Their vice was public, recognized, patent. People talked of it as a natural thing, which almost excited their sympathy, and whispered in very low tones strange stories of dramas begotten of furious feminine jealousies, of the stealthy visit of well-known women and of actresses to the little house close to the water's edge.
A neighbor, horrified by these scandalous rumors, apprised the police, and the inspector, accompanied by a man, had come to make inquiry. The mission was a delicate one; it was impossible, in short, to reproach these women, who did not abandon themselves to prostitution with anything. The inspector, very much puzzled, indeed, ignorant of the nature of the offenses suspected, had asked questions at random, and made a lofty report conclusive of their innocence.
They laughed about it all the way to St. Germain. They walked about La Grenonillère establishment with stately steps like queens; and seemed to glory in their fame, rejoicing in the gaze that was fixed on them, so superior to this crowd, to this mob, to these plebeians.
Madeleine and her lover watched them approach and in the girl's eyes a fire lightened.
When the two first had reached the end of the table, Madeleine cried:
"Pauline!"
The large woman turned herself and stopped, continuing all the time to hold the arm of her feminine cabin boy:
"Good gracious, Madeleine.... Do come and talk to me, my dear."
Paul squeezed his fingers upon his mistress's wrist; but she said to him, with such an air:
"You know, my fine fellow, you can be off;" he said nothing and remained alone.
Then they chatted in low voices, standing all three of them. Many pleasant jests passed their lips, they spoke quickly; and Pauline looked now and then at Paul, by stealth, with a shrewd and malicious smile.
At last, putting up with it no longer, he suddenly raised himself and in a single bound was at their side, trembling in every limb. He seized Madeleine by the shoulders:
"Come. I wish it," said he. "I have forbidden you to speak to these scoundrels."
Whereupon Pauline raised her voice and set to work blackguarding him with her Billingsgate vocabulary. All the bystanders laughed; they drew near him; they raised themselves on tiptoe in order the better to see him. He remained dumbfounded under this downpour of filthy abuse. It appeared to him that these words, which came from that mouth and fell upon him, defiled him like dirt, and, in presence of the row which was beginning, he fell back, retraced his steps, and rested his elbows on the railing towards the river, turning his back upon the three victorious women.
There he stayed watching the water, and sometimes with rapid gesture as though he plucked it out, he removed with his sinewy fingers the tear which had formed in his eye.
The fact was that he was hopelessly in love, without knowing why, notwithstanding his refined instincts, in spite of his reason, in spite, indeed, of his will. He had fallen into this love as one falls into a sloughy hole. Of a tender and delicate disposition, he had dreamed of liaisons, exquisite, ideal and impassioned, and there that little bit of a woman, stupid like all girls, with an exasperating stupidity, not even pretty, thin and a spitfire, had taken him prisoner, possessing him from head to foot, body and soul. He underwent this feminine bewitchery, mysterious and all powerful, this unknown power, this prodigious domination, arising no one knows whence, from the demon of the flesh, which casts the most sensible man at the feet of some girl or other without there being anything in her to explain her fatal and sovereign power.
And there at his back he felt that some infamous thing was brewing. Shouts of laughter cut him to the heart. What should he do? He knew well, but he could not do it.
He steadily watched an angler upon the bank opposite him, and his motionless line.
Suddenly, the worthy man jerked a little silver fish, which wriggled at the end of his line, out of the river. Then he endeavored to extract his hook, hoisted and turned it, but in vain. At last, losing patience, he commenced to pull it out, and all the bleeding gullet of the beast, with a portion of its intestines, came out. Paul shuddered, rent himself to his heart-strings. It seemed to him that the hook was his love and that if he should pluck it out, all that he had in his breast would come out in the same way at the end of a curved iron fixed in the depths of his being, of which Madeleine held the line.
A hand was placed upon his shoulder; he started and turned; his mistress was at his side. They did not speak to each other; and she rested, like him, with her elbows upon the railing, her eyes fixed upon the river.
He sought for what he ought to say to her and could find nothing. He did not even arrive at disentangling his own emotions; all that he was sensible of was joy at feeling her there close to him, come back again, and a shameful cowardice, a craving to pardon everything, to permit everything, provided she never left him.
At last, at the end of some minutes, he asked her in a very gentle voice:
"Do you wish that we should leave? It will be nicer in the boat."
She answered: "Yes, my puss."
And he assisted her into the skiff, pressing her hands, all softened, with some tears still in his eyes. Then she looked at him with a smile and they kissed each other anew.
They re-ascended the river very slowly, skirting the bank planted with willows, covered with grass, bathed and still in the afternoon warmth. When they had returned to the Restaurant Grillon, it was barely six o'clock. Then leaving their boat they set off on foot on the island towards Bezons, across the fields and along the high poplars which bordered the river. The long grass ready to be mowed was full of flowers. The sun, which was sinking, showed himself from beneath a sheet of red light, and in the tempered heat of the closing day the floating exhalations from the grass, mingled with the damp scents from the river, filled the air with a soft languor, with a happy light, as though with a vapor of well-being.
A soft weakness overtakes the heart, and a species of communion with this splendid calm of evening, with this vague and mysterious chilliness of outspread life, with the keen and melancholy poetry which seems to arise from flowers and things, develops itself revealed at this sweet and pensive time to the senses.
He felt all that; but she did not understand anything of it, for her part. They walked side by side; and, suddenly tired of being silent, she sang. She sang with her shrill and false voice, something which pervaded the streets, an air catching the memory, which rudely destroyed the profound and serene harmony of the evening.
Then he looked at her and he felt an unsurpassable abyss between them. She beat the grass with her parasol, her head slightly inclined, contemplating her feet and singing, spinning out the notes, attempting trills, and venturing on shakes. Her smooth little brow, of which he was so fond, was at that time absolutely empty! empty! There was nothing therein but this music of a bird-organ; and the ideas which formed there by chance were like this music. She did not understand anything of him; they were now separated as if they did not live together. Did then his kisses never go any further than her lips?
Then she raised her eyes to him and laughed again. He was moved to the quick and, extending his arms in a paroxysm of love, he embraced her passionately.
As he was rumpling her dress she ended by disengaging herself, murmuring by way of compensation as she did so:
"Go; I love you well, my puss."
