The Necklace

by Guy de Maupassant

SHE WAS ONE OF THOSE PRETTY AND CHARMING GIRLS BORN, as

though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no

marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood,

loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself

be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were

simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was

as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no

caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or

family. Their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of

wit, are their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the

highest lady in the land.

She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury.

She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn

chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her

class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The

sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house

aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She

imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches

in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in

large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She

imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture

supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms,

created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and

sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious

longings.

When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-

old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen,

exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she

imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with

folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate

food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an

inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of

asparagus chicken.

She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she

loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to

charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.

She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit,

because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep

whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.

***

One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large

envelope in his hand.

"Here's something for you," he said.

Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these

words:

"The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the

pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the Ministry on

the evening of Monday, January the 18th."

Instead of being delighted, as her-husband hoped, she flung the invitation

petulantly across the table, murmuring:

"What do you want me to do with this?"

"Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out, and this is a

great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Everyone wants one; it's

very select, and very few go to the clerks. You'll see all the really big

people there."

She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: "And what do

you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?"

He had not thought about it; he stammered:

"Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me...."

He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was

beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her

eyes towards the corners of her mouth.

"What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?" he faltered.

But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice,

wiping her wet cheeks:

"Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your

invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I

shall."

He was heart-broken.

"Look here, Mathilde," he persisted. :What would be the cost of a suitable

dress, which you could use on other occasions as well, something very

simple?"

She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering

for how large a sum she could ask without bringing upon herself an

immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror from the careful-minded

clerk.

At last she replied with some hesitation:

"I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs."

He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving

for a gun, intending to get a little shooting next summer on the plain of

Nanterre with some friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays.

Nevertheless he said: "Very well. I'll give you four hundred francs. But try

and get a really nice dress with the money."

The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy

and anxious. Her dress was ready, however. One evening her husband

said to her:

"What's the matter with you? You've been very odd for the last three days."

"I'm utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear,"

she replied. "I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to

the party."

"Wear flowers," he said. "They're very smart at this time of the year. For ten

francs you could get two or three gorgeous roses."

She was not convinced.

"No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot

of rich women."

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed her husband. "Go and see Madame

Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her quite well

enough for that."

She uttered a cry of delight.

"That's true. I never thought of it."

Next day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble.

Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large box, brought

it to Madame Loisel, opened it, and said:

"Choose, my dear."

First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross

in gold and gems, of exquisite workmanship. She tried the effect of the

jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave

them, to give them up. She kept on asking:

"Haven't you anything else?"

"Yes. Look for yourself. I don't know what you would like best."

Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond

necklace; her heart began to beat covetousIy. Her hands trembled as she

lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained

in ecstasy at sight of herself.

Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish:

"Could you lend me this, just this alone?"

"Yes, of course."

She flung herself on her friend's breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went

away with her treasure. The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a

success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling,

and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired

her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the Under-Secretaries of

State were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.

She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for

anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a

cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of

the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to

her feminine heart.

She left about four o'clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had

been dozing in a deserted little room, in company with three other men

whose wives were having a good time. He threw over her shoulders the

garments he had brought for them to go home in, modest everyday clothes,

whose poverty clashed with the beauty of the ball-dress. She was

conscious of this and was anxious to hurry away, so that she should not be

noticed by the other women putting on their costly furs.

Loisel restrained her.

"Wait a little. You'll catch cold in the open. I'm going to fetch a cab."

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended-the staircase. When

they were out in the street they could not find a cab; they began to look for

one, shouting at the drivers whom they saw passing in the distance.

They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and shivering. At last they

found on the quay one of those old night prowling carriages which are only

to be seen in Paris after dark, as though they were ashamed of their

shabbiness in the daylight.

It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they walked

up to their own apartment. It was the end, for her. As for him, he was

thinking that he must be at the office at ten.

She took off the garments in which she had wrapped her shoulders, so as

to see herself in all her glory before the mirror. But suddenly she uttered a

cry. The necklace was no longer round her neck!

"What's the matter with you?" asked her husband, already half undressed.

She turned towards him in the utmost distress.

"I . . . I . . . I've no longer got Madame Forestier's necklace. . . ."

He started with astonishment.

"What! . . . Impossible!"

They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the coat, in the

pockets, everywhere. They could not find it.

"Are you sure that you still had it on when you came away from the ball?"

he asked.

"Yes, I touched it in the hall at the Ministry."

"But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall."

"Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the cab?"

"No. You didn't notice it, did you?"

"No."

They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put on his clothes

again.

"I'll go over all the ground we walked," he said, "and see if I can't find it."

And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to

get into bed, huddled on a chair, without volition or power of thought.

Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing.

He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a reward, to the

cab companies, everywhere that a ray of hope impelled him.

She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at this fearful

catastrophe.

Loisel came home at night, his face lined and pale; he had discovered

nothing.

"You must write to your friend," he said, "and tell her that you've broken the

clasp of her necklace and are getting it mended. That will give us time to

look about us."

She wrote at his dictation.

***

By the end of a week they had lost all hope.

Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

"We must see about replacing the diamonds."

Next day they took the box which had held the necklace and went to the

jewellers whose name was inside. He consulted his books.

"It was not I who sold this necklace, Madame; I must have merely supplied

the clasp."

Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for another necklace

like the first, consulting their memories, both ill with remorse and anguish of

mind.

In a shop at the Palais-Royal they found a string of diamonds which

seemed to them exactly like the one they were looking for. It was worth

forty thousand francs. They were allowed to have it for thirty-six thousand.

They begged the jeweller not tO sell it for three days. And they arranged

matters on the understanding that it would be taken back for thirty-four

thousand francs, if the first one were found before the end of February.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his father. He

intended to borrow the rest.

He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from

another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered

into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of

money-lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence,

risked his signature without even knowing it he could honour it, and,

appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall

upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral

torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller's

counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the

latter said to her in a chilly voice:

"You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it."

She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the

substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said?

Would she not have taken her for a thief?

***

Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the

very first she played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off.

She would pay it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat; they

took a garret under the roof.

She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the

kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse

pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and

dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took

the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each

landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the

fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling,

insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.

Every month notes had to be paid off, others renewed, time gained.

Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's

accounts, and often at night he did copying at twopence-halfpenny a page.

And this life lasted ten years.

At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything, the usurer's

charges and the accumulation of superimposed interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong,

hard, coarse women of poor households. Her hair was badly done, her

skirts were awry, her hands were red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the

water slopped all over the floor when she scrubbed it. But sometimes,

when her husband was at the office, she sat down by the window and

thought of that evening long ago, of the ball at which she had been so

beautiful and so much admired.

What would have happened if she had never lost those jewels. Who

knows? Who knows? How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to

ruin or to save!

One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-Elysees to

freshen herself after the labours of the week, she caught sight suddenly of

a woman who was taking a child out for a walk. It was Madame Forestier,

still young, still beautiful, still attractive.

Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her?

Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

She went up to her.

"Good morning, Jeanne."

The other did not recognise her, and was surprised at being thus familiarly

addressed by a poor woman.

"But . . . Madame . . ." she stammered. "I don't know . . . you must be

making a mistake."

"No . . . I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry.

"Oh! . . . my poor Mathilde, how you have changed! . . ."

"Yes, I've had some hard times since I saw you last; and many sorrows . . .

and all on your account."

"On my account! . . . How was that?"

"You remember the diamond necklace you lent me for the ball at the

Ministry?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"How could you? Why, you brought it back."

"I brought you another one just like it. And for the last ten years we have

been paying for it. You realise it wasn't easy for us; we had no money. . . .

Well, it's paid for at last, and I'm glad indeed."

Madame Forestier had halted.

"You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

"Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike."

And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very

most five hundred francs! . . . "

The Necklace was featured as The Short Story of the Day on Tue, Dec

11, 2012

"The Terror"

by Guy de Maupassant

You say you cannot possibly understand it, and I believe you. You think I

am losing my mind? Perhaps I am, but for other reasons than those you

imagine, my dear friend.

Yes, I am going to be married, and will tell you what has led me to take that

step.

I may add that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife

to-morrow; I have only seen her four or five times. I know that there is

nothing unpleasing about her, and that is enough for my purpose. She is

small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day after to-morrow I shall ardently

wish for a tall, dark, thin woman.

She is not rich, and belongs to the middle classes. She is a girl such as you

may find by the gross, well adapted for matrimony, without any apparent

faults, and with no particularly striking qualities. People say of her:

"Mlle. Lajolle is a very nice girl," and tomorrow they will say: "What a very

nice woman Madame Raymon is." She belongs, in a word, to that immense

number of girls whom one is glad to have for one's wife, till the moment

comes when one discovers that one happens to prefer all other women to

that particular woman whom one has married.

"Well," you will say to me, "what on earth did you get married for?"

I hardly like to tell you the strange and seemingly improbable reason that

urged me on to this senseless act; the fact, however, is that I am afraid of

being alone.

I don't know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state of

mind is so wretched that you will pity me and despise me.

I do not want to be alone any longer at night. I want to feel that there is

some one close to me, touching me, a being who can speak and say

something, no matter what it be.

I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side, so that I may be able to

ask some sudden question, a stupid question even, if I feel inclined, so that

I may hear a human voice, and feel that there is some waking soul close to

me, some one whose reason is at work; so that when I hastily light the

candle I may see some human face by my side--because--because --I am

ashamed to confess it--because I am afraid of being alone.

Oh, you don't understand me yet.

I am not afraid of any danger; if a man were to come into the room, I should

kill him without trembling. I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I believe in the

supernatural. I am not afraid of dead people, for I believe in the total

annihilation of every being that disappears from the face of this earth.

Well--yes, well, it must be told: I am afraid of myself, afraid of that horrible

sensation of incomprehensible fear.

You may laugh, if you like. It is terrible, and I cannot get over it. I am afraid

of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar objects; which are animated, as

far as I am concerned, by a kind of animal life. Above all, I am afraid of my

own dreadful thoughts, of my reason, which seems as if it were about to

leave me, driven away by a mysterious and invisible agony.

At first I feel a vague uneasiness in my mind, which causes a cold shiver to

run all over me. I look round, and of course nothing is to be seen, and I

wish that there were something there, no matter what, as long as it were

something tangible. I am frightened merely because I cannot understand

my own terror.

If I speak, I am afraid of my own voice. If I walk, I am afraid of I know not

what, behind the door, behind the curtains, in the cupboard, or under my

bed, and yet all the time I know there is nothing anywhere, and I turn round

suddenly because I am afraid of what is behind me, although there is

nothing there, and I know it.

