in the romance, the story, and the<BR>
+drama."</P>
+
+<P>A classic, Maupassant undoubtedly is, as the critic to whom I alluded<BR>
+has said, "through the simple aptness of his terms and his contempt<BR>
+for frivolous ornamentation."</P>
+
+<P>He remains a great writer because, like Molière, La Bruyère, and La<BR>
+Fontaine, he is always close to nature, disdaining all studied<BR>
+rhetorical effect and all literary verbosity.</P>
+
+<P>For applause and fame Maupassant cared nothing, and his proud contempt<BR>
+for Orders and Academies is well known.</P>
+
+<P>In a letter to Marie Bashkirtseff he writes as follows:</P>
+
+<P>"Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, women, events. This is<BR>
+my true confession of faith, and I may add what you may not believe,<BR>
+which is that I do not care any more for myself than I do for the<BR>
+rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent<BR>
+to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I<BR>
+pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I<BR>
+can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade."</P>
+
+<P>And in a later letter:</P>
+
+<P>"I have no taste that I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire<BR>
+that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or<BR>
+laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give<BR>
+myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me<BR>
+to spend it."</P>
+
+<P>And again:</P>
+
+<P>"As for me, I am incapable of really loving my art. I am too critical,<BR>
+I analyze it too much. I feel strongly how relative is the value of<BR>
+ideas, words, and even of the loftiest intelligences. I cannot help<BR>
+despising thought, it is so weak; and form, it is so imperfect. I<BR>
+really have, in an acute, incurable form, the sense of human<BR>
+impotence, and of effort which results in wretched approximations."</P>
+
+<P>For nature, Maupassant had an ardent passion.... His whole being<BR>
+quivered when she bathed his forehead with her light ocean breeze.<BR>
+She, alone, knew how to rock and soothe him with her waves.</P>
+
+<P>Never satisfied, he wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled<BR>
+incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters<BR>
+of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted,<BR>
+bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves<BR>
+rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its<BR>
+scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and,<BR>
+finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, but<BR>
+simply to enjoy the delight of grand, pure outlines. Africa, the<BR>
+country of Salammb&ocirc;, the desert, finally call him, and he breathes<BR>
+those distant odors borne on the slow winds; the sunlight inundates<BR>
+his body, "laves the dark corners of his soul." And he retains a<BR>
+troubled memory of the evenings in those warm climes, where the<BR>
+fragrance of plants and trees seems to take the place of air.</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant's philosophy is as little complicated as his vision of<BR>
+humanity. His pessimism exceeds in its simplicity and depth that of<BR>
+all other realistic writers.</P>
+
+<P>Still there are contradictions and not unimportant ones in him. The<BR>
+most striking is certainly his fear of Death. He sees it everywhere,<BR>
+it haunts him. He sees it on the horizon of landscapes, and it crosses<BR>
+his path on lonely roads. When it is not hovering over his head, it is<BR>
+circling round him as around Gustave Moreau's pale youth.... Can he,<BR>
+the determined materialist, really fear the stupor of eternal sleep,<BR>
+or the dispersion of the transient individuality? ...</P>
+
+<P>Another contradiction. He who says that contact with the crowd<BR>
+"tortures his nerves," and who professes such contempt for mankind,<BR>
+yet considers solitude as one of the bitterest torments of existence.<BR>
+And he bewails the fact that he cannot live just for himself, "keep<BR>
+within himself that secret place of the ego, where none can enter."</P>
+
+<P>"Alas!" said his master, "we are all in a desert." Nobody understands<BR>
+anyone else and "whatever we attempt, whatever be the impulse of our<BR>
+heart and the appeal of our lips, we shall always be alone!"</P>
+
+<P>In this gehenna of death, in these nostalgias of the past, in these<BR>
+trances of eternal isolation, may we not find some relinquishing of<BR>
+his philosophy? Certainly not, for these contradictions accentuate all<BR>
+the more the pain of existence and become a new source of suffering.</P>
+
+<P>In any case, Maupassant's pessimism becomes logical in terminating in<BR>
+pity, like that of Schopenhauer. I know that I am running foul of<BR>
+certain admirers of the author who do not see any pity in his work,<BR>
+and it is understood that he is pitiless. But examine his stories more<BR>
+closely and you will find it revealed in every page, provided you go<BR>
+to the very bottom of the subject. That is where it exists naturally,<BR>
+almost against the desire of the writer, who does not arouse pity, nor<BR>
+teach it.</P>
+
+<P>And, again, if it remains concealed from so many readers, it is<BR>
+because it has nothing to do with the humanitarian pity retailed by<BR>
+rhetoricians. It is philosophical and haughty, detached from any<BR>
+"anthropocentric" characteristics. It is universal suffering that it<BR>
+covers. And to tell the truth, it is man, the hypocritical and cunning<BR>
+biped who has the least share in it. Maupassant is helpful to all<BR>
+those of his fellows who are tortured by physical suffering, social<BR>
+cruelty and the criminal dangers of life, but he pities them without<BR>
+caring for them, and his kindness makes distinctions.</P>
+
+<P>On the other hand, the pessimist has all the tenderness of a Buddhist<BR>
+for animals, whom the gospels despise. When he pities the animals, who<BR>
+are worth more than ourselves, their executioners, when he pities the<BR>
+elementary existences, the plants and trees, those exquisite<BR>
+creations, he unbends and pours out his heart. The humbler the victim,<BR>
+the more generously does he espouse its suffering. His compassion is<BR>
+unbounded for all that lives in misery, that is buffeted about without<BR>
+understanding why, that "suffers and dies without a word." And if he<BR>
+mourned Miss Harriet, in this unaccustomed outburst of enthusiasm, it<BR>
+is because, like himself, the poor outcast cherished a similar love<BR>
+for "all things, all living beings."</P>
+
+<P>Such appears to me to be Maupassant, the novelist, a story-teller, a<BR>
+writer, and a philosopher by turns. I will add one more trait; he was<BR>
+devoid of all spirit of criticism. When he essays to demolish a<BR>
+theory, one is amazed to find in this great, clear writer such lack of<BR>
+precision of thought, and such weak argument. He wrote the least<BR>
+eloquent and the most diffuse study of Flaubert, of "that old, dead<BR>
+master who had won his heart in a manner he could not explain." And,<BR>
+later, he shows the same weakness in setting forth, as in proving his<BR>
+theory, in his essay on the "Evolution of the Novel," in the<BR>
+introduction to Pierre et Jean.</P>
+
+<P>On the other hand, he possesses, above many others, a power of<BR>
+creating, hidden and inborn, which he exercises almost unconsciously.<BR>
+Living, spontaneous and yet impassive he is the glorious agent of a<BR>
+mysterious function, through which he dominated literature and will<BR>
+continue to dominate it until the day when he desires to become<BR>
+literary.</P>
+
+<P>He is as big as a tree. The author of "Contemporains" has written that<BR>
+Maupassant produced novels as an apple-tree yields apples. Never was a<BR>
+criticism more irrefutable.</P>
+
+<P>On various occasions he was pleased with himself at the fertility that<BR>
+had developed in him amid those rich soils where a frenzy mounts to<BR>
+your brain through the senses of smell and sight. He even feels the<BR>
+influence of the seasons, and writes from Provence: "The sap is rising<BR>
+in me, it is true. The spring that I find just awakening here stirs<BR>
+all my plant nature, and causes me to produce those literary fruits<BR>
+that ripen in me, I know not how."</P>
+
+<P>The "meteor" is at its apogee. All admire and glorify him. It is the<BR>
+period when Alexandre Dumas, fils, wrote to him thrice: "You are the<BR>
+only author whose books I await with impatience."</P>
+
+<P>The day came, however, when this dominant impassivity became stirred,<BR>
+when the marble became flesh by contact with life and suffering. And<BR>
+the work of the romancer, begun by the novelist, became warm with a<BR>
+tenderness that is found for the first time in Mont Oriol....</P>
+
+<P>But this sentimental outburst that astonished his admirers quickly<BR>
+dies down, for the following year, there appeared the sober Pierre et<BR>
+Jean, that admirable masterpiece of typical reality constructed with<BR>
+"human leaven," without any admixture of literary seasoning, or<BR>
+romantic combinations. The reader finds once more in his splendid<BR>
+integrity the master of yore.</P>
+
+<P>But his heart has been touched, nevertheless. In the books that<BR>
+follow, his impassivity gives way like an edifice that has been slowly<BR>
+undermined. With an ever-growing emotion he relates under slight<BR>
+disguises all his physical distress, all the terrors of his mind and<BR>
+heart.</P>
+
+<P>What is the secret of this evolution? The perusal of his works gives<BR>
+us a sufficient insight into it.</P>
+
+<P>The Minstrel has been received in country houses; has been admitted to<BR>
+"the ladies' apartments." He has given up composing those hurried<BR>
+tales which made his fame, in order to construct beautiful romances of<BR>
+love and death.... The story teller has forsaken rustics and peasants,<BR>
+the comrades of the "Repues franches," for the nobility and the<BR>
+wealthy. He who formerly frequented Mme. Tellier's establishment now<BR>
+praises Mich&egrave;le de Burne.</P>
+
+<P>Ysolde replaces Macette. In "l'Ostel de Courtoisie," Maupassant<BR>
+cultivates the usual abstractions of the modern Round Table:<BR>
+Distinction and Moderation; Fervor and Delicacy. We see him inditing<BR>
+love sonnets and becoming a knight of chivalry. The apologist of<BR>
+brutal pleasures has become a devotee of the "culte de la Dame."</P>
+
+<P>Everywhere he was sought after, f&ecirc;ted, petted.... But Maupassant never<BR>
+let himself be carried away by the tinsel of his prestige, nor the<BR>
+puerility of his enchantment. He despised at heart the puppets that<BR>
+moved about him as he had formerly despised his short stories and his<BR>
+petit bourgeois. "Ah," he cries, "I see them, their heads, their<BR>
+types, their hearts and their souls! What a clinic for a maker of<BR>
+books! The disgust with which this humanity inspires me makes me<BR>
+regret still more that I could not become what I should most have<BR>
+preferred--an Aristophanes, or a Rabelais." And he adds: "The world<BR>
+makes failures of all scientists, all artists, all intelligences that<BR>
+it monopolizes. It aborts all sincere sentiment by its manner of<BR>
+scattering our taste, our curiosity, our desire, the little spark of<BR>
+genius that burns in us."</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant had to bend to the conditions of his new life. Being well<BR>
+bred, he respected, outwardly at least, the laws of artificiality and<BR>
+conventionality, and bowed before the idols of the cave he had<BR>
+entered....</P>
+
+<P>If Maupassant never became the slave of worldly ideas, the creature of<BR>
+instinct that was part of his being acquired the refined tastes of the<BR>
+salons, and the manners of the highest civilization.</P>
+
+<P>The novelist lived for some time in these enchanted and artificial<BR>
+surroundings, when, suddenly, his malady became aggravated. He was<BR>
+tortured by neuralgia, and by new mysterious darting pains. His<BR>
+suffering was so great that he longed to scream. At the same time, his<BR>
+unhappy heart became softened and he became singularly emotional. His<BR>
+early faculties were intensified and refined, and in the overtension<BR>
+of his nerves through suffering his perceptions broadened, and he<BR>
+gained new ideas of things. This nobler personality Maupassant owes to<BR>
+those sufferings dear to great souls of whom Daudet speaks. This is<BR>
+what he says:</P>
+
+<P>"If I could ever tell all, I should utter all the unexplored,<BR>
+repressed and sad thoughts that I feel in the depths of my being. I<BR>
+feel them swelling and poisoning me as bile does some people. But if I<BR>
+could one day give them utterance they would perhaps evaporate, and I<BR>
+might no longer have anything but a light, joyful heart. Who can say?<BR>
+Thinking becomes an abominable torture when the brain is an open<BR>
+wound. I have so many wounds in my head that my ideas cannot stir<BR>
+without making me long to cry out. Why is it? Why is it? Dumas would<BR>
+say that my stomach is out of order. I believe, rather, that I have a<BR>
+poor, proud, shameful heart, that old human heart that people laugh<BR>
+at, but which is touched, and causes me suffering, and in my head as<BR>
+well; I have the mind of the Latin race, which is very worn out. And,<BR>
+again, there are days when I do not think thus, but when I suffer just<BR>
+the same; for I belong to the family of the thin-skinned. But then I<BR>
+do not tell it, I do not show it; I conceal it very well, I think.<BR>
+Without any doubt, I am thought to be one of the most indifferent men<BR>
+in the world. I am sceptical, which is not the same thing, sceptical<BR>
+because I am clear-sighted. And my eyes say to my heart, Hide<BR>
+yourself, old fellow, you are grotesque, and it hides itself."</P>
+
+<P>This describes, in spite of reservation, the struggle between two<BR>
+conflicting minds, that of yesterday, and that of to-day. But this<BR>
+sensitiveness that Maupassant seeks to hide, is plain to all<BR>
+clear-seeing people.</P>
+
+<P>He soon begins to be filled with regrets and forebodings. He has a<BR>
+desire to look into the unknown, and to search for the inexplicable.<BR>
+He feels in himself that something is undergoing destruction; he is at<BR>
+times haunted by the idea of a double. He divines that his malady is<BR>
+on guard, ready to pounce on him. He seeks to escape it, but on the<BR>
+mountains, as beside the sea, nature, formerly his refuge, now<BR>
+terrifies him.</P>
+
+<P>Then his heart expands. All the sentiments that he once reviled, he<BR>
+now desires to experience. He now exalts in his books the passion of<BR>
+love, the passion of sacrifice, the passion of suffering; he extols<BR>
+self-sacrifice, devotion, the irresistible joy of ever giving oneself<BR>
+up more and more. The hour is late, the night is at hand; weary of<BR>
+suffering any longer, he hurriedly begs for tenderness and<BR>
+remembrance.</P>
+
+<P>Occasionally, the Maupassant of former days protests against the<BR>
+bondage of his new personality; he complains that he no longer feels<BR>
+absolutely as formerly that he has no contact with anything in the<BR>
+world, that sweet, strong sensation that gives one strength. "How<BR>
+sensible I was," he says, "to wall myself round with indifference! If<BR>
+one did not feel, but only understand, without giving fragments of<BR>
+oneself to other beings! ... It is strange to suffer from the<BR>
+emptiness, the nothingness, of this life, when one is resigned, as I<BR>
+am, to nothingness. But, there, I cannot live without recollections,<BR>
+and recollections sadden me. I can have no hope, I know, but I feel<BR>
+obscurely and unceasingly the harm of this statement, and the regret<BR>
+that it should be so. And the attachments that I have in life act on<BR>
+my sensibility, which is too human, and not literary enough."</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant's pity now takes a pathetic turn. He no longer despises,<BR>
+but holds out his hand to those unfortunates who, like himself, are<BR>
+tormented on the pathway without hope. The tears that he sees flow<BR>
+make him sad, and his heart bleeds at all the wounds he discovers. He<BR>
+does not inquire into the quality or origin of the misfortune. He<BR>
+sympathizes with all suffering; physical suffering, moral suffering,<BR>
+the suffering caused by treachery, the bitter twilight of wasted<BR>
+lives....</P>
+
+<P>His mind has also become active. He desires to dabble in science. One<BR>
+day he studies the Arab mystics, Oriental legends, and the next, he<BR>
+studies the marine fauna, etc. His perceptions have never been so<BR>
+clear. His brain is in continual activity. "It is strange," he<BR>
+acknowledges, "what a different man I am becoming mentally from what I<BR>
+was formerly. I can see it as I watch myself thinking, discovering,<BR>
+and developing stories, weighing and analyzing the imaginary beings<BR>
+that float through my imagination. I take the same enjoyment in<BR>
+certain dreams, certain exaltations of mind, as I formerly took in<BR>
+rowing like mad in the sunlight."</P>
+
+<P>For the first time, his assurance as a writer wavers. As his last<BR>
+volumes show, he is endeavoring to transform, to renew himself. He<BR>
+acquires a desire to learn the secrets of obscure and precious hearts,<BR>
+to visit unknown races. He has lost his magnificent serenity....</P>
+
+<hr>
+
+<P>As his malady began to take a more definite form, he turned his steps<BR>
+towards the south, only visiting Paris to see his physicians and<BR>
+publishers. In the old port of Antibes beyond the causeway of Cannes,<BR>
+his yacht, Bel Ami, which he cherished as a brother, lay at anchor and<BR>
+awaited him. He took it to the white cities of the Genoese Gulf,<BR>
+towards the palm trees of Hy&egrave;res, or the red bay trees of Anth&eacute;or.</P>
+
+<P>It was during one of these idle cruises on the open sea, outside of<BR>
+Agay and Saint-Raphael that he wrote "Sur l'Eau."</P>
+
+<P>It was on the sacred sea of the old poets and philosophers, on the sea<BR>
+whose voice has rocked the thought of the world, that he cast into the<BR>
+shadow that long lament, so heartrending and sublime, that posterity<BR>
+will long shudder at the remembrance of it. The bitter strophes of<BR>
+this lament seem to be cadenced by the Mediterranean itself and to be<BR>
+in rhythm, like its melopoeia.</P>
+
+<P>"Sur l'Eau" is the last Will and Testament, the general confession of<BR>
+Maupassant. To those who come after him he leaves the legacy of his<BR>
+highest thought; then he says farewell to all that he loved, to<BR>
+dreams, to starlit nights, and to the breath of roses. "Sur l'Eau" is<BR>
+the book of modern disenchantment, the faithful mirror of the latest<BR>
+pessimism. The journal written on board ship, disconnected and hasty,<BR>
+but so noble in its disorder, has taken a place forever beside Werther<BR>
+and Ren&eacute;, Manfred and Oberman.</P>
+
+<P>He had for a long time, to his sorrow, seen his health failing under<BR>
+the attacks of an obscure malady which left him with a sense of the<BR>
+diminution of his powers and a gradual clouding of his intellect.<BR>
+Symptoms of general paralysis set in, at first mistaken for neurotic<BR>
+disturbances. He changed greatly. Those who met him as I did, thin and<BR>
+shivering, on that rainy Sunday when they were celebrating the<BR>
+inauguration of Flaubert's monument at Rouen would scarcely have<BR>
+recognized him. I shall never forget, as long as I live, his face<BR>
+wasted by suffering, his large eyes with a distressed expression,<BR>
+which emitted dying gleams of protest against a cruel fate....</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant retired to Cannes not far from his mother. He read medical<BR>
+books and, in spite of what they taught, persisted in attributing his<BR>
+sufferings to "rheumatism localized in the brain," contracted amid the<BR>
+fogs on the Seine....</P>
+
+<P>Vainly he endeavored to work, he became gloomy and the idea of suicide<BR>
+impressed him more and more...</P>
+
+<P>The months passed, however, and in June he was able to go to Divonne<BR>
+to take a cure. After a very characteristic attack of optimism, he<BR>
+suddenly appeared at Champel and astonished everyone by his frightful<BR>
+eccentricities. One evening, however, he felt better, and read to the<BR>
+poet Dorchain the beginning of his novel "The Angelus," which he<BR>
+declared would be his masterpiece. When he had finished, he wept. "And<BR>
+we wept also," writes Dorchain, "at seeing all that now remained of<BR>
+genius, of tenderness and pity in this soul that would never again be<BR>
+capable of expressing itself so as to impress other minds.... In his<BR>
+accent, in his language, in his tears, Maupassant had, I know not<BR>
+what, of a religious character, which exceeded his horror of life, and<BR>
+his sombre terror of annihilation."</P>
+
+<P>At the end of September he again visited Cannes, but the fatal day<BR>
+predicted by the physician was at hand.</P>
+
+<P>After several tragic weeks in which, from instinct, he made a<BR>
+desperate fight, on the 1st of January, 1892, he felt he was<BR>
+hopelessly vanquished, and in a moment of supreme clearness of<BR>
+intellect, like Gerard de Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate<BR>
+than the author of Sylvia, he was unsuccessful. But his mind,<BR>
+henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness," had entered into eternal<BR>
+darkness.</P>
+
+<P>He was taken back to Paris and placed in Dr. Meuriot's sanatorium,<BR>
+where, after eighteen months of mechanical existence, the "meteor"<BR>
+quietly passed away.</P>
+<hr>
+<h3>UNE VIE</h3>
+
+<h3>OR, THE HISTORY OF A HEART</h3>
+
+<h4>
+<a name="I">CHAPTER I</a></h4>
+
+<h5>THE HOME BY THE SEA</h5>
+
+<P>The weather was most distressing. It had rained all night. The roaring<BR>
+of the overflowing gutters filled the deserted streets, in which the<BR>
+houses, like sponges, absorbed the humidity, which penetrating to the<BR>
+interior, made the walls sweat from cellar to garret. Jeanne had left<BR>
+the convent the day before, free for all time, ready to seize all the<BR>
+joys of life, of which she had dreamed so long. She was afraid her<BR>
+father would not set out for the new home in bad weather, and for the<BR>
+hundredth time since daybreak she examined the horizon. Then she<BR>
+noticed that she had omitted to put her calendar in her travelling<BR>
+bag. She took from the wall the little card which bore in golden<BR>
+figures the date of the current year, 1819. Then she marked with a<BR>
+pencil the first four columns, drawing a line through the name of each<BR>
+saint up to the 2d of May, the day that she left the convent. A voice<BR>
+outside the door called "Jeannette." Jeanne replied, "Come in, papa."<BR>
+And her father entered. Baron Simon-Jacques Le Perthuis des Vauds was<BR>
+a gentleman of the last century, eccentric and good. An enthusiastic<BR>
+disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he had the tenderness of a lover<BR>
+for nature, in the fields, in the woods and in the animals. Of<BR>
+aristocratic birth, he hated instinctively the year 1793, but being a<BR>
+philosopher by temperament and liberal by education, he execrated<BR>
+tyranny with an inoffensive and declamatory hatred. His great strength<BR>
+and his great weakness was his kind-heartedness, which had not arms<BR>
+enough to caress, to give, to embrace; the benevolence of a god, that<BR>
+gave freely, without questioning; in a word, a kindness of inertia<BR>
+that became almost a vice. A man of theory, he thought out a plan of<BR>
+education for his daughter, to the end that she might become happy,<BR>
+good, upright and gentle. She had lived at home until the age of<BR>
+twelve, when, despite the tears of her mother, she was placed in the<BR>
+Convent of the Sacred Heart. He had kept her severely secluded,<BR>
+cloistered, in ignorance of the secrets of life. He wished the Sisters<BR>
+to restore her to him pure at seventeen years of age, so that he might<BR>
+imbue her mind with a sort of rational poetry, and by means of the<BR>
+fields, in the midst of the fruitful earth, unfold her soul, enlighten<BR>
+her ignorance through the aspect of love in nature, through the simple<BR>
+tenderness of the animals, through the placid laws of existence. She<BR>
+was leaving the convent radiant, full of the joy of life, ready for<BR>
+all the happiness, all the charming incidents which her mind had<BR>
+pictured in her idle hours and in the long, quiet nights. She was like<BR>
+a portrait by Veronese with her fair, glossy hair, which seemed to<BR>
+cast a radiance on her skin, a skin with the faintest tinge of pink,<BR>
+softened by a light velvety down which could be perceived when the sun<BR>
+kissed her cheek. Her eyes were an opaque blue, like those of Dutch<BR>
+porcelain figures. She had a tiny mole on her left nostril and another<BR>
+on the right of her chin. She was tall, well developed, with willowy<BR>
+figure. Her clear voice sounded at times a little too sharp, but her<BR>
+frank, sincere laugh spread joy around her. Often, with a familiar<BR>
+gesture, she would raise her hands to her temples as if to arrange her<BR>
+hair.</P>
+
+<P>She ran to her father and embraced him warmly. "Well, are we going to<BR>
+start?" she said. He smiled, shook his head and said, pointing toward<BR>
+the window, "How can we travel in such weather?" But she implored in a<BR>
+cajoling and tender manner, "Oh, papa, do let us start. It will clear<BR>
+up in the afternoon." "But your mother will never consent to it."<BR>
+"Yes, I promise you that she will, I will arrange that." "If you<BR>
+succeed in persuading your mother, I am perfectly willing." In a few<BR>
+moments she returned from her mother's room, shouting in a voice that<BR>
+could be heard all through the house, "Papa, papa, mamma is willing.<BR>
+Have the horses harnessed." The rain was not abating; one might almost<BR>
+have said that it was raining harder when the carriage drove up to the<BR>
+door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs,<BR>
+supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall<BR>
+housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of<BR>
+the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but<BR>
+eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second<BR>
+daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie,<BR>
+and her chief duty lay in guiding the steps of her mistress, who had<BR>
+grown enormous in the last few years and also had an affection of the<BR>
+heart, which kept her complaining continually. The baroness, gasping<BR>
+from over-exertion, finally reached the doorstep of the old residence,<BR>
+looked at the court where the water was streaming and remarked: "It<BR>
+really is not wise." Her husband, always pleasant, replied: "It was<BR>
+you who desired it, Madame Adelaide." He always preceded her pompous<BR>
+name of Adelaide with the title madame with an air of half respectful<BR>
+mockery. Madame mounted with difficulty into the carriage, causing all<BR>
+the springs to bend. The baron sat beside her, while Jeanne and<BR>
+Rosalie were seated opposite, with their backs to the horses.<BR>
+Ludivine, the cook, brought a heap of wraps to put over their knees<BR>
+and two baskets, which were placed under the seats; then she climbed<BR>
+on the box beside Father Simon, wrapping herself in a great rug which<BR>
+covered her completely. The porter and his wife came to bid them<BR>
+good-by as they closed the carriage door, taking the last orders about<BR>
+the trunks, which were to follow in a wagon. So they started. Father<BR>
+Simon, the coachman, with head bowed and back bent in the pouring<BR>
+rain, was completely covered by his box coat with its triple cape. The<BR>
+howling storm beat upon the carriage windows and inundated the<BR>
+highway.</P>
+
+<P>They drove rapidly to the wharf and continued alongside the line of<BR>
+tall-masted vessels until they reached the boulevard of Mont Riboudet.<BR>
+Then they crossed the meadows, where from time to time a drowned<BR>
+willow, its branches drooping limply, could be faintly distinguished<BR>
+through the mist of rain. No one spoke. Their minds themselves seemed<BR>
+to be saturated with moisture like the earth.</P>
+
+<P>The baroness leaned her head against the cushions and closed her eyes.<BR>
+The baron looked out with mournful eyes at the monotonous and drenched<BR>
+landscape. Rosalie, with a parcel on her knee, was dreaming in the<BR>
+dull reverie of a peasant. But Jeanne, under this downpour, felt<BR>
+herself revive like a plant that has been shut up and has just been<BR>
+restored to the air, and so great was her joy that, like foliage, it<BR>
+sheltered her heart from sadness. Although she did not speak, she<BR>
+longed to burst out singing, to reach out her hands to catch the rain<BR>
+that she might drink it. She enjoyed to the full being carried along<BR>
+rapidly by the horses, enjoyed gazing at the desolate landscape and<BR>
+feeling herself under shelter amid this general inundation. Beneath<BR>
+the pelting rain the gleaming backs of the two horses emitted a warm<BR>
+steam.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little the baroness fell asleep, and presently began to<BR>
+snore sonorously. Her husband leaned over and placed in her hands a<BR>
+little leather pocketbook.</P>
+
+<P>This awakened her, and she looked at the pocket-book with the stupid,<BR>
+sleepy look of one suddenly aroused. It fell off her lap and sprang<BR>
+open and gold and bank bills were scattered on the floor of the<BR>
+carriage. This roused her completely, and Jeanne gave vent to her<BR>
+mirth in a merry peal of girlish laughter.</P>
+
+<P>The baron picked up the money and placed it on her knees. "This, my<BR>
+dear," he said, "is all that is left of my farm at Eletot. I have sold<BR>
+it--so as to be able to repair the 'Poplars,' where we shall often<BR>
+live in the future."</P>
+
+<P>She counted six thousand four hundred francs and quietly put them in<BR>
+her pocket. This was the ninth of thirty-one farms that they had<BR>
+inherited which they had sold in this way. Nevertheless they still<BR>
+possessed about twenty thousand livres income annually in land<BR>
+rentals, which, with proper care, would have yielded about thirty<BR>
+thousand francs a year.</P>
+
+<P>Living simply as they did, this income would have sufficed had there<BR>
+not been a bottomless hole always open in their house--kind-hearted<BR>
+generosity. It dried up the money in their hands as the sun dries the<BR>
+water in marshes. It flowed, fled, disappeared. How? No one knew.<BR>
+Frequently one would say to the other, "I don't know how it happens,<BR>
+but I have spent one hundred francs to-day, and I have bought nothing<BR>
+of any consequence." This faculty of giving was, however, one of the<BR>
+greatest pleasures of their life, and they all agreed on this point in<BR>
+a superb and touching manner.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne asked her father, "Is it beautiful now, my castle?" The baron<BR>
+replied, "You shall see, my little girl."</P>
+
+<P>The storm began to abate. The vault of clouds seemed to rise and<BR>
+heighten and suddenly, through a rift, a long ray of sunshine fell<BR>
+upon the fields, and presently the clouds separated, showing the blue<BR>
+firmament, and then, like the tearing of a veil, the opening grew<BR>
+larger and the beautiful azure sky, clear and fathomless, spread over<BR>
+the world. A fresh and gentle breeze passed over the earth like a<BR>
+happy sigh, and as they passed beside gardens or woods they heard<BR>
+occasionally the bright chirp of a bird as he dried his wings.</P>
+
+<P>Evening was approaching. Everyone in the carriage was asleep except<BR>
+Jeanne. They stopped to rest and feed the horses. The sun had set. In<BR>
+the distance bells were heard. They passed a little village as the<BR>
+inhabitants were lighting their lamps, and the sky became also<BR>
+illuminated by myriads of stars. Suddenly they saw behind a hill,<BR>
+through the branches of the fir trees, the moon rising, red and full<BR>
+as if it were torpid with sleep.</P>
+
+<P>The air was so soft that the windows were not closed. Jeanne,<BR>
+exhausted with dreams and happy visions, was now asleep. Finally they<BR>
+stopped. Some men and women were standing before the carriage door<BR>
+with lanterns in their hands. They had arrived. Jeanne, suddenly<BR>
+awakened, was the first to jump out. Her father and Rosalie had<BR>
+practically to carry the baroness, who was groaning and continually<BR>
+repeating in a weak little voice, "Oh, my God, my poor children!" She<BR>
+refused all offers of refreshment, but went to bed and immediately<BR>
+fell asleep.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and her father, the baron, took supper together. They were in<BR>
+perfect sympathy with each other. Later, seized with a childish joy,<BR>
+they started on a tour of inspection through the restored manor. It<BR>
+was one of those high and vast Norman residences that comprise both<BR>
+farmhouse and castle, built of white stone which had turned gray,<BR>
+large enough to contain a whole race of people.</P>
+
+<P>An immense hall divided the house from front to rear and a staircase<BR>
+went up at either side of the entrance, meeting in a bridge on the<BR>
+first floor. The huge drawing-room was on the ground floor to the<BR>
+right and was hung with tapestries representing birds and foliage. All<BR>
+the furniture was covered with fine needlework tapestry illustrating<BR>
+La Fontaine's fables, and Jeanne was delighted at finding a chair she<BR>
+had loved as a child, which pictured the story of "The Fox and the<BR>
+Stork."</P>
+
+<P>Beside the drawing-room were the library, full of old books, and two<BR>
+unused rooms; at the left was the dining-room, the laundry, the<BR>
+kitchen, etc.</P>
+
+<P>A corridor divided the whole first floor, the doors of ten rooms<BR>
+opening into it. At the end, on the right, was Jeanne's room. She and<BR>
+her father went in. He had had it all newly done over, using the<BR>
+furniture and draperies that had been in the storeroom.</P>
+
+<P>There were some very old Flemish tapestries, with their peculiar<BR>
+looking figures. At sight of her bed, the young girl uttered a scream<BR>
+of joy. Four large birds carved in oak, black from age and highly<BR>
+polished, bore up the bed and seemed to be its protectors. On the<BR>
+sides were carved two wide garlands of flowers and fruit, and four<BR>
+finely fluted columns, terminating in Corinthian capitals, supported a<BR>
+cornice of cupids with roses intertwined. The tester and the coverlet<BR>
+were of antique blue silk, embroidered in gold fleur de lys. When<BR>
+Jeanne had sufficiently admired it, she lifted up the candle to<BR>
+examine the tapestries and the allegories they represented. They were<BR>
+mostly conventional subjects, but the last hanging represented a<BR>
+drama. Near a rabbit, which was still nibbling, a young man lay<BR>
+stretched out, apparently dead. A young girl, gazing at him, was<BR>
+plunging a sword into her bosom, and the fruit of the tree had turned<BR>
+black. Jeanne gave up trying to divine the meaning underlying this<BR>
+picture, when she saw in the corner a tiny little animal which the<BR>
+rabbit, had he lived, could have swallowed like a blade of grass; and<BR>
+yet it was a lion. Then she recognized the story of "Pyramus and<BR>
+Thisbe," and though she smiled at the simplicity of the design, she<BR>
+felt happy to have in her room this love adventure which would<BR>
+continually speak to her of her cherished hopes, and every night this<BR>
+legendary love would hover about her dreams.</P>
+
+<P>It struck eleven and the baron kissed Jeanne goodnight and retired to<BR>
+his room. Before retiring, Jeanne cast a last glance round her room<BR>
+and then regretfully extinguished the candle. Through her window she<BR>
+could see the bright moonlight bathing the trees and the wonderful<BR>
+landscape. Presently she arose, opened a window and looked out. The<BR>
+night was so clear that one could see as plainly as by daylight. She<BR>
+looked across the park with its two long avenues of very tall poplars<BR>
+that gave its name to the ch&acirc;teau and separated it from the two farms<BR>
+that belonged to it, one occupied by the Couillard family, the other<BR>
+by the Martins. Beyond the enclosure stretched a long, uncultivated<BR>
+plain, thickly overgrown with rushes, where the breeze whistled day<BR>
+and night. The land ended abruptly in a steep white cliff three<BR>
+hundred feet high, with its base in the ocean waves.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne looked out over the long, undulating surface that seemed to<BR>
+slumber beneath the heavens. All the fragrance of the earth was in the<BR>
+night air. The odor of jasmine rose from the lower windows, and light<BR>
+whiffs of briny air and of seaweed were wafted from the ocean.</P>
+
+<P>Merely to breathe was enough for Jeanne, and the restful calm of the<BR>
+country was like a soothing bath. She felt as though her heart was<BR>
+expanding and she began dreaming of love. What was it? She did not<BR>
+know. She only knew that she would adore <i>him</i> with all her soul<BR>
+and that he would cherish her with all his strength. They would walk<BR>
+hand in hand on nights like this, hearing the beating of their hearts,<BR>
+mingling their love with the sweet simplicity of the summer nights in<BR>
+such close communion of thought that by the sole power of their<BR>
+tenderness they would easily penetrate each other's most secret<BR>
+thoughts. This would continue forever in the calm of an enduring<BR>
+affection. It seemed to her that she felt <i>him</i> there beside her.<BR>
+And an unusual sensation came over her. She remained long musing thus,<BR>
+when suddenly she thought she heard a footstep behind the house. "If<BR>
+it were <i>he</i>." But it passed on and she felt as if she had been<BR>
+deceived. The air became cooler. The day broke. Slowly bursting aside<BR>
+the gleaming clouds, touching with fire the trees, the plains, the<BR>
+ocean, all the horizon, the great flaming orb of the sun appeared.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne felt herself becoming mad with happiness. A delirious joy,<BR>
+an infinite tenderness at the splendor of nature overcame her<BR>
+fluttering heart. It was <i>her</i> sun, <i>her</i> dawn! The beginning<BR>
+of <i>her</i> life! Thoroughly fatigued at last, she flung herself down<BR>
+and slept till her father called her at eight o'clock. He walked into<BR>
+the room and proposed to show her the improvements of the castle, of<BR>
+<i>her</i> castle. The road, called the parish road, connecting the<BR>
+farms, joined the high road between Havre and F&eacute;camp, a mile and a<BR>
+half further on.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and the baron inspected everything and returned home for<BR>
+breakfast. When the meal was over, as the baroness had decided that<BR>
+she would rest, the baron proposed to Jeanne that they should go down<BR>
+to Yport. They started, and passing through the hamlet of Etouvent,<BR>
+where the poplars were, and going through the wooded slope by a<BR>
+winding valley leading down to the sea, they presently perceived the<BR>
+village of Yport. Women sat in their doorways mending linen; brown<BR>
+fish-nets were hanging against the doors of the huts, where an entire<BR>
+family lived in one room. It was a typical little French fishing<BR>
+village, with all its concomitant odors. To Jeanne it was all like a<BR>
+scene in a play. On turning a corner they saw before them the<BR>
+limitless blue ocean. They bought a brill from a fisherman and another<BR>
+sailor offered to take them out sailing, repeating his name,<BR>
+"Lastique, Jos&eacute;phin Lastique," several times, that they might not<BR>
+forget it, and the baron promised to remember. They walked home,<BR>
+chattering like two children, carrying the big fish between them,<BR>
+Jeanne having pushed her father's walking cane through its gills.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="II">CHAPTER II</a></h4>
+
+<h5>HAPPY DAYS</h5>
+
+<P>A delightful life commenced for Jeanne, a life in the open air. She<BR>
+wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their<BR>
+sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor<BR>
+of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant<BR>
+sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow rocking<BR>
+her spirit.</P>
+
+<P>A love of solitude came upon her in the sweet freshness of this<BR>
+landscape and in the calm of the rounded horizon, and she would remain<BR>
+sitting so long on the hill tops that the wild rabbits would bound by<BR>
+her feet.</P>
+
+<P>She planted memories everywhere, as seeds are cast upon the earth,<BR>
+memories whose roots hold till death. It seemed to Jeanne that she was<BR>
+casting a little of her heart into every fold of these valleys. She<BR>
+became infatuated with sea bathing. When she was well out from shore,<BR>
+she would float on her back, her arms crossed, her eyes lost in the<BR>
+profound blue of the sky which was cleft by the flight of a swallow,<BR>
+or the white silhouette of a seabird.</P>
+
+<P>After these excursions she invariably came back to the castle pale<BR>
+with hunger, but light, alert, a smile on her lips and her eyes<BR>
+sparkling with happiness.</P>
+
+<P>The baron on his part was planning great agricultural enterprises.<BR>
+Occasionally, also, he went out to sea with the sailors of Yport. On<BR>
+several occasions he went fishing for mackerel and, again, by<BR>
+moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved<BR>
+to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts<BR>
+of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long<BR>
+time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof<BR>
+of a belfry or the F&eacute;camp lighthouse, he delighted to remain<BR>
+motionless beneath the first gleams of the rising sun which made the<BR>
+slimy backs of the large fan-shaped rays and the fat bellies of the<BR>
+turbots glisten on the deck of the boat.</P>
+
+<P>At each meal he gave an enthusiastic account of his expeditions, and<BR>
+the baroness in her turn told how many times she had walked down the<BR>
+main avenue of poplars.</P>
+
+<P>As she had been advised to take exercise she made a business of<BR>
+walking, beginning as soon as the air grew warm. Leaning upon<BR>
+Rosalie's arm and dragging her left foot, which was rather heavier<BR>
+than the right, she wandered interminably up and down from the house<BR>
+to the edge of the wood, sitting down for five minutes at either end.<BR>
+The walking was resumed in the afternoon. A physician, consulted ten<BR>
+years before, had spoken of hypertrophy because she had suffered from<BR>
+suffocation. Ever since, this word had been used to describe the<BR>
+ailment of the baroness. The baron would say "my wife's hypertrophy"<BR>
+and Jeanne "mamma's hypertrophy" as they would have spoken of her hat,<BR>
+her dress, or her umbrella. She had been very pretty in her youth and<BR>
+slim as a reed. Now she had grown older, stouter, but she still<BR>
+remained poetical, having always retained the impression of "Corinne,"<BR>
+which she had read as a girl. She read all the sentimental love<BR>
+stories it was possible to collect, and her thoughts wandered among<BR>
+tender adventures in which she always figured as the heroine. Her new<BR>
+home was infinitely pleasing to her because it formed such a beautiful<BR>
+framework for the romance of her soul, the surrounding woods, the<BR>
+waste land, and the proximity of the ocean recalling to her mind the<BR>
+novels of Sir Walter Scott, which she had been devouring for some<BR>
+months. On rainy days she remained shut up in her room, sending<BR>
+Rosalie in a special manner for the drawer containing her "souvenirs,"<BR>
+which meant to the baroness all her old private and family letters.</P>
+
+<P>Occasionally, Jeanne replaced Rosalie in the walks with her mother,<BR>
+and she listened eagerly to the tales of the latter's childhood. The<BR>
+young girl saw herself in all these romantic stories, and was<BR>
+astonished at the similarity of ideas and desires; each heart imagines<BR>
+itself to have been the first to tremble at those very sensations that<BR>
+awakened the hearts of the first beings, and that will awaken the<BR>
+hearts of the last.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon as the baroness and Jeanne were resting on the beach at<BR>
+the end of the walk, a stout priest who was moving in their direction<BR>
+greeted them with a bow, while still at a distance. He bowed when<BR>
+within three feet and, assuming a smiling air, cried: "Well, Madame la<BR>
+Baronne, how are you?" It was the village priest. The baroness seldom<BR>
+went to church, though she liked priests, from a sort of religious<BR>
+instinct peculiar to women. She had, in fact, entirely forgotten the<BR>
+Abb&eacute; Picot, her priest, and blushed as she saw him. She made apologies<BR>
+for not having prepared for his visit, but the good man was not at all<BR>
+embarrassed. He looked at Jeanne, complimented her on her appearance<BR>
+and sat down, placing his three-cornered hat on his knees. He was very<BR>
+stout, very red, and perspired profusely. He drew from his pocket<BR>
+every moment an enormous checked handkerchief and passed it over his<BR>
+face and neck, but hardly was the task completed when necessity forced<BR>
+him to repeat the process. He was a typical country priest, talkative<BR>
+and kindly.</P>
+
+<P>Presently the baron appeared. He was very friendly to the abb&eacute; and<BR>
+invited him to dinner. The priest was well versed in the art of being<BR>
+pleasant, thanks to the unconscious astuteness which the guiding of<BR>
+souls gives to the most mediocre of men who are called by the chance<BR>
+of events to exercise a power over their fellows. Toward dessert he<BR>
+became quite merry, with the gaiety that follows a pleasant meal, and<BR>
+as if struck by an idea he said: "I have a new parishioner whom I must<BR>
+present to you, Monsieur le Vicomte de Lamare." The baroness, who was<BR>
+at home in heraldry, inquired if he was of the family of Lamares of<BR>
+Eure. The priest answered, "Yes, madame, he is the son of Vicomte Jean<BR>
+de Lamare, who died last year." After this, the baroness, who loved<BR>
+the nobility above all other things, inquired the history of the young<BR>
+vicomte. He had paid his father's debts, sold the family castle, made<BR>
+his home on one of the three farms which he owned in the town of<BR>
+Etouvent. These estates brought him in an income of five or six<BR>
+thousand livres. The vicomte was economical and lived in this modest<BR>
+manner for two or three years, so that he might save enough to cut a<BR>
+figure in society, and to marry advantageously, without contracting<BR>
+debts or mortgaging his farms. The priest added, "He is a very<BR>
+charming young man, so steady and quiet, though there is very little<BR>
+to amuse him in the country." The baron said, "Bring him in to see us,<BR>
+Monsieur l'Abb&eacute;, it will be a distraction for him occasionally." After<BR>
+the coffee the baron and the priest took a turn about the grounds and<BR>
+then returned to say good-night to the ladies.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="III">CHAPTER III</a></h4>
+
+<h5>M. DE LAMARE</h5>
+
+<P>The following Sunday the baroness and Jeanne went to mass, prompted by<BR>
+a feeling of respect for their pastor, and after service waited to see<BR>
+the priest and invite him to luncheon the following Thursday. He came<BR>
+out of the sacristy leaning familiarly on the arm of a tall young man.<BR>
+As soon as he perceived the ladies, he exclaimed:</P>
+
+<P>"How fortunate! Allow me, baroness and Mlle. Jeanne, to present to you<BR>
+your neighbor, M. le Vicomte de Lamare."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte said he had long desired to make their acquaintance, and<BR>
+began to converse in a well-bred manner. He had a face of which women<BR>
+dream and that men dislike. His black, wavy hair shaded a smooth,<BR>
+sunburnt forehead, and two large straight eyebrows, that looked almost<BR>
+artificial, cast a deep and tender shadow over his dark eyes, the<BR>
+whites of which had a bluish tinge.</P>
+
+<P>His long, thick eyelashes accentuated the passionate eloquence of his<BR>
+expression which wrought havoc in the drawing-rooms of society, and<BR>
+made peasant girls carrying baskets turn round to look at him. The<BR>
+languorous fascination of his glance impressed one with the depth of<BR>
+his thoughts and lent weight to his slightest words. His beard, fine<BR>
+and glossy, concealed a somewhat heavy jaw.</P>
+
+<P>Two days later, M. de Lamare made his first call, just as they were<BR>
+discussing the best place for a new rustic bench. The vicomte was<BR>
+consulted and agreed with the baroness, who differed from her husband.</P>
+
+<P>M. de Lamare expatiated on the picturesqueness of the country and from<BR>
+time to time, as if by chance, his eyes met those of Jeanne, and she<BR>
+felt a strange sensation at the quickly averted glance which betrayed<BR>
+tender admiration and an awakened sympathy.</P>
+
+<P>M. de Lamare's father, who had died the preceding year, had known an<BR>
+intimate friend of the baroness's father, M. Cultaux, and this fact<BR>
+led to an endless conversation about family, relations, dates, etc.,<BR>
+and names heard in her childhood were recalled, and led to<BR>
+reminiscences.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, whose nature was rather uncultivated, and whose beliefs and<BR>
+prejudices were not those of his class, knew little about the<BR>
+neighboring families, and inquired about them from the vicomte, who<BR>
+responded:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, there are very few of the nobility in the district," just as he<BR>
+might have said, "there are very few rabbits on the hills," and he<BR>
+began to particularize: There was the Marquis de Coutelier, a sort of<BR>
+leader of Norman aristocracy, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville,<BR>
+people of excellent stock, but living to themselves, and the Comte de<BR>
+Fourville, a kind of ogre, who was said to have made his wife die of<BR>
+sorrow, and who lived as a huntsman in his ch&acirc;teau of La Vrillette,<BR>
+built on a pond. There were a few parvenus among them who had bought<BR>
+properties here and there, but the vicomte did not know them.</P>
+
+<P>As he left, his last glance was for Jeanne, as if it were a special<BR>
+tender and cordial farewell. The baroness was delighted with him, and<BR>
+the baron said: "Yes, indeed, he is a gentleman." And he was invited<BR>
+to dinner the following week, and from that time came regularly.</P>
+
+<P>He generally arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon, went to join<BR>
+the baroness in "her avenue," and offered her his arm while she took<BR>
+her "exercise," as she called her daily walks. When Jeanne was at home<BR>
+she would walk on the other side of her mother, supporting her, and<BR>
+all three would walk slowly back and forth from one end of the avenue<BR>
+to the other. He seldom addressed Jeanne directly, but his eye<BR>
+frequently met hers.</P>
+
+<P>He went to Yport several times with Jeanne and the baron. One evening,<BR>
+when they were on the beach, P&egrave;re Lastique accosted him, and without<BR>
+removing his pipe, the absence of which would possibly have been more<BR>
+remarkable than the loss of his nose, he said:</P>
+
+<P>"With this wind, m'sieu le baron, we could easily go to &Eacute;tretat and<BR>
+back to-morrow."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne clasped her hands imploringly:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, papa, let us do it!"</P>
+
+<P>The baron turned to M. de Lamare:</P>
+
+<P>"Will you join us, vicomte? We can take breakfast down there."</P>
+
+<P>And the matter was decided at once. From daybreak Jeanne was up and<BR>
+waiting for her father, who dressed more slowly. They walked in the<BR>
+dew across the level and then through the wood vibrant with the<BR>
+singing of birds. The vicomte and P&egrave;re Lastique were seated on a<BR>
+capstan.</P>
+
+<P>Two other sailors helped to shove off the boat from shore, which was<BR>
+not easy on the shingly beach. Once the boat was afloat, they all took<BR>
+their seats, and the two sailors who remained on shore shoved it off.<BR>
+A light, steady breeze was blowing from the ocean and they hoisted the<BR>
+sail, veered a little, and then sailed along smoothly with scarcely<BR>
+any motion. To landward the high cliff at the right cast a shadow on<BR>
+the water at its base, and patches of sunlit grass here and there<BR>
+varied its monotonous whiteness. Yonder, behind them, brown sails were<BR>
+coming out of the white harbor of F&eacute;camp, and ahead of them they saw a<BR>
+rock of curious shape, rounded, with gaps in it looking something like<BR>
+an immense elephant with its trunk in the water; it was the little<BR>
+port of &Eacute;tretat.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, a little dizzy from the motion of the waves, held the side of<BR>
+the boat with one hand as she looked out into the distance. It seemed<BR>
+to her as if only three things in the world were really beautiful:<BR>
+light, space, water.</P>
+
+<P>No one spoke. P&egrave;re Lastique, who was at the tiller, took a pull every<BR>
+now and then from a bottle hidden under the seat; and he smoked a<BR>
+short pipe which seemed inextinguishable, although he never seemed to<BR>
+relight it or refill it.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, seated in the bow looked after the sail. Jeanne and the<BR>
+vicomte seemed a little embarrassed at being seated side by side. Some<BR>
+unknown power seemed to make their glances meet whenever they raised<BR>
+their eyes; between them there existed already that subtle and vague<BR>
+sympathy which arises so rapidly between two young people when the<BR>
+young man is good looking and the girl is pretty. They were happy in<BR>
+each other's society, perhaps because they were thinking of each<BR>
+other. The rising sun was beginning to pierce through the slight mist,<BR>
+and as its beams grew stronger, they were reflected on the smooth<BR>
+surface of the sea as in a mirror.</P>
+
+<P>"How beautiful!" murmured Jeanne, with emotion.</P>
+
+<P>"Beautiful indeed!" answered the vicomte. The serene beauty of the<BR>
+morning awakened an echo in their hearts.</P>
+
+<P>And all at once they saw the great arches of &Eacute;tretat, like two<BR>
+supports of a cliff standing in the sea high enough for vessels to<BR>
+pass under them; while a sharp-pointed white rock rose in front of the<BR>
+first arch. They reached shore, and the baron got out first to make<BR>
+fast the boat, while the vicomte lifted Jeanne ashore so that she<BR>
+should not wet her feet. Then they walked up the shingly beach side by<BR>
+side, and they overheard P&egrave;re Lastique say to the baron, "My! but they<BR>
+would make a pretty couple!"</P>
+
+<P>They took breakfast in a little inn near the beach, and while the<BR>
+ocean had lulled their thoughts and made them silent, the breakfast<BR>
+table had the opposite effect, and they chattered like children on a<BR>
+vacation. The slightest thing gave rise to laughter.</P>
+
+<P>P&egrave;re Lastique, on taking his place at table, carefully hid his lighted<BR>
+pipe in his cap. That made them laugh. A fly, attracted no doubt by<BR>
+his red nose, persistently alighted on it, and each time it did so<BR>
+they burst into laughter. Finally the old man could stand it no<BR>
+longer, and murmured: "It is devilishly persistent!" whereupon Jeanne<BR>
+and the vicomte laughed till they cried.</P>
+
+<P>After breakfast Jeanne suggested that they should take a walk. The<BR>
+vicomte rose, but the baron preferred to bask in the sun on the beach.</P>
+
+<P>"Go on, my children, you will find me here in an hour."</P>
+
+<P>They walked straight ahead of them, passing by several cottages and<BR>
+finally by a small ch&acirc;teau resembling a large farm, and found<BR>
+themselves in an open valley that extended for some distance. They now<BR>
+had a wild longing to run at large in the fields. Jeanne seemed to<BR>
+have a humming in her ears from all the new and rapidly changing<BR>
+sensations she had experienced. The burning rays of the sun fell on<BR>
+them. On both sides of the road the crops were bending over from the<BR>
+heat. The grasshoppers, as numerous as the blades of grass, were<BR>
+uttering their thin, shrill cry.</P>
+
+<P>Perceiving a wood a little further on to the right, they walked over<BR>
+to it. They saw a narrow path between two hedges shaded by tall trees<BR>
+which shut out the sun. A sort of moist freshness in the air was<BR>
+perceptible, giving them a sensation of chilliness. There was no<BR>
+grass, owing to the lack of sunlight, but the ground was covered with<BR>
+a carpet of moss.</P>
+
+<P>"See, we can sit down there a little while," she said.</P>
+
+<P>They sat down and looked about them at the numerous forms of life that<BR>
+were in the air and on the ground at their feet, for a ray of sunlight<BR>
+penetrating the dense foliage brought them into its light.</P>
+
+<P>"How beautiful it is here! How lovely it is in the country! There are<BR>
+moments when I should like to be a fly or a butterfly and hide in the<BR>
+flowers," said Jeanne with emotion.</P>
+
+<P>They spoke in low tones as one does in exchanging confidences, telling<BR>
+of their daily lives and of their tastes, and declaring that they were<BR>
+already disgusted with the world, tired of its useless monotony; it<BR>
+was always the same thing; there was no truth, no sincerity in it.</P>
+
+<P>The world! She would gladly have made its acquaintance; but she felt<BR>
+convinced beforehand that it was not equal to a country life, and the<BR>
+more their hearts seemed to be in sympathy, the more ceremonious they<BR>
+became, the more frequently their glances met and blended smiling; and<BR>
+it seemed that a new feeling of benevolence was awakened in them, a<BR>
+wider affection, an interest in a thousand things of which they had<BR>
+never hitherto thought.</P>
+
+<P>They wended their way back, but the baron had already set off on foot<BR>
+for the Chambre aux Demoiselles, a grotto in a cleft at the summit of<BR>
+one of the cliffs, and they waited for him at the inn. He did not<BR>
+return until five in the evening after a long walk along the cliffs.</P>
+
+<P>They got into the boat, started off smoothly with the wind at their<BR>
+backs, scarcely seeming to make any headway. The breeze was irregular,<BR>
+at one moment filling the sail and then letting it flap idly along the<BR>
+mast. The sea seemed opaque and lifeless, and the sun was slowly<BR>
+approaching the horizon. The lulling motion of the sea had made them<BR>
+silent again. Presently Jeanne said, "How I should love to travel!"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, but it is tiresome to travel alone; there should be at least<BR>
+two, to exchange ideas," answered the vicomte. She reflected a moment.</P>
+
+<P>"That is true--I like to walk alone, however--how pleasant it is to<BR>
+dream all alone----"</P>
+
+<P>He gazed at her intently.</P>
+
+<P>"Two can dream as well as one."</P>
+
+<P>She lowered her eyes. Was it a hint? Possibly. She looked out at the<BR>
+horizon as if to discover something beyond it, and then said slowly:</P>
+
+<P>"I should like to go to Italy--and Greece--ah, yes, Greece--and to<BR>
+Corsica--it must be so wild and so beautiful!"</P>
+
+<P>He preferred Switzerland on account of its chalets and its lakes.</P>
+
+<P>"No," said she, "I like new countries like Corsica, or very old<BR>
+countries full of souvenirs, like Greece. It must be delightful to<BR>
+find the traces of those peoples whose history we have known since<BR>
+childhood, to see places where great deeds were accomplished."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte, less enthusiastic, exclaimed: "As for me, England<BR>
+attracts me very much; there is so much to be learned there."</P>
+
+<P>Then they talked about the world in general, discussing the<BR>
+attractions of each country from the poles to the equator, enthusing<BR>
+over imaginary scenes and the peculiar manners of certain peoples like<BR>
+the Chinese and the Lapps; but they arrived at the conclusion that the<BR>
+most beautiful country in the world was France, with its temperate<BR>
+climate, cool in summer, mild in winter, its rich soil, its green<BR>
+forests, its worship of the fine arts which existed nowhere else since<BR>
+the glorious centuries of Athens. Then they were silent. The setting<BR>
+sun left a wide dazzling train of light which extended from the<BR>
+horizon to the edge of their boat. The wind subsided, the ripples<BR>
+disappeared, and the motionless sail was red in the light of the dying<BR>
+day. A limitless calm seemed to settle down on space and make a<BR>
+silence amid this conjunction of elements; and by degrees the sun<BR>
+slowly sank into the ocean.</P>
+
+<P>Then a fresh breeze seemed to arise, a little shiver went over the<BR>
+surface of the water, as if the engulfed orb cast a sigh of<BR>
+satisfaction across the world. The twilight was short, night fell with<BR>
+its myriad stars. P&egrave;re Lastique took the oars, and they saw that the<BR>
+sea was phosphorescent. Jeanne and the vicomte, side by side, watched<BR>
+the fitful gleams in the wake of the boat. They were hardly thinking,<BR>
+but simply gazing vaguely, breathing in the beauty of the evening in a<BR>
+state of delicious contentment; Jeanne had one hand on the seat and<BR>
+her neighbor's finger touched it as if by accident; she did not move;<BR>
+she was surprised, happy, though embarrassed at this slight contact.</P>
+
+<P>When she reached home that evening and went to her room, she felt<BR>
+strangely disturbed, and so affected that the slightest thing impelled<BR>
+her to weep. She looked at her clock, imagining that the little bee on<BR>
+the pendulum was beating like a heart, the heart of a friend; that it<BR>
+was aware of her whole life, that with its quick, regular tickings it<BR>
+would accompany her whole life; and she stopped the golden fly to<BR>
+press a kiss on its wings. She would have kissed anything, no matter<BR>
+what. She remembered having hidden one of her old dolls of former days<BR>
+at the bottom of a drawer; she looked for it, took it out, and was<BR>
+delighted to see it again, as people are to see loved friends; and<BR>
+pressing it to her heart, she covered its painted cheeks and curly wig<BR>
+with kisses. And as she held it in her arms, she thought:</P>
+
+<P>Can <i>he</i> be the husband promised through a thousand secret<BR>
+voices, whom a superlatively good Providence had thus thrown across<BR>
+her path? Was he, indeed, the being created for her--the being to whom<BR>
+she would devote her existence? Were they the two predestined beings<BR>
+whose affection, blending in one, would beget love?</P>
+
+<P>She did not as yet feel that tumultuous emotion, that mad enchantment,<BR>
+those deep stirrings which she thought were essential to the tender<BR>
+passion; but it seemed to her she was beginning to fall in love, for<BR>
+she sometimes felt a sudden faintness when she thought of him, and she<BR>
+thought of him incessantly. His presence stirred her heart; she<BR>
+blushed and grew pale when their eyes met, and trembled at the sound<BR>
+of his voice.</P>
+
+<P>From day to day the longing for love increased. She consulted the<BR>
+marguerites, the clouds, and coins which she tossed in the air.</P>
+
+<P>One day her father said to her:</P>
+
+<P>"Make yourself look pretty to-morrow morning."</P>
+
+<P>"Why, papa?"</P>
+
+<P>"That is a secret," he replied.</P>
+
+<P>And when she came downstairs the following morning, looking fresh and<BR>
+sweet in a pretty light dress, she found the drawing-room table<BR>
+covered with boxes of bonbons, and on a chair an immense bouquet.</P>
+
+<P>A covered wagon drove into the courtyard bearing the inscription,<BR>
+"Lerat, Confectioner, F&eacute;camp; Wedding Breakfasts," and from the back<BR>
+of the wagon Ludivine and a kitchen helper were taking out large flat<BR>
+baskets which emitted an appetizing odor.</P>
+
+<P>The Vicomte de Lamare appeared on the scene, his trousers were<BR>
+strapped down under his dainty boots of patent leather, which made his<BR>
+feet appear smaller. His long frock coat, tight at the waist line, was<BR>
+open at the bosom showing the lace of his ruffle, and a fine neckcloth<BR>
+wound several times round his neck obliged him to hold erect his<BR>
+handsome brown head, with its air of serious distinction. Jeanne, in<BR>
+astonishment, looked at him as though she had never seen him before.<BR>
+She thought he looked the grand seigneur from his head to his feet.</P>
+
+<P>He bowed and said, smiling:</P>
+
+<P>"Well, comrade, are you ready?"</P>
+
+<P>"But what is it? What is going on?" she stammered.</P>
+
+<P>"You will know presently," said the baron.</P>
+
+<P>The carriage drove up to the door, and Madame Adelaide, in festal<BR>
+array, descended the staircase, leaning on the arm of Rosalie, who was<BR>
+so much affected at the sight of M. de Lamare's elegant appearance<BR>
+that the baron whispered:</P>
+
+<P>"I say, vicomte, I think our maid admires you."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte blushed up to his ears, pretended not to have heard and,<BR>
+taking up the enormous bouquet, handed it to Jeanne. She accepted it,<BR>
+more astonished than ever. They all four got into the carriage, and<BR>
+Ludivine, who brought a cup of bouillon to the baroness to sustain her<BR>
+strength, said: "Truly, madame, one would say it was a wedding!"</P>
+
+<P>They alighted as soon as they entered Yport, and as they walked<BR>
+through the village the sailors, in their new clothes, still showing<BR>
+the creases, came out of their homes, and shaking hands with the<BR>
+baron, followed the party as if it were a procession. The vicomte, who<BR>
+had offered his arm to Jeanne, walked with her at the head.</P>
+
+<P>When they reached the church they stopped, and an acolyte appeared<BR>
+holding upright the large silver crucifix, followed by another boy in<BR>
+red and white, who bore a chalice containing holy water.</P>
+
+<P>Then came three old cantors, one of them limping; then the trumpet<BR>
+("serpent"), and last, the cur&eacute; with his gold embroidered stole. He<BR>
+smiled and nodded a greeting; then, with his eyes half closed, his<BR>
+lips moving in prayer, his beretta well over his forehead, he followed<BR>
+his surpliced bodyguard, walking in the direction of the sea.</P>
+
+<P>On the beach a crowd was standing around a new boat wreathed with<BR>
+flowers. Its mast, sail and ropes were covered with long streamers of<BR>
+ribbon that floated in the breeze, and the name, "Jeanne," was painted<BR>
+in gold letters on the stern.</P>
+
+<P>P&egrave;re Lastique, the proprietor of this boat, built with the baron's<BR>
+money, advanced to meet the procession. All the men, simultaneously,<BR>
+took off their hats, and a row of pious persons wearing long black<BR>
+cloaks falling in large folds from their shoulders, knelt down in a<BR>
+circle at sight of the crucifix.</P>
+
+<P>The cur&eacute; walked, with an acolyte on either side of him, to one end of<BR>
+the boat, while at the other end, the three old cantors, in their<BR>
+white surplices, with a serious air and their eyes fixed on the<BR>
+psalter, sang at the top of their voices in the clear morning air.<BR>
+Each time they stopped to take breath, the "serpent" continued its<BR>
+bellowing alone, and as he puffed out his cheeks the musician's little<BR>
+gray eyes disappeared, and the skin of his forehead and neck seemed to<BR>
+distend.</P>
+
+<P>The motionless, transparent sea seemed to be taking part meditatively<BR>
+in the baptism of this boat, rolling its tiny waves, no higher than a<BR>
+finger, with the faint sound of a rake on the shingle. And the big<BR>
+white gulls, with their wings unfurled, circled about in the blue<BR>
+heavens, flying off and then coming back in a curve above the heads of<BR>
+the kneeling crowd, as if to see what they were doing.</P>
+
+<P>The singing ceased after an Amen that lasted five minutes; and the<BR>
+priest, in an unctuous voice, murmured some Latin words, of which one<BR>
+could hear only the sonorous endings. He then walked round the boat,<BR>
+sprinkling it with holy water, and next began to murmur the "Oremus,"<BR>
+standing alongside the boat opposite the sponsors, who remained<BR>
+motionless, hand in hand.</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte had the usual grave expression on his handsome face, but<BR>
+Jeanne, choking with a sudden emotion, and on the verge of fainting,<BR>
+began to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered. The dream that<BR>
+had haunted her for some time was suddenly beginning, as if in a kind<BR>
+of hallucination, to take the appearance of reality. They had spoken<BR>
+of a wedding, a priest was present, blessing them; men in surplices<BR>
+were singing psalms; was it not she whom they were giving in marriage?</P>
+
+<P>Did her fingers send out an electric shock, did the emotion of her<BR>
+heart follow the course of her veins until it reached the heart of her<BR>
+companion? Did he understand, did he guess, was he, like herself,<BR>
+pervaded by a sort of intoxication of love? Or else, did he know by<BR>
+experience, alone, that no woman could resist him? She suddenly<BR>
+noticed that he was squeezing her hand, gently at first, and then<BR>
+tighter, tighter, till he almost crushed it. And without moving a<BR>
+muscle of his face, without anyone perceiving it, he said--yes, he<BR>
+certainly said:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, Jeanne, if you would consent, this would be our betrothal."</P>
+
+<P>She lowered her head very slowly, perhaps meaning it for "yes." And<BR>
+the priest, who was still sprinkling the holy water, sprinkled some on<BR>
+their fingers.</P>
+
+<P>The ceremony was over. The women rose. The return was unceremonious.<BR>
+The crucifix had lost its dignity in the hands of the acolyte, who<BR>
+walked rapidly, the crucifix swaying to right and left, or bending<BR>
+forward as though it would fall. The priest, who was not praying now,<BR>
+walked hurriedly behind them; the cantors and the musician with the<BR>
+"serpent" had disappeared by a narrow street, so as to get off their<BR>
+surplices without delay; and the sailors hurried along in groups. One<BR>
+thought prompted their haste, and made their mouths water.</P>
+
+<P>A good breakfast was awaiting them at "The Poplars."</P>
+
+<P>The large table was set in the courtyard, under the apple trees.</P>
+
+<P>Sixty people sat down to table, sailors and peasants. The baroness in<BR>
+the middle, with a priest at either side of her, one from Yport, and<BR>
+the other belonging to "The Poplars." The baron seated opposite her on<BR>
+the other side of the table, the mayor on one side of him, and his<BR>
+wife, a thin peasant woman, already aging, who kept smiling and bowing<BR>
+to all around her, on the other.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, seated beside her co-sponsor, was in a sea of happiness. She<BR>
+saw nothing, knew nothing, and remained silent, her mind bewildered<BR>
+with joy. Presently she said:</P>
+
+<P>"What is your Christian name?"</P>
+
+<P>"Julien," he replied. "Did you not know?"</P>
+
+<P>But she made no reply, thinking to herself:</P>
+
+<P>"How often I shall repeat that name!"</P>
+
+<P>When the feast was over, the courtyard was given up to the sailors,<BR>
+and the others went over to the other side of the ch&acirc;teau. The<BR>
+baroness began to take her exercise, leaning on the arm of the baron<BR>
+and accompanied by the two priests. Jeanne and Julien went toward the<BR>
+wood and walked along one of the mossy paths. Suddenly seizing her<BR>
+hands, the vicomte said:</P>
+
+<P>"Tell me, will you be my wife?"</P>
+
+<P>She lowered her head, and as he stammered: "Answer me, I implore you!"<BR>
+she raised her eyes to his timidly, and he read his answer there.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="IV">CHAPTER IV</a></h4>
+
+<h5>MARRIAGE AND DISILLUSION</h5>
+
+<P>The baron, one morning, entered Jeanne's room before she was up, and<BR>
+sitting down at the foot of her bed, said:</P>
+
+<P>"M. le Vicomte de Lamare has asked us for your hand in marriage."</P>
+
+<P>She wanted to hide her face under the sheets.</P>
+
+<P>Her father continued:</P>
+
+<P>"We have postponed our answer for the present."</P>
+
+<P>She gasped, choking with emotion. At the end of a minute the baron,<BR>
+smiling, added:</P>
+
+<P>"We did not wish to do anything without consulting you. Your mother<BR>
+and I are not opposed to this marriage, but we would not seek to<BR>
+influence you. You are much richer than he is; but, when it is a<BR>
+question of the happiness of a life, one should not think too much<BR>
+about money. He has no relations left. If you marry him, then, it<BR>
+would be as if a son should come into our family; if it were anyone<BR>
+else, it would be you, our daughter, who would go among strangers. The<BR>
+young fellow pleases us. Would he please you?"</P>
+
+<P>She stammered, blushing up to the roots of her hair:</P>
+
+<P>"I am willing, papa."</P>
+
+<P>And the father, looking into her eyes and still smiling, murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"I half suspected it, young lady."</P>
+
+<P>She lived till evening in a condition of exhilaration, not knowing<BR>
+what she was doing, mechanically thinking of one thing by mistake for<BR>
+another, and with a feeling of weariness, although she had not walked<BR>
+at all.</P>
+
+<P>Toward six o'clock, as she was sitting with her mother under the plane<BR>
+tree, the vicomte appeared.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne's heart began to throb wildly. The young man approached them<BR>
+apparently without any emotion. When he was close beside them, he took<BR>
+the baroness' hand and kissed her fingers, then raising to his lips<BR>
+the trembling hand of the young girl, he imprinted upon it a long,<BR>
+tender and grateful kiss.</P>
+
+<P>And the radiant season of betrothal commenced. They would chat<BR>
+together alone in the corner of the parlor, or else seated on the moss<BR>
+at the end of the wood overlooking the plain. Sometimes they walked in<BR>
+Little Mother's Avenue; he, talking of the future, she, with her eyes<BR>
+cast down, looking at the dusty footprints of the baroness.</P>
+
+<P>Once the matter was decided, they desired to waste no time in<BR>
+preliminaries. It was, therefore, decided that the ceremony should<BR>
+take place in six weeks, on the fifteenth of August; and that the<BR>
+bride and groom should set out immediately on their wedding journey.<BR>
+Jeanne, on being consulted as to which country she would like to<BR>
+visit, decided on Corsica where they could be more alone than in the<BR>
+cities of Italy.</P>
+
+<P>They awaited the moment appointed for their marriage without too great<BR>
+impatience, but enfolded, lost in a delicious affection, expressed in<BR>
+the exquisite charm of insignificant caresses, pressure of hands, long<BR>
+passionate glances in which their souls seemed to blend; and, vaguely<BR>
+tortured by an uncertain longing for they knew not what.</P>
+
+<P>They decided to invite no one to the wedding except Aunt Lison, the<BR>
+baron's sister, who boarded in a convent at Versailles. After the<BR>
+death of their father, the baroness wished to keep her sister with<BR>
+her. But the old maid, possessed by the idea that she was in every<BR>
+one's way, was useless, and a nuisance, retired into one of those<BR>
+religious houses that rent apartments to people that live a sad and<BR>
+lonely existence. She came from time to time to pass a month or two<BR>
+with her family.</P>
+
+<P>She was a little woman of few words, who always kept in the<BR>
+background, appeared only at mealtimes, and then retired to her room<BR>
+where she remained shut in.</P>
+
+<P>She looked like a kind old lady, though she was only forty-two, and<BR>
+had a sad, gentle expression. She was never made much of by her family<BR>
+as a child, being neither pretty nor boisterous, she was never petted,<BR>
+and she would stay quietly and gently in a corner. She had been<BR>
+neglected ever since. As a young girl nobody paid any attention to<BR>
+her. She was something like a shadow, or a familiar object, a living<BR>
+piece of furniture that one is accustomed to see every day, but about<BR>
+which one does not trouble oneself.</P>
+
+<P>Her sister, from long habit, looked upon her as a failure, an<BR>
+altogether insignificant being. They treated her with careless<BR>
+familiarity which concealed a sort of contemptuous kindness. She<BR>
+called herself Lise, and seemed embarrassed at this frivolous youthful<BR>
+name. When they saw that she probably would not marry, they changed it<BR>
+from Lise to Lison, and since Jeanne's birth, she had become "Aunt<BR>
+Lison," a poor relation, very neat, frightfully timid, even with her<BR>
+sister and her brother-in-law, who loved her, but with an uncertain<BR>
+affection verging on indifference, with an unconscious compassion and<BR>
+a natural benevolence.</P>
+
+<P>Sometimes, when the baroness talked of far away things that happened<BR>
+in her youth, she would say, in order to fix a date: "It was the time<BR>
+that Lison had that attack."</P>
+
+<P>They never said more than that; and this "attack" remained shrouded,<BR>
+as in a mist.</P>
+
+<P>One evening, Lise, who was then twenty, had thrown herself into the<BR>
+water, no one knew why. Nothing in her life, her manner, gave any<BR>
+intimation of this seizure. They fished her out half dead, and her<BR>
+parents, raising their hands in horror, instead of seeking the<BR>
+mysterious cause of this action, had contented themselves with calling<BR>
+it "that attack," as if they were talking of the accident that<BR>
+happened to the horse "Coco," who had broken his leg a short time<BR>
+before in a ditch, and whom they had been obliged to kill.</P>
+
+<P>From that time Lise, presently Lison, was considered feeble-minded.<BR>
+The gentle contempt which she inspired in her relations gradually made<BR>
+its way into the minds of all those who surrounded her. Little Jeanne<BR>
+herself, with the natural instinct of children, took no notice of her,<BR>
+never went up to kiss her good-night, never went into her room. Good<BR>
+Rosalie, alone, who gave the room all the necessary attention, seemed<BR>
+to know where it was situated.</P>
+
+<P>When Aunt Lison entered the dining-room for breakfast, the little one<BR>
+would go up to her from habit and hold up her forehead to be kissed;<BR>
+that was all.</P>
+
+<P>If anyone wished to speak to her, they sent a servant to call her, and<BR>
+if she was not there, they did not bother about her, never thought of<BR>
+her, never thought of troubling themselves so much as to say: "Why, I<BR>
+have not seen Aunt Lison this morning!"</P>
+
+<P>When they said "Aunt Lison," these two words awakened no feeling of<BR>
+affection in anyone's mind. It was as if one had said: "The coffee<BR>
+pot, or the sugar bowl."</P>
+
+<P>She always walked with little, quick, silent steps, never made a<BR>
+noise, never knocking up against anything; and seemed to communicate<BR>
+to surrounding objects the faculty of not making any sound. Her hands<BR>
+seemed to be made of a kind of wadding, she handled everything so<BR>
+lightly and delicately.</P>
+
+<P>She arrived about the middle of July, all upset at the idea of this<BR>
+marriage. She brought a quantity of presents which, as they came from<BR>
+her, remained almost unnoticed. On the following day they had<BR>
+forgotten she was there at all.</P>
+
+<P>But an unusual emotion was seething in her mind, and she never took<BR>
+her eyes off the engaged couple. She interested herself in Jeanne's<BR>
+trousseau with a singular eagerness, a feverish activity, working like<BR>
+a simple seamstress in her room, where no one came to visit her.</P>
+
+<P>She was continually presenting the baroness with handkerchiefs she had<BR>
+hemmed herself, towels on which she had embroidered a monogram, saying<BR>
+as she did so: "Is that all right, Adelaide?" And little mother, as<BR>
+she carelessly examined the objects, would reply: "Do not give<BR>
+yourself so much trouble, my poor Lison."</P>
+
+<P>One evening, toward the end of the month, after an oppressively warm<BR>
+day, the moon rose on one of those clear, mild nights which seem to<BR>
+move, stir and affect one, apparently awakening all the secret poetry<BR>
+of one's soul. The gentle breath of the fields was wafted into the<BR>
+quiet drawing-room. The baroness and her husband were playing cards by<BR>
+the light of a lamp, and Aunt Lison was sitting beside them knitting;<BR>
+while the young people, leaning on the window sill, were gazing out at<BR>
+the moonlit garden.</P>
+
+<P>The linden and the plane tree cast their shadows on the lawn which<BR>
+extended beyond it in the moonlight, as far as the dark wood.<BR>
+Attracted by the tender charm of the night, and by this misty<BR>
+illumination that lighted up the trees and the bushes, Jeanne turned<BR>
+toward her parents and said: "Little father, we are going to take a<BR>
+short stroll on the grass in front of the house."</P>
+
+<P>The baron replied, without looking up: "Go, my children," and<BR>
+continued his game.</P>
+
+<P>They went out and began to walk slowly along the moonlit lawn as far<BR>
+as the little wood at the end. The hour grew late and they did not<BR>
+think of going in. The baroness grew tired, and wishing to retire, she<BR>
+said:</P>
+
+<P>"We must call the lovers in."</P>
+
+<P>The baron cast a glance across the spacious garden where the two forms<BR>
+were wandering slowly.</P>
+
+<P>"Let them alone," he said; "it is so delicious outside! Lison will<BR>
+wait for them, will you not, Lison?"</P>
+
+<P>The old maid raised her troubled eyes and replied in her timid voice:</P>
+
+<P>"Certainly, I will wait for them."</P>
+
+<P>Little father gave his hand to the baroness, weary himself from the<BR>
+heat of the day.</P>
+
+<P>"I am going to bed, too," he said, and went up with his wife.</P>
+
+<P>Then Aunt Lison rose in her turn, and leaving on the arm of the chair<BR>
+her canvas with the wool and the knitting needles, she went over and<BR>
+leaned on the window sill and gazed out at the night.</P>
+
+<P>The two lovers kept on walking back and forth between the house and<BR>
+the wood. They squeezed each other's fingers without speaking, as<BR>
+though they had left their bodies and formed part of this visible<BR>
+poetry that exhaled from the earth.</P>
+
+<P>All at once Jeanne perceived, framed in the window, the silhouette of<BR>
+the aunt, outlined by the light of the lamp behind her.</P>
+
+<P>"See," she said, "there is Aunt Lison looking at us."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte raised his head, and said in an indifferent tone without<BR>
+thinking:</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, Aunt Lison is looking at us."</P>
+
+<P>And they continued to dream, to walk slowly, and to love each other.<BR>
+But the dew was falling fast, and the dampness made them shiver a<BR>
+little.</P>
+
+<P>"Let us go in now," said Jeanne. And they went into the house.</P>
+
+<P>When they entered the drawing-room, Aunt Lison had gone back to her<BR>
+work. Her head was bent over her work, and her fingers were trembling<BR>
+as if she were very tired.</P>
+
+<P>"It is time to go to bed, aunt," said Jeanne, approaching her.</P>
+
+<P>Her aunt turned her head, and her eyes were red as if she had been<BR>
+crying. The young people did not notice it; but suddenly M. de Lamare<BR>
+perceived that Jeanne's thin shoes were covered with dew. He was<BR>
+worried, and asked tenderly:</P>
+
+<P>"Are not your dear little feet cold?"</P>
+
+<P>All at once the old lady's hands shook so violently that she let fall<BR>
+her knitting, and hiding her face in her hands, she began to sob<BR>
+convulsively.</P>
+
+<P>The engaged couple looked at her in amazement, without moving.<BR>
+Suddenly Jeanne fell on her knees, and taking her aunt's hands away<BR>
+from her face, said in perplexity:</P>
+
+<P>"Why, what is the matter, Aunt Lison?"</P>
+
+<P>Then the poor woman, her voice full of tears, and her whole body<BR>
+shaking with sorrow, replied:</P>
+
+<P>"It was when he asked you--are not your--your--dear little feet<BR>
+cold?--no one ever said such things to me--to me--never--never----"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, surprised and compassionate, could still hardly help laughing<BR>
+at the idea of an admirer showing tender solicitude for Lison; and the<BR>
+vicomte had turned away to conceal his mirth.</P>
+
+<P>But the aunt suddenly rose, laying her ball of wool on the floor and<BR>
+her knitting in the chair, and fled to her room, feeling her way up<BR>
+the dark staircase.</P>
+
+<P>Left alone, the young people looked at one another, amused and<BR>
+saddened. Jeanne murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"Poor aunt!" Julien replied. "She must be a little crazy this<BR>
+evening."</P>
+
+<P>They held each other's hands and presently, gently, very gently, they<BR>
+exchanged their first kiss, and by the following day had forgotten all<BR>
+about Aunt Lison's tears.</P>
+
+<P>The two weeks preceding the wedding found Jeanne very calm, as though<BR>
+she were weary of tender emotions. She had no time for reflection on<BR>
+the morning of the eventful day. She was only conscious of a feeling<BR>
+as if her flesh, her bones and her blood had all melted beneath her<BR>
+skin, and on taking hold of anything, she noticed that her fingers<BR>
+trembled.</P>
+
+<P>She did not regain her self-possession until she was in the chancel of<BR>
+the church during the marriage ceremony.</P>
+
+<P>Married! So she was married! All that had occurred since daybreak<BR>
+seemed to her a dream, a waking dream. There are such moments, when<BR>
+all appears changed around us; even our motions seem to have a new<BR>
+meaning; even the hours of the day, which seem to be out of their<BR>
+usual time. She felt bewildered, above all else, bewildered. Last<BR>
+evening nothing had as yet been changed in her life; the constant hope<BR>
+of her life seemed only nearer, almost within reach. She had gone to<BR>
+rest a young girl; she was now a married woman. She had crossed that<BR>
+boundary that seems to conceal the future with all its joys, its<BR>
+dreams of happiness. She felt as though a door had opened in front of<BR>
+her; she was about to enter into the fulfillment of her expectations.</P>
+
+<P>When they appeared on the threshold of the church after the ceremony,<BR>
+a terrific noise caused the bride to start in terror, and the baroness<BR>
+to scream; it was a rifle salute given by the peasants, and the firing<BR>
+did not cease until they reached "The Poplars."</P>
+
+<P>After a collation served for the family, the family chaplain, and the<BR>
+priest from Yport, the mayor and the witnesses, who were some of the<BR>
+large farmers of the district, they all walked in the garden. On the<BR>
+other side of the ch&acirc;teau one could hear the boisterous mirth of the<BR>
+peasants, who were drinking cider beneath the apple trees. The whole<BR>
+countryside, dressed in their best, filled the courtyard.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and Julien walked through the copse and then up the slope and,<BR>
+without speaking, gazed out at the sea. The air was cool, although it<BR>
+was the middle of August; the wind was from the north, and the sun<BR>
+blazed down unpityingly from the blue sky. The young people sought a<BR>
+more sheltered spot, and crossing the plain, they turned to the right,<BR>
+toward the rolling and wooded valley that leads to Yport. As soon as<BR>
+they reached the trees the air was still, and they left the road and<BR>
+took a narrow path beneath the trees, where they could scarcely walk<BR>
+abreast.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne felt an arm passed gently round her waist. She said nothing,<BR>
+her breath came quick, her heart beat fast. Some low branches caressed<BR>
+their hair, as they bent to pass under them. She picked a leaf; two<BR>
+ladybirds were concealed beneath it, like two delicate red shells.</P>
+
+<P>"Look, a little family," she said innocently, and feeling a little<BR>
+more confidence.</P>
+
+<P>Julien placed his mouth to her ear, and whispered: "This evening you<BR>
+will be my wife."</P>
+
+<P>Although she had learned many things during her sojourn in the<BR>
+country, she dreamed of nothing as yet but the poetry of love, and was<BR>
+surprised. His wife? Was she not that already?</P>
+
+<P>Then he began to kiss her temples and neck, little light kisses.<BR>
+Startled each time afresh by these masculine kisses to which she was<BR>
+not accustomed, she instinctively turned away her head to avoid them,<BR>
+though they delighted her. But they had come to the edge of the wood.<BR>
+She stopped, embarrassed at being so far from home. What would they<BR>
+think?</P>
+
+<P>"Let us go home," she said.</P>
+
+<P>He withdrew his arm from her waist, and as they turned round they<BR>
+stood face to face, so close that they could feel each other's breath<BR>
+on their faces. They gazed deep into one another's eyes with that gaze<BR>
+in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown<BR>
+of each other's being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and<BR>
+persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life<BR>
+be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness,<BR>
+or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble<BR>
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had never<BR>
+yet seen each other.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly, Julien, placing his two hands on his wife's shoulders,<BR>
+kissed her full on the lips as she had never before been kissed. The<BR>
+kiss, penetrating as it did her very blood and marrow, gave her such a<BR>
+mysterious shock that she pushed Julien wildly away with her two arms,<BR>
+almost falling backward as she did so.</P>
+
+<P>"Let us go away, let us go away," she faltered.</P>
+
+<P>He did not reply, but took both her hands and held them in his. They<BR>
+walked home in silence, and the rest of the afternoon seemed long. The<BR>
+dinner was simple and did not last long, contrary to the usual Norman<BR>
+custom. A sort of embarrassment seemed to paralyze the guests. The two<BR>
+priests, the mayor, and the four farmers invited, alone betrayed a<BR>
+little of that broad mirth that is supposed to accompany weddings.</P>
+
+<P>They had apparently forgotten how to laugh, when a remark of the<BR>
+mayor's woke them up. It was about nine o'clock; coffee was about to<BR>
+be served. Outside, under the apple-trees of the first court, the bal<BR>
+champ&ecirc;tre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all<BR>
+that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a<BR>
+grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle<BR>
+shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins<BR>
+and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The<BR>
+boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the<BR>
+instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the<BR>
+unrestrained voices seemed to fall from the air in shreds, in little<BR>
+fragments of scattered notes.</P>
+
+<P>Two large barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two<BR>
+servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to<BR>
+refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of<BR>
+the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every<BR>
+one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of<BR>
+illuminated foliage this wholesome and boisterous f&ecirc;te made the<BR>
+melancholy watchers in the dining-room long to dance also, and to<BR>
+drink from one of those large barrels, while they munched a slice of<BR>
+bread and butter and a raw onion.</P>
+
+<P>The mayor, who was beating time with his knife, cried: "By Jove, that<BR>
+is all right; it is like the wedding of Ganache."</P>
+
+<P>A suppressed giggle was heard, but Abb&eacute; Picot, the natural enemy of<BR>
+civil authority, cried: "You mean of Cana." The other did not accept<BR>
+the correction. "No, monsieur le cur&eacute;, I know what I am talking about;<BR>
+when I say Ganache, I mean Ganache."</P>
+
+<P>They rose from table and went into the drawing-room, and then outside<BR>
+to mix with the merrymakers. The guests soon left.</P>
+
+<P>They went into the house. They were surprised to see Madame Adelaide<BR>
+sobbing on Julien's shoulder. Her tears, noisy tears, as if blown out<BR>
+by a pair of bellows, seemed to come from her nose, her mouth and her<BR>
+eyes at the same time; and the young man, dumfounded, awkward, was<BR>
+supporting the heavy woman who had sunk into his arms to commend to<BR>
+his care her darling, her little one, her adored daughter.</P>
+
+<P>The baron rushed toward them, saying: "Oh, no scenes, no tears, I beg<BR>
+of you," and, taking his wife to a chair, he made her sit down, while<BR>
+she wiped away her tears. Then, turning to Jeanne: "Come, little one,<BR>
+kiss your mother and go to bed."</P>
+
+<P>What happened then? She could hardly have told, for she seemed to have<BR>
+lost her head, but she felt a shower of little grateful kisses on her<BR>
+lips.</P>
+
+<P>Day dawned. Julien awoke, yawned, stretched, looked at his wife,<BR>
+smiled and asked: "Did you sleep well, darling?"</P>
+
+<P>She noticed that he now said "thou," and she replied, bewildered,<BR>
+"Why, yes. And you?" "Oh, very well," he answered. And turning toward<BR>
+her, he kissed her and then began to chat quietly. He set before her<BR>
+plans of living, with the idea of economy, and this word occurring<BR>
+several times, astonished Jeanne. She listened without grasping the<BR>
+meaning of his words, looked at him, but was thinking of a thousand<BR>
+things that passed rapidly through her mind hardly leaving a trace.</P>
+
+<P>The clock struck eight. "Come, we must get up," he said. "It would<BR>
+look ridiculous for us to be late." When he was dressed he assisted<BR>
+his wife with all the little details of her toilet, not allowing her<BR>
+to call Rosalie. As they left the room he stopped. "You know, when we<BR>
+are alone, we can now use 'thou,' but before your parents it is better<BR>
+to wait a while. It will be quite natural when we come back from our<BR>
+wedding journey."</P>
+
+<P>She did not go down till luncheon was ready. The day passed like any<BR>
+ordinary day, as if nothing new had occurred. There was one man more<BR>
+in the house, that was all.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="V">CHAPTER V</a></h4>
+
+<h5>CORSICA AND A NEW LIFE</h5>
+
+<P>Four days later the travelling carriage arrived that was to take them<BR>
+to Marseilles.</P>
+
+<P>After the first night Jeanne had become accustomed to Julien's kisses<BR>
+and caresses, although her repugnance to a closer intimacy had not<BR>
+diminished. She thought him handsome, she loved him. She again felt<BR>
+happy and cheerful.</P>
+
+<P>The farewells were short and without sadness. The baroness alone<BR>
+seemed tearful. As the carriage was just starting she placed a purse,<BR>
+heavy as lead, in her daughter's hand, saying, "That is for your<BR>
+little expenses as a bride."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne thrust the purse in her pocket and the carriage started.</P>
+
+<P>Toward evening Julien said: "How much money did your mother give you<BR>
+in that purse?"</P>
+
+<P>She had not given it a thought, and she poured out the contents on her<BR>
+knees. A golden shower filled her lap: two thousand francs. She<BR>
+clapped her hands. "I shall commit all kinds of extravagance," she<BR>
+said as she replaced it in the purse.</P>
+
+<P>After travelling eight days in terribly hot weather they reached<BR>
+Marseilles. The following day the <i>Roi-Louis</i>, a little mail<BR>
+steamer which went to Naples by way of Ajaccio, took them to Corsica.</P>
+
+<P>Corsica! Its "maquis," its bandits, its mountains! The birthplace of<BR>
+Napoleon! It seemed to Jeanne that she was leaving real life to enter<BR>
+into a dream, although wide awake. Standing side by side on the bridge<BR>
+of the steamer, they looked at the cliffs of Provence as they passed<BR>
+swiftly by them. The calm sea of deep blue seemed petrified beneath<BR>
+the ardent rays of the sun.</P>
+
+<P>"Do you remember our excursion in P&egrave;re Lastique's boat?" said Jeanne.</P>
+
+<P>Instead of replying, he gave her a hasty kiss on the ear.</P>
+
+<P>The paddle-wheels struck the water, disturbing its torpor, and a long<BR>
+track of foam like the froth of champagne remained in the wake of the<BR>
+boat, reaching as far as the eye could see. Jeanne drank in with<BR>
+delight the odor of the salt mist that seemed to go to the very tips<BR>
+of her fingers. Everywhere the sea. But ahead of them there was<BR>
+something gray, not clearly defined in the early dawn; a sort of<BR>
+massing of strange-looking clouds, pointed, jagged, seemed to rest on<BR>
+the waters.</P>
+
+<P>Presently it became clearer, its outline more distinct on the<BR>
+brightening sky; a large chain of mountains, peaked and weird,<BR>
+appeared. It was Corsica, covered with a light veil of mist. The sun<BR>
+rose behind it, outlining the jagged crests like black shadows. Then<BR>
+all the summits were bathed in light, while the rest of the island<BR>
+remained covered with mist.</P>
+
+<P>The captain, a little sun-browned man, dried up, stunted, toughened<BR>
+and shrivelled by the harsh salt winds, appeared on the bridge and in<BR>
+a voice hoarse after twenty years of command and worn from shouting<BR>
+amid the storms, said to Jeanne:</P>
+
+<P>"Do you perceive it, that odor?"</P>
+
+<P>She certainly noticed a strong and peculiar odor of plants, a wild<BR>
+aromatic odor.</P>
+
+<P>"That is Corsica that sends out that fragrance, madame," said the<BR>
+captain. "It is her peculiar odor of a pretty woman. After being away<BR>
+for twenty years, I should recognize it five miles out at sea. I<BR>
+belong to it. He, down there, at Saint Helena, he speaks of it always,<BR>
+it seems, of the odor of his native country. He belongs to my family."</P>
+
+<P>And the captain, taking off his hat, saluted Corsica, saluted down<BR>
+yonder, across the ocean, the great captive emperor who belonged to<BR>
+his family.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was so affected that she almost cried.</P>
+
+<P>Then, pointing toward the horizon, the captain said: "Les<BR>
+Sanguinaires."</P>
+
+<P>Julien was standing beside his wife, with his arm round her waist, and<BR>
+they both looked out into the distance to see what he was alluding to.<BR>
+They at length perceived some pyramidal rocks which the vessel rounded<BR>
+presently to enter an immense peaceful gulf surrounded by lofty<BR>
+summits, the base of which was covered with what looked like moss.</P>
+
+<P>Pointing to this verdant growth, the captain said: "Le maquis."</P>
+
+<P>As they proceeded on their course the circle of mountains appeared to<BR>
+close in behind the steamer, which moved along slowly in such a lake<BR>
+of transparent azure that one could sometimes see to the bottom.</P>
+
+<P>The town suddenly appeared perfectly white at the end of the gulf, on<BR>
+the edge of the water, at the base of the mountains. Some little<BR>
+Italian boats were anchored in the dock. Four or five rowboats came up<BR>
+beside the <i>Roi-Louis</i> to get passengers.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, who was collecting the baggage, asked his wife in a low tone:<BR>
+"Twenty sous is enough, is it not, to give to the porter?" For a week<BR>
+he had constantly asked the same question, which annoyed her each<BR>
+time. She replied somewhat impatiently: "When one is not sure of<BR>
+giving enough, one gives too much."</P>
+
+<P>He was always disputing with the hotel proprietors, with the servants,<BR>
+the drivers, the vendors of all kinds, and when, by dint of<BR>
+bargaining, he had obtained a reduction in price, he would say to<BR>
+Jeanne as he rubbed his hands: "I do not like to be cheated."</P>
+
+<P>She trembled whenever a bill came in, certain beforehand of the<BR>
+remarks that he would make about each item, humiliated at this<BR>
+bargaining, blushing up to the roots of her hair beneath the<BR>
+contemptuous glances of the servants as they looked after her husband,<BR>
+while they held in their hand the meagre tip.</P>
+
+<P>He had a dispute with the boatmen who landed him.</P>
+
+<P>The first tree Jeanne saw was a palm. They went to a great, empty<BR>
+hotel at the corner of an immense square and ordered breakfast.</P>
+
+<P>After an hour's rest they arranged an itinerary for their trip, and at<BR>
+the end of three days spent in this little town, hidden at the end of<BR>
+the blue gulf, and hot as a furnace enclosed in its curtain of<BR>
+mountains, which keep every breath of air from it, they decided to<BR>
+hire some saddle horses, so as to be able to cross any difficult pass,<BR>
+and selected two little Corsican stallions with fiery eyes, thin and<BR>
+unwearying, and set out one morning at daybreak. A guide, mounted on a<BR>
+mule, accompanied them and carried the provisions, for inns are<BR>
+unknown in this wild country.</P>
+
+<P>The road ran along the gulf and soon turned into a kind of valley, and<BR>
+on toward the high mountains. They frequently crossed the dry beds of<BR>
+torrents with only a tiny stream of water trickling under the stones,<BR>
+gurgling faintly like a wild animal in hiding.</P>
+
+<P>The uncultivated country seemed perfectly barren. The sides of the<BR>
+hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun.<BR>
+Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a<BR>
+little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all<BR>
+carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons,<BR>
+but redoubtable in their hands.</P>
+
+<P>The pungent odor of the aromatic herbs with which the island is<BR>
+overgrown seemed to make the air heavy. The road ascended gradually<BR>
+amid the long curves of the mountains. The red or blue granite peaks<BR>
+gave an appearance of fairyland to the wild landscape, and on the<BR>
+foothills immense forests of chestnut trees looked like green brush,<BR>
+compared with the elevations above them.</P>
+
+<P>Sometimes the guide, reaching out his hand toward some of these<BR>
+heights, would repeat a name. Jeanne and Julien would look where he<BR>
+pointed, but see nothing, until at last they discovered something<BR>
+gray, like a mass of stones fallen from the summit. It was a little<BR>
+village, a hamlet of granite hanging there, fastened on like a<BR>
+veritable bird's nest and almost invisible on the huge mountain.</P>
+
+<P>Walking their horses like this made Jeanne nervous. "Let us go<BR>
+faster," she said. And she whipped up her horse. Then, as she did not<BR>
+hear her husband following her, she turned round and laughed heartily<BR>
+as she saw him coming along, pale, and holding on to his horse's mane<BR>
+as it bounced him up and down. His very appearance of a "beau<BR>
+cavalier" made his awkwardness and timidity all the more comical.</P>
+
+<P>They trotted along quietly. The road now ran between two interminable<BR>
+forests of brush, which covered the whole side of the mountain like a<BR>
+garment. This was the "Maquis," composed of scrub oak, juniper,<BR>
+arbutus, mastic, privet, gorse, laurel, myrtle and boxwood,<BR>
+intertwined with clematis, huge ferns, honeysuckle, cytisus, rosemary,<BR>
+lavender and brambles, which covered the sides of the mountain with an<BR>
+impenetrable fleece.</P>
+
+<P>They were hungry. The guide rejoined them and led them to one of those<BR>
+charming springs so frequent in rocky countries, a tiny thread of iced<BR>
+water issuing from a little hole in the rock and flowing into a<BR>
+chestnut leaf that some passerby had placed there to guide the water<BR>
+into one's mouth.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne felt so happy that she could hardly restrain herself from<BR>
+screaming for joy.</P>
+
+<P>They continued their journey and began to descend the slope winding<BR>
+round the Bay of Sagone. Toward evening they passed through Cargese,<BR>
+the Greek village founded by a colony of refugees who were driven from<BR>
+their country. Tall, beautiful girls, with rounded hips, long hands<BR>
+and slender waists, and singularly graceful, were grouped beside a<BR>
+fountain. Julien called out, "Good evening," and they replied in<BR>
+musical tones in the harmonious language of their own land.</P>
+
+<P>When they reached Piana they had to beg for hospitality, as in ancient<BR>
+times and in desert lands. Jeanne trembled with joy as they waited for<BR>
+the door to be opened after Julien knocked. Oh, this was a journey<BR>
+worth while, with all the unexpected of unexplored paths.</P>
+
+<P>It happened to be the home of a young couple. They received the<BR>
+travellers as the patriarchs must have received the guest sent by God.<BR>
+They had to sleep on a corn husk mattress in an old moldy house. The<BR>
+woodwork, all eaten by worms, overrun with long boring-worms, seemed<BR>
+to emit sounds, to be alive and to sigh.</P>
+
+<P>They set off again at daybreak, and presently stopped before a forest,<BR>
+a veritable forest of purple granite. There were peaks, pillars,<BR>
+bell-towers, wondrous forms molded by age, the ravaging wind and the<BR>
+sea mist. As much as three hundred metres in height, slender, round,<BR>
+twisted, hooked, deformed, unexpected and fantastic, these amazing<BR>
+rocks looked like trees, plants, animals, monuments, men, monks in<BR>
+their garb, horned devils, gigantic birds, a whole population of<BR>
+monsters, a menagerie of nightmares petrified by the will of some<BR>
+eccentric divinity.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne had ceased talking, her heart was full. She took Julien's hand<BR>
+and squeezed it, overcome with a longing for love in presence of the<BR>
+beauty of nature.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly, as they emerged from this chaos, they saw before them<BR>
+another gulf, encircled by a wall of blood-red granite. And these red<BR>
+rocks were reflected in the blue waters.</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, Julien!" faltered Jeanne, unable to speak for wonder and choking<BR>
+with her emotion. Two tears fell from her eyes. Julien gazed at her in<BR>
+astonishment and said:</P>
+
+<P>"What is the matter, my pet?"</P>
+
+<P>She wiped away her tears, smiled and replied in a rather shaky voice:</P>
+
+<P>"Nothing--I am nervous--I do not know--it just came over me. I am so<BR>
+happy that the least thing affects me."</P>
+
+<P>He could not understand these feminine attacks of "nerves," the shocks<BR>
+of these vibrant beings, excited at nothing, whom enthusiasm stirs as<BR>
+might a catastrophe, whom an imperceptible sensation completely<BR>
+upsets, driving them wild with joy or despair.</P>
+
+<P>These tears seemed absurd to him, and thinking only of the bad road,<BR>
+he said:</P>
+
+<P>"You would do better to watch your horse."</P>
+
+<P>They descended an almost impassable path to the shore of the gulf,<BR>
+then turned to the right to ascend the gloomy Val d'Ota.</P>
+
+<P>But the road was so bad that Julien proposed that they should go on<BR>
+foot. Jeanne was delighted. She was enchanted at the idea of walking,<BR>
+of being alone with him after her late emotion.</P>
+
+<P>The guide went ahead with the mule and the horses and they walked<BR>
+slowly.</P>
+
+<P>The mountain, cleft from top to bottom, spreads apart. The path lies<BR>
+in this breach, between two gigantic walls. A roaring torrent flows<BR>
+through the gorge. The air is icy, the granite looks black, and high<BR>
+above one the glimpse of blue sky astonishes and bewilders one.</P>
+
+<P>A sudden noise made Jeanne start. She raised her eyes. An immense bird<BR>
+flew away from a hollow; it was an eagle. His spread wings seemed to<BR>
+brush the two walls of the gorge and he soared into the blue and<BR>
+disappeared.</P>
+
+<P>Farther on there was a double gorge and the path lay between the two<BR>
+in abrupt zigzags. Jeanne, careless and happy, took the lead, the<BR>
+pebbles rolling away beneath her feet, fearlessly leaning over the<BR>
+abysses. Julien followed her, somewhat out of breath, his eyes on the<BR>
+ground for fear of becoming dizzy.</P>
+
+<P>All at once the sun shone down on them, and it seemed as if they were<BR>
+leaving the infernal regions. They were thirsty, and following a track<BR>
+of moisture, they crossed a wilderness of stones and found a little<BR>
+spring conducted into a channel made of a piece of hollowed-out wood<BR>
+for the benefit of the goatherds. A carpet of moss covered the ground<BR>
+all round it, and Jeanne and Julien knelt down to drink.</P>
+
+<P>As they were enjoying the fresh cold water, Julien tried to draw<BR>
+Jeanne away to tease her. She resisted and their lips met and parted,<BR>
+and the stream of cold water splashed their faces, their necks, their<BR>
+clothes and their hands, and their kisses mingled in the stream.</P>
+
+<P>They were a long time reaching the summit of the declivity, as the<BR>
+road was so winding and uneven, and they did not reach Evisa until<BR>
+evening and the house of Paoli Palabretti, a relative of their guide.</P>
+
+<P>He was a tall man, somewhat bent, with the mournful air of a<BR>
+consumptive. He took them to their room, a cheerless room of bare<BR>
+stone, but handsome for this country, where all elegance is ignored.<BR>
+He expressed in his language--the Corsican patois, a jumble of French<BR>
+and Italian--his pleasure at welcoming them, when a shrill voice<BR>
+interrupted him. A little swarthy woman, with large black eyes, a skin<BR>
+warmed by the sun, a slender waist, teeth always showing in a<BR>
+perpetual smile, darted forward, kissed Jeanne, shook Julien's hand<BR>
+and said: "Good-day, madame; good-day, monsieur; I hope you are well."</P>
+
+<P>She took their hats, shawls, carrying all on one arm, for the other<BR>
+was in a sling, and then she made them all go outside, saying to her<BR>
+husband: "Go and take them for a walk until dinner time."</P>
+
+<P>M. Palabretti obeyed at once and walked between the two young people<BR>
+as he showed them the village. He dragged his feet and his words,<BR>
+coughing frequently, and repeating at each attack of coughing:</P>
+
+<P>"It is the air of the Val, which is cool, and has struck my chest."</P>
+
+<P>He led them on a by-path beneath enormous chestnut trees. Suddenly he<BR>
+stopped and said in his monotonous voice: "It is here that my cousin,<BR>
+Jean Rinaldi, was killed by Mathieu Lori. See, I was there, close to<BR>
+Jean, when Mathieu appeared at ten paces from us. 'Jean,' he cried,<BR>
+'do not go to Albertacce; do not go, Jean, or I will kill you. I warn<BR>
+you!'</P>
+
+<P>"I took Jean's arm: 'Do not go there, Jean; he will do it.'</P>
+
+<P>"It was about a girl whom they were both after, Paulina Sinacoupi.</P>
+
+<P>"But Jean cried out: 'I am going, Mathieu; you will not be the one to<BR>
+prevent me.'</P>
+
+<P>"Then Mathieu unslung his gun, and before I could adjust mine, he<BR>
+fired.</P>
+
+<P>"Jean leaped two feet in the air, like a child skipping, yes,<BR>
+monsieur, and he fell back full on me, so that my gun went off and<BR>
+rolled as far as the big chestnut tree over yonder.</P>
+
+<P>"Jean's mouth was wide open, but he did not utter a word; he was<BR>
+dead."</P>
+
+<P>The young people gazed in amazement at the calm witness of this crime.<BR>
+Jeanne asked:</P>
+
+<P>"And what became of the assassin?"</P>
+
+<P>Paoli Palabretti had a long fit of coughing and then said:</P>
+
+<P>"He escaped to the mountain. It was my brother who killed him the<BR>
+following year. You know, my brother, Philippi Palabretti, the<BR>
+bandit."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne shuddered.</P>
+
+<P>"Your brother a bandit?"</P>
+
+<P>With a gleam of pride in his eye, the calm Corsican replied:</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame. He was celebrated, that one. He laid low six gendarmes.<BR>
+He died at the same time as Nicolas Morali, when they were trapped in<BR>
+the Niolo, after six days of fighting, and were about to die of<BR>
+hunger.</P>
+
+<P>"The country is worth it," he added with a resigned air in the same<BR>
+tone in which he said: "It is the air of the Val, which is cool."</P>
+
+<P>Then they went home to dinner, and the little Corsican woman behaved<BR>
+as if she had known them for twenty years.</P>
+
+<P>But Jeanne was worried. When Julien again held her in his arms, would<BR>
+she experience the same strange and intense sensation that she had<BR>
+felt on the moss beside the spring? And when they were alone together<BR>
+that evening she trembled lest she should still be insensible to his<BR>
+kisses. But she was reassured, and this was her first night of love.</P>
+
+<P>The next day, as they were about to set out, she decided that she<BR>
+would not leave this humble cottage, where it seemed as though a fresh<BR>
+happiness had begun for her.</P>
+
+<P>She called her host's little wife into her room and, while making<BR>
+clear that she did not mean it as a present, she insisted, even with<BR>
+some annoyance, on sending her from Paris, as soon as she arrived, a<BR>
+remembrance, a remembrance to which she attached an almost<BR>
+superstitious significance.</P>
+
+<P>The little Corsican refused for some time, not wishing to accept it.<BR>
+But at last she consented, saying:</P>
+
+<P>"Well, then, send me a little pistol, a very small one."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne opened her eyes in astonishment. The other added in her ear, as<BR>
+one confides a sweet and intimate secret: "It is to kill my<BR>
+brother-in-law." And smiling, she hastily unwound the bandages around<BR>
+the helpless arm, and showing her firm, white skin with the scratch of<BR>
+a stiletto across it, now almost healed, she said: "If I had not been<BR>
+almost as strong as he is, he would have killed me. My husband is not<BR>
+jealous, he knows me; and, besides, he is ill, you know, and that<BR>
+quiets your blood. And, besides, madame, I am an honest woman; but my<BR>
+brother-in-law believes all that he hears. He is jealous for my<BR>
+husband and he will surely try it again. Then I shall have my little<BR>
+pistol; I shall be easy, and sure of my revenge."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne promised to send the weapon, kissed her new friend tenderly and<BR>
+they set out on their journey.</P>
+
+<P>The rest of the trip was nothing but a dream, a continual series of<BR>
+embraces, an intoxication of caresses. She saw nothing, neither the<BR>
+landscape, nor the people, nor the places where they stopped. She saw<BR>
+nothing but Julien.</P>
+
+<P>On arriving at Bastia, they had to pay the guide. Julien fumbled in<BR>
+his pockets. Not finding what he wanted, he said to Jeanne: "As you<BR>
+are not using your mother's two thousand francs, give them to me to<BR>
+carry. They will be safer in my belt, and it will avoid my having to<BR>
+make change."</P>
+
+<P>She handed him her purse.</P>
+
+<P>They went to Leghorn, visited Florence, Genoa and all the Cornici.<BR>
+They reached Marseilles on a morning when the north wind was blowing.<BR>
+Two months had elapsed since they left the "Poplars." It was now the<BR>
+15th of October.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, affected by the cold wind that seemed to come from yonder,<BR>
+from far-off Normandy, felt sad. Julien had, for some time, appeared<BR>
+changed, tired, indifferent, and she feared she knew not what.</P>
+
+<P>They delayed their return home four days longer, not being able to<BR>
+make up their minds to leave this pleasant land of the sun. It seemed<BR>
+to her that she had come to an end of her happiness.</P>
+
+<P>At length they left. They were to make all their purchases in Paris,<BR>
+prior to settling down for good at the "Poplars," and Jeanne looked<BR>
+forward to bringing back some treasures, thanks to her mother's<BR>
+present. But the first thing she thought of was the pistol promised to<BR>
+the little Corsican woman of Evisa.</P>
+
+<P>The day after they arrived she said to Julien: "Dear, will you give me<BR>
+that money of mamma's? I want to make my purchases."</P>
+
+<P>He turned toward her with a look of annoyance.</P>
+
+<P>"How much do you want?"</P>
+
+<P>"Why--whatever you please."</P>
+
+<P>"I will give you a hundred francs," he replied, "but do not squander<BR>
+it."</P>
+
+<P>She did not know what to say, amazed and confused. At length she<BR>
+faltered: "But--I--handed you the money to----"</P>
+
+<P>He did not give her time to finish.</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, of course. Whether it is in my pocket or yours makes no<BR>
+difference from the moment that we have the same purse. I do not<BR>
+refuse you, do I, since I am giving you a hundred francs?"</P>
+
+<P>She took the five gold pieces without saying a word, but she did not<BR>
+venture to ask for any more, and she bought nothing but the pistol.</P>
+
+<P>Eight days later they set out for the "Poplars."</P>
+
+<h4><a name="VI">CHAPTER VI</a></h4>
+
+<h5>DISENCHANTMENT</h5>
+
+<P>The family and servants were awaiting them outside the white gate with<BR>
+brick supports. The post-chaise drew up and there were long and<BR>
+affectionate greetings. Little mother wept; Jeanne, affected, wiped<BR>
+away some tears; father nervously walked up and down.</P>
+
+<P>Then, as the baggage was being unloaded, they told of their travels<BR>
+beside the parlor fire. Jeanne's words flowed freely, and everything<BR>
+was told, everything, in a half hour, except, perhaps, a few little<BR>
+details forgotten in this rapid account.</P>
+
+<P>The young wife then went to undo her parcels. Rosalie, also greatly<BR>
+affected, assisted her. When this was finished and everything had been<BR>
+put away, the little maid left her mistress, and Jeanne, somewhat<BR>
+fatigued, sat down.</P>
+
+<P>She asked herself what she was now going to do, seeking some<BR>
+occupation for her mind, some work for her hands. She did not care to<BR>
+go down again into the drawing-room, where her mother was asleep, and<BR>
+she thought she would take a walk. But the country seemed so sad that<BR>
+she felt a weight at her heart on only looking out of the window.</P>
+
+<P>Then it came to her that she had no longer anything to do, never again<BR>
+anything to do. All her young life at the convent had been preoccupied<BR>
+with the future, busied with dreams. The constant excitement of hope<BR>
+filled her hours at that time, so that she was not aware of their<BR>
+flight. Then hardly had she left those austere walls, where her<BR>
+illusions had unfolded, than her expectations of love were at once<BR>
+realized. The longed-for lover, met, loved and married within a few<BR>
+weeks, as one marries on these sudden resolves, had carried her off in<BR>
+his arms, without giving her time for reflection.</P>
+
+<P>But now the sweet reality of the first days was to become the everyday<BR>
+reality, which closed the door on vague hopes, on the enchanting<BR>
+worries of the unknown. Yes, there was nothing more to look forward<BR>
+to. And there was nothing more to do, today, to-morrow, never. She<BR>
+felt all this vaguely as a certain disillusion, a certain crumbling of<BR>
+her dreams.</P>
+
+<P>She rose and leaned her forehead against the cold window panes.</P>
+
+<P>Then, after gazing for some time at the sky across which dark clouds<BR>
+were passing, she decided to go out.</P>
+
+<P>Was this the same country, the same grass, the same trees as in May?<BR>
+What had become of the sunlit cheerfulness of the leaves and the<BR>
+poetry of the green grass, where dandelions, poppies and moon daisies<BR>
+bloomed and where yellow butterflies fluttered as though held by<BR>
+invisible wires? And this intoxication of the air teeming with life,<BR>
+with fragrance, with fertilizing pollen, existed no longer!</P>
+
+<P>The avenues, soaked by the constant autumnal downpours, were covered<BR>
+with a thick carpet of fallen leaves which extended beneath the<BR>
+shivering bareness of the almost leafless poplars. She went as far as<BR>
+the shrubbery. It was as sad as the chamber of a dying person. A green<BR>
+hedge which separated the little winding walks was bare of leaves.<BR>
+Little birds flew from place to place with a little chilly cry,<BR>
+seeking a shelter.</P>
+
+<P>The thick curtain of elm trees that formed a protection against the<BR>
+sea wind, the lime tree and the plane tree with their crimson and<BR>
+yellow tints seemed clothed, the one in red velvet and the other in<BR>
+yellow silk.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne walked slowly up and down petite m&egrave;re's avenue, alongside the<BR>
+Couillards' farm. Something weighed on her spirit like a presentiment<BR>
+of the long boredom of the monotonous life about to begin.</P>
+
+<P>She seated herself on the bank where Julien had first told her of his<BR>
+love and remained there, dreaming, scarcely thinking, depressed to the<BR>
+very soul, longing to lie down, to sleep, in order to escape the<BR>
+dreariness of the day.</P>
+
+<P>All at once she perceived a gull crossing the sky, carried away in a<BR>
+gust of wind, and she recalled the eagle she had seen down there in<BR>
+Corsica, in the gloomy vale of Ota. She felt a spasm at her heart as<BR>
+at the remembrance of something pleasant that is gone by, and she had<BR>
+a sudden vision of the beautiful island with its wild perfume, its sun<BR>
+that ripens oranges and lemons, its mountains with their rosy summits,<BR>
+its azure gulfs and its ravines through which the torrents flowed.</P>
+
+<P>And the moist, severe landscape that surrounded her, with the falling<BR>
+leaves and the gray clouds blown along by the wind, enfolded her in<BR>
+such a heavy mantle of misery that she went back to the house to keep<BR>
+from sobbing.</P>
+
+<P>Her mother was dozing in a torpid condition in front of the fire,<BR>
+accustomed to the melancholy of the long days, and not noticing it any<BR>
+longer. Her father and Julien had gone for a walk to talk about<BR>
+business matters. Night was coming on, filling the large drawing-room<BR>
+with gloom lighted by reflections of light from the fire.</P>
+
+<P>The baron presently appeared, followed by Julien. As soon as the<BR>
+vicomte entered the room he rang the bell, saying: "Quick, quick, let<BR>
+us have some light! It is gloomy in here."</P>
+
+<P>And he sat down before the fire. While his wet shoes were steaming in<BR>
+the warmth and the mud was drying on his soles, he rubbed his hands<BR>
+cheerfully as he said: "I think it is going to freeze; the sky is<BR>
+clearing in the north, and it is full moon to-night; we shall have a<BR>
+stinger to-night."</P>
+
+<P>Then turning to his daughter: "Well, little one, are you glad to be<BR>
+back again in your own country, in your own home, with the old folks?"</P>
+
+<P>This simple question upset Jeanne. She threw herself into her father's<BR>
+arms, her eyes full of tears, and kissed him nervously, as though<BR>
+asking pardon, for in spite of her honest attempt to be cheerful, she<BR>
+felt sad enough to give up altogether. She recalled the joy she had<BR>
+promised herself at seeing her parents again, and she was surprised at<BR>
+the coldness that seemed to numb her affection, just as if, after<BR>
+constantly thinking of those one loves, when at a distance and unable<BR>
+to see them at any moment, one should feel, on seeing them again, a<BR>
+sort of check of affection, until the bonds of their life in common<BR>
+had been renewed.</P>
+
+<P>Dinner lasted a long time. No one spoke much. Julien appeared to have<BR>
+forgotten his wife.</P>
+
+<P>In the drawing-room Jeanne sat before the fire in a drowsy condition,<BR>
+opposite little mother, who was sound asleep. Aroused by the voices of<BR>
+the men, Jeanne asked herself, as she tried to rouse herself, if she,<BR>
+too, was going to become a slave to this dreary lethargy of habit that<BR>
+nothing varies.</P>
+
+<P>The baron approached the fire, and holding out his hands to the<BR>
+glowing flame, he said, smiling: "Ah, that burns finely this evening.<BR>
+It is freezing, children; it is freezing." Then, placing his hand on<BR>
+Jeanne's shoulder and pointing to the fire, he said: "See here, little<BR>
+daughter, that is the best thing in life, the hearth, the hearth, with<BR>
+one's own around one. Nothing else counts. But supposing we retire.<BR>
+You children must be tired out."</P>
+
+<P>When she was in her room, Jeanne asked herself how she could feel so<BR>
+differently on returning a second time to the place that she thought<BR>
+she loved. Why did she feel as though she were wounded? Why did this<BR>
+house, this beloved country, all that hitherto had thrilled her with<BR>
+happiness, now appear so distressing?</P>
+
+<P>Her eyes suddenly fell on her clock. The little bee was still swinging<BR>
+from left to right and from right to left with the same quick,<BR>
+continuous motion above the scarlet blossoms. All at once an impulse<BR>
+of tenderness moved her to tears at sight of this little piece of<BR>
+mechanism that seemed to be alive. She had not been so affected on<BR>
+kissing her father and mother. The heart has mysteries that no<BR>
+arguments can solve.</P>
+
+<P>For the first time since her marriage she was alone, Julien, under<BR>
+pretext of fatigue, having taken another room.</P>
+
+<P>She lay awake a long time, unaccustomed to being alone and disturbed<BR>
+by the bleak north wind which beat against the roof.</P>
+
+<P>She was awakened the next morning by a bright light that flooded her<BR>
+room. She put on a dressing gown and ran to the window and opened it.</P>
+
+<P>An icy breeze, sharp and bracing, streamed into the room, making her<BR>
+skin tingle and her eyes water. The sun appeared behind the trees on a<BR>
+crimson sky, and the earth, covered with frost and dry and hard, rang<BR>
+out beneath one's footsteps. In one night all the leaves had blown off<BR>
+the trees, and in the distance beyond the level ground was seen the<BR>
+long green line of water, covered with trails of white foam.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne dressed herself and went out, and for the sake of an object she<BR>
+went to call on the farmers.</P>
+
+<P>The Martins held up their hands in surprise, and Mrs. Martin kissed<BR>
+her on both cheeks, and then they made her drink a glass of noyau. She<BR>
+then went to the other farm. The Couillards also were surprised. Mrs.<BR>
+Couillard pecked her on the ears and she had to drink a glass of<BR>
+cassis. Then she went home to breakfast.</P>
+
+<P>The day went by like the previous day, cold instead of damp. And the<BR>
+other days of the week resembled these two days, and all the weeks of<BR>
+the month were like the first week.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little, however, she ceased to regret far-off lands. The<BR>
+force of habit was covering her life with a layer of resignation<BR>
+similar to the lime-stone formation deposited on objects by certain<BR>
+springs. And a kind of interest for the thousand-and-one little<BR>
+insignificant things of daily life, a care for the simple, ordinary<BR>
+everyday occupations, awakened in her heart. A sort of pensive<BR>
+melancholy, a vague disenchantment with life was growing up in her<BR>
+mind. What did she lack? What did she want? She did not know. She had<BR>
+no worldly desires, no thirst for amusement, no longing for<BR>
+permissible pleasures. What then? Just as old furniture tarnishes in<BR>
+time, so everything was slowly becoming faded to her eyes, everything<BR>
+seemed to be fading, to be taking on pale, dreary shades.</P>
+
+<P>Her relations with Julien had completely changed. He seemed to be<BR>
+quite different since they came back from their honeymoon, like an<BR>
+actor who has played his part and resumes his ordinary manner. He<BR>
+scarcely paid any attention to her or even spoke to her. All trace of<BR>
+love had suddenly disappeared, and he seldom came into her room at<BR>
+night.</P>
+
+<P>He had taken charge of the money and of the house, changed the leases,<BR>
+worried the peasants, cut down expenses, and having adopted the<BR>
+costume of a gentleman farmer, he had lost his polish and elegance as<BR>
+a fianc&eacute;.</P>
+
+<P>He always wore the same suit, although it was covered with spots. It<BR>
+was an old velveteen shooting jacket with brass buttons, that he had<BR>
+found among his former wardrobe, and with the carelessness that is<BR>
+frequent with those who no longer seek to please, he had given up<BR>
+shaving, and his long beard, badly cut, made an incredible change for<BR>
+the worse in his appearance. His hands were never cared for, and after<BR>
+each meal he drank four or five glasses of brandy.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne tried to remonstrate with him gently, but he had answered her<BR>
+so abruptly: "Won't you let me alone!" that she never ventured to give<BR>
+him any more advice.</P>
+
+<P>She had adapted herself to these changes in a manner that surprised<BR>
+herself. He had become a stranger to her, a stranger whose mind and<BR>
+heart were closed to her. She constantly thought about it, asking<BR>
+herself how it was that after having met, loved, married in an impulse<BR>
+of affection, they should all at once find themselves almost as much<BR>
+strangers as though they had never shared the same room.</P>
+
+<P>And how was it that she did not feel this neglect more deeply? Was<BR>
+this life? Had they deceived themselves? Did the future hold nothing<BR>
+further for her?</P>
+
+<P>If Julien had remained handsome, carefully dressed, elegant, she might<BR>
+possibly have suffered more deeply.</P>
+
+<P>It had been agreed that after the new year the young couple should<BR>
+remain alone and that the father and mother should go back to spend a<BR>
+few months at their house in Rouen. The young people were not to leave<BR>
+the "Poplars" that winter, so as to get thoroughly settled and to<BR>
+become accustomed to each other and to the place where all their life<BR>
+would be passed. They had a few neighbors to whom Julien would<BR>
+introduce his wife. These were the Brisevilles, the Colteliers and the<BR>
+Fourvilles.</P>
+
+<P>But the young people could not begin to pay calls because they had not<BR>
+as yet been able to get a painter to alter the armorial bearings on<BR>
+the carriage.</P>
+
+<P>The old family coach had been given up to his son-in-law by the baron,<BR>
+and nothing would have induced him to show himself at the neighboring<BR>
+ch&acirc;teaux if the coat-of-arms of the De Lamares were not quartered with<BR>
+those of the Le Perthuis des Vauds.</P>
+
+<P>There was only one man in the district who made a specialty of<BR>
+heraldic designs, a painter of Bolbec, called Bataille, who was in<BR>
+demand at all the Norman castles in turn to make these precious<BR>
+designs on the doors of carriages.</P>
+
+<P>At length one morning in December, just as they were finishing<BR>
+breakfast, they saw an individual open the gate and walk toward the<BR>
+house. He was carrying a box on his back. This was Bataille.</P>
+
+<P>They offered him some breakfast, and, while he was eating, the baron<BR>
+and Julien made sketches of quarterings. The baroness, all upset as<BR>
+soon as these things were discussed, gave her opinion. And even Jeanne<BR>
+took part in the discussion, as though some mysterious interest had<BR>
+suddenly awakened in her.</P>
+
+<P>Bataille, while eating, gave his ideas, at times taking the pencil and<BR>
+tracing a design, citing examples, describing all the aristocratic<BR>
+carriages in the countryside, and seemed to have brought with him in<BR>
+his ideas, even in his voice, a sort of atmosphere of aristocracy.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as he had finished his coffee, they all went to the coach<BR>
+house. They took off the cover of the carriage and Bataille examined<BR>
+it. He then gravely gave his views as to the size he considered<BR>
+suitable for the design, and after an exchange of ideas, he set to<BR>
+work.</P>
+
+<P>Notwithstanding the cold, the baroness had her chair brought out so as<BR>
+to watch him working, and then her foot-stove, for her feet were<BR>
+freezing. She then began to chat with the painter, on all the recent<BR>
+births, deaths and marriages of which she had not heard, thus adding<BR>
+to the genealogical tree which she carried in her memory.</P>
+
+<P>Julien sat beside her, astride on a chair. He was smoking, spitting on<BR>
+the ground, listening and following with his glances the emblazoning<BR>
+of his rank.</P>
+
+<P>Presently old Simon, who was on his way to the vegetable garden, his<BR>
+spade on his shoulder, stopped to look at the work; and as Bataille's<BR>
+arrival had become known at the two farms, the farmers' wives soon put<BR>
+in an appearance. They went into raptures, standing one at either side<BR>
+of the baroness, exclaiming: "My! it requires some cleverness all the<BR>
+same to fix up those things."</P>
+
+<P>The two doors could not be finished before the next day about eleven<BR>
+o'clock. Every one was on hand; and they dragged the carriage outside<BR>
+so as to get a better view of it.</P>
+
+<P>It was perfect. Bataille was complimented, and went off with his box<BR>
+on his back. They all agreed that the painter had great ability, and<BR>
+if circumstances had been favorable would doubtless have been a great<BR>
+artist.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, by way of economy, had introduced great reforms which<BR>
+necessitated making some changes. The old coachman had been made<BR>
+gardener, Julien undertaking to drive himself, having sold the<BR>
+carriage horses to avoid buying feed for them. But as it was necessary<BR>
+to have some one to hold the horses when he and his wife got out of<BR>
+the carriage, he had made a little cow tender named Marius into a<BR>
+groom. Then in order to get some horses, he introduced a special<BR>
+clause into the Couillards' and Martins' leases, by which they were<BR>
+bound to supply a horse each, on a certain day every month, the date<BR>
+to be fixed by him; and this would exempt them from their tribute of<BR>
+poultry.</P>
+
+<P>So the Couillards brought a big yellow horse, and the Martins a small<BR>
+white animal with long, unclipped coat, and the two were harnessed up<BR>
+together. Marius, buried in an old livery belonging to old Simon, led<BR>
+the carriage up to the front door.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, looking clean and brushed up, looked a little like his former<BR>
+self; but his long beard gave him a common look in spite of all. He<BR>
+looked over the horses, the carriage, and the little groom, and seemed<BR>
+satisfied, the only really important thing to him being the newly<BR>
+painted escutcheon.</P>
+
+<P>The baroness came down leaning on her husband's arm and got into the<BR>
+carriage. Then Jeanne appeared. She began to laugh at the horses,<BR>
+saying that the white one was the son of the yellow horse; then,<BR>
+perceiving Marius, his face buried under his hat with its cockade, his<BR>
+nose alone preventing it from covering his face altogether, his hands<BR>
+hidden in his long sleeves, and the tail of his coat forming a skirt<BR>
+round his legs, his feet encased in immense shoes showing in a comical<BR>
+manner beneath it, and then when he threw his head back so as to see,<BR>
+and lifted up his leg to walk as if he were crossing a river, she<BR>
+burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.</P>
+
+<P>The baron turned round, glanced at the little bewildered groom and he,<BR>
+too, burst out laughing, calling to his wife: "Look at Ma-Ma-Marius!<BR>
+Is he not comical? Heavens, how funny he looks!"</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, looking out of the carriage window, was also convulsed,<BR>
+so that the carriage shook on its springs.</P>
+
+<P>But Julien, pale with anger, asked: "What makes you laugh like that?<BR>
+Are you crazy?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, quite convulsed and unable to stop laughing, sat down on the<BR>
+doorstep; the baron did the same, while, in the carriage, spasmodic<BR>
+sneezes, a sort of constant chuckling, told that the baroness was<BR>
+choking. Presently there was a motion beneath Marius' livery. He had,<BR>
+doubtless, understood the joke, for he was shaking with laughter<BR>
+beneath his hat.</P>
+
+<P>Julien darted forward in exasperation. With a box on the ear he sent<BR>
+the boy's hat flying across the lawn; then, turning toward his<BR>
+father-in-law, he stammered in a voice trembling with rage: "It seems<BR>
+to me that you should be the last to laugh. We should not be where we<BR>
+are now if you had not wasted your money and ruined your property.<BR>
+Whose fault is it if you are ruined?"</P>
+
+<P>The laughter ceased at once, and no one spoke. Jeanne, now ready to<BR>
+cry, got into the carriage and sat beside her mother. The baron,<BR>
+silent and astonished, took his place opposite the two ladies, and<BR>
+Julien sat on the box after lifting to the seat beside him the weeping<BR>
+boy, whose face was beginning to swell.</P>
+
+<P>The road was dreary and appeared long. The occupants of the carriage<BR>
+were silent. All three sad and embarrassed, they would not acknowledge<BR>
+to one another what was occupying their thoughts. They felt that they<BR>
+could not talk on indifferent subjects while these thoughts had<BR>
+possession of them, and preferred to remain silent than to allude to<BR>
+this painful subject.</P>
+
+<P>They drove past farmyards, the carriage jogging along unevenly with<BR>
+the ill-matched animals, putting to flight terrified black hens who<BR>
+plunged into the bushes and disappeared, occasionally followed by a<BR>
+barking wolf-hound.</P>
+
+<P>At length they entered a wide avenue of pine trees, at the end of<BR>
+which was a white, closed gate. Marius ran to open it, and they drove<BR>
+in round an immense grass plot, and drew up before a high, spacious,<BR>
+sad-looking building with closed shutters.</P>
+
+<P>The hall door opened abruptly, and an old, paralyzed servant wearing a<BR>
+black waistcoat with red stripes partially covered by his working<BR>
+apron slowly descended the slanting steps. He took the visitors' names<BR>
+and led them into an immense reception room, and opened with<BR>
+difficulty the Venetian blinds which were always kept closed. The<BR>
+furniture had covers on it, and the clock and candelabra were wrapped<BR>
+in white muslin. An atmosphere of mildew, an atmosphere of former<BR>
+days, damp and icy, seemed to permeate one's lungs, heart and skin<BR>
+with melancholy.</P>
+
+<P>They all sat down and waited. They heard steps in the hall above them<BR>
+that betokened unaccustomed haste. The hosts were hurriedly dressing.<BR>
+The baroness, who was chilled, sneezed constantly. Julien paced up and<BR>
+down. Jeanne, despondent, sat beside her mother. The baron leaned<BR>
+against the marble mantelpiece with his head bent down.</P>
+
+<P>Finally, one of the tall doors opened, and the Vicomte and Vicomtesse<BR>
+de Briseville appeared. They were both small, thin, vivacious, of no<BR>
+age in particular, ceremonious and embarrassed.</P>
+
+<P>After the first greetings, there seemed to be nothing to say. So they<BR>
+began to congratulate each other for no special reason, and hoped that<BR>
+these friendly relations would be kept up. It was a treat to see<BR>
+people when one lived in the country the year round.</P>
+
+<P>The icy atmosphere pierced to their bones and made their voices<BR>
+hoarse. The baroness was coughing now and had stopped sneezing. The<BR>
+baron thought it was time to leave. The Brisevilles said: "What, so<BR>
+soon? Stay a little longer." But Jeanne had risen in spite of Julien's<BR>
+signals, for he thought the visit too short.</P>
+
+<P>They attempted to ring for the servant to order the carriage to the<BR>
+door, but the bell would not ring. The host started out himself to<BR>
+attend to it, but found that the horses had been put in the stable.</P>
+
+<P>They had to wait. Every one tried to think of something to say.<BR>
+Jeanne, involuntarily shivering with cold, inquired what their hosts<BR>
+did to occupy themselves all the year round. The Brisevilles were much<BR>
+astonished; for they were always busy, either writing letters to their<BR>
+aristocratic relations, of whom they had a number scattered all over<BR>
+France, or attending to microscopic duties, as ceremonious to one<BR>
+another as though they were strangers, and talking grandiloquently of<BR>
+the most insignificant matters.</P>
+
+<P>At last the carriage passed the windows with its ill-matched team. But<BR>
+Marius had disappeared. Thinking he was off duty until evening, he had<BR>
+doubtless gone for a walk.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, perfectly furious, begged them to send him home on foot, and<BR>
+after a great many farewells on both sides, they set out for the<BR>
+"Poplars."</P>
+
+<P>As soon as they were inside the carriage, Jeanne and her father, in<BR>
+spite of Julien's brutal behavior of the morning which still weighed<BR>
+on their minds, began to laugh at the gestures and intonations of the<BR>
+Brisevilles. The baron imitated the husband, and Jeanne the wife. But<BR>
+the baroness, a little touchy in these particulars, said: "You are<BR>
+wrong to ridicule them thus; they are people of excellent family."<BR>
+They were silent out of respect for little mother, but nevertheless,<BR>
+from time to time, Jeanne and her father began again. The baroness<BR>
+could not forbear smiling in her turn, but she repeated: "It is not<BR>
+nice to laugh at people who belong to our class."</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly the carriage stopped, and Julien called out to someone behind<BR>
+it. Then Jeanne and the baron, leaning out, saw a singular creature<BR>
+that appeared to be rolling along toward them. His legs entangled in<BR>
+his flowing coattails, and blinded by his hat which kept falling over<BR>
+his face, shaking his sleeves like the sails of a windmill, and<BR>
+splashing into puddles of water, and stumbling against stones in the<BR>
+road, running and bounding, Marius was following the carriage as fast<BR>
+as his legs could carry him.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as he caught up with it, Julien, leaning over, seized him by<BR>
+the collar of his coat, sat him down beside him, and letting go the<BR>
+reins, began to shower blows on the boy's hat, which sank down to his<BR>
+shoulders with the reverberations of a drum. The boy screamed, tried<BR>
+to get away, to jump from the carriage, while his master, holding him<BR>
+with one hand, continued beating him with the other.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, dumfounded, stammered: "Father--oh, father!" And the baroness,<BR>
+wild with indignation, squeezed her husband's arm. "Stop him, Jack!"<BR>
+she exclaimed. The baron quickly lowered the front window, and seizing<BR>
+hold of his son-in-law's sleeve, he sputtered out in a voice trembling<BR>
+with rage: "Have you almost finished beating that child?"</P>
+
+<P>Julien turned round in astonishment: "Don't you see what a condition<BR>
+his livery is in?"</P>
+
+<P>But the baron, placing his head between them, said: "Well, what do I<BR>
+care? There is no need to be brutal like that!"</P>
+
+<P>Julien got angry again: "Let me alone, please; this is not your<BR>
+affair!" And he was raising his hand again when his father-in-law<BR>
+caught hold of it and dragged it down so roughly that he knocked it<BR>
+against the wood of the seat, and he roared at him so loud: "If you do<BR>
+not stop, I shall get out, and I will see that you stop it, myself,"<BR>
+that Julien calmed down at once, and shrugging his shoulders without<BR>
+replying, he whipped up the horses, who set out at a quick trot.</P>
+
+<P>The two women, pale as death, did not stir, and one could hear<BR>
+distinctly the thumping of the baroness' heart.</P>
+
+<P>At dinner Julien was more charming than usual, as though nothing had<BR>
+occurred. Jeanne, her father, and Madame Adelaide, pleased to see him<BR>
+so amiable, fell in with his mood, and when Jeanne mentioned the<BR>
+Brisevilles, he laughed at them himself, adding, however: "All the<BR>
+same, they have the grand air."</P>
+
+<P>They made no more visits, each one fearing to revive the Marius<BR>
+episode. They decided, to send New Year's cards, and to wait until the<BR>
+first warm days of spring before paying any more calls.</P>
+
+<P>At Christmas they invited the cur&eacute;, the mayor and his wife to dinner,<BR>
+and again on New Year's Day. These were the only events that varied<BR>
+the monotony of their life. The baron and his wife were to leave "The<BR>
+Poplars" on the ninth of January. Jeanne wanted to keep them, but<BR>
+Julien did not acquiesce, and the baron sent for a post-chaise from<BR>
+Rouen, seeing his son-in-law's coolness.</P>
+
+<P>The day before their departure, as it was a clear frost, Jeanne and<BR>
+her father decided to go to Yport, which they had not visited since<BR>
+her return from Corsica. They crossed the wood where she had strolled<BR>
+on her wedding-day, all wrapped up in the one whose lifelong companion<BR>
+she had become; the wood where she had received her first kiss,<BR>
+trembled at the first breath of love, had a presentiment of that<BR>
+sensual love of which she did not become aware until she was in the<BR>
+wild vale of Ota beside the spring where they mingled their kisses as<BR>
+they drank of its waters. The trees were now leafless, the climbing<BR>
+vines dead.</P>
+
+<P>They entered the little village. The empty, silent streets smelled of<BR>
+the sea, of wrack, of fish. Huge brown nets were still hanging up to<BR>
+dry outside the houses, or stretched out on the shingle. The gray,<BR>
+cold sea, with its eternal roaring foam, was going out, uncovering the<BR>
+green rocks at the foot of the cliff toward F&eacute;camp.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and her father, motionless, watched the fishermen setting out<BR>
+in their boats in the dusk, as they did every night, risking their<BR>
+lives to keep from starving, and so poor, nevertheless, that they<BR>
+never tasted meat.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, inspired at the sight of the ocean, murmured: "It is<BR>
+terrible, but it is beautiful. How magnificent this sea is on which<BR>
+the darkness is falling, and on which so many lives are in peril, is<BR>
+it not, Jeannette?"</P>
+
+<P>She replied with a cold smile: "It is nothing to the Mediterranean."</P>
+
+<P>Her father, indignant, exclaimed: "The Mediterranean! It is oil, sugar<BR>
+water, bluing water in a washtub. Look at this sea, how terrible it is<BR>
+with its crests of foam! And think of all those men who have set out<BR>
+on it, and who are already out of sight."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne assented with a sigh: "Yes, if you think so." But this name,<BR>
+"Mediterranean," had wrung her heart afresh, sending her thoughts back<BR>
+to those distant lands where her dreams lay buried.</P>
+
+<P>Instead of returning home by the woods, they walked along the road,<BR>
+mounting the ascent slowly. They were silent, sad at the thought of<BR>
+the approaching separation. As they passed along beside the farmyards<BR>
+an odor of crushed apples, that smell of new cider which seems to<BR>
+pervade the atmosphere in this season all through Normandy, rose to<BR>
+their nostrils, or else a strong smell of the cow stables. A small<BR>
+lighted window at the end of the yard indicated the farmhouse.</P>
+
+<P>It seemed to Jeanne that her mind was expanding, was beginning to<BR>
+understand the psychic meaning of things; and these little scattered<BR>
+gleams in the landscape gave her, all at once, a keen sense of the<BR>
+isolation of all human lives, a feeling that everything detaches,<BR>
+separates, draws one far away from the things they love.</P>
+
+<P>She said, in a resigned tone: "Life is not always cheerful."</P>
+
+<P>The baron sighed: "How can it be helped, daughter? We can do nothing."</P>
+
+<P>The following day the baron and his wife went away, and Jeanne and<BR>
+Julien were left alone.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="VII">CHAPTER VII</a></h4>
+
+<h5>JEANNE'S DISCOVERY</h5>
+
+<P>Cards now became a distraction in the life of the young people. Every<BR>
+morning after breakfast, Julien would play several games of bezique<BR>
+with his wife, smoking and sipping brandy as he played. She would then<BR>
+go up to her room and sit down beside the window, and as the rain beat<BR>
+against the panes, or the wind shook the windows, she would embroider<BR>
+away steadily. Occasionally she would raise her eyes and look out at<BR>
+the gray sea which had white-caps on it. Then, after gazing listlessly<BR>
+for some time, she would resume her work.</P>
+
+<P>She had nothing else to do, Julien having taken the entire management<BR>
+of the house, to satisfy his craving for authority and his craze for<BR>
+economy. He was parsimonious in the extreme, never gave any tips, cut<BR>
+down the food to the merest necessaries; and as Jeanne since her<BR>
+return had ordered the baker to make her a little Norman "galette" for<BR>
+breakfast, he had cut down this extra expense, and condemned her to<BR>
+eat toast.</P>
+
+<P>She said nothing in order to avoid recriminations, arguments and<BR>
+quarrels; but she suffered keenly at each fresh manifestation of<BR>
+avarice on the part of her husband. It appeared to her low and odious,<BR>
+brought up as she had been in a family where money was never<BR>
+considered. How often had she not heard her mother say: "Why, money is<BR>
+made to be spent." Julien would now say: "Will you never become<BR>
+accustomed to not throwing money away?" And each time he deducted a<BR>
+few sous from some one's salary or on a note, he would say with a<BR>
+smile, as he slipped the change into his pocket: "Little streams make<BR>
+big rivers."</P>
+
+<P>On certain days Jeanne would sit and dream. She would gradually cease<BR>
+sewing and, with her hands idle, and forgetting her surroundings, she<BR>
+would weave one of those romances of her girlhood and be lost in some<BR>
+enchanting adventure. But suddenly Julien's voice giving some orders<BR>
+to old Simon would snatch her abruptly from her dreams, and she would<BR>
+take up her work again, saying: "That is all over," and a tear would<BR>
+fall on her hands as she plied the needle.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, formerly so cheerful and always singing, had changed. Her<BR>
+rounded cheeks had lost their color, and were now almost hollow, and<BR>
+sometimes had an earthy hue. Jeanne would frequently ask her: "Are you<BR>
+ill, my girl?" The little maid would reply: "No, madame," while her<BR>
+cheeks would redden slightly and she would retire hastily.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of January the snow came. In one night the whole plain was<BR>
+covered and the trees next morning were white with icy foam.</P>
+
+<P>On one of these mornings, Jeanne was sitting warming her feet before<BR>
+the fire in her room, while Rosalie, who had changed from day to day,<BR>
+was making the bed. Suddenly hearing behind her a kind of moan, Jeanne<BR>
+asked, without turning her head: "What is the matter?"</P>
+
+<P>The maid replied as usual: "Nothing, madame"; but her voice was weak<BR>
+and trembling.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne's thoughts were on something else, when she noticed that the<BR>
+girl was not moving about the room. She called: "Rosalie!" Still no<BR>
+sound. Then, thinking she might have left the room, she cried in a<BR>
+louder tone: "Rosalie!" and she was reaching out her arm to ring the<BR>
+bell, when a deep moan close beside her made her start up with a<BR>
+shudder.</P>
+
+<P>The little servant, her face livid, her eyes haggard, was seated on<BR>
+the floor, her legs stretched out, and her back leaning against the<BR>
+bed. Jeanne sprang toward her. "What is the matter with you--what is<BR>
+the matter?" she asked.</P>
+
+<P>The girl did not reply, did not move. She stared vacantly at her<BR>
+mistress and gasped as though she were in terrible pain. Then,<BR>
+suddenly, she slid down on her back at full length, clenching her<BR>
+teeth to smother a cry of anguish.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne suddenly understood, and almost distracted, she ran to the head<BR>
+of the stairs, crying: "Julien, Julien!"</P>
+
+<P>"What do you want?" he replied from below.</P>
+
+<P>She hardly knew how to tell him. "It is Rosalie, who----"</P>
+
+<P>Julien rushed upstairs two steps at a time, and going abruptly into<BR>
+the room, he found the poor girl had just been delivered of a child.<BR>
+He looked round with a wicked look on his face, and pushing his<BR>
+terrified wife out of the room, exclaimed: "This is none of your<BR>
+affair. Go away. Send me Ludivine and old Simon."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, trembling, descended to the kitchen, and then, not daring to<BR>
+go upstairs again, she went into the drawing-room, in which there had<BR>
+been no fire since her parents left, and anxiously awaited news.</P>
+
+<P>She presently saw the man-servant running out of the house. Five<BR>
+minutes later he returned with Widow Dentu, the nurse of the district.</P>
+
+<P>Then there was a great commotion on the stairs as though they were<BR>
+carrying a wounded person, and Julien came in and told Jeanne that she<BR>
+might go back to her room.</P>
+
+<P>She trembled as if she had witnessed some terrible accident. She sat<BR>
+down again before the fire, and asked: "How is she?"</P>
+
+<P>Julien, preoccupied and nervous, was pacing up and down the room. He<BR>
+seemed to be getting angry, and did not reply at first. Then he<BR>
+stopped and said: "What do you intend to do with this girl?"</P>
+
+<P>She did not understand, and looked at her husband. "Why, what do you<BR>
+mean? I do not know."</P>
+
+<P>Then suddenly flying into a rage, he exclaimed: "We cannot keep a<BR>
+bastard in the house."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was very much bewildered, and said at the end of a long<BR>
+silence: "But, my friend, perhaps we could put it out to nurse?"</P>
+
+<P>He cut her short: "And who will pay the bill? You will, no doubt."</P>
+
+<P>She reflected for some time, trying to find some way out of the<BR>
+difficulty; at length she said: "Why, the father will take care of it,<BR>
+of the child; and if he marries Rosalie, there will be no more<BR>
+difficulty."</P>
+
+<P>Julien, as though his patience were exhausted, replied furiously: "The<BR>
+father!--the father!--do you know him--the father? No, is it not so?<BR>
+Well then----?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, much affected, became excited: "But you certainly would not<BR>
+let the girl go away like that. It would be cowardly! We will inquire<BR>
+the name of the man, and we will go and find him, and he will have to<BR>
+explain matters."</P>
+
+<P>Julien had calmed down and resumed his pacing up and down. "My dear,"<BR>
+he said, "she will not tell the name of the man; she will not tell you<BR>
+any more than she will tell me--and, if he does not want her? ... We<BR>
+cannot, however, keep a woman and her illegitimate child under our<BR>
+roof, don't you understand?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, persistent, replied: "Then he must be a wretch, this man. But<BR>
+we must certainly find out who it is, and then he will have us to deal<BR>
+with."</P>
+
+<P>Julien colored, became annoyed again, and said: "But--meanwhile----?"</P>
+
+<P>She did not know what course to take, and asked: "What do you<BR>
+propose?"</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, I? That's very simple. I would give her some money and send her<BR>
+to the devil with her brat."</P>
+
+<P>The young wife, indignant, was disgusted with him. "That shall never<BR>
+be," she said. "She is my foster-sister, that girl; we grew up<BR>
+together. She has made a mistake, so much the worse; but I will not<BR>
+cast her out of doors on that account; and, if it is necessary, I will<BR>
+bring up the child."</P>
+
+<P>Then Julien's wrath exploded: "And we should earn a fine reputation,<BR>
+we, with our name and our position! And they would say of us<BR>
+everywhere that we were protecting vice, harboring beggars; and decent<BR>
+people would never set their foot inside our doors. What are you<BR>
+thinking of? You must be crazy!"</P>
+
+<P>She had remained quite calm. "I shall never cast off Rosalie; and if<BR>
+you do not wish her to stay, my mother will take her; and we shall<BR>
+surely succeed in finding out the name of the father of the child."</P>
+
+<P>He left the room in exasperation, banging the door after him and<BR>
+exclaiming: "What stupid ideas women have!"</P>
+
+<P>In the afternoon Jeanne went up to see the patient. The little maid,<BR>
+watched over by Widow Dentu, was lying still in her bed, her eyes wide<BR>
+open, while the nurse held the new-born babe in her arms.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as Rosalie perceived her mistress, she began to sob, hiding<BR>
+her face in the covers and shaking with her sorrow. Jeanne wanted to<BR>
+kiss her, but she avoided it by keeping her face covered. But the<BR>
+nurse interfered, and drawing away the sheet, uncovered her face, and<BR>
+she let Jeanne kiss her, weeping still, but more quietly.</P>
+
+<P>A meagre fire was burning in the grate; the room was cold; the child<BR>
+was crying. Jeanne did not dare to speak of the little one, for fear<BR>
+of another attack, and she took her maid's hand as she said<BR>
+mechanically: "It will not matter, it will not matter." The poor girl<BR>
+glanced furtively at the nurse, and trembled as the infant cried, and<BR>
+the remembrance of her sorrow came to her mind occasionally in a<BR>
+convulsive sob, while suppressed tears choked her.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne kissed her again, and murmured softly in her ear: "We will take<BR>
+good care of it, never fear, my girl." Then as she was beginning to<BR>
+cry again, Jeanne made her escape.</P>
+
+<P>She came to see her every day, and each time Rosalie burst into tears<BR>
+at the sight of her mistress.</P>
+
+<P>The child was put out to nurse at a neighbor's.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, however, hardly spoke to his wife, as though he had nourished<BR>
+anger against her ever since she refused to send away the maid. He<BR>
+referred to the subject one day, but Jeanne took from her pocket a<BR>
+letter from the baroness asking them to send the girl to them at once<BR>
+if they would not keep her at the "Poplars." Julien, furious, cried:<BR>
+"Your mother is as foolish as you are!" but he did not insist any<BR>
+more.</P>
+
+<P>Two weeks later the patient was able to get up and take up her work<BR>
+again.</P>
+
+<P>One morning, Jeanne made her sit down and, taking her hands and<BR>
+looking steadfastly at her, she said:</P>
+
+<P>"See here, my girl, tell me everything."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie began to tremble, and faltered:</P>
+
+<P>"What, madame?"</P>
+
+<P>"Whose is it, this child?"</P>
+
+<P>The little maid was overcome with confusion, and she sought wildly to<BR>
+withdraw her hands so as to hide her face. But Jeanne kissed her in<BR>
+spite of herself, and consoled her, saying: "It is a misfortune, but<BR>
+cannot be helped, my girl. You were weak, but that happens to many<BR>
+others. If the father marries you, no one will think of it again."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie sighed as if she were suffering, and from time to time made an<BR>
+effort to disengage herself and run away.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne resumed: "I understand perfectly that you are ashamed; but you<BR>
+see that I am not angry, that I speak kindly to you. If I ask you the<BR>
+name of the man it is for your own good, for I feel from your grief<BR>
+that he has deserted you, and because I wish to prevent that. Julien<BR>
+will go and look for him, you see, and we will oblige him to marry<BR>
+you; and as we will employ you both, we will oblige him also to make<BR>
+you happy."</P>
+
+<P>This time Rosalie gave such a jerk that she snatched her hands away<BR>
+from her mistress and ran off as if she were mad.</P>
+
+<P>That evening at dinner Jeanne said to Julien: "I tried to persuade<BR>
+Rosalie to tell me the name of her betrayer. I did not succeed. You<BR>
+try to find out so that we can compel this miserable man to marry<BR>
+her."</P>
+
+<P>But Julien became angry: "Oh! you know I do not wish to hear anything<BR>
+about it. You wish to keep this girl. Keep her, but do not bother me<BR>
+about her."</P>
+
+<P>Since the girl's illness he appeared to be more irritable than ever;<BR>
+and he had got into the way of never speaking to his wife without<BR>
+shouting as if he were in a rage, while she, on the contrary, would<BR>
+lower her voice, be gentle and conciliating, to avoid all argument;<BR>
+but she often wept at night after she went to bed.</P>
+
+<P>In spite of his constant irritability, her husband had become more<BR>
+affectionate than customary since their return.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie was soon quite well and less sad, although she appeared<BR>
+terrified, pursued by some unknown fear, and she ran away twice when<BR>
+Jeanne tried to question her again.</P>
+
+<P>Julien all at once became more amiable, and the young wife, clinging<BR>
+to vain hopes, also became more cheerful. The thaw had not yet set in<BR>
+and a hard, smooth, glittering covering of snow extended over the<BR>
+landscape. Neither men nor animals were to be seen; only the chimneys<BR>
+of the cottages gave evidence of life in the smoke that ascended from<BR>
+them into the icy air.</P>
+
+<P>One evening the thermometer fell still lower, and Julien, shivering as<BR>
+he left the table--for the dining-room was never properly heated, he<BR>
+was so economical with the wood--rubbed his hands, murmuring: "It will<BR>
+be warmer to-night, won't it, my dear?" He laughed with his jolly<BR>
+laugh of former days, and Jeanne threw her arms around his neck: "I do<BR>
+not feel well, dear; perhaps I shall be better to-morrow."</P>
+
+<P>"As you wish, my dear. If you are ill you must take care of yourself."<BR>
+And they began to talk of other things.</P>
+
+<P>She retired early. Julien, for a wonder, had a fire lighted in her<BR>
+room. As soon as he saw that it was burning brightly, he kissed his<BR>
+wife on the forehead and left the room.</P>
+
+<P>The whole house seemed to be penetrated by the cold; the very walls<BR>
+seemed to be shivering, and Jeanne shivered in her bed. Twice she got<BR>
+up to put fresh logs on the fire and to look for dresses, skirts, and<BR>
+other garments which she piled on the bed. Nothing seemed to warm her;<BR>
+her feet were numbed and her lower limbs seemed to tingle, making her<BR>
+excessively nervous and restless.</P>
+
+<P>Then her teeth began to chatter, her hands shook, there was a<BR>
+tightness in her chest, her heart began to beat with hard, dull<BR>
+pulsations, and at times seemed to stop beating, and she gasped for<BR>
+breath. A terrible apprehension seized her, while the cold seemed to<BR>
+penetrate to her marrow. She never had felt such a sensation, she had<BR>
+never seemed to lose her hold on life like this before, never been so<BR>
+near her last breath.</P>
+
+<P>"I am going to die," she thought, "I am dying----"</P>
+
+<P>And filled with terror, she jumped out of bed, rang for Rosalie,<BR>
+waited, rang again, waited again, shivering and frozen.</P>
+
+<P>The little maid did not come. She was doubtless asleep, that first,<BR>
+sound sleep that nothing can disturb. Jeanne, in despair, darted<BR>
+toward the stairs in her bare feet, and groping her way, she ascended<BR>
+the staircase quietly, found the door, opened it, and called,<BR>
+"Rosalie!" She went forward, stumbled against the bed, felt all over<BR>
+it with her hands and found that it was empty. It was empty and cold,<BR>
+and as if no one had slept there. Much surprised, she said: "What! Has<BR>
+she gone out in weather like this?"</P>
+
+<P>But as her heart began to beat tumultuously till she seemed to be<BR>
+suffocating, she went downstairs again with trembling limbs in order<BR>
+to wake Julien. She rushed into his room filled with the idea that she<BR>
+was going to die, and longing to see him before she lost<BR>
+consciousness.</P>
+
+<P>By the light of the dying embers she perceived Rosalie's head leaning<BR>
+on her husband's shoulder.</P>
+
+<P>At the cry she gave they both started to their feet; she stood<BR>
+motionless for a second, horrified at this discovery, and then fled to<BR>
+her room; and when Julien, at his wit's end, called "Jeanne!" she was<BR>
+seized with an overmastering terror of seeing him, of hearing his<BR>
+voice, of listening to him explaining, lying, of meeting his gaze; and<BR>
+she darted toward the stairs again and went down.</P>
+
+<P>She now ran along in the darkness, at the risk of falling downstairs,<BR>
+at the risk of breaking her neck on the stone floor of the hall. She<BR>
+rushed along, impelled by an imperious desire to flee, to know nothing<BR>
+about it, to see no one.</P>
+
+<P>When she was at the bottom of the stairs she sat down on one of the<BR>
+steps, still in her nightdress, and in bare feet, and remained in a<BR>
+dazed condition. She heard Julien moving and walking about. She<BR>
+started to her feet in order to escape him. He was starting to come<BR>
+downstairs and called: "Listen, Jeanne!"</P>
+
+<P>No, she would not listen nor let him touch her with the tips of his<BR>
+fingers; and she darted into the dining-room as if she were fleeing<BR>
+from an assassin. She looked for a door of escape, a hiding place, a<BR>
+dark corner, some way of avoiding him. She hid under the table. But he<BR>
+was already at the door, a candle in his hand, still calling:<BR>
+"Jeanne!" She started off again like a hare, darted into the kitchen,<BR>
+ran round it twice like a trapped animal, and as he came near her, she<BR>
+suddenly opened the door into the garden and darted out into the<BR>
+night.</P>
+
+<P>The contact with the snow, into which she occasionally sank up to her<BR>
+knees, seemed to give her the energy of despair. She did not feel<BR>
+cold, although she had little on. She felt nothing, her body was so<BR>
+numbed from the emotion of her mind, and she ran along as white as the<BR>
+snow.</P>
+
+<P>She followed the large avenue, crossed the wood, crossed the ditch,<BR>
+and started off across the plain.</P>
+
+<P>There was no moon, the stars were shining like sparks of fire in the<BR>
+black sky; but the plain was light with a dull whiteness, and lay in<BR>
+infinite silence.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne walked quickly, hardly breathing, not knowing, not thinking of<BR>
+anything. She suddenly stopped on the edge of the cliff. She stopped<BR>
+short, instinctively, and crouched down, bereft of thought and of will<BR>
+power.</P>
+
+<P>In the abyss before her the silent, invisible sea exhaled the salt<BR>
+odor of its wrack at low tide.</P>
+
+<P>She remained thus some time, her mind as inert as her body; then, all<BR>
+at once, she began to tremble, to tremble violently, like a sail<BR>
+shaken by the wind. Her arms, her hands, her feet, impelled by an<BR>
+invisible force, throbbed, pulsated wildly, and her consciousness<BR>
+awakened abruptly, sharp and poignant.</P>
+
+<P>Old memories passed before her mental vision: the sail with him in<BR>
+P&egrave;re Lastique's boat, their conversation, his nascent love, the<BR>
+christening of the boat; then she went back, further back, to that<BR>
+night of dreams when she first came to the "Poplars." And now! <i>And<BR>
+now!</i> Oh, her life was shipwrecked, all joy was ended, all<BR>
+expectation at an end; and the frightful future full of torture, of<BR>
+deception, and of despair appeared before her. Better to die, it would<BR>
+all be over at once.</P>
+
+<P>But a voice cried in the distance: "Here it is, here are her steps;<BR>
+quick, quick, this way!" It was Julien who was looking for her.</P>
+
+<P>Oh! she did not wish to see him again. In the abyss down yonder before<BR>
+her she now heard a slight sound, the indistinct ripple of the waves<BR>
+over the rocks. She rose to her feet with the idea of throwing herself<BR>
+over the cliff and bidding life farewell. Like one in despair, she<BR>
+uttered the last word of the dying, the last word of the young soldier<BR>
+slain in battle: "Mother!"</P>
+
+<P>All at once the thought of little mother came to her mind, she saw her<BR>
+sobbing, she saw her father on his knees before her mangled remains,<BR>
+and in a second she felt all the pain of their sorrow.</P>
+
+<P>She sank down again into the snow; and when Julien and old Simon,<BR>
+followed by Marius, carrying a lantern, seized her arm to pull her<BR>
+back as she was so close to the brink, she made no attempt to escape.</P>
+
+<P>She let them do as they would, for she could not stir. She felt that<BR>
+they were carrying her, and then that she was being put to bed and<BR>
+rubbed with hot cloths; then she became unconscious.</P>
+
+<P>Then she had a nightmare, or was it a nightmare? She was in bed. It<BR>
+was broad daylight, but she could not get up. Why? She did not know.<BR>
+Then she heard a little noise on the floor, a sort of scratching, a<BR>
+rustling, and suddenly a mouse, a little gray mouse, ran quickly<BR>
+across the sheet. Another followed it, then a third, who ran toward<BR>
+her chest with his little, quick scamper. Jeanne was not afraid, and<BR>
+she reached out her hand to catch the animal, but could not catch it.<BR>
+Then other mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands, rose up on all<BR>
+sides of her. They climbed the bedposts, ran up the tapestries,<BR>
+covered the bed completely. And soon they got beneath the covers;<BR>
+Jeanne felt them gliding over her skin, tickling her limbs, running up<BR>
+and down her body. She saw them running from the bottom of the bed to<BR>
+get into her neck under the sheets; and she tried to fight them off,<BR>
+throwing her hands out to try and catch them, but always finding them<BR>
+empty.</P>
+
+<P>She was frantic, wanted to escape, screamed, and it seemed as if she<BR>
+were being held down, as if strong arms enfolded her and rendered her<BR>
+helpless; but she saw no one.</P>
+
+<P>She had no idea of time. It must have been long, a very long time.</P>
+
+<P>Then she awoke, weary, aching, but quiet. She felt weak, very weak.<BR>
+She opened her eyes and was not surprised to see little mother seated<BR>
+in her room with a man whom she did not know.</P>
+
+<P>How old was she? She did not know, and thought she was a very little<BR>
+girl. She had no recollection of anything.</P>
+
+<P>The big man said: "Why, she has regained consciousness." Little mother<BR>
+began to weep. Then the big man resumed: "Come, be calm, baroness; I<BR>
+can ensure her recovery now. But do not talk to her at all. Let her<BR>
+sleep, let her sleep."</P>
+
+<P>Then it seemed to Jeanne that she remained in a state of exhaustion<BR>
+for a long time, overcome by a heavy sleep as soon as she tried to<BR>
+think; and she tried not to remember anything whatever, as though she<BR>
+had a vague fear that the reality might come back to her.</P>
+
+<P>Once when she awoke she saw Julien, alone, standing beside her; and<BR>
+suddenly it all came back to her, as if the curtain which hid her past<BR>
+life had been raised.</P>
+
+<P>She felt a horrible pain in her heart, and wanted to escape once more.<BR>
+She threw back the coverlets, jumped to the floor and fell down, her<BR>
+limbs being too weak to support her.</P>
+
+<P>Julien sprang toward her, and she began to scream for him not to touch<BR>
+her. She writhed and rolled on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison<BR>
+came running in with Widow Dentu, then the baron, and finally little<BR>
+mother, puffing and distracted.</P>
+
+<P>They put her back into bed, and she immediately closed her eyes, so as<BR>
+to escape talking and be able to think quietly.</P>
+
+<P>Her mother and aunt watched over her anxiously, saying: "Do you hear<BR>
+us now, Jeanne, my little Jeanne?"</P>
+
+<P>She pretended to be deaf, not to hear them, and did not answer. Night<BR>
+came on and the nurse took up her position beside the bed. She did not<BR>
+sleep; she kept trying to think of things that had escaped her memory<BR>
+as though there were holes in it, great white empty places where<BR>
+events had not been noted down.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little she began to recall the facts, and she pondered over<BR>
+them steadily.</P>
+
+<P>Little mother, Aunt Lison, the baron had come, so she must have been<BR>
+very ill. But Julien? What had he said? Did her parents know? And<BR>
+Rosalie, where was she? And what should she do? What should she do? An<BR>
+idea came to her--she would return to Rouen and live with father and<BR>
+little mother as in old days. She would be a widow; that's all.</P>
+
+<P>Then she waited, listening to what was being said around her,<BR>
+understanding everything without letting them see it, rejoiced at her<BR>
+returning reason, patient and crafty.</P>
+
+<P>That evening, at last, she found herself alone with the baroness and<BR>
+called to her in a low tone: "Little Mother!" Her own voice astonished<BR>
+her, it seemed strange. The baroness seized her hands: "My daughter,<BR>
+my darling Jeanne! My child, do you recognize me?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, little mother, but you must not weep; we have a great deal to<BR>
+talk about. Did Julien tell you why I ran away in the snow?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, my darling, you had a very dangerous fever."</P>
+
+<P>"It was not that, mamma. I had the fever afterward; but did he tell<BR>
+you what gave me the fever and why I ran away?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, my dearie."</P>
+
+<P>"It was because I found Rosalie in his room."</P>
+
+<P>Her mother thought she was delirious again and soothed her, saying:<BR>
+"Go to sleep, darling, calm yourself, try to sleep."</P>
+
+<P>But Jeanne, persistent, continued: "I am quite sensible now, little<BR>
+mother. I am not talking wildly as I must have done these last days. I<BR>
+felt ill one night and I went to look for Julien. Rosalie was with him<BR>
+in his room. I did not know what I was doing, for sorrow, and I ran<BR>
+out into the snow to throw myself off the cliff."</P>
+
+<P>But the baroness reiterated, "Yes, darling, you have been very ill,<BR>
+very ill."</P>
+
+<P>"It is not that, mamma. I found Rosalie in with Julien, and I will not<BR>
+live with him any longer. You will take me back with you to Rouen to<BR>
+live as we used to do."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, whom the doctor had warned not to thwart Jeanne in any<BR>
+way, replied: "Yes, my darling."</P>
+
+<P>But the invalid grew impatient: "I see that you do not believe me. Go<BR>
+and fetch little father, he will soon understand."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness left the room and presently returned, leaning on her<BR>
+husband's arm. They sat down beside the bed and Jeanne began to talk.<BR>
+She told them all, quietly, in a weak voice, but clearly; all about<BR>
+Julien's peculiar character, his harshness, his avarice, and, finally,<BR>
+his infidelity.</P>
+
+<P>When she had finished, the baron saw that she was not delirious, but<BR>
+he did not know what to think, what to determine, or what to answer.<BR>
+He took her hand, tenderly, as he used to do when he put her to sleep<BR>
+with stories, and said: "Listen, dearie, we must act with prudence. We<BR>
+must do nothing rash. Try to put up with your husband until we can<BR>
+come to some decision--promise me this?"</P>
+
+<P>"I will try, but I will not stay here after I get well," she replied.</P>
+
+<P>Then she added in a lower tone: "Where is Rosalie now?"</P>
+
+<P>"You will not see her any more," replied the baron. But she persisted:<BR>
+"Where is she? I wish to know." Then he confessed that she had not<BR>
+left the house, but declared that she was going to leave.</P>
+
+<P>On leaving the room the baron, filled with indignation and wounded in<BR>
+his feelings as a father, went to look for Julien, and said to him<BR>
+abruptly: "Sir, I have come to ask you for an explanation of your<BR>
+conduct toward my daughter. You have been unfaithful to her with your<BR>
+maid, which is a double insult."</P>
+
+<P>Julien pretended to be innocent, denied everything positively, swore,<BR>
+took God as his witness. What proof had they? he asked. Was not Jeanne<BR>
+delirious? Had she not had brain fever? Had she not run out in the<BR>
+snow, in an attack of delirium, at the very beginning of her illness?<BR>
+And it was just at this time, when she was running about the house<BR>
+almost naked, that she pretends that she saw her maid in her husband's<BR>
+room!</P>
+
+<P>And he grew angry, threatened a lawsuit, became furious. The baron,<BR>
+bewildered, made excuses, begged his pardon, and held out his loyal<BR>
+hand to Julien, who refused to take it.</P>
+
+<P>When Jeanne heard what her husband had said, she did not show any<BR>
+annoyance, but replied: "He is lying, papa, but we shall end by<BR>
+convicting him."</P>
+
+<P>For some days she remained taciturn and reserved, thinking over<BR>
+matters. The third morning she asked to see Rosalie. The baron refused<BR>
+to send her up, saying she had left. Jeanne persisted, saying: "Well,<BR>
+let some one go and fetch her."</P>
+
+<P>She was beginning to get excited when the doctor came. They told him<BR>
+everything, so that he could form an opinion. But Jeanne suddenly<BR>
+burst into tears, her nerves all unstrung, and almost screamed: "I<BR>
+want Rosalie; I wish to see her!"</P>
+
+<P>The doctor took hold of her hand and said in a low tone: "Calm<BR>
+yourself, madame; any emotion may lead to serious consequences, for<BR>
+you are enceinte."</P>
+
+<P>She was dumfounded, as though she had received a blow; and it seemed<BR>
+to her that she felt the first stirrings of life within her. Then she<BR>
+was silent, not even listening to what was being said, absorbed in her<BR>
+own thoughts. She could not sleep that night for thinking of the new<BR>
+life that was developing in her, and was sad at the thought that it<BR>
+was Julien's child, and might resemble him. The following morning she<BR>
+sent for the baron. "Little father," she said, "my resolution is<BR>
+formed; I wish to know everything, and especially just now; you<BR>
+understand, I insist, and you know that you must not thwart me in my<BR>
+present condition. Listen! You must go and get M. le Cur&eacute;. I need him<BR>
+here to keep Rosalie from telling a lie. Then, as soon as he comes,<BR>
+send him up to me, and you stay downstairs with little mother. And,<BR>
+above all things, see that Julien does not suspect anything."</P>
+
+<P>An hour later the priest came, looking fatter than ever, and puffing<BR>
+like the baroness. He sat down in an arm-chair and began to joke,<BR>
+wiping his forehead as usual with his plaid handkerchief. "Well,<BR>
+baroness, I do not think we grow any thinner; I think we make a good<BR>
+pair." Then, turning toward the patient, he said: "Eh, what is this I<BR>
+hear, young lady, that we are soon to have a fresh baptism? Aha, it<BR>
+will not be a boat this time." And in a graver tone he added: "It will<BR>
+be a defender of the country; unless"--after a moment's reflection--it<BR>
+"should be the prospective mother of a family, like you, madame,"<BR>
+bowing to the baroness.</P>
+
+<P>The door at the end of the room opened and Rosalie appeared, beside<BR>
+herself, weeping, refusing to enter the room, clinging to the door<BR>
+frame, and being pushed forward by the baron. Quite out of patience,<BR>
+he thrust her into the room. She covered her face with her hands and<BR>
+remained standing there, sobbing.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, as soon as she saw her, rose to a sitting posture, whiter than<BR>
+the sheets, and with her heart beating wildly. She could not speak,<BR>
+could hardly breathe. At length she said, in a voice broken with<BR>
+emotion: "I--I--will not--need--to question you. It--it is enough for<BR>
+me to see you thus--to--to see your--your shame in my presence."</P>
+
+<P>After a pause, for she was out of breath, she continued: "I had M. le<BR>
+Cur&eacute; come, so that it might be like a confession, you understand."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, motionless, uttered little cries that were almost screams<BR>
+behind her hands.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, whose anger was gaining ground, seized her arms, and<BR>
+snatching her hands from her face, he threw her on her knees beside<BR>
+the bed, saying: "Speak! Answer!"</P>
+
+<P>She remained on the ground, in the position assigned to Magdalens, her<BR>
+cap awry, her apron on the floor, and her face again covered by her<BR>
+hands.</P>
+
+<P>Then the priest said: "Come, my girl, listen to what is said to you,<BR>
+and reply. We do not want to harm you, but we want to know what<BR>
+occurred."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, leaning over, looked at her and said: "Is it true that you<BR>
+were with Julien when I surprised you?"</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie moaned through her fingers, "Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>Then the baroness suddenly began to cry in a choking fashion, and her<BR>
+convulsive sobs accompanied those of Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, with her eyes fixed on the maid, said: "How long had this been<BR>
+going on?"</P>
+
+<P>"Ever since he came here," faltered Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne could not understand. "Ever since he came--then--ever<BR>
+since--ever since the spring?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>"Ever since he came into this house?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>And Jeanne, as if overflowing with questions, asked, speaking<BR>
+precipitately:</P>
+
+<P>"But how did it happen? How did he approach you? How did he persuade<BR>
+you? What did he say? When, how did you ever yield to him? How could<BR>
+you ever have done it?"</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, removing her hands from her face, and overwhelmed also with a<BR>
+feverish desire to speak, said:</P>
+
+<P>"How do I know, myself? It was the day he dined here for the first<BR>
+time, and he came up to my room. He had hidden himself in the loft. I<BR>
+did not dare to scream for fear of making a scandal. I no longer knew<BR>
+what I was doing. Then I said nothing because I liked him."</P>
+
+<P>Then Jeanne exclaimed with almost a scream:</P>
+
+<P>"But--your--your child--is his child?"</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie sobbed.</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>Then they were both silent. The only sound to be heard was the sobs of<BR>
+Rosalie and of the baroness.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, quite overcome, felt her tears also beginning to flow; and<BR>
+they fell silently down her cheeks.</P>
+
+<P>The maid's child had the same father, as her child! Her anger was at<BR>
+an end; she now was filled with a dreary, slow, profound and infinite<BR>
+despair. She presently resumed in a changed, tearful voice, the voice<BR>
+of a woman who has been crying:</P>
+
+<P>"When we returned from--from down there--from our journey--when did he<BR>
+begin again?"</P>
+
+<P>The little maid, who had sunk down on the floor, faltered: "The first<BR>
+evening."</P>
+
+<P>Each word wrung Jeanne's heart. So on the very first night of their<BR>
+return to the "Poplars" he left her for this girl. That was why he<BR>
+wanted to sleep alone!</P>
+
+<P>She now knew all she wanted to know, and exclaimed: "Go away, go<BR>
+away!" And as Rosalie, perfectly crushed, did not stir, Jeanne called<BR>
+to her father: "Take her away, carry her away!" The priest, who had<BR>
+said nothing as yet, thought that the moment had arrived for him to<BR>
+preach a little sermon.</P>
+
+<P>"What you have done is very wrong, my daughter, very wrong, and God<BR>
+will not pardon you so easily. Consider the hell that awaits you if<BR>
+you do not always act right. Now that you have a child you must behave<BR>
+yourself. No doubt madame la baronne will do something for you, and we<BR>
+will find you a husband."</P>
+
+<P>He would have continued speaking, but the baron, having again seized<BR>
+Rosalie by the shoulders, raised her from the floor and dragged her to<BR>
+the door, and threw her like a package into the corridor. As he turned<BR>
+back into the room, looking paler than his daughter, the priest<BR>
+resumed: "What can one do? They are all like that in the district. It<BR>
+is shocking, but cannot be helped, and then one must be a little<BR>
+indulgent toward the weaknesses of our nature. They never get married<BR>
+until they have become enceinte, never, madame." He added, smiling:<BR>
+"One might call it a local custom. So, you see, monsieur, your maid<BR>
+did as all the rest do."</P>
+
+<P>But the baron, who was trembling with nervousness, interrupted him,<BR>
+saying, "She! what do I care about her! It is Julien with whom I am<BR>
+indignant. It is infamous, the way he has behaved, and I shall take my<BR>
+daughter away."</P>
+
+<P>He walked up and down excitedly, becoming more and more exasperated:<BR>
+"It is infamous to have betrayed my child, infamous! He is a wretch,<BR>
+this man, a cad, a wretch! and I will tell him so. I will slap his<BR>
+face. I will give him a horsewhipping!"</P>
+
+<P>The priest, who was slowly taking a pinch of snuff, seated beside the<BR>
+baroness still in tears, and endeavoring to fulfill his office of a<BR>
+peacemaker, said: "Come, monsieur le baron, between ourselves, he has<BR>
+done what every one else does. Do you know many husbands who are<BR>
+faithful?" And he added with a sly good humor: "Come now, I wager that<BR>
+you have had your turn. Your hand on your heart, am I right?" The<BR>
+baron had stopped in astonishment before the priest, who continued:<BR>
+"Why, yes, you did just as others did. Who knows if you did not make<BR>
+love to a little sugar plum like that? I tell you that every one does.<BR>
+Your wife was none the less happy, or less loved; am I not right?"</P>
+
+<P>The baron had not stirred, he was much disturbed. What the priest said<BR>
+was true, and he had sinned as much as any one and had not hesitated<BR>
+when his wife's maids were in question. Was he a wretch on that<BR>
+account? Why should he judge Julien's conduct so severely when his own<BR>
+had not been above blame?</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, still struggling with her sobs, smiled faintly at the<BR>
+recollection of her husband's escapades, for she belonged to the<BR>
+sentimental class for whom love adventures are a part of existence.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, exhausted, lay with wide-open eyes, absorbed in painful<BR>
+reflection. Something Rosalie had said had wounded her as though an<BR>
+arrow had pierced her heart: "As for me, I said nothing, because I<BR>
+liked him."</P>
+
+<P>She had liked him also, and that was the only reason why she had given<BR>
+herself, bound herself for life to him, why she had renounced<BR>
+everything else, all her cherished plans, all the unknown future. She<BR>
+had fallen into this marriage, into this hole without any edges by<BR>
+which one could climb out, into this wretchedness, this sadness, this<BR>
+despair, because, like Rosalie, she had liked him!</P>
+
+<P>The door was pushed violently open and Julien appeared, with a furious<BR>
+expression on his face. He had caught sight of Rosalie moaning on the<BR>
+stairs, and suspected that something was up, that the maid had<BR>
+probably told all. The sight of the priest riveted him to the spot.</P>
+
+<P>"Why, what's the matter?" he asked in a trembling but quiet tone.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, so violent a short while ago, did not venture to speak,<BR>
+afraid of the priest's remarks, and of what his son-in-law might say<BR>
+in the same strain. Little mother was weeping more copiously than<BR>
+ever; but Jeanne had raised herself with her hands and looked,<BR>
+breathing quickly, at the one who had caused her such cruel sorrow.<BR>
+She stammered out: "The fact is, we know all, all your rascality<BR>
+since--since the day you first entered this house--we know that the<BR>
+child of this maid is your child, just as--as--mine is--they will be<BR>
+brothers." Overcome with sorrow at this thought, she buried herself in<BR>
+the sheets and wept bitterly.</P>
+
+<P>Julien stood there gaping, not knowing what to say or do. The priest<BR>
+came to the rescue.</P>
+
+<P>"Come, come, do not give way like that, my dear young lady, be<BR>
+sensible." He rose, approached the bed and placed his warm hand on the<BR>
+despairing girl's forehead. This seemed to soothe her strangely. She<BR>
+felt quieted, as if this strong peasant's hand, accustomed to the<BR>
+gesture of absolution, to kindly consolations, had conveyed by its<BR>
+touch some mysterious solace.</P>
+
+<P>The good man, still standing, continued: "Madame, we must always<BR>
+forgive. A great sorrow has come to you; but God in His mercy has<BR>
+balanced it by a great happiness, since you will become a mother. This<BR>
+child will be your comfort. In his name I implore you, I adjure you to<BR>
+forgive M. Julien's error. It will be a new bond between you, a pledge<BR>
+of his future fidelity. Can you remain apart in your heart from him<BR>
+whose child you bear?"</P>
+
+<P>She did not reply, crushed, mortified, exhausted as she was, without<BR>
+even strength for anger or resentment. Her nerves seemed relaxed,<BR>
+almost severed, she seemed to be scarcely alive.</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, who seemed incapable of resentment, and whose mind was<BR>
+unequal to prolonged effort, murmured: "Come, come, Jeanne."</P>
+
+<P>Then the priest took the hand of the young man and leading him up to<BR>
+the bed, he placed his hand in that of his wife, and gave it a little<BR>
+tap as though to unite them more closely. Then laying aside his<BR>
+professional tone and manner, he said with a satisfied air: "Well,<BR>
+now, that's done. Believe me, that is the best thing to do." The two<BR>
+hands, joined for a moment, separated immediately. Julien, not daring<BR>
+to kiss Jeanne, kissed his mother-in-law on the forehead, turned on<BR>
+his heel, took the arm of the baron, who acquiesced, happy at heart<BR>
+that the thing had been settled thus, and they went out together to<BR>
+smoke a cigar.</P>
+
+<P>The patient, overcome, dozed off, while the priest and little mother<BR>
+talked in a low tone.</P>
+
+<P>The priest explained and propounded his ideas, to which the baroness<BR>
+assented by nodding her head. He said in conclusion: "Well, then, that<BR>
+is understood; you will give this girl the Barville farm, and I will<BR>
+undertake to find her a husband, a good, steady fellow. Oh! with a<BR>
+property worth twenty thousand francs we shall have no lack of<BR>
+suitors. There will be more than enough to choose from."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness was smiling now, quite happy, with the remains of two<BR>
+tears that had dried on her cheeks.</P>
+
+<P>She repeated: "That is settled. Barville is worth at least twenty<BR>
+thousand francs, but it will be settled on the child, the parents<BR>
+having the use of it during their lifetime."</P>
+
+<P>The cur&eacute; rose, shook little mother's hand, saying: "Do not disturb<BR>
+yourself, Madame la Baronne, do not disturb yourself; I know what an<BR>
+effort it is."</P>
+
+<P>As he went out he met Aunt Lison coming to see her patient. She<BR>
+noticed nothing; they told her nothing; and she knew nothing, as<BR>
+usual.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></h4>
+
+<h5>MATERNITY</h5>
+
+<P>Rosalie had left the house. Jeanne felt no joy at the thought of being<BR>
+a mother, she had had so much sorrow. She awaited the advent of her<BR>
+child without curiosity, still filled with the apprehension of unknown<BR>
+misfortunes.</P>
+
+<P>A big woman, big as a house, had taken Rosalie's place and supported<BR>
+the baroness in her monotonous walks along her avenue. The baron gave<BR>
+his arm to Jeanne, who was now always ailing, while Aunt Lison,<BR>
+uneasy, and busied about the approaching event, held her other hand,<BR>
+bewildered at this mystery which she would never know.</P>
+
+<P>They all walked along like this almost in silence for hours at a time,<BR>
+while Julien was riding about the country on horseback, having<BR>
+suddenly acquired this taste. Nothing ever came to disturb their<BR>
+dreary life. The baron, his wife, and the vicomte paid a visit to the<BR>
+Fourvilles, whom Julien seemed to be already well acquainted with,<BR>
+without one knowing just how. Another ceremonious visit was exchanged<BR>
+with the Brisevilles, who were still hidden in their manor house.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon, about four o'clock, two persons, a lady and gentleman<BR>
+on horseback, rode up into the courtyard of the ch&acirc;teau. Julien,<BR>
+greatly excited, ran up to Jeanne's room. "Quick, quick, come<BR>
+downstairs; here are the Fourvilles. They have just come as neighbors,<BR>
+knowing your condition. Tell them that I have gone out, but that I<BR>
+will be back. I will just go and make myself presentable."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, much surprised, went downstairs. A pale, pretty young woman<BR>
+with a sad face, dreamy eyes, and lustreless, fair hair, looking as<BR>
+though the sunlight had never kissed it, quietly introduced her<BR>
+husband, a kind of giant, or ogre with a large red mustache. She<BR>
+added: "We have several times had the pleasure of meeting M. de<BR>
+Lamare. We heard from him how you were suffering, and we would not put<BR>
+off coming to see you as neighbors, without any ceremony. You see that<BR>
+we came on horseback. I also had the pleasure the other day of a visit<BR>
+from madame, your mother, and the baron."</P>
+
+<P>She spoke with perfect ease, familiar but refined. Jeanne was charmed,<BR>
+and fell in love with her at once. "This is a friend," she thought.</P>
+
+<P>The Comte de Fourville, on the contrary, seemed like a bear in the<BR>
+drawing-room. As soon as he was seated, he placed his hat on the chair<BR>
+next him, did not know what to do with his hands, placed them on his<BR>
+knees, then on the arms of the chair, and finally crossed his fingers<BR>
+as if in prayer.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly Julien entered the room. Jeanne was amazed and did not<BR>
+recognize him. He was shaved. He looked handsome, elegant, and<BR>
+attractive as on the day of their betrothal. He shook the comte's<BR>
+hairy paw, kissed the hand of the comtesse, whose ivory cheeks colored<BR>
+up slightly while her eyelids quivered.</P>
+
+<P>He began to speak; he was charming as in former days. His large eyes,<BR>
+the mirrors of love, had become tender again. And his hair, lately so<BR>
+dull and unkempt, had regained its soft, glossy wave, with the use of<BR>
+a hairbrush and perfumed oil.</P>
+
+<P>At the moment that the Fourvilles were taking their leave the<BR>
+comtesse, turning toward him, said: "Would you like to take a ride on<BR>
+Thursday, dear vicomte?"</P>
+
+<P>As he bowed and murmured, "Why, certainly, madame," she took Jeanne's<BR>
+hand and said in a sympathetic and affectionate tone, with a cordial<BR>
+smile: "Oh! when you are well, we will all three gallop about the<BR>
+country. It will be delightful. What do you say?"</P>
+
+<P>With an easy gesture she held up her riding skirt and then jumped into<BR>
+the saddle with the lightness of a bird, while her husband, after<BR>
+bowing awkwardly, mounted his big Norman steed. As they disappeared<BR>
+outside the gate, Julien, who seemed charmed, exclaimed: "What<BR>
+delightful people! those are friends who may be useful to us."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, pleased also without knowing why, replied: "The little<BR>
+comtesse is charming, I feel that I shall love her, but the husband<BR>
+looks like a brute. Where did you meet them?"</P>
+
+<P>He rubbed his hands together good humoredly. "I met them by chance at<BR>
+the Brisevilles'. The husband seems a little rough. He cares for<BR>
+nothing but hunting, but he is a real noble for all that."</P>
+
+<P>The dinner was almost cheerful, as though some secret happiness had<BR>
+come into the house.</P>
+
+<P>Nothing new happened until the latter days of July, when Jeanne was<BR>
+taken ill. As she seemed to grow worse, the doctor was sent for and at<BR>
+the first glance recognized the symptoms of a premature confinement.</P>
+
+<P>Her sufferings presently abated a little, but she was filled with a<BR>
+terrible anguish, a despairing sinking, something like a presentiment,<BR>
+the mysterious touch of death. It is in these moments when it comes so<BR>
+near to us that its breath chills our hearts.</P>
+
+<P>The room was full of people. Little mother, buried in an armchair, was<BR>
+choking with grief. The baron, his hands trembling, ran hither and<BR>
+thither, carrying things, consulting the doctor and losing his head.<BR>
+Julien paced up and down, looking concerned, but perfectly calm, and<BR>
+Widow Dentu stood at the foot of the bed with an appropriate<BR>
+expression, the expression of a woman of experience whom nothing<BR>
+astonishes. The cook, Ludivine, and Aunt Lison remained discreetly<BR>
+concealed behind the door of the lobby.</P>
+
+<P>Toward morning Jeanne became worse, and as her involuntary screams<BR>
+escaped from between her closed teeth, she thought incessantly of<BR>
+Rosalie, who had not suffered, who had hardly moaned, who had borne<BR>
+her child without suffering and without difficulty, and in her<BR>
+wretched and troubled mind she continually compared their conditions<BR>
+and cursed God, whom she had formerly thought to be just. She rebelled<BR>
+at the wicked partiality of fate and at the wicked lies of those who<BR>
+preach justice and goodness.</P>
+
+<P>At times her sufferings were so great that her mind was a blank. She<BR>
+had neither strength, life nor knowledge for anything but suffering.</P>
+
+<P>All at once her sufferings ceased. The nurse and the doctor leaned<BR>
+over her and gave her all attention. Presently she heard a little cry<BR>
+and, in spite of her weakness, she unconsciously held out her arms.<BR>
+She was suddenly filled with joy, with a glimpse of a new-found<BR>
+happiness which had just unfolded. Her child was born, she was<BR>
+soothed, happy, happy as she never yet had been. Her heart and her<BR>
+body revived; she was now a mother. She felt that she was saved,<BR>
+secure from all despair, for she had here something to love.</P>
+
+<P>From now on she had but one thought--her child. She was a fanatical<BR>
+mother, all the more intense because she had been deceived in her<BR>
+love, deceived in her hopes. She would sit whole days beside the<BR>
+window, rocking the little cradle.</P>
+
+<P>The baron and little mother smiled at this excess of tenderness, but<BR>
+Julien, whose habitual routine had been interfered with and his<BR>
+overweening importance diminished by the arrival of this noisy and<BR>
+all-powerful tyrant, unconsciously jealous of this mite of a man who<BR>
+had usurped his place in the house, kept on saying angrily and<BR>
+impatiently: "How wearisome she is with her brat!"</P>
+
+<P>She became so obsessed by this affection that she would pass the<BR>
+entire night beside the cradle, watching the child asleep. As she was<BR>
+becoming exhausted by this morbid life, taking no rest, growing weaker<BR>
+and thinner and beginning to cough, the doctor ordered the child to be<BR>
+taken from her. She got angry, wept, implored, but they were deaf to<BR>
+her entreaties. His nurse took him every evening, and each night his<BR>
+mother would rise, and in her bare feet go to the door, listen at the<BR>
+keyhole to see if he was sleeping quietly, did not wake up and wanted<BR>
+nothing.</P>
+
+<P>Julien found her here one night when he came home late, after dining<BR>
+with the Fourvilles. After that they locked her in her room to oblige<BR>
+her to stay in bed.</P>
+
+<P>The baptism took place at the end of August. The baron was godfather<BR>
+and Aunt Lison godmother. The child was named Pierre-Simon-Paul and<BR>
+called Paul for short.</P>
+
+<P>At the beginning of September Aunt Lison left without any commotion.<BR>
+Her absence was as little felt as her presence.</P>
+
+<P>One evening after dinner the priest appeared. He seemed embarrassed as<BR>
+if he were burdened by some mystery, and after some idle remarks, he<BR>
+asked the baroness and her husband to grant him a short interview in<BR>
+private.</P>
+
+<P>They all three walked slowly down the long avenue, talking with<BR>
+animation, while Julien, who was alone with Jeanne, was astonished,<BR>
+disturbed and annoyed at this secret.</P>
+
+<P>He accompanied the priest when he took his leave, and they went off<BR>
+together toward the church where the Angelus was ringing.</P>
+
+<P>As it was cool, almost cold, the others went into the drawing-room.<BR>
+They were all dozing when Julien came in abruptly, his face red,<BR>
+looking very indignant.</P>
+
+<P>From the door he called out to his parents-in-law, without remembering<BR>
+that Jeanne was there: "Are you crazy, for God's sake! to go and throw<BR>
+away twenty thousand francs on that girl?"</P>
+
+<P>No one replied, they were so astonished. He continued, bellowing with<BR>
+rage: "How can one be so stupid as that? Do you wish to leave us<BR>
+without a sou?"</P>
+
+<P>The baron, who had recovered his composure, attempted to stop him:<BR>
+"Keep still! Remember that you are speaking before your wife."</P>
+
+<P>But Julien was trembling with excitement: "As if I cared; she knows<BR>
+all about it, anyway. It is robbing her."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, bewildered, looked at him without understanding. She faltered:<BR>
+"What in the world is the matter?"</P>
+
+<P>Julien then turned toward her, to try and get her on his side as a<BR>
+partner who has been cheated out of an unexpected fortune. He<BR>
+hurriedly told her about the conspiracy to marry off Rosalie and about<BR>
+the gift of the Barville property, which was worth at least twenty<BR>
+thousand francs. He said: "Your parents are crazy, my dear, crazy<BR>
+enough to be shut up! Twenty thousand francs! twenty thousand francs!<BR>
+Why, they have lost their heads! Twenty thousand francs for a<BR>
+bastard!"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne listened without emotion and without anger, astonished at her<BR>
+own calmness, indifferent now to everything but her own child.</P>
+
+<P>The baron was raging, but could find nothing to say. He finally burst<BR>
+forth and, stamping his foot, exclaimed: "Think of what you are<BR>
+saying; it is disgusting. Whose fault was it if we had to give this<BR>
+girl-mother a dowry? Whose child is it? You would like to abandon it<BR>
+now!"</P>
+
+<P>Julien, amazed at the baron's violence, looked at him fixedly. He then<BR>
+resumed in a calmer tone: "But fifteen hundred francs would be quite<BR>
+enough. They all have children before they are legally married. It<BR>
+makes no difference whose child it is, in any case. Instead of giving<BR>
+one of your farms, to the value of twenty thousand francs, in addition<BR>
+to making the world aware of what has happened, you should, to say the<BR>
+least, have had some regard for our name and our position."</P>
+
+<P>He spoke in a severe tone like a man who stood on his rights and was<BR>
+convinced of the logic of his argument. The baron, disturbed at this<BR>
+unexpected discussion, stood there gaping at him. Julien then, seeing<BR>
+his advantage, concluded: "Happily, nothing has yet been settled. I<BR>
+know the young fellow who is going to marry her. He is an honest chap<BR>
+and we can make a satisfactory arrangement with him. I will take<BR>
+charge of the matter."</P>
+
+<P>And he went out immediately, fearing no doubt to continue the<BR>
+discussion, and pleased that he had had the last word, a proof, he<BR>
+thought, that they acquiesced in his views.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as he had left the room, however, the baron exclaimed: "Oh,<BR>
+that is going too far, much too far!"</P>
+
+<P>But Jeanne, happening to look up at her father's bewildered face,<BR>
+began to laugh with her clear, ringing laugh of former days, when<BR>
+anything amused her. She said: "Father, father, did you hear the tone<BR>
+in which he said: 'Twenty thousand francs?'"</P>
+
+<P>Little mother, whose mirth was as ready as her tears, as she recalled<BR>
+her son-in-law's angry expression, his indignant exclamations and his<BR>
+refusal to allow the girl whom he had led astray to be given money<BR>
+that did not belong to him, delighted also at Jeanne's mirth, gave way<BR>
+to little bursts of laughter till the tears came to her eyes. The<BR>
+baron caught the contagion, and all three laughed to kill themselves<BR>
+as they used to do in the good old days.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as they quieted down a little Jeanne said: "How strange it is<BR>
+that all this does not affect me. I look upon him now as a stranger.<BR>
+I cannot believe that I am his wife. You see how I can laugh at<BR>
+his--his--want of delicacy."</P>
+
+<P>And without knowing why they all three embraced each other, smiling<BR>
+and happy.</P>
+
+<P>Two days later, after breakfast, just as Julien had started away from<BR>
+the house on horseback, a strapping young fellow from twenty-one to<BR>
+twenty-five years old, clad in a brand-new blue blouse with wide<BR>
+sleeves buttoning at the wrist, slyly jumped over the gate, as though<BR>
+he had been there awaiting his opportunity all the morning, crept<BR>
+along the Couillards' ditch, came round the ch&acirc;teau, and cautiously<BR>
+approached the baron and his wife, who were still sitting under the<BR>
+plane-tree.</P>
+
+<P>He took off his cap and advanced, bowing in an awkward manner. As soon<BR>
+as he was close to them he said: "Your servant, Monsieur le Baron,<BR>
+madame and the company." Then, as no one replied, he said: "It is I, I<BR>
+am Desir&eacute; Lecocq."</P>
+
+<P>As the name conveyed nothing to them, the baron asked, "What do you<BR>
+want?"</P>
+
+<P>Then, altogether upset at the necessity of explaining himself, the<BR>
+young fellow stuttered out as he gazed alternately at his cap, which<BR>
+he held in his hands, and at the roof of the ch&acirc;teau: "It was M'sieu<BR>
+le Cur&eacute; who said something to me about this matter----" And then he<BR>
+stopped, fearing he might say too much and compromise his own<BR>
+interests.</P>
+
+<P>The other, lowering his voice, blurted out: "That matter of your<BR>
+maid--Rosalie----"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, who had guessed what was coming, had risen and moved away with<BR>
+her infant in her arms.</P>
+
+<P>"Come nearer," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had<BR>
+just left. The peasant sat down, murmuring: "You are very good." Then<BR>
+he waited as though he had no more to say. After a long silence, he<BR>
+screwed up courage, and looking up at the sky, remarked: "There's fine<BR>
+weather for the time of year. But the earth will be none the better<BR>
+for it, as the seed is already sown." And then he was silent again.</P>
+
+<P>The baron was growing impatient. He plunged right into the subject and<BR>
+said drily: "Then it is you who are going to marry Rosalie?"</P>
+
+<P>The man at once became uneasy, his Norman caution being on the alert.<BR>
+He replied with more animation, but with a tinge of defiance: "That<BR>
+depends; perhaps yes, perhaps no; it depends."</P>
+
+<P>The baron, annoyed at this hedging, exclaimed angrily: "Answer<BR>
+frankly, damn it! Was this what you came here for? Yes or no! Will you<BR>
+marry her? Yes or no!"</P>
+
+<P>The bewildered man looked steadfastly at his feet: "If it is as M'sieu<BR>
+le Cur&eacute; said, I will take her, but if it is as M'sieu Julien said, I<BR>
+will not take her."</P>
+
+<P>"What did M. Julien tell you?"</P>
+
+<P>"M'sieu Julien told me fifteen hundred francs and M'sieu le Cur&eacute; told<BR>
+me that I should have twenty thousand. I will do it for twenty<BR>
+thousand, but I will not do it for fifteen hundred."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, who was buried in her easy chair, began to giggle at the<BR>
+anxious expression of the peasant, who, not understanding this<BR>
+frivolity, glanced at her angrily out of the corner of his eye and<BR>
+waited in silence.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, who was embarrassed at this bargaining, cut it short by<BR>
+saying: "I told M. le Cur&eacute; that you should have the Barville farm<BR>
+during your lifetime and that then it would revert to the child. It is<BR>
+worth twenty thousand francs. I do not go back on my word. Is it<BR>
+settled? Yes or no!"</P>
+
+<P>The man smiled with a humble and satisfied expression, and suddenly<BR>
+becoming loquacious, said: "Oh, in that case, I will not say no. That<BR>
+was all that stood in my way. When M'sieu le Cur&eacute; spoke to me, I was<BR>
+ready at once, by gosh! and I was very pleased to accommodate the<BR>
+baron who was giving me that. I said to myself, 'Is it not true that<BR>
+when people are willing to do each other favors, they can always find<BR>
+a way and can make it worth while?' But M'sieu Julien came to see me,<BR>
+and it was only fifteen hundred francs. I said to myself: 'I must see<BR>
+about that,' and so I came here. That is not to say that I did not<BR>
+trust you, but I wanted to know. Short accounts make long friends. Is<BR>
+not that true, M'sieu le Baron?"</P>
+
+<P>The baron interrupted him by asking, "When do you wish to get<BR>
+married?"</P>
+
+<P>The man became timid again, very much embarrassed, and finally said,<BR>
+hesitatingly: "I will not do it until I get a little paper."</P>
+
+<P>This time the baron got angry: "Doggone it! you will have the marriage<BR>
+contract. That is the best kind of paper."</P>
+
+<P>But the peasant was stubborn: "Meanwhile I might take a little turn;<BR>
+it will not be dark for a while."</P>
+
+<P>The baron rose to make an end of the matter: "Answer yes or no at<BR>
+once. If you do not wish her, say so; I have another suitor."</P>
+
+<P>The fear of a rival terrified the crafty Norman. He suddenly made up<BR>
+his mind and held out his hand, as after buying a cow, saying: "Put it<BR>
+there, M'sieu le Baron; it is a bargain. Whoever draws back is a<BR>
+skunk!"</P>
+
+<P>The baron shook his hand, then called out: "Ludivine!" The cook<BR>
+appeared at the window. "Bring us a bottle of wine." They clinked<BR>
+glasses to seal the matter and the young peasant went off with a light<BR>
+tread.</P>
+
+<P>Nothing was said to Julien about this visit. The contract was drawn up<BR>
+with all secrecy and as soon as the banns were published the wedding<BR>
+took place one Monday morning.</P>
+
+<P>A neighbor carried the child to church, walking behind the bride and<BR>
+groom, as a sure sign of good luck. And no one in all the district was<BR>
+surprised; they simply envied Desir&eacute; Lecocq. "He was born with a<BR>
+caul," they said, with a sly smile into which there entered no<BR>
+resentment.</P>
+
+<P>Julien was terribly angry and made such a scene that his parents-in-law<BR>
+cut short their visit to the "Poplars." Jeanne was only moderately<BR>
+sad at their departure, for little Paul had become for her an<BR>
+inexhaustible source of happiness.</P>
+
+
+<h4><a name="IX">CHAPTER IX</a></h4>
+
+<h5>DEATH OF LA BARONNE</h5>
+
+<P>As Jeanne's health was quite restored, they determined to go and<BR>
+return the Fourvilles' visit and also to call on the Marquis de<BR>
+Coutelier.</P>
+
+<P>Julien had bought at a sale a new one-horse phaeton, so that they<BR>
+could go out twice a month. They set out one fine December morning,<BR>
+and after driving for two hours across the plains of Normandy, they<BR>
+began to descend a little slope into a little valley, the sides of<BR>
+which were wooded, while the valley itself was cultivated. After an<BR>
+abrupt turn in the valley they saw the Ch&acirc;teau of Vrillette, a wooded<BR>
+slope on one side of it and a large pond on the other, out of which<BR>
+rose one of its walls and which was bounded by a wood of tall pine<BR>
+trees that formed the other side of the valley.</P>
+
+<P>Julien explained all the portions of the building to Jeanne, like one<BR>
+who knows his subject thoroughly, and went into raptures over its<BR>
+beauty, adding; "It is full of game, this country. The comte loves to<BR>
+hunt here. This is a true seignorial residence."</P>
+
+<P>The hall door was opened and the pale comtesse appeared, coming<BR>
+forward to meet the visitors, all smiles, and wearing a long-trained<BR>
+dress, like a chatelaine of olden times. She looked a fitting lady of<BR>
+the lake, born to inhabit this fairy castle.</P>
+
+<P>The comtesse took both Jeanne's hands, as if she had known her all her<BR>
+life, and made her sit down beside her in a low chair, while Julien,<BR>
+all of whose forgotten elegance seemed to have revived within the past<BR>
+five months, chatted and smiled quietly and familiarly.</P>
+
+<P>The comtesse and he talked of their horseback rides. She was laughing<BR>
+at his manner of mounting a horse and called him "Le Chevalier<BR>
+Tr&eacute;buche," and he smiled also, having nicknamed her "The Amazon<BR>
+Queen." A gun fired beneath the windows caused Jeanne to give a little<BR>
+scream. It was the comte, who had killed a teal.</P>
+
+<P>His wife called to him. A sound of oars was heard, a boat grinding<BR>
+against the stones, and he appeared, enormous, booted, followed by two<BR>
+drenched dogs of a ruddy color like himself, who lay down on the mat<BR>
+outside the door.</P>
+
+<P>He seemed more at his ease in his own home, and was delighted to see<BR>
+his visitors. He put some wood on the fire, sent for madeira and<BR>
+biscuits and then exclaimed suddenly: "Why, you will take dinner with<BR>
+us, of course."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, whose child was never out of her thoughts, declined. He<BR>
+insisted, and as she could not be persuaded, Julien made a gesture of<BR>
+annoyance. She feared to arouse his ugly, quarrelsome temper, and<BR>
+although she was very unhappy at the thought that she should not see<BR>
+Paul until the next day, she consented to stay.</P>
+
+<P>The afternoon was delightful. They first visited the springs which<BR>
+bubbled up at the foot of a mossy rock and then took a row on the<BR>
+pond. At one end of the boat Julien and the comtesse, wrapped in<BR>
+shawls, were smiling happily like those who have nothing left to wish<BR>
+for.</P>
+
+<P>A huge fire was blazing in the spacious reception room, which imparted<BR>
+a sense of warmth and contentment. The comte seized his wife in his<BR>
+arms and lifted her from the floor as though she had been a child and<BR>
+gave her a hearty kiss on each cheek, like a man satisfied with the<BR>
+world.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, smiling, looked at this good giant whom one would have thought<BR>
+was an ogre at the very sight of his mustaches, and she thought: "How<BR>
+one may be deceived each day about everybody." Then, almost<BR>
+involuntarily, she glanced at Julien standing in the doorway, looking<BR>
+horribly pale and with his eyes fixed on the comte. She approached him<BR>
+and said in a low tone: "Are you ill? What is the matter with you?" He<BR>
+answered her angrily: "Nothing. Let me alone! I was cold."</P>
+
+<P>When they went into the dining-room the count asked if he might let<BR>
+his dogs come in, and they settled themselves one on either side of<BR>
+their master.</P>
+
+<P>After dinner, as Jeanne and Julien were preparing to leave, M. de<BR>
+Fourville kept them a little longer to look at some fishing by<BR>
+torchlight. When they finally set out, wrapped up in their cloaks and<BR>
+some rugs they had borrowed, Jeanne said almost involuntarily: "What a<BR>
+fine man that giant is!" Julien, who was driving, replied: "Yes, but<BR>
+he does not always restrain himself before company."</P>
+
+<P>A week later they called on the Couteliers, who were supposed to be<BR>
+the chief noble family in the province. Their property of Remenil<BR>
+adjoined the large town of Cany. The new ch&acirc;teau built in the reign of<BR>
+Louis XIV. was hidden in a magnificent park enclosed by walls. The<BR>
+ruins of the old ch&acirc;teau could be seen on an eminence. They were<BR>
+ushered into a stately reception room by men servants in livery. In<BR>
+the middle of the room a sort of column held an immense bowl of S&egrave;vres<BR>
+ware and on the pedestal of the column an autograph letter from the<BR>
+king, under glass, requested the Marquis Leopold-Herv&eacute;-Joseph-Germer<BR>
+de Varneville de Rollebosc de Coutelier to receive this present from<BR>
+his sovereign.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and Julien were looking at this royal gift when the marquis and<BR>
+marquise entered the room.</P>
+
+<P>They were very ceremonious people whose minds, sentiments and words<BR>
+seemed always to be on stilts. They spoke without waiting for an<BR>
+answer, smiling complacently, appearing always to be fulfilling the<BR>
+duty imposed on them by their position, of showing civilities to the<BR>
+inferior nobility of the region.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and Julien, somewhat taken aback, endeavored to be agreeable,<BR>
+but although they felt too embarrassed to remain any longer, they did<BR>
+not know exactly how to take their leave. The marquise herself put an<BR>
+end to the visit naturally and simply by bringing the conversation to<BR>
+a close like a queen giving a dismissal.</P>
+
+<P>On the way home Julien said: "If you like, we will make this our first<BR>
+and last call; the Fourvilles are good enough for me." Jeanne was of<BR>
+the same opinion. December passed slowly and the shut-in life began<BR>
+again as in the previous year. But Jeanne did not find it wearisome,<BR>
+as she was always taken up with Paul, whom Julien looked at askance,<BR>
+uneasy and annoyed. Often when the mother held the child in her arms,<BR>
+kissing it frantically as women do their children, she would hold it<BR>
+up to its father, saying: "Give him a kiss; one would suppose you did<BR>
+not love him." He would hardly touch with his lips the child's smooth<BR>
+forehead, walking all round it, as though he did not wish to touch the<BR>
+restless little fists. Then he would walk away abruptly as though from<BR>
+something distasteful.</P>
+
+<P>The mayor, the doctor and the cur&eacute; came to dinner occasionally, and<BR>
+sometimes it was the Fourvilles, with whom they were becoming more and<BR>
+more intimate. The comte appeared to worship Paul. He held him on his<BR>
+knees during the whole visit and sometimes during the whole afternoon,<BR>
+playing with him and amusing him and then kissing him tenderly as<BR>
+mothers do. He always lamented that he had no children of his own.</P>
+
+<P>Comtesse Gilberte again mentioned the rides they all four were going<BR>
+to take together. Jeanne, a little weary of the monotonous days and<BR>
+nights, was quite happy in anticipation of these plans, and for a week<BR>
+amused herself making a riding habit.</P>
+
+<P>They always set out two and two, the comtesse and Julien ahead, the<BR>
+count and Jeanne a hundred feet behind them, talking quietly, like<BR>
+good friends, for such they had become through the sympathy of their<BR>
+straightforward minds and simple hearts. The others often spoke in a<BR>
+low tone, sometimes bursting into laughter and looking quickly at each<BR>
+other, as though their eyes were expressing what they dared not utter.<BR>
+And they would suddenly set off at a gallop, impelled by a desire to<BR>
+flee, to get away, far away.</P>
+
+<P>Then Gilberte would seem to be growing irritable. Her sharp voice,<BR>
+borne on the breeze, occasionally reached the ears of the loitering<BR>
+couple. The comte would smile and say to Jeanne: "She does not always<BR>
+get out of bed the right side, that wife of mine."</P>
+
+<P>One evening as they were coming home the comtesse was teasing her<BR>
+mount, spurring it and then checking it abruptly. They heard Julien<BR>
+say several time: "Take care, take care; you will be thrown." "So much<BR>
+the worse," she replied; "it is none of your business," in a hard<BR>
+clear tone that resounded across the fields as though the words hung<BR>
+in the air.</P>
+
+<P>The animal reared, plunged and champed the bit. The comte, uneasy,<BR>
+shouted: "Be careful, Gilberte!" Then, as if in defiance, with one of<BR>
+those impulses of a woman whom nothing can stop, she struck her horse<BR>
+brutally between the ears. The animal reared in anger, pawed the air<BR>
+with his front feet and, landing again on his feet, gave a bound and<BR>
+darted across the plain at full speed.</P>
+
+<P>First it crossed the meadow, then plunging into a ploughed field<BR>
+kicked up the damp rich earth behind it, going so fast that one could<BR>
+hardly distinguish its rider. Julien remained transfixed with<BR>
+astonishment, calling out in despair: "Madame, madame!" but the comte<BR>
+was rather annoyed, and, bending forward on his heavy mount, he urged<BR>
+it forward and started out at such a pace, spurring it on with his<BR>
+voice, his gestures and the spur, that the huge horseman seemed to be<BR>
+carrying the heavy beast between his legs and to be lifting it up as<BR>
+if to fly. They went at incredible speed, straight ahead, and Jeanne<BR>
+saw the outline of the wife and of the husband fleeing getting smaller<BR>
+and disappearing in the distance, as if they were two birds pursuing<BR>
+each other to the verge of the horizon.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, approaching Jeanne slowly, murmured angrily: "I think she is<BR>
+crazy to-day." And they set out together to follow their friends, who<BR>
+were now hidden by the rising ground.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of about a quarter of an hour they saw them returning and<BR>
+presently joined them. The comte, perspiring, his face red, but<BR>
+smiling, happy and triumphant, was holding his wife's trembling horse<BR>
+in his iron grasp. Gilberte was pale, her face sad and drawn, and she<BR>
+was leaning one hand on her husband's shoulder as if she were going to<BR>
+faint. Jeanne understood now that the comte loved her madly.</P>
+
+<P>After this the comtesse for some months seemed happier than she had<BR>
+ever been. She came to the "Poplars" more frequently, laughed<BR>
+continually and kissed Jeanne impulsively. One might have said that<BR>
+some mysterious charm had come into her life. Her husband was also<BR>
+quite happy and never took his eyes off her. He said to Jeanne one<BR>
+evening: "We are very happy just now. Gilberte has never been so nice<BR>
+as this. She never is out of humor, never gets angry. I feel that she<BR>
+loves me; until now I was not sure of it."</P>
+
+<P>Julien also seemed changed, no longer impatient, as though the<BR>
+friendship between the two families had brought peace and happiness to<BR>
+both. The spring was singularly early and mild. Everything seemed to<BR>
+be coming to life beneath the quickening rays of the sun. Jeanne was<BR>
+vaguely troubled at this awakening of nature. Memories came to her of<BR>
+the early days of her love. Not that her love for Julien was renewed;<BR>
+that was over, over forever. But all her being, caressed by the<BR>
+breeze, filled with the fragrance of spring, was disturbed as though<BR>
+in response to some invisible and tender appeal. She loved to be<BR>
+alone, to give herself up in the sunlight to all kinds of vague and<BR>
+calm enjoyment which did not necessitate thinking.</P>
+
+<P>One morning as she was in a reverie a vision came to her, a swift<BR>
+vision of the sunlit nook amid the dark foliage in the little wood<BR>
+near &Eacute;tretat. It was there that she had for the first time trembled,<BR>
+when beside the young man who loved her then. It was there that he had<BR>
+uttered for the first time the timid desire of his heart. It was there<BR>
+that she thought that she had all at once reached the radiant future<BR>
+of her hopes. She wished to see this wood again, to make a sort of<BR>
+sentimental and superstitious pilgrimage, as though a return to this<BR>
+spot might somehow change the current of her life. Julien had been<BR>
+gone since daybreak, she knew not whither. She had the little white<BR>
+horse, which she sometimes rode, saddled, and she set out. It was one<BR>
+of those days when nothing seemed stirring, not a blade of grass, not<BR>
+a leaf. All seemed wrapped in a golden mist beneath the blazing sun.<BR>
+Jeanne walked her horse, soothed and happy.</P>
+
+<P>She descended into the valley which leads to the sea, between the<BR>
+great arches in the cliff that are called the "Gates" of &Eacute;tretat, and<BR>
+slowly reached the wood. The sunlight was streaming through the still<BR>
+scanty foliage. She wandered about the little paths, looking for the<BR>
+spot.</P>
+
+<P>All at once, as she was going along one of the lower paths, she<BR>
+perceived at the farther end of it two horses tied to a tree and<BR>
+recognized them at once; they belonged to Gilberte and Julien. The<BR>
+loneliness of the place was beginning to be irksome to her, and she<BR>
+was pleased at this chance meeting, and whipped up her horse.</P>
+
+<P>When she reached the two patient animals, who were probably accustomed<BR>
+to these long halts, she called. There was no reply. A woman's glove<BR>
+and two riding whips lay on the beaten-down grass. So they had no<BR>
+doubt sat down there awhile and then walked away leaving their horses<BR>
+tied.</P>
+
+<P>She waited a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, surprised, not<BR>
+understanding what could be keeping them. She had dismounted. She sat<BR>
+there, leaning against a tree trunk. Suddenly a thought came to her as<BR>
+she glanced again at the glove, the whips and the two horses left tied<BR>
+there, and she sprang to her saddle with an irresistible desire to<BR>
+make her escape.</P>
+
+<P>She started off at a gallop for the "Poplars." She was turning things<BR>
+over in her mind, trying to reason, to put two and two together, to<BR>
+compare facts. How was it that she had not suspected this sooner? How<BR>
+was it that she had not noticed anything? How was it she had not<BR>
+guessed the reason of Julien's frequent absences, the renewal of his<BR>
+former attention to his appearance and the improvement in his temper?<BR>
+She now recalled Gilberte's nervous abruptness, her exaggerated<BR>
+affection and the kind of beaming happiness in which she seemed to<BR>
+exist latterly and that so pleased the comte.</P>
+
+<P>She reined in her horse, as she wanted to think, and the quick pace<BR>
+disturbed her ideas.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as the first emotion was over she became almost calm, without<BR>
+jealousy or hatred, but filled with contempt. She hardly gave Julien a<BR>
+thought; nothing he might do could astonish her. But the double<BR>
+treachery of the comtesse, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone, then,<BR>
+was treacherous, untruthful and false. And tears came to her eyes. One<BR>
+sometimes mourns lost illusions as deeply as one does the death of a<BR>
+friend.</P>
+
+<P>She resolved, however, to act as though she knew nothing, to close the<BR>
+doors of her heart to all ordinary affection and to love no one but<BR>
+Paul and her parents and to endure other people with an undisturbed<BR>
+countenance.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as she got home she ran to her son, carried him up to her room<BR>
+and kissed him passionately for an hour.</P>
+
+<P>Julien came home to dinner, smiling and attentive, and appeared<BR>
+interested as he asked: "Are not father and little mother coming this<BR>
+year?"</P>
+
+<P>She was so grateful to him for this little attention that she almost<BR>
+forgave him for the discovery she had made in the wood, and she was<BR>
+filled all of a sudden with an intense desire to see without delay the<BR>
+two beings in the world whom she loved next to Paul, and passed the<BR>
+whole evening writing to them to hasten their journey.</P>
+
+<P>They promised to be there on the 20th of May and it was now the 7th.</P>
+
+<P>She awaited their arrival with a growing impatience, as though she<BR>
+felt, in addition to her filial affection, the need of opening her<BR>
+heart to honest hearts, to talk with frankness to pure-minded people,<BR>
+devoid of all infamy, all of whose life, actions and thoughts had been<BR>
+upright at all times.</P>
+
+<P>What she now felt was a sort of moral isolation, amid all this<BR>
+immorality, and, although she had learned suddenly to disseminate,<BR>
+although she received the comtesse with outstretched hand and smiling<BR>
+lips, she felt this consciousness of hollowness, this contempt for<BR>
+humanity increasing and enveloping her, and the petty gossip of the<BR>
+district gave her a still greater disgust, a still lower opinion of<BR>
+her fellow creatures.</P>
+
+<P>The immorality of the peasants shocked her, and this warm spring<BR>
+seemed to stir the sap in human beings as well as in plants. Jeanne<BR>
+did not belong to the race of peasants who are dominated by their<BR>
+lower instincts. Julien one day awakened her aversion anew by telling<BR>
+her a coarse story that had been told to him and that he considered<BR>
+very amusing.</P>
+
+<P>When the travelling carriage stopped at the door and the happy face of<BR>
+the baron appeared at the window Jeanne was stirred with so deep an<BR>
+emotion, such a tumultuous feeling of affection as she had never<BR>
+before experienced. But when she saw her mother she was shocked and<BR>
+almost fainted. The baroness, in six months, had aged ten years. Her<BR>
+heavy cheeks had grown flabby and purple, as though the blood were<BR>
+congested; her eyes were dim and she could no longer move about unless<BR>
+supported under each arm. Her breathing was difficult and wheezing and<BR>
+affected those near her with a painful sensation.</P>
+
+<P>When Jeanne had taken them to their room, she retired to her own in<BR>
+order to have a good cry, as she was so upset. Then she went to look<BR>
+for her father, and throwing herself into his arms, she exclaimed, her<BR>
+eyes still full of tears: "Oh, how mother is changed! What is the<BR>
+matter with her? Tell me, what is the matter?" He was much surprised<BR>
+and replied: "Do you think so? What an idea! Why, no. I have never<BR>
+been away from her. I assure you that I do not think she looks ill.<BR>
+She always looks like that."</P>
+
+<P>That evening Julien said to his wife: "Your mother is in a pretty bad<BR>
+way. I think she will not last long." And as Jeanne burst out sobbing,<BR>
+he became annoyed. "Come, I did not say there was no hope for her. You<BR>
+always exaggerate everything. She is changed, that's all. She is no<BR>
+longer young."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness was not able to walk any distance and only went out for<BR>
+half an hour each day to take one turn in her avenue and then she<BR>
+would sit on the bench. And when she felt unequal to walking to the<BR>
+end of her avenue, she would say: "Let us stop; my hypertrophy is<BR>
+breaking my legs today." She hardly ever laughed now as she did the<BR>
+previous year at anything that amused her, but only smiled. As she<BR>
+could see to read excellently, she passed hours reading "Corinne" or<BR>
+Lamartine's "Meditations." Then she would ask for her drawer of<BR>
+"souvenirs," and emptying her cherished letters on her lap, she would<BR>
+place the drawer on a chair beside her and put back, one by one, her<BR>
+"relics," after she had slowly gone over them. And when she was alone,<BR>
+quite alone, she would kiss some of them, as one kisses in secret a<BR>
+lock of hair of a loved one passed away.</P>
+
+<P>Sometimes Jeanne, coming in abruptly, would find her weeping and would<BR>
+exclaim: "What is the matter, little mother?" And the baroness,<BR>
+sighing deeply, would reply: "It is my 'relics' that make me cry. They<BR>
+stir remembrances that were so delightful and that are now past<BR>
+forever, and one is reminded of persons whom one had forgotten and<BR>
+recalls once more. You seem to see them, to hear them and it affects<BR>
+you strangely. You will feel this later."</P>
+
+<P>When the baron happened to come in at such times he would say gently:<BR>
+"Jeanne, dearie, take my advice and burn your letters, all of<BR>
+them--your mother's, mine, everyone's. There is nothing more dreadful,<BR>
+when one is growing old, than to look back to one's youth." But Jeanne<BR>
+also kept her letters, was preparing a chest of "relics" in obedience to<BR>
+a sort of hereditary instinct of dreamy sentimentality, although she<BR>
+differed from her mother in every other way.</P>
+
+<P>The baron was obliged to leave them some days later, as he had some<BR>
+business that called him away.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon Jeanne took Paul in her arms and went out for a walk.<BR>
+She was sitting on a bank, gazing at the infant, whom she seemed to be<BR>
+looking at for the first time. She could hardly imagine him grown up,<BR>
+walking with a steady step, with a beard on his face and talking in a<BR>
+big voice. She heard someone calling and raised her head. Marius came<BR>
+running toward her.</P>
+
+<P>"Madame, Madame la Baronne is very bad!"</P>
+
+<P>A cold chill seemed to run down her back as she started up and walked<BR>
+hurriedly toward the house.</P>
+
+<P>As she approached she saw a number of persons grouped around the plane<BR>
+tree. She darted forward and saw her mother lying on the ground with<BR>
+two pillows under her head. Her face was black, her eyes closed and<BR>
+her breathing, which had been difficult for twenty years, now quite<BR>
+hushed. The nurse took the child out of Jeanne's arms and carried it<BR>
+off.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, with drawn, anxious face, asked: "What happened? How did she<BR>
+come to fall? Go for the doctor, somebody." Turning round, she saw the<BR>
+old cur&eacute;, who had heard of it in some way. He offered his services and<BR>
+began rolling up the sleeves of his cassock. But vinegar, eau de<BR>
+cologne and rubbing the invalid proved ineffectual.</P>
+
+<P>"She should be undressed and put to bed," said the priest.</P>
+
+<P>Joseph Couillard, the farmer, was there and old Simon and Ludivine.<BR>
+With the assistance of Abb&eacute; Picot, they tried to lift the baroness,<BR>
+but after an attempt were obliged to bring a large easy chair from the<BR>
+drawing-room and place her in it. In this way they managed to get her<BR>
+into the house and then upstairs, where they laid her on her bed.</P>
+
+<P>Joseph Couillard set out in hot haste for the doctor. As the priest<BR>
+was going to get the holy oil, the nurse, who had "scented a death,"<BR>
+as the servants say, and was on the spot, whispered to him: "Do not<BR>
+put yourself out, monsieur; she is dead. I know all about these<BR>
+things."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, beside herself, entreated them to do something. The priest<BR>
+thought it best to pronounce the absolution.</P>
+
+<P>They watched for two hours beside this lifeless, discolored body.<BR>
+Jeanne, on her knees, was sobbing in an agony of grief.</P>
+
+<P>When the door opened and the doctor appeared, Jeanne darted toward<BR>
+him, stammering out what she knew of the accident, but seeing the<BR>
+nurse exchange a meaning glance with the doctor, she stopped to ask<BR>
+him: "Is it serious? Do you think it is serious?"</P>
+
+<P>He said presently: "I am afraid--I am afraid--it is all over. Be<BR>
+brave, be brave."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, extending her arms, threw herself on her mother's body. Julien<BR>
+just then came in. He stood there amazed, visibly annoyed, without any<BR>
+exclamation of sorrow, any appearance of grief, taken so unawares that<BR>
+he had not time to prepare a suitable expression of countenance. He<BR>
+muttered: "I was expecting it, I felt that the end was near." Then he<BR>
+took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, knelt down, crossed<BR>
+himself, and then rising to his feet, attempted to raise his wife. But<BR>
+she was clasping the dead body and kissing it, and it became necessary<BR>
+to carry her away. She appeared to be out of her mind.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of an hour she was allowed to come back. There was no<BR>
+longer any hope. The room was arranged as a death chamber. Julien and<BR>
+the priest were talking in a low tone near the window. It was growing<BR>
+dark. The priest came over to Jeanne and took her hands, trying to<BR>
+console her. He spoke of the defunct, praised her in pious phrases and<BR>
+offered to pass the night in prayer beside the body.</P>
+
+<P>But Jeanne refused, amid convulsive sobs. She wished to be alone,<BR>
+quite alone on this last night of farewell. Julien came forward: "But<BR>
+you must not do it; we will stay together." She shook her head, unable<BR>
+to speak. At last she said: "It is my mother, my mother. I wish to<BR>
+watch beside her alone." The doctor murmured: "Let her do as she<BR>
+pleases; the nurse can stay in the adjoining room."</P>
+
+<P>The priest and Julien consented, more interested in their own rest.<BR>
+Then Abb&eacute; Picot knelt down in his turn, and as he rose and left the<BR>
+room, he said: "She was a saint" in the same tone as he said "Dominus<BR>
+vobiscum."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte in his ordinary tone then asked: "Are you not going to eat<BR>
+something?" Jeanne did not reply, not knowing he was speaking to her,<BR>
+and he repeated: "You had better eat something to keep up your<BR>
+stomach." She replied in a bewildered manner: "Send at once for papa."<BR>
+And he went out of the room to send someone on horseback to Rouen.</P>
+
+<P>She remained plunged in a sort of motionless grief, seeing nothing,<BR>
+feeling nothing, understanding nothing. She only wanted to be alone.<BR>
+Julien came back. He had dined and he asked her again: "Won't you take<BR>
+something?" She shook her head. He sat down with an air of resignation<BR>
+rather than sadness, without speaking, and they both sat there silent,<BR>
+till at length Julien arose, and approaching Jeanne, said: "Would you<BR>
+like to stay alone now?" She took his hand impulsively and replied:<BR>
+"Oh, yes! leave me!"</P>
+
+<P>He kissed her forehead, murmuring: "I will come in and see you from<BR>
+time to time." He went out with Widow Dentu, who rolled her easy chair<BR>
+into the next room.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne shut the door and opened the windows wide. She felt the soft<BR>
+breath from the mown hay that lay in the moonlight on the lawn. It<BR>
+seemed to harrow her feelings like an ironical remark.</P>
+
+<P>She went back to the bed, took one of the cold, inert hands and looked<BR>
+at her mother earnestly. She seemed to be sleeping more peacefully<BR>
+than she had ever done, and the pale flame of the tapers which<BR>
+flickered at every breath made her face appear to be alive, as if she<BR>
+had stirred. Jeanne remembered all the little incidents of her<BR>
+childhood, the visits of little mother to the "parloir" of the<BR>
+convent, the manner in which she handed her a little paper bag of<BR>
+cakes, a multitude of little details, little acts, little caresses,<BR>
+words, intonations, familiar gestures, the creases at the corner of<BR>
+her eyes when she laughed, the big sigh she gave when she sat down.</P>
+
+<P>And she stood there looking at her, repeating half mechanically: "She<BR>
+is dead," and all the horror of the word became real to her. It was<BR>
+mamma lying there--little mother--Mamma Adelaide who was dead. She<BR>
+would never move about again, nor speak, nor laugh, nor sit at dinner<BR>
+opposite little father. She would never again say: "Good-morning,<BR>
+Jeannette." She was dead!</P>
+
+<P>And she fell on her knees in a paroxysm of despair, her hands<BR>
+clutching the sheet, her face buried in the covers as she cried in a<BR>
+heartrending tone: "Oh, mamma, my poor mamma!" Then feeling that she<BR>
+was losing her reason as she had done on the night when she fled<BR>
+across the snow, she rose and ran to the window to drink in the fresh<BR>
+air. The soothing calmness of the night entered her soul and she began<BR>
+to weep quietly.</P>
+
+<P>Presently she turned back into the room and sat down again beside<BR>
+her mother. Other remembrances came to her: those of her own<BR>
+life--Rosalie, Gilberte, the bitter disillusions of her heart.<BR>
+Everything, then, was only misery, grief, unhappiness and death.<BR>
+Everyone tried to deceive, everyone lied, everyone made you suffer and<BR>
+weep. Where could one find a little rest and happiness? In another<BR>
+existence no doubt, when the soul is freed from the trials of earth.<BR>
+And she began to ponder on this insoluble mystery.</P>
+
+<P>A tender and curious thought came to her mind. It was to read over in<BR>
+this last watch, as though they were a litany, the old letters that<BR>
+her mother loved. It seemed to her that she was about to perform a<BR>
+delicate and sacred duty which would give pleasure to little mother in<BR>
+the other world.</P>
+
+<P>She rose, opened the writing desk and took from the lower drawer ten<BR>
+little packages of yellow letters, tied and arranged in order, side by<BR>
+side. She placed them all on the bed over her mother's heart from a<BR>
+sort of sentiment and began to read them. They were old letters that<BR>
+savored of a former century. The first began, "My dear little<BR>
+granddaughter," then again "My dear little girl," "My darling," "My<BR>
+dearest daughter," then "My dear child," "My dear Adelaide," "My dear<BR>
+daughter," according to the periods--childhood, youth or young<BR>
+womanhood. They were all full of little insignificant details and<BR>
+tender words, about a thousand little matters, those simple but<BR>
+important events of home life, so petty to outsiders: "Father has the<BR>
+grip; poor Hortense burnt her finger; the cat, 'Croquerat,' is dead;<BR>
+they have cut down the pine tree to the right of the gate; mother lost<BR>
+her prayerbook on the way home from church, she thinks it was stolen."</P>
+
+<P>All these details affected her. They seemed like revelations, as<BR>
+though she had suddenly entered the past secret heart life of little<BR>
+mother. She looked at her lying there and suddenly began to read<BR>
+aloud, to read to the dead, as though to distract, to console her.</P>
+
+<P>And the dead woman appeared to be pleased.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne tossed the letters as she read them to the foot of the bed. She<BR>
+untied another package. It was a new handwriting. She read: "I cannot<BR>
+do without your caresses. I love you so that I am almost crazy."</P>
+
+<P>That was all; no signature.</P>
+
+<P>She put back the letter without understanding its meaning. The address<BR>
+was certainly "Madame la Baronne Le Perthuis des Vauds."</P>
+
+<P>Then she opened another: "Come this evening as soon as he goes out; we<BR>
+shall have an hour together. I worship you." In another: "I passed the<BR>
+night longing in vain for you, longing to look into your eyes, to<BR>
+press my lips to yours, and I am insane enough to throw myself from<BR>
+the window at the thought that you are another's...."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was perfectly bewildered. What did that mean? To whom, for<BR>
+whom, from whom were these words of love?</P>
+
+<P>She went on reading, coming across fresh impassioned declarations,<BR>
+appointments with warnings as to prudence, and always at the end the<BR>
+six words: "Be sure to burn this letter!"</P>
+
+<P>At last she opened an ordinary note, accepting an invitation to<BR>
+dinner, but in the same handwriting and signed: "Paul d'Ennemare,"<BR>
+whom the baron called, whenever he spoke of him, "My poor old Paul,"<BR>
+and whose wife had been the baroness' dearest friend.</P>
+
+<P>Then a suspicion, which immediately became a certainty, flashed across<BR>
+Jeanne's mind: He had been her mother's lover.</P>
+
+<P>And, almost beside herself, she suddenly threw aside these infamous<BR>
+letters as she would have thrown off some venomous reptile and ran to<BR>
+the window and began to cry piteously. Then, collapsing, she sank down<BR>
+beside the wall, and hiding her face in the curtain so that no one<BR>
+should hear her, she sobbed bitterly as if in hopeless despair.</P>
+
+<P>She would have remained thus probably all night, if she had not heard<BR>
+a noise in the adjoining room that made her start to her feet. It<BR>
+might be her father. And all the letters were lying on the floor! He<BR>
+would have to open only one of them to know all! Her father!</P>
+
+<P>She darted into the other room and seizing the letters in handfuls,<BR>
+she threw them all into the fireplace, those of her grandparents as<BR>
+well as those of the lover; some that she had not looked at and some<BR>
+that had remained tied up in the drawers of the desk. She then took<BR>
+one of the tapers that burned beside the bed and set fire to this pile<BR>
+of letters. When they were reduced to ashes she went back to the open<BR>
+window, as though she no longer dared to sit beside the dead, and<BR>
+began to cry again with her face in her hands: "Oh, my poor mamma! oh,<BR>
+my poor mamma!"</P>
+
+<P>The stars were paling. It was the cool hour that precedes the dawn.<BR>
+The moon was sinking on the horizon and turning the sea to mother of<BR>
+pearl. The recollection of the night she passed at the window when she<BR>
+first came to the "Poplars" came to Jeanne's mind. How far away it<BR>
+seemed, how everything was changed, how different the future now<BR>
+seemed!</P>
+
+<P>The sky was becoming pink, a joyous, love-inspiring, enchanting pink.<BR>
+She looked at it in surprise, as at some phenomenon, this radiant<BR>
+break of day, and asked herself if it were possible that, on a planet<BR>
+where such dawns were found, there should be neither joy nor<BR>
+happiness.</P>
+
+<P>A noise at the door made her start. It was Julien. "Well," he said,<BR>
+"are you not very tired?"</P>
+
+<P>She murmured, "No," happy at being no longer alone. "Go and rest now,"<BR>
+he said. She kissed her mother a long, sad kiss; then she went to her<BR>
+room.</P>
+
+<P>The next day passed in the usual attentions to the dead. The baron<BR>
+arrived toward evening. He wept for some time.</P>
+
+<P>The funeral took place the following day. After pressing a last kiss<BR>
+on her mother's icy forehead and seeing the coffin nailed down, Jeanne<BR>
+left the room. The invited guests would soon arrive.</P>
+
+<P>Gilberte was the first to come, and she threw herself sobbing on her<BR>
+friend's shoulder. Women in black presently entered the room one after<BR>
+another, people whom Jeanne did not know. The Marquise de Coutelier<BR>
+and the Vicomtesse de Briseville embraced her. She suddenly saw Aunt<BR>
+Lison gliding in behind her. She turned round and kissed her tenderly.</P>
+
+<P>Julien came in, dressed all in black, elegant, very important, pleased<BR>
+at seeing so many people. He asked his wife some question in a low<BR>
+tone and added confidentially: "All the nobility are here; it will be<BR>
+a fine affair." And he walked away, gravely bowing to the ladies. Aunt<BR>
+Lison and Comtesse Gilberte alone remained with Jeanne during the<BR>
+service for the dead. The comtesse kissed her repeatedly, exclaiming:<BR>
+"My poor dear, my poor dear!"</P>
+
+<P>When Comte de Fourville came to fetch his wife he was also crying as<BR>
+though it were for his own mother.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="X">CHAPTER X</a></h4>
+
+<h5>RETRIBUTION</h5>
+
+<P>The following days were very sad and dreary, as they always are when<BR>
+there has been a death in the house. And, in addition, Jeanne was<BR>
+crushed at the thought of what she had discovered; her last shred of<BR>
+confidence had been destroyed with the destruction of her faith.<BR>
+Little father, after a short stay, went away to try and distract his<BR>
+thoughts from his grief, and the large house, whose former masters<BR>
+were leaving it from time to time, resumed its usual calm and<BR>
+monotonous course.</P>
+
+<P>Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne was almost beside herself, not sleeping<BR>
+for ten days, and scarcely tasting food. He recovered, but she was<BR>
+haunted by the idea that he might die. Then what should she do? What<BR>
+would become of her? And there gradually stole into her heart the hope<BR>
+that she might have another child. She dreamed of it, became obsessed<BR>
+with the idea. She longed to realize her old dream of seeing two<BR>
+little children around her; a boy and a girl.</P>
+
+<P>But since the affair of Rosalie she and Julien had lived apart. A<BR>
+reconciliation seemed impossible in their present situation. Julien<BR>
+loved some one else, she knew it; and the very thought of suffering<BR>
+his approach filled her with repugnance. She had no one left whom she<BR>
+could consult. She resolved to go and see Abb&eacute; Picot and tell him,<BR>
+under the seal of confession, all that weighed upon her mind in this<BR>
+matter.</P>
+
+<P>He was reading from his breviary in his little garden planted with<BR>
+fruit trees when she arrived.</P>
+
+<P>After a few minutes' conversation on indifferent matters, she<BR>
+faltered, her color rising: "I want to confess, Monsieur l'Abb&eacute;."</P>
+
+<P>He looked at her in astonishment, as he pushed his spectacles back on<BR>
+his forehead; then he began to laugh. "You surely have no great sins<BR>
+on your conscience." This embarrassed her greatly, and she replied:<BR>
+"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject that is so--so--so<BR>
+painful that I dare not mention it casually."</P>
+
+<P>He at once laid aside his jovial manner and assumed his priestly<BR>
+attitude. "Well, my child, I will listen to you in the confessional;<BR>
+come along."</P>
+
+<P>But she held back, undecided, restrained by a kind of scruple at<BR>
+speaking of these matters, of which she was half ashamed, in the<BR>
+seclusion of an empty church.</P>
+
+<P>"Or else, no--Monsieur le Cur&eacute;--I might--I might--if you wish, tell<BR>
+you now what brings me here. Let us go and sit over there, in your<BR>
+little arbor."</P>
+
+<P>They walked toward it, and Jeanne tried to think how she could begin.<BR>
+They sat down in the arbor, and then, as if she were confessing<BR>
+herself, she said: "Father----" then hesitated, and repeated:<BR>
+"Father----" and was silent from emotion.</P>
+
+<P>He waited, his hands crossed over his paunch. Seeing her<BR>
+embarrassment, he sought to encourage her: "Why, my daughter, one<BR>
+would suppose you were afraid; come, take courage."</P>
+
+<P>She plucked up courage, like a coward who plunges headlong into<BR>
+danger. "Father, I should like to have another child." He did not<BR>
+reply, as he did not understand her. Then she explained, timid and<BR>
+unable to express herself clearly:</P>
+
+<P>"I am all alone in life now; my father and my husband do not get along<BR>
+together; my mother is dead; and--and----" she added with a shudder,<BR>
+"the other day I nearly lost my son! What would have become of me<BR>
+then?"</P>
+
+<P>She was silent. The priest, bewildered, was gazing at her. "Come, get<BR>
+to the point of your subject."</P>
+
+<P>"I want to have another child," she said. Then he smiled, accustomed<BR>
+to the coarse jokes of the peasants, who were not embarrassed in his<BR>
+presence, and he replied, with a sly motion of his head:</P>
+
+<P>"Well, it seems to me that it depends only on yourself."</P>
+
+<P>She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said, hesitating with<BR>
+confusion: "But--but--you understand that since--since--what you know<BR>
+about--about that maid--my husband and I have lived--have lived quite<BR>
+apart."</P>
+
+<P>Accustomed to the promiscuity and undignified relations of the<BR>
+peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought<BR>
+he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of<BR>
+the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of<BR>
+sympathy for her distress, he said: "Oh, I understand perfectly. I<BR>
+know that your widowhood must be irksome to you. You are young and in<BR>
+good health. It is natural, quite natural."</P>
+
+<P>He smiled, bearing out his easy-going character of a country priest,<BR>
+and tapping Jeanne lightly on the hand, he said: "That is permissible,<BR>
+very permissible indeed, according to the commandments. You are<BR>
+married, are you not? Well, then, what is the harm?"</P>
+
+<P>She, in her turn, had not understood his hidden meaning; but as soon<BR>
+as she saw through it, she blushed scarlet, shocked, and with tears in<BR>
+her eyes exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur le Cur&eacute;, what are you saying? What<BR>
+are you thinking of? I swear to you--I swear to you----" And sobs<BR>
+choked her words.</P>
+
+<P>He was surprised and sought to console her: "Come, I did not mean to<BR>
+hurt your feelings. I was only joking a little; there is no harm in<BR>
+that when one is decent. But you may rely on me, you may rely on me. I<BR>
+will see M. Julien."</P>
+
+<P>She did not know what to say. She now wished to decline this<BR>
+intervention, which she thought clumsy and dangerous, but she did not<BR>
+dare to do so, and she went away hurriedly, faltering: "I am grateful<BR>
+to you, Monsieur le Cur&eacute;."</P>
+
+<P>A week passed. One day at dinner Julien looked at her with a peculiar<BR>
+expression, a certain smiling curve of the lips that she had noticed<BR>
+when he was teasing her. He was even almost ironically gallant toward<BR>
+her, and as they were walking after dinner in little mother's avenue,<BR>
+he said in a low tone: "We seem to have made up again."</P>
+
+<P>She did not reply, but continued to look on the ground at a sort of<BR>
+track that was almost effaced now that the grass was sprouting anew.<BR>
+They were the footprints of the baroness, which were vanishing as does<BR>
+a memory. And Jeanne was plunged in sadness; she felt herself lost in<BR>
+life, far away from everyone.</P>
+
+<P>"As for me, I ask nothing better. I was afraid of displeasing you,"<BR>
+continued Julien.</P>
+
+<P>The sun was going down, the air was mild. A longing to weep came over<BR>
+Jeanne, one of those needs of unbosoming oneself to a kindred spirit,<BR>
+of unbending and telling one's griefs. A sob rose in her throat; she<BR>
+opened her arms and fell on Julien's breast, and wept. He glanced down<BR>
+in surprise at her head, for he could not see her face which was<BR>
+hidden on his shoulder. He supposed that she still loved him, and<BR>
+placed a condescending kiss on the back of her head.</P>
+
+<P>They entered the house and he followed her to her room. And thus they<BR>
+resumed their former relations, he, as a not unpleasant duty, and she,<BR>
+merely tolerating him.</P>
+
+<P>She soon noticed, however, that his manner had changed, and one day<BR>
+with her lips to his, she murmured: "Why are you not the same as you<BR>
+used to be?"</P>
+
+<P>"Because I do not want any more children," he said jokingly.</P>
+
+<P>She started. "Why not?"</P>
+
+<P>He appeared greatly surprised. "Eh, what's that you say? Are you<BR>
+crazy? No, indeed! One is enough, always crying and bothering<BR>
+everyone. Another baby! No, thank you!"</P>
+
+<P>At the end of a month she told the news to everyone, far and wide,<BR>
+with the exception of Comtesse Gilberte, from reasons of modesty and<BR>
+delicacy.</P>
+
+<P>What the priest had foreseen finally came to pass. She became<BR>
+enceinte. Then, filled with an unspeakable happiness, she locked her<BR>
+door every night when she retired, vowing herself from henceforth to<BR>
+eternal chastity, in gratitude to the vague divinity she adored.</P>
+
+<P>She was now almost quite happy again. Her children would grow up and<BR>
+love her; she would grow old quietly, happy and contented, without<BR>
+troubling herself about her husband.</P>
+
+<P>Toward the end of September, Abb&eacute; Picot called on a visit of ceremony<BR>
+to introduce his successor, a young priest, very thin, very short,<BR>
+with an emphatic way of talking, and with dark circles round his<BR>
+sunken eyes.</P>
+
+<P>The old abb&eacute; had been appointed Dean of Goderville.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was really sorry to lose the old man, who had been associated<BR>
+with all her recollections as a young woman. He had married her,<BR>
+baptized Paul, and buried the baroness. She could not imagine &Eacute;touvent<BR>
+without Abb&eacute; Picot and his paunch passing along by the farms, and she<BR>
+loved him because he was cheerful and natural.</P>
+
+<P>But he did not seem very cheerful at the thought of his promotion. "It<BR>
+is a wrench, it is a wrench, madame la comtesse. I have been here for<BR>
+eighteen years. Oh, the place does not bring in much, and is not<BR>
+wealthy. The men have no more religion than they need, and the women,<BR>
+look you, the women have no morals. But nevertheless, I loved it."</P>
+
+<P>The new cur&eacute; appeared impatient, and said abruptly: "When I am here<BR>
+all that will have to be changed." He looked like an angry boy, thin<BR>
+and frail in his somewhat worn, though clean cassock.</P>
+
+<P>Abb&eacute; Picot looked at him sideways, as he did when he was in a joking<BR>
+mood, and said: "You see, abb&eacute;, in order to prevent those happenings,<BR>
+you will have to chain up your parishioners; and even that would not<BR>
+be of much use." The little priest replied sharply: "We shall see."<BR>
+And the older man smiled as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age<BR>
+will calm you down, abb&eacute;, and experience also. You will drive away<BR>
+from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good<BR>
+it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be<BR>
+careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather<BR>
+stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I<BR>
+try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes;<BR>
+but you can go and look for the man, and prevent him from deserting<BR>
+the mother. Get them married, abb&eacute;, get them married, and do not<BR>
+trouble yourself about anything else."</P>
+
+<P>"We think differently," said the young priest rudely; "it is useless<BR>
+to insist." And Abb&eacute; Picot once more began to regret his village, the<BR>
+sea which he saw from his parsonage, the little valleys where he<BR>
+walked while repeating his breviary, glancing up at the boats as they<BR>
+passed.</P>
+
+<P>As the two priests took their leave, the old man kissed Jeanne, who<BR>
+was on the verge of tears.</P>
+
+<P>A week later Abb&eacute; Tolbiac called again. He spoke of reforms which he<BR>
+intended to accomplish, as a prince might have done on taking<BR>
+possession of a kingdom. Then he requested the vicomtesse not to miss<BR>
+the service on Sunday, and to communicate a all the festivals. "You<BR>
+and I," he said, "we are at the head of the district; we must rule it<BR>
+and always set them an example to follow. We must be of one accord so<BR>
+that we may be powerful and respected. The church and the ch&acirc;teau in<BR>
+joining forces will make the peasants obey and fear us."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne's religion was all sentiment; she had all a woman's dream<BR>
+faith, and if she attended at all to her religious duties, it was from<BR>
+a habit acquired at the convent, the baron's advanced ideas having<BR>
+long since overthrown her convictions. Abb&eacute; Picot contented himself<BR>
+with what observances she gave him, and never blamed her. But his<BR>
+successor, not seeing her at mass the preceding Sunday, had come to<BR>
+call, uneasy and stern.</P>
+
+<P>She did not wish to break with the parsonage, and promised, making up<BR>
+her mind to be assiduous in attendance the first few weeks, out of<BR>
+politeness.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little, however, she got into the habit of going to church,<BR>
+and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial<BR>
+abb&eacute;. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set<BR>
+in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women<BR>
+possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human<BR>
+interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience,<BR>
+his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the<BR>
+stuff martyrs were made of; and she let herself be carried away, all<BR>
+disillusioned as she was, by the fanaticism of this child, the<BR>
+minister of God.</P>
+
+<P>He led her to Christ, the consoler, showing her how the joy of<BR>
+religion will calm all sorrow; and she knelt at the confessional,<BR>
+humbling herself, feeling herself small and weak in presence of this<BR>
+priest, who appeared to be about fifteen.</P>
+
+<P>He was, however, very soon detested in all the countryside. Inflexibly<BR>
+severe toward himself, he was implacably intolerant toward others, and<BR>
+the one thing that especially roused his wrath and indignation was<BR>
+love. The young men and girls looked at each other slyly across the<BR>
+church, and the old peasants who liked to joke about such things<BR>
+disapproved his severity. All the parish was in a ferment. Soon the<BR>
+young men all stopped going to church.</P>
+
+<P>The cur&eacute; dined at the ch&acirc;teau every Thursday, and often came during<BR>
+the week to chat with his penitent. She became enthusiastic like<BR>
+himself, talked about spiritual matters, handling all the antique and<BR>
+complicated arsenal of religious controversy.</P>
+
+<P>They walked together along the baroness' avenue, talking of Christ and<BR>
+the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Fathers of the Church as though<BR>
+they were personally acquainted with them.</P>
+
+<P>Julien treated the new priest with great respect, saying constantly:<BR>
+"That priest suits me, he does not back down." And he went to<BR>
+confession and communion, setting a fine example. He now went to the<BR>
+Fourvilles' nearly every day, gunning with the husband, who was never<BR>
+happy without him, and riding with the comtesse, in spite of rain and<BR>
+storm. The comte said: "They are crazy about riding, but it does my<BR>
+wife good."</P>
+
+<P>The baron returned to the ch&acirc;teau about the middle of November. He was<BR>
+changed, aged, faded, filled with a deep sadness. And his love for his<BR>
+daughter seemed to have gained in strength, as if these few months of<BR>
+dreary solitude had aggravated his need of affection, confidence and<BR>
+tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her<BR>
+friendship for the Abb&eacute; Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he<BR>
+conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that<BR>
+evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He<BR>
+must be very dangerous."</P>
+
+<P>When he learned from the peasants, whose friend he was, of the<BR>
+harshness and violence of the young priest, of the kind of persecution<BR>
+which he carried on against all human and natural instincts, he<BR>
+developed a hatred toward him. He, himself, was one of the old race of<BR>
+natural philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic<BR>
+Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a God with<BR>
+bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him<BR>
+reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to<BR>
+farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant priest, the persecutor<BR>
+of life.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, very much worried, prayed to the Lord, entreated her father;<BR>
+but he always replied: "We must fight such men as that, it is our duty<BR>
+and our right. They are not human."</P>
+
+<P>And he repeated, shaking his long white locks: "They are not human;<BR>
+they understand nothing, nothing, nothing. They are moving in a morbid<BR>
+dream; they are anti-physical." And he pronounced the word<BR>
+"anti-physical" as though it were a malediction.</P>
+
+<P>The priest knew who his enemy was, but as he wished to remain ruler of<BR>
+the ch&acirc;teau and of Jeanne, he temporized, sure of final victory. He<BR>
+was also haunted by a fixed idea. He had discovered by chance the<BR>
+amours of Julien and Gilberte, and he desired to put a stop to them at<BR>
+all costs.</P>
+
+<P>He came to see Jeanne one day and, after a long conversation on<BR>
+spiritual matters, he asked her to give her aid in helping him to<BR>
+fight, to put an end to the evil in her own family, in order to save<BR>
+two souls that were in danger.</P>
+
+<P>She did not understand, and did not wish to know. He replied: "The<BR>
+hour has not arrived. I shall see you some other time." And he left<BR>
+abruptly.</P>
+
+<P>The winter was coming to a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the<BR>
+country, damp and mild. The abb&eacute; called again some days later and<BR>
+hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between<BR>
+persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he<BR>
+said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring<BR>
+it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes<BR>
+and understand and lend him her aid.</P>
+
+<P>This time she understood, but she was silent, terrified at the thought<BR>
+of all that might result in the house that was now peaceful, and she<BR>
+pretended not to understand. Then he spoke out clearly.</P>
+
+<P>She faltered: "What do you wish me to do, Monsieur l'Abb&eacute;?"</P>
+
+<P>"Anything, rather than permit this infamy. Anything, I say. Leave him.<BR>
+Flee from this impure house!"</P>
+
+<P>"But I have no money; and then I have no longer any courage; and,<BR>
+besides, how can I go without any proof? I have not the right to do<BR>
+so."</P>
+
+<P>The priest arose trembling: "That is cowardice, madame; I am mistaken<BR>
+in you. You are unworthy of God's mercy!"</P>
+
+<P>She fell on her knees: "Oh, I pray you not to leave me, tell me what<BR>
+to do!"</P>
+
+<P>"Open M. de Fourville's eyes," he said abruptly. "It is his place to<BR>
+break up this intrigue."</P>
+
+<P>This idea filled her with terror. "Why, he would kill them, Monsieur<BR>
+l'Abb&eacute;! And I should be guilty of denouncing them! Oh, never that,<BR>
+never!"</P>
+
+<P>He raised his hand as if to curse her in his fury: "Remain in your<BR>
+shame and your crime; for you are more guilty than they are. You are<BR>
+the complaisant wife! There is nothing more for me to do here." And he<BR>
+went off so furious that he trembled all over.</P>
+
+<P>She followed him, distracted and ready to do as he suggested. But he<BR>
+strode along rapidly, shaking his large blue umbrella in his rage. He<BR>
+perceived Julien standing outside the gate superintending the lopping<BR>
+of the trees, so he turned to the left to go across the Couillard<BR>
+farm, and he said: "Leave me alone, madame, I have nothing further to<BR>
+say to you."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was entreating him to give her a few days for reflection, and<BR>
+then if he came back to the ch&acirc;teau she would tell him what she had<BR>
+done, and they could take counsel together.</P>
+
+<P>Right in his road, in the middle of the farmyard, a group of children,<BR>
+those of the house and some neighbor's children, were standing around<BR>
+the kennel of Mirza, the dog, looking curiously at something with<BR>
+silent and concentrated attention. In the midst of them stood the<BR>
+baron, his hands behind his back, also looking on with curiosity. One<BR>
+would have taken him for a schoolmaster. When he saw the priest<BR>
+approaching, he moved away so as not to have to meet him and speak to<BR>
+him.</P>
+
+<P>The priest did not call again; but the following Sunday from the<BR>
+pulpit he hurled imprecations, curses and threats against the ch&acirc;teau,<BR>
+anathematizing the baron, and making veiled allusions, but timidly, to<BR>
+Julien's latest intrigue. The vicomte was furious, but the dread of a<BR>
+shocking scandal kept him silent. At each service thereafter the<BR>
+priest declared his indignation, predicting the approach of the hour<BR>
+when God would smite all his enemies.</P>
+
+<P>Julien wrote a firm, but respectful letter to the archbishop; the abb&eacute;<BR>
+was threatened with suspension. He was silent thereafter.</P>
+
+<P>Gilberte and Julien now frequently met him during their rides reading<BR>
+his breviary, but they turned aside so as not to pass him by. Spring<BR>
+had come and reawakened their love. As the foliage was still sparse<BR>
+and the grass damp, they used to meet in a shepherd's movable hut that<BR>
+had been deserted since autumn. But one day when they were leaving it,<BR>
+they saw the Abb&eacute; Tolbiac, almost hidden in the sea rushes on the<BR>
+slope.</P>
+
+<P>"We must leave our horses in the ravine," said Julien, "as they can be<BR>
+seen from a distance and would betray us." One evening as they were<BR>
+coming home together to La Vrillette, where they were to dine with the<BR>
+comte, they met the cur&eacute; of &Eacute;touvent coming out of the ch&acirc;teau. He<BR>
+stepped to the side of the road to let them pass, and bowed without<BR>
+their eyes meeting. They were uneasy for a few moments, but soon<BR>
+forgot it.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon, Jeanne was reading beside the fire while a storm of<BR>
+wind was raging outside, when she suddenly perceived Comte Fourville<BR>
+coming on foot at such a pace that she thought some misfortune had<BR>
+happened.</P>
+
+<P>She ran downstairs to meet him, and when she saw him she thought he<BR>
+must be crazy. He wore a large quilted cap that he wore only at home,<BR>
+his hunting jacket, and looked so pale that his red mustache, usually<BR>
+the color of his skin, now seemed like a flame. His eyes were haggard,<BR>
+rolling as though his mind were vacant.</P>
+
+<P>He stammered: "My wife is here, is she not?" Jeanne, losing her<BR>
+presence of mind, replied: "Why, no, I have not seen her to-day."</P>
+
+<P>He sat down as if his legs had given way. He then took off his cap and<BR>
+wiped his forehead with his handkerchief mechanically several times.<BR>
+Then starting up suddenly, he approached Jeanne, his hands stretched<BR>
+out, his mouth open, as if to speak, to confide some great sorrow to<BR>
+her. Then he stopped, looked at her fixedly and said as though he were<BR>
+wandering: "But it is your husband--you also----" And he fled, going<BR>
+toward the sea.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne ran after him, calling him, imploring him to stop, her heart<BR>
+beating with apprehension as she thought: "He knows all! What will he<BR>
+do? Oh, if he only does not find them!"</P>
+
+<P>But she could not come up to him, and he disregarded her appeals. He<BR>
+went straight ahead without hesitation, straight to his goal. He<BR>
+crossed the ditch, then, stalking through the sea rushes like a giant,<BR>
+he reached the cliff.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, standing on the mound covered with trees, followed him with<BR>
+her eyes until he was out of sight. Then she went into the house,<BR>
+distracted with grief.</P>
+
+<P>He had turned to the right and started to run. Threatening waves<BR>
+overspread the sea, big black clouds were scudding along madly,<BR>
+passing on and followed by others, each of them coming down in a<BR>
+furious downpour. The wind whistled, moaned, laid the grass and the<BR>
+young crops low and carried away big white birds that looked like<BR>
+specks of foam and bore them far into the land.</P>
+
+<P>The hail which followed beat in the comte's face, filling his ears<BR>
+with noise and his heart with tumult.</P>
+
+<P>Down yonder before him was the deep gorge of the Val de Vaucotte.<BR>
+There was nothing before him but a shepherd's hut beside a deserted<BR>
+sheep pasture. Two horses were tied to the shafts of the hut on<BR>
+wheels. What might not happen to one in such a tempest as this?</P>
+
+<P>As soon as he saw them the comte crouched on the ground and crawled<BR>
+along on his hands and knees as far as the lonely hut and hid himself<BR>
+beneath the hut that he might not be seen through the cracks. The<BR>
+horses on seeing him became restive. He slowly cut their reins with<BR>
+the knife which he held open in his hand, and a sudden squall coming<BR>
+up, the animals fled, frightened at the hail which rattled on the<BR>
+sloping roof of the wooden hut and made it shake on its wheels.</P>
+
+<P>The comte then kneeling upright, put his eye to the bottom of the door<BR>
+and looked inside. He did not stir; he seemed to be waiting.</P>
+
+<P>A little time elapsed and then he suddenly rose to his feet, covered<BR>
+with mud from head to foot. He frantically pushed back the bolt which<BR>
+closed the hut on the outside, and seizing the shafts, he began to<BR>
+shake the hut as though he would break it to pieces. Then all at once<BR>
+he got between the shafts, bending his huge frame, and with a<BR>
+desperate effort dragged it along like an ox, panting as he went. He<BR>
+dragged it, with whoever was in it, toward the steep incline.</P>
+
+<P>Those inside screamed and banged with their fists on the door, not<BR>
+understanding what was going on.</P>
+
+<P>When he reached the top of the cliff he let go the fragile dwelling,<BR>
+which began to roll down the incline, going ever faster and faster,<BR>
+plunging, stumbling like an animal and striking the ground with its<BR>
+shafts.</P>
+
+<P>An old beggar hidden in a ditch saw it flying over his head and heard<BR>
+frightful screams coming from the wooden box.</P>
+
+<P>All at once a wheel was wrenched off and it fell on its side and began<BR>
+to roll like a ball, as a house torn from its foundations might roll<BR>
+from the summit of a mountain. Then, reaching the ledge of the last<BR>
+ravine, it described a circle, and, falling to the bottom, burst open<BR>
+as an egg might do. It was no sooner smashed on the stones than the<BR>
+old beggar, who had seen it going past, went down toward it slowly<BR>
+amid the rushes, and with the customary caution of a peasant, not<BR>
+daring to go directly to the shattered hut, he went to the nearest<BR>
+farm to tell of the accident.</P>
+
+<P>They all ran to look at it and raised the wreck of the hut. They found<BR>
+two bodies, bruised, crushed and bleeding. The man's forehead was<BR>
+split open and his whole face crushed; the woman's jaw was hanging,<BR>
+dislocated in one of the jolts, and their shattered limbs were soft as<BR>
+pulp.</P>
+
+<P>"What were they doing in that shanty?" said a woman.</P>
+
+<P>The old beggar then said that they had apparently taken refuge in it<BR>
+to get out of the storm and that a furious squall must have blown the<BR>
+hut over the cliff. He said he had intended to take shelter there<BR>
+himself, when he saw the horses tied to it, and understood that some<BR>
+one else must be inside. "But for that," he added in a satisfied tone,<BR>
+"I might have rolled down in it." Some one remarked: "Would not that<BR>
+have been a good thing?"</P>
+
+<P>The old man, in a furious rage, said: "Why would it have been a good<BR>
+thing? Because I am poor and they are rich! Look at them now." And<BR>
+trembling, ragged and dripping with rain, he pointed to the two dead<BR>
+bodies with his hooked stick and exclaimed: "We are all alike when we<BR>
+get to this."</P>
+
+<P>The comte, as soon as he saw the hut rolling down the steep slope, ran<BR>
+off at full speed through the blinding storm. He ran in this way for<BR>
+several hours, taking short cuts, leaping across ditches, breaking<BR>
+through the hedges, and thus got back home at dusk, not knowing how<BR>
+himself.</P>
+
+<P>The frightened servants were awaiting his return and told him that the<BR>
+two horses had returned riderless some little time before, that of<BR>
+Julien following the other one.</P>
+
+<P>Then M. de Fourville reeled and in a choked voice said: "Something<BR>
+must have happened to them in this dreadful weather. Let every one<BR>
+help to look for them."</P>
+
+<P>He started off himself, but he was no sooner out of sight than he<BR>
+concealed himself in a clump of bushes, watching the road along which<BR>
+she whom he even still loved with an almost savage passion was to<BR>
+return dead, dying or maybe crippled and disfigured forever.</P>
+
+<P>And soon a carriole passed by carrying a strange burden.</P>
+
+<P>It stopped at the ch&acirc;teau and passed through the gate. It was that, it<BR>
+was she. But a fearful anguish nailed him to the spot, a fear to know<BR>
+the worst, a dread of the truth, and he did not stir, hiding as a<BR>
+hare, starting at the least sound.</P>
+
+<P>He waited thus an hour, two hours perhaps. The buggy did not come out.<BR>
+He concluded that his wife was expiring, and the thought of seeing<BR>
+her, of meeting her gaze filled him with so much horror that he<BR>
+suddenly feared to be discovered in his hiding place and of being<BR>
+compelled to return and be present at this agony, and he then fled<BR>
+into the thick of the wood. Then all of a sudden it occurred to him<BR>
+that she perhaps might be needing his care, that no one probably could<BR>
+properly attend to her. Then he returned on his tracks, running<BR>
+breathlessly.</P>
+
+<P>On entering the ch&acirc;teau he met the gardener and called out to him,<BR>
+"Well?" The man did not dare answer him. Then M. de Fourville almost<BR>
+roared at him: "Is she dead?" and the servant stammered: "Yes, M. le<BR>
+Comte."</P>
+
+<P>He experienced a feeling of immense relief. His blood seemed to cool<BR>
+and his nerves relax somewhat of their extreme tension, and he walked<BR>
+firmly up the steps of his great hallway.</P>
+
+<P>The other wagon had reached "The Poplars." Jeanne saw it from afar.<BR>
+She descried the mattress; she guessed that a human form was lying<BR>
+upon it, and understood all. Her emotion was so vivid that she swooned<BR>
+and fell prostrate.</P>
+
+<P>When she regained consciousness her father was holding her head and<BR>
+bathing her temples with vinegar. He said hesitatingly: "Do you know?"<BR>
+She murmured: "Yes, father." But when she attempted to rise she found<BR>
+herself unable to do so, so intense was her agony.</P>
+
+<P>That very night she gave birth to a stillborn infant, a girl.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne saw nothing of the funeral of Julien; she knew nothing of it.<BR>
+She merely noticed at the end of a day or two that Aunt Lison was<BR>
+back, and in her feverish dreams which haunted her she persistently<BR>
+sought to recall when the old maiden lady had left "The Poplars," at<BR>
+what period and under what circumstances. She could not make this out,<BR>
+even in her lucid moments, but she was certain of having seen her<BR>
+subsequent to the death of "little mother."</P>
+
+<h4><a name="XI">CHAPTER XI</a></h4>
+
+<h5>THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAUL</h5>
+
+<P>Jeanne did not leave her room for three months and was so wan and pale<BR>
+that no one thought she would recover. But she picked up by degrees.<BR>
+Little father and Aunt Lison never left her; they had both taken up<BR>
+their abode at "The Poplars." The shock of Julien's death had left her<BR>
+with a nervous malady. The slightest sound made her faint and she had<BR>
+long swoons from the most insignificant causes.</P>
+
+<P>She had never asked the details of Julien's death. What did it matter<BR>
+to her? Did she not know enough already? Every one thought it was an<BR>
+accident, but she knew better, and she kept to herself this secret<BR>
+which tortured her: the knowledge of his infidelity and the<BR>
+remembrance of the abrupt and terrible visit of the comte on the day<BR>
+of the catastrophe.</P>
+
+<P>And now she was filled with tender, sweet and melancholy recollections<BR>
+of the brief evidences of love shown her by her husband. She<BR>
+constantly thrilled at unexpected memories of him, and she seemed to<BR>
+see him as he was when they were betrothed and as she had known him in<BR>
+the hours passed beneath the sunlight in Corsica. All his faults<BR>
+diminished, all his harshness vanished, his very infidelities appeared<BR>
+less glaring in the widening separation of the closed tomb. And<BR>
+Jeanne, pervaded by a sort of posthumous gratitude for this man who<BR>
+had held her in his arms, forgave all the suffering he had caused her,<BR>
+to remember only moments of happiness they had passed together. Then,<BR>
+as time went on and month followed month, covering all her grief and<BR>
+reminiscences with forgetfulness, she devoted herself entirely to her<BR>
+son.</P>
+
+<P>He became the idol, the one thought of the three beings who surrounded<BR>
+him, and he ruled as a despot. A kind of jealousy even arose among his<BR>
+slaves. Jeanne watched with anxiety the great kisses he gave his<BR>
+grandfather after a ride on his knee, and Aunt Lison, neglected by him<BR>
+as she had been by every one else and treated often like a servant by<BR>
+this little tyrant who could scarcely speak as yet, would go to her<BR>
+room and weep as she compared the slight affection he showed her with<BR>
+the kisses he gave his mother and the baron.</P>
+
+<P>Two years passed quietly, and at the beginning of the third winter it<BR>
+was decided that they should go to Rouen to live until spring, and the<BR>
+whole family set out. But on their arrival in the old damp house, that<BR>
+had been shut up for some time, Paul had such a severe attack of<BR>
+bronchitis that his three relatives in despair declared that he could<BR>
+not do without the air of "The Poplars." They took him back there and<BR>
+he got well.</P>
+
+<P>Then began a series of quiet, monotonous years. Always around the<BR>
+little one, they went into raptures at everything he did. His mother<BR>
+called him Poulet, and as he could not pronounce the word, he said<BR>
+"Pol," which amused them immensely, and the nickname of "Poulet" stuck<BR>
+to him.</P>
+
+<P>The favorite occupation of his "three mothers," as the baron called<BR>
+his relatives, was to see how much he had grown, and for this purpose<BR>
+they made little notches in the casing of the drawing-room door,<BR>
+showing his progress from month to month. This ladder was called<BR>
+"Poulet's ladder," and was an important affair.</P>
+
+<P>A new individual began to play a part in the affairs of the<BR>
+household--the dog "Massacre," who became Paul's inseparable<BR>
+companion.</P>
+
+<P>Rare visits were exchanged with the Brisevilles and the Couteliers.<BR>
+The mayor and the doctor alone were regular visitors. Since the<BR>
+episode of the mother dog and the suspicion Jeanne had entertained of<BR>
+the priest on the occasion of the terrible death of the comtesse and<BR>
+Julien, Jeanne had not entered the church, angry with a divinity that<BR>
+could tolerate such ministers.</P>
+
+<P>The church was deserted and the priest came to be looked on as a<BR>
+sorcerer because he had, so they said, driven out an evil spirit from<BR>
+a woman who was possessed, and although fearing him the peasants came<BR>
+to respect him for this occult power as well as for the unimpeachable<BR>
+austerity of his life.</P>
+
+<P>When he met Jeanne he never spoke. This condition of affairs<BR>
+distressed Aunt Lison, and when she was alone, quite alone with Paul,<BR>
+she talked to him about God, telling him the wonderful stories of the<BR>
+early history of the world. But when she told him that he must love<BR>
+Him very much, the child would say: "Where is He, auntie?" "Up there,"<BR>
+she would say, pointing to the sky; "up there, Poulet, but do not say<BR>
+so." She was afraid of the baron.</P>
+
+<P>One day, however, Poulet said to her: "God is everywhere, but He is<BR>
+not in church." He had told his grandfather of his aunt's wonderful<BR>
+revelations.</P>
+
+<P>When Paul was twelve years old a great difficulty arose on the subject<BR>
+of his first communion.</P>
+
+<P>Lison came to Jeanne one morning and told her that the little fellow<BR>
+should no longer be kept without religious instruction and from his<BR>
+religious duties. His mother, troubled and undecided, hesitated,<BR>
+saying that there was time enough. But a month later, as she was<BR>
+returning a call at the Brisevilles', the comtesse asked her casually<BR>
+if Paul was going to make his first communion that year. Jeanne,<BR>
+unprepared for this, answered, "Yes," and this simple word decided<BR>
+her, and without saying a word to her father, she asked Aunt Lison to<BR>
+take the boy to the catechism class.</P>
+
+<P>All went well for a month, but one day Paul came home with a<BR>
+hoarseness and the following day he coughed. On inquiry his mother<BR>
+learned that the priest had sent him to wait till the lesson was over<BR>
+at the door of the church, where there was a draught, because he had<BR>
+misbehaved. So she kept him at home and taught him herself. But the<BR>
+Abb&eacute; Tobiac, despite Aunt Lison's entreaties, refused to admit him as<BR>
+a communicant on the ground that he was not thoroughly taught.</P>
+
+<P>The same thing occurred the following year, and the baron angrily<BR>
+swore that the child did not need to believe all that tomfoolery, so<BR>
+it was decided that he should be brought up as a Christian, but not as<BR>
+an active Catholic, and when he came of age he could believe as he<BR>
+pleased.</P>
+
+<P>The Brisevilles ceased to call on her and Jeanne was surprised,<BR>
+knowing the punctiliousness of these neighbors in returning calls, but<BR>
+the Marquise de Coutelier haughtily told her the reason. Considering<BR>
+herself, in virtue of her husband's rank and fortune, a sort of queen<BR>
+of the Norman nobility, the marquise ruled as a queen, said what she<BR>
+thought, was gracious or the reverse as occasion demanded,<BR>
+admonishing, restoring to favor, congratulating whenever she saw fit.<BR>
+So when Jeanne came to see her, this lady, after a few chilling<BR>
+remarks, said drily: "Society is divided into two classes: those who<BR>
+believe in God and those who do not believe in Him. The former, even<BR>
+the humblest, are our friends, our equals; the latter are nothing to<BR>
+us."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, perceiving the insinuation, replied: "But may one not believe<BR>
+in God without going to church?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, madame," answered the marquise. "The faithful go to worship God<BR>
+in His church, just as one goes to see people in their homes."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, hurt, replied: "God is everywhere, madame. As for me, who<BR>
+believes from the bottom of my heart in His goodness, I no longer feel<BR>
+His presence when certain priests come between Him and me."</P>
+
+<P>The marquise rose. "The priest is the standard bearer of the Church,<BR>
+madame. Whoever does not follow the standard is opposed to Him and<BR>
+opposed to us."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne had risen in her turn and said, trembling: "You believe,<BR>
+madame, in a partisan God. I believe in the God of upright people."<BR>
+She bowed and took her leave.</P>
+
+<P>The peasants also blamed her among themselves for not having let<BR>
+Poulet make his first communion. They themselves never attended<BR>
+service or took the sacrament unless it might be at Easter, according<BR>
+to the rule ordained by the Church; but for boys it was quite another<BR>
+thing, and they would have all shrunk in horror at the audacity of<BR>
+bringing up a child outside this recognized law, for religion is<BR>
+religion.</P>
+
+<P>She saw how they felt and was indignant at heart at all these<BR>
+discriminations, all these compromises with conscience, this general<BR>
+fear of everything, the real cowardice of all hearts and the mask of<BR>
+respectability assumed in public.</P>
+
+<P>The baron took charge of Paul's studies and made him study Latin, his<BR>
+mother merely saying: "Above all things, do not get over tired."</P>
+
+<P>As soon as the boy was at liberty he went down to work in the garden<BR>
+with his mother and his aunt.</P>
+
+<P>He now loved to dig in the ground, and all three planted young trees<BR>
+in the spring, sowed seed and watched it growing with the deepest<BR>
+interest, pruned branches and cut flowers for bouquets.</P>
+
+<P>Poulet was almost fifteen, but was a mere child in intelligence,<BR>
+ignorant, silly, suppressed between petticoat government and this kind<BR>
+old man who belonged to another century.</P>
+
+<P>One evening the baron spoke of college, and Jeanne at once began to<BR>
+sob. Aunt Lison timidly remained in a dark corner.</P>
+
+<P>"Why does he need to know so much?" asked his mother. "We will make a<BR>
+gentleman farmer of him. He can cultivate his land, as many of the<BR>
+nobility do. He will live and grow old happily in this house, where we<BR>
+have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can one do?"</P>
+
+<P>But the baron shook his head. "What would you say to him if he should<BR>
+say to you when he is twenty-five: 'I amount to nothing, I know<BR>
+nothing, all through your fault, the fault of your maternal<BR>
+selfishness. I feel that I am incapable of working, of making<BR>
+something of myself, and yet I was not intended for a secluded, simple<BR>
+life, lonely enough to kill one, to which I have been condemned by<BR>
+your shortsighted affection.'"</P>
+
+<P>She was weeping and said entreatingly: "Tell me, Poulet, you will not<BR>
+reproach me for having loved you too well?" And the big boy, in<BR>
+surprise, promised that he never would. "Swear it," she said. "Yes,<BR>
