Original Short Stories of Maupassant, Volume 11

G >> Guy de Maupassant >> Original Short Stories of Maupassant, Volume 11


"Oh! it will surprise you at first, as you did not know him in his palmy
days. When I met him it was also at a ball, for he has always frequented
them. As soon as I saw him I was caught--caught like a fish on a
hook. Ah! how pretty he was, monsieur, with his curly raven locks and
black eyes as large as saucers! Indeed, he was good looking! He took me
away that evening and I never have left him since, never, not even for a
day, no matter what he did to me! Oh! he has often made it hard for me!"

The doctor asked: "Are you married?"

She answered simply: "Yes, monsieur, otherwise he would have dropped me
as he did the others. I have been his wife and his servant, everything,
everything that he wished. How he has made me cry--tears which I did
not show him; for he would tell all his adventures to me--to me,
monsieur--without understanding how it hurt me to listen."

"But what was his business?"

"That's so. I forgot to tell you. He was the foreman at Martel's--a
foreman such as they never had had--an artist who averaged ten
francs an hour."

"Martel?--who is Martel?"

"The hairdresser, monsieur, the great hairdresser of the Opera, who had
all the actresses for customers. Yes, sir, all the smartest actresses had
their hair dressed by Ambrose and they would give him tips that made a
fortune for him. Ah! monsieur, all the women are alike, yes, all of them.
When a man pleases their fancy they offer themselves to him. It is so
easy--and it hurt me so to hear about it. For he would tell me
everything--he simply could not hold his tongue--it was
impossible. Those things please the men so much! They seem to get even
more enjoyment out of telling than doing.

"When I would see him coming in the evening, a little pale, with a
pleased look and a bright eye, would say to myself: 'One more. I am sure
that he has caught one more.' Then I felt a wild desire to question him
and then, again, not to know, to stop his talking if he should begin. And
we would look at each other.

"I knew that he would not keep still, that he would come to the point. I
could feel that from his manner, which seemed to laugh and say: 'I had a
fine adventure to-day, Madeleine.' I would pretend to notice nothing, to
guess nothing; I would set the table, bring on the soup and sit down
opposite him.

"At those times, monsieur, it was as if my friendship for him had been
crushed in my body as with a stone. It hurt. But he did not understand;
he did not know; he felt a need to tell all those things to some one, to
boast, to show how much he was loved, and I was the only one he had to
whom he could talk-the only one. And I would have to listen and drink it
in, like poison.

"He would begin to take his soup and then he would say: 'One more,
Madeleine.'

"And I would think: 'Here it comes! Goodness! what a man! Why did I ever
meet him?'

"Then he would begin: 'One more! And a beauty, too.' And it would be some
little one from the Vaudeville or else from the Varietes, and some of the
big ones, too, some of the most famous. He would tell me their names, how
their apartments were furnished, everything, everything, monsieur.
Heartbreaking details. And he would go over them and tell his story over
again from beginning to end, so pleased with himself that I would pretend
to laugh so that he would not get angry with me.

"Everything may not have been true! He liked to glorify himself and was
quite capable of inventing such things! They may perhaps also have been
true! On those evenings he would pretend to be tired and wish to go to
bed after supper. We would take supper at eleven, monsieur, for he could
never get back from work earlier.

"When he had finished telling about his adventure he would walk round the
room and smoke cigarettes, and he was so handsome, with his mustache and
curly hair, that I would think: 'It's true, just the same, what he is
telling. Since I myself am crazy about that man, why should not others be
the same?' Then I would feel like crying, shrieking, running away and
jumping out of the window while I was clearing the table and he was
smoking. He would yawn in order to show how tired he was, and he would
say two or three times before going to bed: 'Ah! how well I shall sleep
this evening!'

"I bear him no ill will, because he did not know how he was hurting me.
No, he could not know! He loved to boast about the women just as a
peacock loves to show his feathers. He got to the point where he thought
that all of them looked at him and desired him.

"It was hard when he grew old. Oh, monsieur, when I saw his first white
hair I felt a terrible shock and then a great joy--a wicked
joy--but so great, so great! I said to myself: 'It's the end-it's
the end.' It seemed as if I were about to be released from prison. At
last I could have him to myself, all to myself, when the others would no
longer want him.

