*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10458 ***

THREE SHORT WORKS

by

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT


The Dance of Death
The Legend of Saint-Julian the Hospitaller
A Simple Soul





THE DANCE OF DEATH

_(1838)_

       *       *       *       *       *

"Many words for few things!"
"Death ends all; judgment comes to all."

       *       *       *       *       *

[This work may be called a prose poem. It is impregnated with the
spirit of romanticism, which at the time of writing had a
temporary but powerful hold on the mind of Gustave Flaubert.]

       *       *       *       *       *

DEATH SPEAKS

At night, in winter, when the snow-flakes fall slowly from heaven
like great white tears, I raise my voice; its resonance thrills
the cypress trees and makes them bud anew.

I pause an instant in my swift course over earth; throw myself
down among cold tombs; and, while dark-plumaged birds rise
suddenly in terror from my side, while the dead slumber
peacefully, while cypress branches droop low o'er my head, while
all around me weeps or lies in deep repose, my burning eyes rest
on the great white clouds, gigantic winding-sheets, unrolling
their slow length across the face of heaven.

How many nights, and years, and ages have I journeyed thus! A
witness of the universal birth and of a like decay; Innumerable
are the generations I have garnered with my scythe. Like God, I am
eternal! The nurse of Earth, I cradle it each night upon a bed
both soft and warm. The same recurring feasts; the same unending
toil! Each morning I depart, each evening I return, bearing within
my mantle's ample folds all that my scythe has gathered. And then
I scatter them to the four winds of Heaven!

       *       *       *       *       *

When the high billows run, when the heavens weep, and shrieking
winds lash ocean into madness, then in the turmoil and the tumult
do I fling myself upon the surging waves, and lo! the tempest
softly cradles me, as in her hammock sways a queen. The foaming
waters cool my weary feet, burning from bathing in the falling
tears of countless generations that have clung to them in vain
endeavour to arrest my steps.

Then, when the storm has ceased, after its roar has calmed me like
a lullaby, I bow my head: the hurricane, raging in fury but a
moment earlier dies instantly. No longer does it live, but neither
do the men, the ships, the navies that lately sailed upon the
bosom of the waters.

'Mid all that I have seen and known,--peoples and thrones, loves,
glories, sorrows, virtues--what have I ever loved? Nothing--except
the mantling shroud that covers me!

My horse! ah, yes! my horse! I love thee too! How thou rushest
o'er the world! thy hoofs of steel resounding on the heads bruised
by thy speeding feet. Thy tail is straight and crisp, thine eyes
dart flames, the mane upon thy neck flies in the wind, as on we
dash upon our maddened course. Never art thou weary! Never do we
rest! Never do we sleep! Thy neighing portends war; thy smoking
nostrils spread a pestilence that, mist-like, hovers over earth.
Where'er my arrows fly, thou overturnest pyramids and empires,
trampling crowns beneath thy hoofs; All men respect thee; nay,
adore thee! To invoke thy favour, popes offer thee their triple
crowns, and kings their sceptres; peoples, their secret sorrows;
poets, their renown. All cringe and kneel before thee, yet thou
rushest on over their prostrate forms.

Ah, noble steed! Sole gift from heaven! Thy tendons are of iron,
thy head is of bronze. Thou canst pursue thy course for centuries
as swiftly as if borne up by eagle's wings; and when, once in a
thousand years, resistless hunger comes, thy food is human flesh,
thy drink, men's tears. My steed! I love thee as Pale Death alone
can love!

       *       *       *       *       *

Ah! I have lived so long! How many things I know! How many
mysteries of the universe are shut within my breast!

Sometimes, after I have hurled a myriad of darts, and, after
coursing o'er the world on my pale horse, have gathered many
lives, a weariness assails me, and I long to rest.

But on my work must go; my path I must pursue; it leads through
infinite space and all the worlds. I sweep away men's plans
together with their triumphs, their loves together with their
crimes, their very all.

I rend my winding-sheet; a frightful craving tortures me
incessantly, as if some serpent stung continually within.

I throw a backward glance, and see the smoke of fiery ruins left
behind; the darkness of the night; the agony of the world. I see
the graves that are the work of these, my hands; I see the
background of the past--'tis nothingness! My weary body, heavy
head, and tired feet, sink, seeking rest. My eyes turn towards a
glowing horizon, boundless, immense, seeming to grow increasingly
in height and depth. I shall devour it, as I have devoured all
else.

When, O God! shall I sleep in my turn? When wilt Thou cease
creating? When may I, digging my own grave, stretch myself out
within my tomb, and, swinging thus upon the world, list the last
breath, the death-gasp, of expiring nature?

When that time comes, away my darts and shroud I'll hurl. Then
shall I free my horse, and he shall graze upon the grass that
grows upon the Pyramids, sleep in the palaces of emperors, drink
the last drop of water from the sea, and snuff the odour of the
last slow drop of blood! By day, by night, through the countless
ages, he shall roam through fields eternal as the fancy takes him;
shall leap with one great bound from Atlas to the Himalayas; shall
course, in his insolent pride, from heaven to earth; disport
himself by caracoling in the dust of crumbled empires; shall speed
across the beds of dried-up oceans; shall bound o'er ruins of
enormous cities; inhale the void with swelling chest, and roll and
stretch at ease.

Then haply, faithful one, weary as I, thou finally shalt seek some
precipice from which to cast thyself; shalt halt, panting before
the mysterious ocean of infinity; and then, with foaming mouth,
dilated nostrils, and extended neck turned towards the horizon,
thou shalt, as I, pray for eternal sleep; for repose for thy fiery
feet; for a bed of green leaves, whereon reclining thou canst
close thy burning eyes forever. There, waiting motionless upon the
brink, thou shalt desire a power stronger than thyself to kill
thee at a single blow--shalt pray for union with the dying storm,
the faded flower, the shrunken corpse. Thou shalt seek sleep,
because eternal life is torture, and the tomb is peace.

Why are we here? What hurricane has hurled us into this abyss?
What tempest soon shall bear us away towards the forgotten planets
whence we came?

Till then, my glorious steed, thou shalt run thy course; thou
mayst please thine ear with the crunching of the heads crushed
under thy feet. Thy course is long, but courage! Long time hast
thou carried me: but longer time still must elapse, and yet we
shall not age.

Stars may be quenched, the mountains crumble, the earth finally
wear away its diamond axis; but we two, we alone are immortal, for
the impalpable lives forever!

But to-day thou canst lie at my feet, and polish thy teeth against
the moss-grown tombs, for Satan has abandoned me, and a power
unknown compels me to obey his will. Lo! the dead seek to rise
from their graves.

       *       *       *       *       *

Satan, I love thee! Thou alone canst comprehend my joys and my
deliriums. But, more fortunate than I, thou wilt some day, when
earth shall be no more, recline and sleep within the realms of
space.

But I, who have lived so long, have worked so ceaselessly, with
only virtuous loves and solemn thoughts,--I must endure
immortality. Man has his tomb, and glory its oblivion; the day
dies into night but I--!

And I am doomed to lasting solitude upon my way, strewn with the
bones of men and marked by ruins. Angels have fellow-angels;
demons their companions of darkness; but I hear only sounds of a
clanking scythe, my whistling arrows, and my speeding horse.
Always the echo of the surging billows that sweep over and engulf
mankind!

SATAN.

Dost thou complain,--thou, the most fortunate creature under
heaven? The only, splendid, great, unchangeable, eternal one--like
God, who is the only Being that equals thee! Dost thou repine, who
some day in thy turn shalt disappear forever, after thou hast
crushed the universe beneath thy horse's feet?

When God's work of creating has ceased; when the heavens have
disappeared and the stars are quenched; when spirits rise from
their retreats and wander in the depths with sighs and groans;
then, what unpicturable delight for thee! Then shalt thou sit on
the eternal thrones of heaven and of hell--shalt overthrow the
planets, stars, and worlds--shalt loose thy steed in fields of
emeralds and diamonds--shalt make his litter of the wings torn
from the angels,--shalt cover him with the robe of righteousness!
Thy saddle shall be broidered with the stars of the empyrean,--and
then thou wilt destroy it! After thou hast annihilated everything,--when naught remains but empty space,--thy coffin shattered and
thine arrows broken, then make thyself a crown of stone from
heaven's highest mount, and cast thyself into the abyss of oblivion.
Thy fall may last a million aeons, but thou shalt die at last.
Because the world must end; all, all must die,--except Satan!
Immortal more than God! I live to bring chaos into other worlds!

DEATH.

But thou hast not, as I, this vista of eternal nothingness before
thee; thou dost not suffer with this death-like cold, as I.

SATAN.

Nay, but I quiver under fierce and unrelaxing hearts of molten
lava, which burn the doomed and which e'en I cannot escape.

For thou, at least, hast only to destroy. But I bring birth and I
give life. I direct empires and govern the affairs of States and
of hearts.

I must be everywhere. The precious metals flow, the diamonds
glitter, and men's names resound at my command. I whisper in the
ears of women, of poets, and of statesmen, words of love, of
glory, of ambition. With Messalina and Nero, at Paris and at
Babylon, within the self-same moment do I dwell. Let a new island
be discovered, I fly to it ere man can set foot there; though it
be but a rock encircled by the sea, I am there in advance of men
who will dispute for its possession. I lounge, at the same
instant, on a courtesan's couch and on the perfumed beds of
emperors. Hatred and envy, pride and wrath, pour from my lips in
simultaneous utterance. By night and day I work. While men are
burning Christians, I luxuriate voluptuously in baths perfumed
with roses; I race in chariots; yield to deep despair; or boast
aloud in pride.

At times I have believed that I embodied the whole world, and all
that I have seen took place, in verity, within my being.

Sometimes I weary, lose my reason, and indulge in such mad follies
that the most worthless of my minions ridicule me while they pity
me.

No creature cares for me; nowhere am I loved,--neither in heaven,
of which I am a son, nor yet in hell, where I am lord, nor upon
earth, where men deem me a god. Naught do I see but paroxysms of
rage, rivers of blood, or maddened frenzy. Ne'er shall my eyelids
close in slumber, never my spirit find repose, whilst thou, at
least, canst rest thy head upon the cool, green freshness of the
grave. Yea, I must ever dwell amid the glare of palaces, must
listen to the curses of the starving, or inhale the stench of
crimes that cry aloud to heaven.

God, whom I hate, has punished me indeed! But my soul is greater
even than His wrath; in one deep sigh I could the whole world draw
into my breast, where it would burn eternally, even as I.

When, Lord, shall thy great trumpet sound? Then a great harmony
shall hover over sea and hill. Ah! would that I could suffer with
humanity; their cries and sobs should drown the sound of mine!

[_Innumerable skeletons, riding in chariots, advance at a rapid
pace, with cries of joy and triumph. They drag broken branches and
crowns of laurel, from which the dried and yellow leaves fall
continually in the wind and the dust._]

Lo, a triumphal throng from Rome, the Eternal City! Her Coliseum
and her Capitol are now two grains of sands that served once as a
pedestal; but Death has swung his scythe: the monuments have
fallen. Behold! At their head comes Nero, pride of my heart, the
greatest poet earth has known!

[_Nero advances in a chariot drawn by twelve skeleton horses.
With the sceptre in his hand, he strikes the bony backs of his
steeds. He stands erect, his shroud flapping behind him in billowy
folds. He turns, as if upon a racecourse; his eyes are flaming and
he cries loudly:_]

NERO.

Quick! Quick! And faster still, until your feet dash fire from the
flinty stones and your nostrils fleck your breasts with foam.
What! do not the wheels smoke yet? Hear ye the fanfares, whose
sound reached even to Ostia; the clapping of the hands, the cries
of joy? See how the populace shower saffron on my head! See how my
pathway is already damp with sprayed perfume! My chariot whirls
on; the pace is swifter than the wind as I shake the golden reins!
Faster and faster! The dust clouds rise; my mantle floats upon the
breeze, which in my ears sings "Triumph! triumph!" Faster and
faster! Hearken to the shouts of joy, list to the stamping feet
and the plaudits of the multitude. Jupiter himself looks down on
us from heaven. Faster! yea, faster still!

[_Nero's chariot now seems to be drawn by demons: a black cloud
of dust and smoke envelops him; in his erratic course he crashes
into tombs, and the re-awakened corpses are crushed under the
wheels of the chariot, which now turns, comes forward, and
stops._]

NERO.

Now, let six hundred of my women dance the Grecian Dances silently
before me, the while I lave myself with roses in a bath of
porphyry. Then let them circle me, with interlacing arms, that I
may see on all sides alabaster forms in graceful evolution,
swaying like tall reeds bending over an amorous pool.

And I will give the empire and the sea, the Senate, the Olympus,
the Capitol, to her who shall embrace me the most ardently; to her
whose heart shall throb beneath my own; to her who shall enmesh me
in her flowing hair, smile on me sweetest, and enfold me in the
warmest clasp; to her who soothing me with songs of love shall
waken me to joy and heights of rapture! Rome shall be still this
night; no barque shall cleave the waters of the Tiber, since 'tis
my wish to see the mirrored moon on its untroubled face and hear
the voice of woman floating over it. Let perfumed breezes pass
through all my draperies! Ah, I would die, voluptuously intoxicated.

Then, while I eat of some rare meat, that only I may taste, let
some one sing, while damsels, lightly draped, serve me from plates
of gold and watch my rest. One slave shall cut her sister's
throat, because it is my pleasure--a favourite with the gods--to
mingle the perfume of blood with that of food, and cries of
victims soothe my nerves.

This night I shall burn Rome. The flames shall light up heaven,
and Tiber shall roll in waves of fire!

Then, I shall build of aloes wood a stage to float upon the
Italian sea, and the Roman populace shall throng thereto chanting
my praise. Its draperies shall be of purple, and on it I shall
have a bed of eagles' plumage. There I shall sit, and at my side
shall be the loveliest woman in the empire, while all the universe
applauds the achievements of a god! And though the tempest roar
round me, its rage shall be extinguished 'neath my feet, and
sounds of music shall o'ercome the clamor of the waves!

       *       *       *       *       *

What didst thou say? Vindex revolts, my legions fly, my women flee
in terror? Silence and tears alone remain, and I hear naught but
the rolling of thunder. Must I die, now?

DEATH.

Instantly!

NERO.

Must I give up my days of feasting and delight, my spectacles, my
triumphs, my chariots and the applause of multitudes?

DEATH.

All! All!

SATAN.

Haste, Master of the World! One comes--One who will put thee to
the sword. An emperor knows how to die!

NERO.