I become agitated. I feel that my fear increases, and so I shut myself up in

my own room, get into bed, and hide under the clothes; and there,

cowering down, rolled into a ball, I close my eyes in despair, and remain

thus for an indefinite time, remembering that my candle is alight on the

table by my bedside, and that I ought to put it out, and yet--I dare not do it.

It is very terrible, is it not, to be like that?

Formerly I felt nothing of all that. I came home quite calm, and went up and

down my apartment without anything disturbing my peace of mind. Had any

one told me that I should be attacked by a malady--for I can call it nothing

else--of most improbable fear, such a stupid and terrible malady as it is, I

should have laughed outright. I was certainly never afraid of opening the

door in the dark. I went to bed slowly, without locking it, and never got up in

the middle of the night to make sure that everything was firmly closed.

It began last year in a very strange manner on a damp autumn evening.

When my servant had left the room, after I had dined, I asked myself what I

was going to do. I walked up and down my room for some time, feeling

tired without any reason for it, unable to work, and even without energy to

read. A fine rain was falling, and I felt unhappy, a prey to one of those fits of

despondency, without any apparent cause, which make us feel inclined to

cry, or to talk, no matter to whom, so as to shake off our depressing

thoughts.

I felt that I was alone, and my rooms seemed to me to be more empty than

they had ever been before. I was in the midst of infinite and overwhelming

solitude. What was I to do? I sat down, but a kind of nervous impatience

seemed to affect my legs, so I got up and began to walk about again. I was,

perhaps, rather feverish, for my hands, which I had clasped behind me, as

one often does when walking slowly, almost seemed to burn one another.

Then suddenly a cold shiver ran down my back, and I thought the damp air

might have penetrated into my rooms, so I lit the fire for the first time that

year, and sat down again and looked at the flames. But soon I felt that I

could not possibly remain quiet, and so I got up again and determined to go

out, to pull myself together, and to find a friend to bear me company.

I could not find anyone, so I walked to the boulevard ro try and meet some

acquaintance or other there.

It was wretched everywhere, and the wet pavement glistened in the

gaslight, while the oppressive warmth of the almost impalpable rain lay

heavily over the streets and seemed to obscure the light of the lamps.

I went on slowly, saying to myself: "I shall not find a soul to talk to."

I glanced into several cafes, from the Madeleine as far as the Faubourg

Poissoniere, and saw many unhappy-looking individuals sitting at the tables

who did not seem even to have enough energy left to finish the

refreshments they had ordered.

For a long time I wandered aimlessly up and down, and about midnight I

started for home. I was very calm and very tired. My janitor opened the

door at once, which was quite unusual for him, and I thought that another

lodger had probably just come in.

When I go out I always double-lock the door of my room, and I found it

merely closed, which surprised me; but I supposed that some letters had

been brought up for me in the course of the evening.

I went in, and found my fire still burning so that it lighted up the room a little,

and, while in the act of taking up a candle, I noticed somebody sitting in my

armchair by the fire, warming his feet, with his back toward me.

I was not in the slightest degree frightened. I thought, very naturally, that

some friend or other had come to see me. No doubt the porter, to whom I

had said I was going out, had lent him his own key. In a moment I

remembered all the circumstances of my return, how the street door had

been opened immediately, and that my own door was only latched and not

locked.

I could see nothing of my friend but his head, and he had evidently gone to

sleep while waiting for me, so I went up to him to rouse him. I saw him quite

distinctly; his right arm was hanging down and his legs were crossed; the

position of his head, which was somewhat inclined to the left of the

armchair, seemed to indicate that he was asleep. "Who can it be?" I asked

myself. I could not see clearly, as the room was rather dark, so I put out my

hand to touch him on the shoulder, and it came in contact with the back of

the chair. There was nobody there; the seat was empty.

I fairly jumped with fright. For a moment I drew back as if confronted by

some terrible danger; then I turned round again, impelled by an imperious

standing upright, panting with fear, so upset that I could not collect my

thoughts, and ready to faint.

But I am a cool man, and soon recovered myself. I thought: "It is a mere

hallucination, that is all," and I immediately began to reflect on this

phenomenon. Thoughts fly quickly at such moments.

I had been suffering from an hallucination, that was an incontestable fact.

My mind had been perfectly lucid and had acted regularly and logically, so

there was nothing the matter with the brain. It was only my eyes that had

been deceived; they had had a vision, one of those visions which lead

simple folk to believe in miracles. It was a nervous seizure of the optical

apparatus, nothing more; the eyes were rather congested, perhaps.

I lit my candle, and when I stooped down to the fire in doing so I noticed

that I was trembling, and I raised myself up with a jump, as if somebody

had touched me from behind.

I was certainly not by any means calm.

I walked up and down a little, and hummed a tune or two. Then I double-

locked the door and felt rather reassured; now, at any rate, nobody could

come in.

I sat down again and thought over my adventure for a long time; then I

went to bed and blew out my light.

For some minutes all went well; I lay quietly on my back, but presently an

irresistible desire seized me to look round the room, and I turned over on

my side.

My fire was nearly out, and the few glowing embers threw a faint light on

the floor by the chair, where I fancied I saw the man sitting again.

I quickly struck a match, but I had been mistaken; there was nothing there.

I got up, however, and hid the chair behind my bed, and tried to get to

sleep, as the room was now dark; but I had not forgotten myself for more

than five minutes, when in my dream I saw all the scene which I had

previously witnessed as clearly as if it were reality. I woke up with a start,

and having lit the candle, sat up in bed, without venturing even to try to go

to sleep again.

Twice, however, sleep overcame me for a few moments in spite of myself,

and twice I saw the same thing again, till I fancied I was going mad. When

day broke, however, I thought that I was cured, and slept peacefully till

noon.

It was all past and over. I had been feverish, had had the nightmare. I know

not what. I had been ill, in fact, but yet thought I was a great fool.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly that evening. I dined at a restaurant and

afterward went to the theatre, and then started for home. But as I got near

the house I was once more seized by a strange feeling of uneasiness. I

was afraid of seeing him again. I was not afraid of him, not afraid of his

presence, in which I did not believe; but I was afraid of being deceived

again. I was afraid of some fresh hallucination, afraid lest fear should take

possession of me.

For more than an hour I wandered up and down the pavement; then,

feeling that I was really too foolish, I returned home. I breathed so hard that

I could hardly get upstairs, and remained standing outside my door for

more than ten minutes; then suddenly I had a courageous impulse and my

will asserted itself. I inserted my key into the lock, and went into the

apartment with a candle in my hand. I kicked open my bedroom door,

which was partly open, and cast a frightened glance toward the fireplace.

There was nothing there. A-h! What a relief and what a delight! What a

deliverance! I walked up and down briskly and boldly, but I was not

altogether reassured, and kept turning round with a jump; the very shadows

in the corners disquieted me.

I slept badly, and was constantly disturbed by imaginary noises, but did not

see him; no, that was all over.

Since that time I have been afraid of being alone at night. I feel that the

spectre is there, close to me, around me; but it has not appeared to me

again.

And supposing it did, what would it matter, since I do not believe in it, and

know that it is nothing?

However, it still worries me, because I am constantly thinking of it. His right

arm hanging down and his head inclined to the left like a man who was

asleep--I don't want to think about it!

Why, however, am I so persistently possessed with this idea? His feet were

close to the fire!

He haunts me; it is very stupid, but who and what is he? I know that he

does not exist except in my cowardly imagination, in my fears, and in my

agony. There--enough of that!

Yes, it is all very well for me to reason with myself, to stiffen my backbone,

so to say; but I cannot remain at home because I know he is there. I know I

shall not see him again; he will not show himself again; that is all over. But

he is there, all the same, in my thoughts. He remains invisible, but that

does not prevent his being there. He is behind the doors, in the closed

cupboard, in the wardrobe, under the bed, in every dark corner. If I open

the door or the cupboard, if I take the candle to look under the bed and

throw a light on the dark places he is there no longer, but I feel that he is

behind me. I turn round, certain that I shall not see him, that I shall never

see him again; but for all that, he is behind me.

It is very stupid, it is dreadful; but what am I to do? I cannot help it.

But if there were two of us in the place I feel certain that he would not be

there any longer, for he is there just because I am alone, simply and solely

because I am alone!

A Piece of String

by Guy de Maupassant

ALONG ALL THE ROADS around Goderville the peasants and their wives

were coming toward the burgh because it was market day. The men were

proceeding with slow steps, the whole body bent forward at each

movement of their long twisted legs; deformed by their hard work, by the

weight on the plow which, at the same time, raised the left shoulder and

swerved the figure, by the reaping of the wheat which made the knees

spread to make a firm "purchase," by all the slow and painful labors of the

country. Their blouses, blue, "stiff-starched," shining as if varnished,

ornamented with a little design in white at the neck and wrists, puffed about

their bony bodies, seemed like balloons ready to carry them off. From each

of them two feet protruded.

Some led a cow or a calf by a cord, and their wives, walking behind the

animal, whipped its haunches with a leafy branch to hasten its progress.

They carried large baskets on their arms from which, in some cases,

chickens and, in others, ducks thrust out their heads. And they walked with

a quicker, livelier step than their husbands. Their spare straight figures

were wrapped in a scanty little shawl pinned over their flat bosoms, and

their heads were enveloped in a white cloth glued to the hair and

surmounted by a cap.

Then a wagon passed at the jerky trot of a nag, shaking strangely, two men

seated side by side and a woman in the bottom of the vehicle, the latter

holding onto the sides to lessen the hard jolts.

In the public square of Goderville there was a crowd, a throng of human

beings and animals mixed together. The horns of the cattle, the tall hats,

with long nap, of the rich peasant and the headgear of the peasant women

rose above the surface of the assembly. And the clamorous, shrill,

screaming voices made a continuous and savage din which sometimes

was dominated by the robust lungs of some countryman's laugh or the long

lowing of a cow tied to the wall of a house.

All that smacked of the stable, the dairy and the dirt heap, hay and sweat,

giving forth that unpleasant odor, human and animal, peculiar to the people

of the field.

Matre Hauchecome of Breaute had just arrived at Goderville, and he was

directing his steps toward the public square when he perceived upon the

ground a little piece of string. Matre Hauchecome, economical like a true

Norman, thought that everything useful ought to be picked up, and he bent

painfully, for he suffered from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin cord from

the ground and began to roll it carefully when he noticed Matre Malandain,

the harness maker, on the threshold of his door, looking at him. They had

heretofore had business together on the subject of a halter, and they were

on bad terms, both being good haters. Matre Hauchecome was seized with

a sort of shame to be seen thus by his enemy, picking a bit of string out of

the dirt. He concealed his "find" quickly under his blouse, then in his

trousers' pocket; then he pretended to be still looking on the ground for

something which he did not find, and he went toward the market, his head

forward, bent double by his pains.

