The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 1

"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first. I knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my needles and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain never said much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also understood quite well, that I also no longer appealed to anyone!

"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed an excursion into the country to him, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed without any distrust, and we arrived here this morning, about nine o'clock.

"I felt quite young again when I got among the corn, for a woman's heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is at present, but just like he was formerly! That I will swear to you, Monsieur. As true as I am standing here, I was intoxicated. I began to kiss him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning! What is the matter with you?..' I did not listen to him, I only listened to my own heart, and I made him come into the woods with me… There it is… I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth."

The Mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and said: "Go in peace, Madame, and sin no more … under the trees."

A FAMILY

I was going to see my friend Simon Radevin once more, whom I had not had a sight of for fifteen years. Formerly he used to be my most intimate friend, and I used to spend long, quiet and happy evenings with him; he was one of those men to whom one tells one's most intimate affairs of the heart, for whom one finds, when conversing tranquilly, rare, clever, ingenious and refined thoughts, which excite the mind and put it at its ease.

For years we had scarcely been separated; we had lived, traveled, thought and dreamt together; had liked the same things with the same liking, had admired the same books, comprehended the same works, shivered with the same sensations, and very often laughed at the same individuals, whom we understood completely, by merely exchanging a glance.

Then he married; quite unexpectedly he married a little girl from the provinces, who had come to Paris in search of a husband. How ever could that little, thin, insipidly fair girl, with her weak hands, her light, vacant eyes, and her clear silly voice, who was exactly like a hundred thousand marriageable dolls, have picked up that intelligent, clever young fellow? Can anyone understand these things? No doubt he had hoped for happiness, simple, quiet and long-enduring happiness, in the arms of a good, tender and faithful woman; he had seen all that in the transparent looks of that school girl with light hair.

He had not dreamt of the fact that an active, living and vibrating man grows tired as soon as he has comprehended the stupid reality, unless indeed, he becomes so brutalized that he understands nothing more whatever.

What would he be like when I met him again? Still lively, witty, light hearted and enthusiastic, or in a state of mental torpor through provincial life? A man can change a great deal in the course of fifteen years!

The train stopped at a small station, and as I got out of the carriage, a stout, a very stout man with red cheeks and a big stomach rushed up to me with open arms, exclaiming: "George!" I embraced him, but I had not recognized him, and then I said, in astonishment: "By Jove! You have not grown thin!" And he replied with a laugh: "What did you expect? Good living, a good table and good nights! Eating and sleeping, that is my existence!"

I looked at him closely, trying to find the features I held so dear in that broad face. His eyes alone had not altered, but I no longer saw the same looks in them, and I said to myself: "If the looks be the reflection of the mind, the thoughts in that head are not what they used to be formerly; those thoughts which I knew so well."

Yet his eyes were bright, full of pleasure and friendship, but they had not that clear, intelligent expression, which expresses as much as words do, the value of the mind. Suddenly he said to me: "Here are my two eldest children." A girl of fourteen, who was almost a woman, and a boy of thirteen, in the dress of a boy from a Lycée, came forward in a hesitating and awkward manner, and I said in a low voice: "Are they yours?" "Of course they are," he replied laughing. "How many have you?" "Five! There are three more indoors."

He said that in a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and I felt profound pity, mingled with a feeling of vague contempt for this vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species, who spent his nights in his country house in making children.

I got into a carriage, which he drove himself, and we set off through the town, a dull, sleepy, gloomy town, where nothing was moving in the streets except a few dogs and two or three maidservants. Here and there a shopkeeper standing at his door took off his hat, and Simon returned his salute and told me the man's name; no doubt to show me that he knew all the inhabitants personally, and the thought struck me that he was thinking of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream of all who have buried themselves in the provinces.

We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden, which had some pretensions to being a park, and stopped in front of a turretted house, which tried to pass for a château.

"That is my den," Simon said, so that he might be complimented on it, and I replied that it was delightful.