Die! I have scarce begun to live! Oh, what great deeds I should
accomplish--deeds that should make Olympus tremble! I would fill
up the bed of hoary ocean and speed across it in a triumphal car.
I would still live--would see the sun once more, the Tiber, the
Campagna, the Circus on the golden sands. Ah! let me live!

DEATH.

I will give thee a mantle for the tomb, and an eternal bed that
shall be softer and more peaceful than the Imperial couch.

NERO.

Yet, I am loth to die.

DEATH.

Die, then!

[_He gathers up the shroud, lying beside him on the ground, and
bears away Nero--wrapped in its folds._]






THE LEGEND OF SAINT JULIAN THE HOSPITALLER




CHAPTER I

THE CURSE


Julian's father and mother dwelt in a castle built on the slope of
a hill, in the heart of the woods.

The towers at its four corners had pointed roofs covered with
leaden tiles, and the foundation rested upon solid rocks, which
descended abruptly to the bottom of the moat.

In the courtyard, the stone flagging was as immaculate as the
floor of a church. Long rain-spouts, representing dragons with
yawning jaws, directed the water towards the cistern, and on each
window-sill of the castle a basil or a heliotrope bush bloomed, in
painted flower-pots.

A second enclosure, surrounded by a fence, comprised a
fruit-orchard, a garden decorated with figures wrought in
bright-hued flowers, an arbour with several bowers, and a mall
for the diversion of the pages. On the other side were the kennel,
the stables, the bakery, the wine-press and the barns. Around
these spread a pasture, also enclosed by a strong hedge.

Peace had reigned so long that the portcullis was never lowered;
the moats were filled with water; swallows built their nests in
the cracks of the battlements, and as soon as the sun shone too
strongly, the archer who all day long paced to and fro on the
curtain, withdrew to the watch-tower and slept soundly.

Inside the castle, the locks on the doors shone brightly; costly
tapestries hung in the apartments to keep out the cold; the
closets overflowed with linen, the cellar was filled with casks of
wine, and the oak chests fairly groaned under the weight of
money-bags.

In the armoury could be seen, between banners and the heads of
wild beasts, weapons of all nations and of all ages, from the
slings of the Amalekites and the javelins of the Garamantes, to
the broad-swords of the Saracens and the coats of mail of the
Normans.

The largest spit in the kitchen could hold an ox; the chapel was
as gorgeous as a king's oratory. There was even a Roman bath in a
secluded part of the castle, though the good lord of the manor
refrained from using it, as he deemed it a heathenish practice.

Wrapped always in a cape made of fox-skins, he wandered about the
castle, rendered justice among his vassals and settled his
neighbours' quarrels. In the winter, he gazed dreamily at the
falling snow, or had stories read aloud to him. But as soon as the
fine weather returned, he would mount his mule and sally forth
into the country roads, edged with ripening wheat, to talk with
the peasants, to whom he distributed advice. After a number of
adventures he took unto himself a wife of high lineage.

She was pale and serious, and a trifle haughty. The horns of her
head-dress touched the top of the doors and the hem of her gown
trailed far behind her. She conducted her household like a
cloister. Every morning she distributed work to the maids,
supervised the making of preserves and unguents, and afterwards
passed her time in spinning, or in embroidering altar-cloths. In
response to her fervent prayers, God granted her a son!

Then there was great rejoicing; and they gave a feast which lasted
three days and four nights, with illuminations and soft music.
Chickens as large as sheep, and the rarest spices were served; for
the entertainment of the guests, a dwarf crept out of a pie; and
when the bowls were too few, for the crowd swelled continuously,
the wine was drunk from helmets and hunting-horns.

The young mother did not appear at the feast. She was quietly
resting in bed. One night she awoke, and beheld in a moonbeam that
crept through the window something that looked like a moving
shadow. It was an old man clad in sackcloth, who resembled a
hermit. A rosary dangled at his side and he carried a beggar's
sack on his shoulder. He approached the foot of the bed, and
without opening his lips said: "Rejoice, O mother! Thy son shall
be a saint."

She would have cried out, but the old man, gliding along the
moonbeam, rose through the air and disappeared. The songs of the
banqueters grew louder. She could hear angels' voices, and her
head sank back on the pillow, which was surmounted by the bone of
a martyr, framed in precious stones.

The following day, the servants, upon being questioned, declared,
to a man, that they had seen no hermit. Then, whether dream or
fact, this must certainly have been a communication from heaven;
but she took care not to speak of it, lest she should be accused
of presumption.

The guests departed at daybreak, and Julian's father stood at the
castle gate, where he had just bidden farewell to the last one,
when a beggar suddenly emerged from the mist and confronted him.
He was a gipsy--for he had a braided beard and wore silver
bracelets on each arm. His eyes burned and, in an inspired way, he
muttered some disconnected words: "Ah! Ah! thy son!--great
bloodshed--great glory--happy always--an emperor's family."

Then he stooped to pick up the alms thrown to him, and disappeared
in the tall grass.

The lord of the manor looked up and down the road and called as
loudly as he could. But no one answered him! The wind only howled
and the morning mists were fast dissolving.

He attributed his vision to a dullness of the brain resulting from
too much sleep. "If I should speak of it," quoth he, "people would
laugh at me." Still, the glory that was to be his son's dazzled
him, albeit the meaning of the prophecy was not clear to him, and
he even doubted that he had heard it.

The parents kept their secret from each other. But both cherished
the child with equal devotion, and as they considered him marked
by God, they had great regard for his person. His cradle was lined
with the softest feathers, and lamp representing a dove burned
continually over it; three nurses rocked him night and day, and
with his pink cheeks and blue eyes, brocaded cloak and embroidered
cap he looked like a little Jesus. He cut all his teeth without
even a whimper.

When he was seven years old his mother taught him to sing, and his
father lifted him upon a tall horse, to inspire him with courage.
The child smiled with delight, and soon became familiar with
everything pertaining to chargers. An old and very learned monk
taught him the Gospel, the Arabic numerals, the Latin letters, and
the art of painting delicate designs on vellum. They worked in the
top of a tower, away from all noise and disturbance.

When the lesson was over, they would go down into the garden and
study the flowers.

Sometimes a herd of cattle passed through the valley below, in
charge of a man in Oriental dress. The lord of the manor,
recognising him as a merchant, would despatch a servant after him.
The stranger, becoming confident, would stop on his way and after
being ushered into the castle-hall, would display pieces of velvet
and silk, trinkets and strange objects whose use was unknown in
those parts. Then, in due time, he would take leave, without
having been molested and with a handsome profit.

At other times, a band of pilgrims would knock at the door. Their
wet garments would be hung in front of the hearth and after they
had been refreshed by food they would relate their travels, and
discuss the uncertainty of vessels on the high seas, their long
journeys across burning sands, the ferocity of the infidels, the
caves of Syria, the Manger and the Holy Sepulchre. They made
presents to the young heir of beautiful shells, which they carried
in their cloaks.

The lord of the manor very often feasted his brothers-at-arms, and
over the wine the old warriors would talk of battles and attacks,
of war-machines and of the frightful wounds they had received, so
that Julian, who was a listener, would scream with excitement;
then his father felt convinced that some day he would be a
conqueror. But in the evening, after the Angelus, when he passed
through the crowd of beggars who clustered about the church-door,
he distributed his alms with so much modesty and nobility that his
mother fully expected to see him become an archbishop in time.

His seat in the chapel was next to his parents, and no matter how
long the services lasted, he remained kneeling on his _prie-dieu,_
with folded hands and his velvet cap lying close beside him on the
floor.

One day, during mass, he raised his head and beheld a little white
mouse crawling out of a hole in the wall. It scrambled to the
first altar-step and then, after a few gambols, ran back in the
same direction. On the following Sunday, the idea of seeing the
mouse again worried him. It returned; and every Sunday after that
he watched for it; and it annoyed him so much that he grew to hate
it and resolved to do away with it.

So, having closed the door and strewn some crumbs on the steps of
the altar, he placed himself in front of the hole with a stick.
After a long while a pink snout appeared, and then whole mouse
crept out. He struck it lightly with his stick and stood stunned
at the sight of the little, lifeless body. A drop of blood stained
the floor. He wiped it away hastily with his sleeve, and picking
up the mouse, threw it away, without saying a word about it to
anyone.

All sorts of birds pecked at the seeds in the garden. He put some
peas in a hollow reed, and when he heard birds chirping in a tree,
he would approach cautiously, lift the tube and swell his cheeks;
then, when the little creatures dropped about him in multitudes,
he could not refrain from laughing and being delighted with his
own cleverness.

One morning, as he was returning by way of the curtain, he beheld
a fat pigeon sunning itself on the top of the wall. He paused to
gaze at it; where he stood the rampart was cracked and a piece of
stone was near at hand; he gave his arm a jerk and the well-aimed
missile struck the bird squarely, sending it straight into the
moat below.

He sprang after it, unmindful of the brambles, and ferreted around
the bushes with the litheness of a young dog.

The pigeon hung with broken wings in the branches of a privet
hedge.

The persistence of its life irritated the boy. He began to
strangle it, and its convulsions made his heart beat quicker, and
filled him with a wild, tumultuous voluptuousness, the last throb
of its heart making him feel like fainting.

At supper that night, his father declared that at his age a boy
should begin to hunt; and he arose and brought forth an old
writing-book which contained, in questions and answers, everything
pertaining to the pastime. In it, a master showed a supposed pupil
how to train dogs and falcons, lay traps, recognise a stag by its
fumets, and a fox or a wolf by footprints. He also taught the best
way of discovering their tracks, how to start them, where their
refuges are usually to be found, what winds are the most
favourable, and further enumerated the various cries, and the
rules of the quarry.

When Julian was able to recite all these things by heart, his
father made up a pack of hounds for him. There were twenty-four
greyhounds of Barbary, speedier than gazelles, but liable to get
out of temper; seventeen couples of Breton dogs, great barkers,
with broad chests and russet coats flecked with white. For
wild-boar hunting and perilous doublings, there were forty
boarhounds as hairy as bears.

The red mastiffs of Tartary, almost as large as donkeys, with
broad backs and straight legs, were destined for the pursuit of
the wild bull. The black coats of the spaniels shone like satin;
the barking of the setters equalled that of the beagles. In a
special enclosure were eight growling bloodhounds that tugged at
their chains and rolled their eyes, and these dogs leaped at men's
throats and were not afraid even of lions.

All ate wheat bread, drank from marble troughs, and had
high-sounding names.

Perhaps the falconry surpassed the pack; for the master of the
castle, by paying great sums of money, had secured Caucasian
hawks, Babylonian sakers, German gerfalcons, and pilgrim falcons
captured on the cliffs edging the cold seas, in distant lands.
They were housed in a thatched shed and were chained to the perch
in the order of size. In front of them was a little grass-plot
where, from time to time, they were allowed to disport themselves.

Bag-nets, baits, traps and all sorts of snares were manufactured.

Often they would take out pointers who would set almost
immediately; then the whippers-in, advancing step by step, would
cautiously spread a huge net over their motionless bodies. At the
command, the dogs would bark and arouse the quails; and the ladies
of the neighbourhood, with their husbands, children and hand-maids,
would fall upon them and capture them with ease.

At other times they used a drum to start hares; and frequently
foxes fell into the ditches prepared for them, while wolves caught
their paws in the traps.

But Julian scorned these convenient contrivances; he preferred to
hunt away from the crowd, alone with his steed and his falcon. It
was almost always a large, snow-white, Scythian bird. His leather
hood was ornamented with a plume, and on his blue feet were bells;
and he perched firmly on his master's arm while they galloped
across the plains. Then Julian would suddenly untie his tether and
let him fly, and the bold bird would dart through the air like an
arrow, One might perceive two spots circle around, unite, and then
disappear in the blue heights. Presently the falcon would return
with a mutilated bird, and perch again on his master's gauntlet
with trembling wings.

Julian loved to sound his trumpet and follow his dogs over hills
and streams, into the woods; and when the stag began to moan under
their teeth, he would kill it deftly, and delight in the fury of
the brutes, which would devour the pieces spread out on the warm
hide.

On foggy days, he would hide in the marshes to watch for wild
geese, otters and wild ducks.

At daybreak, three equerries waited for him at the foot of the
steps; and though the old monk leaned out of the dormer-window and
made signs to him to return, Julian would not look around.

He heeded neither the broiling sun, the rain nor the storm; he
drank spring water and ate wild berries, and when he was tired, he
lay down under a tree; and he would come home at night covered
with earth and blood, with thistles in his hair and smelling of
wild beasts. He grew to be like them. And when his mother kissed
him, he responded coldly to her caress and seemed to be thinking
of deep and serious things.

He killed bears with a knife, bulls with a hatchet, and wild boars
with a spear; and once, with nothing but a stick, he defended
himself against some wolves, which were gnawing corpses at the
foot of a gibbet.

       *       *       *       *       *

One winter morning he set out before daybreak, with a bow slung
across his shoulder and a quiver of arrows attached to the pummel
of his saddle. The hoofs of his steed beat the ground with
regularity and his two beagles trotted close behind. The wind was
blowing hard and icicles clung to his cloak. A part of the horizon
cleared, and he beheld some rabbits playing around their burrows.
In an instant, the two dogs were upon them, and seizing as many as
they could, they broke their backs in the twinkling of an eye.

Soon he came to a forest. A woodcock, paralysed by the cold,
perched on a branch, with its head hidden under its wing. Julian,
with a lunge of his sword, cut off its feet, and without stopping
to pick it up, rode away.

Three hours later he found himself on the top of a mountain so
high that the sky seemed almost black. In front of him, a long,
flat rock hung over a precipice, and at the end two wild goats
stood gazing down into the abyss. As he had no arrows (for he had
left his steed behind), he thought he would climb down to where
they stood; and with bare feet and bent back he at last reached
the first goat and thrust his dagger below its ribs. But the
second animal, in its terror, leaped into the precipice. Julian
threw himself forward to strike it, but his right foot slipped,
and he fell, face downward and with outstretched arms, over the
body of the first goat.

After he returned to the plains, he followed a stream bordered by
willows. From time to time, some cranes, flying low, passed over
his head. He killed them with his whip, never missing a bird. He
beheld in the distance the gleam of a lake which appeared to be of
lead, and in the middle of it was an animal he had never seen
before, a beaver with a black muzzle. Notwithstanding the distance
that separated them, an arrow ended its life and Julian only
regretted that he was not able to carry the skin home with him.