"It was one morning in bed. He was still sleeping and I leaned over him
to wake him up with a kiss, when I noticed in his curls, over his temple,
a little thread which shone like silver. What a surprise! I should not
have thought it possible! At first I thought of tearing it out so that he
would not see it, but as I looked carefully I noticed another farther up.
White hair! He was going to have white hair! My heart began to thump and
perspiration stood out all over me, but away down at the bottom I was
happy.

"It was mean to feel thus, but I did my housework with a light heart that
morning, without waking him up, and, as soon as he opened his eyes of his
own accord, I said to him: 'Do you know what I discovered while you were
asleep?'

"'No.'

"'I found white hairs.'

"He started up as if I had tickled him and said angrily: 'It's not true!'

"'Yes, it is. There are four of them over your left temple.'

"He jumped out of bed and ran over to the mirror. He could not find them.
Then I showed him the first one, the lowest, the little curly one, and I
said: 'It's no wonder, after the life that you have been leading. In two
years all will be over for you.'

"Well, monsieur, I had spoken true; two years later one could not
recognize him. How quickly a man changes! He was still handsome, but he
had lost his freshness, and the women no longer ran after him. Ah! what a
life I led at that time! How he treated me! Nothing suited him. He left
his trade to go into the hat business, in which he ate up all his money.
Then he unsuccessfully tried to be an actor, and finally he began to
frequent public balls. Fortunately, he had had common sense enough to
save a little something on which we now live. It is sufficient, but it is
not enormous. And to think that at one time he had almost a fortune.

"Now you see what he does. This habit holds him like a frenzy. He has to
be young; he has to dance with women who smell of perfume and cosmetics.
You poor old darling!"

She was looking at her old snoring husband fondly, ready to cry. Then,
gently tiptoeing up to him, she kissed his hair. The physician had risen
and was getting ready to leave, finding nothing to say to this strange
couple. Just as he was leaving she asked:

"Would you mind giving me your address? If he should grow worse, I could
go and get you."




THE PENGUINS' ROCK

This is the season for penguins.

From April to the end of May, before the Parisian visitors arrive, one
sees, all at once, on the little beach at Etretat several old gentlemen,
booted and belted in shooting costume. They spend four or five days at
the Hotel Hauville, disappear, and return again three weeks later. Then,
after a fresh sojourn, they go away altogether.

One sees them again the following spring.

These are the last penguin hunters, what remain of the old set. There
were about twenty enthusiasts thirty or forty years ago; now there are
only a few of the enthusiastic sportsmen.

The penguin is a very rare bird of passage, with peculiar habits. It
lives the greater part of the year in the latitude of Newfoundland and
the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. But in the breeding season a
flight of emigrants crosses the ocean and comes every year to the same
spot to lay their eggs, to the Penguins' Rock near Etretat. They are
found nowhere else, only there. They have always come there, have always
been chased away, but return again, and will always return. As soon as
the young birds are grown they all fly away, and disappear for a year.

Why do they not go elsewhere? Why not choose some other spot on the long
white, unending cliff that extends from the Pas-de-Calais to Havre? What
force, what invincible instinct, what custom of centuries impels these
birds to come back to this place? What first migration, what tempest,
possibly, once cast their ancestors on this rock? And why do the
children, the grandchildren, all the descendants of the first parents
always return here?

There are not many of them, a hundred at most, as if one single family,
maintaining the tradition, made this annual pilgrimage.

And each spring, as soon as the little wandering tribe has taken up its
abode an the rock, the same sportsmen also reappear in the village. One
knew them formerly when they were young; now they are old, but constant
to the regular appointment which they have kept for thirty or forty
years. They would not miss it for anything in the world.

It was an April evening in one of the later years. Three of the old
sportsmen had arrived; one was missing--M. d'Arnelles.

He had written to no one, given no account of himself. But he was not
dead, like so many of the rest; they would have heard of it. At length,
tired of waiting for him, the other three sat down to table. Dinner was
almost over when a carriage drove into the yard of the hotel, and the
late corner presently entered the dining room.

He sat down, in a good humor, rubbing his hands, and ate with zest. When
one of his comrades remarked with surprise at his being in a frock-coat,
he replied quietly:

"Yes, I had no time to change my clothes."