+mamma." "You want to stay here, don't you?" "Yes, mamma."</P>
+
+<P>Then the baron spoke up loud and decidedly: "Jeanne, you have no right<BR>
+to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and<BR>
+almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to your own private<BR>
+happiness."</P>
+
+<P>She hid her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively, and stammered out<BR>
+amid her tears: "I have been so unhappy--so unhappy! Now, just as I am<BR>
+living peacefully with him, they want to take him away from me. What<BR>
+will become of me now--all by myself?" Her father rose and, sitting<BR>
+down beside her, put his arms round her. "And how about me, Jeanne?"</P>
+
+<P>She put her arms suddenly round his neck, gave him a hearty kiss and<BR>
+with her voice full of tears, she said: "Yes, you are right perhaps,<BR>
+little father. I was foolish, but I have suffered so much. I am quite<BR>
+willing he should go to college."</P>
+
+<P>And without knowing exactly what they were going to do with him,<BR>
+Poulet in his turn began to weep.</P>
+
+<P>Then the three mothers began to kiss him and pet him and encourage<BR>
+him. When they retired to their rooms it was with a weight at their<BR>
+hearts, and they all wept, even the baron, who had restrained himself<BR>
+up to that.</P>
+
+<P>It was decided that when the term began to put the young boy to school<BR>
+at Havre, and during the summer he was petted more than ever; his<BR>
+mother sighed often as she thought of the separation. She prepared his<BR>
+wardrobe as if he were going to undertake a ten years' voyage. One<BR>
+October morning, after a sleepless night, the two women and the baron<BR>
+got into the carriage with him and set out on their journey.</P>
+
+<P>They had previously selected his place in the dormitory and his desk<BR>
+in the school room. Jeanne, aided by Aunt Lison, spent the whole day<BR>
+in arranging his clothes in his little wardrobe. As it did not hold a<BR>
+quarter of what they had brought, she went to look for the<BR>
+superintendent to ask for another. The treasurer was called, but he<BR>
+pointed out that all that amount of clothing would only be in the way<BR>
+and would never be needed, and he refused, on behalf of the directors,<BR>
+to let her have another chest of drawers. Jeanne, much annoyed,<BR>
+decided to hire a room in a small neighboring hotel, begging the<BR>
+proprietor to go himself and take Poulet whatever he required as soon<BR>
+as the boy asked for it.</P>
+
+<P>They then took a walk on the pier to look at the ships coming and<BR>
+going. They went into a restaurant to dine, but they were none of them<BR>
+able to eat, and looked at one another with moistened eyes as the<BR>
+dishes were brought on and taken away almost untouched.</P>
+
+<P>They now returned slowly toward the school. Boys of all ages were<BR>
+arriving from all quarters, accompanied by their families or by<BR>
+servants. Many of them were crying.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne held Poulet in a long embrace, while Aunt Lison remained in the<BR>
+background, her face hidden in her handkerchief. The baron, however,<BR>
+who was becoming affected, cut short the adieus by dragging his<BR>
+daughter away. They got into the carriage and went back through the<BR>
+darkness to "The Poplars," the silence being broken by an occasional<BR>
+sob.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne wept all the following day and on the day after drove to Havre<BR>
+in the phaeton. Poulet seemed to have become reconciled to the<BR>
+separation. For the first time in his life he now had playmates, and<BR>
+in his anxiety to join them he could scarcely sit still on his chair<BR>
+when his mother called. She continued her visits to him every other<BR>
+day and called to take him home on Sundays. Not knowing what to do<BR>
+with herself while school was in session until recreation time, she<BR>
+would remain sitting in the reception room, not having the strength or<BR>
+the courage to go very far from the school. The superintendent sent to<BR>
+ask her to come to his office and begged her not to come so<BR>
+frequently. She paid no attention to his request. He therefore<BR>
+informed her that if she continued to prevent her son from taking his<BR>
+recreation at the usual hours, obliging him to work without a change<BR>
+of occupation, they would be forced to send him back home again, and<BR>
+the baron was also notified to the same effect. She was consequently<BR>
+watched like a prisoner at "The Poplars."</P>
+
+<P>She became restless and worried and would ramble about for whole days<BR>
+in the country, accompanied only by Massacre, dreaming as she walked<BR>
+along. Sometimes she would remain seated for a whole afternoon,<BR>
+looking out at the sea from the top of the cliff; at other times she<BR>
+would go down to Yport through the wood, going over the ground of her<BR>
+former walks, the memory of which haunted her. How long ago--how long<BR>
+ago it was--the time when she had gone over these same paths as a<BR>
+young girl, carried away by her dreams.</P>
+
+<P>Poulet was not very industrious at school; he was kept two years in<BR>
+the fourth form. The third year's work was only tolerable and he had<BR>
+to begin the second over again, so that he was in rhetoric when he was<BR>
+twenty.</P>
+
+<P>He was now a big, fair young man, with downy whiskers and a faint sign<BR>
+of a mustache. He now came home to "The Poplars" every Sunday, riding<BR>
+over in a couple of hours, his mother, Aunt Lison and the baron<BR>
+starting out early to go and meet him.</P>
+
+<P>Although he was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him<BR>
+as though he were a child, and when he returned to school in the<BR>
+evening she would charge him anxiously not to go too fast and to think<BR>
+of his poor mother, who would break her heart if anything happened to<BR>
+him.</P>
+
+<P>One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul, saying that he<BR>
+would not be home on the following day because some friends had<BR>
+arranged an excursion and had invited him. She was tormented with<BR>
+anxiety all day Sunday, as though she dreaded some misfortune, and on<BR>
+Thursday, as she could endure it no longer, she set out for Havre.</P>
+
+<P>He seemed to be changed, though she could not have told in what<BR>
+manner. He appeared excited and his voice seemed deeper. And suddenly,<BR>
+as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he said: "I<BR>
+say, mother, as long as you have come to-day, I want to tell you that<BR>
+I will not be at 'The Poplars' next Sunday, for we are going to have<BR>
+another excursion."</P>
+
+<P>She was amazed, smothering, as if he had announced his departure for<BR>
+America. At last, recovering herself, she said: "Oh, Poulet, what is<BR>
+the matter with you? Tell me what is going on."</P>
+
+<P>He began to laugh, and kissing her, replied: "Why, nothing, nothing,<BR>
+mamma. I am going to have a good time with my friends; I am just at<BR>
+that age."</P>
+
+<P>She had nothing to say, but when she was alone in the carriage all<BR>
+manner of ideas came into her mind. She no longer recognized him, her<BR>
+Poulet, her little Poulet of former days. She felt for the first time<BR>
+that he was grown up, that he no longer belonged to her, that he was<BR>
+going to live his life without troubling himself about the old people.<BR>
+It seemed to her that one day had wrought this change in him. Was it<BR>
+possible that this was her son, her poor little boy who had helped her<BR>
+to replant the lettuce, this great big bearded youth who had a will of<BR>
+his own!</P>
+
+<P>For three months Paul came home only occasionally, and always seemed<BR>
+impatient to get away again, trying to steal off an hour earlier each<BR>
+evening. Jeanne was alarmed, but the baron consoled her, saying: "Let<BR>
+him alone; the boy is twenty years old."</P>
+
+<P>One morning, however, an old man, poorly dressed, inquired in<BR>
+German-French for "Madame la Vicomtesse," and after many ceremonious<BR>
+bows, he drew from his pocket a dilapidated pocketbook, saying: "Che un<BR>
+betit bapier bour fous," and unfolding as he handed it to her a piece<BR>
+of greasy paper. She read and reread it, looked at the Jew, read it<BR>
+over again and asked: "What does it mean?"</P>
+
+<P>He obsequiously explained: "I will tell you. Your son needed a little<BR>
+money, and as I knew that you are a good mother, I lent him a trifle<BR>
+to help him out."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not ask me?" The Jew explained<BR>
+at length that it was a question of a debt that must be paid before<BR>
+noon the following day; that Paul not being of age, no one would have<BR>
+lent him anything, and that his "honor would have been compromised"<BR>
+without this little service that he had rendered the young man.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne tried to call the baron, but had not the strength to rise, she<BR>
+was so overcome by emotion. At length she said to the usurer: "Would<BR>
+you have the kindness to ring the bell?"</P>
+
+<P>He hesitated, fearing some trap, and then stammered out: "If I am<BR>
+intruding, I will call again." She shook her head in the negative. He<BR>
+then rang, and they waited in silence, sitting opposite each other.</P>
+
+<P>When the baron came in he understood the situation at once. The note<BR>
+was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid one thousand, saying close to<BR>
+the man's face: "And on no account come back." The other thanked him<BR>
+and went his way.</P>
+
+<P>The baron and Jeanne set out at once for Havre. On reaching the<BR>
+college they learned that Paul had not been there for a month. The<BR>
+principal had received four letters signed by Jeanne saying that his<BR>
+pupil was not well and then to tell how he was getting along. Each<BR>
+letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate. They were, of<BR>
+course, all forged. They were all dumbfounded, and stood there looking<BR>
+at each other.</P>
+
+<P>The principal, very much worried, took them to the commissary of<BR>
+police. Jeanne and her father stayed at a hotel that night. The<BR>
+following day the young man was found in the apartment of a courtesan<BR>
+of the town. His grandfather and mother took him back to "The Poplars"<BR>
+and not a word was exchanged between them during the whole journey.</P>
+
+<P>A week later they discovered that he had contracted fifteen thousand<BR>
+francs' worth of debts within the last three months. His creditors had<BR>
+not come forward at first, knowing that he would soon be of age.</P>
+
+<P>They entered into no discussion about it, hoping to win him back by<BR>
+gentleness. They gave him dainty food, petted him, spoiled him. It was<BR>
+spring and they hired a boat for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne's<BR>
+fears, so that he might amuse himself on the water.</P>
+
+<P>They would not let him have a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre.</P>
+
+<P>He was there with nothing to do and became irritable and occasionally<BR>
+brutally so. The baron was worried at the discontinuance of his<BR>
+studies. Jeanne, distracted at the idea of a separation, asked herself<BR>
+what they could do with him.</P>
+
+<P>One evening he did not come home. They learned that he had gone out in<BR>
+a boat with two sailors. His mother, beside herself with anxiety, went<BR>
+down to Yport without a hat in the dark. Some men were on the beach,<BR>
+waiting for the boat to come in. There was a light on board an<BR>
+incoming boat, but Paul was not on board. He had made them take him to<BR>
+Havre.</P>
+
+<P>The police sought him in vain; he could not be found. The woman with<BR>
+whom he had been found the first time had also disappeared without<BR>
+leaving any trace; her furniture was sold and her rent paid. In Paul's<BR>
+room at "The Poplars" were found two letters from this person, who<BR>
+seemed to be madly in love with him. She spoke of a voyage to England,<BR>
+having, she said, obtained the necessary funds.</P>
+
+<P>The three dwellers in the ch&acirc;teau lived silently and drearily, their<BR>
+minds tortured by all kinds of suppositions. Jeanne's hair, which had<BR>
+become gray, now turned perfectly white. She asked in her innocence<BR>
+why fate had thus afflicted her.</P>
+
+<P>She received a letter from the Abb&eacute; Tolbiac: "Madame, the hand of God<BR>
+is weighing heavily on you. You refused Him your child; He took him<BR>
+from you in His turn to cast him into the hands of a prostitute. Will<BR>
+not you open your eyes at this lesson from Heaven? God's mercy is<BR>
+infinite. Perhaps He may pardon you if you return and fall on your<BR>
+knees before Him. I am His humble servant. I will open to you the door<BR>
+of His dwelling when you come and knock at it."</P>
+
+<P>She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true<BR>
+what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment<BR>
+her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church<BR>
+the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at<BR>
+twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abb&eacute;,<BR>
+begged for absolution.</P>
+
+<P>He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all<BR>
+His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. "You will<BR>
+soon feel the effects of the divine mercy," he declared.</P>
+
+<P>Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in<BR>
+her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement<BR>
+of the consolation promised her by the abb&eacute;. The letter ran:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in<BR>
+very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have<BR>
+anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love<BR>
+with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave<BR>
+me--five thousand francs--and you see that I am bound in honor to<BR>
+return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind<BR>
+enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa's fortune, for I<BR>
+shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious<BR>
+difficulties.</P>
+
+<P>"Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also<BR>
+grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you soon.</P>
+
+<P>"Your son,</P>
+
+<P>"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."</P>
+
+<P>He had written to her! He had not forgotten her then. She did not care<BR>
+anything about his asking for money! She would send him some as long<BR>
+as he had none. What did money matter? He had written to her! And she<BR>
+ran, weeping for joy, to show this letter to the baron. Aunt Lison was<BR>
+called and read over word by word this paper that told of him. They<BR>
+discussed each sentence.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, jumping from the most complete despair to a kind of<BR>
+intoxication of hope, took Paul's part. "He will come back, he will<BR>
+come back as he has written."</P>
+
+<P>The baron, more calm, said: "All the same he left us for that<BR>
+creature, so he must love her better than us, as he did not hesitate<BR>
+about it."</P>
+
+<P>A sudden and frightful pang struck Jeanne's heart, and immediately she<BR>
+was filled with hatred of this woman who had stolen her son from her,<BR>
+an unappeasable, savage hate, the hatred of a jealous mother. Until<BR>
+now all her thoughts had been given to Paul. She scarcely took into<BR>
+consideration that a girl had been the cause of his vagaries. But the<BR>
+baron's words had suddenly brought before her this rival, had revealed<BR>
+her fatal power, and she felt that between herself and this woman a<BR>
+struggle was about to begin, and she also felt that she would rather<BR>
+lose her son than share his affection with another. And all her joy<BR>
+was at an end.</P>
+
+<P>They sent him the fifteen thousand francs and heard nothing more from<BR>
+him for five months.</P>
+
+<P>Then a business man came to settle the details of Julien's<BR>
+inheritance. Jeanne and the baron handed over the accounts without any<BR>
+discussion, even giving up the interest that should come to his<BR>
+mother. When Paul came back to Paris he had a hundred and twenty<BR>
+thousand francs. He then wrote four letters in six months, giving his<BR>
+news in concise terms and ending the letters with coldly affectionate<BR>
+expressions. "I am working," he said; "I have obtained a position on<BR>
+the stock exchange. I hope to go and embrace you at 'The Poplars' some<BR>
+day, my dear parents."</P>
+
+<P>He did not mention his companion, and this silence implied more than<BR>
+if he had filled four pages with news of her. Jeanne, in these cold<BR>
+letters, felt this woman in ambush, the implacable, eternal enemy of<BR>
+mothers, the courtesan.</P>
+
+<P>The three lonely beings discussed the best plan to follow in order to<BR>
+rescue Paul, but could decide on nothing. A voyage to Paris? What good<BR>
+would it do?</P>
+
+<P>"Let his passion exhaust itself. He will come back then of his own<BR>
+accord," said the baron.</P>
+
+<P>Some time passed without any further news. But one morning they were<BR>
+terrified at the receipt of a despairing letter:</P>
+
+<P>"My Poor Mamma: I am lost. There is nothing left for me to do but to<BR>
+blow out my brains unless you come to my aid. A speculation that gave<BR>
+every prospect of success has fallen through, and I am eighty-five<BR>
+thousand dollars in debt. I shall be dishonored if I do not pay<BR>
+up--ruined--and it will henceforth be impossible for me to do<BR>
+anything. I am lost. I repeat that I would rather blow out my brains<BR>
+than undergo this disgrace. I should have done so already, probably,<BR>
+but for the encouragement of a woman of whom I never speak to you,<BR>
+and who is my providence.</P>
+
+<P>"I embrace you from the bottom of my heart, my dear mamma--perhaps for<BR>
+the last time. Good-by.</P>
+
+<P>"Paul."</P>
+
+<P>A package of business papers accompanying the letter gave the details<BR>
+of the failure.</P>
+
+<P>The baron answered by return mail that they would see what could be<BR>
+done. Then he set out for Havre to get advice and he mortgaged some<BR>
+property to raise the money which was sent to Paul.</P>
+
+<P>The young man wrote three letters full of the most heartfelt thanks<BR>
+and passionate affection, saying he was coming home at once to see his<BR>
+dear parents.</P>
+
+<P>But he did not come.</P>
+
+<P>A whole year passed. Jeanne and the baron were about to set out for<BR>
+Paris to try and make a last effort, when they received a line to say<BR>
+that he was in London again, setting an enterprise on foot in<BR>
+connection with steamboats under the name of "Paul de Lamare &amp; Co." He<BR>
+wrote: "This will give me an assured fortune, and perhaps great<BR>
+wealth, and I am risking nothing. You can see at once what a splendid<BR>
+thing it is. When I see you again I shall have a fine position in<BR>
+society. There is nothing but business these days to help you out of<BR>
+difficulties."</P>
+
+<P>Three months later the steamboat company failed and the manager was<BR>
+being sought for on account of certain irregularities in business<BR>
+methods. Jeanne had a nervous attack that lasted several hours and<BR>
+then she took to her bed.</P>
+
+<P>The baron again went to Havre to make inquiries, saw some lawyers,<BR>
+some business men, some solicitors and bailiffs and found that the<BR>
+liabilities of the De Lamare concern were two hundred and thirty-five<BR>
+thousand francs, and he once more mortgaged some property. The ch&acirc;teau<BR>
+of "The Poplars" and the two farms and all that went with them were<BR>
+mortgaged for a large sum.</P>
+
+<P>One evening as he was arranging the final details in the office of a<BR>
+business man, he fell over on the floor with a stroke of apoplexy.</P>
+
+<P>A man was sent on horseback to notify Jeanne, but when she arrived he<BR>
+was dead.</P>
+
+<P>She took his body back to "The Poplars," so overcome that her grief<BR>
+was numbness rather than despair.</P>
+
+<P>Abb&eacute; Tolbiac refused to permit the body to be brought to the church,<BR>
+despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was<BR>
+interred at twilight without any religious ceremony.</P>
+
+<P>Paul learned of the event through one of the men who was settling up<BR>
+his affairs. He was still in hiding in England. He wrote to make<BR>
+excuses for not having come home, saying that he had learned of his<BR>
+grandfather's death too late. "However, now that you have helped me<BR>
+out of my difficulties, my dear mamma, I shall go back to France and<BR>
+hope to embrace you soon."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was so crushed in spirit that she appeared not to understand<BR>
+anything. Toward the end of the winter Aunt Lison, who was now<BR>
+sixty-eight, had an attack of bronchitis that developed into pneumonia,<BR>
+and she died quietly, murmuring with her last breath: "My poor<BR>
+little Jeanne, I will ask God to take pity on you."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne followed her to the grave, and as the earth fell on her coffin<BR>
+she sank to the ground, wishing that she might die also, so as not to<BR>
+suffer, to think. A strong peasant woman lifted her up and carried her<BR>
+away as if she had been a child.</P>
+
+<P>When she reached the ch&acirc;teau Jeanne, who had spent the last five<BR>
+nights at Aunt Lison's bedside, allowed herself to be put to bed<BR>
+without resistance by this unknown peasant woman, who handled her with<BR>
+gentleness and firmness, and she fell asleep from exhaustion, overcome<BR>
+with weariness and suffering.</P>
+
+<P>She awoke about the middle of the night. A night light was burning on<BR>
+the mantelpiece. A woman was asleep in her easy chair. Who was this<BR>
+woman? She did not recognize her, and leaning over the edge of her<BR>
+bed, she sought to examine her features by the dim light of the wick<BR>
+floating in oil in a tumbler of water.</P>
+
+<P>It seemed to her that she had seen this face. But when, but where? The<BR>
+woman was sleeping peacefully, her head to one side and her cap on the<BR>
+floor. She might be about forty or forty-five. She was stout, with a<BR>
+high color, squarely built and powerful. Her large hands hung down at<BR>
+either side of the chair. Her hair was turning gray. Jeanne looked at<BR>
+her fixedly, her mind in the disturbed condition of one awaking from a<BR>
+feverish sleep after a great sorrow.</P>
+
+<P>She had certainly seen this face! Was it in former days? Was it of<BR>
+late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her<BR>
+nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping<BR>
+woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up<BR>
+in the cemetery and then put her to bed. She remembered this<BR>
+confusedly.</P>
+
+<P>But had she met her elsewhere at some other time of her life or did<BR>
+she only imagine she recognized her amid the confused recollections of<BR>
+the day before? And how did she come to be there in her room and why?</P>
+
+<P>The woman opened her eyes and, seeing Jeanne, she rose to her feet<BR>
+suddenly. They stood face to face, so close that they touched one<BR>
+another. The stranger said crossly: "What! are you up? You will be<BR>
+ill, getting up at this time of night. Go back to bed!"</P>
+
+<P>"Who are you?" asked Jeanne.</P>
+
+<P>But the woman, opening her arms, picked her up and carried her back to<BR>
+her bed with the strength of a man. And as she laid her down gently<BR>
+and drew the covers over her, she leaned over close to Jeanne and,<BR>
+weeping as she did so, she kissed her passionately on the cheeks, her<BR>
+hair, her eyes, the tears falling on her face as she stammered out:<BR>
+"My poor mistress, Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress, don't you<BR>
+recognize me?"</P>
+
+<P>"Rosalie, my girl!" cried Jeanne, throwing her arms round her neck and<BR>
+hugging her as she kissed her, and they sobbed together, clasped in<BR>
+each other's arms.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie was the first to regain her calmness. "Come," she said, "you<BR>
+must be sensible and not catch cold." And she covered her up warm and<BR>
+straightened the pillow under her former mistress' head. The latter<BR>
+continued to sob, trembling all over at the recollections that were<BR>
+awakened in her mind. She finally inquired: "How did you come back, my<BR>
+poor girl?"</P>
+
+<P>"Pardi! do you suppose I was going to leave you all alone like that,<BR>
+now?" replied Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>"Light a candle, so I may see you," said Jeanne. And when the candle<BR>
+was brought to the bedside they looked at each other for some time<BR>
+without speaking a word. Then Jeanne, holding out her hand to her<BR>
+former maid, murmured: "I should not have recognized you, my girl, you<BR>
+have changed greatly; did you know it? But not as much as I have." And<BR>
+Rosalie, looking at this white-haired woman, thin and faded, whom she<BR>
+had left a beautiful and fresh young woman, said: "That is true, you<BR>
+have changed, Madame Jeanne, and more than you should. But remember,<BR>
+however, that we have not seen each other for twenty-five years."</P>
+
+<P>They were silent, thinking over the past. At length Jeanne said<BR>
+hesitatingly: "Have you been happy?"</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, fearful of awakening certain painful souvenirs, stammered<BR>
+out: "Why--yes--yes--madame. I have nothing much to complain of. I<BR>
+have been happier than you have--that is sure. There was only one<BR>
+thing that always weighed on my heart, and that was that I did not<BR>
+stay here--" And she stopped suddenly, sorry she had referred to that<BR>
+unintentionally. But Jeanne replied gently: "How could you help it, my<BR>
+girl? One cannot always do as they wish. You are a widow now, also,<BR>
+are you not?" Then her voice trembled with emotion as she said: "Have<BR>
+you other--other children?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, madame."</P>
+
+<P>"And he--your--your boy--what has become of him? Has he turned out<BR>
+well?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame, he is a good boy and works industriously. He has been<BR>
+married for six months, and he can take my farm now, since I have come<BR>
+back to you."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne murmured in a trembling voice: "Then you will never leave me<BR>
+again, my girl?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, indeed, madame, I have arranged all that."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, in spite of herself, began to compare their lives, but without<BR>
+any bitterness, for she was now resigned to the unjust cruelty of<BR>
+fate. She said: "And your husband, how did he treat you?"</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, he was a good man, madame, and not lazy; he knew how to make<BR>
+money. He died of consumption."</P>
+
+<P>Then Jeanne, sitting up in bed, filled with a longing to know more,<BR>
+said: "Come, tell me everything, my girl, all about your life. It will<BR>
+do me good just now."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, drawing up her chair, began to tell about herself, her home,<BR>
+her people, entering into those minute details dear to country people,<BR>
+describing her yard, laughing at some old recollection that reminded<BR>
+her of good times she had had, and raising her voice by degrees like a<BR>
+farmer's wife accustomed to command. She ended by saying: "Oh, I am<BR>
+well off now. I don't have to worry." Then she became confused again,<BR>
+and said in a lower tone: "It is to you that I owe it, anyhow; and you<BR>
+know I do not want any wages. No, indeed! No, indeed! And if you will<BR>
+not have it so, I will go."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne replied: "You do not mean that you are going to serve me for<BR>
+nothing?"</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, yes, indeed, madame. Money! You give me money! Why, I have almost<BR>
+as much as you. Do you know what is left to you will all your jumble<BR>
+of mortgages and borrowing, and interests unpaid which are mounting up<BR>
+every year? Do you know? No, is it not so? Well, then, I can promise<BR>
+you that you have not even ten thousand francs income. Not ten<BR>
+thousand, do you understand? But I will settle all that for you, and<BR>
+very quickly."</P>
+
+<P>She had begun talking loud again, carried away in her indignation at<BR>
+these interests left unpaid, at this threatening ruin. And as a faint,<BR>
+tender smile passed over the face of her mistress, she cried in a tone<BR>
+of annoyance: "You must not laugh, madame, for without money we are<BR>
+nothing but laborers."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne took hold of her hands and kept them in her own; then she said<BR>
+slowly, still full of the idea that haunted her: "Oh, I have had no<BR>
+luck. Everything has gone against me. Fate has a grudge against my<BR>
+life."</P>
+
+<P>But Rosalie shook her head: "You must not say that, madame. You<BR>
+married badly, that's all. One should not marry like that, anyway,<BR>
+without knowing anything about one's intended."</P>
+
+<P>And they went on talking about themselves just as two old friends<BR>
+might have done.</P>
+
+<P>The sun rose while they were still talking.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="XII">CHAPTER XII</a></h4>
+
+<h5>A NEW HOME</h5>
+
+<P>In a week's time Rosalie had taken absolute control of everything and<BR>
+everyone in the ch&acirc;teau. Jeanne was quite resigned and obeyed<BR>
+passively. Weak and dragging her feet as she walked, as little mother<BR>
+had formerly done, she went out walking leaning on Rosalie's arm, the<BR>
+latter lecturing her and consoling her with abrupt and tender words as<BR>
+they walked slowly along, treating her mistress as though she were a<BR>
+sick child.</P>
+
+<P>They always talked of bygone days, Jeanne with tears in her throat,<BR>
+and Rosalie in the quiet tone of a phlegmatic peasant. The servant<BR>
+kept referring to the subject of unpaid interests; and at last<BR>
+requested Jeanne to give her up all the business papers that Jeanne,<BR>
+in her ignorance of money matters, was hiding from her, out of<BR>
+consideration for her son.</P>
+
+<P>After that, for a week, Rosalie went to F&eacute;camp every day to have<BR>
+matters explained to her by a lawyer whom she knew.</P>
+
+<P>One evening, after having put her mistress to bed, she sat down by the<BR>
+bedside and said abruptly: "Now that you are settled quietly, madame,<BR>
+we will have a chat." And she told her exactly how matters stood.</P>
+
+<P>When everything was settled, there would be about seven thousand<BR>
+francs of income left, no more.</P>
+
+<P>"We cannot help it, my girl," said Jeanne. "I feel that I shall not<BR>
+make old bones, and there will be quite enough for me."</P>
+
+<P>But Rosalie was annoyed: "For you, madame, it might be; but M.<BR>
+Paul--will you leave nothing for him?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne shuddered. "I beg you not to mention him again. It hurts me too<BR>
+much to think about him."</P>
+
+<P>"But I wish to speak about him, because you see you are not brave,<BR>
+Madame Jeanne. He does foolish things. Well! what of it? He will not<BR>
+do so always; and then he will marry and have children. He will need<BR>
+money to bring them up. Pay attention to me: you must sell 'The<BR>
+Poplars.'"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne sprang up in a sitting posture. "Sell 'The Poplars'! Do you<BR>
+mean it? Oh, never, never!"</P>
+
+<P>But Rosalie was not disturbed. "I tell you that you will sell the<BR>
+place, madame, because it must be done." And then she explained her<BR>
+calculations, her plans, her reasons.</P>
+
+<P>Once they had sold "The Poplars" and the two farms belonging to it to<BR>
+a buyer whom she had found, they would keep four farms situated at St.<BR>
+Leonard, which, free of all mortgage, would bring in an income of<BR>
+eight thousand three hundred francs. They would set aside thirteen<BR>
+hundred francs a year for repairs and for the upkeep of the property;<BR>
+there would then remain seven thousand francs, five thousand of which<BR>
+would cover the annual expenditures and the other two thousand would<BR>
+be put away for a rainy day.</P>
+
+<P>She added: "All the rest has been squandered; there is an end of it.<BR>
+And then I am to keep the key, you understand. As for M. Paul, he will<BR>
+have nothing left, nothing; he would take your last sou from you."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, who was weeping silently, murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"But if he has nothing to eat?"</P>
+
+<P>"He can come and eat with us if he is hungry. There will always be a<BR>
+bed and some stew for him. Do you believe he would have acted as he<BR>
+has done if you had not given him a sou in the first place?"</P>
+
+<P>"But he was in debt, he would have been disgraced."</P>
+
+<P>"When you have nothing left, will that prevent him from making fresh<BR>
+debts? You have paid his debts, that is all right; but you will not<BR>
+pay any more; it is I who am telling you this. Now goodnight, madame."</P>
+
+<P>And she left the room.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne did not sleep, she was so upset at the idea of selling "The<BR>
+Poplars," of going away, of leaving this house to which all her life<BR>
+was linked.</P>
+
+<P>When Rosalie came into the room next morning she said to her: "My poor<BR>
+girl, I never could make up my mind to go away from here."</P>
+
+<P>But the servant grew angry: "It will have to be, however, madame; the<BR>
+lawyer will soon be here with the man who wants to buy the ch&acirc;teau.<BR>
+Otherwise, in four years you will not have a rap left."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was crushed, and repeated: "I could not do it; I never could."</P>
+
+<P>An hour later the postman brought her a letter from Paul asking for<BR>
+ten thousand francs. What should she do? At her wit's end, she<BR>
+consulted Rosalie, who threw up her hands, exclaiming: "What was I<BR>
+telling you, madame? Ah! You would have been in a nice fix, both of<BR>
+you, if I had not come back." And Jeanne, bending to her servant's<BR>
+will, wrote as follows to the young man:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Son: I can do nothing more for you. You have ruined me; I am<BR>
+even obliged to sell 'The Poplars.' But never forget that I shall<BR>
+always have a home whenever you want to seek shelter with your old<BR>
+mother, to whom you have caused much suffering. Jeanne."</P>
+
+<P>When the notary arrived with M. Jeoffrin, a retired sugar refiner, she<BR>
+received them herself, and invited them to look over the ch&acirc;teau.</P>
+
+<P>A month later, she signed a deed of sale, and also bought herself a<BR>
+little cottage in the neighborhood of Goderville, on the high road to<BR>
+Montiviliers, in the hamlet of Batteville.</P>
+
+<P>Then she walked up and down all alone until evening, in little<BR>
+mother's avenue, with a sore heart and troubled mind, bidding<BR>
+distracted and sobbing farewells to the landscape, the trees, the<BR>
+rustic bench under the plane tree, to all those things she knew so<BR>
+well and that seemed to have become part of her vision and her soul,<BR>
+the grove, the mound overlooking the plain, where she had so often<BR>
+sat, and from where she had seen the Comte de Fourville running toward<BR>
+the sea on that terrible day of Julian's death, to an old elm whose<BR>
+upper branches were missing, against which she had often leaned, and<BR>
+to all this familiar garden spot.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie came out and took her by the arm to make her come into the<BR>
+house.</P>
+
+<P>A tall young peasant of twenty-five was waiting outside the door. He<BR>
+greeted her in a friendly manner as if he had known her for some time:<BR>
+"Good-morning, Madame Jeanne. I hope you are well. Mother told me to<BR>
+come and help you move. I would like to know what you are going to<BR>
+take away, seeing that I shall do it from time to time so as not to<BR>
+interfere with my farm work."</P>
+
+<P>It was her maid's son, Julien's son, Paul's brother.</P>
+
+<P>She felt as if her heart stopped beating; and yet she would have liked<BR>
+to embrace this young fellow.</P>
+
+<P>She looked at him, trying to find some resemblance to her husband or<BR>
+to her son. He was ruddy, vigorous, with fair hair and his mother's<BR>
+blue eyes. And yet he looked like Julien. In what way? How? She could<BR>
+not have told, but there was something like him in the whole makeup of<BR>
+his face.</P>
+
+<P>The young man resumed: "If you could show me at once, I should be much<BR>
+obliged."</P>
+
+<P>But she had not yet decided what she was going to take with her, as<BR>
+her new home was very small; and she begged him to come back again at<BR>
+the end of the week.</P>
+
+<P>She was now entirely occupied with getting ready to move, which<BR>
+brought a little variety into her very dreary and hopeless life. She<BR>
+went from room to room, picking out the furniture which recalled<BR>
+episodes in her life, old friends, as it were, who have a share in our<BR>
+life and almost of our being, whom we have known since childhood, and<BR>
+to which are linked our happy or sad recollections, dates in our<BR>
+history; silent companions of our sad or sombre hours, who have grown<BR>
+old and become worn at our side, their covers torn in places, their<BR>
+joints shaky, their color faded.</P>
+
+<P>She selected them, one by one, sometimes hesitating and troubled, as<BR>
+if she were taking some important step, changing her mind every<BR>
+instant, weighing the merits of two easy chairs or of some old<BR>
+writing-desk and an old work table.</P>
+
+<P>She opened the drawers, sought to recall things; then, when she had<BR>
+said to herself, "Yes, I will take this," the article was taken down<BR>
+into the dining-room.</P>
+
+<P>She wished to keep all the furniture of her room, her bed, her<BR>
+tapestries, her clock, everything.</P>
+
+<P>She took away some of the parlor chairs, those that she had loved as a<BR>
+little child; the fox and the stork, the fox and the crow, the ant and<BR>
+the grasshopper, and the melancholy heron.</P>
+
+<P>Then, while wandering about in all the corners of this dwelling she<BR>
+was going to forsake, she went one day up into the loft, where she was<BR>
+filled with amazement; it was a chaos of articles of every kind, some<BR>
+broken, others tarnished only, others taken up there for no special<BR>
+reason probably, except that they were tired of them or that they had<BR>
+been replaced by others. She saw numberless knick-knacks that she<BR>
+remembered, and that had disappeared suddenly, trifles that she had<BR>
+handled, those old little insignificant articles that she had seen<BR>
+every day without noticing, but which now, discovered in this loft,<BR>
+assumed an importance as of forgotten relics, of friends that she had<BR>
+found again.</P>
+
+<P>She went from one to the other of them with a little pang, saying:<BR>
+"Why, it was I who broke that china cup a few evenings before my<BR>
+wedding. Ah! there is mother's little lantern and a cane that little<BR>
+father broke in trying to open the gate when the wood was swollen with<BR>
+the rain."</P>
+
+<P>There were also a number of things that she did not remember that had<BR>
+belonged to her grandparents or to their parents, dusty things that<BR>
+appeared to be exiled in a period that is not their own, and that<BR>
+looked sad at their abandonment, and whose history, whose experiences<BR>
+no one knows, for they never saw those who chose them, bought them,<BR>
+owned them, and loved them; never knew the hands that had touched them<BR>
+familiarly, and the eyes that looked at them with delight.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne examined carefully three-legged chairs to see if they recalled<BR>
+any memories, a copper warming pan, a damaged foot stove that she<BR>
+thought she remembered, and a number of housekeeping utensils unfit<BR>
+for use.</P>
+
+<P>She then put together all the things she wished to take, and going<BR>
+downstairs, sent Rosalie up to get them. The servant indignantly<BR>
+refused to bring down "that rubbish." But Jeanne, who had not much<BR>
+will left, held her own this time, and had to be obeyed.</P>
+
+<P>One morning the young farmer, Julien's son, Denis Lecoq, came with his<BR>
+wagon for the first load. Rosalie went back with him in order to<BR>
+superintend the unloading and placing of furniture where it was to<BR>
+stand.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie had come back and was waiting for Jeanne, who had been out on<BR>
+the cliff. She was enchanted with the new house, declaring it was much<BR>
+more cheerful than this old box of a building, which was not even on<BR>
+the side of the road.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne wept all the evening.</P>
+
+<P>Ever since they heard that the ch&acirc;teau was sold, the farmers were not<BR>
+more civil to her than necessary, calling her among themselves "the<BR>
+crazy woman," without knowing exactly why, but doubtless because they<BR>
+guessed with their animal instinct at her morbid and increasing<BR>
+sentimentality, at all the disturbance of her poor mind that had<BR>
+undergone so much sorrow.</P>
+
+<P>The night before they left she chanced to go into the stable. A growl<BR>
+made her start. It was Massacre, whom she had hardly thought of for<BR>
+months. Blind and paralyzed, having reached a great age for an animal,<BR>
+he existed in a straw bed, taken care of by Ludivine, who never forgot<BR>
+him. She took him in her arms, kissed him, and carried him into the<BR>
+house. As big as a barrel, he could scarcely carry himself along on<BR>
+his stiff legs, and he barked like the wooden dogs that one gives to<BR>
+children.</P>
+
+<P>The day of departure finally came. Jeanne had slept in Julien's old<BR>
+room, as hers was dismantled. She got up exhausted and short of breath<BR>
+as if she had been running. The carriage containing the trunks and the<BR>
+rest of the furniture was in the yard ready to start. Another<BR>
+two-wheeled vehicle was to take Jeanne and the servant. Old Simon and<BR>
+Ludivine were to stay until the arrival of a new proprietor, and then<BR>
+to go to some of their relations, Jeanne having provided a little<BR>
+income for them. They had also saved up some money, and being now very<BR>
+old and garrulous, they were not of much use in the house. Marius had<BR>
+long since married and left.</P>
+
+<P>About eight o'clock it began to rain, a fine icy rain, driven by a<BR>
+light breeze. On the kitchen table, some cups of caf&eacute; au lait were<BR>
+steaming. Jeanne sat down and sipped hers, then rising, she said,<BR>
+"Come along."</P>
+
+<P>She put on her hat and shawl, and while Rosalie was putting on her<BR>
+overshoes, she said in a choking voice: "Do you remember, my girl, how<BR>
+it rained when we left Rouen to come here?"</P>
+
+<P>As she said this, she put her two hands to her breast and fell over on<BR>
+her back, unconscious. She remained thus over an hour, apparently<BR>
+dead. Then she opened her eyes and was seized with convulsions<BR>
+accompanied by floods of tears.</P>
+
+<P>When she was a little calmer she was so weak that she could not stand<BR>
+up, and Rosalie, fearing another attack if they delayed their<BR>
+departure, went to look for her son. They took her up and carried her<BR>
+to the carriage, placed her on the wooden bench covered with leather;<BR>
+and the old servant got in beside her, wrapped her up with a big<BR>
+cloak, and holding an umbrella over her head, cried: "Quick, Denis,<BR>
+let us be off." The young man climbed up beside his mother and whipped<BR>
+up the horse, whose jerky pace made the two women bounce about<BR>
+vigorously.</P>
+
+<P>As they turned the corner to enter the village, they saw some one<BR>
+stalking along the road; it was Abb&eacute; Tolbiac, who seemed to be<BR>
+watching for them to go by. He stopped to let the carriage pass. He<BR>
+was holding up his cassock with one hand, to keep it out of the mud,<BR>
+and his thin legs, encased in black stockings, ended in a pair of<BR>
+enormous muddy shoes.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne lowered her eyes so as not to meet his glance, and Rosalie, who<BR>
+had heard all about him, flew into a rage. "Peasant! Peasant!" she<BR>
+murmured; and then seizing her son's hand: "Give him a good slash with<BR>
+the whip."</P>
+
+<P>But the young man, just as they were passing the priest, made the<BR>
+wheel of the wagon, which was going at full speed, sink into a rut,<BR>
+splashing the abb&eacute; with mud from head to foot.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie was delighted and turned round to shake her fist at him, while<BR>
+the priest was wiping off the mud with his big handkerchief.</P>
+
+<P>All at once Jeanne exclaimed: "We have forgotten Massacre!" They<BR>
+stopped, and, getting down, Denis ran to fetch the dog, while Rosalie<BR>
+held the reins. He presently reappeared, carrying in his arms the<BR>
+shapeless and crippled animal, which he placed at the feet of the two<BR>
+women.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></h4>
+
+<h5>JEANNE IN PARIS</h5>
+
+<P>Two hours later the carriage stopped at a little brick house built in<BR>
+the middle of a lot planted with pear trees at the side of the high<BR>
+road.</P>
+
+<P>Four trellised arbors covered with honeysuckle and clematis formed the<BR>
+four corners of the garden, which was divided into little beds of<BR>
+vegetables separated by narrow paths bordered with fruit trees.</P>
+
+<P>A very high box hedge enclosed the whole property, which was separated<BR>
+by a field from the neighboring farm. There was a blacksmith's shop<BR>
+about a hundred feet further along the road. There were no other<BR>
+houses within three-quarters of a mile.</P>
+
+<P>The house commanded a view of the level district of Caux, covered with<BR>
+farms surrounded by their four double rows of tall trees which<BR>
+enclosed the courtyard planted with apple trees.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as they reached the house, Jeanne wanted to rest; but Rosalie<BR>
+would not allow her to do so for fear she would begin to think of the<BR>
+past.</P>
+
+<P>The carpenter from Goderville was there, and they began at once to<BR>
+place the furniture that had already arrived while waiting for the<BR>
+last load. This required a good deal of thought and planning.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of an hour the wagon appeared at the gate and had to be<BR>
+unloaded in the rain. When night fell the house was in utter disorder,<BR>
+with things piled up anyhow. Jeanne, tired out, fell asleep as soon as<BR>
+she got into bed.</P>
+
+<P>She had no time to mourn for some days, as there was so much to be<BR>
+done. She even took a certain pleasure in making her new house look<BR>
+pretty, the thought that her son would come back there haunting her<BR>
+continually. The tapestries from her old room were hung in the<BR>
+dining-room, which also had to serve as a parlor; and she took special<BR>
+pains with one of the two rooms on the first floor, which she thought<BR>
+of as "Poulet's room."</P>
+
+<P>She kept the other room herself, Rosalie sleeping above, next to the<BR>
+loft. The little house, furnished with care, was very pretty, and<BR>
+Jeanne was happy there at first, although she seemed to lack<BR>
+something, but she did not know what.</P>
+
+<P>One morning the lawyer's clerk from F&eacute;camp brought her three thousand<BR>
+six hundred francs, the price of the furniture left at "The Poplars,"<BR>
+and valued by an upholsterer. She had a little thrill of pleasure at<BR>
+receiving this money, and as soon as the man had gone, she ran to put<BR>
+on her hat, so as to get to Goderville as quickly as possible to send<BR>
+Paul this unexpected sum.</P>
+
+<P>But as she was hurrying along the high road she met Rosalie coming<BR>
+from market. The servant suspected something, without at once guessing<BR>
+the facts; and when she discovered them, for Jeanne could hide nothing<BR>
+from her, she placed her basket on the ground that she might get angry<BR>
+with more comfort.</P>
+
+<P>She began to scold with her fists on her hips; then taking hold of her<BR>
+mistress with her right arm and taking her basket in her left, and<BR>
+still fuming, she continued on her way to the house.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as they were in the house the servant asked to have the money<BR>
+handed over to her. Jeanne gave all but six hundred francs, which she<BR>
+held back; but Rosalie soon saw through her tricks, and she was<BR>
+obliged to hand it all over. However, she consented to her sending<BR>
+this amount to the young man.</P>
+
+<P>A few days later he wrote: "You have rendered me a great service, my<BR>
+dear mother, for we were in the greatest distress."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, however, could not get accustomed to Batteville. It seemed to<BR>
+her as if she could not breathe as she did formerly, that she was more<BR>
+lonely, more deserted, more lost than ever. She went out for a walk,<BR>
+got as far as the hamlet of Verneuil, came back by the Trois-Mares,<BR>
+came home, then suddenly wanted to start out again, as if she had<BR>
+forgotten to go to the very place she intended.</P>
+
+<P>And every day she did the same thing without knowing why. But one<BR>
+evening a thought came to her unconsciously which revealed to her the<BR>
+secret of her restlessness. She said as she was sitting down to<BR>
+dinner: "Oh, how I long to see the sea!"</P>
+
+<P>That was what she had missed so greatly, the sea, her big neighbor for<BR>
+twenty-five years, the sea with its salt air, its rages, its scolding<BR>
+voice, its strong breezes, the sea which she sought from her window at<BR>
+"The Poplars" every morning, whose air she breathed day and night, the<BR>
+sea which she felt close to her, which she had taken to loving<BR>
+unconsciously as she would a person.</P>
+
+<P>Winter was approaching, and Jeanne felt herself overcome by an<BR>
+unconquerable discouragement. It was not one of those acute griefs<BR>
+which seemed to wring the heart, but a dreary, mournful sadness.</P>
+
+<P>Nothing roused her. No one paid any attention to her. The high road<BR>
+before her door stretched to right and left with hardly any passersby.<BR>
+Occasionally a dogcart passed rapidly, driven by a red-faced man, with<BR>
+his blouse puffed out by the wind, making a sort of blue balloon;<BR>
+sometimes a slow-moving wagon, or else two peasants, a man and a<BR>
+woman, who came near, passed by, and disappeared in the distance.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as the grass began to grow again, a young girl in a short<BR>
+skirt passed by the gate every morning with two thin cows who browsed<BR>
+along the side of the road. She came back every evening with the same<BR>
+sleepy face, making a step every ten minutes as she walked behind the<BR>
+animals.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne dreamed every night that she was still at "The Poplars." She<BR>
+seemed to be there with father and little mother, and sometimes even<BR>
+with Aunt Lison. She did over again things forgotten and done with,<BR>
+thought she was supporting Madame Adelaide in her walk along the<BR>
+avenue. And each awakening was attended with tears.</P>
+
+<P>She thought continually of Paul, wondering what he was doing--how he<BR>
+was--whether he sometimes thought of her. As she walked slowly in the<BR>
+by-roads between the farms, she thought over all these things which<BR>
+tormented her, but above all else, she cherished an intense jealousy<BR>
+of the woman who had stolen her son from her. It was this hatred alone<BR>
+which prevented her from taking any steps, from going to look for him,<BR>
+to see him. It seemed to her that she saw that woman standing on the<BR>
+doorsill asking: "What do you want here, madame?" Her mother's pride<BR>
+revolted at the possibility of such a meeting. And her haughty pride<BR>
+of a good woman whose character is blameless made her all the more<BR>
+indignant at the cowardice of a man subjugated by an unworthy passion.</P>
+
+<P>When autumn returned with its long rains, its gray sky, its dark<BR>
+clouds, such a weariness of this kind of life came over her that she<BR>
+determined to make a great effort to get her Poulet back; he must have<BR>
+got over his infatuation by this time.</P>
+
+<P>She wrote him an imploring letter:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Child: I am going to entreat you to come back to me. Remember<BR>
+that I am old and delicate, all alone the whole year round except for<BR>
+a servant maid. I am now living in a little house on the main road. It<BR>
+is very lonely, but if you were here all would be different for me. I<BR>
+have only you in the world, and I have not seen you for seven years!<BR>
+You were my life, my dream, my only hope, my one love, and you failed<BR>
+me, you deserted me!</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, come back, my little Poulet--come and embrace me. Come back to<BR>
+your old mother, who holds out her despairing arms towards you.</P>
+
+<P>"Jeanne."</P>
+
+<P>He replied a few days later:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Mother: I would ask nothing better than to go and see you,<BR>
+but I have not a penny. Send me some money and I will come. I wanted,<BR>
+in any case, to see you to talk to you about a plan that would make it<BR>
+possible for me to do as you ask.</P>
+
+<P>"The disinterestedness and love of the one who has been my companion<BR>
+in the dark days through which I have passed can never be forgotten by<BR>
+me. It is not possible for me to remain any longer without publicly<BR>
+recognizing her love and her faithful devotion. She has very pleasing<BR>
+manners, which you would appreciate. She is also educated and reads a<BR>
+good deal. In fact, you cannot understand what she has been to me. I<BR>
+should be a brute if I did not show her my gratitude. I am going,<BR>
+therefore, to ask you to give me your permission to marry her. You<BR>
+will forgive all my follies and we will all live together in your new<BR>
+house.</P>
+
+<P>"If you knew her you would at once give your consent. I can assure you<BR>
+that she is perfect and very distingu&eacute;. You will love her, I am sure.<BR>
+As for me, I could not live without her.</P>
+
+<P>"I shall expect your reply with impatience, my dear mother, and we<BR>
+both embrace you with all our heart.</P>
+
+<P>"Your son,</P>
+
+<P>"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was crushed. She remained motionless, the letter on her lap,<BR>
+seeing through the cunning of this girl who had had such a hold on her<BR>
+son for so long, and had not let him come to see her once, biding her<BR>
+time until the despairing old mother could no longer resist the desire<BR>
+to clasp her son in her arms, and would weaken and grant all they<BR>
+asked.</P>
+
+<P>And grief at Paul's persistent preference for this creature wrung her<BR>
+heart. She said: "He does not love me. He does not love me."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie just then entered the room. Jeanne faltered: "He wants to<BR>
+marry her now."</P>
+
+<P>The maid was startled. "Oh, madame, you will not allow that. M. Paul<BR>
+must not pick up that rubbish."</P>
+
+<P>And Jeanne, overcome with emotion, but indignant, replied: "Never<BR>
+that, my girl. And as he will not come here, I am going to see him,<BR>
+myself, and we shall see which of us will carry the day."</P>
+
+<P>She wrote at once to Paul to prepare him for her visit, and to arrange<BR>
+to meet him elsewhere than in the house inhabited by that baggage.</P>
+
+<P>While awaiting a reply she made her preparations for departure.<BR>
+Rosalie began to pack her mistress' clothes in an old trunk, but as<BR>
+she was folding a dress, one of those she had worn in the country, she<BR>
+exclaimed: "Why, you have nothing to put on your back. I will not<BR>
+allow you to go like that. You would be a disgrace to everyone; and<BR>
+the Parisian ladies would take you for a servant."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne let her have her own way, and the two women went together to<BR>
+Goderville to choose some material, which was given a dressmaker in<BR>
+the village. Then they went to the lawyer, M. Roussel, who spent a<BR>
+fortnight in the capital every year, in order to get some information;<BR>
+for Jeanne had not been in Paris for twenty-eight years.</P>
+
+<P>He gave them lots of advice on how to avoid being run over, on methods<BR>
+of protecting yourself from thieves, advising her to sew her money up<BR>
+inside the lining of her coat, and to keep in her pocket only what she<BR>
+absolutely needed. He spoke at length about moderate priced<BR>
+restaurants, and mentioned two or three patronized by women, and told<BR>
+them that they might mention his name at the Hotel Normandie.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne had never yet seen the railroad, though trains had been running<BR>
+between Paris and Havre for six years, and were revolutionizing the<BR>
+whole country.</P>
+
+<P>She received no answer from Paul, although she waited a week, then two<BR>
+weeks, going every morning to meet the postman, asking him<BR>
+hesitatingly: "Is there anything for me, P&egrave;re Malandain?" And the man<BR>
+always replied in his hoarse voice: "Nothing again, my good lady."</P>
+
+<P>It certainly must be this woman who was keeping Paul from writing.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, therefore, determined to set out at once. She wanted to take<BR>
+Rosalie with her, but the maid refused for fear of increasing the<BR>
+expense of the journey. She did not allow her mistress to take more<BR>
+than three hundred francs, saying: "If you need more you can write to<BR>
+me and I will go to the lawyer and ask him to send it to you. If I<BR>
+give you any more, M. Paul will put it in his pocket."</P>
+
+<P>One December morning Denis Lecoq came for them in his light wagon and<BR>
+took them to the station. Jeanne wept as she kissed Rosalie good-by,<BR>
+and got into the train. Rosalie was also affected and said: "Good-by,<BR>
+madame, bon voyage, and come back soon!"</P>
+
+<P>"Good-by, my girl."</P>
+
+<P>A whistle and the train was off, beginning slowly and gradually going<BR>
+with a speed that terrified Jeanne. In her compartment there were two<BR>
+gentlemen leaning back in the two corners of the carriage.</P>
+
+<P>She looked at the country as they swept past, the trees, the farms,<BR>
+the villages, feeling herself carried into a new life, into a new<BR>
+world that was no longer the life of her tranquil youth and of her<BR>
+present monotonous existence.</P>
+
+<P>She reached Paris that evening. A commissionaire took her trunk and<BR>
+she followed him in great fear, jostled by the crowd and not knowing<BR>
+how to make her way amid this mass of moving humanity, almost running<BR>
+to keep up with the man for fear of losing sight of him.</P>
+
+<P>On reaching the hotel she said at the desk: "I was recommended here by<BR>
+M. Roussel."</P>
+
+<P>The proprietress, an immense woman with a serious face, who was seated<BR>
+at the desk, inquired:</P>
+
+<P>"Who is he--M. Roussel?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne replied in amazement: "Why, he is the lawyer at Goderville, who<BR>
+stops here every year."</P>
+
+<P>"That's very possible," said the big woman, "but I do not know him. Do<BR>
+you wish a room?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>A boy took her satchel and led the way upstairs. She felt a pang at<BR>
+her heart. Sitting down at a little table she sent for some luncheon,<BR>
+as she had eaten nothing since daybreak. As she ate, she was thinking<BR>
+sadly of a thousand things, recalling her stay here on the return from<BR>
+her wedding journey, and the first indication of Julien's character<BR>
+betrayed while they were in Paris. But she was young then, and<BR>
+confident and brave. Now she felt old, embarrassed, even timid, weak<BR>
+and disturbed at trifles. When she had finished her luncheon she went<BR>
+over to the window and looked down on the street filled with people.<BR>
+She wished to go out, but was afraid to do so. She would surely get<BR>
+lost. She went to bed, but the noise, the feeling of being in a<BR>
+strange city, kept her awake. About two o'clock in the morning, just<BR>
+as she was dozing off, she heard a woman scream in an adjoining room;<BR>
+she sat up in bed and then she thought she heard a man laugh. As<BR>
+daylight dawned the thought of Paul came to her, and she dressed<BR>
+herself before it was light.</P>
+
+<P>Paul lived in the Rue du Sauvage, in the old town. She wanted to go<BR>
+there on foot so as to carry out Rosalie's economical advice. The<BR>
+weather was delightful, the air cold enough to make her skin tingle.<BR>
+People were hurrying along the sidewalks. She walked as fast as she<BR>
+could, according to directions given her, along a street, at the end<BR>
+of which she was to turn to the right and then to the left, when she<BR>
+would come to a square where she must make fresh inquiries. She did<BR>
+not find the square, and went into a baker's to ask her way, and he<BR>
+directed her differently. She started off again, went astray, inquired<BR>
+her way again, and finally got lost completely.</P>
+
+<P>Half crazy, she now walked at random. She had made up her mind to call<BR>
+a cab, when she caught sight of the Seine. She then walked along the<BR>
+quays.</P>
+
+<P>After about an hour she found the Rue Sauvage, a sort of dark alley.<BR>
+She stopped at a door, so overcome that she could not move.</P>
+
+<P>He was there, in that house--Poulet.</P>
+
+<P>She felt her knees and hands trembling; but at last she entered the<BR>
+door, and walking along a passage, saw the janitor's quarters. She<BR>
+said, as she held out a piece of money: "Would you go up and tell M.<BR>
+Paul de Lamare that an old lady, a friend of his mother's, is<BR>
+downstairs, and wishes to see him?"</P>
+
+<P>"He does not live here any longer, madame," replied the janitor.</P>
+
+<P>A shudder went over her. She faltered:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh! Where--where is he living now?"</P>
+
+<P>"I do not know."</P>
+
+<P>She grew dizzy as though she were about to fall over, and stood there<BR>
+for some moments without being able to speak. At length, with a great<BR>
+effort, she collected her senses and murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"How long is it since he left?"</P>
+
+<P>"About two weeks ago. They went off like that, one evening, and never<BR>
+came back. They were in debt everywhere in the neighborhood, so you<BR>
+can understand that they did not care to leave their address."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne saw lights before her eyes, flashes of flame, as though a gun<BR>
+had been fired off in front of her eyes. But she had one fixed idea in<BR>
+her mind, and that sustained her, and kept her outwardly calm and<BR>
+rational. She wished to find Poulet and know all about him.</P>
+
+<P>"Then he said nothing when he was going away?"</P>
+
+<P>"Nothing at all; they ran off to escape their debts, that's all."</P>
+
+<P>"But he surely sends someone to get his mail."</P>
+
+<P>"More frequently than I send it. He never got more than ten letters a<BR>
+year. I took one up to them, however, two days before they left."</P>
+
+<P>That was probably her letter. She said abruptly: "Listen! I am his<BR>
+mother, his own mother, and I have come to look for him. Here are ten<BR>
+francs for you. If you can get any news or any particulars about him,<BR>
+come and see me at the Hotel Normandie, Rue du Havre, and I will pay<BR>
+you well."</P>
+
+<P>"You may count on me, madame," he replied.</P>
+
+<P>She left him and began to walk away without caring whither she went.<BR>
+She hurried along as though she were on some important business,<BR>
+knocking up against people with packages, crossing the streets without<BR>
+paying attention to the approaching vehicles, and being sworn at by<BR>
+the drivers, stumbling on the curb of the sidewalk, and tearing along<BR>
+straight ahead in utter despair.</P>
+
+<P>All at once she found herself in a garden, and was so tired that she<BR>
+sat down on a bench to rest. She stayed there some time apparently,<BR>
+weeping without being conscious of it, for passersby stopped to look<BR>
+at her. Then she felt very cold, and rose to go on her way; but her<BR>
+legs would scarcely carry her, she was so weak and distressed.</P>
+
+<P>She wanted to go into a restaurant and get a cup of bouillon, but a<BR>
+sort of shame, of fear, of modesty at her grief being observed held<BR>
+her back. She would pause at the door, look in, see all the people<BR>
+sitting at table eating, and would turn away, saying: "I will go into<BR>
+the next one." But she had not the courage.</P>
+
+<P>Finally she went into a bakery and bought a crescent and ate it as she<BR>
+walked along. She was very thirsty, but did not know where to go to<BR>
+get something to drink, so did without it.</P>
+
+<P>Presently she found herself in another garden surrounded by arcades.<BR>
+She recognized the Palais Royal. Being tired and warm, she sat down<BR>
+here for an hour or two.</P>
+
+<P>A crowd of people came in, a well-dressed crowd, chatting, smiling,<BR>
+bowing to each other, that happy crowd of beautiful women and wealthy<BR>
+men who live only for dress and amusement. Jeanne felt bewildered in<BR>
+the midst of this brilliant assemblage, and got up to make her escape.<BR>
+But suddenly the thought came to her that she might meet Paul in this<BR>
+place; and she began to wander about, looking into the faces, going<BR>
+and coming incessantly with her quick step from one end of the garden<BR>
+to the other.</P>
+
+<P>People turned round to look at her, others laughed as they pointed her<BR>
+out. She noticed it and fled, thinking that they were doubtless amused<BR>
+at her appearance and at her dress of green plaid, selected by<BR>
+Rosalie, and made according to her ideas by the dressmaker at<BR>
+Goderville.</P>
+
+<P>She no longer dared even to ask her way of passersby, but at last she<BR>
+ventured to do so and found her way back to the hotel.</P>
+
+<P>The following day she went to the police department to ask them to<BR>
+look for her child. They could promise her nothing, but said they<BR>
+would do all they could. She wandered about the streets hoping that<BR>
+she might come across him. And she felt more alone in this bustling<BR>
+crowd, more lost, more wretched than in the lonely country.</P>
+
+<P>That evening when she came back to the hotel she was informed that a<BR>
+man had come to see her from M. Paul, and that he would come back<BR>
+again the following day. Her heart began to beat violently and she<BR>
+never closed her eyes that night. If it should be he! Yes, it<BR>
+assuredly was, although she would not have recognized him from the<BR>
+description they gave her.</P>
+
+<P>About nine o'clock the following morning there was a knock at the<BR>
+door. She cried: "Come in!" ready to throw herself into certain<BR>
+outstretched arms. But an unknown person appeared; and while he<BR>
+excused himself for disturbing her, and explained his business, which<BR>
+was to collect a debt of Paul's, she felt the tears beginning to<BR>
+overflow, and wiped them away with her finger before they fell on her<BR>
+cheeks.</P>
+
+<P>He had learned of her arrival through the janitor of the Rue Sauvage,<BR>
+and as he could not find the young man, he had come to see his mother.<BR>
+He handed her a paper, which she took without knowing what she was<BR>
+doing and read the figures--ninety francs--which she paid without a<BR>
+word.</P>
+
+<P>She did not go out that day.</P>
+
+<P>The next day other creditors came. She gave them all that she had left<BR>
+except twenty francs and then wrote to Rosalie to explain matters to<BR>
+her.</P>
+
+<P>She passed her days wandering about, waiting for Rosalie's answer, not<BR>
+knowing what to do, how to kill the melancholy, interminable hours,<BR>
+having no one to whom she could say an affectionate word, no one who<BR>
+knew her sorrow. She now longed to return home to her little house at<BR>
+the side of the lonely high road. A few days before she thought she<BR>
+could not live there, she was so overcome with grief, and now she felt<BR>
+that she could never live anywhere else but there where her serious<BR>
+character had been formed.</P>
+
+<P>One evening the letter at last came, enclosing two hundred francs.<BR>
+Rosalie wrote:</P>
+
+<P>"Madame Jeanne: Come back at once, for I shall not send you any more.<BR>
+As for M. Paul, it is I who will go and get him when we know where he<BR>
+is.</P>
+
+<P>"With respect, your servant,</P>
+
+<P>"Rosalie."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne set out for Batteville one very cold, snowy morning.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></h4>
+
+<h5>LIGHT AT EVENTIDE</h5>
+
+<P>Jeanne never went out now, never stirred about. She rose at the same<BR>
+hour every day, looked out at the weather and then went downstairs and<BR>
+sat before the parlor fire.</P>
+
+<P>She would remain for days motionless, gazing into the fire, thinking<BR>
+of nothing in particular. It would grow dark before she stirred,<BR>
+except to put a fresh log on the fire. Rosalie would then bring in the<BR>
+lamp and exclaim: "Come, Madame Jeanne, you must stir about or you<BR>
+will have no appetite again this evening."</P>
+
+<P>She lived over the past, haunted by memories of her early life and her<BR>
+wedding journey down yonder in Corsica. Forgotten landscapes in that<BR>
+isle now rose before her in the blaze of the fire, and she recalled<BR>
+all the little details, all the little incidents, the faces she had<BR>
+seen down there. The head of the guide, Jean Ravoli, haunted her, and<BR>
+she sometimes seemed to hear his voice.</P>
+
+<P>Then she remembered the sweet years of Paul's childhood, when they<BR>
+planted salad together and when she knelt in the thick grass beside<BR>
+Aunt Lison, each trying what they could do to please the child, and<BR>
+her lips murmured: "Poulet, my little Poulet," as though she were<BR>
+talking to him. Stopping at this word, she would try to trace it,<BR>
+letter by letter, in space, sometimes for hours at a time, until she<BR>
+became confused and mixed up the letters and formed other words, and<BR>
+she became so nervous that she was almost crazy.</P>
+
+<P>She had all the peculiarities of those who live a solitary life. The<BR>
+least thing out of its usual place irritated her.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie often obliged her to walk and took her on the high road, but<BR>
+at the end of twenty minutes she declared she could not take another<BR>
+step and sat down on the side of the road.</P>
+
+<P>She soon became averse to all movement and stayed in bed as late as<BR>
+possible. Since her childhood she had retained one custom, that of<BR>
+rising the instant she had drunk her caf&eacute; au lait in the morning. But<BR>
+now she would lie down again and begin to dream, and as she was daily<BR>
+growing more lazy, Rosalie would come and oblige her to get up and<BR>
+almost force her to get dressed.</P>
+
+<P>She seemed no longer to have any will power, and each time the maid<BR>
+asked her a question or wanted her advice or opinion she would say:<BR>
+"Do as you think best, my girl."</P>
+
+<P>She imagined herself pursued by some persistent ill luck and was like<BR>
+an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her<BR>
+hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer<BR>
+before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the<BR>
+wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of<BR>
+bad luck--I have never had any luck in life."</P>
+
+<P>Then Rosalie would say: "What would you do if you had to work for your<BR>
+living, if you were obliged to get up every morning at six o'clock to<BR>
+go out to your work? Many people have to do that, nevertheless, and<BR>
+when they grow too old they die of want."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne replied: "Remember that I am all alone; that my son has<BR>
+deserted me." And Rosalie would get very angry: "That's another thing!<BR>
+Well, how about the sons who are drafted into the army and those who<BR>
+go to America?"</P>
+
+<P>America to her was an undefined country, where one went to make a<BR>
+fortune and whence one never returned. She continued: "There always<BR>
+comes a time when people have to part, for old people and young people<BR>
+are not made to live together." And she added fiercely: "Well, what<BR>
+would you say if he were dead?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne had nothing more to say.</P>
+
+<P>One day in spring she had gone up to the loft to look for something<BR>
+and by chance opened a box containing old calendars which had been<BR>
+preserved after the manner of some country folks.</P>
+
+<P>She took them up and carried them downstairs. They were of all sizes,<BR>
+and she laid them out on the table in the parlor in regular order.<BR>
+Suddenly she spied the earliest, the one she had brought with her to<BR>
+"The Poplars." She gazed at it for some time, at the days crossed off<BR>
+by her the morning she left Rouen, the day after she left the convent,<BR>
+and she wept slow, sorrowful tears, the tears of an old woman at sight<BR>
+of her wretched life spread out before her on this table.</P>
+
+<P>One morning the maid came into her room earlier than usual, and<BR>
+placing the bowl of caf&eacute; au lait on the little stand beside her bed,<BR>
+she said: "Come, drink it quickly. Denis is waiting for us at the<BR>
+door. We are going to 'The Poplars,' &nbsp;for I have something to attend<BR>
+to down there."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne dressed herself with trembling hands, almost fainting at the<BR>
+thought of seeing her dear home once more.</P>
+
+<P>The sky was cloudless and the nag, who was inclined to be frisky,<BR>
+would suddenly start off at a gallop every now and then. As they<BR>
+entered the commune of &Eacute;touvent Jeanne's heart beat so that she could<BR>
+hardly breathe.</P>
+
+<P>They unharnessed the horse at the Couillard place, and while Rosalie<BR>
+and her son were attending to their own affairs, the farmer and his<BR>
+wife offered to let Jeanne go over the chateau, as the proprietor was<BR>
+away and they had the keys.</P>
+
+<P>She went off alone, and when she reached the side of the chateau from<BR>
+which there was a view of the sea she turned round to look. Nothing<BR>
+had changed on the outside. When she turned the heavy lock and went<BR>
+inside the first thing she did was to go up to her old room, which she<BR>
+did not recognize, as it had been newly papered and furnished. But the<BR>
+view from the window was the same, and she stood and gazed out at the<BR>
+landscape she had so loved.</P>
+
+<P>She then wandered all over the house, walking quietly all alone in<BR>
+this silent abode as though it were a cemetery. All her life was<BR>
+buried here. She went down to the drawing-room, which was dark with<BR>
+its closed shutters. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light<BR>
+she recognized some of the old hangings. Two easy chairs were drawn up<BR>
+before the fire, as if some one had just left them, and as Jeanne<BR>
+stood there, full of old memories, she suddenly seemed to see her<BR>
+father and mother sitting there, warming their feet at the fire.</P>
+
+<P>She started back in terror and knocked up against the edge of the<BR>
+door, against which she leaned to support herself, still staring at<BR>
+the armchairs.</P>
+
+<P>The vision had vanished.</P>
+
+<P>She remained bewildered for some minutes. Then she slowly recovered<BR>
+her composure and started to run away, for fear she might become<BR>
+insane. She chanced to look at the door against which she had been<BR>
+leaning and saw there "Poulet's ladder."</P>
+
+<P>All the little notches were there showing the age and growth of her<BR>
+child. Here was the baron's writing, then hers, a little smaller, and<BR>
+then Aunt Lison's rather shaky characters. And she seemed to see her<BR>
+boy of long ago with his fair hair standing before her, leaning his<BR>
+little forehead against the door while they measured his height.</P>
+
+<P>And she kissed the edge of the door in a frenzy of affection.</P>
+
+<P>But some one was calling her outside. It was Rosalie's voice: "Madame<BR>
+Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, they are waiting breakfast for you." She went<BR>
+out in a dream and understood nothing of what they were saying to her.<BR>
+She ate what they gave her, heard them talking, but about what she<BR>
+knew not, let them kiss her on the cheeks and kissed them in return<BR>
+and then got into the carriage.</P>
+
+<P>When they lost sight of the ch&acirc;teau behind the tall trees she felt a<BR>
+wrench at her heart, convinced that she had bid a last farewell to her<BR>
+old home.</P>
+
+<P>When they reached Batteville and just as she was going into her new<BR>
+house, she saw something white under the door. It was a letter that<BR>
+the postman had slipped under the door while she was out. She<BR>
+recognized Paul's writing and opened it, trembling with anxiety. He<BR>
+wrote:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Mother: I have not written sooner because I did not wish you<BR>
+to make a useless journey to Paris when it was my place to go and see<BR>
+you. I am just now in great sorrow and in great straits. My wife is<BR>
+dying after giving birth to a little girl three days ago, and I have<BR>
+not one sou. I do not know what to do with the child, whom my<BR>
+janitor's wife is bringing up on the bottle as well as she can, but I<BR>
+fear I shall lose her. Could you not take charge of it? I absolutely<BR>
+do not know what to do, and I have no money to put her out to nurse.<BR>
+Answer by return mail.</P>
+
+<P>"Your son, who loves you,</P>
+
+<P>"Paul."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne sank into a chair and had scarcely strength to call Rosalie.<BR>
+When the maid came into the room they read the letter over together<BR>
+and then remained silent for some time, face to face.</P>
+
+<P>At last Rosalie said: "I am going to fetch the little one, madame. We<BR>
+cannot leave it like that."</P>
+
+<P>"Go, my girl," replied Jeanne.</P>
+
+<P>Then they were silent until the maid said: "Put on your hat, madame,<BR>
+and we will go to Goderville to see the lawyer. If she is going to<BR>
+die, the other one, M. Paul must marry her for the little one's sake<BR>
+later on."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, without replying, put on her hat. A deep, inexpressible joy<BR>
+filled her heart, a treacherous joy that she sought to hide at any<BR>
+cost, one of those things of which one is ashamed, although cherishing<BR>
+it in one's soul--her son's sweetheart was going to die.</P>
+
+<P>The lawyer gave the servant minute instructions, making her repeat<BR>
+them several times. Then, sure that she could make no mistake, she<BR>
+said: "Do not be afraid. I will see to it now."</P>
+
+<P>She set out for Paris that very night.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne passed two days in such a troubled condition that she could not<BR>
+think. The third morning she received merely a line from Rosalie<BR>
+saying she would be back on the evening train. That was all.</P>
+
+<P>About three o'clock she drove in a neighbor's light wagon to the<BR>
+station at Beuzeville to meet Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>She stood on the platform, looking at the railroad track as it<BR>
+disappeared on the horizon. She looked at the clock. Ten minutes<BR>
+still--five minutes still--two minutes more. Then the hour of the<BR>
+train's arrival, but it was not in sight. Presently, however, she saw<BR>
+a cloud of white smoke and gradually it drew up in the station. She<BR>
+looked anxiously and at last perceived Rosalie carrying a sort of<BR>
+white bundle in her arms.</P>
+
+<P>She wanted to go over toward her, but her knees seemed to grow weak<BR>
+and she was afraid of falling.</P>
+
+<P>But the maid had seen her and came forward with her usual calm manner<BR>
+and said: "How do you do, madame? Here I am back again, but not<BR>
+without some difficulty."</P>
+
+<P>"Well?" faltered Jeanne.</P>
+
+<P>"Well," answered Rosalie, "she died last night. They were married and<BR>
+here is the little girl." And she held out the child, who could not be<BR>
+seen under her wraps.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne took it mechanically and they left the station and got into the<BR>
+carriage.</P>
+
+<P>"M. Paul will come as soon as the funeral is over--to-morrow about<BR>
+this time, I believe," resumed Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne murmured "Paul" and then was silent.</P>
+
+<P>The wagon drove along rapidly, the peasant clacking his tongue to urge<BR>
+on the horse. Jeanne looked straight ahead of her into the clear sky<BR>
+through which the swallows darted in curves. Suddenly she felt a<BR>
+gentle warmth striking through to her skin; it was the warmth of the<BR>
+little being who was asleep on her lap.</P>
+
+<P>Then she was overcome with an intense emotion, and uncovering gently<BR>
+the face of the sleeping infant, she raised it to her lips and kissed<BR>
+it passionately.</P>
+
+<P>But Rosalie, happy though grumpy, stopped her; "Come, come, Madame<BR>
+Jeanne, stop that; you will make it cry."</P>
+
+<P>And then she added, probably in answer to her own thoughts: "Life,<BR>
+after all, is not as good or as bad as we believe it to be."</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="vag">A VAGABOND</a></h3>
+
+<P>He was a journeyman carpenter, a good workman and a steady fellow,<BR>
+twenty-seven years old, but, although the eldest son, Jacques Randel<BR>
+had been forced to live on his family for two months, owing to the<BR>
+general lack of work. He had walked about seeking work for over a<BR>
+month and had left his native town, Ville-Avary, in La Manche, because<BR>
+he could find nothing to do and would no longer deprive his family of<BR>
+the bread they needed themselves, when he was the strongest of them<BR>
+all. His two sisters earned but little as charwomen. He went and<BR>
+inquired at the town hall, and the mayor's secretary told him that he<BR>
+would find work at the Labor Agency, and so he started, well provided<BR>
+with papers and certificates, and carrying another pair of shoes, a<BR>
+pair of trousers and a shirt in a blue handkerchief at the end of his<BR>
+stick.</P>
+
+<P>And he had walked almost without stopping, day and night, along<BR>
+interminable roads, in sun and rain, without ever reaching that<BR>
+mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed<BR>
+idea that he must only work as a carpenter, but at every carpenter's<BR>
+shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on<BR>
+account of work being so slack, and, finding himself at the end of his<BR>
+resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come<BR>
+across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman,<BR>
+stonecutter; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells,<BR>
+mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for<BR>
+a few pence, for he only obtained two or three days' work occasionally<BR>
+by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the<BR>
+avarice of employers and peasants.</P>
+
+<P>And now for a week he had found nothing, and had no money left, and<BR>
+nothing to eat but a piece of bread, thanks to the charity of some<BR>
+women from whom he had begged at house doors on the road. It was<BR>
+getting dark, and Jacques Randel, jaded, his legs failing him, his<BR>
+stomach empty, and with despair in his heart, was walking barefoot on<BR>
+the grass by the side of the road, for he was taking care of his last<BR>
+pair of shoes, as the other pair had already ceased to exist for a<BR>
+long time. It was a Saturday, toward the end of autumn. The heavy gray<BR>
+clouds were being driven rapidly through the sky by the gusts of wind<BR>
+which whistled among the trees, and one felt that it would rain soon.<BR>
+The country was deserted at that hour on the eve of Sunday. Here and<BR>
+there in the fields there rose up stacks of wheat straw, like huge<BR>
+yellow mushrooms, and the fields looked bare, as they had already been<BR>
+sown for the next year.</P>
+
+<P>Randel was hungry, with the hunger of some wild animal, such a hunger<BR>
+as drives wolves to attack men. Worn out and weakened with fatigue, he<BR>
+took longer strides, so as not to take so many steps, and with heavy<BR>
+head, the blood throbbing in his temples, with red eyes and dry mouth,<BR>
+he grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing to strike the<BR>
+first passerby who might be going home to supper.</P>
+
+<P>He looked at the sides of the road, imagining he saw potatoes dug up<BR>
+and lying on the ground before his eyes; if he had found any he would<BR>
+have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a<BR>
+capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would<BR>
+first of all have warmed his cold hands. But it was too late in the<BR>
+year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up<BR>
+in a field as he had done the day before.</P>
+
+<P>For the last two days he had talked to himself as he quickened his<BR>
+steps under the influence of his thoughts. He had never thought much<BR>
+hitherto, as he had given all his mind, all his simple faculties to<BR>
+his mechanical work. But now fatigue and this desperate search for<BR>
+work which he could not get, refusals and rebuffs, nights spent in the<BR>
+open air lying on the grass, long fasting, the contempt which he knew<BR>
+people with a settled abode felt for a vagabond, and that question<BR>
+which he was continually asked, "Why do you not remain at home?"<BR>
+distress at not being able to use his strong arms which he felt so<BR>
+full of vigor, the recollection of the relations he had left at home<BR>
+and who also had not a penny, filled him by degrees with rage, which<BR>
+had been accumulating every day, every hour, every minute, and which<BR>
+now escaped his lips in spite of himself in short, growling sentences.</P>
+
+<P>As he stumbled over the stones which tripped his bare feet, he<BR>
+grumbled: "How wretched! how miserable! A set of hogs--to let a man<BR>
+die of hunger--a carpenter--a set of hogs--not two sous--not two<BR>
+sous--and now it is raining--a set of hogs!"</P>
+
+<P>He was indignant at the injustice of fate, and cast the blame on men,<BR>
+on all men, because nature, that great, blind mother, is unjust, cruel<BR>
+and perfidious, and he repeated through his clenched teeth: "A set of<BR>
+hogs" as he looked at the thin gray smoke which rose from the roofs,<BR>
+for it was the dinner hour. And, without considering that there is<BR>
+another injustice which is human, and which is called robbery and<BR>
+violence, he felt inclined to go into one of those houses to murder<BR>
+the inhabitants and to sit down to table in their stead.</P>
+
+<P>He said to himself: "I have no right to live now, as they are letting<BR>
+me die of hunger, and yet I only ask for work--a set of hogs!" And the<BR>
+pain in his limbs, the gnawing in his heart rose to his head like<BR>
+terrible intoxication, and gave rise to this simple thought in his<BR>
+brain: "I have the right to live because I breathe and because the air<BR>
+is the common property of everybody. So nobody has the right to leave<BR>
+me without bread!"</P>
+
+<P>A fine, thick, icy cold rain was coming down, and he stopped and<BR>
+murmured: "Oh, misery! Another month of walking before I get home." He<BR>
+was indeed returning home then, for he saw that he should more easily<BR>
+find work in his native town, where he was known--and he did not mind<BR>
+what he did--than on the highroads, where everybody suspected him. As<BR>
+the carpentering business was not prosperous, he would turn day<BR>
+laborer, be a mason's hodman, a ditcher, break stones on the road. If<BR>
+he only earned a franc a day, that would at any rate buy him something<BR>
+to eat.</P>
+
+<P>He tied the remains of his last pocket handkerchief round his neck to<BR>
+prevent the cold rain from running down his back and chest, but he<BR>
+soon found that it was penetrating the thin material of which his<BR>
+clothes were made, and he glanced about him with the agonized look of<BR>
+a man who does not know where to hide his body and to rest his head,<BR>
+and has no place of shelter in the whole world.</P>
+
+<P>Night came on and wrapped the country in obscurity, and in the<BR>
+distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark spot on the grass; it was a cow,<BR>
+and so he got over the ditch by the roadside and went up to her<BR>
+without exactly knowing what he was doing. When he got close to her<BR>
+she raised her great head to him, and he thought: "If I only had a jug<BR>
+I could get a little milk." He looked at the cow and the cow looked at<BR>
+him, and then, suddenly giving her a kick in the side, he said: "Get<BR>
+up!"</P>
+
+<P>The animal got up slowly, letting her heavy udders hang down. Then the<BR>
+man lay down on his back between the animal's legs and drank for a<BR>
+long time, squeezing her warm, swollen teats, which tasted of the<BR>
+cowstall, with both hands, and he drank as long as she gave any milk.<BR>
+But the icy rain began to fall more heavily, and he saw no place of<BR>
+shelter on the whole of that bare plain. He was cold, and he looked at<BR>
+a light which was shining among the trees in the window of a house.</P>
+
+<P>The cow had lain down again heavily, and he sat down by her side and<BR>
+stroked her head, grateful for the nourishment she had given him. The<BR>
+animal's strong, thick breath, which came out of her nostrils like two<BR>
+jets of steam in the evening air, blew on the workman's face, and he<BR>
+said: "You are not cold inside there!" He put his hands on her chest<BR>
+and under her stomach to find some warmth there, and then the idea<BR>
+struck him that he might pass the night beside that large, warm<BR>
+animal. So he found a comfortable place and laid his head on her side,<BR>
+and then, as he was worn out with fatigue, fell asleep immediately.</P>
+
+<P>He woke up, however, several times, with his back or his stomach half<BR>
+frozen, according as he put one or the other against the animal's<BR>
+flank. Then he turned over to warm and dry that part of his body which<BR>
+had remained exposed to the night air, and soon went soundly to sleep<BR>
+again.</P>
+
+<P>The crowing of a cock woke him; the day was breaking, it was no longer<BR>
+raining, and the sky was bright. The cow was resting with her muzzle<BR>
+on the ground, and he stooped down, resting on his hands, to kiss<BR>
+those wide, moist nostrils, and said: "Good-by, my beauty, until next<BR>
+time. You are a nice animal. Good-by." Then he put on his shoes and<BR>
+went off, and for two hours walked straight before him, always<BR>
+following the same road, and then he felt so tired that he sat down on<BR>
+the grass. It was broad daylight by that time, and the church bells<BR>
+were ringing; men in blue blouses, women in white caps, some on foot,<BR>
+some in carts, began to pass along the road, going to the neighboring<BR>
+villages to spend Sunday with friends or relations.</P>
+
+<P>A stout peasant came in sight, driving before him a score of<BR>
+frightened, bleating sheep, with the help of an active dog. Randel got<BR>
+up, and raising his cap, said: "You do not happen to have any work for<BR>
+a man who is dying of hunger?" But the other, giving an angry look at<BR>
+the vagabond, replied: "I have no work for fellows whom I meet on the<BR>
+road."</P>
+
+<P>And the carpenter went back and sat down by the side of the ditch<BR>
+again. He waited there for a long time, watching the country people<BR>
+pass and looking for a kind, compassionate face before he renewed his<BR>
+request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was<BR>
+adorned with a gold chain. "I have been looking for work," he said,<BR>
+"for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in<BR>
+my pocket." But the would-be gentleman replied: "You should have read<BR>
+the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village: 'Begging<BR>
+is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.' Let me tell you<BR>
+that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly<BR>
+I shall have you arrested."</P>
+
+<P>Randel, who was getting angry, replied: "Have me arrested if you like;<BR>
+I should prefer it, for, at any rate, I should not die of hunger." And<BR>
+he went back and sat down by the side of his ditch again, and in about<BR>
+a quarter of an hour two gendarmes appeared on the road. They were<BR>
+walking slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining<BR>
+hats, their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to<BR>
+frighten evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance. He knew<BR>
+that they were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was<BR>
+seized with a sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and<BR>
+to have his revenge later.</P>
+
+<P>They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with<BR>
+military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the<BR>
+goose step; and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have<BR>
+noticed him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly,<BR>
+and the brigadier came up to him and asked: "What are you doing here?"<BR>
+"I am resting," the man replied calmly. "Where do you come from?" "If<BR>
+I had to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more<BR>
+than an hour." "Where are you going to?" "To Ville-Avary." "Where is<BR>
+that?" "In La Manche." "Is that where you belong?" "It is." "Why did<BR>
+you leave it?" "To look for work."</P>
+
+<P>The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a<BR>
+man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick: "They all say<BR>
+that, these scamps. I know all about it." And then he continued: "Have<BR>
+you any papers?" "Yes, I have some." "Give them to me."</P>
+
+<P>Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those<BR>
+poor, worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave<BR>
+them to the soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and<BR>
+then, having seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to<BR>
+Randel with the dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than<BR>
+himself has tricked.</P>
+
+<P>After a few moments' further reflection, he asked him: "Have you any<BR>
+money on you?" "No." "None whatever?" "None." "Not even a sou?" "Not<BR>
+even a sou!" "How do you live then?" "On what people give me." "Then<BR>
+you beg?" And Randel answered resolutely: "Yes, when I can."</P>
+
+<P>Then the gendarme said: "I have caught you on the highroad in the act<BR>
+of vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I<BR>
+command you to come with me." The carpenter got up and said: "Wherever<BR>
+you please." And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even<BR>
+before he had received the order to do so, he added: "Well, lock me<BR>
+up; that will at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains."</P>
+
+<P>And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be<BR>
+seen through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service<BR>
+was about to begin when they went through the village. The square was<BR>
+full of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal<BR>
+pass. He was being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and<BR>
+female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with<BR>
+hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his<BR>
+skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked<BR>
+each other whether he had committed murder or robbery. The butcher,<BR>
+who was an ex-spahi, declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist<BR>
+thought that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning<BR>
+passed a bad half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared<BR>
+that he was the murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been<BR>
+looking for for six months.</P>
+
+<P>In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw<BR>
+the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the<BR>
+schoolmaster by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so<BR>
+here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you<BR>
+locked up. Well, brigadier, what is he charged with?"</P>
+
+<P>"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without<BR>
+any resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of<BR>
+begging, but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are<BR>
+all in order."</P>
+
+<P>"Show me his papers," the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread,<BR>
+returned them and then said: "Search him." So they searched him, but<BR>
+found nothing, and the mayor seemed perplexed, and asked the workman:</P>
+
+<P>"What were you doing on the road this morning?" "I was looking for<BR>
+work." "Work? On the highroad?" "How do you expect me to find any if I<BR>
+hide in the woods?"</P>
+
+<P>They looked at each other with the hatred of two wild beasts which<BR>
+belong to different hostile species, and the magistrate continued: "I<BR>
+am going to have you set at liberty, but do not be brought up before<BR>
+me again." To which the carpenter replied: "I would rather you locked<BR>
+me up; I have had enough running about the country." But the<BR>
+magistrate replied severely: "Be silent." And then he said to the two<BR>
+gendarmes: "You will conduct this man two hundred yards from the<BR>
+village and let him continue his journey."</P>
+
+<P>"At any rate, give me something to eat," the workman said, but the<BR>
+other grew indignant: "Have we nothing to do but to feed you? Ah! ah!<BR>
+ah! that is rather too much!" But Randel went on firmly: "If you let<BR>
+me nearly die of hunger again, you will force me to commit a crime,<BR>
+and then, so much the worse for you other fat fellows."</P>
+
+<P>The mayor had risen and he repeated: "Take him away immediately or I<BR>
+shall end by getting angry."</P>
+
+<P>The two gendarmes thereupon seized the carpenter by the arms and<BR>
+dragged him out. He allowed them to do it without resistance, passed<BR>
+through the village again and found himself on the highroad once more;<BR>
+and when the men had accompanied him two hundred yards beyond the<BR>
+village, the brigadier said: "Now off with you and do not let me catch<BR>
+you about here again, for if I do, you will know it."</P>
+
+<P>Randel went off without replying or knowing where he was going. He<BR>
+walked on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied<BR>
+that he no longer thought of anything. But suddenly, as he was passing<BR>
+a small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup<BR>
+and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring,<BR>
+maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of<BR>
+the house like a wild beast.</P>
+
+<P>He said aloud in a grumbling voice: "In Heaven's name! they must give<BR>
+me some this time!" And he began to knock at the door vigorously with<BR>
+his stick, and as no one came he knocked louder and called out: "Hey!<BR>
+hey! you people in there, open the door!" And then, as nothing<BR>
+stirred, he went up to the window and pushed it wider open with his<BR>
+hand, and the close warm air of the kitchen, full of the smell of hot<BR>
+soup, meat and cabbage, escaped into the cold outer air, and with a<BR>
+bound the carpenter was in the house. Two places were set at the<BR>
+table, and no doubt the proprietors of the house, on going to church,<BR>
+had left their dinner on the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef and<BR>
+vegetable soup, while there was a loaf of new bread on the<BR>
+chimney-piece, between two bottles which seemed full.</P>
+
+<P>Randel seized the bread first of all and broke it with as much<BR>
+violence as if he were strangling a man, and then he began to eat<BR>
+voraciously, swallowing great mouthfuls quickly. But almost<BR>
+immediately the smell of the meat attracted him to the fireplace, and,<BR>
+having taken off the lid of the saucepan, he plunged a fork into it<BR>
+and brought out a large piece of beef tied with a string. Then he took<BR>
+more cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, having<BR>
+put it on the table, he sat down before it, cut the meat into four<BR>
+pieces, and dined as if he had been at home. When he had eaten nearly<BR>
+all the meat, besides a quantity of vegetables, he felt thirsty and<BR>
+took one of the bottles off the mantelpiece.</P>
+
+<P>Scarcely had he poured the liquor into his glass when he saw it was<BR>
+brandy. So much the better; it was warming and would instill some fire<BR>
+into his veins, and that would be all right, after being so cold; and<BR>
+he drank some. He certainly enjoyed it, for he had grown unaccustomed<BR>
+to it, and he poured himself out another glassful, which he drank at<BR>
+two gulps. And then almost immediately he felt quite merry and<BR>
+light-hearted from the effects of the alcohol, just as if some great<BR>
+happiness filled his heart.</P>
+
+<P>He continued to eat, but more slowly, and dipping his bread into the<BR>
+soup. His skin had become burning, and especially his forehead, where<BR>
+the veins were throbbing. But suddenly the church bells began to ring.<BR>
+Mass was over, and instinct rather than fear, the instinct of<BR>
+prudence, which guides all beings and makes them clear-sighted in<BR>
+danger, made the carpenter get up. He put the remains of the loaf into<BR>
+one pocket and the brandy bottle into the other, and he furtively went<BR>
+to the window and looked out into the road. It was still deserted, so<BR>
+he jumped out and set off walking again, but instead of following the<BR>
+highroad he ran across the fields toward a wood he saw a little way<BR>
+off.</P>
+
+<P>He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so<BR>
+nimble that he sprang over the enclosure of the fields at a single<BR>
+bound, and as soon as he was under the trees he took the bottle out of<BR>
+his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as<BR>
+he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew<BR>
+dim, and his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the<BR>
+old popular song:</P>
+
+<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Oh! what joy, what joy it is, <BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."</i> </P>
+
+<P>He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet<BR>
+under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels<BR>
+as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault,<BR>
+got up and began over again. And between each time he began to sing<BR>
+again:</P>
+
+<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Oh! what joy, what joy it is, <BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."</i> </P>
+
+<P>Suddenly he found himself above a deep road, and in the road he saw a<BR>
+tall girl, a servant, who was returning to the village with two pails<BR>
+of milk. He watched, stooping down, and with his eyes as bright as<BR>
+those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him, raised her head<BR>
+and said: "Was that you singing like that?" He did not reply, however,<BR>
+but jumped down into the road, although it was a fall of at least six<BR>
+feet and when she saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she<BR>
+exclaimed: "Oh! dear, how you frightened me!"</P>
+
+<P>But he did not hear her, for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by<BR>
+another requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more<BR>
+feverish than alcohol; by the irresistible fury of the man who has<BR>
+been deprived of everything for two months, and who is drunk; who is<BR>
+young, ardent and inflamed by all the appetites which nature has<BR>
+implanted in the vigorous flesh of men.</P>
+
+<P>The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his<BR>
+half-open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the<BR>
+shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.</P>
+
+<P>She let her two pails fall, and they rolled over noisily, and all the<BR>
+milk was spilt, and then she screamed lustily, but it was of no avail<BR>
+in that lonely spot.</P>
+
+<P>When she got up the thought of her overturned pails suddenly filled<BR>
+her with fury, and, taking off one of her wooden sabots, she threw it<BR>
+at the man to break his head if he did not pay her for her milk.</P>
+
+<P>But he, mistaking the reason of this sudden violent attack, somewhat<BR>
+sobered, and frightened at what he had done, ran off as fast as he<BR>
+could, while she threw stones at him, some of which hit him in the<BR>
+back.</P>
+
+<P>He ran for a long time, very long, until he felt more tired than he<BR>
+had ever been before. His legs were so weak that they could scarcely<BR>
+carry him; all his ideas were confused, he lost recollection of<BR>
+everything and could no longer think about anything, and so he sat<BR>
+down at the foot of a tree, and in five minutes was fast asleep. He<BR>
+was soon awakened, however, by a rough shake, and, on opening his<BR>
+eyes, he saw two cocked hats of shiny leather bending over him, and<BR>
+the two gendarmes of the morning, who were holding him and binding his<BR>
+arms.</P>
+
+<P>"I knew I should catch you again," said the brigadier jeeringly. But<BR>
+Randel got up without replying. The two men shook him, quite ready to<BR>
+ill treat him if he made a movement, for he was their prey now. He had<BR>
+become a jailbird, caught by those hunters of criminals who would not<BR>
+let him go again.</P>
+
+<P>"Now, start!" the brigadier said, and they set off. It was late<BR>
+afternoon, and the autumn twilight was setting in over the land, and<BR>
+in half an hour they reached the village, where every door was open,<BR>
+for the people had heard what had happened. Peasants and peasant women<BR>
+and girls, excited with anger, as if every man had been robbed and<BR>
+every woman attacked, wished to see the wretch brought back, so that<BR>
+they might overwhelm him with abuse. They hooted him from the first<BR>
+house in the village until they reached the Hotel de Ville, where the<BR>
+mayor was waiting for him to be himself avenged on this vagabond, and<BR>
+as soon as he saw him approaching he cried:</P>
+
+<P>"Ah! my fine fellow! here we are!" And he rubbed his hands, more<BR>
+pleased than he usually was, and continued: "I said so. I said so, the<BR>
+moment I saw him in the road."</P>
+
+<P>And then with increased satisfaction:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you dirty blackguard! You will get your<BR>
+twenty years, my fine fellow!"</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="fish">THE FISHING HOLE</a></h3>
+
+<P>"Cuts and wounds which caused death." Such was the charge upon which<BR>
+Leopold Renard, upholsterer, was summoned before the Court of Assizes.</P>
+
+<P>Round him were the principal witnesses, Madame Flam&egrave;che, widow of the<BR>
+victim, and Louis Ladureau, cabinetmaker, and Jean Durdent, plumber.</P>
+
+<P>Near the criminal was his wife, dressed in black, an ugly little<BR>
+woman, who looked like a monkey dressed as a lady.</P>
+
+<P>This is how Renard (Leopold) recounted the drama:</P>
+
+<P>"Good heavens, it is a misfortune of which I was the prime victim all<BR>
+the time, and with which my will has nothing to do. The facts are<BR>
+their own commentary, Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident. I am an honest man, a<BR>
+hard-working man, an upholsterer, living in the same street for the<BR>
+last sixteen years, known, liked, respected and esteemed by all, as my<BR>
+neighbors can testify, even the porter's wife, who is not amiable<BR>
+every day. I am fond of work, I am fond of saving, I like honest men<BR>
+and respectable amusements. That is what has ruined me, so much the<BR>
+worse for me; but as my will had nothing to do with it, I continue to<BR>
+respect myself.</P>
+
+<P>"Every Sunday for the last five years my wife and I have spent the day<BR>
+at Passy. We get fresh air, and, besides, we are fond of fishing. Oh!<BR>
+we are as fond of it as we are of little onions. M&eacute;lie inspired me<BR>
+with that enthusiasm, the jade, and she is more enthusiastic than I<BR>
+am, the scold, seeing that all the mischief in this business is her<BR>
+fault, as you will see immediately.</P>
+
+<P>"I am strong and mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me.<BR>
+But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin.<BR>
+Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that<BR>
+she has some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones for<BR>
+a man in business. But her character! Just ask about it in the<BR>
+neighborhood, and even the porter's wife, who has just sent me about<BR>
+my business ... she will tell you something about it.</P>
+
+<P>"Every day she used to find fault with my mild temper: 'I would not<BR>
+put up with this! I would not put up with that.' If I had listened to<BR>
+her, Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident, I should have had at least three<BR>
+hand-to-hand fights a month...."</P>
+
+<P>Madame Renard interrupted him: "And for good reasons, too; they laugh<BR>
+best who laugh last."</P>
+
+<P>He turned toward her frankly: "Well, I can't blame you, since you were<BR>
+not the cause of it."</P>
+
+<P>Then, facing the President again, he said:</P>
+
+<P>"I will continue. We used to go to Passy every Saturday evening, so as<BR>
+to begin fishing at daybreak the next morning. It is a habit which has<BR>
+become second nature with us, as the saying is. Three years ago this<BR>
+summer I discovered a place, oh! such a spot. Oh, dear, dear! In the<BR>
+shade, eight feet of water at least and perhaps ten, a hole with<BR>
+cavities under the bank, a regular nest for fish and a paradise for<BR>
+the fisherman. I might look upon that fishing hole as my property,<BR>
+Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident, as I was its Christopher Columbus. Everybody in<BR>
+the neighborhood knew it, without making any opposition. They would<BR>
+say: 'That is Renard's place'; and nobody would have gone there, not<BR>
+even Monsieur Plumeau, who is well known, be it said without any<BR>
+offense, for poaching on other people's preserves.</P>
+
+<P>"Well, I returned to this place of which I felt certain, just as if I<BR>
+had owned it. I had scarcely got there on Saturday, when I got into<BR>
+<i>Delila</i>, with my wife. <i>Delila</i> is my Norwegian boat, which<BR>
+I had built by Fournaire, and which is light and safe. Well, as I<BR>
+said, we got into the boat and we were going to set bait, and for<BR>
+setting bait there is none to be compared with me, and they all know<BR>
+it. You want to know with what I bait? I cannot answer that question;<BR>
+it has nothing to do with the accident. I cannot answer; that is my<BR>
+secret. There are more than three hundred people who have asked me; I<BR>
+have been offered glasses of brandy and liqueur, fried fish,<BR>
+matelotes, to make me tell. But just go and try whether the chub will<BR>
+come. Ah! they have tempted my stomach to get at my secret, my recipe.<BR>
+Only my wife knows, and she will not tell it any more than I will. Is<BR>
+not that so, M&eacute;lie?"</P>
+
+<P>The president of the court interrupted him.</P>
+
+<P>"Just get to the facts as soon as you can," and the accused continued:<BR>
+"I am getting to them, I am getting to them. Well, on Saturday, July<BR>
+8, we left by the twenty-five past five train and before dinner we<BR>
+went to set bait as usual. The weather promised to keep fine and I<BR>
+said to M&eacute;lie: 'All right for tomorrow.' And she replied: 'It looks<BR>
+like it.' We never talk more than that together.</P>
+
+<P>"And then we returned to dinner. I was happy and thirsty, and that was<BR>
+the cause of everything. I said to M&eacute;lie: 'Look here, M&eacute;lie, it is<BR>
+fine weather, suppose I drink a bottle of <i>Casque &agrave; m&egrave;che</i>.' That<BR>
+is a weak white wine which we have christened so, because if you drink<BR>
+too much of it it prevents you from sleeping and takes the place of a<BR>
+nightcap. Do you understand me?</P>
+
+<P>"She replied: 'You can do as you please, but you will be ill again and<BR>
+will not be able to get up tomorrow.' That was true, sensible and<BR>
+prudent, clearsighted, I must confess. Nevertheless I could not<BR>
+resist, and I drank my bottle. It all came from that.</P>
+
+<P>"Well, I could not sleep. By Jove! it kept me awake till two o'clock<BR>
+in the morning, and then I went to sleep so soundly that I should not<BR>
+have heard the angel sounding his trump at the last Judgment.</P>
+
+<P>"In short, my wife woke me at six o'clock and I jumped out of bed,<BR>
+hastily put on my trousers and jersey, washed my face and jumped on<BR>
+board <i>Delila</i>. But it was too late, for when I arrived at my<BR>
+hole it was already occupied! Such a thing had never happened to me in<BR>
+three years, and it made me feel as if I were being robbed under my<BR>
+own eyes. I said to myself: 'Confound it all! confound it!' And then<BR>
+my wife began to nag at me. 'Eh! what about your <i>Casque &agrave;<BR>
+m&egrave;che?</i> Get along, you drunkard! Are you satisfied, you great<BR>
+fool?' I could say nothing, because it was all true, but I landed all<BR>
+the same near the spot and tried to profit by what was left. Perhaps<BR>
+after all the fellow might catch nothing and go away.</P>
+
+<P>"He was a little thin man in white linen coat and waistcoat and a<BR>
+large straw hat, and his wife, a fat woman, doing embroidery, sat<BR>
+behind him.</P>
+
+<P>"When she saw us take up our position close to them she murmured: 'Are<BR>
+there no other places on the river?' My wife, who was furious,<BR>
+replied: 'People who have any manners make inquiries about the habits<BR>
+of the neighborhood before occupying reserved spots.'</P>
+
+<P>"As I did not want a fuss, I said to her: 'Hold your tongue, M&eacute;lie.<BR>
+Let them alone, let them alone; we shall see.'</P>
+
+<P>"Well, we fastened <i>Delila</i> under the willows and had landed and<BR>
+were fishing side by side, M&eacute;lie and I, close to the two others. But<BR>
+here, monsieur, I must enter into details.</P>
+
+<P>"We had only been there about five minutes when our neighbor's line<BR>
+began to jerk twice, thrice, and then he pulled out a chub as thick as<BR>
+my thigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, the<BR>
+perspiration stood on my forehead and M&eacute;lie said to me: 'Well, you<BR>
+sot, did you see that?'</P>
+
+<P>"Just then Monsieur Bru, the grocer of Poissy, who is fond of gudgeon<BR>
+fishing, passed in a boat and called out to me: 'So somebody has taken<BR>
+your usual place, Monsieur Renard?' And I replied--: 'Yes, Monsieur<BR>
+Bru, there are some people in this world who do not know the rules of<BR>
+common politeness.'</P>
+
+<P>"The little man in linen pretended not to hear, nor his fat lump of a<BR>
+wife, either."</P>
+
+<P>Here the president interrupted him a second time: "Take care, you are<BR>
+insulting the widow, Madame Flam&egrave;che, who is present."</P>
+
+<P>Renard made his excuses: "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; my<BR>
+anger carried me away. Well, not a quarter of an hour had passed when<BR>
+the little man caught another chub, and another almost immediately,<BR>
+and another five minutes later.</P>
+
+<P>"Tears were in my eyes, and I knew that Madame Renard was boiling with<BR>
+rage, for she kept on nagging at me: 'Oh, how horrid! Don't you see<BR>
+that he is robbing you of your fish? Do you think that you will catch<BR>
+anything? Not even a frog, nothing whatever. Why, my hands are<BR>
+tingling, just to think of it.'</P>
+
+<P>"But I said to myself: 'Let us wait until twelve o'clock. Then this<BR>
+poacher will go to lunch and I shall get my place again. As for me,<BR>
+Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident, I lunch on that spot every Sunday. We bring our<BR>
+provisions in <i>Delila</i>. But there! At noon the wretch produced a<BR>
+chicken in a newspaper, and while he was eating, he actually caught<BR>
+another chub!</P>
+
+<P>"M&eacute;lie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for our<BR>
+heart was not in it.</P>
+
+<P>"Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion. Every Sunday I read<BR>
+the <i>Gil Blas</i> in the shade by the side of the water. It is<BR>
+Columbine's day, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in<BR>
+the <i>Gil Blas</i>. I generally put Madame Renard into a rage by<BR>
+pretending to know this Columbine. It is not true, for I do not know<BR>
+her and have never seen her, but that does not matter. She writes very<BR>
+well, and then she says things that are pretty plain for a woman. She<BR>
+suits me and there are not many of her sort.</P>
+
+<P>"Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and<BR>
+very angry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who<BR>
+are present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on<BR>
+the other side of the river. We knew each other by sight The little<BR>
+man began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with<BR>
+vexation and his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we<BR>
+will come here always, D&eacute;sir&eacute;.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my<BR>
+back, and Madame Renard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have<BR>
+the blood of a chicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her:<BR>
+'Look here, I would rather go away or I shall be doing something<BR>
+foolish.'</P>
+
+<P>"And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my<BR>
+nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender<BR>
+your place! Go, then, Bazaine!'</P>
+
+<P>"I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled<BR>
+out a bream. Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then<BR>
+my wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see<BR>
+her tricks. She said: 'That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing<BR>
+that we set the bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us<BR>
+back the money we have spent on bait.'</P>
+
+<P>"Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean<BR>
+to call us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments<BR>
+began to fly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They<BR>
+shouted so loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank,<BR>
+began to call out by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will<BR>
+interfere with your husbands' fishing.'</P>
+
+<P>"The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if<BR>
+we had been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on<BR>
+the water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the<BR>
+same. 'You are a thief! You are nothing better than a tramp! You are a<BR>
+regular jade!' and so on and so on. A sailor could not have said more.</P>
+
+<P>"Suddenly I heard a noise behind me and turned round. It was the other<BR>
+one, the fat woman, who had attacked my wife with her parasol.<BR>
+<i>Whack, whack!</i> M&eacute;lie got two of them. But she was furious, and<BR>
+she hits hard when she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the<BR>
+hair and then <i>thump! thump!</i> slaps in the face rained down like<BR>
+ripe plums. I should have let them fight it out: women together, men<BR>
+together. It does not do to mix the blows. But the little man in the<BR>
+linen jacket jumped up like a devil and was going to rush at my wife.<BR>
+Ah! no, no, not that, my friend! I caught the gentleman with the end<BR>
+of my fist, and <i>crash! crash!</i> One on the nose, the other in the<BR>
+stomach. He threw up his arms and legs and fell on his back into the<BR>
+river, just into the hole.</P>
+
+<P>"I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident,<BR>
+if I had had time. But, to make matters worse, the fat woman had the<BR>
+upper hand and was pounding M&eacute;lie for all she was worth. I know I<BR>
+ought not to have interfered while the man was in the water, but I<BR>
+never thought that he would drown and said to myself: 'Bah, it will<BR>
+cool him.'</P>
+
+<P>"I therefore ran up to the women to separate them and all I received<BR>
+was scratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me<BR>
+five minutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragos. When I<BR>
+turned round there was nothing to be seen. The water was as smooth as<BR>
+a lake and the others yonder kept shouting: 'Fish him out! fish him<BR>
+out!' It was all very well to say that, but I cannot swim and still<BR>
+less dive.</P>
+
+<P>"At last the man from the dam came and two gentlemen with boathooks,<BR>
+but over a quarter of an hour had passed. He was found at the bottom<BR>
+of the hole, in eight feet of water, as I have said. There he was, the<BR>
+poor little man, in his linen suit! Those are the facts such as I have<BR>
+sworn to. I am innocent, on my honor."</P>
+
+<P>The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused<BR>
+was acquitted.</P>
+
+<hr>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="spas">THE SPASM</a></h3>
+
+<P>The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places.<BR>
+The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers<BR>
+a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second<BR>
+time. The old bathers, the habitu&eacute;s, whose season was almost over,<BR>
+glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new<BR>
+faces might appear.</P>
+
+<P>This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look<BR>
+forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new<BR>
+arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.<BR>
+We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make<BR>
+agreeable acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In<BR>
+this life of elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme<BR>
+importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself,<BR>
+and sociability is the order of the day.</P>
+
+<P>We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see<BR>
+people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of<BR>
+acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly,<BR>
+after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in<BR>
+the park where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and<BR>
+astonishing merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten<BR>
+these new friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.</P>
+
+<P>Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere<BR>
+else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very<BR>
+quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and<BR>
+unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the<BR>
+dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the<BR>
+memory of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of<BR>
+those first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and<BR>
+secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of<BR>
+that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation<BR>
+of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in<BR>
+return.</P>
+
+<P>And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are<BR>
+all alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.</P>
+
+<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</P>
+
+<P>Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the<BR>
+appearance of strange faces.</P>
+
+<P>Only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man and a<BR>
+woman--father and daughter. They immediately reminded me of some<BR>
+of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm,<BR>
+the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims<BR>
+of fate. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with perfectly<BR>
+white hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy;<BR>
+and there was in his bearing and in his person that austerity<BR>
+peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four<BR>
+or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was also very thin, very<BR>
+pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out with utter lassitude.<BR>
+We meet people like this from time to time, who seem too weak for<BR>
+the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to<BR>
+walk, to do all that we do every day. She was rather pretty, with a<BR>
+transparent, spiritual beauty. And she ate with extreme slowness, as if<BR>
+she were almost incapable of moving her arms.</P>
+
+<P>It must have been she, assuredly, who had come to take the waters.</P>
+
+<P>They sat facing me, on the opposite side of the table; and I at once<BR>
+noticed that the father had a very singular, nervous twitching.</P>
+
+<P>Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of<BR>
+zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and<BR>
+after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside<BR>
+my head in order not to see it.</P>
+
+<P>I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her<BR>
+left hand.</P>
+
+<P>After dinner I went for a stroll in the park of the bathing<BR>
+establishment. This led toward the little Auvergnese station of<BR>
+Ch&acirc;tel-Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, from<BR>
+which flowed so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of<BR>
+extinct volcanoes. Over yonder, above our heads, the domes of extinct<BR>
+craters lifted their ragged peaks above the rest in the long mountain<BR>
+chain. For Ch&acirc;tel-Guyon is situated at the entrance to the land of<BR>
+mountain domes.</P>
+
+<P>Beyond it stretches out the region of peaks, and, farther on again,<BR>
+the region of precipitous summits.</P>
+
+<P>The "Puy de D&ocirc;me" is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is<BR>
+the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these<BR>
+mountain heights.</P>
+
+<P>It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down a shady<BR>
+path, listening to the opening strains of the Casino band, which was<BR>
+playing on an elevation overlooking the park.</P>
+
+<P>And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my<BR>
+direction. I bowed as one bows to one's hotel companions at a watering<BR>
+place; and the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me:</P>
+
+<P>"Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short,<BR>
+pretty, and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?"</P>
+
+<P>I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the<BR>
+little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall,<BR>
+craggy, wooded slopes.</P>
+
+<P>They gladly accepted my offer.</P>
+
+<P>And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.</P>
+
+<P>"Oh," he said, "my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is<BR>
+unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one<BR>
+time the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another<BR>
+time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another<BR>
+they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean<BR>
+malady, that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack,<BR>
+is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator<BR>
+of the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather<BR>
+inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad."</P>
+
+<P>Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his<BR>
+hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:</P>
+
+<P>"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves<BR>
+somewhat affected?"</P>
+
+<P>He replied calmly:</P>
+
+<P>"Mine? Oh, no--my nerves have always been very steady."</P>
+
+<P>Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on:</P>
+
+<P>"Ah! You were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I<BR>
+try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience<BR>
+which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually buried<BR>
+alive!"</P>
+
+<P>I could only utter, "Ah!" so great were my astonishment and emotion.</P>
+
+<P>He continued:</P>
+
+<P>"Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some<BR>
+time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease<BR>
+of that organ, and were prepared for the worst.</P>
+
+<P>"One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had<BR>
+fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life<BR>
+was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid<BR>
+her with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the<BR>
+cemetery, where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated<BR>
+in the very heart of Lorraine.</P>
+
+<P>"I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces,<BR>
+rings, all presents which she had received from me, and wearing her<BR>
+first ball dress.</P>
+
+<P>"You may easily imagine my state of mind when I re-entered our home.<BR>
+She was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many years.<BR>
+I found my way to my own apartment in a half-distracted condition,<BR>
+utterly exhausted, and sank into my easy-chair, without the capacity<BR>
+to think or the strength to move. I was nothing better now than a<BR>
+suffering, vibrating machine, a human being who had, as it were, been<BR>
+flayed alive; my soul was like an open wound.</P>
+
+<P>"My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her<BR>
+coffin, and aided me in preparing her for her last sleep, entered the<BR>
+room noiselessly, and asked:</P>
+
+<P>"'Does monsieur want anything?'</P>
+
+<P>"I merely shook my head in reply.</P>
+
+<P>"'Monsieur is wrong,' he urged. 'He will injure his health. Would<BR>
+monsieur like me to put him to bed?'</P>
+
+<P>"I answered: 'No, let me alone!'</P>
+
+<P>"And he left the room.</P>
+
+<P>"I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh, what a night, what a<BR>
+night! It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the<BR>
+wind, the winter wind, an icy wind, a winter hurricane, blew with a<BR>
+regular, sinister noise against the windows.</P>
+
+<P>"How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless,<BR>
+crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp,<BR>
+inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great<BR>
+doorbell, the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.</P>
+
+<P>"I started so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous<BR>
+sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a vault. I<BR>
+turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was just two in<BR>
+the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?</P>
+
+<P>"And, abruptly, the bell again rang twice. The servants, without<BR>
+doubt, were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle and descended the<BR>
+stairs. I was on the point of asking: 'Who is there?'</P>
+
+<P>"Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the heavy<BR>
+bolts. My heart was throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the<BR>
+door brusquely, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure,<BR>
+standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.</P>
+
+<P>"I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering:</P>
+
+<P>"'Who--who--who are you?'</P>
+
+<P>"A voice replied:</P>
+
+<P>"'It is I, father.'</P>
+
+<P>"It was my daughter.</P>
+
+<P>"I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before this<BR>
+advancing spectre. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand,<BR>
+as if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have<BR>
+noticed--that gesture which has remained with me ever since.</P>
+
+<P>"'Do not be afraid, papa,' said the apparition. 'I was not dead.<BR>
+Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut one of my fingers; the blood<BR>
+began to flow, and that restored me to life.'</P>
+
+<P>"And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.</P>
+
+<P>"I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my<BR>
+throat.</P>
+
+<P>"Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still<BR>
+so bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome happiness that<BR>
+had befallen me, I made her go up to my room and sit down in my<BR>
+easy-chair; then I rang excitedly for Prosper to get him to rekindle<BR>
+the fire and to bring some wine, and to summon assistance.</P>
+
+<P>"The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp<BR>
+of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead.</P>
+
+<P>"It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then<BR>
+abandoned my daughter; for he could not efface the traces of the<BR>
+theft. He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into<BR>
+its place, feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by<BR>
+me, as I trusted him absolutely.</P>
+
+<P>"You see, monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people."</P>
+
+<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</P>
+
+<P>He was silent.</P>
+
+<P>The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful<BR>
+vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by<BR>
+the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back<BR>
+from the tomb, and this father with his uncanny spasm.</P>
+
+<P>I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I<BR>
+only murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"What a horrible thing!"</P>
+
+<P>Then, after a minute's silence, I added:</P>
+
+<P>"Let us go indoors. I think it is growing cool."</P>
+
+<P>And we made our way back to the hotel.</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="wood">IN THE WOOD</a></h3>
+
+<P>As the mayor was about to sit down to breakfast, word was brought to<BR>
+him that the rural policeman, with two prisoners, was awaiting him at<BR>
+the Hotel de Ville. He went there at once and found old Hochedur<BR>
+standing guard before a middle-class couple whom he was regarding with<BR>
+a severe expression on his face.</P>
+
+<P>The man, a fat old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed<BR>
+utterly dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout individual with<BR>
+shining cheeks, looked at the official who had arrested them, with<BR>
+defiant eyes.</P>
+
+<P>"What is it? What is it, Hochedur?"</P>
+
+<P>The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning<BR>
+at his usual time, in order to patrol his beat from the forest of<BR>
+Champioux as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed<BR>
+anything unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and<BR>
+that the wheat was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was<BR>
+going over his vines, called out to him: "Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and<BR>
+have a look at the outskirts of the wood. In the first thicket you<BR>
+will find a pair of pigeons who must be a hundred and thirty years old<BR>
+between them!"</P>
+
+<P>He went in the direction indicated, entered the thicket, and there he<BR>
+heard words which made him suspect a flagrant breach of morality.<BR>
+Advancing, therefore, on his hands and knees as if to surprise a<BR>
+poacher, he had arrested the couple whom he found there.</P>
+
+<P>The mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was<BR>
+certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and he began to<BR>
+question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak<BR>
+voice that he could scarcely be heard.</P>
+
+<P>"What is your name?"</P>
+
+<P>"Nicholas Beaurain."</P>
+
+<P>"Your occupation?"</P>
+
+<P>"Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris."</P>
+
+<P>"What were you doing in the wood?"</P>
+
+<P>The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat paunch, and<BR>
+his hands hanging at his sides, and the mayor continued:</P>
+
+<P>"Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"So you confess it?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"What have you to say in your defence?"</P>
+
+<P>"Nothing, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"Where did you meet the partner in your misdemeanor?"</P>
+
+<P>"She is my wife, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"Your wife?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"Then--then--you do not live together--in Paris?"</P>
+
+<P>"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but we are living together!"</P>
+
+<P>"But in that case--you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to<BR>
+get caught playing lovers in the country at ten o'clock in the<BR>
+morning."</P>
+
+<P>The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he muttered: "It<BR>
+was she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a<BR>
+woman once gets a thing into her head--you know--you cannot get it<BR>
+out."</P>
+
+<P>The mayor, who liked a joke, smiled and replied: "In your case, the<BR>
+contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had had<BR>
+the idea only in her head."</P>
+
+<P>Then Monsieur Beaurain was seized with rage, and turning to his wife,<BR>
+he said: "Do you see to what you have brought us with your poetry? And<BR>
+now we shall have to go before the courts at our age, for a breach of<BR>
+morals! And we shall have to shut up the shop, sell our good will, and<BR>
+go to some other neighborhood! That's what it has come to."</P>
+
+<P>Madame Beaurain got up, and without looking at her husband, she<BR>
+explained herself without embarrassment, without useless modesty, and<BR>
+almost without hesitation.</P>
+
+<P>"Of course, monsieur, I know that we have made ourselves ridiculous.<BR>
+Will you allow me to plead my cause like an advocate, or rather like a<BR>
+poor woman? And I hope that you will be kind enough to send us home,<BR>
+and to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.</P>
+
+<P>"Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance<BR>
+one Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop,<BR>
+and I was a saleswoman in a ready-made clothing establishment. I<BR>
+remember it as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays<BR>
+here occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Lev&egrave;que, with whom I<BR>
+lived in the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had none.<BR>
+He used to bring us here, and one Saturday he told me laughing that he<BR>
+should bring a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what<BR>
+he meant, but I replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous,<BR>
+monsieur.</P>
+
+<P>"The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in<BR>
+those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to<BR>
+encourage him, and I did not. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a<BR>
+lovely day, the sort of day that touches your heart. When it is fine<BR>
+even now, just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and<BR>
+when I am in the country I utterly lose my head. The green grass, the<BR>
+swallows flying so swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet<BR>
+poppies, the daisies, all that makes me crazy. It is like champagne<BR>
+when one is not accustomed to it!</P>
+
+<P>"Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to<BR>
+penetrate your body through your eyes when you looked, and through<BR>
+your mouth when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each<BR>
+other every minute, and that gave me a queer feeling! Monsieur<BR>
+Beaurain and I walked behind them, without speaking much, for when<BR>
+people do not know each other, they do not find anything to talk<BR>
+about. He looked timid, and I liked to see his embarrassment. At last<BR>
+we got to the little wood; it was as cool as in a bath there, and we<BR>
+four sat down. Rose and her lover teased me because I looked rather<BR>
+stern, but you will understand that I could not be otherwise. And then<BR>
+they began to kiss and hug again, without putting any more restraint<BR>
+upon themselves than if we had not been there; and then they whispered<BR>
+together, and got up and went off among the trees, without saying a<BR>
+word. You may fancy what I looked like, alone with this young fellow<BR>
+whom I saw for the first time. I felt so confused at seeing them go<BR>
+that it gave me courage, and I began to talk. I asked him what his<BR>
+business was, and he said he was a linen draper's assistant, as I told<BR>
+you just now. We talked for a few minutes, and that made him bold, and<BR>
+he wanted to take liberties with me, but I told him sharply to keep<BR>
+his place. Is not that true, Monsieur Beaurain?"</P>
+
+<P>Monsieur Beaurain, who was looking at his feet in confusion, did not<BR>
+reply, and she continued: "Then he saw that I was virtuous, and he<BR>
+began to make love to me nicely, like an honorable man, and from that<BR>
+time he came every Sunday, for he was very much in love with me. I was<BR>
+very fond of him also, very fond of him! He was a good-looking fellow,<BR>
+formerly, and in short he married me the next September, and we<BR>
+started in business in the Rue des Martyrs.</P>
+
+<P>"It was a hard struggle for some years, monsieur. Business did not<BR>
+prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and,<BR>
+besides, we had got out of the way of them. One has other things in<BR>
+one's head, and thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches,<BR>
+when one is in business. We were growing old by degrees without<BR>
+perceiving it, like quiet people who do not think much about love. One<BR>
+does not regret anything as long as one does not notice what one has<BR>
+lost.</P>
+
+<P>"And then, monsieur, business became better, and we were tranquil as<BR>
+to the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what went on in my<BR>
+mind, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little<BR>
+boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers<BR>
+which are drawn about the streets made me cry; the smell of violets<BR>
+sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart<BR>
+beat! Then I would get up and go out on the doorstep to look at the<BR>
+blue sky between the roofs. When one looks up at the sky from the<BR>
+street, it looks like a river which is descending on Paris, winding as<BR>
+it flows, and the swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. These<BR>
+ideas are very stupid at my age! But how can one help it, monsieur,<BR>
+when one has worked all one's life? A moment comes in which one<BR>
+perceives that one could have done something else, and that one<BR>
+regrets, oh! yes, one feels intense regret! Just think, for twenty<BR>
+years I might have gone and had kisses in the woods, like other women.<BR>
+I used to think how delightful it would be to lie under the trees and<BR>
+be in love with some one! And I thought of it every day and every<BR>
+night! I dreamed of the moonlight on the water, until I felt inclined<BR>
+to drown myself.</P>
+
+<P>"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first.<BR>
+I knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my<BR>
+needles and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain<BR>
+never said much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also<BR>
+understood quite well that I no longer appealed to any one!</P>
+
+<P>"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the<BR>
+country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed<BR>
+without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about<BR>
+nine o'clock.</P>
+
+<P>"I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's<BR>
+heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is<BR>
+at present, but just as he was formerly! That I will swear to you,<BR>
+monsieur. As true as I am standing here I was crazy. I began to kiss<BR>
+him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He<BR>
+kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning!<BR>
+What is the matter with you?' I did not listen to him, I only listened<BR>
+to my own heart, and I made him come into the wood with me. That is<BR>
+all. I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth."</P>
+
+<P>The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and<BR>
+said: "Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our forests, be<BR>
+more discreet."</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="mart">MARTINE</a></h3>
+
+<P>It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home from church<BR>
+along the by-road that led to his house when he saw ahead of him<BR>
+Martine, who was also going home.</P>
+
+<P>Her father walked beside his daughter with the important gait of a<BR>
+rich farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a short coat of gray cloth<BR>
+and on his head a round-topped hat with wide brim.</P>
+
+<P>She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week, walked<BR>
+along erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoulders and<BR>
+prominent hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a hat trimmed with<BR>
+flowers, made by a milliner at Yvetot, and displayed the back of her<BR>
+full, round, supple neck, reddened by the sun and air, on which<BR>
+fluttered little stray locks of hair.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist saw only her back; but he knew well the face he loved,<BR>
+without, however, having ever noticed it more closely than he did now.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly he said: "Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl, all the same,<BR>
+that Martine." He watched her as she walked, admiring her hastily,<BR>
+feeling a desire taking possession of him. He did not long to see her<BR>
+face again, no. He kept gazing at her figure, repeating to himself:<BR>
+"Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl."</P>
+
+<P>Martine turned to the right to enter "La Martini&egrave;re," the farm of her<BR>
+father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned<BR>
+round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called<BR>
+out: "Good-morning, Benoist." He replied: "Good-morning, Martine;<BR>
+good-morning, mait' Martin," and went on his way.</P>
+
+<P>When he reached home the soup was on the table. He sat down opposite<BR>
+his mother beside the farm hand and the hired man, while the maid<BR>
+servant went to draw some cider.</P>
+
+<P>He ate a few spoonfuls, then pushed away his plate. His mother said:</P>
+
+<P>"Don't you feel well?"</P>
+
+<P>"No. I feel as if I had some pap in my stomach and that takes away my<BR>
+appetite."</P>
+
+<P>He watched the others eating, as he cut himself a piece of bread from<BR>
+time to time and carried it lazily to his mouth, masticating it<BR>
+slowly. He thought of Martine. "She is a fine girl, all the same." And<BR>
+to think that he had not noticed it before, and that it came to him,<BR>
+just like that, all at once, and with such force that he could not<BR>
+eat.</P>
+
+<P>He did not touch the stew. His mother said:</P>
+
+<P>"Come, Benoist, try and eat a little; it is loin of mutton, it will do<BR>
+you good. When one has no appetite, they should force themselves to<BR>
+eat."</P>
+
+<P>He swallowed a few morsels, then, pushing away his plate, said:</P>
+
+<P>"No. I can't go that, positively."</P>
+
+<P>When they rose from table he walked round the farm, telling the farm<BR>
+hand he might go home and that he would drive up the animals as he<BR>
+passed by them.</P>
+
+<P>The country was deserted, as it was the day of rest. Here and there in<BR>
+a field of clover cows were moving along heavily, with full bellies,<BR>
+chewing their cud under a blazing sun. Unharnessed plows were standing<BR>
+at the end of a furrow; and the upturned earth ready for the seed<BR>
+showed broad brown patches of stubble of wheat and oats that had<BR>
+lately been harvested.</P>
+
+<P>A rather dry autumn wind blew across the plain, promising a cool<BR>
+evening after the sun had set. Benoist sat down on a ditch, placed his<BR>
+hat on his knees as if he needed to cool off his head, and said aloud<BR>
+in the stillness of the country: "If you want a fine girl, she is a<BR>
+fine girl."</P>
+
+<P>He thought of it again at night, in his bed, and in the morning when<BR>
+he awoke.</P>
+
+<P>He was not sad, he was not discontented, he could not have told what<BR>
+ailed him. It was something that had hold of him, something fastened<BR>
+in his mind, an idea that would not leave him and that produced a sort<BR>
+of tickling sensation in his heart.</P>
+
+<P>Sometimes a big fly is shut up in a room. You hear it flying about,<BR>
+buzzing, and the noise haunts you, irritates you. Suddenly it stops;<BR>
+you forget it; but all at once it begins again, obliging you to look<BR>
+up. You cannot catch it, nor drive it away, nor kill it, nor make it<BR>
+keep still. As soon as it settles for a second, it starts off buzzing<BR>
+again.</P>
+
+<P>The recollection of Martine disturbed Benoist's mind like an<BR>
+imprisoned fly.</P>
+
+<P>Then he longed to see her again and walked past the Martini&egrave;re several<BR>
+times. He saw her, at last, hanging out some clothes on a line<BR>
+stretched between two apple trees.</P>
+
+<P>It was a warm day. She had on only a short skirt and her chemise,<BR>
+showing the curves of her figure as she hung up the towels. He<BR>
+remained there, concealed by the hedge, for more than an hour, even<BR>
+after she had left. He returned home more obsessed with her image than<BR>
+ever.</P>
+
+<P>For a month his mind was full of her, he trembled when her name was<BR>
+mentioned in his presence. He could not eat, he had night sweats that<BR>
+kept him from sleeping.</P>
+
+<P>On Sunday, at mass, he never took his eyes off her. She noticed it and<BR>
+smiled at him, flattered at his appreciation.</P>
+
+<P>One evening, he suddenly met her in the road. She stopped short when<BR>
+she saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with fear<BR>
+and emotion, but determined to speak to her. He began falteringly:</P>
+
+<P>"See here, Martine, this cannot go on like this any longer."</P>
+
+<P>She replied as if she wanted to tease him:</P>
+
+<P>"What cannot go on any longer, Benoist?"</P>
+
+<P>"My thinking of you as many hours as there are in the day," he<BR>
+answered.</P>
+
+<P>She put her hands on her hips.</P>
+
+<P>"I do not oblige you to do so."</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, it is you," he stammered; "I cannot sleep, nor rest, nor eat,<BR>
+nor anything."</P>
+
+<P>"What do you need to cure you of all that?" she asked.</P>
+
+<P>He stood there in dismay, his arms swinging, his eyes staring, his<BR>
+mouth agape.</P>
+
+<P>She hit him a punch in the stomach and ran off.</P>
+
+<P>From that day they met each other along the roadside, in by-roads or<BR>
+else at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with<BR>
+his horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.</P>
+
+<P>He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his<BR>
+heart and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her, eat<BR>
+her, make her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence,<BR>
+impatience, rage, to think she did not belong to him entirely, as if<BR>
+they were one being.</P>
+
+<P>People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were<BR>
+engaged. He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she<BR>
+had answered "Yes."</P>
+
+<P>They were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about<BR>
+it.</P>
+
+<P>But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He<BR>
+did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only<BR>
+catch a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the<BR>
+sermon, the priest actually published the banns of marriage between<BR>
+Victoire-Adelaide-Martin and Jos&eacute;phin-Isidore Vallin.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained<BR>
+off. He had a buzzing in the ears, and could hear nothing; and<BR>
+presently he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.</P>
+
+<P>For a month he stayed in his room. Then he went back to his work.</P>
+
+<P>But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind. He avoided the<BR>
+roads that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees<BR>
+in the yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and<BR>
+evening.</P>
+
+<P>She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.<BR>
+Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from<BR>
+childhood.</P>
+
+<P>One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she<BR>
+was enceinte. Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he<BR>
+experienced, on the contrary, a feeling of relief. It was over, now,<BR>
+all over. They were more separated by that than by her marriage. He<BR>
+really preferred that it should be so.</P>
+
+<P>Months passed, and more months. He caught sight of her, occasionally,<BR>
+going to the village with a heavier step than usual. She blushed as<BR>
+she saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace. And he turned<BR>
+out of his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.</P>
+
+<P>He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to<BR>
+face, and be obliged to speak to her. What could he say to her now,<BR>
+after all he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed<BR>
+her hair beside her cheeks? He often thought of those meetings along<BR>
+the roadside. She had acted horridly after all her promises.</P>
+
+<P>By degrees his grief diminished, leaving only sadness behind. And one<BR>
+day he took the old road that led past the farm where she now lived.<BR>
+He looked at the roof from a distance. It was there, in there, that<BR>
+she lived with another! The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks<BR>
+crowed on the dunghill. The whole dwelling seemed empty, the farm<BR>
+hands had gone to the fields to their spring toil. He stopped near the<BR>
+gate and looked into the yard. The dog was asleep outside his kennel,<BR>
+three calves were walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the<BR>
+pond. A big turkey was strutting before the door, parading before the<BR>
+turkey hens like a singer at the opera.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist leaned against the gate post and was suddenly seized with a<BR>
+desire to weep. But suddenly, he heard a cry, a loud cry for help<BR>
+coming from the house. He was struck with dismay, his hands grasping<BR>
+the wooden bars of the gate, and listened attentively. Another cry, a<BR>
+prolonged, heartrending cry, reached his ears, his soul, his flesh. It<BR>
+was she who was crying like that! He darted inside, crossed the grass<BR>
+patch, pushed open the door, and saw her lying on the floor, her body<BR>
+drawn up, her face livid, her eyes haggard, in the throes of<BR>
+childbirth.</P>
+
+<P>He stood there, trembling and paler than she was, and stammered:</P>
+
+<P>"Here I am, here I am, Martine!"</P>
+
+<P>She replied in gasps:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, do not leave me, do not leave me, Benoist!"</P>
+
+<P>He looked at her, not knowing what to say, what to do. She began to<BR>
+cry out again:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, oh, it is killing me. Oh, Benoist!"</P>
+
+<P>She writhed frightfully.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist was suddenly seized with a frantic longing to help her, to<BR>
+quiet her, to remove her pain. He leaned over, lifted her up and laid<BR>
+her on her bed; and while she kept on moaning he began to take off her<BR>
+clothes, her jacket, her skirt and her petticoat. She bit her fists to<BR>
+keep from crying out. Then he did as he was accustomed to doing for<BR>
+cows, ewes, and mares: he assisted in delivering her and found in his<BR>
+hands a large infant who was moaning.</P>
+
+<P>He wiped it off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front<BR>
+of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that<BR>
+was on the table. Then he went back to the mother.</P>
+
+<P>He took her up and placed her on the floor again, then he changed the<BR>
+bedclothes and put her back into bed. She faltered:</P>
+
+<P>"Thank you, Benoist, you have a noble heart." And then she wept a<BR>
+little as if she felt regretful.</P>
+
+<P>He did not love her any longer, not the least bit. It was all over.<BR>
+Why? How? He could not have said. What had happened had cured him<BR>
+better than ten years of absence.</P>
+
+<P>She asked, exhausted and trembling:</P>
+
+<P>"What is it?"</P>
+
+<P>He replied calmly:</P>
+
+<P>"It is a very fine girl."</P>
+
+<P>Then they were silent again. At the end of a few moments, the mother,<BR>
+in a weak voice, said:</P>
+
+<P>"Show her to me, Benoist."</P>
+
+<P>He took up the little one and was showing it to her as if he were<BR>
+holding the consecrated wafer, when the door opened, and Isidore<BR>
+Vallin appeared.</P>
+
+<P>He did not understand at first, then all at once he guessed.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist, in consternation, stammered out:</P>
+
+<P>"I was passing, I was just passing by when I heard her crying out, and<BR>
+I came--there is your child, Vallin!"</P>
+
+<P>Then the husband, his eyes full of tears, stepped forward, took the<BR>
+little mite of humanity that he held out to him, kissed it, unable to<BR>
+speak from emotion for a few seconds; then placing the child on the<BR>
+bed, he held out both hands to Benoist, saying:</P>
+
+<P>"Your hand upon it, Benoist. From now on we understand each other. If<BR>
+you are willing, we will be a pair of friends, a pair of friends!"</P>
+
+<P>And Benoist replied:</P>
+
+<P>"Indeed I will, certainly, indeed I will."</P>
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="over">ALL OVER</a></h3>
+
+<P>Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting<BR>
+glance at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel in his<BR>
+dressing-room and smiled.</P>
+
+<P>He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall,<BR>
+slight, elegant, with no sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of<BR>
+doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he had a walk, a nobility,<BR>
+a "chic," in short, that indescribable something which establishes a<BR>
+greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He<BR>
+murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"Lormerin is still alive!"</P>
+
+<P>And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited<BR>
+him.</P>
+
+<P>On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the<BR>
+gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside<BR>
+three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch he spread<BR>
+out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and<BR>
+he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening<BR>
+the envelopes.</P>
+
+<P>It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague<BR>
+anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did<BR>
+they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them<BR>
+with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting<BR>
+them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from<BR>
+them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent;<BR>
+further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him a little<BR>
+uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced those<BR>
+curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?</P>
+
+<P>This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple,<BR>
+nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it<BR>
+uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: "From whom<BR>
+can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify<BR>
+it."</P>
+
+<P>He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between<BR>
+two fingers, striving to read through the envelope, without making up<BR>
+his mind to open it.</P>
+
+<P>Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying<BR>
+glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He<BR>
+suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me,<BR>
+very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often.<BR>
+But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it<BR>
+be from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking for money."</P>
+
+<P>And he tore open the letter. Then he read:</P>
+
+<P>My Dear Friend: You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now<BR>
+twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was young; I am old. When<BR>
+I bade you farewell, I left Paris in order to follow into the<BR>
+provinces my husband, my old husband, whom you used to call "my<BR>
+hospital." Do you remember him? He died five years ago, and now I am<BR>
+returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a daughter,<BR>
+a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen. I informed you<BR>
+of her birth, but you certainly did not pay much attention to so<BR>
+trifling an event.</P>
+
+<P>You are still the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told. Well if you<BR>
+still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come and<BR>
+dine with her this evening, with the elderly Baronne de Vance, your<BR>
+ever faithful friend, who, with some emotion, although happy, reaches<BR>
+out to you a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no longer kiss,<BR>
+my poor Jaquelet.</P>
+
+<P>Lise de Vance.</P>
+
+<P>Lormerin's heart began to throb. He remained sunk in his armchair with<BR>
+the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by a<BR>
+poignant emotion that made the tears mount up to his eyes! If he had<BR>
+ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise, Lise de<BR>
+Vance, whom he called "Ashflower," on account of the strange color of<BR>
+her hair and the pale gray of her eyes. Oh! what a dainty, pretty,<BR>
+charming creature she was, this frail baronne, the wife of that gouty,<BR>
+pimply baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut<BR>
+her up, kept her in seclusion through jealousy, jealousy of the<BR>
+handsome Lormerin.</P>
+
+<P>Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he, too, had been truly<BR>
+loved. She familiarly gave him the name of Jaquelet, and would<BR>
+pronounce that word in a delicious fashion.</P>
+
+<P>A thousand forgotten memories came back to him, far off and sweet and<BR>
+melancholy now. One evening she had called on him on her way home from<BR>
+a ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in<BR>
+evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the<BR>
+weather was beautiful. The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm<BR>
+air--the odor of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her<BR>
+skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's<BR>
+rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A<BR>
+little surprised, he asked her why.</P>
+
+<P>She replied:</P>
+
+<P>"I don't know. The moon and the water have affected me. Every time I<BR>
+see poetic things I have a tightening at the heart, and I have to<BR>
+cry."</P>
+
+<P>He smiled, affected himself, considering her feminine emotion<BR>
+charming--the unaffected emotion of a poor little woman whom every<BR>
+sensation overwhelms. And he embraced her passionately, stammering:</P>
+
+<P>"My little Lise, you are exquisite."</P>
+
+<P>What a charming love affair, short-lived and dainty, it had been and<BR>
+over all too quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this old<BR>
+brute of a baron, who had carried off his wife, and never let any one<BR>
+see her afterward.</P>
+
+<P>Lormerin had forgotten, in fact, at the end of two or three months.<BR>
+One woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a<BR>
+bachelor! No matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart,<BR>
+for he had loved her alone! He assured himself now that this was so.</P>
+
+<P>He rose, and said aloud: "Certainly, I will go and dine with her this<BR>
+evening!"</P>
+
+<P>And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself from<BR>
+head to foot. He reflected: "She must look very old, older than I<BR>
+look." And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her<BR>
+still handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling<BR>
+her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far<BR>
+distant!</P>
+
+<P>He turned his attention to the other letters. They were of no<BR>
+importance.</P>
+
+<P>The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of other days. What was<BR>
+she like now? How strange it was to meet in this way after twenty-five<BR>
+years! But would he recognize her?</P>
+
+<P>He made his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat,<BR>
+which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the<BR>
+hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for<BR>
+he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his<BR>
+eagerness to see her.</P>
+
+<P>The first thing he saw on entering a pretty drawing-room newly<BR>
+furnished was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from<BR>
+the days when he was a beau, hanging on the wall in an antique silk<BR>
+frame.</P>
+
+<P>He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly,<BR>
+and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended<BR>
+both hands toward him.</P>
+
+<P>He seized them, kissed them one after the other several times; then,<BR>
+lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.</P>
+
+<P>Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and<BR>
+who, while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.</P>
+
+<P>He could not abstain from murmuring:</P>
+
+<P>"Is it you, Lise?"</P>
+
+<P>She replied:</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would<BR>
+you? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my<BR>
+life. Look at me now--or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome<BR>
+you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I<BR>
+would have exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!' Now, sit down and let us, first of<BR>
+all, have a chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up<BR>
+daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or, rather, how I resembled<BR>
+her--no, it is not quite that; she is just like the 'me' of former<BR>
+days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared<BR>
+that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now<BR>
+it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend."</P>
+
+<P>He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to<BR>
+say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never<BR>
+seen her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk<BR>
+about? Of the long ago? What was there in common between him and her?<BR>
+He could no longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly<BR>
+face. He could no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet,<BR>
+so bitter, that had come to his mind that morning when he thought of<BR>
+the other, of little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had<BR>
+become of her, the former one, the one he had loved? That woman of<BR>
+far-off dreams, the blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to<BR>
+call him "Jaquelet" so prettily?</P>
+
+<P>They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,<BR>
+profoundly ill at ease.</P>
+
+<P>As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and<BR>
+slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.</P>
+
+<P>"I am going to call Ren&eacute;e," she said.</P>
+
+<P>There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; then a young<BR>
+voice exclaimed:</P>
+
+<P>"Here I am, mamma!"</P>
+
+<P>Lormerin remained bewildered as at the sight of an apparition.</P>
+
+<P>He stammered:</P>
+
+<P>"Good-day, mademoiselle."</P>
+
+<P>Then, turning toward the mother:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh! it is you!"</P>
+
+<P>In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise<BR>
+who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won<BR>
+twenty-five years before. This one was even younger, fresher, more<BR>
+childlike.</P>
+
+<P>He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart<BR>
+again, murmuring in her ear:</P>
+
+<P>"Good-morning, Lison!"</P>
+
+<P>A man-servant announced:</P>
+
+<P>"Dinner is ready, madame."</P>
+
+<P>And they proceeded toward the dining-room.</P>
+
+<P>What passed at this dinner? What did they say to him, and what could<BR>
+he say in reply? He found himself plunged in one of those strange<BR>
+dreams which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a<BR>
+fixed idea in his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea:</P>
+
+<P>"Which is the real one?"</P>
+
+<P>The mother smiled, repeating over and over again:</P>
+
+<P>"Do you remember?" And it was in the bright eyes of the young girl<BR>
+that he found again his memories of the past. Twenty times he opened<BR>
+his mouth to say to her: "Do you remember, Lison?" forgetting this<BR>
+white-haired lady who was looking at him tenderly.</P>
+
+<P>And yet, there were moments when he no longer felt sure, when he lost<BR>
+his head. He could see that the woman of to-day was not exactly the<BR>
+woman of long ago. The other one, the former one, had in her voice, in<BR>
+her glances, in her entire being, something which he did not find<BR>
+again. And he made prodigious efforts of mind to recall his lady love,<BR>
+to seize again what had escaped from her, what this resuscitated one<BR>
+did not possess.</P>
+
+<P>The baronne said:</P>
+
+<P>"You have lost your old vivacity, my poor friend."</P>
+
+<P>He murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"There are many other things that I have lost!"</P>
+
+<P>But in his heart, touched with emotion, he felt his old love springing<BR>
+to life once more, like an awakened wild beast ready to bite him.</P>
+
+<P>The young girl went on chattering, and every now and then some<BR>
+familiar intonation, some expression of her mother's, a certain style<BR>
+of speaking and thinking, that resemblance of mind and manner which<BR>
+people acquire by living together, shook Lormerin from head to foot.<BR>
+All these things penetrated him, making the reopened wound of his<BR>
+passion bleed anew.</P>
+
+<P>He got away early, and took a turn along the boulevard. But the image<BR>
+of this young girl pursued him, haunted him, quickened his heart,<BR>
+inflamed his blood. Apart from the two women, he now saw only one, a<BR>
+young one, the old one come back out of the past, and he loved her as<BR>
+he had loved her in bygone years. He loved her with greater ardor,<BR>
+after an interval of twenty-five years.</P>
+
+<P>He went home to reflect on this strange and terrible thing, and to<BR>
+think what he should do.</P>
+
+<P>But, as he was passing, with a wax candle in his hand, before the<BR>
+glass, the large glass in which he had contemplated himself and<BR>
+admired himself before he started, he saw reflected there an elderly,<BR>
+gray-haired man; and suddenly he recollected what he had been in olden<BR>
+days, in the days of little Lise. He saw himself charming and<BR>
+handsome, as he had been when he was loved! Then, drawing the light<BR>
+nearer, he looked at himself more closely, as one inspects a strange<BR>
+thing with a magnifying glass, tracing the wrinkles, discovering those<BR>
+frightful ravages, which he had not perceived till now.</P>
+
+<P>And he sat down, crushed at the sight of himself, at the sight of his<BR>
+lamentable image, murmuring:</P>
+
+<P>"All over, Lormerin!"</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="parr">THE PARROT</a></h3>
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<P>Everybody in F&eacute;camp knew Mother Patin's story. She had certainly been<BR>
+unfortunate with her husband, for in his lifetime he used to beat her,<BR>
+just as wheat is threshed in the barn.</P>
+
+<P>He was master of a fishing bark and had married her, formerly, because<BR>
+she was pretty, although poor.</P>
+
+<P>Patin was a good sailor, but brutal. He used to frequent Father<BR>
+Auban's inn, where he would usually drink four or five glasses of<BR>
+brandy, on lucky days eight or ten glasses and even more, according to<BR>
+his mood. The brandy was served to the customers by Father Auban's<BR>
+daughter, a pleasing brunette, who attracted people to the house only<BR>
+by her pretty face, for nothing had ever been gossiped about her.</P>
+
+<P>Patin, when he entered the inn, would be satisfied to look at her and<BR>
+to compliment her politely and respectfully. After he had had his<BR>
+first glass of brandy he would already find her much nicer; at the<BR>
+second he would wink; at the third he would say: "If you were only<BR>
+willing, Mam'zelle D&eacute;sir&eacute;e----" without ever finishing his sentence;<BR>
+at the fourth he would try to hold her back by her skirt in order to<BR>
+kiss her; and when he went as high as ten it was Father Auban who<BR>
+brought him the remaining drinks.</P>
+
+<P>The old innkeeper, who knew all the tricks of the trade, made D&eacute;sir&eacute;e<BR>
+walk about between the tables in order to increase the consumption of<BR>
+drinks; and D&eacute;sir&eacute;e, who was a worthy daughter of Father Auban,<BR>
+flitted around among the benches and joked with them, her lips smiling<BR>
+and her eyes sparkling.</P>
+
+<P>Patin got so well accustomed to D&eacute;sir&eacute;e's face that he thought of it<BR>
+even while at sea, when throwing out his nets, in storms or in calms,<BR>
+on moonlit or dark evenings. He thought of her while holding the<BR>
+tiller in the stern of his boat, while his four companions were<BR>
+slumbering with their heads on their arms. He always saw her, smiling,<BR>
+pouring out the yellow brandy with a peculiar shoulder movement and<BR>
+then exclaiming as she turned away: "There, now; are you satisfied?"</P>
+
+<P>He saw her so much in his mind's eye that he was overcome by an<BR>
+irresistible desire to marry her, and, not being able to hold out any<BR>
+longer, he asked for her hand.</P>
+
+<P>He was rich, owned his own vessel, his nets and a little house at the<BR>
+foot of the hill on the Retenue, whereas Father Auban had nothing. The<BR>
+marriage was therefore eagerly agreed upon and the wedding took place<BR>
+as soon as possible, as both parties were desirous for the affair to<BR>
+be concluded as early as convenient.</P>
+
+<P>Three days after the wedding Patin could no longer understand how he<BR>
+had ever imagined D&eacute;sir&eacute;e to be different from other women. What a<BR>
+fool he had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who<BR>
+had undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she had put in his<BR>
+brandy!</P>
+
+<P>He would curse all day long, break his pipe with his teeth and maul<BR>
+his crew. After he had sworn by every known term at everything that<BR>
+came his way he would rid himself of his remaining anger on the fish<BR>
+and lobsters, which he pulled from the nets and threw into the baskets<BR>
+amid oaths and foul language. When he returned home he would find his<BR>
+wife, Father Auban's daughter, within reach of his mouth and hand, and<BR>
+it was not long before he treated her like the lowest creature in the<BR>
+world. As she listened calmly, accustomed to paternal violence, he<BR>
+grew exasperated at her quiet, and one evening he beat her. Then life<BR>
+at his home became unbearable.</P>
+
+<P>For ten years the principal topic of conversation on the Retenue was<BR>
+about the beatings that Patin gave his wife and his manner of cursing<BR>
+at her for the least thing. He could, indeed, curse with a richness of<BR>
+vocabulary in a roundness of tone unequalled by any other man in<BR>
+F&eacute;camp. As soon as his ship was sighted at the entrance of the harbor,<BR>
+returning from the fishing expedition, every one awaited the first<BR>
+volley he would hurl from the bridge as soon as he perceived his<BR>
+wife's white cap.</P>
+
+<P>Standing at the stern, he would steer, his eye fixed on the bows and<BR>
+on the sail, and, notwithstanding the difficulty of the narrow passage<BR>
+and the height of the turbulent waves, he would search among the<BR>
+watching women and try to recognize his wife, Father Auban's daughter,<BR>
+the wretch!</P>
+
+<P>Then, as soon as he saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and<BR>
+waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that<BR>
+every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he<BR>
+arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the<BR>
+fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all<BR>
+the loafers of the neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes<BR>
+like shots from a cannon, short and terrible, sometimes like peals of<BR>
+thunder, which roll and rumble for five minutes, such a hurricane of<BR>
+oaths that he seemed to have in his lungs one of the storms of the<BR>
+Eternal Father.</P>
+
+<P>When he left his ship and found himself face to face with her,<BR>
+surrounded by all the gossips of the neighborhood, he would bring up a<BR>
+new cargo of insults and bring her back to their dwelling, she in<BR>
+front, he behind, she weeping, he yelling at her.</P>
+
+<P>At last, when alone with her behind closed doors, he would thrash her<BR>
+on the slightest pretext. The least thing was sufficient to make him<BR>
+raise his hand, and when he had once begun he did not stop, but he<BR>
+would throw into her face the true motive for his anger. At each blow<BR>
+he would roar: "There, you beggar! There, you wretch! There, you<BR>
+pauper! What a bright thing I did when I rinsed my mouth with your<BR>
+rascal of a father's apology for brandy!"</P>
+
+<P>The poor woman lived in continual fear, in a ceaseless trembling of<BR>
+body and soul, in everlasting expectation of outrageous thrashings.</P>
+
+<P>This lasted ten years. She was so timorous that she would grow pale<BR>
+whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the<BR>
+blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more<BR>
+yellow and drier than a smoked fish.</P>
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<P>One night, when her husband was at sea, she was suddenly awakened by<BR>
+the wild roaring of the wind! She sat up in her bed, trembling, but,<BR>
+as she heard nothing more, she lay down again; almost immediately<BR>
+there was a roar in the chimney which shook the entire house; it<BR>
+seemed to cross the heavens like a pack of furious animals snorting<BR>
+and roaring.</P>
+
+<P>Then she arose and rushed to the harbor. Other women were arriving<BR>
+from all sides, carrying lanterns. The men also were gathering, and<BR>
+all were watching the foaming crests of the breaking waves.</P>
+
+<P>The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors never returned; Patin<BR>
+was among them.</P>
+
+<P>In the neighborhood of Dieppe the wreck of his bark, the<BR>
+<i>Jeune-Am&eacute;lie</i>, was found. The bodies of his sailors were found<BR>
+near Saint-Val&eacute;ry, but his body was never recovered. As his vessel<BR>
+seemed to have been cut in two, his wife expected and feared his return<BR>
+for a long time, for if there had been a collision he alone might have<BR>
+been picked up and carried afar off.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid<BR>
+of him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar<BR>
+or a peddler would enter suddenly.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her<BR>
+husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped<BR>
+before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose<BR>
+furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction.<BR>
+He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with<BR>
+a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that<BR>
+can talk like a lawyer, three francs!"</P>
+
+<P>A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said: "You ought to buy<BR>
+that, you who are rich. It would be good company for you. That bird is<BR>
+worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always sell it for<BR>
+twenty or twenty-five!"</P>
+
+<P>Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a<BR>
+little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was<BR>
+opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit<BR>
+her finger and drew blood.</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, how naughty he is!" she said.</P>
+
+<P>Nevertheless she gave it some hemp-seed and corn and watched it<BR>
+pruning its feathers as it glanced warily at its new home and its new<BR>
+mistress.</P>
+
+<P>On the following morning, just as day was breaking, the Patin woman<BR>
+distinctly heard a loud, deep, roaring voice calling: "Are you going<BR>
+to get up, carrion?"</P>
+
+<P>Her fear was so great that she hid her head under the sheets, for when<BR>
+Patin was with her as soon as he would open his eyes he would shout<BR>
+those well-known words into her ears.</P>
+
+<P>Trembling, rolled into a ball, her back prepared for the thrashing<BR>
+which she already expected, her face buried in the pillows, she<BR>
+murmured: "Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he<BR>
+has come back!"</P>
+
+<P>Minutes passed; no noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling,<BR>
+she stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching,<BR>
+ready to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window,<BR>
+she saw nothing, and she said to herself: "He must be hidden."</P>
+
+<P>She waited a long time and then, gaining courage, she said to herself:<BR>
+"I must have dreamed it, seeing there is nobody here."</P>
+
+<P>A little reassured, she closed her eyes, when from quite near a<BR>
+furious voice, the thunderous voice of the drowned man, could be heard<BR>
+crying: "Say! when in the name of all that's holy are you going to get<BR>
+up, you b----?"</P>
+
+<P>She jumped out of bed, moved by obedience, by the passive obedience of<BR>
+a woman accustomed to blows and who still remembers and always will<BR>
+remember that voice! She said: "Here I am, Patin; what do you want?"</P>
+
+<P>But Patin did not answer. Then, at a complete loss, she looked around<BR>
+her, then in the chimney and under the bed and finally sank into a<BR>
+chair, wild with anxiety, convinced that Patin's soul alone was there,<BR>
+near her, and that he had returned in order to torture her.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly she remembered the loft, in order to reach which one had to<BR>
+take a ladder. Surely he must have hidden there in order to surprise<BR>
+her. He must have been held by savages on some distant shore, unable<BR>
+to escape until now, and he had returned, worse that ever. There was<BR>
+no doubting the quality of that voice. She raised her head and asked:<BR>
+"Are you up there, Patin?"</P>
+
+<P>Patin did not answer. Then, with a terrible fear which made her heart<BR>
+tremble, she climbed the ladder, opened the skylight, looked, saw<BR>
+nothing, entered, looked about and found nothing. Sitting on some<BR>
+straw, she began to cry, but while she was weeping, overcome by a<BR>
+poignant and supernatural terror, she heard Patin talking in the room<BR>
+below. He seemed less angry and he was saying: "Nasty weather! Fierce<BR>
+wind! Nasty weather! I haven't eaten, damn it!"</P>
+
+<P>She cried through the ceiling: "Here I am, Patin; I am getting your<BR>
+meal ready. Don't get angry."</P>
+
+<P>She ran down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself<BR>
+growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and<BR>
+get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: "I<BR>
+haven't had my breakfast, by G----!"</P>
+
+<P>And the parrot in his cage watched her with his round, knowing, wicked<BR>
+eye. She, too, looked at him wildly, murmuring: "Ah! so it's you!"</P>
+
+<P>He shook his head and continued: "Just you wait! I'll teach you how to<BR>
+loaf."</P>
+
+<P>What happened within her? She felt, she understood that it was he, the<BR>
+dead man, who had come back, who had disguised himself in the feathers<BR>
+of this bird in order to continue to torment her; that he would curse,<BR>
+as formerly, all day long, and bite her, and swear at her, in order to<BR>
+attract the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she rushed for the<BR>
+cage and seized the bird, which scratched and tore her flesh with its<BR>
+claws and beak. But she held it with all her strength between her<BR>
+hands. She threw it on the ground and rolled over it with the frenzy<BR>
+of one possessed. She crushed it and finally made of it nothing but a<BR>
+little green, flabby lump which no longer moved or spoke. Then she<BR>
+wrapped it in a cloth, as in a shroud, and she went out in her<BR>
+nightgown, barefoot; she crossed the dock, against which the choppy<BR>
+waves of the sea were beating, and she shook the cloth and let drop<BR>
+this little dead thing, which looked like so much grass. Then she<BR>
+returned, threw herself on her knees before the empty cage, and,<BR>
+overcome by what she had done, kneeled and prayed for forgiveness, as<BR>
+if she had committed some heinous crime.</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="stri">THE PIECE OF STRING</a></h3>
+
+<P>It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the<BR>
+peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked<BR>
+slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long,<BR>
+crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes<BR>
+the left shoulder higher, and bends their figures sideways; from<BR>
+reaping the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep<BR>
+on their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though<BR>
+varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered<BR>
+design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like<BR>
+balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.</P>
+
+<P>Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope.<BR>
+And just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the<BR>
+back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large<BR>
+baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks. These<BR>
+women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their<BR>
+erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over<BR>
+their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth,<BR>
+enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.</P>
+
+<P>Now a char-&agrave;-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up<BR>
+strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the<BR>
+cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.</P>
+
+<P>In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled<BR>
+multitude of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high,<BR>
+long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the headdresses of the women<BR>
+came to the surface of that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices<BR>
+made a continuous, wild din, while above it occasionally rose a huge<BR>
+burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a<BR>
+prolonged bellow from a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.</P>
+
+<P>It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration<BR>
+giving off that half-human, half-animal odor which is peculiar to<BR>
+country folks.</P>
+
+<P>Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne, of Br&eacute;aut&eacute;, had just arrived at Goderville and was<BR>
+making his way toward the square when he perceived on the ground a<BR>
+little piece of string. Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne, economical as are all true<BR>
+Normans, reflected that everything was worth picking up which could be<BR>
+of any use, and he stooped down, but painfully, because he suffered<BR>
+from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and<BR>
+was carefully preparing to roll it up when he saw Ma&icirc;tre Malandain,<BR>
+the harness maker, on his doorstep staring at him. They had once had a<BR>
+quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever<BR>
+since. Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne was overcome with a sort of shame at being<BR>
+seen by his enemy picking up a bit of string in the road. He quickly<BR>
+hid it beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches<BR>
+pocket, then pretended to be still looking for something on the<BR>
+ground which he did not discover and finally went off toward the<BR>
+market-place, his head bent forward and his body almost doubled in<BR>
+two by rheumatic pains.</P>
+
+<P>He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and<BR>
+noisily as it chaffered and bargained. The peasants examined the cows,<BR>
+went off, came back, always in doubt for fear of being cheated, never<BR>
+quite daring to decide, looking the seller square in the eye in the<BR>
+effort to discover the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.</P>
+
+<P>The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken<BR>
+out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, their legs tied together,<BR>
+with terrified eyes and scarlet combs.</P>
+
+<P>They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices in a decided<BR>
+manner with an impassive face or perhaps deciding to accept the<BR>
+smaller price offered, suddenly calling out to the customer who was<BR>
+starting to go away:</P>
+
+<P>"All right, I'll let you have them, Ma&icirc;t' Anthime."</P>
+
+<P>Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus<BR>
+struck midday those who lived at a distance poured into the inns.</P>
+
+<P>At Jourdain's the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast<BR>
+court was filled with vehicles of every sort--wagons, gigs,<BR>
+chars-&agrave;-bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name,<BR>
+yellow with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to<BR>
+heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose, on the ground and<BR>
+their rear in the air.</P>
+
+<P>Just opposite to where the diners were at table the huge fireplace,<BR>
+with its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those<BR>
+who sat at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens,<BR>
+with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast<BR>
+meat and of gravy flowing ever crisp brown skin arose from the hearth,<BR>
+kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.</P>
+
+<P>All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Ma&icirc;t'<BR>
+Jourdain's, the innkeeper's, a dealer in horses also and a sharp<BR>
+fellow who had made a great deal of money in his day.</P>
+
+<P>The dishes were passed round, were emptied, as were the jugs of yellow<BR>
+cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and his sales.<BR>
+They exchanged news about the crops. The weather was good for greens,<BR>
+but too wet for grain.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly the drum began to beat in the courtyard before the house.<BR>
+Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at<BR>
+once and ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and<BR>
+napkins in their hand.</P>
+
+<P>When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a<BR>
+jerky voice, pausing in the wrong places:</P>
+
+<P>"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all<BR>
+persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on<BR>
+the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather<BR>
+pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are<BR>
+requested, to return it to the mayor's office at once or to Maitre<BR>
+Fortun&eacute; Houlbr&egrave;que, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs<BR>
+reward."</P>
+
+<P>Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull<BR>
+beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all<BR>
+began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Ma&icirc;tre<BR>
+Houlbr&egrave;que had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.</P>
+
+<P>The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal<BR>
+of gendarmes appeared on the threshold.</P>
+
+<P>He asked:</P>
+
+<P>"Is Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne, of Br&eacute;aut&eacute;, here?"</P>
+
+<P>Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:</P>
+
+<P>"Here I am, here I am."</P>
+
+<P>And he followed the corporal.</P>
+
+<P>The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the<BR>
+notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.</P>
+
+<P>"Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne," said he, "this morning on the Beuzeville road,<BR>
+you were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Ma&icirc;tre Houlbr&egrave;que, of<BR>
+Manneville."</P>
+
+<P>The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement, frightened already at<BR>
+this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.</P>
+
+<P>"I--I picked up that pocketbook?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, you."</P>
+
+<P>"I swear I don't even know anything about it."</P>
+
+<P>"You were seen."</P>
+
+<P>"I was seen--I? Who saw me?"</P>
+
+<P>"M. Malandain, the harness-maker."</P>
+
+<P>Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger,<BR>
+said:</P>
+
+<P>"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string<BR>
+here, M'sieu le Maire."</P>
+
+<P>And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the<BR>
+little end of string.</P>
+
+<P>But the mayor incredulously shook his head:</P>
+
+<P>"You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain,<BR>
+who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for<BR>
+a pocketbook."</P>
+
+<P>The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside<BR>
+him as if to attest his good faith, repeating:</P>
+
+<P>"For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's<BR>
+salvation, I repeat it."</P>
+
+<P>The mayor continued:</P>
+
+<P>"After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for<BR>
+some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropped out of<BR>
+it."</P>
+
+<P>The good man was choking with indignation and fear.</P>
+
+<P>"How can they tell--how can they tell such lies as that to slander an<BR>
+honest man! How can they?"</P>
+
+<P>His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.</P>
+
+<P>He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his<BR>
+testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request<BR>
+Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.</P>
+
+<P>At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he<BR>
+would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.</P>
+
+<P>The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office the old man was<BR>
+surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or<BR>
+mocking, as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered.<BR>
+And he began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe<BR>
+him. They laughed.</P>
+
+<P>He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his<BR>
+acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his<BR>
+protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he<BR>
+had nothing in them.</P>
+
+<P>They said to him:</P>
+
+<P>"You old rogue!"</P>
+
+<P>He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being<BR>
+believed, and kept on telling his story.</P>
+
+<P>The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his<BR>
+neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the<BR>
+string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.</P>
+
+<P>That evening he made the round of the village of Breaut&eacute; for the<BR>
+purpose of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.</P>
+
+<P>He brooded over it all night long.</P>
+
+<P>The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand<BR>
+of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at Ymauville, returned the<BR>
+pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbr&egrave;que, of Manneville.</P>
+
+<P>This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not<BR>
+knowing how to read, he had carried it home and given it to his<BR>
+master.</P>
+
+<P>The news spread to the environs. Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne was informed. He<BR>
+started off at once and began to relate his story with the d&eacute;no&ucirc;ment.<BR>
+He was triumphant.</P>
+
+<P>"What grieved me," said he, "was not the thing itself, do you<BR>
+understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing does you so<BR>
+much harm as being in disgrace for lying."</P>
+
+<P>All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the<BR>
+people who passed, at the cabaret to the people who drank and next<BR>
+Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell<BR>
+them about it. He was easy now, and yet something worried him without<BR>
+his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they<BR>
+listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks<BR>
+behind his back.</P>
+
+<P>On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville,<BR>
+prompted solely by the need of telling his story.</P>
+
+<P>Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him<BR>
+pass. Why?</P>
+
+<P>He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and<BR>
+giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face: "Oh,<BR>
+you great rogue!" Then he turned his heel upon him.</P>
+
+<P>Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy.<BR>
+Why had they called him "great rogue"?</P>
+
+<P>When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to explain<BR>
+the whole affair.</P>
+
+<P>A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:</P>
+
+<P>"Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string."</P>
+
+<P>Hauchecorne stammered:</P>
+
+<P>"But since they found it again, the pocketbook!"</P>
+
+<P>But the other continued:</P>
+
+<P>"Hold your tongue, daddy; there's one who finds it and there's another<BR>
+who returns it. And no one the wiser."</P>
+
+<P>The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of<BR>
+having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a<BR>
+confederate.</P>
+
+<P>He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.</P>
+
+<P>He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.</P>
+
+<P>He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more<BR>
+cast down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of<BR>
+having done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a<BR>
+good trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his<BR>
+innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck<BR>
+to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.</P>
+
+<P>He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day,<BR>
+each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more<BR>
+sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of<BR>
+solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the<BR>
+string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less<BR>
+he was believed.</P>
+
+<P>"Those are liars' proofs," they said behind his back.</P>
+
+<P>He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless<BR>
+efforts.</P>
+
+<P>He was visibly wasting away.</P>
+
+<P>Jokers would make him tell the story of "the piece of string" to amuse<BR>
+them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his<BR>
+story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of<BR>
+December he took to his bed.</P>
+
+<P>He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony,<BR>
+he protested his innocence, repeating:</P>
+
+<P>"A little bit of string--a little bit of string. See, here it is,<BR>
+M'sieu le Maire."</P>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other
+Stories, by Guy de Maupassant
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories, by
+Guy de Maupassant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Posting Date: October 5, 2014 [EBook #7114]
+Release Date: December, 2004
+First Posted: March 11, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNE VIE, A PIECE OF STRING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+
+UNE VIE
+
+A Piece of String
+And Other Stories
+
+
+Translated by
+Albert M. C. McMaster, B.A.
+A. E. Henderson, B.A.
+Mme. Quesada and Others
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "JEANNE"]
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY POL. NEVEUX
+
+UNE VIE (The History of a Heart)
+   I. The Home by the Sea
+  II. Happy Days
+ III. M. de Lamare
+  IV. Marriage and Disillusion
+   V. Corsica and a New Life
+  VI. Disenchantment
+ VII. Jeanne's Discovery
+VIII. Maternity
+  IX. Death of La Baronne
+   X. Retribution
+  XI. The Development of Paul
+ XII. A New Home
+XIII. Jeanne in Paris
+ XIV. Light at Eventide
+
+A VAGABOND
+
+THE FISHING HOLE
+
+THE SPASM
+
+IN THE WOOD
+
+MARTINE
+
+ALL OVER
+
+THE PARROT
+
+A PIECE OF STRING
+
+
+[Illustration: Guy de Maupassant]
+
+
+GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+A Study by Pol. Neveux
+
+"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a
+thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on
+the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid
+solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which,
+for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the
+fertility of a master hand produced poetry, novels, romances and
+travels, only to sink prematurely into the abyss of madness and
+death....
+
+In the month of April, 1880, an article appeared in the "Le Gaulois"
+announcing the publication of the Soirees de Medan. It was signed by a
+name as yet unknown: Guy de Maupassant. After a juvenile diatribe
+against romanticism and a passionate attack on languorous literature,
+the writer extolled the study of real life, and announced the
+publication of the new work. It was picturesque and charming. In the
+quiet of evening, on an island in the Seine, beneath poplars instead
+of the Neapolitan cypresses dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the
+continuous murmur of the valley, and no longer to the sound of the
+Pyrennean streams that murmured a faint accompaniment to the tales of
+Marguerite's cavaliers, the master and his disciples took turns in
+narrating some striking or pathetic episode of the war. And the issue,
+in collaboration, of these tales in one volume, in which the master
+jostled elbows with his pupils, took on the appearance of a manifesto,
+the tone of a challenge, or the utterance of a creed.
+
+In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they
+had confined themselves, beneath the trees of Medan, to deciding on a
+general title for the work. Zola had contributed the manuscript of the
+"Attaque du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five
+young men gave in their contributions. Each one read his story,
+Maupassant being the last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a
+spontaneous impulse, with an emotion they never forgot, filled with
+enthusiasm at this revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous
+words, acclaimed him as a master.
+
+He undertook to write the article for the Gaulois and, in cooperation
+with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are
+familiar, amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste
+for mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential
+point, he said, is to "unmoor" criticism.
+
+It was unmoored. The following day Wolff wrote a polemical
+dissertation in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume
+was a brilliant success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty,
+the honesty of effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the
+other stories. Relegated to the second rank, they passed without
+notice. From his first battle, Maupassant was master of the field in
+literature.
+
+At once the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate
+regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought
+information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly
+straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at
+the present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient
+heroes whose origin and death are veiled in mystery.
+
+I will not dwell on Guy de Maupassant's younger days. His relatives,
+his old friends, he himself, here and there in his works, have
+furnished us in their letters enough valuable revelations and touching
+remembrances of the years preceding his literary debut. His worthy
+biographer, H. Edouard Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the
+writings, condensing and comparing them, has been able to give us some
+definite information regarding that early period.
+
+I will simply recall that he was born on the 5th of August, 1850, near
+Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil which he describes in Une Vie....
+
+Maupassant, like Flaubert, was a Norman, through his mother, and
+through his place of birth he belonged to that strange and adventurous
+race, whose heroic and long voyages on tramp trading ships he liked to
+recall. And just as the author of "Education sentimentale" seems to
+have inherited in the paternal line the shrewd realism of Champagne,
+so de Maupassant appears to have inherited from his Lorraine ancestors
+their indestructible discipline and cold lucidity.
+
+His childhood was passed at Etretat, his beautiful childhood; it was
+there that his instincts were awakened in the unfoldment of his
+prehistoric soul. Years went by in an ecstasy of physical happiness.
+The delight of running at full speed through fields of gorse, the
+charm of voyages of discovery in hollows and ravines, games beneath
+the dark hedges, a passion for going to sea with the fishermen and, on
+nights when there was no moon, for dreaming on their boats of
+imaginary voyages.
+
+Mme. de Maupassant, who had guided her son's early reading, and had
+gazed with him at the sublime spectacle of nature, put off as long as
+possible the hour of separation. One day, however, she had to take the
+child to the little seminary at Yvetot. Later, he became a student at
+the college at Rouen, and became a literary correspondent of Louis
+Bouilhet. It was at the latter's house on those Sundays in winter when
+the Norman rain drowned the sound of the bells and dashed against the
+window panes that the school boy learned to write poetry.
+
+Vacation took the rhetorician back to the north of Normandy. Now it
+was shooting at Saint Julien-l'Hospitalier, across fields, bogs, and
+through the woods. From that time on he sealed his pact with the
+earth, and those "deep and delicate roots" which attached him to his
+native soil began to grow. It was of Normandy, broad, fresh and
+virile, that he would presently demand his inspiration, fervent and
+eager as a boy's love; it was in her that he would take refuge when,
+weary of life, he would implore a truce, or when he simply wished to
+work and revive his energies in old-time joys. It was at this time
+that was born in him that voluptuous love of the sea, which in later
+days could alone withdraw him from the world, calm him, console him.
+
+In 1870 he lived in the country, then he came to Paris to live; for,
+the family fortunes having dwindled, he had to look for a position.
+For several years he was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine, where he
+turned over musty papers, in the uninteresting company of the clerks
+of the admiralty.
+
+Then he went into the department of Public Instruction, where
+bureaucratic servility is less intolerable. The daily duties are
+certainly scarcely more onerous and he had as chiefs, or colleagues,
+Xavier Charmes and Leon Dierx, Henry Roujon and Rene Billotte, but his
+office looked out on a beautiful melancholy garden with immense plane
+trees around which black circles of crows gathered in winter.
+
+Maupassant made two divisions of his spare hours, one for boating, and
+the other for literature. Every evening in spring, every free day, he
+ran down to the river whose mysterious current veiled in fog or
+sparkling in the sun called to him and bewitched him. In the islands
+in the Seine between Chatou and Port-Marly, on the banks of
+Sartrouville and Triel he was long noted among the population of
+boatmen, who have now vanished, for his unwearying biceps, his cynical
+gaiety of goodfellowship, his unfailing practical jokes, his broad
+witticisms. Sometimes he would row with frantic speed, free and
+joyous, through the glowing sunlight on the stream; sometimes, he
+would wander along the coast, questioning the sailors, chatting with
+the ravageurs, or junk gatherers, or stretched at full length amid the
+irises and tansy he would lie for hours watching the frail insects
+that play on the surface of the stream, water spiders, or white
+butterflies, dragon flies, chasing each other amid the willow leaves,
+or frogs asleep on the lily-pads.
+
+The rest of his life was taken up by his work. Without ever becoming
+despondent, silent and persistent, he accumulated manuscripts, poetry,
+criticisms, plays, romances and novels. Every week he docilely
+submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his
+mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to
+assist the young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make
+chefs-d'oeuvre immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious
+research and to use direct observation and who inculcated in him a
+horror of vulgarity and a contempt for facility.
+
+Maupassant himself tells us of those severe initiations in the Rue
+Murillo, or in the tent at Croisset; he has recalled the implacable
+didactics of his old master, his tender brutality, the paternal advice
+of his generous and candid heart. For seven years Flaubert slashed,
+pulverized, the awkward attempts of his pupil whose success remained
+uncertain.
+
+Suddenly, in a flight of spontaneous perfection, he wrote Boule de
+Suif. His master's joy was great and overwhelming. He died two months
+later.
+
+Until the end Maupassant remained illuminated by the reflection of the
+good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the
+dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of
+Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither
+work, nor glory, nor slow moving waves, nor balmy nights.
+
+At the end of his short life, while his mind was still clear, he wrote
+to a friend: "I am always thinking of my poor Flaubert, and I say to
+myself that I should like to die if I were sure that anyone would
+think of me in the same manner."
+
+During these long years of his novitiate Maupassant had entered the
+social literary circles. He would remain silent, preoccupied; and if
+anyone, astonished at his silence, asked him about his plans he
+answered simply: "I am learning my trade." However, under the
+pseudonym of Guy de Valmont, he had sent some articles to the
+newspapers, and, later, with the approval and by the advice of
+Flaubert, he published, in the "Republique des Lettres," poems signed
+by his name.
+
+These poems, overflowing with sensuality, where the hymn to the Earth
+describes the transports of physical possession, where the impatience
+of love expresses itself in loud melancholy appeals like the calls of
+animals in the spring nights, are valuable chiefly inasmuch as they
+reveal the creature of instinct, the fawn escaped from his native
+forests, that Maupassant was in his early youth. But they add nothing
+to his glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules
+Lemaitre said. To mould the expression of his thought according to the
+strictest laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his
+aim. Following the example of one of his comrades of Medan, being
+readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of
+sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the
+chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines.
+However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having
+published. His encounters with prosody had left him with that
+monotonous weariness that the horseman and the fencer feel after a
+period in the riding school, or a bout with the foils.
+
+Such, in very broad lines, is the story of Maupassant's literary
+apprenticeship.
+
+The day following the publication of "Boule de Suif," his reputation
+began to grow rapidly. The quality of his story was unrivalled, but at
+the same time it must be acknowledged that there were some who, for
+the sake of discussion, desired to place a young reputation in
+opposition to the triumphant brutality of Zola.
+
+From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire
+press, set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from
+all influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With
+a quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which
+he himself was not aware, but which was so universal, that no
+contemporary author during his life ever experienced the same. The
+"meteor" sent out its light and its rays were prolonged without limit,
+in article after article, volume on volume.
+
+He was now rich and famous.... He is esteemed all the more as they
+believe him to be rich and happy. But they do not know that this young
+fellow with the sunburnt face, thick neck and salient muscles whom
+they invariably compare to a young bull at liberty, and whose love
+affairs they whisper, is ill, very ill. At the very moment that
+success came to him, the malady that never afterwards left him came
+also, and, seated motionless at his side, gazed at him with its
+threatening countenance. He suffered from terrible headaches, followed
+by nights of insomnia. He had nervous attacks, which he soothed with
+narcotics and anesthetics, which he used freely. His sight, which had
+troubled him at intervals, became affected, and a celebrated oculist
+spoke of abnormality, asymetry of the pupils. The famous young man
+trembled in secret and was haunted by all kinds of terrors.
+
+The reader is charmed at the saneness of this revived art and yet,
+here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of
+nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the
+supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most
+commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as
+the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being
+alarmed, he thinks that the author must be gifted with infallible
+intuition to follow out thus the taints in his characters, even
+through their most dangerous mazes. The reader does not know that
+these hallucinations which he describes so minutely were experienced
+by Maupassant himself; he does not know that the fear is in himself,
+the anguish of fear "which is not caused by the presence of danger, or
+of inevitable death, but by certain abnormal conditions, by certain
+mysterious influences in presence of vague dangers," the "fear of
+fear, the dread of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible
+terror."
+
+How can one explain these physical sufferings and this morbid distress
+that were known for some time to his intimates alone? Alas! the
+explanation is only too simple. All his life, consciously or
+unconsciously, Maupassant fought this malady, hidden as yet, which was
+latent in him.
+
+Those who first saw Maupassant when the Contes de la Becasse and Bel
+Ami were published were somewhat astonished at his appearance. He was
+solidly built, rather short and had a resolute, determined air, rather
+unpolished and without those distinguishing marks of intellect and
+social position. But his hands were delicate and supple, and beautiful
+shadows encircled his eyes.
+
+He received visitors with the graciousness of the courteous head of a
+department, who resigns himself to listen to demands, allowing them to
+talk as he smiled faintly, and nonplussing them by his calmness.
+
+How chilling was this first interview to young enthusiasts who had
+listened to Zola unfolding in lyric formula audacious methods, or to
+the soothing words of Daudet, who scattered with prodigality striking,
+thrilling ideas, picturesque outlines and brilliant synopses.
+Maupassant's remarks, in tetes-a-tetes, as in general conversation,
+were usually current commonplaces and on ordinary time-worn topics.
+Convinced of the superfluousness of words, perhaps he confounded them
+all in the same category, placing the same estimate on a thought nobly
+expressed as on a sally of coarse wit. One would have thought so, to
+see the indifference with which he treated alike the chatter of the
+most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of
+the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life
+work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical
+anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move
+him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical
+joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the
+pleasure of hoaxing and mystifying people.
+
+He appeared besides to look upon art as a pastime, literature as an
+occupation useless at best, while he willingly relegated love to the
+performance of a function, and suspected the motives of the most
+meritorious actions.
+
+Some say that this was the inborn basis of his personal psychology. I
+do not believe it. That he may have had a low estimate of humanity,
+that he may have mistrusted its disinterestedness, contested the
+quality of its virtue, is possible, even certain. But that he was not
+personally superior to his heroes I am unwilling to admit. And if I
+see in his attitude, as in his language, an evidence of his inveterate
+pessimism, I see in it also a method of protecting his secret thoughts
+from the curiosity of the vulgar.
+
+Perhaps he overshot the mark. By dint of hearing morality, art and
+literature depreciated, and seeing him preoccupied with boating, and
+listening to his own accounts of love affairs which he did not always
+carry on in the highest class, many ended by seeing in him one of
+those terrible Normans who, all through his novels and stories,
+carouse and commit social crimes with such commanding assurance and
+such calm unmorality.
+
+He was undoubtedly a Norman, and, according to those who knew him
+best, many of his traits of character show that atavism is not always
+an idle word....
+
+To identify Maupassant with his characters is a gross error, but is
+not without precedent. We always like to trace the author in the hero
+of a romance, and to seek the actor beneath the disguise. No doubt, as
+Taine has said, "the works of an intelligence have not the
+intelligence alone for father and mother, but the whole personality of
+the man helps to produce them...."
+
+That is why Maupassant himself says to us, "No, I have not the soul of
+a decadent, I cannot look within myself, and the effort I make to
+understand unknown souls is incessant, involuntary and dominant. It is
+not an effort; I experience a sort of overpowering sense of insight
+into all that surrounds me. I am impregnated with it, I yield to it, I
+submerge myself in these surrounding influences."
+
+That is, properly speaking, the peculiarity of all great novelists.
+Who experiences this insight, this influence more than Balzac, or
+Flaubert, in Madame Bovary? And so with Maupassant, who, pen in hand,
+is the character he describes, with his passions, his hatreds, his
+vices and his virtues. He so incorporates himself in him that the
+author disappears, and we ask ourselves in vain what his own opinion
+is of what he has just told us. He has none possibly, or if he has he
+does not tell it.
+
+This agrees admirably with the theory of impassivity in literature, so
+much in vogue when Maupassant became known. But despite that theory he
+is, if one understands him, quite other than
+
+        "A being without pity who contemplated suffering."
+
+He has the deepest sympathy for the weak, for the victims of the
+deceptions of society, for the sufferings of the obscure. If the
+successful adventurer, Lesable, and the handsome Maze are the objects
+of his veiled irony, he maintains, or feels a sorrowful, though
+somewhat disdainful tenderness, for poor old Savon, the old copying
+clerk of the Ministry of Marine, who is the drudge of the office and
+whose colleagues laugh at him because his wife deceived him, _sans
+espoir d'"heritage."_
+
+Why did Maupassant at the start win universal favor? It is because he
+had direct genius, the clear vision of a "primitive" (an artist of the
+pre-Renaissance). His materials were just those of a graduate who,
+having left college, has satisfied his curiosity. Grasping the simple
+and ingenious, but strong and appropriate tools that he himself has
+forged, he starts out in the forest of romance, and instead of being
+overcome by the enchantment of its mystery, he walks through it
+unfalteringly with a joyful step....
+
+He was a minstrel. Offspring of a race, and not the inheritor of a
+formula, he narrated to his contemporaries, bewildered by the lyrical
+deformities of romanticism, stories of human beings, simple and
+logical, like those which formerly delighted our parents.
+
+The French reader who wished to be amused was at once at home, on the
+same footing with him.... More spontaneous than the first troubadours,
+he banished from his writings abstract and general types,
+"romanticized" life itself, and not myths, those eternal legends that
+stray through the highways of the world.
+
+Study closely these minstrels in recent works; read M. Joseph Bedier's
+beautiful work, Les Fabliaux, and you will see how, in Maupassant's
+prose, ancestors, whom he doubtless never knew, are brought to life.
+
+The Minstrel feels neither anger nor sympathy; he neither censures,
+nor moralizes; for the self-satisfied Middle Ages cannot conceive the
+possibility of a different world. Brief, quick, he despises aims and
+methods, his only object is to entertain his auditors. Amusing and
+witty, he cares only for laughter and ridicule....
+
+But Maupassant's stories are singularly different in character. In the
+nineteenth century the Gallic intellect had long since foundered amid
+vileness and debauchery. In the provinces the ancient humor had
+disappeared; one chattered still about nothing, but without point,
+without wit; "trifling" was over, as they call it in Champagne. The
+nauseating pabulum of the newspapers and low political intrigue had
+withered the French intellect, that delicate, rare intellect, the last
+traces of which fade away in the Alsatian stories of Erckman-Chatrian,
+in the Provencal tales of Alphonse Daudet, in the novels of Emile
+Pouvillon. Maupassant is not one of them. He knows nothing about
+humor, for he never found it in Life....
+
+His ambition was not to make one laugh; he writes for the pleasure of
+recalling, without bias, what, to him, seems a halfway and dangerous
+truth.... In his pessimism, Maupassant despises the race, society,
+civilization and the world....
+
+If Maupassant draws from anyone it is Schopenhauer and Herbert
+Spencer, of whom he often speaks, although one does not know if he
+studied them very deeply. In all his books, excepting, of course, in
+the case of lines from the great tragic poets, one finds only one
+credited reference, which in to Sir John Lubbock's work on ants, an
+extract from which is introduced into Yvette.
+
+No one was less bookish than himself. He was a designer, and one of
+the greatest in literature. His heroes, little folk, artisans or
+rustics, bureaucrats or shopkeepers, prostitutes or rakes, he places
+them in faintly colored, but well-defined surroundings. And,
+immediately, the simplified landscape gives the keynote of the story.
+
+In his descriptions he resists the temptation of asserting his
+personal view. He will not allow himself to see more of his landscape
+than his characters themselves see. He is also careful to avoid all
+refined terms and expressions, to introduce no element superior to the
+characters of his heroes.
+
+He never makes inanimate nature intervene directly in human
+tribulations; she laughs at our joys and our sorrows.... Once, only,
+in one of his works, the trees join in the universal mourning--the
+great, sad beeches weep in autumn for the soul, the little soul, of la
+petite Roque.
+
+And yet Maupassant adores this nature, the one thing that moves
+him.... But, in spite of this, he can control himself; the artist is
+aware of the danger to his narration should he indulge in the
+transports of a lover.
+
+With an inborn perception, Maupassant at once seizes on the principal
+detail, the essential peculiarity that distinguishes a character and
+builds round it. He also, in the presentation of his character,
+assumes an authority that no writer, not even Balzac, ever
+equalled....
+
+He traces what he sees with rapid strokes. His work is a vast
+collection of powerful sketches, synthetic draftings. Like all great
+artists, he was a simplifier; he knew how to "sacrifice" like the
+Egyptians and Greeks....
+
+Thanks to his rapid methods the master "cinematographed," if I may use
+the word, inexhaustible stories. Among them, each person may find
+himself represented, the artist, the clerk, the thinker, and the
+non-commissioned officer.
+
+Maupassant was always impatient to "realize" his observations. He
+might forget, and above all, the flower of the sensation might lose
+its perfume. In Une Vie he hastens to sum up his childhood's
+recollections. As for Bel Ami, he wrote it from day to day as he
+haunted the offices of Editors.
+
+As for his style, it is limpid, accurate, easy and strongly marked,
+with a sound framework and having the suppleness of a living organism.
+
+Very industrious and very careful at first, Maupassant, in the fever
+of production, became less careful. He early accustomed himself to
+composing in his mind. "Composition amuses me," he said, "when I am
+thinking it out, and not when I am writing it." ... Once he had
+thought out his novels or romances, he transcribed them hurriedly,
+almost mechanically. In his manuscripts, long pages follow each other
+without an erasure.
+
+His language appears natural, easy, and at first sight seems
+spontaneous. But at the price of what effort was it not acquired! ...
+
+In reality, in the writer, his sense of sight and smell were
+perfected, to the detriment of the sense of hearing which is not very
+musical. Repetitions, assonances, do not always shock Maupassant, who
+is sometimes insensible to quantity as he is to harmony. He does not
+"orchestrate," he has not inherited the "organ pipes" of Flaubert.
+
+In his vocabulary there is no research; he never even requires a rare
+word....
+
+Those whom Flaubert's great organ tones delighted, those whom
+Theophile Gautier's frescoes enchanted, were not satisfied, and
+accused Maupassant, somewhat harshly, of not being a "writer" in the
+highest sense of the term. The reproach is unmerited, for there is but
+one style.
+
+But, on the other hand, it is difficult to admit, with an eminent
+academician that Maupassant must be a great writer, a classical
+writer, in fact, simply because he "had no style," a condition of
+perfection "in that form of literary art in which the personality of
+the author should not appear, in the romance, the story, and the
+drama."
+
+A classic, Maupassant undoubtedly is, as the critic to whom I alluded
+has said, "through the simple aptness of his terms and his contempt
+for frivolous ornamentation."
+
+He remains a great writer because, like Moliere, La Bruyere, and La
+Fontaine, he is always close to nature, disdaining all studied
+rhetorical effect and all literary verbosity.
+
+For applause and fame Maupassant cared nothing, and his proud contempt
+for Orders and Academies is well known.
+
+In a letter to Marie Bashkirtseff he writes as follows:
+
+"Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, women, events. This is
+my true confession of faith, and I may add what you may not believe,
+which is that I do not care any more for myself than I do for the
+rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent
+to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I
+pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I
+can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade."
+
+And in a later letter:
+
+"I have no taste that I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire
+that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or
+laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give
+myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me
+to spend it."
+
+And again:
+
+"As for me, I am incapable of really loving my art. I am too critical,
+I analyze it too much. I feel strongly how relative is the value of
+ideas, words, and even of the loftiest intelligences. I cannot help
+despising thought, it is so weak; and form, it is so imperfect. I
+really have, in an acute, incurable form, the sense of human
+impotence, and of effort which results in wretched approximations."
+
+For nature, Maupassant had an ardent passion.... His whole being
+quivered when she bathed his forehead with her light ocean breeze.
+She, alone, knew how to rock and soothe him with her waves.
+
+Never satisfied, he wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled
+incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters
+of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted,
+bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves
+rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its
+scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and,
+finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, but
+simply to enjoy the delight of grand, pure outlines. Africa, the
+country of Salammbo, the desert, finally call him, and he breathes
+those distant odors borne on the slow winds; the sunlight inundates
+his body, "laves the dark corners of his soul." And he retains a
+troubled memory of the evenings in those warm climes, where the
+fragrance of plants and trees seems to take the place of air.
+
+Maupassant's philosophy is as little complicated as his vision of
+humanity. His pessimism exceeds in its simplicity and depth that of
+all other realistic writers.
+
+Still there are contradictions and not unimportant ones in him. The
+most striking is certainly his fear of Death. He sees it everywhere,
+it haunts him. He sees it on the horizon of landscapes, and it crosses
+his path on lonely roads. When it is not hovering over his head, it is
+circling round him as around Gustave Moreau's pale youth.... Can he,
+the determined materialist, really fear the stupor of eternal sleep,
+or the dispersion of the transient individuality? ...
+
+Another contradiction. He who says that contact with the crowd
+"tortures his nerves," and who professes such contempt for mankind,
+yet considers solitude as one of the bitterest torments of existence.
+And he bewails the fact that he cannot live just for himself, "keep
+within himself that secret place of the ego, where none can enter."
+
+"Alas!" said his master, "we are all in a desert." Nobody understands
+anyone else and "whatever we attempt, whatever be the impulse of our
+heart and the appeal of our lips, we shall always be alone!"
+
+In this gehenna of death, in these nostalgias of the past, in these
+trances of eternal isolation, may we not find some relinquishing of
+his philosophy? Certainly not, for these contradictions accentuate all
+the more the pain of existence and become a new source of suffering.
+
+In any case, Maupassant's pessimism becomes logical in terminating in
+pity, like that of Schopenhauer. I know that I am running foul of
+certain admirers of the author who do not see any pity in his work,
+and it is understood that he is pitiless. But examine his stories more
+closely and you will find it revealed in every page, provided you go
+to the very bottom of the subject. That is where it exists naturally,
+almost against the desire of the writer, who does not arouse pity, nor
+teach it.
+
+And, again, if it remains concealed from so many readers, it is
+because it has nothing to do with the humanitarian pity retailed by
+rhetoricians. It is philosophical and haughty, detached from any
+"anthropocentric" characteristics. It is universal suffering that it
+covers. And to tell the truth, it is man, the hypocritical and cunning
+biped who has the least share in it. Maupassant is helpful to all
+those of his fellows who are tortured by physical suffering, social
+cruelty and the criminal dangers of life, but he pities them without
+caring for them, and his kindness makes distinctions.
+
+On the other hand, the pessimist has all the tenderness of a Buddhist
+for animals, whom the gospels despise. When he pities the animals, who
+are worth more than ourselves, their executioners, when he pities the
+elementary existences, the plants and trees, those exquisite
+creations, he unbends and pours out his heart. The humbler the victim,
+the more generously does he espouse its suffering. His compassion is
+unbounded for all that lives in misery, that is buffeted about without
+understanding why, that "suffers and dies without a word." And if he
+mourned Miss Harriet, in this unaccustomed outburst of enthusiasm, it
+is because, like himself, the poor outcast cherished a similar love
+for "all things, all living beings."
+
+Such appears to me to be Maupassant, the novelist, a story-teller, a
+writer, and a philosopher by turns. I will add one more trait; he was
+devoid of all spirit of criticism. When he essays to demolish a
+theory, one is amazed to find in this great, clear writer such lack of
+precision of thought, and such weak argument. He wrote the least
+eloquent and the most diffuse study of Flaubert, of "that old, dead
+master who had won his heart in a manner he could not explain." And,
+later, he shows the same weakness in setting forth, as in proving his
+theory, in his essay on the "Evolution of the Novel," in the
+introduction to Pierre et Jean.
+
+On the other hand, he possesses, above many others, a power of
+creating, hidden and inborn, which he exercises almost unconsciously.
+Living, spontaneous and yet impassive he is the glorious agent of a
+mysterious function, through which he dominated literature and will
+continue to dominate it until the day when he desires to become
+literary.
+
+He is as big as a tree. The author of "Contemporains" has written that
+Maupassant produced novels as an apple-tree yields apples. Never was a
+criticism more irrefutable.
+
+On various occasions he was pleased with himself at the fertility that
+had developed in him amid those rich soils where a frenzy mounts to
+your brain through the senses of smell and sight. He even feels the
+influence of the seasons, and writes from Provence: "The sap is rising
+in me, it is true. The spring that I find just awakening here stirs
+all my plant nature, and causes me to produce those literary fruits
+that ripen in me, I know not how."
+
+The "meteor" is at its apogee. All admire and glorify him. It is the
+period when Alexandre Dumas, fils, wrote to him thrice: "You are the
+only author whose books I await with impatience."
+
+The day came, however, when this dominant impassivity became stirred,
+when the marble became flesh by contact with life and suffering. And
+the work of the romancer, begun by the novelist, became warm with a
+tenderness that is found for the first time in Mont Oriol....
+
+But this sentimental outburst that astonished his admirers quickly
+dies down, for the following year, there appeared the sober Pierre et
+Jean, that admirable masterpiece of typical reality constructed with
+"human leaven," without any admixture of literary seasoning, or
+romantic combinations. The reader finds once more in his splendid
+integrity the master of yore.
+
+But his heart has been touched, nevertheless. In the books that
+follow, his impassivity gives way like an edifice that has been slowly
+undermined. With an ever-growing emotion he relates under slight
+disguises all his physical distress, all the terrors of his mind and
+heart.
+
+What is the secret of this evolution? The perusal of his works gives
+us a sufficient insight into it.
+
+The Minstrel has been received in country houses; has been admitted to
+"the ladies' apartments." He has given up composing those hurried
+tales which made his fame, in order to construct beautiful romances of
+love and death.... The story teller has forsaken rustics and peasants,
+the comrades of the "Repues franches," for the nobility and the
+wealthy. He who formerly frequented Mme. Tellier's establishment now
+praises Michele de Burne.
+
+Ysolde replaces Macette. In "l'Ostel de Courtoisie," Maupassant
+cultivates the usual abstractions of the modern Round Table:
+Distinction and Moderation; Fervor and Delicacy. We see him inditing
+love sonnets and becoming a knight of chivalry. The apologist of
+brutal pleasures has become a devotee of the "culte de la Dame."
+
+Everywhere he was sought after, feted, petted.... But Maupassant never
+let himself be carried away by the tinsel of his prestige, nor the
+puerility of his enchantment. He despised at heart the puppets that
+moved about him as he had formerly despised his short stories and his
+petit bourgeois. "Ah," he cries, "I see them, their heads, their
+types, their hearts and their souls! What a clinic for a maker of
+books! The disgust with which this humanity inspires me makes me
+regret still more that I could not become what I should most have
+preferred--an Aristophanes, or a Rabelais." And he adds: "The world
+makes failures of all scientists, all artists, all intelligences that
+it monopolizes. It aborts all sincere sentiment by its manner of
+scattering our taste, our curiosity, our desire, the little spark of
+genius that burns in us."
+
+Maupassant had to bend to the conditions of his new life. Being well
+bred, he respected, outwardly at least, the laws of artificiality and
+conventionality, and bowed before the idols of the cave he had
+entered....
+
+If Maupassant never became the slave of worldly ideas, the creature of
+instinct that was part of his being acquired the refined tastes of the
+salons, and the manners of the highest civilization.
+
+The novelist lived for some time in these enchanted and artificial
+surroundings, when, suddenly, his malady became aggravated. He was
+tortured by neuralgia, and by new mysterious darting pains. His
+suffering was so great that he longed to scream. At the same time, his
+unhappy heart became softened and he became singularly emotional. His
+early faculties were intensified and refined, and in the overtension
+of his nerves through suffering his perceptions broadened, and he
+gained new ideas of things. This nobler personality Maupassant owes to
+those sufferings dear to great souls of whom Daudet speaks. This is
+what he says:
+
+"If I could ever tell all, I should utter all the unexplored,
+repressed and sad thoughts that I feel in the depths of my being. I
+feel them swelling and poisoning me as bile does some people. But if I
+could one day give them utterance they would perhaps evaporate, and I
+might no longer have anything but a light, joyful heart. Who can say?
+Thinking becomes an abominable torture when the brain is an open
+wound. I have so many wounds in my head that my ideas cannot stir
+without making me long to cry out. Why is it? Why is it? Dumas would
+say that my stomach is out of order. I believe, rather, that I have a
+poor, proud, shameful heart, that old human heart that people laugh
+at, but which is touched, and causes me suffering, and in my head as
+well; I have the mind of the Latin race, which is very worn out. And,
+again, there are days when I do not think thus, but when I suffer just
+the same; for I belong to the family of the thin-skinned. But then I
+do not tell it, I do not show it; I conceal it very well, I think.
+Without any doubt, I am thought to be one of the most indifferent men
+in the world. I am sceptical, which is not the same thing, sceptical
+because I am clear-sighted. And my eyes say to my heart, Hide
+yourself, old fellow, you are grotesque, and it hides itself."
+
+This describes, in spite of reservation, the struggle between two
+conflicting minds, that of yesterday, and that of to-day. But this
+sensitiveness that Maupassant seeks to hide, is plain to all
+clear-seeing people.
+
+He soon begins to be filled with regrets and forebodings. He has a
+desire to look into the unknown, and to search for the inexplicable.
+He feels in himself that something is undergoing destruction; he is at
+times haunted by the idea of a double. He divines that his malady is
+on guard, ready to pounce on him. He seeks to escape it, but on the
+mountains, as beside the sea, nature, formerly his refuge, now
+terrifies him.
+
+Then his heart expands. All the sentiments that he once reviled, he
+now desires to experience. He now exalts in his books the passion of
+love, the passion of sacrifice, the passion of suffering; he extols
+self-sacrifice, devotion, the irresistible joy of ever giving oneself
+up more and more. The hour is late, the night is at hand; weary of
+suffering any longer, he hurriedly begs for tenderness and
+remembrance.
+
+Occasionally, the Maupassant of former days protests against the
+bondage of his new personality; he complains that he no longer feels
+absolutely as formerly that he has no contact with anything in the
+world, that sweet, strong sensation that gives one strength. "How
+sensible I was," he says, "to wall myself round with indifference! If
+one did not feel, but only understand, without giving fragments of
+oneself to other beings! ... It is strange to suffer from the
+emptiness, the nothingness, of this life, when one is resigned, as I
+am, to nothingness. But, there, I cannot live without recollections,
+and recollections sadden me. I can have no hope, I know, but I feel
+obscurely and unceasingly the harm of this statement, and the regret
+that it should be so. And the attachments that I have in life act on
+my sensibility, which is too human, and not literary enough."
+
+Maupassant's pity now takes a pathetic turn. He no longer despises,
+but holds out his hand to those unfortunates who, like himself, are
+tormented on the pathway without hope. The tears that he sees flow
+make him sad, and his heart bleeds at all the wounds he discovers. He
+does not inquire into the quality or origin of the misfortune. He
+sympathizes with all suffering; physical suffering, moral suffering,
+the suffering caused by treachery, the bitter twilight of wasted
+lives....
+
+His mind has also become active. He desires to dabble in science. One
+day he studies the Arab mystics, Oriental legends, and the next, he
+studies the marine fauna, etc. His perceptions have never been so
+clear. His brain is in continual activity. "It is strange," he
+acknowledges, "what a different man I am becoming mentally from what I
+was formerly. I can see it as I watch myself thinking, discovering,
+and developing stories, weighing and analyzing the imaginary beings
+that float through my imagination. I take the same enjoyment in
+certain dreams, certain exaltations of mind, as I formerly took in
+rowing like mad in the sunlight."
+
+For the first time, his assurance as a writer wavers. As his last
+volumes show, he is endeavoring to transform, to renew himself. He
+acquires a desire to learn the secrets of obscure and precious hearts,
+to visit unknown races. He has lost his magnificent serenity....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As his malady began to take a more definite form, he turned his steps
+towards the south, only visiting Paris to see his physicians and
+publishers. In the old port of Antibes beyond the causeway of Cannes,
+his yacht, Bel Ami, which he cherished as a brother, lay at anchor and
+awaited him. He took it to the white cities of the Genoese Gulf,
+towards the palm trees of Hyeres, or the red bay trees of Antheor.
+
+It was during one of these idle cruises on the open sea, outside of
+Agay and Saint-Raphael that he wrote "Sur l'Eau."
+
+It was on the sacred sea of the old poets and philosophers, on the sea
+whose voice has rocked the thought of the world, that he cast into the
+shadow that long lament, so heartrending and sublime, that posterity
+will long shudder at the remembrance of it. The bitter strophes of
+this lament seem to be cadenced by the Mediterranean itself and to be
+in rhythm, like its melopoeia.
+
+"Sur l'Eau" is the last Will and Testament, the general confession of
+Maupassant. To those who come after him he leaves the legacy of his
+highest thought; then he says farewell to all that he loved, to
+dreams, to starlit nights, and to the breath of roses. "Sur l'Eau" is
+the book of modern disenchantment, the faithful mirror of the latest
+pessimism. The journal written on board ship, disconnected and hasty,
+but so noble in its disorder, has taken a place forever beside Werther
+and Rene, Manfred and Oberman.
+
+He had for a long time, to his sorrow, seen his health failing under
+the attacks of an obscure malady which left him with a sense of the
+diminution of his powers and a gradual clouding of his intellect.
+Symptoms of general paralysis set in, at first mistaken for neurotic
+disturbances. He changed greatly. Those who met him as I did, thin and
+shivering, on that rainy Sunday when they were celebrating the
+inauguration of Flaubert's monument at Rouen would scarcely have
+recognized him. I shall never forget, as long as I live, his face
+wasted by suffering, his large eyes with a distressed expression,
+which emitted dying gleams of protest against a cruel fate....
+
+Maupassant retired to Cannes not far from his mother. He read medical
+books and, in spite of what they taught, persisted in attributing his
+sufferings to "rheumatism localized in the brain," contracted amid the
+fogs on the Seine....
+
+Vainly he endeavored to work, he became gloomy and the idea of suicide
+impressed him more and more....
+
+The months passed, however, and in June he was able to go to Divonne
+to take a cure. After a very characteristic attack of optimism, he
+suddenly appeared at Champel and astonished everyone by his frightful
+eccentricities. One evening, however, he felt better, and read to the
+poet Dorchain the beginning of his novel "The Angelus," which he
+declared would be his masterpiece. When he had finished, he wept. "And
+we wept also," writes Dorchain, "at seeing all that now remained of
+genius, of tenderness and pity in this soul that would never again be
+capable of expressing itself so as to impress other minds.... In his
+accent, in his language, in his tears, Maupassant had, I know not
+what, of a religious character, which exceeded his horror of life, and
+his sombre terror of annihilation."
+
+At the end of September he again visited Cannes, but the fatal day
+predicted by the physician was at hand.
+
+After several tragic weeks in which, from instinct, he made a
+desperate fight, on the 1st of January, 1892, he felt he was
+hopelessly vanquished, and in a moment of supreme clearness of
+intellect, like Gerard de Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate
+than the author of Sylvia, he was unsuccessful. But his mind,
+henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness," had entered into eternal
+darkness.
+
+He was taken back to Paris and placed in Dr. Meuriot's sanatorium,
+where, after eighteen months of mechanical existence, the "meteor"
+quietly passed away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNE VIE
+
+OR, THE HISTORY OF A HEART
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HOME BY THE SEA
+
+The weather was most distressing. It had rained all night. The roaring
+of the overflowing gutters filled the deserted streets, in which the
+houses, like sponges, absorbed the humidity, which penetrating to the
+interior, made the walls sweat from cellar to garret. Jeanne had left
+the convent the day before, free for all time, ready to seize all the
+joys of life, of which she had dreamed so long. She was afraid her
+father would not set out for the new home in bad weather, and for the
+hundredth time since daybreak she examined the horizon. Then she
+noticed that she had omitted to put her calendar in her travelling
+bag. She took from the wall the little card which bore in golden
+figures the date of the current year, 1819. Then she marked with a
+pencil the first four columns, drawing a line through the name of each
+saint up to the 2d of May, the day that she left the convent. A voice
+outside the door called "Jeannette." Jeanne replied, "Come in, papa."
+And her father entered. Baron Simon-Jacques Le Perthuis des Vauds was
+a gentleman of the last century, eccentric and good. An enthusiastic
+disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he had the tenderness of a lover
+for nature, in the fields, in the woods and in the animals. Of
+aristocratic birth, he hated instinctively the year 1793, but being a
+philosopher by temperament and liberal by education, he execrated
+tyranny with an inoffensive and declamatory hatred. His great strength
+and his great weakness was his kind-heartedness, which had not arms
+enough to caress, to give, to embrace; the benevolence of a god, that
+gave freely, without questioning; in a word, a kindness of inertia
+that became almost a vice. A man of theory, he thought out a plan of
+education for his daughter, to the end that she might become happy,
+good, upright and gentle. She had lived at home until the age of
+twelve, when, despite the tears of her mother, she was placed in the
+Convent of the Sacred Heart. He had kept her severely secluded,
+cloistered, in ignorance of the secrets of life. He wished the Sisters
+to restore her to him pure at seventeen years of age, so that he might
+imbue her mind with a sort of rational poetry, and by means of the
+fields, in the midst of the fruitful earth, unfold her soul, enlighten
+her ignorance through the aspect of love in nature, through the simple
+tenderness of the animals, through the placid laws of existence. She
+was leaving the convent radiant, full of the joy of life, ready for
+all the happiness, all the charming incidents which her mind had
+pictured in her idle hours and in the long, quiet nights. She was like
+a portrait by Veronese with her fair, glossy hair, which seemed to
+cast a radiance on her skin, a skin with the faintest tinge of pink,
+softened by a light velvety down which could be perceived when the sun
+kissed her cheek. Her eyes were an opaque blue, like those of Dutch
+porcelain figures. She had a tiny mole on her left nostril and another
+on the right of her chin. She was tall, well developed, with willowy
+figure. Her clear voice sounded at times a little too sharp, but her
+frank, sincere laugh spread joy around her. Often, with a familiar
+gesture, she would raise her hands to her temples as if to arrange her
+hair.
+
+She ran to her father and embraced him warmly. "Well, are we going to
+start?" she said. He smiled, shook his head and said, pointing toward
+the window, "How can we travel in such weather?" But she implored in a
+cajoling and tender manner, "Oh, papa, do let us start. It will clear
+up in the afternoon." "But your mother will never consent to it."
+"Yes, I promise you that she will, I will arrange that." "If you
+succeed in persuading your mother, I am perfectly willing." In a few
+moments she returned from her mother's room, shouting in a voice that
+could be heard all through the house, "Papa, papa, mamma is willing.
+Have the horses harnessed." The rain was not abating; one might almost
+have said that it was raining harder when the carriage drove up to the
+door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs,
+supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall
+housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of
+the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but
+eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second
+daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie,
+and her chief duty lay in guiding the steps of her mistress, who had
+grown enormous in the last few years and also had an affection of the
+heart, which kept her complaining continually. The baroness, gasping
+from over-exertion, finally reached the doorstep of the old residence,
+looked at the court where the water was streaming and remarked: "It
+really is not wise." Her husband, always pleasant, replied: "It was
+you who desired it, Madame Adelaide." He always preceded her pompous
+name of Adelaide with the title madame with an air of half respectful
+mockery. Madame mounted with difficulty into the carriage, causing all
+the springs to bend. The baron sat beside her, while Jeanne and
+Rosalie were seated opposite, with their backs to the horses.
+Ludivine, the cook, brought a heap of wraps to put over their knees
+and two baskets, which were placed under the seats; then she climbed
+on the box beside Father Simon, wrapping herself in a great rug which
+covered her completely. The porter and his wife came to bid them
+good-by as they closed the carriage door, taking the last orders about
+the trunks, which were to follow in a wagon. So they started. Father
+Simon, the coachman, with head bowed and back bent in the pouring
+rain, was completely covered by his box coat with its triple cape. The
+howling storm beat upon the carriage windows and inundated the
+highway.
+
+They drove rapidly to the wharf and continued alongside the line of
+tall-masted vessels until they reached the boulevard of Mont Riboudet.
+Then they crossed the meadows, where from time to time a drowned
+willow, its branches drooping limply, could be faintly distinguished
+through the mist of rain. No one spoke. Their minds themselves seemed
+to be saturated with moisture like the earth.
+
+The baroness leaned her head against the cushions and closed her eyes.
+The baron looked out with mournful eyes at the monotonous and drenched
+landscape. Rosalie, with a parcel on her knee, was dreaming in the
+dull reverie of a peasant. But Jeanne, under this downpour, felt
+herself revive like a plant that has been shut up and has just been
+restored to the air, and so great was her joy that, like foliage, it
+sheltered her heart from sadness. Although she did not speak, she
+longed to burst out singing, to reach out her hands to catch the rain
+that she might drink it. She enjoyed to the full being carried along
+rapidly by the horses, enjoyed gazing at the desolate landscape and
+feeling herself under shelter amid this general inundation. Beneath
+the pelting rain the gleaming backs of the two horses emitted a warm
+steam.
+
+Little by little the baroness fell asleep, and presently began to
+snore sonorously. Her husband leaned over and placed in her hands a
+little leather pocketbook.
+
+This awakened her, and she looked at the pocket-book with the stupid,
+sleepy look of one suddenly aroused. It fell off her lap and sprang
+open and gold and bank bills were scattered on the floor of the
+carriage. This roused her completely, and Jeanne gave vent to her
+mirth in a merry peal of girlish laughter.
+
+The baron picked up the money and placed it on her knees. "This, my
+dear," he said, "is all that is left of my farm at Eletot. I have sold
+it--so as to be able to repair the 'Poplars,' where we shall often
+live in the future."
+
+She counted six thousand four hundred francs and quietly put them in
+her pocket. This was the ninth of thirty-one farms that they had
+inherited which they had sold in this way. Nevertheless they still
+possessed about twenty thousand livres income annually in land
+rentals, which, with proper care, would have yielded about thirty
+thousand francs a year.
+
+Living simply as they did, this income would have sufficed had there
+not been a bottomless hole always open in their house--kind-hearted
+generosity. It dried up the money in their hands as the sun dries the
+water in marshes. It flowed, fled, disappeared. How? No one knew.
+Frequently one would say to the other, "I don't know how it happens,
+but I have spent one hundred francs to-day, and I have bought nothing
+of any consequence." This faculty of giving was, however, one of the
+greatest pleasures of their life, and they all agreed on this point in
+a superb and touching manner.
+
+Jeanne asked her father, "Is it beautiful now, my castle?" The baron
+replied, "You shall see, my little girl."
+
+The storm began to abate. The vault of clouds seemed to rise and
+heighten and suddenly, through a rift, a long ray of sunshine fell
+upon the fields, and presently the clouds separated, showing the blue
+firmament, and then, like the tearing of a veil, the opening grew
+larger and the beautiful azure sky, clear and fathomless, spread over
+the world. A fresh and gentle breeze passed over the earth like a
+happy sigh, and as they passed beside gardens or woods they heard
+occasionally the bright chirp of a bird as he dried his wings.
+
+Evening was approaching. Everyone in the carriage was asleep except
+Jeanne. They stopped to rest and feed the horses. The sun had set. In
+the distance bells were heard. They passed a little village as the
+inhabitants were lighting their lamps, and the sky became also
+illuminated by myriads of stars. Suddenly they saw behind a hill,
+through the branches of the fir trees, the moon rising, red and full
+as if it were torpid with sleep.
+
+The air was so soft that the windows were not closed. Jeanne,
+exhausted with dreams and happy visions, was now asleep. Finally they
+stopped. Some men and women were standing before the carriage door
+with lanterns in their hands. They had arrived. Jeanne, suddenly
+awakened, was the first to jump out. Her father and Rosalie had
+practically to carry the baroness, who was groaning and continually
+repeating in a weak little voice, "Oh, my God, my poor children!" She
+refused all offers of refreshment, but went to bed and immediately
+fell asleep.
+
+Jeanne and her father, the baron, took supper together. They were in
+perfect sympathy with each other. Later, seized with a childish joy,
+they started on a tour of inspection through the restored manor. It
+was one of those high and vast Norman residences that comprise both
+farmhouse and castle, built of white stone which had turned gray,
+large enough to contain a whole race of people.
+
+An immense hall divided the house from front to rear and a staircase
+went up at either side of the entrance, meeting in a bridge on the
+first floor. The huge drawing-room was on the ground floor to the
+right and was hung with tapestries representing birds and foliage. All
+the furniture was covered with fine needlework tapestry illustrating
+La Fontaine's fables, and Jeanne was delighted at finding a chair she
+had loved as a child, which pictured the story of "The Fox and the
+Stork."
+
+Beside the drawing-room were the library, full of old books, and two
+unused rooms; at the left was the dining-room, the laundry, the
+kitchen, etc.
+
+A corridor divided the whole first floor, the doors of ten rooms
+opening into it. At the end, on the right, was Jeanne's room. She and
+her father went in. He had had it all newly done over, using the
+furniture and draperies that had been in the storeroom.
+
+There were some very old Flemish tapestries, with their peculiar
+looking figures. At sight of her bed, the young girl uttered a scream
+of joy. Four large birds carved in oak, black from age and highly
+polished, bore up the bed and seemed to be its protectors. On the
+sides were carved two wide garlands of flowers and fruit, and four
+finely fluted columns, terminating in Corinthian capitals, supported a
+cornice of cupids with roses intertwined. The tester and the coverlet
+were of antique blue silk, embroidered in gold fleur de lys. When
+Jeanne had sufficiently admired it, she lifted up the candle to
+examine the tapestries and the allegories they represented. They were
+mostly conventional subjects, but the last hanging represented a
+drama. Near a rabbit, which was still nibbling, a young man lay
+stretched out, apparently dead. A young girl, gazing at him, was
+plunging a sword into her bosom, and the fruit of the tree had turned
+black. Jeanne gave up trying to divine the meaning underlying this
+picture, when she saw in the corner a tiny little animal which the
+rabbit, had he lived, could have swallowed like a blade of grass; and
+yet it was a lion. Then she recognized the story of "Pyramus and
+Thisbe," and though she smiled at the simplicity of the design, she
+felt happy to have in her room this love adventure which would
+continually speak to her of her cherished hopes, and every night this
+legendary love would hover about her dreams.
+
+It struck eleven and the baron kissed Jeanne goodnight and retired to
+his room. Before retiring, Jeanne cast a last glance round her room
+and then regretfully extinguished the candle. Through her window she
+could see the bright moonlight bathing the trees and the wonderful
+landscape. Presently she arose, opened a window and looked out. The
+night was so clear that one could see as plainly as by daylight. She
+looked across the park with its two long avenues of very tall poplars
+that gave its name to the chateau and separated it from the two farms
+that belonged to it, one occupied by the Couillard family, the other
+by the Martins. Beyond the enclosure stretched a long, uncultivated
+plain, thickly overgrown with rushes, where the breeze whistled day
+and night. The land ended abruptly in a steep white cliff three
+hundred feet high, with its base in the ocean waves.
+
+Jeanne looked out over the long, undulating surface that seemed to
+slumber beneath the heavens. All the fragrance of the earth was in the
+night air. The odor of jasmine rose from the lower windows, and light
+whiffs of briny air and of seaweed were wafted from the ocean.
+
+Merely to breathe was enough for Jeanne, and the restful calm of the
+country was like a soothing bath. She felt as though her heart was
+expanding and she began dreaming of love. What was it? She did not
+know. She only knew that she would adore _him_ with all her soul
+and that he would cherish her with all his strength. They would walk
+hand in hand on nights like this, hearing the beating of their hearts,
+mingling their love with the sweet simplicity of the summer nights in
+such close communion of thought that by the sole power of their
+tenderness they would easily penetrate each other's most secret
+thoughts. This would continue forever in the calm of an enduring
+affection. It seemed to her that she felt _him_ there beside her.
+And an unusual sensation came over her. She remained long musing thus,
+when suddenly she thought she heard a footstep behind the house. "If
+it were _he_." But it passed on and she felt as if she had been
+deceived. The air became cooler. The day broke. Slowly bursting aside
+the gleaming clouds, touching with fire the trees, the plains, the
+ocean, all the horizon, the great flaming orb of the sun appeared.
+
+Jeanne felt herself becoming mad with happiness. A delirious joy,
+an infinite tenderness at the splendor of nature overcame her
+fluttering heart. It was _her_ sun, _her_ dawn! The beginning
+of _her_ life! Thoroughly fatigued at last, she flung herself down
+and slept till her father called her at eight o'clock. He walked into
+the room and proposed to show her the improvements of the castle, of
+_her_ castle. The road, called the parish road, connecting the
+farms, joined the high road between Havre and Fecamp, a mile and a
+half further on.
+
+Jeanne and the baron inspected everything and returned home for
+breakfast. When the meal was over, as the baroness had decided that
+she would rest, the baron proposed to Jeanne that they should go down
+to Yport. They started, and passing through the hamlet of Etouvent,
+where the poplars were, and going through the wooded slope by a
+winding valley leading down to the sea, they presently perceived the
+village of Yport. Women sat in their doorways mending linen; brown
+fish-nets were hanging against the doors of the huts, where an entire
+family lived in one room. It was a typical little French fishing
+village, with all its concomitant odors. To Jeanne it was all like a
+scene in a play. On turning a corner they saw before them the
+limitless blue ocean. They bought a brill from a fisherman and another
+sailor offered to take them out sailing, repeating his name,
+"Lastique, Josephin Lastique," several times, that they might not
+forget it, and the baron promised to remember. They walked home,
+chattering like two children, carrying the big fish between them,
+Jeanne having pushed her father's walking cane through its gills.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HAPPY DAYS
+
+A delightful life commenced for Jeanne, a life in the open air. She
+wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their
+sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor
+of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant
+sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow rocking
+her spirit.
+
+A love of solitude came upon her in the sweet freshness of this
+landscape and in the calm of the rounded horizon, and she would remain
+sitting so long on the hill tops that the wild rabbits would bound by
+her feet.
+
+She planted memories everywhere, as seeds are cast upon the earth,
+memories whose roots hold till death. It seemed to Jeanne that she was
+casting a little of her heart into every fold of these valleys. She
+became infatuated with sea bathing. When she was well out from shore,
+she would float on her back, her arms crossed, her eyes lost in the
+profound blue of the sky which was cleft by the flight of a swallow,
+or the white silhouette of a seabird.
+
+After these excursions she invariably came back to the castle pale
+with hunger, but light, alert, a smile on her lips and her eyes
+sparkling with happiness.
+
+The baron on his part was planning great agricultural enterprises.
+Occasionally, also, he went out to sea with the sailors of Yport. On
+several occasions he went fishing for mackerel and, again, by
+moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved
+to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts
+of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long
+time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof
+of a belfry or the Fecamp lighthouse, he delighted to remain
+motionless beneath the first gleams of the rising sun which made the
+slimy backs of the large fan-shaped rays and the fat bellies of the
+turbots glisten on the deck of the boat.
+
+At each meal he gave an enthusiastic account of his expeditions, and
+the baroness in her turn told how many times she had walked down the
+main avenue of poplars.
+
+As she had been advised to take exercise she made a business of
+walking, beginning as soon as the air grew warm. Leaning upon
+Rosalie's arm and dragging her left foot, which was rather heavier
+than the right, she wandered interminably up and down from the house
+to the edge of the wood, sitting down for five minutes at either end.
+The walking was resumed in the afternoon. A physician, consulted ten
+years before, had spoken of hypertrophy because she had suffered from
+suffocation. Ever since, this word had been used to describe the
+ailment of the baroness. The baron would say "my wife's hypertrophy"
+and Jeanne "mamma's hypertrophy" as they would have spoken of her hat,
+her dress, or her umbrella. She had been very pretty in her youth and
+slim as a reed. Now she had grown older, stouter, but she still
+remained poetical, having always retained the impression of "Corinne,"
+which she had read as a girl. She read all the sentimental love
+stories it was possible to collect, and her thoughts wandered among
+tender adventures in which she always figured as the heroine. Her new
+home was infinitely pleasing to her because it formed such a beautiful
+framework for the romance of her soul, the surrounding woods, the
+waste land, and the proximity of the ocean recalling to her mind the
+novels of Sir Walter Scott, which she had been devouring for some
+months. On rainy days she remained shut up in her room, sending
+Rosalie in a special manner for the drawer containing her "souvenirs,"
+which meant to the baroness all her old private and family letters.
+
+Occasionally, Jeanne replaced Rosalie in the walks with her mother,
+and she listened eagerly to the tales of the latter's childhood. The
+young girl saw herself in all these romantic stories, and was
+astonished at the similarity of ideas and desires; each heart imagines
+itself to have been the first to tremble at those very sensations that
+awakened the hearts of the first beings, and that will awaken the
+hearts of the last.
+
+One afternoon as the baroness and Jeanne were resting on the beach at
+the end of the walk, a stout priest who was moving in their direction
+greeted them with a bow, while still at a distance. He bowed when
+within three feet and, assuming a smiling air, cried: "Well, Madame la
+Baronne, how are you?" It was the village priest. The baroness seldom
+went to church, though she liked priests, from a sort of religious
+instinct peculiar to women. She had, in fact, entirely forgotten the
+Abbe Picot, her priest, and blushed as she saw him. She made apologies
+for not having prepared for his visit, but the good man was not at all
+embarrassed. He looked at Jeanne, complimented her on her appearance
+and sat down, placing his three-cornered hat on his knees. He was very
+stout, very red, and perspired profusely. He drew from his pocket
+every moment an enormous checked handkerchief and passed it over his
+face and neck, but hardly was the task completed when necessity forced
+him to repeat the process. He was a typical country priest, talkative
+and kindly.
+
+Presently the baron appeared. He was very friendly to the abbe and
+invited him to dinner. The priest was well versed in the art of being
+pleasant, thanks to the unconscious astuteness which the guiding of
+souls gives to the most mediocre of men who are called by the chance
+of events to exercise a power over their fellows. Toward dessert he
+became quite merry, with the gaiety that follows a pleasant meal, and
+as if struck by an idea he said: "I have a new parishioner whom I must
+present to you, Monsieur le Vicomte de Lamare." The baroness, who was
+at home in heraldry, inquired if he was of the family of Lamares of
+Eure. The priest answered, "Yes, madame, he is the son of Vicomte Jean
+de Lamare, who died last year." After this, the baroness, who loved
+the nobility above all other things, inquired the history of the young
+vicomte. He had paid his father's debts, sold the family castle, made
+his home on one of the three farms which he owned in the town of
+Etouvent. These estates brought him in an income of five or six
+thousand livres. The vicomte was economical and lived in this modest
+manner for two or three years, so that he might save enough to cut a
+figure in society, and to marry advantageously, without contracting
+debts or mortgaging his farms. The priest added, "He is a very
+charming young man, so steady and quiet, though there is very little
+to amuse him in the country." The baron said, "Bring him in to see us,
+Monsieur l'Abbe, it will be a distraction for him occasionally." After
+the coffee the baron and the priest took a turn about the grounds and
+then returned to say good-night to the ladies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+M. DE LAMARE
+
+The following Sunday the baroness and Jeanne went to mass, prompted by
+a feeling of respect for their pastor, and after service waited to see
+the priest and invite him to luncheon the following Thursday. He came
+out of the sacristy leaning familiarly on the arm of a tall young man.
+As soon as he perceived the ladies, he exclaimed:
+
+"How fortunate! Allow me, baroness and Mlle. Jeanne, to present to you
+your neighbor, M. le Vicomte de Lamare."
+
+The vicomte said he had long desired to make their acquaintance, and
+began to converse in a well-bred manner. He had a face of which women
+dream and that men dislike. His black, wavy hair shaded a smooth,
+sunburnt forehead, and two large straight eyebrows, that looked almost
+artificial, cast a deep and tender shadow over his dark eyes, the
+whites of which had a bluish tinge.
+
+His long, thick eyelashes accentuated the passionate eloquence of his
+expression which wrought havoc in the drawing-rooms of society, and
+made peasant girls carrying baskets turn round to look at him. The
+languorous fascination of his glance impressed one with the depth of
+his thoughts and lent weight to his slightest words. His beard, fine
+and glossy, concealed a somewhat heavy jaw.
+
+Two days later, M. de Lamare made his first call, just as they were
+discussing the best place for a new rustic bench. The vicomte was
+consulted and agreed with the baroness, who differed from her husband.
+
+M. de Lamare expatiated on the picturesqueness of the country and from
+time to time, as if by chance, his eyes met those of Jeanne, and she
+felt a strange sensation at the quickly averted glance which betrayed
+tender admiration and an awakened sympathy.
+
+M. de Lamare's father, who had died the preceding year, had known an
+intimate friend of the baroness's father, M. Cultaux, and this fact
+led to an endless conversation about family, relations, dates, etc.,
+and names heard in her childhood were recalled, and led to
+reminiscences.
+
+The baron, whose nature was rather uncultivated, and whose beliefs and
+prejudices were not those of his class, knew little about the
+neighboring families, and inquired about them from the vicomte, who
+responded:
+
+"Oh, there are very few of the nobility in the district," just as he
+might have said, "there are very few rabbits on the hills," and he
+began to particularize: There was the Marquis de Coutelier, a sort of
+leader of Norman aristocracy, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville,
+people of excellent stock, but living to themselves, and the Comte de
+Fourville, a kind of ogre, who was said to have made his wife die of
+sorrow, and who lived as a huntsman in his chateau of La Vrillette,
+built on a pond. There were a few parvenus among them who had bought
+properties here and there, but the vicomte did not know them.
+
+As he left, his last glance was for Jeanne, as if it were a special
+tender and cordial farewell. The baroness was delighted with him, and
+the baron said: "Yes, indeed, he is a gentleman." And he was invited
+to dinner the following week, and from that time came regularly.
+
+He generally arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon, went to join
+the baroness in "her avenue," and offered her his arm while she took
+her "exercise," as she called her daily walks. When Jeanne was at home
+she would walk on the other side of her mother, supporting her, and
+all three would walk slowly back and forth from one end of the avenue
+to the other. He seldom addressed Jeanne directly, but his eye
+frequently met hers.
+
+He went to Yport several times with Jeanne and the baron. One evening,
+when they were on the beach, Pere Lastique accosted him, and without
+removing his pipe, the absence of which would possibly have been more
+remarkable than the loss of his nose, he said:
+
+"With this wind, m'sieu le baron, we could easily go to Etretat and
+back to-morrow."
+
+Jeanne clasped her hands imploringly:
+
+"Oh, papa, let us do it!"
+
+The baron turned to M. de Lamare:
+
+"Will you join us, vicomte? We can take breakfast down there."
+
+And the matter was decided at once. From daybreak Jeanne was up and
+waiting for her father, who dressed more slowly. They walked in the
+dew across the level and then through the wood vibrant with the
+singing of birds. The vicomte and Pere Lastique were seated on a
+capstan.
+
+Two other sailors helped to shove off the boat from shore, which was
+not easy on the shingly beach. Once the boat was afloat, they all took
+their seats, and the two sailors who remained on shore shoved it off.
+A light, steady breeze was blowing from the ocean and they hoisted the
+sail, veered a little, and then sailed along smoothly with scarcely
+any motion. To landward the high cliff at the right cast a shadow on
+the water at its base, and patches of sunlit grass here and there
+varied its monotonous whiteness. Yonder, behind them, brown sails were
+coming out of the white harbor of Fecamp, and ahead of them they saw a
+rock of curious shape, rounded, with gaps in it looking something like
+an immense elephant with its trunk in the water; it was the little
+port of Etretat.
+
+Jeanne, a little dizzy from the motion of the waves, held the side of
+the boat with one hand as she looked out into the distance. It seemed
+to her as if only three things in the world were really beautiful:
+light, space, water.
+
+No one spoke. Pere Lastique, who was at the tiller, took a pull every
+now and then from a bottle hidden under the seat; and he smoked a
+short pipe which seemed inextinguishable, although he never seemed to
+relight it or refill it.
+
+The baron, seated in the bow looked after the sail. Jeanne and the
+vicomte seemed a little embarrassed at being seated side by side. Some
+unknown power seemed to make their glances meet whenever they raised
+their eyes; between them there existed already that subtle and vague
+sympathy which arises so rapidly between two young people when the
+young man is good looking and the girl is pretty. They were happy in
+each other's society, perhaps because they were thinking of each
+other. The rising sun was beginning to pierce through the slight mist,
+and as its beams grew stronger, they were reflected on the smooth
+surface of the sea as in a mirror.
+
+"How beautiful!" murmured Jeanne, with emotion.
+
+"Beautiful indeed!" answered the vicomte. The serene beauty of the
+morning awakened an echo in their hearts.
+
+And all at once they saw the great arches of Etretat, like two
+supports of a cliff standing in the sea high enough for vessels to
+pass under them; while a sharp-pointed white rock rose in front of the
+first arch. They reached shore, and the baron got out first to make
+fast the boat, while the vicomte lifted Jeanne ashore so that she
+should not wet her feet. Then they walked up the shingly beach side by
+side, and they overheard Pere Lastique say to the baron, "My! but they
+would make a pretty couple!"
+
+They took breakfast in a little inn near the beach, and while the
+ocean had lulled their thoughts and made them silent, the breakfast
+table had the opposite effect, and they chattered like children on a
+vacation. The slightest thing gave rise to laughter.
+
+Pere Lastique, on taking his place at table, carefully hid his lighted
+pipe in his cap. That made them laugh. A fly, attracted no doubt by
+his red nose, persistently alighted on it, and each time it did so
+they burst into laughter. Finally the old man could stand it no
+longer, and murmured: "It is devilishly persistent!" whereupon Jeanne
+and the vicomte laughed till they cried.
+
+After breakfast Jeanne suggested that they should take a walk. The
+vicomte rose, but the baron preferred to bask in the sun on the beach.
+
+"Go on, my children, you will find me here in an hour."
+
+They walked straight ahead of them, passing by several cottages and
+finally by a small chateau resembling a large farm, and found
+themselves in an open valley that extended for some distance. They now
+had a wild longing to run at large in the fields. Jeanne seemed to
+have a humming in her ears from all the new and rapidly changing
+sensations she had experienced. The burning rays of the sun fell on
+them. On both sides of the road the crops were bending over from the
+heat. The grasshoppers, as numerous as the blades of grass, were
+uttering their thin, shrill cry.
+
+Perceiving a wood a little further on to the right, they walked over
+to it. They saw a narrow path between two hedges shaded by tall trees
+which shut out the sun. A sort of moist freshness in the air was
+perceptible, giving them a sensation of chilliness. There was no
+grass, owing to the lack of sunlight, but the ground was covered with
+a carpet of moss.
+
+"See, we can sit down there a little while," she said.
+
+They sat down and looked about them at the numerous forms of life that
+were in the air and on the ground at their feet, for a ray of sunlight
+penetrating the dense foliage brought them into its light.
+
+"How beautiful it is here! How lovely it is in the country! There are
+moments when I should like to be a fly or a butterfly and hide in the
+flowers," said Jeanne with emotion.
+
+They spoke in low tones as one does in exchanging confidences, telling
+of their daily lives and of their tastes, and declaring that they were
+already disgusted with the world, tired of its useless monotony; it
+was always the same thing; there was no truth, no sincerity in it.
+
+The world! She would gladly have made its acquaintance; but she felt
+convinced beforehand that it was not equal to a country life, and the
+more their hearts seemed to be in sympathy, the more ceremonious they
+became, the more frequently their glances met and blended smiling; and
+it seemed that a new feeling of benevolence was awakened in them, a
+wider affection, an interest in a thousand things of which they had
+never hitherto thought.
+
+They wended their way back, but the baron had already set off on foot
+for the Chambre aux Demoiselles, a grotto in a cleft at the summit of
+one of the cliffs, and they waited for him at the inn. He did not
+return until five in the evening after a long walk along the cliffs.
+
+They got into the boat, started off smoothly with the wind at their
+backs, scarcely seeming to make any headway. The breeze was irregular,
+at one moment filling the sail and then letting it flap idly along the
+mast. The sea seemed opaque and lifeless, and the sun was slowly
+approaching the horizon. The lulling motion of the sea had made them
+silent again. Presently Jeanne said, "How I should love to travel!"
+
+"Yes, but it is tiresome to travel alone; there should be at least
+two, to exchange ideas," answered the vicomte. She reflected a moment.
+
+"That is true--I like to walk alone, however--how pleasant it is to
+dream all alone----"
+
+He gazed at her intently.
+
+"Two can dream as well as one."
+
+She lowered her eyes. Was it a hint? Possibly. She looked out at the
+horizon as if to discover something beyond it, and then said slowly:
+
+"I should like to go to Italy--and Greece--ah, yes, Greece--and to
+Corsica--it must be so wild and so beautiful!"
+
+He preferred Switzerland on account of its chalets and its lakes.
+
+"No," said she, "I like new countries like Corsica, or very old
+countries full of souvenirs, like Greece. It must be delightful to
+find the traces of those peoples whose history we have known since
+childhood, to see places where great deeds were accomplished."
+
+The vicomte, less enthusiastic, exclaimed: "As for me, England
+attracts me very much; there is so much to be learned there."
+
+Then they talked about the world in general, discussing the
+attractions of each country from the poles to the equator, enthusing
+over imaginary scenes and the peculiar manners of certain peoples like
+the Chinese and the Lapps; but they arrived at the conclusion that the
+most beautiful country in the world was France, with its temperate
+climate, cool in summer, mild in winter, its rich soil, its green
+forests, its worship of the fine arts which existed nowhere else since
+the glorious centuries of Athens. Then they were silent. The setting
+sun left a wide dazzling train of light which extended from the
+horizon to the edge of their boat. The wind subsided, the ripples
+disappeared, and the motionless sail was red in the light of the dying
+day. A limitless calm seemed to settle down on space and make a
+silence amid this conjunction of elements; and by degrees the sun
+slowly sank into the ocean.
+
+Then a fresh breeze seemed to arise, a little shiver went over the
+surface of the water, as if the engulfed orb cast a sigh of
+satisfaction across the world. The twilight was short, night fell with
+its myriad stars. Pere Lastique took the oars, and they saw that the
+sea was phosphorescent. Jeanne and the vicomte, side by side, watched
+the fitful gleams in the wake of the boat. They were hardly thinking,
+but simply gazing vaguely, breathing in the beauty of the evening in a
+state of delicious contentment; Jeanne had one hand on the seat and
+her neighbor's finger touched it as if by accident; she did not move;
+she was surprised, happy, though embarrassed at this slight contact.
+
+When she reached home that evening and went to her room, she felt
+strangely disturbed, and so affected that the slightest thing impelled
+her to weep. She looked at her clock, imagining that the little bee on
+the pendulum was beating like a heart, the heart of a friend; that it
+was aware of her whole life, that with its quick, regular tickings it
+would accompany her whole life; and she stopped the golden fly to
+press a kiss on its wings. She would have kissed anything, no matter
+what. She remembered having hidden one of her old dolls of former days
+at the bottom of a drawer; she looked for it, took it out, and was
+delighted to see it again, as people are to see loved friends; and
+pressing it to her heart, she covered its painted cheeks and curly wig
+with kisses. And as she held it in her arms, she thought:
+
+Can _he_ be the husband promised through a thousand secret
+voices, whom a superlatively good Providence had thus thrown across
+her path? Was he, indeed, the being created for her--the being to whom
+she would devote her existence? Were they the two predestined beings
+whose affection, blending in one, would beget love?
+
+She did not as yet feel that tumultuous emotion, that mad enchantment,
+those deep stirrings which she thought were essential to the tender
+passion; but it seemed to her she was beginning to fall in love, for
+she sometimes felt a sudden faintness when she thought of him, and she
+thought of him incessantly. His presence stirred her heart; she
+blushed and grew pale when their eyes met, and trembled at the sound
+of his voice.
+
+From day to day the longing for love increased. She consulted the
+marguerites, the clouds, and coins which she tossed in the air.
+
+One day her father said to her:
+
+"Make yourself look pretty to-morrow morning."
+
+"Why, papa?"
+
+"That is a secret," he replied.
+
+And when she came downstairs the following morning, looking fresh and
+sweet in a pretty light dress, she found the drawing-room table
+covered with boxes of bonbons, and on a chair an immense bouquet.
+
+A covered wagon drove into the courtyard bearing the inscription,
+"Lerat, Confectioner, Fecamp; Wedding Breakfasts," and from the back
+of the wagon Ludivine and a kitchen helper were taking out large flat
+baskets which emitted an appetizing odor.
+
+The Vicomte de Lamare appeared on the scene, his trousers were
+strapped down under his dainty boots of patent leather, which made his
+feet appear smaller. His long frock coat, tight at the waist line, was
+open at the bosom showing the lace of his ruffle, and a fine neckcloth
+wound several times round his neck obliged him to hold erect his
+handsome brown head, with its air of serious distinction. Jeanne, in
+astonishment, looked at him as though she had never seen him before.
+She thought he looked the grand seigneur from his head to his feet.
+
+He bowed and said, smiling:
+
+"Well, comrade, are you ready?"
+
+"But what is it? What is going on?" she stammered.
+
+"You will know presently," said the baron.
+
+The carriage drove up to the door, and Madame Adelaide, in festal
+array, descended the staircase, leaning on the arm of Rosalie, who was
+so much affected at the sight of M. de Lamare's elegant appearance
+that the baron whispered:
+
+"I say, vicomte, I think our maid admires you."
+
+The vicomte blushed up to his ears, pretended not to have heard and,
+taking up the enormous bouquet, handed it to Jeanne. She accepted it,
+more astonished than ever. They all four got into the carriage, and
+Ludivine, who brought a cup of bouillon to the baroness to sustain her
+strength, said: "Truly, madame, one would say it was a wedding!"
+
+They alighted as soon as they entered Yport, and as they walked
+through the village the sailors, in their new clothes, still showing
+the creases, came out of their homes, and shaking hands with the
+baron, followed the party as if it were a procession. The vicomte, who
+had offered his arm to Jeanne, walked with her at the head.
+
+When they reached the church they stopped, and an acolyte appeared
+holding upright the large silver crucifix, followed by another boy in
+red and white, who bore a chalice containing holy water.
+
+Then came three old cantors, one of them limping; then the trumpet
+("serpent"), and last, the cure with his gold embroidered stole. He
+smiled and nodded a greeting; then, with his eyes half closed, his
+lips moving in prayer, his beretta well over his forehead, he followed
+his surpliced bodyguard, walking in the direction of the sea.
+
+On the beach a crowd was standing around a new boat wreathed with
+flowers. Its mast, sail and ropes were covered with long streamers of
+ribbon that floated in the breeze, and the name, "Jeanne," was painted
+in gold letters on the stern.
+
+Pere Lastique, the proprietor of this boat, built with the baron's
+money, advanced to meet the procession. All the men, simultaneously,
+took off their hats, and a row of pious persons wearing long black
+cloaks falling in large folds from their shoulders, knelt down in a
+circle at sight of the crucifix.
+
+The cure walked, with an acolyte on either side of him, to one end of
+the boat, while at the other end, the three old cantors, in their
+white surplices, with a serious air and their eyes fixed on the
+psalter, sang at the top of their voices in the clear morning air.
+Each time they stopped to take breath, the "serpent" continued its
+bellowing alone, and as he puffed out his cheeks the musician's little
+gray eyes disappeared, and the skin of his forehead and neck seemed to
+distend.
+
+The motionless, transparent sea seemed to be taking part meditatively
+in the baptism of this boat, rolling its tiny waves, no higher than a
+finger, with the faint sound of a rake on the shingle. And the big
+white gulls, with their wings unfurled, circled about in the blue
+heavens, flying off and then coming back in a curve above the heads of
+the kneeling crowd, as if to see what they were doing.
+
+The singing ceased after an Amen that lasted five minutes; and the
+priest, in an unctuous voice, murmured some Latin words, of which one
+could hear only the sonorous endings. He then walked round the boat,
+sprinkling it with holy water, and next began to murmur the "Oremus,"
+standing alongside the boat opposite the sponsors, who remained
+motionless, hand in hand.
+
+The vicomte had the usual grave expression on his handsome face, but
+Jeanne, choking with a sudden emotion, and on the verge of fainting,
+began to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered. The dream that
+had haunted her for some time was suddenly beginning, as if in a kind
+of hallucination, to take the appearance of reality. They had spoken
+of a wedding, a priest was present, blessing them; men in surplices
+were singing psalms; was it not she whom they were giving in marriage?
