The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 / Boule de Suif and Other Stories

III

The next year, at just about the same period, I was seized, as one is with a periodical fever, with a new desire to go to Italy, and I immediately made up my mind to carry it into effect.There is no doubt that every well-educated man ought to see Florence, Venice, and Rome.It has, also, the additional advantage of providing many subjects of conversation in society, and of giving one an opportunity for bringing forward artistic generalities which appear profound.

This time I went alone, and I arrived at Genoa at the same time as the year before, but without any adventure on the road. I went to the same hotel, and actually happened to have the same room.

I was scarcely in bed when the recollection of Francesca which, since the evening before, had been floating vaguely through my mind, haunted me with strange persistency.I thought of her nearly the whole night, and by degrees the wish to see her again seized me, a confused desire at first, which gradually grew stronger and more intense.At last I made up my mind to spend the next day in Genoa to try and find her, and if I should not succeed, I would take the evening train.

Early in the morning I set out on my search.I remembered the directions she had given me when she left me, perfectly—Victor-Emmanuel Street, etc., etc., house of the furniture-dealer, at the bottom of the yard on the right.

I found it without the least difficulty, and I knocked at the door of a somewhat dilapidated-looking dwelling.A fat woman opened it, who must have been very handsome, but who actually was only very dirty.Although she was too fat, she still bore the lines of majestic beauty; her untidy hair fell over her forehead and shoulders, and one fancied one could see her fat body floating about in an enormous dressing-gown covered with spots of dirt and grease.Round her neck she wore a great gilt necklace, and on her wrists were splendid bracelets of Genoa filigree work.

In rather a hostile manner she asked me what I wanted, and I replied by requesting her to tell me whether Francesca Rondoli lived there.

"What do you want with her?"she asked.

"I had the pleasure of meeting her last year, and I should like to see her again."

The old woman looked at me suspiciously.

"Where did you meet her?"she asked.

"Why here, in Genoa itself."

"What is your name?"

I hesitated a moment, and then I told her.I had scarcely done so when the Italian put out her arms as if to embrace me."Oh!you are the Frenchman; how glad I am to see you!But what grief you caused the poor child.She waited for you a month; yes, a whole month.At first she thought you would come to fetch her.She wanted to see whether you loved her.If you only knew how she cried when she saw that you were not coming!She cried till she seemed to have no tears left.Then she went to the hotel, but you had gone.She thought that most likely you were traveling in Italy, and that you would return by Genoa to fetch her, as she would not go with you.And she waited more than a month, Monsieur; and she was so unhappy; so unhappy.I am her mother."

I really felt a little disconcerted, but I regained my self-possession, and asked:

"Where is she now?"

"She has gone to Paris with a painter, a delightful man, who loves her very much, and who gives her everything that she wants.Just look at what she sent me; they are very pretty, are they not?"

And she showed me, with quite Southern animation, her heavy bracelets and necklace."I have also," she continued, "earrings with stones in them, a silk dress, and some rings; but I only wear them on grand occasions.Oh!she is very happy, Sir, very happy.She will be so pleased when I tell her you have been here. But pray come in and sit down. You will take something or other, surely?"

But I refused, as I now wished to get away by the first train; but she took me by the arm and pulled me in, saying:

"Please, come in; I must tell her that you have been in here."

I found myself in a small, rather dark room, furnished with only a table and a few chairs.

She continued: "O!She is very happy now, very happy.When you met her in the train she was very miserable, for her lover had just left her at Marseilles, and she was coming back, poor child.But she liked you at once, though she was still rather sad, you understand.Now she has all she wants, and she writes and tells me everything that she does.His name is Bellemin, and they say he is a great painter in your country.He met her in the street here, and fell in love with her out of hand.But you will take a glass of syrup?—it is very good.Are you quite alone, this year?"

"Yes," I said, "quite alone."

I felt an increasing inclination to laugh, as my first disappointment was dispelled by what Mother Rondoli said.I was obliged, however, to drink a glass of her syrup.

"So you are quite alone?"she continued."How sorry I am that Francesca is not here now; she would have been company for you all the time you stayed.It is not very amusing to go about all by oneself, and she will be very sorry also."

Then, as I was getting up to go, she exclaimed:

"But would you not like Carlotta to go with you? She knows all the walks very well. She is my second daughter, Sir."

No doubt she took my look of surprise for consent, for she opened the inner door and called out up the dark stairs which I could not see:

"Carlotta!Carlotta!make haste down, my dear child."

I tried to protest, but she would not listen.

"No; she will be very glad to go with you; she is very nice, and much more cheerful than her sister, and she is a good girl, a very good girl, whom I love very much."

In a few moments, a tall, slender, dark girl appeared, with her hair hanging down, and whose youthful figure showed unmistakably beneath an old dress of her mother's.

The latter at once told her how matters stood.

"This is Francesca's Frenchman, you know, the one whom she knew last year.He is quite alone, and has come to look for her, poor fellow; so I told him that you would go with him to keep him company."

The girl looked at me with her handsome dark eyes, and said, smiling:

"I have no objection, if he wishes it."

I could not possibly refuse, and merely said:

"Of course I shall be very glad of your company."

Her mother pushed her out."Go and get dressed directly; put on your blue dress and your hat with the flowers, and make haste."

As soon as she had left the room the old woman explained herself: "I have two others, but they are much younger.It costs a lot of money to bring up four children.Luckily the eldest is off my hands at present."

Then she told all about herself, about her husband, who had been an employé on the railway, but who was dead, and she expatiated on the good qualities of Carlotta, her second girl, who soon returned, dressed, as her sister had been, in a striking, peculiar manner.

Her mother examined her from head to foot, and, after finding everything right, she said:

"Now, my children, you can go."Then turning to the girl, she said: "Be sure you are back by ten o'clock to-night; you know the door is locked then."The answer was:

"All right, mamma; don't alarm yourself."

She took my arm, and we went wandering about the streets, just as I had done the previous year with her sister.

We returned to the hotel for lunch, and then I took my new friend to Santa Margarita, just as I had done with her sister the year previously.

And she did not go home that night, although the door was to be closed at ten o'clock!

During the whole fortnight which I had at my disposal I took Carlotta to all the places of interest in and about Genoa.She gave me no cause to regret the other.

She cried when I left her, and the morning of my departure I gave her four bracelets for her mother, besides a substantial token of my affection for herself.

One of these days I intend to return to Italy, and I cannot help remembering, with a certain amount of uneasiness, mingled with hope, that Mme.Rondoli has two more daughters.

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CHÂLI

Admiral de la Vallee, who seemed to be half asleep in his armchair, said in a voice which sounded like an old woman's:

"I had a very singular little love adventure once; would you like to hear it?"

He spoke from the depths of his great chair, with that everlasting dry, wrinkled smile on his lips, that smile à la Voltaire, which made people take him for a terrible skeptic.

I

I was thirty years of age and first lieutenant in the navy, when I was intrusted with an astronomical expedition to Central India.The English Government provided me with all the necessary means for carrying out my enterprise, and I was soon busied with a few followers in that strange, surprising, prodigious country.

It would take me ten volumes to relate that journey.I went through wonderfully magnificent regions, and was received by strangely handsome princes, who entertained me with incredible magnificence.For two months it seemed to me as if I were walking in a poem, and that I was going about in a fairy kingdom, on the back of imaginary elephants.In the midst of wild forests I discovered extraordinary ruins, delicate and chiseled like jewels, fine as lace and enormous as mountains, those fabulous, divine monuments which are so graceful that one falls in love with their form like one falls in love with a woman, and that one feels a physical and sensual pleasure in looking at them. As Victor Hugo says, "Whilst wide-awake, I was walking in a dream."

Towards the end of my journey I reached Ganhard, which was formerly one of the most prosperous towns in Central India, but is now much decayed and governed by a wealthy, arbitrary, violent, generous, and cruel prince.His name is Rajah Maddan, a true Oriental potentate, delicate and barbarous, affable and sanguinary, combining feminine grace with pitiless ferocity.

The city lies at the bottom of a valley, on the banks of a little lake which is surrounded by pagodas, which bathe their walls in the water.

At a distance the city looks like a white spot which grows larger as one approaches it, and by degrees one discovers the domes and spires, all the slender and graceful summits of Indian monuments.

At about an hour's distance from the gates, I met a superbly caparisoned elephant, surrounded by a guard of honor which the sovereign had sent me, and I was conducted to the palace with great ceremony.

I should have liked to have taken the time to put on my gala uniform, but royal impatience would not admit of it.He was anxious to make my acquaintance, to know what he might expect from me, and then he would see.

I was introduced into a great hall surrounded by galleries, in the midst of bronze-colored soldiers in splendid uniforms, while all about were standing men dressed in striking robes studded with precious stones.

I saw a shining mass, a kind of sitting sun reposing on a bench like our garden benches, without a back; it was the rajah who was waiting for me, motionless, in a robe of the purest canary color. He had some ten or fifteen million francs worth of diamonds on him, and by itself, on his forehead glistened the famous star of Delhi, which has always belonged to the illustrious dynasty of the Pariharas of Mundore, from whom my host was descended.

He was a man of about five-and-twenty, who seemed to have some negro blood in his veins, although he belonged to the purest Hindoo race.He had large, almost motionless, rather vague eyes, fat lips, a curly beard, low forehead, and dazzling sharp white teeth, which he frequently showed with a mechanical smile.He got up and gave me his hand in the English fashion, and then made me sit down beside him on a bench which was so high that my feet hardly touched the ground, and I was very uncomfortable on it.

He immediately proposed a tiger hunt for the next day; war and hunting were his chief occupations, and he could hardly understand how one could care for anything else.He was evidently fully persuaded that I had only come all that distance to amuse him a little, and to be the companion of his pleasures.

As I stood greatly in need of his assistance, I tried to flatter his tastes, and he was so pleased with me that he immediately wished to show me how his trained boxers fought, and he led the way into a kind of arena situated within the palace.

At his command two naked men appeared, their hands covered with steel claws.They immediately began to attack each other, trying to strike one another with this sharp weapon, which left long cuts, from which the blood flowed freely down their dark skin.

It lasted for a long time, till their bodies were a mass of wounds, and the combatants were tearing each other's flesh with this sort of rake made of pointed blades.One of them had his jaw smashed, while the ear of the other was split into three pieces.

The prince looked on with ferocious pleasure, uttered grunts of delight, and imitated all their movements with careless gestures, crying out constantly:

"Strike, strike hard!"

One fell down unconscious, and had to be carried out of the arena, covered with blood, while the rajah uttered a sigh of regret because it was over so soon.

He turned to me to know my opinion; I was disgusted, but I congratulated him loudly.He then gave orders that I was to be conducted to Couch-Mahal (the palace of pleasure), where I was to be lodged.

This bijou palace was situated at the extremity of the royal park, and one of its walls was built into the sacred lake of Vihara.It was square, with three rows of galleries with colonnades of most beautiful workmanship.At each angle there were light, lofty or low towers, standing either singly or in pairs: no two were alike, and they looked like flowers growing out of that graceful plant of Oriental architecture.All were surmounted by fantastic roofs, like coquettish ladies' caps.

In the middle of the edifice a large dome raised its round cupola like a large white woman's breast, beside a beautiful clock-tower.

The whole building was covered with sculpture from top to bottom, with those exquisite arabesques which delight the eye, of motionless processions of delicate figures whose attitudes and gestures in stone told the story of Indian manners and customs.

The rooms were lighted by windows with dentelated arches, looking on to the gardens.On the marble floor were designs of graceful bouquets in onyx, lapis-lazuli, and agate.

I had scarcely had time to finish my toilet when Haribada, a court dignitary who was specially charged to communicate between the prince and me, announced his sovereign's visit.

The saffron-colored rajah appeared, again shook hands with me, and began to tell me a thousand different things, constantly asking me for my opinion, which I had great difficulty in giving him.Then he wished to show me the ruins of the former palace at the other extremity of the gardens.

It was a real forest of stones inhabited by a large tribe of apes.On our approach the males began to run along the walls, making the most hideous faces at us, while the females ran away, showing their bare rumps, and carrying off their young in their arms. The rajah shouted with laughter and pinched my arm to draw my attention, and to testify his own delight, and sat down in the midst of the ruins, while around us, squatting on the top of the walls, perching on every eminence, a number of animals with white whiskers put out their tongues and shook their fists at us.

When he had seen enough of this, the yellow rajah rose and began to walk sedately on, keeping me always at his side, happy at having shown me such things on the very day of my arrival, and reminding me that a grand tiger-hunt was to take place the next day, in my honor.

I was present at it, at a second, a third, at ten, twenty in succession.We hunted all the animals which the country produces in turn; the panther, the bear, elephant, antelope, the hippopotamus and the crocodile—what do I know of, half the beasts in creation I should say.I was disgusted at seeing so much blood flow, and tired of this monotonous pleasure.

At length the prince's ardor abated and, at my urgent request, he left me a little leisure for work, and contented himself by loading me with costly presents.He sent me jewels, magnificent stuffs, and well-broken animals of all sorts, which Haribada presented to me with apparently as grave respect as if I had been the sun himself although he heartily despised me at the bottom of his heart.

Every day a procession of servants brought me in covered dishes, a portion of each course that was served at the royal table; every day he seemed to take an extreme pleasure in getting up some new entertainment for me—dances by the Bayaderes, jugglers, reviews of the troops, and I was obliged to pretend to be most delighted with it, so as not to hurt his feelings when he wished to show me his wonderful country in all its charm and all its splendor.

As soon as I was left alone for a few moments I either worked or went to see the monkeys, whose company pleased me a great deal better than that of their royal master.

One evening, however, on coming back from a walk, I found Haribada outside the gate of my palace.He told me in mysterious tones that a gift from the king was waiting for me in my room, and he said that his master begged me to excuse him for not having sooner thought of offering me that of which I had been deprived for such a long time.

After these obscure remarks the ambassador bowed and withdrew.

When I went in I saw six little girls standing against the wall motionless, side-by-side, like smelts on a skewer.The eldest was perhaps ten and the youngest eight years old.For the first moment I could not understand why this girls' school had taken up its abode in my rooms; then, however, I divined the prince's delicate attention: he had made me a present of a harem, and had chosen it very young from an excess of generosity.There, the more unripe the fruit is, in the higher estimation it is held.

For some time I remained confused and embarrassed, ashamed in the presence of these children, who looked at me with great grave eyes which seemed already to divine what I should want of them.

I did not know what to say to them; I felt inclined to send them back; but one cannot return the presents of a prince; it would have been a mortal insult.I was obliged, therefore, to keep them, and to install this troop of children in my rooms.

They stood motionless, looking at me, waiting for my orders, trying to read my thoughts in my eyes.Confound such a present!How dreadfully it was in my way.At last, thinking that I must be looking rather ridiculous, I asked the eldest her name.

"Châli," she replied.

This little creature, with her beautiful skin, which was slightly yellow, like old ivory, was a marvel, a perfect statue, with her face and its long and severe lines.

I then asked, in order to see what she would reply, and also, perhaps, to embarrass her:

"What have you come here for?"

She replied, in her soft, harmonious voice:

"I have come to be altogether at my lord's disposal, and to do whatever he wishes."

She was evidently quite resigned.

I put the same question to the youngest, who answered immediately in her shrill voice:

"I am here to do whatever you ask me, my master."

