The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2

"Then, for the second time, she wept in our presence, and, with her eyes full of tears, she said, hesitatingly:

"'Oh! If you only knew, if you only knew … what a grief it is … what a grief it is to me … I shall never get over it.' 'Over what, little Fly?' 'Over having killed it, for I did kill it! Oh! Without intending to! Oh! how grieved I am!..'

"She was sobbing, and we stood round, deeply touched, but without knowing what to say, and she went on: 'Have you seen it?' And we replied with one voice: 'Yes.' 'It was a boy, was it not?' 'Yes.' 'Beautiful, was it not?' We hesitated a good deal, but Petit-Bleu, who was less scrupulous than the rest of us, made up his mind to affirm it, and said: 'Very beautiful.'

"He committed a mistake, however, for she began to sob, and almost to scream with grief, and Only-One-Eye, who perhaps loved her more than the rest of us did, had a happy thought. Kissing her eyes, that were dimmed with tears, he said: 'Console yourself, little Fly, console yourself; we will make another for you.'

"Her innate sense of the ridiculous was suddenly excited, and half-convinced, and half-joking, still tearful and her heart sore with grief, she said, looking at us all: 'Do you really mean it?' And we replied all at once:

"'We really mean it.'"

THE MAD WOMAN

"I can tell you a terrible story about the Franco-Prussian war," Monsieur d'Endolin said to some friends assembled in the smoking-room of Baron de Ravot's château. "You know my house in the Faubourg de Cormeil. I was living there when the Prussians came, and I had for a neighbor a kind of a mad woman, who had lost her senses in consequence of a series of misfortunes, as at the age of seven and twenty she had lost her father, her husband and her newly born child, all in the space of a month.

"When death has once entered into a house, it almost invariably returns immediately, as if it knew the way, and the young woman, overwhelmed with grief, took to her bed and was delirious for six weeks. Then, a species of calm lassitude succeeded that violent crisis, and she remained motionless, eating next to nothing, and only moving her eyes. Every time they tried to make her get up, she screamed as if they were about to kill her, and so they ended by leaving her continually in bed, and only taking her out to wash her, to change her linen and to turn her mattress.

"An old servant remained with her, who gave her something to drink, or a little cold meat, from time to time. What passed in that despairing mind? No one ever knew, for she did not speak at all now. Was she thinking of the dead? Was she dreaming sadly, without any precise recollection of anything that had happened? Or was her memory as stagnant as water without any current? But however this may have been, for fifteen years she remained thus inert and secluded.

"The war broke out, and in the beginning of December the Germans came to Cormeil. I can remember it as if it were but yesterday. It was freezing hard enough to split the stones, and I, myself, was lying back in an armchair, being unable to move on account of the gout, when I heard their heavy and regular tread; I could see them pass, from my window.

"They defiled past interminably, with that peculiar motion of a puppet on wires, which belongs to them. Then the officers billeted their men on the inhabitants, and I had seventeen of them. My neighbor, the crazy woman, had a dozen, one of whom was the Commandant, a regular violent, surly swashbuckler.

"During the first few days everything went on as usual. The officers next door had been told that the lady was ill, and they did not trouble themselves about that in the least, but soon, that woman whom they never saw, irritated them. They asked what her illness was, and were told that she had been in bed for fifteen years, in consequence of terrible grief. No doubt they did not believe it, and thought that the poor mad creature would not leave her bed out of pride, so that she might not come near the Prussians, not speak to them, nor even see them.

"He insisted upon her receiving him, and he was shown into the room, and said to her roughly: 'I must beg you to get up, Madame, and to come downstairs so that we may all see you,' but she merely turned her vague eyes on him, without replying, and so he continued: 'I do not intend to tolerate any insolence, and if you do not get up of your own accord, I can easily find means to make you walk without any assistance.'

"But she did not give any signs of having heard him, and remained quite motionless, and then he got furious, as he took that calm silence for a mark of supreme contempt, and so he added: 'If you do not come downstairs to-morrow…' And then he left the room."

"The next day the terrified old servant wished to dress her, but the mad woman began to scream violently, and resisted with all her might. The officer ran upstairs quickly, and the servant threw herself at his feet and cried: 'She will not come down, Monsieur, she will not. Forgive her, for she is so unhappy.'