But he seized her by the waist and seized by madness, carried her rapidly away. He kissed her on the cheek, on the temple, on the neck, all the while dancing with joy. They threw themselves down panting at the edge of a thicket, lit up by the rays of the setting sun, and before they had recovered breath they became friends again without her understanding his transport.
They returned, holding each other by the hand, when suddenly, across the trees, they perceived on the river, the canoe manned by the four women. The large Pauline also saw them, for she drew herself up and blew kisses to Madeleine. And then she cried:
"Until to-night!"
Madeleine replied:
"Until to-night!"
Paul believed he suddenly felt his heart enveloped in ice.
They re-entered the house for dinner.
They installed themselves in one of the arbors, close to the water, and set about eating in silence. When night arrived, they brought a candle inclosed in a glass globe, which lit them up with a feeble and glimmering light; and they heard every moment the bursting out of the shouts of the boatmen in the great saloon on the first floor.
Towards dessert, Paul, taking Madeleine's hand, tenderly said to her:
"I feel very tired, my darling; unless you have any objection, we will go to bed early."
She, however, understood the ruse, and shot an enigmatical glance at him, that glance of treachery which so readily appears at the bottom of a woman's eyes. Then having reflected she answered:
"You can go to bed if you wish, but I have promised to go to the ball at La Grenonillère."
He smiled in a piteous manner, one of those smiles with which one veils the most horrible suffering, but he replied in a coaxing but agonized tone:
"If you were very kind, we should remain here, both of us."
She indicated no with her head, without opening her mouth.
He insisted:
"I beg of you, my Bichette."
Then she roughly broke out:
"You know what I said to you. If you are not satisfied the door is open. No one wishes to keep you. As for myself, I have promised; I shall go."
He placed his two elbows upon the table, covered his face with his hands and remained there pondering sorrowfully.
The boat people came down again, bawling as usual. They set off in their vessels for the ball at La Grenonillère.
Madeleine said to Paul:
"If you are not coming, say so, and I will ask one of these gentlemen to take me."
Paul rose:
"Let us go!" murmured he.
And they left.
The night was black, full of stars, overpowered by a burning air, by oppressive breaths of wind, burdened with heat and emanations, with living germs, which, mixed with the breeze, destroyed its freshness. It imparted to the face a heated caress, made one breathe more quickly, gasp a little, so thick and heavy did it seem. The boats started on their way bearing venetian lanterns at the prow. It was not possible to distinguish the craft, but only these little colored lights, swift and dancing up and down like glow-worms in a fit; and voices sounded from all sides in the shade. The young people's skiff glided gently along. Now and then, when a fast boat passed near them, they could, for a moment, see the white back of the rower, lit up by his lantern.
When they turned the elbow of the river, La Grenonillère appeared to them in the distance. The establishment, en fête, was decorated with sconces, with colored garlands draped with clusters of lights. On the Seine some great barges moved about slowly, representing domes, pyramids and elaborate erections in fires of all colors. Illuminated festoons hung right down to the water, and sometimes a red or blue lantern, at the end of an immense invisible fishing-rod, seemed like a great swinging star.
All this illumination spread a light around the café, lit up the great trees on the bank, from top to bottom, the trunks of which stood out in pale gray and the leaves in a milky green upon the deep black of the fields and the heavens. The orchestra, composed of five suburban artists, flung far its public-house ball-music, poor and jerky, which caused Madeleine to sing anew.
She desired to enter at once. Paul desired first to take a turn on the island, but he was obliged to give way. The attendance was more select. The boatmen, always alone, remained with some thinly scattered citizens, and some young men flanked by girls. The director and organizer of this can-can majestic, in a jaded black suit, walked about in every direction, his head laid waste by his old trade of purveyor of public amusements, at a cheap rate.
The large Pauline and her companions were not there; and Paul breathed again.
They danced; couples opposite each other, capered in the most distracted manner, throwing their legs in the air, until they were upon a level with the noses of their partners.
The women, whose thighs were disjointed, skipped amid such a flying upwards of their petticoats that the lower portions of their frames were displayed. They kicked their feet up above their heads with astounding facility, balanced their bodies, wagged their backs and shook their sides, shedding around them a powerful scent of sweating womanhood.
The men were squatted like toads, some making obscene signs; some turned and twisted themselves, grimacing and hideous; some turned like a wheel on their hands, or, perhaps, trying to make themselves funny, sketched the manners of the day with exaggerated gracefulness.
A fat servant-maid and two waiters served refreshments.
This café-boat being only covered with a roof and having no wall whatever, to shut it in, the hare-brained dance was displayed in the face of the peaceful night and of the firmament powdered with stars.
Suddenly, Mount Valerien, yonder opposite, appears illumined, as if a conflagration had been set ablaze behind it. The radiance spreads itself and deepens upon the sky, describing a large luminous circle of wan and white light. Then something or other red appeared, grew greater, shining with a burning red, like that of hot metal upon the anvil. That gradually developed into a round body which seemed to arise from the earth; and the moon, freeing herself from the horizon, rose slowly into space. In proportion as she ascended, the purple tint faded and became yellow, a shining bright yellow, and the satellite appeared to grow smaller in proportion as her distance increased.
Paul watched her for sometime, lost in contemplation, forgetting his mistress, and when he returned to himself the latter had vanished.
He sought for her, but could not find her. He threw his anxious eye over table after table, going to and fro unceasingly, inquiring after her from this one and that one. No one had seen her. He was thus tormented with disquietude, when one of the waiters said to him:
"You are looking for Madame Madeleine, are you not? She has left but a few moments ago, in company with Madame Pauline." And at the same instant, Paul perceived the cabin-boy and the two pretty girls standing at the other end of the café, all three holding each others' waists and lying in wait for him, whispering to one another. He understood, and, like a madman, dashed off into the island.
He first ran towards Chatou, but having reached the plain, retraced his steps. Then he began to search the dense coppices, occasionally roamed about distractedly, halting to listen.
The toads all round about him poured out their metallic and short notes.
Towards Bougival, some unknown bird warbled some song which reached him from the distance.
Over the large lawns the moon shed a soft light, resembling powdered wool; it penetrated the foliage and shone upon the silvered bark of the poplars, and riddled with its brilliant rays the waving tops of the great trees. The entrancing poetry of this summer night had, in spite of himself, entered into Paul, athwart his infatuated anguish, and stirred his heart with a ferocious irony, increasing even to madness, his craving for an ideal tenderness, for passionate outpourings of the bosom of an adored and faithful woman. He was compelled to stop, choked by hurried and rending sobs.