This one was like a little mouse, and was very taking, just as they all were, so I took her in my arms and kissed her.The others made a movement to go away, thinking, no doubt, that I had made my choice; but I ordered them to stay, and sitting down in the Indian fashion, I made them all sit round me, and began to tell them fairy-tales, for I spoke their language tolerably well.

They listened very attentively, and trembled, wringing their hands in agony.Poor little things, they were not thinking any longer of the reason why they were sent to me.

When I had finished my story, I called Latchmân, my confidential servant, and made him bring sweetmeats and cakes, of which they ate enough to make themselves ill; then, as I began to find the adventure rather funny, I organized games to amuse my wives.

One of these diversions had an enormous success.I made a bridge of my legs, and the six children ran underneath, the smallest beginning and the tallest always knocking against them a little, because she did not stoop enough. It made them shout with laughter, and these young voices sounding beneath the low vaults of my sumptuous palace, seemed to wake it up and to people it with childlike gaiety, filling it with life.

Next I took great interest in seeing to the sleeping apartments of my innocent concubines, and in the end I saw them safely locked up under the surveillance of four female servants, whom the prince had sent me at the same time in order to take care of my sultanas.

For a week I took the greatest pleasure in acting the papa towards these living dolls. We had capital games of hide-and-seek, puss-in-the-corner, &c., which gave them the greatest pleasure, for every day I taught them a new game, to their intense delight.

My house now seemed to be one large class, and my little friends, dressed in beautiful silk stuffs, and in materials embroidered with gold and silver, ran up and down the long galleries and the quiet rooms like little human animals.

At last, one evening, without my knowing exactly how it happened, the oldest of them, the one called Châli, and who looked so like an ivory statue, became my wife.

She was an adorable little creature, timid and gentle, who soon got to love me ardently, with some degree of shame, with hesitation as if afraid of European justice, with reserve and scruples, and yet with passionate tenderness.I cherished her as if I had been her father.

I beg your pardon, ladies; I am going rather too far.

The others continued to play in the palace, like a lot of happy kittens, and Châli never left me except when I went to the prince.

We passed delicious hours together in the ruins of the old castle, among the monkeys, who had become our friends.

She used to lie on my knees, and remain there, turning all sorts of things over in her little sphinx's head, or perhaps not thinking of anything, retaining that beautiful, charming, hereditary pose of that noble and dreamy people, the hieratic pose of the sacred statues.

In a large brass dish I had brought provisions, cakes, fruits.The apes came nearer and nearer, followed by their young ones, who were more timid; at last they sat down round us in a circle, without daring to come any nearer, waiting for me to distribute my delicacies.Then, almost invariably, a male more daring than the rest would come to me with outstretched hand, like a beggar, and I would give him something, which he would take to his wife.All the others immediately began to utter furious cries, cries of rage and jealousy; and I could not make the terrible racket cease except by throwing each one his share.

As I was very comfortable in the ruins I had my instruments brought there, so that I might be able to work.As soon, however, as they saw the copper fittings on my scientific instruments, the monkeys, no doubt taking them for some deadly engines, fled on all sides, uttering the most piercing cries.

I often also spent my evenings with Châli on one of the external galleries that looked on to the lake of Vihara.Without speaking we looked at the bright moon gliding over the sky and throwing a mantle of trembling silver over the water, and down there, on the further shore, the row of small pagodas like elegant mushrooms with their stalks in the water.Taking the thoughtful head of my little mistress between my hands, I printed a long, soft kiss on her polished brow, on her great eyes, which were full of the secret of that ancient and fabulous land, and on her calm lips which opened to my caress. I felt a confused, powerful, above all, a poetical, sensation, the sensation that I possessed a whole race in this little girl, that mysterious race from which all the others seem to have taken their origin.

The prince, however, continued to load me with presents.One day he sent me a very unexpected object, which excited a passionate admiration in Châli.It was merely one of those cardboard boxes covered with shells stuck on outside, and they can be bought at any European seaside resort for a penny or two.But there it was a jewel beyond price, and no doubt was the first that had found its way into the kingdom.I put it on a table and left it there, wondering at the value which was set upon this trumpery article out of a bazaar.

But Châli never got tired of looking at it, of admiring it ecstatically.From time to time she would say to me, "May I touch it?"And when I had given her permission she raised the lid, closed it again with the greatest precaution, touched the shells very gently, and the contact seemed to give her real physical pleasure.

However, I had finished my work, and it was time for me to return.I was a long time in making up my mind, kept back by my tenderness for my little friend, but at last I was obliged to fix the day of my departure.

The prince got up fresh hunting excursions and fresh wrestling matches, and after a fortnight of these pleasures I declared that I could stay no longer, and he gave me my liberty.

My farewell from Châli was heartrending.She wept, lying beside me, with her head on my breast, shaken with sobs.I did not know how to console her; my kisses were no good.

All at once an idea struck me, and getting up I went and got the shell-box, and putting it into her hands, I said, "That is for you; it is yours."

Then I saw her smile at first.Her whole face was lighted up with internal joy, with that profound joy when impossible dreams are suddenly realized, and she embraced me ardently.

All the same, she wept bitterly when I bade her a last farewell.

I gave paternal kisses and cakes to all the rest of my wives, and then I started.

II

Two years had passed when my duties again called me to Bombay, and, because I knew the country and the language well, I was left there to undertake another mission.

I finished what I had to do as quickly as possible, and as I had a considerable amount of spare time on my hands I determined to go and see my friend the King of Ganhard and my dear little Châli once more, though I expected to find her much changed.

The rajah received me with every demonstration of pleasure, and hardly left me for a moment during the first day of my visit.At night, however, when I was alone, I sent for Haribada, and after several misleading questions I said to him:

"Do you know what has become of little Châli, whom the rajah gave me?"

He immediately assumed a sad and troubled look, and said, in evident embarrassment:

"We had better not speak of her."

"Why?She was a dear little woman."

"She turned out badly, Sir."

"What—Châli?What has become of her?Where is she?"

"I mean to say that she came to a bad end."

"A bad end!Is she dead?"

"Yes.She committed a very dreadful action."

I was very much distressed.I felt my heart beat, and my breast was oppressed with grief, and insisted on knowing what she had done and what had happened to her.

The man became more and more embarrassed, and murmured, "You had better not ask about it."

"But I want to know."

"She stole—"

"Who—Châli?What did she steal?"

"Something that belonged to you."

"To me?What do you mean?"

"The day you left she stole that little box which the prince had given you; it was found in her hands."

"What box are you talking about?"

"The box covered with shells."

"But I gave it to her."

The Indian looked at me with stupefaction, then replied: "Well, she declared with the most sacred oaths that you had given it to her, but nobody could believe that you could have given a king's present to a slave, and so the rajah had her punished."

"How was she punished?What was done to her?"

"She was tied up in a sack, and thrown into the lake from this window, from the window of the room in which we are, where she had committed the theft."

I felt the most terrible grief that I ever experienced, and I made a sign to Haribada to go away, so that he might not see my tears; and I spent the night on the gallery that looked on to the lake, on the gallery where I had so often held the poor child on my knees.

I pictured to myself her pretty little body lying decomposed in a sack in the dark waters beneath me, which we had so often looked at together formerly.

The next day I left again, in spite of the rajah's entreaties and evident vexation; and I now still feel as if I had never loved any woman but Châli.

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THE UMBRELLA

Mme. Oreille was a very economical woman; she thoroughly knew the value of a halfpenny, and possessed a whole storehouse of strict principles with regard to the multiplication of money, so that her cook found the greatest difficulty in making what the servants call their market-penny, while her husband was hardly allowed any pocket-money at all.They were, however, very comfortably off, and had no children; but it really pained Mme.Oreille to see any money spent; it was like tearing at her heartstrings when she had to take any of those nice crown-pieces out of her pocket; and whenever she had to spend anything, no matter how necessary it was, she slept badly the next night.

Oreille was continually saying to his wife:

"You really might be more liberal, as we have no children, and never spend our income."

"You don't know what may happen," she used to reply."It is better to have too much than too little."

She was a little woman of about forty, very active, rather hasty, wrinkled, very neat and tidy, and with a very short temper.

Her husband very often used to complain of all the privations she made him endure; some of them were particularly painful to him, as they touched his vanity.

He was one of the upper clerks in the War Office, and only kept on there in obedience to his wife's wish, so as to increase their income, which they did not nearly spend.

For two years he had always come to the office with the same old patched umbrella, to the great amusement of his fellow-clerks.At last he got tired of their jokes, and insisted upon his wife buying him a new one.She bought one for eight francs and a half, one of those cheap articles which large houses sell as an advertisement.When the others in the office saw the article, which was being sold in Paris by the thousands, they began their jokes again, and Oreille had a dreadful time of it with them, and they even made a song about it, which he heard from morning till night all over the immense building.

Oreille was very angry, and peremptorily told his wife to get him a new one, a good silk one, for twenty francs, and to bring him the bill, so that he might see that it was all right.

She bought him one for eighteen francs, and said, getting red with anger as she gave it to her husband:

"This will last you for five years at least."

Oreille felt quite triumphant, and obtained a small ovation at the office with his new acquisition.

When he went home in the evening, his wife said to him, looking at the umbrella uneasily:

"You should not leave it fastened up with the elastic; it will very likely cut the silk.You must take care of it, for I shall not buy you a new one in a hurry."

She took it, unfastened it, and remained dumbfounded with astonishment and rage; in the middle of the silk there was a hole as big as a sixpenny-piece; it had been made with the end of a cigar.

"What is that?"she screamed.

Her husband replied quietly, without looking at it: "What is it?What do you mean?"

She was choking with rage, and could hardly get out a word.

"You—you—have burnt—your umbrella!Why—you must be—mad!Do you wish to ruin us outright?"

He turned round, and felt that he was growing pale.

"What are you talking about?"

"I say that you have burnt your umbrella.Just look here—"

And rushing at him as if she were going to beat him, she violently thrust the little circular burnt hole under his nose.

He was so utterly struck dumb at the sight of it that he could only stammer out:

"What—what is it?How should I know?I have done nothing, I will swear.I don't know what is the matter with the umbrella."

"You have been playing tricks with it at the office; you have been playing the fool and opening it, to show it off," she screamed.

"I only opened it once, to let them see what a nice one it was, that is all, I declare."

But she shook with rage, and got up one of those conjugal scenes which make a peaceable man dread the domestic hearth more than a battlefield where bullets are raining.

She mended it with a piece of silk cut out of the old umbrella, which was of a different color, and the next day Oreille went off very humbly with the mended article in his hand.He put it into a cupboard, and thought no more about it than one thinks of some unpleasant recollection.

But he had scarcely got home that evening when his wife took the umbrella from him, opened it, and nearly had a fit when she saw what had befallen it, for the disaster was irreparable.It was covered with small holes, which, evidently, proceeded from burns, just as if someone had emptied the ashes from a lighted pipe on to it.It was done for utterly, irreparably.

She looked at it without a word, in too great a passion to be able to say anything.He also, when he saw the damage, remained almost struck stupid, in a state of frightened consternation.

They looked at each other, then he looked on to the floor; and the next moment she threw the useless article at his head, screaming out in a transport of the most violent rage, for she had recovered her voice by that time:

"Oh!you brute!you brute!You did it on purpose, but I will pay you out for it.You shall not have another."

And then the scene began again, and after the storm had raged for an hour, he, at last, was enabled to explain himself.He declared that he could not understand it at all, and that it could only proceed from malice or from vengeance.

A ring at the bell saved him; it was a friend whom they were expecting for dinner.

Mme.Oreille submitted the case to him.As for buying a new umbrella, that was out of the question; her husband should not have another.

The friend very sensibly said that in that case his clothes would be spoilt, and they were certainly worth more than the umbrella. But the little woman, who was still in a rage, replied:

"Very well, then, when it rains he may have the kitchen umbrella, for I will not give him a new silk one."

Oreille utterly rebelled at such an idea.

"All right," he said; "then I shall resign my post.I am not going to the office with the kitchen umbrella."

The friend interposed:

"Have this one re-covered; it will not cost much."

But Mme.Oreille, being in the temper that she was, said:

"It will cost at least eight francs to re-cover it.Eight and eighteen are twenty-six.Just fancy, twenty-six francs for an umbrella!It is utter madness!"

The friend, who was only a poor man of the middle-classes, had an inspiration:

"Make your Fire Assurance pay for it.The companies pay for all articles that are burnt, as long as the damage has been done in your own house."

On hearing this advice the little woman calmed down immediately, and then, after a moment's reflection, she said to her husband:

"To-morrow, before going to your office, you will go to the Maternelle Assurance Company, show them the state your umbrella is in, and make them pay for the damage."

M.Oreille fairly jumped, he was so startled at the proposal.

"I would not do it for my life!It is eighteen francs lost that is all.It will not ruin us."

The next morning he took a walking-stick when he went out, and, luckily, it was a fine day.

Left at home alone, Mme.Oreille could not get over the loss of her eighteen francs by any means.She had put the umbrella on the dining-room table, and she looked at it without being able to come to any determination.

Every moment she thought of the Assurance Company, but she did not dare to encounter the quizzical looks of the gentlemen who might receive her, for she was very timid before people, and grew red at a mere nothing, and was embarrassed when she had to speak to strangers.

But the regret at the loss of the eighteen francs pained her as if she had been wounded.She tried not to think of it any more, and yet every moment the recollection of the loss struck her painfully.What was she to do, however?Time went on, and she could not decide; but suddenly, like all cowards, on becoming determined, she made up her mind.

"I will go, and we will see what will happen."

But first of all she was obliged to prepare the umbrella so that the disaster might be complete, and the reason of it quite evident.She took a match from the mantelpiece, and between the ribs she burnt a hole as big as the palm of her hand; then she delicately rolled it up, fastened it with the elastic band, put on her bonnet and shawl, and went quickly towards the Rue de Rivoli, where the Assurance Office was.

But the nearer she got the slower she walked.What was she going to say, and what reply would she get?

She looked at the numbers of the houses; there were still twenty-eight. That was all right, so she had time to consider, and she walked slower and slower. Suddenly she saw a door on which was a large brass plate with "La Maternelle Fire Assurance Office" engraved on it. Already! She waited for a moment, for she felt nervous and almost ashamed; then she went past, came back, went past again, and came back again.

At last she said to herself:

"I must go in, however, so I may as well do it sooner as later."

She could not help noticing, however, how her heart beat as she entered.

She went into an enormous room with grated wicket openings all round, and a man behind each of them, and as a gentleman, carrying a number of papers, passed her, she stopped him and said, timidly:

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but can you tell me where I must apply for payment for anything that has been accidentally burnt?"

He replied in a sonorous voice:

"The first door on the left; that is the department you want."

This frightened her still more, and she felt inclined to run away, to make no claim, to sacrifice her eighteen francs.But the idea of that sum revived her courage, and she went upstairs, out of breath, stopping at almost every other step.

She knocked at a door which she saw on the first landing, and a clear voice said, in answer:

"Come in!"

She obeyed mechanically, and found herself in a large room where three solemn gentlemen, all with a decoration in their buttonholes, were standing talking.

One of them asked her: "What do you want, Madame?"

She could hardly get out her words, but stammered: "I have come—I have come on account of an accident, something—"

He very politely pointed out a seat to her.

"If you will kindly sit down I will attend to you in a moment."

And, returning to the other two, he went on with the conversation.

