Ги де Мопассан
The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 1
"We had been discussing the matter in a low voice for half an hour, perhaps, when a great noise of furniture being moved and of cries uttered by my uncle, more vehement and terrible even, than the former had been, made us all four jump up.
"Through the doors and walls we could hear him shouting: 'Go out … out … rascals, … humbugs, get out scoundrels … get out … get out!..'
"Mélani rushed in, but came back immediately to call me to help her, and I hastened in. Opposite to my uncle who was terribly excited by anger, almost standing up and vociferating, two men, one behind the other, seemed to be waiting till he should be dead with rage.
"By his long, ridiculous coat, his long English shoes, by his manners of a tutor out of a situation, by his high collar, white necktie and straight hair, by his humble face of a priest, I immediately recognized the first as a Protestant minister.
"The second was the porter of the house, who belonged to the reformed religion and had followed us, and having seen our defeat had gone to fetch his own priest, in hopes of a better fate. My uncle seemed mad with rage! If the sight of the Catholic priest, of the priest of his ancestors, had irritated the Marquis de Fumerol, who had become a freethinker, the sight of his porter's minister made him altogether beside himself. I therefore took the two men by the arm and threw them out of the room so violently that they embraced each other twice, between the two doors which led to the staircase, and then I disappeared in my turn and returned to the kitchen, which was our headquarters, in order to take counsel with my mother and the Abbé.
"But Mélani came back in terror, sobbing out: 'He is dying … he is dying … come immediately … he is dying…'
"My mother rushed out. My uncle had fallen onto the ground, full length along the floor, and did not move. I fancy he was already dead. My mother was superb at that moment! She went straight up to the two girls who were kneeling by the body and trying to raise it up, and pointing to the door with irresistible authority, dignity and majesty, she said: 'Now it is for you to go out.'
"And they went out without a protest, and without saying a word. I must add, that I was getting ready to turn them out as unceremoniously as I had done the parson and the porter.
"Then the Abbé Poivron administered the last sacrament to my uncle with all the customary prayers and remitted all his sins, while my mother sobbed, kneeling near her brother. Suddenly, however, she exclaimed: 'He recognized me; he pressed my hand; I am sure he recognized me!!!.. and that he thanked me! Oh, God, what happiness!'
"Poor Mamma! If she had known or guessed to whom those thanks ought to have been addressed!
"They laid my uncle on his bed; he was certainly dead that time.
"'Madame,' Mélani said, 'we have no sheets to bury him in; all the linen belongs to those two young ladies,' and when I looked at the omelette which they had not finished, I felt inclined to laugh and to cry at the same time. There are some strange moments and some strange sensations in life, occasionally!
"We gave my uncle a magnificent funeral, with five speeches at the grave. Baron de Croiselles, the Senator, showed in admirable terms, that God always returns victorious into well-born souls which have gone astray for a moment. All the members of the Royalist and Catholic party followed the funeral procession with the enthusiasm of triumphers, speaking of that beautiful death, after a somewhat restless life."
Viscount Roger ceased speaking, and those around him laughed. Then somebody said: "Bah! That is the story of conversions in Extremis."
THE SIGNAL
The little Marchioness de Rennedon was still asleep in her closed and perfumed bedroom, in her soft, low bed, between her sheets of delicate cambric, fine as lace and caressing as a kiss; she was sleeping alone and tranquil, the happy and profound sleep of divorced women.
She was awakened by loud voices in the little blue drawing-room, and she recognized her dear friend, the little Baroness de Grangerie, who was disputing with the lady's maid, because the latter would not allow her to go into her mistress' room. So the little Marchioness got up, opened the door, drew back the door-hangings and showed her head, nothing but her fair head, hidden under a cloud of hair.
"What is the matter with you, that you have come so early?" she asked. "It is not nine o'clock yet."
The little baroness who was very pale, nervous and feverish, replied: "I must speak to you. Something horrible has happened to me." "Come in, my dear."
She went in, they kissed each other, and the little Marchioness got back into her bed while the lady's maid opened the windows to let in light and air, and then when she had left the room, Madame de Rennedon went on: "Well, tell me what it is."
