Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete

G >> Guy de Maupassant >> Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete


Besides, who would have been the wiser? She might have saved appearances
by telling the officer that she had taken pity on their distress. Such a
step would be of so little consequence to her.

But no one as yet confessed to such thoughts.

In the afternoon, seeing that they were all bored to death, the count
proposed a walk in the neighborhood of the village. Each one wrapped
himself up well, and the little party set out, leaving behind only
Cornudet, who preferred to sit over the fire, and the two nuns, who were
in the habit of spending their day in the church or at the presbytery.

The cold, which grew more intense each day, almost froze the noses and
ears of the pedestrians, their feet began to pain them so that each step
was a penance, and when they reached the open country it looked so
mournful and depressing in its limitless mantle of white that they all
hastily retraced their steps, with bodies benumbed and hearts heavy.

The four women walked in front, and the three men followed a little in
their rear.

Loiseau, who saw perfectly well how matters stood, asked suddenly "if
that trollop were going to keep them waiting much longer in this
Godforsaken spot." The count, always courteous, replied that they could
not exact so painful a sacrifice from any woman, and that the first move
must come from herself. Monsieur Carre-Lamadon remarked that if the
French, as they talked of doing, made a counter attack by way of Dieppe,
their encounter with the enemy must inevitably take place at Totes. This
reflection made the other two anxious.

"Supposing we escape on foot?" said Loiseau.

The count shrugged his shoulders.

"How can you think of such a thing, in this snow? And with our wives?
Besides, we should be pursued at once, overtaken in ten minutes, and
brought back as prisoners at the mercy of the soldiery."

This was true enough; they were silent.

The ladies talked of dress, but a certain constraint seemed to prevail
among them.

Suddenly, at the end of the street, the officer appeared. His tall,
wasp-like, uniformed figure was outlined against the snow which bounded
the horizon, and he walked, knees apart, with that motion peculiar to
soldiers, who are always anxious not to soil their carefully polished
boots.

He bowed as he passed the ladies, then glanced scornfully at the men, who
had sufficient dignity not to raise their hats, though Loiseau made a
movement to do so.

Boule de Suif flushed crimson to the ears, and the three married women
felt unutterably humiliated at being met thus by the soldier in company
with the girl whom he had treated with such scant ceremony.

Then they began to talk about him, his figure, and his face. Madame
Carre-Lamadon, who had known many officers and judged them as a
connoisseur, thought him not at all bad-looking; she even regretted that
he was not a Frenchman, because in that case he would have made a very
handsome hussar, with whom all the women would assuredly have fallen in
love.

When they were once more within doors they did not know what to do with
themselves. Sharp words even were exchanged apropos of the merest
trifles. The silent dinner was quickly over, and each one went to bed
early in the hope of sleeping, and thus killing time.

They came down next morning with tired faces and irritable tempers; the
women scarcely spoke to Boule de Suif.

A church bell summoned the faithful to a baptism. Boule de Suif had a
child being brought up by peasants at Yvetot. She did not see him once a
year, and never thought of him; but the idea of the child who was about
to be baptized induced a sudden wave of tenderness for her own, and she
insisted on being present at the ceremony.

As soon as she had gone out, the rest of the company looked at one
another and then drew their chairs together; for they realized that they
must decide on some course of action. Loiseau had an inspiration: he
proposed that they should ask the officer to detain Boule de Suif only,
and to let the rest depart on their way.

Monsieur Follenvie was intrusted with this commission, but he returned to
them almost immediately. The German, who knew human nature, had shown him
the door. He intended to keep all the travellers until his condition had
been complied with.

Whereupon Madame Loiseau's vulgar temperament broke bounds.

"We're not going to die of old age here!" she cried. "Since it's that
vixen's trade to behave so with men I don't see that she has any right to
refuse one more than another. I may as well tell you she took any lovers
she could get at Rouen--even coachmen! Yes, indeed, madame--the
coachman at the prefecture! I know it for a fact, for he buys his wine of
us. And now that it is a question of getting us out of a difficulty she
puts on virtuous airs, the drab! For my part, I think this officer has
behaved very well. Why, there were three others of us, any one of whom he
would undoubtedly have preferred. But no, he contents himself with the
girl who is common property. He respects married women. Just think. He is
master here. He had only to say: 'I wish it!' and he might have taken us
by force, with the help of his soldiers."