He was soon lost in the noisy and slowly moving crowd which was busy

with interminable bargainings. The peasants milked, went and came,

perplexed, always in fear of being cheated, not daring to decide, watching

the vender's eye, ever trying to find the trick in the man and the flaw in the

beast.

The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken out

the poultry which lay upon the ground, tied together by the feet, with

terrified eyes and scarlet crests.

They heard offers, stated their prices with a dry air and impassive face, or

perhaps, suddenly deciding on some proposed reduction, shouted to the

customer who was slowly going away: "All right, Matre Authirne, I'll give it

to you for that."

Then lime by lime the square was deserted, and the Angelus ringing at

noon, those who had stayed too long scattered to their shops.

At Jourdain's the great room was full of people eating, as the big court was

full of vehicles of all kinds, carts, gigs, wagons, dumpcarts, yellow with dirt,

mended and patched, raising their shafts to the sky like two arms or

perhaps with their shafts in the ground and their backs in the air.

Just opposite the diners seated at the table the immense fireplace, filled

with bright flames, cast a lively heat on the backs of the row on the right.

Three spits were turning on which were chickens, pigeons and legs of

mutton, and an appetizing odor of roast beef and gravy dripping over the

nicely browned skin rose from the hearth, increased the jovialness and

made everybody's mouth water.

All the aristocracy of the plow ate there at Matre Jourdain's, tavern keeper

and horse dealer, a rascal who had money.

The dishes were passed and emptied, as were the jugs of yellow cider.

Everyone told his affairs, his purchases and sales. They discussed the

crops. The weather was favorable for the green things but not for the

wheat.

Suddenly the drum beat in the court before the house. Everybody rose,

except a few indifferent persons, and ran to the door or to the windows,

their mouths still full and napkins in their hands.

After the public crier had ceased his drumbeating he called out in a jerky

voice, speaking his phrases irregularly:

"It is hereby made known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in general to

all persons present at the market, that there was lost this morning on the

road to Benzeville, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather

pocketbook containing five hundred francs and some business papers. The

finder is requested to return same with all haste to the mayor's office or to

Matre Fortune Houlbreque of Manneville; there will be twenty francs

reward."

Then the man went away. The heavy roll of the drum and the crier's voice

were again heard at a distance.

Then they began to talk of this event, discussing the chances that Matre

Houlbreque had of finding or not finding his pocketbook.

And the meal concluded. They were finishing their coffee when a chief of

the gendarmes appeared upon the threshold.

He inquired:

"Is Matre Hauchecome of Breaute here?"

Matre Hauchecome, seated at the other end of the table, replied:

"Here I am."

And the officer resumed:

"Matre Hauchecome, will you have the goodness to accompany me to the

mayor's office? The mayor would like to talk to you."

The peasant, surprised and disturbed, swallowed at a draught his tiny glass

of brandy, rose and, even more bent than in the morning, for the first steps

after each rest were specially difficult, set out, repeating: "Here I am, here I

am."

The mayor was awaiting him, seated on an armchair. He was the notary of

the vicinity, a stout, serious man with pompous phrases.

"Matre Hauchecome," said he, "you were seen this morning to pick up, on

the road to Benzeville, the pocketbook lost by Matre Houlbreque of

Manneville."

The countryman, astounded, looked at the mayor, already terrified by this

suspicion resting on him without his knowing why.

"Me? Me? Me pick up the pocketbook?"

"Yes, you yourself."

"Word of honor, I never heard of it."

"But you were seen."

"I was seen, me? Who says he saw me?"

"Monsieur Malandain, the harness maker."

The old man remembered, understood and flushed with anger.

"Ah, he saw me, the clodhopper, he saw me pick up this string here, M'sieu

the Mayor." And rummaging in his pocket, he drew out the little piece of

string.

But the mayor, incredulous, shook his head.

"You will not make me believe, Matre Hauchecome, that Monsieur

Malandain, who is a man worthy of credence, mistook this cord for a

pocketbook."

The peasant, furious, lifted his hand, spat at one side to attest his honor,

repeating:

"It is nevertheless the truth of the good God, the sacred truth, M'sieu the

Mayor. I repeat it on my soul and my salvation."

The mayor resumed:

"After picking up the object you stood like a stilt, looking a long while in the

mud to see if any piece of money had fallen out."

The good old man choked with indignation and fear.

"How anyone can tell--how anyone can tell--such lies to take away an

honest man's reputation! How can anyone---"

There was no use in his protesting; nobody believed him. He was con.

fronted with Monsieur Malandain, who repeated and maintained his

affirmation. They abused each other for an hour. At his own request Matre

Hauchecome was searched; nothing was found on him.

Finally the mayor, very much perplexed, discharged him with the warning

that he would consult the public prosecutor and ask for further orders.

The news had spread. As he left the mayor's office the old man was sun

rounded and questioned with a serious or bantering curiosity in which there

was no indignation. He began to tell the story of the string. No one believed

him. They laughed at him.

He went along, stopping his friends, beginning endlessly his statement and

his protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he

had nothing.

They said:

"Old rascal, get out!"

And he grew angry, becoming exasperated, hot and distressed at not

being believed, not knowing what to do and always repeating himself.

Night came. He must depart. He started on his way with three neighbors to

whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the bit of string,

and all along the road he spoke of his adventure.

In the evening he took a turn in the village of Breaute in order to tell it to

everybody. He only met with incredulity.

It made him ill at night.

The next day about one o'clock in the afternoon Marius Paumelle, a hired

man in the employ of Matre Breton, husbandman at Ymanville, returned the

pocketbook and its contents to Matre Houlbreque of Manneville.

This man claimed to have found the object in the road, but not knowing

how to read, he had carried it to the house and given it to his employer.

The news spread through the neighborhood. Matre Hauchecome was

informed of it. He immediately went the circuit and began to recount his

story completed by the happy climax. He was in triumph.

"What grieved me so much was not the thing itself as the lying. There is

nothing so shameful as to be placed under a cloud on account of a lie."

He talked of his adventure all day long; he told it on the highway to people

who were passing by, in the wineshop to people who were drinking there

and to persons coming out of church the following Sunday. He stopped

strangers to tell them about it. He was calm now, and yet something

disturbed him without his knowing exactly what it was. People had the air of

joking while they listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel

that remarks were being made behind his back.

On Tuesday of the next week he went to the market at Goderville, urged

solely by the necessity he felt of discussing the case.

Malandain, standing at his door, began to laugh on seeing him pass. Why?

He approached a farmer from Crequetot who did not let him finish and,

giving him a thump in the stomach, said to his face:

"You big rascal."

Then he turned his back on him.

Matre Hauchecome was confused; why was he called a big rascal?

When he was seated at the table in Jourdain's tavern he commenced to

explain "the affair."

A horse dealer from Monvilliers called to him:

"Come, come, old sharper, that's an old trick; I know all about your piece of

string!"

Hauchecome stammered:

"But since the pocketbook was found."

But the other man replied:

"Shut up, papa, there is one that finds and there is one that reports. At any

rate you are mixed with it."

The peasant stood choking. He understood. They accused him of having

had the pocketbook returned by a confederate, by an accomplice.

He tried to protest. All the table began to laugh.

He could not finish his dinner and went away in the midst of jeers.

He went home ashamed and indignant, choking with anger and confusion,

the more dejected that he was capable, with his Norman cunning, of doing

what they had accused him of and ever boasting of it as of a good turn. His

innocence to him, in a confused way, was impossible to prove, as his

sharpness was known. And he was stricken to the heart by the injustice of

the suspicion.

Then he began to recount the adventures again, prolonging his history

every day, adding each time new reasons, more energetic protestations,

more solemn oaths which he imagined and prepared in his hours of

solitude, his whole mind given up to the story of the string. He was believed

so much the less as his defense was more complicated and his arguing

more subtile.

"Those are lying excuses," they said behind his back.

He felt it, consumed his heart over it and wore himself out with useless

efforts. He wasted away before their very eyes.

The wags now made him tell about the string to amuse them, as they make

a soldier who has been on a campaign tell about his battles. His mind,

touched to the depth, began to weaken.

Toward the end of December he took to his bed.

He died in the first days of January, and in the delirium of his death

struggles he kept claiming his innocence, reiterating:

"A piece of string, a piece of string--look--here it is, M'sieu the Mayor."

Suicides

by Guy de Maupassant

To Georges Legrand.

Hardly a day goes by without our reading a news item like the following in

some newspaper:

"On Wednesday night the people living in No. 40 Rue de-----, were

awakened by two successive shots. The explosions seemed to come from

the apartment occupied by M. X----. The door was broken in and the man

was found bathed in his blood, still holding in one hand the revolver with

which he had taken his life.

"M. X---- was fifty-seven years of age, enjoying a comfortable income, and

had everything necessary to make him happy. No cause can be found for

his action."

What terrible grief, what unknown suffering, hidden despair, secret wounds

drive these presumably happy persons to suicide? We search, we imagine

tragedies of love, we suspect financial troubles, and, as we never find

anything definite, we apply to these deaths the word "mystery."

A letter found on the desk of one of these "suicides without cause," and

written during his last night, beside his loaded revolver, has come into our

hands. We deem it rather interesting. It reveals none of those great

catastrophes which we always expect to find behind these acts of despair;

but it shows us the slow succession of the little vexations of life, the

disintegration of a lonely existence, whose dreams have disappeared; it

gives the reason for these tragic ends, which only nervous and highstrung

people can understand.

Here it is:

"It is midnight. When I have finished this letter I shall kill myself. Why? I

shall attempt to give the reasons, not for those who may read these lines,

but for myself, to kindle my waning courage, to impress upon myself the

fatal necessity of this act which can, at best, be only deferred.

"I was brought up by simple-minded parents who were unquestioning

believers. And I believed as they did.

"My dream lasted a long time. The last veil has just been torn from my

eyes.

"During the last few years a strange change has been taking place within

me. All the events of Life, which formerly had to me the glow of a beautiful

sunset, are now fading away. The true meaning of things has appeared to

me in its brutal reality; and the true reason for love has bred in me disgust

even for this poetic sentiment: 'We are the eternal toys of foolish and

charming illusions, which are always being renewed.'

"On growing older, I had become partly reconciled to the awful mystery of

life, to the uselessness of effort; when the emptiness of everything

appeared to me in a new light, this evening, after dinner.

"Formerly, I was happy! Everything pleased me: the passing women, the

appearance of the streets, the place where I lived; and I even took an

interest in the cut of my clothes. But the repetition of the same sights has

had the result of filling my heart with weariness and disgust, just as one

would feel were one to go every night to the same theatre.

"For the last thirty years I have been rising at the same hour; and, at the

same restaurant, for thirty years, I have been eating at the same hours the

same dishes brought me by different waiters.

