Ги де Мопассан
The works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 5
PART III
The week appeared long to César Hautot. He had never before found himself alone, and the isolation seemed to him insupportable. Till now, he had lived at his father's side, just like his shadow, followed him into the fields, superintended the execution of his orders, and, when they had been a short time separated, again met him at dinner. They had spent the evenings smoking their pipes, face to face with one another, chatting about horses, cows or sheep, and the grip of their hands when they rose up in the morning might have been regarded as a manifestation of deep family affection on both sides.
Now César was alone, he went vacantly through the process of dressing the soil of autumn, every moment expecting to see the tall gesticulating silhouette of his father rising up at the end of a plain. To kill time, he entered the houses of his neighbors, told about the accident to all who had not heard of it, and sometimes repeated it to the others. Then, after he had finished his occupations and his reflections, he would sit down at the side of a road, asking himself whether this kind of life was going to last for ever.
He frequently thought of Mademoiselle Donet. He liked her. He considered her thoroughly respectable, a gentle and honest young woman, as his father had said. Yes, undoubtedly she was an honest girl. He resolved to act handsomely towards her, and to give her two thousand francs a year, settling the capital on the child. He even experienced a certain pleasure in thinking that he was going to see her on the following Thursday and arrange this matter with her. And then the notion of this brother, this little chap of five, who was his father's son, plagued him, annoyed him a little, and, at the same time, exhibited him. He had, as it were, a family in this brat, sprung from a clandestine alliance, who would never bear the name of Hautot, a family which he might take or leave, just as he pleased, but which would recall his father.
And so, when he saw himself on the road to Rouen on Thursday morning, carried along by Graindorge trotting with clattering foot-beats, he felt his heart lighter, more at peace than he had hitherto felt it since his bereavement.
On entering Mademoiselle Donet's apartment, he saw the table laid as on the previous Thursday with the sole difference that the crust had not been removed from the bread. He pressed the young woman's hand, kissed Emile on the cheeks, and sat down, more at ease than if he were in his own house, his heart swelling in the same way. Mademoiselle Donet seemed to him a little thinner and paler. She must have grieved sorely. She wore now an air of constraint in his presence, as if she understood what she had not felt the week before under the first blow of her misfortune, and she exhibited an excessive deference towards him, a mournful humility, and made touching efforts to please him, as if to pay him back by her attentions for the kindness he had manifested towards her. They were a long time at lunch talking over the business, which had brought him there. She did not want so much money. It was too much. She earned enough to live on herself, but she only wished that Emile might find a few sous awaiting him when he grew big. César held out, however, and even added a gift of a thousand francs for herself for the expense of mourning.
When he had taken his coffee, she asked:
"Do you smoke?"
"Yes – I have my pipe."
He felt in his pocket. Good God! He had forgotten it! He was becoming quite woebegone about it when she offered him a pipe of his father that had been shut up in a cupboard. He accepted it, took it up in his hand, recognized it, smelled it, spoke of its quality in a tone of emotion, filled it with tobacco, and lighted it. Then, he set Emile astride on his knee, and made him play the cavalier, while she removed the tablecloth, and put the soiled plates at one end of the sideboard in order to wash them as soon as he was gone.
About three o'clock, he rose up with regret, quite annoyed at the thought of having to go.
"Well! Mademoiselle Donet," he said, "I wish you good evening, and am delighted to have found you like this."
She remained standing before him, blushing, much affected, and gazed at him while she thought of the other.
"Shall we not see one another again?" she said.
He replied simply:
"Why, yes, mam'zelle, if it gives you pleasure."
"Certainly, Monsieur César. Will next Thursday suit you then?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle Donet."
"You will come to lunch, of course?"
"Well – if you are so kind as to invite me, I can't refuse."
"It is understood, then, Monsieur César – next Thursday at twelve, the same as to-day."
"Thursday at twelve, Mam'zelle Donet!"