"The Company, gentlemen, does not consider that it is under any obligation to you for more than four hundred thousand francs, and we can pay no attention to your claim to the further sum of a hundred thousand, which you wish to make us pay.Besides that, the surveyor's valuation—"

One of the others interrupted him:

"That is quite enough, Monsieur; the Law Courts will decide between us, and we have nothing further to do than to take your leave."And they went out after mutual ceremonious bows.

Oh!If she could only have gone away with them, how gladly she would have done it; she would have run away and given up everything.But it was too late, for the gentleman came back, and said, bowing:

"What can I do for you, Madame?"

She could scarcely speak, but at last she managed to say:

"I have come—for this."

The manager looked at the object which she held out to him in mute astonishment.

With trembling fingers she tried to undo the elastic, and succeeded, after several attempts, and hastily opened the damaged remains of the umbrella.

"It looks to me to be in a very bad state of health," he said, compassionately.

"It cost me twenty francs," she said, with some hesitation.

He seemed astonished."Really!As much as that?"

"Yes, it was a capital article, and I wanted you to see the state it is in."

"Very well, I see; very well.But I really do not understand what it can have to do with me."

She began to feel uncomfortable; perhaps this Company did not pay for such small articles, and she said:

"But—it is burnt."

He could not deny it.

"I see that very well," he replied.

She remained open-mouthed, not knowing what to say next; then suddenly forgetting that she had left out the main thing, she said hastily:

"I am Mme. Oreille; we are assured in La Maternelle, and I have come to claim the value of this damage."

"I only want you to have it re-covered," she added quickly, fearing a positive refusal.

The manager was rather embarrassed, and said:

"But, really, Madame, we do not sell umbrellas; we cannot undertake such kinds of repairs."

The little woman felt her courage reviving; she was not going to give up without a struggle; she was not even afraid any more, and said:

"I only want you to pay me the cost of repairing it; I can quite well get it done myself."

The gentleman seemed rather confused.

"Really, Madame, it is such a very small matter!We are never asked to give compensation for such trivial losses.You must allow that we cannot make good pocket-handkerchiefs, gloves, brooms, slippers, all the small articles which are every day exposed to the chances of being burnt."

She got red, and felt inclined to fly into a rage.

"But, Monsieur, last December one of our chimneys caught fire, and caused at least five hundred francs' damage; M.Oreille made no claim on the Company, and so it is only just that it should pay for my umbrella now."

The manager, guessing that she was telling a lie, said, with a smile.

"You must acknowledge, Madame, that it is very surprising that M.Oreille should have asked no compensation for damages amounting to five hundred francs, and should now claim five or six francs for mending an umbrella."

She was not the least put out, and replied:

"I beg pardon, Monsieur, the five hundred francs affected M.Oreille's pocket, whereas this damage, amounting to eighteen francs, concerns Mme.Oreille's pocket only, which is a totally different matter."

As he saw that he had no chance of getting rid of her, and that he would only be wasting his time, he said, resignedly:

"Will you kindly tell me how the damage was done?"

She felt that she had won the victory, and said:

"This is how it happened, Monsieur: In our hall there is a bronze stick-and umbrella-stand, and the other day, when I came in, I put my umbrella into it. I must tell you that just above there is a shelf for the candlesticks and matches. I put out my hand, took three or four matches, and struck one, but it missed fire, so I struck another, which ignited, but went out immediately, and a third did the same."

The manager interrupted her, to make a joke.

"I suppose they were Government matches, then?"

She did not understand him, and went on:

"Very likely.At any rate, the fourth caught fire, and I lit my candle, and went into my room to go to bed; but in a quarter-of-an-hour I fancied that I smelt something burning, and I have always been terribly afraid of fire.If ever we have an accident it will not be my fault, I assure you.I am terribly nervous since our chimney was on fire, as I told you; so I got up, and hunted about everywhere, sniffing like a dog after game, and at last I noticed that my umbrella was burning.Most likely a match had fallen between the folds and burnt it.You can see how it has damaged it."

The manager had taken his clue, and asked her:

"What do you estimate the damage at?"

She did not know what to say, as she was not certain what amount to put on it, but at last she replied:

"Perhaps you had better get it done yourself.I will leave it to you."

He, however, naturally refused.

"No, Madame, I cannot do that.Tell me the amount of your claim, that is all I want to know."

"Well!—I think that—Look here, Monsieur, I do not want to make any money out of you, so I will tell you what we will do.I will take my umbrella to the maker, who will re-cover it in good, durable silk, and I will bring the bill to you. Will that suit you, Monsieur?"

"Perfectly, Madame; we will settle it so.Here is a note for the cashier, who will repay you whatever it costs you."

He gave Mme.Oreille a slip of paper, who took it, got up and went out, thanking him, for she was in a hurry to escape lest he should change his mind.

She went briskly through the streets, looking out for a really good umbrella-maker, and when she found a shop which appeared to be a first class one, she went in, and said, confidently:

"I want this umbrella recovered in silk, good silk.Use the very best and strongest you have; I don't mind what it costs."

---

MY UNCLE SOSTHENES

My Uncle Sosthenes was a Freethinker, like so many others are, from pure stupidity; people are very often religious in the same way. The mere sight of a priest threw him into a violent rage; he shook his fist and grimaced at him, and touched a piece of iron when the priest's back was turned, forgetting that the latter action showed a belief after all, the belief in the evil eye. Now when beliefs are unreasonable one should have all or none at all. I myself am a Freethinker; I revolt at all the dogmas which have invented the fear of death, but I feel no anger towards places of worship, be they Catholic, Apostolic, Roman, Protestant, Greek, Russian, Buddhist, Jewish, or Mohammedan. I have a peculiar manner of looking at them and explaining them. A place of worship represents the homage paid by man to THE UNKNOWN. The more extended our thoughts and our views become, the more the unknown diminishes, and the more places of worship will decay. I, however, in the place of church furniture, in the place of pulpits, reading desks, altars, and so on, would fit them up with telescopes, microscopes, and electrical machines; that is all.

My uncle and I differed on nearly every point.He was a patriot, while I was not, for after all patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

My uncle was a Freemason, and I used to declare that they are stupider than old women devotees. That is my opinion, and I maintain it; if we must have any religion at all the old one is good enough for me.

What is their object?Mutual help to be obtained by tickling the palms of each other's hands.I see no harm in it, for they put into practice the Christian precept: "Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you."The only difference consists in the tickling, but it does not seem worth while to make such a fuss about lending a poor devil half-a-crown.

To all my arguments my uncle's reply used to be:

"We are raising up a religion against a religion; Freethought will kill clericalism.Freemasonry is the headquarters of those who are demolishing all deities."

"Very well, my dear uncle," I would reply (in my heart I felt inclined to say, "You old idiot!"); "it is just that which I am blaming you for.Instead of destroying, you are organizing competition; it is only a case of lowering the prices.And then, if you only admitted Freethinkers among you I could understand it, but you admit anybody.You have a number of Catholics among you, even the leaders of the party.Pius IX.is said to have been one of you before he became Pope.If you call a society with such an organization a bulwark against clericalism, I think it is an extremely weak one."

"My dear boy," my uncle would reply, with a wink, "our most formidable actions are political; slowly and surely we are everywhere undermining the monarchical spirit."

Then I broke out: "Yes, you are very clever!If you tell me that Freemasonry is an election-machine, I will grant it you.I will never deny that it is used as a machine to control stove for candidates of all shades; if you say that it is only used to hoodwink people, to drill them to go to the voting-urn as soldiers are sent under fire, I agree with you; if you declare that it is indispensable to all political ambitions because it changes all its members into electoral agents, I should say to you, 'That is as clear as the sun.' But when you tell me that it serves to undermine the monarchical spirit, I can only laugh in your face."

"Just consider that vast and democratic association which had Prince Napoleon for its Grand Master under the Empire; which has the Crown Prince for its Grand Master in Germany, the Czar's brother in Russia, and to which the Prince of Wales and King Humbert and nearly all the royalists of the globe belong."

"You are quite right," my uncle said; "but all these persons are serving our projects without guessing it."

I felt inclined to tell him he was talking a pack of nonsense.

It was, however, indeed a sight to see my uncle when he had a Freemason to dinner.

On meeting they shook hands in a manner that was irresistibly funny; one could see that they were going through a series of secret mysterious pressures.When I wished to put my uncle in a rage, I had only to tell him that dogs also have a manner which savors very much of Freemasonry, when they greet one another on meeting.

Then my uncle would take his friend into a corner to tell him something important, and at dinner they had a peculiar way of looking at each other, and of drinking to each other, in a manner as if to say: "We know all about it, don't we?"

And to think that there are millions on the face of the globe who are amused at such monkey tricks!I would sooner be a Jesuit.

---

Now in our town there really was an old Jesuit who was my uncle's detestation.Every time he met him, or if he only saw him at a distance, he used to say: "Go on, you toad!"And then, taking my arm, he would whisper to me:

"Look here, that fellow will play me a trick some day or other, I feel sure of it."

My uncle spoke quite truly, and this was how it happened and through my fault also.

It was close on Holy Week, and my uncle made up his mind to give a dinner on Good Friday, a real dinner with his favorite chitterlings and blackpuddings.I resisted as much as I could, and said:

"I shall eat meat on that day, but at home, quite by myself. Your manifestation, as you call it, is an idiotic idea.Why should you manifest?What does it matter to you if people do not eat any meat?"

But my uncle would not be persuaded. He asked three of his friends to dine with him at one of the best restaurants in the town, and as he was going to pay the bill, I had certainly, after all, no scruples about manifesting

At four o'clock we took a conspicuous place in the most frequented restaurant in the town, and my uncle ordered dinner in a loud voice for six o'clock.

We sat down punctually, and at ten o'clock he had not finished yet.Five of us had drunk eighteen bottles of fine still wines, and four of champagne.Then my uncle proposed what he was in the habit of calling: "The archbishop's turn." Each man put six small glasses in front of him, each of them filled with a different liquor, and then they had all to be emptied at one gulp, one after another, while one of the waiters counted twenty. It was very stupid, but my uncle thought it was very suitable to the occasion.

At eleven o'clock he was as drunk as a fly.So we had to take him home in a cab and put him to bed, and one could easily foresee that his anti-clerical demonstration would end in a terrible fit of indigestion.

As I was going back to my lodgings, being rather drunk myself, with a cheerful Machiavelian drunkenness which quite satisfied all my instincts of skepticism, an idea struck me.

I arranged my necktie, put on a look of great distress, and went and rang loudly at the old Jesuit's door.As he was deaf he made me wait a long while, but at length he appeared at his window in a cotton nightcap and asked what I wanted.

I shouted out at the top of my voice:

"Make haste, reverend Sir, and open the door; a poor, despairing, sick man is in need of your spiritual ministrations."

The good, kind man put on his trousers as quickly as he could, and came down without his cassock.I told him in a breathless voice that my uncle, the Freethinker, had been taken suddenly ill, and fearing it was going to be something serious he had been seized with a sudden fear of death, and wished to see him and talk to him; to have his advice and comfort, to make his peace with the Church, and to confess, so as to be able to cross the dreaded threshold at peace with himself; and I added in a mocking tone:

"At any rate he wishes it, and if it does him no good it can do him no harm."

The old Jesuit, who was startled, delighted, and almost trembling, said to me:

"Wait a moment, my son, I will come with you;" but I replied: "Pardon me, reverend Father, if I do not go with you; but my convictions will not allow me to do so.I even refused to come and fetch you; so I beg you not to say that you have seen me, but to declare that you had a presentiment—a sort of revelation of his illness."

The priest consented, and went off quickly, knocked at my uncle's door, and was soon let in; and I saw the black cassock disappear within that stronghold of Freethought.

I hid under a neighboring gateway to wait for events.Had he been well, my uncle would have half-murdered the Jesuit, but I knew that he would scarcely be able to move an arm, and I asked myself, gleefully, what sort of a scene would take place between these antagonists, what explanation would be given?and what would be the issue of the situation which my uncle's indignation would render more tragic still?

I laughed till I had to hold my sides, and said to myself, half aloud: "Oh!what a joke, what a joke!"

Meanwhile it was getting very cold, and I noticed that the Jesuit stayed a long time, and thought: "They are having an explanation, I suppose."

One, two, three hours passed, and still the reverend Father did not come out.What had happened?Had my uncle died in a fit when he saw him, or had he killed the cassocked gentleman?Perhaps they had mutually devoured each other?This last supposition appeared very unlikely, for I fancied that my uncle was quite incapable of swallowing a grain more nourishment at that moment.

At last the day broke.

I was very uneasy, and, not venturing to go into the house myself, I went to one of my friends who lived opposite.I knocked him up, explained matters to him, much to his amusement and astonishment, and took possession of his window.

At nine o'clock he relieved me, and I got a little sleep.At two o'clock I, in my turn, replaced him.We were utterly astonished.

At six o'clock the Jesuit left, with a very happy and satisfied look on his face, and we saw him go away with a quiet step.

Then, timid and ashamed, I went and knocked at my uncle's door; and when the servant opened it I did not dare to ask her any questions, but went upstairs without saying a word.

My uncle was lying pale, exhausted, with weary, sorrowful eyes and heavy arms, on his bed.A little religious picture was fastened to one of the bed-curtains with a pin.

"Why, uncle," I said, "you in bed still?Are you not well?"

He replied in a feeble voice:

"Oh!my dear boy, I have been very ill, nearly dead."

"How was that, uncle?"

"I don't know; it was most surprising.But, what is stranger still is, that the Jesuit priest who has just left—you know, that excellent man whom I have made such fun of—had a divine revelation of my state, and came to see me."

I was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh, and with difficulty said: "Oh, really!"

"Yes, he came.He heard a Voice telling him to get up and come to me, because I was going to die.It was a revelation."

I pretended to sneeze, so as not to burst out laughing; I felt inclined to roll on the ground with amusement.

In about a minute I managed to say, indignantly: "And you received him, uncle, you?You, a Freethinker, a Freemason?You did not have him thrown out-of-doors?"

He seemed confused, and stammered:

"Listen a moment, it is so astonishing—so astonishing and providential!He also spoke to me about my father; it seems he knew him formerly."

"Your father, uncle?But that is no reason for receiving a Jesuit."

"I know that, but I was very ill, and he looked after me most devotedly all night long.He was perfect; no doubt he saved my life; those men are all a little bit of a doctor."

"Oh!he looked after you all night?But you said just now that he had only been gone a very short time."

"That is quite true; I kept him to breakfast after all his kindness.He had it at a table by my bedside while I drank a cup of tea."

"And he ate meat?"

My uncle looked vexed, as if I had said something very much out of place, and then added:

"Don't joke, Gaston; such things are out of place at times.He has shown me more devotion than many a relation would have done, and I expect to have his convictions respected."

This rather upset me, but I answered, nevertheless: "Very well, uncle; and what did you do after breakfast?"

"We played a game of bezique, and then he repeated his breviary while I read a little book which he happened to have in his pocket, and which was not by any means badly written."

"A religious book, uncle?"

"Yes, and no, or rather—no.It is the history of their missions in Central Africa, and is rather a book of travels and adventures.What these men have done is very grand."

I began to feel that matters were going badly, so I got up."Well, good-bye, uncle," I said, "I see you are going to leave Freemasonry for religion; you are a renegade."

He was still rather confused, and stammered:

"Well, but religion is a sort of Freemasonry."

"When is your Jesuit coming back?"I asked.

"I don't—I don't know exactly; to-morrow, perhaps; but it is not certain."

I went out, altogether overwhelmed.

