Original Short Stories of Maupassant, Volume 4

G >> Guy de Maupassant >> Original Short Stories of Maupassant, Volume 4


The wind had risen, that icy wind that cracks the rocks and leaves
nothing alive on those deserted heights, and it came in sudden gusts,
which were more parching and more deadly than the burning wind of the
desert, and again Ulrich shouted: "Gaspard! Gaspard! Gaspard." And then
he waited again. Everything was silent on the mountain.

Then he shook with terror and with a bound he was inside the inn, when he
shut and bolted the door, and then he fell into a chair trembling all
over, for he felt certain that his comrade had called him at the moment
he was expiring.

He was sure of that, as sure as one is of being alive or of eating a
piece of bread. Old Gaspard Hari had been dying for two days and three
nights somewhere, in some hole, in one of those deep, untrodden ravines
whose whiteness is more sinister than subterranean darkness. He had been
dying for two days and three nights and he had just then died, thinking
of his comrade. His soul, almost before it was released, had taken its
flight to the inn where Ulrich was sleeping, and it had called him by
that terrible and mysterious power which the spirits of the dead have to
haunt the living. That voiceless soul had cried to the worn-out soul of
the sleeper; it had uttered its last farewell, or its reproach, or its
curse on the man who had not searched carefully enough.

And Ulrich felt that it was there, quite close to him, behind the wall,
behind the door which he had just fastened. It was wandering about, like
a night bird which lightly touches a lighted window with his wings, and
the terrified young man was ready to scream with horror. He wanted to run
away, but did not dare to go out; he did not dare, and he should never
dare to do it in the future, for that phantom would remain there day and
night, round the inn, as long as the old man's body was not recovered and
had not been deposited in the consecrated earth of a churchyard.

When it was daylight Kunsi recovered some of his courage at the return of
the bright sun. He prepared his meal, gave his dog some food and then
remained motionless on a chair, tortured at heart as he thought of the
old man lying on the snow, and then, as soon as night once more covered
the mountains, new terrors assailed him. He now walked up and down the
dark kitchen, which was scarcely lighted by the flame of one candle, and
he walked from one end of it to the other with great strides, listening,
listening whether the terrible cry of the other night would again break
the dreary silence outside. He felt himself alone, unhappy man, as no man
had ever been alone before! He was alone in this immense desert of Snow,
alone five thousand feet above the inhabited earth, above human
habitation, above that stirring, noisy, palpitating life, alone under an
icy sky! A mad longing impelled him to run away, no matter where, to get
down to Loeche by flinging himself over the precipice; but he did not
even dare to open the door, as he felt sure that the other, the dead man,
would bar his road, so that he might not be obliged to remain up there
alone:

Toward midnight, tired with walking, worn out by grief and fear, he at
last fell into a doze in his chair, for he was afraid of his bed as one
is of a haunted spot. But suddenly the strident cry of the other evening
pierced his ears, and it was so shrill that Ulrich stretched out his arms
to repulse the ghost, and he fell backward with his chair.

Sam, who was awakened by the noise, began to howl as frightened dogs do
howl, and he walked all about the house trying to find out where the
danger came from. When he got to the door, he sniffed beneath it,
smelling vigorously, with his coat bristling and his tail stiff, while he
growled angrily. Kunsi, who was terrified, jumped up, and, holding his
chair by one leg, he cried: "Don't come in, don't come in, or I shall
kill you." And the dog, excited by this threat, barked angrily at that
invisible enemy who defied his master's voice. By degrees, however, he
quieted down and came back and stretched himself in front of the fire,
but he was uneasy and kept his head up and growled between his teeth.

Ulrich, in turn, recovered his senses, but as he felt faint with terror,
he went and got a bottle of brandy out of the sideboard, and he drank off
several glasses, one after anther, at a gulp. His ideas became vague, his
courage revived and a feverish glow ran through his veins.

He ate scarcely anything the next day and limited himself to alcohol, and
so he lived for several days, like a drunken brute. As soon as he thought
of Gaspard Hari, he began to drink again, and went on drinking until he
fell to the ground, overcome by intoxication. And there he remained lying
on his face, dead drunk, his limbs benumbed, and snoring loudly. But
scarcely had he digested the maddening and burning liquor than the same
cry, "Ulrich!" woke him like a bullet piercing his brain, and he got up,
still staggering, stretching out his hands to save himself from falling,
and calling to Sam to help him. And the dog, who appeared to be going mad
like his master, rushed to the door, scratched it with his claws and
gnawed it with his long white teeth, while the young man, with his head
thrown back drank the brandy in draughts, as if it had been cold water,
so that it might by and by send his thoughts, his frantic terror, and his
memory to sleep again.