Madame de Grangerie began to cry, shedding those pretty, bright tears which make woman more charming, and she stammered without wiping her eyes, so as not to make them red: "Oh! my dear, what has happened to me is abominable, abominable. I have not slept all night, not a minute; do you hear, not a minute. Here, just feel my heart, how it is beating."
And, taking her friend's hand, she put it on her breast, on that firm, round covering of women's hearts which often suffices men, and prevents them from seeking beneath. But her breast was really beating violently.
She continued: "It happened to me yesterday during the day, at about four o'clock … or half-past four; I cannot say exactly. You know my apartments, and you know that my little drawing-room, where I always sit, looks onto the Rue Saint-Lazare, and that I have a mania for sitting at the window to look at the people passing. The neighborhood of the railway station is very gay; so full of motion and lively… Well, that is just what I like! So, yesterday, I was sitting in the low chair which I have placed in my window recess; the window was open and I was not thinking of anything; I was breathing the fresh air. You remember how fine it was yesterday!
"Suddenly, I remarked that there was also a woman sitting at the window, a woman in red; I was in mauve, you know, my pretty mauve costume. I did not know the woman, a new lodger, who had been there a month, and as it had been raining for a month, I had not yet seen her, but I saw immediately that she was a bad girl. At first I was very much shocked and disgusted that she should be at the window like I was; and then, by degrees, it amused me to examine her. She was resting her elbows on the window ledge, and looking at the men, and the men looked at her also, all or nearly all. One might have said that they were apprised beforehand by some means as they got near the house, which they scented as dogs scent game, for they suddenly raised their heads, and exchanged a swift look with her, a freemason's look. Hers said: 'Will you?'
"Theirs replied: 'I have no time,' or else: 'another day;' or else: 'I have not got a half penny;' or else: 'Will you hide yourself, you wretch!'
"You cannot imagine how funny it was to see her carrying on such a piece of work, though, after all, it is her regular business.
"Sometimes she shut the window suddenly, and I saw a gentleman go in. She had caught him like a fisherman hooks a gudgeon. Then I looked at my watch, and I found that they stopped from twelve to twenty minutes, never longer. In the end she really infatuated me, the spider! And then the creature is so ugly.
"I asked myself: How does she manage to make herself understood so quickly, so well and so completely? Does she add a sign of the head or a motion of the hands to her looks? And I took my opera-glasses to watch her proceedings. Oh! they were very simple: first of all a glance, then a smile, then a slight sign with the head, which meant: 'Are you coming up?' But it was so slight, so vague, so discreet, that it required a great deal of knack to succeed as she did. And I asked myself: 'I wonder if I could do that little movement, from below upwards, which was at the same time bold and pretty, as well as she does,' for her gesture was very pretty.
"I went and tried it before the looking-glass, and, my dear, I did it better than she, a great deal better! I was enchanted, and resumed my place at the window.
"She caught nobody more then, poor girl, nobody. She certainly had no luck. It must really be very terrible to earn one's bread in that way, terrible and amusing occasionally, for really some of these men one meets in the street are rather nice.
"After that they all came on my side of the road and none on hers; the sun had turned. They came one after the other, young, old, dark, fair, gray, white. I saw some who looked very nice, really very nice, my dear, far better than my husband or than yours, I mean than your late husband, as you have got a divorce. Now you can choose.
"I said to myself! If I give them the sign, will they understand me, who am a respectable woman? And I was seized with a mad longing to make that sign to them. I had a longing, the longing of a pregnant woman … a terrible longing; you know, one of those longings which one cannot resist! I have some like that occasionally. How stupid such things are, don't you think so? I believe that we woman have the souls of monkeys. I have been told (and it was a physician who told me) that the brain of a monkey was very like ours. Of course we must imitate some one or other. We imitate our husbands, when we love them, during the first months after our marriage, and then our lovers, our female friends, our confessors, when they are nice. We assume their ways of thought, their manners of speech, their words, their gestures, everything. It is very stupid.
"However, as for me, when I am too much tempted to do a thing I always do it, and so I said to myself: 'I will try it once, on one man only, just to see. What can happen to me? Nothing whatever! We shall exchange a smile and that will be all, and I shall deny it, most certainly.'