LITTLE LOUISE ROQUÉ
Mederic Rompel, the postman, who was familiarly called by the country people Mederi, started at the usual hour from the posthouse at Rouy-le-Tors. Having passed through the little town with his big strides of an old trooper, he first cut across the meadows of Villaumes in order to reach the bank of the Brindelle, which led him along the water's edge to the village of Carvelin, where his distribution commenced. He went quickly, following the course of the narrow river, which frothed, murmured, and boiled along its bed of grass, under an arch of willow-trees. The big stones, impeding the flow, had around them a cushion of water, a sort of cravat ending in a knot of foam. In some places, there were cascades, a foot wide, often invisible, which made under the leaves, under the tendrils, under a roof of verdure, a big noise at once angry and gentle; then, further on, the banks widened out, and you saw a small, placid lake where trouts were swimming in the midst of all that green vegetation which keeps undulating in the depths of tranquil streams.
Mederic went on without a halt, seeing nothing, and with only this thought in his mind: "My first letter is for the Poivron family, then I have one for M. Renardet; so I must cross the wood."
His blue blouse, fastened round his waist by a black leathern belt moved in a quick, regular fashion above the green hedge of the willow-trees; and his stick of stout holly kept time with the steady movement of his legs.
Then, he crossed the Brindelle over a bridge formed of a single tree thrown lengthwise, with a rope attached to two stakes driven into the river's banks as its only balustrade.
The wood, which belonged to M. Renardet, the Mayor of Carvelin, and the largest landowner in the district, consisted of a number of huge old trees, straight as pillars, and extending for about half a league along the left-bank of the stream which served as a boundary for this immense arch of foliage. Alongside the water there were large shrubs warmed by the sun; but under the trees you found nothing but moss, thick, soft, plastic moss, which exhaled into the stagnant air a light odor of loam with withered branches.
Mederic slackened his pace, took off his black cap adorned with red lace, and wiped his forehead, for it was by this time hot in the meadows, though it was not yet eight o'clock in the morning.
He had just recovered from the effects of the heat, and resumed his accelerated pace when he noticed at the foot of a tree a knife, a child's small knife. When he picked it up, he discovered a thimble and also a needle-case not far away.
Having taken up these objects, he thought: "I'll intrust them to the Mayor," and he resumed his journey, but now he kept his eyes open expecting to find something else.
All of a sudden, he drew up stiffly as if he had knocked himself against a wooden bar; for, ten paces in front of him, lay stretched on her back a little girl, quite naked, on the moss. She was about twelve years old. Her arms were hanging down, her legs parted, and her face covered with a handkerchief. There were little spots of blood on her thighs.
Mederic advanced now on tiptoe, as if he were afraid to make a noise, apprehended some danger, and he glanced towards the spot uneasily.
What was this? No doubt, she was asleep. Then, he reflected that a person does not go to sleep thus naked, at half-past seven in the morning under cool trees. So then she must be dead; and he must be face to face with a crime. At this thought, a cold shiver ran through his frame, although he was an old soldier. And then a murder was such a rare thing in the country, and above all the murder of a child, that he could not believe his eyes. But she had no wound – nothing save this blood stuck on her leg. How, then, had she been killed?
He stopped quite near her; and he stared at her, while he leaned on his stick. Certainly, he knew her, as he knew all the inhabitants of the district; but, not being able to get a look at her face, he could not guess her name. He stooped forward in order to take off the handkerchief which covered her face, then paused with outstretched hand, restrained by an idea that occurred to him.
Had he the right to disarrange anything in the condition of the corpse before the magisterial investigation? He pictured justice to himself as a kind of general whom nothing escapes, and who attaches as much importance to a lost button as to a stab of a knife in the stomach. Perhaps under this handkerchief evidence to support a capital charge could be found; in fact if there were sufficient proof there to secure a conviction, it might lost its value, if touched by an awkward hand.
Then, he raised himself with the intention of hastening towards the Mayor's residence, but again another thought held him back. If the little girl was still alive, by any chance, he could not leave her lying there in this way. He sank on his knees very gently, a little bit away from her through precaution, and extended his hand towards her feet. It was icy cold, with the terrible coldness which makes the dead flesh frightful, and which leaves us no longer in doubt. The letter-carrier, as he touched her, felt his heart in his mouth, as he said to himself afterwards and his lips were parched with dry spittle. Rising up abruptly he rushed off under the trees towards M. Renardet's house.
