There were no violins, no wind instruments any longer, only the howl of anguish and revolt, the cry of a captured stag craving the female of its species.
“Juliette! Juliette!”
One evening I returned home more despondent than ever, my mind obsessed with dismal projects, my arms and hands in some manner agitated by a mad desire to kill, to strangle. I would have liked to feel something alive writhing, rattling, dying under the pressure of my fingers. Mother Le Gannec was standing at the threshold, darning the never failing pair of stockings. She said to me:
“How late you are today, friend Mintié! I have prepared some nice sea-crab for you!”
“Leave me alone, you drivelling woman!” I shouted. “I don’t want your sea-crab, I don’t want anything, do you hear me?”
And sputtering angry words, I brutally made her step aside to let me pass. The poor kindly woman, stupefied by my action, lifted her arms to heaven and moaned.
“Ah! My Lord! Ah, Jesus!”
I went to my room and locked myself in. At first I rolled on the bed, smashed two chairs, beat my head against the wall. Then, I suddenly sat down to write a letter to Juliette, exalted, raging, full of terrible threats and humble entreaties; a letter in which I spoke of killing her, of forgiving her, in which I begged her to come to see me before I died, describing to her in tragic detail the cliff from which I was going to throw myself into the sea. I compared her to the lowest women in the brothel and two lines further I compared her to the Holy Virgin. More than twenty times I started this letter over again, excited, weeping, in turn delirious with rage and swooning with tenderness. Presently I heard a noise behind the door like the scratching of a mouse. I opened it. Mother Le Gannec was standing there, trembling and pale; she looked at me with her kind, bewildered eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I shouted. “Why do you spy on me? Go away!”
“Friend Mintié,” muttered the sainted woman, “don’t be angry. I can see that you are unhappy and I came to know if I can help you!”
“Well, suppose I am unhappy! Does that concern you? Here, take this letter to the post office and leave me in peace.”
For four days I did not leave my room. Mother Le Gannec came to make my bed and serve my meal. She was humble, timid, more attentive than ever, sighing:
“Ah! What a misfortune! My Lord, what a misfortune!”
I realized that I was not acting as I should; she had been so kind to me; I wanted to ask forgiveness for my rudeness. Her white coif, her black shawl, her sad figure of an afflicted mother touched me. But a sort of foolish pride threw a damper on this effusion. She walked near me, resigned, with an air of infinite motherly pity; from time to time she repeated:
“Ah! What a misfortune! My Lord! What a misfortune!”
The day drew to a close. While Mother La Gannec, after having mailed the letter, was sweeping the room, I sat at the window, my elbows resting on the ledge. The sun had disappeared behind the horizon line, leaving of its dazzling glory only a reddish transparency on the sky, and the sea, grown dark, dull, no longer reflecting light, assumed a sad hue. Night came, silent and slow, and the air was so calm that one could hear the rhythmic noise of oars striking the water of the wharf and the distant creaking of halliards on the masts’ tops. The beacon light was turned on, its red light turning in space like some irrational astral body. … And I felt very unhappy!
Juliette did not answer me! … Juliette would not come! … My letter, no doubt, had frightened her. She had recalled furious, savage, strangling scenes. She was afraid and would not come! And besides, were there not races, banquets, dinners, a line of impatient men at her door, waiting for her, claiming her, men who had paid in advance for the promised night? Why should she come, after all? There was no Casino on this desolate beach; in this Godforsaken corner of the coast there was no one to whom she could sell herself.
As for me, she had taken all my money, my brains, my honor, my future, everything! What more could I give her? Nothing. Why then should she come? If I had only told her that I had ten thousand francs left she would have come running. But to what purpose? Ah! Let her not come! My anger subsided, self-disgust replaced it, a frightful disgust! How could it be possible that a man who was not bad, whose past aspirations lacked neither nobility of character nor ardor, should fall so low, in such a short time, into a mire so deep that no human force could lift him out of it! …
What I now suffered from was not so much my own follies, my own disgrace and crimes as the misery which I had caused those around me. Old Marie! … Old Felix! … Oh, the poor couple! Where were they now? What were they doing? Did they have anything to eat, at least? Had I not compelled them to beg their bread when I expelled them—so old, so kind, so confiding, more feeble and desolate than homeless dogs! I saw them bent over their staffs, horribly thin, coughing, harassed, spending nights in chance lodgings. And the sainted Mother Le Gannec who took care of me as a mother her child, who lulled me to sleep with her warm caresses like those bestowed on little ones! Instead of kneeling before her, of thanking her, did I not treat her brutally, did I not almost beat her! Ah, no! Let her not come! Let her not come!
Mother Le Gannec lit the lamp, and I was about to close the window when I heard the tinkling of small bells upon the road, then the