A lady appeared on the steps, dressed up for a visitor, her hair done for a visitor, and with phrases ready prepared for a visitor. She was no longer the light haired, insipid girl I had seen in church fifteen years previously, but a stout lady in curls and flounces, one of those ladies without any fixed age, without intellect, without any of those things which constitute a woman. In short, she was a mother, a stout, commonplace mother, the human layer and brood mare, that machine of flesh which procreates without any other mental preoccupation, except her children and her housekeeping book.

She welcomed me, and I went into the hall, where three children, ranged according to their height, seemed set out for review, like firemen before a mayor, and I said: "Ah! ah! so these are the others?" And Simon, who was radiant with pleasure, named them: "Jean, Sophie and Gontran."

The door of the drawing-room was open. I went in and in the depths of an easy-chair I saw something trembling, a man, an old, paralyzed man. Madame Radevin came forward and said: "This is my grandfather, Monsieur; he is eighty-seven." And then she shouted into the shaking old man's ears: "This is a friend of Simon's, papa." The old gentleman tried to say "good day" to me, and he muttered: "Oua, oua, oua," and waved his hand, and I took a seat, saying: "You are very kind, Monsieur."

Simon had just come in, and he said with a laugh: "So! You have made grandpapa's acquaintance. He is priceless, is that old man; he is the delight of the children, and he is so greedy that he almost kills himself at every meal; you have no idea what he would eat if he were allowed to do as he pleased. But you will see, you will see. He likes all the sweets as if they were so many girls. You have never seen anything funnier; you will see it presently."

I was then shown to my room to change my dress for dinner, and hearing a great clatter behind me on the stairs, I turned round and saw that all the children were following me behind their father; to do me honor, no doubt.

My windows looked out onto a plain, bare, interminable plain, an ocean of grass, of wheat, and of oats, without a clump of trees or any rising ground, a striking and melancholy picture of the life which they must be leading in that house.

A bell rang; it was for dinner, and so I went downstairs. Madame Radevin took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we went into the dining-room. A footman wheeled in the old man's armchair, who gave a greedy and curious look at the dessert, as he with difficulty turned his shaking head from one dish to the other.

Simon rubbed his hands: "You will be amused," he said; and all the children understood that I was going to be indulged with the sight of their greedy grandfather, and they began to laugh accordingly, while their mother merely smiled and shrugged her shoulders, and Simon, making a speaking trumpet of his hands, shouted at the old man: "This evening there is sweet rice cream," and the wrinkled face of the grandfather brightened, and he trembled more violently all over, showing that he had understood and was very pleased. The dinner began.

"Just look!" Simon whispered. The grandfather did not like the soup, and he refused to eat it; but he was made to, on account of his health, and the footman forced the spoon into his mouth, while the old man blew energetically, so as not to swallow the soup, which was thus scattered like a stream of water onto the table and over his neighbors. The children shook with delight at the spectacle, while their father, who was also amused, said: "Is not the old man funny?"

During the whole meal, they were all taken up solely with him. He devoured the dishes which were put on the table, with his eyes, and he tried to seize them and pull them to himself with his trembling hands. They put them almost within his reach, to see his useless efforts, his trembling clutches at them, the piteous appeal of his whole nature, of his eyes, of his mouth and of his nose as he smelt them, and he slobbered onto his table napkin with eagerness, while uttering inarticulate grunts. And the whole family was highly amused at this horrible and grotesque scene.

Then they put a tiny morsel onto his plate, which he ate with feverish gluttony, in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when the rice-cream was brought in, he nearly had a fit, and groaned with greediness, and Gontran called out to him: "You have eaten too much already; you will have no more." And they pretended not to give him any. Then he began to cry; he cried and trembled more violently than ever, while all the children laughed. At last, however, they gave him his helping, a very small piece; and as he ate the first mouthful of the pudding, he made a comical and greedy noise in his throat, and a movement with his neck like ducks do when they swallow too large a morsel, and then, when he had done, he began to stamp his feet, so as to get more.