He walked on in double-quick time, with his stick under his arm, his hands clenched, and his head thrust forward, and his leathern bag, filled with letters and newspapers, kept regularly flapping at his side.
The Mayor's residence was at the end of the wood which he used as a park, and one side of it was washed by a little pool formed at this spot by the Brindelle.
It was a big, square house of gray stone, very old, which had stood many a siege in former days, and at the end of it was a huge tower, twenty meters high, built in the water.
From the top of this fortress the entire country around it could be seen in olden times. It was called the Fox's tower, without anyone knowing exactly why; and from this appellation, no doubt, had come the name Renardet, borne by the owners of this fief, which had remained in the same family, it was said, for more than two hundred years. For the Renardets formed part of the upper middle class all but noble to be met with so often in the provinces before the Revolution.
The postman dashed into the kitchen where the servants were taking breakfast, and exclaimed:
"Is the Mayor up? I want to speak to him at once."
Mederic was recognized as a man of weight and authority, and it was soon understood that something serious had happened.
As soon as word was brought to M. Renardet, he ordered the postman to be sent up to him. Pale and out of breath, with his cap in his hand, Mederic found the Mayor seated in front of a long table covered with scattered papers.
He was a big, tall man, heavy and red-faced, strong as an ox and was greatly liked in the district, though of an excessively violent disposition. Very nearly forty years old, and a widower for the past six months, he lived on his estate like a country gentleman. His choleric temperament had often brought him into trouble, from which the magistrates of Rouy-le-Tors, like indulgent and prudent friends, had extricated him. Had he not one day thrown the conductor of the diligence from the top of his seat because he was near crushing his retriever, Micmac? Had he not broken the ribs of a gamekeeper, who abused him for having, with a gun in his hand, passed through a neighbor's property? Had he not even caught by the collar the sub-prefect, who stopped in the village in the course of an administrative round described by M. Renardet as an electioneering round; for he was against the government, according to his family tradition.
The Mayor asked:
"What's the matter now, Mederic?"
"I found a little girl dead in your wood."
Renardet rose up, with his face the color of brick.
"Do you say – a little girl?"
"Yes, m'sieur, a little girl, quite naked, on her back, with blood on her, dead – quite dead!"
The Mayor gave vent to an oath:
"My God, I'd make a bet 'tis little Louise Roqué! I have just learned that she did not go home to her mother last night. Where did you find her?"
The postman pointed out where the place was, gave full details, and offered to conduct the Mayor to the spot.
But Renardet became brusque:
"No, I don't need you. Send the steward, the Mayor's secretary, and the doctor immediately to me, and resume your rounds. Quick, quick, go and tell them to meet me in the woods."
The letter-carrier, a man used to discipline, obeyed and withdrew, angry and grieved at not being able to be present at the investigation.
The Mayor, in his turn, prepared to go out, took his hat, a big soft hat, and paused for a few seconds on the threshold of his abode. In front of him stretched a wide sward, in which three large patches were conspicuous – three large beds of flowers in full bloom, one facing the house and the others at either side of it. Further on, rose skyward the principal trees in the wood, while at the left, above the Brindelle widened into a pool, could be seen long meadows, an entirely green flat sweep of the country, cut by dikes and willow edges like monsters, twisted dwarf-trees, always cut short, and having on their thick squat trunks a quivering tuft of thick branches.
At the right, behind the stables, the outhouses, all the buildings connected with the property, might be seen the village, which was wealthy, being mainly inhabited by rearers of oxen.
Renardet slowly descended the steps in front of his house, and turning to the left, gained the water's edge, which he followed at a slow pace, his hand behind his back. He went on with bent head, and from time to time he glanced round in search of the persons for whom he had sent.
When he stood beneath the trees, he stopped, took off his hat, and wiped his forehead as Mederic had done; for the burning sun was falling in fiery rain upon the ground. Then the Mayor resumed his journey, stopped once more, and retraced his steps. Suddenly, stooping down, he steeped his handkerchief in the stream that glided at his feet, and stretched it round his head, under his hat. Drops of water flowed along his temples over his ears always purple over his strong red neck, and made their way, one after the other, under his white shirt-collar.
As nobody yet appeared he began tapping with his foot, then he called out —
"Hallo! Hallo!"