My joke turned out very badly for me!My uncle became radically converted, and if that had been all I should not have cared so much.Clerical or Freemason, to me it is all the same; six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; but the worst of it is that he has just made his will—yes, made his will—and he has disinherited me in favor of that rascally Jesuit!

---

HE?

My dear friend, you cannot understand it by any possible means, you say, and I perfectly believe you.You think I am going mad?It may be so, but not for the reasons which you suppose.

Yes, I am going to get married, and I will give you what has led me to take that step.

My ideas and my convictions have not changed at all.I look upon all legalized cohabitation as utterly stupid, for I am certain that nine husbands out of ten are cuckolds; and they get no more than their deserts for having been idiotic enough to fetter their lives, and renounce their freedom in love, the only happy and good thing in the world, and for having clipped the wings of fancy, which continually drives us on towards all women, &c., &c., &c.You know what I mean.More than ever I feel that I am incapable of loving one woman alone, because I shall always adore all the others too much.I should like to have a thousand arms, a thousand mouths, and a thousand—temperaments, to be able to strain an army of these charming creatures in my embrace at the same moment.

And yet I am going to get married!

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 to-morrow 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 the 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 frightened 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 someone 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, someone 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 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 get 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 comfortably, and went up and down in my rooms without anything disturbing my calmness of mind.Had anyone 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 makes 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 done before, while I was surrounded by a sensation of infinite and overwhelming solitude.What was I to do?I sat down, but then a kind of nervous impatience agitated my legs, so I got up and began to walk about again.I was 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 room, 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 went on to the boulevards to 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 from the lamps.

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

I glanced into several cafés, from the Madeleine as far as the Faubourg Poissonière, 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 off for home; I was very calm and very tired.My concierge[9] opened the door at once, which was quite unusual for him, and I thought that another lodger had no doubt 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, in the act of taking up a candle, I noticed somebody sitting in my armchair by the fire, warming his feet, with his back towards 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, whom I had told when I went 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 clearly; his right arm was hanging down and his legs were crossed, while 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 some terrible danger had suddenly appeared in my way; then I turned round again, impelled by some imperious desire of looking at the armchair again, and I remained standing upright, panting with fear, so upset that I could not collect my thoughts, and ready to drop.

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 about this phenomenon.Thoughts fly very quickly at such moments.

I had been suffering from a 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 accident to the optical apparatus, nothing more; the eyes were rather congested, perhaps.

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

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

Then I double-locked my 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 then an irresistible desire seized me to look round the room, and I turned on to my side.

My fire was nearly out, and the few glowing embers threw a faint light on to the floor by the chair, where I fancied I saw the man sitting again.

I quickly struck a match, but I had been mistaken, for 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 witnessed as clearly as if it were reality.I woke up with a start, and having lit the candle, I sat up in bed, without venturing even to try and 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 don't know what.I had been ill, in a word, but yet I thought that I was a great fool.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly that evening; I went and dined at a restaurant; afterwards I went to the theater, and then started home. But as I got near the house I was seized by a strange feeling of uneasiness once more; 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.

Far more than an hour I wandered up and down the pavement; then I thought that I was really too foolish, and at last I returned home.I panted so that I could scarcely get upstairs, and I remained standing outside my door for more than ten minutes; then suddenly I took courage, and screwed myself together.I inserted my key into the lock, and went in with a candle in my hand.I kicked open my half-open bedroom door, and gave a frightened look towards 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 corner disquieted me.

I slept badly, and was constantly disturbed by imaginary noises, but I 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 specter 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?

It still worries me, however, 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....Enough of that, in Heaven's name!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 so it is.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 myself, 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 cupboards, 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 to 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 he is, for all that, none the less 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 PHILOSOPHER

Blérot had been my most intimate friend from childhood; we had no secrets from each other, and were united heart and soul by a brotherly intimacy and a boundless confidence in each other, and I had been intrusted with the secret of all his love affairs, as he had been with mine.

When he told me that he was going to get married I was hurt, just as if he had been guilty of a treacherous act with regard to me.I felt that it must interfere with that cordial and absolute affection which had united us hitherto.His wife would come between us.The intimacy of the marriage-bed establishes a kind of complicity of mysterious alliance between two persons, even when they have ceased to love each other.Man and wife are like two discreet partners who will not let anyone else into their secrets.But that close bond which the conjugal kiss fastens is widely loosened on the day on which the woman takes a lover.

I remember Blérot's wedding as if it were but yesterday.I would not be present at the signing of the marriage contract, as I have no particular liking for such ceremonies, but I only went to the civil wedding and to the church.

His wife, whom I had never seen before, was a tall, slight girl, with pale hair, pale cheeks, pale hands, and eyes to match.She walked with a slightly undulating motion, as if she were on board a ship, and seemed to advance with a succession of long, graceful curtsies.

Blérot seemed very much in love with her.He looked at her constantly, and I felt a shiver of an immoderate desire for her pass through my frame.

I went to see him in a few days, and he said to me:

"You do not know how happy I am; I am madly in love with her; but then she is ...she is ..."He did not finish his sentence, but he put the tips of his fingers to his lips with a gesture which signified:

"Divine!delicious!perfect!"and a good deal more besides.

I asked, laughing, "What!all that?"

"Everything that you can imagine," was his answer.

He introduced me to her.She was very pleasant, on easy terms with me, as was natural, and begged me to look upon their house as my own.I felt that he, Blérot, did not belong to me any longer.Our intimacy was altogether checked, and we hardly found a word to say to each other.

I soon took my leave, and shortly afterwards went to the East, and returned by way of Russia, Germany, Sweden, and Holland, after an absence of eighteen months from Paris.

The morning after my arrival, as I was walking along the boulevards to breathe the air once more, I saw a pale man with sunken cheeks coming towards me, who was as much like Blérot as it was possible for a physically emaciated man to be to a strong, ruddy, rather stout man.I looked at him in surprise, and asked myself: "Can it possibly be he?"But he saw me, and came towards me with outstretched arms, and we embraced in the middle of the boulevard.

After we had gone up and down once or twice from the Rue Druot to the Vaudeville Theater, just as we were taking leave of each other—for he already seemed quite done up with walking—I said to him:

"You don't look at all well.Are you ill?"

"I do feel rather out of sorts," was all he said.

He looked like a man who was going to die, and I felt a flood of affection for my old friend, the only real one that I had ever had.I squeezed his hands.

"What is the matter with you?Are you in pain?"

"A little tired; but it is nothing."

"What does your doctor say?"

"He calls it anæmia, and has ordered me to eat no white meat and to take tincture of iron."

A suspicion flashed across me.

"Are you happy?"I asked him.

"Yes, very happy; my wife is charming, and I love her more than ever."

But I noticed that he grew rather red and seemed embarrassed, as if he was afraid of any further questions, so I took him by the arm and pushed him into a café, which was nearly empty at that time of day.I forced him to sit down, and looking him straight in the face, I said:

"Look here, old fellow, just tell me the exact truth."

"I have nothing to tell you," he stammered.

"That is not true," I replied firmly."You are ill, mentally perhaps, and you dare not reveal your secret to anyone.Something or other is doing you harm, and I mean you to tell me what it is.Come, I am waiting for you to begin."

Again he got very red, stammered, and turning his head away, he said:

"It is very idiotic—but I—I am done for!"

As he did not go on, I said:

"Just tell me what it is."

"Well, I have got a wife who is killing me, that is all," he said abruptly, almost desperately.

I did not understand at first."Does she make you unhappy?How?What is it?"

"No," he replied in a low voice, as if he were confessing some crime; "I love her too much, that is all."

I was thunderstruck at this brutal avowal, and then I felt inclined to laugh, but at length I managed to reply:

"But surely, at least so it seems to me, you might manage to—to love her a little less."

He had got very pale again, and at length made up his mind to speak to me openly, as he used to do formerly.

"No," he said, "that is impossible; and I am dying from it I know; it is killing me, and I am really frightened.Some days, like to-day, I feel inclined to leave her, to go away altogether, to start for the other end of the world, so as to live for a long time; and then, when the evening comes, I return home in spite of myself, but slowly, and feeling uncomfortable.I go upstairs hesitatingly and ring, and when I go in I see her there sitting in her easy chair, and she says, 'How late you are,' I kiss her, and we sit down to dinner.During the meal I think to myself: 'I will go directly it is over, and take the train for somewhere, no matter where;' but when we get back to the drawing-room I am so tired that I have not the courage to get up out of my chair, and so I remain, and then—and then—I succumb again."

I could not help smiling again.He saw it, and said: "You may laugh, but I assure you it is very horrible."

"Why don't you tell your wife?"I asked him."Unless she be a regular monster she would understand."

He shrugged his shoulders."It is all very well for you to talk.I don't tell her because I know her nature.Have you ever heard it said of certain women, 'She has just married a third time?'Well, and that makes you laugh like you did just now, and yet it is true.What is to be done?It is neither her fault nor mine.She is so, because nature has made her so; I assure you, my dear old friend, she has the temperament of a Messalina.She does not know it, but I do; so much the worse for me.She is charming, gentle, tender, and thinks that our conjugal intercourse, which is wearing me out and killing me, is natural and quite moderate.She seems like an ignorant schoolgirl, and she really is ignorant, poor child."

"Every day I form energetic resolutions, for you must understand that I am dying.But one look of her eyes, one of those looks in which I can read the ardent desire of her lips, is enough for me, and I succumb at once, saying to myself: 'This is really the end; I will have no more of her death-giving kisses,' and then, when I have yielded again, like I have to-day, I go out and walk on ahead, thinking of death, and saying to myself that I am lost, that all is over."

"I am so mentally ill that I went for a walk to Père Lachaise cemetery yesterday.I looked at all the graves, standing in a row like dominoes, and I thought to myself: 'I shall soon be there,' and then I returned home, quite determined to pretend to be ill, and so escape, but I could not."

"Oh!You don't know what it is.Ask a smoker who is poisoning himself with nicotine whether he can give up his delicious and deadly habit. He will tell you that he has tried a hundred times without success, and he will, perhaps, add: 'So much the worse, but I had rather die than go without tobacco.' That is just the case with me. When once one is in the clutches of such a passion or such a vice, one must give oneself up to it entirely."

He got up and gave me his hand.I felt seized with a tumult of rage, and with hatred for this woman, this careless, charming, terrible woman; and as he was buttoning up his coat to go out I said to him, brutally perhaps:

"But, in God's name, why don't you let her have a lover, rather than kill yourself like that?"

He shrugged his shoulders without replying, and went off.

For six months I did not see him.Every morning I expected a letter of invitation to his funeral, but I would not go to his house from a complicated feeling of contempt for him and for that woman; of anger, of indignation, of a thousand sensations.

One lovely spring morning I was walking in the Champs Elysées.It was one of those warm days which makes our eyes bright and stir up in us a tumultuous feeling of happiness from the mere sense of existence.Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I saw my old friend, looking well, stout and rosy.

He gave me both hands, beaming with pleasure, and exclaimed:

"Here you are, you erratic individual!"

I looked at him, utterly thunderstruck.

"Well, on my word—yes.By Jove!I congratulate you; you have indeed changed in the last six months!"

He flushed scarlet, and said, with an embarrassed laugh:

"One can but do one's best."

I looked at him so obstinately that he evidently felt uncomfortable, so I went on:

"So—now—you are—completely cured?"

He stammered, hastily:

"Yes, perfectly, thank you."Then changing his tone, "How lucky that I should have come across you, old fellow.I hope we shall often meet now."

But I would not give up my idea; I wanted to know how matters really stood, so I asked:

"Don't you remember what you told me six months ago?I suppose—I—eh—suppose you resist now?"

"Please don't talk any more about it," he replied, uneasily; "forget that I mentioned it to you; leave me alone.But, you know, I have no intention of letting you go; you must come and dine at my house."

A sudden fancy took me to see for myself how matters stood, so that I might understand all about it, and I accepted.

His wife received me in a most charming manner, and she was, as a matter of fact, a most attractive woman.Her long hands, her neck and cheeks were beautifully white and delicate, and marked her breeding, and her walk was undulating and delightful.

René gave her a brotherly kiss on the forehead and said:

"Has not Lucien come yet?"

"Not yet," she replied, in a clear, soft voice; "you know he is almost always rather late."

At that moment the bell rang, and a tall man was shown in.He was dark, with a thick beard, and looked like a modern Hercules.We were introduced to each other; his name was Lucien Delabarre.

René and he shook hands in a most friendly manner, and then we went to dinner.

It was a most enjoyable meal, without the least constraint.My old friend spoke with me constantly, in the old familiar cordial manner, just as he used to do.It was: "You know, old fellow!"—"I say, old fellow!"—"Just listen a moment, old fellow!"Suddenly he exclaimed:

"You don't know how glad I am to see you again; it takes me back to old times."

I looked at his wife and the other man.Their attitude was perfectly correct, though I fancied once or twice that they exchanged a rapid and furtive look.

As soon as dinner was over René turned to his wife, and said:

"My dear, I have just met Pierre again, and I am going to carry him off for a walk and a chat along the boulevards to remind us of old times.I am leaving you in very good company."

The young woman smiled, and said to me, as she shook hands with me:

"Don't keep him too long."

As we went along, arm-in-arm, I could not help saying to him, for I was determined to know how matters stood:

"I say, what has happened?Do tell me!"

He, however, interrupted me roughly, and answered like a man who has been disturbed without any reason.

"Just look here, old fellow leave one alone with your questions."

Then he added, half aloud, as if talking to himself:

"After all, it would have been too stupid to have let oneself go to pot like that."

I did not press him.We walked on quickly and began to talk.All of a sudden he whispered in my ear:

"I say, suppose we go and have a bottle of 'fizz' with some girls!Eh?"

I could not prevent myself from laughing heartily.

"Just as you like; come along, let us go."

---

ALWAYS LOCK THE DOOR!

The four glasses which were standing in front of the diners were now still nearly half full, which is a sign, as a general rule, that the guests are quite so.They were beginning to speak without waiting for an answer; no one took any notice of anything except what was going on inside him, either in his mind or stomach; voices grew louder, gestures more animated, eyes brighter.

It was a bachelors' dinner of confirmed old bachelors.They had instituted this regular banquet twenty years before, christening it "The Celibate," and at the time there were fourteen of them, all fully determined never to marry.Now there were only four of them left; three were dead and the other seven were married.

These four stuck firmly to it, and, as far as lay in their power, they scrupulously observed the rules which had been laid down at the beginning of their curious association.They had sworn, hand-in-hand, to turn aside every woman they could from the right path, and their friends' wives for choice, and more especially those of their most intimate friends.For this reason, as soon as any of them left the society, in order to set up in domestic life for himself, he took care to quarrel definitely with all his former companions.

Besides this, they were pledged at every dinner to relate most minutely their last adventures, which had given rise to this familiar phrase amongst them:

"To lie like an old bachelor."

They professed, moreover, the most profound contempt for woman whom they talked of as an animal made solely for their pleasure.Every moment they quoted Schopenhauer, who was their god, and his well-known essay "On Women;" they wished that harems and towers might be reintroduced, and had the ancient maxim: "Mulier, perpetuus infans,"[10] woven into their table-linen, and below it, the line of Alfred de Vigny's:

La femme, enfant malade et douze fois impure[11]

So that by dint of despising women they lived only for them, while all their efforts and all their desires were directed towards them.

Those of them who had married called them old fops, made fun of them, and—feared them.

When they began to feel the exhilarating effects of the champagne, this was the moment that their old bachelor experiences began.