"So I began to make my choice. I wanted someone nice, very nice, and suddenly I saw a tall, fair, very good-looking fellow coming along. I like fair men, as you know. I looked at him, he looked at me; I smiled, he smiled; I made the movement; oh! but scarcely; he replied yes with his head, and there he was, my dear! He came in at the large door of the house.
"You cannot imagine what passed through my mind then! I thought I should go mad. Oh! how frightened I was. Just think, he will speak to the servants! To Joseph, who is devoted to my husband! Joseph would certainly think that I had known that gentleman for a long time.
"What could I do, just tell me? And he would ring in a moment. What could I do, tell me? I thought I would go and meet him, and tell him he had made a mistake, and beg him to go away. He would have pity on a woman, on a poor woman: So I rushed to the door and opened it, just at the moment when he was going to ring the bell, and I stammered out, quite stupidly: 'Go away, Monsieur, go away; you have made a mistake, a terrible mistake; I took you for one of my friends whom you are very like. Have pity on me, Monsieur.'
"But he only began to laugh, my dear, and replied: 'Good morning, my dear, I know all about your little story, you may be sure. You are married, and so you want forty francs instead of twenty, and you shall have them, so just show the way.'
"And he pushed me in, closed the door, and as I remained standing before him, horror-struck, he kissed me, put his arm round my waist and made me go back into the drawing-room, which had remained open. Then he began to look at everything, like an auctioneer, and continued: 'By Jove, it is very nice in your rooms, very well. You must be very down on your luck just now, to do the window business!'
"Then I began to beg him again: 'Oh! Monsieur, go away, please go away! My husband will be coming in soon, it is just his time. I swear that you have made a mistake!' But he answered quite coolly: 'Come, my beauty, I have had enough of this nonsense, and if your husband comes in, I will give him five francs to go and have a drink at the café opposite.' And then, seeing Raoul's photograph on the chimney-piece, he asked me: 'Is that your … your husband?' 'Yes, that is he.' 'He looks a nice, disagreeable sort of fellow. And who is this? One of your friends?'
"It was your photograph, my dear, you know, the one in ball dress. I did not know any longer what I was saying, and I stammered: 'Yes, it is one of my friends.' 'She is very nice; you shall introduce me to her.'
"Just then the clock struck five, and Raoul comes home every day at half past! Suppose he were to come home before the other had gone, just fancy what would have happened! Then … then … I completely lost my head … altogether… I thought … I thought … that … that … the best thing would be … to get rid … of … of this man … as quickly as possible… The sooner it was over … you understand … and … and there … as it must be done … and I was obliged, my dear … he would not have gone away without it… Well I … I locked the drawing-room door… There!"
The little Marchioness de Rennedon had begun to laugh, to laugh madly, with her head buried in her pillow, so that the whole bed shook, and when she was a little calmer she asked: "And … and … was he good-looking?" "Yes." "And yet you complain?" "But … but … don't you see, my dear, he said … he said … he should come again to-morrow … at the same time … and I … I am terribly frightened… You have no idea how tenacious he is and obstinate… What can I do … tell me … what can I do?"
The little Marchioness sat up in bed to reflect, and then she suddenly said: "Have him arrested!"
The little Baroness looked stupefied, and stammered out: "What do you say? What are you thinking of? Have him arrested? Under what pretext?" "That is very simple. Go to the Commissary of Police and say that a gentleman has been following you about for three months; that he had the insolence to go up to your apartments yesterday; that he has threatened you with another visit to-morrow, and that you demand the protection of the law, and they will give you two police officers, who will arrest him."
"But, my dear, suppose he tells…" "They will not believe him, you silly thing, if you have told your tale cleverly to the commissary, but they will believe you, who are an irreproachable woman, and in society." "Oh! I shall never dare to do it." "You must dare, my dear, or you are lost." "But think that he will … he will insult me if he is arrested." "Very well, you will have witnesses, and he will be sentenced." "Sentenced to what?" "To pay damages. In such cases, one must be pitiless!" "Ah! speaking of damages… There is one thing that worries me very much … very much indeed… He left me two twenty franc pieces on the mantelpiece." "Two twenty franc pieces?" "Yes." "No more?" "No." "That is very little. It would have humiliated me. Well?" "Well! What am I to do with that money?"
