Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete

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


Luc ran back to the barracks, crazed, and with eyes and voice full
of tears, he related the accident: "He leaned--he--he was leaning
--so far over--that his head carried him away--and--he--fell
--he fell----"

Emotion choked him so that he could say no more. If he had only known.




FATHER MILON

For a month the hot sun has been parching the fields. Nature is expanding
beneath its rays; the fields are green as far as the eye can see. The big
azure dome of the sky is unclouded. The farms of Normandy, scattered over
the plains and surrounded by a belt of tall beeches, look, from a
distance, like little woods. On closer view, after lowering the
worm-eaten wooden bars, you imagine yourself in an immense garden, for
all the ancient apple-trees, as gnarled as the peasants themselves, are
in bloom. The sweet scent of their blossoms mingles with the heavy smell
of the earth and the penetrating odor of the stables. It is noon. The
family is eating under the shade of a pear tree planted in front of the
door; father, mother, the four children, and the help--two women and
three men are all there. All are silent. The soup is eaten and then a
dish of potatoes fried with bacon is brought on.

From time to time one of the women gets up and takes a pitcher down to
the cellar to fetch more cider.

The man, a big fellow about forty years old, is watching a grape vine,
still bare, which is winding and twisting like a snake along the side of
the house.

At last he says: "Father's vine is budding early this year. Perhaps we
may get something from it."

The woman then turns round and looks, without saying a word.

This vine is planted on the spot where their father had been shot.

It was during the war of 1870. The Prussians were occupying the whole
country. General Faidherbe, with the Northern Division of the army, was
opposing them.

The Prussians had established their headquarters at this farm. The old
farmer to whom it belonged, Father Pierre Milon, had received and
quartered them to the best of his ability.

For a month the German vanguard had been in this village. The French
remained motionless, ten leagues away; and yet, every night, some of the
Uhlans disappeared.

Of all the isolated scouts, of all those who were sent to the outposts,
in groups of not more than three, not one ever returned.

They were picked up the next morning in a field or in a ditch. Even their
horses were found along the roads with their throats cut.

These murders seemed to be done by the same men, who could never be
found.

The country was terrorized. Farmers were shot on suspicion, women were
imprisoned; children were frightened in order to try and obtain
information. Nothing could be ascertained.

But, one morning, Father Milon was found stretched out in the barn, with
a sword gash across his face.

Two Uhlans were found dead about a mile and a half from the farm. One of
them was still holding his bloody sword in his hand. He had fought, tried
to defend himself. A court-martial was immediately held in the open air,
in front of the farm. The old man was brought before it.

He was sixty-eight years old, small, thin, bent, with two big hands
resembling the claws of a crab. His colorless hair was sparse and thin,
like the down of a young duck, allowing patches of his scalp to be seen.
The brown and wrinkled skin of his neck showed big veins which
disappeared behind his jaws and came out again at the temples. He had the
reputation of being miserly and hard to deal with.

They stood him up between four soldiers, in front of the kitchen table,
which had been dragged outside. Five officers and the colonel seated
themselves opposite him.

The colonel spoke in French:

"Father Milon, since we have been here we have only had praise for you.
You have always been obliging and even attentive to us. But to-day a
terrible accusation is hanging over you, and you must clear the matter
up. How did you receive that wound on your face?"

The peasant answered nothing.

The colonel continued:

"Your silence accuses you, Father Milon. But I want you to answer me! Do
you understand? Do you know who killed the two Uhlans who were found this
morning near Calvaire?"

The old man answered clearly

"I did."

The colonel, surprised, was silent for a minute, looking straight at the
prisoner. Father Milon stood impassive, with the stupid look of the
peasant, his eyes lowered as though he were talking to the priest. Just
one thing betrayed an uneasy mind; he was continually swallowing his
saliva, with a visible effort, as though his throat were terribly
contracted.

The man's family, his son Jean, his daughter-in-law and his two
grandchildren were standing a few feet behind him, bewildered and
affrighted.

The colonel went on:

"Do you also know who killed all the scouts who have been found dead, for
a month, throughout the country, every morning?"

The old man answered with the same stupid look:

"I did."

"You killed them all?"

"Uh huh! I did."

"You alone? All alone?"

"Uh huh!"

"Tell me how you did it."