On the day in question, these old fellows, for they were old by this time, and the older they got the more extraordinary good fortune in the way of love affairs they had to relate, were quite inexhaustible. For the last month, to hear them, each of them had played the gallant with at least one woman a day; and what women! the youngest, the noblest, the richest, and the most beautiful!

After they had finished their tales, one of them, he who having spoken first had been obliged to listen to all the others, rose and said:

"Now that we have finished drawing the long-bow, I should like to tell you, not my last, but my first adventure,—I mean the first adventure of my life, my first fall,—for it is a moral fall after all, in the arms of Venus. Oh! I am not going to tell you my first—what shall I call it? —my first appearance; certainly not. The leap over the first hedge (I am speaking figuratively) has nothing interesting about it. It is generally rather a disagreeable one, and one picks oneself up rather abashed, with one charming illusion the less, with a vague feeling of disappointment and sadness. That realization of love the first time one experiences it is rather repugnant; we had dreamt of it as being so different, so delicate, so refined. It leaves a physical and moral sense of disgust behind it, just like as when one has happened to have put one's hand into some clammy matter and feels in a hurry to wash it off. You may rub it as hard as you like, but the moral feeling remains.

"Yes! but one very soon gets quite used to it; there is no doubt about that. For my part, however, I am very sorry it was not in my power to give the Creator the benefit of my advice when He was arranging these little matters. I wonder what I should have done? I am not quite sure, but I think with the English savant, John Stuart Mill, I should have managed differently; I should have found some more convenient and more poetical combination; yes—more poetical.

"I really think that the Creator showed Himself to be too much of a naturalist ...too ...what shall I say?His invention lacks poetry.

"However, what I am going to tell you is about my first woman of the world, the first woman in society I ever made love to;—I beg your pardon, I ought to say the first woman of the world that ever triumphed over me. For at first it is we who allow ourselves to be taken, while, later on—well, then it is quite another matter.

"She was a friend of my mother's, a charming woman in every way.When such women are chaste, it is generally from sheer stupidity, and when they are in love they are furiously so.And then—we are accused of corrupting them!Yes, yes, of course!With them it is always the rabbit that begins and never the sportsman.I know all about it; they don't seem to put their fingers near us, but they do it all the same, and do what they like with us, without it being noticed, and then they actually accuse us of having ruined them, dishonored them, humiliated them, and all the rest of it.

"The woman in question certainly had a great desire to be humiliated by me.She may have been about thirty-five, while I was scarcely two-and-twenty.I no more thought of dishonoring her than I did of turning Trappist.Well, one day when I was calling on her, and while I was looking at her dress with considerable astonishment, for she had on a morning wrapper which was open as wide as a church-door when the bells are ringing for service, she took my hand and squeezed it—squeezed it, you know, like they will do at such moments—and said, with a deep sigh, one of those sighs, you know, which come from right down the bottom of the chest: 'Oh!don't look at me like that, child!'I got as red as a tomato, and felt more nervous than usual, naturally.I was very much inclined to bolt, but she held my hand tightly, and putting it onto her well-developed bust, she said: 'Just feel how my heart beats!'Of course it was beating, and I began to understand what was the matter, but I did not know what to do.I have changed considerably since then.

"As I remained standing there, with one hand on the soft covering of her heart, while I held my hat in the other, and continuing to look at her with a confused, silly smile—a timid, frightened smile—she suddenly drew back, and said in an irritated voice:

"'Young man, what are you doing?You are indecent and badly brought up.'

"You may be sure I took my hand away quickly, stopped smiling, and stammering out some excuse, I got up and took my leave as if I had lost my head.

"But I was caught, and dreamt of her.I thought her charming, adorable; I fancied that I loved her, that I had always loved her, and I determined to see her again.

"When I saw her again she gave me a little smile like an actress might behind the scenes.Oh, how that little smile upset me!And she shook hands with a long, significant pressure.

"From that day it seems that I made love to her; at least, she declared afterwards that I had ruined her, captured her, dishonored her, with rare Machiavelism, with consummate cleverness, with the perseverance of a mathematician, and the cunning of an Apaché Indian.

"But one thing troubled me strangely; where was my triumph to be accomplished?I lived with my family, and on this point my family was most particular.I was not bold enough to venture to go to an hotel in broad daylight with a woman on my arm, and I did not know whom to ask for advice.

"Now, my fair friend had often said in joke that every young man ought to have a room for himself somewhere or other from home. We lived in Paris, and this was a sort of inspiration. I took a room, and she came. She came one day in November; I should have liked to put off her visit because I had no fire, and I had no fire because the chimney smoked. The very evening before, I had spoken to my landlord, a retired shopkeeper, about it, and he had promised that he would send for the chimneysweep in a day or two to get it all put to rights.

"As soon as she came in, I said:

"'There is no fire because my chimney smokes.'

"She did not even appear to hear me, but stammered: 'That does not matter, I have ...;' and when I looked surprised, she stopped short in confusion, and then went on: 'I don't know what I am saying; I am mad....I have lost my head....Oh!what am I doing?Why did I come?How unhappy I am!What a disgrace, what a disgrace!'And she threw herself sobbing into my arms.

"I thought that she really felt remorse, and swore that I would respect her.Then, however, she sank down at my knees, sighing: 'But don't you see that I love you, that you have overcome me, that it seems as though you had thrown a charm over me?'

"Then I thought it was about time to show myself a man.But she trembled, got up, ran and hid behind a wardrobe, crying out: 'Oh!don't look at me; no!no!If only you did not see me, if we were only in the dark!I am ashamed in the light.Cannot you imagine it?What a dreadful dream!Oh!this light, this light!'

"I rushed to the window; I closed the outside shutters, drew the curtains, and hung a coat over a ray of light that peeped in, and then, stretching out my hands so as not to fall over the chairs, with my heart beating, and felt for her, and found her.

"It was a fresh journey for the two of us then, groping our way, with our hands united, towards the other corner where the sofa stood.I don't suppose we went straight, for first of all I knocked against the mantelpiece, and then against a chest of drawers, before finding what we wanted.After we sat down I forgot everything, and we almost went to sleep in each other's arms.

"I was half dreaming; but in my dream I fancied that someone was calling me and crying for help; then I received a violent blow, and opened my eyes.

"'O—h!'The setting sun, magnificent and red, shone full into the room through the door, which was wide open, and seemed to look at us from the verge of the horizon, illuminating us both, especially my companion, who was screaming, struggling, and twisting, and trying with hands and feet to get under the sofa, while in the middle of the room stood my landlord by the side of the concierge[12] and a chimneysweep, as black as the devil, who were looking at us with stupid eyes.

"I stood up in rage, ready to jump at his throat, and shouted:

"'What the deuce are you doing in my room?'

"The chimneysweep laughed so that he let his brush fall on the floor.The porter looked as if he were going out of his mind, and the landlord stammered:

"'But, Monsieur, it was—it was—about the chimney—the chimney, the chimney which—'

"'Go to the devil!'I roared.So he took off his hat, which he had kept on in his confusion, and said, in a confused but very civil manner:

"'I beg your pardon, Monsieur; if I had known, I should not have disturbed you; I should not have come.The concierge told me you had gone out.Pray excuse me.'And they all went out.

"Ever since that time I never draw the curtains but am always very careful to lock the door first."

---

A MEETING

It was all an accident, a pure accident.Tired of standing, Baron d'Etraille went, as all the Princess's rooms were open on that particular evening, into an empty bedroom, which appeared almost dark after coming out of the brilliantly lighted drawing-rooms.

He looked round for a chair in which to have a doze, as he was sure his wife would not go away before daylight.As soon as he got inside the door he saw the big bed with its azure-and-gold hangings, in the middle of the great room, looking like a catafalque in which love was buried, for the Princess was no longer young.Behind it, a large bright spot looked like a lake seen at a distance from the window.It was a large looking-glass, which, discreetly covered with dark drapery, that, however, was very rarely let down, seemed to look at the bed, which was its accomplice.One might almost fancy that it felt regrets, and that one was going to see in it charming shapes of naked women, and the gentle movement of arms about to embrace them.

The Baron stood still for a moment, smiling, rather moved, on the threshold of this chamber dedicated to love.But suddenly something appeared in the looking-glass, as if the phantoms which he had evoked had risen up before him.A man and a woman who had been sitting on a low couch hidden in the shade had got up, and the polished surface, reflecting their figures, showed that they were kissing each other before separating.

The Baron recognized his wife and the Marquis de Cervigné.He turned and went away like a man who is fully master of himself, and waited till it was day before taking away the Baroness; but he had no longer any thoughts of sleeping.

As soon as they were alone he said.

"Madame, I saw you just now in Princess de Raynes' room; I need say no more, and I am not fond either of reproaches, acts of violence, or of ridicule.As I wish to avoid all such things, we shall separate without any scandal.Our lawyers will settle your position according to my orders.You will be free to live as you please when you are no longer under my roof; but, as you will continue to bear my name, I must warn you that, should any scandal arise, I shall show myself inflexible."

She tried to speak, but he stopped her, bowed, and left the room.

He was more astonished and sad than unhappy.He had loved her dearly during the first period of their married life; but his ardor had cooled, and now he often had a caprice, either in a theater or in society, though he always preserved a certain liking for the Baroness.

She was very young, hardly four-and-twenty, small, slight—too slight—and very fair.She was a true Parisian doll: clever, spoilt, elegant, coquettish, witty, with more charm than real beauty.He used to say familiarly to his brother, when speaking of her:

"My wife is charming, attractive, but—there is nothing to lay hold of.She is like a glass of champagne that is all froth—when you have got to the wine it is very good, but there is too little of it, unfortunately."

He walked up and down the room in great agitation, and thinking of a thousand things. At one moment he felt in a great rage, and felt inclined to give the Marquis a good thrashing or to smack his face publicly, in the club. But he thought that would not do, it would not be at all the thing; he would be laughed at, and not the Marquis, and as he felt that his anger proceeded more from wounded vanity than from a broken heart he went to bed, but could not go to sleep.

A few days afterwards it was known in Paris that the Baron and Baroness d'Etraille had agreed to an amicable separation on account of incompatibility of temper.Nobody suspected anything, nobody laughed, and nobody was astonished.

The Baron, however, to avoid meeting her, traveled for a year, then he spent the summer at the seaside, and the autumn in shooting, returning to Paris for the winter.He did not meet his wife once.

He did not even know what people said about her.At any rate, she took care to save appearances, and that was all he asked for.

He got dreadfully bored, traveled again, restored his old castle of Villebosc, which took him two years; then for over a year he received relays of friends there, till at last, tired of all these commonplace, so-called pleasures, he returned to his mansion in the Rue de Lills, just six years after their separation.

He was then forty-five, with a good crop of gray hair, rather stout, and with that melancholy look of people who have been handsome, sought after, and much liked, and who are deteriorating daily.

A month after his return to Paris he took cold on coming out of his club, and had a bad cough, so his medical man ordered him to Nice for the rest of the winter.

He started by the express on Monday evening.He was late, and got to the station only a very short time before the departure of the train, and had barely time to get into a carriage, with only one occupant, who was sitting in a corner so wrapped in furs and cloaks that he could not even make out whether it were a man or a woman, as nothing of the figure could be seen.When he perceived that he could not find out, he put on his traveling-cap, rolled himself up in his rugs, and stretched himself out comfortably to sleep.

He did not wake up till the day was breaking, and looked immediately at his fellow-traveler.He had not stirred all night, and seemed still to be sound asleep.

M.d'Etraille made use of the opportunity to brush his hair and his beard, and to try and freshen himself up a little generally, for a night's traveling changes one's looks very much when one has attained to a certain age.

A great poet has said:—

"When we are young, our mornings are triumphant."

Then we wake up with a cool skin, a bright eye, and glossy hair.

When one grows older one wakes up in a very different state.Dull eyes, red, swollen cheeks, dry lips, the hair and beard all disarranged, impart an old, fatigued, wornout look to the face.

The Baron opened his traveling dressing-case, and made himself as tidy as he could, and then he waited.

The engine whistled and the train stopped, and his neighbor moved.No doubt he was awake.They started off again, and then an oblique ray of sun shone into the carriage just on to the sleeper, who moved again, shook himself, and then calmly showed his face.

It was a young, fair, pretty, stout woman, and the Baron looked at her in amazement.He did not know what to believe.He could really have sworn that it was—his wife, but wonderfully changed for the better: stouter—why she had grown as stout as he was—only it suited her much better than it did him.

She looked at him quietly, did not seem to recognize him, and then slowly laid aside her wraps.She had that calm assurance of a woman who is sure of herself, the insolent audacity of a first awakening, knowing and feeling that she was in her full beauty and freshness.

The Baron really lost his head.Was it his wife, or somebody else who was as like her as any sister could be?As he had not seen her for six years he might be mistaken.

She yawned, and he knew her by her gesture, and she turned and looked at him again, calmly, indifferently, as if she scarcely saw him, and then looked out at the country again.

He was upset and dreadfully perplexed, and waited, looking at her sideways, steadfastly.

Yes; it was certainly his wife.How could he possibly have doubted?There could certainly not be two noses like that, and a thousand recollections flashed through him, slight details of her body, a beauty-spot on one of her thighs, and another opposite to it on her back.How often he had kissed them!He felt the old feeling of the intoxication of love stealing over him, and he called to mind the sweet odor of her skin, her smile when she put her arms on to his shoulders, the soft intonations of her voice, all her graceful, coaxing ways.

But how she had changed and improved!It was she and yet not she.He thought her riper, more developed, more of a woman, more seductive, more desirable, adorably desirable.

And this strange, unknown woman, whom he had accidentally met in a railway-carriage belonged to him; he had only to say to her:

"I insist upon it."

He had formerly slept in her arms, existed only in her love, and now he had found her again certainly, but so changed that he scarcely knew her.It was another, and yet she at the same time.It was another who had been born, and had formed and grown since he had left her.It was she, indeed; she whom he had possessed but who was now altered, with a more assured smile and greater self-possession.There were two women in one, mingling a great past of what was new and unknown with many sweet recollections of the past.There was something singular, disturbing, exciting about it—a kind of mystery of love in which there floated a delicious confusion.It was his wife in a new body and in new flesh which lips had never pressed.

And he thought that in six years everything changes in us, only the outline can be recognized, and sometimes even that disappears.

The blood, the hair, the skin all change, and is reconstituted, and when people have not seen each other for a long time, when they meet they find another totally different being, although it be the same and bear the same name.

And the heart also can change.Ideas may be modified and renewed, so that in forty years of life we may, by gradual and constant transformations, become four or five totally new and different beings.

He dwelt on this thought till it troubled him; it had first taken possession of him when he surprised her in the Princess's room.He was not the least angry; it was not the same woman that he was looking at—that thin, excitable little doll of those days.

What was he to do?How should he address her?and what could he say to her?Had she recognized him?

The train stopped again.He got up, bowed, and said: "Bertha, do you want anything I could bring you?..."

She looked at him from head to foot, and answered, without showing the slightest surprise or confusion, or anger, but with the most perfect indifference:

"I do not want anything,—thank you."

He got out and walked up and down the platform a little in order to recover himself, and, as it were, to recover his senses after a fall.What should he do now?If he got into another carriage it would look as if he were running away.Should he be polite or importunate?That would look as if he were asking for forgiveness.Should he speak as if he were her master?He would look like a fool, and besides, he really had no right to do so.

He got in again and took his place.

During his absence she had hastily arranged her dress and hair, and was now lying stretched out on the seat, radiant, and without showing any emotion.