+
+Did her fingers send out an electric shock, did the emotion of her
+heart follow the course of her veins until it reached the heart of her
+companion? Did he understand, did he guess, was he, like herself,
+pervaded by a sort of intoxication of love? Or else, did he know by
+experience, alone, that no woman could resist him? She suddenly
+noticed that he was squeezing her hand, gently at first, and then
+tighter, tighter, till he almost crushed it. And without moving a
+muscle of his face, without anyone perceiving it, he said--yes, he
+certainly said:
+
+"Oh, Jeanne, if you would consent, this would be our betrothal."
+
+She lowered her head very slowly, perhaps meaning it for "yes." And
+the priest, who was still sprinkling the holy water, sprinkled some on
+their fingers.
+
+The ceremony was over. The women rose. The return was unceremonious.
+The crucifix had lost its dignity in the hands of the acolyte, who
+walked rapidly, the crucifix swaying to right and left, or bending
+forward as though it would fall. The priest, who was not praying now,
+walked hurriedly behind them; the cantors and the musician with the
+"serpent" had disappeared by a narrow street, so as to get off their
+surplices without delay; and the sailors hurried along in groups. One
+thought prompted their haste, and made their mouths water.
+
+A good breakfast was awaiting them at "The Poplars."
+
+The large table was set in the courtyard, under the apple trees.
+
+Sixty people sat down to table, sailors and peasants. The baroness in
+the middle, with a priest at either side of her, one from Yport, and
+the other belonging to "The Poplars." The baron seated opposite her on
+the other side of the table, the mayor on one side of him, and his
+wife, a thin peasant woman, already aging, who kept smiling and bowing
+to all around her, on the other.
+
+Jeanne, seated beside her co-sponsor, was in a sea of happiness. She
+saw nothing, knew nothing, and remained silent, her mind bewildered
+with joy. Presently she said:
+
+"What is your Christian name?"
+
+"Julien," he replied. "Did you not know?"
+
+But she made no reply, thinking to herself:
+
+"How often I shall repeat that name!"
+
+When the feast was over, the courtyard was given up to the sailors,
+and the others went over to the other side of the chateau. The
+baroness began to take her exercise, leaning on the arm of the baron
+and accompanied by the two priests. Jeanne and Julien went toward the
+wood and walked along one of the mossy paths. Suddenly seizing her
+hands, the vicomte said:
+
+"Tell me, will you be my wife?"
+
+She lowered her head, and as he stammered: "Answer me, I implore you!"
+she raised her eyes to his timidly, and he read his answer there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MARRIAGE AND DISILLUSION
+
+The baron, one morning, entered Jeanne's room before she was up, and
+sitting down at the foot of her bed, said:
+
+"M. le Vicomte de Lamare has asked us for your hand in marriage."
+
+She wanted to hide her face under the sheets.
+
+Her father continued:
+
+"We have postponed our answer for the present."
+
+She gasped, choking with emotion. At the end of a minute the baron,
+smiling, added:
+
+"We did not wish to do anything without consulting you. Your mother
+and I are not opposed to this marriage, but we would not seek to
+influence you. You are much richer than he is; but, when it is a
+question of the happiness of a life, one should not think too much
+about money. He has no relations left. If you marry him, then, it
+would be as if a son should come into our family; if it were anyone
+else, it would be you, our daughter, who would go among strangers. The
+young fellow pleases us. Would he please you?"
+
+She stammered, blushing up to the roots of her hair:
+
+"I am willing, papa."
+
+And the father, looking into her eyes and still smiling, murmured:
+
+"I half suspected it, young lady."
+
+She lived till evening in a condition of exhilaration, not knowing
+what she was doing, mechanically thinking of one thing by mistake for
+another, and with a feeling of weariness, although she had not walked
+at all.
+
+Toward six o'clock, as she was sitting with her mother under the plane
+tree, the vicomte appeared.
+
+Jeanne's heart began to throb wildly. The young man approached them
+apparently without any emotion. When he was close beside them, he took
+the baroness' hand and kissed her fingers, then raising to his lips
+the trembling hand of the young girl, he imprinted upon it a long,
+tender and grateful kiss.
+
+And the radiant season of betrothal commenced. They would chat
+together alone in the corner of the parlor, or else seated on the moss
+at the end of the wood overlooking the plain. Sometimes they walked in
+Little Mother's Avenue; he, talking of the future, she, with her eyes
+cast down, looking at the dusty footprints of the baroness.
+
+Once the matter was decided, they desired to waste no time in
+preliminaries. It was, therefore, decided that the ceremony should
+take place in six weeks, on the fifteenth of August; and that the
+bride and groom should set out immediately on their wedding journey.
+Jeanne, on being consulted as to which country she would like to
+visit, decided on Corsica where they could be more alone than in the
+cities of Italy.
+
+They awaited the moment appointed for their marriage without too great
+impatience, but enfolded, lost in a delicious affection, expressed in
+the exquisite charm of insignificant caresses, pressure of hands, long
+passionate glances in which their souls seemed to blend; and, vaguely
+tortured by an uncertain longing for they knew not what.
+
+They decided to invite no one to the wedding except Aunt Lison, the
+baron's sister, who boarded in a convent at Versailles. After the
+death of their father, the baroness wished to keep her sister with
+her. But the old maid, possessed by the idea that she was in every
+one's way, was useless, and a nuisance, retired into one of those
+religious houses that rent apartments to people that live a sad and
+lonely existence. She came from time to time to pass a month or two
+with her family.
+
+She was a little woman of few words, who always kept in the
+background, appeared only at mealtimes, and then retired to her room
+where she remained shut in.
+
+She looked like a kind old lady, though she was only forty-two, and
+had a sad, gentle expression. She was never made much of by her family
+as a child, being neither pretty nor boisterous, she was never petted,
+and she would stay quietly and gently in a corner. She had been
+neglected ever since. As a young girl nobody paid any attention to
+her. She was something like a shadow, or a familiar object, a living
+piece of furniture that one is accustomed to see every day, but about
+which one does not trouble oneself.
+
+Her sister, from long habit, looked upon her as a failure, an
+altogether insignificant being. They treated her with careless
+familiarity which concealed a sort of contemptuous kindness. She
+called herself Lise, and seemed embarrassed at this frivolous youthful
+name. When they saw that she probably would not marry, they changed it
+from Lise to Lison, and since Jeanne's birth, she had become "Aunt
+Lison," a poor relation, very neat, frightfully timid, even with her
+sister and her brother-in-law, who loved her, but with an uncertain
+affection verging on indifference, with an unconscious compassion and
+a natural benevolence.
+
+Sometimes, when the baroness talked of far away things that happened
+in her youth, she would say, in order to fix a date: "It was the time
+that Lison had that attack."
+
+They never said more than that; and this "attack" remained shrouded,
+as in a mist.
+
+One evening, Lise, who was then twenty, had thrown herself into the
+water, no one knew why. Nothing in her life, her manner, gave any
+intimation of this seizure. They fished her out half dead, and her
+parents, raising their hands in horror, instead of seeking the
+mysterious cause of this action, had contented themselves with calling
+it "that attack," as if they were talking of the accident that
+happened to the horse "Coco," who had broken his leg a short time
+before in a ditch, and whom they had been obliged to kill.
+
+From that time Lise, presently Lison, was considered feeble-minded.
+The gentle contempt which she inspired in her relations gradually made
+its way into the minds of all those who surrounded her. Little Jeanne
+herself, with the natural instinct of children, took no notice of her,
+never went up to kiss her good-night, never went into her room. Good
+Rosalie, alone, who gave the room all the necessary attention, seemed
+to know where it was situated.
+
+When Aunt Lison entered the dining-room for breakfast, the little one
+would go up to her from habit and hold up her forehead to be kissed;
+that was all.
+
+If anyone wished to speak to her, they sent a servant to call her, and
+if she was not there, they did not bother about her, never thought of
+her, never thought of troubling themselves so much as to say: "Why, I
+have not seen Aunt Lison this morning!"
+
+When they said "Aunt Lison," these two words awakened no feeling of
+affection in anyone's mind. It was as if one had said: "The coffee
+pot, or the sugar bowl."
+
+She always walked with little, quick, silent steps, never made a
+noise, never knocking up against anything; and seemed to communicate
+to surrounding objects the faculty of not making any sound. Her hands
+seemed to be made of a kind of wadding, she handled everything so
+lightly and delicately.
+
+She arrived about the middle of July, all upset at the idea of this
+marriage. She brought a quantity of presents which, as they came from
+her, remained almost unnoticed. On the following day they had
+forgotten she was there at all.
+
+But an unusual emotion was seething in her mind, and she never took
+her eyes off the engaged couple. She interested herself in Jeanne's
+trousseau with a singular eagerness, a feverish activity, working like
+a simple seamstress in her room, where no one came to visit her.
+
+She was continually presenting the baroness with handkerchiefs she had
+hemmed herself, towels on which she had embroidered a monogram, saying
+as she did so: "Is that all right, Adelaide?" And little mother, as
+she carelessly examined the objects, would reply: "Do not give
+yourself so much trouble, my poor Lison."
+
+One evening, toward the end of the month, after an oppressively warm
+day, the moon rose on one of those clear, mild nights which seem to
+move, stir and affect one, apparently awakening all the secret poetry
+of one's soul. The gentle breath of the fields was wafted into the
+quiet drawing-room. The baroness and her husband were playing cards by
+the light of a lamp, and Aunt Lison was sitting beside them knitting;
+while the young people, leaning on the window sill, were gazing out at
+the moonlit garden.
+
+The linden and the plane tree cast their shadows on the lawn which
+extended beyond it in the moonlight, as far as the dark wood.
+Attracted by the tender charm of the night, and by this misty
+illumination that lighted up the trees and the bushes, Jeanne turned
+toward her parents and said: "Little father, we are going to take a
+short stroll on the grass in front of the house."
+
+The baron replied, without looking up: "Go, my children," and
+continued his game.
+
+They went out and began to walk slowly along the moonlit lawn as far
+as the little wood at the end. The hour grew late and they did not
+think of going in. The baroness grew tired, and wishing to retire, she
+said:
+
+"We must call the lovers in."
+
+The baron cast a glance across the spacious garden where the two forms
+were wandering slowly.
+
+"Let them alone," he said; "it is so delicious outside! Lison will
+wait for them, will you not, Lison?"
+
+The old maid raised her troubled eyes and replied in her timid voice:
+
+"Certainly, I will wait for them."
+
+Little father gave his hand to the baroness, weary himself from the
+heat of the day.
+
+"I am going to bed, too," he said, and went up with his wife.
+
+Then Aunt Lison rose in her turn, and leaving on the arm of the chair
+her canvas with the wool and the knitting needles, she went over and
+leaned on the window sill and gazed out at the night.
+
+The two lovers kept on walking back and forth between the house and
+the wood. They squeezed each other's fingers without speaking, as
+though they had left their bodies and formed part of this visible
+poetry that exhaled from the earth.
+
+All at once Jeanne perceived, framed in the window, the silhouette of
+the aunt, outlined by the light of the lamp behind her.
+
+"See," she said, "there is Aunt Lison looking at us."
+
+The vicomte raised his head, and said in an indifferent tone without
+thinking:
+
+"Yes, Aunt Lison is looking at us."
+
+And they continued to dream, to walk slowly, and to love each other.
+But the dew was falling fast, and the dampness made them shiver a
+little.
+
+"Let us go in now," said Jeanne. And they went into the house.
+
+When they entered the drawing-room, Aunt Lison had gone back to her
+work. Her head was bent over her work, and her fingers were trembling
+as if she were very tired.
+
+"It is time to go to bed, aunt," said Jeanne, approaching her.
+
+Her aunt turned her head, and her eyes were red as if she had been
+crying. The young people did not notice it; but suddenly M. de Lamare
+perceived that Jeanne's thin shoes were covered with dew. He was
+worried, and asked tenderly:
+
+"Are not your dear little feet cold?"
+
+All at once the old lady's hands shook so violently that she let fall
+her knitting, and hiding her face in her hands, she began to sob
+convulsively.
+
+The engaged couple looked at her in amazement, without moving.
+Suddenly Jeanne fell on her knees, and taking her aunt's hands away
+from her face, said in perplexity:
+
+"Why, what is the matter, Aunt Lison?"
+
+Then the poor woman, her voice full of tears, and her whole body
+shaking with sorrow, replied:
+
+"It was when he asked you--are not your--your--dear little feet
+cold?--no one ever said such things to me--to me--never--never----"
+
+Jeanne, surprised and compassionate, could still hardly help laughing
+at the idea of an admirer showing tender solicitude for Lison; and the
+vicomte had turned away to conceal his mirth.
+
+But the aunt suddenly rose, laying her ball of wool on the floor and
+her knitting in the chair, and fled to her room, feeling her way up
+the dark staircase.
+
+Left alone, the young people looked at one another, amused and
+saddened. Jeanne murmured:
+
+"Poor aunt!" Julien replied. "She must be a little crazy this
+evening."
+
+They held each other's hands and presently, gently, very gently, they
+exchanged their first kiss, and by the following day had forgotten all
+about Aunt Lison's tears.
+
+The two weeks preceding the wedding found Jeanne very calm, as though
+she were weary of tender emotions. She had no time for reflection on
+the morning of the eventful day. She was only conscious of a feeling
+as if her flesh, her bones and her blood had all melted beneath her
+skin, and on taking hold of anything, she noticed that her fingers
+trembled.
+
+She did not regain her self-possession until she was in the chancel of
+the church during the marriage ceremony.
+
+Married! So she was married! All that had occurred since daybreak
+seemed to her a dream, a waking dream. There are such moments, when
+all appears changed around us; even our motions seem to have a new
+meaning; even the hours of the day, which seem to be out of their
+usual time. She felt bewildered, above all else, bewildered. Last
+evening nothing had as yet been changed in her life; the constant hope
+of her life seemed only nearer, almost within reach. She had gone to
+rest a young girl; she was now a married woman. She had crossed that
+boundary that seems to conceal the future with all its joys, its
+dreams of happiness. She felt as though a door had opened in front of
+her; she was about to enter into the fulfillment of her expectations.
+
+When they appeared on the threshold of the church after the ceremony,
+a terrific noise caused the bride to start in terror, and the baroness
+to scream; it was a rifle salute given by the peasants, and the firing
+did not cease until they reached "The Poplars."
+
+After a collation served for the family, the family chaplain, and the
+priest from Yport, the mayor and the witnesses, who were some of the
+large farmers of the district, they all walked in the garden. On the
+other side of the chateau one could hear the boisterous mirth of the
+peasants, who were drinking cider beneath the apple trees. The whole
+countryside, dressed in their best, filled the courtyard.
+
+Jeanne and Julien walked through the copse and then up the slope and,
+without speaking, gazed out at the sea. The air was cool, although it
+was the middle of August; the wind was from the north, and the sun
+blazed down unpityingly from the blue sky. The young people sought a
+more sheltered spot, and crossing the plain, they turned to the right,
+toward the rolling and wooded valley that leads to Yport. As soon as
+they reached the trees the air was still, and they left the road and
+took a narrow path beneath the trees, where they could scarcely walk
+abreast.
+
+Jeanne felt an arm passed gently round her waist. She said nothing,
+her breath came quick, her heart beat fast. Some low branches caressed
+their hair, as they bent to pass under them. She picked a leaf; two
+ladybirds were concealed beneath it, like two delicate red shells.
+
+"Look, a little family," she said innocently, and feeling a little
+more confidence.
+
+Julien placed his mouth to her ear, and whispered: "This evening you
+will be my wife."
+
+Although she had learned many things during her sojourn in the
+country, she dreamed of nothing as yet but the poetry of love, and was
+surprised. His wife? Was she not that already?
+
+Then he began to kiss her temples and neck, little light kisses.
+Startled each time afresh by these masculine kisses to which she was
+not accustomed, she instinctively turned away her head to avoid them,
+though they delighted her. But they had come to the edge of the wood.
+She stopped, embarrassed at being so far from home. What would they
+think?
+
+"Let us go home," she said.
+
+He withdrew his arm from her waist, and as they turned round they
+stood face to face, so close that they could feel each other's breath
+on their faces. They gazed deep into one another's eyes with that gaze
+in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown
+of each other's being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and
+persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life
+be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness,
+or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble
+tete-a-tete of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had never
+yet seen each other.
+
+Suddenly, Julien, placing his two hands on his wife's shoulders,
+kissed her full on the lips as she had never before been kissed. The
+kiss, penetrating as it did her very blood and marrow, gave her such a
+mysterious shock that she pushed Julien wildly away with her two arms,
+almost falling backward as she did so.
+
+"Let us go away, let us go away," she faltered.
+
+He did not reply, but took both her hands and held them in his. They
+walked home in silence, and the rest of the afternoon seemed long. The
+dinner was simple and did not last long, contrary to the usual Norman
+custom. A sort of embarrassment seemed to paralyze the guests. The two
+priests, the mayor, and the four farmers invited, alone betrayed a
+little of that broad mirth that is supposed to accompany weddings.
+
+They had apparently forgotten how to laugh, when a remark of the
+mayor's woke them up. It was about nine o'clock; coffee was about to
+be served. Outside, under the apple-trees of the first court, the bal
+champetre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all
+that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a
+grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle
+shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins
+and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The
+boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the
+instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the
+unrestrained voices seemed to fall from the air in shreds, in little
+fragments of scattered notes.
+
+Two large barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two
+servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to
+refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of
+the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every
+one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of
+illuminated foliage this wholesome and boisterous fete made the
+melancholy watchers in the dining-room long to dance also, and to
+drink from one of those large barrels, while they munched a slice of
+bread and butter and a raw onion.
+
+The mayor, who was beating time with his knife, cried: "By Jove, that
+is all right; it is like the wedding of Ganache."
+
+A suppressed giggle was heard, but Abbe Picot, the natural enemy of
+civil authority, cried: "You mean of Cana." The other did not accept
+the correction. "No, monsieur le cure, I know what I am talking about;
+when I say Ganache, I mean Ganache."
+
+They rose from table and went into the drawing-room, and then outside
+to mix with the merrymakers. The guests soon left.
+
+They went into the house. They were surprised to see Madame Adelaide
+sobbing on Julien's shoulder. Her tears, noisy tears, as if blown out
+by a pair of bellows, seemed to come from her nose, her mouth and her
+eyes at the same time; and the young man, dumfounded, awkward, was
+supporting the heavy woman who had sunk into his arms to commend to
+his care her darling, her little one, her adored daughter.
+
+The baron rushed toward them, saying: "Oh, no scenes, no tears, I beg
+of you," and, taking his wife to a chair, he made her sit down, while
+she wiped away her tears. Then, turning to Jeanne: "Come, little one,
+kiss your mother and go to bed."
+
+What happened then? She could hardly have told, for she seemed to have
+lost her head, but she felt a shower of little grateful kisses on her
+lips.
+
+Day dawned. Julien awoke, yawned, stretched, looked at his wife,
+smiled and asked: "Did you sleep well, darling?"
+
+She noticed that he now said "thou," and she replied, bewildered,
+"Why, yes. And you?" "Oh, very well," he answered. And turning toward
+her, he kissed her and then began to chat quietly. He set before her
+plans of living, with the idea of economy, and this word occurring
+several times, astonished Jeanne. She listened without grasping the
+meaning of his words, looked at him, but was thinking of a thousand
+things that passed rapidly through her mind hardly leaving a trace.
+
+The clock struck eight. "Come, we must get up," he said. "It would
+look ridiculous for us to be late." When he was dressed he assisted
+his wife with all the little details of her toilet, not allowing her
+to call Rosalie. As they left the room he stopped. "You know, when we
+are alone, we can now use 'thou,' but before your parents it is better
+to wait a while. It will be quite natural when we come back from our
+wedding journey."
+
+She did not go down till luncheon was ready. The day passed like any
+ordinary day, as if nothing new had occurred. There was one man more
+in the house, that was all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CORSICA AND A NEW LIFE
+
+Four days later the travelling carriage arrived that was to take them
+to Marseilles.
+
+After the first night Jeanne had become accustomed to Julien's kisses
+and caresses, although her repugnance to a closer intimacy had not
+diminished. She thought him handsome, she loved him. She again felt
+happy and cheerful.
+
+The farewells were short and without sadness. The baroness alone
+seemed tearful. As the carriage was just starting she placed a purse,
+heavy as lead, in her daughter's hand, saying, "That is for your
+little expenses as a bride."
+
+Jeanne thrust the purse in her pocket and the carriage started.
+
+Toward evening Julien said: "How much money did your mother give you
+in that purse?"
+
+She had not given it a thought, and she poured out the contents on her
+knees. A golden shower filled her lap: two thousand francs. She
+clapped her hands. "I shall commit all kinds of extravagance," she
+said as she replaced it in the purse.
+
+After travelling eight days in terribly hot weather they reached
+Marseilles. The following day the _Roi-Louis_, a little mail
+steamer which went to Naples by way of Ajaccio, took them to Corsica.
+
+Corsica! Its "maquis," its bandits, its mountains! The birthplace of
+Napoleon! It seemed to Jeanne that she was leaving real life to enter
+into a dream, although wide awake. Standing side by side on the bridge
+of the steamer, they looked at the cliffs of Provence as they passed
+swiftly by them. The calm sea of deep blue seemed petrified beneath
+the ardent rays of the sun.
+
+"Do you remember our excursion in Pere Lastique's boat?" said Jeanne.
+
+Instead of replying, he gave her a hasty kiss on the ear.
+
+The paddle-wheels struck the water, disturbing its torpor, and a long
+track of foam like the froth of champagne remained in the wake of the
+boat, reaching as far as the eye could see. Jeanne drank in with
+delight the odor of the salt mist that seemed to go to the very tips
+of her fingers. Everywhere the sea. But ahead of them there was
+something gray, not clearly defined in the early dawn; a sort of
+massing of strange-looking clouds, pointed, jagged, seemed to rest on
+the waters.
+
+Presently it became clearer, its outline more distinct on the
+brightening sky; a large chain of mountains, peaked and weird,
+appeared. It was Corsica, covered with a light veil of mist. The sun
+rose behind it, outlining the jagged crests like black shadows. Then
+all the summits were bathed in light, while the rest of the island
+remained covered with mist.
+
+The captain, a little sun-browned man, dried up, stunted, toughened
+and shrivelled by the harsh salt winds, appeared on the bridge and in
+a voice hoarse after twenty years of command and worn from shouting
+amid the storms, said to Jeanne:
+
+"Do you perceive it, that odor?"
+
+She certainly noticed a strong and peculiar odor of plants, a wild
+aromatic odor.
+
+"That is Corsica that sends out that fragrance, madame," said the
+captain. "It is her peculiar odor of a pretty woman. After being away
+for twenty years, I should recognize it five miles out at sea. I
+belong to it. He, down there, at Saint Helena, he speaks of it always,
+it seems, of the odor of his native country. He belongs to my family."
+
+And the captain, taking off his hat, saluted Corsica, saluted down
+yonder, across the ocean, the great captive emperor who belonged to
+his family.
+
+Jeanne was so affected that she almost cried.
+
+Then, pointing toward the horizon, the captain said: "Les
+Sanguinaires."
+
+Julien was standing beside his wife, with his arm round her waist, and
+they both looked out into the distance to see what he was alluding to.
+They at length perceived some pyramidal rocks which the vessel rounded
+presently to enter an immense peaceful gulf surrounded by lofty
+summits, the base of which was covered with what looked like moss.
+
+Pointing to this verdant growth, the captain said: "Le maquis."
+
+As they proceeded on their course the circle of mountains appeared to
+close in behind the steamer, which moved along slowly in such a lake
+of transparent azure that one could sometimes see to the bottom.
+
+The town suddenly appeared perfectly white at the end of the gulf, on
+the edge of the water, at the base of the mountains. Some little
+Italian boats were anchored in the dock. Four or five rowboats came up
+beside the _Roi-Louis_ to get passengers.
+
+Julien, who was collecting the baggage, asked his wife in a low tone:
+"Twenty sous is enough, is it not, to give to the porter?" For a week
+he had constantly asked the same question, which annoyed her each
+time. She replied somewhat impatiently: "When one is not sure of
+giving enough, one gives too much."
+
+He was always disputing with the hotel proprietors, with the servants,
+the drivers, the vendors of all kinds, and when, by dint of
+bargaining, he had obtained a reduction in price, he would say to
+Jeanne as he rubbed his hands: "I do not like to be cheated."
+
+She trembled whenever a bill came in, certain beforehand of the
+remarks that he would make about each item, humiliated at this
+bargaining, blushing up to the roots of her hair beneath the
+contemptuous glances of the servants as they looked after her husband,
+while they held in their hand the meagre tip.
+
+He had a dispute with the boatmen who landed him.
+
+The first tree Jeanne saw was a palm. They went to a great, empty
+hotel at the corner of an immense square and ordered breakfast.
+
+After an hour's rest they arranged an itinerary for their trip, and at
+the end of three days spent in this little town, hidden at the end of
+the blue gulf, and hot as a furnace enclosed in its curtain of
+mountains, which keep every breath of air from it, they decided to
+hire some saddle horses, so as to be able to cross any difficult pass,
+and selected two little Corsican stallions with fiery eyes, thin and
+unwearying, and set out one morning at daybreak. A guide, mounted on a
+mule, accompanied them and carried the provisions, for inns are
+unknown in this wild country.
+
+The road ran along the gulf and soon turned into a kind of valley, and
+on toward the high mountains. They frequently crossed the dry beds of
+torrents with only a tiny stream of water trickling under the stones,
+gurgling faintly like a wild animal in hiding.
+
+The uncultivated country seemed perfectly barren. The sides of the
+hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun.
+Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a
+little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all
+carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons,
+but redoubtable in their hands.
+
+The pungent odor of the aromatic herbs with which the island is
+overgrown seemed to make the air heavy. The road ascended gradually
+amid the long curves of the mountains. The red or blue granite peaks
+gave an appearance of fairyland to the wild landscape, and on the
+foothills immense forests of chestnut trees looked like green brush,
+compared with the elevations above them.
+
+Sometimes the guide, reaching out his hand toward some of these
+heights, would repeat a name. Jeanne and Julien would look where he
+pointed, but see nothing, until at last they discovered something
+gray, like a mass of stones fallen from the summit. It was a little
+village, a hamlet of granite hanging there, fastened on like a
+veritable bird's nest and almost invisible on the huge mountain.
+
+Walking their horses like this made Jeanne nervous. "Let us go
+faster," she said. And she whipped up her horse. Then, as she did not
+hear her husband following her, she turned round and laughed heartily
+as she saw him coming along, pale, and holding on to his horse's mane
+as it bounced him up and down. His very appearance of a "beau
+cavalier" made his awkwardness and timidity all the more comical.
+
+They trotted along quietly. The road now ran between two interminable
+forests of brush, which covered the whole side of the mountain like a
+garment. This was the "Maquis," composed of scrub oak, juniper,
+arbutus, mastic, privet, gorse, laurel, myrtle and boxwood,
+intertwined with clematis, huge ferns, honeysuckle, cytisus, rosemary,
+lavender and brambles, which covered the sides of the mountain with an
+impenetrable fleece.
+
+They were hungry. The guide rejoined them and led them to one of those
+charming springs so frequent in rocky countries, a tiny thread of iced
+water issuing from a little hole in the rock and flowing into a
+chestnut leaf that some passerby had placed there to guide the water
+into one's mouth.
+
+Jeanne felt so happy that she could hardly restrain herself from
+screaming for joy.
+
+They continued their journey and began to descend the slope winding
+round the Bay of Sagone. Toward evening they passed through Cargese,
+the Greek village founded by a colony of refugees who were driven from
+their country. Tall, beautiful girls, with rounded hips, long hands
+and slender waists, and singularly graceful, were grouped beside a
+fountain. Julien called out, "Good evening," and they replied in
+musical tones in the harmonious language of their own land.
+
+When they reached Piana they had to beg for hospitality, as in ancient
+times and in desert lands. Jeanne trembled with joy as they waited for
+the door to be opened after Julien knocked. Oh, this was a journey
+worth while, with all the unexpected of unexplored paths.
+
+It happened to be the home of a young couple. They received the
+travellers as the patriarchs must have received the guest sent by God.
+They had to sleep on a corn husk mattress in an old moldy house. The
+woodwork, all eaten by worms, overrun with long boring-worms, seemed
+to emit sounds, to be alive and to sigh.
+
+They set off again at daybreak, and presently stopped before a forest,
+a veritable forest of purple granite. There were peaks, pillars,
+bell-towers, wondrous forms molded by age, the ravaging wind and the
+sea mist. As much as three hundred metres in height, slender, round,
+twisted, hooked, deformed, unexpected and fantastic, these amazing
+rocks looked like trees, plants, animals, monuments, men, monks in
+their garb, horned devils, gigantic birds, a whole population of
+monsters, a menagerie of nightmares petrified by the will of some
+eccentric divinity.
+
+Jeanne had ceased talking, her heart was full. She took Julien's hand
+and squeezed it, overcome with a longing for love in presence of the
+beauty of nature.
+
+Suddenly, as they emerged from this chaos, they saw before them
+another gulf, encircled by a wall of blood-red granite. And these red
+rocks were reflected in the blue waters.
+
+"Oh, Julien!" faltered Jeanne, unable to speak for wonder and choking
+with her emotion. Two tears fell from her eyes. Julien gazed at her in
+astonishment and said:
+
+"What is the matter, my pet?"
+
+She wiped away her tears, smiled and replied in a rather shaky voice:
+
+"Nothing--I am nervous--I do not know--it just came over me. I am so
+happy that the least thing affects me."
+
+He could not understand these feminine attacks of "nerves," the shocks
+of these vibrant beings, excited at nothing, whom enthusiasm stirs as
+might a catastrophe, whom an imperceptible sensation completely
+upsets, driving them wild with joy or despair.
+
+These tears seemed absurd to him, and thinking only of the bad road,
+he said:
+
+"You would do better to watch your horse."
+
+They descended an almost impassable path to the shore of the gulf,
+then turned to the right to ascend the gloomy Val d'Ota.
+
+But the road was so bad that Julien proposed that they should go on
+foot. Jeanne was delighted. She was enchanted at the idea of walking,
+of being alone with him after her late emotion.
+
+The guide went ahead with the mule and the horses and they walked
+slowly.
+
+The mountain, cleft from top to bottom, spreads apart. The path lies
+in this breach, between two gigantic walls. A roaring torrent flows
+through the gorge. The air is icy, the granite looks black, and high
+above one the glimpse of blue sky astonishes and bewilders one.
+
+A sudden noise made Jeanne start. She raised her eyes. An immense bird
+flew away from a hollow; it was an eagle. His spread wings seemed to
+brush the two walls of the gorge and he soared into the blue and
+disappeared.
+
+Farther on there was a double gorge and the path lay between the two
+in abrupt zigzags. Jeanne, careless and happy, took the lead, the
+pebbles rolling away beneath her feet, fearlessly leaning over the
+abysses. Julien followed her, somewhat out of breath, his eyes on the
+ground for fear of becoming dizzy.
+
+All at once the sun shone down on them, and it seemed as if they were
+leaving the infernal regions. They were thirsty, and following a track
+of moisture, they crossed a wilderness of stones and found a little
+spring conducted into a channel made of a piece of hollowed-out wood
+for the benefit of the goatherds. A carpet of moss covered the ground
+all round it, and Jeanne and Julien knelt down to drink.
+
+As they were enjoying the fresh cold water, Julien tried to draw
+Jeanne away to tease her. She resisted and their lips met and parted,
+and the stream of cold water splashed their faces, their necks, their
+clothes and their hands, and their kisses mingled in the stream.
+
+They were a long time reaching the summit of the declivity, as the
+road was so winding and uneven, and they did not reach Evisa until
+evening and the house of Paoli Palabretti, a relative of their guide.
+
+He was a tall man, somewhat bent, with the mournful air of a
+consumptive. He took them to their room, a cheerless room of bare
+stone, but handsome for this country, where all elegance is ignored.
+He expressed in his language--the Corsican patois, a jumble of French
+and Italian--his pleasure at welcoming them, when a shrill voice
+interrupted him. A little swarthy woman, with large black eyes, a skin
+warmed by the sun, a slender waist, teeth always showing in a
+perpetual smile, darted forward, kissed Jeanne, shook Julien's hand
+and said: "Good-day, madame; good-day, monsieur; I hope you are well."
+
+She took their hats, shawls, carrying all on one arm, for the other
+was in a sling, and then she made them all go outside, saying to her
+husband: "Go and take them for a walk until dinner time."
+
+M. Palabretti obeyed at once and walked between the two young people
+as he showed them the village. He dragged his feet and his words,
+coughing frequently, and repeating at each attack of coughing:
+
+"It is the air of the Val, which is cool, and has struck my chest."
+
+He led them on a by-path beneath enormous chestnut trees. Suddenly he
+stopped and said in his monotonous voice: "It is here that my cousin,
+Jean Rinaldi, was killed by Mathieu Lori. See, I was there, close to
+Jean, when Mathieu appeared at ten paces from us. 'Jean,' he cried,
+'do not go to Albertacce; do not go, Jean, or I will kill you. I warn
+you!'
+
+"I took Jean's arm: 'Do not go there, Jean; he will do it.'
+
+"It was about a girl whom they were both after, Paulina Sinacoupi.
+
+"But Jean cried out: 'I am going, Mathieu; you will not be the one to
+prevent me.'
+
+"Then Mathieu unslung his gun, and before I could adjust mine, he
+fired.
+
+"Jean leaped two feet in the air, like a child skipping, yes,
+monsieur, and he fell back full on me, so that my gun went off and
+rolled as far as the big chestnut tree over yonder.
+
+"Jean's mouth was wide open, but he did not utter a word; he was
+dead."
+
+The young people gazed in amazement at the calm witness of this crime.
+Jeanne asked:
+
+"And what became of the assassin?"
+
+Paoli Palabretti had a long fit of coughing and then said:
+
+"He escaped to the mountain. It was my brother who killed him the
+following year. You know, my brother, Philippi Palabretti, the
+bandit."
+
+Jeanne shuddered.
+
+"Your brother a bandit?"
+
+With a gleam of pride in his eye, the calm Corsican replied:
+
+"Yes, madame. He was celebrated, that one. He laid low six gendarmes.
+He died at the same time as Nicolas Morali, when they were trapped in
+the Niolo, after six days of fighting, and were about to die of
+hunger.
+
+"The country is worth it," he added with a resigned air in the same
+tone in which he said: "It is the air of the Val, which is cool."
+
+Then they went home to dinner, and the little Corsican woman behaved
+as if she had known them for twenty years.
+
+But Jeanne was worried. When Julien again held her in his arms, would
+she experience the same strange and intense sensation that she had
+felt on the moss beside the spring? And when they were alone together
+that evening she trembled lest she should still be insensible to his
+kisses. But she was reassured, and this was her first night of love.
+
+The next day, as they were about to set out, she decided that she
+would not leave this humble cottage, where it seemed as though a fresh
+happiness had begun for her.
+
+She called her host's little wife into her room and, while making
+clear that she did not mean it as a present, she insisted, even with
+some annoyance, on sending her from Paris, as soon as she arrived, a
+remembrance, a remembrance to which she attached an almost
+superstitious significance.
+
+The little Corsican refused for some time, not wishing to accept it.
+But at last she consented, saying:
+
+"Well, then, send me a little pistol, a very small one."
+
+Jeanne opened her eyes in astonishment. The other added in her ear, as
+one confides a sweet and intimate secret: "It is to kill my
+brother-in-law." And smiling, she hastily unwound the bandages around
+the helpless arm, and showing her firm, white skin with the scratch of
+a stiletto across it, now almost healed, she said: "If I had not been
+almost as strong as he is, he would have killed me. My husband is not
+jealous, he knows me; and, besides, he is ill, you know, and that
+quiets your blood. And, besides, madame, I am an honest woman; but my
+brother-in-law believes all that he hears. He is jealous for my
+husband and he will surely try it again. Then I shall have my little
+pistol; I shall be easy, and sure of my revenge."
+
+Jeanne promised to send the weapon, kissed her new friend tenderly and
+they set out on their journey.
+
+The rest of the trip was nothing but a dream, a continual series of
+embraces, an intoxication of caresses. She saw nothing, neither the
+landscape, nor the people, nor the places where they stopped. She saw
+nothing but Julien.
+
+On arriving at Bastia, they had to pay the guide. Julien fumbled in
+his pockets. Not finding what he wanted, he said to Jeanne: "As you
+are not using your mother's two thousand francs, give them to me to
+carry. They will be safer in my belt, and it will avoid my having to
+make change."
+
+She handed him her purse.
+
+They went to Leghorn, visited Florence, Genoa and all the Cornici.
+They reached Marseilles on a morning when the north wind was blowing.
+Two months had elapsed since they left the "Poplars." It was now the
+15th of October.
+
+Jeanne, affected by the cold wind that seemed to come from yonder,
+from far-off Normandy, felt sad. Julien had, for some time, appeared
+changed, tired, indifferent, and she feared she knew not what.
+
+They delayed their return home four days longer, not being able to
+make up their minds to leave this pleasant land of the sun. It seemed
+to her that she had come to an end of her happiness.
+
+At length they left. They were to make all their purchases in Paris,
+prior to settling down for good at the "Poplars," and Jeanne looked
+forward to bringing back some treasures, thanks to her mother's
+present. But the first thing she thought of was the pistol promised to
+the little Corsican woman of Evisa.
+
+The day after they arrived she said to Julien: "Dear, will you give me
+that money of mamma's? I want to make my purchases."
+
+He turned toward her with a look of annoyance.
+
+"How much do you want?"
+
+"Why--whatever you please."
+
+"I will give you a hundred francs," he replied, "but do not squander
+it."
+
+She did not know what to say, amazed and confused. At length she
+faltered: "But--I--handed you the money to----"
+
+He did not give her time to finish.
+
+"Yes, of course. Whether it is in my pocket or yours makes no
+difference from the moment that we have the same purse. I do not
+refuse you, do I, since I am giving you a hundred francs?"
+
+She took the five gold pieces without saying a word, but she did not
+venture to ask for any more, and she bought nothing but the pistol.
+
+Eight days later they set out for the "Poplars."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DISENCHANTMENT
+
+The family and servants were awaiting them outside the white gate with
+brick supports. The post-chaise drew up and there were long and
+affectionate greetings. Little mother wept; Jeanne, affected, wiped
+away some tears; father nervously walked up and down.
+
+Then, as the baggage was being unloaded, they told of their travels
+beside the parlor fire. Jeanne's words flowed freely, and everything
+was told, everything, in a half hour, except, perhaps, a few little
+details forgotten in this rapid account.
+
+The young wife then went to undo her parcels. Rosalie, also greatly
+affected, assisted her. When this was finished and everything had been
+put away, the little maid left her mistress, and Jeanne, somewhat
+fatigued, sat down.
+
+She asked herself what she was now going to do, seeking some
+occupation for her mind, some work for her hands. She did not care to
+go down again into the drawing-room, where her mother was asleep, and
+she thought she would take a walk. But the country seemed so sad that
+she felt a weight at her heart on only looking out of the window.
+
+Then it came to her that she had no longer anything to do, never again
+anything to do. All her young life at the convent had been preoccupied
+with the future, busied with dreams. The constant excitement of hope
+filled her hours at that time, so that she was not aware of their
+flight. Then hardly had she left those austere walls, where her
+illusions had unfolded, than her expectations of love were at once
+realized. The longed-for lover, met, loved and married within a few
+weeks, as one marries on these sudden resolves, had carried her off in
+his arms, without giving her time for reflection.
+
+But now the sweet reality of the first days was to become the everyday
+reality, which closed the door on vague hopes, on the enchanting
+worries of the unknown. Yes, there was nothing more to look forward
+to. And there was nothing more to do, today, to-morrow, never. She
+felt all this vaguely as a certain disillusion, a certain crumbling of
+her dreams.
+
+She rose and leaned her forehead against the cold window panes.
+
+Then, after gazing for some time at the sky across which dark clouds
+were passing, she decided to go out.
+
+Was this the same country, the same grass, the same trees as in May?
+What had become of the sunlit cheerfulness of the leaves and the
+poetry of the green grass, where dandelions, poppies and moon daisies
+bloomed and where yellow butterflies fluttered as though held by
+invisible wires? And this intoxication of the air teeming with life,
+with fragrance, with fertilizing pollen, existed no longer!
+
+The avenues, soaked by the constant autumnal downpours, were covered
+with a thick carpet of fallen leaves which extended beneath the
+shivering bareness of the almost leafless poplars. She went as far as
+the shrubbery. It was as sad as the chamber of a dying person. A green
+hedge which separated the little winding walks was bare of leaves.
+Little birds flew from place to place with a little chilly cry,
+seeking a shelter.
+
+The thick curtain of elm trees that formed a protection against the
+sea wind, the lime tree and the plane tree with their crimson and
+yellow tints seemed clothed, the one in red velvet and the other in
+yellow silk.
+
+Jeanne walked slowly up and down petite mere's avenue, alongside the
+Couillards' farm. Something weighed on her spirit like a presentiment
+of the long boredom of the monotonous life about to begin.
+
+She seated herself on the bank where Julien had first told her of his
+love and remained there, dreaming, scarcely thinking, depressed to the
+very soul, longing to lie down, to sleep, in order to escape the
+dreariness of the day.
+
+All at once she perceived a gull crossing the sky, carried away in a
+gust of wind, and she recalled the eagle she had seen down there in
+Corsica, in the gloomy vale of Ota. She felt a spasm at her heart as
+at the remembrance of something pleasant that is gone by, and she had
+a sudden vision of the beautiful island with its wild perfume, its sun
+that ripens oranges and lemons, its mountains with their rosy summits,
+its azure gulfs and its ravines through which the torrents flowed.
+
+And the moist, severe landscape that surrounded her, with the falling
+leaves and the gray clouds blown along by the wind, enfolded her in
+such a heavy mantle of misery that she went back to the house to keep
+from sobbing.
+
+Her mother was dozing in a torpid condition in front of the fire,
+accustomed to the melancholy of the long days, and not noticing it any
+longer. Her father and Julien had gone for a walk to talk about
+business matters. Night was coming on, filling the large drawing-room
+with gloom lighted by reflections of light from the fire.
+
+The baron presently appeared, followed by Julien. As soon as the
+vicomte entered the room he rang the bell, saying: "Quick, quick, let
+us have some light! It is gloomy in here."
+
+And he sat down before the fire. While his wet shoes were steaming in
+the warmth and the mud was drying on his soles, he rubbed his hands
+cheerfully as he said: "I think it is going to freeze; the sky is
+clearing in the north, and it is full moon to-night; we shall have a
+stinger to-night."
+
+Then turning to his daughter: "Well, little one, are you glad to be
+back again in your own country, in your own home, with the old folks?"
+
+This simple question upset Jeanne. She threw herself into her father's
+arms, her eyes full of tears, and kissed him nervously, as though
+asking pardon, for in spite of her honest attempt to be cheerful, she
+felt sad enough to give up altogether. She recalled the joy she had
+promised herself at seeing her parents again, and she was surprised at
+the coldness that seemed to numb her affection, just as if, after
+constantly thinking of those one loves, when at a distance and unable
+to see them at any moment, one should feel, on seeing them again, a
+sort of check of affection, until the bonds of their life in common
+had been renewed.
+
+Dinner lasted a long time. No one spoke much. Julien appeared to have
+forgotten his wife.
+
+In the drawing-room Jeanne sat before the fire in a drowsy condition,
+opposite little mother, who was sound asleep. Aroused by the voices of
+the men, Jeanne asked herself, as she tried to rouse herself, if she,
+too, was going to become a slave to this dreary lethargy of habit that
+nothing varies.
+
+The baron approached the fire, and holding out his hands to the
+glowing flame, he said, smiling: "Ah, that burns finely this evening.
+It is freezing, children; it is freezing." Then, placing his hand on
+Jeanne's shoulder and pointing to the fire, he said: "See here, little
+daughter, that is the best thing in life, the hearth, the hearth, with
+one's own around one. Nothing else counts. But supposing we retire.
+You children must be tired out."
+
+When she was in her room, Jeanne asked herself how she could feel so
+differently on returning a second time to the place that she thought
+she loved. Why did she feel as though she were wounded? Why did this
+house, this beloved country, all that hitherto had thrilled her with
+happiness, now appear so distressing?
+
+Her eyes suddenly fell on her clock. The little bee was still swinging
+from left to right and from right to left with the same quick,
+continuous motion above the scarlet blossoms. All at once an impulse
+of tenderness moved her to tears at sight of this little piece of
+mechanism that seemed to be alive. She had not been so affected on
+kissing her father and mother. The heart has mysteries that no
+arguments can solve.
+
+For the first time since her marriage she was alone, Julien, under
+pretext of fatigue, having taken another room.
+
+She lay awake a long time, unaccustomed to being alone and disturbed
+by the bleak north wind which beat against the roof.
+
+She was awakened the next morning by a bright light that flooded her
+room. She put on a dressing gown and ran to the window and opened it.
+
+An icy breeze, sharp and bracing, streamed into the room, making her
+skin tingle and her eyes water. The sun appeared behind the trees on a
+crimson sky, and the earth, covered with frost and dry and hard, rang
+out beneath one's footsteps. In one night all the leaves had blown off
+the trees, and in the distance beyond the level ground was seen the
+long green line of water, covered with trails of white foam.
+
+Jeanne dressed herself and went out, and for the sake of an object she
+went to call on the farmers.
+
+The Martins held up their hands in surprise, and Mrs. Martin kissed
+her on both cheeks, and then they made her drink a glass of noyau. She
+then went to the other farm. The Couillards also were surprised. Mrs.
+Couillard pecked her on the ears and she had to drink a glass of
+cassis. Then she went home to breakfast.
+
+The day went by like the previous day, cold instead of damp. And the
+other days of the week resembled these two days, and all the weeks of
+the month were like the first week.
+
+Little by little, however, she ceased to regret far-off lands. The
+force of habit was covering her life with a layer of resignation
+similar to the lime-stone formation deposited on objects by certain
+springs. And a kind of interest for the thousand-and-one little
+insignificant things of daily life, a care for the simple, ordinary
+everyday occupations, awakened in her heart. A sort of pensive
+melancholy, a vague disenchantment with life was growing up in her
+mind. What did she lack? What did she want? She did not know. She had
+no worldly desires, no thirst for amusement, no longing for
+permissible pleasures. What then? Just as old furniture tarnishes in
+time, so everything was slowly becoming faded to her eyes, everything
+seemed to be fading, to be taking on pale, dreary shades.
+
+Her relations with Julien had completely changed. He seemed to be
+quite different since they came back from their honeymoon, like an
+actor who has played his part and resumes his ordinary manner. He
+scarcely paid any attention to her or even spoke to her. All trace of
+love had suddenly disappeared, and he seldom came into her room at
+night.
+
+He had taken charge of the money and of the house, changed the leases,
+worried the peasants, cut down expenses, and having adopted the
+costume of a gentleman farmer, he had lost his polish and elegance as
+a fiance.
+
+He always wore the same suit, although it was covered with spots. It
+was an old velveteen shooting jacket with brass buttons, that he had
+found among his former wardrobe, and with the carelessness that is
+frequent with those who no longer seek to please, he had given up
+shaving, and his long beard, badly cut, made an incredible change for
+the worse in his appearance. His hands were never cared for, and after
+each meal he drank four or five glasses of brandy.
+
+Jeanne tried to remonstrate with him gently, but he had answered her
+so abruptly: "Won't you let me alone!" that she never ventured to give
+him any more advice.
+
+She had adapted herself to these changes in a manner that surprised
+herself. He had become a stranger to her, a stranger whose mind and
+heart were closed to her. She constantly thought about it, asking
+herself how it was that after having met, loved, married in an impulse
+of affection, they should all at once find themselves almost as much
+strangers as though they had never shared the same room.
+
+And how was it that she did not feel this neglect more deeply? Was
+this life? Had they deceived themselves? Did the future hold nothing
+further for her?
+
+If Julien had remained handsome, carefully dressed, elegant, she might
+possibly have suffered more deeply.
+
+It had been agreed that after the new year the young couple should
+remain alone and that the father and mother should go back to spend a
+few months at their house in Rouen. The young people were not to leave
+the "Poplars" that winter, so as to get thoroughly settled and to
+become accustomed to each other and to the place where all their life
+would be passed. They had a few neighbors to whom Julien would
+introduce his wife. These were the Brisevilles, the Colteliers and the
+Fourvilles.
+
+But the young people could not begin to pay calls because they had not
+as yet been able to get a painter to alter the armorial bearings on
+the carriage.
+
+The old family coach had been given up to his son-in-law by the baron,
+and nothing would have induced him to show himself at the neighboring
+chateaux if the coat-of-arms of the De Lamares were not quartered with
+those of the Le Perthuis des Vauds.
+
+There was only one man in the district who made a specialty of
+heraldic designs, a painter of Bolbec, called Bataille, who was in
+demand at all the Norman castles in turn to make these precious
+designs on the doors of carriages.
+
+At length one morning in December, just as they were finishing
+breakfast, they saw an individual open the gate and walk toward the
+house. He was carrying a box on his back. This was Bataille.
+
+They offered him some breakfast, and, while he was eating, the baron
+and Julien made sketches of quarterings. The baroness, all upset as
+soon as these things were discussed, gave her opinion. And even Jeanne
+took part in the discussion, as though some mysterious interest had
+suddenly awakened in her.
+
+Bataille, while eating, gave his ideas, at times taking the pencil and
+tracing a design, citing examples, describing all the aristocratic
+carriages in the countryside, and seemed to have brought with him in
+his ideas, even in his voice, a sort of atmosphere of aristocracy.
+
+As soon as he had finished his coffee, they all went to the coach
+house. They took off the cover of the carriage and Bataille examined
+it. He then gravely gave his views as to the size he considered
+suitable for the design, and after an exchange of ideas, he set to
+work.
+
+Notwithstanding the cold, the baroness had her chair brought out so as
+to watch him working, and then her foot-stove, for her feet were
+freezing. She then began to chat with the painter, on all the recent
+births, deaths and marriages of which she had not heard, thus adding
+to the genealogical tree which she carried in her memory.
+
+Julien sat beside her, astride on a chair. He was smoking, spitting on
+the ground, listening and following with his glances the emblazoning
+of his rank.
+
+Presently old Simon, who was on his way to the vegetable garden, his
+spade on his shoulder, stopped to look at the work; and as Bataille's
+arrival had become known at the two farms, the farmers' wives soon put
+in an appearance. They went into raptures, standing one at either side
+of the baroness, exclaiming: "My! it requires some cleverness all the
+same to fix up those things."
+
+The two doors could not be finished before the next day about eleven
+o'clock. Every one was on hand; and they dragged the carriage outside
+so as to get a better view of it.
+
+It was perfect. Bataille was complimented, and went off with his box
+on his back. They all agreed that the painter had great ability, and
+if circumstances had been favorable would doubtless have been a great
+artist.
+
+Julien, by way of economy, had introduced great reforms which
+necessitated making some changes. The old coachman had been made
+gardener, Julien undertaking to drive himself, having sold the
+carriage horses to avoid buying feed for them. But as it was necessary
+to have some one to hold the horses when he and his wife got out of
+the carriage, he had made a little cow tender named Marius into a
+groom. Then in order to get some horses, he introduced a special
+clause into the Couillards' and Martins' leases, by which they were
+bound to supply a horse each, on a certain day every month, the date
+to be fixed by him; and this would exempt them from their tribute of
+poultry.
+
+So the Couillards brought a big yellow horse, and the Martins a small
+white animal with long, unclipped coat, and the two were harnessed up
+together. Marius, buried in an old livery belonging to old Simon, led
+the carriage up to the front door.
+
+Julien, looking clean and brushed up, looked a little like his former
+self; but his long beard gave him a common look in spite of all. He
+looked over the horses, the carriage, and the little groom, and seemed
+satisfied, the only really important thing to him being the newly
+painted escutcheon.
+
+The baroness came down leaning on her husband's arm and got into the
+carriage. Then Jeanne appeared. She began to laugh at the horses,
+saying that the white one was the son of the yellow horse; then,
+perceiving Marius, his face buried under his hat with its cockade, his
+nose alone preventing it from covering his face altogether, his hands
+hidden in his long sleeves, and the tail of his coat forming a skirt
+round his legs, his feet encased in immense shoes showing in a comical
+manner beneath it, and then when he threw his head back so as to see,
+and lifted up his leg to walk as if he were crossing a river, she
+burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
+
+The baron turned round, glanced at the little bewildered groom and he,
+too, burst out laughing, calling to his wife: "Look at Ma-Ma-Marius!
+Is he not comical? Heavens, how funny he looks!"
+
+The baroness, looking out of the carriage window, was also convulsed,
+so that the carriage shook on its springs.
+
+But Julien, pale with anger, asked: "What makes you laugh like that?
+Are you crazy?"
+
+Jeanne, quite convulsed and unable to stop laughing, sat down on the
+doorstep; the baron did the same, while, in the carriage, spasmodic
+sneezes, a sort of constant chuckling, told that the baroness was
+choking. Presently there was a motion beneath Marius' livery. He had,
+doubtless, understood the joke, for he was shaking with laughter
+beneath his hat.
+
+Julien darted forward in exasperation. With a box on the ear he sent
+the boy's hat flying across the lawn; then, turning toward his
+father-in-law, he stammered in a voice trembling with rage: "It seems
+to me that you should be the last to laugh. We should not be where we
+are now if you had not wasted your money and ruined your property.
+Whose fault is it if you are ruined?"
+
+The laughter ceased at once, and no one spoke. Jeanne, now ready to
+cry, got into the carriage and sat beside her mother. The baron,
+silent and astonished, took his place opposite the two ladies, and
+Julien sat on the box after lifting to the seat beside him the weeping
+boy, whose face was beginning to swell.
+
+The road was dreary and appeared long. The occupants of the carriage
+were silent. All three sad and embarrassed, they would not acknowledge
+to one another what was occupying their thoughts. They felt that they
+could not talk on indifferent subjects while these thoughts had
+possession of them, and preferred to remain silent than to allude to
+this painful subject.
+
+They drove past farmyards, the carriage jogging along unevenly with
+the ill-matched animals, putting to flight terrified black hens who
+plunged into the bushes and disappeared, occasionally followed by a
+barking wolf-hound.
+
+At length they entered a wide avenue of pine trees, at the end of
+which was a white, closed gate. Marius ran to open it, and they drove
+in round an immense grass plot, and drew up before a high, spacious,
+sad-looking building with closed shutters.
+
+The hall door opened abruptly, and an old, paralyzed servant wearing a
+black waistcoat with red stripes partially covered by his working
+apron slowly descended the slanting steps. He took the visitors' names
+and led them into an immense reception room, and opened with
+difficulty the Venetian blinds which were always kept closed. The
+furniture had covers on it, and the clock and candelabra were wrapped
+in white muslin. An atmosphere of mildew, an atmosphere of former
+days, damp and icy, seemed to permeate one's lungs, heart and skin
+with melancholy.
+
+They all sat down and waited. They heard steps in the hall above them
+that betokened unaccustomed haste. The hosts were hurriedly dressing.
+The baroness, who was chilled, sneezed constantly. Julien paced up and
+down. Jeanne, despondent, sat beside her mother. The baron leaned
+against the marble mantelpiece with his head bent down.
+
+Finally, one of the tall doors opened, and the Vicomte and Vicomtesse
+de Briseville appeared. They were both small, thin, vivacious, of no
+age in particular, ceremonious and embarrassed.
+
+After the first greetings, there seemed to be nothing to say. So they
+began to congratulate each other for no special reason, and hoped that
+these friendly relations would be kept up. It was a treat to see
+people when one lived in the country the year round.
+
+The icy atmosphere pierced to their bones and made their voices
+hoarse. The baroness was coughing now and had stopped sneezing. The
+baron thought it was time to leave. The Brisevilles said: "What, so
+soon? Stay a little longer." But Jeanne had risen in spite of Julien's
+signals, for he thought the visit too short.
+
+They attempted to ring for the servant to order the carriage to the
+door, but the bell would not ring. The host started out himself to
+attend to it, but found that the horses had been put in the stable.
+
+They had to wait. Every one tried to think of something to say.
+Jeanne, involuntarily shivering with cold, inquired what their hosts
+did to occupy themselves all the year round. The Brisevilles were much
+astonished; for they were always busy, either writing letters to their
+aristocratic relations, of whom they had a number scattered all over
+France, or attending to microscopic duties, as ceremonious to one
+another as though they were strangers, and talking grandiloquently of
+the most insignificant matters.
+
+At last the carriage passed the windows with its ill-matched team. But
+Marius had disappeared. Thinking he was off duty until evening, he had
+doubtless gone for a walk.
+
+Julien, perfectly furious, begged them to send him home on foot, and
+after a great many farewells on both sides, they set out for the
+"Poplars."
+
+As soon as they were inside the carriage, Jeanne and her father, in
+spite of Julien's brutal behavior of the morning which still weighed
+on their minds, began to laugh at the gestures and intonations of the
+Brisevilles. The baron imitated the husband, and Jeanne the wife. But
+the baroness, a little touchy in these particulars, said: "You are
+wrong to ridicule them thus; they are people of excellent family."
+They were silent out of respect for little mother, but nevertheless,
+from time to time, Jeanne and her father began again. The baroness
+could not forbear smiling in her turn, but she repeated: "It is not
+nice to laugh at people who belong to our class."
+
+Suddenly the carriage stopped, and Julien called out to someone behind
+it. Then Jeanne and the baron, leaning out, saw a singular creature
+that appeared to be rolling along toward them. His legs entangled in
+his flowing coattails, and blinded by his hat which kept falling over
+his face, shaking his sleeves like the sails of a windmill, and
+splashing into puddles of water, and stumbling against stones in the
+road, running and bounding, Marius was following the carriage as fast
+as his legs could carry him.
+
+As soon as he caught up with it, Julien, leaning over, seized him by
+the collar of his coat, sat him down beside him, and letting go the
+reins, began to shower blows on the boy's hat, which sank down to his
+shoulders with the reverberations of a drum. The boy screamed, tried
+to get away, to jump from the carriage, while his master, holding him
+with one hand, continued beating him with the other.
+
+Jeanne, dumfounded, stammered: "Father--oh, father!" And the baroness,
+wild with indignation, squeezed her husband's arm. "Stop him, Jack!"
+she exclaimed. The baron quickly lowered the front window, and seizing
+hold of his son-in-law's sleeve, he sputtered out in a voice trembling
+with rage: "Have you almost finished beating that child?"
+
+Julien turned round in astonishment: "Don't you see what a condition
+his livery is in?"
+
+But the baron, placing his head between them, said: "Well, what do I
+care? There is no need to be brutal like that!"
+
+Julien got angry again: "Let me alone, please; this is not your
+affair!" And he was raising his hand again when his father-in-law
+caught hold of it and dragged it down so roughly that he knocked it
+against the wood of the seat, and he roared at him so loud: "If you do
+not stop, I shall get out, and I will see that you stop it, myself,"
+that Julien calmed down at once, and shrugging his shoulders without
+replying, he whipped up the horses, who set out at a quick trot.
+
+The two women, pale as death, did not stir, and one could hear
+distinctly the thumping of the baroness' heart.
+
+At dinner Julien was more charming than usual, as though nothing had
+occurred. Jeanne, her father, and Madame Adelaide, pleased to see him
+so amiable, fell in with his mood, and when Jeanne mentioned the
+Brisevilles, he laughed at them himself, adding, however: "All the
+same, they have the grand air."
+
+They made no more visits, each one fearing to revive the Marius
+episode. They decided, to send New Year's cards, and to wait until the
+first warm days of spring before paying any more calls.
+
+At Christmas they invited the cure, the mayor and his wife to dinner,
+and again on New Year's Day. These were the only events that varied
+the monotony of their life. The baron and his wife were to leave "The
+Poplars" on the ninth of January. Jeanne wanted to keep them, but
+Julien did not acquiesce, and the baron sent for a post-chaise from
+Rouen, seeing his son-in-law's coolness.
+
+The day before their departure, as it was a clear frost, Jeanne and
+her father decided to go to Yport, which they had not visited since
+her return from Corsica. They crossed the wood where she had strolled
+on her wedding-day, all wrapped up in the one whose lifelong companion
+she had become; the wood where she had received her first kiss,
+trembled at the first breath of love, had a presentiment of that
+sensual love of which she did not become aware until she was in the
+wild vale of Ota beside the spring where they mingled their kisses as
+they drank of its waters. The trees were now leafless, the climbing
+vines dead.
+
+They entered the little village. The empty, silent streets smelled of
+the sea, of wrack, of fish. Huge brown nets were still hanging up to
+dry outside the houses, or stretched out on the shingle. The gray,
+cold sea, with its eternal roaring foam, was going out, uncovering the
+green rocks at the foot of the cliff toward Fecamp.
+
+Jeanne and her father, motionless, watched the fishermen setting out
+in their boats in the dusk, as they did every night, risking their
+lives to keep from starving, and so poor, nevertheless, that they
+never tasted meat.
+
+The baron, inspired at the sight of the ocean, murmured: "It is
+terrible, but it is beautiful. How magnificent this sea is on which
+the darkness is falling, and on which so many lives are in peril, is
+it not, Jeannette?"
+
+She replied with a cold smile: "It is nothing to the Mediterranean."
+
+Her father, indignant, exclaimed: "The Mediterranean! It is oil, sugar
+water, bluing water in a washtub. Look at this sea, how terrible it is
+with its crests of foam! And think of all those men who have set out
+on it, and who are already out of sight."
+
+Jeanne assented with a sigh: "Yes, if you think so." But this name,
+"Mediterranean," had wrung her heart afresh, sending her thoughts back
+to those distant lands where her dreams lay buried.
+
+Instead of returning home by the woods, they walked along the road,
+mounting the ascent slowly. They were silent, sad at the thought of
+the approaching separation. As they passed along beside the farmyards
+an odor of crushed apples, that smell of new cider which seems to
+pervade the atmosphere in this season all through Normandy, rose to
+their nostrils, or else a strong smell of the cow stables. A small
+lighted window at the end of the yard indicated the farmhouse.
+
+It seemed to Jeanne that her mind was expanding, was beginning to
+understand the psychic meaning of things; and these little scattered
+gleams in the landscape gave her, all at once, a keen sense of the
+isolation of all human lives, a feeling that everything detaches,
+separates, draws one far away from the things they love.
+
+She said, in a resigned tone: "Life is not always cheerful."
+
+The baron sighed: "How can it be helped, daughter? We can do nothing."
+
+The following day the baron and his wife went away, and Jeanne and
+Julien were left alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JEANNE'S DISCOVERY
+
+Cards now became a distraction in the life of the young people. Every
+morning after breakfast, Julien would play several games of bezique
+with his wife, smoking and sipping brandy as he played. She would then
+go up to her room and sit down beside the window, and as the rain beat
+against the panes, or the wind shook the windows, she would embroider
+away steadily. Occasionally she would raise her eyes and look out at
+the gray sea which had white-caps on it. Then, after gazing listlessly
+for some time, she would resume her work.
+
+She had nothing else to do, Julien having taken the entire management
+of the house, to satisfy his craving for authority and his craze for
+economy. He was parsimonious in the extreme, never gave any tips, cut
+down the food to the merest necessaries; and as Jeanne since her
+return had ordered the baker to make her a little Norman "galette" for
+breakfast, he had cut down this extra expense, and condemned her to
+eat toast.
+
+She said nothing in order to avoid recriminations, arguments and
+quarrels; but she suffered keenly at each fresh manifestation of
+avarice on the part of her husband. It appeared to her low and odious,
+brought up as she had been in a family where money was never
+considered. How often had she not heard her mother say: "Why, money is
+made to be spent." Julien would now say: "Will you never become
+accustomed to not throwing money away?" And each time he deducted a
+few sous from some one's salary or on a note, he would say with a
+smile, as he slipped the change into his pocket: "Little streams make
+big rivers."
+
+On certain days Jeanne would sit and dream. She would gradually cease
+sewing and, with her hands idle, and forgetting her surroundings, she
+would weave one of those romances of her girlhood and be lost in some
+enchanting adventure. But suddenly Julien's voice giving some orders
+to old Simon would snatch her abruptly from her dreams, and she would
+take up her work again, saying: "That is all over," and a tear would
+fall on her hands as she plied the needle.
+
+Rosalie, formerly so cheerful and always singing, had changed. Her
+rounded cheeks had lost their color, and were now almost hollow, and
+sometimes had an earthy hue. Jeanne would frequently ask her: "Are you
+ill, my girl?" The little maid would reply: "No, madame," while her
+cheeks would redden slightly and she would retire hastily.
+
+At the end of January the snow came. In one night the whole plain was
+covered and the trees next morning were white with icy foam.
+
+On one of these mornings, Jeanne was sitting warming her feet before
+the fire in her room, while Rosalie, who had changed from day to day,
+was making the bed. Suddenly hearing behind her a kind of moan, Jeanne
+asked, without turning her head: "What is the matter?"
+
+The maid replied as usual: "Nothing, madame"; but her voice was weak
+and trembling.
+
+Jeanne's thoughts were on something else, when she noticed that the
+girl was not moving about the room. She called: "Rosalie!" Still no
+sound. Then, thinking she might have left the room, she cried in a
+louder tone: "Rosalie!" and she was reaching out her arm to ring the
+bell, when a deep moan close beside her made her start up with a
+shudder.
+
+The little servant, her face livid, her eyes haggard, was seated on
+the floor, her legs stretched out, and her back leaning against the
+bed. Jeanne sprang toward her. "What is the matter with you--what is
+the matter?" she asked.
+
+The girl did not reply, did not move. She stared vacantly at her
+mistress and gasped as though she were in terrible pain. Then,
+suddenly, she slid down on her back at full length, clenching her
+teeth to smother a cry of anguish.
+
+Jeanne suddenly understood, and almost distracted, she ran to the head
+of the stairs, crying: "Julien, Julien!"
+
+"What do you want?" he replied from below.
+
+She hardly knew how to tell him. "It is Rosalie, who----"
+
+Julien rushed upstairs two steps at a time, and going abruptly into
+the room, he found the poor girl had just been delivered of a child.
+He looked round with a wicked look on his face, and pushing his
+terrified wife out of the room, exclaimed: "This is none of your
+affair. Go away. Send me Ludivine and old Simon."
+
+Jeanne, trembling, descended to the kitchen, and then, not daring to
+go upstairs again, she went into the drawing-room, in which there had
+been no fire since her parents left, and anxiously awaited news.
+
+She presently saw the man-servant running out of the house. Five
+minutes later he returned with Widow Dentu, the nurse of the district.
+
+Then there was a great commotion on the stairs as though they were
+carrying a wounded person, and Julien came in and told Jeanne that she
+might go back to her room.
+
+She trembled as if she had witnessed some terrible accident. She sat
+down again before the fire, and asked: "How is she?"
+
+Julien, preoccupied and nervous, was pacing up and down the room. He
+seemed to be getting angry, and did not reply at first. Then he
+stopped and said: "What do you intend to do with this girl?"
+
+She did not understand, and looked at her husband. "Why, what do you
+mean? I do not know."
+
+Then suddenly flying into a rage, he exclaimed: "We cannot keep a
+bastard in the house."
+
+Jeanne was very much bewildered, and said at the end of a long
+silence: "But, my friend, perhaps we could put it out to nurse?"
+
+He cut her short: "And who will pay the bill? You will, no doubt."
+
+She reflected for some time, trying to find some way out of the
+difficulty; at length she said: "Why, the father will take care of it,
+of the child; and if he marries Rosalie, there will be no more
+difficulty."
+
+Julien, as though his patience were exhausted, replied furiously: "The
+father!--the father!--do you know him--the father? No, is it not so?
+Well then----?"
+
+Jeanne, much affected, became excited: "But you certainly would not
+let the girl go away like that. It would be cowardly! We will inquire
+the name of the man, and we will go and find him, and he will have to
+explain matters."
+
+Julien had calmed down and resumed his pacing up and down. "My dear,"
+he said, "she will not tell the name of the man; she will not tell you
+any more than she will tell me--and, if he does not want her? ... We
+cannot, however, keep a woman and her illegitimate child under our
+roof, don't you understand?"
+
+Jeanne, persistent, replied: "Then he must be a wretch, this man. But
+we must certainly find out who it is, and then he will have us to deal
+with."
+
+Julien colored, became annoyed again, and said: "But--meanwhile----?"
+
+She did not know what course to take, and asked: "What do you
+propose?"
+
+"Oh, I? That's very simple. I would give her some money and send her
+to the devil with her brat."
+
+The young wife, indignant, was disgusted with him. "That shall never
+be," she said. "She is my foster-sister, that girl; we grew up
+together. She has made a mistake, so much the worse; but I will not
+cast her out of doors on that account; and, if it is necessary, I will
+bring up the child."
+
+Then Julien's wrath exploded: "And we should earn a fine reputation,
+we, with our name and our position! And they would say of us
+everywhere that we were protecting vice, harboring beggars; and decent
+people would never set their foot inside our doors. What are you
+thinking of? You must be crazy!"
+
+She had remained quite calm. "I shall never cast off Rosalie; and if
+you do not wish her to stay, my mother will take her; and we shall
+surely succeed in finding out the name of the father of the child."
+
+He left the room in exasperation, banging the door after him and
+exclaiming: "What stupid ideas women have!"
+
+In the afternoon Jeanne went up to see the patient. The little maid,
+watched over by Widow Dentu, was lying still in her bed, her eyes wide
+open, while the nurse held the new-born babe in her arms.
+
+As soon as Rosalie perceived her mistress, she began to sob, hiding
+her face in the covers and shaking with her sorrow. Jeanne wanted to
+kiss her, but she avoided it by keeping her face covered. But the
+nurse interfered, and drawing away the sheet, uncovered her face, and
+she let Jeanne kiss her, weeping still, but more quietly.
+
+A meagre fire was burning in the grate; the room was cold; the child
+was crying. Jeanne did not dare to speak of the little one, for fear
+of another attack, and she took her maid's hand as she said
+mechanically: "It will not matter, it will not matter." The poor girl
+glanced furtively at the nurse, and trembled as the infant cried, and
+the remembrance of her sorrow came to her mind occasionally in a
+convulsive sob, while suppressed tears choked her.
+
+Jeanne kissed her again, and murmured softly in her ear: "We will take
+good care of it, never fear, my girl." Then as she was beginning to
+cry again, Jeanne made her escape.
+
+She came to see her every day, and each time Rosalie burst into tears
+at the sight of her mistress.
+
+The child was put out to nurse at a neighbor's.
+
+Julien, however, hardly spoke to his wife, as though he had nourished
+anger against her ever since she refused to send away the maid. He
+referred to the subject one day, but Jeanne took from her pocket a
+letter from the baroness asking them to send the girl to them at once
+if they would not keep her at the "Poplars." Julien, furious, cried:
+"Your mother is as foolish as you are!" but he did not insist any
+more.
+
+Two weeks later the patient was able to get up and take up her work
+again.
+
+One morning, Jeanne made her sit down and, taking her hands and
+looking steadfastly at her, she said:
+
+"See here, my girl, tell me everything."
+
+Rosalie began to tremble, and faltered:
+
+"What, madame?"
+
+"Whose is it, this child?"
+
+The little maid was overcome with confusion, and she sought wildly to
+withdraw her hands so as to hide her face. But Jeanne kissed her in
+spite of herself, and consoled her, saying: "It is a misfortune, but
+cannot be helped, my girl. You were weak, but that happens to many
+others. If the father marries you, no one will think of it again."
+
+Rosalie sighed as if she were suffering, and from time to time made an
+effort to disengage herself and run away.
+
+Jeanne resumed: "I understand perfectly that you are ashamed; but you
+see that I am not angry, that I speak kindly to you. If I ask you the
+name of the man it is for your own good, for I feel from your grief
+that he has deserted you, and because I wish to prevent that. Julien
+will go and look for him, you see, and we will oblige him to marry
+you; and as we will employ you both, we will oblige him also to make
+you happy."
+
+This time Rosalie gave such a jerk that she snatched her hands away
+from her mistress and ran off as if she were mad.
+
+That evening at dinner Jeanne said to Julien: "I tried to persuade
+Rosalie to tell me the name of her betrayer. I did not succeed. You
+try to find out so that we can compel this miserable man to marry
+her."
+
+But Julien became angry: "Oh! you know I do not wish to hear anything
+about it. You wish to keep this girl. Keep her, but do not bother me
+about her."
+
+Since the girl's illness he appeared to be more irritable than ever;
+and he had got into the way of never speaking to his wife without
+shouting as if he were in a rage, while she, on the contrary, would
+lower her voice, be gentle and conciliating, to avoid all argument;
+but she often wept at night after she went to bed.
+
+In spite of his constant irritability, her husband had become more
+affectionate than customary since their return.
+
+Rosalie was soon quite well and less sad, although she appeared
+terrified, pursued by some unknown fear, and she ran away twice when
+Jeanne tried to question her again.
+
+Julien all at once became more amiable, and the young wife, clinging
+to vain hopes, also became more cheerful. The thaw had not yet set in
+and a hard, smooth, glittering covering of snow extended over the
+landscape. Neither men nor animals were to be seen; only the chimneys
+of the cottages gave evidence of life in the smoke that ascended from
+them into the icy air.
+
+One evening the thermometer fell still lower, and Julien, shivering as
+he left the table--for the dining-room was never properly heated, he
+was so economical with the wood--rubbed his hands, murmuring: "It will
+be warmer to-night, won't it, my dear?" He laughed with his jolly
+laugh of former days, and Jeanne threw her arms around his neck: "I do
+not feel well, dear; perhaps I shall be better to-morrow."
+
+"As you wish, my dear. If you are ill you must take care of yourself."
+And they began to talk of other things.
+
+She retired early. Julien, for a wonder, had a fire lighted in her
+room. As soon as he saw that it was burning brightly, he kissed his
+wife on the forehead and left the room.
+
+The whole house seemed to be penetrated by the cold; the very walls
+seemed to be shivering, and Jeanne shivered in her bed. Twice she got
+up to put fresh logs on the fire and to look for dresses, skirts, and
+other garments which she piled on the bed. Nothing seemed to warm her;
+her feet were numbed and her lower limbs seemed to tingle, making her
+excessively nervous and restless.
+
+Then her teeth began to chatter, her hands shook, there was a
+tightness in her chest, her heart began to beat with hard, dull
+pulsations, and at times seemed to stop beating, and she gasped for
+breath. A terrible apprehension seized her, while the cold seemed to
+penetrate to her marrow. She never had felt such a sensation, she had
+never seemed to lose her hold on life like this before, never been so
+near her last breath.
+
+"I am going to die," she thought, "I am dying----"
+
+And filled with terror, she jumped out of bed, rang for Rosalie,
+waited, rang again, waited again, shivering and frozen.
+
+The little maid did not come. She was doubtless asleep, that first,
+sound sleep that nothing can disturb. Jeanne, in despair, darted
+toward the stairs in her bare feet, and groping her way, she ascended
+the staircase quietly, found the door, opened it, and called,
+"Rosalie!" She went forward, stumbled against the bed, felt all over
+it with her hands and found that it was empty. It was empty and cold,
+and as if no one had slept there. Much surprised, she said: "What! Has
+she gone out in weather like this?"
+
+But as her heart began to beat tumultuously till she seemed to be
+suffocating, she went downstairs again with trembling limbs in order
+to wake Julien. She rushed into his room filled with the idea that she
+was going to die, and longing to see him before she lost
+consciousness.
+
+By the light of the dying embers she perceived Rosalie's head leaning
+on her husband's shoulder.
+
+At the cry she gave they both started to their feet; she stood
+motionless for a second, horrified at this discovery, and then fled to
+her room; and when Julien, at his wit's end, called "Jeanne!" she was
+seized with an overmastering terror of seeing him, of hearing his
+voice, of listening to him explaining, lying, of meeting his gaze; and
+she darted toward the stairs again and went down.
+
+She now ran along in the darkness, at the risk of falling downstairs,
+at the risk of breaking her neck on the stone floor of the hall. She
+rushed along, impelled by an imperious desire to flee, to know nothing
+about it, to see no one.
+
+When she was at the bottom of the stairs she sat down on one of the
+steps, still in her nightdress, and in bare feet, and remained in a
+dazed condition. She heard Julien moving and walking about. She
+started to her feet in order to escape him. He was starting to come
+downstairs and called: "Listen, Jeanne!"
+
+No, she would not listen nor let him touch her with the tips of his
+fingers; and she darted into the dining-room as if she were fleeing
+from an assassin. She looked for a door of escape, a hiding place, a
+dark corner, some way of avoiding him. She hid under the table. But he
+was already at the door, a candle in his hand, still calling:
+"Jeanne!" She started off again like a hare, darted into the kitchen,
+ran round it twice like a trapped animal, and as he came near her, she
+suddenly opened the door into the garden and darted out into the
+night.
+
+The contact with the snow, into which she occasionally sank up to her
+knees, seemed to give her the energy of despair. She did not feel
+cold, although she had little on. She felt nothing, her body was so
+numbed from the emotion of her mind, and she ran along as white as the
+snow.
+
+She followed the large avenue, crossed the wood, crossed the ditch,
+and started off across the plain.
+
+There was no moon, the stars were shining like sparks of fire in the
+black sky; but the plain was light with a dull whiteness, and lay in
+infinite silence.
+
+Jeanne walked quickly, hardly breathing, not knowing, not thinking of
+anything. She suddenly stopped on the edge of the cliff. She stopped
+short, instinctively, and crouched down, bereft of thought and of will
+power.
+
+In the abyss before her the silent, invisible sea exhaled the salt
+odor of its wrack at low tide.
+
+She remained thus some time, her mind as inert as her body; then, all
+at once, she began to tremble, to tremble violently, like a sail
+shaken by the wind. Her arms, her hands, her feet, impelled by an
+invisible force, throbbed, pulsated wildly, and her consciousness
+awakened abruptly, sharp and poignant.
+
+Old memories passed before her mental vision: the sail with him in
+Pere Lastique's boat, their conversation, his nascent love, the
+christening of the boat; then she went back, further back, to that
+night of dreams when she first came to the "Poplars." And now! _And
+now!_ Oh, her life was shipwrecked, all joy was ended, all
+expectation at an end; and the frightful future full of torture, of
+deception, and of despair appeared before her. Better to die, it would
+all be over at once.
+
+But a voice cried in the distance: "Here it is, here are her steps;
+quick, quick, this way!" It was Julien who was looking for her.
+
+Oh! she did not wish to see him again. In the abyss down yonder before
+her she now heard a slight sound, the indistinct ripple of the waves
+over the rocks. She rose to her feet with the idea of throwing herself
+over the cliff and bidding life farewell. Like one in despair, she
+uttered the last word of the dying, the last word of the young soldier
+slain in battle: "Mother!"
+
+All at once the thought of little mother came to her mind, she saw her
+sobbing, she saw her father on his knees before her mangled remains,
+and in a second she felt all the pain of their sorrow.
+
+She sank down again into the snow; and when Julien and old Simon,
+followed by Marius, carrying a lantern, seized her arm to pull her
+back as she was so close to the brink, she made no attempt to escape.
+
+She let them do as they would, for she could not stir. She felt that
+they were carrying her, and then that she was being put to bed and
+rubbed with hot cloths; then she became unconscious.
+
+Then she had a nightmare, or was it a nightmare? She was in bed. It
+was broad daylight, but she could not get up. Why? She did not know.
+Then she heard a little noise on the floor, a sort of scratching, a
+rustling, and suddenly a mouse, a little gray mouse, ran quickly
+across the sheet. Another followed it, then a third, who ran toward
+her chest with his little, quick scamper. Jeanne was not afraid, and
+she reached out her hand to catch the animal, but could not catch it.
+Then other mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands, rose up on all
+sides of her. They climbed the bedposts, ran up the tapestries,
+covered the bed completely. And soon they got beneath the covers;
+Jeanne felt them gliding over her skin, tickling her limbs, running up
+and down her body. She saw them running from the bottom of the bed to
+get into her neck under the sheets; and she tried to fight them off,
+throwing her hands out to try and catch them, but always finding them
+empty.
+
+She was frantic, wanted to escape, screamed, and it seemed as if she
+were being held down, as if strong arms enfolded her and rendered her
+helpless; but she saw no one.
+
+She had no idea of time. It must have been long, a very long time.
+
+Then she awoke, weary, aching, but quiet. She felt weak, very weak.
+She opened her eyes and was not surprised to see little mother seated
+in her room with a man whom she did not know.
+
+How old was she? She did not know, and thought she was a very little
+girl. She had no recollection of anything.
+
+The big man said: "Why, she has regained consciousness." Little mother
+began to weep. Then the big man resumed: "Come, be calm, baroness; I
+can ensure her recovery now. But do not talk to her at all. Let her
+sleep, let her sleep."
+
+Then it seemed to Jeanne that she remained in a state of exhaustion
+for a long time, overcome by a heavy sleep as soon as she tried to
+think; and she tried not to remember anything whatever, as though she
+had a vague fear that the reality might come back to her.
+
+Once when she awoke she saw Julien, alone, standing beside her; and
+suddenly it all came back to her, as if the curtain which hid her past
+life had been raised.
+
+She felt a horrible pain in her heart, and wanted to escape once more.
+She threw back the coverlets, jumped to the floor and fell down, her
+limbs being too weak to support her.
+
+Julien sprang toward her, and she began to scream for him not to touch
+her. She writhed and rolled on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison
+came running in with Widow Dentu, then the baron, and finally little
+mother, puffing and distracted.
+
+They put her back into bed, and she immediately closed her eyes, so as
+to escape talking and be able to think quietly.
+
+Her mother and aunt watched over her anxiously, saying: "Do you hear
+us now, Jeanne, my little Jeanne?"
+
+She pretended to be deaf, not to hear them, and did not answer. Night
+came on and the nurse took up her position beside the bed. She did not
+sleep; she kept trying to think of things that had escaped her memory
+as though there were holes in it, great white empty places where
+events had not been noted down.
+
+Little by little she began to recall the facts, and she pondered over
+them steadily.
+
+Little mother, Aunt Lison, the baron had come, so she must have been
+very ill. But Julien? What had he said? Did her parents know? And
+Rosalie, where was she? And what should she do? What should she do? An
+idea came to her--she would return to Rouen and live with father and
+little mother as in old days. She would be a widow; that's all.
+
+Then she waited, listening to what was being said around her,
+understanding everything without letting them see it, rejoiced at her
+returning reason, patient and crafty.
+
+That evening, at last, she found herself alone with the baroness and
+called to her in a low tone: "Little Mother!" Her own voice astonished
+her, it seemed strange. The baroness seized her hands: "My daughter,
+my darling Jeanne! My child, do you recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, little mother, but you must not weep; we have a great deal to
+talk about. Did Julien tell you why I ran away in the snow?"
+
+"Yes, my darling, you had a very dangerous fever."
+
+"It was not that, mamma. I had the fever afterward; but did he tell
+you what gave me the fever and why I ran away?"
+
+"No, my dearie."
+
+"It was because I found Rosalie in his room."
+
+Her mother thought she was delirious again and soothed her, saying:
+"Go to sleep, darling, calm yourself, try to sleep."
+
+But Jeanne, persistent, continued: "I am quite sensible now, little
+mother. I am not talking wildly as I must have done these last days. I
+felt ill one night and I went to look for Julien. Rosalie was with him
+in his room. I did not know what I was doing, for sorrow, and I ran
+out into the snow to throw myself off the cliff."
+
+But the baroness reiterated, "Yes, darling, you have been very ill,
+very ill."
+
+"It is not that, mamma. I found Rosalie in with Julien, and I will not
+live with him any longer. You will take me back with you to Rouen to
+live as we used to do."
+
+The baroness, whom the doctor had warned not to thwart Jeanne in any
+way, replied: "Yes, my darling."
+
+But the invalid grew impatient: "I see that you do not believe me. Go
+and fetch little father, he will soon understand."
+
+The baroness left the room and presently returned, leaning on her
+husband's arm. They sat down beside the bed and Jeanne began to talk.
+She told them all, quietly, in a weak voice, but clearly; all about
+Julien's peculiar character, his harshness, his avarice, and, finally,
+his infidelity.
+
+When she had finished, the baron saw that she was not delirious, but
+he did not know what to think, what to determine, or what to answer.
+He took her hand, tenderly, as he used to do when he put her to sleep
+with stories, and said: "Listen, dearie, we must act with prudence. We
+must do nothing rash. Try to put up with your husband until we can
+come to some decision--promise me this?"
+
+"I will try, but I will not stay here after I get well," she replied.
+
+Then she added in a lower tone: "Where is Rosalie now?"
+
+"You will not see her any more," replied the baron. But she persisted:
+"Where is she? I wish to know." Then he confessed that she had not
+left the house, but declared that she was going to leave.
+
+On leaving the room the baron, filled with indignation and wounded in
+his feelings as a father, went to look for Julien, and said to him
+abruptly: "Sir, I have come to ask you for an explanation of your
+conduct toward my daughter. You have been unfaithful to her with your
+maid, which is a double insult."
+
+Julien pretended to be innocent, denied everything positively, swore,
+took God as his witness. What proof had they? he asked. Was not Jeanne
+delirious? Had she not had brain fever? Had she not run out in the
+snow, in an attack of delirium, at the very beginning of her illness?
+And it was just at this time, when she was running about the house
+almost naked, that she pretends that she saw her maid in her husband's
+room!
+
+And he grew angry, threatened a lawsuit, became furious. The baron,
+bewildered, made excuses, begged his pardon, and held out his loyal
+hand to Julien, who refused to take it.
+
+When Jeanne heard what her husband had said, she did not show any
+annoyance, but replied: "He is lying, papa, but we shall end by
+convicting him."
+
+For some days she remained taciturn and reserved, thinking over
+matters. The third morning she asked to see Rosalie. The baron refused
+to send her up, saying she had left. Jeanne persisted, saying: "Well,
+let some one go and fetch her."
+
+She was beginning to get excited when the doctor came. They told him
+everything, so that he could form an opinion. But Jeanne suddenly
+burst into tears, her nerves all unstrung, and almost screamed: "I
+want Rosalie; I wish to see her!"
+
+The doctor took hold of her hand and said in a low tone: "Calm
+yourself, madame; any emotion may lead to serious consequences, for
+you are enceinte."
+
+She was dumfounded, as though she had received a blow; and it seemed
+to her that she felt the first stirrings of life within her. Then she
+was silent, not even listening to what was being said, absorbed in her
+own thoughts. She could not sleep that night for thinking of the new
+life that was developing in her, and was sad at the thought that it
+was Julien's child, and might resemble him. The following morning she
+sent for the baron. "Little father," she said, "my resolution is
+formed; I wish to know everything, and especially just now; you
+understand, I insist, and you know that you must not thwart me in my
+present condition. Listen! You must go and get M. le Cure. I need him
+here to keep Rosalie from telling a lie. Then, as soon as he comes,
+send him up to me, and you stay downstairs with little mother. And,
+above all things, see that Julien does not suspect anything."
+
+An hour later the priest came, looking fatter than ever, and puffing
+like the baroness. He sat down in an arm-chair and began to joke,
+wiping his forehead as usual with his plaid handkerchief. "Well,
+baroness, I do not think we grow any thinner; I think we make a good
+pair." Then, turning toward the patient, he said: "Eh, what is this I
+hear, young lady, that we are soon to have a fresh baptism? Aha, it
+will not be a boat this time." And in a graver tone he added: "It will
+be a defender of the country; unless"--after a moment's reflection--"it
+should be the prospective mother of a family, like you, madame,"
+bowing to the baroness.
+
+The door at the end of the room opened and Rosalie appeared, beside
+herself, weeping, refusing to enter the room, clinging to the door
+frame, and being pushed forward by the baron. Quite out of patience,
+he thrust her into the room. She covered her face with her hands and
+remained standing there, sobbing.
+
+Jeanne, as soon as she saw her, rose to a sitting posture, whiter than
+the sheets, and with her heart beating wildly. She could not speak,
+could hardly breathe. At length she said, in a voice broken with
+emotion: "I--I--will not--need--to question you. It--it is enough for
+me to see you thus--to--to see your--your shame in my presence."
+
+After a pause, for she was out of breath, she continued: "I had M. le
+Cure come, so that it might be like a confession, you understand."
+
+Rosalie, motionless, uttered little cries that were almost screams
+behind her hands.
+
+The baron, whose anger was gaining ground, seized her arms, and
+snatching her hands from her face, he threw her on her knees beside
+the bed, saying: "Speak! Answer!"
+
+She remained on the ground, in the position assigned to Magdalens, her
+cap awry, her apron on the floor, and her face again covered by her
+hands.
+
+Then the priest said: "Come, my girl, listen to what is said to you,
+and reply. We do not want to harm you, but we want to know what
+occurred."
+
+Jeanne, leaning over, looked at her and said: "Is it true that you
+were with Julien when I surprised you?"
+
+Rosalie moaned through her fingers, "Yes, madame."
+
+Then the baroness suddenly began to cry in a choking fashion, and her
+convulsive sobs accompanied those of Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne, with her eyes fixed on the maid, said: "How long had this been
+going on?"
+
+"Ever since he came here," faltered Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne could not understand. "Ever since he came--then--ever
+since--ever since the spring?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Ever since he came into this house?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+And Jeanne, as if overflowing with questions, asked, speaking
+precipitately:
+
+"But how did it happen? How did he approach you? How did he persuade
+you? What did he say? When, how did you ever yield to him? How could
+you ever have done it?"
+
+Rosalie, removing her hands from her face, and overwhelmed also with a
+feverish desire to speak, said:
+
+"How do I know, myself? It was the day he dined here for the first
+time, and he came up to my room. He had hidden himself in the loft. I
+did not dare to scream for fear of making a scandal. I no longer knew
+what I was doing. Then I said nothing because I liked him."
+
+Then Jeanne exclaimed with almost a scream:
+
+"But--your--your child--is his child?"
+
+Rosalie sobbed.
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+Then they were both silent. The only sound to be heard was the sobs of
+Rosalie and of the baroness.
+
+Jeanne, quite overcome, felt her tears also beginning to flow; and
+they fell silently down her cheeks.
+
+The maid's child had the same father, as her child! Her anger was at
+an end; she now was filled with a dreary, slow, profound and infinite
+despair. She presently resumed in a changed, tearful voice, the voice
+of a woman who has been crying:
+
+"When we returned from--from down there--from our journey--when did he
+begin again?"
+
+The little maid, who had sunk down on the floor, faltered: "The first
+evening."
+
+Each word wrung Jeanne's heart. So on the very first night of their
+return to the "Poplars" he left her for this girl. That was why he
+wanted to sleep alone!
+
+She now knew all she wanted to know, and exclaimed: "Go away, go
+away!" And as Rosalie, perfectly crushed, did not stir, Jeanne called
+to her father: "Take her away, carry her away!" The priest, who had
+said nothing as yet, thought that the moment had arrived for him to
+preach a little sermon.
+
+"What you have done is very wrong, my daughter, very wrong, and God
+will not pardon you so easily. Consider the hell that awaits you if
+you do not always act right. Now that you have a child you must behave
+yourself. No doubt madame la baronne will do something for you, and we
+will find you a husband."
+
+He would have continued speaking, but the baron, having again seized
+Rosalie by the shoulders, raised her from the floor and dragged her to
+the door, and threw her like a package into the corridor. As he turned
+back into the room, looking paler than his daughter, the priest
+resumed: "What can one do? They are all like that in the district. It
+is shocking, but cannot be helped, and then one must be a little
+indulgent toward the weaknesses of our nature. They never get married
+until they have become enceinte, never, madame." He added, smiling:
+"One might call it a local custom. So, you see, monsieur, your maid
+did as all the rest do."
+
+But the baron, who was trembling with nervousness, interrupted him,
+saying, "She! what do I care about her! It is Julien with whom I am
+indignant. It is infamous, the way he has behaved, and I shall take my
+daughter away."
+
+He walked up and down excitedly, becoming more and more exasperated:
+"It is infamous to have betrayed my child, infamous! He is a wretch,
+this man, a cad, a wretch! and I will tell him so. I will slap his
+face. I will give him a horsewhipping!"
+
+The priest, who was slowly taking a pinch of snuff, seated beside the
+baroness still in tears, and endeavoring to fulfill his office of a
+peacemaker, said: "Come, monsieur le baron, between ourselves, he has
+done what every one else does. Do you know many husbands who are
+faithful?" And he added with a sly good humor: "Come now, I wager that
+you have had your turn. Your hand on your heart, am I right?" The
+baron had stopped in astonishment before the priest, who continued:
+"Why, yes, you did just as others did. Who knows if you did not make
+love to a little sugar plum like that? I tell you that every one does.
+Your wife was none the less happy, or less loved; am I not right?"
+
+The baron had not stirred, he was much disturbed. What the priest said
+was true, and he had sinned as much as any one and had not hesitated
+when his wife's maids were in question. Was he a wretch on that
+account? Why should he judge Julien's conduct so severely when his own
+had not been above blame?
+
+The baroness, still struggling with her sobs, smiled faintly at the
+recollection of her husband's escapades, for she belonged to the
+sentimental class for whom love adventures are a part of existence.
+
+Jeanne, exhausted, lay with wide-open eyes, absorbed in painful
+reflection. Something Rosalie had said had wounded her as though an
+arrow had pierced her heart: "As for me, I said nothing, because I
+liked him."
+
+She had liked him also, and that was the only reason why she had given
+herself, bound herself for life to him, why she had renounced
+everything else, all her cherished plans, all the unknown future. She
+had fallen into this marriage, into this hole without any edges by
+which one could climb out, into this wretchedness, this sadness, this
+despair, because, like Rosalie, she had liked him!
+
+The door was pushed violently open and Julien appeared, with a furious
+expression on his face. He had caught sight of Rosalie moaning on the
+stairs, and suspected that something was up, that the maid had
+probably told all. The sight of the priest riveted him to the spot.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" he asked in a trembling but quiet tone.
+
+The baron, so violent a short while ago, did not venture to speak,
+afraid of the priest's remarks, and of what his son-in-law might say
+in the same strain. Little mother was weeping more copiously than
+ever; but Jeanne had raised herself with her hands and looked,
+breathing quickly, at the one who had caused her such cruel sorrow.
+She stammered out: "The fact is, we know all, all your rascality
+since--since the day you first entered this house--we know that the
+child of this maid is your child, just as--as--mine is--they will be
+brothers." Overcome with sorrow at this thought, she buried herself in
+the sheets and wept bitterly.
+
+Julien stood there gaping, not knowing what to say or do. The priest
+came to the rescue.
+
+"Come, come, do not give way like that, my dear young lady, be
+sensible." He rose, approached the bed and placed his warm hand on the
+despairing girl's forehead. This seemed to soothe her strangely. She
+felt quieted, as if this strong peasant's hand, accustomed to the
+gesture of absolution, to kindly consolations, had conveyed by its
+touch some mysterious solace.
+
+The good man, still standing, continued: "Madame, we must always
+forgive. A great sorrow has come to you; but God in His mercy has
+balanced it by a great happiness, since you will become a mother. This
+child will be your comfort. In his name I implore you, I adjure you to
+forgive M. Julien's error. It will be a new bond between you, a pledge
+of his future fidelity. Can you remain apart in your heart from him
+whose child you bear?"
+
+She did not reply, crushed, mortified, exhausted as she was, without
+even strength for anger or resentment. Her nerves seemed relaxed,
+almost severed, she seemed to be scarcely alive.
+
+The baroness, who seemed incapable of resentment, and whose mind was
+unequal to prolonged effort, murmured: "Come, come, Jeanne."
+
+Then the priest took the hand of the young man and leading him up to
+the bed, he placed his hand in that of his wife, and gave it a little
+tap as though to unite them more closely. Then laying aside his
+professional tone and manner, he said with a satisfied air: "Well,
+now, that's done. Believe me, that is the best thing to do." The two
+hands, joined for a moment, separated immediately. Julien, not daring
+to kiss Jeanne, kissed his mother-in-law on the forehead, turned on
+his heel, took the arm of the baron, who acquiesced, happy at heart
+that the thing had been settled thus, and they went out together to
+smoke a cigar.
+
+The patient, overcome, dozed off, while the priest and little mother
+talked in a low tone.
+
+The priest explained and propounded his ideas, to which the baroness
+assented by nodding her head. He said in conclusion: "Well, then, that
+is understood; you will give this girl the Barville farm, and I will
+undertake to find her a husband, a good, steady fellow. Oh! with a
+property worth twenty thousand francs we shall have no lack of
+suitors. There will be more than enough to choose from."
+
+The baroness was smiling now, quite happy, with the remains of two
+tears that had dried on her cheeks.
+
+She repeated: "That is settled. Barville is worth at least twenty
+thousand francs, but it will be settled on the child, the parents
+having the use of it during their lifetime."
+
+The cure rose, shook little mother's hand, saying: "Do not disturb
+yourself, Madame la Baronne, do not disturb yourself; I know what an
+effort it is."
+
+As he went out he met Aunt Lison coming to see her patient. She
+noticed nothing; they told her nothing; and she knew nothing, as
+usual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MATERNITY
+
+Rosalie had left the house. Jeanne felt no joy at the thought of being
+a mother, she had had so much sorrow. She awaited the advent of her
+child without curiosity, still filled with the apprehension of unknown
+misfortunes.
+
+A big woman, big as a house, had taken Rosalie's place and supported
+the baroness in her monotonous walks along her avenue. The baron gave
+his arm to Jeanne, who was now always ailing, while Aunt Lison,
+uneasy, and busied about the approaching event, held her other hand,
+bewildered at this mystery which she would never know.
+
+They all walked along like this almost in silence for hours at a time,
+while Julien was riding about the country on horseback, having
+suddenly acquired this taste. Nothing ever came to disturb their
+dreary life. The baron, his wife, and the vicomte paid a visit to the
+Fourvilles, whom Julien seemed to be already well acquainted with,
+without one knowing just how. Another ceremonious visit was exchanged
+with the Brisevilles, who were still hidden in their manor house.
+
+One afternoon, about four o'clock, two persons, a lady and gentleman
+on horseback, rode up into the courtyard of the chateau. Julien,
+greatly excited, ran up to Jeanne's room. "Quick, quick, come
+downstairs; here are the Fourvilles. They have just come as neighbors,
+knowing your condition. Tell them that I have gone out, but that I
+will be back. I will just go and make myself presentable."
+
+Jeanne, much surprised, went downstairs. A pale, pretty young woman
+with a sad face, dreamy eyes, and lustreless, fair hair, looking as
+though the sunlight had never kissed it, quietly introduced her
+husband, a kind of giant, or ogre with a large red mustache. She
+added: "We have several times had the pleasure of meeting M. de
+Lamare. We heard from him how you were suffering, and we would not put
+off coming to see you as neighbors, without any ceremony. You see that
+we came on horseback. I also had the pleasure the other day of a visit
+from madame, your mother, and the baron."
+
+She spoke with perfect ease, familiar but refined. Jeanne was charmed,
+and fell in love with her at once. "This is a friend," she thought.
+
+The Comte de Fourville, on the contrary, seemed like a bear in the
+drawing-room. As soon as he was seated, he placed his hat on the chair
+next him, did not know what to do with his hands, placed them on his
+knees, then on the arms of the chair, and finally crossed his fingers
+as if in prayer.
+
+Suddenly Julien entered the room. Jeanne was amazed and did not
+recognize him. He was shaved. He looked handsome, elegant, and
+attractive as on the day of their betrothal. He shook the comte's
+hairy paw, kissed the hand of the comtesse, whose ivory cheeks colored
+up slightly while her eyelids quivered.
+
+He began to speak; he was charming as in former days. His large eyes,
+the mirrors of love, had become tender again. And his hair, lately so
+dull and unkempt, had regained its soft, glossy wave, with the use of
+a hairbrush and perfumed oil.
+
+At the moment that the Fourvilles were taking their leave the
+comtesse, turning toward him, said: "Would you like to take a ride on
+Thursday, dear vicomte?"
+
+As he bowed and murmured, "Why, certainly, madame," she took Jeanne's
+hand and said in a sympathetic and affectionate tone, with a cordial
+smile: "Oh! when you are well, we will all three gallop about the
+country. It will be delightful. What do you say?"
+
+With an easy gesture she held up her riding skirt and then jumped into
+the saddle with the lightness of a bird, while her husband, after
+bowing awkwardly, mounted his big Norman steed. As they disappeared
+outside the gate, Julien, who seemed charmed, exclaimed: "What
+delightful people! those are friends who may be useful to us."
+
+Jeanne, pleased also without knowing why, replied: "The little
+comtesse is charming, I feel that I shall love her, but the husband
+looks like a brute. Where did you meet them?"
+
+He rubbed his hands together good humoredly. "I met them by chance at
+the Brisevilles'. The husband seems a little rough. He cares for
+nothing but hunting, but he is a real noble for all that."
+
+The dinner was almost cheerful, as though some secret happiness had
+come into the house.
+
+Nothing new happened until the latter days of July, when Jeanne was
+taken ill. As she seemed to grow worse, the doctor was sent for and at
+the first glance recognized the symptoms of a premature confinement.
+
+Her sufferings presently abated a little, but she was filled with a
+terrible anguish, a despairing sinking, something like a presentiment,
+the mysterious touch of death. It is in these moments when it comes so
+near to us that its breath chills our hearts.
+
+The room was full of people. Little mother, buried in an armchair, was
+choking with grief. The baron, his hands trembling, ran hither and
+thither, carrying things, consulting the doctor and losing his head.
+Julien paced up and down, looking concerned, but perfectly calm, and
+Widow Dentu stood at the foot of the bed with an appropriate
+expression, the expression of a woman of experience whom nothing
+astonishes. The cook, Ludivine, and Aunt Lison remained discreetly
+concealed behind the door of the lobby.
+
+Toward morning Jeanne became worse, and as her involuntary screams
+escaped from between her closed teeth, she thought incessantly of
+Rosalie, who had not suffered, who had hardly moaned, who had borne
+her child without suffering and without difficulty, and in her
+wretched and troubled mind she continually compared their conditions
+and cursed God, whom she had formerly thought to be just. She rebelled
+at the wicked partiality of fate and at the wicked lies of those who
+preach justice and goodness.
+
+At times her sufferings were so great that her mind was a blank. She
+had neither strength, life nor knowledge for anything but suffering.
+
+All at once her sufferings ceased. The nurse and the doctor leaned
+over her and gave her all attention. Presently she heard a little cry
+and, in spite of her weakness, she unconsciously held out her arms.
+She was suddenly filled with joy, with a glimpse of a new-found
+happiness which had just unfolded. Her child was born, she was
+soothed, happy, happy as she never yet had been. Her heart and her
+body revived; she was now a mother. She felt that she was saved,
+secure from all despair, for she had here something to love.
+
+From now on she had but one thought--her child. She was a fanatical
+mother, all the more intense because she had been deceived in her
+love, deceived in her hopes. She would sit whole days beside the
+window, rocking the little cradle.
+
+The baron and little mother smiled at this excess of tenderness, but
+Julien, whose habitual routine had been interfered with and his
+overweening importance diminished by the arrival of this noisy and
+all-powerful tyrant, unconsciously jealous of this mite of a man who
+had usurped his place in the house, kept on saying angrily and
+impatiently: "How wearisome she is with her brat!"
+
+She became so obsessed by this affection that she would pass the
+entire night beside the cradle, watching the child asleep. As she was
+becoming exhausted by this morbid life, taking no rest, growing weaker
+and thinner and beginning to cough, the doctor ordered the child to be
+taken from her. She got angry, wept, implored, but they were deaf to
+her entreaties. His nurse took him every evening, and each night his
+mother would rise, and in her bare feet go to the door, listen at the
+keyhole to see if he was sleeping quietly, did not wake up and wanted
+nothing.
+
+Julien found her here one night when he came home late, after dining
+with the Fourvilles. After that they locked her in her room to oblige
+her to stay in bed.
+
+The baptism took place at the end of August. The baron was godfather
+and Aunt Lison godmother. The child was named Pierre-Simon-Paul and
+called Paul for short.
+
+At the beginning of September Aunt Lison left without any commotion.
+Her absence was as little felt as her presence.
+
+One evening after dinner the priest appeared. He seemed embarrassed as
+if he were burdened by some mystery, and after some idle remarks, he
+asked the baroness and her husband to grant him a short interview in
+private.
+
+They all three walked slowly down the long avenue, talking with
+animation, while Julien, who was alone with Jeanne, was astonished,
+disturbed and annoyed at this secret.
+
+He accompanied the priest when he took his leave, and they went off
+together toward the church where the Angelus was ringing.
+
+As it was cool, almost cold, the others went into the drawing-room.
+They were all dozing when Julien came in abruptly, his face red,
+looking very indignant.
+
+From the door he called out to his parents-in-law, without remembering
+that Jeanne was there: "Are you crazy, for God's sake! to go and throw
+away twenty thousand francs on that girl?"
+
+No one replied, they were so astonished. He continued, bellowing with
+rage: "How can one be so stupid as that? Do you wish to leave us
+without a sou?"
+
+The baron, who had recovered his composure, attempted to stop him:
+"Keep still! Remember that you are speaking before your wife."
+
+But Julien was trembling with excitement: "As if I cared; she knows
+all about it, anyway. It is robbing her."
+
+Jeanne, bewildered, looked at him without understanding. She faltered:
+"What in the world is the matter?"
+
+Julien then turned toward her, to try and get her on his side as a
+partner who has been cheated out of an unexpected fortune. He
+hurriedly told her about the conspiracy to marry off Rosalie and about
+the gift of the Barville property, which was worth at least twenty
+thousand francs. He said: "Your parents are crazy, my dear, crazy
+enough to be shut up! Twenty thousand francs! twenty thousand francs!
+Why, they have lost their heads! Twenty thousand francs for a
+bastard!"
+
+Jeanne listened without emotion and without anger, astonished at her
+own calmness, indifferent now to everything but her own child.
+
+The baron was raging, but could find nothing to say. He finally burst
+forth and, stamping his foot, exclaimed: "Think of what you are
+saying; it is disgusting. Whose fault was it if we had to give this
+girl-mother a dowry? Whose child is it? You would like to abandon it
+now!"
+
+Julien, amazed at the baron's violence, looked at him fixedly. He then
+resumed in a calmer tone: "But fifteen hundred francs would be quite
+enough. They all have children before they are legally married. It
+makes no difference whose child it is, in any case. Instead of giving
+one of your farms, to the value of twenty thousand francs, in addition
+to making the world aware of what has happened, you should, to say the
+least, have had some regard for our name and our position."
+
+He spoke in a severe tone like a man who stood on his rights and was
+convinced of the logic of his argument. The baron, disturbed at this
+unexpected discussion, stood there gaping at him. Julien then, seeing
+his advantage, concluded: "Happily, nothing has yet been settled. I
+know the young fellow who is going to marry her. He is an honest chap
+and we can make a satisfactory arrangement with him. I will take
+charge of the matter."
+
+And he went out immediately, fearing no doubt to continue the
+discussion, and pleased that he had had the last word, a proof, he
+thought, that they acquiesced in his views.
+
+As soon as he had left the room, however, the baron exclaimed: "Oh,
+that is going too far, much too far!"
+
+But Jeanne, happening to look up at her father's bewildered face,
+began to laugh with her clear, ringing laugh of former days, when
+anything amused her. She said: "Father, father, did you hear the tone
+in which he said: 'Twenty thousand francs?'"
+
+Little mother, whose mirth was as ready as her tears, as she recalled
+her son-in-law's angry expression, his indignant exclamations and his
+refusal to allow the girl whom he had led astray to be given money
+that did not belong to him, delighted also at Jeanne's mirth, gave way
+to little bursts of laughter till the tears came to her eyes. The
+baron caught the contagion, and all three laughed to kill themselves
+as they used to do in the good old days.
+
+As soon as they quieted down a little Jeanne said: "How strange it is
+that all this does not affect me. I look upon him now as a stranger. I
+cannot believe that I am his wife. You see how I can laugh at
+his--his--want of delicacy."
+
+And without knowing why they all three embraced each other, smiling
+and happy.
+
+Two days later, after breakfast, just as Julien had started away from
+the house on horseback, a strapping young fellow from twenty-one to
+twenty-five years old, clad in a brand-new blue blouse with wide
+sleeves buttoning at the wrist, slyly jumped over the gate, as though
+he had been there awaiting his opportunity all the morning, crept
+along the Couillards' ditch, came round the chateau, and cautiously
+approached the baron and his wife, who were still sitting under the
+plane-tree.
+
+He took off his cap and advanced, bowing in an awkward manner. As soon
+as he was close to them he said: "Your servant, Monsieur le Baron,
+madame and the company." Then, as no one replied, he said: "It is I, I
+am Desire Lecocq."
+
+As the name conveyed nothing to them, the baron asked, "What do you
+want?"
+
+Then, altogether upset at the necessity of explaining himself, the
+young fellow stuttered out as he gazed alternately at his cap, which
+he held in his hands, and at the roof of the chateau: "It was M'sieu
+le Cure who said something to me about this matter----" And then he
+stopped, fearing he might say too much and compromise his own
+interests.
+
+The other, lowering his voice, blurted out: "That matter of your
+maid--Rosalie----"
+
+Jeanne, who had guessed what was coming, had risen and moved away with
+her infant in her arms.
+
+"Come nearer," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had
+just left. The peasant sat down, murmuring: "You are very good." Then
+he waited as though he had no more to say. After a long silence, he
+screwed up courage, and looking up at the sky, remarked: "There's fine
+weather for the time of year. But the earth will be none the better
+for it, as the seed is already sown." And then he was silent again.
+
+The baron was growing impatient. He plunged right into the subject and
+said drily: "Then it is you who are going to marry Rosalie?"
+
+The man at once became uneasy, his Norman caution being on the alert.
+He replied with more animation, but with a tinge of defiance: "That
+depends; perhaps yes, perhaps no; it depends."
+
+The baron, annoyed at this hedging, exclaimed angrily: "Answer
+frankly, damn it! Was this what you came here for? Yes or no! Will you
+marry her? Yes or no!"
+
+The bewildered man looked steadfastly at his feet: "If it is as M'sieu
+le Cure said, I will take her, but if it is as M'sieu Julien said, I
+will not take her."
+
+"What did M. Julien tell you?"
+
+"M'sieu Julien told me fifteen hundred francs and M'sieu le Cure told
+me that I should have twenty thousand. I will do it for twenty
+thousand, but I will not do it for fifteen hundred."
+
+The baroness, who was buried in her easy chair, began to giggle at the
+anxious expression of the peasant, who, not understanding this
+frivolity, glanced at her angrily out of the corner of his eye and
+waited in silence.
+
+The baron, who was embarrassed at this bargaining, cut it short by
+saying: "I told M. le Cure that you should have the Barville farm
+during your lifetime and that then it would revert to the child. It is
+worth twenty thousand francs. I do not go back on my word. Is it
+settled? Yes or no!"
+
+The man smiled with a humble and satisfied expression, and suddenly
+becoming loquacious, said: "Oh, in that case, I will not say no. That
+was all that stood in my way. When M'sieu le Cure spoke to me, I was
+ready at once, by gosh! and I was very pleased to accommodate the
+baron who was giving me that. I said to myself, 'Is it not true that
+when people are willing to do each other favors, they can always find
+a way and can make it worth while?' But M'sieu Julien came to see me,
+and it was only fifteen hundred francs. I said to myself: 'I must see
+about that,' and so I came here. That is not to say that I did not
+trust you, but I wanted to know. Short accounts make long friends. Is
+not that true, M'sieu le Baron?"
+
+The baron interrupted him by asking, "When do you wish to get
+married?"
+
+The man became timid again, very much embarrassed, and finally said,
+hesitatingly: "I will not do it until I get a little paper."
+
+This time the baron got angry: "Doggone it! you will have the marriage
+contract. That is the best kind of paper."
+
+But the peasant was stubborn: "Meanwhile I might take a little turn;
+it will not be dark for a while."
+
+The baron rose to make an end of the matter: "Answer yes or no at
+once. If you do not wish her, say so; I have another suitor."
+
+The fear of a rival terrified the crafty Norman. He suddenly made up
+his mind and held out his hand, as after buying a cow, saying: "Put it
+there, M'sieu le Baron; it is a bargain. Whoever draws back is a
+skunk!"
+
+The baron shook his hand, then called out: "Ludivine!" The cook
+appeared at the window. "Bring us a bottle of wine." They clinked
+glasses to seal the matter and the young peasant went off with a light
+tread.
+
+Nothing was said to Julien about this visit. The contract was drawn up
+with all secrecy and as soon as the banns were published the wedding
+took place one Monday morning.
+
+A neighbor carried the child to church, walking behind the bride and
+groom, as a sure sign of good luck. And no one in all the district was
+surprised; they simply envied Desire Lecocq. "He was born with a
+caul," they said, with a sly smile into which there entered no
+resentment.
+
+Julien was terribly angry and made such a scene that his parents-in-law
+cut short their visit to the "Poplars." Jeanne was only moderately
+sad at their departure, for little Paul had become for her an
+inexhaustible source of happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DEATH OF LA BARONNE
+
+As Jeanne's health was quite restored, they determined to go and
+return the Fourvilles' visit and also to call on the Marquis de
+Coutelier.
+
+Julien had bought at a sale a new one-horse phaeton, so that they
+could go out twice a month. They set out one fine December morning,
+and after driving for two hours across the plains of Normandy, they
+began to descend a little slope into a little valley, the sides of
+which were wooded, while the valley itself was cultivated. After an
+abrupt turn in the valley they saw the Chateau of Vrillette, a wooded
+slope on one side of it and a large pond on the other, out of which
+rose one of its walls and which was bounded by a wood of tall pine
+trees that formed the other side of the valley.
+
+Julien explained all the portions of the building to Jeanne, like one
+who knows his subject thoroughly, and went into raptures over its
+beauty, adding; "It is full of game, this country. The comte loves to
+hunt here. This is a true seignorial residence."
+
+The hall door was opened and the pale comtesse appeared, coming
+forward to meet the visitors, all smiles, and wearing a long-trained
+dress, like a chatelaine of olden times. She looked a fitting lady of
+the lake, born to inhabit this fairy castle.
+
+The comtesse took both Jeanne's hands, as if she had known her all her
+life, and made her sit down beside her in a low chair, while Julien,
+all of whose forgotten elegance seemed to have revived within the past
+five months, chatted and smiled quietly and familiarly.
+
+The comtesse and he talked of their horseback rides. She was laughing
+at his manner of mounting a horse and called him "Le Chevalier
+Trebuche," and he smiled also, having nicknamed her "The Amazon
+Queen." A gun fired beneath the windows caused Jeanne to give a little
+scream. It was the comte, who had killed a teal.
+
+His wife called to him. A sound of oars was heard, a boat grinding
+against the stones, and he appeared, enormous, booted, followed by two
+drenched dogs of a ruddy color like himself, who lay down on the mat
+outside the door.
+
+He seemed more at his ease in his own home, and was delighted to see
+his visitors. He put some wood on the fire, sent for madeira and
+biscuits and then exclaimed suddenly: "Why, you will take dinner with
+us, of course."
+
+Jeanne, whose child was never out of her thoughts, declined. He
+insisted, and as she could not be persuaded, Julien made a gesture of
+annoyance. She feared to arouse his ugly, quarrelsome temper, and
+although she was very unhappy at the thought that she should not see
+Paul until the next day, she consented to stay.
+
+The afternoon was delightful. They first visited the springs which
+bubbled up at the foot of a mossy rock and then took a row on the
+pond. At one end of the boat Julien and the comtesse, wrapped in
+shawls, were smiling happily like those who have nothing left to wish
+for.
+
+A huge fire was blazing in the spacious reception room, which imparted
+a sense of warmth and contentment. The comte seized his wife in his
+arms and lifted her from the floor as though she had been a child and
+gave her a hearty kiss on each cheek, like a man satisfied with the
+world.
+
+Jeanne, smiling, looked at this good giant whom one would have thought
+was an ogre at the very sight of his mustaches, and she thought: "How
+one may be deceived each day about everybody." Then, almost
+involuntarily, she glanced at Julien standing in the doorway, looking
+horribly pale and with his eyes fixed on the comte. She approached him
+and said in a low tone: "Are you ill? What is the matter with you?" He
+answered her angrily: "Nothing. Let me alone! I was cold."
+
+When they went into the dining-room the count asked if he might let
+his dogs come in, and they settled themselves one on either side of
+their master.
+
+After dinner, as Jeanne and Julien were preparing to leave, M. de
+Fourville kept them a little longer to look at some fishing by
+torchlight. When they finally set out, wrapped up in their cloaks and
+some rugs they had borrowed, Jeanne said almost involuntarily: "What a
+fine man that giant is!" Julien, who was driving, replied: "Yes, but
+he does not always restrain himself before company."
+
+A week later they called on the Couteliers, who were supposed to be
+the chief noble family in the province. Their property of Remenil
+adjoined the large town of Cany. The new chateau built in the reign of
+Louis XIV. was hidden in a magnificent park enclosed by walls. The
+ruins of the old chateau could be seen on an eminence. They were
+ushered into a stately reception room by men servants in livery. In
+the middle of the room a sort of column held an immense bowl of Sevres
+ware and on the pedestal of the column an autograph letter from the
+king, under glass, requested the Marquis Leopold-Herve-Joseph-Germer
+de Varneville de Rollebosc de Coutelier to receive this present from
+his sovereign.
+
+Jeanne and Julien were looking at this royal gift when the marquis and
+marquise entered the room.
+
+They were very ceremonious people whose minds, sentiments and words
+seemed always to be on stilts. They spoke without waiting for an
+answer, smiling complacently, appearing always to be fulfilling the
+duty imposed on them by their position, of showing civilities to the
+inferior nobility of the region.
+
+Jeanne and Julien, somewhat taken aback, endeavored to be agreeable,
+but although they felt too embarrassed to remain any longer, they did
+not know exactly how to take their leave. The marquise herself put an
+end to the visit naturally and simply by bringing the conversation to
+a close like a queen giving a dismissal.
+
+On the way home Julien said: "If you like, we will make this our first
+and last call; the Fourvilles are good enough for me." Jeanne was of
+the same opinion. December passed slowly and the shut-in life began
+again as in the previous year. But Jeanne did not find it wearisome,
+as she was always taken up with Paul, whom Julien looked at askance,
+uneasy and annoyed. Often when the mother held the child in her arms,
+kissing it frantically as women do their children, she would hold it
+up to its father, saying: "Give him a kiss; one would suppose you did
+not love him." He would hardly touch with his lips the child's smooth
+forehead, walking all round it, as though he did not wish to touch the
+restless little fists. Then he would walk away abruptly as though from
+something distasteful.
+
+The mayor, the doctor and the cure came to dinner occasionally, and
+sometimes it was the Fourvilles, with whom they were becoming more and
+more intimate. The comte appeared to worship Paul. He held him on his
+knees during the whole visit and sometimes during the whole afternoon,
+playing with him and amusing him and then kissing him tenderly as
+mothers do. He always lamented that he had no children of his own.
+
+Comtesse Gilberte again mentioned the rides they all four were going
+to take together. Jeanne, a little weary of the monotonous days and
+nights, was quite happy in anticipation of these plans, and for a week
+amused herself making a riding habit.
+
+They always set out two and two, the comtesse and Julien ahead, the
+count and Jeanne a hundred feet behind them, talking quietly, like
+good friends, for such they had become through the sympathy of their
+straightforward minds and simple hearts. The others often spoke in a
+low tone, sometimes bursting into laughter and looking quickly at each
+other, as though their eyes were expressing what they dared not utter.
+And they would suddenly set off at a gallop, impelled by a desire to
+flee, to get away, far away.
+
+Then Gilberte would seem to be growing irritable. Her sharp voice,
+borne on the breeze, occasionally reached the ears of the loitering
+couple. The comte would smile and say to Jeanne: "She does not always
+get out of bed the right side, that wife of mine."
+
+One evening as they were coming home the comtesse was teasing her
+mount, spurring it and then checking it abruptly. They heard Julien
+say several time: "Take care, take care; you will be thrown." "So much
+the worse," she replied; "it is none of your business," in a hard
+clear tone that resounded across the fields as though the words hung
+in the air.
+
+The animal reared, plunged and champed the bit. The comte, uneasy,
+shouted: "Be careful, Gilberte!" Then, as if in defiance, with one of
+those impulses of a woman whom nothing can stop, she struck her horse
+brutally between the ears. The animal reared in anger, pawed the air
+with his front feet and, landing again on his feet, gave a bound and
+darted across the plain at full speed.
+
+First it crossed the meadow, then plunging into a ploughed field
+kicked up the damp rich earth behind it, going so fast that one could
+hardly distinguish its rider. Julien remained transfixed with
+astonishment, calling out in despair: "Madame, madame!" but the comte
+was rather annoyed, and, bending forward on his heavy mount, he urged
+it forward and started out at such a pace, spurring it on with his
+voice, his gestures and the spur, that the huge horseman seemed to be
+carrying the heavy beast between his legs and to be lifting it up as
+if to fly. They went at incredible speed, straight ahead, and Jeanne
+saw the outline of the wife and of the husband fleeing getting smaller
+and disappearing in the distance, as if they were two birds pursuing
+each other to the verge of the horizon.
+
+Julien, approaching Jeanne slowly, murmured angrily: "I think she is
+crazy to-day." And they set out together to follow their friends, who
+were now hidden by the rising ground.
+
+At the end of about a quarter of an hour they saw them returning and
+presently joined them. The comte, perspiring, his face red, but
+smiling, happy and triumphant, was holding his wife's trembling horse
+in his iron grasp. Gilberte was pale, her face sad and drawn, and she
+was leaning one hand on her husband's shoulder as if she were going to
+faint. Jeanne understood now that the comte loved her madly.
+
+After this the comtesse for some months seemed happier than she had
+ever been. She came to the "Poplars" more frequently, laughed
+continually and kissed Jeanne impulsively. One might have said that
+some mysterious charm had come into her life. Her husband was also
+quite happy and never took his eyes off her. He said to Jeanne one
+evening: "We are very happy just now. Gilberte has never been so nice
+as this. She never is out of humor, never gets angry. I feel that she
+loves me; until now I was not sure of it."
+
+Julien also seemed changed, no longer impatient, as though the
+friendship between the two families had brought peace and happiness to
+both. The spring was singularly early and mild. Everything seemed to
+be coming to life beneath the quickening rays of the sun. Jeanne was
+vaguely troubled at this awakening of nature. Memories came to her of
+the early days of her love. Not that her love for Julien was renewed;
+that was over, over forever. But all her being, caressed by the
+breeze, filled with the fragrance of spring, was disturbed as though
+in response to some invisible and tender appeal. She loved to be
+alone, to give herself up in the sunlight to all kinds of vague and
+calm enjoyment which did not necessitate thinking.
+
+One morning as she was in a reverie a vision came to her, a swift
+vision of the sunlit nook amid the dark foliage in the little wood
+near Etretat. It was there that she had for the first time trembled,
+when beside the young man who loved her then. It was there that he had
+uttered for the first time the timid desire of his heart. It was there
+that she thought that she had all at once reached the radiant future
+of her hopes. She wished to see this wood again, to make a sort of
+sentimental and superstitious pilgrimage, as though a return to this
+spot might somehow change the current of her life. Julien had been
+gone since daybreak, she knew not whither. She had the little white
+horse, which she sometimes rode, saddled, and she set out. It was one
+of those days when nothing seemed stirring, not a blade of grass, not
+a leaf. All seemed wrapped in a golden mist beneath the blazing sun.
+Jeanne walked her horse, soothed and happy.
+
+She descended into the valley which leads to the sea, between the
+great arches in the cliff that are called the "Gates" of Etretat, and
+slowly reached the wood. The sunlight was streaming through the still
+scanty foliage. She wandered about the little paths, looking for the
+spot.
+
+All at once, as she was going along one of the lower paths, she
+perceived at the farther end of it two horses tied to a tree and
+recognized them at once; they belonged to Gilberte and Julien. The
+loneliness of the place was beginning to be irksome to her, and she
+was pleased at this chance meeting, and whipped up her horse.
+
+When she reached the two patient animals, who were probably accustomed
+to these long halts, she called. There was no reply. A woman's glove
+and two riding whips lay on the beaten-down grass. So they had no
+doubt sat down there awhile and then walked away leaving their horses
+tied.
+
+She waited a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, surprised, not
+understanding what could be keeping them. She had dismounted. She sat
+there, leaning against a tree trunk. Suddenly a thought came to her as
+she glanced again at the glove, the whips and the two horses left tied
+there, and she sprang to her saddle with an irresistible desire to
+make her escape.
+
+She started off at a gallop for the "Poplars." She was turning things
+over in her mind, trying to reason, to put two and two together, to
+compare facts. How was it that she had not suspected this sooner? How
+was it that she had not noticed anything? How was it she had not
+guessed the reason of Julien's frequent absences, the renewal of his
+former attention to his appearance and the improvement in his temper?
+She now recalled Gilberte's nervous abruptness, her exaggerated
+affection and the kind of beaming happiness in which she seemed to
+exist latterly and that so pleased the comte.
+
+She reined in her horse, as she wanted to think, and the quick pace
+disturbed her ideas.
+
+As soon as the first emotion was over she became almost calm, without
+jealousy or hatred, but filled with contempt. She hardly gave Julien a
+thought; nothing he might do could astonish her. But the double
+treachery of the comtesse, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone, then,
+was treacherous, untruthful and false. And tears came to her eyes. One
+sometimes mourns lost illusions as deeply as one does the death of a
+friend.
+
+She resolved, however, to act as though she knew nothing, to close the
+doors of her heart to all ordinary affection and to love no one but
+Paul and her parents and to endure other people with an undisturbed
+countenance.
+
+As soon as she got home she ran to her son, carried him up to her room
+and kissed him passionately for an hour.
+
+Julien came home to dinner, smiling and attentive, and appeared
+interested as he asked: "Are not father and little mother coming this
+year?"
+
+She was so grateful to him for this little attention that she almost
+forgave him for the discovery she had made in the wood, and she was
+filled all of a sudden with an intense desire to see without delay the
+two beings in the world whom she loved next to Paul, and passed the
+whole evening writing to them to hasten their journey.
+
+They promised to be there on the 20th of May and it was now the 7th.
+
+She awaited their arrival with a growing impatience, as though she
+felt, in addition to her filial affection, the need of opening her
+heart to honest hearts, to talk with frankness to pure-minded people,
+devoid of all infamy, all of whose life, actions and thoughts had been
+upright at all times.
+
+What she now felt was a sort of moral isolation, amid all this
+immorality, and, although she had learned suddenly to disseminate,
+although she received the comtesse with outstretched hand and smiling
+lips, she felt this consciousness of hollowness, this contempt for
+humanity increasing and enveloping her, and the petty gossip of the
+district gave her a still greater disgust, a still lower opinion of
+her fellow creatures.
+
+The immorality of the peasants shocked her, and this warm spring
+seemed to stir the sap in human beings as well as in plants. Jeanne
+did not belong to the race of peasants who are dominated by their
+lower instincts. Julien one day awakened her aversion anew by telling
+her a coarse story that had been told to him and that he considered
+very amusing.
+
+When the travelling carriage stopped at the door and the happy face of
+the baron appeared at the window Jeanne was stirred with so deep an
+emotion, such a tumultuous feeling of affection as she had never
+before experienced. But when she saw her mother she was shocked and
+almost fainted. The baroness, in six months, had aged ten years. Her
+heavy cheeks had grown flabby and purple, as though the blood were
+congested; her eyes were dim and she could no longer move about unless
+supported under each arm. Her breathing was difficult and wheezing and
+affected those near her with a painful sensation.
+
+When Jeanne had taken them to their room, she retired to her own in
+order to have a good cry, as she was so upset. Then she went to look
+for her father, and throwing herself into his arms, she exclaimed, her
+eyes still full of tears: "Oh, how mother is changed! What is the
+matter with her? Tell me, what is the matter?" He was much surprised
+and replied: "Do you think so? What an idea! Why, no. I have never
+been away from her. I assure you that I do not think she looks ill.
+She always looks like that."
+
+That evening Julien said to his wife: "Your mother is in a pretty bad
+way. I think she will not last long." And as Jeanne burst out sobbing,
+he became annoyed. "Come, I did not say there was no hope for her. You
+always exaggerate everything. She is changed, that's all. She is no
+longer young."
+
+The baroness was not able to walk any distance and only went out for
+half an hour each day to take one turn in her avenue and then she
+would sit on the bench. And when she felt unequal to walking to the
+end of her avenue, she would say: "Let us stop; my hypertrophy is
+breaking my legs today." She hardly ever laughed now as she did the
+previous year at anything that amused her, but only smiled. As she
+could see to read excellently, she passed hours reading "Corinne" or
+Lamartine's "Meditations." Then she would ask for her drawer of
+"souvenirs," and emptying her cherished letters on her lap, she would
+place the drawer on a chair beside her and put back, one by one, her
+"relics," after she had slowly gone over them. And when she was alone,
+quite alone, she would kiss some of them, as one kisses in secret a
+lock of hair of a loved one passed away.
+
+Sometimes Jeanne, coming in abruptly, would find her weeping and would
+exclaim: "What is the matter, little mother?" And the baroness,
+sighing deeply, would reply: "It is my 'relics' that make me cry. They
+stir remembrances that were so delightful and that are now past
+forever, and one is reminded of persons whom one had forgotten and
+recalls once more. You seem to see them, to hear them and it affects
+you strangely. You will feel this later."
+
+When the baron happened to come in at such times he would say gently:
+"Jeanne, dearie, take my advice and burn your letters, all of
+them--your mother's, mine, everyone's. There is nothing more dreadful,
+when one is growing old, than to look back to one's youth." But Jeanne
+also kept her letters, was preparing a chest of "relics" in obedience
+to a sort of hereditary instinct of dreamy sentimentality, although
+she differed from her mother in every other way.
+
+The baron was obliged to leave them some days later, as he had some
+business that called him away.
+
+One afternoon Jeanne took Paul in her arms and went out for a walk.
+She was sitting on a bank, gazing at the infant, whom she seemed to be
+looking at for the first time. She could hardly imagine him grown up,
+walking with a steady step, with a beard on his face and talking in a
+big voice. She heard someone calling and raised her head. Marius came
+running toward her.
+
+"Madame, Madame la Baronne is very bad!"
+
+A cold chill seemed to run down her back as she started up and walked
+hurriedly toward the house.
+
+As she approached she saw a number of persons grouped around the plane
+tree. She darted forward and saw her mother lying on the ground with
+two pillows under her head. Her face was black, her eyes closed and
+her breathing, which had been difficult for twenty years, now quite
+hushed. The nurse took the child out of Jeanne's arms and carried it
+off.
+
+Jeanne, with drawn, anxious face, asked: "What happened? How did she
+come to fall? Go for the doctor, somebody." Turning round, she saw the
+old cure, who had heard of it in some way. He offered his services and
+began rolling up the sleeves of his cassock. But vinegar, eau de
+cologne and rubbing the invalid proved ineffectual.
+
+"She should be undressed and put to bed," said the priest.
+
+Joseph Couillard, the farmer, was there and old Simon and Ludivine.
+With the assistance of Abbe Picot, they tried to lift the baroness,
+but after an attempt were obliged to bring a large easy chair from the
+drawing-room and place her in it. In this way they managed to get her
+into the house and then upstairs, where they laid her on her bed.
+
+Joseph Couillard set out in hot haste for the doctor. As the priest
+was going to get the holy oil, the nurse, who had "scented a death,"
+as the servants say, and was on the spot, whispered to him: "Do not
+put yourself out, monsieur; she is dead. I know all about these
+things."
+
+Jeanne, beside herself, entreated them to do something. The priest
+thought it best to pronounce the absolution.
+
+They watched for two hours beside this lifeless, discolored body.
+Jeanne, on her knees, was sobbing in an agony of grief.
+
+When the door opened and the doctor appeared, Jeanne darted toward
+him, stammering out what she knew of the accident, but seeing the
+nurse exchange a meaning glance with the doctor, she stopped to ask
+him: "Is it serious? Do you think it is serious?"
+
+He said presently: "I am afraid--I am afraid--it is all over. Be
+brave, be brave."
+
+Jeanne, extending her arms, threw herself on her mother's body. Julien
+just then came in. He stood there amazed, visibly annoyed, without any
+exclamation of sorrow, any appearance of grief, taken so unawares that
+he had not time to prepare a suitable expression of countenance. He
+muttered: "I was expecting it, I felt that the end was near." Then he
+took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, knelt down, crossed
+himself, and then rising to his feet, attempted to raise his wife. But
+she was clasping the dead body and kissing it, and it became necessary
+to carry her away. She appeared to be out of her mind.
+
+At the end of an hour she was allowed to come back. There was no
+longer any hope. The room was arranged as a death chamber. Julien and
+the priest were talking in a low tone near the window. It was growing
+dark. The priest came over to Jeanne and took her hands, trying to
+console her. He spoke of the defunct, praised her in pious phrases and
+offered to pass the night in prayer beside the body.
+
+But Jeanne refused, amid convulsive sobs. She wished to be alone,
+quite alone on this last night of farewell. Julien came forward: "But
+you must not do it; we will stay together." She shook her head, unable
+to speak. At last she said: "It is my mother, my mother. I wish to
+watch beside her alone." The doctor murmured: "Let her do as she
+pleases; the nurse can stay in the adjoining room."
+
+The priest and Julien consented, more interested in their own rest.
+Then Abbe Picot knelt down in his turn, and as he rose and left the
+room, he said: "She was a saint" in the same tone as he said "Dominus
+vobiscum."
+
+The vicomte in his ordinary tone then asked: "Are you not going to eat
+something?" Jeanne did not reply, not knowing he was speaking to her,
+and he repeated: "You had better eat something to keep up your
+stomach." She replied in a bewildered manner: "Send at once for papa."
+And he went out of the room to send someone on horseback to Rouen.
+
+She remained plunged in a sort of motionless grief, seeing nothing,
+feeling nothing, understanding nothing. She only wanted to be alone.
+Julien came back. He had dined and he asked her again: "Won't you take
+something?" She shook her head. He sat down with an air of resignation
+rather than sadness, without speaking, and they both sat there silent,
+till at length Julien arose, and approaching Jeanne, said: "Would you
+like to stay alone now?" She took his hand impulsively and replied:
+"Oh, yes! leave me!"
+
+He kissed her forehead, murmuring: "I will come in and see you from
+time to time." He went out with Widow Dentu, who rolled her easy chair
+into the next room.
+
+Jeanne shut the door and opened the windows wide. She felt the soft
+breath from the mown hay that lay in the moonlight on the lawn. It
+seemed to harrow her feelings like an ironical remark.
+
+She went back to the bed, took one of the cold, inert hands and looked
+at her mother earnestly. She seemed to be sleeping more peacefully
+than she had ever done, and the pale flame of the tapers which
+flickered at every breath made her face appear to be alive, as if she
+had stirred. Jeanne remembered all the little incidents of her
+childhood, the visits of little mother to the "parloir" of the
+convent, the manner in which she handed her a little paper bag of
+cakes, a multitude of little details, little acts, little caresses,
+words, intonations, familiar gestures, the creases at the corner of
+her eyes when she laughed, the big sigh she gave when she sat down.
+
+And she stood there looking at her, repeating half mechanically: "She
+is dead," and all the horror of the word became real to her. It was
+mamma lying there--little mother--Mamma Adelaide who was dead. She
+would never move about again, nor speak, nor laugh, nor sit at dinner
+opposite little father. She would never again say: "Good-morning,
+Jeannette." She was dead!
+
+And she fell on her knees in a paroxysm of despair, her hands
+clutching the sheet, her face buried in the covers as she cried in a
+heartrending tone: "Oh, mamma, my poor mamma!" Then feeling that she
+was losing her reason as she had done on the night when she fled
+across the snow, she rose and ran to the window to drink in the fresh
+air. The soothing calmness of the night entered her soul and she began
+to weep quietly.
+
+Presently she turned back into the room and sat down again beside
+her mother. Other remembrances came to her: those of her own
+life--Rosalie, Gilberte, the bitter disillusions of her heart.
+Everything, then, was only misery, grief, unhappiness and death.
+Everyone tried to deceive, everyone lied, everyone made you suffer and
+weep. Where could one find a little rest and happiness? In another
+existence no doubt, when the soul is freed from the trials of earth.
+And she began to ponder on this insoluble mystery.
+
+A tender and curious thought came to her mind. It was to read over in
+this last watch, as though they were a litany, the old letters that
+her mother loved. It seemed to her that she was about to perform a
+delicate and sacred duty which would give pleasure to little mother in
+the other world.
+
+She rose, opened the writing desk and took from the lower drawer ten
+little packages of yellow letters, tied and arranged in order, side by
+side. She placed them all on the bed over her mother's heart from a
+sort of sentiment and began to read them. They were old letters that
+savored of a former century. The first began, "My dear little
+granddaughter," then again "My dear little girl," "My darling," "My
+dearest daughter," then "My dear child," "My dear Adelaide," "My dear
+daughter," according to the periods--childhood, youth or young
+womanhood. They were all full of little insignificant details and
+tender words, about a thousand little matters, those simple but
+important events of home life, so petty to outsiders: "Father has the
+grip; poor Hortense burnt her finger; the cat, 'Croquerat,' is dead;
+they have cut down the pine tree to the right of the gate; mother lost
+her prayerbook on the way home from church, she thinks it was stolen."
+
+All these details affected her. They seemed like revelations, as
+though she had suddenly entered the past secret heart life of little
+mother. She looked at her lying there and suddenly began to read
+aloud, to read to the dead, as though to distract, to console her.
+
+And the dead woman appeared to be pleased.
+
+Jeanne tossed the letters as she read them to the foot of the bed. She
+untied another package. It was a new handwriting. She read: "I cannot
+do without your caresses. I love you so that I am almost crazy."
+
+That was all; no signature.
+
+She put back the letter without understanding its meaning. The address
+was certainly "Madame la Baronne Le Perthuis des Vauds."
+
+Then she opened another: "Come this evening as soon as he goes out; we
+shall have an hour together. I worship you." In another: "I passed the
+night longing in vain for you, longing to look into your eyes, to
+press my lips to yours, and I am insane enough to throw myself from
+the window at the thought that you are another's...."
+
+Jeanne was perfectly bewildered. What did that mean? To whom, for
+whom, from whom were these words of love?
+
+She went on reading, coming across fresh impassioned declarations,
+appointments with warnings as to prudence, and always at the end the
+six words: "Be sure to burn this letter!"
+
+At last she opened an ordinary note, accepting an invitation to
+dinner, but in the same handwriting and signed: "Paul d'Ennemare,"
+whom the baron called, whenever he spoke of him, "My poor old Paul,"
+and whose wife had been the baroness' dearest friend.
+
+Then a suspicion, which immediately became a certainty, flashed across
+Jeanne's mind: He had been her mother's lover.
+
+And, almost beside herself, she suddenly threw aside these infamous
+letters as she would have thrown off some venomous reptile and ran to
+the window and began to cry piteously. Then, collapsing, she sank down
+beside the wall, and hiding her face in the curtain so that no one
+should hear her, she sobbed bitterly as if in hopeless despair.
+
+She would have remained thus probably all night, if she had not heard
+a noise in the adjoining room that made her start to her feet. It
+might be her father. And all the letters were lying on the floor! He
+would have to open only one of them to know all! Her father!
+
+She darted into the other room and seizing the letters in handfuls,
+she threw them all into the fireplace, those of her grandparents as
+well as those of the lover; some that she had not looked at and some
+that had remained tied up in the drawers of the desk. She then took
+one of the tapers that burned beside the bed and set fire to this pile
+of letters. When they were reduced to ashes she went back to the open
+window, as though she no longer dared to sit beside the dead, and
+began to cry again with her face in her hands: "Oh, my poor mamma! oh,
+my poor mamma!"
+
+The stars were paling. It was the cool hour that precedes the dawn.
+The moon was sinking on the horizon and turning the sea to mother of
+pearl. The recollection of the night she passed at the window when she
+first came to the "Poplars" came to Jeanne's mind. How far away it
+seemed, how everything was changed, how different the future now
+seemed!
+
+The sky was becoming pink, a joyous, love-inspiring, enchanting pink.
+She looked at it in surprise, as at some phenomenon, this radiant
+break of day, and asked herself if it were possible that, on a planet
+where such dawns were found, there should be neither joy nor
+happiness.
+
+A noise at the door made her start. It was Julien. "Well," he said,
+"are you not very tired?"
+
+She murmured, "No," happy at being no longer alone. "Go and rest now,"
+he said. She kissed her mother a long, sad kiss; then she went to her
+room.
+
+The next day passed in the usual attentions to the dead. The baron
+arrived toward evening. He wept for some time.
+
+The funeral took place the following day. After pressing a last kiss
+on her mother's icy forehead and seeing the coffin nailed down, Jeanne
+left the room. The invited guests would soon arrive.
+
+Gilberte was the first to come, and she threw herself sobbing on her
+friend's shoulder. Women in black presently entered the room one after
+another, people whom Jeanne did not know. The Marquise de Coutelier
+and the Vicomtesse de Briseville embraced her. She suddenly saw Aunt
+Lison gliding in behind her. She turned round and kissed her tenderly.
+
+Julien came in, dressed all in black, elegant, very important, pleased
+at seeing so many people. He asked his wife some question in a low
+tone and added confidentially: "All the nobility are here; it will be
+a fine affair." And he walked away, gravely bowing to the ladies. Aunt
+Lison and Comtesse Gilberte alone remained with Jeanne during the
+service for the dead. The comtesse kissed her repeatedly, exclaiming:
+"My poor dear, my poor dear!"
+
+When Comte de Fourville came to fetch his wife he was also crying as
+though it were for his own mother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RETRIBUTION
+
+The following days were very sad and dreary, as they always are when
+there has been a death in the house. And, in addition, Jeanne was
+crushed at the thought of what she had discovered; her last shred of
+confidence had been destroyed with the destruction of her faith.
+Little father, after a short stay, went away to try and distract his
+thoughts from his grief, and the large house, whose former masters
+were leaving it from time to time, resumed its usual calm and
+monotonous course.
+
+Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne was almost beside herself, not sleeping
+for ten days, and scarcely tasting food. He recovered, but she was
+haunted by the idea that he might die. Then what should she do? What
+would become of her? And there gradually stole into her heart the hope
+that she might have another child. She dreamed of it, became obsessed
+with the idea. She longed to realize her old dream of seeing two
+little children around her; a boy and a girl.
+
+But since the affair of Rosalie she and Julien had lived apart. A
+reconciliation seemed impossible in their present situation. Julien
+loved some one else, she knew it; and the very thought of suffering
+his approach filled her with repugnance. She had no one left whom she
+could consult. She resolved to go and see Abbe Picot and tell him,
+under the seal of confession, all that weighed upon her mind in this
+matter.
+
+He was reading from his breviary in his little garden planted with
+fruit trees when she arrived.
+
+After a few minutes' conversation on indifferent matters, she
+faltered, her color rising: "I want to confess, Monsieur l'Abbe."
+
+He looked at her in astonishment, as he pushed his spectacles back on
+his forehead; then he began to laugh. "You surely have no great sins
+on your conscience." This embarrassed her greatly, and she replied:
+"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject that is so--so--so
+painful that I dare not mention it casually."
+
+He at once laid aside his jovial manner and assumed his priestly
+attitude. "Well, my child, I will listen to you in the confessional;
+come along."
+
+But she held back, undecided, restrained by a kind of scruple at
+speaking of these matters, of which she was half ashamed, in the
+seclusion of an empty church.
+
+"Or else, no--Monsieur le Cure--I might--I might--if you wish, tell
+you now what brings me here. Let us go and sit over there, in your
+little arbor."
+
+They walked toward it, and Jeanne tried to think how she could begin.
+They sat down in the arbor, and then, as if she were confessing
+herself, she said: "Father----" then hesitated, and repeated:
+"Father----" and was silent from emotion.
+
+He waited, his hands crossed over his paunch. Seeing her
+embarrassment, he sought to encourage her: "Why, my daughter, one
+would suppose you were afraid; come, take courage."
+
+She plucked up courage, like a coward who plunges headlong into
+danger. "Father, I should like to have another child." He did not
+reply, as he did not understand her. Then she explained, timid and
+unable to express herself clearly:
+
+"I am all alone in life now; my father and my husband do not get along
+together; my mother is dead; and--and----" she added with a shudder,
+"the other day I nearly lost my son! What would have become of me
+then?"
+
+She was silent. The priest, bewildered, was gazing at her. "Come, get
+to the point of your subject."
+
+"I want to have another child," she said. Then he smiled, accustomed
+to the coarse jokes of the peasants, who were not embarrassed in his
+presence, and he replied, with a sly motion of his head:
+
+"Well, it seems to me that it depends only on yourself."
+
+She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said, hesitating with
+confusion: "But--but--you understand that since--since--what you know
+about--about that maid--my husband and I have lived--have lived quite
+apart."
+
+Accustomed to the promiscuity and undignified relations of the
+peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought
+he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of
+the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of
+sympathy for her distress, he said: "Oh, I understand perfectly. I
+know that your widowhood must be irksome to you. You are young and in
+good health. It is natural, quite natural."
+
+He smiled, bearing out his easy-going character of a country priest,
+and tapping Jeanne lightly on the hand, he said: "That is permissible,
+very permissible indeed, according to the commandments. You are
+married, are you not? Well, then, what is the harm?"
+
+She, in her turn, had not understood his hidden meaning; but as soon
+as she saw through it, she blushed scarlet, shocked, and with tears in
+her eyes exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur le Cure, what are you saying? What
+are you thinking of? I swear to you--I swear to you----" And sobs
+choked her words.
+
+He was surprised and sought to console her: "Come, I did not mean to
+hurt your feelings. I was only joking a little; there is no harm in
+that when one is decent. But you may rely on me, you may rely on me. I
+will see M. Julien."
+
+She did not know what to say. She now wished to decline this
+intervention, which she thought clumsy and dangerous, but she did not
+dare to do so, and she went away hurriedly, faltering: "I am grateful
+to you, Monsieur le Cure."
+
+A week passed. One day at dinner Julien looked at her with a peculiar
+expression, a certain smiling curve of the lips that she had noticed
+when he was teasing her. He was even almost ironically gallant toward
+her, and as they were walking after dinner in little mother's avenue,
+he said in a low tone: "We seem to have made up again."
+
+She did not reply, but continued to look on the ground at a sort of
+track that was almost effaced now that the grass was sprouting anew.
+They were the footprints of the baroness, which were vanishing as does
+a memory. And Jeanne was plunged in sadness; she felt herself lost in
+life, far away from everyone.
+
+"As for me, I ask nothing better. I was afraid of displeasing you,"
+continued Julien.
+
+The sun was going down, the air was mild. A longing to weep came over
+Jeanne, one of those needs of unbosoming oneself to a kindred spirit,
+of unbending and telling one's griefs. A sob rose in her throat; she
+opened her arms and fell on Julien's breast, and wept. He glanced down
+in surprise at her head, for he could not see her face which was
+hidden on his shoulder. He supposed that she still loved him, and
+placed a condescending kiss on the back of her head.
+
+They entered the house and he followed her to her room. And thus they
+resumed their former relations, he, as a not unpleasant duty, and she,
+merely tolerating him.
+
+She soon noticed, however, that his manner had changed, and one day
+with her lips to his, she murmured: "Why are you not the same as you
+used to be?"
+
+"Because I do not want any more children," he said jokingly.
+
+She started. "Why not?"
+
+He appeared greatly surprised. "Eh, what's that you say? Are you
+crazy? No, indeed! One is enough, always crying and bothering
+everyone. Another baby! No, thank you!"
+
+At the end of a month she told the news to everyone, far and wide,
+with the exception of Comtesse Gilberte, from reasons of modesty and
+delicacy.
+
+What the priest had foreseen finally came to pass. She became
+enceinte. Then, filled with an unspeakable happiness, she locked her
+door every night when she retired, vowing herself from henceforth to
+eternal chastity, in gratitude to the vague divinity she adored.
+
+She was now almost quite happy again. Her children would grow up and
+love her; she would grow old quietly, happy and contented, without
+troubling herself about her husband.
+
+Toward the end of September, Abbe Picot called on a visit of ceremony
+to introduce his successor, a young priest, very thin, very short,
+with an emphatic way of talking, and with dark circles round his
+sunken eyes.
+
+The old abbe had been appointed Dean of Goderville.
+
+Jeanne was really sorry to lose the old man, who had been associated
+with all her recollections as a young woman. He had married her,
+baptized Paul, and buried the baroness. She could not imagine Etouvent
+without Abbe Picot and his paunch passing along by the farms, and she
+loved him because he was cheerful and natural.
+
+But he did not seem very cheerful at the thought of his promotion. "It
+is a wrench, it is a wrench, madame la comtesse. I have been here for
+eighteen years. Oh, the place does not bring in much, and is not
+wealthy. The men have no more religion than they need, and the women,
+look you, the women have no morals. But nevertheless, I loved it."
+
+The new cure appeared impatient, and said abruptly: "When I am here
+all that will have to be changed." He looked like an angry boy, thin
+and frail in his somewhat worn, though clean cassock.
+
+Abbe Picot looked at him sideways, as he did when he was in a joking
+mood, and said: "You see, abbe, in order to prevent those happenings,
+you will have to chain up your parishioners; and even that would not
+be of much use." The little priest replied sharply: "We shall see."
+And the older man smiled as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age
+will calm you down, abbe, and experience also. You will drive away
+from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good
+it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be
+careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather
+stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I
+try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes;
+but you can go and look for the man, and prevent him from deserting
+the mother. Get them married, abbe, get them married, and do not
+trouble yourself about anything else."
+
+"We think differently," said the young priest rudely; "it is useless
+to insist." And Abbe Picot once more began to regret his village, the
+sea which he saw from his parsonage, the little valleys where he
+walked while repeating his breviary, glancing up at the boats as they
+passed.
+
+As the two priests took their leave, the old man kissed Jeanne, who
+was on the verge of tears.
+
+A week later Abbe Tolbiac called again. He spoke of reforms which he
+intended to accomplish, as a prince might have done on taking
+possession of a kingdom. Then he requested the vicomtesse not to miss
+the service on Sunday, and to communicate a all the festivals. "You
+and I," he said, "we are at the head of the district; we must rule it
+and always set them an example to follow. We must be of one accord so
+that we may be powerful and respected. The church and the chateau in
+joining forces will make the peasants obey and fear us."
+
+Jeanne's religion was all sentiment; she had all a woman's dream
+faith, and if she attended at all to her religious duties, it was from
+a habit acquired at the convent, the baron's advanced ideas having
+long since overthrown her convictions. Abbe Picot contented himself
+with what observances she gave him, and never blamed her. But his
+successor, not seeing her at mass the preceding Sunday, had come to
+call, uneasy and stern.
+
+She did not wish to break with the parsonage, and promised, making up
+her mind to be assiduous in attendance the first few weeks, out of
+politeness.
+
+Little by little, however, she got into the habit of going to church,
+and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial
+abbe. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set
+in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women
+possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human
+interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience,
+his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the
+stuff martyrs were made of; and she let herself be carried away, all
+disillusioned as she was, by the fanaticism of this child, the
+minister of God.
+
+He led her to Christ, the consoler, showing her how the joy of
+religion will calm all sorrow; and she knelt at the confessional,
+humbling herself, feeling herself small and weak in presence of this
+priest, who appeared to be about fifteen.
+
+He was, however, very soon detested in all the countryside. Inflexibly
+severe toward himself, he was implacably intolerant toward others, and
+the one thing that especially roused his wrath and indignation was
+love. The young men and girls looked at each other slyly across the
+church, and the old peasants who liked to joke about such things
+disapproved his severity. All the parish was in a ferment. Soon the
+young men all stopped going to church.
+
+The cure dined at the chateau every Thursday, and often came during
+the week to chat with his penitent. She became enthusiastic like
+himself, talked about spiritual matters, handling all the antique and
+complicated arsenal of religious controversy.
+
+They walked together along the baroness' avenue, talking of Christ and
+the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Fathers of the Church as though
+they were personally acquainted with them.
+
+Julien treated the new priest with great respect, saying constantly:
+"That priest suits me, he does not back down." And he went to
+confession and communion, setting a fine example. He now went to the
+Fourvilles' nearly every day, gunning with the husband, who was never
+happy without him, and riding with the comtesse, in spite of rain and
+storm. The comte said: "They are crazy about riding, but it does my
+wife good."
+
+The baron returned to the chateau about the middle of November. He was
+changed, aged, faded, filled with a deep sadness. And his love for his
+daughter seemed to have gained in strength, as if these few months of
+dreary solitude had aggravated his need of affection, confidence and
+tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her
+friendship for the Abbe Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he
+conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that
+evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He
+must be very dangerous."
+
+When he learned from the peasants, whose friend he was, of the
+harshness and violence of the young priest, of the kind of persecution
+which he carried on against all human and natural instincts, he
+developed a hatred toward him. He, himself, was one of the old race of
+natural philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic
+Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a God with
+bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him
+reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to
+farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant priest, the persecutor
+of life.
+
+Jeanne, very much worried, prayed to the Lord, entreated her father;
+but he always replied: "We must fight such men as that, it is our duty
+and our right. They are not human."
+
+And he repeated, shaking his long white locks: "They are not human;
+they understand nothing, nothing, nothing. They are moving in a morbid
+dream; they are anti-physical." And he pronounced the word
+"anti-physical" as though it were a malediction.
+
+The priest knew who his enemy was, but as he wished to remain ruler of
+the chateau and of Jeanne, he temporized, sure of final victory. He
+was also haunted by a fixed idea. He had discovered by chance the
+amours of Julien and Gilberte, and he desired to put a stop to them at
+all costs.
+
+He came to see Jeanne one day and, after a long conversation on
+spiritual matters, he asked her to give her aid in helping him to
+fight, to put an end to the evil in her own family, in order to save
+two souls that were in danger.
+
+She did not understand, and did not wish to know. He replied: "The
+hour has not arrived. I shall see you some other time." And he left
+abruptly.
+
+The winter was coming to a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the
+country, damp and mild. The abbe called again some days later and
+hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between
+persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he
+said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring
+it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes
+and understand and lend him her aid.
+
+This time she understood, but she was silent, terrified at the thought
+of all that might result in the house that was now peaceful, and she
+pretended not to understand. Then he spoke out clearly.
+
+She faltered: "What do you wish me to do, Monsieur l'Abbe?"
+
+"Anything, rather than permit this infamy. Anything, I say. Leave him.
+Flee from this impure house!"
+
+"But I have no money; and then I have no longer any courage; and,
+besides, how can I go without any proof? I have not the right to do
+so."
+
+The priest arose trembling: "That is cowardice, madame; I am mistaken
+in you. You are unworthy of God's mercy!"
+
+She fell on her knees: "Oh, I pray you not to leave me, tell me what
+to do!"
+
+"Open M. de Fourville's eyes," he said abruptly. "It is his place to
+break up this intrigue."
+
+This idea filled her with terror. "Why, he would kill them, Monsieur
+l'Abbe! And I should be guilty of denouncing them! Oh, never that,
+never!"
+
+He raised his hand as if to curse her in his fury: "Remain in your
+shame and your crime; for you are more guilty than they are. You are
+the complaisant wife! There is nothing more for me to do here." And he
+went off so furious that he trembled all over.
+
+She followed him, distracted and ready to do as he suggested. But he
+strode along rapidly, shaking his large blue umbrella in his rage. He
+perceived Julien standing outside the gate superintending the lopping
+of the trees, so he turned to the left to go across the Couillard
+farm, and he said: "Leave me alone, madame, I have nothing further to
+say to you."
+
+Jeanne was entreating him to give her a few days for reflection, and
+then if he came back to the chateau she would tell him what she had
+done, and they could take counsel together.
+
+Right in his road, in the middle of the farmyard, a group of children,
+those of the house and some neighbor's children, were standing around
+the kennel of Mirza, the dog, looking curiously at something with
+silent and concentrated attention. In the midst of them stood the
+baron, his hands behind his back, also looking on with curiosity. One
+would have taken him for a schoolmaster. When he saw the priest
+approaching, he moved away so as not to have to meet him and speak to
+him.
+
+The priest did not call again; but the following Sunday from the
+pulpit he hurled imprecations, curses and threats against the chateau,
+anathematizing the baron, and making veiled allusions, but timidly, to
+Julien's latest intrigue. The vicomte was furious, but the dread of a
+shocking scandal kept him silent. At each service thereafter the
+priest declared his indignation, predicting the approach of the hour
+when God would smite all his enemies.
+
+Julien wrote a firm, but respectful letter to the archbishop; the abbe
+was threatened with suspension. He was silent thereafter.
+
+Gilberte and Julien now frequently met him during their rides reading
+his breviary, but they turned aside so as not to pass him by. Spring
+had come and reawakened their love. As the foliage was still sparse
+and the grass damp, they used to meet in a shepherd's movable hut that
+had been deserted since autumn. But one day when they were leaving it,
+they saw the Abbe Tolbiac, almost hidden in the sea rushes on the
+slope.
+
+"We must leave our horses in the ravine," said Julien, "as they can be
+seen from a distance and would betray us." One evening as they were
+coming home together to La Vrillette, where they were to dine with the
+comte, they met the cure of Etouvent coming out of the chateau. He
+stepped to the side of the road to let them pass, and bowed without
+their eyes meeting. They were uneasy for a few moments, but soon
+forgot it.
+
+One afternoon, Jeanne was reading beside the fire while a storm of
+wind was raging outside, when she suddenly perceived Comte Fourville
+coming on foot at such a pace that she thought some misfortune had
+happened.
+
+She ran downstairs to meet him, and when she saw him she thought he
+must be crazy. He wore a large quilted cap that he wore only at home,
+his hunting jacket, and looked so pale that his red mustache, usually
+the color of his skin, now seemed like a flame. His eyes were haggard,
+rolling as though his mind were vacant.
+
+He stammered: "My wife is here, is she not?" Jeanne, losing her
+presence of mind, replied: "Why, no, I have not seen her to-day."
+
+He sat down as if his legs had given way. He then took off his cap and
+wiped his forehead with his handkerchief mechanically several times.
+Then starting up suddenly, he approached Jeanne, his hands stretched
+out, his mouth open, as if to speak, to confide some great sorrow to
+her. Then he stopped, looked at her fixedly and said as though he were
+wandering: "But it is your husband--you also----" And he fled, going
+toward the sea.
+
+Jeanne ran after him, calling him, imploring him to stop, her heart
+beating with apprehension as she thought: "He knows all! What will he
+do? Oh, if he only does not find them!"
+
+But she could not come up to him, and he disregarded her appeals. He
+went straight ahead without hesitation, straight to his goal. He
+crossed the ditch, then, stalking through the sea rushes like a giant,
+he reached the cliff.
+
+Jeanne, standing on the mound covered with trees, followed him with
+her eyes until he was out of sight. Then she went into the house,
+distracted with grief.
+
+He had turned to the right and started to run. Threatening waves
+overspread the sea, big black clouds were scudding along madly,
+passing on and followed by others, each of them coming down in a
+furious downpour. The wind whistled, moaned, laid the grass and the
+young crops low and carried away big white birds that looked like
+specks of foam and bore them far into the land.
+
+The hail which followed beat in the comte's face, filling his ears
+with noise and his heart with tumult.
+
+Down yonder before him was the deep gorge of the Val de Vaucotte.
+There was nothing before him but a shepherd's hut beside a deserted
+sheep pasture. Two horses were tied to the shafts of the hut on
+wheels. What might not happen to one in such a tempest as this?
+
+As soon as he saw them the comte crouched on the ground and crawled
+along on his hands and knees as far as the lonely hut and hid himself
+beneath the hut that he might not be seen through the cracks. The
+horses on seeing him became restive. He slowly cut their reins with
+the knife which he held open in his hand, and a sudden squall coming
+up, the animals fled, frightened at the hail which rattled on the
+sloping roof of the wooden hut and made it shake on its wheels.
+
+The comte then kneeling upright, put his eye to the bottom of the door
+and looked inside. He did not stir; he seemed to be waiting.
+
+A little time elapsed and then he suddenly rose to his feet, covered
+with mud from head to foot. He frantically pushed back the bolt which
+closed the hut on the outside, and seizing the shafts, he began to
+shake the hut as though he would break it to pieces. Then all at once
+he got between the shafts, bending his huge frame, and with a
+desperate effort dragged it along like an ox, panting as he went. He
+dragged it, with whoever was in it, toward the steep incline.
+
+Those inside screamed and banged with their fists on the door, not
+understanding what was going on.
+
+When he reached the top of the cliff he let go the fragile dwelling,
+which began to roll down the incline, going ever faster and faster,
+plunging, stumbling like an animal and striking the ground with its
+shafts.
+
+An old beggar hidden in a ditch saw it flying over his head and heard
+frightful screams coming from the wooden box.
+
+All at once a wheel was wrenched off and it fell on its side and began
+to roll like a ball, as a house torn from its foundations might roll
+from the summit of a mountain. Then, reaching the ledge of the last
+ravine, it described a circle, and, falling to the bottom, burst open
+as an egg might do. It was no sooner smashed on the stones than the
+old beggar, who had seen it going past, went down toward it slowly
+amid the rushes, and with the customary caution of a peasant, not
+daring to go directly to the shattered hut, he went to the nearest
+farm to tell of the accident.
+
+They all ran to look at it and raised the wreck of the hut. They found
+two bodies, bruised, crushed and bleeding. The man's forehead was
+split open and his whole face crushed; the woman's jaw was hanging,
+dislocated in one of the jolts, and their shattered limbs were soft as
+pulp.
+
+"What were they doing in that shanty?" said a woman.
+
+The old beggar then said that they had apparently taken refuge in it
+to get out of the storm and that a furious squall must have blown the
+hut over the cliff. He said he had intended to take shelter there
+himself, when he saw the horses tied to it, and understood that some
+one else must be inside. "But for that," he added in a satisfied tone,
+"I might have rolled down in it." Some one remarked: "Would not that
+have been a good thing?"
+
+The old man, in a furious rage, said: "Why would it have been a good
+thing? Because I am poor and they are rich! Look at them now." And
+trembling, ragged and dripping with rain, he pointed to the two dead
+bodies with his hooked stick and exclaimed: "We are all alike when we
+get to this."
+
+The comte, as soon as he saw the hut rolling down the steep slope, ran
+off at full speed through the blinding storm. He ran in this way for
+several hours, taking short cuts, leaping across ditches, breaking
+through the hedges, and thus got back home at dusk, not knowing how
+himself.
+
+The frightened servants were awaiting his return and told him that the
+two horses had returned riderless some little time before, that of
+Julien following the other one.
+
+Then M. de Fourville reeled and in a choked voice said: "Something
+must have happened to them in this dreadful weather. Let every one
+help to look for them."
+
+He started off himself, but he was no sooner out of sight than he
+concealed himself in a clump of bushes, watching the road along which
+she whom he even still loved with an almost savage passion was to
+return dead, dying or maybe crippled and disfigured forever.
+
+And soon a carriole passed by carrying a strange burden.
+
+It stopped at the chateau and passed through the gate. It was that, it
+was she. But a fearful anguish nailed him to the spot, a fear to know
+the worst, a dread of the truth, and he did not stir, hiding as a
+hare, starting at the least sound.
+
+He waited thus an hour, two hours perhaps. The buggy did not come out.
+He concluded that his wife was expiring, and the thought of seeing
+her, of meeting her gaze filled him with so much horror that he
+suddenly feared to be discovered in his hiding place and of being
+compelled to return and be present at this agony, and he then fled
+into the thick of the wood. Then all of a sudden it occurred to him
+that she perhaps might be needing his care, that no one probably could
+properly attend to her. Then he returned on his tracks, running
+breathlessly.
+
+On entering the chateau he met the gardener and called out to him,
+"Well?" The man did not dare answer him. Then M. de Fourville almost
+roared at him: "Is she dead?" and the servant stammered: "Yes, M. le
+Comte."
+
+He experienced a feeling of immense relief. His blood seemed to cool
+and his nerves relax somewhat of their extreme tension, and he walked
+firmly up the steps of his great hallway.
+
+The other wagon had reached "The Poplars." Jeanne saw it from afar.
+She descried the mattress; she guessed that a human form was lying
+upon it, and understood all. Her emotion was so vivid that she swooned
+and fell prostrate.
+
+When she regained consciousness her father was holding her head and
+bathing her temples with vinegar. He said hesitatingly: "Do you know?"
+She murmured: "Yes, father." But when she attempted to rise she found
+herself unable to do so, so intense was her agony.
+
+That very night she gave birth to a stillborn infant, a girl.
+
+Jeanne saw nothing of the funeral of Julien; she knew nothing of it.
+She merely noticed at the end of a day or two that Aunt Lison was
+back, and in her feverish dreams which haunted her she persistently
+sought to recall when the old maiden lady had left "The Poplars," at
+what period and under what circumstances. She could not make this out,
+even in her lucid moments, but she was certain of having seen her
+subsequent to the death of "little mother."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAUL
+
+Jeanne did not leave her room for three months and was so wan and pale
+that no one thought she would recover. But she picked up by degrees.
+Little father and Aunt Lison never left her; they had both taken up
+their abode at "The Poplars." The shock of Julien's death had left her
+with a nervous malady. The slightest sound made her faint and she had
+long swoons from the most insignificant causes.
+
+She had never asked the details of Julien's death. What did it matter
+to her? Did she not know enough already? Every one thought it was an
+accident, but she knew better, and she kept to herself this secret
+which tortured her: the knowledge of his infidelity and the
+remembrance of the abrupt and terrible visit of the comte on the day
+of the catastrophe.
+
+And now she was filled with tender, sweet and melancholy recollections
+of the brief evidences of love shown her by her husband. She
+constantly thrilled at unexpected memories of him, and she seemed to
+see him as he was when they were betrothed and as she had known him in
+the hours passed beneath the sunlight in Corsica. All his faults
+diminished, all his harshness vanished, his very infidelities appeared
+less glaring in the widening separation of the closed tomb. And
+Jeanne, pervaded by a sort of posthumous gratitude for this man who
+had held her in his arms, forgave all the suffering he had caused her,
+to remember only moments of happiness they had passed together. Then,
+as time went on and month followed month, covering all her grief and
+reminiscences with forgetfulness, she devoted herself entirely to her
+son.
+
+He became the idol, the one thought of the three beings who surrounded
+him, and he ruled as a despot. A kind of jealousy even arose among his
+slaves. Jeanne watched with anxiety the great kisses he gave his
+grandfather after a ride on his knee, and Aunt Lison, neglected by him
+as she had been by every one else and treated often like a servant by
+this little tyrant who could scarcely speak as yet, would go to her
+room and weep as she compared the slight affection he showed her with
+the kisses he gave his mother and the baron.
+
+Two years passed quietly, and at the beginning of the third winter it
+was decided that they should go to Rouen to live until spring, and the
+whole family set out. But on their arrival in the old damp house, that
+had been shut up for some time, Paul had such a severe attack of
+bronchitis that his three relatives in despair declared that he could
+not do without the air of "The Poplars." They took him back there and
+he got well.
+
+Then began a series of quiet, monotonous years. Always around the
+little one, they went into raptures at everything he did. His mother
+called him Poulet, and as he could not pronounce the word, he said
+"Pol," which amused them immensely, and the nickname of "Poulet" stuck
+to him.
+
+The favorite occupation of his "three mothers," as the baron called
+his relatives, was to see how much he had grown, and for this purpose
+they made little notches in the casing of the drawing-room door,
+showing his progress from month to month. This ladder was called
+"Poulet's ladder," and was an important affair.
+
+A new individual began to play a part in the affairs of the
+household--the dog "Massacre," who became Paul's inseparable
+companion.
+
+Rare visits were exchanged with the Brisevilles and the Couteliers.
+The mayor and the doctor alone were regular visitors. Since the
+episode of the mother dog and the suspicion Jeanne had entertained of
+the priest on the occasion of the terrible death of the comtesse and
+Julien, Jeanne had not entered the church, angry with a divinity that
+could tolerate such ministers.
+
+The church was deserted and the priest came to be looked on as a
+sorcerer because he had, so they said, driven out an evil spirit from
+a woman who was possessed, and although fearing him the peasants came
+to respect him for this occult power as well as for the unimpeachable
+austerity of his life.
+
+When he met Jeanne he never spoke. This condition of affairs
+distressed Aunt Lison, and when she was alone, quite alone with Paul,
+she talked to him about God, telling him the wonderful stories of the
+early history of the world. But when she told him that he must love
+Him very much, the child would say: "Where is He, auntie?" "Up there,"
+she would say, pointing to the sky; "up there, Poulet, but do not say
+so." She was afraid of the baron.
+
+One day, however, Poulet said to her: "God is everywhere, but He is
+not in church." He had told his grandfather of his aunt's wonderful
+revelations.
+
+When Paul was twelve years old a great difficulty arose on the subject
+of his first communion.
+
+Lison came to Jeanne one morning and told her that the little fellow
+should no longer be kept without religious instruction and from his
+religious duties. His mother, troubled and undecided, hesitated,
+saying that there was time enough. But a month later, as she was
+returning a call at the Brisevilles', the comtesse asked her casually
+if Paul was going to make his first communion that year. Jeanne,
+unprepared for this, answered, "Yes," and this simple word decided
+her, and without saying a word to her father, she asked Aunt Lison to
+take the boy to the catechism class.
+
+All went well for a month, but one day Paul came home with a
+hoarseness and the following day he coughed. On inquiry his mother
+learned that the priest had sent him to wait till the lesson was over
+at the door of the church, where there was a draught, because he had
+misbehaved. So she kept him at home and taught him herself. But the
+Abbe Tobiac, despite Aunt Lison's entreaties, refused to admit him as
+a communicant on the ground that he was not thoroughly taught.
+
+The same thing occurred the following year, and the baron angrily
+swore that the child did not need to believe all that tomfoolery, so
+it was decided that he should be brought up as a Christian, but not as
+an active Catholic, and when he came of age he could believe as he
+pleased.
+
+The Brisevilles ceased to call on her and Jeanne was surprised,
+knowing the punctiliousness of these neighbors in returning calls, but
+the Marquise de Coutelier haughtily told her the reason. Considering
+herself, in virtue of her husband's rank and fortune, a sort of queen
+of the Norman nobility, the marquise ruled as a queen, said what she
+thought, was gracious or the reverse as occasion demanded,
+admonishing, restoring to favor, congratulating whenever she saw fit.
+So when Jeanne came to see her, this lady, after a few chilling
+remarks, said drily: "Society is divided into two classes: those who
+believe in God and those who do not believe in Him. The former, even
+the humblest, are our friends, our equals; the latter are nothing to
+us."
+
+Jeanne, perceiving the insinuation, replied: "But may one not believe
+in God without going to church?"
+
+"No, madame," answered the marquise. "The faithful go to worship God
+in His church, just as one goes to see people in their homes."
+
+Jeanne, hurt, replied: "God is everywhere, madame. As for me, who
+believes from the bottom of my heart in His goodness, I no longer feel
+His presence when certain priests come between Him and me."
+
+The marquise rose. "The priest is the standard bearer of the Church,
+madame. Whoever does not follow the standard is opposed to Him and
+opposed to us."
+
+Jeanne had risen in her turn and said, trembling: "You believe,
+madame, in a partisan God. I believe in the God of upright people."
+She bowed and took her leave.
+
+The peasants also blamed her among themselves for not having let
+Poulet make his first communion. They themselves never attended
+service or took the sacrament unless it might be at Easter, according
+to the rule ordained by the Church; but for boys it was quite another
+thing, and they would have all shrunk in horror at the audacity of
+bringing up a child outside this recognized law, for religion is
+religion.
+
+She saw how they felt and was indignant at heart at all these
+discriminations, all these compromises with conscience, this general
+fear of everything, the real cowardice of all hearts and the mask of
+respectability assumed in public.
+
+The baron took charge of Paul's studies and made him study Latin, his
+mother merely saying: "Above all things, do not get over tired."
+
+As soon as the boy was at liberty he went down to work in the garden
+with his mother and his aunt.
+
+He now loved to dig in the ground, and all three planted young trees
+in the spring, sowed seed and watched it growing with the deepest
+interest, pruned branches and cut flowers for bouquets.
+
+Poulet was almost fifteen, but was a mere child in intelligence,
+ignorant, silly, suppressed between petticoat government and this kind
+old man who belonged to another century.
+
+One evening the baron spoke of college, and Jeanne at once began to
+sob. Aunt Lison timidly remained in a dark corner.
+
+"Why does he need to know so much?" asked his mother. "We will make a
+gentleman farmer of him. He can cultivate his land, as many of the
+nobility do. He will live and grow old happily in this house, where we
+have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can one do?"
+
+But the baron shook his head. "What would you say to him if he should
+say to you when he is twenty-five: 'I amount to nothing, I know
+nothing, all through your fault, the fault of your maternal
+selfishness. I feel that I am incapable of working, of making
+something of myself, and yet I was not intended for a secluded, simple
+life, lonely enough to kill one, to which I have been condemned by
+your shortsighted affection.'"
+
+She was weeping and said entreatingly: "Tell me, Poulet, you will not
+reproach me for having loved you too well?" And the big boy, in
+surprise, promised that he never would. "Swear it," she said. "Yes,
+mamma." "You want to stay here, don't you?" "Yes, mamma."
+
+Then the baron spoke up loud and decidedly: "Jeanne, you have no right
+to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and
+almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to your own private
+happiness."
+
+She hid her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively, and stammered out
+amid her tears: "I have been so unhappy--so unhappy! Now, just as I am
+living peacefully with him, they want to take him away from me. What
+will become of me now--all by myself?" Her father rose and, sitting
+down beside her, put his arms round her. "And how about me, Jeanne?"
+
+She put her arms suddenly round his neck, gave him a hearty kiss and
+with her voice full of tears, she said: "Yes, you are right perhaps,
+little father. I was foolish, but I have suffered so much. I am quite
+willing he should go to college."
+
+And without knowing exactly what they were going to do with him,
+Poulet in his turn began to weep.
+
+Then the three mothers began to kiss him and pet him and encourage
+him. When they retired to their rooms it was with a weight at their
+hearts, and they all wept, even the baron, who had restrained himself
+up to that.
+
+It was decided that when the term began to put the young boy to school
+at Havre, and during the summer he was petted more than ever; his
+mother sighed often as she thought of the separation. She prepared his
+wardrobe as if he were going to undertake a ten years' voyage. One
+October morning, after a sleepless night, the two women and the baron
+got into the carriage with him and set out on their journey.
+
+They had previously selected his place in the dormitory and his desk
+in the school room. Jeanne, aided by Aunt Lison, spent the whole day
+in arranging his clothes in his little wardrobe. As it did not hold a
+quarter of what they had brought, she went to look for the
+superintendent to ask for another. The treasurer was called, but he
+pointed out that all that amount of clothing would only be in the way
+and would never be needed, and he refused, on behalf of the directors,
+to let her have another chest of drawers. Jeanne, much annoyed,
+decided to hire a room in a small neighboring hotel, begging the
+proprietor to go himself and take Poulet whatever he required as soon
+as the boy asked for it.
+
+They then took a walk on the pier to look at the ships coming and
+going. They went into a restaurant to dine, but they were none of them
+able to eat, and looked at one another with moistened eyes as the
+dishes were brought on and taken away almost untouched.
+
+They now returned slowly toward the school. Boys of all ages were
+arriving from all quarters, accompanied by their families or by
+servants. Many of them were crying.
+
+Jeanne held Poulet in a long embrace, while Aunt Lison remained in the
+background, her face hidden in her handkerchief. The baron, however,
+who was becoming affected, cut short the adieus by dragging his
+daughter away. They got into the carriage and went back through the
+darkness to "The Poplars," the silence being broken by an occasional
+sob.
+
+Jeanne wept all the following day and on the day after drove to Havre
+in the phaeton. Poulet seemed to have become reconciled to the
+separation. For the first time in his life he now had playmates, and
+in his anxiety to join them he could scarcely sit still on his chair
+when his mother called. She continued her visits to him every other
+day and called to take him home on Sundays. Not knowing what to do
+with herself while school was in session until recreation time, she
+would remain sitting in the reception room, not having the strength or
+the courage to go very far from the school. The superintendent sent to
+ask her to come to his office and begged her not to come so
+frequently. She paid no attention to his request. He therefore
+informed her that if she continued to prevent her son from taking his
+recreation at the usual hours, obliging him to work without a change
+of occupation, they would be forced to send him back home again, and
+the baron was also notified to the same effect. She was consequently
+watched like a prisoner at "The Poplars."
+
+She became restless and worried and would ramble about for whole days
+in the country, accompanied only by Massacre, dreaming as she walked
+along. Sometimes she would remain seated for a whole afternoon,
+looking out at the sea from the top of the cliff; at other times she
+would go down to Yport through the wood, going over the ground of her
+former walks, the memory of which haunted her. How long ago--how long
+ago it was--the time when she had gone over these same paths as a
+young girl, carried away by her dreams.
+
+Poulet was not very industrious at school; he was kept two years in
+the fourth form. The third year's work was only tolerable and he had
+to begin the second over again, so that he was in rhetoric when he was
+twenty.
+
+He was now a big, fair young man, with downy whiskers and a faint sign
+of a mustache. He now came home to "The Poplars" every Sunday, riding
+over in a couple of hours, his mother, Aunt Lison and the baron
+starting out early to go and meet him.
+
+Although he was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him
+as though he were a child, and when he returned to school in the
+evening she would charge him anxiously not to go too fast and to think
+of his poor mother, who would break her heart if anything happened to
+him.
+
+One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul, saying that he
+would not be home on the following day because some friends had
+arranged an excursion and had invited him. She was tormented with
+anxiety all day Sunday, as though she dreaded some misfortune, and on
+Thursday, as she could endure it no longer, she set out for Havre.
+
+He seemed to be changed, though she could not have told in what
+manner. He appeared excited and his voice seemed deeper. And suddenly,
+as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he said: "I
+say, mother, as long as you have come to-day, I want to tell you that
+I will not be at 'The Poplars' next Sunday, for we are going to have
+another excursion."
+
+She was amazed, smothering, as if he had announced his departure for
+America. At last, recovering herself, she said: "Oh, Poulet, what is
+the matter with you? Tell me what is going on."
+
+He began to laugh, and kissing her, replied: "Why, nothing, nothing,
+mamma. I am going to have a good time with my friends; I am just at
+that age."
+
+She had nothing to say, but when she was alone in the carriage all
+manner of ideas came into her mind. She no longer recognized him, her
+Poulet, her little Poulet of former days. She felt for the first time
+that he was grown up, that he no longer belonged to her, that he was
+going to live his life without troubling himself about the old people.
+It seemed to her that one day had wrought this change in him. Was it
+possible that this was her son, her poor little boy who had helped her
+to replant the lettuce, this great big bearded youth who had a will of
+his own!
+
+For three months Paul came home only occasionally, and always seemed
+impatient to get away again, trying to steal off an hour earlier each
+evening. Jeanne was alarmed, but the baron consoled her, saying: "Let
+him alone; the boy is twenty years old."
+
+One morning, however, an old man, poorly dressed, inquired in
+German-French for "Madame la Vicomtesse," and after many ceremonious
+bows, he drew from his pocket a dilapidated pocketbook, saying: "Che un
+betit bapier bour fous," and unfolding as he handed it to her a piece
+of greasy paper. She read and reread it, looked at the Jew, read it
+over again and asked: "What does it mean?"
+
+He obsequiously explained: "I will tell you. Your son needed a little
+money, and as I knew that you are a good mother, I lent him a trifle
+to help him out."
+
+Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not ask me?" The Jew explained
+at length that it was a question of a debt that must be paid before
+noon the following day; that Paul not being of age, no one would have
+lent him anything, and that his "honor would have been compromised"
+without this little service that he had rendered the young man.
+
+Jeanne tried to call the baron, but had not the strength to rise, she
+was so overcome by emotion. At length she said to the usurer: "Would
+you have the kindness to ring the bell?"
+
+He hesitated, fearing some trap, and then stammered out: "If I am
+intruding, I will call again." She shook her head in the negative. He
+then rang, and they waited in silence, sitting opposite each other.
+
+When the baron came in he understood the situation at once. The note
+was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid one thousand, saying close to
+the man's face: "And on no account come back." The other thanked him
+and went his way.
+
+The baron and Jeanne set out at once for Havre. On reaching the
+college they learned that Paul had not been there for a month. The
+principal had received four letters signed by Jeanne saying that his
+pupil was not well and then to tell how he was getting along. Each
+letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate. They were, of
+course, all forged. They were all dumbfounded, and stood there looking
+at each other.
+
+The principal, very much worried, took them to the commissary of
+police. Jeanne and her father stayed at a hotel that night. The
+following day the young man was found in the apartment of a courtesan
+of the town. His grandfather and mother took him back to "The Poplars"
+and not a word was exchanged between them during the whole journey.
+
+A week later they discovered that he had contracted fifteen thousand
+francs' worth of debts within the last three months. His creditors had
+not come forward at first, knowing that he would soon be of age.
+
+They entered into no discussion about it, hoping to win him back by
+gentleness. They gave him dainty food, petted him, spoiled him. It was
+spring and they hired a boat for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne's
+fears, so that he might amuse himself on the water.
+
+They would not let him have a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre.
+
+He was there with nothing to do and became irritable and occasionally
+brutally so. The baron was worried at the discontinuance of his
+studies. Jeanne, distracted at the idea of a separation, asked herself
+what they could do with him.
+
+One evening he did not come home. They learned that he had gone out in
+a boat with two sailors. His mother, beside herself with anxiety, went
+down to Yport without a hat in the dark. Some men were on the beach,
+waiting for the boat to come in. There was a light on board an
+incoming boat, but Paul was not on board. He had made them take him to
+Havre.
+
+The police sought him in vain; he could not be found. The woman with
+whom he had been found the first time had also disappeared without
+leaving any trace; her furniture was sold and her rent paid. In Paul's
+room at "The Poplars" were found two letters from this person, who
+seemed to be madly in love with him. She spoke of a voyage to England,
+having, she said, obtained the necessary funds.
+
+The three dwellers in the chateau lived silently and drearily, their
+minds tortured by all kinds of suppositions. Jeanne's hair, which had
+become gray, now turned perfectly white. She asked in her innocence
+why fate had thus afflicted her.
+
+She received a letter from the Abbe Tolbiac: "Madame, the hand of God
+is weighing heavily on you. You refused Him your child; He took him
+from you in His turn to cast him into the hands of a prostitute. Will
+not you open your eyes at this lesson from Heaven? God's mercy is
+infinite. Perhaps He may pardon you if you return and fall on your
+knees before Him. I am His humble servant. I will open to you the door
+of His dwelling when you come and knock at it."
+
+She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true
+what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment
+her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church
+the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at
+twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abbe,
+begged for absolution.
+
+He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all
+His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. "You will
+soon feel the effects of the divine mercy," he declared.
+
+Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in
+her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement
+of the consolation promised her by the abbe. The letter ran:
+
+"My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in
+very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have
+anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love
+with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave
+me--five thousand francs--and you see that I am bound in honor to
+return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind
+enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa's fortune, for I
+shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious
+difficulties.
+
+"Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also
+grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you soon.
+
+"Your son,
+
+"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
+
+He had written to her! He had not forgotten her then. She did not care
+anything about his asking for money! She would send him some as long
+as he had none. What did money matter? He had written to her! And she
+ran, weeping for joy, to show this letter to the baron. Aunt Lison was
+called and read over word by word this paper that told of him. They
+discussed each sentence.
+
+Jeanne, jumping from the most complete despair to a kind of
+intoxication of hope, took Paul's part. "He will come back, he will
+come back as he has written."
+
+The baron, more calm, said: "All the same he left us for that
+creature, so he must love her better than us, as he did not hesitate
+about it."
+
+A sudden and frightful pang struck Jeanne's heart, and immediately she
+was filled with hatred of this woman who had stolen her son from her,
+an unappeasable, savage hate, the hatred of a jealous mother. Until
+now all her thoughts had been given to Paul. She scarcely took into
+consideration that a girl had been the cause of his vagaries. But the
+baron's words had suddenly brought before her this rival, had revealed
+her fatal power, and she felt that between herself and this woman a
+struggle was about to begin, and she also felt that she would rather
+lose her son than share his affection with another. And all her joy
+was at an end.
+
+They sent him the fifteen thousand francs and heard nothing more from
+him for five months.
+
+Then a business man came to settle the details of Julien's
+inheritance. Jeanne and the baron handed over the accounts without any
+discussion, even giving up the interest that should come to his
+mother. When Paul came back to Paris he had a hundred and twenty
+thousand francs. He then wrote four letters in six months, giving his
+news in concise terms and ending the letters with coldly affectionate
+expressions. "I am working," he said; "I have obtained a position on
+the stock exchange. I hope to go and embrace you at 'The Poplars' some
+day, my dear parents."
+
+He did not mention his companion, and this silence implied more than
+if he had filled four pages with news of her. Jeanne, in these cold
+letters, felt this woman in ambush, the implacable, eternal enemy of
+mothers, the courtesan.
+
+The three lonely beings discussed the best plan to follow in order to
+rescue Paul, but could decide on nothing. A voyage to Paris? What good
+would it do?
+
+"Let his passion exhaust itself. He will come back then of his own
+accord," said the baron.
+
+Some time passed without any further news. But one morning they were
+terrified at the receipt of a despairing letter:
+
+"My Poor Mamma: I am lost. There is nothing left for me to do but to
+blow out my brains unless you come to my aid. A speculation that gave
+every prospect of success has fallen through, and I am eighty-five
+thousand dollars in debt. I shall be dishonored if I do not pay
+up--ruined--and it will henceforth be impossible for me to do
+anything. I am lost. I repeat that I would rather blow out my brains
+than undergo this disgrace. I should have done so already, probably,
+but for the encouragement of a woman of whom I never speak to you,
+and who is my providence.
+
+"I embrace you from the bottom of my heart, my dear mamma--perhaps for
+the last time. Good-by.
+
+"Paul."
+
+A package of business papers accompanying the letter gave the details
+of the failure.
+
+The baron answered by return mail that they would see what could be
+done. Then he set out for Havre to get advice and he mortgaged some
+property to raise the money which was sent to Paul.
+
+The young man wrote three letters full of the most heartfelt thanks
+and passionate affection, saying he was coming home at once to see his
+dear parents.
+
+But he did not come.
+
+A whole year passed. Jeanne and the baron were about to set out for
+Paris to try and make a last effort, when they received a line to say
+that he was in London again, setting an enterprise on foot in
+connection with steamboats under the name of "Paul de Lamare & Co." He
+wrote: "This will give me an assured fortune, and perhaps great
+wealth, and I am risking nothing. You can see at once what a splendid
+thing it is. When I see you again I shall have a fine position in
+society. There is nothing but business these days to help you out of
+difficulties."
+
+Three months later the steamboat company failed and the manager was
+being sought for on account of certain irregularities in business
+methods. Jeanne had a nervous attack that lasted several hours and
+then she took to her bed.
+
+The baron again went to Havre to make inquiries, saw some lawyers,
+some business men, some solicitors and bailiffs and found that the
+liabilities of the De Lamare concern were two hundred and thirty-five
+thousand francs, and he once more mortgaged some property. The chateau
+of "The Poplars" and the two farms and all that went with them were
+mortgaged for a large sum.
+
+One evening as he was arranging the final details in the office of a
+business man, he fell over on the floor with a stroke of apoplexy.
+
+A man was sent on horseback to notify Jeanne, but when she arrived he
+was dead.
+
+She took his body back to "The Poplars," so overcome that her grief
+was numbness rather than despair.
+
+Abbe Tolbiac refused to permit the body to be brought to the church,
+despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was
+interred at twilight without any religious ceremony.
+
+Paul learned of the event through one of the men who was settling up
+his affairs. He was still in hiding in England. He wrote to make
+excuses for not having come home, saying that he had learned of his
+grandfather's death too late. "However, now that you have helped me
+out of my difficulties, my dear mamma, I shall go back to France and
+hope to embrace you soon."
+
+Jeanne was so crushed in spirit that she appeared not to understand
+anything. Toward the end of the winter Aunt Lison, who was now
+sixty-eight, had an attack of bronchitis that developed into pneumonia,
+and she died quietly, murmuring with her last breath: "My poor
+little Jeanne, I will ask God to take pity on you."
+
+Jeanne followed her to the grave, and as the earth fell on her coffin
+she sank to the ground, wishing that she might die also, so as not to
+suffer, to think. A strong peasant woman lifted her up and carried her
+away as if she had been a child.
+
+When she reached the chateau Jeanne, who had spent the last five
+nights at Aunt Lison's bedside, allowed herself to be put to bed
+without resistance by this unknown peasant woman, who handled her with
+gentleness and firmness, and she fell asleep from exhaustion, overcome
+with weariness and suffering.
+
+She awoke about the middle of the night. A night light was burning on
+the mantelpiece. A woman was asleep in her easy chair. Who was this
+woman? She did not recognize her, and leaning over the edge of her
+bed, she sought to examine her features by the dim light of the wick
+floating in oil in a tumbler of water.
+
+It seemed to her that she had seen this face. But when, but where? The
+woman was sleeping peacefully, her head to one side and her cap on the
+floor. She might be about forty or forty-five. She was stout, with a
+high color, squarely built and powerful. Her large hands hung down at
+either side of the chair. Her hair was turning gray. Jeanne looked at
+her fixedly, her mind in the disturbed condition of one awaking from a
+feverish sleep after a great sorrow.
+
+She had certainly seen this face! Was it in former days? Was it of
+late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her
+nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping
+woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up
+in the cemetery and then put her to bed. She remembered this
+confusedly.
+
+But had she met her elsewhere at some other time of her life or did
+she only imagine she recognized her amid the confused recollections of
+the day before? And how did she come to be there in her room and why?
+
+The woman opened her eyes and, seeing Jeanne, she rose to her feet
+suddenly. They stood face to face, so close that they touched one
+another. The stranger said crossly: "What! are you up? You will be
+ill, getting up at this time of night. Go back to bed!"
+
+"Who are you?" asked Jeanne.
+
+But the woman, opening her arms, picked her up and carried her back to
+her bed with the strength of a man. And as she laid her down gently
+and drew the covers over her, she leaned over close to Jeanne and,
+weeping as she did so, she kissed her passionately on the cheeks, her
+hair, her eyes, the tears falling on her face as she stammered out:
+"My poor mistress, Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress, don't you
+recognize me?"
+
+"Rosalie, my girl!" cried Jeanne, throwing her arms round her neck and
+hugging her as she kissed her, and they sobbed together, clasped in
+each other's arms.
+
+Rosalie was the first to regain her calmness. "Come," she said, "you
+must be sensible and not catch cold." And she covered her up warm and
+straightened the pillow under her former mistress' head. The latter
+continued to sob, trembling all over at the recollections that were
+awakened in her mind. She finally inquired: "How did you come back, my
+poor girl?"
+
+"Pardi! do you suppose I was going to leave you all alone like that,
+now?" replied Rosalie.
+
+"Light a candle, so I may see you," said Jeanne. And when the candle
+was brought to the bedside they looked at each other for some time
+without speaking a word. Then Jeanne, holding out her hand to her
+former maid, murmured: "I should not have recognized you, my girl, you
+have changed greatly; did you know it? But not as much as I have." And
+Rosalie, looking at this white-haired woman, thin and faded, whom she
+had left a beautiful and fresh young woman, said: "That is true, you
+have changed, Madame Jeanne, and more than you should. But remember,
+however, that we have not seen each other for twenty-five years."
+
+They were silent, thinking over the past. At length Jeanne said
+hesitatingly: "Have you been happy?"
+
+Rosalie, fearful of awakening certain painful souvenirs, stammered
+out: "Why--yes--yes--madame. I have nothing much to complain of. I
+have been happier than you have--that is sure. There was only one
+thing that always weighed on my heart, and that was that I did not
+stay here--" And she stopped suddenly, sorry she had referred to that
+unintentionally. But Jeanne replied gently: "How could you help it, my
+girl? One cannot always do as they wish. You are a widow now, also,
+are you not?" Then her voice trembled with emotion as she said: "Have
+you other--other children?"
+
+"No, madame."
+
+"And he--your--your boy--what has become of him? Has he turned out
+well?"
+
+"Yes, madame, he is a good boy and works industriously. He has been
+married for six months, and he can take my farm now, since I have come
+back to you."
+
+Jeanne murmured in a trembling voice: "Then you will never leave me
+again, my girl?"
+
+"No, indeed, madame, I have arranged all that."
+
+Jeanne, in spite of herself, began to compare their lives, but without
+any bitterness, for she was now resigned to the unjust cruelty of
+fate. She said: "And your husband, how did he treat you?"
+
+"Oh, he was a good man, madame, and not lazy; he knew how to make
+money. He died of consumption."
+
+Then Jeanne, sitting up in bed, filled with a longing to know more,
+said: "Come, tell me everything, my girl, all about your life. It will
+do me good just now."
+
+Rosalie, drawing up her chair, began to tell about herself, her home,
+her people, entering into those minute details dear to country people,
+describing her yard, laughing at some old recollection that reminded
+her of good times she had had, and raising her voice by degrees like a
+farmer's wife accustomed to command. She ended by saying: "Oh, I am
+well off now. I don't have to worry." Then she became confused again,
+and said in a lower tone: "It is to you that I owe it, anyhow; and you
+know I do not want any wages. No, indeed! No, indeed! And if you will
+not have it so, I will go."
+
+Jeanne replied: "You do not mean that you are going to serve me for
+nothing?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, madame. Money! You give me money! Why, I have almost
+as much as you. Do you know what is left to you will all your jumble
+of mortgages and borrowing, and interests unpaid which are mounting up
+every year? Do you know? No, is it not so? Well, then, I can promise
+you that you have not even ten thousand francs income. Not ten
+thousand, do you understand? But I will settle all that for you, and
+very quickly."
+
+She had begun talking loud again, carried away in her indignation at
+these interests left unpaid, at this threatening ruin. And as a faint,
+tender smile passed over the face of her mistress, she cried in a tone
+of annoyance: "You must not laugh, madame, for without money we are
+nothing but laborers."
+
+Jeanne took hold of her hands and kept them in her own; then she said
+slowly, still full of the idea that haunted her: "Oh, I have had no
+luck. Everything has gone against me. Fate has a grudge against my
+life."
+
+But Rosalie shook her head: "You must not say that, madame. You
+married badly, that's all. One should not marry like that, anyway,
+without knowing anything about one's intended."
+
+And they went on talking about themselves just as two old friends
+might have done.
+
+The sun rose while they were still talking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A NEW HOME
+
+In a week's time Rosalie had taken absolute control of everything and
+everyone in the chateau. Jeanne was quite resigned and obeyed
+passively. Weak and dragging her feet as she walked, as little mother
+had formerly done, she went out walking leaning on Rosalie's arm, the
+latter lecturing her and consoling her with abrupt and tender words as
+they walked slowly along, treating her mistress as though she were a
+sick child.
+
+They always talked of bygone days, Jeanne with tears in her throat,
+and Rosalie in the quiet tone of a phlegmatic peasant. The servant
+kept referring to the subject of unpaid interests; and at last
+requested Jeanne to give her up all the business papers that Jeanne,
+in her ignorance of money matters, was hiding from her, out of
+consideration for her son.
+
+After that, for a week, Rosalie went to Fecamp every day to have
+matters explained to her by a lawyer whom she knew.
+
+One evening, after having put her mistress to bed, she sat down by the
+bedside and said abruptly: "Now that you are settled quietly, madame,
+we will have a chat." And she told her exactly how matters stood.
+
+When everything was settled, there would be about seven thousand
+francs of income left, no more.
+
+"We cannot help it, my girl," said Jeanne. "I feel that I shall not
+make old bones, and there will be quite enough for me."
+
+But Rosalie was annoyed: "For you, madame, it might be; but M.
+Paul--will you leave nothing for him?"
+
+Jeanne shuddered. "I beg you not to mention him again. It hurts me too
+much to think about him."
+
+"But I wish to speak about him, because you see you are not brave,
+Madame Jeanne. He does foolish things. Well! what of it? He will not
+do so always; and then he will marry and have children. He will need
+money to bring them up. Pay attention to me: you must sell 'The
+Poplars.'"
+
+Jeanne sprang up in a sitting posture. "Sell 'The Poplars'! Do you
+mean it? Oh, never, never!"
+
+But Rosalie was not disturbed. "I tell you that you will sell the
+place, madame, because it must be done." And then she explained her
+calculations, her plans, her reasons.
+
+Once they had sold "The Poplars" and the two farms belonging to it to
+a buyer whom she had found, they would keep four farms situated at St.
+Leonard, which, free of all mortgage, would bring in an income of
+eight thousand three hundred francs. They would set aside thirteen
+hundred francs a year for repairs and for the upkeep of the property;
+there would then remain seven thousand francs, five thousand of which
+would cover the annual expenditures and the other two thousand would
+be put away for a rainy day.
+
+She added: "All the rest has been squandered; there is an end of it.
+And then I am to keep the key, you understand. As for M. Paul, he will
+have nothing left, nothing; he would take your last sou from you."
+
+Jeanne, who was weeping silently, murmured:
+
+"But if he has nothing to eat?"
+
+"He can come and eat with us if he is hungry. There will always be a
+bed and some stew for him. Do you believe he would have acted as he
+has done if you had not given him a sou in the first place?"
+
+"But he was in debt, he would have been disgraced."
+
+"When you have nothing left, will that prevent him from making fresh
+debts? You have paid his debts, that is all right; but you will not
+pay any more; it is I who am telling you this. Now goodnight, madame."
+
+And she left the room.
+
+Jeanne did not sleep, she was so upset at the idea of selling "The
+Poplars," of going away, of leaving this house to which all her life
+was linked.
+
+When Rosalie came into the room next morning she said to her: "My poor
+girl, I never could make up my mind to go away from here."
+
+But the servant grew angry: "It will have to be, however, madame; the
+lawyer will soon be here with the man who wants to buy the chateau.
+Otherwise, in four years you will not have a rap left."
+
+Jeanne was crushed, and repeated: "I could not do it; I never could."
+
+An hour later the postman brought her a letter from Paul asking for
+ten thousand francs. What should she do? At her wit's end, she
+consulted Rosalie, who threw up her hands, exclaiming: "What was I
+telling you, madame? Ah! You would have been in a nice fix, both of
+you, if I had not come back." And Jeanne, bending to her servant's
+will, wrote as follows to the young man:
+
+"My Dear Son: I can do nothing more for you. You have ruined me; I am
+even obliged to sell 'The Poplars.' But never forget that I shall
+always have a home whenever you want to seek shelter with your old
+mother, to whom you have caused much suffering. Jeanne."
+
+When the notary arrived with M. Jeoffrin, a retired sugar refiner, she
+received them herself, and invited them to look over the chateau.
+
+A month later, she signed a deed of sale, and also bought herself a
+little cottage in the neighborhood of Goderville, on the high road to
+Montiviliers, in the hamlet of Batteville.
+
+Then she walked up and down all alone until evening, in little
+mother's avenue, with a sore heart and troubled mind, bidding
+distracted and sobbing farewells to the landscape, the trees, the
+rustic bench under the plane tree, to all those things she knew so
+well and that seemed to have become part of her vision and her soul,
+the grove, the mound overlooking the plain, where she had so often
+sat, and from where she had seen the Comte de Fourville running toward
+the sea on that terrible day of Julian's death, to an old elm whose
+upper branches were missing, against which she had often leaned, and
+to all this familiar garden spot.
+
+Rosalie came out and took her by the arm to make her come into the
+house.
+
+A tall young peasant of twenty-five was waiting outside the door. He
+greeted her in a friendly manner as if he had known her for some time:
+"Good-morning, Madame Jeanne. I hope you are well. Mother told me to
+come and help you move. I would like to know what you are going to
+take away, seeing that I shall do it from time to time so as not to
+interfere with my farm work."
+
+It was her maid's son, Julien's son, Paul's brother.
+
+She felt as if her heart stopped beating; and yet she would have liked
+to embrace this young fellow.
+
+She looked at him, trying to find some resemblance to her husband or
+to her son. He was ruddy, vigorous, with fair hair and his mother's
+blue eyes. And yet he looked like Julien. In what way? How? She could
+not have told, but there was something like him in the whole makeup of
+his face.
+
+The young man resumed: "If you could show me at once, I should be much
+obliged."
+
+But she had not yet decided what she was going to take with her, as
+her new home was very small; and she begged him to come back again at
+the end of the week.
+
+She was now entirely occupied with getting ready to move, which
+brought a little variety into her very dreary and hopeless life. She
+went from room to room, picking out the furniture which recalled
+episodes in her life, old friends, as it were, who have a share in our
+life and almost of our being, whom we have known since childhood, and
+to which are linked our happy or sad recollections, dates in our
+history; silent companions of our sad or sombre hours, who have grown
+old and become worn at our side, their covers torn in places, their
+joints shaky, their color faded.
+
+She selected them, one by one, sometimes hesitating and troubled, as
+if she were taking some important step, changing her mind every
+instant, weighing the merits of two easy chairs or of some old
+writing-desk and an old work table.
+
+She opened the drawers, sought to recall things; then, when she had
+said to herself, "Yes, I will take this," the article was taken down
+into the dining-room.
+
+She wished to keep all the furniture of her room, her bed, her
+tapestries, her clock, everything.
+
+She took away some of the parlor chairs, those that she had loved as a
+little child; the fox and the stork, the fox and the crow, the ant and
+the grasshopper, and the melancholy heron.
+
+Then, while wandering about in all the corners of this dwelling she
+was going to forsake, she went one day up into the loft, where she was
+filled with amazement; it was a chaos of articles of every kind, some
+broken, others tarnished only, others taken up there for no special
+reason probably, except that they were tired of them or that they had
+been replaced by others. She saw numberless knick-knacks that she
+remembered, and that had disappeared suddenly, trifles that she had
+handled, those old little insignificant articles that she had seen
+every day without noticing, but which now, discovered in this loft,
+assumed an importance as of forgotten relics, of friends that she had
+found again.
+
+She went from one to the other of them with a little pang, saying:
+"Why, it was I who broke that china cup a few evenings before my
+wedding. Ah! there is mother's little lantern and a cane that little
+father broke in trying to open the gate when the wood was swollen with
+the rain."
+
+There were also a number of things that she did not remember that had
+belonged to her grandparents or to their parents, dusty things that
+appeared to be exiled in a period that is not their own, and that
+looked sad at their abandonment, and whose history, whose experiences
+no one knows, for they never saw those who chose them, bought them,
+owned them, and loved them; never knew the hands that had touched them
+familiarly, and the eyes that looked at them with delight.
+
+Jeanne examined carefully three-legged chairs to see if they recalled
+any memories, a copper warming pan, a damaged foot stove that she
+thought she remembered, and a number of housekeeping utensils unfit
+for use.
+
+She then put together all the things she wished to take, and going
+downstairs, sent Rosalie up to get them. The servant indignantly
+refused to bring down "that rubbish." But Jeanne, who had not much
+will left, held her own this time, and had to be obeyed.
+
+One morning the young farmer, Julien's son, Denis Lecoq, came with his
+wagon for the first load. Rosalie went back with him in order to
+superintend the unloading and placing of furniture where it was to
+stand.
+
+Rosalie had come back and was waiting for Jeanne, who had been out on
+the cliff. She was enchanted with the new house, declaring it was much
+more cheerful than this old box of a building, which was not even on
+the side of the road.
+
+Jeanne wept all the evening.
+
+Ever since they heard that the chateau was sold, the farmers were not
+more civil to her than necessary, calling her among themselves "the
+crazy woman," without knowing exactly why, but doubtless because they
+guessed with their animal instinct at her morbid and increasing
+sentimentality, at all the disturbance of her poor mind that had
+undergone so much sorrow.
+
+The night before they left she chanced to go into the stable. A growl
+made her start. It was Massacre, whom she had hardly thought of for
+months. Blind and paralyzed, having reached a great age for an animal,
+he existed in a straw bed, taken care of by Ludivine, who never forgot
+him. She took him in her arms, kissed him, and carried him into the
+house. As big as a barrel, he could scarcely carry himself along on
+his stiff legs, and he barked like the wooden dogs that one gives to
+children.
+
+The day of departure finally came. Jeanne had slept in Julien's old
+room, as hers was dismantled. She got up exhausted and short of breath
+as if she had been running. The carriage containing the trunks and the
+rest of the furniture was in the yard ready to start. Another
+two-wheeled vehicle was to take Jeanne and the servant. Old Simon and
+Ludivine were to stay until the arrival of a new proprietor, and then
+to go to some of their relations, Jeanne having provided a little
+income for them. They had also saved up some money, and being now very
+old and garrulous, they were not of much use in the house. Marius had
+long since married and left.
+
+About eight o'clock it began to rain, a fine icy rain, driven by a
+light breeze. On the kitchen table, some cups of cafe au lait were
+steaming. Jeanne sat down and sipped hers, then rising, she said,
+"Come along."
+
+She put on her hat and shawl, and while Rosalie was putting on her
+overshoes, she said in a choking voice: "Do you remember, my girl, how
+it rained when we left Rouen to come here?"
+
+As she said this, she put her two hands to her breast and fell over on
+her back, unconscious. She remained thus over an hour, apparently
+dead. Then she opened her eyes and was seized with convulsions
+accompanied by floods of tears.
+
+When she was a little calmer she was so weak that she could not stand
+up, and Rosalie, fearing another attack if they delayed their
+departure, went to look for her son. They took her up and carried her
+to the carriage, placed her on the wooden bench covered with leather;
+and the old servant got in beside her, wrapped her up with a big
+cloak, and holding an umbrella over her head, cried: "Quick, Denis,
+let us be off." The young man climbed up beside his mother and whipped
+up the horse, whose jerky pace made the two women bounce about
+vigorously.
+
+As they turned the corner to enter the village, they saw some one
+stalking along the road; it was Abbe Tolbiac, who seemed to be
+watching for them to go by. He stopped to let the carriage pass. He
+was holding up his cassock with one hand, to keep it out of the mud,
+and his thin legs, encased in black stockings, ended in a pair of
+enormous muddy shoes.
+
+Jeanne lowered her eyes so as not to meet his glance, and Rosalie, who
+had heard all about him, flew into a rage. "Peasant! Peasant!" she
+murmured; and then seizing her son's hand: "Give him a good slash with
+the whip."
+
+But the young man, just as they were passing the priest, made the
+wheel of the wagon, which was going at full speed, sink into a rut,
+splashing the abbe with mud from head to foot.
+
+Rosalie was delighted and turned round to shake her fist at him, while
+the priest was wiping off the mud with his big handkerchief.
+
+All at once Jeanne exclaimed: "We have forgotten Massacre!" They
+stopped, and, getting down, Denis ran to fetch the dog, while Rosalie
+held the reins. He presently reappeared, carrying in his arms the
+shapeless and crippled animal, which he placed at the feet of the two
+women.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+JEANNE IN PARIS
+
+Two hours later the carriage stopped at a little brick house built in
+the middle of a lot planted with pear trees at the side of the high
+road.
+
+Four trellised arbors covered with honeysuckle and clematis formed the
+four corners of the garden, which was divided into little beds of
+vegetables separated by narrow paths bordered with fruit trees.
+
+A very high box hedge enclosed the whole property, which was separated
+by a field from the neighboring farm. There was a blacksmith's shop
+about a hundred feet further along the road. There were no other
+houses within three-quarters of a mile.
+
+The house commanded a view of the level district of Caux, covered with
+farms surrounded by their four double rows of tall trees which
+enclosed the courtyard planted with apple trees.
+
+As soon as they reached the house, Jeanne wanted to rest; but Rosalie
+would not allow her to do so for fear she would begin to think of the
+past.
+
+The carpenter from Goderville was there, and they began at once to
+place the furniture that had already arrived while waiting for the
+last load. This required a good deal of thought and planning.
+
+At the end of an hour the wagon appeared at the gate and had to be
+unloaded in the rain. When night fell the house was in utter disorder,
+with things piled up anyhow. Jeanne, tired out, fell asleep as soon as
+she got into bed.
+
+She had no time to mourn for some days, as there was so much to be
+done. She even took a certain pleasure in making her new house look
+pretty, the thought that her son would come back there haunting her
+continually. The tapestries from her old room were hung in the
+dining-room, which also had to serve as a parlor; and she took special
+pains with one of the two rooms on the first floor, which she thought
+of as "Poulet's room."
+
+She kept the other room herself, Rosalie sleeping above, next to the
+loft. The little house, furnished with care, was very pretty, and
+Jeanne was happy there at first, although she seemed to lack
+something, but she did not know what.
+
+One morning the lawyer's clerk from Fecamp brought her three thousand
+six hundred francs, the price of the furniture left at "The Poplars,"
+and valued by an upholsterer. She had a little thrill of pleasure at
+receiving this money, and as soon as the man had gone, she ran to put
+on her hat, so as to get to Goderville as quickly as possible to send
+Paul this unexpected sum.
+
+But as she was hurrying along the high road she met Rosalie coming
+from market. The servant suspected something, without at once guessing
+the facts; and when she discovered them, for Jeanne could hide nothing
+from her, she placed her basket on the ground that she might get angry
+with more comfort.
+
+She began to scold with her fists on her hips; then taking hold of her
+mistress with her right arm and taking her basket in her left, and
+still fuming, she continued on her way to the house.
+
+As soon as they were in the house the servant asked to have the money
+handed over to her. Jeanne gave all but six hundred francs, which she
+held back; but Rosalie soon saw through her tricks, and she was
+obliged to hand it all over. However, she consented to her sending
+this amount to the young man.
+
+A few days later he wrote: "You have rendered me a great service, my
+dear mother, for we were in the greatest distress."
+
+Jeanne, however, could not get accustomed to Batteville. It seemed to
+her as if she could not breathe as she did formerly, that she was more
+lonely, more deserted, more lost than ever. She went out for a walk,
+got as far as the hamlet of Verneuil, came back by the Trois-Mares,
+came home, then suddenly wanted to start out again, as if she had
+forgotten to go to the very place she intended.
+
+And every day she did the same thing without knowing why. But one
+evening a thought came to her unconsciously which revealed to her the
+secret of her restlessness. She said as she was sitting down to
+dinner: "Oh, how I long to see the sea!"
+
+That was what she had missed so greatly, the sea, her big neighbor for
+twenty-five years, the sea with its salt air, its rages, its scolding
+voice, its strong breezes, the sea which she sought from her window at
+"The Poplars" every morning, whose air she breathed day and night, the
+sea which she felt close to her, which she had taken to loving
+unconsciously as she would a person.
+
+Winter was approaching, and Jeanne felt herself overcome by an
+unconquerable discouragement. It was not one of those acute griefs
+which seemed to wring the heart, but a dreary, mournful sadness.
+
+Nothing roused her. No one paid any attention to her. The high road
+before her door stretched to right and left with hardly any passersby.
+Occasionally a dogcart passed rapidly, driven by a red-faced man, with
+his blouse puffed out by the wind, making a sort of blue balloon;
+sometimes a slow-moving wagon, or else two peasants, a man and a
+woman, who came near, passed by, and disappeared in the distance.
+
+As soon as the grass began to grow again, a young girl in a short
+skirt passed by the gate every morning with two thin cows who browsed
+along the side of the road. She came back every evening with the same
+sleepy face, making a step every ten minutes as she walked behind the
+animals.
+
+Jeanne dreamed every night that she was still at "The Poplars." She
+seemed to be there with father and little mother, and sometimes even
+with Aunt Lison. She did over again things forgotten and done with,
+thought she was supporting Madame Adelaide in her walk along the
+avenue. And each awakening was attended with tears.
+
+She thought continually of Paul, wondering what he was doing--how he
+was--whether he sometimes thought of her. As she walked slowly in the
+by-roads between the farms, she thought over all these things which
+tormented her, but above all else, she cherished an intense jealousy
+of the woman who had stolen her son from her. It was this hatred alone
+which prevented her from taking any steps, from going to look for him,
+to see him. It seemed to her that she saw that woman standing on the
+doorsill asking: "What do you want here, madame?" Her mother's pride
+revolted at the possibility of such a meeting. And her haughty pride
+of a good woman whose character is blameless made her all the more
+indignant at the cowardice of a man subjugated by an unworthy passion.
+
+When autumn returned with its long rains, its gray sky, its dark
+clouds, such a weariness of this kind of life came over her that she
+determined to make a great effort to get her Poulet back; he must have
+got over his infatuation by this time.
+
+She wrote him an imploring letter:
+
+"My Dear Child: I am going to entreat you to come back to me. Remember
+that I am old and delicate, all alone the whole year round except for
+a servant maid. I am now living in a little house on the main road. It
+is very lonely, but if you were here all would be different for me. I
+have only you in the world, and I have not seen you for seven years!
+You were my life, my dream, my only hope, my one love, and you failed
+me, you deserted me!
+
+"Oh, come back, my little Poulet--come and embrace me. Come back to
+your old mother, who holds out her despairing arms towards you.
+
+"Jeanne."
+
+He replied a few days later:
+
+"My Dear Mother: I would ask nothing better than to go and see you,
+but I have not a penny. Send me some money and I will come. I wanted,
+in any case, to see you to talk to you about a plan that would make it
+possible for me to do as you ask.
+
+"The disinterestedness and love of the one who has been my companion
+in the dark days through which I have passed can never be forgotten by
+me. It is not possible for me to remain any longer without publicly
+recognizing her love and her faithful devotion. She has very pleasing
+manners, which you would appreciate. She is also educated and reads a
+good deal. In fact, you cannot understand what she has been to me. I
+should be a brute if I did not show her my gratitude. I am going,
+therefore, to ask you to give me your permission to marry her. You
+will forgive all my follies and we will all live together in your new
+house.
+
+"If you knew her you would at once give your consent. I can assure you
+that she is perfect and very distingue. You will love her, I am sure.
+As for me, I could not live without her.
+
+"I shall expect your reply with impatience, my dear mother, and we
+both embrace you with all our heart.
+
+"Your son,
+
+"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
+
+Jeanne was crushed. She remained motionless, the letter on her lap,
+seeing through the cunning of this girl who had had such a hold on her
+son for so long, and had not let him come to see her once, biding her
+time until the despairing old mother could no longer resist the desire
+to clasp her son in her arms, and would weaken and grant all they
+asked.
+
+And grief at Paul's persistent preference for this creature wrung her
+heart. She said: "He does not love me. He does not love me."
+
+Rosalie just then entered the room. Jeanne faltered: "He wants to
+marry her now."
+
+The maid was startled. "Oh, madame, you will not allow that. M. Paul
+must not pick up that rubbish."
+
+And Jeanne, overcome with emotion, but indignant, replied: "Never
+that, my girl. And as he will not come here, I am going to see him,
+myself, and we shall see which of us will carry the day."
+
+She wrote at once to Paul to prepare him for her visit, and to arrange
+to meet him elsewhere than in the house inhabited by that baggage.
+
+While awaiting a reply she made her preparations for departure.
+Rosalie began to pack her mistress' clothes in an old trunk, but as
+she was folding a dress, one of those she had worn in the country, she
+exclaimed: "Why, you have nothing to put on your back. I will not
+allow you to go like that. You would be a disgrace to everyone; and
+the Parisian ladies would take you for a servant."
+
+Jeanne let her have her own way, and the two women went together to
+Goderville to choose some material, which was given a dressmaker in
+the village. Then they went to the lawyer, M. Roussel, who spent a
+fortnight in the capital every year, in order to get some information;
+for Jeanne had not been in Paris for twenty-eight years.
+
+He gave them lots of advice on how to avoid being run over, on methods
+of protecting yourself from thieves, advising her to sew her money up
+inside the lining of her coat, and to keep in her pocket only what she
+absolutely needed. He spoke at length about moderate priced
+restaurants, and mentioned two or three patronized by women, and told
+them that they might mention his name at the Hotel Normandie.
+
+Jeanne had never yet seen the railroad, though trains had been running
+between Paris and Havre for six years, and were revolutionizing the
+whole country.
+
+She received no answer from Paul, although she waited a week, then two
+weeks, going every morning to meet the postman, asking him
+hesitatingly: "Is there anything for me, Pere Malandain?" And the man
+always replied in his hoarse voice: "Nothing again, my good lady."
+
+It certainly must be this woman who was keeping Paul from writing.
+
+Jeanne, therefore, determined to set out at once. She wanted to take
+Rosalie with her, but the maid refused for fear of increasing the
+expense of the journey. She did not allow her mistress to take more
+than three hundred francs, saying: "If you need more you can write to
+me and I will go to the lawyer and ask him to send it to you. If I
+give you any more, M. Paul will put it in his pocket."
+
+One December morning Denis Lecoq came for them in his light wagon and
+took them to the station. Jeanne wept as she kissed Rosalie good-by,
+and got into the train. Rosalie was also affected and said: "Good-by,
+madame, bon voyage, and come back soon!"
+
+"Good-by, my girl."
+
+A whistle and the train was off, beginning slowly and gradually going
+with a speed that terrified Jeanne. In her compartment there were two
+gentlemen leaning back in the two corners of the carriage.
+
+She looked at the country as they swept past, the trees, the farms,
+the villages, feeling herself carried into a new life, into a new
+world that was no longer the life of her tranquil youth and of her
+present monotonous existence.
+
+She reached Paris that evening. A commissionaire took her trunk and
+she followed him in great fear, jostled by the crowd and not knowing
+how to make her way amid this mass of moving humanity, almost running
+to keep up with the man for fear of losing sight of him.
+
+On reaching the hotel she said at the desk: "I was recommended here by
+M. Roussel."
+
+The proprietress, an immense woman with a serious face, who was seated
+at the desk, inquired:
+
+"Who is he--M. Roussel?"
+
+Jeanne replied in amazement: "Why, he is the lawyer at Goderville, who
+stops here every year."
+
+"That's very possible," said the big woman, "but I do not know him. Do
+you wish a room?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+A boy took her satchel and led the way upstairs. She felt a pang at
+her heart. Sitting down at a little table she sent for some luncheon,
+as she had eaten nothing since daybreak. As she ate, she was thinking
+sadly of a thousand things, recalling her stay here on the return from
+her wedding journey, and the first indication of Julien's character
+betrayed while they were in Paris. But she was young then, and
+confident and brave. Now she felt old, embarrassed, even timid, weak
+and disturbed at trifles. When she had finished her luncheon she went
+over to the window and looked down on the street filled with people.
+She wished to go out, but was afraid to do so. She would surely get
+lost. She went to bed, but the noise, the feeling of being in a
+strange city, kept her awake. About two o'clock in the morning, just
+as she was dozing off, she heard a woman scream in an adjoining room;
+she sat up in bed and then she thought she heard a man laugh. As
+daylight dawned the thought of Paul came to her, and she dressed
+herself before it was light.
+
+Paul lived in the Rue du Sauvage, in the old town. She wanted to go
+there on foot so as to carry out Rosalie's economical advice. The
+weather was delightful, the air cold enough to make her skin tingle.
+People were hurrying along the sidewalks. She walked as fast as she
+could, according to directions given her, along a street, at the end
+of which she was to turn to the right and then to the left, when she
+would come to a square where she must make fresh inquiries. She did
+not find the square, and went into a baker's to ask her way, and he
+directed her differently. She started off again, went astray, inquired
+her way again, and finally got lost completely.
+
+Half crazy, she now walked at random. She had made up her mind to call
+a cab, when she caught sight of the Seine. She then walked along the
+quays.
+
+After about an hour she found the Rue Sauvage, a sort of dark alley.
+She stopped at a door, so overcome that she could not move.
+
+He was there, in that house--Poulet.
+
+She felt her knees and hands trembling; but at last she entered the
+door, and walking along a passage, saw the janitor's quarters. She
+said, as she held out a piece of money: "Would you go up and tell M.
+Paul de Lamare that an old lady, a friend of his mother's, is
+downstairs, and wishes to see him?"
+
+"He does not live here any longer, madame," replied the janitor.
+
+A shudder went over her. She faltered:
+
+"Oh! Where--where is he living now?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+She grew dizzy as though she were about to fall over, and stood there
+for some moments without being able to speak. At length, with a great
+effort, she collected her senses and murmured:
+
+"How long is it since he left?"
+
+"About two weeks ago. They went off like that, one evening, and never
+came back. They were in debt everywhere in the neighborhood, so you
+can understand that they did not care to leave their address."
+
+Jeanne saw lights before her eyes, flashes of flame, as though a gun
+had been fired off in front of her eyes. But she had one fixed idea in
+her mind, and that sustained her, and kept her outwardly calm and
+rational. She wished to find Poulet and know all about him.
+
+"Then he said nothing when he was going away?"
+
+"Nothing at all; they ran off to escape their debts, that's all."
+
+"But he surely sends someone to get his mail."
+
+"More frequently than I send it. He never got more than ten letters a
+year. I took one up to them, however, two days before they left."
+
+That was probably her letter. She said abruptly: "Listen! I am his
+mother, his own mother, and I have come to look for him. Here are ten
+francs for you. If you can get any news or any particulars about him,
+come and see me at the Hotel Normandie, Rue du Havre, and I will pay
+you well."
+
+"You may count on me, madame," he replied.
+
+She left him and began to walk away without caring whither she went.
+She hurried along as though she were on some important business,
+knocking up against people with packages, crossing the streets without
+paying attention to the approaching vehicles, and being sworn at by
+the drivers, stumbling on the curb of the sidewalk, and tearing along
+straight ahead in utter despair.
+
+All at once she found herself in a garden, and was so tired that she
+sat down on a bench to rest. She stayed there some time apparently,
+weeping without being conscious of it, for passersby stopped to look
+at her. Then she felt very cold, and rose to go on her way; but her
+legs would scarcely carry her, she was so weak and distressed.
+
+She wanted to go into a restaurant and get a cup of bouillon, but a
+sort of shame, of fear, of modesty at her grief being observed held
+her back. She would pause at the door, look in, see all the people
+sitting at table eating, and would turn away, saying: "I will go into
+the next one." But she had not the courage.
+
+Finally she went into a bakery and bought a crescent and ate it as she
+walked along. She was very thirsty, but did not know where to go to
+get something to drink, so did without it.
+
+Presently she found herself in another garden surrounded by arcades.
+She recognized the Palais Royal. Being tired and warm, she sat down
+here for an hour or two.
+
+A crowd of people came in, a well-dressed crowd, chatting, smiling,
+bowing to each other, that happy crowd of beautiful women and wealthy
+men who live only for dress and amusement. Jeanne felt bewildered in
+the midst of this brilliant assemblage, and got up to make her escape.
+But suddenly the thought came to her that she might meet Paul in this
+place; and she began to wander about, looking into the faces, going
+and coming incessantly with her quick step from one end of the garden
+to the other.
+
+People turned round to look at her, others laughed as they pointed her
+out. She noticed it and fled, thinking that they were doubtless amused
+at her appearance and at her dress of green plaid, selected by
+Rosalie, and made according to her ideas by the dressmaker at
+Goderville.
+
+She no longer dared even to ask her way of passersby, but at last she
+ventured to do so and found her way back to the hotel.
+
+The following day she went to the police department to ask them to
+look for her child. They could promise her nothing, but said they
+would do all they could. She wandered about the streets hoping that
+she might come across him. And she felt more alone in this bustling
+crowd, more lost, more wretched than in the lonely country.
+
+That evening when she came back to the hotel she was informed that a
+man had come to see her from M. Paul, and that he would come back
+again the following day. Her heart began to beat violently and she
+never closed her eyes that night. If it should be he! Yes, it
+assuredly was, although she would not have recognized him from the
+description they gave her.
+
+About nine o'clock the following morning there was a knock at the
+door. She cried: "Come in!" ready to throw herself into certain
+outstretched arms. But an unknown person appeared; and while he
+excused himself for disturbing her, and explained his business, which
+was to collect a debt of Paul's, she felt the tears beginning to
+overflow, and wiped them away with her finger before they fell on her
+cheeks.
+
+He had learned of her arrival through the janitor of the Rue Sauvage,
+and as he could not find the young man, he had come to see his mother.
+He handed her a paper, which she took without knowing what she was
+doing and read the figures--ninety francs--which she paid without a
+word.
+
+She did not go out that day.
+
+The next day other creditors came. She gave them all that she had left
+except twenty francs and then wrote to Rosalie to explain matters to
+her.
+
+She passed her days wandering about, waiting for Rosalie's answer, not
+knowing what to do, how to kill the melancholy, interminable hours,
+having no one to whom she could say an affectionate word, no one who
+knew her sorrow. She now longed to return home to her little house at
+the side of the lonely high road. A few days before she thought she
+could not live there, she was so overcome with grief, and now she felt
+that she could never live anywhere else but there where her serious
+character had been formed.
+
+One evening the letter at last came, enclosing two hundred francs.
+Rosalie wrote:
+
+"Madame Jeanne: Come back at once, for I shall not send you any more.
+As for M. Paul, it is I who will go and get him when we know where he
+is.
+
+"With respect, your servant,
+
+"Rosalie."
+
+Jeanne set out for Batteville one very cold, snowy morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
+
+Jeanne never went out now, never stirred about. She rose at the same
+hour every day, looked out at the weather and then went downstairs and
+sat before the parlor fire.
+
+She would remain for days motionless, gazing into the fire, thinking
+of nothing in particular. It would grow dark before she stirred,
+except to put a fresh log on the fire. Rosalie would then bring in the
+lamp and exclaim: "Come, Madame Jeanne, you must stir about or you
+will have no appetite again this evening."
+
+She lived over the past, haunted by memories of her early life and her
+wedding journey down yonder in Corsica. Forgotten landscapes in that
+isle now rose before her in the blaze of the fire, and she recalled
+all the little details, all the little incidents, the faces she had
+seen down there. The head of the guide, Jean Ravoli, haunted her, and
+she sometimes seemed to hear his voice.
+
+Then she remembered the sweet years of Paul's childhood, when they
+planted salad together and when she knelt in the thick grass beside
+Aunt Lison, each trying what they could do to please the child, and
+her lips murmured: "Poulet, my little Poulet," as though she were
+talking to him. Stopping at this word, she would try to trace it,
+letter by letter, in space, sometimes for hours at a time, until she
+became confused and mixed up the letters and formed other words, and
+she became so nervous that she was almost crazy.
+
+She had all the peculiarities of those who live a solitary life. The
+least thing out of its usual place irritated her.
+
+Rosalie often obliged her to walk and took her on the high road, but
+at the end of twenty minutes she declared she could not take another
+step and sat down on the side of the road.
+
+She soon became averse to all movement and stayed in bed as late as
+possible. Since her childhood she had retained one custom, that of
+rising the instant she had drunk her cafe au lait in the morning. But
+now she would lie down again and begin to dream, and as she was daily
+growing more lazy, Rosalie would come and oblige her to get up and
+almost force her to get dressed.
+
+She seemed no longer to have any will power, and each time the maid
+asked her a question or wanted her advice or opinion she would say:
+"Do as you think best, my girl."
+
+She imagined herself pursued by some persistent ill luck and was like
+an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her
+hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer
+before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the
+wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of
+bad luck--I have never had any luck in life."
+
+Then Rosalie would say: "What would you do if you had to work for your
+living, if you were obliged to get up every morning at six o'clock to
+go out to your work? Many people have to do that, nevertheless, and
+when they grow too old they die of want."
+
+Jeanne replied: "Remember that I am all alone; that my son has
+deserted me." And Rosalie would get very angry: "That's another thing!
+Well, how about the sons who are drafted into the army and those who
+go to America?"
+
+America to her was an undefined country, where one went to make a
+fortune and whence one never returned. She continued: "There always
+comes a time when people have to part, for old people and young people
+are not made to live together." And she added fiercely: "Well, what
+would you say if he were dead?"
+
+Jeanne had nothing more to say.
+
+One day in spring she had gone up to the loft to look for something
+and by chance opened a box containing old calendars which had been
+preserved after the manner of some country folks.
+
+She took them up and carried them downstairs. They were of all sizes,
+and she laid them out on the table in the parlor in regular order.
+Suddenly she spied the earliest, the one she had brought with her to
+"The Poplars." She gazed at it for some time, at the days crossed off
+by her the morning she left Rouen, the day after she left the convent,
+and she wept slow, sorrowful tears, the tears of an old woman at sight
+of her wretched life spread out before her on this table.
+
+One morning the maid came into her room earlier than usual, and
+placing the bowl of cafe au lait on the little stand beside her bed,
+she said: "Come, drink it quickly. Denis is waiting for us at the
+door. We are going to 'The Poplars,' for I have something to attend
+to down there."
+
+Jeanne dressed herself with trembling hands, almost fainting at the
+thought of seeing her dear home once more.
+
+The sky was cloudless and the nag, who was inclined to be frisky,
+would suddenly start off at a gallop every now and then. As they
+entered the commune of Etouvent Jeanne's heart beat so that she could
+hardly breathe.
+
+They unharnessed the horse at the Couillard place, and while Rosalie
+and her son were attending to their own affairs, the farmer and his
+wife offered to let Jeanne go over the chateau, as the proprietor was
+away and they had the keys.
+
+She went off alone, and when she reached the side of the chateau from
+which there was a view of the sea she turned round to look. Nothing
+had changed on the outside. When she turned the heavy lock and went
+inside the first thing she did was to go up to her old room, which she
+did not recognize, as it had been newly papered and furnished. But the
+view from the window was the same, and she stood and gazed out at the
+landscape she had so loved.
+
+She then wandered all over the house, walking quietly all alone in
+this silent abode as though it were a cemetery. All her life was
+buried here. She went down to the drawing-room, which was dark with
+its closed shutters. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light
+she recognized some of the old hangings. Two easy chairs were drawn up
+before the fire, as if some one had just left them, and as Jeanne
+stood there, full of old memories, she suddenly seemed to see her
+father and mother sitting there, warming their feet at the fire.
+
+She started back in terror and knocked up against the edge of the
+door, against which she leaned to support herself, still staring at
+the armchairs.
+
+The vision had vanished.
+
+She remained bewildered for some minutes. Then she slowly recovered
+her composure and started to run away, for fear she might become
+insane. She chanced to look at the door against which she had been
+leaning and saw there "Poulet's ladder."
+
+All the little notches were there showing the age and growth of her
+child. Here was the baron's writing, then hers, a little smaller, and
+then Aunt Lison's rather shaky characters. And she seemed to see her
+boy of long ago with his fair hair standing before her, leaning his
+little forehead against the door while they measured his height.
+
+And she kissed the edge of the door in a frenzy of affection.
+
+But some one was calling her outside. It was Rosalie's voice: "Madame
+Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, they are waiting breakfast for you." She went
+out in a dream and understood nothing of what they were saying to her.
+She ate what they gave her, heard them talking, but about what she
+knew not, let them kiss her on the cheeks and kissed them in return
+and then got into the carriage.
+
+When they lost sight of the chateau behind the tall trees she felt a
+wrench at her heart, convinced that she had bid a last farewell to her
+old home.
+
+When they reached Batteville and just as she was going into her new
+house, she saw something white under the door. It was a letter that
+the postman had slipped under the door while she was out. She
+recognized Paul's writing and opened it, trembling with anxiety. He
+wrote:
+
+"My Dear Mother: I have not written sooner because I did not wish you
+to make a useless journey to Paris when it was my place to go and see
+you. I am just now in great sorrow and in great straits. My wife is
+dying after giving birth to a little girl three days ago, and I have
+not one sou. I do not know what to do with the child, whom my
+janitor's wife is bringing up on the bottle as well as she can, but I
+fear I shall lose her. Could you not take charge of it? I absolutely
+do not know what to do, and I have no money to put her out to nurse.
+Answer by return mail.
+
+"Your son, who loves you,
+
+"Paul."
+
+Jeanne sank into a chair and had scarcely strength to call Rosalie.
+When the maid came into the room they read the letter over together
+and then remained silent for some time, face to face.
+
+At last Rosalie said: "I am going to fetch the little one, madame. We
+cannot leave it like that."
+
+"Go, my girl," replied Jeanne.
+
+Then they were silent until the maid said: "Put on your hat, madame,
+and we will go to Goderville to see the lawyer. If she is going to
+die, the other one, M. Paul must marry her for the little one's sake
+later on."
+
+Jeanne, without replying, put on her hat. A deep, inexpressible joy
+filled her heart, a treacherous joy that she sought to hide at any
+cost, one of those things of which one is ashamed, although cherishing
+it in one's soul--her son's sweetheart was going to die.
+
+The lawyer gave the servant minute instructions, making her repeat
+them several times. Then, sure that she could make no mistake, she
+said: "Do not be afraid. I will see to it now."
+
+She set out for Paris that very night.
+
+Jeanne passed two days in such a troubled condition that she could not
+think. The third morning she received merely a line from Rosalie
+saying she would be back on the evening train. That was all.
+
+About three o'clock she drove in a neighbor's light wagon to the
+station at Beuzeville to meet Rosalie.
+
+She stood on the platform, looking at the railroad track as it
+disappeared on the horizon. She looked at the clock. Ten minutes
+still--five minutes still--two minutes more. Then the hour of the
+train's arrival, but it was not in sight. Presently, however, she saw
+a cloud of white smoke and gradually it drew up in the station. She
+looked anxiously and at last perceived Rosalie carrying a sort of
+white bundle in her arms.
+
+She wanted to go over toward her, but her knees seemed to grow weak
+and she was afraid of falling.
+
+But the maid had seen her and came forward with her usual calm manner
+and said: "How do you do, madame? Here I am back again, but not
+without some difficulty."
+
+"Well?" faltered Jeanne.
+
+"Well," answered Rosalie, "she died last night. They were married and
+here is the little girl." And she held out the child, who could not be
+seen under her wraps.
+
+Jeanne took it mechanically and they left the station and got into the
+carriage.
+
+"M. Paul will come as soon as the funeral is over--to-morrow about
+this time, I believe," resumed Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne murmured "Paul" and then was silent.
+
+The wagon drove along rapidly, the peasant clacking his tongue to urge
+on the horse. Jeanne looked straight ahead of her into the clear sky
+through which the swallows darted in curves. Suddenly she felt a
+gentle warmth striking through to her skin; it was the warmth of the
+little being who was asleep on her lap.
+
+Then she was overcome with an intense emotion, and uncovering gently
+the face of the sleeping infant, she raised it to her lips and kissed
+it passionately.
+
+But Rosalie, happy though grumpy, stopped her; "Come, come, Madame
+Jeanne, stop that; you will make it cry."
+
+And then she added, probably in answer to her own thoughts: "Life,
+after all, is not as good or as bad as we believe it to be."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+A VAGABOND
+
+He was a journeyman carpenter, a good workman and a steady fellow,
+twenty-seven years old, but, although the eldest son, Jacques Randel
+had been forced to live on his family for two months, owing to the
+general lack of work. He had walked about seeking work for over a
+month and had left his native town, Ville-Avary, in La Manche, because
+he could find nothing to do and would no longer deprive his family of
+the bread they needed themselves, when he was the strongest of them
+all. His two sisters earned but little as charwomen. He went and
+inquired at the town hall, and the mayor's secretary told him that he
+would find work at the Labor Agency, and so he started, well provided
+with papers and certificates, and carrying another pair of shoes, a
+pair of trousers and a shirt in a blue handkerchief at the end of his
+stick.
+
+And he had walked almost without stopping, day and night, along
+interminable roads, in sun and rain, without ever reaching that
+mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed
+idea that he must only work as a carpenter, but at every carpenter's
+shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on
+account of work being so slack, and, finding himself at the end of his
+resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come
+across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman,
+stonecutter; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells,
+mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for
+a few pence, for he only obtained two or three days' work occasionally
+by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the
+avarice of employers and peasants.
+
+And now for a week he had found nothing, and had no money left, and
+nothing to eat but a piece of bread, thanks to the charity of some
+women from whom he had begged at house doors on the road. It was
+getting dark, and Jacques Randel, jaded, his legs failing him, his
+stomach empty, and with despair in his heart, was walking barefoot on
+the grass by the side of the road, for he was taking care of his last
+pair of shoes, as the other pair had already ceased to exist for a
+long time. It was a Saturday, toward the end of autumn. The heavy gray
+clouds were being driven rapidly through the sky by the gusts of wind
+which whistled among the trees, and one felt that it would rain soon.
+The country was deserted at that hour on the eve of Sunday. Here and
+there in the fields there rose up stacks of wheat straw, like huge
+yellow mushrooms, and the fields looked bare, as they had already been
+sown for the next year.
+
+Randel was hungry, with the hunger of some wild animal, such a hunger
+as drives wolves to attack men. Worn out and weakened with fatigue, he
+took longer strides, so as not to take so many steps, and with heavy
+head, the blood throbbing in his temples, with red eyes and dry mouth,
+he grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing to strike the
+first passerby who might be going home to supper.
+
+He looked at the sides of the road, imagining he saw potatoes dug up
+and lying on the ground before his eyes; if he had found any he would
+have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a
+capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would
+first of all have warmed his cold hands. But it was too late in the
+year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up
+in a field as he had done the day before.
+
+For the last two days he had talked to himself as he quickened his
+steps under the influence of his thoughts. He had never thought much
+hitherto, as he had given all his mind, all his simple faculties to
+his mechanical work. But now fatigue and this desperate search for
+work which he could not get, refusals and rebuffs, nights spent in the
+open air lying on the grass, long fasting, the contempt which he knew
+people with a settled abode felt for a vagabond, and that question
+which he was continually asked, "Why do you not remain at home?"
+distress at not being able to use his strong arms which he felt so
+full of vigor, the recollection of the relations he had left at home
+and who also had not a penny, filled him by degrees with rage, which
+had been accumulating every day, every hour, every minute, and which
+now escaped his lips in spite of himself in short, growling sentences.
+
+As he stumbled over the stones which tripped his bare feet, he
+grumbled: "How wretched! how miserable! A set of hogs--to let a man
+die of hunger--a carpenter--a set of hogs--not two sous--not two
+sous--and now it is raining--a set of hogs!"
+
+He was indignant at the injustice of fate, and cast the blame on men,
+on all men, because nature, that great, blind mother, is unjust, cruel
+and perfidious, and he repeated through his clenched teeth: "A set of
+hogs" as he looked at the thin gray smoke which rose from the roofs,
+for it was the dinner hour. And, without considering that there is
+another injustice which is human, and which is called robbery and
+violence, he felt inclined to go into one of those houses to murder
+the inhabitants and to sit down to table in their stead.
+
+He said to himself: "I have no right to live now, as they are letting
+me die of hunger, and yet I only ask for work--a set of hogs!" And the
+pain in his limbs, the gnawing in his heart rose to his head like
+terrible intoxication, and gave rise to this simple thought in his
+brain: "I have the right to live because I breathe and because the air
+is the common property of everybody. So nobody has the right to leave
+me without bread!"
+
+A fine, thick, icy cold rain was coming down, and he stopped and
+murmured: "Oh, misery! Another month of walking before I get home." He
+was indeed returning home then, for he saw that he should more easily
+find work in his native town, where he was known--and he did not mind
+what he did--than on the highroads, where everybody suspected him. As
+the carpentering business was not prosperous, he would turn day
+laborer, be a mason's hodman, a ditcher, break stones on the road. If
+he only earned a franc a day, that would at any rate buy him something
+to eat.
+
+He tied the remains of his last pocket handkerchief round his neck to
+prevent the cold rain from running down his back and chest, but he
+soon found that it was penetrating the thin material of which his
+clothes were made, and he glanced about him with the agonized look of
+a man who does not know where to hide his body and to rest his head,
+and has no place of shelter in the whole world.
+
+Night came on and wrapped the country in obscurity, and in the
+distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark spot on the grass; it was a cow,
+and so he got over the ditch by the roadside and went up to her
+without exactly knowing what he was doing. When he got close to her
+she raised her great head to him, and he thought: "If I only had a jug
+I could get a little milk." He looked at the cow and the cow looked at
+him, and then, suddenly giving her a kick in the side, he said: "Get
+up!"
+
+The animal got up slowly, letting her heavy udders hang down. Then the
+man lay down on his back between the animal's legs and drank for a
+long time, squeezing her warm, swollen teats, which tasted of the
+cowstall, with both hands, and he drank as long as she gave any milk.
+But the icy rain began to fall more heavily, and he saw no place of
+shelter on the whole of that bare plain. He was cold, and he looked at
+a light which was shining among the trees in the window of a house.
+
+The cow had lain down again heavily, and he sat down by her side and
+stroked her head, grateful for the nourishment she had given him. The
+animal's strong, thick breath, which came out of her nostrils like two
+jets of steam in the evening air, blew on the workman's face, and he
+said: "You are not cold inside there!" He put his hands on her chest
+and under her stomach to find some warmth there, and then the idea
+struck him that he might pass the night beside that large, warm
+animal. So he found a comfortable place and laid his head on her side,
+and then, as he was worn out with fatigue, fell asleep immediately.
+
+He woke up, however, several times, with his back or his stomach half
+frozen, according as he put one or the other against the animal's
+flank. Then he turned over to warm and dry that part of his body which
+had remained exposed to the night air, and soon went soundly to sleep
+again.
+
+The crowing of a cock woke him; the day was breaking, it was no longer
+raining, and the sky was bright. The cow was resting with her muzzle
+on the ground, and he stooped down, resting on his hands, to kiss
+those wide, moist nostrils, and said: "Good-by, my beauty, until next
+time. You are a nice animal. Good-by." Then he put on his shoes and
+went off, and for two hours walked straight before him, always
+following the same road, and then he felt so tired that he sat down on
+the grass. It was broad daylight by that time, and the church bells
+were ringing; men in blue blouses, women in white caps, some on foot,
+some in carts, began to pass along the road, going to the neighboring
+villages to spend Sunday with friends or relations.
+
+A stout peasant came in sight, driving before him a score of
+frightened, bleating sheep, with the help of an active dog. Randel got
+up, and raising his cap, said: "You do not happen to have any work for
+a man who is dying of hunger?" But the other, giving an angry look at
+the vagabond, replied: "I have no work for fellows whom I meet on the
+road."
+
+And the carpenter went back and sat down by the side of the ditch
+again. He waited there for a long time, watching the country people
+pass and looking for a kind, compassionate face before he renewed his
+request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was
+adorned with a gold chain. "I have been looking for work," he said,
+"for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in
+my pocket." But the would-be gentleman replied: "You should have read
+the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village: 'Begging
+is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.' Let me tell you
+that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly
+I shall have you arrested."
+
+Randel, who was getting angry, replied: "Have me arrested if you like;
+I should prefer it, for, at any rate, I should not die of hunger." And
+he went back and sat down by the side of his ditch again, and in about
+a quarter of an hour two gendarmes appeared on the road. They were
+walking slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining
+hats, their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to
+frighten evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance. He knew
+that they were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was
+seized with a sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and
+to have his revenge later.
+
+They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with
+military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the
+goose step; and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have
+noticed him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly,
+and the brigadier came up to him and asked: "What are you doing here?"
+"I am resting," the man replied calmly. "Where do you come from?" "If
+I had to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more
+than an hour." "Where are you going to?" "To Ville-Avary." "Where is
+that?" "In La Manche." "Is that where you belong?" "It is." "Why did
+you leave it?" "To look for work."
+
+The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a
+man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick: "They all say
+that, these scamps. I know all about it." And then he continued: "Have
+you any papers?" "Yes, I have some." "Give them to me."
+
+Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those
+poor, worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave
+them to the soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and
+then, having seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to
+Randel with the dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than
+himself has tricked.
+
+After a few moments' further reflection, he asked him: "Have you any
+money on you?" "No." "None whatever?" "None." "Not even a sou?" "Not
+even a sou!" "How do you live then?" "On what people give me." "Then
+you beg?" And Randel answered resolutely: "Yes, when I can."
+
+Then the gendarme said: "I have caught you on the highroad in the act
+of vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I
+command you to come with me." The carpenter got up and said: "Wherever
+you please." And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even
+before he had received the order to do so, he added: "Well, lock me
+up; that will at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains."
+
+And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be
+seen through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service
+was about to begin when they went through the village. The square was
+full of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal
+pass. He was being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and
+female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with
+hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his
+skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked
+each other whether he had committed murder or robbery. The butcher,
+who was an ex-spahi, declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist
+thought that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning
+passed a bad half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared
+that he was the murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been
+looking for for six months.
+
+In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw
+the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the
+schoolmaster by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so
+here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you
+locked up. Well, brigadier, what is he charged with?"
+
+"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without
+any resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of
+begging, but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are
+all in order."
+
+"Show me his papers," the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread,
+returned them and then said: "Search him." So they searched him, but
+found nothing, and the mayor seemed perplexed, and asked the workman:
+
+"What were you doing on the road this morning?" "I was looking for
+work." "Work? On the highroad?" "How do you expect me to find any if I
+hide in the woods?"
+
+They looked at each other with the hatred of two wild beasts which
+belong to different hostile species, and the magistrate continued: "I
+am going to have you set at liberty, but do not be brought up before
+me again." To which the carpenter replied: "I would rather you locked
+me up; I have had enough running about the country." But the
+magistrate replied severely: "Be silent." And then he said to the two
+gendarmes: "You will conduct this man two hundred yards from the
+village and let him continue his journey."
+
+"At any rate, give me something to eat," the workman said, but the
+other grew indignant: "Have we nothing to do but to feed you? Ah! ah!
+ah! that is rather too much!" But Randel went on firmly: "If you let
+me nearly die of hunger again, you will force me to commit a crime,
+and then, so much the worse for you other fat fellows."
+
+The mayor had risen and he repeated: "Take him away immediately or I
+shall end by getting angry."
+
+The two gendarmes thereupon seized the carpenter by the arms and
+dragged him out. He allowed them to do it without resistance, passed
+through the village again and found himself on the highroad once more;
+and when the men had accompanied him two hundred yards beyond the
+village, the brigadier said: "Now off with you and do not let me catch
+you about here again, for if I do, you will know it."
+
+Randel went off without replying or knowing where he was going. He
+walked on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied
+that he no longer thought of anything. But suddenly, as he was passing
+a small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup
+and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring,
+maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of
+the house like a wild beast.
+
+He said aloud in a grumbling voice: "In Heaven's name! they must give
+me some this time!" And he began to knock at the door vigorously with
+his stick, and as no one came he knocked louder and called out: "Hey!
+hey! you people in there, open the door!" And then, as nothing
+stirred, he went up to the window and pushed it wider open with his
+hand, and the close warm air of the kitchen, full of the smell of hot
+soup, meat and cabbage, escaped into the cold outer air, and with a
+bound the carpenter was in the house. Two places were set at the
+table, and no doubt the proprietors of the house, on going to church,
+had left their dinner on the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef
+and vegetable soup, while there was a loaf of new bread on the
+chimney-piece, between two bottles which seemed full.
+
+Randel seized the bread first of all and broke it with as much
+violence as if he were strangling a man, and then he began to eat
+voraciously, swallowing great mouthfuls quickly. But almost
+immediately the smell of the meat attracted him to the fireplace, and,
+having taken off the lid of the saucepan, he plunged a fork into it
+and brought out a large piece of beef tied with a string. Then he took
+more cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, having
+put it on the table, he sat down before it, cut the meat into four
+pieces, and dined as if he had been at home. When he had eaten nearly
+all the meat, besides a quantity of vegetables, he felt thirsty and
+took one of the bottles off the mantelpiece.
+
+Scarcely had he poured the liquor into his glass when he saw it was
+brandy. So much the better; it was warming and would instill some fire
+into his veins, and that would be all right, after being so cold; and
+he drank some. He certainly enjoyed it, for he had grown unaccustomed
+to it, and he poured himself out another glassful, which he drank
+at two gulps. And then almost immediately he felt quite merry and
+light-hearted from the effects of the alcohol, just as if some great
+happiness filled his heart.
+
+He continued to eat, but more slowly, and dipping his bread into the
+soup. His skin had become burning, and especially his forehead, where
+the veins were throbbing. But suddenly the church bells began to ring.
+Mass was over, and instinct rather than fear, the instinct of
+prudence, which guides all beings and makes them clear-sighted in
+danger, made the carpenter get up. He put the remains of the loaf into
+one pocket and the brandy bottle into the other, and he furtively went
+to the window and looked out into the road. It was still deserted, so
+he jumped out and set off walking again, but instead of following the
+highroad he ran across the fields toward a wood he saw a little way
+off.
+
+He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so
+nimble that he sprang over the enclosure of the fields at a single
+bound, and as soon as he was under the trees he took the bottle out of
+his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as
+he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew
+dim, and his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the
+old popular song:
+
+      _"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
+      To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."_
+
+He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet
+under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels
+as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault,
+got up and began over again. And between each time he began to sing
+again:
+
+      _"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
+      To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."_
+
+Suddenly he found himself above a deep road, and in the road he saw a
+tall girl, a servant, who was returning to the village with two pails
+of milk. He watched, stooping down, and with his eyes as bright as
+those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him, raised her head
+and said: "Was that you singing like that?" He did not reply, however,
+but jumped down into the road, although it was a fall of at least six
+feet and when she saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she
+exclaimed: "Oh! dear, how you frightened me!"
+
+But he did not hear her, for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by
+another requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more
+feverish than alcohol; by the irresistible fury of the man who has
+been deprived of everything for two months, and who is drunk; who is
+young, ardent and inflamed by all the appetites which nature has
+implanted in the vigorous flesh of men.
+
+The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his
+half-open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the
+shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.
+
+She let her two pails fall, and they rolled over noisily, and all the
+milk was spilt, and then she screamed lustily, but it was of no avail
+in that lonely spot.
+
+When she got up the thought of her overturned pails suddenly filled
+her with fury, and, taking off one of her wooden sabots, she threw it
+at the man to break his head if he did not pay her for her milk.
+
+But he, mistaking the reason of this sudden violent attack, somewhat
+sobered, and frightened at what he had done, ran off as fast as he
+could, while she threw stones at him, some of which hit him in the
+back.
+
+He ran for a long time, very long, until he felt more tired than he
+had ever been before. His legs were so weak that they could scarcely
+carry him; all his ideas were confused, he lost recollection of
+everything and could no longer think about anything, and so he sat
+down at the foot of a tree, and in five minutes was fast asleep. He
+was soon awakened, however, by a rough shake, and, on opening his
+eyes, he saw two cocked hats of shiny leather bending over him, and
+the two gendarmes of the morning, who were holding him and binding his
+arms.
+
+"I knew I should catch you again," said the brigadier jeeringly. But
+Randel got up without replying. The two men shook him, quite ready to
+ill treat him if he made a movement, for he was their prey now. He had
+become a jailbird, caught by those hunters of criminals who would not
+let him go again.
+
+"Now, start!" the brigadier said, and they set off. It was late
+afternoon, and the autumn twilight was setting in over the land, and
+in half an hour they reached the village, where every door was open,
+for the people had heard what had happened. Peasants and peasant women
+and girls, excited with anger, as if every man had been robbed and
+every woman attacked, wished to see the wretch brought back, so that
+they might overwhelm him with abuse. They hooted him from the first
+house in the village until they reached the Hotel de Ville, where the
+mayor was waiting for him to be himself avenged on this vagabond, and
+as soon as he saw him approaching he cried:
+
+"Ah! my fine fellow! here we are!" And he rubbed his hands, more
+pleased than he usually was, and continued: "I said so. I said so, the
+moment I saw him in the road."
+
+And then with increased satisfaction:
+
+"Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you dirty blackguard! You will get your
+twenty years, my fine fellow!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE FISHING HOLE
+
+"Cuts and wounds which caused death." Such was the charge upon which
+Leopold Renard, upholsterer, was summoned before the Court of Assizes.
+
+Round him were the principal witnesses, Madame Flameche, widow of the
+victim, and Louis Ladureau, cabinetmaker, and Jean Durdent, plumber.
+
+Near the criminal was his wife, dressed in black, an ugly little
+woman, who looked like a monkey dressed as a lady.
+
+This is how Renard (Leopold) recounted the drama:
+
+"Good heavens, it is a misfortune of which I was the prime victim all
+the time, and with which my will has nothing to do. The facts are
+their own commentary, Monsieur le President. I am an honest man, a
+hard-working man, an upholsterer, living in the same street for the
+last sixteen years, known, liked, respected and esteemed by all, as my
+neighbors can testify, even the porter's wife, who is not amiable
+every day. I am fond of work, I am fond of saving, I like honest men
+and respectable amusements. That is what has ruined me, so much the
+worse for me; but as my will had nothing to do with it, I continue to
+respect myself.
+
+"Every Sunday for the last five years my wife and I have spent the day
+at Passy. We get fresh air, and, besides, we are fond of fishing. Oh!
+we are as fond of it as we are of little onions. Melie inspired me
+with that enthusiasm, the jade, and she is more enthusiastic than I
+am, the scold, seeing that all the mischief in this business is her
+fault, as you will see immediately.
+
+"I am strong and mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me.
+But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin.
+Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that
+she has some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones for
+a man in business. But her character! Just ask about it in the
+neighborhood, and even the porter's wife, who has just sent me about
+my business ... she will tell you something about it.
+
+"Every day she used to find fault with my mild temper: 'I would not
+put up with this! I would not put up with that.' If I had listened
+to her, Monsieur le President, I should have had at least three
+hand-to-hand fights a month...."
+
+Madame Renard interrupted him: "And for good reasons, too; they laugh
+best who laugh last."
+
+He turned toward her frankly: "Well, I can't blame you, since you were
+not the cause of it."
+
+Then, facing the President again, he said:
+
+"I will continue. We used to go to Passy every Saturday evening, so as
+to begin fishing at daybreak the next morning. It is a habit which has
+become second nature with us, as the saying is. Three years ago this
+summer I discovered a place, oh! such a spot. Oh, dear, dear! In the
+shade, eight feet of water at least and perhaps ten, a hole with
+cavities under the bank, a regular nest for fish and a paradise for
+the fisherman. I might look upon that fishing hole as my property,
+Monsieur le President, as I was its Christopher Columbus. Everybody in
+the neighborhood knew it, without making any opposition. They would
+say: 'That is Renard's place'; and nobody would have gone there, not
+even Monsieur Plumeau, who is well known, be it said without any
+offense, for poaching on other people's preserves.
+
+"Well, I returned to this place of which I felt certain, just as if I
+had owned it. I had scarcely got there on Saturday, when I got into
+_Delila_, with my wife. _Delila_ is my Norwegian boat, which
+I had built by Fournaire, and which is light and safe. Well, as I
+said, we got into the boat and we were going to set bait, and for
+setting bait there is none to be compared with me, and they all know
+it. You want to know with what I bait? I cannot answer that question;
+it has nothing to do with the accident. I cannot answer; that is my
+secret. There are more than three hundred people who have asked me; I
+have been offered glasses of brandy and liqueur, fried fish,
+matelotes, to make me tell. But just go and try whether the chub will
+come. Ah! they have tempted my stomach to get at my secret, my recipe.
+Only my wife knows, and she will not tell it any more than I will. Is
+not that so, Melie?"
+
+The president of the court interrupted him.
+
+"Just get to the facts as soon as you can," and the accused continued:
+"I am getting to them, I am getting to them. Well, on Saturday, July
+8, we left by the twenty-five past five train and before dinner we
+went to set bait as usual. The weather promised to keep fine and I
+said to Melie: 'All right for tomorrow.' And she replied: 'It looks
+like it.' We never talk more than that together.
+
+"And then we returned to dinner. I was happy and thirsty, and that was
+the cause of everything. I said to Melie: 'Look here, Melie, it is
+fine weather, suppose I drink a bottle of _Casque a meche_.' That
+is a weak white wine which we have christened so, because if you drink
+too much of it it prevents you from sleeping and takes the place of a
+nightcap. Do you understand me?