"I have tried travel. The loneliness which one feels in strange places

terrified me. I felt so alone, so small on the earth that I quickly started on

my homeward journey.

"But here the unchanging expression of my furniture, which has stood for

thirty years in the same place, the smell of my apartments (for, with time,

each dwelling takes on a particular odor) each night, these and other things

disgust me and make me sick of living thus.

"Everything repeats itself endlessly. The way in which I put my key in the

lock, the place where I always find my matches, the first object which

meets my eye when I enter the room, make me feel like jumping out of the

window and putting an end to those monotonous events from which we can

never escape.

"Each day, when I shave, I feel an inordinate desire to cut my throat; and

my face, which I see in the little mirror, always the same, with soap on my

cheeks, has several times made me weak from sadness.

"Now I even hate to be with people whom I used to meet with pleasure; I

know them so well, I can tell just what they are going to say and what I am

going to answer. Each brain is like a circus, where the same horse keeps

circling around eternally. We must circle round always, around the same

ideas, the same joys, the same pleasures, the same habits, the same

beliefs, the same sensations of disgust.

"The fog was terrible this evening. It enfolded the boulevard, where the

street lights were dimmed and looked like smoking candles. A heavier

weight than usual oppressed me. Perhaps my digestion was bad.

"For good digestion is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to the artist,

amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to

everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is one of the

greatest pleasures). A sick stomach induces scepticism unbelief,

nightmares and the desire for death. I have often noticed this fact. Perhaps

I would not kill myself, if my digestion had been good this evening.

"When I sat down in the arm-chair where I have been sitting every day for

thirty years, I glanced around me, and just then I was seized by such a

terrible distress that I thought I must go mad.

"I tried to think of what I could do to run away from myself. Every

occupation struck me as being worse even than inaction. Then I bethought

me of putting my papers in order.

"For a long time I have been thinking of clearing out my drawers; for, for the

last thirty years, I have been throwing my letters and bills pell-mell into the

same desk, and this confusion has often caused me considerable trouble.

But I feel such moral and physical laziness at the sole idea of putting

anything in order that I have never had the courage to begin this tedious

business.

"I therefore opened my desk, intending to choose among my old papers

and destroy the majority of them.

"At first I was bewildered by this array of documents, yellowed by age, then

I chose one.

"Oh! if you cherish life, never disturb the burial place of old letters!

"And if, perchance, you should, take the contents by the handful, close your

eyes that you may not read a word, so that you may not recognize some

forgotten handwriting which may plunge you suddenly into a sea of

memories; carry these papers to the fire; and when they are in ashes,

crush them to an invisible powder, or otherwise you are lost--just as I have

been lost for an hour.

"The first letters which I read did not interest me greatly. They were recent,

and came from living men whom I still meet quite often, and whose

presence does not move me to any great extent. But all at once one

envelope made me start. My name was traced on it in a large, bold

handwriting; and suddenly tears came to my eyes. That letter was from my

dearest friend, the companion of my youth, the confidant of my hopes; and

he appeared before me so clearly, with his pleasant smile and his hand

outstretched, that a cold shiver ran down my back. Yes, yes, the dead

come back, for I saw him! Our memory is a more perfect world than the

universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.

"With trembling hand and dimmed eyes I reread everything that he told me,

and in my poor sobbing heart I felt a wound so painful that I began to groan

as a man whose bones are slowly being crushed.

"Then I travelled over my whole life, just as one travels along a river. I

recognized people, so long forgotten that I no longer knew their names.

Their faces alone lived in me. In my mother's letters I saw again the old

servants, the shape of our house and the little insignificant odds and ends

which cling to our minds.

"Yes, I suddenly saw again all my mother's old gowns, the different styles

which she adopted and the several ways in which she dressed her hair.

She haunted me especially in a silk dress, trimmed with old lace; and I

remembered something she said one day when she was wearing this

dress. She said: 'Robert, my child, if you do not stand up straight you will

be round-shouldered all your life.'

"Then, opening another drawer, I found myself face to face with memories

of tender passions: a dancing-pump, a torn handkerchief, even a garter,

locks of hair and dried flowers. Then the sweet romances of my life, whose

living heroines are now white-haired, plunged me into the deep melancholy

of things. Oh, the young brows where blond locks curl, the caress of the

hands, the glance which speaks, the hearts which beat, that smile which

promises the lips, those lips which promise the embrace! And the first kiss-

that endless kiss which makes you close your eyes, which drowns all

thought in the immeasurable joy of approaching possession!

"Taking these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered them

with furious caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I saw them

each again at the hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture more cruel

than all the tortures invented in all the fables about hell.

"One last letter remained. It was written by me and dictated fifty years ago

by my writing teacher. Here it is:

"'MY DEAR LITTLE MAMMA:

"'I am seven years old to-day. It is the age of reason. I take

advantage of it to thank you for having brought me into this world.

"'Your little son, who loves you

"'ROBERT.'

"It is all over. I had gone back to the beginning, and suddenly I turned my

glance on what remained to me of life. I saw hideous and lonely old age,

and approaching infirmities, and everything over and gone. And nobody

near me!

"My revolver is here, on the table. I am loading it . . . . Never reread your

old letters!"

And that is how many men come to kill themselves; and we search in vain

to discover some great sorrow in their lives.

A Dead Woman's Secret

by Guy de Maupassant

The woman had died without pain, quietly, as a woman should whose life

had been blameless. Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back,

her eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully arranged

as though she had done it up ten minutes before dying. The whole pale

countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so resigned

that one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body, what a quiet

existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the death of this parent

had been.

Kneeling beside the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible principles,

and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister Eulalie, were weeping as

though their hearts would break. She had, from childhood up, armed them

with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without weakness, and

duty, without compromise. He, the man, had become a judge and handled

the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones without pity. She,

the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed her in this austere family,

had become the bride of the Church through her loathing for man.

They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their

mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.

The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as white

as the large crucifix lying across the bed. On the other side of the long body

the other hand seemed still to be holding the sheet in the death grasp; and

the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory of those last

movements which precede eternal immobility.

A few light taps on the door caused the two sobbing heads to look up, and

the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned. He was red and out of

breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself a strong

mixture of coffee and brandy in order to combat the fatigue of the last few

nights and of the wake which was beginning.

He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is

a bread winner. He crossed himself and approaching with his professional

gesture: "Well, my poor children! I have come to help you pass these last

sad hours." But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose. "Thank you, "father, but my

brother and I prefer to remain alone with her. This is our last chance to see

her, and we wish to be together, all three of us, as we--we--used to be

when we were small and our poor mo--mother----"

Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.

Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed. "As you wish, my

children." He kneeled, crossed himself, prayed, arose and went out quietly,

murmuring: "She was a saint!"

They remained alone, the dead woman and her children. The ticking of the

clock, hidden in the shadow, could be heard distinctly, and through the

open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together with

the soft moonlight. No other noise could be heard over the land except the

occasional croaking of the frog or the chirping of some belated insect. An

infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent serenity surrounded this dead

woman, seemed to be breathed out from her and to appease nature itself.

Then the judge, still kneeling, his head buried in the bed clothes, cried in a

voice altered by grief and deadened by the sheets and blankets: "Mamma,

mamma, mamma!" And his sister, frantically striking her forehead against

the woodwork, convulsed, twitching and trembling as in an epileptic fit,

moaned: "Jesus, Jesus, mamma, Jesus!" And both of them, shaken by a

storm of grief, gasped and choked.

The crisis slowly calmed down and they began to weep quietly, just as on

the sea when a calm follows a squall.

A rather long time passed and they arose and looked at their dead. And the

memories, those distant memories, yesterday so dear, to-day so torturing,

came to their minds with all the little forgotten details, those little intimate

familiar details which bring back to life the one who has left. They recalled

to each other circumstances, words, smiles, intonations of the mother who

was no longer to speak to them. They saw her again happy and calm. They

remembered things which she had said, and a little motion of the hand, like

beating time, which she often used when emphasizing something

important.

And they loved her as they never had loved her before. They measured the

depth of their grief, and thus they discovered how lonely they would find

themselves.

It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth, all the best part of their

lives which was disappearing. It was their bond with life, their mother, their

mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which they would

thenceforth miss. They now became solitary, lonely beings; they could no

longer look back.

The nun said to her brother: "You remember how mamma used always to

read her old letters; they are all there in that drawer. Let us, in turn, read

them; let us live her whole life through tonight beside her! It would be like a

road to the cross, like making the acquaintance of her mother, of our

grandparents, whom we never knew, but whose letters are there and of

whom she so often spoke, do you remember?"

Out of the drawer they took about ten little packages of yellow paper, tied

with care and arranged one beside the other. They threw these relics on

the bed and chose one of them on which the word "Father" was written.

They opened and read it.

It was one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family desk

drawers, those epistles which smell of another century. The first one

started: "My dear," another one: "My beautiful little girl," others: "My dear

child," or: "My dear (laughter." And suddenly the nun began to read aloud,

to read over to the dead woman her whole history, all her tender memories.

The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was listening with his eyes

fastened on his mother. The motionless body seemed happy.

Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said suddenly:

"These ought to be put in the grave with her; they ought to be used as a

shroud and she ought to be buried in it." She took another package, on

which no name was written. She began to read in a firm voice: "My adored

one, I love you wildly. Since yesterday I have been suffering the tortures of

the damned, haunted by our memory. I feel your lips against mine, your

eyes in mine, your breast against mine. I love you, I love you! You have

driven me mad. My arms open, I gasp, moved by a wild desire to hold you

again. My whole soul and body cries out for you, wants you. I have kept in

my mouth the taste of your kisses--"

The judge had straightened himself up. The nun stopped reading. He

snatched the letter from her and looked for the signature. There was none,

but only under the words, "The man who adores you," the name "Henry."

Their father's name was Rene. Therefore this was not from him. The son

then quickly rummaged through the package of letters, took one out and

read: "I can no longer live without your caresses." Standing erect, severe

as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the dead woman. The

nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the corners of her eyes, was

watching her brother, waiting. Then he crossed the room slowly, went to

the window and stood there, gazing out into the dark night.

When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still

standing near the bed, her head bent down.

He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them pell-mell

back into the drawer. Then he closed the curtains of the bed.

When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly left

his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom he had

passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and daughter, he

said slowly: "Let us now retire, sister."

A Dead Woman's Secret was featured as The Short Story of the

Day on Wed, Apr 24, 2013

The Adopted Son

by Guy de Maupassant

The two cottages stood beside each other at the foot of a hill near a little

seashore resort. The two peasants labored hard on the unproductive soil to

rear their little ones, and each family had four.