I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and I interposed on his behalf: "Please, will you not give him a little more rice?" But Simon replied: "Oh! no, my dear fellow, if he were to eat too much, it might harm him, at his age."

I held my tongue, and thought over these words. Oh! ethics! Oh! logic! Oh! wisdom! At his age! So they deprived him of his only remaining pleasure out of regard for his health! His health! What would he do with it, inert and trembling wreck that he was? They were taking care of his life, so they said. His life? How many days? Ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred? Why? For his own sake? Or to preserve for some time longer the spectacle of his impotent greediness in the family.

There was nothing left for him to do in this life, nothing whatever. He had one single wish left, one sole pleasure; why not grant him that last solace constantly, until he died?

After playing cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to bed; I was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! I sat at my window, but I heard nothing but the beautiful warbling of a bird in a tree, somewhere in the distance. No doubt the bird was singing thus in a low voice during the night, and to lull his mate, who was sleeping on her eggs.

And I thought of my poor friend's five children, and pictured him to myself, snoring by the side of his ugly wife.

JOSEPH

They were both of them drunk, quite drunk, little Baroness Andrée de la Fraisières and little Countess Noemi de Gardens. They had been dining alone together, in the large room which faced the sea. The soft breeze of a summer evening blew in at the open window, soft and fresh at the same time, a breeze that smelt of the sea. The two young women, extended in their lounging chairs, sipped their Chartreuse from time to time, as they smoked their cigarettes, and they were talking most confidentially, telling each other details which nothing but this charming intoxication could have induced their pretty lips to utter.

Their husbands had returned to Paris that afternoon, and had left them alone on that little deserted beach, which they had chosen so as to avoid those gallant marauders who are constantly met with in fashionable watering places. As they were absent for five days in the week, they objected to country excursions, luncheons on the grass, swimming lessons and those sudden familiarities which spring up in the idle life of watering places. Dieppe, Etratat, Trouville seemed to them to be places to be avoided, and they had rented a house which had been built and abandoned by an eccentric individual in the valley of Roqueville, near Fécamp, and there they buried their wives for the whole summer.

They were drunk. Not knowing what to hit upon to amuse themselves, the little Baroness had suggested a good dinner and champagne. To begin with, they had found great amusement in cooking this dinner themselves, and then they had eaten it merrily, and had drunk freely, in order to allay the thirst which the heat of the fire had excited. Now they were chatting and talking nonsense, while gently gargling their throats with Chartreuse. In fact they did not in the least know any longer what they were saying.

The Countess, with her legs in the air on the back of a chair, was further gone than her friend.

"To complete an evening like this," she said, "we ought to have a lover apiece. If I had foreseen this some time ago, I would have sent for a couple from Paris, and I would have let you have one…" "I can always find one," the other replied; "I could have one this very evening, if I wished." "What nonsense! At Roqueville, my dear? It would have to be some peasant, then." "No, not altogether." "Well, tell me all about it." "What do you want me to tell you?" "About your lover." "My dear, I do not want to live without being loved, for I should fancy I was dead if I were not loved." "So should I." "Is not that so?" "Yes. Men cannot understand it! And especially our husbands!" "No, not in the least. How can you expect it to be different? The love which we want is made up of being spoilt, of gallantries and of pretty words and actions. That is the nourishment of our hearts; it is indispensable to our life, indispensable, indispensable…" "Indispensable."

"I must feel that somebody is thinking of me, always, everywhere. When I go to sleep and when I wake up, I must know that somebody loves me somewhere, that I am being dreamt of, longed for. Without that, I should be wretched, wretched! Oh! yes, unhappy enough to do nothing but cry." "I am just the same."