Then he entered an avenue of tall trees, the tops of which formed
a triumphal arch to the entrance of a forest. A deer sprang out of
the thicket and a badger crawled out of its hole, a stag appeared
in the road, and a peacock spread its fan-shaped tail on the
grass--and after he had slain them all, other deer, other stags,
other badgers, other peacocks, and jays, blackbirds, foxes,
porcupines, polecats, and lynxes, appeared; in fact, a host of beasts
that grew more and more numerous with every step he took. Trembling,
and with a look of appeal in their eyes, they gathered around
Julian, but he did not stop slaying them; and so intent was he on
stretching his bow, drawing his sword and whipping out his knife,
that he had little thought for aught else. He knew that he was
hunting in some country since an indefinite time, through the very
fact of his existence, as everything seemed to occur with the ease
one experiences in dreams. But presently an extraordinary sight
made him pause.

He beheld a valley shaped like a circus and filled with stags
which, huddled together, were warming one another with the vapour
of their breaths that mingled with the early mist.

For a few minutes, he almost choked with pleasure at the prospect
of so great a carnage. Then he sprang from his horse, rolled up
his sleeves, and began to aim.

When the first arrow whizzed through the air, the stags turned
their heads simultaneously. They huddled closer, uttered plaintive
cries, and a great agitation seized the whole herd. The edge of
the valley was too high to admit of flight; and the animals ran
around the enclosure in their efforts to escape. Julian aimed,
stretched his bow and his arrows fell as fast and thick as
raindrops in a shower.

Maddened with terror, the stags fought and reared and climbed on
top of one another; their antlers and bodies formed a moving
mountain which tumbled to pieces whenever it displaced itself.
Finally the last one expired. Their bodies lay stretched out on
the sand with foam gushing from the nostrils and the bowels
protruding. The heaving of their bellies grew less and less
noticeable, and presently all was still.

Night came, and behind the trees, through the branches, the sky
appeared like a sheet of blood.

Julian leaned against a tree and gazed with dilated eyes at the
enormous slaughter. He was now unable to comprehend how he had
accomplished it.

On the opposite side of the valley, he suddenly beheld a large
stag, with a doe and their fawn. The buck was black and of
enormous size; he had a white beard and carried sixteen antlers.
His mate was the color of dead leaves, and she browsed upon the
grass, while the fawn, clinging to her udder, followed her step by
step.

Again the bow was stretched, and instantly the fawn dropped dead,
and seeing this, its mother raised her head and uttered a
poignant, almost human wail of agony. Exasperated, Julian thrust
his knife into her chest, and felled her to the ground.

The great stag had watched everything and suddenly he sprang
forward. Julian aimed his last arrow at the beast. It struck him
between his antlers and stuck there.

The stag did not appear to notice it; leaping over the bodies, he
was coming nearer and nearer with the intention, Julian thought,
of charging at him and ripping him open, and he recoiled with
inexpressible horror. But presently the huge animal halted, and,
with eyes aflame and the solemn air of a patriarch and a judge,
repeated thrice, while a bell tolled in the distance: "Accursed!
Accursed! Accursed! some day, ferocious soul, thou wilt murder thy
father and thy mother!"

Then he sank on his knees, gently closed his lids and expired.

At first Julian was stunned, and then a sudden lassitude and an
immense sadness came over him. Holding his head between his hands,
he wept for a long time.

His steed had wandered away; his dogs had forsaken him; the
solitude seemed to threaten him with unknown perils. Impelled by a
sense of sickening terror, he ran across the fields, and choosing
a path at random, found himself almost immediately at the gates of
the castle.

That night he could not rest, for, by the flickering light of the
hanging lamp, he beheld again the huge black stag. He fought
against the obsession of the prediction and kept repeating: "No!
No! No! I cannot slay them!" and then he thought: "Still,
supposing I desired to?--" and he feared that the devil might
inspire him with this desire.

During three months, his distracted mother prayed at his bedside,
and his father paced the halls of the castle in anguish. He
consulted the most celebrated physicians, who prescribed
quantities of medicine. Julian's illness, they declared, was due
to some injurious wind or to amorous desire. But in reply to their
questions, the young man only shook his head. After a time, his
strength returned, and he was able to take a walk in the
courtyard, supported by his father and the old monk.

But after he had completely recovered, he refused to hunt.

His father, hoping to please him, presented him with a large
Saracen sabre. It was placed on a panoply that hung on a pillar,
and a ladder was required to reach it. Julian climbed up to it one
day, but the heavy weapon slipped from his grasp, and in falling
grazed his father and tore his cloak. Julian, believing he had
killed him, fell in a swoon.

After that, he carefully avoided weapons. The sight of a naked
sword made him grow pale, and this weakness caused great distress
to his family.

In the end, the old monk ordered him in the name of God, and of
his forefathers, once more to indulge in the sports of a nobleman.

The equerries diverted themselves every day with javelins and
Julian soon excelled in the practice.

He was able to send a javelin into bottles, to break the teeth of
the weather-cocks on the castle and to strike door-nails at a
distance of one hundred feet.

One summer evening, at the hour when dusk renders objects
indistinct, he was in the arbour in the garden, and thought he saw
two white wings in the background hovering around the espalier.
Not for a moment did he doubt that it was a stork, and so he threw
his javelin at it.

A heart-rending scream pierced the air.

He had struck his mother, whose cap and long streams remained
nailed to the wall.

Julian fled from home and never returned.




CHAPTER II

THE CRIME


He joined a horde of adventurers who were passing through the
place.

He learned what it was to suffer hunger, thirst, sickness and
filth. He grew accustomed to the din of battles and to the sight
of dying men. The wind tanned his skin. His limbs became hardened
through contact with armour, and as he was very strong and brave,
temperate and of good counsel, he easily obtained command of a
company.

At the outset of a battle, he would electrify his soldiers by a
motion of his sword. He would climb the walls of a citadel with a
knotted rope, at night, rocked by the storm, while sparks of fire
clung to his cuirass, and molten lead and boiling tar poured from
the battlements.

Often a stone would break his shield. Bridges crowded with men
gave way under him. Once, by turning his mace, he rid himself of
fourteen horsemen. He defeated all those who came forward to fight
him on the field of honour, and more than a score of times it was
believed that he had been killed.

However, thanks to Divine protection, he always escaped, for he
shielded orphans, widows, and aged men. When he caught sight of
one of the latter walking ahead of him, he would call to him to
show his face, as if he feared that he might kill him by mistake.

All sorts of intrepid men gathered under his leadership, fugitive
slaves, peasant rebels, and penniless bastards; he then organized
an army which increased so much that he became famous and was in
great demand.

He succoured in turn the Dauphin of France, the King of England,
the Templars of Jerusalem, the General of the Parths, the Negus of
Abyssinia and the Emperor of Calicut. He fought against
Scandinavians covered with fish-scales, against negroes mounted on
red asses and armed with shields made of hippopotamus hide,
against gold-coloured Indians who wielded great, shining swords
above their heads. He conquered the Troglodytes and the cannibals.
He travelled through regions so torrid that the heat of the sun
would set fire to the hair on one's head; he journeyed through
countries so glacial that one's arms would fall from the body; and
he passed through places where the fogs were so dense that it
seemed like being surrounded by phantoms.

Republics in trouble consulted him; when he conferred with
ambassadors, he always obtained unexpected concessions. Also, if a
monarch behaved badly, he would arrive on the scene and rebuke
him. He freed nations. He rescued queens sequestered in towers. It
was he and no other that killed the serpent of Milan and the
dragon of Oberbirbach.

Now, the Emperor of Occitania, having triumphed over the Spanish
Mussulmans, had taken the sister of the Caliph of Cordova as a
concubine, and had had one daughter by her, whom he brought up in
the teachings of Christ. But the Caliph, feigning that he wished
to become converted, made him a visit, and brought with him a
numerous escort. He slaughtered the entire garrison and threw the
Emperor into a dungeon, and treated him with great cruelty in
order to obtain possession of his treasures.

Julian went to his assistance, destroyed the army of infidels,
laid siege to the city, slew the Caliph, chopped off his head and
threw it over the fortifications like a cannon-ball.

As a reward for so great a service, the Emperor presented him with
a large sum of money in baskets; but Julian declined it. Then the
Emperor, thinking that the amount was not sufficiently large,
offered him three quarters of his fortune, and on meeting a second
refusal, proposed to share his kingdom with his benefactor. But
Julian only thanked him for it, and the Emperor felt like weeping
with vexation at not being able to show his gratitude, when he
suddenly tapped his forehead and whispered a few words in the ear
of one of his courtiers; the tapestry curtains parted and a young
girl appeared.

Her large black eyes shone like two soft lights. A charming smile
parted her lips. Her curls were caught in the jewels of her
half-opened bodice, and the grace of her youthful body could be
divined under the transparency of her tunic.

She was small and quite plump, but her waist was slender.

Julian was absolutely dazzled, all the more since he had always
led a chaste life.

So he married the Emperor's daughter, and received at the same
time a castle she had inherited from her mother; and when the
rejoicings were over, he departed with his bride, after many
courtesies had been exchanged on both sides.

The castle was of Moorish design, in white marble, erected on a
promontory and surrounded by orange-trees.

Terraces of flowers extended to the shell-strewn shores of a
beautiful bay. Behind the castle spread a fan-shaped forest. The
sky was always blue, and the trees were swayed in turn by the
ocean-breeze and by the winds that blew from the mountains that
closed the horizon.

Light entered the apartments through the incrustations of the
walls. High, reed-like columns supported the ceiling of the
cupolas, decorated in imitation of stalactites.

Fountains played in the spacious halls; the courts were inlaid
with mosaic; there were festooned partitions and a great profusion
of architectural fancies; and everywhere reigned a silence so deep
that the swish of a sash or the echo of a sigh could be distinctly
heard.

Julian now had renounced war. Surrounded by a peaceful people, he
remained idle, receiving every day a throng of subjects who came
and knelt before him and kissed his hand in Oriental fashion.

Clad in sumptuous garments, he would gaze out of the window and
think of his past exploits; and wish that he might again run in
the desert in pursuit of ostriches and gazelles, hide among the
bamboos to watch for leopards, ride through forests filled with
rhinoceroses, climb the most inaccessible peaks in order to have a
better aim at the eagles, and fight the polar bears on the
icebergs of the northern sea.

Sometimes, in his dreams, he fancied himself like Adam in the
midst of Paradise, surrounded by all the beasts; by merely
extending his arm, he was able to kill them; or else they filed
past him, in pairs, by order of size, from the lions and the
elephants to the ermines and the ducks, as on the day they entered
Noah's Ark.

Hidden in the shadow of a cave, he aimed unerring arrows at them;
then came others and still others, until he awoke, wild-eyed.

Princes, friends of his, invited him to their meets, but he always
refused their invitations, because he thought that by this kind of
penance he might possibly avert the threatened misfortune; it
seemed to him that the fate of his parents depended on his refusal
to slaughter animals. He suffered because he could not see them,
and his other desire was growing well-nigh unbearable.

In order to divert his mind, his wife had dancers and jugglers
come to the castle.

She went abroad with him in an open litter; at other times,
stretched out on the edge of a boat, they watched for hours the
fish disport themselves in the water, which was as clear as the
sky. Often she playfully threw flowers at him or nestling at his
feet, she played melodies on an old mandolin; then, clasping her
hands on his shoulder, she would inquire tremulously: "What
troubles thee, my dear lord?"

He would not reply, or else he would burst into tears; but at
last, one day, he confessed his fearful dread.

His wife scorned the idea and reasoned wisely with him: probably
his father and mother were dead; and even if he should ever see
them again, through what chance, to what end, would he arrive at
this abomination? Therefore, his fears were groundless, and he
should hunt again.

Julian listened to her and smiled, but he could not bring himself
to yield to his desire.

One August evening when they were in their bed-chamber, she having
just retired and he being about to kneel in prayer, he heard the
yelping of a fox and light footsteps under the window; and he
thought he saw things in the dark that looked like animals. The
temptation was too strong. He seized his quiver.

His wife appeared astonished.

"I am obeying you," quoth he, "and I shall be back at sunrise."

However, she feared that some calamity would happen. But he
reassured her and departed, surprised at her illogical moods.

A short time afterwards, a page came to announce that two
strangers desired, in the absence of the lord of the castle, to
see its mistress at once.

Soon a stooping old man and an aged woman entered the room; their
coarse garments were covered with dust and each leaned on a stick.

They grew bold enough to say that they brought Julian news of his
parents. She leaned out of the bed to listen to them. But after
glancing at each other, the old people asked her whether he ever
referred to them and if he still loved them.

"Oh! yes!" she said.

Then they exclaimed:

"We are his parents!" and they sat themselves down, for they were
very tired.

But there was nothing to show the young wife that her husband was
their son.

They proved it by describing to her the birthmarks he had on his
body. Then she jumped out of bed, called a page, and ordered that
a repast be served to them.

But although they were very hungry, they could scarcely eat, and
she observed surreptitiously how their lean fingers trembled
whenever they lifted their cups.

They asked a hundred questions about their son, and she answered
each one of them, but she was careful not to refer to the terrible
idea that concerned them.

When he failed to return, they had left their château; and had
wandered for several years, following vague indications but
without losing hope.

So much money had been spent at the tolls of the rivers and in
inns, to satisfy the rights of princes and the demands of
highwaymen, that now their purse was quite empty and they were
obliged to beg. But what did it matter, since they were about to
clasp again their son in their arms? They lauded his happiness in
having such a beautiful wife, and did not tire of looking at her
and kissing her.

The luxuriousness of the apartment astonished them; and the old
man, after examining the walls, inquired why they bore the coat-of-arms
of the Emperor of Occitania.

"He is my father," she replied.

And he marvelled and remembered the prediction of the gipsy, while
his wife meditated upon the words the hermit had spoken to her.
The glory of their son was undoubtedly only the dawn of eternal
splendours, and the old people remained awed while the light from
the candelabra on the table fell on them.

In the heyday of youth, both had been extremely handsome. The
mother had not lost her hair, and bands of snowy whiteness framed
her cheeks; and the father, with his stalwart figure and long
beard, looked like a carved image.

Julian's wife prevailed upon them not to wait for him. She put
them in her bed and closed the curtains; and they both fell
asleep. The day broke and outdoors the little birds began to
chirp.

Meanwhile, Julian had left the castle grounds and walked nervously
through the forest, enjoying the velvety softness of the grass and
the balminess of the air.

The shadow of the trees fell on the earth. Here and there, the
moonlight flecked the glades and Julian feared to advance, because
he mistook the silvery light for water and the tranquil surface of
the pools for grass. A great stillness reigned everywhere, and he
failed to see any of the beasts that only a moment ago were
prowling around the castle. As he walked on, the woods grew
thicker, and the darkness more impenetrable. Warm winds, filled
with enervating perfumes, caressed him; he sank into masses of
dead leaves, and after a while he leaned against an oak-tree to
rest and catch his breath.