The crisis over, he started anew.
Suddenly, he received what resembled the stab of a poignard. There, behind that bush, some people were kissing. He ran thither; and found an amorous couple whose faces were entwined, united in an endless kiss.
He dared not call, knowing well that she would not respond, and he had also a frightful dread of discovering them all at once.
The flourishes of the quadrilles, with the ear-splitting solos of the cornet, the false shriek of the flute, the shrill squeaking of the violin, irritated his feelings, and exasperated his sufferings. Wild and limping music was floating under the trees, now feeble, now stronger, wafted hither and thither by the breeze.
Suddenly, he said to himself, that possibly she had returned. Yes, she had returned! Why not? He had stupidly lost his head, without cause, carried away by his fears, by the inordinate suspicions which had for some time overwhelmed him.
Seized by one of these singular calms which will sometimes occur in cases of the greatest despair, he returned towards the ball-room.
With a single glance of the eye, he took in the whole room. He made the round of the tables, and abruptly again found himself face to face with the three women. He must have had a doleful and queer expression of countenance, for all three together burst into merriment.
He made off, returned into the island, threw himself across the coppice panting. He listened again, listened a long time, for his ears were singing. At last, however, he believed he heard a little farther off a little, sharp laugh, which he recognized at once; and he advanced very quietly, on his knees, removing the branches from his path, his heart beating so rapidly, that he could no longer breathe.
Two voices murmured some words, the meaning of which he did not understand, and then they were silent.
Next, he was possessed by a frightful longing to fly, to save himself, for ever, from this furious passion which threatened his existence. He was about to return to Chatou and take the train, resolved never to come back again, never again to see her. But her likeness suddenly rushed in upon him, and he mentally pictured that moment in the morning when she would wake in their warm bed, and would press herself coaxingly against him, throwing her arms around his neck, her hair disheveled, and a little entangled on the forehead, her eyes still shut and her lips apart ready to receive the first kiss. The sudden recollection of this morning caress filled him with frantic recollection and the maddest desire.
The couple began to speak again; and he approached, doubled in two. Then a faint cry rose from under the branches quite close to him. He advanced again, always as though in spite of himself, invisibly attracted, without being conscious of anything ... and he saw them.
And he stood there astounded and distracted, as though he had there suddenly discovered a corpse, dead and mutilated. Then, in an involuntary flash of thought, he remembered the little fish whose entrails he had felt being torn out.... But Madeleine murmured to her companion, in the same tone in which she had often called him by name, and he was seized by such a fit of anguish that he fled with all his might.
He struck against two trees, fell over a root, set off again and suddenly found himself near the river, opposite its rapid branch, which was lit up by the moon. The torrent-like current made great eddies where the light played upon it. The high bank dominated the river like a cliff, leaving a wide obscure zone at its foot where the eddies made themselves heard in the darkness.
On the other bank, the country seats of Croissy ranged themselves and could be plainly seen.
Paul saw all this as though in a dream, he thought of nothing, understood nothing, and all things, even his very existence, appeared vague, far-off, forgotten, done with.
The river was there. Did he know what he was doing? Did he wish to die? He was mad. He turned himself, however, towards the island, towards her, and in the still air of the night, in which the faint and persistent burden of the public house band was borne up and down, he uttered, in a voice frantic with despair, bitter beyond measure, and superhuman, a frightful cry:
"Madeleine."
His heartrending call shot across the great silence of the sky, and sped all around the horizon.
Then, with a tremendous leap, with the bound of a wild animal, he jumped into the river. The water rushed on, closed over him, and from the place where he had disappeared a series of great circles started, enlarging their brilliant undulations, until they finally reached the other bank. The two women had heard the noise of the plunge. Madeleine drew herself up and exclaimed:
"It is Paul," a suspicion having arisen in her soul, "he has drowned himself;" and she rushed towards the bank, where Pauline rejoined her.
A clumsy punt, propelled by two men, turned and returned on the spot. One of the men rowed, the other plunged into the water a great pole and appeared to be looking for something. Pauline cried:
"What are you doing? What is the matter?"
An unknown voice answered:
"It is a man who has just drowned himself."
The two ghastly women, squeezing each other tightly, followed the maneuvers of the boat. The music of La Grenonillère continued to sound in the distance, and appeared with its cadences to accompany the movements of the somber fisherman; and the river which now concealed a corpse, whirled round and round, illuminated. The search was prolonged. The horrible suspense made Madeleine shiver all over. At last, after at least half an hour, one of the men announced:
"I have got it."
And he pulled up his long pole very gently, very gently. Then something large appeared upon the surface. The other mariner left his oars, and they both uniting their strength and hauling upon the inert weight, caused it to tumble over into their boat.
Then they made for the land, seeking a place well lighted and low. At the moment when they landed, the women also arrived. The moment she saw him, Madeleine fell back with horror. In the moonlight he already appeared green, with his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his clothes full of slime. His fingers closed and stiff, were hideous. A kind of black and liquid plaster covered his whole body. The face appeared swollen, and from his hair, glued up by the ooze, there ran a stream of dirty water.
"Do you know him?" asked one.
The other, the Croissy ferryman, hesitated:
"Yes, it certainly seems to me that I have seen that head; but you know when like that one cannot recognize anyone easily." And then, suddenly:
"Why, it's Mr. Paul."
"Who is Mr. Paul?" inquired his comrade.
The first answered:
"Why, Mr. Paul Baron, the son of the senator, the little chap who was so amorous."
The other added, philosophically:
"Well, his fun is ended now; it is a pity, all the same, when one is so rich!"
Madeleine sobbed and fell to the ground. Pauline approached the body and asked:
"Is he indeed quite dead?"
"Quite?"
The men shrugged their shoulders.
"Oh! after that length of time for certain."
Then one of them asked:
"Was it at the Grillon that he lodged?"
"Yes," answered the other; "we had better take him back there, there will be something to be made of it."
They embarked again in their boat and set out, moving off slowly on account of the rapid current; and yet, a long time after they were out of sight, from the place where the women remained, the regular splash of the oars in the water could be heard.