He turned to her, and said: "My dear Bertha, since this singular chance has brought us together after a separation of six years—a quite friendly separation—are we to continue to look upon each other as irreconcilable enemies? We are shut up together, tête-à-tête, which is so much the better or so much the worse.I am not going to get into another carriage, so don't you think it is preferable to talk as friends till the end of our journey?"

She answered quite calmly again:

"Just as you please."

Then he suddenly stopped, really not knowing what to say; but as he had plenty of assurance, he sat down on the middle-seat, and said:

"Well, I see I must pay my court to you; so much the better.It is, however, really a pleasure, for you are charming.You cannot imagine how you have improved in the last six years.I do not know any woman who could give me that delightful sensation which I experienced just now when you emerged from your wraps.I could really have thought such a change impossible...."

Without moving her head or looking at him, she said: "I cannot say the same with regard to you; you have certainly deteriorated a great deal."

He got red and confused, and then, with a smile of resignation, he said:

"You are rather hard."

"Why?"was her reply."I am only stating facts.I don't suppose you intend to offer me your love?It must, therefore, be a matter of perfect indifference to you what I think about you.But I see it is a painful subject, so let us talk of something else.What have you been doing since I last saw you?"

He felt rather out of countenance, and stammered:

"I?I have traveled, shot, and grown old, as you see.And you?"

She said, quite calmly: "I have taken care of appearances, as you ordered me."

He was very near saying something brutal, but he checked himself, and kissed his wife's hand:

"And I thank you," he said.

She was surprised.He was indeed cool and always master of himself.

He went on: "As you have acceded to my first request, shall we now talk without any bitterness?"

She made a little movement of surprise.

"Bitterness?I don't feel any; you are a complete stranger to me; I am only trying to keep up a difficult conversation."

He was still looking at her, carried away in spite of her harshness, and he felt seized with a brutal desire, the desire of the master.

Perceiving that she had hurt his feelings, she said:

"How old are you now?I thought you were younger than you look."

He grew rather pale.

"I am forty-five;" and then he added: "I forgot to ask after Princess de Raynes.Are you still intimate with her?"

She looked at him as if she hated him:

"Yes, I certainly am.She is very well, thank you."

They remained sitting side-by-side, agitated and irritated.Suddenly he said:

"My dear Bertha, I have changed my mind.You are my wife, and I expect you to come with me to-day.You have, I think, improved both morally and physically, and I am going to take you back again.I am your husband, and it is my right to do so."

She was stupefied, and looked at him, trying to divine his thoughts; but his face was resolute and impenetrable.

"I am very sorry," she said, "but I have made other engagements."

"So much the worse for you," was his reply."The law gives me the power, and I mean to use it."

They were getting to Marseilles, and the train whistled and slackened speed.The Baroness got up, carefully rolled up her wraps, and then turning to her husband, she said:

"My dear Raymond, do not make a bad use of the tête-à-tête which I had carefully prepared. I wished to take precautions, according to your advice, so that I might have nothing to fear from you or from other people, whatever might happen. You are going to Nice, are you not?"

"I shall go wherever you go."

"Not at all; just listen to me, and I am sure that you will leave me in peace.In a few moments, when we get to the station, you will see the Princess de Raynes and Countess Hermit waiting for me with their husbands.I wished them to see us, and to know that we had spent the night together in the railway-carriage.Don't be alarmed; they will tell it everywhere as a most surprising fact."

"I told you just now that I had most carefully followed your advice and saved appearances.Anything else does not matter, does it?Well, in order to do so, I wished to be seen with you.You told me carefully to avoid any scandal, and I am avoiding it, for, I am afraid—I am afraid—"

She waited till the train had quite stopped, and as her friends ran up to open the carriage-door, she said:

"I am afraid that I am in the family-way."

The Princess stretched out her arms to embrace her, and the Baroness said, pointing to the Baron, who was dumb with astonishment, and was trying to get at the truth:

"You do not recognize Raymond?He has certainly changed a good deal, and he agreed to come with me so that I might not travel alone.We take little trips like this, occasionally, like good friends who cannot live together.We are going to separate here; he has had enough of me already."

She put out her hand, which he took mechanically, and then she jumped out on to the platform among her friends, who were waiting for her.

The Baron hastily shut the carriage-door, for he was too much disturbed to say a word or come to any determination.He heard his wife's voice, and their merry laughter as they went away.

He never saw her again, nor did he ever discover whether she had told him a lie or was speaking the truth.

---

THE LITTLE CASK

Jules Chicot, the innkeeper, who lived at Épreville, pulled up his tilbury in front of Mother Magloire's farmhouse. He was a tall man of about forty, with a red face and a round stomach, and was generally said to be a very knowing customer

He hitched his horse up to the gatepost and went in.He owned some land adjoining that of the old woman's, which he had been coveting for a long while, and had tried in vain to buy a score of times, but she had always obstinately refused to part with it.

"I was born here, and here I mean to die," was all she said.

He found her peeling potatoes outside the farmhouse door.She was a woman of about seventy-two, very thin, shriveled and wrinkled, almost dried up in fact, and much bent, but as active and untiring as a girl.Chicot patted her on the back in a very friendly fashion, and then sat down by her on a stool.

"Well, Mother, you are always pretty well and hearty, I am glad to see."

"Nothing to complain of, considering, thank you.And how are you, Mons.Chicot?"

"Oh!pretty well, thank you, except a few rheumatic pains occasionally; otherwise, I should have nothing to complain of."

"That's all the better!"

And she said no more, while Chicot watched her going on with her work. Her crooked, knotty fingers, hard as a lobster's claws, seized the tubers, which were lying in a pail, as if they had been a pair of pincers, and she peeled them rapidly, cutting off long strips of skin with an old knife which she held in the other hand, throwing the potatoes into the water as they were done. Three daring fowls jumped one after the other into her lap, seized a bit of peel, and then ran away as fast as their legs would carry them with it in their beak.

Chicot seemed embarrassed, anxious, with something on the tip of his tongue which he could not get out.At last he said hurriedly:

"I say, Mother Magloire—"

"Well, what is it?"

"You are quite sure that you do not want to sell your farm?"

"Certainly not; you may make up your mind to that.What I have said, I have said, so don't refer to it again."

"Very well; only I fancy I have thought of an arrangement that might suit us both very well."

"What is it?"

"Here you are.You shall sell it to me, and keep it all the same.You don't understand?Very well, so just follow me in what I am going to say."

The old woman left off peeling her potatoes, and looked at the innkeeper attentively from under her bushy eyebrows, and he went on:

"Let me explain myself.Every month I will give you one hundred and fifty francs.You understand me, I suppose?Every month I will come and bring you thirty crowns[13] and it will not make the slightest difference in your life—not the very slightest. You will have your own home just as you have now, will not trouble yourself about me, and will owe me nothing; all you will have to do will be to take my money. Will that arrangement suit you?"

He looked at her good-humoredly, one might almost have said benevolently, and the old woman returned his looks distrustfully, as if she suspected a trap, and said:

"It seems all right, as far as I am concerned, but it will not give you the farm."

"Never mind about that," he said, "you will remain here as long as it pleases God Almighty to let you live; it will be your home.Only you will sign a deed before a lawyer making it over to me after your death.You have no children, only nephews and nieces for whom you don't care a straw.Will that suit you?You will keep everything during your life, and I will give you the thirty crowns a month.It is pure gain as far as you are concerned."

The old woman was surprised, rather uneasy, but nevertheless, very much tempted to agree, and answered:

"I don't say that I will not agree to it, but I must think about it.Come back in a week, and we will talk it over again, and I will then give you my definite answer."

And Chicot went off, as happy as a king who has conquered an empire.

Mother Magloire was thoughtful, and did not sleep at all that night; in fact, for four days she was in a fever of hesitation. She smelt, so to say, that there was something underneath the offer which was not to her advantage; but then the thought of thirty crowns a month, of all those coins chinking in her apron, falling to her, as it were, from the skies, without her doing anything for it, filled her with covetousness.

She went to the notary, and told him about it.He advised her to accept Chicot's offer, but said she ought to ask for an annuity of fifty instead of thirty, as her farm was worth sixty thousand francs at the lowest calculation.

"If you live for fifteen years longer," he said, "even then he will only have paid forty-five thousand francs for it."

The old woman trembled with joy at this prospect of getting fifty crowns a month; but she was still suspicious, fearing some trick, and she remained a long time with the lawyer, asking questions without being able to make up her mind to go.At last she gave him instructions to draw up the deed, and returned home with her head in a whirl, just as if she had drunk four jugs of new cider.

When Chicot came again to receive her answer she took a lot of persuading, and declared that she could not make up her mind to agree to his proposal, though she was all the time on tenter-hooks lest he should not consent to give the fifty crowns: but at last, when he grew urgent, she told him what she expected for her farm.

He looked surprised and disappointed, and refused.

Then, in order to convince him, she began to talk about the probable duration of her life.

"I am certainly not likely to live for more than five or six years longer.I am nearly seventy-three, and far from strong, even considering my age.The other evening I thought I was going to die, and could hardly manage to crawl into bed."

But Chicot was not going to be taken in.

"Come, come, old lady, you are as strong as the church tower, and will live till you are a hundred at least; you will be sure to see me put underground first."

The whole day was spent in discussing the money, and as the old woman would not give way, the landlord consented to give the fifty crowns, and she insisted upon having ten crowns over and above to strike the bargain.

---

Three years passed by, and the old dame did not seem to have grown a day older.Chicot was in despair, and it seemed to him as if he had been paying that annuity for fifty years, that he had been taken in, done, that he was ruined.From time to time he went to see his annuitant, just as one goes in July to see when the harvest is likely to begin.She always met him with a cunning look, and one would have felt inclined to think that she was congratulating herself on the trick she had played him.Seeing how well and hearty she seemed, he very soon got into his tilbury again, growling to himself:

"Will you never die, you old brute?"

He did not know what to do, and he felt inclined to strangle her when he saw her.He hated her with a ferocious, cunning hatred, the hatred of a peasant who has been robbed, and began to cast about for means of getting rid of her.

One day he came to see her again, rubbing his hands like he did the first time when he proposed the bargain, and, after having chatted for a few minutes, he said:

"Why do you never come and have a bit of dinner at my place when you are in Épreville?The people are talking about it, and saying that we are not on friendly terms, and that pains me.You know it will cost you nothing if you come, for I don't look at the price of a dinner.Come whenever you feel inclined; I shall be very glad to see you."

Old Mother Magloire did not need to be told twice, and the next day but one, as she was going to town in any case, it being market-day, in her gig, driven by her man, she, without any demur, put her trap up in Chicot's stable, and went in search of her promised dinner.

The publican was delighted, and treated her like a lady, giving her roast fowl, blackpudding, leg of mutton, and bacon and cabbage.But she ate next to nothing.She had always been a small eater, and had generally lived on a little soup and a crust of bread and butter.

Chicot was disappointed, and pressed her to eat more, but she refused, and she would drink next to nothing either, and declined any coffee, so he asked her:

"But surely, you will take a little drop of brandy or liqueur?"

"Well, as to that, I don't know that I will refuse."Whereupon he shouted out:

"Rosalie, bring the superfine brandy,—the special,—you know."

The servant appeared, carrying a long bottle ornamented with a paper vine-leaf, and he filled two liqueur glasses.

"Just try that; you will find it first-rate."

The good woman drank it slowly in sips, so as to make the pleasure last all the longer, and when she had finished her glass, draining the last drops so as to make the pleasure last all the longer, she said:

"Yes, that is first-rate!"

Almost before she had said it, Chicot had poured her out another glassful.She wished to refuse, but it was too late, and she drank it very slowly, like she had done the first, and he asked her to have a third.She objected, but he persisted.

"It is as mild as milk, you know; I can drink ten or a dozen without any ill effects; it goes down like sugar, and leaves no signs in the head, one would think that it evaporated on the tongue.It is the most wholesome thing you can drink."

She took it, for she really wished to have it, but she left half the glass.

Then Chicot, in an excess of generosity, said:

"Look here, as it is so much to your taste, I will give you a small keg of it, just to show that you and I are still excellent friends."So she took one away with her, feeling slightly overcome by the effects of what she had drunk.

The next day the innkeeper drove into her yard, and took a little iron-hooped keg out of his gig.He insisted on her tasting the contents, to make sure it was the same delicious article, and, when they had each of them drunk three more glasses, he said, as he was going away:

"Well, you know, when it is all gone, there is more left; don't be modest, for I shall not mind.The sooner it is finished, the better pleased I shall be."

Four days later he came again.The old woman was outside her door cutting up the bread for her soup.

He went up to her, and put his face close to hers, so that he might smell her breath; and when he smelt the alcohol he felt pleased.

"I suppose you will give me a glass of the special?"he said.And they had three glasses each.

Soon, however, it began to be whispered abroad that Mother Magloire was in the habit of getting drunk all by herself.She was picked up in her kitchen, then in her yard, then in the roads in the neighborhood, and she was often brought home like a log.

Chicot did not go near her any more, and, when people spoke to him about her, he used to say, putting on a distressed look:

"It is a great pity that she should have taken to drink at her age; but when people get old there is no remedy.It will be the death of her in the long run."

And it certainly was the death of her.She died the next winter.About Christmas-time she fell down, unconscious, in the snow, and was found dead the next morning.

And when Chicot came in for the farm he said:

"It was very stupid of her; if she had not taken to drink she might very well have lived for ten years longer."

---

HOW HE GOT THE LEGION
OF HONOR

Some people are born with a predominant instinct, with some vocation or some desire which has been evoked as soon as they begin to speak or to think.

Ever since he was a child M.Caillard had only had one idea in his head—to be decorated.When he was still quite a small boy he used to wear a zinc Cross of the Legion of Honor in his tunic, just like other children wear a soldier's cap, and he took his mother's hand in the street with a proud look, sticking out his little chest with its red ribbon and metal star so that it might show to advantage.

His studies were not a success, and he failed in his Examination for Bachelor of Arts; so, not knowing what to do, he married a pretty girl, as he had plenty of money of his own.

They lived in Paris, like many rich middle-class people do, mixing with their own particular set, without going among other people, and proud of knowing a Deputy, who might perhaps be a Minister some day, while two Chiefs of Division were among their friends.

But Mons.Caillard could not get rid of his one absorbing idea, and he felt constantly unhappy because he had not the right to wear a little bit of colored ribbon in his buttonhole.

When he met any men who were decorated, on the boulevards, he looked at them askance, with intense jealousy. Sometimes, when he had nothing to do in the afternoon, he would count them, and say to himself: "Just let me see how many I shall meet between the Madeleine and the Rue Druot."

Then he would walk slowly, looking at every coat with a practiced eye for the little bit of red ribbon, and when he had got to the end of his walk he always said the numbers out aloud."Eight officers and seventeen knights.As many as that!It is stupid to sow the Cross broadcast in that fashion.I wonder how many I shall meet going back?"

And he returned slowly, unhappy when the crowd of passers-by interfered with his seeing them.

He knew the places where most were to be found.They swarmed in the Palais Royal.Fewer were seen in the Avenue de l'Opera than in the Rue de la Paix, while the right side of the boulevard was more frequented by them than the left.

They also seemed to prefer certain cafés and theaters.Whenever he saw a group of white-haired old gentlemen standing together in the middle of the pavement, interfering with the traffic, he used to say to himself: "They are officers of the Legion of Honor," and he felt inclined to take off his hat to them.