The little Marchioness hesitated for a few seconds, and then she replied in a serious voice:
"My dear … you must make … you must make your husband a little present with it… That will be only fair!"
THE DEVIL
The peasant was standing opposite the doctor, by the bedside of the dying old woman, and she, calmly resigned and quite lucid, looked at them and listened to their talking. She was going to die, and she did not rebel at it, for her time was over, as she was ninety-two.
The July sun streamed in at the window and the open door and cast its hot flames onto the uneven brown clay floor, which had been stamped down by four generations of clod-hoppers. The smell of the fields came in also, driven by the sharp wind, and parched by the noontide heat. The grasshoppers chirped themselves hoarse, and filled the country with their shrill noise, which was like that of the wooden crickets which are sold to children at fair time.
The doctor raised his voice and said: "Honoré, you cannot leave your mother in this state; she may die at any moment." And the peasant, in great distress replied: "But I must get in my wheat, for it has been lying on the ground a long time, and the weather is just right for it; what do you say about it, mother?" And the dying old woman, still tormented by her Norman avariciousness, replied yes with her eyes and her forehead, and so urged her son to get in his wheat, and to leave her to die alone, but the doctor got angry, and stamping his foot, he said: "You are no better than a brute, do you hear, and I will not allow you to do it, do you understand? And if you must get in your wheat to-day, go and fetch Rapet's wife and make her look after your mother. I will have it, do you understand me? And if you do not obey me, I will let you die like a dog, when you are ill in your turn; do you hear me?"
The peasant, a tall, thin fellow with slow movements, who was tormented by indecision, by his fear of the doctor and his fierce love of saving, hesitated, calculated and stammered out: "How much does la Rapet charge for attending sick people?" "How should I know?" the doctor cried. "That depends upon how long she is wanted for. Settle it with her, by Jove! But I want her to be here within an hour, do you hear?"
So the man made up his mind: "I will go for her," he replied; "don't get angry, doctor." And the latter left, calling out as he went: "Take care, you know, for I do not joke when I am angry!" And as soon as they were alone, the peasant turned to his mother and said in a resigned voice: "I will go and fetch la Rapet, as the man will have it. Don't go off while I am away."
And he went out in his turn.
La Rapet, who was an old washerwoman, watched the dead and the dying of the neighborhood, and then, as soon as she had sown her customers into that linen cloth from which they would emerge no more, she went and took up her iron to smooth the linen of the living. Wrinkled like a last year's apple, spiteful, envious, avaricious with a phenomenal avarice, bent double, as if she had been broken in half across the loins, by the constant movement of the iron over the linen, one might have said that she had a kind of monstrous and cynical affection for a death struggle. She never spoke of anything but of the people she had seen die, of the various kinds of deaths at which she had been present, and she related with the greatest minuteness, details which were always the same, just like a sportsman recounts his shots.
When Honoré Bontemps entered her cottage, he found her preparing the starch for the collars of the village women, and he said: "Good evening; I hope you are pretty well, Mother Rapet?"
She turned her head round to look at him, and said: "Fairly well, fairly well, and you?" "Oh! as for me, I am as well as I could wish, but my mother is very poorly." "Your mother?" "Yes, my mother!" "What's the matter with her?" "She is going to turn up her toes, that's what's the matter with her!"
The old woman took her hands out of the water and asked with sudden sympathy: "Is she as bad as all that?" "The doctor says she will not last till morning." "Then she certainly is very bad!" Honoré hesitated, for he wanted to make a few preambulatory remarks before coming to his proposal, but as he could hit upon nothing, he made up his mind suddenly.
"How much are you going to ask to stop with her till the end? You know that I am not rich, and I cannot even afford to keep a servant-girl. It is just that which has brought my poor mother to this state, too much work and fatigue! She used to work for ten, in spite of her ninety-two years. You don't find any made of that stuff nowadays!.."