Then Pauline took the poor weeping Madeleine in her arms, petted her, embraced her for a long while, consoled her.
"What would you have; it is not your fault, is it? It is impossible to prevent men committing folly. He wished it, so much the worse for him, after all!"
And then lifting her up:
"Come, my dear, come and sleep at the house; it is impossible for you to go back to the Grillon to-night."
And she embraced her again.
"Come, we will cure you," said she.
Madeleine arose, and weeping all the while, but with fainter sobs, her head upon Pauline's shoulder, as though it had found a refuge in a closer and more certain affection, more familiar and more confiding, set off with very slow steps.
Old Lecacheur appeared at the door of his house at his usual hour, between five and a quarter past five in the morning, to look after his men who were going to work.
With a red face, only half awake, his right eye open and the left nearly closed, he was buttoning his braces over his fat stomach with some difficulty while he was all the time looking into every corner of the farm-yard with a searching glance. The sun was darting his oblique rays through the beech-trees by the side of the ditch and the apple trees outside, and was making the cocks crow on the dung-hill, and the pigeons coo on the roof. The smell of the cow stalls came through the open door, and mingled in the fresh morning air, with the pungent odor of the stable where the horses were neighing, with their heads turned towards the light.
As soon as his trousers were properly fastened, Lecacheur came out, and went first of all towards the hen-house to count the morning's eggs, for he had been afraid of thefts for some time; but the servant girl ran up to him with lifted arms and cried:
"Master! Master! they have stolen a rabbit during the night."
"A rabbit?"
"Yes, Master, the big gray rabbit, from the hutch on the left;" whereupon the farmer quite opened his left eye, and said, simply:
"I must see that."
And off he went to inspect it. The hutch had been broken open and the rabbit was gone. Then he became thoughtful, closed his right eye again, and scratched his nose, and after a little consideration, he said to the frightened girl, who was standing stupidly before her master:
"Go and fetch the gendarmes; say I expect them as soon as possible."
Lecacheur was mayor of the village, Pairgry-le Gras, and ruled it like a master, on account of his money and position, and as soon as the servant had disappeared in the direction of the village, which was only about five hundred yards off, he went into the house to have his morning coffee and to discuss the matter with his wife, whom he found on her knees in front of the fire, trying to get it to burn up quickly, and as soon as he got to the door, he said:
"Somebody has stolen the gray rabbit."
She turned round so quickly that she found herself sitting on the floor, and looking at her husband with distressed eyes, she said:
"What is it, Cacheux! Somebody has stolen a rabbit?"
"The big gray one."
She sighed.
"How sad! Who can have done it?"
She was a little, thin, active, neat woman, who knew all about farming, and Lecacheur had his own ideas about the matter.
"It must be that fellow Polyte."
His wife got up suddenly and said in a furious voice:
"He did it! he did it! You need not look for anyone else. He did it! You have said it, Cacheux!"
All her peasant's fury, all her avarice, all her rage of a saving woman against the man of whom she had always been suspicious, and against the girl whom she had always suspected, showed themselves in the contraction of her mouth, and the wrinkles in her cheeks and forehead of her thin exasperated face.
"And what have you done?" she asked.
"I have sent for the gendarmes."
This Polyte was a laborer, who had been employed on the farm for a few days, and who had been dismissed by Lecacheur for an insolent answer. He was an old soldier, and was supposed to have retained his habits of marauding and debauchery, from his campaigns in Africa. He did anything for a livelihood, but whether he were a mason, a navvy, a reaper, whether he broke stones or lopped trees, he was always lazy, and so he remained nowhere, and he had, at times, to change his neighborhood to obtain work.
From the first day that he came to the farm, Lecacheur's wife had detested him, and now she was sure that he had committed the robbery.
In about half an hour the two gendarmes arrived. Brigadier Sénateur was very tall and thin, and Gendarme Lenient, short and fat. Lecacheur made them sit down and told them the affair, and then they went and saw the scene of the theft, in order to verify the fact that the hutch had been broken open, and to collect all the proofs they could. When they got back to the kitchen, the mistress brought in some wine, filled their glasses and asked with a distrustful look.
"Shall you catch him?"
The brigadier, who had his sword between his legs, appeared thoughtful. Certainly, he was sure of taking him, if he was pointed out to him, but if not, he could not answer for being able to discover him, himself, and after reflecting for a long time, he put this simple question:
"Do you know the thief?"
And Lecacheur replied, with a look of Normandy slyness in his eyes:
"As for knowing him, I do not, as I did not see him commit the robbery. If I had seen him, I should have made him eat it raw, skin and flesh, without a drop of cider to wash it down. But as for saying who it is, I cannot, although I believe it is that good-for-nothing Polyte."
Then he related at length his troubles with Polyte, his leaving his service, his bad reputation, things which had been told him, accumulating insignificant and minute proofs, and then, the brigadier, who had been listening very attentively while he emptied his glass and filled it again, with an indifferent air, turned to his gendarme and said:
"We must go and look in the cottage of Severin's wife." At which the gendarme smiled and nodded three times.
Then Madame Lecacheur came to them, and very quietly, with all a peasant's cunning, questioned the brigadier in her turn. That shepherd Severin, a simpleton, a sort of a brute who had been brought up and grown up among his bleating flocks, and who knew scarcely anything besides them in the world, had nevertheless preserved the peasant's instinct for saving, at the bottom of his heart. For years and years he must have hidden in hollow trees and crevices in the rocks, all that he earned, either as shepherd, or by curing animal's sprains (for the bone-setter's secret had been handed down to him by the old shepherd whose place he took), by touch or word, and one day he bought a small property consisting of a cottage and a field, for three thousand francs.
A few months later, it became known that he was going to marry a servant, notorious for her bad morals, the innkeeper's servant. The young fellows said that the girl, knowing that he was pretty well off, had been to his cottage every night, and had taken him, overcome him, led him on to matrimony, little by little, night by night.
And then, having been to the mayor's office and to church, she now lived in the house which her man had bought, while he continued to tend his flocks, day and night, on the plains.
And the brigadier added:
"Polyte has been sleeping with her for three weeks, for the thief has no place of his own to go to!"
The gendarme make a little joke:
"He takes the shepherd's blankets."
