Short story classics (Foreign), Vol. 5, French II

By Various

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Title: Short story classics (Foreign), Vol. 5, French II

Author: Various

Editor: William Patten

Release date: June 22, 2024 [eBook #73893]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1907

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT STORY CLASSICS (FOREIGN), VOL. 5, FRENCH II ***



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                   *       *       *       *       *


               [Illustration: =Guy de Maupassant=]




                              SHORT STORY
                               CLASSICS

                               (FOREIGN)

                              VOLUME FIVE
                               FRENCH II

                            [Illustration]

                               EDITED BY
                            William Patten

                                 WITH
                            AN INTRODUCTION
                               AND NOTES

                            [Illustration]

                          P. F. COLLIER & SON
                               NEW YORK


                          COPYRIGHT 1907
                      BY P. F. COLLIER & SON

            The use of the copyrighted translations in this
                 collection has been authorized by the
                 authors or their representatives. The
                   translations made especially for
                      this collection are covered
                            by the general
                               copyright




                          CONTENTS--VOLUME V

                                                        PAGE

            LA BRETONNE
                ANDRÉ THEURIET                          1339

            WHICH WAS THE MADMAN?
                EDMOND ABOUT                            1349

            THE GRAND MARRIAGE
                LUDOVIC HALÉVY                          1379

            THE ACCURSED HOUSE
                ÉMILE GABORIAU                          1415

            THE FÊTE AT COQUEVILLE
                ÉMILE ZOLA                              1427

            THE LOST CHILD
                FRANÇOIS COPPÉE                         1471

            PUTOIS
                ANATOLE FRANCE                          1495

            SAC-AU-DOS
                JORIS KARL HUYSMANS                     1515

            "BONJOUR, MONSIEUR"
                JEAN RICHEPIN                           1559

            THE BIT OF STRING
                GUY DE MAUPASSANT                       1571

            THE NECKLACE
                GUY DE MAUPASSANT                       1581

            THE WALL OPPOSITE
                PIERRE LOTI                             1595

            THE ANCESTOR
                PAUL BOURGET                            1605

            WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY
                HENRI LAVEDAN                           1639

            A GENTLEMAN FINDS A WATCH
                GEORGES COURTELINE                      1651

            A YOUNG GIRL'S DIARY
                MARCEL PRÉVOST                          1659

            THE SIGN OF THE KEY AND THE CROSS
                HENRI DE RÉGNIER                        1671

            THE TELEGRAPH OPERATOR
                ALPHONSE ALLAIS                         1685


                              LA BRETONNE
                   BY CLAUDE ADHÉMAR ANDRÉ THEURIET

                            [Illustration]


    _André Theuriet, born at Marly-le-Roi in 1833, went to
    Paris to study law, and finally became head of the Government
    Department of Finance. In 1857 appeared the charming collection
    of verses called "Chemin des Bois," which was crowned by the
    Academy, and which earned for the author the title of "Song
    Sparrow" from the great critic Sainte-Beuve._

    _Theuriet received, in 1890, the Vitel prize from the Academy
    for general literary excellence, and was admitted to that body
    in 1896. His style is sane, fresh, limpid, delicate, and rich
    in color. He is a lover of nature with a profound feeling for
    the peasant._

    _Theuriet's standing is well assured when we consider that
    such men as Jules Claretie, Adolph Brisson, François Coppée,
    all contributed appreciations of Theuriet in "Les Annales
    Politiques et Littéraires," soon after his death, on April 23,
    1907._

                            [Illustration]




                              LA BRETONNE
                           BY ANDRÉ THEURIET


                    Translated by B. C. Waggener.
    Copyright, 1891, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.

One November evening, the eve of Sainte-Catherine's Day, the gate of
the Auberive prison turned upon its hinges to allow to pass out a
woman of some thirty years, clad in a faded woolen gown and coiffed in
a linen cap that framed in a singular fashion a face pale and puffed
by that sickly-hued fat which develops on prison regimen. She was a
prisoner whom they had just liberated, and whom her companions of
detention called La Bretonne.

Condemned for infanticide, it was exactly, day for day, six years ago
that the prison van had brought her to the Centrale. Now, in her former
garb, and with her small stock of money received from the clerk in
her pocket, she found herself free and with her roadpass stamped for
Langres.

The courier for Langres, however, had long since gone. Cowed and
awkward, she took her way stumblingly toward the chief inn of the
borough, and with trembling voice asked shelter for the night. But
the inn was crowded, and the _aubergiste_, who did not care to harbor
"one of those birds from over yonder," counseled her to push on to the
_cabaret_ at the far end of the village.

La Bretonne passed on, and, more trembling and awkward than ever,
knocked at the door of that cabaret, which, properly speaking, was but
a cantine for laborers. The cabaretière also eyed her askance, scenting
doubtless a "discharged" from the Centrale, and finally refused her on
the plea that she had no bed to give her.

La Bretonne dared not insist, but with bowed head pursued her way,
while at the bottom of her soul rose and grew a dull hatred for that
world which thus repulsed her.

She had no other resource than to gain Langres afoot.

Toward the end of November, night comes quickly. Soon she found herself
enveloped in darkness, on a grayish road that ran between two divisions
of the forest, and where the north wind whistled fiercely, choked her
with dust, and pelted her with dead leaves.

After six years of sedentary and recluse life her legs were stiff, the
muscles knotted and her feet, accustomed to sabots, pinched and bruised
by her new slippers. At the end of a league she felt them blistered and
herself exhausted. She dropped upon a pile of stones by the wayside,
shivering and asking herself if she was going to be forced to perish of
cold and hunger in this black night, under this icy breeze, which froze
her to the marrow.

All at once, in the solitude of the road, she seemed to hear the
droning notes of a voice singing. She listened and distinguished the
air of one of those caressing and monotonous chants with which one
soothes young children.

She was not alone, then!

She struggled to her feet and in the direction from which the voice
came, and there, at the turn of a crossroad, perceived a reddish light
streaming through the branches. Five minutes later she was before a
mud-walled hovel, whose roof, covered by squares of sod, leaned again
the rock, and whose window had allowed to pass that beckoning ray.

With anxious heart she decided to knock.

The chant ceased instantly and a woman opened the door, a peasant
woman, no older than La Bretonne herself, but faded and aged by work.
Her bodice, torn in places, displayed the skin tanned and dirty; her
red hair escaped disheveled from under a soiled stuff cap, and her
gray eyes regarded with amazement the stranger whose face had in it
something of touching loneliness.

"Good evening!" said she, lifting yet higher the sputtering lamp in her
hand; "what do you desire?"

"I am unable to go on," murmured La Bretonne, in a voice broken by a
sob; "the city is far, and if you will lodge me for the night, you will
do me a service.... I have money; I will pay you for the trouble."

"Enter," replied the other, after a moment's hesitancy; "but why,"
continued she, in a tone more curious than suspicious, "did you not
sleep at Auberive?"

"They would not give me a lodging," lowering her blue eyes and taken
with a sudden scruple, "be--because, see you, I come from the Maison
Centrale."

"So! the Maison Centrale! but no matter--enter--I fear nothing, having
known only misery. Moreover, I've a conscience against turning a
Christian from the door on a night like this. I'll give you a bed and a
slice of cheese."

And she pulled from the eaves some bundles of dried heather and spread
them as a pallet in the corner by the fire.

"Do you live here alone?" demanded La Bretonne, timidly.

"Yes, with my _gâchette_, going on seven years now. I earn our living
by working in the wood."

"Your man, then, is dead?"

"Yes," said the other bruskly, "the _gâchette_ has no father. Briefly,
to each his sorrow! But come, behold your straw, and two or three
potatoes left from supper. It is all I can offer you--"

She was called by a childish voice coming from a dark nook, separated
from the room by a board partition.

"Good night!" she repeated, "the little one cries; I must go, but
sleep you well!"

And taking up the lamp she passed into the closet, leaving La Bretonne
crouched alone in the darkness.

Stretched upon her heather, after she had eaten her supper, she strove
to close her eyes, but sleep would not come to her. Through the thin
partition she heard the mother still softly talking to the child, whom
the arrival of a stranger had wakened, and who did not wish to go to
sleep again.

The mother soothed and fondled it with words of endearment that somehow
strangely disturbed La Bretonne. That outburst of simple tenderness
seemed to waken a confused maternal instinct in the soul of that girl
condemned in the past for having stifled her new-born.

"If things had not gone so badly with me," thought La Bretonne,
sorrowfully, "_it_ would have been the same age as this little one
here."

At that thought and at the sound of that childish voice, a sickening
shudder seemed to shake her very vitals; something soft and tender to
spring up in that soured heart, and an increasing need for the relief
of tears.

"But come, come, my little one," the mother cried, "to sleep you must
go! And if you are good and do as I say, to-morrow I'll take you to the
Sainte-Catherine's Fair!"

"The _fête_ of little children, mama; the _fête_ of little children,
you mean?"

"Yes, my angel, of little children."

"And the day when the good Sainte-Catherine brings playthings to the
babies, mama?"

"Sometimes--yes."

"Then why doesn't she bring playthings to our house, mama?"

"We live too far away, perhaps; and then--we are too poor."

"She brings them only to rich babies, then, mama? But why, mama, why, I
say? I should love to see playthings!"

"Eh, bien! some day you may, if you are very good--to-night, perhaps,
if you are wise and go to sleep soon."

"I will, then, mama, I will right away, so she can bring them
to-morrow."

The little voice ceased; there was a long silence; then a long breath,
even and light!

The child slept at last--the mother also.

La Bretonne, only, did not sleep! An emotion, at once poignant and
tender, tore at her heart, and she thought more than ever of that other
little one, whom they said she had killed.... This lasted till dawn.

Mother and child slept still, but La Bretonne was up and out, gliding
hurriedly and furtively in the direction of Auberive and slackening her
pace only when the first houses of the village came in sight.

Soon she had reached and was traversing its only street, walking slowly
now and scanning with all her eyes the signs of the shops. One at last
seemed to fix her attention. She knocked at the shutter and presently
it opened. A mercer's shop, apparently, but also with some toys and
playthings in the window--poor, pitiful trifles, a pasteboard doll, a
Noah's ark, a woolly, stiff-legged little sheep!

To the astonishment of the merchant, La Bretonne purchased them all,
paid, and went out. She had resumed the road to the hovel in the wood,
when suddenly a hand fell heavily upon her shoulder, and she was face
to face with a brigadier of _gendarmerie_.

The unhappy one had forgotten that it was forbidden to liberated
prisoners to loiter near the Maison Centrale.

"Instead of vagabondizing here, you should already be at Langres," said
the brigadier, gruffly. "Come, march, be off with you! To the road, to
the road, I say!"

She sought to explain. Pains lost. At once a passing cart was pressed
into service, La Bretonne bundled into it, and in charge of a
_gendarme_ once more en route for Langres.

The cart jolted lumberingly over the frozen ruts. The poor La Bretonne
clutched with a heartbroken air her bundle of playthings in her
freezing fingers.

All at once, at a turn of the road, she recognized the cross path that
led through the wood. Her heart leaped and she besought the _gendarme_
to stop only one moment. She had a commission for La Fleuriotte, the
woman that lived there!

She supplicated with so much fervor that the _gendarme_, a good man at
heart, allowed himself to be persuaded. They stopped, tied the horse to
a tree, and ascended the pathway.

Before the door La Fleuriotte hewed the gathered wood into the required
fagots. On seeing her visitor return, accompanied by a _gendarme_, she
stood open-mouthed and with arms hanging.

"Hist!" said La Bretonne, "hist! the little one--does it sleep still?"

"Yes--but--"

"Then, here, these playthings, lay them on the bed and tell her
Sainte-Catherine brought them. I returned to Auberive for them; but it
seems I had no right to do it, and they are taking me now to Langres."

"Holy Mother of God!" cried the amazed La Fleuriotte.

"Hist! be still, I say!"

And drawing near the bed herself, followed always by her escort, La
Bretonne scattered upon the coverlet the doll, the Noah's ark, and the
stiff-legged, woolly, and somewhat grimy little lamb, bent the bare arm
of the child till it clasped the latter, then turned with a smile.

"Now," said she, addressing the _gendarme_, vigorously rubbing his eyes
with the cuff of his jacket--the frost, it seemed, had gotten into
them--"I am ready: we can go!"


                         WHICH WAS THE MADMAN?
                   BY EDMOND FRANÇOIS VALENTIN ABOUT

                            [Illustration]


    _Edmond About, born at Dieuze in 1828, author of a play,
    "Gaetana," the noisy failure of which crushed for a long time
    his dramatic aspiration, turned to the writing of novels,
    such as "The Marriages of Paris," "Madelon," and "The Romish
    Question," the latter a book which attacked with great venom
    and vivacity the temporal power of the Pope. "The Man of
    the Old School" is a general title under which he collected
    separate stories, studies of social reform, such as "The
    Romance of an Honest Man," at one time an eloquent manual of
    patriotism. About has also written studies in politics and
    finance, besides art criticisms, more brilliant than profound._

    _About's style is distinguished by its spirit and lucidity. He
    knows how to tell a story, and has great respect for his mother
    tongue. He was elected to the Academy in 1884, but died in 1885
    without delivering his thesis._

                            [Illustration]




                         WHICH WAS THE MADMAN?
                      THE STORY OF A STRANGE CASE

                            BY EDMOND ABOUT

    Copyright, 1903, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


                                   I

One might pass Dr. Auvray's house twenty times without suspecting the
miracles that are wrought there. It is a modest establishment near the
end of Montaigne Avenue, between Prince Soltikoff's Gothic palace and
the gymnasium. The unpretentious iron gates open into a small garden,
filled with lilacs and rosebushes. The porter's lodge is on the left
side of the gateway; the wing containing the doctor's office and the
apartments of his wife and daughter are on the right; while the main
building stands with its back to the street and its south windows
overlook a small grove of horsechestnuts and lindens.

It is there that the doctor treats, and generally cures, cases of
mental aberration. I would not introduce you into his house, however,
if you incurred any risk of meeting frenzied lunatics or hopeless
imbeciles. You will be spared all such harrowing sights. Dr. Auvray is
a specialist, and treats cases of monomania only. He is an extremely
kind-hearted man, endowed with plenty of shrewdness and good sense; a
true philosopher, an untiring student, and an enthusiastic follower of
the famous Esquirol.

Having come into possession of a small fortune soon after the
completion of his medical course, he married, and founded the
establishment which we have described. Had there been a spark of
charlatanism in his composition, he could easily have amassed a
fortune, but he had been content to merely earn a living. He shunned
notoriety, and when he effected a wonderful cure, he never proclaimed
it upon the housetops. His very enviable reputation had been acquired
without any effort on his part, and almost against his will. Would you
have a proof of this? Well, his treatise on monomania, published by
Baillière in 1852, has passed through six editions, though the author
has never sent a single copy to the newspapers. Modesty is a good
thing, certainly, but one may carry it too far. Mademoiselle Auvray
will have a dowry of only twenty thousand francs, and she will be
twenty-two in April.

About a month ago a hired coupé stopped in front of Dr. Auvray's door,
from which two men alighted and entered the office. The servant asked
them to be seated, and await his master's return.

One of the visitors was about fifty years of age, a tall, stout,
dark-complexioned but ruddy-faced man, rather ungainly in figure and
appearance. He had thick, stubby hands and enormous thumbs. Picture a
laboring man, dressed in his employer's clothes, and you have M. Morlot.

His nephew, Francis Thomas, is a young man, about twenty-three years
old; but it is very difficult to describe him, as there is nothing
distinctive either in his manner or appearance. He is neither tall nor
short, handsome nor ugly, stout nor thin--in short, he is commonplace
and mediocre in every respect, with chestnut hair, and of an extremely
retiring disposition, manner and attire. When he entered Dr. Auvray's
office, he seemed to be greatly excited. He walked wildly to and fro,
as if unable to remain in one place; looked at twenty different things
in the same instant, and would certainly have handled them all if his
hands had not been tied.

"Compose yourself, my dear Francis," said his uncle, soothingly. "What
I am doing is for your own good. You will be perfectly comfortable and
happy here, and the doctor is sure to cure you."

"I am not sick. There is nothing whatever the matter with me. Why have
you tied my hands?"

"Because you would have thrown me out of the window, if I had not. You
are not in your right mind, my poor boy, but Dr. Auvray will soon make
you well again."

"I am as sane as you are, uncle; and I can't imagine what you mean. My
mind is perfectly clear and my memory excellent. Shall I recite some
poetry to you, or construe some Latin? I see there is a Tacitus here in
the bookcase. Or, if you prefer, I will solve a problem in algebra or
geometry. You don't desire it? Very well, then listen while I tell you
what you have been doing this morning.

"You came to my room at eight o'clock, not to wake me, for I was
not asleep, but to get me out of bed. I dressed myself without any
assistance from Germain. You asked me to accompany you to Dr. Auvray's;
I refused; you insisted; then Germain aided you in tying my hands. I
shall dismiss him this evening. I owe him thirteen days' wages; that
is to say, thirteen francs, as I promised to pay him thirty francs a
month. You, too, owe him something, as you are the cause of his losing
his New Year's gift. Isn't this a tolerably clear statement of the
facts? Do you still intend to try to make me out a lunatic? Ah, my dear
uncle, let your better nature assert itself. Remember that my mother
was your sister. What would my poor mother say if she saw me here? I
bear you no ill-will, and everything can be amicably arranged. You have
a daughter."

"Ah, there it is again. You must certainly see that you are not in your
right mind. I have a daughter--I? Why, I am a bachelor, as you know
perfectly well."

"You have a daughter--" repeated Francis, mechanically.

"My poor nephew, listen to me a moment. Have you a cousin?"

"A cousin? No, I have no cousin. Oh, you won't catch me there. I have
no cousin, either male or female."

"But I am your uncle, am I not?"

"Yes; you are my uncle, of course, though you seem to have forgotten
the fact this morning."

"Then if I had a daughter, she would be your cousin; but as you have
no cousin, I can have no daughter."

"You are right, of course. I had the pleasure of meeting her at Ems
last summer with her mother; I love her; I have reason to believe that
she is not indifferent to me, and I have the honor to ask you for her
hand in marriage."

"Whose hand, may I ask?"

"Your daughter's hand."

"Just hear him," Morlot said to himself. "Dr. Auvray must certainly be
very clever if he succeeds in curing him. I am willing to pay him six
thousand francs a year for board and treatment. Six thousand francs
from thirty thousand leaves twenty-four thousand. How rich I shall be!
Poor Francis!"

He seated himself again, and picked up a book that chanced to be lying
on a table near him.

"Calm yourself," he said soothingly, "and I will read you something.
Try to listen. It may quiet you."

Opening the volume, he read as follows:

"'Monomania is opinionativeness on one subject; a persistent clinging
to one idea; the supreme ascendency of a single passion. It has its
origin in the heart. To cure the malady, the cause must be ascertained
and removed. It arises generally from love, fear, vanity, overweening
ambition or remorse, and betrays itself by the same symptoms as any
other passion; sometimes by boisterousness, gaiety, and garrulousness;
sometimes by extreme timidity, melancholy, and silence.'"

As M. Morlot read on, Francis became more quiet, and at last appeared
to fall into a peaceful slumber.

"Bravo!" thought the uncle, "here is a triumph of medical skill
already. It has put to sleep a man who was neither hungry nor sleepy!"

Francis was not asleep, but he was feigning sleep to perfection. His
head drooped lower and lower, and he regulated his heavy breathing
with mathematical exactness. Uncle Morlot was completely deceived. He
went on reading for some time in more and more subdued tones; then he
yawned; then he stopped reading; then he let the book drop from his
hands and closed his eyes, and in another minute he was sound asleep,
to the intense delight of his nephew, who was watching him maliciously
out of the corner of his eye.

Francis began operations by scraping his chair on the uncarpeted floor,
but M. Morlot moved no more than a post. Francis then tramped noisily
up and down the room, but his uncle snored the louder. Then the nephew
approached the doctor's desk, picked up an eraser that was lying there,
and with it finally succeeded in cutting the rope that bound his hands.
On regaining his liberty he uttered a smothered exclamation of joy;
then he cautiously approached his uncle. In two minutes, M. Morlot
himself was securely bound, but it had been done so gently and so
adroitly that his slumbers had not been disturbed in the least.

Francis stood admiring his work for a moment; then he stooped and
picked up the book that had fallen to the floor. It was Dr. Auvray's
treatise on monomania. He carried it off into a corner of the room
and began to read it with much apparent interest, while awaiting the
doctor's coming.


                                  II

It is necessary to revert briefly to the antecedents of this uncle
and nephew. Francis Thomas was the only son of a former toy-merchant,
on the Rue de Saumon. The toy trade is an excellent business, about
one hundred per cent profit being realized on most of the articles;
consequently, since his father's death, Francis had been enjoying that
ease generally known as honest ease; possibly because it enables one to
live without stooping to sordid acts; possibly, too, because it enables
one to keep one's friends honest, also. In short, he had an income of
thirty thousand francs a year.

His tastes were extremely simple, as I have said before. He detested
show, and always selected gloves, waistcoats, and trousers of those
sober hues shading from dark brown to black. He never carried an
eyeglass for the very good reason, he said, that he had excellent
eyesight; he wore no scarf-pin, because he needed no pin to hold his
cravat securely; but the fact is, he was afraid of exciting comment. He
would have been wretched had his sponsors bestowed upon him any save
the most commonplace names; but, fortunately, his cognomens were as
modest and unpretending as if he had chosen them himself.

His excessive modesty prevented him from adopting a profession. When
he left college, he considered long and carefully the seven or eight
different paths open before him. A legal career seemed to be attended
with too much publicity; the medical profession was too exciting;
business too complicated. The responsibilities of an instructor of
youth were too onerous; the duties of a government official too
confining and servile. As for the army, that was out of the question,
not because he feared the enemy, but because he shuddered at the
thought of wearing a uniform; so he finally decided to live on his
income, not because it was the easiest thing to do, but because it was
the most unobtrusive.

But it was in the presence of the fair sex that his weakness became
most apparent. He was always in love with somebody. Whenever he
attended a play or a concert he immediately began to gaze around him
in search of a pretty face. If he found one to his taste, the play was
admirable, the music perfection; if he failed, the whole performance
was detestable, the actors murdered their lines, and all the singers
sang out of tune. He worshiped these divinities in secret, however, for
he never dared to speak to one of them.

When he fancied himself a victim to the tender passion, he spent the
greater part of his time in composing the most impassioned declarations
of love, which never passed his lips, however. In imagination he
addressed the tenderest words of affection to his adored one, and
revealed the innermost depths of his soul to her; he held long
conversations with her, delightful interviews, in which he furnished
both the questions and answers. His burning protestations of undying
love would have melted a heart of ice, but none of his divinities were
ever aware of his aspirations and longings.

It chanced, however, in the month of August of that same year, about
four months before he so adroitly bound his uncle's hands, that
Francis had met at Ems a young lady almost as shy and retiring as
himself, a young lady whose excessive timidity seemed to imbue him
with some of the courage of an ordinary mortal. She was a frail,
delicate _Parisienne_--pale as a flower that had blossomed in the
shade, and with a skin as transparent as an infant's. She was at Ems
in company with her mother, who had been advised to try the waters for
an obstinate throat trouble, chronic laryngitis, if I remember right.
The mother and daughter had evidently led a very secluded life, for
they watched the noisy crowd with undisguised curiosity and amazement.
Francis was introduced to them quite unexpectedly by one of his friends
who was returning from Italy by way of Germany. After that, Francis was
with them almost constantly for a month; in fact, he was their sole
companion.

For sensitive, retiring souls, a crowd is the most complete of
solitudes; the more people there are around them, the more persistently
they retreat to a corner to commune with themselves. Of course, the
mother and daughter soon became well acquainted with Francis, and
they grew very fond of him. Like the navigator who first set foot on
American soil, they discovered some new treasure every day. They never
inquired whether he was rich or poor; it was enough for them to know
that he was good. Francis, for his part, was inexpressibly delighted
with his own transformation. Have you ever heard how spring comes in
the gardens of Russia? One day everything is shrouded in snow; the next
day a ray of sunshine appears and puts grim winter to flight. By noon
the trees are in bloom; by night they are covered with leaves; a day or
two more and the fruit appears.

The heart of Francis underwent a similar metamorphosis. His reserve and
apparent coldness disappeared as if by magic, and in a few short weeks
the timid youth was transformed into a resolute, energetic man--at
least to all appearances. I do not know which of the three persons
first mentioned marriage, but that is a matter of no consequence.
Marriage is always understood when two honest hearts avow their love.

Now Francis was of age, and undisputed master of himself and his
possessions, but the girl he loved had a father whose consent must be
obtained, and it was just here that this young man's natural timidity
of disposition reasserted itself. True, Claire had said to him: "You
can write to my father without any misgivings. He knows all about our
attachment. You will receive his consent by return mail."

Francis wrote and rewrote his letter a hundred times, but he could not
summon up the courage to send it.

Surely the ordeal was an easy one, and it would seem as though the
most timorous mind could have passed through it triumphantly. Francis
knew the name, position, fortune, and even the disposition of his
prospective father-in-law. He had been initiated into all the family
secrets, he was virtually a member of the household. The only thing
he had to do was to state in the briefest manner who he was and what
he possessed. There was no doubt whatever as to the response; but he
delayed so long that at the end of a month Claire and her mother very
naturally began to doubt his sincerity. I think they would have waited
patiently another fortnight, however, but the father would not permit
it. If Claire loved the young man, and her lover was not disposed to
make known his intentions, the girl must leave him at once. Perhaps Mr.
Francis Thomas would then come and ask her hand in marriage. He knew
where to find her.

Thus it chanced that, one morning when Francis went to invite the
ladies to walk as usual, the proprietor of the hotel informed him
that they had returned to Paris, and that their apartments were
already occupied by an English family. This crushing blow, falling
so unexpectedly, destroyed the poor fellow's reason, and, rushing
out of the house like a madman, he began a frantic search for Claire
in all the places where he had been in the habit of meeting her. At
last he returned to his own hotel with a violent sick headache, which
he proceeded to doctor in the most energetic manner. First he had
himself bled, then he took baths in boiling hot water, and applied
the most ferocious mustard plasters; in short, he avenged his mental
tortures upon his innocent body. When he believed himself cured, he
started for France, firmly resolved to have an interview with Claire's
father before even changing his clothes. He traveled with all possible
speed, jumped off the train before it stopped, forgetting his baggage
entirely, sprang into a cab, and shouted to the coachman:

"Drive to her home as quick as you can!"

"Where, sir?"

"To the house of Monsieur--on the--the Rue--I can't remember." He had
forgotten the name and address of the girl he loved.

"I will go home," he said to himself, "and it will come back to me."

So he handed his card to the coachman, who took him to his own home.

His concierge was an aged man, with no children, and named Emmanuel. On
seeing him, Francis bowed profoundly, and said:

"Sir, you have a daughter, Mlle. Claire Emmanuel. I intended to write
and ask you for her hand in marriage, but decided it would be more
seemly to make the request in person."

They saw that he was mad, and his uncle Morlot, in the Faubourg Saint
Antoine, was immediately summoned.

Now Uncle Morlot was the most scrupulously honest man on the Rue
Charonne, which, by the way, is one of the longest streets in Paris.
He manufactured antique furniture with conscientious care, but only
mediocre skill. He was not a man to pass off ebonized pine for real
ebony, or a cabinet of his own make for a medieval production; and yet,
he understood the art of making new wood look old and full of apparent
worm-holes as well as anybody living; but it was a principle of his
never to cheat or deceive any one. With almost absurd moderation for a
follower of this trade, he limited his profits to five per cent over
and above the expenses of the business, so he had gained more esteem
than money. When he made out a bill, he invariably added up the items
three times, so afraid was he of making a mistake in his own favor.

After thirty years of close attention to business he was very little
better off than when he finished his apprenticeship. He had merely
earned his living, just like the humblest of his workmen, and he often
asked himself rather enviously how his brother-in-law had managed
to acquire a competence. If this brother-in-law, with the natural
arrogance of a _parvenu_, rather looked down on the poor cabinet-maker,
the latter, with all the pride of a man who has not tried to succeed
financially, esteemed himself all the more highly. He gloried in his
poverty, as it were; and said to himself with plebeian pride: "I, at
least, have the satisfaction of knowing that I owe nothing to any one."

Man is a strange animal: I am not the first person who has made that
remark. This most estimable M. Morlot, whose overscrupulous probity
made him almost a laughing-stock, experienced a singular feeling of
elation in his secret heart when he was apprised of his nephew's
condition. An insinuating voice whispered softly: "If Francis is
insane, you will become his guardian."

"You will be none the richer," responded Conscience, promptly.

"And why not?" persisted the Tempter. "The expenses of an insane person
never amount to thirty thousand francs a year. Besides, you will be
put to a great deal of trouble and have to neglect your business,
very probably, so it is only right that you should receive some
compensation. You will not be wronging any one by taking part of the
money."

"But one ought to expect no compensation for such services to a member
of one's family," retorted the voice of Conscience.

"Then why have the members of our family never done anything for me?
I have been in straitened circumstances again and again, and have
found it almost impossible to meet my obligations, but neither my
nephew Francis nor his deceased father ever rendered me the slightest
assistance."

"Nonsense," replied his better nature; "this attack of insanity is
nothing serious. Francis will be himself again in a few days."

"It is just as probable that the malady will wear him out and that you
will come into possession of the entire property," persisted the wily
Tempter.

The worthy cabinet-maker tried to close his ears to the insidious
voice, but his ears were so large that the subtle, persistent voice
glided in, despite all his efforts. The establishment on the Rue
Charonne was intrusted to the care of the foreman, and the uncle took
up his abode in his nephew's comfortable apartments. He slept in an
excellent bed, and enjoyed it very much; he sat down to a well-spread
table, and the indigestion, which had tormented him for years, vanished
as if by enchantment. He was waited upon and shaved by Germain, his
nephew's valet, and he speedily came to regard such attentions as a
necessity. Gradually, too, he became accustomed to seeing his nephew in
this deplorable condition, and to quite reconcile himself to the idea
that he would never be cured, but all the while he kept repeating to
himself, as if to ease his conscience, "I am wronging nobody."

At the expiration of three months he had become very tired of having
an insane person shut up in the house with him--for he had long
since begun to consider himself at home--and his nephew's incessant
maundering, and continual requests for Mlle. Claire's hand in marriage,
became an intolerable bore. He therefore resolved to get rid of him by
placing him in Dr. Auvray's insane asylum.

"After all, my nephew will be much better cared for there," he said to
himself, "and I shall be much easier in mind. Every one admits that the
best way to divert a lunatic's mind is to give him a change of scene,
so I am only doing my duty."

It was with this very thought in his mind that he fell asleep just
before Francis bound his hands. What an awakening was his!

The doctor entered with a smiling excuse for his long delay. Francis
rose, laid his book on the table, and proceeded with volubility to
explain the business that had brought him there.

"It is my uncle on my mother's side that I desire to intrust to
your care," he began. "He is, as you see, a man between forty-five
and fifty years of age, accustomed to manual labor and the economy
and privations of a humble and busy life; moreover, he was born of
healthy, hard-working parents, in a family where no case of mental
aberration was ever before known. You will not, therefore, be obliged
to contend with a hereditary malady. His is probably one of the most
peculiar cases of monomania that has ever come under your observation.
His mood changes almost instantaneously from one of extreme gaiety to
profound melancholy. In fact, it is a strange compound of monomania and
melancholy."

"He has not lost his reason entirely?"

"Oh, no; he is never violent; in fact, he is insane upon one subject
only."

"What is the nature of his malady?"

"Alas! the besetting sin of the age, sir; cupidity. He has become
deeply imbued with the spirit of our times. After working hard from
childhood, he finds himself still comparatively poor, while my father,
who began life under like circumstances, was able to leave me a snug
little fortune. My uncle began by being envious of me; then the thought
occurred to him that, being my only relative, he would become my heir
in case of my death, and my guardian in case I became insane; and as it
is very easy for a weak-minded person to believe whatever he desires to
believe, the unfortunate man soon persuaded himself that I had lost my
reason. He has told everybody that this is the case; and he will soon
tell you so. In the carriage, though his hands were tied, he really
believed that it was he who was bringing me here."

"When did this malady first show itself?"

"About three months ago. He came to my concierge and said to him, in
the wildest manner: 'Monsieur Emmanuel, you have a daughter. Let me in,
and then come and assist me in binding my nephew.'"

"Is he aware of his condition? Does he know that his mind is affected?"

"No, sir, and I think that is a favorable sign. I should add, however,
that his physical health is somewhat impaired, and he is much troubled
with indigestion and insomnia."

"So much the better; an insane person who sleeps and eats regularly is
generally incurable. Suppose you allow me to wake him."

Dr. Auvray placed his hand gently on the shoulder of the sleeper, who
instantly sprang to his feet. The first movement he made was to rub
his eyes. When he discovered that his hands were tied, he instantly
suspected what had taken place while he was asleep, and burst into a
hearty laugh.

"A good joke, a very good joke!" he exclaimed.

Francis drew the doctor a little aside.

"Sir, in five minutes he will be in a towering rage," he whispered.

"Let me manage him. I know how to take him."

The good doctor smiled on the supposed patient as one smiles on a child
one wishes to amuse. "Well, you wake in very good spirits, my friend;
did you have a pleasant dream?" he asked affably.

"No, I had no dream at all; I'm merely laughing to find myself tied
up like a bundle of fagots. One would suppose that I was the madman,
instead of my nephew."

"There, I told you so," whispered Francis.

"Have the goodness to untie my hands, doctor. I can explain better when
I am free."

"I will unbind you, my friend, but you must promise to give no trouble."

"Can it be, doctor, that you really take me for an insane person?"

"No, my friend, but you are ill, and we will take care of you, and, I
hope, cure you. See, your hands are free; don't abuse your liberty."

"What the devil do you imagine I'll do? I came here merely to bring my
nephew."

"Very well, we will talk about that matter by and by. I found you sound
asleep. Do you often fall asleep in the daytime?"

"Never! It was that stupid book that--"

"Oh, oh! This is a serious case," muttered the author of the book
referred to. "So you really believe that your nephew is insane?"

"Dangerously so, doctor. The fact that I was obliged to bind his hands
with this very rope is proof of that."

"But it was your hands that were bound. Don't you recollect that I just
untied them?"

"But let me explain--"

"Gently, gently, my friend, you are becoming excited. Your face is very
red; I don't want you to fatigue yourself. Just be content to answer
my questions. You say that your nephew is ill?"

"Mad, mad, mad, I tell you!"

"And it pleases you to see him mad?"

"What?"

"Answer me frankly. You don't wish him to be cured, do you?"

"Why do you ask me that?"

"Because his fortune is under your control. Don't you wish to be rich?
Are you not disappointed and discouraged because you have toiled so
long without making a fortune? Don't you very naturally think that your
turn has come now?"

M. Morlot made no reply. His eyes were riveted on the floor. He asked
himself if he was not dreaming, and tried his best to decide how much
of this whole affair was real, and how much imaginary, so completely
bewildered was he by the questions of this stranger, who read his heart
as if it had been an open book.

"Do you ever hear voices?" inquired Dr. Auvray.

Poor M. Morlot felt his hair stand on end, and remembering that
relentless voice that was ever whispering in his ear, he replied
mechanically, "Sometimes."

"Ah, he is the victim of an hallucination," murmured the doctor.

"No, there is nothing whatever the matter with me, I tell you. Let me
get out of here. I shall be as crazy as my nephew if I remain much
longer. Ask my friends. They will all tell you that I am perfectly
sane. Feel my pulse. You can see that I have no fever."

"Poor uncle!" murmured Francis. "He doesn't know that insanity is
delirium unattended with fever."

"Yes," added the doctor, "if we could only give our patients a fever,
we could cure every one of them."

M. Morlot sank back despairingly in his armchair. His nephew began to
pace the floor.

"I am deeply grieved at my uncle's deplorable condition," he remarked
feelingly, "but it is a great consolation to me to be able to intrust
him to the care of a man like yourself. I have read your admirable
treatise on monomania. It is the most valuable work of the kind that
has appeared since the publication of the great Esquirol's Treatise
upon Mental Diseases. I know, moreover, that you are truly a father to
your patients, so I will not insult you by commending M. Morlot to your
special care. As for the compensation you are to receive, I leave that
entirely to you."

As he spoke, he drew from his pocket-book a thousand-franc note and
laid it on the mantel. "I shall do myself the honor to call again some
time during the ensuing week. At what hour are your patients allowed to
see visitors?"

"From twelve to two, only; but I am always at home. Good day, sir."

"Stop him! stop him!" shouted Uncle Morlot. "Don't let him go. He is
the one that is mad; I will tell you all about it."

"Calm yourself, my dear uncle," said Francis, starting toward the
door. "I leave you in Dr. Auvray's care; he will soon cure you, I
trust."

M. Morlot sprang up to intercept his nephew, but the doctor detained
him.

"What a strange fatality!" cried the poor uncle. "He has not uttered a
single senseless remark. If he would only rave as usual, you would soon
see that I am not the one who is mad, but--"

Francis already had his hand on the door-knob, but turning suddenly,
he retraced his steps as if he had forgotten something and, walking
straight up to the doctor, said:

"My uncle's malady was not the only thing that brought me here."

"Ah," murmured M. Morlot, seeing a ray of hope, at last.

"You have a daughter," continued the young man.

"At last!" shouted the poor uncle. "You are a witness to the fact that
he said: 'You have a daughter.'"

"Yes," replied the doctor, addressing Francis. "Will you kindly
explain--"

"You have a daughter, Mlle. Claire Auvray."

"There, there! didn't I tell you so?" cried the uncle.

"Yes," again replied the doctor.

"She was at Ems three months ago with her mother."

"Bravo! Bravo!" yelled M. Morlot.

"Yes," responded the physician for the third time.

M. Morlot rushed up to the doctor, and cried: "You are not the doctor,
but a patient in the house."

"My friend, if you are not more quiet we shall have to give you a
douche."

M. Morlot recoiled in terror. His nephew continued calmly:

"I love your daughter, sir; I have some hope that I am loved in return,
and if her feelings have not changed since the month of September, I
have the honor to ask her hand in marriage."

"Is it to Monsieur Francis Thomas that I have the honor of speaking?"
inquired the doctor.

"The same, sir. I should have begun by telling you my name."

"Then you must permit me to say, sir, that you have been guilty of no
unseemly haste--"

But just then the good doctor's attention was diverted by M. Morlot,
who was rubbing his hands in a frenzied manner.

"What is the matter with you, my friend?" the doctor asked in his kind,
fatherly way.

"Nothing, nothing! I am only washing my hands. There is something on
them that troubles me."

"Show me what it is. I don't see anything."

"Can't you see it? There, there, between my fingers. I see it plainly
enough."

"What do you see?"

"My nephew's money. Take it away, doctor. I'm an honest man; I don't
want anything that belongs to anybody else."

While the physician was listening attentively to M. Morlot's first
ravings, an extraordinary change took place in Francis. He became as
pale as death, and seemed to be suffering terribly from cold, for his
teeth chattered so violently that Dr. Auvray turned and asked what was
the matter with him.

"Nothing," he replied. "She is coming, I hear her! It is joy, but it
overpowers me. It seems to be falling on me and burying me beneath its
weight like a snowdrift. Winter will be a dreary time for lovers. Oh,
doctor, see what is the matter with my head!"

But his uncle rushed up to him, crying:

"Enough, enough! Don't rave so! I don't want people to think you mad.
They will say I stole your reason from you. I'm an honest man. Doctor,
look at my hands, examine my pockets, send to my house on the Rue
Charonne. Search the cupboard. Open all the drawers. You will find I
have nothing that belongs to any other person."

Between his two patients the doctor was at his wits' end, when a door
opened, and Claire came in to tell her father that breakfast was on the
table.

Francis leaped up out of his chair, as if moved by a spring, but though
his will prompted him to rush toward Mlle. Auvray, his flesh proved
weak, and he fell back in his chair like lead. He could scarcely murmur
the words:

"Claire, it is I! I love you. Will you--"

He passed his hand over his forehead. His pale face became a vivid
scarlet. His temples throbbed almost to bursting; it seemed to him
that an iron band was contracting more and more around his head, just
above his brows. Claire, frightened nearly to death, seized both his
hands; his skin was so dry, and his pulse so rapid that the poor girl
was terrified. It was not thus that she had hoped to see him again. In
a few minutes, a yellowish tinge appeared about his nostrils; nausea
ensued, and Dr. Auvray recognized all the symptoms of a bilious fever.

"How unfortunate!" he said to himself. "If this fever had only attacked
his uncle, it would have cured him!"

He rang. A servant appeared, and shortly afterward Mme. Auvray, who
scarcely knew Francis, so greatly had he changed. It was necessary
that the sick man should be got to bed without delay, and Claire
relinquished her own pretty room to him. While they were installing him
there, his uncle wandered excitedly about the parlor, tormenting the
doctor with questions, embracing the sick man, seizing Mme. Auvray's
hand and exclaiming wildly: "Save him, save him! He shall not die! I
will not have him die! I forbid it. I have a right to. I am his uncle
and guardian. If you do not care for him, people will say I killed him.
You are witnesses to the fact that I ask for none of his property! I
shall give all his possessions to the poor! Some water--please give me
some water to wash my hands!" He was taken to the building occupied by
the patients, where he became so violent that it was necessary to put
him in a strait-jacket.

Mme. Auvray and her daughter nursed Francis with the tenderest care.
Confined in the sick-room day and night, the mother and daughter spent
most of their leisure time discussing the situation. They could not
explain the lover's long silence or his sudden reappearance. If he
loved Claire, why had he left her in suspense for three dreary months?
Why did he feel obliged to give his uncle's malady as an excuse for
presenting himself at Dr. Auvray's house? But if he had recovered from
his infatuation, why did he not take his uncle to some other physician?
There were plenty of them in Paris. Possibly he had believed himself
cured of his folly until the sight of Claire undeceived him? But no, he
had asked her father for her hand in marriage before he saw her again.
But, in his delirium, Francis answered all or nearly all of these
questions. Claire, bending tenderly over him, listened breathlessly
to his every word, and afterward repeated them to her mother and to
the doctor, who was not long in discovering the truth. They soon knew
that he had lost his reason and under what circumstances; they even
learned how he had been the innocent cause of his uncle's insanity.
Fears of an entirely different nature now began to assail Mlle. Auvray.
Was the terrible crisis which she had unwittingly brought about likely
to cure his mental disorder? The doctor assured his daughter that a
fever, under such circumstances, was almost certain to put an end to
the insanity, but there is no rule without its exception, especially in
medicine. And even if he seemed to be cured, was there not danger of a
recurrence of the malady?

"So far as I am concerned, I am not in the least afraid," said Claire,
smiling sadly. "I am the cause of all his troubles. Therefore, it is
my duty to console him. After all, his madness consists merely in
continually asking my hand. There will be no need of doing that after
I become his wife, so we really have nothing to fear. The poor fellow
lost his reason through his excessive love; so cure him, my dear
father, but not entirely. Let him remain insane enough to love me as
much as I love him!"

"We will see," replied Dr. Auvray. "Wait until this fever passes off.
If he seems ashamed of having been demented, if he appears gloomy,
or melancholy after his recovery, I can not vouch for him; if, on
the contrary, he remembers his temporary aberration of mind without
mortification or regret--if he speaks of it without any reserve, and
if he is not averse to seeing the persons who nursed him through his
illness, there is not the slightest reason to apprehend a return of the
malady."

On the 25th of December, Francis, fortified by a cup of chicken broth
and half the yolk of a soft boiled egg, sat up in bed, and without the
slightest hesitancy or mortification, and in a perfectly lucid manner,
gave the history of the past three months without any emotion save that
of quiet joy. Claire and Mme. Auvray wept as they listened to him; the
doctor pretended to be taking notes, or rather to be writing under
dictation, but something besides ink fell on the paper. When the story
ended, the convalescent added, by way of conclusion:

"And now on this, the 25th day of December, I say to my good doctor,
and much loved father--Dr. Auvray, whose street and number I shall
never again forget--'Sir, you have a daughter, Mlle. Claire Auvray,
whom I met at Ems, with her mother. I love her; she has proved that she
loves me in return, and if you have no fears that I will become insane
again, I have the honor to ask her hand in marriage."

The doctor was so deeply affected that he could only bow his head in
token of assent, but Claire put her arms around the sick man's neck
and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. I am sure I should desire no
better response under like circumstances.

That same day, M. Morlot, who had become much more quiet and tractable,
and who had long since been released from the bondage of a strait
jacket, rose about eight o'clock in the morning, as usual. On getting
out of bed, he picked up his slippers, examined and reexamined them
inside and out, then handed them to a nurse for inspection, begging him
to see for himself that they contained no thirty thousand francs. Until
positively assured of this fact he would not consent to put them on.
Then he carefully shook each of his garments out of the window, but not
until after he had searched every fold and pocket in them. After his
toilet was completed, he called for a pencil, and wrote on the walls of
his chamber:

"_Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's money, nor anything that is his._"

Dr. Auvray is confident of his ability to cure him, but it will
take time. It is in the summer and autumn that physicians are most
successful in their endeavors to cure insanity.


                          THE GRAND MARRIAGE
                           BY LUDOVIC HALÉVY

                            [Illustration]


    _Ludovic Halévy was born at Paris in 1834, and began to write
    for the theatre when very young. He is the author of the opera
    librettos, "Orphée aux Enfers," 1861, "Carmen," 1875, etc.;
    besides a number of vaudevilles, such as "Froufrou," etc.
    Most of his pieces are written in collaboration with Meilhac.
    Outside of the theatre he has published a collection of little
    scenes in the paper called "La Vie Parisienne," under the title
    of "Madame Cardinal" and "Les Petits Cardinal"; impressions
    of war under the title "L'Invasion," and some novels, such as
    "L'Abbé Constantin," 1882. In 1884 he was elected a member of
    the Academy._

    _Halévy tempered the fantastic humors of Meilhac, and
    restrained the more far-fetched of his own, bringing them
    down to earth. His theatre paints what is called Parisian
    life, remarkable for ease, delicacy, grace, but without much
    substance. His novels have a very delicate flavor, with a
    combination of suavity and irony._


                            [Illustration]




                          THE GRAND MARRIAGE
                           BY LUDOVIC HALÉVY

                     Translated by J. Matthewman.
    Copyright, 1891, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


                                  _Nov. 25th, 1893. 4 o'clock._

This morning at ten o'clock I was just settling down to attack
Beethoven's Twenty-fifth symphony, when the door opened, and who should
walk in but mama. Mama awake and stirring at ten o'clock! And not
only awake and stirring, but dressed and ready to go out--mantled and
bonneted.

I could not remember ever to have seen her stirring so early before.
She never manages to get to church on Sunday before the middle of the
one o'clock mass. The other evening she said, laughingly, to Abbé
Pontal:

"Monsieur l'Abbé, our dear religion would be absolutely perfect if you
substituted a mass at two for that at one. Then the concerts at the
_Conservatoire_ could be put an hour later, and Sunday in winter would
be all that could be desired."

At mama's entrance I was stupefied, and exclaimed: "You are going out,
mama?"

"No, I've just come in."

"You've just come in?"

"Yes, I had something to do this morning--to choose some stuffs for the
hangings--that blue, you know, which is so difficult to find."

"Have you found it?"

"No--no. But that they say they can get it for me--and I hope
that--They are going to send it by the day after to-morrow at the
latest."

Mama got quite confused in her explanation. She finally announced that
we were going to a _soirée_ at the Mercerey's. There was to be a little
music. She had known of it for several days, but had forgotten to
mention it to me before. I didn't show the slightest sign of surprise,
but while listening to mama, I studied her carefully, and thought to
myself: "What's the meaning of all this? Mama rambling about at this
unearthly hour, matching blues! A _soirée musicale_ at the Mercerey's!
Mama evidently confused, too! There's something hidden."

So I let her flounder and never uttered a sound. When she had finished
she took a few steps toward the door, just as actors do in a theatre
when they pretend they are going out, then she turned back and tried
to say with an air of indifference, as if the thought had only just
occurred to her: "Which gown do you think of putting on to-night?"

"To-night, mama? Really, I don't know. I might put the gray on--or the
blue--or the rose."

"No, no; not the rose. Put the blue on. You looked quite nice in it the
day before yesterday at Aunt Clarice's. Besides, your papa doesn't like
the rose, and as he is going with us to the Mercerey's--"

"Papa going to the Mercerey's!"

"Yes, certainly."

"Does he know that there's to be some music?"

"Yes."

"He knows--and yet he is going?"

"Yes. What is there surprising in that?"

"Oh, nothing, mama; nothing at all."

Whereupon she really left the room, and I was quite alone. Then,
without a moment's hesitation, I said to myself: "A marriage on the
_tapis_. They're going to show me off to some one. _That's_ why pap is
obliged to go."

Fancy papa letting himself be dragged by mama to a _soirée musicale_!
The whole world will seem topsy-turvy. There are only three places
which he finds bearable in the evening--the club, the opera during the
ballet, and the little theatres where people go to laugh and amuse
themselves generally--the theatres where young girls are not allowed to
go, but where I intend to go when I am married.

Yes, I'm sure there's an interview in the wind. It must be something
of great importance, for mama has been in a state of the highest
excitement ever since this morning. She ate no breakfast, and didn't
manage to conceal her unrest at all. Not only has she inspected my blue
dress carefully, but she has also examined me with equal thoroughness.
She fell into a fit of veritable despair on verifying the fact that
there was a slight flaw on my features.

"What's that?" she cried.

"Where? What? mama!"

"On the tip of your nose."

"Have I anything on the tip of my nose?"

"Yes, a horrid gash."

"Oh, good gracious! A gash?"

Quite horrified, I rushed to the mirror. Then I breathed freely again.
It was the merest trifle--where the kitten had given me a pat with its
paw. Nothing worth mentioning--a little reddish mark that was hardly
visible to the naked eye, and which could easily be got rid of before
evening.

But in mama's solicitous eyes the little mark assumed the proportions
of a disfiguring wound. The tip of my nose has never received so much
touching attention before. Mama made me sit still in an armchair during
half of the day, with cold-water cloths fixed like a pair of goggles on
the said tip of the aforementioned nose.

Poor mama! She's so anxious to see me married. It's quite natural,
after all. She looks very well herself yet in the evening, and it is
awkward to have to drag a big marriageable daughter around at her heels.

I don't like it, either, for that matter. I know that I make her look
older, and, therefore, as soon as we enter a room in the evening I slip
away from her, and try to see as little as possible of her afterward
until the carriage is announced. So each goes her own way, and
interferes as little as possible with the other.

She's a dear, good old soul. There are mothers who simply bully their
daughters, and worry them into marrying at five minutes' notice. Quite
a leap in the dark. Mama isn't one of them.

Besides, she knows I have made up my mind not to be hurried--and not to
decide carelessly. Marriage is not a trifling thing. If a mistake is
made it is for life; so it's well to know what one is doing when one
takes the plunge. When I get married it will be in all seriousness. I
don't intend to tumble head over ears in love with the first newcomer,
be he fair or dark, who says to his mother: "I've found the girl of my
choice. I love her, and her alone. I'll have her or nobody."

Oh, no! I'm not going into that stupidity. I intend to keep my eyes
open, and my wits about me.