This time the man seemed moved; the necessity for talking any length of
time annoyed him visibly. He stammered:

"I dunno! I simply did it."

The colonel continued:

"I warn you that you will have to tell me everything. You might as well
make up your mind right away. How did you begin?"

The man cast a troubled look toward his family, standing close behind
him. He hesitated a minute longer, and then suddenly made up his mind to
obey the order.

"I was coming home one night at about ten o'clock, the night after you
got here. You and your soldiers had taken more than fifty ecus worth of
forage from me, as well as a cow and two sheep. I said to myself: 'As
much as they take from you; just so much will you make them pay back.'
And then I had other things on my mind which I will tell you. Just then I
noticed one of your soldiers who was smoking his pipe by the ditch behind
the barn. I went and got my scythe and crept up slowly behind him, so
that he couldn't hear me. And I cut his head off with one single blow,
just as I would a blade of grass, before he could say 'Booh!' If you
should look at the bottom of the pond, you will find him tied up in a
potato-sack, with a stone fastened to it.

"I got an idea. I took all his clothes, from his boots to his cap, and
hid them away in the little wood behind the yard."

The old man stopped. The officers remained speechless, looking at each
other. The questioning began again, and this is what they learned.

Once this murder committed, the man had lived with this one thought:
"Kill the Prussians!" He hated them with the blind, fierce hate of the
greedy yet patriotic peasant. He had his idea, as he said. He waited
several days.

He was allowed to go and come as he pleased, because he had shown himself
so humble, submissive and obliging to the invaders. Each night he saw the
outposts leave. One night he followed them, having heard the name of the
village to which the men were going, and having learned the few words of
German which he needed for his plan through associating with the
soldiers.

He left through the back yard, slipped into the woods, found the dead
man's clothes and put them on. Then he began to crawl through the fields,
following along the hedges in order to keep out of sight, listening to
the slightest noises, as wary as a poacher.

As soon as he thought the time ripe, he approached the road and hid
behind a bush. He waited for a while. Finally, toward midnight, he heard
the sound of a galloping horse. The man put his ear to the ground in
order to make sure that only one horseman was approaching, then he got
ready.

An Uhlan came galloping along, carrying des patches. As he went, he was
all eyes and ears. When he was only a few feet away, Father Milon dragged
himself across the road, moaning: "Hilfe! Hilfe!" ( Help! Help!) The
horseman stopped, and recognizing a German, he thought he was wounded and
dismounted, coming nearer without any suspicion, and just as he was
leaning over the unknown man, he received, in the pit of his stomach, a
heavy thrust from the long curved blade of the sabre. He dropped without
suffering pain, quivering only in the final throes. Then the farmer,
radiant with the silent joy of an old peasant, got up again, and, for his
own pleasure, cut the dead man's throat. He then dragged the body to the
ditch and threw it in.

The horse quietly awaited its master. Father Milon mounted him and
started galloping across the plains.

About an hour later he noticed two more Uhlans who were returning home,
side by side. He rode straight for them, once more crying "Hilfe! Hilfe!"

The Prussians, recognizing the uniform, let him approach without
distrust. The old man passed between them like a cannon-ball, felling
them both, one with his sabre and the other with a revolver.

Then he killed the horses, German horses! After that he quickly returned
to the woods and hid one of the horses. He left his uniform there and
again put on his old clothes; then going back into bed, he slept until
morning.

For four days he did not go out, waiting for the inquest to be
terminated; but on the fifth day he went out again and killed two more
soldiers by the same stratagem. From that time on he did not stop. Each
night he wandered about in search of adventure, killing Prussians,
sometimes here and sometimes there, galloping through deserted fields, in
the moonlight, a lost Uhlan, a hunter of men. Then, his task
accomplished, leaving behind him the bodies lying along the roads, the
old farmer would return and hide his horse and uniform.

He went, toward noon, to carry oats and water quietly to his mount, and
he fed it well as he required from it a great amount of work.

But one of those whom he had attacked the night before, in defending
himself slashed the old peasant across the face with his sabre.

However, he had killed them both. He had come back and hidden the horse
and put on his ordinary clothes again; but as he reached home he began to
feel faint, and had dragged himself as far as the stable, being unable to
reach the house.

They had found him there, bleeding, on the straw.