Madame Lecacheur, who was seized by a fresh access of rage, of rage increased by a married woman's anger against debauchery, exclaimed:
"It is she, I am sure. Go there. Ah! the blackguard thieves!"
But the brigadier was quite unmoved.
"A minute," he said. "Let us wait until twelve o'clock, as he goes and dines there every day. I shall catch them with it under their noses."
The gendarme smiled, pleased at his chief's idea, and Lecacheur also smiled now, for the affair of the shepherd struck him as very funny: deceived husbands are always amusing.
Twelve o'clock had just struck when the brigadier, followed by his man, knocked gently three times at the door of a little lonely house, situated at the corner of a wood, five hundred yards from the village.
They had been standing close against the wall, so as not to be seen from within, and they waited. As nobody answered, the brigadier knocked again in a minute or two. It was so quiet, that the house seemed uninhabited; but Lenient, the gendarme, who had very quick ears, said that he heard somebody moving about inside, and then Sénateur got angry. He would not allow anyone to resist the authority of the law for a moment, and, knocking at the door with the hilt of his sword, he cried out:
"Open the door, in the name of the law."
As this order had no effect, he roared out:
"If you do not obey, I shall smash the lock. I am the brigadier of the gendarmerie, by G—! Here Lenient."
He had not finished speaking when the door opened and Sénateur saw before him a fat girl, with a very red color, blowzy, with pendant breasts, a big stomach and broad hips, a sort of sanguine and bestial female, the wife of the shepherd Severin, and he went into the cottage.
"I have come to pay you a visit, as I want to make a little search," he said, and he looked about him. On the table there was a plate, a jug of cider and a glass half full, which proved that a meal had been going on. Two knives were lying side by side, and the shrewd gendarme winked at his superior officer.
"It smells good," the latter said.
"One might swear that it was stewed rabbit," Lenient added, much amused.
"Will you have a glass of brandy?" the peasant woman asked.
"No, thank you; I only want the skin of the rabbit that you are eating."
She pretended not to understand, but she was trembling.
"What rabbit?"
The brigadier had taken a seat, and was calmly wiping his forehead.
"Come, come, you are not going to try and make us believe that you live on couch grass. What were you eating there all by yourself for your dinner?"
"I? Nothing whatever, I swear to you. A mite of butter on my bread."
"You are a novice, my good woman,a mite of butter on your bread.... You are mistaken; you ought to have said: a mite of butter on the rabbit. By G—d, your butter smells good! It is special butter, extra good butter, butter fit for a wedding; certainly, not household butter!"
The gendarme was shaking with laughter, and repeated:
"Not household butter, certainly."
As brigadier Sénateur was a joker, all the gendarmes had grown facetious, and the officer continued:
"Where is your butter?"
"My butter?"
"Yes, your butter."
"In the jar."
"Then where is the butter jar?"
"Here it is."
She brought out an old cup, at the bottom of which there was a layer of rancid, salt butter, and the brigadier smelt it, and said, with a shake of his head:
"It is not the same. I want the butter that smells of the rabbit. Come, Lenient, open your eyes; look under the sideboard, my good fellow, and I will look under the bed."
Having shut the door, he went up to the bed and tried to move it; but it was fixed to the wall, and had not been moved for more than half a century, apparently. Then the brigadier stooped, and made his uniform crack. A button had flown off.
"Lenient," he said.
"Yes, brigadier?"
"Come here my lad and look under the bed; I am too tall. I will look after the sideboard."
He got up and waited while his man executed his orders.
Lenient, who was short and stout, took off his kepi, laid himself on his stomach, and putting his face on the floor looked at the black cavity under the bed, and then, suddenly, he exclaimed:
"All right, here we are!"
"What have you got? The rabbit?"
"No, the thief."
"The thief! Pull him out, pull him out!"
The gendarme had put his arms under the bed and laid hold of something, and he was pulling with all his might, and at last a foot, shod in a thick boot, appeared, which he was holding in his right hand. The brigadier took it, crying:
"Pull! pull!"
And Lenient, who was on his knees by that time, was pulling at the other leg. But it was a hard job, for the prisoner kicked out hard, and arched up his back across the bed.
"Courage! courage! pull! pull!" Sénateur cried, and they pulled him with all their strength so that the wooden bar gave way, and he came out as far as his head; but at last they got that out also, and they saw the terrified and furious face of Polyte, whose arms remained stretched out under the bed.
"Pull away!" the brigadier kept on exclaiming. Then they heard a strange noise, and as the arms followed the shoulders, and the hands the arms, and, in the hands the handle of a saucepan, and at the end of the handle the saucepan itself, which contained stewed rabbit.
"Good Lord! good Lord!" the brigadier shouted in his delight, while Lenient took charge of the man; and the rabbit's skin, an overwhelming proof, was discovered under the mattress, and then the gendarmes returned in triumph to the village with their prisoner and their booty.
A week later, as the affair had made much stir, Lecacheur, on going into theMairieto consult the school-master, was told that the shepherd Severin had been waiting for him for more than an hour, and he found him sitting on a chair in a corner, with his stick between his legs. When he saw the mayor, he got up, took off his cap, and said:
"Good morning, Maître Cacheux;" and then he remained standing, timid and embarrassed.
"What do you want?" the former said.
"This is it, Monsieur. Is it true that somebody stole one of your rabbits last week?"
"Yes, it is quite true, Severin."
"Who stole the rabbit?"
"Polyte Ancas, the laborer."
"Right! right! And is it also true that it was found under my bed ..."
"What do you mean, the rabbit?"
"The rabbit and then Polyte."
"Yes, my poor Severin, quite true, but who told you?"
"Pretty well everybody. I understand! And I suppose you know all about marriages, as you marry[11]people?"
"What about marriage?"
"With regard to one's rights."
"What rights?"
"The husband's rights and then the wife's rights."
"Of course I do."
"Oh! Then just tell me, M'sieu Cacheux, has my wife the right to go to bed with Polyte?"
"What do you mean by going to bed with Polyte?"
"Yes, has she any right before the law, and seeing that she is my wife, to go to bed with Polyte?"
"Why of course not, of course not."
"If I catch him there again, shall I have the right to thrash him and her also?"
"Why ... why ... why, yes."