Last spring I declined five very likely wooers simply because none of
them offered all the advantages of birth, fortune, and position which I
consider I am justified in demanding.

I shall follow the same course of action during the winter
campaign--the same calm prudence. I am not yet twenty, so I can afford
to wait.

Since this morning I have felt highly satisfied with myself--_very_
highly satisfied. I have not been in the least affected by mother's
open agitation. To-day, as usual, I have glanced through my notes.

On my eighteenth birthday I find I wrote the following simple words on
the first page of my notebook, which I still keep carefully under lock
and key:

                             MY MARRIAGE.

"And so five have bitten the dust already." I'm sure there'll be a
sixth combatant in the lists to-night. Is he the one who will finally
become my very humble and very obedient servant and lord?

In any case, he had better get ready to undergo the most rigorous and
searching examination.

I'm not like mama. I don't lose _my_ head.


                                          _Nov. 26th. Four o'clock._

I wasn't mistaken. It _was_ the sixth.

But let me be orderly, and write the events, both small and great, in
their due sequence.

After dinner mama and I went upstairs to dress. I took a long time over
it, and was very careful, too. I may as well tell the truth. I worked
at my toilet. It took me an hour and a half to dress to my own complete
satisfaction. On coming downstairs I found all the doors open, and as I
noiselessly approached the drawing-room I heard papa and mama talking.
Papa said:

"You think it _absolutely_ necessary, then?"

"_Absolutely_ necessary. Just think of it. Your presence is
indispensable."

The temptation was too great. I stopped to listen. Was it not right, or
at least justifiable curiosity on my part?

"Why indispensable?" replied papa. "I know the young fellow. I've often
met him at the club. I've even played whist with him. He doesn't play
badly, either. He saw Irene on horseback, and thought she was superb.
That settles the whole affair as far as I am concerned. What business
is it of mine? It's only your affair--your's and Irene's."

"My dear, I assure you that propriety demands--"

"Well, well; I'll go, I'll go."

Then silence fell. Not another word was spoken. I waited to hear the
man's name, but it didn't come. My heart beat a little quicker as I
stood there in expectancy--in fact, I distinctly heard its tick-tack. I
stood two or three minutes, but as they did not think fit to resume the
conversation, I entered, and had to pretend to know nothing.

But I did know something, and that something was of importance, too. He
is a member of the "Jockey." To me that means everything. If I attach
too much importance to it, it is papa's fault, for he thinks that any
one who is not a member of the Jockey is simply nobody. The world, as
far as papa is concerned, begins with the Jockey, and ends at those who
are not of the charmed circle. I have been brought up with those ideas.
My husband must be a member of the Jockey.

Well, the three of us set off in the landau--papa gloomy, depressed,
silent; mama in the same state of eager excitement; I outwardly cool
and indifferent, but thinking hard all the same.

What could be the meaning of so much mystery? This gentleman has seen
me on horseback, and had though I was bewitching, which was very sweet
of him. Was it he who had asked to see me in a brilliantly-lighted
room--_décolletée_?

That, it seemed to me, was scarcely the correct thing. He ought to have
been shown to _me_ before I was so liberally shown to him on horseback
and on foot. But, after all, it didn't matter much.

We got to the Mercerey's at half-past ten. I was very sorry for papa,
for it really was a _soirée musicale_, and there was a quartet, too,
which is about the most trying thing in the world for one who does
not care for music, and has not been broken in into bearing it. In
addition, the music was highly and wearily classical.

There were not many people present--only about a score. The company
was very mixed, and it was evident that the affair had been arranged
in a hurry, for the people seemed to have been picked up haphazard,
with no thought for their peculiarities and idiosyncrasies--nobody knew
anybody, and there was an evident lack of sympathy.

We entered just when the andante movement of a sonata was in full
swing, and we went on tiptoe to seats. I settled myself snugly in a
quiet corner and cast a rapid, furtive glance round the battlefield. At
first I only saw a few old men--_blasé_ looking individuals--evidently
not for me.

Then, in the opposite corner, I noticed a little knot of four young
men. There could be no doubt that there was the enemy.

Yes, but which of the four? In my simplicity I thought: "It must be
he who is looking at me most devotedly and attentively." I modestly
lowered my eyes, and assumed the attitude of a saint listening with
inward rapture to the austere strains of a Haydn sonata.

Then suddenly I raised my eyes and let them fall full upon the group of
young men. But I had to drop them more quickly than I had raised them,
for all the four young men were studying me with an equal amount of
curiosity and evident approbation. I let the sonata go a little longer,
and again renewed the experiment--with the same result. The four pairs
of eyes were fixed unflinchingly upon me.

I don't think I was much put out by so much attention. In fact, I
wasn't at all put out. It was pleasant, very pleasant; and I rather
liked it than otherwise.

The country did wonders for me last summer. I have grown a little--ever
so little--fatter. Virginie, my maid, said to me the other evening
while dressing me:

"Ah! Mademoiselle, you don't know how the summer has improved you." In
which Virginie was very much mistaken. Mademoiselle _did_ know it very
well. One always notices such things first one's self.

The quartet at last came to an end, and the usual confusion of tongues
followed. I took mama aside and said:

"Mama, do point him out."

"Why, you little minx, have you guessed?"

"Yes, I've guessed. Show me him--quick--the music's going to start
again."

"That's he--the tall dark man, on the left there--the man standing
under the Meissonnier. Don't look just now. He's looking at you."

"He's not the only one. They're all doing that."

"He's not looking now, though. There he is. He's going to papa. He's
talking to him."

"He's not bad looking."

"I should rather think he isn't!"

"But his mouth's too large."

"_I_ don't think so."

"Oh, yes it is. But that's a trifle. On the whole, he'll do."

"Oh, if you only knew all--birth, fortune, everything you could wish
for. It was such an extraordinary accident, too--quite romantic."

"What's his name?"

"Comte de Martelle-Simieuse. Don't look at him; he's beginning to
look at you again. As I was saying, he is a Martelle-Simieuse, and
the Martelle-Simieuses are cousins of the Landry-Simieuses and of the
Martelle-Jonzacs. You know the Martelle-Simieuses?"

At this point one of the musicians tapped on his desk, and mama's
flow of genealogical eloquence was stopped. We resumed our seats, and
the music commenced. Mozart this time. I sank back into my corner and
settled down to my reflections. It was evident to me that he must be a
splendid catch, for mama was so excited.

Comtesse de Martelle-Simieuse. Two names. Just what I had dreamt of and
longed for. Of course, I should have preferred to be a duchess; but
then there are so few real dukes left--only twenty-two, I believe--so
that is practically out of the question. But a countess is passable.

Comtesse de Martelle-Simieuse. The name would sound well, I thought,
and I repeated it several times to convince myself. I paid no attention
whatever to Mozart. At first I scarcely realized that the musicians
were playing Mozart--it might have been Wagner. All that I knew was
that the musicians were playing a melody which seemed to fit in with
the words: "Madame la Comtesse de Martelle-Simieuse."

After all a name _is_ a matter of great importance, and particularly
a name which goes well with a title. He is titled as well as a
member of the "Jockey." _He_ must be titled. I wouldn't become
plain "Madame"--no, not for a fabulous fortune. Comtesse de
Martelle-Simieuse. Yes, certainly, that sounded very well.

When the quartette was over the conversation was renewed. Papa turned
toward mama, so did I. As soon as I reached her, she said, excitedly:
"The affair is marching splendidly. He has asked to be introduced to
you, and papa noticed that his voice trembled--didn't it?"

"Yes," replied papa, "his voice trembled."

"Your papa is going to bring him up to introduce him. If you are not
satisfied with him, don't stay at my side. If you are satisfied, stay."

"Of course I shall stay, mama; but it must be understood that I shall
have due time for reflection afterward. You have promised not to hurry
me."

"You will be quite free. But don't forget that it is a chance in a
hundred thousand. If you only knew his relatives, and how well they are
married. His mother was a Précigny-Laroche. Think of that! A P--"

"Yes, yes. I see."

"There is no better blood than that of the Précigny-Laroches."

"Keep calm, mama. Don't get so excited. People are looking at you."
Then papa fetched him, and we had a nice chat in the interval. It was
evident that he was affected. He had had courage to stare at me from a
distance, but close at hand he daren't look at me. I had to lead the
conversation, and I managed in ten minutes, while chatting apparently
about the most trivial topics, to learn all that was absolutely
necessary that I should know before letting things go farther.

He loves Paris--so do I. He detests the country--so do I. He thinks
Trouville is very amusing--so do I. He doesn't like shooting--nor do I.
On the other hand, he is passionately fond of horses and hunting--just
as I am. It is well that we agree on that point. How many times have I
said to myself, "My husband will have a hunting-seat." He has one. He
rents a forest which is only ten leagues from Paris. You leave Paris
at half-past eight in the morning from the Gare du Nord--the most
convenient of stations--and at half-past ten you are on horseback.
And unless the hunt is a very long one, you are back in Paris in the
evening for the theatre or a ball.

Then again, his time, his fortune, as well as he himself, are entirely
at his own disposal. He has neither father nor mother. He has only a
younger brother, who is at present serving in an artillery regiment,
and a very rich and very old aunt, who has no children. So he is the
head of the family. Martelle-Simieuse belongs to him. It is an estate
somewhere out in Vendée. Of course, I have not the remotest idea of
going and burying myself out in Vendée for half of the year; but it's
quite necessary to have a country seat, and Vendée is just as good as
anywhere else.

All which information I picked up in the short space of ten minutes or
a quarter of an hour at the outside. Madame Mercerey, seeing that we
were engaged in a serious conversation, lengthened the interval for the
benefit of us four--I might say of us three, for papa never uttered a
word--might even say of us two, for mama didn't say much either.

All the information I obtained by skilfully turning the conversation in
the most natural manner, and without asking a single question.

This morning mama told me that she was absolutely shocked at my
calmness and precision last night. Yes, I have a practical side to
my nature. I am anxious to place my life in certain unassailable
conditions of independence and security, without which there could be
neither happiness nor love, nor anything else worth having.

For instance, I'm determined not to have a mother-in-law. I don't know
what I wouldn't give _not_ to have a mother-in-law. I don't intend to
have to quarrel with one. At home a wife should be at home, and only
have her husband to deal with.

It was on account of that decision that I rejected the little Marquis
de Marillac last year. He was one of the five. I could have loved him;
really, I had already begun to. Then I saw his mother. Then I stopped.

She was a terrible creature--strict, lugubrious, and ferociously
_dévote_. She expected her daughter-in-law to go and bury herself in
the depths of Bretagne for eight months out of the twelve. Certainly,
it would have been a saving--but at what a cost! What slavery!
Besides, what would be the good of getting married, if, the day after
leaving girlhood, the wife had to become a child and go back into
leading-strings again the next day?

Now let me see. Where was I? I've really quite forgotten. Oh, I
remember. The music began again, as I said. It was the last piece. We
four sat down in a row in the following order: I, mama, papa, and he.
It was scarcely an hour before that I had first set eyes on him, and we
were already quite a little family party, we four, sitting stupidly and
stiffly in a straight line on our chairs.

Some short waltzes of Beethoven were played, with intervals of one
minute between. During the first interval mother said to me:

"Well, what do you think of him, now that you have seen him?"

"The same as before, mama."

"Is he all right?"

"He'll do."

"Then your father may venture to ask him to dinner?"

"Wouldn't that be hurrying matters rather too much?"

"We must hurry matters."

"Why, mama?"

"Sh! They're going to begin again."

I was somewhat put out. What was the reason for such unseemly haste? I
was quite shocked by it. It seemed really as if I were being thrown
at the gentleman's head. I was in a hurry to know the why and the
wherefore. I thought the concert would never end.

After ages of waiting the second interval came, and I began again:

"Mama, tell me why."

"I can't tell you anything just now. It would take too long. I'll tell
you all presently, when we get home. But if he's invited it must be
to-night; and there's not a minute to lose--yes or no?"

"Mama, you're hurrying me."

"No, I'm not hurrying you. You are at liberty to decline."

"Very well, then--yes."

"Dinner on Thursday?"

"Thursday will do very well."

Between the third and fourth waltzes, mama said hurriedly to papa:

"Invite him to dinner."

"What day?"

"Thursday."

"All right."

Papa has behaved with admirable docility and resignation. I never saw
him in such a serious _rôle_ before. It is true that the music seemed
to bewilder him so that he scarcely knew what he was doing. I felt
restless, and thought: "There, now, he'll go and invite the wrong one."
Nothing of the sort. He gave the invitation quite correctly, and it was
accepted with enthusiasm.

We left at midnight, and before we had fairly got away from Mercerey's
I said to mama:

"I see clearly that you are as anxious as possible that I should accept
this man."

"Certainly."

"Then tell me--"

"Just let me get my breath first. I am quite exhausted. I'll tell you
everything when we get home."

An hour later I knew all. It was the most extraordinary thing in the
world. Yesterday morning at eight o'clock a maid awoke mama, and gave
her a note marked "Important." It was from Madame de Mercerey, and was
as follows:

    "I have a _migraine_ and can not leave my room. Come--come at
    once to see me. A splendid stroke of luck for Irene."

Mama at once got up and went to Madame Mercerey.

But I must leave the rest till to-morrow. We dine at eight o'clock.


                                            _November 27th._

Well, mama went off post-haste, and this is what she heard from
Madame Mercerey: "The two Martelle-Simieuses, the elder, Adrien (he's
mine), and the younger, Paul, lost their grandmother ten years ago.
She was an excellent old lady--very rich and very crotchety. She had
one fixed idea--that of ensuring the perpetuity of her family. She
seemed to imagine that if the Martelle-Simieuses became extinct the
world would of necessity come to an end. She was not by any means
stupid, and she caused a very ingenious and peculiar clause to be
inserted in her will, by which she set aside 1,000,000 francs, which
sum, together with the accumulated interest, was to go to her grandson
Adrien if he married before reaching the age of twenty-five. If he
failed to marry within the time stipulated, it passed to his brother
Paul, on the same conditions. If both brothers insisted on remaining
bachelors the money went to the poor. The trifle thus set aside now
amounts to the respectable sum of one and a half millions. Adrien
showed no inclination to marry, but was addicted to sport, and wished
above all to maintain his independence. 'I will not marry,' he used to
say. 'I have an income of 180,000 francs, and that's enough for me.
With a little care and economy I can make both ends meet.' In short,
he regarded the approach of the fatal 10th of January with perfect
complacency, although he knew that on that day he would be twenty-five."

Toward the end of last year there was a great speculating craze in our
set--a sort of commercial crusade against the infidel Jews. Adrien
plunged into speculation, not so much for the sake of gain as for
excitement, and to do good. He assisted in an attempt to maintain the
credit of a certain bank which was hard pressed.

In the crash that ensued the poor fellow lost heavily--1,400,000
francs. So his income was reduced to 80,000, and naturally he was very
much pinched. But he wasn't by any means depressed. He showed a brave
face to misfortune, and at once set to work to reduce his expenditure
by dismissing some of his servants and selling some of his horses.

His resolution not to marry remained unaltered. But about a month ago
some of his friends undertook to show him the error of his ways. They
pointed out how absurd it was to stupidly let such a fortune slip from
his grasp, simply through want of decision to close his hand, and that
he might easily marry and get a heap of money into the bargain, so
that the unpleasantness of marrying might be greatly alleviated. This
argument shook his resolution somewhat. He asked his cousin, Madame de
Riémens, to look out for a wife for him. She sought, and found that
great gawk Catherine de Puymarin, who is very, _very_ rich, but no more
figure than a lath. His first words when he saw her were: "She is too
slim, and won't look well on horseback." From the moment that he began
to entertain the thought of marrying, he settled it as a _sine qua non_
that his wife must be a good horsewoman.

Time was flying, and Adrien's friends worried and pressed him. He had
begun by saying "No" to them. Then he declined to say either "Yes" or
"No." He was in all probability going to say "Yes" when the fateful and
dramatic day arrived--November 24th.

On that eventful day, instead of going to ride in the afternoon as I
usually do, I had to go in the morning with Monsieur Coates, who kindly
considers me one of his most brilliant pupils, and who occasionally
does the Bois with me.

At ten o'clock I drove out in a dog-cart with Miss Morton. We stopped
near the Champignon, on the right, at the entrance of the Bois, where
Monsieur Coates was waiting for me. The groom had brought Triboulet,
who doesn't always behave very well, and on the day in question, as
he hadn't been out of his box for forty-eight hours, he was full of
mischief, and capered and pranced in fine style. I had had to dress
very hurriedly, as it happened, and Virginie had skewered my hair into
two balls, and to keep the puffs in place she had stuck in about a
dozen hairpins.

Monsieur Coates helped me to mount, but not without some difficulty,
for Triboulet was remarkably frisky and disinclined to be mounted. As
soon as he felt me on his back he began to plunge, and tore off at full
tilt. But I am pretty much at home on horseback--besides, I know how to
manage Triboulet, and I punished him soundly. Just, however, as we were
in the middle of our explanations I felt something rolling--rolling
over my shoulders. It was my hair, which had come down, and was
spreading itself in an avalanche, which carried my hat away. So there
I was, bareheaded--Triboulet racing as hard as he could, and my hair
flying out behind.

At that precise moment, Adrien, Comte de Martelle-Simieuse, rode down
the Allée des Poteaux, and got a view of the performance. He reined
up at a respectful distance, quite surprised at the unusual sight,
and in something less than no time he had given vent to three little
exclamations of admiration and wonder:

The first was for the horsewoman: "'Pon my word, she does ride well."

The second was for my hair: "What a magnificent head of hair."

The third was for my face: "Gad--how pretty."

Triboulet, in the mean time, had got a little calmer. The groom managed
to find five of the scattered hairpins, and I got my hair into a little
better condition, and fastened my veil around my head.

Finally, Monsieur Coates and I started, the groom riding behind, and
behind him rode the Comte de Martelle-Simieuse, who made a second tour
of the Bois in my honor.

I, in my innocence, never dreamt of the conquest I had made. The
weather was rather cold and raw, and we went at a good pace. Triboulet,
stung by the keen air, made several attempts at insurrection, but he
soon found out whom he had to deal with. Monsieur Coates was very much
pleased with me.

"This morning," said he, "you ride superbly--like an angel"--which was
also the opinion of my second, self-appointed groom, who kept saying to
himself:

"How well she rides! How well she rides!"

That was the idea which filled his head during the ride, and he
compared me with Catherine de Puymarin.

The ride finished, I went and found Miss Morton, got into the dog-cart,
and set off for the Rue de Varennes. Young Martelle-Simieuse trotted
behind and acted as my escort home.

He waited until the door was opened and we had entered, then he
satisfied himself that I lived in a good house, in a good street, and
that from all appearances I was no adventuress.

What he then wanted was the name of the intrepid Amazon. A very simple
idea occurred to him. What does the name matter for the moment? He
returned home, got the directory--Rue de Varennes, 49 _bis_, Baron and
Baronne de Léoty. That is how he discovered the name of her who will
perhaps become the faithful partner of his joys and sorrows. Baron de
Léoty. He knew papa from the club. But had papa a daughter? The mystery
had to be solved.

It was very soon solved, for that evening Adrien dined at the
Mercerey's, and during a lull in the conversation he said carelessly to
Madame Mercerey: "Do you happen to know a Monsieur de Léoty?"

"Quite well."

"Has he a daughter?"

"Yes."

"How old is she?"

"About twenty."

"Very pretty, isn't she?"

At which, it appears, there was a general and enthusiastic outburst in
my honor. He was the only one present who didn't know me, poor fellow.
Madame de Mercerey wanted to know the reason for all his inquiries. So
he recounted the story of the morning's ride, my horse's obstinacy, my
firmness, my hair flying in the wind--in fact, it was quite a lyrical
description, which caused general stupefaction, for he had never been
heard to sing in that strain before.

Whereupon Madame de Mercerey showed presence of mind which was as rare
as it was admirable. _En passant_ it must be observed that she loves
mama and hates the Puymarins heartily, although, until about six weeks
ago, they were the best of friends. She really has good cause to be
offended with them, though.

The Puymarins have given three _soirées_ this year--the Orléans princes
were at one, and the Grand Duke Vladimir at another, while the third
was made up of nobodies. Well, the Duchess invited the Mercereys with
the nobodies. Now, considering their birth and fortune, they might
reasonably have expected more consideration than that. For that reason
they are very angry--and justifiably so.

Now comes Madame de Mercerey's stroke of genius. Taking the ball, as
it were, on the rise, without a moment's hesitation, she said, in the
presence of her husband, who was stupefied at the assertion, that on
the following evening they were going to have a few friends, among
whom Madame and Mademoiselle Léoty were invited, and that Monsieur de
Martelle-Simieuse would be welcome if he cared to come. There would be
some music, and he would have an opportunity of seeing his fair heroine
of the Bois. Monsieur de Mercerey was thunderstruck:

"Aren't you mistaken in the date, my dear?" he said. "We were surely
going to the Gymnase to-morrow night to see the new piece of Octave
Feuillet."

"No, my dear; that is for the day after to-morrow."

"I thought that--I ordered the box myself."

"It is for the day after to-morrow, I tell you."

Upon which Monsieur subsided and got no further explanation of the
riddle until dinner was over. Madame de Mercerey's exertions did not
stop at that. She took possession of Monsieur de Martelle-Simieuse,
and treated him to a eulogy of me.

"Irene de Léoty is just the girl to suit you--just the wife you want.
The meeting this morning was clearly the work of Providence."

He repeated as refrain:

"How well she rides."

Yesterday, after having seen mama, Madame de Mercerey, in spite of her
_migraine_, courageously set to work and took the field to get people
together--engaged musicians and got programs printed. What admirable
activity!

On what insignificant trifles our destiny hangs. If Virginie had
fastened my hair up properly, if Triboulet had been quiet, if the
Puymarins had not put the Mercereys among the nobodies--Monsieur de
Martelle-Simieuse would not have been invited to dine at our house
to-morrow, and I should not be asking myself the question:

"Shall I, or shall I not be Comtesse de Martelle-Simieuse?"

Poor Puymarins! They have come to Paris for the sole purpose of
exhibiting their phenomenon. Poor Catherine de Puymarin! Shall I let
her keep her count, or shall I take him myself?

I don't yet know. But I do know that the sixth has not made a bad
start, and if I _had_ to bet on the result, I would not give odds.


                     _November 20th. Ten o'clock in the morning._

What deliberations there were about the dinner. Should it be a big
affair or a small one? Where should _he_ be placed? Opposite me or at
my side? Mama at first held out for opposite. She maintained that I
produce a much better effect _en face_ than _en profil_, especially
when I am _décolletée_, and of course I _was décolletée_. I stuck out
for being at his side. I didn't feel at all nervous at the idea of
having him near me. It was necessary to make him talk, so as to be
able to take his measure. I still held to my resolution of not getting
married without knowing what I was doing. So, of course, he was put at
my side--on my right. So as not to be too hungry, and to have plenty of
time for cross-questioning, I had a pretty substantial lunch at five
o'clock. That left me free to turn the conversation as I wished--which
I did.

We were at table over an hour and a half, and at the end of that time
I was convinced that we were made for each other. We first talked
about carriages and hunting. It was a splendid start. I discovered
immediately that his ideal of a horse is just the same as mine--not too
thin, and not too high--light certainly, but not too slim; elegant, but
well formed. I think he was somewhat surprised to find that I was _au
fait_ in such matters. About carriages and gear our ideas are exactly
the same.

He was both surprised and charmed. When dinner began he was evidently
excited and ill at ease, but as we chatted, and I put him at his ease,
the conversation began to go swimmingly. We spoke the same language. We
were made to understand each other.

He hunts boars with a pack of eighty hounds--magnificent animals of
the best breed. He described his hunting suit minutely--coat _à la
française_, color of dead leaves, facings and pockets of blue velvet.
It would be charming to have a costume to harmonize with the dead
leaves. I have already an idea for a little hat--a dainty little thing.

One reason which induces me to favor him is that, as a rule, we have to
choose our husbands from among men who have nothing to do, and who live
lives of the most appalling idleness. That is the reason why _ennui_
and fatigue ruins so many happy households.

His time is, however, quite occupied. He hasn't a single minute of free
time which he can really call his own. His energy and intellect are
employed in pursuits which are at the same time useful and elegant.
He is one of the leaders of a very _chic clique_, which has just been
organized; member of the committee of a pigeon-shooting society, and of
a skaters' league; he is interested in a society for steeplechasing,
and is part owner of a stud of race-horses. With so many irons in the
fire it is evident that he is fully occupied.

All which I had learned in half an hour. Then I passed on to politics,
and catechized him thereon. This is a very, very important question,
and I have fully made up my mind to have no misunderstandings on that
head. Poor mama has suffered cruelly, and I am resolved not to expose
myself to like annoyances.

Mama has been very happy with papa--except from a political standpoint.
She was very young when she was married. Her family was an ancient
one, and of strict monarchical principles. So was papa. So far, so
good. But toward the end of 1865 papa went over to the Empire. It was
not because his opinions had changed--he took the step out of goodness
of heart. Poor papa is _so_ good--too good in fact. His change in
politics was due to his devotion to my Uncle Armand, his brother, who
is now general of division. He was only a captain then, and had had no
promotion for ages. He was not in favor because papa refused to set
foot in the Tuileries in spite of the many advances made to him. So at
last papa, who adored Uncle Armand, accepted an invitation and promised
to present mama. That was a veritable triumph for the Empire, for there
is no bluer blood in France than that of mama's family.

Mama passed the day of the presentation in tears. She was, however,
forced to obey, but _en route_ there was a frightful scene in the
landau. Mama became obstinate, and declared that she would not be
presented. She wanted to get out of the carriage into the street,
although she was wearing white satin shoes and a crown of roses, and
it was snowing heavily at the time. At length she became quieter, and
resigned herself to her fate.

A fortnight afterward Uncle Armand received a decoration, and at the
end of six months was chief of a squadron. But the affair caused many
doors to be shut against papa and mama. That caused him no trouble--not
a bit; in fact, he was rather pleased than otherwise. He detests
society, and always has his club. But society is mama's life-breath,
and she is not a member of the "Jockey," so she suffered cruelly.

Nearly all the doors which were shut have since been opened--that is
to say, since the establishment of the Republic, because since then
many things have been forgotten. The remainder would be thrown open
to me were I once Comtesse de Martelle-Simieuse. I should be received
everywhere with open arms. Since the beginning of the century the
political attitude of the Martelle-Simieuses has been irreproachable.
It did not even trip during the Empire.

The Martelle-Simieuses can trace their pedigree, fairly and without any
trickery, back to the fourteenth century. Adrien's mother--there, I am
already calling him Adrien--Adrien's mother was a Précigny-Laroche,
and as for his father--Adrien has published a little book about his
genealogy. Only a hundred copies were printed and distributed among his
friends. Madame de Mercerey has a copy of it, which she lent to mama.
I have read it, and reread it, until I know it by heart. It proves
incontestably that Adrien is the third in rank among the counts of
France--not fourth, but third.

Of course, one must naturally consider nobility of heart and elevation
of character in the first place, but one must not forget to attach
their real importance to these other things. They are of enormous
interest in life, and especially at this particular moment, in the
midst of this flood of _soi disant_ nobility, in the presence of
Spanish dukes and Italian princes, who are easily able, if we can not
prove that we are really of noble family, to steal a march on us, and
usurp our position in society. I couldn't bear the thought of being
put at table at dinner with money-makers and literary persons.

Another point demands attention, for nothing is too trifling to notice
when it is a question of making certain definite arrangements for
the comfort and pleasure of after-life. One ought firmly to secure
what one wants. Mama has a box at the opera every Monday. It has been
understood, for some time past, that when I marry I am to go halves on
that box. Mama will have it one Monday, and I the next. That's a very
good arrangement, and I am quite satisfied with it.

Now, if I marry Adrien, I shall have a box in the first row, in front,
at the Théâtre Français, every Tuesday from December to June. This is
how it will be arranged. He has an aunt, a dear old aunt, very rich,
without children (so he is her heir), very old, asthmatic, and she has
the said box at the Théâtre Français. She is quite willing to hand it
over to him, for she never uses it. She has not been in the theatre for
over three years. What a dear old aunt she is!

All that information I got out of him between the soup and the cheese.
So, when, after dinner, mama rushed to me and said, "Well?" I replied:

"I don't think I could find a better."

"Then it's settled?"

"Two are necessary for a marriage."

"Oh, you may set your mind at rest on that score. You are two. I have
been watching you the whole time during dinner. His head is quite
turned."

That was my opinion, too. When mama rushed to me, he rushed off to
Madame Mercerey, who, of course, was of the party. He loved me to
distraction; adored me, would marry only me--me and nobody else. And he
besought Madame Mercerey to go and demand me from mama at once.

She had to try to pacify him, and to show him that one must not act too
rashly. Mama, for her part, would have been quite contented to settle
the affair at once. She had a dread of the machinations of the Puymarin
clique.

I didn't share her fear in the least. I recognized clearly what an
effect I had produced, and I felt that I was mistress of the situation.
So I reminded mama of her promises, and of my resolution only to come
to a decision when I had carefully weighed the pros and cons, and
said that I had only seen him twice--each time in evening dress. I
was determined to see him twice in the daytime, and in frock coat. I
knew how Cousin Mathilde had managed. She saw her husband twice in the
daytime--once in the Louvre and once at the Hippodrome. As there was no
Hippodrome where I could see Adrien, I would substitute the museum at
Cluny. I was determined, however, to have my two interviews in broad
daylight.

So Madame Mercerey arranged an accidental meeting at the Louvre for
to-day at three o'clock punctually, in front of Murillo's "Virgin."


                                   _The same day. Five o'clock._

We have just returned from an hour's stroll in the galleries, where
we did not pay much attention to the pictures. I imagine that he is
surprisingly ignorant of pictures. But then I have no thought of
marrying an art critic. He has _such_ a fine figure, and dresses _so_
well. He speaks very little, is very reserved, but very correct; and
above all, never makes stupid remarks. Taking him altogether, I am
quite contented.

As soon as we were alone in the carriage in the Rue Rivoli, I had to
repulse another attack from mama:

"He's simply charming. I should think that you would never insist on
Cluny now."

"No. I waive that. Never mind Cluny."

"That's right. Then you've decided?"

"Not yet, mama; not yet. One oughtn't to rush madly into marriage after
having got a little information about a man's fortune and situation."

"But what more do you want?"

"To see him on horseback. He's seen me riding, but I haven't seen him."

In short, Madame de Mercerey, whose devotion is indefatigable, is going
to advise him to-night to go and ride about at the entrance of the
Avenue des Acacias about ten o'clock to-morrow morning. As inducement
she will hint delicately that he may possibly meet papa and me. For
papa--I must say that papa astonishes me--he is acting the _rôle_ of a
father who has a marriageable daughter to perfection. He hasn't mounted
a horse for four years, but to-morrow he is going to risk a broken neck.


                                                  _November 20th._

We had a ride round the Bois--all three of us--papa, he, and I. _He_
looks very well on horseback. He rode a splendid bay mare. I will take
her for myself, and will pass Triboulet on to him, for I know Triboulet
too well, and am tired of him.

On my return I flung my arms round mama's neck--

"Yes, a thousand times," I said.

And with tears in my eyes, I thanked her for having been so indulgent,
so good, so patient.


                                                   _December 4th._

To-day at three o'clock the old aunt who has the box at the theatre
on Tuesdays is to come to demand my hand officially, and so before
the 10th of January (that will be absolutely necessary because of the
grandmother's will) I shall be Comtesse de Martelle-Simieuse. Adrien
will get the one and a half millions and me into the bargain, as extra
consolation prize. I think it will be money easily gained. I don't
think that he is much to be pitied.


                                                  _December 11th._

The wedding is fixed for January 6th. It is absurd to get married at
such a time, but it couldn't be arranged otherwise. The will! The will!
Besides, after all, the date doesn't displease me so very much. We
shall have a short--a _very_ short--honeymoon--a few days at Nice--ten
days at the outside.

After that Paris in full swing, with all the theatres open. The
unfortunate Louise de Montbrian got married last spring--at the end of
May, and returned to Paris after a six-weeks' honeymoon only to find
the city torrid and sinister.

We shall be supremely happy--of that I haven't the slightest doubt. He
adores me. And I! Do I love him? Well, I must be candid with myself,
and it would not be true if I declared, in the phrases so common in
English novels, that I love him madly; that I only really live when he
is present; that I tremble at the sound of his footsteps, and start
when I hear his voice.

Oh, no! I am not so easily moved. My heart can't be expected to go at
that rate. But I already like him very much. Love will come in time, I
have no doubt.

Love is such an economizer in a household. I bring a million, and we
can reckon on an income of about 230,000 francs. That may at first
sight seem a very large income, but it isn't really so. First of all
we must deduct about 80,000 francs for the keeping up of Simieuse, our
château in Vendée, and for hunting. That will leave only 150,000 francs
for living expenses, which amount will be quite sufficient if we love
each other and pull together _en bon camarade_.

But if, on the contrary, we begin after a short time--and this is the
history of many households--to pull in opposite directions, we shall
only have 75,000 francs each, and that will mean pinching--supposing
that theatres--leaving the opera and the Théâtre Français out of the
reckoning--cost 2,000 or 3,000 francs a year if we go together, it
would at once be double that sum if we went separately. And so with
everything else--the expenditure doubled.

Take, for instance, Caroline and her husband. They have only 100,000
francs per annum, but they live well, and without economizing. Why?
Because they love each other. They have quite a small house, and
naturally don't require a host of servants. They receive little, and
rarely go out. The more they are with each other, the more they see of
each other, the more they are satisfied. Caroline is quite content,
too, with 12,000 francs for her toilet.

Take Adèle as an example of the contrary. Poor girl, she married very
much against her own will and judgment. Her mother was dazzled by the
title. Certainly a title is something--in fact, it is a great deal--but
it is not exactly everything. Well, her marriage with Gontran turned
out badly. Things went wrong from the first week. Consequently they
find themselves pinched in spite of their great income of 250,000
francs. She spends a fortune on clothes, on stupid whims. It costs
her much more to satisfy the whole world than it would to please one
individual. The Duke, in consequence, has taken to play, and has
already squandered half of his fortune.

Caroline said to me recently:

"As soon as you are married try to love your husband. In our set that
means a saving of at least 100,000 per annum, and even if people can't
love each other for love's sake, they ought to for convenience."

"Oh, yes! I'll love him. I'll love him. Besides, it's only the 11th of
December. Between now and the 6th of January I have still twenty-six
days before me."


                          THE ACCURSED HOUSE
                           BY ÉMILE GABORIAU

                            [Illustration]


    _Émile Gaboriau, best known for his remarkable detective
    stories, was born at Sanson in 1853, and died at Paris in
    1873. He was for a time private secretary of Paul Féval,
    the novelist, and published a great variety of work. In
    1866 appeared in the paper called "Le Pays" his first great
    detective story, "L'Affaire Lerouge," which the author
    dramatized in collaboration with Hostein in 1872. Like all of
    the great series, "L'Affaire Lerouge," "Monsieur Lecoq," "Les
    Esclaves de Paris," etc., are written in an easy flowing style,
    and are full of exciting moments._

    _It is interesting to trace the ancestry of the modern
    detective story. The first seeds are said to be found in
    Voltaire's "Zadig"; they germinate in Poe's tales, take form
    in Gaboriau, and are in full bloom in Conan Doyle's "Sherlock
    Holmes."_


                            [Illustration]




                          THE ACCURSED HOUSE
                           BY ÉMILE GABORIAU

                    Translated by E. C. Waggener.
    Copyright, 1891, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


The Vicomte de B----, an amiable and charming young man, was peacefully
enjoying an income of 30,000 livres yearly, when, unfortunately for
him, his uncle, a miser of the worst species, died, leaving him all his
wealth, amounting to nearly two millions.

In running through the documents of succession, the Vicomte de B----
learned that he was the proprietor of a house in the Rue de la
Victoire. He learned, also, that the unfurnished building, bought
in 1849 for 300,000 francs, now brought in, clear of taxes, rentals
amounting to 82,000 francs a year.

"Too much, too much, entirely," thought the generous vicomte, "my uncle
was too hard; to rent at this price is usury, one can not deny it. When
one bears a great name like mine, one should not lend himself to such
plundering. I will begin to-morrow to lower my rents, and my tenants
will bless me."

With this excellent purpose in view, the Vicomte de B---- sent
immediately for the _concièrge_ of the building, who presented himself
as promptly, with back bent like a bow.

"Bernard, my friend," said the vicomte, "go at once from me and notify
all your tenants that I lower their rents by one-third."

That unheard-of word "lower" fell like a brick on Bernard's head. But
he quickly recovered himself; he had heard badly; he had not understood.

"Low--er the rents!" stammered he. "Monsieur le Vicomte deigns to jest.
Lower! Monsieur, of course means to raise the rents."

"I was never more serious in my life, my friend," the vicomte returned;
"I said, and I repeat it, lower the rents."

This time the _concièrge_ was surprised to the point of
bewilderment--so thrown off his balance that he forgot himself and lost
all restraint.

"Monsieur has not reflected," persisted he. "Monsieur will regret
this evening. Lower the tenants' rents! Never was such a thing known,
monsieur! If the lodgers should learn of it, what would they think of
monsieur? What would people say in the neighborhood? Truly--"

"Monsieur Bernard, my friend," dryly interrupted the vicomte, "I
prefer, when I give an order, to be obeyed without reply. You hear
me--go!"

Staggering like a drunken man, Monsieur Bernard went out from the house
of his proprietor.

All his ideas were upset, overthrown, confounded. Was he, or was he
not, the plaything of a dream, a ridiculous nightmare? Was he himself
Pierre Bernard, or Bernard somebody else?

"Lower his rents! lower his rents!" repeated he. "It is not to be
believed! If indeed the lodgers had complained! But they have not
complained; on the contrary, all are good payers. Ah! if his uncle
could only know this, he would rise from the tomb! His nephew has gone
mad, 'tis certain! Lower the rents! They should have up this young
man before a family council; he will finish badly! Who knows--after
this--what he will do next? He lunched too well, perhaps, this morning."

And the worthy Bernard was so pale with emotion when he reentered
his lodge, so pale and spent, that on seeing him enter, his wife and
daughter Amanda exclaimed as with one voice:

"Goodness! what is it? What has happened to you now?"

"Nothing," responded he, with altered voice, "absolutely nothing."

"You are deceiving me," insisted Madame Bernard, "you are concealing
something from me; do not spare me; speak, I am strong--what did the
new proprietor tell you? Does he think of turning us off?"

"If it were only that! But just think, he told me with his own lips, he
told me to--ah! you will never believe me--"

"Oh, yes; only do go on."

"You will have it, then!--Well, then, he told me, he ordered me to
notify all the tenants that--_he lowered their rents one-third_! Did
you hear what I said?--_lowered_ the rents of the tenants--"

But neither Madame nor Mademoiselle Bernard heard him out--they were
twisting and doubling with convulsive laughter.

"Lower!" repeated they; "ah! what a good joke, what a droll man! Lower
the tenants' rents."

But Bernard, losing his temper and insisting that he must be taken
seriously in his own lodge, his wife lost her temper too, and a quarrel
followed! Madame Bernard declaring that Monsieur Bernard had, beyond a
doubt, taken his fantastic order from the bottom of a litre of wine in
the restaurant at the corner.

But for Mademoiselle Amanda the couple would undoubtedly have come
to blows, and finally Madame Bernard, who did not wish to be thought
demented, threw a shawl over her head and ran to the proprietor's
house. Bernard had spoken truly; with her own two ears, ornamented with
big, gilded hoops, she heard the incredible word. Only, as she was a
wise and prudent woman, she demanded "a bit of writing," to put, as she
said, "her responsibility under cover."

She, too, returned thunderstruck, and all the evening in the lodge,
father, mother, and daughter deliberated.

Should they obey? or should they warn some relative of this mad young
man, whose common sense would oppose itself to such insanity?

They decided to obey.

Next morning, Bernard, buttoning himself into his best frock coat, made
the rounds of the three-and-twenty lodges to announce his great news.

Ten minutes afterward the house in the Rue de la Victoire was in a
state of commotion impossible to describe. People who, for forty years
had lived on the same floor, and never honored each other with so much
as a tip of the hat, now clustered together and chatted eagerly.

"Do you know, monsieur?"

"It is very extraordinary."

"Simply unheard of!"

"The proprietor's lowered my rent!"

"One-third, is it not? Mine also."

"Astounding! It _must_ be a mistake!"

And despite the affirmations of the Bernard family, despite even the
"bit of writing," "under cover," there were found among the tenants
doubting Thomases, who doubted still in the face of everything.

Three of them actually wrote to the proprietor to tell him what had
passed, and to charitably warn him that his _concièrge_ had wholly lost
his mind. The proprietor responded to these skeptics, confirming what
Bernard had said. Doubt, thereafter, was out of the question.

Then began reflections and commentaries.

"_Why_ had the proprietor lowered his rents?"

"Yes, _why_?"

"What motives," said they all, "actuate this strange man? For certainly
he must have grave reasons for a step like this! An intelligent man, a
man of good sense, would never deprive himself of good fat revenues,
well secured, for the simple pleasure of depriving himself. One would
not conduct himself thus without being forced, constrained by powerful
or terrible circumstances."

And each said to himself:

"_There is something under all this!_"

"But what?"

And from the first floor to the sixth they sought and conjectured and
delved in their brains. Every lodger had the preoccupied air of a man
that strives with all his wits to solve an impossible cipher, and
everywhere there began to be a vague disquiet, as it happens when one
finds himself in the presence of a sinister mystery.

Some one went so far as to hazard:

"This man must have committed a great and still hidden crime; remorse
pushes him to philanthropy."

"It was not a pleasant idea, either, the thought of living thus side
by side with a rascal; no, by no means; he might be repentant, and all
that, but suppose he yielded to temptation once more!"

"The house, perhaps, was badly built?" questioned another, anxiously.

"Hum-m, so-so! no one could tell; but all knew one thing--it was very,
very old!"

"True! and it had been necessary to prop it when they dug the drain
last year in the month of March."

"Maybe it was the roof, then, and the house is top-heavy?" suggested a
tenant on the fifth floor.

"Or perhaps," said a lodger in the garret, "there is a press for
coining counterfeit money in the cellar; I have often heard at night a
sound like the dull, muffled thud of a coin-stamper."

The opinion of another was that Russian, maybe Prussian, spies had
gained a lodgment in the house, while the gentleman of the first story
was inclined to believe that the proprietor purposed to set fire to
his house and furniture with the sole object of drawing great sums from
the insurance companies.

Then began to happen, as they all declared, extraordinary and even
frightful things. On the sixth and mansard floors it appeared that
strange and absolutely inexplicable noises were heard. Then the nurse
of the old lady on the fourth story, going one night to steal wine from
the cellar, encountered the ghost of the defunct proprietor--he even
held in his hand a receipt for rent--by which she knew him!

And the refrain from loft to cellar was:

"There is something under all this!"

From disquietude it had come to fright; from fright it quickly passed
to terror. So that the gentleman of the first floor, who had valuables
in his rooms, made up his mind to go, and sent in notice by his clerk.

Bernard went to inform the proprietor, who responded:

"All right, let the fool go!"

But next day the chiropodist of the second floor, though he had naught
to fear for his valuables, imitated the gentleman beneath him. Then the
bachelors and the little households of the fifth story quickly followed
this example.

From that moment it was a general rout. By the end of the week,
everybody had given notice. Every one awaited some frightful
catastrophe. They slept no more. They organized patrols. The terrified
domestics swore that they too would quit the accursed house and
remained temporarily only on tripled wages.

Bernard was no more than the ghost of himself; the fever of fear had
worn him to a shadow.

"No," repeated his wife mournfully at each fresh notification, "no, it
is _not_ natural."

Meanwhile three-and-twenty "For Rent" placards swung against the façade
of the house, drawing an occasional applicant for lodgings.

Bernard--never grumbling now--climbed the staircase and ushered the
visitor from apartment to apartment.

"You can have your choice," said he to the people that presented
themselves, "the house is entirely vacant; all the tenants have
given notice as one man. They do not know why, exactly, but things
have happened, oh! yes, _things_! a mystery such as was never before
known--_the proprietor has lowered his rents!_"

And the would-be lodgers fled away affrighted.

The term ended, three-and-twenty vans carried away the furniture of
the three-and-twenty tenants. Everybody left. From top to bottom, from
foundations to garret, the house lay empty of lodgers.

The rats themselves, finding nothing to live on, abandoned it also.

Only the _concièrge_ remained, gray green with fear in his lodge.
Frightful visions haunted his sleep. He seemed to hear lugubrious
howlings and sinister murmurs at night that made his teeth chatter
with terror and his hair erect itself under his cotton nightcap.
Madame Bernard no more closed an eye than he. And Amanda in her frenzy
renounced all thought of the operatic stage and married--for nothing
in the world but to quit the paternal lodge--a young barber and
hair-dresser whom she had never before been able to abide.

At last, one morning, after a more frightful nightmare than usual,
Bernard, too, took a great resolution. He went to the proprietor, gave
up his keys, and scampered away.

       *       *       *       *       *

And now on the Rue de la Victoria stands the abandoned house, "The
Accursed House," whose history I have told you. Dust thickens upon the
closed slats, grass grows in the court. No tenant ever presents himself
now; and in the quarter, where stands this Accursed House, so funereal
is its reputation that even the neighboring houses on either side of it
have also depreciated in value.

Lower one's rents!! Who would think of such a thing!!!


                        THE FÊTE AT COQUEVILLE
                             BY ÉMILE ZOLA

                            [Illustration]


    _"Jacques Damour" is the greatest of Zola's short stories, but
    its length precludes its use here._

    _"Zola," says Edmund Gosse, "has rarely displayed the quality
    of humor, but it is present in the story called 'The Fête at
    Coqueville.'"_

    _This scientific collector of "human documents" is probably the
    most widely read of modern French authors. He was born at Paris
    in 1840, the son of an Italian engineer. In 1871 he began that
    long series for which he has been so much censured, the twenty
    volumes of "Rougon-Macquart," the natural and social history of
    a family under the Second Empire. Zola died by asphyxiation in
    1902._

    _Though Zola has a predilection for the ugly side of life,
    he offends only against taste and not against morals. It
    was a splendid act of heroism, that manifesto of his called
    "J'Accuse" in which he defended Dreyfus in 1898, and for which
    he was imprisoned and fined._


                            [Illustration]




                        THE FÊTE AT COQUEVILLE
                             BY ÉMILE ZOLA

  Translated by L. G. Meyer. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.


                                   I

Coqueville is a little village planted in a cleft in the rocks, two
leagues from Grandport. A fine sandy beach stretches in front of the
huts lodged half-way up in the side of the cliff like shells left there
by the tide. As one climbs to the heights of Grandport, on the left
the yellow sheet of sand can be very clearly seen to the west like a
river of gold dust streaming from the gaping cleft in the rock; and
with good eyes one can even distinguish the houses, whose tones of
rust spot the rock and whose chimneys send up their bluish trails to
the very crest of the great slope, streaking the sky. It is a deserted
hole. Coqueville has never been able to attain to the figure of two
hundred inhabitants. The gorge which opens into the sea, and on the
threshold of which the village is planted, burrows into the earth by
turns so abrupt and by descents so steep that it is almost impossible
to pass there with wagons. It cuts off all communication and isolates
the country so that one seems to be a hundred leagues from the
neighboring hamlets. Moreover, the inhabitants have communication with
Grandport only by water. Nearly all of them fishermen, living by the
ocean, they carry their fish there every day in their barks. A great
commission house, the firm of Dufeu, buys their fish on contract.
The father Dufeu has been dead some years, but the widow Dufeu has
continued the business; she has simply engaged a clerk, M. Mouchel, a
big blond devil, charged with beating up the coast and dealing with the
fishermen. This M. Mouchel is the sole link between Coqueville and the
civilized world.

Coqueville merits a historian. It seems certain that the village, in
the night of time, was founded by the Mahés; a family which happened
to establish itself there and which grew vigorous at the foot of the
cliff. These Mahés continued to prosper at first, marrying continually
among themselves, for during centuries one finds none but Mahés there.
Then under Louis XIII appeared one Floche. No one knew too much of
where he came from. He married a Mahé, and from that time a phenomenon
was brought forth; the Floches in their turn prospered and multiplied
exceedingly, so that they ended little by little in absorbing the Mahés
whose numbers diminished until their fortune passed entirely into the
hands of the newcomers. Without doubt, the Floches brought new blood,
more vigorous physical organs, a temperament which adapted itself
better to that hard condition of high wind and of high sea. At any
rate, they are to-day masters of Coqueville.

It can easily be understood that this displacement of numbers and
of riches was not accomplished without terrible disturbances. The
Mahés and the Floches detest each other. Between them is a hatred of
centuries. The Mahés in spite of their decline retain the pride of
ancient conquerors. After all they are the founders, the ancestors.
They speak with contempt of the first Floche, a beggar, a vagabond
picked up by them from feelings of pity, and to have given away one
of their daughters to whom was their eternal regret. This Floche, to
hear them speak, had engendered nothing but a descent of libertines
and thieves, who pass their nights in raising children and their days
in coveting legacies. And there is not an insult they do not heap upon
the powerful tribe of Floche, seized with that bitter rage of nobles,
decimated, ruined, who see the spawn of the bourgeoisie master of their
rents and of their châteaux. The Floches, on their side, naturally have
the insolence of those who triumph. They are in full possession, a
thing to make them insolent. Full of contempt for the ancient race of
the Mahés, they threaten to drive them from the village if they do not
bow their heads. To them they are starvelings, who instead of draping
themselves in their rags would do much better to mend them.

So Coqueville finds itself a prey to two fierce factions--something
like one hundred and thirty inhabitants bent upon devouring the other
fifty for the simple reason that they are the stronger.

The struggle between two great empires has no other history.

Among the quarrels which have lately upset Coqueville, they cite the
famous enmity of the brothers, Fouasse and Tupain, and the ringing
battles of the Rouget ménage. You must know that every inhabitant in
former days received a surname, which has become to-day the regular
name of the family; for it was difficult to distinguish one's self
among the cross-breedings of the Mahés and the Floches. Rouget
assuredly had an ancestor of fiery blood. As for Fouasse and Tupain,
they were called thus without knowing why, many surnames having lost
all rational meaning in course of time. Well, old Françoise, a wanton
of eighty years who lived forever, had had Fouasse by a Mahé, then
becoming a widow, she remarried with a Floche and brought forth Tupain.
Hence the hatred of the two brothers, made specially lively by the
question of inheritance. At the Rouget's they beat each other to a
jelly because Rouget accused his wife, Marie, of being unfaithful to
him for a Floche, the tall Brisemotte, a strong, dark man, on whom he
had already twice thrown himself with a knife, yelling that he would
rip open his belly. Rouget, a small, nervous man, was a great spitfire.