+
+"She replied: 'You can do as you please, but you will be ill again and
+will not be able to get up tomorrow.' That was true, sensible and
+prudent, clearsighted, I must confess. Nevertheless I could not
+resist, and I drank my bottle. It all came from that.
+
+"Well, I could not sleep. By Jove! it kept me awake till two o'clock
+in the morning, and then I went to sleep so soundly that I should not
+have heard the angel sounding his trump at the last Judgment.
+
+"In short, my wife woke me at six o'clock and I jumped out of bed,
+hastily put on my trousers and jersey, washed my face and jumped on
+board _Delila_. But it was too late, for when I arrived at my
+hole it was already occupied! Such a thing had never happened to me in
+three years, and it made me feel as if I were being robbed under my
+own eyes. I said to myself: 'Confound it all! confound it!' And then
+my wife began to nag at me. 'Eh! what about your _Casque a
+meche?_ Get along, you drunkard! Are you satisfied, you great
+fool?' I could say nothing, because it was all true, but I landed all
+the same near the spot and tried to profit by what was left. Perhaps
+after all the fellow might catch nothing and go away.
+
+"He was a little thin man in white linen coat and waistcoat and a
+large straw hat, and his wife, a fat woman, doing embroidery, sat
+behind him.
+
+"When she saw us take up our position close to them she murmured: 'Are
+there no other places on the river?' My wife, who was furious,
+replied: 'People who have any manners make inquiries about the habits
+of the neighborhood before occupying reserved spots.'
+
+"As I did not want a fuss, I said to her: 'Hold your tongue, Melie.
+Let them alone, let them alone; we shall see.'
+
+"Well, we fastened _Delila_ under the willows and had landed and
+were fishing side by side, Melie and I, close to the two others. But
+here, monsieur, I must enter into details.
+
+"We had only been there about five minutes when our neighbor's line
+began to jerk twice, thrice, and then he pulled out a chub as thick as
+my thigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, the
+perspiration stood on my forehead and Melie said to me: 'Well, you
+sot, did you see that?'
+
+"Just then Monsieur Bru, the grocer of Poissy, who is fond of gudgeon
+fishing, passed in a boat and called out to me: 'So somebody has taken
+your usual place, Monsieur Renard?' And I replied--: 'Yes, Monsieur
+Bru, there are some people in this world who do not know the rules of
+common politeness.'
+
+"The little man in linen pretended not to hear, nor his fat lump of a
+wife, either."
+
+Here the president interrupted him a second time: "Take care, you are
+insulting the widow, Madame Flameche, who is present."
+
+Renard made his excuses: "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; my
+anger carried me away. Well, not a quarter of an hour had passed when
+the little man caught another chub, and another almost immediately,
+and another five minutes later.
+
+"Tears were in my eyes, and I knew that Madame Renard was boiling with
+rage, for she kept on nagging at me: 'Oh, how horrid! Don't you see
+that he is robbing you of your fish? Do you think that you will catch
+anything? Not even a frog, nothing whatever. Why, my hands are
+tingling, just to think of it.'
+
+"But I said to myself: 'Let us wait until twelve o'clock. Then this
+poacher will go to lunch and I shall get my place again. As for me,
+Monsieur le President, I lunch on that spot every Sunday. We bring our
+provisions in _Delila_. But there! At noon the wretch produced a
+chicken in a newspaper, and while he was eating, he actually caught
+another chub!
+
+"Melie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for our
+heart was not in it.
+
+"Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion. Every Sunday I read
+the _Gil Blas_ in the shade by the side of the water. It is
+Columbine's day, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in
+the _Gil Blas_. I generally put Madame Renard into a rage by
+pretending to know this Columbine. It is not true, for I do not know
+her and have never seen her, but that does not matter. She writes very
+well, and then she says things that are pretty plain for a woman. She
+suits me and there are not many of her sort.
+
+"Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and
+very angry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who
+are present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on
+the other side of the river. We knew each other by sight The little
+man began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with
+vexation and his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we
+will come here always, Desire.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my
+back, and Madame Renard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have
+the blood of a chicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her:
+'Look here, I would rather go away or I shall be doing something
+foolish.'
+
+"And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my
+nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender
+your place! Go, then, Bazaine!'
+
+"I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled
+out a bream. Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then
+my wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see
+her tricks. She said: 'That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing
+that we set the bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us
+back the money we have spent on bait.'
+
+"Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean
+to call us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments
+began to fly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They
+shouted so loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank,
+began to call out by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will
+interfere with your husbands' fishing.'
+
+"The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if
+we had been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on
+the water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the
+same. 'You are a thief! You are nothing better than a tramp! You are a
+regular jade!' and so on and so on. A sailor could not have said more.
+
+"Suddenly I heard a noise behind me and turned round. It was the other
+one, the fat woman, who had attacked my wife with her parasol.
+_Whack, whack!_ Melie got two of them. But she was furious, and
+she hits hard when she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the
+hair and then _thump! thump!_ slaps in the face rained down like
+ripe plums. I should have let them fight it out: women together, men
+together. It does not do to mix the blows. But the little man in the
+linen jacket jumped up like a devil and was going to rush at my wife.
+Ah! no, no, not that, my friend! I caught the gentleman with the end
+of my fist, and _crash! crash!_ One on the nose, the other in the
+stomach. He threw up his arms and legs and fell on his back into the
+river, just into the hole.
+
+"I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le President,
+if I had had time. But, to make matters worse, the fat woman had the
+upper hand and was pounding Melie for all she was worth. I know I
+ought not to have interfered while the man was in the water, but I
+never thought that he would drown and said to myself: 'Bah, it will
+cool him.'
+
+"I therefore ran up to the women to separate them and all I received
+was scratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me
+five minutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragos. When I
+turned round there was nothing to be seen. The water was as smooth as
+a lake and the others yonder kept shouting: 'Fish him out! fish him
+out!' It was all very well to say that, but I cannot swim and still
+less dive.
+
+"At last the man from the dam came and two gentlemen with boathooks,
+but over a quarter of an hour had passed. He was found at the bottom
+of the hole, in eight feet of water, as I have said. There he was, the
+poor little man, in his linen suit! Those are the facts such as I have
+sworn to. I am innocent, on my honor."
+
+The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused
+was acquitted.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE SPASM
+
+The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places.
+The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers
+a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second
+time. The old bathers, the habitues, whose season was almost over,
+glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new
+faces might appear.
+
+This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look
+forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new
+arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.
+We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make
+agreeable acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In
+this life of elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme
+importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself,
+and sociability is the order of the day.
+
+We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see
+people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of
+acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly,
+after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in
+the park where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and
+astonishing merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten
+these new friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.
+
+Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere
+else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very
+quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and
+unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the
+dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the
+memory of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of
+those first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and
+secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of
+that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation
+of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in
+return.
+
+And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are
+all alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the
+appearance of strange faces.
+
+Only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man and a
+woman--father and daughter. They immediately reminded me of some
+of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm,
+the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims
+of fate. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with perfectly
+white hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy;
+and there was in his bearing and in his person that austerity
+peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four
+or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was also very thin, very
+pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out with utter lassitude.
+We meet people like this from time to time, who seem too weak for
+the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to
+walk, to do all that we do every day. She was rather pretty, with a
+transparent, spiritual beauty. And she ate with extreme slowness, as if
+she were almost incapable of moving her arms.
+
+It must have been she, assuredly, who had come to take the waters.
+
+They sat facing me, on the opposite side of the table; and I at once
+noticed that the father had a very singular, nervous twitching.
+
+Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of
+zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and
+after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside
+my head in order not to see it.
+
+I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her
+left hand.
+
+After dinner I went for a stroll in the park of the bathing
+establishment. This led toward the little Auvergnese station of
+Chatel-Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, from
+which flowed so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of
+extinct volcanoes. Over yonder, above our heads, the domes of extinct
+craters lifted their ragged peaks above the rest in the long mountain
+chain. For Chatel-Guyon is situated at the entrance to the land of
+mountain domes.
+
+Beyond it stretches out the region of peaks, and, farther on again,
+the region of precipitous summits.
+
+The "Puy de Dome" is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is
+the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these
+mountain heights.
+
+It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down a shady
+path, listening to the opening strains of the Casino band, which was
+playing on an elevation overlooking the park.
+
+And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my
+direction. I bowed as one bows to one's hotel companions at a watering
+place; and the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me:
+
+"Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short,
+pretty, and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?"
+
+I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the
+little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall,
+craggy, wooded slopes.
+
+They gladly accepted my offer.
+
+And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.
+
+"Oh," he said, "my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is
+unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one
+time the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another
+time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another
+they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean
+malady, that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack,
+is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator
+of the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather
+inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad."
+
+Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his
+hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:
+
+"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves
+somewhat affected?"
+
+He replied calmly:
+
+"Mine? Oh, no--my nerves have always been very steady."
+
+Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on:
+
+"Ah! You were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I
+try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience
+which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually buried
+alive!"
+
+I could only utter, "Ah!" so great were my astonishment and emotion.
+
+He continued:
+
+"Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some
+time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease
+of that organ, and were prepared for the worst.
+
+"One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had
+fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life
+was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid
+her with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the
+cemetery, where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated
+in the very heart of Lorraine.
+
+"I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces,
+rings, all presents which she had received from me, and wearing her
+first ball dress.
+
+"You may easily imagine my state of mind when I re-entered our home.
+She was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many years.
+I found my way to my own apartment in a half-distracted condition,
+utterly exhausted, and sank into my easy-chair, without the capacity
+to think or the strength to move. I was nothing better now than a
+suffering, vibrating machine, a human being who had, as it were, been
+flayed alive; my soul was like an open wound.
+
+"My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her
+coffin, and aided me in preparing her for her last sleep, entered the
+room noiselessly, and asked:
+
+"'Does monsieur want anything?'
+
+"I merely shook my head in reply.
+
+"'Monsieur is wrong,' he urged. 'He will injure his health. Would
+monsieur like me to put him to bed?'
+
+"I answered: 'No, let me alone!'
+
+"And he left the room.
+
+"I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh, what a night, what a
+night! It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the
+wind, the winter wind, an icy wind, a winter hurricane, blew with a
+regular, sinister noise against the windows.
+
+"How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless,
+crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp,
+inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great
+doorbell, the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.
+
+"I started so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous
+sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a vault. I
+turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was just two in
+the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?
+
+"And, abruptly, the bell again rang twice. The servants, without
+doubt, were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle and descended the
+stairs. I was on the point of asking: 'Who is there?'
+
+"Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the heavy
+bolts. My heart was throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the
+door brusquely, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure,
+standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.
+
+"I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering:
+
+"'Who--who--who are you?'
+
+"A voice replied:
+
+"'It is I, father.'
+
+"It was my daughter.
+
+"I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before this
+advancing spectre. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand,
+as if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have
+noticed--that gesture which has remained with me ever since.
+
+"'Do not be afraid, papa,' said the apparition. 'I was not dead.
+Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut one of my fingers; the blood
+began to flow, and that restored me to life.'
+
+"And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.
+
+"I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my
+throat.
+
+"Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still
+so bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome happiness that
+had befallen me, I made her go up to my room and sit down in my
+easy-chair; then I rang excitedly for Prosper to get him to rekindle
+the fire and to bring some wine, and to summon assistance.
+
+"The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp
+of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead.
+
+"It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then
+abandoned my daughter; for he could not efface the traces of the
+theft. He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into
+its place, feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by
+me, as I trusted him absolutely.
+
+"You see, monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was silent.
+
+The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful
+vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by
+the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back
+from the tomb, and this father with his uncanny spasm.
+
+I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I
+only murmured:
+
+"What a horrible thing!"
+
+Then, after a minute's silence, I added:
+
+"Let us go indoors. I think it is growing cool."
+
+And we made our way back to the hotel.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+IN THE WOOD
+
+As the mayor was about to sit down to breakfast, word was brought to
+him that the rural policeman, with two prisoners, was awaiting him at
+the Hotel de Ville. He went there at once and found old Hochedur
+standing guard before a middle-class couple whom he was regarding with
+a severe expression on his face.
+
+The man, a fat old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed
+utterly dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout individual with
+shining cheeks, looked at the official who had arrested them, with
+defiant eyes.
+
+"What is it? What is it, Hochedur?"
+
+The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning
+at his usual time, in order to patrol his beat from the forest of
+Champioux as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed
+anything unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and
+that the wheat was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was
+going over his vines, called out to him: "Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and
+have a look at the outskirts of the wood. In the first thicket you
+will find a pair of pigeons who must be a hundred and thirty years old
+between them!"
+
+He went in the direction indicated, entered the thicket, and there he
+heard words which made him suspect a flagrant breach of morality.
+Advancing, therefore, on his hands and knees as if to surprise a
+poacher, he had arrested the couple whom he found there.
+
+The mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was
+certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and he began to
+question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak
+voice that he could scarcely be heard.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Nicholas Beaurain."
+
+"Your occupation?"
+
+"Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris."
+
+"What were you doing in the wood?"
+
+The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat paunch, and
+his hands hanging at his sides, and the mayor continued:
+
+"Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?"
+
+"No, monsieur."
+
+"So you confess it?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"What have you to say in your defence?"
+
+"Nothing, monsieur."
+
+"Where did you meet the partner in your misdemeanor?"
+
+"She is my wife, monsieur."
+
+"Your wife?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Then--then--you do not live together--in Paris?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but we are living together!"
+
+"But in that case--you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to
+get caught playing lovers in the country at ten o'clock in the
+morning."
+
+The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he muttered: "It
+was she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a
+woman once gets a thing into her head--you know--you cannot get it
+out."
+
+The mayor, who liked a joke, smiled and replied: "In your case, the
+contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had had
+the idea only in her head."
+
+Then Monsieur Beaurain was seized with rage, and turning to his wife,
+he said: "Do you see to what you have brought us with your poetry? And
+now we shall have to go before the courts at our age, for a breach of
+morals! And we shall have to shut up the shop, sell our good will, and
+go to some other neighborhood! That's what it has come to."
+
+Madame Beaurain got up, and without looking at her husband, she
+explained herself without embarrassment, without useless modesty, and
+almost without hesitation.
+
+"Of course, monsieur, I know that we have made ourselves ridiculous.
+Will you allow me to plead my cause like an advocate, or rather like a
+poor woman? And I hope that you will be kind enough to send us home,
+and to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.
+
+"Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance
+one Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop,
+and I was a saleswoman in a ready-made clothing establishment. I
+remember it as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays
+here occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Leveque, with whom I
+lived in the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had none.
+He used to bring us here, and one Saturday he told me laughing that he
+should bring a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what
+he meant, but I replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous,
+monsieur.
+
+"The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in
+those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to
+encourage him, and I did not. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a
+lovely day, the sort of day that touches your heart. When it is fine
+even now, just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and
+when I am in the country I utterly lose my head. The green grass, the
+swallows flying so swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet
+poppies, the daisies, all that makes me crazy. It is like champagne
+when one is not accustomed to it!
+
+"Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to
+penetrate your body through your eyes when you looked, and through
+your mouth when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each
+other every minute, and that gave me a queer feeling! Monsieur
+Beaurain and I walked behind them, without speaking much, for when
+people do not know each other, they do not find anything to talk
+about. He looked timid, and I liked to see his embarrassment. At last
+we got to the little wood; it was as cool as in a bath there, and we
+four sat down. Rose and her lover teased me because I looked rather
+stern, but you will understand that I could not be otherwise. And then
+they began to kiss and hug again, without putting any more restraint
+upon themselves than if we had not been there; and then they whispered
+together, and got up and went off among the trees, without saying a
+word. You may fancy what I looked like, alone with this young fellow
+whom I saw for the first time. I felt so confused at seeing them go
+that it gave me courage, and I began to talk. I asked him what his
+business was, and he said he was a linen draper's assistant, as I told
+you just now. We talked for a few minutes, and that made him bold, and
+he wanted to take liberties with me, but I told him sharply to keep
+his place. Is not that true, Monsieur Beaurain?"
+
+Monsieur Beaurain, who was looking at his feet in confusion, did not
+reply, and she continued: "Then he saw that I was virtuous, and he
+began to make love to me nicely, like an honorable man, and from that
+time he came every Sunday, for he was very much in love with me. I was
+very fond of him also, very fond of him! He was a good-looking fellow,
+formerly, and in short he married me the next September, and we
+started in business in the Rue des Martyrs.
+
+"It was a hard struggle for some years, monsieur. Business did not
+prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and,
+besides, we had got out of the way of them. One has other things in
+one's head, and thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches,
+when one is in business. We were growing old by degrees without
+perceiving it, like quiet people who do not think much about love. One
+does not regret anything as long as one does not notice what one has
+lost.
+
+"And then, monsieur, business became better, and we were tranquil as
+to the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what went on in my
+mind, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little
+boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers
+which are drawn about the streets made me cry; the smell of violets
+sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart
+beat! Then I would get up and go out on the doorstep to look at the
+blue sky between the roofs. When one looks up at the sky from the
+street, it looks like a river which is descending on Paris, winding as
+it flows, and the swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. These
+ideas are very stupid at my age! But how can one help it, monsieur,
+when one has worked all one's life? A moment comes in which one
+perceives that one could have done something else, and that one
+regrets, oh! yes, one feels intense regret! Just think, for twenty
+years I might have gone and had kisses in the woods, like other women.
+I used to think how delightful it would be to lie under the trees and
+be in love with some one! And I thought of it every day and every
+night! I dreamed of the moonlight on the water, until I felt inclined
+to drown myself.
+
+"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first.
+I knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my
+needles and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain
+never said much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also
+understood quite well that I no longer appealed to any one!
+
+"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the
+country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed
+without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about
+nine o'clock.
+
+"I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's
+heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is
+at present, but just as he was formerly! That I will swear to you,
+monsieur. As true as I am standing here I was crazy. I began to kiss
+him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He
+kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning!
+What is the matter with you?' I did not listen to him, I only listened
+to my own heart, and I made him come into the wood with me. That is
+all. I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth."
+
+The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and
+said: "Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our forests, be
+more discreet."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MARTINE
+
+It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home from church
+along the by-road that led to his house when he saw ahead of him
+Martine, who was also going home.
+
+Her father walked beside his daughter with the important gait of a
+rich farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a short coat of gray cloth
+and on his head a round-topped hat with wide brim.
+
+She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week, walked
+along erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoulders and
+prominent hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a hat trimmed with
+flowers, made by a milliner at Yvetot, and displayed the back of her
+full, round, supple neck, reddened by the sun and air, on which
+fluttered little stray locks of hair.
+
+Benoist saw only her back; but he knew well the face he loved,
+without, however, having ever noticed it more closely than he did now.
+
+Suddenly he said: "Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl, all the same,
+that Martine." He watched her as she walked, admiring her hastily,
+feeling a desire taking possession of him. He did not long to see her
+face again, no. He kept gazing at her figure, repeating to himself:
+"Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl."
+
+Martine turned to the right to enter "La Martiniere," the farm of her
+father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned
+round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called
+out: "Good-morning, Benoist." He replied: "Good-morning, Martine;
+good-morning, mait' Martin," and went on his way.
+
+When he reached home the soup was on the table. He sat down opposite
+his mother beside the farm hand and the hired man, while the maid
+servant went to draw some cider.
+
+He ate a few spoonfuls, then pushed away his plate. His mother said:
+
+"Don't you feel well?"
+
+"No. I feel as if I had some pap in my stomach and that takes away my
+appetite."
+
+He watched the others eating, as he cut himself a piece of bread from
+time to time and carried it lazily to his mouth, masticating it
+slowly. He thought of Martine. "She is a fine girl, all the same." And
+to think that he had not noticed it before, and that it came to him,
+just like that, all at once, and with such force that he could not
+eat.
+
+He did not touch the stew. His mother said:
+
+"Come, Benoist, try and eat a little; it is loin of mutton, it will do
+you good. When one has no appetite, they should force themselves to
+eat."
+
+He swallowed a few morsels, then, pushing away his plate, said:
+
+"No. I can't go that, positively."
+
+When they rose from table he walked round the farm, telling the farm
+hand he might go home and that he would drive up the animals as he
+passed by them.
+
+The country was deserted, as it was the day of rest. Here and there in
+a field of clover cows were moving along heavily, with full bellies,
+chewing their cud under a blazing sun. Unharnessed plows were standing
+at the end of a furrow; and the upturned earth ready for the seed
+showed broad brown patches of stubble of wheat and oats that had
+lately been harvested.
+
+A rather dry autumn wind blew across the plain, promising a cool
+evening after the sun had set. Benoist sat down on a ditch, placed his
+hat on his knees as if he needed to cool off his head, and said aloud
+in the stillness of the country: "If you want a fine girl, she is a
+fine girl."
+
+He thought of it again at night, in his bed, and in the morning when
+he awoke.
+
+He was not sad, he was not discontented, he could not have told what
+ailed him. It was something that had hold of him, something fastened
+in his mind, an idea that would not leave him and that produced a sort
+of tickling sensation in his heart.
+
+Sometimes a big fly is shut up in a room. You hear it flying about,
+buzzing, and the noise haunts you, irritates you. Suddenly it stops;
+you forget it; but all at once it begins again, obliging you to look
+up. You cannot catch it, nor drive it away, nor kill it, nor make it
+keep still. As soon as it settles for a second, it starts off buzzing
+again.
+
+The recollection of Martine disturbed Benoist's mind like an
+imprisoned fly.
+
+Then he longed to see her again and walked past the Martiniere several
+times. He saw her, at last, hanging out some clothes on a line
+stretched between two apple trees.
+
+It was a warm day. She had on only a short skirt and her chemise,
+showing the curves of her figure as she hung up the towels. He
+remained there, concealed by the hedge, for more than an hour, even
+after she had left. He returned home more obsessed with her image than
+ever.
+
+For a month his mind was full of her, he trembled when her name was
+mentioned in his presence. He could not eat, he had night sweats that
+kept him from sleeping.
+
+On Sunday, at mass, he never took his eyes off her. She noticed it and
+smiled at him, flattered at his appreciation.
+
+One evening, he suddenly met her in the road. She stopped short when
+she saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with fear
+and emotion, but determined to speak to her. He began falteringly:
+
+"See here, Martine, this cannot go on like this any longer."
+
+She replied as if she wanted to tease him:
+
+"What cannot go on any longer, Benoist?"
+
+"My thinking of you as many hours as there are in the day," he
+answered.
+
+She put her hands on her hips.
+
+"I do not oblige you to do so."
+
+"Yes, it is you," he stammered; "I cannot sleep, nor rest, nor eat,
+nor anything."
+
+"What do you need to cure you of all that?" she asked.
+
+He stood there in dismay, his arms swinging, his eyes staring, his
+mouth agape.
+
+She hit him a punch in the stomach and ran off.
+
+From that day they met each other along the roadside, in by-roads or
+else at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with
+his horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.
+
+He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his
+heart and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her, eat
+her, make her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence,
+impatience, rage, to think she did not belong to him entirely, as if
+they were one being.
+
+People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were
+engaged. He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she
+had answered "Yes."
+
+They were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about
+it.
+
+But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He
+did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only
+catch a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the
+sermon, the priest actually published the banns of marriage between
+Victoire-Adelaide-Martin and Josephin-Isidore Vallin.
+
+Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained
+off. He had a buzzing in the ears, and could hear nothing; and
+presently he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.
+
+For a month he stayed in his room. Then he went back to his work.
+
+But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind. He avoided the
+roads that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees
+in the yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and
+evening.
+
+She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.
+Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from
+childhood.
+
+One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she
+was enceinte. Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he
+experienced, on the contrary, a feeling of relief. It was over, now,
+all over. They were more separated by that than by her marriage. He
+really preferred that it should be so.
+
+Months passed, and more months. He caught sight of her, occasionally,
+going to the village with a heavier step than usual. She blushed as
+she saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace. And he turned
+out of his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.
+
+He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to
+face, and be obliged to speak to her. What could he say to her now,
+after all he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed
+her hair beside her cheeks? He often thought of those meetings along
+the roadside. She had acted horridly after all her promises.
+
+By degrees his grief diminished, leaving only sadness behind. And one
+day he took the old road that led past the farm where she now lived.
+He looked at the roof from a distance. It was there, in there, that
+she lived with another! The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks
+crowed on the dunghill. The whole dwelling seemed empty, the farm
+hands had gone to the fields to their spring toil. He stopped near the
+gate and looked into the yard. The dog was asleep outside his kennel,
+three calves were walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the
+pond. A big turkey was strutting before the door, parading before the
+turkey hens like a singer at the opera.
+
+Benoist leaned against the gate post and was suddenly seized with a
+desire to weep. But suddenly, he heard a cry, a loud cry for help
+coming from the house. He was struck with dismay, his hands grasping
+the wooden bars of the gate, and listened attentively. Another cry, a
+prolonged, heartrending cry, reached his ears, his soul, his flesh. It
+was she who was crying like that! He darted inside, crossed the grass
+patch, pushed open the door, and saw her lying on the floor, her body
+drawn up, her face livid, her eyes haggard, in the throes of
+childbirth.
+
+He stood there, trembling and paler than she was, and stammered:
+
+"Here I am, here I am, Martine!"
+
+She replied in gasps:
+
+"Oh, do not leave me, do not leave me, Benoist!"
+
+He looked at her, not knowing what to say, what to do. She began to
+cry out again:
+
+"Oh, oh, it is killing me. Oh, Benoist!"
+
+She writhed frightfully.
+
+Benoist was suddenly seized with a frantic longing to help her, to
+quiet her, to remove her pain. He leaned over, lifted her up and laid
+her on her bed; and while she kept on moaning he began to take off her
+clothes, her jacket, her skirt and her petticoat. She bit her fists to
+keep from crying out. Then he did as he was accustomed to doing for
+cows, ewes, and mares: he assisted in delivering her and found in his
+hands a large infant who was moaning.
+
+He wiped it off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front
+of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that
+was on the table. Then he went back to the mother.
+
+He took her up and placed her on the floor again, then he changed the
+bedclothes and put her back into bed. She faltered:
+
+"Thank you, Benoist, you have a noble heart." And then she wept a
+little as if she felt regretful.
+
+He did not love her any longer, not the least bit. It was all over.
+Why? How? He could not have said. What had happened had cured him
+better than ten years of absence.
+
+She asked, exhausted and trembling:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He replied calmly:
+
+"It is a very fine girl."
+
+Then they were silent again. At the end of a few moments, the mother,
+in a weak voice, said:
+
+"Show her to me, Benoist."
+
+He took up the little one and was showing it to her as if he were
+holding the consecrated wafer, when the door opened, and Isidore
+Vallin appeared.
+
+He did not understand at first, then all at once he guessed.
+
+Benoist, in consternation, stammered out:
+
+"I was passing, I was just passing by when I heard her crying out, and
+I came--there is your child, Vallin!"
+
+Then the husband, his eyes full of tears, stepped forward, took the
+little mite of humanity that he held out to him, kissed it, unable to
+speak from emotion for a few seconds; then placing the child on the
+bed, he held out both hands to Benoist, saying:
+
+"Your hand upon it, Benoist. From now on we understand each other. If
+you are willing, we will be a pair of friends, a pair of friends!"
+
+And Benoist replied:
+
+"Indeed I will, certainly, indeed I will."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ALL OVER
+
+Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting
+glance at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel in his
+dressing-room and smiled.
+
+He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall,
+slight, elegant, with no sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of
+doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he had a walk, a nobility,
+a "chic," in short, that indescribable something which establishes a
+greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He
+murmured:
+
+"Lormerin is still alive!"
+
+And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited
+him.
+
+On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the
+gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside
+three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch he spread
+out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and
+he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening
+the envelopes.
+
+It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague
+anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did
+they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them
+with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting
+them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from
+them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent;
+further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him a little
+uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced those
+curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?
+
+This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple,
+nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it
+uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: "From whom
+can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify
+it."
+
+He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between
+two fingers, striving to read through the envelope, without making up
+his mind to open it.
+
+Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying
+glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He
+suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me,
+very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often.
+But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it
+be from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking for money."
+
+And he tore open the letter. Then he read:
+
+My Dear Friend: You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now
+twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was young; I am old. When
+I bade you farewell, I left Paris in order to follow into the
+provinces my husband, my old husband, whom you used to call "my
+hospital." Do you remember him? He died five years ago, and now I am
+returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a daughter,
+a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen. I informed you
+of her birth, but you certainly did not pay much attention to so
+trifling an event.
+
+You are still the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told. Well if you
+still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come and
+dine with her this evening, with the elderly Baronne de Vance, your
+ever faithful friend, who, with some emotion, although happy, reaches
+out to you a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no longer kiss,
+my poor Jaquelet.
+
+Lise de Vance.
+
+Lormerin's heart began to throb. He remained sunk in his armchair with
+the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by a
+poignant emotion that made the tears mount up to his eyes! If he had
+ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise, Lise de
+Vance, whom he called "Ashflower," on account of the strange color of
+her hair and the pale gray of her eyes. Oh! what a dainty, pretty,
+charming creature she was, this frail baronne, the wife of that gouty,
+pimply baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut
+her up, kept her in seclusion through jealousy, jealousy of the
+handsome Lormerin.
+
+Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he, too, had been truly
+loved. She familiarly gave him the name of Jaquelet, and would
+pronounce that word in a delicious fashion.
+
+A thousand forgotten memories came back to him, far off and sweet and
+melancholy now. One evening she had called on him on her way home from
+a ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in
+evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the
+weather was beautiful. The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm
+air--the odor of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her
+skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's
+rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A
+little surprised, he asked her why.
+
+She replied:
+
+"I don't know. The moon and the water have affected me. Every time I
+see poetic things I have a tightening at the heart, and I have to
+cry."
+
+He smiled, affected himself, considering her feminine emotion
+charming--the unaffected emotion of a poor little woman whom every
+sensation overwhelms. And he embraced her passionately, stammering:
+
+"My little Lise, you are exquisite."
+
+What a charming love affair, short-lived and dainty, it had been and
+over all too quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this old
+brute of a baron, who had carried off his wife, and never let any one
+see her afterward.
+
+Lormerin had forgotten, in fact, at the end of two or three months.
+One woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a
+bachelor! No matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart,
+for he had loved her alone! He assured himself now that this was so.
+
+He rose, and said aloud: "Certainly, I will go and dine with her this
+evening!"
+
+And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself from
+head to foot. He reflected: "She must look very old, older than I
+look." And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her
+still handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling
+her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far
+distant!
+
+He turned his attention to the other letters. They were of no
+importance.
+
+The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of other days. What was
+she like now? How strange it was to meet in this way after twenty-five
+years! But would he recognize her?
+
+He made his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat,
+which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the
+hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for
+he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his
+eagerness to see her.
+
+The first thing he saw on entering a pretty drawing-room newly
+furnished was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from
+the days when he was a beau, hanging on the wall in an antique silk
+frame.
+
+He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly,
+and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended
+both hands toward him.
+
+He seized them, kissed them one after the other several times; then,
+lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.
+
+Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and
+who, while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.
+
+He could not abstain from murmuring:
+
+"Is it you, Lise?"
+
+She replied:
+
+"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would
+you? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my
+life. Look at me now--or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome
+you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I
+would have exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!' Now, sit down and let us, first of
+all, have a chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up
+daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or, rather, how I resembled
+her--no, it is not quite that; she is just like the 'me' of former
+days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared
+that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now
+it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend."
+
+He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to
+say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never
+seen her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk
+about? Of the long ago? What was there in common between him and her?
+He could no longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly
+face. He could no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet,
+so bitter, that had come to his mind that morning when he thought of
+the other, of little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had
+become of her, the former one, the one he had loved? That woman of
+far-off dreams, the blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to
+call him "Jaquelet" so prettily?
+
+They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,
+profoundly ill at ease.
+
+As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and
+slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.
+
+"I am going to call Renee," she said.
+
+There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; then a young
+voice exclaimed:
+
+"Here I am, mamma!"
+
+Lormerin remained bewildered as at the sight of an apparition.
+
+He stammered:
+
+"Good-day, mademoiselle."
+
+Then, turning toward the mother:
+
+"Oh! it is you!"
+
+In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise
+who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won
+twenty-five years before. This one was even younger, fresher, more
+childlike.
+
+He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart
+again, murmuring in her ear:
+
+"Good-morning, Lison!"
+
+A man-servant announced:
+
+"Dinner is ready, madame."
+
+And they proceeded toward the dining-room.
+
+What passed at this dinner? What did they say to him, and what could
+he say in reply? He found himself plunged in one of those strange
+dreams which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a
+fixed idea in his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea:
+
+"Which is the real one?"
+
+The mother smiled, repeating over and over again:
+
+"Do you remember?" And it was in the bright eyes of the young girl
+that he found again his memories of the past. Twenty times he opened
+his mouth to say to her: "Do you remember, Lison?" forgetting this
+white-haired lady who was looking at him tenderly.
+
+And yet, there were moments when he no longer felt sure, when he lost
+his head. He could see that the woman of to-day was not exactly the
+woman of long ago. The other one, the former one, had in her voice, in
+her glances, in her entire being, something which he did not find
+again. And he made prodigious efforts of mind to recall his lady love,
+to seize again what had escaped from her, what this resuscitated one
+did not possess.
+
+The baronne said:
+
+"You have lost your old vivacity, my poor friend."
+
+He murmured:
+
+"There are many other things that I have lost!"
+
+But in his heart, touched with emotion, he felt his old love springing
+to life once more, like an awakened wild beast ready to bite him.
+
+The young girl went on chattering, and every now and then some
+familiar intonation, some expression of her mother's, a certain style
+of speaking and thinking, that resemblance of mind and manner which
+people acquire by living together, shook Lormerin from head to foot.
+All these things penetrated him, making the reopened wound of his
+passion bleed anew.
+
+He got away early, and took a turn along the boulevard. But the image
+of this young girl pursued him, haunted him, quickened his heart,
+inflamed his blood. Apart from the two women, he now saw only one, a
+young one, the old one come back out of the past, and he loved her as
+he had loved her in bygone years. He loved her with greater ardor,
+after an interval of twenty-five years.
+
+He went home to reflect on this strange and terrible thing, and to
+think what he should do.
+
+But, as he was passing, with a wax candle in his hand, before the
+glass, the large glass in which he had contemplated himself and
+admired himself before he started, he saw reflected there an elderly,
+gray-haired man; and suddenly he recollected what he had been in olden
+days, in the days of little Lise. He saw himself charming and
+handsome, as he had been when he was loved! Then, drawing the light
+nearer, he looked at himself more closely, as one inspects a strange
+thing with a magnifying glass, tracing the wrinkles, discovering those
+frightful ravages, which he had not perceived till now.
+
+And he sat down, crushed at the sight of himself, at the sight of his
+lamentable image, murmuring:
+
+"All over, Lormerin!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PARROT
+
+I
+
+Everybody in Fecamp knew Mother Patin's story. She had certainly been
+unfortunate with her husband, for in his lifetime he used to beat her,
+just as wheat is threshed in the barn.
+
+He was master of a fishing bark and had married her, formerly, because
+she was pretty, although poor.
+
+Patin was a good sailor, but brutal. He used to frequent Father
+Auban's inn, where he would usually drink four or five glasses of
+brandy, on lucky days eight or ten glasses and even more, according to
+his mood. The brandy was served to the customers by Father Auban's
+daughter, a pleasing brunette, who attracted people to the house only
+by her pretty face, for nothing had ever been gossiped about her.
+
+Patin, when he entered the inn, would be satisfied to look at her and
+to compliment her politely and respectfully. After he had had his
+first glass of brandy he would already find her much nicer; at the
+second he would wink; at the third he would say: "If you were only
+willing, Mam'zelle Desiree----" without ever finishing his sentence;
+at the fourth he would try to hold her back by her skirt in order to
+kiss her; and when he went as high as ten it was Father Auban who
+brought him the remaining drinks.
+
+The old innkeeper, who knew all the tricks of the trade, made Desiree
+walk about between the tables in order to increase the consumption of
+drinks; and Desiree, who was a worthy daughter of Father Auban,
+flitted around among the benches and joked with them, her lips smiling
+and her eyes sparkling.
+
+Patin got so well accustomed to Desiree's face that he thought of it
+even while at sea, when throwing out his nets, in storms or in calms,
+on moonlit or dark evenings. He thought of her while holding the
+tiller in the stern of his boat, while his four companions were
+slumbering with their heads on their arms. He always saw her, smiling,
+pouring out the yellow brandy with a peculiar shoulder movement and
+then exclaiming as she turned away: "There, now; are you satisfied?"
+
+He saw her so much in his mind's eye that he was overcome by an
+irresistible desire to marry her, and, not being able to hold out any
+longer, he asked for her hand.
+
+He was rich, owned his own vessel, his nets and a little house at the
+foot of the hill on the Retenue, whereas Father Auban had nothing. The
+marriage was therefore eagerly agreed upon and the wedding took place
+as soon as possible, as both parties were desirous for the affair to
+be concluded as early as convenient.
+
+Three days after the wedding Patin could no longer understand how he
+had ever imagined Desiree to be different from other women. What a
+fool he had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who
+had undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she had put in his
+brandy!
+
+He would curse all day long, break his pipe with his teeth and maul
+his crew. After he had sworn by every known term at everything that
+came his way he would rid himself of his remaining anger on the fish
+and lobsters, which he pulled from the nets and threw into the baskets
+amid oaths and foul language. When he returned home he would find his
+wife, Father Auban's daughter, within reach of his mouth and hand, and
+it was not long before he treated her like the lowest creature in the
+world. As she listened calmly, accustomed to paternal violence, he
+grew exasperated at her quiet, and one evening he beat her. Then life
+at his home became unbearable.
+
+For ten years the principal topic of conversation on the Retenue was
+about the beatings that Patin gave his wife and his manner of cursing
+at her for the least thing. He could, indeed, curse with a richness of
+vocabulary in a roundness of tone unequalled by any other man in
+Fecamp. As soon as his ship was sighted at the entrance of the harbor,
+returning from the fishing expedition, every one awaited the first
+volley he would hurl from the bridge as soon as he perceived his
+wife's white cap.
+
+Standing at the stern, he would steer, his eye fixed on the bows and
+on the sail, and, notwithstanding the difficulty of the narrow passage
+and the height of the turbulent waves, he would search among the
+watching women and try to recognize his wife, Father Auban's daughter,
+the wretch!
+
+Then, as soon as he saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and
+waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that
+every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he
+arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the
+fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all
+the loafers of the neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes
+like shots from a cannon, short and terrible, sometimes like peals of
+thunder, which roll and rumble for five minutes, such a hurricane of
+oaths that he seemed to have in his lungs one of the storms of the
+Eternal Father.
+
+When he left his ship and found himself face to face with her,
+surrounded by all the gossips of the neighborhood, he would bring up a
+new cargo of insults and bring her back to their dwelling, she in
+front, he behind, she weeping, he yelling at her.
+
+At last, when alone with her behind closed doors, he would thrash her
+on the slightest pretext. The least thing was sufficient to make him
+raise his hand, and when he had once begun he did not stop, but he
+would throw into her face the true motive for his anger. At each blow
+he would roar: "There, you beggar! There, you wretch! There, you
+pauper! What a bright thing I did when I rinsed my mouth with your
+rascal of a father's apology for brandy!"
+
+The poor woman lived in continual fear, in a ceaseless trembling of
+body and soul, in everlasting expectation of outrageous thrashings.
+
+This lasted ten years. She was so timorous that she would grow pale
+whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the
+blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more
+yellow and drier than a smoked fish.
+
+II
+
+One night, when her husband was at sea, she was suddenly awakened by
+the wild roaring of the wind! She sat up in her bed, trembling, but,
+as she heard nothing more, she lay down again; almost immediately
+there was a roar in the chimney which shook the entire house; it
+seemed to cross the heavens like a pack of furious animals snorting
+and roaring.
+
+Then she arose and rushed to the harbor. Other women were arriving
+from all sides, carrying lanterns. The men also were gathering, and
+all were watching the foaming crests of the breaking waves.
+
+The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors never returned; Patin
+was among them.
+
+In the neighborhood of Dieppe the wreck of his bark, the
+_Jeune-Amelie_, was found. The bodies of his sailors were found
+near Saint-Valery, but his body was never recovered. As his vessel
+seemed to have been cut in two, his wife expected and feared his return
+for a long time, for if there had been a collision he alone might have
+been picked up and carried afar off.
+
+Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid
+of him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar
+or a peddler would enter suddenly.
+
+One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her
+husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped
+before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose
+furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction.
+He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with
+a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that
+can talk like a lawyer, three francs!"
+
+A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said: "You ought to buy
+that, you who are rich. It would be good company for you. That bird is
+worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always sell it for
+twenty or twenty-five!"
+
+Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a
+little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was
+opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit
+her finger and drew blood.
+
+"Oh, how naughty he is!" she said.
+
+Nevertheless she gave it some hemp-seed and corn and watched it
+pruning its feathers as it glanced warily at its new home and its new
+mistress.
+
+On the following morning, just as day was breaking, the Patin woman
+distinctly heard a loud, deep, roaring voice calling: "Are you going
+to get up, carrion?"
+
+Her fear was so great that she hid her head under the sheets, for when
+Patin was with her as soon as he would open his eyes he would shout
+those well-known words into her ears.
+
+Trembling, rolled into a ball, her back prepared for the thrashing
+which she already expected, her face buried in the pillows, she
+murmured: "Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he
+has come back!"
+
+Minutes passed; no noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling,
+she stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching,
+ready to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window,
+she saw nothing, and she said to herself: "He must be hidden."
+
+She waited a long time and then, gaining courage, she said to herself:
+"I must have dreamed it, seeing there is nobody here."
+
+A little reassured, she closed her eyes, when from quite near a
+furious voice, the thunderous voice of the drowned man, could be heard
+crying: "Say! when in the name of all that's holy are you going to get
+up, you b----?"
+
+She jumped out of bed, moved by obedience, by the passive obedience of
+a woman accustomed to blows and who still remembers and always will
+remember that voice! She said: "Here I am, Patin; what do you want?"
+
+But Patin did not answer. Then, at a complete loss, she looked around
+her, then in the chimney and under the bed and finally sank into a
+chair, wild with anxiety, convinced that Patin's soul alone was there,
+near her, and that he had returned in order to torture her.
+
+Suddenly she remembered the loft, in order to reach which one had to
+take a ladder. Surely he must have hidden there in order to surprise
+her. He must have been held by savages on some distant shore, unable
+to escape until now, and he had returned, worse that ever. There was
+no doubting the quality of that voice. She raised her head and asked:
+"Are you up there, Patin?"
+
+Patin did not answer. Then, with a terrible fear which made her heart
+tremble, she climbed the ladder, opened the skylight, looked, saw
+nothing, entered, looked about and found nothing. Sitting on some
+straw, she began to cry, but while she was weeping, overcome by a
+poignant and supernatural terror, she heard Patin talking in the room
+below. He seemed less angry and he was saying: "Nasty weather! Fierce
+wind! Nasty weather! I haven't eaten, damn it!"
+
+She cried through the ceiling: "Here I am, Patin; I am getting your
+meal ready. Don't get angry."
+
+She ran down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself
+growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and
+get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: "I
+haven't had my breakfast, by G----!"
+
+And the parrot in his cage watched her with his round, knowing, wicked
+eye. She, too, looked at him wildly, murmuring: "Ah! so it's you!"
+
+He shook his head and continued: "Just you wait! I'll teach you how to
+loaf."
+
+What happened within her? She felt, she understood that it was he, the
+dead man, who had come back, who had disguised himself in the feathers
+of this bird in order to continue to torment her; that he would curse,
+as formerly, all day long, and bite her, and swear at her, in order to
+attract the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she rushed for the
+cage and seized the bird, which scratched and tore her flesh with its
+claws and beak. But she held it with all her strength between her
+hands. She threw it on the ground and rolled over it with the frenzy
+of one possessed. She crushed it and finally made of it nothing but a
+little green, flabby lump which no longer moved or spoke. Then she
+wrapped it in a cloth, as in a shroud, and she went out in her
+nightgown, barefoot; she crossed the dock, against which the choppy
+waves of the sea were beating, and she shook the cloth and let drop
+this little dead thing, which looked like so much grass. Then she
+returned, threw herself on her knees before the empty cage, and,
+overcome by what she had done, kneeled and prayed for forgiveness, as
+if she had committed some heinous crime.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PIECE OF STRING
+
+It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the
+peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked
+slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long,
+crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes
+the left shoulder higher, and bends their figures sideways; from
+reaping the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep
+on their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though
+varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered
+design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like
+balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.
+
+Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope.
+And just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the
+back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large
+baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks. These
+women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their
+erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over
+their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth,
+enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.
+
+Now a char-a-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up
+strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the
+cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.
+
+In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled
+multitude of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high,
+long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the headdresses of the women
+came to the surface of that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices
+made a continuous, wild din, while above it occasionally rose a huge
+burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a
+prolonged bellow from a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.
+
+It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration
+giving off that half-human, half-animal odor which is peculiar to
+country folks.
+
+Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, had just arrived at Goderville and was
+making his way toward the square when he perceived on the ground a
+little piece of string. Maitre Hauchecorne, economical as are all true
+Normans, reflected that everything was worth picking up which could be
+of any use, and he stooped down, but painfully, because he suffered
+from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and
+was carefully preparing to roll it up when he saw Maitre Malandain,
+the harness maker, on his doorstep staring at him. They had once had a
+quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever
+since. Maitre Hauchecorne was overcome with a sort of shame at being
+seen by his enemy picking up a bit of string in the road. He quickly
+hid it beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches
+pocket, then pretended to be still looking for something on the
+ground which he did not discover and finally went off toward the
+market-place, his head bent forward and his body almost doubled in
+two by rheumatic pains.
+
+He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and
+noisily as it chaffered and bargained. The peasants examined the cows,
+went off, came back, always in doubt for fear of being cheated, never
+quite daring to decide, looking the seller square in the eye in the
+effort to discover the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.
+
+The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken
+out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, their legs tied together,
+with terrified eyes and scarlet combs.
+
+They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices in a decided
+manner with an impassive face or perhaps deciding to accept the
+smaller price offered, suddenly calling out to the customer who was
+starting to go away:
+
+"All right, I'll let you have them, Mait' Anthime."
+
+Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus
+struck midday those who lived at a distance poured into the inns.
+
+At Jourdain's the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast
+court was filled with vehicles of every sort--wagons, gigs,
+chars-a-bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name,
+yellow with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to
+heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose, on the ground and
+their rear in the air.
+
+Just opposite to where the diners were at table the huge fireplace,
+with its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those
+who sat at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens,
+with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast
+meat and of gravy flowing ever crisp brown skin arose from the hearth,
+kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.
+
+All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Mait'
+Jourdain's, the innkeeper's, a dealer in horses also and a sharp
+fellow who had made a great deal of money in his day.
+
+The dishes were passed round, were emptied, as were the jugs of yellow
+cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and his sales.
+They exchanged news about the crops. The weather was good for greens,
+but too wet for grain.
+
+Suddenly the drum began to beat in the courtyard before the house.
+Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at
+once and ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and
+napkins in their hand.
+
+When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a
+jerky voice, pausing in the wrong places:
+
+"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all
+persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on
+the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather
+pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are
+requested, to return it to the mayor's office at once or to Maitre
+Fortune Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs
+reward."
+
+Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull
+beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all
+began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maitre
+Houlbreque had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.
+
+The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal
+of gendarmes appeared on the threshold.
+
+He asked:
+
+"Is Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, here?"
+
+Maitre Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:
+
+"Here I am, here I am."
+
+And he followed the corporal.
+
+The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the
+notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.
+
+"Maitre Hauchecorne," said he, "this morning on the Beuzeville road,
+you were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Maitre Houlbreque, of
+Manneville."
+
+The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement, frightened already at
+this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.
+
+"I--I picked up that pocketbook?"
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"I swear I don't even know anything about it."
+
+"You were seen."
+
+"I was seen--I? Who saw me?"
+
+"M. Malandain, the harness-maker."
+
+Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger,
+said:
+
+"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string
+here, M'sieu le Maire."
+
+And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the
+little end of string.
+
+But the mayor incredulously shook his head:
+
+"You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain,
+who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for
+a pocketbook."
+
+The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside
+him as if to attest his good faith, repeating:
+
+"For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's
+salvation, I repeat it."
+
+The mayor continued:
+
+"After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for
+some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropped out of
+it."
+
+The good man was choking with indignation and fear.
+
+"How can they tell--how can they tell such lies as that to slander an
+honest man! How can they?"
+
+His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.
+
+He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his
+testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request
+Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.
+
+At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he
+would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.
+
+The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office the old man was
+surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or
+mocking, as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered.
+And he began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe
+him. They laughed.
+
+He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his
+acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his
+protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he
+had nothing in them.
+
+They said to him:
+
+"You old rogue!"
+
+He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being
+believed, and kept on telling his story.
+
+The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his
+neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the
+string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.
+
+That evening he made the round of the village of Breaute for the
+purpose of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.
+
+He brooded over it all night long.
+
+The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand
+of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at Ymauville, returned the
+pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbreque, of Manneville.
+
+This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not
+knowing how to read, he had carried it home and given it to his
+master.
+
+The news spread to the environs. Maitre Hauchecorne was informed. He
+started off at once and began to relate his story with the denoument.
+He was triumphant.
+
+"What grieved me," said he, "was not the thing itself, do you
+understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing does you so
+much harm as being in disgrace for lying."
+
+All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the
+people who passed, at the cabaret to the people who drank and next
+Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell
+them about it. He was easy now, and yet something worried him without
+his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they
+listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks
+behind his back.
+
+On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville,
+prompted solely by the need of telling his story.
+
+Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him
+pass. Why?
+
+He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and
+giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face: "Oh,
+you great rogue!" Then he turned his heel upon him.
+
+Maitre Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy.
+Why had they called him "great rogue"?
+
+When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to explain
+the whole affair.
+
+A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:
+
+"Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string."
+
+Hauchecorne stammered:
+
+"But since they found it again, the pocketbook!"
+
+But the other continued:
+
+"Hold your tongue, daddy; there's one who finds it and there's another
+who returns it. And no one the wiser."
+
+The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of
+having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a
+confederate.
+
+He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
+
+He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.
+
+He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more
+cast down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of
+having done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a
+good trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his
+innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck
+to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
+
+He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day,
+each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more
+sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of
+solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the
+string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less
+he was believed.
+
+"Those are liars' proofs," they said behind his back.
+
+He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless
+efforts.
+
+He was visibly wasting away.
+
+Jokers would make him tell the story of "the piece of string" to amuse
+them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his
+story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of
+December he took to his bed.
+
+He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony,
+he protested his innocence, repeating:
+
+"A little bit of string--a little bit of string. See, here it is,
+M'sieu le Maire."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other
+Stories, by Guy de Maupassant
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+by Guy de Maupassant
+#22 in our series by Guy de Maupassant
+
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+
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+Title: Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7114]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 11, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNE VIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+
+UNE VIE
+
+A Piece of String
+And Other Stories
+
+
+Translated by
+Albert M. C. McMaster, B.A.
+A. E. Henderson, B.A.
+Mme. Quesada and Others
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "JEANNE"]
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY POL. NEVEUX
+
+UNE VIE (The History of a Heart)
+   I. The Home by the Sea
+  II. Happy Days
+ III. M. de Lamare
+  IV. Marriage and Disillusion
+   V. Corsica and a New Life
+  VI. Disenchantment
+ VII. Jeanne's Discovery
+VIII. Maternity
+  IX. Death of La Baronne
+   X. Retribution
+  XI. The Development of Paul
+ XII. A New Home
+XIII. Jeanne in Paris
+ XIV. Light at Eventide
+
+A VAGABOND
+
+THE FISHING HOLE
+
+THE SPASM
+
+IN THE WOOD
+
+MARTINE
+
+ALL OVER
+
+THE PARROT
+
+A PIECE OF STRING
+
+
+[Illustration: Guy de Maupassant]
+
+
+GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+A Study by Pol. Neveux
+
+"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a
+thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on
+the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid
+solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which,
+for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the
+fertility of a master hand produced poetry, novels, romances and
+travels, only to sink prematurely into the abyss of madness and
+death....
+
+In the month of April, 1880, an article appeared in the "Le Gaulois"
+announcing the publication of the Soirees de Medan. It was signed by a
+name as yet unknown: Guy de Maupassant. After a juvenile diatribe
+against romanticism and a passionate attack on languorous literature,
+the writer extolled the study of real life, and announced the
+publication of the new work. It was picturesque and charming. In the
+quiet of evening, on an island in the Seine, beneath poplars instead
+of the Neapolitan cypresses dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the
+continuous murmur of the valley, and no longer to the sound of the
+Pyrennean streams that murmured a faint accompaniment to the tales of
+Marguerite's cavaliers, the master and his disciples took turns in
+narrating some striking or pathetic episode of the war. And the issue,
+in collaboration, of these tales in one volume, in which the master
+jostled elbows with his pupils, took on the appearance of a manifesto,
+the tone of a challenge, or the utterance of a creed.
+
+In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they
+had confined themselves, beneath the trees of Medan, to deciding on a
+general title for the work. Zola had contributed the manuscript of the
+"Attaque du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five
+young men gave in their contributions. Each one read his story,
+Maupassant being the last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a
+spontaneous impulse, with an emotion they never forgot, filled with
+enthusiasm at this revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous
+words, acclaimed him as a master.
+
+He undertook to write the article for the Gaulois and, in cooperation
+with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are
+familiar, amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste
+for mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential
+point, he said, is to "unmoor" criticism.
+
+It was unmoored. The following day Wolff wrote a polemical
+dissertation in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume
+was a brilliant success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty,
+the honesty of effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the
+other stories. Relegated to the second rank, they passed without
+notice. From his first battle, Maupassant was master of the field in
+literature.
+
+At once the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate
+regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought
+information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly
+straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at
+the present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient
+heroes whose origin and death are veiled in mystery.
+
+I will not dwell on Guy de Maupassant's younger days. His relatives,
+his old friends, he himself, here and there in his works, have
+furnished us in their letters enough valuable revelations and touching
+remembrances of the years preceding his literary debut. His worthy
+biographer, H. Edouard Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the
+writings, condensing and comparing them, has been able to give us some
+definite information regarding that early period.
+
+I will simply recall that he was born on the 5th of August, 1850, near
+Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil which he describes in Une Vie....
+
+Maupassant, like Flaubert, was a Norman, through his mother, and
+through his place of birth he belonged to that strange and adventurous
+race, whose heroic and long voyages on tramp trading ships he liked to
+recall. And just as the author of "Education sentimentale" seems to
+have inherited in the paternal line the shrewd realism of Champagne,
+so de Maupassant appears to have inherited from his Lorraine ancestors
+their indestructible discipline and cold lucidity.
+
+His childhood was passed at Etretat, his beautiful childhood; it was
+there that his instincts were awakened in the unfoldment of his
+prehistoric soul. Years went by in an ecstasy of physical happiness.
+The delight of running at full speed through fields of gorse, the
+charm of voyages of discovery in hollows and ravines, games beneath
+the dark hedges, a passion for going to sea with the fishermen and, on
+nights when there was no moon, for dreaming on their boats of
+imaginary voyages.
+
+Mme. de Maupassant, who had guided her son's early reading, and had
+gazed with him at the sublime spectacle of nature, put off as long as
+possible the hour of separation. One day, however, she had to take the
+child to the little seminary at Yvetot. Later, he became a student at
+the college at Rouen, and became a literary correspondent of Louis
+Bouilhet. It was at the latter's house on those Sundays in winter when
+the Norman rain drowned the sound of the bells and dashed against the
+window panes that the school boy learned to write poetry.
+
+Vacation took the rhetorician back to the north of Normandy. Now it
+was shooting at Saint Julien-l'Hospitalier, across fields, bogs, and
+through the woods. From that time on he sealed his pact with the
+earth, and those "deep and delicate roots" which attached him to his
+native soil began to grow. It was of Normandy, broad, fresh and
+virile, that he would presently demand his inspiration, fervent and
+eager as a boy's love; it was in her that he would take refuge when,
+weary of life, he would implore a truce, or when he simply wished to
+work and revive his energies in old-time joys. It was at this time
+that was born in him that voluptuous love of the sea, which in later
+days could alone withdraw him from the world, calm him, console him.
+
+In 1870 he lived in the country, then he came to Paris to live; for,
+the family fortunes having dwindled, he had to look for a position.
+For several years he was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine, where he
+turned over musty papers, in the uninteresting company of the clerks
+of the admiralty.
+
+Then he went into the department of Public Instruction, where
+bureaucratic servility is less intolerable. The daily duties are
+certainly scarcely more onerous and he had as chiefs, or colleagues,
+Xavier Charmes and Leon Dierx, Henry Roujon and Rene Billotte, but his
+office looked out on a beautiful melancholy garden with immense plane
+trees around which black circles of crows gathered in winter.
+
+Maupassant made two divisions of his spare hours, one for boating, and
+the other for literature. Every evening in spring, every free day, he
+ran down to the river whose mysterious current veiled in fog or
+sparkling in the sun called to him and bewitched him. In the islands
+in the Seine between Chatou and Port-Marly, on the banks of
+Sartrouville and Triel he was long noted among the population of
+boatmen, who have now vanished, for his unwearying biceps, his cynical
+gaiety of goodfellowship, his unfailing practical jokes, his broad
+witticisms. Sometimes he would row with frantic speed, free and
+joyous, through the glowing sunlight on the stream; sometimes, he
+would wander along the coast, questioning the sailors, chatting with
+the ravageurs, or junk gatherers, or stretched at full length amid the
+irises and tansy he would lie for hours watching the frail insects
+that play on the surface of the stream, water spiders, or white
+butterflies, dragon flies, chasing each other amid the willow leaves,
+or frogs asleep on the lily-pads.
+
+The rest of his life was taken up by his work. Without ever becoming
+despondent, silent and persistent, he accumulated manuscripts, poetry,
+criticisms, plays, romances and novels. Every week he docilely
+submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his
+mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to
+assist the young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make
+chefs-d'oeuvre immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious
+research and to use direct observation and who inculcated in him a
+horror of vulgarity and a contempt for facility.
+
+Maupassant himself tells us of those severe initiations in the Rue
+Murillo, or in the tent at Croisset; he has recalled the implacable
+didactics of his old master, his tender brutality, the paternal advice
+of his generous and candid heart. For seven years Flaubert slashed,
+pulverized, the awkward attempts of his pupil whose success remained
+uncertain.
+
+Suddenly, in a flight of spontaneous perfection, he wrote Boule de
+Suif. His master's joy was great and overwhelming. He died two months
+later.
+
+Until the end Maupassant remained illuminated by the reflection of the
+good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the
+dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of
+Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither
+work, nor glory, nor slow moving waves, nor balmy nights.
+
+At the end of his short life, while his mind was still clear, he wrote
+to a friend: "I am always thinking of my poor Flaubert, and I say to
+myself that I should like to die if I were sure that anyone would
+think of me in the same manner."
+
+During these long years of his novitiate Maupassant had entered the
+social literary circles. He would remain silent, preoccupied; and if
+anyone, astonished at his silence, asked him about his plans he
+answered simply: "I am learning my trade." However, under the
+pseudonym of Guy de Valmont, he had sent some articles to the
+newspapers, and, later, with the approval and by the advice of
+Flaubert, he published, in the "Republique des Lettres," poems signed
+by his name.
+
+These poems, overflowing with sensuality, where the hymn to the Earth
+describes the transports of physical possession, where the impatience
+of love expresses itself in loud melancholy appeals like the calls of
+animals in the spring nights, are valuable chiefly inasmuch as they
+reveal the creature of instinct, the fawn escaped from his native
+forests, that Maupassant was in his early youth. But they add nothing
+to his glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules
+Lemaitre said. To mould the expression of his thought according to the
+strictest laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his
+aim. Following the example of one of his comrades of Medan, being
+readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of
+sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the
+chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines.
+However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having
+published. His encounters with prosody had left him with that
+monotonous weariness that the horseman and the fencer feel after a
+period in the riding school, or a bout with the foils.
+
+Such, in very broad lines, is the story of Maupassant's literary
+apprenticeship.
+
+The day following the publication of "Boule de Suif," his reputation
+began to grow rapidly. The quality of his story was unrivalled, but at
+the same time it must be acknowledged that there were some who, for
+the sake of discussion, desired to place a young reputation in
+opposition to the triumphant brutality of Zola.
+
+From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire
+press, set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from
+all influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With
+a quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which
+he himself was not aware, but which was so universal, that no
+contemporary author during his life ever experienced the same. The
+"meteor" sent out its light and its rays were prolonged without limit,
+in article after article, volume on volume.
+
+He was now rich and famous.... He is esteemed all the more as they
+believe him to be rich and happy. But they do not know that this young
+fellow with the sunburnt face, thick neck and salient muscles whom
+they invariably compare to a young bull at liberty, and whose love
+affairs they whisper, is ill, very ill. At the very moment that
+success came to him, the malady that never afterwards left him came
+also, and, seated motionless at his side, gazed at him with its
+threatening countenance. He suffered from terrible headaches, followed
+by nights of insomnia. He had nervous attacks, which he soothed with
+narcotics and anesthetics, which he used freely. His sight, which had
+troubled him at intervals, became affected, and a celebrated oculist
+spoke of abnormality, asymetry of the pupils. The famous young man
+trembled in secret and was haunted by all kinds of terrors.
+
+The reader is charmed at the saneness of this revived art and yet,
+here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of
+nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the
+supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most
+commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as
+the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being
+alarmed, he thinks that the author must be gifted with infallible
+intuition to follow out thus the taints in his characters, even
+through their most dangerous mazes. The reader does not know that
+these hallucinations which he describes so minutely were experienced
+by Maupassant himself; he does not know that the fear is in himself,
+the anguish of fear "which is not caused by the presence of danger, or
+of inevitable death, but by certain abnormal conditions, by certain
+mysterious influences in presence of vague dangers," the "fear of
+fear, the dread of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible
+terror."
+
+How can one explain these physical sufferings and this morbid distress
+that were known for some time to his intimates alone? Alas! the
+explanation is only too simple. All his life, consciously or
+unconsciously, Maupassant fought this malady, hidden as yet, which was
+latent in him.
+
+Those who first saw Maupassant when the Contes de la Becasse and Bel
+Ami were published were somewhat astonished at his appearance. He was
+solidly built, rather short and had a resolute, determined air, rather
+unpolished and without those distinguishing marks of intellect and
+social position. But his hands were delicate and supple, and beautiful
+shadows encircled his eyes.
+
+He received visitors with the graciousness of the courteous head of a
+department, who resigns himself to listen to demands, allowing them to
+talk as he smiled faintly, and nonplussing them by his calmness.
+
+How chilling was this first interview to young enthusiasts who had
+listened to Zola unfolding in lyric formula audacious methods, or to
+the soothing words of Daudet, who scattered with prodigality striking,
+thrilling ideas, picturesque outlines and brilliant synopses.
+Maupassant's remarks, in tetes-a-tetes, as in general conversation,
+were usually current commonplaces and on ordinary time-worn topics.
+Convinced of the superfluousness of words, perhaps he confounded them
+all in the same category, placing the same estimate on a thought nobly
+expressed as on a sally of coarse wit. One would have thought so, to
+see the indifference with which he treated alike the chatter of the
+most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of
+the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life
+work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical
+anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move
+him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical
+joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the
+pleasure of hoaxing and mystifying people.
+
+He appeared besides to look upon art as a pastime, literature as an
+occupation useless at best, while he willingly relegated love to the
+performance of a function, and suspected the motives of the most
+meritorious actions.
+
+Some say that this was the inborn basis of his personal psychology. I
+do not believe it. That he may have had a low estimate of humanity,
+that he may have mistrusted its disinterestedness, contested the
+quality of its virtue, is possible, even certain. But that he was not
+personally superior to his heroes I am unwilling to admit. And if I
+see in his attitude, as in his language, an evidence of his inveterate
+pessimism, I see in it also a method of protecting his secret thoughts
+from the curiosity of the vulgar.
+
+Perhaps he overshot the mark. By dint of hearing morality, art and
+literature depreciated, and seeing him preoccupied with boating, and
+listening to his own accounts of love affairs which he did not always
+carry on in the highest class, many ended by seeing in him one of
+those terrible Normans who, all through his novels and stories,
+carouse and commit social crimes with such commanding assurance and
+such calm unmorality.
+
+He was undoubtedly a Norman, and, according to those who knew him
+best, many of his traits of character show that atavism is not always
+an idle word....
+
+To identify Maupassant with his characters is a gross error, but is
+not without precedent. We always like to trace the author in the hero
+of a romance, and to seek the actor beneath the disguise. No doubt, as
+Taine has said, "the works of an intelligence have not the
+intelligence alone for father and mother, but the whole personality of
+the man helps to produce them...."
+
+That is why Maupassant himself says to us, "No, I have not the soul of
+a decadent, I cannot look within myself, and the effort I make to
+understand unknown souls is incessant, involuntary and dominant. It is
+not an effort; I experience a sort of overpowering sense of insight
+into all that surrounds me. I am impregnated with it, I yield to it, I
+submerge myself in these surrounding influences."
+
+That is, properly speaking, the peculiarity of all great novelists.
+Who experiences this insight, this influence more than Balzac, or
+Flaubert, in Madame Bovary? And so with Maupassant, who, pen in hand,
+is the character he describes, with his passions, his hatreds, his
+vices and his virtues. He so incorporates himself in him that the
+author disappears, and we ask ourselves in vain what his own opinion
+is of what he has just told us. He has none possibly, or if he has he
+does not tell it.
+
+This agrees admirably with the theory of impassivity in literature, so
+much in vogue when Maupassant became known. But despite that theory he
+is, if one understands him, quite other than
+
+        "A being without pity who contemplated suffering."
+
+He has the deepest sympathy for the weak, for the victims of the
+deceptions of society, for the sufferings of the obscure. If the
+successful adventurer, Lesable, and the handsome Maze are the objects
+of his veiled irony, he maintains, or feels a sorrowful, though
+somewhat disdainful tenderness, for poor old Savon, the old copying
+clerk of the Ministry of Marine, who is the drudge of the office and
+whose colleagues laugh at him because his wife deceived him, _sans
+espoir d'"heritage."_
+
+Why did Maupassant at the start win universal favor? It is because he
+had direct genius, the clear vision of a "primitive" (an artist of the
+pre-Renaissance). His materials were just those of a graduate who,
+having left college, has satisfied his curiosity. Grasping the simple
+and ingenious, but strong and appropriate tools that he himself has
+forged, he starts out in the forest of romance, and instead of being
+overcome by the enchantment of its mystery, he walks through it
+unfalteringly with a joyful step....
+
+He was a minstrel. Offspring of a race, and not the inheritor of a
+formula, he narrated to his contemporaries, bewildered by the lyrical
+deformities of romanticism, stories of human beings, simple and
+logical, like those which formerly delighted our parents.
+
+The French reader who wished to be amused was at once at home, on the
+same footing with him.... More spontaneous than the first troubadours,
+he banished from his writings abstract and general types,
+"romanticized" life itself, and not myths, those eternal legends that
+stray through the highways of the world.
+
+Study closely these minstrels in recent works; read M. Joseph Bedier's
+beautiful work, Les Fabliaux, and you will see how, in Maupassant's
+prose, ancestors, whom he doubtless never knew, are brought to life.
+
+The Minstrel feels neither anger nor sympathy; he neither censures,
+nor moralizes; for the self-satisfied Middle Ages cannot conceive the
+possibility of a different world. Brief, quick, he despises aims and
+methods, his only object is to entertain his auditors. Amusing and
+witty, he cares only for laughter and ridicule....
+
+But Maupassant's stories are singularly different in character. In the
+nineteenth century the Gallic intellect had long since foundered amid
+vileness and debauchery. In the provinces the ancient humor had
+disappeared; one chattered still about nothing, but without point,
+without wit; "trifling" was over, as they call it in Champagne. The
+nauseating pabulum of the newspapers and low political intrigue had
+withered the French intellect, that delicate, rare intellect, the last
+traces of which fade away in the Alsatian stories of Erckman-Chatrian,
+in the Provencal tales of Alphonse Daudet, in the novels of Emile
+Pouvillon. Maupassant is not one of them. He knows nothing about
+humor, for he never found it in Life....
+
+His ambition was not to make one laugh; he writes for the pleasure of
+recalling, without bias, what, to him, seems a halfway and dangerous
+truth.... In his pessimism, Maupassant despises the race, society,
+civilization and the world....
+
+If Maupassant draws from anyone it is Schopenhauer and Herbert
+Spencer, of whom he often speaks, although one does not know if he
+studied them very deeply. In all his books, excepting, of course, in
+the case of lines from the great tragic poets, one finds only one
+credited reference, which in to Sir John Lubbock's work on ants, an
+extract from which is introduced into Yvette.
+
+No one was less bookish than himself. He was a designer, and one of
+the greatest in literature. His heroes, little folk, artisans or
+rustics, bureaucrats or shopkeepers, prostitutes or rakes, he places
+them in faintly colored, but well-defined surroundings. And,
+immediately, the simplified landscape gives the keynote of the story.
+
+In his descriptions he resists the temptation of asserting his
+personal view. He will not allow himself to see more of his landscape
+than his characters themselves see. He is also careful to avoid all
+refined terms and expressions, to introduce no element superior to the
+characters of his heroes.
+
+He never makes inanimate nature intervene directly in human
+tribulations; she laughs at our joys and our sorrows.... Once, only,
+in one of his works, the trees join in the universal mourning--the
+great, sad beeches weep in autumn for the soul, the little soul, of la
+petite Roque.
+
+And yet Maupassant adores this nature, the one thing that moves
+him.... But, in spite of this, he can control himself; the artist is
+aware of the danger to his narration should he indulge in the
+transports of a lover.
+
+With an inborn perception, Maupassant at once seizes on the principal
+detail, the essential peculiarity that distinguishes a character and
+builds round it. He also, in the presentation of his character,
+assumes an authority that no writer, not even Balzac, ever
+equalled....
+
+He traces what he sees with rapid strokes. His work is a vast
+collection of powerful sketches, synthetic draftings. Like all great
+artists, he was a simplifier; he knew how to "sacrifice" like the
+Egyptians and Greeks....
+
+Thanks to his rapid methods the master "cinematographed," if I may use
+the word, inexhaustible stories. Among them, each person may find
+himself represented, the artist, the clerk, the thinker, and the
+non-commissioned officer.
+
+Maupassant was always impatient to "realize" his observations. He
+might forget, and above all, the flower of the sensation might lose
+its perfume. In Une Vie he hastens to sum up his childhood's
+recollections. As for Bel Ami, he wrote it from day to day as he
+haunted the offices of Editors.
+
+As for his style, it is limpid, accurate, easy and strongly marked,
+with a sound framework and having the suppleness of a living organism.
+
+Very industrious and very careful at first, Maupassant, in the fever
+of production, became less careful. He early accustomed himself to
+composing in his mind. "Composition amuses me," he said, "when I am
+thinking it out, and not when I am writing it." ... Once he had
+thought out his novels or romances, he transcribed them hurriedly,
+almost mechanically. In his manuscripts, long pages follow each other
+without an erasure.
+
+His language appears natural, easy, and at first sight seems
+spontaneous. But at the price of what effort was it not acquired! ...
+
+In reality, in the writer, his sense of sight and smell were
+perfected, to the detriment of the sense of hearing which is not very
+musical. Repetitions, assonances, do not always shock Maupassant, who
+is sometimes insensible to quantity as he is to harmony. He does not
+"orchestrate," he has not inherited the "organ pipes" of Flaubert.
+
+In his vocabulary there is no research; he never even requires a rare
+word....
+
+Those whom Flaubert's great organ tones delighted, those whom
+Theophile Gautier's frescoes enchanted, were not satisfied, and
+accused Maupassant, somewhat harshly, of not being a "writer" in the
+highest sense of the term. The reproach is unmerited, for there is but
+one style.
+
+But, on the other hand, it is difficult to admit, with an eminent
+academician that Maupassant must be a great writer, a classical
+writer, in fact, simply because he "had no style," a condition of
+perfection "in that form of literary art in which the personality of
+the author should not appear, in the romance, the story, and the
+drama."
+
+A classic, Maupassant undoubtedly is, as the critic to whom I alluded
+has said, "through the simple aptness of his terms and his contempt
+for frivolous ornamentation."
+
+He remains a great writer because, like Moliere, La Bruyere, and La
+Fontaine, he is always close to nature, disdaining all studied
+rhetorical effect and all literary verbosity.
+
+For applause and fame Maupassant cared nothing, and his proud contempt
+for Orders and Academies is well known.
+
+In a letter to Marie Bashkirtseff he writes as follows:
+
+"Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, women, events. This is
+my true confession of faith, and I may add what you may not believe,
+which is that I do not care any more for myself than I do for the
+rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent
+to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I
+pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I
+can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade."
+
+And in a later letter:
+
+"I have no taste that I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire
+that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or
+laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give
+myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me
+to spend it."
+
+And again:
+
+"As for me, I am incapable of really loving my art. I am too critical,
+I analyze it too much. I feel strongly how relative is the value of
+ideas, words, and even of the loftiest intelligences. I cannot help
+despising thought, it is so weak; and form, it is so imperfect. I
+really have, in an acute, incurable form, the sense of human
+impotence, and of effort which results in wretched approximations."
+
+For nature, Maupassant had an ardent passion.... His whole being
+quivered when she bathed his forehead with her light ocean breeze.
+She, alone, knew how to rock and soothe him with her waves.
+
+Never satisfied, he wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled
+incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters
+of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted,
+bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves
+rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its
+scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and,
+finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, but
+simply to enjoy the delight of grand, pure outlines. Africa, the
+country of Salammbo, the desert, finally call him, and he breathes
+those distant odors borne on the slow winds; the sunlight inundates
+his body, "laves the dark corners of his soul." And he retains a
+troubled memory of the evenings in those warm climes, where the
+fragrance of plants and trees seems to take the place of air.
+
+Maupassant's philosophy is as little complicated as his vision of
+humanity. His pessimism exceeds in its simplicity and depth that of
+all other realistic writers.
+
+Still there are contradictions and not unimportant ones in him. The
+most striking is certainly his fear of Death. He sees it everywhere,
+it haunts him. He sees it on the horizon of landscapes, and it crosses
+his path on lonely roads. When it is not hovering over his head, it is
+circling round him as around Gustave Moreau's pale youth.... Can he,
+the determined materialist, really fear the stupor of eternal sleep,
+or the dispersion of the transient individuality? ...
+
+Another contradiction. He who says that contact with the crowd
+"tortures his nerves," and who professes such contempt for mankind,
+yet considers solitude as one of the bitterest torments of existence.
+And he bewails the fact that he cannot live just for himself, "keep
+within himself that secret place of the ego, where none can enter."
+
+"Alas!" said his master, "we are all in a desert." Nobody understands
+anyone else and "whatever we attempt, whatever be the impulse of our
+heart and the appeal of our lips, we shall always be alone!"
+
+In this gehenna of death, in these nostalgias of the past, in these
+trances of eternal isolation, may we not find some relinquishing of
+his philosophy? Certainly not, for these contradictions accentuate all
+the more the pain of existence and become a new source of suffering.
+
+In any case, Maupassant's pessimism becomes logical in terminating in
+pity, like that of Schopenhauer. I know that I am running foul of
+certain admirers of the author who do not see any pity in his work,
+and it is understood that he is pitiless. But examine his stories more
+closely and you will find it revealed in every page, provided you go
+to the very bottom of the subject. That is where it exists naturally,
+almost against the desire of the writer, who does not arouse pity, nor
+teach it.
+
+And, again, if it remains concealed from so many readers, it is
+because it has nothing to do with the humanitarian pity retailed by
+rhetoricians. It is philosophical and haughty, detached from any
+"anthropocentric" characteristics. It is universal suffering that it
+covers. And to tell the truth, it is man, the hypocritical and cunning
+biped who has the least share in it. Maupassant is helpful to all
+those of his fellows who are tortured by physical suffering, social
+cruelty and the criminal dangers of life, but he pities them without
+caring for them, and his kindness makes distinctions.
+
+On the other hand, the pessimist has all the tenderness of a Buddhist
+for animals, whom the gospels despise. When he pities the animals, who
+are worth more than ourselves, their executioners, when he pities the
+elementary existences, the plants and trees, those exquisite
+creations, he unbends and pours out his heart. The humbler the victim,
+the more generously does he espouse its suffering. His compassion is
+unbounded for all that lives in misery, that is buffeted about without
+understanding why, that "suffers and dies without a word." And if he
+mourned Miss Harriet, in this unaccustomed outburst of enthusiasm, it
+is because, like himself, the poor outcast cherished a similar love
+for "all things, all living beings."
+
+Such appears to me to be Maupassant, the novelist, a story-teller, a
+writer, and a philosopher by turns. I will add one more trait; he was
+devoid of all spirit of criticism. When he essays to demolish a
+theory, one is amazed to find in this great, clear writer such lack of
+precision of thought, and such weak argument. He wrote the least
+eloquent and the most diffuse study of Flaubert, of "that old, dead
+master who had won his heart in a manner he could not explain." And,
+later, he shows the same weakness in setting forth, as in proving his
+theory, in his essay on the "Evolution of the Novel," in the
+introduction to Pierre et Jean.
+
+On the other hand, he possesses, above many others, a power of
+creating, hidden and inborn, which he exercises almost unconsciously.
+Living, spontaneous and yet impassive he is the glorious agent of a
+mysterious function, through which he dominated literature and will
+continue to dominate it until the day when he desires to become
+literary.
+
+He is as big as a tree. The author of "Contemporains" has written that
+Maupassant produced novels as an apple-tree yields apples. Never was a
+criticism more irrefutable.
+
+On various occasions he was pleased with himself at the fertility that
+had developed in him amid those rich soils where a frenzy mounts to
+your brain through the senses of smell and sight. He even feels the
+influence of the seasons, and writes from Provence: "The sap is rising
+in me, it is true. The spring that I find just awakening here stirs
+all my plant nature, and causes me to produce those literary fruits
+that ripen in me, I know not how."
+
+The "meteor" is at its apogee. All admire and glorify him. It is the
+period when Alexandre Dumas, fils, wrote to him thrice: "You are the
+only author whose books I await with impatience."
+
+The day came, however, when this dominant impassivity became stirred,
+when the marble became flesh by contact with life and suffering. And
+the work of the romancer, begun by the novelist, became warm with a
+tenderness that is found for the first time in Mont Oriol....
+
+But this sentimental outburst that astonished his admirers quickly
+dies down, for the following year, there appeared the sober Pierre et
+Jean, that admirable masterpiece of typical reality constructed with
+"human leaven," without any admixture of literary seasoning, or
+romantic combinations. The reader finds once more in his splendid
+integrity the master of yore.
+
+But his heart has been touched, nevertheless. In the books that
+follow, his impassivity gives way like an edifice that has been slowly
+undermined. With an ever-growing emotion he relates under slight
+disguises all his physical distress, all the terrors of his mind and
+heart.
+
+What is the secret of this evolution? The perusal of his works gives
+us a sufficient insight into it.
+
+The Minstrel has been received in country houses; has been admitted to
+"the ladies' apartments." He has given up composing those hurried
+tales which made his fame, in order to construct beautiful romances of
+love and death.... The story teller has forsaken rustics and peasants,
+the comrades of the "Repues franches," for the nobility and the
+wealthy. He who formerly frequented Mme. Tellier's establishment now
+praises Michele de Burne.
+
+Ysolde replaces Macette. In "l'Ostel de Courtoisie," Maupassant
+cultivates the usual abstractions of the modern Round Table:
+Distinction and Moderation; Fervor and Delicacy. We see him inditing
+love sonnets and becoming a knight of chivalry. The apologist of
+brutal pleasures has become a devotee of the "culte de la Dame."
+
+Everywhere he was sought after, feted, petted.... But Maupassant never
+let himself be carried away by the tinsel of his prestige, nor the
+puerility of his enchantment. He despised at heart the puppets that
+moved about him as he had formerly despised his short stories and his
+petit bourgeois. "Ah," he cries, "I see them, their heads, their
+types, their hearts and their souls! What a clinic for a maker of
+books! The disgust with which this humanity inspires me makes me
+regret still more that I could not become what I should most have
+preferred--an Aristophanes, or a Rabelais." And he adds: "The world
+makes failures of all scientists, all artists, all intelligences that
+it monopolizes. It aborts all sincere sentiment by its manner of
+scattering our taste, our curiosity, our desire, the little spark of
+genius that burns in us."
+
+Maupassant had to bend to the conditions of his new life. Being well
+bred, he respected, outwardly at least, the laws of artificiality and
+conventionality, and bowed before the idols of the cave he had
+entered....
+
+If Maupassant never became the slave of worldly ideas, the creature of
+instinct that was part of his being acquired the refined tastes of the
+salons, and the manners of the highest civilization.
+
+The novelist lived for some time in these enchanted and artificial
+surroundings, when, suddenly, his malady became aggravated. He was
+tortured by neuralgia, and by new mysterious darting pains. His
+suffering was so great that he longed to scream. At the same time, his
+unhappy heart became softened and he became singularly emotional. His
+early faculties were intensified and refined, and in the overtension
+of his nerves through suffering his perceptions broadened, and he
+gained new ideas of things. This nobler personality Maupassant owes to
+those sufferings dear to great souls of whom Daudet speaks. This is
+what he says:
+
+"If I could ever tell all, I should utter all the unexplored,
+repressed and sad thoughts that I feel in the depths of my being. I
+feel them swelling and poisoning me as bile does some people. But if I
+could one day give them utterance they would perhaps evaporate, and I
+might no longer have anything but a light, joyful heart. Who can say?
+Thinking becomes an abominable torture when the brain is an open
+wound. I have so many wounds in my head that my ideas cannot stir
+without making me long to cry out. Why is it? Why is it? Dumas would
+say that my stomach is out of order. I believe, rather, that I have a
+poor, proud, shameful heart, that old human heart that people laugh
+at, but which is touched, and causes me suffering, and in my head as
+well; I have the mind of the Latin race, which is very worn out. And,
+again, there are days when I do not think thus, but when I suffer just
+the same; for I belong to the family of the thin-skinned. But then I
+do not tell it, I do not show it; I conceal it very well, I think.
+Without any doubt, I am thought to be one of the most indifferent men
+in the world. I am sceptical, which is not the same thing, sceptical
+because I am clear-sighted. And my eyes say to my heart, Hide
+yourself, old fellow, you are grotesque, and it hides itself."
+
+This describes, in spite of reservation, the struggle between two
+conflicting minds, that of yesterday, and that of to-day. But this
+sensitiveness that Maupassant seeks to hide, is plain to all
+clear-seeing people.
+
+He soon begins to be filled with regrets and forebodings. He has a
+desire to look into the unknown, and to search for the inexplicable.
+He feels in himself that something is undergoing destruction; he is at
+times haunted by the idea of a double. He divines that his malady is
+on guard, ready to pounce on him. He seeks to escape it, but on the
+mountains, as beside the sea, nature, formerly his refuge, now
+terrifies him.
+
+Then his heart expands. All the sentiments that he once reviled, he
+now desires to experience. He now exalts in his books the passion of
+love, the passion of sacrifice, the passion of suffering; he extols
+self-sacrifice, devotion, the irresistible joy of ever giving oneself
+up more and more. The hour is late, the night is at hand; weary of
+suffering any longer, he hurriedly begs for tenderness and
+remembrance.
+
+Occasionally, the Maupassant of former days protests against the
+bondage of his new personality; he complains that he no longer feels
+absolutely as formerly that he has no contact with anything in the
+world, that sweet, strong sensation that gives one strength. "How
+sensible I was," he says, "to wall myself round with indifference! If
+one did not feel, but only understand, without giving fragments of
+oneself to other beings! ... It is strange to suffer from the
+emptiness, the nothingness, of this life, when one is resigned, as I
+am, to nothingness. But, there, I cannot live without recollections,
+and recollections sadden me. I can have no hope, I know, but I feel
+obscurely and unceasingly the harm of this statement, and the regret
+that it should be so. And the attachments that I have in life act on
+my sensibility, which is too human, and not literary enough."
+
+Maupassant's pity now takes a pathetic turn. He no longer despises,
+but holds out his hand to those unfortunates who, like himself, are
+tormented on the pathway without hope. The tears that he sees flow
+make him sad, and his heart bleeds at all the wounds he discovers. He
+does not inquire into the quality or origin of the misfortune. He
+sympathizes with all suffering; physical suffering, moral suffering,
+the suffering caused by treachery, the bitter twilight of wasted
+lives....
+
+His mind has also become active. He desires to dabble in science. One
+day he studies the Arab mystics, Oriental legends, and the next, he
+studies the marine fauna, etc. His perceptions have never been so
+clear. His brain is in continual activity. "It is strange," he
+acknowledges, "what a different man I am becoming mentally from what I
+was formerly. I can see it as I watch myself thinking, discovering,
+and developing stories, weighing and analyzing the imaginary beings
+that float through my imagination. I take the same enjoyment in
+certain dreams, certain exaltations of mind, as I formerly took in
+rowing like mad in the sunlight."
+
+For the first time, his assurance as a writer wavers. As his last
+volumes show, he is endeavoring to transform, to renew himself. He
+acquires a desire to learn the secrets of obscure and precious hearts,
+to visit unknown races. He has lost his magnificent serenity....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As his malady began to take a more definite form, he turned his steps
+towards the south, only visiting Paris to see his physicians and
+publishers. In the old port of Antibes beyond the causeway of Cannes,
+his yacht, Bel Ami, which he cherished as a brother, lay at anchor and
+awaited him. He took it to the white cities of the Genoese Gulf,
+towards the palm trees of Hyeres, or the red bay trees of Antheor.
+
+It was during one of these idle cruises on the open sea, outside of
+Agay and Saint-Raphael that he wrote "Sur l'Eau."
+
+It was on the sacred sea of the old poets and philosophers, on the sea
+whose voice has rocked the thought of the world, that he cast into the
+shadow that long lament, so heartrending and sublime, that posterity
+will long shudder at the remembrance of it. The bitter strophes of
+this lament seem to be cadenced by the Mediterranean itself and to be
+in rhythm, like its melopoeia.
+
+"Sur l'Eau" is the last Will and Testament, the general confession of
+Maupassant. To those who come after him he leaves the legacy of his
+highest thought; then he says farewell to all that he loved, to
+dreams, to starlit nights, and to the breath of roses. "Sur l'Eau" is
+the book of modern disenchantment, the faithful mirror of the latest
+pessimism. The journal written on board ship, disconnected and hasty,
+but so noble in its disorder, has taken a place forever beside Werther
+and Rene, Manfred and Oberman.
+
+He had for a long time, to his sorrow, seen his health failing under
+the attacks of an obscure malady which left him with a sense of the
+diminution of his powers and a gradual clouding of his intellect.
+Symptoms of general paralysis set in, at first mistaken for neurotic
+disturbances. He changed greatly. Those who met him as I did, thin and
+shivering, on that rainy Sunday when they were celebrating the
+inauguration of Flaubert's monument at Rouen would scarcely have
+recognized him. I shall never forget, as long as I live, his face
+wasted by suffering, his large eyes with a distressed expression,
+which emitted dying gleams of protest against a cruel fate....
+
+Maupassant retired to Cannes not far from his mother. He read medical
+books and, in spite of what they taught, persisted in attributing his
+sufferings to "rheumatism localized in the brain," contracted amid the
+fogs on the Seine....
+
+Vainly he endeavored to work, he became gloomy and the idea of suicide
+impressed him more and more....
+
+The months passed, however, and in June he was able to go to Divonne
+to take a cure. After a very characteristic attack of optimism, he
+suddenly appeared at Champel and astonished everyone by his frightful
+eccentricities. One evening, however, he felt better, and read to the
+poet Dorchain the beginning of his novel "The Angelus," which he
+declared would be his masterpiece. When he had finished, he wept. "And
+we wept also," writes Dorchain, "at seeing all that now remained of
+genius, of tenderness and pity in this soul that would never again be
+capable of expressing itself so as to impress other minds.... In his
+accent, in his language, in his tears, Maupassant had, I know not
+what, of a religious character, which exceeded his horror of life, and
+his sombre terror of annihilation."
+
+At the end of September he again visited Cannes, but the fatal day
+predicted by the physician was at hand.
+
+After several tragic weeks in which, from instinct, he made a
+desperate fight, on the 1st of January, 1892, he felt he was
+hopelessly vanquished, and in a moment of supreme clearness of
+intellect, like Gerard de Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate
+than the author of Sylvia, he was unsuccessful. But his mind,
+henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness," had entered into eternal
+darkness.
+
+He was taken back to Paris and placed in Dr. Meuriot's sanatorium,
+where, after eighteen months of mechanical existence, the "meteor"
+quietly passed away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNE VIE
+
+OR, THE HISTORY OF A HEART
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HOME BY THE SEA
+
+The weather was most distressing. It had rained all night. The roaring
+of the overflowing gutters filled the deserted streets, in which the
+houses, like sponges, absorbed the humidity, which penetrating to the
+interior, made the walls sweat from cellar to garret. Jeanne had left
+the convent the day before, free for all time, ready to seize all the
+joys of life, of which she had dreamed so long. She was afraid her
+father would not set out for the new home in bad weather, and for the
+hundredth time since daybreak she examined the horizon. Then she
+noticed that she had omitted to put her calendar in her travelling
+bag. She took from the wall the little card which bore in golden
+figures the date of the current year, 1819. Then she marked with a
+pencil the first four columns, drawing a line through the name of each
+saint up to the 2d of May, the day that she left the convent. A voice
+outside the door called "Jeannette." Jeanne replied, "Come in, papa."
+And her father entered. Baron Simon-Jacques Le Perthuis des Vauds was
+a gentleman of the last century, eccentric and good. An enthusiastic
+disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he had the tenderness of a lover
+for nature, in the fields, in the woods and in the animals. Of
+aristocratic birth, he hated instinctively the year 1793, but being a
+philosopher by temperament and liberal by education, he execrated
+tyranny with an inoffensive and declamatory hatred. His great strength
+and his great weakness was his kind-heartedness, which had not arms
+enough to caress, to give, to embrace; the benevolence of a god, that
+gave freely, without questioning; in a word, a kindness of inertia
+that became almost a vice. A man of theory, he thought out a plan of
+education for his daughter, to the end that she might become happy,
+good, upright and gentle. She had lived at home until the age of
+twelve, when, despite the tears of her mother, she was placed in the
+Convent of the Sacred Heart. He had kept her severely secluded,
+cloistered, in ignorance of the secrets of life. He wished the Sisters
+to restore her to him pure at seventeen years of age, so that he might
+imbue her mind with a sort of rational poetry, and by means of the
+fields, in the midst of the fruitful earth, unfold her soul, enlighten
+her ignorance through the aspect of love in nature, through the simple
+tenderness of the animals, through the placid laws of existence. She
+was leaving the convent radiant, full of the joy of life, ready for
+all the happiness, all the charming incidents which her mind had
+pictured in her idle hours and in the long, quiet nights. She was like
+a portrait by Veronese with her fair, glossy hair, which seemed to
+cast a radiance on her skin, a skin with the faintest tinge of pink,
+softened by a light velvety down which could be perceived when the sun
+kissed her cheek. Her eyes were an opaque blue, like those of Dutch
+porcelain figures. She had a tiny mole on her left nostril and another
+on the right of her chin. She was tall, well developed, with willowy
+figure. Her clear voice sounded at times a little too sharp, but her
+frank, sincere laugh spread joy around her. Often, with a familiar
+gesture, she would raise her hands to her temples as if to arrange her
+hair.
+
+She ran to her father and embraced him warmly. "Well, are we going to
+start?" she said. He smiled, shook his head and said, pointing toward
+the window, "How can we travel in such weather?" But she implored in a
+cajoling and tender manner, "Oh, papa, do let us start. It will clear
+up in the afternoon." "But your mother will never consent to it."
+"Yes, I promise you that she will, I will arrange that." "If you
+succeed in persuading your mother, I am perfectly willing." In a few
+moments she returned from her mother's room, shouting in a voice that
+could be heard all through the house, "Papa, papa, mamma is willing.
+Have the horses harnessed." The rain was not abating; one might almost
+have said that it was raining harder when the carriage drove up to the
+door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs,
+supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall
+housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of
+the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but
+eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second
+daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie,
+and her chief duty lay in guiding the steps of her mistress, who had
+grown enormous in the last few years and also had an affection of the
+heart, which kept her complaining continually. The baroness, gasping
+from over-exertion, finally reached the doorstep of the old residence,
+looked at the court where the water was streaming and remarked: "It
+really is not wise." Her husband, always pleasant, replied: "It was
+you who desired it, Madame Adelaide." He always preceded her pompous
+name of Adelaide with the title madame with an air of half respectful
+mockery. Madame mounted with difficulty into the carriage, causing all
+the springs to bend. The baron sat beside her, while Jeanne and
+Rosalie were seated opposite, with their backs to the horses.
+Ludivine, the cook, brought a heap of wraps to put over their knees
+and two baskets, which were placed under the seats; then she climbed
+on the box beside Father Simon, wrapping herself in a great rug which
+covered her completely. The porter and his wife came to bid them
+good-by as they closed the carriage door, taking the last orders about
+the trunks, which were to follow in a wagon. So they started. Father
+Simon, the coachman, with head bowed and back bent in the pouring
+rain, was completely covered by his box coat with its triple cape. The
+howling storm beat upon the carriage windows and inundated the
+highway.
+
+They drove rapidly to the wharf and continued alongside the line of
+tall-masted vessels until they reached the boulevard of Mont Riboudet.
+Then they crossed the meadows, where from time to time a drowned
+willow, its branches drooping limply, could be faintly distinguished
+through the mist of rain. No one spoke. Their minds themselves seemed
+to be saturated with moisture like the earth.
+
+The baroness leaned her head against the cushions and closed her eyes.
+The baron looked out with mournful eyes at the monotonous and drenched
+landscape. Rosalie, with a parcel on her knee, was dreaming in the
+dull reverie of a peasant. But Jeanne, under this downpour, felt
+herself revive like a plant that has been shut up and has just been
+restored to the air, and so great was her joy that, like foliage, it
+sheltered her heart from sadness. Although she did not speak, she
+longed to burst out singing, to reach out her hands to catch the rain
+that she might drink it. She enjoyed to the full being carried along
+rapidly by the horses, enjoyed gazing at the desolate landscape and
+feeling herself under shelter amid this general inundation. Beneath
+the pelting rain the gleaming backs of the two horses emitted a warm
+steam.
+
+Little by little the baroness fell asleep, and presently began to
+snore sonorously. Her husband leaned over and placed in her hands a
+little leather pocketbook.
+
+This awakened her, and she looked at the pocket-book with the stupid,
+sleepy look of one suddenly aroused. It fell off her lap and sprang
+open and gold and bank bills were scattered on the floor of the
+carriage. This roused her completely, and Jeanne gave vent to her
+mirth in a merry peal of girlish laughter.
+
+The baron picked up the money and placed it on her knees. "This, my
+dear," he said, "is all that is left of my farm at Eletot. I have sold
+it--so as to be able to repair the 'Poplars,' where we shall often
+live in the future."
+
+She counted six thousand four hundred francs and quietly put them in
+her pocket. This was the ninth of thirty-one farms that they had
+inherited which they had sold in this way. Nevertheless they still
+possessed about twenty thousand livres income annually in land
+rentals, which, with proper care, would have yielded about thirty
+thousand francs a year.
+
+Living simply as they did, this income would have sufficed had there
+not been a bottomless hole always open in their house--kind-hearted
+generosity. It dried up the money in their hands as the sun dries the
+water in marshes. It flowed, fled, disappeared. How? No one knew.
+Frequently one would say to the other, "I don't know how it happens,
+but I have spent one hundred francs to-day, and I have bought nothing
+of any consequence." This faculty of giving was, however, one of the
+greatest pleasures of their life, and they all agreed on this point in
+a superb and touching manner.
+
+Jeanne asked her father, "Is it beautiful now, my castle?" The baron
+replied, "You shall see, my little girl."
+
+The storm began to abate. The vault of clouds seemed to rise and
+heighten and suddenly, through a rift, a long ray of sunshine fell
+upon the fields, and presently the clouds separated, showing the blue
+firmament, and then, like the tearing of a veil, the opening grew
+larger and the beautiful azure sky, clear and fathomless, spread over
+the world. A fresh and gentle breeze passed over the earth like a
+happy sigh, and as they passed beside gardens or woods they heard
+occasionally the bright chirp of a bird as he dried his wings.
+
+Evening was approaching. Everyone in the carriage was asleep except
+Jeanne. They stopped to rest and feed the horses. The sun had set. In
+the distance bells were heard. They passed a little village as the
+inhabitants were lighting their lamps, and the sky became also
+illuminated by myriads of stars. Suddenly they saw behind a hill,
+through the branches of the fir trees, the moon rising, red and full
+as if it were torpid with sleep.
+
+The air was so soft that the windows were not closed. Jeanne,
+exhausted with dreams and happy visions, was now asleep. Finally they
+stopped. Some men and women were standing before the carriage door
+with lanterns in their hands. They had arrived. Jeanne, suddenly
+awakened, was the first to jump out. Her father and Rosalie had
+practically to carry the baroness, who was groaning and continually
+repeating in a weak little voice, "Oh, my God, my poor children!" She
+refused all offers of refreshment, but went to bed and immediately
+fell asleep.
+
+Jeanne and her father, the baron, took supper together. They were in
+perfect sympathy with each other. Later, seized with a childish joy,
+they started on a tour of inspection through the restored manor. It
+was one of those high and vast Norman residences that comprise both
+farmhouse and castle, built of white stone which had turned gray,
+large enough to contain a whole race of people.
+
+An immense hall divided the house from front to rear and a staircase
+went up at either side of the entrance, meeting in a bridge on the
+first floor. The huge drawing-room was on the ground floor to the
+right and was hung with tapestries representing birds and foliage. All
+the furniture was covered with fine needlework tapestry illustrating
+La Fontaine's fables, and Jeanne was delighted at finding a chair she
+had loved as a child, which pictured the story of "The Fox and the
+Stork."
+
+Beside the drawing-room were the library, full of old books, and two
+unused rooms; at the left was the dining-room, the laundry, the
+kitchen, etc.
+
+A corridor divided the whole first floor, the doors of ten rooms
+opening into it. At the end, on the right, was Jeanne's room. She and
+her father went in. He had had it all newly done over, using the
+furniture and draperies that had been in the storeroom.
+
+There were some very old Flemish tapestries, with their peculiar
+looking figures. At sight of her bed, the young girl uttered a scream
+of joy. Four large birds carved in oak, black from age and highly
+polished, bore up the bed and seemed to be its protectors. On the
+sides were carved two wide garlands of flowers and fruit, and four
+finely fluted columns, terminating in Corinthian capitals, supported a
+cornice of cupids with roses intertwined. The tester and the coverlet
+were of antique blue silk, embroidered in gold fleur de lys. When
+Jeanne had sufficiently admired it, she lifted up the candle to
+examine the tapestries and the allegories they represented. They were
+mostly conventional subjects, but the last hanging represented a
+drama. Near a rabbit, which was still nibbling, a young man lay
+stretched out, apparently dead. A young girl, gazing at him, was
+plunging a sword into her bosom, and the fruit of the tree had turned
+black. Jeanne gave up trying to divine the meaning underlying this
+picture, when she saw in the corner a tiny little animal which the
+rabbit, had he lived, could have swallowed like a blade of grass; and
+yet it was a lion. Then she recognized the story of "Pyramus and
+Thisbe," and though she smiled at the simplicity of the design, she
+felt happy to have in her room this love adventure which would
+continually speak to her of her cherished hopes, and every night this
+legendary love would hover about her dreams.
+
+It struck eleven and the baron kissed Jeanne goodnight and retired to
+his room. Before retiring, Jeanne cast a last glance round her room
+and then regretfully extinguished the candle. Through her window she
+could see the bright moonlight bathing the trees and the wonderful
+landscape. Presently she arose, opened a window and looked out. The
+night was so clear that one could see as plainly as by daylight. She
+looked across the park with its two long avenues of very tall poplars
+that gave its name to the chateau and separated it from the two farms
+that belonged to it, one occupied by the Couillard family, the other
+by the Martins. Beyond the enclosure stretched a long, uncultivated
+plain, thickly overgrown with rushes, where the breeze whistled day
+and night. The land ended abruptly in a steep white cliff three
+hundred feet high, with its base in the ocean waves.
+
+Jeanne looked out over the long, undulating surface that seemed to
+slumber beneath the heavens. All the fragrance of the earth was in the
+night air. The odor of jasmine rose from the lower windows, and light
+whiffs of briny air and of seaweed were wafted from the ocean.
+
+Merely to breathe was enough for Jeanne, and the restful calm of the
+country was like a soothing bath. She felt as though her heart was
+expanding and she began dreaming of love. What was it? She did not
+know. She only knew that she would adore _him_ with all her soul
+and that he would cherish her with all his strength. They would walk
+hand in hand on nights like this, hearing the beating of their hearts,
+mingling their love with the sweet simplicity of the summer nights in
+such close communion of thought that by the sole power of their
+tenderness they would easily penetrate each other's most secret
+thoughts. This would continue forever in the calm of an enduring
+affection. It seemed to her that she felt _him_ there beside her.
+And an unusual sensation came over her. She remained long musing thus,
+when suddenly she thought she heard a footstep behind the house. "If
+it were _he_." But it passed on and she felt as if she had been
+deceived. The air became cooler. The day broke. Slowly bursting aside
+the gleaming clouds, touching with fire the trees, the plains, the
+ocean, all the horizon, the great flaming orb of the sun appeared.
+
+Jeanne felt herself becoming mad with happiness. A delirious joy,
+an infinite tenderness at the splendor of nature overcame her
+fluttering heart. It was _her_ sun, _her_ dawn! The beginning
+of _her_ life! Thoroughly fatigued at last, she flung herself down
+and slept till her father called her at eight o'clock. He walked into
+the room and proposed to show her the improvements of the castle, of
+_her_ castle. The road, called the parish road, connecting the
+farms, joined the high road between Havre and Fecamp, a mile and a
+half further on.
+
+Jeanne and the baron inspected everything and returned home for
+breakfast. When the meal was over, as the baroness had decided that
+she would rest, the baron proposed to Jeanne that they should go down
+to Yport. They started, and passing through the hamlet of Etouvent,
+where the poplars were, and going through the wooded slope by a
+winding valley leading down to the sea, they presently perceived the
+village of Yport. Women sat in their doorways mending linen; brown
+fish-nets were hanging against the doors of the huts, where an entire
+family lived in one room. It was a typical little French fishing
+village, with all its concomitant odors. To Jeanne it was all like a
+scene in a play. On turning a corner they saw before them the
+limitless blue ocean. They bought a brill from a fisherman and another
+sailor offered to take them out sailing, repeating his name,
+"Lastique, Josephin Lastique," several times, that they might not
+forget it, and the baron promised to remember. They walked home,
+chattering like two children, carrying the big fish between them,
+Jeanne having pushed her father's walking cane through its gills.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HAPPY DAYS
+
+A delightful life commenced for Jeanne, a life in the open air. She
+wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their
+sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor
+of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant
+sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow rocking
+her spirit.
+
+A love of solitude came upon her in the sweet freshness of this
+landscape and in the calm of the rounded horizon, and she would remain
+sitting so long on the hill tops that the wild rabbits would bound by
+her feet.
+
+She planted memories everywhere, as seeds are cast upon the earth,
+memories whose roots hold till death. It seemed to Jeanne that she was
+casting a little of her heart into every fold of these valleys. She
+became infatuated with sea bathing. When she was well out from shore,
+she would float on her back, her arms crossed, her eyes lost in the
+profound blue of the sky which was cleft by the flight of a swallow,
+or the white silhouette of a seabird.
+
+After these excursions she invariably came back to the castle pale
+with hunger, but light, alert, a smile on her lips and her eyes
+sparkling with happiness.
+
+The baron on his part was planning great agricultural enterprises.
+Occasionally, also, he went out to sea with the sailors of Yport. On
+several occasions he went fishing for mackerel and, again, by
+moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved
+to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts
+of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long
+time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof
+of a belfry or the Fecamp lighthouse, he delighted to remain
+motionless beneath the first gleams of the rising sun which made the
+slimy backs of the large fan-shaped rays and the fat bellies of the
+turbots glisten on the deck of the boat.
+
+At each meal he gave an enthusiastic account of his expeditions, and
+the baroness in her turn told how many times she had walked down the
+main avenue of poplars.
+
+As she had been advised to take exercise she made a business of
+walking, beginning as soon as the air grew warm. Leaning upon
+Rosalie's arm and dragging her left foot, which was rather heavier
+than the right, she wandered interminably up and down from the house
+to the edge of the wood, sitting down for five minutes at either end.
+The walking was resumed in the afternoon. A physician, consulted ten
+years before, had spoken of hypertrophy because she had suffered from
+suffocation. Ever since, this word had been used to describe the
+ailment of the baroness. The baron would say "my wife's hypertrophy"
+and Jeanne "mamma's hypertrophy" as they would have spoken of her hat,
+her dress, or her umbrella. She had been very pretty in her youth and
+slim as a reed. Now she had grown older, stouter, but she still
+remained poetical, having always retained the impression of "Corinne,"
+which she had read as a girl. She read all the sentimental love
+stories it was possible to collect, and her thoughts wandered among
+tender adventures in which she always figured as the heroine. Her new
+home was infinitely pleasing to her because it formed such a beautiful
+framework for the romance of her soul, the surrounding woods, the
+waste land, and the proximity of the ocean recalling to her mind the
+novels of Sir Walter Scott, which she had been devouring for some
+months. On rainy days she remained shut up in her room, sending
+Rosalie in a special manner for the drawer containing her "souvenirs,"
+which meant to the baroness all her old private and family letters.
+
+Occasionally, Jeanne replaced Rosalie in the walks with her mother,
+and she listened eagerly to the tales of the latter's childhood. The
+young girl saw herself in all these romantic stories, and was
+astonished at the similarity of ideas and desires; each heart imagines
+itself to have been the first to tremble at those very sensations that
+awakened the hearts of the first beings, and that will awaken the
+hearts of the last.
+
+One afternoon as the baroness and Jeanne were resting on the beach at
+the end of the walk, a stout priest who was moving in their direction
+greeted them with a bow, while still at a distance. He bowed when
+within three feet and, assuming a smiling air, cried: "Well, Madame la
+Baronne, how are you?" It was the village priest. The baroness seldom
+went to church, though she liked priests, from a sort of religious
+instinct peculiar to women. She had, in fact, entirely forgotten the
+Abbe Picot, her priest, and blushed as she saw him. She made apologies
+for not having prepared for his visit, but the good man was not at all
+embarrassed. He looked at Jeanne, complimented her on her appearance
+and sat down, placing his three-cornered hat on his knees. He was very
+stout, very red, and perspired profusely. He drew from his pocket
+every moment an enormous checked handkerchief and passed it over his
+face and neck, but hardly was the task completed when necessity forced
+him to repeat the process. He was a typical country priest, talkative
+and kindly.
+
+Presently the baron appeared. He was very friendly to the abbe and
+invited him to dinner. The priest was well versed in the art of being
+pleasant, thanks to the unconscious astuteness which the guiding of
+souls gives to the most mediocre of men who are called by the chance
+of events to exercise a power over their fellows. Toward dessert he
+became quite merry, with the gaiety that follows a pleasant meal, and
+as if struck by an idea he said: "I have a new parishioner whom I must
+present to you, Monsieur le Vicomte de Lamare." The baroness, who was
+at home in heraldry, inquired if he was of the family of Lamares of
+Eure. The priest answered, "Yes, madame, he is the son of Vicomte Jean
+de Lamare, who died last year." After this, the baroness, who loved
+the nobility above all other things, inquired the history of the young
+vicomte. He had paid his father's debts, sold the family castle, made
+his home on one of the three farms which he owned in the town of
+Etouvent. These estates brought him in an income of five or six
+thousand livres. The vicomte was economical and lived in this modest
+manner for two or three years, so that he might save enough to cut a
+figure in society, and to marry advantageously, without contracting
+debts or mortgaging his farms. The priest added, "He is a very
+charming young man, so steady and quiet, though there is very little
+to amuse him in the country." The baron said, "Bring him in to see us,
+Monsieur l'Abbe, it will be a distraction for him occasionally." After
+the coffee the baron and the priest took a turn about the grounds and
+then returned to say good-night to the ladies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+M. DE LAMARE
+
+The following Sunday the baroness and Jeanne went to mass, prompted by
+a feeling of respect for their pastor, and after service waited to see
+the priest and invite him to luncheon the following Thursday. He came
+out of the sacristy leaning familiarly on the arm of a tall young man.
+As soon as he perceived the ladies, he exclaimed:
+
+"How fortunate! Allow me, baroness and Mlle. Jeanne, to present to you
+your neighbor, M. le Vicomte de Lamare."
+
+The vicomte said he had long desired to make their acquaintance, and
+began to converse in a well-bred manner. He had a face of which women
+dream and that men dislike. His black, wavy hair shaded a smooth,
+sunburnt forehead, and two large straight eyebrows, that looked almost
+artificial, cast a deep and tender shadow over his dark eyes, the
+whites of which had a bluish tinge.
+
+His long, thick eyelashes accentuated the passionate eloquence of his
+expression which wrought havoc in the drawing-rooms of society, and
+made peasant girls carrying baskets turn round to look at him. The
+languorous fascination of his glance impressed one with the depth of
+his thoughts and lent weight to his slightest words. His beard, fine
+and glossy, concealed a somewhat heavy jaw.
+
+Two days later, M. de Lamare made his first call, just as they were
+discussing the best place for a new rustic bench. The vicomte was
+consulted and agreed with the baroness, who differed from her husband.
+
+M. de Lamare expatiated on the picturesqueness of the country and from
+time to time, as if by chance, his eyes met those of Jeanne, and she
+felt a strange sensation at the quickly averted glance which betrayed
+tender admiration and an awakened sympathy.
+
+M. de Lamare's father, who had died the preceding year, had known an
+intimate friend of the baroness's father, M. Cultaux, and this fact
+led to an endless conversation about family, relations, dates, etc.,
+and names heard in her childhood were recalled, and led to
+reminiscences.
+
+The baron, whose nature was rather uncultivated, and whose beliefs and
+prejudices were not those of his class, knew little about the
+neighboring families, and inquired about them from the vicomte, who
+responded:
+
+"Oh, there are very few of the nobility in the district," just as he
+might have said, "there are very few rabbits on the hills," and he
+began to particularize: There was the Marquis de Coutelier, a sort of
+leader of Norman aristocracy, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville,
+people of excellent stock, but living to themselves, and the Comte de
+Fourville, a kind of ogre, who was said to have made his wife die of
+sorrow, and who lived as a huntsman in his chateau of La Vrillette,
+built on a pond. There were a few parvenus among them who had bought
+properties here and there, but the vicomte did not know them.
+
+As he left, his last glance was for Jeanne, as if it were a special
+tender and cordial farewell. The baroness was delighted with him, and
+the baron said: "Yes, indeed, he is a gentleman." And he was invited
+to dinner the following week, and from that time came regularly.
+
+He generally arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon, went to join
+the baroness in "her avenue," and offered her his arm while she took
+her "exercise," as she called her daily walks. When Jeanne was at home
+she would walk on the other side of her mother, supporting her, and
+all three would walk slowly back and forth from one end of the avenue
+to the other. He seldom addressed Jeanne directly, but his eye
+frequently met hers.
+
+He went to Yport several times with Jeanne and the baron. One evening,
+when they were on the beach, Pere Lastique accosted him, and without
+removing his pipe, the absence of which would possibly have been more
+remarkable than the loss of his nose, he said:
+
+"With this wind, m'sieu le baron, we could easily go to Etretat and
+back to-morrow."
+
+Jeanne clasped her hands imploringly:
+
+"Oh, papa, let us do it!"
+
+The baron turned to M. de Lamare:
+
+"Will you join us, vicomte? We can take breakfast down there."
+
+And the matter was decided at once. From daybreak Jeanne was up and
+waiting for her father, who dressed more slowly. They walked in the
+dew across the level and then through the wood vibrant with the
+singing of birds. The vicomte and Pere Lastique were seated on a
+capstan.
+
+Two other sailors helped to shove off the boat from shore, which was
+not easy on the shingly beach. Once the boat was afloat, they all took
+their seats, and the two sailors who remained on shore shoved it off.
+A light, steady breeze was blowing from the ocean and they hoisted the
+sail, veered a little, and then sailed along smoothly with scarcely
+any motion. To landward the high cliff at the right cast a shadow on
+the water at its base, and patches of sunlit grass here and there
+varied its monotonous whiteness. Yonder, behind them, brown sails were
+coming out of the white harbor of Fecamp, and ahead of them they saw a
+rock of curious shape, rounded, with gaps in it looking something like
+an immense elephant with its trunk in the water; it was the little
+port of Etretat.
+
+Jeanne, a little dizzy from the motion of the waves, held the side of
+the boat with one hand as she looked out into the distance. It seemed
+to her as if only three things in the world were really beautiful:
+light, space, water.
+
+No one spoke. Pere Lastique, who was at the tiller, took a pull every
+now and then from a bottle hidden under the seat; and he smoked a
+short pipe which seemed inextinguishable, although he never seemed to
+relight it or refill it.
+
+The baron, seated in the bow looked after the sail. Jeanne and the
+vicomte seemed a little embarrassed at being seated side by side. Some
+unknown power seemed to make their glances meet whenever they raised
+their eyes; between them there existed already that subtle and vague
+sympathy which arises so rapidly between two young people when the
+young man is good looking and the girl is pretty. They were happy in
+each other's society, perhaps because they were thinking of each
+other. The rising sun was beginning to pierce through the slight mist,
+and as its beams grew stronger, they were reflected on the smooth
+surface of the sea as in a mirror.
+
+"How beautiful!" murmured Jeanne, with emotion.
+
+"Beautiful indeed!" answered the vicomte. The serene beauty of the
+morning awakened an echo in their hearts.
+
+And all at once they saw the great arches of Etretat, like two
+supports of a cliff standing in the sea high enough for vessels to
+pass under them; while a sharp-pointed white rock rose in front of the
+first arch. They reached shore, and the baron got out first to make
+fast the boat, while the vicomte lifted Jeanne ashore so that she
+should not wet her feet. Then they walked up the shingly beach side by
+side, and they overheard Pere Lastique say to the baron, "My! but they
+would make a pretty couple!"
+
+They took breakfast in a little inn near the beach, and while the
+ocean had lulled their thoughts and made them silent, the breakfast
+table had the opposite effect, and they chattered like children on a
+vacation. The slightest thing gave rise to laughter.
+
+Pere Lastique, on taking his place at table, carefully hid his lighted
+pipe in his cap. That made them laugh. A fly, attracted no doubt by
+his red nose, persistently alighted on it, and each time it did so
+they burst into laughter. Finally the old man could stand it no
+longer, and murmured: "It is devilishly persistent!" whereupon Jeanne
+and the vicomte laughed till they cried.
+
+After breakfast Jeanne suggested that they should take a walk. The
+vicomte rose, but the baron preferred to bask in the sun on the beach.
+
+"Go on, my children, you will find me here in an hour."
+
+They walked straight ahead of them, passing by several cottages and
+finally by a small chateau resembling a large farm, and found
+themselves in an open valley that extended for some distance. They now
+had a wild longing to run at large in the fields. Jeanne seemed to
+have a humming in her ears from all the new and rapidly changing
+sensations she had experienced. The burning rays of the sun fell on
+them. On both sides of the road the crops were bending over from the
+heat. The grasshoppers, as numerous as the blades of grass, were
+uttering their thin, shrill cry.
+
+Perceiving a wood a little further on to the right, they walked over
+to it. They saw a narrow path between two hedges shaded by tall trees
+which shut out the sun. A sort of moist freshness in the air was
+perceptible, giving them a sensation of chilliness. There was no
+grass, owing to the lack of sunlight, but the ground was covered with
+a carpet of moss.
+
+"See, we can sit down there a little while," she said.
+
+They sat down and looked about them at the numerous forms of life that
+were in the air and on the ground at their feet, for a ray of sunlight
+penetrating the dense foliage brought them into its light.
+
+"How beautiful it is here! How lovely it is in the country! There are
+moments when I should like to be a fly or a butterfly and hide in the
+flowers," said Jeanne with emotion.
+
+They spoke in low tones as one does in exchanging confidences, telling
+of their daily lives and of their tastes, and declaring that they were
+already disgusted with the world, tired of its useless monotony; it
+was always the same thing; there was no truth, no sincerity in it.
+
+The world! She would gladly have made its acquaintance; but she felt
+convinced beforehand that it was not equal to a country life, and the
+more their hearts seemed to be in sympathy, the more ceremonious they
+became, the more frequently their glances met and blended smiling; and
+it seemed that a new feeling of benevolence was awakened in them, a
+wider affection, an interest in a thousand things of which they had
+never hitherto thought.
+
+They wended their way back, but the baron had already set off on foot
+for the Chambre aux Demoiselles, a grotto in a cleft at the summit of
+one of the cliffs, and they waited for him at the inn. He did not
+return until five in the evening after a long walk along the cliffs.
+
+They got into the boat, started off smoothly with the wind at their
+backs, scarcely seeming to make any headway. The breeze was irregular,
+at one moment filling the sail and then letting it flap idly along the
+mast. The sea seemed opaque and lifeless, and the sun was slowly
+approaching the horizon. The lulling motion of the sea had made them
+silent again. Presently Jeanne said, "How I should love to travel!"
+
+"Yes, but it is tiresome to travel alone; there should be at least
+two, to exchange ideas," answered the vicomte. She reflected a moment.
+
+"That is true--I like to walk alone, however--how pleasant it is to
+dream all alone----"
+
+He gazed at her intently.
+
+"Two can dream as well as one."
+
+She lowered her eyes. Was it a hint? Possibly. She looked out at the
+horizon as if to discover something beyond it, and then said slowly:
+
+"I should like to go to Italy--and Greece--ah, yes, Greece--and to
+Corsica--it must be so wild and so beautiful!"
+
+He preferred Switzerland on account of its chalets and its lakes.
+
+"No," said she, "I like new countries like Corsica, or very old
+countries full of souvenirs, like Greece. It must be delightful to
+find the traces of those peoples whose history we have known since
+childhood, to see places where great deeds were accomplished."
+
+The vicomte, less enthusiastic, exclaimed: "As for me, England
+attracts me very much; there is so much to be learned there."
+
+Then they talked about the world in general, discussing the
+attractions of each country from the poles to the equator, enthusing
+over imaginary scenes and the peculiar manners of certain peoples like
+the Chinese and the Lapps; but they arrived at the conclusion that the
+most beautiful country in the world was France, with its temperate
+climate, cool in summer, mild in winter, its rich soil, its green
+forests, its worship of the fine arts which existed nowhere else since
+the glorious centuries of Athens. Then they were silent. The setting
+sun left a wide dazzling train of light which extended from the
+horizon to the edge of their boat. The wind subsided, the ripples
+disappeared, and the motionless sail was red in the light of the dying
+day. A limitless calm seemed to settle down on space and make a
+silence amid this conjunction of elements; and by degrees the sun
+slowly sank into the ocean.
+
+Then a fresh breeze seemed to arise, a little shiver went over the
+surface of the water, as if the engulfed orb cast a sigh of
+satisfaction across the world. The twilight was short, night fell with
+its myriad stars. Pere Lastique took the oars, and they saw that the
+sea was phosphorescent. Jeanne and the vicomte, side by side, watched
+the fitful gleams in the wake of the boat. They were hardly thinking,
+but simply gazing vaguely, breathing in the beauty of the evening in a
+state of delicious contentment; Jeanne had one hand on the seat and
+her neighbor's finger touched it as if by accident; she did not move;
+she was surprised, happy, though embarrassed at this slight contact.
+
+When she reached home that evening and went to her room, she felt
+strangely disturbed, and so affected that the slightest thing impelled
+her to weep. She looked at her clock, imagining that the little bee on
+the pendulum was beating like a heart, the heart of a friend; that it
+was aware of her whole life, that with its quick, regular tickings it
+would accompany her whole life; and she stopped the golden fly to
+press a kiss on its wings. She would have kissed anything, no matter
+what. She remembered having hidden one of her old dolls of former days
+at the bottom of a drawer; she looked for it, took it out, and was
+delighted to see it again, as people are to see loved friends; and
+pressing it to her heart, she covered its painted cheeks and curly wig
+with kisses. And as she held it in her arms, she thought:
+
+Can _he_ be the husband promised through a thousand secret
+voices, whom a superlatively good Providence had thus thrown across
+her path? Was he, indeed, the being created for her--the being to whom
+she would devote her existence? Were they the two predestined beings
+whose affection, blending in one, would beget love?
+
+She did not as yet feel that tumultuous emotion, that mad enchantment,
+those deep stirrings which she thought were essential to the tender
+passion; but it seemed to her she was beginning to fall in love, for
+she sometimes felt a sudden faintness when she thought of him, and she
+thought of him incessantly. His presence stirred her heart; she
+blushed and grew pale when their eyes met, and trembled at the sound
+of his voice.
+
+From day to day the longing for love increased. She consulted the
+marguerites, the clouds, and coins which she tossed in the air.
+
+One day her father said to her:
+
+"Make yourself look pretty to-morrow morning."
+
+"Why, papa?"
+
+"That is a secret," he replied.
+
+And when she came downstairs the following morning, looking fresh and
+sweet in a pretty light dress, she found the drawing-room table
+covered with boxes of bonbons, and on a chair an immense bouquet.
+
+A covered wagon drove into the courtyard bearing the inscription,
+"Lerat, Confectioner, Fecamp; Wedding Breakfasts," and from the back
+of the wagon Ludivine and a kitchen helper were taking out large flat
+baskets which emitted an appetizing odor.
+
+The Vicomte de Lamare appeared on the scene, his trousers were
+strapped down under his dainty boots of patent leather, which made his
+feet appear smaller. His long frock coat, tight at the waist line, was
+open at the bosom showing the lace of his ruffle, and a fine neckcloth
+wound several times round his neck obliged him to hold erect his
+handsome brown head, with its air of serious distinction. Jeanne, in
+astonishment, looked at him as though she had never seen him before.
+She thought he looked the grand seigneur from his head to his feet.
+
+He bowed and said, smiling:
+
+"Well, comrade, are you ready?"
+
+"But what is it? What is going on?" she stammered.
+
+"You will know presently," said the baron.
+
+The carriage drove up to the door, and Madame Adelaide, in festal
+array, descended the staircase, leaning on the arm of Rosalie, who was
+so much affected at the sight of M. de Lamare's elegant appearance
+that the baron whispered:
+
+"I say, vicomte, I think our maid admires you."
+
+The vicomte blushed up to his ears, pretended not to have heard and,
+taking up the enormous bouquet, handed it to Jeanne. She accepted it,
+more astonished than ever. They all four got into the carriage, and
+Ludivine, who brought a cup of bouillon to the baroness to sustain her
+strength, said: "Truly, madame, one would say it was a wedding!"
+
+They alighted as soon as they entered Yport, and as they walked
+through the village the sailors, in their new clothes, still showing
+the creases, came out of their homes, and shaking hands with the
+baron, followed the party as if it were a procession. The vicomte, who
+had offered his arm to Jeanne, walked with her at the head.
+
+When they reached the church they stopped, and an acolyte appeared
+holding upright the large silver crucifix, followed by another boy in
+red and white, who bore a chalice containing holy water.
+
+Then came three old cantors, one of them limping; then the trumpet
+("serpent"), and last, the cure with his gold embroidered stole. He
+smiled and nodded a greeting; then, with his eyes half closed, his
+lips moving in prayer, his beretta well over his forehead, he followed
+his surpliced bodyguard, walking in the direction of the sea.
+
+On the beach a crowd was standing around a new boat wreathed with
+flowers. Its mast, sail and ropes were covered with long streamers of
+ribbon that floated in the breeze, and the name, "Jeanne," was painted
+in gold letters on the stern.
+
+Pere Lastique, the proprietor of this boat, built with the baron's
+money, advanced to meet the procession. All the men, simultaneously,
+took off their hats, and a row of pious persons wearing long black
+cloaks falling in large folds from their shoulders, knelt down in a
+circle at sight of the crucifix.
+
+The cure walked, with an acolyte on either side of him, to one end of
+the boat, while at the other end, the three old cantors, in their
+white surplices, with a serious air and their eyes fixed on the
+psalter, sang at the top of their voices in the clear morning air.
+Each time they stopped to take breath, the "serpent" continued its
+bellowing alone, and as he puffed out his cheeks the musician's little
+gray eyes disappeared, and the skin of his forehead and neck seemed to
+distend.
+
+The motionless, transparent sea seemed to be taking part meditatively
+in the baptism of this boat, rolling its tiny waves, no higher than a
+finger, with the faint sound of a rake on the shingle. And the big
+white gulls, with their wings unfurled, circled about in the blue
+heavens, flying off and then coming back in a curve above the heads of
+the kneeling crowd, as if to see what they were doing.
+
+The singing ceased after an Amen that lasted five minutes; and the
+priest, in an unctuous voice, murmured some Latin words, of which one
+could hear only the sonorous endings. He then walked round the boat,
+sprinkling it with holy water, and next began to murmur the "Oremus,"
+standing alongside the boat opposite the sponsors, who remained
+motionless, hand in hand.
+
+The vicomte had the usual grave expression on his handsome face, but
+Jeanne, choking with a sudden emotion, and on the verge of fainting,
+began to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered. The dream that
+had haunted her for some time was suddenly beginning, as if in a kind
+of hallucination, to take the appearance of reality. They had spoken
+of a wedding, a priest was present, blessing them; men in surplices
+were singing psalms; was it not she whom they were giving in marriage?
+
+Did her fingers send out an electric shock, did the emotion of her
+heart follow the course of her veins until it reached the heart of her
+companion? Did he understand, did he guess, was he, like herself,
+pervaded by a sort of intoxication of love? Or else, did he know by
+experience, alone, that no woman could resist him? She suddenly
+noticed that he was squeezing her hand, gently at first, and then
+tighter, tighter, till he almost crushed it. And without moving a
+muscle of his face, without anyone perceiving it, he said--yes, he
+certainly said:
+
+"Oh, Jeanne, if you would consent, this would be our betrothal."
+
+She lowered her head very slowly, perhaps meaning it for "yes." And
+the priest, who was still sprinkling the holy water, sprinkled some on
+their fingers.
+
+The ceremony was over. The women rose. The return was unceremonious.
+The crucifix had lost its dignity in the hands of the acolyte, who
+walked rapidly, the crucifix swaying to right and left, or bending
+forward as though it would fall. The priest, who was not praying now,
+walked hurriedly behind them; the cantors and the musician with the
+"serpent" had disappeared by a narrow street, so as to get off their
+surplices without delay; and the sailors hurried along in groups. One
+thought prompted their haste, and made their mouths water.
+
+A good breakfast was awaiting them at "The Poplars."
+
+The large table was set in the courtyard, under the apple trees.
+
+Sixty people sat down to table, sailors and peasants. The baroness in
+the middle, with a priest at either side of her, one from Yport, and
+the other belonging to "The Poplars." The baron seated opposite her on
+the other side of the table, the mayor on one side of him, and his
+wife, a thin peasant woman, already aging, who kept smiling and bowing
+to all around her, on the other.
+
+Jeanne, seated beside her co-sponsor, was in a sea of happiness. She
+saw nothing, knew nothing, and remained silent, her mind bewildered
+with joy. Presently she said:
+
+"What is your Christian name?"
+
+"Julien," he replied. "Did you not know?"
+
+But she made no reply, thinking to herself:
+
+"How often I shall repeat that name!"
+
+When the feast was over, the courtyard was given up to the sailors,
+and the others went over to the other side of the chateau. The
+baroness began to take her exercise, leaning on the arm of the baron
+and accompanied by the two priests. Jeanne and Julien went toward the
+wood and walked along one of the mossy paths. Suddenly seizing her
+hands, the vicomte said:
+
+"Tell me, will you be my wife?"
+
+She lowered her head, and as he stammered: "Answer me, I implore you!"
+she raised her eyes to his timidly, and he read his answer there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MARRIAGE AND DISILLUSION
+
+The baron, one morning, entered Jeanne's room before she was up, and
+sitting down at the foot of her bed, said:
+
+"M. le Vicomte de Lamare has asked us for your hand in marriage."
+
+She wanted to hide her face under the sheets.
+
+Her father continued:
+
+"We have postponed our answer for the present."
+
+She gasped, choking with emotion. At the end of a minute the baron,
+smiling, added:
+
+"We did not wish to do anything without consulting you. Your mother
+and I are not opposed to this marriage, but we would not seek to
+influence you. You are much richer than he is; but, when it is a
+question of the happiness of a life, one should not think too much
+about money. He has no relations left. If you marry him, then, it
+would be as if a son should come into our family; if it were anyone
+else, it would be you, our daughter, who would go among strangers. The
+young fellow pleases us. Would he please you?"
+
+She stammered, blushing up to the roots of her hair:
+
+"I am willing, papa."
+
+And the father, looking into her eyes and still smiling, murmured:
+
+"I half suspected it, young lady."
+
+She lived till evening in a condition of exhilaration, not knowing
+what she was doing, mechanically thinking of one thing by mistake for
+another, and with a feeling of weariness, although she had not walked
+at all.
+
+Toward six o'clock, as she was sitting with her mother under the plane
+tree, the vicomte appeared.
+
+Jeanne's heart began to throb wildly. The young man approached them
+apparently without any emotion. When he was close beside them, he took
+the baroness' hand and kissed her fingers, then raising to his lips
+the trembling hand of the young girl, he imprinted upon it a long,
+tender and grateful kiss.
+
+And the radiant season of betrothal commenced. They would chat
+together alone in the corner of the parlor, or else seated on the moss
+at the end of the wood overlooking the plain. Sometimes they walked in
+Little Mother's Avenue; he, talking of the future, she, with her eyes
+cast down, looking at the dusty footprints of the baroness.
+
+Once the matter was decided, they desired to waste no time in
+preliminaries. It was, therefore, decided that the ceremony should
+take place in six weeks, on the fifteenth of August; and that the
+bride and groom should set out immediately on their wedding journey.
+Jeanne, on being consulted as to which country she would like to
+visit, decided on Corsica where they could be more alone than in the
+cities of Italy.
+
+They awaited the moment appointed for their marriage without too great
+impatience, but enfolded, lost in a delicious affection, expressed in
+the exquisite charm of insignificant caresses, pressure of hands, long
+passionate glances in which their souls seemed to blend; and, vaguely
+tortured by an uncertain longing for they knew not what.
+
+They decided to invite no one to the wedding except Aunt Lison, the
+baron's sister, who boarded in a convent at Versailles. After the
+death of their father, the baroness wished to keep her sister with
+her. But the old maid, possessed by the idea that she was in every
+one's way, was useless, and a nuisance, retired into one of those
+religious houses that rent apartments to people that live a sad and
+lonely existence. She came from time to time to pass a month or two
+with her family.
+
+She was a little woman of few words, who always kept in the
+background, appeared only at mealtimes, and then retired to her room
+where she remained shut in.
+
+She looked like a kind old lady, though she was only forty-two, and
+had a sad, gentle expression. She was never made much of by her family
+as a child, being neither pretty nor boisterous, she was never petted,
+and she would stay quietly and gently in a corner. She had been
+neglected ever since. As a young girl nobody paid any attention to
+her. She was something like a shadow, or a familiar object, a living
+piece of furniture that one is accustomed to see every day, but about
+which one does not trouble oneself.
+
+Her sister, from long habit, looked upon her as a failure, an
+altogether insignificant being. They treated her with careless
+familiarity which concealed a sort of contemptuous kindness. She
+called herself Lise, and seemed embarrassed at this frivolous youthful
+name. When they saw that she probably would not marry, they changed it
+from Lise to Lison, and since Jeanne's birth, she had become "Aunt
+Lison," a poor relation, very neat, frightfully timid, even with her
+sister and her brother-in-law, who loved her, but with an uncertain
+affection verging on indifference, with an unconscious compassion and
+a natural benevolence.
+
+Sometimes, when the baroness talked of far away things that happened
+in her youth, she would say, in order to fix a date: "It was the time
+that Lison had that attack."
+
+They never said more than that; and this "attack" remained shrouded,
+as in a mist.
+
+One evening, Lise, who was then twenty, had thrown herself into the
+water, no one knew why. Nothing in her life, her manner, gave any
+intimation of this seizure. They fished her out half dead, and her
+parents, raising their hands in horror, instead of seeking the
+mysterious cause of this action, had contented themselves with calling
+it "that attack," as if they were talking of the accident that
+happened to the horse "Coco," who had broken his leg a short time
+before in a ditch, and whom they had been obliged to kill.
+
+From that time Lise, presently Lison, was considered feeble-minded.
+The gentle contempt which she inspired in her relations gradually made
+its way into the minds of all those who surrounded her. Little Jeanne
+herself, with the natural instinct of children, took no notice of her,
+never went up to kiss her good-night, never went into her room. Good
+Rosalie, alone, who gave the room all the necessary attention, seemed
+to know where it was situated.
+
+When Aunt Lison entered the dining-room for breakfast, the little one
+would go up to her from habit and hold up her forehead to be kissed;
+that was all.
+
+If anyone wished to speak to her, they sent a servant to call her, and
+if she was not there, they did not bother about her, never thought of
+her, never thought of troubling themselves so much as to say: "Why, I
+have not seen Aunt Lison this morning!"
+
+When they said "Aunt Lison," these two words awakened no feeling of
+affection in anyone's mind. It was as if one had said: "The coffee
+pot, or the sugar bowl."
+
+She always walked with little, quick, silent steps, never made a
+noise, never knocking up against anything; and seemed to communicate
+to surrounding objects the faculty of not making any sound. Her hands
+seemed to be made of a kind of wadding, she handled everything so
+lightly and delicately.
+
+She arrived about the middle of July, all upset at the idea of this
+marriage. She brought a quantity of presents which, as they came from
+her, remained almost unnoticed. On the following day they had
+forgotten she was there at all.
+
+But an unusual emotion was seething in her mind, and she never took
+her eyes off the engaged couple. She interested herself in Jeanne's
+trousseau with a singular eagerness, a feverish activity, working like
+a simple seamstress in her room, where no one came to visit her.
+
+She was continually presenting the baroness with handkerchiefs she had
+hemmed herself, towels on which she had embroidered a monogram, saying
+as she did so: "Is that all right, Adelaide?" And little mother, as
+she carelessly examined the objects, would reply: "Do not give
+yourself so much trouble, my poor Lison."
+
+One evening, toward the end of the month, after an oppressively warm
+day, the moon rose on one of those clear, mild nights which seem to
+move, stir and affect one, apparently awakening all the secret poetry
+of one's soul. The gentle breath of the fields was wafted into the
+quiet drawing-room. The baroness and her husband were playing cards by
+the light of a lamp, and Aunt Lison was sitting beside them knitting;
+while the young people, leaning on the window sill, were gazing out at
+the moonlit garden.
+
+The linden and the plane tree cast their shadows on the lawn which
+extended beyond it in the moonlight, as far as the dark wood.
+Attracted by the tender charm of the night, and by this misty
+illumination that lighted up the trees and the bushes, Jeanne turned
+toward her parents and said: "Little father, we are going to take a
+short stroll on the grass in front of the house."
+
+The baron replied, without looking up: "Go, my children," and
+continued his game.
+
+They went out and began to walk slowly along the moonlit lawn as far
+as the little wood at the end. The hour grew late and they did not
+think of going in. The baroness grew tired, and wishing to retire, she
+said:
+
+"We must call the lovers in."
+
+The baron cast a glance across the spacious garden where the two forms
+were wandering slowly.
+
+"Let them alone," he said; "it is so delicious outside! Lison will
+wait for them, will you not, Lison?"
+
+The old maid raised her troubled eyes and replied in her timid voice:
+
+"Certainly, I will wait for them."
+
+Little father gave his hand to the baroness, weary himself from the
+heat of the day.
+
+"I am going to bed, too," he said, and went up with his wife.
+
+Then Aunt Lison rose in her turn, and leaving on the arm of the chair
+her canvas with the wool and the knitting needles, she went over and
+leaned on the window sill and gazed out at the night.
+
+The two lovers kept on walking back and forth between the house and
+the wood. They squeezed each other's fingers without speaking, as
+though they had left their bodies and formed part of this visible
+poetry that exhaled from the earth.
+
+All at once Jeanne perceived, framed in the window, the silhouette of
+the aunt, outlined by the light of the lamp behind her.
+
+"See," she said, "there is Aunt Lison looking at us."
+
+The vicomte raised his head, and said in an indifferent tone without
+thinking:
+
+"Yes, Aunt Lison is looking at us."
+
+And they continued to dream, to walk slowly, and to love each other.
+But the dew was falling fast, and the dampness made them shiver a
+little.
+
+"Let us go in now," said Jeanne. And they went into the house.
+
+When they entered the drawing-room, Aunt Lison had gone back to her
+work. Her head was bent over her work, and her fingers were trembling
+as if she were very tired.
+
+"It is time to go to bed, aunt," said Jeanne, approaching her.
+
+Her aunt turned her head, and her eyes were red as if she had been
+crying. The young people did not notice it; but suddenly M. de Lamare
+perceived that Jeanne's thin shoes were covered with dew. He was
+worried, and asked tenderly:
+
+"Are not your dear little feet cold?"
+
+All at once the old lady's hands shook so violently that she let fall
+her knitting, and hiding her face in her hands, she began to sob
+convulsively.
+
+The engaged couple looked at her in amazement, without moving.
+Suddenly Jeanne fell on her knees, and taking her aunt's hands away
+from her face, said in perplexity:
+
+"Why, what is the matter, Aunt Lison?"
+
+Then the poor woman, her voice full of tears, and her whole body
+shaking with sorrow, replied:
+
+"It was when he asked you--are not your--your--dear little feet
+cold?--no one ever said such things to me--to me--never--never----"
+
+Jeanne, surprised and compassionate, could still hardly help laughing
+at the idea of an admirer showing tender solicitude for Lison; and the
+vicomte had turned away to conceal his mirth.
+
+But the aunt suddenly rose, laying her ball of wool on the floor and
+her knitting in the chair, and fled to her room, feeling her way up
+the dark staircase.
+
+Left alone, the young people looked at one another, amused and
+saddened. Jeanne murmured:
+
+"Poor aunt!" Julien replied. "She must be a little crazy this
+evening."
+
+They held each other's hands and presently, gently, very gently, they
+exchanged their first kiss, and by the following day had forgotten all
+about Aunt Lison's tears.
+
+The two weeks preceding the wedding found Jeanne very calm, as though
+she were weary of tender emotions. She had no time for reflection on
+the morning of the eventful day. She was only conscious of a feeling
+as if her flesh, her bones and her blood had all melted beneath her
+skin, and on taking hold of anything, she noticed that her fingers
+trembled.
+
+She did not regain her self-possession until she was in the chancel of
+the church during the marriage ceremony.
+
+Married! So she was married! All that had occurred since daybreak
+seemed to her a dream, a waking dream. There are such moments, when
+all appears changed around us; even our motions seem to have a new
+meaning; even the hours of the day, which seem to be out of their
+usual time. She felt bewildered, above all else, bewildered. Last
+evening nothing had as yet been changed in her life; the constant hope
+of her life seemed only nearer, almost within reach. She had gone to
+rest a young girl; she was now a married woman. She had crossed that
+boundary that seems to conceal the future with all its joys, its
+dreams of happiness. She felt as though a door had opened in front of
+her; she was about to enter into the fulfillment of her expectations.
+
+When they appeared on the threshold of the church after the ceremony,
+a terrific noise caused the bride to start in terror, and the baroness
+to scream; it was a rifle salute given by the peasants, and the firing
+did not cease until they reached "The Poplars."
+
+After a collation served for the family, the family chaplain, and the
+priest from Yport, the mayor and the witnesses, who were some of the
+large farmers of the district, they all walked in the garden. On the
+other side of the chateau one could hear the boisterous mirth of the
+peasants, who were drinking cider beneath the apple trees. The whole
+countryside, dressed in their best, filled the courtyard.
+
+Jeanne and Julien walked through the copse and then up the slope and,
+without speaking, gazed out at the sea. The air was cool, although it
+was the middle of August; the wind was from the north, and the sun
+blazed down unpityingly from the blue sky. The young people sought a
+more sheltered spot, and crossing the plain, they turned to the right,
+toward the rolling and wooded valley that leads to Yport. As soon as
+they reached the trees the air was still, and they left the road and
+took a narrow path beneath the trees, where they could scarcely walk
+abreast.
+
+Jeanne felt an arm passed gently round her waist. She said nothing,
+her breath came quick, her heart beat fast. Some low branches caressed
+their hair, as they bent to pass under them. She picked a leaf; two
+ladybirds were concealed beneath it, like two delicate red shells.
+
+"Look, a little family," she said innocently, and feeling a little
+more confidence.
+
+Julien placed his mouth to her ear, and whispered: "This evening you
+will be my wife."
+
+Although she had learned many things during her sojourn in the
+country, she dreamed of nothing as yet but the poetry of love, and was
+surprised. His wife? Was she not that already?
+
+Then he began to kiss her temples and neck, little light kisses.
+Startled each time afresh by these masculine kisses to which she was
+not accustomed, she instinctively turned away her head to avoid them,
+though they delighted her. But they had come to the edge of the wood.
+She stopped, embarrassed at being so far from home. What would they
+think?
+
+"Let us go home," she said.
+
+He withdrew his arm from her waist, and as they turned round they
+stood face to face, so close that they could feel each other's breath
+on their faces. They gazed deep into one another's eyes with that gaze
+in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown
+of each other's being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and
+persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life
+be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness,
+or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble
+tete-a-tete of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had never
+yet seen each other.
+
+Suddenly, Julien, placing his two hands on his wife's shoulders,
+kissed her full on the lips as she had never before been kissed. The
+kiss, penetrating as it did her very blood and marrow, gave her such a
+mysterious shock that she pushed Julien wildly away with her two arms,
+almost falling backward as she did so.
+
+"Let us go away, let us go away," she faltered.
+
+He did not reply, but took both her hands and held them in his. They
+walked home in silence, and the rest of the afternoon seemed long. The
+dinner was simple and did not last long, contrary to the usual Norman
+custom. A sort of embarrassment seemed to paralyze the guests. The two
+priests, the mayor, and the four farmers invited, alone betrayed a
+little of that broad mirth that is supposed to accompany weddings.
+
+They had apparently forgotten how to laugh, when a remark of the
+mayor's woke them up. It was about nine o'clock; coffee was about to
+be served. Outside, under the apple-trees of the first court, the bal
+champetre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all
+that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a
+grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle
+shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins
+and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The
+boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the
+instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the
+unrestrained voices seemed to fall from the air in shreds, in little
+fragments of scattered notes.
+
+Two large barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two
+servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to
+refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of
+the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every
+one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of
+illuminated foliage this wholesome and boisterous fete made the
+melancholy watchers in the dining-room long to dance also, and to
+drink from one of those large barrels, while they munched a slice of
+bread and butter and a raw onion.
+
+The mayor, who was beating time with his knife, cried: "By Jove, that
+is all right; it is like the wedding of Ganache."
+
+A suppressed giggle was heard, but Abbe Picot, the natural enemy of
+civil authority, cried: "You mean of Cana." The other did not accept
+the correction. "No, monsieur le cure, I know what I am talking about;
+when I say Ganache, I mean Ganache."
+
+They rose from table and went into the drawing-room, and then outside
+to mix with the merrymakers. The guests soon left.
+
+They went into the house. They were surprised to see Madame Adelaide
+sobbing on Julien's shoulder. Her tears, noisy tears, as if blown out
+by a pair of bellows, seemed to come from her nose, her mouth and her
+eyes at the same time; and the young man, dumfounded, awkward, was
+supporting the heavy woman who had sunk into his arms to commend to
+his care her darling, her little one, her adored daughter.
+
+The baron rushed toward them, saying: "Oh, no scenes, no tears, I beg
+of you," and, taking his wife to a chair, he made her sit down, while
+she wiped away her tears. Then, turning to Jeanne: "Come, little one,
+kiss your mother and go to bed."
+
+What happened then? She could hardly have told, for she seemed to have
+lost her head, but she felt a shower of little grateful kisses on her
+lips.
+
+Day dawned. Julien awoke, yawned, stretched, looked at his wife,
+smiled and asked: "Did you sleep well, darling?"
+
+She noticed that he now said "thou," and she replied, bewildered,
+"Why, yes. And you?" "Oh, very well," he answered. And turning toward
+her, he kissed her and then began to chat quietly. He set before her
+plans of living, with the idea of economy, and this word occurring
+several times, astonished Jeanne. She listened without grasping the
+meaning of his words, looked at him, but was thinking of a thousand
+things that passed rapidly through her mind hardly leaving a trace.
+
+The clock struck eight. "Come, we must get up," he said. "It would
+look ridiculous for us to be late." When he was dressed he assisted
+his wife with all the little details of her toilet, not allowing her
+to call Rosalie. As they left the room he stopped. "You know, when we
+are alone, we can now use 'thou,' but before your parents it is better
+to wait a while. It will be quite natural when we come back from our
+wedding journey."
+
+She did not go down till luncheon was ready. The day passed like any
+ordinary day, as if nothing new had occurred. There was one man more
+in the house, that was all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CORSICA AND A NEW LIFE
+
+Four days later the travelling carriage arrived that was to take them
+to Marseilles.
+
+After the first night Jeanne had become accustomed to Julien's kisses
+and caresses, although her repugnance to a closer intimacy had not
+diminished. She thought him handsome, she loved him. She again felt
+happy and cheerful.
+
+The farewells were short and without sadness. The baroness alone
+seemed tearful. As the carriage was just starting she placed a purse,
+heavy as lead, in her daughter's hand, saying, "That is for your
+little expenses as a bride."
+
+Jeanne thrust the purse in her pocket and the carriage started.
+
+Toward evening Julien said: "How much money did your mother give you
+in that purse?"
+
+She had not given it a thought, and she poured out the contents on her
+knees. A golden shower filled her lap: two thousand francs. She
+clapped her hands. "I shall commit all kinds of extravagance," she
+said as she replaced it in the purse.
+
+After travelling eight days in terribly hot weather they reached
+Marseilles. The following day the _Roi-Louis_, a little mail
+steamer which went to Naples by way of Ajaccio, took them to Corsica.
+
+Corsica! Its "maquis," its bandits, its mountains! The birthplace of
+Napoleon! It seemed to Jeanne that she was leaving real life to enter
+into a dream, although wide awake. Standing side by side on the bridge
+of the steamer, they looked at the cliffs of Provence as they passed
+swiftly by them. The calm sea of deep blue seemed petrified beneath
+the ardent rays of the sun.
+
+"Do you remember our excursion in Pere Lastique's boat?" said Jeanne.
+
+Instead of replying, he gave her a hasty kiss on the ear.
+
+The paddle-wheels struck the water, disturbing its torpor, and a long
+track of foam like the froth of champagne remained in the wake of the
+boat, reaching as far as the eye could see. Jeanne drank in with
+delight the odor of the salt mist that seemed to go to the very tips
+of her fingers. Everywhere the sea. But ahead of them there was
+something gray, not clearly defined in the early dawn; a sort of
+massing of strange-looking clouds, pointed, jagged, seemed to rest on
+the waters.
+
+Presently it became clearer, its outline more distinct on the
+brightening sky; a large chain of mountains, peaked and weird,
+appeared. It was Corsica, covered with a light veil of mist. The sun
+rose behind it, outlining the jagged crests like black shadows. Then
+all the summits were bathed in light, while the rest of the island
+remained covered with mist.
+
+The captain, a little sun-browned man, dried up, stunted, toughened
+and shrivelled by the harsh salt winds, appeared on the bridge and in
+a voice hoarse after twenty years of command and worn from shouting
+amid the storms, said to Jeanne:
+
+"Do you perceive it, that odor?"
+
+She certainly noticed a strong and peculiar odor of plants, a wild
+aromatic odor.
+
+"That is Corsica that sends out that fragrance, madame," said the
+captain. "It is her peculiar odor of a pretty woman. After being away
+for twenty years, I should recognize it five miles out at sea. I
+belong to it. He, down there, at Saint Helena, he speaks of it always,
+it seems, of the odor of his native country. He belongs to my family."
+
+And the captain, taking off his hat, saluted Corsica, saluted down
+yonder, across the ocean, the great captive emperor who belonged to
+his family.
+
+Jeanne was so affected that she almost cried.
+
+Then, pointing toward the horizon, the captain said: "Les
+Sanguinaires."
+
+Julien was standing beside his wife, with his arm round her waist, and
+they both looked out into the distance to see what he was alluding to.
+They at length perceived some pyramidal rocks which the vessel rounded
+presently to enter an immense peaceful gulf surrounded by lofty
+summits, the base of which was covered with what looked like moss.
+
+Pointing to this verdant growth, the captain said: "Le maquis."
+
+As they proceeded on their course the circle of mountains appeared to
+close in behind the steamer, which moved along slowly in such a lake
+of transparent azure that one could sometimes see to the bottom.
+
+The town suddenly appeared perfectly white at the end of the gulf, on
+the edge of the water, at the base of the mountains. Some little
+Italian boats were anchored in the dock. Four or five rowboats came up
+beside the _Roi-Louis_ to get passengers.
+
+Julien, who was collecting the baggage, asked his wife in a low tone:
+"Twenty sous is enough, is it not, to give to the porter?" For a week
+he had constantly asked the same question, which annoyed her each
+time. She replied somewhat impatiently: "When one is not sure of
+giving enough, one gives too much."
+
+He was always disputing with the hotel proprietors, with the servants,
+the drivers, the vendors of all kinds, and when, by dint of
+bargaining, he had obtained a reduction in price, he would say to
+Jeanne as he rubbed his hands: "I do not like to be cheated."
+
+She trembled whenever a bill came in, certain beforehand of the
+remarks that he would make about each item, humiliated at this
+bargaining, blushing up to the roots of her hair beneath the
+contemptuous glances of the servants as they looked after her husband,
+while they held in their hand the meagre tip.
+
+He had a dispute with the boatmen who landed him.
+
+The first tree Jeanne saw was a palm. They went to a great, empty
+hotel at the corner of an immense square and ordered breakfast.
+
+After an hour's rest they arranged an itinerary for their trip, and at
+the end of three days spent in this little town, hidden at the end of
+the blue gulf, and hot as a furnace enclosed in its curtain of
+mountains, which keep every breath of air from it, they decided to
+hire some saddle horses, so as to be able to cross any difficult pass,
+and selected two little Corsican stallions with fiery eyes, thin and
+unwearying, and set out one morning at daybreak. A guide, mounted on a
+mule, accompanied them and carried the provisions, for inns are
+unknown in this wild country.
+
+The road ran along the gulf and soon turned into a kind of valley, and
+on toward the high mountains. They frequently crossed the dry beds of
+torrents with only a tiny stream of water trickling under the stones,
+gurgling faintly like a wild animal in hiding.
+
+The uncultivated country seemed perfectly barren. The sides of the
+hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun.
+Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a
+little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all
+carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons,
+but redoubtable in their hands.
+
+The pungent odor of the aromatic herbs with which the island is
+overgrown seemed to make the air heavy. The road ascended gradually
+amid the long curves of the mountains. The red or blue granite peaks
+gave an appearance of fairyland to the wild landscape, and on the
+foothills immense forests of chestnut trees looked like green brush,
+compared with the elevations above them.
+
+Sometimes the guide, reaching out his hand toward some of these
+heights, would repeat a name. Jeanne and Julien would look where he
+pointed, but see nothing, until at last they discovered something
+gray, like a mass of stones fallen from the summit. It was a little
+village, a hamlet of granite hanging there, fastened on like a
+veritable bird's nest and almost invisible on the huge mountain.
+
+Walking their horses like this made Jeanne nervous. "Let us go
+faster," she said. And she whipped up her horse. Then, as she did not
+hear her husband following her, she turned round and laughed heartily
+as she saw him coming along, pale, and holding on to his horse's mane
+as it bounced him up and down. His very appearance of a "beau
+cavalier" made his awkwardness and timidity all the more comical.
+
+They trotted along quietly. The road now ran between two interminable
+forests of brush, which covered the whole side of the mountain like a
+garment. This was the "Maquis," composed of scrub oak, juniper,
+arbutus, mastic, privet, gorse, laurel, myrtle and boxwood,
+intertwined with clematis, huge ferns, honeysuckle, cytisus, rosemary,
+lavender and brambles, which covered the sides of the mountain with an
+impenetrable fleece.
+
+They were hungry. The guide rejoined them and led them to one of those
+charming springs so frequent in rocky countries, a tiny thread of iced
+water issuing from a little hole in the rock and flowing into a
+chestnut leaf that some passerby had placed there to guide the water
+into one's mouth.
+
+Jeanne felt so happy that she could hardly restrain herself from
+screaming for joy.
+
+They continued their journey and began to descend the slope winding
+round the Bay of Sagone. Toward evening they passed through Cargese,
+the Greek village founded by a colony of refugees who were driven from
+their country. Tall, beautiful girls, with rounded hips, long hands
+and slender waists, and singularly graceful, were grouped beside a
+fountain. Julien called out, "Good evening," and they replied in
+musical tones in the harmonious language of their own land.
+
+When they reached Piana they had to beg for hospitality, as in ancient
+times and in desert lands. Jeanne trembled with joy as they waited for
+the door to be opened after Julien knocked. Oh, this was a journey
+worth while, with all the unexpected of unexplored paths.
+
+It happened to be the home of a young couple. They received the
+travellers as the patriarchs must have received the guest sent by God.
+They had to sleep on a corn husk mattress in an old moldy house. The
+woodwork, all eaten by worms, overrun with long boring-worms, seemed
+to emit sounds, to be alive and to sigh.
+
+They set off again at daybreak, and presently stopped before a forest,
+a veritable forest of purple granite. There were peaks, pillars,
+bell-towers, wondrous forms molded by age, the ravaging wind and the
+sea mist. As much as three hundred metres in height, slender, round,
+twisted, hooked, deformed, unexpected and fantastic, these amazing
+rocks looked like trees, plants, animals, monuments, men, monks in
+their garb, horned devils, gigantic birds, a whole population of
+monsters, a menagerie of nightmares petrified by the will of some
+eccentric divinity.
+
+Jeanne had ceased talking, her heart was full. She took Julien's hand
+and squeezed it, overcome with a longing for love in presence of the
+beauty of nature.
+
+Suddenly, as they emerged from this chaos, they saw before them
+another gulf, encircled by a wall of blood-red granite. And these red
+rocks were reflected in the blue waters.
+
+"Oh, Julien!" faltered Jeanne, unable to speak for wonder and choking
+with her emotion. Two tears fell from her eyes. Julien gazed at her in
+astonishment and said:
+
+"What is the matter, my pet?"
+
+She wiped away her tears, smiled and replied in a rather shaky voice:
+
+"Nothing--I am nervous--I do not know--it just came over me. I am so
+happy that the least thing affects me."
+
+He could not understand these feminine attacks of "nerves," the shocks
+of these vibrant beings, excited at nothing, whom enthusiasm stirs as
+might a catastrophe, whom an imperceptible sensation completely
+upsets, driving them wild with joy or despair.
+
+These tears seemed absurd to him, and thinking only of the bad road,
+he said:
+
+"You would do better to watch your horse."
+
+They descended an almost impassable path to the shore of the gulf,
+then turned to the right to ascend the gloomy Val d'Ota.
+
+But the road was so bad that Julien proposed that they should go on
+foot. Jeanne was delighted. She was enchanted at the idea of walking,
+of being alone with him after her late emotion.
+
+The guide went ahead with the mule and the horses and they walked
+slowly.
+
+The mountain, cleft from top to bottom, spreads apart. The path lies
+in this breach, between two gigantic walls. A roaring torrent flows
+through the gorge. The air is icy, the granite looks black, and high
+above one the glimpse of blue sky astonishes and bewilders one.
+
+A sudden noise made Jeanne start. She raised her eyes. An immense bird
+flew away from a hollow; it was an eagle. His spread wings seemed to
+brush the two walls of the gorge and he soared into the blue and
+disappeared.
+
+Farther on there was a double gorge and the path lay between the two
+in abrupt zigzags. Jeanne, careless and happy, took the lead, the
+pebbles rolling away beneath her feet, fearlessly leaning over the
+abysses. Julien followed her, somewhat out of breath, his eyes on the
+ground for fear of becoming dizzy.
+
+All at once the sun shone down on them, and it seemed as if they were
+leaving the infernal regions. They were thirsty, and following a track
+of moisture, they crossed a wilderness of stones and found a little
+spring conducted into a channel made of a piece of hollowed-out wood
+for the benefit of the goatherds. A carpet of moss covered the ground
+all round it, and Jeanne and Julien knelt down to drink.
+
+As they were enjoying the fresh cold water, Julien tried to draw
+Jeanne away to tease her. She resisted and their lips met and parted,
+and the stream of cold water splashed their faces, their necks, their
+clothes and their hands, and their kisses mingled in the stream.
+
+They were a long time reaching the summit of the declivity, as the
+road was so winding and uneven, and they did not reach Evisa until
+evening and the house of Paoli Palabretti, a relative of their guide.
+
+He was a tall man, somewhat bent, with the mournful air of a
+consumptive. He took them to their room, a cheerless room of bare
+stone, but handsome for this country, where all elegance is ignored.
+He expressed in his language--the Corsican patois, a jumble of French
+and Italian--his pleasure at welcoming them, when a shrill voice
+interrupted him. A little swarthy woman, with large black eyes, a skin
+warmed by the sun, a slender waist, teeth always showing in a
+perpetual smile, darted forward, kissed Jeanne, shook Julien's hand
+and said: "Good-day, madame; good-day, monsieur; I hope you are well."
+
+She took their hats, shawls, carrying all on one arm, for the other
+was in a sling, and then she made them all go outside, saying to her
+husband: "Go and take them for a walk until dinner time."
+
+M. Palabretti obeyed at once and walked between the two young people
+as he showed them the village. He dragged his feet and his words,
+coughing frequently, and repeating at each attack of coughing:
+
+"It is the air of the Val, which is cool, and has struck my chest."
+
+He led them on a by-path beneath enormous chestnut trees. Suddenly he
+stopped and said in his monotonous voice: "It is here that my cousin,
+Jean Rinaldi, was killed by Mathieu Lori. See, I was there, close to
+Jean, when Mathieu appeared at ten paces from us. 'Jean,' he cried,
+'do not go to Albertacce; do not go, Jean, or I will kill you. I warn
+you!'
+
+"I took Jean's arm: 'Do not go there, Jean; he will do it.'
+
+"It was about a girl whom they were both after, Paulina Sinacoupi.
+
+"But Jean cried out: 'I am going, Mathieu; you will not be the one to
+prevent me.'
+
+"Then Mathieu unslung his gun, and before I could adjust mine, he
+fired.
+
+"Jean leaped two feet in the air, like a child skipping, yes,
+monsieur, and he fell back full on me, so that my gun went off and
+rolled as far as the big chestnut tree over yonder.
+
+"Jean's mouth was wide open, but he did not utter a word; he was
+dead."
+
+The young people gazed in amazement at the calm witness of this crime.
+Jeanne asked:
+
+"And what became of the assassin?"
+
+Paoli Palabretti had a long fit of coughing and then said:
+
+"He escaped to the mountain. It was my brother who killed him the
+following year. You know, my brother, Philippi Palabretti, the
+bandit."
+
+Jeanne shuddered.
+
+"Your brother a bandit?"
+
+With a gleam of pride in his eye, the calm Corsican replied:
+
+"Yes, madame. He was celebrated, that one. He laid low six gendarmes.
+He died at the same time as Nicolas Morali, when they were trapped in
+the Niolo, after six days of fighting, and were about to die of
+hunger.
+
+"The country is worth it," he added with a resigned air in the same
+tone in which he said: "It is the air of the Val, which is cool."
+
+Then they went home to dinner, and the little Corsican woman behaved
+as if she had known them for twenty years.
+
+But Jeanne was worried. When Julien again held her in his arms, would
+she experience the same strange and intense sensation that she had
+felt on the moss beside the spring? And when they were alone together
+that evening she trembled lest she should still be insensible to his
+kisses. But she was reassured, and this was her first night of love.
+
+The next day, as they were about to set out, she decided that she
+would not leave this humble cottage, where it seemed as though a fresh
+happiness had begun for her.
+
+She called her host's little wife into her room and, while making
+clear that she did not mean it as a present, she insisted, even with
+some annoyance, on sending her from Paris, as soon as she arrived, a
+remembrance, a remembrance to which she attached an almost
+superstitious significance.
+
+The little Corsican refused for some time, not wishing to accept it.
+But at last she consented, saying:
+
+"Well, then, send me a little pistol, a very small one."
+
+Jeanne opened her eyes in astonishment. The other added in her ear, as
+one confides a sweet and intimate secret: "It is to kill my
+brother-in-law." And smiling, she hastily unwound the bandages around
+the helpless arm, and showing her firm, white skin with the scratch of
+a stiletto across it, now almost healed, she said: "If I had not been
+almost as strong as he is, he would have killed me. My husband is not
+jealous, he knows me; and, besides, he is ill, you know, and that
+quiets your blood. And, besides, madame, I am an honest woman; but my
+brother-in-law believes all that he hears. He is jealous for my
+husband and he will surely try it again. Then I shall have my little
+pistol; I shall be easy, and sure of my revenge."
+
+Jeanne promised to send the weapon, kissed her new friend tenderly and
+they set out on their journey.
+
+The rest of the trip was nothing but a dream, a continual series of
+embraces, an intoxication of caresses. She saw nothing, neither the
+landscape, nor the people, nor the places where they stopped. She saw
+nothing but Julien.
+
+On arriving at Bastia, they had to pay the guide. Julien fumbled in
+his pockets. Not finding what he wanted, he said to Jeanne: "As you
+are not using your mother's two thousand francs, give them to me to
+carry. They will be safer in my belt, and it will avoid my having to
+make change."
+
+She handed him her purse.
+
+They went to Leghorn, visited Florence, Genoa and all the Cornici.
+They reached Marseilles on a morning when the north wind was blowing.
+Two months had elapsed since they left the "Poplars." It was now the
+15th of October.
+
+Jeanne, affected by the cold wind that seemed to come from yonder,
+from far-off Normandy, felt sad. Julien had, for some time, appeared
+changed, tired, indifferent, and she feared she knew not what.
+
+They delayed their return home four days longer, not being able to
+make up their minds to leave this pleasant land of the sun. It seemed
+to her that she had come to an end of her happiness.
+
+At length they left. They were to make all their purchases in Paris,
+prior to settling down for good at the "Poplars," and Jeanne looked
+forward to bringing back some treasures, thanks to her mother's
+present. But the first thing she thought of was the pistol promised to
+the little Corsican woman of Evisa.
+
+The day after they arrived she said to Julien: "Dear, will you give me
+that money of mamma's? I want to make my purchases."
+
+He turned toward her with a look of annoyance.
+
+"How much do you want?"
+
+"Why--whatever you please."
+
+"I will give you a hundred francs," he replied, "but do not squander
+it."
+
+She did not know what to say, amazed and confused. At length she
+faltered: "But--I--handed you the money to----"
+
+He did not give her time to finish.
+
+"Yes, of course. Whether it is in my pocket or yours makes no
+difference from the moment that we have the same purse. I do not
+refuse you, do I, since I am giving you a hundred francs?"
+
+She took the five gold pieces without saying a word, but she did not
+venture to ask for any more, and she bought nothing but the pistol.
+
+Eight days later they set out for the "Poplars."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DISENCHANTMENT
+
+The family and servants were awaiting them outside the white gate with
+brick supports. The post-chaise drew up and there were long and
+affectionate greetings. Little mother wept; Jeanne, affected, wiped
+away some tears; father nervously walked up and down.
+
+Then, as the baggage was being unloaded, they told of their travels
+beside the parlor fire. Jeanne's words flowed freely, and everything
+was told, everything, in a half hour, except, perhaps, a few little
+details forgotten in this rapid account.
+
+The young wife then went to undo her parcels. Rosalie, also greatly
+affected, assisted her. When this was finished and everything had been
+put away, the little maid left her mistress, and Jeanne, somewhat
+fatigued, sat down.
+
+She asked herself what she was now going to do, seeking some
+occupation for her mind, some work for her hands. She did not care to
+go down again into the drawing-room, where her mother was asleep, and
+she thought she would take a walk. But the country seemed so sad that
+she felt a weight at her heart on only looking out of the window.
+
+Then it came to her that she had no longer anything to do, never again
+anything to do. All her young life at the convent had been preoccupied
+with the future, busied with dreams. The constant excitement of hope
+filled her hours at that time, so that she was not aware of their
+flight. Then hardly had she left those austere walls, where her
+illusions had unfolded, than her expectations of love were at once
+realized. The longed-for lover, met, loved and married within a few
+weeks, as one marries on these sudden resolves, had carried her off in
+his arms, without giving her time for reflection.
+
+But now the sweet reality of the first days was to become the everyday
+reality, which closed the door on vague hopes, on the enchanting
+worries of the unknown. Yes, there was nothing more to look forward
+to. And there was nothing more to do, today, to-morrow, never. She
+felt all this vaguely as a certain disillusion, a certain crumbling of
+her dreams.
+
+She rose and leaned her forehead against the cold window panes.
+
+Then, after gazing for some time at the sky across which dark clouds
+were passing, she decided to go out.
+
+Was this the same country, the same grass, the same trees as in May?
+What had become of the sunlit cheerfulness of the leaves and the
+poetry of the green grass, where dandelions, poppies and moon daisies
+bloomed and where yellow butterflies fluttered as though held by
+invisible wires? And this intoxication of the air teeming with life,
+with fragrance, with fertilizing pollen, existed no longer!
+
+The avenues, soaked by the constant autumnal downpours, were covered
+with a thick carpet of fallen leaves which extended beneath the
+shivering bareness of the almost leafless poplars. She went as far as
+the shrubbery. It was as sad as the chamber of a dying person. A green
+hedge which separated the little winding walks was bare of leaves.
+Little birds flew from place to place with a little chilly cry,
+seeking a shelter.
+
+The thick curtain of elm trees that formed a protection against the
+sea wind, the lime tree and the plane tree with their crimson and
+yellow tints seemed clothed, the one in red velvet and the other in
+yellow silk.
+
+Jeanne walked slowly up and down petite mere's avenue, alongside the
+Couillards' farm. Something weighed on her spirit like a presentiment
+of the long boredom of the monotonous life about to begin.
+
+She seated herself on the bank where Julien had first told her of his
+love and remained there, dreaming, scarcely thinking, depressed to the
+very soul, longing to lie down, to sleep, in order to escape the
+dreariness of the day.
+
+All at once she perceived a gull crossing the sky, carried away in a
+gust of wind, and she recalled the eagle she had seen down there in
+Corsica, in the gloomy vale of Ota. She felt a spasm at her heart as
+at the remembrance of something pleasant that is gone by, and she had
+a sudden vision of the beautiful island with its wild perfume, its sun
+that ripens oranges and lemons, its mountains with their rosy summits,
+its azure gulfs and its ravines through which the torrents flowed.
+
+And the moist, severe landscape that surrounded her, with the falling
+leaves and the gray clouds blown along by the wind, enfolded her in
+such a heavy mantle of misery that she went back to the house to keep
+from sobbing.
+
+Her mother was dozing in a torpid condition in front of the fire,
+accustomed to the melancholy of the long days, and not noticing it any
+longer. Her father and Julien had gone for a walk to talk about
+business matters. Night was coming on, filling the large drawing-room
+with gloom lighted by reflections of light from the fire.
+
+The baron presently appeared, followed by Julien. As soon as the
+vicomte entered the room he rang the bell, saying: "Quick, quick, let
+us have some light! It is gloomy in here."
+
+And he sat down before the fire. While his wet shoes were steaming in
+the warmth and the mud was drying on his soles, he rubbed his hands
+cheerfully as he said: "I think it is going to freeze; the sky is
+clearing in the north, and it is full moon to-night; we shall have a
+stinger to-night."
+
+Then turning to his daughter: "Well, little one, are you glad to be
+back again in your own country, in your own home, with the old folks?"
+
+This simple question upset Jeanne. She threw herself into her father's
+arms, her eyes full of tears, and kissed him nervously, as though
+asking pardon, for in spite of her honest attempt to be cheerful, she
+felt sad enough to give up altogether. She recalled the joy she had
+promised herself at seeing her parents again, and she was surprised at
+the coldness that seemed to numb her affection, just as if, after
+constantly thinking of those one loves, when at a distance and unable
+to see them at any moment, one should feel, on seeing them again, a
+sort of check of affection, until the bonds of their life in common
+had been renewed.
+
+Dinner lasted a long time. No one spoke much. Julien appeared to have
+forgotten his wife.
+
+In the drawing-room Jeanne sat before the fire in a drowsy condition,
+opposite little mother, who was sound asleep. Aroused by the voices of
+the men, Jeanne asked herself, as she tried to rouse herself, if she,
+too, was going to become a slave to this dreary lethargy of habit that
+nothing varies.
+
+The baron approached the fire, and holding out his hands to the
+glowing flame, he said, smiling: "Ah, that burns finely this evening.
+It is freezing, children; it is freezing." Then, placing his hand on
+Jeanne's shoulder and pointing to the fire, he said: "See here, little
+daughter, that is the best thing in life, the hearth, the hearth, with
+one's own around one. Nothing else counts. But supposing we retire.
+You children must be tired out."
+
+When she was in her room, Jeanne asked herself how she could feel so
+differently on returning a second time to the place that she thought
+she loved. Why did she feel as though she were wounded? Why did this
+house, this beloved country, all that hitherto had thrilled her with
+happiness, now appear so distressing?
+
+Her eyes suddenly fell on her clock. The little bee was still swinging
+from left to right and from right to left with the same quick,
+continuous motion above the scarlet blossoms. All at once an impulse
+of tenderness moved her to tears at sight of this little piece of
+mechanism that seemed to be alive. She had not been so affected on
+kissing her father and mother. The heart has mysteries that no
+arguments can solve.
+
+For the first time since her marriage she was alone, Julien, under
+pretext of fatigue, having taken another room.
+
+She lay awake a long time, unaccustomed to being alone and disturbed
+by the bleak north wind which beat against the roof.
+
+She was awakened the next morning by a bright light that flooded her
+room. She put on a dressing gown and ran to the window and opened it.
+
+An icy breeze, sharp and bracing, streamed into the room, making her
+skin tingle and her eyes water. The sun appeared behind the trees on a
+crimson sky, and the earth, covered with frost and dry and hard, rang
+out beneath one's footsteps. In one night all the leaves had blown off
+the trees, and in the distance beyond the level ground was seen the
+long green line of water, covered with trails of white foam.
+
+Jeanne dressed herself and went out, and for the sake of an object she
+went to call on the farmers.
+
+The Martins held up their hands in surprise, and Mrs. Martin kissed
+her on both cheeks, and then they made her drink a glass of noyau. She
+then went to the other farm. The Couillards also were surprised. Mrs.
+Couillard pecked her on the ears and she had to drink a glass of
+cassis. Then she went home to breakfast.
+
+The day went by like the previous day, cold instead of damp. And the
+other days of the week resembled these two days, and all the weeks of
+the month were like the first week.
+
+Little by little, however, she ceased to regret far-off lands. The
+force of habit was covering her life with a layer of resignation
+similar to the lime-stone formation deposited on objects by certain
+springs. And a kind of interest for the thousand-and-one little
+insignificant things of daily life, a care for the simple, ordinary
+everyday occupations, awakened in her heart. A sort of pensive
+melancholy, a vague disenchantment with life was growing up in her
+mind. What did she lack? What did she want? She did not know. She had
+no worldly desires, no thirst for amusement, no longing for
+permissible pleasures. What then? Just as old furniture tarnishes in
+time, so everything was slowly becoming faded to her eyes, everything
+seemed to be fading, to be taking on pale, dreary shades.
+
+Her relations with Julien had completely changed. He seemed to be
+quite different since they came back from their honeymoon, like an
+actor who has played his part and resumes his ordinary manner. He
+scarcely paid any attention to her or even spoke to her. All trace of
+love had suddenly disappeared, and he seldom came into her room at
+night.
+
+He had taken charge of the money and of the house, changed the leases,
+worried the peasants, cut down expenses, and having adopted the
+costume of a gentleman farmer, he had lost his polish and elegance as
+a fiance.
+
+He always wore the same suit, although it was covered with spots. It
+was an old velveteen shooting jacket with brass buttons, that he had
+found among his former wardrobe, and with the carelessness that is
+frequent with those who no longer seek to please, he had given up
+shaving, and his long beard, badly cut, made an incredible change for
+the worse in his appearance. His hands were never cared for, and after
+each meal he drank four or five glasses of brandy.
+
+Jeanne tried to remonstrate with him gently, but he had answered her
+so abruptly: "Won't you let me alone!" that she never ventured to give
+him any more advice.
+
+She had adapted herself to these changes in a manner that surprised
+herself. He had become a stranger to her, a stranger whose mind and
+heart were closed to her. She constantly thought about it, asking
+herself how it was that after having met, loved, married in an impulse
+of affection, they should all at once find themselves almost as much
+strangers as though they had never shared the same room.
+
+And how was it that she did not feel this neglect more deeply? Was
+this life? Had they deceived themselves? Did the future hold nothing
+further for her?
+
+If Julien had remained handsome, carefully dressed, elegant, she might
+possibly have suffered more deeply.
+
+It had been agreed that after the new year the young couple should
+remain alone and that the father and mother should go back to spend a
+few months at their house in Rouen. The young people were not to leave
+the "Poplars" that winter, so as to get thoroughly settled and to
+become accustomed to each other and to the place where all their life
+would be passed. They had a few neighbors to whom Julien would
+introduce his wife. These were the Brisevilles, the Colteliers and the
+Fourvilles.
+
+But the young people could not begin to pay calls because they had not
+as yet been able to get a painter to alter the armorial bearings on
+the carriage.
+
+The old family coach had been given up to his son-in-law by the baron,
+and nothing would have induced him to show himself at the neighboring
+chateaux if the coat-of-arms of the De Lamares were not quartered with
+those of the Le Perthuis des Vauds.
+
+There was only one man in the district who made a specialty of
+heraldic designs, a painter of Bolbec, called Bataille, who was in
+demand at all the Norman castles in turn to make these precious
+designs on the doors of carriages.
+
+At length one morning in December, just as they were finishing
+breakfast, they saw an individual open the gate and walk toward the
+house. He was carrying a box on his back. This was Bataille.
+
+They offered him some breakfast, and, while he was eating, the baron
+and Julien made sketches of quarterings. The baroness, all upset as
+soon as these things were discussed, gave her opinion. And even Jeanne
+took part in the discussion, as though some mysterious interest had
+suddenly awakened in her.
+
+Bataille, while eating, gave his ideas, at times taking the pencil and
+tracing a design, citing examples, describing all the aristocratic
+carriages in the countryside, and seemed to have brought with him in
+his ideas, even in his voice, a sort of atmosphere of aristocracy.
+
+As soon as he had finished his coffee, they all went to the coach
+house. They took off the cover of the carriage and Bataille examined
+it. He then gravely gave his views as to the size he considered
+suitable for the design, and after an exchange of ideas, he set to
+work.
+
+Notwithstanding the cold, the baroness had her chair brought out so as
+to watch him working, and then her foot-stove, for her feet were
+freezing. She then began to chat with the painter, on all the recent
+births, deaths and marriages of which she had not heard, thus adding
+to the genealogical tree which she carried in her memory.
+
+Julien sat beside her, astride on a chair. He was smoking, spitting on
+the ground, listening and following with his glances the emblazoning
+of his rank.
+
+Presently old Simon, who was on his way to the vegetable garden, his
+spade on his shoulder, stopped to look at the work; and as Bataille's
+arrival had become known at the two farms, the farmers' wives soon put
+in an appearance. They went into raptures, standing one at either side
+of the baroness, exclaiming: "My! it requires some cleverness all the
+same to fix up those things."
+
+The two doors could not be finished before the next day about eleven
+o'clock. Every one was on hand; and they dragged the carriage outside
+so as to get a better view of it.
+
+It was perfect. Bataille was complimented, and went off with his box
+on his back. They all agreed that the painter had great ability, and
+if circumstances had been favorable would doubtless have been a great
+artist.
+
+Julien, by way of economy, had introduced great reforms which
+necessitated making some changes. The old coachman had been made
+gardener, Julien undertaking to drive himself, having sold the
+carriage horses to avoid buying feed for them. But as it was necessary
+to have some one to hold the horses when he and his wife got out of
+the carriage, he had made a little cow tender named Marius into a
+groom. Then in order to get some horses, he introduced a special
+clause into the Couillards' and Martins' leases, by which they were
+bound to supply a horse each, on a certain day every month, the date
+to be fixed by him; and this would exempt them from their tribute of
+poultry.
+
+So the Couillards brought a big yellow horse, and the Martins a small
+white animal with long, unclipped coat, and the two were harnessed up
+together. Marius, buried in an old livery belonging to old Simon, led
+the carriage up to the front door.
+
+Julien, looking clean and brushed up, looked a little like his former
+self; but his long beard gave him a common look in spite of all. He
+looked over the horses, the carriage, and the little groom, and seemed
+satisfied, the only really important thing to him being the newly
+painted escutcheon.
+
+The baroness came down leaning on her husband's arm and got into the
+carriage. Then Jeanne appeared. She began to laugh at the horses,
+saying that the white one was the son of the yellow horse; then,
+perceiving Marius, his face buried under his hat with its cockade, his
+nose alone preventing it from covering his face altogether, his hands
+hidden in his long sleeves, and the tail of his coat forming a skirt
+round his legs, his feet encased in immense shoes showing in a comical
+manner beneath it, and then when he threw his head back so as to see,
+and lifted up his leg to walk as if he were crossing a river, she
+burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
+
+The baron turned round, glanced at the little bewildered groom and he,
+too, burst out laughing, calling to his wife: "Look at Ma-Ma-Marius!
+Is he not comical? Heavens, how funny he looks!"
+
+The baroness, looking out of the carriage window, was also convulsed,
+so that the carriage shook on its springs.
+
+But Julien, pale with anger, asked: "What makes you laugh like that?
+Are you crazy?"
+
+Jeanne, quite convulsed and unable to stop laughing, sat down on the
+doorstep; the baron did the same, while, in the carriage, spasmodic
+sneezes, a sort of constant chuckling, told that the baroness was
+choking. Presently there was a motion beneath Marius' livery. He had,
+doubtless, understood the joke, for he was shaking with laughter
+beneath his hat.
+
+Julien darted forward in exasperation. With a box on the ear he sent
+the boy's hat flying across the lawn; then, turning toward his
+father-in-law, he stammered in a voice trembling with rage: "It seems
+to me that you should be the last to laugh. We should not be where we
+are now if you had not wasted your money and ruined your property.
+Whose fault is it if you are ruined?"
+
+The laughter ceased at once, and no one spoke. Jeanne, now ready to
+cry, got into the carriage and sat beside her mother. The baron,
+silent and astonished, took his place opposite the two ladies, and
+Julien sat on the box after lifting to the seat beside him the weeping
+boy, whose face was beginning to swell.
+
+The road was dreary and appeared long. The occupants of the carriage
+were silent. All three sad and embarrassed, they would not acknowledge
+to one another what was occupying their thoughts. They felt that they
+could not talk on indifferent subjects while these thoughts had
+possession of them, and preferred to remain silent than to allude to
+this painful subject.
+
+They drove past farmyards, the carriage jogging along unevenly with
+the ill-matched animals, putting to flight terrified black hens who
+plunged into the bushes and disappeared, occasionally followed by a
+barking wolf-hound.
+
+At length they entered a wide avenue of pine trees, at the end of
+which was a white, closed gate. Marius ran to open it, and they drove
+in round an immense grass plot, and drew up before a high, spacious,
+sad-looking building with closed shutters.
+
+The hall door opened abruptly, and an old, paralyzed servant wearing a
+black waistcoat with red stripes partially covered by his working
+apron slowly descended the slanting steps. He took the visitors' names
+and led them into an immense reception room, and opened with
+difficulty the Venetian blinds which were always kept closed. The
+furniture had covers on it, and the clock and candelabra were wrapped
+in white muslin. An atmosphere of mildew, an atmosphere of former
+days, damp and icy, seemed to permeate one's lungs, heart and skin
+with melancholy.
+
+They all sat down and waited. They heard steps in the hall above them
+that betokened unaccustomed haste. The hosts were hurriedly dressing.
+The baroness, who was chilled, sneezed constantly. Julien paced up and
+down. Jeanne, despondent, sat beside her mother. The baron leaned
+against the marble mantelpiece with his head bent down.
+
+Finally, one of the tall doors opened, and the Vicomte and Vicomtesse
+de Briseville appeared. They were both small, thin, vivacious, of no
+age in particular, ceremonious and embarrassed.
+
+After the first greetings, there seemed to be nothing to say. So they
+began to congratulate each other for no special reason, and hoped that
+these friendly relations would be kept up. It was a treat to see
+people when one lived in the country the year round.
+
+The icy atmosphere pierced to their bones and made their voices
+hoarse. The baroness was coughing now and had stopped sneezing. The
+baron thought it was time to leave. The Brisevilles said: "What, so
+soon? Stay a little longer." But Jeanne had risen in spite of Julien's
+signals, for he thought the visit too short.
+
+They attempted to ring for the servant to order the carriage to the
+door, but the bell would not ring. The host started out himself to
+attend to it, but found that the horses had been put in the stable.
+
+They had to wait. Every one tried to think of something to say.
+Jeanne, involuntarily shivering with cold, inquired what their hosts
+did to occupy themselves all the year round. The Brisevilles were much
+astonished; for they were always busy, either writing letters to their
+aristocratic relations, of whom they had a number scattered all over
+France, or attending to microscopic duties, as ceremonious to one
+another as though they were strangers, and talking grandiloquently of
+the most insignificant matters.
+
+At last the carriage passed the windows with its ill-matched team. But
+Marius had disappeared. Thinking he was off duty until evening, he had
+doubtless gone for a walk.
+
+Julien, perfectly furious, begged them to send him home on foot, and
+after a great many farewells on both sides, they set out for the
+"Poplars."
+
+As soon as they were inside the carriage, Jeanne and her father, in
+spite of Julien's brutal behavior of the morning which still weighed
+on their minds, began to laugh at the gestures and intonations of the
+Brisevilles. The baron imitated the husband, and Jeanne the wife. But
+the baroness, a little touchy in these particulars, said: "You are
+wrong to ridicule them thus; they are people of excellent family."
+They were silent out of respect for little mother, but nevertheless,
+from time to time, Jeanne and her father began again. The baroness
+could not forbear smiling in her turn, but she repeated: "It is not
+nice to laugh at people who belong to our class."
+
+Suddenly the carriage stopped, and Julien called out to someone behind
+it. Then Jeanne and the baron, leaning out, saw a singular creature
+that appeared to be rolling along toward them. His legs entangled in
+his flowing coattails, and blinded by his hat which kept falling over
+his face, shaking his sleeves like the sails of a windmill, and
+splashing into puddles of water, and stumbling against stones in the
+road, running and bounding, Marius was following the carriage as fast
+as his legs could carry him.
+
+As soon as he caught up with it, Julien, leaning over, seized him by
+the collar of his coat, sat him down beside him, and letting go the
+reins, began to shower blows on the boy's hat, which sank down to his
+shoulders with the reverberations of a drum. The boy screamed, tried
+to get away, to jump from the carriage, while his master, holding him
+with one hand, continued beating him with the other.
+
+Jeanne, dumfounded, stammered: "Father--oh, father!" And the baroness,
+wild with indignation, squeezed her husband's arm. "Stop him, Jack!"
+she exclaimed. The baron quickly lowered the front window, and seizing
+hold of his son-in-law's sleeve, he sputtered out in a voice trembling
+with rage: "Have you almost finished beating that child?"
+
+Julien turned round in astonishment: "Don't you see what a condition
+his livery is in?"
+
+But the baron, placing his head between them, said: "Well, what do I
+care? There is no need to be brutal like that!"
+
+Julien got angry again: "Let me alone, please; this is not your
+affair!" And he was raising his hand again when his father-in-law
+caught hold of it and dragged it down so roughly that he knocked it
+against the wood of the seat, and he roared at him so loud: "If you do
+not stop, I shall get out, and I will see that you stop it, myself,"
+that Julien calmed down at once, and shrugging his shoulders without
+replying, he whipped up the horses, who set out at a quick trot.
+
+The two women, pale as death, did not stir, and one could hear
+distinctly the thumping of the baroness' heart.
+
+At dinner Julien was more charming than usual, as though nothing had
+occurred. Jeanne, her father, and Madame Adelaide, pleased to see him
+so amiable, fell in with his mood, and when Jeanne mentioned the
+Brisevilles, he laughed at them himself, adding, however: "All the
+same, they have the grand air."
+
+They made no more visits, each one fearing to revive the Marius
+episode. They decided, to send New Year's cards, and to wait until the
+first warm days of spring before paying any more calls.
+
+At Christmas they invited the cure, the mayor and his wife to dinner,
+and again on New Year's Day. These were the only events that varied
+the monotony of their life. The baron and his wife were to leave "The
+Poplars" on the ninth of January. Jeanne wanted to keep them, but
+Julien did not acquiesce, and the baron sent for a post-chaise from
+Rouen, seeing his son-in-law's coolness.
+
+The day before their departure, as it was a clear frost, Jeanne and
+her father decided to go to Yport, which they had not visited since
+her return from Corsica. They crossed the wood where she had strolled
+on her wedding-day, all wrapped up in the one whose lifelong companion
+she had become; the wood where she had received her first kiss,
+trembled at the first breath of love, had a presentiment of that
+sensual love of which she did not become aware until she was in the
+wild vale of Ota beside the spring where they mingled their kisses as
+they drank of its waters. The trees were now leafless, the climbing
+vines dead.
+
+They entered the little village. The empty, silent streets smelled of
+the sea, of wrack, of fish. Huge brown nets were still hanging up to
+dry outside the houses, or stretched out on the shingle. The gray,
+cold sea, with its eternal roaring foam, was going out, uncovering the
+green rocks at the foot of the cliff toward Fecamp.
+
+Jeanne and her father, motionless, watched the fishermen setting out
+in their boats in the dusk, as they did every night, risking their
+lives to keep from starving, and so poor, nevertheless, that they
+never tasted meat.
+
+The baron, inspired at the sight of the ocean, murmured: "It is
+terrible, but it is beautiful. How magnificent this sea is on which
+the darkness is falling, and on which so many lives are in peril, is
+it not, Jeannette?"
+
+She replied with a cold smile: "It is nothing to the Mediterranean."
+
+Her father, indignant, exclaimed: "The Mediterranean! It is oil, sugar
+water, bluing water in a washtub. Look at this sea, how terrible it is
+with its crests of foam! And think of all those men who have set out
+on it, and who are already out of sight."
+
+Jeanne assented with a sigh: "Yes, if you think so." But this name,
+"Mediterranean," had wrung her heart afresh, sending her thoughts back
+to those distant lands where her dreams lay buried.
+
+Instead of returning home by the woods, they walked along the road,
+mounting the ascent slowly. They were silent, sad at the thought of
+the approaching separation. As they passed along beside the farmyards
+an odor of crushed apples, that smell of new cider which seems to
+pervade the atmosphere in this season all through Normandy, rose to
+their nostrils, or else a strong smell of the cow stables. A small
+lighted window at the end of the yard indicated the farmhouse.
+
+It seemed to Jeanne that her mind was expanding, was beginning to
+understand the psychic meaning of things; and these little scattered
+gleams in the landscape gave her, all at once, a keen sense of the
+isolation of all human lives, a feeling that everything detaches,
+separates, draws one far away from the things they love.
+
+She said, in a resigned tone: "Life is not always cheerful."
+
+The baron sighed: "How can it be helped, daughter? We can do nothing."
+
+The following day the baron and his wife went away, and Jeanne and
+Julien were left alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JEANNE'S DISCOVERY
+
+Cards now became a distraction in the life of the young people. Every
+morning after breakfast, Julien would play several games of bezique
+with his wife, smoking and sipping brandy as he played. She would then
+go up to her room and sit down beside the window, and as the rain beat
+against the panes, or the wind shook the windows, she would embroider
+away steadily. Occasionally she would raise her eyes and look out at
+the gray sea which had white-caps on it. Then, after gazing listlessly
+for some time, she would resume her work.
+
+She had nothing else to do, Julien having taken the entire management
+of the house, to satisfy his craving for authority and his craze for
+economy. He was parsimonious in the extreme, never gave any tips, cut
+down the food to the merest necessaries; and as Jeanne since her
+return had ordered the baker to make her a little Norman "galette" for
+breakfast, he had cut down this extra expense, and condemned her to
+eat toast.
+
+She said nothing in order to avoid recriminations, arguments and
+quarrels; but she suffered keenly at each fresh manifestation of
+avarice on the part of her husband. It appeared to her low and odious,
+brought up as she had been in a family where money was never
+considered. How often had she not heard her mother say: "Why, money is
+made to be spent." Julien would now say: "Will you never become
+accustomed to not throwing money away?" And each time he deducted a
+few sous from some one's salary or on a note, he would say with a
+smile, as he slipped the change into his pocket: "Little streams make
+big rivers."
+
+On certain days Jeanne would sit and dream. She would gradually cease
+sewing and, with her hands idle, and forgetting her surroundings, she
+would weave one of those romances of her girlhood and be lost in some
+enchanting adventure. But suddenly Julien's voice giving some orders
+to old Simon would snatch her abruptly from her dreams, and she would
+take up her work again, saying: "That is all over," and a tear would
+fall on her hands as she plied the needle.
+
+Rosalie, formerly so cheerful and always singing, had changed. Her
+rounded cheeks had lost their color, and were now almost hollow, and
+sometimes had an earthy hue. Jeanne would frequently ask her: "Are you
+ill, my girl?" The little maid would reply: "No, madame," while her
+cheeks would redden slightly and she would retire hastily.
+
+At the end of January the snow came. In one night the whole plain was
+covered and the trees next morning were white with icy foam.
+
+On one of these mornings, Jeanne was sitting warming her feet before
+the fire in her room, while Rosalie, who had changed from day to day,
+was making the bed. Suddenly hearing behind her a kind of moan, Jeanne
+asked, without turning her head: "What is the matter?"
+
+The maid replied as usual: "Nothing, madame"; but her voice was weak
+and trembling.
+
+Jeanne's thoughts were on something else, when she noticed that the
+girl was not moving about the room. She called: "Rosalie!" Still no
+sound. Then, thinking she might have left the room, she cried in a
+louder tone: "Rosalie!" and she was reaching out her arm to ring the
+bell, when a deep moan close beside her made her start up with a
+shudder.
+
+The little servant, her face livid, her eyes haggard, was seated on
+the floor, her legs stretched out, and her back leaning against the
+bed. Jeanne sprang toward her. "What is the matter with you--what is
+the matter?" she asked.
+
+The girl did not reply, did not move. She stared vacantly at her
+mistress and gasped as though she were in terrible pain. Then,
+suddenly, she slid down on her back at full length, clenching her
+teeth to smother a cry of anguish.
+
+Jeanne suddenly understood, and almost distracted, she ran to the head
+of the stairs, crying: "Julien, Julien!"
+
+"What do you want?" he replied from below.
+
+She hardly knew how to tell him. "It is Rosalie, who----"
+
+Julien rushed upstairs two steps at a time, and going abruptly into
+the room, he found the poor girl had just been delivered of a child.
+He looked round with a wicked look on his face, and pushing his
+terrified wife out of the room, exclaimed: "This is none of your
+affair. Go away. Send me Ludivine and old Simon."
+
+Jeanne, trembling, descended to the kitchen, and then, not daring to
+go upstairs again, she went into the drawing-room, in which there had
+been no fire since her parents left, and anxiously awaited news.
+
+She presently saw the man-servant running out of the house. Five
+minutes later he returned with Widow Dentu, the nurse of the district.
+
+Then there was a great commotion on the stairs as though they were
+carrying a wounded person, and Julien came in and told Jeanne that she
+might go back to her room.
+
+She trembled as if she had witnessed some terrible accident. She sat
+down again before the fire, and asked: "How is she?"
+
+Julien, preoccupied and nervous, was pacing up and down the room. He
+seemed to be getting angry, and did not reply at first. Then he
+stopped and said: "What do you intend to do with this girl?"
+
+She did not understand, and looked at her husband. "Why, what do you
+mean? I do not know."
+
+Then suddenly flying into a rage, he exclaimed: "We cannot keep a
+bastard in the house."
+
+Jeanne was very much bewildered, and said at the end of a long
+silence: "But, my friend, perhaps we could put it out to nurse?"
+
+He cut her short: "And who will pay the bill? You will, no doubt."
+
+She reflected for some time, trying to find some way out of the
+difficulty; at length she said: "Why, the father will take care of it,
+of the child; and if he marries Rosalie, there will be no more
+difficulty."
+
+Julien, as though his patience were exhausted, replied furiously: "The
+father!--the father!--do you know him--the father? No, is it not so?
+Well then----?"
+
+Jeanne, much affected, became excited: "But you certainly would not
+let the girl go away like that. It would be cowardly! We will inquire
+the name of the man, and we will go and find him, and he will have to
+explain matters."
+
+Julien had calmed down and resumed his pacing up and down. "My dear,"
+he said, "she will not tell the name of the man; she will not tell you
+any more than she will tell me--and, if he does not want her? ... We
+cannot, however, keep a woman and her illegitimate child under our
+roof, don't you understand?"
+
+Jeanne, persistent, replied: "Then he must be a wretch, this man. But
+we must certainly find out who it is, and then he will have us to deal
+with."
+
+Julien colored, became annoyed again, and said: "But--meanwhile----?"
+
+She did not know what course to take, and asked: "What do you
+propose?"
+
+"Oh, I? That's very simple. I would give her some money and send her
+to the devil with her brat."
+
+The young wife, indignant, was disgusted with him. "That shall never
+be," she said. "She is my foster-sister, that girl; we grew up
+together. She has made a mistake, so much the worse; but I will not
+cast her out of doors on that account; and, if it is necessary, I will
+bring up the child."
+
+Then Julien's wrath exploded: "And we should earn a fine reputation,
+we, with our name and our position! And they would say of us
+everywhere that we were protecting vice, harboring beggars; and decent
+people would never set their foot inside our doors. What are you
+thinking of? You must be crazy!"
+
+She had remained quite calm. "I shall never cast off Rosalie; and if
+you do not wish her to stay, my mother will take her; and we shall
+surely succeed in finding out the name of the father of the child."
+
+He left the room in exasperation, banging the door after him and
+exclaiming: "What stupid ideas women have!"
+
+In the afternoon Jeanne went up to see the patient. The little maid,
+watched over by Widow Dentu, was lying still in her bed, her eyes wide
+open, while the nurse held the new-born babe in her arms.
+
+As soon as Rosalie perceived her mistress, she began to sob, hiding
+her face in the covers and shaking with her sorrow. Jeanne wanted to
+kiss her, but she avoided it by keeping her face covered. But the
+nurse interfered, and drawing away the sheet, uncovered her face, and
+she let Jeanne kiss her, weeping still, but more quietly.
+
+A meagre fire was burning in the grate; the room was cold; the child
+was crying. Jeanne did not dare to speak of the little one, for fear
+of another attack, and she took her maid's hand as she said
+mechanically: "It will not matter, it will not matter." The poor girl
+glanced furtively at the nurse, and trembled as the infant cried, and
+the remembrance of her sorrow came to her mind occasionally in a
+convulsive sob, while suppressed tears choked her.
+
+Jeanne kissed her again, and murmured softly in her ear: "We will take
+good care of it, never fear, my girl." Then as she was beginning to
+cry again, Jeanne made her escape.
+
+She came to see her every day, and each time Rosalie burst into tears
+at the sight of her mistress.
+
+The child was put out to nurse at a neighbor's.
+
+Julien, however, hardly spoke to his wife, as though he had nourished
+anger against her ever since she refused to send away the maid. He
+referred to the subject one day, but Jeanne took from her pocket a
+letter from the baroness asking them to send the girl to them at once
+if they would not keep her at the "Poplars." Julien, furious, cried:
+"Your mother is as foolish as you are!" but he did not insist any
+more.
+
+Two weeks later the patient was able to get up and take up her work
+again.
+
+One morning, Jeanne made her sit down and, taking her hands and
+looking steadfastly at her, she said:
+
+"See here, my girl, tell me everything."
+
+Rosalie began to tremble, and faltered:
+
+"What, madame?"
+
+"Whose is it, this child?"
+
+The little maid was overcome with confusion, and she sought wildly to
+withdraw her hands so as to hide her face. But Jeanne kissed her in
+spite of herself, and consoled her, saying: "It is a misfortune, but
+cannot be helped, my girl. You were weak, but that happens to many
+others. If the father marries you, no one will think of it again."
+
+Rosalie sighed as if she were suffering, and from time to time made an
+effort to disengage herself and run away.
+
+Jeanne resumed: "I understand perfectly that you are ashamed; but you
+see that I am not angry, that I speak kindly to you. If I ask you the
+name of the man it is for your own good, for I feel from your grief
+that he has deserted you, and because I wish to prevent that. Julien
+will go and look for him, you see, and we will oblige him to marry
+you; and as we will employ you both, we will oblige him also to make
+you happy."
+
+This time Rosalie gave such a jerk that she snatched her hands away
+from her mistress and ran off as if she were mad.
+
+That evening at dinner Jeanne said to Julien: "I tried to persuade
+Rosalie to tell me the name of her betrayer. I did not succeed. You
+try to find out so that we can compel this miserable man to marry
+her."
+
+But Julien became angry: "Oh! you know I do not wish to hear anything
+about it. You wish to keep this girl. Keep her, but do not bother me
+about her."
+
+Since the girl's illness he appeared to be more irritable than ever;
+and he had got into the way of never speaking to his wife without
+shouting as if he were in a rage, while she, on the contrary, would
+lower her voice, be gentle and conciliating, to avoid all argument;
+but she often wept at night after she went to bed.
+
+In spite of his constant irritability, her husband had become more
+affectionate than customary since their return.
+
+Rosalie was soon quite well and less sad, although she appeared
+terrified, pursued by some unknown fear, and she ran away twice when
+Jeanne tried to question her again.
+
+Julien all at once became more amiable, and the young wife, clinging
+to vain hopes, also became more cheerful. The thaw had not yet set in
+and a hard, smooth, glittering covering of snow extended over the
+landscape. Neither men nor animals were to be seen; only the chimneys
+of the cottages gave evidence of life in the smoke that ascended from
+them into the icy air.
+
+One evening the thermometer fell still lower, and Julien, shivering as
+he left the table--for the dining-room was never properly heated, he
+was so economical with the wood--rubbed his hands, murmuring: "It will
+be warmer to-night, won't it, my dear?" He laughed with his jolly
+laugh of former days, and Jeanne threw her arms around his neck: "I do
+not feel well, dear; perhaps I shall be better to-morrow."
+
+"As you wish, my dear. If you are ill you must take care of yourself."
+And they began to talk of other things.
+
+She retired early. Julien, for a wonder, had a fire lighted in her
+room. As soon as he saw that it was burning brightly, he kissed his
+wife on the forehead and left the room.
+
+The whole house seemed to be penetrated by the cold; the very walls
+seemed to be shivering, and Jeanne shivered in her bed. Twice she got
+up to put fresh logs on the fire and to look for dresses, skirts, and
+other garments which she piled on the bed. Nothing seemed to warm her;
+her feet were numbed and her lower limbs seemed to tingle, making her
+excessively nervous and restless.
+
+Then her teeth began to chatter, her hands shook, there was a
+tightness in her chest, her heart began to beat with hard, dull
+pulsations, and at times seemed to stop beating, and she gasped for
+breath. A terrible apprehension seized her, while the cold seemed to
+penetrate to her marrow. She never had felt such a sensation, she had
+never seemed to lose her hold on life like this before, never been so
+near her last breath.
+
+"I am going to die," she thought, "I am dying----"
+
+And filled with terror, she jumped out of bed, rang for Rosalie,
+waited, rang again, waited again, shivering and frozen.
+
+The little maid did not come. She was doubtless asleep, that first,
+sound sleep that nothing can disturb. Jeanne, in despair, darted
+toward the stairs in her bare feet, and groping her way, she ascended
+the staircase quietly, found the door, opened it, and called,
+"Rosalie!" She went forward, stumbled against the bed, felt all over
+it with her hands and found that it was empty. It was empty and cold,
+and as if no one had slept there. Much surprised, she said: "What! Has
+she gone out in weather like this?"
+
+But as her heart began to beat tumultuously till she seemed to be
+suffocating, she went downstairs again with trembling limbs in order
+to wake Julien. She rushed into his room filled with the idea that she
+was going to die, and longing to see him before she lost
+consciousness.
+
+By the light of the dying embers she perceived Rosalie's head leaning
+on her husband's shoulder.
+
+At the cry she gave they both started to their feet; she stood
+motionless for a second, horrified at this discovery, and then fled to
+her room; and when Julien, at his wit's end, called "Jeanne!" she was
+seized with an overmastering terror of seeing him, of hearing his
+voice, of listening to him explaining, lying, of meeting his gaze; and
+she darted toward the stairs again and went down.
+
+She now ran along in the darkness, at the risk of falling downstairs,
+at the risk of breaking her neck on the stone floor of the hall. She
+rushed along, impelled by an imperious desire to flee, to know nothing
+about it, to see no one.
+
+When she was at the bottom of the stairs she sat down on one of the
+steps, still in her nightdress, and in bare feet, and remained in a
+dazed condition. She heard Julien moving and walking about. She
+started to her feet in order to escape him. He was starting to come
+downstairs and called: "Listen, Jeanne!"
+
+No, she would not listen nor let him touch her with the tips of his
+fingers; and she darted into the dining-room as if she were fleeing
+from an assassin. She looked for a door of escape, a hiding place, a
+dark corner, some way of avoiding him. She hid under the table. But he
+was already at the door, a candle in his hand, still calling:
+"Jeanne!" She started off again like a hare, darted into the kitchen,
+ran round it twice like a trapped animal, and as he came near her, she
+suddenly opened the door into the garden and darted out into the
+night.
+
+The contact with the snow, into which she occasionally sank up to her
+knees, seemed to give her the energy of despair. She did not feel
+cold, although she had little on. She felt nothing, her body was so
+numbed from the emotion of her mind, and she ran along as white as the
+snow.
+
+She followed the large avenue, crossed the wood, crossed the ditch,
+and started off across the plain.
+
+There was no moon, the stars were shining like sparks of fire in the
+black sky; but the plain was light with a dull whiteness, and lay in
+infinite silence.
+
+Jeanne walked quickly, hardly breathing, not knowing, not thinking of
+anything. She suddenly stopped on the edge of the cliff. She stopped
+short, instinctively, and crouched down, bereft of thought and of will
+power.
+
+In the abyss before her the silent, invisible sea exhaled the salt
+odor of its wrack at low tide.
+
+She remained thus some time, her mind as inert as her body; then, all
+at once, she began to tremble, to tremble violently, like a sail
+shaken by the wind. Her arms, her hands, her feet, impelled by an
+invisible force, throbbed, pulsated wildly, and her consciousness
+awakened abruptly, sharp and poignant.
+
+Old memories passed before her mental vision: the sail with him in
+Pere Lastique's boat, their conversation, his nascent love, the
+christening of the boat; then she went back, further back, to that
+night of dreams when she first came to the "Poplars." And now! _And
+now!_ Oh, her life was shipwrecked, all joy was ended, all
+expectation at an end; and the frightful future full of torture, of
+deception, and of despair appeared before her. Better to die, it would
+all be over at once.
+
+But a voice cried in the distance: "Here it is, here are her steps;
+quick, quick, this way!" It was Julien who was looking for her.
+
+Oh! she did not wish to see him again. In the abyss down yonder before
+her she now heard a slight sound, the indistinct ripple of the waves
+over the rocks. She rose to her feet with the idea of throwing herself
+over the cliff and bidding life farewell. Like one in despair, she
+uttered the last word of the dying, the last word of the young soldier
+slain in battle: "Mother!"
+
+All at once the thought of little mother came to her mind, she saw her
+sobbing, she saw her father on his knees before her mangled remains,
+and in a second she felt all the pain of their sorrow.
+
+She sank down again into the snow; and when Julien and old Simon,
+followed by Marius, carrying a lantern, seized her arm to pull her
+back as she was so close to the brink, she made no attempt to escape.
+
+She let them do as they would, for she could not stir. She felt that
+they were carrying her, and then that she was being put to bed and
+rubbed with hot cloths; then she became unconscious.
+
+Then she had a nightmare, or was it a nightmare? She was in bed. It
+was broad daylight, but she could not get up. Why? She did not know.
+Then she heard a little noise on the floor, a sort of scratching, a
+rustling, and suddenly a mouse, a little gray mouse, ran quickly
+across the sheet. Another followed it, then a third, who ran toward
+her chest with his little, quick scamper. Jeanne was not afraid, and
+she reached out her hand to catch the animal, but could not catch it.
+Then other mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands, rose up on all
+sides of her. They climbed the bedposts, ran up the tapestries,
+covered the bed completely. And soon they got beneath the covers;
+Jeanne felt them gliding over her skin, tickling her limbs, running up
+and down her body. She saw them running from the bottom of the bed to
+get into her neck under the sheets; and she tried to fight them off,
+throwing her hands out to try and catch them, but always finding them
+empty.
+
+She was frantic, wanted to escape, screamed, and it seemed as if she
+were being held down, as if strong arms enfolded her and rendered her
+helpless; but she saw no one.
+
+She had no idea of time. It must have been long, a very long time.
+
+Then she awoke, weary, aching, but quiet. She felt weak, very weak.
+She opened her eyes and was not surprised to see little mother seated
+in her room with a man whom she did not know.
+
+How old was she? She did not know, and thought she was a very little
+girl. She had no recollection of anything.
+
+The big man said: "Why, she has regained consciousness." Little mother
+began to weep. Then the big man resumed: "Come, be calm, baroness; I
+can ensure her recovery now. But do not talk to her at all. Let her
+sleep, let her sleep."
+
+Then it seemed to Jeanne that she remained in a state of exhaustion
+for a long time, overcome by a heavy sleep as soon as she tried to
+think; and she tried not to remember anything whatever, as though she
+had a vague fear that the reality might come back to her.
+
+Once when she awoke she saw Julien, alone, standing beside her; and
+suddenly it all came back to her, as if the curtain which hid her past
+life had been raised.
+
+She felt a horrible pain in her heart, and wanted to escape once more.
+She threw back the coverlets, jumped to the floor and fell down, her
+limbs being too weak to support her.
+
+Julien sprang toward her, and she began to scream for him not to touch
+her. She writhed and rolled on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison
+came running in with Widow Dentu, then the baron, and finally little
+mother, puffing and distracted.
+
+They put her back into bed, and she immediately closed her eyes, so as
+to escape talking and be able to think quietly.
+
+Her mother and aunt watched over her anxiously, saying: "Do you hear
+us now, Jeanne, my little Jeanne?"
+
+She pretended to be deaf, not to hear them, and did not answer. Night
+came on and the nurse took up her position beside the bed. She did not
+sleep; she kept trying to think of things that had escaped her memory
+as though there were holes in it, great white empty places where
+events had not been noted down.
+
+Little by little she began to recall the facts, and she pondered over
+them steadily.
+
+Little mother, Aunt Lison, the baron had come, so she must have been
+very ill. But Julien? What had he said? Did her parents know? And
+Rosalie, where was she? And what should she do? What should she do? An
+idea came to her--she would return to Rouen and live with father and
+little mother as in old days. She would be a widow; that's all.
+
+Then she waited, listening to what was being said around her,
+understanding everything without letting them see it, rejoiced at her
+returning reason, patient and crafty.
+
+That evening, at last, she found herself alone with the baroness and
+called to her in a low tone: "Little Mother!" Her own voice astonished
+her, it seemed strange. The baroness seized her hands: "My daughter,
+my darling Jeanne! My child, do you recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, little mother, but you must not weep; we have a great deal to
+talk about. Did Julien tell you why I ran away in the snow?"
+
+"Yes, my darling, you had a very dangerous fever."
+
+"It was not that, mamma. I had the fever afterward; but did he tell
+you what gave me the fever and why I ran away?"
+
+"No, my dearie."
+
+"It was because I found Rosalie in his room."
+
+Her mother thought she was delirious again and soothed her, saying:
+"Go to sleep, darling, calm yourself, try to sleep."
+
+But Jeanne, persistent, continued: "I am quite sensible now, little
+mother. I am not talking wildly as I must have done these last days. I
+felt ill one night and I went to look for Julien. Rosalie was with him
+in his room. I did not know what I was doing, for sorrow, and I ran
+out into the snow to throw myself off the cliff."
+
+But the baroness reiterated, "Yes, darling, you have been very ill,
+very ill."
+
+"It is not that, mamma. I found Rosalie in with Julien, and I will not
+live with him any longer. You will take me back with you to Rouen to
+live as we used to do."
+
+The baroness, whom the doctor had warned not to thwart Jeanne in any
+way, replied: "Yes, my darling."
+
+But the invalid grew impatient: "I see that you do not believe me. Go
+and fetch little father, he will soon understand."
+
+The baroness left the room and presently returned, leaning on her
+husband's arm. They sat down beside the bed and Jeanne began to talk.
+She told them all, quietly, in a weak voice, but clearly; all about
+Julien's peculiar character, his harshness, his avarice, and, finally,
+his infidelity.
+
+When she had finished, the baron saw that she was not delirious, but
+he did not know what to think, what to determine, or what to answer.
+He took her hand, tenderly, as he used to do when he put her to sleep
+with stories, and said: "Listen, dearie, we must act with prudence. We
+must do nothing rash. Try to put up with your husband until we can
+come to some decision--promise me this?"
+
+"I will try, but I will not stay here after I get well," she replied.
+
+Then she added in a lower tone: "Where is Rosalie now?"
+
+"You will not see her any more," replied the baron. But she persisted:
+"Where is she? I wish to know." Then he confessed that she had not
+left the house, but declared that she was going to leave.
+
+On leaving the room the baron, filled with indignation and wounded in
+his feelings as a father, went to look for Julien, and said to him
+abruptly: "Sir, I have come to ask you for an explanation of your
+conduct toward my daughter. You have been unfaithful to her with your
+maid, which is a double insult."
+
+Julien pretended to be innocent, denied everything positively, swore,
+took God as his witness. What proof had they? he asked. Was not Jeanne
+delirious? Had she not had brain fever? Had she not run out in the
+snow, in an attack of delirium, at the very beginning of her illness?
+And it was just at this time, when she was running about the house
+almost naked, that she pretends that she saw her maid in her husband's
+room!
+
+And he grew angry, threatened a lawsuit, became furious. The baron,
+bewildered, made excuses, begged his pardon, and held out his loyal
+hand to Julien, who refused to take it.
+
+When Jeanne heard what her husband had said, she did not show any
+annoyance, but replied: "He is lying, papa, but we shall end by
+convicting him."
+
+For some days she remained taciturn and reserved, thinking over
+matters. The third morning she asked to see Rosalie. The baron refused
+to send her up, saying she had left. Jeanne persisted, saying: "Well,
+let some one go and fetch her."
+
+She was beginning to get excited when the doctor came. They told him
+everything, so that he could form an opinion. But Jeanne suddenly
+burst into tears, her nerves all unstrung, and almost screamed: "I
+want Rosalie; I wish to see her!"
+
+The doctor took hold of her hand and said in a low tone: "Calm
+yourself, madame; any emotion may lead to serious consequences, for
+you are enceinte."
+
+She was dumfounded, as though she had received a blow; and it seemed
+to her that she felt the first stirrings of life within her. Then she
+was silent, not even listening to what was being said, absorbed in her
+own thoughts. She could not sleep that night for thinking of the new
+life that was developing in her, and was sad at the thought that it
+was Julien's child, and might resemble him. The following morning she
+sent for the baron. "Little father," she said, "my resolution is
+formed; I wish to know everything, and especially just now; you
+understand, I insist, and you know that you must not thwart me in my
+present condition. Listen! You must go and get M. le Cure. I need him
+here to keep Rosalie from telling a lie. Then, as soon as he comes,
+send him up to me, and you stay downstairs with little mother. And,
+above all things, see that Julien does not suspect anything."
+
+An hour later the priest came, looking fatter than ever, and puffing
+like the baroness. He sat down in an arm-chair and began to joke,
+wiping his forehead as usual with his plaid handkerchief. "Well,
+baroness, I do not think we grow any thinner; I think we make a good
+pair." Then, turning toward the patient, he said: "Eh, what is this I
+hear, young lady, that we are soon to have a fresh baptism? Aha, it
+will not be a boat this time." And in a graver tone he added: "It will
+be a defender of the country; unless"--after a moment's reflection--"it
+should be the prospective mother of a family, like you, madame,"
+bowing to the baroness.
+
+The door at the end of the room opened and Rosalie appeared, beside
+herself, weeping, refusing to enter the room, clinging to the door
+frame, and being pushed forward by the baron. Quite out of patience,
+he thrust her into the room. She covered her face with her hands and
+remained standing there, sobbing.
+
+Jeanne, as soon as she saw her, rose to a sitting posture, whiter than
+the sheets, and with her heart beating wildly. She could not speak,
+could hardly breathe. At length she said, in a voice broken with
+emotion: "I--I--will not--need--to question you. It--it is enough for
+me to see you thus--to--to see your--your shame in my presence."
+
+After a pause, for she was out of breath, she continued: "I had M. le
+Cure come, so that it might be like a confession, you understand."
+
+Rosalie, motionless, uttered little cries that were almost screams
+behind her hands.
+
+The baron, whose anger was gaining ground, seized her arms, and
+snatching her hands from her face, he threw her on her knees beside
+the bed, saying: "Speak! Answer!"
+
+She remained on the ground, in the position assigned to Magdalens, her
+cap awry, her apron on the floor, and her face again covered by her
+hands.
+
+Then the priest said: "Come, my girl, listen to what is said to you,
+and reply. We do not want to harm you, but we want to know what
+occurred."
+
+Jeanne, leaning over, looked at her and said: "Is it true that you
+were with Julien when I surprised you?"
+
+Rosalie moaned through her fingers, "Yes, madame."
+
+Then the baroness suddenly began to cry in a choking fashion, and her
+convulsive sobs accompanied those of Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne, with her eyes fixed on the maid, said: "How long had this been
+going on?"
+
+"Ever since he came here," faltered Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne could not understand. "Ever since he came--then--ever
+since--ever since the spring?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Ever since he came into this house?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+And Jeanne, as if overflowing with questions, asked, speaking
+precipitately:
+
+"But how did it happen? How did he approach you? How did he persuade
+you? What did he say? When, how did you ever yield to him? How could
+you ever have done it?"
+
+Rosalie, removing her hands from her face, and overwhelmed also with a
+feverish desire to speak, said:
+
+"How do I know, myself? It was the day he dined here for the first
+time, and he came up to my room. He had hidden himself in the loft. I
+did not dare to scream for fear of making a scandal. I no longer knew
+what I was doing. Then I said nothing because I liked him."
+
+Then Jeanne exclaimed with almost a scream:
+
+"But--your--your child--is his child?"
+
+Rosalie sobbed.
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+Then they were both silent. The only sound to be heard was the sobs of
+Rosalie and of the baroness.
+
+Jeanne, quite overcome, felt her tears also beginning to flow; and
+they fell silently down her cheeks.
+
+The maid's child had the same father, as her child! Her anger was at
+an end; she now was filled with a dreary, slow, profound and infinite
+despair. She presently resumed in a changed, tearful voice, the voice
+of a woman who has been crying:
+
+"When we returned from--from down there--from our journey--when did he
+begin again?"
+
+The little maid, who had sunk down on the floor, faltered: "The first
+evening."
+
+Each word wrung Jeanne's heart. So on the very first night of their
+return to the "Poplars" he left her for this girl. That was why he
+wanted to sleep alone!
+
+She now knew all she wanted to know, and exclaimed: "Go away, go
+away!" And as Rosalie, perfectly crushed, did not stir, Jeanne called
+to her father: "Take her away, carry her away!" The priest, who had
+said nothing as yet, thought that the moment had arrived for him to
+preach a little sermon.
+
+"What you have done is very wrong, my daughter, very wrong, and God
+will not pardon you so easily. Consider the hell that awaits you if
+you do not always act right. Now that you have a child you must behave
+yourself. No doubt madame la baronne will do something for you, and we
+will find you a husband."
+
+He would have continued speaking, but the baron, having again seized
+Rosalie by the shoulders, raised her from the floor and dragged her to
+the door, and threw her like a package into the corridor. As he turned
+back into the room, looking paler than his daughter, the priest
+resumed: "What can one do? They are all like that in the district. It
+is shocking, but cannot be helped, and then one must be a little
+indulgent toward the weaknesses of our nature. They never get married
+until they have become enceinte, never, madame." He added, smiling:
+"One might call it a local custom. So, you see, monsieur, your maid
+did as all the rest do."
+
+But the baron, who was trembling with nervousness, interrupted him,
+saying, "She! what do I care about her! It is Julien with whom I am
+indignant. It is infamous, the way he has behaved, and I shall take my
+daughter away."
+
+He walked up and down excitedly, becoming more and more exasperated:
+"It is infamous to have betrayed my child, infamous! He is a wretch,
+this man, a cad, a wretch! and I will tell him so. I will slap his
+face. I will give him a horsewhipping!"
+
+The priest, who was slowly taking a pinch of snuff, seated beside the
+baroness still in tears, and endeavoring to fulfill his office of a
+peacemaker, said: "Come, monsieur le baron, between ourselves, he has
+done what every one else does. Do you know many husbands who are
+faithful?" And he added with a sly good humor: "Come now, I wager that
+you have had your turn. Your hand on your heart, am I right?" The
+baron had stopped in astonishment before the priest, who continued:
+"Why, yes, you did just as others did. Who knows if you did not make
+love to a little sugar plum like that? I tell you that every one does.
+Your wife was none the less happy, or less loved; am I not right?"
+
+The baron had not stirred, he was much disturbed. What the priest said
+was true, and he had sinned as much as any one and had not hesitated
+when his wife's maids were in question. Was he a wretch on that
+account? Why should he judge Julien's conduct so severely when his own
+had not been above blame?
+
+The baroness, still struggling with her sobs, smiled faintly at the
+recollection of her husband's escapades, for she belonged to the
+sentimental class for whom love adventures are a part of existence.
+
+Jeanne, exhausted, lay with wide-open eyes, absorbed in painful
+reflection. Something Rosalie had said had wounded her as though an
+arrow had pierced her heart: "As for me, I said nothing, because I
+liked him."
+
+She had liked him also, and that was the only reason why she had given
+herself, bound herself for life to him, why she had renounced
+everything else, all her cherished plans, all the unknown future. She
+had fallen into this marriage, into this hole without any edges by
+which one could climb out, into this wretchedness, this sadness, this
+despair, because, like Rosalie, she had liked him!
+
+The door was pushed violently open and Julien appeared, with a furious
+expression on his face. He had caught sight of Rosalie moaning on the
+stairs, and suspected that something was up, that the maid had
+probably told all. The sight of the priest riveted him to the spot.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" he asked in a trembling but quiet tone.
+
+The baron, so violent a short while ago, did not venture to speak,
+afraid of the priest's remarks, and of what his son-in-law might say
+in the same strain. Little mother was weeping more copiously than
+ever; but Jeanne had raised herself with her hands and looked,
+breathing quickly, at the one who had caused her such cruel sorrow.
+She stammered out: "The fact is, we know all, all your rascality
+since--since the day you first entered this house--we know that the
+child of this maid is your child, just as--as--mine is--they will be
+brothers." Overcome with sorrow at this thought, she buried herself in
+the sheets and wept bitterly.
+
+Julien stood there gaping, not knowing what to say or do. The priest
+came to the rescue.
+
+"Come, come, do not give way like that, my dear young lady, be
+sensible." He rose, approached the bed and placed his warm hand on the
+despairing girl's forehead. This seemed to soothe her strangely. She
+felt quieted, as if this strong peasant's hand, accustomed to the
+gesture of absolution, to kindly consolations, had conveyed by its
+touch some mysterious solace.
+
+The good man, still standing, continued: "Madame, we must always
+forgive. A great sorrow has come to you; but God in His mercy has
+balanced it by a great happiness, since you will become a mother. This
+child will be your comfort. In his name I implore you, I adjure you to
+forgive M. Julien's error. It will be a new bond between you, a pledge
+of his future fidelity. Can you remain apart in your heart from him
+whose child you bear?"
+
+She did not reply, crushed, mortified, exhausted as she was, without
+even strength for anger or resentment. Her nerves seemed relaxed,
+almost severed, she seemed to be scarcely alive.
+
+The baroness, who seemed incapable of resentment, and whose mind was
+unequal to prolonged effort, murmured: "Come, come, Jeanne."
+
+Then the priest took the hand of the young man and leading him up to
+the bed, he placed his hand in that of his wife, and gave it a little
+tap as though to unite them more closely. Then laying aside his
+professional tone and manner, he said with a satisfied air: "Well,
+now, that's done. Believe me, that is the best thing to do." The two
+hands, joined for a moment, separated immediately. Julien, not daring
+to kiss Jeanne, kissed his mother-in-law on the forehead, turned on
+his heel, took the arm of the baron, who acquiesced, happy at heart
+that the thing had been settled thus, and they went out together to
+smoke a cigar.
+
+The patient, overcome, dozed off, while the priest and little mother
+talked in a low tone.
+
+The priest explained and propounded his ideas, to which the baroness
+assented by nodding her head. He said in conclusion: "Well, then, that
+is understood; you will give this girl the Barville farm, and I will
+undertake to find her a husband, a good, steady fellow. Oh! with a
+property worth twenty thousand francs we shall have no lack of
+suitors. There will be more than enough to choose from."
+
+The baroness was smiling now, quite happy, with the remains of two
+tears that had dried on her cheeks.
+
+She repeated: "That is settled. Barville is worth at least twenty
+thousand francs, but it will be settled on the child, the parents
+having the use of it during their lifetime."
+
+The cure rose, shook little mother's hand, saying: "Do not disturb
+yourself, Madame la Baronne, do not disturb yourself; I know what an
+effort it is."
+
+As he went out he met Aunt Lison coming to see her patient. She
+noticed nothing; they told her nothing; and she knew nothing, as
+usual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MATERNITY
+
+Rosalie had left the house. Jeanne felt no joy at the thought of being
+a mother, she had had so much sorrow. She awaited the advent of her
+child without curiosity, still filled with the apprehension of unknown
+misfortunes.
+
+A big woman, big as a house, had taken Rosalie's place and supported
+the baroness in her monotonous walks along her avenue. The baron gave
+his arm to Jeanne, who was now always ailing, while Aunt Lison,
+uneasy, and busied about the approaching event, held her other hand,
+bewildered at this mystery which she would never know.
+
+They all walked along like this almost in silence for hours at a time,
+while Julien was riding about the country on horseback, having
+suddenly acquired this taste. Nothing ever came to disturb their
+dreary life. The baron, his wife, and the vicomte paid a visit to the
+Fourvilles, whom Julien seemed to be already well acquainted with,
+without one knowing just how. Another ceremonious visit was exchanged
+with the Brisevilles, who were still hidden in their manor house.
+
+One afternoon, about four o'clock, two persons, a lady and gentleman
+on horseback, rode up into the courtyard of the chateau. Julien,
+greatly excited, ran up to Jeanne's room. "Quick, quick, come
+downstairs; here are the Fourvilles. They have just come as neighbors,
+knowing your condition. Tell them that I have gone out, but that I
+will be back. I will just go and make myself presentable."
+
+Jeanne, much surprised, went downstairs. A pale, pretty young woman
+with a sad face, dreamy eyes, and lustreless, fair hair, looking as
+though the sunlight had never kissed it, quietly introduced her
+husband, a kind of giant, or ogre with a large red mustache. She
+added: "We have several times had the pleasure of meeting M. de
+Lamare. We heard from him how you were suffering, and we would not put
+off coming to see you as neighbors, without any ceremony. You see that
+we came on horseback. I also had the pleasure the other day of a visit
+from madame, your mother, and the baron."
+
+She spoke with perfect ease, familiar but refined. Jeanne was charmed,
+and fell in love with her at once. "This is a friend," she thought.
+
+The Comte de Fourville, on the contrary, seemed like a bear in the
+drawing-room. As soon as he was seated, he placed his hat on the chair
+next him, did not know what to do with his hands, placed them on his
+knees, then on the arms of the chair, and finally crossed his fingers
+as if in prayer.
+
+Suddenly Julien entered the room. Jeanne was amazed and did not
+recognize him. He was shaved. He looked handsome, elegant, and
+attractive as on the day of their betrothal. He shook the comte's
+hairy paw, kissed the hand of the comtesse, whose ivory cheeks colored
+up slightly while her eyelids quivered.
+
+He began to speak; he was charming as in former days. His large eyes,
+the mirrors of love, had become tender again. And his hair, lately so
+dull and unkempt, had regained its soft, glossy wave, with the use of
+a hairbrush and perfumed oil.
+
+At the moment that the Fourvilles were taking their leave the
+comtesse, turning toward him, said: "Would you like to take a ride on
+Thursday, dear vicomte?"
+
+As he bowed and murmured, "Why, certainly, madame," she took Jeanne's
+hand and said in a sympathetic and affectionate tone, with a cordial
+smile: "Oh! when you are well, we will all three gallop about the
+country. It will be delightful. What do you say?"
+
+With an easy gesture she held up her riding skirt and then jumped into
+the saddle with the lightness of a bird, while her husband, after
+bowing awkwardly, mounted his big Norman steed. As they disappeared
+outside the gate, Julien, who seemed charmed, exclaimed: "What
+delightful people! those are friends who may be useful to us."
+
+Jeanne, pleased also without knowing why, replied: "The little
+comtesse is charming, I feel that I shall love her, but the husband
+looks like a brute. Where did you meet them?"
+
+He rubbed his hands together good humoredly. "I met them by chance at
+the Brisevilles'. The husband seems a little rough. He cares for
+nothing but hunting, but he is a real noble for all that."
+
+The dinner was almost cheerful, as though some secret happiness had
+come into the house.
+
+Nothing new happened until the latter days of July, when Jeanne was
+taken ill. As she seemed to grow worse, the doctor was sent for and at
+the first glance recognized the symptoms of a premature confinement.
+
+Her sufferings presently abated a little, but she was filled with a
+terrible anguish, a despairing sinking, something like a presentiment,
+the mysterious touch of death. It is in these moments when it comes so
+near to us that its breath chills our hearts.
+
+The room was full of people. Little mother, buried in an armchair, was
+choking with grief. The baron, his hands trembling, ran hither and
+thither, carrying things, consulting the doctor and losing his head.
+Julien paced up and down, looking concerned, but perfectly calm, and
+Widow Dentu stood at the foot of the bed with an appropriate
+expression, the expression of a woman of experience whom nothing
+astonishes. The cook, Ludivine, and Aunt Lison remained discreetly
+concealed behind the door of the lobby.
+
+Toward morning Jeanne became worse, and as her involuntary screams
+escaped from between her closed teeth, she thought incessantly of
+Rosalie, who had not suffered, who had hardly moaned, who had borne
+her child without suffering and without difficulty, and in her
+wretched and troubled mind she continually compared their conditions
+and cursed God, whom she had formerly thought to be just. She rebelled
+at the wicked partiality of fate and at the wicked lies of those who
+preach justice and goodness.
+
+At times her sufferings were so great that her mind was a blank. She
+had neither strength, life nor knowledge for anything but suffering.
+
+All at once her sufferings ceased. The nurse and the doctor leaned
+over her and gave her all attention. Presently she heard a little cry
+and, in spite of her weakness, she unconsciously held out her arms.
+She was suddenly filled with joy, with a glimpse of a new-found
+happiness which had just unfolded. Her child was born, she was
+soothed, happy, happy as she never yet had been. Her heart and her
+body revived; she was now a mother. She felt that she was saved,
+secure from all despair, for she had here something to love.
+
+From now on she had but one thought--her child. She was a fanatical
+mother, all the more intense because she had been deceived in her
+love, deceived in her hopes. She would sit whole days beside the
+window, rocking the little cradle.
+
+The baron and little mother smiled at this excess of tenderness, but
+Julien, whose habitual routine had been interfered with and his
+overweening importance diminished by the arrival of this noisy and
+all-powerful tyrant, unconsciously jealous of this mite of a man who
+had usurped his place in the house, kept on saying angrily and
+impatiently: "How wearisome she is with her brat!"
+
+She became so obsessed by this affection that she would pass the
+entire night beside the cradle, watching the child asleep. As she was
+becoming exhausted by this morbid life, taking no rest, growing weaker
+and thinner and beginning to cough, the doctor ordered the child to be
+taken from her. She got angry, wept, implored, but they were deaf to
+her entreaties. His nurse took him every evening, and each night his
+mother would rise, and in her bare feet go to the door, listen at the
+keyhole to see if he was sleeping quietly, did not wake up and wanted
+nothing.
+
+Julien found her here one night when he came home late, after dining
+with the Fourvilles. After that they locked her in her room to oblige
+her to stay in bed.
+
+The baptism took place at the end of August. The baron was godfather
+and Aunt Lison godmother. The child was named Pierre-Simon-Paul and
+called Paul for short.
+
+At the beginning of September Aunt Lison left without any commotion.
+Her absence was as little felt as her presence.
+
+One evening after dinner the priest appeared. He seemed embarrassed as
+if he were burdened by some mystery, and after some idle remarks, he
+asked the baroness and her husband to grant him a short interview in
+private.
+
+They all three walked slowly down the long avenue, talking with
+animation, while Julien, who was alone with Jeanne, was astonished,
+disturbed and annoyed at this secret.
+
+He accompanied the priest when he took his leave, and they went off
+together toward the church where the Angelus was ringing.
+
+As it was cool, almost cold, the others went into the drawing-room.
+They were all dozing when Julien came in abruptly, his face red,
+looking very indignant.
+
+From the door he called out to his parents-in-law, without remembering
+that Jeanne was there: "Are you crazy, for God's sake! to go and throw
+away twenty thousand francs on that girl?"
+
+No one replied, they were so astonished. He continued, bellowing with
+rage: "How can one be so stupid as that? Do you wish to leave us
+without a sou?"
+
+The baron, who had recovered his composure, attempted to stop him:
+"Keep still! Remember that you are speaking before your wife."
+
+But Julien was trembling with excitement: "As if I cared; she knows
+all about it, anyway. It is robbing her."
+
+Jeanne, bewildered, looked at him without understanding. She faltered:
+"What in the world is the matter?"
+
+Julien then turned toward her, to try and get her on his side as a
+partner who has been cheated out of an unexpected fortune. He
+hurriedly told her about the conspiracy to marry off Rosalie and about
+the gift of the Barville property, which was worth at least twenty
+thousand francs. He said: "Your parents are crazy, my dear, crazy
+enough to be shut up! Twenty thousand francs! twenty thousand francs!
+Why, they have lost their heads! Twenty thousand francs for a
+bastard!"
+
+Jeanne listened without emotion and without anger, astonished at her
+own calmness, indifferent now to everything but her own child.
+
+The baron was raging, but could find nothing to say. He finally burst
+forth and, stamping his foot, exclaimed: "Think of what you are
+saying; it is disgusting. Whose fault was it if we had to give this
+girl-mother a dowry? Whose child is it? You would like to abandon it
+now!"
+
+Julien, amazed at the baron's violence, looked at him fixedly. He then
+resumed in a calmer tone: "But fifteen hundred francs would be quite
+enough. They all have children before they are legally married. It
+makes no difference whose child it is, in any case. Instead of giving
+one of your farms, to the value of twenty thousand francs, in addition
+to making the world aware of what has happened, you should, to say the
+least, have had some regard for our name and our position."
+
+He spoke in a severe tone like a man who stood on his rights and was
+convinced of the logic of his argument. The baron, disturbed at this
+unexpected discussion, stood there gaping at him. Julien then, seeing
+his advantage, concluded: "Happily, nothing has yet been settled. I
+know the young fellow who is going to marry her. He is an honest chap
+and we can make a satisfactory arrangement with him. I will take
+charge of the matter."
+
+And he went out immediately, fearing no doubt to continue the
+discussion, and pleased that he had had the last word, a proof, he
+thought, that they acquiesced in his views.
+
+As soon as he had left the room, however, the baron exclaimed: "Oh,
+that is going too far, much too far!"
+
+But Jeanne, happening to look up at her father's bewildered face,
+began to laugh with her clear, ringing laugh of former days, when
+anything amused her. She said: "Father, father, did you hear the tone
+in which he said: 'Twenty thousand francs?'"
+
+Little mother, whose mirth was as ready as her tears, as she recalled
+her son-in-law's angry expression, his indignant exclamations and his
+refusal to allow the girl whom he had led astray to be given money
+that did not belong to him, delighted also at Jeanne's mirth, gave way
+to little bursts of laughter till the tears came to her eyes. The
+baron caught the contagion, and all three laughed to kill themselves
+as they used to do in the good old days.
+
+As soon as they quieted down a little Jeanne said: "How strange it is
+that all this does not affect me. I look upon him now as a stranger. I
+cannot believe that I am his wife. You see how I can laugh at
+his--his--want of delicacy."
+
+And without knowing why they all three embraced each other, smiling
+and happy.
+
+Two days later, after breakfast, just as Julien had started away from
+the house on horseback, a strapping young fellow from twenty-one to
+twenty-five years old, clad in a brand-new blue blouse with wide
+sleeves buttoning at the wrist, slyly jumped over the gate, as though
+he had been there awaiting his opportunity all the morning, crept
+along the Couillards' ditch, came round the chateau, and cautiously
+approached the baron and his wife, who were still sitting under the
+plane-tree.
+
+He took off his cap and advanced, bowing in an awkward manner. As soon
+as he was close to them he said: "Your servant, Monsieur le Baron,
+madame and the company." Then, as no one replied, he said: "It is I, I
+am Desire Lecocq."
+
+As the name conveyed nothing to them, the baron asked, "What do you
+want?"
+
+Then, altogether upset at the necessity of explaining himself, the
+young fellow stuttered out as he gazed alternately at his cap, which
+he held in his hands, and at the roof of the chateau: "It was M'sieu
+le Cure who said something to me about this matter----" And then he
+stopped, fearing he might say too much and compromise his own
+interests.
+
+The other, lowering his voice, blurted out: "That matter of your
+maid--Rosalie----"
+
+Jeanne, who had guessed what was coming, had risen and moved away with
+her infant in her arms.
+
+"Come nearer," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had
+just left. The peasant sat down, murmuring: "You are very good." Then
+he waited as though he had no more to say. After a long silence, he
+screwed up courage, and looking up at the sky, remarked: "There's fine
+weather for the time of year. But the earth will be none the better
+for it, as the seed is already sown." And then he was silent again.
+
+The baron was growing impatient. He plunged right into the subject and
+said drily: "Then it is you who are going to marry Rosalie?"
+
+The man at once became uneasy, his Norman caution being on the alert.
+He replied with more animation, but with a tinge of defiance: "That
+depends; perhaps yes, perhaps no; it depends."
+
+The baron, annoyed at this hedging, exclaimed angrily: "Answer
+frankly, damn it! Was this what you came here for? Yes or no! Will you
+marry her? Yes or no!"
+
+The bewildered man looked steadfastly at his feet: "If it is as M'sieu
+le Cure said, I will take her, but if it is as M'sieu Julien said, I
+will not take her."
+
+"What did M. Julien tell you?"
+
+"M'sieu Julien told me fifteen hundred francs and M'sieu le Cure told
+me that I should have twenty thousand. I will do it for twenty
+thousand, but I will not do it for fifteen hundred."
+
+The baroness, who was buried in her easy chair, began to giggle at the
+anxious expression of the peasant, who, not understanding this
+frivolity, glanced at her angrily out of the corner of his eye and
+waited in silence.
+
+The baron, who was embarrassed at this bargaining, cut it short by
+saying: "I told M. le Cure that you should have the Barville farm
+during your lifetime and that then it would revert to the child. It is
+worth twenty thousand francs. I do not go back on my word. Is it
+settled? Yes or no!"
+
+The man smiled with a humble and satisfied expression, and suddenly
+becoming loquacious, said: "Oh, in that case, I will not say no. That
+was all that stood in my way. When M'sieu le Cure spoke to me, I was
+ready at once, by gosh! and I was very pleased to accommodate the
+baron who was giving me that. I said to myself, 'Is it not true that
+when people are willing to do each other favors, they can always find
+a way and can make it worth while?' But M'sieu Julien came to see me,
+and it was only fifteen hundred francs. I said to myself: 'I must see
+about that,' and so I came here. That is not to say that I did not
+trust you, but I wanted to know. Short accounts make long friends. Is
+not that true, M'sieu le Baron?"
+
+The baron interrupted him by asking, "When do you wish to get
+married?"
+
+The man became timid again, very much embarrassed, and finally said,
+hesitatingly: "I will not do it until I get a little paper."
+
+This time the baron got angry: "Doggone it! you will have the marriage
+contract. That is the best kind of paper."
+
+But the peasant was stubborn: "Meanwhile I might take a little turn;
+it will not be dark for a while."
+
+The baron rose to make an end of the matter: "Answer yes or no at
+once. If you do not wish her, say so; I have another suitor."
+
+The fear of a rival terrified the crafty Norman. He suddenly made up
+his mind and held out his hand, as after buying a cow, saying: "Put it
+there, M'sieu le Baron; it is a bargain. Whoever draws back is a
+skunk!"
+
+The baron shook his hand, then called out: "Ludivine!" The cook
+appeared at the window. "Bring us a bottle of wine." They clinked
+glasses to seal the matter and the young peasant went off with a light
+tread.
+
+Nothing was said to Julien about this visit. The contract was drawn up
+with all secrecy and as soon as the banns were published the wedding
+took place one Monday morning.
+
+A neighbor carried the child to church, walking behind the bride and
+groom, as a sure sign of good luck. And no one in all the district was
+surprised; they simply envied Desire Lecocq. "He was born with a
+caul," they said, with a sly smile into which there entered no
+resentment.
+
+Julien was terribly angry and made such a scene that his parents-in-law
+cut short their visit to the "Poplars." Jeanne was only moderately
+sad at their departure, for little Paul had become for her an
+inexhaustible source of happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DEATH OF LA BARONNE
+
+As Jeanne's health was quite restored, they determined to go and
+return the Fourvilles' visit and also to call on the Marquis de
+Coutelier.
+
+Julien had bought at a sale a new one-horse phaeton, so that they
+could go out twice a month. They set out one fine December morning,
+and after driving for two hours across the plains of Normandy, they
+began to descend a little slope into a little valley, the sides of
+which were wooded, while the valley itself was cultivated. After an
+abrupt turn in the valley they saw the Chateau of Vrillette, a wooded
+slope on one side of it and a large pond on the other, out of which
+rose one of its walls and which was bounded by a wood of tall pine
+trees that formed the other side of the valley.
+
+Julien explained all the portions of the building to Jeanne, like one
+who knows his subject thoroughly, and went into raptures over its
+beauty, adding; "It is full of game, this country. The comte loves to
+hunt here. This is a true seignorial residence."
+
+The hall door was opened and the pale comtesse appeared, coming
+forward to meet the visitors, all smiles, and wearing a long-trained
+dress, like a chatelaine of olden times. She looked a fitting lady of
+the lake, born to inhabit this fairy castle.
+
+The comtesse took both Jeanne's hands, as if she had known her all her
+life, and made her sit down beside her in a low chair, while Julien,
+all of whose forgotten elegance seemed to have revived within the past
+five months, chatted and smiled quietly and familiarly.
+
+The comtesse and he talked of their horseback rides. She was laughing
+at his manner of mounting a horse and called him "Le Chevalier
+Trebuche," and he smiled also, having nicknamed her "The Amazon
+Queen." A gun fired beneath the windows caused Jeanne to give a little
+scream. It was the comte, who had killed a teal.
+
+His wife called to him. A sound of oars was heard, a boat grinding
+against the stones, and he appeared, enormous, booted, followed by two
+drenched dogs of a ruddy color like himself, who lay down on the mat
+outside the door.
+
+He seemed more at his ease in his own home, and was delighted to see
+his visitors. He put some wood on the fire, sent for madeira and
+biscuits and then exclaimed suddenly: "Why, you will take dinner with
+us, of course."
+
+Jeanne, whose child was never out of her thoughts, declined. He
+insisted, and as she could not be persuaded, Julien made a gesture of
+annoyance. She feared to arouse his ugly, quarrelsome temper, and
+although she was very unhappy at the thought that she should not see
+Paul until the next day, she consented to stay.
+
+The afternoon was delightful. They first visited the springs which
+bubbled up at the foot of a mossy rock and then took a row on the
+pond. At one end of the boat Julien and the comtesse, wrapped in
+shawls, were smiling happily like those who have nothing left to wish
+for.
+
+A huge fire was blazing in the spacious reception room, which imparted
+a sense of warmth and contentment. The comte seized his wife in his
+arms and lifted her from the floor as though she had been a child and
+gave her a hearty kiss on each cheek, like a man satisfied with the
+world.
+
+Jeanne, smiling, looked at this good giant whom one would have thought
+was an ogre at the very sight of his mustaches, and she thought: "How
+one may be deceived each day about everybody." Then, almost
+involuntarily, she glanced at Julien standing in the doorway, looking
+horribly pale and with his eyes fixed on the comte. She approached him
+and said in a low tone: "Are you ill? What is the matter with you?" He
+answered her angrily: "Nothing. Let me alone! I was cold."
+
+When they went into the dining-room the count asked if he might let
+his dogs come in, and they settled themselves one on either side of
+their master.
+
+After dinner, as Jeanne and Julien were preparing to leave, M. de
+Fourville kept them a little longer to look at some fishing by
+torchlight. When they finally set out, wrapped up in their cloaks and
+some rugs they had borrowed, Jeanne said almost involuntarily: "What a
+fine man that giant is!" Julien, who was driving, replied: "Yes, but
+he does not always restrain himself before company."
+
+A week later they called on the Couteliers, who were supposed to be
+the chief noble family in the province. Their property of Remenil
+adjoined the large town of Cany. The new chateau built in the reign of
+Louis XIV. was hidden in a magnificent park enclosed by walls. The
+ruins of the old chateau could be seen on an eminence. They were
+ushered into a stately reception room by men servants in livery. In
+the middle of the room a sort of column held an immense bowl of Sevres
+ware and on the pedestal of the column an autograph letter from the
+king, under glass, requested the Marquis Leopold-Herve-Joseph-Germer
+de Varneville de Rollebosc de Coutelier to receive this present from
+his sovereign.
+
+Jeanne and Julien were looking at this royal gift when the marquis and
+marquise entered the room.
+
+They were very ceremonious people whose minds, sentiments and words
+seemed always to be on stilts. They spoke without waiting for an
+answer, smiling complacently, appearing always to be fulfilling the
+duty imposed on them by their position, of showing civilities to the
+inferior nobility of the region.
+
+Jeanne and Julien, somewhat taken aback, endeavored to be agreeable,
+but although they felt too embarrassed to remain any longer, they did
+not know exactly how to take their leave. The marquise herself put an
+end to the visit naturally and simply by bringing the conversation to
+a close like a queen giving a dismissal.
+
+On the way home Julien said: "If you like, we will make this our first
+and last call; the Fourvilles are good enough for me." Jeanne was of
+the same opinion. December passed slowly and the shut-in life began
+again as in the previous year. But Jeanne did not find it wearisome,
+as she was always taken up with Paul, whom Julien looked at askance,
+uneasy and annoyed. Often when the mother held the child in her arms,
+kissing it frantically as women do their children, she would hold it
+up to its father, saying: "Give him a kiss; one would suppose you did
+not love him." He would hardly touch with his lips the child's smooth
+forehead, walking all round it, as though he did not wish to touch the
+restless little fists. Then he would walk away abruptly as though from
+something distasteful.
+
+The mayor, the doctor and the cure came to dinner occasionally, and
+sometimes it was the Fourvilles, with whom they were becoming more and
+more intimate. The comte appeared to worship Paul. He held him on his
+knees during the whole visit and sometimes during the whole afternoon,
+playing with him and amusing him and then kissing him tenderly as
+mothers do. He always lamented that he had no children of his own.
+
+Comtesse Gilberte again mentioned the rides they all four were going
+to take together. Jeanne, a little weary of the monotonous days and
+nights, was quite happy in anticipation of these plans, and for a week
+amused herself making a riding habit.
+
+They always set out two and two, the comtesse and Julien ahead, the
+count and Jeanne a hundred feet behind them, talking quietly, like
+good friends, for such they had become through the sympathy of their
+straightforward minds and simple hearts. The others often spoke in a
+low tone, sometimes bursting into laughter and looking quickly at each
+other, as though their eyes were expressing what they dared not utter.
+And they would suddenly set off at a gallop, impelled by a desire to
+flee, to get away, far away.
+
+Then Gilberte would seem to be growing irritable. Her sharp voice,
+borne on the breeze, occasionally reached the ears of the loitering
+couple. The comte would smile and say to Jeanne: "She does not always
+get out of bed the right side, that wife of mine."
+
+One evening as they were coming home the comtesse was teasing her
+mount, spurring it and then checking it abruptly. They heard Julien
+say several time: "Take care, take care; you will be thrown." "So much
+the worse," she replied; "it is none of your business," in a hard
+clear tone that resounded across the fields as though the words hung
+in the air.
+
+The animal reared, plunged and champed the bit. The comte, uneasy,
+shouted: "Be careful, Gilberte!" Then, as if in defiance, with one of
+those impulses of a woman whom nothing can stop, she struck her horse
+brutally between the ears. The animal reared in anger, pawed the air
+with his front feet and, landing again on his feet, gave a bound and
+darted across the plain at full speed.
+
+First it crossed the meadow, then plunging into a ploughed field
+kicked up the damp rich earth behind it, going so fast that one could
+hardly distinguish its rider. Julien remained transfixed with
+astonishment, calling out in despair: "Madame, madame!" but the comte
+was rather annoyed, and, bending forward on his heavy mount, he urged
+it forward and started out at such a pace, spurring it on with his
+voice, his gestures and the spur, that the huge horseman seemed to be
+carrying the heavy beast between his legs and to be lifting it up as
+if to fly. They went at incredible speed, straight ahead, and Jeanne
+saw the outline of the wife and of the husband fleeing getting smaller
+and disappearing in the distance, as if they were two birds pursuing
+each other to the verge of the horizon.
+
+Julien, approaching Jeanne slowly, murmured angrily: "I think she is
+crazy to-day." And they set out together to follow their friends, who
+were now hidden by the rising ground.
+
+At the end of about a quarter of an hour they saw them returning and
+presently joined them. The comte, perspiring, his face red, but
+smiling, happy and triumphant, was holding his wife's trembling horse
+in his iron grasp. Gilberte was pale, her face sad and drawn, and she
+was leaning one hand on her husband's shoulder as if she were going to
+faint. Jeanne understood now that the comte loved her madly.
+
+After this the comtesse for some months seemed happier than she had
+ever been. She came to the "Poplars" more frequently, laughed
+continually and kissed Jeanne impulsively. One might have said that
+some mysterious charm had come into her life. Her husband was also
+quite happy and never took his eyes off her. He said to Jeanne one
+evening: "We are very happy just now. Gilberte has never been so nice
+as this. She never is out of humor, never gets angry. I feel that she
+loves me; until now I was not sure of it."
+
+Julien also seemed changed, no longer impatient, as though the
+friendship between the two families had brought peace and happiness to
+both. The spring was singularly early and mild. Everything seemed to
+be coming to life beneath the quickening rays of the sun. Jeanne was
+vaguely troubled at this awakening of nature. Memories came to her of
+the early days of her love. Not that her love for Julien was renewed;
+that was over, over forever. But all her being, caressed by the
+breeze, filled with the fragrance of spring, was disturbed as though
+in response to some invisible and tender appeal. She loved to be
+alone, to give herself up in the sunlight to all kinds of vague and
+calm enjoyment which did not necessitate thinking.
+
+One morning as she was in a reverie a vision came to her, a swift
+vision of the sunlit nook amid the dark foliage in the little wood
+near Etretat. It was there that she had for the first time trembled,
+when beside the young man who loved her then. It was there that he had
+uttered for the first time the timid desire of his heart. It was there
+that she thought that she had all at once reached the radiant future
+of her hopes. She wished to see this wood again, to make a sort of
+sentimental and superstitious pilgrimage, as though a return to this
+spot might somehow change the current of her life. Julien had been
+gone since daybreak, she knew not whither. She had the little white
+horse, which she sometimes rode, saddled, and she set out. It was one
+of those days when nothing seemed stirring, not a blade of grass, not
+a leaf. All seemed wrapped in a golden mist beneath the blazing sun.
+Jeanne walked her horse, soothed and happy.
+
+She descended into the valley which leads to the sea, between the
+great arches in the cliff that are called the "Gates" of Etretat, and
+slowly reached the wood. The sunlight was streaming through the still
+scanty foliage. She wandered about the little paths, looking for the
+spot.
+
+All at once, as she was going along one of the lower paths, she
+perceived at the farther end of it two horses tied to a tree and
+recognized them at once; they belonged to Gilberte and Julien. The
+loneliness of the place was beginning to be irksome to her, and she
+was pleased at this chance meeting, and whipped up her horse.
+
+When she reached the two patient animals, who were probably accustomed
+to these long halts, she called. There was no reply. A woman's glove
+and two riding whips lay on the beaten-down grass. So they had no
+doubt sat down there awhile and then walked away leaving their horses
+tied.
+
+She waited a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, surprised, not
+understanding what could be keeping them. She had dismounted. She sat
+there, leaning against a tree trunk. Suddenly a thought came to her as
+she glanced again at the glove, the whips and the two horses left tied
+there, and she sprang to her saddle with an irresistible desire to
+make her escape.
+
+She started off at a gallop for the "Poplars." She was turning things
+over in her mind, trying to reason, to put two and two together, to
+compare facts. How was it that she had not suspected this sooner? How
+was it that she had not noticed anything? How was it she had not
+guessed the reason of Julien's frequent absences, the renewal of his
+former attention to his appearance and the improvement in his temper?
+She now recalled Gilberte's nervous abruptness, her exaggerated
+affection and the kind of beaming happiness in which she seemed to
+exist latterly and that so pleased the comte.
+
+She reined in her horse, as she wanted to think, and the quick pace
+disturbed her ideas.
+
+As soon as the first emotion was over she became almost calm, without
+jealousy or hatred, but filled with contempt. She hardly gave Julien a
+thought; nothing he might do could astonish her. But the double
+treachery of the comtesse, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone, then,
+was treacherous, untruthful and false. And tears came to her eyes. One
+sometimes mourns lost illusions as deeply as one does the death of a
+friend.
+
+She resolved, however, to act as though she knew nothing, to close the
+doors of her heart to all ordinary affection and to love no one but
+Paul and her parents and to endure other people with an undisturbed
+countenance.
+
+As soon as she got home she ran to her son, carried him up to her room
+and kissed him passionately for an hour.
+
+Julien came home to dinner, smiling and attentive, and appeared
+interested as he asked: "Are not father and little mother coming this
+year?"
+
+She was so grateful to him for this little attention that she almost
+forgave him for the discovery she had made in the wood, and she was
+filled all of a sudden with an intense desire to see without delay the
+two beings in the world whom she loved next to Paul, and passed the
+whole evening writing to them to hasten their journey.
+
+They promised to be there on the 20th of May and it was now the 7th.
+
+She awaited their arrival with a growing impatience, as though she
+felt, in addition to her filial affection, the need of opening her
+heart to honest hearts, to talk with frankness to pure-minded people,
+devoid of all infamy, all of whose life, actions and thoughts had been
+upright at all times.
+
+What she now felt was a sort of moral isolation, amid all this
+immorality, and, although she had learned suddenly to disseminate,
+although she received the comtesse with outstretched hand and smiling
+lips, she felt this consciousness of hollowness, this contempt for
+humanity increasing and enveloping her, and the petty gossip of the
+district gave her a still greater disgust, a still lower opinion of
+her fellow creatures.
+
+The immorality of the peasants shocked her, and this warm spring
+seemed to stir the sap in human beings as well as in plants. Jeanne
+did not belong to the race of peasants who are dominated by their
+lower instincts. Julien one day awakened her aversion anew by telling
+her a coarse story that had been told to him and that he considered
+very amusing.
+
+When the travelling carriage stopped at the door and the happy face of
+the baron appeared at the window Jeanne was stirred with so deep an
+emotion, such a tumultuous feeling of affection as she had never
+before experienced. But when she saw her mother she was shocked and
+almost fainted. The baroness, in six months, had aged ten years. Her
+heavy cheeks had grown flabby and purple, as though the blood were
+congested; her eyes were dim and she could no longer move about unless
+supported under each arm. Her breathing was difficult and wheezing and
+affected those near her with a painful sensation.
+
+When Jeanne had taken them to their room, she retired to her own in
+order to have a good cry, as she was so upset. Then she went to look
+for her father, and throwing herself into his arms, she exclaimed, her
+eyes still full of tears: "Oh, how mother is changed! What is the
+matter with her? Tell me, what is the matter?" He was much surprised
+and replied: "Do you think so? What an idea! Why, no. I have never
+been away from her. I assure you that I do not think she looks ill.
+She always looks like that."
+
+That evening Julien said to his wife: "Your mother is in a pretty bad
+way. I think she will not last long." And as Jeanne burst out sobbing,
+he became annoyed. "Come, I did not say there was no hope for her. You
+always exaggerate everything. She is changed, that's all. She is no
+longer young."
+
+The baroness was not able to walk any distance and only went out for
+half an hour each day to take one turn in her avenue and then she
+would sit on the bench. And when she felt unequal to walking to the
+end of her avenue, she would say: "Let us stop; my hypertrophy is
+breaking my legs today." She hardly ever laughed now as she did the
+previous year at anything that amused her, but only smiled. As she
+could see to read excellently, she passed hours reading "Corinne" or
+Lamartine's "Meditations." Then she would ask for her drawer of
+"souvenirs," and emptying her cherished letters on her lap, she would
+place the drawer on a chair beside her and put back, one by one, her
+"relics," after she had slowly gone over them. And when she was alone,
+quite alone, she would kiss some of them, as one kisses in secret a
+lock of hair of a loved one passed away.
+
+Sometimes Jeanne, coming in abruptly, would find her weeping and would
+exclaim: "What is the matter, little mother?" And the baroness,
+sighing deeply, would reply: "It is my 'relics' that make me cry. They
+stir remembrances that were so delightful and that are now past
+forever, and one is reminded of persons whom one had forgotten and
+recalls once more. You seem to see them, to hear them and it affects
+you strangely. You will feel this later."