They retired on leaving the table, for they had to set out before
daybreak in order to take the birds unawares.

There is nothing so pretty as this sport, this early morning expedition.

At three o'clock in the morning the sailors awoke the sportsmen by
throwing sand against the windows. They were ready in a few minutes and
went down to the beach. Although it was still dark, the stars had paled a
little. The sea ground the shingle on the beach. There was such a fresh
breeze that it made one shiver slightly in spite of one's heavy clothing.

Presently two boats were pushed down the beach, by the sailors, with a
sound as of tearing cloth, and were floated on the nearest waves. The
brown sail was hoisted, swelled a little, fluttered, hesitated and
swelling out again as round as a paunch, carried the boats towards the
large arched entrance that could be faintly distinguished in the
darkness.

The sky became clearer, the shadows seemed to melt away. The coast still
seemed veiled, the great white coast, perpendicular as a wall.

They passed through the Manne-Porte, an enormous arch beneath which a
ship could sail; they doubled the promontory of La Courtine, passed the
little valley of Antifer and the cape of the same name; and suddenly
caught sight of a beach on which some hundreds of seagulls were perched.

That was the Penguins' Rock. It was just a little protuberance of the
cliff, and on the narrow ledges of rock the birds' heads might be seen
watching the boats.

They remained there, motionless, not venturing to fly off as yet. Some of
them perched on the edges, seated upright, looked almost like bottles,
for their little legs are so short that when they walk they glide along
as if they were on rollers. When they start to fly they cannot make a
spring and let themselves fall like stones almost down to the very men
who are watching them.

They know their limitation and the danger to which it subjects them, and
cannot make up their minds to fly away.

But the boatmen begin to shout, beating the sides of the boat with the
wooden boat pins, and the birds, in affright, fly one by one into space
until they reach the level of the waves. Then, moving their wings
rapidly, they scud, scud along until they reach the open sea; if a shower
of lead does not knock them into the water.

For an hour the firing is kept up, obliging them to give up, one after
another. Sometimes the mother birds will not leave their nests, and are
riddled with shot, causing drops of blood to spurt out on the white
cliff, and the animal dies without having deserted her eggs.

The first day M. d'Arnelles fired at the birds with his habitual zeal;
but when the party returned toward ten o'clock, beneath a brilliant sun,
which cast great triangles of light on the white cliffs along the coast
he appeared a little worried, and absentminded, contrary to his
accustomed manner.

As soon as they got on shore a kind of servant dressed in black came up
to him and said something in a low tone. He seemed to reflect, hesitate,
and then replied:

"No, to-morrow."

The following day they set out again. This time M, d'Arnelles frequently
missed his aim, although the birds were close by. His friends teased him,
asked him if he were in love, if some secret sorrow was troubling his
mind and heart. At length he confessed.

"Yes, indeed, I have to leave soon, and that annoys me."

"What, you must leave? And why?"

"Oh, I have some business that calls me back. I cannot stay any longer."

They then talked of other matters.

As soon as breakfast was over the valet in black appeared. M. d'Arnelles
ordered his carriage, and the man was leaving the room when the three
sportsmen interfered, insisting, begging, and praying their friend to
stay. One of them at last said:

"Come now, this cannot be a matter of such importance, for you have
already waited two days."

M. d'Arnelles, altogether perplexed, began to think, evidently baffled,
divided between pleasure and duty, unhappy and disturbed.

After reflecting for some time he stammered:

"The fact is--the fact is--I am not alone here. I have my
son-in-law."

There were exclamations and shouts of "Your son-in-law! Where is he?"

He suddenly appeared confused and his face grew red.

"What! do you not know? Why--why--he is in the coach house. He
is dead."

They were all silent in amazement.

M. d'Arnelles continued, more and more disturbed:

"I had the misfortune to lose him; and as I was taking the body to my
house, in Briseville, I came round this way so as not to miss our
appointment. But you can see that I cannot wait any longer."

Then one of the sportsmen, bolder than the rest said:

"Well, but--since he is dead--it seems to me that he can wait a
day longer."

The others chimed in:

"That cannot be denied."