But that which interested Coqueville most deeply was neither the
tantrums of Rouget nor the differences between Tupain and Fouasse. A
great rumor circulated: Delphin, a Mahé, a rascal of twenty years,
dared to love the beautiful Margot, the daughter of La Queue, the
richest of the Floches and chief man of the country. This La Queue was,
in truth, a considerable personage. They called him La Queue because
his father in the days of Louis Philippe, had been the last to tie up
his hair, with the obstinacy of old age that clings to the fashions
of its youth. Well, then, La Queue owned one of the two large fishing
smacks of Coqueville, the "Zéphir," by far the best, still quite new
and seaworthy. The other big boat, the "Baleine," a rotten old
patache,[1] belonged to Rouget, whose sailors were Delphin and Fouasse,
while La Queue took with him Tupain and Brisemotte. These last had
grown weary of laughing contemptuously at the "Baleine"; a sabot,
they said, which would disappear some fine day under the billows like
a handful of mud. So when La Queue learned that that ragamuffin of a
Delphin, the froth of the "Baleine," allowed himself to go prowling
around his daughter, he delivered two sound whacks at Margot, a trifle
merely to warn her that she should never be the wife of a Mahé. As a
result, Margot, furious, declared that she would pass that pair of
slaps on to Delphin if he ever ventured to rub against her skirts. It
was vexing to be boxed on the ears for a boy whom she had never looked
in the face! Margot, at sixteen years strong as a man and handsome as
a lady, had the reputation of being a scornful person, very hard on
lovers. And from that, added to the trifle of the two slaps, of the
presumptuousness of Delphin, and of the wrath of Margot, one ought
easily to comprehend the endless gossip of Coqueville.


                   [Illustration: =Émile Zola=]


Notwithstanding, certain persons said that Margot, at bottom, was not
so very furious at sight of Delphin circling around her. This Delphin
was a little blonde, with skin bronzed by the sea-glare, and with a
mane of curly hair that fell over his eyes and in his neck. And very
powerful despite his slight figure; quite capable of thrashing any
one three times his size. They said that at times he ran away and
passed the night in Grandport. That gave him the reputation of a
werwolf with the girls, who accused him, among themselves, of "making
a life of it"--a vague expression in which they included all sorts of
unknown pleasures. Margot, when she spoke of Delphin, betrayed too
much feeling. He, smiling with an artful air, looked at her with eyes
half shut and glittering, without troubling himself the least in the
world over her scorn or her transports of passion. He passed before
her door, he glided along by the bushes watching for her hours at a
time, full of the patience and the cunning of a cat lying in wait for
a tomtit; and when suddenly she discovered him behind her skirts, so
close to her at times that she guessed it by the warmth of his breath,
he did not fly, he took on an air gentle and melancholy which left her
abashed, stifled, not regaining her wrath until he was some distance
away. Surely, if her father saw her he would smite her again. But she
boasted in vain that Delphin would some day get that pair of slaps she
had promised him; she never seized the moment to apply them when he was
there; which made people say that she ought not to talk so much, since
in the end she kept the slaps herself.

No one, however, supposed she could ever be Delphin's wife. In her case
they saw the weakness of a coquette. As for a marriage between the
most beggardly of the Mahés, a fellow who had not six shirts to set up
housekeeping with, and the daughter of the mayor, the richest heiress
of the Floches, it would seem simply monstrous. Evil tongues insinuated
that she could perfectly go with him all the same, but that she would
certainly not marry him. A rich girl takes her pleasure as it suits
her, only if she has a head, she does not commit a folly. Finally all
Coqueville interested itself in the matter, curious to know how things
would turn out. Would Delphin get his two slaps? or else Margot, would
she let herself be kissed on both cheeks in some hole in the cliff?
They must see! There were some for the slaps and there were some for
the kisses. Coqueville was in revolution.

In the village two people only, the curé and the _garde champêtre_,[2]
belonged neither to the Mahés nor to the Floches. The _garde
champêtre_, a tall, dried-up fellow, whose name no one knew, but who
was called the Emperor, no doubt because he had served under Charles
X, as a matter of fact exercised no burdensome supervision over the
commune which was all bare rocks and waste lands. A sub-prefect who
patronized him had created for him the sinecure where he devoured in
peace his very small living.

As for the Abbé Radiguet, he was one of those simple-minded priests
whom the bishop, in his desire to be rid of him, buries in some out
of the way hole. He lived the life of an honest man, once more turned
peasant, hoeing his little garden redeemed from the rock, smoking his
pipe and watching his salads grow. His sole fault was a gluttony which
he knew not how to refine, reduced to adoring mackerel and to drinking,
at times, more cider than he could contain. In other respects, the
father of his parishioners, who came at long intervals to hear a mass
to please him.

But the curé and the _garde champêtre_ were obliged to take sides
after having succeeded for a long time in remaining neutral. Now, the
Emperor held for the Mahés, while the Abbé Radiguet supported the
Floches. Hence complications. As the Emperor, from morning to night,
lived like a bourgeois [citizen], and as he wearied of counting the
boats which put out from Grandport, he took it upon himself to act
as village police. Having become the partizan of the Mahés, through
native instinct for the preservation of society, he sided with Fouasse
against Tupain; he tried to catch the wife of Rouget in _flagrante
delicto_ with Brisemotte, and above all he closed his eyes when he saw
Delphin slipping into Margot's courtyard. The worst of it was that
these tactics brought about heated quarrels between the Emperor and
his natural superior, the mayor La Queue. Respectful of discipline,
the former heard the reproaches of the latter, then recommenced to
act as his head dictated; which disorganized the public authority of
Coqueville. One could not pass before the shed ornamented with the
name of the town hall without being deafened by the noise of some
dispute. On the other hand, the Abbé Radiguet rallied to the triumphant
Floches, who loaded him with superb mackerel, secretly encouraged the
resistance of Rouget's wife and threatened Margot with the flames of
hell if she should ever allow Delphin to touch her with his finger.
It was, to sum up, complete anarchy; the army in revolt against the
civil power, religion making itself complaisant toward the pleasures
of the bourgoisie; a whole people, a hundred and eighty inhabitants,
devouring each other in a hole, in face of the vast sea, and of the
infinite sky.

Alone, in the midst of topsy-turvy Coqueville, Delphin preserved the
laughter of a love-sick boy, who scorned the rest, provided Margot
was for him. He followed her zigzags as one follows hares. Very wise,
despite his simple look, he wanted the curé to marry them, so that his
bliss might last forever.

One evening, in a byway where he was watching for her, Margot at last
raised her hand. But she stopped, all red; for without waiting for
the slap, he had seized the hand that threatened him and kissed it
furiously. As she trembled, he said to her in a low voice: "I love you.
Won't you have me?"

"Never!" she cried, in rebellion.

He shrugged his shoulders, then with an air, calm and tender, "Pray do
not say that--we shall be very comfortable together, we two. You will
see how nice it is."


                                  II

That Sunday the weather was appalling, one of those sudden calamities
of September that unchain such fearful tempests on the rocky coast of
Grandport. At nightfall Coqueville sighted a ship in distress driven by
the wind. But the shadows deepened, they could not dream of rendering
help. Since the evening before, the "Zéphir" and the "Baleine" had
been moored in the little natural harbor situated at the left of the
beach, between two walls of granite. Neither La Queue nor Rouget had
dared to go out; the worst of it was that M. Mouchel, representing
the Widow Dufeu, had taken the trouble to come in person that Saturday
to promise them a reward if they would make a serious effort; fish was
scarce, they were complaining at the markets. So, Sunday evening, going
to bed under squalls of rain, Coqueville growled in a bad humor. It
was the everlasting story: orders kept coming in while the sea guarded
its fish. And all the village talked of the ship which they had seen
passing in the hurricane, and which must assuredly by that time be
sleeping at the bottom of the water. The next day, Monday, the sky was
dark as ever. The sea, still high, raged without being able to calm
itself, although the wind was blowing less strong. It fell completely,
but the waves kept up their furious motion. In spite of everything, the
two boats went out in the afternoon. Toward four o'clock, the "Zéphir"
came in again, having caught nothing. While the sailors, Tupain and
Brisemotte, anchored in the little harbor, La Queue, exasperated, on
the shore, shook his fist at the ocean. And M. Mouchel was waiting!
Margot was there, with the half of Coqueville, watching the last
surgings of the tempest, sharing her father's rancor against the sea
and the sky.

"But where is the 'Baleine'?" demanded some one.

"Out there beyond the point," said La Queue. "If that carcass comes
back whole to-day, it will be by a chance."

He was full of contempt. Then he informed them that it was good for
the Mahés to risk their skins in that way; when one is not worth a
_sou_, one may perish. As for him, he preferred to break his word to M.
Mouchel.

In the mean time, Margot was examining the point of rocks behind which
the "Baleine" was hidden.

"Father," she asked at last, "have they caught something?"

"They?" he cried. "Nothing at all."

He calmed himself and added more gently, seeing the Emperor, who was
sneering at him:

"I do not know whether they have caught anything, but as they never do
catch anything--"

"Perhaps, to-day, all the same, they have taken something," said the
Emperor ill-naturedly. "Such things have been seen." La Queue was about
to reply angrily. But the Abbé Radiguet, who came up, calmed him. From
the porch of the church the abbé had happened to observe the "Baleine";
and the bark seemed to be giving chase to some big fish. This news
greatly interested Coqueville. In the groups reunited on the shore
there were Mahés and Floches, the former praying that the boat might
come in with a miraculous catch, the others making vows that it might
come in empty.

Margot, holding herself very straight, did not take her eyes from the
sea. "There they are!" said she simply.

And in fact a black dot showed itself beyond the point. All looked at
it. One would have said a cork dancing on the water. The Emperor did
not see even the black dot. One must be of Coqueville to recognize at
that distance the "Baleine" and those who manned her.

"See!" said Margot, who had the best eyes of the coast, "it is Fouasse
and Rouget who are rowing--The little one is standing up in the bow."

She called Delphin "the little one" so as not to mention his name. And
from then on they followed the course of the bark, trying to account
for her strange movements. As the curé said, she appeared to be giving
chase to some great fish that might be fleeing before her. That seemed
extraordinary. The Emperor pretended that their net was without doubt
being carried away. But La Queue cried that they were do-nothings, and
that they were just amusing themselves. Quite certain they were not
fishing for seals! All the Floches made merry over that joke; while the
Mahés, vexed, declared that Rouget was a fine fellow all the same, and
that he was risking his skin while others at the least puff of wind
preferred _terra firma_. The Abbé Radiguet was forced to interpose
again for there were slaps in the air.

"What ails them?" said Margot abruptly. "They are off again!" They
ceased menacing one another, and every eye searched the horizon. The
"Baleine" was once more hidden behind the point. This time La Queue
himself became uneasy. He could not account for such maneuvres. The
fear that Rouget was really in a fair way to catch some fish threw
him off his mental balance. No one left the beach, although there was
nothing strange to be seen. They stayed there nearly two hours, they
watched incessantly for the bark, which appeared from time to time,
then disappeared. It finished by not showing itself at all any more. La
Queue, enraged, breathing in his heart the abominable wish, declared
that she must have sunk; and, as just at that moment Rouget's wife
appeared with Brisemotte, he looked at them both, sneering, while he
patted Tupain on the shoulder to console him already for the death of
his brother, Fouasse. But he stopped laughing when he caught sight of
his daughter Margot, silent and looming, her eyes on the distance; it
was quite possibly for Delphin.

"What are you up to over there?" he scolded. "Be off home with you!
Mind, Margot!"

She did not stir. Then all at once: "Ah! there they are!"

He gave a cry of surprise. Margot, with her good eyes, swore that she
no longer saw a soul in the bark; neither Rouget, nor Fouasse, nor any
one! The "Baleine," as if abandoned, ran before the wind, tacking about
every minute, rocking herself with a lazy air.

A west wind had fortunately risen and was driving her toward the land,
but with strange caprices which tossed her to right and to left. Then
all Coqueville ran down to the shore. One half shouted to the other
half, there remained not a girl in the houses to look after the soup.
It was a catastrophe; something inexplicable, the strangeness of which
completely turned their heads. Marie, the wife of Rouget, after a
moment's reflection, thought it her duty to burst into tears. Tupain
succeeded in merely carrying an air of affliction. All the Mahés were
in great distress, while the Floches tried to appear conventional.
Margot collapsed as if she had her legs broken.

"What are you up to again!" cried La Queue, who stumbled upon her.

"I am tired," she answered simply.

And she turned her face toward the sea, her cheeks between her hands,
shading her eyes with the ends of her fingers, gazing fixedly at the
bark rocking itself idly on the waves with the air of a good fellow who
has drunk too much.

In the mean while suppositions were rife. Perhaps the three men had
fallen into the water? Only, all three at a time, that seemed absurd.
La Queue would have liked well to persuade them that the "Baleine" had
gone to pieces like a rotten egg; but the boat still held the sea;
they shrugged their shoulders. Then, as if the three men had actually
perished, he remembered that he was Mayor and spoke of formalities.

"Leave off!" cried the Emperor, "Does one die in such a silly way?" "If
they had fallen overboard, little Delphin would have been here by this!"

All Coqueville had to agree, Delphin swam like a herring. But where
then could the three men be? They shouted: "I tell you, yes!"--"I
tell you, no!"--"Too stupid!"--"Stupid yourself!" And matters came
to the point of exchanging blows. The Abbé Radiguet was obliged to
make an appeal for reconciliation, while the Emperor hustled the
crowd about to establish order. Meanwhile, the bark, without haste,
continued to dance before the world. It waltzed, seeming to mock at
the people; the sea carried her in, making her salute the land in long
rhythmic reverences. Surely it was a bark in a crazy fit. Margot, her
cheeks between her hands, kept always gazing. A yawl had just put out
of the harbor to go to meet the "Baleine." It was Brisemotte, who
had exhibited that impatience, as if he had been delayed in giving
certainty to Rouget's wife. From that moment all Coqueville interested
itself in the yawl. The voices rose higher: "Well, does he see
anything?" The "Baleine" advanced with her mysterious and mocking air.
At last they saw him draw himself up and look into the bark that he had
succeeded in taking in tow. All held their breath. But, abruptly, he
burst out laughing. That was a surprise; what had he to be amused at?
"What is it? What have you got there?" they shouted to him furiously.

He, without replying, laughed still louder. He made gestures as if
to say that they would see. Then having fastened the "Baleine" to
the yawl, he towed her back. And an unlooked-for spectacle stunned
Coqueville. In the bottom of the bark, the three men--Rouget, Delphin,
Fouasse--were beatifically stretched out on their backs, snoring, with
fists clenched, dead drunk. In their midst was found a little cask
stove in, some full cask they had come across at sea and which they had
appreciated. Without doubt, it was very good, for they had drunk it all
save a liter's worth which had leaked into the bark and which was mixed
with the sea water.

"Ah! the pig!" cried the wife of Rouget, brutally, ceasing to whimper.

"Well, it's characteristic--their catch!" said La Queue, who affected
great disgust.

"Forsooth!" replied the Emperor, "they catch what they can! They have
at least caught a cask, while others have not caught anything at all."

The Mayor shut up, greatly vexed. Coqueville brayed. They understood
now. When barks are intoxicated, they dance as men do; and that one,
in truth, had her belly full of liquor. Ah, the slut! What a minx! She
festooned over the ocean with the air of a sot who could no longer
recognize his home. And Coqueville laughed, and fumed, the Mahés found
it funny, while the Floches found it disgusting. They surrounded the
"Baleine," they craned their necks, they strained their eyes to see
sleeping there the three jolly dogs who were exposing the secret
springs of their jubilation, oblivious of the crowd hanging over them.
The abuse and the laughter troubled them but little. Rouget did not
hear his wife accuse him of drinking up all they had; Fouasse did not
feel the stealthy kicks with which his brother Tupain rammed his sides.
As for Delphin, he was pretty, after he had drunk, with his blond hair,
his rosy face drowned in bliss. Margot had gotten up, and silently, for
the present, she contemplated the little fellow with a hard expression.

"Must put them to bed!" cried a voice.

But just then Delphin opened his eyes. He rolled looks of rapture over
the people. They questioned him on all sides with an eagerness that
dazed him somewhat, the more easily since he was still as drunk as a
thrush.

"Well! What?" he stuttered; "it was a little cask--There is no fish.
Therefore, we have caught a little cask."

He did not get beyond that. To every sentence he added simply: "It was
very good!"

"But what was it in the cask?" they asked him hotly.

"Ah! I don't know--it was very good."

By this time Coqueville was burning to know. Every one lowered their
noses to the boat, sniffing vigorously. With one opinion, it smelt of
liquor; only no one could guess what liquor. The Emperor, who flattered
himself that he had drunk of everything that a man can drink, said that
he would see. He solemnly took in the palm of his hand a little of the
liquor that was swimming in the bottom of the bark. The crowd became
all at once silent. They waited. But the Emperor, after sucking up a
mouthful, shook his head as if still badly informed. He sucked twice,
more and more embarrassed, with an air of uneasiness and surprise. And
he was bound to confess:

"I do not know--It's strange--If there was no salt water in it, I would
know, no doubt--My word of honor, it is very strange!"

They looked at him. They stood struck with awe before that which the
Emperor himself did not venture to pronounce. Coqueville contemplated
with respect the little empty cask.

"It was very good!" once more said Delphin, who seemed to be making
game of the people. Then, indicating the sea with a comprehensive
sweep, he added: "If you want some, there is more there--I saw
them--little casks--little casks--little casks--"

And he rocked himself with the refrain which he kept singing, gazing
tenderly at Margot. He had just caught sight of her. Furious, she made
a motion as if to slap him; but he did not even close his eyes; he
awaited the slap with an air of tenderness.

The Abbé Radiguet, puzzled by that unknown tipple, he, too, dipped his
finger in the bark and sucked it. Like the Emperor, he shook his head:
no, he was not familiar with that, it was very extraordinary. They
agreed on but one point: the cask must have been wreckage from the ship
in distress, signaled Sunday evening. The English ships often carried
to Grandport such cargoes of liquor and fine wines.

Little by little the day faded and the people were withdrawn into
shadow. But La Queue remained absorbed, tormented by an idea which he
no longer expressed. He stopped, he listened a last time to Delphin,
whom they were carrying along, and who was repeating in his sing-song
voice: "Little casks--little casks--little casks--if you want some,
there are more!"


                                  III

That night the weather changed completely. When Coqueville awoke the
following day an unclouded sun was shining; the sea spread out without
a wrinkle, like a great piece of green satin. And it was warm, one of
those pale glows of autumn.

First of the village, La Queue had risen, still clouded from the
dreams of the night. He kept looking for a long time toward the sea,
to the right, to the left. At last, with a sour look, he said that he
must in any event satisfy M. Mouchel. And he went away at once with
Tupain and Brisemotte, threatening Margot to touch up her sides if
she did not walk straight. As the "Zéphir" left the harbor, and as
he saw the "Baleine" swinging heavily at her anchor, he cheered up a
little, saying: "To-day, I guess, not a bit of it! Blow out the candle,
Jeanetton! those gentlemen have gone to bed!"

And as soon as the "Zéphir" had reached the open sea, La Queue cast
his nets. After that he went to visit his "jambins." The jambins are a
kind of elongated eel-pot in which they catch more, especially lobsters
and red gurnet. But in spite of the calm sea, he did well to visit his
jambins one by one. All were empty; at the bottom of the last one, as
if in mockery, he found a little mackerel, which he threw back angrily
into the sea. It was fate; there were weeks like that when the fish
flouted Coqueville, and always at a time when M. Mouchel had expressed
a particular desire for them. When La Queue drew in his nets, an hour
later, he found nothing but a bunch of seaweed. Straightway he swore,
his fists clenched, raging so much the more for the vast serenity of
the ocean, lazy and sleeping like a sheet of burnished silver under
the blue sky. The "Zéphir," without a waver, glided along in gentle
ease. La Queue decided to go in again, after having cast his nets once
more. In the afternoon he came to see them, and he menaced God and the
saints, cursing in abominable words.

In the mean while, Rouget, Fouasse, and Delphin kept on sleeping. They
did not succeed in standing up until the dinner hour. They recollected
nothing, they were conscious only of having been treated to something
extraordinary, something which they did not understand. In the
afternoon, as they were all three down at the harbor, the Emperor tried
to question them concerning the liquor, now that they had recovered
their senses. It was like, perhaps, eau-de-vie with liquorice-juice in
it; or rather one might say rum, sugared and burned. They said "Yes";
they said "No." From their replies, the Emperor suspected that it was
ratafia; but he would not have sworn to it. That day Rouget and his
men had too many pains in their sides to go a-fishing. Moreover, they
knew that La Queue had gone out without success that morning, and they
talked of waiting until the next day before visiting their jambins. All
three of them, seated on blocks of stone, watched the tide come in,
their backs rounded, their mouths clammy, half-asleep.

But suddenly Delphin woke up; he jumped on to the stone, his eyes on
the distance, crying: "Look, Boss, off there!"

"What?" asked Rouget, who stretched his limbs.

"A cask."

Rouget and Fouasse were at once on their feet, their eyes gleaming,
sweeping the horizon.

"Where is it, lad? Where is the cask?" repeated the boss, greatly moved.

"Off there--to the left--that black spot."

The others saw nothing. Then Rouget swore an oath. "Nom de Dieu!"

He had just spotted the cask, big as a lentil on the white water in a
slanting ray of the setting sun. And he ran to the "Baleine," followed
by Delphin and Fouasse, who darted forward tapping their backs with
their heels and making the pebbles roll.

The "Baleine" was just putting out from the harbor when the news that
they saw a cask out at sea was circulated in Coqueville. The children,
the women, began to run. They shouted: "A cask! a cask!"

"Do you see it? The current is driving it toward Grandport."

"Ah, yes! on the left--a cask! Come, quick!"

And Coqueville came; tumbled down from its rock; the children arrived
head over heels, while the women picked up their skirts with both hands
to descend quickly. Soon the entire village was on the beach as on the
night before.

Margot showed herself for an instant, then she ran back at full speed
to the house, where she wished to forestall her father, who was
discussing an official process with the Emperor. At last La Queue
appeared. He was livid; he said to the _garde champêtre_: "Hold your
peace! It's Rouget who has sent you here to beguile me. Well, then, he
shall not get it. You'll see!"

When he saw the "Baleine," three hundred metres out, making with
all her oars toward the black dot, rocking in the distance, his fury
redoubled. And he shoved Tupain and Brisemotte into the "Zéphir," and
he pulled out in turn, repeating: "No, they shall not have it; I'll die
sooner!"

Then Coqueville had a fine spectacle; a mad race between the "Zéphir"
and the "Baleine." When the latter saw the first leave the harbor, she
understood the danger, and shot off with all her speed. She may have
been four hundred metres ahead; but the chances remained even, for the
"Zéphir" was otherwise light and swift; so excitement was at its height
on the beach. The Mahés and the Floches had instinctively formed into
two groups, following eagerly the vicissitudes of the struggle, each
upholding its own boat. At first the "Baleine" kept her advantage, but
as soon as the "Zéphir" spread herself, they saw that she was gaining
little by little. The "Baleine" made a supreme effort and succeeded
for a few minutes in holding her distance. Then the "Zéphir" once more
gained upon the "Baleine," came up with her at extraordinary speed.
From that moment on, it was evident that the two barks would meet in
the neighborhood of the cask. Victory hung on a circumstance, on the
slightest mishap.

"The 'Baleine'! The 'Baleine'!" cried the Mahés.

But they soon ceased shouting. When the "Baleine" was almost touching
the cask, the "Zéphir," by a bold maneuvre, managed to pass in front of
her and throw the cask to the left, where La Queue harpooned it with a
thrust of the boat-hook.

"The 'Zéphir'! the 'Zéphir'!" screamed the Floches.

And the Emperor, having spoken of foul play, big words were exchanged.
Margot clapped her hands. The Abbé Radiguet came down with his
breviary, made a profound remark which abruptly calmed the people, and
then threw them into consternation.

"They will, perhaps, drink it all, these, too," he murmured with a
melancholy air.

At sea, between the "Baleine" and the "Zéphir," a violent quarrel broke
out. Rouget called La Queue a thief, while the latter called Rouget a
good-for-nothing. The men even took up their oars to beat each other
down, and the adventure lacked little of turning into a naval combat.
More than this, they engaged to meet on land, showing their fists and
threatening to disembowel each other as soon as they found each other
again.

"The rascal!" grumbled Rouget. "You know, that cask is bigger than the
one of yesterday. It's yellow, this one--it ought to be great." Then
in accents of despair: "Let's go and see the jambins; there may very
possibly be lobsters in them."

And the "Baleine" went on heavily to the left, steering toward the
point.

In the "Zéphir," La Queue had to get in a passion in order to hold
Tupain and Brisemotte from the cask. The boat-hook, in smashing a hoop,
had made a leaking for the red liquid, which the two men tasted from
the ends of their fingers, and which they found exquisite. One might
easily drink a glass without its producing much effect. But La Queue
would not have it. He caulked the cask and declared that the first who
sucked it should have a talk with him. On land, they would see.

"Then," asked Tupain, sullenly, "are we going to draw out the jambins?"

"Yes, right away; there is no hurry!" replied La Queue.

He also gazed lovingly at the barrel. He felt his limbs melt with
longing to go in at once and taste it. The fish bored him.

"Bah!" said he at the end of a silence. "Let's go back, for it's late.
We will return to-morrow." And he was relaxing his fishing when he
noticed another cask at his right, this one very small, and which stood
on end, turning on itself like a top. That was the last straw for
the nets and the jambins. No one even spoke of them any longer. The
"Zéphir" gave chase to the little barrel, which was caught very easily.

During this time a similar adventure overtook the "Baleine." After
Rouget had already visited five jambins completely empty, Delphin,
always on the watch, cried out that he saw something. But it did not
have the appearance of a cask, it was too long.

"It's a beam," said Fouasse.

Rouget let fall his sixth jambin without drawing it out of the water.
"Let's go and see, all the same," said he.

As they advanced, they thought they recognized at first a beam, a
chest, the trunk of a tree. Then they gave a cry of joy.

It was a real cask, but a very queer cask, such as they had never seen
before. One would have said a tube, bulging in the middle and closed at
the two ends by a layer of plaster.

"Ah, that's comical!" cried Rouget, in rapture. "This one I want the
Emperor to taste. Come, children, let's go in."

They all agreed not to touch it, and the "Baleine" returned to
Coqueville at the same moment as the "Zéphir," in its turn, anchored
in the little harbor. Not one inquisitive had left the beach. Cries of
joy greeted that unexpected catch of three casks. The _gamins_ hurled
their caps into the air, while the women had at once gone on the run
to look for glasses. It was decided to taste the liquid on the spot.
The wreckage belonged to the village. Not one protest arose. Only they
formed into two groups, the Mahés surrounded Rouget, the Floches would
not let go of La Queue.

"Emperor, the first glass for you!" cried Rouget. "Tell us what it is."

The liquor was of a beautiful golden yellow. The _garde champêtre_
raised his glass, looked at it, smelt it, then decided to drink.

"That comes from Holland," said he, after a long silence.

He did not give any other information. All the Mahés drank with
deference. It was rather thick, and they stood surprised, for it tasted
of flowers. The women found it very good. As for the men, they would
have preferred less sugar. Nevertheless, at the bottom it ended by
being strong at the third or fourth glass. The more they drank, the
better they liked it. The men became jolly, the women grew funny.

But the Emperor, in spite of his recent quarrels with the Mayor, had
gone to hang about the group of Floches.

The biggest cask gave out a dark-red liquor, while they drew from the
smallest a liquid white as water from the rock; and it was this latter
that was the stiffest, a regular pepper, something that skinned the
tongue.

Not one of the Floches recognized it, neither the red nor the white.

There were, however, some wags there. It annoyed them to be regaling
themselves without knowing over what.

"I say, Emperor, taste that for me!" said La Queue, thus taking the
first step.

The Emperor, who had been waiting for the invitation, posed once more
as connoisseur.

"As for the red," he said, "there is orange in that! And for the
white," he declared, "that--that is excellent!"

They had to content themselves with these replies, for he shook his
head with a knowing air, with the happy look of a man who has given
satisfaction to the world.

The Abbé Radiguet, alone, did not seem convinced. As for him, he had
the names on the tip of his tongue; and to thoroughly reassure himself,
he drank small glasses, one after the other, repeating: "Wait, wait, I
know what it is. In a moment I will tell you."

In the mean while, little by little, merriment grew in the group of the
Mahés and the group of the Floches. The latter, particularly, laughed
very loud because they had mixed the liquors, a thing that excited
them the more. For the rest, the one and the other of the groups kept
apart. They did not offer each other of their casks, they simply
cast sympathetic glances, seized with the unavowed desire to taste
their neighbor's liquor, which might possibly be better. The inimical
brothers, Tupain and Fouasse, were in close proximity all the evening
without showing their fists. It was remarked, also, that Rouget and
his wife drank from the same glass. As for Margot, she distributed the
liquor among the Floches, and as she filled the glasses too full, and
the liquor ran over her fingers, she kept sucking them continually,
so well that, though obeying her father who forbade her to drink, she
became as fuddled as a girl in vintage time. It was not unbecoming to
her; on the contrary, she got rosy all over, her eyes were like candles.

The sun set, the evening was like the softness of springtime.
Coqueville had finished the casks and did not dream of going home to
dine. They found themselves too comfortable on the beach. When it was
pitch night, Margot, sitting apart, felt some one blowing on her neck.
It was Delphin, very gay, walking on all fours, prowling behind her
like a wolf. She repressed a cry so as not to awaken her father, who
would have sent Delphin a kick in the back.

"Go away, imbecile!" she murmured, half angry, half laughing; "you will
get yourself caught!"


                                  IV

The following day Coqueville, in rising, found the sun already high
above the horizon. The air was softer still, a drowsy sea under a clear
sky, one of those times of laziness when it is so good to do nothing.
It was a Wednesday. Until breakfast time, Coqueville rested from the
fête of the previous evening. Then they went down to the beach to see.

That Wednesday the fish, the Widow Dufeu, M. Mouchel, all were
forgotten. La Queue and Rouget did not even speak of visiting their
jambins. Toward three o'clock they sighted some casks. Four of them
were dancing before the village. The "Zéphir" and the "Baleine" went
in chase; but as there was enough for all, they disputed no longer.
Each boat had its share. At six o'clock, after having swept all over
the little gulf, Rouget and La Queue came in, each with three casks.
And the fête began again. The women had brought down tables for
convenience. They had brought benches as well; they set up two cafés
in the open air, such as they had at Grandport. The Mahés were on the
left; the Floches on the right, still separated by a bar of sand.
Nevertheless, that evening the Emperor, who went from one group to the
other, carried his glasses full, so as to give every one a taste of the
six casks. At about nine o'clock they were much gayer than the night
before. The next day Coqueville could never remember how it had gone to
bed.

Thursday the "Zéphir" and the "Baleine" caught but four casks, two
each, but they were enormous. Friday the fishing was superb, undreamed
of; there were seven casks, three for Rouget and four for La Queue.
Coqueville was entering upon a golden age. They never did anything
any more. The fishermen, working off the alcohol of the night before,
slept till noon. Then they strolled down to the beach and interrogated
the sea. Their sole anxiety was to know what liquor the sea was going
to bring them. They waited there for hours, their eyes strained; they
raised shouts of joy when wreckage appeared.

The women and the children, from the tops of the rocks, pointed with
sweeping gestures even to the least bunch of seaweed rolled in by the
waves. And, at all hours, the "Zéphir" and the "Baleine" stood ready
to leave. They put out, they beat the gulf, they fished for casks, as
they had fished for tun; disdaining now the tame mackerel who capered
about in the sun, and the lazy sole rocked on the foam of the water.
Coqueville watched the fishing, dying of laughter on the sands. Then in
the evening they drank the catch.

That which enraptured Coqueville was that the casks did not cease.
When there were no more, there were still more! The ship that had been
lost must truly have had a pretty cargo aboard; and Coqueville became
egoist and merry, joked over the wrecked ship, a regular wine-cellar,
enough to intoxicate all the fish of the ocean. Added to that, never
did they catch two casks alike; they were of all shapes, of all sizes,
of all colors. Then, in every cask there was a different liquor. So
the Emperor was plunged into profound reveries; he who had drunk
everything, he could identify nothing any more. La Queue declared
that never had he seen such a cargo. The Abbé Radiguet guessed it was
an order from some savage king, wishing to set up his wine-cellar.
Coqueville, rocked in mysterious intoxication, no longer tried to
understand.

The ladies preferred the "creams"; they had cream of moka, of cacao, of
mint, of vanilla. Marie Rouget drank one night so much anisette that
she was sick.

Margot and the other young ladies tapped the curaçao, the benedictine,
the trappistine, the chartreuse. As to the cassis, it was reserved
for the little children. Naturally the men rejoiced more when they
caught cognacs, rums, gins, everything that burned the mouth. Then
surprises produced themselves. A cask of raki of Chio, flavored with
mastic, stupefied Coqueville, which thought that it had fallen on a
cask of essence of turpentine. All the same they drank it, for they
must lose nothing; but they talked about it for a long time. Arrack
from Batavia, Swedish eau-de-vie with cumin, tuica calugaresca from
Rumania, slivowitz from Servia, all equally overturned every idea that
Coqueville had of what one should endure. At heart they had a weakness
for kümmel and kirschwasser, for liqueurs as pale as water and stiff
enough to kill a man.

Heavens! was it possible so many good things had been invented! At
Coqueville they had known nothing but eau-de-vie; and, moreover, not
every one at that. So their imaginations finished in exultation; they
arrived at a state of veritable worship, in face of that inexhaustible
variety, for that which intoxicates. Oh! to get drunk every night
on something new, on something one does not even know the name of!
It seemed like a fairy-tale, a rain, a fountain, that would spout
extraordinary liquids, all the distilled alcohols, perfumed with all
the flowers and all the fruits of creation.

So then, Friday evening, there were seven casks on the beach!
Coqueville did not leave the beach. They lived there, thanks to the
mildness of the season. Never in September had they enjoyed so fine a
week. The fête had lasted since Monday, and there was no reason why
it should not last forever if Providence should continue to send them
casks; for the Abbé Radiguet saw therein the hand of Providence. All
business was suspended; what use drudging when pleasure came to them
in their sleep? They were all bourgeois, bourgeois who were drinking
expensive liquors without having to pay anything at the café. With
hands in pocket, Coqueville, basked in the sunshine waiting for the
evening's spree. Moreover, it did not sober up; it enjoyed side by side
the gaieties of kümmel, of kirschwasser, of ratafia; in seven days
they knew the wraths of gin, the tendernesses of curaçao, the laughter
of cognac. And Coqueville remained as innocent as a new-born child,
knowing nothing about anything, drinking with conviction that which the
good Lord sent them.

It was on Friday that the Mahés and the Floches fraternized. They were
very jolly that evening. Already, the evening before, distances had
drawn nearer, the most intoxicated had trodden down the bar of sand
which separated the two groups. There remained but one step to take. On
the side of the Floches the four casks were emptying, while the Mahés
were equally finishing their three little barrels; just three liqueurs
which made the French flag; one blue, one white, and one red. The blue
filled the Floches with jealousy, because a blue liqueur seemed to them
something really supernatural. La Queue, grown good-natured now ever
since he had been drunk, advanced, a glass in his hand, feeling that he
ought to take the first step as magistrate.

"See here, Rouget," he stuttered, "will you drink with me?"

"Willingly," replied Rouget, who was staggering under a feeling of
tenderness.

And they fell upon each other's necks. Then they all wept, so great was
their emotion. The Mahés and the Floches embraced, they who had been
devouring one another for three centuries. The Abbé Radiguet, greatly
touched, again spoke of the finger of God. They drank to each other in
the three liqueurs, the blue, the white, and the red.

"_Vive la France!_" cried the Emperor.

The blue was worthless, the white of not much account, but the red was
really a success. Then they tapped the casks of the Floches. Then they
danced. As there was no band, some good-natured boys clapped their
hands, whistling, which excited the girls. The fête became superb. The
seven casks were placed in a row; each could choose that which he liked
best. Those who had had enough stretched themselves out on the sands,
where they slept for a while; and when they awoke they began again.
Little by little the others spread the fun until they took up the whole
beach. Right up to midnight they skipped in the open air. The sea had
a soft sound, the stars shone in a deep sky, a sky of vast peace. It
was the serenity of the infant ages enveloping the joy of a tribe of
savages, intoxicated by their first cask of eau-de-vie.

Nevertheless, Coqueville went home to bed again. When there was nothing
more left to drink, the Floches and the Mahés helped one another,
carried one another, and ended by finding their beds again one way
or another. On Saturday the fête lasted until nearly two o'clock in
the morning. They had caught six casks, two of them enormous. Fouasse
and Tupain almost fought. Tupain, who was wicked when drunk, talked
of finishing his brother. But that quarrel disgusted every one, the
Floches as well as the Mahés. Was it reasonable to keep on quarreling
when the whole village was embracing? They forced the two brothers to
drink together. They were sulky. The Emperor promised to watch them.
Neither did the Rouget household get on well. When Marie had taken
anisette she was prodigal in her attentions to Brisemotte, which Rouget
could not behold with a calm eye, especially since having become
sensitive, he also wished to be loved. The Abbé Radiguet, full of
forbearance, did well in preaching forgiveness of injuries; they feared
an accident.

"Bah!" said La Queue; "all will arrange itself. If the fishing is good
to-morrow, you will see--Your health!"

However, La Queue himself was not yet perfect. He still kept his eye on
Delphin and leveled kicks at him whenever he saw him approach Margot.
The Emperor was indignant, for there was no common sense in preventing
two young people from laughing. But La Queue always swore to kill his
daughter sooner than give her to "the little one." Moreover, Margot
would not be willing.

"Isn't it so? You are too proud," he cried. "Never would you marry a
ragamuffin!"

"Never, papa!" answered Margot.

Saturday, Margot drank a great deal of sugary liqueur. No one had any
idea of such sugar. As she was no longer on her guard, she soon found
herself sitting close to the cask. She laughed, happy, in paradise;
she saw stars, and it seemed to her that there was music within her,
playing dance tunes. Then it was that Delphin slipped into the shadow
of the casks. He took her hand; he asked: "Say, Margot, will you?"

She kept on smiling. Then she replied: "It is papa who will not."

"Oh! that's nothing," said the little one; "you know the old ones never
will--provided you are willing, you." And he grew bold, he planted a
kiss on her neck. She bridled; shivers ran along her shoulders. "Stop!
You tickle me."

But she talked no more of giving him a slap. In the first place, she
was not able to, for her hands were too weak. Then it seemed nice
to her, those little kisses on the neck. It was like the liqueur
that enervated her so deliciously. She ended by turning her head and
extending her chin, just like a cat.

"There!" she stammered, "there under the ear--that tickles me. Oh! that
is nice!"

They had both forgotten La Queue. Fortunately the Emperor was on guard.
He pointed them out to the Abbé.

"Look there, Curé--it would be better to marry them."

"Morals would gain thereby," declared the priest sententiously.

And he charged himself with the matter for the morrow. 'Twas he himself
that would speak to La Queue. Meanwhile La Queue had drunk so much that
the Emperor and the Curé were forced to carry him home. On the way they
tried to reason with him on the subject of his daughter; but they could
draw from him nothing but growls. Behind them, in the untroubled night,
Delphin led Margot home.

The next day by four o'clock the "Zéphir" and the "Baleine" had already
caught seven casks. At six o'clock the "Zéphir" caught two more. That
made nine.

Then Coqueville fêted Sunday. It was the seventh day that it had been
drunk. And the fête was complete--a fête such as no one had ever
seen, and which no one will ever see again. Speak of it in Lower
Normandy, and they will tell you with laughter, "Ah! yes, the fête at
Coqueville!"


                                   V

In the mean while, since the Tuesday, M. Mouchel had been surprised
at not seeing either Rouget or La Queue arrive at Grandport. What the
devil could those fellows be doing? The sea was fine, the fishing
ought to be splendid. Very possibly they wished to bring a whole load
of soles and lobsters in all at once. And he was patient until the
Wednesday.

Wednesday, M. Mouchel was angry. You must know that the Widow Dufeu
was not a commodious person. She was a woman who in a flash came to
high words. Although he was a handsome fellow, blond and powerful, he
trembled before her, especially since he had dreams of marrying her,
always with little attentions, free to subdue her with a slap if he
ever became her master. Well, that Wednesday morning the Widow Dufeu
stormed, complaining that the bundles were no longer forwarded, that
the sea failed; and she accused him of running after the girls of the
coast instead of busying himself with the whiting and the mackerel
which ought to be yielding in abundance. M. Mouchel, vexed, fell back
on Coqueville's singular breach of honor. For a moment surprise calmed
the Widow Dufeu. What was Coqueville dreaming about? Never had it so
conducted itself before. But she declared immediately that she had
nothing to do with Coqueville; that it was M. Mouchel's business to
look into matters, that she should take a partner if he allowed himself
to be played with again by the fishermen. In a word, much disquieted,
he sent Rouget and La Queue to the devil. Perhaps, after all, they
would come to-morrow.

The next day, Thursday, neither the one nor the other appeared. Toward
evening, M. Mouchel, desperate, climbed the rock to the left of
Grandport, from which one could see in the distance Coqueville, with
its yellow spot of beach. He gazed at it a long time. The village had a
tranquil look in the sun, light smoke was rising from the chimneys; no
doubt the women were preparing the soup. M. Mouchel was satisfied that
Coqueville was still in its place, that a rock from the cliff had not
crushed it, and he understood less and less. As he was about to descend
again, he thought he could make out two black points on the gulf; the
"Baleine" and the "Zéphir." After that he went back to calm the Widow
Dufeu. Coqueville was fishing. The night passed. Friday was here.
Still nothing of Coqueville. M. Mouchel climbed to his rock more than
ten times. He was beginning to lose his head; the Widow Dufeu behaved
abominably to him, without his finding anything to reply. Coqueville
was always there, in the sun, warming itself like a lazy lizard. Only,
M. Mouchel saw no more smoke. The village seemed dead. Had they all
died in their holes? On the beach, there was quite a movement, but
that might be seaweed rocked by the tide. Saturday, still no one. The
Widow Dufeu scolded no more; her eyes were fixed, her lips white. M.
Mouchel passed two hours on the rock. A curiosity grew in him, a purely
personal need of accounting to himself for the strange immobility of
the village. The old walls sleeping beatifically in the sun ended by
worrying him. His resolution was taken; he would set out that Monday
very early in the morning and try to get down there near nine o'clock.

It was not a promenade to go to Coqueville. M. Mouchel preferred to
follow the route by land, in that way he would come upon the village
without their expecting him. A wagon carried him as far as Robineux,
where he left it under a shed, for it would not have been prudent to
risk it in the middle of the gorge. And he set off bravely, having to
make nearly seven kilometers over the most abominable of roads. The
route was otherwise of a wild beauty; it descended by continual turns
between two enormous ledges of rock, so narrow in places that three
men could not walk abreast. Farther on it skirted the precipices; the
gorge opened abruptly; and one caught glimpses of the sea, of immense
blue horizons. But M. Mouchel was not in a state of mind to admire the
landscape. He swore as the pebbles rolled under his feet. It was the
fault of Coqueville, he promised to shake up those do-nothings well.
But, in the meantime, he was approaching. All at once, in the turning
at the last rock, he saw the twenty houses of the village hanging to
the flank of the cliff.

Nine o'clock struck. One would have believed it June, so blue and warm
was the sky; a superb season, limpid air, gilded by the dust of the
sun, refreshed by the good smell of the sea. M. Mouchel entered the
only street of the village, where he came very often; and as he passed
before Rouget's house, he went in. The house was empty. Then he cast
his eye toward Fouasse's--Tupain's--Brisemotte's. Not a soul; all the
doors open, and no one in the rooms. What did it mean? A light chill
began to creep over his flesh. Then he thought of the authorities.
Certainly, the Emperor would reassure him. But the Emperor's house
was empty like the others. Even to the _garde champêtre_, there was
failure! That village, silent and deserted, terrified him now. He ran
to the Mayor's. There another surprise awaited him: the house was found
in an abominable mess; they had not made the beds in three days; dirty
dishes littered the place; chairs seemed to indicate a fight. His
mind upset, dreaming of cataclysms, M. Mouchel determined to go on to
the end, and he entered the church. No more curé than mayor. All the
authorities, even religion itself had vanished. Coqueville abandoned,
slept without a breath, without a dog, without a cat. Not even a fowl;
the hens had taken themselves off. Nothing, a void, silence, a leaden
sleep under the great blue sky.

Parbleu! It was no wonder that Coqueville brought no more fish!
Coqueville had moved away. Coqueville was dead. He must notify the
police. The mysterious catastrophe exalted M. Mouchel, when, with the
idea of descending to the beach, he uttered a cry. In the midst of the
sands, the whole population lay stretched. He thought of a general
massacre. But the sonorous snores came to undeceive him. During the
night of Sunday Coqueville had feasted so late that it had found itself
in absolute inability to go home to bed. So it had slept on the sand,
just where it had fallen, around the nine casks, completely empty.

Yes, all Coqueville was snoring there; I hear the children, the women,
the old people, and the men. Not one was on his feet. There were
some on their stomachs, there were some on their backs; others held
themselves _en chien de fusils_.[3] As one makes his bed so must one
lie on it. And the fellows found themselves, happen what may, scattered
in their drunkenness like a handful of leaves driven by the wind. The
men had rolled over, heads lower than heels. It was a scene full of
good-fellowship; a dormitory in the open air; honest family folk taking
their ease; for where there is care, there is no pleasure.

It was just at the new moon. Coqueville, thinking it had blown out its
candle, had abandoned itself to the darkness. Then the day dawned;
and now the sun was flaming, a sun which fell perpendicularly on the
sleepers, powerless to make them open their eyelids. They slept rudely,
all their faces beaming with the fine innocence of drunkards. The hens
at early morning must have strayed down to peck at the casks, for they
were drunk; they, too, sleeping on the sands. There were also five cats
and five dogs, their paws in the air, drunk from licking the glasses
glistening with sugar.

For a moment M. Mouchel walked about among the sleepers, taking care
not to step on any of them. He understood, for at Grandport they, too,
had received casks from the wreck of the English ship. All his wrath
left him. What a touching and moral spectacle!

Coqueville reconciled, the Mahés and the Floches sleeping together!
With the last glass the deadliest enemies had embraced. Tupain and
Fouasse lay there snoring, hand in hand, like brothers, incapable of
coming to dispute a legacy. As to the Rouget household, it offered a
still more amiable picture, Marie slept between Rouget and Brisemotte,
as much as to say that henceforth they were to live thus, happy, all
the three.

But one group especially exhibited a scene of family tenderness. It
was Delphin and Margot; one on the neck of the other, they slept
cheek to cheek, their lips still opened for a kiss. At their feet the
Emperor, sleeping crosswise, guarded them. Above them La Queue snored
like a father satisfied at having settled his daughter, while the Abbé
Radiguet, fallen there like the others, with arms outspread, seemed to
bless them. In her sleep Margot still extended her rosy muzzle like an
amorous cat who loves to have one scratch her under the chin.

The fête ended with a marriage. And M. Mouchel himself later married
the Widow Dufeu, whom he beat to a jelly. Speak of that in Lower
Normandy, they will tell you with a laugh, "Ah! yes, the fête at
Coqueville!"


                              FOOTNOTES:

[1] Naval term signifying a rickety old concern.

[2] Watchman.

[3] Primed for the event.


                            THE LOST CHILD
                  BY FRANÇOIS ÉDOUARD JOACHIM COPPÉE

                            [Illustration]


    _François Coppée, Poet of the Humble, was born at Paris in
    1842. His first collection of poems was called "Le Reliquaire,"
    1866, and already exhibited to an astonishing degree the full
    equipment of a poet, much as Keats did in his first work.
    But Coppée's great reputation began to grow from the date of
    "Passant," 1869, exquisite comedies in verse, and "Le Luthier
    de Crèmone," an agreeable and touching little piece, and his
    brilliantly written romantic dramas, full of fine bursts of
    eloquence._

    _Besides poems and plays, he has written five or six volumes of
    short stories remarkable for grace of sentiment, and a number
    of novels, chronicles, etc._

    _Coppée's happy vein seems to be the familiar narrative, the
    genre picture. He shows a fine sympathy for the miseries and
    the virtues of the obscure._


                            [Illustration]




                            THE LOST CHILD
                          BY FRANÇOIS COPPÉE

                     Translated by J. Matthewman.
    Copyright, 1894, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


On that morning, which was the morning before Christmas, two
important events happened simultaneously--the sun rose, and so did M.
Jean-Baptiste Godefroy.

Unquestionably the sun, illuminating suddenly the whole of Paris
with its morning rays, is an old friend, regarded with affection by
everybody. It is particularly welcome after a fortnight of misty
atmosphere and gray skies, when the wind has cleared the air and
allowed the sun's rays to reach the earth again. Besides all of which
the sun is a person of importance. Formerly, he was regarded as a
god, and was called Osiris, Apollyon, and I don't know what else. But
do not imagine that because the sun is so important he is of greater
influence than M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy, millionaire banker, director
of the _Comptoir Général de Crédit_, administrator of several big
companies, deputy and member of the General Counsel of the Eure,
officer of the Legion of Honor, etc., etc. And whatever opinion the sun
may have about himself, he certainly has not a higher opinion than M.
Jean-Baptiste Godefroy has of _himself_. So we are authorized to state,
and we consider ourselves justified in stating, that on the morning in
question, at about a quarter to eight, the sun and M. Jean-Baptiste
Godefroy rose.

Certainly the manner of rising of these two great powers mentioned
was not the same. The good old sun began by doing a great many pretty
actions. As the sleet had, during the night, covered the bare branches
of the trees in the boulevard Malesherbes, where the _hôtel_ Godefroy
is situated, with a powdered coating, the great magician sun amused
himself by transforming the branches into great bouquets of red
coral. At the same time he scattered his rays impartially on those
poor passers-by whom necessity sent out, so early in the morning, to
gain their daily bread. He even had a smile for the poor clerk, who,
in a thin overcoat, was hurrying to his office, as well as for the
_grisette_, shivering under her thin, insufficient clothing; for the
workman carrying half a loaf under his arm, for the car-conductor as
he punched the tickets, and for the dealer in roast chestnuts, who was
roasting his first panful. In short, the sun gave pleasure to everybody
in the world. M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy, on the contrary, rose in
quite a different frame of mind. On the previous evening he had dined
with the Minister for Agriculture. The dinner, from the removal of
the _potage_ to the salad, bristled with truffles, and the banker's
stomach, aged forty-seven years, experienced the burning and biting of
pyrosis. So the manner in which M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy rang for his
valet-de-chambre was so expressive that, as he got some warm water for
his master's shaving, Charles said to the kitchen-maid:

"There he goes! The monkey is barbarously ill-tempered again this
morning. My poor Gertrude, we're going to have a miserable day."

Whereupon, walking on tiptoe, with eyes modestly cast down, he entered
the chamber of his master, opened the curtains, lit the fire, and
made all the necessary preparations for the toilet with the discreet
demeanor and respectful gestures of a sacristan placing the sacred
vessels on the altar for the priest.

"What sort of weather this morning?" demanded M. Godefroy curtly, as he
buttoned his undervest of gray swandown upon a stomach that was already
a little too prominent.

"Very cold, sir," replied Charles meekly. "At six o'clock the
thermometer marked seven degrees above zero. But, as you will see,
sir, the sky is quite clear, and I think we are going to have a fine
morning."