A voice at his right, answered:
"Hallo! Hallo!"
And the doctor appeared under the trees. He was a thin little man, an ex-military surgeon, who passed in the neighborhood for a very skillful practitioner. He limped, having been wounded while in the service, and had to use a stick to assist him in walking.
Next came the steward and the Mayor's secretary, who, having been sent for at the same time, arrived together. They looked scared, and hurried forward out of breath, walking and trotting in turn in order to hasten their progress, and moving their arms up and down so vigorously that they seemed to do more work with them than with their legs.
Renardet said to the doctor:
"You know what the trouble is about?"
"Yes, a child found dead in the wood by Mederic."
"That's quite correct. Come on."
They walked on side by side, followed by the two men.
Their steps made no noise on the moss, their eyes were gazing downward right in front of them.
The doctor hastened his steps, interested by the discovery. As soon as they were near the corpse, he bent down to examine it without touching it. He had put on a pair of glasses, as when one is looking at some curious object, and turned round very quietly.
He said without rising up:
"Violated and assassinated, as we are going to prove presently. This little girl moreover, is almost a woman – look at her throat."
Her two breasts, already nearly full-developed, fell over her chest, relaxed by death.
The doctor lightly drew away the handkerchief which covered her face. It looked black, frightful, the tongue protruding, the eyes bloodshot. He went on:
"Faith, she was strangled the moment the deed was done."
He felt her neck:
"Strangled with the hands without leaving any special trace, neither the mark of the nails nor the imprint of the fingers. Quite right. It is little Louise Roqué, sure enough!"
He delicately replaced the handkerchief:
"There's nothing for me to do – She's been dead for the last hour at least. We must give notice of the matter to the authorities."
Renardet, standing up, with his hands behind his back, kept staring with a stony look at the little body exposed to view on the grass. He murmured:
"What a wretch! We must find the clothes."
The doctor felt the hands, the arms, the legs. He said:
"She must have been bathing, no doubt. They ought to be at the water's edge."
The Mayor thereupon gave directions:
"Do you, Princépe" (this was his secretary), "go and look for those clothes for me along the river. Do you, Maxime" (this was the steward), "hurry on towards Roug-le-Tors, and bring on here to me the examining magistrate with the gendarmes. They must be here within an hour. You understand."
The two men quickly departed, and Renardet said to the doctor:
"What miscreant has been able to do such a deed in this part of the country."
The doctor murmured:
"Who knows? Everyone is capable of that? Everyone in particular and nobody in general. No matter, it must be some prowler, some workman out of employment. As we live under a Republic, we must expect to meet only this kind of person along the roads."
Both of them were Bonapartists.
The Mayor went on:
"Yes, it can only be a stranger, a passer-by, a vagabond without heart or home."
The doctor added with the shadow of a smile on his face:
"And without a wife. Having neither a good supper nor a good bed, he procured the rest for himself. You can't tell how many men there may be in the world capable of a crime at a given moment. Did you know that this little girl had disappeared?"
And with the end of his stick he touched one after the other the stiffened fingers of the corpse, resting on them as on the keys of a piano.
"Yes, the mother came last night to look for me about nine o'clock, the child not having come home from supper up to seven. We went to try and find her along the roads up to midnight, but we did not think of the wood. However, we needed daylight to carry out a search with a practical result."
"Will you have a cigar?" said the doctor.
"Thanks, I don't care to smoke. It gives me a turn to look at this."
They both remained standing in front of this corpse of a young girl, so pale, on the dark moss. A big fly with a blue belly that was walking along one of the thighs, stopped at the bloodstains, went on again, always rising higher, ran along the side with his lively, jerky movements, climbed up one of the breasts, then came back again to explore the other, looking out for something to drink on this dead girl. The two men kept watching this wandering black speck.
The doctor said:
"How pretty it is, a fly on the skin! The ladies of the last century had good reason to paste them on their faces. Why has this fashion gone out?"
The Mayor seemed not to hear, plunged as he was in deep thought.