He had often remarked that the officers had a different bearing to the mere knights.They carried their head differently, and one felt that they enjoyed a higher official consideration, and a more widely-extended importance.

Sometimes again the worthy man would be seized with a furious hatred for everyone who was decorated; he felt like a Socialist towards them.

Then, when he got home, excited at meeting so many Crosses—just like a poor hungry wretch is on passing some dainty provision shop—he used to ask in a loud voice:

"When shall we get rid of this wretched Government?"And his wife would be surprised, and ask:

"What is the matter with you to-day?"

"I am indignant," he replied, "at the injustice I see going on around us.Oh!the Communards were certainly right!"

After dinner he would go out again and look at the shops where all the decorations were sold, and he examined all the emblems of various shapes and colors.He would have liked to possess them all, and to have walked gravely at the head of a procession with his crush-hat under his arm and his breast covered with decorations, radiant as a star, amid a buzz of admiring whispers and a hum of respect.

But, alas!he had no right to wear any decoration whatever.

He used to say to himself: "It is really too difficult for any man to obtain the Legion of Honor unless he is some public functionary.Suppose I try to get appointed an officer of the Academy!"

But he did not know how to set about it, and spoke to his wife on the subject, who was stupefied.

"Officer of the Academy!What have you done to deserve it?"

He got angry."I know what I am talking about; I only want to know how to set about it.You are quite stupid at times."

She smiled."You are quite right; I don't understand anything about it."

An idea struck him: "Suppose you were to speak to M. Rosselin, the Deputy, he might be able to advise me. You understand I cannot broach the subject to him directly. It is rather difficult and delicate, but coming from you it might seem quite natural."

Mme.Caillard did what he asked her, and M.Rosselin promised to speak to the Minister about it, and then Caillard began to worry him, till the Deputy told him he must make a formal application and put forward his claims.

"What were his claims?"he said."He was not even a Bachelor of Arts."

However, he set to work and produced a pamphlet, with the title, "The People's Right to Instruction," but he could not finish it for want of ideas.

He sought for easier subjects, and began several in succession.The first was, "The Instruction of Children by means of the Eye."He wanted gratuitous theaters to be established in every poor quarter of Paris for little children.Their parents were to take them there when they were quite young, and, by means of a magic-lantern, all the notions of human knowledge were to be imparted to them.There were to be regular courses.The sight would educate the mind, while the pictures would remain impressed on the brain, and thus science would, so to say, be made visible.What could be more simple than to teach universal history, natural history, geography, botany, zoology, anatomy, &c., &c., thus?

He had his ideas printed in tract form, and sent a copy to each Deputy, ten to each Minister, fifty to the President of the Republic, ten to each Parisian and five to each provincial newspaper.

Then he wrote on "Street Lending-Libraries."His idea was to have little carts full of books drawn about the streets, like orange-carts are. Every householder or lodger would have a right to ten volumes a month by means of a halfpenny subscription.

"The people," M.Caillard said, "will only disturb itself for the sake of its pleasures, and since it will not go to instruction, instruction must come to it," &c., &c.

His essays attracted no attention, but he sent in his application, and he got the usual formal official reply.He thought himself sure of success, but nothing came of it.

Then he made up his mind to apply personally.He begged for an interview with the Minister of Public Instruction, and he was received by a young subordinate, who already was very grave and important, and who kept touching the knobs of electric-bells to summon ushers, and footmen, and officials inferior to himself.He declared to M.Caillard that his matter was going on quite favorably, and advised him to continue his remarkable labors, and M.Caillard set at it again.

M.Rosselin, the Deputy, seemed now to take a great interest in his success, and gave him a lot of excellent, practical advice.He was decorated, although nobody knew exactly what he had done to deserve such a distinction.

He told Caillard what new studies he ought to undertake; he introduced him to learned Societies which took up particularly obscure points of science, in the hope of gaining credit and honors thereby; and he even took him under his wing at the Ministry.

One day, when he came to lunch with his friend (for several months past he had constantly taken his meals there), he said to him in a whisper as he shook hands: "I have just obtained a great favor for you. The Committee of Historical Works is going to intrust you with a commission. There are some researches to be made in various libraries in France."

Caillard was so delighted that he could scarcely eat or drink, and a week later he set out.He went from town to town, studying catalogues, rummaging in lofts full of dusty volumes, and was hated by all the librarians.

One day, happening to be at Rouen, he thought he should like to go and embrace his wife, whom he had not seen for more than a week, so he took the nine o'clock train, which would land him at home by twelve at night.

He had his latchkey, so he went in without making any noise, delighted at the idea of the surprise he was going to give her.She had locked herself in.How tiresome!However, he cried out through the door:

"Jeanne, it is I."

She must have been very frightened, for he heard her jump out of bed and speak to herself, as if she were in a dream.Then she went to her dressing-room, opened and closed the door, and went quickly up and down her room barefoot two or three times, shaking the furniture till the vases and glasses sounded.Then at last she asked:

"Is it you, Alexander?"

"Yes, yes," he replied; "make haste and open the door."

As soon as she had done so, she threw herself into his arms, exclaiming:

"Oh!what a fright!...What a surprise!...What a pleasure!..."

He began to undress himself methodically, like he did everything, and from a chair he took his overcoat, which he was in the habit of hanging up in the hall.But, suddenly, he remained motionless, struck dumb with astonishment—there was a red ribbon in the buttonhole!

"Why," he stammered, "this—this—this—this overcoat has got the rosette in it!"

In a second his wife threw herself on him, and taking it from his hands, she said:

"No!you have made a mistake—give it to me."

But he still held it by one of the sleeves, without letting it go, repeating, in a half-dazed manner:

"Oh!Why?Just explain ...whose overcoat is it?It is not mine, as it has the Legion of Honor on it."

She tried to take it from him, terrified, and hardly able to say:

"Listen ...listen ...give it me ...I must not tell you ...it is a secret ...listen to me."

But he grew angry, and turned pale:

"I want to know how this overcoat comes to be here?It does not belong to me."

Then she almost screamed at him:

"Yes it does; listen ...swear to me ...well ...you are decorated."

She did not intend to joke at his expense.

He was so overcome that he let the overcoat fall, and dropped into an armchair.

"I am ...you say I am ...decorated?"

"Yes, but it is a secret, a great secret."

She had put the glorious garment into a cupboard, and came to her husband pale and trembling.

"Yes," she continued, "it is a new overcoat that I have had made for you.But I swore that I would not tell you anything about it, as it will not be officially announced for a month or six weeks, and you were not to have known till your return from your business journey.M.Rosselin managed it for you."

"Rosselin!"he contrived to utter in his joy; "he has obtained the decoration for me?He—Oh!"

And he was obliged to drink a glass of water.

A little piece of white paper fell to the floor out of the pocket of the overcoat.Caillard picked it up; it was a visiting-card, and he read out:

"Rosselin—Deputy."

"You see how it is," said his wife.

He almost cried with joy, and, a week later, it was announced in the Journal Officiel that M. Caillard had been awarded the Legion of Honor on account of his exceptional services.

---

THE ACCURSED BREAD

Daddy Taille had three daughters: Anna, the eldest, who was scarcely ever mentioned in the family; Rose, the second girl, who was eighteen; and Clara, the youngest, who was a girl of fifteen.

Old Taille was a widower, and a foreman in M.Lebrument's button-manufactory.He was a very upright man, very well thought of, abstemious; in fact a sort of model workman.He lived at Havre, in the Rue d'Angoulême.

When Anna ran away the old man flew into a fearful rage.He threatened to kill the seducer, who was head clerk in a large draper's establishment in that town.Then, when he was told by various people that she was keeping very steady and investing money in Government securities, that she was no gadabout, but was kept by a Mons.Dubois, who was a judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, the father was appeased.

He even showed some anxiety as to how she was getting on, asked some of her old friends who had been to see her how she was getting on; and when told that she had her own furniture, and that her mantelpiece was covered with vases and the walls with pictures, that there were clocks and carpets everywhere, he gave a broad, contented smile.He had been working for thirty years to get together a wretched five or six thousand francs.This girl was evidently no fool.

One fine morning the son of Touchard, the cooper, at the other end of the street, came and asked him for the hand of Rose, the second girl. The old man's heart began to beat, for the Touchards were rich and in a good position. He was decidedly lucky with his girls.

The marriage was agreed upon, and it was settled that it should be a grand affair, and the wedding dinner was to be held at Sainte-Adresse, at Mother Lusa's restaurant.It would cost a lot certainly; but never mind, it did not matter just for once in a way.

But one morning, just as the old man was going home to breakfast with his two daughters the door opened suddenly, and Anna appeared.She was elegantly dressed, wore rings and an expensive bonnet, and looked undeniably pretty and nice.She threw her arms round her father's neck before he could say a word, then fell into her sister's arms with many tears, and then asked for a plate, so that she might share the family soup.Taille was moved to tears in his turn and said several times:

"That is right, dear; that is right."

Then she told them about herself.She did not wish Rose's wedding to take place at Sainte-Adresse,—certainly not.It should take place at her house, and would cost her father nothing.She had settled everything and arranged everything, so it was "no good to say any more about it,—there!"

"Very well, my dear!very well!"the old man said, "we will leave it so."But then he felt some doubt.Would the Touchards consent?But Rose, the bride-elect, was surprised and asked, "Why should they object, I should like to know?Just leave that to me, I will talk to Philip about it."

She mentioned it to her lover the very same day, and he declared that it would suit him exactly. Father and Mother Touchard were naturally delighted at the idea of a good dinner which would cost them nothing, and said:

"You may be quite sure that everything will be in first-rate style, as M.Dubois is made of money."

They asked to be allowed to bring a friend, Mme.Florence, the cook on the first floor, and Anna agreed to everything.

The wedding was fixed for the last Tuesday of the month.

II

After the civil formalities and the religious ceremony the wedding party went to Anna's house.Among those whom the Tailles had brought was a cousin of a certain age, a M.Sauvetanin, a man given to philosophical reflections, serious, and always very self-possessed, and Mme.Lamonoois, an old aunt.

M.Sauvetanin had been told off to give Anna his arm, as they were looked upon as the two most important persons in the company.

As soon as they had arrived at the door of Anna's house she let go her companion's arm, and ran on ahead, saying, "I will show you the way," and ran upstairs while the invited guests followed more slowly; and, when they got upstairs, she stood on one side to let them pass, and they rolled their eyes and turned their heads in all directions to admire this mysterious and luxurious dwelling.

The table was laid in the drawing-room as the dining-room had been thought too small.Extra knives, forks, and spoons had been hired from a neighboring restaurant, and decanters full of wine under the rays of the sun which shown in through the window.

The ladies went into the bedroom to take off their shawls and bonnets, and Father Touchard, who was standing at the door, squinted at the low wide bed, and made funny and suggestive signs to the men, with many a wink and a nod.Daddy Taille, who thought a great deal of himself, looked with fatherly pride at his child's well-furnished rooms, and went from one to the other holding his hat in his hand, making a mental inventory of everything, and walking like a verger in a church.

Anna went backwards and forwards, ran about giving orders and hurrying on the wedding feast.Soon she appeared at the door of the dining-room, and cried: "Come here, all of you, for a moment," and when the twelve guests did as they were asked they saw twelve glasses of Madeira on a small table.

Rose and her husband had their arms round each other's waists, and were kissing each other in every corner.Mons.Sauvetanin never took his eyes off Anna; he no doubt felt that ardor, that sort of expectation which all men, even if they are old and ugly, feel for women of a certain stamp, as if they owed a little of themselves, professionally, to all males.

They sat down, and the wedding-breakfast began; the relations sitting at one end of the table and the young people at the other.Mme.Touchard, the mother, presided on the right and the bride on the left.Anna looked after everybody, saw that the glasses were kept filled and the plates well supplied.The guests evidently felt a certain respectful embarrassment at the sight of all the sumptuousness of the rooms and at the lavish manner in which they were treated. They all ate heartily of the good things provided, but there were no jokes such as are prevalent at weddings of that sort; it was all too grand, and it made them feel uncomfortable. Old Madame Touchard, who was fond of a bit of fun, tried to enliven matters a little, and at the beginning of the dessert she exclaimed: "I say, Philip, do sing us something." The neighbors in their street considered that he had the finest voice in all Havre.

The bridegroom got up, smiled, and turning to his sister-in-law, from politeness and gallantry, tried to think of something suitable for the occasion, something serious and correct, to harmonize with the seriousness of the repast.

Anna had a satisfied look on her face, and leaned back in her chair to listen, and all assumed looks of attention, though prepared to smile should smiles be called for.

The singer announced, "The Accursed Bread," and extending his right arm, which made his coat ruck up into his neck, he began.

It was decidedly long, three verses of eight lines each, with the last line and the last line but one repeated twice.

All went well for the first two verses; they were the usual commonplaces about bread gained by honest labor and by dishonesty.The aunt and the bride wept outright.The cook, who was present, at the end of the first verse looked at a roll which she held in her hand with running eyes, as if they applied to her, while all applauded vigorously.At the end of the second verse the two servants, who were standing with their backs to the wall, joined loudly in the chorus, and the aunt and the bride wept outright. Daddy Taille blew his nose with the noise of a trombone, and old Touchard brandished a whole loaf half over the table, and the cook shed silent tears on the crust which she was still holding.

Amidst the general emotion M.Sauvetanin said:

"That is the right sort of song; very different to the nasty, risky things one generally hears at weddings."

Anna, who was visibly affected, kissed her hand to her sister, and pointed to her husband with an affectionate nod, as if to congratulate her.

Intoxicated by his success, the young man continued, and unfortunately the last verse contained the words about the bread of dishonor gained by young girls who had been led astray from the paths of virtue.No one took up the refrain about this bread, supposed to be eaten with tears, except old Touchard and the two servants.Anna had grown deadly pale, and cast down her eyes, while the bridegroom looked from one to the other without understanding the reason for this sudden coldness, and the cook hastily dropped the crust as if it were poisoned.

Mons.Sauvetanin said solemnly, in order to save the situation: "That last couplet is not at all necessary;" and Daddy Taille, who had got red up to the ears, looked round the table fiercely.

Then Anna, with her eyes swimming in tears, told the servants, in the faltering voice of a woman trying to stifle her sobs, to bring the champagne.

All the guests were suddenly seized with exuberant joy, and all their faces became radiant again.And when old Touchard, who had seen, felt, and understood nothing of what was going on, and, pointing to the guests so as to emphasize his words, sang the last words of the refrain:

"Children, I warn you all to eat not of that bread," the whole company, when they saw the champagne bottles, with their necks covered with gold foil appear, burst out singing, as if electrified by the sight:

"Children, I warn you all to eat not of that bread."

---

WHAT WAS REALLY THE MATTER
WITH ANDREW

The lawyer's house looked on to the Square.Behind it, there was a nice, well-kept garden, with a back entrance into a narrow street which was almost always deserted, and from which it was separated by a wall.

At the bottom of that garden Maitre[14] Moreau's wife had promised, for the first time, to meet Captain Sommerive, who had been making love to her for a long time.

Her husband had gone to Paris for a week, so she was quite free for the time being.The Captain had begged so hard, and had used such loving words, she was certain that he loved her so ardently, and she felt so isolated, so misunderstood, so neglected amidst all the law business which seemed to be her husband's sole pleasure, that she had given away her heart without even asking herself whether it would give her anything else at some future time.