In stropping his razor, M. Godefroy approached the window, drew aside
one of the hangings, looked on the boulevard, which was bathed in
brightness, and made a slight grimace which bore some resemblance to a
smile.

It is all very well to be perfectly stiff and correct, and to know
that it is bad taste to show feeling of any kind in the presence of
domestics, but the appearance of the roguish sun in the middle of
December sends such a glow of warmth to the heart that it is impossible
to disguise the fact. So M. Godefroy deigned, as before observed,
to smile. If some one had whispered to the opulent banker that his
smile had anything in common with that of the printer's boy, who
was enjoying himself by making a slide on the pavement, M. Godefroy
would have been highly incensed. But it really was so all the same;
and during the space of one minute this man, who was so occupied by
business matters, this leading light in the financial and political
worlds, indulged in the childish pastime of watching the passers-by,
and following with his eyes the files of conveyances as they gaily
rolled in the sunshine.

But pray do not be alarmed. Such a weakness could not last long.
People of no account, and those who have nothing to do, may be able to
let their time slip by in doing nothing. It is very well for women,
children, poets, and riffraff. M. Godefroy had other fish to fry; and
the work of the day which was commencing promised to be exceptionally
heavy. From half-past eight to ten o'clock he had a meeting at his
office with a certain number of gentlemen, all of whom bore a striking
resemblance to M. Godefroy. Like him, they were very nervous; they had
risen with the sun, they were all _blasés_, and they all had the same
object in view--to gain money. After breakfast (which he took after
the meeting), M. Godefroy had to leap into his carriage and rush to
the Bourse, to exchange a few words with other gentlemen who had also
risen at dawn, but who had not the least spark of imagination among
them. (The conversations were always on the same subject--money.)
From there, without losing an instant, M. Godefroy went to preside
over another meeting of acquaintances entirely void of compassion and
tenderness. The meeting was held round a baize-covered table, which
was strewn with heaps of papers and well provided with ink-wells. The
conversation again turned on money, and various methods of gaining
it. After the aforesaid meeting he, in his capacity of deputy, had to
appear before several commissions (always held in rooms where there
were baize-covered tables and ink-wells and heaps of papers). There he
found men as devoid of sentiment as he was, all utterly incapable of
neglecting any occasion of gaining money, but who, nevertheless, had
the extreme goodness to sacrifice several hours of the afternoon to the
glory of France.

After having quickly shaved he donned a morning suit, the elegant cut
and finish of which showed that the old beau of nearly fifty had not
ceased trying to please. When he shaved he spared the narrow strip
of pepper-and-salt beard round his chin, as it gave him the air of a
trustworthy family man in the eyes of the Arrogants and of fools in
general. Then he descended to his cabinet, where he received the file
of men who were entirely occupied by one thought--that of augmenting
their capital. These gentlemen discussed several projected enterprises,
all of them of considerable importance, notably that of a new railroad
to be laid across a wild desert. Another scheme was for the founding of
monster works in the environs of Paris, another of a mine to be worked
in one of the South American republics. It goes without saying that no
one asked if the railway would have passengers or goods to carry, or
if the proposed works should manufacture cotton nightcaps or distil
whisky; whether the mine was to be of virgin gold or of second-rate
copper: certainly not. The conversation of M. Godefroy's morning
callers turned exclusively upon the profits which it would be possible
to realize during the week which should follow the issue of the shares.
They discussed particularly the values of the shares, which they knew
would be destined before long to be worth less than the paper on which
they were printed in fine style.

These conversations, bristling with figures, lasted till ten o'clock
precisely, and then the director of the _Comptoir Général de Crédit_,
who, by the way, was an honest man--at least, as honest as is to
be found in business--courteously conducted his last visitor to
the head of the stairway. The visitor named was an old villain, as
rich as Crœsus, who, by a not uncommon chance, enjoyed the general
esteem of the public; whereas, had justice been done to him, he
would have been lodging at the expense of the State in one of those
large establishments provided by a thoughtful government for smaller
delinquents; and there he would have pursued a useful and healthy
calling for a lengthy period, the exact length having been fixed
by the judges of the supreme court. But M. Godefroy showed him out
relentlessly, notwithstanding his importance--it was absolutely
necessary to be at the Bourse at 11 o'clock--and went into the
dining-room.

It was a luxuriously furnished room. The furniture and plate would have
served to endow a cathedral. Nevertheless, notwithstanding that M.
Godefroy took a gulp of bicarbonate of soda, his indigestion refused
to subside, consequently the banker could only take the scantiest
breakfast--that of a dyspeptic. In the midst of such luxury, and under
the eye of a well-paid butler, M. Godefroy could only eat a couple of
boiled eggs and nibble a little mutton chop. The man of money trifled
with dessert--took only a crumb of Roquefort--not more than two cents'
worth. Then the door opened and an overdressed but charming little
child--young Raoul, four years old--the son of the company director,
entered the room, accompanied by his German nursery governess.

This event occurred every day at the same hour--a quarter to eleven,
precisely, while the carriage which was to take the banker to the
Bourse was awaiting the gentleman who had only a quarter of an hour to
give to paternal sentiment. It was not that he did not love his son. He
did love him--nay, he adored him, in his own particular way. But then,
you know, business is business.

At the age of forty-two, when already worldly-wise and _blasé_, he
had fancied himself in love with the daughter of one of his club
friends--Marquis de Neufontaine, an old rascal--a nobleman, but one
whose card-playing was more than open to suspicion, and who would have
been expelled from the club more than once but for the influence of M.
Godefroy. The nobleman was only too happy to become the father-in-law
of a man who would pay his debts, and without any scruples he handed
over his daughter--a simple and ingenuous child of seventeen, who was
taken from a convent to be married--to the worldly banker. The girl
was certainly sweet and pretty, but she had no dowry except numerous
aristocratic prejudices and romantic illusions, and her father thought
he was fortunate in getting rid of her on such favorable terms. M.
Godefroy, who was the son of an avowed old miser of Andelys, had always
remained a man of the people, and intensely vulgar. In spite of his
improved circumstances, he had not improved. His entire lack of tact
and refinement was painful to his young wife, whose tenderest feelings
he ruthlessly and thoughtlessly trampled upon. Things were looking
unpromising, when, happily for her, Madame Godefroy died in giving
birth to her firstborn. When he spoke of his deceased wife, the banker
waxed poetical, although had she lived they would have been divorced in
six months. His son he loved dearly for several reasons--first, because
the child was an only son; secondly, because he was a scion of two
such houses as Godefroy and Neufontaine; finally, because the man of
money had naturally great respect for the heir to many millions. So the
youngster had golden rattles and other similar toys, and was brought
up like a young Dauphin. But his father, overwhelmed with business
worries, could never give the child more than fifteen minutes per day
of his precious time--and, as on the day mentioned, it was always
during "cheese"--and for the rest of the day the father abandoned the
child to the care of the servants.

"Good morning, Raoul."

"Good morning, papa."

And the company director, having put his serviette away, sat young
Raoul on his left knee, took the child's head between his big paws,
and in stroking and kissing it actually forgot all his money matters
and even his note of the afternoon, which was of great importance to
him, as by it he could gain quite an important amount of patronage.

"Papa," said little Raoul suddenly, "will Father Christmas put anything
in my shoe to-night?"

The father answered with "Yes, if you are a good child." This was
very striking from a man who was a pronounced freethinker, who always
applauded every anti-clerical attack in the Chamber with a vigorous
"Hear, hear." He made a mental note that he must buy some toys for his
child that very afternoon.

Then he turned to the nursery governess with:

"Are you quite satisfied with Raoul, Mademoiselle Bertha?"

Mademoiselle Bertha became as red as a peony at being addressed, as if
the question were scarcely _comme il faut_, and replied by a little
imbecile snigger, which seemed fully to satisfy M. Godefroy's curiosity
about his son's conduct.

"It's fine to-day," said the financier, "but cold. If you take Raoul to
Monceau Park, mademoiselle, please be careful to wrap him up well."

Mademoiselle, by a second fit of idiotic smiling, having set at rest
M. Godefroy's doubts and fears on that essential point, he kissed his
child, left the room hastily, and in the hall was enveloped in his fur
coat by Charles, who also closed the carriage door. Then the faithful
fellow went off to the café which he frequented, Rue de Miromesnil,
where he had promised to meet the coachman of the baroness who lived
opposite, to play a game of billiards, thirty up--and spot-barred, of
course.

Thanks to the brown bay--for which a thousand francs over and above
its value was paid by M. Godefroy as a result of a sumptuous snail
supper given to that gentleman's coachman by the horse-dealer--thanks
to the expensive brown bay which certainly went well, the financier was
able to get through his many engagements satisfactorily. He appeared
punctually at the Bourse, sat at several committee tables, and at a
quarter to five, by voting with the ministry, he helped to reassure
France and Europe that the rumors of a ministerial crisis had been
totally unfounded. He voted with the ministry because he had succeeded
in obtaining the favors which he demanded as the price of his vote.

After he had thus nobly fulfilled his duty to himself and his country,
M. Godefroy remembered what he had said to his child on the subject
of Father Christmas, and gave his coachman the address of a dealer
in toys. There he bought, and had put in his carriage, a fantastic
rocking-horse, mounted on castors--a whip in each ear; a box of leaden
soldiers--all as exactly alike as those grenadiers of the Russian
regiment of the time of Paul I, who all had black hair and snub noses;
and a score of other toys, all equally striking and costly. Then, as
he returned home, softly reposing in his well-swung carriage, the rich
banker, who, after all, was a father, began to think with pride of his
little boy and to form plans for his future.

When the child grew up he should have an education worthy of a prince,
and he would be one, too, for there was no longer any aristocracy
except that of money, and his boy would have a capital of about
30,000,000 francs.

If his father, a pettifogging provincial lawyer, who had formerly dined
in the Latin Quarter when in Paris, who had remarked every evening
when putting on a white tie that he looked as fine as if he were going
to a wedding--if he had been able to accumulate an enormous fortune,
and to become thereby a power in the republic; if he had been able to
obtain in marriage a young lady, one of whose ancestors had fallen at
Marignan, what an important personage little Raoul might become. M.
Godefroy built all sorts of air-castles for his boy, forgetting that
Christmas is the birthday of a very poor little child, son of a couple
of vagrants, born in a stable, where the parents only found lodging
through charity.

In the midst of the banker's dreams the coachman cried: "Door, please,"
and drove into the yard. As he went up the steps M. Godefroy was
thinking that he had barely time to dress for dinner; but on entering
the vestibule he found all the domestics crowded in front of him in a
state of alarm and confusion. In a corner, crouching on a seat, was the
German nursery-governess, crying. When she saw the banker she buried
her face in her hands and wept still more copiously than before. M.
Godefroy felt that some misfortune had happened.

"What's the meaning of all this? What's amiss? What has happened?"

Charles, the _valet de chambre_, a sneaking rascal of the worst type,
looked at his master with eyes full of pity and stammered: "Mr. Raoul--"

"My boy?"

"Lost, sir. The stupid German did it. Since four o'clock this afternoon
he has not been seen."

The father staggered back like one who had been hit by a ball. The
German threw herself at his feet, screaming: "Mercy, mercy!" and the
domestics all spoke at the same time.

"Bertha didn't go to _parc Monceau_. She lost the child over there on
the fortifications. We have sought him all over, sir. We went to the
office for you, sir, and then to the Chamber, but you had just left.
Just imagine, the German had a rendezvous with her lover every day,
beyond the ramparts, near the gate of Asnières. What a shame! It is a
place full of low gipsies and strolling players. Perhaps the child has
been stolen. Yes, sir, we informed the police at once. How could we
imagine such a thing? A hypocrite, that German! She had a rendezvous,
doubtless, with a countryman--a Prussian spy, sure enough!"

His son lost! M. Godefroy seemed to have a torrent of blood rushing
through his head. He sprang at Mademoiselle, seized her by the arms and
shook her furiously.

"Where did you lose him, you miserable girl? Tell me the truth before
I shake you to pieces. Do you hear? Do you hear?"

But the unfortunate girl could only cry and beg for mercy.

The banker tried to be calm. No, it was impossible. Nobody would dare
to steal _his_ boy. Somebody would find him and bring him back. Of that
there could be no doubt. He could scatter money about right and left,
and could have the entire police force at his orders. And he would set
to work at once, for not an instant should be lost.

"Charles, don't let the horses be taken out. You others, see that this
girl doesn't escape. I'm going to the Prefecture."

And M. Godefroy, with his heart thumping against his sides as if it
would break them, his hair wild with fright, darted into his carriage,
which at once rolled off as fast as the horses could take it. What
irony! The carriage was full of glittering playthings, which sparkled
every time a gaslight shone on them. For the next day was the birthday
of the divine Infant at whose cradle wise men and simple shepherds
alike adored.

"My poor little Raoul! Poor darling! Where is my boy?" repeated the
father as in his anguish he dug his nails into the cushions of the
carriage. At that moment all his titles and decorations, his honors,
his millions, were valueless to him. He had one single idea burning in
his brain. "My poor child! Where is my child?"

At last he reached the Prefecture of Police. But no one was there--the
office had been deserted for some time.

"I am M. Godefroy, deputy from L'Eure--My little boy is lost in Paris;
a child of four years. I must see the Prefect."

He slipped a louis into the hand of the _concièrge_.

The good old soul, a veteran with a gray mustache, less for the sake
of the money than out of compassion for the poor father, led him to
the Prefect's private apartments. M. Godefroy was finally ushered into
the room of the man in whom were centred all his hopes. He was in
evening dress, and wore a monocle; his manner was frigid and rather
pretentious. The distressed father, whose knees trembled through
emotion, sank into an armchair, and, bursting into tears, told of the
loss of his boy--told the story stammeringly and with many breaks, for
his voice was choked by sobs.

The Prefect, who was also father of a family, was inwardly moved at the
sight of his visitor's grief, but he repressed his emotion and assumed
a cold and self-important air.

"You say, sir, that your child has been missing since four o'clock."

"Yes."

"Just when night was falling, confound it. He isn't at all precocious,
speaks very little, doesn't know where he lives, and can't even
pronounce his own name?"

"Unfortunately that is so."

"Not far from Asnières gate? A suspected quarter. But cheer up. We
have a very intelligent _Commissaire de Police_ there. I'll telephone
to him."

                   *       *       *       *       *

The distressed father was left alone for five minutes. How his temples
throbbed and his heart beat!

Then, suddenly, the Prefect reappeared, smiling with satisfaction.
"Found!"

Whereupon M. Godefroy rushed to the Prefect, whose hand he pressed till
that functionary winced with the pain.

"I must acknowledge that we were exceedingly fortunate. The little chap
is blond, isn't he? Rather pale? In blue velvet? Black felt hat, with a
white feather in it?"

"Yes, yes; that's he. That's my little Raoul."

"Well, he's at the house of a poor fellow down in that quarter who
had just been at the police office to make his declaration to the
Commissaire. Here's his address, which I took down: '_Pierron, rue des
Cailloux, Levallois-Perret._' With good horses you may reach your boy
in less than an hour. Certainly, you won't find him in an aristocratic
quarter; his surroundings won't be of the highest. The man who found
him is only a small dealer in vegetables."

But that was of no importance to M. Godefroy, who, having expressed
his gratitude to the Prefect, leaped down the stairs four at a time,
and sprang into his carriage. At that moment he realized how devotedly
he loved his child. As he drove away he no longer thought of little
Raoul's princely education and magnificent inheritance. He was decided
never again to hand over the child entirely to the hands of servants,
and he also made up his mind to devote less time to monetary matters
and the glory of France and attend more to his own. The thought also
occurred to him that France wouldn't be likely to suffer from the
neglect. He had hitherto been ashamed to recognize the existence of an
old-maid sister of his father, but he decided to send for her to his
house. She would certainly shock his lackeys by her primitive manners
and ideas. But what of that? She would take care of his boy, which to
him was of much more importance than the good opinion of his servants.
The financier, who was always in a hurry, never felt so eager to
arrive punctually at a committee meeting as he was to reach the lost
little one. For the first time in his life he was longing through pure
affection to take the child in his arms.

The carriage rolled rapidly along in the clear, crisp night air down
boulevard Malesherbes; and, having crossed the ramparts and passed the
large houses, plunged into the quiet solitude of suburban streets.
When the carriage stopped M. Godefroy saw a wretched hovel, on which
was the number he was seeking; it was the house where Pierron lived.
The door of the house opened immediately, and a big, rough-looking
fellow with red mustache appeared. One of his sleeves was empty. Seeing
the gentleman in the carriage, Pierron said cheerily: "So you are the
little one's father. Don't be afraid. The little darling is quite
safe," and, stepping aside in order to allow M. Godefroy to pass, he
placed his finger on his lips with: "Hush! The little one is asleep!"

Yes, it was a real hovel. By the dim light of a little oil lamp M.
Godefroy could just distinguish a dresser from which a drawer was
missing, some broken chairs, a round table on which stood a beer-mug
which was half empty, three glasses, some cold meat on a plate, and
on the bare plaster of the wall two gaudy pictures--a bird's-eye view
of the Exposition of 1889, with the Eiffel Tower in bright blue, and
the portrait of General Boulanger when a handsome young lieutenant.
This last evidence of weakness of the tenant of the house may well
be excused, since it was shared by nearly everybody in France. The
man took the lamp and went on tiptoe to the corner of the room where,
on a clean bed, two little fellows were fast asleep. In the little
one, around whom the other had thrown a protecting arm, M. Godefroy
recognized his son.

"The youngsters were tired to death, and so sleepy," said Pierron,
trying to soften his rough voice. "I had no idea when you would come,
so gave them some supper and put them to bed, and then I went to make
a declaration at the police office. Zidore generally sleeps up in the
garret, but I thought they would be better here, and that I should be
better able to watch them."

M. Godefroy, however, scarcely heard the explanation. Strangely moved,
he looked at the two sleeping infants on an iron bedstead and covered
with an old blanket which had once been used either in barracks or
hospital. Little Raoul, who was still in his velvet suit, looked so
frail and delicate compared with his companion that the banker almost
envied the latter his brown complexion.

"Is he your boy?" he asked Pierron.

"No," answered he. "I am a bachelor, and don't suppose I shall ever
marry, because of my accident. You see, a dray passed over my arm--that
was all. Two years ago a neighbor of mine died, when that child was
only five years old. The poor mother really died of starvation.
She wove wreaths for the cemeteries, but could make nothing worth
mentioning at that trade--not enough to live. However, she worked for
the child for five years, and then the neighbors had to buy wreaths for
her. So I took care of the youngster. Oh, it was nothing much, and I
was soon repaid. He is seven years old, and is a sharp little fellow,
so he helps me a great deal. On Sundays and Thursdays, and the other
days after school, he helps me push my handcart. Zidore is a smart
little chap. It was he who found your boy."

"What!" exclaimed M. Godefroy--"that child!"

"Oh, he's quite a little man, I assure you. When he left school he
found your child, who was walking on ahead, crying like a fountain. He
spoke to him and comforted him, like an old grandfather. The difficulty
is, that one can't easily understand what your little one says--English
words are mixed up with German and French. So we couldn't get much out
of him, nor could we learn his address. Zidore brought him to me--I
wasn't far away; and then all the old women in the place came round
chattering and croaking like so many frogs, and all full of advice.

"'Take him to the police,'" said some.

But Zidore protested.

"That would scare him," said he, for like all Parisians, he has no
particular liking for the police--"and besides, your little one didn't
wish to leave him. So I came back here with the child as soon as I
could. They had supper, and then off to bed. Don't they look sweet?"

When he was in his carriage, M. Godefroy had decided to reward the
finder of his child handsomely--to give him a handful of that gold so
easily gained. Since entering the house he had seen a side of human
nature with which he was formerly unacquainted--the brave charity of
the poor in their misery. The courage of the poor girl who had worked
herself to death weaving wreaths to keep her child; the generosity of
the poor cripple in adopting the orphan, and above all, the intelligent
goodness of the little street Arab in protecting the child who was
still smaller than himself--all this touched M. Godefroy deeply and
set him reflecting. For the thought had occurred to him that there
were other cripples who needed to be looked after as well as Pierron,
and other orphans as well as Zidore. He also debated whether it would
not be better to employ his time looking after them, and whether money
might not be put to a better use than merely gaining money. Such was
his reverie as he stood looking at the two sleeping children. Finally,
he turned round to study the features of the greengrocer, and was
charmed by the loyal expression in the face of the man, and his clear,
truthful eyes.

"My friend," said M. Godefroy, "you and your adopted son have rendered
me an immense service. I shall soon prove to you that I am not
ungrateful. But, for to-day--I see that you are not in comfortable
circumstances, and I should like to leave a small proof of my
thankfulness."

But the hand of the cripple arrested that of the banker, which was
diving into his coat-pocket where he kept bank-notes.

"No, sir; no! Anybody else would have done just as we have done. I will
not accept any recompense; but pray don't take offense. Certainly, I
am not rolling in wealth, but please excuse my pride--that of an old
soldier; I have the Tonquin medal--and I don't wish to eat food which I
haven't earned."

"As you like," said the financier; "but an old soldier like you is
capable of something better. You are too good to push a handcart. I
will make some arrangement for you, never fear."

The cripple responded by a quiet smile, and said coldly: "Well, sir, if
you really wish to do something for me--"

"You'll let me care for Zidore, won't you?" cried M. Godefroy, eagerly.

"That I will, with the greatest of pleasure," responded Pierron,
joyfully. "I have often thought about the child's future. He is a sharp
little fellow. His teachers are delighted with him."

Then Pierron suddenly stopped, and an expression came over his face
which M. Godefroy at once interpreted as one of distrust. The thought
evidently was: "Oh, when he has once left us he'll forget us entirely."

"You can safely pick the child up in your arms and take him to the
carriage. He'll be better at home than here, of course. Oh, you needn't
be afraid of disturbing him. He is fast asleep, and you can just pick
him up. He must have his shoes on first, though."

Following Pierron's glance M. Godefroy perceived on the hearth, where
a scanty coke fire was dying out, two pairs of children's shoes--the
elegant ones of Raoul, and the rough ones of Zidore. Each pair
contained a little toy and a package of bonbons.

"Don't think about that," said Pierron in an abashed tone. "Zidore put
the shoes there. You know children still believe in Christmas and the
child Jesus, whatever scholars may say about fables; so, as I came back
from the _commissaire_, as I didn't know whether your boy would have to
stay here to-night, I got those things for them both."

At which the eyes of M. Godefroy, the freethinker, the hardened
capitalist, and _blasé_ man of the world, filled with tears.

He rushed out of the house, but returned in a minute with his arms full
of the superb mechanical horse, the box of leaden soldiers, and the
rest of the costly playthings bought by him in the afternoon, and which
had not even been taken out of the carriage.

"My friend, my dear friend," said he to the greengrocer, "see, these
are the presents which Christmas has brought to my little Raoul. I want
him to find them here, when he awakens, and to share them with Zidore,
who will henceforth be his playmate and friend. You'll trust me now,
won't you? I'll take care both of Zidore and of you, and then I shall
ever remain in your debt, for not only have you found my boy, but you
have also reminded me, who am rich and lived only for myself, that
there are other poor who need to be looked after. I swear by these two
sleeping children, I won't forget them any longer."

Such is the miracle which happened on the 24th of December of last
year, ladies and gentlemen, at Paris, in the full flow of modern
egotism. It doesn't sound likely--that I own; and I am compelled to
attribute this miraculous event to the influence of the Divine Child
who came down to earth nearly nineteen centuries ago to command men to
love one another.


                                PUTOIS
                           BY ANATOLE FRANCE

                            [Illustration]


    _The gentle Anatole France, with "vast learning worn with an
    almost mocking air," conserver of pure, unaffected French,
    chief of the school inaugurating the sociological novel, the
    fiction of ideas, was born at Paris in 1844. Since his first
    attempt at verse, he has written only in prose, "The Crime
    of Sylvestre Bonnard," in 1881, giving him at once his place
    in literature and winning a crown from the Academy. Besides
    "Thäis," a masterpiece of color and construction, he has
    written volumes of contemporary criticism and history--but in
    all he writes he figures forth the soul of Anatole France, a
    complex, subtle soul of varied moods, attached to no religion,
    with sympathy for all. His style, pure as spring water, is
    flavored with a delicate irony. Anatole France, or Anatole
    François Thibault, to use his real name, succeeded Jules
    Claretie on "Le Temps," and in 1896 was elected to the Academy._


                            [Illustration]


_Dedicated to Georges Brandes_




                                PUTOIS
                           BY ANATOLE FRANCE

                    Translated by William Patten.
               Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.


                                   I

This garden of our childhood, said Monsieur Bergeret, this garden that
one could pace off in twenty steps, was for us a whole world, full of
smiles and surprises.

"Lucien, do you recall Putois?" asked Zoe, smiling as usual, the lips
pressed, bending over her work.

"Do I recall Putois! Of all the faces I saw as a child that of Putois
remains the clearest in my remembrance. All the features of his face
and his character are fixed in my mind. He had a pointed cranium...."

"A low forehead," added Mademoiselle Zoe.

And the brother and sister recited alternately, in a monotonous voice,
with an odd gravity, the points in a sort of description:

"A low forehead."

"Squinting eyes."

"A shifty glance."

"Crow's-feet at the temples."

"The cheek-bones sharp, red and shining."

"His ears had no rims to them."

"The features were devoid of all expression."

"His hands, which were never still, alone expressed his meaning."

"Thin, somewhat bent, feeble in appearance...."

"In reality he was unusually strong."

"He easily bent a five-franc piece between the first finger and the
thumb...."

"Which was enormous."

"His voice was drawling...."

"And his speech mild."

Suddenly Monsieur Bergeret exclaimed: "Zoe! we have forgotten 'Yellow
hair and sparse beard.' Let us begin all over again."

Pauline, who had listened with astonishment to this strange recital,
asked her father and aunt how they had been able to learn by heart this
bit of prose, and why they recited it as if it were a litany.

Monsieur Bergeret gravely answered:

"Pauline, what you have heard is a text, I may say a liturgy, used
by the Bergeret family. It should be handed down to you so that it
may not perish with your aunt and me. Your grandfather, my daughter,
your grandfather, Eloi Bergeret, who was not amused with trifles,
thought highly of this bit, principally because of its origin.
He called it 'The Anatomy of Putois.' And he used to say that he
preferred, in certain respects, the anatomy of Putois to the anatomy of
Quaresmeprenant. 'If the description by Xenomanes,' he said, 'is more
learned and richer in unusual and choice expressions, the description
of Putois greatly surpasses it in clarity and simplicity of style.'
He held this opinion because Doctor Ledouble, of Tours, had not yet
explained chapters thirty, thirty-one, and thirty-two of the fourth
book of Rabelais."

"I do not understand at all," said Pauline.

"That is because you did not know Putois, my daughter. You must
understand that Putois was the most familiar figure in my childhood and
in that of your Aunt Zoe. In the house of your grandfather Bergeret we
constantly spoke of Putois. Each believed that he had seen him."

Pauline asked:

"Who was this Putois?"

Instead of replying, Monsieur Bergeret commenced to laugh, and
Mademoiselle Bergeret also laughed, her lips pressed tight together.
Pauline looked from one to the other. She thought it strange that her
aunt should laugh so heartily, and more strange that she should laugh
with and in sympathy with her brother. It was indeed singular, as the
brother and sister were quite different in character.

"Papa, tell me what was Putois? Since you wish me to know, tell me."

"Putois, my daughter, was a gardener. The son of honest
market-gardeners, he set up for himself as nurseryman at Saint-Omer.
But he did not satisfy his customers and got in a bad way. Having given
up business, he went out by the day. Those who employed him could not
always congratulate themselves."

At this, Mademoiselle Bergeret, laughing, rejoined:

"Do you recall, Lucien, when our father could not find his ink, his
pens, his sealing-wax, his scissors, he said: 'I suspect Putois has
been here'?"

"Ah!" said Monsieur Bergeret, "Putois had not a good reputation."

"Is that all?" asked Pauline.

"No, my daughter, it is not all. Putois was remarkable in this, that
while we knew him and were familiar with him, nevertheless--"

"--He did not exist," said Zoe.

Monsieur Bergeret looked at his sister with an air of reproach.

"What a speech, Zoe! and why break the charm like that? Do you dare say
it, Zoe? Zoe, can you prove it? To maintain that Putois did not exist,
that Putois never was, have you sufficiently considered the conditions
of existence and the modes of being? Putois existed, my sister. But it
is true that his was a peculiar existence."

"I understand less and less," said Pauline, discouraged.

"The truth will be clear to you presently, my daughter. Know then that
Putois was born fully grown. I was still a child and your aunt was a
little girl. We lived in a little house, in a suburb of Saint-Omer.
Our parents led a peaceful, retired life, until they were discovered
by an old lady named Madame Cornouiller, who lived at the manor of
Montplaisir, twelve miles from town, and proved to be a great-aunt of
my mother's. By right of relationship she insisted that our father
and mother come to dine every Sunday at Montplaisir, where they were
excessively bored. She said that it was the proper thing to have a
family dinner on Sunday and that only people of common origin failed to
observe this ancient custom. My father was bored to the point of tears
at Montplaisir. His desperation was painful to contemplate. But Madame
Cornouiller did not notice it. She saw nothing. My mother was braver.
She suffered as much as my father, and perhaps more, but she smiled."

"Women are made to suffer," said Zoe.

"Zoe, every living thing is destined to suffer. In vain our parents
refused these fatal invitations. Madame Cornouiller came to take
them each Sunday afternoon. They had to go to Montplaisir; it was
an obligation from which there was absolutely no escape. It was an
established order that only a revolt could break. My father finally
revolted and swore not to accept another invitation from Madame
Cornouiller, leaving it to my mother to find decent pretexts and varied
reasons for these refusals, for which she was the least capable. Our
mother did not know how to pretend."

"Say, Lucien, that she did not like to. She could tell a fib as well as
any one."

"It is true that when she had good reasons she gave them rather than
invent poor ones. Do you recall, my sister, that one day she said at
table: 'Fortunately, Zoe has the whooping-cough; we shall not have to
go to Montplaisir for some time'?"

"That was true!" said Zoe.

"You got over it, Zoe. And one day Madame Cornouiller said to my
mother: 'Dearest, I count on your coming with your husband to dine
Sunday at Montplaisir.' Our mother, expressly bidden by her husband to
give Madame Cornouiller a good reason for declining, invented, in this
extremity, a reason that was not the truth. 'I am extremely sorry,
dear Madame, but that will be impossible for us. Sunday I expect the
gardener.'

"On hearing this, Madame Cornouiller looked through the glass door of
the salon at the little wild garden, where the prickwood and the lilies
looked as though they had never known the pruning-knife and were likely
never to know it. 'You expect the gardener! What for?'

"'To work in the garden.'

"And my mother, having involuntarily turned her eyes on this little
square of weeds and plants run wild, that she had called a garden,
recognized with dismay the improbability of her excuse.

"'This man,' said Madame Cornouiller, 'could just as well work in your
garden Monday or Tuesday. Moreover, that will be much better. One
should not work on Sunday.'

"'He works all the week.'

"I have often noticed that the most absurd and ridiculous reasons are
the least disputed: they disconcert the adversary. Madame Cornouiller
insisted, less than one might expect of a person so little disposed to
give up. Rising from her armchair, she asked:

"'What do you call your gardener, dearest?'

"'Putois,' answered my mother without hesitation.

"Putois was named. From that time he existed. Madame Cornouiller took
herself off, murmuring: 'Putois! It seems to me that I know that name.
Putois! Putois! I must know him. But I do not recollect him. Where does
he live?'

"'He works by the day. When one wants him one leaves word with this one
or that one.'

"'Ah! I thought so, a loafer and a vagabond--a good-for-nothing. Don't
trust him, dearest.'

"From that time Putois had a character."


                                  II

Messieurs Goubin and Jean Marteau having arrived, Monsieur Bergeret put
them in touch with the conversation.

"We were speaking of him whom my mother caused to be born gardener at
Saint-Omer and whom she christened. He existed from that time on."

"Dear master, will you kindly repeat that?" said Monsieur Goubin,
wiping the glass of his monocle.

"Willingly," replied Monsieur Bergeret. "There was no gardener.
The gardener did not exist. My mother said: 'I am waiting for the
gardener.' At once the gardener was. He lived."

"Dear master," said Monsieur Goubin, "how could he live since he did
not exist?"

"He had a sort of existence," replied Monsieur Bergeret.

"You mean an imaginary existence," Monsieur Goubin replied,
disdainfully.

"Is it nothing then, but an imaginary existence?" exclaimed the master.
"And have not mythical beings the power to influence men? Consider
mythology, Monsieur Goubin, and you will perceive that they are not
real beings but imaginary beings that exercise the most profound and
lasting influence on the mind. Everywhere and always, beings who have
no more reality than Putois have inspired nations with hatred and love,
terror and hope, have advised crimes, received offerings, made laws and
customs. Monsieur Goubin, think of the eternal mythology. Putois is a
mythical personage, the most obscure, I grant you, and of the lowest
order. The coarse satyr, who in olden times sat at the table with our
peasants in the North, was considered worthy of appearing in a picture
by Jordaens and a fable by La Fontaine. The hairy son of Sycorax
appeared in the noble world of Shakespeare. Putois, less fortunate,
will be always neglected by artists and poets. He lacks bigness and the
unusual style and character. He was conceived by minds too reasonable,
among people who knew how to read and write, and who had not that
delightful imagination in which fables take root. I think, Messieurs,
that I have said enough to show you the real nature of Putois."

"I understand it," said Monsieur Goubin.

And Monsieur Bergeret continued his discourse.

"Putois was. I can affirm it. He was. Consider it, gentlemen, and
you will admit that a state of being by no means implies substance,
and means only the bonds attributed to the subject, expresses only a
relation."


                 [Illustration: =Anatole France=]


"Undoubtedly," said Jean Marteau; "but a being without attributes is a
being less than nothing. I do not remember who at one time said, 'I am
that I am.' Pardon my lapse of memory. One can not remember everything.
But the unknown who spoke in that fashion was very imprudent. In
letting it be understood by this thoughtless observation that he was
deprived of attributes and denied all relations, he proclaimed that
he did not exist and thoughtlessly suppressed himself. I wager that
no one has heard of him since."--"You have lost," answered Monsieur
Bergeret. "He corrected the bad effect of these egotistical expressions
by employing quantities of adjectives, and he is often spoken of,
most often without judgment."--"I do not understand," said Monsieur
Goubin.--"It is not necessary to understand," replied Jean Marteau.
And he begged Monsieur Bergeret to speak of Putois.--"It is very kind
of you to ask me," said the master.--"Putois was born in the second
half of the nineteenth century, at Saint-Omer. He would have been
better off if he had been born some centuries before in the forest
of Arden or in the forest of Brocéliande. He would then have been a
remarkably clever evil spirit."--"A cup of tea, Monsieur Goubin," said
Pauline.--"Was Putois, then, an evil spirit?" said Jean Marteau.--"He
was evil," replied Monsieur Bergeret; "he was, in a way, but not
absolutely. It was true of him as with those devils that are called
wicked, but in whom one discovers good qualities when one associates
with them. And I am disposed to think that injustice has been done
Putois. Madame Cornouiller, who, warned against him, had at once
suspected him of being a loafer, a drunkard, and a robber, reflected
that since my mother, who was not rich, employed him, it was because he
was satisfied with little, and asked herself if she would not do well
to have him work instead of her gardener, who had a better reputation,
but expected more. The time had come for trimming the yews. She
thought that if Madame Eloi Bergeret, who was poor, did not pay Putois
much, she herself, who was rich, would give him still less, for it is
customary for the rich to pay less than the poor. And she already saw
her yews trimmed in straight hedges, in balls and in pyramids, without
her having to pay much. 'I will keep an eye open,' she said, 'to see
that Putois does not loaf or rob me. I risk nothing, and it will be all
profit. These vagabonds sometimes do better work than honest laborers.'
She resolved to make trial, and said to my mother: 'Dearest, send me
Putois. I will set him to work at Montplaisir.' My mother would have
done so willingly. But really it was impossible. Madame Cornouiller
waited for Putois at Montplaisir, and waited in vain. She followed up
her ideas and did not abandon her plans. When she saw my mother again,
she complained of not having any news of Putois. 'Dearest, didn't
you tell him that I was expecting him?'--'Yes! but he is strange,
odd.'--'Oh, I know that kind. I know your Putois by heart. But there
is no workman so crazy as to refuse to come to work at Montplaisir.
My house is known, I think. Putois must obey my orders, and quickly,
dearest. It will be sufficient to tell me where he lives; I will go
and find him myself.' My mother answered that she did not know where
Putois lived, that no one knew his house, that he was without hearth or
home. 'I have not seen him again, Madame. I believe he is hiding.' What
better could she say? Madame Cornouiller heard her distrustfully; she
suspected her of misleading, of removing Putois from inquiry, for fear
of losing him or making him ask more. And she thought her too selfish.
Many judgments accepted by the world that history has sanctioned are
as well founded as that."--"That is true," said Pauline.--"What is
true?" asked Zoe, half asleep.--"That the judgments of history are
often false. I remember, papa, that you said one day: 'Madame Roland
was very ingenuous to appeal to the impartiality of posterity, and not
perceive that, if her contemporaries were ill-natured monkeys, their
posterity would be also composed of ill-natured monkeys.'"--"Pauline,"
said Mademoiselle Zoe severely, "what connection is there between the
story of Putois and this that you are telling us?"--"A very great
one, my aunt."--"I do not grasp it."--Monsieur Bergeret, who was not
opposed to digressions, answered his daughter: "If all injustices
were finally redressed in the world, one would never have imagined
another for these adjustments. How do you expect posterity to pass
righteous judgment on the dead? How question them in the shades to
which they have taken flight? As soon as we are able to be just to them
we forget them. But can one ever be just? And what is justice? Madame
Cornouiller, at least, was finally obliged to recognize that my mother
had not deceived her and that Putois was not to be found. However,
she did not give up trying to find him. She asked all her relatives,
friends, neighbors, servants, and tradesmen if they knew Putois. Only
two or three answered that they had never heard of him. For the most
part they believed they had seen him. 'I have heard that name,' said
the cook, 'but I can not recall his face.'--'Putois! I must know him,'
said the street-sweeper, scratching his ear. 'But I can not tell you
who it is.' The most precise description came from Monsieur Blaise,
receiver of taxes, who said that he had employed Putois to cut wood
in his yard, from the 19th to the 23d of October, the year of the
comet. One morning, Madame Cornouiller, out of breath, dropped into
my father's office. 'I have seen Putois. Ah! I have seen him.'--'You
believe it?'--'I am sure. He was passing close by Monsieur Tenchant's
wall. Then he turned into the Rue des Abbesses, walking quickly. I
lost him.'--'Was it really he?'--'Without a doubt. A man of fifty,
thin, bent, the air of a vagabond, a dirty blouse.'--'It is true,' said
my father, 'that this description could apply to Putois.'--'You see!
Besides, I called him. I cried: "Putois!" and he turned around.'--'That
is the method,' said my father, 'that they employ to assure themselves
of the identity of evil-doers that they are hunting for.'--'I told
you that it was he! I know how to find him, your Putois. Very well!
He has a bad face. You had been very careless, you and your wife, to
employ him. I understand physiognomy, and though I only saw his back,
I could swear that he is a robber, and perhaps an assassin. The rims
of his ears are flat, and that is a sign that never fails.'--'Ah! you
noticed that the rims of his ears were flat?'--'Nothing escapes me.
My dear Monsieur Bergeret, if you do not wish to be assassinated with
your wife and your children, do not let Putois come into your house
again. Take my advice: have all your locks changed.'--Well, a few
days afterward, it happened that Madame Cornouiller had three melons
stolen from her vegetable garden. The robber not having been found,
she suspected Putois. The gendarmes were called to Montplaisir, and
their report confirmed the suspicions of Madame Cornouiller. Bands
of marauders were ravaging the gardens of the countryside. But this
time the robbery seemed to have been committed by one man, and with
singular dexterity. No trace of anything broken, no footprints in the
damp earth. The robber could be no one but Putois. That was the opinion
of the corporal, who knew all about Putois, and had tried hard to put
his hand on that bird. The 'Journal of Saint-Omer' devoted an article
to the three melons of Madame Cornouiller, and published a portrait
of Putois from descriptions furnished by the town. 'He has,' said the
paper, 'a low forehead, squinting eyes, a shifty glance, crow's-feet,
sharp cheek-bones, red and shining. No rims to the ears. Thin, somewhat
bent, feeble in appearance, in reality he is unusually strong. He
easily bends a five-franc piece between the first finger and the
thumb.' There were good reasons for attributing to him a long series
of robberies committed with surprising dexterity. The whole town was
talking of Putois. One day it was learned that he had been arrested and
locked up in prison. But it was soon recognized that the man that had
been taken for him was an almanac seller named Rigobert. As no charge
could be brought against him, he was discharged after fourteen months
of detention on suspicion. And Putois remained undiscoverable. Madame
Cornouiller was the victim of another robbery, more audacious than the
first. Three small silver spoons were taken from her sideboard. She
recognized in this the hand of Putois, had a chain put on the door of
her bedroom, and was unable to sleep...."

About ten o'clock in the evening, Pauline having gone to her room,
Mademoiselle Bergeret said to her brother: "Do not forget to relate how
Putois betrayed Madame Cornouiller's cook."--"I was thinking of it, my
sister," answered Monsieur Bergeret. "To omit it would be to lose the
best of the story. But everything must be done in order. Putois was
carefully searched for by the police, who could not find him. When it
was known that he could not be found, each one considered it his duty
to find him; the shrewd ones succeeded. And as there were many shrewd
ones at Saint-Omer and in the suburbs, Putois was seen simultaneously
in the streets, in the fields, and in the woods. Another trait was
thus added to his character. He was accorded the gift of ubiquity,
the attribute of many popular heroes. A being capable of leaping long
distances in a moment, and suddenly showing himself at the place
where he was least expected, was honestly frightening. Putois was
the terror of Saint-Omer. Madame Cornouiller, convinced that Putois
had stolen from her three melons and three little spoons, lived in a
state of fear, barricaded at Montplaisir. Bolts, bars, and locks did
not reassure her. Putois was for her a frightfully subtle being who
could pass through doors. Trouble with her servants redoubled her
fear. Her cook having been betrayed, the time came when she could no
longer hide her misfortune. But she obstinately refused to name her
betrayer."--"Her name was Gudule," said Mademoiselle Zoe.--"Her name
was Gudule, and she believed that she was protected from danger by a
long, forked beard that she wore on her chin. The sudden appearance
of a beard protected the innocence of that holy daughter of the king
that Prague venerates. A beard, no longer youthful, did not suffice
to protect the virtue of Gudule. Madame Cornouiller urged Gudule to
tell her the man. Gudule burst into tears, but kept silent. Prayers
and menaces had no effect. Madame Cornouiller made a long and
circumstantial inquiry. She adroitly questioned her neighbors and
tradespeople, the gardener, the street-sweeper, the gendarmes; nothing
put her on the track of the culprit. She tried again to obtain from
Gudule a complete confession. 'In your own interest, Gudule, tell me
who it is.' Gudule remained mute. All at once a ray of light flashed
through the mind of Madame Cornouiller: 'It is Putois!' The cook cried,
but did not answer. 'It is Putois! Why did I not guess it sooner? It
is Putois! Miserable! miserable! miserable!' and Madame Cornouiller
remained convinced that it was Putois. Everybody at Saint-Omer, from
the judge to the lamplighter's dog, knew Gudule and her basket. At
the news that Putois had betrayed Gudule, the town was filled with
surprise, wonder, and merriment.... With this reputation in the town
and its environs he remained attached to our house by a thousand
subtle ties. He passed before our door, and it was believed that he
sometimes climbed the wall of our garden. He was never seen face to
face. At any moment we would recognize his shadow, his voice, his
footsteps. More than once we thought we saw his back in the twilight,
at the corner of a road. To my sister and me he gradually changed
in character. He remained mischievous and malevolent, but he became
childlike and very ingenuous. He became less real and, I dare say, more
poetical. He entered in the artless cycle of childish traditions. He
became more like Croquemitaine,[4] like Père Fouettard, or the sand man
who closes the children's eyes when evening comes. It was not that imp
that tangled the colts' tails at night in the stable. Less rustic and
less charming, but equally and frankly roguish, he made ink mustaches
on my sister's dolls. In our bed, before going to sleep, we listened;
he cried on the roofs with the cats, he howled with the dogs, he
filled the mill hopper with groans, and imitated the songs of belated
drunkards in the streets. What made Putois ever-present and familiar
to us, what interested us in him, was that the remembrance of him was
associated with all the objects about us. Zoe's dolls, my school books,
in which he had many times rumpled and besmeared the pages; the garden
wall, over which we had seen his red eyes gleam in the shadow; the blue
porcelain jar that he cracked one winter's night, unless it was the
frost; the trees, the streets, the benches--everything recalled Putois,
the children's Putois, a local and mythical being. He did not equal
in grace and poetry the dullest satyr, the stoutest fawn of Sicily
or Thessaly. But he was still a demigod. He had quite a different
character for our father; he was symbolical and philosophical. Our
father had great compassion for men. He did not think them altogether
rational; their mistakes, when they were not cruel, amused him and made
him smile. The belief in Putois interested him as an epitome and a
summary of all human beliefs. As he was ironical and a joker, he spoke
of Putois as if he were a real being. He spoke with so much insistence
sometimes, and detailed the circumstances with such exactness, that
my mother was quite surprised and said to him in her open-hearted
way: 'One would say that you spoke seriously, my friend: you know
well, however....' He replied gravely: 'All Saint-Omer believes in
the existence of Putois. Would I be a good citizen if I deny him? One
should look twice before setting aside an article of common faith.'
Only a perfectly honest soul has such scruples. At heart my father
was a Gassendiste.[5] He keyed his own particular sentiment with the
public sentiment, believing, like the countryside, in the existence of
Putois, but not admitting his direct responsibility for the theft of
the melons and the betrayal of the cook. Finally, he professed faith
in the existence of a Putois, to be a good citizen; and he eliminated
Putois in his explanations of the events that took place in the town.
By doing so in this instance, as in all others, he was an honorable and
a sensible man.

"As for our mother, she reproached herself somewhat for the birth of
Putois, and not without reason. Because, after all, Putois was the
child of our mother's invention, as Caliban was the poet's invention.
Without doubt the faults were not equal, and my mother was more
innocent than Shakespeare. However, she was frightened and confused to
see her little falsehood grow inordinately, and her slight imposture
achieve such a prodigious success, that, without stopping, extended
all over town and threatened to extend over the world. One day she
even turned pale, believing that she would see her falsehood rise up
before her. That day, a servant she had, new to the house and the
town, came to say to her that a man wished to see her. He wished to
speak to Madame. 'What man is it?'--'A man in a blouse. He looks like a
laborer.'--'Did he give his name?'--'Yes, Madame.'--'Well! what is
his name?'--'Putois.'--'He told you that was his name?'--'Putois,
yes, Madame.'--'He is here?'--'Yes, Madame. He is waiting in the
kitchen.'--'You saw him?'--'Yes, Madame.'--'What does he want?'--'He
did not say. He will only tell Madame.'--'Go ask him.'

"When the servant returned to the kitchen Putois was gone. This meeting
of the new servant with Putois was never cleared up. But from that day
I think my mother commenced to believe that Putois might well exist and
that she had not told a falsehood after all."


                              FOOTNOTES:

[4] The national "bugaboo" or "bogy man."

[5] A follower of Gassendi (d. 1655), an exponent of Epicurus.


                              SAC-AU-DOS
                        BY JORIS KARL HUYSMANS

                            [Illustration]


    _Sac-au-dos means, literally, "pack-a-back." The "Athenæum"
    calls the story "a masterpiece of concentrated observation and
    description." It was first published, with stories by Zola, De
    Maupassant, and two others, in a collection called "Soirées de
    Médan." Huysmans, with his minute painting of detail, reminds
    us of his Dutch ancestry of artists. His art criticisms have
    marked him the most vigorous and intelligent champion of the
    impressionists, Moreau, Pissaro, Monet, and Whistler._

    _He was born at Paris in 1848. After 1892, when he retired to
    the Trappe de Notre Dame d'Igny, Huysmans showed an altogether
    new side to his genius. His conversion to Roman Catholicism
    became complete, and his writings show a more sincere interest
    in religious matters._


                            [Illustration]




                              SAC-AU-DOS
                        BY JORIS KARL HUYSMANS

  Translated by L. G. Meyer. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.


As soon as I had finished my studies my parents deemed it useful to
my career to cause me to appear before a table covered with green
cloth and surmounted by the living busts of some old gentlemen who
interested themselves in knowing whether I had learned enough of the
dead languages to entitle me to the degree of Bachelor.

The test was satisfactory. A dinner to which all my relations, far
and near, were invited celebrated my success, affected my future, and
ultimately fixed me in the law. Well I passed my examination and got
rid of the money provided for my first year's expenses with a blonde
girl who, at times, pretended to be fond of me.

I frequented the Latin Quarter assiduously and there I learned many
things; among others to take an interest in those students who blew
their political opinions into the foam of their beer, every night, then
to acquire a taste for the works of George Sand and of Heine, of Edgard
Quinet, and of Henri Mürger.

The psychophysical moment of silliness was upon me.

That lasted about a year; gradually I ripened. The electoral struggles
of the closing days of the Empire left me cold; I was the son neither
of a Senator nor a prescript and I had but to outlive, no matter what
the régime, the traditions of mediocrity and wretchedness long since
adopted by my family. The law pleased me but little. I thought that
the _Code_ had been purposely maldirected in order to furnish certain
people with an opportunity to wrangle, to the utmost limit, over the
smallest words; even to-day it seems to me that a phrase clearly worded
can not reasonably bear such diverse interpretation.

I was sounding my depths, searching for some state of being that I
might embrace without too much disgust, when the late Emperor found one
for me; he made me a soldier through the maladroitness of his policy.

The war with Prussia broke out. To tell the truth I did not understand
the motives that made that butchery of armies necessary. I felt neither
the need of killing others nor of being killed by them. However that
may be, enrolled in the _Garde mobile_ of the Seine, I received orders,
after having gone in search of an outfit, to visit the barber and to be
at the barracks in the Rue Lourcine at seven o'clock in the evening.

I was at the place punctually. After roll-call part of the regiment
swarmed out of the barrack gates and emptied into the street. Then the
sidewalks raised a shout and the gutters ran.

Crowding one against another, workmen in blouses, workmen in tatters,
soldiers strapped and gaitered, without arms, they scanned to the
clink of glasses the Marseillaise over which they shouted themselves
hoarse with their voices out of time. Heads geared with képis[6] of
incredible height and ornamented with vizors fit for blind men and with
tin cockades of red, white and blue, muffled in blue-black jackets with
madder-red collars and cuffs, breeched in blue linen pantaloons with a
red stripe down the side, the militia of the Seine kept howling at the
moon before going forth to conquer Prussia. That was a deafening uproar
at the wine shops, a hubbub of glasses, cans and shrieks, cut into here
and there by the rattling of a window shaken by the wind. Suddenly the
roll of the drum muffled all that clamor; a new column poured out of
the barracks; there was carousing and tippling indescribable. Those
soldiers who were drinking in the wine shops shot now out into the
streets, followed by their parents and friends who disputed the honor
of carrying their knapsacks; the ranks were broken, it was a confusion
of soldiers and citizens; mothers wept, fathers, more contained,
sputtered wine, children frisked for joy and shrieked patriotic songs
at the top of their shrill voices.