Suddenly a body blacker than the surrounding darkness sprang from
behind the tree. It was a wild boar. Julian did not have time to
stretch his bow, and he bewailed the fact as if it were some great
misfortune. Presently, having left the woods, he beheld a wolf
slinking along a hedge.

He aimed an arrow at him. The wolf paused, turned his head and
quietly continued on his way. He trotted along, always keeping at
the same distance, pausing now and then to look around and
resuming his flight as soon as an arrow was aimed in his
direction.

In this way Julian traversed an apparently endless plain, then
sand-hills, and at last found himself on a plateau that dominated
a great stretch of land. Large flat stones were interspersed among
crumbling vaults; bones and skeletons covered the ground, and here
and there some mouldy crosses stood desolate. But presently,
shapes moved in the darkness of the tombs, and from them came
panting, wild-eyed hyenas. They approached him and smelled him,
grinning hideously and disclosing their gums. He whipped out his
sword, but they scattered in every direction and continuing their
swift, limping gallop, disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Some time afterwards, in a ravine, he encountered a wild bull,
with threatening horns, pawing the sand with his hoofs. Julian
thrust his lance between his dewlaps. But his weapon snapped as if
the beast were made of bronze; then he closed his eyes in
anticipation of his death. When he opened them again, the bull had
vanished.

Then his soul collapsed with shame. Some supernatural power
destroyed his strength, and he set out for home through the
forest. The woods were a tangle of creeping plants that he had to
cut with his sword, and while he was thus engaged, a weasel slid
between his feet, a panther jumped over his shoulder, and a
serpent wound itself around the ash-tree.

Among its leaves was a monstrous jackdaw that watched Julian
intently, and here and there, between the branches, appeared
great, fiery sparks as if the sky were raining all its stars upon
the forest. But the sparks were the eyes of wild-cats, owls,
squirrels, monkeys and parrots.

Julian aimed his arrows at them, but the feathered weapons lighted
on the leaves of the trees and looked like white butterflies. He
threw stones at them; but the missiles did not strike, and fell to
the ground. Then he cursed himself, and howled imprecations, and
in his rage he could have struck himself.

Then all the beasts he had pursued appeared, and formed a narrow
circle around him. Some sat on their hindquarters, while others
stood at full height. And Julian remained among them, transfixed
with terror and absolutely unable to move. By a supreme effort of
his will-power, he took a step forward; those that perched in the
trees opened their wings, those that trod the earth moved their
limbs, and all accompanied him.

The hyenas strode in front of him, the wolf and the wild boar
brought up the rear. On his right, the bull swung its head and on
his left the serpent crawled through the grass; while the panther,
arching its back, advanced with velvety footfalls and long
strides. Julian walked as slowly as possible, so as not to
irritate them, while in the depth of bushes he could distinguish
porcupines, foxes, vipers, jackals, and bears.

He began to run; the brutes followed him. The serpent hissed, the
malodorous beasts frothed at the mouth, the wild boar rubbed his
tusks against his heels, and the wolf scratched the palms of his
hands with the hairs of his snout. The monkeys pinched him and
made faces, the weasel rolled over his feet. A bear knocked his
cap off with its huge paw, and the panther disdainfully dropped an
arrow it was about to put in its mouth.

Irony seemed to incite their sly actions. As they watched him out
of the corners of their eyes, they seemed to meditate a plan of
revenge, and Julian, who was deafened by the buzzing of the
insects, bruised by the wings and tails of the birds, choked by
the stench of animal breaths, walked with outstretched arms and
closed lids, like a blind man, without even the strength to beg
for mercy.

The crowing of a cock vibrated in the air. Other cocks responded;
it was day; and Julian recognised the top of his palace rising
above the orange-trees.

Then, on the edge of a field, he beheld some red partridges
fluttering around a stubble-field. He unfastened his cloak and
threw it over them like a net. When he lifted it, he found only a
bird that had been dead a long time and was decaying.

This disappointment irritated him more than all the others. The
thirst for carnage stirred afresh within him; animals failing him,
he desired to slaughter men.

He climbed the three terraces and opened the door with a blow of
his fist; but at the foot of the staircase, the memory of his
beloved wife softened his heart. No doubt she was asleep, and he
would go up and surprise her. Having removed his sandals, he
unlocked the door softly and entered.

The stained windows dimmed the pale light of dawn. Julian stumbled
over some garment's lying on the floor and a little further on, he
knocked against a table covered with dishes. "She must have
eaten," he thought; so he advanced cautiously towards the bed
which was concealed by the darkness in the back of the room. When
he reached the edge, he leaned over the pillow where the two heads
were resting close together and stooped to kiss his wife. His
mouth encountered a man's beard.

He fell back, thinking he had become crazed; then he approached
the bed again and his searching fingers discovered some hair which
seemed to be very long. In order to convince himself that he was
mistaken, he once more passed his hand slowly over the pillow. But
this time he was sure that it was a beard and that a man was
there! a man lying beside his wife!

Flying into an ungovernable passion, he sprang upon them with his
drawn dagger, foaming, stamping and howling like a wild beast.
After a while he stopped.

The corpses, pierced through the heart, had not even moved. He
listened attentively to the two death-rattles, they were almost
alike, and as they grew fainter, another voice, coming from far
away, seemed to continue them. Uncertain at first, this plaintive
voice came nearer and nearer, grew louder and louder and presently
he recognised, with a feeling of abject terror, the bellowing of
the great black stag.

And as he turned around, he thought he saw the spectre of his wife
standing at the threshold with a light in her hand.

The sound of the murder had aroused her. In one glance she
understood what had happened and fled in horror, letting the
candle drop from her hand. Julian picked it up.

His father and mother lay before him, stretched on their backs,
with gaping wounds in their breasts; and their faces, the
expression of which was full of tender dignity, seemed to hide
what might be an eternal secret.

Splashes and blotches of blood were on their white skin, on the
bed-clothes, on the floor, and on an ivory Christ which hung in
the alcove. The scarlet reflection of the stained window, which
just then was struck by the sun, lighted up the bloody spots and
appeared to scatter them around the whole room. Julian walked
toward the corpses, repeating to himself and trying to believe
that he was mistaken, that it was not possible, that there are
often inexplicable likenesses.

At last he bent over to look closely at the old man and he saw,
between the half-closed lids, a dead pupil that scorched him like
fire. Then he went over to the other side of the bed, where the
other corpse lay, but the face was partly hidden by bands of white
hair. Julian slipped his finger beneath them and raised the head,
holding it at arm's length to study its features, while, with his
other hand he lifted the torch. Drops of blood oozed from the
mattress and fell one by one upon the floor.

At the close of the day, he appeared before his wife, and in a
changed voice commanded her first not to answer him, not to
approach him, not even to look at him, and to obey, under the
penalty of eternal damnation, every one of his orders, which were
irrevocable.

The funeral was to be held in accordance with the written
instructions he had left on a chair in the death-chamber.

He left her his castle, his vassals, all his worldly goods,
without keeping even his clothes or his sandals, which would be
found at the top of the stairs.

She had obeyed the will of God in bringing about his crime, and
accordingly she must pray for his soul, since henceforth he should
cease to exist.

The dead were buried sumptuously in the chapel of a monastery
which it took three days to reach from the castle. A monk wearing
a hood that covered his head followed the procession alone, for
nobody dared to speak to him. And during the mass, he lay flat on
the floor with his face downward and his arms stretched out at his
sides.

After the burial, he was seen to take the road leading into the
mountains. He looked back several times, and finally passed out of
sight.




CHAPTER III

THE REPARATION


He left the country and begged his daily bread on his way.

He stretched out his hand to the horsemen he met in the roads, and
humbly approached the harvesters in the fields; or else remained
motionless in front of the gates of castles; and his face was so
sad that he was never turned away.

Obeying a spirit of humility, he related his history to all men,
and they would flee from him and cross themselves. In villages
through which he had passed before, the good people bolted the
doors, threatened him, and threw stones at him as soon as they
recognised him. The more charitable ones placed a bowl on the
window-sill and closed the shutters in order to avoid seeing him.

Repelled and shunned by everyone, he avoided his fellow-men and
nourished himself with roots and plants, stray fruits and shells
which he gathered along the shores.

Often, at the bend of a hill, he could perceive a mass of crowded
roofs, stone spires, bridges, towers and narrow streets, from
which arose a continual murmur of activity.

The desire to mingle with men impelled him to enter the city. But
the gross and beastly expression of their faces, the noise of
their industries and the indifference of their remarks, chilled
his very heart. On holidays, when the cathedral bells rang out at
daybreak and filled the people's hearts with gladness, he watched
the inhabitants coming out of their dwellings, the dancers in the
public squares, the fountains of ale, the damask hangings spread
before the houses of princes; and then, when night came, he would
peer through the windows at the long tables where families
gathered and where grandparents held little children on their
knees; then sobs would rise in his throat and he would turn away
and go back to his haunts.

He gazed with yearning at the colts in the pastures, the birds in
their nests, the insects on the flowers; but they all fled from
him at his approach and hid or flew away. So he sought solitude.
But the wind brought to his ears sounds resembling death-rattles;
the tears of the dew reminded him of heavier drops, and every
evening, the sun would spread blood in the sky, and every night,
in his dreams, he lived over his parricide.

He made himself a hair-cloth lined with iron spikes. On his knees,
he ascended every hill that was crowned with a chapel. But the
unrelenting thought spoiled the splendour of the tabernacles and
tortured him in the midst of his penances.

He did not rebel against God, who had inflicted his action, but he
despaired at the thought that he had committed it.

He had such a horror of himself that he took all sorts of risks.
He rescued paralytics from fire and children from waves. But the
ocean scorned him and the flames spared him. Time did not allay
his torment, which became so intolerable that he resolved to die.

One day, while he was stooping over a fountain to judge of its
depth, an old man appeared on the other side. He wore a white
beard and his appearance was so lamentable that Julian could not
keep back his tears. The old man also was weeping. Without
recognising him, Julian remembered confusedly a face that
resembled his. He uttered a cry; for it was his father who stood
before him; and he gave up all thought of taking his own life.

Thus weighted down by his recollections, he travelled through many
countries and arrived at a river which was dangerous, because of
its violence and the slime that covered its shores. Since a long
time nobody had ventured to cross it.

The bow of an old boat, whose stern was buried in the mud, showed
among the reeds. Julian, on examining it closely, found a pair of
oars and hit upon the idea of devoting his life to the service of
his fellow-men.

He began by establishing on the bank of the river a sort of road
which would enable people to approach the edge of the stream; he
broke his nails in his efforts to lift enormous stones which he
pressed against the pit of his stomach in order to transport them
from one point to another; he slipped in the mud, he sank into it,
and several times was on the very brink of death.

Then he took to repairing the boat with debris of vessels, and
afterwards built himself a hut with putty and trunks of trees.

When it became known that a ferry had been established, passengers
flocked to it. They hailed him from the opposite side by waving
flags, and Julian would jump into the boat and row over. The craft
was very heavy, and the people loaded it with all sorts of
baggage, and beasts of burden, who reared with fright, thereby
adding greatly to the confusion. He asked nothing for his trouble;
some gave him left-over victuals which they took from their sacks
or worn-out garments which they could no longer use.

The brutal ones hurled curses at him, and when he rebuked them
gently they replied with insults, and he was content to bless
them.

A little table, a stool, a bed made of dead leaves and three
earthen bowls were all he possessed. Two holes in the wall served
as windows. On one side, as far as the eye could see, stretched
barren wastes studded here and there with pools of water; and in
front of him flowed the greenish waters of the wide river. In the
spring, a putrid odour arose from the damp sod. Then fierce gales
lifted clouds of dust that blew everywhere, even settling in the
water and in one's mouth. A little later swarms of mosquitoes
appeared, whose buzzing and stinging continued night and day.
After that, came frightful frosts which communicated a stone-like
rigidity to everything and inspired one with an insane desire for
meat. Months passed when Julian never saw a human being. He often
closed his lids and endeavored to recall his youth;--he beheld the
courtyard of a castle, with greyhounds stretched out on a terrace,
an armoury filled with valets, and under a bower of vines a youth
with blond curls, sitting between an old man wrapped in furs and a
lady with a high cap; presently the corpses rose before him, and
then he would throw himself face downward on his cot and sob:

"Oh! poor father! poor mother! poor mother!" and would drop into a
fitful slumber in which the terrible visions recurred.

One night he thought that some one was calling to him in his
sleep. He listened intently, but could hear nothing save the
roaring of the waters.

But the same voice repeated: "Julian!"

It proceeded from the opposite shore, a fact which appeared
extraordinary to him, considering the breadth of the river.

The voice called a third time: "Julian!"

And the high-pitched tones sounded like the ringing of a
church-bell.

Having lighted his lantern, he stepped out of his cabin. A
frightful storm raged. The darkness was complete and was
illuminated here and there only by the white waves leaping and
tumbling.

After a moment's hesitation, he untied the rope. The water
presently grew smooth and the boat glided easily to the opposite
shore, where a man was waiting.

He was wrapped in a torn piece of linen; his face was like a chalk
mask, and his eyes were redder than glowing coals. When Julian
held up his lantern he noticed that the stranger was covered with
hideous sores; but notwithstanding this, there was in his attitude
something like the majesty of a king.

As soon as he stepped into the boat, it sank deep into the water,
borne downward by his weight; then it rose again and Julian began
to row.

With each stroke of the oars, the force of the waves raised the
bow of the boat. The water, which was blacker than ink, ran
furiously along the sides. It formed abysses and then mountains,
over which the boat glided, then it fell into yawning depths
where, buffeted by the wind, it whirled around and around.

Julian leaned far forward and, bracing himself with his feet, bent
backwards so as to bring his whole strength into play. Hail-stones
cut his hands, the rain ran down his back, the velocity of the
wind suffocated him. He stopped rowing and let the boat drift with
the tide. But realising that an important matter was at stake, a
command which could not be disregarded, he picked up the oars
again; and the rattling of the tholes mingled with the clamourings
of the storm.

The little lantern burned in front of him. Sometimes birds
fluttered past it and obscured the light. But he could distinguish
the eyes of the leper who stood at the stern, as motionless as a
column.

And the trip lasted a long, long time.

When they reached the hut, Julian closed the door and saw the man
sit down on the stool. The species of shroud that was wrapped
around him had fallen below his loins, and his shoulders and chest
and lean arms were hidden under blotches of scaly pustules.
Enormous wrinkles crossed his forehead. Like a skeleton, he had a
hole instead of a nose, and from his bluish lips came breath which
was fetid and as thick as mist.

"I am hungry," he said.