+
+When the baron happened to come in at such times he would say gently:
+"Jeanne, dearie, take my advice and burn your letters, all of
+them--your mother's, mine, everyone's. There is nothing more dreadful,
+when one is growing old, than to look back to one's youth." But Jeanne
+also kept her letters, was preparing a chest of "relics" in obedience
+to a sort of hereditary instinct of dreamy sentimentality, although
+she differed from her mother in every other way.
+
+The baron was obliged to leave them some days later, as he had some
+business that called him away.
+
+One afternoon Jeanne took Paul in her arms and went out for a walk.
+She was sitting on a bank, gazing at the infant, whom she seemed to be
+looking at for the first time. She could hardly imagine him grown up,
+walking with a steady step, with a beard on his face and talking in a
+big voice. She heard someone calling and raised her head. Marius came
+running toward her.
+
+"Madame, Madame la Baronne is very bad!"
+
+A cold chill seemed to run down her back as she started up and walked
+hurriedly toward the house.
+
+As she approached she saw a number of persons grouped around the plane
+tree. She darted forward and saw her mother lying on the ground with
+two pillows under her head. Her face was black, her eyes closed and
+her breathing, which had been difficult for twenty years, now quite
+hushed. The nurse took the child out of Jeanne's arms and carried it
+off.
+
+Jeanne, with drawn, anxious face, asked: "What happened? How did she
+come to fall? Go for the doctor, somebody." Turning round, she saw the
+old cure, who had heard of it in some way. He offered his services and
+began rolling up the sleeves of his cassock. But vinegar, eau de
+cologne and rubbing the invalid proved ineffectual.
+
+"She should be undressed and put to bed," said the priest.
+
+Joseph Couillard, the farmer, was there and old Simon and Ludivine.
+With the assistance of Abbe Picot, they tried to lift the baroness,
+but after an attempt were obliged to bring a large easy chair from the
+drawing-room and place her in it. In this way they managed to get her
+into the house and then upstairs, where they laid her on her bed.
+
+Joseph Couillard set out in hot haste for the doctor. As the priest
+was going to get the holy oil, the nurse, who had "scented a death,"
+as the servants say, and was on the spot, whispered to him: "Do not
+put yourself out, monsieur; she is dead. I know all about these
+things."
+
+Jeanne, beside herself, entreated them to do something. The priest
+thought it best to pronounce the absolution.
+
+They watched for two hours beside this lifeless, discolored body.
+Jeanne, on her knees, was sobbing in an agony of grief.
+
+When the door opened and the doctor appeared, Jeanne darted toward
+him, stammering out what she knew of the accident, but seeing the
+nurse exchange a meaning glance with the doctor, she stopped to ask
+him: "Is it serious? Do you think it is serious?"
+
+He said presently: "I am afraid--I am afraid--it is all over. Be
+brave, be brave."
+
+Jeanne, extending her arms, threw herself on her mother's body. Julien
+just then came in. He stood there amazed, visibly annoyed, without any
+exclamation of sorrow, any appearance of grief, taken so unawares that
+he had not time to prepare a suitable expression of countenance. He
+muttered: "I was expecting it, I felt that the end was near." Then he
+took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, knelt down, crossed
+himself, and then rising to his feet, attempted to raise his wife. But
+she was clasping the dead body and kissing it, and it became necessary
+to carry her away. She appeared to be out of her mind.
+
+At the end of an hour she was allowed to come back. There was no
+longer any hope. The room was arranged as a death chamber. Julien and
+the priest were talking in a low tone near the window. It was growing
+dark. The priest came over to Jeanne and took her hands, trying to
+console her. He spoke of the defunct, praised her in pious phrases and
+offered to pass the night in prayer beside the body.
+
+But Jeanne refused, amid convulsive sobs. She wished to be alone,
+quite alone on this last night of farewell. Julien came forward: "But
+you must not do it; we will stay together." She shook her head, unable
+to speak. At last she said: "It is my mother, my mother. I wish to
+watch beside her alone." The doctor murmured: "Let her do as she
+pleases; the nurse can stay in the adjoining room."
+
+The priest and Julien consented, more interested in their own rest.
+Then Abbe Picot knelt down in his turn, and as he rose and left the
+room, he said: "She was a saint" in the same tone as he said "Dominus
+vobiscum."
+
+The vicomte in his ordinary tone then asked: "Are you not going to eat
+something?" Jeanne did not reply, not knowing he was speaking to her,
+and he repeated: "You had better eat something to keep up your
+stomach." She replied in a bewildered manner: "Send at once for papa."
+And he went out of the room to send someone on horseback to Rouen.
+
+She remained plunged in a sort of motionless grief, seeing nothing,
+feeling nothing, understanding nothing. She only wanted to be alone.
+Julien came back. He had dined and he asked her again: "Won't you take
+something?" She shook her head. He sat down with an air of resignation
+rather than sadness, without speaking, and they both sat there silent,
+till at length Julien arose, and approaching Jeanne, said: "Would you
+like to stay alone now?" She took his hand impulsively and replied:
+"Oh, yes! leave me!"
+
+He kissed her forehead, murmuring: "I will come in and see you from
+time to time." He went out with Widow Dentu, who rolled her easy chair
+into the next room.
+
+Jeanne shut the door and opened the windows wide. She felt the soft
+breath from the mown hay that lay in the moonlight on the lawn. It
+seemed to harrow her feelings like an ironical remark.
+
+She went back to the bed, took one of the cold, inert hands and looked
+at her mother earnestly. She seemed to be sleeping more peacefully
+than she had ever done, and the pale flame of the tapers which
+flickered at every breath made her face appear to be alive, as if she
+had stirred. Jeanne remembered all the little incidents of her
+childhood, the visits of little mother to the "parloir" of the
+convent, the manner in which she handed her a little paper bag of
+cakes, a multitude of little details, little acts, little caresses,
+words, intonations, familiar gestures, the creases at the corner of
+her eyes when she laughed, the big sigh she gave when she sat down.
+
+And she stood there looking at her, repeating half mechanically: "She
+is dead," and all the horror of the word became real to her. It was
+mamma lying there--little mother--Mamma Adelaide who was dead. She
+would never move about again, nor speak, nor laugh, nor sit at dinner
+opposite little father. She would never again say: "Good-morning,
+Jeannette." She was dead!
+
+And she fell on her knees in a paroxysm of despair, her hands
+clutching the sheet, her face buried in the covers as she cried in a
+heartrending tone: "Oh, mamma, my poor mamma!" Then feeling that she
+was losing her reason as she had done on the night when she fled
+across the snow, she rose and ran to the window to drink in the fresh
+air. The soothing calmness of the night entered her soul and she began
+to weep quietly.
+
+Presently she turned back into the room and sat down again beside
+her mother. Other remembrances came to her: those of her own
+life--Rosalie, Gilberte, the bitter disillusions of her heart.
+Everything, then, was only misery, grief, unhappiness and death.
+Everyone tried to deceive, everyone lied, everyone made you suffer and
+weep. Where could one find a little rest and happiness? In another
+existence no doubt, when the soul is freed from the trials of earth.
+And she began to ponder on this insoluble mystery.
+
+A tender and curious thought came to her mind. It was to read over in
+this last watch, as though they were a litany, the old letters that
+her mother loved. It seemed to her that she was about to perform a
+delicate and sacred duty which would give pleasure to little mother in
+the other world.
+
+She rose, opened the writing desk and took from the lower drawer ten
+little packages of yellow letters, tied and arranged in order, side by
+side. She placed them all on the bed over her mother's heart from a
+sort of sentiment and began to read them. They were old letters that
+savored of a former century. The first began, "My dear little
+granddaughter," then again "My dear little girl," "My darling," "My
+dearest daughter," then "My dear child," "My dear Adelaide," "My dear
+daughter," according to the periods--childhood, youth or young
+womanhood. They were all full of little insignificant details and
+tender words, about a thousand little matters, those simple but
+important events of home life, so petty to outsiders: "Father has the
+grip; poor Hortense burnt her finger; the cat, 'Croquerat,' is dead;
+they have cut down the pine tree to the right of the gate; mother lost
+her prayerbook on the way home from church, she thinks it was stolen."
+
+All these details affected her. They seemed like revelations, as
+though she had suddenly entered the past secret heart life of little
+mother. She looked at her lying there and suddenly began to read
+aloud, to read to the dead, as though to distract, to console her.
+
+And the dead woman appeared to be pleased.
+
+Jeanne tossed the letters as she read them to the foot of the bed. She
+untied another package. It was a new handwriting. She read: "I cannot
+do without your caresses. I love you so that I am almost crazy."
+
+That was all; no signature.
+
+She put back the letter without understanding its meaning. The address
+was certainly "Madame la Baronne Le Perthuis des Vauds."
+
+Then she opened another: "Come this evening as soon as he goes out; we
+shall have an hour together. I worship you." In another: "I passed the
+night longing in vain for you, longing to look into your eyes, to
+press my lips to yours, and I am insane enough to throw myself from
+the window at the thought that you are another's...."
+
+Jeanne was perfectly bewildered. What did that mean? To whom, for
+whom, from whom were these words of love?
+
+She went on reading, coming across fresh impassioned declarations,
+appointments with warnings as to prudence, and always at the end the
+six words: "Be sure to burn this letter!"
+
+At last she opened an ordinary note, accepting an invitation to
+dinner, but in the same handwriting and signed: "Paul d'Ennemare,"
+whom the baron called, whenever he spoke of him, "My poor old Paul,"
+and whose wife had been the baroness' dearest friend.
+
+Then a suspicion, which immediately became a certainty, flashed across
+Jeanne's mind: He had been her mother's lover.
+
+And, almost beside herself, she suddenly threw aside these infamous
+letters as she would have thrown off some venomous reptile and ran to
+the window and began to cry piteously. Then, collapsing, she sank down
+beside the wall, and hiding her face in the curtain so that no one
+should hear her, she sobbed bitterly as if in hopeless despair.
+
+She would have remained thus probably all night, if she had not heard
+a noise in the adjoining room that made her start to her feet. It
+might be her father. And all the letters were lying on the floor! He
+would have to open only one of them to know all! Her father!
+
+She darted into the other room and seizing the letters in handfuls,
+she threw them all into the fireplace, those of her grandparents as
+well as those of the lover; some that she had not looked at and some
+that had remained tied up in the drawers of the desk. She then took
+one of the tapers that burned beside the bed and set fire to this pile
+of letters. When they were reduced to ashes she went back to the open
+window, as though she no longer dared to sit beside the dead, and
+began to cry again with her face in her hands: "Oh, my poor mamma! oh,
+my poor mamma!"
+
+The stars were paling. It was the cool hour that precedes the dawn.
+The moon was sinking on the horizon and turning the sea to mother of
+pearl. The recollection of the night she passed at the window when she
+first came to the "Poplars" came to Jeanne's mind. How far away it
+seemed, how everything was changed, how different the future now
+seemed!
+
+The sky was becoming pink, a joyous, love-inspiring, enchanting pink.
+She looked at it in surprise, as at some phenomenon, this radiant
+break of day, and asked herself if it were possible that, on a planet
+where such dawns were found, there should be neither joy nor
+happiness.
+
+A noise at the door made her start. It was Julien. "Well," he said,
+"are you not very tired?"
+
+She murmured, "No," happy at being no longer alone. "Go and rest now,"
+he said. She kissed her mother a long, sad kiss; then she went to her
+room.
+
+The next day passed in the usual attentions to the dead. The baron
+arrived toward evening. He wept for some time.
+
+The funeral took place the following day. After pressing a last kiss
+on her mother's icy forehead and seeing the coffin nailed down, Jeanne
+left the room. The invited guests would soon arrive.
+
+Gilberte was the first to come, and she threw herself sobbing on her
+friend's shoulder. Women in black presently entered the room one after
+another, people whom Jeanne did not know. The Marquise de Coutelier
+and the Vicomtesse de Briseville embraced her. She suddenly saw Aunt
+Lison gliding in behind her. She turned round and kissed her tenderly.
+
+Julien came in, dressed all in black, elegant, very important, pleased
+at seeing so many people. He asked his wife some question in a low
+tone and added confidentially: "All the nobility are here; it will be
+a fine affair." And he walked away, gravely bowing to the ladies. Aunt
+Lison and Comtesse Gilberte alone remained with Jeanne during the
+service for the dead. The comtesse kissed her repeatedly, exclaiming:
+"My poor dear, my poor dear!"
+
+When Comte de Fourville came to fetch his wife he was also crying as
+though it were for his own mother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RETRIBUTION
+
+The following days were very sad and dreary, as they always are when
+there has been a death in the house. And, in addition, Jeanne was
+crushed at the thought of what she had discovered; her last shred of
+confidence had been destroyed with the destruction of her faith.
+Little father, after a short stay, went away to try and distract his
+thoughts from his grief, and the large house, whose former masters
+were leaving it from time to time, resumed its usual calm and
+monotonous course.
+
+Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne was almost beside herself, not sleeping
+for ten days, and scarcely tasting food. He recovered, but she was
+haunted by the idea that he might die. Then what should she do? What
+would become of her? And there gradually stole into her heart the hope
+that she might have another child. She dreamed of it, became obsessed
+with the idea. She longed to realize her old dream of seeing two
+little children around her; a boy and a girl.
+
+But since the affair of Rosalie she and Julien had lived apart. A
+reconciliation seemed impossible in their present situation. Julien
+loved some one else, she knew it; and the very thought of suffering
+his approach filled her with repugnance. She had no one left whom she
+could consult. She resolved to go and see Abbe Picot and tell him,
+under the seal of confession, all that weighed upon her mind in this
+matter.
+
+He was reading from his breviary in his little garden planted with
+fruit trees when she arrived.
+
+After a few minutes' conversation on indifferent matters, she
+faltered, her color rising: "I want to confess, Monsieur l'Abbe."
+
+He looked at her in astonishment, as he pushed his spectacles back on
+his forehead; then he began to laugh. "You surely have no great sins
+on your conscience." This embarrassed her greatly, and she replied:
+"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject that is so--so--so
+painful that I dare not mention it casually."
+
+He at once laid aside his jovial manner and assumed his priestly
+attitude. "Well, my child, I will listen to you in the confessional;
+come along."
+
+But she held back, undecided, restrained by a kind of scruple at
+speaking of these matters, of which she was half ashamed, in the
+seclusion of an empty church.
+
+"Or else, no--Monsieur le Cure--I might--I might--if you wish, tell
+you now what brings me here. Let us go and sit over there, in your
+little arbor."
+
+They walked toward it, and Jeanne tried to think how she could begin.
+They sat down in the arbor, and then, as if she were confessing
+herself, she said: "Father----" then hesitated, and repeated:
+"Father----" and was silent from emotion.
+
+He waited, his hands crossed over his paunch. Seeing her
+embarrassment, he sought to encourage her: "Why, my daughter, one
+would suppose you were afraid; come, take courage."
+
+She plucked up courage, like a coward who plunges headlong into
+danger. "Father, I should like to have another child." He did not
+reply, as he did not understand her. Then she explained, timid and
+unable to express herself clearly:
+
+"I am all alone in life now; my father and my husband do not get along
+together; my mother is dead; and--and----" she added with a shudder,
+"the other day I nearly lost my son! What would have become of me
+then?"
+
+She was silent. The priest, bewildered, was gazing at her. "Come, get
+to the point of your subject."
+
+"I want to have another child," she said. Then he smiled, accustomed
+to the coarse jokes of the peasants, who were not embarrassed in his
+presence, and he replied, with a sly motion of his head:
+
+"Well, it seems to me that it depends only on yourself."
+
+She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said, hesitating with
+confusion: "But--but--you understand that since--since--what you know
+about--about that maid--my husband and I have lived--have lived quite
+apart."
+
+Accustomed to the promiscuity and undignified relations of the
+peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought
+he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of
+the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of
+sympathy for her distress, he said: "Oh, I understand perfectly. I
+know that your widowhood must be irksome to you. You are young and in
+good health. It is natural, quite natural."
+
+He smiled, bearing out his easy-going character of a country priest,
+and tapping Jeanne lightly on the hand, he said: "That is permissible,
+very permissible indeed, according to the commandments. You are
+married, are you not? Well, then, what is the harm?"
+
+She, in her turn, had not understood his hidden meaning; but as soon
+as she saw through it, she blushed scarlet, shocked, and with tears in
+her eyes exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur le Cure, what are you saying? What
+are you thinking of? I swear to you--I swear to you----" And sobs
+choked her words.
+
+He was surprised and sought to console her: "Come, I did not mean to
+hurt your feelings. I was only joking a little; there is no harm in
+that when one is decent. But you may rely on me, you may rely on me. I
+will see M. Julien."
+
+She did not know what to say. She now wished to decline this
+intervention, which she thought clumsy and dangerous, but she did not
+dare to do so, and she went away hurriedly, faltering: "I am grateful
+to you, Monsieur le Cure."
+
+A week passed. One day at dinner Julien looked at her with a peculiar
+expression, a certain smiling curve of the lips that she had noticed
+when he was teasing her. He was even almost ironically gallant toward
+her, and as they were walking after dinner in little mother's avenue,
+he said in a low tone: "We seem to have made up again."
+
+She did not reply, but continued to look on the ground at a sort of
+track that was almost effaced now that the grass was sprouting anew.
+They were the footprints of the baroness, which were vanishing as does
+a memory. And Jeanne was plunged in sadness; she felt herself lost in
+life, far away from everyone.
+
+"As for me, I ask nothing better. I was afraid of displeasing you,"
+continued Julien.
+
+The sun was going down, the air was mild. A longing to weep came over
+Jeanne, one of those needs of unbosoming oneself to a kindred spirit,
+of unbending and telling one's griefs. A sob rose in her throat; she
+opened her arms and fell on Julien's breast, and wept. He glanced down
+in surprise at her head, for he could not see her face which was
+hidden on his shoulder. He supposed that she still loved him, and
+placed a condescending kiss on the back of her head.
+
+They entered the house and he followed her to her room. And thus they
+resumed their former relations, he, as a not unpleasant duty, and she,
+merely tolerating him.
+
+She soon noticed, however, that his manner had changed, and one day
+with her lips to his, she murmured: "Why are you not the same as you
+used to be?"
+
+"Because I do not want any more children," he said jokingly.
+
+She started. "Why not?"
+
+He appeared greatly surprised. "Eh, what's that you say? Are you
+crazy? No, indeed! One is enough, always crying and bothering
+everyone. Another baby! No, thank you!"
+
+At the end of a month she told the news to everyone, far and wide,
+with the exception of Comtesse Gilberte, from reasons of modesty and
+delicacy.
+
+What the priest had foreseen finally came to pass. She became
+enceinte. Then, filled with an unspeakable happiness, she locked her
+door every night when she retired, vowing herself from henceforth to
+eternal chastity, in gratitude to the vague divinity she adored.
+
+She was now almost quite happy again. Her children would grow up and
+love her; she would grow old quietly, happy and contented, without
+troubling herself about her husband.
+
+Toward the end of September, Abbe Picot called on a visit of ceremony
+to introduce his successor, a young priest, very thin, very short,
+with an emphatic way of talking, and with dark circles round his
+sunken eyes.
+
+The old abbe had been appointed Dean of Goderville.
+
+Jeanne was really sorry to lose the old man, who had been associated
+with all her recollections as a young woman. He had married her,
+baptized Paul, and buried the baroness. She could not imagine Etouvent
+without Abbe Picot and his paunch passing along by the farms, and she
+loved him because he was cheerful and natural.
+
+But he did not seem very cheerful at the thought of his promotion. "It
+is a wrench, it is a wrench, madame la comtesse. I have been here for
+eighteen years. Oh, the place does not bring in much, and is not
+wealthy. The men have no more religion than they need, and the women,
+look you, the women have no morals. But nevertheless, I loved it."
+
+The new cure appeared impatient, and said abruptly: "When I am here
+all that will have to be changed." He looked like an angry boy, thin
+and frail in his somewhat worn, though clean cassock.
+
+Abbe Picot looked at him sideways, as he did when he was in a joking
+mood, and said: "You see, abbe, in order to prevent those happenings,
+you will have to chain up your parishioners; and even that would not
+be of much use." The little priest replied sharply: "We shall see."
+And the older man smiled as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age
+will calm you down, abbe, and experience also. You will drive away
+from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good
+it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be
+careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather
+stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I
+try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes;
+but you can go and look for the man, and prevent him from deserting
+the mother. Get them married, abbe, get them married, and do not
+trouble yourself about anything else."
+
+"We think differently," said the young priest rudely; "it is useless
+to insist." And Abbe Picot once more began to regret his village, the
+sea which he saw from his parsonage, the little valleys where he
+walked while repeating his breviary, glancing up at the boats as they
+passed.
+
+As the two priests took their leave, the old man kissed Jeanne, who
+was on the verge of tears.
+
+A week later Abbe Tolbiac called again. He spoke of reforms which he
+intended to accomplish, as a prince might have done on taking
+possession of a kingdom. Then he requested the vicomtesse not to miss
+the service on Sunday, and to communicate a all the festivals. "You
+and I," he said, "we are at the head of the district; we must rule it
+and always set them an example to follow. We must be of one accord so
+that we may be powerful and respected. The church and the chateau in
+joining forces will make the peasants obey and fear us."
+
+Jeanne's religion was all sentiment; she had all a woman's dream
+faith, and if she attended at all to her religious duties, it was from
+a habit acquired at the convent, the baron's advanced ideas having
+long since overthrown her convictions. Abbe Picot contented himself
+with what observances she gave him, and never blamed her. But his
+successor, not seeing her at mass the preceding Sunday, had come to
+call, uneasy and stern.
+
+She did not wish to break with the parsonage, and promised, making up
+her mind to be assiduous in attendance the first few weeks, out of
+politeness.
+
+Little by little, however, she got into the habit of going to church,
+and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial
+abbe. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set
+in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women
+possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human
+interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience,
+his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the
+stuff martyrs were made of; and she let herself be carried away, all
+disillusioned as she was, by the fanaticism of this child, the
+minister of God.
+
+He led her to Christ, the consoler, showing her how the joy of
+religion will calm all sorrow; and she knelt at the confessional,
+humbling herself, feeling herself small and weak in presence of this
+priest, who appeared to be about fifteen.
+
+He was, however, very soon detested in all the countryside. Inflexibly
+severe toward himself, he was implacably intolerant toward others, and
+the one thing that especially roused his wrath and indignation was
+love. The young men and girls looked at each other slyly across the
+church, and the old peasants who liked to joke about such things
+disapproved his severity. All the parish was in a ferment. Soon the
+young men all stopped going to church.
+
+The cure dined at the chateau every Thursday, and often came during
+the week to chat with his penitent. She became enthusiastic like
+himself, talked about spiritual matters, handling all the antique and
+complicated arsenal of religious controversy.
+
+They walked together along the baroness' avenue, talking of Christ and
+the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Fathers of the Church as though
+they were personally acquainted with them.
+
+Julien treated the new priest with great respect, saying constantly:
+"That priest suits me, he does not back down." And he went to
+confession and communion, setting a fine example. He now went to the
+Fourvilles' nearly every day, gunning with the husband, who was never
+happy without him, and riding with the comtesse, in spite of rain and
+storm. The comte said: "They are crazy about riding, but it does my
+wife good."
+
+The baron returned to the chateau about the middle of November. He was
+changed, aged, faded, filled with a deep sadness. And his love for his
+daughter seemed to have gained in strength, as if these few months of
+dreary solitude had aggravated his need of affection, confidence and
+tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her
+friendship for the Abbe Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he
+conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that
+evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He
+must be very dangerous."
+
+When he learned from the peasants, whose friend he was, of the
+harshness and violence of the young priest, of the kind of persecution
+which he carried on against all human and natural instincts, he
+developed a hatred toward him. He, himself, was one of the old race of
+natural philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic
+Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a God with
+bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him
+reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to
+farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant priest, the persecutor
+of life.
+
+Jeanne, very much worried, prayed to the Lord, entreated her father;
+but he always replied: "We must fight such men as that, it is our duty
+and our right. They are not human."
+
+And he repeated, shaking his long white locks: "They are not human;
+they understand nothing, nothing, nothing. They are moving in a morbid
+dream; they are anti-physical." And he pronounced the word
+"anti-physical" as though it were a malediction.
+
+The priest knew who his enemy was, but as he wished to remain ruler of
+the chateau and of Jeanne, he temporized, sure of final victory. He
+was also haunted by a fixed idea. He had discovered by chance the
+amours of Julien and Gilberte, and he desired to put a stop to them at
+all costs.
+
+He came to see Jeanne one day and, after a long conversation on
+spiritual matters, he asked her to give her aid in helping him to
+fight, to put an end to the evil in her own family, in order to save
+two souls that were in danger.
+
+She did not understand, and did not wish to know. He replied: "The
+hour has not arrived. I shall see you some other time." And he left
+abruptly.
+
+The winter was coming to a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the
+country, damp and mild. The abbe called again some days later and
+hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between
+persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he
+said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring
+it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes
+and understand and lend him her aid.
+
+This time she understood, but she was silent, terrified at the thought
+of all that might result in the house that was now peaceful, and she
+pretended not to understand. Then he spoke out clearly.
+
+She faltered: "What do you wish me to do, Monsieur l'Abbe?"
+
+"Anything, rather than permit this infamy. Anything, I say. Leave him.
+Flee from this impure house!"
+
+"But I have no money; and then I have no longer any courage; and,
+besides, how can I go without any proof? I have not the right to do
+so."
+
+The priest arose trembling: "That is cowardice, madame; I am mistaken
+in you. You are unworthy of God's mercy!"
+
+She fell on her knees: "Oh, I pray you not to leave me, tell me what
+to do!"
+
+"Open M. de Fourville's eyes," he said abruptly. "It is his place to
+break up this intrigue."
+
+This idea filled her with terror. "Why, he would kill them, Monsieur
+l'Abbe! And I should be guilty of denouncing them! Oh, never that,
+never!"
+
+He raised his hand as if to curse her in his fury: "Remain in your
+shame and your crime; for you are more guilty than they are. You are
+the complaisant wife! There is nothing more for me to do here." And he
+went off so furious that he trembled all over.
+
+She followed him, distracted and ready to do as he suggested. But he
+strode along rapidly, shaking his large blue umbrella in his rage. He
+perceived Julien standing outside the gate superintending the lopping
+of the trees, so he turned to the left to go across the Couillard
+farm, and he said: "Leave me alone, madame, I have nothing further to
+say to you."
+
+Jeanne was entreating him to give her a few days for reflection, and
+then if he came back to the chateau she would tell him what she had
+done, and they could take counsel together.
+
+Right in his road, in the middle of the farmyard, a group of children,
+those of the house and some neighbor's children, were standing around
+the kennel of Mirza, the dog, looking curiously at something with
+silent and concentrated attention. In the midst of them stood the
+baron, his hands behind his back, also looking on with curiosity. One
+would have taken him for a schoolmaster. When he saw the priest
+approaching, he moved away so as not to have to meet him and speak to
+him.
+
+The priest did not call again; but the following Sunday from the
+pulpit he hurled imprecations, curses and threats against the chateau,
+anathematizing the baron, and making veiled allusions, but timidly, to
+Julien's latest intrigue. The vicomte was furious, but the dread of a
+shocking scandal kept him silent. At each service thereafter the
+priest declared his indignation, predicting the approach of the hour
+when God would smite all his enemies.
+
+Julien wrote a firm, but respectful letter to the archbishop; the abbe
+was threatened with suspension. He was silent thereafter.
+
+Gilberte and Julien now frequently met him during their rides reading
+his breviary, but they turned aside so as not to pass him by. Spring
+had come and reawakened their love. As the foliage was still sparse
+and the grass damp, they used to meet in a shepherd's movable hut that
+had been deserted since autumn. But one day when they were leaving it,
+they saw the Abbe Tolbiac, almost hidden in the sea rushes on the
+slope.
+
+"We must leave our horses in the ravine," said Julien, "as they can be
+seen from a distance and would betray us." One evening as they were
+coming home together to La Vrillette, where they were to dine with the
+comte, they met the cure of Etouvent coming out of the chateau. He
+stepped to the side of the road to let them pass, and bowed without
+their eyes meeting. They were uneasy for a few moments, but soon
+forgot it.
+
+One afternoon, Jeanne was reading beside the fire while a storm of
+wind was raging outside, when she suddenly perceived Comte Fourville
+coming on foot at such a pace that she thought some misfortune had
+happened.
+
+She ran downstairs to meet him, and when she saw him she thought he
+must be crazy. He wore a large quilted cap that he wore only at home,
+his hunting jacket, and looked so pale that his red mustache, usually
+the color of his skin, now seemed like a flame. His eyes were haggard,
+rolling as though his mind were vacant.
+
+He stammered: "My wife is here, is she not?" Jeanne, losing her
+presence of mind, replied: "Why, no, I have not seen her to-day."
+
+He sat down as if his legs had given way. He then took off his cap and
+wiped his forehead with his handkerchief mechanically several times.
+Then starting up suddenly, he approached Jeanne, his hands stretched
+out, his mouth open, as if to speak, to confide some great sorrow to
+her. Then he stopped, looked at her fixedly and said as though he were
+wandering: "But it is your husband--you also----" And he fled, going
+toward the sea.
+
+Jeanne ran after him, calling him, imploring him to stop, her heart
+beating with apprehension as she thought: "He knows all! What will he
+do? Oh, if he only does not find them!"
+
+But she could not come up to him, and he disregarded her appeals. He
+went straight ahead without hesitation, straight to his goal. He
+crossed the ditch, then, stalking through the sea rushes like a giant,
+he reached the cliff.
+
+Jeanne, standing on the mound covered with trees, followed him with
+her eyes until he was out of sight. Then she went into the house,
+distracted with grief.
+
+He had turned to the right and started to run. Threatening waves
+overspread the sea, big black clouds were scudding along madly,
+passing on and followed by others, each of them coming down in a
+furious downpour. The wind whistled, moaned, laid the grass and the
+young crops low and carried away big white birds that looked like
+specks of foam and bore them far into the land.
+
+The hail which followed beat in the comte's face, filling his ears
+with noise and his heart with tumult.
+
+Down yonder before him was the deep gorge of the Val de Vaucotte.
+There was nothing before him but a shepherd's hut beside a deserted
+sheep pasture. Two horses were tied to the shafts of the hut on
+wheels. What might not happen to one in such a tempest as this?
+
+As soon as he saw them the comte crouched on the ground and crawled
+along on his hands and knees as far as the lonely hut and hid himself
+beneath the hut that he might not be seen through the cracks. The
+horses on seeing him became restive. He slowly cut their reins with
+the knife which he held open in his hand, and a sudden squall coming
+up, the animals fled, frightened at the hail which rattled on the
+sloping roof of the wooden hut and made it shake on its wheels.
+
+The comte then kneeling upright, put his eye to the bottom of the door
+and looked inside. He did not stir; he seemed to be waiting.
+
+A little time elapsed and then he suddenly rose to his feet, covered
+with mud from head to foot. He frantically pushed back the bolt which
+closed the hut on the outside, and seizing the shafts, he began to
+shake the hut as though he would break it to pieces. Then all at once
+he got between the shafts, bending his huge frame, and with a
+desperate effort dragged it along like an ox, panting as he went. He
+dragged it, with whoever was in it, toward the steep incline.
+
+Those inside screamed and banged with their fists on the door, not
+understanding what was going on.
+
+When he reached the top of the cliff he let go the fragile dwelling,
+which began to roll down the incline, going ever faster and faster,
+plunging, stumbling like an animal and striking the ground with its
+shafts.
+
+An old beggar hidden in a ditch saw it flying over his head and heard
+frightful screams coming from the wooden box.
+
+All at once a wheel was wrenched off and it fell on its side and began
+to roll like a ball, as a house torn from its foundations might roll
+from the summit of a mountain. Then, reaching the ledge of the last
+ravine, it described a circle, and, falling to the bottom, burst open
+as an egg might do. It was no sooner smashed on the stones than the
+old beggar, who had seen it going past, went down toward it slowly
+amid the rushes, and with the customary caution of a peasant, not
+daring to go directly to the shattered hut, he went to the nearest
+farm to tell of the accident.
+
+They all ran to look at it and raised the wreck of the hut. They found
+two bodies, bruised, crushed and bleeding. The man's forehead was
+split open and his whole face crushed; the woman's jaw was hanging,
+dislocated in one of the jolts, and their shattered limbs were soft as
+pulp.
+
+"What were they doing in that shanty?" said a woman.
+
+The old beggar then said that they had apparently taken refuge in it
+to get out of the storm and that a furious squall must have blown the
+hut over the cliff. He said he had intended to take shelter there
+himself, when he saw the horses tied to it, and understood that some
+one else must be inside. "But for that," he added in a satisfied tone,
+"I might have rolled down in it." Some one remarked: "Would not that
+have been a good thing?"
+
+The old man, in a furious rage, said: "Why would it have been a good
+thing? Because I am poor and they are rich! Look at them now." And
+trembling, ragged and dripping with rain, he pointed to the two dead
+bodies with his hooked stick and exclaimed: "We are all alike when we
+get to this."
+
+The comte, as soon as he saw the hut rolling down the steep slope, ran
+off at full speed through the blinding storm. He ran in this way for
+several hours, taking short cuts, leaping across ditches, breaking
+through the hedges, and thus got back home at dusk, not knowing how
+himself.
+
+The frightened servants were awaiting his return and told him that the
+two horses had returned riderless some little time before, that of
+Julien following the other one.
+
+Then M. de Fourville reeled and in a choked voice said: "Something
+must have happened to them in this dreadful weather. Let every one
+help to look for them."
+
+He started off himself, but he was no sooner out of sight than he
+concealed himself in a clump of bushes, watching the road along which
+she whom he even still loved with an almost savage passion was to
+return dead, dying or maybe crippled and disfigured forever.
+
+And soon a carriole passed by carrying a strange burden.
+
+It stopped at the chateau and passed through the gate. It was that, it
+was she. But a fearful anguish nailed him to the spot, a fear to know
+the worst, a dread of the truth, and he did not stir, hiding as a
+hare, starting at the least sound.
+
+He waited thus an hour, two hours perhaps. The buggy did not come out.
+He concluded that his wife was expiring, and the thought of seeing
+her, of meeting her gaze filled him with so much horror that he
+suddenly feared to be discovered in his hiding place and of being
+compelled to return and be present at this agony, and he then fled
+into the thick of the wood. Then all of a sudden it occurred to him
+that she perhaps might be needing his care, that no one probably could
+properly attend to her. Then he returned on his tracks, running
+breathlessly.
+
+On entering the chateau he met the gardener and called out to him,
+"Well?" The man did not dare answer him. Then M. de Fourville almost
+roared at him: "Is she dead?" and the servant stammered: "Yes, M. le
+Comte."
+
+He experienced a feeling of immense relief. His blood seemed to cool
+and his nerves relax somewhat of their extreme tension, and he walked
+firmly up the steps of his great hallway.
+
+The other wagon had reached "The Poplars." Jeanne saw it from afar.
+She descried the mattress; she guessed that a human form was lying
+upon it, and understood all. Her emotion was so vivid that she swooned
+and fell prostrate.
+
+When she regained consciousness her father was holding her head and
+bathing her temples with vinegar. He said hesitatingly: "Do you know?"
+She murmured: "Yes, father." But when she attempted to rise she found
+herself unable to do so, so intense was her agony.
+
+That very night she gave birth to a stillborn infant, a girl.
+
+Jeanne saw nothing of the funeral of Julien; she knew nothing of it.
+She merely noticed at the end of a day or two that Aunt Lison was
+back, and in her feverish dreams which haunted her she persistently
+sought to recall when the old maiden lady had left "The Poplars," at
+what period and under what circumstances. She could not make this out,
+even in her lucid moments, but she was certain of having seen her
+subsequent to the death of "little mother."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAUL
+
+Jeanne did not leave her room for three months and was so wan and pale
+that no one thought she would recover. But she picked up by degrees.
+Little father and Aunt Lison never left her; they had both taken up
+their abode at "The Poplars." The shock of Julien's death had left her
+with a nervous malady. The slightest sound made her faint and she had
+long swoons from the most insignificant causes.
+
+She had never asked the details of Julien's death. What did it matter
+to her? Did she not know enough already? Every one thought it was an
+accident, but she knew better, and she kept to herself this secret
+which tortured her: the knowledge of his infidelity and the
+remembrance of the abrupt and terrible visit of the comte on the day
+of the catastrophe.
+
+And now she was filled with tender, sweet and melancholy recollections
+of the brief evidences of love shown her by her husband. She
+constantly thrilled at unexpected memories of him, and she seemed to
+see him as he was when they were betrothed and as she had known him in
+the hours passed beneath the sunlight in Corsica. All his faults
+diminished, all his harshness vanished, his very infidelities appeared
+less glaring in the widening separation of the closed tomb. And
+Jeanne, pervaded by a sort of posthumous gratitude for this man who
+had held her in his arms, forgave all the suffering he had caused her,
+to remember only moments of happiness they had passed together. Then,
+as time went on and month followed month, covering all her grief and
+reminiscences with forgetfulness, she devoted herself entirely to her
+son.
+
+He became the idol, the one thought of the three beings who surrounded
+him, and he ruled as a despot. A kind of jealousy even arose among his
+slaves. Jeanne watched with anxiety the great kisses he gave his
+grandfather after a ride on his knee, and Aunt Lison, neglected by him
+as she had been by every one else and treated often like a servant by
+this little tyrant who could scarcely speak as yet, would go to her
+room and weep as she compared the slight affection he showed her with
+the kisses he gave his mother and the baron.
+
+Two years passed quietly, and at the beginning of the third winter it
+was decided that they should go to Rouen to live until spring, and the
+whole family set out. But on their arrival in the old damp house, that
+had been shut up for some time, Paul had such a severe attack of
+bronchitis that his three relatives in despair declared that he could
+not do without the air of "The Poplars." They took him back there and
+he got well.
+
+Then began a series of quiet, monotonous years. Always around the
+little one, they went into raptures at everything he did. His mother
+called him Poulet, and as he could not pronounce the word, he said
+"Pol," which amused them immensely, and the nickname of "Poulet" stuck
+to him.
+
+The favorite occupation of his "three mothers," as the baron called
+his relatives, was to see how much he had grown, and for this purpose
+they made little notches in the casing of the drawing-room door,
+showing his progress from month to month. This ladder was called
+"Poulet's ladder," and was an important affair.
+
+A new individual began to play a part in the affairs of the
+household--the dog "Massacre," who became Paul's inseparable
+companion.
+
+Rare visits were exchanged with the Brisevilles and the Couteliers.
+The mayor and the doctor alone were regular visitors. Since the
+episode of the mother dog and the suspicion Jeanne had entertained of
+the priest on the occasion of the terrible death of the comtesse and
+Julien, Jeanne had not entered the church, angry with a divinity that
+could tolerate such ministers.
+
+The church was deserted and the priest came to be looked on as a
+sorcerer because he had, so they said, driven out an evil spirit from
+a woman who was possessed, and although fearing him the peasants came
+to respect him for this occult power as well as for the unimpeachable
+austerity of his life.
+
+When he met Jeanne he never spoke. This condition of affairs
+distressed Aunt Lison, and when she was alone, quite alone with Paul,
+she talked to him about God, telling him the wonderful stories of the
+early history of the world. But when she told him that he must love
+Him very much, the child would say: "Where is He, auntie?" "Up there,"
+she would say, pointing to the sky; "up there, Poulet, but do not say
+so." She was afraid of the baron.
+
+One day, however, Poulet said to her: "God is everywhere, but He is
+not in church." He had told his grandfather of his aunt's wonderful
+revelations.
+
+When Paul was twelve years old a great difficulty arose on the subject
+of his first communion.
+
+Lison came to Jeanne one morning and told her that the little fellow
+should no longer be kept without religious instruction and from his
+religious duties. His mother, troubled and undecided, hesitated,
+saying that there was time enough. But a month later, as she was
+returning a call at the Brisevilles', the comtesse asked her casually
+if Paul was going to make his first communion that year. Jeanne,
+unprepared for this, answered, "Yes," and this simple word decided
+her, and without saying a word to her father, she asked Aunt Lison to
+take the boy to the catechism class.
+
+All went well for a month, but one day Paul came home with a
+hoarseness and the following day he coughed. On inquiry his mother
+learned that the priest had sent him to wait till the lesson was over
+at the door of the church, where there was a draught, because he had
+misbehaved. So she kept him at home and taught him herself. But the
+Abbe Tobiac, despite Aunt Lison's entreaties, refused to admit him as
+a communicant on the ground that he was not thoroughly taught.
+
+The same thing occurred the following year, and the baron angrily
+swore that the child did not need to believe all that tomfoolery, so
+it was decided that he should be brought up as a Christian, but not as
+an active Catholic, and when he came of age he could believe as he
+pleased.
+
+The Brisevilles ceased to call on her and Jeanne was surprised,
+knowing the punctiliousness of these neighbors in returning calls, but
+the Marquise de Coutelier haughtily told her the reason. Considering
+herself, in virtue of her husband's rank and fortune, a sort of queen
+of the Norman nobility, the marquise ruled as a queen, said what she
+thought, was gracious or the reverse as occasion demanded,
+admonishing, restoring to favor, congratulating whenever she saw fit.
+So when Jeanne came to see her, this lady, after a few chilling
+remarks, said drily: "Society is divided into two classes: those who
+believe in God and those who do not believe in Him. The former, even
+the humblest, are our friends, our equals; the latter are nothing to
+us."
+
+Jeanne, perceiving the insinuation, replied: "But may one not believe
+in God without going to church?"
+
+"No, madame," answered the marquise. "The faithful go to worship God
+in His church, just as one goes to see people in their homes."
+
+Jeanne, hurt, replied: "God is everywhere, madame. As for me, who
+believes from the bottom of my heart in His goodness, I no longer feel
+His presence when certain priests come between Him and me."
+
+The marquise rose. "The priest is the standard bearer of the Church,
+madame. Whoever does not follow the standard is opposed to Him and
+opposed to us."
+
+Jeanne had risen in her turn and said, trembling: "You believe,
+madame, in a partisan God. I believe in the God of upright people."
+She bowed and took her leave.
+
+The peasants also blamed her among themselves for not having let
+Poulet make his first communion. They themselves never attended
+service or took the sacrament unless it might be at Easter, according
+to the rule ordained by the Church; but for boys it was quite another
+thing, and they would have all shrunk in horror at the audacity of
+bringing up a child outside this recognized law, for religion is
+religion.
+
+She saw how they felt and was indignant at heart at all these
+discriminations, all these compromises with conscience, this general
+fear of everything, the real cowardice of all hearts and the mask of
+respectability assumed in public.
+
+The baron took charge of Paul's studies and made him study Latin, his
+mother merely saying: "Above all things, do not get over tired."
+
+As soon as the boy was at liberty he went down to work in the garden
+with his mother and his aunt.
+
+He now loved to dig in the ground, and all three planted young trees
+in the spring, sowed seed and watched it growing with the deepest
+interest, pruned branches and cut flowers for bouquets.
+
+Poulet was almost fifteen, but was a mere child in intelligence,
+ignorant, silly, suppressed between petticoat government and this kind
+old man who belonged to another century.
+
+One evening the baron spoke of college, and Jeanne at once began to
+sob. Aunt Lison timidly remained in a dark corner.
+
+"Why does he need to know so much?" asked his mother. "We will make a
+gentleman farmer of him. He can cultivate his land, as many of the
+nobility do. He will live and grow old happily in this house, where we
+have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can one do?"
+
+But the baron shook his head. "What would you say to him if he should
+say to you when he is twenty-five: 'I amount to nothing, I know
+nothing, all through your fault, the fault of your maternal
+selfishness. I feel that I am incapable of working, of making
+something of myself, and yet I was not intended for a secluded, simple
+life, lonely enough to kill one, to which I have been condemned by
+your shortsighted affection.'"
+
+She was weeping and said entreatingly: "Tell me, Poulet, you will not
+reproach me for having loved you too well?" And the big boy, in
+surprise, promised that he never would. "Swear it," she said. "Yes,
+mamma." "You want to stay here, don't you?" "Yes, mamma."
+
+Then the baron spoke up loud and decidedly: "Jeanne, you have no right
+to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and
+almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to your own private
+happiness."
+
+She hid her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively, and stammered out
+amid her tears: "I have been so unhappy--so unhappy! Now, just as I am
+living peacefully with him, they want to take him away from me. What
+will become of me now--all by myself?" Her father rose and, sitting
+down beside her, put his arms round her. "And how about me, Jeanne?"
+
+She put her arms suddenly round his neck, gave him a hearty kiss and
+with her voice full of tears, she said: "Yes, you are right perhaps,
+little father. I was foolish, but I have suffered so much. I am quite
+willing he should go to college."
+
+And without knowing exactly what they were going to do with him,
+Poulet in his turn began to weep.
+
+Then the three mothers began to kiss him and pet him and encourage
+him. When they retired to their rooms it was with a weight at their
+hearts, and they all wept, even the baron, who had restrained himself
+up to that.
+
+It was decided that when the term began to put the young boy to school
+at Havre, and during the summer he was petted more than ever; his
+mother sighed often as she thought of the separation. She prepared his
+wardrobe as if he were going to undertake a ten years' voyage. One
+October morning, after a sleepless night, the two women and the baron
+got into the carriage with him and set out on their journey.
+
+They had previously selected his place in the dormitory and his desk
+in the school room. Jeanne, aided by Aunt Lison, spent the whole day
+in arranging his clothes in his little wardrobe. As it did not hold a
+quarter of what they had brought, she went to look for the
+superintendent to ask for another. The treasurer was called, but he
+pointed out that all that amount of clothing would only be in the way
+and would never be needed, and he refused, on behalf of the directors,
+to let her have another chest of drawers. Jeanne, much annoyed,
+decided to hire a room in a small neighboring hotel, begging the
+proprietor to go himself and take Poulet whatever he required as soon
+as the boy asked for it.
+
+They then took a walk on the pier to look at the ships coming and
+going. They went into a restaurant to dine, but they were none of them
+able to eat, and looked at one another with moistened eyes as the
+dishes were brought on and taken away almost untouched.
+
+They now returned slowly toward the school. Boys of all ages were
+arriving from all quarters, accompanied by their families or by
+servants. Many of them were crying.
+
+Jeanne held Poulet in a long embrace, while Aunt Lison remained in the
+background, her face hidden in her handkerchief. The baron, however,
+who was becoming affected, cut short the adieus by dragging his
+daughter away. They got into the carriage and went back through the
+darkness to "The Poplars," the silence being broken by an occasional
+sob.
+
+Jeanne wept all the following day and on the day after drove to Havre
+in the phaeton. Poulet seemed to have become reconciled to the
+separation. For the first time in his life he now had playmates, and
+in his anxiety to join them he could scarcely sit still on his chair
+when his mother called. She continued her visits to him every other
+day and called to take him home on Sundays. Not knowing what to do
+with herself while school was in session until recreation time, she
+would remain sitting in the reception room, not having the strength or
+the courage to go very far from the school. The superintendent sent to
+ask her to come to his office and begged her not to come so
+frequently. She paid no attention to his request. He therefore
+informed her that if she continued to prevent her son from taking his
+recreation at the usual hours, obliging him to work without a change
+of occupation, they would be forced to send him back home again, and
+the baron was also notified to the same effect. She was consequently
+watched like a prisoner at "The Poplars."
+
+She became restless and worried and would ramble about for whole days
+in the country, accompanied only by Massacre, dreaming as she walked
+along. Sometimes she would remain seated for a whole afternoon,
+looking out at the sea from the top of the cliff; at other times she
+would go down to Yport through the wood, going over the ground of her
+former walks, the memory of which haunted her. How long ago--how long
+ago it was--the time when she had gone over these same paths as a
+young girl, carried away by her dreams.
+
+Poulet was not very industrious at school; he was kept two years in
+the fourth form. The third year's work was only tolerable and he had
+to begin the second over again, so that he was in rhetoric when he was
+twenty.
+
+He was now a big, fair young man, with downy whiskers and a faint sign
+of a mustache. He now came home to "The Poplars" every Sunday, riding
+over in a couple of hours, his mother, Aunt Lison and the baron
+starting out early to go and meet him.
+
+Although he was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him
+as though he were a child, and when he returned to school in the
+evening she would charge him anxiously not to go too fast and to think
+of his poor mother, who would break her heart if anything happened to
+him.
+
+One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul, saying that he
+would not be home on the following day because some friends had
+arranged an excursion and had invited him. She was tormented with
+anxiety all day Sunday, as though she dreaded some misfortune, and on
+Thursday, as she could endure it no longer, she set out for Havre.
+
+He seemed to be changed, though she could not have told in what
+manner. He appeared excited and his voice seemed deeper. And suddenly,
+as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he said: "I
+say, mother, as long as you have come to-day, I want to tell you that
+I will not be at 'The Poplars' next Sunday, for we are going to have
+another excursion."
+
+She was amazed, smothering, as if he had announced his departure for
+America. At last, recovering herself, she said: "Oh, Poulet, what is
+the matter with you? Tell me what is going on."
+
+He began to laugh, and kissing her, replied: "Why, nothing, nothing,
+mamma. I am going to have a good time with my friends; I am just at
+that age."
+
+She had nothing to say, but when she was alone in the carriage all
+manner of ideas came into her mind. She no longer recognized him, her
+Poulet, her little Poulet of former days. She felt for the first time
+that he was grown up, that he no longer belonged to her, that he was
+going to live his life without troubling himself about the old people.
+It seemed to her that one day had wrought this change in him. Was it
+possible that this was her son, her poor little boy who had helped her
+to replant the lettuce, this great big bearded youth who had a will of
+his own!
+
+For three months Paul came home only occasionally, and always seemed
+impatient to get away again, trying to steal off an hour earlier each
+evening. Jeanne was alarmed, but the baron consoled her, saying: "Let
+him alone; the boy is twenty years old."
+
+One morning, however, an old man, poorly dressed, inquired in
+German-French for "Madame la Vicomtesse," and after many ceremonious
+bows, he drew from his pocket a dilapidated pocketbook, saying: "Che un
+betit bapier bour fous," and unfolding as he handed it to her a piece
+of greasy paper. She read and reread it, looked at the Jew, read it
+over again and asked: "What does it mean?"
+
+He obsequiously explained: "I will tell you. Your son needed a little
+money, and as I knew that you are a good mother, I lent him a trifle
+to help him out."
+
+Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not ask me?" The Jew explained
+at length that it was a question of a debt that must be paid before
+noon the following day; that Paul not being of age, no one would have
+lent him anything, and that his "honor would have been compromised"
+without this little service that he had rendered the young man.
+
+Jeanne tried to call the baron, but had not the strength to rise, she
+was so overcome by emotion. At length she said to the usurer: "Would
+you have the kindness to ring the bell?"
+
+He hesitated, fearing some trap, and then stammered out: "If I am
+intruding, I will call again." She shook her head in the negative. He
+then rang, and they waited in silence, sitting opposite each other.
+
+When the baron came in he understood the situation at once. The note
+was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid one thousand, saying close to
+the man's face: "And on no account come back." The other thanked him
+and went his way.
+
+The baron and Jeanne set out at once for Havre. On reaching the
+college they learned that Paul had not been there for a month. The
+principal had received four letters signed by Jeanne saying that his
+pupil was not well and then to tell how he was getting along. Each
+letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate. They were, of
+course, all forged. They were all dumbfounded, and stood there looking
+at each other.
+
+The principal, very much worried, took them to the commissary of
+police. Jeanne and her father stayed at a hotel that night. The
+following day the young man was found in the apartment of a courtesan
+of the town. His grandfather and mother took him back to "The Poplars"
+and not a word was exchanged between them during the whole journey.
+
+A week later they discovered that he had contracted fifteen thousand
+francs' worth of debts within the last three months. His creditors had
+not come forward at first, knowing that he would soon be of age.
+
+They entered into no discussion about it, hoping to win him back by
+gentleness. They gave him dainty food, petted him, spoiled him. It was
+spring and they hired a boat for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne's
+fears, so that he might amuse himself on the water.
+
+They would not let him have a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre.
+
+He was there with nothing to do and became irritable and occasionally
+brutally so. The baron was worried at the discontinuance of his
+studies. Jeanne, distracted at the idea of a separation, asked herself
+what they could do with him.
+
+One evening he did not come home. They learned that he had gone out in
+a boat with two sailors. His mother, beside herself with anxiety, went
+down to Yport without a hat in the dark. Some men were on the beach,
+waiting for the boat to come in. There was a light on board an
+incoming boat, but Paul was not on board. He had made them take him to
+Havre.
+
+The police sought him in vain; he could not be found. The woman with
+whom he had been found the first time had also disappeared without
+leaving any trace; her furniture was sold and her rent paid. In Paul's
+room at "The Poplars" were found two letters from this person, who
+seemed to be madly in love with him. She spoke of a voyage to England,
+having, she said, obtained the necessary funds.
+
+The three dwellers in the chateau lived silently and drearily, their
+minds tortured by all kinds of suppositions. Jeanne's hair, which had
+become gray, now turned perfectly white. She asked in her innocence
+why fate had thus afflicted her.
+
+She received a letter from the Abbe Tolbiac: "Madame, the hand of God
+is weighing heavily on you. You refused Him your child; He took him
+from you in His turn to cast him into the hands of a prostitute. Will
+not you open your eyes at this lesson from Heaven? God's mercy is
+infinite. Perhaps He may pardon you if you return and fall on your
+knees before Him. I am His humble servant. I will open to you the door
+of His dwelling when you come and knock at it."
+
+She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true
+what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment
+her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church
+the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at
+twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abbe,
+begged for absolution.
+
+He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all
+His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. "You will
+soon feel the effects of the divine mercy," he declared.
+
+Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in
+her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement
+of the consolation promised her by the abbe. The letter ran:
+
+"My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in
+very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have
+anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love
+with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave
+me--five thousand francs--and you see that I am bound in honor to
+return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind
+enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa's fortune, for I
+shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious
+difficulties.
+
+"Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also
+grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you soon.
+
+"Your son,
+
+"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
+
+He had written to her! He had not forgotten her then. She did not care
+anything about his asking for money! She would send him some as long
+as he had none. What did money matter? He had written to her! And she
+ran, weeping for joy, to show this letter to the baron. Aunt Lison was
+called and read over word by word this paper that told of him. They
+discussed each sentence.
+
+Jeanne, jumping from the most complete despair to a kind of
+intoxication of hope, took Paul's part. "He will come back, he will
+come back as he has written."
+
+The baron, more calm, said: "All the same he left us for that
+creature, so he must love her better than us, as he did not hesitate
+about it."
+
+A sudden and frightful pang struck Jeanne's heart, and immediately she
+was filled with hatred of this woman who had stolen her son from her,
+an unappeasable, savage hate, the hatred of a jealous mother. Until
+now all her thoughts had been given to Paul. She scarcely took into
+consideration that a girl had been the cause of his vagaries. But the
+baron's words had suddenly brought before her this rival, had revealed
+her fatal power, and she felt that between herself and this woman a
+struggle was about to begin, and she also felt that she would rather
+lose her son than share his affection with another. And all her joy
+was at an end.
+
+They sent him the fifteen thousand francs and heard nothing more from
+him for five months.
+
+Then a business man came to settle the details of Julien's
+inheritance. Jeanne and the baron handed over the accounts without any
+discussion, even giving up the interest that should come to his
+mother. When Paul came back to Paris he had a hundred and twenty
+thousand francs. He then wrote four letters in six months, giving his
+news in concise terms and ending the letters with coldly affectionate
+expressions. "I am working," he said; "I have obtained a position on
+the stock exchange. I hope to go and embrace you at 'The Poplars' some
+day, my dear parents."
+
+He did not mention his companion, and this silence implied more than
+if he had filled four pages with news of her. Jeanne, in these cold
+letters, felt this woman in ambush, the implacable, eternal enemy of
+mothers, the courtesan.
+
+The three lonely beings discussed the best plan to follow in order to
+rescue Paul, but could decide on nothing. A voyage to Paris? What good
+would it do?
+
+"Let his passion exhaust itself. He will come back then of his own
+accord," said the baron.
+
+Some time passed without any further news. But one morning they were
+terrified at the receipt of a despairing letter:
+
+"My Poor Mamma: I am lost. There is nothing left for me to do but to
+blow out my brains unless you come to my aid. A speculation that gave
+every prospect of success has fallen through, and I am eighty-five
+thousand dollars in debt. I shall be dishonored if I do not pay
+up--ruined--and it will henceforth be impossible for me to do
+anything. I am lost. I repeat that I would rather blow out my brains
+than undergo this disgrace. I should have done so already, probably,
+but for the encouragement of a woman of whom I never speak to you,
+and who is my providence.
+
+"I embrace you from the bottom of my heart, my dear mamma--perhaps for
+the last time. Good-by.
+
+"Paul."
+
+A package of business papers accompanying the letter gave the details
+of the failure.
+
+The baron answered by return mail that they would see what could be
+done. Then he set out for Havre to get advice and he mortgaged some
+property to raise the money which was sent to Paul.
+
+The young man wrote three letters full of the most heartfelt thanks
+and passionate affection, saying he was coming home at once to see his
+dear parents.
+
+But he did not come.
+
+A whole year passed. Jeanne and the baron were about to set out for
+Paris to try and make a last effort, when they received a line to say
+that he was in London again, setting an enterprise on foot in
+connection with steamboats under the name of "Paul de Lamare & Co." He
+wrote: "This will give me an assured fortune, and perhaps great
+wealth, and I am risking nothing. You can see at once what a splendid
+thing it is. When I see you again I shall have a fine position in
+society. There is nothing but business these days to help you out of
+difficulties."
+
+Three months later the steamboat company failed and the manager was
+being sought for on account of certain irregularities in business
+methods. Jeanne had a nervous attack that lasted several hours and
+then she took to her bed.
+
+The baron again went to Havre to make inquiries, saw some lawyers,
+some business men, some solicitors and bailiffs and found that the
+liabilities of the De Lamare concern were two hundred and thirty-five
+thousand francs, and he once more mortgaged some property. The chateau
+of "The Poplars" and the two farms and all that went with them were
+mortgaged for a large sum.
+
+One evening as he was arranging the final details in the office of a
+business man, he fell over on the floor with a stroke of apoplexy.
+
+A man was sent on horseback to notify Jeanne, but when she arrived he
+was dead.
+
+She took his body back to "The Poplars," so overcome that her grief
+was numbness rather than despair.
+
+Abbe Tolbiac refused to permit the body to be brought to the church,
+despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was
+interred at twilight without any religious ceremony.
+
+Paul learned of the event through one of the men who was settling up
+his affairs. He was still in hiding in England. He wrote to make
+excuses for not having come home, saying that he had learned of his
+grandfather's death too late. "However, now that you have helped me
+out of my difficulties, my dear mamma, I shall go back to France and
+hope to embrace you soon."
+
+Jeanne was so crushed in spirit that she appeared not to understand
+anything. Toward the end of the winter Aunt Lison, who was now
+sixty-eight, had an attack of bronchitis that developed into pneumonia,
+and she died quietly, murmuring with her last breath: "My poor
+little Jeanne, I will ask God to take pity on you."
+
+Jeanne followed her to the grave, and as the earth fell on her coffin
+she sank to the ground, wishing that she might die also, so as not to
+suffer, to think. A strong peasant woman lifted her up and carried her
+away as if she had been a child.
+
+When she reached the chateau Jeanne, who had spent the last five
+nights at Aunt Lison's bedside, allowed herself to be put to bed
+without resistance by this unknown peasant woman, who handled her with
+gentleness and firmness, and she fell asleep from exhaustion, overcome
+with weariness and suffering.
+
+She awoke about the middle of the night. A night light was burning on
+the mantelpiece. A woman was asleep in her easy chair. Who was this
+woman? She did not recognize her, and leaning over the edge of her
+bed, she sought to examine her features by the dim light of the wick
+floating in oil in a tumbler of water.
+
+It seemed to her that she had seen this face. But when, but where? The
+woman was sleeping peacefully, her head to one side and her cap on the
+floor. She might be about forty or forty-five. She was stout, with a
+high color, squarely built and powerful. Her large hands hung down at
+either side of the chair. Her hair was turning gray. Jeanne looked at
+her fixedly, her mind in the disturbed condition of one awaking from a
+feverish sleep after a great sorrow.
+
+She had certainly seen this face! Was it in former days? Was it of
+late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her
+nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping
+woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up
+in the cemetery and then put her to bed. She remembered this
+confusedly.
+
+But had she met her elsewhere at some other time of her life or did
+she only imagine she recognized her amid the confused recollections of
+the day before? And how did she come to be there in her room and why?
+
+The woman opened her eyes and, seeing Jeanne, she rose to her feet
+suddenly. They stood face to face, so close that they touched one
+another. The stranger said crossly: "What! are you up? You will be
+ill, getting up at this time of night. Go back to bed!"
+
+"Who are you?" asked Jeanne.
+
+But the woman, opening her arms, picked her up and carried her back to
+her bed with the strength of a man. And as she laid her down gently
+and drew the covers over her, she leaned over close to Jeanne and,
+weeping as she did so, she kissed her passionately on the cheeks, her
+hair, her eyes, the tears falling on her face as she stammered out:
+"My poor mistress, Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress, don't you
+recognize me?"
+
+"Rosalie, my girl!" cried Jeanne, throwing her arms round her neck and
+hugging her as she kissed her, and they sobbed together, clasped in
+each other's arms.
+
+Rosalie was the first to regain her calmness. "Come," she said, "you
+must be sensible and not catch cold." And she covered her up warm and
+straightened the pillow under her former mistress' head. The latter
+continued to sob, trembling all over at the recollections that were
+awakened in her mind. She finally inquired: "How did you come back, my
+poor girl?"
+
+"Pardi! do you suppose I was going to leave you all alone like that,
+now?" replied Rosalie.
+
+"Light a candle, so I may see you," said Jeanne. And when the candle
+was brought to the bedside they looked at each other for some time
+without speaking a word. Then Jeanne, holding out her hand to her
+former maid, murmured: "I should not have recognized you, my girl, you
+have changed greatly; did you know it? But not as much as I have." And
+Rosalie, looking at this white-haired woman, thin and faded, whom she
+had left a beautiful and fresh young woman, said: "That is true, you
+have changed, Madame Jeanne, and more than you should. But remember,
+however, that we have not seen each other for twenty-five years."
+
+They were silent, thinking over the past. At length Jeanne said
+hesitatingly: "Have you been happy?"
+
+Rosalie, fearful of awakening certain painful souvenirs, stammered
+out: "Why--yes--yes--madame. I have nothing much to complain of. I
+have been happier than you have--that is sure. There was only one
+thing that always weighed on my heart, and that was that I did not
+stay here--" And she stopped suddenly, sorry she had referred to that
+unintentionally. But Jeanne replied gently: "How could you help it, my
+girl? One cannot always do as they wish. You are a widow now, also,
+are you not?" Then her voice trembled with emotion as she said: "Have
+you other--other children?"
+
+"No, madame."
+
+"And he--your--your boy--what has become of him? Has he turned out
+well?"
+
+"Yes, madame, he is a good boy and works industriously. He has been
+married for six months, and he can take my farm now, since I have come
+back to you."
+
+Jeanne murmured in a trembling voice: "Then you will never leave me
+again, my girl?"
+
+"No, indeed, madame, I have arranged all that."
+
+Jeanne, in spite of herself, began to compare their lives, but without
+any bitterness, for she was now resigned to the unjust cruelty of
+fate. She said: "And your husband, how did he treat you?"
+
+"Oh, he was a good man, madame, and not lazy; he knew how to make
+money. He died of consumption."
+
+Then Jeanne, sitting up in bed, filled with a longing to know more,
+said: "Come, tell me everything, my girl, all about your life. It will
+do me good just now."
+
+Rosalie, drawing up her chair, began to tell about herself, her home,
+her people, entering into those minute details dear to country people,
+describing her yard, laughing at some old recollection that reminded
+her of good times she had had, and raising her voice by degrees like a
+farmer's wife accustomed to command. She ended by saying: "Oh, I am
+well off now. I don't have to worry." Then she became confused again,
+and said in a lower tone: "It is to you that I owe it, anyhow; and you
+know I do not want any wages. No, indeed! No, indeed! And if you will
+not have it so, I will go."
+
+Jeanne replied: "You do not mean that you are going to serve me for
+nothing?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, madame. Money! You give me money! Why, I have almost
+as much as you. Do you know what is left to you will all your jumble
+of mortgages and borrowing, and interests unpaid which are mounting up
+every year? Do you know? No, is it not so? Well, then, I can promise
+you that you have not even ten thousand francs income. Not ten
+thousand, do you understand? But I will settle all that for you, and
+very quickly."
+
+She had begun talking loud again, carried away in her indignation at
+these interests left unpaid, at this threatening ruin. And as a faint,
+tender smile passed over the face of her mistress, she cried in a tone
+of annoyance: "You must not laugh, madame, for without money we are
+nothing but laborers."
+
+Jeanne took hold of her hands and kept them in her own; then she said
+slowly, still full of the idea that haunted her: "Oh, I have had no
+luck. Everything has gone against me. Fate has a grudge against my
+life."
+
+But Rosalie shook her head: "You must not say that, madame. You
+married badly, that's all. One should not marry like that, anyway,
+without knowing anything about one's intended."
+
+And they went on talking about themselves just as two old friends
+might have done.
+
+The sun rose while they were still talking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A NEW HOME
+
+In a week's time Rosalie had taken absolute control of everything and
+everyone in the chateau. Jeanne was quite resigned and obeyed
+passively. Weak and dragging her feet as she walked, as little mother
+had formerly done, she went out walking leaning on Rosalie's arm, the
+latter lecturing her and consoling her with abrupt and tender words as
+they walked slowly along, treating her mistress as though she were a
+sick child.
+
+They always talked of bygone days, Jeanne with tears in her throat,
+and Rosalie in the quiet tone of a phlegmatic peasant. The servant
+kept referring to the subject of unpaid interests; and at last
+requested Jeanne to give her up all the business papers that Jeanne,
+in her ignorance of money matters, was hiding from her, out of
+consideration for her son.
+
+After that, for a week, Rosalie went to Fecamp every day to have
+matters explained to her by a lawyer whom she knew.
+
+One evening, after having put her mistress to bed, she sat down by the
+bedside and said abruptly: "Now that you are settled quietly, madame,
+we will have a chat." And she told her exactly how matters stood.
+
+When everything was settled, there would be about seven thousand
+francs of income left, no more.
+
+"We cannot help it, my girl," said Jeanne. "I feel that I shall not
+make old bones, and there will be quite enough for me."
+
+But Rosalie was annoyed: "For you, madame, it might be; but M.
+Paul--will you leave nothing for him?"
+
+Jeanne shuddered. "I beg you not to mention him again. It hurts me too
+much to think about him."
+
+"But I wish to speak about him, because you see you are not brave,
+Madame Jeanne. He does foolish things. Well! what of it? He will not
+do so always; and then he will marry and have children. He will need
+money to bring them up. Pay attention to me: you must sell 'The
+Poplars.'"
+
+Jeanne sprang up in a sitting posture. "Sell 'The Poplars'! Do you
+mean it? Oh, never, never!"
+
+But Rosalie was not disturbed. "I tell you that you will sell the
+place, madame, because it must be done." And then she explained her
+calculations, her plans, her reasons.
+
+Once they had sold "The Poplars" and the two farms belonging to it to
+a buyer whom she had found, they would keep four farms situated at St.
+Leonard, which, free of all mortgage, would bring in an income of
+eight thousand three hundred francs. They would set aside thirteen
+hundred francs a year for repairs and for the upkeep of the property;
+there would then remain seven thousand francs, five thousand of which
+would cover the annual expenditures and the other two thousand would
+be put away for a rainy day.
+
+She added: "All the rest has been squandered; there is an end of it.
+And then I am to keep the key, you understand. As for M. Paul, he will
+have nothing left, nothing; he would take your last sou from you."
+
+Jeanne, who was weeping silently, murmured:
+
+"But if he has nothing to eat?"
+
+"He can come and eat with us if he is hungry. There will always be a
+bed and some stew for him. Do you believe he would have acted as he
+has done if you had not given him a sou in the first place?"
+
+"But he was in debt, he would have been disgraced."
+
+"When you have nothing left, will that prevent him from making fresh
+debts? You have paid his debts, that is all right; but you will not
+pay any more; it is I who am telling you this. Now goodnight, madame."
+
+And she left the room.
+
+Jeanne did not sleep, she was so upset at the idea of selling "The
+Poplars," of going away, of leaving this house to which all her life
+was linked.
+
+When Rosalie came into the room next morning she said to her: "My poor
+girl, I never could make up my mind to go away from here."
+
+But the servant grew angry: "It will have to be, however, madame; the
+lawyer will soon be here with the man who wants to buy the chateau.
+Otherwise, in four years you will not have a rap left."
+
+Jeanne was crushed, and repeated: "I could not do it; I never could."
+
+An hour later the postman brought her a letter from Paul asking for
+ten thousand francs. What should she do? At her wit's end, she
+consulted Rosalie, who threw up her hands, exclaiming: "What was I
+telling you, madame? Ah! You would have been in a nice fix, both of
+you, if I had not come back." And Jeanne, bending to her servant's
+will, wrote as follows to the young man:
+
+"My Dear Son: I can do nothing more for you. You have ruined me; I am
+even obliged to sell 'The Poplars.' But never forget that I shall
+always have a home whenever you want to seek shelter with your old
+mother, to whom you have caused much suffering. Jeanne."
+
+When the notary arrived with M. Jeoffrin, a retired sugar refiner, she
+received them herself, and invited them to look over the chateau.
+
+A month later, she signed a deed of sale, and also bought herself a
+little cottage in the neighborhood of Goderville, on the high road to
+Montiviliers, in the hamlet of Batteville.
+
+Then she walked up and down all alone until evening, in little
+mother's avenue, with a sore heart and troubled mind, bidding
+distracted and sobbing farewells to the landscape, the trees, the
+rustic bench under the plane tree, to all those things she knew so
+well and that seemed to have become part of her vision and her soul,
+the grove, the mound overlooking the plain, where she had so often
+sat, and from where she had seen the Comte de Fourville running toward
+the sea on that terrible day of Julian's death, to an old elm whose
+upper branches were missing, against which she had often leaned, and
+to all this familiar garden spot.
+
+Rosalie came out and took her by the arm to make her come into the
+house.
+
+A tall young peasant of twenty-five was waiting outside the door. He
+greeted her in a friendly manner as if he had known her for some time:
+"Good-morning, Madame Jeanne. I hope you are well. Mother told me to
+come and help you move. I would like to know what you are going to
+take away, seeing that I shall do it from time to time so as not to
+interfere with my farm work."
+
+It was her maid's son, Julien's son, Paul's brother.
+
+She felt as if her heart stopped beating; and yet she would have liked
+to embrace this young fellow.
+
+She looked at him, trying to find some resemblance to her husband or
+to her son. He was ruddy, vigorous, with fair hair and his mother's
+blue eyes. And yet he looked like Julien. In what way? How? She could
+not have told, but there was something like him in the whole makeup of
+his face.
+
+The young man resumed: "If you could show me at once, I should be much
+obliged."
+
+But she had not yet decided what she was going to take with her, as
+her new home was very small; and she begged him to come back again at
+the end of the week.
+
+She was now entirely occupied with getting ready to move, which
+brought a little variety into her very dreary and hopeless life. She
+went from room to room, picking out the furniture which recalled
+episodes in her life, old friends, as it were, who have a share in our
+life and almost of our being, whom we have known since childhood, and
+to which are linked our happy or sad recollections, dates in our
+history; silent companions of our sad or sombre hours, who have grown
+old and become worn at our side, their covers torn in places, their
+joints shaky, their color faded.
+
+She selected them, one by one, sometimes hesitating and troubled, as
+if she were taking some important step, changing her mind every
+instant, weighing the merits of two easy chairs or of some old
+writing-desk and an old work table.
+
+She opened the drawers, sought to recall things; then, when she had
+said to herself, "Yes, I will take this," the article was taken down
+into the dining-room.
+
+She wished to keep all the furniture of her room, her bed, her
+tapestries, her clock, everything.
+
+She took away some of the parlor chairs, those that she had loved as a
+little child; the fox and the stork, the fox and the crow, the ant and
+the grasshopper, and the melancholy heron.
+
+Then, while wandering about in all the corners of this dwelling she
+was going to forsake, she went one day up into the loft, where she was
+filled with amazement; it was a chaos of articles of every kind, some
+broken, others tarnished only, others taken up there for no special
+reason probably, except that they were tired of them or that they had
+been replaced by others. She saw numberless knick-knacks that she
+remembered, and that had disappeared suddenly, trifles that she had
+handled, those old little insignificant articles that she had seen
+every day without noticing, but which now, discovered in this loft,
+assumed an importance as of forgotten relics, of friends that she had
+found again.
+
+She went from one to the other of them with a little pang, saying:
+"Why, it was I who broke that china cup a few evenings before my
+wedding. Ah! there is mother's little lantern and a cane that little
+father broke in trying to open the gate when the wood was swollen with
+the rain."
+
+There were also a number of things that she did not remember that had
+belonged to her grandparents or to their parents, dusty things that
+appeared to be exiled in a period that is not their own, and that
+looked sad at their abandonment, and whose history, whose experiences
+no one knows, for they never saw those who chose them, bought them,
+owned them, and loved them; never knew the hands that had touched them
+familiarly, and the eyes that looked at them with delight.
+
+Jeanne examined carefully three-legged chairs to see if they recalled
+any memories, a copper warming pan, a damaged foot stove that she
+thought she remembered, and a number of housekeeping utensils unfit
+for use.
+
+She then put together all the things she wished to take, and going
+downstairs, sent Rosalie up to get them. The servant indignantly
+refused to bring down "that rubbish." But Jeanne, who had not much
+will left, held her own this time, and had to be obeyed.
+
+One morning the young farmer, Julien's son, Denis Lecoq, came with his
+wagon for the first load. Rosalie went back with him in order to
+superintend the unloading and placing of furniture where it was to
+stand.
+
+Rosalie had come back and was waiting for Jeanne, who had been out on
+the cliff. She was enchanted with the new house, declaring it was much
+more cheerful than this old box of a building, which was not even on
+the side of the road.
+
+Jeanne wept all the evening.
+
+Ever since they heard that the chateau was sold, the farmers were not
+more civil to her than necessary, calling her among themselves "the
+crazy woman," without knowing exactly why, but doubtless because they
+guessed with their animal instinct at her morbid and increasing
+sentimentality, at all the disturbance of her poor mind that had
+undergone so much sorrow.
+
+The night before they left she chanced to go into the stable. A growl
+made her start. It was Massacre, whom she had hardly thought of for
+months. Blind and paralyzed, having reached a great age for an animal,
+he existed in a straw bed, taken care of by Ludivine, who never forgot
+him. She took him in her arms, kissed him, and carried him into the
+house. As big as a barrel, he could scarcely carry himself along on
+his stiff legs, and he barked like the wooden dogs that one gives to
+children.
+
+The day of departure finally came. Jeanne had slept in Julien's old
+room, as hers was dismantled. She got up exhausted and short of breath
+as if she had been running. The carriage containing the trunks and the
+rest of the furniture was in the yard ready to start. Another
+two-wheeled vehicle was to take Jeanne and the servant. Old Simon and
+Ludivine were to stay until the arrival of a new proprietor, and then
+to go to some of their relations, Jeanne having provided a little
+income for them. They had also saved up some money, and being now very
+old and garrulous, they were not of much use in the house. Marius had
+long since married and left.
+
+About eight o'clock it began to rain, a fine icy rain, driven by a
+light breeze. On the kitchen table, some cups of cafe au lait were
+steaming. Jeanne sat down and sipped hers, then rising, she said,
+"Come along."
+
+She put on her hat and shawl, and while Rosalie was putting on her
+overshoes, she said in a choking voice: "Do you remember, my girl, how
+it rained when we left Rouen to come here?"
+
+As she said this, she put her two hands to her breast and fell over on
+her back, unconscious. She remained thus over an hour, apparently
+dead. Then she opened her eyes and was seized with convulsions
+accompanied by floods of tears.
+
+When she was a little calmer she was so weak that she could not stand
+up, and Rosalie, fearing another attack if they delayed their
+departure, went to look for her son. They took her up and carried her
+to the carriage, placed her on the wooden bench covered with leather;
+and the old servant got in beside her, wrapped her up with a big
+cloak, and holding an umbrella over her head, cried: "Quick, Denis,
+let us be off." The young man climbed up beside his mother and whipped
+up the horse, whose jerky pace made the two women bounce about
+vigorously.
+
+As they turned the corner to enter the village, they saw some one
+stalking along the road; it was Abbe Tolbiac, who seemed to be
+watching for them to go by. He stopped to let the carriage pass. He
+was holding up his cassock with one hand, to keep it out of the mud,
+and his thin legs, encased in black stockings, ended in a pair of
+enormous muddy shoes.
+
+Jeanne lowered her eyes so as not to meet his glance, and Rosalie, who
+had heard all about him, flew into a rage. "Peasant! Peasant!" she
+murmured; and then seizing her son's hand: "Give him a good slash with
+the whip."
+
+But the young man, just as they were passing the priest, made the
+wheel of the wagon, which was going at full speed, sink into a rut,
+splashing the abbe with mud from head to foot.
+
+Rosalie was delighted and turned round to shake her fist at him, while
+the priest was wiping off the mud with his big handkerchief.
+
+All at once Jeanne exclaimed: "We have forgotten Massacre!" They
+stopped, and, getting down, Denis ran to fetch the dog, while Rosalie
+held the reins. He presently reappeared, carrying in his arms the
+shapeless and crippled animal, which he placed at the feet of the two
+women.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+JEANNE IN PARIS
+
+Two hours later the carriage stopped at a little brick house built in
+the middle of a lot planted with pear trees at the side of the high
+road.
+
+Four trellised arbors covered with honeysuckle and clematis formed the
+four corners of the garden, which was divided into little beds of
+vegetables separated by narrow paths bordered with fruit trees.
+
+A very high box hedge enclosed the whole property, which was separated
+by a field from the neighboring farm. There was a blacksmith's shop
+about a hundred feet further along the road. There were no other
+houses within three-quarters of a mile.
+
+The house commanded a view of the level district of Caux, covered with
+farms surrounded by their four double rows of tall trees which
+enclosed the courtyard planted with apple trees.
+
+As soon as they reached the house, Jeanne wanted to rest; but Rosalie
+would not allow her to do so for fear she would begin to think of the
+past.
+
+The carpenter from Goderville was there, and they began at once to
+place the furniture that had already arrived while waiting for the
+last load. This required a good deal of thought and planning.
+
+At the end of an hour the wagon appeared at the gate and had to be
+unloaded in the rain. When night fell the house was in utter disorder,
+with things piled up anyhow. Jeanne, tired out, fell asleep as soon as
+she got into bed.
+
+She had no time to mourn for some days, as there was so much to be
+done. She even took a certain pleasure in making her new house look
+pretty, the thought that her son would come back there haunting her
+continually. The tapestries from her old room were hung in the
+dining-room, which also had to serve as a parlor; and she took special
+pains with one of the two rooms on the first floor, which she thought
+of as "Poulet's room."
+
+She kept the other room herself, Rosalie sleeping above, next to the
+loft. The little house, furnished with care, was very pretty, and
+Jeanne was happy there at first, although she seemed to lack
+something, but she did not know what.
+
+One morning the lawyer's clerk from Fecamp brought her three thousand
+six hundred francs, the price of the furniture left at "The Poplars,"
+and valued by an upholsterer. She had a little thrill of pleasure at
+receiving this money, and as soon as the man had gone, she ran to put
+on her hat, so as to get to Goderville as quickly as possible to send
+Paul this unexpected sum.
+
+But as she was hurrying along the high road she met Rosalie coming
+from market. The servant suspected something, without at once guessing
+the facts; and when she discovered them, for Jeanne could hide nothing
+from her, she placed her basket on the ground that she might get angry
+with more comfort.
+
+She began to scold with her fists on her hips; then taking hold of her
+mistress with her right arm and taking her basket in her left, and
+still fuming, she continued on her way to the house.
+
+As soon as they were in the house the servant asked to have the money
+handed over to her. Jeanne gave all but six hundred francs, which she
+held back; but Rosalie soon saw through her tricks, and she was
+obliged to hand it all over. However, she consented to her sending
+this amount to the young man.
+
+A few days later he wrote: "You have rendered me a great service, my
+dear mother, for we were in the greatest distress."
+
+Jeanne, however, could not get accustomed to Batteville. It seemed to
+her as if she could not breathe as she did formerly, that she was more
+lonely, more deserted, more lost than ever. She went out for a walk,
+got as far as the hamlet of Verneuil, came back by the Trois-Mares,
+came home, then suddenly wanted to start out again, as if she had
+forgotten to go to the very place she intended.
+
+And every day she did the same thing without knowing why. But one
+evening a thought came to her unconsciously which revealed to her the
+secret of her restlessness. She said as she was sitting down to
+dinner: "Oh, how I long to see the sea!"
+
+That was what she had missed so greatly, the sea, her big neighbor for
+twenty-five years, the sea with its salt air, its rages, its scolding
+voice, its strong breezes, the sea which she sought from her window at
+"The Poplars" every morning, whose air she breathed day and night, the
+sea which she felt close to her, which she had taken to loving
+unconsciously as she would a person.
+
+Winter was approaching, and Jeanne felt herself overcome by an
+unconquerable discouragement. It was not one of those acute griefs
+which seemed to wring the heart, but a dreary, mournful sadness.
+
+Nothing roused her. No one paid any attention to her. The high road
+before her door stretched to right and left with hardly any passersby.
+Occasionally a dogcart passed rapidly, driven by a red-faced man, with
+his blouse puffed out by the wind, making a sort of blue balloon;
+sometimes a slow-moving wagon, or else two peasants, a man and a
+woman, who came near, passed by, and disappeared in the distance.
+
+As soon as the grass began to grow again, a young girl in a short
+skirt passed by the gate every morning with two thin cows who browsed
+along the side of the road. She came back every evening with the same
+sleepy face, making a step every ten minutes as she walked behind the
+animals.
+
+Jeanne dreamed every night that she was still at "The Poplars." She
+seemed to be there with father and little mother, and sometimes even
+with Aunt Lison. She did over again things forgotten and done with,
+thought she was supporting Madame Adelaide in her walk along the
+avenue. And each awakening was attended with tears.
+
+She thought continually of Paul, wondering what he was doing--how he
+was--whether he sometimes thought of her. As she walked slowly in the
+by-roads between the farms, she thought over all these things which
+tormented her, but above all else, she cherished an intense jealousy
+of the woman who had stolen her son from her. It was this hatred alone
+which prevented her from taking any steps, from going to look for him,
+to see him. It seemed to her that she saw that woman standing on the
+doorsill asking: "What do you want here, madame?" Her mother's pride
+revolted at the possibility of such a meeting. And her haughty pride
+of a good woman whose character is blameless made her all the more
+indignant at the cowardice of a man subjugated by an unworthy passion.
+
+When autumn returned with its long rains, its gray sky, its dark
+clouds, such a weariness of this kind of life came over her that she
+determined to make a great effort to get her Poulet back; he must have
+got over his infatuation by this time.
+
+She wrote him an imploring letter:
+
+"My Dear Child: I am going to entreat you to come back to me. Remember
+that I am old and delicate, all alone the whole year round except for
+a servant maid. I am now living in a little house on the main road. It
+is very lonely, but if you were here all would be different for me. I
+have only you in the world, and I have not seen you for seven years!
+You were my life, my dream, my only hope, my one love, and you failed
+me, you deserted me!
+
+"Oh, come back, my little Poulet--come and embrace me. Come back to
+your old mother, who holds out her despairing arms towards you.
+
+"Jeanne."
+
+He replied a few days later:
+
+"My Dear Mother: I would ask nothing better than to go and see you,
+but I have not a penny. Send me some money and I will come. I wanted,
+in any case, to see you to talk to you about a plan that would make it
+possible for me to do as you ask.
+
+"The disinterestedness and love of the one who has been my companion
+in the dark days through which I have passed can never be forgotten by
+me. It is not possible for me to remain any longer without publicly
+recognizing her love and her faithful devotion. She has very pleasing
+manners, which you would appreciate. She is also educated and reads a
+good deal. In fact, you cannot understand what she has been to me. I
+should be a brute if I did not show her my gratitude. I am going,
+therefore, to ask you to give me your permission to marry her. You
+will forgive all my follies and we will all live together in your new
+house.
+
+"If you knew her you would at once give your consent. I can assure you
+that she is perfect and very distingue. You will love her, I am sure.
+As for me, I could not live without her.
+
+"I shall expect your reply with impatience, my dear mother, and we
+both embrace you with all our heart.
+
+"Your son,
+
+"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
+
+Jeanne was crushed. She remained motionless, the letter on her lap,
+seeing through the cunning of this girl who had had such a hold on her
+son for so long, and had not let him come to see her once, biding her
+time until the despairing old mother could no longer resist the desire
+to clasp her son in her arms, and would weaken and grant all they
+asked.
+
+And grief at Paul's persistent preference for this creature wrung her
+heart. She said: "He does not love me. He does not love me."
+
+Rosalie just then entered the room. Jeanne faltered: "He wants to
+marry her now."
+
+The maid was startled. "Oh, madame, you will not allow that. M. Paul
+must not pick up that rubbish."
+
+And Jeanne, overcome with emotion, but indignant, replied: "Never
+that, my girl. And as he will not come here, I am going to see him,
+myself, and we shall see which of us will carry the day."
+
+She wrote at once to Paul to prepare him for her visit, and to arrange
+to meet him elsewhere than in the house inhabited by that baggage.
+
+While awaiting a reply she made her preparations for departure.
+Rosalie began to pack her mistress' clothes in an old trunk, but as
+she was folding a dress, one of those she had worn in the country, she
+exclaimed: "Why, you have nothing to put on your back. I will not
+allow you to go like that. You would be a disgrace to everyone; and
+the Parisian ladies would take you for a servant."
+
+Jeanne let her have her own way, and the two women went together to
+Goderville to choose some material, which was given a dressmaker in
+the village. Then they went to the lawyer, M. Roussel, who spent a
+fortnight in the capital every year, in order to get some information;
+for Jeanne had not been in Paris for twenty-eight years.
+
+He gave them lots of advice on how to avoid being run over, on methods
+of protecting yourself from thieves, advising her to sew her money up
+inside the lining of her coat, and to keep in her pocket only what she
+absolutely needed. He spoke at length about moderate priced
+restaurants, and mentioned two or three patronized by women, and told
+them that they might mention his name at the Hotel Normandie.
+
+Jeanne had never yet seen the railroad, though trains had been running
+between Paris and Havre for six years, and were revolutionizing the
+whole country.
+
+She received no answer from Paul, although she waited a week, then two
+weeks, going every morning to meet the postman, asking him
+hesitatingly: "Is there anything for me, Pere Malandain?" And the man
+always replied in his hoarse voice: "Nothing again, my good lady."
+
+It certainly must be this woman who was keeping Paul from writing.
+
+Jeanne, therefore, determined to set out at once. She wanted to take
+Rosalie with her, but the maid refused for fear of increasing the
+expense of the journey. She did not allow her mistress to take more
+than three hundred francs, saying: "If you need more you can write to
+me and I will go to the lawyer and ask him to send it to you. If I
+give you any more, M. Paul will put it in his pocket."
+
+One December morning Denis Lecoq came for them in his light wagon and
+took them to the station. Jeanne wept as she kissed Rosalie good-by,
+and got into the train. Rosalie was also affected and said: "Good-by,
+madame, bon voyage, and come back soon!"
+
+"Good-by, my girl."
+
+A whistle and the train was off, beginning slowly and gradually going
+with a speed that terrified Jeanne. In her compartment there were two
+gentlemen leaning back in the two corners of the carriage.
+
+She looked at the country as they swept past, the trees, the farms,
+the villages, feeling herself carried into a new life, into a new
+world that was no longer the life of her tranquil youth and of her
+present monotonous existence.
+
+She reached Paris that evening. A commissionaire took her trunk and
+she followed him in great fear, jostled by the crowd and not knowing
+how to make her way amid this mass of moving humanity, almost running
+to keep up with the man for fear of losing sight of him.
+
+On reaching the hotel she said at the desk: "I was recommended here by
+M. Roussel."
+
+The proprietress, an immense woman with a serious face, who was seated
+at the desk, inquired:
+
+"Who is he--M. Roussel?"
+
+Jeanne replied in amazement: "Why, he is the lawyer at Goderville, who
+stops here every year."
+
+"That's very possible," said the big woman, "but I do not know him. Do
+you wish a room?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+A boy took her satchel and led the way upstairs. She felt a pang at
+her heart. Sitting down at a little table she sent for some luncheon,
+as she had eaten nothing since daybreak. As she ate, she was thinking
+sadly of a thousand things, recalling her stay here on the return from
+her wedding journey, and the first indication of Julien's character
+betrayed while they were in Paris. But she was young then, and
+confident and brave. Now she felt old, embarrassed, even timid, weak
+and disturbed at trifles. When she had finished her luncheon she went
+over to the window and looked down on the street filled with people.
+She wished to go out, but was afraid to do so. She would surely get
+lost. She went to bed, but the noise, the feeling of being in a
+strange city, kept her awake. About two o'clock in the morning, just
+as she was dozing off, she heard a woman scream in an adjoining room;
+she sat up in bed and then she thought she heard a man laugh. As
+daylight dawned the thought of Paul came to her, and she dressed
+herself before it was light.
+
+Paul lived in the Rue du Sauvage, in the old town. She wanted to go
+there on foot so as to carry out Rosalie's economical advice. The
+weather was delightful, the air cold enough to make her skin tingle.
+People were hurrying along the sidewalks. She walked as fast as she
+could, according to directions given her, along a street, at the end
+of which she was to turn to the right and then to the left, when she
+would come to a square where she must make fresh inquiries. She did
+not find the square, and went into a baker's to ask her way, and he
+directed her differently. She started off again, went astray, inquired
+her way again, and finally got lost completely.
+
+Half crazy, she now walked at random. She had made up her mind to call
+a cab, when she caught sight of the Seine. She then walked along the
+quays.
+
+After about an hour she found the Rue Sauvage, a sort of dark alley.
+She stopped at a door, so overcome that she could not move.
+
+He was there, in that house--Poulet.
+
+She felt her knees and hands trembling; but at last she entered the
+door, and walking along a passage, saw the janitor's quarters. She
+said, as she held out a piece of money: "Would you go up and tell M.
+Paul de Lamare that an old lady, a friend of his mother's, is
+downstairs, and wishes to see him?"
+
+"He does not live here any longer, madame," replied the janitor.
+
+A shudder went over her. She faltered:
+
+"Oh! Where--where is he living now?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+She grew dizzy as though she were about to fall over, and stood there
+for some moments without being able to speak. At length, with a great
+effort, she collected her senses and murmured:
+
+"How long is it since he left?"
+
+"About two weeks ago. They went off like that, one evening, and never
+came back. They were in debt everywhere in the neighborhood, so you
+can understand that they did not care to leave their address."
+
+Jeanne saw lights before her eyes, flashes of flame, as though a gun
+had been fired off in front of her eyes. But she had one fixed idea in
+her mind, and that sustained her, and kept her outwardly calm and
+rational. She wished to find Poulet and know all about him.
+
+"Then he said nothing when he was going away?"
+
+"Nothing at all; they ran off to escape their debts, that's all."
+
+"But he surely sends someone to get his mail."
+
+"More frequently than I send it. He never got more than ten letters a
+year. I took one up to them, however, two days before they left."
+
+That was probably her letter. She said abruptly: "Listen! I am his
+mother, his own mother, and I have come to look for him. Here are ten
+francs for you. If you can get any news or any particulars about him,
+come and see me at the Hotel Normandie, Rue du Havre, and I will pay
+you well."
+
+"You may count on me, madame," he replied.
+
+She left him and began to walk away without caring whither she went.
+She hurried along as though she were on some important business,
+knocking up against people with packages, crossing the streets without
+paying attention to the approaching vehicles, and being sworn at by
+the drivers, stumbling on the curb of the sidewalk, and tearing along
+straight ahead in utter despair.
+
+All at once she found herself in a garden, and was so tired that she
+sat down on a bench to rest. She stayed there some time apparently,
+weeping without being conscious of it, for passersby stopped to look
+at her. Then she felt very cold, and rose to go on her way; but her
+legs would scarcely carry her, she was so weak and distressed.
+
+She wanted to go into a restaurant and get a cup of bouillon, but a
+sort of shame, of fear, of modesty at her grief being observed held
+her back. She would pause at the door, look in, see all the people
+sitting at table eating, and would turn away, saying: "I will go into
+the next one." But she had not the courage.
+
+Finally she went into a bakery and bought a crescent and ate it as she
+walked along. She was very thirsty, but did not know where to go to
+get something to drink, so did without it.
+
+Presently she found herself in another garden surrounded by arcades.
+She recognized the Palais Royal. Being tired and warm, she sat down
+here for an hour or two.
+
+A crowd of people came in, a well-dressed crowd, chatting, smiling,
+bowing to each other, that happy crowd of beautiful women and wealthy
+men who live only for dress and amusement. Jeanne felt bewildered in
+the midst of this brilliant assemblage, and got up to make her escape.
+But suddenly the thought came to her that she might meet Paul in this
+place; and she began to wander about, looking into the faces, going
+and coming incessantly with her quick step from one end of the garden
+to the other.
+
+People turned round to look at her, others laughed as they pointed her
+out. She noticed it and fled, thinking that they were doubtless amused
+at her appearance and at her dress of green plaid, selected by
+Rosalie, and made according to her ideas by the dressmaker at
+Goderville.
+
+She no longer dared even to ask her way of passersby, but at last she
+ventured to do so and found her way back to the hotel.
+
+The following day she went to the police department to ask them to
+look for her child. They could promise her nothing, but said they
+would do all they could. She wandered about the streets hoping that
+she might come across him. And she felt more alone in this bustling
+crowd, more lost, more wretched than in the lonely country.
+
+That evening when she came back to the hotel she was informed that a
+man had come to see her from M. Paul, and that he would come back
+again the following day. Her heart began to beat violently and she
+never closed her eyes that night. If it should be he! Yes, it
+assuredly was, although she would not have recognized him from the
+description they gave her.
+
+About nine o'clock the following morning there was a knock at the
+door. She cried: "Come in!" ready to throw herself into certain
+outstretched arms. But an unknown person appeared; and while he
+excused himself for disturbing her, and explained his business, which
+was to collect a debt of Paul's, she felt the tears beginning to
+overflow, and wiped them away with her finger before they fell on her
+cheeks.
+
+He had learned of her arrival through the janitor of the Rue Sauvage,
+and as he could not find the young man, he had come to see his mother.
+He handed her a paper, which she took without knowing what she was
+doing and read the figures--ninety francs--which she paid without a
+word.
+
+She did not go out that day.
+
+The next day other creditors came. She gave them all that she had left
+except twenty francs and then wrote to Rosalie to explain matters to
+her.
+
+She passed her days wandering about, waiting for Rosalie's answer, not
+knowing what to do, how to kill the melancholy, interminable hours,
+having no one to whom she could say an affectionate word, no one who
+knew her sorrow. She now longed to return home to her little house at
+the side of the lonely high road. A few days before she thought she
+could not live there, she was so overcome with grief, and now she felt
+that she could never live anywhere else but there where her serious
+character had been formed.
+
+One evening the letter at last came, enclosing two hundred francs.
+Rosalie wrote:
+
+"Madame Jeanne: Come back at once, for I shall not send you any more.
+As for M. Paul, it is I who will go and get him when we know where he
+is.
+
+"With respect, your servant,
+
+"Rosalie."
+
+Jeanne set out for Batteville one very cold, snowy morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
+
+Jeanne never went out now, never stirred about. She rose at the same
+hour every day, looked out at the weather and then went downstairs and
+sat before the parlor fire.
+
+She would remain for days motionless, gazing into the fire, thinking
+of nothing in particular. It would grow dark before she stirred,
+except to put a fresh log on the fire. Rosalie would then bring in the
+lamp and exclaim: "Come, Madame Jeanne, you must stir about or you
+will have no appetite again this evening."
+
+She lived over the past, haunted by memories of her early life and her
+wedding journey down yonder in Corsica. Forgotten landscapes in that
+isle now rose before her in the blaze of the fire, and she recalled
+all the little details, all the little incidents, the faces she had
+seen down there. The head of the guide, Jean Ravoli, haunted her, and
+she sometimes seemed to hear his voice.
+
+Then she remembered the sweet years of Paul's childhood, when they
+planted salad together and when she knelt in the thick grass beside
+Aunt Lison, each trying what they could do to please the child, and
+her lips murmured: "Poulet, my little Poulet," as though she were
+talking to him. Stopping at this word, she would try to trace it,
+letter by letter, in space, sometimes for hours at a time, until she
+became confused and mixed up the letters and formed other words, and
+she became so nervous that she was almost crazy.
+
+She had all the peculiarities of those who live a solitary life. The
+least thing out of its usual place irritated her.
+
+Rosalie often obliged her to walk and took her on the high road, but
+at the end of twenty minutes she declared she could not take another
+step and sat down on the side of the road.
+
+She soon became averse to all movement and stayed in bed as late as
+possible. Since her childhood she had retained one custom, that of
+rising the instant she had drunk her cafe au lait in the morning. But
+now she would lie down again and begin to dream, and as she was daily
+growing more lazy, Rosalie would come and oblige her to get up and
+almost force her to get dressed.
+
+She seemed no longer to have any will power, and each time the maid
+asked her a question or wanted her advice or opinion she would say:
+"Do as you think best, my girl."
+
+She imagined herself pursued by some persistent ill luck and was like
+an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her
+hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer
+before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the
+wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of
+bad luck--I have never had any luck in life."
+
+Then Rosalie would say: "What would you do if you had to work for your
+living, if you were obliged to get up every morning at six o'clock to
+go out to your work? Many people have to do that, nevertheless, and
+when they grow too old they die of want."
+
+Jeanne replied: "Remember that I am all alone; that my son has
+deserted me." And Rosalie would get very angry: "That's another thing!
+Well, how about the sons who are drafted into the army and those who
+go to America?"
+
+America to her was an undefined country, where one went to make a
+fortune and whence one never returned. She continued: "There always
+comes a time when people have to part, for old people and young people
+are not made to live together." And she added fiercely: "Well, what
+would you say if he were dead?"
+
+Jeanne had nothing more to say.
+
+One day in spring she had gone up to the loft to look for something
+and by chance opened a box containing old calendars which had been
+preserved after the manner of some country folks.
+
+She took them up and carried them downstairs. They were of all sizes,
+and she laid them out on the table in the parlor in regular order.
+Suddenly she spied the earliest, the one she had brought with her to
+"The Poplars." She gazed at it for some time, at the days crossed off
+by her the morning she left Rouen, the day after she left the convent,
+and she wept slow, sorrowful tears, the tears of an old woman at sight
+of her wretched life spread out before her on this table.
+
+One morning the maid came into her room earlier than usual, and
+placing the bowl of cafe au lait on the little stand beside her bed,
+she said: "Come, drink it quickly. Denis is waiting for us at the
+door. We are going to 'The Poplars,' for I have something to attend
+to down there."
+
+Jeanne dressed herself with trembling hands, almost fainting at the
+thought of seeing her dear home once more.
+
+The sky was cloudless and the nag, who was inclined to be frisky,
+would suddenly start off at a gallop every now and then. As they
+entered the commune of Etouvent Jeanne's heart beat so that she could
+hardly breathe.
+
+They unharnessed the horse at the Couillard place, and while Rosalie
+and her son were attending to their own affairs, the farmer and his
+wife offered to let Jeanne go over the chateau, as the proprietor was
+away and they had the keys.
+
+She went off alone, and when she reached the side of the chateau from
+which there was a view of the sea she turned round to look. Nothing
+had changed on the outside. When she turned the heavy lock and went
+inside the first thing she did was to go up to her old room, which she
+did not recognize, as it had been newly papered and furnished. But the
+view from the window was the same, and she stood and gazed out at the
+landscape she had so loved.
+
+She then wandered all over the house, walking quietly all alone in
+this silent abode as though it were a cemetery. All her life was
+buried here. She went down to the drawing-room, which was dark with
+its closed shutters. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light
+she recognized some of the old hangings. Two easy chairs were drawn up
+before the fire, as if some one had just left them, and as Jeanne
+stood there, full of old memories, she suddenly seemed to see her
+father and mother sitting there, warming their feet at the fire.
+
+She started back in terror and knocked up against the edge of the
+door, against which she leaned to support herself, still staring at
+the armchairs.
+
+The vision had vanished.
+
+She remained bewildered for some minutes. Then she slowly recovered
+her composure and started to run away, for fear she might become
+insane. She chanced to look at the door against which she had been
+leaning and saw there "Poulet's ladder."
+
+All the little notches were there showing the age and growth of her
+child. Here was the baron's writing, then hers, a little smaller, and
+then Aunt Lison's rather shaky characters. And she seemed to see her
+boy of long ago with his fair hair standing before her, leaning his
+little forehead against the door while they measured his height.
+
+And she kissed the edge of the door in a frenzy of affection.
+
+But some one was calling her outside. It was Rosalie's voice: "Madame
+Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, they are waiting breakfast for you." She went
+out in a dream and understood nothing of what they were saying to her.
+She ate what they gave her, heard them talking, but about what she
+knew not, let them kiss her on the cheeks and kissed them in return
+and then got into the carriage.
+
+When they lost sight of the chateau behind the tall trees she felt a
+wrench at her heart, convinced that she had bid a last farewell to her
+old home.
+
+When they reached Batteville and just as she was going into her new
+house, she saw something white under the door. It was a letter that
+the postman had slipped under the door while she was out. She
+recognized Paul's writing and opened it, trembling with anxiety. He
+wrote:
+
+"My Dear Mother: I have not written sooner because I did not wish you
+to make a useless journey to Paris when it was my place to go and see
+you. I am just now in great sorrow and in great straits. My wife is
+dying after giving birth to a little girl three days ago, and I have
+not one sou. I do not know what to do with the child, whom my
+janitor's wife is bringing up on the bottle as well as she can, but I
+fear I shall lose her. Could you not take charge of it? I absolutely
+do not know what to do, and I have no money to put her out to nurse.
+Answer by return mail.
+
+"Your son, who loves you,
+
+"Paul."
+
+Jeanne sank into a chair and had scarcely strength to call Rosalie.
+When the maid came into the room they read the letter over together
+and then remained silent for some time, face to face.
+
+At last Rosalie said: "I am going to fetch the little one, madame. We
+cannot leave it like that."
+
+"Go, my girl," replied Jeanne.
+
+Then they were silent until the maid said: "Put on your hat, madame,
+and we will go to Goderville to see the lawyer. If she is going to
+die, the other one, M. Paul must marry her for the little one's sake
+later on."
+
+Jeanne, without replying, put on her hat. A deep, inexpressible joy
+filled her heart, a treacherous joy that she sought to hide at any
+cost, one of those things of which one is ashamed, although cherishing
+it in one's soul--her son's sweetheart was going to die.
+
+The lawyer gave the servant minute instructions, making her repeat
+them several times. Then, sure that she could make no mistake, she
+said: "Do not be afraid. I will see to it now."
+
+She set out for Paris that very night.
+
+Jeanne passed two days in such a troubled condition that she could not
+think. The third morning she received merely a line from Rosalie
+saying she would be back on the evening train. That was all.
+
+About three o'clock she drove in a neighbor's light wagon to the
+station at Beuzeville to meet Rosalie.
+
+She stood on the platform, looking at the railroad track as it
+disappeared on the horizon. She looked at the clock. Ten minutes
+still--five minutes still--two minutes more. Then the hour of the
+train's arrival, but it was not in sight. Presently, however, she saw
+a cloud of white smoke and gradually it drew up in the station. She
+looked anxiously and at last perceived Rosalie carrying a sort of
+white bundle in her arms.
+
+She wanted to go over toward her, but her knees seemed to grow weak
+and she was afraid of falling.
+
+But the maid had seen her and came forward with her usual calm manner
+and said: "How do you do, madame? Here I am back again, but not
+without some difficulty."
+
+"Well?" faltered Jeanne.
+
+"Well," answered Rosalie, "she died last night. They were married and
+here is the little girl." And she held out the child, who could not be
+seen under her wraps.
+
+Jeanne took it mechanically and they left the station and got into the
+carriage.
+
+"M. Paul will come as soon as the funeral is over--to-morrow about
+this time, I believe," resumed Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne murmured "Paul" and then was silent.
+
+The wagon drove along rapidly, the peasant clacking his tongue to urge
+on the horse. Jeanne looked straight ahead of her into the clear sky
+through which the swallows darted in curves. Suddenly she felt a
+gentle warmth striking through to her skin; it was the warmth of the
+little being who was asleep on her lap.
+
+Then she was overcome with an intense emotion, and uncovering gently
+the face of the sleeping infant, she raised it to her lips and kissed
+it passionately.
+
+But Rosalie, happy though grumpy, stopped her; "Come, come, Madame
+Jeanne, stop that; you will make it cry."
+
+And then she added, probably in answer to her own thoughts: "Life,
+after all, is not as good or as bad as we believe it to be."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+A VAGABOND
+
+He was a journeyman carpenter, a good workman and a steady fellow,
+twenty-seven years old, but, although the eldest son, Jacques Randel
+had been forced to live on his family for two months, owing to the
+general lack of work. He had walked about seeking work for over a
+month and had left his native town, Ville-Avary, in La Manche, because
+he could find nothing to do and would no longer deprive his family of
+the bread they needed themselves, when he was the strongest of them
+all. His two sisters earned but little as charwomen. He went and
+inquired at the town hall, and the mayor's secretary told him that he
+would find work at the Labor Agency, and so he started, well provided
+with papers and certificates, and carrying another pair of shoes, a
+pair of trousers and a shirt in a blue handkerchief at the end of his
+stick.
+
+And he had walked almost without stopping, day and night, along
+interminable roads, in sun and rain, without ever reaching that
+mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed
+idea that he must only work as a carpenter, but at every carpenter's
+shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on
+account of work being so slack, and, finding himself at the end of his
+resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come
+across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman,
+stonecutter; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells,
+mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for
+a few pence, for he only obtained two or three days' work occasionally
+by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the
+avarice of employers and peasants.
+
+And now for a week he had found nothing, and had no money left, and
+nothing to eat but a piece of bread, thanks to the charity of some
+women from whom he had begged at house doors on the road. It was
+getting dark, and Jacques Randel, jaded, his legs failing him, his
+stomach empty, and with despair in his heart, was walking barefoot on
+the grass by the side of the road, for he was taking care of his last
+pair of shoes, as the other pair had already ceased to exist for a
+long time. It was a Saturday, toward the end of autumn. The heavy gray
+clouds were being driven rapidly through the sky by the gusts of wind
+which whistled among the trees, and one felt that it would rain soon.
+The country was deserted at that hour on the eve of Sunday. Here and
+there in the fields there rose up stacks of wheat straw, like huge
+yellow mushrooms, and the fields looked bare, as they had already been
+sown for the next year.
+
+Randel was hungry, with the hunger of some wild animal, such a hunger
+as drives wolves to attack men. Worn out and weakened with fatigue, he
+took longer strides, so as not to take so many steps, and with heavy
+head, the blood throbbing in his temples, with red eyes and dry mouth,
+he grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing to strike the
+first passerby who might be going home to supper.
+
+He looked at the sides of the road, imagining he saw potatoes dug up
+and lying on the ground before his eyes; if he had found any he would
+have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a
+capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would
+first of all have warmed his cold hands. But it was too late in the
+year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up
+in a field as he had done the day before.
+
+For the last two days he had talked to himself as he quickened his
+steps under the influence of his thoughts. He had never thought much
+hitherto, as he had given all his mind, all his simple faculties to
+his mechanical work. But now fatigue and this desperate search for
+work which he could not get, refusals and rebuffs, nights spent in the
+open air lying on the grass, long fasting, the contempt which he knew
+people with a settled abode felt for a vagabond, and that question
+which he was continually asked, "Why do you not remain at home?"
+distress at not being able to use his strong arms which he felt so
+full of vigor, the recollection of the relations he had left at home
+and who also had not a penny, filled him by degrees with rage, which
+had been accumulating every day, every hour, every minute, and which
+now escaped his lips in spite of himself in short, growling sentences.
+
+As he stumbled over the stones which tripped his bare feet, he
+grumbled: "How wretched! how miserable! A set of hogs--to let a man
+die of hunger--a carpenter--a set of hogs--not two sous--not two
+sous--and now it is raining--a set of hogs!"
+
+He was indignant at the injustice of fate, and cast the blame on men,
+on all men, because nature, that great, blind mother, is unjust, cruel
+and perfidious, and he repeated through his clenched teeth: "A set of
+hogs" as he looked at the thin gray smoke which rose from the roofs,
+for it was the dinner hour. And, without considering that there is
+another injustice which is human, and which is called robbery and
+violence, he felt inclined to go into one of those houses to murder
+the inhabitants and to sit down to table in their stead.
+
+He said to himself: "I have no right to live now, as they are letting
+me die of hunger, and yet I only ask for work--a set of hogs!" And the
+pain in his limbs, the gnawing in his heart rose to his head like
+terrible intoxication, and gave rise to this simple thought in his
+brain: "I have the right to live because I breathe and because the air
+is the common property of everybody. So nobody has the right to leave
+me without bread!"
+
+A fine, thick, icy cold rain was coming down, and he stopped and
+murmured: "Oh, misery! Another month of walking before I get home." He
+was indeed returning home then, for he saw that he should more easily
+find work in his native town, where he was known--and he did not mind
+what he did--than on the highroads, where everybody suspected him. As
+the carpentering business was not prosperous, he would turn day
+laborer, be a mason's hodman, a ditcher, break stones on the road. If
+he only earned a franc a day, that would at any rate buy him something
+to eat.
+
+He tied the remains of his last pocket handkerchief round his neck to
+prevent the cold rain from running down his back and chest, but he
+soon found that it was penetrating the thin material of which his
+clothes were made, and he glanced about him with the agonized look of
+a man who does not know where to hide his body and to rest his head,
+and has no place of shelter in the whole world.
+
+Night came on and wrapped the country in obscurity, and in the
+distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark spot on the grass; it was a cow,
+and so he got over the ditch by the roadside and went up to her
+without exactly knowing what he was doing. When he got close to her
+she raised her great head to him, and he thought: "If I only had a jug
+I could get a little milk." He looked at the cow and the cow looked at
+him, and then, suddenly giving her a kick in the side, he said: "Get
+up!"
+
+The animal got up slowly, letting her heavy udders hang down. Then the
+man lay down on his back between the animal's legs and drank for a
+long time, squeezing her warm, swollen teats, which tasted of the
+cowstall, with both hands, and he drank as long as she gave any milk.
+But the icy rain began to fall more heavily, and he saw no place of
+shelter on the whole of that bare plain. He was cold, and he looked at
+a light which was shining among the trees in the window of a house.
+
+The cow had lain down again heavily, and he sat down by her side and
+stroked her head, grateful for the nourishment she had given him. The
+animal's strong, thick breath, which came out of her nostrils like two
+jets of steam in the evening air, blew on the workman's face, and he
+said: "You are not cold inside there!" He put his hands on her chest
+and under her stomach to find some warmth there, and then the idea
+struck him that he might pass the night beside that large, warm
+animal. So he found a comfortable place and laid his head on her side,
+and then, as he was worn out with fatigue, fell asleep immediately.
+
+He woke up, however, several times, with his back or his stomach half
+frozen, according as he put one or the other against the animal's
+flank. Then he turned over to warm and dry that part of his body which
+had remained exposed to the night air, and soon went soundly to sleep
+again.
+
+The crowing of a cock woke him; the day was breaking, it was no longer
+raining, and the sky was bright. The cow was resting with her muzzle
+on the ground, and he stooped down, resting on his hands, to kiss
+those wide, moist nostrils, and said: "Good-by, my beauty, until next
+time. You are a nice animal. Good-by." Then he put on his shoes and
+went off, and for two hours walked straight before him, always
+following the same road, and then he felt so tired that he sat down on
+the grass. It was broad daylight by that time, and the church bells
+were ringing; men in blue blouses, women in white caps, some on foot,
+some in carts, began to pass along the road, going to the neighboring
+villages to spend Sunday with friends or relations.
+
+A stout peasant came in sight, driving before him a score of
+frightened, bleating sheep, with the help of an active dog. Randel got
+up, and raising his cap, said: "You do not happen to have any work for
+a man who is dying of hunger?" But the other, giving an angry look at
+the vagabond, replied: "I have no work for fellows whom I meet on the
+road."
+
+And the carpenter went back and sat down by the side of the ditch
+again. He waited there for a long time, watching the country people
+pass and looking for a kind, compassionate face before he renewed his
+request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was
+adorned with a gold chain. "I have been looking for work," he said,
+"for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in
+my pocket." But the would-be gentleman replied: "You should have read
+the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village: 'Begging
+is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.' Let me tell you
+that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly
+I shall have you arrested."
+
+Randel, who was getting angry, replied: "Have me arrested if you like;
+I should prefer it, for, at any rate, I should not die of hunger." And
+he went back and sat down by the side of his ditch again, and in about
+a quarter of an hour two gendarmes appeared on the road. They were
+walking slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining
+hats, their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to
+frighten evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance. He knew
+that they were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was
+seized with a sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and
+to have his revenge later.
+
+They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with
+military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the
+goose step; and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have
+noticed him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly,
+and the brigadier came up to him and asked: "What are you doing here?"
+"I am resting," the man replied calmly. "Where do you come from?" "If
+I had to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more
+than an hour." "Where are you going to?" "To Ville-Avary." "Where is
+that?" "In La Manche." "Is that where you belong?" "It is." "Why did
+you leave it?" "To look for work."
+
+The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a
+man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick: "They all say
+that, these scamps. I know all about it." And then he continued: "Have
+you any papers?" "Yes, I have some." "Give them to me."
+
+Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those
+poor, worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave
+them to the soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and
+then, having seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to
+Randel with the dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than
+himself has tricked.
+
+After a few moments' further reflection, he asked him: "Have you any
+money on you?" "No." "None whatever?" "None." "Not even a sou?" "Not
+even a sou!" "How do you live then?" "On what people give me." "Then
+you beg?" And Randel answered resolutely: "Yes, when I can."
+
+Then the gendarme said: "I have caught you on the highroad in the act
+of vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I
+command you to come with me." The carpenter got up and said: "Wherever
+you please." And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even
+before he had received the order to do so, he added: "Well, lock me
+up; that will at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains."
+
+And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be
+seen through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service
+was about to begin when they went through the village. The square was
+full of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal
+pass. He was being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and
+female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with
+hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his
+skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked
+each other whether he had committed murder or robbery. The butcher,
+who was an ex-spahi, declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist
+thought that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning
+passed a bad half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared
+that he was the murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been
+looking for for six months.
+
+In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw
+the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the
+schoolmaster by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so
+here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you
+locked up. Well, brigadier, what is he charged with?"
+
+"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without
+any resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of
+begging, but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are
+all in order."
+
+"Show me his papers," the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread,
+returned them and then said: "Search him." So they searched him, but
+found nothing, and the mayor seemed perplexed, and asked the workman:
+
+"What were you doing on the road this morning?" "I was looking for
+work." "Work? On the highroad?" "How do you expect me to find any if I
+hide in the woods?"
+
+They looked at each other with the hatred of two wild beasts which
+belong to different hostile species, and the magistrate continued: "I
+am going to have you set at liberty, but do not be brought up before
+me again." To which the carpenter replied: "I would rather you locked
+me up; I have had enough running about the country." But the
+magistrate replied severely: "Be silent." And then he said to the two
+gendarmes: "You will conduct this man two hundred yards from the
+village and let him continue his journey."
+
+"At any rate, give me something to eat," the workman said, but the
+other grew indignant: "Have we nothing to do but to feed you? Ah! ah!
+ah! that is rather too much!" But Randel went on firmly: "If you let
+me nearly die of hunger again, you will force me to commit a crime,
+and then, so much the worse for you other fat fellows."
+
+The mayor had risen and he repeated: "Take him away immediately or I
+shall end by getting angry."
+
+The two gendarmes thereupon seized the carpenter by the arms and
+dragged him out. He allowed them to do it without resistance, passed
+through the village again and found himself on the highroad once more;
+and when the men had accompanied him two hundred yards beyond the
+village, the brigadier said: "Now off with you and do not let me catch
+you about here again, for if I do, you will know it."
+
+Randel went off without replying or knowing where he was going. He
+walked on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied
+that he no longer thought of anything. But suddenly, as he was passing
+a small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup
+and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring,
+maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of
+the house like a wild beast.
+
+He said aloud in a grumbling voice: "In Heaven's name! they must give
+me some this time!" And he began to knock at the door vigorously with
+his stick, and as no one came he knocked louder and called out: "Hey!
+hey! you people in there, open the door!" And then, as nothing
+stirred, he went up to the window and pushed it wider open with his
+hand, and the close warm air of the kitchen, full of the smell of hot
+soup, meat and cabbage, escaped into the cold outer air, and with a
+bound the carpenter was in the house. Two places were set at the
+table, and no doubt the proprietors of the house, on going to church,
+had left their dinner on the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef
+and vegetable soup, while there was a loaf of new bread on the
+chimney-piece, between two bottles which seemed full.
+
+Randel seized the bread first of all and broke it with as much
+violence as if he were strangling a man, and then he began to eat
+voraciously, swallowing great mouthfuls quickly. But almost
+immediately the smell of the meat attracted him to the fireplace, and,
+having taken off the lid of the saucepan, he plunged a fork into it
+and brought out a large piece of beef tied with a string. Then he took
+more cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, having
+put it on the table, he sat down before it, cut the meat into four
+pieces, and dined as if he had been at home. When he had eaten nearly
+all the meat, besides a quantity of vegetables, he felt thirsty and
+took one of the bottles off the mantelpiece.
+
+Scarcely had he poured the liquor into his glass when he saw it was
+brandy. So much the better; it was warming and would instill some fire
+into his veins, and that would be all right, after being so cold; and
+he drank some. He certainly enjoyed it, for he had grown unaccustomed
+to it, and he poured himself out another glassful, which he drank
+at two gulps. And then almost immediately he felt quite merry and
+light-hearted from the effects of the alcohol, just as if some great
+happiness filled his heart.
+
+He continued to eat, but more slowly, and dipping his bread into the
+soup. His skin had become burning, and especially his forehead, where
+the veins were throbbing. But suddenly the church bells began to ring.
+Mass was over, and instinct rather than fear, the instinct of
+prudence, which guides all beings and makes them clear-sighted in
+danger, made the carpenter get up. He put the remains of the loaf into
+one pocket and the brandy bottle into the other, and he furtively went
+to the window and looked out into the road. It was still deserted, so
+he jumped out and set off walking again, but instead of following the
+highroad he ran across the fields toward a wood he saw a little way
+off.
+
+He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so
+nimble that he sprang over the enclosure of the fields at a single
+bound, and as soon as he was under the trees he took the bottle out of
+his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as
+he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew
+dim, and his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the
+old popular song:
+
+      _"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
+      To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."_
+
+He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet
+under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels
+as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault,
+got up and began over again. And between each time he began to sing
+again:
+
+      _"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
+      To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."_
+
+Suddenly he found himself above a deep road, and in the road he saw a
+tall girl, a servant, who was returning to the village with two pails
+of milk. He watched, stooping down, and with his eyes as bright as
+those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him, raised her head
+and said: "Was that you singing like that?" He did not reply, however,
+but jumped down into the road, although it was a fall of at least six
+feet and when she saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she
+exclaimed: "Oh! dear, how you frightened me!"
+
+But he did not hear her, for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by
+another requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more
+feverish than alcohol; by the irresistible fury of the man who has
+been deprived of everything for two months, and who is drunk; who is
+young, ardent and inflamed by all the appetites which nature has
+implanted in the vigorous flesh of men.
+
+The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his
+half-open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the
+shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.
+
+She let her two pails fall, and they rolled over noisily, and all the
+milk was spilt, and then she screamed lustily, but it was of no avail
+in that lonely spot.
+
+When she got up the thought of her overturned pails suddenly filled
+her with fury, and, taking off one of her wooden sabots, she threw it
+at the man to break his head if he did not pay her for her milk.
+
+But he, mistaking the reason of this sudden violent attack, somewhat
+sobered, and frightened at what he had done, ran off as fast as he
+could, while she threw stones at him, some of which hit him in the
+back.
+
+He ran for a long time, very long, until he felt more tired than he
+had ever been before. His legs were so weak that they could scarcely
+carry him; all his ideas were confused, he lost recollection of
+everything and could no longer think about anything, and so he sat
+down at the foot of a tree, and in five minutes was fast asleep. He
+was soon awakened, however, by a rough shake, and, on opening his
+eyes, he saw two cocked hats of shiny leather bending over him, and
+the two gendarmes of the morning, who were holding him and binding his
+arms.
+
+"I knew I should catch you again," said the brigadier jeeringly. But
+Randel got up without replying. The two men shook him, quite ready to
+ill treat him if he made a movement, for he was their prey now. He had
+become a jailbird, caught by those hunters of criminals who would not
+let him go again.
+
+"Now, start!" the brigadier said, and they set off. It was late
+afternoon, and the autumn twilight was setting in over the land, and
+in half an hour they reached the village, where every door was open,
+for the people had heard what had happened. Peasants and peasant women
+and girls, excited with anger, as if every man had been robbed and
+every woman attacked, wished to see the wretch brought back, so that
+they might overwhelm him with abuse. They hooted him from the first
+house in the village until they reached the Hotel de Ville, where the
+mayor was waiting for him to be himself avenged on this vagabond, and
+as soon as he saw him approaching he cried:
+
+"Ah! my fine fellow! here we are!" And he rubbed his hands, more
+pleased than he usually was, and continued: "I said so. I said so, the
+moment I saw him in the road."
+
+And then with increased satisfaction:
+
+"Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you dirty blackguard! You will get your
+twenty years, my fine fellow!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE FISHING HOLE
+
+"Cuts and wounds which caused death." Such was the charge upon which
+Leopold Renard, upholsterer, was summoned before the Court of Assizes.
+
+Round him were the principal witnesses, Madame Flameche, widow of the
+victim, and Louis Ladureau, cabinetmaker, and Jean Durdent, plumber.
+
+Near the criminal was his wife, dressed in black, an ugly little
+woman, who looked like a monkey dressed as a lady.
+
+This is how Renard (Leopold) recounted the drama:
+
+"Good heavens, it is a misfortune of which I was the prime victim all
+the time, and with which my will has nothing to do. The facts are
+their own commentary, Monsieur le President. I am an honest man, a
+hard-working man, an upholsterer, living in the same street for the
+last sixteen years, known, liked, respected and esteemed by all, as my
+neighbors can testify, even the porter's wife, who is not amiable
+every day. I am fond of work, I am fond of saving, I like honest men
+and respectable amusements. That is what has ruined me, so much the
+worse for me; but as my will had nothing to do with it, I continue to
+respect myself.
+
+"Every Sunday for the last five years my wife and I have spent the day
+at Passy. We get fresh air, and, besides, we are fond of fishing. Oh!
+we are as fond of it as we are of little onions. Melie inspired me
+with that enthusiasm, the jade, and she is more enthusiastic than I
+am, the scold, seeing that all the mischief in this business is her
+fault, as you will see immediately.
+
+"I am strong and mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me.
+But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin.
+Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that
+she has some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones for
+a man in business. But her character! Just ask about it in the
+neighborhood, and even the porter's wife, who has just sent me about
+my business ... she will tell you something about it.
+
+"Every day she used to find fault with my mild temper: 'I would not
+put up with this! I would not put up with that.' If I had listened
+to her, Monsieur le President, I should have had at least three
+hand-to-hand fights a month...."
+
+Madame Renard interrupted him: "And for good reasons, too; they laugh
+best who laugh last."
+
+He turned toward her frankly: "Well, I can't blame you, since you were
+not the cause of it."
+
+Then, facing the President again, he said:
+
+"I will continue. We used to go to Passy every Saturday evening, so as
+to begin fishing at daybreak the next morning. It is a habit which has
+become second nature with us, as the saying is. Three years ago this
+summer I discovered a place, oh! such a spot. Oh, dear, dear! In the
+shade, eight feet of water at least and perhaps ten, a hole with
+cavities under the bank, a regular nest for fish and a paradise for
+the fisherman. I might look upon that fishing hole as my property,
+Monsieur le President, as I was its Christopher Columbus. Everybody in
+the neighborhood knew it, without making any opposition. They would
+say: 'That is Renard's place'; and nobody would have gone there, not
+even Monsieur Plumeau, who is well known, be it said without any
+offense, for poaching on other people's preserves.
+
+"Well, I returned to this place of which I felt certain, just as if I
+had owned it. I had scarcely got there on Saturday, when I got into
+_Delila_, with my wife. _Delila_ is my Norwegian boat, which
+I had built by Fournaire, and which is light and safe. Well, as I
+said, we got into the boat and we were going to set bait, and for
+setting bait there is none to be compared with me, and they all know
+it. You want to know with what I bait? I cannot answer that question;
+it has nothing to do with the accident. I cannot answer; that is my
+secret. There are more than three hundred people who have asked me; I
+have been offered glasses of brandy and liqueur, fried fish,
+matelotes, to make me tell. But just go and try whether the chub will
+come. Ah! they have tempted my stomach to get at my secret, my recipe.
+Only my wife knows, and she will not tell it any more than I will. Is
+not that so, Melie?"
+
+The president of the court interrupted him.
+
+"Just get to the facts as soon as you can," and the accused continued:
+"I am getting to them, I am getting to them. Well, on Saturday, July
+8, we left by the twenty-five past five train and before dinner we
+went to set bait as usual. The weather promised to keep fine and I
+said to Melie: 'All right for tomorrow.' And she replied: 'It looks
+like it.' We never talk more than that together.
+
+"And then we returned to dinner. I was happy and thirsty, and that was
+the cause of everything. I said to Melie: 'Look here, Melie, it is
+fine weather, suppose I drink a bottle of _Casque a meche_.' That
+is a weak white wine which we have christened so, because if you drink
+too much of it it prevents you from sleeping and takes the place of a
+nightcap. Do you understand me?
+
+"She replied: 'You can do as you please, but you will be ill again and
+will not be able to get up tomorrow.' That was true, sensible and
+prudent, clearsighted, I must confess. Nevertheless I could not
+resist, and I drank my bottle. It all came from that.
+
+"Well, I could not sleep. By Jove! it kept me awake till two o'clock
+in the morning, and then I went to sleep so soundly that I should not
+have heard the angel sounding his trump at the last Judgment.
+
+"In short, my wife woke me at six o'clock and I jumped out of bed,
+hastily put on my trousers and jersey, washed my face and jumped on
+board _Delila_. But it was too late, for when I arrived at my
+hole it was already occupied! Such a thing had never happened to me in
+three years, and it made me feel as if I were being robbed under my
+own eyes. I said to myself: 'Confound it all! confound it!' And then
+my wife began to nag at me. 'Eh! what about your _Casque a
+meche?_ Get along, you drunkard! Are you satisfied, you great
+fool?' I could say nothing, because it was all true, but I landed all
+the same near the spot and tried to profit by what was left. Perhaps
+after all the fellow might catch nothing and go away.
+
+"He was a little thin man in white linen coat and waistcoat and a
+large straw hat, and his wife, a fat woman, doing embroidery, sat
+behind him.
+
+"When she saw us take up our position close to them she murmured: 'Are
+there no other places on the river?' My wife, who was furious,
+replied: 'People who have any manners make inquiries about the habits
+of the neighborhood before occupying reserved spots.'
+
+"As I did not want a fuss, I said to her: 'Hold your tongue, Melie.
+Let them alone, let them alone; we shall see.'
+
+"Well, we fastened _Delila_ under the willows and had landed and
+were fishing side by side, Melie and I, close to the two others. But
+here, monsieur, I must enter into details.
+
+"We had only been there about five minutes when our neighbor's line
+began to jerk twice, thrice, and then he pulled out a chub as thick as
+my thigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, the
+perspiration stood on my forehead and Melie said to me: 'Well, you
+sot, did you see that?'
+
+"Just then Monsieur Bru, the grocer of Poissy, who is fond of gudgeon
+fishing, passed in a boat and called out to me: 'So somebody has taken
+your usual place, Monsieur Renard?' And I replied--: 'Yes, Monsieur
+Bru, there are some people in this world who do not know the rules of
+common politeness.'
+
+"The little man in linen pretended not to hear, nor his fat lump of a
+wife, either."
+
+Here the president interrupted him a second time: "Take care, you are
+insulting the widow, Madame Flameche, who is present."
+
+Renard made his excuses: "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; my
+anger carried me away. Well, not a quarter of an hour had passed when
+the little man caught another chub, and another almost immediately,
+and another five minutes later.
+
+"Tears were in my eyes, and I knew that Madame Renard was boiling with
+rage, for she kept on nagging at me: 'Oh, how horrid! Don't you see
+that he is robbing you of your fish? Do you think that you will catch
+anything? Not even a frog, nothing whatever. Why, my hands are
+tingling, just to think of it.'
+
+"But I said to myself: 'Let us wait until twelve o'clock. Then this
+poacher will go to lunch and I shall get my place again. As for me,
+Monsieur le President, I lunch on that spot every Sunday. We bring our
+provisions in _Delila_. But there! At noon the wretch produced a
+chicken in a newspaper, and while he was eating, he actually caught
+another chub!
+
+"Melie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for our
+heart was not in it.
+
+"Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion. Every Sunday I read
+the _Gil Blas_ in the shade by the side of the water. It is
+Columbine's day, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in
+the _Gil Blas_. I generally put Madame Renard into a rage by
+pretending to know this Columbine. It is not true, for I do not know
+her and have never seen her, but that does not matter. She writes very
+well, and then she says things that are pretty plain for a woman. She
+suits me and there are not many of her sort.
+
+"Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and
+very angry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who
+are present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on
+the other side of the river. We knew each other by sight The little
+man began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with
+vexation and his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we
+will come here always, Desire.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my
+back, and Madame Renard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have
+the blood of a chicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her:
+'Look here, I would rather go away or I shall be doing something
+foolish.'
+
+"And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my
+nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender
+your place! Go, then, Bazaine!'
+
+"I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled
+out a bream. Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then
+my wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see
+her tricks. She said: 'That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing
+that we set the bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us
+back the money we have spent on bait.'
+
+"Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean
+to call us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments
+began to fly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They
+shouted so loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank,
+began to call out by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will
+interfere with your husbands' fishing.'
+
+"The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if
+we had been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on
+the water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the
+same. 'You are a thief! You are nothing better than a tramp! You are a
+regular jade!' and so on and so on. A sailor could not have said more.
+
+"Suddenly I heard a noise behind me and turned round. It was the other
+one, the fat woman, who had attacked my wife with her parasol.
+_Whack, whack!_ Melie got two of them. But she was furious, and
+she hits hard when she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the
+hair and then _thump! thump!_ slaps in the face rained down like
+ripe plums. I should have let them fight it out: women together, men
+together. It does not do to mix the blows. But the little man in the
+linen jacket jumped up like a devil and was going to rush at my wife.
+Ah! no, no, not that, my friend! I caught the gentleman with the end
+of my fist, and _crash! crash!_ One on the nose, the other in the
+stomach. He threw up his arms and legs and fell on his back into the
+river, just into the hole.
+
+"I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le President,
+if I had had time. But, to make matters worse, the fat woman had the
+upper hand and was pounding Melie for all she was worth. I know I
+ought not to have interfered while the man was in the water, but I
+never thought that he would drown and said to myself: 'Bah, it will
+cool him.'
+
+"I therefore ran up to the women to separate them and all I received
+was scratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me
+five minutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragos. When I
+turned round there was nothing to be seen. The water was as smooth as
+a lake and the others yonder kept shouting: 'Fish him out! fish him
+out!' It was all very well to say that, but I cannot swim and still
+less dive.
+
+"At last the man from the dam came and two gentlemen with boathooks,
+but over a quarter of an hour had passed. He was found at the bottom
+of the hole, in eight feet of water, as I have said. There he was, the
+poor little man, in his linen suit! Those are the facts such as I have
+sworn to. I am innocent, on my honor."
+
+The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused
+was acquitted.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE SPASM
+
+The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places.
+The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers
+a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second
+time. The old bathers, the habitues, whose season was almost over,
+glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new
+faces might appear.
+
+This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look
+forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new
+arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.
+We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make
+agreeable acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In
+this life of elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme
+importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself,
+and sociability is the order of the day.
+
+We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see
+people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of
+acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly,
+after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in
+the park where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and
+astonishing merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten
+these new friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.
+
+Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere
+else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very
+quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and
+unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the
+dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the
+memory of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of
+those first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and
+secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of
+that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation
+of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in
+return.
+
+And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are
+all alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the
+appearance of strange faces.
+
+Only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man and a
+woman--father and daughter. They immediately reminded me of some
+of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm,
+the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims
+of fate. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with perfectly
+white hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy;
+and there was in his bearing and in his person that austerity
+peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four
+or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was also very thin, very
+pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out with utter lassitude.
+We meet people like this from time to time, who seem too weak for
+the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to
+walk, to do all that we do every day. She was rather pretty, with a
+transparent, spiritual beauty. And she ate with extreme slowness, as if
+she were almost incapable of moving her arms.
+
+It must have been she, assuredly, who had come to take the waters.
+
+They sat facing me, on the opposite side of the table; and I at once
+noticed that the father had a very singular, nervous twitching.
+
+Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of
+zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and
+after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside
+my head in order not to see it.
+
+I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her
+left hand.
+
+After dinner I went for a stroll in the park of the bathing
+establishment. This led toward the little Auvergnese station of
+Chatel-Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, from
+which flowed so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of
+extinct volcanoes. Over yonder, above our heads, the domes of extinct
+craters lifted their ragged peaks above the rest in the long mountain
+chain. For Chatel-Guyon is situated at the entrance to the land of
+mountain domes.
+
+Beyond it stretches out the region of peaks, and, farther on again,
+the region of precipitous summits.
+
+The "Puy de Dome" is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is
+the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these
+mountain heights.
+
+It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down a shady
+path, listening to the opening strains of the Casino band, which was
+playing on an elevation overlooking the park.
+
+And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my
+direction. I bowed as one bows to one's hotel companions at a watering
+place; and the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me:
+
+"Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short,
+pretty, and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?"
+
+I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the
+little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall,
+craggy, wooded slopes.
+
+They gladly accepted my offer.
+
+And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.
+
+"Oh," he said, "my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is
+unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one
+time the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another
+time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another
+they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean
+malady, that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack,
+is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator
+of the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather
+inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad."
+
+Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his
+hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:
+
+"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves
+somewhat affected?"
+
+He replied calmly:
+
+"Mine? Oh, no--my nerves have always been very steady."
+
+Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on:
+
+"Ah! You were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I
+try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience
+which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually buried
+alive!"
+
+I could only utter, "Ah!" so great were my astonishment and emotion.
+
+He continued:
+
+"Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some
+time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease
+of that organ, and were prepared for the worst.
+
+"One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had
+fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life
+was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid
+her with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the
+cemetery, where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated
+in the very heart of Lorraine.
+
+"I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces,
+rings, all presents which she had received from me, and wearing her
+first ball dress.
+
+"You may easily imagine my state of mind when I re-entered our home.
+She was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many years.
+I found my way to my own apartment in a half-distracted condition,
+utterly exhausted, and sank into my easy-chair, without the capacity
+to think or the strength to move. I was nothing better now than a
+suffering, vibrating machine, a human being who had, as it were, been
+flayed alive; my soul was like an open wound.
+
+"My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her
+coffin, and aided me in preparing her for her last sleep, entered the
+room noiselessly, and asked:
+
+"'Does monsieur want anything?'
+
+"I merely shook my head in reply.
+
+"'Monsieur is wrong,' he urged. 'He will injure his health. Would
+monsieur like me to put him to bed?'
+
+"I answered: 'No, let me alone!'
+
+"And he left the room.
+
+"I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh, what a night, what a
+night! It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the
+wind, the winter wind, an icy wind, a winter hurricane, blew with a
+regular, sinister noise against the windows.
+
+"How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless,
+crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp,
+inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great
+doorbell, the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.
+
+"I started so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous
+sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a vault. I
+turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was just two in
+the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?
+
+"And, abruptly, the bell again rang twice. The servants, without
+doubt, were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle and descended the
+stairs. I was on the point of asking: 'Who is there?'
+
+"Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the heavy
+bolts. My heart was throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the
+door brusquely, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure,
+standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.
+
+"I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering:
+
+"'Who--who--who are you?'
+
+"A voice replied:
+
+"'It is I, father.'
+
+"It was my daughter.
+
+"I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before this
+advancing spectre. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand,
+as if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have
+noticed--that gesture which has remained with me ever since.
+
+"'Do not be afraid, papa,' said the apparition. 'I was not dead.
+Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut one of my fingers; the blood
+began to flow, and that restored me to life.'
+
+"And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.
+
+"I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my
+throat.
+
+"Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still
+so bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome happiness that
+had befallen me, I made her go up to my room and sit down in my
+easy-chair; then I rang excitedly for Prosper to get him to rekindle
+the fire and to bring some wine, and to summon assistance.
+
+"The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp
+of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead.
+
+"It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then
+abandoned my daughter; for he could not efface the traces of the
+theft. He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into
+its place, feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by
+me, as I trusted him absolutely.
+
+"You see, monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was silent.
+
+The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful
+vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by
+the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back
+from the tomb, and this father with his uncanny spasm.
+
+I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I
+only murmured:
+
+"What a horrible thing!"
+
+Then, after a minute's silence, I added:
+
+"Let us go indoors. I think it is growing cool."
+
+And we made our way back to the hotel.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+IN THE WOOD
+
+As the mayor was about to sit down to breakfast, word was brought to
+him that the rural policeman, with two prisoners, was awaiting him at
+the Hotel de Ville. He went there at once and found old Hochedur
+standing guard before a middle-class couple whom he was regarding with
+a severe expression on his face.
+
+The man, a fat old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed
+utterly dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout individual with
+shining cheeks, looked at the official who had arrested them, with
+defiant eyes.
+
+"What is it? What is it, Hochedur?"
+
+The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning
+at his usual time, in order to patrol his beat from the forest of
+Champioux as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed
+anything unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and
+that the wheat was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was
+going over his vines, called out to him: "Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and
+have a look at the outskirts of the wood. In the first thicket you
+will find a pair of pigeons who must be a hundred and thirty years old
+between them!"
+
+He went in the direction indicated, entered the thicket, and there he
+heard words which made him suspect a flagrant breach of morality.
+Advancing, therefore, on his hands and knees as if to surprise a
+poacher, he had arrested the couple whom he found there.
+
+The mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was
+certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and he began to
+question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak
+voice that he could scarcely be heard.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Nicholas Beaurain."
+
+"Your occupation?"
+
+"Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris."
+
+"What were you doing in the wood?"
+
+The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat paunch, and
+his hands hanging at his sides, and the mayor continued:
+
+"Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?"
+
+"No, monsieur."
+
+"So you confess it?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"What have you to say in your defence?"
+
+"Nothing, monsieur."
+
+"Where did you meet the partner in your misdemeanor?"
+
+"She is my wife, monsieur."
+
+"Your wife?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Then--then--you do not live together--in Paris?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but we are living together!"
+
+"But in that case--you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to
+get caught playing lovers in the country at ten o'clock in the
+morning."
+
+The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he muttered: "It
+was she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a
+woman once gets a thing into her head--you know--you cannot get it
+out."
+
+The mayor, who liked a joke, smiled and replied: "In your case, the
+contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had had
+the idea only in her head."
+
+Then Monsieur Beaurain was seized with rage, and turning to his wife,
+he said: "Do you see to what you have brought us with your poetry? And
+now we shall have to go before the courts at our age, for a breach of
+morals! And we shall have to shut up the shop, sell our good will, and
+go to some other neighborhood! That's what it has come to."
+
+Madame Beaurain got up, and without looking at her husband, she
+explained herself without embarrassment, without useless modesty, and
+almost without hesitation.
+
+"Of course, monsieur, I know that we have made ourselves ridiculous.
+Will you allow me to plead my cause like an advocate, or rather like a
+poor woman? And I hope that you will be kind enough to send us home,
+and to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.
+
+"Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance
+one Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop,
+and I was a saleswoman in a ready-made clothing establishment. I
+remember it as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays
+here occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Leveque, with whom I
+lived in the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had none.
+He used to bring us here, and one Saturday he told me laughing that he
+should bring a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what
+he meant, but I replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous,
+monsieur.
+
+"The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in
+those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to
+encourage him, and I did not. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a
+lovely day, the sort of day that touches your heart. When it is fine
+even now, just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and
+when I am in the country I utterly lose my head. The green grass, the
+swallows flying so swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet
+poppies, the daisies, all that makes me crazy. It is like champagne
+when one is not accustomed to it!
+
+"Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to
+penetrate your body through your eyes when you looked, and through
+your mouth when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each
+other every minute, and that gave me a queer feeling! Monsieur
+Beaurain and I walked behind them, without speaking much, for when
+people do not know each other, they do not find anything to talk
+about. He looked timid, and I liked to see his embarrassment. At last
+we got to the little wood; it was as cool as in a bath there, and we
+four sat down. Rose and her lover teased me because I looked rather
+stern, but you will understand that I could not be otherwise. And then
+they began to kiss and hug again, without putting any more restraint
+upon themselves than if we had not been there; and then they whispered
+together, and got up and went off among the trees, without saying a
+word. You may fancy what I looked like, alone with this young fellow
+whom I saw for the first time. I felt so confused at seeing them go
+that it gave me courage, and I began to talk. I asked him what his
+business was, and he said he was a linen draper's assistant, as I told
+you just now. We talked for a few minutes, and that made him bold, and
+he wanted to take liberties with me, but I told him sharply to keep
+his place. Is not that true, Monsieur Beaurain?"
+
+Monsieur Beaurain, who was looking at his feet in confusion, did not
+reply, and she continued: "Then he saw that I was virtuous, and he
+began to make love to me nicely, like an honorable man, and from that
+time he came every Sunday, for he was very much in love with me. I was
+very fond of him also, very fond of him! He was a good-looking fellow,
+formerly, and in short he married me the next September, and we
+started in business in the Rue des Martyrs.
+
+"It was a hard struggle for some years, monsieur. Business did not
+prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and,
+besides, we had got out of the way of them. One has other things in
+one's head, and thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches,
+when one is in business. We were growing old by degrees without
+perceiving it, like quiet people who do not think much about love. One
+does not regret anything as long as one does not notice what one has
+lost.
+
+"And then, monsieur, business became better, and we were tranquil as
+to the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what went on in my
+mind, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little
+boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers
+which are drawn about the streets made me cry; the smell of violets
+sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart
+beat! Then I would get up and go out on the doorstep to look at the
+blue sky between the roofs. When one looks up at the sky from the
+street, it looks like a river which is descending on Paris, winding as
+it flows, and the swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. These
+ideas are very stupid at my age! But how can one help it, monsieur,
+when one has worked all one's life? A moment comes in which one
+perceives that one could have done something else, and that one
+regrets, oh! yes, one feels intense regret! Just think, for twenty
+years I might have gone and had kisses in the woods, like other women.
+I used to think how delightful it would be to lie under the trees and
+be in love with some one! And I thought of it every day and every
+night! I dreamed of the moonlight on the water, until I felt inclined
+to drown myself.
+
+"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first.
+I knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my
+needles and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain
+never said much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also
+understood quite well that I no longer appealed to any one!
+
+"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the
+country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed
+without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about
+nine o'clock.
+
+"I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's
+heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is
+at present, but just as he was formerly! That I will swear to you,
+monsieur. As true as I am standing here I was crazy. I began to kiss
+him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He
+kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning!
+What is the matter with you?' I did not listen to him, I only listened
+to my own heart, and I made him come into the wood with me. That is
+all. I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth."
+
+The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and
+said: "Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our forests, be
+more discreet."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MARTINE
+
+It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home from church
+along the by-road that led to his house when he saw ahead of him
+Martine, who was also going home.
+
+Her father walked beside his daughter with the important gait of a
+rich farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a short coat of gray cloth
+and on his head a round-topped hat with wide brim.
+
+She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week, walked
+along erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoulders and
+prominent hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a hat trimmed with
+flowers, made by a milliner at Yvetot, and displayed the back of her
+full, round, supple neck, reddened by the sun and air, on which
+fluttered little stray locks of hair.
+
+Benoist saw only her back; but he knew well the face he loved,
+without, however, having ever noticed it more closely than he did now.
+
+Suddenly he said: "Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl, all the same,
+that Martine." He watched her as she walked, admiring her hastily,
+feeling a desire taking possession of him. He did not long to see her
+face again, no. He kept gazing at her figure, repeating to himself:
+"Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl."
+
+Martine turned to the right to enter "La Martiniere," the farm of her
+father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned
+round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called
+out: "Good-morning, Benoist." He replied: "Good-morning, Martine;
+good-morning, mait' Martin," and went on his way.
+
+When he reached home the soup was on the table. He sat down opposite
+his mother beside the farm hand and the hired man, while the maid
+servant went to draw some cider.
+
+He ate a few spoonfuls, then pushed away his plate. His mother said:
+
+"Don't you feel well?"
+
+"No. I feel as if I had some pap in my stomach and that takes away my
+appetite."
+
+He watched the others eating, as he cut himself a piece of bread from
+time to time and carried it lazily to his mouth, masticating it
+slowly. He thought of Martine. "She is a fine girl, all the same." And
+to think that he had not noticed it before, and that it came to him,
+just like that, all at once, and with such force that he could not
+eat.
+
+He did not touch the stew. His mother said:
+
+"Come, Benoist, try and eat a little; it is loin of mutton, it will do
+you good. When one has no appetite, they should force themselves to
+eat."
+
+He swallowed a few morsels, then, pushing away his plate, said:
+
+"No. I can't go that, positively."
+
+When they rose from table he walked round the farm, telling the farm
+hand he might go home and that he would drive up the animals as he
+passed by them.
+
+The country was deserted, as it was the day of rest. Here and there in
+a field of clover cows were moving along heavily, with full bellies,
+chewing their cud under a blazing sun. Unharnessed plows were standing
+at the end of a furrow; and the upturned earth ready for the seed
+showed broad brown patches of stubble of wheat and oats that had
+lately been harvested.
+
+A rather dry autumn wind blew across the plain, promising a cool
+evening after the sun had set. Benoist sat down on a ditch, placed his
+hat on his knees as if he needed to cool off his head, and said aloud
+in the stillness of the country: "If you want a fine girl, she is a
+fine girl."
+
+He thought of it again at night, in his bed, and in the morning when
+he awoke.
+
+He was not sad, he was not discontented, he could not have told what
+ailed him. It was something that had hold of him, something fastened
+in his mind, an idea that would not leave him and that produced a sort
+of tickling sensation in his heart.
+
+Sometimes a big fly is shut up in a room. You hear it flying about,
+buzzing, and the noise haunts you, irritates you. Suddenly it stops;
+you forget it; but all at once it begins again, obliging you to look
+up. You cannot catch it, nor drive it away, nor kill it, nor make it
+keep still. As soon as it settles for a second, it starts off buzzing
+again.
+
+The recollection of Martine disturbed Benoist's mind like an
+imprisoned fly.
+
+Then he longed to see her again and walked past the Martiniere several
+times. He saw her, at last, hanging out some clothes on a line
+stretched between two apple trees.
+
+It was a warm day. She had on only a short skirt and her chemise,
+showing the curves of her figure as she hung up the towels. He
+remained there, concealed by the hedge, for more than an hour, even
+after she had left. He returned home more obsessed with her image than
+ever.
+
+For a month his mind was full of her, he trembled when her name was
+mentioned in his presence. He could not eat, he had night sweats that
+kept him from sleeping.
+
+On Sunday, at mass, he never took his eyes off her. She noticed it and
+smiled at him, flattered at his appreciation.
+
+One evening, he suddenly met her in the road. She stopped short when
+she saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with fear
+and emotion, but determined to speak to her. He began falteringly:
+
+"See here, Martine, this cannot go on like this any longer."
+
+She replied as if she wanted to tease him:
+
+"What cannot go on any longer, Benoist?"
+
+"My thinking of you as many hours as there are in the day," he
+answered.
+
+She put her hands on her hips.
+
+"I do not oblige you to do so."
+
+"Yes, it is you," he stammered; "I cannot sleep, nor rest, nor eat,
+nor anything."
+
+"What do you need to cure you of all that?" she asked.
+
+He stood there in dismay, his arms swinging, his eyes staring, his
+mouth agape.
+
+She hit him a punch in the stomach and ran off.
+
+From that day they met each other along the roadside, in by-roads or
+else at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with
+his horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.
+
+He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his
+heart and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her, eat
+her, make her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence,
+impatience, rage, to think she did not belong to him entirely, as if
+they were one being.
+
+People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were
+engaged. He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she
+had answered "Yes."
+
+They were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about
+it.
+
+But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He
+did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only
+catch a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the
+sermon, the priest actually published the banns of marriage between
+Victoire-Adelaide-Martin and Josephin-Isidore Vallin.
+
+Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained
+off. He had a buzzing in the ears, and could hear nothing; and
+presently he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.
+
+For a month he stayed in his room. Then he went back to his work.
+
+But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind. He avoided the
+roads that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees
+in the yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and
+evening.
+
+She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.
+Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from
+childhood.
+
+One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she
+was enceinte. Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he
+experienced, on the contrary, a feeling of relief. It was over, now,
+all over. They were more separated by that than by her marriage. He
+really preferred that it should be so.
+
+Months passed, and more months. He caught sight of her, occasionally,
+going to the village with a heavier step than usual. She blushed as
+she saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace. And he turned
+out of his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.
+
+He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to
+face, and be obliged to speak to her. What could he say to her now,
+after all he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed
+her hair beside her cheeks? He often thought of those meetings along
+the roadside. She had acted horridly after all her promises.
+
+By degrees his grief diminished, leaving only sadness behind. And one
+day he took the old road that led past the farm where she now lived.
+He looked at the roof from a distance. It was there, in there, that
+she lived with another! The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks
+crowed on the dunghill. The whole dwelling seemed empty, the farm
+hands had gone to the fields to their spring toil. He stopped near the
+gate and looked into the yard. The dog was asleep outside his kennel,
+three calves were walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the
+pond. A big turkey was strutting before the door, parading before the
+turkey hens like a singer at the opera.
+
+Benoist leaned against the gate post and was suddenly seized with a
+desire to weep. But suddenly, he heard a cry, a loud cry for help
+coming from the house. He was struck with dismay, his hands grasping
+the wooden bars of the gate, and listened attentively. Another cry, a
+prolonged, heartrending cry, reached his ears, his soul, his flesh. It
+was she who was crying like that! He darted inside, crossed the grass
+patch, pushed open the door, and saw her lying on the floor, her body
+drawn up, her face livid, her eyes haggard, in the throes of
+childbirth.
+
+He stood there, trembling and paler than she was, and stammered:
+
+"Here I am, here I am, Martine!"
+
+She replied in gasps:
+
+"Oh, do not leave me, do not leave me, Benoist!"
+
+He looked at her, not knowing what to say, what to do. She began to
+cry out again:
+
+"Oh, oh, it is killing me. Oh, Benoist!"
+
+She writhed frightfully.
+
+Benoist was suddenly seized with a frantic longing to help her, to
+quiet her, to remove her pain. He leaned over, lifted her up and laid
+her on her bed; and while she kept on moaning he began to take off her
+clothes, her jacket, her skirt and her petticoat. She bit her fists to
+keep from crying out. Then he did as he was accustomed to doing for
+cows, ewes, and mares: he assisted in delivering her and found in his
+hands a large infant who was moaning.
+
+He wiped it off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front
+of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that
+was on the table. Then he went back to the mother.
+
+He took her up and placed her on the floor again, then he changed the
+bedclothes and put her back into bed. She faltered:
+
+"Thank you, Benoist, you have a noble heart." And then she wept a
+little as if she felt regretful.
+
+He did not love her any longer, not the least bit. It was all over.
+Why? How? He could not have said. What had happened had cured him
+better than ten years of absence.
+
+She asked, exhausted and trembling:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He replied calmly:
+
+"It is a very fine girl."
+
+Then they were silent again. At the end of a few moments, the mother,
+in a weak voice, said:
+
+"Show her to me, Benoist."
+
+He took up the little one and was showing it to her as if he were
+holding the consecrated wafer, when the door opened, and Isidore
+Vallin appeared.
+
+He did not understand at first, then all at once he guessed.
+
+Benoist, in consternation, stammered out:
+
+"I was passing, I was just passing by when I heard her crying out, and
+I came--there is your child, Vallin!"
+
+Then the husband, his eyes full of tears, stepped forward, took the
+little mite of humanity that he held out to him, kissed it, unable to
+speak from emotion for a few seconds; then placing the child on the
+bed, he held out both hands to Benoist, saying:
+
+"Your hand upon it, Benoist. From now on we understand each other. If
+you are willing, we will be a pair of friends, a pair of friends!"
+
+And Benoist replied:
+
+"Indeed I will, certainly, indeed I will."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ALL OVER
+
+Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting
+glance at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel in his
+dressing-room and smiled.
+
+He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall,
+slight, elegant, with no sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of
+doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he had a walk, a nobility,
+a "chic," in short, that indescribable something which establishes a
+greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He
+murmured:
+
+"Lormerin is still alive!"
+
+And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited
+him.
+
+On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the
+gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside
+three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch he spread
+out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and
+he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening
+the envelopes.
+
+It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague
+anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did
+they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them
+with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting
+them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from
+them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent;
+further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him a little
+uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced those
+curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?
+
+This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple,
+nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it
+uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: "From whom
+can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify
+it."
+
+He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between
+two fingers, striving to read through the envelope, without making up
+his mind to open it.
+
+Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying
+glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He
+suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me,
+very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often.
+But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it
+be from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking for money."
+
+And he tore open the letter. Then he read:
+
+My Dear Friend: You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now
+twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was young; I am old. When
+I bade you farewell, I left Paris in order to follow into the
+provinces my husband, my old husband, whom you used to call "my
+hospital." Do you remember him? He died five years ago, and now I am
+returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a daughter,
+a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen. I informed you
+of her birth, but you certainly did not pay much attention to so
+trifling an event.
+
+You are still the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told. Well if you
+still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come and
+dine with her this evening, with the elderly Baronne de Vance, your
+ever faithful friend, who, with some emotion, although happy, reaches
+out to you a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no longer kiss,
+my poor Jaquelet.
+
+Lise de Vance.
+
+Lormerin's heart began to throb. He remained sunk in his armchair with
+the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by a
+poignant emotion that made the tears mount up to his eyes! If he had
+ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise, Lise de
+Vance, whom he called "Ashflower," on account of the strange color of
+her hair and the pale gray of her eyes. Oh! what a dainty, pretty,
+charming creature she was, this frail baronne, the wife of that gouty,
+pimply baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut
+her up, kept her in seclusion through jealousy, jealousy of the
+handsome Lormerin.
+
+Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he, too, had been truly
+loved. She familiarly gave him the name of Jaquelet, and would
+pronounce that word in a delicious fashion.
+
+A thousand forgotten memories came back to him, far off and sweet and
+melancholy now. One evening she had called on him on her way home from
+a ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in
+evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the
+weather was beautiful. The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm
+air--the odor of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her
+skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's
+rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A
+little surprised, he asked her why.
+
+She replied:
+
+"I don't know. The moon and the water have affected me. Every time I
+see poetic things I have a tightening at the heart, and I have to
+cry."
+
+He smiled, affected himself, considering her feminine emotion
+charming--the unaffected emotion of a poor little woman whom every
+sensation overwhelms. And he embraced her passionately, stammering:
+
+"My little Lise, you are exquisite."
+
+What a charming love affair, short-lived and dainty, it had been and
+over all too quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this old
+brute of a baron, who had carried off his wife, and never let any one
+see her afterward.
+
+Lormerin had forgotten, in fact, at the end of two or three months.
+One woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a
+bachelor! No matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart,
+for he had loved her alone! He assured himself now that this was so.
+
+He rose, and said aloud: "Certainly, I will go and dine with her this
+evening!"
+
+And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself from
+head to foot. He reflected: "She must look very old, older than I
+look." And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her
+still handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling
+her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far
+distant!
+
+He turned his attention to the other letters. They were of no
+importance.
+
+The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of other days. What was
+she like now? How strange it was to meet in this way after twenty-five
+years! But would he recognize her?
+
+He made his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat,
+which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the
+hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for
+he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his
+eagerness to see her.
+
+The first thing he saw on entering a pretty drawing-room newly
+furnished was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from
+the days when he was a beau, hanging on the wall in an antique silk
+frame.
+
+He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly,
+and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended
+both hands toward him.
+
+He seized them, kissed them one after the other several times; then,
+lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.
+
+Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and
+who, while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.
+
+He could not abstain from murmuring:
+
+"Is it you, Lise?"
+
+She replied:
+
+"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would
+you? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my
+life. Look at me now--or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome
+you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I
+would have exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!' Now, sit down and let us, first of
+all, have a chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up
+daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or, rather, how I resembled
+her--no, it is not quite that; she is just like the 'me' of former
+days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared
+that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now
+it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend."
+
+He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to
+say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never
+seen her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk
+about? Of the long ago? What was there in common between him and her?
+He could no longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly
+face. He could no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet,
+so bitter, that had come to his mind that morning when he thought of
+the other, of little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had
+become of her, the former one, the one he had loved? That woman of
+far-off dreams, the blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to
+call him "Jaquelet" so prettily?
+
+They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,
+profoundly ill at ease.
+
+As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and
+slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.
+
+"I am going to call Renee," she said.
+
+There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; then a young
+voice exclaimed:
+
+"Here I am, mamma!"
+
+Lormerin remained bewildered as at the sight of an apparition.
+
+He stammered:
+
+"Good-day, mademoiselle."
+
+Then, turning toward the mother:
+
+"Oh! it is you!"
+
+In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise
+who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won
+twenty-five years before. This one was even younger, fresher, more
+childlike.
+
+He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart
+again, murmuring in her ear:
+
+"Good-morning, Lison!"
+
+A man-servant announced:
+
+"Dinner is ready, madame."
+
+And they proceeded toward the dining-room.
+
+What passed at this dinner? What did they say to him, and what could
+he say in reply? He found himself plunged in one of those strange
+dreams which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a
+fixed idea in his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea:
+
+"Which is the real one?"
+
+The mother smiled, repeating over and over again:
+
+"Do you remember?" And it was in the bright eyes of the young girl
+that he found again his memories of the past. Twenty times he opened
+his mouth to say to her: "Do you remember, Lison?" forgetting this
+white-haired lady who was looking at him tenderly.
+
+And yet, there were moments when he no longer felt sure, when he lost
+his head. He could see that the woman of to-day was not exactly the
+woman of long ago. The other one, the former one, had in her voice, in
+her glances, in her entire being, something which he did not find
+again. And he made prodigious efforts of mind to recall his lady love,
+to seize again what had escaped from her, what this resuscitated one
+did not possess.
+
+The baronne said:
+
+"You have lost your old vivacity, my poor friend."
+
+He murmured:
+
+"There are many other things that I have lost!"
+
+But in his heart, touched with emotion, he felt his old love springing
+to life once more, like an awakened wild beast ready to bite him.
+
+The young girl went on chattering, and every now and then some
+familiar intonation, some expression of her mother's, a certain style
+of speaking and thinking, that resemblance of mind and manner which
+people acquire by living together, shook Lormerin from head to foot.
+All these things penetrated him, making the reopened wound of his
+passion bleed anew.
+
+He got away early, and took a turn along the boulevard. But the image
+of this young girl pursued him, haunted him, quickened his heart,
+inflamed his blood. Apart from the two women, he now saw only one, a
+young one, the old one come back out of the past, and he loved her as
+he had loved her in bygone years. He loved her with greater ardor,
+after an interval of twenty-five years.
+
+He went home to reflect on this strange and terrible thing, and to
+think what he should do.
+
+But, as he was passing, with a wax candle in his hand, before the
+glass, the large glass in which he had contemplated himself and
+admired himself before he started, he saw reflected there an elderly,
+gray-haired man; and suddenly he recollected what he had been in olden
+days, in the days of little Lise. He saw himself charming and
+handsome, as he had been when he was loved! Then, drawing the light
+nearer, he looked at himself more closely, as one inspects a strange
+thing with a magnifying glass, tracing the wrinkles, discovering those
+frightful ravages, which he had not perceived till now.
+
+And he sat down, crushed at the sight of himself, at the sight of his
+lamentable image, murmuring:
+
+"All over, Lormerin!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PARROT
+
+I
+
+Everybody in Fecamp knew Mother Patin's story. She had certainly been
+unfortunate with her husband, for in his lifetime he used to beat her,
+just as wheat is threshed in the barn.
+
+He was master of a fishing bark and had married her, formerly, because
+she was pretty, although poor.
+
+Patin was a good sailor, but brutal. He used to frequent Father
+Auban's inn, where he would usually drink four or five glasses of
+brandy, on lucky days eight or ten glasses and even more, according to
+his mood. The brandy was served to the customers by Father Auban's
+daughter, a pleasing brunette, who attracted people to the house only
+by her pretty face, for nothing had ever been gossiped about her.
+
+Patin, when he entered the inn, would be satisfied to look at her and
+to compliment her politely and respectfully. After he had had his
+first glass of brandy he would already find her much nicer; at the
+second he would wink; at the third he would say: "If you were only
+willing, Mam'zelle Desiree----" without ever finishing his sentence;
+at the fourth he would try to hold her back by her skirt in order to
+kiss her; and when he went as high as ten it was Father Auban who
+brought him the remaining drinks.
+
+The old innkeeper, who knew all the tricks of the trade, made Desiree
+walk about between the tables in order to increase the consumption of
+drinks; and Desiree, who was a worthy daughter of Father Auban,
+flitted around among the benches and joked with them, her lips smiling
+and her eyes sparkling.
+
+Patin got so well accustomed to Desiree's face that he thought of it
+even while at sea, when throwing out his nets, in storms or in calms,
+on moonlit or dark evenings. He thought of her while holding the
+tiller in the stern of his boat, while his four companions were
+slumbering with their heads on their arms. He always saw her, smiling,
+pouring out the yellow brandy with a peculiar shoulder movement and
+then exclaiming as she turned away: "There, now; are you satisfied?"
+
+He saw her so much in his mind's eye that he was overcome by an
+irresistible desire to marry her, and, not being able to hold out any
+longer, he asked for her hand.
+
+He was rich, owned his own vessel, his nets and a little house at the
+foot of the hill on the Retenue, whereas Father Auban had nothing. The
+marriage was therefore eagerly agreed upon and the wedding took place
+as soon as possible, as both parties were desirous for the affair to
+be concluded as early as convenient.
+
+Three days after the wedding Patin could no longer understand how he
+had ever imagined Desiree to be different from other women. What a
+fool he had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who
+had undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she had put in his
+brandy!
+
+He would curse all day long, break his pipe with his teeth and maul
+his crew. After he had sworn by every known term at everything that
+came his way he would rid himself of his remaining anger on the fish
+and lobsters, which he pulled from the nets and threw into the baskets
+amid oaths and foul language. When he returned home he would find his
+wife, Father Auban's daughter, within reach of his mouth and hand, and
+it was not long before he treated her like the lowest creature in the
+world. As she listened calmly, accustomed to paternal violence, he
+grew exasperated at her quiet, and one evening he beat her. Then life
+at his home became unbearable.
+
+For ten years the principal topic of conversation on the Retenue was
+about the beatings that Patin gave his wife and his manner of cursing
+at her for the least thing. He could, indeed, curse with a richness of
+vocabulary in a roundness of tone unequalled by any other man in
+Fecamp. As soon as his ship was sighted at the entrance of the harbor,
+returning from the fishing expedition, every one awaited the first
+volley he would hurl from the bridge as soon as he perceived his
+wife's white cap.
+
+Standing at the stern, he would steer, his eye fixed on the bows and
+on the sail, and, notwithstanding the difficulty of the narrow passage
+and the height of the turbulent waves, he would search among the
+watching women and try to recognize his wife, Father Auban's daughter,
+the wretch!
+
+Then, as soon as he saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and
+waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that
+every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he
+arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the
+fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all
+the loafers of the neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes
+like shots from a cannon, short and terrible, sometimes like peals of
+thunder, which roll and rumble for five minutes, such a hurricane of
+oaths that he seemed to have in his lungs one of the storms of the
+Eternal Father.
+
+When he left his ship and found himself face to face with her,
+surrounded by all the gossips of the neighborhood, he would bring up a
+new cargo of insults and bring her back to their dwelling, she in
+front, he behind, she weeping, he yelling at her.
+
+At last, when alone with her behind closed doors, he would thrash her
+on the slightest pretext. The least thing was sufficient to make him
+raise his hand, and when he had once begun he did not stop, but he
+would throw into her face the true motive for his anger. At each blow
+he would roar: "There, you beggar! There, you wretch! There, you
+pauper! What a bright thing I did when I rinsed my mouth with your
+rascal of a father's apology for brandy!"
+
+The poor woman lived in continual fear, in a ceaseless trembling of
+body and soul, in everlasting expectation of outrageous thrashings.
+
+This lasted ten years. She was so timorous that she would grow pale
+whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the
+blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more
+yellow and drier than a smoked fish.
+
+II
+
+One night, when her husband was at sea, she was suddenly awakened by
+the wild roaring of the wind! She sat up in her bed, trembling, but,
+as she heard nothing more, she lay down again; almost immediately
+there was a roar in the chimney which shook the entire house; it
+seemed to cross the heavens like a pack of furious animals snorting
+and roaring.
+
+Then she arose and rushed to the harbor. Other women were arriving
+from all sides, carrying lanterns. The men also were gathering, and
+all were watching the foaming crests of the breaking waves.
+
+The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors never returned; Patin
+was among them.
+
+In the neighborhood of Dieppe the wreck of his bark, the
+_Jeune-Amelie_, was found. The bodies of his sailors were found
+near Saint-Valery, but his body was never recovered. As his vessel
+seemed to have been cut in two, his wife expected and feared his return
+for a long time, for if there had been a collision he alone might have
+been picked up and carried afar off.
+
+Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid
+of him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar
+or a peddler would enter suddenly.
+
+One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her
+husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped
+before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose
+furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction.
+He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with
+a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that
+can talk like a lawyer, three francs!"
+
+A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said: "You ought to buy
+that, you who are rich. It would be good company for you. That bird is
+worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always sell it for
+twenty or twenty-five!"
+
+Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a
+little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was
+opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit
+her finger and drew blood.
+
+"Oh, how naughty he is!" she said.
+
+Nevertheless she gave it some hemp-seed and corn and watched it
+pruning its feathers as it glanced warily at its new home and its new
+mistress.
+
+On the following morning, just as day was breaking, the Patin woman
+distinctly heard a loud, deep, roaring voice calling: "Are you going
+to get up, carrion?"
+
+Her fear was so great that she hid her head under the sheets, for when
+Patin was with her as soon as he would open his eyes he would shout
+those well-known words into her ears.
+
+Trembling, rolled into a ball, her back prepared for the thrashing
+which she already expected, her face buried in the pillows, she
+murmured: "Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he
+has come back!"
+
+Minutes passed; no noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling,
+she stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching,
+ready to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window,
+she saw nothing, and she said to herself: "He must be hidden."
+
+She waited a long time and then, gaining courage, she said to herself:
+"I must have dreamed it, seeing there is nobody here."
+
+A little reassured, she closed her eyes, when from quite near a
+furious voice, the thunderous voice of the drowned man, could be heard
+crying: "Say! when in the name of all that's holy are you going to get
+up, you b----?"
+
+She jumped out of bed, moved by obedience, by the passive obedience of
+a woman accustomed to blows and who still remembers and always will
+remember that voice! She said: "Here I am, Patin; what do you want?"
+
+But Patin did not answer. Then, at a complete loss, she looked around
+her, then in the chimney and under the bed and finally sank into a
+chair, wild with anxiety, convinced that Patin's soul alone was there,
+near her, and that he had returned in order to torture her.
+
+Suddenly she remembered the loft, in order to reach which one had to
+take a ladder. Surely he must have hidden there in order to surprise
+her. He must have been held by savages on some distant shore, unable
+to escape until now, and he had returned, worse that ever. There was
+no doubting the quality of that voice. She raised her head and asked:
+"Are you up there, Patin?"
+
+Patin did not answer. Then, with a terrible fear which made her heart
+tremble, she climbed the ladder, opened the skylight, looked, saw
+nothing, entered, looked about and found nothing. Sitting on some
+straw, she began to cry, but while she was weeping, overcome by a
+poignant and supernatural terror, she heard Patin talking in the room
+below. He seemed less angry and he was saying: "Nasty weather! Fierce
+wind! Nasty weather! I haven't eaten, damn it!"
+
+She cried through the ceiling: "Here I am, Patin; I am getting your
+meal ready. Don't get angry."
+
+She ran down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself
+growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and
+get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: "I
+haven't had my breakfast, by G----!"
+
+And the parrot in his cage watched her with his round, knowing, wicked
+eye. She, too, looked at him wildly, murmuring: "Ah! so it's you!"
+
+He shook his head and continued: "Just you wait! I'll teach you how to
+loaf."
+
+What happened within her? She felt, she understood that it was he, the
+dead man, who had come back, who had disguised himself in the feathers
+of this bird in order to continue to torment her; that he would curse,
+as formerly, all day long, and bite her, and swear at her, in order to
+attract the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she rushed for the
+cage and seized the bird, which scratched and tore her flesh with its
+claws and beak. But she held it with all her strength between her
+hands. She threw it on the ground and rolled over it with the frenzy
+of one possessed. She crushed it and finally made of it nothing but a
+little green, flabby lump which no longer moved or spoke. Then she
+wrapped it in a cloth, as in a shroud, and she went out in her
+nightgown, barefoot; she crossed the dock, against which the choppy
+waves of the sea were beating, and she shook the cloth and let drop
+this little dead thing, which looked like so much grass. Then she
+returned, threw herself on her knees before the empty cage, and,
+overcome by what she had done, kneeled and prayed for forgiveness, as
+if she had committed some heinous crime.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PIECE OF STRING
+
+It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the
+peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked
+slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long,
+crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes
+the left shoulder higher, and bends their figures sideways; from
+reaping the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep
+on their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though
+varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered
+design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like
+balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.
+
+Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope.
+And just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the
+back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large
+baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks. These
+women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their
+erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over
+their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth,
+enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.
+
+Now a char-a-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up
+strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the
+cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.
+
+In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled
+multitude of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high,
+long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the headdresses of the women
+came to the surface of that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices
+made a continuous, wild din, while above it occasionally rose a huge
+burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a
+prolonged bellow from a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.
+
+It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration
+giving off that half-human, half-animal odor which is peculiar to
+country folks.
+
+Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, had just arrived at Goderville and was
+making his way toward the square when he perceived on the ground a
+little piece of string. Maitre Hauchecorne, economical as are all true
+Normans, reflected that everything was worth picking up which could be
+of any use, and he stooped down, but painfully, because he suffered
+from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and
+was carefully preparing to roll it up when he saw Maitre Malandain,
+the harness maker, on his doorstep staring at him. They had once had a
+quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever
+since. Maitre Hauchecorne was overcome with a sort of shame at being
+seen by his enemy picking up a bit of string in the road. He quickly
+hid it beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches
+pocket, then pretended to be still looking for something on the
+ground which he did not discover and finally went off toward the
+market-place, his head bent forward and his body almost doubled in
+two by rheumatic pains.
+
+He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and
+noisily as it chaffered and bargained. The peasants examined the cows,
+went off, came back, always in doubt for fear of being cheated, never
+quite daring to decide, looking the seller square in the eye in the
+effort to discover the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.
+
+The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken
+out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, their legs tied together,
+with terrified eyes and scarlet combs.
+
+They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices in a decided
+manner with an impassive face or perhaps deciding to accept the
+smaller price offered, suddenly calling out to the customer who was
+starting to go away:
+
+"All right, I'll let you have them, Mait' Anthime."
+
+Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus
+struck midday those who lived at a distance poured into the inns.
+
+At Jourdain's the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast
+court was filled with vehicles of every sort--wagons, gigs,
+chars-a-bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name,
+yellow with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to
+heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose, on the ground and
+their rear in the air.
+
+Just opposite to where the diners were at table the huge fireplace,
+with its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those
+who sat at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens,
+with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast
+meat and of gravy flowing ever crisp brown skin arose from the hearth,
+kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.
+
+All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Mait'
+Jourdain's, the innkeeper's, a dealer in horses also and a sharp
+fellow who had made a great deal of money in his day.
+
+The dishes were passed round, were emptied, as were the jugs of yellow
+cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and his sales.
+They exchanged news about the crops. The weather was good for greens,
+but too wet for grain.
+
+Suddenly the drum began to beat in the courtyard before the house.
+Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at
+once and ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and
+napkins in their hand.
+
+When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a
+jerky voice, pausing in the wrong places:
+
+"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all
+persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on
+the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather
+pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are
+requested, to return it to the mayor's office at once or to Maitre
+Fortune Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs
+reward."
+
+Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull
+beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all
+began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maitre
+Houlbreque had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.
+
+The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal
+of gendarmes appeared on the threshold.
+
+He asked:
+
+"Is Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, here?"
+
+Maitre Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:
+
+"Here I am, here I am."
+
+And he followed the corporal.
+
+The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the
+notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.
+
+"Maitre Hauchecorne," said he, "this morning on the Beuzeville road,
+you were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Maitre Houlbreque, of
+Manneville."
+
+The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement, frightened already at
+this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.
+
+"I--I picked up that pocketbook?"
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"I swear I don't even know anything about it."
+
+"You were seen."
+
+"I was seen--I? Who saw me?"
+
+"M. Malandain, the harness-maker."
+
+Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger,
+said:
+
+"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string
+here, M'sieu le Maire."
+
+And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the
+little end of string.
+
+But the mayor incredulously shook his head:
+
+"You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain,
+who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for
+a pocketbook."
+
+The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside
+him as if to attest his good faith, repeating:
+
+"For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's
+salvation, I repeat it."
+
+The mayor continued:
+
+"After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for
+some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropped out of
+it."
+
+The good man was choking with indignation and fear.
+
+"How can they tell--how can they tell such lies as that to slander an
+honest man! How can they?"
+
+His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.
+
+He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his
+testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request
+Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.
+
+At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he
+would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.
+
+The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office the old man was
+surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or
+mocking, as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered.
+And he began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe
+him. They laughed.
+
+He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his
+acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his
+protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he
+had nothing in them.
+
+They said to him:
+
+"You old rogue!"
+
+He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being
+believed, and kept on telling his story.
+
+The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his
+neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the
+string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.
+
+That evening he made the round of the village of Breaute for the
+purpose of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.
+
+He brooded over it all night long.
+
+The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand
+of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at Ymauville, returned the
+pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbreque, of Manneville.
+
+This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not
+knowing how to read, he had carried it home and given it to his
+master.
+
+The news spread to the environs. Maitre Hauchecorne was informed. He
+started off at once and began to relate his story with the denoument.
+He was triumphant.
+
+"What grieved me," said he, "was not the thing itself, do you
+understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing does you so
+much harm as being in disgrace for lying."
+
+All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the
+people who passed, at the cabaret to the people who drank and next
+Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell
+them about it. He was easy now, and yet something worried him without
+his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they
+listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks
+behind his back.
+
+On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville,
+prompted solely by the need of telling his story.
+
+Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him
+pass. Why?
+
+He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and
+giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face: "Oh,
+you great rogue!" Then he turned his heel upon him.
+
+Maitre Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy.
+Why had they called him "great rogue"?
+
+When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to explain
+the whole affair.
+
+A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:
+
+"Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string."
+
+Hauchecorne stammered:
+
+"But since they found it again, the pocketbook!"
+
+But the other continued:
+
+"Hold your tongue, daddy; there's one who finds it and there's another
+who returns it. And no one the wiser."
+
+The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of
+having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a
+confederate.
+
+He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
+
+He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.
+
+He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more
+cast down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of
+having done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a
+good trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his
+innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck
+to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
+
+He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day,
+each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more
+sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of
+solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the
+string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less
+he was believed.
+
+"Those are liars' proofs," they said behind his back.
+
+He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless
+efforts.
+
+He was visibly wasting away.
+
+Jokers would make him tell the story of "the piece of string" to amuse
+them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his
+story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of
+December he took to his bed.
+
+He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony,
+he protested his innocence, repeating:
+
+"A little bit of string--a little bit of string. See, here it is,
+M'sieu le Maire."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other
+Stories, by Guy de Maupassant
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNE VIE ***
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+This file should be named 7uvie10.txt or 7uvie10.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+by Guy de Maupassant
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+Title: Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7114]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 11, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNE VIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+
+UNE VIE
+
+A Piece of String
+And Other Stories
+
+
+Translated by
+Albert M. C. McMaster, B.A.
+A. E. Henderson, B.A.
+Mme. Quesada and Others
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "JEANNE"]
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY POL. NEVEUX
+
+UNE VIE (The History of a Heart)
+   I. The Home by the Sea
+  II. Happy Days
+ III. M. de Lamare
+  IV. Marriage and Disillusion
+   V. Corsica and a New Life
+  VI. Disenchantment
+ VII. Jeanne's Discovery
+VIII. Maternity
+  IX. Death of La Baronne
+   X. Retribution
+  XI. The Development of Paul
+ XII. A New Home
+XIII. Jeanne in Paris
+ XIV. Light at Eventide
+
+A VAGABOND
+
+THE FISHING HOLE
+
+THE SPASM
+
+IN THE WOOD
+
+MARTINE
+
+ALL OVER
+
+THE PARROT
+
+A PIECE OF STRING
+
+
+[Illustration: Guy de Maupassant]
+
+
+GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+
+A Study by Pol. Neveux
+
+"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a
+thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to José Maria de Heredia on
+the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid
+solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which,
+for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the
+fertility of a master hand produced poetry, novels, romances and
+travels, only to sink prematurely into the abyss of madness and
+death....
+
+In the month of April, 1880, an article appeared in the "Le Gaulois"
+announcing the publication of the Soirées de Médan. It was signed by a
+name as yet unknown: Guy de Maupassant. After a juvenile diatribe
+against romanticism and a passionate attack on languorous literature,
+the writer extolled the study of real life, and announced the
+publication of the new work. It was picturesque and charming. In the
+quiet of evening, on an island in the Seine, beneath poplars instead
+of the Neapolitan cypresses dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the
+continuous murmur of the valley, and no longer to the sound of the
+Pyrennean streams that murmured a faint accompaniment to the tales of
+Marguerite's cavaliers, the master and his disciples took turns in
+narrating some striking or pathetic episode of the war. And the issue,
+in collaboration, of these tales in one volume, in which the master
+jostled elbows with his pupils, took on the appearance of a manifesto,
+the tone of a challenge, or the utterance of a creed.
+
+In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they
+had confined themselves, beneath the trees of Médan, to deciding on a
+general title for the work. Zola had contributed the manuscript of the
+"Attaque du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five
+young men gave in their contributions. Each one read his story,
+Maupassant being the last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a
+spontaneous impulse, with an emotion they never forgot, filled with
+enthusiasm at this revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous
+words, acclaimed him as a master.
+
+He undertook to write the article for the Gaulois and, in coöperation
+with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are
+familiar, amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste
+for mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential
+point, he said, is to "unmoor" criticism.
+
+It was unmoored. The following day Wolff wrote a polemical
+dissertation in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume
+was a brilliant success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty,
+the honesty of effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the
+other stories. Relegated to the second rank, they passed without
+notice. From his first battle, Maupassant was master of the field in
+literature.
+
+At once the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate
+regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought
+information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly
+straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at
+the present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient
+heroes whose origin and death are veiled in mystery.
+
+I will not dwell on Guy de Maupassant's younger days. His relatives,
+his old friends, he himself, here and there in his works, have
+furnished us in their letters enough valuable revelations and touching
+remembrances of the years preceding his literary début. His worthy
+biographer, H. Édouard Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the
+writings, condensing and comparing them, has been able to give us some
+definite information regarding that early period.
+
+I will simply recall that he was born on the 5th of August, 1850, near
+Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil which he describes in Une Vie....
+
+Maupassant, like Flaubert, was a Norman, through his mother, and
+through his place of birth he belonged to that strange and adventurous
+race, whose heroic and long voyages on tramp trading ships he liked to
+recall. And just as the author of "Éducation sentimentale" seems to
+have inherited in the paternal line the shrewd realism of Champagne,
+so de Maupassant appears to have inherited from his Lorraine ancestors
+their indestructible discipline and cold lucidity.
+
+His childhood was passed at Étretat, his beautiful childhood; it was
+there that his instincts were awakened in the unfoldment of his
+prehistoric soul. Years went by in an ecstasy of physical happiness.
+The delight of running at full speed through fields of gorse, the
+charm of voyages of discovery in hollows and ravines, games beneath
+the dark hedges, a passion for going to sea with the fishermen and, on
+nights when there was no moon, for dreaming on their boats of
+imaginary voyages.
+
+Mme. de Maupassant, who had guided her son's early reading, and had
+gazed with him at the sublime spectacle of nature, put off as long as
+possible the hour of separation. One day, however, she had to take the
+child to the little seminary at Yvetot. Later, he became a student at
+the college at Rouen, and became a literary correspondent of Louis
+Bouilhet. It was at the latter's house on those Sundays in winter when
+the Norman rain drowned the sound of the bells and dashed against the
+window panes that the school boy learned to write poetry.
+
+Vacation took the rhetorician back to the north of Normandy. Now it
+was shooting at Saint Julien-l'Hospitalier, across fields, bogs, and
+through the woods. From that time on he sealed his pact with the
+earth, and those "deep and delicate roots" which attached him to his
+native soil began to grow. It was of Normandy, broad, fresh and
+virile, that he would presently demand his inspiration, fervent and
+eager as a boy's love; it was in her that he would take refuge when,
+weary of life, he would implore a truce, or when he simply wished to
+work and revive his energies in old-time joys. It was at this time
+that was born in him that voluptuous love of the sea, which in later
+days could alone withdraw him from the world, calm him, console him.
+
+In 1870 he lived in the country, then he came to Paris to live; for,
+the family fortunes having dwindled, he had to look for a position.
+For several years he was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine, where he
+turned over musty papers, in the uninteresting company of the clerks
+of the admiralty.
+
+Then he went into the department of Public Instruction, where
+bureaucratic servility is less intolerable. The daily duties are
+certainly scarcely more onerous and he had as chiefs, or colleagues,
+Xavier Charmes and Leon Dierx, Henry Roujon and René Billotte, but his
+office looked out on a beautiful melancholy garden with immense plane
+trees around which black circles of crows gathered in winter.
+
+Maupassant made two divisions of his spare hours, one for boating, and
+the other for literature. Every evening in spring, every free day, he
+ran down to the river whose mysterious current veiled in fog or
+sparkling in the sun called to him and bewitched him. In the islands
+in the Seine between Chatou and Port-Marly, on the banks of
+Sartrouville and Triel he was long noted among the population of
+boatmen, who have now vanished, for his unwearying biceps, his cynical
+gaiety of goodfellowship, his unfailing practical jokes, his broad
+witticisms. Sometimes he would row with frantic speed, free and
+joyous, through the glowing sunlight on the stream; sometimes, he
+would wander along the coast, questioning the sailors, chatting with
+the ravageurs, or junk gatherers, or stretched at full length amid the
+irises and tansy he would lie for hours watching the frail insects
+that play on the surface of the stream, water spiders, or white
+butterflies, dragon flies, chasing each other amid the willow leaves,
+or frogs asleep on the lily-pads.
+
+The rest of his life was taken up by his work. Without ever becoming
+despondent, silent and persistent, he accumulated manuscripts, poetry,
+criticisms, plays, romances and novels. Every week he docilely
+submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his
+mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to
+assist the young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make
+chefs-d'oeuvre immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious
+research and to use direct observation and who inculcated in him a
+horror of vulgarity and a contempt for facility.
+
+Maupassant himself tells us of those severe initiations in the Rue
+Murillo, or in the tent at Croisset; he has recalled the implacable
+didactics of his old master, his tender brutality, the paternal advice
+of his generous and candid heart. For seven years Flaubert slashed,
+pulverized, the awkward attempts of his pupil whose success remained
+uncertain.
+
+Suddenly, in a flight of spontaneous perfection, he wrote Boule de
+Suif. His master's joy was great and overwhelming. He died two months
+later.
+
+Until the end Maupassant remained illuminated by the reflection of the
+good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the
+dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of
+Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither
+work, nor glory, nor slow moving waves, nor balmy nights.
+
+At the end of his short life, while his mind was still clear, he wrote
+to a friend: "I am always thinking of my poor Flaubert, and I say to
+myself that I should like to die if I were sure that anyone would
+think of me in the same manner."
+
+During these long years of his novitiate Maupassant had entered the
+social literary circles. He would remain silent, preoccupied; and if
+anyone, astonished at his silence, asked him about his plans he
+answered simply: "I am learning my trade." However, under the
+pseudonym of Guy de Valmont, he had sent some articles to the
+newspapers, and, later, with the approval and by the advice of
+Flaubert, he published, in the "République des Lettres," poems signed
+by his name.
+
+These poems, overflowing with sensuality, where the hymn to the Earth
+describes the transports of physical possession, where the impatience
+of love expresses itself in loud melancholy appeals like the calls of
+animals in the spring nights, are valuable chiefly inasmuch as they
+reveal the creature of instinct, the fawn escaped from his native
+forests, that Maupassant was in his early youth. But they add nothing
+to his glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules
+Lemaitre said. To mould the expression of his thought according to the
+strictest laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his
+aim. Following the example of one of his comrades of Médan, being
+readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of
+sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the
+chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines.
+However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having
+published. His encounters with prosody had left him with that
+monotonous weariness that the horseman and the fencer feel after a
+period in the riding school, or a bout with the foils.
+
+Such, in very broad lines, is the story of Maupassant's literary
+apprenticeship.
+
+The day following the publication of "Boule de Suif," his reputation
+began to grow rapidly. The quality of his story was unrivalled, but at
+the same time it must be acknowledged that there were some who, for
+the sake of discussion, desired to place a young reputation in
+opposition to the triumphant brutality of Zola.
+
+From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire
+press, set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from
+all influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With
+a quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which
+he himself was not aware, but which was so universal, that no
+contemporary author during his life ever experienced the same. The
+"meteor" sent out its light and its rays were prolonged without limit,
+in article after article, volume on volume.
+
+He was now rich and famous.... He is esteemed all the more as they
+believe him to be rich and happy. But they do not know that this young
+fellow with the sunburnt face, thick neck and salient muscles whom
+they invariably compare to a young bull at liberty, and whose love
+affairs they whisper, is ill, very ill. At the very moment that
+success came to him, the malady that never afterwards left him came
+also, and, seated motionless at his side, gazed at him with its
+threatening countenance. He suffered from terrible headaches, followed
+by nights of insomnia. He had nervous attacks, which he soothed with
+narcotics and anesthetics, which he used freely. His sight, which had
+troubled him at intervals, became affected, and a celebrated oculist
+spoke of abnormality, asymetry of the pupils. The famous young man
+trembled in secret and was haunted by all kinds of terrors.
+
+The reader is charmed at the saneness of this revived art and yet,
+here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of
+nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the
+supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most
+commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as
+the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being
+alarmed, he thinks that the author must be gifted with infallible
+intuition to follow out thus the taints in his characters, even
+through their most dangerous mazes. The reader does not know that
+these hallucinations which he describes so minutely were experienced
+by Maupassant himself; he does not know that the fear is in himself,
+the anguish of fear "which is not caused by the presence of danger, or
+of inevitable death, but by certain abnormal conditions, by certain
+mysterious influences in presence of vague dangers," the "fear of
+fear, the dread of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible
+terror."
+
+How can one explain these physical sufferings and this morbid distress
+that were known for some time to his intimates alone? Alas! the
+explanation is only too simple. All his life, consciously or
+unconsciously, Maupassant fought this malady, hidden as yet, which was
+latent in him.
+
+Those who first saw Maupassant when the Contes de la Bécasse and Bel
+Ami were published were somewhat astonished at his appearance. He was
+solidly built, rather short and had a resolute, determined air, rather
+unpolished and without those distinguishing marks of intellect and
+social position. But his hands were delicate and supple, and beautiful
+shadows encircled his eyes.
+
+He received visitors with the graciousness of the courteous head of a
+department, who resigns himself to listen to demands, allowing them to
+talk as he smiled faintly, and nonplussing them by his calmness.
+
+How chilling was this first interview to young enthusiasts who had
+listened to Zola unfolding in lyric formula audacious methods, or to
+the soothing words of Daudet, who scattered with prodigality striking,
+thrilling ideas, picturesque outlines and brilliant synopses.
+Maupassant's remarks, in têtes-à-têtes, as in general conversation,
+were usually current commonplaces and on ordinary time-worn topics.
+Convinced of the superfluousness of words, perhaps he confounded them
+all in the same category, placing the same estimate on a thought nobly
+expressed as on a sally of coarse wit. One would have thought so, to
+see the indifference with which he treated alike the chatter of the
+most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of
+the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life
+work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical
+anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move
+him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical
+joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the
+pleasure of hoaxing and mystifying people.
+
+He appeared besides to look upon art as a pastime, literature as an
+occupation useless at best, while he willingly relegated love to the
+performance of a function, and suspected the motives of the most
+meritorious actions.
+
+Some say that this was the inborn basis of his personal psychology. I
+do not believe it. That he may have had a low estimate of humanity,
+that he may have mistrusted its disinterestedness, contested the
+quality of its virtue, is possible, even certain. But that he was not
+personally superior to his heroes I am unwilling to admit. And if I
+see in his attitude, as in his language, an evidence of his inveterate
+pessimism, I see in it also a method of protecting his secret thoughts
+from the curiosity of the vulgar.
+
+Perhaps he overshot the mark. By dint of hearing morality, art and
+literature depreciated, and seeing him preoccupied with boating, and
+listening to his own accounts of love affairs which he did not always
+carry on in the highest class, many ended by seeing in him one of
+those terrible Normans who, all through his novels and stories,
+carouse and commit social crimes with such commanding assurance and
+such calm unmorality.
+
+He was undoubtedly a Norman, and, according to those who knew him
+best, many of his traits of character show that atavism is not always
+an idle word....
+
+To identify Maupassant with his characters is a gross error, but is
+not without precedent. We always like to trace the author in the hero
+of a romance, and to seek the actor beneath the disguise. No doubt, as
+Taine has said, "the works of an intelligence have not the
+intelligence alone for father and mother, but the whole personality of
+the man helps to produce them...."
+
+That is why Maupassant himself says to us, "No, I have not the soul of
+a decadent, I cannot look within myself, and the effort I make to
+understand unknown souls is incessant, involuntary and dominant. It is
+not an effort; I experience a sort of overpowering sense of insight
+into all that surrounds me. I am impregnated with it, I yield to it, I
+submerge myself in these surrounding influences."
+
+That is, properly speaking, the peculiarity of all great novelists.
+Who experiences this insight, this influence more than Balzac, or
+Flaubert, in Madame Bovary? And so with Maupassant, who, pen in hand,
+is the character he describes, with his passions, his hatreds, his
+vices and his virtues. He so incorporates himself in him that the
+author disappears, and we ask ourselves in vain what his own opinion
+is of what he has just told us. He has none possibly, or if he has he
+does not tell it.
+
+This agrees admirably with the theory of impassivity in literature, so
+much in vogue when Maupassant became known. But despite that theory he
+is, if one understands him, quite other than
+
+        "A being without pity who contemplated suffering."
+
+He has the deepest sympathy for the weak, for the victims of the
+deceptions of society, for the sufferings of the obscure. If the
+successful adventurer, Lesable, and the handsome Maze are the objects
+of his veiled irony, he maintains, or feels a sorrowful, though
+somewhat disdainful tenderness, for poor old Savon, the old copying
+clerk of the Ministry of Marine, who is the drudge of the office and
+whose colleagues laugh at him because his wife deceived him, _sans
+espoir d'"heritage."_
+
+Why did Maupassant at the start win universal favor? It is because he
+had direct genius, the clear vision of a "primitive" (an artist of the
+pre-Renaissance). His materials were just those of a graduate who,
+having left college, has satisfied his curiosity. Grasping the simple
+and ingenious, but strong and appropriate tools that he himself has
+forged, he starts out in the forest of romance, and instead of being
+overcome by the enchantment of its mystery, he walks through it
+unfalteringly with a joyful step....
+
+He was a minstrel. Offspring of a race, and not the inheritor of a
+formula, he narrated to his contemporaries, bewildered by the lyrical
+deformities of romanticism, stories of human beings, simple and
+logical, like those which formerly delighted our parents.
+
+The French reader who wished to be amused was at once at home, on the
+same footing with him.... More spontaneous than the first troubadours,
+he banished from his writings abstract and general types,
+"romanticized" life itself, and not myths, those eternal legends that
+stray through the highways of the world.
+
+Study closely these minstrels in recent works; read M. Joseph Bédier's
+beautiful work, Les Fabliaux, and you will see how, in Maupassant's
+prose, ancestors, whom he doubtless never knew, are brought to life.
+
+The Minstrel feels neither anger nor sympathy; he neither censures,
+nor moralizes; for the self-satisfied Middle Ages cannot conceive the
+possibility of a different world. Brief, quick, he despises aims and
+methods, his only object is to entertain his auditors. Amusing and
+witty, he cares only for laughter and ridicule....
+
+But Maupassant's stories are singularly different in character. In the
+nineteenth century the Gallic intellect had long since foundered amid
+vileness and debauchery. In the provinces the ancient humor had
+disappeared; one chattered still about nothing, but without point,
+without wit; "trifling" was over, as they call it in Champagne. The
+nauseating pabulum of the newspapers and low political intrigue had
+withered the French intellect, that delicate, rare intellect, the last
+traces of which fade away in the Alsatian stories of Erckman-Chatrian,
+in the Provençal tales of Alphonse Daudet, in the novels of Emile
+Pouvillon. Maupassant is not one of them. He knows nothing about
+humor, for he never found it in Life....
+
+His ambition was not to make one laugh; he writes for the pleasure of
+recalling, without bias, what, to him, seems a halfway and dangerous
+truth.... In his pessimism, Maupassant despises the race, society,
+civilization and the world....
+
+If Maupassant draws from anyone it is Schopenhauer and Herbert
+Spencer, of whom he often speaks, although one does not know if he
+studied them very deeply. In all his books, excepting, of course, in
+the case of lines from the great tragic poets, one finds only one
+credited reference, which in to Sir John Lubbock's work on ants, an
+extract from which is introduced into Yvette.
+
+No one was less bookish than himself. He was a designer, and one of
+the greatest in literature. His heroes, little folk, artisans or
+rustics, bureaucrats or shopkeepers, prostitutes or rakes, he places
+them in faintly colored, but well-defined surroundings. And,
+immediately, the simplified landscape gives the keynote of the story.
+
+In his descriptions he resists the temptation of asserting his
+personal view. He will not allow himself to see more of his landscape
+than his characters themselves see. He is also careful to avoid all
+refined terms and expressions, to introduce no element superior to the
+characters of his heroes.
+
+He never makes inanimate nature intervene directly in human
+tribulations; she laughs at our joys and our sorrows.... Once, only,
+in one of his works, the trees join in the universal mourning--the
+great, sad beeches weep in autumn for the soul, the little soul, of la
+petite Roque.
+
+And yet Maupassant adores this nature, the one thing that moves
+him.... But, in spite of this, he can control himself; the artist is
+aware of the danger to his narration should he indulge in the
+transports of a lover.
+
+With an inborn perception, Maupassant at once seizes on the principal
+detail, the essential peculiarity that distinguishes a character and
+builds round it. He also, in the presentation of his character,
+assumes an authority that no writer, not even Balzac, ever
+equalled....
+
+He traces what he sees with rapid strokes. His work is a vast
+collection of powerful sketches, synthetic draftings. Like all great
+artists, he was a simplifier; he knew how to "sacrifice" like the
+Egyptians and Greeks....
+
+Thanks to his rapid methods the master "cinematographed," if I may use
+the word, inexhaustible stories. Among them, each person may find
+himself represented, the artist, the clerk, the thinker, and the
+non-commissioned officer.
+
+Maupassant was always impatient to "realize" his observations. He
+might forget, and above all, the flower of the sensation might lose
+its perfume. In Une Vie he hastens to sum up his childhood's
+recollections. As for Bel Ami, he wrote it from day to day as he
+haunted the offices of Editors.
+
+As for his style, it is limpid, accurate, easy and strongly marked,
+with a sound framework and having the suppleness of a living organism.
+
+Very industrious and very careful at first, Maupassant, in the fever
+of production, became less careful. He early accustomed himself to
+composing in his mind. "Composition amuses me," he said, "when I am
+thinking it out, and not when I am writing it." ... Once he had
+thought out his novels or romances, he transcribed them hurriedly,
+almost mechanically. In his manuscripts, long pages follow each other
+without an erasure.
+
+His language appears natural, easy, and at first sight seems
+spontaneous. But at the price of what effort was it not acquired! ...
+
+In reality, in the writer, his sense of sight and smell were
+perfected, to the detriment of the sense of hearing which is not very
+musical. Repetitions, assonances, do not always shock Maupassant, who
+is sometimes insensible to quantity as he is to harmony. He does not
+"orchestrate," he has not inherited the "organ pipes" of Flaubert.
+
+In his vocabulary there is no research; he never even requires a rare
+word....
+
+Those whom Flaubert's great organ tones delighted, those whom
+Theophile Gautier's frescoes enchanted, were not satisfied, and
+accused Maupassant, somewhat harshly, of not being a "writer" in the
+highest sense of the term. The reproach is unmerited, for there is but
+one style.
+
+But, on the other hand, it is difficult to admit, with an eminent
+academician that Maupassant must be a great writer, a classical
+writer, in fact, simply because he "had no style," a condition of
+perfection "in that form of literary art in which the personality of
+the author should not appear, in the romance, the story, and the
+drama."
+
+A classic, Maupassant undoubtedly is, as the critic to whom I alluded
+has said, "through the simple aptness of his terms and his contempt
+for frivolous ornamentation."
+
+He remains a great writer because, like Molière, La Bruyère, and La
+Fontaine, he is always close to nature, disdaining all studied
+rhetorical effect and all literary verbosity.
+
+For applause and fame Maupassant cared nothing, and his proud contempt
+for Orders and Academies is well known.
+
+In a letter to Marie Bashkirtseff he writes as follows:
+
+"Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, women, events. This is
+my true confession of faith, and I may add what you may not believe,
+which is that I do not care any more for myself than I do for the
+rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent
+to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I
+pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I
+can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade."
+
+And in a later letter:
+
+"I have no taste that I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire
+that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or
+laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give
+myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me
+to spend it."
+
+And again:
+
+"As for me, I am incapable of really loving my art. I am too critical,
+I analyze it too much. I feel strongly how relative is the value of
+ideas, words, and even of the loftiest intelligences. I cannot help
+despising thought, it is so weak; and form, it is so imperfect. I
+really have, in an acute, incurable form, the sense of human
+impotence, and of effort which results in wretched approximations."
+
+For nature, Maupassant had an ardent passion.... His whole being
+quivered when she bathed his forehead with her light ocean breeze.
+She, alone, knew how to rock and soothe him with her waves.
+
+Never satisfied, he wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled
+incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters
+of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted,
+bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves
+rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its
+scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and,
+finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, but
+simply to enjoy the delight of grand, pure outlines. Africa, the
+country of Salammbô, the desert, finally call him, and he breathes
+those distant odors borne on the slow winds; the sunlight inundates
+his body, "laves the dark corners of his soul." And he retains a
+troubled memory of the evenings in those warm climes, where the
+fragrance of plants and trees seems to take the place of air.
+
+Maupassant's philosophy is as little complicated as his vision of
+humanity. His pessimism exceeds in its simplicity and depth that of
+all other realistic writers.
+
+Still there are contradictions and not unimportant ones in him. The
+most striking is certainly his fear of Death. He sees it everywhere,
+it haunts him. He sees it on the horizon of landscapes, and it crosses
+his path on lonely roads. When it is not hovering over his head, it is
+circling round him as around Gustave Moreau's pale youth.... Can he,
+the determined materialist, really fear the stupor of eternal sleep,
+or the dispersion of the transient individuality? ...
+
+Another contradiction. He who says that contact with the crowd
+"tortures his nerves," and who professes such contempt for mankind,
+yet considers solitude as one of the bitterest torments of existence.
+And he bewails the fact that he cannot live just for himself, "keep
+within himself that secret place of the ego, where none can enter."
+
+"Alas!" said his master, "we are all in a desert." Nobody understands
+anyone else and "whatever we attempt, whatever be the impulse of our
+heart and the appeal of our lips, we shall always be alone!"
+
+In this gehenna of death, in these nostalgias of the past, in these
+trances of eternal isolation, may we not find some relinquishing of
+his philosophy? Certainly not, for these contradictions accentuate all
+the more the pain of existence and become a new source of suffering.
+
+In any case, Maupassant's pessimism becomes logical in terminating in
+pity, like that of Schopenhauer. I know that I am running foul of
+certain admirers of the author who do not see any pity in his work,
+and it is understood that he is pitiless. But examine his stories more
+closely and you will find it revealed in every page, provided you go
+to the very bottom of the subject. That is where it exists naturally,
+almost against the desire of the writer, who does not arouse pity, nor
+teach it.
+
+And, again, if it remains concealed from so many readers, it is
+because it has nothing to do with the humanitarian pity retailed by
+rhetoricians. It is philosophical and haughty, detached from any
+"anthropocentric" characteristics. It is universal suffering that it
+covers. And to tell the truth, it is man, the hypocritical and cunning
+biped who has the least share in it. Maupassant is helpful to all
+those of his fellows who are tortured by physical suffering, social
+cruelty and the criminal dangers of life, but he pities them without
+caring for them, and his kindness makes distinctions.
+
+On the other hand, the pessimist has all the tenderness of a Buddhist
+for animals, whom the gospels despise. When he pities the animals, who
+are worth more than ourselves, their executioners, when he pities the
+elementary existences, the plants and trees, those exquisite
+creations, he unbends and pours out his heart. The humbler the victim,
+the more generously does he espouse its suffering. His compassion is
+unbounded for all that lives in misery, that is buffeted about without
+understanding why, that "suffers and dies without a word." And if he
+mourned Miss Harriet, in this unaccustomed outburst of enthusiasm, it
+is because, like himself, the poor outcast cherished a similar love
+for "all things, all living beings."
+
+Such appears to me to be Maupassant, the novelist, a story-teller, a
+writer, and a philosopher by turns. I will add one more trait; he was
+devoid of all spirit of criticism. When he essays to demolish a
+theory, one is amazed to find in this great, clear writer such lack of
+precision of thought, and such weak argument. He wrote the least
+eloquent and the most diffuse study of Flaubert, of "that old, dead
+master who had won his heart in a manner he could not explain." And,
+later, he shows the same weakness in setting forth, as in proving his
+theory, in his essay on the "Evolution of the Novel," in the
+introduction to Pierre et Jean.
+
+On the other hand, he possesses, above many others, a power of
+creating, hidden and inborn, which he exercises almost unconsciously.
+Living, spontaneous and yet impassive he is the glorious agent of a
+mysterious function, through which he dominated literature and will
+continue to dominate it until the day when he desires to become
+literary.
+
+He is as big as a tree. The author of "Contemporains" has written that
+Maupassant produced novels as an apple-tree yields apples. Never was a
+criticism more irrefutable.
+
+On various occasions he was pleased with himself at the fertility that
+had developed in him amid those rich soils where a frenzy mounts to
+your brain through the senses of smell and sight. He even feels the
+influence of the seasons, and writes from Provence: "The sap is rising
+in me, it is true. The spring that I find just awakening here stirs
+all my plant nature, and causes me to produce those literary fruits
+that ripen in me, I know not how."
+
+The "meteor" is at its apogee. All admire and glorify him. It is the
+period when Alexandre Dumas, fils, wrote to him thrice: "You are the
+only author whose books I await with impatience."
+
+The day came, however, when this dominant impassivity became stirred,
+when the marble became flesh by contact with life and suffering. And
+the work of the romancer, begun by the novelist, became warm with a
+tenderness that is found for the first time in Mont Oriol....
+
+But this sentimental outburst that astonished his admirers quickly
+dies down, for the following year, there appeared the sober Pierre et
+Jean, that admirable masterpiece of typical reality constructed with
+"human leaven," without any admixture of literary seasoning, or
+romantic combinations. The reader finds once more in his splendid
+integrity the master of yore.
+
+But his heart has been touched, nevertheless. In the books that
+follow, his impassivity gives way like an edifice that has been slowly
+undermined. With an ever-growing emotion he relates under slight
+disguises all his physical distress, all the terrors of his mind and
+heart.
+
+What is the secret of this evolution? The perusal of his works gives
+us a sufficient insight into it.
+
+The Minstrel has been received in country houses; has been admitted to
+"the ladies' apartments." He has given up composing those hurried
+tales which made his fame, in order to construct beautiful romances of
+love and death.... The story teller has forsaken rustics and peasants,
+the comrades of the "Repues franches," for the nobility and the
+wealthy. He who formerly frequented Mme. Tellier's establishment now
+praises Michèle de Burne.
+
+Ysolde replaces Macette. In "l'Ostel de Courtoisie," Maupassant
+cultivates the usual abstractions of the modern Round Table:
+Distinction and Moderation; Fervor and Delicacy. We see him inditing
+love sonnets and becoming a knight of chivalry. The apologist of
+brutal pleasures has become a devotee of the "culte de la Dame."
+
+Everywhere he was sought after, fêted, petted.... But Maupassant never
+let himself be carried away by the tinsel of his prestige, nor the
+puerility of his enchantment. He despised at heart the puppets that
+moved about him as he had formerly despised his short stories and his
+petit bourgeois. "Ah," he cries, "I see them, their heads, their
+types, their hearts and their souls! What a clinic for a maker of
+books! The disgust with which this humanity inspires me makes me
+regret still more that I could not become what I should most have
+preferred--an Aristophanes, or a Rabelais." And he adds: "The world
+makes failures of all scientists, all artists, all intelligences that
+it monopolizes. It aborts all sincere sentiment by its manner of
+scattering our taste, our curiosity, our desire, the little spark of
+genius that burns in us."
+
+Maupassant had to bend to the conditions of his new life. Being well
+bred, he respected, outwardly at least, the laws of artificiality and
+conventionality, and bowed before the idols of the cave he had
+entered....
+
+If Maupassant never became the slave of worldly ideas, the creature of
+instinct that was part of his being acquired the refined tastes of the
+salons, and the manners of the highest civilization.
+
+The novelist lived for some time in these enchanted and artificial
+surroundings, when, suddenly, his malady became aggravated. He was
+tortured by neuralgia, and by new mysterious darting pains. His
+suffering was so great that he longed to scream. At the same time, his
+unhappy heart became softened and he became singularly emotional. His
+early faculties were intensified and refined, and in the overtension
+of his nerves through suffering his perceptions broadened, and he
+gained new ideas of things. This nobler personality Maupassant owes to
+those sufferings dear to great souls of whom Daudet speaks. This is
+what he says:
+
+"If I could ever tell all, I should utter all the unexplored,
+repressed and sad thoughts that I feel in the depths of my being. I
+feel them swelling and poisoning me as bile does some people. But if I
+could one day give them utterance they would perhaps evaporate, and I
+might no longer have anything but a light, joyful heart. Who can say?
+Thinking becomes an abominable torture when the brain is an open
+wound. I have so many wounds in my head that my ideas cannot stir
+without making me long to cry out. Why is it? Why is it? Dumas would
+say that my stomach is out of order. I believe, rather, that I have a
+poor, proud, shameful heart, that old human heart that people laugh
+at, but which is touched, and causes me suffering, and in my head as
+well; I have the mind of the Latin race, which is very worn out. And,
+again, there are days when I do not think thus, but when I suffer just
+the same; for I belong to the family of the thin-skinned. But then I
+do not tell it, I do not show it; I conceal it very well, I think.
+Without any doubt, I am thought to be one of the most indifferent men
+in the world. I am sceptical, which is not the same thing, sceptical
+because I am clear-sighted. And my eyes say to my heart, Hide
+yourself, old fellow, you are grotesque, and it hides itself."
+
+This describes, in spite of reservation, the struggle between two
+conflicting minds, that of yesterday, and that of to-day. But this
+sensitiveness that Maupassant seeks to hide, is plain to all
+clear-seeing people.
+
+He soon begins to be filled with regrets and forebodings. He has a
+desire to look into the unknown, and to search for the inexplicable.
+He feels in himself that something is undergoing destruction; he is at
+times haunted by the idea of a double. He divines that his malady is
+on guard, ready to pounce on him. He seeks to escape it, but on the
+mountains, as beside the sea, nature, formerly his refuge, now
+terrifies him.
+
+Then his heart expands. All the sentiments that he once reviled, he
+now desires to experience. He now exalts in his books the passion of
+love, the passion of sacrifice, the passion of suffering; he extols
+self-sacrifice, devotion, the irresistible joy of ever giving oneself
+up more and more. The hour is late, the night is at hand; weary of
+suffering any longer, he hurriedly begs for tenderness and
+remembrance.
+
+Occasionally, the Maupassant of former days protests against the
+bondage of his new personality; he complains that he no longer feels
+absolutely as formerly that he has no contact with anything in the
+world, that sweet, strong sensation that gives one strength. "How
+sensible I was," he says, "to wall myself round with indifference! If
+one did not feel, but only understand, without giving fragments of
+oneself to other beings! ... It is strange to suffer from the
+emptiness, the nothingness, of this life, when one is resigned, as I
+am, to nothingness. But, there, I cannot live without recollections,
+and recollections sadden me. I can have no hope, I know, but I feel
+obscurely and unceasingly the harm of this statement, and the regret
+that it should be so. And the attachments that I have in life act on
+my sensibility, which is too human, and not literary enough."
+
+Maupassant's pity now takes a pathetic turn. He no longer despises,
+but holds out his hand to those unfortunates who, like himself, are
+tormented on the pathway without hope. The tears that he sees flow
+make him sad, and his heart bleeds at all the wounds he discovers. He
+does not inquire into the quality or origin of the misfortune. He
+sympathizes with all suffering; physical suffering, moral suffering,
+the suffering caused by treachery, the bitter twilight of wasted
+lives....
+
+His mind has also become active. He desires to dabble in science. One
+day he studies the Arab mystics, Oriental legends, and the next, he
+studies the marine fauna, etc. His perceptions have never been so
+clear. His brain is in continual activity. "It is strange," he
+acknowledges, "what a different man I am becoming mentally from what I
+was formerly. I can see it as I watch myself thinking, discovering,
+and developing stories, weighing and analyzing the imaginary beings
+that float through my imagination. I take the same enjoyment in
+certain dreams, certain exaltations of mind, as I formerly took in
+rowing like mad in the sunlight."
+
+For the first time, his assurance as a writer wavers. As his last
+volumes show, he is endeavoring to transform, to renew himself. He
+acquires a desire to learn the secrets of obscure and precious hearts,
+to visit unknown races. He has lost his magnificent serenity....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As his malady began to take a more definite form, he turned his steps
+towards the south, only visiting Paris to see his physicians and
+publishers. In the old port of Antibes beyond the causeway of Cannes,
+his yacht, Bel Ami, which he cherished as a brother, lay at anchor and
+awaited him. He took it to the white cities of the Genoese Gulf,
+towards the palm trees of Hyères, or the red bay trees of Anthéor.
+
+It was during one of these idle cruises on the open sea, outside of
+Agay and Saint-Raphael that he wrote "Sur l'Eau."
+
+It was on the sacred sea of the old poets and philosophers, on the sea
+whose voice has rocked the thought of the world, that he cast into the
+shadow that long lament, so heartrending and sublime, that posterity
+will long shudder at the remembrance of it. The bitter strophes of
+this lament seem to be cadenced by the Mediterranean itself and to be
+in rhythm, like its melopoeia.
+
+"Sur l'Eau" is the last Will and Testament, the general confession of
+Maupassant. To those who come after him he leaves the legacy of his
+highest thought; then he says farewell to all that he loved, to
+dreams, to starlit nights, and to the breath of roses. "Sur l'Eau" is
+the book of modern disenchantment, the faithful mirror of the latest
+pessimism. The journal written on board ship, disconnected and hasty,
+but so noble in its disorder, has taken a place forever beside Werther
+and René, Manfred and Oberman.
+
+He had for a long time, to his sorrow, seen his health failing under
+the attacks of an obscure malady which left him with a sense of the
+diminution of his powers and a gradual clouding of his intellect.
+Symptoms of general paralysis set in, at first mistaken for neurotic
+disturbances. He changed greatly. Those who met him as I did, thin and
+shivering, on that rainy Sunday when they were celebrating the
+inauguration of Flaubert's monument at Rouen would scarcely have
+recognized him. I shall never forget, as long as I live, his face
+wasted by suffering, his large eyes with a distressed expression,
+which emitted dying gleams of protest against a cruel fate....
+
+Maupassant retired to Cannes not far from his mother. He read medical
+books and, in spite of what they taught, persisted in attributing his
+sufferings to "rheumatism localized in the brain," contracted amid the
+fogs on the Seine....
+
+Vainly he endeavored to work, he became gloomy and the idea of suicide
+impressed him more and more....
+
+The months passed, however, and in June he was able to go to Divonne
+to take a cure. After a very characteristic attack of optimism, he
+suddenly appeared at Champel and astonished everyone by his frightful
+eccentricities. One evening, however, he felt better, and read to the
+poet Dorchain the beginning of his novel "The Angelus," which he
+declared would be his masterpiece. When he had finished, he wept. "And
+we wept also," writes Dorchain, "at seeing all that now remained of
+genius, of tenderness and pity in this soul that would never again be
+capable of expressing itself so as to impress other minds.... In his
+accent, in his language, in his tears, Maupassant had, I know not
+what, of a religious character, which exceeded his horror of life, and
+his sombre terror of annihilation."
+
+At the end of September he again visited Cannes, but the fatal day
+predicted by the physician was at hand.
+
+After several tragic weeks in which, from instinct, he made a
+desperate fight, on the 1st of January, 1892, he felt he was
+hopelessly vanquished, and in a moment of supreme clearness of
+intellect, like Gerard de Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate
+than the author of Sylvia, he was unsuccessful. But his mind,
+henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness," had entered into eternal
+darkness.
+
+He was taken back to Paris and placed in Dr. Meuriot's sanatorium,
+where, after eighteen months of mechanical existence, the "meteor"
+quietly passed away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNE VIE
+
+OR, THE HISTORY OF A HEART
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HOME BY THE SEA
+
+The weather was most distressing. It had rained all night. The roaring
+of the overflowing gutters filled the deserted streets, in which the
+houses, like sponges, absorbed the humidity, which penetrating to the
+interior, made the walls sweat from cellar to garret. Jeanne had left
+the convent the day before, free for all time, ready to seize all the
+joys of life, of which she had dreamed so long. She was afraid her
+father would not set out for the new home in bad weather, and for the
+hundredth time since daybreak she examined the horizon. Then she
+noticed that she had omitted to put her calendar in her travelling
+bag. She took from the wall the little card which bore in golden
+figures the date of the current year, 1819. Then she marked with a
+pencil the first four columns, drawing a line through the name of each
+saint up to the 2d of May, the day that she left the convent. A voice
+outside the door called "Jeannette." Jeanne replied, "Come in, papa."
+And her father entered. Baron Simon-Jacques Le Perthuis des Vauds was
+a gentleman of the last century, eccentric and good. An enthusiastic
+disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he had the tenderness of a lover
+for nature, in the fields, in the woods and in the animals. Of
+aristocratic birth, he hated instinctively the year 1793, but being a
+philosopher by temperament and liberal by education, he execrated
+tyranny with an inoffensive and declamatory hatred. His great strength
+and his great weakness was his kind-heartedness, which had not arms
+enough to caress, to give, to embrace; the benevolence of a god, that
+gave freely, without questioning; in a word, a kindness of inertia
+that became almost a vice. A man of theory, he thought out a plan of
+education for his daughter, to the end that she might become happy,
+good, upright and gentle. She had lived at home until the age of
+twelve, when, despite the tears of her mother, she was placed in the
+Convent of the Sacred Heart. He had kept her severely secluded,
+cloistered, in ignorance of the secrets of life. He wished the Sisters
+to restore her to him pure at seventeen years of age, so that he might
+imbue her mind with a sort of rational poetry, and by means of the
+fields, in the midst of the fruitful earth, unfold her soul, enlighten
+her ignorance through the aspect of love in nature, through the simple
+tenderness of the animals, through the placid laws of existence. She
+was leaving the convent radiant, full of the joy of life, ready for
+all the happiness, all the charming incidents which her mind had
+pictured in her idle hours and in the long, quiet nights. She was like
+a portrait by Veronese with her fair, glossy hair, which seemed to
+cast a radiance on her skin, a skin with the faintest tinge of pink,
+softened by a light velvety down which could be perceived when the sun
+kissed her cheek. Her eyes were an opaque blue, like those of Dutch
+porcelain figures. She had a tiny mole on her left nostril and another
+on the right of her chin. She was tall, well developed, with willowy
+figure. Her clear voice sounded at times a little too sharp, but her
+frank, sincere laugh spread joy around her. Often, with a familiar
+gesture, she would raise her hands to her temples as if to arrange her
+hair.
+
+She ran to her father and embraced him warmly. "Well, are we going to
+start?" she said. He smiled, shook his head and said, pointing toward
+the window, "How can we travel in such weather?" But she implored in a
+cajoling and tender manner, "Oh, papa, do let us start. It will clear
+up in the afternoon." "But your mother will never consent to it."
+"Yes, I promise you that she will, I will arrange that." "If you
+succeed in persuading your mother, I am perfectly willing." In a few
+moments she returned from her mother's room, shouting in a voice that
+could be heard all through the house, "Papa, papa, mamma is willing.
+Have the horses harnessed." The rain was not abating; one might almost
+have said that it was raining harder when the carriage drove up to the
+door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs,
+supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall
+housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of
+the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but
+eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second
+daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie,
+and her chief duty lay in guiding the steps of her mistress, who had
+grown enormous in the last few years and also had an affection of the
+heart, which kept her complaining continually. The baroness, gasping
+from over-exertion, finally reached the doorstep of the old residence,
+looked at the court where the water was streaming and remarked: "It
+really is not wise." Her husband, always pleasant, replied: "It was
+you who desired it, Madame Adelaide." He always preceded her pompous
+name of Adelaide with the title madame with an air of half respectful
+mockery. Madame mounted with difficulty into the carriage, causing all
+the springs to bend. The baron sat beside her, while Jeanne and
+Rosalie were seated opposite, with their backs to the horses.
+Ludivine, the cook, brought a heap of wraps to put over their knees
+and two baskets, which were placed under the seats; then she climbed
+on the box beside Father Simon, wrapping herself in a great rug which
+covered her completely. The porter and his wife came to bid them
+good-by as they closed the carriage door, taking the last orders about
+the trunks, which were to follow in a wagon. So they started. Father
+Simon, the coachman, with head bowed and back bent in the pouring
+rain, was completely covered by his box coat with its triple cape. The
+howling storm beat upon the carriage windows and inundated the
+highway.
+
+They drove rapidly to the wharf and continued alongside the line of
+tall-masted vessels until they reached the boulevard of Mont Riboudet.
+Then they crossed the meadows, where from time to time a drowned
+willow, its branches drooping limply, could be faintly distinguished
+through the mist of rain. No one spoke. Their minds themselves seemed
+to be saturated with moisture like the earth.
+
+The baroness leaned her head against the cushions and closed her eyes.
+The baron looked out with mournful eyes at the monotonous and drenched
+landscape. Rosalie, with a parcel on her knee, was dreaming in the
+dull reverie of a peasant. But Jeanne, under this downpour, felt
+herself revive like a plant that has been shut up and has just been
+restored to the air, and so great was her joy that, like foliage, it
+sheltered her heart from sadness. Although she did not speak, she
+longed to burst out singing, to reach out her hands to catch the rain
+that she might drink it. She enjoyed to the full being carried along
+rapidly by the horses, enjoyed gazing at the desolate landscape and
+feeling herself under shelter amid this general inundation. Beneath
+the pelting rain the gleaming backs of the two horses emitted a warm
+steam.
+
+Little by little the baroness fell asleep, and presently began to
+snore sonorously. Her husband leaned over and placed in her hands a
+little leather pocketbook.
+
+This awakened her, and she looked at the pocket-book with the stupid,
+sleepy look of one suddenly aroused. It fell off her lap and sprang
+open and gold and bank bills were scattered on the floor of the
+carriage. This roused her completely, and Jeanne gave vent to her
+mirth in a merry peal of girlish laughter.
+
+The baron picked up the money and placed it on her knees. "This, my
+dear," he said, "is all that is left of my farm at Eletot. I have sold
+it--so as to be able to repair the 'Poplars,' where we shall often
+live in the future."
+
+She counted six thousand four hundred francs and quietly put them in
+her pocket. This was the ninth of thirty-one farms that they had
+inherited which they had sold in this way. Nevertheless they still
+possessed about twenty thousand livres income annually in land
+rentals, which, with proper care, would have yielded about thirty
+thousand francs a year.
+
+Living simply as they did, this income would have sufficed had there
+not been a bottomless hole always open in their house--kind-hearted
+generosity. It dried up the money in their hands as the sun dries the
+water in marshes. It flowed, fled, disappeared. How? No one knew.
+Frequently one would say to the other, "I don't know how it happens,
+but I have spent one hundred francs to-day, and I have bought nothing
+of any consequence." This faculty of giving was, however, one of the
+greatest pleasures of their life, and they all agreed on this point in
+a superb and touching manner.
+
+Jeanne asked her father, "Is it beautiful now, my castle?" The baron
+replied, "You shall see, my little girl."
+
+The storm began to abate. The vault of clouds seemed to rise and
+heighten and suddenly, through a rift, a long ray of sunshine fell
+upon the fields, and presently the clouds separated, showing the blue
+firmament, and then, like the tearing of a veil, the opening grew
+larger and the beautiful azure sky, clear and fathomless, spread over
+the world. A fresh and gentle breeze passed over the earth like a
+happy sigh, and as they passed beside gardens or woods they heard
+occasionally the bright chirp of a bird as he dried his wings.
+
+Evening was approaching. Everyone in the carriage was asleep except
+Jeanne. They stopped to rest and feed the horses. The sun had set. In
+the distance bells were heard. They passed a little village as the
+inhabitants were lighting their lamps, and the sky became also
+illuminated by myriads of stars. Suddenly they saw behind a hill,
+through the branches of the fir trees, the moon rising, red and full
+as if it were torpid with sleep.
+
+The air was so soft that the windows were not closed. Jeanne,
+exhausted with dreams and happy visions, was now asleep. Finally they
+stopped. Some men and women were standing before the carriage door
+with lanterns in their hands. They had arrived. Jeanne, suddenly
+awakened, was the first to jump out. Her father and Rosalie had
+practically to carry the baroness, who was groaning and continually
+repeating in a weak little voice, "Oh, my God, my poor children!" She
+refused all offers of refreshment, but went to bed and immediately
+fell asleep.
+
+Jeanne and her father, the baron, took supper together. They were in
+perfect sympathy with each other. Later, seized with a childish joy,
+they started on a tour of inspection through the restored manor. It
+was one of those high and vast Norman residences that comprise both
+farmhouse and castle, built of white stone which had turned gray,
+large enough to contain a whole race of people.
+
+An immense hall divided the house from front to rear and a staircase
+went up at either side of the entrance, meeting in a bridge on the
+first floor. The huge drawing-room was on the ground floor to the
+right and was hung with tapestries representing birds and foliage. All
+the furniture was covered with fine needlework tapestry illustrating
+La Fontaine's fables, and Jeanne was delighted at finding a chair she
+had loved as a child, which pictured the story of "The Fox and the
+Stork."
+
+Beside the drawing-room were the library, full of old books, and two
+unused rooms; at the left was the dining-room, the laundry, the
+kitchen, etc.
+
+A corridor divided the whole first floor, the doors of ten rooms
+opening into it. At the end, on the right, was Jeanne's room. She and
+her father went in. He had had it all newly done over, using the
+furniture and draperies that had been in the storeroom.
+
+There were some very old Flemish tapestries, with their peculiar
+looking figures. At sight of her bed, the young girl uttered a scream
+of joy. Four large birds carved in oak, black from age and highly
+polished, bore up the bed and seemed to be its protectors. On the
+sides were carved two wide garlands of flowers and fruit, and four
+finely fluted columns, terminating in Corinthian capitals, supported a
+cornice of cupids with roses intertwined. The tester and the coverlet
+were of antique blue silk, embroidered in gold fleur de lys. When
+Jeanne had sufficiently admired it, she lifted up the candle to
+examine the tapestries and the allegories they represented. They were
+mostly conventional subjects, but the last hanging represented a
+drama. Near a rabbit, which was still nibbling, a young man lay
+stretched out, apparently dead. A young girl, gazing at him, was
+plunging a sword into her bosom, and the fruit of the tree had turned
+black. Jeanne gave up trying to divine the meaning underlying this
+picture, when she saw in the corner a tiny little animal which the
+rabbit, had he lived, could have swallowed like a blade of grass; and
+yet it was a lion. Then she recognized the story of "Pyramus and
+Thisbe," and though she smiled at the simplicity of the design, she
+felt happy to have in her room this love adventure which would
+continually speak to her of her cherished hopes, and every night this
+legendary love would hover about her dreams.
+
+It struck eleven and the baron kissed Jeanne goodnight and retired to
+his room. Before retiring, Jeanne cast a last glance round her room
+and then regretfully extinguished the candle. Through her window she
+could see the bright moonlight bathing the trees and the wonderful
+landscape. Presently she arose, opened a window and looked out. The
+night was so clear that one could see as plainly as by daylight. She
+looked across the park with its two long avenues of very tall poplars
+that gave its name to the château and separated it from the two farms
+that belonged to it, one occupied by the Couillard family, the other
+by the Martins. Beyond the enclosure stretched a long, uncultivated
+plain, thickly overgrown with rushes, where the breeze whistled day
+and night. The land ended abruptly in a steep white cliff three
+hundred feet high, with its base in the ocean waves.
+
+Jeanne looked out over the long, undulating surface that seemed to
+slumber beneath the heavens. All the fragrance of the earth was in the
+night air. The odor of jasmine rose from the lower windows, and light
+whiffs of briny air and of seaweed were wafted from the ocean.
+
+Merely to breathe was enough for Jeanne, and the restful calm of the
+country was like a soothing bath. She felt as though her heart was
+expanding and she began dreaming of love. What was it? She did not
+know. She only knew that she would adore _him_ with all her soul
+and that he would cherish her with all his strength. They would walk
+hand in hand on nights like this, hearing the beating of their hearts,
+mingling their love with the sweet simplicity of the summer nights in
+such close communion of thought that by the sole power of their
+tenderness they would easily penetrate each other's most secret
+thoughts. This would continue forever in the calm of an enduring
+affection. It seemed to her that she felt _him_ there beside her.
+And an unusual sensation came over her. She remained long musing thus,
+when suddenly she thought she heard a footstep behind the house. "If
+it were _he_." But it passed on and she felt as if she had been
+deceived. The air became cooler. The day broke. Slowly bursting aside
+the gleaming clouds, touching with fire the trees, the plains, the
+ocean, all the horizon, the great flaming orb of the sun appeared.
+
+Jeanne felt herself becoming mad with happiness. A delirious joy,
+an infinite tenderness at the splendor of nature overcame her
+fluttering heart. It was _her_ sun, _her_ dawn! The beginning
+of _her_ life! Thoroughly fatigued at last, she flung herself down
+and slept till her father called her at eight o'clock. He walked into
+the room and proposed to show her the improvements of the castle, of
+_her_ castle. The road, called the parish road, connecting the
+farms, joined the high road between Havre and Fécamp, a mile and a
+half further on.
+
+Jeanne and the baron inspected everything and returned home for
+breakfast. When the meal was over, as the baroness had decided that
+she would rest, the baron proposed to Jeanne that they should go down
+to Yport. They started, and passing through the hamlet of Etouvent,
+where the poplars were, and going through the wooded slope by a
+winding valley leading down to the sea, they presently perceived the
+village of Yport. Women sat in their doorways mending linen; brown
+fish-nets were hanging against the doors of the huts, where an entire
+family lived in one room. It was a typical little French fishing
+village, with all its concomitant odors. To Jeanne it was all like a
+scene in a play. On turning a corner they saw before them the
+limitless blue ocean. They bought a brill from a fisherman and another
+sailor offered to take them out sailing, repeating his name,
+"Lastique, Joséphin Lastique," several times, that they might not
+forget it, and the baron promised to remember. They walked home,
+chattering like two children, carrying the big fish between them,
+Jeanne having pushed her father's walking cane through its gills.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HAPPY DAYS
+
+A delightful life commenced for Jeanne, a life in the open air. She
+wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their
+sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor
+of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant
+sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow rocking
+her spirit.
+
+A love of solitude came upon her in the sweet freshness of this
+landscape and in the calm of the rounded horizon, and she would remain
+sitting so long on the hill tops that the wild rabbits would bound by
+her feet.
+
+She planted memories everywhere, as seeds are cast upon the earth,
+memories whose roots hold till death. It seemed to Jeanne that she was
+casting a little of her heart into every fold of these valleys. She
+became infatuated with sea bathing. When she was well out from shore,
+she would float on her back, her arms crossed, her eyes lost in the
+profound blue of the sky which was cleft by the flight of a swallow,
+or the white silhouette of a seabird.
+
+After these excursions she invariably came back to the castle pale
+with hunger, but light, alert, a smile on her lips and her eyes
+sparkling with happiness.
+
+The baron on his part was planning great agricultural enterprises.
+Occasionally, also, he went out to sea with the sailors of Yport. On
+several occasions he went fishing for mackerel and, again, by
+moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved
+to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts
+of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long
+time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof
+of a belfry or the Fécamp lighthouse, he delighted to remain
+motionless beneath the first gleams of the rising sun which made the
+slimy backs of the large fan-shaped rays and the fat bellies of the
+turbots glisten on the deck of the boat.
+
+At each meal he gave an enthusiastic account of his expeditions, and
+the baroness in her turn told how many times she had walked down the
+main avenue of poplars.
+
+As she had been advised to take exercise she made a business of
+walking, beginning as soon as the air grew warm. Leaning upon
+Rosalie's arm and dragging her left foot, which was rather heavier
+than the right, she wandered interminably up and down from the house
+to the edge of the wood, sitting down for five minutes at either end.
+The walking was resumed in the afternoon. A physician, consulted ten
+years before, had spoken of hypertrophy because she had suffered from
+suffocation. Ever since, this word had been used to describe the
+ailment of the baroness. The baron would say "my wife's hypertrophy"
+and Jeanne "mamma's hypertrophy" as they would have spoken of her hat,
+her dress, or her umbrella. She had been very pretty in her youth and
+slim as a reed. Now she had grown older, stouter, but she still
+remained poetical, having always retained the impression of "Corinne,"
+which she had read as a girl. She read all the sentimental love
+stories it was possible to collect, and her thoughts wandered among
+tender adventures in which she always figured as the heroine. Her new
+home was infinitely pleasing to her because it formed such a beautiful
+framework for the romance of her soul, the surrounding woods, the
+waste land, and the proximity of the ocean recalling to her mind the
+novels of Sir Walter Scott, which she had been devouring for some
+months. On rainy days she remained shut up in her room, sending
+Rosalie in a special manner for the drawer containing her "souvenirs,"
+which meant to the baroness all her old private and family letters.
+
+Occasionally, Jeanne replaced Rosalie in the walks with her mother,
+and she listened eagerly to the tales of the latter's childhood. The
+young girl saw herself in all these romantic stories, and was
+astonished at the similarity of ideas and desires; each heart imagines
+itself to have been the first to tremble at those very sensations that
+awakened the hearts of the first beings, and that will awaken the
+hearts of the last.
+
+One afternoon as the baroness and Jeanne were resting on the beach at
+the end of the walk, a stout priest who was moving in their direction
+greeted them with a bow, while still at a distance. He bowed when
+within three feet and, assuming a smiling air, cried: "Well, Madame la
+Baronne, how are you?" It was the village priest. The baroness seldom
+went to church, though she liked priests, from a sort of religious
+instinct peculiar to women. She had, in fact, entirely forgotten the
+Abbé Picot, her priest, and blushed as she saw him. She made apologies
+for not having prepared for his visit, but the good man was not at all
+embarrassed. He looked at Jeanne, complimented her on her appearance
+and sat down, placing his three-cornered hat on his knees. He was very
+stout, very red, and perspired profusely. He drew from his pocket
+every moment an enormous checked handkerchief and passed it over his
+face and neck, but hardly was the task completed when necessity forced
+him to repeat the process. He was a typical country priest, talkative
+and kindly.
+
+Presently the baron appeared. He was very friendly to the abbé and
+invited him to dinner. The priest was well versed in the art of being
+pleasant, thanks to the unconscious astuteness which the guiding of
+souls gives to the most mediocre of men who are called by the chance
+of events to exercise a power over their fellows. Toward dessert he
+became quite merry, with the gaiety that follows a pleasant meal, and
+as if struck by an idea he said: "I have a new parishioner whom I must
+present to you, Monsieur le Vicomte de Lamare." The baroness, who was
+at home in heraldry, inquired if he was of the family of Lamares of
+Eure. The priest answered, "Yes, madame, he is the son of Vicomte Jean
+de Lamare, who died last year." After this, the baroness, who loved
+the nobility above all other things, inquired the history of the young
+vicomte. He had paid his father's debts, sold the family castle, made
+his home on one of the three farms which he owned in the town of
+Etouvent. These estates brought him in an income of five or six
+thousand livres. The vicomte was economical and lived in this modest
+manner for two or three years, so that he might save enough to cut a
+figure in society, and to marry advantageously, without contracting
+debts or mortgaging his farms. The priest added, "He is a very
+charming young man, so steady and quiet, though there is very little
+to amuse him in the country." The baron said, "Bring him in to see us,
+Monsieur l'Abbé, it will be a distraction for him occasionally." After
+the coffee the baron and the priest took a turn about the grounds and
+then returned to say good-night to the ladies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+M. DE LAMARE
+
+The following Sunday the baroness and Jeanne went to mass, prompted by
+a feeling of respect for their pastor, and after service waited to see
+the priest and invite him to luncheon the following Thursday. He came
+out of the sacristy leaning familiarly on the arm of a tall young man.
+As soon as he perceived the ladies, he exclaimed:
+
+"How fortunate! Allow me, baroness and Mlle. Jeanne, to present to you
+your neighbor, M. le Vicomte de Lamare."
+
+The vicomte said he had long desired to make their acquaintance, and
+began to converse in a well-bred manner. He had a face of which women
+dream and that men dislike. His black, wavy hair shaded a smooth,
+sunburnt forehead, and two large straight eyebrows, that looked almost
+artificial, cast a deep and tender shadow over his dark eyes, the
+whites of which had a bluish tinge.
+
+His long, thick eyelashes accentuated the passionate eloquence of his
+expression which wrought havoc in the drawing-rooms of society, and
+made peasant girls carrying baskets turn round to look at him. The
+languorous fascination of his glance impressed one with the depth of
+his thoughts and lent weight to his slightest words. His beard, fine
+and glossy, concealed a somewhat heavy jaw.
+
+Two days later, M. de Lamare made his first call, just as they were
+discussing the best place for a new rustic bench. The vicomte was
+consulted and agreed with the baroness, who differed from her husband.
+
+M. de Lamare expatiated on the picturesqueness of the country and from
+time to time, as if by chance, his eyes met those of Jeanne, and she
+felt a strange sensation at the quickly averted glance which betrayed
+tender admiration and an awakened sympathy.
+
+M. de Lamare's father, who had died the preceding year, had known an
+intimate friend of the baroness's father, M. Cultaux, and this fact
+led to an endless conversation about family, relations, dates, etc.,
+and names heard in her childhood were recalled, and led to
+reminiscences.
+
+The baron, whose nature was rather uncultivated, and whose beliefs and
+prejudices were not those of his class, knew little about the
+neighboring families, and inquired about them from the vicomte, who
+responded:
+
+"Oh, there are very few of the nobility in the district," just as he
+might have said, "there are very few rabbits on the hills," and he
+began to particularize: There was the Marquis de Coutelier, a sort of
+leader of Norman aristocracy, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville,
+people of excellent stock, but living to themselves, and the Comte de
+Fourville, a kind of ogre, who was said to have made his wife die of
+sorrow, and who lived as a huntsman in his château of La Vrillette,
+built on a pond. There were a few parvenus among them who had bought
+properties here and there, but the vicomte did not know them.
+
+As he left, his last glance was for Jeanne, as if it were a special
+tender and cordial farewell. The baroness was delighted with him, and
+the baron said: "Yes, indeed, he is a gentleman." And he was invited
+to dinner the following week, and from that time came regularly.
+
+He generally arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon, went to join
+the baroness in "her avenue," and offered her his arm while she took
+her "exercise," as she called her daily walks. When Jeanne was at home
+she would walk on the other side of her mother, supporting her, and
+all three would walk slowly back and forth from one end of the avenue
+to the other. He seldom addressed Jeanne directly, but his eye
+frequently met hers.
+
+He went to Yport several times with Jeanne and the baron. One evening,
+when they were on the beach, Père Lastique accosted him, and without
+removing his pipe, the absence of which would possibly have been more
+remarkable than the loss of his nose, he said:
+
+"With this wind, m'sieu le baron, we could easily go to Étretat and
+back to-morrow."
+
+Jeanne clasped her hands imploringly:
+
+"Oh, papa, let us do it!"
+
+The baron turned to M. de Lamare:
+
+"Will you join us, vicomte? We can take breakfast down there."
+
+And the matter was decided at once. From daybreak Jeanne was up and
+waiting for her father, who dressed more slowly. They walked in the
+dew across the level and then through the wood vibrant with the
+singing of birds. The vicomte and Père Lastique were seated on a
+capstan.
+
+Two other sailors helped to shove off the boat from shore, which was
+not easy on the shingly beach. Once the boat was afloat, they all took
+their seats, and the two sailors who remained on shore shoved it off.
+A light, steady breeze was blowing from the ocean and they hoisted the
+sail, veered a little, and then sailed along smoothly with scarcely
+any motion. To landward the high cliff at the right cast a shadow on
+the water at its base, and patches of sunlit grass here and there
+varied its monotonous whiteness. Yonder, behind them, brown sails were
+coming out of the white harbor of Fécamp, and ahead of them they saw a
+rock of curious shape, rounded, with gaps in it looking something like
+an immense elephant with its trunk in the water; it was the little
+port of Étretat.
+
+Jeanne, a little dizzy from the motion of the waves, held the side of
+the boat with one hand as she looked out into the distance. It seemed
+to her as if only three things in the world were really beautiful:
+light, space, water.
+
+No one spoke. Père Lastique, who was at the tiller, took a pull every
+now and then from a bottle hidden under the seat; and he smoked a
+short pipe which seemed inextinguishable, although he never seemed to
+relight it or refill it.
+
+The baron, seated in the bow looked after the sail. Jeanne and the
+vicomte seemed a little embarrassed at being seated side by side. Some
+unknown power seemed to make their glances meet whenever they raised
+their eyes; between them there existed already that subtle and vague
+sympathy which arises so rapidly between two young people when the
+young man is good looking and the girl is pretty. They were happy in
+each other's society, perhaps because they were thinking of each
+other. The rising sun was beginning to pierce through the slight mist,
+and as its beams grew stronger, they were reflected on the smooth
+surface of the sea as in a mirror.
+
+"How beautiful!" murmured Jeanne, with emotion.
+
+"Beautiful indeed!" answered the vicomte. The serene beauty of the
+morning awakened an echo in their hearts.
+
+And all at once they saw the great arches of Étretat, like two
+supports of a cliff standing in the sea high enough for vessels to
+pass under them; while a sharp-pointed white rock rose in front of the
+first arch. They reached shore, and the baron got out first to make
+fast the boat, while the vicomte lifted Jeanne ashore so that she
+should not wet her feet. Then they walked up the shingly beach side by
+side, and they overheard Père Lastique say to the baron, "My! but they
+would make a pretty couple!"
+
+They took breakfast in a little inn near the beach, and while the
+ocean had lulled their thoughts and made them silent, the breakfast
+table had the opposite effect, and they chattered like children on a
+vacation. The slightest thing gave rise to laughter.
+
+Père Lastique, on taking his place at table, carefully hid his lighted
+pipe in his cap. That made them laugh. A fly, attracted no doubt by
+his red nose, persistently alighted on it, and each time it did so
+they burst into laughter. Finally the old man could stand it no
+longer, and murmured: "It is devilishly persistent!" whereupon Jeanne
+and the vicomte laughed till they cried.
+
+After breakfast Jeanne suggested that they should take a walk. The
+vicomte rose, but the baron preferred to bask in the sun on the beach.
+
+"Go on, my children, you will find me here in an hour."
+
+They walked straight ahead of them, passing by several cottages and
+finally by a small château resembling a large farm, and found
+themselves in an open valley that extended for some distance. They now
+had a wild longing to run at large in the fields. Jeanne seemed to
+have a humming in her ears from all the new and rapidly changing
+sensations she had experienced. The burning rays of the sun fell on
+them. On both sides of the road the crops were bending over from the
+heat. The grasshoppers, as numerous as the blades of grass, were
+uttering their thin, shrill cry.
+
+Perceiving a wood a little further on to the right, they walked over
+to it. They saw a narrow path between two hedges shaded by tall trees
+which shut out the sun. A sort of moist freshness in the air was
+perceptible, giving them a sensation of chilliness. There was no
+grass, owing to the lack of sunlight, but the ground was covered with
+a carpet of moss.
+
+"See, we can sit down there a little while," she said.
+
+They sat down and looked about them at the numerous forms of life that
+were in the air and on the ground at their feet, for a ray of sunlight
+penetrating the dense foliage brought them into its light.
+
+"How beautiful it is here! How lovely it is in the country! There are
+moments when I should like to be a fly or a butterfly and hide in the
+flowers," said Jeanne with emotion.
+
+They spoke in low tones as one does in exchanging confidences, telling
+of their daily lives and of their tastes, and declaring that they were
+already disgusted with the world, tired of its useless monotony; it
+was always the same thing; there was no truth, no sincerity in it.
+
+The world! She would gladly have made its acquaintance; but she felt
+convinced beforehand that it was not equal to a country life, and the
+more their hearts seemed to be in sympathy, the more ceremonious they
+became, the more frequently their glances met and blended smiling; and
+it seemed that a new feeling of benevolence was awakened in them, a
+wider affection, an interest in a thousand things of which they had
+never hitherto thought.
+
+They wended their way back, but the baron had already set off on foot
+for the Chambre aux Demoiselles, a grotto in a cleft at the summit of
+one of the cliffs, and they waited for him at the inn. He did not
+return until five in the evening after a long walk along the cliffs.
+
+They got into the boat, started off smoothly with the wind at their
+backs, scarcely seeming to make any headway. The breeze was irregular,
+at one moment filling the sail and then letting it flap idly along the
+mast. The sea seemed opaque and lifeless, and the sun was slowly
+approaching the horizon. The lulling motion of the sea had made them
+silent again. Presently Jeanne said, "How I should love to travel!"
+
+"Yes, but it is tiresome to travel alone; there should be at least
+two, to exchange ideas," answered the vicomte. She reflected a moment.
+
+"That is true--I like to walk alone, however--how pleasant it is to
+dream all alone----"
+
+He gazed at her intently.
+
+"Two can dream as well as one."
+
+She lowered her eyes. Was it a hint? Possibly. She looked out at the
+horizon as if to discover something beyond it, and then said slowly:
+
+"I should like to go to Italy--and Greece--ah, yes, Greece--and to
+Corsica--it must be so wild and so beautiful!"
+
+He preferred Switzerland on account of its chalets and its lakes.
+
+"No," said she, "I like new countries like Corsica, or very old
+countries full of souvenirs, like Greece. It must be delightful to
+find the traces of those peoples whose history we have known since
+childhood, to see places where great deeds were accomplished."
+
+The vicomte, less enthusiastic, exclaimed: "As for me, England
+attracts me very much; there is so much to be learned there."
+
+Then they talked about the world in general, discussing the
+attractions of each country from the poles to the equator, enthusing
+over imaginary scenes and the peculiar manners of certain peoples like
+the Chinese and the Lapps; but they arrived at the conclusion that the
+most beautiful country in the world was France, with its temperate
+climate, cool in summer, mild in winter, its rich soil, its green
+forests, its worship of the fine arts which existed nowhere else since
+the glorious centuries of Athens. Then they were silent. The setting
+sun left a wide dazzling train of light which extended from the
+horizon to the edge of their boat. The wind subsided, the ripples
+disappeared, and the motionless sail was red in the light of the dying
+day. A limitless calm seemed to settle down on space and make a
+silence amid this conjunction of elements; and by degrees the sun
+slowly sank into the ocean.
+
+Then a fresh breeze seemed to arise, a little shiver went over the
+surface of the water, as if the engulfed orb cast a sigh of
+satisfaction across the world. The twilight was short, night fell with
+its myriad stars. Père Lastique took the oars, and they saw that the
+sea was phosphorescent. Jeanne and the vicomte, side by side, watched
+the fitful gleams in the wake of the boat. They were hardly thinking,
+but simply gazing vaguely, breathing in the beauty of the evening in a
+state of delicious contentment; Jeanne had one hand on the seat and
+her neighbor's finger touched it as if by accident; she did not move;
+she was surprised, happy, though embarrassed at this slight contact.
+
+When she reached home that evening and went to her room, she felt
+strangely disturbed, and so affected that the slightest thing impelled
+her to weep. She looked at her clock, imagining that the little bee on
+the pendulum was beating like a heart, the heart of a friend; that it
+was aware of her whole life, that with its quick, regular tickings it
+would accompany her whole life; and she stopped the golden fly to
+press a kiss on its wings. She would have kissed anything, no matter
+what. She remembered having hidden one of her old dolls of former days
+at the bottom of a drawer; she looked for it, took it out, and was
+delighted to see it again, as people are to see loved friends; and
+pressing it to her heart, she covered its painted cheeks and curly wig
+with kisses. And as she held it in her arms, she thought:
+
+Can _he_ be the husband promised through a thousand secret
+voices, whom a superlatively good Providence had thus thrown across
+her path? Was he, indeed, the being created for her--the being to whom
+she would devote her existence? Were they the two predestined beings
+whose affection, blending in one, would beget love?
+
+She did not as yet feel that tumultuous emotion, that mad enchantment,
+those deep stirrings which she thought were essential to the tender
+passion; but it seemed to her she was beginning to fall in love, for
+she sometimes felt a sudden faintness when she thought of him, and she
+thought of him incessantly. His presence stirred her heart; she
+blushed and grew pale when their eyes met, and trembled at the sound
+of his voice.
+
+From day to day the longing for love increased. She consulted the
+marguerites, the clouds, and coins which she tossed in the air.
+
+One day her father said to her:
+
+"Make yourself look pretty to-morrow morning."
+
+"Why, papa?"
+
+"That is a secret," he replied.
+
+And when she came downstairs the following morning, looking fresh and
+sweet in a pretty light dress, she found the drawing-room table
+covered with boxes of bonbons, and on a chair an immense bouquet.
+
+A covered wagon drove into the courtyard bearing the inscription,
+"Lerat, Confectioner, Fécamp; Wedding Breakfasts," and from the back
+of the wagon Ludivine and a kitchen helper were taking out large flat
+baskets which emitted an appetizing odor.
+
+The Vicomte de Lamare appeared on the scene, his trousers were
+strapped down under his dainty boots of patent leather, which made his
+feet appear smaller. His long frock coat, tight at the waist line, was
+open at the bosom showing the lace of his ruffle, and a fine neckcloth
+wound several times round his neck obliged him to hold erect his
+handsome brown head, with its air of serious distinction. Jeanne, in
+astonishment, looked at him as though she had never seen him before.
+She thought he looked the grand seigneur from his head to his feet.
+
+He bowed and said, smiling:
+
+"Well, comrade, are you ready?"
+
+"But what is it? What is going on?" she stammered.
+
+"You will know presently," said the baron.
+
+The carriage drove up to the door, and Madame Adelaide, in festal
+array, descended the staircase, leaning on the arm of Rosalie, who was
+so much affected at the sight of M. de Lamare's elegant appearance
+that the baron whispered:
+
+"I say, vicomte, I think our maid admires you."
+
+The vicomte blushed up to his ears, pretended not to have heard and,
+taking up the enormous bouquet, handed it to Jeanne. She accepted it,
+more astonished than ever. They all four got into the carriage, and
+Ludivine, who brought a cup of bouillon to the baroness to sustain her
+strength, said: "Truly, madame, one would say it was a wedding!"
+
+They alighted as soon as they entered Yport, and as they walked
+through the village the sailors, in their new clothes, still showing
+the creases, came out of their homes, and shaking hands with the
+baron, followed the party as if it were a procession. The vicomte, who
+had offered his arm to Jeanne, walked with her at the head.
+
+When they reached the church they stopped, and an acolyte appeared
+holding upright the large silver crucifix, followed by another boy in
+red and white, who bore a chalice containing holy water.
+
+Then came three old cantors, one of them limping; then the trumpet
+("serpent"), and last, the curé with his gold embroidered stole. He
+smiled and nodded a greeting; then, with his eyes half closed, his
+lips moving in prayer, his beretta well over his forehead, he followed
+his surpliced bodyguard, walking in the direction of the sea.
+
+On the beach a crowd was standing around a new boat wreathed with
+flowers. Its mast, sail and ropes were covered with long streamers of
+ribbon that floated in the breeze, and the name, "Jeanne," was painted
+in gold letters on the stern.
+
+Père Lastique, the proprietor of this boat, built with the baron's
+money, advanced to meet the procession. All the men, simultaneously,
+took off their hats, and a row of pious persons wearing long black
+cloaks falling in large folds from their shoulders, knelt down in a
+circle at sight of the crucifix.
+
+The curé walked, with an acolyte on either side of him, to one end of
+the boat, while at the other end, the three old cantors, in their
+white surplices, with a serious air and their eyes fixed on the
+psalter, sang at the top of their voices in the clear morning air.
+Each time they stopped to take breath, the "serpent" continued its
+bellowing alone, and as he puffed out his cheeks the musician's little
+gray eyes disappeared, and the skin of his forehead and neck seemed to
+distend.
+
+The motionless, transparent sea seemed to be taking part meditatively
+in the baptism of this boat, rolling its tiny waves, no higher than a
+finger, with the faint sound of a rake on the shingle. And the big
+white gulls, with their wings unfurled, circled about in the blue
+heavens, flying off and then coming back in a curve above the heads of
+the kneeling crowd, as if to see what they were doing.
+
+The singing ceased after an Amen that lasted five minutes; and the
+priest, in an unctuous voice, murmured some Latin words, of which one
+could hear only the sonorous endings. He then walked round the boat,
+sprinkling it with holy water, and next began to murmur the "Oremus,"
+standing alongside the boat opposite the sponsors, who remained
+motionless, hand in hand.
+
+The vicomte had the usual grave expression on his handsome face, but
+Jeanne, choking with a sudden emotion, and on the verge of fainting,
+began to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered. The dream that
+had haunted her for some time was suddenly beginning, as if in a kind
+of hallucination, to take the appearance of reality. They had spoken
+of a wedding, a priest was present, blessing them; men in surplices
+were singing psalms; was it not she whom they were giving in marriage?
+
+Did her fingers send out an electric shock, did the emotion of her
+heart follow the course of her veins until it reached the heart of her
+companion? Did he understand, did he guess, was he, like herself,
+pervaded by a sort of intoxication of love? Or else, did he know by
+experience, alone, that no woman could resist him? She suddenly
+noticed that he was squeezing her hand, gently at first, and then
+tighter, tighter, till he almost crushed it. And without moving a
+muscle of his face, without anyone perceiving it, he said--yes, he
+certainly said:
+
+"Oh, Jeanne, if you would consent, this would be our betrothal."
+
+She lowered her head very slowly, perhaps meaning it for "yes." And
+the priest, who was still sprinkling the holy water, sprinkled some on
+their fingers.
+
+The ceremony was over. The women rose. The return was unceremonious.
+The crucifix had lost its dignity in the hands of the acolyte, who
+walked rapidly, the crucifix swaying to right and left, or bending
+forward as though it would fall. The priest, who was not praying now,
+walked hurriedly behind them; the cantors and the musician with the
+"serpent" had disappeared by a narrow street, so as to get off their
+surplices without delay; and the sailors hurried along in groups. One
+thought prompted their haste, and made their mouths water.
+
+A good breakfast was awaiting them at "The Poplars."
+
+The large table was set in the courtyard, under the apple trees.
+
+Sixty people sat down to table, sailors and peasants. The baroness in
+the middle, with a priest at either side of her, one from Yport, and
+the other belonging to "The Poplars." The baron seated opposite her on
+the other side of the table, the mayor on one side of him, and his
+wife, a thin peasant woman, already aging, who kept smiling and bowing
+to all around her, on the other.
+
+Jeanne, seated beside her co-sponsor, was in a sea of happiness. She
+saw nothing, knew nothing, and remained silent, her mind bewildered
+with joy. Presently she said:
+
+"What is your Christian name?"
+
+"Julien," he replied. "Did you not know?"
+
+But she made no reply, thinking to herself:
+
+"How often I shall repeat that name!"
+
+When the feast was over, the courtyard was given up to the sailors,
+and the others went over to the other side of the château. The
+baroness began to take her exercise, leaning on the arm of the baron
+and accompanied by the two priests. Jeanne and Julien went toward the
+wood and walked along one of the mossy paths. Suddenly seizing her
+hands, the vicomte said:
+
+"Tell me, will you be my wife?"
+
+She lowered her head, and as he stammered: "Answer me, I implore you!"
+she raised her eyes to his timidly, and he read his answer there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MARRIAGE AND DISILLUSION
+
+The baron, one morning, entered Jeanne's room before she was up, and
+sitting down at the foot of her bed, said:
+
+"M. le Vicomte de Lamare has asked us for your hand in marriage."
+
+She wanted to hide her face under the sheets.
+
+Her father continued:
+
+"We have postponed our answer for the present."
+
+She gasped, choking with emotion. At the end of a minute the baron,
+smiling, added:
+
+"We did not wish to do anything without consulting you. Your mother
+and I are not opposed to this marriage, but we would not seek to
+influence you. You are much richer than he is; but, when it is a
+question of the happiness of a life, one should not think too much
+about money. He has no relations left. If you marry him, then, it
+would be as if a son should come into our family; if it were anyone
+else, it would be you, our daughter, who would go among strangers. The
+young fellow pleases us. Would he please you?"
+
+She stammered, blushing up to the roots of her hair:
+
+"I am willing, papa."