Before the adjoining doors a whole troop of urchins played and tumbled

about from morning till night. The two eldest were six years old, and the

youngest were about fifteen months; the marriages, and afterward the

births, having taken place nearly simultaneously in both families.

The two mothers could hardly distinguish their own offspring among the lot,

and as for the fathers, they were altogether at sea. The eight names

danced in their heads; they were always getting them mixed up; and when

they wished to call one child, the men often called three names before

getting the right one.

The first of the two cottages, as you came up from the bathing beach,

Rolleport, was occupied by the Tuvaches, who had three girls and one boy;

the other house sheltered the Vallins, who had one girl and three boys.

They all subsisted frugally on soup, potatoes and fresh air. At seven o'clock

in the morning, then at noon, then at six o'clock in the evening, the

housewives got their broods together to give them their food, as the

gooseherds collect their charges. The children were seated, according to

age, before the wooden table, varnished by fifty years of use; the mouths of

the youngest hardly reaching the level of the table. Before them was placed

a bowl filled with bread, soaked in the water in which the potatoes had

been boiled, half a cabbage and three onions; and the whole line ate until

their hunger was appeased. The mother herself fed the smallest.

A small pot roast on Sunday was a feast for all; and the father on this day

sat longer over the meal, repeating: "I wish we could have this every day."

One afternoon, in the month of August, a phaeton stopped suddenly in front

of the cottages, and a young woman, who was driving the horses, said to

the gentleman sitting at her side:

"Oh, look at all those children, Henri! How pretty they are, tumbling about in

the dust, like that!"

The man did not answer, accustomed to these outbursts of admiration,

which were a pain and almost a reproach to him. The young woman

continued:

"I must hug them! Oh, how I should like to have one of them--that one

there--the little tiny one!"

Springing down from the carriage, she ran toward the children, took one of

the two youngest--a Tuvache child--and lifting it up in her arms, she kissed

him passionately on his dirty cheeks, on his tousled hair daubed with earth,

and on his little hands, with which he fought vigorously, to get away from

the caresses which displeased him.

Then she got into the carriage again, and drove off at a lively trot. But she

returned the following week, and seating herself on the ground, took the

youngster in her arms, stuffed him with cakes; gave candies to all the

others, and played with them like a young girl, while the husband waited

patiently in the carriage.

She returned again; made the acquaintance of the parents, and

reappeared every day with her pockets full of dainties and pennies.

Her name was Madame Henri d'Hubieres.

One morning, on arriving, her husband alighted with her, and without

stopping to talk to the children, who now knew her well, she entered the

farmer's cottage.

They were busy chopping wood for the fire. They rose to their feet in

surprise, brought forward chairs, and waited expectantly.

Then the woman, in a broken, trembling voice, began:

"My good people, I have come to see you, because I should like--I should

like to take--your little boy with me--"

The country people, too bewildered to think, did not answer.

She recovered her breath, and continued: "We are alone, my husband and

I. We would keep it. Are you willing?"

The peasant woman began to understand. She asked:

"You want to take Charlot from us? Oh, no, indeed!"

Then M. d'Hubieres intervened:

"My wife has not made her meaning clear. We wish to adopt him, but he

will come back to see you. If he turns out well, as there is every reason to

expect, he will be our heir. If we, perchance, should have children, he will

share equally with them; but if he should not reward our care, we should

give him, when he comes of age, a sum of twenty thousand francs, which

shall be deposited immediately in his name, with a lawyer. As we have

thought also of you, we should pay you, until your death, a pension of one

hundred francs a month. Do you understand me?"

The woman had arisen, furious.

"You want me to sell you Charlot? Oh, no, that's not the sort of thing to ask

of a mother! Oh, no! That would be an abomination!"

The man, grave and deliberate, said nothing; but approved of what his wife

said by a continued nodding of his head.

Madame d'Hubieres, in dismay, began to weep; turning to her husband,

with a voice full of tears, the voice of a child used to having all its wishes

gratified, she stammered:

"They will not do it, Henri, they will not do it."

Then he made a last attempt: "But, my friends, think of the child's future, of

his happiness, of--"

The peasant woman, however, exasperated, cut him short:

"It's all considered! It's all understood! Get out of here, and don't let me see

you again--the idea of wanting to take away a child like that!"

Madame d'Hubieres remembered that there were two children, quite little,

and she asked, through her tears, with the tenacity of a wilful and spoiled

woman:

"But is the other little one not yours?"

Father Tuvache answered: "No, it is our neighbors'. You can go to them if

you wish." And he went back into his house, whence resounded the

indignant voice of his wife.

The Vallins were at table, slowly eating slices of bread which they

parsimoniously spread with a little rancid butter on a plate between the two.

M. d'Hubieres recommenced his proposals, but with more insinuations,

more oratorical precautions, more shrewdness.

The two country people shook their heads, in sign of refusal, but when they

learned that they were to have a hundred francs a month, they considered

the matter, consulting one another by glances, much disturbed. They kept

silent for a long time, tortured, hesitating. At last the woman asked: "What

do you say to it, man?" In a weighty tone he said: "I say that it's not to be

despised."

Madame d'Hubieres, trembling with anguish, spoke of the future of their

child, of his happiness, and of the money which he could give them later.

The peasant asked: "This pension of twelve hundred francs, will it be

promised before a lawyer?"

M. d'Hubieres responded: "Why, certainly, beginning with to-morrow."

The woman, who was thinking it over, continued:

"A hundred francs a month is not enough to pay for depriving us of the

child. That child would be working in a few years; we must have a hundred

and twenty francs."

Tapping her foot with impatience, Madame d'Hubieres granted it at once,

and, as she wished to carry off the child with her, she gave a hundred

francs extra, as a present, while her husband drew up a paper. And the

young woman, radiant, carried off the howling brat, as one carries away a

wished-for knick-knack from a shop.

The Tuvaches, from their door, watched her departure, silent, serious,

perhaps regretting their refusal.

Nothing more was heard of little Jean Vallin. The parents went to the

lawyer every month to collect their hundred and twenty francs. They had

quarrelled with their neighbors, because Mother Tuvache grossly insulted

them, continually, repeating from door to door that one must be unnatural

to sell one's child; that it was horrible, disgusting, bribery. Sometimes she

would take her Charlot in her arms, ostentatiously exclaiming, as if he

understood:

"I didn't sell you, I didn't! I didn't sell you, my little one! I'm not rich, but I

don't sell my children!"

The Vallins lived comfortably, thanks to the pension. That was the cause of

the unappeasable fury of the Tuvaches, who had remained miserably poor.

Their eldest went away to serve his time in the army; Charlot alone

remained to labor with his old father, to support the mother and two

younger sisters.

He had reached twenty-one years when, one morning, a brilliant carriage

stopped before the two cottages. A young gentleman, with a gold watch-

chain, got out, giving his hand to an aged, white-haired lady. The old lady

said to him: "It is there, my child, at the second house." And he entered the

house of the Vallins as though at home.

The old mother was washing her aprons; the infirm father slumbered at the

chimney-corner. Both raised their heads, and the young man said:

"Good-morning, papa; good-morning, mamma!"

They both stood up, frightened! In a flutter, the peasant woman dropped

her soap into the water, and stammered:

"Is it you, my child? Is it you, my child?"

He took her in his arms and hugged her, repeating: "Good-morning,

mamma," while the old man, all a-tremble, said, in his calm tone which he

never lost: "Here you are, back again, Jean," as if he had just seen him a

month ago.

When they had got to know one another again, the parents wished to take

their boy out in the neighborhood, and show him. They took him to the

mayor, to the deputy, to the cure, and to the schoolmaster.

Charlot, standing on the threshold of his cottage, watched him pass. In the

evening, at supper, he said to the old people: "You must have been stupid

to let the Vallins' boy be taken."

The mother answered, obstinately: "I wouldn't sell my child."

The father remained silent. The son continued:

"It is unfortunate to be sacrificed like that."

Then Father Tuvache, in an angry tone, said:

"Are you going to reproach us for having kept you?" And the young man

said, brutally:

"Yes, I reproach you for having been such fools. Parents like you make the

misfortune of their children. You deserve that I should leave you." The old

woman wept over her plate. She moaned, as she swallowed the spoonfuls

of soup, half of which she spilled: "One may kill one's self to bring up

children!"

Then the boy said, roughly: "I'd rather not have been born than be what I

am. When I saw the other, my heart stood still. I said to myself: 'See what I

should have been now!'" He got up: "See here, I feel that I would do better

not to stay here, because I would throw it up to you from morning till night,

and I would make your life miserable. I'll never forgive you for that!"

The two old people were silent, downcast, in tears.

He continued: "No, the thought of that would be too much. I'd rather look for

a living somewhere else."

He opened the door. A sound of voices came in at the door. The Vallins

were celebrating the return of their child.

The Adopted Son was featured as The Short Story of the Day on Mon,

Dec 17, 2012

A Family

by Guy de Maupassant

I was to see my old friend, Simon Radevin, of whom I had lost sight for

fifteen years. At one time he was my most intimate friend, the friend who

knows one's thoughts, with whom one passes long, quiet, happy evenings,

to whom one tells one's secret love affairs, and who seems to draw out

those rare, ingenious, delicate thoughts born of that sympathy that gives a

sense of repose.

For years we had scarcely been separated; we had lived, travelled, thought

and dreamed together; had liked the same things, had admired the same

books, understood the same authors, trembled with the same sensations,

and very often laughed at the same individuals, whom we understood

completely by merely exchanging a glance.

Then he married. He married, quite suddenly, a little girl from the provinces,

who had come to Paris in search of a husband. How in the world could that

little thin, insipidly fair girl, with her weak hands, her light, vacant eyes, and

her clear, silly voice, who was exactly like a hundred thousand

marriageable dolls, have picked up that intelligent, clever young fellow?

Can any one understand these things? No doubt he had hoped for

happiness, simple, quiet and long-enduring happiness, in the arms of a

good, tender and faithful woman; he had seen all that in the transparent

looks of that schoolgirl with light hair.

He had not dreamed of the fact that an active, living and vibrating man

grows weary of everything as soon as he understands the stupid reality,

unless, indeed, he becomes so brutalized that he understands nothing

whatever.

What would he be like when I met him again? Still lively, witty, light-

hearted and enthusiastic, or in a state of mental torpor induced by

provincial life? A man may change greatly in the course of fifteen years!

The train stopped at a small station, and as I got out of the carriage, a

stout, a very stout man with red cheeks and a big stomach rushed up to me

with open arms, exclaiming: "George!" I embraced him, but I had not

recognized him, and then I said, in astonishment: "By Jove! You have not

grown thin!" And he replied with a laugh:

"What did you expect? Good living, a good table and good nights! Eating

and sleeping, that is my existence!"