In three weeks he had consumed all his stock of ardent spirits. But his
continual drunkenness only lulled his terror, which awoke more furiously
than ever as soon as it was impossible for him to calm it. His fixed idea
then, which had been intensified by a month of drunkenness, and which was
continually increasing in his absolute solitude, penetrated him like a
gimlet. He now walked about the house like a wild beast in its cage,
putting his ear to the door to listen if the other were there and defying
him through the wall. Then, as soon as he dozed, overcome by fatigue, he
heard the voice which made him leap to his feet.

At last one night, as cowards do when driven to extremities, he sprang to
the door and opened it, to see who was calling him and to force him to
keep quiet, but such a gust of cold wind blew into his face that it
chilled him to the bone, and he closed and bolted the door again
immediately, without noticing that Sam had rushed out. Then, as he was
shivering with cold, he threw some wood on the fire and sat down in front
of it to warm himself, but suddenly he started, for somebody was
scratching at the wall and crying. In desperation he called out: "Go
away!" but was answered by another long, sorrowful wail.

Then all his remaining senses forsook him from sheer fright. He repeated:
"Go away!" and turned round to try to find some corner in which to hide,
while the other person went round the house still crying and rubbing
against the wall. Ulrich went to the oak sideboard, which was full of
plates and dishes and of provisions, and lifting it up with superhuman
strength, he dragged it to the door, so as to form a barricade. Then
piling up all the rest of the furniture, the mattresses, palliasses and
chairs, he stopped up the windows as one does when assailed by an enemy.

But the person outside now uttered long, plaintive, mournful groans, to
which the young man replied by similar groans, and thus days and nights
passed without their ceasing to howl at each other. The one was
continually walking round the house and scraped the walls with his nails
so vigorously that it seemed as if he wished to destroy them, while the
other, inside, followed all his movements, stooping down and holding his
ear to the walls and replying to all his appeals with terrible cries. One
evening, however, Ulrich heard nothing more, and he sat down, so overcome
by fatigue, that he went to sleep immediately and awoke in the morning
without a thought, without any recollection of what had happened, just as
if his head had been emptied during his heavy sleep, but he felt hungry,
and he ate.

The winter was over and the Gemmi Pass was practicable again, so the
Hauser family started off to return to their inn. As soon as they had
reached the top of the ascent the women mounted their mule and spoke
about the two men whom they would meet again shortly. They were, indeed,
rather surprised that neither of them had come down a few days before, as
soon as the road was open, in order to tell them all about their long
winter sojourn. At last, however, they saw the inn, still covered with
snow, like a quilt. The door and the window were closed, but a little
smoke was coming out of the chimney, which reassured old Hauser. On going
up to the door, however, he saw the skeleton of an animal which had been
torn to pieces by the eagles, a large skeleton lying on its side.

They all looked close at it and the mother said:

"That must be Sam," and then she shouted: "Hi, Gaspard!" A cry from the
interior of the house answered her and a sharp cry that one might have
thought some animal had uttered it. Old Hauser repeated, "Hi, Gaspard!"
and they heard another cry similar to the first.

Then the three men, the father and the two sons, tried to open the door,
but it resisted their efforts. From the empty cow-stall they took a beam
to serve as a battering-ram and hurled it against the door with all their
might. The wood gave way and the boards flew into splinters. Then the
house was shaken by a loud voice, and inside, behind the side board which
was overturned, they saw a man standing upright, with his hair falling on
his shoulders and a beard descending to his breast, with shining eyes,
and nothing but rags to cover him. They did not recognize him, but Louise
Hauser exclaimed:

"It is Ulrich, mother." And her mother declared that it was Ulrich,
although his hair was white.

He allowed them to go up to him and to touch him, but he did not reply to
any of their questions, and they were obliged to take him to Loeche,
where the doctors found that he was mad, and nobody ever found out what
had become of his companion.

Little Louise Hauser nearly died that summer of decline, which the
physicians attributed to the cold air of the mountains.