When he had finished his tale, he suddenly lifted up his head and looked
proudly at the Prussian officers.

The colonel, who was gnawing at his mustache, asked:

"You have nothing else to say?"

"Nothing more; I have finished my task; I killed sixteen, not one more or
less."

"Do you know that you are going to die?"

"I haven't asked for mercy."

"Have you been a soldier?"

"Yes, I served my time. And then, you had killed my father, who was a
soldier of the first Emperor. And last month you killed my youngest son,
Francois, near Evreux. I owed you one for that; I paid. We are quits."

The officers were looking at each other.

The old man continued:

"Eight for my father, eight for the boy--we are quits. I did not
seek any quarrel with you. I don't know you. I don't even know where you
come from. And here you are, ordering me about in my home as though it
were your own. I took my revenge upon the others. I'm not sorry."

And, straightening up his bent back, the old man folded his arms in the
attitude of a modest hero.

The Prussians talked in a low tone for a long time. One of them, a
captain, who had also lost his son the previous month, was defending the
poor wretch. Then the colonel arose and, approaching Father Milon, said
in a low voice:

"Listen, old man, there is perhaps a way of saving your life, it is
to--"

But the man was not listening, and, his eyes fixed on the hated officer,
while the wind played with the downy hair on his head, he distorted his
slashed face, giving it a truly terrible expression, and, swelling out
his chest, he spat, as hard as he could, right in the Prussian's face.

The colonel, furious, raised his hand, and for the second time the man
spat in his face.

All the officers had jumped up and were shrieking orders at the same
time.

In less than a minute the old man, still impassive, was pushed up against
the wall and shot, looking smilingly the while toward Jean, his eldest
son, his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren, who witnessed this
scene in dumb terror.




A COUP D'ETAT

Paris had just heard of the disaster at Sedan. A republic had been
declared. All France was wavering on the brink of this madness which
lasted until after the Commune. From one end of the country to the other
everybody was playing soldier.

Cap-makers became colonels, fulfilling the duties of generals; revolvers
and swords were displayed around big, peaceful stomachs wrapped in
flaming red belts; little tradesmen became warriors commanding battalions
of brawling volunteers, and swearing like pirates in order to give
themselves some prestige.

The sole fact of handling firearms crazed these people, who up to that
time had only handled scales, and made them, without any reason,
dangerous to all. Innocent people were shot to prove that they knew how
to kill; in forests which had never seen a Prussian, stray dogs, grazing
cows and browsing horses were killed.

Each one thought himself called upon to play a great part in military
affairs. The cafes of the smallest villages, full of uniformed tradesmen,
looked like barracks or hospitals.

The town of Canneville was still in ignorance of the maddening news from
the army and the capital; nevertheless, great excitement had prevailed
for the last month, the opposing parties finding themselves face to face.

The mayor, Viscount de Varnetot, a thin, little old man, a conservative,
who had recently, from ambition, gone over to the Empire, had seen a
determined opponent arise in Dr. Massarel, a big, full-blooded man,
leader of the Republican party of the neighborhood, a high official in
the local masonic lodge, president of the Agricultural Society and of the
firemen's banquet and the organizer of the rural militia which was to
save the country.

In two weeks, he had managed to gather together sixty-three volunteers,
fathers of families, prudent farmers and town merchants, and every
morning he would drill them in the square in front of the town-hall.

When, perchance, the mayor would come to the municipal building,
Commander Massarel, girt with pistols, would pass proudly in front of his
troop, his sword in his hand, and make all of them cry: "Long live the
Fatherland!" And it had been noticed that this cry excited the little
viscount, who probably saw in it a menace, a threat, as well as the
odious memory of the great Revolution.

On the morning of the fifth of September, the doctor, in full uniform,
his revolver on the table, was giving a consultation to an old couple, a
farmer who had been suffering from varicose veins for the last seven
years and had waited until his wife had them also, before he would
consult the doctor, when the postman brought in the paper.

M. Massarel opened it, grew pale, suddenly rose, and lifting his hands to
heaven in a gesture of exaltation, began to shout at the top of his voice
before the two frightened country folks:

"Long live the Republic! long live the Republic! long live the Republic!"

Then he fell back in his chair, weak from emotion.