"You must remember that anything else is impossible. When a husband has been nice for six months, or a year, or two years, he necessarily becomes a brute, yes, a regular brute… He does not put himself out for anything, but shows himself just as he is, and makes a scene on the slightest provocation, or without any provocation whatever. One cannot love a man with whom one lives constantly." "That is quite true." "Isn't it?.. What was I saying? I cannot the least remember?" "You were saying that all husbands are brutes!" "Yes, brutes … all of them." "That is quite true." "And then?" "What do you mean?" "What was I saying just then?" "I don't know because you did not say it!" "But I had something to tell you." "Oh! yes, that is true; well?.." "Oh! I have got it…" "Well, I am listening." "I was telling you that I can find lovers everywhere." "How do you manage it?" "Like this. Now follow me carefully. When I get to some fresh place, I take notes and make my choice." "You make your choice?" "Yes, of course I do. First of all, I take notes. I ask questions. Above all, a man must be discreet, rich and generous; is not that so?" "It is quite true!" "And then he must please me, as a man." "Of course." "Then I bait the hook for him." "You bait the hook?" "Yes, just as one does to catch fish. Have you never fished with a hook and line?" "No, never." "You are wrong; It is very amusing, and besides that, it is instructive. Well then, I bait the hook…" "How do you do it?" "How stupid you are. Does not one catch the man one wants to catch, without their having any choice? And they really think that they choose … the fools … but it is we who choose … always… Just think, when one is not ugly, nor stupid, as is the case with us, all men aspire to us, all … without exception. We look them over from morning till night, and when we have selected one, we fish for him…" "But that does not tell me how you do it?" "How I do it?.. Why, I do nothing; I allow myself to be looked at, that is all." "You allow yourself to be looked at?.." "Why yes; that is quite enough. When one has allowed oneself to be looked at several times following, a man immediately thinks you the most lovely, most seductive of women, and then he begins to make love to you. I give him to understand that he is not so bad looking, without saying anything to him, of course, and he falls in love, like a dog. I have him fast, and it lasts a longer or a shorter time, according to his qualities."

"And do you catch all whom you please, like that?" "Nearly all." "Oh! So there are some who resist?" "Sometimes." "Why?" "Oh! Why? A man is a Joseph for three reasons. Because he is in love with another woman. Because he is excessively timid, or because he is … how shall I say it? … incapable of carrying out the conquest of a woman to the end…" "Oh! my dear!.. Do you really believe?.." "I am sure of it… There are many of this latter class, many, many … many more than people think. Oh! they look just like everybody else … they strut like peacocks… No, when I said peacocks … I made a mistake, for they could not display themselves." "Oh! my dear…" "As to the timid, they are sometimes unspeakably stupid. They are the sort of men, who ought not to undress themselves, even when they are going to bed alone, when there is a looking-glass in their room. With them, one must be energetic, make use of looks, and squeeze their hands, and even that is useless sometimes. They never know how or where to begin. When one faints in their presence … as a last resource … they try to bring you round … and if you do not recover your senses immediately … they go and get assistance.

"Those whom I prefer myself, are other women's lovers. I carry them by assault … at … at … at the point of the bayonet, my dear!" "That is all very well, but when there are no men, like here, for instance?" "I find them!" "You find them. But where?" "Everywhere. But that reminds me of my story.

"Now listen. Just two years ago, my husband made me pass the summer on his estate at Bougrolles. There was nothing there … you know what I mean, nothing, nothing, nothing, whatever! In the neighboring country houses there were a few disgusting boors, who cared for nothing but shooting, and who lived in country houses which had not even a bathroom, men who perspire, go to bed covered with perspiration, and whom it would be impossible to improve, because their principles of life are dirty. Now just guess what I did!" "I cannot possibly." "Ha! ha! ha! I had just been reading a number of George Sand's novels which exalt the man of the people, novels in which the workmen are sublime, and all the men of the world are criminals. In addition to this I had seen Ruy Blas the winter before, and it had struck me very much. Well, one of our farmers had a son, a good-looking young fellow of two and twenty who had studied for a priest, but had left the seminary in disgust. Well, I took him as footman!" "Oh!.. And then?.. What afterwards?"