Julian set before him what he had, a piece of pork and some crusts
of coarse bread.

After he had devoured them, the table, the bowl, and the handle of
the knife bore the same scales that covered his body.

Then he said: "I thirst!"

Julian fetched his jug of water and when he lifted it, he smelled
an aroma that dilated his nostrils and filled his heart with
gladness. It was wine; what a boon! but the leper stretched out
his arm and emptied the jug at one draught.

Then he said: "I am cold!"

Julian ignited a bundle of ferns that lay in the middle of the
hut. The leper approached the fire and, resting on his heels,
began to warm himself; his whole frame shook and he was failing
visibly; his eyes grew dull, his sores began to break, and in a
faint voice he whispered:

"Thy bed!"

Julian helped him gently to it, and even laid the sail of his boat
over him to keep him warm.

The leper tossed and moaned. The corners of his mouth were drawn
up over his teeth; an accelerated death-rattle shook his chest and
with each one of his aspirations, his stomach touched his spine.
At last, he closed his eyes.

"I feel as if ice were in my bones! Lay thyself beside me!" he
commanded. Julian took off his garments; and then, as naked as on
the day he was born, he got into the bed; against his thigh he
could feel the skin of the leper, and it was colder than a serpent
and as rough as a file.

He tried to encourage the leper, but he only whispered:

"Oh! I am about to die! Come closer to me and warm me! Not with
thy hands! No! with thy whole body."

So Julian stretched himself out upon the leper, lay on him, lips
to lips, chest to chest.

Then the leper clasped him close and presently his eyes shone like
stars; his hair lengthened into sunbeams; the breath of his
nostrils had the scent of roses; a cloud of incense rose from the
hearth, and the waters began to murmur harmoniously; an abundance
of bliss, a superhuman joy, filled the soul of the swooning
Julian, while he who clasped him to his breast grew and grew until
his head and his feet touched the opposite walls of the cabin. The
roof flew up in the air, disclosing the heavens, and Julian
ascended into infinity face to face with our Lord Jesus Christ,
who bore him straight to heaven.

And this is the story of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, as it is
given on the stained-glass window of a church in my birthplace.






A SIMPLE SOUL




CHAPTER I

FÉLICITÉ


For half a century the housewives of Pont-l'Evêque had envied
Madame Aubain her servant Félicité.

For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework,
washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry,
made the butter and remained faithful to her mistress--although
the latter was by no means an agreeable person.

Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who
died in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children
and a number of debts. She sold all her property excepting the
farm of Toucques and the farm of Geffosses, the income of which
barely amounted to 5,000 francs; then she left her house in
Saint-Melaine, and moved into a less pretentious one which had
belonged to her ancestors and stood back of the market-place.
This house, with its slate-covered roof, was built between a
passage-way and a narrow street that led to the river. The
interior was so unevenly graded that it caused people to stumble.
A narrow hall separated the kitchen from the parlour, where
Madame Aubain sat all day in a straw armchair near the window.
Eight mahogany chairs stood in a row against the white wainscoting.
An old piano, standing beneath a barometer, was covered with a
pyramid of old books and boxes. On either side of the yellow marble
mantelpiece, in Louis XV style, stood a tapestry armchair. The clock
represented a temple of Vesta; and the whole room smelled musty, as
it was on a lower level than the garden.

On the first floor was Madame's bedchamber, a large room papered
in a flowered design and containing the portrait of Monsieur
dressed in the costume of a dandy. It communicated with a smaller
room, in which there were two little cribs, without any
mattresses. Next, came the parlour (always closed), filled with
furniture covered with sheets. Then a hall, which led to the
study, where books and papers were piled on the shelves of a
book-case that enclosed three quarters of the big black desk. Two
panels were entirely hidden under pen-and-ink sketches, Gouache
landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better times and
vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window lighted
Félicité's room, which looked out upon the meadows.

She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked
without interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the
dishes cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury
the log under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth
with a rosary in her hand. Nobody could bargain with greater
obstinacy, and as for cleanliness, the lustre on her brass
saucepans was the envy and despair of other servants. She was most
economical, and when she ate she would gather up crumbs with the
tip of her finger, so that nothing should be wasted of the loaf of
bread weighing twelve pounds which was baked especially for her
and lasted three weeks.

Summer and winter she wore a dimity kerchief fastened in the back
with a pin, a cap which concealed her hair, a red skirt, grey
stockings, and an apron with a bib like those worn by hospital
nurses.

Her face was thin and her voice shrill. When she was twenty-five,
she looked forty. After she had passed fifty, nobody could tell
her age; erect and silent always, she resembled a wooden figure
working automatically.




CHAPTER II

THE HEROINE


Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart. Her
father, who was a mason, was killed by falling from a scaffolding.
Then her mother died and her sisters went their different ways; a
farmer took her in, and while she was quite small, let her keep
cows in the fields. She was clad in miserable rags, beaten for the
slightest offence and finally dismissed for a theft of thirty sous
which she did not commit. She took service on another farm where
she tended the poultry; and as she was well thought of by her
master, her fellow-workers soon grew jealous.

One evening in August (she was then eighteen years old), they
persuaded her to accompany them to the fair at Colleville. She was
immediately dazzled by the noise, the lights in the trees, the
brightness of the dresses, the laces and gold crosses, and the
crowd of people all hopping at the same time. She was standing
modestly at a distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do
appearance, who had been leaning on the pole of a wagon and
smoking his pipe, approached her, and asked her for a dance. He
treated her to cider and cake, bought her a silk shawl, and then,
thinking she had guessed his purpose, offered to see her home.
When they came to the end of a field he threw her down brutally.
But she grew frightened and screamed, and he walked off.

One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a
wagon loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised
Théodore. He greeted her calmly, and asked her to forget what had
happened between them, as it "was all the fault of the drink."

She did not know what to reply and wished to run away.

Presently he began to speak of the harvest and of the notables of
the village; his father had left Colleville and bought the farm of
Les Écots, so that now they would be neighbors. "Ah!" she
exclaimed. He then added that his parents were looking around for
a wife for him, but that he, himself, was not so anxious and
preferred to wait for a girl who suited him. She hung her head. He
then asked her whether she had ever thought of marrying. She
replied, smilingly, that it was wrong of him to make fun of her.
"Oh! no, I am in earnest," he said, and put his left arm around
her waist while they sauntered along. The air was soft, the stars
were bright, and the huge load of hay oscillated in front of them,
drawn by four horses whose ponderous hoofs raised clouds of dust.
Without a word from their driver they turned to the right. He
kissed her again and she went home. The following week, Théodore
obtained meetings.

They met in yards, behind walls or under isolated trees. She was
not ignorant, as girls of well-to-do families are--for the animals
had instructed her;--but her reason and her instinct of honour
kept her from falling. Her resistance exasperated Théodore's love
and so in order to satisfy it (or perchance ingenuously), he
offered to marry her. She would not believe him at first, so he
made solemn promises. But, in a short time he mentioned a
difficulty; the previous year, his parents had purchased a
substitute for him; but any day he might be drafted and the
prospect of serving in the army alarmed him greatly. To Félicité
his cowardice appeared a proof of his love for her, and her
devotion to him grew stronger. When she met him, he would torture
her with his fears and his entreaties. At last, he announced that
he was going to the prefect himself for information, and would let
her know everything on the following Sunday, between eleven
o'clock and midnight.

When the time drew near, she ran to meet her lover.

But instead of Théodore, one of his friends was at the
meeting-place.

He informed her that she would never see her sweetheart again;
for, in order to escape the conscription, he had married a rich
old woman, Madame Lehoussais, of Toucques.

The poor girl's sorrow was frightful. She threw herself on the
ground, she cried and called on the Lord, and wandered around
desolately until sunrise. Then she went back to the farm, declared
her intention of leaving, and at the end of the month, after she
had received her wages, she packed all her belongings in a
handkerchief and started for Pont-l'Evêque.

In front of the inn, she met a woman wearing widow's weeds, and
upon questioning her, learned that she was looking for a cook. The
girl did not know very much, but appeared so willing and so modest
in her requirements, that Madame Aubain finally said:

"Very well, I will give you a trial."

And half an hour later Félicité was installed in her house.

At first she lived in a constant anxiety that was caused by "the
style of the household" and the memory of "Monsieur," that hovered
over everything. Paul and Virginia, the one aged seven, and the
other barely four, seemed made of some precious material; she
carried them pig-a-back, and was greatly mortified when Madame
Aubain forbade her to kiss them every other minute.

But in spite of all this, she was happy. The comfort of her new
surroundings had obliterated her sadness.

Every Thursday, friends of Madame Aubain dropped in for a game of
cards, and it was Félicité's duty to prepare the table and heat
the foot-warmers. They arrived at exactly eight o'clock and
departed before eleven.

Every Monday morning, the dealer in second-hand goods, who lived
under the alley-way, spread out his wares on the sidewalk. Then
the city would be filled with a buzzing of voices in which the
neighing of horses, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs,
could be distinguished, mingled with the sharp sound of wheels on
the cobble-stones. About twelve o'clock, when the market was in
full swing, there appeared at the front door a tall, middle-aged
peasant, with a hooked nose and a cap on the back of his head; it
was Robelin, the farmer of Geffosses. Shortly afterwards came
Liébard, the farmer of Toucques, short, rotund and ruddy, wearing
a grey jacket and spurred boots.

Both men brought their landlady either chickens or cheese.
Félicité would invariably thwart their ruses and they held her in
great respect.

At various times, Madame Aubain received a visit from the Marquis
de Grémanville, one of her uncles, who was ruined and lived at
Falaise on the remainder of his estates. He always came at
dinner-time and brought an ugly poodle with him, whose paws soiled
the furniture. In spite of his efforts to appear a man of breeding
(he even went so far as to raise his hat every time he said "My
deceased father"), his habits got the better of him, and he would
fill his glass a little too often and relate broad stories.
Félicité would show him out very politely and say: "You have had
enough for this time, Monsieur de Grémanville! Hoping to see you
again!" and would close the door.

She opened it gladly for Monsieur Bourais, a retired lawyer. His
bald head and white cravat, the ruffling of his shirt, his flowing
brown coat, the manner in which he took his snuff, his whole
person, in fact, produced in her the kind of awe which we feel
when we see extraordinary persons. As he managed Madame's estates,
he spent hours with her in Monsieur's study; he was in constant
fear of being compromised, had a great regard for the magistracy
and some pretensions to learning.

In order to facilitate the children's studies, he presented them
with an engraved geography which represented various scenes of the
world: cannibals with feather head-dresses, a gorilla kidnapping a
young girl, Arabs in the desert, a whale being harpooned, etc.

Paul explained the pictures to Félicité. And, in fact, this was
her only literary education.

The children's studies were under the direction of a poor devil
employed at the town-hall, who sharpened his pocketknife on his
boots and was famous for his penmanship.

When the weather was fine, they went to Geffosses. The house was
built in the centre of the sloping yard; and the sea looked like a
grey spot in the distance. Félicité would take slices of cold meat
from the lunch basket and they would sit down and eat in a room
next to the dairy. This room was all that remained of a cottage
that had been torn down. The dilapidated wall-paper trembled in
the drafts. Madame Aubain, overwhelmed by recollections, would
hang her head, while the children were afraid to open their
mouths. Then, "Why don't you go and play?" their mother would say;
and they would scamper off.

Paul would go to the old barn, catch birds, throw stones into the
pond, or pound the trunks of the trees with a stick till they
resounded like drums. Virginia would feed the rabbits and run to
pick the wild flowers in the fields, and her flying legs would
disclose her little embroidered pantalettes. One autumn evening,
they struck out for home through the meadows. The new moon
illumined part of the sky and a mist hovered like a veil over the
sinuosities of the river. Oxen, lying in the pastures, gazed
mildly at the passing persons. In the third field, however,
several of them got up and surrounded them. "Don't be afraid,"
cried Félicité; and murmuring a sort of lament she passed her hand
over the back of the nearest ox; he turned away and the others
followed. But when they came to the next pasture, they heard
frightful bellowing.

It was a bull which was hidden from them by the fog. He advanced
towards the two women, and Madame Aubain prepared to flee for her
life. "No, no! not so fast," warned Félicité. Still they hurried
on, for they could hear the noisy breathing of the bull close
behind them. His hoofs pounded the grass like hammers, and
presently he began to gallop! Félicité turned around and threw
patches of grass in his eyes. He hung his head, shook his horns
and bellowed with fury. Madame Aubain and the children, huddled at
the end of the field, were trying to jump over the ditch. Félicité
continued to back before the bull, blinding him with dirt, while
she shouted to them to make haste.

Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first
Virginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several
times she managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of
it.

The bull had driven Félicité up against a fence; the foam from his
muzzle flew in her face and in another minute he would have
disembowelled her. She had just time to slip between two bars and
the huge animal, thwarted, paused.

For years, this occurrence was a topic of conversation in
Pont-l'Evêque. But Félicité took no credit to herself, and
probably never knew that she had been heroic.

Virginia occupied her thoughts solely, for the shock she had
sustained gave her a nervous affection, and the physician, M.
Poupart, prescribed the saltwater bathing at Trouville. In those
days, Trouville was not greatly patronised. Madame Aubain gathered
information, consulted Bourais, and made preparations as if they
were going on an extended trip.

The baggage was sent the day before on Liébard's cart. On the
following morning, he brought around two horses, one of which had
a woman's saddle with a velveteen back to it, while on the crupper
of the other was a rolled shawl that was to be used for a seat.
Madame Aubain mounted the second horse, behind Liébard. Félicité
took charge of the little girl, and Paul rode M. Lechaptois'
donkey, which had been lent for the occasion on the condition that
they should be careful of it.

The road was so bad that it took two hours to cover the eight
miles. The two horses sank knee-deep into the mud and stumbled
into ditches; sometimes they had to jump over them. In certain
places, Liébard's mare stopped abruptly. He waited patiently till
she started again, and talked of the people whose estates bordered
the road, adding his own moral reflections to the outline of their
histories. Thus, when they were passing through Toucques, and came
to some windows draped with nasturtiums, he shrugged his shoulders
and said: "There's a woman, Madame Lehoussais, who, instead of
taking a young man--" Félicité could not catch what followed; the
horses began to trot, the donkey to gallop, and they turned into a
lane; then a gate swung open, two farm-hands appeared and they all
dismounted at the very threshold of the farm-house.

Mother Liébard, when she caught sight of her mistress, was lavish
with joyful demonstrations. She got up a lunch which comprised a
leg of mutton, tripe, sausages, a chicken fricassée, sweet cider,
a fruit tart and some preserved prunes; then to all this the good
woman added polite remarks about Madame, who appeared to be in
better health, Mademoiselle, who had grown to be "superb," and
Paul, who had become singularly sturdy; she spoke also of their
deceased grandparents, whom the Liébards had known, for they had
been in the service of the family for several generations.