+
+And the father, looking into her eyes and still smiling, murmured:
+
+"I half suspected it, young lady."
+
+She lived till evening in a condition of exhilaration, not knowing
+what she was doing, mechanically thinking of one thing by mistake for
+another, and with a feeling of weariness, although she had not walked
+at all.
+
+Toward six o'clock, as she was sitting with her mother under the plane
+tree, the vicomte appeared.
+
+Jeanne's heart began to throb wildly. The young man approached them
+apparently without any emotion. When he was close beside them, he took
+the baroness' hand and kissed her fingers, then raising to his lips
+the trembling hand of the young girl, he imprinted upon it a long,
+tender and grateful kiss.
+
+And the radiant season of betrothal commenced. They would chat
+together alone in the corner of the parlor, or else seated on the moss
+at the end of the wood overlooking the plain. Sometimes they walked in
+Little Mother's Avenue; he, talking of the future, she, with her eyes
+cast down, looking at the dusty footprints of the baroness.
+
+Once the matter was decided, they desired to waste no time in
+preliminaries. It was, therefore, decided that the ceremony should
+take place in six weeks, on the fifteenth of August; and that the
+bride and groom should set out immediately on their wedding journey.
+Jeanne, on being consulted as to which country she would like to
+visit, decided on Corsica where they could be more alone than in the
+cities of Italy.
+
+They awaited the moment appointed for their marriage without too great
+impatience, but enfolded, lost in a delicious affection, expressed in
+the exquisite charm of insignificant caresses, pressure of hands, long
+passionate glances in which their souls seemed to blend; and, vaguely
+tortured by an uncertain longing for they knew not what.
+
+They decided to invite no one to the wedding except Aunt Lison, the
+baron's sister, who boarded in a convent at Versailles. After the
+death of their father, the baroness wished to keep her sister with
+her. But the old maid, possessed by the idea that she was in every
+one's way, was useless, and a nuisance, retired into one of those
+religious houses that rent apartments to people that live a sad and
+lonely existence. She came from time to time to pass a month or two
+with her family.
+
+She was a little woman of few words, who always kept in the
+background, appeared only at mealtimes, and then retired to her room
+where she remained shut in.
+
+She looked like a kind old lady, though she was only forty-two, and
+had a sad, gentle expression. She was never made much of by her family
+as a child, being neither pretty nor boisterous, she was never petted,
+and she would stay quietly and gently in a corner. She had been
+neglected ever since. As a young girl nobody paid any attention to
+her. She was something like a shadow, or a familiar object, a living
+piece of furniture that one is accustomed to see every day, but about
+which one does not trouble oneself.
+
+Her sister, from long habit, looked upon her as a failure, an
+altogether insignificant being. They treated her with careless
+familiarity which concealed a sort of contemptuous kindness. She
+called herself Lise, and seemed embarrassed at this frivolous youthful
+name. When they saw that she probably would not marry, they changed it
+from Lise to Lison, and since Jeanne's birth, she had become "Aunt
+Lison," a poor relation, very neat, frightfully timid, even with her
+sister and her brother-in-law, who loved her, but with an uncertain
+affection verging on indifference, with an unconscious compassion and
+a natural benevolence.
+
+Sometimes, when the baroness talked of far away things that happened
+in her youth, she would say, in order to fix a date: "It was the time
+that Lison had that attack."
+
+They never said more than that; and this "attack" remained shrouded,
+as in a mist.
+
+One evening, Lise, who was then twenty, had thrown herself into the
+water, no one knew why. Nothing in her life, her manner, gave any
+intimation of this seizure. They fished her out half dead, and her
+parents, raising their hands in horror, instead of seeking the
+mysterious cause of this action, had contented themselves with calling
+it "that attack," as if they were talking of the accident that
+happened to the horse "Coco," who had broken his leg a short time
+before in a ditch, and whom they had been obliged to kill.
+
+From that time Lise, presently Lison, was considered feeble-minded.
+The gentle contempt which she inspired in her relations gradually made
+its way into the minds of all those who surrounded her. Little Jeanne
+herself, with the natural instinct of children, took no notice of her,
+never went up to kiss her good-night, never went into her room. Good
+Rosalie, alone, who gave the room all the necessary attention, seemed
+to know where it was situated.
+
+When Aunt Lison entered the dining-room for breakfast, the little one
+would go up to her from habit and hold up her forehead to be kissed;
+that was all.
+
+If anyone wished to speak to her, they sent a servant to call her, and
+if she was not there, they did not bother about her, never thought of
+her, never thought of troubling themselves so much as to say: "Why, I
+have not seen Aunt Lison this morning!"
+
+When they said "Aunt Lison," these two words awakened no feeling of
+affection in anyone's mind. It was as if one had said: "The coffee
+pot, or the sugar bowl."
+
+She always walked with little, quick, silent steps, never made a
+noise, never knocking up against anything; and seemed to communicate
+to surrounding objects the faculty of not making any sound. Her hands
+seemed to be made of a kind of wadding, she handled everything so
+lightly and delicately.
+
+She arrived about the middle of July, all upset at the idea of this
+marriage. She brought a quantity of presents which, as they came from
+her, remained almost unnoticed. On the following day they had
+forgotten she was there at all.
+
+But an unusual emotion was seething in her mind, and she never took
+her eyes off the engaged couple. She interested herself in Jeanne's
+trousseau with a singular eagerness, a feverish activity, working like
+a simple seamstress in her room, where no one came to visit her.
+
+She was continually presenting the baroness with handkerchiefs she had
+hemmed herself, towels on which she had embroidered a monogram, saying
+as she did so: "Is that all right, Adelaide?" And little mother, as
+she carelessly examined the objects, would reply: "Do not give
+yourself so much trouble, my poor Lison."
+
+One evening, toward the end of the month, after an oppressively warm
+day, the moon rose on one of those clear, mild nights which seem to
+move, stir and affect one, apparently awakening all the secret poetry
+of one's soul. The gentle breath of the fields was wafted into the
+quiet drawing-room. The baroness and her husband were playing cards by
+the light of a lamp, and Aunt Lison was sitting beside them knitting;
+while the young people, leaning on the window sill, were gazing out at
+the moonlit garden.
+
+The linden and the plane tree cast their shadows on the lawn which
+extended beyond it in the moonlight, as far as the dark wood.
+Attracted by the tender charm of the night, and by this misty
+illumination that lighted up the trees and the bushes, Jeanne turned
+toward her parents and said: "Little father, we are going to take a
+short stroll on the grass in front of the house."
+
+The baron replied, without looking up: "Go, my children," and
+continued his game.
+
+They went out and began to walk slowly along the moonlit lawn as far
+as the little wood at the end. The hour grew late and they did not
+think of going in. The baroness grew tired, and wishing to retire, she
+said:
+
+"We must call the lovers in."
+
+The baron cast a glance across the spacious garden where the two forms
+were wandering slowly.
+
+"Let them alone," he said; "it is so delicious outside! Lison will
+wait for them, will you not, Lison?"
+
+The old maid raised her troubled eyes and replied in her timid voice:
+
+"Certainly, I will wait for them."
+
+Little father gave his hand to the baroness, weary himself from the
+heat of the day.
+
+"I am going to bed, too," he said, and went up with his wife.
+
+Then Aunt Lison rose in her turn, and leaving on the arm of the chair
+her canvas with the wool and the knitting needles, she went over and
+leaned on the window sill and gazed out at the night.
+
+The two lovers kept on walking back and forth between the house and
+the wood. They squeezed each other's fingers without speaking, as
+though they had left their bodies and formed part of this visible
+poetry that exhaled from the earth.
+
+All at once Jeanne perceived, framed in the window, the silhouette of
+the aunt, outlined by the light of the lamp behind her.
+
+"See," she said, "there is Aunt Lison looking at us."
+
+The vicomte raised his head, and said in an indifferent tone without
+thinking:
+
+"Yes, Aunt Lison is looking at us."
+
+And they continued to dream, to walk slowly, and to love each other.
+But the dew was falling fast, and the dampness made them shiver a
+little.
+
+"Let us go in now," said Jeanne. And they went into the house.
+
+When they entered the drawing-room, Aunt Lison had gone back to her
+work. Her head was bent over her work, and her fingers were trembling
+as if she were very tired.
+
+"It is time to go to bed, aunt," said Jeanne, approaching her.
+
+Her aunt turned her head, and her eyes were red as if she had been
+crying. The young people did not notice it; but suddenly M. de Lamare
+perceived that Jeanne's thin shoes were covered with dew. He was
+worried, and asked tenderly:
+
+"Are not your dear little feet cold?"
+
+All at once the old lady's hands shook so violently that she let fall
+her knitting, and hiding her face in her hands, she began to sob
+convulsively.
+
+The engaged couple looked at her in amazement, without moving.
+Suddenly Jeanne fell on her knees, and taking her aunt's hands away
+from her face, said in perplexity:
+
+"Why, what is the matter, Aunt Lison?"
+
+Then the poor woman, her voice full of tears, and her whole body
+shaking with sorrow, replied:
+
+"It was when he asked you--are not your--your--dear little feet
+cold?--no one ever said such things to me--to me--never--never----"
+
+Jeanne, surprised and compassionate, could still hardly help laughing
+at the idea of an admirer showing tender solicitude for Lison; and the
+vicomte had turned away to conceal his mirth.
+
+But the aunt suddenly rose, laying her ball of wool on the floor and
+her knitting in the chair, and fled to her room, feeling her way up
+the dark staircase.
+
+Left alone, the young people looked at one another, amused and
+saddened. Jeanne murmured:
+
+"Poor aunt!" Julien replied. "She must be a little crazy this
+evening."
+
+They held each other's hands and presently, gently, very gently, they
+exchanged their first kiss, and by the following day had forgotten all
+about Aunt Lison's tears.
+
+The two weeks preceding the wedding found Jeanne very calm, as though
+she were weary of tender emotions. She had no time for reflection on
+the morning of the eventful day. She was only conscious of a feeling
+as if her flesh, her bones and her blood had all melted beneath her
+skin, and on taking hold of anything, she noticed that her fingers
+trembled.
+
+She did not regain her self-possession until she was in the chancel of
+the church during the marriage ceremony.
+
+Married! So she was married! All that had occurred since daybreak
+seemed to her a dream, a waking dream. There are such moments, when
+all appears changed around us; even our motions seem to have a new
+meaning; even the hours of the day, which seem to be out of their
+usual time. She felt bewildered, above all else, bewildered. Last
+evening nothing had as yet been changed in her life; the constant hope
+of her life seemed only nearer, almost within reach. She had gone to
+rest a young girl; she was now a married woman. She had crossed that
+boundary that seems to conceal the future with all its joys, its
+dreams of happiness. She felt as though a door had opened in front of
+her; she was about to enter into the fulfillment of her expectations.
+
+When they appeared on the threshold of the church after the ceremony,
+a terrific noise caused the bride to start in terror, and the baroness
+to scream; it was a rifle salute given by the peasants, and the firing
+did not cease until they reached "The Poplars."
+
+After a collation served for the family, the family chaplain, and the
+priest from Yport, the mayor and the witnesses, who were some of the
+large farmers of the district, they all walked in the garden. On the
+other side of the château one could hear the boisterous mirth of the
+peasants, who were drinking cider beneath the apple trees. The whole
+countryside, dressed in their best, filled the courtyard.
+
+Jeanne and Julien walked through the copse and then up the slope and,
+without speaking, gazed out at the sea. The air was cool, although it
+was the middle of August; the wind was from the north, and the sun
+blazed down unpityingly from the blue sky. The young people sought a
+more sheltered spot, and crossing the plain, they turned to the right,
+toward the rolling and wooded valley that leads to Yport. As soon as
+they reached the trees the air was still, and they left the road and
+took a narrow path beneath the trees, where they could scarcely walk
+abreast.
+
+Jeanne felt an arm passed gently round her waist. She said nothing,
+her breath came quick, her heart beat fast. Some low branches caressed
+their hair, as they bent to pass under them. She picked a leaf; two
+ladybirds were concealed beneath it, like two delicate red shells.
+
+"Look, a little family," she said innocently, and feeling a little
+more confidence.
+
+Julien placed his mouth to her ear, and whispered: "This evening you
+will be my wife."
+
+Although she had learned many things during her sojourn in the
+country, she dreamed of nothing as yet but the poetry of love, and was
+surprised. His wife? Was she not that already?
+
+Then he began to kiss her temples and neck, little light kisses.
+Startled each time afresh by these masculine kisses to which she was
+not accustomed, she instinctively turned away her head to avoid them,
+though they delighted her. But they had come to the edge of the wood.
+She stopped, embarrassed at being so far from home. What would they
+think?
+
+"Let us go home," she said.
+
+He withdrew his arm from her waist, and as they turned round they
+stood face to face, so close that they could feel each other's breath
+on their faces. They gazed deep into one another's eyes with that gaze
+in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown
+of each other's being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and
+persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life
+be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness,
+or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble
+tête-à-tête of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had never
+yet seen each other.
+
+Suddenly, Julien, placing his two hands on his wife's shoulders,
+kissed her full on the lips as she had never before been kissed. The
+kiss, penetrating as it did her very blood and marrow, gave her such a
+mysterious shock that she pushed Julien wildly away with her two arms,
+almost falling backward as she did so.
+
+"Let us go away, let us go away," she faltered.
+
+He did not reply, but took both her hands and held them in his. They
+walked home in silence, and the rest of the afternoon seemed long. The
+dinner was simple and did not last long, contrary to the usual Norman
+custom. A sort of embarrassment seemed to paralyze the guests. The two
+priests, the mayor, and the four farmers invited, alone betrayed a
+little of that broad mirth that is supposed to accompany weddings.
+
+They had apparently forgotten how to laugh, when a remark of the
+mayor's woke them up. It was about nine o'clock; coffee was about to
+be served. Outside, under the apple-trees of the first court, the bal
+champêtre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all
+that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a
+grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle
+shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins
+and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The
+boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the
+instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the
+unrestrained voices seemed to fall from the air in shreds, in little
+fragments of scattered notes.
+
+Two large barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two
+servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to
+refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of
+the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every
+one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of
+illuminated foliage this wholesome and boisterous fête made the
+melancholy watchers in the dining-room long to dance also, and to
+drink from one of those large barrels, while they munched a slice of
+bread and butter and a raw onion.
+
+The mayor, who was beating time with his knife, cried: "By Jove, that
+is all right; it is like the wedding of Ganache."
+
+A suppressed giggle was heard, but Abbé Picot, the natural enemy of
+civil authority, cried: "You mean of Cana." The other did not accept
+the correction. "No, monsieur le curé, I know what I am talking about;
+when I say Ganache, I mean Ganache."
+
+They rose from table and went into the drawing-room, and then outside
+to mix with the merrymakers. The guests soon left.
+
+They went into the house. They were surprised to see Madame Adelaide
+sobbing on Julien's shoulder. Her tears, noisy tears, as if blown out
+by a pair of bellows, seemed to come from her nose, her mouth and her
+eyes at the same time; and the young man, dumfounded, awkward, was
+supporting the heavy woman who had sunk into his arms to commend to
+his care her darling, her little one, her adored daughter.
+
+The baron rushed toward them, saying: "Oh, no scenes, no tears, I beg
+of you," and, taking his wife to a chair, he made her sit down, while
+she wiped away her tears. Then, turning to Jeanne: "Come, little one,
+kiss your mother and go to bed."
+
+What happened then? She could hardly have told, for she seemed to have
+lost her head, but she felt a shower of little grateful kisses on her
+lips.
+
+Day dawned. Julien awoke, yawned, stretched, looked at his wife,
+smiled and asked: "Did you sleep well, darling?"
+
+She noticed that he now said "thou," and she replied, bewildered,
+"Why, yes. And you?" "Oh, very well," he answered. And turning toward
+her, he kissed her and then began to chat quietly. He set before her
+plans of living, with the idea of economy, and this word occurring
+several times, astonished Jeanne. She listened without grasping the
+meaning of his words, looked at him, but was thinking of a thousand
+things that passed rapidly through her mind hardly leaving a trace.
+
+The clock struck eight. "Come, we must get up," he said. "It would
+look ridiculous for us to be late." When he was dressed he assisted
+his wife with all the little details of her toilet, not allowing her
+to call Rosalie. As they left the room he stopped. "You know, when we
+are alone, we can now use 'thou,' but before your parents it is better
+to wait a while. It will be quite natural when we come back from our
+wedding journey."
+
+She did not go down till luncheon was ready. The day passed like any
+ordinary day, as if nothing new had occurred. There was one man more
+in the house, that was all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CORSICA AND A NEW LIFE
+
+Four days later the travelling carriage arrived that was to take them
+to Marseilles.
+
+After the first night Jeanne had become accustomed to Julien's kisses
+and caresses, although her repugnance to a closer intimacy had not
+diminished. She thought him handsome, she loved him. She again felt
+happy and cheerful.
+
+The farewells were short and without sadness. The baroness alone
+seemed tearful. As the carriage was just starting she placed a purse,
+heavy as lead, in her daughter's hand, saying, "That is for your
+little expenses as a bride."
+
+Jeanne thrust the purse in her pocket and the carriage started.
+
+Toward evening Julien said: "How much money did your mother give you
+in that purse?"
+
+She had not given it a thought, and she poured out the contents on her
+knees. A golden shower filled her lap: two thousand francs. She
+clapped her hands. "I shall commit all kinds of extravagance," she
+said as she replaced it in the purse.
+
+After travelling eight days in terribly hot weather they reached
+Marseilles. The following day the _Roi-Louis_, a little mail
+steamer which went to Naples by way of Ajaccio, took them to Corsica.
+
+Corsica! Its "maquis," its bandits, its mountains! The birthplace of
+Napoleon! It seemed to Jeanne that she was leaving real life to enter
+into a dream, although wide awake. Standing side by side on the bridge
+of the steamer, they looked at the cliffs of Provence as they passed
+swiftly by them. The calm sea of deep blue seemed petrified beneath
+the ardent rays of the sun.
+
+"Do you remember our excursion in Père Lastique's boat?" said Jeanne.
+
+Instead of replying, he gave her a hasty kiss on the ear.
+
+The paddle-wheels struck the water, disturbing its torpor, and a long
+track of foam like the froth of champagne remained in the wake of the
+boat, reaching as far as the eye could see. Jeanne drank in with
+delight the odor of the salt mist that seemed to go to the very tips
+of her fingers. Everywhere the sea. But ahead of them there was
+something gray, not clearly defined in the early dawn; a sort of
+massing of strange-looking clouds, pointed, jagged, seemed to rest on
+the waters.
+
+Presently it became clearer, its outline more distinct on the
+brightening sky; a large chain of mountains, peaked and weird,
+appeared. It was Corsica, covered with a light veil of mist. The sun
+rose behind it, outlining the jagged crests like black shadows. Then
+all the summits were bathed in light, while the rest of the island
+remained covered with mist.
+
+The captain, a little sun-browned man, dried up, stunted, toughened
+and shrivelled by the harsh salt winds, appeared on the bridge and in
+a voice hoarse after twenty years of command and worn from shouting
+amid the storms, said to Jeanne:
+
+"Do you perceive it, that odor?"
+
+She certainly noticed a strong and peculiar odor of plants, a wild
+aromatic odor.
+
+"That is Corsica that sends out that fragrance, madame," said the
+captain. "It is her peculiar odor of a pretty woman. After being away
+for twenty years, I should recognize it five miles out at sea. I
+belong to it. He, down there, at Saint Helena, he speaks of it always,
+it seems, of the odor of his native country. He belongs to my family."
+
+And the captain, taking off his hat, saluted Corsica, saluted down
+yonder, across the ocean, the great captive emperor who belonged to
+his family.
+
+Jeanne was so affected that she almost cried.
+
+Then, pointing toward the horizon, the captain said: "Les
+Sanguinaires."
+
+Julien was standing beside his wife, with his arm round her waist, and
+they both looked out into the distance to see what he was alluding to.
+They at length perceived some pyramidal rocks which the vessel rounded
+presently to enter an immense peaceful gulf surrounded by lofty
+summits, the base of which was covered with what looked like moss.
+
+Pointing to this verdant growth, the captain said: "Le maquis."
+
+As they proceeded on their course the circle of mountains appeared to
+close in behind the steamer, which moved along slowly in such a lake
+of transparent azure that one could sometimes see to the bottom.
+
+The town suddenly appeared perfectly white at the end of the gulf, on
+the edge of the water, at the base of the mountains. Some little
+Italian boats were anchored in the dock. Four or five rowboats came up
+beside the _Roi-Louis_ to get passengers.
+
+Julien, who was collecting the baggage, asked his wife in a low tone:
+"Twenty sous is enough, is it not, to give to the porter?" For a week
+he had constantly asked the same question, which annoyed her each
+time. She replied somewhat impatiently: "When one is not sure of
+giving enough, one gives too much."
+
+He was always disputing with the hotel proprietors, with the servants,
+the drivers, the vendors of all kinds, and when, by dint of
+bargaining, he had obtained a reduction in price, he would say to
+Jeanne as he rubbed his hands: "I do not like to be cheated."
+
+She trembled whenever a bill came in, certain beforehand of the
+remarks that he would make about each item, humiliated at this
+bargaining, blushing up to the roots of her hair beneath the
+contemptuous glances of the servants as they looked after her husband,
+while they held in their hand the meagre tip.
+
+He had a dispute with the boatmen who landed him.
+
+The first tree Jeanne saw was a palm. They went to a great, empty
+hotel at the corner of an immense square and ordered breakfast.
+
+After an hour's rest they arranged an itinerary for their trip, and at
+the end of three days spent in this little town, hidden at the end of
+the blue gulf, and hot as a furnace enclosed in its curtain of
+mountains, which keep every breath of air from it, they decided to
+hire some saddle horses, so as to be able to cross any difficult pass,
+and selected two little Corsican stallions with fiery eyes, thin and
+unwearying, and set out one morning at daybreak. A guide, mounted on a
+mule, accompanied them and carried the provisions, for inns are
+unknown in this wild country.
+
+The road ran along the gulf and soon turned into a kind of valley, and
+on toward the high mountains. They frequently crossed the dry beds of
+torrents with only a tiny stream of water trickling under the stones,
+gurgling faintly like a wild animal in hiding.
+
+The uncultivated country seemed perfectly barren. The sides of the
+hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun.
+Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a
+little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all
+carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons,
+but redoubtable in their hands.
+
+The pungent odor of the aromatic herbs with which the island is
+overgrown seemed to make the air heavy. The road ascended gradually
+amid the long curves of the mountains. The red or blue granite peaks
+gave an appearance of fairyland to the wild landscape, and on the
+foothills immense forests of chestnut trees looked like green brush,
+compared with the elevations above them.
+
+Sometimes the guide, reaching out his hand toward some of these
+heights, would repeat a name. Jeanne and Julien would look where he
+pointed, but see nothing, until at last they discovered something
+gray, like a mass of stones fallen from the summit. It was a little
+village, a hamlet of granite hanging there, fastened on like a
+veritable bird's nest and almost invisible on the huge mountain.
+
+Walking their horses like this made Jeanne nervous. "Let us go
+faster," she said. And she whipped up her horse. Then, as she did not
+hear her husband following her, she turned round and laughed heartily
+as she saw him coming along, pale, and holding on to his horse's mane
+as it bounced him up and down. His very appearance of a "beau
+cavalier" made his awkwardness and timidity all the more comical.
+
+They trotted along quietly. The road now ran between two interminable
+forests of brush, which covered the whole side of the mountain like a
+garment. This was the "Maquis," composed of scrub oak, juniper,
+arbutus, mastic, privet, gorse, laurel, myrtle and boxwood,
+intertwined with clematis, huge ferns, honeysuckle, cytisus, rosemary,
+lavender and brambles, which covered the sides of the mountain with an
+impenetrable fleece.
+
+They were hungry. The guide rejoined them and led them to one of those
+charming springs so frequent in rocky countries, a tiny thread of iced
+water issuing from a little hole in the rock and flowing into a
+chestnut leaf that some passerby had placed there to guide the water
+into one's mouth.
+
+Jeanne felt so happy that she could hardly restrain herself from
+screaming for joy.
+
+They continued their journey and began to descend the slope winding
+round the Bay of Sagone. Toward evening they passed through Cargese,
+the Greek village founded by a colony of refugees who were driven from
+their country. Tall, beautiful girls, with rounded hips, long hands
+and slender waists, and singularly graceful, were grouped beside a
+fountain. Julien called out, "Good evening," and they replied in
+musical tones in the harmonious language of their own land.
+
+When they reached Piana they had to beg for hospitality, as in ancient
+times and in desert lands. Jeanne trembled with joy as they waited for
+the door to be opened after Julien knocked. Oh, this was a journey
+worth while, with all the unexpected of unexplored paths.
+
+It happened to be the home of a young couple. They received the
+travellers as the patriarchs must have received the guest sent by God.
+They had to sleep on a corn husk mattress in an old moldy house. The
+woodwork, all eaten by worms, overrun with long boring-worms, seemed
+to emit sounds, to be alive and to sigh.
+
+They set off again at daybreak, and presently stopped before a forest,
+a veritable forest of purple granite. There were peaks, pillars,
+bell-towers, wondrous forms molded by age, the ravaging wind and the
+sea mist. As much as three hundred metres in height, slender, round,
+twisted, hooked, deformed, unexpected and fantastic, these amazing
+rocks looked like trees, plants, animals, monuments, men, monks in
+their garb, horned devils, gigantic birds, a whole population of
+monsters, a menagerie of nightmares petrified by the will of some
+eccentric divinity.
+
+Jeanne had ceased talking, her heart was full. She took Julien's hand
+and squeezed it, overcome with a longing for love in presence of the
+beauty of nature.
+
+Suddenly, as they emerged from this chaos, they saw before them
+another gulf, encircled by a wall of blood-red granite. And these red
+rocks were reflected in the blue waters.
+
+"Oh, Julien!" faltered Jeanne, unable to speak for wonder and choking
+with her emotion. Two tears fell from her eyes. Julien gazed at her in
+astonishment and said:
+
+"What is the matter, my pet?"
+
+She wiped away her tears, smiled and replied in a rather shaky voice:
+
+"Nothing--I am nervous--I do not know--it just came over me. I am so
+happy that the least thing affects me."
+
+He could not understand these feminine attacks of "nerves," the shocks
+of these vibrant beings, excited at nothing, whom enthusiasm stirs as
+might a catastrophe, whom an imperceptible sensation completely
+upsets, driving them wild with joy or despair.
+
+These tears seemed absurd to him, and thinking only of the bad road,
+he said:
+
+"You would do better to watch your horse."
+
+They descended an almost impassable path to the shore of the gulf,
+then turned to the right to ascend the gloomy Val d'Ota.
+
+But the road was so bad that Julien proposed that they should go on
+foot. Jeanne was delighted. She was enchanted at the idea of walking,
+of being alone with him after her late emotion.
+
+The guide went ahead with the mule and the horses and they walked
+slowly.
+
+The mountain, cleft from top to bottom, spreads apart. The path lies
+in this breach, between two gigantic walls. A roaring torrent flows
+through the gorge. The air is icy, the granite looks black, and high
+above one the glimpse of blue sky astonishes and bewilders one.
+
+A sudden noise made Jeanne start. She raised her eyes. An immense bird
+flew away from a hollow; it was an eagle. His spread wings seemed to
+brush the two walls of the gorge and he soared into the blue and
+disappeared.
+
+Farther on there was a double gorge and the path lay between the two
+in abrupt zigzags. Jeanne, careless and happy, took the lead, the
+pebbles rolling away beneath her feet, fearlessly leaning over the
+abysses. Julien followed her, somewhat out of breath, his eyes on the
+ground for fear of becoming dizzy.
+
+All at once the sun shone down on them, and it seemed as if they were
+leaving the infernal regions. They were thirsty, and following a track
+of moisture, they crossed a wilderness of stones and found a little
+spring conducted into a channel made of a piece of hollowed-out wood
+for the benefit of the goatherds. A carpet of moss covered the ground
+all round it, and Jeanne and Julien knelt down to drink.
+
+As they were enjoying the fresh cold water, Julien tried to draw
+Jeanne away to tease her. She resisted and their lips met and parted,
+and the stream of cold water splashed their faces, their necks, their
+clothes and their hands, and their kisses mingled in the stream.
+
+They were a long time reaching the summit of the declivity, as the
+road was so winding and uneven, and they did not reach Evisa until
+evening and the house of Paoli Palabretti, a relative of their guide.
+
+He was a tall man, somewhat bent, with the mournful air of a
+consumptive. He took them to their room, a cheerless room of bare
+stone, but handsome for this country, where all elegance is ignored.
+He expressed in his language--the Corsican patois, a jumble of French
+and Italian--his pleasure at welcoming them, when a shrill voice
+interrupted him. A little swarthy woman, with large black eyes, a skin
+warmed by the sun, a slender waist, teeth always showing in a
+perpetual smile, darted forward, kissed Jeanne, shook Julien's hand
+and said: "Good-day, madame; good-day, monsieur; I hope you are well."
+
+She took their hats, shawls, carrying all on one arm, for the other
+was in a sling, and then she made them all go outside, saying to her
+husband: "Go and take them for a walk until dinner time."
+
+M. Palabretti obeyed at once and walked between the two young people
+as he showed them the village. He dragged his feet and his words,
+coughing frequently, and repeating at each attack of coughing:
+
+"It is the air of the Val, which is cool, and has struck my chest."
+
+He led them on a by-path beneath enormous chestnut trees. Suddenly he
+stopped and said in his monotonous voice: "It is here that my cousin,
+Jean Rinaldi, was killed by Mathieu Lori. See, I was there, close to
+Jean, when Mathieu appeared at ten paces from us. 'Jean,' he cried,
+'do not go to Albertacce; do not go, Jean, or I will kill you. I warn
+you!'
+
+"I took Jean's arm: 'Do not go there, Jean; he will do it.'
+
+"It was about a girl whom they were both after, Paulina Sinacoupi.
+
+"But Jean cried out: 'I am going, Mathieu; you will not be the one to
+prevent me.'
+
+"Then Mathieu unslung his gun, and before I could adjust mine, he
+fired.
+
+"Jean leaped two feet in the air, like a child skipping, yes,
+monsieur, and he fell back full on me, so that my gun went off and
+rolled as far as the big chestnut tree over yonder.
+
+"Jean's mouth was wide open, but he did not utter a word; he was
+dead."
+
+The young people gazed in amazement at the calm witness of this crime.
+Jeanne asked:
+
+"And what became of the assassin?"
+
+Paoli Palabretti had a long fit of coughing and then said:
+
+"He escaped to the mountain. It was my brother who killed him the
+following year. You know, my brother, Philippi Palabretti, the
+bandit."
+
+Jeanne shuddered.
+
+"Your brother a bandit?"
+
+With a gleam of pride in his eye, the calm Corsican replied:
+
+"Yes, madame. He was celebrated, that one. He laid low six gendarmes.
+He died at the same time as Nicolas Morali, when they were trapped in
+the Niolo, after six days of fighting, and were about to die of
+hunger.
+
+"The country is worth it," he added with a resigned air in the same
+tone in which he said: "It is the air of the Val, which is cool."
+
+Then they went home to dinner, and the little Corsican woman behaved
+as if she had known them for twenty years.
+
+But Jeanne was worried. When Julien again held her in his arms, would
+she experience the same strange and intense sensation that she had
+felt on the moss beside the spring? And when they were alone together
+that evening she trembled lest she should still be insensible to his
+kisses. But she was reassured, and this was her first night of love.
+
+The next day, as they were about to set out, she decided that she
+would not leave this humble cottage, where it seemed as though a fresh
+happiness had begun for her.
+
+She called her host's little wife into her room and, while making
+clear that she did not mean it as a present, she insisted, even with
+some annoyance, on sending her from Paris, as soon as she arrived, a
+remembrance, a remembrance to which she attached an almost
+superstitious significance.
+
+The little Corsican refused for some time, not wishing to accept it.
+But at last she consented, saying:
+
+"Well, then, send me a little pistol, a very small one."
+
+Jeanne opened her eyes in astonishment. The other added in her ear, as
+one confides a sweet and intimate secret: "It is to kill my
+brother-in-law." And smiling, she hastily unwound the bandages around
+the helpless arm, and showing her firm, white skin with the scratch of
+a stiletto across it, now almost healed, she said: "If I had not been
+almost as strong as he is, he would have killed me. My husband is not
+jealous, he knows me; and, besides, he is ill, you know, and that
+quiets your blood. And, besides, madame, I am an honest woman; but my
+brother-in-law believes all that he hears. He is jealous for my
+husband and he will surely try it again. Then I shall have my little
+pistol; I shall be easy, and sure of my revenge."
+
+Jeanne promised to send the weapon, kissed her new friend tenderly and
+they set out on their journey.
+
+The rest of the trip was nothing but a dream, a continual series of
+embraces, an intoxication of caresses. She saw nothing, neither the
+landscape, nor the people, nor the places where they stopped. She saw
+nothing but Julien.
+
+On arriving at Bastia, they had to pay the guide. Julien fumbled in
+his pockets. Not finding what he wanted, he said to Jeanne: "As you
+are not using your mother's two thousand francs, give them to me to
+carry. They will be safer in my belt, and it will avoid my having to
+make change."
+
+She handed him her purse.
+
+They went to Leghorn, visited Florence, Genoa and all the Cornici.
+They reached Marseilles on a morning when the north wind was blowing.
+Two months had elapsed since they left the "Poplars." It was now the
+15th of October.
+
+Jeanne, affected by the cold wind that seemed to come from yonder,
+from far-off Normandy, felt sad. Julien had, for some time, appeared
+changed, tired, indifferent, and she feared she knew not what.
+
+They delayed their return home four days longer, not being able to
+make up their minds to leave this pleasant land of the sun. It seemed
+to her that she had come to an end of her happiness.
+
+At length they left. They were to make all their purchases in Paris,
+prior to settling down for good at the "Poplars," and Jeanne looked
+forward to bringing back some treasures, thanks to her mother's
+present. But the first thing she thought of was the pistol promised to
+the little Corsican woman of Evisa.
+
+The day after they arrived she said to Julien: "Dear, will you give me
+that money of mamma's? I want to make my purchases."
+
+He turned toward her with a look of annoyance.
+
+"How much do you want?"
+
+"Why--whatever you please."
+
+"I will give you a hundred francs," he replied, "but do not squander
+it."
+
+She did not know what to say, amazed and confused. At length she
+faltered: "But--I--handed you the money to----"
+
+He did not give her time to finish.
+
+"Yes, of course. Whether it is in my pocket or yours makes no
+difference from the moment that we have the same purse. I do not
+refuse you, do I, since I am giving you a hundred francs?"
+
+She took the five gold pieces without saying a word, but she did not
+venture to ask for any more, and she bought nothing but the pistol.
+
+Eight days later they set out for the "Poplars."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DISENCHANTMENT
+
+The family and servants were awaiting them outside the white gate with
+brick supports. The post-chaise drew up and there were long and
+affectionate greetings. Little mother wept; Jeanne, affected, wiped
+away some tears; father nervously walked up and down.
+
+Then, as the baggage was being unloaded, they told of their travels
+beside the parlor fire. Jeanne's words flowed freely, and everything
+was told, everything, in a half hour, except, perhaps, a few little
+details forgotten in this rapid account.
+
+The young wife then went to undo her parcels. Rosalie, also greatly
+affected, assisted her. When this was finished and everything had been
+put away, the little maid left her mistress, and Jeanne, somewhat
+fatigued, sat down.
+
+She asked herself what she was now going to do, seeking some
+occupation for her mind, some work for her hands. She did not care to
+go down again into the drawing-room, where her mother was asleep, and
+she thought she would take a walk. But the country seemed so sad that
+she felt a weight at her heart on only looking out of the window.
+
+Then it came to her that she had no longer anything to do, never again
+anything to do. All her young life at the convent had been preoccupied
+with the future, busied with dreams. The constant excitement of hope
+filled her hours at that time, so that she was not aware of their
+flight. Then hardly had she left those austere walls, where her
+illusions had unfolded, than her expectations of love were at once
+realized. The longed-for lover, met, loved and married within a few
+weeks, as one marries on these sudden resolves, had carried her off in
+his arms, without giving her time for reflection.
+
+But now the sweet reality of the first days was to become the everyday
+reality, which closed the door on vague hopes, on the enchanting
+worries of the unknown. Yes, there was nothing more to look forward
+to. And there was nothing more to do, today, to-morrow, never. She
+felt all this vaguely as a certain disillusion, a certain crumbling of
+her dreams.
+
+She rose and leaned her forehead against the cold window panes.
+
+Then, after gazing for some time at the sky across which dark clouds
+were passing, she decided to go out.
+
+Was this the same country, the same grass, the same trees as in May?
+What had become of the sunlit cheerfulness of the leaves and the
+poetry of the green grass, where dandelions, poppies and moon daisies
+bloomed and where yellow butterflies fluttered as though held by
+invisible wires? And this intoxication of the air teeming with life,
+with fragrance, with fertilizing pollen, existed no longer!
+
+The avenues, soaked by the constant autumnal downpours, were covered
+with a thick carpet of fallen leaves which extended beneath the
+shivering bareness of the almost leafless poplars. She went as far as
+the shrubbery. It was as sad as the chamber of a dying person. A green
+hedge which separated the little winding walks was bare of leaves.
+Little birds flew from place to place with a little chilly cry,
+seeking a shelter.
+
+The thick curtain of elm trees that formed a protection against the
+sea wind, the lime tree and the plane tree with their crimson and
+yellow tints seemed clothed, the one in red velvet and the other in
+yellow silk.
+
+Jeanne walked slowly up and down petite mère's avenue, alongside the
+Couillards' farm. Something weighed on her spirit like a presentiment
+of the long boredom of the monotonous life about to begin.
+
+She seated herself on the bank where Julien had first told her of his
+love and remained there, dreaming, scarcely thinking, depressed to the
+very soul, longing to lie down, to sleep, in order to escape the
+dreariness of the day.
+
+All at once she perceived a gull crossing the sky, carried away in a
+gust of wind, and she recalled the eagle she had seen down there in
+Corsica, in the gloomy vale of Ota. She felt a spasm at her heart as
+at the remembrance of something pleasant that is gone by, and she had
+a sudden vision of the beautiful island with its wild perfume, its sun
+that ripens oranges and lemons, its mountains with their rosy summits,
+its azure gulfs and its ravines through which the torrents flowed.
+
+And the moist, severe landscape that surrounded her, with the falling
+leaves and the gray clouds blown along by the wind, enfolded her in
+such a heavy mantle of misery that she went back to the house to keep
+from sobbing.
+
+Her mother was dozing in a torpid condition in front of the fire,
+accustomed to the melancholy of the long days, and not noticing it any
+longer. Her father and Julien had gone for a walk to talk about
+business matters. Night was coming on, filling the large drawing-room
+with gloom lighted by reflections of light from the fire.
+
+The baron presently appeared, followed by Julien. As soon as the
+vicomte entered the room he rang the bell, saying: "Quick, quick, let
+us have some light! It is gloomy in here."
+
+And he sat down before the fire. While his wet shoes were steaming in
+the warmth and the mud was drying on his soles, he rubbed his hands
+cheerfully as he said: "I think it is going to freeze; the sky is
+clearing in the north, and it is full moon to-night; we shall have a
+stinger to-night."
+
+Then turning to his daughter: "Well, little one, are you glad to be
+back again in your own country, in your own home, with the old folks?"
+
+This simple question upset Jeanne. She threw herself into her father's
+arms, her eyes full of tears, and kissed him nervously, as though
+asking pardon, for in spite of her honest attempt to be cheerful, she
+felt sad enough to give up altogether. She recalled the joy she had
+promised herself at seeing her parents again, and she was surprised at
+the coldness that seemed to numb her affection, just as if, after
+constantly thinking of those one loves, when at a distance and unable
+to see them at any moment, one should feel, on seeing them again, a
+sort of check of affection, until the bonds of their life in common
+had been renewed.
+
+Dinner lasted a long time. No one spoke much. Julien appeared to have
+forgotten his wife.
+
+In the drawing-room Jeanne sat before the fire in a drowsy condition,
+opposite little mother, who was sound asleep. Aroused by the voices of
+the men, Jeanne asked herself, as she tried to rouse herself, if she,
+too, was going to become a slave to this dreary lethargy of habit that
+nothing varies.
+
+The baron approached the fire, and holding out his hands to the
+glowing flame, he said, smiling: "Ah, that burns finely this evening.
+It is freezing, children; it is freezing." Then, placing his hand on
+Jeanne's shoulder and pointing to the fire, he said: "See here, little
+daughter, that is the best thing in life, the hearth, the hearth, with
+one's own around one. Nothing else counts. But supposing we retire.
+You children must be tired out."
+
+When she was in her room, Jeanne asked herself how she could feel so
+differently on returning a second time to the place that she thought
+she loved. Why did she feel as though she were wounded? Why did this
+house, this beloved country, all that hitherto had thrilled her with
+happiness, now appear so distressing?
+
+Her eyes suddenly fell on her clock. The little bee was still swinging
+from left to right and from right to left with the same quick,
+continuous motion above the scarlet blossoms. All at once an impulse
+of tenderness moved her to tears at sight of this little piece of
+mechanism that seemed to be alive. She had not been so affected on
+kissing her father and mother. The heart has mysteries that no
+arguments can solve.
+
+For the first time since her marriage she was alone, Julien, under
+pretext of fatigue, having taken another room.
+
+She lay awake a long time, unaccustomed to being alone and disturbed
+by the bleak north wind which beat against the roof.
+
+She was awakened the next morning by a bright light that flooded her
+room. She put on a dressing gown and ran to the window and opened it.
+
+An icy breeze, sharp and bracing, streamed into the room, making her
+skin tingle and her eyes water. The sun appeared behind the trees on a
+crimson sky, and the earth, covered with frost and dry and hard, rang
+out beneath one's footsteps. In one night all the leaves had blown off
+the trees, and in the distance beyond the level ground was seen the
+long green line of water, covered with trails of white foam.
+
+Jeanne dressed herself and went out, and for the sake of an object she
+went to call on the farmers.
+
+The Martins held up their hands in surprise, and Mrs. Martin kissed
+her on both cheeks, and then they made her drink a glass of noyau. She
+then went to the other farm. The Couillards also were surprised. Mrs.
+Couillard pecked her on the ears and she had to drink a glass of
+cassis. Then she went home to breakfast.
+
+The day went by like the previous day, cold instead of damp. And the
+other days of the week resembled these two days, and all the weeks of
+the month were like the first week.
+
+Little by little, however, she ceased to regret far-off lands. The
+force of habit was covering her life with a layer of resignation
+similar to the lime-stone formation deposited on objects by certain
+springs. And a kind of interest for the thousand-and-one little
+insignificant things of daily life, a care for the simple, ordinary
+everyday occupations, awakened in her heart. A sort of pensive
+melancholy, a vague disenchantment with life was growing up in her
+mind. What did she lack? What did she want? She did not know. She had
+no worldly desires, no thirst for amusement, no longing for
+permissible pleasures. What then? Just as old furniture tarnishes in
+time, so everything was slowly becoming faded to her eyes, everything
+seemed to be fading, to be taking on pale, dreary shades.
+
+Her relations with Julien had completely changed. He seemed to be
+quite different since they came back from their honeymoon, like an
+actor who has played his part and resumes his ordinary manner. He
+scarcely paid any attention to her or even spoke to her. All trace of
+love had suddenly disappeared, and he seldom came into her room at
+night.
+
+He had taken charge of the money and of the house, changed the leases,
+worried the peasants, cut down expenses, and having adopted the
+costume of a gentleman farmer, he had lost his polish and elegance as
+a fiancé.
+
+He always wore the same suit, although it was covered with spots. It
+was an old velveteen shooting jacket with brass buttons, that he had
+found among his former wardrobe, and with the carelessness that is
+frequent with those who no longer seek to please, he had given up
+shaving, and his long beard, badly cut, made an incredible change for
+the worse in his appearance. His hands were never cared for, and after
+each meal he drank four or five glasses of brandy.
+
+Jeanne tried to remonstrate with him gently, but he had answered her
+so abruptly: "Won't you let me alone!" that she never ventured to give
+him any more advice.
+
+She had adapted herself to these changes in a manner that surprised
+herself. He had become a stranger to her, a stranger whose mind and
+heart were closed to her. She constantly thought about it, asking
+herself how it was that after having met, loved, married in an impulse
+of affection, they should all at once find themselves almost as much
+strangers as though they had never shared the same room.
+
+And how was it that she did not feel this neglect more deeply? Was
+this life? Had they deceived themselves? Did the future hold nothing
+further for her?
+
+If Julien had remained handsome, carefully dressed, elegant, she might
+possibly have suffered more deeply.
+
+It had been agreed that after the new year the young couple should
+remain alone and that the father and mother should go back to spend a
+few months at their house in Rouen. The young people were not to leave
+the "Poplars" that winter, so as to get thoroughly settled and to
+become accustomed to each other and to the place where all their life
+would be passed. They had a few neighbors to whom Julien would
+introduce his wife. These were the Brisevilles, the Colteliers and the
+Fourvilles.
+
+But the young people could not begin to pay calls because they had not
+as yet been able to get a painter to alter the armorial bearings on
+the carriage.
+
+The old family coach had been given up to his son-in-law by the baron,
+and nothing would have induced him to show himself at the neighboring
+châteaux if the coat-of-arms of the De Lamares were not quartered with
+those of the Le Perthuis des Vauds.
+
+There was only one man in the district who made a specialty of
+heraldic designs, a painter of Bolbec, called Bataille, who was in
+demand at all the Norman castles in turn to make these precious
+designs on the doors of carriages.
+
+At length one morning in December, just as they were finishing
+breakfast, they saw an individual open the gate and walk toward the
+house. He was carrying a box on his back. This was Bataille.
+
+They offered him some breakfast, and, while he was eating, the baron
+and Julien made sketches of quarterings. The baroness, all upset as
+soon as these things were discussed, gave her opinion. And even Jeanne
+took part in the discussion, as though some mysterious interest had
+suddenly awakened in her.
+
+Bataille, while eating, gave his ideas, at times taking the pencil and
+tracing a design, citing examples, describing all the aristocratic
+carriages in the countryside, and seemed to have brought with him in
+his ideas, even in his voice, a sort of atmosphere of aristocracy.
+
+As soon as he had finished his coffee, they all went to the coach
+house. They took off the cover of the carriage and Bataille examined
+it. He then gravely gave his views as to the size he considered
+suitable for the design, and after an exchange of ideas, he set to
+work.
+
+Notwithstanding the cold, the baroness had her chair brought out so as
+to watch him working, and then her foot-stove, for her feet were
+freezing. She then began to chat with the painter, on all the recent
+births, deaths and marriages of which she had not heard, thus adding
+to the genealogical tree which she carried in her memory.
+
+Julien sat beside her, astride on a chair. He was smoking, spitting on
+the ground, listening and following with his glances the emblazoning
+of his rank.
+
+Presently old Simon, who was on his way to the vegetable garden, his
+spade on his shoulder, stopped to look at the work; and as Bataille's
+arrival had become known at the two farms, the farmers' wives soon put
+in an appearance. They went into raptures, standing one at either side
+of the baroness, exclaiming: "My! it requires some cleverness all the
+same to fix up those things."
+
+The two doors could not be finished before the next day about eleven
+o'clock. Every one was on hand; and they dragged the carriage outside
+so as to get a better view of it.
+
+It was perfect. Bataille was complimented, and went off with his box
+on his back. They all agreed that the painter had great ability, and
+if circumstances had been favorable would doubtless have been a great
+artist.
+
+Julien, by way of economy, had introduced great reforms which
+necessitated making some changes. The old coachman had been made
+gardener, Julien undertaking to drive himself, having sold the
+carriage horses to avoid buying feed for them. But as it was necessary
+to have some one to hold the horses when he and his wife got out of
+the carriage, he had made a little cow tender named Marius into a
+groom. Then in order to get some horses, he introduced a special
+clause into the Couillards' and Martins' leases, by which they were
+bound to supply a horse each, on a certain day every month, the date
+to be fixed by him; and this would exempt them from their tribute of
+poultry.
+
+So the Couillards brought a big yellow horse, and the Martins a small
+white animal with long, unclipped coat, and the two were harnessed up
+together. Marius, buried in an old livery belonging to old Simon, led
+the carriage up to the front door.
+
+Julien, looking clean and brushed up, looked a little like his former
+self; but his long beard gave him a common look in spite of all. He
+looked over the horses, the carriage, and the little groom, and seemed
+satisfied, the only really important thing to him being the newly
+painted escutcheon.
+
+The baroness came down leaning on her husband's arm and got into the
+carriage. Then Jeanne appeared. She began to laugh at the horses,
+saying that the white one was the son of the yellow horse; then,
+perceiving Marius, his face buried under his hat with its cockade, his
+nose alone preventing it from covering his face altogether, his hands
+hidden in his long sleeves, and the tail of his coat forming a skirt
+round his legs, his feet encased in immense shoes showing in a comical
+manner beneath it, and then when he threw his head back so as to see,
+and lifted up his leg to walk as if he were crossing a river, she
+burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
+
+The baron turned round, glanced at the little bewildered groom and he,
+too, burst out laughing, calling to his wife: "Look at Ma-Ma-Marius!
+Is he not comical? Heavens, how funny he looks!"
+
+The baroness, looking out of the carriage window, was also convulsed,
+so that the carriage shook on its springs.
+
+But Julien, pale with anger, asked: "What makes you laugh like that?
+Are you crazy?"
+
+Jeanne, quite convulsed and unable to stop laughing, sat down on the
+doorstep; the baron did the same, while, in the carriage, spasmodic
+sneezes, a sort of constant chuckling, told that the baroness was
+choking. Presently there was a motion beneath Marius' livery. He had,
+doubtless, understood the joke, for he was shaking with laughter
+beneath his hat.
+
+Julien darted forward in exasperation. With a box on the ear he sent
+the boy's hat flying across the lawn; then, turning toward his
+father-in-law, he stammered in a voice trembling with rage: "It seems
+to me that you should be the last to laugh. We should not be where we
+are now if you had not wasted your money and ruined your property.
+Whose fault is it if you are ruined?"
+
+The laughter ceased at once, and no one spoke. Jeanne, now ready to
+cry, got into the carriage and sat beside her mother. The baron,
+silent and astonished, took his place opposite the two ladies, and
+Julien sat on the box after lifting to the seat beside him the weeping
+boy, whose face was beginning to swell.
+
+The road was dreary and appeared long. The occupants of the carriage
+were silent. All three sad and embarrassed, they would not acknowledge
+to one another what was occupying their thoughts. They felt that they
+could not talk on indifferent subjects while these thoughts had
+possession of them, and preferred to remain silent than to allude to
+this painful subject.
+
+They drove past farmyards, the carriage jogging along unevenly with
+the ill-matched animals, putting to flight terrified black hens who
+plunged into the bushes and disappeared, occasionally followed by a
+barking wolf-hound.
+
+At length they entered a wide avenue of pine trees, at the end of
+which was a white, closed gate. Marius ran to open it, and they drove
+in round an immense grass plot, and drew up before a high, spacious,
+sad-looking building with closed shutters.
+
+The hall door opened abruptly, and an old, paralyzed servant wearing a
+black waistcoat with red stripes partially covered by his working
+apron slowly descended the slanting steps. He took the visitors' names
+and led them into an immense reception room, and opened with
+difficulty the Venetian blinds which were always kept closed. The
+furniture had covers on it, and the clock and candelabra were wrapped
+in white muslin. An atmosphere of mildew, an atmosphere of former
+days, damp and icy, seemed to permeate one's lungs, heart and skin
+with melancholy.
+
+They all sat down and waited. They heard steps in the hall above them
+that betokened unaccustomed haste. The hosts were hurriedly dressing.
+The baroness, who was chilled, sneezed constantly. Julien paced up and
+down. Jeanne, despondent, sat beside her mother. The baron leaned
+against the marble mantelpiece with his head bent down.
+
+Finally, one of the tall doors opened, and the Vicomte and Vicomtesse
+de Briseville appeared. They were both small, thin, vivacious, of no
+age in particular, ceremonious and embarrassed.
+
+After the first greetings, there seemed to be nothing to say. So they
+began to congratulate each other for no special reason, and hoped that
+these friendly relations would be kept up. It was a treat to see
+people when one lived in the country the year round.
+
+The icy atmosphere pierced to their bones and made their voices
+hoarse. The baroness was coughing now and had stopped sneezing. The
+baron thought it was time to leave. The Brisevilles said: "What, so
+soon? Stay a little longer." But Jeanne had risen in spite of Julien's
+signals, for he thought the visit too short.
+
+They attempted to ring for the servant to order the carriage to the
+door, but the bell would not ring. The host started out himself to
+attend to it, but found that the horses had been put in the stable.
+
+They had to wait. Every one tried to think of something to say.
+Jeanne, involuntarily shivering with cold, inquired what their hosts
+did to occupy themselves all the year round. The Brisevilles were much
+astonished; for they were always busy, either writing letters to their
+aristocratic relations, of whom they had a number scattered all over
+France, or attending to microscopic duties, as ceremonious to one
+another as though they were strangers, and talking grandiloquently of
+the most insignificant matters.
+
+At last the carriage passed the windows with its ill-matched team. But
+Marius had disappeared. Thinking he was off duty until evening, he had
+doubtless gone for a walk.
+
+Julien, perfectly furious, begged them to send him home on foot, and
+after a great many farewells on both sides, they set out for the
+"Poplars."
+
+As soon as they were inside the carriage, Jeanne and her father, in
+spite of Julien's brutal behavior of the morning which still weighed
+on their minds, began to laugh at the gestures and intonations of the
+Brisevilles. The baron imitated the husband, and Jeanne the wife. But
+the baroness, a little touchy in these particulars, said: "You are
+wrong to ridicule them thus; they are people of excellent family."
+They were silent out of respect for little mother, but nevertheless,
+from time to time, Jeanne and her father began again. The baroness
+could not forbear smiling in her turn, but she repeated: "It is not
+nice to laugh at people who belong to our class."
+
+Suddenly the carriage stopped, and Julien called out to someone behind
+it. Then Jeanne and the baron, leaning out, saw a singular creature
+that appeared to be rolling along toward them. His legs entangled in
+his flowing coattails, and blinded by his hat which kept falling over
+his face, shaking his sleeves like the sails of a windmill, and
+splashing into puddles of water, and stumbling against stones in the
+road, running and bounding, Marius was following the carriage as fast
+as his legs could carry him.
+
+As soon as he caught up with it, Julien, leaning over, seized him by
+the collar of his coat, sat him down beside him, and letting go the
+reins, began to shower blows on the boy's hat, which sank down to his
+shoulders with the reverberations of a drum. The boy screamed, tried
+to get away, to jump from the carriage, while his master, holding him
+with one hand, continued beating him with the other.
+
+Jeanne, dumfounded, stammered: "Father--oh, father!" And the baroness,
+wild with indignation, squeezed her husband's arm. "Stop him, Jack!"
+she exclaimed. The baron quickly lowered the front window, and seizing
+hold of his son-in-law's sleeve, he sputtered out in a voice trembling
+with rage: "Have you almost finished beating that child?"
+
+Julien turned round in astonishment: "Don't you see what a condition
+his livery is in?"
+
+But the baron, placing his head between them, said: "Well, what do I
+care? There is no need to be brutal like that!"
+
+Julien got angry again: "Let me alone, please; this is not your
+affair!" And he was raising his hand again when his father-in-law
+caught hold of it and dragged it down so roughly that he knocked it
+against the wood of the seat, and he roared at him so loud: "If you do
+not stop, I shall get out, and I will see that you stop it, myself,"
+that Julien calmed down at once, and shrugging his shoulders without
+replying, he whipped up the horses, who set out at a quick trot.
+
+The two women, pale as death, did not stir, and one could hear
+distinctly the thumping of the baroness' heart.
+
+At dinner Julien was more charming than usual, as though nothing had
+occurred. Jeanne, her father, and Madame Adelaide, pleased to see him
+so amiable, fell in with his mood, and when Jeanne mentioned the
+Brisevilles, he laughed at them himself, adding, however: "All the
+same, they have the grand air."
+
+They made no more visits, each one fearing to revive the Marius
+episode. They decided, to send New Year's cards, and to wait until the
+first warm days of spring before paying any more calls.
+
+At Christmas they invited the curé, the mayor and his wife to dinner,
+and again on New Year's Day. These were the only events that varied
+the monotony of their life. The baron and his wife were to leave "The
+Poplars" on the ninth of January. Jeanne wanted to keep them, but
+Julien did not acquiesce, and the baron sent for a post-chaise from
+Rouen, seeing his son-in-law's coolness.
+
+The day before their departure, as it was a clear frost, Jeanne and
+her father decided to go to Yport, which they had not visited since
+her return from Corsica. They crossed the wood where she had strolled
+on her wedding-day, all wrapped up in the one whose lifelong companion
+she had become; the wood where she had received her first kiss,
+trembled at the first breath of love, had a presentiment of that
+sensual love of which she did not become aware until she was in the
+wild vale of Ota beside the spring where they mingled their kisses as
+they drank of its waters. The trees were now leafless, the climbing
+vines dead.
+
+They entered the little village. The empty, silent streets smelled of
+the sea, of wrack, of fish. Huge brown nets were still hanging up to
+dry outside the houses, or stretched out on the shingle. The gray,
+cold sea, with its eternal roaring foam, was going out, uncovering the
+green rocks at the foot of the cliff toward Fécamp.
+
+Jeanne and her father, motionless, watched the fishermen setting out
+in their boats in the dusk, as they did every night, risking their
+lives to keep from starving, and so poor, nevertheless, that they
+never tasted meat.
+
+The baron, inspired at the sight of the ocean, murmured: "It is
+terrible, but it is beautiful. How magnificent this sea is on which
+the darkness is falling, and on which so many lives are in peril, is
+it not, Jeannette?"
+
+She replied with a cold smile: "It is nothing to the Mediterranean."
+
+Her father, indignant, exclaimed: "The Mediterranean! It is oil, sugar
+water, bluing water in a washtub. Look at this sea, how terrible it is
+with its crests of foam! And think of all those men who have set out
+on it, and who are already out of sight."
+
+Jeanne assented with a sigh: "Yes, if you think so." But this name,
+"Mediterranean," had wrung her heart afresh, sending her thoughts back
+to those distant lands where her dreams lay buried.
+
+Instead of returning home by the woods, they walked along the road,
+mounting the ascent slowly. They were silent, sad at the thought of
+the approaching separation. As they passed along beside the farmyards
+an odor of crushed apples, that smell of new cider which seems to
+pervade the atmosphere in this season all through Normandy, rose to
+their nostrils, or else a strong smell of the cow stables. A small
+lighted window at the end of the yard indicated the farmhouse.
+
+It seemed to Jeanne that her mind was expanding, was beginning to
+understand the psychic meaning of things; and these little scattered
+gleams in the landscape gave her, all at once, a keen sense of the
+isolation of all human lives, a feeling that everything detaches,
+separates, draws one far away from the things they love.
+
+She said, in a resigned tone: "Life is not always cheerful."
+
+The baron sighed: "How can it be helped, daughter? We can do nothing."
+
+The following day the baron and his wife went away, and Jeanne and
+Julien were left alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JEANNE'S DISCOVERY
+
+Cards now became a distraction in the life of the young people. Every
+morning after breakfast, Julien would play several games of bezique
+with his wife, smoking and sipping brandy as he played. She would then
+go up to her room and sit down beside the window, and as the rain beat
+against the panes, or the wind shook the windows, she would embroider
+away steadily. Occasionally she would raise her eyes and look out at
+the gray sea which had white-caps on it. Then, after gazing listlessly
+for some time, she would resume her work.
+
+She had nothing else to do, Julien having taken the entire management
+of the house, to satisfy his craving for authority and his craze for
+economy. He was parsimonious in the extreme, never gave any tips, cut
+down the food to the merest necessaries; and as Jeanne since her
+return had ordered the baker to make her a little Norman "galette" for
+breakfast, he had cut down this extra expense, and condemned her to
+eat toast.
+
+She said nothing in order to avoid recriminations, arguments and
+quarrels; but she suffered keenly at each fresh manifestation of
+avarice on the part of her husband. It appeared to her low and odious,
+brought up as she had been in a family where money was never
+considered. How often had she not heard her mother say: "Why, money is
+made to be spent." Julien would now say: "Will you never become
+accustomed to not throwing money away?" And each time he deducted a
+few sous from some one's salary or on a note, he would say with a
+smile, as he slipped the change into his pocket: "Little streams make
+big rivers."
+
+On certain days Jeanne would sit and dream. She would gradually cease
+sewing and, with her hands idle, and forgetting her surroundings, she
+would weave one of those romances of her girlhood and be lost in some
+enchanting adventure. But suddenly Julien's voice giving some orders
+to old Simon would snatch her abruptly from her dreams, and she would
+take up her work again, saying: "That is all over," and a tear would
+fall on her hands as she plied the needle.
+
+Rosalie, formerly so cheerful and always singing, had changed. Her
+rounded cheeks had lost their color, and were now almost hollow, and
+sometimes had an earthy hue. Jeanne would frequently ask her: "Are you
+ill, my girl?" The little maid would reply: "No, madame," while her
+cheeks would redden slightly and she would retire hastily.
+
+At the end of January the snow came. In one night the whole plain was
+covered and the trees next morning were white with icy foam.
+
+On one of these mornings, Jeanne was sitting warming her feet before
+the fire in her room, while Rosalie, who had changed from day to day,
+was making the bed. Suddenly hearing behind her a kind of moan, Jeanne
+asked, without turning her head: "What is the matter?"
+
+The maid replied as usual: "Nothing, madame"; but her voice was weak
+and trembling.
+
+Jeanne's thoughts were on something else, when she noticed that the
+girl was not moving about the room. She called: "Rosalie!" Still no
+sound. Then, thinking she might have left the room, she cried in a
+louder tone: "Rosalie!" and she was reaching out her arm to ring the
+bell, when a deep moan close beside her made her start up with a
+shudder.
+
+The little servant, her face livid, her eyes haggard, was seated on
+the floor, her legs stretched out, and her back leaning against the
+bed. Jeanne sprang toward her. "What is the matter with you--what is
+the matter?" she asked.
+
+The girl did not reply, did not move. She stared vacantly at her
+mistress and gasped as though she were in terrible pain. Then,
+suddenly, she slid down on her back at full length, clenching her
+teeth to smother a cry of anguish.
+
+Jeanne suddenly understood, and almost distracted, she ran to the head
+of the stairs, crying: "Julien, Julien!"
+
+"What do you want?" he replied from below.
+
+She hardly knew how to tell him. "It is Rosalie, who----"
+
+Julien rushed upstairs two steps at a time, and going abruptly into
+the room, he found the poor girl had just been delivered of a child.
+He looked round with a wicked look on his face, and pushing his
+terrified wife out of the room, exclaimed: "This is none of your
+affair. Go away. Send me Ludivine and old Simon."
+
+Jeanne, trembling, descended to the kitchen, and then, not daring to
+go upstairs again, she went into the drawing-room, in which there had
+been no fire since her parents left, and anxiously awaited news.
+
+She presently saw the man-servant running out of the house. Five
+minutes later he returned with Widow Dentu, the nurse of the district.
+
+Then there was a great commotion on the stairs as though they were
+carrying a wounded person, and Julien came in and told Jeanne that she
+might go back to her room.
+
+She trembled as if she had witnessed some terrible accident. She sat
+down again before the fire, and asked: "How is she?"
+
+Julien, preoccupied and nervous, was pacing up and down the room. He
+seemed to be getting angry, and did not reply at first. Then he
+stopped and said: "What do you intend to do with this girl?"
+
+She did not understand, and looked at her husband. "Why, what do you
+mean? I do not know."
+
+Then suddenly flying into a rage, he exclaimed: "We cannot keep a
+bastard in the house."
+
+Jeanne was very much bewildered, and said at the end of a long
+silence: "But, my friend, perhaps we could put it out to nurse?"
+
+He cut her short: "And who will pay the bill? You will, no doubt."
+
+She reflected for some time, trying to find some way out of the
+difficulty; at length she said: "Why, the father will take care of it,
+of the child; and if he marries Rosalie, there will be no more
+difficulty."
+
+Julien, as though his patience were exhausted, replied furiously: "The
+father!--the father!--do you know him--the father? No, is it not so?
+Well then----?"
+
+Jeanne, much affected, became excited: "But you certainly would not
+let the girl go away like that. It would be cowardly! We will inquire
+the name of the man, and we will go and find him, and he will have to
+explain matters."
+
+Julien had calmed down and resumed his pacing up and down. "My dear,"
+he said, "she will not tell the name of the man; she will not tell you
+any more than she will tell me--and, if he does not want her? ... We
+cannot, however, keep a woman and her illegitimate child under our
+roof, don't you understand?"
+
+Jeanne, persistent, replied: "Then he must be a wretch, this man. But
+we must certainly find out who it is, and then he will have us to deal
+with."
+
+Julien colored, became annoyed again, and said: "But--meanwhile----?"
+
+She did not know what course to take, and asked: "What do you
+propose?"
+
+"Oh, I? That's very simple. I would give her some money and send her
+to the devil with her brat."
+
+The young wife, indignant, was disgusted with him. "That shall never
+be," she said. "She is my foster-sister, that girl; we grew up
+together. She has made a mistake, so much the worse; but I will not
+cast her out of doors on that account; and, if it is necessary, I will
+bring up the child."
+
+Then Julien's wrath exploded: "And we should earn a fine reputation,
+we, with our name and our position! And they would say of us
+everywhere that we were protecting vice, harboring beggars; and decent
+people would never set their foot inside our doors. What are you
+thinking of? You must be crazy!"
+
+She had remained quite calm. "I shall never cast off Rosalie; and if
+you do not wish her to stay, my mother will take her; and we shall
+surely succeed in finding out the name of the father of the child."
+
+He left the room in exasperation, banging the door after him and
+exclaiming: "What stupid ideas women have!"
+
+In the afternoon Jeanne went up to see the patient. The little maid,
+watched over by Widow Dentu, was lying still in her bed, her eyes wide
+open, while the nurse held the new-born babe in her arms.
+
+As soon as Rosalie perceived her mistress, she began to sob, hiding
+her face in the covers and shaking with her sorrow. Jeanne wanted to
+kiss her, but she avoided it by keeping her face covered. But the
+nurse interfered, and drawing away the sheet, uncovered her face, and
+she let Jeanne kiss her, weeping still, but more quietly.
+
+A meagre fire was burning in the grate; the room was cold; the child
+was crying. Jeanne did not dare to speak of the little one, for fear
+of another attack, and she took her maid's hand as she said
+mechanically: "It will not matter, it will not matter." The poor girl
+glanced furtively at the nurse, and trembled as the infant cried, and
+the remembrance of her sorrow came to her mind occasionally in a
+convulsive sob, while suppressed tears choked her.
+
+Jeanne kissed her again, and murmured softly in her ear: "We will take
+good care of it, never fear, my girl." Then as she was beginning to
+cry again, Jeanne made her escape.
+
+She came to see her every day, and each time Rosalie burst into tears
+at the sight of her mistress.
+
+The child was put out to nurse at a neighbor's.
+
+Julien, however, hardly spoke to his wife, as though he had nourished
+anger against her ever since she refused to send away the maid. He
+referred to the subject one day, but Jeanne took from her pocket a
+letter from the baroness asking them to send the girl to them at once
+if they would not keep her at the "Poplars." Julien, furious, cried:
+"Your mother is as foolish as you are!" but he did not insist any
+more.
+
+Two weeks later the patient was able to get up and take up her work
+again.
+
+One morning, Jeanne made her sit down and, taking her hands and
+looking steadfastly at her, she said:
+
+"See here, my girl, tell me everything."
+
+Rosalie began to tremble, and faltered:
+
+"What, madame?"
+
+"Whose is it, this child?"
+
+The little maid was overcome with confusion, and she sought wildly to
+withdraw her hands so as to hide her face. But Jeanne kissed her in
+spite of herself, and consoled her, saying: "It is a misfortune, but
+cannot be helped, my girl. You were weak, but that happens to many
+others. If the father marries you, no one will think of it again."
+
+Rosalie sighed as if she were suffering, and from time to time made an
+effort to disengage herself and run away.
+
+Jeanne resumed: "I understand perfectly that you are ashamed; but you
+see that I am not angry, that I speak kindly to you. If I ask you the
+name of the man it is for your own good, for I feel from your grief
+that he has deserted you, and because I wish to prevent that. Julien
+will go and look for him, you see, and we will oblige him to marry
+you; and as we will employ you both, we will oblige him also to make
+you happy."
+
+This time Rosalie gave such a jerk that she snatched her hands away
+from her mistress and ran off as if she were mad.
+
+That evening at dinner Jeanne said to Julien: "I tried to persuade
+Rosalie to tell me the name of her betrayer. I did not succeed. You
+try to find out so that we can compel this miserable man to marry
+her."
+
+But Julien became angry: "Oh! you know I do not wish to hear anything
+about it. You wish to keep this girl. Keep her, but do not bother me
+about her."
+
+Since the girl's illness he appeared to be more irritable than ever;
+and he had got into the way of never speaking to his wife without
+shouting as if he were in a rage, while she, on the contrary, would
+lower her voice, be gentle and conciliating, to avoid all argument;
+but she often wept at night after she went to bed.
+
+In spite of his constant irritability, her husband had become more
+affectionate than customary since their return.
+
+Rosalie was soon quite well and less sad, although she appeared
+terrified, pursued by some unknown fear, and she ran away twice when
+Jeanne tried to question her again.
+
+Julien all at once became more amiable, and the young wife, clinging
+to vain hopes, also became more cheerful. The thaw had not yet set in
+and a hard, smooth, glittering covering of snow extended over the
+landscape. Neither men nor animals were to be seen; only the chimneys
+of the cottages gave evidence of life in the smoke that ascended from
+them into the icy air.
+
+One evening the thermometer fell still lower, and Julien, shivering as
+he left the table--for the dining-room was never properly heated, he
+was so economical with the wood--rubbed his hands, murmuring: "It will
+be warmer to-night, won't it, my dear?" He laughed with his jolly
+laugh of former days, and Jeanne threw her arms around his neck: "I do
+not feel well, dear; perhaps I shall be better to-morrow."
+
+"As you wish, my dear. If you are ill you must take care of yourself."
+And they began to talk of other things.
+
+She retired early. Julien, for a wonder, had a fire lighted in her
+room. As soon as he saw that it was burning brightly, he kissed his
+wife on the forehead and left the room.
+
+The whole house seemed to be penetrated by the cold; the very walls
+seemed to be shivering, and Jeanne shivered in her bed. Twice she got
+up to put fresh logs on the fire and to look for dresses, skirts, and
+other garments which she piled on the bed. Nothing seemed to warm her;
+her feet were numbed and her lower limbs seemed to tingle, making her
+excessively nervous and restless.
+
+Then her teeth began to chatter, her hands shook, there was a
+tightness in her chest, her heart began to beat with hard, dull
+pulsations, and at times seemed to stop beating, and she gasped for
+breath. A terrible apprehension seized her, while the cold seemed to
+penetrate to her marrow. She never had felt such a sensation, she had
+never seemed to lose her hold on life like this before, never been so
+near her last breath.
+
+"I am going to die," she thought, "I am dying----"
+
+And filled with terror, she jumped out of bed, rang for Rosalie,
+waited, rang again, waited again, shivering and frozen.
+
+The little maid did not come. She was doubtless asleep, that first,
+sound sleep that nothing can disturb. Jeanne, in despair, darted
+toward the stairs in her bare feet, and groping her way, she ascended
+the staircase quietly, found the door, opened it, and called,
+"Rosalie!" She went forward, stumbled against the bed, felt all over
+it with her hands and found that it was empty. It was empty and cold,
+and as if no one had slept there. Much surprised, she said: "What! Has
+she gone out in weather like this?"
+
+But as her heart began to beat tumultuously till she seemed to be
+suffocating, she went downstairs again with trembling limbs in order
+to wake Julien. She rushed into his room filled with the idea that she
+was going to die, and longing to see him before she lost
+consciousness.
+
+By the light of the dying embers she perceived Rosalie's head leaning
+on her husband's shoulder.
+
+At the cry she gave they both started to their feet; she stood
+motionless for a second, horrified at this discovery, and then fled to
+her room; and when Julien, at his wit's end, called "Jeanne!" she was
+seized with an overmastering terror of seeing him, of hearing his
+voice, of listening to him explaining, lying, of meeting his gaze; and
+she darted toward the stairs again and went down.
+
+She now ran along in the darkness, at the risk of falling downstairs,
+at the risk of breaking her neck on the stone floor of the hall. She
+rushed along, impelled by an imperious desire to flee, to know nothing
+about it, to see no one.
+
+When she was at the bottom of the stairs she sat down on one of the
+steps, still in her nightdress, and in bare feet, and remained in a
+dazed condition. She heard Julien moving and walking about. She
+started to her feet in order to escape him. He was starting to come
+downstairs and called: "Listen, Jeanne!"
+
+No, she would not listen nor let him touch her with the tips of his
+fingers; and she darted into the dining-room as if she were fleeing
+from an assassin. She looked for a door of escape, a hiding place, a
+dark corner, some way of avoiding him. She hid under the table. But he
+was already at the door, a candle in his hand, still calling:
+"Jeanne!" She started off again like a hare, darted into the kitchen,
+ran round it twice like a trapped animal, and as he came near her, she
+suddenly opened the door into the garden and darted out into the
+night.
+
+The contact with the snow, into which she occasionally sank up to her
+knees, seemed to give her the energy of despair. She did not feel
+cold, although she had little on. She felt nothing, her body was so
+numbed from the emotion of her mind, and she ran along as white as the
+snow.
+
+She followed the large avenue, crossed the wood, crossed the ditch,
+and started off across the plain.
+
+There was no moon, the stars were shining like sparks of fire in the
+black sky; but the plain was light with a dull whiteness, and lay in
+infinite silence.
+
+Jeanne walked quickly, hardly breathing, not knowing, not thinking of
+anything. She suddenly stopped on the edge of the cliff. She stopped
+short, instinctively, and crouched down, bereft of thought and of will
+power.
+
+In the abyss before her the silent, invisible sea exhaled the salt
+odor of its wrack at low tide.
+
+She remained thus some time, her mind as inert as her body; then, all
+at once, she began to tremble, to tremble violently, like a sail
+shaken by the wind. Her arms, her hands, her feet, impelled by an
+invisible force, throbbed, pulsated wildly, and her consciousness
+awakened abruptly, sharp and poignant.
+
+Old memories passed before her mental vision: the sail with him in
+Père Lastique's boat, their conversation, his nascent love, the
+christening of the boat; then she went back, further back, to that
+night of dreams when she first came to the "Poplars." And now! _And
+now!_ Oh, her life was shipwrecked, all joy was ended, all
+expectation at an end; and the frightful future full of torture, of
+deception, and of despair appeared before her. Better to die, it would
+all be over at once.
+
+But a voice cried in the distance: "Here it is, here are her steps;
+quick, quick, this way!" It was Julien who was looking for her.
+
+Oh! she did not wish to see him again. In the abyss down yonder before
+her she now heard a slight sound, the indistinct ripple of the waves
+over the rocks. She rose to her feet with the idea of throwing herself
+over the cliff and bidding life farewell. Like one in despair, she
+uttered the last word of the dying, the last word of the young soldier
+slain in battle: "Mother!"
+
+All at once the thought of little mother came to her mind, she saw her
+sobbing, she saw her father on his knees before her mangled remains,
+and in a second she felt all the pain of their sorrow.
+
+She sank down again into the snow; and when Julien and old Simon,
+followed by Marius, carrying a lantern, seized her arm to pull her
+back as she was so close to the brink, she made no attempt to escape.
+
+She let them do as they would, for she could not stir. She felt that
+they were carrying her, and then that she was being put to bed and
+rubbed with hot cloths; then she became unconscious.
+
+Then she had a nightmare, or was it a nightmare? She was in bed. It
+was broad daylight, but she could not get up. Why? She did not know.
+Then she heard a little noise on the floor, a sort of scratching, a
+rustling, and suddenly a mouse, a little gray mouse, ran quickly
+across the sheet. Another followed it, then a third, who ran toward
+her chest with his little, quick scamper. Jeanne was not afraid, and
+she reached out her hand to catch the animal, but could not catch it.
+Then other mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands, rose up on all
+sides of her. They climbed the bedposts, ran up the tapestries,
+covered the bed completely. And soon they got beneath the covers;
+Jeanne felt them gliding over her skin, tickling her limbs, running up
+and down her body. She saw them running from the bottom of the bed to
+get into her neck under the sheets; and she tried to fight them off,
+throwing her hands out to try and catch them, but always finding them
+empty.
+
+She was frantic, wanted to escape, screamed, and it seemed as if she
+were being held down, as if strong arms enfolded her and rendered her
+helpless; but she saw no one.
+
+She had no idea of time. It must have been long, a very long time.
+
+Then she awoke, weary, aching, but quiet. She felt weak, very weak.
+She opened her eyes and was not surprised to see little mother seated
+in her room with a man whom she did not know.
+
+How old was she? She did not know, and thought she was a very little
+girl. She had no recollection of anything.
+
+The big man said: "Why, she has regained consciousness." Little mother
+began to weep. Then the big man resumed: "Come, be calm, baroness; I
+can ensure her recovery now. But do not talk to her at all. Let her
+sleep, let her sleep."
+
+Then it seemed to Jeanne that she remained in a state of exhaustion
+for a long time, overcome by a heavy sleep as soon as she tried to
+think; and she tried not to remember anything whatever, as though she
+had a vague fear that the reality might come back to her.
+
+Once when she awoke she saw Julien, alone, standing beside her; and
+suddenly it all came back to her, as if the curtain which hid her past
+life had been raised.
+
+She felt a horrible pain in her heart, and wanted to escape once more.
+She threw back the coverlets, jumped to the floor and fell down, her
+limbs being too weak to support her.
+
+Julien sprang toward her, and she began to scream for him not to touch
+her. She writhed and rolled on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison
+came running in with Widow Dentu, then the baron, and finally little
+mother, puffing and distracted.
+
+They put her back into bed, and she immediately closed her eyes, so as
+to escape talking and be able to think quietly.
+
+Her mother and aunt watched over her anxiously, saying: "Do you hear
+us now, Jeanne, my little Jeanne?"
+
+She pretended to be deaf, not to hear them, and did not answer. Night
+came on and the nurse took up her position beside the bed. She did not
+sleep; she kept trying to think of things that had escaped her memory
+as though there were holes in it, great white empty places where
+events had not been noted down.
+
+Little by little she began to recall the facts, and she pondered over
+them steadily.
+
+Little mother, Aunt Lison, the baron had come, so she must have been
+very ill. But Julien? What had he said? Did her parents know? And
+Rosalie, where was she? And what should she do? What should she do? An
+idea came to her--she would return to Rouen and live with father and
+little mother as in old days. She would be a widow; that's all.
+
+Then she waited, listening to what was being said around her,
+understanding everything without letting them see it, rejoiced at her
+returning reason, patient and crafty.
+
+That evening, at last, she found herself alone with the baroness and
+called to her in a low tone: "Little Mother!" Her own voice astonished
+her, it seemed strange. The baroness seized her hands: "My daughter,
+my darling Jeanne! My child, do you recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, little mother, but you must not weep; we have a great deal to
+talk about. Did Julien tell you why I ran away in the snow?"
+
+"Yes, my darling, you had a very dangerous fever."
+
+"It was not that, mamma. I had the fever afterward; but did he tell
+you what gave me the fever and why I ran away?"
+
+"No, my dearie."
+
+"It was because I found Rosalie in his room."
+
+Her mother thought she was delirious again and soothed her, saying:
+"Go to sleep, darling, calm yourself, try to sleep."
+
+But Jeanne, persistent, continued: "I am quite sensible now, little
+mother. I am not talking wildly as I must have done these last days. I
+felt ill one night and I went to look for Julien. Rosalie was with him
+in his room. I did not know what I was doing, for sorrow, and I ran
+out into the snow to throw myself off the cliff."
+
+But the baroness reiterated, "Yes, darling, you have been very ill,
+very ill."
+
+"It is not that, mamma. I found Rosalie in with Julien, and I will not
+live with him any longer. You will take me back with you to Rouen to
+live as we used to do."
+
+The baroness, whom the doctor had warned not to thwart Jeanne in any
+way, replied: "Yes, my darling."
+
+But the invalid grew impatient: "I see that you do not believe me. Go
+and fetch little father, he will soon understand."
+
+The baroness left the room and presently returned, leaning on her
+husband's arm. They sat down beside the bed and Jeanne began to talk.
+She told them all, quietly, in a weak voice, but clearly; all about
+Julien's peculiar character, his harshness, his avarice, and, finally,
+his infidelity.
+
+When she had finished, the baron saw that she was not delirious, but
+he did not know what to think, what to determine, or what to answer.
+He took her hand, tenderly, as he used to do when he put her to sleep
+with stories, and said: "Listen, dearie, we must act with prudence. We
+must do nothing rash. Try to put up with your husband until we can
+come to some decision--promise me this?"
+
+"I will try, but I will not stay here after I get well," she replied.
+
+Then she added in a lower tone: "Where is Rosalie now?"
+
+"You will not see her any more," replied the baron. But she persisted:
+"Where is she? I wish to know." Then he confessed that she had not
+left the house, but declared that she was going to leave.
+
+On leaving the room the baron, filled with indignation and wounded in
+his feelings as a father, went to look for Julien, and said to him
+abruptly: "Sir, I have come to ask you for an explanation of your
+conduct toward my daughter. You have been unfaithful to her with your
+maid, which is a double insult."
+
+Julien pretended to be innocent, denied everything positively, swore,
+took God as his witness. What proof had they? he asked. Was not Jeanne
+delirious? Had she not had brain fever? Had she not run out in the
+snow, in an attack of delirium, at the very beginning of her illness?
+And it was just at this time, when she was running about the house
+almost naked, that she pretends that she saw her maid in her husband's
+room!
+
+And he grew angry, threatened a lawsuit, became furious. The baron,
+bewildered, made excuses, begged his pardon, and held out his loyal
+hand to Julien, who refused to take it.
+
+When Jeanne heard what her husband had said, she did not show any
+annoyance, but replied: "He is lying, papa, but we shall end by
+convicting him."
+
+For some days she remained taciturn and reserved, thinking over
+matters. The third morning she asked to see Rosalie. The baron refused
+to send her up, saying she had left. Jeanne persisted, saying: "Well,
+let some one go and fetch her."
+
+She was beginning to get excited when the doctor came. They told him
+everything, so that he could form an opinion. But Jeanne suddenly
+burst into tears, her nerves all unstrung, and almost screamed: "I
+want Rosalie; I wish to see her!"
+
+The doctor took hold of her hand and said in a low tone: "Calm
+yourself, madame; any emotion may lead to serious consequences, for
+you are enceinte."
+
+She was dumfounded, as though she had received a blow; and it seemed
+to her that she felt the first stirrings of life within her. Then she
+was silent, not even listening to what was being said, absorbed in her
+own thoughts. She could not sleep that night for thinking of the new
+life that was developing in her, and was sad at the thought that it
+was Julien's child, and might resemble him. The following morning she
+sent for the baron. "Little father," she said, "my resolution is
+formed; I wish to know everything, and especially just now; you
+understand, I insist, and you know that you must not thwart me in my
+present condition. Listen! You must go and get M. le Curé. I need him
+here to keep Rosalie from telling a lie. Then, as soon as he comes,
+send him up to me, and you stay downstairs with little mother. And,
+above all things, see that Julien does not suspect anything."
+
+An hour later the priest came, looking fatter than ever, and puffing
+like the baroness. He sat down in an arm-chair and began to joke,
+wiping his forehead as usual with his plaid handkerchief. "Well,
+baroness, I do not think we grow any thinner; I think we make a good
+pair." Then, turning toward the patient, he said: "Eh, what is this I
+hear, young lady, that we are soon to have a fresh baptism? Aha, it
+will not be a boat this time." And in a graver tone he added: "It will
+be a defender of the country; unless"--after a moment's reflection--"it
+should be the prospective mother of a family, like you, madame,"
+bowing to the baroness.
+
+The door at the end of the room opened and Rosalie appeared, beside
+herself, weeping, refusing to enter the room, clinging to the door
+frame, and being pushed forward by the baron. Quite out of patience,
+he thrust her into the room. She covered her face with her hands and
+remained standing there, sobbing.
+
+Jeanne, as soon as she saw her, rose to a sitting posture, whiter than
+the sheets, and with her heart beating wildly. She could not speak,
+could hardly breathe. At length she said, in a voice broken with
+emotion: "I--I--will not--need--to question you. It--it is enough for
+me to see you thus--to--to see your--your shame in my presence."
+
+After a pause, for she was out of breath, she continued: "I had M. le
+Curé come, so that it might be like a confession, you understand."
+
+Rosalie, motionless, uttered little cries that were almost screams
+behind her hands.
+
+The baron, whose anger was gaining ground, seized her arms, and
+snatching her hands from her face, he threw her on her knees beside
+the bed, saying: "Speak! Answer!"
+
+She remained on the ground, in the position assigned to Magdalens, her
+cap awry, her apron on the floor, and her face again covered by her
+hands.
+
+Then the priest said: "Come, my girl, listen to what is said to you,
+and reply. We do not want to harm you, but we want to know what
+occurred."
+
+Jeanne, leaning over, looked at her and said: "Is it true that you
+were with Julien when I surprised you?"
+
+Rosalie moaned through her fingers, "Yes, madame."
+
+Then the baroness suddenly began to cry in a choking fashion, and her
+convulsive sobs accompanied those of Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne, with her eyes fixed on the maid, said: "How long had this been
+going on?"
+
+"Ever since he came here," faltered Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne could not understand. "Ever since he came--then--ever
+since--ever since the spring?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Ever since he came into this house?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+And Jeanne, as if overflowing with questions, asked, speaking
+precipitately:
+
+"But how did it happen? How did he approach you? How did he persuade
+you? What did he say? When, how did you ever yield to him? How could
+you ever have done it?"
+
+Rosalie, removing her hands from her face, and overwhelmed also with a
+feverish desire to speak, said:
+
+"How do I know, myself? It was the day he dined here for the first
+time, and he came up to my room. He had hidden himself in the loft. I
+did not dare to scream for fear of making a scandal. I no longer knew
+what I was doing. Then I said nothing because I liked him."
+
+Then Jeanne exclaimed with almost a scream:
+
+"But--your--your child--is his child?"
+
+Rosalie sobbed.
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+Then they were both silent. The only sound to be heard was the sobs of
+Rosalie and of the baroness.
+
+Jeanne, quite overcome, felt her tears also beginning to flow; and
+they fell silently down her cheeks.
+
+The maid's child had the same father, as her child! Her anger was at
+an end; she now was filled with a dreary, slow, profound and infinite
+despair. She presently resumed in a changed, tearful voice, the voice
+of a woman who has been crying:
+
+"When we returned from--from down there--from our journey--when did he
+begin again?"
+
+The little maid, who had sunk down on the floor, faltered: "The first
+evening."
+
+Each word wrung Jeanne's heart. So on the very first night of their
+return to the "Poplars" he left her for this girl. That was why he
+wanted to sleep alone!
+
+She now knew all she wanted to know, and exclaimed: "Go away, go
+away!" And as Rosalie, perfectly crushed, did not stir, Jeanne called
+to her father: "Take her away, carry her away!" The priest, who had
+said nothing as yet, thought that the moment had arrived for him to
+preach a little sermon.
+
+"What you have done is very wrong, my daughter, very wrong, and God
+will not pardon you so easily. Consider the hell that awaits you if
+you do not always act right. Now that you have a child you must behave
+yourself. No doubt madame la baronne will do something for you, and we
+will find you a husband."
+
+He would have continued speaking, but the baron, having again seized
+Rosalie by the shoulders, raised her from the floor and dragged her to
+the door, and threw her like a package into the corridor. As he turned
+back into the room, looking paler than his daughter, the priest
+resumed: "What can one do? They are all like that in the district. It
+is shocking, but cannot be helped, and then one must be a little
+indulgent toward the weaknesses of our nature. They never get married
+until they have become enceinte, never, madame." He added, smiling:
+"One might call it a local custom. So, you see, monsieur, your maid
+did as all the rest do."
+
+But the baron, who was trembling with nervousness, interrupted him,
+saying, "She! what do I care about her! It is Julien with whom I am
+indignant. It is infamous, the way he has behaved, and I shall take my
+daughter away."
+
+He walked up and down excitedly, becoming more and more exasperated:
+"It is infamous to have betrayed my child, infamous! He is a wretch,
+this man, a cad, a wretch! and I will tell him so. I will slap his
+face. I will give him a horsewhipping!"
+
+The priest, who was slowly taking a pinch of snuff, seated beside the
+baroness still in tears, and endeavoring to fulfill his office of a
+peacemaker, said: "Come, monsieur le baron, between ourselves, he has
+done what every one else does. Do you know many husbands who are
+faithful?" And he added with a sly good humor: "Come now, I wager that
+you have had your turn. Your hand on your heart, am I right?" The
+baron had stopped in astonishment before the priest, who continued:
+"Why, yes, you did just as others did. Who knows if you did not make
+love to a little sugar plum like that? I tell you that every one does.
+Your wife was none the less happy, or less loved; am I not right?"
+
+The baron had not stirred, he was much disturbed. What the priest said
+was true, and he had sinned as much as any one and had not hesitated
+when his wife's maids were in question. Was he a wretch on that
+account? Why should he judge Julien's conduct so severely when his own
+had not been above blame?
+
+The baroness, still struggling with her sobs, smiled faintly at the
+recollection of her husband's escapades, for she belonged to the
+sentimental class for whom love adventures are a part of existence.
+
+Jeanne, exhausted, lay with wide-open eyes, absorbed in painful
+reflection. Something Rosalie had said had wounded her as though an
+arrow had pierced her heart: "As for me, I said nothing, because I
+liked him."
+
+She had liked him also, and that was the only reason why she had given
+herself, bound herself for life to him, why she had renounced
+everything else, all her cherished plans, all the unknown future. She
+had fallen into this marriage, into this hole without any edges by
+which one could climb out, into this wretchedness, this sadness, this
+despair, because, like Rosalie, she had liked him!
+
+The door was pushed violently open and Julien appeared, with a furious
+expression on his face. He had caught sight of Rosalie moaning on the
+stairs, and suspected that something was up, that the maid had
+probably told all. The sight of the priest riveted him to the spot.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" he asked in a trembling but quiet tone.
+
+The baron, so violent a short while ago, did not venture to speak,
+afraid of the priest's remarks, and of what his son-in-law might say
+in the same strain. Little mother was weeping more copiously than
+ever; but Jeanne had raised herself with her hands and looked,
+breathing quickly, at the one who had caused her such cruel sorrow.
+She stammered out: "The fact is, we know all, all your rascality
+since--since the day you first entered this house--we know that the
+child of this maid is your child, just as--as--mine is--they will be
+brothers." Overcome with sorrow at this thought, she buried herself in
+the sheets and wept bitterly.
+
+Julien stood there gaping, not knowing what to say or do. The priest
+came to the rescue.
+
+"Come, come, do not give way like that, my dear young lady, be
+sensible." He rose, approached the bed and placed his warm hand on the
+despairing girl's forehead. This seemed to soothe her strangely. She
+felt quieted, as if this strong peasant's hand, accustomed to the
+gesture of absolution, to kindly consolations, had conveyed by its
+touch some mysterious solace.
+
+The good man, still standing, continued: "Madame, we must always
+forgive. A great sorrow has come to you; but God in His mercy has
+balanced it by a great happiness, since you will become a mother. This
+child will be your comfort. In his name I implore you, I adjure you to
+forgive M. Julien's error. It will be a new bond between you, a pledge
+of his future fidelity. Can you remain apart in your heart from him
+whose child you bear?"
+
+She did not reply, crushed, mortified, exhausted as she was, without
+even strength for anger or resentment. Her nerves seemed relaxed,
+almost severed, she seemed to be scarcely alive.
+
+The baroness, who seemed incapable of resentment, and whose mind was
+unequal to prolonged effort, murmured: "Come, come, Jeanne."
+
+Then the priest took the hand of the young man and leading him up to
+the bed, he placed his hand in that of his wife, and gave it a little
+tap as though to unite them more closely. Then laying aside his
+professional tone and manner, he said with a satisfied air: "Well,
+now, that's done. Believe me, that is the best thing to do." The two
+hands, joined for a moment, separated immediately. Julien, not daring
+to kiss Jeanne, kissed his mother-in-law on the forehead, turned on
+his heel, took the arm of the baron, who acquiesced, happy at heart
+that the thing had been settled thus, and they went out together to
+smoke a cigar.
+
+The patient, overcome, dozed off, while the priest and little mother
+talked in a low tone.
+
+The priest explained and propounded his ideas, to which the baroness
+assented by nodding her head. He said in conclusion: "Well, then, that
+is understood; you will give this girl the Barville farm, and I will
+undertake to find her a husband, a good, steady fellow. Oh! with a
+property worth twenty thousand francs we shall have no lack of
+suitors. There will be more than enough to choose from."
+
+The baroness was smiling now, quite happy, with the remains of two
+tears that had dried on her cheeks.
+
+She repeated: "That is settled. Barville is worth at least twenty
+thousand francs, but it will be settled on the child, the parents
+having the use of it during their lifetime."
+
+The curé rose, shook little mother's hand, saying: "Do not disturb
+yourself, Madame la Baronne, do not disturb yourself; I know what an
+effort it is."
+
+As he went out he met Aunt Lison coming to see her patient. She
+noticed nothing; they told her nothing; and she knew nothing, as
+usual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MATERNITY
+
+Rosalie had left the house. Jeanne felt no joy at the thought of being
+a mother, she had had so much sorrow. She awaited the advent of her
+child without curiosity, still filled with the apprehension of unknown
+misfortunes.
+
+A big woman, big as a house, had taken Rosalie's place and supported
+the baroness in her monotonous walks along her avenue. The baron gave
+his arm to Jeanne, who was now always ailing, while Aunt Lison,
+uneasy, and busied about the approaching event, held her other hand,
+bewildered at this mystery which she would never know.
+
+They all walked along like this almost in silence for hours at a time,
+while Julien was riding about the country on horseback, having
+suddenly acquired this taste. Nothing ever came to disturb their
+dreary life. The baron, his wife, and the vicomte paid a visit to the
+Fourvilles, whom Julien seemed to be already well acquainted with,
+without one knowing just how. Another ceremonious visit was exchanged
+with the Brisevilles, who were still hidden in their manor house.
+
+One afternoon, about four o'clock, two persons, a lady and gentleman
+on horseback, rode up into the courtyard of the château. Julien,
+greatly excited, ran up to Jeanne's room. "Quick, quick, come
+downstairs; here are the Fourvilles. They have just come as neighbors,
+knowing your condition. Tell them that I have gone out, but that I
+will be back. I will just go and make myself presentable."
+
+Jeanne, much surprised, went downstairs. A pale, pretty young woman
+with a sad face, dreamy eyes, and lustreless, fair hair, looking as
+though the sunlight had never kissed it, quietly introduced her
+husband, a kind of giant, or ogre with a large red mustache. She
+added: "We have several times had the pleasure of meeting M. de
+Lamare. We heard from him how you were suffering, and we would not put
+off coming to see you as neighbors, without any ceremony. You see that
+we came on horseback. I also had the pleasure the other day of a visit
+from madame, your mother, and the baron."
+
+She spoke with perfect ease, familiar but refined. Jeanne was charmed,
+and fell in love with her at once. "This is a friend," she thought.
+
+The Comte de Fourville, on the contrary, seemed like a bear in the
+drawing-room. As soon as he was seated, he placed his hat on the chair
+next him, did not know what to do with his hands, placed them on his
+knees, then on the arms of the chair, and finally crossed his fingers
+as if in prayer.
+
+Suddenly Julien entered the room. Jeanne was amazed and did not
+recognize him. He was shaved. He looked handsome, elegant, and
+attractive as on the day of their betrothal. He shook the comte's
+hairy paw, kissed the hand of the comtesse, whose ivory cheeks colored
+up slightly while her eyelids quivered.
+
+He began to speak; he was charming as in former days. His large eyes,
+the mirrors of love, had become tender again. And his hair, lately so
+dull and unkempt, had regained its soft, glossy wave, with the use of
+a hairbrush and perfumed oil.
+
+At the moment that the Fourvilles were taking their leave the
+comtesse, turning toward him, said: "Would you like to take a ride on
+Thursday, dear vicomte?"
+
+As he bowed and murmured, "Why, certainly, madame," she took Jeanne's
+hand and said in a sympathetic and affectionate tone, with a cordial
+smile: "Oh! when you are well, we will all three gallop about the
+country. It will be delightful. What do you say?"
+
+With an easy gesture she held up her riding skirt and then jumped into
+the saddle with the lightness of a bird, while her husband, after
+bowing awkwardly, mounted his big Norman steed. As they disappeared
+outside the gate, Julien, who seemed charmed, exclaimed: "What
+delightful people! those are friends who may be useful to us."
+
+Jeanne, pleased also without knowing why, replied: "The little
+comtesse is charming, I feel that I shall love her, but the husband
+looks like a brute. Where did you meet them?"
+
+He rubbed his hands together good humoredly. "I met them by chance at
+the Brisevilles'. The husband seems a little rough. He cares for
+nothing but hunting, but he is a real noble for all that."
+
+The dinner was almost cheerful, as though some secret happiness had
+come into the house.
+
+Nothing new happened until the latter days of July, when Jeanne was
+taken ill. As she seemed to grow worse, the doctor was sent for and at
+the first glance recognized the symptoms of a premature confinement.
+
+Her sufferings presently abated a little, but she was filled with a
+terrible anguish, a despairing sinking, something like a presentiment,
+the mysterious touch of death. It is in these moments when it comes so
+near to us that its breath chills our hearts.
+
+The room was full of people. Little mother, buried in an armchair, was
+choking with grief. The baron, his hands trembling, ran hither and
+thither, carrying things, consulting the doctor and losing his head.
+Julien paced up and down, looking concerned, but perfectly calm, and
+Widow Dentu stood at the foot of the bed with an appropriate
+expression, the expression of a woman of experience whom nothing
+astonishes. The cook, Ludivine, and Aunt Lison remained discreetly
+concealed behind the door of the lobby.
+
+Toward morning Jeanne became worse, and as her involuntary screams
+escaped from between her closed teeth, she thought incessantly of
+Rosalie, who had not suffered, who had hardly moaned, who had borne
+her child without suffering and without difficulty, and in her
+wretched and troubled mind she continually compared their conditions
+and cursed God, whom she had formerly thought to be just. She rebelled
+at the wicked partiality of fate and at the wicked lies of those who
+preach justice and goodness.
+
+At times her sufferings were so great that her mind was a blank. She
+had neither strength, life nor knowledge for anything but suffering.
+
+All at once her sufferings ceased. The nurse and the doctor leaned
+over her and gave her all attention. Presently she heard a little cry
+and, in spite of her weakness, she unconsciously held out her arms.
+She was suddenly filled with joy, with a glimpse of a new-found
+happiness which had just unfolded. Her child was born, she was
+soothed, happy, happy as she never yet had been. Her heart and her
+body revived; she was now a mother. She felt that she was saved,
+secure from all despair, for she had here something to love.
+
+From now on she had but one thought--her child. She was a fanatical
+mother, all the more intense because she had been deceived in her
+love, deceived in her hopes. She would sit whole days beside the
+window, rocking the little cradle.
+
+The baron and little mother smiled at this excess of tenderness, but
+Julien, whose habitual routine had been interfered with and his
+overweening importance diminished by the arrival of this noisy and
+all-powerful tyrant, unconsciously jealous of this mite of a man who
+had usurped his place in the house, kept on saying angrily and
+impatiently: "How wearisome she is with her brat!"
+
+She became so obsessed by this affection that she would pass the
+entire night beside the cradle, watching the child asleep. As she was
+becoming exhausted by this morbid life, taking no rest, growing weaker
+and thinner and beginning to cough, the doctor ordered the child to be
+taken from her. She got angry, wept, implored, but they were deaf to
+her entreaties. His nurse took him every evening, and each night his
+mother would rise, and in her bare feet go to the door, listen at the
+keyhole to see if he was sleeping quietly, did not wake up and wanted
+nothing.
+
+Julien found her here one night when he came home late, after dining
+with the Fourvilles. After that they locked her in her room to oblige
+her to stay in bed.
+
+The baptism took place at the end of August. The baron was godfather
+and Aunt Lison godmother. The child was named Pierre-Simon-Paul and
+called Paul for short.
+
+At the beginning of September Aunt Lison left without any commotion.
+Her absence was as little felt as her presence.
+
+One evening after dinner the priest appeared. He seemed embarrassed as
+if he were burdened by some mystery, and after some idle remarks, he
+asked the baroness and her husband to grant him a short interview in
+private.
+
+They all three walked slowly down the long avenue, talking with
+animation, while Julien, who was alone with Jeanne, was astonished,
+disturbed and annoyed at this secret.
+
+He accompanied the priest when he took his leave, and they went off
+together toward the church where the Angelus was ringing.
+
+As it was cool, almost cold, the others went into the drawing-room.
+They were all dozing when Julien came in abruptly, his face red,
+looking very indignant.
+
+From the door he called out to his parents-in-law, without remembering
+that Jeanne was there: "Are you crazy, for God's sake! to go and throw
+away twenty thousand francs on that girl?"
+
+No one replied, they were so astonished. He continued, bellowing with
+rage: "How can one be so stupid as that? Do you wish to leave us
+without a sou?"
+
+The baron, who had recovered his composure, attempted to stop him:
+"Keep still! Remember that you are speaking before your wife."
+
+But Julien was trembling with excitement: "As if I cared; she knows
+all about it, anyway. It is robbing her."
+
+Jeanne, bewildered, looked at him without understanding. She faltered:
+"What in the world is the matter?"
+
+Julien then turned toward her, to try and get her on his side as a
+partner who has been cheated out of an unexpected fortune. He
+hurriedly told her about the conspiracy to marry off Rosalie and about
+the gift of the Barville property, which was worth at least twenty
+thousand francs. He said: "Your parents are crazy, my dear, crazy
+enough to be shut up! Twenty thousand francs! twenty thousand francs!
+Why, they have lost their heads! Twenty thousand francs for a
+bastard!"
+
+Jeanne listened without emotion and without anger, astonished at her
+own calmness, indifferent now to everything but her own child.
+
+The baron was raging, but could find nothing to say. He finally burst
+forth and, stamping his foot, exclaimed: "Think of what you are
+saying; it is disgusting. Whose fault was it if we had to give this
+girl-mother a dowry? Whose child is it? You would like to abandon it
+now!"
+
+Julien, amazed at the baron's violence, looked at him fixedly. He then
+resumed in a calmer tone: "But fifteen hundred francs would be quite
+enough. They all have children before they are legally married. It
+makes no difference whose child it is, in any case. Instead of giving
+one of your farms, to the value of twenty thousand francs, in addition
+to making the world aware of what has happened, you should, to say the
+least, have had some regard for our name and our position."
+
+He spoke in a severe tone like a man who stood on his rights and was
+convinced of the logic of his argument. The baron, disturbed at this
+unexpected discussion, stood there gaping at him. Julien then, seeing
+his advantage, concluded: "Happily, nothing has yet been settled. I
+know the young fellow who is going to marry her. He is an honest chap
+and we can make a satisfactory arrangement with him. I will take
+charge of the matter."
+
+And he went out immediately, fearing no doubt to continue the
+discussion, and pleased that he had had the last word, a proof, he
+thought, that they acquiesced in his views.
+
+As soon as he had left the room, however, the baron exclaimed: "Oh,
+that is going too far, much too far!"
+
+But Jeanne, happening to look up at her father's bewildered face,
+began to laugh with her clear, ringing laugh of former days, when
+anything amused her. She said: "Father, father, did you hear the tone
+in which he said: 'Twenty thousand francs?'"
+
+Little mother, whose mirth was as ready as her tears, as she recalled
+her son-in-law's angry expression, his indignant exclamations and his
+refusal to allow the girl whom he had led astray to be given money
+that did not belong to him, delighted also at Jeanne's mirth, gave way
+to little bursts of laughter till the tears came to her eyes. The
+baron caught the contagion, and all three laughed to kill themselves
+as they used to do in the good old days.
+
+As soon as they quieted down a little Jeanne said: "How strange it is
+that all this does not affect me. I look upon him now as a stranger. I
+cannot believe that I am his wife. You see how I can laugh at
+his--his--want of delicacy."
+
+And without knowing why they all three embraced each other, smiling
+and happy.
+
+Two days later, after breakfast, just as Julien had started away from
+the house on horseback, a strapping young fellow from twenty-one to
+twenty-five years old, clad in a brand-new blue blouse with wide
+sleeves buttoning at the wrist, slyly jumped over the gate, as though
+he had been there awaiting his opportunity all the morning, crept
+along the Couillards' ditch, came round the château, and cautiously
+approached the baron and his wife, who were still sitting under the
+plane-tree.
+
+He took off his cap and advanced, bowing in an awkward manner. As soon
+as he was close to them he said: "Your servant, Monsieur le Baron,
+madame and the company." Then, as no one replied, he said: "It is I, I
+am Desiré Lecocq."
+
+As the name conveyed nothing to them, the baron asked, "What do you
+want?"
+
+Then, altogether upset at the necessity of explaining himself, the
+young fellow stuttered out as he gazed alternately at his cap, which
+he held in his hands, and at the roof of the château: "It was M'sieu
+le Curé who said something to me about this matter----" And then he
+stopped, fearing he might say too much and compromise his own
+interests.
+
+The other, lowering his voice, blurted out: "That matter of your
+maid--Rosalie----"
+
+Jeanne, who had guessed what was coming, had risen and moved away with
+her infant in her arms.
+
+"Come nearer," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had
+just left. The peasant sat down, murmuring: "You are very good." Then
+he waited as though he had no more to say. After a long silence, he
+screwed up courage, and looking up at the sky, remarked: "There's fine
+weather for the time of year. But the earth will be none the better
+for it, as the seed is already sown." And then he was silent again.
+
+The baron was growing impatient. He plunged right into the subject and
+said drily: "Then it is you who are going to marry Rosalie?"
+
+The man at once became uneasy, his Norman caution being on the alert.
+He replied with more animation, but with a tinge of defiance: "That
+depends; perhaps yes, perhaps no; it depends."
+
+The baron, annoyed at this hedging, exclaimed angrily: "Answer
+frankly, damn it! Was this what you came here for? Yes or no! Will you
+marry her? Yes or no!"
+
+The bewildered man looked steadfastly at his feet: "If it is as M'sieu
+le Curé said, I will take her, but if it is as M'sieu Julien said, I
+will not take her."
+
+"What did M. Julien tell you?"
+
+"M'sieu Julien told me fifteen hundred francs and M'sieu le Curé told
+me that I should have twenty thousand. I will do it for twenty
+thousand, but I will not do it for fifteen hundred."
+
+The baroness, who was buried in her easy chair, began to giggle at the
+anxious expression of the peasant, who, not understanding this
+frivolity, glanced at her angrily out of the corner of his eye and
+waited in silence.
+
+The baron, who was embarrassed at this bargaining, cut it short by
+saying: "I told M. le Curé that you should have the Barville farm
+during your lifetime and that then it would revert to the child. It is
+worth twenty thousand francs. I do not go back on my word. Is it
+settled? Yes or no!"
+
+The man smiled with a humble and satisfied expression, and suddenly
+becoming loquacious, said: "Oh, in that case, I will not say no. That
+was all that stood in my way. When M'sieu le Curé spoke to me, I was
+ready at once, by gosh! and I was very pleased to accommodate the
+baron who was giving me that. I said to myself, 'Is it not true that
+when people are willing to do each other favors, they can always find
+a way and can make it worth while?' But M'sieu Julien came to see me,
+and it was only fifteen hundred francs. I said to myself: 'I must see
+about that,' and so I came here. That is not to say that I did not
+trust you, but I wanted to know. Short accounts make long friends. Is
+not that true, M'sieu le Baron?"
+
+The baron interrupted him by asking, "When do you wish to get
+married?"
+
+The man became timid again, very much embarrassed, and finally said,
+hesitatingly: "I will not do it until I get a little paper."
+
+This time the baron got angry: "Doggone it! you will have the marriage
+contract. That is the best kind of paper."
+
+But the peasant was stubborn: "Meanwhile I might take a little turn;
+it will not be dark for a while."
+
+The baron rose to make an end of the matter: "Answer yes or no at
+once. If you do not wish her, say so; I have another suitor."
+
+The fear of a rival terrified the crafty Norman. He suddenly made up
+his mind and held out his hand, as after buying a cow, saying: "Put it
+there, M'sieu le Baron; it is a bargain. Whoever draws back is a
+skunk!"
+
+The baron shook his hand, then called out: "Ludivine!" The cook
+appeared at the window. "Bring us a bottle of wine." They clinked
+glasses to seal the matter and the young peasant went off with a light
+tread.
+
+Nothing was said to Julien about this visit. The contract was drawn up
+with all secrecy and as soon as the banns were published the wedding
+took place one Monday morning.
+
+A neighbor carried the child to church, walking behind the bride and
+groom, as a sure sign of good luck. And no one in all the district was
+surprised; they simply envied Desiré Lecocq. "He was born with a
+caul," they said, with a sly smile into which there entered no
+resentment.
+
+Julien was terribly angry and made such a scene that his parents-in-law
+cut short their visit to the "Poplars." Jeanne was only moderately
+sad at their departure, for little Paul had become for her an
+inexhaustible source of happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DEATH OF LA BARONNE
+
+As Jeanne's health was quite restored, they determined to go and
+return the Fourvilles' visit and also to call on the Marquis de
+Coutelier.
+
+Julien had bought at a sale a new one-horse phaeton, so that they
+could go out twice a month. They set out one fine December morning,
+and after driving for two hours across the plains of Normandy, they
+began to descend a little slope into a little valley, the sides of
+which were wooded, while the valley itself was cultivated. After an
+abrupt turn in the valley they saw the Château of Vrillette, a wooded
+slope on one side of it and a large pond on the other, out of which
+rose one of its walls and which was bounded by a wood of tall pine
+trees that formed the other side of the valley.
+
+Julien explained all the portions of the building to Jeanne, like one
+who knows his subject thoroughly, and went into raptures over its
+beauty, adding; "It is full of game, this country. The comte loves to
+hunt here. This is a true seignorial residence."
+
+The hall door was opened and the pale comtesse appeared, coming
+forward to meet the visitors, all smiles, and wearing a long-trained
+dress, like a chatelaine of olden times. She looked a fitting lady of
+the lake, born to inhabit this fairy castle.
+
+The comtesse took both Jeanne's hands, as if she had known her all her
+life, and made her sit down beside her in a low chair, while Julien,
+all of whose forgotten elegance seemed to have revived within the past
+five months, chatted and smiled quietly and familiarly.
+
+The comtesse and he talked of their horseback rides. She was laughing
+at his manner of mounting a horse and called him "Le Chevalier
+Trébuche," and he smiled also, having nicknamed her "The Amazon
+Queen." A gun fired beneath the windows caused Jeanne to give a little
+scream. It was the comte, who had killed a teal.
+
+His wife called to him. A sound of oars was heard, a boat grinding
+against the stones, and he appeared, enormous, booted, followed by two
+drenched dogs of a ruddy color like himself, who lay down on the mat
+outside the door.
+
+He seemed more at his ease in his own home, and was delighted to see
+his visitors. He put some wood on the fire, sent for madeira and
+biscuits and then exclaimed suddenly: "Why, you will take dinner with
+us, of course."
+
+Jeanne, whose child was never out of her thoughts, declined. He
+insisted, and as she could not be persuaded, Julien made a gesture of
+annoyance. She feared to arouse his ugly, quarrelsome temper, and
+although she was very unhappy at the thought that she should not see
+Paul until the next day, she consented to stay.
+
+The afternoon was delightful. They first visited the springs which
+bubbled up at the foot of a mossy rock and then took a row on the
+pond. At one end of the boat Julien and the comtesse, wrapped in
+shawls, were smiling happily like those who have nothing left to wish
+for.
+
+A huge fire was blazing in the spacious reception room, which imparted
+a sense of warmth and contentment. The comte seized his wife in his
+arms and lifted her from the floor as though she had been a child and
+gave her a hearty kiss on each cheek, like a man satisfied with the
+world.
+
+Jeanne, smiling, looked at this good giant whom one would have thought
+was an ogre at the very sight of his mustaches, and she thought: "How
+one may be deceived each day about everybody." Then, almost
+involuntarily, she glanced at Julien standing in the doorway, looking
+horribly pale and with his eyes fixed on the comte. She approached him
+and said in a low tone: "Are you ill? What is the matter with you?" He
+answered her angrily: "Nothing. Let me alone! I was cold."
+
+When they went into the dining-room the count asked if he might let
+his dogs come in, and they settled themselves one on either side of
+their master.
+
+After dinner, as Jeanne and Julien were preparing to leave, M. de
+Fourville kept them a little longer to look at some fishing by
+torchlight. When they finally set out, wrapped up in their cloaks and
+some rugs they had borrowed, Jeanne said almost involuntarily: "What a
+fine man that giant is!" Julien, who was driving, replied: "Yes, but
+he does not always restrain himself before company."
+
+A week later they called on the Couteliers, who were supposed to be
+the chief noble family in the province. Their property of Remenil
+adjoined the large town of Cany. The new château built in the reign of
+Louis XIV. was hidden in a magnificent park enclosed by walls. The
+ruins of the old château could be seen on an eminence. They were
+ushered into a stately reception room by men servants in livery. In
+the middle of the room a sort of column held an immense bowl of Sèvres
+ware and on the pedestal of the column an autograph letter from the
+king, under glass, requested the Marquis Leopold-Hervé-Joseph-Germer
+de Varneville de Rollebosc de Coutelier to receive this present from
+his sovereign.
+
+Jeanne and Julien were looking at this royal gift when the marquis and
+marquise entered the room.
+
+They were very ceremonious people whose minds, sentiments and words
+seemed always to be on stilts. They spoke without waiting for an
+answer, smiling complacently, appearing always to be fulfilling the
+duty imposed on them by their position, of showing civilities to the
+inferior nobility of the region.
+
+Jeanne and Julien, somewhat taken aback, endeavored to be agreeable,
+but although they felt too embarrassed to remain any longer, they did
+not know exactly how to take their leave. The marquise herself put an
+end to the visit naturally and simply by bringing the conversation to
+a close like a queen giving a dismissal.
+
+On the way home Julien said: "If you like, we will make this our first
+and last call; the Fourvilles are good enough for me." Jeanne was of
+the same opinion. December passed slowly and the shut-in life began
+again as in the previous year. But Jeanne did not find it wearisome,
+as she was always taken up with Paul, whom Julien looked at askance,
+uneasy and annoyed. Often when the mother held the child in her arms,
+kissing it frantically as women do their children, she would hold it
+up to its father, saying: "Give him a kiss; one would suppose you did
+not love him." He would hardly touch with his lips the child's smooth
+forehead, walking all round it, as though he did not wish to touch the
+restless little fists. Then he would walk away abruptly as though from
+something distasteful.
+
+The mayor, the doctor and the curé came to dinner occasionally, and
+sometimes it was the Fourvilles, with whom they were becoming more and
+more intimate. The comte appeared to worship Paul. He held him on his
+knees during the whole visit and sometimes during the whole afternoon,
+playing with him and amusing him and then kissing him tenderly as
+mothers do. He always lamented that he had no children of his own.
+
+Comtesse Gilberte again mentioned the rides they all four were going
+to take together. Jeanne, a little weary of the monotonous days and
+nights, was quite happy in anticipation of these plans, and for a week
+amused herself making a riding habit.
+
+They always set out two and two, the comtesse and Julien ahead, the
+count and Jeanne a hundred feet behind them, talking quietly, like
+good friends, for such they had become through the sympathy of their
+straightforward minds and simple hearts. The others often spoke in a
+low tone, sometimes bursting into laughter and looking quickly at each
+other, as though their eyes were expressing what they dared not utter.
+And they would suddenly set off at a gallop, impelled by a desire to
+flee, to get away, far away.
+
+Then Gilberte would seem to be growing irritable. Her sharp voice,
+borne on the breeze, occasionally reached the ears of the loitering
+couple. The comte would smile and say to Jeanne: "She does not always
+get out of bed the right side, that wife of mine."
+
+One evening as they were coming home the comtesse was teasing her
+mount, spurring it and then checking it abruptly. They heard Julien
+say several time: "Take care, take care; you will be thrown." "So much
+the worse," she replied; "it is none of your business," in a hard
+clear tone that resounded across the fields as though the words hung
+in the air.
+
+The animal reared, plunged and champed the bit. The comte, uneasy,
+shouted: "Be careful, Gilberte!" Then, as if in defiance, with one of
+those impulses of a woman whom nothing can stop, she struck her horse
+brutally between the ears. The animal reared in anger, pawed the air
+with his front feet and, landing again on his feet, gave a bound and
+darted across the plain at full speed.
+
+First it crossed the meadow, then plunging into a ploughed field
+kicked up the damp rich earth behind it, going so fast that one could
+hardly distinguish its rider. Julien remained transfixed with
+astonishment, calling out in despair: "Madame, madame!" but the comte
+was rather annoyed, and, bending forward on his heavy mount, he urged
+it forward and started out at such a pace, spurring it on with his
+voice, his gestures and the spur, that the huge horseman seemed to be
+carrying the heavy beast between his legs and to be lifting it up as
+if to fly. They went at incredible speed, straight ahead, and Jeanne
+saw the outline of the wife and of the husband fleeing getting smaller
+and disappearing in the distance, as if they were two birds pursuing
+each other to the verge of the horizon.
+
+Julien, approaching Jeanne slowly, murmured angrily: "I think she is
+crazy to-day." And they set out together to follow their friends, who
+were now hidden by the rising ground.
+
+At the end of about a quarter of an hour they saw them returning and
+presently joined them. The comte, perspiring, his face red, but
+smiling, happy and triumphant, was holding his wife's trembling horse
+in his iron grasp. Gilberte was pale, her face sad and drawn, and she
+was leaning one hand on her husband's shoulder as if she were going to
+faint. Jeanne understood now that the comte loved her madly.
+
+After this the comtesse for some months seemed happier than she had
+ever been. She came to the "Poplars" more frequently, laughed
+continually and kissed Jeanne impulsively. One might have said that
+some mysterious charm had come into her life. Her husband was also
+quite happy and never took his eyes off her. He said to Jeanne one
+evening: "We are very happy just now. Gilberte has never been so nice
+as this. She never is out of humor, never gets angry. I feel that she
+loves me; until now I was not sure of it."
+
+Julien also seemed changed, no longer impatient, as though the
+friendship between the two families had brought peace and happiness to
+both. The spring was singularly early and mild. Everything seemed to
+be coming to life beneath the quickening rays of the sun. Jeanne was
+vaguely troubled at this awakening of nature. Memories came to her of
+the early days of her love. Not that her love for Julien was renewed;
+that was over, over forever. But all her being, caressed by the
+breeze, filled with the fragrance of spring, was disturbed as though
+in response to some invisible and tender appeal. She loved to be
+alone, to give herself up in the sunlight to all kinds of vague and
+calm enjoyment which did not necessitate thinking.
+
+One morning as she was in a reverie a vision came to her, a swift
+vision of the sunlit nook amid the dark foliage in the little wood
+near Étretat. It was there that she had for the first time trembled,
+when beside the young man who loved her then. It was there that he had
+uttered for the first time the timid desire of his heart. It was there
+that she thought that she had all at once reached the radiant future
+of her hopes. She wished to see this wood again, to make a sort of
+sentimental and superstitious pilgrimage, as though a return to this
+spot might somehow change the current of her life. Julien had been
+gone since daybreak, she knew not whither. She had the little white
+horse, which she sometimes rode, saddled, and she set out. It was one
+of those days when nothing seemed stirring, not a blade of grass, not
+a leaf. All seemed wrapped in a golden mist beneath the blazing sun.
+Jeanne walked her horse, soothed and happy.
+
+She descended into the valley which leads to the sea, between the
+great arches in the cliff that are called the "Gates" of Étretat, and
+slowly reached the wood. The sunlight was streaming through the still
+scanty foliage. She wandered about the little paths, looking for the
+spot.
+
+All at once, as she was going along one of the lower paths, she
+perceived at the farther end of it two horses tied to a tree and
+recognized them at once; they belonged to Gilberte and Julien. The
+loneliness of the place was beginning to be irksome to her, and she
+was pleased at this chance meeting, and whipped up her horse.
+
+When she reached the two patient animals, who were probably accustomed
+to these long halts, she called. There was no reply. A woman's glove
+and two riding whips lay on the beaten-down grass. So they had no
+doubt sat down there awhile and then walked away leaving their horses
+tied.
+
+She waited a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, surprised, not
+understanding what could be keeping them. She had dismounted. She sat
+there, leaning against a tree trunk. Suddenly a thought came to her as
+she glanced again at the glove, the whips and the two horses left tied
+there, and she sprang to her saddle with an irresistible desire to
+make her escape.
+
+She started off at a gallop for the "Poplars." She was turning things
+over in her mind, trying to reason, to put two and two together, to
+compare facts. How was it that she had not suspected this sooner? How
+was it that she had not noticed anything? How was it she had not
+guessed the reason of Julien's frequent absences, the renewal of his
+former attention to his appearance and the improvement in his temper?
+She now recalled Gilberte's nervous abruptness, her exaggerated
+affection and the kind of beaming happiness in which she seemed to
+exist latterly and that so pleased the comte.
+
+She reined in her horse, as she wanted to think, and the quick pace
+disturbed her ideas.
+
+As soon as the first emotion was over she became almost calm, without
+jealousy or hatred, but filled with contempt. She hardly gave Julien a
+thought; nothing he might do could astonish her. But the double
+treachery of the comtesse, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone, then,
+was treacherous, untruthful and false. And tears came to her eyes. One
+sometimes mourns lost illusions as deeply as one does the death of a
+friend.
+
+She resolved, however, to act as though she knew nothing, to close the
+doors of her heart to all ordinary affection and to love no one but
+Paul and her parents and to endure other people with an undisturbed
+countenance.
+
+As soon as she got home she ran to her son, carried him up to her room
+and kissed him passionately for an hour.
+
+Julien came home to dinner, smiling and attentive, and appeared
+interested as he asked: "Are not father and little mother coming this
+year?"
+
+She was so grateful to him for this little attention that she almost
+forgave him for the discovery she had made in the wood, and she was
+filled all of a sudden with an intense desire to see without delay the
+two beings in the world whom she loved next to Paul, and passed the
+whole evening writing to them to hasten their journey.
+
+They promised to be there on the 20th of May and it was now the 7th.
+
+She awaited their arrival with a growing impatience, as though she
+felt, in addition to her filial affection, the need of opening her
+heart to honest hearts, to talk with frankness to pure-minded people,
+devoid of all infamy, all of whose life, actions and thoughts had been
+upright at all times.
+
+What she now felt was a sort of moral isolation, amid all this
+immorality, and, although she had learned suddenly to disseminate,
+although she received the comtesse with outstretched hand and smiling
+lips, she felt this consciousness of hollowness, this contempt for
+humanity increasing and enveloping her, and the petty gossip of the
+district gave her a still greater disgust, a still lower opinion of
+her fellow creatures.
+
+The immorality of the peasants shocked her, and this warm spring
+seemed to stir the sap in human beings as well as in plants. Jeanne
+did not belong to the race of peasants who are dominated by their
+lower instincts. Julien one day awakened her aversion anew by telling
+her a coarse story that had been told to him and that he considered
+very amusing.
+
+When the travelling carriage stopped at the door and the happy face of
+the baron appeared at the window Jeanne was stirred with so deep an
+emotion, such a tumultuous feeling of affection as she had never
+before experienced. But when she saw her mother she was shocked and
+almost fainted. The baroness, in six months, had aged ten years. Her
+heavy cheeks had grown flabby and purple, as though the blood were
+congested; her eyes were dim and she could no longer move about unless
+supported under each arm. Her breathing was difficult and wheezing and
+affected those near her with a painful sensation.
+
+When Jeanne had taken them to their room, she retired to her own in
+order to have a good cry, as she was so upset. Then she went to look
+for her father, and throwing herself into his arms, she exclaimed, her
+eyes still full of tears: "Oh, how mother is changed! What is the
+matter with her? Tell me, what is the matter?" He was much surprised
+and replied: "Do you think so? What an idea! Why, no. I have never
+been away from her. I assure you that I do not think she looks ill.
+She always looks like that."
+
+That evening Julien said to his wife: "Your mother is in a pretty bad
+way. I think she will not last long." And as Jeanne burst out sobbing,
+he became annoyed. "Come, I did not say there was no hope for her. You
+always exaggerate everything. She is changed, that's all. She is no
+longer young."
+
+The baroness was not able to walk any distance and only went out for
+half an hour each day to take one turn in her avenue and then she
+would sit on the bench. And when she felt unequal to walking to the
+end of her avenue, she would say: "Let us stop; my hypertrophy is
+breaking my legs today." She hardly ever laughed now as she did the
+previous year at anything that amused her, but only smiled. As she
+could see to read excellently, she passed hours reading "Corinne" or
+Lamartine's "Meditations." Then she would ask for her drawer of
+"souvenirs," and emptying her cherished letters on her lap, she would
+place the drawer on a chair beside her and put back, one by one, her
+"relics," after she had slowly gone over them. And when she was alone,
+quite alone, she would kiss some of them, as one kisses in secret a
+lock of hair of a loved one passed away.
+
+Sometimes Jeanne, coming in abruptly, would find her weeping and would
+exclaim: "What is the matter, little mother?" And the baroness,
+sighing deeply, would reply: "It is my 'relics' that make me cry. They
+stir remembrances that were so delightful and that are now past
+forever, and one is reminded of persons whom one had forgotten and
+recalls once more. You seem to see them, to hear them and it affects
+you strangely. You will feel this later."
+
+When the baron happened to come in at such times he would say gently:
+"Jeanne, dearie, take my advice and burn your letters, all of
+them--your mother's, mine, everyone's. There is nothing more dreadful,
+when one is growing old, than to look back to one's youth." But Jeanne
+also kept her letters, was preparing a chest of "relics" in obedience
+to a sort of hereditary instinct of dreamy sentimentality, although
+she differed from her mother in every other way.
+
+The baron was obliged to leave them some days later, as he had some
+business that called him away.
+
+One afternoon Jeanne took Paul in her arms and went out for a walk.
+She was sitting on a bank, gazing at the infant, whom she seemed to be
+looking at for the first time. She could hardly imagine him grown up,
+walking with a steady step, with a beard on his face and talking in a
+big voice. She heard someone calling and raised her head. Marius came
+running toward her.
+
+"Madame, Madame la Baronne is very bad!"
+
+A cold chill seemed to run down her back as she started up and walked
+hurriedly toward the house.
+
+As she approached she saw a number of persons grouped around the plane
+tree. She darted forward and saw her mother lying on the ground with
+two pillows under her head. Her face was black, her eyes closed and
+her breathing, which had been difficult for twenty years, now quite
+hushed. The nurse took the child out of Jeanne's arms and carried it
+off.
+
+Jeanne, with drawn, anxious face, asked: "What happened? How did she
+come to fall? Go for the doctor, somebody." Turning round, she saw the
+old curé, who had heard of it in some way. He offered his services and
+began rolling up the sleeves of his cassock. But vinegar, eau de
+cologne and rubbing the invalid proved ineffectual.
+
+"She should be undressed and put to bed," said the priest.
+
+Joseph Couillard, the farmer, was there and old Simon and Ludivine.
+With the assistance of Abbé Picot, they tried to lift the baroness,
+but after an attempt were obliged to bring a large easy chair from the
+drawing-room and place her in it. In this way they managed to get her
+into the house and then upstairs, where they laid her on her bed.
+
+Joseph Couillard set out in hot haste for the doctor. As the priest
+was going to get the holy oil, the nurse, who had "scented a death,"
+as the servants say, and was on the spot, whispered to him: "Do not
+put yourself out, monsieur; she is dead. I know all about these
+things."
+
+Jeanne, beside herself, entreated them to do something. The priest
+thought it best to pronounce the absolution.
+
+They watched for two hours beside this lifeless, discolored body.
+Jeanne, on her knees, was sobbing in an agony of grief.
+
+When the door opened and the doctor appeared, Jeanne darted toward
+him, stammering out what she knew of the accident, but seeing the
+nurse exchange a meaning glance with the doctor, she stopped to ask
+him: "Is it serious? Do you think it is serious?"
+
+He said presently: "I am afraid--I am afraid--it is all over. Be
+brave, be brave."
+
+Jeanne, extending her arms, threw herself on her mother's body. Julien
+just then came in. He stood there amazed, visibly annoyed, without any
+exclamation of sorrow, any appearance of grief, taken so unawares that
+he had not time to prepare a suitable expression of countenance. He
+muttered: "I was expecting it, I felt that the end was near." Then he
+took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, knelt down, crossed
+himself, and then rising to his feet, attempted to raise his wife. But
+she was clasping the dead body and kissing it, and it became necessary
+to carry her away. She appeared to be out of her mind.
+
+At the end of an hour she was allowed to come back. There was no
+longer any hope. The room was arranged as a death chamber. Julien and
+the priest were talking in a low tone near the window. It was growing
+dark. The priest came over to Jeanne and took her hands, trying to
+console her. He spoke of the defunct, praised her in pious phrases and
+offered to pass the night in prayer beside the body.
+
+But Jeanne refused, amid convulsive sobs. She wished to be alone,
+quite alone on this last night of farewell. Julien came forward: "But
+you must not do it; we will stay together." She shook her head, unable
+to speak. At last she said: "It is my mother, my mother. I wish to
+watch beside her alone." The doctor murmured: "Let her do as she
+pleases; the nurse can stay in the adjoining room."
+
+The priest and Julien consented, more interested in their own rest.
+Then Abbé Picot knelt down in his turn, and as he rose and left the
+room, he said: "She was a saint" in the same tone as he said "Dominus
+vobiscum."
+
+The vicomte in his ordinary tone then asked: "Are you not going to eat
+something?" Jeanne did not reply, not knowing he was speaking to her,
+and he repeated: "You had better eat something to keep up your
+stomach." She replied in a bewildered manner: "Send at once for papa."
+And he went out of the room to send someone on horseback to Rouen.
+
+She remained plunged in a sort of motionless grief, seeing nothing,
+feeling nothing, understanding nothing. She only wanted to be alone.
+Julien came back. He had dined and he asked her again: "Won't you take
+something?" She shook her head. He sat down with an air of resignation
+rather than sadness, without speaking, and they both sat there silent,
+till at length Julien arose, and approaching Jeanne, said: "Would you
+like to stay alone now?" She took his hand impulsively and replied:
+"Oh, yes! leave me!"
+
+He kissed her forehead, murmuring: "I will come in and see you from
+time to time." He went out with Widow Dentu, who rolled her easy chair
+into the next room.
+
+Jeanne shut the door and opened the windows wide. She felt the soft
+breath from the mown hay that lay in the moonlight on the lawn. It
+seemed to harrow her feelings like an ironical remark.
+
+She went back to the bed, took one of the cold, inert hands and looked
+at her mother earnestly. She seemed to be sleeping more peacefully
+than she had ever done, and the pale flame of the tapers which
+flickered at every breath made her face appear to be alive, as if she
+had stirred. Jeanne remembered all the little incidents of her
+childhood, the visits of little mother to the "parloir" of the
+convent, the manner in which she handed her a little paper bag of
+cakes, a multitude of little details, little acts, little caresses,
+words, intonations, familiar gestures, the creases at the corner of
+her eyes when she laughed, the big sigh she gave when she sat down.
+
+And she stood there looking at her, repeating half mechanically: "She
+is dead," and all the horror of the word became real to her. It was
+mamma lying there--little mother--Mamma Adelaide who was dead. She
+would never move about again, nor speak, nor laugh, nor sit at dinner
+opposite little father. She would never again say: "Good-morning,
+Jeannette." She was dead!
+
+And she fell on her knees in a paroxysm of despair, her hands
+clutching the sheet, her face buried in the covers as she cried in a
+heartrending tone: "Oh, mamma, my poor mamma!" Then feeling that she
+was losing her reason as she had done on the night when she fled
+across the snow, she rose and ran to the window to drink in the fresh
+air. The soothing calmness of the night entered her soul and she began
+to weep quietly.
+
+Presently she turned back into the room and sat down again beside
+her mother. Other remembrances came to her: those of her own
+life--Rosalie, Gilberte, the bitter disillusions of her heart.
+Everything, then, was only misery, grief, unhappiness and death.
+Everyone tried to deceive, everyone lied, everyone made you suffer and
+weep. Where could one find a little rest and happiness? In another
+existence no doubt, when the soul is freed from the trials of earth.
+And she began to ponder on this insoluble mystery.
+
+A tender and curious thought came to her mind. It was to read over in
+this last watch, as though they were a litany, the old letters that
+her mother loved. It seemed to her that she was about to perform a
+delicate and sacred duty which would give pleasure to little mother in
+the other world.
+
+She rose, opened the writing desk and took from the lower drawer ten
+little packages of yellow letters, tied and arranged in order, side by
+side. She placed them all on the bed over her mother's heart from a
+sort of sentiment and began to read them. They were old letters that
+savored of a former century. The first began, "My dear little
+granddaughter," then again "My dear little girl," "My darling," "My
+dearest daughter," then "My dear child," "My dear Adelaide," "My dear
+daughter," according to the periods--childhood, youth or young
+womanhood. They were all full of little insignificant details and
+tender words, about a thousand little matters, those simple but
+important events of home life, so petty to outsiders: "Father has the
+grip; poor Hortense burnt her finger; the cat, 'Croquerat,' is dead;
+they have cut down the pine tree to the right of the gate; mother lost
+her prayerbook on the way home from church, she thinks it was stolen."
+
+All these details affected her. They seemed like revelations, as
+though she had suddenly entered the past secret heart life of little
+mother. She looked at her lying there and suddenly began to read
+aloud, to read to the dead, as though to distract, to console her.
+
+And the dead woman appeared to be pleased.
+
+Jeanne tossed the letters as she read them to the foot of the bed. She
+untied another package. It was a new handwriting. She read: "I cannot
+do without your caresses. I love you so that I am almost crazy."
+
+That was all; no signature.
+
+She put back the letter without understanding its meaning. The address
+was certainly "Madame la Baronne Le Perthuis des Vauds."
+
+Then she opened another: "Come this evening as soon as he goes out; we
+shall have an hour together. I worship you." In another: "I passed the
+night longing in vain for you, longing to look into your eyes, to
+press my lips to yours, and I am insane enough to throw myself from
+the window at the thought that you are another's...."
+
+Jeanne was perfectly bewildered. What did that mean? To whom, for
+whom, from whom were these words of love?
+
+She went on reading, coming across fresh impassioned declarations,
+appointments with warnings as to prudence, and always at the end the
+six words: "Be sure to burn this letter!"
+
+At last she opened an ordinary note, accepting an invitation to
+dinner, but in the same handwriting and signed: "Paul d'Ennemare,"
+whom the baron called, whenever he spoke of him, "My poor old Paul,"
+and whose wife had been the baroness' dearest friend.
+
+Then a suspicion, which immediately became a certainty, flashed across
+Jeanne's mind: He had been her mother's lover.
+
+And, almost beside herself, she suddenly threw aside these infamous
+letters as she would have thrown off some venomous reptile and ran to
+the window and began to cry piteously. Then, collapsing, she sank down
+beside the wall, and hiding her face in the curtain so that no one
+should hear her, she sobbed bitterly as if in hopeless despair.
+
+She would have remained thus probably all night, if she had not heard
+a noise in the adjoining room that made her start to her feet. It
+might be her father. And all the letters were lying on the floor! He
+would have to open only one of them to know all! Her father!
+
+She darted into the other room and seizing the letters in handfuls,
+she threw them all into the fireplace, those of her grandparents as
+well as those of the lover; some that she had not looked at and some
+that had remained tied up in the drawers of the desk. She then took
+one of the tapers that burned beside the bed and set fire to this pile
+of letters. When they were reduced to ashes she went back to the open
+window, as though she no longer dared to sit beside the dead, and
+began to cry again with her face in her hands: "Oh, my poor mamma! oh,
+my poor mamma!"
+
+The stars were paling. It was the cool hour that precedes the dawn.
+The moon was sinking on the horizon and turning the sea to mother of
+pearl. The recollection of the night she passed at the window when she
+first came to the "Poplars" came to Jeanne's mind. How far away it
+seemed, how everything was changed, how different the future now
+seemed!
+
+The sky was becoming pink, a joyous, love-inspiring, enchanting pink.
+She looked at it in surprise, as at some phenomenon, this radiant
+break of day, and asked herself if it were possible that, on a planet
+where such dawns were found, there should be neither joy nor
+happiness.
+
+A noise at the door made her start. It was Julien. "Well," he said,
+"are you not very tired?"
+
+She murmured, "No," happy at being no longer alone. "Go and rest now,"
+he said. She kissed her mother a long, sad kiss; then she went to her
+room.
+
+The next day passed in the usual attentions to the dead. The baron
+arrived toward evening. He wept for some time.
+
+The funeral took place the following day. After pressing a last kiss
+on her mother's icy forehead and seeing the coffin nailed down, Jeanne
+left the room. The invited guests would soon arrive.
+
+Gilberte was the first to come, and she threw herself sobbing on her
+friend's shoulder. Women in black presently entered the room one after
+another, people whom Jeanne did not know. The Marquise de Coutelier
+and the Vicomtesse de Briseville embraced her. She suddenly saw Aunt
+Lison gliding in behind her. She turned round and kissed her tenderly.
+
+Julien came in, dressed all in black, elegant, very important, pleased
+at seeing so many people. He asked his wife some question in a low
+tone and added confidentially: "All the nobility are here; it will be
+a fine affair." And he walked away, gravely bowing to the ladies. Aunt
+Lison and Comtesse Gilberte alone remained with Jeanne during the
+service for the dead. The comtesse kissed her repeatedly, exclaiming:
+"My poor dear, my poor dear!"
+
+When Comte de Fourville came to fetch his wife he was also crying as
+though it were for his own mother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RETRIBUTION
+
+The following days were very sad and dreary, as they always are when
+there has been a death in the house. And, in addition, Jeanne was
+crushed at the thought of what she had discovered; her last shred of
+confidence had been destroyed with the destruction of her faith.
+Little father, after a short stay, went away to try and distract his
+thoughts from his grief, and the large house, whose former masters
+were leaving it from time to time, resumed its usual calm and
+monotonous course.
+
+Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne was almost beside herself, not sleeping
+for ten days, and scarcely tasting food. He recovered, but she was
+haunted by the idea that he might die. Then what should she do? What
+would become of her? And there gradually stole into her heart the hope
+that she might have another child. She dreamed of it, became obsessed
+with the idea. She longed to realize her old dream of seeing two
+little children around her; a boy and a girl.
+
+But since the affair of Rosalie she and Julien had lived apart. A
+reconciliation seemed impossible in their present situation. Julien
+loved some one else, she knew it; and the very thought of suffering
+his approach filled her with repugnance. She had no one left whom she
+could consult. She resolved to go and see Abbé Picot and tell him,
+under the seal of confession, all that weighed upon her mind in this
+matter.
+
+He was reading from his breviary in his little garden planted with
+fruit trees when she arrived.
+
+After a few minutes' conversation on indifferent matters, she
+faltered, her color rising: "I want to confess, Monsieur l'Abbé."
+
+He looked at her in astonishment, as he pushed his spectacles back on
+his forehead; then he began to laugh. "You surely have no great sins
+on your conscience." This embarrassed her greatly, and she replied:
+"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject that is so--so--so
+painful that I dare not mention it casually."
+
+He at once laid aside his jovial manner and assumed his priestly
+attitude. "Well, my child, I will listen to you in the confessional;
+come along."
+
+But she held back, undecided, restrained by a kind of scruple at
+speaking of these matters, of which she was half ashamed, in the
+seclusion of an empty church.
+
+"Or else, no--Monsieur le Curé--I might--I might--if you wish, tell
+you now what brings me here. Let us go and sit over there, in your
+little arbor."
+
+They walked toward it, and Jeanne tried to think how she could begin.
+They sat down in the arbor, and then, as if she were confessing
+herself, she said: "Father----" then hesitated, and repeated:
+"Father----" and was silent from emotion.
+
+He waited, his hands crossed over his paunch. Seeing her
+embarrassment, he sought to encourage her: "Why, my daughter, one
+would suppose you were afraid; come, take courage."
+
+She plucked up courage, like a coward who plunges headlong into
+danger. "Father, I should like to have another child." He did not
+reply, as he did not understand her. Then she explained, timid and
+unable to express herself clearly:
+
+"I am all alone in life now; my father and my husband do not get along
+together; my mother is dead; and--and----" she added with a shudder,
+"the other day I nearly lost my son! What would have become of me
+then?"
+
+She was silent. The priest, bewildered, was gazing at her. "Come, get
+to the point of your subject."
+
+"I want to have another child," she said. Then he smiled, accustomed
+to the coarse jokes of the peasants, who were not embarrassed in his
+presence, and he replied, with a sly motion of his head:
+
+"Well, it seems to me that it depends only on yourself."
+
+She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said, hesitating with
+confusion: "But--but--you understand that since--since--what you know
+about--about that maid--my husband and I have lived--have lived quite
+apart."
+
+Accustomed to the promiscuity and undignified relations of the
+peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought
+he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of
+the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of
+sympathy for her distress, he said: "Oh, I understand perfectly. I
+know that your widowhood must be irksome to you. You are young and in
+good health. It is natural, quite natural."
+
+He smiled, bearing out his easy-going character of a country priest,
+and tapping Jeanne lightly on the hand, he said: "That is permissible,
+very permissible indeed, according to the commandments. You are
+married, are you not? Well, then, what is the harm?"
+
+She, in her turn, had not understood his hidden meaning; but as soon
+as she saw through it, she blushed scarlet, shocked, and with tears in
+her eyes exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur le Curé, what are you saying? What
+are you thinking of? I swear to you--I swear to you----" And sobs
+choked her words.
+
+He was surprised and sought to console her: "Come, I did not mean to
+hurt your feelings. I was only joking a little; there is no harm in
+that when one is decent. But you may rely on me, you may rely on me. I
+will see M. Julien."
+
+She did not know what to say. She now wished to decline this
+intervention, which she thought clumsy and dangerous, but she did not
+dare to do so, and she went away hurriedly, faltering: "I am grateful
+to you, Monsieur le Curé."
+
+A week passed. One day at dinner Julien looked at her with a peculiar
+expression, a certain smiling curve of the lips that she had noticed
+when he was teasing her. He was even almost ironically gallant toward
+her, and as they were walking after dinner in little mother's avenue,
+he said in a low tone: "We seem to have made up again."
+
+She did not reply, but continued to look on the ground at a sort of
+track that was almost effaced now that the grass was sprouting anew.
+They were the footprints of the baroness, which were vanishing as does
+a memory. And Jeanne was plunged in sadness; she felt herself lost in
+life, far away from everyone.
+
+"As for me, I ask nothing better. I was afraid of displeasing you,"
+continued Julien.
+
+The sun was going down, the air was mild. A longing to weep came over
+Jeanne, one of those needs of unbosoming oneself to a kindred spirit,
+of unbending and telling one's griefs. A sob rose in her throat; she
+opened her arms and fell on Julien's breast, and wept. He glanced down
+in surprise at her head, for he could not see her face which was
+hidden on his shoulder. He supposed that she still loved him, and
+placed a condescending kiss on the back of her head.
+
+They entered the house and he followed her to her room. And thus they
+resumed their former relations, he, as a not unpleasant duty, and she,
+merely tolerating him.
+
+She soon noticed, however, that his manner had changed, and one day
+with her lips to his, she murmured: "Why are you not the same as you
+used to be?"
+
+"Because I do not want any more children," he said jokingly.
+
+She started. "Why not?"
+
+He appeared greatly surprised. "Eh, what's that you say? Are you
+crazy? No, indeed! One is enough, always crying and bothering
+everyone. Another baby! No, thank you!"
+
+At the end of a month she told the news to everyone, far and wide,
+with the exception of Comtesse Gilberte, from reasons of modesty and
+delicacy.
+
+What the priest had foreseen finally came to pass. She became
+enceinte. Then, filled with an unspeakable happiness, she locked her
+door every night when she retired, vowing herself from henceforth to
+eternal chastity, in gratitude to the vague divinity she adored.
+
+She was now almost quite happy again. Her children would grow up and
+love her; she would grow old quietly, happy and contented, without
+troubling herself about her husband.
+
+Toward the end of September, Abbé Picot called on a visit of ceremony
+to introduce his successor, a young priest, very thin, very short,
+with an emphatic way of talking, and with dark circles round his
+sunken eyes.
+
+The old abbé had been appointed Dean of Goderville.
+
+Jeanne was really sorry to lose the old man, who had been associated
+with all her recollections as a young woman. He had married her,
+baptized Paul, and buried the baroness. She could not imagine Étouvent
+without Abbé Picot and his paunch passing along by the farms, and she
+loved him because he was cheerful and natural.
+
+But he did not seem very cheerful at the thought of his promotion. "It
+is a wrench, it is a wrench, madame la comtesse. I have been here for
+eighteen years. Oh, the place does not bring in much, and is not
+wealthy. The men have no more religion than they need, and the women,
+look you, the women have no morals. But nevertheless, I loved it."
+
+The new curé appeared impatient, and said abruptly: "When I am here
+all that will have to be changed." He looked like an angry boy, thin
+and frail in his somewhat worn, though clean cassock.
+
+Abbé Picot looked at him sideways, as he did when he was in a joking
+mood, and said: "You see, abbé, in order to prevent those happenings,
+you will have to chain up your parishioners; and even that would not
+be of much use." The little priest replied sharply: "We shall see."
+And the older man smiled as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age
+will calm you down, abbé, and experience also. You will drive away
+from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good
+it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be
+careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather
+stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I
+try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes;
+but you can go and look for the man, and prevent him from deserting
+the mother. Get them married, abbé, get them married, and do not
+trouble yourself about anything else."
+
+"We think differently," said the young priest rudely; "it is useless
+to insist." And Abbé Picot once more began to regret his village, the
+sea which he saw from his parsonage, the little valleys where he
+walked while repeating his breviary, glancing up at the boats as they
+passed.
+
+As the two priests took their leave, the old man kissed Jeanne, who
+was on the verge of tears.
+
+A week later Abbé Tolbiac called again. He spoke of reforms which he
+intended to accomplish, as a prince might have done on taking
+possession of a kingdom. Then he requested the vicomtesse not to miss
+the service on Sunday, and to communicate a all the festivals. "You
+and I," he said, "we are at the head of the district; we must rule it
+and always set them an example to follow. We must be of one accord so
+that we may be powerful and respected. The church and the château in
+joining forces will make the peasants obey and fear us."
+
+Jeanne's religion was all sentiment; she had all a woman's dream
+faith, and if she attended at all to her religious duties, it was from
+a habit acquired at the convent, the baron's advanced ideas having
+long since overthrown her convictions. Abbé Picot contented himself
+with what observances she gave him, and never blamed her. But his
+successor, not seeing her at mass the preceding Sunday, had come to
+call, uneasy and stern.
+
+She did not wish to break with the parsonage, and promised, making up
+her mind to be assiduous in attendance the first few weeks, out of
+politeness.
+
+Little by little, however, she got into the habit of going to church,
+and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial
+abbé. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set
+in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women
+possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human
+interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience,
+his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the
+stuff martyrs were made of; and she let herself be carried away, all
+disillusioned as she was, by the fanaticism of this child, the
+minister of God.
+
+He led her to Christ, the consoler, showing her how the joy of
+religion will calm all sorrow; and she knelt at the confessional,
+humbling herself, feeling herself small and weak in presence of this
+priest, who appeared to be about fifteen.
+
+He was, however, very soon detested in all the countryside. Inflexibly
+severe toward himself, he was implacably intolerant toward others, and
+the one thing that especially roused his wrath and indignation was
+love. The young men and girls looked at each other slyly across the
+church, and the old peasants who liked to joke about such things
+disapproved his severity. All the parish was in a ferment. Soon the
+young men all stopped going to church.
+
+The curé dined at the château every Thursday, and often came during
+the week to chat with his penitent. She became enthusiastic like
+himself, talked about spiritual matters, handling all the antique and
+complicated arsenal of religious controversy.
+
+They walked together along the baroness' avenue, talking of Christ and
+the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Fathers of the Church as though
+they were personally acquainted with them.
+
+Julien treated the new priest with great respect, saying constantly:
+"That priest suits me, he does not back down." And he went to
+confession and communion, setting a fine example. He now went to the
+Fourvilles' nearly every day, gunning with the husband, who was never
+happy without him, and riding with the comtesse, in spite of rain and
+storm. The comte said: "They are crazy about riding, but it does my
+wife good."
+
+The baron returned to the château about the middle of November. He was
+changed, aged, faded, filled with a deep sadness. And his love for his
+daughter seemed to have gained in strength, as if these few months of
+dreary solitude had aggravated his need of affection, confidence and
+tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her
+friendship for the Abbé Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he
+conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that
+evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He
+must be very dangerous."
+
+When he learned from the peasants, whose friend he was, of the
+harshness and violence of the young priest, of the kind of persecution
+which he carried on against all human and natural instincts, he
+developed a hatred toward him. He, himself, was one of the old race of
+natural philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic
+Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a God with
+bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him
+reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to
+farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant priest, the persecutor
+of life.
+
+Jeanne, very much worried, prayed to the Lord, entreated her father;
+but he always replied: "We must fight such men as that, it is our duty
+and our right. They are not human."
+
+And he repeated, shaking his long white locks: "They are not human;
+they understand nothing, nothing, nothing. They are moving in a morbid
+dream; they are anti-physical." And he pronounced the word
+"anti-physical" as though it were a malediction.
+
+The priest knew who his enemy was, but as he wished to remain ruler of
+the château and of Jeanne, he temporized, sure of final victory. He
+was also haunted by a fixed idea. He had discovered by chance the
+amours of Julien and Gilberte, and he desired to put a stop to them at
+all costs.
+
+He came to see Jeanne one day and, after a long conversation on
+spiritual matters, he asked her to give her aid in helping him to
+fight, to put an end to the evil in her own family, in order to save
+two souls that were in danger.
+
+She did not understand, and did not wish to know. He replied: "The
+hour has not arrived. I shall see you some other time." And he left
+abruptly.
+
+The winter was coming to a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the
+country, damp and mild. The abbé called again some days later and
+hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between
+persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he
+said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring
+it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes
+and understand and lend him her aid.
+
+This time she understood, but she was silent, terrified at the thought
+of all that might result in the house that was now peaceful, and she
+pretended not to understand. Then he spoke out clearly.
+
+She faltered: "What do you wish me to do, Monsieur l'Abbé?"
+
+"Anything, rather than permit this infamy. Anything, I say. Leave him.
+Flee from this impure house!"
+
+"But I have no money; and then I have no longer any courage; and,
+besides, how can I go without any proof? I have not the right to do
+so."
+
+The priest arose trembling: "That is cowardice, madame; I am mistaken
+in you. You are unworthy of God's mercy!"
+
+She fell on her knees: "Oh, I pray you not to leave me, tell me what
+to do!"
+
+"Open M. de Fourville's eyes," he said abruptly. "It is his place to
+break up this intrigue."
+
+This idea filled her with terror. "Why, he would kill them, Monsieur
+l'Abbé! And I should be guilty of denouncing them! Oh, never that,
+never!"
+
+He raised his hand as if to curse her in his fury: "Remain in your
+shame and your crime; for you are more guilty than they are. You are
+the complaisant wife! There is nothing more for me to do here." And he
+went off so furious that he trembled all over.
+
+She followed him, distracted and ready to do as he suggested. But he
+strode along rapidly, shaking his large blue umbrella in his rage. He
+perceived Julien standing outside the gate superintending the lopping
+of the trees, so he turned to the left to go across the Couillard
+farm, and he said: "Leave me alone, madame, I have nothing further to
+say to you."
+
+Jeanne was entreating him to give her a few days for reflection, and
+then if he came back to the château she would tell him what she had
+done, and they could take counsel together.
+
+Right in his road, in the middle of the farmyard, a group of children,
+those of the house and some neighbor's children, were standing around
+the kennel of Mirza, the dog, looking curiously at something with
+silent and concentrated attention. In the midst of them stood the
+baron, his hands behind his back, also looking on with curiosity. One
+would have taken him for a schoolmaster. When he saw the priest
+approaching, he moved away so as not to have to meet him and speak to
+him.
+
+The priest did not call again; but the following Sunday from the
+pulpit he hurled imprecations, curses and threats against the château,
+anathematizing the baron, and making veiled allusions, but timidly, to
+Julien's latest intrigue. The vicomte was furious, but the dread of a
+shocking scandal kept him silent. At each service thereafter the
+priest declared his indignation, predicting the approach of the hour
+when God would smite all his enemies.
+
+Julien wrote a firm, but respectful letter to the archbishop; the abbé
+was threatened with suspension. He was silent thereafter.
+
+Gilberte and Julien now frequently met him during their rides reading
+his breviary, but they turned aside so as not to pass him by. Spring
+had come and reawakened their love. As the foliage was still sparse
+and the grass damp, they used to meet in a shepherd's movable hut that
+had been deserted since autumn. But one day when they were leaving it,
+they saw the Abbé Tolbiac, almost hidden in the sea rushes on the
+slope.
+
+"We must leave our horses in the ravine," said Julien, "as they can be
+seen from a distance and would betray us." One evening as they were
+coming home together to La Vrillette, where they were to dine with the
+comte, they met the curé of Étouvent coming out of the château. He
+stepped to the side of the road to let them pass, and bowed without
+their eyes meeting. They were uneasy for a few moments, but soon
+forgot it.
+
+One afternoon, Jeanne was reading beside the fire while a storm of
+wind was raging outside, when she suddenly perceived Comte Fourville
+coming on foot at such a pace that she thought some misfortune had
+happened.
+
+She ran downstairs to meet him, and when she saw him she thought he
+must be crazy. He wore a large quilted cap that he wore only at home,
+his hunting jacket, and looked so pale that his red mustache, usually
+the color of his skin, now seemed like a flame. His eyes were haggard,
+rolling as though his mind were vacant.
+
+He stammered: "My wife is here, is she not?" Jeanne, losing her
+presence of mind, replied: "Why, no, I have not seen her to-day."
+
+He sat down as if his legs had given way. He then took off his cap and
+wiped his forehead with his handkerchief mechanically several times.
+Then starting up suddenly, he approached Jeanne, his hands stretched
+out, his mouth open, as if to speak, to confide some great sorrow to
+her. Then he stopped, looked at her fixedly and said as though he were
+wandering: "But it is your husband--you also----" And he fled, going
+toward the sea.
+
+Jeanne ran after him, calling him, imploring him to stop, her heart
+beating with apprehension as she thought: "He knows all! What will he
+do? Oh, if he only does not find them!"
+
+But she could not come up to him, and he disregarded her appeals. He
+went straight ahead without hesitation, straight to his goal. He
+crossed the ditch, then, stalking through the sea rushes like a giant,
+he reached the cliff.
+
+Jeanne, standing on the mound covered with trees, followed him with
+her eyes until he was out of sight. Then she went into the house,
+distracted with grief.
+
+He had turned to the right and started to run. Threatening waves
+overspread the sea, big black clouds were scudding along madly,
+passing on and followed by others, each of them coming down in a
+furious downpour. The wind whistled, moaned, laid the grass and the
+young crops low and carried away big white birds that looked like
+specks of foam and bore them far into the land.
+
+The hail which followed beat in the comte's face, filling his ears
+with noise and his heart with tumult.
+
+Down yonder before him was the deep gorge of the Val de Vaucotte.
+There was nothing before him but a shepherd's hut beside a deserted
+sheep pasture. Two horses were tied to the shafts of the hut on
+wheels. What might not happen to one in such a tempest as this?
+
+As soon as he saw them the comte crouched on the ground and crawled
+along on his hands and knees as far as the lonely hut and hid himself
+beneath the hut that he might not be seen through the cracks. The
+horses on seeing him became restive. He slowly cut their reins with
+the knife which he held open in his hand, and a sudden squall coming
+up, the animals fled, frightened at the hail which rattled on the
+sloping roof of the wooden hut and made it shake on its wheels.
+
+The comte then kneeling upright, put his eye to the bottom of the door
+and looked inside. He did not stir; he seemed to be waiting.
+
+A little time elapsed and then he suddenly rose to his feet, covered
+with mud from head to foot. He frantically pushed back the bolt which
+closed the hut on the outside, and seizing the shafts, he began to
+shake the hut as though he would break it to pieces. Then all at once
+he got between the shafts, bending his huge frame, and with a
+desperate effort dragged it along like an ox, panting as he went. He
+dragged it, with whoever was in it, toward the steep incline.
+
+Those inside screamed and banged with their fists on the door, not
+understanding what was going on.
+
+When he reached the top of the cliff he let go the fragile dwelling,
+which began to roll down the incline, going ever faster and faster,
+plunging, stumbling like an animal and striking the ground with its
+shafts.
+
+An old beggar hidden in a ditch saw it flying over his head and heard
+frightful screams coming from the wooden box.
+
+All at once a wheel was wrenched off and it fell on its side and began
+to roll like a ball, as a house torn from its foundations might roll
+from the summit of a mountain. Then, reaching the ledge of the last
+ravine, it described a circle, and, falling to the bottom, burst open
+as an egg might do. It was no sooner smashed on the stones than the
+old beggar, who had seen it going past, went down toward it slowly
+amid the rushes, and with the customary caution of a peasant, not
+daring to go directly to the shattered hut, he went to the nearest
+farm to tell of the accident.
+
+They all ran to look at it and raised the wreck of the hut. They found
+two bodies, bruised, crushed and bleeding. The man's forehead was
+split open and his whole face crushed; the woman's jaw was hanging,
+dislocated in one of the jolts, and their shattered limbs were soft as
+pulp.
+
+"What were they doing in that shanty?" said a woman.
+
+The old beggar then said that they had apparently taken refuge in it
+to get out of the storm and that a furious squall must have blown the
+hut over the cliff. He said he had intended to take shelter there
+himself, when he saw the horses tied to it, and understood that some
+one else must be inside. "But for that," he added in a satisfied tone,
+"I might have rolled down in it." Some one remarked: "Would not that
+have been a good thing?"
+
+The old man, in a furious rage, said: "Why would it have been a good
+thing? Because I am poor and they are rich! Look at them now." And
+trembling, ragged and dripping with rain, he pointed to the two dead
+bodies with his hooked stick and exclaimed: "We are all alike when we
+get to this."
+
+The comte, as soon as he saw the hut rolling down the steep slope, ran
+off at full speed through the blinding storm. He ran in this way for
+several hours, taking short cuts, leaping across ditches, breaking
+through the hedges, and thus got back home at dusk, not knowing how
+himself.
+
+The frightened servants were awaiting his return and told him that the
+two horses had returned riderless some little time before, that of
+Julien following the other one.
+
+Then M. de Fourville reeled and in a choked voice said: "Something
+must have happened to them in this dreadful weather. Let every one
+help to look for them."
+
+He started off himself, but he was no sooner out of sight than he
+concealed himself in a clump of bushes, watching the road along which
+she whom he even still loved with an almost savage passion was to
+return dead, dying or maybe crippled and disfigured forever.
+
+And soon a carriole passed by carrying a strange burden.
+
+It stopped at the château and passed through the gate. It was that, it
+was she. But a fearful anguish nailed him to the spot, a fear to know
+the worst, a dread of the truth, and he did not stir, hiding as a
+hare, starting at the least sound.
+
+He waited thus an hour, two hours perhaps. The buggy did not come out.
+He concluded that his wife was expiring, and the thought of seeing
+her, of meeting her gaze filled him with so much horror that he
+suddenly feared to be discovered in his hiding place and of being
+compelled to return and be present at this agony, and he then fled
+into the thick of the wood. Then all of a sudden it occurred to him
+that she perhaps might be needing his care, that no one probably could
+properly attend to her. Then he returned on his tracks, running
+breathlessly.
+
+On entering the château he met the gardener and called out to him,
+"Well?" The man did not dare answer him. Then M. de Fourville almost
+roared at him: "Is she dead?" and the servant stammered: "Yes, M. le
+Comte."
+
+He experienced a feeling of immense relief. His blood seemed to cool
+and his nerves relax somewhat of their extreme tension, and he walked
+firmly up the steps of his great hallway.
+
+The other wagon had reached "The Poplars." Jeanne saw it from afar.
+She descried the mattress; she guessed that a human form was lying
+upon it, and understood all. Her emotion was so vivid that she swooned
+and fell prostrate.
+
+When she regained consciousness her father was holding her head and
+bathing her temples with vinegar. He said hesitatingly: "Do you know?"
+She murmured: "Yes, father." But when she attempted to rise she found
+herself unable to do so, so intense was her agony.
+
+That very night she gave birth to a stillborn infant, a girl.
+
+Jeanne saw nothing of the funeral of Julien; she knew nothing of it.
+She merely noticed at the end of a day or two that Aunt Lison was
+back, and in her feverish dreams which haunted her she persistently
+sought to recall when the old maiden lady had left "The Poplars," at
+what period and under what circumstances. She could not make this out,
+even in her lucid moments, but she was certain of having seen her
+subsequent to the death of "little mother."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAUL
+
+Jeanne did not leave her room for three months and was so wan and pale
+that no one thought she would recover. But she picked up by degrees.
+Little father and Aunt Lison never left her; they had both taken up
+their abode at "The Poplars." The shock of Julien's death had left her
+with a nervous malady. The slightest sound made her faint and she had
+long swoons from the most insignificant causes.
+
+She had never asked the details of Julien's death. What did it matter
+to her? Did she not know enough already? Every one thought it was an
+accident, but she knew better, and she kept to herself this secret
+which tortured her: the knowledge of his infidelity and the
+remembrance of the abrupt and terrible visit of the comte on the day
+of the catastrophe.
+
+And now she was filled with tender, sweet and melancholy recollections
+of the brief evidences of love shown her by her husband. She
+constantly thrilled at unexpected memories of him, and she seemed to
+see him as he was when they were betrothed and as she had known him in
+the hours passed beneath the sunlight in Corsica. All his faults
+diminished, all his harshness vanished, his very infidelities appeared
+less glaring in the widening separation of the closed tomb. And
+Jeanne, pervaded by a sort of posthumous gratitude for this man who
+had held her in his arms, forgave all the suffering he had caused her,
+to remember only moments of happiness they had passed together. Then,
+as time went on and month followed month, covering all her grief and
+reminiscences with forgetfulness, she devoted herself entirely to her
+son.
+
+He became the idol, the one thought of the three beings who surrounded
+him, and he ruled as a despot. A kind of jealousy even arose among his
+slaves. Jeanne watched with anxiety the great kisses he gave his
+grandfather after a ride on his knee, and Aunt Lison, neglected by him
+as she had been by every one else and treated often like a servant by
+this little tyrant who could scarcely speak as yet, would go to her
+room and weep as she compared the slight affection he showed her with
+the kisses he gave his mother and the baron.
+
+Two years passed quietly, and at the beginning of the third winter it
+was decided that they should go to Rouen to live until spring, and the
+whole family set out. But on their arrival in the old damp house, that
+had been shut up for some time, Paul had such a severe attack of
+bronchitis that his three relatives in despair declared that he could
+not do without the air of "The Poplars." They took him back there and
+he got well.
+
+Then began a series of quiet, monotonous years. Always around the
+little one, they went into raptures at everything he did. His mother
+called him Poulet, and as he could not pronounce the word, he said
+"Pol," which amused them immensely, and the nickname of "Poulet" stuck
+to him.
+
+The favorite occupation of his "three mothers," as the baron called
+his relatives, was to see how much he had grown, and for this purpose
+they made little notches in the casing of the drawing-room door,
+showing his progress from month to month. This ladder was called
+"Poulet's ladder," and was an important affair.
+
+A new individual began to play a part in the affairs of the
+household--the dog "Massacre," who became Paul's inseparable
+companion.
+
+Rare visits were exchanged with the Brisevilles and the Couteliers.
+The mayor and the doctor alone were regular visitors. Since the
+episode of the mother dog and the suspicion Jeanne had entertained of
+the priest on the occasion of the terrible death of the comtesse and
+Julien, Jeanne had not entered the church, angry with a divinity that
+could tolerate such ministers.
+
+The church was deserted and the priest came to be looked on as a
+sorcerer because he had, so they said, driven out an evil spirit from
+a woman who was possessed, and although fearing him the peasants came
+to respect him for this occult power as well as for the unimpeachable
+austerity of his life.
+
+When he met Jeanne he never spoke. This condition of affairs
+distressed Aunt Lison, and when she was alone, quite alone with Paul,
+she talked to him about God, telling him the wonderful stories of the
+early history of the world. But when she told him that he must love
+Him very much, the child would say: "Where is He, auntie?" "Up there,"
+she would say, pointing to the sky; "up there, Poulet, but do not say
+so." She was afraid of the baron.
+
+One day, however, Poulet said to her: "God is everywhere, but He is
+not in church." He had told his grandfather of his aunt's wonderful
+revelations.
+
+When Paul was twelve years old a great difficulty arose on the subject
+of his first communion.
+
+Lison came to Jeanne one morning and told her that the little fellow
+should no longer be kept without religious instruction and from his
+religious duties. His mother, troubled and undecided, hesitated,
+saying that there was time enough. But a month later, as she was
+returning a call at the Brisevilles', the comtesse asked her casually
+if Paul was going to make his first communion that year. Jeanne,
+unprepared for this, answered, "Yes," and this simple word decided
+her, and without saying a word to her father, she asked Aunt Lison to
+take the boy to the catechism class.
+
+All went well for a month, but one day Paul came home with a
+hoarseness and the following day he coughed. On inquiry his mother
+learned that the priest had sent him to wait till the lesson was over
+at the door of the church, where there was a draught, because he had
+misbehaved. So she kept him at home and taught him herself. But the
+Abbé Tobiac, despite Aunt Lison's entreaties, refused to admit him as
+a communicant on the ground that he was not thoroughly taught.
+
+The same thing occurred the following year, and the baron angrily
+swore that the child did not need to believe all that tomfoolery, so
+it was decided that he should be brought up as a Christian, but not as
+an active Catholic, and when he came of age he could believe as he
+pleased.
+
+The Brisevilles ceased to call on her and Jeanne was surprised,
+knowing the punctiliousness of these neighbors in returning calls, but
+the Marquise de Coutelier haughtily told her the reason. Considering
+herself, in virtue of her husband's rank and fortune, a sort of queen
+of the Norman nobility, the marquise ruled as a queen, said what she
+thought, was gracious or the reverse as occasion demanded,
+admonishing, restoring to favor, congratulating whenever she saw fit.
+So when Jeanne came to see her, this lady, after a few chilling
+remarks, said drily: "Society is divided into two classes: those who
+believe in God and those who do not believe in Him. The former, even
+the humblest, are our friends, our equals; the latter are nothing to
+us."
+
+Jeanne, perceiving the insinuation, replied: "But may one not believe
+in God without going to church?"
+
+"No, madame," answered the marquise. "The faithful go to worship God
+in His church, just as one goes to see people in their homes."
+
+Jeanne, hurt, replied: "God is everywhere, madame. As for me, who
+believes from the bottom of my heart in His goodness, I no longer feel
+His presence when certain priests come between Him and me."
+
+The marquise rose. "The priest is the standard bearer of the Church,
+madame. Whoever does not follow the standard is opposed to Him and
+opposed to us."
+
+Jeanne had risen in her turn and said, trembling: "You believe,
+madame, in a partisan God. I believe in the God of upright people."
+She bowed and took her leave.
+
+The peasants also blamed her among themselves for not having let
+Poulet make his first communion. They themselves never attended
+service or took the sacrament unless it might be at Easter, according
+to the rule ordained by the Church; but for boys it was quite another
+thing, and they would have all shrunk in horror at the audacity of
+bringing up a child outside this recognized law, for religion is
+religion.
+
+She saw how they felt and was indignant at heart at all these
+discriminations, all these compromises with conscience, this general
+fear of everything, the real cowardice of all hearts and the mask of
+respectability assumed in public.
+
+The baron took charge of Paul's studies and made him study Latin, his
+mother merely saying: "Above all things, do not get over tired."
+
+As soon as the boy was at liberty he went down to work in the garden
+with his mother and his aunt.
+
+He now loved to dig in the ground, and all three planted young trees
+in the spring, sowed seed and watched it growing with the deepest
+interest, pruned branches and cut flowers for bouquets.
+
+Poulet was almost fifteen, but was a mere child in intelligence,
+ignorant, silly, suppressed between petticoat government and this kind
+old man who belonged to another century.
+
+One evening the baron spoke of college, and Jeanne at once began to
+sob. Aunt Lison timidly remained in a dark corner.
+
+"Why does he need to know so much?" asked his mother. "We will make a
+gentleman farmer of him. He can cultivate his land, as many of the
+nobility do. He will live and grow old happily in this house, where we
+have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can one do?"
+
+But the baron shook his head. "What would you say to him if he should
+say to you when he is twenty-five: 'I amount to nothing, I know
+nothing, all through your fault, the fault of your maternal
+selfishness. I feel that I am incapable of working, of making
+something of myself, and yet I was not intended for a secluded, simple
+life, lonely enough to kill one, to which I have been condemned by
+your shortsighted affection.'"
+
+She was weeping and said entreatingly: "Tell me, Poulet, you will not
+reproach me for having loved you too well?" And the big boy, in
+surprise, promised that he never would. "Swear it," she said. "Yes,
+mamma." "You want to stay here, don't you?" "Yes, mamma."
+
+Then the baron spoke up loud and decidedly: "Jeanne, you have no right
+to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and
+almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to your own private
+happiness."
+
+She hid her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively, and stammered out
+amid her tears: "I have been so unhappy--so unhappy! Now, just as I am
+living peacefully with him, they want to take him away from me. What
+will become of me now--all by myself?" Her father rose and, sitting
+down beside her, put his arms round her. "And how about me, Jeanne?"
+
+She put her arms suddenly round his neck, gave him a hearty kiss and
+with her voice full of tears, she said: "Yes, you are right perhaps,
+little father. I was foolish, but I have suffered so much. I am quite
+willing he should go to college."
+
+And without knowing exactly what they were going to do with him,
+Poulet in his turn began to weep.
+
+Then the three mothers began to kiss him and pet him and encourage
+him. When they retired to their rooms it was with a weight at their
+hearts, and they all wept, even the baron, who had restrained himself
+up to that.
+
+It was decided that when the term began to put the young boy to school
+at Havre, and during the summer he was petted more than ever; his
+mother sighed often as she thought of the separation. She prepared his
+wardrobe as if he were going to undertake a ten years' voyage. One
+October morning, after a sleepless night, the two women and the baron
+got into the carriage with him and set out on their journey.
+
+They had previously selected his place in the dormitory and his desk
+in the school room. Jeanne, aided by Aunt Lison, spent the whole day
+in arranging his clothes in his little wardrobe. As it did not hold a
+quarter of what they had brought, she went to look for the
+superintendent to ask for another. The treasurer was called, but he
+pointed out that all that amount of clothing would only be in the way
+and would never be needed, and he refused, on behalf of the directors,
+to let her have another chest of drawers. Jeanne, much annoyed,
+decided to hire a room in a small neighboring hotel, begging the
+proprietor to go himself and take Poulet whatever he required as soon
+as the boy asked for it.
+
+They then took a walk on the pier to look at the ships coming and
+going. They went into a restaurant to dine, but they were none of them
+able to eat, and looked at one another with moistened eyes as the
+dishes were brought on and taken away almost untouched.
+
+They now returned slowly toward the school. Boys of all ages were
+arriving from all quarters, accompanied by their families or by
+servants. Many of them were crying.
+
+Jeanne held Poulet in a long embrace, while Aunt Lison remained in the
+background, her face hidden in her handkerchief. The baron, however,
+who was becoming affected, cut short the adieus by dragging his
+daughter away. They got into the carriage and went back through the
+darkness to "The Poplars," the silence being broken by an occasional
+sob.
+
+Jeanne wept all the following day and on the day after drove to Havre
+in the phaeton. Poulet seemed to have become reconciled to the
+separation. For the first time in his life he now had playmates, and
+in his anxiety to join them he could scarcely sit still on his chair
+when his mother called. She continued her visits to him every other
+day and called to take him home on Sundays. Not knowing what to do
+with herself while school was in session until recreation time, she
+would remain sitting in the reception room, not having the strength or
+the courage to go very far from the school. The superintendent sent to
+ask her to come to his office and begged her not to come so
+frequently. She paid no attention to his request. He therefore
+informed her that if she continued to prevent her son from taking his
+recreation at the usual hours, obliging him to work without a change
+of occupation, they would be forced to send him back home again, and
+the baron was also notified to the same effect. She was consequently
+watched like a prisoner at "The Poplars."
+
+She became restless and worried and would ramble about for whole days
+in the country, accompanied only by Massacre, dreaming as she walked
+along. Sometimes she would remain seated for a whole afternoon,
+looking out at the sea from the top of the cliff; at other times she
+would go down to Yport through the wood, going over the ground of her
+former walks, the memory of which haunted her. How long ago--how long
+ago it was--the time when she had gone over these same paths as a
+young girl, carried away by her dreams.
+
+Poulet was not very industrious at school; he was kept two years in
+the fourth form. The third year's work was only tolerable and he had
+to begin the second over again, so that he was in rhetoric when he was
+twenty.
+
+He was now a big, fair young man, with downy whiskers and a faint sign
+of a mustache. He now came home to "The Poplars" every Sunday, riding
+over in a couple of hours, his mother, Aunt Lison and the baron
+starting out early to go and meet him.
+
+Although he was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him
+as though he were a child, and when he returned to school in the
+evening she would charge him anxiously not to go too fast and to think
+of his poor mother, who would break her heart if anything happened to
+him.
+
+One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul, saying that he
+would not be home on the following day because some friends had
+arranged an excursion and had invited him. She was tormented with
+anxiety all day Sunday, as though she dreaded some misfortune, and on
+Thursday, as she could endure it no longer, she set out for Havre.
+
+He seemed to be changed, though she could not have told in what
+manner. He appeared excited and his voice seemed deeper. And suddenly,
+as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he said: "I
+say, mother, as long as you have come to-day, I want to tell you that
+I will not be at 'The Poplars' next Sunday, for we are going to have
+another excursion."
+
+She was amazed, smothering, as if he had announced his departure for
+America. At last, recovering herself, she said: "Oh, Poulet, what is
+the matter with you? Tell me what is going on."
+
+He began to laugh, and kissing her, replied: "Why, nothing, nothing,
+mamma. I am going to have a good time with my friends; I am just at
+that age."
+
+She had nothing to say, but when she was alone in the carriage all
+manner of ideas came into her mind. She no longer recognized him, her
+Poulet, her little Poulet of former days. She felt for the first time
+that he was grown up, that he no longer belonged to her, that he was
+going to live his life without troubling himself about the old people.
+It seemed to her that one day had wrought this change in him. Was it
+possible that this was her son, her poor little boy who had helped her
+to replant the lettuce, this great big bearded youth who had a will of
+his own!
+
+For three months Paul came home only occasionally, and always seemed
+impatient to get away again, trying to steal off an hour earlier each
+evening. Jeanne was alarmed, but the baron consoled her, saying: "Let
+him alone; the boy is twenty years old."
+
+One morning, however, an old man, poorly dressed, inquired in
+German-French for "Madame la Vicomtesse," and after many ceremonious
+bows, he drew from his pocket a dilapidated pocketbook, saying: "Che un
+betit bapier bour fous," and unfolding as he handed it to her a piece
+of greasy paper. She read and reread it, looked at the Jew, read it
+over again and asked: "What does it mean?"
+
+He obsequiously explained: "I will tell you. Your son needed a little
+money, and as I knew that you are a good mother, I lent him a trifle
+to help him out."
+
+Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not ask me?" The Jew explained
+at length that it was a question of a debt that must be paid before
+noon the following day; that Paul not being of age, no one would have
+lent him anything, and that his "honor would have been compromised"
+without this little service that he had rendered the young man.
+
+Jeanne tried to call the baron, but had not the strength to rise, she
+was so overcome by emotion. At length she said to the usurer: "Would
+you have the kindness to ring the bell?"
+
+He hesitated, fearing some trap, and then stammered out: "If I am
+intruding, I will call again." She shook her head in the negative. He
+then rang, and they waited in silence, sitting opposite each other.
+
+When the baron came in he understood the situation at once. The note
+was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid one thousand, saying close to
+the man's face: "And on no account come back." The other thanked him
+and went his way.
+
+The baron and Jeanne set out at once for Havre. On reaching the
+college they learned that Paul had not been there for a month. The
+principal had received four letters signed by Jeanne saying that his
+pupil was not well and then to tell how he was getting along. Each
+letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate. They were, of
+course, all forged. They were all dumbfounded, and stood there looking
+at each other.
+
+The principal, very much worried, took them to the commissary of
+police. Jeanne and her father stayed at a hotel that night. The
+following day the young man was found in the apartment of a courtesan
+of the town. His grandfather and mother took him back to "The Poplars"
+and not a word was exchanged between them during the whole journey.
+
+A week later they discovered that he had contracted fifteen thousand
+francs' worth of debts within the last three months. His creditors had
+not come forward at first, knowing that he would soon be of age.
+
+They entered into no discussion about it, hoping to win him back by
+gentleness. They gave him dainty food, petted him, spoiled him. It was
+spring and they hired a boat for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne's
+fears, so that he might amuse himself on the water.
+
+They would not let him have a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre.
+
+He was there with nothing to do and became irritable and occasionally
+brutally so. The baron was worried at the discontinuance of his
+studies. Jeanne, distracted at the idea of a separation, asked herself
+what they could do with him.
+
+One evening he did not come home. They learned that he had gone out in
+a boat with two sailors. His mother, beside herself with anxiety, went
+down to Yport without a hat in the dark. Some men were on the beach,
+waiting for the boat to come in. There was a light on board an
+incoming boat, but Paul was not on board. He had made them take him to
+Havre.
+
+The police sought him in vain; he could not be found. The woman with
+whom he had been found the first time had also disappeared without
+leaving any trace; her furniture was sold and her rent paid. In Paul's
+room at "The Poplars" were found two letters from this person, who
+seemed to be madly in love with him. She spoke of a voyage to England,
+having, she said, obtained the necessary funds.
+
+The three dwellers in the château lived silently and drearily, their
+minds tortured by all kinds of suppositions. Jeanne's hair, which had
+become gray, now turned perfectly white. She asked in her innocence
+why fate had thus afflicted her.
+
+She received a letter from the Abbé Tolbiac: "Madame, the hand of God
+is weighing heavily on you. You refused Him your child; He took him
+from you in His turn to cast him into the hands of a prostitute. Will
+not you open your eyes at this lesson from Heaven? God's mercy is
+infinite. Perhaps He may pardon you if you return and fall on your
+knees before Him. I am His humble servant. I will open to you the door
+of His dwelling when you come and knock at it."
+
+She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true
+what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment
+her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church
+the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at
+twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abbé,
+begged for absolution.
+
+He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all
+His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. "You will
+soon feel the effects of the divine mercy," he declared.
+
+Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in
+her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement
+of the consolation promised her by the abbé. The letter ran:
+
+"My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in
+very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have
+anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love
+with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave
+me--five thousand francs--and you see that I am bound in honor to
+return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind
+enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa's fortune, for I
+shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious
+difficulties.
+
+"Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also
+grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you soon.
+
+"Your son,
+
+"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
+
+He had written to her! He had not forgotten her then. She did not care
+anything about his asking for money! She would send him some as long
+as he had none. What did money matter? He had written to her! And she
+ran, weeping for joy, to show this letter to the baron. Aunt Lison was
+called and read over word by word this paper that told of him. They
+discussed each sentence.
+
+Jeanne, jumping from the most complete despair to a kind of
+intoxication of hope, took Paul's part. "He will come back, he will
+come back as he has written."
+
+The baron, more calm, said: "All the same he left us for that
+creature, so he must love her better than us, as he did not hesitate
+about it."
+
+A sudden and frightful pang struck Jeanne's heart, and immediately she
+was filled with hatred of this woman who had stolen her son from her,
+an unappeasable, savage hate, the hatred of a jealous mother. Until
+now all her thoughts had been given to Paul. She scarcely took into
+consideration that a girl had been the cause of his vagaries. But the
+baron's words had suddenly brought before her this rival, had revealed
+her fatal power, and she felt that between herself and this woman a
+struggle was about to begin, and she also felt that she would rather
+lose her son than share his affection with another. And all her joy
+was at an end.
+
+They sent him the fifteen thousand francs and heard nothing more from
+him for five months.
+
+Then a business man came to settle the details of Julien's
+inheritance. Jeanne and the baron handed over the accounts without any
+discussion, even giving up the interest that should come to his
+mother. When Paul came back to Paris he had a hundred and twenty
+thousand francs. He then wrote four letters in six months, giving his
+news in concise terms and ending the letters with coldly affectionate
+expressions. "I am working," he said; "I have obtained a position on
+the stock exchange. I hope to go and embrace you at 'The Poplars' some
+day, my dear parents."
+
+He did not mention his companion, and this silence implied more than
+if he had filled four pages with news of her. Jeanne, in these cold
+letters, felt this woman in ambush, the implacable, eternal enemy of
+mothers, the courtesan.
+
+The three lonely beings discussed the best plan to follow in order to
+rescue Paul, but could decide on nothing. A voyage to Paris? What good
+would it do?
+
+"Let his passion exhaust itself. He will come back then of his own
+accord," said the baron.
+
+Some time passed without any further news. But one morning they were
+terrified at the receipt of a despairing letter:
+
+"My Poor Mamma: I am lost. There is nothing left for me to do but to
+blow out my brains unless you come to my aid. A speculation that gave
+every prospect of success has fallen through, and I am eighty-five
+thousand dollars in debt. I shall be dishonored if I do not pay
+up--ruined--and it will henceforth be impossible for me to do
+anything. I am lost. I repeat that I would rather blow out my brains
+than undergo this disgrace. I should have done so already, probably,
+but for the encouragement of a woman of whom I never speak to you,
+and who is my providence.
+
+"I embrace you from the bottom of my heart, my dear mamma--perhaps for
+the last time. Good-by.
+
+"Paul."
+
+A package of business papers accompanying the letter gave the details
+of the failure.
+
+The baron answered by return mail that they would see what could be
+done. Then he set out for Havre to get advice and he mortgaged some
+property to raise the money which was sent to Paul.
+
+The young man wrote three letters full of the most heartfelt thanks
+and passionate affection, saying he was coming home at once to see his
+dear parents.
+
+But he did not come.
+
+A whole year passed. Jeanne and the baron were about to set out for
+Paris to try and make a last effort, when they received a line to say
+that he was in London again, setting an enterprise on foot in
+connection with steamboats under the name of "Paul de Lamare & Co." He
+wrote: "This will give me an assured fortune, and perhaps great
+wealth, and I am risking nothing. You can see at once what a splendid
+thing it is. When I see you again I shall have a fine position in
+society. There is nothing but business these days to help you out of
+difficulties."
+
+Three months later the steamboat company failed and the manager was
+being sought for on account of certain irregularities in business
+methods. Jeanne had a nervous attack that lasted several hours and
+then she took to her bed.
+
+The baron again went to Havre to make inquiries, saw some lawyers,
+some business men, some solicitors and bailiffs and found that the
+liabilities of the De Lamare concern were two hundred and thirty-five
+thousand francs, and he once more mortgaged some property. The château
+of "The Poplars" and the two farms and all that went with them were
+mortgaged for a large sum.
+
+One evening as he was arranging the final details in the office of a
+business man, he fell over on the floor with a stroke of apoplexy.
+
+A man was sent on horseback to notify Jeanne, but when she arrived he
+was dead.
+
+She took his body back to "The Poplars," so overcome that her grief
+was numbness rather than despair.
+
+Abbé Tolbiac refused to permit the body to be brought to the church,
+despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was
+interred at twilight without any religious ceremony.
+
+Paul learned of the event through one of the men who was settling up
+his affairs. He was still in hiding in England. He wrote to make
+excuses for not having come home, saying that he had learned of his
+grandfather's death too late. "However, now that you have helped me
+out of my difficulties, my dear mamma, I shall go back to France and
+hope to embrace you soon."
+
+Jeanne was so crushed in spirit that she appeared not to understand
+anything. Toward the end of the winter Aunt Lison, who was now
+sixty-eight, had an attack of bronchitis that developed into pneumonia,
+and she died quietly, murmuring with her last breath: "My poor
+little Jeanne, I will ask God to take pity on you."
+
+Jeanne followed her to the grave, and as the earth fell on her coffin
+she sank to the ground, wishing that she might die also, so as not to
+suffer, to think. A strong peasant woman lifted her up and carried her
+away as if she had been a child.
+
+When she reached the château Jeanne, who had spent the last five
+nights at Aunt Lison's bedside, allowed herself to be put to bed
+without resistance by this unknown peasant woman, who handled her with
+gentleness and firmness, and she fell asleep from exhaustion, overcome
+with weariness and suffering.
+
+She awoke about the middle of the night. A night light was burning on
+the mantelpiece. A woman was asleep in her easy chair. Who was this
+woman? She did not recognize her, and leaning over the edge of her
+bed, she sought to examine her features by the dim light of the wick
+floating in oil in a tumbler of water.
+
+It seemed to her that she had seen this face. But when, but where? The
+woman was sleeping peacefully, her head to one side and her cap on the
+floor. She might be about forty or forty-five. She was stout, with a
+high color, squarely built and powerful. Her large hands hung down at
+either side of the chair. Her hair was turning gray. Jeanne looked at
+her fixedly, her mind in the disturbed condition of one awaking from a
+feverish sleep after a great sorrow.
+
+She had certainly seen this face! Was it in former days? Was it of
+late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her
+nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping
+woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up
+in the cemetery and then put her to bed. She remembered this
+confusedly.
+
+But had she met her elsewhere at some other time of her life or did
+she only imagine she recognized her amid the confused recollections of
+the day before? And how did she come to be there in her room and why?
+
+The woman opened her eyes and, seeing Jeanne, she rose to her feet
+suddenly. They stood face to face, so close that they touched one
+another. The stranger said crossly: "What! are you up? You will be
+ill, getting up at this time of night. Go back to bed!"
+
+"Who are you?" asked Jeanne.
+
+But the woman, opening her arms, picked her up and carried her back to
+her bed with the strength of a man. And as she laid her down gently
+and drew the covers over her, she leaned over close to Jeanne and,
+weeping as she did so, she kissed her passionately on the cheeks, her
+hair, her eyes, the tears falling on her face as she stammered out:
+"My poor mistress, Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress, don't you
+recognize me?"
+
+"Rosalie, my girl!" cried Jeanne, throwing her arms round her neck and
+hugging her as she kissed her, and they sobbed together, clasped in
+each other's arms.
+
+Rosalie was the first to regain her calmness. "Come," she said, "you
+must be sensible and not catch cold." And she covered her up warm and
+straightened the pillow under her former mistress' head. The latter
+continued to sob, trembling all over at the recollections that were
+awakened in her mind. She finally inquired: "How did you come back, my
+poor girl?"
+
+"Pardi! do you suppose I was going to leave you all alone like that,
+now?" replied Rosalie.
+
+"Light a candle, so I may see you," said Jeanne. And when the candle
+was brought to the bedside they looked at each other for some time
+without speaking a word. Then Jeanne, holding out her hand to her
+former maid, murmured: "I should not have recognized you, my girl, you
+have changed greatly; did you know it? But not as much as I have." And
+Rosalie, looking at this white-haired woman, thin and faded, whom she
+had left a beautiful and fresh young woman, said: "That is true, you
+have changed, Madame Jeanne, and more than you should. But remember,
+however, that we have not seen each other for twenty-five years."
+
+They were silent, thinking over the past. At length Jeanne said
+hesitatingly: "Have you been happy?"
+
+Rosalie, fearful of awakening certain painful souvenirs, stammered
+out: "Why--yes--yes--madame. I have nothing much to complain of. I
+have been happier than you have--that is sure. There was only one
+thing that always weighed on my heart, and that was that I did not
+stay here--" And she stopped suddenly, sorry she had referred to that
+unintentionally. But Jeanne replied gently: "How could you help it, my
+girl? One cannot always do as they wish. You are a widow now, also,
+are you not?" Then her voice trembled with emotion as she said: "Have
+you other--other children?"
+
+"No, madame."
+
+"And he--your--your boy--what has become of him? Has he turned out
+well?"
+
+"Yes, madame, he is a good boy and works industriously. He has been
+married for six months, and he can take my farm now, since I have come
+back to you."
+
+Jeanne murmured in a trembling voice: "Then you will never leave me
+again, my girl?"
+
+"No, indeed, madame, I have arranged all that."
+
+Jeanne, in spite of herself, began to compare their lives, but without
+any bitterness, for she was now resigned to the unjust cruelty of
+fate. She said: "And your husband, how did he treat you?"
+
+"Oh, he was a good man, madame, and not lazy; he knew how to make
+money. He died of consumption."
+
+Then Jeanne, sitting up in bed, filled with a longing to know more,
+said: "Come, tell me everything, my girl, all about your life. It will
+do me good just now."
+
+Rosalie, drawing up her chair, began to tell about herself, her home,
+her people, entering into those minute details dear to country people,
+describing her yard, laughing at some old recollection that reminded
+her of good times she had had, and raising her voice by degrees like a
+farmer's wife accustomed to command. She ended by saying: "Oh, I am
+well off now. I don't have to worry." Then she became confused again,
+and said in a lower tone: "It is to you that I owe it, anyhow; and you
+know I do not want any wages. No, indeed! No, indeed! And if you will
+not have it so, I will go."
+
+Jeanne replied: "You do not mean that you are going to serve me for
+nothing?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, madame. Money! You give me money! Why, I have almost
+as much as you. Do you know what is left to you will all your jumble
+of mortgages and borrowing, and interests unpaid which are mounting up
+every year? Do you know? No, is it not so? Well, then, I can promise
+you that you have not even ten thousand francs income. Not ten
+thousand, do you understand? But I will settle all that for you, and
+very quickly."
+
+She had begun talking loud again, carried away in her indignation at
+these interests left unpaid, at this threatening ruin. And as a faint,
+tender smile passed over the face of her mistress, she cried in a tone
+of annoyance: "You must not laugh, madame, for without money we are
+nothing but laborers."
+
+Jeanne took hold of her hands and kept them in her own; then she said
+slowly, still full of the idea that haunted her: "Oh, I have had no
+luck. Everything has gone against me. Fate has a grudge against my
+life."
+
+But Rosalie shook her head: "You must not say that, madame. You
+married badly, that's all. One should not marry like that, anyway,
+without knowing anything about one's intended."
+
+And they went on talking about themselves just as two old friends
+might have done.
+
+The sun rose while they were still talking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A NEW HOME
+
+In a week's time Rosalie had taken absolute control of everything and
+everyone in the château. Jeanne was quite resigned and obeyed
+passively. Weak and dragging her feet as she walked, as little mother
+had formerly done, she went out walking leaning on Rosalie's arm, the
+latter lecturing her and consoling her with abrupt and tender words as
+they walked slowly along, treating her mistress as though she were a
+sick child.
+
+They always talked of bygone days, Jeanne with tears in her throat,
+and Rosalie in the quiet tone of a phlegmatic peasant. The servant
+kept referring to the subject of unpaid interests; and at last
+requested Jeanne to give her up all the business papers that Jeanne,
+in her ignorance of money matters, was hiding from her, out of
+consideration for her son.
+
+After that, for a week, Rosalie went to Fécamp every day to have
+matters explained to her by a lawyer whom she knew.
+
+One evening, after having put her mistress to bed, she sat down by the
+bedside and said abruptly: "Now that you are settled quietly, madame,
+we will have a chat." And she told her exactly how matters stood.
+
+When everything was settled, there would be about seven thousand
+francs of income left, no more.
+
+"We cannot help it, my girl," said Jeanne. "I feel that I shall not
+make old bones, and there will be quite enough for me."
+
+But Rosalie was annoyed: "For you, madame, it might be; but M.
+Paul--will you leave nothing for him?"
+
+Jeanne shuddered. "I beg you not to mention him again. It hurts me too
+much to think about him."
+
+"But I wish to speak about him, because you see you are not brave,
+Madame Jeanne. He does foolish things. Well! what of it? He will not
+do so always; and then he will marry and have children. He will need
+money to bring them up. Pay attention to me: you must sell 'The
+Poplars.'"
+
+Jeanne sprang up in a sitting posture. "Sell 'The Poplars'! Do you
+mean it? Oh, never, never!"
+
+But Rosalie was not disturbed. "I tell you that you will sell the
+place, madame, because it must be done." And then she explained her
+calculations, her plans, her reasons.
+
+Once they had sold "The Poplars" and the two farms belonging to it to
+a buyer whom she had found, they would keep four farms situated at St.
+Leonard, which, free of all mortgage, would bring in an income of
+eight thousand three hundred francs. They would set aside thirteen
+hundred francs a year for repairs and for the upkeep of the property;
+there would then remain seven thousand francs, five thousand of which
+would cover the annual expenditures and the other two thousand would
+be put away for a rainy day.
+
+She added: "All the rest has been squandered; there is an end of it.
+And then I am to keep the key, you understand. As for M. Paul, he will
+have nothing left, nothing; he would take your last sou from you."
+
+Jeanne, who was weeping silently, murmured:
+
+"But if he has nothing to eat?"
+
+"He can come and eat with us if he is hungry. There will always be a
+bed and some stew for him. Do you believe he would have acted as he
+has done if you had not given him a sou in the first place?"
+
+"But he was in debt, he would have been disgraced."
+
+"When you have nothing left, will that prevent him from making fresh
+debts? You have paid his debts, that is all right; but you will not
+pay any more; it is I who am telling you this. Now goodnight, madame."
+
+And she left the room.
+
+Jeanne did not sleep, she was so upset at the idea of selling "The
+Poplars," of going away, of leaving this house to which all her life
+was linked.
+
+When Rosalie came into the room next morning she said to her: "My poor
+girl, I never could make up my mind to go away from here."
+
+But the servant grew angry: "It will have to be, however, madame; the
+lawyer will soon be here with the man who wants to buy the château.
+Otherwise, in four years you will not have a rap left."
+
+Jeanne was crushed, and repeated: "I could not do it; I never could."
+
+An hour later the postman brought her a letter from Paul asking for
+ten thousand francs. What should she do? At her wit's end, she
+consulted Rosalie, who threw up her hands, exclaiming: "What was I
+telling you, madame? Ah! You would have been in a nice fix, both of
+you, if I had not come back." And Jeanne, bending to her servant's
+will, wrote as follows to the young man:
+
+"My Dear Son: I can do nothing more for you. You have ruined me; I am
+even obliged to sell 'The Poplars.' But never forget that I shall
+always have a home whenever you want to seek shelter with your old
+mother, to whom you have caused much suffering. Jeanne."
+
+When the notary arrived with M. Jeoffrin, a retired sugar refiner, she
+received them herself, and invited them to look over the château.
+
+A month later, she signed a deed of sale, and also bought herself a
+little cottage in the neighborhood of Goderville, on the high road to
+Montiviliers, in the hamlet of Batteville.
+
+Then she walked up and down all alone until evening, in little
+mother's avenue, with a sore heart and troubled mind, bidding
+distracted and sobbing farewells to the landscape, the trees, the
+rustic bench under the plane tree, to all those things she knew so
+well and that seemed to have become part of her vision and her soul,
+the grove, the mound overlooking the plain, where she had so often
+sat, and from where she had seen the Comte de Fourville running toward
+the sea on that terrible day of Julian's death, to an old elm whose
+upper branches were missing, against which she had often leaned, and
+to all this familiar garden spot.
+
+Rosalie came out and took her by the arm to make her come into the
+house.
+
+A tall young peasant of twenty-five was waiting outside the door. He
+greeted her in a friendly manner as if he had known her for some time:
+"Good-morning, Madame Jeanne. I hope you are well. Mother told me to
+come and help you move. I would like to know what you are going to
+take away, seeing that I shall do it from time to time so as not to
+interfere with my farm work."
+
+It was her maid's son, Julien's son, Paul's brother.
+
+She felt as if her heart stopped beating; and yet she would have liked
+to embrace this young fellow.
+
+She looked at him, trying to find some resemblance to her husband or
+to her son. He was ruddy, vigorous, with fair hair and his mother's
+blue eyes. And yet he looked like Julien. In what way? How? She could
+not have told, but there was something like him in the whole makeup of
+his face.
+
+The young man resumed: "If you could show me at once, I should be much
+obliged."
+
+But she had not yet decided what she was going to take with her, as
+her new home was very small; and she begged him to come back again at
+the end of the week.
+
+She was now entirely occupied with getting ready to move, which
+brought a little variety into her very dreary and hopeless life. She
+went from room to room, picking out the furniture which recalled
+episodes in her life, old friends, as it were, who have a share in our
+life and almost of our being, whom we have known since childhood, and
+to which are linked our happy or sad recollections, dates in our
+history; silent companions of our sad or sombre hours, who have grown
+old and become worn at our side, their covers torn in places, their
+joints shaky, their color faded.
+
+She selected them, one by one, sometimes hesitating and troubled, as
+if she were taking some important step, changing her mind every
+instant, weighing the merits of two easy chairs or of some old
+writing-desk and an old work table.
+
+She opened the drawers, sought to recall things; then, when she had
+said to herself, "Yes, I will take this," the article was taken down
+into the dining-room.
+
+She wished to keep all the furniture of her room, her bed, her
+tapestries, her clock, everything.
+
+She took away some of the parlor chairs, those that she had loved as a
+little child; the fox and the stork, the fox and the crow, the ant and
+the grasshopper, and the melancholy heron.
+
+Then, while wandering about in all the corners of this dwelling she
+was going to forsake, she went one day up into the loft, where she was
+filled with amazement; it was a chaos of articles of every kind, some
+broken, others tarnished only, others taken up there for no special
+reason probably, except that they were tired of them or that they had
+been replaced by others. She saw numberless knick-knacks that she
+remembered, and that had disappeared suddenly, trifles that she had
+handled, those old little insignificant articles that she had seen
+every day without noticing, but which now, discovered in this loft,
+assumed an importance as of forgotten relics, of friends that she had
+found again.
+
+She went from one to the other of them with a little pang, saying:
+"Why, it was I who broke that china cup a few evenings before my
+wedding. Ah! there is mother's little lantern and a cane that little
+father broke in trying to open the gate when the wood was swollen with
+the rain."
+
+There were also a number of things that she did not remember that had
+belonged to her grandparents or to their parents, dusty things that
+appeared to be exiled in a period that is not their own, and that
+looked sad at their abandonment, and whose history, whose experiences
+no one knows, for they never saw those who chose them, bought them,
+owned them, and loved them; never knew the hands that had touched them
+familiarly, and the eyes that looked at them with delight.
+
+Jeanne examined carefully three-legged chairs to see if they recalled
+any memories, a copper warming pan, a damaged foot stove that she
+thought she remembered, and a number of housekeeping utensils unfit
+for use.
+
+She then put together all the things she wished to take, and going
+downstairs, sent Rosalie up to get them. The servant indignantly
+refused to bring down "that rubbish." But Jeanne, who had not much
+will left, held her own this time, and had to be obeyed.
+
+One morning the young farmer, Julien's son, Denis Lecoq, came with his
+wagon for the first load. Rosalie went back with him in order to
+superintend the unloading and placing of furniture where it was to
+stand.
+
+Rosalie had come back and was waiting for Jeanne, who had been out on
+the cliff. She was enchanted with the new house, declaring it was much
+more cheerful than this old box of a building, which was not even on
+the side of the road.
+
+Jeanne wept all the evening.
+
+Ever since they heard that the château was sold, the farmers were not
+more civil to her than necessary, calling her among themselves "the
+crazy woman," without knowing exactly why, but doubtless because they
+guessed with their animal instinct at her morbid and increasing
+sentimentality, at all the disturbance of her poor mind that had
+undergone so much sorrow.
+
+The night before they left she chanced to go into the stable. A growl
+made her start. It was Massacre, whom she had hardly thought of for
+months. Blind and paralyzed, having reached a great age for an animal,
+he existed in a straw bed, taken care of by Ludivine, who never forgot
+him. She took him in her arms, kissed him, and carried him into the
+house. As big as a barrel, he could scarcely carry himself along on
+his stiff legs, and he barked like the wooden dogs that one gives to
+children.
+
+The day of departure finally came. Jeanne had slept in Julien's old
+room, as hers was dismantled. She got up exhausted and short of breath
+as if she had been running. The carriage containing the trunks and the
+rest of the furniture was in the yard ready to start. Another
+two-wheeled vehicle was to take Jeanne and the servant. Old Simon and
+Ludivine were to stay until the arrival of a new proprietor, and then
+to go to some of their relations, Jeanne having provided a little
+income for them. They had also saved up some money, and being now very
+old and garrulous, they were not of much use in the house. Marius had
+long since married and left.
+
+About eight o'clock it began to rain, a fine icy rain, driven by a
+light breeze. On the kitchen table, some cups of café au lait were
+steaming. Jeanne sat down and sipped hers, then rising, she said,
+"Come along."
+
+She put on her hat and shawl, and while Rosalie was putting on her
+overshoes, she said in a choking voice: "Do you remember, my girl, how
+it rained when we left Rouen to come here?"
+
+As she said this, she put her two hands to her breast and fell over on
+her back, unconscious. She remained thus over an hour, apparently
+dead. Then she opened her eyes and was seized with convulsions
+accompanied by floods of tears.
+
+When she was a little calmer she was so weak that she could not stand
+up, and Rosalie, fearing another attack if they delayed their
+departure, went to look for her son. They took her up and carried her
+to the carriage, placed her on the wooden bench covered with leather;
+and the old servant got in beside her, wrapped her up with a big
+cloak, and holding an umbrella over her head, cried: "Quick, Denis,
+let us be off." The young man climbed up beside his mother and whipped
+up the horse, whose jerky pace made the two women bounce about
+vigorously.
+
+As they turned the corner to enter the village, they saw some one
+stalking along the road; it was Abbé Tolbiac, who seemed to be
+watching for them to go by. He stopped to let the carriage pass. He
+was holding up his cassock with one hand, to keep it out of the mud,
+and his thin legs, encased in black stockings, ended in a pair of
+enormous muddy shoes.
+
+Jeanne lowered her eyes so as not to meet his glance, and Rosalie, who
+had heard all about him, flew into a rage. "Peasant! Peasant!" she
+murmured; and then seizing her son's hand: "Give him a good slash with
+the whip."
+
+But the young man, just as they were passing the priest, made the
+wheel of the wagon, which was going at full speed, sink into a rut,
+splashing the abbé with mud from head to foot.
+
+Rosalie was delighted and turned round to shake her fist at him, while
+the priest was wiping off the mud with his big handkerchief.
+
+All at once Jeanne exclaimed: "We have forgotten Massacre!" They
+stopped, and, getting down, Denis ran to fetch the dog, while Rosalie
+held the reins. He presently reappeared, carrying in his arms the
+shapeless and crippled animal, which he placed at the feet of the two
+women.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+JEANNE IN PARIS
+
+Two hours later the carriage stopped at a little brick house built in
+the middle of a lot planted with pear trees at the side of the high
+road.
+
+Four trellised arbors covered with honeysuckle and clematis formed the
+four corners of the garden, which was divided into little beds of
+vegetables separated by narrow paths bordered with fruit trees.
+
+A very high box hedge enclosed the whole property, which was separated
+by a field from the neighboring farm. There was a blacksmith's shop
+about a hundred feet further along the road. There were no other
+houses within three-quarters of a mile.
+
+The house commanded a view of the level district of Caux, covered with
+farms surrounded by their four double rows of tall trees which
+enclosed the courtyard planted with apple trees.
+
+As soon as they reached the house, Jeanne wanted to rest; but Rosalie
+would not allow her to do so for fear she would begin to think of the
+past.
+
+The carpenter from Goderville was there, and they began at once to
+place the furniture that had already arrived while waiting for the
+last load. This required a good deal of thought and planning.
+
+At the end of an hour the wagon appeared at the gate and had to be
+unloaded in the rain. When night fell the house was in utter disorder,
+with things piled up anyhow. Jeanne, tired out, fell asleep as soon as
+she got into bed.
+
+She had no time to mourn for some days, as there was so much to be
+done. She even took a certain pleasure in making her new house look
+pretty, the thought that her son would come back there haunting her
+continually. The tapestries from her old room were hung in the
+dining-room, which also had to serve as a parlor; and she took special
+pains with one of the two rooms on the first floor, which she thought
+of as "Poulet's room."
+
+She kept the other room herself, Rosalie sleeping above, next to the
+loft. The little house, furnished with care, was very pretty, and
+Jeanne was happy there at first, although she seemed to lack
+something, but she did not know what.
+
+One morning the lawyer's clerk from Fécamp brought her three thousand
+six hundred francs, the price of the furniture left at "The Poplars,"
+and valued by an upholsterer. She had a little thrill of pleasure at
+receiving this money, and as soon as the man had gone, she ran to put
+on her hat, so as to get to Goderville as quickly as possible to send
+Paul this unexpected sum.
+
+But as she was hurrying along the high road she met Rosalie coming
+from market. The servant suspected something, without at once guessing
+the facts; and when she discovered them, for Jeanne could hide nothing
+from her, she placed her basket on the ground that she might get angry
+with more comfort.
+
+She began to scold with her fists on her hips; then taking hold of her
+mistress with her right arm and taking her basket in her left, and
+still fuming, she continued on her way to the house.
+
+As soon as they were in the house the servant asked to have the money
+handed over to her. Jeanne gave all but six hundred francs, which she
+held back; but Rosalie soon saw through her tricks, and she was
+obliged to hand it all over. However, she consented to her sending
+this amount to the young man.
+
+A few days later he wrote: "You have rendered me a great service, my
+dear mother, for we were in the greatest distress."
+
+Jeanne, however, could not get accustomed to Batteville. It seemed to
+her as if she could not breathe as she did formerly, that she was more
+lonely, more deserted, more lost than ever. She went out for a walk,
+got as far as the hamlet of Verneuil, came back by the Trois-Mares,
+came home, then suddenly wanted to start out again, as if she had
+forgotten to go to the very place she intended.
+
+And every day she did the same thing without knowing why. But one
+evening a thought came to her unconsciously which revealed to her the
+secret of her restlessness. She said as she was sitting down to
+dinner: "Oh, how I long to see the sea!"
+
+That was what she had missed so greatly, the sea, her big neighbor for
+twenty-five years, the sea with its salt air, its rages, its scolding
+voice, its strong breezes, the sea which she sought from her window at
+"The Poplars" every morning, whose air she breathed day and night, the
+sea which she felt close to her, which she had taken to loving
+unconsciously as she would a person.
+
+Winter was approaching, and Jeanne felt herself overcome by an
+unconquerable discouragement. It was not one of those acute griefs
+which seemed to wring the heart, but a dreary, mournful sadness.
+
+Nothing roused her. No one paid any attention to her. The high road
+before her door stretched to right and left with hardly any passersby.
+Occasionally a dogcart passed rapidly, driven by a red-faced man, with
+his blouse puffed out by the wind, making a sort of blue balloon;
+sometimes a slow-moving wagon, or else two peasants, a man and a
+woman, who came near, passed by, and disappeared in the distance.
+
+As soon as the grass began to grow again, a young girl in a short
+skirt passed by the gate every morning with two thin cows who browsed
+along the side of the road. She came back every evening with the same
+sleepy face, making a step every ten minutes as she walked behind the
+animals.
+
+Jeanne dreamed every night that she was still at "The Poplars." She
+seemed to be there with father and little mother, and sometimes even
+with Aunt Lison. She did over again things forgotten and done with,
+thought she was supporting Madame Adelaide in her walk along the
+avenue. And each awakening was attended with tears.
+
+She thought continually of Paul, wondering what he was doing--how he
+was--whether he sometimes thought of her. As she walked slowly in the
+by-roads between the farms, she thought over all these things which
+tormented her, but above all else, she cherished an intense jealousy
+of the woman who had stolen her son from her. It was this hatred alone
+which prevented her from taking any steps, from going to look for him,
+to see him. It seemed to her that she saw that woman standing on the
+doorsill asking: "What do you want here, madame?" Her mother's pride
+revolted at the possibility of such a meeting. And her haughty pride
+of a good woman whose character is blameless made her all the more
+indignant at the cowardice of a man subjugated by an unworthy passion.
+
+When autumn returned with its long rains, its gray sky, its dark
+clouds, such a weariness of this kind of life came over her that she
+determined to make a great effort to get her Poulet back; he must have
+got over his infatuation by this time.
+
+She wrote him an imploring letter:
+
+"My Dear Child: I am going to entreat you to come back to me. Remember
+that I am old and delicate, all alone the whole year round except for
+a servant maid. I am now living in a little house on the main road. It
+is very lonely, but if you were here all would be different for me. I
+have only you in the world, and I have not seen you for seven years!
+You were my life, my dream, my only hope, my one love, and you failed
+me, you deserted me!
+
+"Oh, come back, my little Poulet--come and embrace me. Come back to
+your old mother, who holds out her despairing arms towards you.
+
+"Jeanne."
+
+He replied a few days later:
+
+"My Dear Mother: I would ask nothing better than to go and see you,
+but I have not a penny. Send me some money and I will come. I wanted,
+in any case, to see you to talk to you about a plan that would make it
+possible for me to do as you ask.
+
+"The disinterestedness and love of the one who has been my companion
+in the dark days through which I have passed can never be forgotten by
+me. It is not possible for me to remain any longer without publicly
+recognizing her love and her faithful devotion. She has very pleasing
+manners, which you would appreciate. She is also educated and reads a
+good deal. In fact, you cannot understand what she has been to me. I
+should be a brute if I did not show her my gratitude. I am going,
+therefore, to ask you to give me your permission to marry her. You
+will forgive all my follies and we will all live together in your new
+house.
+
+"If you knew her you would at once give your consent. I can assure you
+that she is perfect and very distingué. You will love her, I am sure.
+As for me, I could not live without her.
+
+"I shall expect your reply with impatience, my dear mother, and we
+both embrace you with all our heart.
+
+"Your son,
+
+"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
+
+Jeanne was crushed. She remained motionless, the letter on her lap,
+seeing through the cunning of this girl who had had such a hold on her
+son for so long, and had not let him come to see her once, biding her
+time until the despairing old mother could no longer resist the desire
+to clasp her son in her arms, and would weaken and grant all they
+asked.
+
+And grief at Paul's persistent preference for this creature wrung her
+heart. She said: "He does not love me. He does not love me."
+
+Rosalie just then entered the room. Jeanne faltered: "He wants to
+marry her now."
+
+The maid was startled. "Oh, madame, you will not allow that. M. Paul
+must not pick up that rubbish."
+
+And Jeanne, overcome with emotion, but indignant, replied: "Never
+that, my girl. And as he will not come here, I am going to see him,
+myself, and we shall see which of us will carry the day."
+
+She wrote at once to Paul to prepare him for her visit, and to arrange
+to meet him elsewhere than in the house inhabited by that baggage.
+
+While awaiting a reply she made her preparations for departure.
+Rosalie began to pack her mistress' clothes in an old trunk, but as
+she was folding a dress, one of those she had worn in the country, she
+exclaimed: "Why, you have nothing to put on your back. I will not
+allow you to go like that. You would be a disgrace to everyone; and
+the Parisian ladies would take you for a servant."
+
+Jeanne let her have her own way, and the two women went together to
+Goderville to choose some material, which was given a dressmaker in
+the village. Then they went to the lawyer, M. Roussel, who spent a
+fortnight in the capital every year, in order to get some information;
+for Jeanne had not been in Paris for twenty-eight years.
+
+He gave them lots of advice on how to avoid being run over, on methods
+of protecting yourself from thieves, advising her to sew her money up
+inside the lining of her coat, and to keep in her pocket only what she
+absolutely needed. He spoke at length about moderate priced
+restaurants, and mentioned two or three patronized by women, and told
+them that they might mention his name at the Hotel Normandie.
+
+Jeanne had never yet seen the railroad, though trains had been running
+between Paris and Havre for six years, and were revolutionizing the
+whole country.
+
+She received no answer from Paul, although she waited a week, then two
+weeks, going every morning to meet the postman, asking him
+hesitatingly: "Is there anything for me, Père Malandain?" And the man
+always replied in his hoarse voice: "Nothing again, my good lady."
+
+It certainly must be this woman who was keeping Paul from writing.
+
+Jeanne, therefore, determined to set out at once. She wanted to take
+Rosalie with her, but the maid refused for fear of increasing the
+expense of the journey. She did not allow her mistress to take more
+than three hundred francs, saying: "If you need more you can write to
+me and I will go to the lawyer and ask him to send it to you. If I
+give you any more, M. Paul will put it in his pocket."
+
+One December morning Denis Lecoq came for them in his light wagon and
+took them to the station. Jeanne wept as she kissed Rosalie good-by,
+and got into the train. Rosalie was also affected and said: "Good-by,
+madame, bon voyage, and come back soon!"
+
+"Good-by, my girl."
+
+A whistle and the train was off, beginning slowly and gradually going
+with a speed that terrified Jeanne. In her compartment there were two
+gentlemen leaning back in the two corners of the carriage.
+
+She looked at the country as they swept past, the trees, the farms,
+the villages, feeling herself carried into a new life, into a new
+world that was no longer the life of her tranquil youth and of her
+present monotonous existence.
+
+She reached Paris that evening. A commissionaire took her trunk and
+she followed him in great fear, jostled by the crowd and not knowing
+how to make her way amid this mass of moving humanity, almost running
+to keep up with the man for fear of losing sight of him.
+
+On reaching the hotel she said at the desk: "I was recommended here by
+M. Roussel."
+
+The proprietress, an immense woman with a serious face, who was seated
+at the desk, inquired:
+
+"Who is he--M. Roussel?"
+
+Jeanne replied in amazement: "Why, he is the lawyer at Goderville, who
+stops here every year."
+
+"That's very possible," said the big woman, "but I do not know him. Do
+you wish a room?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+A boy took her satchel and led the way upstairs. She felt a pang at
+her heart. Sitting down at a little table she sent for some luncheon,
+as she had eaten nothing since daybreak. As she ate, she was thinking
+sadly of a thousand things, recalling her stay here on the return from
+her wedding journey, and the first indication of Julien's character
+betrayed while they were in Paris. But she was young then, and
+confident and brave. Now she felt old, embarrassed, even timid, weak
+and disturbed at trifles. When she had finished her luncheon she went
+over to the window and looked down on the street filled with people.
+She wished to go out, but was afraid to do so. She would surely get
+lost. She went to bed, but the noise, the feeling of being in a
+strange city, kept her awake. About two o'clock in the morning, just
+as she was dozing off, she heard a woman scream in an adjoining room;
+she sat up in bed and then she thought she heard a man laugh. As
+daylight dawned the thought of Paul came to her, and she dressed
+herself before it was light.
+
+Paul lived in the Rue du Sauvage, in the old town. She wanted to go
+there on foot so as to carry out Rosalie's economical advice. The
+weather was delightful, the air cold enough to make her skin tingle.
+People were hurrying along the sidewalks. She walked as fast as she
+could, according to directions given her, along a street, at the end
+of which she was to turn to the right and then to the left, when she
+would come to a square where she must make fresh inquiries. She did
+not find the square, and went into a baker's to ask her way, and he
+directed her differently. She started off again, went astray, inquired
+her way again, and finally got lost completely.
+
+Half crazy, she now walked at random. She had made up her mind to call
+a cab, when she caught sight of the Seine. She then walked along the
+quays.
+
+After about an hour she found the Rue Sauvage, a sort of dark alley.
+She stopped at a door, so overcome that she could not move.
+
+He was there, in that house--Poulet.
+
+She felt her knees and hands trembling; but at last she entered the
+door, and walking along a passage, saw the janitor's quarters. She
+said, as she held out a piece of money: "Would you go up and tell M.
+Paul de Lamare that an old lady, a friend of his mother's, is
+downstairs, and wishes to see him?"
+
+"He does not live here any longer, madame," replied the janitor.
+
+A shudder went over her. She faltered:
+
+"Oh! Where--where is he living now?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+She grew dizzy as though she were about to fall over, and stood there
+for some moments without being able to speak. At length, with a great
+effort, she collected her senses and murmured:
+
+"How long is it since he left?"
+
+"About two weeks ago. They went off like that, one evening, and never
+came back. They were in debt everywhere in the neighborhood, so you
+can understand that they did not care to leave their address."
+
+Jeanne saw lights before her eyes, flashes of flame, as though a gun
+had been fired off in front of her eyes. But she had one fixed idea in
+her mind, and that sustained her, and kept her outwardly calm and
+rational. She wished to find Poulet and know all about him.
+
+"Then he said nothing when he was going away?"
+
+"Nothing at all; they ran off to escape their debts, that's all."
+
+"But he surely sends someone to get his mail."
+
+"More frequently than I send it. He never got more than ten letters a
+year. I took one up to them, however, two days before they left."
+
+That was probably her letter. She said abruptly: "Listen! I am his
+mother, his own mother, and I have come to look for him. Here are ten
+francs for you. If you can get any news or any particulars about him,
+come and see me at the Hotel Normandie, Rue du Havre, and I will pay
+you well."
+
+"You may count on me, madame," he replied.
+
+She left him and began to walk away without caring whither she went.
+She hurried along as though she were on some important business,
+knocking up against people with packages, crossing the streets without
+paying attention to the approaching vehicles, and being sworn at by
+the drivers, stumbling on the curb of the sidewalk, and tearing along
+straight ahead in utter despair.
+
+All at once she found herself in a garden, and was so tired that she
+sat down on a bench to rest. She stayed there some time apparently,
+weeping without being conscious of it, for passersby stopped to look
+at her. Then she felt very cold, and rose to go on her way; but her
+legs would scarcely carry her, she was so weak and distressed.
+
+She wanted to go into a restaurant and get a cup of bouillon, but a
+sort of shame, of fear, of modesty at her grief being observed held
+her back. She would pause at the door, look in, see all the people
+sitting at table eating, and would turn away, saying: "I will go into
+the next one." But she had not the courage.
+
+Finally she went into a bakery and bought a crescent and ate it as she
+walked along. She was very thirsty, but did not know where to go to
+get something to drink, so did without it.
+
+Presently she found herself in another garden surrounded by arcades.
+She recognized the Palais Royal. Being tired and warm, she sat down
+here for an hour or two.
+
+A crowd of people came in, a well-dressed crowd, chatting, smiling,
+bowing to each other, that happy crowd of beautiful women and wealthy
+men who live only for dress and amusement. Jeanne felt bewildered in
+the midst of this brilliant assemblage, and got up to make her escape.
+But suddenly the thought came to her that she might meet Paul in this
+place; and she began to wander about, looking into the faces, going
+and coming incessantly with her quick step from one end of the garden
+to the other.
+
+People turned round to look at her, others laughed as they pointed her
+out. She noticed it and fled, thinking that they were doubtless amused
+at her appearance and at her dress of green plaid, selected by
+Rosalie, and made according to her ideas by the dressmaker at
+Goderville.
+
+She no longer dared even to ask her way of passersby, but at last she
+ventured to do so and found her way back to the hotel.
+
+The following day she went to the police department to ask them to
+look for her child. They could promise her nothing, but said they
+would do all they could. She wandered about the streets hoping that
+she might come across him. And she felt more alone in this bustling
+crowd, more lost, more wretched than in the lonely country.
+
+That evening when she came back to the hotel she was informed that a
+man had come to see her from M. Paul, and that he would come back
+again the following day. Her heart began to beat violently and she
+never closed her eyes that night. If it should be he! Yes, it
+assuredly was, although she would not have recognized him from the
+description they gave her.
+
+About nine o'clock the following morning there was a knock at the
+door. She cried: "Come in!" ready to throw herself into certain
+outstretched arms. But an unknown person appeared; and while he
+excused himself for disturbing her, and explained his business, which
+was to collect a debt of Paul's, she felt the tears beginning to
+overflow, and wiped them away with her finger before they fell on her
+cheeks.
+
+He had learned of her arrival through the janitor of the Rue Sauvage,
+and as he could not find the young man, he had come to see his mother.
+He handed her a paper, which she took without knowing what she was
+doing and read the figures--ninety francs--which she paid without a
+word.
+
+She did not go out that day.
+
+The next day other creditors came. She gave them all that she had left
+except twenty francs and then wrote to Rosalie to explain matters to
+her.
+
+She passed her days wandering about, waiting for Rosalie's answer, not
+knowing what to do, how to kill the melancholy, interminable hours,
+having no one to whom she could say an affectionate word, no one who
+knew her sorrow. She now longed to return home to her little house at
+the side of the lonely high road. A few days before she thought she
+could not live there, she was so overcome with grief, and now she felt
+that she could never live anywhere else but there where her serious
+character had been formed.
+
+One evening the letter at last came, enclosing two hundred francs.
+Rosalie wrote:
+
+"Madame Jeanne: Come back at once, for I shall not send you any more.
+As for M. Paul, it is I who will go and get him when we know where he
+is.
+
+"With respect, your servant,
+
+"Rosalie."
+
+Jeanne set out for Batteville one very cold, snowy morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
+
+Jeanne never went out now, never stirred about. She rose at the same
+hour every day, looked out at the weather and then went downstairs and
+sat before the parlor fire.
+
+She would remain for days motionless, gazing into the fire, thinking
+of nothing in particular. It would grow dark before she stirred,
+except to put a fresh log on the fire. Rosalie would then bring in the
+lamp and exclaim: "Come, Madame Jeanne, you must stir about or you
+will have no appetite again this evening."
+
+She lived over the past, haunted by memories of her early life and her
+wedding journey down yonder in Corsica. Forgotten landscapes in that
+isle now rose before her in the blaze of the fire, and she recalled
+all the little details, all the little incidents, the faces she had
+seen down there. The head of the guide, Jean Ravoli, haunted her, and
+she sometimes seemed to hear his voice.
+
+Then she remembered the sweet years of Paul's childhood, when they
+planted salad together and when she knelt in the thick grass beside
+Aunt Lison, each trying what they could do to please the child, and
+her lips murmured: "Poulet, my little Poulet," as though she were
+talking to him. Stopping at this word, she would try to trace it,
+letter by letter, in space, sometimes for hours at a time, until she
+became confused and mixed up the letters and formed other words, and
+she became so nervous that she was almost crazy.
+
+She had all the peculiarities of those who live a solitary life. The
+least thing out of its usual place irritated her.
+
+Rosalie often obliged her to walk and took her on the high road, but
+at the end of twenty minutes she declared she could not take another
+step and sat down on the side of the road.
+
+She soon became averse to all movement and stayed in bed as late as
+possible. Since her childhood she had retained one custom, that of
+rising the instant she had drunk her café au lait in the morning. But
+now she would lie down again and begin to dream, and as she was daily
+growing more lazy, Rosalie would come and oblige her to get up and
+almost force her to get dressed.
+
+She seemed no longer to have any will power, and each time the maid
+asked her a question or wanted her advice or opinion she would say:
+"Do as you think best, my girl."
+
+She imagined herself pursued by some persistent ill luck and was like
+an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her
+hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer
+before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the
+wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of
+bad luck--I have never had any luck in life."
+
+Then Rosalie would say: "What would you do if you had to work for your
+living, if you were obliged to get up every morning at six o'clock to
+go out to your work? Many people have to do that, nevertheless, and
+when they grow too old they die of want."
+
+Jeanne replied: "Remember that I am all alone; that my son has
+deserted me." And Rosalie would get very angry: "That's another thing!
+Well, how about the sons who are drafted into the army and those who
+go to America?"
+
+America to her was an undefined country, where one went to make a
+fortune and whence one never returned. She continued: "There always
+comes a time when people have to part, for old people and young people
+are not made to live together." And she added fiercely: "Well, what
+would you say if he were dead?"
+
+Jeanne had nothing more to say.
+
+One day in spring she had gone up to the loft to look for something
+and by chance opened a box containing old calendars which had been
+preserved after the manner of some country folks.
+
+She took them up and carried them downstairs. They were of all sizes,
+and she laid them out on the table in the parlor in regular order.
+Suddenly she spied the earliest, the one she had brought with her to
+"The Poplars." She gazed at it for some time, at the days crossed off
+by her the morning she left Rouen, the day after she left the convent,
+and she wept slow, sorrowful tears, the tears of an old woman at sight
+of her wretched life spread out before her on this table.
+
+One morning the maid came into her room earlier than usual, and
+placing the bowl of café au lait on the little stand beside her bed,
+she said: "Come, drink it quickly. Denis is waiting for us at the
+door. We are going to 'The Poplars,' for I have something to attend
+to down there."
+
+Jeanne dressed herself with trembling hands, almost fainting at the
+thought of seeing her dear home once more.
+
+The sky was cloudless and the nag, who was inclined to be frisky,
+would suddenly start off at a gallop every now and then. As they
+entered the commune of Étouvent Jeanne's heart beat so that she could
+hardly breathe.
+
+They unharnessed the horse at the Couillard place, and while Rosalie
+and her son were attending to their own affairs, the farmer and his
+wife offered to let Jeanne go over the chateau, as the proprietor was
+away and they had the keys.
+
+She went off alone, and when she reached the side of the chateau from
+which there was a view of the sea she turned round to look. Nothing
+had changed on the outside. When she turned the heavy lock and went
+inside the first thing she did was to go up to her old room, which she
+did not recognize, as it had been newly papered and furnished. But the
+view from the window was the same, and she stood and gazed out at the
+landscape she had so loved.
+
+She then wandered all over the house, walking quietly all alone in
+this silent abode as though it were a cemetery. All her life was
+buried here. She went down to the drawing-room, which was dark with
+its closed shutters. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light
+she recognized some of the old hangings. Two easy chairs were drawn up
+before the fire, as if some one had just left them, and as Jeanne
+stood there, full of old memories, she suddenly seemed to see her
+father and mother sitting there, warming their feet at the fire.
+
+She started back in terror and knocked up against the edge of the
+door, against which she leaned to support herself, still staring at
+the armchairs.
+
+The vision had vanished.
+
+She remained bewildered for some minutes. Then she slowly recovered
+her composure and started to run away, for fear she might become
+insane. She chanced to look at the door against which she had been
+leaning and saw there "Poulet's ladder."
+
+All the little notches were there showing the age and growth of her
+child. Here was the baron's writing, then hers, a little smaller, and
+then Aunt Lison's rather shaky characters. And she seemed to see her
+boy of long ago with his fair hair standing before her, leaning his
+little forehead against the door while they measured his height.
+
+And she kissed the edge of the door in a frenzy of affection.
+
+But some one was calling her outside. It was Rosalie's voice: "Madame
+Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, they are waiting breakfast for you." She went
+out in a dream and understood nothing of what they were saying to her.
+She ate what they gave her, heard them talking, but about what she
+knew not, let them kiss her on the cheeks and kissed them in return
+and then got into the carriage.
+
+When they lost sight of the château behind the tall trees she felt a
+wrench at her heart, convinced that she had bid a last farewell to her
+old home.
+
+When they reached Batteville and just as she was going into her new
+house, she saw something white under the door. It was a letter that
+the postman had slipped under the door while she was out. She
+recognized Paul's writing and opened it, trembling with anxiety. He
+wrote:
+
+"My Dear Mother: I have not written sooner because I did not wish you
+to make a useless journey to Paris when it was my place to go and see
+you. I am just now in great sorrow and in great straits. My wife is
+dying after giving birth to a little girl three days ago, and I have
+not one sou. I do not know what to do with the child, whom my
+janitor's wife is bringing up on the bottle as well as she can, but I
+fear I shall lose her. Could you not take charge of it? I absolutely
+do not know what to do, and I have no money to put her out to nurse.
+Answer by return mail.
+
+"Your son, who loves you,
+
+"Paul."
+
+Jeanne sank into a chair and had scarcely strength to call Rosalie.
+When the maid came into the room they read the letter over together
+and then remained silent for some time, face to face.
+
+At last Rosalie said: "I am going to fetch the little one, madame. We
+cannot leave it like that."
+
+"Go, my girl," replied Jeanne.
+
+Then they were silent until the maid said: "Put on your hat, madame,
+and we will go to Goderville to see the lawyer. If she is going to
+die, the other one, M. Paul must marry her for the little one's sake
+later on."
+
+Jeanne, without replying, put on her hat. A deep, inexpressible joy
+filled her heart, a treacherous joy that she sought to hide at any
+cost, one of those things of which one is ashamed, although cherishing
+it in one's soul--her son's sweetheart was going to die.
+
+The lawyer gave the servant minute instructions, making her repeat
+them several times. Then, sure that she could make no mistake, she
+said: "Do not be afraid. I will see to it now."
+
+She set out for Paris that very night.
+
+Jeanne passed two days in such a troubled condition that she could not
+think. The third morning she received merely a line from Rosalie
+saying she would be back on the evening train. That was all.
+
+About three o'clock she drove in a neighbor's light wagon to the
+station at Beuzeville to meet Rosalie.
+
+She stood on the platform, looking at the railroad track as it
+disappeared on the horizon. She looked at the clock. Ten minutes
+still--five minutes still--two minutes more. Then the hour of the
+train's arrival, but it was not in sight. Presently, however, she saw
+a cloud of white smoke and gradually it drew up in the station. She
+looked anxiously and at last perceived Rosalie carrying a sort of
+white bundle in her arms.
+
+She wanted to go over toward her, but her knees seemed to grow weak
+and she was afraid of falling.
+
+But the maid had seen her and came forward with her usual calm manner
+and said: "How do you do, madame? Here I am back again, but not
+without some difficulty."
+
+"Well?" faltered Jeanne.
+
+"Well," answered Rosalie, "she died last night. They were married and
+here is the little girl." And she held out the child, who could not be
+seen under her wraps.
+
+Jeanne took it mechanically and they left the station and got into the
+carriage.
+
+"M. Paul will come as soon as the funeral is over--to-morrow about
+this time, I believe," resumed Rosalie.
+
+Jeanne murmured "Paul" and then was silent.
+
+The wagon drove along rapidly, the peasant clacking his tongue to urge
+on the horse. Jeanne looked straight ahead of her into the clear sky
+through which the swallows darted in curves. Suddenly she felt a
+gentle warmth striking through to her skin; it was the warmth of the
+little being who was asleep on her lap.
+
+Then she was overcome with an intense emotion, and uncovering gently
+the face of the sleeping infant, she raised it to her lips and kissed
+it passionately.
+
+But Rosalie, happy though grumpy, stopped her; "Come, come, Madame
+Jeanne, stop that; you will make it cry."
+
+And then she added, probably in answer to her own thoughts: "Life,
+after all, is not as good or as bad as we believe it to be."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+A VAGABOND
+
+He was a journeyman carpenter, a good workman and a steady fellow,
+twenty-seven years old, but, although the eldest son, Jacques Randel
+had been forced to live on his family for two months, owing to the
+general lack of work. He had walked about seeking work for over a
+month and had left his native town, Ville-Avary, in La Manche, because
+he could find nothing to do and would no longer deprive his family of
+the bread they needed themselves, when he was the strongest of them
+all. His two sisters earned but little as charwomen. He went and
+inquired at the town hall, and the mayor's secretary told him that he
+would find work at the Labor Agency, and so he started, well provided
+with papers and certificates, and carrying another pair of shoes, a
+pair of trousers and a shirt in a blue handkerchief at the end of his
+stick.
+
+And he had walked almost without stopping, day and night, along
+interminable roads, in sun and rain, without ever reaching that
+mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed
+idea that he must only work as a carpenter, but at every carpenter's
+shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on
+account of work being so slack, and, finding himself at the end of his
+resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come
+across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman,
+stonecutter; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells,
+mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for
+a few pence, for he only obtained two or three days' work occasionally
+by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the
+avarice of employers and peasants.
+
+And now for a week he had found nothing, and had no money left, and
+nothing to eat but a piece of bread, thanks to the charity of some
+women from whom he had begged at house doors on the road. It was
+getting dark, and Jacques Randel, jaded, his legs failing him, his
+stomach empty, and with despair in his heart, was walking barefoot on
+the grass by the side of the road, for he was taking care of his last
+pair of shoes, as the other pair had already ceased to exist for a
+long time. It was a Saturday, toward the end of autumn. The heavy gray
+clouds were being driven rapidly through the sky by the gusts of wind
+which whistled among the trees, and one felt that it would rain soon.
+The country was deserted at that hour on the eve of Sunday. Here and
+there in the fields there rose up stacks of wheat straw, like huge
+yellow mushrooms, and the fields looked bare, as they had already been
+sown for the next year.
+
+Randel was hungry, with the hunger of some wild animal, such a hunger
+as drives wolves to attack men. Worn out and weakened with fatigue, he
+took longer strides, so as not to take so many steps, and with heavy
+head, the blood throbbing in his temples, with red eyes and dry mouth,
+he grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing to strike the
+first passerby who might be going home to supper.
+
+He looked at the sides of the road, imagining he saw potatoes dug up
+and lying on the ground before his eyes; if he had found any he would
+have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a
+capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would
+first of all have warmed his cold hands. But it was too late in the
+year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up
+in a field as he had done the day before.
+
+For the last two days he had talked to himself as he quickened his
+steps under the influence of his thoughts. He had never thought much
+hitherto, as he had given all his mind, all his simple faculties to
+his mechanical work. But now fatigue and this desperate search for
+work which he could not get, refusals and rebuffs, nights spent in the
+open air lying on the grass, long fasting, the contempt which he knew
+people with a settled abode felt for a vagabond, and that question
+which he was continually asked, "Why do you not remain at home?"
+distress at not being able to use his strong arms which he felt so
+full of vigor, the recollection of the relations he had left at home
+and who also had not a penny, filled him by degrees with rage, which
+had been accumulating every day, every hour, every minute, and which
+now escaped his lips in spite of himself in short, growling sentences.
+
+As he stumbled over the stones which tripped his bare feet, he
+grumbled: "How wretched! how miserable! A set of hogs--to let a man
+die of hunger--a carpenter--a set of hogs--not two sous--not two
+sous--and now it is raining--a set of hogs!"
+
+He was indignant at the injustice of fate, and cast the blame on men,
+on all men, because nature, that great, blind mother, is unjust, cruel
+and perfidious, and he repeated through his clenched teeth: "A set of
+hogs" as he looked at the thin gray smoke which rose from the roofs,
+for it was the dinner hour. And, without considering that there is
+another injustice which is human, and which is called robbery and
+violence, he felt inclined to go into one of those houses to murder
+the inhabitants and to sit down to table in their stead.
+
+He said to himself: "I have no right to live now, as they are letting
+me die of hunger, and yet I only ask for work--a set of hogs!" And the
+pain in his limbs, the gnawing in his heart rose to his head like
+terrible intoxication, and gave rise to this simple thought in his
+brain: "I have the right to live because I breathe and because the air
+is the common property of everybody. So nobody has the right to leave
+me without bread!"
+
+A fine, thick, icy cold rain was coming down, and he stopped and
+murmured: "Oh, misery! Another month of walking before I get home." He
+was indeed returning home then, for he saw that he should more easily
+find work in his native town, where he was known--and he did not mind
+what he did--than on the highroads, where everybody suspected him. As
+the carpentering business was not prosperous, he would turn day
+laborer, be a mason's hodman, a ditcher, break stones on the road. If
+he only earned a franc a day, that would at any rate buy him something
+to eat.
+
+He tied the remains of his last pocket handkerchief round his neck to
+prevent the cold rain from running down his back and chest, but he
+soon found that it was penetrating the thin material of which his
+clothes were made, and he glanced about him with the agonized look of
+a man who does not know where to hide his body and to rest his head,
+and has no place of shelter in the whole world.
+
+Night came on and wrapped the country in obscurity, and in the
+distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark spot on the grass; it was a cow,
+and so he got over the ditch by the roadside and went up to her
+without exactly knowing what he was doing. When he got close to her
+she raised her great head to him, and he thought: "If I only had a jug
+I could get a little milk." He looked at the cow and the cow looked at
+him, and then, suddenly giving her a kick in the side, he said: "Get
+up!"
+
+The animal got up slowly, letting her heavy udders hang down. Then the
+man lay down on his back between the animal's legs and drank for a
+long time, squeezing her warm, swollen teats, which tasted of the
+cowstall, with both hands, and he drank as long as she gave any milk.
+But the icy rain began to fall more heavily, and he saw no place of
+shelter on the whole of that bare plain. He was cold, and he looked at
+a light which was shining among the trees in the window of a house.
+
+The cow had lain down again heavily, and he sat down by her side and
+stroked her head, grateful for the nourishment she had given him. The
+animal's strong, thick breath, which came out of her nostrils like two
+jets of steam in the evening air, blew on the workman's face, and he
+said: "You are not cold inside there!" He put his hands on her chest
+and under her stomach to find some warmth there, and then the idea
+struck him that he might pass the night beside that large, warm
+animal. So he found a comfortable place and laid his head on her side,
+and then, as he was worn out with fatigue, fell asleep immediately.
+
+He woke up, however, several times, with his back or his stomach half
+frozen, according as he put one or the other against the animal's
+flank. Then he turned over to warm and dry that part of his body which
+had remained exposed to the night air, and soon went soundly to sleep
+again.
+
+The crowing of a cock woke him; the day was breaking, it was no longer
+raining, and the sky was bright. The cow was resting with her muzzle
+on the ground, and he stooped down, resting on his hands, to kiss
+those wide, moist nostrils, and said: "Good-by, my beauty, until next
+time. You are a nice animal. Good-by." Then he put on his shoes and
+went off, and for two hours walked straight before him, always
+following the same road, and then he felt so tired that he sat down on
+the grass. It was broad daylight by that time, and the church bells
+were ringing; men in blue blouses, women in white caps, some on foot,
+some in carts, began to pass along the road, going to the neighboring
+villages to spend Sunday with friends or relations.
+
+A stout peasant came in sight, driving before him a score of
+frightened, bleating sheep, with the help of an active dog. Randel got
+up, and raising his cap, said: "You do not happen to have any work for
+a man who is dying of hunger?" But the other, giving an angry look at
+the vagabond, replied: "I have no work for fellows whom I meet on the
+road."
+
+And the carpenter went back and sat down by the side of the ditch
+again. He waited there for a long time, watching the country people
+pass and looking for a kind, compassionate face before he renewed his
+request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was
+adorned with a gold chain. "I have been looking for work," he said,
+"for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in
+my pocket." But the would-be gentleman replied: "You should have read
+the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village: 'Begging
+is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.' Let me tell you
+that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly
+I shall have you arrested."
+
+Randel, who was getting angry, replied: "Have me arrested if you like;
+I should prefer it, for, at any rate, I should not die of hunger." And
+he went back and sat down by the side of his ditch again, and in about
+a quarter of an hour two gendarmes appeared on the road. They were
+walking slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining
+hats, their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to
+frighten evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance. He knew
+that they were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was
+seized with a sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and
+to have his revenge later.
+
+They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with
+military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the
+goose step; and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have
+noticed him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly,
+and the brigadier came up to him and asked: "What are you doing here?"
+"I am resting," the man replied calmly. "Where do you come from?" "If
+I had to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more
+than an hour." "Where are you going to?" "To Ville-Avary." "Where is
+that?" "In La Manche." "Is that where you belong?" "It is." "Why did
+you leave it?" "To look for work."
+
+The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a
+man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick: "They all say
+that, these scamps. I know all about it." And then he continued: "Have
+you any papers?" "Yes, I have some." "Give them to me."
+
+Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those
+poor, worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave
+them to the soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and
+then, having seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to
+Randel with the dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than
+himself has tricked.
+
+After a few moments' further reflection, he asked him: "Have you any
+money on you?" "No." "None whatever?" "None." "Not even a sou?" "Not
+even a sou!" "How do you live then?" "On what people give me." "Then
+you beg?" And Randel answered resolutely: "Yes, when I can."
+
+Then the gendarme said: "I have caught you on the highroad in the act
+of vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I
+command you to come with me." The carpenter got up and said: "Wherever
+you please." And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even
+before he had received the order to do so, he added: "Well, lock me
+up; that will at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains."
+
+And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be
+seen through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service
+was about to begin when they went through the village. The square was
+full of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal
+pass. He was being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and
+female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with
+hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his
+skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked
+each other whether he had committed murder or robbery. The butcher,
+who was an ex-spahi, declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist
+thought that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning
+passed a bad half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared
+that he was the murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been
+looking for for six months.
+
+In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw
+the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the
+schoolmaster by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so
+here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you
+locked up. Well, brigadier, what is he charged with?"
+
+"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without
+any resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of
+begging, but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are
+all in order."
+
+"Show me his papers," the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread,
+returned them and then said: "Search him." So they searched him, but
+found nothing, and the mayor seemed perplexed, and asked the workman:
+
+"What were you doing on the road this morning?" "I was looking for
+work." "Work? On the highroad?" "How do you expect me to find any if I
+hide in the woods?"
+
+They looked at each other with the hatred of two wild beasts which
+belong to different hostile species, and the magistrate continued: "I
+am going to have you set at liberty, but do not be brought up before
+me again." To which the carpenter replied: "I would rather you locked
+me up; I have had enough running about the country." But the
+magistrate replied severely: "Be silent." And then he said to the two
+gendarmes: "You will conduct this man two hundred yards from the
+village and let him continue his journey."
+
+"At any rate, give me something to eat," the workman said, but the
+other grew indignant: "Have we nothing to do but to feed you? Ah! ah!
+ah! that is rather too much!" But Randel went on firmly: "If you let
+me nearly die of hunger again, you will force me to commit a crime,
+and then, so much the worse for you other fat fellows."
+
+The mayor had risen and he repeated: "Take him away immediately or I
+shall end by getting angry."
+
+The two gendarmes thereupon seized the carpenter by the arms and
+dragged him out. He allowed them to do it without resistance, passed
+through the village again and found himself on the highroad once more;
+and when the men had accompanied him two hundred yards beyond the
+village, the brigadier said: "Now off with you and do not let me catch
+you about here again, for if I do, you will know it."
+
+Randel went off without replying or knowing where he was going. He
+walked on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied
+that he no longer thought of anything. But suddenly, as he was passing
+a small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup
+and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring,
+maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of
+the house like a wild beast.
+
+He said aloud in a grumbling voice: "In Heaven's name! they must give
+me some this time!" And he began to knock at the door vigorously with
+his stick, and as no one came he knocked louder and called out: "Hey!
+hey! you people in there, open the door!" And then, as nothing
+stirred, he went up to the window and pushed it wider open with his
+hand, and the close warm air of the kitchen, full of the smell of hot
+soup, meat and cabbage, escaped into the cold outer air, and with a
+bound the carpenter was in the house. Two places were set at the
+table, and no doubt the proprietors of the house, on going to church,
+had left their dinner on the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef
+and vegetable soup, while there was a loaf of new bread on the
+chimney-piece, between two bottles which seemed full.
+
+Randel seized the bread first of all and broke it with as much
+violence as if he were strangling a man, and then he began to eat
+voraciously, swallowing great mouthfuls quickly. But almost
+immediately the smell of the meat attracted him to the fireplace, and,
+having taken off the lid of the saucepan, he plunged a fork into it
+and brought out a large piece of beef tied with a string. Then he took
+more cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, having
+put it on the table, he sat down before it, cut the meat into four
+pieces, and dined as if he had been at home. When he had eaten nearly
+all the meat, besides a quantity of vegetables, he felt thirsty and
+took one of the bottles off the mantelpiece.
+
+Scarcely had he poured the liquor into his glass when he saw it was
+brandy. So much the better; it was warming and would instill some fire
+into his veins, and that would be all right, after being so cold; and
+he drank some. He certainly enjoyed it, for he had grown unaccustomed
+to it, and he poured himself out another glassful, which he drank
+at two gulps. And then almost immediately he felt quite merry and
+light-hearted from the effects of the alcohol, just as if some great
+happiness filled his heart.
+
+He continued to eat, but more slowly, and dipping his bread into the
+soup. His skin had become burning, and especially his forehead, where
+the veins were throbbing. But suddenly the church bells began to ring.
+Mass was over, and instinct rather than fear, the instinct of
+prudence, which guides all beings and makes them clear-sighted in
+danger, made the carpenter get up. He put the remains of the loaf into
+one pocket and the brandy bottle into the other, and he furtively went
+to the window and looked out into the road. It was still deserted, so
+he jumped out and set off walking again, but instead of following the
+highroad he ran across the fields toward a wood he saw a little way
+off.
+
+He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so
+nimble that he sprang over the enclosure of the fields at a single
+bound, and as soon as he was under the trees he took the bottle out of
+his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as
+he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew
+dim, and his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the
+old popular song:
+
+      _"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
+      To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."_
+
+He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet
+under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels
+as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault,
+got up and began over again. And between each time he began to sing
+again:
+
+      _"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
+      To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."_
+
+Suddenly he found himself above a deep road, and in the road he saw a
+tall girl, a servant, who was returning to the village with two pails
+of milk. He watched, stooping down, and with his eyes as bright as
+those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him, raised her head
+and said: "Was that you singing like that?" He did not reply, however,
+but jumped down into the road, although it was a fall of at least six
+feet and when she saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she
+exclaimed: "Oh! dear, how you frightened me!"
+
+But he did not hear her, for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by
+another requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more
+feverish than alcohol; by the irresistible fury of the man who has
+been deprived of everything for two months, and who is drunk; who is
+young, ardent and inflamed by all the appetites which nature has
+implanted in the vigorous flesh of men.
+
+The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his
+half-open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the
+shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.
+
+She let her two pails fall, and they rolled over noisily, and all the
+milk was spilt, and then she screamed lustily, but it was of no avail
+in that lonely spot.
+
+When she got up the thought of her overturned pails suddenly filled
+her with fury, and, taking off one of her wooden sabots, she threw it
+at the man to break his head if he did not pay her for her milk.
+
+But he, mistaking the reason of this sudden violent attack, somewhat
+sobered, and frightened at what he had done, ran off as fast as he
+could, while she threw stones at him, some of which hit him in the
+back.
+
+He ran for a long time, very long, until he felt more tired than he
+had ever been before. His legs were so weak that they could scarcely
+carry him; all his ideas were confused, he lost recollection of
+everything and could no longer think about anything, and so he sat
+down at the foot of a tree, and in five minutes was fast asleep. He
+was soon awakened, however, by a rough shake, and, on opening his
+eyes, he saw two cocked hats of shiny leather bending over him, and
+the two gendarmes of the morning, who were holding him and binding his
+arms.
+
+"I knew I should catch you again," said the brigadier jeeringly. But
+Randel got up without replying. The two men shook him, quite ready to
+ill treat him if he made a movement, for he was their prey now. He had
+become a jailbird, caught by those hunters of criminals who would not
+let him go again.
+
+"Now, start!" the brigadier said, and they set off. It was late
+afternoon, and the autumn twilight was setting in over the land, and
+in half an hour they reached the village, where every door was open,
+for the people had heard what had happened. Peasants and peasant women
+and girls, excited with anger, as if every man had been robbed and
+every woman attacked, wished to see the wretch brought back, so that
+they might overwhelm him with abuse. They hooted him from the first
+house in the village until they reached the Hotel de Ville, where the
+mayor was waiting for him to be himself avenged on this vagabond, and
+as soon as he saw him approaching he cried:
+
+"Ah! my fine fellow! here we are!" And he rubbed his hands, more
+pleased than he usually was, and continued: "I said so. I said so, the
+moment I saw him in the road."
+
+And then with increased satisfaction:
+
+"Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you dirty blackguard! You will get your
+twenty years, my fine fellow!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE FISHING HOLE
+
+"Cuts and wounds which caused death." Such was the charge upon which
+Leopold Renard, upholsterer, was summoned before the Court of Assizes.
+
+Round him were the principal witnesses, Madame Flamèche, widow of the
+victim, and Louis Ladureau, cabinetmaker, and Jean Durdent, plumber.
+
+Near the criminal was his wife, dressed in black, an ugly little
+woman, who looked like a monkey dressed as a lady.
+
+This is how Renard (Leopold) recounted the drama:
+
+"Good heavens, it is a misfortune of which I was the prime victim all
+the time, and with which my will has nothing to do. The facts are
+their own commentary, Monsieur le Président. I am an honest man, a
+hard-working man, an upholsterer, living in the same street for the
+last sixteen years, known, liked, respected and esteemed by all, as my
+neighbors can testify, even the porter's wife, who is not amiable
+every day. I am fond of work, I am fond of saving, I like honest men
+and respectable amusements. That is what has ruined me, so much the
+worse for me; but as my will had nothing to do with it, I continue to
+respect myself.
+
+"Every Sunday for the last five years my wife and I have spent the day
+at Passy. We get fresh air, and, besides, we are fond of fishing. Oh!
+we are as fond of it as we are of little onions. Mélie inspired me
+with that enthusiasm, the jade, and she is more enthusiastic than I
+am, the scold, seeing that all the mischief in this business is her
+fault, as you will see immediately.
+
+"I am strong and mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me.
+But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin.
+Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that
+she has some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones for
+a man in business. But her character! Just ask about it in the
+neighborhood, and even the porter's wife, who has just sent me about
+my business ... she will tell you something about it.
+
+"Every day she used to find fault with my mild temper: 'I would not
+put up with this! I would not put up with that.' If I had listened
+to her, Monsieur le Président, I should have had at least three
+hand-to-hand fights a month...."
+
+Madame Renard interrupted him: "And for good reasons, too; they laugh
+best who laugh last."
+
+He turned toward her frankly: "Well, I can't blame you, since you were
+not the cause of it."
+
+Then, facing the President again, he said:
+
+"I will continue. We used to go to Passy every Saturday evening, so as
+to begin fishing at daybreak the next morning. It is a habit which has
+become second nature with us, as the saying is. Three years ago this
+summer I discovered a place, oh! such a spot. Oh, dear, dear! In the
+shade, eight feet of water at least and perhaps ten, a hole with
+cavities under the bank, a regular nest for fish and a paradise for
+the fisherman. I might look upon that fishing hole as my property,
+Monsieur le Président, as I was its Christopher Columbus. Everybody in
+the neighborhood knew it, without making any opposition. They would
+say: 'That is Renard's place'; and nobody would have gone there, not
+even Monsieur Plumeau, who is well known, be it said without any
+offense, for poaching on other people's preserves.
+
+"Well, I returned to this place of which I felt certain, just as if I
+had owned it. I had scarcely got there on Saturday, when I got into
+_Delila_, with my wife. _Delila_ is my Norwegian boat, which
+I had built by Fournaire, and which is light and safe. Well, as I
+said, we got into the boat and we were going to set bait, and for
+setting bait there is none to be compared with me, and they all know
+it. You want to know with what I bait? I cannot answer that question;
+it has nothing to do with the accident. I cannot answer; that is my
+secret. There are more than three hundred people who have asked me; I
+have been offered glasses of brandy and liqueur, fried fish,
+matelotes, to make me tell. But just go and try whether the chub will
+come. Ah! they have tempted my stomach to get at my secret, my recipe.
+Only my wife knows, and she will not tell it any more than I will. Is
+not that so, Mélie?"
+
+The president of the court interrupted him.
+
+"Just get to the facts as soon as you can," and the accused continued:
+"I am getting to them, I am getting to them. Well, on Saturday, July
+8, we left by the twenty-five past five train and before dinner we
+went to set bait as usual. The weather promised to keep fine and I
+said to Mélie: 'All right for tomorrow.' And she replied: 'It looks
+like it.' We never talk more than that together.
+
+"And then we returned to dinner. I was happy and thirsty, and that was
+the cause of everything. I said to Mélie: 'Look here, Mélie, it is
+fine weather, suppose I drink a bottle of _Casque à mèche_.' That
+is a weak white wine which we have christened so, because if you drink
+too much of it it prevents you from sleeping and takes the place of a
+nightcap. Do you understand me?
+
+"She replied: 'You can do as you please, but you will be ill again and
+will not be able to get up tomorrow.' That was true, sensible and
+prudent, clearsighted, I must confess. Nevertheless I could not
+resist, and I drank my bottle. It all came from that.
+
+"Well, I could not sleep. By Jove! it kept me awake till two o'clock
+in the morning, and then I went to sleep so soundly that I should not
+have heard the angel sounding his trump at the last Judgment.
+
+"In short, my wife woke me at six o'clock and I jumped out of bed,
+hastily put on my trousers and jersey, washed my face and jumped on
+board _Delila_. But it was too late, for when I arrived at my
+hole it was already occupied! Such a thing had never happened to me in
+three years, and it made me feel as if I were being robbed under my
+own eyes. I said to myself: 'Confound it all! confound it!' And then
+my wife began to nag at me. 'Eh! what about your _Casque à
+mèche?_ Get along, you drunkard! Are you satisfied, you great
+fool?' I could say nothing, because it was all true, but I landed all
+the same near the spot and tried to profit by what was left. Perhaps
+after all the fellow might catch nothing and go away.
+
+"He was a little thin man in white linen coat and waistcoat and a
+large straw hat, and his wife, a fat woman, doing embroidery, sat
+behind him.
+
+"When she saw us take up our position close to them she murmured: 'Are
+there no other places on the river?' My wife, who was furious,
+replied: 'People who have any manners make inquiries about the habits
+of the neighborhood before occupying reserved spots.'
+
+"As I did not want a fuss, I said to her: 'Hold your tongue, Mélie.
+Let them alone, let them alone; we shall see.'
+
+"Well, we fastened _Delila_ under the willows and had landed and
+were fishing side by side, Mélie and I, close to the two others. But
+here, monsieur, I must enter into details.
+
+"We had only been there about five minutes when our neighbor's line
+began to jerk twice, thrice, and then he pulled out a chub as thick as
+my thigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, the
+perspiration stood on my forehead and Mélie said to me: 'Well, you
+sot, did you see that?'
+
+"Just then Monsieur Bru, the grocer of Poissy, who is fond of gudgeon
+fishing, passed in a boat and called out to me: 'So somebody has taken
+your usual place, Monsieur Renard?' And I replied--: 'Yes, Monsieur
+Bru, there are some people in this world who do not know the rules of
+common politeness.'
+
+"The little man in linen pretended not to hear, nor his fat lump of a
+wife, either."
+
+Here the president interrupted him a second time: "Take care, you are
+insulting the widow, Madame Flamèche, who is present."
+
+Renard made his excuses: "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; my
+anger carried me away. Well, not a quarter of an hour had passed when
+the little man caught another chub, and another almost immediately,
+and another five minutes later.
+
+"Tears were in my eyes, and I knew that Madame Renard was boiling with
+rage, for she kept on nagging at me: 'Oh, how horrid! Don't you see
+that he is robbing you of your fish? Do you think that you will catch
+anything? Not even a frog, nothing whatever. Why, my hands are
+tingling, just to think of it.'
+
+"But I said to myself: 'Let us wait until twelve o'clock. Then this
+poacher will go to lunch and I shall get my place again. As for me,
+Monsieur le Président, I lunch on that spot every Sunday. We bring our
+provisions in _Delila_. But there! At noon the wretch produced a
+chicken in a newspaper, and while he was eating, he actually caught
+another chub!
+
+"Mélie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for our
+heart was not in it.