"Then … then, my dear, I treated him very haughtily, and showed him a good deal of my person. I did not entice this rustic on, I simply inflamed him!.." "Oh! Andrée!" "Yes, and I enjoyed the fun very much. People say that servants count for nothing! Well he did not count for much. I used to ring to give him his orders every morning while my maid was dressing me, and every evening as well, while she was undressing me." "Oh! Andrée!"

"My dear he caught fire like a thatched roof. Then, at meals, I used continually to talk about cleanliness, about taking care of one's person, about baths and shower baths, until at the end of a fortnight he bathed in the river morning and night, and used to scent himself enough to poison the whole château. I was even obliged to forbid him to use perfumes, telling him, with furious looks, that men ought never to use scent except Eau de Cologne."

"Oh! Andrée!"

"Then, I took it into my head to get together a library suitable to the country. I sent for a few hundred moral novels, which I lent to all our peasants, and all my servants. A few books … a few … poetical books … such as excite the mind of … schoolboys and schoolgirls … had found their way into my collection … and I gave them to my footman. That taught him life … a funny sort of life." "Oh! Andrée!"

"Then I grew familiar with him, and used to say thou17 to him. I had given him the name of Joseph. And, my dear, he was in a state … in a terrible state… He got as thin as … as a barn-door cock … and rolled his eyes like an idiot. I was extremely amused; it was one of the most delightful summers I ever spent…" "And then?.." "Then?.. Oh! yes… Well, one day when my husband was away from home, I told him to order the basket carriage and to drive me into the woods. It was warm, very warm… There!" "Oh Andrée, do tell me all about it… It is so amusing…" "Here have a glass of Chartreuse, otherwise I shall empty the decanter myself. Well, I felt ill, on the road." "How?" "You are very stupid. I told him that I was not feeling well, and that he must lay me on the grass, and when I was lying there, I told him I was choking, and that he must unlace me. And then, when I was unlaced, I fainted." "Did you go right off?" "Oh! dear no, not the least." "Well?"

"Well, I was obliged to remain unconscious for nearly an hour, as he could find no means of bringing me round. But I was very patient, and did not open my eyes."

"Oh! Andrée!.. And what did you say to him?" "I? Nothing at all! How was I to know anything, as I was unconscious? I thanked him, and told him to help me into the carriage, and he drove me back to the Château; but he nearly upset us in turning into the gate!" "Oh! Andrée! And is that all?.." "That is all…" "You did not faint more than that once?" "Only once, of course! I did not want to take such a fellow for my lover." "Did you keep him long after that?" "Yes, of course. I have him still. Why should I have sent him away? I had nothing to complain of." "Oh! Andrée! And is he in love with you still?" "Of course he is." "Where is he?"

The little Baroness put out her hand to the wall and touched the electric bell, and the door opened almost immediately, and a tall footman came in who diffused a scent of Eau de Cologne all round him. "Joseph," she said to him, "I am afraid I am going to faint; send my lady's maid to me."

The man stood motionless, like a soldier before his officer, and fixed an ardent look on his mistress, who continued: "Go quickly, you great idiot, we are not in the wood to-day, and Rosalie will attend to me better than you would." He turned on his heels and went, and the little Baroness asked nervously: "But what shall you say to your maid?" "I shall tell her what we have been doing! No, I shall merely get her to unlace me; it will relieve my chest, for I can scarcely breathe. I am drunk … my dear … so drunk that I should fall, if I were to get up from my chair."

THE INN

Like all the wooden inns in the higher Alps, which are situated in the rocky and bare gorges which intersect the white summits of the mountains, the inn of Schwarenbach stands as a refuge for travelers who are crossing the Gemmi.

It remains open for six months in the year, and is inhabited by the family of Jean Hauser; then, as soon as the snow begins to fall, and fills the valley so as to make the road down to Loëche impassable, the father and his three sons go away, and leave the house in charge of the old guide, Gaspard Hari, with the young guide, Ulrich Kunzi, and Sam, the great mountain dog.