Short Fiction

and anon receive a volley which splashes their white plumage with spots of rosy blood, and the bird dies, still faithfully guarding her eggs.

On the first day, Monsieur d’Anelles shot with his customary enthusiasm; but, when they went off home at about ten o’clock, beneath the high and radiant sun which threw great triangles of light into the white clefts in the cliffs, he appeared somewhat distracted, and now and then he seemed lost in thought, unlike his usual self.

As soon as they were back on land, some sort of servant, clad in black, came and whispered with him. He appeared to reflect, to hesitate; then he replied:

“No, tomorrow.”

And, next day, the shooting was resumed. This time Monsieur d’Anelles often missed his birds, though they let themselves fall almost on to the end of his gun-barrel, and his friends, laughing, asked him if he was in love, if any secret trouble were tormenting his heart and brain. At last he admitted it.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I must be off directly, and I find it annoying.”

“What, you’re going away? Why?”

“Oh, urgent business. I can’t stay any longer.”

Then they began to talk of other things.

As soon as lunch was over, the servant in black reappeared. Monsieur d’Anelles ordered him to harness the horses, and the fellow was on the point of going out when the three other sportsmen intervened, insisting on an explanation, with many entreaties and demands that their friend should stay.

At last one of them said:

“But, look here, this business of yours can’t be so very serious, if you’ve already waited two days.”

The fourth, altogether perplexed, reflected, plainly a prey to conflicting ideas, torn between pleasure and duty, unhappy and ill at ease.

After a long period of meditation, he murmured with some hesitation:

“You see⁠ ⁠… you see, I am not alone here; I have my son-in-law with me.”

There were cries and exclamations.

“Your son-in-law?⁠ ⁠… But where is he?”

At that he appeared suddenly confounded, and blushed.

“What? Didn’t you know? Why⁠ ⁠… why⁠ ⁠… he is out in the barn. He’s dead.”

Stupefied silence reigned.

More and more distressed, Monsieur d’Anelles continued:

“I have had the misfortune to lose him; and, as I was taking the body to my home at Briseville, I made a slight detour just to keep our appointment here. But you will realise that I can delay no longer.”

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

“But⁠ ⁠… since he is dead⁠ ⁠… it seems to me⁠ ⁠… that he might very well wait one more day.”

The two others hesitated no longer.

“You can’t deny that,” they said.

Monsieur d’Arnelles seemed relieved of a great weight, but, still somewhat uneasy, he inquired:

“You⁠ ⁠… you honestly think⁠ ⁠… ?”

As one man, the three others replied:

“Dash it all! dear boy, two days more or less won’t make any difference to him in his condition.”

Thereupon, perfectly at ease, the father-in-law turned round to the undertaker.

“Very well, my good man, let it be the day after tomorrow.”

A Son

The two old friends were walking in the garden all in bloom, where life was stirred by the gay springtime.

One was a senator and the other a member of the French Academy, grave, both of them, full of reason and logic, but solemn⁠—people of note and reputation.

At first they chattered about politics, exchanging thoughts, not upon ideas but men: personalities, which in such matters, always take precedence over reasoned argument. Then they awoke old memories; then they were silent, continuing to walk side by side, both relaxed by the sweetness of the air.

A great cluster of wallflowers sent forth their sweet and delicate perfume. A heap of flowers, of every kind and colour, threw their sweetness into the air, while a laburnum tree, covered with yellow flowers, scattered to the wind its fine powder, a golden smoke which reminded one of honey, and which carried, like the caressing powder of the perfumer, its embalmed seed across space.

The senator stopped, inhaled the fertile cloud that was floating by him, looked at the blossoming tree, resplendent as a sun, from which the pollen was now escaping. And he said:

“When one thinks that these imperceptible atoms, which smell so nice, can bring in to existence in a hundred places, miles from here, plants of their own kind, can start the sap and fibre of the female trees, and produce creatures with roots, which are born from a germ, as we are, mortal as we are, and which will be replaced by other beings of the same essence, just like us!”

Then, standing in front of the radiant laburnum tree, whose vivifying perfume permeated every breath of air, the senator added:

“Ah! my fine fellow, if you were to count your children you would be woefully embarrassed. Here is one who brings them easily into the world, abandons them without remorse and worries little about them afterward.”

The Academician replied: “We do the same, my friend.”

The senator answered: “Yes, I do not deny that; we do abandon them sometimes, but we know it, at least, and that constitutes our superiority.”

The other man shook his head: “No, that is not what I mean; you see, my dear fellow, there is scarcely a man who does not possess some unknown children, those children labeled father unknown, whom he has created, as this tree reproduces itself, almost unconsciously.

“If we had to establish the count of the women we have had, we should be, should we not, as embarrassed as this laburnum tree which you are addressing, if it were called upon to enumerate its descendants?

“From eighteen to forty, counting all our passing encounters and contacts of an hour, it may easily be granted that we have had intimate relations with two or three hundred women. Ah, well! my friend, among this number are you sure that you have not made fruitful at least one, and that you have not, upon the streets or in prison, some blackguard son, who robs and assassinates honest people, that is to say, people like us? or perhaps a daughter, in some house of ill-fame? or perhaps,