+
+"Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion. Every Sunday I read
+the _Gil Blas_ in the shade by the side of the water. It is
+Columbine's day, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in
+the _Gil Blas_. I generally put Madame Renard into a rage by
+pretending to know this Columbine. It is not true, for I do not know
+her and have never seen her, but that does not matter. She writes very
+well, and then she says things that are pretty plain for a woman. She
+suits me and there are not many of her sort.
+
+"Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and
+very angry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who
+are present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on
+the other side of the river. We knew each other by sight The little
+man began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with
+vexation and his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we
+will come here always, Désiré.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my
+back, and Madame Renard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have
+the blood of a chicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her:
+'Look here, I would rather go away or I shall be doing something
+foolish.'
+
+"And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my
+nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender
+your place! Go, then, Bazaine!'
+
+"I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled
+out a bream. Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then
+my wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see
+her tricks. She said: 'That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing
+that we set the bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us
+back the money we have spent on bait.'
+
+"Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean
+to call us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments
+began to fly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They
+shouted so loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank,
+began to call out by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will
+interfere with your husbands' fishing.'
+
+"The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if
+we had been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on
+the water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the
+same. 'You are a thief! You are nothing better than a tramp! You are a
+regular jade!' and so on and so on. A sailor could not have said more.
+
+"Suddenly I heard a noise behind me and turned round. It was the other
+one, the fat woman, who had attacked my wife with her parasol.
+_Whack, whack!_ Mélie got two of them. But she was furious, and
+she hits hard when she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the
+hair and then _thump! thump!_ slaps in the face rained down like
+ripe plums. I should have let them fight it out: women together, men
+together. It does not do to mix the blows. But the little man in the
+linen jacket jumped up like a devil and was going to rush at my wife.
+Ah! no, no, not that, my friend! I caught the gentleman with the end
+of my fist, and _crash! crash!_ One on the nose, the other in the
+stomach. He threw up his arms and legs and fell on his back into the
+river, just into the hole.
+
+"I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le Président,
+if I had had time. But, to make matters worse, the fat woman had the
+upper hand and was pounding Mélie for all she was worth. I know I
+ought not to have interfered while the man was in the water, but I
+never thought that he would drown and said to myself: 'Bah, it will
+cool him.'
+
+"I therefore ran up to the women to separate them and all I received
+was scratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me
+five minutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragos. When I
+turned round there was nothing to be seen. The water was as smooth as
+a lake and the others yonder kept shouting: 'Fish him out! fish him
+out!' It was all very well to say that, but I cannot swim and still
+less dive.
+
+"At last the man from the dam came and two gentlemen with boathooks,
+but over a quarter of an hour had passed. He was found at the bottom
+of the hole, in eight feet of water, as I have said. There he was, the
+poor little man, in his linen suit! Those are the facts such as I have
+sworn to. I am innocent, on my honor."
+
+The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused
+was acquitted.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE SPASM
+
+The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places.
+The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers
+a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second
+time. The old bathers, the habitués, whose season was almost over,
+glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new
+faces might appear.
+
+This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look
+forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new
+arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.
+We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make
+agreeable acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In
+this life of elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme
+importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself,
+and sociability is the order of the day.
+
+We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see
+people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of
+acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly,
+after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in
+the park where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and
+astonishing merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten
+these new friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.
+
+Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere
+else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very
+quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and
+unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the
+dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the
+memory of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of
+those first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and
+secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of
+that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation
+of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in
+return.
+
+And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are
+all alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the
+appearance of strange faces.
+
+Only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man and a
+woman--father and daughter. They immediately reminded me of some
+of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm,
+the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims
+of fate. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with perfectly
+white hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy;
+and there was in his bearing and in his person that austerity
+peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four
+or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was also very thin, very
+pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out with utter lassitude.
+We meet people like this from time to time, who seem too weak for
+the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to
+walk, to do all that we do every day. She was rather pretty, with a
+transparent, spiritual beauty. And she ate with extreme slowness, as if
+she were almost incapable of moving her arms.
+
+It must have been she, assuredly, who had come to take the waters.
+
+They sat facing me, on the opposite side of the table; and I at once
+noticed that the father had a very singular, nervous twitching.
+
+Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of
+zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and
+after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside
+my head in order not to see it.
+
+I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her
+left hand.
+
+After dinner I went for a stroll in the park of the bathing
+establishment. This led toward the little Auvergnese station of
+Châtel-Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, from
+which flowed so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of
+extinct volcanoes. Over yonder, above our heads, the domes of extinct
+craters lifted their ragged peaks above the rest in the long mountain
+chain. For Châtel-Guyon is situated at the entrance to the land of
+mountain domes.
+
+Beyond it stretches out the region of peaks, and, farther on again,
+the region of precipitous summits.
+
+The "Puy de Dôme" is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is
+the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these
+mountain heights.
+
+It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down a shady
+path, listening to the opening strains of the Casino band, which was
+playing on an elevation overlooking the park.
+
+And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my
+direction. I bowed as one bows to one's hotel companions at a watering
+place; and the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me:
+
+"Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short,
+pretty, and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?"
+
+I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the
+little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall,
+craggy, wooded slopes.
+
+They gladly accepted my offer.
+
+And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.
+
+"Oh," he said, "my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is
+unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one
+time the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another
+time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another
+they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean
+malady, that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack,
+is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator
+of the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather
+inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad."
+
+Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his
+hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:
+
+"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves
+somewhat affected?"
+
+He replied calmly:
+
+"Mine? Oh, no--my nerves have always been very steady."
+
+Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on:
+
+"Ah! You were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I
+try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience
+which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually buried
+alive!"
+
+I could only utter, "Ah!" so great were my astonishment and emotion.
+
+He continued:
+
+"Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some
+time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease
+of that organ, and were prepared for the worst.
+
+"One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had
+fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life
+was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid
+her with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the
+cemetery, where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated
+in the very heart of Lorraine.
+
+"I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces,
+rings, all presents which she had received from me, and wearing her
+first ball dress.
+
+"You may easily imagine my state of mind when I re-entered our home.
+She was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many years.
+I found my way to my own apartment in a half-distracted condition,
+utterly exhausted, and sank into my easy-chair, without the capacity
+to think or the strength to move. I was nothing better now than a
+suffering, vibrating machine, a human being who had, as it were, been
+flayed alive; my soul was like an open wound.
+
+"My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her
+coffin, and aided me in preparing her for her last sleep, entered the
+room noiselessly, and asked:
+
+"'Does monsieur want anything?'
+
+"I merely shook my head in reply.
+
+"'Monsieur is wrong,' he urged. 'He will injure his health. Would
+monsieur like me to put him to bed?'
+
+"I answered: 'No, let me alone!'
+
+"And he left the room.
+
+"I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh, what a night, what a
+night! It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the
+wind, the winter wind, an icy wind, a winter hurricane, blew with a
+regular, sinister noise against the windows.
+
+"How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless,
+crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp,
+inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great
+doorbell, the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.
+
+"I started so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous
+sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a vault. I
+turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was just two in
+the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?
+
+"And, abruptly, the bell again rang twice. The servants, without
+doubt, were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle and descended the
+stairs. I was on the point of asking: 'Who is there?'
+
+"Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the heavy
+bolts. My heart was throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the
+door brusquely, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure,
+standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.
+
+"I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering:
+
+"'Who--who--who are you?'
+
+"A voice replied:
+
+"'It is I, father.'
+
+"It was my daughter.
+
+"I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before this
+advancing spectre. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand,
+as if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have
+noticed--that gesture which has remained with me ever since.
+
+"'Do not be afraid, papa,' said the apparition. 'I was not dead.
+Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut one of my fingers; the blood
+began to flow, and that restored me to life.'
+
+"And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.
+
+"I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my
+throat.
+
+"Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still
+so bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome happiness that
+had befallen me, I made her go up to my room and sit down in my
+easy-chair; then I rang excitedly for Prosper to get him to rekindle
+the fire and to bring some wine, and to summon assistance.
+
+"The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp
+of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead.
+
+"It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then
+abandoned my daughter; for he could not efface the traces of the
+theft. He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into
+its place, feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by
+me, as I trusted him absolutely.
+
+"You see, monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was silent.
+
+The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful
+vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by
+the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back
+from the tomb, and this father with his uncanny spasm.
+
+I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I
+only murmured:
+
+"What a horrible thing!"
+
+Then, after a minute's silence, I added:
+
+"Let us go indoors. I think it is growing cool."
+
+And we made our way back to the hotel.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+IN THE WOOD
+
+As the mayor was about to sit down to breakfast, word was brought to
+him that the rural policeman, with two prisoners, was awaiting him at
+the Hotel de Ville. He went there at once and found old Hochedur
+standing guard before a middle-class couple whom he was regarding with
+a severe expression on his face.
+
+The man, a fat old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed
+utterly dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout individual with
+shining cheeks, looked at the official who had arrested them, with
+defiant eyes.
+
+"What is it? What is it, Hochedur?"
+
+The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning
+at his usual time, in order to patrol his beat from the forest of
+Champioux as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed
+anything unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and
+that the wheat was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was
+going over his vines, called out to him: "Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and
+have a look at the outskirts of the wood. In the first thicket you
+will find a pair of pigeons who must be a hundred and thirty years old
+between them!"
+
+He went in the direction indicated, entered the thicket, and there he
+heard words which made him suspect a flagrant breach of morality.
+Advancing, therefore, on his hands and knees as if to surprise a
+poacher, he had arrested the couple whom he found there.
+
+The mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was
+certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and he began to
+question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak
+voice that he could scarcely be heard.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Nicholas Beaurain."
+
+"Your occupation?"
+
+"Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris."
+
+"What were you doing in the wood?"
+
+The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat paunch, and
+his hands hanging at his sides, and the mayor continued:
+
+"Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?"
+
+"No, monsieur."
+
+"So you confess it?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"What have you to say in your defence?"
+
+"Nothing, monsieur."
+
+"Where did you meet the partner in your misdemeanor?"
+
+"She is my wife, monsieur."
+
+"Your wife?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Then--then--you do not live together--in Paris?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but we are living together!"
+
+"But in that case--you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to
+get caught playing lovers in the country at ten o'clock in the
+morning."
+
+The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he muttered: "It
+was she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a
+woman once gets a thing into her head--you know--you cannot get it
+out."
+
+The mayor, who liked a joke, smiled and replied: "In your case, the
+contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had had
+the idea only in her head."
+
+Then Monsieur Beaurain was seized with rage, and turning to his wife,
+he said: "Do you see to what you have brought us with your poetry? And
+now we shall have to go before the courts at our age, for a breach of
+morals! And we shall have to shut up the shop, sell our good will, and
+go to some other neighborhood! That's what it has come to."
+
+Madame Beaurain got up, and without looking at her husband, she
+explained herself without embarrassment, without useless modesty, and
+almost without hesitation.
+
+"Of course, monsieur, I know that we have made ourselves ridiculous.
+Will you allow me to plead my cause like an advocate, or rather like a
+poor woman? And I hope that you will be kind enough to send us home,
+and to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.
+
+"Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance
+one Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop,
+and I was a saleswoman in a ready-made clothing establishment. I
+remember it as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays
+here occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Levèque, with whom I
+lived in the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had none.
+He used to bring us here, and one Saturday he told me laughing that he
+should bring a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what
+he meant, but I replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous,
+monsieur.
+
+"The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in
+those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to
+encourage him, and I did not. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a
+lovely day, the sort of day that touches your heart. When it is fine
+even now, just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and
+when I am in the country I utterly lose my head. The green grass, the
+swallows flying so swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet
+poppies, the daisies, all that makes me crazy. It is like champagne
+when one is not accustomed to it!
+
+"Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to
+penetrate your body through your eyes when you looked, and through
+your mouth when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each
+other every minute, and that gave me a queer feeling! Monsieur
+Beaurain and I walked behind them, without speaking much, for when
+people do not know each other, they do not find anything to talk
+about. He looked timid, and I liked to see his embarrassment. At last
+we got to the little wood; it was as cool as in a bath there, and we
+four sat down. Rose and her lover teased me because I looked rather
+stern, but you will understand that I could not be otherwise. And then
+they began to kiss and hug again, without putting any more restraint
+upon themselves than if we had not been there; and then they whispered
+together, and got up and went off among the trees, without saying a
+word. You may fancy what I looked like, alone with this young fellow
+whom I saw for the first time. I felt so confused at seeing them go
+that it gave me courage, and I began to talk. I asked him what his
+business was, and he said he was a linen draper's assistant, as I told
+you just now. We talked for a few minutes, and that made him bold, and
+he wanted to take liberties with me, but I told him sharply to keep
+his place. Is not that true, Monsieur Beaurain?"
+
+Monsieur Beaurain, who was looking at his feet in confusion, did not
+reply, and she continued: "Then he saw that I was virtuous, and he
+began to make love to me nicely, like an honorable man, and from that
+time he came every Sunday, for he was very much in love with me. I was
+very fond of him also, very fond of him! He was a good-looking fellow,
+formerly, and in short he married me the next September, and we
+started in business in the Rue des Martyrs.
+
+"It was a hard struggle for some years, monsieur. Business did not
+prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and,
+besides, we had got out of the way of them. One has other things in
+one's head, and thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches,
+when one is in business. We were growing old by degrees without
+perceiving it, like quiet people who do not think much about love. One
+does not regret anything as long as one does not notice what one has
+lost.
+
+"And then, monsieur, business became better, and we were tranquil as
+to the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what went on in my
+mind, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little
+boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers
+which are drawn about the streets made me cry; the smell of violets
+sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart
+beat! Then I would get up and go out on the doorstep to look at the
+blue sky between the roofs. When one looks up at the sky from the
+street, it looks like a river which is descending on Paris, winding as
+it flows, and the swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. These
+ideas are very stupid at my age! But how can one help it, monsieur,
+when one has worked all one's life? A moment comes in which one
+perceives that one could have done something else, and that one
+regrets, oh! yes, one feels intense regret! Just think, for twenty
+years I might have gone and had kisses in the woods, like other women.
+I used to think how delightful it would be to lie under the trees and
+be in love with some one! And I thought of it every day and every
+night! I dreamed of the moonlight on the water, until I felt inclined
+to drown myself.
+
+"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first.
+I knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my
+needles and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain
+never said much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also
+understood quite well that I no longer appealed to any one!
+
+"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the
+country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed
+without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about
+nine o'clock.
+
+"I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's
+heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is
+at present, but just as he was formerly! That I will swear to you,
+monsieur. As true as I am standing here I was crazy. I began to kiss
+him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He
+kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning!
+What is the matter with you?' I did not listen to him, I only listened
+to my own heart, and I made him come into the wood with me. That is
+all. I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth."
+
+The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and
+said: "Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our forests, be
+more discreet."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MARTINE
+
+It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home from church
+along the by-road that led to his house when he saw ahead of him
+Martine, who was also going home.
+
+Her father walked beside his daughter with the important gait of a
+rich farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a short coat of gray cloth
+and on his head a round-topped hat with wide brim.
+
+She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week, walked
+along erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoulders and
+prominent hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a hat trimmed with
+flowers, made by a milliner at Yvetot, and displayed the back of her
+full, round, supple neck, reddened by the sun and air, on which
+fluttered little stray locks of hair.
+
+Benoist saw only her back; but he knew well the face he loved,
+without, however, having ever noticed it more closely than he did now.
+
+Suddenly he said: "Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl, all the same,
+that Martine." He watched her as she walked, admiring her hastily,
+feeling a desire taking possession of him. He did not long to see her
+face again, no. He kept gazing at her figure, repeating to himself:
+"Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl."
+
+Martine turned to the right to enter "La Martinière," the farm of her
+father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned
+round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called
+out: "Good-morning, Benoist." He replied: "Good-morning, Martine;
+good-morning, mait' Martin," and went on his way.
+
+When he reached home the soup was on the table. He sat down opposite
+his mother beside the farm hand and the hired man, while the maid
+servant went to draw some cider.
+
+He ate a few spoonfuls, then pushed away his plate. His mother said:
+
+"Don't you feel well?"
+
+"No. I feel as if I had some pap in my stomach and that takes away my
+appetite."
+
+He watched the others eating, as he cut himself a piece of bread from
+time to time and carried it lazily to his mouth, masticating it
+slowly. He thought of Martine. "She is a fine girl, all the same." And
+to think that he had not noticed it before, and that it came to him,
+just like that, all at once, and with such force that he could not
+eat.
+
+He did not touch the stew. His mother said:
+
+"Come, Benoist, try and eat a little; it is loin of mutton, it will do
+you good. When one has no appetite, they should force themselves to
+eat."
+
+He swallowed a few morsels, then, pushing away his plate, said:
+
+"No. I can't go that, positively."
+
+When they rose from table he walked round the farm, telling the farm
+hand he might go home and that he would drive up the animals as he
+passed by them.
+
+The country was deserted, as it was the day of rest. Here and there in
+a field of clover cows were moving along heavily, with full bellies,
+chewing their cud under a blazing sun. Unharnessed plows were standing
+at the end of a furrow; and the upturned earth ready for the seed
+showed broad brown patches of stubble of wheat and oats that had
+lately been harvested.
+
+A rather dry autumn wind blew across the plain, promising a cool
+evening after the sun had set. Benoist sat down on a ditch, placed his
+hat on his knees as if he needed to cool off his head, and said aloud
+in the stillness of the country: "If you want a fine girl, she is a
+fine girl."
+
+He thought of it again at night, in his bed, and in the morning when
+he awoke.
+
+He was not sad, he was not discontented, he could not have told what
+ailed him. It was something that had hold of him, something fastened
+in his mind, an idea that would not leave him and that produced a sort
+of tickling sensation in his heart.
+
+Sometimes a big fly is shut up in a room. You hear it flying about,
+buzzing, and the noise haunts you, irritates you. Suddenly it stops;
+you forget it; but all at once it begins again, obliging you to look
+up. You cannot catch it, nor drive it away, nor kill it, nor make it
+keep still. As soon as it settles for a second, it starts off buzzing
+again.
+
+The recollection of Martine disturbed Benoist's mind like an
+imprisoned fly.
+
+Then he longed to see her again and walked past the Martinière several
+times. He saw her, at last, hanging out some clothes on a line
+stretched between two apple trees.
+
+It was a warm day. She had on only a short skirt and her chemise,
+showing the curves of her figure as she hung up the towels. He
+remained there, concealed by the hedge, for more than an hour, even
+after she had left. He returned home more obsessed with her image than
+ever.
+
+For a month his mind was full of her, he trembled when her name was
+mentioned in his presence. He could not eat, he had night sweats that
+kept him from sleeping.
+
+On Sunday, at mass, he never took his eyes off her. She noticed it and
+smiled at him, flattered at his appreciation.
+
+One evening, he suddenly met her in the road. She stopped short when
+she saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with fear
+and emotion, but determined to speak to her. He began falteringly:
+
+"See here, Martine, this cannot go on like this any longer."
+
+She replied as if she wanted to tease him:
+
+"What cannot go on any longer, Benoist?"
+
+"My thinking of you as many hours as there are in the day," he
+answered.
+
+She put her hands on her hips.
+
+"I do not oblige you to do so."
+
+"Yes, it is you," he stammered; "I cannot sleep, nor rest, nor eat,
+nor anything."
+
+"What do you need to cure you of all that?" she asked.
+
+He stood there in dismay, his arms swinging, his eyes staring, his
+mouth agape.
+
+She hit him a punch in the stomach and ran off.
+
+From that day they met each other along the roadside, in by-roads or
+else at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with
+his horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.
+
+He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his
+heart and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her, eat
+her, make her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence,
+impatience, rage, to think she did not belong to him entirely, as if
+they were one being.
+
+People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were
+engaged. He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she
+had answered "Yes."
+
+They were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about
+it.
+
+But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He
+did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only
+catch a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the
+sermon, the priest actually published the banns of marriage between
+Victoire-Adelaide-Martin and Joséphin-Isidore Vallin.
+
+Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained
+off. He had a buzzing in the ears, and could hear nothing; and
+presently he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.
+
+For a month he stayed in his room. Then he went back to his work.
+
+But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind. He avoided the
+roads that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees
+in the yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and
+evening.
+
+She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.
+Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from
+childhood.
+
+One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she
+was enceinte. Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he
+experienced, on the contrary, a feeling of relief. It was over, now,
+all over. They were more separated by that than by her marriage. He
+really preferred that it should be so.
+
+Months passed, and more months. He caught sight of her, occasionally,
+going to the village with a heavier step than usual. She blushed as
+she saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace. And he turned
+out of his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.
+
+He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to
+face, and be obliged to speak to her. What could he say to her now,
+after all he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed
+her hair beside her cheeks? He often thought of those meetings along
+the roadside. She had acted horridly after all her promises.
+
+By degrees his grief diminished, leaving only sadness behind. And one
+day he took the old road that led past the farm where she now lived.
+He looked at the roof from a distance. It was there, in there, that
+she lived with another! The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks
+crowed on the dunghill. The whole dwelling seemed empty, the farm
+hands had gone to the fields to their spring toil. He stopped near the
+gate and looked into the yard. The dog was asleep outside his kennel,
+three calves were walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the
+pond. A big turkey was strutting before the door, parading before the
+turkey hens like a singer at the opera.
+
+Benoist leaned against the gate post and was suddenly seized with a
+desire to weep. But suddenly, he heard a cry, a loud cry for help
+coming from the house. He was struck with dismay, his hands grasping
+the wooden bars of the gate, and listened attentively. Another cry, a
+prolonged, heartrending cry, reached his ears, his soul, his flesh. It
+was she who was crying like that! He darted inside, crossed the grass
+patch, pushed open the door, and saw her lying on the floor, her body
+drawn up, her face livid, her eyes haggard, in the throes of
+childbirth.
+
+He stood there, trembling and paler than she was, and stammered:
+
+"Here I am, here I am, Martine!"
+
+She replied in gasps:
+
+"Oh, do not leave me, do not leave me, Benoist!"
+
+He looked at her, not knowing what to say, what to do. She began to
+cry out again:
+
+"Oh, oh, it is killing me. Oh, Benoist!"
+
+She writhed frightfully.
+
+Benoist was suddenly seized with a frantic longing to help her, to
+quiet her, to remove her pain. He leaned over, lifted her up and laid
+her on her bed; and while she kept on moaning he began to take off her
+clothes, her jacket, her skirt and her petticoat. She bit her fists to
+keep from crying out. Then he did as he was accustomed to doing for
+cows, ewes, and mares: he assisted in delivering her and found in his
+hands a large infant who was moaning.
+
+He wiped it off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front
+of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that
+was on the table. Then he went back to the mother.
+
+He took her up and placed her on the floor again, then he changed the
+bedclothes and put her back into bed. She faltered:
+
+"Thank you, Benoist, you have a noble heart." And then she wept a
+little as if she felt regretful.
+
+He did not love her any longer, not the least bit. It was all over.
+Why? How? He could not have said. What had happened had cured him
+better than ten years of absence.
+
+She asked, exhausted and trembling:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He replied calmly:
+
+"It is a very fine girl."
+
+Then they were silent again. At the end of a few moments, the mother,
+in a weak voice, said:
+
+"Show her to me, Benoist."
+
+He took up the little one and was showing it to her as if he were
+holding the consecrated wafer, when the door opened, and Isidore
+Vallin appeared.
+
+He did not understand at first, then all at once he guessed.
+
+Benoist, in consternation, stammered out:
+
+"I was passing, I was just passing by when I heard her crying out, and
+I came--there is your child, Vallin!"
+
+Then the husband, his eyes full of tears, stepped forward, took the
+little mite of humanity that he held out to him, kissed it, unable to
+speak from emotion for a few seconds; then placing the child on the
+bed, he held out both hands to Benoist, saying:
+
+"Your hand upon it, Benoist. From now on we understand each other. If
+you are willing, we will be a pair of friends, a pair of friends!"
+
+And Benoist replied:
+
+"Indeed I will, certainly, indeed I will."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ALL OVER
+
+Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting
+glance at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel in his
+dressing-room and smiled.
+
+He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall,
+slight, elegant, with no sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of
+doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he had a walk, a nobility,
+a "chic," in short, that indescribable something which establishes a
+greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He
+murmured:
+
+"Lormerin is still alive!"
+
+And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited
+him.
+
+On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the
+gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside
+three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch he spread
+out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and
+he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening
+the envelopes.
+
+It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague
+anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did
+they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them
+with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting
+them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from
+them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent;
+further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him a little
+uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced those
+curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?
+
+This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple,
+nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it
+uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: "From whom
+can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify
+it."
+
+He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between
+two fingers, striving to read through the envelope, without making up
+his mind to open it.
+
+Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying
+glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He
+suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me,
+very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often.
+But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it
+be from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking for money."
+
+And he tore open the letter. Then he read:
+
+My Dear Friend: You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now
+twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was young; I am old. When
+I bade you farewell, I left Paris in order to follow into the
+provinces my husband, my old husband, whom you used to call "my
+hospital." Do you remember him? He died five years ago, and now I am
+returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a daughter,
+a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen. I informed you
+of her birth, but you certainly did not pay much attention to so
+trifling an event.
+
+You are still the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told. Well if you
+still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come and
+dine with her this evening, with the elderly Baronne de Vance, your
+ever faithful friend, who, with some emotion, although happy, reaches
+out to you a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no longer kiss,
+my poor Jaquelet.
+
+Lise de Vance.
+
+Lormerin's heart began to throb. He remained sunk in his armchair with
+the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by a
+poignant emotion that made the tears mount up to his eyes! If he had
+ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise, Lise de
+Vance, whom he called "Ashflower," on account of the strange color of
+her hair and the pale gray of her eyes. Oh! what a dainty, pretty,
+charming creature she was, this frail baronne, the wife of that gouty,
+pimply baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut
+her up, kept her in seclusion through jealousy, jealousy of the
+handsome Lormerin.
+
+Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he, too, had been truly
+loved. She familiarly gave him the name of Jaquelet, and would
+pronounce that word in a delicious fashion.
+
+A thousand forgotten memories came back to him, far off and sweet and
+melancholy now. One evening she had called on him on her way home from
+a ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in
+evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the
+weather was beautiful. The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm
+air--the odor of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her
+skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's
+rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A
+little surprised, he asked her why.
+
+She replied:
+
+"I don't know. The moon and the water have affected me. Every time I
+see poetic things I have a tightening at the heart, and I have to
+cry."
+
+He smiled, affected himself, considering her feminine emotion
+charming--the unaffected emotion of a poor little woman whom every
+sensation overwhelms. And he embraced her passionately, stammering:
+
+"My little Lise, you are exquisite."
+
+What a charming love affair, short-lived and dainty, it had been and
+over all too quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this old
+brute of a baron, who had carried off his wife, and never let any one
+see her afterward.
+
+Lormerin had forgotten, in fact, at the end of two or three months.
+One woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a
+bachelor! No matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart,
+for he had loved her alone! He assured himself now that this was so.
+
+He rose, and said aloud: "Certainly, I will go and dine with her this
+evening!"
+
+And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself from
+head to foot. He reflected: "She must look very old, older than I
+look." And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her
+still handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling
+her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far
+distant!
+
+He turned his attention to the other letters. They were of no
+importance.
+
+The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of other days. What was
+she like now? How strange it was to meet in this way after twenty-five
+years! But would he recognize her?
+
+He made his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat,
+which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the
+hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for
+he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his
+eagerness to see her.
+
+The first thing he saw on entering a pretty drawing-room newly
+furnished was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from
+the days when he was a beau, hanging on the wall in an antique silk
+frame.
+
+He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly,
+and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended
+both hands toward him.
+
+He seized them, kissed them one after the other several times; then,
+lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.
+
+Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and
+who, while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.
+
+He could not abstain from murmuring:
+
+"Is it you, Lise?"
+
+She replied:
+
+"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would
+you? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my
+life. Look at me now--or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome
+you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I
+would have exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!' Now, sit down and let us, first of
+all, have a chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up
+daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or, rather, how I resembled
+her--no, it is not quite that; she is just like the 'me' of former
+days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared
+that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now
+it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend."
+
+He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to
+say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never
+seen her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk
+about? Of the long ago? What was there in common between him and her?
+He could no longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly
+face. He could no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet,
+so bitter, that had come to his mind that morning when he thought of
+the other, of little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had
+become of her, the former one, the one he had loved? That woman of
+far-off dreams, the blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to
+call him "Jaquelet" so prettily?
+
+They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,
+profoundly ill at ease.
+
+As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and
+slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.
+
+"I am going to call Renée," she said.
+
+There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; then a young
+voice exclaimed:
+
+"Here I am, mamma!"
+
+Lormerin remained bewildered as at the sight of an apparition.
+
+He stammered:
+
+"Good-day, mademoiselle."
+
+Then, turning toward the mother:
+
+"Oh! it is you!"
+
+In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise
+who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won
+twenty-five years before. This one was even younger, fresher, more
+childlike.
+
+He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart
+again, murmuring in her ear:
+
+"Good-morning, Lison!"
+
+A man-servant announced:
+
+"Dinner is ready, madame."
+
+And they proceeded toward the dining-room.
+
+What passed at this dinner? What did they say to him, and what could
+he say in reply? He found himself plunged in one of those strange
+dreams which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a
+fixed idea in his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea:
+
+"Which is the real one?"
+
+The mother smiled, repeating over and over again:
+
+"Do you remember?" And it was in the bright eyes of the young girl
+that he found again his memories of the past. Twenty times he opened
+his mouth to say to her: "Do you remember, Lison?" forgetting this
+white-haired lady who was looking at him tenderly.
+
+And yet, there were moments when he no longer felt sure, when he lost
+his head. He could see that the woman of to-day was not exactly the
+woman of long ago. The other one, the former one, had in her voice, in
+her glances, in her entire being, something which he did not find
+again. And he made prodigious efforts of mind to recall his lady love,
+to seize again what had escaped from her, what this resuscitated one
+did not possess.
+
+The baronne said:
+
+"You have lost your old vivacity, my poor friend."
+
+He murmured:
+
+"There are many other things that I have lost!"
+
+But in his heart, touched with emotion, he felt his old love springing
+to life once more, like an awakened wild beast ready to bite him.
+
+The young girl went on chattering, and every now and then some
+familiar intonation, some expression of her mother's, a certain style
+of speaking and thinking, that resemblance of mind and manner which
+people acquire by living together, shook Lormerin from head to foot.
+All these things penetrated him, making the reopened wound of his
+passion bleed anew.
+
+He got away early, and took a turn along the boulevard. But the image
+of this young girl pursued him, haunted him, quickened his heart,
+inflamed his blood. Apart from the two women, he now saw only one, a
+young one, the old one come back out of the past, and he loved her as
+he had loved her in bygone years. He loved her with greater ardor,
+after an interval of twenty-five years.
+
+He went home to reflect on this strange and terrible thing, and to
+think what he should do.
+
+But, as he was passing, with a wax candle in his hand, before the
+glass, the large glass in which he had contemplated himself and
+admired himself before he started, he saw reflected there an elderly,
+gray-haired man; and suddenly he recollected what he had been in olden
+days, in the days of little Lise. He saw himself charming and
+handsome, as he had been when he was loved! Then, drawing the light
+nearer, he looked at himself more closely, as one inspects a strange
+thing with a magnifying glass, tracing the wrinkles, discovering those
+frightful ravages, which he had not perceived till now.
+
+And he sat down, crushed at the sight of himself, at the sight of his
+lamentable image, murmuring:
+
+"All over, Lormerin!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PARROT
+
+I
+
+Everybody in Fécamp knew Mother Patin's story. She had certainly been
+unfortunate with her husband, for in his lifetime he used to beat her,
+just as wheat is threshed in the barn.
+
+He was master of a fishing bark and had married her, formerly, because
+she was pretty, although poor.
+
+Patin was a good sailor, but brutal. He used to frequent Father
+Auban's inn, where he would usually drink four or five glasses of
+brandy, on lucky days eight or ten glasses and even more, according to
+his mood. The brandy was served to the customers by Father Auban's
+daughter, a pleasing brunette, who attracted people to the house only
+by her pretty face, for nothing had ever been gossiped about her.
+
+Patin, when he entered the inn, would be satisfied to look at her and
+to compliment her politely and respectfully. After he had had his
+first glass of brandy he would already find her much nicer; at the
+second he would wink; at the third he would say: "If you were only
+willing, Mam'zelle Désirée----" without ever finishing his sentence;
+at the fourth he would try to hold her back by her skirt in order to
+kiss her; and when he went as high as ten it was Father Auban who
+brought him the remaining drinks.
+
+The old innkeeper, who knew all the tricks of the trade, made Désirée
+walk about between the tables in order to increase the consumption of
+drinks; and Désirée, who was a worthy daughter of Father Auban,
+flitted around among the benches and joked with them, her lips smiling
+and her eyes sparkling.
+
+Patin got so well accustomed to Désirée's face that he thought of it
+even while at sea, when throwing out his nets, in storms or in calms,
+on moonlit or dark evenings. He thought of her while holding the
+tiller in the stern of his boat, while his four companions were
+slumbering with their heads on their arms. He always saw her, smiling,
+pouring out the yellow brandy with a peculiar shoulder movement and
+then exclaiming as she turned away: "There, now; are you satisfied?"
+
+He saw her so much in his mind's eye that he was overcome by an
+irresistible desire to marry her, and, not being able to hold out any
+longer, he asked for her hand.
+
+He was rich, owned his own vessel, his nets and a little house at the
+foot of the hill on the Retenue, whereas Father Auban had nothing. The
+marriage was therefore eagerly agreed upon and the wedding took place
+as soon as possible, as both parties were desirous for the affair to
+be concluded as early as convenient.
+
+Three days after the wedding Patin could no longer understand how he
+had ever imagined Désirée to be different from other women. What a
+fool he had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who
+had undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she had put in his
+brandy!
+
+He would curse all day long, break his pipe with his teeth and maul
+his crew. After he had sworn by every known term at everything that
+came his way he would rid himself of his remaining anger on the fish
+and lobsters, which he pulled from the nets and threw into the baskets
+amid oaths and foul language. When he returned home he would find his
+wife, Father Auban's daughter, within reach of his mouth and hand, and
+it was not long before he treated her like the lowest creature in the
+world. As she listened calmly, accustomed to paternal violence, he
+grew exasperated at her quiet, and one evening he beat her. Then life
+at his home became unbearable.
+
+For ten years the principal topic of conversation on the Retenue was
+about the beatings that Patin gave his wife and his manner of cursing
+at her for the least thing. He could, indeed, curse with a richness of
+vocabulary in a roundness of tone unequalled by any other man in
+Fécamp. As soon as his ship was sighted at the entrance of the harbor,
+returning from the fishing expedition, every one awaited the first
+volley he would hurl from the bridge as soon as he perceived his
+wife's white cap.
+
+Standing at the stern, he would steer, his eye fixed on the bows and
+on the sail, and, notwithstanding the difficulty of the narrow passage
+and the height of the turbulent waves, he would search among the
+watching women and try to recognize his wife, Father Auban's daughter,
+the wretch!
+
+Then, as soon as he saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and
+waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that
+every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he
+arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the
+fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all
+the loafers of the neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes
+like shots from a cannon, short and terrible, sometimes like peals of
+thunder, which roll and rumble for five minutes, such a hurricane of
+oaths that he seemed to have in his lungs one of the storms of the
+Eternal Father.
+
+When he left his ship and found himself face to face with her,
+surrounded by all the gossips of the neighborhood, he would bring up a
+new cargo of insults and bring her back to their dwelling, she in
+front, he behind, she weeping, he yelling at her.
+
+At last, when alone with her behind closed doors, he would thrash her
+on the slightest pretext. The least thing was sufficient to make him
+raise his hand, and when he had once begun he did not stop, but he
+would throw into her face the true motive for his anger. At each blow
+he would roar: "There, you beggar! There, you wretch! There, you
+pauper! What a bright thing I did when I rinsed my mouth with your
+rascal of a father's apology for brandy!"
+
+The poor woman lived in continual fear, in a ceaseless trembling of
+body and soul, in everlasting expectation of outrageous thrashings.
+
+This lasted ten years. She was so timorous that she would grow pale
+whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the
+blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more
+yellow and drier than a smoked fish.
+
+II
+
+One night, when her husband was at sea, she was suddenly awakened by
+the wild roaring of the wind! She sat up in her bed, trembling, but,
+as she heard nothing more, she lay down again; almost immediately
+there was a roar in the chimney which shook the entire house; it
+seemed to cross the heavens like a pack of furious animals snorting
+and roaring.
+
+Then she arose and rushed to the harbor. Other women were arriving
+from all sides, carrying lanterns. The men also were gathering, and
+all were watching the foaming crests of the breaking waves.
+
+The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors never returned; Patin
+was among them.
+
+In the neighborhood of Dieppe the wreck of his bark, the
+_Jeune-Amélie_, was found. The bodies of his sailors were found
+near Saint-Valéry, but his body was never recovered. As his vessel
+seemed to have been cut in two, his wife expected and feared his return
+for a long time, for if there had been a collision he alone might have
+been picked up and carried afar off.
+
+Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid
+of him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar
+or a peddler would enter suddenly.
+
+One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her
+husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped
+before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose
+furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction.
+He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with
+a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that
+can talk like a lawyer, three francs!"
+
+A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said: "You ought to buy
+that, you who are rich. It would be good company for you. That bird is
+worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always sell it for
+twenty or twenty-five!"
+
+Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a
+little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was
+opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit
+her finger and drew blood.
+
+"Oh, how naughty he is!" she said.
+
+Nevertheless she gave it some hemp-seed and corn and watched it
+pruning its feathers as it glanced warily at its new home and its new
+mistress.
+
+On the following morning, just as day was breaking, the Patin woman
+distinctly heard a loud, deep, roaring voice calling: "Are you going
+to get up, carrion?"
+
+Her fear was so great that she hid her head under the sheets, for when
+Patin was with her as soon as he would open his eyes he would shout
+those well-known words into her ears.
+
+Trembling, rolled into a ball, her back prepared for the thrashing
+which she already expected, her face buried in the pillows, she
+murmured: "Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he
+has come back!"
+
+Minutes passed; no noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling,
+she stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching,
+ready to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window,
+she saw nothing, and she said to herself: "He must be hidden."
+
+She waited a long time and then, gaining courage, she said to herself:
+"I must have dreamed it, seeing there is nobody here."
+
+A little reassured, she closed her eyes, when from quite near a
+furious voice, the thunderous voice of the drowned man, could be heard
+crying: "Say! when in the name of all that's holy are you going to get
+up, you b----?"
+
+She jumped out of bed, moved by obedience, by the passive obedience of
+a woman accustomed to blows and who still remembers and always will
+remember that voice! She said: "Here I am, Patin; what do you want?"
+
+But Patin did not answer. Then, at a complete loss, she looked around
+her, then in the chimney and under the bed and finally sank into a
+chair, wild with anxiety, convinced that Patin's soul alone was there,
+near her, and that he had returned in order to torture her.
+
+Suddenly she remembered the loft, in order to reach which one had to
+take a ladder. Surely he must have hidden there in order to surprise
+her. He must have been held by savages on some distant shore, unable
+to escape until now, and he had returned, worse that ever. There was
+no doubting the quality of that voice. She raised her head and asked:
+"Are you up there, Patin?"
+
+Patin did not answer. Then, with a terrible fear which made her heart
+tremble, she climbed the ladder, opened the skylight, looked, saw
+nothing, entered, looked about and found nothing. Sitting on some
+straw, she began to cry, but while she was weeping, overcome by a
+poignant and supernatural terror, she heard Patin talking in the room
+below. He seemed less angry and he was saying: "Nasty weather! Fierce
+wind! Nasty weather! I haven't eaten, damn it!"
+
+She cried through the ceiling: "Here I am, Patin; I am getting your
+meal ready. Don't get angry."
+
+She ran down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself
+growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and
+get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: "I
+haven't had my breakfast, by G----!"
+
+And the parrot in his cage watched her with his round, knowing, wicked
+eye. She, too, looked at him wildly, murmuring: "Ah! so it's you!"
+
+He shook his head and continued: "Just you wait! I'll teach you how to
+loaf."
+
+What happened within her? She felt, she understood that it was he, the
+dead man, who had come back, who had disguised himself in the feathers
+of this bird in order to continue to torment her; that he would curse,
+as formerly, all day long, and bite her, and swear at her, in order to
+attract the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she rushed for the
+cage and seized the bird, which scratched and tore her flesh with its
+claws and beak. But she held it with all her strength between her
+hands. She threw it on the ground and rolled over it with the frenzy
+of one possessed. She crushed it and finally made of it nothing but a
+little green, flabby lump which no longer moved or spoke. Then she
+wrapped it in a cloth, as in a shroud, and she went out in her
+nightgown, barefoot; she crossed the dock, against which the choppy
+waves of the sea were beating, and she shook the cloth and let drop
+this little dead thing, which looked like so much grass. Then she
+returned, threw herself on her knees before the empty cage, and,
+overcome by what she had done, kneeled and prayed for forgiveness, as
+if she had committed some heinous crime.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PIECE OF STRING
+
+It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the
+peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked
+slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long,
+crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes
+the left shoulder higher, and bends their figures sideways; from
+reaping the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep
+on their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though
+varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered
+design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like
+balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.
+
+Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope.
+And just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the
+back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large
+baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks. These
+women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their
+erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over
+their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth,
+enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.
+
+Now a char-à-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up
+strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the
+cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.
+
+In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled
+multitude of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high,
+long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the headdresses of the women
+came to the surface of that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices
+made a continuous, wild din, while above it occasionally rose a huge
+burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a
+prolonged bellow from a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.
+
+It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration
+giving off that half-human, half-animal odor which is peculiar to
+country folks.
+
+Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goderville and was
+making his way toward the square when he perceived on the ground a
+little piece of string. Maître Hauchecorne, economical as are all true
+Normans, reflected that everything was worth picking up which could be
+of any use, and he stooped down, but painfully, because he suffered
+from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and
+was carefully preparing to roll it up when he saw Maître Malandain,
+the harness maker, on his doorstep staring at him. They had once had a
+quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever
+since. Maître Hauchecorne was overcome with a sort of shame at being
+seen by his enemy picking up a bit of string in the road. He quickly
+hid it beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches
+pocket, then pretended to be still looking for something on the
+ground which he did not discover and finally went off toward the
+market-place, his head bent forward and his body almost doubled in
+two by rheumatic pains.
+
+He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and
+noisily as it chaffered and bargained. The peasants examined the cows,
+went off, came back, always in doubt for fear of being cheated, never
+quite daring to decide, looking the seller square in the eye in the
+effort to discover the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.
+
+The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken
+out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, their legs tied together,
+with terrified eyes and scarlet combs.
+
+They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices in a decided
+manner with an impassive face or perhaps deciding to accept the
+smaller price offered, suddenly calling out to the customer who was
+starting to go away:
+
+"All right, I'll let you have them, Maît' Anthime."
+
+Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus
+struck midday those who lived at a distance poured into the inns.
+
+At Jourdain's the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast
+court was filled with vehicles of every sort--wagons, gigs,
+chars-à-bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name,
+yellow with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to
+heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose, on the ground and
+their rear in the air.
+
+Just opposite to where the diners were at table the huge fireplace,
+with its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those
+who sat at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens,
+with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast
+meat and of gravy flowing ever crisp brown skin arose from the hearth,
+kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.
+
+All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Maît'
+Jourdain's, the innkeeper's, a dealer in horses also and a sharp
+fellow who had made a great deal of money in his day.
+
+The dishes were passed round, were emptied, as were the jugs of yellow
+cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and his sales.
+They exchanged news about the crops. The weather was good for greens,
+but too wet for grain.
+
+Suddenly the drum began to beat in the courtyard before the house.
+Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at
+once and ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and
+napkins in their hand.
+
+When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a
+jerky voice, pausing in the wrong places:
+
+"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all
+persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on
+the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather
+pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are
+requested, to return it to the mayor's office at once or to Maitre
+Fortuné Houlbrèque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs
+reward."
+
+Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull
+beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all
+began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maître
+Houlbrèque had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.
+
+The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal
+of gendarmes appeared on the threshold.
+
+He asked:
+
+"Is Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, here?"
+
+Maître Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:
+
+"Here I am, here I am."
+
+And he followed the corporal.
+
+The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the
+notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.
+
+"Maître Hauchecorne," said he, "this morning on the Beuzeville road,
+you were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Maître Houlbrèque, of
+Manneville."
+
+The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement, frightened already at
+this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.
+
+"I--I picked up that pocketbook?"
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"I swear I don't even know anything about it."
+
+"You were seen."
+
+"I was seen--I? Who saw me?"
+
+"M. Malandain, the harness-maker."
+
+Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger,
+said:
+
+"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string
+here, M'sieu le Maire."
+
+And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the
+little end of string.
+
+But the mayor incredulously shook his head:
+
+"You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain,
+who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for
+a pocketbook."
+
+The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside
+him as if to attest his good faith, repeating:
+
+"For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's
+salvation, I repeat it."
+
+The mayor continued:
+
+"After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for
+some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropped out of
+it."
+
+The good man was choking with indignation and fear.
+
+"How can they tell--how can they tell such lies as that to slander an
+honest man! How can they?"
+
+His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.
+
+He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his
+testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request
+Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.
+
+At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he
+would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.
+
+The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office the old man was
+surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or
+mocking, as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered.
+And he began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe
+him. They laughed.
+
+He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his
+acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his
+protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he
+had nothing in them.
+
+They said to him:
+
+"You old rogue!"
+
+He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being
+believed, and kept on telling his story.
+
+The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his
+neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the
+string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.
+
+That evening he made the round of the village of Breauté for the
+purpose of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.
+
+He brooded over it all night long.
+
+The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand
+of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at Ymauville, returned the
+pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbrèque, of Manneville.
+
+This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not
+knowing how to read, he had carried it home and given it to his
+master.
+
+The news spread to the environs. Maître Hauchecorne was informed. He
+started off at once and began to relate his story with the dénoûment.
+He was triumphant.
+
+"What grieved me," said he, "was not the thing itself, do you
+understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing does you so
+much harm as being in disgrace for lying."
+
+All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the
+people who passed, at the cabaret to the people who drank and next
+Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell
+them about it. He was easy now, and yet something worried him without
+his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they
+listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks
+behind his back.
+
+On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville,
+prompted solely by the need of telling his story.
+
+Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him
+pass. Why?
+
+He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and
+giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face: "Oh,
+you great rogue!" Then he turned his heel upon him.
+
+Maître Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy.
+Why had they called him "great rogue"?
+
+When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to explain
+the whole affair.
+
+A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:
+
+"Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string."
+
+Hauchecorne stammered:
+
+"But since they found it again, the pocketbook!"
+
+But the other continued:
+
+"Hold your tongue, daddy; there's one who finds it and there's another
+who returns it. And no one the wiser."
+
+The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of
+having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a
+confederate.
+
+He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
+
+He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.
+
+He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more
+cast down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of
+having done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a
+good trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his
+innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck
+to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
+
+He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day,
+each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more
+sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of
+solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the
+string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less
+he was believed.
+
+"Those are liars' proofs," they said behind his back.
+
+He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless
+efforts.
+
+He was visibly wasting away.
+
+Jokers would make him tell the story of "the piece of string" to amuse
+them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his
+story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of
+December he took to his bed.
+
+He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony,
+he protested his innocence, repeating:
+
+"A little bit of string--a little bit of string. See, here it is,
+M'sieu le Maire."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other
+Stories, by Guy de Maupassant
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNE VIE ***
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+<HEAD>
+<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<TITLE>Une Vie, A Piece of String And Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant</TITLE>
+</HEAD>
+
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+by Guy de Maupassant
+#22 in our series by Guy de Maupassant
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7114]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 11, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNE VIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div align="center">
+<h1>GUY DE MAUPASSANT</h1>
+
+<h1>
+UNE VIE</h1>
+
+<h2>A Piece of String</h2>
+<h3>And Other Stories</h3>
+
+<P>
+Translated by<BR>
+Albert M. C. McMaster, B.A.<BR>
+A. E. Henderson, B.A.<BR>
+Mme. Quesada and Others</P>
+
+<hr>
+
+<P>VOLUME I.</P>
+
+<hr>
+</div>
+<P>[Illustration: "Jeanne"]</P>
+
+<h2>
+CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#pol">Introduction by Pol. Neveux</a></li>
+<li>Une Vie (The History of a Heart)</li>
+<li><OL type=I>
+  <LI><a href="#I">The Home by the Sea</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#II">Happy Days</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#III">M. de Lamare</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#IV">Marriage and Disillusion</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#V">Corsica and a New Life</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#VI">Disenchantment</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#VII">Jeanne's Discovery</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#VIII">Maternity</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#IX">Death of La Baronne</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#X">Retribution</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#XI">The Development of Paul</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#XII">A New Home</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#XIII">Jeanne in Paris</a></LI>
+  <LI><a href="#XIV">Light at Eventide</a></LI>
+</OL></li>
+<li><a href="#vag">A Vagabond</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#fish">The Fishing Hole</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#spas">The Spasm</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#wood">In The Wood</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#mart">Martine</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#over">All Over</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#parr">The Parrot</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#stri">A Piece Of String</a></li>
+</ul>
+<P>
+[Illustration: Guy de Maupassant]</P>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="pol">GUY DE MAUPASSANT</a></h3>
+
+<h4>A Study by Pol. Neveux</h4>
+
+<P>"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a<BR>
+thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jos&eacute; Maria de Heredia on<BR>
+the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid<BR>
+solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which,<BR>
+for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the<BR>
+fertility of a master hand produced poetry, novels, romances and<BR>
+travels, only to sink prematurely into the abyss of madness and<BR>
+death....</P>
+
+<P>In the month of April, 1880, an article appeared in the "Le Gaulois"<BR>
+announcing the publication of the Soir&eacute;es de M&eacute;dan. It was signed by a<BR>
+name as yet unknown: Guy de Maupassant. After a juvenile diatribe<BR>
+against romanticism and a passionate attack on languorous literature,<BR>
+the writer extolled the study of real life, and announced the<BR>
+publication of the new work. It was picturesque and charming. In the<BR>
+quiet of evening, on an island in the Seine, beneath poplars instead<BR>
+of the Neapolitan cypresses dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the<BR>
+continuous murmur of the valley, and no longer to the sound of the<BR>
+Pyrennean streams that murmured a faint accompaniment to the tales of<BR>
+Marguerite's cavaliers, the master and his disciples took turns in<BR>
+narrating some striking or pathetic episode of the war. And the issue,<BR>
+in collaboration, of these tales in one volume, in which the master<BR>
+jostled elbows with his pupils, took on the appearance of a manifesto,<BR>
+the tone of a challenge, or the utterance of a creed.</P>
+
+<P>In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they<BR>
+had confined themselves, beneath the trees of M&eacute;dan, to deciding on a<BR>
+general title for the work. Zola had contributed the manuscript of the<BR>
+"Attaque du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five<BR>
+young men gave in their contributions. Each one read his story,<BR>
+Maupassant being the last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a<BR>
+spontaneous impulse, with an emotion they never forgot, filled with<BR>
+enthusiasm at this revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous<BR>
+words, acclaimed him as a master.</P>
+
+<P>He undertook to write the article for the Gaulois and, in co&ouml;peration<BR>
+with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are<BR>
+familiar, amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste<BR>
+for mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential<BR>
+point, he said, is to "unmoor" criticism.</P>
+
+<P>It was unmoored. The following day Wolff wrote a polemical<BR>
+dissertation in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume<BR>
+was a brilliant success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty,<BR>
+the honesty of effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the<BR>
+other stories. Relegated to the second rank, they passed without<BR>
+notice. From his first battle, Maupassant was master of the field in<BR>
+literature.</P>
+
+<P>At once the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate<BR>
+regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought<BR>
+information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly<BR>
+straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at<BR>
+the present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient<BR>
+heroes whose origin and death are veiled in mystery.</P>
+
+<P>I will not dwell on Guy de Maupassant's younger days. His relatives,<BR>
+his old friends, he himself, here and there in his works, have<BR>
+furnished us in their letters enough valuable revelations and touching<BR>
+remembrances of the years preceding his literary d&eacute;but. His worthy<BR>
+biographer, H. &Eacute;douard Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the<BR>
+writings, condensing and comparing them, has been able to give us some<BR>
+definite information regarding that early period.</P>
+
+<P>I will simply recall that he was born on the 5th of August, 1850, near<BR>
+Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil which he describes in Une Vie....</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant, like Flaubert, was a Norman, through his mother, and<BR>
+through his place of birth he belonged to that strange and adventurous<BR>
+race, whose heroic and long voyages on tramp trading ships he liked to<BR>
+recall. And just as the author of "&Eacute;ducation sentimentale" seems to<BR>
+have inherited in the paternal line the shrewd realism of Champagne,<BR>
+so de Maupassant appears to have inherited from his Lorraine ancestors<BR>
+their indestructible discipline and cold lucidity.</P>
+
+<P>His childhood was passed at &Eacute;tretat, his beautiful childhood; it was<BR>
+there that his instincts were awakened in the unfoldment of his<BR>
+prehistoric soul. Years went by in an ecstasy of physical happiness.<BR>
+The delight of running at full speed through fields of gorse, the<BR>
+charm of voyages of discovery in hollows and ravines, games beneath<BR>
+the dark hedges, a passion for going to sea with the fishermen and, on<BR>
+nights when there was no moon, for dreaming on their boats of<BR>
+imaginary voyages.</P>
+
+<P>Mme. de Maupassant, who had guided her son's early reading, and had<BR>
+gazed with him at the sublime spectacle of nature, put off as long as<BR>
+possible the hour of separation. One day, however, she had to take the<BR>
+child to the little seminary at Yvetot. Later, he became a student at<BR>
+the college at Rouen, and became a literary correspondent of Louis<BR>
+Bouilhet. It was at the latter's house on those Sundays in winter when<BR>
+the Norman rain drowned the sound of the bells and dashed against the<BR>
+window panes that the school boy learned to write poetry.</P>
+
+<P>Vacation took the rhetorician back to the north of Normandy. Now it<BR>
+was shooting at Saint Julien-l'Hospitalier, across fields, bogs, and<BR>
+through the woods. From that time on he sealed his pact with the<BR>
+earth, and those "deep and delicate roots" which attached him to his<BR>
+native soil began to grow. It was of Normandy, broad, fresh and<BR>
+virile, that he would presently demand his inspiration, fervent and<BR>
+eager as a boy's love; it was in her that he would take refuge when,<BR>
+weary of life, he would implore a truce, or when he simply wished to<BR>
+work and revive his energies in old-time joys. It was at this time<BR>
+that was born in him that voluptuous love of the sea, which in later<BR>
+days could alone withdraw him from the world, calm him, console him.</P>
+
+<P>In 1870 he lived in the country, then he came to Paris to live; for,<BR>
+the family fortunes having dwindled, he had to look for a position.<BR>
+For several years he was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine, where he<BR>
+turned over musty papers, in the uninteresting company of the clerks<BR>
+of the admiralty.</P>
+
+<P>Then he went into the department of Public Instruction, where<BR>
+bureaucratic servility is less intolerable. The daily duties are<BR>
+certainly scarcely more onerous and he had as chiefs, or colleagues,<BR>
+Xavier Charmes and Leon Dierx, Henry Roujon and Ren&eacute; Billotte, but his<BR>
+office looked out on a beautiful melancholy garden with immense plane<BR>
+trees around which black circles of crows gathered in winter.</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant made two divisions of his spare hours, one for boating, and<BR>
+the other for literature. Every evening in spring, every free day, he<BR>
+ran down to the river whose mysterious current veiled in fog or<BR>
+sparkling in the sun called to him and bewitched him. In the islands<BR>
+in the Seine between Chatou and Port-Marly, on the banks of<BR>
+Sartrouville and Triel he was long noted among the population of<BR>
+boatmen, who have now vanished, for his unwearying biceps, his cynical<BR>
+gaiety of goodfellowship, his unfailing practical jokes, his broad<BR>
+witticisms. Sometimes he would row with frantic speed, free and<BR>
+joyous, through the glowing sunlight on the stream; sometimes, he<BR>
+would wander along the coast, questioning the sailors, chatting with<BR>
+the ravageurs, or junk gatherers, or stretched at full length amid the<BR>
+irises and tansy he would lie for hours watching the frail insects<BR>
+that play on the surface of the stream, water spiders, or white<BR>
+butterflies, dragon flies, chasing each other amid the willow leaves,<BR>
+or frogs asleep on the lily-pads.</P>
+
+<P>The rest of his life was taken up by his work. Without ever becoming<BR>
+despondent, silent and persistent, he accumulated manuscripts, poetry,<BR>
+criticisms, plays, romances and novels. Every week he docilely<BR>
+submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his<BR>
+mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to<BR>
+assist the young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make<BR>
+chefs-d'oeuvre immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious<BR>
+research and to use direct observation and who inculcated in him a<BR>
+horror of vulgarity and a contempt for facility.</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant himself tells us of those severe initiations in the Rue<BR>
+Murillo, or in the tent at Croisset; he has recalled the implacable<BR>
+didactics of his old master, his tender brutality, the paternal advice<BR>
+of his generous and candid heart. For seven years Flaubert slashed,<BR>
+pulverized, the awkward attempts of his pupil whose success remained<BR>
+uncertain.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly, in a flight of spontaneous perfection, he wrote Boule de<BR>
+Suif. His master's joy was great and overwhelming. He died two months<BR>
+later.</P>
+
+<P>Until the end Maupassant remained illuminated by the reflection of the<BR>
+good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the<BR>
+dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of<BR>
+Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither<BR>
+work, nor glory, nor slow moving waves, nor balmy nights.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of his short life, while his mind was still clear, he wrote<BR>
+to a friend: "I am always thinking of my poor Flaubert, and I say to<BR>
+myself that I should like to die if I were sure that anyone would<BR>
+think of me in the same manner."</P>
+
+<P>During these long years of his novitiate Maupassant had entered the<BR>
+social literary circles. He would remain silent, preoccupied; and if<BR>
+anyone, astonished at his silence, asked him about his plans he<BR>
+answered simply: "I am learning my trade." However, under the<BR>
+pseudonym of Guy de Valmont, he had sent some articles to the<BR>
+newspapers, and, later, with the approval and by the advice of<BR>
+Flaubert, he published, in the "R&eacute;publique des Lettres," poems signed<BR>
+by his name.</P>
+
+<P>These poems, overflowing with sensuality, where the hymn to the Earth<BR>
+describes the transports of physical possession, where the impatience<BR>
+of love expresses itself in loud melancholy appeals like the calls of<BR>
+animals in the spring nights, are valuable chiefly inasmuch as they<BR>
+reveal the creature of instinct, the fawn escaped from his native<BR>
+forests, that Maupassant was in his early youth. But they add nothing<BR>
+to his glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules<BR>
+Lemaitre said. To mould the expression of his thought according to the<BR>
+strictest laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his<BR>
+aim. Following the example of one of his comrades of M&eacute;dan, being<BR>
+readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of<BR>
+sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the<BR>
+chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines.<BR>
+However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having<BR>
+published. His encounters with prosody had left him with that<BR>
+monotonous weariness that the horseman and the fencer feel after a<BR>
+period in the riding school, or a bout with the foils.</P>
+
+<P>Such, in very broad lines, is the story of Maupassant's literary<BR>
+apprenticeship.</P>
+
+<P>The day following the publication of "Boule de Suif," his reputation<BR>
+began to grow rapidly. The quality of his story was unrivalled, but at<BR>
+the same time it must be acknowledged that there were some who, for<BR>
+the sake of discussion, desired to place a young reputation in<BR>
+opposition to the triumphant brutality of Zola.</P>
+
+<P>From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire<BR>
+press, set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from<BR>
+all influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With<BR>
+a quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which<BR>
+he himself was not aware, but which was so universal, that no<BR>
+contemporary author during his life ever experienced the same. The<BR>
+"meteor" sent out its light and its rays were prolonged without limit,<BR>
+in article after article, volume on volume.</P>
+
+<P>He was now rich and famous.... He is esteemed all the more as they<BR>
+believe him to be rich and happy. But they do not know that this young<BR>
+fellow with the sunburnt face, thick neck and salient muscles whom<BR>
+they invariably compare to a young bull at liberty, and whose love<BR>
+affairs they whisper, is ill, very ill. At the very moment that<BR>
+success came to him, the malady that never afterwards left him came<BR>
+also, and, seated motionless at his side, gazed at him with its<BR>
+threatening countenance. He suffered from terrible headaches, followed<BR>
+by nights of insomnia. He had nervous attacks, which he soothed with<BR>
+narcotics and anesthetics, which he used freely. His sight, which had<BR>
+troubled him at intervals, became affected, and a celebrated oculist<BR>
+spoke of abnormality, asymetry of the pupils. The famous young man<BR>
+trembled in secret and was haunted by all kinds of terrors.</P>
+
+<P>The reader is charmed at the saneness of this revived art and yet,<BR>
+here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of<BR>
+nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the<BR>
+supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most<BR>
+commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as<BR>
+the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being<BR>
+alarmed, he thinks that the author must be gifted with infallible<BR>
+intuition to follow out thus the taints in his characters, even<BR>
+through their most dangerous mazes. The reader does not know that<BR>
+these hallucinations which he describes so minutely were experienced<BR>
+by Maupassant himself; he does not know that the fear is in himself,<BR>
+the anguish of fear "which is not caused by the presence of danger, or<BR>
+of inevitable death, but by certain abnormal conditions, by certain<BR>
+mysterious influences in presence of vague dangers," the "fear of<BR>
+fear, the dread of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible<BR>
+terror."</P>
+
+<P>How can one explain these physical sufferings and this morbid distress<BR>
+that were known for some time to his intimates alone? Alas! the<BR>
+explanation is only too simple. All his life, consciously or<BR>
+unconsciously, Maupassant fought this malady, hidden as yet, which was<BR>
+latent in him.</P>
+
+<P>Those who first saw Maupassant when the Contes de la B&eacute;casse and Bel<BR>
+Ami were published were somewhat astonished at his appearance. He was<BR>
+solidly built, rather short and had a resolute, determined air, rather<BR>
+unpolished and without those distinguishing marks of intellect and<BR>
+social position. But his hands were delicate and supple, and beautiful<BR>
+shadows encircled his eyes.</P>
+
+<P>He received visitors with the graciousness of the courteous head of a<BR>
+department, who resigns himself to listen to demands, allowing them to<BR>
+talk as he smiled faintly, and nonplussing them by his calmness.</P>
+
+<P>How chilling was this first interview to young enthusiasts who had<BR>
+listened to Zola unfolding in lyric formula audacious methods, or to<BR>
+the soothing words of Daudet, who scattered with prodigality striking,<BR>
+thrilling ideas, picturesque outlines and brilliant synopses.<BR>
+Maupassant's remarks, in t&ecirc;tes-&agrave;-t&ecirc;tes, as in general conversation,<BR>
+were usually current commonplaces and on ordinary time-worn topics.<BR>
+Convinced of the superfluousness of words, perhaps he confounded them<BR>
+all in the same category, placing the same estimate on a thought nobly<BR>
+expressed as on a sally of coarse wit. One would have thought so, to<BR>
+see the indifference with which he treated alike the chatter of the<BR>
+most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of<BR>
+the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life<BR>
+work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical<BR>
+anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move<BR>
+him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical<BR>
+joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the<BR>
+pleasure of hoaxing and mystifying people.</P>
+
+<P>He appeared besides to look upon art as a pastime, literature as an<BR>
+occupation useless at best, while he willingly relegated love to the<BR>
+performance of a function, and suspected the motives of the most<BR>
+meritorious actions.</P>
+
+<P>Some say that this was the inborn basis of his personal psychology. I<BR>
+do not believe it. That he may have had a low estimate of humanity,<BR>
+that he may have mistrusted its disinterestedness, contested the<BR>
+quality of its virtue, is possible, even certain. But that he was not<BR>
+personally superior to his heroes I am unwilling to admit. And if I<BR>
+see in his attitude, as in his language, an evidence of his inveterate<BR>
+pessimism, I see in it also a method of protecting his secret thoughts<BR>
+from the curiosity of the vulgar.</P>
+
+<P>Perhaps he overshot the mark. By dint of hearing morality, art and<BR>
+literature depreciated, and seeing him preoccupied with boating, and<BR>
+listening to his own accounts of love affairs which he did not always<BR>
+carry on in the highest class, many ended by seeing in him one of<BR>
+those terrible Normans who, all through his novels and stories,<BR>
+carouse and commit social crimes with such commanding assurance and<BR>
+such calm unmorality.</P>
+
+<P>He was undoubtedly a Norman, and, according to those who knew him<BR>
+best, many of his traits of character show that atavism is not always<BR>
+an idle word....</P>
+
+<P>To identify Maupassant with his characters is a gross error, but is<BR>
+not without precedent. We always like to trace the author in the hero<BR>
+of a romance, and to seek the actor beneath the disguise. No doubt, as<BR>
+Taine has said, "the works of an intelligence have not the<BR>
+intelligence alone for father and mother, but the whole personality of<BR>
+the man helps to produce them...."</P>
+
+<P>That is why Maupassant himself says to us, "No, I have not the soul of<BR>
+a decadent, I cannot look within myself, and the effort I make to<BR>
+understand unknown souls is incessant, involuntary and dominant. It is<BR>
+not an effort; I experience a sort of overpowering sense of insight<BR>
+into all that surrounds me. I am impregnated with it, I yield to it, I<BR>
+submerge myself in these surrounding influences."</P>
+
+<P>That is, properly speaking, the peculiarity of all great novelists.<BR>
+Who experiences this insight, this influence more than Balzac, or<BR>
+Flaubert, in Madame Bovary? And so with Maupassant, who, pen in hand,<BR>
+is the character he describes, with his passions, his hatreds, his<BR>
+vices and his virtues. He so incorporates himself in him that the<BR>
+author disappears, and we ask ourselves in vain what his own opinion<BR>
+is of what he has just told us. He has none possibly, or if he has he<BR>
+does not tell it.</P>
+
+<P>This agrees admirably with the theory of impassivity in literature, so<BR>
+much in vogue when Maupassant became known. But despite that theory he<BR>
+is, if one understands him, quite other than</P>
+
+<P>"A being without pity who contemplated suffering."</P>
+
+<P>He has the deepest sympathy for the weak, for the victims of the<BR>
+deceptions of society, for the sufferings of the obscure. If the<BR>
+successful adventurer, Lesable, and the handsome Maze are the objects<BR>
+of his veiled irony, he maintains, or feels a sorrowful, though<BR>
+somewhat disdainful tenderness, for poor old Savon, the old copying<BR>
+clerk of the Ministry of Marine, who is the drudge of the office and<BR>
+whose colleagues laugh at him because his wife deceived him, <i>sans<BR>
+espoir d'"heritage."</i></P>
+
+<P>Why did Maupassant at the start win universal favor? It is because he<BR>
+had direct genius, the clear vision of a "primitive" (an artist of the<BR>
+pre-Renaissance). His materials were just those of a graduate who,<BR>
+having left college, has satisfied his curiosity. Grasping the simple<BR>
+and ingenious, but strong and appropriate tools that he himself has<BR>
+forged, he starts out in the forest of romance, and instead of being<BR>
+overcome by the enchantment of its mystery, he walks through it<BR>
+unfalteringly with a joyful step....</P>
+
+<P>He was a minstrel. Offspring of a race, and not the inheritor of a<BR>
+formula, he narrated to his contemporaries, bewildered by the lyrical<BR>
+deformities of romanticism, stories of human beings, simple and<BR>
+logical, like those which formerly delighted our parents.</P>
+
+<P>The French reader who wished to be amused was at once at home, on the<BR>
+same footing with him.... More spontaneous than the first troubadours,<BR>
+he banished from his writings abstract and general types,<BR>
+"romanticized" life itself, and not myths, those eternal legends that<BR>
+stray through the highways of the world.</P>
+
+<P>Study closely these minstrels in recent works; read M. Joseph B&eacute;dier's<BR>
+beautiful work, Les Fabliaux, and you will see how, in Maupassant's<BR>
+prose, ancestors, whom he doubtless never knew, are brought to life.</P>
+
+<P>The Minstrel feels neither anger nor sympathy; he neither censures,<BR>
+nor moralizes; for the self-satisfied Middle Ages cannot conceive the<BR>
+possibility of a different world. Brief, quick, he despises aims and<BR>
+methods, his only object is to entertain his auditors. Amusing and<BR>
+witty, he cares only for laughter and ridicule....</P>
+
+<P>But Maupassant's stories are singularly different in character. In the<BR>
+nineteenth century the Gallic intellect had long since foundered amid<BR>
+vileness and debauchery. In the provinces the ancient humor had<BR>
+disappeared; one chattered still about nothing, but without point,<BR>
+without wit; "trifling" was over, as they call it in Champagne. The<BR>
+nauseating pabulum of the newspapers and low political intrigue had<BR>
+withered the French intellect, that delicate, rare intellect, the last<BR>
+traces of which fade away in the Alsatian stories of Erckman-Chatrian,<BR>
+in the Proven&ccedil;al tales of Alphonse Daudet, in the novels of Emile<BR>
+Pouvillon. Maupassant is not one of them. He knows nothing about<BR>
+humor, for he never found it in Life....</P>
+
+<P>His ambition was not to make one laugh; he writes for the pleasure of<BR>
+recalling, without bias, what, to him, seems a halfway and dangerous<BR>
+truth.... In his pessimism, Maupassant despises the race, society,<BR>
+civilization and the world....</P>
+
+<P>If Maupassant draws from anyone it is Schopenhauer and Herbert<BR>
+Spencer, of whom he often speaks, although one does not know if he<BR>
+studied them very deeply. In all his books, excepting, of course, in<BR>
+the case of lines from the great tragic poets, one finds only one<BR>
+credited reference, which in to Sir John Lubbock's work on ants, an<BR>
+extract from which is introduced into Yvette.</P>
+
+<P>No one was less bookish than himself. He was a designer, and one of<BR>
+the greatest in literature. His heroes, little folk, artisans or<BR>
+rustics, bureaucrats or shopkeepers, prostitutes or rakes, he places<BR>
+them in faintly colored, but well-defined surroundings. And,<BR>
+immediately, the simplified landscape gives the keynote of the story.</P>
+
+<P>In his descriptions he resists the temptation of asserting his<BR>
+personal view. He will not allow himself to see more of his landscape<BR>
+than his characters themselves see. He is also careful to avoid all<BR>
+refined terms and expressions, to introduce no element superior to the<BR>
+characters of his heroes.</P>
+
+<P>He never makes inanimate nature intervene directly in human<BR>
+tribulations; she laughs at our joys and our sorrows.... Once, only,<BR>
+in one of his works, the trees join in the universal mourning--the<BR>
+great, sad beeches weep in autumn for the soul, the little soul, of la<BR>
+petite Roque.</P>
+
+<P>And yet Maupassant adores this nature, the one thing that moves<BR>
+him.... But, in spite of this, he can control himself; the artist is<BR>
+aware of the danger to his narration should he indulge in the<BR>
+transports of a lover.</P>
+
+<P>With an inborn perception, Maupassant at once seizes on the principal<BR>
+detail, the essential peculiarity that distinguishes a character and<BR>
+builds round it. He also, in the presentation of his character,<BR>
+assumes an authority that no writer, not even Balzac, ever<BR>
+equalled....</P>
+
+<P>He traces what he sees with rapid strokes. His work is a vast<BR>
+collection of powerful sketches, synthetic draftings. Like all great<BR>
+artists, he was a simplifier; he knew how to "sacrifice" like the<BR>
+Egyptians and Greeks....</P>
+
+<P>Thanks to his rapid methods the master "cinematographed," if I may use<BR>
+the word, inexhaustible stories. Among them, each person may find<BR>
+himself represented, the artist, the clerk, the thinker, and the<BR>
+non-commissioned officer.</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant was always impatient to "realize" his observations. He<BR>
+might forget, and above all, the flower of the sensation might lose<BR>
+its perfume. In Une Vie he hastens to sum up his childhood's<BR>
+recollections. As for Bel Ami, he wrote it from day to day as he<BR>
+haunted the offices of Editors.</P>
+
+<P>As for his style, it is limpid, accurate, easy and strongly marked,<BR>
+with a sound framework and having the suppleness of a living organism.</P>
+
+<P>Very industrious and very careful at first, Maupassant, in the fever<BR>
+of production, became less careful. He early accustomed himself to<BR>
+composing in his mind. "Composition amuses me," he said, "when I am<BR>
+thinking it out, and not when I am writing it." ... Once he had<BR>
+thought out his novels or romances, he transcribed them hurriedly,<BR>
+almost mechanically. In his manuscripts, long pages follow each other<BR>
+without an erasure.</P>
+
+<P>His language appears natural, easy, and at first sight seems<BR>
+spontaneous. But at the price of what effort was it not acquired! ...</P>
+
+<P>In reality, in the writer, his sense of sight and smell were<BR>
+perfected, to the detriment of the sense of hearing which is not very<BR>
+musical. Repetitions, assonances, do not always shock Maupassant, who<BR>
+is sometimes insensible to quantity as he is to harmony. He does not<BR>
+"orchestrate," he has not inherited the "organ pipes" of Flaubert.</P>
+
+<P>In his vocabulary there is no research; he never even requires a rare<BR>
+word....</P>
+
+<P>Those whom Flaubert's great organ tones delighted, those whom<BR>
+Theophile Gautier's frescoes enchanted, were not satisfied, and<BR>
+accused Maupassant, somewhat harshly, of not being a "writer" in the<BR>
+highest sense of the term. The reproach is unmerited, for there is but<BR>
+one style.</P>
+
+<P>But, on the other hand, it is difficult to admit, with an eminent<BR>
+academician that Maupassant must be a great writer, a classical<BR>
+writer, in fact, simply because he "had no style," a condition of<BR>
+perfection "in that form of literary art in which the personality of<BR>
+the author should not appear, in the romance, the story, and the<BR>
+drama."</P>
+
+<P>A classic, Maupassant undoubtedly is, as the critic to whom I alluded<BR>
+has said, "through the simple aptness of his terms and his contempt<BR>
+for frivolous ornamentation."</P>
+
+<P>He remains a great writer because, like Molière, La Bruyère, and La<BR>
+Fontaine, he is always close to nature, disdaining all studied<BR>
+rhetorical effect and all literary verbosity.</P>
+
+<P>For applause and fame Maupassant cared nothing, and his proud contempt<BR>
+for Orders and Academies is well known.</P>
+
+<P>In a letter to Marie Bashkirtseff he writes as follows:</P>
+
+<P>"Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, women, events. This is<BR>
+my true confession of faith, and I may add what you may not believe,<BR>
+which is that I do not care any more for myself than I do for the<BR>
+rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent<BR>
+to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I<BR>
+pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I<BR>
+can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade."</P>
+
+<P>And in a later letter:</P>
+
+<P>"I have no taste that I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire<BR>
+that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or<BR>
+laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give<BR>
+myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me<BR>
+to spend it."</P>
+
+<P>And again:</P>
+
+<P>"As for me, I am incapable of really loving my art. I am too critical,<BR>
+I analyze it too much. I feel strongly how relative is the value of<BR>
+ideas, words, and even of the loftiest intelligences. I cannot help<BR>
+despising thought, it is so weak; and form, it is so imperfect. I<BR>
+really have, in an acute, incurable form, the sense of human<BR>
+impotence, and of effort which results in wretched approximations."</P>
+
+<P>For nature, Maupassant had an ardent passion.... His whole being<BR>
+quivered when she bathed his forehead with her light ocean breeze.<BR>
+She, alone, knew how to rock and soothe him with her waves.</P>
+
+<P>Never satisfied, he wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled<BR>
+incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters<BR>
+of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted,<BR>
+bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves<BR>
+rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its<BR>
+scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and,<BR>
+finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, but<BR>
+simply to enjoy the delight of grand, pure outlines. Africa, the<BR>
+country of Salammb&ocirc;, the desert, finally call him, and he breathes<BR>
+those distant odors borne on the slow winds; the sunlight inundates<BR>
+his body, "laves the dark corners of his soul." And he retains a<BR>
+troubled memory of the evenings in those warm climes, where the<BR>
+fragrance of plants and trees seems to take the place of air.</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant's philosophy is as little complicated as his vision of<BR>
+humanity. His pessimism exceeds in its simplicity and depth that of<BR>
+all other realistic writers.</P>
+
+<P>Still there are contradictions and not unimportant ones in him. The<BR>
+most striking is certainly his fear of Death. He sees it everywhere,<BR>
+it haunts him. He sees it on the horizon of landscapes, and it crosses<BR>
+his path on lonely roads. When it is not hovering over his head, it is<BR>
+circling round him as around Gustave Moreau's pale youth.... Can he,<BR>
+the determined materialist, really fear the stupor of eternal sleep,<BR>
+or the dispersion of the transient individuality? ...</P>
+
+<P>Another contradiction. He who says that contact with the crowd<BR>
+"tortures his nerves," and who professes such contempt for mankind,<BR>
+yet considers solitude as one of the bitterest torments of existence.<BR>
+And he bewails the fact that he cannot live just for himself, "keep<BR>
+within himself that secret place of the ego, where none can enter."</P>
+
+<P>"Alas!" said his master, "we are all in a desert." Nobody understands<BR>
+anyone else and "whatever we attempt, whatever be the impulse of our<BR>
+heart and the appeal of our lips, we shall always be alone!"</P>
+
+<P>In this gehenna of death, in these nostalgias of the past, in these<BR>
+trances of eternal isolation, may we not find some relinquishing of<BR>
+his philosophy? Certainly not, for these contradictions accentuate all<BR>
+the more the pain of existence and become a new source of suffering.</P>
+
+<P>In any case, Maupassant's pessimism becomes logical in terminating in<BR>
+pity, like that of Schopenhauer. I know that I am running foul of<BR>
+certain admirers of the author who do not see any pity in his work,<BR>
+and it is understood that he is pitiless. But examine his stories more<BR>
+closely and you will find it revealed in every page, provided you go<BR>
+to the very bottom of the subject. That is where it exists naturally,<BR>
+almost against the desire of the writer, who does not arouse pity, nor<BR>
+teach it.</P>
+
+<P>And, again, if it remains concealed from so many readers, it is<BR>
+because it has nothing to do with the humanitarian pity retailed by<BR>
+rhetoricians. It is philosophical and haughty, detached from any<BR>
+"anthropocentric" characteristics. It is universal suffering that it<BR>
+covers. And to tell the truth, it is man, the hypocritical and cunning<BR>
+biped who has the least share in it. Maupassant is helpful to all<BR>
+those of his fellows who are tortured by physical suffering, social<BR>
+cruelty and the criminal dangers of life, but he pities them without<BR>
+caring for them, and his kindness makes distinctions.</P>
+
+<P>On the other hand, the pessimist has all the tenderness of a Buddhist<BR>
+for animals, whom the gospels despise. When he pities the animals, who<BR>
+are worth more than ourselves, their executioners, when he pities the<BR>
+elementary existences, the plants and trees, those exquisite<BR>
+creations, he unbends and pours out his heart. The humbler the victim,<BR>
+the more generously does he espouse its suffering. His compassion is<BR>
+unbounded for all that lives in misery, that is buffeted about without<BR>
+understanding why, that "suffers and dies without a word." And if he<BR>
+mourned Miss Harriet, in this unaccustomed outburst of enthusiasm, it<BR>
+is because, like himself, the poor outcast cherished a similar love<BR>
+for "all things, all living beings."</P>
+
+<P>Such appears to me to be Maupassant, the novelist, a story-teller, a<BR>
+writer, and a philosopher by turns. I will add one more trait; he was<BR>
+devoid of all spirit of criticism. When he essays to demolish a<BR>
+theory, one is amazed to find in this great, clear writer such lack of<BR>
+precision of thought, and such weak argument. He wrote the least<BR>
+eloquent and the most diffuse study of Flaubert, of "that old, dead<BR>
+master who had won his heart in a manner he could not explain." And,<BR>
+later, he shows the same weakness in setting forth, as in proving his<BR>
+theory, in his essay on the "Evolution of the Novel," in the<BR>
+introduction to Pierre et Jean.</P>
+
+<P>On the other hand, he possesses, above many others, a power of<BR>
+creating, hidden and inborn, which he exercises almost unconsciously.<BR>
+Living, spontaneous and yet impassive he is the glorious agent of a<BR>
+mysterious function, through which he dominated literature and will<BR>
+continue to dominate it until the day when he desires to become<BR>
+literary.</P>
+
+<P>He is as big as a tree. The author of "Contemporains" has written that<BR>
+Maupassant produced novels as an apple-tree yields apples. Never was a<BR>
+criticism more irrefutable.</P>
+
+<P>On various occasions he was pleased with himself at the fertility that<BR>
+had developed in him amid those rich soils where a frenzy mounts to<BR>
+your brain through the senses of smell and sight. He even feels the<BR>
+influence of the seasons, and writes from Provence: "The sap is rising<BR>
+in me, it is true. The spring that I find just awakening here stirs<BR>
+all my plant nature, and causes me to produce those literary fruits<BR>
+that ripen in me, I know not how."</P>
+
+<P>The "meteor" is at its apogee. All admire and glorify him. It is the<BR>
+period when Alexandre Dumas, fils, wrote to him thrice: "You are the<BR>
+only author whose books I await with impatience."</P>
+
+<P>The day came, however, when this dominant impassivity became stirred,<BR>
+when the marble became flesh by contact with life and suffering. And<BR>
+the work of the romancer, begun by the novelist, became warm with a<BR>
+tenderness that is found for the first time in Mont Oriol....</P>
+
+<P>But this sentimental outburst that astonished his admirers quickly<BR>
+dies down, for the following year, there appeared the sober Pierre et<BR>
+Jean, that admirable masterpiece of typical reality constructed with<BR>
+"human leaven," without any admixture of literary seasoning, or<BR>
+romantic combinations. The reader finds once more in his splendid<BR>
+integrity the master of yore.</P>
+
+<P>But his heart has been touched, nevertheless. In the books that<BR>
+follow, his impassivity gives way like an edifice that has been slowly<BR>
+undermined. With an ever-growing emotion he relates under slight<BR>
+disguises all his physical distress, all the terrors of his mind and<BR>
+heart.</P>
+
+<P>What is the secret of this evolution? The perusal of his works gives<BR>
+us a sufficient insight into it.</P>
+
+<P>The Minstrel has been received in country houses; has been admitted to<BR>
+"the ladies' apartments." He has given up composing those hurried<BR>
+tales which made his fame, in order to construct beautiful romances of<BR>
+love and death.... The story teller has forsaken rustics and peasants,<BR>
+the comrades of the "Repues franches," for the nobility and the<BR>
+wealthy. He who formerly frequented Mme. Tellier's establishment now<BR>
+praises Mich&egrave;le de Burne.</P>
+
+<P>Ysolde replaces Macette. In "l'Ostel de Courtoisie," Maupassant<BR>
+cultivates the usual abstractions of the modern Round Table:<BR>
+Distinction and Moderation; Fervor and Delicacy. We see him inditing<BR>
+love sonnets and becoming a knight of chivalry. The apologist of<BR>
+brutal pleasures has become a devotee of the "culte de la Dame."</P>
+
+<P>Everywhere he was sought after, f&ecirc;ted, petted.... But Maupassant never<BR>
+let himself be carried away by the tinsel of his prestige, nor the<BR>
+puerility of his enchantment. He despised at heart the puppets that<BR>
+moved about him as he had formerly despised his short stories and his<BR>
+petit bourgeois. "Ah," he cries, "I see them, their heads, their<BR>
+types, their hearts and their souls! What a clinic for a maker of<BR>
+books! The disgust with which this humanity inspires me makes me<BR>
+regret still more that I could not become what I should most have<BR>
+preferred--an Aristophanes, or a Rabelais." And he adds: "The world<BR>
+makes failures of all scientists, all artists, all intelligences that<BR>
+it monopolizes. It aborts all sincere sentiment by its manner of<BR>
+scattering our taste, our curiosity, our desire, the little spark of<BR>
+genius that burns in us."</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant had to bend to the conditions of his new life. Being well<BR>
+bred, he respected, outwardly at least, the laws of artificiality and<BR>
+conventionality, and bowed before the idols of the cave he had<BR>
+entered....</P>
+
+<P>If Maupassant never became the slave of worldly ideas, the creature of<BR>
+instinct that was part of his being acquired the refined tastes of the<BR>
+salons, and the manners of the highest civilization.</P>
+
+<P>The novelist lived for some time in these enchanted and artificial<BR>
+surroundings, when, suddenly, his malady became aggravated. He was<BR>
+tortured by neuralgia, and by new mysterious darting pains. His<BR>
+suffering was so great that he longed to scream. At the same time, his<BR>
+unhappy heart became softened and he became singularly emotional. His<BR>
+early faculties were intensified and refined, and in the overtension<BR>
+of his nerves through suffering his perceptions broadened, and he<BR>
+gained new ideas of things. This nobler personality Maupassant owes to<BR>
+those sufferings dear to great souls of whom Daudet speaks. This is<BR>
+what he says:</P>
+
+<P>"If I could ever tell all, I should utter all the unexplored,<BR>
+repressed and sad thoughts that I feel in the depths of my being. I<BR>
+feel them swelling and poisoning me as bile does some people. But if I<BR>
+could one day give them utterance they would perhaps evaporate, and I<BR>
+might no longer have anything but a light, joyful heart. Who can say?<BR>
+Thinking becomes an abominable torture when the brain is an open<BR>
+wound. I have so many wounds in my head that my ideas cannot stir<BR>
+without making me long to cry out. Why is it? Why is it? Dumas would<BR>
+say that my stomach is out of order. I believe, rather, that I have a<BR>
+poor, proud, shameful heart, that old human heart that people laugh<BR>
+at, but which is touched, and causes me suffering, and in my head as<BR>
+well; I have the mind of the Latin race, which is very worn out. And,<BR>
+again, there are days when I do not think thus, but when I suffer just<BR>
+the same; for I belong to the family of the thin-skinned. But then I<BR>
+do not tell it, I do not show it; I conceal it very well, I think.<BR>
+Without any doubt, I am thought to be one of the most indifferent men<BR>
+in the world. I am sceptical, which is not the same thing, sceptical<BR>
+because I am clear-sighted. And my eyes say to my heart, Hide<BR>
+yourself, old fellow, you are grotesque, and it hides itself."</P>
+
+<P>This describes, in spite of reservation, the struggle between two<BR>
+conflicting minds, that of yesterday, and that of to-day. But this<BR>
+sensitiveness that Maupassant seeks to hide, is plain to all<BR>
+clear-seeing people.</P>
+
+<P>He soon begins to be filled with regrets and forebodings. He has a<BR>
+desire to look into the unknown, and to search for the inexplicable.<BR>
+He feels in himself that something is undergoing destruction; he is at<BR>
+times haunted by the idea of a double. He divines that his malady is<BR>
+on guard, ready to pounce on him. He seeks to escape it, but on the<BR>
+mountains, as beside the sea, nature, formerly his refuge, now<BR>
+terrifies him.</P>
+
+<P>Then his heart expands. All the sentiments that he once reviled, he<BR>
+now desires to experience. He now exalts in his books the passion of<BR>
+love, the passion of sacrifice, the passion of suffering; he extols<BR>
+self-sacrifice, devotion, the irresistible joy of ever giving oneself<BR>
+up more and more. The hour is late, the night is at hand; weary of<BR>
+suffering any longer, he hurriedly begs for tenderness and<BR>
+remembrance.</P>
+
+<P>Occasionally, the Maupassant of former days protests against the<BR>
+bondage of his new personality; he complains that he no longer feels<BR>
+absolutely as formerly that he has no contact with anything in the<BR>
+world, that sweet, strong sensation that gives one strength. "How<BR>
+sensible I was," he says, "to wall myself round with indifference! If<BR>
+one did not feel, but only understand, without giving fragments of<BR>
+oneself to other beings! ... It is strange to suffer from the<BR>
+emptiness, the nothingness, of this life, when one is resigned, as I<BR>
+am, to nothingness. But, there, I cannot live without recollections,<BR>
+and recollections sadden me. I can have no hope, I know, but I feel<BR>
+obscurely and unceasingly the harm of this statement, and the regret<BR>
+that it should be so. And the attachments that I have in life act on<BR>
+my sensibility, which is too human, and not literary enough."</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant's pity now takes a pathetic turn. He no longer despises,<BR>
+but holds out his hand to those unfortunates who, like himself, are<BR>
+tormented on the pathway without hope. The tears that he sees flow<BR>
+make him sad, and his heart bleeds at all the wounds he discovers. He<BR>
+does not inquire into the quality or origin of the misfortune. He<BR>
+sympathizes with all suffering; physical suffering, moral suffering,<BR>
+the suffering caused by treachery, the bitter twilight of wasted<BR>
+lives....</P>
+
+<P>His mind has also become active. He desires to dabble in science. One<BR>
+day he studies the Arab mystics, Oriental legends, and the next, he<BR>
+studies the marine fauna, etc. His perceptions have never been so<BR>
+clear. His brain is in continual activity. "It is strange," he<BR>
+acknowledges, "what a different man I am becoming mentally from what I<BR>
+was formerly. I can see it as I watch myself thinking, discovering,<BR>
+and developing stories, weighing and analyzing the imaginary beings<BR>
+that float through my imagination. I take the same enjoyment in<BR>
+certain dreams, certain exaltations of mind, as I formerly took in<BR>
+rowing like mad in the sunlight."</P>
+
+<P>For the first time, his assurance as a writer wavers. As his last<BR>
+volumes show, he is endeavoring to transform, to renew himself. He<BR>
+acquires a desire to learn the secrets of obscure and precious hearts,<BR>
+to visit unknown races. He has lost his magnificent serenity....</P>
+
+<hr>
+
+<P>As his malady began to take a more definite form, he turned his steps<BR>
+towards the south, only visiting Paris to see his physicians and<BR>
+publishers. In the old port of Antibes beyond the causeway of Cannes,<BR>
+his yacht, Bel Ami, which he cherished as a brother, lay at anchor and<BR>
+awaited him. He took it to the white cities of the Genoese Gulf,<BR>
+towards the palm trees of Hy&egrave;res, or the red bay trees of Anth&eacute;or.</P>
+
+<P>It was during one of these idle cruises on the open sea, outside of<BR>
+Agay and Saint-Raphael that he wrote "Sur l'Eau."</P>
+
+<P>It was on the sacred sea of the old poets and philosophers, on the sea<BR>
+whose voice has rocked the thought of the world, that he cast into the<BR>
+shadow that long lament, so heartrending and sublime, that posterity<BR>
+will long shudder at the remembrance of it. The bitter strophes of<BR>
+this lament seem to be cadenced by the Mediterranean itself and to be<BR>
+in rhythm, like its melopoeia.</P>
+
+<P>"Sur l'Eau" is the last Will and Testament, the general confession of<BR>
+Maupassant. To those who come after him he leaves the legacy of his<BR>
+highest thought; then he says farewell to all that he loved, to<BR>
+dreams, to starlit nights, and to the breath of roses. "Sur l'Eau" is<BR>
+the book of modern disenchantment, the faithful mirror of the latest<BR>
+pessimism. The journal written on board ship, disconnected and hasty,<BR>
+but so noble in its disorder, has taken a place forever beside Werther<BR>
+and Ren&eacute;, Manfred and Oberman.</P>
+
+<P>He had for a long time, to his sorrow, seen his health failing under<BR>
+the attacks of an obscure malady which left him with a sense of the<BR>
+diminution of his powers and a gradual clouding of his intellect.<BR>
+Symptoms of general paralysis set in, at first mistaken for neurotic<BR>
+disturbances. He changed greatly. Those who met him as I did, thin and<BR>
+shivering, on that rainy Sunday when they were celebrating the<BR>
+inauguration of Flaubert's monument at Rouen would scarcely have<BR>
+recognized him. I shall never forget, as long as I live, his face<BR>
+wasted by suffering, his large eyes with a distressed expression,<BR>
+which emitted dying gleams of protest against a cruel fate....</P>
+
+<P>Maupassant retired to Cannes not far from his mother. He read medical<BR>
+books and, in spite of what they taught, persisted in attributing his<BR>
+sufferings to "rheumatism localized in the brain," contracted amid the<BR>
+fogs on the Seine....</P>
+
+<P>Vainly he endeavored to work, he became gloomy and the idea of suicide<BR>
+impressed him more and more...</P>
+
+<P>The months passed, however, and in June he was able to go to Divonne<BR>
+to take a cure. After a very characteristic attack of optimism, he<BR>
+suddenly appeared at Champel and astonished everyone by his frightful<BR>
+eccentricities. One evening, however, he felt better, and read to the<BR>
+poet Dorchain the beginning of his novel "The Angelus," which he<BR>
+declared would be his masterpiece. When he had finished, he wept. "And<BR>
+we wept also," writes Dorchain, "at seeing all that now remained of<BR>
+genius, of tenderness and pity in this soul that would never again be<BR>
+capable of expressing itself so as to impress other minds.... In his<BR>
+accent, in his language, in his tears, Maupassant had, I know not<BR>
+what, of a religious character, which exceeded his horror of life, and<BR>
+his sombre terror of annihilation."</P>
+
+<P>At the end of September he again visited Cannes, but the fatal day<BR>
+predicted by the physician was at hand.</P>
+
+<P>After several tragic weeks in which, from instinct, he made a<BR>
+desperate fight, on the 1st of January, 1892, he felt he was<BR>
+hopelessly vanquished, and in a moment of supreme clearness of<BR>
+intellect, like Gerard de Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate<BR>
+than the author of Sylvia, he was unsuccessful. But his mind,<BR>
+henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness," had entered into eternal<BR>
+darkness.</P>
+
+<P>He was taken back to Paris and placed in Dr. Meuriot's sanatorium,<BR>
+where, after eighteen months of mechanical existence, the "meteor"<BR>
+quietly passed away.</P>
+<hr>
+<h3>UNE VIE</h3>
+
+<h3>OR, THE HISTORY OF A HEART</h3>
+
+<h4>
+<a name="I">CHAPTER I</a></h4>
+
+<h5>THE HOME BY THE SEA</h5>
+
+<P>The weather was most distressing. It had rained all night. The roaring<BR>
+of the overflowing gutters filled the deserted streets, in which the<BR>
+houses, like sponges, absorbed the humidity, which penetrating to the<BR>
+interior, made the walls sweat from cellar to garret. Jeanne had left<BR>
+the convent the day before, free for all time, ready to seize all the<BR>
+joys of life, of which she had dreamed so long. She was afraid her<BR>
+father would not set out for the new home in bad weather, and for the<BR>
+hundredth time since daybreak she examined the horizon. Then she<BR>
+noticed that she had omitted to put her calendar in her travelling<BR>
+bag. She took from the wall the little card which bore in golden<BR>
+figures the date of the current year, 1819. Then she marked with a<BR>
+pencil the first four columns, drawing a line through the name of each<BR>
+saint up to the 2d of May, the day that she left the convent. A voice<BR>
+outside the door called "Jeannette." Jeanne replied, "Come in, papa."<BR>
+And her father entered. Baron Simon-Jacques Le Perthuis des Vauds was<BR>
+a gentleman of the last century, eccentric and good. An enthusiastic<BR>
+disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he had the tenderness of a lover<BR>
+for nature, in the fields, in the woods and in the animals. Of<BR>
+aristocratic birth, he hated instinctively the year 1793, but being a<BR>
+philosopher by temperament and liberal by education, he execrated<BR>
+tyranny with an inoffensive and declamatory hatred. His great strength<BR>
+and his great weakness was his kind-heartedness, which had not arms<BR>
+enough to caress, to give, to embrace; the benevolence of a god, that<BR>
+gave freely, without questioning; in a word, a kindness of inertia<BR>
+that became almost a vice. A man of theory, he thought out a plan of<BR>
+education for his daughter, to the end that she might become happy,<BR>
+good, upright and gentle. She had lived at home until the age of<BR>
+twelve, when, despite the tears of her mother, she was placed in the<BR>
+Convent of the Sacred Heart. He had kept her severely secluded,<BR>
+cloistered, in ignorance of the secrets of life. He wished the Sisters<BR>
+to restore her to him pure at seventeen years of age, so that he might<BR>
+imbue her mind with a sort of rational poetry, and by means of the<BR>
+fields, in the midst of the fruitful earth, unfold her soul, enlighten<BR>
+her ignorance through the aspect of love in nature, through the simple<BR>
+tenderness of the animals, through the placid laws of existence. She<BR>
+was leaving the convent radiant, full of the joy of life, ready for<BR>
+all the happiness, all the charming incidents which her mind had<BR>
+pictured in her idle hours and in the long, quiet nights. She was like<BR>
+a portrait by Veronese with her fair, glossy hair, which seemed to<BR>
+cast a radiance on her skin, a skin with the faintest tinge of pink,<BR>
+softened by a light velvety down which could be perceived when the sun<BR>
+kissed her cheek. Her eyes were an opaque blue, like those of Dutch<BR>
+porcelain figures. She had a tiny mole on her left nostril and another<BR>
+on the right of her chin. She was tall, well developed, with willowy<BR>
+figure. Her clear voice sounded at times a little too sharp, but her<BR>
+frank, sincere laugh spread joy around her. Often, with a familiar<BR>
+gesture, she would raise her hands to her temples as if to arrange her<BR>
+hair.</P>
+
+<P>She ran to her father and embraced him warmly. "Well, are we going to<BR>
+start?" she said. He smiled, shook his head and said, pointing toward<BR>
+the window, "How can we travel in such weather?" But she implored in a<BR>
+cajoling and tender manner, "Oh, papa, do let us start. It will clear<BR>
+up in the afternoon." "But your mother will never consent to it."<BR>
+"Yes, I promise you that she will, I will arrange that." "If you<BR>
+succeed in persuading your mother, I am perfectly willing." In a few<BR>
+moments she returned from her mother's room, shouting in a voice that<BR>
+could be heard all through the house, "Papa, papa, mamma is willing.<BR>
+Have the horses harnessed." The rain was not abating; one might almost<BR>
+have said that it was raining harder when the carriage drove up to the<BR>
+door. Jeanne was ready to step in when the baroness came downstairs,<BR>
+supported on one side by her husband and on the other by a tall<BR>
+housemaid, strong and strapping as a boy. She was a Norman woman of<BR>
+the country of Caux, who looked at least twenty, although she was but<BR>
+eighteen at the most. She was treated by the family as a second<BR>
+daughter, for she was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie,<BR>
+and her chief duty lay in guiding the steps of her mistress, who had<BR>
+grown enormous in the last few years and also had an affection of the<BR>
+heart, which kept her complaining continually. The baroness, gasping<BR>
+from over-exertion, finally reached the doorstep of the old residence,<BR>
+looked at the court where the water was streaming and remarked: "It<BR>
+really is not wise." Her husband, always pleasant, replied: "It was<BR>
+you who desired it, Madame Adelaide." He always preceded her pompous<BR>
+name of Adelaide with the title madame with an air of half respectful<BR>
+mockery. Madame mounted with difficulty into the carriage, causing all<BR>
+the springs to bend. The baron sat beside her, while Jeanne and<BR>
+Rosalie were seated opposite, with their backs to the horses.<BR>
+Ludivine, the cook, brought a heap of wraps to put over their knees<BR>
+and two baskets, which were placed under the seats; then she climbed<BR>
+on the box beside Father Simon, wrapping herself in a great rug which<BR>
+covered her completely. The porter and his wife came to bid them<BR>
+good-by as they closed the carriage door, taking the last orders about<BR>
+the trunks, which were to follow in a wagon. So they started. Father<BR>
+Simon, the coachman, with head bowed and back bent in the pouring<BR>
+rain, was completely covered by his box coat with its triple cape. The<BR>
+howling storm beat upon the carriage windows and inundated the<BR>
+highway.</P>
+
+<P>They drove rapidly to the wharf and continued alongside the line of<BR>
+tall-masted vessels until they reached the boulevard of Mont Riboudet.<BR>
+Then they crossed the meadows, where from time to time a drowned<BR>
+willow, its branches drooping limply, could be faintly distinguished<BR>
+through the mist of rain. No one spoke. Their minds themselves seemed<BR>
+to be saturated with moisture like the earth.</P>
+
+<P>The baroness leaned her head against the cushions and closed her eyes.<BR>
+The baron looked out with mournful eyes at the monotonous and drenched<BR>
+landscape. Rosalie, with a parcel on her knee, was dreaming in the<BR>
+dull reverie of a peasant. But Jeanne, under this downpour, felt<BR>
+herself revive like a plant that has been shut up and has just been<BR>
+restored to the air, and so great was her joy that, like foliage, it<BR>
+sheltered her heart from sadness. Although she did not speak, she<BR>
+longed to burst out singing, to reach out her hands to catch the rain<BR>
+that she might drink it. She enjoyed to the full being carried along<BR>
+rapidly by the horses, enjoyed gazing at the desolate landscape and<BR>
+feeling herself under shelter amid this general inundation. Beneath<BR>
+the pelting rain the gleaming backs of the two horses emitted a warm<BR>
+steam.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little the baroness fell asleep, and presently began to<BR>
+snore sonorously. Her husband leaned over and placed in her hands a<BR>
+little leather pocketbook.</P>
+
+<P>This awakened her, and she looked at the pocket-book with the stupid,<BR>
+sleepy look of one suddenly aroused. It fell off her lap and sprang<BR>
+open and gold and bank bills were scattered on the floor of the<BR>
+carriage. This roused her completely, and Jeanne gave vent to her<BR>
+mirth in a merry peal of girlish laughter.</P>
+
+<P>The baron picked up the money and placed it on her knees. "This, my<BR>
+dear," he said, "is all that is left of my farm at Eletot. I have sold<BR>
+it--so as to be able to repair the 'Poplars,' where we shall often<BR>
+live in the future."</P>
+
+<P>She counted six thousand four hundred francs and quietly put them in<BR>
+her pocket. This was the ninth of thirty-one farms that they had<BR>
+inherited which they had sold in this way. Nevertheless they still<BR>
+possessed about twenty thousand livres income annually in land<BR>
+rentals, which, with proper care, would have yielded about thirty<BR>
+thousand francs a year.</P>
+
+<P>Living simply as they did, this income would have sufficed had there<BR>
+not been a bottomless hole always open in their house--kind-hearted<BR>
+generosity. It dried up the money in their hands as the sun dries the<BR>
+water in marshes. It flowed, fled, disappeared. How? No one knew.<BR>
+Frequently one would say to the other, "I don't know how it happens,<BR>
+but I have spent one hundred francs to-day, and I have bought nothing<BR>
+of any consequence." This faculty of giving was, however, one of the<BR>
+greatest pleasures of their life, and they all agreed on this point in<BR>
+a superb and touching manner.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne asked her father, "Is it beautiful now, my castle?" The baron<BR>
+replied, "You shall see, my little girl."</P>
+
+<P>The storm began to abate. The vault of clouds seemed to rise and<BR>
+heighten and suddenly, through a rift, a long ray of sunshine fell<BR>
+upon the fields, and presently the clouds separated, showing the blue<BR>
+firmament, and then, like the tearing of a veil, the opening grew<BR>
+larger and the beautiful azure sky, clear and fathomless, spread over<BR>
+the world. A fresh and gentle breeze passed over the earth like a<BR>
+happy sigh, and as they passed beside gardens or woods they heard<BR>
+occasionally the bright chirp of a bird as he dried his wings.</P>
+
+<P>Evening was approaching. Everyone in the carriage was asleep except<BR>
+Jeanne. They stopped to rest and feed the horses. The sun had set. In<BR>
+the distance bells were heard. They passed a little village as the<BR>
+inhabitants were lighting their lamps, and the sky became also<BR>
+illuminated by myriads of stars. Suddenly they saw behind a hill,<BR>
+through the branches of the fir trees, the moon rising, red and full<BR>
+as if it were torpid with sleep.</P>
+
+<P>The air was so soft that the windows were not closed. Jeanne,<BR>
+exhausted with dreams and happy visions, was now asleep. Finally they<BR>
+stopped. Some men and women were standing before the carriage door<BR>
+with lanterns in their hands. They had arrived. Jeanne, suddenly<BR>
+awakened, was the first to jump out. Her father and Rosalie had<BR>
+practically to carry the baroness, who was groaning and continually<BR>
+repeating in a weak little voice, "Oh, my God, my poor children!" She<BR>
+refused all offers of refreshment, but went to bed and immediately<BR>
+fell asleep.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and her father, the baron, took supper together. They were in<BR>
+perfect sympathy with each other. Later, seized with a childish joy,<BR>
+they started on a tour of inspection through the restored manor. It<BR>
+was one of those high and vast Norman residences that comprise both<BR>
+farmhouse and castle, built of white stone which had turned gray,<BR>
+large enough to contain a whole race of people.</P>
+
+<P>An immense hall divided the house from front to rear and a staircase<BR>
+went up at either side of the entrance, meeting in a bridge on the<BR>
+first floor. The huge drawing-room was on the ground floor to the<BR>
+right and was hung with tapestries representing birds and foliage. All<BR>
+the furniture was covered with fine needlework tapestry illustrating<BR>
+La Fontaine's fables, and Jeanne was delighted at finding a chair she<BR>
+had loved as a child, which pictured the story of "The Fox and the<BR>
+Stork."</P>
+
+<P>Beside the drawing-room were the library, full of old books, and two<BR>
+unused rooms; at the left was the dining-room, the laundry, the<BR>
+kitchen, etc.</P>
+
+<P>A corridor divided the whole first floor, the doors of ten rooms<BR>
+opening into it. At the end, on the right, was Jeanne's room. She and<BR>
+her father went in. He had had it all newly done over, using the<BR>
+furniture and draperies that had been in the storeroom.</P>
+
+<P>There were some very old Flemish tapestries, with their peculiar<BR>
+looking figures. At sight of her bed, the young girl uttered a scream<BR>
+of joy. Four large birds carved in oak, black from age and highly<BR>
+polished, bore up the bed and seemed to be its protectors. On the<BR>
+sides were carved two wide garlands of flowers and fruit, and four<BR>
+finely fluted columns, terminating in Corinthian capitals, supported a<BR>
+cornice of cupids with roses intertwined. The tester and the coverlet<BR>
+were of antique blue silk, embroidered in gold fleur de lys. When<BR>
+Jeanne had sufficiently admired it, she lifted up the candle to<BR>
+examine the tapestries and the allegories they represented. They were<BR>
+mostly conventional subjects, but the last hanging represented a<BR>
+drama. Near a rabbit, which was still nibbling, a young man lay<BR>
+stretched out, apparently dead. A young girl, gazing at him, was<BR>
+plunging a sword into her bosom, and the fruit of the tree had turned<BR>
+black. Jeanne gave up trying to divine the meaning underlying this<BR>
+picture, when she saw in the corner a tiny little animal which the<BR>
+rabbit, had he lived, could have swallowed like a blade of grass; and<BR>
+yet it was a lion. Then she recognized the story of "Pyramus and<BR>
+Thisbe," and though she smiled at the simplicity of the design, she<BR>
+felt happy to have in her room this love adventure which would<BR>
+continually speak to her of her cherished hopes, and every night this<BR>
+legendary love would hover about her dreams.</P>
+
+<P>It struck eleven and the baron kissed Jeanne goodnight and retired to<BR>
+his room. Before retiring, Jeanne cast a last glance round her room<BR>
+and then regretfully extinguished the candle. Through her window she<BR>
+could see the bright moonlight bathing the trees and the wonderful<BR>
+landscape. Presently she arose, opened a window and looked out. The<BR>
+night was so clear that one could see as plainly as by daylight. She<BR>
+looked across the park with its two long avenues of very tall poplars<BR>
+that gave its name to the ch&acirc;teau and separated it from the two farms<BR>
+that belonged to it, one occupied by the Couillard family, the other<BR>
+by the Martins. Beyond the enclosure stretched a long, uncultivated<BR>
+plain, thickly overgrown with rushes, where the breeze whistled day<BR>
+and night. The land ended abruptly in a steep white cliff three<BR>
+hundred feet high, with its base in the ocean waves.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne looked out over the long, undulating surface that seemed to<BR>
+slumber beneath the heavens. All the fragrance of the earth was in the<BR>
+night air. The odor of jasmine rose from the lower windows, and light<BR>
+whiffs of briny air and of seaweed were wafted from the ocean.</P>
+
+<P>Merely to breathe was enough for Jeanne, and the restful calm of the<BR>
+country was like a soothing bath. She felt as though her heart was<BR>
+expanding and she began dreaming of love. What was it? She did not<BR>
+know. She only knew that she would adore <i>him</i> with all her soul<BR>
+and that he would cherish her with all his strength. They would walk<BR>
+hand in hand on nights like this, hearing the beating of their hearts,<BR>
+mingling their love with the sweet simplicity of the summer nights in<BR>
+such close communion of thought that by the sole power of their<BR>
+tenderness they would easily penetrate each other's most secret<BR>
+thoughts. This would continue forever in the calm of an enduring<BR>
+affection. It seemed to her that she felt <i>him</i> there beside her.<BR>
+And an unusual sensation came over her. She remained long musing thus,<BR>
+when suddenly she thought she heard a footstep behind the house. "If<BR>
+it were <i>he</i>." But it passed on and she felt as if she had been<BR>
+deceived. The air became cooler. The day broke. Slowly bursting aside<BR>
+the gleaming clouds, touching with fire the trees, the plains, the<BR>
+ocean, all the horizon, the great flaming orb of the sun appeared.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne felt herself becoming mad with happiness. A delirious joy,<BR>
+an infinite tenderness at the splendor of nature overcame her<BR>
+fluttering heart. It was <i>her</i> sun, <i>her</i> dawn! The beginning<BR>
+of <i>her</i> life! Thoroughly fatigued at last, she flung herself down<BR>
+and slept till her father called her at eight o'clock. He walked into<BR>
+the room and proposed to show her the improvements of the castle, of<BR>
+<i>her</i> castle. The road, called the parish road, connecting the<BR>
+farms, joined the high road between Havre and F&eacute;camp, a mile and a<BR>
+half further on.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and the baron inspected everything and returned home for<BR>
+breakfast. When the meal was over, as the baroness had decided that<BR>
+she would rest, the baron proposed to Jeanne that they should go down<BR>
+to Yport. They started, and passing through the hamlet of Etouvent,<BR>
+where the poplars were, and going through the wooded slope by a<BR>
+winding valley leading down to the sea, they presently perceived the<BR>
+village of Yport. Women sat in their doorways mending linen; brown<BR>
+fish-nets were hanging against the doors of the huts, where an entire<BR>
+family lived in one room. It was a typical little French fishing<BR>
+village, with all its concomitant odors. To Jeanne it was all like a<BR>
+scene in a play. On turning a corner they saw before them the<BR>
+limitless blue ocean. They bought a brill from a fisherman and another<BR>
+sailor offered to take them out sailing, repeating his name,<BR>
+"Lastique, Jos&eacute;phin Lastique," several times, that they might not<BR>
+forget it, and the baron promised to remember. They walked home,<BR>
+chattering like two children, carrying the big fish between them,<BR>
+Jeanne having pushed her father's walking cane through its gills.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="II">CHAPTER II</a></h4>
+
+<h5>HAPPY DAYS</h5>
+
+<P>A delightful life commenced for Jeanne, a life in the open air. She<BR>
+wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their<BR>
+sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor<BR>
+of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant<BR>
+sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow rocking<BR>
+her spirit.</P>
+
+<P>A love of solitude came upon her in the sweet freshness of this<BR>
+landscape and in the calm of the rounded horizon, and she would remain<BR>
+sitting so long on the hill tops that the wild rabbits would bound by<BR>
+her feet.</P>
+
+<P>She planted memories everywhere, as seeds are cast upon the earth,<BR>
+memories whose roots hold till death. It seemed to Jeanne that she was<BR>
+casting a little of her heart into every fold of these valleys. She<BR>
+became infatuated with sea bathing. When she was well out from shore,<BR>
+she would float on her back, her arms crossed, her eyes lost in the<BR>
+profound blue of the sky which was cleft by the flight of a swallow,<BR>
+or the white silhouette of a seabird.</P>
+
+<P>After these excursions she invariably came back to the castle pale<BR>
+with hunger, but light, alert, a smile on her lips and her eyes<BR>
+sparkling with happiness.</P>
+
+<P>The baron on his part was planning great agricultural enterprises.<BR>
+Occasionally, also, he went out to sea with the sailors of Yport. On<BR>
+several occasions he went fishing for mackerel and, again, by<BR>
+moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved<BR>
+to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts<BR>
+of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long<BR>
+time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof<BR>
+of a belfry or the F&eacute;camp lighthouse, he delighted to remain<BR>
+motionless beneath the first gleams of the rising sun which made the<BR>
+slimy backs of the large fan-shaped rays and the fat bellies of the<BR>
+turbots glisten on the deck of the boat.</P>
+
+<P>At each meal he gave an enthusiastic account of his expeditions, and<BR>
+the baroness in her turn told how many times she had walked down the<BR>
+main avenue of poplars.</P>
+
+<P>As she had been advised to take exercise she made a business of<BR>
+walking, beginning as soon as the air grew warm. Leaning upon<BR>
+Rosalie's arm and dragging her left foot, which was rather heavier<BR>
+than the right, she wandered interminably up and down from the house<BR>
+to the edge of the wood, sitting down for five minutes at either end.<BR>
+The walking was resumed in the afternoon. A physician, consulted ten<BR>
+years before, had spoken of hypertrophy because she had suffered from<BR>
+suffocation. Ever since, this word had been used to describe the<BR>
+ailment of the baroness. The baron would say "my wife's hypertrophy"<BR>
+and Jeanne "mamma's hypertrophy" as they would have spoken of her hat,<BR>
+her dress, or her umbrella. She had been very pretty in her youth and<BR>
+slim as a reed. Now she had grown older, stouter, but she still<BR>
+remained poetical, having always retained the impression of "Corinne,"<BR>
+which she had read as a girl. She read all the sentimental love<BR>
+stories it was possible to collect, and her thoughts wandered among<BR>
+tender adventures in which she always figured as the heroine. Her new<BR>
+home was infinitely pleasing to her because it formed such a beautiful<BR>
+framework for the romance of her soul, the surrounding woods, the<BR>
+waste land, and the proximity of the ocean recalling to her mind the<BR>
+novels of Sir Walter Scott, which she had been devouring for some<BR>
+months. On rainy days she remained shut up in her room, sending<BR>
+Rosalie in a special manner for the drawer containing her "souvenirs,"<BR>
+which meant to the baroness all her old private and family letters.</P>
+
+<P>Occasionally, Jeanne replaced Rosalie in the walks with her mother,<BR>
+and she listened eagerly to the tales of the latter's childhood. The<BR>
+young girl saw herself in all these romantic stories, and was<BR>
+astonished at the similarity of ideas and desires; each heart imagines<BR>
+itself to have been the first to tremble at those very sensations that<BR>
+awakened the hearts of the first beings, and that will awaken the<BR>
+hearts of the last.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon as the baroness and Jeanne were resting on the beach at<BR>
+the end of the walk, a stout priest who was moving in their direction<BR>
+greeted them with a bow, while still at a distance. He bowed when<BR>
+within three feet and, assuming a smiling air, cried: "Well, Madame la<BR>
+Baronne, how are you?" It was the village priest. The baroness seldom<BR>
+went to church, though she liked priests, from a sort of religious<BR>
+instinct peculiar to women. She had, in fact, entirely forgotten the<BR>
+Abb&eacute; Picot, her priest, and blushed as she saw him. She made apologies<BR>
+for not having prepared for his visit, but the good man was not at all<BR>
+embarrassed. He looked at Jeanne, complimented her on her appearance<BR>
+and sat down, placing his three-cornered hat on his knees. He was very<BR>
+stout, very red, and perspired profusely. He drew from his pocket<BR>
+every moment an enormous checked handkerchief and passed it over his<BR>
+face and neck, but hardly was the task completed when necessity forced<BR>
+him to repeat the process. He was a typical country priest, talkative<BR>
+and kindly.</P>
+
+<P>Presently the baron appeared. He was very friendly to the abb&eacute; and<BR>
+invited him to dinner. The priest was well versed in the art of being<BR>
+pleasant, thanks to the unconscious astuteness which the guiding of<BR>
+souls gives to the most mediocre of men who are called by the chance<BR>
+of events to exercise a power over their fellows. Toward dessert he<BR>
+became quite merry, with the gaiety that follows a pleasant meal, and<BR>
+as if struck by an idea he said: "I have a new parishioner whom I must<BR>
+present to you, Monsieur le Vicomte de Lamare." The baroness, who was<BR>
+at home in heraldry, inquired if he was of the family of Lamares of<BR>
+Eure. The priest answered, "Yes, madame, he is the son of Vicomte Jean<BR>
+de Lamare, who died last year." After this, the baroness, who loved<BR>
+the nobility above all other things, inquired the history of the young<BR>
+vicomte. He had paid his father's debts, sold the family castle, made<BR>
+his home on one of the three farms which he owned in the town of<BR>
+Etouvent. These estates brought him in an income of five or six<BR>
+thousand livres. The vicomte was economical and lived in this modest<BR>
+manner for two or three years, so that he might save enough to cut a<BR>
+figure in society, and to marry advantageously, without contracting<BR>
+debts or mortgaging his farms. The priest added, "He is a very<BR>
+charming young man, so steady and quiet, though there is very little<BR>
+to amuse him in the country." The baron said, "Bring him in to see us,<BR>
+Monsieur l'Abb&eacute;, it will be a distraction for him occasionally." After<BR>
+the coffee the baron and the priest took a turn about the grounds and<BR>
+then returned to say good-night to the ladies.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="III">CHAPTER III</a></h4>
+
+<h5>M. DE LAMARE</h5>
+
+<P>The following Sunday the baroness and Jeanne went to mass, prompted by<BR>
+a feeling of respect for their pastor, and after service waited to see<BR>
+the priest and invite him to luncheon the following Thursday. He came<BR>
+out of the sacristy leaning familiarly on the arm of a tall young man.<BR>
+As soon as he perceived the ladies, he exclaimed:</P>
+
+<P>"How fortunate! Allow me, baroness and Mlle. Jeanne, to present to you<BR>
+your neighbor, M. le Vicomte de Lamare."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte said he had long desired to make their acquaintance, and<BR>
+began to converse in a well-bred manner. He had a face of which women<BR>
+dream and that men dislike. His black, wavy hair shaded a smooth,<BR>
+sunburnt forehead, and two large straight eyebrows, that looked almost<BR>
+artificial, cast a deep and tender shadow over his dark eyes, the<BR>
+whites of which had a bluish tinge.</P>
+
+<P>His long, thick eyelashes accentuated the passionate eloquence of his<BR>
+expression which wrought havoc in the drawing-rooms of society, and<BR>
+made peasant girls carrying baskets turn round to look at him. The<BR>
+languorous fascination of his glance impressed one with the depth of<BR>
+his thoughts and lent weight to his slightest words. His beard, fine<BR>
+and glossy, concealed a somewhat heavy jaw.</P>
+
+<P>Two days later, M. de Lamare made his first call, just as they were<BR>
+discussing the best place for a new rustic bench. The vicomte was<BR>
+consulted and agreed with the baroness, who differed from her husband.</P>
+
+<P>M. de Lamare expatiated on the picturesqueness of the country and from<BR>
+time to time, as if by chance, his eyes met those of Jeanne, and she<BR>
+felt a strange sensation at the quickly averted glance which betrayed<BR>
+tender admiration and an awakened sympathy.</P>
+
+<P>M. de Lamare's father, who had died the preceding year, had known an<BR>
+intimate friend of the baroness's father, M. Cultaux, and this fact<BR>
+led to an endless conversation about family, relations, dates, etc.,<BR>
+and names heard in her childhood were recalled, and led to<BR>
+reminiscences.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, whose nature was rather uncultivated, and whose beliefs and<BR>
+prejudices were not those of his class, knew little about the<BR>
+neighboring families, and inquired about them from the vicomte, who<BR>
+responded:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, there are very few of the nobility in the district," just as he<BR>
+might have said, "there are very few rabbits on the hills," and he<BR>
+began to particularize: There was the Marquis de Coutelier, a sort of<BR>
+leader of Norman aristocracy, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville,<BR>
+people of excellent stock, but living to themselves, and the Comte de<BR>
+Fourville, a kind of ogre, who was said to have made his wife die of<BR>
+sorrow, and who lived as a huntsman in his ch&acirc;teau of La Vrillette,<BR>
+built on a pond. There were a few parvenus among them who had bought<BR>
+properties here and there, but the vicomte did not know them.</P>
+
+<P>As he left, his last glance was for Jeanne, as if it were a special<BR>
+tender and cordial farewell. The baroness was delighted with him, and<BR>
+the baron said: "Yes, indeed, he is a gentleman." And he was invited<BR>
+to dinner the following week, and from that time came regularly.</P>
+
+<P>He generally arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon, went to join<BR>
+the baroness in "her avenue," and offered her his arm while she took<BR>
+her "exercise," as she called her daily walks. When Jeanne was at home<BR>
+she would walk on the other side of her mother, supporting her, and<BR>
+all three would walk slowly back and forth from one end of the avenue<BR>
+to the other. He seldom addressed Jeanne directly, but his eye<BR>
+frequently met hers.</P>
+
+<P>He went to Yport several times with Jeanne and the baron. One evening,<BR>
+when they were on the beach, P&egrave;re Lastique accosted him, and without<BR>
+removing his pipe, the absence of which would possibly have been more<BR>
+remarkable than the loss of his nose, he said:</P>
+
+<P>"With this wind, m'sieu le baron, we could easily go to &Eacute;tretat and<BR>
+back to-morrow."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne clasped her hands imploringly:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, papa, let us do it!"</P>
+
+<P>The baron turned to M. de Lamare:</P>
+
+<P>"Will you join us, vicomte? We can take breakfast down there."</P>
+
+<P>And the matter was decided at once. From daybreak Jeanne was up and<BR>
+waiting for her father, who dressed more slowly. They walked in the<BR>
+dew across the level and then through the wood vibrant with the<BR>
+singing of birds. The vicomte and P&egrave;re Lastique were seated on a<BR>
+capstan.</P>
+
+<P>Two other sailors helped to shove off the boat from shore, which was<BR>
+not easy on the shingly beach. Once the boat was afloat, they all took<BR>
+their seats, and the two sailors who remained on shore shoved it off.<BR>
+A light, steady breeze was blowing from the ocean and they hoisted the<BR>
+sail, veered a little, and then sailed along smoothly with scarcely<BR>
+any motion. To landward the high cliff at the right cast a shadow on<BR>
+the water at its base, and patches of sunlit grass here and there<BR>
+varied its monotonous whiteness. Yonder, behind them, brown sails were<BR>
+coming out of the white harbor of F&eacute;camp, and ahead of them they saw a<BR>
+rock of curious shape, rounded, with gaps in it looking something like<BR>
+an immense elephant with its trunk in the water; it was the little<BR>
+port of &Eacute;tretat.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, a little dizzy from the motion of the waves, held the side of<BR>
+the boat with one hand as she looked out into the distance. It seemed<BR>
+to her as if only three things in the world were really beautiful:<BR>
+light, space, water.</P>
+
+<P>No one spoke. P&egrave;re Lastique, who was at the tiller, took a pull every<BR>
+now and then from a bottle hidden under the seat; and he smoked a<BR>
+short pipe which seemed inextinguishable, although he never seemed to<BR>
+relight it or refill it.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, seated in the bow looked after the sail. Jeanne and the<BR>
+vicomte seemed a little embarrassed at being seated side by side. Some<BR>
+unknown power seemed to make their glances meet whenever they raised<BR>
+their eyes; between them there existed already that subtle and vague<BR>
+sympathy which arises so rapidly between two young people when the<BR>
+young man is good looking and the girl is pretty. They were happy in<BR>
+each other's society, perhaps because they were thinking of each<BR>
+other. The rising sun was beginning to pierce through the slight mist,<BR>
+and as its beams grew stronger, they were reflected on the smooth<BR>
+surface of the sea as in a mirror.</P>
+
+<P>"How beautiful!" murmured Jeanne, with emotion.</P>
+
+<P>"Beautiful indeed!" answered the vicomte. The serene beauty of the<BR>
+morning awakened an echo in their hearts.</P>
+
+<P>And all at once they saw the great arches of &Eacute;tretat, like two<BR>
+supports of a cliff standing in the sea high enough for vessels to<BR>
+pass under them; while a sharp-pointed white rock rose in front of the<BR>
+first arch. They reached shore, and the baron got out first to make<BR>
+fast the boat, while the vicomte lifted Jeanne ashore so that she<BR>
+should not wet her feet. Then they walked up the shingly beach side by<BR>
+side, and they overheard P&egrave;re Lastique say to the baron, "My! but they<BR>
+would make a pretty couple!"</P>
+
+<P>They took breakfast in a little inn near the beach, and while the<BR>
+ocean had lulled their thoughts and made them silent, the breakfast<BR>
+table had the opposite effect, and they chattered like children on a<BR>
+vacation. The slightest thing gave rise to laughter.</P>
+
+<P>P&egrave;re Lastique, on taking his place at table, carefully hid his lighted<BR>
+pipe in his cap. That made them laugh. A fly, attracted no doubt by<BR>
+his red nose, persistently alighted on it, and each time it did so<BR>
+they burst into laughter. Finally the old man could stand it no<BR>
+longer, and murmured: "It is devilishly persistent!" whereupon Jeanne<BR>
+and the vicomte laughed till they cried.</P>
+
+<P>After breakfast Jeanne suggested that they should take a walk. The<BR>
+vicomte rose, but the baron preferred to bask in the sun on the beach.</P>
+
+<P>"Go on, my children, you will find me here in an hour."</P>
+
+<P>They walked straight ahead of them, passing by several cottages and<BR>
+finally by a small ch&acirc;teau resembling a large farm, and found<BR>
+themselves in an open valley that extended for some distance. They now<BR>
+had a wild longing to run at large in the fields. Jeanne seemed to<BR>
+have a humming in her ears from all the new and rapidly changing<BR>
+sensations she had experienced. The burning rays of the sun fell on<BR>
+them. On both sides of the road the crops were bending over from the<BR>
+heat. The grasshoppers, as numerous as the blades of grass, were<BR>
+uttering their thin, shrill cry.</P>
+
+<P>Perceiving a wood a little further on to the right, they walked over<BR>
+to it. They saw a narrow path between two hedges shaded by tall trees<BR>
+which shut out the sun. A sort of moist freshness in the air was<BR>
+perceptible, giving them a sensation of chilliness. There was no<BR>
+grass, owing to the lack of sunlight, but the ground was covered with<BR>
+a carpet of moss.</P>
+
+<P>"See, we can sit down there a little while," she said.</P>
+
+<P>They sat down and looked about them at the numerous forms of life that<BR>
+were in the air and on the ground at their feet, for a ray of sunlight<BR>
+penetrating the dense foliage brought them into its light.</P>
+
+<P>"How beautiful it is here! How lovely it is in the country! There are<BR>
+moments when I should like to be a fly or a butterfly and hide in the<BR>
+flowers," said Jeanne with emotion.</P>
+
+<P>They spoke in low tones as one does in exchanging confidences, telling<BR>
+of their daily lives and of their tastes, and declaring that they were<BR>
+already disgusted with the world, tired of its useless monotony; it<BR>
+was always the same thing; there was no truth, no sincerity in it.</P>
+
+<P>The world! She would gladly have made its acquaintance; but she felt<BR>
+convinced beforehand that it was not equal to a country life, and the<BR>
+more their hearts seemed to be in sympathy, the more ceremonious they<BR>
+became, the more frequently their glances met and blended smiling; and<BR>
+it seemed that a new feeling of benevolence was awakened in them, a<BR>
+wider affection, an interest in a thousand things of which they had<BR>
+never hitherto thought.</P>
+
+<P>They wended their way back, but the baron had already set off on foot<BR>
+for the Chambre aux Demoiselles, a grotto in a cleft at the summit of<BR>
+one of the cliffs, and they waited for him at the inn. He did not<BR>
+return until five in the evening after a long walk along the cliffs.</P>
+
+<P>They got into the boat, started off smoothly with the wind at their<BR>
+backs, scarcely seeming to make any headway. The breeze was irregular,<BR>
+at one moment filling the sail and then letting it flap idly along the<BR>
+mast. The sea seemed opaque and lifeless, and the sun was slowly<BR>
+approaching the horizon. The lulling motion of the sea had made them<BR>
+silent again. Presently Jeanne said, "How I should love to travel!"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, but it is tiresome to travel alone; there should be at least<BR>
+two, to exchange ideas," answered the vicomte. She reflected a moment.</P>
+
+<P>"That is true--I like to walk alone, however--how pleasant it is to<BR>
+dream all alone----"</P>
+
+<P>He gazed at her intently.</P>
+
+<P>"Two can dream as well as one."</P>
+
+<P>She lowered her eyes. Was it a hint? Possibly. She looked out at the<BR>
+horizon as if to discover something beyond it, and then said slowly:</P>
+
+<P>"I should like to go to Italy--and Greece--ah, yes, Greece--and to<BR>
+Corsica--it must be so wild and so beautiful!"</P>
+
+<P>He preferred Switzerland on account of its chalets and its lakes.</P>
+
+<P>"No," said she, "I like new countries like Corsica, or very old<BR>
+countries full of souvenirs, like Greece. It must be delightful to<BR>
+find the traces of those peoples whose history we have known since<BR>
+childhood, to see places where great deeds were accomplished."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte, less enthusiastic, exclaimed: "As for me, England<BR>
+attracts me very much; there is so much to be learned there."</P>
+
+<P>Then they talked about the world in general, discussing the<BR>
+attractions of each country from the poles to the equator, enthusing<BR>
+over imaginary scenes and the peculiar manners of certain peoples like<BR>
+the Chinese and the Lapps; but they arrived at the conclusion that the<BR>
+most beautiful country in the world was France, with its temperate<BR>
+climate, cool in summer, mild in winter, its rich soil, its green<BR>
+forests, its worship of the fine arts which existed nowhere else since<BR>
+the glorious centuries of Athens. Then they were silent. The setting<BR>
+sun left a wide dazzling train of light which extended from the<BR>
+horizon to the edge of their boat. The wind subsided, the ripples<BR>
+disappeared, and the motionless sail was red in the light of the dying<BR>
+day. A limitless calm seemed to settle down on space and make a<BR>
+silence amid this conjunction of elements; and by degrees the sun<BR>
+slowly sank into the ocean.</P>
+
+<P>Then a fresh breeze seemed to arise, a little shiver went over the<BR>
+surface of the water, as if the engulfed orb cast a sigh of<BR>
+satisfaction across the world. The twilight was short, night fell with<BR>
+its myriad stars. P&egrave;re Lastique took the oars, and they saw that the<BR>
+sea was phosphorescent. Jeanne and the vicomte, side by side, watched<BR>
+the fitful gleams in the wake of the boat. They were hardly thinking,<BR>
+but simply gazing vaguely, breathing in the beauty of the evening in a<BR>
+state of delicious contentment; Jeanne had one hand on the seat and<BR>
+her neighbor's finger touched it as if by accident; she did not move;<BR>
+she was surprised, happy, though embarrassed at this slight contact.</P>
+
+<P>When she reached home that evening and went to her room, she felt<BR>
+strangely disturbed, and so affected that the slightest thing impelled<BR>
+her to weep. She looked at her clock, imagining that the little bee on<BR>
+the pendulum was beating like a heart, the heart of a friend; that it<BR>
+was aware of her whole life, that with its quick, regular tickings it<BR>
+would accompany her whole life; and she stopped the golden fly to<BR>
+press a kiss on its wings. She would have kissed anything, no matter<BR>
+what. She remembered having hidden one of her old dolls of former days<BR>
+at the bottom of a drawer; she looked for it, took it out, and was<BR>
+delighted to see it again, as people are to see loved friends; and<BR>
+pressing it to her heart, she covered its painted cheeks and curly wig<BR>
+with kisses. And as she held it in her arms, she thought:</P>
+
+<P>Can <i>he</i> be the husband promised through a thousand secret<BR>
+voices, whom a superlatively good Providence had thus thrown across<BR>
+her path? Was he, indeed, the being created for her--the being to whom<BR>
+she would devote her existence? Were they the two predestined beings<BR>
+whose affection, blending in one, would beget love?</P>
+
+<P>She did not as yet feel that tumultuous emotion, that mad enchantment,<BR>
+those deep stirrings which she thought were essential to the tender<BR>
+passion; but it seemed to her she was beginning to fall in love, for<BR>
+she sometimes felt a sudden faintness when she thought of him, and she<BR>
+thought of him incessantly. His presence stirred her heart; she<BR>
+blushed and grew pale when their eyes met, and trembled at the sound<BR>
+of his voice.</P>
+
+<P>From day to day the longing for love increased. She consulted the<BR>
+marguerites, the clouds, and coins which she tossed in the air.</P>
+
+<P>One day her father said to her:</P>
+
+<P>"Make yourself look pretty to-morrow morning."</P>
+
+<P>"Why, papa?"</P>
+
+<P>"That is a secret," he replied.</P>
+
+<P>And when she came downstairs the following morning, looking fresh and<BR>
+sweet in a pretty light dress, she found the drawing-room table<BR>
+covered with boxes of bonbons, and on a chair an immense bouquet.</P>
+
+<P>A covered wagon drove into the courtyard bearing the inscription,<BR>
+"Lerat, Confectioner, F&eacute;camp; Wedding Breakfasts," and from the back<BR>
+of the wagon Ludivine and a kitchen helper were taking out large flat<BR>
+baskets which emitted an appetizing odor.</P>
+
+<P>The Vicomte de Lamare appeared on the scene, his trousers were<BR>
+strapped down under his dainty boots of patent leather, which made his<BR>
+feet appear smaller. His long frock coat, tight at the waist line, was<BR>
+open at the bosom showing the lace of his ruffle, and a fine neckcloth<BR>
+wound several times round his neck obliged him to hold erect his<BR>
+handsome brown head, with its air of serious distinction. Jeanne, in<BR>
+astonishment, looked at him as though she had never seen him before.<BR>
+She thought he looked the grand seigneur from his head to his feet.</P>
+
+<P>He bowed and said, smiling:</P>
+
+<P>"Well, comrade, are you ready?"</P>
+
+<P>"But what is it? What is going on?" she stammered.</P>
+
+<P>"You will know presently," said the baron.</P>
+
+<P>The carriage drove up to the door, and Madame Adelaide, in festal<BR>
+array, descended the staircase, leaning on the arm of Rosalie, who was<BR>
+so much affected at the sight of M. de Lamare's elegant appearance<BR>
+that the baron whispered:</P>
+
+<P>"I say, vicomte, I think our maid admires you."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte blushed up to his ears, pretended not to have heard and,<BR>
+taking up the enormous bouquet, handed it to Jeanne. She accepted it,<BR>
+more astonished than ever. They all four got into the carriage, and<BR>
+Ludivine, who brought a cup of bouillon to the baroness to sustain her<BR>
+strength, said: "Truly, madame, one would say it was a wedding!"</P>
+
+<P>They alighted as soon as they entered Yport, and as they walked<BR>
+through the village the sailors, in their new clothes, still showing<BR>
+the creases, came out of their homes, and shaking hands with the<BR>
+baron, followed the party as if it were a procession. The vicomte, who<BR>
+had offered his arm to Jeanne, walked with her at the head.</P>
+
+<P>When they reached the church they stopped, and an acolyte appeared<BR>
+holding upright the large silver crucifix, followed by another boy in<BR>
+red and white, who bore a chalice containing holy water.</P>
+
+<P>Then came three old cantors, one of them limping; then the trumpet<BR>
+("serpent"), and last, the cur&eacute; with his gold embroidered stole. He<BR>
+smiled and nodded a greeting; then, with his eyes half closed, his<BR>
+lips moving in prayer, his beretta well over his forehead, he followed<BR>
+his surpliced bodyguard, walking in the direction of the sea.</P>
+
+<P>On the beach a crowd was standing around a new boat wreathed with<BR>
+flowers. Its mast, sail and ropes were covered with long streamers of<BR>
+ribbon that floated in the breeze, and the name, "Jeanne," was painted<BR>
+in gold letters on the stern.</P>
+
+<P>P&egrave;re Lastique, the proprietor of this boat, built with the baron's<BR>
+money, advanced to meet the procession. All the men, simultaneously,<BR>
+took off their hats, and a row of pious persons wearing long black<BR>
+cloaks falling in large folds from their shoulders, knelt down in a<BR>
+circle at sight of the crucifix.</P>
+
+<P>The cur&eacute; walked, with an acolyte on either side of him, to one end of<BR>
+the boat, while at the other end, the three old cantors, in their<BR>
+white surplices, with a serious air and their eyes fixed on the<BR>
+psalter, sang at the top of their voices in the clear morning air.<BR>
+Each time they stopped to take breath, the "serpent" continued its<BR>
+bellowing alone, and as he puffed out his cheeks the musician's little<BR>
+gray eyes disappeared, and the skin of his forehead and neck seemed to<BR>
+distend.</P>
+
+<P>The motionless, transparent sea seemed to be taking part meditatively<BR>
+in the baptism of this boat, rolling its tiny waves, no higher than a<BR>
+finger, with the faint sound of a rake on the shingle. And the big<BR>
+white gulls, with their wings unfurled, circled about in the blue<BR>
+heavens, flying off and then coming back in a curve above the heads of<BR>
+the kneeling crowd, as if to see what they were doing.</P>
+
+<P>The singing ceased after an Amen that lasted five minutes; and the<BR>
+priest, in an unctuous voice, murmured some Latin words, of which one<BR>
+could hear only the sonorous endings. He then walked round the boat,<BR>
+sprinkling it with holy water, and next began to murmur the "Oremus,"<BR>
+standing alongside the boat opposite the sponsors, who remained<BR>
+motionless, hand in hand.</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte had the usual grave expression on his handsome face, but<BR>
+Jeanne, choking with a sudden emotion, and on the verge of fainting,<BR>
+began to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered. The dream that<BR>
+had haunted her for some time was suddenly beginning, as if in a kind<BR>
+of hallucination, to take the appearance of reality. They had spoken<BR>
+of a wedding, a priest was present, blessing them; men in surplices<BR>
+were singing psalms; was it not she whom they were giving in marriage?</P>
+
+<P>Did her fingers send out an electric shock, did the emotion of her<BR>
+heart follow the course of her veins until it reached the heart of her<BR>
+companion? Did he understand, did he guess, was he, like herself,<BR>
+pervaded by a sort of intoxication of love? Or else, did he know by<BR>
+experience, alone, that no woman could resist him? She suddenly<BR>
+noticed that he was squeezing her hand, gently at first, and then<BR>
+tighter, tighter, till he almost crushed it. And without moving a<BR>
+muscle of his face, without anyone perceiving it, he said--yes, he<BR>
+certainly said:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, Jeanne, if you would consent, this would be our betrothal."</P>
+
+<P>She lowered her head very slowly, perhaps meaning it for "yes." And<BR>
+the priest, who was still sprinkling the holy water, sprinkled some on<BR>
+their fingers.</P>
+
+<P>The ceremony was over. The women rose. The return was unceremonious.<BR>
+The crucifix had lost its dignity in the hands of the acolyte, who<BR>
+walked rapidly, the crucifix swaying to right and left, or bending<BR>
+forward as though it would fall. The priest, who was not praying now,<BR>
+walked hurriedly behind them; the cantors and the musician with the<BR>
+"serpent" had disappeared by a narrow street, so as to get off their<BR>
+surplices without delay; and the sailors hurried along in groups. One<BR>
+thought prompted their haste, and made their mouths water.</P>
+
+<P>A good breakfast was awaiting them at "The Poplars."</P>
+
+<P>The large table was set in the courtyard, under the apple trees.</P>
+
+<P>Sixty people sat down to table, sailors and peasants. The baroness in<BR>
+the middle, with a priest at either side of her, one from Yport, and<BR>
+the other belonging to "The Poplars." The baron seated opposite her on<BR>
+the other side of the table, the mayor on one side of him, and his<BR>
+wife, a thin peasant woman, already aging, who kept smiling and bowing<BR>
+to all around her, on the other.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, seated beside her co-sponsor, was in a sea of happiness. She<BR>
+saw nothing, knew nothing, and remained silent, her mind bewildered<BR>
+with joy. Presently she said:</P>
+
+<P>"What is your Christian name?"</P>
+
+<P>"Julien," he replied. "Did you not know?"</P>
+
+<P>But she made no reply, thinking to herself:</P>
+
+<P>"How often I shall repeat that name!"</P>
+
+<P>When the feast was over, the courtyard was given up to the sailors,<BR>
+and the others went over to the other side of the ch&acirc;teau. The<BR>
+baroness began to take her exercise, leaning on the arm of the baron<BR>
+and accompanied by the two priests. Jeanne and Julien went toward the<BR>
+wood and walked along one of the mossy paths. Suddenly seizing her<BR>
+hands, the vicomte said:</P>
+
+<P>"Tell me, will you be my wife?"</P>
+
+<P>She lowered her head, and as he stammered: "Answer me, I implore you!"<BR>
+she raised her eyes to his timidly, and he read his answer there.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="IV">CHAPTER IV</a></h4>
+
+<h5>MARRIAGE AND DISILLUSION</h5>
+
+<P>The baron, one morning, entered Jeanne's room before she was up, and<BR>
+sitting down at the foot of her bed, said:</P>
+
+<P>"M. le Vicomte de Lamare has asked us for your hand in marriage."</P>
+
+<P>She wanted to hide her face under the sheets.</P>
+
+<P>Her father continued:</P>
+
+<P>"We have postponed our answer for the present."</P>
+
+<P>She gasped, choking with emotion. At the end of a minute the baron,<BR>
+smiling, added:</P>
+
+<P>"We did not wish to do anything without consulting you. Your mother<BR>
+and I are not opposed to this marriage, but we would not seek to<BR>
+influence you. You are much richer than he is; but, when it is a<BR>
+question of the happiness of a life, one should not think too much<BR>
+about money. He has no relations left. If you marry him, then, it<BR>
+would be as if a son should come into our family; if it were anyone<BR>
+else, it would be you, our daughter, who would go among strangers. The<BR>
+young fellow pleases us. Would he please you?"</P>
+
+<P>She stammered, blushing up to the roots of her hair:</P>
+
+<P>"I am willing, papa."</P>
+
+<P>And the father, looking into her eyes and still smiling, murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"I half suspected it, young lady."</P>
+
+<P>She lived till evening in a condition of exhilaration, not knowing<BR>
+what she was doing, mechanically thinking of one thing by mistake for<BR>
+another, and with a feeling of weariness, although she had not walked<BR>
+at all.</P>
+
+<P>Toward six o'clock, as she was sitting with her mother under the plane<BR>
+tree, the vicomte appeared.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne's heart began to throb wildly. The young man approached them<BR>
+apparently without any emotion. When he was close beside them, he took<BR>
+the baroness' hand and kissed her fingers, then raising to his lips<BR>
+the trembling hand of the young girl, he imprinted upon it a long,<BR>
+tender and grateful kiss.</P>
+
+<P>And the radiant season of betrothal commenced. They would chat<BR>
+together alone in the corner of the parlor, or else seated on the moss<BR>
+at the end of the wood overlooking the plain. Sometimes they walked in<BR>
+Little Mother's Avenue; he, talking of the future, she, with her eyes<BR>
+cast down, looking at the dusty footprints of the baroness.</P>
+
+<P>Once the matter was decided, they desired to waste no time in<BR>
+preliminaries. It was, therefore, decided that the ceremony should<BR>
+take place in six weeks, on the fifteenth of August; and that the<BR>
+bride and groom should set out immediately on their wedding journey.<BR>
+Jeanne, on being consulted as to which country she would like to<BR>
+visit, decided on Corsica where they could be more alone than in the<BR>
+cities of Italy.</P>
+
+<P>They awaited the moment appointed for their marriage without too great<BR>
+impatience, but enfolded, lost in a delicious affection, expressed in<BR>
+the exquisite charm of insignificant caresses, pressure of hands, long<BR>
+passionate glances in which their souls seemed to blend; and, vaguely<BR>
+tortured by an uncertain longing for they knew not what.</P>
+
+<P>They decided to invite no one to the wedding except Aunt Lison, the<BR>
+baron's sister, who boarded in a convent at Versailles. After the<BR>
+death of their father, the baroness wished to keep her sister with<BR>
+her. But the old maid, possessed by the idea that she was in every<BR>
+one's way, was useless, and a nuisance, retired into one of those<BR>
+religious houses that rent apartments to people that live a sad and<BR>
+lonely existence. She came from time to time to pass a month or two<BR>
+with her family.</P>
+
+<P>She was a little woman of few words, who always kept in the<BR>
+background, appeared only at mealtimes, and then retired to her room<BR>
+where she remained shut in.</P>
+
+<P>She looked like a kind old lady, though she was only forty-two, and<BR>
+had a sad, gentle expression. She was never made much of by her family<BR>
+as a child, being neither pretty nor boisterous, she was never petted,<BR>
+and she would stay quietly and gently in a corner. She had been<BR>
+neglected ever since. As a young girl nobody paid any attention to<BR>
+her. She was something like a shadow, or a familiar object, a living<BR>
+piece of furniture that one is accustomed to see every day, but about<BR>
+which one does not trouble oneself.</P>
+
+<P>Her sister, from long habit, looked upon her as a failure, an<BR>
+altogether insignificant being. They treated her with careless<BR>
+familiarity which concealed a sort of contemptuous kindness. She<BR>
+called herself Lise, and seemed embarrassed at this frivolous youthful<BR>
+name. When they saw that she probably would not marry, they changed it<BR>
+from Lise to Lison, and since Jeanne's birth, she had become "Aunt<BR>
+Lison," a poor relation, very neat, frightfully timid, even with her<BR>
+sister and her brother-in-law, who loved her, but with an uncertain<BR>
+affection verging on indifference, with an unconscious compassion and<BR>
+a natural benevolence.</P>
+
+<P>Sometimes, when the baroness talked of far away things that happened<BR>
+in her youth, she would say, in order to fix a date: "It was the time<BR>
+that Lison had that attack."</P>
+
+<P>They never said more than that; and this "attack" remained shrouded,<BR>
+as in a mist.</P>
+
+<P>One evening, Lise, who was then twenty, had thrown herself into the<BR>
+water, no one knew why. Nothing in her life, her manner, gave any<BR>
+intimation of this seizure. They fished her out half dead, and her<BR>
+parents, raising their hands in horror, instead of seeking the<BR>
+mysterious cause of this action, had contented themselves with calling<BR>
+it "that attack," as if they were talking of the accident that<BR>
+happened to the horse "Coco," who had broken his leg a short time<BR>
+before in a ditch, and whom they had been obliged to kill.</P>
+
+<P>From that time Lise, presently Lison, was considered feeble-minded.<BR>
+The gentle contempt which she inspired in her relations gradually made<BR>
+its way into the minds of all those who surrounded her. Little Jeanne<BR>
+herself, with the natural instinct of children, took no notice of her,<BR>
+never went up to kiss her good-night, never went into her room. Good<BR>
+Rosalie, alone, who gave the room all the necessary attention, seemed<BR>
+to know where it was situated.</P>
+
+<P>When Aunt Lison entered the dining-room for breakfast, the little one<BR>
+would go up to her from habit and hold up her forehead to be kissed;<BR>
+that was all.</P>
+
+<P>If anyone wished to speak to her, they sent a servant to call her, and<BR>
+if she was not there, they did not bother about her, never thought of<BR>
+her, never thought of troubling themselves so much as to say: "Why, I<BR>
+have not seen Aunt Lison this morning!"</P>
+
+<P>When they said "Aunt Lison," these two words awakened no feeling of<BR>
+affection in anyone's mind. It was as if one had said: "The coffee<BR>
+pot, or the sugar bowl."</P>
+
+<P>She always walked with little, quick, silent steps, never made a<BR>
+noise, never knocking up against anything; and seemed to communicate<BR>
+to surrounding objects the faculty of not making any sound. Her hands<BR>
+seemed to be made of a kind of wadding, she handled everything so<BR>
+lightly and delicately.</P>
+
+<P>She arrived about the middle of July, all upset at the idea of this<BR>
+marriage. She brought a quantity of presents which, as they came from<BR>
+her, remained almost unnoticed. On the following day they had<BR>
+forgotten she was there at all.</P>
+
+<P>But an unusual emotion was seething in her mind, and she never took<BR>
+her eyes off the engaged couple. She interested herself in Jeanne's<BR>
+trousseau with a singular eagerness, a feverish activity, working like<BR>
+a simple seamstress in her room, where no one came to visit her.</P>
+
+<P>She was continually presenting the baroness with handkerchiefs she had<BR>
+hemmed herself, towels on which she had embroidered a monogram, saying<BR>
+as she did so: "Is that all right, Adelaide?" And little mother, as<BR>
+she carelessly examined the objects, would reply: "Do not give<BR>
+yourself so much trouble, my poor Lison."</P>
+
+<P>One evening, toward the end of the month, after an oppressively warm<BR>
+day, the moon rose on one of those clear, mild nights which seem to<BR>
+move, stir and affect one, apparently awakening all the secret poetry<BR>
+of one's soul. The gentle breath of the fields was wafted into the<BR>
+quiet drawing-room. The baroness and her husband were playing cards by<BR>
+the light of a lamp, and Aunt Lison was sitting beside them knitting;<BR>
+while the young people, leaning on the window sill, were gazing out at<BR>
+the moonlit garden.</P>
+
+<P>The linden and the plane tree cast their shadows on the lawn which<BR>
+extended beyond it in the moonlight, as far as the dark wood.<BR>
+Attracted by the tender charm of the night, and by this misty<BR>
+illumination that lighted up the trees and the bushes, Jeanne turned<BR>
+toward her parents and said: "Little father, we are going to take a<BR>
+short stroll on the grass in front of the house."</P>
+
+<P>The baron replied, without looking up: "Go, my children," and<BR>
+continued his game.</P>
+
+<P>They went out and began to walk slowly along the moonlit lawn as far<BR>
+as the little wood at the end. The hour grew late and they did not<BR>
+think of going in. The baroness grew tired, and wishing to retire, she<BR>
+said:</P>
+
+<P>"We must call the lovers in."</P>
+
+<P>The baron cast a glance across the spacious garden where the two forms<BR>
+were wandering slowly.</P>
+
+<P>"Let them alone," he said; "it is so delicious outside! Lison will<BR>
+wait for them, will you not, Lison?"</P>
+
+<P>The old maid raised her troubled eyes and replied in her timid voice:</P>
+
+<P>"Certainly, I will wait for them."</P>
+
+<P>Little father gave his hand to the baroness, weary himself from the<BR>
+heat of the day.</P>
+
+<P>"I am going to bed, too," he said, and went up with his wife.</P>
+
+<P>Then Aunt Lison rose in her turn, and leaving on the arm of the chair<BR>
+her canvas with the wool and the knitting needles, she went over and<BR>
+leaned on the window sill and gazed out at the night.</P>
+
+<P>The two lovers kept on walking back and forth between the house and<BR>
+the wood. They squeezed each other's fingers without speaking, as<BR>
+though they had left their bodies and formed part of this visible<BR>
+poetry that exhaled from the earth.</P>
+
+<P>All at once Jeanne perceived, framed in the window, the silhouette of<BR>
+the aunt, outlined by the light of the lamp behind her.</P>
+
+<P>"See," she said, "there is Aunt Lison looking at us."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte raised his head, and said in an indifferent tone without<BR>
+thinking:</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, Aunt Lison is looking at us."</P>
+
+<P>And they continued to dream, to walk slowly, and to love each other.<BR>
+But the dew was falling fast, and the dampness made them shiver a<BR>
+little.</P>
+
+<P>"Let us go in now," said Jeanne. And they went into the house.</P>
+
+<P>When they entered the drawing-room, Aunt Lison had gone back to her<BR>
+work. Her head was bent over her work, and her fingers were trembling<BR>
+as if she were very tired.</P>
+
+<P>"It is time to go to bed, aunt," said Jeanne, approaching her.</P>
+
+<P>Her aunt turned her head, and her eyes were red as if she had been<BR>
+crying. The young people did not notice it; but suddenly M. de Lamare<BR>
+perceived that Jeanne's thin shoes were covered with dew. He was<BR>
+worried, and asked tenderly:</P>
+
+<P>"Are not your dear little feet cold?"</P>
+
+<P>All at once the old lady's hands shook so violently that she let fall<BR>
+her knitting, and hiding her face in her hands, she began to sob<BR>
+convulsively.</P>
+
+<P>The engaged couple looked at her in amazement, without moving.<BR>
+Suddenly Jeanne fell on her knees, and taking her aunt's hands away<BR>
+from her face, said in perplexity:</P>
+
+<P>"Why, what is the matter, Aunt Lison?"</P>
+
+<P>Then the poor woman, her voice full of tears, and her whole body<BR>
+shaking with sorrow, replied:</P>
+
+<P>"It was when he asked you--are not your--your--dear little feet<BR>
+cold?--no one ever said such things to me--to me--never--never----"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, surprised and compassionate, could still hardly help laughing<BR>
+at the idea of an admirer showing tender solicitude for Lison; and the<BR>
+vicomte had turned away to conceal his mirth.</P>
+
+<P>But the aunt suddenly rose, laying her ball of wool on the floor and<BR>
+her knitting in the chair, and fled to her room, feeling her way up<BR>
+the dark staircase.</P>
+
+<P>Left alone, the young people looked at one another, amused and<BR>
+saddened. Jeanne murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"Poor aunt!" Julien replied. "She must be a little crazy this<BR>
+evening."</P>
+
+<P>They held each other's hands and presently, gently, very gently, they<BR>
+exchanged their first kiss, and by the following day had forgotten all<BR>
+about Aunt Lison's tears.</P>
+
+<P>The two weeks preceding the wedding found Jeanne very calm, as though<BR>
+she were weary of tender emotions. She had no time for reflection on<BR>
+the morning of the eventful day. She was only conscious of a feeling<BR>
+as if her flesh, her bones and her blood had all melted beneath her<BR>
+skin, and on taking hold of anything, she noticed that her fingers<BR>
+trembled.</P>
+
+<P>She did not regain her self-possession until she was in the chancel of<BR>
+the church during the marriage ceremony.</P>
+
+<P>Married! So she was married! All that had occurred since daybreak<BR>
+seemed to her a dream, a waking dream. There are such moments, when<BR>
+all appears changed around us; even our motions seem to have a new<BR>
+meaning; even the hours of the day, which seem to be out of their<BR>
+usual time. She felt bewildered, above all else, bewildered. Last<BR>
+evening nothing had as yet been changed in her life; the constant hope<BR>
+of her life seemed only nearer, almost within reach. She had gone to<BR>
+rest a young girl; she was now a married woman. She had crossed that<BR>
+boundary that seems to conceal the future with all its joys, its<BR>
+dreams of happiness. She felt as though a door had opened in front of<BR>
+her; she was about to enter into the fulfillment of her expectations.</P>
+
+<P>When they appeared on the threshold of the church after the ceremony,<BR>
+a terrific noise caused the bride to start in terror, and the baroness<BR>
+to scream; it was a rifle salute given by the peasants, and the firing<BR>
+did not cease until they reached "The Poplars."</P>
+
+<P>After a collation served for the family, the family chaplain, and the<BR>
+priest from Yport, the mayor and the witnesses, who were some of the<BR>
+large farmers of the district, they all walked in the garden. On the<BR>
+other side of the ch&acirc;teau one could hear the boisterous mirth of the<BR>
+peasants, who were drinking cider beneath the apple trees. The whole<BR>
+countryside, dressed in their best, filled the courtyard.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and Julien walked through the copse and then up the slope and,<BR>
+without speaking, gazed out at the sea. The air was cool, although it<BR>
+was the middle of August; the wind was from the north, and the sun<BR>
+blazed down unpityingly from the blue sky. The young people sought a<BR>
+more sheltered spot, and crossing the plain, they turned to the right,<BR>
+toward the rolling and wooded valley that leads to Yport. As soon as<BR>
+they reached the trees the air was still, and they left the road and<BR>
+took a narrow path beneath the trees, where they could scarcely walk<BR>
+abreast.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne felt an arm passed gently round her waist. She said nothing,<BR>
+her breath came quick, her heart beat fast. Some low branches caressed<BR>
+their hair, as they bent to pass under them. She picked a leaf; two<BR>
+ladybirds were concealed beneath it, like two delicate red shells.</P>
+
+<P>"Look, a little family," she said innocently, and feeling a little<BR>
+more confidence.</P>
+
+<P>Julien placed his mouth to her ear, and whispered: "This evening you<BR>
+will be my wife."</P>
+
+<P>Although she had learned many things during her sojourn in the<BR>
+country, she dreamed of nothing as yet but the poetry of love, and was<BR>
+surprised. His wife? Was she not that already?</P>
+
+<P>Then he began to kiss her temples and neck, little light kisses.<BR>
+Startled each time afresh by these masculine kisses to which she was<BR>
+not accustomed, she instinctively turned away her head to avoid them,<BR>
+though they delighted her. But they had come to the edge of the wood.<BR>
+She stopped, embarrassed at being so far from home. What would they<BR>
+think?</P>
+
+<P>"Let us go home," she said.</P>
+
+<P>He withdrew his arm from her waist, and as they turned round they<BR>
+stood face to face, so close that they could feel each other's breath<BR>
+on their faces. They gazed deep into one another's eyes with that gaze<BR>
+in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown<BR>
+of each other's being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and<BR>
+persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life<BR>
+be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness,<BR>
+or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble<BR>
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had never<BR>
+yet seen each other.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly, Julien, placing his two hands on his wife's shoulders,<BR>
+kissed her full on the lips as she had never before been kissed. The<BR>
+kiss, penetrating as it did her very blood and marrow, gave her such a<BR>
+mysterious shock that she pushed Julien wildly away with her two arms,<BR>
+almost falling backward as she did so.</P>
+
+<P>"Let us go away, let us go away," she faltered.</P>
+
+<P>He did not reply, but took both her hands and held them in his. They<BR>
+walked home in silence, and the rest of the afternoon seemed long. The<BR>
+dinner was simple and did not last long, contrary to the usual Norman<BR>
+custom. A sort of embarrassment seemed to paralyze the guests. The two<BR>
+priests, the mayor, and the four farmers invited, alone betrayed a<BR>
+little of that broad mirth that is supposed to accompany weddings.</P>
+
+<P>They had apparently forgotten how to laugh, when a remark of the<BR>
+mayor's woke them up. It was about nine o'clock; coffee was about to<BR>
+be served. Outside, under the apple-trees of the first court, the bal<BR>
+champ&ecirc;tre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all<BR>
+that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a<BR>
+grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle<BR>
+shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins<BR>
+and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The<BR>
+boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the<BR>
+instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the<BR>
+unrestrained voices seemed to fall from the air in shreds, in little<BR>
+fragments of scattered notes.</P>
+
+<P>Two large barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two<BR>
+servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to<BR>
+refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of<BR>
+the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every<BR>
+one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of<BR>
+illuminated foliage this wholesome and boisterous f&ecirc;te made the<BR>
+melancholy watchers in the dining-room long to dance also, and to<BR>
+drink from one of those large barrels, while they munched a slice of<BR>
+bread and butter and a raw onion.</P>
+
+<P>The mayor, who was beating time with his knife, cried: "By Jove, that<BR>
+is all right; it is like the wedding of Ganache."</P>
+
+<P>A suppressed giggle was heard, but Abb&eacute; Picot, the natural enemy of<BR>
+civil authority, cried: "You mean of Cana." The other did not accept<BR>
+the correction. "No, monsieur le cur&eacute;, I know what I am talking about;<BR>
+when I say Ganache, I mean Ganache."</P>
+
+<P>They rose from table and went into the drawing-room, and then outside<BR>
+to mix with the merrymakers. The guests soon left.</P>
+
+<P>They went into the house. They were surprised to see Madame Adelaide<BR>
+sobbing on Julien's shoulder. Her tears, noisy tears, as if blown out<BR>
+by a pair of bellows, seemed to come from her nose, her mouth and her<BR>
+eyes at the same time; and the young man, dumfounded, awkward, was<BR>
+supporting the heavy woman who had sunk into his arms to commend to<BR>
+his care her darling, her little one, her adored daughter.</P>
+
+<P>The baron rushed toward them, saying: "Oh, no scenes, no tears, I beg<BR>
+of you," and, taking his wife to a chair, he made her sit down, while<BR>
+she wiped away her tears. Then, turning to Jeanne: "Come, little one,<BR>
+kiss your mother and go to bed."</P>
+
+<P>What happened then? She could hardly have told, for she seemed to have<BR>
+lost her head, but she felt a shower of little grateful kisses on her<BR>
+lips.</P>
+
+<P>Day dawned. Julien awoke, yawned, stretched, looked at his wife,<BR>
+smiled and asked: "Did you sleep well, darling?"</P>
+
+<P>She noticed that he now said "thou," and she replied, bewildered,<BR>
+"Why, yes. And you?" "Oh, very well," he answered. And turning toward<BR>
+her, he kissed her and then began to chat quietly. He set before her<BR>
+plans of living, with the idea of economy, and this word occurring<BR>
+several times, astonished Jeanne. She listened without grasping the<BR>
+meaning of his words, looked at him, but was thinking of a thousand<BR>
+things that passed rapidly through her mind hardly leaving a trace.</P>
+
+<P>The clock struck eight. "Come, we must get up," he said. "It would<BR>
+look ridiculous for us to be late." When he was dressed he assisted<BR>
+his wife with all the little details of her toilet, not allowing her<BR>
+to call Rosalie. As they left the room he stopped. "You know, when we<BR>
+are alone, we can now use 'thou,' but before your parents it is better<BR>
+to wait a while. It will be quite natural when we come back from our<BR>
+wedding journey."</P>
+
+<P>She did not go down till luncheon was ready. The day passed like any<BR>
+ordinary day, as if nothing new had occurred. There was one man more<BR>
+in the house, that was all.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="V">CHAPTER V</a></h4>
+
+<h5>CORSICA AND A NEW LIFE</h5>
+
+<P>Four days later the travelling carriage arrived that was to take them<BR>
+to Marseilles.</P>
+
+<P>After the first night Jeanne had become accustomed to Julien's kisses<BR>
+and caresses, although her repugnance to a closer intimacy had not<BR>
+diminished. She thought him handsome, she loved him. She again felt<BR>
+happy and cheerful.</P>
+
+<P>The farewells were short and without sadness. The baroness alone<BR>
+seemed tearful. As the carriage was just starting she placed a purse,<BR>
+heavy as lead, in her daughter's hand, saying, "That is for your<BR>
+little expenses as a bride."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne thrust the purse in her pocket and the carriage started.</P>
+
+<P>Toward evening Julien said: "How much money did your mother give you<BR>
+in that purse?"</P>
+
+<P>She had not given it a thought, and she poured out the contents on her<BR>
+knees. A golden shower filled her lap: two thousand francs. She<BR>
+clapped her hands. "I shall commit all kinds of extravagance," she<BR>
+said as she replaced it in the purse.</P>
+
+<P>After travelling eight days in terribly hot weather they reached<BR>
+Marseilles. The following day the <i>Roi-Louis</i>, a little mail<BR>
+steamer which went to Naples by way of Ajaccio, took them to Corsica.</P>
+
+<P>Corsica! Its "maquis," its bandits, its mountains! The birthplace of<BR>
+Napoleon! It seemed to Jeanne that she was leaving real life to enter<BR>
+into a dream, although wide awake. Standing side by side on the bridge<BR>
+of the steamer, they looked at the cliffs of Provence as they passed<BR>
+swiftly by them. The calm sea of deep blue seemed petrified beneath<BR>
+the ardent rays of the sun.</P>
+
+<P>"Do you remember our excursion in P&egrave;re Lastique's boat?" said Jeanne.</P>
+
+<P>Instead of replying, he gave her a hasty kiss on the ear.</P>
+
+<P>The paddle-wheels struck the water, disturbing its torpor, and a long<BR>
+track of foam like the froth of champagne remained in the wake of the<BR>
+boat, reaching as far as the eye could see. Jeanne drank in with<BR>
+delight the odor of the salt mist that seemed to go to the very tips<BR>
+of her fingers. Everywhere the sea. But ahead of them there was<BR>
+something gray, not clearly defined in the early dawn; a sort of<BR>
+massing of strange-looking clouds, pointed, jagged, seemed to rest on<BR>
+the waters.</P>
+
+<P>Presently it became clearer, its outline more distinct on the<BR>
+brightening sky; a large chain of mountains, peaked and weird,<BR>
+appeared. It was Corsica, covered with a light veil of mist. The sun<BR>
+rose behind it, outlining the jagged crests like black shadows. Then<BR>
+all the summits were bathed in light, while the rest of the island<BR>
+remained covered with mist.</P>
+
+<P>The captain, a little sun-browned man, dried up, stunted, toughened<BR>
+and shrivelled by the harsh salt winds, appeared on the bridge and in<BR>
+a voice hoarse after twenty years of command and worn from shouting<BR>
+amid the storms, said to Jeanne:</P>
+
+<P>"Do you perceive it, that odor?"</P>
+
+<P>She certainly noticed a strong and peculiar odor of plants, a wild<BR>
+aromatic odor.</P>
+
+<P>"That is Corsica that sends out that fragrance, madame," said the<BR>
+captain. "It is her peculiar odor of a pretty woman. After being away<BR>
+for twenty years, I should recognize it five miles out at sea. I<BR>
+belong to it. He, down there, at Saint Helena, he speaks of it always,<BR>
+it seems, of the odor of his native country. He belongs to my family."</P>
+
+<P>And the captain, taking off his hat, saluted Corsica, saluted down<BR>
+yonder, across the ocean, the great captive emperor who belonged to<BR>
+his family.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was so affected that she almost cried.</P>
+
+<P>Then, pointing toward the horizon, the captain said: "Les<BR>
+Sanguinaires."</P>
+
+<P>Julien was standing beside his wife, with his arm round her waist, and<BR>
+they both looked out into the distance to see what he was alluding to.<BR>
+They at length perceived some pyramidal rocks which the vessel rounded<BR>
+presently to enter an immense peaceful gulf surrounded by lofty<BR>
+summits, the base of which was covered with what looked like moss.</P>
+
+<P>Pointing to this verdant growth, the captain said: "Le maquis."</P>
+
+<P>As they proceeded on their course the circle of mountains appeared to<BR>
+close in behind the steamer, which moved along slowly in such a lake<BR>
+of transparent azure that one could sometimes see to the bottom.</P>
+
+<P>The town suddenly appeared perfectly white at the end of the gulf, on<BR>
+the edge of the water, at the base of the mountains. Some little<BR>
+Italian boats were anchored in the dock. Four or five rowboats came up<BR>
+beside the <i>Roi-Louis</i> to get passengers.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, who was collecting the baggage, asked his wife in a low tone:<BR>
+"Twenty sous is enough, is it not, to give to the porter?" For a week<BR>
+he had constantly asked the same question, which annoyed her each<BR>
+time. She replied somewhat impatiently: "When one is not sure of<BR>
+giving enough, one gives too much."</P>
+
+<P>He was always disputing with the hotel proprietors, with the servants,<BR>
+the drivers, the vendors of all kinds, and when, by dint of<BR>
+bargaining, he had obtained a reduction in price, he would say to<BR>
+Jeanne as he rubbed his hands: "I do not like to be cheated."</P>
+
+<P>She trembled whenever a bill came in, certain beforehand of the<BR>
+remarks that he would make about each item, humiliated at this<BR>
+bargaining, blushing up to the roots of her hair beneath the<BR>
+contemptuous glances of the servants as they looked after her husband,<BR>
+while they held in their hand the meagre tip.</P>
+
+<P>He had a dispute with the boatmen who landed him.</P>
+
+<P>The first tree Jeanne saw was a palm. They went to a great, empty<BR>
+hotel at the corner of an immense square and ordered breakfast.</P>
+
+<P>After an hour's rest they arranged an itinerary for their trip, and at<BR>
+the end of three days spent in this little town, hidden at the end of<BR>
+the blue gulf, and hot as a furnace enclosed in its curtain of<BR>
+mountains, which keep every breath of air from it, they decided to<BR>
+hire some saddle horses, so as to be able to cross any difficult pass,<BR>
+and selected two little Corsican stallions with fiery eyes, thin and<BR>
+unwearying, and set out one morning at daybreak. A guide, mounted on a<BR>
+mule, accompanied them and carried the provisions, for inns are<BR>
+unknown in this wild country.</P>
+
+<P>The road ran along the gulf and soon turned into a kind of valley, and<BR>
+on toward the high mountains. They frequently crossed the dry beds of<BR>
+torrents with only a tiny stream of water trickling under the stones,<BR>
+gurgling faintly like a wild animal in hiding.</P>
+
+<P>The uncultivated country seemed perfectly barren. The sides of the<BR>
+hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun.<BR>
+Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a<BR>
+little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all<BR>
+carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons,<BR>
+but redoubtable in their hands.</P>
+
+<P>The pungent odor of the aromatic herbs with which the island is<BR>
+overgrown seemed to make the air heavy. The road ascended gradually<BR>
+amid the long curves of the mountains. The red or blue granite peaks<BR>
+gave an appearance of fairyland to the wild landscape, and on the<BR>
+foothills immense forests of chestnut trees looked like green brush,<BR>
+compared with the elevations above them.</P>
+
+<P>Sometimes the guide, reaching out his hand toward some of these<BR>
+heights, would repeat a name. Jeanne and Julien would look where he<BR>
+pointed, but see nothing, until at last they discovered something<BR>
+gray, like a mass of stones fallen from the summit. It was a little<BR>
+village, a hamlet of granite hanging there, fastened on like a<BR>
+veritable bird's nest and almost invisible on the huge mountain.</P>
+
+<P>Walking their horses like this made Jeanne nervous. "Let us go<BR>
+faster," she said. And she whipped up her horse. Then, as she did not<BR>
+hear her husband following her, she turned round and laughed heartily<BR>
+as she saw him coming along, pale, and holding on to his horse's mane<BR>
+as it bounced him up and down. His very appearance of a "beau<BR>
+cavalier" made his awkwardness and timidity all the more comical.</P>
+
+<P>They trotted along quietly. The road now ran between two interminable<BR>
+forests of brush, which covered the whole side of the mountain like a<BR>
+garment. This was the "Maquis," composed of scrub oak, juniper,<BR>
+arbutus, mastic, privet, gorse, laurel, myrtle and boxwood,<BR>
+intertwined with clematis, huge ferns, honeysuckle, cytisus, rosemary,<BR>
+lavender and brambles, which covered the sides of the mountain with an<BR>
+impenetrable fleece.</P>
+
+<P>They were hungry. The guide rejoined them and led them to one of those<BR>
+charming springs so frequent in rocky countries, a tiny thread of iced<BR>
+water issuing from a little hole in the rock and flowing into a<BR>
+chestnut leaf that some passerby had placed there to guide the water<BR>
+into one's mouth.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne felt so happy that she could hardly restrain herself from<BR>
+screaming for joy.</P>
+
+<P>They continued their journey and began to descend the slope winding<BR>
+round the Bay of Sagone. Toward evening they passed through Cargese,<BR>
+the Greek village founded by a colony of refugees who were driven from<BR>
+their country. Tall, beautiful girls, with rounded hips, long hands<BR>
+and slender waists, and singularly graceful, were grouped beside a<BR>
+fountain. Julien called out, "Good evening," and they replied in<BR>
+musical tones in the harmonious language of their own land.</P>
+
+<P>When they reached Piana they had to beg for hospitality, as in ancient<BR>
+times and in desert lands. Jeanne trembled with joy as they waited for<BR>
+the door to be opened after Julien knocked. Oh, this was a journey<BR>
+worth while, with all the unexpected of unexplored paths.</P>
+
+<P>It happened to be the home of a young couple. They received the<BR>
+travellers as the patriarchs must have received the guest sent by God.<BR>
+They had to sleep on a corn husk mattress in an old moldy house. The<BR>
+woodwork, all eaten by worms, overrun with long boring-worms, seemed<BR>
+to emit sounds, to be alive and to sigh.</P>
+
+<P>They set off again at daybreak, and presently stopped before a forest,<BR>
+a veritable forest of purple granite. There were peaks, pillars,<BR>
+bell-towers, wondrous forms molded by age, the ravaging wind and the<BR>
+sea mist. As much as three hundred metres in height, slender, round,<BR>
+twisted, hooked, deformed, unexpected and fantastic, these amazing<BR>
+rocks looked like trees, plants, animals, monuments, men, monks in<BR>
+their garb, horned devils, gigantic birds, a whole population of<BR>
+monsters, a menagerie of nightmares petrified by the will of some<BR>
+eccentric divinity.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne had ceased talking, her heart was full. She took Julien's hand<BR>
+and squeezed it, overcome with a longing for love in presence of the<BR>
+beauty of nature.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly, as they emerged from this chaos, they saw before them<BR>
+another gulf, encircled by a wall of blood-red granite. And these red<BR>
+rocks were reflected in the blue waters.</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, Julien!" faltered Jeanne, unable to speak for wonder and choking<BR>
+with her emotion. Two tears fell from her eyes. Julien gazed at her in<BR>
+astonishment and said:</P>
+
+<P>"What is the matter, my pet?"</P>
+
+<P>She wiped away her tears, smiled and replied in a rather shaky voice:</P>
+
+<P>"Nothing--I am nervous--I do not know--it just came over me. I am so<BR>
+happy that the least thing affects me."</P>
+
+<P>He could not understand these feminine attacks of "nerves," the shocks<BR>
+of these vibrant beings, excited at nothing, whom enthusiasm stirs as<BR>
+might a catastrophe, whom an imperceptible sensation completely<BR>
+upsets, driving them wild with joy or despair.</P>
+
+<P>These tears seemed absurd to him, and thinking only of the bad road,<BR>
+he said:</P>
+
+<P>"You would do better to watch your horse."</P>
+
+<P>They descended an almost impassable path to the shore of the gulf,<BR>
+then turned to the right to ascend the gloomy Val d'Ota.</P>
+
+<P>But the road was so bad that Julien proposed that they should go on<BR>
+foot. Jeanne was delighted. She was enchanted at the idea of walking,<BR>
+of being alone with him after her late emotion.</P>
+
+<P>The guide went ahead with the mule and the horses and they walked<BR>
+slowly.</P>
+
+<P>The mountain, cleft from top to bottom, spreads apart. The path lies<BR>
+in this breach, between two gigantic walls. A roaring torrent flows<BR>
+through the gorge. The air is icy, the granite looks black, and high<BR>
+above one the glimpse of blue sky astonishes and bewilders one.</P>
+
+<P>A sudden noise made Jeanne start. She raised her eyes. An immense bird<BR>
+flew away from a hollow; it was an eagle. His spread wings seemed to<BR>
+brush the two walls of the gorge and he soared into the blue and<BR>
+disappeared.</P>
+
+<P>Farther on there was a double gorge and the path lay between the two<BR>
+in abrupt zigzags. Jeanne, careless and happy, took the lead, the<BR>
+pebbles rolling away beneath her feet, fearlessly leaning over the<BR>
+abysses. Julien followed her, somewhat out of breath, his eyes on the<BR>
+ground for fear of becoming dizzy.</P>
+
+<P>All at once the sun shone down on them, and it seemed as if they were<BR>
+leaving the infernal regions. They were thirsty, and following a track<BR>
+of moisture, they crossed a wilderness of stones and found a little<BR>
+spring conducted into a channel made of a piece of hollowed-out wood<BR>
+for the benefit of the goatherds. A carpet of moss covered the ground<BR>
+all round it, and Jeanne and Julien knelt down to drink.</P>
+
+<P>As they were enjoying the fresh cold water, Julien tried to draw<BR>
+Jeanne away to tease her. She resisted and their lips met and parted,<BR>
+and the stream of cold water splashed their faces, their necks, their<BR>
+clothes and their hands, and their kisses mingled in the stream.</P>
+
+<P>They were a long time reaching the summit of the declivity, as the<BR>
+road was so winding and uneven, and they did not reach Evisa until<BR>
+evening and the house of Paoli Palabretti, a relative of their guide.</P>
+
+<P>He was a tall man, somewhat bent, with the mournful air of a<BR>
+consumptive. He took them to their room, a cheerless room of bare<BR>
+stone, but handsome for this country, where all elegance is ignored.<BR>
+He expressed in his language--the Corsican patois, a jumble of French<BR>
+and Italian--his pleasure at welcoming them, when a shrill voice<BR>
+interrupted him. A little swarthy woman, with large black eyes, a skin<BR>
+warmed by the sun, a slender waist, teeth always showing in a<BR>
+perpetual smile, darted forward, kissed Jeanne, shook Julien's hand<BR>
+and said: "Good-day, madame; good-day, monsieur; I hope you are well."</P>
+
+<P>She took their hats, shawls, carrying all on one arm, for the other<BR>
+was in a sling, and then she made them all go outside, saying to her<BR>
+husband: "Go and take them for a walk until dinner time."</P>
+
+<P>M. Palabretti obeyed at once and walked between the two young people<BR>
+as he showed them the village. He dragged his feet and his words,<BR>
+coughing frequently, and repeating at each attack of coughing:</P>
+
+<P>"It is the air of the Val, which is cool, and has struck my chest."</P>
+
+<P>He led them on a by-path beneath enormous chestnut trees. Suddenly he<BR>
+stopped and said in his monotonous voice: "It is here that my cousin,<BR>
+Jean Rinaldi, was killed by Mathieu Lori. See, I was there, close to<BR>
+Jean, when Mathieu appeared at ten paces from us. 'Jean,' he cried,<BR>
+'do not go to Albertacce; do not go, Jean, or I will kill you. I warn<BR>
+you!'</P>
+
+<P>"I took Jean's arm: 'Do not go there, Jean; he will do it.'</P>
+
+<P>"It was about a girl whom they were both after, Paulina Sinacoupi.</P>
+
+<P>"But Jean cried out: 'I am going, Mathieu; you will not be the one to<BR>
+prevent me.'</P>
+
+<P>"Then Mathieu unslung his gun, and before I could adjust mine, he<BR>
+fired.</P>
+
+<P>"Jean leaped two feet in the air, like a child skipping, yes,<BR>
+monsieur, and he fell back full on me, so that my gun went off and<BR>
+rolled as far as the big chestnut tree over yonder.</P>
+
+<P>"Jean's mouth was wide open, but he did not utter a word; he was<BR>
+dead."</P>
+
+<P>The young people gazed in amazement at the calm witness of this crime.<BR>
+Jeanne asked:</P>
+
+<P>"And what became of the assassin?"</P>
+
+<P>Paoli Palabretti had a long fit of coughing and then said:</P>
+
+<P>"He escaped to the mountain. It was my brother who killed him the<BR>
+following year. You know, my brother, Philippi Palabretti, the<BR>
+bandit."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne shuddered.</P>
+
+<P>"Your brother a bandit?"</P>
+
+<P>With a gleam of pride in his eye, the calm Corsican replied:</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame. He was celebrated, that one. He laid low six gendarmes.<BR>
+He died at the same time as Nicolas Morali, when they were trapped in<BR>
+the Niolo, after six days of fighting, and were about to die of<BR>
+hunger.</P>
+
+<P>"The country is worth it," he added with a resigned air in the same<BR>
+tone in which he said: "It is the air of the Val, which is cool."</P>
+
+<P>Then they went home to dinner, and the little Corsican woman behaved<BR>
+as if she had known them for twenty years.</P>
+
+<P>But Jeanne was worried. When Julien again held her in his arms, would<BR>
+she experience the same strange and intense sensation that she had<BR>
+felt on the moss beside the spring? And when they were alone together<BR>
+that evening she trembled lest she should still be insensible to his<BR>
+kisses. But she was reassured, and this was her first night of love.</P>
+
+<P>The next day, as they were about to set out, she decided that she<BR>
+would not leave this humble cottage, where it seemed as though a fresh<BR>
+happiness had begun for her.</P>
+
+<P>She called her host's little wife into her room and, while making<BR>
+clear that she did not mean it as a present, she insisted, even with<BR>
+some annoyance, on sending her from Paris, as soon as she arrived, a<BR>
+remembrance, a remembrance to which she attached an almost<BR>
+superstitious significance.</P>
+
+<P>The little Corsican refused for some time, not wishing to accept it.<BR>
+But at last she consented, saying:</P>
+
+<P>"Well, then, send me a little pistol, a very small one."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne opened her eyes in astonishment. The other added in her ear, as<BR>
+one confides a sweet and intimate secret: "It is to kill my<BR>
+brother-in-law." And smiling, she hastily unwound the bandages around<BR>
+the helpless arm, and showing her firm, white skin with the scratch of<BR>
+a stiletto across it, now almost healed, she said: "If I had not been<BR>
+almost as strong as he is, he would have killed me. My husband is not<BR>
+jealous, he knows me; and, besides, he is ill, you know, and that<BR>
+quiets your blood. And, besides, madame, I am an honest woman; but my<BR>
+brother-in-law believes all that he hears. He is jealous for my<BR>
+husband and he will surely try it again. Then I shall have my little<BR>
+pistol; I shall be easy, and sure of my revenge."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne promised to send the weapon, kissed her new friend tenderly and<BR>
+they set out on their journey.</P>
+
+<P>The rest of the trip was nothing but a dream, a continual series of<BR>
+embraces, an intoxication of caresses. She saw nothing, neither the<BR>
+landscape, nor the people, nor the places where they stopped. She saw<BR>
+nothing but Julien.</P>
+
+<P>On arriving at Bastia, they had to pay the guide. Julien fumbled in<BR>
+his pockets. Not finding what he wanted, he said to Jeanne: "As you<BR>
+are not using your mother's two thousand francs, give them to me to<BR>
+carry. They will be safer in my belt, and it will avoid my having to<BR>
+make change."</P>
+
+<P>She handed him her purse.</P>
+
+<P>They went to Leghorn, visited Florence, Genoa and all the Cornici.<BR>
+They reached Marseilles on a morning when the north wind was blowing.<BR>
+Two months had elapsed since they left the "Poplars." It was now the<BR>
+15th of October.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, affected by the cold wind that seemed to come from yonder,<BR>
+from far-off Normandy, felt sad. Julien had, for some time, appeared<BR>
+changed, tired, indifferent, and she feared she knew not what.</P>
+
+<P>They delayed their return home four days longer, not being able to<BR>
+make up their minds to leave this pleasant land of the sun. It seemed<BR>
+to her that she had come to an end of her happiness.</P>
+
+<P>At length they left. They were to make all their purchases in Paris,<BR>
+prior to settling down for good at the "Poplars," and Jeanne looked<BR>
+forward to bringing back some treasures, thanks to her mother's<BR>
+present. But the first thing she thought of was the pistol promised to<BR>
+the little Corsican woman of Evisa.</P>
+
+<P>The day after they arrived she said to Julien: "Dear, will you give me<BR>
+that money of mamma's? I want to make my purchases."</P>
+
+<P>He turned toward her with a look of annoyance.</P>
+
+<P>"How much do you want?"</P>
+
+<P>"Why--whatever you please."</P>
+
+<P>"I will give you a hundred francs," he replied, "but do not squander<BR>
+it."</P>
+
+<P>She did not know what to say, amazed and confused. At length she<BR>
+faltered: "But--I--handed you the money to----"</P>
+
+<P>He did not give her time to finish.</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, of course. Whether it is in my pocket or yours makes no<BR>
+difference from the moment that we have the same purse. I do not<BR>
+refuse you, do I, since I am giving you a hundred francs?"</P>
+
+<P>She took the five gold pieces without saying a word, but she did not<BR>
+venture to ask for any more, and she bought nothing but the pistol.</P>
+
+<P>Eight days later they set out for the "Poplars."</P>
+
+<h4><a name="VI">CHAPTER VI</a></h4>
+
+<h5>DISENCHANTMENT</h5>
+
+<P>The family and servants were awaiting them outside the white gate with<BR>
+brick supports. The post-chaise drew up and there were long and<BR>
+affectionate greetings. Little mother wept; Jeanne, affected, wiped<BR>
+away some tears; father nervously walked up and down.</P>
+
+<P>Then, as the baggage was being unloaded, they told of their travels<BR>
+beside the parlor fire. Jeanne's words flowed freely, and everything<BR>
+was told, everything, in a half hour, except, perhaps, a few little<BR>
+details forgotten in this rapid account.</P>
+
+<P>The young wife then went to undo her parcels. Rosalie, also greatly<BR>
+affected, assisted her. When this was finished and everything had been<BR>
+put away, the little maid left her mistress, and Jeanne, somewhat<BR>
+fatigued, sat down.</P>
+
+<P>She asked herself what she was now going to do, seeking some<BR>
+occupation for her mind, some work for her hands. She did not care to<BR>
+go down again into the drawing-room, where her mother was asleep, and<BR>
+she thought she would take a walk. But the country seemed so sad that<BR>
+she felt a weight at her heart on only looking out of the window.</P>
+
+<P>Then it came to her that she had no longer anything to do, never again<BR>
+anything to do. All her young life at the convent had been preoccupied<BR>
+with the future, busied with dreams. The constant excitement of hope<BR>
+filled her hours at that time, so that she was not aware of their<BR>
+flight. Then hardly had she left those austere walls, where her<BR>
+illusions had unfolded, than her expectations of love were at once<BR>
+realized. The longed-for lover, met, loved and married within a few<BR>
+weeks, as one marries on these sudden resolves, had carried her off in<BR>
+his arms, without giving her time for reflection.</P>
+
+<P>But now the sweet reality of the first days was to become the everyday<BR>
+reality, which closed the door on vague hopes, on the enchanting<BR>
+worries of the unknown. Yes, there was nothing more to look forward<BR>
+to. And there was nothing more to do, today, to-morrow, never. She<BR>
+felt all this vaguely as a certain disillusion, a certain crumbling of<BR>
+her dreams.</P>
+
+<P>She rose and leaned her forehead against the cold window panes.</P>
+
+<P>Then, after gazing for some time at the sky across which dark clouds<BR>
+were passing, she decided to go out.</P>
+
+<P>Was this the same country, the same grass, the same trees as in May?<BR>
+What had become of the sunlit cheerfulness of the leaves and the<BR>
+poetry of the green grass, where dandelions, poppies and moon daisies<BR>
+bloomed and where yellow butterflies fluttered as though held by<BR>
+invisible wires? And this intoxication of the air teeming with life,<BR>
+with fragrance, with fertilizing pollen, existed no longer!</P>
+
+<P>The avenues, soaked by the constant autumnal downpours, were covered<BR>
+with a thick carpet of fallen leaves which extended beneath the<BR>
+shivering bareness of the almost leafless poplars. She went as far as<BR>
+the shrubbery. It was as sad as the chamber of a dying person. A green<BR>
+hedge which separated the little winding walks was bare of leaves.<BR>
+Little birds flew from place to place with a little chilly cry,<BR>
+seeking a shelter.</P>
+
+<P>The thick curtain of elm trees that formed a protection against the<BR>
+sea wind, the lime tree and the plane tree with their crimson and<BR>
+yellow tints seemed clothed, the one in red velvet and the other in<BR>
+yellow silk.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne walked slowly up and down petite m&egrave;re's avenue, alongside the<BR>
+Couillards' farm. Something weighed on her spirit like a presentiment<BR>
+of the long boredom of the monotonous life about to begin.</P>
+
+<P>She seated herself on the bank where Julien had first told her of his<BR>
+love and remained there, dreaming, scarcely thinking, depressed to the<BR>
+very soul, longing to lie down, to sleep, in order to escape the<BR>
+dreariness of the day.</P>
+
+<P>All at once she perceived a gull crossing the sky, carried away in a<BR>
+gust of wind, and she recalled the eagle she had seen down there in<BR>
+Corsica, in the gloomy vale of Ota. She felt a spasm at her heart as<BR>
+at the remembrance of something pleasant that is gone by, and she had<BR>
+a sudden vision of the beautiful island with its wild perfume, its sun<BR>
+that ripens oranges and lemons, its mountains with their rosy summits,<BR>
+its azure gulfs and its ravines through which the torrents flowed.</P>
+
+<P>And the moist, severe landscape that surrounded her, with the falling<BR>
+leaves and the gray clouds blown along by the wind, enfolded her in<BR>
+such a heavy mantle of misery that she went back to the house to keep<BR>
+from sobbing.</P>
+
+<P>Her mother was dozing in a torpid condition in front of the fire,<BR>
+accustomed to the melancholy of the long days, and not noticing it any<BR>
+longer. Her father and Julien had gone for a walk to talk about<BR>
+business matters. Night was coming on, filling the large drawing-room<BR>
+with gloom lighted by reflections of light from the fire.</P>
+
+<P>The baron presently appeared, followed by Julien. As soon as the<BR>
+vicomte entered the room he rang the bell, saying: "Quick, quick, let<BR>
+us have some light! It is gloomy in here."</P>
+
+<P>And he sat down before the fire. While his wet shoes were steaming in<BR>
+the warmth and the mud was drying on his soles, he rubbed his hands<BR>
+cheerfully as he said: "I think it is going to freeze; the sky is<BR>
+clearing in the north, and it is full moon to-night; we shall have a<BR>
+stinger to-night."</P>
+
+<P>Then turning to his daughter: "Well, little one, are you glad to be<BR>
+back again in your own country, in your own home, with the old folks?"</P>
+
+<P>This simple question upset Jeanne. She threw herself into her father's<BR>
+arms, her eyes full of tears, and kissed him nervously, as though<BR>
+asking pardon, for in spite of her honest attempt to be cheerful, she<BR>
+felt sad enough to give up altogether. She recalled the joy she had<BR>
+promised herself at seeing her parents again, and she was surprised at<BR>
+the coldness that seemed to numb her affection, just as if, after<BR>
+constantly thinking of those one loves, when at a distance and unable<BR>
+to see them at any moment, one should feel, on seeing them again, a<BR>
+sort of check of affection, until the bonds of their life in common<BR>
+had been renewed.</P>
+
+<P>Dinner lasted a long time. No one spoke much. Julien appeared to have<BR>
+forgotten his wife.</P>
+
+<P>In the drawing-room Jeanne sat before the fire in a drowsy condition,<BR>
+opposite little mother, who was sound asleep. Aroused by the voices of<BR>
+the men, Jeanne asked herself, as she tried to rouse herself, if she,<BR>
+too, was going to become a slave to this dreary lethargy of habit that<BR>
+nothing varies.</P>
+
+<P>The baron approached the fire, and holding out his hands to the<BR>
+glowing flame, he said, smiling: "Ah, that burns finely this evening.<BR>
+It is freezing, children; it is freezing." Then, placing his hand on<BR>
+Jeanne's shoulder and pointing to the fire, he said: "See here, little<BR>
+daughter, that is the best thing in life, the hearth, the hearth, with<BR>
+one's own around one. Nothing else counts. But supposing we retire.<BR>
+You children must be tired out."</P>
+
+<P>When she was in her room, Jeanne asked herself how she could feel so<BR>
+differently on returning a second time to the place that she thought<BR>
+she loved. Why did she feel as though she were wounded? Why did this<BR>
+house, this beloved country, all that hitherto had thrilled her with<BR>
+happiness, now appear so distressing?</P>
+
+<P>Her eyes suddenly fell on her clock. The little bee was still swinging<BR>
+from left to right and from right to left with the same quick,<BR>
+continuous motion above the scarlet blossoms. All at once an impulse<BR>
+of tenderness moved her to tears at sight of this little piece of<BR>
+mechanism that seemed to be alive. She had not been so affected on<BR>
+kissing her father and mother. The heart has mysteries that no<BR>
+arguments can solve.</P>
+
+<P>For the first time since her marriage she was alone, Julien, under<BR>
+pretext of fatigue, having taken another room.</P>
+
+<P>She lay awake a long time, unaccustomed to being alone and disturbed<BR>
+by the bleak north wind which beat against the roof.</P>
+
+<P>She was awakened the next morning by a bright light that flooded her<BR>
+room. She put on a dressing gown and ran to the window and opened it.</P>
+
+<P>An icy breeze, sharp and bracing, streamed into the room, making her<BR>
+skin tingle and her eyes water. The sun appeared behind the trees on a<BR>
+crimson sky, and the earth, covered with frost and dry and hard, rang<BR>
+out beneath one's footsteps. In one night all the leaves had blown off<BR>
+the trees, and in the distance beyond the level ground was seen the<BR>
+long green line of water, covered with trails of white foam.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne dressed herself and went out, and for the sake of an object she<BR>
+went to call on the farmers.</P>
+
+<P>The Martins held up their hands in surprise, and Mrs. Martin kissed<BR>
+her on both cheeks, and then they made her drink a glass of noyau. She<BR>
+then went to the other farm. The Couillards also were surprised. Mrs.<BR>
+Couillard pecked her on the ears and she had to drink a glass of<BR>
+cassis. Then she went home to breakfast.</P>
+
+<P>The day went by like the previous day, cold instead of damp. And the<BR>
+other days of the week resembled these two days, and all the weeks of<BR>
+the month were like the first week.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little, however, she ceased to regret far-off lands. The<BR>
+force of habit was covering her life with a layer of resignation<BR>
+similar to the lime-stone formation deposited on objects by certain<BR>
+springs. And a kind of interest for the thousand-and-one little<BR>
+insignificant things of daily life, a care for the simple, ordinary<BR>
+everyday occupations, awakened in her heart. A sort of pensive<BR>
+melancholy, a vague disenchantment with life was growing up in her<BR>
+mind. What did she lack? What did she want? She did not know. She had<BR>
+no worldly desires, no thirst for amusement, no longing for<BR>
+permissible pleasures. What then? Just as old furniture tarnishes in<BR>
+time, so everything was slowly becoming faded to her eyes, everything<BR>
+seemed to be fading, to be taking on pale, dreary shades.</P>
+
+<P>Her relations with Julien had completely changed. He seemed to be<BR>
+quite different since they came back from their honeymoon, like an<BR>
+actor who has played his part and resumes his ordinary manner. He<BR>
+scarcely paid any attention to her or even spoke to her. All trace of<BR>
+love had suddenly disappeared, and he seldom came into her room at<BR>
+night.</P>
+
+<P>He had taken charge of the money and of the house, changed the leases,<BR>
+worried the peasants, cut down expenses, and having adopted the<BR>
+costume of a gentleman farmer, he had lost his polish and elegance as<BR>
+a fianc&eacute;.</P>
+
+<P>He always wore the same suit, although it was covered with spots. It<BR>
+was an old velveteen shooting jacket with brass buttons, that he had<BR>
+found among his former wardrobe, and with the carelessness that is<BR>
+frequent with those who no longer seek to please, he had given up<BR>
+shaving, and his long beard, badly cut, made an incredible change for<BR>
+the worse in his appearance. His hands were never cared for, and after<BR>
+each meal he drank four or five glasses of brandy.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne tried to remonstrate with him gently, but he had answered her<BR>
+so abruptly: "Won't you let me alone!" that she never ventured to give<BR>
+him any more advice.</P>
+
+<P>She had adapted herself to these changes in a manner that surprised<BR>
+herself. He had become a stranger to her, a stranger whose mind and<BR>
+heart were closed to her. She constantly thought about it, asking<BR>
+herself how it was that after having met, loved, married in an impulse<BR>
+of affection, they should all at once find themselves almost as much<BR>
+strangers as though they had never shared the same room.</P>
+
+<P>And how was it that she did not feel this neglect more deeply? Was<BR>
+this life? Had they deceived themselves? Did the future hold nothing<BR>
+further for her?</P>
+
+<P>If Julien had remained handsome, carefully dressed, elegant, she might<BR>
+possibly have suffered more deeply.</P>
+
+<P>It had been agreed that after the new year the young couple should<BR>
+remain alone and that the father and mother should go back to spend a<BR>
+few months at their house in Rouen. The young people were not to leave<BR>
+the "Poplars" that winter, so as to get thoroughly settled and to<BR>
+become accustomed to each other and to the place where all their life<BR>
+would be passed. They had a few neighbors to whom Julien would<BR>
+introduce his wife. These were the Brisevilles, the Colteliers and the<BR>
+Fourvilles.</P>
+
+<P>But the young people could not begin to pay calls because they had not<BR>
+as yet been able to get a painter to alter the armorial bearings on<BR>
+the carriage.</P>
+
+<P>The old family coach had been given up to his son-in-law by the baron,<BR>
+and nothing would have induced him to show himself at the neighboring<BR>
+ch&acirc;teaux if the coat-of-arms of the De Lamares were not quartered with<BR>
+those of the Le Perthuis des Vauds.</P>
+
+<P>There was only one man in the district who made a specialty of<BR>
+heraldic designs, a painter of Bolbec, called Bataille, who was in<BR>
+demand at all the Norman castles in turn to make these precious<BR>
+designs on the doors of carriages.</P>
+
+<P>At length one morning in December, just as they were finishing<BR>
+breakfast, they saw an individual open the gate and walk toward the<BR>
+house. He was carrying a box on his back. This was Bataille.</P>
+
+<P>They offered him some breakfast, and, while he was eating, the baron<BR>
+and Julien made sketches of quarterings. The baroness, all upset as<BR>
+soon as these things were discussed, gave her opinion. And even Jeanne<BR>
+took part in the discussion, as though some mysterious interest had<BR>
+suddenly awakened in her.</P>
+
+<P>Bataille, while eating, gave his ideas, at times taking the pencil and<BR>
+tracing a design, citing examples, describing all the aristocratic<BR>
+carriages in the countryside, and seemed to have brought with him in<BR>
+his ideas, even in his voice, a sort of atmosphere of aristocracy.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as he had finished his coffee, they all went to the coach<BR>
+house. They took off the cover of the carriage and Bataille examined<BR>
+it. He then gravely gave his views as to the size he considered<BR>
+suitable for the design, and after an exchange of ideas, he set to<BR>
+work.</P>
+
+<P>Notwithstanding the cold, the baroness had her chair brought out so as<BR>
+to watch him working, and then her foot-stove, for her feet were<BR>
+freezing. She then began to chat with the painter, on all the recent<BR>
+births, deaths and marriages of which she had not heard, thus adding<BR>
+to the genealogical tree which she carried in her memory.</P>
+
+<P>Julien sat beside her, astride on a chair. He was smoking, spitting on<BR>
+the ground, listening and following with his glances the emblazoning<BR>
+of his rank.</P>
+
+<P>Presently old Simon, who was on his way to the vegetable garden, his<BR>
+spade on his shoulder, stopped to look at the work; and as Bataille's<BR>
+arrival had become known at the two farms, the farmers' wives soon put<BR>
+in an appearance. They went into raptures, standing one at either side<BR>
+of the baroness, exclaiming: "My! it requires some cleverness all the<BR>
+same to fix up those things."</P>
+
+<P>The two doors could not be finished before the next day about eleven<BR>
+o'clock. Every one was on hand; and they dragged the carriage outside<BR>
+so as to get a better view of it.</P>
+
+<P>It was perfect. Bataille was complimented, and went off with his box<BR>
+on his back. They all agreed that the painter had great ability, and<BR>
+if circumstances had been favorable would doubtless have been a great<BR>
+artist.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, by way of economy, had introduced great reforms which<BR>
+necessitated making some changes. The old coachman had been made<BR>
+gardener, Julien undertaking to drive himself, having sold the<BR>
+carriage horses to avoid buying feed for them. But as it was necessary<BR>
+to have some one to hold the horses when he and his wife got out of<BR>
+the carriage, he had made a little cow tender named Marius into a<BR>
+groom. Then in order to get some horses, he introduced a special<BR>
+clause into the Couillards' and Martins' leases, by which they were<BR>
+bound to supply a horse each, on a certain day every month, the date<BR>
+to be fixed by him; and this would exempt them from their tribute of<BR>
+poultry.</P>
+
+<P>So the Couillards brought a big yellow horse, and the Martins a small<BR>
+white animal with long, unclipped coat, and the two were harnessed up<BR>
+together. Marius, buried in an old livery belonging to old Simon, led<BR>
+the carriage up to the front door.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, looking clean and brushed up, looked a little like his former<BR>
+self; but his long beard gave him a common look in spite of all. He<BR>
+looked over the horses, the carriage, and the little groom, and seemed<BR>
+satisfied, the only really important thing to him being the newly<BR>
+painted escutcheon.</P>
+
+<P>The baroness came down leaning on her husband's arm and got into the<BR>
+carriage. Then Jeanne appeared. She began to laugh at the horses,<BR>
+saying that the white one was the son of the yellow horse; then,<BR>
+perceiving Marius, his face buried under his hat with its cockade, his<BR>
+nose alone preventing it from covering his face altogether, his hands<BR>
+hidden in his long sleeves, and the tail of his coat forming a skirt<BR>
+round his legs, his feet encased in immense shoes showing in a comical<BR>
+manner beneath it, and then when he threw his head back so as to see,<BR>
+and lifted up his leg to walk as if he were crossing a river, she<BR>
+burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.</P>
+
+<P>The baron turned round, glanced at the little bewildered groom and he,<BR>
+too, burst out laughing, calling to his wife: "Look at Ma-Ma-Marius!<BR>
+Is he not comical? Heavens, how funny he looks!"</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, looking out of the carriage window, was also convulsed,<BR>
+so that the carriage shook on its springs.</P>
+
+<P>But Julien, pale with anger, asked: "What makes you laugh like that?<BR>
+Are you crazy?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, quite convulsed and unable to stop laughing, sat down on the<BR>
+doorstep; the baron did the same, while, in the carriage, spasmodic<BR>
+sneezes, a sort of constant chuckling, told that the baroness was<BR>
+choking. Presently there was a motion beneath Marius' livery. He had,<BR>
+doubtless, understood the joke, for he was shaking with laughter<BR>
+beneath his hat.</P>
+
+<P>Julien darted forward in exasperation. With a box on the ear he sent<BR>
+the boy's hat flying across the lawn; then, turning toward his<BR>
+father-in-law, he stammered in a voice trembling with rage: "It seems<BR>
+to me that you should be the last to laugh. We should not be where we<BR>
+are now if you had not wasted your money and ruined your property.<BR>
+Whose fault is it if you are ruined?"</P>
+
+<P>The laughter ceased at once, and no one spoke. Jeanne, now ready to<BR>
+cry, got into the carriage and sat beside her mother. The baron,<BR>
+silent and astonished, took his place opposite the two ladies, and<BR>
+Julien sat on the box after lifting to the seat beside him the weeping<BR>
+boy, whose face was beginning to swell.</P>
+
+<P>The road was dreary and appeared long. The occupants of the carriage<BR>
+were silent. All three sad and embarrassed, they would not acknowledge<BR>
+to one another what was occupying their thoughts. They felt that they<BR>
+could not talk on indifferent subjects while these thoughts had<BR>
+possession of them, and preferred to remain silent than to allude to<BR>
+this painful subject.</P>
+
+<P>They drove past farmyards, the carriage jogging along unevenly with<BR>
+the ill-matched animals, putting to flight terrified black hens who<BR>
+plunged into the bushes and disappeared, occasionally followed by a<BR>
+barking wolf-hound.</P>
+
+<P>At length they entered a wide avenue of pine trees, at the end of<BR>
+which was a white, closed gate. Marius ran to open it, and they drove<BR>
+in round an immense grass plot, and drew up before a high, spacious,<BR>
+sad-looking building with closed shutters.</P>
+
+<P>The hall door opened abruptly, and an old, paralyzed servant wearing a<BR>
+black waistcoat with red stripes partially covered by his working<BR>
+apron slowly descended the slanting steps. He took the visitors' names<BR>
+and led them into an immense reception room, and opened with<BR>
+difficulty the Venetian blinds which were always kept closed. The<BR>
+furniture had covers on it, and the clock and candelabra were wrapped<BR>
+in white muslin. An atmosphere of mildew, an atmosphere of former<BR>
+days, damp and icy, seemed to permeate one's lungs, heart and skin<BR>
+with melancholy.</P>
+
+<P>They all sat down and waited. They heard steps in the hall above them<BR>
+that betokened unaccustomed haste. The hosts were hurriedly dressing.<BR>
+The baroness, who was chilled, sneezed constantly. Julien paced up and<BR>
+down. Jeanne, despondent, sat beside her mother. The baron leaned<BR>
+against the marble mantelpiece with his head bent down.</P>
+
+<P>Finally, one of the tall doors opened, and the Vicomte and Vicomtesse<BR>
+de Briseville appeared. They were both small, thin, vivacious, of no<BR>
+age in particular, ceremonious and embarrassed.</P>
+
+<P>After the first greetings, there seemed to be nothing to say. So they<BR>
+began to congratulate each other for no special reason, and hoped that<BR>
+these friendly relations would be kept up. It was a treat to see<BR>
+people when one lived in the country the year round.</P>
+
+<P>The icy atmosphere pierced to their bones and made their voices<BR>
+hoarse. The baroness was coughing now and had stopped sneezing. The<BR>
+baron thought it was time to leave. The Brisevilles said: "What, so<BR>
+soon? Stay a little longer." But Jeanne had risen in spite of Julien's<BR>
+signals, for he thought the visit too short.</P>
+
+<P>They attempted to ring for the servant to order the carriage to the<BR>
+door, but the bell would not ring. The host started out himself to<BR>
+attend to it, but found that the horses had been put in the stable.</P>
+
+<P>They had to wait. Every one tried to think of something to say.<BR>
+Jeanne, involuntarily shivering with cold, inquired what their hosts<BR>
+did to occupy themselves all the year round. The Brisevilles were much<BR>
+astonished; for they were always busy, either writing letters to their<BR>
+aristocratic relations, of whom they had a number scattered all over<BR>
+France, or attending to microscopic duties, as ceremonious to one<BR>
+another as though they were strangers, and talking grandiloquently of<BR>
+the most insignificant matters.</P>
+
+<P>At last the carriage passed the windows with its ill-matched team. But<BR>
+Marius had disappeared. Thinking he was off duty until evening, he had<BR>
+doubtless gone for a walk.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, perfectly furious, begged them to send him home on foot, and<BR>
+after a great many farewells on both sides, they set out for the<BR>
+"Poplars."</P>
+
+<P>As soon as they were inside the carriage, Jeanne and her father, in<BR>
+spite of Julien's brutal behavior of the morning which still weighed<BR>
+on their minds, began to laugh at the gestures and intonations of the<BR>
+Brisevilles. The baron imitated the husband, and Jeanne the wife. But<BR>
+the baroness, a little touchy in these particulars, said: "You are<BR>
+wrong to ridicule them thus; they are people of excellent family."<BR>
+They were silent out of respect for little mother, but nevertheless,<BR>
+from time to time, Jeanne and her father began again. The baroness<BR>
+could not forbear smiling in her turn, but she repeated: "It is not<BR>
+nice to laugh at people who belong to our class."</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly the carriage stopped, and Julien called out to someone behind<BR>
+it. Then Jeanne and the baron, leaning out, saw a singular creature<BR>
+that appeared to be rolling along toward them. His legs entangled in<BR>
+his flowing coattails, and blinded by his hat which kept falling over<BR>
+his face, shaking his sleeves like the sails of a windmill, and<BR>
+splashing into puddles of water, and stumbling against stones in the<BR>
+road, running and bounding, Marius was following the carriage as fast<BR>
+as his legs could carry him.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as he caught up with it, Julien, leaning over, seized him by<BR>
+the collar of his coat, sat him down beside him, and letting go the<BR>
+reins, began to shower blows on the boy's hat, which sank down to his<BR>
+shoulders with the reverberations of a drum. The boy screamed, tried<BR>
+to get away, to jump from the carriage, while his master, holding him<BR>
+with one hand, continued beating him with the other.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, dumfounded, stammered: "Father--oh, father!" And the baroness,<BR>
+wild with indignation, squeezed her husband's arm. "Stop him, Jack!"<BR>
+she exclaimed. The baron quickly lowered the front window, and seizing<BR>
+hold of his son-in-law's sleeve, he sputtered out in a voice trembling<BR>
+with rage: "Have you almost finished beating that child?"</P>
+
+<P>Julien turned round in astonishment: "Don't you see what a condition<BR>
+his livery is in?"</P>
+
+<P>But the baron, placing his head between them, said: "Well, what do I<BR>
+care? There is no need to be brutal like that!"</P>
+
+<P>Julien got angry again: "Let me alone, please; this is not your<BR>
+affair!" And he was raising his hand again when his father-in-law<BR>
+caught hold of it and dragged it down so roughly that he knocked it<BR>
+against the wood of the seat, and he roared at him so loud: "If you do<BR>
+not stop, I shall get out, and I will see that you stop it, myself,"<BR>
+that Julien calmed down at once, and shrugging his shoulders without<BR>
+replying, he whipped up the horses, who set out at a quick trot.</P>
+
+<P>The two women, pale as death, did not stir, and one could hear<BR>
+distinctly the thumping of the baroness' heart.</P>
+
+<P>At dinner Julien was more charming than usual, as though nothing had<BR>
+occurred. Jeanne, her father, and Madame Adelaide, pleased to see him<BR>
+so amiable, fell in with his mood, and when Jeanne mentioned the<BR>
+Brisevilles, he laughed at them himself, adding, however: "All the<BR>
+same, they have the grand air."</P>
+
+<P>They made no more visits, each one fearing to revive the Marius<BR>
+episode. They decided, to send New Year's cards, and to wait until the<BR>
+first warm days of spring before paying any more calls.</P>
+
+<P>At Christmas they invited the cur&eacute;, the mayor and his wife to dinner,<BR>
+and again on New Year's Day. These were the only events that varied<BR>
+the monotony of their life. The baron and his wife were to leave "The<BR>
+Poplars" on the ninth of January. Jeanne wanted to keep them, but<BR>
+Julien did not acquiesce, and the baron sent for a post-chaise from<BR>
+Rouen, seeing his son-in-law's coolness.</P>
+
+<P>The day before their departure, as it was a clear frost, Jeanne and<BR>
+her father decided to go to Yport, which they had not visited since<BR>
+her return from Corsica. They crossed the wood where she had strolled<BR>
+on her wedding-day, all wrapped up in the one whose lifelong companion<BR>
+she had become; the wood where she had received her first kiss,<BR>
+trembled at the first breath of love, had a presentiment of that<BR>
+sensual love of which she did not become aware until she was in the<BR>
+wild vale of Ota beside the spring where they mingled their kisses as<BR>
+they drank of its waters. The trees were now leafless, the climbing<BR>
+vines dead.</P>
+
+<P>They entered the little village. The empty, silent streets smelled of<BR>
+the sea, of wrack, of fish. Huge brown nets were still hanging up to<BR>
+dry outside the houses, or stretched out on the shingle. The gray,<BR>
+cold sea, with its eternal roaring foam, was going out, uncovering the<BR>
+green rocks at the foot of the cliff toward F&eacute;camp.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and her father, motionless, watched the fishermen setting out<BR>
+in their boats in the dusk, as they did every night, risking their<BR>
+lives to keep from starving, and so poor, nevertheless, that they<BR>
+never tasted meat.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, inspired at the sight of the ocean, murmured: "It is<BR>
+terrible, but it is beautiful. How magnificent this sea is on which<BR>
+the darkness is falling, and on which so many lives are in peril, is<BR>
+it not, Jeannette?"</P>
+
+<P>She replied with a cold smile: "It is nothing to the Mediterranean."</P>
+
+<P>Her father, indignant, exclaimed: "The Mediterranean! It is oil, sugar<BR>
+water, bluing water in a washtub. Look at this sea, how terrible it is<BR>
+with its crests of foam! And think of all those men who have set out<BR>
+on it, and who are already out of sight."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne assented with a sigh: "Yes, if you think so." But this name,<BR>
+"Mediterranean," had wrung her heart afresh, sending her thoughts back<BR>
+to those distant lands where her dreams lay buried.</P>
+
+<P>Instead of returning home by the woods, they walked along the road,<BR>
+mounting the ascent slowly. They were silent, sad at the thought of<BR>
+the approaching separation. As they passed along beside the farmyards<BR>
+an odor of crushed apples, that smell of new cider which seems to<BR>
+pervade the atmosphere in this season all through Normandy, rose to<BR>
+their nostrils, or else a strong smell of the cow stables. A small<BR>
+lighted window at the end of the yard indicated the farmhouse.</P>
+
+<P>It seemed to Jeanne that her mind was expanding, was beginning to<BR>
+understand the psychic meaning of things; and these little scattered<BR>
+gleams in the landscape gave her, all at once, a keen sense of the<BR>
+isolation of all human lives, a feeling that everything detaches,<BR>
+separates, draws one far away from the things they love.</P>
+
+<P>She said, in a resigned tone: "Life is not always cheerful."</P>
+
+<P>The baron sighed: "How can it be helped, daughter? We can do nothing."</P>
+
+<P>The following day the baron and his wife went away, and Jeanne and<BR>
+Julien were left alone.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="VII">CHAPTER VII</a></h4>
+
+<h5>JEANNE'S DISCOVERY</h5>
+
+<P>Cards now became a distraction in the life of the young people. Every<BR>
+morning after breakfast, Julien would play several games of bezique<BR>
+with his wife, smoking and sipping brandy as he played. She would then<BR>
+go up to her room and sit down beside the window, and as the rain beat<BR>
+against the panes, or the wind shook the windows, she would embroider<BR>
+away steadily. Occasionally she would raise her eyes and look out at<BR>
+the gray sea which had white-caps on it. Then, after gazing listlessly<BR>
+for some time, she would resume her work.</P>
+
+<P>She had nothing else to do, Julien having taken the entire management<BR>
+of the house, to satisfy his craving for authority and his craze for<BR>
+economy. He was parsimonious in the extreme, never gave any tips, cut<BR>
+down the food to the merest necessaries; and as Jeanne since her<BR>
+return had ordered the baker to make her a little Norman "galette" for<BR>
+breakfast, he had cut down this extra expense, and condemned her to<BR>
+eat toast.</P>
+
+<P>She said nothing in order to avoid recriminations, arguments and<BR>
+quarrels; but she suffered keenly at each fresh manifestation of<BR>
+avarice on the part of her husband. It appeared to her low and odious,<BR>
+brought up as she had been in a family where money was never<BR>
+considered. How often had she not heard her mother say: "Why, money is<BR>
+made to be spent." Julien would now say: "Will you never become<BR>
+accustomed to not throwing money away?" And each time he deducted a<BR>
+few sous from some one's salary or on a note, he would say with a<BR>
+smile, as he slipped the change into his pocket: "Little streams make<BR>
+big rivers."</P>
+
+<P>On certain days Jeanne would sit and dream. She would gradually cease<BR>
+sewing and, with her hands idle, and forgetting her surroundings, she<BR>
+would weave one of those romances of her girlhood and be lost in some<BR>
+enchanting adventure. But suddenly Julien's voice giving some orders<BR>
+to old Simon would snatch her abruptly from her dreams, and she would<BR>
+take up her work again, saying: "That is all over," and a tear would<BR>
+fall on her hands as she plied the needle.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, formerly so cheerful and always singing, had changed. Her<BR>
+rounded cheeks had lost their color, and were now almost hollow, and<BR>
+sometimes had an earthy hue. Jeanne would frequently ask her: "Are you<BR>
+ill, my girl?" The little maid would reply: "No, madame," while her<BR>
+cheeks would redden slightly and she would retire hastily.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of January the snow came. In one night the whole plain was<BR>
+covered and the trees next morning were white with icy foam.</P>
+
+<P>On one of these mornings, Jeanne was sitting warming her feet before<BR>
+the fire in her room, while Rosalie, who had changed from day to day,<BR>
+was making the bed. Suddenly hearing behind her a kind of moan, Jeanne<BR>
+asked, without turning her head: "What is the matter?"</P>
+
+<P>The maid replied as usual: "Nothing, madame"; but her voice was weak<BR>
+and trembling.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne's thoughts were on something else, when she noticed that the<BR>
+girl was not moving about the room. She called: "Rosalie!" Still no<BR>
+sound. Then, thinking she might have left the room, she cried in a<BR>
+louder tone: "Rosalie!" and she was reaching out her arm to ring the<BR>
+bell, when a deep moan close beside her made her start up with a<BR>
+shudder.</P>
+
+<P>The little servant, her face livid, her eyes haggard, was seated on<BR>
+the floor, her legs stretched out, and her back leaning against the<BR>
+bed. Jeanne sprang toward her. "What is the matter with you--what is<BR>
+the matter?" she asked.</P>
+
+<P>The girl did not reply, did not move. She stared vacantly at her<BR>
+mistress and gasped as though she were in terrible pain. Then,<BR>
+suddenly, she slid down on her back at full length, clenching her<BR>
+teeth to smother a cry of anguish.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne suddenly understood, and almost distracted, she ran to the head<BR>
+of the stairs, crying: "Julien, Julien!"</P>
+
+<P>"What do you want?" he replied from below.</P>
+
+<P>She hardly knew how to tell him. "It is Rosalie, who----"</P>
+
+<P>Julien rushed upstairs two steps at a time, and going abruptly into<BR>
+the room, he found the poor girl had just been delivered of a child.<BR>
+He looked round with a wicked look on his face, and pushing his<BR>
+terrified wife out of the room, exclaimed: "This is none of your<BR>
+affair. Go away. Send me Ludivine and old Simon."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, trembling, descended to the kitchen, and then, not daring to<BR>
+go upstairs again, she went into the drawing-room, in which there had<BR>
+been no fire since her parents left, and anxiously awaited news.</P>
+
+<P>She presently saw the man-servant running out of the house. Five<BR>
+minutes later he returned with Widow Dentu, the nurse of the district.</P>
+
+<P>Then there was a great commotion on the stairs as though they were<BR>
+carrying a wounded person, and Julien came in and told Jeanne that she<BR>
+might go back to her room.</P>
+
+<P>She trembled as if she had witnessed some terrible accident. She sat<BR>
+down again before the fire, and asked: "How is she?"</P>
+
+<P>Julien, preoccupied and nervous, was pacing up and down the room. He<BR>
+seemed to be getting angry, and did not reply at first. Then he<BR>
+stopped and said: "What do you intend to do with this girl?"</P>
+
+<P>She did not understand, and looked at her husband. "Why, what do you<BR>
+mean? I do not know."</P>
+
+<P>Then suddenly flying into a rage, he exclaimed: "We cannot keep a<BR>
+bastard in the house."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was very much bewildered, and said at the end of a long<BR>
+silence: "But, my friend, perhaps we could put it out to nurse?"</P>
+
+<P>He cut her short: "And who will pay the bill? You will, no doubt."</P>
+
+<P>She reflected for some time, trying to find some way out of the<BR>
+difficulty; at length she said: "Why, the father will take care of it,<BR>
+of the child; and if he marries Rosalie, there will be no more<BR>
+difficulty."</P>
+
+<P>Julien, as though his patience were exhausted, replied furiously: "The<BR>
+father!--the father!--do you know him--the father? No, is it not so?<BR>
+Well then----?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, much affected, became excited: "But you certainly would not<BR>
+let the girl go away like that. It would be cowardly! We will inquire<BR>
+the name of the man, and we will go and find him, and he will have to<BR>
+explain matters."</P>
+
+<P>Julien had calmed down and resumed his pacing up and down. "My dear,"<BR>
+he said, "she will not tell the name of the man; she will not tell you<BR>
+any more than she will tell me--and, if he does not want her? ... We<BR>
+cannot, however, keep a woman and her illegitimate child under our<BR>
+roof, don't you understand?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, persistent, replied: "Then he must be a wretch, this man. But<BR>
+we must certainly find out who it is, and then he will have us to deal<BR>
+with."</P>
+
+<P>Julien colored, became annoyed again, and said: "But--meanwhile----?"</P>
+
+<P>She did not know what course to take, and asked: "What do you<BR>
+propose?"</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, I? That's very simple. I would give her some money and send her<BR>
+to the devil with her brat."</P>
+
+<P>The young wife, indignant, was disgusted with him. "That shall never<BR>
+be," she said. "She is my foster-sister, that girl; we grew up<BR>
+together. She has made a mistake, so much the worse; but I will not<BR>
+cast her out of doors on that account; and, if it is necessary, I will<BR>
+bring up the child."</P>
+
+<P>Then Julien's wrath exploded: "And we should earn a fine reputation,<BR>
+we, with our name and our position! And they would say of us<BR>
+everywhere that we were protecting vice, harboring beggars; and decent<BR>
+people would never set their foot inside our doors. What are you<BR>
+thinking of? You must be crazy!"</P>
+
+<P>She had remained quite calm. "I shall never cast off Rosalie; and if<BR>
+you do not wish her to stay, my mother will take her; and we shall<BR>
+surely succeed in finding out the name of the father of the child."</P>
+
+<P>He left the room in exasperation, banging the door after him and<BR>
+exclaiming: "What stupid ideas women have!"</P>
+
+<P>In the afternoon Jeanne went up to see the patient. The little maid,<BR>
+watched over by Widow Dentu, was lying still in her bed, her eyes wide<BR>
+open, while the nurse held the new-born babe in her arms.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as Rosalie perceived her mistress, she began to sob, hiding<BR>
+her face in the covers and shaking with her sorrow. Jeanne wanted to<BR>
+kiss her, but she avoided it by keeping her face covered. But the<BR>
+nurse interfered, and drawing away the sheet, uncovered her face, and<BR>
+she let Jeanne kiss her, weeping still, but more quietly.</P>
+
+<P>A meagre fire was burning in the grate; the room was cold; the child<BR>
+was crying. Jeanne did not dare to speak of the little one, for fear<BR>
+of another attack, and she took her maid's hand as she said<BR>
+mechanically: "It will not matter, it will not matter." The poor girl<BR>
+glanced furtively at the nurse, and trembled as the infant cried, and<BR>
+the remembrance of her sorrow came to her mind occasionally in a<BR>
+convulsive sob, while suppressed tears choked her.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne kissed her again, and murmured softly in her ear: "We will take<BR>
+good care of it, never fear, my girl." Then as she was beginning to<BR>
+cry again, Jeanne made her escape.</P>
+
+<P>She came to see her every day, and each time Rosalie burst into tears<BR>
+at the sight of her mistress.</P>
+
+<P>The child was put out to nurse at a neighbor's.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, however, hardly spoke to his wife, as though he had nourished<BR>
+anger against her ever since she refused to send away the maid. He<BR>
+referred to the subject one day, but Jeanne took from her pocket a<BR>
+letter from the baroness asking them to send the girl to them at once<BR>
+if they would not keep her at the "Poplars." Julien, furious, cried:<BR>
+"Your mother is as foolish as you are!" but he did not insist any<BR>
+more.</P>
+
+<P>Two weeks later the patient was able to get up and take up her work<BR>
+again.</P>
+
+<P>One morning, Jeanne made her sit down and, taking her hands and<BR>
+looking steadfastly at her, she said:</P>
+
+<P>"See here, my girl, tell me everything."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie began to tremble, and faltered:</P>
+
+<P>"What, madame?"</P>
+
+<P>"Whose is it, this child?"</P>
+
+<P>The little maid was overcome with confusion, and she sought wildly to<BR>
+withdraw her hands so as to hide her face. But Jeanne kissed her in<BR>
+spite of herself, and consoled her, saying: "It is a misfortune, but<BR>
+cannot be helped, my girl. You were weak, but that happens to many<BR>
+others. If the father marries you, no one will think of it again."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie sighed as if she were suffering, and from time to time made an<BR>
+effort to disengage herself and run away.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne resumed: "I understand perfectly that you are ashamed; but you<BR>
+see that I am not angry, that I speak kindly to you. If I ask you the<BR>
+name of the man it is for your own good, for I feel from your grief<BR>
+that he has deserted you, and because I wish to prevent that. Julien<BR>
+will go and look for him, you see, and we will oblige him to marry<BR>
+you; and as we will employ you both, we will oblige him also to make<BR>
+you happy."</P>
+
+<P>This time Rosalie gave such a jerk that she snatched her hands away<BR>
+from her mistress and ran off as if she were mad.</P>
+
+<P>That evening at dinner Jeanne said to Julien: "I tried to persuade<BR>
+Rosalie to tell me the name of her betrayer. I did not succeed. You<BR>
+try to find out so that we can compel this miserable man to marry<BR>
+her."</P>
+
+<P>But Julien became angry: "Oh! you know I do not wish to hear anything<BR>
+about it. You wish to keep this girl. Keep her, but do not bother me<BR>
+about her."</P>
+
+<P>Since the girl's illness he appeared to be more irritable than ever;<BR>
+and he had got into the way of never speaking to his wife without<BR>
+shouting as if he were in a rage, while she, on the contrary, would<BR>
+lower her voice, be gentle and conciliating, to avoid all argument;<BR>
+but she often wept at night after she went to bed.</P>
+
+<P>In spite of his constant irritability, her husband had become more<BR>
+affectionate than customary since their return.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie was soon quite well and less sad, although she appeared<BR>
+terrified, pursued by some unknown fear, and she ran away twice when<BR>
+Jeanne tried to question her again.</P>
+
+<P>Julien all at once became more amiable, and the young wife, clinging<BR>
+to vain hopes, also became more cheerful. The thaw had not yet set in<BR>
+and a hard, smooth, glittering covering of snow extended over the<BR>
+landscape. Neither men nor animals were to be seen; only the chimneys<BR>
+of the cottages gave evidence of life in the smoke that ascended from<BR>
+them into the icy air.</P>
+
+<P>One evening the thermometer fell still lower, and Julien, shivering as<BR>
+he left the table--for the dining-room was never properly heated, he<BR>
+was so economical with the wood--rubbed his hands, murmuring: "It will<BR>
+be warmer to-night, won't it, my dear?" He laughed with his jolly<BR>
+laugh of former days, and Jeanne threw her arms around his neck: "I do<BR>
+not feel well, dear; perhaps I shall be better to-morrow."</P>
+
+<P>"As you wish, my dear. If you are ill you must take care of yourself."<BR>
+And they began to talk of other things.</P>
+
+<P>She retired early. Julien, for a wonder, had a fire lighted in her<BR>
+room. As soon as he saw that it was burning brightly, he kissed his<BR>
+wife on the forehead and left the room.</P>
+
+<P>The whole house seemed to be penetrated by the cold; the very walls<BR>
+seemed to be shivering, and Jeanne shivered in her bed. Twice she got<BR>
+up to put fresh logs on the fire and to look for dresses, skirts, and<BR>
+other garments which she piled on the bed. Nothing seemed to warm her;<BR>
+her feet were numbed and her lower limbs seemed to tingle, making her<BR>
+excessively nervous and restless.</P>
+
+<P>Then her teeth began to chatter, her hands shook, there was a<BR>
+tightness in her chest, her heart began to beat with hard, dull<BR>
+pulsations, and at times seemed to stop beating, and she gasped for<BR>
+breath. A terrible apprehension seized her, while the cold seemed to<BR>
+penetrate to her marrow. She never had felt such a sensation, she had<BR>
+never seemed to lose her hold on life like this before, never been so<BR>
+near her last breath.</P>
+
+<P>"I am going to die," she thought, "I am dying----"</P>
+
+<P>And filled with terror, she jumped out of bed, rang for Rosalie,<BR>
+waited, rang again, waited again, shivering and frozen.</P>
+
+<P>The little maid did not come. She was doubtless asleep, that first,<BR>
+sound sleep that nothing can disturb. Jeanne, in despair, darted<BR>
+toward the stairs in her bare feet, and groping her way, she ascended<BR>
+the staircase quietly, found the door, opened it, and called,<BR>
+"Rosalie!" She went forward, stumbled against the bed, felt all over<BR>
+it with her hands and found that it was empty. It was empty and cold,<BR>
+and as if no one had slept there. Much surprised, she said: "What! Has<BR>
+she gone out in weather like this?"</P>
+
+<P>But as her heart began to beat tumultuously till she seemed to be<BR>
+suffocating, she went downstairs again with trembling limbs in order<BR>
+to wake Julien. She rushed into his room filled with the idea that she<BR>
+was going to die, and longing to see him before she lost<BR>
+consciousness.</P>
+
+<P>By the light of the dying embers she perceived Rosalie's head leaning<BR>
+on her husband's shoulder.</P>
+
+<P>At the cry she gave they both started to their feet; she stood<BR>
+motionless for a second, horrified at this discovery, and then fled to<BR>
+her room; and when Julien, at his wit's end, called "Jeanne!" she was<BR>
+seized with an overmastering terror of seeing him, of hearing his<BR>
+voice, of listening to him explaining, lying, of meeting his gaze; and<BR>
+she darted toward the stairs again and went down.</P>
+
+<P>She now ran along in the darkness, at the risk of falling downstairs,<BR>
+at the risk of breaking her neck on the stone floor of the hall. She<BR>
+rushed along, impelled by an imperious desire to flee, to know nothing<BR>
+about it, to see no one.</P>
+
+<P>When she was at the bottom of the stairs she sat down on one of the<BR>
+steps, still in her nightdress, and in bare feet, and remained in a<BR>
+dazed condition. She heard Julien moving and walking about. She<BR>
+started to her feet in order to escape him. He was starting to come<BR>
+downstairs and called: "Listen, Jeanne!"</P>
+
+<P>No, she would not listen nor let him touch her with the tips of his<BR>
+fingers; and she darted into the dining-room as if she were fleeing<BR>
+from an assassin. She looked for a door of escape, a hiding place, a<BR>
+dark corner, some way of avoiding him. She hid under the table. But he<BR>
+was already at the door, a candle in his hand, still calling:<BR>
+"Jeanne!" She started off again like a hare, darted into the kitchen,<BR>
+ran round it twice like a trapped animal, and as he came near her, she<BR>
+suddenly opened the door into the garden and darted out into the<BR>
+night.</P>
+
+<P>The contact with the snow, into which she occasionally sank up to her<BR>
+knees, seemed to give her the energy of despair. She did not feel<BR>
+cold, although she had little on. She felt nothing, her body was so<BR>
+numbed from the emotion of her mind, and she ran along as white as the<BR>
+snow.</P>
+
+<P>She followed the large avenue, crossed the wood, crossed the ditch,<BR>
+and started off across the plain.</P>
+
+<P>There was no moon, the stars were shining like sparks of fire in the<BR>
+black sky; but the plain was light with a dull whiteness, and lay in<BR>
+infinite silence.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne walked quickly, hardly breathing, not knowing, not thinking of<BR>
+anything. She suddenly stopped on the edge of the cliff. She stopped<BR>
+short, instinctively, and crouched down, bereft of thought and of will<BR>
+power.</P>
+
+<P>In the abyss before her the silent, invisible sea exhaled the salt<BR>
+odor of its wrack at low tide.</P>
+
+<P>She remained thus some time, her mind as inert as her body; then, all<BR>
+at once, she began to tremble, to tremble violently, like a sail<BR>
+shaken by the wind. Her arms, her hands, her feet, impelled by an<BR>
+invisible force, throbbed, pulsated wildly, and her consciousness<BR>
+awakened abruptly, sharp and poignant.</P>
+
+<P>Old memories passed before her mental vision: the sail with him in<BR>
+P&egrave;re Lastique's boat, their conversation, his nascent love, the<BR>
+christening of the boat; then she went back, further back, to that<BR>
+night of dreams when she first came to the "Poplars." And now! <i>And<BR>
+now!</i> Oh, her life was shipwrecked, all joy was ended, all<BR>
+expectation at an end; and the frightful future full of torture, of<BR>
+deception, and of despair appeared before her. Better to die, it would<BR>
+all be over at once.</P>
+
+<P>But a voice cried in the distance: "Here it is, here are her steps;<BR>
+quick, quick, this way!" It was Julien who was looking for her.</P>
+
+<P>Oh! she did not wish to see him again. In the abyss down yonder before<BR>
+her she now heard a slight sound, the indistinct ripple of the waves<BR>
+over the rocks. She rose to her feet with the idea of throwing herself<BR>
+over the cliff and bidding life farewell. Like one in despair, she<BR>
+uttered the last word of the dying, the last word of the young soldier<BR>
+slain in battle: "Mother!"</P>
+
+<P>All at once the thought of little mother came to her mind, she saw her<BR>
+sobbing, she saw her father on his knees before her mangled remains,<BR>
+and in a second she felt all the pain of their sorrow.</P>
+
+<P>She sank down again into the snow; and when Julien and old Simon,<BR>
+followed by Marius, carrying a lantern, seized her arm to pull her<BR>
+back as she was so close to the brink, she made no attempt to escape.</P>
+
+<P>She let them do as they would, for she could not stir. She felt that<BR>
+they were carrying her, and then that she was being put to bed and<BR>
+rubbed with hot cloths; then she became unconscious.</P>
+
+<P>Then she had a nightmare, or was it a nightmare? She was in bed. It<BR>
+was broad daylight, but she could not get up. Why? She did not know.<BR>
+Then she heard a little noise on the floor, a sort of scratching, a<BR>
+rustling, and suddenly a mouse, a little gray mouse, ran quickly<BR>
+across the sheet. Another followed it, then a third, who ran toward<BR>
+her chest with his little, quick scamper. Jeanne was not afraid, and<BR>
+she reached out her hand to catch the animal, but could not catch it.<BR>
+Then other mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands, rose up on all<BR>
+sides of her. They climbed the bedposts, ran up the tapestries,<BR>
+covered the bed completely. And soon they got beneath the covers;<BR>
+Jeanne felt them gliding over her skin, tickling her limbs, running up<BR>
+and down her body. She saw them running from the bottom of the bed to<BR>
+get into her neck under the sheets; and she tried to fight them off,<BR>
+throwing her hands out to try and catch them, but always finding them<BR>
+empty.</P>
+
+<P>She was frantic, wanted to escape, screamed, and it seemed as if she<BR>
+were being held down, as if strong arms enfolded her and rendered her<BR>
+helpless; but she saw no one.</P>
+
+<P>She had no idea of time. It must have been long, a very long time.</P>
+
+<P>Then she awoke, weary, aching, but quiet. She felt weak, very weak.<BR>
+She opened her eyes and was not surprised to see little mother seated<BR>
+in her room with a man whom she did not know.</P>
+
+<P>How old was she? She did not know, and thought she was a very little<BR>
+girl. She had no recollection of anything.</P>
+
+<P>The big man said: "Why, she has regained consciousness." Little mother<BR>
+began to weep. Then the big man resumed: "Come, be calm, baroness; I<BR>
+can ensure her recovery now. But do not talk to her at all. Let her<BR>
+sleep, let her sleep."</P>
+
+<P>Then it seemed to Jeanne that she remained in a state of exhaustion<BR>
+for a long time, overcome by a heavy sleep as soon as she tried to<BR>
+think; and she tried not to remember anything whatever, as though she<BR>
+had a vague fear that the reality might come back to her.</P>
+
+<P>Once when she awoke she saw Julien, alone, standing beside her; and<BR>
+suddenly it all came back to her, as if the curtain which hid her past<BR>
+life had been raised.</P>
+
+<P>She felt a horrible pain in her heart, and wanted to escape once more.<BR>
+She threw back the coverlets, jumped to the floor and fell down, her<BR>
+limbs being too weak to support her.</P>
+
+<P>Julien sprang toward her, and she began to scream for him not to touch<BR>
+her. She writhed and rolled on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison<BR>
+came running in with Widow Dentu, then the baron, and finally little<BR>
+mother, puffing and distracted.</P>
+
+<P>They put her back into bed, and she immediately closed her eyes, so as<BR>
+to escape talking and be able to think quietly.</P>
+
+<P>Her mother and aunt watched over her anxiously, saying: "Do you hear<BR>
+us now, Jeanne, my little Jeanne?"</P>
+
+<P>She pretended to be deaf, not to hear them, and did not answer. Night<BR>
+came on and the nurse took up her position beside the bed. She did not<BR>
+sleep; she kept trying to think of things that had escaped her memory<BR>
+as though there were holes in it, great white empty places where<BR>
+events had not been noted down.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little she began to recall the facts, and she pondered over<BR>
+them steadily.</P>
+
+<P>Little mother, Aunt Lison, the baron had come, so she must have been<BR>
+very ill. But Julien? What had he said? Did her parents know? And<BR>
+Rosalie, where was she? And what should she do? What should she do? An<BR>
+idea came to her--she would return to Rouen and live with father and<BR>
+little mother as in old days. She would be a widow; that's all.</P>
+
+<P>Then she waited, listening to what was being said around her,<BR>
+understanding everything without letting them see it, rejoiced at her<BR>
+returning reason, patient and crafty.</P>
+
+<P>That evening, at last, she found herself alone with the baroness and<BR>
+called to her in a low tone: "Little Mother!" Her own voice astonished<BR>
+her, it seemed strange. The baroness seized her hands: "My daughter,<BR>
+my darling Jeanne! My child, do you recognize me?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, little mother, but you must not weep; we have a great deal to<BR>
+talk about. Did Julien tell you why I ran away in the snow?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, my darling, you had a very dangerous fever."</P>
+
+<P>"It was not that, mamma. I had the fever afterward; but did he tell<BR>
+you what gave me the fever and why I ran away?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, my dearie."</P>
+
+<P>"It was because I found Rosalie in his room."</P>
+
+<P>Her mother thought she was delirious again and soothed her, saying:<BR>
+"Go to sleep, darling, calm yourself, try to sleep."</P>
+
+<P>But Jeanne, persistent, continued: "I am quite sensible now, little<BR>
+mother. I am not talking wildly as I must have done these last days. I<BR>
+felt ill one night and I went to look for Julien. Rosalie was with him<BR>
+in his room. I did not know what I was doing, for sorrow, and I ran<BR>
+out into the snow to throw myself off the cliff."</P>
+
+<P>But the baroness reiterated, "Yes, darling, you have been very ill,<BR>
+very ill."</P>
+
+<P>"It is not that, mamma. I found Rosalie in with Julien, and I will not<BR>
+live with him any longer. You will take me back with you to Rouen to<BR>
+live as we used to do."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, whom the doctor had warned not to thwart Jeanne in any<BR>
+way, replied: "Yes, my darling."</P>
+
+<P>But the invalid grew impatient: "I see that you do not believe me. Go<BR>
+and fetch little father, he will soon understand."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness left the room and presently returned, leaning on her<BR>
+husband's arm. They sat down beside the bed and Jeanne began to talk.<BR>
+She told them all, quietly, in a weak voice, but clearly; all about<BR>
+Julien's peculiar character, his harshness, his avarice, and, finally,<BR>
+his infidelity.</P>
+
+<P>When she had finished, the baron saw that she was not delirious, but<BR>
+he did not know what to think, what to determine, or what to answer.<BR>
+He took her hand, tenderly, as he used to do when he put her to sleep<BR>
+with stories, and said: "Listen, dearie, we must act with prudence. We<BR>
+must do nothing rash. Try to put up with your husband until we can<BR>
+come to some decision--promise me this?"</P>
+
+<P>"I will try, but I will not stay here after I get well," she replied.</P>
+
+<P>Then she added in a lower tone: "Where is Rosalie now?"</P>
+
+<P>"You will not see her any more," replied the baron. But she persisted:<BR>
+"Where is she? I wish to know." Then he confessed that she had not<BR>
+left the house, but declared that she was going to leave.</P>
+
+<P>On leaving the room the baron, filled with indignation and wounded in<BR>
+his feelings as a father, went to look for Julien, and said to him<BR>
+abruptly: "Sir, I have come to ask you for an explanation of your<BR>
+conduct toward my daughter. You have been unfaithful to her with your<BR>
+maid, which is a double insult."</P>
+
+<P>Julien pretended to be innocent, denied everything positively, swore,<BR>
+took God as his witness. What proof had they? he asked. Was not Jeanne<BR>
+delirious? Had she not had brain fever? Had she not run out in the<BR>
+snow, in an attack of delirium, at the very beginning of her illness?<BR>
+And it was just at this time, when she was running about the house<BR>
+almost naked, that she pretends that she saw her maid in her husband's<BR>
+room!</P>
+
+<P>And he grew angry, threatened a lawsuit, became furious. The baron,<BR>
+bewildered, made excuses, begged his pardon, and held out his loyal<BR>
+hand to Julien, who refused to take it.</P>
+
+<P>When Jeanne heard what her husband had said, she did not show any<BR>
+annoyance, but replied: "He is lying, papa, but we shall end by<BR>
+convicting him."</P>
+
+<P>For some days she remained taciturn and reserved, thinking over<BR>
+matters. The third morning she asked to see Rosalie. The baron refused<BR>
+to send her up, saying she had left. Jeanne persisted, saying: "Well,<BR>
+let some one go and fetch her."</P>
+
+<P>She was beginning to get excited when the doctor came. They told him<BR>
+everything, so that he could form an opinion. But Jeanne suddenly<BR>
+burst into tears, her nerves all unstrung, and almost screamed: "I<BR>
+want Rosalie; I wish to see her!"</P>
+
+<P>The doctor took hold of her hand and said in a low tone: "Calm<BR>
+yourself, madame; any emotion may lead to serious consequences, for<BR>
+you are enceinte."</P>
+
+<P>She was dumfounded, as though she had received a blow; and it seemed<BR>
+to her that she felt the first stirrings of life within her. Then she<BR>
+was silent, not even listening to what was being said, absorbed in her<BR>
+own thoughts. She could not sleep that night for thinking of the new<BR>
+life that was developing in her, and was sad at the thought that it<BR>
+was Julien's child, and might resemble him. The following morning she<BR>
+sent for the baron. "Little father," she said, "my resolution is<BR>
+formed; I wish to know everything, and especially just now; you<BR>
+understand, I insist, and you know that you must not thwart me in my<BR>
+present condition. Listen! You must go and get M. le Cur&eacute;. I need him<BR>
+here to keep Rosalie from telling a lie. Then, as soon as he comes,<BR>
+send him up to me, and you stay downstairs with little mother. And,<BR>
+above all things, see that Julien does not suspect anything."</P>
+
+<P>An hour later the priest came, looking fatter than ever, and puffing<BR>
+like the baroness. He sat down in an arm-chair and began to joke,<BR>
+wiping his forehead as usual with his plaid handkerchief. "Well,<BR>
+baroness, I do not think we grow any thinner; I think we make a good<BR>
+pair." Then, turning toward the patient, he said: "Eh, what is this I<BR>
+hear, young lady, that we are soon to have a fresh baptism? Aha, it<BR>
+will not be a boat this time." And in a graver tone he added: "It will<BR>
+be a defender of the country; unless"--after a moment's reflection--it<BR>
+"should be the prospective mother of a family, like you, madame,"<BR>
+bowing to the baroness.</P>
+
+<P>The door at the end of the room opened and Rosalie appeared, beside<BR>
+herself, weeping, refusing to enter the room, clinging to the door<BR>
+frame, and being pushed forward by the baron. Quite out of patience,<BR>
+he thrust her into the room. She covered her face with her hands and<BR>
+remained standing there, sobbing.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, as soon as she saw her, rose to a sitting posture, whiter than<BR>
+the sheets, and with her heart beating wildly. She could not speak,<BR>
+could hardly breathe. At length she said, in a voice broken with<BR>
+emotion: "I--I--will not--need--to question you. It--it is enough for<BR>
+me to see you thus--to--to see your--your shame in my presence."</P>
+
+<P>After a pause, for she was out of breath, she continued: "I had M. le<BR>
+Cur&eacute; come, so that it might be like a confession, you understand."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, motionless, uttered little cries that were almost screams<BR>
+behind her hands.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, whose anger was gaining ground, seized her arms, and<BR>
+snatching her hands from her face, he threw her on her knees beside<BR>
+the bed, saying: "Speak! Answer!"</P>
+
+<P>She remained on the ground, in the position assigned to Magdalens, her<BR>
+cap awry, her apron on the floor, and her face again covered by her<BR>
+hands.</P>
+
+<P>Then the priest said: "Come, my girl, listen to what is said to you,<BR>
+and reply. We do not want to harm you, but we want to know what<BR>
+occurred."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, leaning over, looked at her and said: "Is it true that you<BR>
+were with Julien when I surprised you?"</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie moaned through her fingers, "Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>Then the baroness suddenly began to cry in a choking fashion, and her<BR>
+convulsive sobs accompanied those of Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, with her eyes fixed on the maid, said: "How long had this been<BR>
+going on?"</P>
+
+<P>"Ever since he came here," faltered Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne could not understand. "Ever since he came--then--ever<BR>
+since--ever since the spring?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>"Ever since he came into this house?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>And Jeanne, as if overflowing with questions, asked, speaking<BR>
+precipitately:</P>
+
+<P>"But how did it happen? How did he approach you? How did he persuade<BR>
+you? What did he say? When, how did you ever yield to him? How could<BR>
+you ever have done it?"</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, removing her hands from her face, and overwhelmed also with a<BR>
+feverish desire to speak, said:</P>
+
+<P>"How do I know, myself? It was the day he dined here for the first<BR>
+time, and he came up to my room. He had hidden himself in the loft. I<BR>
+did not dare to scream for fear of making a scandal. I no longer knew<BR>
+what I was doing. Then I said nothing because I liked him."</P>
+
+<P>Then Jeanne exclaimed with almost a scream:</P>
+
+<P>"But--your--your child--is his child?"</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie sobbed.</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>Then they were both silent. The only sound to be heard was the sobs of<BR>
+Rosalie and of the baroness.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, quite overcome, felt her tears also beginning to flow; and<BR>
+they fell silently down her cheeks.</P>
+
+<P>The maid's child had the same father, as her child! Her anger was at<BR>
+an end; she now was filled with a dreary, slow, profound and infinite<BR>
+despair. She presently resumed in a changed, tearful voice, the voice<BR>
+of a woman who has been crying:</P>
+
+<P>"When we returned from--from down there--from our journey--when did he<BR>
+begin again?"</P>
+
+<P>The little maid, who had sunk down on the floor, faltered: "The first<BR>
+evening."</P>
+
+<P>Each word wrung Jeanne's heart. So on the very first night of their<BR>
+return to the "Poplars" he left her for this girl. That was why he<BR>
+wanted to sleep alone!</P>
+
+<P>She now knew all she wanted to know, and exclaimed: "Go away, go<BR>
+away!" And as Rosalie, perfectly crushed, did not stir, Jeanne called<BR>
+to her father: "Take her away, carry her away!" The priest, who had<BR>
+said nothing as yet, thought that the moment had arrived for him to<BR>
+preach a little sermon.</P>
+
+<P>"What you have done is very wrong, my daughter, very wrong, and God<BR>
+will not pardon you so easily. Consider the hell that awaits you if<BR>
+you do not always act right. Now that you have a child you must behave<BR>
+yourself. No doubt madame la baronne will do something for you, and we<BR>
+will find you a husband."</P>
+
+<P>He would have continued speaking, but the baron, having again seized<BR>
+Rosalie by the shoulders, raised her from the floor and dragged her to<BR>
+the door, and threw her like a package into the corridor. As he turned<BR>
+back into the room, looking paler than his daughter, the priest<BR>
+resumed: "What can one do? They are all like that in the district. It<BR>
+is shocking, but cannot be helped, and then one must be a little<BR>
+indulgent toward the weaknesses of our nature. They never get married<BR>
+until they have become enceinte, never, madame." He added, smiling:<BR>
+"One might call it a local custom. So, you see, monsieur, your maid<BR>
+did as all the rest do."</P>
+
+<P>But the baron, who was trembling with nervousness, interrupted him,<BR>
+saying, "She! what do I care about her! It is Julien with whom I am<BR>
+indignant. It is infamous, the way he has behaved, and I shall take my<BR>
+daughter away."</P>
+
+<P>He walked up and down excitedly, becoming more and more exasperated:<BR>
+"It is infamous to have betrayed my child, infamous! He is a wretch,<BR>
+this man, a cad, a wretch! and I will tell him so. I will slap his<BR>
+face. I will give him a horsewhipping!"</P>
+
+<P>The priest, who was slowly taking a pinch of snuff, seated beside the<BR>
+baroness still in tears, and endeavoring to fulfill his office of a<BR>
+peacemaker, said: "Come, monsieur le baron, between ourselves, he has<BR>
+done what every one else does. Do you know many husbands who are<BR>
+faithful?" And he added with a sly good humor: "Come now, I wager that<BR>
+you have had your turn. Your hand on your heart, am I right?" The<BR>
+baron had stopped in astonishment before the priest, who continued:<BR>
+"Why, yes, you did just as others did. Who knows if you did not make<BR>
+love to a little sugar plum like that? I tell you that every one does.<BR>
+Your wife was none the less happy, or less loved; am I not right?"</P>
+
+<P>The baron had not stirred, he was much disturbed. What the priest said<BR>
+was true, and he had sinned as much as any one and had not hesitated<BR>
+when his wife's maids were in question. Was he a wretch on that<BR>
+account? Why should he judge Julien's conduct so severely when his own<BR>
+had not been above blame?</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, still struggling with her sobs, smiled faintly at the<BR>
+recollection of her husband's escapades, for she belonged to the<BR>
+sentimental class for whom love adventures are a part of existence.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, exhausted, lay with wide-open eyes, absorbed in painful<BR>
+reflection. Something Rosalie had said had wounded her as though an<BR>
+arrow had pierced her heart: "As for me, I said nothing, because I<BR>
+liked him."</P>
+
+<P>She had liked him also, and that was the only reason why she had given<BR>
+herself, bound herself for life to him, why she had renounced<BR>
+everything else, all her cherished plans, all the unknown future. She<BR>
+had fallen into this marriage, into this hole without any edges by<BR>
+which one could climb out, into this wretchedness, this sadness, this<BR>
+despair, because, like Rosalie, she had liked him!</P>
+
+<P>The door was pushed violently open and Julien appeared, with a furious<BR>
+expression on his face. He had caught sight of Rosalie moaning on the<BR>
+stairs, and suspected that something was up, that the maid had<BR>
+probably told all. The sight of the priest riveted him to the spot.</P>
+
+<P>"Why, what's the matter?" he asked in a trembling but quiet tone.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, so violent a short while ago, did not venture to speak,<BR>
+afraid of the priest's remarks, and of what his son-in-law might say<BR>
+in the same strain. Little mother was weeping more copiously than<BR>
+ever; but Jeanne had raised herself with her hands and looked,<BR>
+breathing quickly, at the one who had caused her such cruel sorrow.<BR>
+She stammered out: "The fact is, we know all, all your rascality<BR>
+since--since the day you first entered this house--we know that the<BR>
+child of this maid is your child, just as--as--mine is--they will be<BR>
+brothers." Overcome with sorrow at this thought, she buried herself in<BR>
+the sheets and wept bitterly.</P>
+
+<P>Julien stood there gaping, not knowing what to say or do. The priest<BR>
+came to the rescue.</P>
+
+<P>"Come, come, do not give way like that, my dear young lady, be<BR>
+sensible." He rose, approached the bed and placed his warm hand on the<BR>
+despairing girl's forehead. This seemed to soothe her strangely. She<BR>
+felt quieted, as if this strong peasant's hand, accustomed to the<BR>
+gesture of absolution, to kindly consolations, had conveyed by its<BR>
+touch some mysterious solace.</P>
+
+<P>The good man, still standing, continued: "Madame, we must always<BR>
+forgive. A great sorrow has come to you; but God in His mercy has<BR>
+balanced it by a great happiness, since you will become a mother. This<BR>
+child will be your comfort. In his name I implore you, I adjure you to<BR>
+forgive M. Julien's error. It will be a new bond between you, a pledge<BR>
+of his future fidelity. Can you remain apart in your heart from him<BR>
+whose child you bear?"</P>
+
+<P>She did not reply, crushed, mortified, exhausted as she was, without<BR>
+even strength for anger or resentment. Her nerves seemed relaxed,<BR>
+almost severed, she seemed to be scarcely alive.</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, who seemed incapable of resentment, and whose mind was<BR>
+unequal to prolonged effort, murmured: "Come, come, Jeanne."</P>
+
+<P>Then the priest took the hand of the young man and leading him up to<BR>
+the bed, he placed his hand in that of his wife, and gave it a little<BR>
+tap as though to unite them more closely. Then laying aside his<BR>
+professional tone and manner, he said with a satisfied air: "Well,<BR>
+now, that's done. Believe me, that is the best thing to do." The two<BR>
+hands, joined for a moment, separated immediately. Julien, not daring<BR>
+to kiss Jeanne, kissed his mother-in-law on the forehead, turned on<BR>
+his heel, took the arm of the baron, who acquiesced, happy at heart<BR>
+that the thing had been settled thus, and they went out together to<BR>
+smoke a cigar.</P>
+
+<P>The patient, overcome, dozed off, while the priest and little mother<BR>
+talked in a low tone.</P>
+
+<P>The priest explained and propounded his ideas, to which the baroness<BR>
+assented by nodding her head. He said in conclusion: "Well, then, that<BR>
+is understood; you will give this girl the Barville farm, and I will<BR>
+undertake to find her a husband, a good, steady fellow. Oh! with a<BR>
+property worth twenty thousand francs we shall have no lack of<BR>
+suitors. There will be more than enough to choose from."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness was smiling now, quite happy, with the remains of two<BR>
+tears that had dried on her cheeks.</P>
+