The two other women shuddered; the eyes of pretty Madame Carre-Lamadon
glistened, and she grew pale, as if the officer were indeed in the act of
laying violent hands on her.

The men, who had been discussing the subject among themselves, drew near.
Loiseau, in a state of furious resentment, was for delivering up "that
miserable woman," bound hand and foot, into the enemy's power. But the
count, descended from three generations of ambassadors, and endowed,
moreover, with the lineaments of a diplomat, was in favor of more tactful
measures.

"We must persuade her," he said.

Then they laid their plans.

The women drew together; they lowered their voices, and the discussion
became general, each giving his or her opinion. But the conversation was
not in the least coarse. The ladies, in particular, were adepts at
delicate phrases and charming subtleties of expression to describe the
most improper things. A stranger would have understood none of their
allusions, so guarded was the language they employed. But, seeing that
the thin veneer of modesty with which every woman of the world is
furnished goes but a very little way below the surface, they began rather
to enjoy this unedifying episode, and at bottom were hugely delighted
--feeling themselves in their element, furthering the schemes of
lawless love with the gusto of a gourmand cook who prepares supper for
another.

Their gaiety returned of itself, so amusing at last did the whole
business seem to them. The count uttered several rather risky witticisms,
but so tactfully were they said that his audience could not help smiling.
Loiseau in turn made some considerably broader jokes, but no one took
offence; and the thought expressed with such brutal directness by his
wife was uppermost in the minds of all: "Since it's the girl's trade, why
should she refuse this man more than another?" Dainty Madame
Carre-Lamadon seemed to think even that in Boule de Suif's place she
would be less inclined to refuse him than another.

The blockade was as carefully arranged as if they were investing a
fortress. Each agreed on the role which he or she was to play, the
arguments to be used, the maneuvers to be executed. They decided on the
plan of campaign, the stratagems they were to employ, and the surprise
attacks which were to reduce this human citadel and force it to receive
the enemy within its walls.

But Cornudet remained apart from the rest, taking no share in the plot.

So absorbed was the attention of all that Boule de Suif's entrance was
almost unnoticed. But the count whispered a gentle "Hush!" which made the
others look up. She was there. They suddenly stopped talking, and a vague
embarrassment prevented them for a few moments from addressing her. But
the countess, more practiced than the others in the wiles of the
drawing-room, asked her:

"Was the baptism interesting?"

The girl, still under the stress of emotion, told what she had seen and
heard, described the faces, the attitudes of those present, and even the
appearance of the church. She concluded with the words:

"It does one good to pray sometimes."

Until lunch time the ladies contented themselves with being pleasant to
her, so as to increase her confidence and make her amenable to their
advice.

As soon as they took their seats at table the attack began. First they
opened a vague conversation on the subject of self-sacrifice. Ancient
examples were quoted: Judith and Holofernes; then, irrationally enough,
Lucrece and Sextus; Cleopatra and the hostile generals whom she reduced
to abject slavery by a surrender of her charms. Next was recounted an
extraordinary story, born of the imagination of these ignorant
millionaires, which told how the matrons of Rome seduced Hannibal, his
lieutenants, and all his mercenaries at Capua. They held up to admiration
all those women who from time to time have arrested the victorious
progress of conquerors, made of their bodies a field of battle, a means
of ruling, a weapon; who have vanquished by their heroic caresses hideous
or detested beings, and sacrificed their chastity to vengeance and
devotion.

All was said with due restraint and regard for propriety, the effect
heightened now and then by an outburst of forced enthusiasm calculated to
excite emulation.

A listener would have thought at last that the one role of woman on earth
was a perpetual sacrifice of her person, a continual abandonment of
herself to the caprices of a hostile soldiery.

The two nuns seemed to hear nothing, and to be lost in thought. Boule de
Suif also was silent.

During the whole afternoon she was left to her reflections. But instead
of calling her "madame" as they had done hitherto, her companions
addressed her simply as "mademoiselle," without exactly knowing why, but
as if desirous of making her descend a step in the esteem she had won,
and forcing her to realize her degraded position.

Just as soup was served, Monsieur Follenvie reappeared, repeating his
phrase of the evening before:

"The Prussian officer sends to ask if Mademoiselle Elisabeth Rousset has
changed her mind."