And as the peasant resumed: "It started with the ants, which began to run
up and down my legs---" Dr. Massarel exclaimed:

"Shut up! I haven't got time to bother with your nonsense. The Republic
has been proclaimed, the emperor has been taken prisoner, France is
saved! Long live the Republic!"

Running to the door, he howled:

"Celeste, quick, Celeste!"

The servant, affrighted, hastened in; he was trying to talk so rapidly,
that he could only stammer:

"My boots, my sword, my cartridge-box and the Spanish dagger which is on
my night-table! Hasten!"

As the persistent peasant, taking advantage of a moment's silence,
continued, "I seemed to get big lumps which hurt me when I walk," the
physician, exasperated, roared:

"Shut up and get out! If you had washed your feet it would not have
happened!"

Then, grabbing him by the collar, he yelled at him:

"Can't you understand that we are a republic, you brass-plated idiot!"

But professional sentiment soon calmed him, and he pushed the bewildered
couple out, saying:

"Come back to-morrow, come back to-morrow, my friends. I haven't any time
to-day."

As he equipped himself from head to foot, he gave a series of important
orders to his servant:

"Run over to Lieutenant Picart and to Second Lieutenant Pommel, and tell
them that I am expecting them here immediately. Also send me Torchebeuf
with his drum. Quick! quick!"

When Celeste had gone out, he sat down and thought over the situation and
the difficulties which he would have to surmount.

The three men arrived together in their working clothes. The commandant,
who expected to see them in uniform, felt a little shocked.

"Don't you people know anything? The emperor has been taken prisoner, the
Republic has been proclaimed. We must act. My position is delicate, I
might even say dangerous."

He reflected for a few moments before his bewildered subordinates, then
he continued:

"We must act and not hesitate; minutes count as hours in times like
these. All depends on the promptness of our decision. You, Picart, go to
the cure and order him to ring the alarm-bell, in order to get together
the people, to whom I am going to announce the news. You, Torchebeuf beat
the tattoo throughout the whole neighborhood as far as the hamlets of
Gerisaie and Salmare, in order to assemble the militia in the public
square. You, Pommel, get your uniform on quickly, just the coat and cap.
We are going to the town-hall to demand Monsieur de Varnetot to surrender
his powers to me. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Now carry out those orders quickly. I will go over to your house with
you, Pommel, since we shall act together."

Five minutes later, the commandant and his subordinates, armed to the
teeth, appeared on the square, just as the little Viscount de Varnetot,
his legs encased in gaiters as for a hunting party, his gun on his
shoulder, was coming down the other street at double-quick time, followed
by his three green-coated guards, their swords at their sides and their
guns swung over their shoulders.

While the doctor stopped, bewildered, the four men entered the town-hall
and closed the door behind them.

"They have outstripped us," muttered the physician, "we must now wait for
reenforcements. There is nothing to do for the present."

Lieutenant Picart now appeared on the scene.

"The priest refuses to obey," he said. "He has even locked himself in the
church with the sexton and beadle."

On the other side of the square, opposite the white, tightly closed
town-hall, stood the church, silent and dark, with its massive oak door
studded with iron.

But just as the perplexed inhabitants were sticking their heads out of
the windows or coming out on their doorsteps, the drum suddenly began to
be heard, and Torchebeuf appeared, furiously beating the tattoo. He
crossed the square running, and disappeared along the road leading to the
fields.

The commandant drew his sword, and advanced alone to half way between the
two buildings behind which the enemy had intrenched itself, and, waving
his sword over his head, he roared with all his might:

"Long live the Republic! Death to traitors!"

Then he returned to his officers.

The butcher, the baker and the druggist, much disturbed, were anxiously
pulling down their shades and closing their shops. The grocer alone kept
open.

However, the militia were arriving by degrees, each man in a different
uniform, but all wearing a black cap with gold braid, the cap being the
principal part of the outfit. They were armed with old rusty guns, the
old guns which had hung for thirty years on the kitchen wall; and they
looked a good deal like an army of tramps.

When he had about thirty men about him, the commandant, in a few words,
outlined the situation to them. Then, turning to his staff: "Let us act,"
he said.

The villagers were gathering together and talking the matter over.

The doctor quickly decided on a plan of campaign.