"The soldier was embarrassed, as in spite of his anger, he did not venture to order his soldiers to drag her out, but suddenly he began to laugh, and gave some orders in German, and soon a party of soldiers was seen coming out supporting a mattress as if they were carrying a wounded man. On that bed, which had not been unmade, the mad woman, who was still silent, was lying quite quietly, for she was quite indifferent to anything that went on, as long as they let her lie. Behind her, a soldier was carrying a parcel of feminine attire, and the officer said, rubbing his hands: 'We will just see whether you cannot dress yourself alone, and take a little walk.'

"And then the procession went off in the direction of the forest of Imauville; in two hours the soldiers came back alone, and nothing more was seen of the mad woman. What had they done with her? Where had they taken her to? No one knew.

"The snow was falling day and night, and enveloped the plain and the woods in a shroud of frozen foam, and the wolves came and howled at our very doors.

"The thought of that poor lost woman haunted me, and I made several applications to the Prussian authorities in order to obtain some information, and was nearly shot for doing so. When spring returned, the army of occupation withdrew, but my neighbor's house remained closed; the grass grew thick in the garden walks. The old servant had died during the winter, and nobody troubled himself any longer about the occurrence; I alone thought about it constantly. What had they done with the woman? Had she escaped through the forest? Had somebody found her, and taken her to a hospital, without being able to obtain any information from her? Nothing happened to relieve my doubts; but, by degrees, time assuaged my fears.

"Well, in the following autumn the woodcock were very plentiful, and as my gout had left me for a time, I dragged myself as far as the forest. I had already killed four or five of the long-billed birds, when I knocked over one, which fell into a ditch full of branches, and I was obliged to get into it, in order to pick it up, and I found that it had fallen close to a dead human body, and immediately the recollection of the mad woman struck me, like a blow in the chest. Many other people had perhaps died in the wood during that disastrous year, but I do not know why, yet I was sure, sure, I tell you, that I should see the head of that wretched maniac.

"And suddenly I understood, I guessed everything. They had abandoned her on that mattress in the cold, deserted wood; and, faithful to her fixed idea, she had allowed herself to perish under that thick and light counterpane of snow, without moving either arms or legs.

"Then the wolves had devoured her, and the birds had built their nests with the wool from her torn bed, and I took charge of her remains, and I only pray that our sons may never see any wars again."

THAT PIG OF A MORIN

I

"There, my friend," I said to Labarbe, "you have just repeated those five words, that pig of a Morin. Why on earth do I never hear Morin's name mentioned without his being called a pig?"

Labarbe, who is a Deputy, looked at me with eyes like an owl's, and said: "Do you mean to say that you do not know Morin's story, and you come from La Rochelle?" I was obliged to declare that I did not know Morin's story, and then Labarbe rubbed his hands, and began his recital.

"You knew Morin, did you not, and you remember his large linen-draper's shop on the Quai de la Rochelle?" "Yes, perfectly."

"All right, then. You must know that in 1862 or 63 Morin went to spend a fortnight in Paris for pleasure, or for his pleasures, but under the pretext of renewing his stock, and you also know what a fortnight in Paris means for a country shopkeeper: it makes his blood grow hot. The theater every evening, women's dresses rustling up against you, and continual excitement; one goes almost mad with it. One sees nothing but dancers in skin-tights, actresses in very low dresses, round legs, fat shoulders, all nearly within reach of one's hands, without daring or being able, to touch it, and one scarcely tastes some inferior dish, once or twice. And one leaves it, one's heart still all in a flutter, and one's mind still exhilarated by a sort of longing for kisses which tickles one's lips."

Morin was in that state when he took his ticket for La Rochelle by the 8:40 night express. And he was walking up and down the waiting-room at the station, when he stopped suddenly in front of a young lady who was kissing an old one. She had her veil up, and Morin murmured with delight: "By Jove, what a pretty woman!"