But, all of a sudden, he turned round, for he was surprised by a shrill noise. A woman in a cap and a blue apron rushed up under the trees. It was the mother, La Roqué. As soon as she saw Renardet she began to shriek:
"My little girl, where's my little girl?" in such a distracted manner that she did not glance down at the ground. Suddenly, she saw the corpse, stopped short, clasped her hands, and raised both her arms while she uttered a sharp, heartrending cry – the cry of a mutilated animal. Then she rushed towards the body, fell on her knees, and took off, as if she would have snatched it away, the handkerchief that covered the face. When she saw that frightful countenance, black and convulsed, she rose up with a shudder, then pressed her face against the ground, giving vent to terrible and continuous screams with her mouth close to the thick moss.
Her tall, thin frame, to which her clothes were clinging tightly, was palpitating, shaken with convulsions. They could see her bony ankles and her dried up calves covered with thick blue stockings, shivering horribly; and she went digging the soil with her crooked fingers as if in order to make a hole there to hide herself in it.
The doctor moved, said in a low tone:
"Poor old woman!"
Renardet felt a strange rumbling in his stomach; then he gave vent to a sort of loud sneeze that issued at the same time through his nose and through his mouth; and, drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, he began to weep internally, coughing, sobbing, and wiping his face noisily.
He stammered —
"Damn – damn – damned pig to do this! I would like to see him guillotined."
But Princépe reappeared, with his hands empty. He murmured —
"I have found nothing, M'sieu le Maire, nothing at all anywhere."
The doctor, scared, replied in a thick voice, drowned in tears:
"What is that you could not find?"
"The little girl's clothes."
"Well – well – look again, and find them – or you'll have to answer to me."
The man, knowing that the Mayor would not brook opposition, set forth again with hesitating steps, casting on the corpse indirect and timid glances.
Distant voices arose under the trees, a confused sound, the noise of an approaching crowd; for Mederic had, in the course of his rounds carried the news from door to door. The people of the neighborhood, stupefied at first, had gone chatting from their own firesides into the street, from one threshold to another. Then they gathered together. They talked over, discussed, and commented on the event for some minutes, and they had now come to see it for themselves.
They arrived in groups a little faltering and uneasy through fear of the first impression of such a scene on their minds. When they saw the body they stopped, not daring to advance, and speaking low. They grew bold, went on a few steps, stopped again, advanced once more, and soon they formed around the dead girl, her mother, the doctor, and Renardet, a thick circle, agitated and noisy, which crushed forward under the sudden pushes of the last comers. And now they touched the corpse. Some of them even bent down to feel it with their fingers. The doctor kept them back. But the mayor, waking abruptly out of his torpor, broke into a rage, and, seizing Dr. Labarbe's stick, flung himself on his townspeople, stammering:
"Clear out – clear out – you pack of brutes – clear out!"
And in a second, the crowd of sightseers had fallen back two hundred meters.
La Roqué was lifted up, turned round, and placed in a sitting posture, and she now remained weeping with her hands clasped over her face.
The occurrence was discussed among the crowd; and young lads' eager eyes curiously scrutinized this naked body of a girl. Renardet perceived this, and abruptly taking off his vest, he flung it over the little girl, who was entirely lost to view under the wide garment.
The spectators drew near quietly. The wood was filled with people, and a continuous hum of voices rose up under the tangled foliage of the tall trees.
The Mayor, in his shirt sleeves, remained standing, with his stick in his hands, in a fighting attitude. He seemed exasperated by this curiosity on the part of the people, and kept repeating:
"If one of you come nearer, I'll break his head just as I would a dog's."
The peasants were greatly afraid of him. They held back. Dr. Labarbe, who was smoking, sat down beside La Roqué, and spoke to her in order to distract her attention. The old woman soon removed her hands from her face, and she replied with a flood of tearful words, emptying her grief in copious talk. She told the whole story of her life, her marriage, the death of her man, a bullsticker, who had been gored to death, the infancy of her daughter, her wretched existence as a widow without resources and with a child to support. She had only this one, her little Louise, and the child had been killed – killed in this wood. All of a sudden, she felt anxious to see it again, and dragging herself on her knees towards the corpse, she raised up one corner of the garment that covered her; then she let it fall again, and began wailing once more. The crowd remained silent, eagerly watching all the mother's gestures.