Like its owners, the farm had an ancient appearance. The beams of
the ceiling were mouldy, the walls black with smoke and the
windows grey with dust. The oak sideboard was filled with all
sorts of utensils, plates, pitchers, tin bowls, wolf-traps. The
children laughed when they saw a huge syringe. There was not a
tree in the yard that did not have mushrooms growing around its
foot, or a bunch of mistletoe hanging in its branches. Several of
the trees had been blown down, but they had started to grow in the
middle and all were laden with quantities of apples. The thatched
roofs, which were of unequal thickness, looked like brown velvet
and could resist the fiercest gales. But the wagon-shed was fast
crumbling to ruins. Madame Aubain said that she would attend to
it, and then gave orders to have the horses saddled.

It took another thirty minutes to reach Trouville. The little
caravan dismounted in order to pass Les Écores, a cliff that
overhangs the bay, and a few minutes later, at the end of the
dock, they entered the yard of the Golden Lamb, an inn kept by
Mother David.

During the first few days, Virginia felt stronger, owing to the
change of air and the action of the sea-baths. She took them in
her little chemise, as she had no bathing suit, and afterwards her
nurse dressed her in the cabin of a customs officer, which was
used for that purpose by other bathers.

In the afternoon, they would take the donkey and go to the
Roches-Noires, near Hennequeville. The path led at first through
undulating grounds, and thence to a plateau, where pastures and
tilled fields alternated. At the edge of the road, mingling with
the brambles, grew holly bushes, and here and there stood large
dead trees whose branches traced zigzags upon the blue sky.

Ordinarily, they rested in a field facing the ocean, with
Deauville on their left, and Havre on their right. The sea
glittered brightly in the sun and was as smooth as a mirror, and
so calm that they could scarcely distinguish its murmur; sparrows
chirped joyfully and the immense canopy of heaven spread over it
all. Madame Aubain brought out her sewing, and Virginia amused
herself by braiding reeds; Félicité wove lavender blossoms, while
Paul was bored and wished to go home.

Sometimes they crossed the Toucques in a boat, and started to hunt
for seashells. The outgoing tide exposed starfish and sea-urchins,
and the children tried to catch the flakes of foam which the wind
blew away. The sleepy waves lapping the sand unfurled themselves
along the shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but
where land began, it was limited by the downs which separated it
from the "Swamp," a large meadow shaped like a hippodrome. When
they went home that way, Trouville, on the slope of a hill below,
grew larger and larger as they advanced, and, with all its houses
of unequal height, seemed to spread out before them in a sort of
giddy confusion.

When the heat was too oppressive, they remained in their rooms.
The dazzling sunlight cast bars of light between the shutters. Not
a sound in the village, not a soul on the sidewalk. This silence
intensified the tranquillity of everything. In the distance, the
hammers of some calkers pounded the hull of a ship, and the sultry
breeze brought them an odour of tar.

The principal diversion consisted in watching the return of the
fishing-smacks. As soon as they passed the beacons, they began to
ply to windward. The sails were lowered to one third of the masts,
and with their foresails swelled up like balloons they glided over
the waves and anchored in the middle of the harbour. Then they
crept up alongside of the dock and the sailors threw the quivering
fish over the side of the boat; a line of carts was waiting for
them, and women with white caps sprang forward to receive the
baskets and embrace their men-folk.

One day, one of them spoke to Félicité, who, after a little while,
returned to the house gleefully. She had found one of her sisters,
and presently Nastasie Barette, wife of Léroux, made her
appearance, holding an infant in her arms, another child by the
hand, while on her left was a little cabin-boy with his hands in
his pockets and his cap on his ear.

At the end of fifteen minutes, Madame Aubain bade her go.

They always hung around the kitchen, or approached Félicité when
she and the children were out walking. The husband, however, did
not show himself.

Félicité developed a great fondness for them; she bought them a
stove, some shirts and a blanket; it was evident that they
exploited her. Her foolishness annoyed Madame Aubain, who,
moreover did not like the nephew's familiarity, for he called her
son "thou";--and, as Virginia began to cough and the season was
over, she decided to return to Pont-l'Evêque.

Monsieur Bourais assisted her in the choice of a college. The one
at Caën was considered the best. So Paul was sent away and bravely
said good-bye to them all, for he was glad to go to live in a
house where he would have boy companions.

Madame Aubain resigned herself to the separation from her son
because it was unavoidable. Virginia brooded less and less over
it. Félicité regretted the noise he made, but soon a new
occupation diverted her mind; beginning from Christmas, she
accompanied the little girl to her catechism lesson every day.




CHAPTER III

DEATH


After she had made a curtsey at the threshold, she would walk up
the aisle between the double lines of chairs, open Madame Aubain's
pew, sit down and look around.

Girls and boys, the former on the right, the latter on the
left-hand side of the church, filled the stalls of the choir; the
priest stood beside the reading-desk; on one stained window of the
side-aisle the Holy Ghost hovered over the Virgin; on another one,
Mary knelt before the Child Jesus, and behind the altar, a wooden
group represented Saint Michael felling the dragon.

The priest first read a condensed lesson of sacred history.
Félicité evoked Paradise, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the
blazing cities, the dying nations, the shattered idols; and out of
this she developed a great respect for the Almighty and a great
fear of His wrath. Then, when she listened to the Passion, she
wept. Why had they crucified Him who loved little children,
nourished the people, made the blind see, and who, out of
humility, had wished to be born among the poor, in a stable? The
sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those familiar things
which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her life; the word
of God sanctified them; and she loved the lambs with increased
tenderness for the sake of the Lamb, and the doves because of the
Holy Ghost.

She found it hard, however, to think of the latter as a person,
for was it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath?
Perhaps it is its light that at night hovers over swamps, its
breath that propels the clouds, its voice that renders church-bells
harmonious. And Félicité worshipped devoutly, while enjoying the
coolness and the stillness of the church.

As for the dogma, she could not understand it and did not even
try. The priest discoursed, the children recited, and she went to
sleep, only to awaken with a start when they were leaving the
church and their wooden shoes clattered on the stone pavement.

In this way, she learned her catechism, her religious education
having been neglected in her youth; and thenceforth she imitated
all Virginia's religious practises, fasted when she did, and went
to confession with her. At the Corpus-Christi Day they both
decorated an altar.

She worried in advance over Virginia's first communion. She fussed
about the shoes, the rosary, the book and the gloves. With what
nervousness she helped the mother dress the child!

During the entire ceremony, she felt anguished. Monsieur Bourais
hid part of the choir from view, but directly in front of her, the
flock of maidens, wearing white wreaths over their lowered veils,
formed a snow-white field, and she recognised her darling by the
slenderness of her neck and her devout attitude. The bell tinkled.
All the heads bent and there was a silence. Then, at the peals of
the organ the singers and the worshippers struck up the Agnus Dei;
the boys' procession began; behind them came the girls. With
clasped hands, they advanced step by step to the lighted altar,
knelt at the first step, received one by one the Host, and
returned to their seats in the same order. When Virginia's turn
came, Félicité leaned forward to watch her, and through that
imagination which springs from true affection, she at once became
the child, whose face and dress became hers, whose heart beat in
her bosom, and when Virginia opened her mouth and closed her lids,
she did likewise and came very near fainting.

The following day, she presented herself early at the church so as
to receive communion from the curé. She took it with the proper
feeling, but did not experience the same delight as on the
previous day.

Madame Aubain wished to make an accomplished girl of her daughter;
and as Guyot could not teach English nor music, she decided to
send her to the Ursulines at Honfleur.

The child made no objection, but Félicité sighed and thought
Madame was heartless. Then, she thought that perhaps her mistress
was right, as these things were beyond her sphere. Finally, one
day, an old _fiacre_ stopped in front of the door and a nun
stepped out. Félicité put Virginia's luggage on top of the
carriage, gave the coachman some instructions, and smuggled six
jars of jam, a dozen pears and a bunch of violets under the seat.

At the last minute, Virginia had a fit of sobbing; she embraced
her mother again and again, while the latter kissed her on her
forehead, and said: "Now, be brave, be brave!" The step was pulled
up and the _fiacre_ rumbled off.

Then Madame Aubain had a fainting spell, and that evening all her
friends, including the two Lormeaus, Madame Lechaptois, the ladies
Rochefeuille, Messieurs de Houppeville and Bourais, called on her
and tendered their sympathy.

At first the separation proved very painful to her. But her
daughter wrote her three times a week and the other days she,
herself, wrote to Virginia. Then she walked in the garden, read a
little, and in this way managed to fill out the emptiness of the
hours.

Each morning, out of habit, Félicité entered Virginia's room and
gazed at the walls. She missed combing her hair, lacing her shoes,
tucking her in her bed, and the bright face and little hand when
they used to go out for a walk. In order to occupy herself she
tried to make lace. But her clumsy fingers broke the threads; she
had no heart for anything, lost her sleep and "wasted away," as
she put it.

In order to have some distraction, she asked leave to receive the
visits of her nephew Victor.

He would come on Sunday, after church, with ruddy cheeks and bared
chest, bringing with him the scent of the country. She would set
the table and they would sit down opposite each other, and eat
their dinner; she ate as little as possible, herself, to avoid any
extra expense, but would stuff him so with food that he would
finally go to sleep. At the first stroke of vespers, she would
wake him up, brush his trousers, tie his cravat and walk to church
with him, leaning on his arm with maternal pride.

His parents always told him to get something out of her, either a
package of brown sugar, or soap, or brandy, and sometimes even
money. He brought her his clothes to mend, and she accepted the
task gladly, because it meant another visit from him.

In August, his father took him on a coasting-vessel.

It was vacation time and the arrival of the children consoled
Félicité. But Paul was capricious, and Virginia was growing too
old to be thee-and-thou'd, a fact which seemed to produce a sort
of embarrassment in their relations.

Victor went successively to Morlaix, to Dunkirk, and to Brighton;
whenever he returned from a trip he would bring her a present. The
first time it was a box of shells; the second, a coffee-cup; the
third, a big doll of ginger-bread. He was growing handsome, had a
good figure, a tiny moustache, kind eyes, and a little leather cap
that sat jauntily on the back of his head. He amused his aunt by
telling her stories mingled with nautical expressions.

One Monday, the 14th of July, 1819 (she never forgot the date),
Victor announced that he had been engaged on merchant-vessel and
that in two days he would take the steamer at Honfleur and join
his sailer, which was going to start from Havre very soon. Perhaps
he might be away two years.

The prospect of his departure filled Félicité with despair, and in
order to bid him farewell, on Wednesday night, after Madame's
dinner, she put on her pattens and trudged the four miles that
separated Pont-l'Evêque from Honfleur.

When she reached the Calvary, instead of turning to the right, she
turned to the left and lost herself in coal-yards; she had to
retrace her steps; some people she spoke to advised her to hasten.
She walked helplessly around the harbour filled with vessels, and
knocked against hawsers. Presently the ground sloped abruptly,
lights flittered to and fro, and she thought all at once that she
had gone mad when she saw some horses in the sky.

Others, on the edge of the dock, neighed at the sight of the
ocean. A derrick pulled them up in the air and dumped them into a
boat, where passengers were bustling about among barrels of cider,
baskets of cheese and bags of meal; chickens cackled, the captain
swore and a cabin-boy rested on the railing, apparently
indifferent to his surroundings. Félicité, who did not recognise
him, kept shouting: "Victor!" He suddenly raised his eyes, but
while she was preparing to rush up to him, they withdrew the
gangplank.

The packet, towed by singing women, glided out of the harbour. Her
hull squeaked and the heavy waves beat up against her sides. The
sail had turned and nobody was visible;--and on the ocean,
silvered by the light of the moon, the vessel formed a black spot
that grew dimmer and dimmer, and finally disappeared.

When Félicité passed the Calvary again, she felt as if she must
entrust that which was dearest to her to the Lord; and for a long
while she prayed, with uplifted eyes and a face wet with tears.
The city was sleeping; some customs officials were taking the air;
and the water kept pouring through the holes of the dam with a
deafening roar. The town clock struck two.

The parlour of the convent would not open until morning, and
surely a delay would annoy Madame; so, in spite of her desire to
see the other child, she went home. The maids of the inn were just
arising when she reached Pont-l'Evêque.

So the poor boy would be on the ocean for months! His previous
trips had not alarmed her. One can come back from England and
Brittany; but America, the colonies, the islands, were all lost in
an uncertain region at the very end of the world.

From that time on, Félicité thought solely of her nephew. On warm
days she feared he would suffer from thirst, and when it stormed,
she was afraid he would be struck by lightning. When she harkened
to the wind that rattled in the chimney and dislodged the tiles on
the roof, she imagined that he was being buffeted by the same
storm, perched on top of a shattered mast, with his whole body
bent backward and covered with sea-foam; or,--these were
recollections of the engraved geography--he was being devoured by
savages, or captured in a forest by apes, or dying on some lonely
coast. She never mentioned her anxieties, however.

Madame Aubain worried about her daughter.

The sisters thought that Virginia was affectionate but delicate.
The slightest emotion enervated her. She had to give up her piano
lessons. Her mother insisted upon regular letters from the
convent. One morning, when the postman failed to come, she grew
impatient and began to pace to and fro, from her chair to the
window. It was really extraordinary! No news since four days!

In order to console her mistress by her own example, Félicité
said:

"Why, Madame, I haven't had any news since six months!"--

"From whom?"--

The servant replied gently:

"Why--from my nephew."

"Oh, yes, your nephew!" And shrugging her shoulders, Madame Aubain
continued to pace the floor as if to say: "I did not think of
it.--Besides, I do not care, a cabin-boy, a pauper!--but my
daughter--what a difference! just think of it!--"

Félicité, although she had been reared roughly, was very
indignant. Then she forgot about it.

It appeared quite natural to her that one should lose one's head
about Virginia.

The two children were of equal importance; they were united in her
heart and their fate was to be the same.

The chemist informed her that Victor's vessel had reached Havana.
He had read the information in a newspaper.

Félicité imagined that Havana was a place where people did nothing
but smoke, and that Victor walked around among negroes in a cloud
of tobacco. Could a person, in case of need, return by land? How
far was it from Pont-l'Evêque? In order to learn these things she
questioned Monsieur Bourais. He reached for his map and began some
explanations concerning longitudes, and smiled with superiority at
Félicité's bewilderment. At last, he took his pencil and pointed
out an imperceptible black point in the scallops of an oval
blotch, adding: "There it is." She bent over the map; the maze of
coloured lines hurt her eyes without enlightening her; and when
Bourais asked her what puzzled her, she requested him to show her
the house Victor lived in. Bourais threw up his hands, sneezed,
and then laughed uproariously; such ignorance delighted his soul;
but Félicité failed to understand the cause of his mirth, she
whose intelligence was so limited that she perhaps expected to see
even the picture of her nephew!