Boule de Suif answered briefly:

"No, monsieur."

But at dinner the coalition weakened. Loiseau made three unfortunate
remarks. Each was cudgeling his brains for further examples of
self-sacrifice, and could find none, when the countess, possibly without
ulterior motive, and moved simply by a vague desire to do homage to
religion, began to question the elder of the two nuns on the most
striking facts in the lives of the saints. Now, it fell out that many of
these had committed acts which would be crimes in our eyes, but the
Church readily pardons such deeds when they are accomplished for the
glory of God or the good of mankind. This was a powerful argument, and
the countess made the most of it. Then, whether by reason of a tacit
understanding, a thinly veiled act of complaisance such as those who wear
the ecclesiastical habit excel in, or whether merely as the result of
sheer stupidity--a stupidity admirably adapted to further their
designs--the old nun rendered formidable aid to the conspirator.
They had thought her timid; she proved herself bold, talkative, bigoted.
She was not troubled by the ins and outs of casuistry; her doctrines were
as iron bars; her faith knew no doubt; her conscience no scruples. She
looked on Abraham's sacrifice as natural enough, for she herself would
not have hesitated to kill both father and mother if she had received a
divine order to that effect; and nothing, in her opinion, could displease
our Lord, provided the motive were praiseworthy. The countess, putting to
good use the consecrated authority of her unexpected ally, led her on to
make a lengthy and edifying paraphrase of that axiom enunciated by a
certain school of moralists: "The end justifies the means."

"Then, sister," she asked, "you think God accepts all methods, and
pardons the act when the motive is pure?"

"Undoubtedly, madame. An action reprehensible in itself often derives
merit from the thought which inspires it."

And in this wise they talked on, fathoming the wishes of God, predicting
His judgments, describing Him as interested in matters which assuredly
concern Him but little.

All was said with the utmost care and discretion, but every word uttered
by the holy woman in her nun's garb weakened the indignant resistance of
the courtesan. Then the conversation drifted somewhat, and the nun began
to talk of the convents of her order, of her Superior, of herself, and of
her fragile little neighbor, Sister St. Nicephore. They had been sent for
from Havre to nurse the hundreds of soldiers who were in hospitals,
stricken with smallpox. She described these wretched invalids and their
malady. And, while they themselves were detained on their way by the
caprices of the Prussian officer, scores of Frenchmen might be dying,
whom they would otherwise have saved! For the nursing of soldiers was the
old nun's specialty; she had been in the Crimea, in Italy, in Austria;
and as she told the story of her campaigns she revealed herself as one of
those holy sisters of the fife and drum who seem designed by nature to
follow camps, to snatch the wounded from amid the strife of battle, and
to quell with a word, more effectually than any general, the rough and
insubordinate troopers--a masterful woman, her seamed and pitted
face itself an image of the devastations of war.

No one spoke when she had finished for fear of spoiling the excellent
effect of her words.

As soon as the meal was over the travellers retired to their rooms,
whence they emerged the following day at a late hour of the morning.

Luncheon passed off quietly. The seed sown the preceding evening was
being given time to germinate and bring forth fruit.

In the afternoon the countess proposed a walk; then the count, as had
been arranged beforehand, took Boule de Suif's arm, and walked with her
at some distance behind the rest.

He began talking to her in that familiar, paternal, slightly contemptuous
tone which men of his class adopt in speaking to women like her, calling
her "my dear child," and talking down to her from the height of his
exalted social position and stainless reputation. He came straight to the
point.

"So you prefer to leave us here, exposed like yourself to all the
violence which would follow on a repulse of the Prussian troops, rather
than consent to surrender yourself, as you have done so many times in
your life?"

The girl did not reply.

He tried kindness, argument, sentiment. He still bore himself as count,
even while adopting, when desirable, an attitude of gallantry, and making
pretty--nay, even tender--speeches. He exalted the service she
would render them, spoke of their gratitude; then, suddenly, using the
familiar "thou":

"And you know, my dear, he could boast then of having made a conquest of
a pretty girl such as he won't often find in his own country."

Boule de Suif did not answer, and joined the rest of the party.

As soon as they returned she went to her room, and was seen no more. The
general anxiety was at its height. What would she do? If she still
resisted, how awkward for them all!