I looked at him closely, trying to discover in that broad face the features I

held so dear. His eyes alone had not changed, but I no longer saw the

same expression in them, and I said to myself: "If the expression be the

reflection of the mind, the thoughts in that head are not what they used to

be formerly; those thoughts which I knew so well."

Yet his eyes were bright, full of happiness and friendship, but they had not

that clear, intelligent expression which shows as much as words the

brightness of the intellect. Suddenly he said:

"Here are my two eldest children." A girl of fourteen, who was almost a

woman, and a boy of thirteen, in the dress of a boy from a Lycee, came

forward in a hesitating and awkward manner, and I said in a low voice: "Are

they yours?" "Of course they are," he replied, laughing. "How many have

you?" "Five! There are three more at home."

He said this in a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and I felt

profound pity, mingled with a feeling of vague contempt, for this

vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species.

I got into a carriage which he drove himself, and we set off through the

town, a dull, sleepy, gloomy town where nothing was moving in the streets

except a few dogs and two or three maidservants. Here and there a

shopkeeper, standing at his door, took off his hat, and Simon returned his

salute and told me the man's name; no doubt to show me that he knew all

the inhabitants personally, and the thought struck me that he was thinking

of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream of all

those who bury themselves in the provinces.

We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden that

was an imitation of a park, and stopped in front of a turreted house, which

tried to look like a chateau.

"That is my den," said Simon, so that I might compliment him on it. "It is

charming," I replied.

A lady appeared on the steps, dressed for company, and with company

phrases all ready prepared. She was no longer the light-haired, insipid girl I

had seen in church fifteen years previously, but a stout lady in curls and

flounces, one of those ladies of uncertain age, without intellect, without any

of those things that go to make a woman. In short, she was a mother, a

stout, commonplace mother, a human breeding machine which procreates

without any other preoccupation but her children and her cook-book.

She welcomed me, and I went into the hall, where three children, ranged

according to their height, seemed set out for review, like firemen before a

mayor, and I said: "Ah! ah! so there are the others?" Simon, radiant with

pleasure, introduced them: "Jean, Sophie and Gontran."

The door of the drawing-room was open. I went in, and in the depths of an

easy-chair, I saw something trembling, a man, an old, paralyzed man.

Madame Radevin came forward and said: "This is my grandfather,

monsieur; he is eighty-seven." And then she shouted into the shaking old

man's ears: "This is a friend of Simon's, papa." The old gentleman tried to

say "good-day" to me, and he muttered: "Oua, oua, oua," and waved his

hand, and I took a seat saying: "You are very kind, monsieur."

Simon had just come in, and he said with a laugh: "So! You have made

grandpapa's acquaintance. He is a treasure, that old man; he is the delight

of the children. But he is so greedy that he almost kills himself at every

meal; you have no idea what he would eat if he were allowed to do as he

pleased. But you will see, you will see. He looks at all the sweets as if they

were so many girls. You never saw anything so funny; you will see

presently."

I was then shown to my room, to change my dress for dinner, and hearing

a great clatter behind me on the stairs, I turned round and saw that all the

children were following me behind their father; to do me honor, no doubt.

My windows looked out across a dreary, interminable plain, an ocean of

grass, of wheat and of oats, without a clump of trees or any rising ground, a

striking and melancholy picture of the life which they must be leading in that

house.

A bell rang; it was for dinner, and I went downstairs. Madame Radevin took

my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we passed into the dining-room. A

footman wheeled in the old man in his armchair. He gave a greedy and

curious look at the dessert, as he turned his shaking head with difficulty

from one dish to the other.

Simon rubbed his hands: "You will be amused," he said; and all the

children understanding that I was going to be indulged with the sight of their

greedy grandfather, began to laugh, while their mother merely smiled and

shrugged her shoulders, and Simon, making a speaking trumpet of his

hands, shouted at the old man: "This evening there is sweet creamed rice!"

The wrinkled face of the grandfather brightened, and he trembled more

violently, from head to foot, showing that he had understood and was very

pleased. The dinner began.

"Just look!" Simon whispered. The old man did not like the soup, and

refused to eat it; but he was obliged to do it for the good of his health, and

the footman forced the spoon into his mouth, while the old man blew so

energetically, so as not to swallow the soup, that it was scattered like a

spray all over the table and over his neighbors. The children writhed with

laughter at the spectacle, while their father, who was also amused, said: "Is

not the old man comical?"

During the whole meal they were taken up solely with him. He devoured the

dishes on the table with his eyes, and tried to seize them and pull them

over to him with his trembling hands. They put them almost within his

reach, to see his useless efforts, his trembling clutches at them, the piteous

appeal of his whole nature, of his eyes, of his mouth and of his nose as he

smelt them, and he slobbered on his table napkin with eagerness, while

uttering inarticulate grunts. And the whole family was highly amused at this

horrible and grotesque scene.

Then they put a tiny morsel on his plate, and he ate with feverish gluttony,

in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when the

sweetened rice was brought in, he nearly had a fit, and groaned with

greediness, and Gontran called out to him:

"You have eaten too much already; you can have no more." And they

pretended not to give him any. Then he began to cry; he cried and trembled

more violently than ever, while all the children laughed. At last, however,

they gave him his helping, a very small piece; and as he ate the first

mouthful, he made a comical noise in his throat, and a movement with his

neck as ducks do when they swallow too large a morsel, and when he had

swallowed it, he began to stamp his feet, so as to get more.

I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and

interposed on his behalf:

"Come, give him a little more rice!" But Simon replied: "Oh! no, my dear

fellow, if he were to eat too much, it would harm him, at his age."

I held my tongue, and thought over those words. Oh, ethics! Oh, logic! Oh,

wisdom! At his age! So they deprived him of his only remaining pleasure

out of regard for his health! His health! What would he do with it, inert and

trembling wreck that he was? They were taking care of his life, so they

said. His life? How many days? Ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred? Why? For

his own sake? Or to preserve for some time longer the spectacle of his

impotent greediness in the family.

There was nothing left for him to do in this life, nothing whatever. He had

one single wish left, one sole pleasure; why not grant him that last solace

until he died?

After we had played cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to bed;

I was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! and I sat at my window. Not a sound

could be heard outside but the beautiful warbling of a bird in a tree,

somewhere in the distance. No doubt the bird was singing in a low voice

during the night, to lull his mate, who was asleep on her eggs. And I

thought of my poor friend's five children, and pictured him to myself,

snoring by the side of his ugly wife.

A Ghost

by Guy de Maupassant

We were speaking of sequestration, alluding to a recent lawsuit. It was at

the close of a friendly evening in a very old mansion in the Rue de

Grenelle, and each of the guests had a story to tell, which he assured us

was true.

Then the old Marquis de la Tour-Samuel, eighty-two years of age, rose and

came forward to lean on the mantelpiece. He told the following story in his

slightly quavering voice.

"I, also, have witnessed a strange thing--so strange that it has been the

nightmare of my life. It happened fifty-six years ago, and yet there is not a

month when I do not see it again in my dreams. From that day I have borne

a mark, a stamp of fear,--do you understand?

"Yes, for ten minutes I was a prey to terror, in such a way that ever since a

constant dread has remained in my soul. Unexpected sounds chill me to

the heart; objects which I can ill distinguish in the evening shadows make

me long to flee. I am afraid at night.

"No! I would not have owned such a thing before reaching my present age.

But now I may tell everything. One may fear imaginary dangers at eighty-

two years old. But before actual danger I have never turned back,

_mesdames_.

"That affair so upset my mind, filled me with such a deep, mysterious

unrest that I never could tell it. I kept it in that inmost part, that corner where

we conceal our sad, our shameful secrets, all the weaknesses of our life

which cannot be confessed.

"I will tell you that strange happening just as it took place, with no attempt

to explain it. Unless I went mad for one short hour it must be explainable,

though. Yet I was not mad, and I will prove it to you. Imagine what you will.

Here are the simple facts:

"It was in 1827, in July. I was quartered with my regiment in Rouen.

"One day, as I was strolling on the quay, I came across a man I believed I

recognized, though I could not place him with certainty. I instinctively went

more slowly, ready to pause. The stranger saw my impulse, looked at me,

and fell into my arms.

"It was a friend of my younger days, of whom I had been very fond. He

seemed to have become half a century older in the five years since I had

seen him. His hair was white, and he stooped in his walk, as if he were

exhausted. He understood my amazement and told me the story of his life.

"A terrible event had broken him down. He had fallen madly in love with a

young girl and married her in a kind of dreamlike ecstasy. After a year of

unalloyed bliss and unexhausted passion, she had died suddenly of heart

disease, no doubt killed by love itself.

"He had left the country on the very day of her funeral, and had come to

live in his hotel at Rouen. He remained there, solitary and desperate, grief

slowly mining him, so wretched that he constantly thought of suicide.

"'As I thus came across you again,' he said, 'I shall ask a great favor of you.

I want you to go to my chteau and get some papers I urgently need. They

are in the writing-desk of my room, of _our_ room. I cannot send a servant

or a lawyer, as the errand must be kept private. I want absolute silence.

"'I shall give you the key of the room, which I locked carefully myself before

leaving, and the key to the writing-desk. I shall also give you a note for the

gardener, who will let you in.

"'Come to breakfast with me to-morrow, and we'll talk the matter over.'

"I promised to render him that slight service. It would mean but a pleasant

excursion for me, his home not being more than twenty-five miles from

Rouen. I could go there in an hour on horseback.

"At ten o'clock the next day I was with him. We breakfasted alone together,

yet he did not utter more than twenty words. He asked me to excuse him.

The thought that I was going to visit the room where his happiness lay

shattered, upset him, he said. Indeed, he seemed perturbed, worried, as if

some mysterious struggle were taking place in his soul.

"At last he explained exactly what I was to do. It was very simple. I was to

take two packages of letters and some papers, locked in the first drawer at

the right of the desk of which I had the key. He added:

"'I need not ask you not to glance at them.'

"I was almost hurt by his words, and told him so, rather sharply. He

stammered:

"'Forgive me. I suffer so much!'

"And tears came to his eyes.

"I left about one o'clock to accomplish my errand.

"The day was radiant, and I rushed through the meadows, listening to the

song of the larks, and the rhythmical beat of my sword on my riding-boots.

"Then I entered the forest, and I set my horse to walking. Branches of the

trees softly caressed my face, and now and then I would catch a leaf

between my teeth and bite it with avidity, full of the joy of life, such as fills

you without reason, with a tumultuous happiness almost indefinable, a kind

of magical strength.

"As I neared the house I took out the letter for the gardener, and noted with

surprise that it was sealed. I was so amazed and so annoyed that I almost

turned back without fulfilling my mission. Then I thought that I should thus

display over-sensitiveness and bad taste. My friend might have sealed it

unconsciously, worried as he was.