La Rapet answered gravely: "There are two prices: Forty sous by day and three francs by night for the rich, and twenty sous by day, and forty by night for the others. You shall pay me the twenty and forty." But the peasant reflected, for he knew his mother well. He knew how tenacious of life, vigorous and unyielding she was, and she might last another week, in spite of the doctor's opinion, and so he said resolutely: "No, I would rather you would fix a price until the end. I will take my chance, one way or the other. The doctor says she will die very soon. If that happens so much the better for you, and so much the worse for me, but if she holds out till to-morrow or longer, so much the better for me and so much the worse for you!"
The nurse looked at the man in astonishment, for she had never treated a death as a speculative job, and she hesitated, tempted by the idea of the possible gain, but almost immediately she suspected that he wanted to juggle her, "I can say nothing until I have seen your mother," she replied. "Then come with me and see her."
She washed her hands, and went with him immediately.
They did not speak on the road; she walked with short, hasty steps, while he strode on with his long legs, as if he were crossing a brook at every step.
The cows lying down in the fields, overcome by the heat, raised their heads heavily and lowed feebly at the two passers-by, as if to ask them for some green grass.
When they got near the house, Honoré Bontemps murmured: "Suppose it is all over?" And the unconscious wish which he had that it might be so, showed itself in the sound of his voice.
But the old woman was not dead. She was lying on her back, on her wretched bed, her hands covered with a pink cotton counterpane, horribly thin, knotty hands, like strange animals, like crabs, and closed by rheumatism, fatigue, and the work of nearly a century which she had accomplished.
La Rapet went up to the bed and looked at the dying woman, felt her pulse, tapped her on the chest, listened to her breathing, and asked her questions, so as to hear her speak: and then, having looked at her for some time longer, she went out of the room, followed by Honoré. Her decided opinion was that the old woman would not last out the night, and he asked: "Well?" And the sick-nurse replied: "Well, she may last two days, perhaps three. You will have to give me six francs, everything included."
"Six francs! six francs!" he shouted. "Are you out of your mind? I tell you that she cannot last more than five or six hours!" And they disputed angrily for some time, but as the nurse said she would go home, as the time was going by, and as his wheat would not come to the farmyard of its own accord, he agreed to her terms at last:
"Very well then, that is settled; six francs including everything, until the corpse is taken out." "That is settled, six francs."
And he went away, with long strides, to his wheat, which was lying on the ground under the hot sun, which ripens the grain, while the sick-nurse returned to the house.
She had brought some work with her, for she worked without stopping by the side of the dead and the dying, sometimes for herself, sometimes for the family which employed her as seamstress also, paying her rather more in that capacity. Suddenly she asked: "Have you received the last sacraments, Mother Bontemps?"
The old peasant woman said "no" with her head, and la Rapet, who was very devout, got up quickly: "Good heavens, is it possible? I will go and fetch the Curé;" and she rushed off to the parsonage so quickly, that the urchins in the street thought some accident had happened, when they saw her trotting off like that.
The priest came immediately in his surplice, preceded by a choir-boy, who rang a bell, to announce the passage of the Host through the parched and quiet country. Some men, who were working at a distance, took off their large hats and remained motionless until the white vestment had disappeared behind some farm buildings; the women who were making up the sheaves, stood up to make the sign of the cross; the frightened black hens ran away along the ditch until they reached a well-known hole through which they suddenly disappeared, while a foal, which was tied up in a meadow, took fright at the sight of the surplice and began to turn round at the length of its rope, kicking violently. The choir-boy, in his red cassock, walked quickly, and the priest, with his head inclined towards one shoulder, and with his square biretta on his head, followed him, muttering some prayers, and last of all came la Rapet, bent almost double, as if she wished to prostrate herself as she walked with folded hands, as if she were in church.
Honoré saw them pass in the distance, and he asked: "Where is our priest going to?" And his man, who was more acute, replied: "He is taking the sacrament to your mother, of course!"
The peasant was not surprised, and said: "That is quite possible," and went on with his work.
Mother Bontemps confessed, received absolution and communion, and the priest took his departure, leaving the two women alone in the suffocating cottage, while la Rapet began to look at the dying woman, and to ask herself whether it could last much longer.
