Short Fiction

reached the hut in which we were to wait, my husband made me go in first and then very deliberately loaded his gun, the sharp click of the hammer affecting me in a curious way. He knew I was trembling, and said:

“Perhaps this has been enough for you? If so, go!”

Very surprised, I answered:

“Not at all, I did not come here just to go back again. You are very queer tonight!”

He murmured: “Do as you like,” after which neither of us stirred.

In about half an hour, as nothing happened to disturb the heavy, clear calm of the autumn night, I whispered:

“Are you quite sure it goes this way?”

Hervé started as if I had bitten him, and with his lips to my ears hissed: “I tell you I am quite sure.”

And again there was silence.

I think I must have begun to doze when my husband squeezed my arm and hissed: “Do you see it down there under the trees?” I looked, but could see nothing, then, staring me straight in the eyes, Hervé raised his gun slowly. I was ready to shoot too, when suddenly thirty steps in front of us a man appeared in the full moonlight, he was walking quickly with body bent as if he were in flight.

I was so overcome with astonishment that I gave a loud cry, but before I had time to turn, there was a flash, the report of the gun stunned me, and I saw the man rolling on the ground like a wolf.

Shrill moans fell from my lips and I was alarmed and crazy with horror until an angry hand, Hervé’s, seized me by the throat. First he knocked me down and then he picked me up in his strong arms, and, holding me up in the air, ran towards the body lying on the grass, and threw me upon it with such violence that he might have wanted to break my head.

I felt done for; he was going to kill me; he had just raised his foot to crush my head when he was seized and thrown down before I could make out what had happened.

I sat up quickly and saw Paquita, my maid, kneeling upon him, crouching over him like a wild cat, convulsed with rage, tearing away at his beard and his moustache, and scratching his face.

Then, as if possessed by another idea, she hurriedly got up and threw herself on the dead body, which she took in her arms, kissing it on the eyes and mouth, opening the lips of the dead man with her own lips, seeking for a sign of life and the unfathomable embrace of passionate lovers. My husband, sitting up, looked on. At last he understood and, dropping at my feet, said:

“Oh! forgive me, darling. I suspected you and I have killed this girl’s lover; my keeper deceived me.”

As for me, I was looking on at the unnatural kisses exchanged between the dead and the living, at the sobs of the woman and her wild spasms of despairing love.

From that moment I knew that I should be unfaithful to my husband.

Moonlight

Madame Julie Roubère was expecting her elder sister, Madame Henriette Létoré, who was returning from Switzerland.

The Létorés had been away about five weeks and Madame Henriette’s husband had gone back alone to their estate in Calvados, where his presence was required, and she was coming to spend a few days in Paris with her sister.

Night was falling and Madame Roubère was absentmindedly reading in the little middle-class drawing room in the twilight, looking up at every sound.

At last the bell rang and her sister appeared, wrapped in her travelling-coat. They were immediately locked in a tight embrace, kissing each other again and again.

Then they started to talk, asking after each other’s health, after their respective families, and a thousand other questions, chattering away jerking out hurried, broken sentences, fluttering around each other while Madame Henriette took off her hat.

Night had fallen. Madame Roubère rang for the lamp and as soon as it was brought in she looked at her sister before giving her another hug, but was filled with dismay and astonishment at her appearance, for Madame Létoré had two large locks of white hair over the temples. All the rest was jet-black, but on both sides of her head ran, as it were, two silver streams lost in the surrounding black mass. She was only twenty-four and this change had happened since she left for Switzerland! Stopping short, Madame Roubère gazed at her aghast, on the verge of tears because she thought that some terrible, unknown misfortune must have befallen her sister. She said: “What is the matter, Henriette?”

Smiling a sad, stricken smile, the sister replied:

“Nothing at all, I assure you. Were you looking at my white hair?”

But Madame Roubère impetuously seized her by the shoulders, and with a searching glance repeated: “What is the matter? Tell me. I shall know if you don’t tell the truth.”

Madame Henriette, who had turned deathly pale, returned her sister’s glance with tears in her downcast eyes.

Her sister repeated: “What has happened? What is the matter? You must answer!”

In a subdued voice she murmured: “I have⁠ ⁠… I have a lover,” and, putting her head on her younger sister’s shoulder, she sobbed aloud.

When she was a little quieter and the heaving of her body had died down, she began to unbosom herself as if to cast forth the secret, to empty her distress into a sympathetic heart.

Hand in hand they clung to each other in silence and then sank on to a sofa in a dark corner of the room, and the younger sister, putting her arm round the elder one’s neck and holding her tight, listened to the story.

“Oh! I know that there was no excuse; I don’t understand myself, but I feel quite frantic ever since. Take care, darling, take care; if you only knew how weak we are, how quickly we yield, how soon we fall! It takes so little,