They crossed Paris helter-skelter by the flashes of lightning
that whipped the storming clouds into white zigzags. The heat was
overpowering, the knapsack was heavy; they drank at every corner of the
street; they arrived at last at the railway station of Aubervilliers.
There was a moment of silence broken by the sound of sobbing, dominated
again by a burst of the Marseillaise, then they stalled us like cattle
in the cars. "Good night, Jules! may we meet soon again! Be good!
Above all write to me!" They squeezed hands for a last time, the train
whistled, we had left the station. We were a regular shovelful of fifty
men in that box that rolled away with us. Some were weeping freely,
jeered at by the others who, completely lost in drink were sticking
lighted candles into their provisions and bawling at the top of their
voices; "Down with Badinguet! and long live Rochefort!"[7] Others, in a
corner by themselves, stared silently and sullenly at the broad floor
that kept vibrating in the dust. All at once the convoy makes a halt--I
got out. Complete darkness--twenty-five minutes after midnight.

On all sides stretch the fields, and in the distance, lighted up by
sharp flashes of lightning, a cottage, a tree sketch their silhouette
against a sky swollen by the tempest. Only the grinding and rumbling
of the engine is heard, whose clusters of sparks flying from the
smokestack scatter like a bouquet of fireworks the whole length of
the train. Every one gets out, goes forward as far as the engine,
which looms up in the night and becomes huge. The stop lasted quite
two hours. The signal disks flamed red, the engineer was waiting
for them to reverse. They turn; again we get back into the wagons,
but a man who comes up on the run and swinging a lantern, speaks a
few words to the conductor, who immediately backs the train into a
siding where we remain motionless. Not one of us knows where we are.
I descend again from the carriage, and sitting on an embankment, I
nibble at a bit of bread and drink a drop or two, when the whirl of a
hurricane whistles in the distance, approaches, roaring and vomiting
fire, and an interminable train of artillery passed at full speed,
carrying along horses, men, and cannon whose bronze necks sparkle in
a confusion of light. Five minutes after we take up our slow advance,
again interrupted by halts that grow longer and longer. The journey
ends with daybreak, and leaning from the car window, worn out by the
long watch of the night, I look out upon the country that surrounds
us: a succession of chalky plains, closing in the horizon, a band of
pale green like the color of a sick turquoise, a flat country, gloomy,
meagre, the beggarly Champagne Pouilleuse!

Little by little the sun brightens, we, rumbling on the while, end,
however, by getting there! Leaving at eight o'clock in the evening, we
were delivered at three o'clock of the afternoon of the next day. Two
of the militia had dropped by the way, one who had taken a header from
the top of the car into the river, the other who had broken his head
on the ledge of a bridge. The rest, after having pillaged the hovels
and the gardens met along the route wherever the train stopped, either
yawned, their lips puffed out with wine, and their eyes swollen, or
amused themselves by throwing from one side of the carriage to the
other branches of shrubs and hen-coops which they had stolen.

The disembarking was managed after the same fashion as the departure.
Nothing was ready; neither canteen, nor straw, nor coats, nor arms,
nothing, absolutely nothing. Only tents full of manure and of insects,
just left by the troops off for the frontier. For three days we live
at the mercy of Mourmelon.[8] Eating a sausage one day and drinking a
bowl of café-au-lait the next, exploited to the utmost by the natives,
sleeping, no matter how, without straw and without covering. Truly such
a life was not calculated to give us a taste for the calling they had
inflicted on us.

Once in camp, the companies separated; the laborers took themselves to
the tents of their fellows; the bourgeois did the same. The tent in
which I found myself was not badly managed, for we succeeded in driving
out by argument of wine the two fellows, the native odor of whose feet
was aggravated by a long and happy neglect.

One or two days passed. They made us mount guard with the pickets, we
drank a great deal of eau-de-vie, and the drink-shops of Mourmelon were
full without let, when suddenly Canrobert[9] passed us in review along
the front line of battle. I see him now on his big horse, bent over
the saddle, his hair flying, his waxed mustaches in a ghastly face. A
mutiny was breaking out. Deprived of everything, and hardly convinced
by that marshal that we lacked nothing, we growled in chorus when he
talked of repressing our complaints by force: "Ran, plan, plan, a
hundred thousand men afoot, to Paris, to Paris!"

Canrobert grew livid, and shouted, planting his horse in the midst
of us. "Hats off to a marshal of France!" Again a howl goes up from
the ranks; then turning bridle, followed in confusion by his staff
officers, he threatened us with his finger, whistling between his
separated teeth. "You shall pay dear for this, gentlemen from Paris!"

Two days after this episode, the icy water of the camp made me so sick
that there was urgent need of my entering the hospital. After the
doctor's visit, I buckle on my knapsack, and under guard of a corporal,
here I am going limping along, dragging my legs and sweating under my
harness. The hospital is gorged with men; they send me back. I then
go to one of the nearest military hospitals; a bed stands empty; I am
admitted. I put down my knapsack at last, and with the expectation that
the major would forbid me to move, I went out for a walk in the little
garden which connected the set of buildings. Suddenly there issued from
a door a man with bristling beard and bulging eyes. He plants his hands
in the pockets of a long dirt-brown cloak, and shouts out from the
distance as soon as he sees me:

"Hey you, man! What are you doing over here?" I approach, I explain to
him the motive that brings me. He thrashes his arms about and bawls:

"Go in again! You have no right to walk about in this garden until they
give you your costume."

I go back into the room, a nurse arrives and brings me a great
military coat, pantaloons, old shoes without heels, and a cap like a
nightcap. I look at myself, thus grotesquely dressed, in my little
mirror. Good Heavens, what a face and what an outfit! With my haggard
eyes and my sallow complexion, with my hair cut short, and my nose
with the bumps shining; with my long mouse-gray coat, my pants
stained russet, my great heelless shoes, my colossal cotton cap, I
am prodigiously ugly. I could not keep from laughing. I turn my head
toward the side of my bed neighbor, a tall boy of Jewish type, who
is sketching my portrait in a notebook. We become friends at once; I
tell him to call me Eugène Lejantel; he responds by telling me to call
him Francis Emonot; we recall to each other this and that painter; we
enter into a discussion of esthetics and forget our misfortunes. Night
arrives; they portion out to us a dish of boiled meat dotted black with
a few lentils, they pour us out brimming cups of coco-clairet, and I
undress, enchanted at stretching myself out in a bed without keeping my
clothes and my shoes on.

The next morning I am awakened at about six o'clock by a great fracas
at the door and a clatter of voices. I sit up in bed, I rub my eyes,
and I see the gentleman of the night before, still dressed in his
wrapper, brown the color of cachou, who advances majestically, followed
by a train of nurses. It was the major. Scarcely inside, he rolls his
dull green eyes from right to left and from left to right, plunges his
hands in his pockets and bawls:

"Number One, show your leg--your dirty leg. Eh, it's in a bad shape,
that leg, that sore runs like a fountain; lotion of bran and water,
lint, half-rations, a strong licorice tea. Number Two, show your
throat--your dirty throat. It's getting worse and worse, that throat;
the tonsils will be cut out to-morrow."

"But, doctor--"

"Eh, I am not asking anything from you, am I? Say one word and I'll put
you on a diet."

"But, at least--"

"Put that man on a diet. Write: diet, gargles, strong licorice tea."

In that vein he passed all the sick in review, prescribing for all, the
syphilitics and the wounded, the fevered and the dysentery patients
his strong licorice tea. He stopped in front of me, stared into my
face, tore off my covering, punched my stomach with his fist, ordered
albuminated water for me, the inevitable tea; and went out snorting and
dragging his feet.

Life was difficult with the men who were about us. There were
twenty-one in our sleeping quarters. At my left slept my friend, the
painter; on my right, a great devil of a trumpeter, with face pocked
like a sewing thimble and yellow as a glass of bile. He combined two
professions, that of cobbler by day and a procurer of girls by night.
He was, in other respects, a comical fellow who frisked about on his
hands, or on his head, telling you in the most naïve way in the world
the manner in which he expedited at the toe of his boot the work of his
menials, or intoned in a touching voice sentimental songs:

    "I have cherished in my sorrow--ow
    But the friendship of a swallow--ow."

I conquered his good graces by giving him twenty sous to buy a liter
of wine with, and we did well in not being on bad terms with him, for
the rest of our quarters--composed in part of attorneys of the Rue
Maubuée--were well disposed to pick a quarrel with us.

One night, among others, the 15th of August, Francis Emonot threatened
to box the ears of two men who had taken his towel. There was a
formidable hubbub in the dormitory. Insults rained, we were treated
to "roule-en-coule et de duchesses." Being two against nineteen, we
were in a fair way of getting a regular drubbing, when the bugler
interfered, took aside the most desperate and coaxed them into giving
up the stolen object. To celebrate the reconciliation which followed
this scene, Francis and I contributed three francs each, and it was
arranged that the bugler with the aid of his comrades should try to
slip out of the hospital and bring back some meat and wine.

The light had disappeared from the major's window, the druggist at last
extinguished his, we climb over the thicket, examine our surroundings,
caution the men who are gliding along the walls, not to encounter the
sentinels on the way, mount on one another's shoulders and jump off
into the field. An hour later they came back laden with victuals; they
pass them over and reenter the dormitory with us; we suppress the two
night lamps, light candle-ends stuck on the floor, and around my bed
in our shirts we form a circle. We had absorbed three or four liters
of wine and cut up the best part of a leg of mutton, when a great
clattering of shoes is heard; I blow out the candle stubs, by the grace
of my shoe, and every one escapes under the beds. The door opens; the
major appears, heaves a formidable "Good Heavens!" stumbles in the
darkness, goes out and comes back with a lantern and the inevitable
train of nurses. I profit by the moment to disperse the remains of
the feast; the major crosses the dormitory at a quick step, swearing,
threatening to take us all into custody and to put us in stocks.

We are convulsed with laughter under our coverings; a trumpet-flourish
blazes from the other side of the dormitory. The major puts us all
under diet; then he goes out, warning us that we shall know in a few
minutes what metal he is made of.

Once gone, we vie with each other in doing our worst; flashes of
laughter rumble and crackle. The trumpeter does a handspring in the
dormitory, one of his friends joins him, a third jumps on his bed as on
a springboard and bounces up and down, his arms balancing, his shirt
flying; his neighbor breaks into a triumphant cancan; the major enters
abruptly, orders four men of the line he has brought with him to seize
the dancers, and announces to us that he is going to draw up a report
and send it to whom it may concern.

Calm is restored at last; the next day we get the nurses to buy us some
eatables. The days run on without further incident. We are beginning
to perish of ennui in this hospital, when, one day, at five o'clock,
the doctor bursts into the room and orders us to put on our campaign
clothes and to buckle on our knapsacks.

We learn ten minutes later that the Prussians are marching on Chalons.

A gloomy amazement reigns in the quarters. Until now we have had
no doubts as to the outcome of passing events. We knew about the
too celebrated victory of Sarrebrück, we do not expect the reverses
which overwhelm us. The major examines every man; not one is cured,
all had been too long gorged with licorice water and deprived of
care. Nevertheless, he returns to their corps the least sick, he
orders others to lie down completely dressed, knapsack in readiness.
Francis and I are among these last. The day passes, the night passes.
Nothing. But I have the colic continually and suffer. At last, at
about nine o'clock in the morning, appears a long train of mules with
"cacolets,"[10] and led by "tringlots."[11] We climb two by two into
the baskets. Francis and I were lifted onto the same mule, only, as
the painter was very fat and I very lean, the arrangement see-sawed; I
go up in the air while he descends under the belly of the mule, who,
dragged by the head, and pushed from behind, dances and flings about
furiously. We trot along in a whirlwind of dust, blinded, bewildered,
jolted, we cling to the bar of the cacolet, shut our eyes, laugh and
groan. We arrive at Chalons more dead than alive; we fall to the gravel
like jaded cattle, then they pack us into the cars and we leave Chalons
to go--where? No one knows.

It is night; we fly over the rails. The sick are taken from the cars
and walked up and down the platforms. The engine whistles, slows down
and stops in a railway station--that of Reims, I suppose, but I can not
be sure. We are dying of hunger, the commissary forgot but one thing:
to give us bread for the journey. I get out. I see an open buffet. I
run for it, but others are there before me. They are fighting as I come
up. Some were seizing bottles, others meat, some bread, some cigars.
Half-dazed but furious, the restaurant-keeper defends his shop at the
point of a spit. Crowded by their comrades, who come up in gangs, the
front row of militia throw themselves onto the counter, which gives
way, carrying in its wake the owner of the buffet and his waiters.
Then followed a regular pillage; everything went, from matches to
toothpicks. Meanwhile the bell rings and the train starts. Not one of
us disturbs himself, and while sitting on the walk, I explain to the
painter how the tubes work, the mechanism of the bell. The train backs
down over the rails to take us aboard. We ascend into our compartments
again and we pass in review the booty we had seized. To tell the truth,
there was little variety of food. Pork-butcher's meat and nothing but
pork-butcher's meat! We had six strings of Bologna sausages flavored
with garlic, a scarlet tongue, two sausages, a superb slice of Italian
sausage, a slice in silver stripe, the meat all of an angry red,
mottled white; four liters of wine, a half-bottle of cognac, and a few
candle ends. We stick the candle ends into the neck of our flasks,
which swing, hung by strings to the sides of the wagon. There was,
thus, when the train jolted over a switch, a rain of hot grease which
congealed almost instantly into great platters, but our coats had seen
many another.

We began our repast at once, interrupted by the going and coming of
those of the militia who kept running along the footboards the whole
length of the train, and knocked at our window-panes and demanded
something to drink. We sang at the top of our voices, we drank, we
clinked glasses. Never did sick men make so much noise or romp so on
a train in motion! One would have said that it was a rolling Court of
Miracles; the cripples jumped with jointed legs, those whose intestines
were burning soaked them in bumpers of cognac, the one-eyed opened
their eyes, the fevered capered about, the sick throats bellowed and
tippled; it was unheard of!

This disturbance ends in calming itself. I profit by the lull to put
my nose out of the window. There was not a star there, not even a
tip of the moon, heaven and earth seem to make but one, and in that
intensity of inky blackness, the lanterns winked like eyes of different
colors attached to the metal of the disks. The engineer discharged
his whistle, the engine puffed and vomited its sparks without rest. I
reclose the window and look at my companions. Some were snoring, others
disturbed by the jolting of the box, gurgled and swore in their sleep,
turning over incessantly, searching for room to stretch their legs, to
brace their heads that nodded at every jolt.

By dint of looking at them, I was beginning to get sleepy when the
train stopped short and woke me up. We were at a station; and the
station-master's office flamed like a forge fire in the darkness of
the night. I had one leg numbed, I was shivering with cold, I descend
to warm up a bit. I walk up and down the platform, I go to look at
the engine, which they uncouple, and which they replace by another,
and walking by the office I hear the bills and the tic-tac of the
telegraph. The employee, with back turned to me, was stooping a little
to the right in such a way that from where I was placed, I could see
but the back of his head and the tip of his nose, which shone red and
beaded with sweat, while the rest of his figure disappeared in the
shadow thrown by the screen of a gas-jet.

They invite me to get back into the carriage, and I find my comrades
again, just as I had left them. That time I went to sleep for good. For
how long did my sleep last? I don't know--when a great cry woke me up:
"Paris! Paris!" I made a dash for the doorway. At a distance, against
a band of pale gold, stood out in black the smokestacks of factories
and workshops. We were at Saint-Denis; the news ran from car to car.
Every one was on his feet. The engine quickened its pace. The Gare du
Nord looms up in the distance. We arrive there, we get down, we throw
ourselves at the gates. One part of us succeeds in escaping, the others
are stopped by the employees of the railroad and by the troops; by
force they make us remount into a train that is getting up steam, and
here we are again, off for God knows where!

We roll onward again all day long. I am weary of looking at the rows of
houses and trees that spin by before my eyes; then, too, I have the
colic continually and I suffer. About four o'clock of the afternoon,
the engine slackens its speed, and stops at a landing-stage where
awaits us there an old general, around whom sports a flock of young
men, with headgear of red képis, breached in red and shod with boots
with yellow spurs. The general passes us in review and divides us into
two squads; the one for the seminary, the other is directed toward
the hospital. We are, it seems, at Arras. Francis and we form part of
the first squad. They tumble us into carts stuffed with straw, and we
arrive in front of a great building that settles and seems about to
collapse into the street. We mount to the second story to a room that
contains some thirty beds; each one of us unbuckles his knapsack, combs
himself, and sits down. A doctor arrives.

"What is the trouble with you?" he asks of the first.

"A carbuncle."

"Ah! and you?"

"Dysentery."

"Ah! and you?"

"A bubo."

"But in that case you have not been wounded during the war?"

"Not the least in the world."

"Very well! You can take up your knapsacks again. The archbishop gives
up the beds of his seminarists only to the wounded."

I pack into my knapsack again all the knickknacks that I had taken out,
and we are off again, willy-nilly, for the city hospital. There was no
more room there. In vain the sisters contrive to squeeze the iron beds
together, the wards are full. Worn out by all these delays, I seize one
mattress, Francis takes another, and we go and stretch ourselves in the
garden on a great grass-plot.

The next day I have a talk with the director, an affable and charming
man. I ask permission for the painter and for me to go out into the
town. He consents; the door opens; we are free! We are going to dine
at last! To eat real meat, to drink real wine! Ah, we do not hesitate;
we make straight for the best hotel in town. They serve us there with
a wholesome meal. There are flowers there on the table, magnificent
bouquets of roses and fuchsias that spread themselves out of the glass
vases. The waiter brings in a roast that drains into a lake of butter;
the sun himself comes to the feast, makes the covers sparkle and the
blades of the knives, sifts his golden dust through the carafes, and
playing with the pomard that gently rocks in the glasses, spots with a
ruby star the damask cloth.

Oh, sacred joy of the guzzlers! My mouth is full and Francis is drunk!
The fumes of the roast mingle with the perfume of the flowers; the
purple of the wine vies in gorgeousness with the red of the roses.
The waiter who serves us has the air of folly and we have the air of
gluttons, it is all the same to us! We stuff down roast after roast,
we pour down bordeaux upon burgundy, chartreuse upon cognac. To the
devil with your weak wines and your thirty-sixes,[12] which we have
been drinking since our departure from Paris! To the devil with those
whimsicalities without name, those mysterious pot-house poisons with
which we have been so crammed to leanness for nearly a month! We are
unrecognizable; our once peaked faces redden like a drunkard's, we get
noisy, with noise in the air we cut loose. We run all over the town
that way.

Evening arrives; we must go back, however. The sister who is in charge
of the old men's ward says to us in a small flute-like voice:

"Soldiers, gentlemen, you were very cold last night, but you are going
to have a good bed."

And she leads us into a great room where three night lamps, dimly
lighted, hang from the ceiling. I have a white bed, I sink with delight
between the sheets that still smell fresh with the odor of washing.
We hear nothing but the breathing or the snoring of the sleepers. I
am quite warm, my eyes close, I know no longer where I am, when a
prolonged chuckling awakes me. I open one eye and I perceive at the
foot of my bed an individual who is looking down at me. I sit up in
bed. I see before me an old man, tall, lean, his eyes haggard, lips
slobbering into a rough beard. I ask what he wants of me. No answer! I
cry out: "Go away! Let me sleep!"

He shows me his fist. I suspect him to be a lunatic. I roll up my
towel, at the end of which I quietly twist a knot; he advances one
step; I leap to the floor; I parry the fisticuff he aims at me, and
with the towel I deal him a return blow full in the left eye. He sees
thirty candles, he throws himself at me; I draw back and let fly a
vigorous kick in the stomach. He tumbles, carrying with him a chair
that rebounds; the dormitory is awakened; Francis runs up in his shirt
to lend me assistance; the sister arrives; the nurses dart upon the
madman, whom they flog and succeed with great difficulty in putting
in bed again. The aspect of the dormitory was eminently ludicrous; to
the gloom of faded rose, which the dying night lamps had spread around
them, succeeded the flaming of three lanterns. The black ceiling, with
its rings of light that danced above the burning wicks, glittered now
with its tints of freshly spread plaster. The sick men, a collection of
Punch and Judies without age, had clutched the piece of wood that hung
at the end of a cord above their beds, hung on to it with one hand, and
with the other made gestures of terror. At that sight my anger cools, I
split with laughter, the painter suffocates, it is only the sister who
preserves her gravity and succeeds by force of threats and entreaties
in restoring order in the room.

Night came to an end, for good or ill; in the morning at six o'clock
the rattle of a drum assembled us, the director called off the roll.
We start for Rouen. Arrived in that city, an officer tells the
unfortunate man in charge of us that the hospital is full and can not
take us in. Meanwhile we have an hour to wait. I throw my knapsack
down into a corner of the station, and though my stomach is on fire,
we are off, Francis and I, wandering at random, in ecstasies before
the church of Saint-Ouen, in wonder before the old houses. We admire
so much and so long that the hour had long since passed before we even
thought of looking for the station again. "It's a long time since your
comrades departed," one of the employees of the railroad said to us;
"they are in Evreux." "The devil! The next train doesn't go until nine
o'clock.--Come, let's get some dinner!"

When we arrived at Evreux, midnight had come. We could not present
ourselves at a hospital at such an hour; we would have the appearance
of malefactors. The night is superb, we cross the city and we find
ourselves in the open fields. It was the time of haying, the piles were
in stacks. We spy out a little stack in a field, we hollow out there
two comfortable nests, and I do not know whether it is the reminiscent
odor of our couch or the penetrating perfume of the woods that stirs
us, but we feel the need of airing our defunct love affairs. The
subject was inexhaustible. Little by little, however, words become
fewer, enthusiasm dies out, we fall asleep. "Sacre bleu!" cries my
neighbor, as he stretches himself. "What time can it be?" I awake in
turn. The sun will not be late in rising, for the great blue curtain
is laced at the horizon with a fringe of rose. What misery! It will
be necessary now to go knock at the door of the hospital, to sleep in
wards impregnated with that heavy smell through which returns, like an
obstinate refrain, the acrid flower of powder of iodoform! All sadly we
take our way to the hospital again. They open to us but alas! one only
of us is admitted, Francis--and I, they send me on to the lyceum. This
life is no longer possible, I meditate an escape, the house surgeon on
duty comes down into the courtyard. I show him my law-school diploma;
he knows Paris, the Latin Quarter. I explain to him my situation. "It
has come to an absolute necessity." I tell him "that either Francis
comes to the lyceum or that I go to rejoin him at the hospital." He
thinks it over, and in the evening, coming close to my bed, he slips
these words into my ear: "Tell them to-morrow morning that your
sufferings increase." The next day, in fact, at about seven o'clock,
the doctor makes his appearance; a good, an excellent man, who had but
two faults; that of odorous teeth and that of desiring to get rid of
his patients at any cost. Every morning the following scene took place:

"Ah, ha! the fine fellow," he cries, "what an air he has! good color,
no fever. Get up and go take a good cup of coffee; but no fooling,
you know! don't go running after the girls; I will sign for you your
_Exeat_; you will return to-morrow to your regiment."

Sick or not sick, he sent back three a day. That morning he stops in
front of me and says:

"Ah! saperlotte, my boy, you look better!"

I exclaim that never have I suffered so much.

He sounds my stomach. "But you are better," he murmurs; "the stomach is
not so hard." I protest--he seems astonished, the interne then says to
him in an undertone:

"We ought perhaps to give him an injection; and we have here neither
syringe nor stomach-pump; if we send him to the hospital--?"

"Come, now, that's an idea!" says the good man, delighted at getting
rid of me, and then and there he signs the order for my admission.
Joyfully I buckle on my knapsack, and under guard of one of the
servants of the lyceum I make my entrance at the hospital. I find
Francis again! By incredible good luck the St. Vincent corridor, where
he sleeps, in default of a room in the wards, contains one empty bed
next to his. We are at last reunited! In addition to our two beds, five
cots stretch, one after the other, along the yellow glazed walls. For
occupants they have a soldier of the line, two artillerymen, a dragoon,
and a hussar. The rest of the hospital is made up of certain old men,
crack-brained and weak-bodied, some young men, rickety or bandy-legged,
and a great number of soldiers--wrecks from MacMahon's army--who, after
being floated on from one military hospital to another, had come to be
stranded on this bank. Francis and I, we are the only ones who wear
the uniform of the Seine militia; our bed neighbors were good enough
fellows; one, to tell the truth, quite as insignificant as another;
they were, for the most part, the sons of peasants or farmers called to
serve under the flag after the declaration of war.

While I am taking off my vest, there comes a sister, so frail, so
pretty that I can not keep from looking at her; the beautiful big eyes!
the long blond lashes! the pretty teeth! She asks me why I have left
the lyceum; I explain to her in roundabout phrases how the absence of
a forcing pump caused me to be sent back from the college. She smiles
gently and says to me: "Ah, sir soldier, you could have called the
thing by its name; we are used to everything." I should think she was
used to everything, unfortunate woman, for the soldiers constrained
themselves but little in delivering themselves of their indiscreet
amenities before her. Yet never did I see her blush. She passed among
them mute, her eyes lowered, seeming not to hear the coarse jokes
retailed around her.

Heavens! how she spoiled me! I see her now in the morning, as the sun
breaks on the stone floor the shadows of the window bars, approaching
slowly from the far end of the corridor, the great wings of her bonnet
flapping at her face. She comes close to my bed with a dish that
smokes, and on the edge of which glistens her well-trimmed finger nail.
"The soup is a little thin to-day," she says with her pretty smile, "so
I bring you some chocolate. Eat it quick while it's hot!"

In spite of the care she lavished upon me, I was bored to death in that
hospital. My friend and I, we had reached that degree of brutishness
that throws you on your bed, trying to kill in animal drowsiness
the long hours of insupportable days. The only distractions offered
us consisted in a breakfast and a dinner composed of boiled beef,
watermelon, prunes, and a finger of wine--the whole of not sufficient
quantity to nourish a man.

Thanks to my ordinary politeness toward the sisters and to the
prescription labels that I wrote for them, I obtained fortunately
a cutlet now and then and a pear picked in the hospital orchard. I
was, then, on the whole, the least to be pitied of all the soldiers
packed together, pell-mell, in the wards, but during the first days
I could not succeed even in swallowing the meagre morning dole. It
was inspection hour, and the doctor chose that moment to perform his
operations. The second day after my arrival he ripped a thigh open from
top to bottom; I heard a piercing cry; I closed my eyes, not enough,
however, to avoid seeing a red stream spurt in great jets on to the
doctor's apron. That morning I could eat no more. Little by little,
however, I grew accustomed to it; soon I contented myself by merely
turning my head away and keeping my soup.

In the mean while the situation became intolerable. We tried, but in
vain, to procure newspapers and books; we were reduced to masquerading,
to donning the hussar's vest for fun. This puerile fooling quickly wore
itself out, and stretching ourselves every twenty minutes, exchanging a
few words, we dive our heads into the bolsters.

There was not much conversation to be drawn from our comrades. The two
artillerymen and the hussar were too sick to talk. The dragoon swore
by the name of heaven, saying nothing, got up every instant, enveloped
in his great white mantle, and went to the wash-bowls, whose sloppy
condition he reported by means of his bare feet. There were some old
saucepans lying about in which the convalescents pretended to cook,
offering their stew in jest to the sisters.

There remained, then, only the soldier of the line: an unfortunate
grocer's clerk, father of a child, called to the army, stricken
constantly by fever, shivering under his bedclothes.

Squatting, tailor-fashion, on our bed, we listen to him recount the
battle in which he was picked up. Cast out near Froeschwiller, on a
plain surrounded with woods, he had seen the red flashes shoot by in
bouquets of white smoke, and he had ducked, trembling, bewildered by
the cannonading, wild with the whistling of the balls. He had marched,
mixed in with the regiments, through the thick mud, not seeing a single
Prussian, not knowing in what direction they were, hearing on all sides
groans, cut by sharp cries, then the ranks of the soldiers placed in
front of him, all at once turned, and in the confusion of flight he
had been, without knowing how, thrown to the ground. He had picked
himself up and had fled, abandoning his gun and knapsack, and at last,
worn out by the forced marches endured for eight days, undermined by
fear, weakened by hunger, he had rested himself in a trench. He had
remained there dazed, inert, stunned by the roar of the bombs, resolved
no longer to defend himself, to move no more; then he thought of his
wife, and, weeping, demanded what he had done that they should make him
suffer so; he picked up, without knowing why, the leaf of a tree, which
he kept, and which he had about him now, for he showed it to us often,
dried and shriveled at the bottom of his pockets.

An officer had passed meanwhile, revolver in hand, had called him
"coward," and threatened to break his head if he did not march. He had
replied: "That would please me above all things. Oh, that this would
end!" But the officer at the very moment he was shaking him on to his
feet was stretched out, the blood bursting, spurting from his neck.
Then fear took possession of him; he fled and succeeded in reaching a
road far off, overrun with the flying, black with troops, furrowed by
gun-carriages whose dying horses broke and crushed the ranks.

They succeeded at last in putting themselves under shelter. The cry of
treason arose from the groups. Old soldiers seemed once more resolved,
but the recruits refused to go on. "Let them go and be killed," they
said, indicating the officers; "that's their profession. As for me I
have children; it's not the State that will take care of them if I
die!" And they envied the fate of those who were slightly wounded and
the sick who were allowed to take refuge in the ambulances.

"Ah, how afraid one gets, and, then, how one holds in the ear the
voices of men calling for their mothers and begging for something to
drink," he added, shivering all over. He paused, and, looking about
the corridor with an air of content, he continued: "It's all the same,
I am very happy to be here; and then, as it is, my wife can write to
me," and he drew from his trousers pocket some letters, saying with
satisfaction: "The little one has written, look!" and he points out
at the foot of the paper under his wife's labored handwriting, some
up-and-down strokes forming a dictated sentence, where there were some
"I kiss papas" in blots of ink.

We listened twenty times at least to that story, and we had to suffer
during mortal hours the repetitions of that man, delighted at having a
child. We ended by stopping our ears and by trying to sleep so as not
to hear him any more.

This deplorable life threatened to prolong itself, when one morning
Francis, who, contrary to his habit, had been prowling around the whole
of the evening before in the courtyard, says to me: "I say, Eugène,
come out and breathe a little of the air of the fields." I prick my
ears. "There is a field reserved for lunatics," he continued; "that
field is empty; by climbing onto the roofs of the outhouses, and that
is easy, thanks to the gratings that ornament the windows, we can reach
the coping of the wall; we jump and we tumble into the country. Two
steps from the wall is one of the gates of Evreux. What do you say?"

I say--I say that I am quite willing to go out, but how shall we get
back?

"I do not know anything about that; first let us get out, we will plan
afterward. Come, get up, they are going to serve the soup; we jump the
wall after."

I get up. The hospital lacked water, so much so that I was reduced to
washing in the seltzer water which the sister had had sent to me. I
take my siphon, I mark the painter who cries fire, I press the trigger,
the discharge hits him full in his face; then I place myself in front
of him, I receive the stream in my beard, I rub my nose with the
lather, I dry my face. We are ready, we go downstairs. The field is
deserted; we scale the wall; Francis takes his measure and jumps. I am
sitting astride the coping of the wall, I cast a rapid glance around
me; below, a ditch and some grass, on the right one of the gates of
the town; in the distance, a forest that sways and shows its rents of
golden red against a band of pale blue. I stand up; I hear a noise in
the court; I jump; we skirt the walls; we are in Evreux!

Shall we eat? Motion adopted.

Making our way in search of a resting-place, we perceive two little
women wagging along. We follow them and offer to breakfast with them;
they refuse; we insist; they answer no less gently; we insist again;
they say yes. We go home with them, with a meat-pie, bottles of wine,
eggs, and a cold chicken. It seems odd to us to find ourselves in a
light room, hung with paper, spotted with lilac blossoms and green
leaves; there are at the casements damask curtains of red currant
color, a mirror over the fireplace, an engraving representing a Christ
tormented by the Pharisees. Six chairs of cherry wood and a round
table with an oil-cloth showing the kings of France, a bedspread with
eiderdown of pink muslin. We set the table, we look with greedy eye
at the girls moving about. It takes a long time to get things ready,
for we stop them for a kiss in passing; for the rest, they are ugly
and stupid enough. But what is that to us? It's so long since we have
scented the mouth of woman!

I carve the chicken; the corks fly, we drink like topers, we eat
like ogres. The coffee steams in the cups; we gild it with cognac;
my melancholy flies away, the punch kindles, the blue flames of the
Kirschwasser leap in the salad bowl, the girls giggle, their hair in
their eyes. Suddenly four strokes ring out slowly from the church
tower. It is four o'clock. And the hospital! Good heavens, we had
forgotten it! I turn pale. Francis looks at me in fright, we tear
ourselves from the arms of our hostesses, we go out at double quick.

"How to get in?" says the painter.

Alas! we have no choice; we shall get there scarcely in time for
supper. Let's trust to the mercy of heaven and make for the great gate!

We get there; we ring; the sister concièrge is about to open the door
for us and stands amazed. We salute her, and I say loud enough to be
heard by her:

"I say, do you know, they are not very amiable at that commissariat;
the fat one specially received us only more or less civilly."

The sister breathes not a word. We run at a gallop for the messroom; it
was time, I heard the voice of Sister Angèle who was distributing the
rations. I went to bed as quickly as possible, I covered with my hand a
spot my beauty had given me the length of my neck; the sister looks at
me, finds in my eyes an unwonted sparkle, and asks with interest: "Are
your pains worse?"

I reassure her and reply: "On the contrary, sister, I am better; but
this idleness and this imprisonment are killing me."

When I speak of the appalling ennui that is trying me, sunk in this
company, in the midst of the country, far from my own people, she does
not reply, but her lips close tight, her eyes take on an indefinable
expression of melancholy and of pity. One day she said to me in a dry
tone: "Oh, liberty's worth nothing to you," alluding to a conversation
she had overheard between Francis and me, discussing the charming
allurements of Parisian women; then she softened and added with her
fascinating little moue: "You are really not serious, Mr. Soldier."

The next morning we agreed, the painter and I, that as soon as the soup
was swallowed, we would scale the wall again. At the time appointed
we prowl about the field; the door is closed. "Bast, worse luck!"
says Francis, "_En avant!_" and he turns toward the great door of the
hospital. I follow him. The sister in charge asks where we are going.
"To the commissariat." The door opens, we are outside.

Arrived at the grand square of the town, in front of the church, I
perceive, as we contemplate the sculptures of the porch, a stout
gentleman with a face like a red moon bristling with white mustaches,
who stares at us in astonishment. We stare back at him, boldly, and
continue on our way. Francis is dying of thirst; we enter a café, and,
while sipping my demi-tasse, I cast my eyes over the local paper, and
I find there a name that sets me dreaming. I did not know, to tell the
truth, the person who bore it, but that name recalled to me memories
long since effaced. I remembered that one of my friends had a relation
in a very high position in the town of Evreux. "It is absolutely
necessary for me to see him," I say to the painter; I ask his address
of the café-keeper; he does not know it; I go out and visit all the
bakers and the druggists that I meet with. Every one eats bread and
takes medicine; it is impossible that one of those manufacturers
should not know the address of Monsieur de Fréchêdé. I did find it
there, in fact; I dust off my blouse, I buy a black cravat, gloves, and
I go and ring gently, in the Rue Chatrain, at the iron grating of a
private residence which rears its brick façade and slate roofs in the
clearing of a sunny park. A servant lets me in. Monsieur de Fréchêdé is
absent, but Madame is at home. I wait for a few seconds in a salon; the
portière is raised and an old lady appears. She has an air so affable
that I am reassured. I explain to her in a few words who I am.

"Sir," she says with a kind smile, "I have often heard speak of your
family. I think, even, that I have met at Madame Lezant's, madame, your
mother, during my last journey to Paris; you are welcome here."

We talked a long time; I, somewhat embarrassed, covering with my képi
the spot on my neck; she trying to persuade me to accept some money,
which I refuse.

She says to me at last: "I desire with all my heart to be useful to
you. What can I do?" I reply: "Heavens, Madame, if you could get
them to send me back to Paris, you would render me a great service;
communications will be interrupted very soon, if the newspapers are to
be believed; they talk of another _coup d'état_, or the overthrow of
the Empire; I have great need of seeing my mother again; and especially
of not letting myself be taken prisoner here if the Prussians come."

In the mean while Monsieur de Fréchêdé enters. In two words he is made
acquainted with the situation.

"If you wish to come with me to the doctor of the hospital," he says,
"you have no time to lose."

To the doctor! Good heavens! and how account to him for my absence from
the hospital? I dare not breathe a word; I follow my protector, asking
myself how it will all end. We arrive; the doctor looks at me with a
stupefied air. I do not give him time to open his mouth, and I deliver
with prodigious volubility a string of jeremiads over my sad position.

Monsieur de Fréchêdé in his turn takes up the argument, and asks him,
in my favor, to give me a convalescent's leave of absence for two
months.

"Monsieur is, in fact, sick enough," says the doctor, "to be entitled
to two months' rest; if my colleagues and if the General look at it as
I do your protégé will be able in a few days to return to Paris."

"That's good," replies Monsieur de Fréchêdé. "I thank you, doctor; I
will speak to the General myself to-night."

We are in the street; I heave a great sigh of relief; I press the hand
of that excellent man who shows so kindly an interest in me. I run
to find Francis again. We have but just time to get back; we arrive
at the gate of the hospital; Francis rings; I salute the sister. She
stops me: "Did you not tell me this morning that you were going to the
commissariat?"

"Quite right, sister."

"Very well! the General has just left here. Go and see the director and
Sister Angèle; they are waiting for you; you will explain to them, no
doubt, the object of your visits to the commissariat."

We remount, all crestfallen, the dormitory stairs. Sister Angèle is
there, who waits for us, and who says:

"Never could I have believed such a thing! You have been all over the
city, yesterday and to-day, and Heaven knows what kind of life you have
been leading!"

"Oh, really!" I exclaim.

She looked at me so fixedly that I breathed not another word.

"All the same," she continued, "the General himself met you on the
Grand Square to-day. I denied that you had gone out, and I searched for
you all over the hospital. The General was right, you were not here. He
asked me for your names; I gave him the name of one of you, I refused
to reveal the other, and I did wrong, that is certain, for you do not
deserve it!"

"Oh, how much I thank you, my sister!" But Sister Angèle did not listen
to me. She was indignant over my conduct! There was but one thing to
do; keep quiet and accept the downpour without trying to shelter myself.

In the mean time Francis was summoned before the director, and since, I
do not know why, they suspected him of corrupting me; and since he was,
moreover, by reason of his foolery, in bad odor with the doctor and the
sisters, he was informed that he must leave the hospital the following
day and join his corps at once.

"Those huzzies with whom we dined yesterday are licensed women, who
have sold us; it was the director himself who told me," he declared
furiously.

All the time we are cursing the jades and lamenting over our uniforms
which made us so recognizable, the rumor runs that the Emperor is taken
prisoner and that the Republic has been proclaimed at Paris; I give a
franc to an old man who was allowed to go out and who brings me a copy
of the "Gaulois." The news is true. The hospital exults. Badinguet
fallen! it is not too soon; good-by to the war that is ended at last.

The following morning Francis and I, we embrace and he departs. "Till
we meet again," he shouts to me as he shuts the gate; "and in Paris!"

Oh, the days that followed that day! What suffering! what desolation!
Impossible to leave the hospital; a sentinel paced up and down, in
my honor, before the door. I had, however, spirit enough not to try
to sleep. I paced like a caged beast in the yard. I prowled thus for
the space of twelve hours. I knew my prison to its smallest cranny. I
knew the spots where the lichens and the mosses pushed up through the
sections of the wall which had given way in cracking. Disgust for my
corridor, for my truckle-bed flattened out like a pancake, for my linen
rotten with dirt, took hold of me. I lived isolated, speaking to no
one, beating the flint stones of the courtyard with my feet, straying,
like a troubled soul, under the arcades whitewashed with yellow
ochre the same as the wards, coming back to the grated entrance gate
surmounted by a flag, mounting to the first floor where my bed was,
descending to where the kitchen shone, flashing the sparkle of its red
copper through the bare nakedness of the scene. I gnawed my fists with
impatience, watching at certain hours the mingled coming and going of
civilians and soldiers, passing and repassing on every floor, filling
the galleries with their interminable march.

I had no longer any strength left to resist the persecution of the
sisters, who drove us on Sunday into the chapel. I became a monomaniac;
one fixed idea haunted me; to flee as quickly as possible that
lamentable jail. With that, money worry oppressed me. My mother had
forwarded a hundred francs to me at Dunkirk, where it seems I ought to
be. The money never appeared. I saw the time when I should not have a
sou to buy either paper or tobacco.

Meanwhile the days passed. The De Fréchêdés seemed to have forgotten
me, and I attributed their silence to my escapades, of which they had
no doubt been informed. Soon to all these anxieties were added horrible
pains: ill-cared for and aggravated by my chase after petticoats, my
bowels became inflamed. I suffered so that I came to fear I should no
longer be able to bear the journey. I concealed my sufferings, fearing
the doctor would force me to stay longer at the hospital. I keep my bed
for a few days; then, as I felt my strength diminishing, I wished to
get up, in spite of all, and I went downstairs into the yard. Sister
Angèle no longer spoke to me, and in the evening, while she made her
rounds in the corridor and in the mess, turning so as not to notice the
sparks of the forbidden pipes that glowed in the shadows, she passed
before me, indifferent, cold, turning away her eyes. One morning,
however, when I had dragged myself into the courtyard and sunk down on
every bench to rest, she saw me so changed, so pale, that she could
not keep from a movement of compassion. In the evening, after she had
finished her visit to the dormitories, I was leaning with one elbow
on my bolster, and, with eyes wide open, I was looking at the bluish
beams which the moon cast through the windows of the corridor, when the
door at the farther end opened again, and I saw, now bathed in silver
vapor, now in shadow, and as if clothed in black crepe, according as
to whether she passed before the casements or along the walls, Sister
Angèle, who was coming toward me. She was smiling gently. "To-morrow
morning," she said to me, "you are to be examined by the doctors. I
saw Madame de Fréchêdé to-day; it is probable that you will start for
Paris in two or three days." I spring up in my bed, my face brightens,
I wanted to jump and sing; never was I happier. Morning rises. I dress,
and uneasy, nevertheless, I direct my way to the room where sits a
board of officers and doctors.

One by one the soldiers exhibit their bodies gouged with wounds or
bunched with hair. The General scraped one of his finger nails, the
Colonel of the Gendarmerie[13] fans himself with a newspaper; the
practitioners talk among themselves as they feel the men. My turn
comes at last. They examine me from head to foot, they press down on
my stomach, swollen and tense like a balloon, and with a unanimity of
opinion the council grants me a convalescent's leave of sixty days.

I am going at last to see my mother, to recover my curios, my books! I
feel no more the red-hot iron that burns my entrails; I leap like a kid!

I announce to my family the good news. My mother writes me letter after
letter, wondering why I do not come. Alas! my order of absence must
be countersigned at the division headquarters at Rouen. It comes back
after five days; I am "in order"; I go to find Sister Angèle; I beg
her to obtain for me before the time fixed for my departure permission
to go into the city to thank De Fréchêdés, who have been so good to
me. She goes to look for the director and brings me back permission. I
run to the house of those kind people, who force me to accept a silk
handkerchief and fifty francs for the journey. I go in search of my
papers at the commissariat. I return to the hospital, I have but a few
minutes to spare. I go in quest of Sister Angèle, whom I find in the
garden, and I say to her with great emotion:

"Oh, dear Sister, I am leaving; how can I ever repay you for all that
you have done for me?"

I take her hand which she tries to withdraw, and I carry it to my lips.
She grows red. "Adieu!" she murmurs, and, menacing me with her finger,
she adds playfully, "Be good! and above all do not make any wicked
acquaintances on the journey."

"Oh, do not fear, my Sister. I promise you!"

The hour strikes; the door opens; I hurry off to the station; I jump
into a car; the train moves; I have left Evreux. The coach is half
full, but I occupy fortunately, one of the corners. I put my nose out
of the window; I see some pollarded trees, the tops of a few hills
that undulate away into the distance, a bridge astride of a great
pond that sparkles in the sun like burnished glass. All this is not
very pleasing. I sink back in my corner, looking now and then at the
telegraph wires that stripe the ultramarine sky with their black lines,
when the train stops, the travellers who are about me descend, the door
shuts, then opens again and makes way for a young woman. While she
seats herself and arranges her dress, I catch a glimpse of her face
under the displacing of her veil. She is charming; with her eyes full
of the blue of heaven, her lips stained with purple, her white teeth,
her hair the color of ripe corn. I engage her in conversation. She is
called Reine; embroiders flowers; we chat like old friends. Suddenly
she turns pale, and is about to faint. I open the windows, I offer her
a bottle of salts which I have carried with me ever since my departure
from Paris; she thanks me, it is nothing, she says, and she leans
on my knapsack and tries to sleep. Fortunately we are alone in the
compartment, but the wooden partition that divides into equal parts the
body of the carriage comes up only as far as the waist, and one can see
and above all hear the clamor and the coarse laughter of the country
men and women. I could have thrashed them with hearty good will,
these imbeciles who were troubling her sleep! I contented myself with
listening to the commonplace opinions which they exchanged on politics.
I soon have enough of it; I stop my ears. I, too, try to sleep; but
that phrase which was spoken by the station-master of the last station,
"You will not get to Paris, the rails are torn up at Mantes," returned
in all my dreams like an obstinate refrain. I open my eyes. My neighbor
wakes up, too; I do not wish to share my fears with her; we talk in a
low voice. She tells me that she is going to join her mother at Sèvres.
"But," I say to her, "the train will scarcely enter Paris before eleven
o'clock to-night. You will never have time to reach the landing on the
left bank."

"What shall I do?" she says, "if my brother is not down at my arrival?"

Oh, misery, I am as dirty as a comb and my stomach burns! I can not
dream of taking her to my bachelor lodgings, and then I wish before
all to see my mother. What to do? I look at Reine with distress. I
take her hand; at that moment the train takes a curve, the jerk throws
her forward; our lips approach, they touch, I press mine; she turns
red. Good heavens, her mouth moves imperceptibly; she returns my kiss;
a long thrill runs up my spine; at contact of those ardent embers my
senses fail. Oh! Sister Angèle, Sister Angèle! a man can not make
himself over! And the train roars and rolls onward, without slackening
speed; we are flying under full steam toward Mantes; my fears are vain;
the track is clear. Reine half shuts her eyes; her head falls on my
shoulder; her little waves of hair tangle with my beard and tickle my
lips. I put my arm about her waist, which yields, and I rock her. Paris
is not far; we pass the freight-depots, by the roundhouses where the
engines roar in red vapor, getting up steam; the train stops; they take
up the tickets. After reflection, I will take Reine to my bachelor
rooms, provided her brother is not waiting her arrival. We descend from
the carriage; her brother is there. "In five days," she says, with a
kiss, and the pretty bird has flown. Five days after I was in my bed,
atrociously sick, and the Prussians occupy Sèvres. Never since then
have I seen her.

My heart is heavy. I heave a deep sigh; this is not, however, the time
to be sad! I am jolting on in a fiacre. I recognize the neighborhood; I
arrive before my mother's house; I dash up the steps, four at a time.
I pull the bell violently; the maid opens the door. "It's Monsieur!"
and she runs to tell my mother, who darts out to meet me, turns pale,
embraces me, looks me over from head to foot, steps back a little,
looks at me once more, and hugs me again. Meanwhile the servant has
stripped the buffet. "You must be hungry, M. Eugène?" I should think I
was hungry! I devour everything they give me. I toss off great glasses
of wine; to tell the truth, I do not know what I am eating and what I
am drinking!

At length I go to my rooms to rest. I find my lodging just as I left
it. I run through it, radiant, then I sit down on the divan and I
rest there, ecstatic, beatific, feasting my eyes with the view of my
knickknacks and my books. I undress, however; I splash about in a great
tub, rejoicing that for the first time in many months I am going to get
into a clean bed with white feet and toenails trimmed. I spring onto
the mattress, which rebounds. I dive my head into the feather pillow,
my eyes close; I soar on full wings into the land of dreams.

I seem to see Francis, who is lighting his enormous wooden pipe, and
Sister Angèle, who is contemplating me with her little moue; then Reine
advances toward me, I awake with a start, I behave like an idiot, I
sink back again up to my ears, but the pains in my bowels, calmed for
a moment, awake, now that the nerves become less tense, and I rub my
stomach gently, thinking that the horrors of dysentery are at last
over! I am at home. I have my rooms to myself, and I say to myself that
one must have lived in the promiscuosity of hospitals and camps to
appreciate the value of a basin of water, to appreciate the solitude
where modesty may rest at ease.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[6] Military hats.

[7] Badinguet, nickname given to Napoleon III; Henri Rochefort,
anti-Napoleon journalist and agitator.

[8] A suburb of Chalons.

[9] Canrobert, a brave and distinguished veteran, head of the Sixth
Corps of the Army of the Rhine.

[10] Panier seats used in the French army to transport the wounded.

[11] Tringlots are the soldiers detailed for this duty.

[12] Brandy of thirty-six degrees.

[13] Armed police.


                          "BONJOUR, MONSIEUR"
                           BY JEAN RICHEPIN

                            [Illustration]


    _This poet and teller of tales was born at Médéa, Algeria, in
    1849. His tremendous exuberance of spirits at first found an
    outlet in military service during the war of 1870, and later in
    a collection of vagabond songs called "La Chanson des Gueux,"
    for which shock to the conventions he was sent to prison for a
    month. Between 1877 and 1879 he published a variety of ballads
    while pursuing in picturesque flashes the careers of sailor and
    lighterman._

    _Richepin has written many stories, more or less with a
    penchant for extraordinary sensations and psychological
    anomalies. "Nana Sahib" is a play he wrote in 1883, in which,
    for a short time, he acted the principal rôle with Sarah
    Bernhardt._

    _Richepin is distinguished by his truly subtle use of words, by
    an unbridled, almost truculent, eloquence, clothed in rich and
    savory language._


                            [Illustration]




                          "BONJOUR, MONSIEUR"
                           BY JEAN RICHEPIN

                                "Modernity, the essence of inquietude!"
                                                 --_Adrien Juvigny._

                     Translated by Mason Carnes.
    Copyright, 1894, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


Ferdinand Octave Bruat awoke one morning with an idea. Ferdinand Octave
Bruat was what one commonly calls a man of letters. He had written
verses that no one would publish, novels that all the publishers had
returned unread, theatrical effusions that even the director of the
Funambules had refused. However, he had, in default of talent, a
theory, an ideal. He thought himself called to be a leader, and firmly
believed that he had invented a modern school. He meant by that, all
that constitutes our daily life, so bizarre on this side, so practical
on that, so foolish on others. He maintained that the time had come to
attack boldly all imitations, classic as well as romantic, and that
he should ransack contemporaneous society to derive therefrom ideas,
forms, a language absolutely new and original. He said that as each
epoch had had its own expression so ours should have its own also.