The day was on the wane, and a cooler air came in stronger puffs, and made a view of Epinal, which was fastened to the wall by two pins, flap up and down, the scanty window curtains, which had formerly been white, but were now yellow and covered with fly-specks, looked as if they were going to fly off and seemed to struggle to get away, like the old woman's soul.
She lying motionless, with her eyes open, seemed to await that death which was so near and which yet delayed its coming, with perfect indifference. Her short breath whistled in her tightening throat. It would stop altogether soon, and there would be one woman less in the world, whom nobody would regret.
At nightfall Honoré returned, and when he went up to the bed and saw that his mother was still alive, he asked: "How is she?" just as he had done formerly, when she had been unwell, and then he sent la Rapet away, saying to her: "To-morrow morning at five o'clock, without fail." And she replied: "To-morrow, at five o'clock."
She came at daybreak, and found Honoré eating his soup, which he had made himself, before going to work, and the sick-nurse asked him: "Well, is your mother dead?" "She is rather better, on the contrary," he replied, with a malignant look out of the corner of his eyes. And he went out.
La Rapet was seized with anxiety, and went up to the dying woman, who remained in the same state, lethargic and impassive, with her eyes open and her hands clutching the counterpane. The nurse perceived that this might go on thus for two days, four days, eight days, and her avaricious mind was seized with fear, while she was excited to furious rage against the cunning fellow who had tricked her, and against the woman, who would not die.
Nevertheless, she began to work and waited with her looks fixed on the wrinkled face of Mother Bontemps, and when Honoré returned to breakfast he seemed quite satisfied and even in a bantering humor, for he was decidedly carrying in his wheat under very favorable circumstances.
La Rapet was getting exasperated; every minute passed now seemed to her so much time and money stolen from her. She felt a mad inclination to take this old ass, this headstrong old fool, this obstinate old wretch, and to stop that short, rapid breath, which was robbing her of her time and money, by squeezing her throat a little. But then, she reflected on the danger of doing so, and other thoughts came into her head, so she went up to the bed and said to her: "Have you ever seen the Devil?" Mother Bontemps whispered: "No."
Then the sick-nurse began to talk and to tell her tales which were likely to terrify her weak and dying mind. Some minutes before one died the Devil appeared, she said, to all who were in their death throes. He had a broom in his hand, a saucepan on his head, and he uttered loud cries. When anybody had seen him, all was over, and that person had only a few moments longer to live; and she enumerated all those to whom the Devil had appeared that year: Josephine Loisel, Eulalie Ratier, Sophie Padagnau, Séraphine Grospied.
Mother Bontemps, who was at last most disturbed in mind, moved about, wrung her hands, and tried to turn her head to look at the bottom of the room, and suddenly la Rapet disappeared at the foot of the bed. She took a sheet out of the cupboard and wrapped herself up in it; she put the iron pot onto her head, so that its three short bent feet rose up like horns, and she took a broom in her right hand and a tin pail in her left, which she threw up suddenly, so that it might fall to the ground noisily.
And certainly when it came down, it made a terrible noise; then, climbing onto a chair, the nurse lifted up the curtain which hung at the bottom of the bed, and showed herself, gesticulating and uttering shrill cries into the pot which covered her face, while she menaced the old peasant woman, who was nearly dead, with her broom.
Terrified, with a mad look on her face, the dying woman made a superhuman effort to get up and escape; she even got her shoulders and chest out of bed; then she fell back with a deep sigh. All was over, and la Rapet calmly put everything back into its place; the broom into the corner by the cupboard, the sheet inside it, the pot on the hearth, the pail on the floor and the chair against the wall. Then, with professional movements, she closed the dead woman's enormous eyes, put a plate on the bed and poured some holy water into it, dipped the twig of boxwood into it, and kneeling down, she fervently repeated the prayers for the dead, which she knew by heart, as a matter of business.
And when Honoré returned in the evening, he found her praying, and he calculated immediately that she had made twenty sous out of him, for she had only spent three days and one night there, which made five francs altogether, instead of the six which he owed her.