When she had said "Good-bye" to the old lady, she went into the waiting-room, and Morin followed her; then she went onto the platform, and Morin still followed her; then she got into an empty carriage, and he again followed her. There were very few travelers by the express, the engine whistled, and the train started. They were alone. Morin devoured her with his eyes. She appeared to be about nineteen or twenty, and was fair, tall and with bold looks. She wrapped a railway rug round her legs, and stretched herself on the seat to sleep.

Morin asked himself: "I wonder who she is?" And a thousand conjectures, a thousand projects went through his head. He said to himself: "So many adventures are told as happening on railway journeys that this may be one that is going to present itself to me. Who knows? A piece of good luck like that happens very quickly, and perhaps I need only be a little venturesome. Was it not Danton who said: Audacity, more audacity, and always audacity. If it was not Danton it was Mirabeau, but that does not matter. But then, I have no audacity, and that is the difficulty. Oh! If one only knew, if one could only read peoples' minds! I will bet that every day one passes by magnificent opportunities without knowing it, though a gesture would be enough to let me know that she did not ask for anything better…"

Then he imagined to himself combinations which conducted him to triumph. He pictured some chivalrous deed, or merely some slight service which he rendered her, a lively, gallant conversation which ended in … in what do you think.

But he could find no opening; had no pretext, and he waited for some fortunate circumstance, with his heart ravaged, and his mind topsy-turvy. The night passed, and the pretty girl still slept, while Morin was meditating his own fall. The day broke and soon the first ray of sunlight appeared in the sky, a long, clear ray which shone on the face of the sleeping girl, and woke her, so she sat up, looked at the country, then at Morin and smiled. She smiled like a happy woman, with an engaging and bright look, and Morin trembled. Certainly that smile was intended for him, it was a discreet invitation, the signal which he was waiting for. That smile meant to say: "How stupid, what a ninny, what a dolt, what a donkey you are, to have sat there on your seat like a post all night.

"Just look at me, am I not charming? And you have sat like that for the whole night, when you have been alone with a pretty woman, you great simpleton!"

She was still smiling as she looked at him, she even began to laugh; and he lost his head, trying to find something suitable to say, no matter what. But he could think of nothing, nothing, and then, seized with a coward's courage, he said to himself: "So much the worse, I will risk everything," and suddenly, without the slightest warning, he went towards her, his arms extended, his lips protruding, and seizing her in his arms, he kissed her.

She sprang up with a bound, crying out: "Help! Help!" and screaming with horror, and then she opened the carriage door, and waved her arm out, mad with terror, and trying to jump out, while Morin, who was almost distracted, and feeling sure that she would throw herself out, held her by the skirt and stammered: "Oh! Madame!.. Oh! Madame!"

The train slackened speed, and then stopped. Two guards rushed up at the young woman's frantic signals, who threw herself into their arms, stammering: "That man wanted … wanted … to … to …" And then she fainted.

They were at Mauzé station, and the gendarme on duty arrested Morin. When the victim of his brutality had regained her consciousness, she made her charge against him, and the police drew it up. The poor linen-draper did not reach home till night, with a prosecution hanging over him, for an outrage to morals in a public place.

II

At that time I was editor of the Fanal des Charentes, and I used to meet Morin every day at the Café du Commerce, and the day after his adventure he came to see me, as he did not know what to do. I did not hide my opinion from him, but said to him: "You are no better than a pig. No decent man behaves like that."

He cried. His wife had given him a beating, and he foresaw his trade ruined, his name dragged through the mire and dishonored, his friends outraged and taking no more notice of him. In the end he excited my pity, and I sent for my colleague Rivet, a bantering, but very sensible little man, to give us his advice.

He advised me to see the Public Prosecutor, who was a friend of mine, and so I sent Morin home, and went to call on the magistrate. He told me that the young woman who had been insulted was a young lady, Mademoiselle Henriette Bonnel, who had just received her certificate as governess in Paris, and spent her holidays with her uncle and aunt, who were very respectable tradespeople in Mauzé, and what made Morin's case all the more serious was, that the uncle had lodged a complaint; for the public official had consented to let the matter drop if this complaint were withdrawn, so we must try and get him to do this.