It was two weeks later that Liébard came into the kitchen at
market-time, and handed her a letter from her brother-in-law. As
neither of them could read, she called upon her mistress.

Madame Aubain, who was counting the stitches of her knitting, laid
her work down beside her, opened the letter, started, and in a low
tone and with a searching look said: "They tell you of a--misfortune.
Your nephew--."

He had died. The letter told nothing more.

Félicité dropped on a chair, leaned her head against the back and
closed her lids; presently they grew pink. Then, with drooping
head, inert hands and staring eyes she repeated at intervals:

"Poor little chap! poor little chap!"

Liébard watched her and sighed. Madame Aubain was trembling.

She proposed to the girl to go see her sister in Trouville.

With a single motion, Félicité replied that it was not necessary.

There was a silence. Old Liébard thought it about time for him to
take leave.

Then Félicité uttered:

"They have no sympathy, they do not care!"

Her head fell forward again, and from time to time, mechanically,
she toyed with the long knitting-needles on the work-table.

Some women passed through the yard with a basket of wet clothes.

When she saw them through the window, she suddenly remembered her
own wash; as she had soaked it the day before, she must go and
rinse it now. So she arose and left the room.

Her tub and her board were on the bank of the Toucques. She threw
a heap of clothes on the ground, rolled up her sleeves and grasped
her bat; and her loud pounding could be heard in the neighbouring
gardens. The meadows were empty, the breeze wrinkled the stream,
at the bottom of which were long grasses that looked like the hair
of corpses floating in the water. She restrained her sorrow and
was very brave until night; but, when she had gone to her own
room, she gave way to it, burying her face in the pillow and
pressing her two fists against her temples.

A long while afterward, she learned through Victor's captain, the
circumstances which surrounded his death. At the hospital they had
bled him too much, treating him for yellow fever. Four doctors
held him at one time. He died almost instantly, and the chief
surgeon had said:

"Here goes another one!"

His parents had always treated him barbarously; she preferred not
to see them again, and they made no advances, either from
forgetfulness or out of innate hardness.

Virginia was growing weaker.

A cough, continual fever, oppressive breathing and spots on her
cheeks indicated some serious trouble. Monsieur Poupart had
advised a sojourn in Provence. Madame Aubain decided that they
would go, and she would have had her daughter come home at once,
had it not been for the climate of Pont-l'Evêque.

She made an arrangement with a livery-stable man who drove her
over to the convent every Tuesday. In the garden there was a
terrace, from which the view extends to the Seine. Virginia walked
in it, leaning on her mother's arm and treading the dead vine
leaves. Sometimes the sun, shining through the clouds, made her
blink her lids, when she gazed at the sails in the distance, and
let her eyes roam over the horizon from the chateau of Tancarville
to the lighthouses of Havre. Then they rested in the arbour. Her
mother had bought a little cask of fine Malaga wine, and Virginia,
laughing at the idea of becoming intoxicated, would drink a few
drops of it, but never more.

Her strength returned. Autumn passed. Félicité began to reassure
Madame Aubain. But, one evening, when she returned home after an
errand, she met M. Boupart's coach in front of the door; M.
Boupart himself was standing in the vestibule and Madame Aubain
was tying the strings of her bonnet. "Give me my foot-warmer, my
purse and my gloves; and be quick about it," she said.

Virginia had congestion of the lungs; perhaps it was desperate.

"Not yet," said the physician, and both got into the carriage,
while the snow fell in thick flakes. It was almost night and very
cold.

Félicité rushed to the church to light a candle. Then she ran
after the coach which she overtook after an hour's chase, sprang
up behind and held on to the straps. But suddenly a thought
crossed her mind: "The yard had been left open; supposing that
burglars got in!" And down she jumped.

The next morning, at daybreak, she called at the doctor's. He had
been home, but had left again. Then she waited at the inn,
thinking that strangers might bring her a letter. At last, at
daylight she took the diligence for Lisieux.

The convent was at the end of a steep and narrow street. When she
arrived about at the middle of it, she heard strange noises, a
funeral knell. "It must be for some one else," thought she; and
she pulled the knocker violently.

After several minutes had elapsed, she heard footsteps, the door
was half opened and a nun appeared. The good sister, with an air
of compunction, told her that "she had just passed away." And at
the same time the tolling of Saint-Léonard's increased.

Félicité reached the second floor. Already at the threshold, she
caught sight of Virginia lying on her back, with clasped hands,
her mouth open and her head thrown back, beneath a black crucifix
inclined toward her, and stiff curtains which were less white than
her face. Madame Aubain lay at the foot of the couch, clasping it
with her arms and uttering groans of agony. The Mother Superior
was standing on the right side of the bed. The three candles on
the bureau made red blurs, and the windows were dimmed by the fog
outside. The nuns carried Madame Aubain from the room.

For two nights, Félicité never left the corpse. She would repeat
the same prayers, sprinkle holy water over the sheets, get up,
come back to the bed and contemplate the body. At the end of the
first vigil, she noticed that the face had taken on a yellow
tinge, the lips grew blue, the nose grew pinched, the eyes were
sunken. She kissed them several times and would not have been
greatly astonished had Virginia opened them; to souls like these
the supernatural is always quite simple. She washed her, wrapped
her in a shroud, put her into the casket, laid a wreath of flowers
on her head and arranged her curls. They were blond and of an
extraordinary length for her age. Félicité cut off a big lock and
put half of it into her bosom, resolving never to part with it.

The body was taken to Pont-l'Evêque, according to Madame Aubain's
wishes; she followed the hearse in a closed carriage.

After the ceremony it took three quarters of an hour to reach the
cemetery. Paul, sobbing, headed the procession; Monsieur Bourais
followed, and then came the principal inhabitants of the town, the
women covered with black capes, and Félicité. The memory of her
nephew, and the thought that she had not been able to render him
these honours, made her doubly unhappy, and she felt as if he were
being buried with Virginia.

Madame Aubain's grief was uncontrollable. At first she rebelled
against God, thinking that he was unjust to have taken away her
child--she who had never done anything wrong, and whose conscience
was so pure! But no! she ought to have taken her South. Other
doctors would have saved her. She accused herself, prayed to be
able to join her child, and cried in the midst of her dreams. Of
the latter, one more especially haunted her. Her husband, dressed
like a sailor, had come back from a long voyage, and with tears in
his eyes told her that he had received the order to take Virginia
away. Then they both consulted about a hiding-place.

Once she came in from the garden, all upset. A moment before (and
she showed the place), the father and daughter had appeared to
her, one after the other; they did nothing but look at her.

During several months she remained inert in her room. Félicité
scolded her gently; she must keep up for her son and also for the
other one, for "her memory."

"Her memory!" replied Madame Aubain, as if she were just
awakening, "Oh! yes, yes, you do not forget her!" This was an
allusion to the cemetery where she had been expressly forbidden to
go.

But Félicité went there every day. At four o'clock exactly, she
would go through the town, climb the hill, open the gate and
arrive at Virginia's tomb. It was a small column of pink marble
with a flat stone at its base, and it was surrounded by a little
plot enclosed by chains. The flower-beds were bright with
blossoms. Félicité watered their leaves, renewed the gravel, and
knelt on the ground in order to till the earth properly. When
Madame Aubain was able to visit the cemetery she felt very much
relieved and consoled.

Years passed, all alike and marked by no other events than the
return of the great church holidays: Easter, Assumption, All
Saints' Day. Household happenings constituted the only data to
which in later years they often referred. Thus, in 1825, workmen
painted the vestibule; in 1827, a portion of the roof almost
killed a man by falling into the yard. In the summer of 1828, it
was Madame's turn to offer the hallowed bread; at that time,
Bourais disappeared mysteriously; and the old acquaintances,
Guyot, Liébard, Madame Lechaptois, Robelin, old Grémanville,
paralysed since a long time, passed away one by one. One night,
the driver of the mail in Pont-l'Evêque announced the Revolution
of July. A few days afterward a new sub-prefect was nominated, the
Baron de Larsonnière, ex-consul in America, who, besides his wife,
had his sister-in-law and her three grown daughters with him. They
were often seen on their lawn, dressed in loose blouses, and they
had a parrot and a negro servant. Madame Aubain received a call,
which she returned promptly. As soon as she caught sight of them,
Félicité would run and notify her mistress. But only one thing was
capable of arousing her: a letter from her son.

He could not follow any profession as he was absorbed in drinking.
His mother paid his debts and he made fresh ones; and the sighs
that she heaved while she knitted at the window reached the ears
of Félicité who was spinning in the kitchen.

They walked in the garden together, always speaking of Virginia,
and asking each other if such and such a thing would have pleased
her, and what she would probably have said on this or that
occasion.

All her little belongings were put away in a closet of the room
which held the two little beds. But Madame Aubain looked them over
as little as possible. One summer day, however, she resigned
herself to the task and when she opened the closet the moths flew
out.

Virginia's frocks were hung under a shelf where there were three
dolls, some hoops, a doll-house, and a basin which she had used.
Félicité and Madame Aubain also took out the skirts, the
handkerchiefs, and the stockings and spread them on the beds,
before putting them away again. The sun fell on the piteous
things, disclosing their spots and the creases formed by the
motions of the body. The atmosphere was warm and blue, and a
blackbird trilled in the garden; everything seemed to live in
happiness. They found a little hat of soft brown plush, but it was
entirely moth-eaten. Félicité asked for it. Their eyes met and
filled with tears; at last the mistress opened her arms and the
servant threw herself against her breast and they hugged each
other and giving vent to their grief in a kiss which equalized
them for a moment.

It was the first time that this had ever happened, for Madame
Aubain was not of an expansive nature. Félicité was as grateful
for it as if it had been some favour, and thenceforth loved her
with animal-like devotion and a religious veneration.

Her kind-heartedness developed. When she heard the drums of a
marching regiment passing through the street, she would stand in
the doorway with a jug of cider and give the soldiers a drink. She
nursed cholera victims. She protected Polish refugees, and one of
them even declared that he wished to marry her. But they
quarrelled, for one morning when she returned from the Angelus she
found him in the kitchen coolly eating a dish which he had
prepared for himself during her absence.

After the Polish refugees, came Colmiche, an old man who was
credited with having committed frightful misdeeds in '93. He lived
near the river in the ruins of a pig-sty. The urchins peeped at
him through the cracks in the walls and threw stones that fell on
his miserable bed, where he lay gasping with catarrh, with long
hair, inflamed eyelids, and a tumour as big as his head on one
arm.

She got him some linen, tried to clean his hovel and dreamed of
installing him in the bake-house without his being in Madame's
way. When the cancer broke, she dressed it every day; sometimes
she brought him some cake and placed him in the sun on a bundle of
hay; and the poor old creature, trembling and drooling, would
thank her in his broken voice, and put out his hands whenever she
left him. Finally he died; and she had a mass said for the repose
of his soul.

That day a great joy came to her: at dinner-time, Madame de
Larsonnière's servant called with the parrot, the cage, and the
perch and chain and lock. A note from the baroness told Madame
Aubain that as her husband had been promoted to a prefecture, they
were leaving that night, and she begged her to accept the bird as
a remembrance and a token of her esteem.

Since a long time the parrot had been on Félicité's mind, because
he came from America, which reminded her of Victor, and she had
approached the negro on the subject.

Once even, she had said:

"How glad Madame would be to have him!"

The man had repeated this remark to his mistress who, not being
able to keep the bird, took this means of getting rid of it.




CHAPTER IV

THE BIRD


He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips
of his wings were pink and his breast was golden.

But he had the tiresome tricks of biting his perch, pulling his
feathers out, scattering refuse and spilling the water of his
bath. Madame Aubain grew tired of him and gave him to Félicité for
good.

She undertook his education, and soon he was able to repeat:
"Pretty boy! Your servant, sir! I salute you, Marie!" His perch
was placed near the door and several persons were astonished that
he did not answer to the name of "Jacquot," for every parrot is
called Jacquot. They called him a goose and a log, and these
taunts were like so many dagger thrusts to Félicité. Strange
stubbornness of the bird which would not talk when people watched
him!

Nevertheless, he sought society; for on Sunday, when the ladies
Rochefeuille, Monsieur de Houppeville and the new habitués,
Onfroy, the chemist, Monsieur Varin and Captain Mathieu, dropped
in for their game of cards, he struck the window-panes with his
wings and made such a racket that it was impossible to talk.

Bourais' face must have appeared very funny to Loulou. As soon as
he saw him he would begin to roar. His voice re-echoed in the yard,
and the neighbours would come to the windows and begin to laugh,
too; and in order that the parrot might not see him, Monsieur
Bourais edged along the wall, pushed his hat over his eyes to hide
his profile, and entered by the garden door, and the looks he gave
the bird lacked affection. Loulou, having thrust his head into the
butcher-boy's basket, received a slap, and from that time he
always tried to nip his enemy. Fabu threatened to wring his neck,
although he was not cruelly inclined, notwithstanding his big
whiskers and tattooings. On the contrary, he rather liked the bird
and, out of deviltry, tried to teach him oaths. Félicité, whom his
manner alarmed, put Loulou in the kitchen, took off his chain and
let him walk all over the house.

When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted
his right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that
such feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to
eat. There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens
are sometimes afflicted with. Félicité pulled it off with her
nails and cured him. One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow
the smoke of his cigar in his face; another time, Madame Lormeau
was teasing him with the tip of her umbrella and he swallowed the
tip. Finally he got lost.

She had put him on the grass to cool him and went away only for a
second; when she returned, she found no parrot! She hunted among
the bushes, on the bank of the river, and on the roofs, without
paying any attention to Madame Aubain who screamed at her: "Take
care! you must be insane!" Then she searched every garden in
Pont-l'Evêque and stopped the passers-by to inquire of them:
"Haven't you perhaps seen my parrot?" To those who had never seen
the parrot, she described him minutely. Suddenly she thought she
saw something green fluttering behind the mills at the foot of the
hill. But when she was at the top of the hill she could not see
it. A hod-carrier told her that he had just seen the bird in
Saint-Melaine, in Mother Simon's store. She rushed to the place.
The people did not know what she was talking about. At last she came
home, exhausted, with her slippers worn to shreds, and despair in
her heart. She sat down on the bench near Madame and was telling
of her search when presently a light weight dropped on her
shoulder--Loulou! What the deuce had he been doing? Perhaps he had
just taken a little walk around the town!