The dinner hour struck; they waited for her in vain. At last Monsieur
Follenvie entered, announcing that Mademoiselle Rousset was not well, and
that they might sit down to table. They all pricked up their ears. The
count drew near the innkeeper, and whispered:

"Is it all right?"

"Yes."

Out of regard for propriety he said nothing to his companions, but merely
nodded slightly toward them. A great sigh of relief went up from all
breasts; every face was lighted up with joy.

"By Gad!" shouted Loiseau, "I'll stand champagne all round if there's any
to be found in this place." And great was Madame Loiseau's dismay when
the proprietor came back with four bottles in his hands. They had all
suddenly become talkative and merry; a lively joy filled all hearts. The
count seemed to perceive for the first time that Madame Carre-Lamadon was
charming; the manufacturer paid compliments to the countess. The
conversation was animated, sprightly, witty, and, although many of the
jokes were in the worst possible taste, all the company were amused by
them, and none offended--indignation being dependent, like other
emotions, on surroundings. And the mental atmosphere had gradually become
filled with gross imaginings and unclean thoughts.

At dessert even the women indulged in discreetly worded allusions. Their
glances were full of meaning; they had drunk much. The count, who even in
his moments of relaxation preserved a dignified demeanor, hit on a
much-appreciated comparison of the condition of things with the
termination of a winter spent in the icy solitude of the North Pole and
the joy of shipwrecked mariners who at last perceive a southward track
opening out before their eyes.

Loiseau, fairly in his element, rose to his feet, holding aloft a glass
of champagne.

"I drink to our deliverance!" he shouted.

All stood up, and greeted the toast with acclamation. Even the two good
sisters yielded to the solicitations of the ladies, and consented to
moisten their lips with the foaming wine, which they had never before
tasted. They declared it was like effervescent lemonade, but with a
pleasanter flavor.

"It is a pity," said Loiseau, "that we have no piano; we might have had a
quadrille."

Cornudet had not spoken a word or made a movement; he seemed plunged in
serious thought, and now and then tugged furiously at his great beard, as
if trying to add still further to its length. At last, toward midnight,
when they were about to separate, Loiseau, whose gait was far from
steady, suddenly slapped him on the back, saying thickly:

"You're not jolly to-night; why are you so silent, old man?"

Cornudet threw back his head, cast one swift and scornful glance over the
assemblage, and answered:

"I tell you all, you have done an infamous thing!"

He rose, reached the door, and repeating: "Infamous!" disappeared.

A chill fell on all. Loiseau himself looked foolish and disconcerted for
a moment, but soon recovered his aplomb, and, writhing with laughter,
exclaimed:

"Really, you are all too green for anything!"

Pressed for an explanation, he related the "mysteries of the corridor,"
whereat his listeners were hugely amused. The ladies could hardly contain
their delight. The count and Monsieur Carre-Lamadon laughed till they
cried. They could scarcely believe their ears.

"What! you are sure? He wanted----"

"I tell you I saw it with my own eyes."

"And she refused?"

"Because the Prussian was in the next room!"

"Surely you are mistaken?"

"I swear I'm telling you the truth."

The count was choking with laughter. The manufacturer held his sides.
Loiseau continued:

"So you may well imagine he doesn't think this evening's business at all
amusing."

And all three began to laugh again, choking, coughing, almost ill with
merriment.

Then they separated. But Madame Loiseau, who was nothing if not spiteful,
remarked to her husband as they were on the way to bed that "that
stuck-up little minx of a Carre-Lamadon had laughed on the wrong side of
her mouth all the evening."

"You know," she said, "when women run after uniforms it's all the same to
them whether the men who wear them are French or Prussian. It's perfectly
sickening!"

The next morning the snow showed dazzling white tinder a clear winter
sun. The coach, ready at last, waited before the door; while a flock of
white pigeons, with pink eyes spotted in the centres with black, puffed
out their white feathers and walked sedately between the legs of the six
horses, picking at the steaming manure.

The driver, wrapped in his sheepskin coat, was smoking a pipe on the box,
and all the passengers, radiant with delight at their approaching
departure, were putting up provisions for the remainder of the journey.

They were waiting only for Boule de Suif. At last she appeared.

She seemed rather shamefaced and embarrassed, and advanced with timid
step toward her companions, who with one accord turned aside as if they
had not seen her. The count, with much dignity, took his wife by the arm,
and removed her from the unclean contact.