I went back to Morin's and found him in bed, ill with excitement and distress. His wife, a tall raw-boned woman with a beard, was abusing him continually, and she showed me into the room, shouting at me: "So you have come to see that pig of a Morin. Well, there he is, the darling!" And she planted herself in front of the bed, with her hands on her hips. I told him how matters stood, and he begged me to go and see her uncle and aunt. It was a delicate mission, but I undertook it, and the poor devil never ceased repeating: "I assure you I did not even kiss her, no, not even that. I will take my oath to it!"

I replied: "It is all the same; you are nothing but a pig." And I took a thousand francs which he gave me, to employ them as I thought best, but as I did not care venturing to her uncle's house alone, I begged Rivet to go with me, which he agreed to do, on the condition that we went immediately, for he had some urgent business at La Rochelle that afternoon. So two hours later we rang at the door of a nice country house. A pretty girl came and opened the door to us, who was assuredly the young lady in question, and I said to Rivet in a low voice: "Confound it! I begin to understand Morin!"

The uncle, Monsieur Tonnelet subscribed to The Fanal, and a fervent political co-religionist of ours, who received us with open arms and congratulated us and wished us joy; he was delighted at having the two editors in his house and Rivet whispered to me: "I think we shall be able to arrange the matter of that Pig of a Morin for him."

The niece had left the room, and I introduced the delicate object. I waved the scepter of scandal before his eyes: I accentuated the inevitable depreciation which the young lady would suffer if such an affair got known, for nobody would believe in a simple kiss, and the good man seemed undecided, but he could not make up his mind about anything without his wife, who would not be in until late that evening, but suddenly he uttered an exclamation of triumph: "Look here, I have an excellent idea. I will keep you here to dine and sleep, and when my wife comes home, I hope we shall be able to arrange matters."

Rivet resisted at first, but the wish to extricate that Pig of a Morin, decided him, and we accepted the invitation, and so the uncle got up radiant, called his niece, and proposed that we should take a stroll in his grounds, saying: "We will leave serious matters until the morning." Rivet and he began to talk politics, while I soon found myself lagging a little behind with the girl, who was really charming! charming! and with the greatest precaution I began to speak to her about her adventure, and try to make her my ally. She did not, however, appear the least confused, and listened to me like a person who was enjoying the whole thing very much.

I said to her: "Just think, Mademoiselle, how unpleasant it will be for you. You will have to appear in Court, to encounter malicious looks, to speak before everybody, and to recount that unfortunate occurrence in the railway carriage, in public. Do you not think, between ourselves, that it would have been much better for you to have put that dirty scoundrel back into his place without calling for assistance, and merely to have changed your carriage." She began to laugh, and replied: "What you say is quite true! but what could I do? I was frightened, and when one is frightened, one does not stop to reason with oneself. As soon as I realized the situation, I was very sorry that I had called out, but then it was too late. You must also remember that the idiot threw himself upon me like a madman, without saying a word and looking like a lunatic. I did not even know what he wanted of me."

She looked me full in the face, without being nervous or intimidated, and I said to myself: "She is a funny sort of a girl, that; I can quite see how that pig Morin came to make a mistake," and I went on, jokingly: "Come, Mademoiselle, confess that he was excusable, for after all, a man cannot find himself opposite such a pretty girl as you are without feeling a legitimate desire to kiss her."

She laughed more than ever, and showed her teeth, and said: "Between the desire and the act, Monsieur, there is room for respect." It was a funny expression to use, although it was not very clear, and I asked abruptly: "Well now, supposing I were to kiss you now, what would you do?" She stopped to look at me from head to foot, and then said calmly: "Oh! you? That is quite another matter."

I knew perfectly well, by Jove, that it was not the same thing at all, as everybody in the neighborhood called me, Handsome Labarbe. I was thirty years old in those days, but I asked her: "And why, pray?" She shrugged her shoulders, and replied: "Well! because you are not so stupid as he is." And then she added, looking at me shyly: "Nor so ugly, either." And before she could make a movement to avoid me, I had implanted a hearty kiss on her cheek. She sprang aside, but it was too late, and then she said: "Well, you are not very bashful, either! But don't do that sort of thing again."