Then, after some months of platonic love, of pressing of hands, of kisses rapidly stolen behind a door, the Captain had declared that he would ask permission to exchange, and leave the town immediately, if she would not grant him a meeting, a real meeting, during her husband's absence; and so at length she yielded to his importunity.

Just then she was waiting, close against the wall, with a beating heart, trembling at the slightest sound, and when at length she heard somebody climbing up the wall, she very nearly ran away.

Suppose it were not he, but a thief?But no; someone called out softly, "Matilda!"and when she replied, "Etienne!"a man jumped on to the path with a crash.

It was he,—and what a kiss!

For a long time they remained in each other's arms, with united lips.But suddenly a fine rain began to fall, and the drops from the leaves fell on to her neck and made her start.Whereupon he said:

"Matilda, my adored one, my darling, my angel, let us go indoors.It is twelve o'clock, we can have nothing to fear; please let us go to your room."

"No, dearest; I am too frightened."

But he held her in his arms, and whispered in her ear:

"Your servants sleep on the third floor, looking on to the Square, and your room, on the first, looks on to the garden, so nobody can hear us.I love you so that I wish to love you entirely, from head to foot."And he embraced her vehemently.

She resisted still, frightened and even ashamed.But he put his arms round her, lifted her up, and carried her off under the rain, which was by this time descending in torrents.

The door was open; they groped their way upstairs; and when they were in the room he bolted the door while she lit a match.

Then she fell, half fainting, into a chair, while he knelt down beside her.

At last, she said, panting:

"No!no!Etienne, please let me remain a virtuous woman; I should be too angry with you afterwards; and after all, it is so horrid, so common. Cannot we love each other with a spiritual love only?... Oh! Etienne!"

But he was inexorable, and then she tried to get up and escape from his attacks.

In her fright she ran to the bed in order to hide herself behind the curtains; but it was a dangerous place of refuge, and he followed her.But in haste he took off his sword too quickly, and it fell on the floor with a crash.

And then—a prolonged, shrill child's cry came from the next room, the door of which had remained open.

"You have awakened the child," she whispered, "and perhaps he will not go to sleep again."

He was only fifteen months old, and slept in a room opening out of hers, so that she might be able to hear him.

The Captain exclaimed, ardently:

"What does it matter, Matilda?How I love you; you must come to me, Matilda."

But she struggled, and resisted in her fright.

"No!no!Just listen how he is crying; he will wake up the nurse, and what should we do if she were to come?We should be lost.Just listen to me, Etienne.When he screams at night his father always takes him into our bed, and he is quiet immediately; it is the only means of keeping him still.Do let me take him...."

The child roared, uttered shrill screams, which pierced the thickest walls, so as to be heard by passers-by in the streets.

In his consternation, the Captain got up, and Matilda jumped out and took the child into her bed, when he was quiet at once.

Etienne sat astride on a chair, and made a cigarette, and in about five minutes Andrew went to sleep again.

"I will take him back," his mother said; and she took him back very carefully to his bed.

When she returned, the Captain was waiting for her with open arms, and put his arms round her in a transport of love, while she, embracing him more closely, said, stammering:

"Oh!Etienne, my darling, if you only knew how I love you; how...."

Andrew began to cry again, and he, in a rage, exclaimed:

"Confound it all, won't the little brute be quiet?"

No, the little brute would not be quiet, but howled all the louder, on the contrary.

She thought she heard a noise downstairs; no doubt the nurse was coming, so she jumped up, and took the child into bed, and he grew quiet directly.

Three times she put him back, and three times she had to fetch him again, and an hour before daybreak the Captain had to go, swearing like the proverbial trooper; and, to calm his impatience, Matilda promised to receive him again the next night.

Of course he came, more impatient and ardent than ever, excited by the delay.

He took care to put his sword carefully into a corner; he took off his boots like a thief, and spoke so low that Matilda could hardly hear him.At last, he was just going to be really happy when the floor, or some piece of furniture, or perhaps the bed itself, creaked; it sounded as if something had broken; and in a moment a cry, feeble at first, but which grew louder every moment, made itself heard. Andrew was awake again.

He yapped like a fox, and there was not the slightest doubt that if he went on like that the whole house would awake; so his mother, not knowing what to do, got up and brought him. The Captain was more furious than ever, but did not move, and very carefully he put out his hand, took a small piece of the child's skin between his two fingers, no matter where it was, the thighs or elsewhere, and pinched it. The little one struggled and screamed in a deafening manner, but his tormentor pinched everywhere furiously and more vigorously. He took a morsel of flesh and twisted and turned it, and then let go in order to take hold of another piece, and then another and another.

The child screamed like a chicken that is having its throat cut, or a dog that is being mercilessly beaten.His mother caressed him, kissed him, and tried to stifle his cries by her tenderness; but Andrew grew purple, as if he were going into convulsions, and kicked and struggled with his little arms and legs in an alarming manner.

The Captain said, softly:

"Try and take him back to his cradle; perhaps he will be quiet."

And Matilda went into the other room with the child in her arms.

As soon as he was out of his mother's bed he cried less loudly, and when he was in his own he was quiet, with exception of a few broken sobs.

The rest of the night was tranquil.

The next night he came again.As he happened to speak rather loudly, Andrew awoke again and began to scream. His mother went and fetched him immediately, but the Captain pinched so hard and long that the child was nearly suffocated by its cries, and its eyes turned in its head and it foamed at the mouth; as soon as it was back in its cradle it was quiet, and in four days Andrew did not cry any more to come into his mother's bed.

On Saturday evening the lawyer returned, and took his place again at the domestic hearth and in the conjugal chamber.

As he was tired with his journey he went to bed early; but he had not long lain down when he said to his wife:

"Why, how is it that Andrew is not crying?Just go and fetch him, Matilda; I like to feel that he is between us."

She got up and brought the child, but as soon as he saw that he was in that bed, in which he had been so fond of sleeping a few days previously, he wriggled and screamed so violently in his fright that she had to take him back to his cradle.

M.Moreau could not get over his surprise."What a very funny thing!What is the matter with him this evening?I suppose he is sleepy?"

"He has been like that all the time that you were away; I have never been able to have him in bed with me once."

In the morning the child woke up and began to laugh and play with his toys.

The lawyer, who was an affectionate man, got up, kissed his offspring, and took him into his arms to carry him to their bed.Andrew laughed, with that vacant laugh of little creatures whose ideas are still vague. He suddenly saw the bed and his mother in it, and his happy little face puckered up, till suddenly he began to scream furiously, and struggled as if he were going to be put to the torture.

In his astonishment his father said:

"There must be something the matter with the child," and mechanically he lifted up his little nightshirt.

He uttered a prolonged "O—o—h!"of astonishment.The child's calves, thighs, and buttocks were covered with blue spots as big as halfpennies.

"Just look, Matilda!"the father exclaimed; "this is horrible!"And the mother rushed forward in a fright.It was horrible; no doubt the beginning of some sort of leprosy, of one of those strange affections of the skin which doctors are often at a loss to account for.

The parents looked at one another in consternation.

"We must send for the doctor," the father said.

But Matilda, pale as death, was looking at her child, who was spotted like a leopard.Then suddenly uttering a violent cry, as if she had seen something that filled her with horror, she exclaimed:

"Oh!the wretch!"

In his astonishment M.Moreau asked: "What are you talking about?What wretch?"

She got red up to the roots of her hair, and stammered:

"Oh, nothing!but I think I can guess—it must be—we ought to send for the doctor ...it must be that wretch of a nurse who has been pinching the poor child to make him keep quiet when he cries."

In his rage the lawyer sent for the nurse, and very nearly beat her. She denied it most impudently, but was instantly dismissed, and the Municipality having been informed of her conduct, she will find it a hard matter to get another situation.

---

MY LANDLADY

At that time (George Kervelen said) I was living in furnished lodgings in the Rue des Saints-Pères.

When my father had made up his mind that I should go to Paris to continue my law studies, there had been a long discussion about settling everything.My allowance had been fixed at first at two thousand five hundred francs, but my poor mother was so anxious, that she said to my father that if I spent my money badly I might not take enough to eat, and then my health would suffer, and so it was settled that a comfortable boarding-house should be found for me, and that the amount should be paid to the proprietor himself, or herself, every month.

Some of our neighbors told us of a certain Mme.Kergaran, a native of Brittany, who took in boarders, and so my father arranged matters by letter with this respectable person, at whose house I and my luggage arrived one evening.

Mme.Kergaran was a woman of about forty.She was very stout, had a voice like a drill-sergeant, and decided everything in a very abrupt manner.Her house was narrow, with only one window opening on to the street on each story, which rather gave it the appearance of a ladder of windows, or better, perhaps, of a slice of a house sandwiched in between two others.

The landlady lived on the first floor with her servant, the kitchen and dining-room were on the second, and four boarders from Brittany lived on the third and fourth, and I had two rooms on the fifth.

A little dark corkscrew staircase led up to these attics.All day long Mme.Kergaran was up and down these stairs like a captain on board ship.Ten times a day she would go into each room, noisily superintending everything, seeing that the beds were properly made, the clothes well brushed, if the attendance were all that it should be; in a word, she looked after her boarders like a mother, and better than a mother.

I soon made the acquaintance of my four fellow-countrymen.Two were medical and two were law students, but all impartially endured the landlady's despotic yoke.They were as frightened of her as a boy robbing an orchard would be of a rural policeman.

I, however, immediately felt that I wished to be independent; it is my nature to rebel.I declared at once that I meant to come in at whatever time I liked, for Mme.Kergaran had fixed twelve o'clock at night as the limit.On hearing this she looked at me for a few moments, and then said:

"It is quite impossible; I cannot have Annette awakened at any hour of the night.You can have nothing to do out-of-doors at such a time."

I replied firmly that, according to the law, she was obliged to open the door for me at any time.

"If you refuse," I said, "I shall get a policeman to witness the fact, and go and get a bed at some hotel, at your expense, in which I shall be fully justified.You will, therefore, be obliged either to open the door for me or to get rid of me.Do which you please."

I laughed in her face as I told her my conditions.She could not speak for a moment for surprise, then she tried to negotiate, but I was firm, and she was obliged to yield; and so it was agreed that I should have a latchkey, on my solemn undertaking that no one else should know it.

My energy made such a wholesome impression on her that from that time she treated me with marked favor; she was most attentive, and even showed me a sort of rough tenderness which was not at all unpleasing.Sometimes when I was in a jovial mood I would kiss her by surprise, if only for the sake of getting the box on the ears which she gave me immediately afterwards.When I managed to duck my head quickly enough, her hand would pass over me as swiftly as a ball, and I would run away laughing, while she would call after me:

"Oh!you wretch, I will pay you out for that."

However, we soon became real friends.

It was not long before I made the acquaintance of a girl who was employed in a shop, and whom I constantly met.You know what such sort of love affairs are in Paris.One fine day, going to a lecture, you meet a work-girl going to work arm-in-arm with a friend.You look at her and feel that pleasant little shock which the eye of some women gives you.The next day at the same time, going through the same street, you meet her again, and the next, and the succeeding days.At last you speak, and the love affair follows its course just like an illness.

Well, by the end of three weeks I was on that footing with Emma which precedes a fall.The fall would indeed have taken place much sooner had I known where to bring it about.The girl lived at home, and utterly refused to go to an hotel.I did not know how to manage, but at last I took the desperate resolve to take her to my room some night at about eleven o'clock, under the pretense of giving her a cup of tea.Mme.Kergaran always went to bed at ten, so that we could get in by means of my latchkey without exciting any attention, and go down again in an hour or two in the same way.

After a good deal of entreaty on my part, Emma accepted my invitation.

I did not spend a very pleasant day, for I was by no means easy in my mind.I was afraid of complications, of a catastrophe, of some scandal.At night I went into a café, and drank two cups of coffee, and three or four glasses of cognac, to give me courage, and when I heard the clock strike half-past ten, I went slowly to the place of meeting, where she was already waiting for me.She took my arm in a coaxing manner, and we set off slowly towards my lodgings.The nearer we got to the door the more nervous I got, and I thought to myself—"If only Mme.Kergaran is in bed already."

I said to Emma two or three times:

"Above all things, don't make any noise on the stairs," to which she replied, laughing:

"Are you afraid of being heard?"

"No," I said, "but I am afraid of waking the man who sleeps in the room next to me, who is not at all well."

When I got near the house I felt as frightened as a man does who is going to the dentist's.All the windows were dark, so no doubt everybody was asleep, and I breathed again.I opened the door as carefully as a thief, let my fair companion in, shut it behind me, and went upstairs on tiptoe, holding my breath, and striking wax-matches lest the girl should make a false step.

As we passed the landlady's door I felt my heart beating very quickly, but we reached the second floor, then the third, and at last the fifth, and got into my room.Victory!

However, I only dared to speak in a whisper, and took off my boots so as not to make any noise.The tea, which I made over a spirit-lamp, was soon drunk, and then I became pressing, till little by little, as if in play, I, one by one, took off my companion's clothes, who yielded while resisting, blushing, confused.

She had absolutely nothing more on except a short white petticoat when my door suddenly opened, and Mme.Kergaran appeared with a candle in her hand, in exactly the same costume as Emma.

I jumped away from her and remained standing up, looking at the two women, who were looking at each other.What was going to happen?

My landlady said, in a lofty tone of voice which I had never heard from her before:

"Monsieur Kervelen, I will not have prostitutes in my house."

"But, Madame Kergaran," I stammered, "the young lady is a friend of mine.She just came in to have a cup of tea."

"People don't take tea in their chemise.You will please make this person go directly."

Emma, in a natural state of consternation, began to cry, and hid her face in her petticoat, and I lost my head, not knowing what to do or say.My landlady added, with irresistible authority:

"Help her to dress, and take her out at once."

It was certainly the only thing I could do, so I picked up her dress from the floor, put it over her head, and began to fasten it as best I could.She helped me, crying all the time, hurrying and making all sorts of mistakes and unable to find either buttonholes or laces, while Mme.Kergaran stood by motionless, with the candle in her hand, looking at us with the severity of a judge.

As soon as Emma was dressed, without even stopping to button her boots, she rushed past the landlady and ran down stairs.I followed her in my slippers and half undressed, and kept repeating: "Mademoiselle!Mademoiselle!"

I felt that I ought to say something to her, but I could not find anything.I overtook her just by the street-door, and tried to take her into my arms, but she pushed me violently away, saying in a low, nervous voice:

"Leave me alone, leave me alone!"and so ran out into the street, closing the door behind her.

When I went upstairs again I found that Mme.Kergaran was waiting on the first landing, and I went up slowly, expecting, and ready for, anything.

Her door was open, and she called me in, saying in a severe voice:

"I want to speak to you, M.Kervelen."

I went in, with my head bent.She put her candle on the mantelpiece, and then, folding her arms over her expansive bosom, which a fine white dressing-jacket hardly covered, she said:

"So, Monsieur Kervelen, you think my house is a house of ill-fame?"

I was not at all proud.I murmured:

"Oh, dear, no!But, Mme.Kergaran, you must not be angry; you know what young men are."

"I know," was her answer, "that I will not have such creatures here, so you will understand that.I expect to have my house respected, and I will not have it lose its reputation, you understand me?I know...."

She went on thus for at least twenty minutes, overwhelming me with the good name of her house, with reasons for her indignation, and loading me with severe reproofs.I went to bed crestfallen, and resolved never again to try such an experiment, so long, at least, as I continued to be a lodger of Mme.Kergaran.

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