She did not easily forget her scare, in fact, she never got over
it. In consequence of a cold, she caught a sore throat; and some
time afterward she had an earache. Three years later she was stone
deaf, and spoke in a very loud voice even in church. Although her
sins might have been proclaimed throughout the diocese without any
shame to herself, or ill effects to the community, the curé
thought it advisable to receive her confession in the vestry-room.

Imaginary buzzings also added to her bewilderment. Her mistress
often said to her: "My goodness, how stupid you are!" and she
would answer: "Yes, Madame," and look for something.

The narrow circle of her ideas grew more restricted than it
already was; the bellowing of the oxen, the chime of the bells no
longer reached her intelligence. All things moved silently, like
ghosts. Only one noise penetrated her ears: the parrot's voice.

As if to divert her mind, he reproduced for her the tick-tack of
the spit in the kitchen, the shrill cry of the fish-vendors, the
saw of the carpenter who had a shop opposite, and when the
door-bell rang, he would imitate Madame Aubain: "Félicité! go to
the front door."

They held conversations together, Loulou repeating the three
phrases of his repertory over and over, Félicité replying by words
that had no greater meaning, but in which she poured out her
feelings. In her isolation, the parrot was almost a son, a lover.
He climbed upon her fingers, pecked at her lips, clung to her
shawl, and when she rocked her head to and fro like a nurse, the
big wings of her cap and the wings of the bird flapped in unison.
When clouds gathered on the horizon and the thunder rumbled,
Loulou would scream, perhaps because he remembered the storms in
his native forests. The dripping of the rain would excite him to
frenzy; he flapped around, struck the ceiling with his wings,
upset everything, and would finally fly into the garden to play.
Then he would come back into the room, light on one of the
andirons, and hop around in order to get dry.

One morning during the terrible winter of 1837, when she had put
him in front of the fire-place on account of the cold, she found
him dead in his cage, hanging to the wire bars with his head down.
He had probably died of congestion. But she believed that he had
been poisoned, and although she had no proofs whatever, her
suspicion rested on Fabu.

She wept so sorely that her mistress said: "Why don't you have him
stuffed?"

She asked the advice of the chemist, who had always been kind to
the bird.

He wrote to Havre for her. A certain man named Fellacher consented
to do the work. But, as the diligence driver often lost parcels
entrusted to him, Félicité resolved to take her pet to Honfleur
herself.

Leafless apple-trees lined the edges of the road. The ditches were
covered with ice. The dogs on the neighbouring farms barked; and
Félicité, with her hands beneath her cape, her little black sabots
and her basket, trotted along nimbly in the middle of the
sidewalk. She crossed the forest, passed by the Haut-Chêne and
reached Saint-Gatien.

Behind her, in a cloud of dust and impelled by the steep incline,
a mail-coach drawn by galloping horses advanced like a whirlwind.
When he saw a woman in the middle of the road, who did not get out
of the way, the driver stood up in his seat and shouted to her and
so did the postilion, while the four horses, which he could not
hold back, accelerated their pace; the two leaders were almost
upon her; with a jerk of the reins he threw them to one side, but,
furious at the incident, he lifted his big whip and lashed her
from her head to her feet with such violence that she fell to the
ground unconscious.

Her first thought, when she recovered her senses, was to open the
basket. Loulou was unharmed. She felt a sting on her right cheek;
when she took her hand away it was red, for the blood was flowing.

She sat down on a pile of stones, and sopped her cheek with her
handkerchief; then she ate a crust of bread she had put in her
basket, and consoled herself by looking at the bird.

Arriving at the top of Ecquemanville, she saw the lights of
Honfleur shining in the distance like so many stars; further on,
the ocean spread out in a confused mass. Then a weakness came over
her; the misery of her childhood, the disappointment of her first
love, the departure of her nephew, the death of Virginia; all
these things came back to her at once, and, rising like a swelling
tide in her throat, almost choked her.

Then she wished to speak to the captain of the vessel, and without
stating what she was sending, she gave him some instructions.

Fellacher kept the parrot a long time. He always promised that it
would be ready for the following week; after six months he
announced the shipment of a case, and that was the end of it.
Really, it seemed as if Loulou would never come back to his home.
"They have stolen him," thought Félicité.

Finally he arrived, sitting bolt upright on a branch which could
be screwed into a mahogany pedestal, with his foot in the air, his
head on one side, and in his beak a nut which the naturalist, from
love of the sumptuous, had gilded. She put him in her room.

This place, to which only a chosen few were admitted, looked like
a chapel and a second-hand shop, so filled was it with devotional
and heterogeneous things. The door could not be opened easily on
account of the presence of a large wardrobe. Opposite the window
that looked out into the garden, a bull's-eye opened on the yard;
a table was placed by the cot and held a washbasin, two combs, and
a piece of blue soap in a broken saucer. On the walls were
rosaries, medals, a number of Holy Virgins, and a holy-water basin
made out of a cocoanut; on the bureau, which was covered with a
napkin like an altar, stood the box of shells that Victor had
given her; also a watering-can and a balloon, writing-books, the
engraved geography and a pair of shoes; on the nail which held the
mirror, hung Virginia's little plush hat! Félicité carried this
sort of respect so far that she even kept one of Monsieur's old
coats. All the things which Madame Aubain discarded, Félicité
begged for her own room. Thus, she had artificial flowers on the
edge of the bureau, and the picture of the Comte d'Artois in the
recess of the window. By means of a board, Loulou was set on a
portion of the chimney which advanced into the room. Every morning
when she awoke, she saw him in the dim light of dawn and recalled
bygone days and the smallest details of insignificant actions,
without any sense of bitterness or grief.

As she was unable to communicate with people, she lived in a sort
of somnambulistic torpor. The processions of Corpus-Christi Day
seemed to wake her up. She visited the neighbours to beg for
candlesticks and mats so as to adorn the temporary altars in the
street.

In church, she always gazed at the Holy Ghost, and noticed that
there was something about it that resembled a parrot. The likeness
appeared even more striking on a coloured picture by Espinal,
representing the baptism of our Saviour. With his scarlet wings
and emerald body, it was really the image of Loulou. Having bought
the picture, she hung it near the one of the Comte d'Artois so
that she could take them in at one glance.

They associated in her mind, the parrot becoming sanctified
through the neighbourhood of the Holy Ghost, and the latter
becoming more lifelike in her eyes, and more comprehensible. In
all probability the Father had never chosen as messenger a dove,
as the latter has no voice, but rather one of Loulou's ancestors.
And Félicité said her prayers in front of the coloured picture,
though from time to time she turned slightly toward the bird.

She desired very much to enter in the ranks of the "Daughters of
the Virgin." But Madame Aubain dissuaded her from it.

A most important event occurred: Paul's marriage.

After being first a notary's clerk, then in business, then in the
customs, and a tax collector, and having even applied for a
position in the administration of woods and forests, he had at
last, when he was thirty-six years old, by a divine inspiration,
found his vocation: registrature! and he displayed such a high
ability that an inspector had offered him his daughter and his
influence.

Paul, who had become quite settled, brought his bride to visit his
mother.

But she looked down upon the customs of Pont-l'Evêque, put on
airs, and hurt Félicité's feelings. Madame Aubain felt relieved
when she left.

The following week they learned of Monsieur Bourais' death in an
inn. There were rumours of suicide, which were confirmed; doubts
concerning his integrity arose. Madame Aubain looked over her
accounts and soon discovered his numerous embezzlements; sales of
wood which had been concealed from her, false receipts, etc.
Furthermore, he had an illegitimate child, and entertained a
friendship for "a person in Dozulé."

These base actions affected her very much. In March, 1853, she
developed a pain in her chest; her tongue looked as if it were
coated with smoke, and the leeches they applied did not relieve
her oppression; and on the ninth evening she died, being just
seventy-two years old.

People thought that she was younger, because her hair, which she
wore in bands framing her pale face, was brown. Few friends
regretted her loss, for her manner was so haughty that she did not
attract them. Félicité mourned for her as servants seldom mourn
for their masters. The fact that Madame should die before herself
perplexed her mind and seemed contrary to the order of things, and
absolutely monstrous and inadmissible. Ten days later (the time to
journey from Besançon), the heirs arrived. Her daughter-in-law
ransacked the drawers, kept some of the furniture, and sold the
rest; then they went back to their own home.

Madame's armchair, foot-warmer, work-table, the eight chairs,
everything was gone! The places occupied by the pictures formed
yellow squares on the walls. They had taken the two little beds,
and the wardrobe had been emptied of Virginia's belongings!
Félicité went upstairs, overcome with grief.

The following day a sign was posted on the door; the chemist
screamed in her ear that the house was for sale.

For a moment she tottered, and had to sit down.

What hurt her most was to give up her room,--so nice for poor
Loulou! She looked at him in despair and implored the Holy Ghost,
and it was this way that she contracted the idolatrous habit of
saying her prayers kneeling in front of the bird. Sometimes the
sun fell through the window on his glass eye, and lighted a great
spark in it which sent Félicité into ecstasy.

Her mistress had left her an income of three hundred and eighty
francs. The garden supplied her with vegetables. As for clothes,
she had enough to last her till the end of her days, and she
economised on the light by going to bed at dusk.

She rarely went out, in order to avoid passing in front of the
second-hand dealer's shop where there was some of the old
furniture. Since her fainting spell, she dragged her leg, and as
her strength was failing rapidly, old Mother Simon, who had lost
her money in the grocery business, came every morning to chop the
wood and pump the water.

Her eyesight grew dim. She did not open the shutters after that.
Many years passed. But the house did not sell or rent. Fearing
that she would be put out, Félicité did not ask for repairs. The
laths of the roof were rotting away, and during one whole winter
her bolster was wet. After Easter she spit blood.

Then Mother Simon went for a doctor. Félicité wished to know what
her complaint was. But, being too deaf to hear, she caught only
one word: "Pneumonia." She was familiar with it and gently
answered:--"Ah! like Madame," thinking it quite natural that she
should follow her mistress.

The time for the altars in the street drew near.

The first one was always erected at the foot of the hill, the
second in front of the post-office, and the third in the middle of
the street. This position occasioned some rivalry among the women
and they finally decided upon Madame Aubain's yard.

Félicité's fever grew worse. She was sorry that she could not do
anything for the altar. If she could, at least, have contributed
something toward it! Then she thought of the parrot. Her
neighbours objected that it would not be proper. But the curé gave
his consent and she was so grateful for it that she begged him to
accept after her death, her only treasure, Loulou. From Tuesday
until Saturday, the day before the event, she coughed more
frequently. In the evening her face was contracted, her lips stuck
to her gums and she began to vomit; and on the following day, she
felt so low that she called for a priest.

Three neighbours surrounded her when the dominie administered the
Extreme Unction. Afterwards she said that she wished to speak to
Fabu.

He arrived in his Sunday clothes, very ill at ease among the
funereal surroundings.

"Forgive me," she said, making an effort to extend her arm, "I
believed it was you who killed him!"

What did such accusations mean? Suspect a man like him of murder!
And Fabu became excited and was about to make trouble.

"Don't you see she is not in her right mind?"

From time to time Félicité spoke to shadows. The women left her
and Mother Simon sat down to breakfast.

A little later, she took Loulou and holding him up to Félicité:

"Say good-bye to him, now!" she commanded.

Although he was not a corpse, he was eaten up by worms; one of his
wings was broken and the wadding was coming out of his body. But
Félicité was blind now, and she took him and laid him against her
cheek. Then Mother Simon removed him in order to set him on the
altar.




CHAPTER V

THE VISION


The grass exhaled an odour of summer; flies buzzed in the air, the
sun shone on the river and warmed the slated roof. Old Mother
Simon had returned to Félicité and was peacefully falling asleep.

The ringing of bells woke her; the people were coming out of
church. Félicité's delirium subsided. By thinking of the
procession, she was able to see it as if she had taken part in it.
All the school-children, the singers and the firemen walked on the
sidewalks, while in the middle of the street came first the
custodian of the church with his halberd, then the beadle with a
large cross, the teacher in charge of the boys and a sister
escorting the little girls; three of the smallest ones, with curly
heads, threw rose leaves into the air; the deacon with outstretched
arms conducted the music; and two incense-bearers turned with each
step they took toward the Holy Sacrament, which was carried by
M. le Curé, attired in his handsome chasuble and walking under a
canopy of red velvet supported by four men. A crowd of people
followed, jammed between the walls of the houses hung with white
sheets; at last the procession arrived at the foot of the hill.

A cold sweat broke out on Félicité's forehead. Mother Simon wiped
it away with a cloth, saying inwardly that some day she would have
to go through the same thing herself.

The murmur of the crowd grew louder, was very distinct for a
moment and then died away. A volley of musketry shook the
window-panes. It was the postilions saluting the Sacrament.

Félicité rolled her eyes and said as loudly as she could:

"Is he all right?" meaning the parrot.

Her death agony began. A rattle that grew more and more rapid
shook her body. Froth appeared at the corners of her mouth, and
her whole frame trembled. In a little while could be heard the
music of the bass horns, the clear voices of the children and the
men's deeper notes. At intervals all was still, and their shoes
sounded like a herd of cattle passing over the grass.

The clergy appeared in the yard. Mother Simon climbed on a chair
to reach the bull's-eye, and in this manner could see the altar.
It was covered with a lace cloth and draped with green wreaths. In
the middle stood a little frame containing relics; at the corners
were two little orange-trees, and all along the edge were silver
candlesticks, porcelain vases containing sun-flowers, lilies,
peonies, and tufts of hydrangeas. This mound of bright colours
descended diagonally from the first floor to the carpet that
covered the sidewalk. Rare objects arrested one's eye. A golden
sugar-bowl was crowned with violets, earrings set with Alençon
stones were displayed on green moss, and two Chinese screens with
their bright landscapes were near by. Loulou, hidden beneath
roses, showed nothing but his blue head which looked like a piece
of lapis-lazuli.

The singers, the canopy-bearers and the children lined up against
the sides of the yard. Slowly the priest ascended the steps and
placed his shining sun on the lace cloth. Everybody knelt. There
was deep silence; and the censers slipping on their chains were
swung high in the air. A blue vapour rose in Félicité's room. She
opened her nostrils and inhaled it with a mystic sensuousness;
then she closed her lids. Her lips smiled. The beats of her heart
grew fainter and fainter, and vaguer, like a fountain giving out,
like an echo dying away;--and when she exhaled her last breath,
she thought she saw in the half-opened heavens a gigantic parrot
hovering above her head.









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