M. d'Arnelles appeared to be relieved of a great weight, but a little
uneasy, nevertheless, he asked:

"But, frankly--do you think--"

The three others, as one man, replied:

"Parbleu! my dear boy, two days more or less can make no difference in
his present condition."

And, perfectly calmly, the father-in-law turned to the undertaker's
assistant, and said:

"Well, then, my friend, it will be the day after tomorrow."




A FAMILY

I was to see my old friend, Simon Radevin, of whom I had lost sight for
fifteen years. At one time he was my most intimate friend, the friend who
knows one's thoughts, with whom one passes long, quiet, happy evenings,
to whom one tells one's secret love affairs, and who seems to draw out
those rare, ingenious, delicate thoughts born of that sympathy that gives
a sense of repose.

For years we had scarcely been separated; we had lived, travelled,
thought and dreamed together; had liked the same things, had admired the
same books, understood the same authors, trembled with the same
sensations, and very often laughed at the same individuals, whom we
understood completely by merely exchanging a glance.

Then he married. He married, quite suddenly, a little girl from the
provinces, who had come to Paris in search of a husband. How in the world
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 any one 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 schoolgirl with light hair.

He had not dreamed of the fact that an active, living and vibrating man
grows weary of everything as soon as he understands the stupid reality,
unless, indeed, he becomes so brutalized that he understands nothing
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 induced by
provincial life? A man may change greatly 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 discover in that broad face the
features I held so dear. His eyes alone had not changed, but I no longer
saw the same expression in them, and I said to myself: "If the expression
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 happiness and friendship, but they had
not that clear, intelligent expression which shows as much as words the
brightness of the intellect. Suddenly he said:

"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 Lycee, 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 at home."

He said this 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.

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 those who bury themselves in the provinces.

We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden that
was an imitation of a park, and stopped in front of a turreted house,
which tried to look like a chateau.

"That is my den," said Simon, so that I might compliment him on it. "It
is charming," I replied.

A lady appeared on the steps, dressed for company, and with company
phrases all ready prepared. 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 of uncertain age, without
intellect, without any of those things that go to make a woman. In short,
she was a mother, a stout, commonplace mother, a human breeding machine
which procreates without any other preoccupation but her children and her
cook-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 there are the others?" Simon, radiant
with pleasure, introduced 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 a treasure, that old man; he is the
delight of the children. But 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 looks at all the
sweets as if they were so many girls. You never saw anything so funny;
you will see 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 across a dreary, 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 I went downstairs. Madame Radevin
took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we passed into the dining-room.
A footman wheeled in the old man in his armchair. He gave a greedy and
curious look at the dessert, as he turned his shaking head with
difficulty from one dish to the other.

Simon rubbed his hands: "You will be amused," he said; and all the
children understanding that I was going to be indulged with the sight of
their greedy grandfather, began to laugh, 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
creamed rice!" The wrinkled face of the grandfather brightened, and he
trembled more violently, from head to foot, showing that he had
understood and was very pleased. The dinner began.

"Just look!" Simon whispered. The old man did not like the soup, and
refused to eat it; but he was obliged to do it for the good of his
health, and the footman forced the spoon into his mouth, while the old
man blew so energetically, so as not to swallow the soup, that it was
scattered like a spray all over the table and over his neighbors. The
children writhed with laughter at the spectacle, while their father, who
was also amused, said: "Is not the old man comical?"

During the whole meal they were taken up solely with him. He devoured the
dishes on the table with his eyes, and tried to seize them and pull them
over to him 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 on 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 on his plate, and he ate with feverish
gluttony, in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when
the sweetened rice 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 can 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, he made a comical noise in his throat, and a
movement with his neck as ducks do when they swallow too large a morsel,
and when he had swallowed it, he began to stamp his feet, so as to get
more.

I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and
interposed on his behalf:

"Come, give him a little more rice!" But Simon replied: "Oh! no, my dear
fellow, if he were to eat too much, it would harm him, at his age."

I held my tongue, and thought over those 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 until he died?

After we had played cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to
bed; I was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! and I sat at my window. Not a
sound could be heard outside but the beautiful warbling of a bird in a
tree, somewhere in the distance. No doubt the bird was singing in a low
voice during the night, to lull his mate, who was asleep 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.