The girl stood still, stupefied with astonishment; then, plucking up
courage, accosted the manufacturer's wife with a humble "Good-morning,
madame," to which the other replied merely with a slight and insolent
nod, accompanied by a look of outraged virtue. Every one suddenly
appeared extremely busy, and kept as far from Boule de Suif as if tier
skirts had been infected with some deadly disease. Then they hurried to
the coach, followed by the despised courtesan, who, arriving last of all,
silently took the place she had occupied during the first part of the
journey.

The rest seemed neither to see nor to know her--all save Madame
Loiseau, who, glancing contemptuously in her direction, remarked, half
aloud, to her husband:

"What a mercy I am not sitting beside that creature!"

The lumbering vehicle started on its way, and the journey began afresh.

At first no one spoke. Boule de Suif dared not even raise her eyes. She
felt at once indignant with her neighbors, and humiliated at having
yielded to the Prussian into whose arms they had so hypocritically cast
her.

But the countess, turning toward Madame Carre-Lamadon, soon broke the
painful silence:

"I think you know Madame d'Etrelles?"

"Yes; she is a friend of mine."

"Such a charming woman!"

"Delightful! Exceptionally talented, and an artist to the finger tips.
She sings marvellously and draws to perfection."

The manufacturer was chatting with the count, and amid the clatter of the
window-panes a word of their conversation was now and then
distinguishable: "Shares--maturity--premium--time-limit."

Loiseau, who had abstracted from the inn the timeworn pack of cards,
thick with the grease of five years' contact with half-wiped-off tables,
started a game of bezique with his wife.

The good sisters, taking up simultaneously the long rosaries hanging from
their waists, made the sign of the cross, and began to mutter in unison
interminable prayers, their lips moving ever more and more swiftly, as if
they sought which should outdistance the other in the race of orisons;
from time to time they kissed a medal, and crossed themselves anew, then
resumed their rapid and unintelligible murmur.

Cornudet sat still, lost in thought.

Ah the end of three hours Loiseau gathered up the cards, and remarked
that he was hungry.

His wife thereupon produced a parcel tied with string, from which she
extracted a piece of cold veal. This she cut into neat, thin slices, and
both began to eat.

"We may as well do the same," said the countess. The rest agreed, and she
unpacked the provisions which had been prepared for herself, the count,
and the Carre-Lamadons. In one of those oval dishes, the lids of which
are decorated with an earthenware hare, by way of showing that a game pie
lies within, was a succulent delicacy consisting of the brown flesh of
the game larded with streaks of bacon and flavored with other meats
chopped fine. A solid wedge of Gruyere cheese, which had been wrapped in
a newspaper, bore the imprint: "Items of News," on its rich, oily
surface.

The two good sisters brought to light a hunk of sausage smelling strongly
of garlic; and Cornudet, plunging both hands at once into the capacious
pockets of his loose overcoat, produced from one four hard-boiled eggs
and from the other a crust of bread. He removed the shells, threw them
into the straw beneath his feet, and began to devour the eggs, letting
morsels of the bright yellow yolk fall in his mighty beard, where they
looked like stars.

Boule de Suif, in the haste and confusion of her departure, had not
thought of anything, and, stifling with rage, she watched all these
people placidly eating. At first, ill-suppressed wrath shook her whole
person, and she opened her lips to shriek the truth at them, to overwhelm
them with a volley of insults; but she could not utter a word, so choked
was she with indignation.

No one looked at her, no one thought of her. She felt herself swallowed
up in the scorn of these virtuous creatures, who had first sacrificed,
then rejected her as a thing useless and unclean. Then she remembered her
big basket full of the good things they had so greedily devoured: the two
chickens coated in jelly, the pies, the pears, the four bottles of
claret; and her fury broke forth like a cord that is overstrained, and
she was on the verge of tears. She made terrible efforts at self-control,
drew herself up, swallowed the sobs which choked her; but the tears rose
nevertheless, shone at the brink of her eyelids, and soon two heavy drops
coursed slowly down her cheeks. Others followed more quickly, like water
filtering from a rock, and fell, one after another, on her rounded bosom.
She sat upright, with a fixed expression, her face pale and rigid, hoping
desperately that no one saw her give way.