"Very well, then; I will tell you why I want to know. One night last week, as I had my suspicions, I came in suddenly, and they were not behaving properly. I chucked Polyte out, to go and sleep somewhere else; but that was all, as I did not know what my rights were. This time I did not see them; I only heard of it from others. That is over, and we will not say any more about it; but if I catch them again ... by G—d if I catch them again, I will make them lose all taste for such nonsense, Maître Cacheux, as sure as my name is Severin ..."
He certainly looked very droll, did Daddy Pavilly, with his great, spider legs and his little body, his long arms and his pointed head, surrounded by a flame of red hair on the top of the crown.
He was a clown, a peasant clown by nature, born to play tricks, to act parts, simple parts, as he was a peasant's son and was himself a peasant, who could scarcely read. Yes! God had certainly created him to amuse others, the poor country devils who have neither theaters nor fêtes, and he amused them conscientiously. In the café people treated him to drink in order to keep him there, and he drank intrepidly, laughing and joking, hoaxing everybody without vexing anyone, while the people were laughing heartily around him.
He was so droll that the very girls could not resist him, ugly as he was, because he made them laugh so. He would drag them about joking all the while, and he tickled and squeezed them, saying such funny things that they held their sides while they pushed him away.
Towards the end of June he engaged himself for the harvest to farmer Le Harivan, near Rouville. For three whole weeks he amused the harvesters, male and female, by his jokes, both by day and night. During the day, when he was in the fields, he wore an old straw hat which hid his red shock head, and one saw him gathering up the yellow grain and tying it into bundles with his long, thin arms; and then suddenly stopping to make a funny movement which made the laborers, who always kept their eyes on him, laugh all over the field. At night he crept, like some crawling animal, in among the straw in the barn where the women slept, causing screams and exciting a disturbance. They drove him off with their wooden clogs, and he escaped on all fours, like a fantastic monkey, amidst volleys of laughter from the whole place.
On the last day, as the wagon full of reapers, decked with ribbons and playing bag-pipes, shouting and singing with pleasure and drink, went along the white, high road, slowly drawn by six dapple-gray horses, driven by a lad in a blouse, with a rosette in his cap, Pavilly, in the midst of the sprawling women, danced like a drunken satyr, and kept the little dirty-faced boys and astonished peasants, standing staring at him open-mouthed on the way to the farm.
Suddenly, as they got to the gate of Le Harivan's farm yard, he gave a leap as he was lifting up his arms, but unfortunately, as he came down, he knocked against the side of the long wagon, fell over it onto the wheel, and rebounded into the road. His companions jumped out, but he did not move; one eye was closed, while the other was open, and he was pale with fear, while his long limbs were stretched out in the dust, and when they touched his right leg he began to scream, and when they tried to make him stand up, he immediately fell down.
"I think one of his legs is broken," one of the men said.
And so it really was. Harivan, therefore, had him laid on a table and sent off a man on horseback to Rouville to fetch the doctor, who came an hour later.
The farmer was very generous and said that he would pay for the man's treatment in the hospital, so that the doctor carried Pavilly off in his carriage to the hospital, and had him put into a white-washed ward, where his fracture was reduced.
As soon as he knew that it would not kill him, and that he would be taken care of, cuddled, cured, and fed without having anything to do except to lie on his back between the sheets, Pavilly's joy was unbounded, and he began to laugh silently and continuously, so as to show his decayed teeth.
Whenever one of the Sisters of Mercy came near his bed he made grimaces of satisfaction, winking, twisting his mouth awry and moving his nose, which was very long and mobile. His neighbors in the ward, ill as they were, could not help laughing, and the Mother-Superior often came to his bedside, to be amused for a quarter of an hour, and he invented all kinds of jokes and stories for her, and as he had all the makings of a strolling actor in him, he would be devout in order to please her, and spoke of religion with the serious air of a man who knows that there are times when jokes are out of place.
One day, he took it into his head to sing to her. She was delighted and came to see him more frequently, and then she brought him a hymn-book, so as to utilize his voice. Then he might be seen sitting up in bed, for he was beginning to be able to move, singing the praises of the Almighty and of Mary, in a falsetto voice, while the kind, stout sister stood by him and beat time with her finger. When he could walk, the Superior offered to keep him for some time longer to sing in chapel, to serve at Mass and to fulfill the duties of sacristan, and he accepted. For a whole month he might be seen in his surplice, limping and singing the psalms and the responses, with such movements of his head, that the number of the faithful increased, and that people deserted the parish Church to attend Vespers at the hospital.
But as everything must come to an end in this world, they were obliged to discharge him, when he was quite cured, and the Superior gave him twenty-five francs in return for his services.
As soon as Pavilly found himself in the street with all that money in his pocket, he asked himself what he was going to do. Should he return to the village? Certainly not before having a drink, for he had not had one for a long time, and so he went into a café. He did not go into the town more than two or three times a year, and so he had a confused and intoxicating recollection of an orgie, on one of those visits in particular, and so he asked for a glass of the best brandy, which he swallowed at a gulp to grease the passage, and then he had another to see how it tasted.
As soon as the strong and fiery brandy had touched his palate and tongue, awakening more vividly than ever the sensation of alcohol which he was so fond of, and so longed for, which caresses, and stings, and burns the mouth, he knew that he should drink a whole bottle of it, and so he asked immediately what it cost, so as to spare himself having it in detail. They charged him three francs, which he paid, and then he began quietly to get drunk.
However, he was methodical in it, as he wished to keep sober enough for other pleasures, and so, as soon as he felt that he was on the point of seeing the fireplace bow to him, he got up and went out with unsteady steps, with his bottle under his arm, in search of a house where girls of easy virtue lived.
He found one, with some difficulty, after having asked a carter, who did not know of one; a postman, who directed him wrong; a baker, who began to swear and called him an old pig; and lastly, a soldier, who was obliging enough to take him to it, advised him to chooseLa Reine.
Although it was barely twelve o'clock, Pavilly went into that palace of delights, where he was received by a servant, who wanted to turn him out again. But he made her laugh by making a grimace, showed her three francs, the usual price of the special provisions of the place, and followed her with difficulty up a dark staircase, which led to the first floor.
When he had been shown into a room, he asked forla Reine, and had another drink out of the bottle, while he waited. But very shortly, the door opened and a girl came in. She was tall, fat, red-faced, enormous. She looked at the drunken fellow, who had fallen into a seat, with the eye of a judge of such matters, and said:
"Are you not ashamed of yourself, at this time of day?"