He was not wrong. Unfortunately he had not the strength to carry to
battle the standard he had raised, and all his valiance merely ended
in debating much and haranguing in the cafés. He overthrew more fools
than bigots and made more debts than masterpieces. But one morning, on
rising, he found the masterpiece which he had sought. When I say he had
found it, I am mistaken. _He had given birth to a title!_

What to do with it? As yet he did not know. But the title seemed to
him eloquent, sonorous, easy to remember, rich in variations, full of
modernity, epitomizing the whole century in a manner at once simple and
complex. The title was the more wonderful that it was so common. It
was a phrase of two words, spoken thousands of times each morning; a
phrase without affectation, without pretense, without pedantry, neither
classic nor romantic. It was simply, "_Bonjour, Monsieur!_"

Under this title he wrote first a sonnet. This sonnet was read to
his friends, naturally accompanied by prefaces and commentaries
philological as well as philosophical, destined not only to make
them the better enjoy its essence, but also to make them thoroughly
comprehend its import. With one voice it was pronounced admirable.

"It must be published at once," cried the most enthusiastic; "it will
give the keynote to the poetry of the future."

One crabbed old fellow, who did not dare to give his opinion frankly,
but who was irritated by this success, turned his criticism into a
compliment.

"As for me," he said, "I believe the subject demands greater
development. Certainly the sonnet is beautiful; but does it not strike
you that it is not sufficient for a subject of such importance. Think
of it! A thing so profound, so varied, so complicated can not be
confined in fourteen lines. A thought so powerful breaks its mold. Were
I Bruat, I would turn my sonnet into a drama."

The assemblage adopted his opinion, enchanted at heart to see the
famous sonnet thus criticized. Bruat did not perceive the irony of the
grumbler. "You are right," said he with an air of superiority. "I have
compressed my idea into this narrow mold. Thanks for your criticism,
which proves how much you esteem me. Truly my idea deserves more than
fourteen lines. I will write a drama in five acts and nine tableaux."
And, in spite of the hypocritical protestations of his friends, he tore
into pieces his masterpiece of a sonnet.

He lived for five years on the memory of his sonnet. He was always
promising the astonishing drama--"Bonjour, Monsieur!" He was becoming
almost celebrated by this piece in embryo. They knew that he had
but a few scenes to finish; they said that the work was advancing.
The simple-minded and the prejudiced who had never seen the author
were convinced of his genius and spread his renown. To believe them,
there was a great future, a marvelous hope; one must wait for the
thunderclap. No doubt he was taking his time; but do not aloes take a
hundred years to flower?

At last the drama was finished. This was a great event for the daily
papers. What theatre would be the battlefield of the new school?
Without doubt the directors would dispute for the honor of presenting
to the public the principal work of the nineteenth century? Would there
be artists capable of interpreting it?

First of all, Bruat assembled his little court, wishing to give them
the first-fruits of his victory. The drama did not meet with the
success of the sonnet. Perhaps the wits had conceived in advance too
high an idea of it? Perhaps Bruat had not been as brilliant as they
had expected? Perhaps there was a little envy mingled with their
judgment? Perhaps, also, the auditors were less young and therefore
less enthusiastic? In short, the reading was a failure. The grumbler
alone protested against the general coldness, and made a parade of an
unlimited admiration.

"Well and good," said he; "here is something that expresses the idea
in quest, here is movement, life, research, keenness. Away with the
sonnet! My friend, you have found the new drama, the modern drama, the
drama of the future."

But Bruat was disheartened. At least he mistrusted the grumbler, who
had counseled him to substitute the drama for the sonnet. He owed him a
grudge because the drama had produced no effect in comparison with the
sonnet. "Well," said he to the others, "where am I at fault?"

"Oh, in nothing, nothing at all," replied the chorus of friends.

"However, my drama does not meet with your approval; I see it clearly."

"Do you wish me to tell you the truth?" interrupted one, emboldened by
Bruat's failure.

"Say it, my friend, for you know it is my principle to seek truth
everywhere."

"Well, I think that modern life is too complicated for the drama. There
are casualties, phenomena of the heart, complications of sentiment,
descriptions material and spiritual, inquiries physiological and
psychological, which can not be expressed in action. You have striven
against the difficulty. Sometimes you have avoided it, which has caused
a lack of unity. Sometimes you have been overwhelmed by it, which has
caused a lack of polish. In spite of all your talents you have not been
able to control this monster. Your plot is obscure, your characters
badly drawn, your conclusion unnatural. But, on the other hand, what
observation! what brilliant analysis! what force of penetration! what
language! Oh! to be inspired in spite of the obstacles, you must be a
man of genius. What would you? The impossible can not be achieved. In
your case I would recast everything; I would expand, I would clarify,
I would develop, I would take my time, I would enlarge my frame to the
size of my idea. I would turn my drama into a novel."

"He is right," said the chorus, "he is right. That is the point. You
must make a novel of 'Bonjour, Monsieur!'"

The opinion was unanimous. Bruat was too sincere not to be guided by
it. Heroically he burned his drama, and set to work on his novel. In
this work he spent ten years. To him it was the time of apotheosis.
He had more prophets than God. Some exalted him from real admiration;
others, because they thought he would accomplish nothing, and that,
therefore, he would not be a dangerous adversary, spread his praises.
Critics used his name to crush budding authors. Journalists filled up
spaces with notices of his novel, with anecdotes of the labor in the
thousand and one alterations in his work. The ignorant, the foolish,
the gossips chattered about him without knowing why. He became as
famous as the obelisk.

Nevertheless, they finished by waiting. The echo of his glory became
fainter as it passed from one generation to another. At sixty he was
about forgotten. He was only spoken of from time to time, and then
merely as an eccentric, almost a lunatic. They remembered vaguely that
he was working at a great novel, but they doubted whether he would ever
finish it, or, rather, they were sure that he would never reach the
end. They never spoke but with a smile of his gigantic undertaking, of
the twenty volumes which would epitomize the nineteenth century, of
this creation which would be the babel and pandemonium of modern life.

They would have laughed much more could they have known on what Bruat
was engaged in his old age.

The unhappy man had finished his formidable novel. He had written
twenty-seven volumes under the wonderful title, "Bonjour, Monsieur!"
But at the end of his labor, frightened at having spoken at such
length, he did not dare the trial of the reading. Then he set to work
to abridge, to cut, to condense. By this means he had, little by
little, reduced the book first to ten volumes, then to two, then to
one. Finally, he had epitomized everything into a story of one hundred
pages.

Ferdinand Octave Bruat was then eighty years old. One friend alone
remained to him, the confidant of his undying ambition.

"Publish your story," said his friend: "I assure you it will make a
sensation in the world. It is the paragon of modernity."

"No, no," cried Bruat, "I have not yet condensed it sufficiently. You
see, I know myself; I know the public. To hold it, to leave something
to posterity, to create a lasting work, one must be intense. To be
intense--that is everything. A hundred pages! That is too prolix. In my
first inspiration I found the true form for my thought--a form short,
precise, chiseled, straight, fitting the idea like a cuirass; I mean
the sonnet. Oh! if I could recall the marvelous sonnet of my youth!
But it has been abandoned too long. To-day I will do better. I will
put into it my experience, my life. Could I but live ten years longer,
men would see what fourteen lines could express, and posterity would
know our modern life, so vast, in this poem so small, as one inhales a
subtle essence prisoned in a diamond."

He lived those ten years, and the story was abandoned like the novel
and the drama; and slowly, letter by letter, word by word, line by
line, was written the colossal sonnet which was to contain everything.

At ninety-two Ferdinand Octave Bruat lay on his deathbed.

His faithful friend was at his side, weeping, sobbing, in despair at
seeing so high an intelligence laid so low.

"Weep not, my friend," said Bruat, "weep not. I die, but my idea dies
not with me. I have destroyed my first sonnet, I have burnt my drama, I
have burnt, one by one, the twenty-seven volumes of my novel: the ten,
then the five, then the two, then the one and only, then the story.
But, at last, I have created my masterpiece."

"The sonnet! the immortal sonnet! Give it me! You have not read it to
me, but I know that it is a masterpiece. Give it me; I will publish
it. If necessary, I will ruin myself that it may be written on gold in
letters of diamonds. It merits it, it will dazzle the world. Give it
me!"

"The sonnet! What sonnet?" stammered Bruat, gasping for breath.

"Your great sonnet!" sighed the friend, who saw the delirium of death
approaching.

"Ah! yes, yes, the sonnet, the great sonnet. Too great, my friend, too
long! It must be made more intense."

"What! have you burnt your last sonnet also?"

"I have found something better. I have found everything. Modern life,
modernity, I hold it, I have it, I express it. It is not in a sonnet,
nor in a quatrain, nor even in a line, it is--"

His voice grew weaker, became hoarse, wheezy, lost.

His friend, with bloodshot eyes, gaping mouth, leaned over the bed
to drink in his last word, the word that would give the key to the
mystery, the Open Sesame to art in the future.

"Speak, speak!" he cried.

"Everything in one phrase, everything in one phrase!" murmured Bruat.

And the old man raised himself up in a paroxysm of agony. His look was
ecstatic. One felt that over the threshold of death he saw his ideal.
He made a terrible effort to express it, and the wondrous phrase fell
from his lips with his last sigh.

It was, "Bonjour, Monsieur!"


                  THE BIT OF STRING AND THE NECKLACE
                BY HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE MAUPASSANT

                            [Illustration]


    _Guy de Maupassant, writer of the short story par excellence,
    was born at the Château of Miromesnil in 1850, and died
    insane at Paris in 1893. His godfather Flaubert said of
    his first story, the "Boule de Suif," which appeared in a
    miscellany called "Les Soirées de Médan": "I consider it a
    chef-d'oeuvre--that little story will stay, you may be sure."
    De Maupassant was for a few years connected with the Ministry
    of Marine and Public Instruction. Besides his almost perfect
    short stories, he has written plays and novels._

    _De Maupassant describes himself admirably in one of his
    heroes, "armed with an eye that gathers images, attitudes,
    manners with the precision of a camera." His style is calm,
    robust, sober, clean-cut, impersonal. "The Bit of String" and
    "The Necklace" are two famous examples of De Maupassant at his
    best._


                            [Illustration]




                           THE BIT OF STRING
                         BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT

                       Translated by Emar Soule.
    Copyright, 1899, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


Along all the roads leading to Goderville the peasants and their wives
were going toward the town, for it was market-day. The men walked at an
easy pace, the whole body thrown ahead at each movement of the long,
crooked legs, men deformed by rude labor, by guiding the plow, which at
once forces the right shoulder upward and twists the waist; by reaping,
which spreads the knees, for solid footing; by all the patient and
painful toil of the country. Their blue blouses, glossy with starch, as
though varnished, ornamented at the neck and wrists by a simple pattern
in white, swelled out round their bony chests, like captive balloons
from which heads, arms, and legs were protruding.

Some were leading by a cord a cow or calf, and their wives behind the
animals were hastening their pace by the strokes of branches stripped
of their leaves. The women carried on their arms great baskets, out of
which hung, here and there, heads of chickens or ducks. They walked
with shorter steps than their husbands, and at a more rapid pace,
spare, erect and wrapped in scant shawls pinned across their flat
chests, their heads enveloped in white linen drawn closely over the
hair and surmounted by a bonnet.

Now a pleasure wagon passed at a jerky pony trot, shaking fantastically
two men seated side by side, and a woman at the back of the vehicle,
holding on to its sides to soften the hard jolts.

In the square of Goderville was a crowd--a jam of mingled human
beings and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high hats of the rich
farmers and the head-dresses of the women, emerged from the surface
of the assembly; and discordant voices, clamorous, bawling, kept up a
continuous and savage babel, overtopped now and then by a shout from
the robust lungs of a merry countryman, or the lowing of a cow attached
to the wall of a house. All this mass was redolent of the stable and
soilure, of milk, of hay, of sweat, and diffused that rank, penetrating
odor, human and bestial, peculiar to people of the fields.

Master Hauchecorne of Bréauté had just arrived at Goderville, and was
going toward the square when he saw on the ground a bit of string.
Master Hauchecorne, economist, like every true Norman, thought anything
that might be of use worth picking up, and he bent down painfully, for
he suffered from rheumatism. He took up the piece of string, and was
winding it carefully, when he noticed Malandin, the harness-maker,
watching him from his doorway. The two men had long ago had a quarrel
about a halter, and both being vindictive, had remained unfriendly.
Hauchecorne was seized with a kind of shame, at thus being seen by his
enemy picking a bit of twine out of the mud. He quickly hid his prize
under his blouse, then in his breeches pocket; then he pretended to
search the ground again for something which he did not find, and he
went off toward the market, his head in advance, bent double by his
infirmities.

He was forthwith lost in the noisy, shuffling crowd everywhere in
motion from innumerable buyings and sellings. The peasants examined
the cows, went away, came back, hesitated, always fearful of being
outwitted, never daring to decide, peering into the face of the vender,
endlessly searching to discover the ruse in the man and the fault in
the beast.

The women, putting their great baskets down at their feet, had drawn
out their fowls, which were lying on the ground, legs bound, eyes wild,
combs scarlet. They listened to offers, held to their prices unmoved,
their faces inscrutable; or suddenly deciding to accept an offer, cried
out to the would-be purchaser slowly moving away:

"Agreed, Master Hutine; I will give it at your price."

Then little by little the square emptied, and the Angelus sounding
noon, those who lived too far to go home dispersed in the various
public houses.

At Jourdain's the great dining-room was full of feasters, as the vast
court was full of vehicles of every pedigree--carts, gigs, tilburies,
pleasure vans, carioles innumerable, yellow with mud, mended, out of
order, lifting to heaven their shafts, like two arms, or nosing the
ground, rear in the air.

Opposite the tables of diners the great chimney-piece, full of bright
flame, threw a lively warmth on the backs of the row at the right.
Three spits were turning, weighted with chickens, pigeons, and legs
of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast flesh and of juice streaming
over its golden brown skin, escaped from the hearth, put every one
in gay humor, and made mouths water. All the aristocracy of the plow
dined there with Master Jourdain, innkeeper and horse-dealer, a shrewd
fellow, who had his dollars.

The platters were passed and emptied as were the tankards of yellow
cider. Each one talked of his affairs, his purchases, his sales. The
harvest was discussed. The weather was good for grass, but a little
sharp for grain.

All at once the drum sounded in the court before the house. All save a
few indifferent fellows were quickly on their feet, and running to the
door or the windows, their mouths full, their napkins in their hands.

When he had finished his roulade the public crier held forth in a jerky
voice, cutting his phrases at the wrong place:

"It is made known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to
all--the people present at market, that there was lost this morning, on
the Benzeville road between--nine and ten o'clock, a wallet containing
five hundred francs and important papers. You are asked to return--it
to the town hall, without delay, or to the house of Master Fortuné
Houlebrèque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward."

Then the crier went on. One heard once more far off the muffled beating
of his drum, and his voice enfeebled by the distance. Then they all
began to talk of the event, estimating Master Houlebrèque's chances of
finding or not finding his wallet.

And the meal went on.

They were finishing their coffee when the chief of police appeared at
the door.

"Where is Master Hauchecorne of Bréauté?" he asked.

Hauchecorne, seated at the farther end of the table, replied:

"I'm here."

The chief proceeded:

"Master Hauchecorne, will you have the kindness to accompany me to the
town hall? The mayor wishes to speak with you."

The countryman, surprised and disquieted, emptied at a draft his little
glass of rum, arose, and, still more bent than in the morning, for the
first movement after each relaxation was particularly difficult, he set
out, repeating:

"I'm here, I'm here."

And he followed the chief.

The mayor was waiting for him, seated in his fauteuil. He was the
notary of the vicinity, a big, solemn man, of pompous phrases.

"Master Hauchecorne," said he, "you were seen to pick up, on the
Benzeville road, this morning, the wallet lost by Master Houlebrèque,
of Manneville."

The peasant, astonished, looked at the mayor, frightened already,
without knowing why, by this suspicion which had fallen on him.

"What! what! I picked up the wallet?"

"Yes; you yourself."

"Word of honor, I didn't even know of it."

"You were seen."

"Seen? What? Who saw me?"

"Monsieur Malandin, the harness-maker."

Then the old man remembered, understood, reddened with anger.

"He saw meh, th' lout? He saw meh pick up that string! See here, m'sieu
mayor," and feeling in the bottom of his pocket, he drew out the bit of
cord.

But the mayor, incredulous, shook his head.

"You won't make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Malandin, who is a
man worthy of credence, took that thread for a wallet."

The peasant, furious, raised his hand, spit, to attest his innocence,
and declared:

"Yet it's the truth of God, the sacred truth, m'sieu mayor. On my soul
and my salvation, I repeat it."

The mayor continued:

"After picking up the object you went on searching in the mud a long
time to see if some piece of money mightn't have escaped you."

The old man gasped with indignation and fear.

"May one tell--may one tell lies like that to injure an honest man? May
one say--"

His protest was vain. He was not believed. He was confronted with
Monsieur Malandin, who repeated and sustained his former affirmation.
For an hour the two men hurled insults at each other. Hauchecorne was
searched, at his demand, and nothing was found on him. Finally the
mayor, greatly perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he should
inform the council and await orders.

The news spread. When he came out of the town hall the old man was
surrounded and questioned with a curiosity serious or mocking, but with
no ill-will in it.

He began to recount the story of the string, but no one believed
him--they only laughed.

He went on, stopped by everybody, stopping his acquaintances, beginning
anew his tale and his protestations, turning his pockets inside out to
prove that he had nothing.

"Move on, old quibbler," they said to him.

And he became angry, exasperated, feverish, sick at heart, at not being
believed. He did not know what to do, but told his story over and over.

Night came. It was time to go home. He set out with three of his
neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up
the bit of cord, and all the way home he talked of his adventure. In
the evening he made a circuit of the village of Bréauté to tell it
to everybody. He met only incredulity. He was ill all night from his
trouble.

The next day, toward one o'clock in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle,
a farm hand, of Ymanville, returned the wallet and its contents to
Monsieur Houlebrèque, of Manneville. The man stated, in effect, that
he had found the wallet in the road, but not knowing how to read, had
taken it home to his employer.

The news spread all about. Master Hauchecorne was told of it. He at
once set out again on his travels, and began to narrate his story,
completed by the dénouement. He was triumphant.

"It's not the thing 'at grieved me most, you understand," he said, "but
it's the lie. Nothing harms you like being charged with a lie."

All day long he talked of his adventure. He told it on the streets to
men passing, in the taverns to men drinking, after church the next
Sunday. He stopped strangers to tell it to them. Now he was tranquil,
yet something half disturbed him, without his knowing exactly what.
People had an amused air as they listened to him. They did not appear
convinced. He thought he detected whispers behind his back.

Tuesday of the following week he betook himself to the market of
Goderville, driven there by the need of exploiting his case. Malandin,
standing in his doorway, began to laugh when he saw him passing. Why?
He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, but
giving him a blow in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face:

"Go your way, humbug!"

Master Hauchecorne was dumfounded, and more and more ill at ease. Why
had he been called a humbug?

When he was seated at table in Jourdain's inn he again began to explain
the affair. A jockey of Montivilliers cried to him:

"Come, come, old croaker, I know about your string!"

Hauchecorne stammered:

"But since it is found--the wallet?"

The other answered:

"Hold your tongue, father. One finds, another returns. I know nothing
about it, but I implicate you."

The peasant was left choking. He understood at last. He was accused of
having returned the wallet through an accomplice. He tried to protest.
The whole table began to laugh. He could not finish his dinner, and
went out in the midst of mockeries.

He returned home, ashamed and disgraced, strangling with rage and
confusion, so much the more overwhelmed, in that he was capable, with
his Norman duplicity, of doing the very thing of which he was accused,
and even boasting of it as a good stroke. Confusedly he saw his
innocence impossible to prove, his chicanery being well known, and he
felt himself cut to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.

Then he commenced again to recount his adventure, lengthening each
day his story, adding each time new reasonings, more energetic
protestations, more solemn oaths, which he invented and arranged in
his hours of solitude, his mind occupied solely with the story of the
string. He was believed the less in proportion to the complication of
his defense and the subtlety of his argument.

"That's the reasoning of a liar," they said behind his back.

He felt it, spent himself, wore his life out in useless efforts. He
wasted away visibly. Wags now made him tell "the string" for their
amusement, as one makes a soldier who has fought recount his battle.
His mind, harassed and unsettled, grew feeble.

Toward the end of December he took to his bed. He died early in
January, and in the delirium of his agony he attested his innocence,
repeating:

"A little string ... a little string ... wait, here it is, m'sieu
mayor!"




                             THE NECKLACE
                         BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT

                 Translated by Mathilde Weissenhorn.
    Copyright, 1898, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


She was one of those charming girls, born by a freak of destiny in
a family of toilers. She had no fortune, no expectations, no means
of satisfying her ambitions, except by a marriage with a rich and
distinguished man, and, as she knew none, in order to escape from her
surroundings, she married a clerk in the office of the Minister of
Public Instruction.

She dressed simply, because she had no means of adornment; but she was
as unhappy as though she had fallen from a high social position, for
the women who have neither caste nor race use their beauty, grace,
and charm as stepping-stones to those heights from which they are
otherwise barred, their natural tact and instinctive elegance and
quick perceptions being their only inheritance, and, skilfully used,
make them the equal of their more fortunate sisters. She suffered
incessantly when she glanced around her humble home, and felt the
absence of all those delicacies and luxuries which are enjoyed only by
the rich. In short, all the little nothings, that another woman of her
caste would not have seen, tortured and wounded her. The sight of the
old Breton peasant woman who performed her simple household duties
awakened in her vain longings and troubled dreams.

She dreamed of beautiful halls, discreetly lighted by candles in great
bronze candlesticks, whose rich carpets gave back no sounds and whose
walls were covered with silks from the Orient, and of obsequious
footmen half asleep in their large armchairs, ready to attend to your
every want at a moment's notice; of large salons draped in ancient
silks; of "étagers" covered with priceless bric-à-brac. She thought
also of coquettish small salons, made expressly for the "five o'clock,"
when one receives only one's intimates or distinguished men of letters,
from whom it is every woman's ambition to receive attentions.

When she was seated at the table (whose cloth had already done duty
for three days) or opposite her husband--who evinced his entire
satisfaction with the evening's repast by such exclamations as: "Oh,
the good 'pot-au-feu'! I know nothing better!"--her imagination carried
her away to stately banquet halls, whose walls were covered with rich
tapestries, portraying scenes in which ancient personages and strange
birds were pictured in the middle of a fairy-like forest. She pictured
the glittering silver, strange dishes, exquisitely served on marvelous
plate, and gallantries whispered and listened to with the sphinx-like
smile with which a woman of the world knows so well how to conceal her
emotions, all the while eating a rosy trout or dallying with a wing of
a lark. She had no toilets, no jewels, and it was for these things that
she longed, as the fleet Arabian longs for his native desert. What
pleasure to have pleased, been envied, to be seductive and sought after!

She had a rich friend, a comrade from the convent, whom she no longer
visited, because she suffered from seeing the things she could not
have, and on returning wept whole days for grief, regret, despair, and
distress.

One evening her husband came home radiant, holding in his hand a large
envelope.

"See," said he, "here is something for you."

She nervously tore open the envelope, drew out a card, on which these
words were printed:

"The Minister of Public Instruction and Madame Georges Ramponeau beg
the honor of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel for the evening
of Monday, January 18th."

Instead of being wild with delight, as he had expected, she threw
the invitation on the table, with an exclamation of disgust, saying
sullenly:

"What do you wish me to do with that?"

"But, my dear, I thought you would be so pleased. You never go out, and
this is an event. I only obtained it after infinite trouble. Everybody
wants one; they are much sought after, and they are not generally given
to employees. You will see there all of the official world."

She looked at him with supreme disdain, and said impatiently:

"What would you like me to wear?" The secret was out. Manlike, he had
not thought of that.

"But--the dress--that you wear to the theatre," stammered he. "You
always look beautiful to me in that."

He stopped speaking, stupefied and dismayed on seeing his wife in
tears. Two large tears trickled slowly down her cheeks.

"What is the matter? What is the matter?" asked he tenderly. By violent
effort she conquered her grief and calmly said, while wiping her humid
cheeks:

"Nothing; only I have no toilet, and, of course, can not go. Give the
card to one of your comrades whose wife is fortunate enough to have
something suitable for the occasion."

Despairingly he said:

"See, Mathilde, how much will a dress cost to wear to this ball; one
which can also be used for other occasions--something very simple."

She reflected a few moments, figuring in her own mind the sum she could
ask without danger of immediate refusal and frightening her economical
husband. Finally she hesitatingly said:

"I do not know exactly; but it seems to me I might manage with about
400 francs."

He paled a little, because he had been saving just that sum to buy a
gun for the following summer, when he would go with some of his friends
to the plains of Nanterre on Sundays to shoot larks. Stifling his
regrets, however, he replied:

"Very well, I will give you 400 francs, but try to have a beautiful
dress."

The day of the fête drew near; but Madame Loisel seemed sad, anxious,
and uneasy. Her toilet was ready, what could it be? Her husband said
to her one evening:

"What is the matter? You have been so queer for the last few days!"

She replied: "It worries me that I have not one jewel, not a precious
stone to wear. What a miserable figure I shall be! I think I would
rather not go at all!"

"You can wear natural flowers; it is all the rage at this season, and
for ten francs you can have two or three magnificent roses."

But she was not convinced.

"No; there is nothing more humiliating than to be poorly dressed among
so many rich women."

"But how silly you are! Go to your friend, Madame Forestier, and ask
her to lend you her jewels. You are friendly enough with her to do
that."

She gave a cry of joy.

"Yes; that is true--I had not thought of it."

The following day she went to her friend and explained her predicament.
Madame Forestier went to a closet and took out a large casket, and,
opening it, said:

"Choose, my dear; they are at your service."

She saw first bracelets, then a necklace of pearls, a Venetian cross,
gold and precious stones of exquisite workmanship. She tried them on
before the glass, unable to decide whether to wear them or not.

"Have you nothing else?" said she.

"Oh, yes; look them over, I don't know what might please you."

Suddenly she opened a black satin case, disclosing to view a superb
rivière of diamonds, her heart beat furiously with the desire of
possession. She took them in her trembling hands and put them on over
her simple high-neck gown, and stood lost in an ecstasy of admiration
of herself. Then, fearfully, hesitatingly, dreading the agony of a
refusal:

"Can you lend me only that?"

"Why, certainly; if it pleases you."

She fell on her friend's neck, embraced her tempestuously, and then
left hastily with her treasure.

The day of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. Among all
the beautiful women she was the most beautiful, elegant, gracious,
and smiling with joy. She attracted the attention of some of the most
distinguished men present, and on all sides was heard:

"Who is she?"

All the attachés of the cabinet sought her dancing card eagerly, and
even the Minister himself expressed his approval. She danced with
pleasure, thinking of nothing but the triumph of her beauty and the
glory of her success. Intoxicated by all the admiration, she seemed to
float through a cloud of happiness, intensified by her complete victory
and the tribute paid to her charms, so sweet to the hearts of women.
She left about four o'clock in the morning; her husband had slept since
midnight in a small room, deserted except by two or three gentlemen who
also awaited their wives.

He threw over her shoulders the modest cloak which she had brought,
whose shabbiness seemed to mock the elegance of the ball toilet. She
felt the incongruity, and walked swiftly away in order not to be seen
by those whose rich furs were more in accordance with the occasion.

"Wait," said her husband, "you will take cold; I will call a carriage."

But she heeded him not, and rapidly descended the staircase. When they
reached the street, there was no carriage in sight, and they were
obliged to look for one, calling to the drivers who passed by, but in
vain. Shiveringly they walked toward the Seine and finally found on the
quay one of those nocturnal coupés one finds only in Paris after dark,
hovering about the great city like grim birds of prey, who conceal
their misery during the day. It carried them to their door (Rue de
Martyrs), and they slowly and sadly entered their small apartments. It
was ended for her, and he only remembered that he would have to be at
his desk at ten o'clock.

She took off her cloak in front of the glass in order to admire herself
once more in all her bravery, but, suddenly, she cried out: "The
diamonds are gone!" Her husband, almost half asleep, started at the cry
and asked:

"What is the matter?"

She turned toward him with a frightened air.

"I--I have lost Madame Forestier's necklace!"

He rose dismayed.

"What--how! But it is not possible!" And they immediately
began to search in the folds of the dress, the cloak, in the
pockets--everywhere, and found nothing.

"Are you sure that you had it when you left the ball?"

"Yes; I felt it while still in the vestibule at the Minister's."

"But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it drop. It
ought to be in the carriage."

"Yes; it is possible. Did you take the number?"

"No; and you have not looked at it, either?"

"No."

They looked at each other fearfully; finally Loisel dressed himself.

"I shall go over the whole ground that we traveled on foot, to see
whether I can not find it."

He went out. She sat still in her brilliant ball toilet; no desire to
sleep, no power to think, all swallowed up in the fear of the calamity
which had fallen upon them.

Her husband came in at seven o'clock. He had found nothing. He had been
to the Prefecture of the Police, to the papers offering a reward, to
all small cab companies, anywhere, in short, where he could have the
shadow of hope of recovery.

She waited all day in the same state of fear in the face of this
frightful disaster.

Loisel returned in the evening pallid and haggard. No news as yet.

"You must write to your friend that you have broken the clasp of the
necklace and are having it repaired. That will give us time to look
around."

                   *       *       *       *       *

At the end of the week they had lost all hope, and Loisel, to whom it
seemed this care and trouble had added five years to his age, said:

"We must try and replace the jewels."

The following day they went to the jeweler whose name was stamped
inside the case. He consulted his books: "I did not sell that necklace,
madame, I only furnished the case."

Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, racking their memories to find
the same, both of them sick with grief and agony. At last, in a small
shop in the Palais Royal, they found one which seemed to them like the
one they had lost. With beating hearts they asked the price.

Forty thousand francs; but they could have it for 36,000 francs.

They asked the jeweler not to dispose of it for three days, and he also
promised to take it back at 34,000 francs if the first one was found
before the end of February.

Loisel had inherited 18,000 francs from his father. He borrowed the
rest.

He borrowed a thousand francs from one, five hundred from another, five
louis here, five louis there--he gave notes, made ruinous engagements,
had recourse to the usurers, ran the whole gamut of money-lenders. He
compromised his whole existence risking his signature, without knowing
that it would be honored, terrified by the agony of the future, by the
black misery which enveloped him, by the prospect of all the physical
privations and moral tortures. He went for the new necklace and
deposited on the counter his 36,000 francs.

When Madame Loisel returned the necklace to Madame Forestier, she
coldly said:

"You should have returned it sooner, as I might have needed it."

She did not open the case, the one thing Madame Loisel had dreaded.
What if she had discovered the change--what would she have thought?
Would she not be taken for a thief?

                   *       *       *       *       *

From that time on Madame Loisel knew what life meant to the very
poor in all its phases. She took her part heroically. This frightful
debt must be paid. Her share of privations was bravely borne. They
discharged their one domestic, changed their location, and rented
smaller apartments near the roof.

She knew now what meant the duties of the household, the heavy work
of the kitchen. Her pretty hands soon lost all semblance of the care
of bygone days. She washed the soiled linen and dried it in her
room. She went every morning to the street with the refuse of the
kitchen, carrying the water, stopping at each flight of stairs to take
breath--wearing the dress of the women of the people; she went each day
to the grocer, the fruiterer, the butcher, carrying her basket on her
arm, bargaining, defending cent by cent her miserable money.

They were obliged each month to pay some notes and renew others in
order to gain time. Her husband worked in the evening balancing the
books of merchants, and often was busy all night, copying at five
cents a page.

And this life they endured for ten years.

At the end of this time they had paid all the tax of the usurers and
compound interest.

Madame Loisel seemed an old woman now. She had become strong and
hardy as the women of the provinces, and with tousled head, short
skirts, red hands, she was foremost among the loud-voiced women of the
neighborhood, who passed their time gossiping at their doorsteps.

But sometimes when her husband was at his office she seated herself at
the window and thought of that evening in the past and that ball, where
she had been so beautiful and so admired.

What would have happened if she had not lost the necklace? Who knows?
Life is a singular and changeable thing, full of vicissitudes. How
little it takes to save or wreck us!

                   *       *       *       *       *

One Sunday as she was walking in the Champs Elysées to divert herself
from the cares and duties of the week she suddenly perceived a lady,
with a little child, coming toward her. It was Madame Forestier,
still young, beautiful and charming. Madame Loisel stopped short, too
agitated to move. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that
the necklace was paid for she would tell her everything. Why not?

She walked up to her and said: "Good day, Jeanne."

Madame Forestier did not recognize her and seemed astonished at being
spoken to so familiarly by this woman of the people.

"But--madame--I do not--I think you are mistaken."

"No; I am Mathilde Loisel."

"Oh!--my poor Mathilde, how you are changed!"

"Yes; I have had lots of trouble and misery since last I saw you--and
all for you."

"For me! And how was that?"

"Do you remember the necklace of diamonds you lent me, to wear to the
Minister's ball?"

"Yes; well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"Lost it! How could you, since you returned it to me?"

"I returned you one just like it, and for ten years we have been paying
for it. You know, it was not easy for us, who had nothing--but it is
finished, and I am very happy."

"You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine," said
Madame Forestier.

"Yes; and you never found it out! They were so much alike," and she
smiled proudly.

Touched to the heart, Madame Forestier took the poor, rough hands in
hers, drawing her tenderly toward her, her voice filled with tears:

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine were false. They were not worth more
than 500 francs at most."


                           THE WALL OPPOSITE
                            BY PIERRE LOTI


                            [Illustration]

    _Louis Marie Julien Viaud, known as Pierre Loti, was born at
    Rochefort in 1850, of an old Protestant family. He shipped
    aboard the "Borda" in 1867, and made many voyages to India
    and elsewhere in the East. This young naval officer was so
    modest and retiring that his comrades called him "Loti," after
    the name of a little flower of India which discreetly hides
    itself. In 1891 he was elected to the Academy. His chief works
    are "Le Marriage de Loti," 1882, "Madame Chrysanthème," 1887,
    "Japoneries d'Automne," "Le Roman d'un Spahi," etc._

    _Loti is an impressionist, a personal psychologist--giving
    reflections of the passing show, fleeting things. "He has an
    exquisite instinct for the preservation of whatever is antique
    and beautiful--a Pied Piper who draws his admirers after him
    whether they will or no."_

    _"The Wall Opposite" is an exquisite bit of symbolism, worthy
    to stand, as it does, in the same volume with the author's
    "Papillon de Mite."_


                            [Illustration]




                           THE WALL OPPOSITE
                            BY PIERRE LOTI

                    Translated by R. W. Howes, 3d.
               Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.


'Way at the farther end of a court they lived, in a modest little
suite, the mother, the daughter, and a maternal parent already quite
aged--their aunt and great-aunt--whom they had come to shelter.

The daughter was still very young, in the fleeting freshness of her
eighteen years, when they were compelled, after a reverse of fortune,
to withdraw there into the most secluded corner of their ancestral
mansion. The rest of the familiar home, all the bright side that
looked out on to the street, it had become necessary to let to some
profane strangers, who changed there the aspect of things ancient and
obliterated the cherished associations.

A judicial sale had stripped them of the most luxurious furniture of
other days, and they had arranged their new little salon of recluses
with objects a little incongruous: relics of ancestors, old things
brought to light from the garret, the reserves of the house. But they
fell in love with it at once, this salon so humble, which must now for
years to come, on winter evenings, reunite all three around the same
fire and around the same lamp. One found it comfortable there; it had
an air cozy and intimate. One felt a little cloistered there, it is
true, but without melancholy, for the windows, draped with simple
muslin curtains, looked out on to a sunny court, whose walls, 'way at
this farther end, were adorned with honeysuckle and roses.

And already were they forgetting the comfort, the luxury of other
times, happy in their modest salon, when one day a communication was
brought to them which left them in mournful consternation: the neighbor
was about to raise his apartment two stories; a wall was going to rise
there, in front of their windows, to steal away the air, to hide the
sun.

And no means, alas! to turn aside that misfortune, more intimately
cruel to their spirits than all the preceding disasters of fortune. To
buy that house from their neighbor, a thing that had been easy at the
time of their past affluence, was no longer to be dreamed of! Nothing
to do, in their poverty, but to bow their heads.

                   *       *       *       *       *

And so the stories began to mount, line upon line; with anxiety they
watched them grow; a silence of grief reigned among them, in the little
salon, the depth of their melancholy measured day by day by the height
of that obscuring object. And to think that that thing there, higher
and still higher, would soon replace the background of blue sky or
golden clouds, against which in days gone by the wall of their court
trailed off in its network of branches!

In one month the masons had achieved their work: it was a glazed
surface in freestone, which was next painted a grayish white,
resembling almost a twilight sky of November, perpetually opaque,
unchangeable and dead; and in the summers following the rose trees,
the bushes of the court, took on their green again more palely in its
shadow.

Into the salon the warm suns of June and July still penetrated, but
more laggardly in the morning, fleeing more hurriedly in the evening;
the twilights of autumn fell one hour earlier, bringing abruptly down
the dull, chill melancholy.

                   *       *       *       *       *

And the times, the months, the seasons, passed. Between daylight and
darkness, at the undecided hours of evening, when the three women left
off one after the other their work of embroidery or sewing before
lighting the evening lamp, the young daughter--who would soon be no
longer young--lifted her eyes ever toward the wall, set up there in
place of her sky of yesterday; often, even, in a sort of melancholy
childishness that constantly returned to her like the sick fancy of
a prisoner, she amused herself in watching from a certain place the
branches of the rose trees, the tops of the bushes detach themselves in
relief against the grayish background of the painted stones, and sought
to give herself the illusion that the background there was a sky, a sky
lower and nearer than the real one--after the manner of those who at
night hang upon the deformed visions of dreams.

                   *       *       *       *       *

They had in expectation a heritage of which they often spoke around
their lamp and their work-table, as of a day-dream, as of a fairy tale,
so far away it seemed.

But, as soon as they possess it, that accession from America, at no
matter what price, the house of the neighbor shall be bought in order
to pull down all that new part, to reestablish things as in times past,
and to restore to their court, to restore to their cherished rose
bushes of the high walls, the sun of other times. To throw it down,
that wall, this had become their sole earthly desire, their continual
obsession.

And the old aunt was accustomed to say at such times:

"My dear daughters, may God grant that I live long enough, even I, to
see that happy day!"

                   *       *       *       *       *

It tarried long in coming, that heritage.

The rains, and time, had traced on that glazed surface a sort of
blackish stripes, melancholy, melancholy to look at, formed like a V,
or like the trembling silhouette of a hovering bird. And the young girl
contemplated that wearily every day, every day.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Once, in a very warm springtime, which, in spite of the shadow of the
wall, made the roses more advanced than usual, and more spreading, a
young man appeared at the farther end of that court, took his place
for several evenings at the table of the three ladies without fortune.
Passing through the village, he had been recommended by some friends in
common, not without _arrière-pensée_ of marriage. He was handsome, with
a high-spirited face, browned by the great blowings of the seas.

But he judged it too chimerical, that heritage; he found her too poor,
the young girl, in whom, besides, the color began to fade for lack of
sunlight.

So he departed, without return, he who had represented there for a time
the sun, energy, and life. And she who already looked upon herself as
his fiancée received from that departure a dumb and secret feeling as
of death.

                   *       *       *       *       *

And the monotonous years continued their march, like the impassive
rivers; there passed five; there passed ten, fifteen, even twenty. The
freshness of the young girl without fortune finished little by little
by fading away, useless and disdained; the mother took on some gray
hairs; the old aunt became infirm, shaking her head, octogenarian in
a faded armchair, forever seated at the same place, near the darkened
window, her venerable profile cut out against the foliage of the court
below that background of glazed wall where the blackish marbling
accentuated itself in the form of a bird, traced by the sluggish
gutters.

In the presence of the wall, of the inexorable wall, they grew old all
three. And the rose bushes, the shrubs, grew old, too, with the less
ominous age of plants, with their airs of rejuvenation at each return
of spring.

"Oh! my daughters, my poor daughters," said the aunt continually in her
broken voice that no longer finished the phrase, "provided I live long
enough, even I."

And her bony hand, with a movement of menace, indicated that oppressive
thing of stone.

                   *       *       *       *       *

She had been dead a twelvemonth, leaving a dreadful void in that little
salon of recluses, and they had wept over her as the most cherished of
grandmothers, when at last the inheritance came, very upsetting, one
day when they had ceased longer to think of it.

The aged daughter--forty years struck now--found herself quite young in
her joy at entering into possession of the returned fortune.

They drove out the lodgers, you may be sure, they reestablished
themselves as before; but by preference they kept themselves ordinarily
in the little salon of the days of moderate means: in the first place
it was now full of souvenirs, and then besides it was again taking on a
sunny cheerfulness, since they were to throw down that imprisoning wall
which was to-day no more than a vain scarecrow, so easy to destroy by
touch of louis d'or.

                   *       *       *       *       *

It took place at last, that downfall of brick and mortar, longed for
during twenty gloomy years. It took place in April, at the moment of
the first balmy airs of the first long evenings. Very quickly it was
accomplished, in the midst of the noise of falling stones, of singing
workmen, in a cloud of plaster and of ancient dust.

And at twilight of the second day, when the work was finished, the
workmen gone, silence returned, they found themselves once more sitting
at their table, the mother and the daughter, bewildered at seeing so
clearly, at having need no longer of the lamp to begin their evening
meal. Like a formal visit from familiar days gone by, they contemplated
the rose bushes of their court spread out once more against the
sky. But instead of the joy they had looked forward to there was at
first an indefinable uneasiness: too much light all at once in their
little salon, a sort of melancholy splendor, and the feeling of an
unaccustomed void out of doors, of limitless change. No words there
came to them in presence of the accomplishment of their dream; rapt,
the one and the other, held by an ever-increasing melancholy, they
remained there without talking, without touching the waiting meal. And
little by little, their two hearts pressing still closer, that grew to
be a kind of grief, like one of those regrets, dull and without hope,
which the dead leave us.

When the mother, at length, perceived that the eyes of her daughter
began to grow faded with crying, divining the unexpressed thoughts
which must so perfectly resemble her own: "It can be built up again,"
she says. "It seems to me they can try, can they not, to make it the
same again?"

"I, too, thought of that," replied the daughter. "But no, don't you
see: _it would never be the same_!"

Mon Dieu! was it possible that such a thing could be; it was she, the
very same, who had decreed it, the annihilation of that background of
a familiar picture, below which, during one springtime, she had seen
in high relief a certain fine face of a young man, and during so many
winters the venerable profile of an old aunt dead.

And all at once, at recollection of that vague design in the form of
the shadow of a bird, traced there by patient gutters, and which she
would see again never, never, never, her heart was suddenly torn in a
manner most pitiable; she wept the most melancholy tears of her life
before the irreparable destruction of that wall.




THE ANCESTOR

BY CHARLES JOSEPH PAUL BOURGET


[Illustration]

_Paul Bourget presents the greatest possible contrast to Anatole
France. His style is involved, sentence is fitted into sentence,
clothed like Henry James, and altogether un-French. Bourget's
psychology, though penetrating, seems rather to clothe his characters
than to create them, consequently his novels are long psychological
treatises. It was a delight, therefore, to come upon this tale of
Bourget's, in which the story is as absorbing as the psychology._

_Bourget was born at Amiens in 1852, and began his literary career, as
usual, by writing verses, etc. Besides "Outre Mer," which he published
in 1891 after his visit to America, his work consists chiefly of
novels, "Mensonges," "Crime d'Amour," "Le Disciple," "Cosmopolis," etc.
He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1894._

[Illustration]




THE ANCESTOR

BY PAUL BOURGET


Translated by V. Quiroga. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.


Alfred Boyer felt very happy that afternoon over the printer's proofs
that the mail had just brought him. He could not take his eyes off the
page containing the title:

"_Mémoires du Maréchal Frédet Prince d'Augsbourg, Duc d'Ivrea, with
notes and introduction by Alfred Boyer, former student of the École de
Chartres._" The work to which he had devoted himself during the last
two years was nearing completion. His name was going to be associated
for ever with that of "Catinat of the Grande Armée," who had begun as
volunteer in 1792, and had died of a broken heart after Waterloo.

Need one recall Frédet's heroism in the wars in the North--then too,
in the first campaign in Italy, just under the walls of Ivrea, and
his brilliant services in Egypt and Germany; how after Ulm, he had
surrounded and taken prisoner ten thousand of the enemy at the gates of
Augsbourg, with a handful of hussars? Austerlitz, Iéna, Eylau, Wagram,
and Spain in turn saw this indefatigable soldier maneuvre his troops
with the skill to which the "Mémoires" bore testimony. "I sent Frédet
to Catalonia," said the Emperor, "with twenty thousand men. It was like
sending fifty thousand. He alone made up the difference."

A very severe wound prevented his joining Napoleon in Russia, he
achieved wonders at Dresden, though scarcely reestablished in health,
and at Leipzig, where he saved the retreat by checking during several
hours, the main body of the Austrian cavalry. Like Ney, and like the
Emperor himself, he was one of those who sought death at Waterloo, and
whom death would not accept, in spite of prodigies of valor, exalted
almost to madness by the despair of the defeat.

When peace was concluded, the veteran shut himself up at Combronde,
near Riom, on a small estate that he had acquired in Auvergne, where
he had been born. It was there where he commenced to write or rather
to dictate his mémoires in a haphazard fashion, following his exalted
fancy, accumulating a pile of rather incoherent notes, which had slept
in their portfolios for eighty years--from 1821, at which date the
old soldier died, until 1900 when his grandson, the present Prince
of Augsbourg, had at last decided to publish those papers, a little
influenced, it must be admitted, by his need of money. Having a scanty
fortune and a very large family--five marriageable daughters--he
had been tempted by the success of "Marbot's Mémoires." He summoned
from Paris to his little Château of Combes, where the meagreness of
his income and his misanthropy kept him prisoner the year round,
a young man who was to put in order that mass of documents mostly
without shape. That is how Alfred Boyer found himself with a task
that developed into a passion. Whatever may be the political value
accorded to the Napoleonic legend, its heroic character casts a magic
spell that few historians of that fantastic epoch have been able to
overthrow. That magic spell had acted so much the more on the young
compiler, because the moral figure of Frédet was fully in accord with
his military bearing. Among the portraits of those marshals, all
equally brilliant, but not equally attractive, his was one of the most
pure and exalted. The heroism of the Prince of Augsbourg retained to
the last that antique charm that one imagines would have adorned Desaix
had he lived long enough. It seems that Frédet never had any ambition
for these dignities which his master delighted to shower upon him. When
did he have a chance to enjoy them? Bonaparte, who knew men and their
value, never ceased for a moment to keep him employed, in peace as well
as in war. When he was not fighting, Frédet was an administrator. His
proverbial integrity, his gentleness, and--a quality extremely rare in
that army sprung from the Revolution--his religious fervor, gave to his
countenance the look of a paladin. While he lived it was impossible to
come in contact with him without loving him. He disarmed the envy of
Marmont, the sour humor of Soult, and warmed the coldness of Macdonald.
The writings of these three rivals in glory, give ample proof of it.
Dead, his rare personality had just performed a similar miracle of
seduction in his memorialist, who gazed as if hypnotized at the first
page of the mémoires, and the bulky package of proofs. At that very
minute he was living over again the two years of his arduous labor. He
saw himself once more, after his thesis had been approved, hesitating
between accepting a poorly paid post as librarian in an obscure corner
of some province, and the offer that one of his professors had made
him, to work on the mémoires of the famous marshal. It was food and
lodging assured for some time, a means of becoming known, and of laying
aside a few thousand francs with which he could support himself until
he could obtain appointment to some good post. Beyond this, Boyer did
not know anything about the soldier whose papers he had to classify.

In that old house at Combes, which had remained unchanged during
three-quarters of a century, he had commenced to give himself up to
that retrospective semi-hallucination known only to those who have a
scholarly disposition. Taine has pictured it in that eloquent page,
where he describes himself at the archives, following over the yellowed
paper the old writings of the men of the Revolution. "I was," he says,
"tempted to speak aloud to them." In that poor mansion where the old
hero had sheltered himself in his last few days, the walls were covered
with relics of his glorious adventures, brought together in confusion;
here, swords of honor hung on the wall, next to them some engravings
representing feats of arms; there, portraits of the marshal himself,
the first Consul, the Emperor, Frédet's chosen companions, among
others that of Ney, who had been one of the witnesses to his marriage.
Frédet's wife was there, frail and delicate in her rich costume of a
court lady, painted by Gérard, in an attitude identical with that of
the Duchess of Rovigo, on the edge of a park leaning on a small column
ornamented with helmets and cuirasses in high relief. She had survived
her husband forty years, and to her piety was due the preservation
of the home to which the eldest son of the family had not returned
until 1875, after having served in the army and resigned while simple
lieutenant-colonel, when another had--unjustly as he maintained--been
promoted over him. His carelessness produced at least this advantage,
that the species of family museum brought together through the sorrow
of the grandmother had remained undisturbed.

In the mean while, that is to say, under the monarchy of July and the
Second Empire, the Frédets had lived in Paris; the second Prince of
Augsbourg as a peer of France, and then as Senator; the third, the
present Prince, as an officer of the staff of Napoleon the Third.
Physically the colonel was the living image of his illustrious
grandfather. He had the leonine face, the calm and powerful mien, the
grave eyes, the serious mouth, and also the athlete's muscles, broad
shoulders and powerful neck. There the resemblance stopped. Was it lack
of education or opportunity? Did he take morally after some ancestor
on the mother's side? His father had married a girl of noble birth,
but of that country nobility with whom hunting is the sole hereditary
occupation. In his old age it was the only pleasure that seemed to
survive in this heir to an illustrious name, the first ambition of a
disappointed career.

Alfred Boyer recalled his strange impression during the first weeks of
his sojourn when he saw the Prince start out in the early morning,
with his gamekeeper and his dogs and not return until nightfall,
covered with dust or mud, sunburned or else soaked in rain, according
to the weather, his gun on his shoulder, and his game bag bulging with
the pheasants hunted during the day. To his five daughters, left at
home under the charge of an old aunt, who managed the household for
him, this taciturn hunter seemed to give no thought.

They were pretty and refined girls, and if the memorialist had not
been a poor pale-faced student, his presence in this isolation with
these five young unmarried girls might not have been without danger.
But Alfred belonged to that class of timid, intellectual men who
have no need of disenchanting experiences to put in practise the
advice the fair Venetian gave so amusingly to Rousseau: "Avoid women
and study mathematics." Being of a sickly nature, knowing himself
awkward and homely, he had early turned into intellectual channels the
feverish ardor that young men of his age usually spend in sentimental
adventures. His only pleasures were the discoveries of unpublished
texts, of ingenious hypotheses on obscure historical points, and the
patient conquest of a chair in the Institute by force of erudite
publications. The marshal's papers fell in well with this program, and
with something more--the poetry of the extraordinary imperial exploit
incarnate in one of the most magnificent workers. Thus it was that
after having engaged in the work as compiler of records, Alfred Boyer
continued as enthusiast, identifying himself with his hero in each
episode of his brilliant career, collating the smallest anecdotes
about him, claiming for him the first place in all the events in which
he had taken part, putting himself at infinite pains to make this great
man greater still; possessed by one of those retrospective idolatries
at which we can not smile, so disinterested and pathetic are they when
their object is a name sunk in misfortune and oblivion, like that of
this soldier who had died of the defeat of his master and of France.
What a work it was to decipher the piles of notes and documents he had
left, to make selection from among the texts, to complete them with
commentaries! But those "Mémoires" were at last to appear, all the
traits of that noble figure were to shine out in a brilliant light,
and the author of this posthumous justice could not gaze enough on
the printed characters that would soon shine forth in the cover of
the first volume--the complete work would be in four volumes--in the
booksellers' shop windows....