+<P>She repeated: "That is settled. Barville is worth at least twenty<BR>
+thousand francs, but it will be settled on the child, the parents<BR>
+having the use of it during their lifetime."</P>
+
+<P>The cur&eacute; rose, shook little mother's hand, saying: "Do not disturb<BR>
+yourself, Madame la Baronne, do not disturb yourself; I know what an<BR>
+effort it is."</P>
+
+<P>As he went out he met Aunt Lison coming to see her patient. She<BR>
+noticed nothing; they told her nothing; and she knew nothing, as<BR>
+usual.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></h4>
+
+<h5>MATERNITY</h5>
+
+<P>Rosalie had left the house. Jeanne felt no joy at the thought of being<BR>
+a mother, she had had so much sorrow. She awaited the advent of her<BR>
+child without curiosity, still filled with the apprehension of unknown<BR>
+misfortunes.</P>
+
+<P>A big woman, big as a house, had taken Rosalie's place and supported<BR>
+the baroness in her monotonous walks along her avenue. The baron gave<BR>
+his arm to Jeanne, who was now always ailing, while Aunt Lison,<BR>
+uneasy, and busied about the approaching event, held her other hand,<BR>
+bewildered at this mystery which she would never know.</P>
+
+<P>They all walked along like this almost in silence for hours at a time,<BR>
+while Julien was riding about the country on horseback, having<BR>
+suddenly acquired this taste. Nothing ever came to disturb their<BR>
+dreary life. The baron, his wife, and the vicomte paid a visit to the<BR>
+Fourvilles, whom Julien seemed to be already well acquainted with,<BR>
+without one knowing just how. Another ceremonious visit was exchanged<BR>
+with the Brisevilles, who were still hidden in their manor house.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon, about four o'clock, two persons, a lady and gentleman<BR>
+on horseback, rode up into the courtyard of the ch&acirc;teau. Julien,<BR>
+greatly excited, ran up to Jeanne's room. "Quick, quick, come<BR>
+downstairs; here are the Fourvilles. They have just come as neighbors,<BR>
+knowing your condition. Tell them that I have gone out, but that I<BR>
+will be back. I will just go and make myself presentable."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, much surprised, went downstairs. A pale, pretty young woman<BR>
+with a sad face, dreamy eyes, and lustreless, fair hair, looking as<BR>
+though the sunlight had never kissed it, quietly introduced her<BR>
+husband, a kind of giant, or ogre with a large red mustache. She<BR>
+added: "We have several times had the pleasure of meeting M. de<BR>
+Lamare. We heard from him how you were suffering, and we would not put<BR>
+off coming to see you as neighbors, without any ceremony. You see that<BR>
+we came on horseback. I also had the pleasure the other day of a visit<BR>
+from madame, your mother, and the baron."</P>
+
+<P>She spoke with perfect ease, familiar but refined. Jeanne was charmed,<BR>
+and fell in love with her at once. "This is a friend," she thought.</P>
+
+<P>The Comte de Fourville, on the contrary, seemed like a bear in the<BR>
+drawing-room. As soon as he was seated, he placed his hat on the chair<BR>
+next him, did not know what to do with his hands, placed them on his<BR>
+knees, then on the arms of the chair, and finally crossed his fingers<BR>
+as if in prayer.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly Julien entered the room. Jeanne was amazed and did not<BR>
+recognize him. He was shaved. He looked handsome, elegant, and<BR>
+attractive as on the day of their betrothal. He shook the comte's<BR>
+hairy paw, kissed the hand of the comtesse, whose ivory cheeks colored<BR>
+up slightly while her eyelids quivered.</P>
+
+<P>He began to speak; he was charming as in former days. His large eyes,<BR>
+the mirrors of love, had become tender again. And his hair, lately so<BR>
+dull and unkempt, had regained its soft, glossy wave, with the use of<BR>
+a hairbrush and perfumed oil.</P>
+
+<P>At the moment that the Fourvilles were taking their leave the<BR>
+comtesse, turning toward him, said: "Would you like to take a ride on<BR>
+Thursday, dear vicomte?"</P>
+
+<P>As he bowed and murmured, "Why, certainly, madame," she took Jeanne's<BR>
+hand and said in a sympathetic and affectionate tone, with a cordial<BR>
+smile: "Oh! when you are well, we will all three gallop about the<BR>
+country. It will be delightful. What do you say?"</P>
+
+<P>With an easy gesture she held up her riding skirt and then jumped into<BR>
+the saddle with the lightness of a bird, while her husband, after<BR>
+bowing awkwardly, mounted his big Norman steed. As they disappeared<BR>
+outside the gate, Julien, who seemed charmed, exclaimed: "What<BR>
+delightful people! those are friends who may be useful to us."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, pleased also without knowing why, replied: "The little<BR>
+comtesse is charming, I feel that I shall love her, but the husband<BR>
+looks like a brute. Where did you meet them?"</P>
+
+<P>He rubbed his hands together good humoredly. "I met them by chance at<BR>
+the Brisevilles'. The husband seems a little rough. He cares for<BR>
+nothing but hunting, but he is a real noble for all that."</P>
+
+<P>The dinner was almost cheerful, as though some secret happiness had<BR>
+come into the house.</P>
+
+<P>Nothing new happened until the latter days of July, when Jeanne was<BR>
+taken ill. As she seemed to grow worse, the doctor was sent for and at<BR>
+the first glance recognized the symptoms of a premature confinement.</P>
+
+<P>Her sufferings presently abated a little, but she was filled with a<BR>
+terrible anguish, a despairing sinking, something like a presentiment,<BR>
+the mysterious touch of death. It is in these moments when it comes so<BR>
+near to us that its breath chills our hearts.</P>
+
+<P>The room was full of people. Little mother, buried in an armchair, was<BR>
+choking with grief. The baron, his hands trembling, ran hither and<BR>
+thither, carrying things, consulting the doctor and losing his head.<BR>
+Julien paced up and down, looking concerned, but perfectly calm, and<BR>
+Widow Dentu stood at the foot of the bed with an appropriate<BR>
+expression, the expression of a woman of experience whom nothing<BR>
+astonishes. The cook, Ludivine, and Aunt Lison remained discreetly<BR>
+concealed behind the door of the lobby.</P>
+
+<P>Toward morning Jeanne became worse, and as her involuntary screams<BR>
+escaped from between her closed teeth, she thought incessantly of<BR>
+Rosalie, who had not suffered, who had hardly moaned, who had borne<BR>
+her child without suffering and without difficulty, and in her<BR>
+wretched and troubled mind she continually compared their conditions<BR>
+and cursed God, whom she had formerly thought to be just. She rebelled<BR>
+at the wicked partiality of fate and at the wicked lies of those who<BR>
+preach justice and goodness.</P>
+
+<P>At times her sufferings were so great that her mind was a blank. She<BR>
+had neither strength, life nor knowledge for anything but suffering.</P>
+
+<P>All at once her sufferings ceased. The nurse and the doctor leaned<BR>
+over her and gave her all attention. Presently she heard a little cry<BR>
+and, in spite of her weakness, she unconsciously held out her arms.<BR>
+She was suddenly filled with joy, with a glimpse of a new-found<BR>
+happiness which had just unfolded. Her child was born, she was<BR>
+soothed, happy, happy as she never yet had been. Her heart and her<BR>
+body revived; she was now a mother. She felt that she was saved,<BR>
+secure from all despair, for she had here something to love.</P>
+
+<P>From now on she had but one thought--her child. She was a fanatical<BR>
+mother, all the more intense because she had been deceived in her<BR>
+love, deceived in her hopes. She would sit whole days beside the<BR>
+window, rocking the little cradle.</P>
+
+<P>The baron and little mother smiled at this excess of tenderness, but<BR>
+Julien, whose habitual routine had been interfered with and his<BR>
+overweening importance diminished by the arrival of this noisy and<BR>
+all-powerful tyrant, unconsciously jealous of this mite of a man who<BR>
+had usurped his place in the house, kept on saying angrily and<BR>
+impatiently: "How wearisome she is with her brat!"</P>
+
+<P>She became so obsessed by this affection that she would pass the<BR>
+entire night beside the cradle, watching the child asleep. As she was<BR>
+becoming exhausted by this morbid life, taking no rest, growing weaker<BR>
+and thinner and beginning to cough, the doctor ordered the child to be<BR>
+taken from her. She got angry, wept, implored, but they were deaf to<BR>
+her entreaties. His nurse took him every evening, and each night his<BR>
+mother would rise, and in her bare feet go to the door, listen at the<BR>
+keyhole to see if he was sleeping quietly, did not wake up and wanted<BR>
+nothing.</P>
+
+<P>Julien found her here one night when he came home late, after dining<BR>
+with the Fourvilles. After that they locked her in her room to oblige<BR>
+her to stay in bed.</P>
+
+<P>The baptism took place at the end of August. The baron was godfather<BR>
+and Aunt Lison godmother. The child was named Pierre-Simon-Paul and<BR>
+called Paul for short.</P>
+
+<P>At the beginning of September Aunt Lison left without any commotion.<BR>
+Her absence was as little felt as her presence.</P>
+
+<P>One evening after dinner the priest appeared. He seemed embarrassed as<BR>
+if he were burdened by some mystery, and after some idle remarks, he<BR>
+asked the baroness and her husband to grant him a short interview in<BR>
+private.</P>
+
+<P>They all three walked slowly down the long avenue, talking with<BR>
+animation, while Julien, who was alone with Jeanne, was astonished,<BR>
+disturbed and annoyed at this secret.</P>
+
+<P>He accompanied the priest when he took his leave, and they went off<BR>
+together toward the church where the Angelus was ringing.</P>
+
+<P>As it was cool, almost cold, the others went into the drawing-room.<BR>
+They were all dozing when Julien came in abruptly, his face red,<BR>
+looking very indignant.</P>
+
+<P>From the door he called out to his parents-in-law, without remembering<BR>
+that Jeanne was there: "Are you crazy, for God's sake! to go and throw<BR>
+away twenty thousand francs on that girl?"</P>
+
+<P>No one replied, they were so astonished. He continued, bellowing with<BR>
+rage: "How can one be so stupid as that? Do you wish to leave us<BR>
+without a sou?"</P>
+
+<P>The baron, who had recovered his composure, attempted to stop him:<BR>
+"Keep still! Remember that you are speaking before your wife."</P>
+
+<P>But Julien was trembling with excitement: "As if I cared; she knows<BR>
+all about it, anyway. It is robbing her."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, bewildered, looked at him without understanding. She faltered:<BR>
+"What in the world is the matter?"</P>
+
+<P>Julien then turned toward her, to try and get her on his side as a<BR>
+partner who has been cheated out of an unexpected fortune. He<BR>
+hurriedly told her about the conspiracy to marry off Rosalie and about<BR>
+the gift of the Barville property, which was worth at least twenty<BR>
+thousand francs. He said: "Your parents are crazy, my dear, crazy<BR>
+enough to be shut up! Twenty thousand francs! twenty thousand francs!<BR>
+Why, they have lost their heads! Twenty thousand francs for a<BR>
+bastard!"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne listened without emotion and without anger, astonished at her<BR>
+own calmness, indifferent now to everything but her own child.</P>
+
+<P>The baron was raging, but could find nothing to say. He finally burst<BR>
+forth and, stamping his foot, exclaimed: "Think of what you are<BR>
+saying; it is disgusting. Whose fault was it if we had to give this<BR>
+girl-mother a dowry? Whose child is it? You would like to abandon it<BR>
+now!"</P>
+
+<P>Julien, amazed at the baron's violence, looked at him fixedly. He then<BR>
+resumed in a calmer tone: "But fifteen hundred francs would be quite<BR>
+enough. They all have children before they are legally married. It<BR>
+makes no difference whose child it is, in any case. Instead of giving<BR>
+one of your farms, to the value of twenty thousand francs, in addition<BR>
+to making the world aware of what has happened, you should, to say the<BR>
+least, have had some regard for our name and our position."</P>
+
+<P>He spoke in a severe tone like a man who stood on his rights and was<BR>
+convinced of the logic of his argument. The baron, disturbed at this<BR>
+unexpected discussion, stood there gaping at him. Julien then, seeing<BR>
+his advantage, concluded: "Happily, nothing has yet been settled. I<BR>
+know the young fellow who is going to marry her. He is an honest chap<BR>
+and we can make a satisfactory arrangement with him. I will take<BR>
+charge of the matter."</P>
+
+<P>And he went out immediately, fearing no doubt to continue the<BR>
+discussion, and pleased that he had had the last word, a proof, he<BR>
+thought, that they acquiesced in his views.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as he had left the room, however, the baron exclaimed: "Oh,<BR>
+that is going too far, much too far!"</P>
+
+<P>But Jeanne, happening to look up at her father's bewildered face,<BR>
+began to laugh with her clear, ringing laugh of former days, when<BR>
+anything amused her. She said: "Father, father, did you hear the tone<BR>
+in which he said: 'Twenty thousand francs?'"</P>
+
+<P>Little mother, whose mirth was as ready as her tears, as she recalled<BR>
+her son-in-law's angry expression, his indignant exclamations and his<BR>
+refusal to allow the girl whom he had led astray to be given money<BR>
+that did not belong to him, delighted also at Jeanne's mirth, gave way<BR>
+to little bursts of laughter till the tears came to her eyes. The<BR>
+baron caught the contagion, and all three laughed to kill themselves<BR>
+as they used to do in the good old days.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as they quieted down a little Jeanne said: "How strange it is<BR>
+that all this does not affect me. I look upon him now as a stranger.<BR>
+I cannot believe that I am his wife. You see how I can laugh at<BR>
+his--his--want of delicacy."</P>
+
+<P>And without knowing why they all three embraced each other, smiling<BR>
+and happy.</P>
+
+<P>Two days later, after breakfast, just as Julien had started away from<BR>
+the house on horseback, a strapping young fellow from twenty-one to<BR>
+twenty-five years old, clad in a brand-new blue blouse with wide<BR>
+sleeves buttoning at the wrist, slyly jumped over the gate, as though<BR>
+he had been there awaiting his opportunity all the morning, crept<BR>
+along the Couillards' ditch, came round the ch&acirc;teau, and cautiously<BR>
+approached the baron and his wife, who were still sitting under the<BR>
+plane-tree.</P>
+
+<P>He took off his cap and advanced, bowing in an awkward manner. As soon<BR>
+as he was close to them he said: "Your servant, Monsieur le Baron,<BR>
+madame and the company." Then, as no one replied, he said: "It is I, I<BR>
+am Desir&eacute; Lecocq."</P>
+
+<P>As the name conveyed nothing to them, the baron asked, "What do you<BR>
+want?"</P>
+
+<P>Then, altogether upset at the necessity of explaining himself, the<BR>
+young fellow stuttered out as he gazed alternately at his cap, which<BR>
+he held in his hands, and at the roof of the ch&acirc;teau: "It was M'sieu<BR>
+le Cur&eacute; who said something to me about this matter----" And then he<BR>
+stopped, fearing he might say too much and compromise his own<BR>
+interests.</P>
+
+<P>The other, lowering his voice, blurted out: "That matter of your<BR>
+maid--Rosalie----"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, who had guessed what was coming, had risen and moved away with<BR>
+her infant in her arms.</P>
+
+<P>"Come nearer," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had<BR>
+just left. The peasant sat down, murmuring: "You are very good." Then<BR>
+he waited as though he had no more to say. After a long silence, he<BR>
+screwed up courage, and looking up at the sky, remarked: "There's fine<BR>
+weather for the time of year. But the earth will be none the better<BR>
+for it, as the seed is already sown." And then he was silent again.</P>
+
+<P>The baron was growing impatient. He plunged right into the subject and<BR>
+said drily: "Then it is you who are going to marry Rosalie?"</P>
+
+<P>The man at once became uneasy, his Norman caution being on the alert.<BR>
+He replied with more animation, but with a tinge of defiance: "That<BR>
+depends; perhaps yes, perhaps no; it depends."</P>
+
+<P>The baron, annoyed at this hedging, exclaimed angrily: "Answer<BR>
+frankly, damn it! Was this what you came here for? Yes or no! Will you<BR>
+marry her? Yes or no!"</P>
+
+<P>The bewildered man looked steadfastly at his feet: "If it is as M'sieu<BR>
+le Cur&eacute; said, I will take her, but if it is as M'sieu Julien said, I<BR>
+will not take her."</P>
+
+<P>"What did M. Julien tell you?"</P>
+
+<P>"M'sieu Julien told me fifteen hundred francs and M'sieu le Cur&eacute; told<BR>
+me that I should have twenty thousand. I will do it for twenty<BR>
+thousand, but I will not do it for fifteen hundred."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness, who was buried in her easy chair, began to giggle at the<BR>
+anxious expression of the peasant, who, not understanding this<BR>
+frivolity, glanced at her angrily out of the corner of his eye and<BR>
+waited in silence.</P>
+
+<P>The baron, who was embarrassed at this bargaining, cut it short by<BR>
+saying: "I told M. le Cur&eacute; that you should have the Barville farm<BR>
+during your lifetime and that then it would revert to the child. It is<BR>
+worth twenty thousand francs. I do not go back on my word. Is it<BR>
+settled? Yes or no!"</P>
+
+<P>The man smiled with a humble and satisfied expression, and suddenly<BR>
+becoming loquacious, said: "Oh, in that case, I will not say no. That<BR>
+was all that stood in my way. When M'sieu le Cur&eacute; spoke to me, I was<BR>
+ready at once, by gosh! and I was very pleased to accommodate the<BR>
+baron who was giving me that. I said to myself, 'Is it not true that<BR>
+when people are willing to do each other favors, they can always find<BR>
+a way and can make it worth while?' But M'sieu Julien came to see me,<BR>
+and it was only fifteen hundred francs. I said to myself: 'I must see<BR>
+about that,' and so I came here. That is not to say that I did not<BR>
+trust you, but I wanted to know. Short accounts make long friends. Is<BR>
+not that true, M'sieu le Baron?"</P>
+
+<P>The baron interrupted him by asking, "When do you wish to get<BR>
+married?"</P>
+
+<P>The man became timid again, very much embarrassed, and finally said,<BR>
+hesitatingly: "I will not do it until I get a little paper."</P>
+
+<P>This time the baron got angry: "Doggone it! you will have the marriage<BR>
+contract. That is the best kind of paper."</P>
+
+<P>But the peasant was stubborn: "Meanwhile I might take a little turn;<BR>
+it will not be dark for a while."</P>
+
+<P>The baron rose to make an end of the matter: "Answer yes or no at<BR>
+once. If you do not wish her, say so; I have another suitor."</P>
+
+<P>The fear of a rival terrified the crafty Norman. He suddenly made up<BR>
+his mind and held out his hand, as after buying a cow, saying: "Put it<BR>
+there, M'sieu le Baron; it is a bargain. Whoever draws back is a<BR>
+skunk!"</P>
+
+<P>The baron shook his hand, then called out: "Ludivine!" The cook<BR>
+appeared at the window. "Bring us a bottle of wine." They clinked<BR>
+glasses to seal the matter and the young peasant went off with a light<BR>
+tread.</P>
+
+<P>Nothing was said to Julien about this visit. The contract was drawn up<BR>
+with all secrecy and as soon as the banns were published the wedding<BR>
+took place one Monday morning.</P>
+
+<P>A neighbor carried the child to church, walking behind the bride and<BR>
+groom, as a sure sign of good luck. And no one in all the district was<BR>
+surprised; they simply envied Desir&eacute; Lecocq. "He was born with a<BR>
+caul," they said, with a sly smile into which there entered no<BR>
+resentment.</P>
+
+<P>Julien was terribly angry and made such a scene that his parents-in-law<BR>
+cut short their visit to the "Poplars." Jeanne was only moderately<BR>
+sad at their departure, for little Paul had become for her an<BR>
+inexhaustible source of happiness.</P>
+
+
+<h4><a name="IX">CHAPTER IX</a></h4>
+
+<h5>DEATH OF LA BARONNE</h5>
+
+<P>As Jeanne's health was quite restored, they determined to go and<BR>
+return the Fourvilles' visit and also to call on the Marquis de<BR>
+Coutelier.</P>
+
+<P>Julien had bought at a sale a new one-horse phaeton, so that they<BR>
+could go out twice a month. They set out one fine December morning,<BR>
+and after driving for two hours across the plains of Normandy, they<BR>
+began to descend a little slope into a little valley, the sides of<BR>
+which were wooded, while the valley itself was cultivated. After an<BR>
+abrupt turn in the valley they saw the Ch&acirc;teau of Vrillette, a wooded<BR>
+slope on one side of it and a large pond on the other, out of which<BR>
+rose one of its walls and which was bounded by a wood of tall pine<BR>
+trees that formed the other side of the valley.</P>
+
+<P>Julien explained all the portions of the building to Jeanne, like one<BR>
+who knows his subject thoroughly, and went into raptures over its<BR>
+beauty, adding; "It is full of game, this country. The comte loves to<BR>
+hunt here. This is a true seignorial residence."</P>
+
+<P>The hall door was opened and the pale comtesse appeared, coming<BR>
+forward to meet the visitors, all smiles, and wearing a long-trained<BR>
+dress, like a chatelaine of olden times. She looked a fitting lady of<BR>
+the lake, born to inhabit this fairy castle.</P>
+
+<P>The comtesse took both Jeanne's hands, as if she had known her all her<BR>
+life, and made her sit down beside her in a low chair, while Julien,<BR>
+all of whose forgotten elegance seemed to have revived within the past<BR>
+five months, chatted and smiled quietly and familiarly.</P>
+
+<P>The comtesse and he talked of their horseback rides. She was laughing<BR>
+at his manner of mounting a horse and called him "Le Chevalier<BR>
+Tr&eacute;buche," and he smiled also, having nicknamed her "The Amazon<BR>
+Queen." A gun fired beneath the windows caused Jeanne to give a little<BR>
+scream. It was the comte, who had killed a teal.</P>
+
+<P>His wife called to him. A sound of oars was heard, a boat grinding<BR>
+against the stones, and he appeared, enormous, booted, followed by two<BR>
+drenched dogs of a ruddy color like himself, who lay down on the mat<BR>
+outside the door.</P>
+
+<P>He seemed more at his ease in his own home, and was delighted to see<BR>
+his visitors. He put some wood on the fire, sent for madeira and<BR>
+biscuits and then exclaimed suddenly: "Why, you will take dinner with<BR>
+us, of course."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, whose child was never out of her thoughts, declined. He<BR>
+insisted, and as she could not be persuaded, Julien made a gesture of<BR>
+annoyance. She feared to arouse his ugly, quarrelsome temper, and<BR>
+although she was very unhappy at the thought that she should not see<BR>
+Paul until the next day, she consented to stay.</P>
+
+<P>The afternoon was delightful. They first visited the springs which<BR>
+bubbled up at the foot of a mossy rock and then took a row on the<BR>
+pond. At one end of the boat Julien and the comtesse, wrapped in<BR>
+shawls, were smiling happily like those who have nothing left to wish<BR>
+for.</P>
+
+<P>A huge fire was blazing in the spacious reception room, which imparted<BR>
+a sense of warmth and contentment. The comte seized his wife in his<BR>
+arms and lifted her from the floor as though she had been a child and<BR>
+gave her a hearty kiss on each cheek, like a man satisfied with the<BR>
+world.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, smiling, looked at this good giant whom one would have thought<BR>
+was an ogre at the very sight of his mustaches, and she thought: "How<BR>
+one may be deceived each day about everybody." Then, almost<BR>
+involuntarily, she glanced at Julien standing in the doorway, looking<BR>
+horribly pale and with his eyes fixed on the comte. She approached him<BR>
+and said in a low tone: "Are you ill? What is the matter with you?" He<BR>
+answered her angrily: "Nothing. Let me alone! I was cold."</P>
+
+<P>When they went into the dining-room the count asked if he might let<BR>
+his dogs come in, and they settled themselves one on either side of<BR>
+their master.</P>
+
+<P>After dinner, as Jeanne and Julien were preparing to leave, M. de<BR>
+Fourville kept them a little longer to look at some fishing by<BR>
+torchlight. When they finally set out, wrapped up in their cloaks and<BR>
+some rugs they had borrowed, Jeanne said almost involuntarily: "What a<BR>
+fine man that giant is!" Julien, who was driving, replied: "Yes, but<BR>
+he does not always restrain himself before company."</P>
+
+<P>A week later they called on the Couteliers, who were supposed to be<BR>
+the chief noble family in the province. Their property of Remenil<BR>
+adjoined the large town of Cany. The new ch&acirc;teau built in the reign of<BR>
+Louis XIV. was hidden in a magnificent park enclosed by walls. The<BR>
+ruins of the old ch&acirc;teau could be seen on an eminence. They were<BR>
+ushered into a stately reception room by men servants in livery. In<BR>
+the middle of the room a sort of column held an immense bowl of S&egrave;vres<BR>
+ware and on the pedestal of the column an autograph letter from the<BR>
+king, under glass, requested the Marquis Leopold-Herv&eacute;-Joseph-Germer<BR>
+de Varneville de Rollebosc de Coutelier to receive this present from<BR>
+his sovereign.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and Julien were looking at this royal gift when the marquis and<BR>
+marquise entered the room.</P>
+
+<P>They were very ceremonious people whose minds, sentiments and words<BR>
+seemed always to be on stilts. They spoke without waiting for an<BR>
+answer, smiling complacently, appearing always to be fulfilling the<BR>
+duty imposed on them by their position, of showing civilities to the<BR>
+inferior nobility of the region.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne and Julien, somewhat taken aback, endeavored to be agreeable,<BR>
+but although they felt too embarrassed to remain any longer, they did<BR>
+not know exactly how to take their leave. The marquise herself put an<BR>
+end to the visit naturally and simply by bringing the conversation to<BR>
+a close like a queen giving a dismissal.</P>
+
+<P>On the way home Julien said: "If you like, we will make this our first<BR>
+and last call; the Fourvilles are good enough for me." Jeanne was of<BR>
+the same opinion. December passed slowly and the shut-in life began<BR>
+again as in the previous year. But Jeanne did not find it wearisome,<BR>
+as she was always taken up with Paul, whom Julien looked at askance,<BR>
+uneasy and annoyed. Often when the mother held the child in her arms,<BR>
+kissing it frantically as women do their children, she would hold it<BR>
+up to its father, saying: "Give him a kiss; one would suppose you did<BR>
+not love him." He would hardly touch with his lips the child's smooth<BR>
+forehead, walking all round it, as though he did not wish to touch the<BR>
+restless little fists. Then he would walk away abruptly as though from<BR>
+something distasteful.</P>
+
+<P>The mayor, the doctor and the cur&eacute; came to dinner occasionally, and<BR>
+sometimes it was the Fourvilles, with whom they were becoming more and<BR>
+more intimate. The comte appeared to worship Paul. He held him on his<BR>
+knees during the whole visit and sometimes during the whole afternoon,<BR>
+playing with him and amusing him and then kissing him tenderly as<BR>
+mothers do. He always lamented that he had no children of his own.</P>
+
+<P>Comtesse Gilberte again mentioned the rides they all four were going<BR>
+to take together. Jeanne, a little weary of the monotonous days and<BR>
+nights, was quite happy in anticipation of these plans, and for a week<BR>
+amused herself making a riding habit.</P>
+
+<P>They always set out two and two, the comtesse and Julien ahead, the<BR>
+count and Jeanne a hundred feet behind them, talking quietly, like<BR>
+good friends, for such they had become through the sympathy of their<BR>
+straightforward minds and simple hearts. The others often spoke in a<BR>
+low tone, sometimes bursting into laughter and looking quickly at each<BR>
+other, as though their eyes were expressing what they dared not utter.<BR>
+And they would suddenly set off at a gallop, impelled by a desire to<BR>
+flee, to get away, far away.</P>
+
+<P>Then Gilberte would seem to be growing irritable. Her sharp voice,<BR>
+borne on the breeze, occasionally reached the ears of the loitering<BR>
+couple. The comte would smile and say to Jeanne: "She does not always<BR>
+get out of bed the right side, that wife of mine."</P>
+
+<P>One evening as they were coming home the comtesse was teasing her<BR>
+mount, spurring it and then checking it abruptly. They heard Julien<BR>
+say several time: "Take care, take care; you will be thrown." "So much<BR>
+the worse," she replied; "it is none of your business," in a hard<BR>
+clear tone that resounded across the fields as though the words hung<BR>
+in the air.</P>
+
+<P>The animal reared, plunged and champed the bit. The comte, uneasy,<BR>
+shouted: "Be careful, Gilberte!" Then, as if in defiance, with one of<BR>
+those impulses of a woman whom nothing can stop, she struck her horse<BR>
+brutally between the ears. The animal reared in anger, pawed the air<BR>
+with his front feet and, landing again on his feet, gave a bound and<BR>
+darted across the plain at full speed.</P>
+
+<P>First it crossed the meadow, then plunging into a ploughed field<BR>
+kicked up the damp rich earth behind it, going so fast that one could<BR>
+hardly distinguish its rider. Julien remained transfixed with<BR>
+astonishment, calling out in despair: "Madame, madame!" but the comte<BR>
+was rather annoyed, and, bending forward on his heavy mount, he urged<BR>
+it forward and started out at such a pace, spurring it on with his<BR>
+voice, his gestures and the spur, that the huge horseman seemed to be<BR>
+carrying the heavy beast between his legs and to be lifting it up as<BR>
+if to fly. They went at incredible speed, straight ahead, and Jeanne<BR>
+saw the outline of the wife and of the husband fleeing getting smaller<BR>
+and disappearing in the distance, as if they were two birds pursuing<BR>
+each other to the verge of the horizon.</P>
+
+<P>Julien, approaching Jeanne slowly, murmured angrily: "I think she is<BR>
+crazy to-day." And they set out together to follow their friends, who<BR>
+were now hidden by the rising ground.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of about a quarter of an hour they saw them returning and<BR>
+presently joined them. The comte, perspiring, his face red, but<BR>
+smiling, happy and triumphant, was holding his wife's trembling horse<BR>
+in his iron grasp. Gilberte was pale, her face sad and drawn, and she<BR>
+was leaning one hand on her husband's shoulder as if she were going to<BR>
+faint. Jeanne understood now that the comte loved her madly.</P>
+
+<P>After this the comtesse for some months seemed happier than she had<BR>
+ever been. She came to the "Poplars" more frequently, laughed<BR>
+continually and kissed Jeanne impulsively. One might have said that<BR>
+some mysterious charm had come into her life. Her husband was also<BR>
+quite happy and never took his eyes off her. He said to Jeanne one<BR>
+evening: "We are very happy just now. Gilberte has never been so nice<BR>
+as this. She never is out of humor, never gets angry. I feel that she<BR>
+loves me; until now I was not sure of it."</P>
+
+<P>Julien also seemed changed, no longer impatient, as though the<BR>
+friendship between the two families had brought peace and happiness to<BR>
+both. The spring was singularly early and mild. Everything seemed to<BR>
+be coming to life beneath the quickening rays of the sun. Jeanne was<BR>
+vaguely troubled at this awakening of nature. Memories came to her of<BR>
+the early days of her love. Not that her love for Julien was renewed;<BR>
+that was over, over forever. But all her being, caressed by the<BR>
+breeze, filled with the fragrance of spring, was disturbed as though<BR>
+in response to some invisible and tender appeal. She loved to be<BR>
+alone, to give herself up in the sunlight to all kinds of vague and<BR>
+calm enjoyment which did not necessitate thinking.</P>
+
+<P>One morning as she was in a reverie a vision came to her, a swift<BR>
+vision of the sunlit nook amid the dark foliage in the little wood<BR>
+near &Eacute;tretat. It was there that she had for the first time trembled,<BR>
+when beside the young man who loved her then. It was there that he had<BR>
+uttered for the first time the timid desire of his heart. It was there<BR>
+that she thought that she had all at once reached the radiant future<BR>
+of her hopes. She wished to see this wood again, to make a sort of<BR>
+sentimental and superstitious pilgrimage, as though a return to this<BR>
+spot might somehow change the current of her life. Julien had been<BR>
+gone since daybreak, she knew not whither. She had the little white<BR>
+horse, which she sometimes rode, saddled, and she set out. It was one<BR>
+of those days when nothing seemed stirring, not a blade of grass, not<BR>
+a leaf. All seemed wrapped in a golden mist beneath the blazing sun.<BR>
+Jeanne walked her horse, soothed and happy.</P>
+
+<P>She descended into the valley which leads to the sea, between the<BR>
+great arches in the cliff that are called the "Gates" of &Eacute;tretat, and<BR>
+slowly reached the wood. The sunlight was streaming through the still<BR>
+scanty foliage. She wandered about the little paths, looking for the<BR>
+spot.</P>
+
+<P>All at once, as she was going along one of the lower paths, she<BR>
+perceived at the farther end of it two horses tied to a tree and<BR>
+recognized them at once; they belonged to Gilberte and Julien. The<BR>
+loneliness of the place was beginning to be irksome to her, and she<BR>
+was pleased at this chance meeting, and whipped up her horse.</P>
+
+<P>When she reached the two patient animals, who were probably accustomed<BR>
+to these long halts, she called. There was no reply. A woman's glove<BR>
+and two riding whips lay on the beaten-down grass. So they had no<BR>
+doubt sat down there awhile and then walked away leaving their horses<BR>
+tied.</P>
+
+<P>She waited a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, surprised, not<BR>
+understanding what could be keeping them. She had dismounted. She sat<BR>
+there, leaning against a tree trunk. Suddenly a thought came to her as<BR>
+she glanced again at the glove, the whips and the two horses left tied<BR>
+there, and she sprang to her saddle with an irresistible desire to<BR>
+make her escape.</P>
+
+<P>She started off at a gallop for the "Poplars." She was turning things<BR>
+over in her mind, trying to reason, to put two and two together, to<BR>
+compare facts. How was it that she had not suspected this sooner? How<BR>
+was it that she had not noticed anything? How was it she had not<BR>
+guessed the reason of Julien's frequent absences, the renewal of his<BR>
+former attention to his appearance and the improvement in his temper?<BR>
+She now recalled Gilberte's nervous abruptness, her exaggerated<BR>
+affection and the kind of beaming happiness in which she seemed to<BR>
+exist latterly and that so pleased the comte.</P>
+
+<P>She reined in her horse, as she wanted to think, and the quick pace<BR>
+disturbed her ideas.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as the first emotion was over she became almost calm, without<BR>
+jealousy or hatred, but filled with contempt. She hardly gave Julien a<BR>
+thought; nothing he might do could astonish her. But the double<BR>
+treachery of the comtesse, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone, then,<BR>
+was treacherous, untruthful and false. And tears came to her eyes. One<BR>
+sometimes mourns lost illusions as deeply as one does the death of a<BR>
+friend.</P>
+
+<P>She resolved, however, to act as though she knew nothing, to close the<BR>
+doors of her heart to all ordinary affection and to love no one but<BR>
+Paul and her parents and to endure other people with an undisturbed<BR>
+countenance.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as she got home she ran to her son, carried him up to her room<BR>
+and kissed him passionately for an hour.</P>
+
+<P>Julien came home to dinner, smiling and attentive, and appeared<BR>
+interested as he asked: "Are not father and little mother coming this<BR>
+year?"</P>
+
+<P>She was so grateful to him for this little attention that she almost<BR>
+forgave him for the discovery she had made in the wood, and she was<BR>
+filled all of a sudden with an intense desire to see without delay the<BR>
+two beings in the world whom she loved next to Paul, and passed the<BR>
+whole evening writing to them to hasten their journey.</P>
+
+<P>They promised to be there on the 20th of May and it was now the 7th.</P>
+
+<P>She awaited their arrival with a growing impatience, as though she<BR>
+felt, in addition to her filial affection, the need of opening her<BR>
+heart to honest hearts, to talk with frankness to pure-minded people,<BR>
+devoid of all infamy, all of whose life, actions and thoughts had been<BR>
+upright at all times.</P>
+
+<P>What she now felt was a sort of moral isolation, amid all this<BR>
+immorality, and, although she had learned suddenly to disseminate,<BR>
+although she received the comtesse with outstretched hand and smiling<BR>
+lips, she felt this consciousness of hollowness, this contempt for<BR>
+humanity increasing and enveloping her, and the petty gossip of the<BR>
+district gave her a still greater disgust, a still lower opinion of<BR>
+her fellow creatures.</P>
+
+<P>The immorality of the peasants shocked her, and this warm spring<BR>
+seemed to stir the sap in human beings as well as in plants. Jeanne<BR>
+did not belong to the race of peasants who are dominated by their<BR>
+lower instincts. Julien one day awakened her aversion anew by telling<BR>
+her a coarse story that had been told to him and that he considered<BR>
+very amusing.</P>
+
+<P>When the travelling carriage stopped at the door and the happy face of<BR>
+the baron appeared at the window Jeanne was stirred with so deep an<BR>
+emotion, such a tumultuous feeling of affection as she had never<BR>
+before experienced. But when she saw her mother she was shocked and<BR>
+almost fainted. The baroness, in six months, had aged ten years. Her<BR>
+heavy cheeks had grown flabby and purple, as though the blood were<BR>
+congested; her eyes were dim and she could no longer move about unless<BR>
+supported under each arm. Her breathing was difficult and wheezing and<BR>
+affected those near her with a painful sensation.</P>
+
+<P>When Jeanne had taken them to their room, she retired to her own in<BR>
+order to have a good cry, as she was so upset. Then she went to look<BR>
+for her father, and throwing herself into his arms, she exclaimed, her<BR>
+eyes still full of tears: "Oh, how mother is changed! What is the<BR>
+matter with her? Tell me, what is the matter?" He was much surprised<BR>
+and replied: "Do you think so? What an idea! Why, no. I have never<BR>
+been away from her. I assure you that I do not think she looks ill.<BR>
+She always looks like that."</P>
+
+<P>That evening Julien said to his wife: "Your mother is in a pretty bad<BR>
+way. I think she will not last long." And as Jeanne burst out sobbing,<BR>
+he became annoyed. "Come, I did not say there was no hope for her. You<BR>
+always exaggerate everything. She is changed, that's all. She is no<BR>
+longer young."</P>
+
+<P>The baroness was not able to walk any distance and only went out for<BR>
+half an hour each day to take one turn in her avenue and then she<BR>
+would sit on the bench. And when she felt unequal to walking to the<BR>
+end of her avenue, she would say: "Let us stop; my hypertrophy is<BR>
+breaking my legs today." She hardly ever laughed now as she did the<BR>
+previous year at anything that amused her, but only smiled. As she<BR>
+could see to read excellently, she passed hours reading "Corinne" or<BR>
+Lamartine's "Meditations." Then she would ask for her drawer of<BR>
+"souvenirs," and emptying her cherished letters on her lap, she would<BR>
+place the drawer on a chair beside her and put back, one by one, her<BR>
+"relics," after she had slowly gone over them. And when she was alone,<BR>
+quite alone, she would kiss some of them, as one kisses in secret a<BR>
+lock of hair of a loved one passed away.</P>
+
+<P>Sometimes Jeanne, coming in abruptly, would find her weeping and would<BR>
+exclaim: "What is the matter, little mother?" And the baroness,<BR>
+sighing deeply, would reply: "It is my 'relics' that make me cry. They<BR>
+stir remembrances that were so delightful and that are now past<BR>
+forever, and one is reminded of persons whom one had forgotten and<BR>
+recalls once more. You seem to see them, to hear them and it affects<BR>
+you strangely. You will feel this later."</P>
+
+<P>When the baron happened to come in at such times he would say gently:<BR>
+"Jeanne, dearie, take my advice and burn your letters, all of<BR>
+them--your mother's, mine, everyone's. There is nothing more dreadful,<BR>
+when one is growing old, than to look back to one's youth." But Jeanne<BR>
+also kept her letters, was preparing a chest of "relics" in obedience to<BR>
+a sort of hereditary instinct of dreamy sentimentality, although she<BR>
+differed from her mother in every other way.</P>
+
+<P>The baron was obliged to leave them some days later, as he had some<BR>
+business that called him away.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon Jeanne took Paul in her arms and went out for a walk.<BR>
+She was sitting on a bank, gazing at the infant, whom she seemed to be<BR>
+looking at for the first time. She could hardly imagine him grown up,<BR>
+walking with a steady step, with a beard on his face and talking in a<BR>
+big voice. She heard someone calling and raised her head. Marius came<BR>
+running toward her.</P>
+
+<P>"Madame, Madame la Baronne is very bad!"</P>
+
+<P>A cold chill seemed to run down her back as she started up and walked<BR>
+hurriedly toward the house.</P>
+
+<P>As she approached she saw a number of persons grouped around the plane<BR>
+tree. She darted forward and saw her mother lying on the ground with<BR>
+two pillows under her head. Her face was black, her eyes closed and<BR>
+her breathing, which had been difficult for twenty years, now quite<BR>
+hushed. The nurse took the child out of Jeanne's arms and carried it<BR>
+off.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, with drawn, anxious face, asked: "What happened? How did she<BR>
+come to fall? Go for the doctor, somebody." Turning round, she saw the<BR>
+old cur&eacute;, who had heard of it in some way. He offered his services and<BR>
+began rolling up the sleeves of his cassock. But vinegar, eau de<BR>
+cologne and rubbing the invalid proved ineffectual.</P>
+
+<P>"She should be undressed and put to bed," said the priest.</P>
+
+<P>Joseph Couillard, the farmer, was there and old Simon and Ludivine.<BR>
+With the assistance of Abb&eacute; Picot, they tried to lift the baroness,<BR>
+but after an attempt were obliged to bring a large easy chair from the<BR>
+drawing-room and place her in it. In this way they managed to get her<BR>
+into the house and then upstairs, where they laid her on her bed.</P>
+
+<P>Joseph Couillard set out in hot haste for the doctor. As the priest<BR>
+was going to get the holy oil, the nurse, who had "scented a death,"<BR>
+as the servants say, and was on the spot, whispered to him: "Do not<BR>
+put yourself out, monsieur; she is dead. I know all about these<BR>
+things."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, beside herself, entreated them to do something. The priest<BR>
+thought it best to pronounce the absolution.</P>
+
+<P>They watched for two hours beside this lifeless, discolored body.<BR>
+Jeanne, on her knees, was sobbing in an agony of grief.</P>
+
+<P>When the door opened and the doctor appeared, Jeanne darted toward<BR>
+him, stammering out what she knew of the accident, but seeing the<BR>
+nurse exchange a meaning glance with the doctor, she stopped to ask<BR>
+him: "Is it serious? Do you think it is serious?"</P>
+
+<P>He said presently: "I am afraid--I am afraid--it is all over. Be<BR>
+brave, be brave."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, extending her arms, threw herself on her mother's body. Julien<BR>
+just then came in. He stood there amazed, visibly annoyed, without any<BR>
+exclamation of sorrow, any appearance of grief, taken so unawares that<BR>
+he had not time to prepare a suitable expression of countenance. He<BR>
+muttered: "I was expecting it, I felt that the end was near." Then he<BR>
+took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, knelt down, crossed<BR>
+himself, and then rising to his feet, attempted to raise his wife. But<BR>
+she was clasping the dead body and kissing it, and it became necessary<BR>
+to carry her away. She appeared to be out of her mind.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of an hour she was allowed to come back. There was no<BR>
+longer any hope. The room was arranged as a death chamber. Julien and<BR>
+the priest were talking in a low tone near the window. It was growing<BR>
+dark. The priest came over to Jeanne and took her hands, trying to<BR>
+console her. He spoke of the defunct, praised her in pious phrases and<BR>
+offered to pass the night in prayer beside the body.</P>
+
+<P>But Jeanne refused, amid convulsive sobs. She wished to be alone,<BR>
+quite alone on this last night of farewell. Julien came forward: "But<BR>
+you must not do it; we will stay together." She shook her head, unable<BR>
+to speak. At last she said: "It is my mother, my mother. I wish to<BR>
+watch beside her alone." The doctor murmured: "Let her do as she<BR>
+pleases; the nurse can stay in the adjoining room."</P>
+
+<P>The priest and Julien consented, more interested in their own rest.<BR>
+Then Abb&eacute; Picot knelt down in his turn, and as he rose and left the<BR>
+room, he said: "She was a saint" in the same tone as he said "Dominus<BR>
+vobiscum."</P>
+
+<P>The vicomte in his ordinary tone then asked: "Are you not going to eat<BR>
+something?" Jeanne did not reply, not knowing he was speaking to her,<BR>
+and he repeated: "You had better eat something to keep up your<BR>
+stomach." She replied in a bewildered manner: "Send at once for papa."<BR>
+And he went out of the room to send someone on horseback to Rouen.</P>
+
+<P>She remained plunged in a sort of motionless grief, seeing nothing,<BR>
+feeling nothing, understanding nothing. She only wanted to be alone.<BR>
+Julien came back. He had dined and he asked her again: "Won't you take<BR>
+something?" She shook her head. He sat down with an air of resignation<BR>
+rather than sadness, without speaking, and they both sat there silent,<BR>
+till at length Julien arose, and approaching Jeanne, said: "Would you<BR>
+like to stay alone now?" She took his hand impulsively and replied:<BR>
+"Oh, yes! leave me!"</P>
+
+<P>He kissed her forehead, murmuring: "I will come in and see you from<BR>
+time to time." He went out with Widow Dentu, who rolled her easy chair<BR>
+into the next room.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne shut the door and opened the windows wide. She felt the soft<BR>
+breath from the mown hay that lay in the moonlight on the lawn. It<BR>
+seemed to harrow her feelings like an ironical remark.</P>
+
+<P>She went back to the bed, took one of the cold, inert hands and looked<BR>
+at her mother earnestly. She seemed to be sleeping more peacefully<BR>
+than she had ever done, and the pale flame of the tapers which<BR>
+flickered at every breath made her face appear to be alive, as if she<BR>
+had stirred. Jeanne remembered all the little incidents of her<BR>
+childhood, the visits of little mother to the "parloir" of the<BR>
+convent, the manner in which she handed her a little paper bag of<BR>
+cakes, a multitude of little details, little acts, little caresses,<BR>
+words, intonations, familiar gestures, the creases at the corner of<BR>
+her eyes when she laughed, the big sigh she gave when she sat down.</P>
+
+<P>And she stood there looking at her, repeating half mechanically: "She<BR>
+is dead," and all the horror of the word became real to her. It was<BR>
+mamma lying there--little mother--Mamma Adelaide who was dead. She<BR>
+would never move about again, nor speak, nor laugh, nor sit at dinner<BR>
+opposite little father. She would never again say: "Good-morning,<BR>
+Jeannette." She was dead!</P>
+
+<P>And she fell on her knees in a paroxysm of despair, her hands<BR>
+clutching the sheet, her face buried in the covers as she cried in a<BR>
+heartrending tone: "Oh, mamma, my poor mamma!" Then feeling that she<BR>
+was losing her reason as she had done on the night when she fled<BR>
+across the snow, she rose and ran to the window to drink in the fresh<BR>
+air. The soothing calmness of the night entered her soul and she began<BR>
+to weep quietly.</P>
+
+<P>Presently she turned back into the room and sat down again beside<BR>
+her mother. Other remembrances came to her: those of her own<BR>
+life--Rosalie, Gilberte, the bitter disillusions of her heart.<BR>
+Everything, then, was only misery, grief, unhappiness and death.<BR>
+Everyone tried to deceive, everyone lied, everyone made you suffer and<BR>
+weep. Where could one find a little rest and happiness? In another<BR>
+existence no doubt, when the soul is freed from the trials of earth.<BR>
+And she began to ponder on this insoluble mystery.</P>
+
+<P>A tender and curious thought came to her mind. It was to read over in<BR>
+this last watch, as though they were a litany, the old letters that<BR>
+her mother loved. It seemed to her that she was about to perform a<BR>
+delicate and sacred duty which would give pleasure to little mother in<BR>
+the other world.</P>
+
+<P>She rose, opened the writing desk and took from the lower drawer ten<BR>
+little packages of yellow letters, tied and arranged in order, side by<BR>
+side. She placed them all on the bed over her mother's heart from a<BR>
+sort of sentiment and began to read them. They were old letters that<BR>
+savored of a former century. The first began, "My dear little<BR>
+granddaughter," then again "My dear little girl," "My darling," "My<BR>
+dearest daughter," then "My dear child," "My dear Adelaide," "My dear<BR>
+daughter," according to the periods--childhood, youth or young<BR>
+womanhood. They were all full of little insignificant details and<BR>
+tender words, about a thousand little matters, those simple but<BR>
+important events of home life, so petty to outsiders: "Father has the<BR>
+grip; poor Hortense burnt her finger; the cat, 'Croquerat,' is dead;<BR>
+they have cut down the pine tree to the right of the gate; mother lost<BR>
+her prayerbook on the way home from church, she thinks it was stolen."</P>
+
+<P>All these details affected her. They seemed like revelations, as<BR>
+though she had suddenly entered the past secret heart life of little<BR>
+mother. She looked at her lying there and suddenly began to read<BR>
+aloud, to read to the dead, as though to distract, to console her.</P>
+
+<P>And the dead woman appeared to be pleased.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne tossed the letters as she read them to the foot of the bed. She<BR>
+untied another package. It was a new handwriting. She read: "I cannot<BR>
+do without your caresses. I love you so that I am almost crazy."</P>
+
+<P>That was all; no signature.</P>
+
+<P>She put back the letter without understanding its meaning. The address<BR>
+was certainly "Madame la Baronne Le Perthuis des Vauds."</P>
+
+<P>Then she opened another: "Come this evening as soon as he goes out; we<BR>
+shall have an hour together. I worship you." In another: "I passed the<BR>
+night longing in vain for you, longing to look into your eyes, to<BR>
+press my lips to yours, and I am insane enough to throw myself from<BR>
+the window at the thought that you are another's...."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was perfectly bewildered. What did that mean? To whom, for<BR>
+whom, from whom were these words of love?</P>
+
+<P>She went on reading, coming across fresh impassioned declarations,<BR>
+appointments with warnings as to prudence, and always at the end the<BR>
+six words: "Be sure to burn this letter!"</P>
+
+<P>At last she opened an ordinary note, accepting an invitation to<BR>
+dinner, but in the same handwriting and signed: "Paul d'Ennemare,"<BR>
+whom the baron called, whenever he spoke of him, "My poor old Paul,"<BR>
+and whose wife had been the baroness' dearest friend.</P>
+
+<P>Then a suspicion, which immediately became a certainty, flashed across<BR>
+Jeanne's mind: He had been her mother's lover.</P>
+
+<P>And, almost beside herself, she suddenly threw aside these infamous<BR>
+letters as she would have thrown off some venomous reptile and ran to<BR>
+the window and began to cry piteously. Then, collapsing, she sank down<BR>
+beside the wall, and hiding her face in the curtain so that no one<BR>
+should hear her, she sobbed bitterly as if in hopeless despair.</P>
+
+<P>She would have remained thus probably all night, if she had not heard<BR>
+a noise in the adjoining room that made her start to her feet. It<BR>
+might be her father. And all the letters were lying on the floor! He<BR>
+would have to open only one of them to know all! Her father!</P>
+
+<P>She darted into the other room and seizing the letters in handfuls,<BR>
+she threw them all into the fireplace, those of her grandparents as<BR>
+well as those of the lover; some that she had not looked at and some<BR>
+that had remained tied up in the drawers of the desk. She then took<BR>
+one of the tapers that burned beside the bed and set fire to this pile<BR>
+of letters. When they were reduced to ashes she went back to the open<BR>
+window, as though she no longer dared to sit beside the dead, and<BR>
+began to cry again with her face in her hands: "Oh, my poor mamma! oh,<BR>
+my poor mamma!"</P>
+
+<P>The stars were paling. It was the cool hour that precedes the dawn.<BR>
+The moon was sinking on the horizon and turning the sea to mother of<BR>
+pearl. The recollection of the night she passed at the window when she<BR>
+first came to the "Poplars" came to Jeanne's mind. How far away it<BR>
+seemed, how everything was changed, how different the future now<BR>
+seemed!</P>
+
+<P>The sky was becoming pink, a joyous, love-inspiring, enchanting pink.<BR>
+She looked at it in surprise, as at some phenomenon, this radiant<BR>
+break of day, and asked herself if it were possible that, on a planet<BR>
+where such dawns were found, there should be neither joy nor<BR>
+happiness.</P>
+
+<P>A noise at the door made her start. It was Julien. "Well," he said,<BR>
+"are you not very tired?"</P>
+
+<P>She murmured, "No," happy at being no longer alone. "Go and rest now,"<BR>
+he said. She kissed her mother a long, sad kiss; then she went to her<BR>
+room.</P>
+
+<P>The next day passed in the usual attentions to the dead. The baron<BR>
+arrived toward evening. He wept for some time.</P>
+
+<P>The funeral took place the following day. After pressing a last kiss<BR>
+on her mother's icy forehead and seeing the coffin nailed down, Jeanne<BR>
+left the room. The invited guests would soon arrive.</P>
+
+<P>Gilberte was the first to come, and she threw herself sobbing on her<BR>
+friend's shoulder. Women in black presently entered the room one after<BR>
+another, people whom Jeanne did not know. The Marquise de Coutelier<BR>
+and the Vicomtesse de Briseville embraced her. She suddenly saw Aunt<BR>
+Lison gliding in behind her. She turned round and kissed her tenderly.</P>
+
+<P>Julien came in, dressed all in black, elegant, very important, pleased<BR>
+at seeing so many people. He asked his wife some question in a low<BR>
+tone and added confidentially: "All the nobility are here; it will be<BR>
+a fine affair." And he walked away, gravely bowing to the ladies. Aunt<BR>
+Lison and Comtesse Gilberte alone remained with Jeanne during the<BR>
+service for the dead. The comtesse kissed her repeatedly, exclaiming:<BR>
+"My poor dear, my poor dear!"</P>
+
+<P>When Comte de Fourville came to fetch his wife he was also crying as<BR>
+though it were for his own mother.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="X">CHAPTER X</a></h4>
+
+<h5>RETRIBUTION</h5>
+
+<P>The following days were very sad and dreary, as they always are when<BR>
+there has been a death in the house. And, in addition, Jeanne was<BR>
+crushed at the thought of what she had discovered; her last shred of<BR>
+confidence had been destroyed with the destruction of her faith.<BR>
+Little father, after a short stay, went away to try and distract his<BR>
+thoughts from his grief, and the large house, whose former masters<BR>
+were leaving it from time to time, resumed its usual calm and<BR>
+monotonous course.</P>
+
+<P>Then Paul fell ill, and Jeanne was almost beside herself, not sleeping<BR>
+for ten days, and scarcely tasting food. He recovered, but she was<BR>
+haunted by the idea that he might die. Then what should she do? What<BR>
+would become of her? And there gradually stole into her heart the hope<BR>
+that she might have another child. She dreamed of it, became obsessed<BR>
+with the idea. She longed to realize her old dream of seeing two<BR>
+little children around her; a boy and a girl.</P>
+
+<P>But since the affair of Rosalie she and Julien had lived apart. A<BR>
+reconciliation seemed impossible in their present situation. Julien<BR>
+loved some one else, she knew it; and the very thought of suffering<BR>
+his approach filled her with repugnance. She had no one left whom she<BR>
+could consult. She resolved to go and see Abb&eacute; Picot and tell him,<BR>
+under the seal of confession, all that weighed upon her mind in this<BR>
+matter.</P>
+
+<P>He was reading from his breviary in his little garden planted with<BR>
+fruit trees when she arrived.</P>
+
+<P>After a few minutes' conversation on indifferent matters, she<BR>
+faltered, her color rising: "I want to confess, Monsieur l'Abb&eacute;."</P>
+
+<P>He looked at her in astonishment, as he pushed his spectacles back on<BR>
+his forehead; then he began to laugh. "You surely have no great sins<BR>
+on your conscience." This embarrassed her greatly, and she replied:<BR>
+"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject that is so--so--so<BR>
+painful that I dare not mention it casually."</P>
+
+<P>He at once laid aside his jovial manner and assumed his priestly<BR>
+attitude. "Well, my child, I will listen to you in the confessional;<BR>
+come along."</P>
+
+<P>But she held back, undecided, restrained by a kind of scruple at<BR>
+speaking of these matters, of which she was half ashamed, in the<BR>
+seclusion of an empty church.</P>
+
+<P>"Or else, no--Monsieur le Cur&eacute;--I might--I might--if you wish, tell<BR>
+you now what brings me here. Let us go and sit over there, in your<BR>
+little arbor."</P>
+
+<P>They walked toward it, and Jeanne tried to think how she could begin.<BR>
+They sat down in the arbor, and then, as if she were confessing<BR>
+herself, she said: "Father----" then hesitated, and repeated:<BR>
+"Father----" and was silent from emotion.</P>
+
+<P>He waited, his hands crossed over his paunch. Seeing her<BR>
+embarrassment, he sought to encourage her: "Why, my daughter, one<BR>
+would suppose you were afraid; come, take courage."</P>
+
+<P>She plucked up courage, like a coward who plunges headlong into<BR>
+danger. "Father, I should like to have another child." He did not<BR>
+reply, as he did not understand her. Then she explained, timid and<BR>
+unable to express herself clearly:</P>
+
+<P>"I am all alone in life now; my father and my husband do not get along<BR>
+together; my mother is dead; and--and----" she added with a shudder,<BR>
+"the other day I nearly lost my son! What would have become of me<BR>
+then?"</P>
+
+<P>She was silent. The priest, bewildered, was gazing at her. "Come, get<BR>
+to the point of your subject."</P>
+
+<P>"I want to have another child," she said. Then he smiled, accustomed<BR>
+to the coarse jokes of the peasants, who were not embarrassed in his<BR>
+presence, and he replied, with a sly motion of his head:</P>
+
+<P>"Well, it seems to me that it depends only on yourself."</P>
+
+<P>She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said, hesitating with<BR>
+confusion: "But--but--you understand that since--since--what you know<BR>
+about--about that maid--my husband and I have lived--have lived quite<BR>
+apart."</P>
+
+<P>Accustomed to the promiscuity and undignified relations of the<BR>
+peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought<BR>
+he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of<BR>
+the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of<BR>
+sympathy for her distress, he said: "Oh, I understand perfectly. I<BR>
+know that your widowhood must be irksome to you. You are young and in<BR>
+good health. It is natural, quite natural."</P>
+
+<P>He smiled, bearing out his easy-going character of a country priest,<BR>
+and tapping Jeanne lightly on the hand, he said: "That is permissible,<BR>
+very permissible indeed, according to the commandments. You are<BR>
+married, are you not? Well, then, what is the harm?"</P>
+
+<P>She, in her turn, had not understood his hidden meaning; but as soon<BR>
+as she saw through it, she blushed scarlet, shocked, and with tears in<BR>
+her eyes exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur le Cur&eacute;, what are you saying? What<BR>
+are you thinking of? I swear to you--I swear to you----" And sobs<BR>
+choked her words.</P>
+
+<P>He was surprised and sought to console her: "Come, I did not mean to<BR>
+hurt your feelings. I was only joking a little; there is no harm in<BR>
+that when one is decent. But you may rely on me, you may rely on me. I<BR>
+will see M. Julien."</P>
+
+<P>She did not know what to say. She now wished to decline this<BR>
+intervention, which she thought clumsy and dangerous, but she did not<BR>
+dare to do so, and she went away hurriedly, faltering: "I am grateful<BR>
+to you, Monsieur le Cur&eacute;."</P>
+
+<P>A week passed. One day at dinner Julien looked at her with a peculiar<BR>
+expression, a certain smiling curve of the lips that she had noticed<BR>
+when he was teasing her. He was even almost ironically gallant toward<BR>
+her, and as they were walking after dinner in little mother's avenue,<BR>
+he said in a low tone: "We seem to have made up again."</P>
+
+<P>She did not reply, but continued to look on the ground at a sort of<BR>
+track that was almost effaced now that the grass was sprouting anew.<BR>
+They were the footprints of the baroness, which were vanishing as does<BR>
+a memory. And Jeanne was plunged in sadness; she felt herself lost in<BR>
+life, far away from everyone.</P>
+
+<P>"As for me, I ask nothing better. I was afraid of displeasing you,"<BR>
+continued Julien.</P>
+
+<P>The sun was going down, the air was mild. A longing to weep came over<BR>
+Jeanne, one of those needs of unbosoming oneself to a kindred spirit,<BR>
+of unbending and telling one's griefs. A sob rose in her throat; she<BR>
+opened her arms and fell on Julien's breast, and wept. He glanced down<BR>
+in surprise at her head, for he could not see her face which was<BR>
+hidden on his shoulder. He supposed that she still loved him, and<BR>
+placed a condescending kiss on the back of her head.</P>
+
+<P>They entered the house and he followed her to her room. And thus they<BR>
+resumed their former relations, he, as a not unpleasant duty, and she,<BR>
+merely tolerating him.</P>
+
+<P>She soon noticed, however, that his manner had changed, and one day<BR>
+with her lips to his, she murmured: "Why are you not the same as you<BR>
+used to be?"</P>
+
+<P>"Because I do not want any more children," he said jokingly.</P>
+
+<P>She started. "Why not?"</P>
+
+<P>He appeared greatly surprised. "Eh, what's that you say? Are you<BR>
+crazy? No, indeed! One is enough, always crying and bothering<BR>
+everyone. Another baby! No, thank you!"</P>
+
+<P>At the end of a month she told the news to everyone, far and wide,<BR>
+with the exception of Comtesse Gilberte, from reasons of modesty and<BR>
+delicacy.</P>
+
+<P>What the priest had foreseen finally came to pass. She became<BR>
+enceinte. Then, filled with an unspeakable happiness, she locked her<BR>
+door every night when she retired, vowing herself from henceforth to<BR>
+eternal chastity, in gratitude to the vague divinity she adored.</P>
+
+<P>She was now almost quite happy again. Her children would grow up and<BR>
+love her; she would grow old quietly, happy and contented, without<BR>
+troubling herself about her husband.</P>
+
+<P>Toward the end of September, Abb&eacute; Picot called on a visit of ceremony<BR>
+to introduce his successor, a young priest, very thin, very short,<BR>
+with an emphatic way of talking, and with dark circles round his<BR>
+sunken eyes.</P>
+
+<P>The old abb&eacute; had been appointed Dean of Goderville.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was really sorry to lose the old man, who had been associated<BR>
+with all her recollections as a young woman. He had married her,<BR>
+baptized Paul, and buried the baroness. She could not imagine &Eacute;touvent<BR>
+without Abb&eacute; Picot and his paunch passing along by the farms, and she<BR>
+loved him because he was cheerful and natural.</P>
+
+<P>But he did not seem very cheerful at the thought of his promotion. "It<BR>
+is a wrench, it is a wrench, madame la comtesse. I have been here for<BR>
+eighteen years. Oh, the place does not bring in much, and is not<BR>
+wealthy. The men have no more religion than they need, and the women,<BR>
+look you, the women have no morals. But nevertheless, I loved it."</P>
+
+<P>The new cur&eacute; appeared impatient, and said abruptly: "When I am here<BR>
+all that will have to be changed." He looked like an angry boy, thin<BR>
+and frail in his somewhat worn, though clean cassock.</P>
+
+<P>Abb&eacute; Picot looked at him sideways, as he did when he was in a joking<BR>
+mood, and said: "You see, abb&eacute;, in order to prevent those happenings,<BR>
+you will have to chain up your parishioners; and even that would not<BR>
+be of much use." The little priest replied sharply: "We shall see."<BR>
+And the older man smiled as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age<BR>
+will calm you down, abb&eacute;, and experience also. You will drive away<BR>
+from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good<BR>
+it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be<BR>
+careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather<BR>
+stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I<BR>
+try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes;<BR>
+but you can go and look for the man, and prevent him from deserting<BR>
+the mother. Get them married, abb&eacute;, get them married, and do not<BR>
+trouble yourself about anything else."</P>
+
+<P>"We think differently," said the young priest rudely; "it is useless<BR>
+to insist." And Abb&eacute; Picot once more began to regret his village, the<BR>
+sea which he saw from his parsonage, the little valleys where he<BR>
+walked while repeating his breviary, glancing up at the boats as they<BR>
+passed.</P>
+
+<P>As the two priests took their leave, the old man kissed Jeanne, who<BR>
+was on the verge of tears.</P>
+
+<P>A week later Abb&eacute; Tolbiac called again. He spoke of reforms which he<BR>
+intended to accomplish, as a prince might have done on taking<BR>
+possession of a kingdom. Then he requested the vicomtesse not to miss<BR>
+the service on Sunday, and to communicate a all the festivals. "You<BR>
+and I," he said, "we are at the head of the district; we must rule it<BR>
+and always set them an example to follow. We must be of one accord so<BR>
+that we may be powerful and respected. The church and the ch&acirc;teau in<BR>
+joining forces will make the peasants obey and fear us."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne's religion was all sentiment; she had all a woman's dream<BR>
+faith, and if she attended at all to her religious duties, it was from<BR>
+a habit acquired at the convent, the baron's advanced ideas having<BR>
+long since overthrown her convictions. Abb&eacute; Picot contented himself<BR>
+with what observances she gave him, and never blamed her. But his<BR>
+successor, not seeing her at mass the preceding Sunday, had come to<BR>
+call, uneasy and stern.</P>
+
+<P>She did not wish to break with the parsonage, and promised, making up<BR>
+her mind to be assiduous in attendance the first few weeks, out of<BR>
+politeness.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little, however, she got into the habit of going to church,<BR>
+and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial<BR>
+abb&eacute;. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set<BR>
+in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women<BR>
+possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human<BR>
+interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience,<BR>
+his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the<BR>
+stuff martyrs were made of; and she let herself be carried away, all<BR>
+disillusioned as she was, by the fanaticism of this child, the<BR>
+minister of God.</P>
+
+<P>He led her to Christ, the consoler, showing her how the joy of<BR>
+religion will calm all sorrow; and she knelt at the confessional,<BR>
+humbling herself, feeling herself small and weak in presence of this<BR>
+priest, who appeared to be about fifteen.</P>
+
+<P>He was, however, very soon detested in all the countryside. Inflexibly<BR>
+severe toward himself, he was implacably intolerant toward others, and<BR>
+the one thing that especially roused his wrath and indignation was<BR>
+love. The young men and girls looked at each other slyly across the<BR>
+church, and the old peasants who liked to joke about such things<BR>
+disapproved his severity. All the parish was in a ferment. Soon the<BR>
+young men all stopped going to church.</P>
+
+<P>The cur&eacute; dined at the ch&acirc;teau every Thursday, and often came during<BR>
+the week to chat with his penitent. She became enthusiastic like<BR>
+himself, talked about spiritual matters, handling all the antique and<BR>
+complicated arsenal of religious controversy.</P>
+
+<P>They walked together along the baroness' avenue, talking of Christ and<BR>
+the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Fathers of the Church as though<BR>
+they were personally acquainted with them.</P>
+
+<P>Julien treated the new priest with great respect, saying constantly:<BR>
+"That priest suits me, he does not back down." And he went to<BR>
+confession and communion, setting a fine example. He now went to the<BR>
+Fourvilles' nearly every day, gunning with the husband, who was never<BR>
+happy without him, and riding with the comtesse, in spite of rain and<BR>
+storm. The comte said: "They are crazy about riding, but it does my<BR>
+wife good."</P>
+
+<P>The baron returned to the ch&acirc;teau about the middle of November. He was<BR>
+changed, aged, faded, filled with a deep sadness. And his love for his<BR>
+daughter seemed to have gained in strength, as if these few months of<BR>
+dreary solitude had aggravated his need of affection, confidence and<BR>
+tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her<BR>
+friendship for the Abb&eacute; Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he<BR>
+conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that<BR>
+evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He<BR>
+must be very dangerous."</P>
+
+<P>When he learned from the peasants, whose friend he was, of the<BR>
+harshness and violence of the young priest, of the kind of persecution<BR>
+which he carried on against all human and natural instincts, he<BR>
+developed a hatred toward him. He, himself, was one of the old race of<BR>
+natural philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic<BR>
+Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a God with<BR>
+bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him<BR>
+reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to<BR>
+farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant priest, the persecutor<BR>
+of life.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, very much worried, prayed to the Lord, entreated her father;<BR>
+but he always replied: "We must fight such men as that, it is our duty<BR>
+and our right. They are not human."</P>
+
+<P>And he repeated, shaking his long white locks: "They are not human;<BR>
+they understand nothing, nothing, nothing. They are moving in a morbid<BR>
+dream; they are anti-physical." And he pronounced the word<BR>
+"anti-physical" as though it were a malediction.</P>
+
+<P>The priest knew who his enemy was, but as he wished to remain ruler of<BR>
+the ch&acirc;teau and of Jeanne, he temporized, sure of final victory. He<BR>
+was also haunted by a fixed idea. He had discovered by chance the<BR>
+amours of Julien and Gilberte, and he desired to put a stop to them at<BR>
+all costs.</P>
+
+<P>He came to see Jeanne one day and, after a long conversation on<BR>
+spiritual matters, he asked her to give her aid in helping him to<BR>
+fight, to put an end to the evil in her own family, in order to save<BR>
+two souls that were in danger.</P>
+
+<P>She did not understand, and did not wish to know. He replied: "The<BR>
+hour has not arrived. I shall see you some other time." And he left<BR>
+abruptly.</P>
+
+<P>The winter was coming to a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the<BR>
+country, damp and mild. The abb&eacute; called again some days later and<BR>
+hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between<BR>
+persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he<BR>
+said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring<BR>
+it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes<BR>
+and understand and lend him her aid.</P>
+
+<P>This time she understood, but she was silent, terrified at the thought<BR>
+of all that might result in the house that was now peaceful, and she<BR>
+pretended not to understand. Then he spoke out clearly.</P>
+
+<P>She faltered: "What do you wish me to do, Monsieur l'Abb&eacute;?"</P>
+
+<P>"Anything, rather than permit this infamy. Anything, I say. Leave him.<BR>
+Flee from this impure house!"</P>
+
+<P>"But I have no money; and then I have no longer any courage; and,<BR>
+besides, how can I go without any proof? I have not the right to do<BR>
+so."</P>
+
+<P>The priest arose trembling: "That is cowardice, madame; I am mistaken<BR>
+in you. You are unworthy of God's mercy!"</P>
+
+<P>She fell on her knees: "Oh, I pray you not to leave me, tell me what<BR>
+to do!"</P>
+
+<P>"Open M. de Fourville's eyes," he said abruptly. "It is his place to<BR>
+break up this intrigue."</P>
+
+<P>This idea filled her with terror. "Why, he would kill them, Monsieur<BR>
+l'Abb&eacute;! And I should be guilty of denouncing them! Oh, never that,<BR>
+never!"</P>
+
+<P>He raised his hand as if to curse her in his fury: "Remain in your<BR>
+shame and your crime; for you are more guilty than they are. You are<BR>
+the complaisant wife! There is nothing more for me to do here." And he<BR>
+went off so furious that he trembled all over.</P>
+
+<P>She followed him, distracted and ready to do as he suggested. But he<BR>
+strode along rapidly, shaking his large blue umbrella in his rage. He<BR>
+perceived Julien standing outside the gate superintending the lopping<BR>
+of the trees, so he turned to the left to go across the Couillard<BR>
+farm, and he said: "Leave me alone, madame, I have nothing further to<BR>
+say to you."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was entreating him to give her a few days for reflection, and<BR>
+then if he came back to the ch&acirc;teau she would tell him what she had<BR>
+done, and they could take counsel together.</P>
+
+<P>Right in his road, in the middle of the farmyard, a group of children,<BR>
+those of the house and some neighbor's children, were standing around<BR>
+the kennel of Mirza, the dog, looking curiously at something with<BR>
+silent and concentrated attention. In the midst of them stood the<BR>
+baron, his hands behind his back, also looking on with curiosity. One<BR>
+would have taken him for a schoolmaster. When he saw the priest<BR>
+approaching, he moved away so as not to have to meet him and speak to<BR>
+him.</P>
+
+<P>The priest did not call again; but the following Sunday from the<BR>
+pulpit he hurled imprecations, curses and threats against the ch&acirc;teau,<BR>
+anathematizing the baron, and making veiled allusions, but timidly, to<BR>
+Julien's latest intrigue. The vicomte was furious, but the dread of a<BR>
+shocking scandal kept him silent. At each service thereafter the<BR>
+priest declared his indignation, predicting the approach of the hour<BR>
+when God would smite all his enemies.</P>
+
+<P>Julien wrote a firm, but respectful letter to the archbishop; the abb&eacute;<BR>
+was threatened with suspension. He was silent thereafter.</P>
+
+<P>Gilberte and Julien now frequently met him during their rides reading<BR>
+his breviary, but they turned aside so as not to pass him by. Spring<BR>
+had come and reawakened their love. As the foliage was still sparse<BR>
+and the grass damp, they used to meet in a shepherd's movable hut that<BR>
+had been deserted since autumn. But one day when they were leaving it,<BR>
+they saw the Abb&eacute; Tolbiac, almost hidden in the sea rushes on the<BR>
+slope.</P>
+
+<P>"We must leave our horses in the ravine," said Julien, "as they can be<BR>
+seen from a distance and would betray us." One evening as they were<BR>
+coming home together to La Vrillette, where they were to dine with the<BR>
+comte, they met the cur&eacute; of &Eacute;touvent coming out of the ch&acirc;teau. He<BR>
+stepped to the side of the road to let them pass, and bowed without<BR>
+their eyes meeting. They were uneasy for a few moments, but soon<BR>
+forgot it.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon, Jeanne was reading beside the fire while a storm of<BR>
+wind was raging outside, when she suddenly perceived Comte Fourville<BR>
+coming on foot at such a pace that she thought some misfortune had<BR>
+happened.</P>
+
+<P>She ran downstairs to meet him, and when she saw him she thought he<BR>
+must be crazy. He wore a large quilted cap that he wore only at home,<BR>
+his hunting jacket, and looked so pale that his red mustache, usually<BR>
+the color of his skin, now seemed like a flame. His eyes were haggard,<BR>
+rolling as though his mind were vacant.</P>
+
+<P>He stammered: "My wife is here, is she not?" Jeanne, losing her<BR>
+presence of mind, replied: "Why, no, I have not seen her to-day."</P>
+
+<P>He sat down as if his legs had given way. He then took off his cap and<BR>
+wiped his forehead with his handkerchief mechanically several times.<BR>
+Then starting up suddenly, he approached Jeanne, his hands stretched<BR>
+out, his mouth open, as if to speak, to confide some great sorrow to<BR>
+her. Then he stopped, looked at her fixedly and said as though he were<BR>
+wandering: "But it is your husband--you also----" And he fled, going<BR>
+toward the sea.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne ran after him, calling him, imploring him to stop, her heart<BR>
+beating with apprehension as she thought: "He knows all! What will he<BR>
+do? Oh, if he only does not find them!"</P>
+
+<P>But she could not come up to him, and he disregarded her appeals. He<BR>
+went straight ahead without hesitation, straight to his goal. He<BR>
+crossed the ditch, then, stalking through the sea rushes like a giant,<BR>
+he reached the cliff.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, standing on the mound covered with trees, followed him with<BR>
+her eyes until he was out of sight. Then she went into the house,<BR>
+distracted with grief.</P>
+
+<P>He had turned to the right and started to run. Threatening waves<BR>
+overspread the sea, big black clouds were scudding along madly,<BR>
+passing on and followed by others, each of them coming down in a<BR>
+furious downpour. The wind whistled, moaned, laid the grass and the<BR>
+young crops low and carried away big white birds that looked like<BR>
+specks of foam and bore them far into the land.</P>
+
+<P>The hail which followed beat in the comte's face, filling his ears<BR>
+with noise and his heart with tumult.</P>
+
+<P>Down yonder before him was the deep gorge of the Val de Vaucotte.<BR>
+There was nothing before him but a shepherd's hut beside a deserted<BR>
+sheep pasture. Two horses were tied to the shafts of the hut on<BR>
+wheels. What might not happen to one in such a tempest as this?</P>
+
+<P>As soon as he saw them the comte crouched on the ground and crawled<BR>
+along on his hands and knees as far as the lonely hut and hid himself<BR>
+beneath the hut that he might not be seen through the cracks. The<BR>
+horses on seeing him became restive. He slowly cut their reins with<BR>
+the knife which he held open in his hand, and a sudden squall coming<BR>
+up, the animals fled, frightened at the hail which rattled on the<BR>
+sloping roof of the wooden hut and made it shake on its wheels.</P>
+
+<P>The comte then kneeling upright, put his eye to the bottom of the door<BR>
+and looked inside. He did not stir; he seemed to be waiting.</P>
+
+<P>A little time elapsed and then he suddenly rose to his feet, covered<BR>
+with mud from head to foot. He frantically pushed back the bolt which<BR>
+closed the hut on the outside, and seizing the shafts, he began to<BR>
+shake the hut as though he would break it to pieces. Then all at once<BR>
+he got between the shafts, bending his huge frame, and with a<BR>
+desperate effort dragged it along like an ox, panting as he went. He<BR>
+dragged it, with whoever was in it, toward the steep incline.</P>
+
+<P>Those inside screamed and banged with their fists on the door, not<BR>
+understanding what was going on.</P>
+
+<P>When he reached the top of the cliff he let go the fragile dwelling,<BR>
+which began to roll down the incline, going ever faster and faster,<BR>
+plunging, stumbling like an animal and striking the ground with its<BR>
+shafts.</P>
+
+<P>An old beggar hidden in a ditch saw it flying over his head and heard<BR>
+frightful screams coming from the wooden box.</P>
+
+<P>All at once a wheel was wrenched off and it fell on its side and began<BR>
+to roll like a ball, as a house torn from its foundations might roll<BR>
+from the summit of a mountain. Then, reaching the ledge of the last<BR>
+ravine, it described a circle, and, falling to the bottom, burst open<BR>
+as an egg might do. It was no sooner smashed on the stones than the<BR>
+old beggar, who had seen it going past, went down toward it slowly<BR>
+amid the rushes, and with the customary caution of a peasant, not<BR>
+daring to go directly to the shattered hut, he went to the nearest<BR>
+farm to tell of the accident.</P>
+
+<P>They all ran to look at it and raised the wreck of the hut. They found<BR>
+two bodies, bruised, crushed and bleeding. The man's forehead was<BR>
+split open and his whole face crushed; the woman's jaw was hanging,<BR>
+dislocated in one of the jolts, and their shattered limbs were soft as<BR>
+pulp.</P>
+
+<P>"What were they doing in that shanty?" said a woman.</P>
+
+<P>The old beggar then said that they had apparently taken refuge in it<BR>
+to get out of the storm and that a furious squall must have blown the<BR>
+hut over the cliff. He said he had intended to take shelter there<BR>
+himself, when he saw the horses tied to it, and understood that some<BR>
+one else must be inside. "But for that," he added in a satisfied tone,<BR>
+"I might have rolled down in it." Some one remarked: "Would not that<BR>
+have been a good thing?"</P>
+
+<P>The old man, in a furious rage, said: "Why would it have been a good<BR>
+thing? Because I am poor and they are rich! Look at them now." And<BR>
+trembling, ragged and dripping with rain, he pointed to the two dead<BR>
+bodies with his hooked stick and exclaimed: "We are all alike when we<BR>
+get to this."</P>
+
+<P>The comte, as soon as he saw the hut rolling down the steep slope, ran<BR>
+off at full speed through the blinding storm. He ran in this way for<BR>
+several hours, taking short cuts, leaping across ditches, breaking<BR>
+through the hedges, and thus got back home at dusk, not knowing how<BR>
+himself.</P>
+
+<P>The frightened servants were awaiting his return and told him that the<BR>
+two horses had returned riderless some little time before, that of<BR>
+Julien following the other one.</P>
+
+<P>Then M. de Fourville reeled and in a choked voice said: "Something<BR>
+must have happened to them in this dreadful weather. Let every one<BR>
+help to look for them."</P>
+
+<P>He started off himself, but he was no sooner out of sight than he<BR>
+concealed himself in a clump of bushes, watching the road along which<BR>
+she whom he even still loved with an almost savage passion was to<BR>
+return dead, dying or maybe crippled and disfigured forever.</P>
+
+<P>And soon a carriole passed by carrying a strange burden.</P>
+
+<P>It stopped at the ch&acirc;teau and passed through the gate. It was that, it<BR>
+was she. But a fearful anguish nailed him to the spot, a fear to know<BR>
+the worst, a dread of the truth, and he did not stir, hiding as a<BR>
+hare, starting at the least sound.</P>
+
+<P>He waited thus an hour, two hours perhaps. The buggy did not come out.<BR>
+He concluded that his wife was expiring, and the thought of seeing<BR>
+her, of meeting her gaze filled him with so much horror that he<BR>
+suddenly feared to be discovered in his hiding place and of being<BR>
+compelled to return and be present at this agony, and he then fled<BR>
+into the thick of the wood. Then all of a sudden it occurred to him<BR>
+that she perhaps might be needing his care, that no one probably could<BR>
+properly attend to her. Then he returned on his tracks, running<BR>
+breathlessly.</P>
+
+<P>On entering the ch&acirc;teau he met the gardener and called out to him,<BR>
+"Well?" The man did not dare answer him. Then M. de Fourville almost<BR>
+roared at him: "Is she dead?" and the servant stammered: "Yes, M. le<BR>
+Comte."</P>
+
+<P>He experienced a feeling of immense relief. His blood seemed to cool<BR>
+and his nerves relax somewhat of their extreme tension, and he walked<BR>
+firmly up the steps of his great hallway.</P>
+
+<P>The other wagon had reached "The Poplars." Jeanne saw it from afar.<BR>
+She descried the mattress; she guessed that a human form was lying<BR>
+upon it, and understood all. Her emotion was so vivid that she swooned<BR>
+and fell prostrate.</P>
+
+<P>When she regained consciousness her father was holding her head and<BR>
+bathing her temples with vinegar. He said hesitatingly: "Do you know?"<BR>
+She murmured: "Yes, father." But when she attempted to rise she found<BR>
+herself unable to do so, so intense was her agony.</P>
+
+<P>That very night she gave birth to a stillborn infant, a girl.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne saw nothing of the funeral of Julien; she knew nothing of it.<BR>
+She merely noticed at the end of a day or two that Aunt Lison was<BR>
+back, and in her feverish dreams which haunted her she persistently<BR>
+sought to recall when the old maiden lady had left "The Poplars," at<BR>
+what period and under what circumstances. She could not make this out,<BR>
+even in her lucid moments, but she was certain of having seen her<BR>
+subsequent to the death of "little mother."</P>
+
+<h4><a name="XI">CHAPTER XI</a></h4>
+
+<h5>THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAUL</h5>
+
+<P>Jeanne did not leave her room for three months and was so wan and pale<BR>
+that no one thought she would recover. But she picked up by degrees.<BR>
+Little father and Aunt Lison never left her; they had both taken up<BR>
+their abode at "The Poplars." The shock of Julien's death had left her<BR>
+with a nervous malady. The slightest sound made her faint and she had<BR>
+long swoons from the most insignificant causes.</P>
+
+<P>She had never asked the details of Julien's death. What did it matter<BR>
+to her? Did she not know enough already? Every one thought it was an<BR>
+accident, but she knew better, and she kept to herself this secret<BR>
+which tortured her: the knowledge of his infidelity and the<BR>
+remembrance of the abrupt and terrible visit of the comte on the day<BR>
+of the catastrophe.</P>
+
+<P>And now she was filled with tender, sweet and melancholy recollections<BR>
+of the brief evidences of love shown her by her husband. She<BR>
+constantly thrilled at unexpected memories of him, and she seemed to<BR>
+see him as he was when they were betrothed and as she had known him in<BR>
+the hours passed beneath the sunlight in Corsica. All his faults<BR>
+diminished, all his harshness vanished, his very infidelities appeared<BR>
+less glaring in the widening separation of the closed tomb. And<BR>
+Jeanne, pervaded by a sort of posthumous gratitude for this man who<BR>
+had held her in his arms, forgave all the suffering he had caused her,<BR>
+to remember only moments of happiness they had passed together. Then,<BR>
+as time went on and month followed month, covering all her grief and<BR>
+reminiscences with forgetfulness, she devoted herself entirely to her<BR>
+son.</P>
+
+<P>He became the idol, the one thought of the three beings who surrounded<BR>
+him, and he ruled as a despot. A kind of jealousy even arose among his<BR>
+slaves. Jeanne watched with anxiety the great kisses he gave his<BR>
+grandfather after a ride on his knee, and Aunt Lison, neglected by him<BR>
+as she had been by every one else and treated often like a servant by<BR>
+this little tyrant who could scarcely speak as yet, would go to her<BR>
+room and weep as she compared the slight affection he showed her with<BR>
+the kisses he gave his mother and the baron.</P>
+
+<P>Two years passed quietly, and at the beginning of the third winter it<BR>
+was decided that they should go to Rouen to live until spring, and the<BR>
+whole family set out. But on their arrival in the old damp house, that<BR>
+had been shut up for some time, Paul had such a severe attack of<BR>
+bronchitis that his three relatives in despair declared that he could<BR>
+not do without the air of "The Poplars." They took him back there and<BR>
+he got well.</P>
+
+<P>Then began a series of quiet, monotonous years. Always around the<BR>
+little one, they went into raptures at everything he did. His mother<BR>
+called him Poulet, and as he could not pronounce the word, he said<BR>
+"Pol," which amused them immensely, and the nickname of "Poulet" stuck<BR>
+to him.</P>
+
+<P>The favorite occupation of his "three mothers," as the baron called<BR>
+his relatives, was to see how much he had grown, and for this purpose<BR>
+they made little notches in the casing of the drawing-room door,<BR>
+showing his progress from month to month. This ladder was called<BR>
+"Poulet's ladder," and was an important affair.</P>
+
+<P>A new individual began to play a part in the affairs of the<BR>
+household--the dog "Massacre," who became Paul's inseparable<BR>
+companion.</P>
+
+<P>Rare visits were exchanged with the Brisevilles and the Couteliers.<BR>
+The mayor and the doctor alone were regular visitors. Since the<BR>
+episode of the mother dog and the suspicion Jeanne had entertained of<BR>
+the priest on the occasion of the terrible death of the comtesse and<BR>
+Julien, Jeanne had not entered the church, angry with a divinity that<BR>
+could tolerate such ministers.</P>
+
+<P>The church was deserted and the priest came to be looked on as a<BR>
+sorcerer because he had, so they said, driven out an evil spirit from<BR>
+a woman who was possessed, and although fearing him the peasants came<BR>
+to respect him for this occult power as well as for the unimpeachable<BR>
+austerity of his life.</P>
+
+<P>When he met Jeanne he never spoke. This condition of affairs<BR>
+distressed Aunt Lison, and when she was alone, quite alone with Paul,<BR>
+she talked to him about God, telling him the wonderful stories of the<BR>
+early history of the world. But when she told him that he must love<BR>
+Him very much, the child would say: "Where is He, auntie?" "Up there,"<BR>
+she would say, pointing to the sky; "up there, Poulet, but do not say<BR>
+so." She was afraid of the baron.</P>
+
+<P>One day, however, Poulet said to her: "God is everywhere, but He is<BR>
+not in church." He had told his grandfather of his aunt's wonderful<BR>
+revelations.</P>
+
+<P>When Paul was twelve years old a great difficulty arose on the subject<BR>
+of his first communion.</P>
+
+<P>Lison came to Jeanne one morning and told her that the little fellow<BR>
+should no longer be kept without religious instruction and from his<BR>
+religious duties. His mother, troubled and undecided, hesitated,<BR>
+saying that there was time enough. But a month later, as she was<BR>
+returning a call at the Brisevilles', the comtesse asked her casually<BR>
+if Paul was going to make his first communion that year. Jeanne,<BR>
+unprepared for this, answered, "Yes," and this simple word decided<BR>
+her, and without saying a word to her father, she asked Aunt Lison to<BR>
+take the boy to the catechism class.</P>
+
+<P>All went well for a month, but one day Paul came home with a<BR>
+hoarseness and the following day he coughed. On inquiry his mother<BR>
+learned that the priest had sent him to wait till the lesson was over<BR>
+at the door of the church, where there was a draught, because he had<BR>
+misbehaved. So she kept him at home and taught him herself. But the<BR>
+Abb&eacute; Tobiac, despite Aunt Lison's entreaties, refused to admit him as<BR>
+a communicant on the ground that he was not thoroughly taught.</P>
+
+<P>The same thing occurred the following year, and the baron angrily<BR>
+swore that the child did not need to believe all that tomfoolery, so<BR>
+it was decided that he should be brought up as a Christian, but not as<BR>
+an active Catholic, and when he came of age he could believe as he<BR>
+pleased.</P>
+
+<P>The Brisevilles ceased to call on her and Jeanne was surprised,<BR>
+knowing the punctiliousness of these neighbors in returning calls, but<BR>
+the Marquise de Coutelier haughtily told her the reason. Considering<BR>
+herself, in virtue of her husband's rank and fortune, a sort of queen<BR>
+of the Norman nobility, the marquise ruled as a queen, said what she<BR>
+thought, was gracious or the reverse as occasion demanded,<BR>
+admonishing, restoring to favor, congratulating whenever she saw fit.<BR>
+So when Jeanne came to see her, this lady, after a few chilling<BR>
+remarks, said drily: "Society is divided into two classes: those who<BR>
+believe in God and those who do not believe in Him. The former, even<BR>
+the humblest, are our friends, our equals; the latter are nothing to<BR>
+us."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, perceiving the insinuation, replied: "But may one not believe<BR>
+in God without going to church?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, madame," answered the marquise. "The faithful go to worship God<BR>
+in His church, just as one goes to see people in their homes."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, hurt, replied: "God is everywhere, madame. As for me, who<BR>
+believes from the bottom of my heart in His goodness, I no longer feel<BR>
+His presence when certain priests come between Him and me."</P>
+
+<P>The marquise rose. "The priest is the standard bearer of the Church,<BR>
+madame. Whoever does not follow the standard is opposed to Him and<BR>
+opposed to us."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne had risen in her turn and said, trembling: "You believe,<BR>
+madame, in a partisan God. I believe in the God of upright people."<BR>
+She bowed and took her leave.</P>
+
+<P>The peasants also blamed her among themselves for not having let<BR>
+Poulet make his first communion. They themselves never attended<BR>
+service or took the sacrament unless it might be at Easter, according<BR>
+to the rule ordained by the Church; but for boys it was quite another<BR>
+thing, and they would have all shrunk in horror at the audacity of<BR>
+bringing up a child outside this recognized law, for religion is<BR>
+religion.</P>
+
+<P>She saw how they felt and was indignant at heart at all these<BR>
+discriminations, all these compromises with conscience, this general<BR>
+fear of everything, the real cowardice of all hearts and the mask of<BR>
+respectability assumed in public.</P>
+
+<P>The baron took charge of Paul's studies and made him study Latin, his<BR>
+mother merely saying: "Above all things, do not get over tired."</P>
+
+<P>As soon as the boy was at liberty he went down to work in the garden<BR>
+with his mother and his aunt.</P>
+
+<P>He now loved to dig in the ground, and all three planted young trees<BR>
+in the spring, sowed seed and watched it growing with the deepest<BR>
+interest, pruned branches and cut flowers for bouquets.</P>
+
+<P>Poulet was almost fifteen, but was a mere child in intelligence,<BR>
+ignorant, silly, suppressed between petticoat government and this kind<BR>
+old man who belonged to another century.</P>
+
+<P>One evening the baron spoke of college, and Jeanne at once began to<BR>
+sob. Aunt Lison timidly remained in a dark corner.</P>
+
+<P>"Why does he need to know so much?" asked his mother. "We will make a<BR>
+gentleman farmer of him. He can cultivate his land, as many of the<BR>
+nobility do. He will live and grow old happily in this house, where we<BR>
+have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can one do?"</P>
+
+<P>But the baron shook his head. "What would you say to him if he should<BR>
+say to you when he is twenty-five: 'I amount to nothing, I know<BR>
+nothing, all through your fault, the fault of your maternal<BR>
+selfishness. I feel that I am incapable of working, of making<BR>
+something of myself, and yet I was not intended for a secluded, simple<BR>
+life, lonely enough to kill one, to which I have been condemned by<BR>
+your shortsighted affection.'"</P>
+
+<P>She was weeping and said entreatingly: "Tell me, Poulet, you will not<BR>
+reproach me for having loved you too well?" And the big boy, in<BR>
+surprise, promised that he never would. "Swear it," she said. "Yes,<BR>
+mamma." "You want to stay here, don't you?" "Yes, mamma."</P>
+
+<P>Then the baron spoke up loud and decidedly: "Jeanne, you have no right<BR>
+to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and<BR>
+almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to your own private<BR>
+happiness."</P>
+
+<P>She hid her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively, and stammered out<BR>
+amid her tears: "I have been so unhappy--so unhappy! Now, just as I am<BR>
+living peacefully with him, they want to take him away from me. What<BR>
+will become of me now--all by myself?" Her father rose and, sitting<BR>
+down beside her, put his arms round her. "And how about me, Jeanne?"</P>
+
+<P>She put her arms suddenly round his neck, gave him a hearty kiss and<BR>
+with her voice full of tears, she said: "Yes, you are right perhaps,<BR>
+little father. I was foolish, but I have suffered so much. I am quite<BR>
+willing he should go to college."</P>
+
+<P>And without knowing exactly what they were going to do with him,<BR>
+Poulet in his turn began to weep.</P>
+
+<P>Then the three mothers began to kiss him and pet him and encourage<BR>
+him. When they retired to their rooms it was with a weight at their<BR>
+hearts, and they all wept, even the baron, who had restrained himself<BR>
+up to that.</P>
+
+<P>It was decided that when the term began to put the young boy to school<BR>
+at Havre, and during the summer he was petted more than ever; his<BR>
+mother sighed often as she thought of the separation. She prepared his<BR>
+wardrobe as if he were going to undertake a ten years' voyage. One<BR>
+October morning, after a sleepless night, the two women and the baron<BR>
+got into the carriage with him and set out on their journey.</P>
+
+<P>They had previously selected his place in the dormitory and his desk<BR>
+in the school room. Jeanne, aided by Aunt Lison, spent the whole day<BR>
+in arranging his clothes in his little wardrobe. As it did not hold a<BR>
+quarter of what they had brought, she went to look for the<BR>
+superintendent to ask for another. The treasurer was called, but he<BR>
+pointed out that all that amount of clothing would only be in the way<BR>
+and would never be needed, and he refused, on behalf of the directors,<BR>
+to let her have another chest of drawers. Jeanne, much annoyed,<BR>
+decided to hire a room in a small neighboring hotel, begging the<BR>
+proprietor to go himself and take Poulet whatever he required as soon<BR>
+as the boy asked for it.</P>
+
+<P>They then took a walk on the pier to look at the ships coming and<BR>
+going. They went into a restaurant to dine, but they were none of them<BR>
+able to eat, and looked at one another with moistened eyes as the<BR>
+dishes were brought on and taken away almost untouched.</P>
+
+<P>They now returned slowly toward the school. Boys of all ages were<BR>
+arriving from all quarters, accompanied by their families or by<BR>
+servants. Many of them were crying.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne held Poulet in a long embrace, while Aunt Lison remained in the<BR>
+background, her face hidden in her handkerchief. The baron, however,<BR>
+who was becoming affected, cut short the adieus by dragging his<BR>
+daughter away. They got into the carriage and went back through the<BR>
+darkness to "The Poplars," the silence being broken by an occasional<BR>
+sob.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne wept all the following day and on the day after drove to Havre<BR>
+in the phaeton. Poulet seemed to have become reconciled to the<BR>
+separation. For the first time in his life he now had playmates, and<BR>
+in his anxiety to join them he could scarcely sit still on his chair<BR>
+when his mother called. She continued her visits to him every other<BR>
+day and called to take him home on Sundays. Not knowing what to do<BR>
+with herself while school was in session until recreation time, she<BR>
+would remain sitting in the reception room, not having the strength or<BR>
+the courage to go very far from the school. The superintendent sent to<BR>
+ask her to come to his office and begged her not to come so<BR>
+frequently. She paid no attention to his request. He therefore<BR>
+informed her that if she continued to prevent her son from taking his<BR>
+recreation at the usual hours, obliging him to work without a change<BR>
+of occupation, they would be forced to send him back home again, and<BR>
+the baron was also notified to the same effect. She was consequently<BR>
+watched like a prisoner at "The Poplars."</P>
+
+<P>She became restless and worried and would ramble about for whole days<BR>
+in the country, accompanied only by Massacre, dreaming as she walked<BR>
+along. Sometimes she would remain seated for a whole afternoon,<BR>
+looking out at the sea from the top of the cliff; at other times she<BR>
+would go down to Yport through the wood, going over the ground of her<BR>
+former walks, the memory of which haunted her. How long ago--how long<BR>
+ago it was--the time when she had gone over these same paths as a<BR>
+young girl, carried away by her dreams.</P>
+
+<P>Poulet was not very industrious at school; he was kept two years in<BR>
+the fourth form. The third year's work was only tolerable and he had<BR>
+to begin the second over again, so that he was in rhetoric when he was<BR>
+twenty.</P>
+
+<P>He was now a big, fair young man, with downy whiskers and a faint sign<BR>
+of a mustache. He now came home to "The Poplars" every Sunday, riding<BR>
+over in a couple of hours, his mother, Aunt Lison and the baron<BR>
+starting out early to go and meet him.</P>
+
+<P>Although he was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him<BR>
+as though he were a child, and when he returned to school in the<BR>
+evening she would charge him anxiously not to go too fast and to think<BR>
+of his poor mother, who would break her heart if anything happened to<BR>
+him.</P>
+
+<P>One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul, saying that he<BR>
+would not be home on the following day because some friends had<BR>
+arranged an excursion and had invited him. She was tormented with<BR>
+anxiety all day Sunday, as though she dreaded some misfortune, and on<BR>
+Thursday, as she could endure it no longer, she set out for Havre.</P>
+
+<P>He seemed to be changed, though she could not have told in what<BR>
+manner. He appeared excited and his voice seemed deeper. And suddenly,<BR>
+as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he said: "I<BR>
+say, mother, as long as you have come to-day, I want to tell you that<BR>
+I will not be at 'The Poplars' next Sunday, for we are going to have<BR>
+another excursion."</P>
+
+<P>She was amazed, smothering, as if he had announced his departure for<BR>
+America. At last, recovering herself, she said: "Oh, Poulet, what is<BR>
+the matter with you? Tell me what is going on."</P>
+
+<P>He began to laugh, and kissing her, replied: "Why, nothing, nothing,<BR>
+mamma. I am going to have a good time with my friends; I am just at<BR>
+that age."</P>
+
+<P>She had nothing to say, but when she was alone in the carriage all<BR>
+manner of ideas came into her mind. She no longer recognized him, her<BR>
+Poulet, her little Poulet of former days. She felt for the first time<BR>
+that he was grown up, that he no longer belonged to her, that he was<BR>
+going to live his life without troubling himself about the old people.<BR>
+It seemed to her that one day had wrought this change in him. Was it<BR>
+possible that this was her son, her poor little boy who had helped her<BR>
+to replant the lettuce, this great big bearded youth who had a will of<BR>
+his own!</P>
+
+<P>For three months Paul came home only occasionally, and always seemed<BR>
+impatient to get away again, trying to steal off an hour earlier each<BR>
+evening. Jeanne was alarmed, but the baron consoled her, saying: "Let<BR>
+him alone; the boy is twenty years old."</P>
+
+<P>One morning, however, an old man, poorly dressed, inquired in<BR>
+German-French for "Madame la Vicomtesse," and after many ceremonious<BR>
+bows, he drew from his pocket a dilapidated pocketbook, saying: "Che un<BR>
+betit bapier bour fous," and unfolding as he handed it to her a piece<BR>
+of greasy paper. She read and reread it, looked at the Jew, read it<BR>
+over again and asked: "What does it mean?"</P>
+
+<P>He obsequiously explained: "I will tell you. Your son needed a little<BR>
+money, and as I knew that you are a good mother, I lent him a trifle<BR>
+to help him out."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not ask me?" The Jew explained<BR>
+at length that it was a question of a debt that must be paid before<BR>
+noon the following day; that Paul not being of age, no one would have<BR>
+lent him anything, and that his "honor would have been compromised"<BR>
+without this little service that he had rendered the young man.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne tried to call the baron, but had not the strength to rise, she<BR>
+was so overcome by emotion. At length she said to the usurer: "Would<BR>
+you have the kindness to ring the bell?"</P>
+
+<P>He hesitated, fearing some trap, and then stammered out: "If I am<BR>
+intruding, I will call again." She shook her head in the negative. He<BR>
+then rang, and they waited in silence, sitting opposite each other.</P>
+
+<P>When the baron came in he understood the situation at once. The note<BR>
+was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid one thousand, saying close to<BR>
+the man's face: "And on no account come back." The other thanked him<BR>
+and went his way.</P>
+
+<P>The baron and Jeanne set out at once for Havre. On reaching the<BR>
+college they learned that Paul had not been there for a month. The<BR>
+principal had received four letters signed by Jeanne saying that his<BR>
+pupil was not well and then to tell how he was getting along. Each<BR>
+letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate. They were, of<BR>
+course, all forged. They were all dumbfounded, and stood there looking<BR>
+at each other.</P>
+
+<P>The principal, very much worried, took them to the commissary of<BR>
+police. Jeanne and her father stayed at a hotel that night. The<BR>
+following day the young man was found in the apartment of a courtesan<BR>
+of the town. His grandfather and mother took him back to "The Poplars"<BR>
+and not a word was exchanged between them during the whole journey.</P>
+
+<P>A week later they discovered that he had contracted fifteen thousand<BR>
+francs' worth of debts within the last three months. His creditors had<BR>
+not come forward at first, knowing that he would soon be of age.</P>
+
+<P>They entered into no discussion about it, hoping to win him back by<BR>
+gentleness. They gave him dainty food, petted him, spoiled him. It was<BR>
+spring and they hired a boat for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne's<BR>
+fears, so that he might amuse himself on the water.</P>
+
+<P>They would not let him have a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre.</P>
+
+<P>He was there with nothing to do and became irritable and occasionally<BR>
+brutally so. The baron was worried at the discontinuance of his<BR>
+studies. Jeanne, distracted at the idea of a separation, asked herself<BR>
+what they could do with him.</P>
+
+<P>One evening he did not come home. They learned that he had gone out in<BR>
+a boat with two sailors. His mother, beside herself with anxiety, went<BR>
+down to Yport without a hat in the dark. Some men were on the beach,<BR>
+waiting for the boat to come in. There was a light on board an<BR>
+incoming boat, but Paul was not on board. He had made them take him to<BR>
+Havre.</P>
+
+<P>The police sought him in vain; he could not be found. The woman with<BR>
+whom he had been found the first time had also disappeared without<BR>
+leaving any trace; her furniture was sold and her rent paid. In Paul's<BR>
+room at "The Poplars" were found two letters from this person, who<BR>
+seemed to be madly in love with him. She spoke of a voyage to England,<BR>
+having, she said, obtained the necessary funds.</P>
+
+<P>The three dwellers in the ch&acirc;teau lived silently and drearily, their<BR>
+minds tortured by all kinds of suppositions. Jeanne's hair, which had<BR>
+become gray, now turned perfectly white. She asked in her innocence<BR>
+why fate had thus afflicted her.</P>
+
+<P>She received a letter from the Abb&eacute; Tolbiac: "Madame, the hand of God<BR>
+is weighing heavily on you. You refused Him your child; He took him<BR>
+from you in His turn to cast him into the hands of a prostitute. Will<BR>
+not you open your eyes at this lesson from Heaven? God's mercy is<BR>
+infinite. Perhaps He may pardon you if you return and fall on your<BR>
+knees before Him. I am His humble servant. I will open to you the door<BR>
+of His dwelling when you come and knock at it."</P>
+
+<P>She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true<BR>
+what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment<BR>
+her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church<BR>
+the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at<BR>
+twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abb&eacute;,<BR>
+begged for absolution.</P>
+
+<P>He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all<BR>
+His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. "You will<BR>
+soon feel the effects of the divine mercy," he declared.</P>
+
+<P>Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in<BR>
+her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement<BR>
+of the consolation promised her by the abb&eacute;. The letter ran:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in<BR>
+very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have<BR>
+anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love<BR>
+with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave<BR>
+me--five thousand francs--and you see that I am bound in honor to<BR>
+return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind<BR>
+enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa's fortune, for I<BR>
+shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious<BR>
+difficulties.</P>
+
+<P>"Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also<BR>
+grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you soon.</P>
+
+<P>"Your son,</P>
+
+<P>"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."</P>
+
+<P>He had written to her! He had not forgotten her then. She did not care<BR>
+anything about his asking for money! She would send him some as long<BR>
+as he had none. What did money matter? He had written to her! And she<BR>
+ran, weeping for joy, to show this letter to the baron. Aunt Lison was<BR>
+called and read over word by word this paper that told of him. They<BR>
+discussed each sentence.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, jumping from the most complete despair to a kind of<BR>
+intoxication of hope, took Paul's part. "He will come back, he will<BR>
+come back as he has written."</P>
+
+<P>The baron, more calm, said: "All the same he left us for that<BR>
+creature, so he must love her better than us, as he did not hesitate<BR>
+about it."</P>
+
+<P>A sudden and frightful pang struck Jeanne's heart, and immediately she<BR>
+was filled with hatred of this woman who had stolen her son from her,<BR>
+an unappeasable, savage hate, the hatred of a jealous mother. Until<BR>
+now all her thoughts had been given to Paul. She scarcely took into<BR>
+consideration that a girl had been the cause of his vagaries. But the<BR>
+baron's words had suddenly brought before her this rival, had revealed<BR>
+her fatal power, and she felt that between herself and this woman a<BR>
+struggle was about to begin, and she also felt that she would rather<BR>
+lose her son than share his affection with another. And all her joy<BR>
+was at an end.</P>
+
+<P>They sent him the fifteen thousand francs and heard nothing more from<BR>
+him for five months.</P>
+
+<P>Then a business man came to settle the details of Julien's<BR>
+inheritance. Jeanne and the baron handed over the accounts without any<BR>
+discussion, even giving up the interest that should come to his<BR>
+mother. When Paul came back to Paris he had a hundred and twenty<BR>
+thousand francs. He then wrote four letters in six months, giving his<BR>
+news in concise terms and ending the letters with coldly affectionate<BR>
+expressions. "I am working," he said; "I have obtained a position on<BR>
+the stock exchange. I hope to go and embrace you at 'The Poplars' some<BR>
+day, my dear parents."</P>
+
+<P>He did not mention his companion, and this silence implied more than<BR>
+if he had filled four pages with news of her. Jeanne, in these cold<BR>
+letters, felt this woman in ambush, the implacable, eternal enemy of<BR>
+mothers, the courtesan.</P>
+
+<P>The three lonely beings discussed the best plan to follow in order to<BR>
+rescue Paul, but could decide on nothing. A voyage to Paris? What good<BR>
+would it do?</P>
+
+<P>"Let his passion exhaust itself. He will come back then of his own<BR>
+accord," said the baron.</P>
+
+<P>Some time passed without any further news. But one morning they were<BR>
+terrified at the receipt of a despairing letter:</P>
+
+<P>"My Poor Mamma: I am lost. There is nothing left for me to do but to<BR>
+blow out my brains unless you come to my aid. A speculation that gave<BR>
+every prospect of success has fallen through, and I am eighty-five<BR>
+thousand dollars in debt. I shall be dishonored if I do not pay<BR>
+up--ruined--and it will henceforth be impossible for me to do<BR>
+anything. I am lost. I repeat that I would rather blow out my brains<BR>
+than undergo this disgrace. I should have done so already, probably,<BR>
+but for the encouragement of a woman of whom I never speak to you,<BR>
+and who is my providence.</P>
+
+<P>"I embrace you from the bottom of my heart, my dear mamma--perhaps for<BR>
+the last time. Good-by.</P>
+
+<P>"Paul."</P>
+
+<P>A package of business papers accompanying the letter gave the details<BR>
+of the failure.</P>
+
+<P>The baron answered by return mail that they would see what could be<BR>
+done. Then he set out for Havre to get advice and he mortgaged some<BR>
+property to raise the money which was sent to Paul.</P>
+
+<P>The young man wrote three letters full of the most heartfelt thanks<BR>
+and passionate affection, saying he was coming home at once to see his<BR>
+dear parents.</P>
+
+<P>But he did not come.</P>
+
+<P>A whole year passed. Jeanne and the baron were about to set out for<BR>
+Paris to try and make a last effort, when they received a line to say<BR>
+that he was in London again, setting an enterprise on foot in<BR>
+connection with steamboats under the name of "Paul de Lamare &amp; Co." He<BR>
+wrote: "This will give me an assured fortune, and perhaps great<BR>
+wealth, and I am risking nothing. You can see at once what a splendid<BR>
+thing it is. When I see you again I shall have a fine position in<BR>
+society. There is nothing but business these days to help you out of<BR>
+difficulties."</P>
+
+<P>Three months later the steamboat company failed and the manager was<BR>
+being sought for on account of certain irregularities in business<BR>
+methods. Jeanne had a nervous attack that lasted several hours and<BR>
+then she took to her bed.</P>
+
+<P>The baron again went to Havre to make inquiries, saw some lawyers,<BR>
+some business men, some solicitors and bailiffs and found that the<BR>
+liabilities of the De Lamare concern were two hundred and thirty-five<BR>
+thousand francs, and he once more mortgaged some property. The ch&acirc;teau<BR>
+of "The Poplars" and the two farms and all that went with them were<BR>
+mortgaged for a large sum.</P>
+
+<P>One evening as he was arranging the final details in the office of a<BR>
+business man, he fell over on the floor with a stroke of apoplexy.</P>
+
+<P>A man was sent on horseback to notify Jeanne, but when she arrived he<BR>
+was dead.</P>
+
+<P>She took his body back to "The Poplars," so overcome that her grief<BR>
+was numbness rather than despair.</P>
+
+<P>Abb&eacute; Tolbiac refused to permit the body to be brought to the church,<BR>
+despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was<BR>
+interred at twilight without any religious ceremony.</P>
+
+<P>Paul learned of the event through one of the men who was settling up<BR>
+his affairs. He was still in hiding in England. He wrote to make<BR>
+excuses for not having come home, saying that he had learned of his<BR>
+grandfather's death too late. "However, now that you have helped me<BR>
+out of my difficulties, my dear mamma, I shall go back to France and<BR>
+hope to embrace you soon."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was so crushed in spirit that she appeared not to understand<BR>
+anything. Toward the end of the winter Aunt Lison, who was now<BR>
+sixty-eight, had an attack of bronchitis that developed into pneumonia,<BR>
+and she died quietly, murmuring with her last breath: "My poor<BR>
+little Jeanne, I will ask God to take pity on you."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne followed her to the grave, and as the earth fell on her coffin<BR>
+she sank to the ground, wishing that she might die also, so as not to<BR>
+suffer, to think. A strong peasant woman lifted her up and carried her<BR>
+away as if she had been a child.</P>
+
+<P>When she reached the ch&acirc;teau Jeanne, who had spent the last five<BR>
+nights at Aunt Lison's bedside, allowed herself to be put to bed<BR>
+without resistance by this unknown peasant woman, who handled her with<BR>
+gentleness and firmness, and she fell asleep from exhaustion, overcome<BR>
+with weariness and suffering.</P>
+
+<P>She awoke about the middle of the night. A night light was burning on<BR>
+the mantelpiece. A woman was asleep in her easy chair. Who was this<BR>
+woman? She did not recognize her, and leaning over the edge of her<BR>
+bed, she sought to examine her features by the dim light of the wick<BR>
+floating in oil in a tumbler of water.</P>
+
+<P>It seemed to her that she had seen this face. But when, but where? The<BR>
+woman was sleeping peacefully, her head to one side and her cap on the<BR>
+floor. She might be about forty or forty-five. She was stout, with a<BR>
+high color, squarely built and powerful. Her large hands hung down at<BR>
+either side of the chair. Her hair was turning gray. Jeanne looked at<BR>
+her fixedly, her mind in the disturbed condition of one awaking from a<BR>
+feverish sleep after a great sorrow.</P>
+
+<P>She had certainly seen this face! Was it in former days? Was it of<BR>
+late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her<BR>
+nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping<BR>
+woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up<BR>
+in the cemetery and then put her to bed. She remembered this<BR>
+confusedly.</P>
+
+<P>But had she met her elsewhere at some other time of her life or did<BR>
+she only imagine she recognized her amid the confused recollections of<BR>
+the day before? And how did she come to be there in her room and why?</P>
+
+<P>The woman opened her eyes and, seeing Jeanne, she rose to her feet<BR>
+suddenly. They stood face to face, so close that they touched one<BR>
+another. The stranger said crossly: "What! are you up? You will be<BR>
+ill, getting up at this time of night. Go back to bed!"</P>
+
+<P>"Who are you?" asked Jeanne.</P>
+
+<P>But the woman, opening her arms, picked her up and carried her back to<BR>
+her bed with the strength of a man. And as she laid her down gently<BR>
+and drew the covers over her, she leaned over close to Jeanne and,<BR>
+weeping as she did so, she kissed her passionately on the cheeks, her<BR>
+hair, her eyes, the tears falling on her face as she stammered out:<BR>
+"My poor mistress, Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress, don't you<BR>
+recognize me?"</P>
+
+<P>"Rosalie, my girl!" cried Jeanne, throwing her arms round her neck and<BR>
+hugging her as she kissed her, and they sobbed together, clasped in<BR>
+each other's arms.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie was the first to regain her calmness. "Come," she said, "you<BR>
+must be sensible and not catch cold." And she covered her up warm and<BR>
+straightened the pillow under her former mistress' head. The latter<BR>
+continued to sob, trembling all over at the recollections that were<BR>
+awakened in her mind. She finally inquired: "How did you come back, my<BR>
+poor girl?"</P>
+
+<P>"Pardi! do you suppose I was going to leave you all alone like that,<BR>
+now?" replied Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>"Light a candle, so I may see you," said Jeanne. And when the candle<BR>
+was brought to the bedside they looked at each other for some time<BR>
+without speaking a word. Then Jeanne, holding out her hand to her<BR>
+former maid, murmured: "I should not have recognized you, my girl, you<BR>
+have changed greatly; did you know it? But not as much as I have." And<BR>
+Rosalie, looking at this white-haired woman, thin and faded, whom she<BR>
+had left a beautiful and fresh young woman, said: "That is true, you<BR>
+have changed, Madame Jeanne, and more than you should. But remember,<BR>
+however, that we have not seen each other for twenty-five years."</P>
+
+<P>They were silent, thinking over the past. At length Jeanne said<BR>
+hesitatingly: "Have you been happy?"</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, fearful of awakening certain painful souvenirs, stammered<BR>
+out: "Why--yes--yes--madame. I have nothing much to complain of. I<BR>
+have been happier than you have--that is sure. There was only one<BR>
+thing that always weighed on my heart, and that was that I did not<BR>
+stay here--" And she stopped suddenly, sorry she had referred to that<BR>
+unintentionally. But Jeanne replied gently: "How could you help it, my<BR>
+girl? One cannot always do as they wish. You are a widow now, also,<BR>
+are you not?" Then her voice trembled with emotion as she said: "Have<BR>
+you other--other children?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, madame."</P>
+
+<P>"And he--your--your boy--what has become of him? Has he turned out<BR>
+well?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame, he is a good boy and works industriously. He has been<BR>
+married for six months, and he can take my farm now, since I have come<BR>
+back to you."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne murmured in a trembling voice: "Then you will never leave me<BR>
+again, my girl?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, indeed, madame, I have arranged all that."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, in spite of herself, began to compare their lives, but without<BR>
+any bitterness, for she was now resigned to the unjust cruelty of<BR>
+fate. She said: "And your husband, how did he treat you?"</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, he was a good man, madame, and not lazy; he knew how to make<BR>
+money. He died of consumption."</P>
+
+<P>Then Jeanne, sitting up in bed, filled with a longing to know more,<BR>
+said: "Come, tell me everything, my girl, all about your life. It will<BR>
+do me good just now."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie, drawing up her chair, began to tell about herself, her home,<BR>
+her people, entering into those minute details dear to country people,<BR>
+describing her yard, laughing at some old recollection that reminded<BR>
+her of good times she had had, and raising her voice by degrees like a<BR>
+farmer's wife accustomed to command. She ended by saying: "Oh, I am<BR>
+well off now. I don't have to worry." Then she became confused again,<BR>
+and said in a lower tone: "It is to you that I owe it, anyhow; and you<BR>
+know I do not want any wages. No, indeed! No, indeed! And if you will<BR>
+not have it so, I will go."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne replied: "You do not mean that you are going to serve me for<BR>
+nothing?"</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, yes, indeed, madame. Money! You give me money! Why, I have almost<BR>
+as much as you. Do you know what is left to you will all your jumble<BR>
+of mortgages and borrowing, and interests unpaid which are mounting up<BR>
+every year? Do you know? No, is it not so? Well, then, I can promise<BR>
+you that you have not even ten thousand francs income. Not ten<BR>
+thousand, do you understand? But I will settle all that for you, and<BR>
+very quickly."</P>
+
+<P>She had begun talking loud again, carried away in her indignation at<BR>
+these interests left unpaid, at this threatening ruin. And as a faint,<BR>
+tender smile passed over the face of her mistress, she cried in a tone<BR>
+of annoyance: "You must not laugh, madame, for without money we are<BR>
+nothing but laborers."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne took hold of her hands and kept them in her own; then she said<BR>
+slowly, still full of the idea that haunted her: "Oh, I have had no<BR>
+luck. Everything has gone against me. Fate has a grudge against my<BR>
+life."</P>
+
+<P>But Rosalie shook her head: "You must not say that, madame. You<BR>
+married badly, that's all. One should not marry like that, anyway,<BR>
+without knowing anything about one's intended."</P>
+
+<P>And they went on talking about themselves just as two old friends<BR>
+might have done.</P>
+
+<P>The sun rose while they were still talking.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="XII">CHAPTER XII</a></h4>
+
+<h5>A NEW HOME</h5>
+
+<P>In a week's time Rosalie had taken absolute control of everything and<BR>
+everyone in the ch&acirc;teau. Jeanne was quite resigned and obeyed<BR>
+passively. Weak and dragging her feet as she walked, as little mother<BR>
+had formerly done, she went out walking leaning on Rosalie's arm, the<BR>
+latter lecturing her and consoling her with abrupt and tender words as<BR>
+they walked slowly along, treating her mistress as though she were a<BR>
+sick child.</P>
+
+<P>They always talked of bygone days, Jeanne with tears in her throat,<BR>
+and Rosalie in the quiet tone of a phlegmatic peasant. The servant<BR>
+kept referring to the subject of unpaid interests; and at last<BR>
+requested Jeanne to give her up all the business papers that Jeanne,<BR>
+in her ignorance of money matters, was hiding from her, out of<BR>
+consideration for her son.</P>
+
+<P>After that, for a week, Rosalie went to F&eacute;camp every day to have<BR>
+matters explained to her by a lawyer whom she knew.</P>
+
+<P>One evening, after having put her mistress to bed, she sat down by the<BR>
+bedside and said abruptly: "Now that you are settled quietly, madame,<BR>
+we will have a chat." And she told her exactly how matters stood.</P>
+
+<P>When everything was settled, there would be about seven thousand<BR>
+francs of income left, no more.</P>
+
+<P>"We cannot help it, my girl," said Jeanne. "I feel that I shall not<BR>
+make old bones, and there will be quite enough for me."</P>
+
+<P>But Rosalie was annoyed: "For you, madame, it might be; but M.<BR>
+Paul--will you leave nothing for him?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne shuddered. "I beg you not to mention him again. It hurts me too<BR>
+much to think about him."</P>
+
+<P>"But I wish to speak about him, because you see you are not brave,<BR>
+Madame Jeanne. He does foolish things. Well! what of it? He will not<BR>
+do so always; and then he will marry and have children. He will need<BR>
+money to bring them up. Pay attention to me: you must sell 'The<BR>
+Poplars.'"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne sprang up in a sitting posture. "Sell 'The Poplars'! Do you<BR>
+mean it? Oh, never, never!"</P>
+
+<P>But Rosalie was not disturbed. "I tell you that you will sell the<BR>
+place, madame, because it must be done." And then she explained her<BR>
+calculations, her plans, her reasons.</P>
+
+<P>Once they had sold "The Poplars" and the two farms belonging to it to<BR>
+a buyer whom she had found, they would keep four farms situated at St.<BR>
+Leonard, which, free of all mortgage, would bring in an income of<BR>
+eight thousand three hundred francs. They would set aside thirteen<BR>
+hundred francs a year for repairs and for the upkeep of the property;<BR>
+there would then remain seven thousand francs, five thousand of which<BR>
+would cover the annual expenditures and the other two thousand would<BR>
+be put away for a rainy day.</P>
+
+<P>She added: "All the rest has been squandered; there is an end of it.<BR>
+And then I am to keep the key, you understand. As for M. Paul, he will<BR>
+have nothing left, nothing; he would take your last sou from you."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, who was weeping silently, murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"But if he has nothing to eat?"</P>
+
+<P>"He can come and eat with us if he is hungry. There will always be a<BR>
+bed and some stew for him. Do you believe he would have acted as he<BR>
+has done if you had not given him a sou in the first place?"</P>
+
+<P>"But he was in debt, he would have been disgraced."</P>
+
+<P>"When you have nothing left, will that prevent him from making fresh<BR>
+debts? You have paid his debts, that is all right; but you will not<BR>
+pay any more; it is I who am telling you this. Now goodnight, madame."</P>
+
+<P>And she left the room.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne did not sleep, she was so upset at the idea of selling "The<BR>
+Poplars," of going away, of leaving this house to which all her life<BR>
+was linked.</P>
+
+<P>When Rosalie came into the room next morning she said to her: "My poor<BR>
+girl, I never could make up my mind to go away from here."</P>
+
+<P>But the servant grew angry: "It will have to be, however, madame; the<BR>
+lawyer will soon be here with the man who wants to buy the ch&acirc;teau.<BR>
+Otherwise, in four years you will not have a rap left."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was crushed, and repeated: "I could not do it; I never could."</P>
+
+<P>An hour later the postman brought her a letter from Paul asking for<BR>
+ten thousand francs. What should she do? At her wit's end, she<BR>
+consulted Rosalie, who threw up her hands, exclaiming: "What was I<BR>
+telling you, madame? Ah! You would have been in a nice fix, both of<BR>
+you, if I had not come back." And Jeanne, bending to her servant's<BR>
+will, wrote as follows to the young man:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Son: I can do nothing more for you. You have ruined me; I am<BR>
+even obliged to sell 'The Poplars.' But never forget that I shall<BR>
+always have a home whenever you want to seek shelter with your old<BR>
+mother, to whom you have caused much suffering. Jeanne."</P>
+
+<P>When the notary arrived with M. Jeoffrin, a retired sugar refiner, she<BR>
+received them herself, and invited them to look over the ch&acirc;teau.</P>
+
+<P>A month later, she signed a deed of sale, and also bought herself a<BR>
+little cottage in the neighborhood of Goderville, on the high road to<BR>
+Montiviliers, in the hamlet of Batteville.</P>
+
+<P>Then she walked up and down all alone until evening, in little<BR>
+mother's avenue, with a sore heart and troubled mind, bidding<BR>
+distracted and sobbing farewells to the landscape, the trees, the<BR>
+rustic bench under the plane tree, to all those things she knew so<BR>
+well and that seemed to have become part of her vision and her soul,<BR>
+the grove, the mound overlooking the plain, where she had so often<BR>
+sat, and from where she had seen the Comte de Fourville running toward<BR>
+the sea on that terrible day of Julian's death, to an old elm whose<BR>
+upper branches were missing, against which she had often leaned, and<BR>
+to all this familiar garden spot.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie came out and took her by the arm to make her come into the<BR>
+house.</P>
+
+<P>A tall young peasant of twenty-five was waiting outside the door. He<BR>
+greeted her in a friendly manner as if he had known her for some time:<BR>
+"Good-morning, Madame Jeanne. I hope you are well. Mother told me to<BR>
+come and help you move. I would like to know what you are going to<BR>
+take away, seeing that I shall do it from time to time so as not to<BR>
+interfere with my farm work."</P>
+
+<P>It was her maid's son, Julien's son, Paul's brother.</P>
+
+<P>She felt as if her heart stopped beating; and yet she would have liked<BR>
+to embrace this young fellow.</P>
+
+<P>She looked at him, trying to find some resemblance to her husband or<BR>
+to her son. He was ruddy, vigorous, with fair hair and his mother's<BR>
+blue eyes. And yet he looked like Julien. In what way? How? She could<BR>
+not have told, but there was something like him in the whole makeup of<BR>
+his face.</P>
+
+<P>The young man resumed: "If you could show me at once, I should be much<BR>
+obliged."</P>
+
+<P>But she had not yet decided what she was going to take with her, as<BR>
+her new home was very small; and she begged him to come back again at<BR>
+the end of the week.</P>
+
+<P>She was now entirely occupied with getting ready to move, which<BR>
+brought a little variety into her very dreary and hopeless life. She<BR>
+went from room to room, picking out the furniture which recalled<BR>
+episodes in her life, old friends, as it were, who have a share in our<BR>
+life and almost of our being, whom we have known since childhood, and<BR>
+to which are linked our happy or sad recollections, dates in our<BR>
+history; silent companions of our sad or sombre hours, who have grown<BR>
+old and become worn at our side, their covers torn in places, their<BR>
+joints shaky, their color faded.</P>
+
+<P>She selected them, one by one, sometimes hesitating and troubled, as<BR>
+if she were taking some important step, changing her mind every<BR>
+instant, weighing the merits of two easy chairs or of some old<BR>
+writing-desk and an old work table.</P>
+
+<P>She opened the drawers, sought to recall things; then, when she had<BR>
+said to herself, "Yes, I will take this," the article was taken down<BR>
+into the dining-room.</P>
+
+<P>She wished to keep all the furniture of her room, her bed, her<BR>
+tapestries, her clock, everything.</P>
+
+<P>She took away some of the parlor chairs, those that she had loved as a<BR>
+little child; the fox and the stork, the fox and the crow, the ant and<BR>
+the grasshopper, and the melancholy heron.</P>
+
+<P>Then, while wandering about in all the corners of this dwelling she<BR>
+was going to forsake, she went one day up into the loft, where she was<BR>
+filled with amazement; it was a chaos of articles of every kind, some<BR>
+broken, others tarnished only, others taken up there for no special<BR>
+reason probably, except that they were tired of them or that they had<BR>
+been replaced by others. She saw numberless knick-knacks that she<BR>
+remembered, and that had disappeared suddenly, trifles that she had<BR>
+handled, those old little insignificant articles that she had seen<BR>
+every day without noticing, but which now, discovered in this loft,<BR>
+assumed an importance as of forgotten relics, of friends that she had<BR>
+found again.</P>
+
+<P>She went from one to the other of them with a little pang, saying:<BR>
+"Why, it was I who broke that china cup a few evenings before my<BR>
+wedding. Ah! there is mother's little lantern and a cane that little<BR>
+father broke in trying to open the gate when the wood was swollen with<BR>
+the rain."</P>
+
+<P>There were also a number of things that she did not remember that had<BR>
+belonged to her grandparents or to their parents, dusty things that<BR>
+appeared to be exiled in a period that is not their own, and that<BR>
+looked sad at their abandonment, and whose history, whose experiences<BR>
+no one knows, for they never saw those who chose them, bought them,<BR>
+owned them, and loved them; never knew the hands that had touched them<BR>
+familiarly, and the eyes that looked at them with delight.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne examined carefully three-legged chairs to see if they recalled<BR>
+any memories, a copper warming pan, a damaged foot stove that she<BR>
+thought she remembered, and a number of housekeeping utensils unfit<BR>
+for use.</P>
+
+<P>She then put together all the things she wished to take, and going<BR>
+downstairs, sent Rosalie up to get them. The servant indignantly<BR>
+refused to bring down "that rubbish." But Jeanne, who had not much<BR>
+will left, held her own this time, and had to be obeyed.</P>
+
+<P>One morning the young farmer, Julien's son, Denis Lecoq, came with his<BR>
+wagon for the first load. Rosalie went back with him in order to<BR>
+superintend the unloading and placing of furniture where it was to<BR>
+stand.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie had come back and was waiting for Jeanne, who had been out on<BR>
+the cliff. She was enchanted with the new house, declaring it was much<BR>
+more cheerful than this old box of a building, which was not even on<BR>
+the side of the road.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne wept all the evening.</P>
+
+<P>Ever since they heard that the ch&acirc;teau was sold, the farmers were not<BR>
+more civil to her than necessary, calling her among themselves "the<BR>
+crazy woman," without knowing exactly why, but doubtless because they<BR>
+guessed with their animal instinct at her morbid and increasing<BR>
+sentimentality, at all the disturbance of her poor mind that had<BR>
+undergone so much sorrow.</P>
+
+<P>The night before they left she chanced to go into the stable. A growl<BR>
+made her start. It was Massacre, whom she had hardly thought of for<BR>
+months. Blind and paralyzed, having reached a great age for an animal,<BR>
+he existed in a straw bed, taken care of by Ludivine, who never forgot<BR>
+him. She took him in her arms, kissed him, and carried him into the<BR>
+house. As big as a barrel, he could scarcely carry himself along on<BR>
+his stiff legs, and he barked like the wooden dogs that one gives to<BR>
+children.</P>
+
+<P>The day of departure finally came. Jeanne had slept in Julien's old<BR>
+room, as hers was dismantled. She got up exhausted and short of breath<BR>
+as if she had been running. The carriage containing the trunks and the<BR>
+rest of the furniture was in the yard ready to start. Another<BR>
+two-wheeled vehicle was to take Jeanne and the servant. Old Simon and<BR>
+Ludivine were to stay until the arrival of a new proprietor, and then<BR>
+to go to some of their relations, Jeanne having provided a little<BR>
+income for them. They had also saved up some money, and being now very<BR>
+old and garrulous, they were not of much use in the house. Marius had<BR>
+long since married and left.</P>
+
+<P>About eight o'clock it began to rain, a fine icy rain, driven by a<BR>
+light breeze. On the kitchen table, some cups of caf&eacute; au lait were<BR>
+steaming. Jeanne sat down and sipped hers, then rising, she said,<BR>
+"Come along."</P>
+
+<P>She put on her hat and shawl, and while Rosalie was putting on her<BR>
+overshoes, she said in a choking voice: "Do you remember, my girl, how<BR>
+it rained when we left Rouen to come here?"</P>
+
+<P>As she said this, she put her two hands to her breast and fell over on<BR>
+her back, unconscious. She remained thus over an hour, apparently<BR>
+dead. Then she opened her eyes and was seized with convulsions<BR>
+accompanied by floods of tears.</P>
+
+<P>When she was a little calmer she was so weak that she could not stand<BR>
+up, and Rosalie, fearing another attack if they delayed their<BR>
+departure, went to look for her son. They took her up and carried her<BR>
+to the carriage, placed her on the wooden bench covered with leather;<BR>
+and the old servant got in beside her, wrapped her up with a big<BR>
+cloak, and holding an umbrella over her head, cried: "Quick, Denis,<BR>
+let us be off." The young man climbed up beside his mother and whipped<BR>
+up the horse, whose jerky pace made the two women bounce about<BR>
+vigorously.</P>
+
+<P>As they turned the corner to enter the village, they saw some one<BR>
+stalking along the road; it was Abb&eacute; Tolbiac, who seemed to be<BR>
+watching for them to go by. He stopped to let the carriage pass. He<BR>
+was holding up his cassock with one hand, to keep it out of the mud,<BR>
+and his thin legs, encased in black stockings, ended in a pair of<BR>
+enormous muddy shoes.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne lowered her eyes so as not to meet his glance, and Rosalie, who<BR>
+had heard all about him, flew into a rage. "Peasant! Peasant!" she<BR>
+murmured; and then seizing her son's hand: "Give him a good slash with<BR>
+the whip."</P>
+
+<P>But the young man, just as they were passing the priest, made the<BR>
+wheel of the wagon, which was going at full speed, sink into a rut,<BR>
+splashing the abb&eacute; with mud from head to foot.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie was delighted and turned round to shake her fist at him, while<BR>
+the priest was wiping off the mud with his big handkerchief.</P>
+
+<P>All at once Jeanne exclaimed: "We have forgotten Massacre!" They<BR>
+stopped, and, getting down, Denis ran to fetch the dog, while Rosalie<BR>
+held the reins. He presently reappeared, carrying in his arms the<BR>
+shapeless and crippled animal, which he placed at the feet of the two<BR>
+women.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></h4>
+
+<h5>JEANNE IN PARIS</h5>
+
+<P>Two hours later the carriage stopped at a little brick house built in<BR>
+the middle of a lot planted with pear trees at the side of the high<BR>
+road.</P>
+
+<P>Four trellised arbors covered with honeysuckle and clematis formed the<BR>
+four corners of the garden, which was divided into little beds of<BR>
+vegetables separated by narrow paths bordered with fruit trees.</P>
+
+<P>A very high box hedge enclosed the whole property, which was separated<BR>
+by a field from the neighboring farm. There was a blacksmith's shop<BR>
+about a hundred feet further along the road. There were no other<BR>
+houses within three-quarters of a mile.</P>
+
+<P>The house commanded a view of the level district of Caux, covered with<BR>
+farms surrounded by their four double rows of tall trees which<BR>
+enclosed the courtyard planted with apple trees.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as they reached the house, Jeanne wanted to rest; but Rosalie<BR>
+would not allow her to do so for fear she would begin to think of the<BR>
+past.</P>
+
+<P>The carpenter from Goderville was there, and they began at once to<BR>
+place the furniture that had already arrived while waiting for the<BR>
+last load. This required a good deal of thought and planning.</P>
+
+<P>At the end of an hour the wagon appeared at the gate and had to be<BR>
+unloaded in the rain. When night fell the house was in utter disorder,<BR>
+with things piled up anyhow. Jeanne, tired out, fell asleep as soon as<BR>
+she got into bed.</P>
+
+<P>She had no time to mourn for some days, as there was so much to be<BR>
+done. She even took a certain pleasure in making her new house look<BR>
+pretty, the thought that her son would come back there haunting her<BR>
+continually. The tapestries from her old room were hung in the<BR>
+dining-room, which also had to serve as a parlor; and she took special<BR>
+pains with one of the two rooms on the first floor, which she thought<BR>
+of as "Poulet's room."</P>
+
+<P>She kept the other room herself, Rosalie sleeping above, next to the<BR>
+loft. The little house, furnished with care, was very pretty, and<BR>
+Jeanne was happy there at first, although she seemed to lack<BR>
+something, but she did not know what.</P>
+
+<P>One morning the lawyer's clerk from F&eacute;camp brought her three thousand<BR>
+six hundred francs, the price of the furniture left at "The Poplars,"<BR>
+and valued by an upholsterer. She had a little thrill of pleasure at<BR>
+receiving this money, and as soon as the man had gone, she ran to put<BR>
+on her hat, so as to get to Goderville as quickly as possible to send<BR>
+Paul this unexpected sum.</P>
+
+<P>But as she was hurrying along the high road she met Rosalie coming<BR>
+from market. The servant suspected something, without at once guessing<BR>
+the facts; and when she discovered them, for Jeanne could hide nothing<BR>
+from her, she placed her basket on the ground that she might get angry<BR>
+with more comfort.</P>
+
+<P>She began to scold with her fists on her hips; then taking hold of her<BR>
+mistress with her right arm and taking her basket in her left, and<BR>
+still fuming, she continued on her way to the house.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as they were in the house the servant asked to have the money<BR>
+handed over to her. Jeanne gave all but six hundred francs, which she<BR>
+held back; but Rosalie soon saw through her tricks, and she was<BR>
+obliged to hand it all over. However, she consented to her sending<BR>
+this amount to the young man.</P>
+
+<P>A few days later he wrote: "You have rendered me a great service, my<BR>
+dear mother, for we were in the greatest distress."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, however, could not get accustomed to Batteville. It seemed to<BR>
+her as if she could not breathe as she did formerly, that she was more<BR>
+lonely, more deserted, more lost than ever. She went out for a walk,<BR>
+got as far as the hamlet of Verneuil, came back by the Trois-Mares,<BR>
+came home, then suddenly wanted to start out again, as if she had<BR>
+forgotten to go to the very place she intended.</P>
+
+<P>And every day she did the same thing without knowing why. But one<BR>
+evening a thought came to her unconsciously which revealed to her the<BR>
+secret of her restlessness. She said as she was sitting down to<BR>
+dinner: "Oh, how I long to see the sea!"</P>
+
+<P>That was what she had missed so greatly, the sea, her big neighbor for<BR>
+twenty-five years, the sea with its salt air, its rages, its scolding<BR>
+voice, its strong breezes, the sea which she sought from her window at<BR>
+"The Poplars" every morning, whose air she breathed day and night, the<BR>
+sea which she felt close to her, which she had taken to loving<BR>
+unconsciously as she would a person.</P>
+
+<P>Winter was approaching, and Jeanne felt herself overcome by an<BR>
+unconquerable discouragement. It was not one of those acute griefs<BR>
+which seemed to wring the heart, but a dreary, mournful sadness.</P>
+
+<P>Nothing roused her. No one paid any attention to her. The high road<BR>
+before her door stretched to right and left with hardly any passersby.<BR>
+Occasionally a dogcart passed rapidly, driven by a red-faced man, with<BR>
+his blouse puffed out by the wind, making a sort of blue balloon;<BR>
+sometimes a slow-moving wagon, or else two peasants, a man and a<BR>
+woman, who came near, passed by, and disappeared in the distance.</P>
+
+<P>As soon as the grass began to grow again, a young girl in a short<BR>
+skirt passed by the gate every morning with two thin cows who browsed<BR>
+along the side of the road. She came back every evening with the same<BR>
+sleepy face, making a step every ten minutes as she walked behind the<BR>
+animals.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne dreamed every night that she was still at "The Poplars." She<BR>
+seemed to be there with father and little mother, and sometimes even<BR>
+with Aunt Lison. She did over again things forgotten and done with,<BR>
+thought she was supporting Madame Adelaide in her walk along the<BR>
+avenue. And each awakening was attended with tears.</P>
+
+<P>She thought continually of Paul, wondering what he was doing--how he<BR>
+was--whether he sometimes thought of her. As she walked slowly in the<BR>
+by-roads between the farms, she thought over all these things which<BR>
+tormented her, but above all else, she cherished an intense jealousy<BR>
+of the woman who had stolen her son from her. It was this hatred alone<BR>
+which prevented her from taking any steps, from going to look for him,<BR>
+to see him. It seemed to her that she saw that woman standing on the<BR>
+doorsill asking: "What do you want here, madame?" Her mother's pride<BR>
+revolted at the possibility of such a meeting. And her haughty pride<BR>
+of a good woman whose character is blameless made her all the more<BR>
+indignant at the cowardice of a man subjugated by an unworthy passion.</P>
+
+<P>When autumn returned with its long rains, its gray sky, its dark<BR>
+clouds, such a weariness of this kind of life came over her that she<BR>
+determined to make a great effort to get her Poulet back; he must have<BR>
+got over his infatuation by this time.</P>
+
+<P>She wrote him an imploring letter:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Child: I am going to entreat you to come back to me. Remember<BR>
+that I am old and delicate, all alone the whole year round except for<BR>
+a servant maid. I am now living in a little house on the main road. It<BR>
+is very lonely, but if you were here all would be different for me. I<BR>
+have only you in the world, and I have not seen you for seven years!<BR>
+You were my life, my dream, my only hope, my one love, and you failed<BR>
+me, you deserted me!</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, come back, my little Poulet--come and embrace me. Come back to<BR>
+your old mother, who holds out her despairing arms towards you.</P>
+
+<P>"Jeanne."</P>
+
+<P>He replied a few days later:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Mother: I would ask nothing better than to go and see you,<BR>
+but I have not a penny. Send me some money and I will come. I wanted,<BR>
+in any case, to see you to talk to you about a plan that would make it<BR>
+possible for me to do as you ask.</P>
+
+<P>"The disinterestedness and love of the one who has been my companion<BR>
+in the dark days through which I have passed can never be forgotten by<BR>
+me. It is not possible for me to remain any longer without publicly<BR>
+recognizing her love and her faithful devotion. She has very pleasing<BR>
+manners, which you would appreciate. She is also educated and reads a<BR>
+good deal. In fact, you cannot understand what she has been to me. I<BR>
+should be a brute if I did not show her my gratitude. I am going,<BR>
+therefore, to ask you to give me your permission to marry her. You<BR>
+will forgive all my follies and we will all live together in your new<BR>
+house.</P>
+
+<P>"If you knew her you would at once give your consent. I can assure you<BR>
+that she is perfect and very distingu&eacute;. You will love her, I am sure.<BR>
+As for me, I could not live without her.</P>
+
+<P>"I shall expect your reply with impatience, my dear mother, and we<BR>
+both embrace you with all our heart.</P>
+
+<P>"Your son,</P>
+
+<P>"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne was crushed. She remained motionless, the letter on her lap,<BR>
+seeing through the cunning of this girl who had had such a hold on her<BR>
+son for so long, and had not let him come to see her once, biding her<BR>
+time until the despairing old mother could no longer resist the desire<BR>
+to clasp her son in her arms, and would weaken and grant all they<BR>
+asked.</P>
+
+<P>And grief at Paul's persistent preference for this creature wrung her<BR>
+heart. She said: "He does not love me. He does not love me."</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie just then entered the room. Jeanne faltered: "He wants to<BR>
+marry her now."</P>
+
+<P>The maid was startled. "Oh, madame, you will not allow that. M. Paul<BR>
+must not pick up that rubbish."</P>
+
+<P>And Jeanne, overcome with emotion, but indignant, replied: "Never<BR>
+that, my girl. And as he will not come here, I am going to see him,<BR>
+myself, and we shall see which of us will carry the day."</P>
+
+<P>She wrote at once to Paul to prepare him for her visit, and to arrange<BR>
+to meet him elsewhere than in the house inhabited by that baggage.</P>
+
+<P>While awaiting a reply she made her preparations for departure.<BR>
+Rosalie began to pack her mistress' clothes in an old trunk, but as<BR>
+she was folding a dress, one of those she had worn in the country, she<BR>
+exclaimed: "Why, you have nothing to put on your back. I will not<BR>
+allow you to go like that. You would be a disgrace to everyone; and<BR>
+the Parisian ladies would take you for a servant."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne let her have her own way, and the two women went together to<BR>
+Goderville to choose some material, which was given a dressmaker in<BR>
+the village. Then they went to the lawyer, M. Roussel, who spent a<BR>
+fortnight in the capital every year, in order to get some information;<BR>
+for Jeanne had not been in Paris for twenty-eight years.</P>
+
+<P>He gave them lots of advice on how to avoid being run over, on methods<BR>
+of protecting yourself from thieves, advising her to sew her money up<BR>
+inside the lining of her coat, and to keep in her pocket only what she<BR>
+absolutely needed. He spoke at length about moderate priced<BR>
+restaurants, and mentioned two or three patronized by women, and told<BR>
+them that they might mention his name at the Hotel Normandie.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne had never yet seen the railroad, though trains had been running<BR>
+between Paris and Havre for six years, and were revolutionizing the<BR>
+whole country.</P>
+
+<P>She received no answer from Paul, although she waited a week, then two<BR>
+weeks, going every morning to meet the postman, asking him<BR>
+hesitatingly: "Is there anything for me, P&egrave;re Malandain?" And the man<BR>
+always replied in his hoarse voice: "Nothing again, my good lady."</P>
+
+<P>It certainly must be this woman who was keeping Paul from writing.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, therefore, determined to set out at once. She wanted to take<BR>
+Rosalie with her, but the maid refused for fear of increasing the<BR>
+expense of the journey. She did not allow her mistress to take more<BR>
+than three hundred francs, saying: "If you need more you can write to<BR>
+me and I will go to the lawyer and ask him to send it to you. If I<BR>
+give you any more, M. Paul will put it in his pocket."</P>
+
+<P>One December morning Denis Lecoq came for them in his light wagon and<BR>
+took them to the station. Jeanne wept as she kissed Rosalie good-by,<BR>
+and got into the train. Rosalie was also affected and said: "Good-by,<BR>
+madame, bon voyage, and come back soon!"</P>
+
+<P>"Good-by, my girl."</P>
+
+<P>A whistle and the train was off, beginning slowly and gradually going<BR>
+with a speed that terrified Jeanne. In her compartment there were two<BR>
+gentlemen leaning back in the two corners of the carriage.</P>
+
+<P>She looked at the country as they swept past, the trees, the farms,<BR>
+the villages, feeling herself carried into a new life, into a new<BR>
+world that was no longer the life of her tranquil youth and of her<BR>
+present monotonous existence.</P>
+
+<P>She reached Paris that evening. A commissionaire took her trunk and<BR>
+she followed him in great fear, jostled by the crowd and not knowing<BR>
+how to make her way amid this mass of moving humanity, almost running<BR>
+to keep up with the man for fear of losing sight of him.</P>
+
+<P>On reaching the hotel she said at the desk: "I was recommended here by<BR>
+M. Roussel."</P>
+
+<P>The proprietress, an immense woman with a serious face, who was seated<BR>
+at the desk, inquired:</P>
+
+<P>"Who is he--M. Roussel?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne replied in amazement: "Why, he is the lawyer at Goderville, who<BR>
+stops here every year."</P>
+
+<P>"That's very possible," said the big woman, "but I do not know him. Do<BR>
+you wish a room?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, madame."</P>
+
+<P>A boy took her satchel and led the way upstairs. She felt a pang at<BR>
+her heart. Sitting down at a little table she sent for some luncheon,<BR>
+as she had eaten nothing since daybreak. As she ate, she was thinking<BR>
+sadly of a thousand things, recalling her stay here on the return from<BR>
+her wedding journey, and the first indication of Julien's character<BR>
+betrayed while they were in Paris. But she was young then, and<BR>
+confident and brave. Now she felt old, embarrassed, even timid, weak<BR>
+and disturbed at trifles. When she had finished her luncheon she went<BR>
+over to the window and looked down on the street filled with people.<BR>
+She wished to go out, but was afraid to do so. She would surely get<BR>
+lost. She went to bed, but the noise, the feeling of being in a<BR>
+strange city, kept her awake. About two o'clock in the morning, just<BR>
+as she was dozing off, she heard a woman scream in an adjoining room;<BR>
+she sat up in bed and then she thought she heard a man laugh. As<BR>
+daylight dawned the thought of Paul came to her, and she dressed<BR>
+herself before it was light.</P>
+
+<P>Paul lived in the Rue du Sauvage, in the old town. She wanted to go<BR>
+there on foot so as to carry out Rosalie's economical advice. The<BR>
+weather was delightful, the air cold enough to make her skin tingle.<BR>
+People were hurrying along the sidewalks. She walked as fast as she<BR>
+could, according to directions given her, along a street, at the end<BR>
+of which she was to turn to the right and then to the left, when she<BR>
+would come to a square where she must make fresh inquiries. She did<BR>
+not find the square, and went into a baker's to ask her way, and he<BR>
+directed her differently. She started off again, went astray, inquired<BR>
+her way again, and finally got lost completely.</P>
+
+<P>Half crazy, she now walked at random. She had made up her mind to call<BR>
+a cab, when she caught sight of the Seine. She then walked along the<BR>
+quays.</P>
+
+<P>After about an hour she found the Rue Sauvage, a sort of dark alley.<BR>
+She stopped at a door, so overcome that she could not move.</P>
+
+<P>He was there, in that house--Poulet.</P>
+
+<P>She felt her knees and hands trembling; but at last she entered the<BR>
+door, and walking along a passage, saw the janitor's quarters. She<BR>
+said, as she held out a piece of money: "Would you go up and tell M.<BR>
+Paul de Lamare that an old lady, a friend of his mother's, is<BR>
+downstairs, and wishes to see him?"</P>
+
+<P>"He does not live here any longer, madame," replied the janitor.</P>
+
+<P>A shudder went over her. She faltered:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh! Where--where is he living now?"</P>
+
+<P>"I do not know."</P>
+
+<P>She grew dizzy as though she were about to fall over, and stood there<BR>
+for some moments without being able to speak. At length, with a great<BR>
+effort, she collected her senses and murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"How long is it since he left?"</P>
+
+<P>"About two weeks ago. They went off like that, one evening, and never<BR>
+came back. They were in debt everywhere in the neighborhood, so you<BR>
+can understand that they did not care to leave their address."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne saw lights before her eyes, flashes of flame, as though a gun<BR>
+had been fired off in front of her eyes. But she had one fixed idea in<BR>
+her mind, and that sustained her, and kept her outwardly calm and<BR>
+rational. She wished to find Poulet and know all about him.</P>
+
+<P>"Then he said nothing when he was going away?"</P>
+
+<P>"Nothing at all; they ran off to escape their debts, that's all."</P>
+
+<P>"But he surely sends someone to get his mail."</P>
+
+<P>"More frequently than I send it. He never got more than ten letters a<BR>
+year. I took one up to them, however, two days before they left."</P>
+
+<P>That was probably her letter. She said abruptly: "Listen! I am his<BR>
+mother, his own mother, and I have come to look for him. Here are ten<BR>
+francs for you. If you can get any news or any particulars about him,<BR>
+come and see me at the Hotel Normandie, Rue du Havre, and I will pay<BR>
+you well."</P>
+
+<P>"You may count on me, madame," he replied.</P>
+
+<P>She left him and began to walk away without caring whither she went.<BR>
+She hurried along as though she were on some important business,<BR>
+knocking up against people with packages, crossing the streets without<BR>
+paying attention to the approaching vehicles, and being sworn at by<BR>
+the drivers, stumbling on the curb of the sidewalk, and tearing along<BR>
+straight ahead in utter despair.</P>
+
+<P>All at once she found herself in a garden, and was so tired that she<BR>
+sat down on a bench to rest. She stayed there some time apparently,<BR>
+weeping without being conscious of it, for passersby stopped to look<BR>
+at her. Then she felt very cold, and rose to go on her way; but her<BR>
+legs would scarcely carry her, she was so weak and distressed.</P>
+
+<P>She wanted to go into a restaurant and get a cup of bouillon, but a<BR>
+sort of shame, of fear, of modesty at her grief being observed held<BR>
+her back. She would pause at the door, look in, see all the people<BR>
+sitting at table eating, and would turn away, saying: "I will go into<BR>
+the next one." But she had not the courage.</P>
+
+<P>Finally she went into a bakery and bought a crescent and ate it as she<BR>
+walked along. She was very thirsty, but did not know where to go to<BR>
+get something to drink, so did without it.</P>
+
+<P>Presently she found herself in another garden surrounded by arcades.<BR>
+She recognized the Palais Royal. Being tired and warm, she sat down<BR>
+here for an hour or two.</P>
+
+<P>A crowd of people came in, a well-dressed crowd, chatting, smiling,<BR>
+bowing to each other, that happy crowd of beautiful women and wealthy<BR>
+men who live only for dress and amusement. Jeanne felt bewildered in<BR>
+the midst of this brilliant assemblage, and got up to make her escape.<BR>
+But suddenly the thought came to her that she might meet Paul in this<BR>
+place; and she began to wander about, looking into the faces, going<BR>
+and coming incessantly with her quick step from one end of the garden<BR>
+to the other.</P>
+
+<P>People turned round to look at her, others laughed as they pointed her<BR>
+out. She noticed it and fled, thinking that they were doubtless amused<BR>
+at her appearance and at her dress of green plaid, selected by<BR>
+Rosalie, and made according to her ideas by the dressmaker at<BR>
+Goderville.</P>
+
+<P>She no longer dared even to ask her way of passersby, but at last she<BR>
+ventured to do so and found her way back to the hotel.</P>
+
+<P>The following day she went to the police department to ask them to<BR>
+look for her child. They could promise her nothing, but said they<BR>
+would do all they could. She wandered about the streets hoping that<BR>
+she might come across him. And she felt more alone in this bustling<BR>
+crowd, more lost, more wretched than in the lonely country.</P>
+
+<P>That evening when she came back to the hotel she was informed that a<BR>
+man had come to see her from M. Paul, and that he would come back<BR>
+again the following day. Her heart began to beat violently and she<BR>
+never closed her eyes that night. If it should be he! Yes, it<BR>
+assuredly was, although she would not have recognized him from the<BR>
+description they gave her.</P>
+
+<P>About nine o'clock the following morning there was a knock at the<BR>
+door. She cried: "Come in!" ready to throw herself into certain<BR>
+outstretched arms. But an unknown person appeared; and while he<BR>
+excused himself for disturbing her, and explained his business, which<BR>
+was to collect a debt of Paul's, she felt the tears beginning to<BR>
+overflow, and wiped them away with her finger before they fell on her<BR>
+cheeks.</P>
+
+<P>He had learned of her arrival through the janitor of the Rue Sauvage,<BR>
+and as he could not find the young man, he had come to see his mother.<BR>
+He handed her a paper, which she took without knowing what she was<BR>
+doing and read the figures--ninety francs--which she paid without a<BR>
+word.</P>
+
+<P>She did not go out that day.</P>
+
+<P>The next day other creditors came. She gave them all that she had left<BR>
+except twenty francs and then wrote to Rosalie to explain matters to<BR>
+her.</P>
+
+<P>She passed her days wandering about, waiting for Rosalie's answer, not<BR>
+knowing what to do, how to kill the melancholy, interminable hours,<BR>
+having no one to whom she could say an affectionate word, no one who<BR>
+knew her sorrow. She now longed to return home to her little house at<BR>
+the side of the lonely high road. A few days before she thought she<BR>
+could not live there, she was so overcome with grief, and now she felt<BR>
+that she could never live anywhere else but there where her serious<BR>
+character had been formed.</P>
+
+<P>One evening the letter at last came, enclosing two hundred francs.<BR>
+Rosalie wrote:</P>
+
+<P>"Madame Jeanne: Come back at once, for I shall not send you any more.<BR>
+As for M. Paul, it is I who will go and get him when we know where he<BR>
+is.</P>
+
+<P>"With respect, your servant,</P>
+
+<P>"Rosalie."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne set out for Batteville one very cold, snowy morning.</P>
+
+<h4><a name="XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></h4>
+
+<h5>LIGHT AT EVENTIDE</h5>
+
+<P>Jeanne never went out now, never stirred about. She rose at the same<BR>
+hour every day, looked out at the weather and then went downstairs and<BR>
+sat before the parlor fire.</P>
+
+<P>She would remain for days motionless, gazing into the fire, thinking<BR>
+of nothing in particular. It would grow dark before she stirred,<BR>
+except to put a fresh log on the fire. Rosalie would then bring in the<BR>
+lamp and exclaim: "Come, Madame Jeanne, you must stir about or you<BR>
+will have no appetite again this evening."</P>
+
+<P>She lived over the past, haunted by memories of her early life and her<BR>
+wedding journey down yonder in Corsica. Forgotten landscapes in that<BR>
+isle now rose before her in the blaze of the fire, and she recalled<BR>
+all the little details, all the little incidents, the faces she had<BR>
+seen down there. The head of the guide, Jean Ravoli, haunted her, and<BR>
+she sometimes seemed to hear his voice.</P>
+
+<P>Then she remembered the sweet years of Paul's childhood, when they<BR>
+planted salad together and when she knelt in the thick grass beside<BR>
+Aunt Lison, each trying what they could do to please the child, and<BR>
+her lips murmured: "Poulet, my little Poulet," as though she were<BR>
+talking to him. Stopping at this word, she would try to trace it,<BR>
+letter by letter, in space, sometimes for hours at a time, until she<BR>
+became confused and mixed up the letters and formed other words, and<BR>
+she became so nervous that she was almost crazy.</P>
+
+<P>She had all the peculiarities of those who live a solitary life. The<BR>
+least thing out of its usual place irritated her.</P>
+
+<P>Rosalie often obliged her to walk and took her on the high road, but<BR>
+at the end of twenty minutes she declared she could not take another<BR>
+step and sat down on the side of the road.</P>
+
+<P>She soon became averse to all movement and stayed in bed as late as<BR>
+possible. Since her childhood she had retained one custom, that of<BR>
+rising the instant she had drunk her caf&eacute; au lait in the morning. But<BR>
+now she would lie down again and begin to dream, and as she was daily<BR>
+growing more lazy, Rosalie would come and oblige her to get up and<BR>
+almost force her to get dressed.</P>
+
+<P>She seemed no longer to have any will power, and each time the maid<BR>
+asked her a question or wanted her advice or opinion she would say:<BR>
+"Do as you think best, my girl."</P>
+
+<P>She imagined herself pursued by some persistent ill luck and was like<BR>
+an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her<BR>
+hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer<BR>
+before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the<BR>
+wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of<BR>
+bad luck--I have never had any luck in life."</P>
+
+<P>Then Rosalie would say: "What would you do if you had to work for your<BR>
+living, if you were obliged to get up every morning at six o'clock to<BR>
+go out to your work? Many people have to do that, nevertheless, and<BR>
+when they grow too old they die of want."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne replied: "Remember that I am all alone; that my son has<BR>
+deserted me." And Rosalie would get very angry: "That's another thing!<BR>
+Well, how about the sons who are drafted into the army and those who<BR>
+go to America?"</P>
+
+<P>America to her was an undefined country, where one went to make a<BR>
+fortune and whence one never returned. She continued: "There always<BR>
+comes a time when people have to part, for old people and young people<BR>
+are not made to live together." And she added fiercely: "Well, what<BR>
+would you say if he were dead?"</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne had nothing more to say.</P>
+
+<P>One day in spring she had gone up to the loft to look for something<BR>
+and by chance opened a box containing old calendars which had been<BR>
+preserved after the manner of some country folks.</P>
+
+<P>She took them up and carried them downstairs. They were of all sizes,<BR>
+and she laid them out on the table in the parlor in regular order.<BR>
+Suddenly she spied the earliest, the one she had brought with her to<BR>
+"The Poplars." She gazed at it for some time, at the days crossed off<BR>
+by her the morning she left Rouen, the day after she left the convent,<BR>
+and she wept slow, sorrowful tears, the tears of an old woman at sight<BR>
+of her wretched life spread out before her on this table.</P>
+
+<P>One morning the maid came into her room earlier than usual, and<BR>
+placing the bowl of caf&eacute; au lait on the little stand beside her bed,<BR>
+she said: "Come, drink it quickly. Denis is waiting for us at the<BR>
+door. We are going to 'The Poplars,' &nbsp;for I have something to attend<BR>
+to down there."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne dressed herself with trembling hands, almost fainting at the<BR>
+thought of seeing her dear home once more.</P>
+
+<P>The sky was cloudless and the nag, who was inclined to be frisky,<BR>
+would suddenly start off at a gallop every now and then. As they<BR>
+entered the commune of &Eacute;touvent Jeanne's heart beat so that she could<BR>
+hardly breathe.</P>
+
+<P>They unharnessed the horse at the Couillard place, and while Rosalie<BR>
+and her son were attending to their own affairs, the farmer and his<BR>
+wife offered to let Jeanne go over the chateau, as the proprietor was<BR>
+away and they had the keys.</P>
+
+<P>She went off alone, and when she reached the side of the chateau from<BR>
+which there was a view of the sea she turned round to look. Nothing<BR>
+had changed on the outside. When she turned the heavy lock and went<BR>
+inside the first thing she did was to go up to her old room, which she<BR>
+did not recognize, as it had been newly papered and furnished. But the<BR>
+view from the window was the same, and she stood and gazed out at the<BR>
+landscape she had so loved.</P>
+
+<P>She then wandered all over the house, walking quietly all alone in<BR>
+this silent abode as though it were a cemetery. All her life was<BR>
+buried here. She went down to the drawing-room, which was dark with<BR>
+its closed shutters. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light<BR>
+she recognized some of the old hangings. Two easy chairs were drawn up<BR>
+before the fire, as if some one had just left them, and as Jeanne<BR>
+stood there, full of old memories, she suddenly seemed to see her<BR>
+father and mother sitting there, warming their feet at the fire.</P>
+
+<P>She started back in terror and knocked up against the edge of the<BR>
+door, against which she leaned to support herself, still staring at<BR>
+the armchairs.</P>
+
+<P>The vision had vanished.</P>
+
+<P>She remained bewildered for some minutes. Then she slowly recovered<BR>
+her composure and started to run away, for fear she might become<BR>
+insane. She chanced to look at the door against which she had been<BR>
+leaning and saw there "Poulet's ladder."</P>
+
+<P>All the little notches were there showing the age and growth of her<BR>
+child. Here was the baron's writing, then hers, a little smaller, and<BR>
+then Aunt Lison's rather shaky characters. And she seemed to see her<BR>
+boy of long ago with his fair hair standing before her, leaning his<BR>
+little forehead against the door while they measured his height.</P>
+
+<P>And she kissed the edge of the door in a frenzy of affection.</P>
+
+<P>But some one was calling her outside. It was Rosalie's voice: "Madame<BR>
+Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, they are waiting breakfast for you." She went<BR>
+out in a dream and understood nothing of what they were saying to her.<BR>
+She ate what they gave her, heard them talking, but about what she<BR>
+knew not, let them kiss her on the cheeks and kissed them in return<BR>
+and then got into the carriage.</P>
+
+<P>When they lost sight of the ch&acirc;teau behind the tall trees she felt a<BR>
+wrench at her heart, convinced that she had bid a last farewell to her<BR>
+old home.</P>
+
+<P>When they reached Batteville and just as she was going into her new<BR>
+house, she saw something white under the door. It was a letter that<BR>
+the postman had slipped under the door while she was out. She<BR>
+recognized Paul's writing and opened it, trembling with anxiety. He<BR>
+wrote:</P>
+
+<P>"My Dear Mother: I have not written sooner because I did not wish you<BR>
+to make a useless journey to Paris when it was my place to go and see<BR>
+you. I am just now in great sorrow and in great straits. My wife is<BR>
+dying after giving birth to a little girl three days ago, and I have<BR>
+not one sou. I do not know what to do with the child, whom my<BR>
+janitor's wife is bringing up on the bottle as well as she can, but I<BR>
+fear I shall lose her. Could you not take charge of it? I absolutely<BR>
+do not know what to do, and I have no money to put her out to nurse.<BR>
+Answer by return mail.</P>
+
+<P>"Your son, who loves you,</P>
+
+<P>"Paul."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne sank into a chair and had scarcely strength to call Rosalie.<BR>
+When the maid came into the room they read the letter over together<BR>
+and then remained silent for some time, face to face.</P>
+
+<P>At last Rosalie said: "I am going to fetch the little one, madame. We<BR>
+cannot leave it like that."</P>
+
+<P>"Go, my girl," replied Jeanne.</P>
+
+<P>Then they were silent until the maid said: "Put on your hat, madame,<BR>
+and we will go to Goderville to see the lawyer. If she is going to<BR>
+die, the other one, M. Paul must marry her for the little one's sake<BR>
+later on."</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne, without replying, put on her hat. A deep, inexpressible joy<BR>
+filled her heart, a treacherous joy that she sought to hide at any<BR>
+cost, one of those things of which one is ashamed, although cherishing<BR>
+it in one's soul--her son's sweetheart was going to die.</P>
+
+<P>The lawyer gave the servant minute instructions, making her repeat<BR>
+them several times. Then, sure that she could make no mistake, she<BR>
+said: "Do not be afraid. I will see to it now."</P>
+
+<P>She set out for Paris that very night.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne passed two days in such a troubled condition that she could not<BR>
+think. The third morning she received merely a line from Rosalie<BR>
+saying she would be back on the evening train. That was all.</P>
+
+<P>About three o'clock she drove in a neighbor's light wagon to the<BR>
+station at Beuzeville to meet Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>She stood on the platform, looking at the railroad track as it<BR>
+disappeared on the horizon. She looked at the clock. Ten minutes<BR>
+still--five minutes still--two minutes more. Then the hour of the<BR>
+train's arrival, but it was not in sight. Presently, however, she saw<BR>
+a cloud of white smoke and gradually it drew up in the station. She<BR>
+looked anxiously and at last perceived Rosalie carrying a sort of<BR>
+white bundle in her arms.</P>
+
+<P>She wanted to go over toward her, but her knees seemed to grow weak<BR>
+and she was afraid of falling.</P>
+
+<P>But the maid had seen her and came forward with her usual calm manner<BR>
+and said: "How do you do, madame? Here I am back again, but not<BR>
+without some difficulty."</P>
+
+<P>"Well?" faltered Jeanne.</P>
+
+<P>"Well," answered Rosalie, "she died last night. They were married and<BR>
+here is the little girl." And she held out the child, who could not be<BR>
+seen under her wraps.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne took it mechanically and they left the station and got into the<BR>
+carriage.</P>
+
+<P>"M. Paul will come as soon as the funeral is over--to-morrow about<BR>
+this time, I believe," resumed Rosalie.</P>
+
+<P>Jeanne murmured "Paul" and then was silent.</P>
+
+<P>The wagon drove along rapidly, the peasant clacking his tongue to urge<BR>
+on the horse. Jeanne looked straight ahead of her into the clear sky<BR>
+through which the swallows darted in curves. Suddenly she felt a<BR>
+gentle warmth striking through to her skin; it was the warmth of the<BR>
+little being who was asleep on her lap.</P>
+
+<P>Then she was overcome with an intense emotion, and uncovering gently<BR>
+the face of the sleeping infant, she raised it to her lips and kissed<BR>
+it passionately.</P>
+
+<P>But Rosalie, happy though grumpy, stopped her; "Come, come, Madame<BR>
+Jeanne, stop that; you will make it cry."</P>
+
+<P>And then she added, probably in answer to her own thoughts: "Life,<BR>
+after all, is not as good or as bad as we believe it to be."</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="vag">A VAGABOND</a></h3>
+
+<P>He was a journeyman carpenter, a good workman and a steady fellow,<BR>
+twenty-seven years old, but, although the eldest son, Jacques Randel<BR>
+had been forced to live on his family for two months, owing to the<BR>
+general lack of work. He had walked about seeking work for over a<BR>
+month and had left his native town, Ville-Avary, in La Manche, because<BR>
+he could find nothing to do and would no longer deprive his family of<BR>
+the bread they needed themselves, when he was the strongest of them<BR>
+all. His two sisters earned but little as charwomen. He went and<BR>
+inquired at the town hall, and the mayor's secretary told him that he<BR>
+would find work at the Labor Agency, and so he started, well provided<BR>
+with papers and certificates, and carrying another pair of shoes, a<BR>
+pair of trousers and a shirt in a blue handkerchief at the end of his<BR>
+stick.</P>
+
+<P>And he had walked almost without stopping, day and night, along<BR>
+interminable roads, in sun and rain, without ever reaching that<BR>
+mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed<BR>
+idea that he must only work as a carpenter, but at every carpenter's<BR>
+shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on<BR>
+account of work being so slack, and, finding himself at the end of his<BR>
+resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come<BR>
+across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman,<BR>
+stonecutter; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells,<BR>
+mixed mortar, tied up fagots, tended goats on a mountain, and all for<BR>
+a few pence, for he only obtained two or three days' work occasionally<BR>
+by offering himself at a shamefully low price, in order to tempt the<BR>
+avarice of employers and peasants.</P>
+
+<P>And now for a week he had found nothing, and had no money left, and<BR>
+nothing to eat but a piece of bread, thanks to the charity of some<BR>
+women from whom he had begged at house doors on the road. It was<BR>
+getting dark, and Jacques Randel, jaded, his legs failing him, his<BR>
+stomach empty, and with despair in his heart, was walking barefoot on<BR>
+the grass by the side of the road, for he was taking care of his last<BR>
+pair of shoes, as the other pair had already ceased to exist for a<BR>
+long time. It was a Saturday, toward the end of autumn. The heavy gray<BR>
+clouds were being driven rapidly through the sky by the gusts of wind<BR>
+which whistled among the trees, and one felt that it would rain soon.<BR>
+The country was deserted at that hour on the eve of Sunday. Here and<BR>
+there in the fields there rose up stacks of wheat straw, like huge<BR>
+yellow mushrooms, and the fields looked bare, as they had already been<BR>
+sown for the next year.</P>
+
+<P>Randel was hungry, with the hunger of some wild animal, such a hunger<BR>
+as drives wolves to attack men. Worn out and weakened with fatigue, he<BR>
+took longer strides, so as not to take so many steps, and with heavy<BR>
+head, the blood throbbing in his temples, with red eyes and dry mouth,<BR>
+he grasped his stick tightly in his hand, with a longing to strike the<BR>
+first passerby who might be going home to supper.</P>
+
+<P>He looked at the sides of the road, imagining he saw potatoes dug up<BR>
+and lying on the ground before his eyes; if he had found any he would<BR>
+have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a<BR>
+capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would<BR>
+first of all have warmed his cold hands. But it was too late in the<BR>
+year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up<BR>
+in a field as he had done the day before.</P>
+
+<P>For the last two days he had talked to himself as he quickened his<BR>
+steps under the influence of his thoughts. He had never thought much<BR>
+hitherto, as he had given all his mind, all his simple faculties to<BR>
+his mechanical work. But now fatigue and this desperate search for<BR>
+work which he could not get, refusals and rebuffs, nights spent in the<BR>
+open air lying on the grass, long fasting, the contempt which he knew<BR>
+people with a settled abode felt for a vagabond, and that question<BR>
+which he was continually asked, "Why do you not remain at home?"<BR>
+distress at not being able to use his strong arms which he felt so<BR>
+full of vigor, the recollection of the relations he had left at home<BR>
+and who also had not a penny, filled him by degrees with rage, which<BR>
+had been accumulating every day, every hour, every minute, and which<BR>
+now escaped his lips in spite of himself in short, growling sentences.</P>
+
+<P>As he stumbled over the stones which tripped his bare feet, he<BR>
+grumbled: "How wretched! how miserable! A set of hogs--to let a man<BR>
+die of hunger--a carpenter--a set of hogs--not two sous--not two<BR>
+sous--and now it is raining--a set of hogs!"</P>
+
+<P>He was indignant at the injustice of fate, and cast the blame on men,<BR>
+on all men, because nature, that great, blind mother, is unjust, cruel<BR>
+and perfidious, and he repeated through his clenched teeth: "A set of<BR>
+hogs" as he looked at the thin gray smoke which rose from the roofs,<BR>
+for it was the dinner hour. And, without considering that there is<BR>
+another injustice which is human, and which is called robbery and<BR>
+violence, he felt inclined to go into one of those houses to murder<BR>
+the inhabitants and to sit down to table in their stead.</P>
+
+<P>He said to himself: "I have no right to live now, as they are letting<BR>
+me die of hunger, and yet I only ask for work--a set of hogs!" And the<BR>
+pain in his limbs, the gnawing in his heart rose to his head like<BR>
+terrible intoxication, and gave rise to this simple thought in his<BR>
+brain: "I have the right to live because I breathe and because the air<BR>
+is the common property of everybody. So nobody has the right to leave<BR>
+me without bread!"</P>
+
+<P>A fine, thick, icy cold rain was coming down, and he stopped and<BR>
+murmured: "Oh, misery! Another month of walking before I get home." He<BR>
+was indeed returning home then, for he saw that he should more easily<BR>
+find work in his native town, where he was known--and he did not mind<BR>
+what he did--than on the highroads, where everybody suspected him. As<BR>
+the carpentering business was not prosperous, he would turn day<BR>
+laborer, be a mason's hodman, a ditcher, break stones on the road. If<BR>
+he only earned a franc a day, that would at any rate buy him something<BR>
+to eat.</P>
+
+<P>He tied the remains of his last pocket handkerchief round his neck to<BR>
+prevent the cold rain from running down his back and chest, but he<BR>
+soon found that it was penetrating the thin material of which his<BR>
+clothes were made, and he glanced about him with the agonized look of<BR>
+a man who does not know where to hide his body and to rest his head,<BR>
+and has no place of shelter in the whole world.</P>
+
+<P>Night came on and wrapped the country in obscurity, and in the<BR>
+distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark spot on the grass; it was a cow,<BR>
+and so he got over the ditch by the roadside and went up to her<BR>
+without exactly knowing what he was doing. When he got close to her<BR>
+she raised her great head to him, and he thought: "If I only had a jug<BR>
+I could get a little milk." He looked at the cow and the cow looked at<BR>
+him, and then, suddenly giving her a kick in the side, he said: "Get<BR>
+up!"</P>
+
+<P>The animal got up slowly, letting her heavy udders hang down. Then the<BR>
+man lay down on his back between the animal's legs and drank for a<BR>
+long time, squeezing her warm, swollen teats, which tasted of the<BR>
+cowstall, with both hands, and he drank as long as she gave any milk.<BR>
+But the icy rain began to fall more heavily, and he saw no place of<BR>
+shelter on the whole of that bare plain. He was cold, and he looked at<BR>
+a light which was shining among the trees in the window of a house.</P>
+
+<P>The cow had lain down again heavily, and he sat down by her side and<BR>
+stroked her head, grateful for the nourishment she had given him. The<BR>
+animal's strong, thick breath, which came out of her nostrils like two<BR>
+jets of steam in the evening air, blew on the workman's face, and he<BR>
+said: "You are not cold inside there!" He put his hands on her chest<BR>
+and under her stomach to find some warmth there, and then the idea<BR>
+struck him that he might pass the night beside that large, warm<BR>
+animal. So he found a comfortable place and laid his head on her side,<BR>
+and then, as he was worn out with fatigue, fell asleep immediately.</P>
+
+<P>He woke up, however, several times, with his back or his stomach half<BR>
+frozen, according as he put one or the other against the animal's<BR>
+flank. Then he turned over to warm and dry that part of his body which<BR>
+had remained exposed to the night air, and soon went soundly to sleep<BR>
+again.</P>
+
+<P>The crowing of a cock woke him; the day was breaking, it was no longer<BR>
+raining, and the sky was bright. The cow was resting with her muzzle<BR>
+on the ground, and he stooped down, resting on his hands, to kiss<BR>
+those wide, moist nostrils, and said: "Good-by, my beauty, until next<BR>
+time. You are a nice animal. Good-by." Then he put on his shoes and<BR>
+went off, and for two hours walked straight before him, always<BR>
+following the same road, and then he felt so tired that he sat down on<BR>
+the grass. It was broad daylight by that time, and the church bells<BR>
+were ringing; men in blue blouses, women in white caps, some on foot,<BR>
+some in carts, began to pass along the road, going to the neighboring<BR>
+villages to spend Sunday with friends or relations.</P>
+
+<P>A stout peasant came in sight, driving before him a score of<BR>
+frightened, bleating sheep, with the help of an active dog. Randel got<BR>
+up, and raising his cap, said: "You do not happen to have any work for<BR>
+a man who is dying of hunger?" But the other, giving an angry look at<BR>
+the vagabond, replied: "I have no work for fellows whom I meet on the<BR>
+road."</P>
+
+<P>And the carpenter went back and sat down by the side of the ditch<BR>
+again. He waited there for a long time, watching the country people<BR>
+pass and looking for a kind, compassionate face before he renewed his<BR>
+request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was<BR>
+adorned with a gold chain. "I have been looking for work," he said,<BR>
+"for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in<BR>
+my pocket." But the would-be gentleman replied: "You should have read<BR>
+the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village: 'Begging<BR>
+is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.' Let me tell you<BR>
+that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly<BR>
+I shall have you arrested."</P>
+
+<P>Randel, who was getting angry, replied: "Have me arrested if you like;<BR>
+I should prefer it, for, at any rate, I should not die of hunger." And<BR>
+he went back and sat down by the side of his ditch again, and in about<BR>
+a quarter of an hour two gendarmes appeared on the road. They were<BR>
+walking slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining<BR>
+hats, their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to<BR>
+frighten evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance. He knew<BR>
+that they were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was<BR>
+seized with a sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and<BR>
+to have his revenge later.</P>
+
+<P>They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with<BR>
+military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the<BR>
+goose step; and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have<BR>
+noticed him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly,<BR>
+and the brigadier came up to him and asked: "What are you doing here?"<BR>
+"I am resting," the man replied calmly. "Where do you come from?" "If<BR>
+I had to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more<BR>
+than an hour." "Where are you going to?" "To Ville-Avary." "Where is<BR>
+that?" "In La Manche." "Is that where you belong?" "It is." "Why did<BR>
+you leave it?" "To look for work."</P>
+
+<P>The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a<BR>
+man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick: "They all say<BR>
+that, these scamps. I know all about it." And then he continued: "Have<BR>
+you any papers?" "Yes, I have some." "Give them to me."</P>
+
+<P>Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those<BR>
+poor, worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave<BR>
+them to the soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and<BR>
+then, having seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to<BR>
+Randel with the dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than<BR>
+himself has tricked.</P>
+
+<P>After a few moments' further reflection, he asked him: "Have you any<BR>
+money on you?" "No." "None whatever?" "None." "Not even a sou?" "Not<BR>
+even a sou!" "How do you live then?" "On what people give me." "Then<BR>
+you beg?" And Randel answered resolutely: "Yes, when I can."</P>
+
+<P>Then the gendarme said: "I have caught you on the highroad in the act<BR>
+of vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I<BR>
+command you to come with me." The carpenter got up and said: "Wherever<BR>
+you please." And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even<BR>
+before he had received the order to do so, he added: "Well, lock me<BR>
+up; that will at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains."</P>
+
+<P>And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be<BR>
+seen through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service<BR>
+was about to begin when they went through the village. The square was<BR>
+full of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal<BR>
+pass. He was being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and<BR>
+female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with<BR>
+hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his<BR>
+skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked<BR>
+each other whether he had committed murder or robbery. The butcher,<BR>
+who was an ex-spahi, declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist<BR>
+thought that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning<BR>
+passed a bad half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared<BR>
+that he was the murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been<BR>
+looking for for six months.</P>
+
+<P>In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw<BR>
+the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the<BR>
+schoolmaster by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so<BR>
+here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you<BR>
+locked up. Well, brigadier, what is he charged with?"</P>
+
+<P>"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without<BR>
+any resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of<BR>
+begging, but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are<BR>
+all in order."</P>
+
+<P>"Show me his papers," the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread,<BR>
+returned them and then said: "Search him." So they searched him, but<BR>
+found nothing, and the mayor seemed perplexed, and asked the workman:</P>
+
+<P>"What were you doing on the road this morning?" "I was looking for<BR>
+work." "Work? On the highroad?" "How do you expect me to find any if I<BR>
+hide in the woods?"</P>
+
+<P>They looked at each other with the hatred of two wild beasts which<BR>
+belong to different hostile species, and the magistrate continued: "I<BR>
+am going to have you set at liberty, but do not be brought up before<BR>
+me again." To which the carpenter replied: "I would rather you locked<BR>
+me up; I have had enough running about the country." But the<BR>
+magistrate replied severely: "Be silent." And then he said to the two<BR>
+gendarmes: "You will conduct this man two hundred yards from the<BR>
+village and let him continue his journey."</P>
+
+<P>"At any rate, give me something to eat," the workman said, but the<BR>
+other grew indignant: "Have we nothing to do but to feed you? Ah! ah!<BR>
+ah! that is rather too much!" But Randel went on firmly: "If you let<BR>
+me nearly die of hunger again, you will force me to commit a crime,<BR>
+and then, so much the worse for you other fat fellows."</P>
+
+<P>The mayor had risen and he repeated: "Take him away immediately or I<BR>
+shall end by getting angry."</P>
+
+<P>The two gendarmes thereupon seized the carpenter by the arms and<BR>
+dragged him out. He allowed them to do it without resistance, passed<BR>
+through the village again and found himself on the highroad once more;<BR>
+and when the men had accompanied him two hundred yards beyond the<BR>
+village, the brigadier said: "Now off with you and do not let me catch<BR>
+you about here again, for if I do, you will know it."</P>
+
+<P>Randel went off without replying or knowing where he was going. He<BR>
+walked on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied<BR>
+that he no longer thought of anything. But suddenly, as he was passing<BR>
+a small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup<BR>
+and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring,<BR>
+maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of<BR>
+the house like a wild beast.</P>
+
+<P>He said aloud in a grumbling voice: "In Heaven's name! they must give<BR>
+me some this time!" And he began to knock at the door vigorously with<BR>
+his stick, and as no one came he knocked louder and called out: "Hey!<BR>
+hey! you people in there, open the door!" And then, as nothing<BR>
+stirred, he went up to the window and pushed it wider open with his<BR>
+hand, and the close warm air of the kitchen, full of the smell of hot<BR>
+soup, meat and cabbage, escaped into the cold outer air, and with a<BR>
+bound the carpenter was in the house. Two places were set at the<BR>
+table, and no doubt the proprietors of the house, on going to church,<BR>
+had left their dinner on the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef and<BR>
+vegetable soup, while there was a loaf of new bread on the<BR>
+chimney-piece, between two bottles which seemed full.</P>
+
+<P>Randel seized the bread first of all and broke it with as much<BR>
+violence as if he were strangling a man, and then he began to eat<BR>
+voraciously, swallowing great mouthfuls quickly. But almost<BR>
+immediately the smell of the meat attracted him to the fireplace, and,<BR>
+having taken off the lid of the saucepan, he plunged a fork into it<BR>
+and brought out a large piece of beef tied with a string. Then he took<BR>
+more cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, having<BR>
+put it on the table, he sat down before it, cut the meat into four<BR>
+pieces, and dined as if he had been at home. When he had eaten nearly<BR>
+all the meat, besides a quantity of vegetables, he felt thirsty and<BR>
+took one of the bottles off the mantelpiece.</P>
+
+<P>Scarcely had he poured the liquor into his glass when he saw it was<BR>
+brandy. So much the better; it was warming and would instill some fire<BR>
+into his veins, and that would be all right, after being so cold; and<BR>
+he drank some. He certainly enjoyed it, for he had grown unaccustomed<BR>
+to it, and he poured himself out another glassful, which he drank at<BR>
+two gulps. And then almost immediately he felt quite merry and<BR>
+light-hearted from the effects of the alcohol, just as if some great<BR>
+happiness filled his heart.</P>
+
+<P>He continued to eat, but more slowly, and dipping his bread into the<BR>
+soup. His skin had become burning, and especially his forehead, where<BR>
+the veins were throbbing. But suddenly the church bells began to ring.<BR>
+Mass was over, and instinct rather than fear, the instinct of<BR>
+prudence, which guides all beings and makes them clear-sighted in<BR>
+danger, made the carpenter get up. He put the remains of the loaf into<BR>
+one pocket and the brandy bottle into the other, and he furtively went<BR>
+to the window and looked out into the road. It was still deserted, so<BR>
+he jumped out and set off walking again, but instead of following the<BR>
+highroad he ran across the fields toward a wood he saw a little way<BR>
+off.</P>
+
+<P>He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so<BR>
+nimble that he sprang over the enclosure of the fields at a single<BR>
+bound, and as soon as he was under the trees he took the bottle out of<BR>
+his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as<BR>
+he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew<BR>
+dim, and his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the<BR>
+old popular song:</P>
+
+<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Oh! what joy, what joy it is, <BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."</i> </P>
+
+<P>He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet<BR>
+under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels<BR>
+as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault,<BR>
+got up and began over again. And between each time he began to sing<BR>
+again:</P>
+
+<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Oh! what joy, what joy it is, <BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."</i> </P>
+
+<P>Suddenly he found himself above a deep road, and in the road he saw a<BR>
+tall girl, a servant, who was returning to the village with two pails<BR>
+of milk. He watched, stooping down, and with his eyes as bright as<BR>
+those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him, raised her head<BR>
+and said: "Was that you singing like that?" He did not reply, however,<BR>
+but jumped down into the road, although it was a fall of at least six<BR>
+feet and when she saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she<BR>
+exclaimed: "Oh! dear, how you frightened me!"</P>
+
+<P>But he did not hear her, for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by<BR>
+another requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more<BR>
+feverish than alcohol; by the irresistible fury of the man who has<BR>
+been deprived of everything for two months, and who is drunk; who is<BR>
+young, ardent and inflamed by all the appetites which nature has<BR>
+implanted in the vigorous flesh of men.</P>
+
+<P>The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his<BR>
+half-open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the<BR>
+shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.</P>
+
+<P>She let her two pails fall, and they rolled over noisily, and all the<BR>
+milk was spilt, and then she screamed lustily, but it was of no avail<BR>
+in that lonely spot.</P>
+
+<P>When she got up the thought of her overturned pails suddenly filled<BR>
+her with fury, and, taking off one of her wooden sabots, she threw it<BR>
+at the man to break his head if he did not pay her for her milk.</P>
+
+<P>But he, mistaking the reason of this sudden violent attack, somewhat<BR>
+sobered, and frightened at what he had done, ran off as fast as he<BR>
+could, while she threw stones at him, some of which hit him in the<BR>
+back.</P>
+
+<P>He ran for a long time, very long, until he felt more tired than he<BR>
+had ever been before. His legs were so weak that they could scarcely<BR>
+carry him; all his ideas were confused, he lost recollection of<BR>
+everything and could no longer think about anything, and so he sat<BR>
+down at the foot of a tree, and in five minutes was fast asleep. He<BR>
+was soon awakened, however, by a rough shake, and, on opening his<BR>
+eyes, he saw two cocked hats of shiny leather bending over him, and<BR>
+the two gendarmes of the morning, who were holding him and binding his<BR>
+arms.</P>
+
+<P>"I knew I should catch you again," said the brigadier jeeringly. But<BR>
+Randel got up without replying. The two men shook him, quite ready to<BR>
+ill treat him if he made a movement, for he was their prey now. He had<BR>
+become a jailbird, caught by those hunters of criminals who would not<BR>
+let him go again.</P>
+
+<P>"Now, start!" the brigadier said, and they set off. It was late<BR>
+afternoon, and the autumn twilight was setting in over the land, and<BR>
+in half an hour they reached the village, where every door was open,<BR>
+for the people had heard what had happened. Peasants and peasant women<BR>
+and girls, excited with anger, as if every man had been robbed and<BR>
+every woman attacked, wished to see the wretch brought back, so that<BR>
+they might overwhelm him with abuse. They hooted him from the first<BR>
+house in the village until they reached the Hotel de Ville, where the<BR>
+mayor was waiting for him to be himself avenged on this vagabond, and<BR>
+as soon as he saw him approaching he cried:</P>
+
+<P>"Ah! my fine fellow! here we are!" And he rubbed his hands, more<BR>
+pleased than he usually was, and continued: "I said so. I said so, the<BR>
+moment I saw him in the road."</P>
+
+<P>And then with increased satisfaction:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you dirty blackguard! You will get your<BR>
+twenty years, my fine fellow!"</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="fish">THE FISHING HOLE</a></h3>
+
+<P>"Cuts and wounds which caused death." Such was the charge upon which<BR>
+Leopold Renard, upholsterer, was summoned before the Court of Assizes.</P>
+
+<P>Round him were the principal witnesses, Madame Flam&egrave;che, widow of the<BR>
+victim, and Louis Ladureau, cabinetmaker, and Jean Durdent, plumber.</P>
+
+<P>Near the criminal was his wife, dressed in black, an ugly little<BR>
+woman, who looked like a monkey dressed as a lady.</P>
+
+<P>This is how Renard (Leopold) recounted the drama:</P>
+
+<P>"Good heavens, it is a misfortune of which I was the prime victim all<BR>
+the time, and with which my will has nothing to do. The facts are<BR>
+their own commentary, Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident. I am an honest man, a<BR>
+hard-working man, an upholsterer, living in the same street for the<BR>
+last sixteen years, known, liked, respected and esteemed by all, as my<BR>
+neighbors can testify, even the porter's wife, who is not amiable<BR>
+every day. I am fond of work, I am fond of saving, I like honest men<BR>
+and respectable amusements. That is what has ruined me, so much the<BR>
+worse for me; but as my will had nothing to do with it, I continue to<BR>
+respect myself.</P>
+
+<P>"Every Sunday for the last five years my wife and I have spent the day<BR>
+at Passy. We get fresh air, and, besides, we are fond of fishing. Oh!<BR>
+we are as fond of it as we are of little onions. M&eacute;lie inspired me<BR>
+with that enthusiasm, the jade, and she is more enthusiastic than I<BR>
+am, the scold, seeing that all the mischief in this business is her<BR>
+fault, as you will see immediately.</P>
+
+<P>"I am strong and mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me.<BR>
+But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin.<BR>
+Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that<BR>
+she has some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones for<BR>
+a man in business. But her character! Just ask about it in the<BR>
+neighborhood, and even the porter's wife, who has just sent me about<BR>
+my business ... she will tell you something about it.</P>
+
+<P>"Every day she used to find fault with my mild temper: 'I would not<BR>
+put up with this! I would not put up with that.' If I had listened to<BR>
+her, Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident, I should have had at least three<BR>
+hand-to-hand fights a month...."</P>
+
+<P>Madame Renard interrupted him: "And for good reasons, too; they laugh<BR>
+best who laugh last."</P>
+
+<P>He turned toward her frankly: "Well, I can't blame you, since you were<BR>
+not the cause of it."</P>
+
+<P>Then, facing the President again, he said:</P>
+
+<P>"I will continue. We used to go to Passy every Saturday evening, so as<BR>
+to begin fishing at daybreak the next morning. It is a habit which has<BR>
+become second nature with us, as the saying is. Three years ago this<BR>
+summer I discovered a place, oh! such a spot. Oh, dear, dear! In the<BR>
+shade, eight feet of water at least and perhaps ten, a hole with<BR>
+cavities under the bank, a regular nest for fish and a paradise for<BR>
+the fisherman. I might look upon that fishing hole as my property,<BR>
+Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident, as I was its Christopher Columbus. Everybody in<BR>
+the neighborhood knew it, without making any opposition. They would<BR>
+say: 'That is Renard's place'; and nobody would have gone there, not<BR>
+even Monsieur Plumeau, who is well known, be it said without any<BR>
+offense, for poaching on other people's preserves.</P>
+
+<P>"Well, I returned to this place of which I felt certain, just as if I<BR>
+had owned it. I had scarcely got there on Saturday, when I got into<BR>
+<i>Delila</i>, with my wife. <i>Delila</i> is my Norwegian boat, which<BR>
+I had built by Fournaire, and which is light and safe. Well, as I<BR>
+said, we got into the boat and we were going to set bait, and for<BR>
+setting bait there is none to be compared with me, and they all know<BR>
+it. You want to know with what I bait? I cannot answer that question;<BR>
+it has nothing to do with the accident. I cannot answer; that is my<BR>
+secret. There are more than three hundred people who have asked me; I<BR>
+have been offered glasses of brandy and liqueur, fried fish,<BR>
+matelotes, to make me tell. But just go and try whether the chub will<BR>
+come. Ah! they have tempted my stomach to get at my secret, my recipe.<BR>
+Only my wife knows, and she will not tell it any more than I will. Is<BR>
+not that so, M&eacute;lie?"</P>
+
+<P>The president of the court interrupted him.</P>
+
+<P>"Just get to the facts as soon as you can," and the accused continued:<BR>
+"I am getting to them, I am getting to them. Well, on Saturday, July<BR>
+8, we left by the twenty-five past five train and before dinner we<BR>
+went to set bait as usual. The weather promised to keep fine and I<BR>
+said to M&eacute;lie: 'All right for tomorrow.' And she replied: 'It looks<BR>
+like it.' We never talk more than that together.</P>
+
+<P>"And then we returned to dinner. I was happy and thirsty, and that was<BR>
+the cause of everything. I said to M&eacute;lie: 'Look here, M&eacute;lie, it is<BR>
+fine weather, suppose I drink a bottle of <i>Casque &agrave; m&egrave;che</i>.' That<BR>
+is a weak white wine which we have christened so, because if you drink<BR>
+too much of it it prevents you from sleeping and takes the place of a<BR>
+nightcap. Do you understand me?</P>
+
+<P>"She replied: 'You can do as you please, but you will be ill again and<BR>
+will not be able to get up tomorrow.' That was true, sensible and<BR>
+prudent, clearsighted, I must confess. Nevertheless I could not<BR>
+resist, and I drank my bottle. It all came from that.</P>
+
+<P>"Well, I could not sleep. By Jove! it kept me awake till two o'clock<BR>
+in the morning, and then I went to sleep so soundly that I should not<BR>
+have heard the angel sounding his trump at the last Judgment.</P>
+
+<P>"In short, my wife woke me at six o'clock and I jumped out of bed,<BR>
+hastily put on my trousers and jersey, washed my face and jumped on<BR>
+board <i>Delila</i>. But it was too late, for when I arrived at my<BR>
+hole it was already occupied! Such a thing had never happened to me in<BR>
+three years, and it made me feel as if I were being robbed under my<BR>
+own eyes. I said to myself: 'Confound it all! confound it!' And then<BR>
+my wife began to nag at me. 'Eh! what about your <i>Casque &agrave;<BR>
+m&egrave;che?</i> Get along, you drunkard! Are you satisfied, you great<BR>
+fool?' I could say nothing, because it was all true, but I landed all<BR>
+the same near the spot and tried to profit by what was left. Perhaps<BR>
+after all the fellow might catch nothing and go away.</P>
+
+<P>"He was a little thin man in white linen coat and waistcoat and a<BR>
+large straw hat, and his wife, a fat woman, doing embroidery, sat<BR>
+behind him.</P>
+
+<P>"When she saw us take up our position close to them she murmured: 'Are<BR>
+there no other places on the river?' My wife, who was furious,<BR>
+replied: 'People who have any manners make inquiries about the habits<BR>
+of the neighborhood before occupying reserved spots.'</P>
+
+<P>"As I did not want a fuss, I said to her: 'Hold your tongue, M&eacute;lie.<BR>
+Let them alone, let them alone; we shall see.'</P>
+
+<P>"Well, we fastened <i>Delila</i> under the willows and had landed and<BR>
+were fishing side by side, M&eacute;lie and I, close to the two others. But<BR>
+here, monsieur, I must enter into details.</P>
+
+<P>"We had only been there about five minutes when our neighbor's line<BR>
+began to jerk twice, thrice, and then he pulled out a chub as thick as<BR>
+my thigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, the<BR>
+perspiration stood on my forehead and M&eacute;lie said to me: 'Well, you<BR>
+sot, did you see that?'</P>
+
+<P>"Just then Monsieur Bru, the grocer of Poissy, who is fond of gudgeon<BR>
+fishing, passed in a boat and called out to me: 'So somebody has taken<BR>
+your usual place, Monsieur Renard?' And I replied--: 'Yes, Monsieur<BR>
+Bru, there are some people in this world who do not know the rules of<BR>
+common politeness.'</P>
+
+<P>"The little man in linen pretended not to hear, nor his fat lump of a<BR>
+wife, either."</P>
+
+<P>Here the president interrupted him a second time: "Take care, you are<BR>
+insulting the widow, Madame Flam&egrave;che, who is present."</P>
+
+<P>Renard made his excuses: "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; my<BR>
+anger carried me away. Well, not a quarter of an hour had passed when<BR>
+the little man caught another chub, and another almost immediately,<BR>
+and another five minutes later.</P>
+
+<P>"Tears were in my eyes, and I knew that Madame Renard was boiling with<BR>
+rage, for she kept on nagging at me: 'Oh, how horrid! Don't you see<BR>
+that he is robbing you of your fish? Do you think that you will catch<BR>
+anything? Not even a frog, nothing whatever. Why, my hands are<BR>
+tingling, just to think of it.'</P>
+
+<P>"But I said to myself: 'Let us wait until twelve o'clock. Then this<BR>
+poacher will go to lunch and I shall get my place again. As for me,<BR>
+Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident, I lunch on that spot every Sunday. We bring our<BR>
+provisions in <i>Delila</i>. But there! At noon the wretch produced a<BR>
+chicken in a newspaper, and while he was eating, he actually caught<BR>
+another chub!</P>
+
+<P>"M&eacute;lie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for our<BR>
+heart was not in it.</P>
+
+<P>"Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion. Every Sunday I read<BR>
+the <i>Gil Blas</i> in the shade by the side of the water. It is<BR>
+Columbine's day, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in<BR>
+the <i>Gil Blas</i>. I generally put Madame Renard into a rage by<BR>
+pretending to know this Columbine. It is not true, for I do not know<BR>
+her and have never seen her, but that does not matter. She writes very<BR>
+well, and then she says things that are pretty plain for a woman. She<BR>
+suits me and there are not many of her sort.</P>
+
+<P>"Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and<BR>
+very angry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who<BR>
+are present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on<BR>
+the other side of the river. We knew each other by sight The little<BR>
+man began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with<BR>
+vexation and his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we<BR>
+will come here always, D&eacute;sir&eacute;.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my<BR>
+back, and Madame Renard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have<BR>
+the blood of a chicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her:<BR>
+'Look here, I would rather go away or I shall be doing something<BR>
+foolish.'</P>
+
+<P>"And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my<BR>
+nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender<BR>
+your place! Go, then, Bazaine!'</P>
+
+<P>"I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled<BR>
+out a bream. Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then<BR>
+my wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see<BR>
+her tricks. She said: 'That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing<BR>
+that we set the bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us<BR>
+back the money we have spent on bait.'</P>
+
+<P>"Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean<BR>
+to call us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments<BR>
+began to fly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They<BR>
+shouted so loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank,<BR>
+began to call out by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will<BR>
+interfere with your husbands' fishing.'</P>
+
+<P>"The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if<BR>
+we had been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on<BR>
+the water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the<BR>
+same. 'You are a thief! You are nothing better than a tramp! You are a<BR>
+regular jade!' and so on and so on. A sailor could not have said more.</P>
+
+<P>"Suddenly I heard a noise behind me and turned round. It was the other<BR>
+one, the fat woman, who had attacked my wife with her parasol.<BR>
+<i>Whack, whack!</i> M&eacute;lie got two of them. But she was furious, and<BR>
+she hits hard when she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the<BR>
+hair and then <i>thump! thump!</i> slaps in the face rained down like<BR>
+ripe plums. I should have let them fight it out: women together, men<BR>
+together. It does not do to mix the blows. But the little man in the<BR>
+linen jacket jumped up like a devil and was going to rush at my wife.<BR>
+Ah! no, no, not that, my friend! I caught the gentleman with the end<BR>
+of my fist, and <i>crash! crash!</i> One on the nose, the other in the<BR>
+stomach. He threw up his arms and legs and fell on his back into the<BR>
+river, just into the hole.</P>
+
+<P>"I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le Pr&eacute;sident,<BR>
+if I had had time. But, to make matters worse, the fat woman had the<BR>
+upper hand and was pounding M&eacute;lie for all she was worth. I know I<BR>
+ought not to have interfered while the man was in the water, but I<BR>
+never thought that he would drown and said to myself: 'Bah, it will<BR>
+cool him.'</P>
+
+<P>"I therefore ran up to the women to separate them and all I received<BR>
+was scratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me<BR>
+five minutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragos. When I<BR>
+turned round there was nothing to be seen. The water was as smooth as<BR>
+a lake and the others yonder kept shouting: 'Fish him out! fish him<BR>
+out!' It was all very well to say that, but I cannot swim and still<BR>
+less dive.</P>
+
+<P>"At last the man from the dam came and two gentlemen with boathooks,<BR>
+but over a quarter of an hour had passed. He was found at the bottom<BR>
+of the hole, in eight feet of water, as I have said. There he was, the<BR>
+poor little man, in his linen suit! Those are the facts such as I have<BR>
+sworn to. I am innocent, on my honor."</P>
+
+<P>The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused<BR>
+was acquitted.</P>
+
+<hr>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="spas">THE SPASM</a></h3>
+
+<P>The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places.<BR>
+The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers<BR>
+a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second<BR>
+time. The old bathers, the habitu&eacute;s, whose season was almost over,<BR>
+glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new<BR>
+faces might appear.</P>
+
+<P>This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look<BR>
+forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new<BR>
+arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.<BR>
+We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make<BR>
+agreeable acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In<BR>
+this life of elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme<BR>
+importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself,<BR>
+and sociability is the order of the day.</P>
+
+<P>We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see<BR>
+people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of<BR>
+acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly,<BR>
+after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in<BR>
+the park where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and<BR>
+astonishing merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten<BR>
+these new friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.</P>
+
+<P>Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere<BR>
+else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very<BR>
+quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and<BR>
+unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the<BR>
+dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the<BR>
+memory of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of<BR>
+those first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and<BR>
+secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of<BR>
+that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation<BR>
+of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in<BR>
+return.</P>
+
+<P>And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are<BR>
+all alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.</P>
+
+<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</P>
+
+<P>Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the<BR>
+appearance of strange faces.</P>
+
+<P>Only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man and a<BR>
+woman--father and daughter. They immediately reminded me of some<BR>
+of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm,<BR>
+the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims<BR>
+of fate. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with perfectly<BR>
+white hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy;<BR>
+and there was in his bearing and in his person that austerity<BR>
+peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four<BR>
+or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was also very thin, very<BR>
+pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out with utter lassitude.<BR>
+We meet people like this from time to time, who seem too weak for<BR>
+the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to<BR>
+walk, to do all that we do every day. She was rather pretty, with a<BR>
+transparent, spiritual beauty. And she ate with extreme slowness, as if<BR>
+she were almost incapable of moving her arms.</P>
+
+<P>It must have been she, assuredly, who had come to take the waters.</P>
+
+<P>They sat facing me, on the opposite side of the table; and I at once<BR>
+noticed that the father had a very singular, nervous twitching.</P>
+
+<P>Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of<BR>
+zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and<BR>
+after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside<BR>
+my head in order not to see it.</P>
+
+<P>I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her<BR>
+left hand.</P>
+
+<P>After dinner I went for a stroll in the park of the bathing<BR>
+establishment. This led toward the little Auvergnese station of<BR>
+Ch&acirc;tel-Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, from<BR>
+which flowed so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of<BR>
+extinct volcanoes. Over yonder, above our heads, the domes of extinct<BR>
+craters lifted their ragged peaks above the rest in the long mountain<BR>
+chain. For Ch&acirc;tel-Guyon is situated at the entrance to the land of<BR>
+mountain domes.</P>
+
+<P>Beyond it stretches out the region of peaks, and, farther on again,<BR>
+the region of precipitous summits.</P>
+
+<P>The "Puy de D&ocirc;me" is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is<BR>
+the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these<BR>
+mountain heights.</P>
+
+<P>It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down a shady<BR>
+path, listening to the opening strains of the Casino band, which was<BR>
+playing on an elevation overlooking the park.</P>
+
+<P>And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my<BR>
+direction. I bowed as one bows to one's hotel companions at a watering<BR>
+place; and the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me:</P>
+
+<P>"Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short,<BR>
+pretty, and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?"</P>
+
+<P>I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the<BR>
+little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall,<BR>
+craggy, wooded slopes.</P>
+
+<P>They gladly accepted my offer.</P>
+
+<P>And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.</P>
+
+<P>"Oh," he said, "my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is<BR>
+unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one<BR>
+time the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another<BR>
+time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another<BR>
+they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean<BR>
+malady, that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack,<BR>
+is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator<BR>
+of the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather<BR>
+inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad."</P>
+
+<P>Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his<BR>
+hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:</P>
+
+<P>"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves<BR>
+somewhat affected?"</P>
+
+<P>He replied calmly:</P>
+
+<P>"Mine? Oh, no--my nerves have always been very steady."</P>
+
+<P>Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on:</P>
+
+<P>"Ah! You were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I<BR>
+try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience<BR>
+which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually buried<BR>
+alive!"</P>
+
+<P>I could only utter, "Ah!" so great were my astonishment and emotion.</P>
+
+<P>He continued:</P>
+
+<P>"Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some<BR>
+time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease<BR>
+of that organ, and were prepared for the worst.</P>
+
+<P>"One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had<BR>
+fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life<BR>
+was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid<BR>
+her with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the<BR>
+cemetery, where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated<BR>
+in the very heart of Lorraine.</P>
+
+<P>"I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces,<BR>
+rings, all presents which she had received from me, and wearing her<BR>
+first ball dress.</P>
+
+<P>"You may easily imagine my state of mind when I re-entered our home.<BR>
+She was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many years.<BR>
+I found my way to my own apartment in a half-distracted condition,<BR>
+utterly exhausted, and sank into my easy-chair, without the capacity<BR>
+to think or the strength to move. I was nothing better now than a<BR>
+suffering, vibrating machine, a human being who had, as it were, been<BR>
+flayed alive; my soul was like an open wound.</P>
+
+<P>"My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her<BR>
+coffin, and aided me in preparing her for her last sleep, entered the<BR>
+room noiselessly, and asked:</P>
+
+<P>"'Does monsieur want anything?'</P>
+
+<P>"I merely shook my head in reply.</P>
+
+<P>"'Monsieur is wrong,' he urged. 'He will injure his health. Would<BR>
+monsieur like me to put him to bed?'</P>
+
+<P>"I answered: 'No, let me alone!'</P>
+
+<P>"And he left the room.</P>
+
+<P>"I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh, what a night, what a<BR>
+night! It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the<BR>
+wind, the winter wind, an icy wind, a winter hurricane, blew with a<BR>
+regular, sinister noise against the windows.</P>
+
+<P>"How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless,<BR>
+crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp,<BR>
+inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great<BR>
+doorbell, the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.</P>
+
+<P>"I started so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous<BR>
+sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a vault. I<BR>
+turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was just two in<BR>
+the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?</P>
+
+<P>"And, abruptly, the bell again rang twice. The servants, without<BR>
+doubt, were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle and descended the<BR>
+stairs. I was on the point of asking: 'Who is there?'</P>
+
+<P>"Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the heavy<BR>
+bolts. My heart was throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the<BR>
+door brusquely, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure,<BR>
+standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.</P>
+
+<P>"I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering:</P>
+
+<P>"'Who--who--who are you?'</P>
+
+<P>"A voice replied:</P>
+
+<P>"'It is I, father.'</P>
+
+<P>"It was my daughter.</P>
+
+<P>"I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before this<BR>
+advancing spectre. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand,<BR>
+as if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have<BR>
+noticed--that gesture which has remained with me ever since.</P>
+
+<P>"'Do not be afraid, papa,' said the apparition. 'I was not dead.<BR>
+Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut one of my fingers; the blood<BR>
+began to flow, and that restored me to life.'</P>
+
+<P>"And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.</P>
+
+<P>"I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my<BR>
+throat.</P>
+
+<P>"Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still<BR>
+so bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome happiness that<BR>
+had befallen me, I made her go up to my room and sit down in my<BR>
+easy-chair; then I rang excitedly for Prosper to get him to rekindle<BR>
+the fire and to bring some wine, and to summon assistance.</P>
+
+<P>"The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp<BR>
+of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead.</P>
+
+<P>"It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then<BR>
+abandoned my daughter; for he could not efface the traces of the<BR>
+theft. He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into<BR>
+its place, feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by<BR>
+me, as I trusted him absolutely.</P>
+
+<P>"You see, monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people."</P>
+
+<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</P>
+
+<P>He was silent.</P>
+
+<P>The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful<BR>
+vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by<BR>
+the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back<BR>
+from the tomb, and this father with his uncanny spasm.</P>
+
+<P>I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I<BR>
+only murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"What a horrible thing!"</P>
+
+<P>Then, after a minute's silence, I added:</P>
+
+<P>"Let us go indoors. I think it is growing cool."</P>
+
+<P>And we made our way back to the hotel.</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="wood">IN THE WOOD</a></h3>
+
+<P>As the mayor was about to sit down to breakfast, word was brought to<BR>
+him that the rural policeman, with two prisoners, was awaiting him at<BR>
+the Hotel de Ville. He went there at once and found old Hochedur<BR>
+standing guard before a middle-class couple whom he was regarding with<BR>
+a severe expression on his face.</P>
+
+<P>The man, a fat old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed<BR>
+utterly dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout individual with<BR>
+shining cheeks, looked at the official who had arrested them, with<BR>
+defiant eyes.</P>
+
+<P>"What is it? What is it, Hochedur?"</P>
+
+<P>The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning<BR>
+at his usual time, in order to patrol his beat from the forest of<BR>
+Champioux as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed<BR>
+anything unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and<BR>
+that the wheat was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was<BR>
+going over his vines, called out to him: "Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and<BR>
+have a look at the outskirts of the wood. In the first thicket you<BR>
+will find a pair of pigeons who must be a hundred and thirty years old<BR>
+between them!"</P>
+
+<P>He went in the direction indicated, entered the thicket, and there he<BR>
+heard words which made him suspect a flagrant breach of morality.<BR>
+Advancing, therefore, on his hands and knees as if to surprise a<BR>
+poacher, he had arrested the couple whom he found there.</P>
+
+<P>The mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was<BR>
+certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and he began to<BR>
+question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak<BR>
+voice that he could scarcely be heard.</P>
+
+<P>"What is your name?"</P>
+
+<P>"Nicholas Beaurain."</P>
+
+<P>"Your occupation?"</P>
+
+<P>"Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris."</P>
+
+<P>"What were you doing in the wood?"</P>
+
+<P>The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat paunch, and<BR>
+his hands hanging at his sides, and the mayor continued:</P>
+
+<P>"Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?"</P>
+
+<P>"No, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"So you confess it?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"What have you to say in your defence?"</P>
+
+<P>"Nothing, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"Where did you meet the partner in your misdemeanor?"</P>
+
+<P>"She is my wife, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"Your wife?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, monsieur."</P>
+
+<P>"Then--then--you do not live together--in Paris?"</P>
+
+<P>"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but we are living together!"</P>
+
+<P>"But in that case--you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to<BR>
+get caught playing lovers in the country at ten o'clock in the<BR>
+morning."</P>
+
+<P>The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he muttered: "It<BR>
+was she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a<BR>
+woman once gets a thing into her head--you know--you cannot get it<BR>
+out."</P>
+
+<P>The mayor, who liked a joke, smiled and replied: "In your case, the<BR>
+contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had had<BR>
+the idea only in her head."</P>
+
+<P>Then Monsieur Beaurain was seized with rage, and turning to his wife,<BR>
+he said: "Do you see to what you have brought us with your poetry? And<BR>
+now we shall have to go before the courts at our age, for a breach of<BR>
+morals! And we shall have to shut up the shop, sell our good will, and<BR>
+go to some other neighborhood! That's what it has come to."</P>
+
+<P>Madame Beaurain got up, and without looking at her husband, she<BR>
+explained herself without embarrassment, without useless modesty, and<BR>
+almost without hesitation.</P>
+
+<P>"Of course, monsieur, I know that we have made ourselves ridiculous.<BR>
+Will you allow me to plead my cause like an advocate, or rather like a<BR>
+poor woman? And I hope that you will be kind enough to send us home,<BR>
+and to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.</P>
+
+<P>"Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance<BR>
+one Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop,<BR>
+and I was a saleswoman in a ready-made clothing establishment. I<BR>
+remember it as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays<BR>
+here occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Lev&egrave;que, with whom I<BR>
+lived in the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had none.<BR>
+He used to bring us here, and one Saturday he told me laughing that he<BR>
+should bring a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what<BR>
+he meant, but I replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous,<BR>
+monsieur.</P>
+
+<P>"The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in<BR>
+those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to<BR>
+encourage him, and I did not. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a<BR>
+lovely day, the sort of day that touches your heart. When it is fine<BR>
+even now, just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and<BR>
+when I am in the country I utterly lose my head. The green grass, the<BR>
+swallows flying so swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet<BR>
+poppies, the daisies, all that makes me crazy. It is like champagne<BR>
+when one is not accustomed to it!</P>
+
+<P>"Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to<BR>
+penetrate your body through your eyes when you looked, and through<BR>
+your mouth when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each<BR>
+other every minute, and that gave me a queer feeling! Monsieur<BR>
+Beaurain and I walked behind them, without speaking much, for when<BR>
+people do not know each other, they do not find anything to talk<BR>
+about. He looked timid, and I liked to see his embarrassment. At last<BR>
+we got to the little wood; it was as cool as in a bath there, and we<BR>
+four sat down. Rose and her lover teased me because I looked rather<BR>
+stern, but you will understand that I could not be otherwise. And then<BR>
+they began to kiss and hug again, without putting any more restraint<BR>
+upon themselves than if we had not been there; and then they whispered<BR>
+together, and got up and went off among the trees, without saying a<BR>
+word. You may fancy what I looked like, alone with this young fellow<BR>
+whom I saw for the first time. I felt so confused at seeing them go<BR>
+that it gave me courage, and I began to talk. I asked him what his<BR>
+business was, and he said he was a linen draper's assistant, as I told<BR>
+you just now. We talked for a few minutes, and that made him bold, and<BR>
+he wanted to take liberties with me, but I told him sharply to keep<BR>
+his place. Is not that true, Monsieur Beaurain?"</P>
+
+<P>Monsieur Beaurain, who was looking at his feet in confusion, did not<BR>
+reply, and she continued: "Then he saw that I was virtuous, and he<BR>
+began to make love to me nicely, like an honorable man, and from that<BR>
+time he came every Sunday, for he was very much in love with me. I was<BR>
+very fond of him also, very fond of him! He was a good-looking fellow,<BR>
+formerly, and in short he married me the next September, and we<BR>
+started in business in the Rue des Martyrs.</P>
+
+<P>"It was a hard struggle for some years, monsieur. Business did not<BR>
+prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and,<BR>
+besides, we had got out of the way of them. One has other things in<BR>
+one's head, and thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches,<BR>
+when one is in business. We were growing old by degrees without<BR>
+perceiving it, like quiet people who do not think much about love. One<BR>
+does not regret anything as long as one does not notice what one has<BR>
+lost.</P>
+
+<P>"And then, monsieur, business became better, and we were tranquil as<BR>
+to the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what went on in my<BR>
+mind, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little<BR>
+boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers<BR>
+which are drawn about the streets made me cry; the smell of violets<BR>
+sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart<BR>
+beat! Then I would get up and go out on the doorstep to look at the<BR>
+blue sky between the roofs. When one looks up at the sky from the<BR>
+street, it looks like a river which is descending on Paris, winding as<BR>
+it flows, and the swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. These<BR>
+ideas are very stupid at my age! But how can one help it, monsieur,<BR>
+when one has worked all one's life? A moment comes in which one<BR>
+perceives that one could have done something else, and that one<BR>
+regrets, oh! yes, one feels intense regret! Just think, for twenty<BR>
+years I might have gone and had kisses in the woods, like other women.<BR>
+I used to think how delightful it would be to lie under the trees and<BR>
+be in love with some one! And I thought of it every day and every<BR>
+night! I dreamed of the moonlight on the water, until I felt inclined<BR>
+to drown myself.</P>
+
+<P>"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first.<BR>
+I knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my<BR>
+needles and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain<BR>
+never said much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also<BR>
+understood quite well that I no longer appealed to any one!</P>
+
+<P>"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the<BR>
+country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed<BR>
+without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about<BR>
+nine o'clock.</P>
+
+<P>"I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's<BR>
+heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is<BR>
+at present, but just as he was formerly! That I will swear to you,<BR>
+monsieur. As true as I am standing here I was crazy. I began to kiss<BR>
+him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He<BR>
+kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning!<BR>
+What is the matter with you?' I did not listen to him, I only listened<BR>
+to my own heart, and I made him come into the wood with me. That is<BR>
+all. I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth."</P>
+
+<P>The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and<BR>
+said: "Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our forests, be<BR>
+more discreet."</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="mart">MARTINE</a></h3>
+
+<P>It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home from church<BR>
+along the by-road that led to his house when he saw ahead of him<BR>
+Martine, who was also going home.</P>
+
+<P>Her father walked beside his daughter with the important gait of a<BR>
+rich farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a short coat of gray cloth<BR>
+and on his head a round-topped hat with wide brim.</P>
+
+<P>She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week, walked<BR>
+along erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoulders and<BR>
+prominent hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a hat trimmed with<BR>
+flowers, made by a milliner at Yvetot, and displayed the back of her<BR>
+full, round, supple neck, reddened by the sun and air, on which<BR>
+fluttered little stray locks of hair.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist saw only her back; but he knew well the face he loved,<BR>
+without, however, having ever noticed it more closely than he did now.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly he said: "Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl, all the same,<BR>
+that Martine." He watched her as she walked, admiring her hastily,<BR>
+feeling a desire taking possession of him. He did not long to see her<BR>
+face again, no. He kept gazing at her figure, repeating to himself:<BR>
+"Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl."</P>
+
+<P>Martine turned to the right to enter "La Martini&egrave;re," the farm of her<BR>
+father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned<BR>
+round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called<BR>
+out: "Good-morning, Benoist." He replied: "Good-morning, Martine;<BR>
+good-morning, mait' Martin," and went on his way.</P>
+
+<P>When he reached home the soup was on the table. He sat down opposite<BR>
+his mother beside the farm hand and the hired man, while the maid<BR>
+servant went to draw some cider.</P>
+
+<P>He ate a few spoonfuls, then pushed away his plate. His mother said:</P>
+
+<P>"Don't you feel well?"</P>
+
+<P>"No. I feel as if I had some pap in my stomach and that takes away my<BR>
+appetite."</P>
+
+<P>He watched the others eating, as he cut himself a piece of bread from<BR>
+time to time and carried it lazily to his mouth, masticating it<BR>
+slowly. He thought of Martine. "She is a fine girl, all the same." And<BR>
+to think that he had not noticed it before, and that it came to him,<BR>
+just like that, all at once, and with such force that he could not<BR>
+eat.</P>
+
+<P>He did not touch the stew. His mother said:</P>
+
+<P>"Come, Benoist, try and eat a little; it is loin of mutton, it will do<BR>
+you good. When one has no appetite, they should force themselves to<BR>
+eat."</P>
+
+<P>He swallowed a few morsels, then, pushing away his plate, said:</P>
+
+<P>"No. I can't go that, positively."</P>
+
+<P>When they rose from table he walked round the farm, telling the farm<BR>
+hand he might go home and that he would drive up the animals as he<BR>
+passed by them.</P>
+
+<P>The country was deserted, as it was the day of rest. Here and there in<BR>
+a field of clover cows were moving along heavily, with full bellies,<BR>
+chewing their cud under a blazing sun. Unharnessed plows were standing<BR>
+at the end of a furrow; and the upturned earth ready for the seed<BR>
+showed broad brown patches of stubble of wheat and oats that had<BR>
+lately been harvested.</P>
+
+<P>A rather dry autumn wind blew across the plain, promising a cool<BR>
+evening after the sun had set. Benoist sat down on a ditch, placed his<BR>
+hat on his knees as if he needed to cool off his head, and said aloud<BR>
+in the stillness of the country: "If you want a fine girl, she is a<BR>
+fine girl."</P>
+
+<P>He thought of it again at night, in his bed, and in the morning when<BR>
+he awoke.</P>
+
+<P>He was not sad, he was not discontented, he could not have told what<BR>
+ailed him. It was something that had hold of him, something fastened<BR>
+in his mind, an idea that would not leave him and that produced a sort<BR>
+of tickling sensation in his heart.</P>
+
+<P>Sometimes a big fly is shut up in a room. You hear it flying about,<BR>
+buzzing, and the noise haunts you, irritates you. Suddenly it stops;<BR>
+you forget it; but all at once it begins again, obliging you to look<BR>
+up. You cannot catch it, nor drive it away, nor kill it, nor make it<BR>
+keep still. As soon as it settles for a second, it starts off buzzing<BR>
+again.</P>
+
+<P>The recollection of Martine disturbed Benoist's mind like an<BR>
+imprisoned fly.</P>
+
+<P>Then he longed to see her again and walked past the Martini&egrave;re several<BR>
+times. He saw her, at last, hanging out some clothes on a line<BR>
+stretched between two apple trees.</P>
+
+<P>It was a warm day. She had on only a short skirt and her chemise,<BR>
+showing the curves of her figure as she hung up the towels. He<BR>
+remained there, concealed by the hedge, for more than an hour, even<BR>
+after she had left. He returned home more obsessed with her image than<BR>
+ever.</P>
+
+<P>For a month his mind was full of her, he trembled when her name was<BR>
+mentioned in his presence. He could not eat, he had night sweats that<BR>
+kept him from sleeping.</P>
+
+<P>On Sunday, at mass, he never took his eyes off her. She noticed it and<BR>
+smiled at him, flattered at his appreciation.</P>
+
+<P>One evening, he suddenly met her in the road. She stopped short when<BR>
+she saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with fear<BR>
+and emotion, but determined to speak to her. He began falteringly:</P>
+
+<P>"See here, Martine, this cannot go on like this any longer."</P>
+
+<P>She replied as if she wanted to tease him:</P>
+
+<P>"What cannot go on any longer, Benoist?"</P>
+
+<P>"My thinking of you as many hours as there are in the day," he<BR>
+answered.</P>
+
+<P>She put her hands on her hips.</P>
+
+<P>"I do not oblige you to do so."</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, it is you," he stammered; "I cannot sleep, nor rest, nor eat,<BR>
+nor anything."</P>
+
+<P>"What do you need to cure you of all that?" she asked.</P>
+
+<P>He stood there in dismay, his arms swinging, his eyes staring, his<BR>
+mouth agape.</P>
+
+<P>She hit him a punch in the stomach and ran off.</P>
+
+<P>From that day they met each other along the roadside, in by-roads or<BR>
+else at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with<BR>
+his horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.</P>
+
+<P>He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his<BR>
+heart and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her, eat<BR>
+her, make her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence,<BR>
+impatience, rage, to think she did not belong to him entirely, as if<BR>
+they were one being.</P>
+
+<P>People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were<BR>
+engaged. He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she<BR>
+had answered "Yes."</P>
+
+<P>They were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about<BR>
+it.</P>
+
+<P>But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He<BR>
+did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only<BR>
+catch a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the<BR>
+sermon, the priest actually published the banns of marriage between<BR>
+Victoire-Adelaide-Martin and Jos&eacute;phin-Isidore Vallin.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained<BR>
+off. He had a buzzing in the ears, and could hear nothing; and<BR>
+presently he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.</P>
+
+<P>For a month he stayed in his room. Then he went back to his work.</P>
+
+<P>But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind. He avoided the<BR>
+roads that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees<BR>
+in the yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and<BR>
+evening.</P>
+
+<P>She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.<BR>
+Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from<BR>
+childhood.</P>
+
+<P>One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she<BR>
+was enceinte. Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he<BR>
+experienced, on the contrary, a feeling of relief. It was over, now,<BR>
+all over. They were more separated by that than by her marriage. He<BR>
+really preferred that it should be so.</P>
+
+<P>Months passed, and more months. He caught sight of her, occasionally,<BR>
+going to the village with a heavier step than usual. She blushed as<BR>
+she saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace. And he turned<BR>
+out of his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.</P>
+
+<P>He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to<BR>
+face, and be obliged to speak to her. What could he say to her now,<BR>
+after all he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed<BR>
+her hair beside her cheeks? He often thought of those meetings along<BR>
+the roadside. She had acted horridly after all her promises.</P>
+
+<P>By degrees his grief diminished, leaving only sadness behind. And one<BR>
+day he took the old road that led past the farm where she now lived.<BR>
+He looked at the roof from a distance. It was there, in there, that<BR>
+she lived with another! The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks<BR>
+crowed on the dunghill. The whole dwelling seemed empty, the farm<BR>
+hands had gone to the fields to their spring toil. He stopped near the<BR>
+gate and looked into the yard. The dog was asleep outside his kennel,<BR>
+three calves were walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the<BR>
+pond. A big turkey was strutting before the door, parading before the<BR>
+turkey hens like a singer at the opera.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist leaned against the gate post and was suddenly seized with a<BR>
+desire to weep. But suddenly, he heard a cry, a loud cry for help<BR>
+coming from the house. He was struck with dismay, his hands grasping<BR>
+the wooden bars of the gate, and listened attentively. Another cry, a<BR>
+prolonged, heartrending cry, reached his ears, his soul, his flesh. It<BR>
+was she who was crying like that! He darted inside, crossed the grass<BR>
+patch, pushed open the door, and saw her lying on the floor, her body<BR>
+drawn up, her face livid, her eyes haggard, in the throes of<BR>
+childbirth.</P>
+
+<P>He stood there, trembling and paler than she was, and stammered:</P>
+
+<P>"Here I am, here I am, Martine!"</P>
+
+<P>She replied in gasps:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, do not leave me, do not leave me, Benoist!"</P>
+
+<P>He looked at her, not knowing what to say, what to do. She began to<BR>
+cry out again:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, oh, it is killing me. Oh, Benoist!"</P>
+
+<P>She writhed frightfully.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist was suddenly seized with a frantic longing to help her, to<BR>
+quiet her, to remove her pain. He leaned over, lifted her up and laid<BR>
+her on her bed; and while she kept on moaning he began to take off her<BR>
+clothes, her jacket, her skirt and her petticoat. She bit her fists to<BR>
+keep from crying out. Then he did as he was accustomed to doing for<BR>
+cows, ewes, and mares: he assisted in delivering her and found in his<BR>
+hands a large infant who was moaning.</P>
+
+<P>He wiped it off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front<BR>
+of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that<BR>
+was on the table. Then he went back to the mother.</P>
+
+<P>He took her up and placed her on the floor again, then he changed the<BR>
+bedclothes and put her back into bed. She faltered:</P>
+
+<P>"Thank you, Benoist, you have a noble heart." And then she wept a<BR>
+little as if she felt regretful.</P>
+
+<P>He did not love her any longer, not the least bit. It was all over.<BR>
+Why? How? He could not have said. What had happened had cured him<BR>
+better than ten years of absence.</P>
+
+<P>She asked, exhausted and trembling:</P>
+
+<P>"What is it?"</P>
+
+<P>He replied calmly:</P>
+
+<P>"It is a very fine girl."</P>
+
+<P>Then they were silent again. At the end of a few moments, the mother,<BR>
+in a weak voice, said:</P>
+
+<P>"Show her to me, Benoist."</P>
+
+<P>He took up the little one and was showing it to her as if he were<BR>
+holding the consecrated wafer, when the door opened, and Isidore<BR>
+Vallin appeared.</P>
+
+<P>He did not understand at first, then all at once he guessed.</P>
+
+<P>Benoist, in consternation, stammered out:</P>
+
+<P>"I was passing, I was just passing by when I heard her crying out, and<BR>
+I came--there is your child, Vallin!"</P>
+
+<P>Then the husband, his eyes full of tears, stepped forward, took the<BR>
+little mite of humanity that he held out to him, kissed it, unable to<BR>
+speak from emotion for a few seconds; then placing the child on the<BR>
+bed, he held out both hands to Benoist, saying:</P>
+
+<P>"Your hand upon it, Benoist. From now on we understand each other. If<BR>
+you are willing, we will be a pair of friends, a pair of friends!"</P>
+
+<P>And Benoist replied:</P>
+
+<P>"Indeed I will, certainly, indeed I will."</P>
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="over">ALL OVER</a></h3>
+
+<P>Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting<BR>
+glance at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel in his<BR>
+dressing-room and smiled.</P>
+
+<P>He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall,<BR>
+slight, elegant, with no sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of<BR>
+doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he had a walk, a nobility,<BR>
+a "chic," in short, that indescribable something which establishes a<BR>
+greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He<BR>
+murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"Lormerin is still alive!"</P>
+
+<P>And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited<BR>
+him.</P>
+
+<P>On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the<BR>
+gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside<BR>
+three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch he spread<BR>
+out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and<BR>
+he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening<BR>
+the envelopes.</P>
+
+<P>It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague<BR>
+anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did<BR>
+they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them<BR>
+with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting<BR>
+them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from<BR>
+them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent;<BR>
+further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him a little<BR>
+uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced those<BR>
+curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?</P>
+
+<P>This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple,<BR>
+nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it<BR>
+uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: "From whom<BR>
+can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify<BR>
+it."</P>
+
+<P>He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between<BR>
+two fingers, striving to read through the envelope, without making up<BR>
+his mind to open it.</P>
+
+<P>Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying<BR>
+glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He<BR>
+suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me,<BR>
+very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often.<BR>
+But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it<BR>
+be from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking for money."</P>
+
+<P>And he tore open the letter. Then he read:</P>
+
+<P>My Dear Friend: You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now<BR>
+twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was young; I am old. When<BR>
+I bade you farewell, I left Paris in order to follow into the<BR>
+provinces my husband, my old husband, whom you used to call "my<BR>
+hospital." Do you remember him? He died five years ago, and now I am<BR>
+returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a daughter,<BR>
+a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen. I informed you<BR>
+of her birth, but you certainly did not pay much attention to so<BR>
+trifling an event.</P>
+
+<P>You are still the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told. Well if you<BR>
+still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come and<BR>
+dine with her this evening, with the elderly Baronne de Vance, your<BR>
+ever faithful friend, who, with some emotion, although happy, reaches<BR>
+out to you a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no longer kiss,<BR>
+my poor Jaquelet.</P>
+
+<P>Lise de Vance.</P>
+
+<P>Lormerin's heart began to throb. He remained sunk in his armchair with<BR>
+the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by a<BR>
+poignant emotion that made the tears mount up to his eyes! If he had<BR>
+ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise, Lise de<BR>
+Vance, whom he called "Ashflower," on account of the strange color of<BR>
+her hair and the pale gray of her eyes. Oh! what a dainty, pretty,<BR>
+charming creature she was, this frail baronne, the wife of that gouty,<BR>
+pimply baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut<BR>
+her up, kept her in seclusion through jealousy, jealousy of the<BR>
+handsome Lormerin.</P>
+
+<P>Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he, too, had been truly<BR>
+loved. She familiarly gave him the name of Jaquelet, and would<BR>
+pronounce that word in a delicious fashion.</P>
+
+<P>A thousand forgotten memories came back to him, far off and sweet and<BR>
+melancholy now. One evening she had called on him on her way home from<BR>
+a ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in<BR>
+evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the<BR>
+weather was beautiful. The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm<BR>
+air--the odor of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her<BR>
+skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's<BR>
+rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A<BR>
+little surprised, he asked her why.</P>
+
+<P>She replied:</P>
+
+<P>"I don't know. The moon and the water have affected me. Every time I<BR>
+see poetic things I have a tightening at the heart, and I have to<BR>
+cry."</P>
+
+<P>He smiled, affected himself, considering her feminine emotion<BR>
+charming--the unaffected emotion of a poor little woman whom every<BR>
+sensation overwhelms. And he embraced her passionately, stammering:</P>
+
+<P>"My little Lise, you are exquisite."</P>
+
+<P>What a charming love affair, short-lived and dainty, it had been and<BR>
+over all too quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this old<BR>
+brute of a baron, who had carried off his wife, and never let any one<BR>
+see her afterward.</P>
+
+<P>Lormerin had forgotten, in fact, at the end of two or three months.<BR>
+One woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a<BR>
+bachelor! No matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart,<BR>
+for he had loved her alone! He assured himself now that this was so.</P>
+
+<P>He rose, and said aloud: "Certainly, I will go and dine with her this<BR>
+evening!"</P>
+
+<P>And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself from<BR>
+head to foot. He reflected: "She must look very old, older than I<BR>
+look." And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her<BR>
+still handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling<BR>
+her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far<BR>
+distant!</P>
+
+<P>He turned his attention to the other letters. They were of no<BR>
+importance.</P>
+
+<P>The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of other days. What was<BR>
+she like now? How strange it was to meet in this way after twenty-five<BR>
+years! But would he recognize her?</P>
+
+<P>He made his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat,<BR>
+which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the<BR>
+hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for<BR>
+he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his<BR>
+eagerness to see her.</P>
+
+<P>The first thing he saw on entering a pretty drawing-room newly<BR>
+furnished was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from<BR>
+the days when he was a beau, hanging on the wall in an antique silk<BR>
+frame.</P>
+
+<P>He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly,<BR>
+and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended<BR>
+both hands toward him.</P>
+
+<P>He seized them, kissed them one after the other several times; then,<BR>
+lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.</P>
+
+<P>Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and<BR>
+who, while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.</P>
+
+<P>He could not abstain from murmuring:</P>
+
+<P>"Is it you, Lise?"</P>
+
+<P>She replied:</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would<BR>
+you? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my<BR>
+life. Look at me now--or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome<BR>
+you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I<BR>
+would have exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!' Now, sit down and let us, first of<BR>
+all, have a chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up<BR>
+daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or, rather, how I resembled<BR>
+her--no, it is not quite that; she is just like the 'me' of former<BR>
+days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared<BR>
+that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now<BR>
+it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend."</P>
+
+<P>He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to<BR>
+say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never<BR>
+seen her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk<BR>
+about? Of the long ago? What was there in common between him and her?<BR>
+He could no longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly<BR>
+face. He could no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet,<BR>
+so bitter, that had come to his mind that morning when he thought of<BR>
+the other, of little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had<BR>
+become of her, the former one, the one he had loved? That woman of<BR>
+far-off dreams, the blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to<BR>
+call him "Jaquelet" so prettily?</P>
+
+<P>They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,<BR>
+profoundly ill at ease.</P>
+
+<P>As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and<BR>
+slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.</P>
+
+<P>"I am going to call Ren&eacute;e," she said.</P>
+
+<P>There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; then a young<BR>
+voice exclaimed:</P>
+
+<P>"Here I am, mamma!"</P>
+
+<P>Lormerin remained bewildered as at the sight of an apparition.</P>
+
+<P>He stammered:</P>
+
+<P>"Good-day, mademoiselle."</P>
+
+<P>Then, turning toward the mother:</P>
+
+<P>"Oh! it is you!"</P>
+
+<P>In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise<BR>
+who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won<BR>
+twenty-five years before. This one was even younger, fresher, more<BR>
+childlike.</P>
+
+<P>He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart<BR>
+again, murmuring in her ear:</P>
+
+<P>"Good-morning, Lison!"</P>
+
+<P>A man-servant announced:</P>
+
+<P>"Dinner is ready, madame."</P>
+
+<P>And they proceeded toward the dining-room.</P>
+
+<P>What passed at this dinner? What did they say to him, and what could<BR>
+he say in reply? He found himself plunged in one of those strange<BR>
+dreams which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a<BR>
+fixed idea in his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea:</P>
+
+<P>"Which is the real one?"</P>
+
+<P>The mother smiled, repeating over and over again:</P>
+
+<P>"Do you remember?" And it was in the bright eyes of the young girl<BR>
+that he found again his memories of the past. Twenty times he opened<BR>
+his mouth to say to her: "Do you remember, Lison?" forgetting this<BR>
+white-haired lady who was looking at him tenderly.</P>
+
+<P>And yet, there were moments when he no longer felt sure, when he lost<BR>
+his head. He could see that the woman of to-day was not exactly the<BR>
+woman of long ago. The other one, the former one, had in her voice, in<BR>
+her glances, in her entire being, something which he did not find<BR>
+again. And he made prodigious efforts of mind to recall his lady love,<BR>
+to seize again what had escaped from her, what this resuscitated one<BR>
+did not possess.</P>
+
+<P>The baronne said:</P>
+
+<P>"You have lost your old vivacity, my poor friend."</P>
+
+<P>He murmured:</P>
+
+<P>"There are many other things that I have lost!"</P>
+
+<P>But in his heart, touched with emotion, he felt his old love springing<BR>
+to life once more, like an awakened wild beast ready to bite him.</P>
+
+<P>The young girl went on chattering, and every now and then some<BR>
+familiar intonation, some expression of her mother's, a certain style<BR>
+of speaking and thinking, that resemblance of mind and manner which<BR>
+people acquire by living together, shook Lormerin from head to foot.<BR>
+All these things penetrated him, making the reopened wound of his<BR>
+passion bleed anew.</P>
+
+<P>He got away early, and took a turn along the boulevard. But the image<BR>
+of this young girl pursued him, haunted him, quickened his heart,<BR>
+inflamed his blood. Apart from the two women, he now saw only one, a<BR>
+young one, the old one come back out of the past, and he loved her as<BR>
+he had loved her in bygone years. He loved her with greater ardor,<BR>
+after an interval of twenty-five years.</P>
+
+<P>He went home to reflect on this strange and terrible thing, and to<BR>
+think what he should do.</P>
+
+<P>But, as he was passing, with a wax candle in his hand, before the<BR>
+glass, the large glass in which he had contemplated himself and<BR>
+admired himself before he started, he saw reflected there an elderly,<BR>
+gray-haired man; and suddenly he recollected what he had been in olden<BR>
+days, in the days of little Lise. He saw himself charming and<BR>
+handsome, as he had been when he was loved! Then, drawing the light<BR>
+nearer, he looked at himself more closely, as one inspects a strange<BR>
+thing with a magnifying glass, tracing the wrinkles, discovering those<BR>
+frightful ravages, which he had not perceived till now.</P>
+
+<P>And he sat down, crushed at the sight of himself, at the sight of his<BR>
+lamentable image, murmuring:</P>
+
+<P>"All over, Lormerin!"</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="parr">THE PARROT</a></h3>
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<P>Everybody in F&eacute;camp knew Mother Patin's story. She had certainly been<BR>
+unfortunate with her husband, for in his lifetime he used to beat her,<BR>
+just as wheat is threshed in the barn.</P>
+
+<P>He was master of a fishing bark and had married her, formerly, because<BR>
+she was pretty, although poor.</P>
+
+<P>Patin was a good sailor, but brutal. He used to frequent Father<BR>
+Auban's inn, where he would usually drink four or five glasses of<BR>
+brandy, on lucky days eight or ten glasses and even more, according to<BR>
+his mood. The brandy was served to the customers by Father Auban's<BR>
+daughter, a pleasing brunette, who attracted people to the house only<BR>
+by her pretty face, for nothing had ever been gossiped about her.</P>
+
+<P>Patin, when he entered the inn, would be satisfied to look at her and<BR>
+to compliment her politely and respectfully. After he had had his<BR>
+first glass of brandy he would already find her much nicer; at the<BR>
+second he would wink; at the third he would say: "If you were only<BR>
+willing, Mam'zelle D&eacute;sir&eacute;e----" without ever finishing his sentence;<BR>
+at the fourth he would try to hold her back by her skirt in order to<BR>
+kiss her; and when he went as high as ten it was Father Auban who<BR>
+brought him the remaining drinks.</P>
+
+<P>The old innkeeper, who knew all the tricks of the trade, made D&eacute;sir&eacute;e<BR>
+walk about between the tables in order to increase the consumption of<BR>
+drinks; and D&eacute;sir&eacute;e, who was a worthy daughter of Father Auban,<BR>
+flitted around among the benches and joked with them, her lips smiling<BR>
+and her eyes sparkling.</P>
+
+<P>Patin got so well accustomed to D&eacute;sir&eacute;e's face that he thought of it<BR>
+even while at sea, when throwing out his nets, in storms or in calms,<BR>
+on moonlit or dark evenings. He thought of her while holding the<BR>
+tiller in the stern of his boat, while his four companions were<BR>
+slumbering with their heads on their arms. He always saw her, smiling,<BR>
+pouring out the yellow brandy with a peculiar shoulder movement and<BR>
+then exclaiming as she turned away: "There, now; are you satisfied?"</P>
+
+<P>He saw her so much in his mind's eye that he was overcome by an<BR>
+irresistible desire to marry her, and, not being able to hold out any<BR>
+longer, he asked for her hand.</P>
+
+<P>He was rich, owned his own vessel, his nets and a little house at the<BR>
+foot of the hill on the Retenue, whereas Father Auban had nothing. The<BR>
+marriage was therefore eagerly agreed upon and the wedding took place<BR>
+as soon as possible, as both parties were desirous for the affair to<BR>
+be concluded as early as convenient.</P>
+
+<P>Three days after the wedding Patin could no longer understand how he<BR>
+had ever imagined D&eacute;sir&eacute;e to be different from other women. What a<BR>
+fool he had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who<BR>
+had undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she had put in his<BR>
+brandy!</P>
+
+<P>He would curse all day long, break his pipe with his teeth and maul<BR>
+his crew. After he had sworn by every known term at everything that<BR>
+came his way he would rid himself of his remaining anger on the fish<BR>
+and lobsters, which he pulled from the nets and threw into the baskets<BR>
+amid oaths and foul language. When he returned home he would find his<BR>
+wife, Father Auban's daughter, within reach of his mouth and hand, and<BR>
+it was not long before he treated her like the lowest creature in the<BR>
+world. As she listened calmly, accustomed to paternal violence, he<BR>
+grew exasperated at her quiet, and one evening he beat her. Then life<BR>
+at his home became unbearable.</P>
+
+<P>For ten years the principal topic of conversation on the Retenue was<BR>
+about the beatings that Patin gave his wife and his manner of cursing<BR>
+at her for the least thing. He could, indeed, curse with a richness of<BR>
+vocabulary in a roundness of tone unequalled by any other man in<BR>
+F&eacute;camp. As soon as his ship was sighted at the entrance of the harbor,<BR>
+returning from the fishing expedition, every one awaited the first<BR>
+volley he would hurl from the bridge as soon as he perceived his<BR>
+wife's white cap.</P>
+
+<P>Standing at the stern, he would steer, his eye fixed on the bows and<BR>
+on the sail, and, notwithstanding the difficulty of the narrow passage<BR>
+and the height of the turbulent waves, he would search among the<BR>
+watching women and try to recognize his wife, Father Auban's daughter,<BR>
+the wretch!</P>
+
+<P>Then, as soon as he saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and<BR>
+waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that<BR>
+every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he<BR>
+arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the<BR>
+fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all<BR>
+the loafers of the neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes<BR>
+like shots from a cannon, short and terrible, sometimes like peals of<BR>
+thunder, which roll and rumble for five minutes, such a hurricane of<BR>
+oaths that he seemed to have in his lungs one of the storms of the<BR>
+Eternal Father.</P>
+
+<P>When he left his ship and found himself face to face with her,<BR>
+surrounded by all the gossips of the neighborhood, he would bring up a<BR>
+new cargo of insults and bring her back to their dwelling, she in<BR>
+front, he behind, she weeping, he yelling at her.</P>
+
+<P>At last, when alone with her behind closed doors, he would thrash her<BR>
+on the slightest pretext. The least thing was sufficient to make him<BR>
+raise his hand, and when he had once begun he did not stop, but he<BR>
+would throw into her face the true motive for his anger. At each blow<BR>
+he would roar: "There, you beggar! There, you wretch! There, you<BR>
+pauper! What a bright thing I did when I rinsed my mouth with your<BR>
+rascal of a father's apology for brandy!"</P>
+
+<P>The poor woman lived in continual fear, in a ceaseless trembling of<BR>
+body and soul, in everlasting expectation of outrageous thrashings.</P>
+
+<P>This lasted ten years. She was so timorous that she would grow pale<BR>
+whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the<BR>
+blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more<BR>
+yellow and drier than a smoked fish.</P>
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<P>One night, when her husband was at sea, she was suddenly awakened by<BR>
+the wild roaring of the wind! She sat up in her bed, trembling, but,<BR>
+as she heard nothing more, she lay down again; almost immediately<BR>
+there was a roar in the chimney which shook the entire house; it<BR>
+seemed to cross the heavens like a pack of furious animals snorting<BR>
+and roaring.</P>
+
+<P>Then she arose and rushed to the harbor. Other women were arriving<BR>
+from all sides, carrying lanterns. The men also were gathering, and<BR>
+all were watching the foaming crests of the breaking waves.</P>
+
+<P>The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors never returned; Patin<BR>
+was among them.</P>
+
+<P>In the neighborhood of Dieppe the wreck of his bark, the<BR>
+<i>Jeune-Am&eacute;lie</i>, was found. The bodies of his sailors were found<BR>
+near Saint-Val&eacute;ry, but his body was never recovered. As his vessel<BR>
+seemed to have been cut in two, his wife expected and feared his return<BR>
+for a long time, for if there had been a collision he alone might have<BR>
+been picked up and carried afar off.</P>
+
+<P>Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid<BR>
+of him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar<BR>
+or a peddler would enter suddenly.</P>
+
+<P>One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her<BR>
+husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped<BR>
+before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose<BR>
+furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction.<BR>
+He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with<BR>
+a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that<BR>
+can talk like a lawyer, three francs!"</P>
+
+<P>A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said: "You ought to buy<BR>
+that, you who are rich. It would be good company for you. That bird is<BR>
+worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always sell it for<BR>
+twenty or twenty-five!"</P>
+
+<P>Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a<BR>
+little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was<BR>
+opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit<BR>
+her finger and drew blood.</P>
+
+<P>"Oh, how naughty he is!" she said.</P>
+
+<P>Nevertheless she gave it some hemp-seed and corn and watched it<BR>
+pruning its feathers as it glanced warily at its new home and its new<BR>
+mistress.</P>
+
+<P>On the following morning, just as day was breaking, the Patin woman<BR>
+distinctly heard a loud, deep, roaring voice calling: "Are you going<BR>
+to get up, carrion?"</P>
+
+<P>Her fear was so great that she hid her head under the sheets, for when<BR>
+Patin was with her as soon as he would open his eyes he would shout<BR>
+those well-known words into her ears.</P>
+
+<P>Trembling, rolled into a ball, her back prepared for the thrashing<BR>
+which she already expected, her face buried in the pillows, she<BR>
+murmured: "Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he<BR>
+has come back!"</P>
+
+<P>Minutes passed; no noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling,<BR>
+she stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching,<BR>
+ready to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window,<BR>
+she saw nothing, and she said to herself: "He must be hidden."</P>
+
+<P>She waited a long time and then, gaining courage, she said to herself:<BR>
+"I must have dreamed it, seeing there is nobody here."</P>
+
+<P>A little reassured, she closed her eyes, when from quite near a<BR>
+furious voice, the thunderous voice of the drowned man, could be heard<BR>
+crying: "Say! when in the name of all that's holy are you going to get<BR>
+up, you b----?"</P>
+
+<P>She jumped out of bed, moved by obedience, by the passive obedience of<BR>
+a woman accustomed to blows and who still remembers and always will<BR>
+remember that voice! She said: "Here I am, Patin; what do you want?"</P>
+
+<P>But Patin did not answer. Then, at a complete loss, she looked around<BR>
+her, then in the chimney and under the bed and finally sank into a<BR>
+chair, wild with anxiety, convinced that Patin's soul alone was there,<BR>
+near her, and that he had returned in order to torture her.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly she remembered the loft, in order to reach which one had to<BR>
+take a ladder. Surely he must have hidden there in order to surprise<BR>
+her. He must have been held by savages on some distant shore, unable<BR>
+to escape until now, and he had returned, worse that ever. There was<BR>
+no doubting the quality of that voice. She raised her head and asked:<BR>
+"Are you up there, Patin?"</P>
+
+<P>Patin did not answer. Then, with a terrible fear which made her heart<BR>
+tremble, she climbed the ladder, opened the skylight, looked, saw<BR>
+nothing, entered, looked about and found nothing. Sitting on some<BR>
+straw, she began to cry, but while she was weeping, overcome by a<BR>
+poignant and supernatural terror, she heard Patin talking in the room<BR>
+below. He seemed less angry and he was saying: "Nasty weather! Fierce<BR>
+wind! Nasty weather! I haven't eaten, damn it!"</P>
+
+<P>She cried through the ceiling: "Here I am, Patin; I am getting your<BR>
+meal ready. Don't get angry."</P>
+
+<P>She ran down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself<BR>
+growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and<BR>
+get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: "I<BR>
+haven't had my breakfast, by G----!"</P>
+
+<P>And the parrot in his cage watched her with his round, knowing, wicked<BR>
+eye. She, too, looked at him wildly, murmuring: "Ah! so it's you!"</P>
+
+<P>He shook his head and continued: "Just you wait! I'll teach you how to<BR>
+loaf."</P>
+
+<P>What happened within her? She felt, she understood that it was he, the<BR>
+dead man, who had come back, who had disguised himself in the feathers<BR>
+of this bird in order to continue to torment her; that he would curse,<BR>
+as formerly, all day long, and bite her, and swear at her, in order to<BR>
+attract the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she rushed for the<BR>
+cage and seized the bird, which scratched and tore her flesh with its<BR>
+claws and beak. But she held it with all her strength between her<BR>
+hands. She threw it on the ground and rolled over it with the frenzy<BR>
+of one possessed. She crushed it and finally made of it nothing but a<BR>
+little green, flabby lump which no longer moved or spoke. Then she<BR>
+wrapped it in a cloth, as in a shroud, and she went out in her<BR>
+nightgown, barefoot; she crossed the dock, against which the choppy<BR>
+waves of the sea were beating, and she shook the cloth and let drop<BR>
+this little dead thing, which looked like so much grass. Then she<BR>
+returned, threw herself on her knees before the empty cage, and,<BR>
+overcome by what she had done, kneeled and prayed for forgiveness, as<BR>
+if she had committed some heinous crime.</P>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>
+<a name="stri">THE PIECE OF STRING</a></h3>
+
+<P>It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the<BR>
+peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked<BR>
+slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long,<BR>
+crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes<BR>
+the left shoulder higher, and bends their figures sideways; from<BR>
+reaping the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep<BR>
+on their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though<BR>
+varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered<BR>
+design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like<BR>
+balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.</P>
+
+<P>Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope.<BR>
+And just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the<BR>
+back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large<BR>
+baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks. These<BR>
+women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their<BR>
+erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over<BR>
+their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth,<BR>
+enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.</P>
+
+<P>Now a char-&agrave;-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up<BR>
+strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the<BR>
+cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.</P>
+
+<P>In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled<BR>
+multitude of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high,<BR>
+long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the headdresses of the women<BR>
+came to the surface of that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices<BR>
+made a continuous, wild din, while above it occasionally rose a huge<BR>
+burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a<BR>
+prolonged bellow from a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.</P>
+
+<P>It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration<BR>
+giving off that half-human, half-animal odor which is peculiar to<BR>
+country folks.</P>
+
+<P>Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne, of Br&eacute;aut&eacute;, had just arrived at Goderville and was<BR>
+making his way toward the square when he perceived on the ground a<BR>
+little piece of string. Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne, economical as are all true<BR>
+Normans, reflected that everything was worth picking up which could be<BR>
+of any use, and he stooped down, but painfully, because he suffered<BR>
+from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and<BR>
+was carefully preparing to roll it up when he saw Ma&icirc;tre Malandain,<BR>
+the harness maker, on his doorstep staring at him. They had once had a<BR>
+quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever<BR>
+since. Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne was overcome with a sort of shame at being<BR>
+seen by his enemy picking up a bit of string in the road. He quickly<BR>
+hid it beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches<BR>
+pocket, then pretended to be still looking for something on the<BR>
+ground which he did not discover and finally went off toward the<BR>
+market-place, his head bent forward and his body almost doubled in<BR>
+two by rheumatic pains.</P>
+
+<P>He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and<BR>
+noisily as it chaffered and bargained. The peasants examined the cows,<BR>
+went off, came back, always in doubt for fear of being cheated, never<BR>
+quite daring to decide, looking the seller square in the eye in the<BR>
+effort to discover the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.</P>
+
+<P>The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken<BR>
+out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, their legs tied together,<BR>
+with terrified eyes and scarlet combs.</P>
+
+<P>They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices in a decided<BR>
+manner with an impassive face or perhaps deciding to accept the<BR>
+smaller price offered, suddenly calling out to the customer who was<BR>
+starting to go away:</P>
+
+<P>"All right, I'll let you have them, Ma&icirc;t' Anthime."</P>
+
+<P>Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus<BR>
+struck midday those who lived at a distance poured into the inns.</P>
+
+<P>At Jourdain's the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast<BR>
+court was filled with vehicles of every sort--wagons, gigs,<BR>
+chars-&agrave;-bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name,<BR>
+yellow with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to<BR>
+heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose, on the ground and<BR>
+their rear in the air.</P>
+
+<P>Just opposite to where the diners were at table the huge fireplace,<BR>
+with its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those<BR>
+who sat at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens,<BR>
+with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast<BR>
+meat and of gravy flowing ever crisp brown skin arose from the hearth,<BR>
+kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.</P>
+
+<P>All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Ma&icirc;t'<BR>
+Jourdain's, the innkeeper's, a dealer in horses also and a sharp<BR>
+fellow who had made a great deal of money in his day.</P>
+
+<P>The dishes were passed round, were emptied, as were the jugs of yellow<BR>
+cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and his sales.<BR>
+They exchanged news about the crops. The weather was good for greens,<BR>
+but too wet for grain.</P>
+
+<P>Suddenly the drum began to beat in the courtyard before the house.<BR>
+Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at<BR>
+once and ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and<BR>
+napkins in their hand.</P>
+
+<P>When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a<BR>
+jerky voice, pausing in the wrong places:</P>
+
+<P>"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all<BR>
+persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on<BR>
+the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather<BR>
+pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are<BR>
+requested, to return it to the mayor's office at once or to Maitre<BR>
+Fortun&eacute; Houlbr&egrave;que, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs<BR>
+reward."</P>
+
+<P>Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull<BR>
+beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all<BR>
+began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Ma&icirc;tre<BR>
+Houlbr&egrave;que had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.</P>
+
+<P>The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal<BR>
+of gendarmes appeared on the threshold.</P>
+
+<P>He asked:</P>
+
+<P>"Is Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne, of Br&eacute;aut&eacute;, here?"</P>
+
+<P>Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:</P>
+
+<P>"Here I am, here I am."</P>
+
+<P>And he followed the corporal.</P>
+
+<P>The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the<BR>
+notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.</P>
+
+<P>"Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne," said he, "this morning on the Beuzeville road,<BR>
+you were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Ma&icirc;tre Houlbr&egrave;que, of<BR>
+Manneville."</P>
+
+<P>The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement, frightened already at<BR>
+this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.</P>
+
+<P>"I--I picked up that pocketbook?"</P>
+
+<P>"Yes, you."</P>
+
+<P>"I swear I don't even know anything about it."</P>
+
+<P>"You were seen."</P>
+
+<P>"I was seen--I? Who saw me?"</P>
+
+<P>"M. Malandain, the harness-maker."</P>
+
+<P>Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger,<BR>
+said:</P>
+
+<P>"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string<BR>
+here, M'sieu le Maire."</P>
+
+<P>And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the<BR>
+little end of string.</P>
+
+<P>But the mayor incredulously shook his head:</P>
+
+<P>"You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain,<BR>
+who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for<BR>
+a pocketbook."</P>
+
+<P>The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside<BR>
+him as if to attest his good faith, repeating:</P>
+
+<P>"For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's<BR>
+salvation, I repeat it."</P>
+
+<P>The mayor continued:</P>
+
+<P>"After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for<BR>
+some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropped out of<BR>
+it."</P>
+
+<P>The good man was choking with indignation and fear.</P>
+
+<P>"How can they tell--how can they tell such lies as that to slander an<BR>
+honest man! How can they?"</P>
+
+<P>His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.</P>
+
+<P>He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his<BR>
+testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request<BR>
+Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.</P>
+
+<P>At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he<BR>
+would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.</P>
+
+<P>The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office the old man was<BR>
+surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or<BR>
+mocking, as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered.<BR>
+And he began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe<BR>
+him. They laughed.</P>
+
+<P>He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his<BR>
+acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his<BR>
+protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he<BR>
+had nothing in them.</P>
+
+<P>They said to him:</P>
+
+<P>"You old rogue!"</P>
+
+<P>He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being<BR>
+believed, and kept on telling his story.</P>
+
+<P>The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his<BR>
+neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the<BR>
+string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.</P>
+
+<P>That evening he made the round of the village of Breaut&eacute; for the<BR>
+purpose of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.</P>
+
+<P>He brooded over it all night long.</P>
+
+<P>The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand<BR>
+of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at Ymauville, returned the<BR>
+pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbr&egrave;que, of Manneville.</P>
+
+<P>This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not<BR>
+knowing how to read, he had carried it home and given it to his<BR>
+master.</P>
+
+<P>The news spread to the environs. Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne was informed. He<BR>
+started off at once and began to relate his story with the d&eacute;no&ucirc;ment.<BR>
+He was triumphant.</P>
+
+<P>"What grieved me," said he, "was not the thing itself, do you<BR>
+understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing does you so<BR>
+much harm as being in disgrace for lying."</P>
+
+<P>All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the<BR>
+people who passed, at the cabaret to the people who drank and next<BR>
+Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell<BR>
+them about it. He was easy now, and yet something worried him without<BR>
+his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they<BR>
+listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks<BR>
+behind his back.</P>
+
+<P>On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville,<BR>
+prompted solely by the need of telling his story.</P>
+
+<P>Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him<BR>
+pass. Why?</P>
+
+<P>He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and<BR>
+giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face: "Oh,<BR>
+you great rogue!" Then he turned his heel upon him.</P>
+
+<P>Ma&icirc;tre Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy.<BR>
+Why had they called him "great rogue"?</P>
+
+<P>When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to explain<BR>
+the whole affair.</P>
+
+<P>A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:</P>
+
+<P>"Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string."</P>
+
+<P>Hauchecorne stammered:</P>
+
+<P>"But since they found it again, the pocketbook!"</P>
+
+<P>But the other continued:</P>
+
+<P>"Hold your tongue, daddy; there's one who finds it and there's another<BR>
+who returns it. And no one the wiser."</P>
+
+<P>The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of<BR>
+having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a<BR>
+confederate.</P>
+
+<P>He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.</P>
+
+<P>He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.</P>
+
+<P>He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more<BR>
+cast down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of<BR>
+having done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a<BR>
+good trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his<BR>
+innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck<BR>
+to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.</P>
+
+<P>He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day,<BR>
+each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more<BR>
+sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of<BR>
+solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the<BR>
+string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less<BR>
+he was believed.</P>
+
+<P>"Those are liars' proofs," they said behind his back.</P>
+
+<P>He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless<BR>
+efforts.</P>
+
+<P>He was visibly wasting away.</P>
+
+<P>Jokers would make him tell the story of "the piece of string" to amuse<BR>
+them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his<BR>
+story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of<BR>
+December he took to his bed.</P>
+
+<P>He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony,<BR>
+he protested his innocence, repeating:</P>
+
+<P>"A little bit of string--a little bit of string. See, here it is,<BR>
+M'sieu le Maire."</P>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other
+Stories, by Guy de Maupassant
+
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+</body>
+</HTML>
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