"Ashamed of what, Princess?" he stammered.
"Why, of disturbing a lady, before she has even had time to eat her dinner."
He wanted to have a joke, so he said:
"There is no such thing as time, for the brave."
"And there ought to be no time for getting drunk, either, old guzzler."
At this he got angry:
"I am not a guzzler, and I am not drunk."
"Not drunk?"
"No, I am not."
"Not drunk? Why, you could not even stand straight;" and she looked at him angrily, thinking that all this time her companions were having their dinner.
"I ... I could dance a polka," he replied, getting up, and to prove his stability he got onto the chair, made a pirouette and jumped onto the bed, where his thick, muddy shoes made two great marks.
"Oh! you dirty brute!" the girl cried, and rushing at him, she struck him a blow with her fist in the stomach, such a blow that Pavilly lost his balance, fell and struck the foot of the bed, and making a complete somersault tumbled onto the night-table, dragging the jug and basin with him, and then rolled onto the ground, roaring.
The noise was so loud, and his cries so piercing, that everybody in the house rushed in, the master, mistress, servant, and the staff.
The master picked him up, but as soon as he had put him on his legs, the peasant lost his balance again, and then began to call out that his leg was broken, the other leg, the sound one.
It was true, so they sent for a doctor, and it happened to be the same one who had attended him at Le Harivan's.
"What! Is it you again?" he said.
"Yes, M'sieu."
"What is the matter with you?"
"Somebody has broken my other leg for me, M'sieu."
"Who did it, old fellow?"
"Why, a female."
Everybody was listening. The girls in their dressing gowns, with their mouths still greasy from their interrupted dinner, the mistress of the house furious, the master nervous.
"This will be a bad job," the doctor said. "You know that the municipal authorities look upon you with very unfavorable eyes, so we must try and hush the matter up."
"How can it be managed?" the master of the place asked.
"Why the best way would be to send him back to the hospital, from which he has just come out, and to pay for him there."
"I would rather do that," the master of the house replied, "than have any fuss made about the matter."
So half an hour later, Pavilly returned drunk and groaning to the ward which he had left an hour before. The Superior lifted up her hands in sorrow, for she liked him, and with a smile, for she was glad to have him back.
"Well, my good fellow, what is the matter with you now?"
"The other leg is broken, Madame."
"So you have been getting onto another load of straw, you old joker?"
And Pavilly, in great confusion, but still sly, said, with hesitation:
"No... no.... Not this time, no ... not this time. No ... no.... It was not my fault, not my fault ...A mattress caused this."
She could get no other explanation out of him, and never knew that his relapse was due to her twenty-five francs.
Some years ago there lived in Braniza, a celebrated Talmadist, who was renowned no less on account of his beautiful wife, than of his wisdom, his learning, and his fear of God. The Venus of Braniza deserved that name thoroughly, for she deserved it for herself, on account of her singular beauty, and even more as the wife of a man who was deeply versed in the Talmud; for the wives of the Jewish philosophers are, as a rule, ugly, or even possess some bodily defect.
The Talmud explains this, in the following manner. It is well known that marriages are made in heaven, and at the birth of a boy a divine voice calls out the name of his future wife, andvice versâ. But just as a good father tries to get rid of his good wares out of doors, and only uses the damaged stuff at home for his children, so God bestows those women whom other men would not care to have, on the Talmudists.
Well, God made an exception in the case of our Talmudist, and had bestowed a Venus on him, perhaps only in order to confirm the rule by means of this exception, and to make it appear less hard. His wife was a woman who would have done honor to any king's throne, or to the pedestal in any sculpture gallery. Tall, and with a wonderful, voluptuous figure, she carried a strikingly beautiful head, surmounted by thick, black plaits, on her proud shoulders, while two large, dark eyes languished and glowed beneath her long lashes, and her beautiful hands looked as if they were carved out of ivory.
This beautiful woman, who seemed to have been designed by nature to rule, to see slaves at her feet, to provide occupation for the painter's brush, the sculptor's chisel and the poet's pen, lived the life of a rare and beautiful flower, which is shut up in a hot house, for she sat the whole day long wrapped up in her costly fur jacket and looked down dreamily into the street.
She had no children; her husband, the philosopher, studied, and prayed, and studied again from early morning until late at night; his mistress wasthe Veiled Beauty, as the Talmudists call the Kabbalah. She paid no attention to her house, for she was rich and everything went of its own accord, just like a clock, which has only to be wound up once a week; nobody came to see her, and she never went out of the house; she sat and dreamed and brooded and—yawned.
One day when a terrible storm of thunder and lightning had spent all its fury over the town, and all windows had been opened in order to let the Messiah in, the Jewish Venus was sitting as usual in her comfortable easy chair, shivering in spite of her fur jacket, and was thinking, when suddenly she fixed her glowing eyes on the man who was sitting before the Talmud, swaying his body backwards and forwards, and said suddenly:
"Just tell me, when will Messias, the Son of David, come?"
"He will come," the philosopher replied, "when all the Jews have become either altogether virtuous or altogether vicious, says the Talmud."
"Do you believe that all the Jews will ever become virtuous," the Venus continued.
"How am I to believe that!"
"So Messias will come, when all the Jews have become vicious?"
The philosopher shrugged his shoulders and lost himself again in the labyrinth of the Talmud, out of which, so it is said, only one man returned unscathed, and the beautiful woman at the window again looked dreamily out onto the heavy rain, while her white fingers played unconsciously with the dark fur of her splendid jacket.
One day the Jewish philosopher had gone to a neighboring town, where an important question of ritual was to be decided. Thanks to his learning, the question was settled sooner than he had expected, and instead of returning the next morning, as he had intended, he came back the same evening with a friend, who was no less learned than himself. He got out of the carriage at his friend's house, and went home on foot, and was not a little surprised when he saw his windows brilliantly illuminated, and found an officer's servant comfortably smoking his pipe in front of his house.
"What are you doing here?" he asked in a friendly manner, but with some curiosity, nevertheless.
"I am looking out, in case the husband of the beautiful Jewess should come home unexpectedly."
"Indeed? Well, mind and keep a good look out."