The sound of a door opening roused Boyer from his "semihypnotic"[14]
trance. He raised his head and sprang suddenly to his feet. It was
the Prince of Augsbourg who had just entered the library. Those
visits, rare at first, had become more frequent as Alfred Boyer's work
advanced. Not that the sportsman had ever ventured to give any advice
to the memorialist, who had read to him some of the pages dictated
or written by his grandfather--those, more frequently, in which the
marshal told of the departure from his paternal roof (he was the son of
a physician at Combronde), to join the army--the story of the first
battle in which he had taken part, at Hondschoote--that of his last,
and his farewell to the Emperor before the charge at Waterloo.

The manner in which he listened to those recitals, his head in his
hands, never uttering a word, revealed an intense feeling in the hero's
descendant. Evidently an almost religious cult for his ancestor burned
in this obscure and wild nature, which Alfred Boyer pitied without
quite comprehending. He could see that, overburdened by the weight
of a great name, ruined by his father, discontented with his present
circumstances, and knowing his inability to alter them, the colonel had
fallen into that lethargy of the will in which for some years he had
simply vegetated.

He had given up the society of his set, as well as his profession,
turning countryman, and since his wife's death had not paid any
attention to the small details in personal appearance that, even in
the most ordinary surroundings, reveal the man who has been used to
good company. It was evident that he loved his daughters, as proved
by the sadness with which his eyes would sometimes rest on these
pretty children, doomed by their portionless condition to some obscure
marriage in that corner of Auvergne. The remnants of his fortune
yielded an income of about thirty thousand francs a year. Was that
enough to sustain the rank of a prince?

The colonel had said to himself that decadence would be better borne
in the solitude of this house peopled with the memories of his
grandfather. Thus he had reasoned.

Or at least that was the solution that Alfred Boyer had found in his
mind to the enigma presented by that character; and his own constantly
increasing cult for the marshal made him sympathize with the homage
rendered by abdication to that ruinous heritage. The grandson felt the
glory of the grandfather. That was enough to make the enthusiastic
compiler of the "Mémoires" feel himself in sympathy with his taciturn
patron, and on this occasion he felt keen pleasure at seeing him enter
the library. He would show him the proofs just arrived by the courier.
He welcomed the newcomer, and, handing to him the proofs, he said:

"I was just going to ask you to receive me, Prince. Our first volume is
printed."

"I do not understand much about these things," replied the Prince of
Augsbourg, after having glanced at the bundle of proofs, "but all this
seems to me very good." He glanced through them again more slowly,
stopping at certain passages that he recognized, and, a detail that
Alfred was surprised to note, his face grew visibly more sombre. This
made his resemblance to his grandfather much more striking. One would
have said that to hold in his hand this book, which was, in a measure,
his production since he had kept the memorialist at work at his own
expense during the past two years, was more than painful to him. At
last he returned the sheets to the young man, saying: "Yes, that is
very good--but perhaps you will have to add some notes to it. Yes,"
he continued after a moment's hesitation, "I received a letter this
morning informing me that certain documents will be placed at my
disposal. I shall have to go to Paris to fetch them. I have come to
ask you to accompany me--Thanks," he went on as Alfred Boyer nodded
assent, "I did not doubt that you would be willing to come--" He
hesitated again, then with an effort he added: "Doubtless you have
heard something about the Duchesse d'Ivrea."

"The Duchesse d'Ivrea?" repeated the young man. "I thought that title
was one of those belonging to the Princess of Augsbourg."

"It is borne by the widow of my younger brother," interrupted the
colonel, who added in a singular tone: "You are right. All the titles
of the family should belong to the eldest, but my uncle was formerly
called the Duc d'Ivrea, and my brother naturally took the same title.
I am surprised at your not knowing this, after having been busy with
the marshal, as you have, for almost twenty months. It is true," and a
bitter smile curled his lips, "that, compared with him, we are scarcely
interesting. And then my brother and I had not visited each other, and
I do not know his wife. That is why I never mentioned her to you. She
is very ill, she informs me--given up by her physicians, in fact. She
wishes to deliver into my hands some family papers left in her keeping
by my brother. I can rely on you, then. The most interesting part of
them is a correspondence with Moreau during the latter's sojourn in
America. You know that the marshal made a campaign with him in Holland.
He foresaw his failure and wished to prevent it. These letters were
offered for sale some years ago. They got them away from me because
they were wealthier than I, but now they wish to return them to me, and
it is right that they should. We should find a place for them in the
second volume. That will mean a great deal of revising, but it is worth
the trouble. I shall leave you now, as I have many orders to attend to.
We shall start this evening." ...

While making his preparations after this interview, Alfred Boyer
could not shake off an impression, that, vague as it was and without
foundation, seemed to him a certainty. This visit to his sister-in-law
was costing the Prince very dear. There was a mystery in their
relations, and a very painful one. Whence came this rupture, and what
were its causes, so profound that not the slightest mention of a
Duchess d'Ivrea had ever been made either by the Prince or by any of
his five daughters? Not one of them bore this name; they were called
simply the Frédets of Augsbourg. What had happened between the two
brothers? Had this rupture preceded the marriage? Or had that event
been the cause of it?

All these questions presented themselves to the young man's mind
without his having the faintest inkling as to their solution. During
the long months of his sojourn he had not established relations with
any one among the few country families in the neighborhood of Combes.

Moreover, he would have considered himself unworthy of the confidence
that his patron had shown him from the very first, opening his archives
to him, letting him live in complete intimacy with his household, if he
had made any inquiries about the Frédets. From the moment that there
was a question of some family secret, to start a conversation on this
subject with the old relative who acted as housekeeper would have been
as impossible as to try and make one of the young girls talk about it.
He knew no more of the affair when the day after the conversation the
Prince and he arrived in Paris than he did on the preceding evening.
During the journey he had noted the increasing preoccupation of his
companion, who, when they reached the station, said to him: "I do not
know as yet where we shall put up. Let us take a cab and we will stop
at some lodging-house. I used to know a place in the Rue de Bourgogne,
in the neighborhood of the Chamber of Deputies. We will be near the Rue
de Grenelle, where our business is. The d'Ivrea house is the same that
the marshal lived in under the Empire."

"Next door to the house of the Duc de Feltré?" returned Alfred Boyer.
"It was only three days ago that I was transcribing the page on which
he relates their meeting on the sidewalk in front of their houses
on his return from Waterloo, and his refusal to return the Duc's
salutation. How finely the passage concludes: 'Perhaps it was not
just,' he writes, 'but at that time every French officer who had not
fought at Waterloo filled me with horror. I should add that if the Duc
de Feltré deserted us, at least it was not, as in so many other cases,
for money. He was my friend, and I attest that I have always known him
to be an upright man with clean hands.'

"Upright and with clean hands," repeated the Prince. "Yes, those were
his words; I recall them, too. That might have been his own device,
do you not think so? My brother repurchased the house," he added
after a pause. "I do not know how _they_ have furnished it, but the
façade should not be changed. It is of the seventeenth century and
has the grand style of that period. You shall judge of it yourself
this afternoon, for I do not intend to remain here long. I count upon
going to the d'Ivrea house in this same cab as soon as we have engaged
our apartment in the Rue Bourgogne. You will not leave me--I am not
paying a visit to a relative. I have come here to obtain some papers
that belong to me by right as the senior. You have been good enough to
engage your services as historian for our family until the end of the
publication of the 'Mémoires.' Your place, then, is with me."

They had taken their places in the carriage while the ex-colonel was
thus formulating the program of a proceeding made the more mysterious
by these words, and by the irrevocable determination that they
indicated.

During the three-quarters of an hour that it took them to reach the
Rue de Bourgogne, where the lodging-house stood, and then the Rue de
Grenelle, they were silent, the Prince absorbed in his thoughts, and
the young man out of respect for a sadness of which he divined the
cause, without being able to determine its precise nature. The sadness
was changed into an actual contraction of pain when the carriage
stopped in front of a high _porte-cochère_, above which could be read
this inscription, recently restored, as the brilliancy of the lettering
indicated: "Hôtel d'Ivrea." Alfred alighted first and waited before the
open door, ready to assist the Prince out of the carriage. The latter
did not move. This last effort was almost intolerable to him.

"I thought at first I should send you in my place, my dear Boyer," he
said, finally deciding to alight, "but she would not receive you. It is
me that she wishes to see. She has adopted the only way, my veneration
for the marshal. Let us go in--but it is so hard!"

Never in all those weeks that they had lived almost constantly
together had he uttered such intimate sentiments to his companion. His
irritation, which he scarcely gave himself the trouble to conceal,
increased still more as they crossed the court at the back of which
rose the beautiful gray façade he had spoken of, with its high windows
and its ample mansard roof pierced with bull's-eyes. Though Alfred
Boyer was much moved by the family tragedy, of which the Prince's
attitude was an index, he could not but admire the noble aspect of the
structure in which the heroic Frédet had thought to find rest. But
if the exterior of the ancient house harmonized with the legend of
the hero, the interior offered a no less striking contrast to it. The
extraordinary excess of gaudy upholstery, the multiplicity of trifling
ornaments, and the total absence of real works of art, the petty
coquetry of the curtains, everything from the very entrance stairs and
the vestibule gave an impression of false luxury and cheap imitation.
The walls and ceiling of the salon into which the two men were shown
were draped with blue satin, the assorted portières were held up by
silver-fringed curtain rings; double curtains of heavy silk and lace
veiled the windows. The sumptuous upholstering of the furniture utterly
lacking in taste, the overladen garnishment of the mantel capped the
climax, and made of this sumptuous apartment an almost questionable
place. It fairly reeked with orders from the fashionable draper,
of bank bills, and nothing showed personal taste. The abundance of
coronets scattered everywhere proclaimed the parvenu. That the woman
who ordered such furnishings for the austere mansion should be the
Duchesse d'Ivrea was one of those paradoxes of fate that amuse only the
unthinking. When one has such a passionate adoration for a hero as the
compiler of the "Mémoires" had for the Duc d'Ivrea, such antitheses
seemed to be a profanation.

Alfred was not surprised, then, at the visible repugnance shown in the
face of the actual bearer of the name and arms of the Frédets during
the few moments passed in the salon while they were waiting to be
presented. The Prince had sent word by the servant that he was there
with the gentleman who had charge of the publication of the marshal's
papers.

As if turning his back on this cheap luxury, he had gone and leaned
against the window, from which his rude hand had roughly pushed aside
the flimsy curtains. He looked out on a narrow garden to which the
first shoots of spring were already giving a touch of green, and which
was vulgarized by a Japanese kiosk with colored windows. When the
servant returned to the room, Alfred could see that the eyes of the
sturdy hunter were suffused with tears.

"Well?" he demanded almost imperiously. "Madame la Duchesse is awaiting
Monsieur le Prince," was the reply, "but alone; she is too ill this
morning to receive two visitors."--"What did I tell you, Boyer!"
exclaimed the Prince, not caring whether or not he was heard by the
footman. "She wants me to come to pay her a visit, but I have not
come with any such intention, and I will not have it so. I came with
you to obtain the papers. Let her receive you or not in her bedroom,
that is of no importance. You are none the less here in the house, and
officially. Wait for me here then. It will not be long." Ten minutes
later the irascible nobleman appeared again, holding in his hand a
large sealed envelope, which he displayed, saying: "It is the first
restitution, and the most important for us: the correspondence with
Moreau."

And when they were again in the carriage, rolling toward the Rue
Bourgogne: "I must do her this justice," he continued, without giving
his sister-in-law her title, "she was quite correct. I found her in
bed. I had never seen her, as I have already told you. She has the
reputation of having been very beautiful, and she must have been.
Though she is worn by sickness, she still has fine features and
astonishing eyes. She is dying of cancer of the liver. She knows it;
she told me of it. She returned these papers to me very simply, saying
that on my next visit she would give me other documents, which she
says she must arrange. I am not her dupe; they are all arranged. She
wants to prove--though I have not the slightest idea to whom--that the
Frédet family recognizes her since the Prince of Augsbourg goes to her
house. But the matter is done with. I have the packet necessary for our
work. We can start back again for Combes with our booty this evening or
to-morrow, and though it is to be regretted that some parts of it are
lacking, still they are mere trifles. But let us assure ourselves that
we have not been cheated.

"There were thirty-seven letters, according to the catalog of the
sale at which they bought them. Good, here we are! we can go upstairs
and make sure that the number is correct. Will you take charge of the
matter and count them carefully? Thirty-seven--"

When they were both in the apartment, consisting of two little
communicating bedrooms, that had been reserved for them, Alfred Boyer's
first action was to open the envelope, which was fastened with a seal
bearing the escutcheon and device of the Frédets. His historian's heart
beat high as he saw that it was not merely a matter of simple notes,
but of long letters, some of which covered ten or a dozen pages. He
began to count them, drawing them out of the envelope one by one.

He was unfolding the fifteenth when he noticed a smaller envelope,
that had been slipped into it. He took it out and read the direction:
"For the Prince of Augsbourg." The envelope had not been sealed. He
opened it mechanically, thinking that it had some connection with the
correspondence. In it was a sheet of paper, again with the crest of the
Frédets, on which he read with that swift look that takes in ten lines
at a glance:

_"This is my will, which annuls all preceding ones. I constitute as
my sole legatee Monsieur Jules Frédet, Prince d'Augsbourg, under the
express condition that he shall personally conduct my funeral, that
he shall have my body as well as that of my husband deposited in the
tomb of the Frédet family, and that I appear as donor of the letters
to General Moreau in the forthcoming 'Mémoires' of the marshal. If
Monsieur Jules Frédet does not accept this legacy, my will deposited
at my notary's shall be valid in place of this. Given under my
hand"_--here followed a date and beneath it the signature: "_Duchesse
d'Ivrea_."

"Is the count correct?" This question, snapped out by the Prince
through the open door from the end of the other room where he had gone
to dress, startled the young man. Surely he was quite innocent of all
design, and he had no sooner discovered the confidential nature of
the paper than he replaced it in its envelope. Nevertheless he had
discovered its contents, and it was with cheeks flaming like those of a
guilty man that he replied: "I do not know yet, but I have just found
this in the correspondence." He had on the tip of his tongue the avowal
of his involuntary indiscretion, but false shame restrained him.

"An envelope?" said the Prince. "Addressed to me? It must be some trick
she has devised to get a letter to me. If it is a letter I shall tear
it up without reading it. Let me see"--he had advanced to the door of
the room and began reading aloud: "_This is my_--"


[Illustration: Paul Bourget]

He stopped short. He had turned terribly pale. Alfred saw that his hand
clenched over the sheet as if to crush and tear it. Then, folding
the paper, he returned it to its envelope and placed it on the mantel
under a book, as if it were of no importance. He came back to the door
and looked at Alfred, who was already bent over his work, prudently
avoiding this look. He seemed to have a question on his lips that he
did not put into words. He had stopped while shaving to call out his
question. Without saying anything more he finished shaving while Boyer
continued to arrange the letters with hands trembling with emotion,
and the same emotion shook his voice as he said, finally breaking the
silence, when the work was done:

"The thirty-seven letters are here."

"They are all here, eh?" replied the Prince. He was so upset that he
did not notice the young man's embarrassment. "You need not begin to
examine them until to-morrow morning," he continued. "I give you leave
of absence for this afternoon. You have not been in Paris for a long
time, and you may have some friends that you wish to look up here. You
are at liberty for the rest of the day, but come back at about six
o'clock to see if I need you."

He had scarcely reached the sidewalk of the Rue de Bourgogne, when the
young man felt so strongly the pangs of remorse at not having confessed
his indiscretion that he stood still for several minutes, asking
himself whether he should not at once go upstairs and tell the Prince
that he had read the will. At the same time he saw that, once in the
Prince's presence, it would again be impossible for him to confess.

Not that he feared reproaches for the act itself; he had only
done as he had been directed in ascertaining the contents of the
envelope, which, moreover, was open. His silence afterward was easily
explained by timidity. What now made the avowal so painful was the
knowledge that he had surprised the grandson of his hero in a moment
of mental anguish. The manner in which the Prince had spoken of his
sister-in-law, his attitude at the d'Ivrea house, his gesture when he
had taken up the envelope, his first words, then the contraction of
his hand over the paper--all these indications combined to reveal an
aversion which could not arise from a mere family disagreement, such
as is ordinarily dissolved by death, but from a most intense, a most
violent contempt. The silence concerning her maintained by the family
proved that the aversion was not personal. Why? For what reason had all
the elder branch taken such a stand against the marriage of the head
of the younger branch? Alfred could no longer doubt that the Duchesse
d'Ivrea knew the disposition of her relatives toward her. The method
she had adopted to send her will to her brother-in-law sufficiently
proved that.

Then why did she make this will? Why should she leave this fortune
unreservedly to relatives for whom she ought to have a hatred equal to
their own?

Suddenly the terms of this will that he had scarcely looked at--but how
could he ever forget its smallest detail?--recurred to the young man's
mind. The funeral, conducted officially by the Prince, the place in
the family tomb at Père-Lachaise, the name in the "Mémoires" of the
marshal--it would be to acknowledge the relationship and the marriage
with the Duc d'Ivrea, giving a formal revocation to an ostracism that,
doubtless, had lasted many years and exasperated her womanly pride.
The Duchess had placed the bargain entirely in the Prince's hands.
The figure of the latter actually holding in his hands the paper that
formulated this bargain arose before Alfred's mind with the clearness
of a perfect image, and again he saw the conflict of the three emotions
which his face had expressed: astonishment, anger, hesitation.

The Prince had hesitated. He hesitated still. Alfred, who had gone a
few steps in the direction of the Bourbon Palace, stopped a second time
to turn back to his lodgings. For a long time his eyes were fastened on
the windows of the second floor, behind which a drama of conscience was
being enacted of which he would soon know all the details. As yet he
could only see facts that were of too doubtful a significance to enable
him to form an opinion. "After all," said he, shrugging his shoulders,
"it is none of my business. It is for the Prince to decide whether the
motives of his antipathy toward his sister-in-law are stronger than his
desire to become rich. The episode is worth my little trip to Paris;
let us profit by it."

Ever since the now distant time when he had exiled himself in Auvergne
until his work should have been finished, in order not to draw upon his
savings, he had let slip the bonds of friendship that had united him
to many of his comrades in the École de Chartres. Having no parents to
visit, he began to think of them, moved thereto, perhaps, by a last
remark of his patron. All at once a face and a name stood out in his
memory with singular distinctness. Was it not in this very quarter
where he now was, in the Rue de l'Université, that one of his most
charming classmates lived, Raymond de Contay? He was a young man of
high birth, grandson to the famous Duchesse de Contay, who was so well
known for her unbounded charity. After making an excellent record as
student in the same college with Alfred, and having no desire to be an
idler, he had enrolled himself in the École de Chartres. His intention
had been to devote himself to historical work.

If Alfred had probed his own motives he would have recognized the
fact that the sympathy he had formerly felt for this clever and
pleasing youth was not the real cause of the temptation that led him
irresistibly to go to his house this very morning in spite of the
unusual hour. It was nearly noon. "I hope I will find him." A thought
that was not inspired merely by a friendly feeling. The real cause was
that Raymond belonged to the most select class. To Alfred, who had no
idea of the air-tight partitions that divide the different circles of
the various nobilities, this meant that his comrade certainly knew the
Duchesse d'Ivrea, or had heard her spoken of by people who knew her. If
any one could give him exact information about her it was Contay, and
Alfred Boyer felt that he must have this information.

He hungered and thirsted for it, as much as if, instead of being the
simple posthumous secretary to the marshal Prince of Augsbourg, the
blood of this hero coursed in his own veins, and he had a right to
know who bore this title of d'Ivrea, won at the cannon's mouth on the
battlefield. Besides, the will stipulated that the Duchess should
figure in the "Mémoires" as the donor of the letters to Moreau, and
was not his own honor involved in these "Mémoires"? Had he not devoted
two precious years of his youth to them? Was he not ready to devote
a third, with this recompense as his supreme ambition, that his name
as a poor scribbler should one day be linked forever with that of the
mighty warrior of the "Grande Armée"? What if this woman, however,
who bought a place in the book with the gift of her fortune, had made
herself unworthy of the honor by some infamous action? Was such a
thing possible? No. The master of Combes professed such a passionate
reverence for his grandfather!

That her name should be cited in the "Mémoires," that the Prince should
conduct the funeral, that she should be given a place in the tomb of
the Frédets--never would he admit it, even for a moment, and even at
the price of millions, that these three things could be granted to a
person unworthy.

But the Prince had not destroyed the will--then he must have seen some
possibility of conforming to it! Yet his sadness and disgust, the tone
of voice in which he had spoken of _her_, as he put it, his first
movement, his subsequent silence--how were all these contradictory
indications to be reconciled? Alfred hastened his steps toward the sole
chance of learning the whole truth with a feverish impatience that
amounted almost to pain....

Raymond de Contay was at home getting ready to go out to lunch. This
was a relief to Boyer, who in his embarrassment suddenly feared that
it would look as if he had come, thus early, in order to be asked to
stay for luncheon. But his classmate's welcome was so cordial that he
had no scruples about suggesting that he should walk with him. As he
ascended Raymond's stairs he felt an almost painful apprehension over
the means he should employ in his quest. The pretext was furnished to
him by his friend, who, not content with asking him about his work,
wished to know how he had got along at Combes. Boyer took occasion to
sketch in a few words the characters of the Prince, his five daughters,
and the maiden aunt. With a lump in his throat at the thought of what
he might be about to learn he continued: "This is all I have seen of
the family. But there is another branch, the younger, now represented
by the Duchesse d'Ivrea"--he looked for a sign of intelligence in his
friend's face. "Who is she?"--"The Duchesse d'Ivrea," replied Raymond.
"I do not know her."

"But she belongs to your world," said Alfred naively; then giving way
to the morbid curiosity that had been goading him on ever since he had
read the will, he added: "You surely must know some people who know
her. I can not explain the matter to you, but I have a strong interest
in knowing why she is at odds with her relatives. The matter concerns
the entire future of my work, perhaps. In fact, I ask you as a great
service--understand me, a very great service indeed--to try to find out
about her for me."

He spoke in so serious a tone, his face expressed so much anxiety, that
Raymond was deeply impressed. He thought that probably these "Mémoires
of Frédet" had started one of those disagreements between relatives
that sometimes prevent for many years the publication of books of this
sort.

"If you are so bent upon it," replied his comrade, "I shall try to find
out. I am lunching to-day with one of my cousins, who belongs to all
the clubs and has Paris at his fingers' ends. If your Duchesse d'Ivrea
broke with her family for any reasons that have been talked about, my
cousin will know them. I will drop you a line about it this evening,
but I do not promise you success. In any event, give me your address."

Although this chance of seeing a little more clearly into the relations
that existed between the celebrated marshal's heirs was very dubious,
it was a chance, and for the time being the prospect calmed the
agitation into which the morning's episode had thrown Boyer. He had
a few errands to do relative to his work. He attended to them all
carefully, and about six o'clock he found himself at the door of his
lodgings in the Rue de Bourgogne. He asked if his patron were in. On
the concièrge's reply that the Prince had not gone out during the
afternoon, Alfred was again seized with the feverish curiosity of the
morning.

Raymond had left no letter for him, from which he concluded that the
inquiry of the cousin had been useless, and he ascended the stairs a
prey to an uneasiness that reached a climax when he found himself
face to face with the Prince. Evidently the unhappy man was at the
end of his mental resources. He paced to and fro from one extremity
to the other of the two narrow chambers like a wild beast in a cage.
The luncheon that he had ordered had not been touched and was still on
the table, and at the first glance Alfred could see that the envelope
that contained the will had not been moved from its place. It still
rested under the book on the marble mantel. It had been beyond the
Prince's strength even to touch it. Alas, the temptation had begun to
work in him. Alfred had proof of it immediately in the words that were
addressed to him as soon as he appeared.

"I have had news from the Rue de Grenelle," said the Prince. "It
seems that she has had a severe attack since we left her, and almost
succumbed to it. The doctor is not sure that she will live through
the day. You see, we did well to come when we did for the letters to
Moreau. Apropos of these letters, perhaps it would be well to publish
them separately. We will talk it over. What I have been having a
day-dream about is a library made up of works concerning the men of
the First Empire who had relations with the Prince, all his papers
well classified, and all his memoirs, and all of this installed in the
d'Ivrea house where we were this morning. I can see the house now,
stripped of the tawdry gewgaws that spoil it, and restored to the exact
condition in which it was in the marshal's time. It would be very
easy--we have the inventories at Combes. I would like to make it a
museum to the glory of the "Grande Armée," with rooms consecrated to
all the companions in arms whom he loved--a Ney room, a Masséna room,
a Davoust room, a Macdonald room--what do you say to this project, my
dear Boyer, with you as perpetual curator at some small emolument? Do
not say no to it; you deserve the place. Do you imagine that I do not
know the difference between purely mercenary work and that which you
have devoted to the "Mémoires"? But your devotion shall not be lost.
It is a pity that you could not be in Paris with your time your own,
all your time, to devote to some great historical work. You shall have
it. It is also a pity--do you not think so?--that so many objects
of interest in the history of the Empire should be hidden away at
Combes and that no one should know them? The portraits, for instance;
they must be brought here; they must be--and it is the same with my
daughters. I wish them to be here; I wish them to be married--well and
happily married." For a long time he continued in this vein without any
response from the young man. The Prince busied himself with the future
employment of the fortune that had suddenly fallen into his possession,
putting almost a kind of fever into his projects. He reveled in
anticipatory visions of the noble end to which he would devote his
wealth--always provided he accepted it, for his ardor in justifying the
acceptance in advance clearly proved that he had not yet decided, as
did also the painful hesitation in his voice, in his gestures, in the
sound of his footsteps on the floor, and still more in his obstinacy
in not returning to the house of his dying sister-in-law. Against
what idea was he struggling so violently? Against what apprehension of
remorse? Why did this flood of imaginative confidences--since there
was no question yet but of possibilities--roll forth while the real
confidence, that which concerned the will, never appeared?

Alfred saw the whiteness of the envelope standing out against the
gray on the marble mantel, and as he listened his heart became more
oppressed with each new phrase, for each was a fresh sign that the
Prince considered the acceptance of the conditions contained in that
envelope as an indelicacy, worse than that, as a crime. A crime?
Against whom? Against whom, if not against this ancestor? What image
obsessed him, passing and repassing in all these words? that of the
marshal. It was as if by making promises to that great figure he wished
to disarm the anger of its shade, to expiate in advance an outrage on
its memory that he was about to commit, that he had already committed
in not at once spurning a certain offer.

How long might this strange monologue have continued, in which the
grandson of the illustrious soldier concealed the fever of a terrible
indecision by thinking aloud before a witness whose cognizance of the
facts he did not suspect? Would Alfred Boyer have given way to the
passionate longing he felt to interrupt this half confession with his
own complete confession by crying out to the Prince: "I have read the
will!" Would he, on the other hand, have continued to listen to this
discourse, seeking to solve an enigma of which the answer had not yet
been given?

An incident he had not hoped for suddenly extricated him from his
uncertainty, all at once giving frightful distinctness to what had
until then been only a vague guess. The servant came to tell him that
Monsieur de Contay was waiting to see him.

"I got some information, as I thought I would, from my cousin," said
Raymond after the other had flown downstairs four steps at a time in
his haste to know. "I was not able to bring it to you before, and I
have only a minute." He pointed to the carriage which was waiting for
him in the street. "Here it is. The present Duchesse d'Ivrea has never
been received, either by the family or by any one else. She was a fast
woman, who had formerly been on the stage. She was then called Leona
d'Asti. After living a very gay life, she married an old swindler on
his deathbed, a confessed thief named Audry, who left her a very large
fortune. Once a widow, she married d'Ivrea, a poor devil, who, it
seems, had eaten and drunk up everything he had--a most shameful union
for one of his name. Now you know as much as I do."...

Next morning, when the Prince of Augsbourg awoke from a sleep broken by
all the nightmares by which intense moral anguish pursues us even in
our rest, his first glance was toward the ill-fated envelope that his
fingers had not touched since he had placed it under the book. Had he
been dreaming? Had all the internal tempest of which he had been the
victim been a hallucination, a stroke of madness? The envelope was not
there. He jumped out of bed and went to the mantel; he lifted up the
book. Nothing! Immediately the whole series of events came back to
him. No; he had not been mad. The scenes of the preceding day arose in
his mind with a certainty that left no room for doubt; his visit to his
sister-in-law, his return to his lodgings, Alfred Boyer handing to him
the envelope and what had followed, his afternoon spent in struggling
against temptation, Alfred's return, then his going out again, the note
that the young man had afterward sent him and in which he said that he
would dine out with a friend. The Prince had spent the evening alone,
eating his heart out over the evil action that had such a horrible
attraction for him. He had gone to bed early, without having been able
to eat anything, in order to try to forget this ill-fated will, to
forget himself. He had heard his neighbor come in about midnight--then
all was a blank. He had fallen asleep, and now this mystery, this
envelope missing. But how? Stolen--by whom?

He began to dress, a prey to the superstitious fear that sometimes
lays hold of the most energetic men in face of an absolutely
incomprehensible fact, and little by little his ideas began to
coordinate in his mind. Of the two doors of his chamber, one, that
which opened upon the stairs, was fastened with a bolt; he had
neglected to turn the key on that which led to Alfred Boyer's room.
The thief, then, must have come in by that door during his sleep. But
he had remained awake until the young man had come in. Suddenly the
Prince recalled the latter's face at the time of the discovery of the
will; how he had flushed and avoided his eyes. He remembered also the
expression on that transparent face while, late in the afternoon,
he had been developing those projects, all of which presupposed a
change in the condition of his fortune. As in a flash of lightning the
whole thing was clear to him. He sank half dressed upon a chair. He
sat there motionless, a prey to a tumult of so many contradictory and
violent emotions that his whole body trembled; disillusionment as to
this fortune, suddenly snatched away, if the young man had actually
destroyed the will; shame at having been seen by him, tempted and
giving way to the temptation, anger at Alfred's audacity in having
interfered, and by what right? Through his veneration for the marshal's
memory, remorse that this veneration had been stronger in an outsider
than in himself, and, in spite of all, a sort of sorrowful joy at this
deliverance, if the will no longer really existed, with its shameful
conditions, which were, indeed, less shameful than the origin of
ignoble money. Again the d'Ivrea house rose before his mind's eye; he
saw the great door hung with black draperies, with his coat-of-arms,
the bier upon which that miserable creature, that public woman enriched
by a swindler, who had dishonored his brother, should lie, himself
behind her conducting this sinister mourning; and the tomb, the tomb!
Wildly, as the prisoner who escapes from his cell through broken bars
stained with his blood, but sustained, intoxicated by the freedom of
liberty, he burst into the room where Alfred sat at his table. His
bed had not been disturbed. He had not slept, and his pale face, his
burning eyes, betrayed in what agony he had spent the sleepless hours.
Ever since he had glided into the Prince's bedroom to take the will and
burn it he had been awaiting the terrible moment when his patron should
awake, determined this time not to make any denial and to suffer the
consequences of his act, whatever they might be.

"Boyer," said the Prince, "when you gave me that envelope yesterday,
had you read the paper that it contained?"

"Yes," replied the young man.

"Did you know who the person was that wrote that paper?"

"I have learned since."

"And it was you who destroyed the will?"

"It was I."

"It was you!" cried the Prince; "you!" Then, bursting into sobs: "Let
me embrace you and thank you in his name!" and he pointed with his
hand to the thin sheets on the table in which was to be recognized
the proud, delicate writing of "Catinat of the Grande Armée," of "the
Black Lion," as the old soldiers of the First Empire had called him
to distinguish him from his brother in arms, Ney, "the Red Lion."
Tears streamed down his face, so like that of his glorious ancestor,
while he pressed Alfred to his breast, and both of them, the old man
and the young, felt that exquisite emotion that floods our souls with
melancholy and an almost supernatural serenity when we have paid a
sacred debt to the dead.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[14] "Demi-hipnose," writes Paul Bourget




WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY

BY HENRI LÉON ÉMILE LAVEDAN

[Illustration]


    _Henri Lavedan stands for the bright side of Parisian life of
    to-day--for the witty dialogue and the delicate sentiment. He
    has created a language of his own, sound, racy, with all the
    abruptness and unexpected drollery of the boulevards._

    _He was born at Orléans in 1859, and began his literary career
    by contributing to the journals satiric pictures of the manners
    and customs of the Paris world. Those written between 1885 and
    1892 form a series of chronicles, which he has gathered into
    several volumes. Most of his works, however, are written for
    the theatre. In 1899 he was elected a member of the Academy._

[Illustration]




WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY

BY HENRI LAVEDAN


Translated by Katharine Vincent. Copyright, 1902, by The Current
Literature Publishing Company.


Madame de Précy said to her husband: "You wish to know what is the
matter? Oh! I will tell you, if for a few moments you will condescend
to lend me your attention."

In an icy tone he answered: "I will not lend, I will give it to you."

"Well, then, the matter is"--and a trembling voice betrayed her
excitement--"that life with you has become unbearable and that I have
resolved no longer to try to endure it. You are, I admit, an honorable
man, and have, I believe, been a faithful husband. I, on my side, have
never forgotten my marriage vows. Here we stand on the same ground.
The trouble is that we are uncongenial. Everything I do annoys you,
and to me all your ways are insufferable. What I say always vexes you,
and your laugh drives me crazy. Even when silent, we provoke each
other. About the merest trifles we have frightful scenes--about a
hat, a dress, whether it will be best to carry a cane or an umbrella,
or whether the meat is overdone or not--in short, everything--and
everything makes us quarrel! Then, at home, either you talk so much
that I can not put in a word or else you do not open your lips, and
you look about as cheerful as a mortuary chapel. I must be happy when
you are happy, sad when you are sad. Your temper is changeable, odd,
quick; you do not allow the slightest contradiction; if I begin to
speak of something which does not interest you, I am not allowed to
finish my sentence. For me to express an opinion suffices to make you
take an opposite view. You insist that you understand music, and that
I know nothing about politics, while, in point of fact, the contrary
is the truth. You scold my maid until she cries, and your disgusting
valet drinks all the wine in my cellar. You forbid me to smoke, and
insist that my dresses shall not be cut too low. And when we quarrel,
even about some very ordinary matter, instead of its being over in five
minutes, it lasts for hours, and we try to outdo each other in saying
bitter things which neither of us forgets. In short, everything about
me is disagreeable to you. I feel it, and I know it; you hate the tone
of my voice, the sound of my step, my gestures, even my clothes; do not
deny it, at this very moment I can read in your face that you would
like to pitch me out of the window.

"Therefore?" said Monsieur de Précy.

"Therefore I conclude that it is wiser for us not to prolong our
experience of married life. Its having proved a failure is neither your
fault nor mine, or rather it is the fault of both; at any rate it is
a fact. We were not made to live together; until we cease to do so,
neither of us will be happy. After all, there is nothing to prevent us
from amicably parting. Fortunately there is no child to quarrel about,
we have each an ample fortune, so I really can not see why we should
any longer remain on the same perch, pulling out each other's feathers.
As for me, I have had enough of it, and you have had too much. I am
quite sure you will be happy; sometimes in the morning, while you are
shaving, you will think of me; and for my part I shall always remember
you as a perfectly honorable, thoroughly disagreeable man. But for that
I bear you no ill-will, because it is in your blood, all the Précys are
so, and your own father and mother, as you have often told me, could
never contrive, for more than ten days at a time, to remain together.
However, I will waste no more breath in talking about the matter, but
will now, Monsieur, retire to my own rooms, where until to-morrow I
shall pass my time in thinking over the most practical way in which to
arrange our separation."

Monsieur de Précy had in silence received this avalanche of reproaches,
but his lips twitched, once or twice he sighed, deeply sighed, and
toward the middle of the discourse he had begun to pace the floor.
When his wife ceased speaking he stopped before her, and, looking
at her with an expression which he strove to render as dignified as
possible, said in a sad, somewhat victimized, tone of voice: "Have
you finished?"--"I have finished, and it is finished."--"So be it, my
dear; the book is closed, and I, like you, think it best not again
to open it. As you wish it, we will to-morrow separate and each try
solitude."--"Oh, I permit you to enliven it!"--"Thanks, and I forbid
you to do so."--"Gracious! I do not dream of such a thing. When I
leave you, it is to become my own mistress, not to change masters.
You can be quite easy; to marry again would be a folly I shall never
commit. Have you anything more to say?"--"No, except that if we take
this step without knowing to what it may lead...."--"Oh! I know.
First to peace, then to old age, finally to Père Lachaise."--"Do not
joke, but please allow me to finish. We will do as we wish, but it is
not necessary that the world should be at once enlightened as to our
disagreements. That is my opinion, and I think you will agree with
me."--"I do not know, because, of course, people can not long remain
ignorant...."--"Yes, but for a time. Later the same objections will
not exist. In short, this is what I ask: before taking any measures
to obtain a divorce, let us by all means separate, but under special
conditions which will save appearances, and excite no suspicions in the
minds of our friends."--"What, then, is your idea?"--"As you wish to
leave to-morrow, do so; but instead of taking refuge with some friend
in the country or abroad, as is probably your intention, go to Meneaux,
my château in Brittany, and as long as you can endure it--two months,
if you have the courage--remain there. Madame Bénard, my parents' old
housekeeper, who brought me up, is in charge. She will receive you, and
in every way look after your comfort. You can tell her that I will soon
join you."--"That, I imagine, will not be the truth."--"No, but you
had better say so. The house is well furnished, pretty, and not more
than four miles from Guérande. Under the pretext that Brittany is too
far away from Paris, you have always avoided setting foot upon this
family estate where my childhood was passed. This, before we each go
our own way in life, is a good opportunity to look at it. If you let
this chance escape, you will never have another. Now can I count upon
you? Do you consent?"--"You have made your request with civility, and
I consent. I will go to Meneaux, and will remain there for two months.
You may send a telegram to Madame Bénard."

Then a few words more were exchanged with a coldness too intense to be
quite genuine.--"Thanks--good night--good-by!--yes, good-by!"--Their
voices did not tremble, oh no; but their hearts, their poor hearts,
ached! Each one privately thought: "What? Can it be true we are to
part--and forever? That is what we shall see, my wife! I'm not quite
sure about that, my husband!"

But, nevertheless, Madame de Précy the next day departed.

                   *       *       *       *       *

On a clear, fresh May morning the young woman arrived at Meneaux.
It is at the seaside, a delightful moment when spring, like a tiny
child on its uncertain legs, hesitatingly treads there. The sparse,
backward vegetation is more rugged than elsewhere; the blue of the sky
has a deeper tint, and in the salt air there is something bracing and
healthful which brings red to the cheek and peace to the soul.

For Madame de Précy's occupation, Madame Bénard had prepared, on the
second floor, a large bedchamber, wainscoted in oak and hung with old
sulphur-colored damask, which on one side overlooked a wide expanse of
flat country, broken only here and there by a rock or a thin cluster of
reeds; and on the other a pine wood ceaselessly murmuring in the breeze.

After she had emptied her trunks and made herself at home in her room,
Madame de Précy found plenty of time for reflection. Nature offers to
those who at a moral crisis fly to her, many consolations. By a sort of
reflex action, she deadens pain, soothes and cheers. Her immutability,
her apparent egotism, are good advisers. Before her who does not pass
away one learns to see that everything else will do so, our little
happinesses as well as our great sorrows; and the order which in
everything she observes incites us to order also our hearts and minds.
Madame de Précy began to think, and more seriously than for many and
many a long day before. She reviewed her entire past life, beginning
with the first white pages of cradle, dolls, first communion, long
skirts and balls, next turning to the chapter of marriage. Her life had
not been a romance, scarcely even a story, but very ordinary, without
great joys, great catastrophes, or anything striking. Every night she
had gone to bed with the secret hope that the next day something might
happen. During the nine years of her married life, the sun had risen
many times, but never had anything happened. Little by little she and
her husband had become embittered, and perhaps he also, without being
willing to admit it, had suffered from that monotony to some beings
so irritating--monotony of things, hours, events, crimes, heroisms,
vices, seasons, rain, sun, admirations, and anticipations. Her husband
was not a man to be despised: cultivated, distinguished, honorable,
sometimes (only sometimes) tender-hearted--in fact, admirable--yet
impossible to live with. So, while deploring her fate, in the bloom of
youth finding herself thus alone and in a false position, she did not,
however, regret the impulse to which she had yielded. She would not
know happiness, but she could have peace. One can not expect everything
at once. Without feeling that her dignity was compromised, she gladly
accepted the society of Madame Bénard, the old housekeeper in charge
of the château, and yet, as a rule, she was haughty. But Madame Bénard
had brought up Monsieur de Précy, and then the country equalizes; its
solitude brings together human beings, raising a little those who are
below, and lowering a little those who are above, so that Madame de
Précy and the good old lady--for a lady she really was--soon became
friends.

On the day Madame Bénard took Madame de Précy through the château,
she went first to a large room on the third story, and, as she pushed
open the door, said: "I want to begin by showing you everything
connected with Monsieur's childhood. This is the room where Monsieur
played and amused himself when he was a little boy." Then she opened
closets where lay balls, drums, trumpets, boxes of tin soldiers, games
of patience, checkers, and dominoes, saying as one after another she
fingered them: "These were Monsieur's playthings when he was a little
boy." And suddenly she pulled from a heap a doll with a broken nose.
"See, Madame! he even had a doll, that boy; he called her Pochette, and
when he kissed her he used to say: 'She shall be my wife!' Was it not
ludicrous? Well, he would not say that now. He has something better."
Madame de Précy did not reply. The housekeeper questioned: "It must
agitate you to see all these things?"--"Yes, Madame Bénard."

Then the old lady took her to see the room where Monsieur used to
sleep; sometimes forgetting herself, instead of Monsieur, she said
Louis; and Madame de Précy was strangely moved at hearing pronounced by
another that name she had so often called, but might never say again.
The room where her husband used to study was next exhibited, with its
shelves still filled by his old school-books and copy-books. One of
the latter was seized by Madame Bénard, who, tendering it to Madame de
Précy, cried: "See how well Monsieur wrote when he was a little boy."
And traced in large, uncertain letters she read: "Let us love one
another." Then she exclaimed: "I should like to go out into the air; I
do not feel quite well."

They went out of doors, and for some moments silently walked about.
When a large pond, on which floated two beautiful white swans, was
presently approached, Madame Bénard announced: "Here is the pond where
Monsieur kept his boat when he was a little boy. One evening he came
near drowning himself. I shall never forget that."

When, a few steps farther on, they reached an old straight-backed,
moss-grown wooden bench, on either side of which stood a tall
earthenware vase, she cried: "This is the bench where Monsieur used to
sit and read when he was a little boy."

Next they entered the vegetable garden, and Madame Bénard, walking at
once toward a little plot, enclosed by a hedge of box, said again:
"This was Monsieur's garden when he was a little boy."

As they afterward crossed the servants' court, a glimpse of the farm
horses in their stalls, afforded by widely opened stable doors, caused
Madame Bénard to exclaim: "Oh, Boniface used to be kept there!"

"What was Boniface?" asked Madame de Précy.

"Boniface was Monsieur's pony when he was a little boy."

So clearly had Madame Bénard brought before Madame de Précy a little
Louis who studied, read, wrote, laughed, and played that she almost saw
him now, in short trousers with sunburnt legs and bare head, running
across the garden.

When later in the day they were both seated in the dining-room near a
large window overlooking the sea, Madame Bénard began in a simple way
to relate the story of Monsieur when he was a little boy. It was not
very cheerful.

"I must tell you, Madame," said the old woman, "that Monsieur's parents
were very peculiar. You never saw them, but I knew them well.

"Just imagine, they actually disliked each other, and without any good
reason. That they were not 'congenial' was the only excuse they could
give for living almost always apart; but think how wicked that was! If
the father was in Paris the mother traveled, and when she returned he
went away. They both loved Monsieur Louis, but rather than share his
society preferred entirely to deprive themselves of it. So he was sent
here to me, and I had to be to him both father and mother. That is the
way I happened to bring him up, and I did my best. His parents both
died quite young, and he, poor child, wept as bitterly as if he had
known them. I can forgive him, but I'm quite sure that when I die he
will not grieve as much.

"I tell you all this, Madame, because perhaps he has never done so,
and also that you may be able to make allowance for him if sometimes
he appears nervous, quick-tempered, or moody. It is not his fault; it
is the fault of old times when he was a little boy. Had it not been
for his deserted, lonely childhood, he would have grown up quite a
different man."

All this Madame Bénard said and much besides, telling many anecdotes,
and giving a mass of details, so that the conversation lasted until
evening. Neither of the two women thought of ringing for a lamp, and
darkness enveloped them. Therefore, Madame Bénard did not observe that
Madame de Précy was furtively drying her eyes. When she rose it was to
say:

"All you have related about my husband has interested me very much,
dear Madame Bénard," and she warmly pressed the good old woman's hands.
This did not astonish Madame Bénard, nor was she surprised when the
young woman handed her a telegram for Paris to be sent to the office at
Guérande. What did the telegram contain? What is sure is that it was
sent that night, and that the next day Monsieur de Précy arrived.


                       A GENTLEMAN FINDS A WATCH
                         BY GEORGES COURTELINE

                            [Illustration]


    _Georges Moinaux, whose nom de plume is Georges Courteline,
    was born at Tours in 1860. He has written a great number of
    one-act comedies that have been acted at nearly all of the
    best Paris theatres, the first called "L'Affaire Champignon,"
    in collaboration with Pierre Veber, 1899, and the latest
    "Menton Bleus." Courteline is a sincere, earnest genius, but
    he prefers to masquerade as an amuser--he has been summed up
    as the nearest approach the French have to a Mark Twain. He
    assumes the quick, snappy, humorous, jaunty business style
    of the reporter as a rule, but in his one-act verse, called
    "Conversion d'Alceste," acted at the Comédie Française in 1905,
    he appears as a misanthrope._


                            [Illustration]




                       A GENTLEMAN FINDS A WATCH
                         BY GEORGES COURTELINE

  Translated by V. Quiroga. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.


From the top seats of L'Étoile tram-car I perceived my friend Bréloc,
who was just crossing the Place Blanche in such a state of excitement
that I descended from the car on purpose to question him.

"Hey! my God! what is the matter, Bréloc? What is the meaning of this
face of yours, more mournful than a shop closed on account of a death
in the family?"

"Please don't mention it," he replied; "I just had a narrow escape from
being put in jail."

Which led me to think that he had committed some dishonest action, and
I began to ejaculate rather loudly, when he, guessing the turn of my
thoughts, exclaimed: "You don't seem to understand! I was very nearly
being put in jail through an unlucky watch that I picked up last night
on the Boulevard Saint Michel, and which I honestly deposited in the
hands of the commissaire [police inspector] of our ward. Pretty tough,
heigh? I feel almost ill from astonishment and fright. But you can
judge by yourself. Have you five minutes to spare?"

"Certainly. Why not?"

"Then listen, and I hope you may profit by my experience.

"About nine A. M. I presented myself at the police station in the
Rue Duperré carrying said watch--a beautiful timepiece, by the way,
with gold case and platina monogram--and I asked to be shown to
the commissaire. That gentleman had just finished drinking his cup
of chocolate, when he gave orders that I should be admitted to his
presence, and without deigning to say good day or offer me a seat, he
began:

"'What do you wish?'

"I had composed my features for the occasion, with the smile of a man
who accomplishes a meritorious act for which he expects to be almost
crowned with glory. So I answered: "'Monsieur le Commissaire of Police,
I have the honor of depositing into your hands a watch that I found
last night, and--'

"Without letting me finish the sentence, the commissaire sprang up,
repeating the words:

"'A watch! A watch!'

"The gendarmes were playing a game of cards in the next room.

"He hallooed to them:

"'Hey! you there! Close the street door! There is more draft here than
in a windmill!' And he remained grumbling until his order had been
executed.

"Then, resuming his seat, he proceeded:

"'Please give me that article.'

"I handed him the watch, which he began to turn about, examining and
turning the winder, opening the case and the chain swivel.

"'Yes,' he said gravely, 'it is indeed a watch, there is no denying.'

"Saying which, he deposited the watch in the depths of a very large
safe, closing its three locks.

"I looked with astonishment, and he resumed:

"'And where did you find this valuable article?'

"'Boulevard Saint Michel, at the corner of Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.'

"On the ground?' asked the commissaire; 'on the sidewalk?'

"I answered in the affirmative.

"'It is very extraordinary,' he then said with a suspicious look at me;
'the sidewalk is not the usual place to leave a watch.'

"I remarked smilingly:

"'If I may call your attention--'

"Dryly the commissaire said:

"'That will do! You may omit all remarks. I know my business.'

"I stopped talking and smiling.

"He resumed: 'In the first place, who are you?'

"I gave my name.

"'Where do you live?'

"'I have already said that I live at the Place Blanche, 26, second
floor.'

"'What are your means of living?'

"I explained that I had an income of twelve thousand francs.

"'At what time, as near as you can tell, did you find the watch?'

"'Three o'clock A. M.'

"'Was not it later?' he remarked ironically.

"'I don't think it was,' I said candidly.

"'Well, I congratulate you,' he said ironically. 'It seems to me that
you are leading a somewhat singular existence.'

"As I was taking exception on my right to live according to my fancy:

"'Admitted!' said the commissaire. 'But I have a right to know what the
deuce you could be doing at that hour on the Boulevard Saint Michel,
corner of Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, you who _say_ that you are living at
the Place Blanche?'

"'What do you mean by that, I _say_?'

"'Yes, you say so.'

"'If I say so, it is a fact.'

"'That is what we must have proved. Meanwhile, please do not divert
from the conversation, and answer courteously to all the questions that
I feel duty bound to put to you. I am asking what were you doing at
that unearthly hour in a neighborhood that was not your own?'

"I explained (as it was true) that I was coming from the house of a
lady friend.

"'What does she do, your lady friend?'

"'She is a married woman.

"'Married. To whom?'

"'To a druggist.'

"'What is his name?'

"'That is none of your business,' I answered, impatiently.

"'Is it to me that you are talking like that?' hallooed the commissaire.

"'Of course.'

"The commissaire's face became purple.

"'But, my boy! you will have to alter your tune; that strain of yours
does not suit me. And--I fancy that I recollect your features.'

"'Oh, bosh!'

"'Yes--I do have a recollection--'

"There was a moment of silence. Then:

"'Have you ever been committed for trial, Bréloc?'

"This exhausted my patience.

"'And you?' said I.

"The commissaire sprang to his feet.

"'You are a blackguard!' he cried.