But all of a sudden, a great swaying movement took place, and there was a cry of "the gendarmes! the gendarmes!"
The gendarmes appeared in the distance, coming on at a rapid trot, escorting their captain and a little gentleman with red whiskers, who was bobbing up and down like a monkey on a big white mare.
The steward had just found M. Putoin, the examining magistrate, at the moment when he was mounting his horse to take his daily ride, for he posed as a good horseman to the great amusement of the officers.
He alighted along with the captain, and passed the hands of the Mayor and the Doctor, casting a ferret-like glance on the linen vest which swelled above the body lying underneath.
When he was thoroughly acquainted with the facts, he first gave orders to get rid of the public, whom the gendarmes drove out of the wood, but who soon reappeared in the meadow, and formed a hedge, a big hedge of excited and moving heads all along the Brindelle, on the other side of the stream.
The doctor in his turn, gave explanations, of which Renardet took a note in his memorandum book. All the evidence was given, taken down, and commented on without leading to any discovery. Maxime, too, came back without having found any trace of the clothes.
This disappearance surprised everybody; no one could explain it on the theory of theft, and as these rags were not worth twenty sous, even this theory was inadmissible.
The examining magistrate, the mayor, the captain, and the doctor, set to work by searching in pairs, putting aside the smallest branches along the water.
Renardet said to the judge:
"How does it happen that this wretch has concealed or carried away the clothes, and has thus left the body exposed in the open air and visible to everyone?"
The other, sly and knowing, answered:
"Ha! Ha! Perhaps a dodge? This crime has been committed either by a brute or by a crafty blackguard. In any case we'll easily succeed in finding him."
The rolling of a vehicle made them turn their heads round. It was the deputy magistrate, the doctor and the registrar of the court who had arrived in their turn. They resumed their searches, all chatting in an animated fashion.
Renardet said suddenly:
"Do you know that I am keeping you to lunch with me?"
Everyone smilingly accepted the invitation, and the examining magistrate, finding that the case of little Louise Roqué was quite enough to bother about for one day, turned towards the Mayor:
"I can have the body brought to your house, can I not? You have a room in which you can keep it for me till this evening."
The other got confused, and stammered:
"Yes – no – no. To tell the truth, I prefer that it should not come into my house on account of – on account of my servants who are already talking about ghosts in – in my tower, in the Fox's tower. You know – I could no longer keep a single one. No – I prefer not to have it in my house."
The magistrate began to smile:
"Good! I am going to get it carried off at once to Roug, for the legal examination."
Turning towards the door:
"I can make use of your trap can I not?"
"Yes, certainly."
Everybody came back to the place where the corpse lay. La Roqué now, seated beside her daughter, had caught hold of her head, and was staring right before her, with a wandering listless eye.
The two doctors endeavored to lead her away, so that she might not witness the dead girl's removal; but she understood at once what they wanted to do, and, flinging herself on the body, she seized it in both arms. Lying on top of the corpse, she exclaimed:
"You shall not have it – 'tis mine – 'tis mine now. They have killed her on me, and I want to keep her – you shall not have her – !"
All the men, affected and not knowing how to act, remained standing around her. Renardet fell on his knees, and said to her:
"Listen, La Roqué, it is necessary in order to find out who killed her. Without this, it could not be found out. We must make a search for him in order to punish him. When we have found him, we'll give her up to you. I promise you this."
This explanation shook the woman's mind, and a feeling of hatred manifested itself in her distracted glance.
"So then they'll take him?"
"Yes, I promise you that."
She rose up, deciding to let them do as they liked; but, when the captain remarked:
"'Tis surprising that her clothes were not found."
A new idea, which she had not previously thought of, abruptly found an entrance into her brain, and she asked:
"Where are her clothes. They're mine. I want them. Where have they been put?"
They explained to her that they had not been found. Then she called out for them with desperate obstinacy and with repeated moans.
"They're mine – I want them. Where are they? I want them!"
The more they tried to calm her the more she sobbed, and persisted in her demands. She no longer wanted the body, she insisted on having the clothes, as much perhaps through the unconscious cupidity of a wretched being to whom a piece of silver represents a fortune, as through maternal tenderness.