Saying this, the philosopher pretended to go away, but went into the house through the garden entrance at the back. When he got into the first room, he found a table laid for two, which had evidently only been left a short time previously. His wife was sitting as usual at her bed room window wrapped in her fur jacket, but her cheeks were suspiciously red, and her dark eyes had not got their usual languishing look, but now rested on her husband with a gaze which expressed at the same time satisfaction and mockery. At that moment he kicked against an object on the floor, which emitted a strange sound, which he picked up and examined in the light. It was a pair of spurs.
"Who has been here with you?" the Talmudist said.
The Jewish Venus shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, but did not reply.
"Shall I tell you? The Captain of Hussars has been with you."
"And why should he not have been here with me?" she said, smoothing the fur on her jacket with her white hand.
"Woman! are you out of your mind?"
"I am in full possession of my senses," she replied, and a knowing smile hovered round her red voluptuous lips. "But must I not also do my part, in order that Messias may come and redeem us poor Jews?"
They called herLa Morillonne[12]because of her black hair and of her complexion, which resembled autumnal leaves, and because of her mouth with thick purple lips, which were like blackberries, when she curled them.
That she should be born as dark as this in a district where everybody was fair, and engendered by a father and mother with tow-colored hair and a complexion like butter was one of the mysteries of atavism. One of her female ancestors must have had an intimacy with one of those traveling tinkers who, have gone about the country from time immemorial, with faces the color of bistre and indigo, crowned by a wisp of light hair.
From that ancestor she derived, not only her dark complexion, but also her dark soul, her deceitful eyes, whose depths were at times illuminated by flashes of every vice, her eyes of an obstinate and malicious animal.
Handsome? Certainly not, nor even pretty. Ugly, with an absolute ugliness! Such a false look! Her nose was flat, and had been smashed by a blow, while her unwholesome looking mouth was always slobbering with greediness, or uttering something vile. Her hair was thick and untidy, and a regular nest for vermin, to which may be added a thin, feverish body, with a limping walk. In short, she was a perfect monster, and yet all the young men of the neighborhood had made love to her, and whoever had been so honored, longed for her society again.
From the time that she was twelve, she had been the mistress of every fellow in the village. She had corrupted boys of her own age in every conceivable manner and place.
Young men at the risk of imprisonment, and even steady, old, notable and venerable men, such as the farmer at Eclausiaux, Monsieur Martin, the ex-mayor and other highly respectable men, had been taken by the manners of that creature, and the reason why the rural policeman was not severe upon them, in spite of his love for summoning people before the magistrates, was, so people said, that he would have been obliged to take out a summons against himself.
The consequence was that she had grown up without being interfered with, and was the mistress of every fellow in the village, as the school-master said; who had himself been one ofthe fellows. But the most curious part of the business was that no one was jealous. They handed her on from one to the other, and when someone expressed his astonishment at this to her one day, she said to this unintelligent stranger:
"Is everybody not satisfied?"
And then, how could any one of them, even if he had been jealous, have monopolized her? They had no hold on her. She was not selfish, and though she accepted all gifts, whether in kind or in money, she never asked for anything and she even appeared to prefer paying herself after her own fashion, by stealing. All she seemed to care about as her reward was pilfering, and a crown put into her hand, gave her less pleasure than a halfpenny which she had stolen. Neither was it any use to dream of ruling her as the sole male, or as the proud master of the hen roost, for which of them, no matter how broad shouldered he was, would have been capable of it? Some had tried to vanquish her, but in vain.
How then, could any of them claim to be her master? It would have been the same as wishing to have the sole right of baking their bread in the common oven, in which the whole village baked.
But there was one man who formed the exception, and that was Bru, the shepherd.
He lived in the fields in his movable hut, on cakes made of unleavened dough, which he kneaded on a stone and baked in the hot ashes, now here, now there, is a hole dug out in the ground, and heated with dead wood. Potatoes, milk, hard cheese, blackberries, and a small cask of old gin that he had distilled himself, were his daily pittance; but he knew nothing about love, although he was accused of all sorts of horrible things, and therefore nobody dared abuse him to his face; in the first place, because Bru was a spare and sinewy man, who handled his shepherd's crook like a drum-major does his staff; next, because of his three sheep dogs, who had teeth like wolves, and who knew nobody except their master; and lastly, for fear of the evil eye. For Bru, it appeared, knew spells which would blight the corn, give the sheep foot rot, the cattle therinder pest, make cows die in calving, and set fire to the ricks and stacks.
But as Bru was the only one who did not loll out his tongue after La Morillonne, naturally one day she began to think of him, and she declared that she, at any rate, was not afraid of his evil eye, and so she went after him.
"What do you want?" he said, and she replied boldly:
"What do I want? I want you."
"Very well," he said, "but then you must belong to me alone."
"All right," was her answer, "if you think you can please me."
He smiled and took her into his arms, and she was away from the village for a whole week. She had, in fact, become entirely Bru's exclusive property.
The village grew excited. They were not jealous of each other, but they were of him. What! Could she not resist him. Of course he had charms and spells against every imaginable thing. And they grew furious. Next they grew bold, and watched from behind a tree. She was still as lively as ever, but he, poor fellow, seemed to have become suddenly ill, and required the most tender nursing at her hands. The villagers, however, felt no compassion for the poor shepherd, and so, one of them, more courageous than the rest, advanced towards the hut with his gun in his hand:
"Tie up your dogs," he cried out from a distance; "fasten them up, Bru, or I shall shoot them."
"You need not be frightened of the dogs,"La Morillonnereplied; "I will be answerable for it that they will not hurt you;" and she smiled as the young man with the gun went towards her.
"What do you want?" the shepherd said.
"I can tell you," she replied. "He wants me and I am very willing. There!"
Bru began to cry, and she continued:
"You are a good for nothing."
And she went off with the lad, while Bru seized his crook, seeing which the young fellow raised his gun.
"Seize him! seize him!" the shepherd shouted, urging on his dogs, while the other had already got his finger on the trigger to fire at them. ButLa Morillonnepushed down the muzzle and called out:
"Here, dogs! here! Prr, prr, my beauties!"
And the three dogs rushed up to her, licked her hands and frisked about as they followed her, while she called to the shepherd from the distance:
"You see, Bru, they are not at all jealous!"
And then, with a short and evil laugh, she added:
"They are my property now."