"The manor looked as though it had been deserted the last twenty years.

The gate, wide-open and rotten, held, one wondered how. Grass filled the

paths; you could not tell the flower-beds from the lawn.

"At the noise I made kicking a shutter, an old man came out from a side-

door and was apparently amazed to see me there. I dismounted from my

horse and gave him the letter. He read it once or twice, turned it over,

looked at me with suspicion, and asked:

"'Well, what do you want?'

"I answered sharply:

"'You must know it as you have read your master's orders. I want to get in

the house.'

"He appeared overwhelmed. He said:

"'So--you are going in--in his room?'

"I was getting impatient.

"'_Parbleu!_ Do you intend to question me, by chance?'

"He stammered:

"'No--monsieur--only--it has not been opened since--since the death. If you

will wait five minutes, I will go in to see whether----'

"I interrupted angrily:

"'See here, are you joking? You can't go in that room, as I have the key!'

"He no longer knew what to say.

"'Then, monsieur, I will show you the way.'

"'Show me the stairs and leave me alone. I can find it without your help.'

"'But--still--monsieur----'

"Then I lost my temper.

"'Now be quiet! Else you'll be sorry!'

"I roughly pushed him aside and went into the house.

"I first went through the kitchen, then crossed two small rooms occupied by

the man and his wife. From there I stepped into a large hall. I went up the

stairs, and I recognized the door my friend had described to me.

"I opened it with ease and went in.

"The room was so dark that at first I could not distinguish anything. I

paused, arrested by that moldy and stale odor peculiar to deserted and

condemned rooms, of dead rooms. Then gradually my eyes grew

accustomed to the gloom, and I saw rather clearly a great room in disorder,

a bed without sheets having still its mattresses and pillows, one of which

bore the deep print of an elbow or a head, as if someone had just been

resting on it.

"The chairs seemed all in confusion. I noticed that a door, probably that of

a closet, had remained ajar.

"I first went to the window and opened it to get some light, but the hinges of

the outside shutters were so rusted that I could not loosen them.

"I even tried to break them with my sword, but did not succeed. As those

fruitless attempts irritated me, and as my eyes were by now adjusted to the

dim light, I gave up hope of getting more light and went toward the writing-

desk.

"I sat down in an arm-chair, folded back the top, and opened the drawer. It

was full to the edge. I needed but three packages, which I knew how to

distinguish, and I started looking for them.

"I was straining my eyes to decipher the inscriptions, when I thought I

heard, or rather felt a rustle behind me. I took no notice, thinking a draft had

lifted some curtain. But a minute later, another movement, almost indistinct,

sent a disagreeable little shiver over my skin. It was so ridiculous to be

moved thus even so slightly, that I would not turn round, being ashamed. I

had just discovered the second package I needed, and was on the point of

reaching for the third, when a great and sorrowful sigh, close to my

shoulder, made me give a mad leap two yards away. In my spring I had

turned round, my hand on the hilt of my sword, and surely had I not felt

that, I should have fled like a coward.

"A tall woman, dressed in white, was facing me, standing behind the chair

in which I had sat a second before.

"Such a shudder ran through me that I almost fell back! Oh, no one who

has not felt them can understand those gruesome and ridiculous terrors!

The soul melts; your heart seems to stop; your whole body becomes limp

as a sponge, and your innermost parts seem collapsing.

"I do not believe in ghosts; and yet I broke down before the hideous fear of

the dead; and I suffered, oh, I suffered more in a few minutes, in the

irresistible anguish of supernatural dread, than I have suffered in all the rest

of my life!

"If she had not spoken, I might have died. But she did speak; she spoke in

a soft and plaintive voice which set my nerves vibrating. I could not say that

I regained my self-control. No, I was past knowing what I did; but the kind

of pride I have in me, as well as a military pride, helped me to maintain,

almost in spite of myself, an honorable countenance. I was making a pose,

a pose for myself, and for her, for her, whatever she was, woman, or

phantom. I realized this later, for at the time of the apparition, I could think

of nothing. I was afraid.

"She said:

"'Oh, you can be of great help to me, monsieur!'

"I tried to answer, but I was unable to utter one word. A vague sound came

from my throat.

"She continued:

"'Will you? You can save me, cure me. I suffer terribly. I always suffer. I

suffer, oh, I suffer!'

"And she sat down gently in my chair. She looked at me.

"'Will you?'

"I nodded my head, being still paralyzed.

"Then she handed me a woman's comb of tortoise-shell, and murmured:

"'Comb my hair! Oh, comb my hair! That will cure me. Look at my head--

how I suffer! And my hair--how it hurts!'

"Her loose hair, very long, very black, it seemed to me, hung over the back

of the chair, touching the floor.

"Why did I do it? Why did I, shivering, accept that comb, and why did I take

between my hands her long hair, which left on my skin a ghastly impression

of cold, as if I had handled serpents? I do not know.

"That feeling still clings about my fingers, and I shiver when I recall it.

"I combed her, I handled, I know not how, that hair of ice. I bound and

unbound it; I plaited it as one plaits a horse's mane. She sighed, bent her

head, seemed happy.

"Suddenly she said, 'Thank you!' tore the comb from my hands, and fled

through the door which I had noticed was half opened.

"Left alone, I had for a few seconds the hazy feeling one feels in waking up

from a nightmare. Then I recovered myself. I ran to the window and broke

the shutters by my furious assault.

"A stream of light poured in. I rushed to the door through which that being

had gone. I found it locked and immovable.

"Then a fever of flight seized on me, a panic, the true panic of battle. I

quickly grasped the three packages of letters from the open desk; I crossed

the room running, I took the steps of the stairway four at a time. I found

myself outside, I don't know how, and seeing my horse close by, I mounted

in one leap and left at a full gallop.

"I didn't stop till I reached Rouen and drew up in front of my house. Having

thrown the reins to my orderly, I flew to my room and locked myself in to

think.

"Then for an hour I asked myself whether I had not been the victim of an

hallucination. Certainly I must have had one of those nervous shocks, one

of those brain disorders such as give rise to miracles, to which the

supernatural owes its strength.

"And I had almost concluded that it was a vision, an illusion of my senses,

when I came near to the window. My eyes by chance looked down. My

tunic was covered with hairs, long woman's hairs which had entangled

themselves around the buttons!

"I took them off one by one and threw them out of the window with

trembling fingers.

"I then called my orderly. I felt too perturbed, too moved, to go and see my

friend on that day. Besides, I needed to think over what I should tell him.

"I had his letters delivered to him. He gave a receipt to the soldier. He

inquired after me and was told that I was not well. I had had a sunstroke, or

something. He seemed distressed.

"I went to see him the next day, early in the morning, bent on telling him the

truth. He had gone out the evening before and had not come back.

"I returned the same day, but he had not been seen. I waited a week. He

did not come back. I notified the police. They searched for him everywhere,

but no one could find any trace of his passing or of his retreat.

"A careful search was made in the deserted manor. No suspicious clue was

discovered.

"There was no sign that a woman had been concealed there.

"The inquest gave no result, and so the search went no further.

"And in fifty-six years I have learned nothing more. I never found out the

truth."

The Beggar

by Guy de Maupassant

He had seen better days, despite his present misery and infirmities.

At the age of fifteen both his legs had been crushed by a carriage on the

Varville highway. From that time forth he begged, dragging himself along

the roads and through the farmyards, supported by crutches which forced

his shoulders up to his ears. His head looked as if it were squeezed in

between two mountains.

A foundling, picked up out of a ditch by the priest of Les Billettes on the eve

of All Saints' Day and baptized, for that reason, Nicholas Toussaint, reared

by charity, utterly without education, crippled in consequence of having

drunk several glasses of brandy given him by the baker (such a funny

story!) and a vagabond all his life afterward--the only thing he knew how to

do was to hold out his hand for alms.

At one time the Baroness d'Avary allowed him to sleep in a kind of recess

spread with straw, close to the poultry yard in the farm adjoining the

chateau, and if he was in great need he was sure of getting a glass of cider

and a crust of bread in the kitchen. Moreover, the old lady often threw him

a few pennies from her window. But she was dead now.

In the villages people gave him scarcely anything--he was too well known.

Everybody had grown tired of seeing him, day after day for forty years,

dragging his deformed and tattered person from door to door on his

wooden crutches. But he could not make up his mind to go elsewhere,

because he knew no place on earth but this particular corner of the country,

these three or four villages where he had spent the whole of his miserable

existence. He had limited his begging operations and would not for worlds

have passed his accustomed bounds.

He did not even know whether the world extended for any distance beyond

the trees which had always bounded his vision. He did not ask himself the

question. And when the peasants, tired of constantly meeting him in their

fields or along their lanes, exclaimed: "Why don't you go to other villages

instead of always limping about here?" he did not answer, but slunk away,

possessed with a vague dread of the unknown--the dread of a poor wretch

who fears confusedly a thousand things--new faces, taunts, insults, the

suspicious glances of people who do not know him and the policemen

walking in couples on the roads. These last he always instinctively avoided,

taking refuge in the bushes or behind heaps of stones when he saw them

coming.

When he perceived them in the distance, 'With uniforms gleaming in the

sun, he was suddenly possessed with unwonted agility--the agility of a wild

animal seeking its lair. He threw aside his crutches, fell to the ground like a

limp rag, made himself as small as possible and crouched like a bare under

cover, his tattered vestments blending in hue with the earth on which he

cowered.

He had never had any trouble with the police, but the instinct to avoid them

was in his blood. He seemed to have inherited it from the parents he had

never known.

He had no refuge, no roof for his head, no shelter of any kind. In summer

he slept out of doors and in winter he showed remarkable skill in slipping

unperceived into barns and stables. He always decamped before his

presence could be discovered. He knew all the holes through which one

could creep into farm buildings, and the handling of his crutches having

made his arms surprisingly muscular he often hauled himself up through

sheer strength of wrist into hay-lofts, where he sometimes remained for

four or five days at a time, provided he had collected a sufficient store of

food beforehand.

He lived like the beasts of the field. He was in the midst of men, yet knew

no one, loved no one, exciting in the breasts of the peasants only a sort of

careless contempt and smoldering hostility. They nicknamed him "Bell,"

because he hung between his two crutches like a church bell between its

supports.

For two days he had eaten nothing. No one gave him anything now. Every

one's patience was exhausted. Women shouted to him from their doorsteps

when they saw him coming:

"Be off with you, you good-for-nothing vagabond! Why, I gave you a piece

of bread only three days ago!

And he turned on his crutches to the next house, where he was received in

the same fashion.

The women declared to one another as they stood at their doors:

"We can't feed that lazy brute all the year round!"

And yet the "lazy brute" needed food every day.