"Lieutenant Picart, you will advance under the windows of this town-hall
and summon Monsieur de Varnetot, in the name of the Republic, to hand the
keys over to me."

But the lieutenant, a master mason, refused:

"You're smart, you are. I don't care to get killed, thank you. Those
people in there shoot straight, don't you forget it. Do your errands
yourself."

The commandant grew very red.

"I command you to go in the name of discipline!"

The lieutenant rebelled:

"I'm not going to have my beauty spoiled without knowing why."

All the notables, gathered in a group near by, began to laugh. One of
them cried:

"You are right, Picart, this isn't the right time."

The doctor then muttered:

"Cowards!"

And, leaving his sword and his revolver in the hands of a soldier, he
advanced slowly, his eye fastened on the windows, expecting any minute to
see a gun trained on him.

When he was within a few feet of the building, the doors at both ends,
leading into the two schools, opened and a flood of children ran out,
boys from one side, girls from the ether, and began to play around the
doctor, in the big empty square, screeching and screaming, and making so
much noise that he could not make himself heard.

As soon as the last child was out of the building, the two doors closed
again.

Most of the youngsters finally dispersed, and the commandant called in a
loud voice:

"Monsieur de Varnetot!"

A window on the first floor opened and M. de Varnetot appeared.

The commandant continued:

"Monsieur, you know that great events have just taken place which have
changed the entire aspect of the government. The one which you
represented no longer exists. The one which I represent is taking
control. Under these painful, but decisive circumstances, I come, in the
name of the new Republic, to ask you to turn over to me the office which
you held under the former government."

M. de Varnetot answered:

"Doctor, I am the mayor of Canneville, duly appointed, and I shall remain
mayor of Canneville until I have been dismissed by a decree from my
superiors. As mayor, I am in my place in the townhall, and here I stay.
Anyhow, just try to get me out."

He closed the window.

The commandant returned to his troop. But before giving any information,
eyeing Lieutenant Picart from head to foot, he exclaimed:

"You're a great one, you are! You're a fine specimen of manhood! You're a
disgrace to the army! I degrade you."

"I don't give a----!"

He turned away and mingled with a group of townspeople.

Then the doctor hesitated. What could he do? Attack? But would his men
obey orders? And then, did he have the right to do so?

An idea struck him. He ran to the telegraph office, opposite the
town-hall, and sent off three telegrams:

To the new republican government in Paris.

To the new prefect of the Seine-Inferieure, at Rouen.

To the new republican sub-prefect at Dieppe.

He explained the situation, pointed out the danger which the town would
run if it should remain in the hands of the royalist mayor; offered his
faithful services, asked for orders and signed, putting all his titles
after his name.

Then he returned to his battalion, and, drawing ten francs from his
pocket, he cried: "Here, my friends, go eat and drink; only leave me a
detachment of ten men to guard against anybody's leaving the town-hall."

But ex-Lieutenant Picart, who had been talking with the watchmaker, heard
him; he began to laugh, and exclaimed: "By Jove, if they come out, it'll
give you a chance to get in. Otherwise I can see you standing out there
for the rest of your life!"

The doctor did not reply, and he went to luncheon.

In the afternoon, he disposed his men about the town as though they were
in immediate danger of an ambush.

Several times he passed in front of the town-hall and of the church
without noticing anything suspicious; the two buildings looked as though
empty.

The butcher, the baker and the druggist once more opened up their stores.

Everybody was talking about the affair. If the emperor were a prisoner,
there must have been some kind of treason. They did not know exactly
which of the republics had returned to power.

Night fell.

Toward nine o'clock, the doctor, alone, noiselessly approached the
entrance of the public building, persuaded that the enemy must have gone
to bed; and, as he was preparing to batter down the door with a pick-axe,
the deep voice of a sentry suddenly called:

"Who goes there?"

And M. Massarel retreated as fast as his legs could carry him.

Day broke without any change in the situation.

Armed militia occupied the square. All the citizens had gathered around
this troop awaiting developments. Even neighboring villagers had come to
look on.

Then the doctor, seeing that his reputation was at stake, resolved to put
an end to the matter in one way or another; and he was about to take some
measures, undoubtedly energetic ones, when the door of the telegraph
station opened and the little servant of the postmistress appeared,
holding in her hands two papers.