I put on a humble look and said in a low voice: "Oh! Mademoiselle, as for me, if I long for one thing more than another, it is to be summoned before a magistrate for the same reason as Morin."

"Why?" she asked. And looking steadily at her, I replied: "Because you are one of the most beautiful creatures living; because it would be an honor and a glory for me to have wished to offer you violence, and because people would have said, after seeing you: Well, Labarbe has richly deserved what he has got, but he is a lucky fellow, all the same."

She began to laugh heartily again, and said: "How funny you are!" And she had not finished the word funny, before I had her in my arms, and was kissing her ardently wherever I could find a place, on her forehead, on her eyes, on her lips occasionally, on her cheeks, all over her head, some part of which she was obliged to leave exposed, in spite of herself, to defend others, but at last she managed to release herself, blushing and angry. "You are very unmannerly, Monsieur," she said, "and I am sorry I listened to you."

I took her hand in some confusion, and stammered out: "I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle. I have offended you; I have acted like a brute! Do not be angry with me for what I have done. If you knew …" I vainly sought for some excuse, and in a few moments she said: "There is nothing for me to know, Monsieur." But I had found something to say, and I cried: "Mademoiselle, I love you!"

She was really surprised, and raised her eyes to look at me, and I went on: "Yes, Mademoiselle, and pray listen to me. I do not know Morin, and I do not care anything about him. It does not matter to me the least if he is committed for trial and locked up meanwhile. I saw you here last year, and I was so taken with you, that the thought of you has never left me since, and it does not matter to me whether you believe me or not. I thought you adorable, and the remembrance of you took such a hold on me that I longed to see you again, and so I made use of that fool Morin as a pretext, and here I am. Circumstances have made me exceed the due limits of respect, and I can only beg you to pardon me."

She read the truth in my looks, and was ready to smile again; then she murmured; "You humbug!" But I raised my hand, and said in a sincere voice, (and I really believe that I was sincere): "I swear to you that I am speaking the truth," and she replied quite simply: "Really?"

We were alone, quite alone, as Rivet and her uncle had disappeared in a sidewalk, and I made her a real declaration of love, while I squeezed and kissed her hands, and she listened to it as something new and agreeable, without exactly knowing how much of it she was to believe, while in the end I felt agitated, and at last really myself believed what I said: I was pale, anxious and trembling, and I gently put my arms round her waist, and spoke to her softly, whispering into the little curls over her ears. She seemed dead, so absorbed in thought was she.

Then her hand touched mine, and she pressed it, and I gently squeezed her waist with a trembling, and gradually firmer, grasp. She did not move now, and I touched her cheeks with my lips, and suddenly without seeking them, mine met hers. It was a long, long kiss, and it would have lasted longer still, if I had not heard a hum! hum! just behind me, at which she made her escape through the bushes, and turning round I saw Rivet coming towards me, and standing in the middle of the path, he said without even smiling: "So, that is the way in which you settle the affair of that pig Morin." And I replied, conceitedly: "One does what one can, my dear fellow. But what about the uncle? How have you got on with him? I will answer for the niece." "I have not been so fortunate with him," he replied.

Whereupon I took his arm, and we went indoors.

III

Dinner made me lose my head altogether. I sat beside her, and my hand continually met hers under the table cloth, my foot touched hers, and our looks encountered each other.

After dinner we took a walk by moonlight, and I whispered all the tender things I could think of, to her. I held her close to me, kissed her every moment, moistening my lips against hers, while her uncle and Rivet were disputing as they walked in front of us. They went in, and soon a messenger brought a telegram from her aunt, saying that she would not return until the next morning at seven o'clock, by the first train.

"Very well, Henriette," her uncle said, "go and show the gentlemen their rooms." She showed Rivet his first, and he whispered to me: "There was no danger of her taking us into yours first." Then she took me to my room, and as soon as she was alone with me, I took her in my arms again, and tried to excite her senses and overcome her resistance, but when she felt that she was near succumbing, she escaped out of the room, and I got between the sheets, very much put out and excited and feeling rather foolish, for I knew that I should not sleep much, and I was wondering how I could have committed such a mistake, when there was a gentle knock at my door, and on my asking who was there, a low voice replied: "I."