He had exhausted Saint-Hilaire, Varville and Les Billettes without getting a

single copper or so much as a dry crust. His only hope was in Tournolles,

but to reach this place he would have to walk five miles along the highroad,

and he felt so weary that he could hardly drag himself another yard. His

stomach and his pocket were equally empty, but he started on his way.

It was December and a cold wind blew over the fields and whistled through

the bare branches of the trees; the clouds careered madly across the black,

threatening sky. The cripple dragged himself slowly along, raising one

crutch after the other with a painful effort, propping himself on the one

distorted leg which remained to him.

Now and then he sat down beside a ditch for a few moments' rest. Hunger

was gnawing his vitals, and in his confused, slow-working mind he had only

one idea-to eat-but how this was to be accomplished he did not know. For

three hours he continued his painful journey. Then at last the sight of the

trees of the village inspired him with new energy.

The first peasant he met, and of whom he asked alms, replied:

"So it's you again, is it, you old scamp? Shall I never be rid of you?"

And "Bell" went on his way. At every door he got nothing but hard words.

He made the round of the whole village, but received not a halfpenny for

his pains.

Then he visited the neighboring farms, toiling through the muddy land, so

exhausted that he could hardly raise his crutches from the ground. He met

with the same reception everywhere. It was one of those cold, bleak days,

when the heart is frozen and the temper irritable, and hands do not open

either to give money or food.

When he had visited all the houses he knew, "Bell" sank down in the corner

of a ditch running across Chiquet's farmyard. Letting his crutches slip to the

ground, he remained motionless, tortured by hunger, but hardly intelligent

enough to realize to the full his unutterable misery.

He awaited he knew not what, possessed with that vague hope which

persists in the human heart in spite of everything. He awaited in the corner

of the farmyard in the biting December wind, some mysterious aid from

Heaven or from men, without the least idea whence it was to arrive. A

number of black hens ran hither and thither, seeking their food in the earth

which supports all living things. Ever now and then they snapped up in their

beaks a grain of corn or a tiny insect; then they continued their slow, sure

search for nutriment.

"Bell" watched them at first without thinking of anything. Then a thought

occurred rather to his stomach than to his mind--the thought that one of

those fowls would be good to eat if it were cooked over a fire of dead wood.

He did not reflect that he was going to commit a theft. He took up a stone

which lay within reach, and, being of skillful aim, killed at the first shot the

fowl nearest to him. The bird fell on its side, flapping its wings. The others

fled wildly hither and thither, and "Bell," picking up his crutches, limped

across to where his victim lay.

Just as he reached the little black body with its crimsoned head he received

a violent blow in his back which made him let go his hold of his crutches

and sent him flying ten paces distant. And Farmer Chiquet, beside himself

with rage, cuffed and kicked the marauder with all the fury of a plundered

peasant as "Bell" lay defenceless before him.

The farm hands came up also and joined their master in cuffing the lame

beggar. Then when they were tired of beating him they carried him off and

shut him up in the woodshed, while they went to fetch the police.

"Bell," half dead, bleeding and perishing with hunger, lay on the floor.

Evening came--then night--then dawn. And still he had not eaten.

About midday the police arrived. They opened the door of the woodshed

with the utmost precaution, fearing resistance on the beggar's part, for

Farmer Chiquet asserted that he had been attacked by him and had had

great, difficulty in defending himself.

The sergeant cried:

"Come, get up!"

But "Bell" could not move. He did his best to raise himself on his crutches,

but without success. The police, thinking his weakness feigned, pulled him

up by main force and set him between the crutches.

Fear seized him--his native fear of a uniform, the fear of the game in

presence of the sportsman, the fear of a mouse for a cat-and by the

exercise of almost superhuman effort he succeeded in remaining upright.

"Forward!" said the sergeant. He walked. All the inmates of the farm

watched his departure. The women shook their fists at him the men scoffed

at and insulted him. He was taken at last! Good riddance! He went off

between his two guards. He mustered sufficient energy--the energy of

despair--to drag himself along until the evening, too dazed to know what

was happening to him, too frightened to understand.

People whom he met on the road stopped to watch him go by and

peasants muttered:

"It's some thief or other."

Toward evening he reached the country town. He had never been so far

before. He did not realize in the least what he was there for or what was to

become of him. All the terrible and unexpected events of the last two days,

all these unfamiliar faces and houses struck dismay into his heart.

He said not a word, having nothing to say because he understood nothing.

Besides, he had spoken to no one for so many years past that he had

almost lost the use of his tongue, and his thoughts were too indeterminate

to be put into words.

He was shut up in the town jail. It did not occur to the police that he might

need food, and he was left alone until the following day. But when in the

early morning they came to examine him he was found dead on the floor.

Such an astonishing thing!

The Blind Man

by Guy de Maupassant

How is it that the sunlight gives us such joy? Why does this radiance when

it falls on the earth fill us with the joy of living? The whole sky is blue, the

fields are green, the houses all white, and our enchanted eyes drink in

those bright colors which bring delight to our souls. And then there springs

up in our hearts a desire to dance, to run, to sing, a happy lightness of

thought, a sort of enlarged tenderness; we feel a longing to embrace the

sun.

The blind, as they sit in the doorways, impassive in their eternal darkness,

remain as calm as ever in the midst of this fresh gaiety, and, not

understanding what is taking place around them, they continually check

their dogs as they attempt to play.

When, at the close of the day, they are returning home on the arm of a

young brother or a little sister, if the child says: "It was a very fine day!" the

other answers: "I could notice that it was fine. Loulou wouldn't keep quiet."

I knew one of these men whose life was one of the most cruel martyrdoms

that could possibly be conceived.

He was a peasant, the son of a Norman farmer. As long as his father and

mother lived, he was more or less taken care of; he suffered little save from

his horrible infirmity; but as soon as the old people were gone, an atrocious

life of misery commenced for him. Dependent on a sister of his, everybody

in the farmhouse treated him as a beggar who is eating the bread of

strangers. At every meal the very food he swallowed was made a subject of

reproach against him; he was called a drone, a clown, and although his

brother-in-law had taken possession of his portion of the inheritance, he

was helped grudgingly to soup, getting just enough to save him from

starving.

His face was very pale and his two big white eyes looked like wafers. He

remained unmoved at all the insults hurled at him, so reserved that one

could not tell whether he felt them.

Moreover, he had never known any tenderness, his mother having always

treated him unkindly and caring very little for him; for in country places

useless persons are considered a nuisance, and the peasants would be

glad to kill the infirm of their species, as poultry do.

As soon as he finished his soup he went and sat outside the door in

summer and in winter beside the fireside, and did not stir again all the

evening. He made no gesture, no movement; only his eyelids, quivering

from some nervous affection, fell down sometimes over his white, sightless

orbs. Had he any intellect, any thinking faculty, any consciousness of his

own existence? Nobody cared to inquire.

For some years things went on in this fashion. But his incapacity for work

as well as his impassiveness eventually exasperated his relatives, and he

became a laughingstock, a sort of butt for merriment, a prey to the inborn

ferocity, to the savage gaiety of the brutes who surrounded him.

It is easy to imagine all the cruel practical jokes inspired by his blindness.

And, in order to have some fun in return for feeding him, they now

converted his meals into hours of pleasure for the neighbors and of

punishment for the helpless creature himself.

The peasants from the nearest houses came to this entertainment; it was

talked about from door to door, and every day the kitchen of the farmhouse

was full of people. Sometimes they placed before his plate, when he was

beginning to eat his soup, some cat or dog. The animal instinctively

perceived the man's infirmity, and, softly approaching, commenced eating

noiselessly, lapping up the soup daintily; and, when they lapped the food

rather noisily, rousing the poor fellow's attention, they would prudently

scamper away to avoid the blow of the spoon directed at random by the

blind man!

Then the spectators ranged along the wall would burst out laughing, nudge

each other and stamp their feet on the floor. And he, without ever uttering a

word, would continue eating with his right hand, while stretching out his left

to protect his plate.

Another time they made him chew corks, bits of wood, leaves or even filth,

which he was unable to distinguish.

After this they got tired even of these practical jokes, and the brother- in-

law, angry at having to support him always, struck him, cuffed him

incessantly, laughing at his futile efforts to ward off or return the blows.

Then came a new pleasure--the pleasure of smacking his face. And the

plough-men, the servant girls and even every passing vagabond were

every moment giving him cuffs, which caused his eyelashes to twitch

spasmodically. He did not know where to hide himself and remained with

his arms always held out to guard against people coming too close to him.

At last he was forced to beg.

He was placed somewhere on the high-road on market-days, and as soon

as he heard the sound of footsteps or the rolling of a vehicle, he reached

out his hat, stammering:

"Charity, if you please!"

But the peasant is not lavish, and for whole weeks he did not bring back a

sou.

Then he became the victim of furious, pitiless hatred. And this is how he

died.

One winter the ground was covered with snow, and it was freezing hard.

His brother-in-law led him one morning a great distance along the high road

in order that he might solicit alms. The blind man was left there all day; and

when night came on, the brother-in-law told the people of his house that he

could find no trace of the mendicant. Then he added:

"Pooh! best not bother about him! He was cold and got someone to take

him away. Never fear! he's not lost. He'll turn up soon enough tomorrow to

eat the soup."

Next day he did not come back.

After long hours of waiting, stiffened with the cold, feeling that he was

dying, the blind man began to walk. Being unable to find his way along the

road, owing to its thick coating of ice, he went on at random, falling into

ditches, getting up again, without uttering a sound, his sole object being to

find some house where he could take shelter.

But, by degrees, the descending snow made a numbness steal over him,

and his feeble limbs being incapable of carrying him farther, he sat down in

the middle of an open field. He did not get up again.

The white flakes which fell continuously buried him, so that his body, quite

stiff and stark, disappeared under the incessant accumulation of their

rapidly thickening mass, and nothing was left to indicate the place where he

lay.

His relatives made a pretense of inquiring about him and searching for him

for about a week. They even made a show of weeping.

The winter was severe, and the thaw did not set in quickly. Now, one

Sunday, on their way to mass, the farmers noticed a great flight of crows,

who were whirling incessantly above the open field, and then descending

like a shower of black rain at the same spot, ever going and coming.

The following week these gloomy birds were still there. There was a crowd

of them up in the air, as if they had gathered from all corners of the horizon,

and they swooped down with a great cawing into the shining snow, which

they covered like black patches, and in which they kept pecking obstinately.

A young fellow went to see what they were doing and discovered the body

of the blind man, already half devoured, mangled. His wan eyes had

disappeared, pecked out by the long, voracious beaks.

And I can never feel the glad radiance of sunlit days without sadly

remembering and pondering over the fate of the beggar who was such an

outcast in life- that his horrible death was a relief to all who had known him.