"'And you are an idiot!' I retorted.

"At that moment I thought my last hour had come. The commissaire
bounded toward me, flushed and foaming with rage. Under his bushy
eyebrows I could see the glistening of his wild eyes.

"'What are you saying?' he stammered. 'What are you saying?'

"I attempted to utter a word, but he did not give me a chance.

"'And I say this: that I am going to send you to jail; and it will not
take a very long time! It is just the hour for the patrol wagon! Who on
earth sent me up this dummy? Ah! you want to put on airs! Ah! you want
to jeer at me, and at the law that I represent! Very well! you came to
the wrong place!'

"He brought down his fist violently on the papers lying on his table
with each of his sentences, adding:

"'Do I know you? Do I know who you are? You say that your name is
Bréloc; I don't know anything about it! You say that you live at the
Place Blanche. Where are the proofs of it? You say that you have twelve
thousand francs income. Am I bound to believe you? Show me your twelve
thousand francs! Hein! you would have a hard job to show them to me.'

"I was stunned.

"'All this is not very clear,' he concluded violently. 'I say, do you
understand me, that it is not very clear, and I don't know if you did
not steal it, that watch!'

"'Steal it!'

"'Yes, steal it! Anyhow, I am going to find out.'

"The gendarmes, hearing the noise, had come into the room. He called
out to them:

"'Search this man!'

"In a second they undressed me completely, even down to my socks.

"'Ah! you want to be smart!' the commissaire repeated mockingly. 'Ah!
you want to play smart! Look under his arms,' he said to the gendarmes.
'Search him well!'"

At the recital of these indignities Bréloc's voice became overexcited.
But I was laughing, nodding my head approvingly, because I could
recognize in his recital the two implacable enemies of honest folk--the
administration and the law.

"Let me find another watch!" roared my unfortunate friend, with a
closed fist as if threatening the future.


                         A YOUNG GIRL'S DIARY
                           BY MARCEL PRÉVOST

                            [Illustration]


    _Marcel Prévost, a student of the psychology of women, born at
    Paris in 1862, is a graduate of the Polytechnic School, and was
    for several years connected with the manufacturing of tobacco.
    He retired from business in 1890 after having published three
    novels, and then wrote "Les Demi Vierges," which he turned
    into a successful play, and other novels, besides "Lettres de
    Femme," etc., and "Les Lettres à Françoise," 1902, intended for
    the instruction of young girls._

    _Prévost's great strength lies in his weakness. He is a facile
    analyst of sentiment, delicate and graceful. He does not lack
    a certain amount of vigor either--in "Le Scorpion" this vigor
    approaches brutality, in "Mademoiselle Jauffre" it is strength._


                            [Illustration]




                         A YOUNG GIRL'S DIARY
                           BY MARCEL PRÉVOST


                Translated by Mrs. Clay C. MacDonald.
    Copyright, 1899, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


                              MY SUITORS

                                                      _November --, 18--._

Just as I was going up to my room, Monday night, mama kissed me, and
said in the severe tone which she reserves for communications touching
my marriage: "Juliette, two gentlemen will dine with us Thursday.
Consider it settled. You know what you must do." I considered it
settled, certainly; but mama was mistaken in one thing--I was in
absolute ignorance as to what I must do. What is there for a young girl
to do from Monday till Thursday, when she is to be inspected by two
suitors for her hand? I can not change in face or form, and I really
haven't the time to learn a new language, one of those tongues which
possess, so mama says, such a powerful attraction for marriageable
men! Nor have I even the time to order a new gown. I have decided,
therefore, to remain just as I am, and to present to those gentlemen
Thursday evening the Juliette of Monday, with her pink and white
complexion, her five feet four of stature, and the two poor little
living languages which she murders atrociously.

Who are these gentlemen? I have a faint suspicion.

Mama will not tell me their names, for she fears my preliminary
criticisms. Usually I sit upon her candidates so thoroughly beforehand
that she dares not exhibit them. "They are charming men," she declares;
"charming, that expresses it. Much too good for a madcap like you. One
of them is no longer young; but the other is not yet thirty." That mama
of mine has such an adorable way of putting things! She regards my
suitors collectively, offsetting the faults of the one with the good
qualities of the other. Would she like to have me marry all of them at
once, I wonder?

Papa gave me more information. I do anything I choose with papa by
a walk to the Champs Elysées in the morning, or a stroll on the
boulevards about five o'clock. I walk along with my hands clasped
around his right arm, clinging to him, my large gray eyes raised to his
white beard as if in adoration. People nudge each other as we pass,
and how papa straightens up, and how happy he is! In these moments, if
I were not a good girl, I could have my allowance doubled, or all the
diamonds in the shop windows. It was on returning from just such a stroll
that I questioned my dear old papa about the two musketeers that are to
open fire next Thursday. Immediately he grew grave and answered:

"They are two charming men--charming, that expresses it. Much too good
for a--"

"Madcap like me. Agreed. Why do you let mama put things into your head,
you, who have such sound judgment? It is shameful!"

Now, nothing irritates papa so much as the discovery of mama's
exaggerated influence over him.

"Put things into my head! Put things into my head, indeed! I will not
permit you to say that your mother puts things into my head. I can
judge men at a glance. The duke (papa was a prefect under the Empire)
used always to say: 'Givernay--he is my hand and eye.' Do you know
that, little one?" I should think I know the saying of the duke. At the
age of three I had already heard it told so often in the family that I
never said "papa" without immediately adding "hand," "eye."

"Why, papa dear, you know very well that I am of the duke's opinion,
and that is the reason I want you to guide me a little with your
experience. I am not a judge of men myself, and suppose both these
gentlemen should please me next Thursday?"

Evidently this contingency had not been thought of. And, nevertheless,
suppose I should be smitten with both of them, with the one who is
no longer young, and with him who is not yet thirty? Papa's eye,
celebrated by Morny, grew large and round.

He reflected.

How amused I was!

"These two gentlemen," said he finally, "are certainly both capable of
pleasing. However, I know one of them better, and therefore am disposed
to favor him. He is a companion of the Imperial, Monsieur de Nivert,
forty-three, cultured and high-spirited."

"What does he do?"

Papa wrinkled his brow and racked his brain in an endeavor to think
what Monsieur de Nivert could possibly do; after which he concluded,
pitiably enough:

"I believe he doesn't do anything!"

And then he immediately resorted to mama's mode of defense; he
considered the two collectively.

"But, on the other hand," said he, "the other gentleman is a young man
with a brilliant future. He is Judge of the Exchequer, and not yet
thirty. Just think of it! Gaston Salandier will be director-general of
a great administration some day, or a minister, perhaps. And then he is
very good looking."

Poor Monsieur de Nivert! It seems after all that his most brilliant
qualities are possessed by Monsieur Salandier! This freak of Dame
Fortune begins to make me sympathetic.

"But," said I, after a few moments' reflection, "it seems to me that
mama was hesitating among four possible matches for me, and not between
two."

Papa smiled.

"Yes; but after thoroughly considering the candidates, we have decided
that two only are worthy of the prettiest girl in Paris. For," he
added, kissing me, "you are the prettiest girl in Paris."

Poor papa, I should like a husband like him. And just think how
desperate mama makes him!

Let us sum up the situation: Fate decrees that I shall become the wife
of a serious young man, or of a middle-aged fashionable man of the
world. Let me think a moment. No; I have never seen even the picture of
the brilliant Judge of the Exchequer, who may, perhaps, be minister.
But I think I noticed Baron de Nivert at a club entertainment. It
seems to me that he has not much hair, but, by way of compensation, as
mama would say, he has a small stomach--oh, quite small. On the whole,
he is not distasteful to me, for the baron, if I remember rightly, is
very elegant and stylish in his dress.

Well, the die is cast! Idle nobleman or plebeian with a future, it
is one of you two, gentlemen, who will wed--in January--Mademoiselle
Juliette Givernay.


                           THE PRESENTATION

It is over. The presentation took place last night, and I must jot down
the story of that memorable evening for the amusement of my old age.

Well, last night, at five minutes to eight, when my maid had assured
me that all our guests had arrived, I made my appearance in the
drawing-room. Entering a room is my forte. I don't think I have often
failed in it. I walk straight ahead, gazing steadily before me over
the eyes of those present; I do not see, nor do I wish to see any of
those who are looking at me. I choose, on the contrary, as a point
of direction, some old lady settled comfortably in an armchair, or
some inoffensive old friend of papa's, or simply mama. Invariably all
conversation ceases at once, and all eyes are centred on me. What
wonderful tact I possess, and isn't it a pity to be compelled to
exercise it in such a limited sphere?

Besides my parents, my suitors, and myself, the diners yesterday were
Count and Countess d'Aube, nobility of the Empire, whose combined
ages would make a century and a half--insufferable bores, but fine
people withal; Madame Salandier, the mother of the young Judge of the
Exchequer, bourgeoise, with a protruding forehead, round eyes, and a
ridiculous toilet, who showed much embarrassment at finding herself in
our society.

At table Monsieur de Nivert sat on mama's right and Monsieur Salandier
on her left. I found myself seated between Madame Salandier and
Monsieur de Nivert. Madame Salandier immediately began talking to me
in quite a patronizing tone that quickly irritated me. She extolled
the serious character of her son, whom she proudly called "my own."
"My own" retires every night at ten. She also offered me a few cursory
glimpses of the qualities she expected her future daughter-in-law
to possess--her deportment, economy, and domestic habits--"with
occasionally a reception or an evening at the theatre, of course; that
is necessary in the position which 'my own' occupies."

In the mean time "my own," quite at his ease and stroking from time to
time his pointed beard (he is really very handsome), was holding forth
on the reduction of the public debt.

Papa, mama, Monsieur d'Aube, Mademoiselle Espalier and even old Madame
d'Aube, who is as deaf as a post, listened with open mouths, and Madame
Salandier whispered in my ear:

"Listen to him. Not a minister is there that knows as much about it as
he does--"

I looked at Monsieur de Nivert. He met my glance with one of discreet
irony, and immediately we felt like comrades, two exiles from the same
country who had fallen among barbarians.

Monsieur de Nivert is not handsome, but it is astonishing what an
immense advantage he has gained over his rival by simply not saying a
word about the public debt. In pouring me a glass of wine he paid me a
neat compliment upon my toilet, saying that there was something truly
elegant and uncommon about it. And then he began to talk of dress in a
low tone, while "my own" continued his harangue for the benefit of papa
and mama, who do not know how to add up the household accounts, and of
Monsieur d'Aube, who is an old imbecile, and of Madame d'Aube, who is
deaf. The handsome judge, however, is not stupid if he is pedantic. In
a few moments he saw that he was boring us.

"This conversation," said he, "must be quite tiresome to Mademoiselle."

"Oh, no," I replied artlessly; "I was not listening."

And I had the joy of seeing a look of dismay spread over the
countenances of my parents and the good Espalier, while Madame
Salandier glared at me like a bonze who has just seen a street arab of
Paris make a face at his Buddha.

Monsieur de Nivert smiled.

A little piqued, I think, "my own" replied:

"Indeed, such a conversation is beyond the depths of the young girls of
our continent. In America they willingly take part in such discussions.
Is there not some State in the North where women have the right to
vote?"

"Do you hear, Juliette?" said mama.

Did I hear? I think I did! He wearied me, this economist bent
on matrimony, and I let him see it very plainly. I took up the
accusation of frivolity implied in his sentence, but I took it up as
a banner. Proudly I declared my right--the right of a pretty woman
to be ignorant, frivolous, and whimsical. I argued the advantages of
frivolity over seriousness, and of spirit and dash over dignity.

Oh, papa's expression and that of the two relics of the Empire and the
mother of "my own"!

"My own" seemed perfectly amazed at discovering a young girl capable of
giving him a retort that took the wind out of his sails.

Nivert alone encouraged me with smiles and whispered bravos.

The dinner ended in confusion.

In the drawing-room, in order to serve the coffee, I became a very
proper young lady again; but the company had not regained its wonted
composure. Madame Salandier could find nothing better to say than to
ask:

"Isn't Mademoiselle Juliette going to play something for us?"

"Certainly," said mama.

"Ah," thought I, "you wish some music; well, then, you shall have it.
Wait a moment."

I seated myself at the piano and played--and I played without stopping.
I played everything that I could remember, for striking upon the
little black and white keys soothed my nerves a little. Ah, you want
some music! Well, listen. Take some Massenet, a little Mozart, some
Serpette, some Wagner, and some Beethoven, some Lecocq, and some
Berlioz, some Tchaikovsky, and some Nimporteki, one after another,
haphazard, pell-mell; one hour and three-quarters at the piano without
stopping. After which I turned round and looked at my auditors.
They resembled a plantation after a hail-storm--they were simply
annihilated. They took immediate advantage of the lull in the storm
and fled. I was still caressing the keys with my right hand, and they
trembled lest I should begin again. In a few minutes the drawing-room
was empty.

Mama came toward me:

"Will you tell me now, Mademoiselle--"

But I stopped her short.

"Listen, mother. You know that I am usually very amiable and seldom
nervous, but this evening I am very nervous. Don't worry me, please. We
will talk to-morrow as much as you like."

And I ran lightly up to my room.

This morning, on coming down to breakfast, I expected to find my
parents with long faces, but oh, what a surprise! they smiled upon me,
they kissed me, and were as sweet as could be.

The key to this mystery? It is this: Papa rejoined the baron at the
club last night about midnight, and Monsieur de Nivert said to him:

"My dear Givernay, your daughter is adorable! You will, I hope, permit
me to call upon the ladies again as soon as possible."

But what is even more surprising is, that an hour before breakfast a
letter came from Madame Salandier, in which that former chestnut vender
declared that "her son had been deeply impressed by the wit and grace
of Mademoiselle Juliette," etc., and finally asked if my mother could
receive her Monday to have a serious talk with her.

My friend Pepita was quite right when she said:

"Little Juliette, there are two classes of men that you must treat
insolently in order to make them respect you--servants and suitors."


                   THE SIGN OF THE KEY AND THE CROSS
                          BY HENRI DE RÉGNIER

                            [Illustration]


    _Henri de Régnier, one of the most distinguished living poets
    of France, was born at Honfleur in 1864. He has published a
    number of novels, such as "La Double Maîtresse," in 1901,
    aimed at reconstructing past eras of society, and a volume of
    tales distinguished for their originality. His first masters
    were Leconte de Lisle and De Heredia, but in the beauty of his
    harmony and tenderness he is original. He is a symbolist, chief
    of that younger generation of French writers who have set out
    to enlarge the resources of their national poetry. Edmund Gosse
    says that "of the number of experiment makers ... he comes
    nearest to presenting a definitely evolved talent ... a genuine
    artist of pure and strenuous vision."_


                            [Illustration]




                   THE SIGN OF THE KEY AND THE CROSS
                          BY HENRI DE RÉGNIER

                      Translated by Sophie Earl.
    Copyright, 1900, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


As I walked through the streets of the city I kept thinking of one
of the stories which had been related to me by Monsieur d'Amercœur.
Without having named the place where the circumstances occurred he
described it minutely, so that I seemed to recognize everything. The
old city, noble and monastic, crumbling in its dismantled ramparts
beside the yellowish river, with, beyond, the mountains piled against
the horizon; the narrow streets, half shade, half sunshine, the old
walled-in houses, the churches and numerous convents, each with its
chime of bells--all was familiar.

I seemed to find it again exactly as he described it, this city, an old
pile of stones, sombre or luminous, wrapped in warmth and solitude, and
the dusty ossification, retaining for such of its monuments as were yet
standing the skeleton of past grandeur. In the centre the houses were
crowded in a compact mass, still vast, outside of which the buildings
were scattered, while over all a sleep or torpor seemed to hover,
broken suddenly at times by a tolling or a merry clang of bells.

The streets, paved with flat stones or hardened with gravel, cut across
each other oddly to open into squares where the markets were held.
The flocks of the countryside gathered there to go away dispersed,
according to their sale. The auction and the church service were, turn
about, the sole occupations of the inhabitants. The place remained
rustic and devout. The quick trot of the sheep pattered over the
pavements, which echoed with the sandals of the monks. Pastor and flock
jostled each other. The odor of the shearing mingled with the smell of
woolen cloth. The air was redolent of incense and tallow. Shorn and
tonsured. Shepherds and priests.

I arrived at the angle of two streets. A fountain was flowing into a
time-worn basin. I remembered the fountain; Monsieur d'Amercœur had
praised the freshness of its water. The street to the right ought to
lead to the Close of the Black Friars. I followed its tortuosity, which
wound into the very heart of the city. A few poor shops displayed
their wares. Chaplets hung beside horsewhips. The street suddenly grew
wider. The high frontage of an old mansion appeared. I had seen several
others of the sort here and there, but this one was noticeable by some
peculiarities. It was built on a battered stone masonry. The windows,
high above the soil, were grated. In former times they must have
utilized those foundations on which arose the present edifice of severe
architectural design. At the corner of the structure the street turned
abruptly and descended by steps, gradually encircling the back of the
building, which proved to be an ancient castle, a stronghold of which
the blocks of stone were laid into the living rock.

I recognized the Mansion d'Heurteleure. The street ended; before me I
saw an avenue of poplars. Old stone sarcophagi, now empty, stood in
rows amid the long grass where a pathway had been worn. To the right
stretched a wall with a low door at the side. I started as I perceived
it. It opened into the herb garden of the monks, the portal of whose
convent could be seen at the end of the walk. I paused and approached
the little mural door. It was massive and iron-bound. The keyhole was
shaped like a heart.

Continuing, I reached the convent porch and rang. The porter admitted
me. Immense corridors led to vast halls. We ascended stairs, my guide
gathering up the skirts of his frock as we mounted. We met no one. From
the chapel, which I did not enter, came a droning psalmody of psalms.
I was shown through several cloisters, one of them charming, square,
full of flowers, and habited by doves, which grouped on the cornices
like a natural, graceful bas-relief. From a church spire visible in the
distance the horologe was ringing the hour. A great yellow sunflower
was looking into the deep water of a well and reflecting there its
golden disk, like a monstrance.

Nothing had altered since Monsieur d'Amercœur visited the city. The
same aspect proved the duration of the same habits. The cracking of
horsewhips still mingled with the tinkling of rosaries; the convent
bells clanged their chimes together as of yore, when Monsieur
d'Amercœur in frock and cowl, his bare feet sandaled, his staff in
hand, came knocking at the door. He asked to see the prior, which
office was at that time held by Dom Ricard, whose tomb I was shown
among the anonymous sepultures surrounding it. The prior had preserved
powerful links with the world from which he had retired. Keeping one
hand open there for alms and lending it, at need, in exchange for
delicate enterprises, which might be aided by his prudence and wisdom.
Monsieur d'Amercœur explained to him his costume, the motives for his
coming, and the details of his mission.

After twenty years of high service in the army, a gentleman of the
country, Monsieur d'Heurteleure returned to settle. He married shortly
after Mademoiselle Callestie, a poor girl of good family and great
beauty. The wedded pair lived at the d'Heurteleure mansion. The nobles
of the city frequented the house, the most assiduous in his visits
being Monsieur d'Aiglieul. He had served under and was related to
Monsieur d'Heurteleure, who was very fond of him. Life at the mansion
was very simple, no pomp, very few domestics; the dignity of rank was
upheld by the vast proportion of the apartments, the width of the
stairways, and the general aspect of antiquity.

Whether they grew weary of the dull existence in this old town after
the excitements of a military life, were seized suddenly by a spirit
of adventure, or from whatever cause it might have come, Monsieur
d'Heurteleure and Monsieur d'Aiglieul disappeared one day, no one knew
whither. Time passed. The searches were fruitless. Some mystery was
hinted at. Madame d'Heurteleure wept. All sorts of singular suspicions
were afloat, which finally reached the court where these two gentlemen
were still remembered. One day the double disappearance was mentioned
in the hearing of Monsieur d'Amercœur, who determined to solve the
enigma. He was empowered with full authority to act and at once he set
about it.

His first care was to assume a monastic frock, certain with this attire
to penetrate everywhere, through half-opened doors as well as through
the fissures of conscience, and Dom Ricard helped him to the best of
his power. For a while his researches were without result; but aided by
the incognito of his costume and his apparent calling, his inquiries
were patient and diverse. He hovered about the d'Heurteleure house,
scrutinized the people and the habits, studied the life. He listened to
and weighed all the still vivacious rumors. In vain. He wished to see
Madame d'Heurteleure. He was told that she was ill. Every day he passed
the house; following the street which rises around the sub-basement,
he reached the front, pausing sometimes to slake his thirst at the
fountain. Returning, as he descended the steps, he examined the
enormous foundations of stone and solid rock, longing to apply his
ear and listen to their mystery, for it seemed to him that the flanks
of the old castle contained the fantom of the secret, which he had
come to evoke from silence before it passed into oblivion. At last,
discouraged, he was on the point of giving up. He would have taken
leave of Dom Ricard but for the old monk's urgent advice to remain.
The venerable prior enjoyed the society of this sheep, so dissimilar
to the members of the flock which his wooden cross conducted in the
monotonous paths of the Order.

One day toward five o'clock in the afternoon, Monsieur d'Amercœur
went out by the old portal and strolled amid the tall grasses of the
avenue. The moment was melancholy and grandiose; the trees threw their
shadows across the funereal path, the lizards ran over the warm stones
of the antique tombs and in and out of their fissures. With one hand
Monsieur d'Amercœur held up the long monk's frock, with the other he
held the key to open the heart-shaped lock of the medicinal garden,
where he loved to wander. He wished to visit it once more before he
went away, to hear once more the soles of his sandals scraping over the
gravel, while his frock brushed the borders of boxwood. The symmetry
of the plots pleased him; their squares contained delicate plants and
curious flowers; little pools nourished aquatic specimens which plunged
their roots into the water, flowered and mirrored their bloom. At the
intersection of the paths stood porcelain urns painted with emblems
and pharmaceutical designs, with serpents twisted about the handles,
and these urns contained varieties rare and precious. Above the walls
waved the tops of the poplars; from the kitchen gardens off to one
side, separated by high green trellises, came the sound of a rake, the
striking of a spade against a watering can, the little sound of shears
clipping the young shoots; in here all was silence; a flower bent,
flexible, under the weight of an insect, swallows darted about; dragon
flies flitted across the greenish water; heavy plants and delicate
vines twined and intertwined.

Monsieur d'Amercœur was going toward the door of this odd little
enclosure when, at the end of the avenue, he saw approaching a woman
dressed in black. She walked slowly with faltering steps. By some inner
revelation he knew at once that this was Madame d'Heurteleure. He
slackened his own pace, so as to meet her at the moment when he stopped
before the door. Arrived there, he put the key into the lock. At the
sound the lady started and hesitated. He stooped as though trying to
turn the key. She wished to profit by this moment to pass; but found
herself face to face with him as he suddenly turned. She stood with
one hand pressing down her palpitating heart. He saw a face pale and
lovely, though haggard from grief and insomnia, with troubled eyes,
half-parted lips. Then he entered quickly, closing the door and leaving
in the iron-heart of the lock the key.

The next day he was meditating in the little cloister when a messenger
came to tell him that a veiled lady desired to speak with him. She was
admitted. He recognized Madame d'Heurteleure, and invited her to be
seated on a stone bench. The doves cooed softly on the capitals of the
quiet cloister, their murmurs mingled with the sighs of the penitent.
She sank on her knees, and with bent head and hands folded in his wide
sleeves Monsieur d'Amercœur listened to her dolorous confession. It was
a horrible and tragic story. Why relate it to him? Because her secret
seemed to have been laid bare. When she saw a monk holding a key to
open that heart-shaped lock, she felt as though he meant to force open
her conscience. Their meeting seemed like a decree of fate, his gesture
a mysterious allusion to the deliverance of her soul imprisoned in the
horror of its silence.

Her marriage with Monsieur d'Heurteleure was loveless. She esteemed,
while she feared his noble character, the hardness of which intimidated
her confidence and discouraged her tenderness. Years passed. One winter
Monsieur d'Aiglieul appeared and called frequently. He was handsome
and still young. She yielded to his love. Then followed days of joy
and terror; a dread of discovery and an agony of remorse. Monsieur
d'Heurteleure seemed unaware of their perfidy, though he grew suddenly
old and another deep line was added to those already furrowing his
brow. He was as usual often absent. One evening Madame d'Heurteleure
retired to her room about midnight. She felt depressed. Monsieur
d'Aiglieul had not appeared and he seldom missed a day. As she was
combing her hair before a mirror she saw the door open, and her husband
entered. He was booted, but his boots bore no trace of outdoor mire;
his coat looked dusty, a long spider web hung from his sleeve and
in his hand he held a key. Without speaking he went directly to the
wall of the chamber where a nail fastened an ivory crucifix, which he
tore off and broke upon the floor, while in its place he suspended
the heavy rusty key. Madame d'Heurteleure gazed for a moment without
comprehending, then all at once her hands clasped her heart, she gave
a cry and fell unconscious.

When she came to herself the whole affair was clear to her. Her husband
had allured Monsieur d'Aiglieul into some trap. The old mansion in its
invisible depths contained dungeons, chambers of eternal oblivion. A
cry, his, vibrated still in her ears. It seemed to come from below,
deafened by the piled-up stone, piercing the superposed arches,
reaching her from those lips forever separated by the thickness of the
walls. She tried to get out, the door was fastened, the windows were
padlocked, the domestics occupied another part of the house and were
beyond her call. The next day Monsieur d'Heurteleure came to bring her
food. Each day he came. The spider's web still hung from his dusty
sleeve, his boots creaked on the tesselated floor, the great line on
his forehead deepened in a pallor of sleepless misery. He went away
silently and to her tears and supplications he replied only by a brief
gesture, showing the key hung against the wall.

During those tragic days the wretched woman lived with her eyes fixed
on the horrible ex-voto, which grew larger to her vision, became
enormous. The patches of rust looked like red blood. The house was
still as death. Toward evening a step was heard. Monsieur d'Heurteleure
again entered bearing a lamp and a basket. His head had grown white,
he did not now so much as glance at the unhappy being who groveled at
his feet, but he never failed to stare greedily at the key. Then at
last Madame d'Heurteleure understood the desire which gnawed, which was
devouring him--to see his rival in death, to gloat over his vengeance,
to feel of the corruption that had once been flesh and blood, to take
down that key he had hung on the wall in place of the Sign of Pardon,
the ivory emblem of which he had shattered to substitute an iron symbol
of eternal rancor. But alas! vengeance never is satisfied, always she
craves for more; frenzied, insatiable, she feeds on her own vehemence
to the very dregs of memory, until the end of life.

Monsieur d'Heurteleure felt that she guessed his morbid longing and
that added to his torture. The adamant of his pride was streaked
with veins of blood. One night when Madame d'Heurteleure slumbered,
stretched on her bed, she heard her door open softly and saw her
husband on the threshold. He carried a lamp with the flame turned
low, and walked as lightly as a shadow without a sound, as though the
sombre somnambulism of his fixed idea had made of him an imponderable
fantom. He crossed the room, reached up, took down the key and went out
again. There was a dead silence. A fly awakened by the light buzzed
for an instant and then ceased. The door remained on the latch. Madame
d'Heurteleure bounded up. In her bare feet she slipped into the hall.
Her husband was going downstairs; she followed him. At the ground floor
he continued to descend; the stairway plunged into gloom, but she could
hear along the subterranean corridors the steps which preceded her.
They were now in the ancient substructions of the castle. The walls
sweated, the ceilings were vaulted. A last stairway twisted its spiral
into the rock. At its base the light of the vanishing lamp still
glimmered on the slimy pavement. Bending forward, Madame d'Heurteleure
listened. A grating sound reached her and the light disappeared. At the
foot of the stairs she found a circular chamber. An opening in the wall
revealed a shallow bay; she still crept on, until, at the end of the
passage, by feeling her way, she recognized a door very slightly ajar.
She pushed it open. In a sort of square hole, vaulted above and tiled
below, Monsieur d'Heurteleure was seated beside his little lamp. He was
motionless, staring with wide-open eyes. He looked at his wife without
seeing her. A nauseating odor came from the cell, and beyond the shadow
spread over the tiles lay a fleshless hand already greenish in hue.

Madame d'Heurteleure did not scream. Should she waken the wretched
somnambulist, whose frenzied sleep had drawn him to this tragic
dungeon? Was she capable of inflicting this degrading shock upon his
pride? No. The vengeance of the outrage was just. She felt pity for
those wild eyes, which stared at her without seeing her, for the
tortured visage, for the hair blanched by such poignant anguish, and it
seemed to her best to protect the secret of this nocturnal adventure
that he might never discover his self-betrayal. He must, she deemed, be
allowed to satisfy his terrible craving in the eternal silence of the
tomb, without ever knowing whose unseen hand walled him in face to face
with his sacrilege.

Monsieur d'Heurteleure still gazed blankly at her. Very calmly she
knelt and clasped the greenish palm which stretched its fleshless
fingers over the tiles, and then from the outside she closed the door.
Walking away on tiptoe, she slid the bolt of the vault which closed the
passage. She ascended the spiral stairs, the subterranean steps, the
stairways of the upper house, and on the rusty nail of her chamber wall
she suspended the tragic key, which balanced itself an instant, then
hung motionless to mark an eternal hour.

The doves passed to and fro as they flew below the arches of the little
cloister. The hour rang out simultaneously from all the belfries in the
city. The miserable woman sobbed and offered Monsieur d'Amercœur the
great key, letting it fall at his feet. He picked it up; it was heavy
and the patches of rust were red like blood. He walked away. Madame
d'Heurteleure, still kneeling, supplicated wildly with her hands joined
convulsively. He descended toward the little garden, which embalmed the
centre of the cloister with its fragrant flowers which grew in beds
equally divided by boxwood. Great roses engarlanded the well with its
stone circle; their thorns clung to the monkish frock as he bent over
to drink; the water spurted out. A tall, golden sunflower mirrored its
honey-laden monstrance. A dove cooed faintly, and Monsieur d'Amercœur,
returning to his still prostrate penitent, murmured in her ear the
words of an absolution which, if it lost nothing in heaven, gave at
least on earth peace to a tortured soul.


                        THE TELEGRAPH OPERATOR
                          BY ALPHONSE ALLAIS

                            [Illustration]


    _Alphonse Allais, who has left an original successor in Georges
    Courteline, was the great joker of Paris who died in 1905, at
    fifty years of age. He clothes his ideas in jaunty, rakish,
    crisp, up-to-date style, in the language of the reporter and
    of the boulevards. Like most of the modern French literary
    aspirants, Allais made his début in the Paris journals. He
    wrote humorous, fantastic monologues full of life, and what the
    French call "verve," which is a kind of sprightly enthusiasm
    tempered by an original personality. He has written, besides
    the three-act vaudeville called "L'Innocent," in collaboration
    with Alfred Capus, several other plays and vaudevilles which
    are immensely popular with the Parisians._


                            [Illustration]




                        THE TELEGRAPH OPERATOR
                          BY ALPHONSE ALLAIS

                      Translated by Emil Friend.
    Copyright, 1892, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.


I stepped upon the platform at Baisenmoyen-Cert station, where my
friend Lenfileur awaited me with his carriage.

While on the train I suddenly recollected something that required
immediate attention at Paris. Upon my arrival at Baisenmoyen-Cert, I
went to the telegraph office to send back a message.

This station differed from others of its class because of the total
lack of writing materials.

After a prolonged exploration, I finally succeeded in capturing a rusty
pen, dipping it in some colorless, slimy fluid. With heroic effort I
succeeded in daubing down the few words of my telegram. A decidedly
unprepossessing woman grudgingly took the despatch, counted it, and
named the rate, which I immediately paid.

With the relieved conscience of having fulfilled a duty, I was about
to walk out when my attention was attracted by a young lady at one of
the tables manipulating a Morse key. With slight hauteur she turned her
back toward me.

Was she young? Probably. She certainly was red-haired. Was she pretty?
Why not? Her simple black dress advantageously displayed a round,
agreeable form; her luxuriant hair was arranged so as to reveal a few
ringlets and a splendid white neck. And suddenly a mad, inexplicable
desire to plant a kiss upon those golden ringlets seized me. In the
expectation that the young lady would turn round, I stopped and asked
the elderly woman a few questions anent telegraph affairs. Her replies
were not at all friendly.

The other woman, however, did not stir.

Whoever supposes that I did not go to the telegraph office the next
morning does not know me.

The pretty, red-haired one was alone this time.

Now she was compelled to show her face, and, _Sapristi!_ I could not
complain.

I purchased some telegraph stamps, wrote several messages, asked a
number of nonsensical questions, and played the part of a chump with
amazing fidelity.

She responded calmly, prudently, in the manner of a clever,
self-possessed, and polite little woman.

And I came daily, sometimes twice a day, for I knew when she would be
alone.

To give my calls a reasonable appearance I wrote innumerable letters
to friends and telegraphed to an army of bare acquaintances a lot of
impossible stuff. So that it was rumored in Paris that I had suddenly
become deranged.

Every day I say to myself: "To-day, my boy, you must make a
declaration." But her cold manner suppressed upon my lips the words:
"Mademoiselle, I love you."

I invariably confined myself to stammering:

"Be kind enough to give me a three-sou stamp."

The situation gradually became unbearable.

As the day for my return approached, I resolved to burn my ships behind
me and to venture all to win everything.

I walked into the office and wrote the following message:

    "Coquelin, Cadet,[15] 17 Boulevard Haussmann, Paris: I am
    madly in love with the little red-haired telegraph operator at
    Baisenmoyen-Cert."

I tremblingly handed her the telegram.

I expected at least, that her beautiful white complexion would effulge.

But no!

Not a muscle relaxed! In the calmest manner in the world she said:
"Fifty-nine centimes, please."

Thoroughly nonplused by this queenly serenity, I fumbled about in my
pockets for the coin.

But I could not find a sou. From my pocket-book I took a thousand-franc
note and gave it her.

She took the bank-note and scrutinized it carefully.

The examination terminated favorably, for her face was suddenly
wreathed in smiles, and she burst into a charming ripple of infectious
laughter, displaying her marvelously handsome teeth.

And then the pretty young mademoiselle asked in Parisian cadence, the
cadence of the Ninth Arrondissement[16]: "Do you want the change?"


                              FOOTNOTES:

[15] Coquelin Cadet (the Younger) is Ernest Coquelin, younger brother
of Constant Coquelin, who is known as Coquelin Ainé (the Elder). Both
are famous actors belonging to the Comédie Française and have visited
America. The younger enjoys the greater popularity because of his jokes
and the reputation he has made with his clever monologues, for the most
part written as well as interpreted by himself.

[16] Paris is divided into twenty Arrondissements, or boroughs, each
having its own mayor and borough hall. The 9th Arrondissement includes
part of the Grand Boulevards, and the Opera House.


                            INDEX BY TITLES


  TITLE AND AUTHOR                                                 PAGE

  ACCURSED HOUSE, THE, Émile Gaboriau,                             1415

  ANCESTOR, THE, Paul Bourget,                                     1605

  AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE (At the Pa'lay de Justeese'),
     Alphonse Daudet,                                              1319

  BAL MASQUÉ, A (A Bal Maskay'), Alexandre Dumas                   1105

  BEAUTY-SPOT, THE, Alfred de Musset,                              1185

  BIT OF STRING, THE, Guy de Maupassant,                           1571

  BJÖRN SIVERTSEN'S WEDDING TRIP, Holger Drachmann,                 547

  BOLESS (Bōless'), Maxim Gorki,                                    273

  "BONJOUR, MONSIEUR" (Bonzshoor' Mseeur'), Jean Richepin,         1559

  BOUM-BOUM, Jules Claretie,                                       1327

  BRIC-A-BRAC AND DESTINIES, Gabriele Reuter,                       929

  BROKEN CUP, THE, Heinrich Zschokke,                               663

  CASTLE NEIDECK, Wilhelm Heinrich von Riehl,                       691

  CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA (Cavalleer'ia Rusticah'na), Giovanni Verga,  347

  CIRCÉ (Seer'say), Octave Feuillet,                               1257

  CLAUDE GUEUX (Clawd Güirr'), Victor Hugo,                        1083

  CLOAK, THE, Nikolai Gogol,                                         21

  COUNTING-HOUSE, THE, Ivan Turgenev,                                81

  CURSE OF FAME, THE, Ignatiy Potapenko,                            183

  DEAD ARE SILENT, THE, Arthur Schnitzler,                          955

  DEAN'S WATCH, THE, Erckmann-Chatrian,                            1289

  DELIVERANCE, Max Nordau,                                          903

  DUEL, THE, Nikolai Teleshov,                                      263

  EASTER NIGHT, Vladimir Korolénko,                                 153

  END OF CANDIA, THE, Gabriele D'Annunzio,                          411

  FAUST, Eugène Chirikov,                                           231

  FÊTE AT COQUEVILLE, THE (The Fate at Cǒh'kvil), Émile Zola,      1427

  FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, THE, Rudolf Baumbach,                          849

  FUR COAT, THE, Ludwig Fulda,                                      939

  GENTLEMAN FINDS A WATCH, A, Georges Courteline,                  1651

  GOOD BLOOD, Ernst von Wildenbruch,                                863

  GRAND MARRIAGE, THE, Ludovic Halévy,                             1379

  HANGING AT LA PIROCHE, THE (The Hanging at La Pee-rawsh'),
     Alexandre Dumas (Fils),                                       1269

  HOW THE REDOUBT WAS TAKEN, Prosper Mérimée,                      1121

  IRENE HOLM (Eeray'ney Hōlm), Hermann Bang,                        619

  JALO THE TROTTER (Ya'lo the Trotter), Jacob Ahrenberg,            567

  KAREN (Kah'ren), Alexander Kielland,                              595

  LA BRETONNE (La Bretton'), André Theuriet,                       1339

  LITTLE SARDINIAN DRUMMER, THE, Edmondo de Amicis,                 375

  LONG EXILE, THE, Leo Tolstoi,                                     137

  LOST CHILD, THE, François Coppée,                                1471

  LOST LETTER, THE, Enrico Castelnuovo,                             329

  LOVE AND BREAD, August Strindberg,                                605

  LOVE OF A SCENE-PAINTER, THE, "Skitalitz",                        285

  LULU'S TRIUMPH, Matilda Serao,                                    387

  MARGRET'S PILGRIMAGE, Clara Viebig,                               981

  MARQUISE, THE (The Markeese'), George Sand,                      1149

  MUMMY'S FOOT, THE, Théophile Gautier,                            1237

  NAPOLEON AND POPE PIUS VII, Alfred de Vigny,                     1067

  NECKLACE, THE, Guy de Maupassant,                                1581

  NEW-YEAR'S EVE CONFESSION, A, Hermann Sudermann,                  917

  OUTLAWS, THE, Selma Lagerlöf,                                     637

  PLAGUE AT BERGAMO, THE, Jens Peter Jacobsen,                      583

  PRICE OF A LIFE, THE, Eugène Scribe,                             1049

  PUTOIS (Pü'twa), Anatole France,                                 1495

  QUEEN OF SPADES, THE, Alexander Poushkin,                           3

  RAILROAD AND CHURCHYARD, Björnstjerne Björnson,                   511

  RENDEZVOUS, THE (The Rǒn'dayvoo), Ivan Turgenev,                   67

  SAC-AU-DOS (Sack-ō-dō), Joris Karl Huysmans,                     1515

  SIGN OF THE KEY AND THE CROSS, THE, Henri de Régnier,            1671

  SIGNAL, THE, Vsevolod Garshin,                                    165

  SIGNORA SPERANZA (Seenyo'ra Speran'za), Luigi Pirandello          427

  SILVER CRUCIFIX, THE, Antonio Fogazzaro,                          359

  SLANDERER, THE, Anton Chekhov,                                    223

  STONEBREAKERS, THE, Ferdinand von Saar,                           793

  TELEGRAPH OPERATOR, THE, Alphonse Allais,                        1685

  THIEF, THE, Feodor Dostoievski,                                   109

  THOU SHALT NOT KILL, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch,                   839

  TWO MEN AND A WOMAN, Grazia Deledda,                              481

  UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE, THE, Honoré de Balzac,                      1007

  VALIA (Vah'lia), Leonid Andreiev,                                 309

  VENDEAN MARRIAGE, THE (The Vendee'an Marriage), Jules Janin,     1131

  WALL OPPOSITE, THE, Pierre Loti,                                 1595

  WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY, Henri Lavedan,                         1639

  WHICH WAS THE MADMAN? Edmond About,                              1349

  WORK OF ART, A, Anton Chekhov,                                    217

  YOUNG GIRL OF TREPPI, THE, Paul Heyse,                            739

  YOUNG GIRL'S DIARY, A, Marcel Prévost,                           1659


                           INDEX BY AUTHORS

    AUTHOR AND TITLE                                                PAGE

  ABOUT, EDMOND FRANÇOIS VALENTIN
    (Edmond' Fraw'nswa Valontan' Aboo'), Which Was the Madman,      1349

  AHRENBERG, JOHANN JACOB (Yo'hon Ya'kǒp Ahr'enbairg),
     Jalo the Trotter,                                               567

  ALLAIS, ALPHONSE (Al'fawns   Allay'),
     The Telegraph Operator,                                        1685

  AMICIS, EDMONDO DE (Edmǒn'dǒ de Amee'chis),
     The Little Sardinian Drummer,                                   375

  ANDREIEV, LEONID (Lehǒn'id Ondray'yef), Valia,                     309

  D'ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE (Gaabriel'le Dannoon'dzeeo),
     The End of Candia,                                              411

  BALZAC, HONORÉ DE (Honoray' de Bal'zac, as in "shall"),
     The Unknown Masterpiece,                                       1007

  BANG, HERMANN JOACHIM (Hair'mon Yo'akim Bǒng),
     Irene Holm,                                                     619

  BAUMBACH, RUDOLF (Roo'dolf Bah'umbogh), The Fountain of Youth,     849

  BJÖRNSON, BJÖRNSTJERNE (Byern'styern Byern'sun),
     Railroad and Churchyard, 511

  BOURGET, CHARLES JOSEPH PAUL (Sharl Zshosef' Paul Boorsjay'),
     The Ancestor,                                                  1605

  CASTELNUOVO, ENRICO (Enree'ko Kastelnooaw'vo),
     The Lost Letter,                                                329

  CHATRIAN, ALEXANDRE (Alexan'dr Sha'treean), The Dean's Watch,     1289

  CHEKHOV, ANTON PAVLOVITCH (An'tǒn Pavlo'vitch Chek'hof),
     A Work of Art,                                                  217
     The Slanderer,                                                  223

  CHIRIKOV, EUGÈNE (Irzchayn' Cheeri'khof), Faust,                   231

  CLARETIE, ARSÈNE ARNAUD, called _Jules_
     (Arsayn' Arno' Claraytee', _Zhool_), Boum-Boum,                1327

  COPPÉE, FRANÇOIS EDOUARD JOACHIM
    (Fraw'nswa Edwar' Yoahkeem' Copay'), The Lost Child,            1471

  COURTELINE, GEORGES (Zhawzh Coor'teleen),
     A Gentleman Finds a Watch,                                     1651

  DAUDET, ALPHONSE (Alfawnz' Dō'day), At the Palais de Justice,     1319

  DELEDDA, GRAZIA (Grar'tsia Deled'da), Two Men and a Woman,         481

  DOSTOIEVSKY, FEODOR MIKAILOVITCH
     (Fe'o-dor Mikaeel'ovitch Dǒhstoyef'ski), The Thief,             109

  DRACHMANN, HOLGER
     (Hǒhl'ger Drogh'mon), Björn Sivertsen's Wedding Trip,           547

  DUDEVANT, AMANDINE LUCIE AURORE DUPIN, _Baroness Dudevant_
     (Amandeen Loosee' Orore' Düpan' Dü'devon).
     _See_ GEORGE SAND. The Marquise,                               1149

  DUMAS, ALEXANDRE DAVY DE LA PAILLETERIE
     (Alexan'dr Da'vee d'la Pay-tree' Dumah'), A Bal Masqué,        1105

  DUMAS, ALEXANDRE, FILS (Alexan'dr Dumah' Feece),
     The Hanging at La Piroche,                                     1269

  ERCKMANN, ÉMILE (Aymeel' Airck'mon), The Dean's Watch,            1289


  FEUILLET, OCTAVE (Octarv' Fuhyeay'), Circé,                       1257

  FOGAZZARO, ANTONIO (Antō'nio Fōgatzar'ro), The Silver Crucifix,    359

  FRANCE, ANATOLE (Anatole' Frahnce). _See_ THIBAULT. Putois,       1495

  FULDA, LUDWIG (Lood'vigh Fuhl'da), The Fur Coat,                   939

  GABORIAU, ÉMILE   (Aymeel' Gaboreo'), The Accursed House,         1415

  GARSHIN, VSEVOLOD MIKAILOVITCH
     (Vsevo'lǒdh Mikaeel'ovitch Garsheen'), The Signal,              165

  GAUTIER, THÉOPHILE (Teyofeel' Gō'tyay), The Mummy's Foot,         1237

  GOGOL, NIKOLAI VASILIEVITCH (Nikola'i Vasilye'vitch Gō'gōl),
     The Cloak,                                                       21

  GORKI, MAXIM (Ma'xim Gor'ki). _See_ PYESHKOV. Boless,              273

  HALÉVY, LUDOVIC (Loo'dovic Halayvee'), The Grand Marriage,        1379

  HEYSE, PAUL JOHANN LUDWIG (Paul Yo'hǒn Lood'vigh High'zeh),
     The Young Girl of Treppi,                                       739

  HUGO, VICTOR MARIE (Victor Maree' U'go), Claude Gueux             1083

  HUYSMANS, JORIS KARL (Yorees' Karl Wees'mon), Sac-au-dos,         1515

  JACOBSEN, JENS PETER (Yenz Pe'ter Ya'kobsen),
     The Plague at Bergamo,                                          583

  JANIN, JULES GABRIEL (Zshool Gabriel' Zshan-an),
     The Vendean Marriage,                                          1131

  KIELLAND, ALEXANDER LANGE
     (Alexon'der Lǒng'eh Kee'lont), Karen,                           595

  KOROLÉNKO, VLADIMIR GALAKTIONOVITCH
     (Vlǒ'demer Galaktyǒhn'vitch Korolen'ko), Easter Night,          153

  LAGERLÖF, SELMA (Sel'ma Log'erlerf), The Outlaws,                  637

  LAVEDAN, HENRI LÉON ÉMILE (Awnree' Layon' Aymeel' Lav'dan),
     When He Was a Little Boy,                                      1639

  LOTI, PIERRE (Pyair' Lo'tee). _See_ VIAUD. The Wall Opposite,     1595

  MAUPASSANT, HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE
     (Awnree' Renay' Albair' Gee de Mō-pas-son'),
     The Bit of String,                                             1571
     The Necklace,                                                  1581

  MÉRIMÉE, PROSPER (Prosper' Mehreemay'),
     How the Redoubt Was Taken,                                     1121

  MOINAUX, GEORGES (Zhawzh Mwa'no).
     _See_ COURTELINE. A Gentleman Finds a Watch,                   1625

  MUSSET, ALFRED LOUIS CHARLES DE
     (Alfred' Looee' Scharl de Müsay'), The Beauty-Spot,            1185


  NORDAU, MAX SIMON (Mox See'mon Nor'dough), Deliverance,            903

  PETROV, A., "_Skitalitz_" (A. Petrof'),
     The Love of a Scene-Painter,                                    285

  PIRANDELLO, LUIGI (Looee'ji Pirandel'lō), Signora Speranza,        427

  POTAPENKO, IGNATIY NIKOLAIEVITCH
     (Inya'tyeh Nikolai'evitch Pohta'penkǒ), The Curse of Fame,      183

  POUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEIEVITCH
     (Alexan'der Sergey'evitch Poosh'kin), The Queen of Spades,        3

  PRÉVOST, MARCEL (Mar'cel Prayvo'), A Young Girl's Diary,          1659

  PYESHKOV, ALEXEI MAXIMOVITCH (Alek'sey Maksim'ovitch Pyeshkof').
     _See_ GORKI. Boless,                                            273

  RÉGNIER, HENRI DE (Awnree' de Rayn'yey),
     The Sign of the Key and the Cross,                             1671

  REUTER, GABRIELE (Garbriel'leh Roy'ter),
     Bric-a-Brac and Destinies,                                      929

  RICHEPIN, JEAN (Zshon Reesh'pan), "Bonjour, Monsieur",            1559

  RIEHL, WILHELM HEINRICH VON (Vil'helm Hine'righ Ree'ayl),
     Castle Neideck,                                                 691

  SAAB, FERDINAND VON (Fair'dnont fon Sar), The Stonebreakers,       793

  SACHER-MASOCH, LEOPOLD VON (Lay'opolt fon Sar'ker-Mass'ohgh),
  Thou Shalt Not Kill,                                               839

  SAND, GEORGE. _See_ DUDEVANT. The Marquise,                       1149

  SCHNITZLER, ARTHUR (Ar'toor Schnitz'ler), The Dead Are Silent,     955

  SCRIBE, AUGUSTIN EUGÈNE (Ogūstan' Irzsh'ayn Screeb),
     The Price of a Life,                                           1049

  SERAO, MATILDA (Matil'da Sera'o), Lulu's Triumph,                  387

  "SKITALITZ" (Skitar'lits). _See_ PETROV.
     The Love of a Scene-Painter,                                    285

  STRINDBERG, JEAN AUGUST (Zhjan Ow'goost Strind'bairg),
     Love and Bread,                                                 605

  SUDERMANN, HERMANN (Hair'mon Soo'dermon),
     A New-Year's Eve Confession,                                    917

  TELESHOV, NIKOLAI (Nikola'i Tele'shǒf), The Duel,                  263

  THEURIET, CLAUDE ADHÉMAR ANDRÉ (Clawd Adhemar Ondray' Ture'yey),
     La Bretonne,                                                   1339

  THIBAULT, ANATOLE FRANÇOIS (Anatole' Frah'nswa Tee'-bō).
     _See_ ANATOLE FRANCE. Putois,                                  1495

  TOLSTOI, LEO NIKOLAIEVITCH (Lay'o Nikolai'evitch Tol'stwi),
     The Long Exile,                                                 137

  TURGENEV, IVAN (Ee'von Tourgey'nyef),
     The Rendezvous,                                                  67
     The Counting-House,                                              81

  VERGA, GIOVANNI (Jyo-vaa'ni Vair'ga), Cavalleria Rusticana,        347

  VIAUD, LOUIS MARIE JULIEN (Looee' Maree' Zshoolyan' Vyo').
     _See_ LOTI, PIERRE. The Wall Opposite,                         1595

  VIEBIG, CLARA (Clara Vee'bigh), Margret's Pilgrimage,              981

  VIGNY, ALFRED VICTOR, COMTE DE (Alfred' Victor',
     Cawnt de Veenyee'), Napoleon and Pope Pius VII,                1067


  WILDENBRUCH, ERNST VON (Airnst fǒn Vil'denbroogh), Good Blood,     863

  ZOLA, ÉMILE (Aymeel' Zō'la), The Fête at Coqueville,              1427

  ZSCHOKKE, JOHANN HEINRICH DANIEL
     (Yo'hon Hine'righ Dan'yel Tchohk'ke), The Broken Cup,           663







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