Short Fiction

ran, and hid behind a wardrobe, crying out: ‘Oh! don’t look at me; no! no! If only you did not see me, if we were only in the dark! I am ashamed in the light. Cannot you imagine it? What a dreadful dream! Oh! this light, this light!’

“I rushed to the window; I closed the outside shutters, drew the curtains, and hung a coat over a ray of light that peeped in, and then, stretching out my hands so as not to fall over the chairs, with my heart beating, I groped for her, and found her.

“This was a fresh journey for the two of us then, feeling our way, with our hands united, toward the other corner where the alcove was. I don’t suppose we went straight, for first of all I knocked against the mantelpiece and then against a chest of drawers, before finding what we wanted. Then I forgot everything in a frantic ecstasy. It was an hour of folly, madness, superhuman joy, followed by a delicious lassitude, in which we slept in each other’s arms.

“I was half dreaming; but in my dream I fancied that someone was calling me and crying for help; then I received a violent blow, and opened my eyes.

“ ‘Oh‑h!’ The setting sun, magnificent and red, shone full into the room through the door, which was wide open. It seemed to look at us from the verge of the horizon, illuminating us both, especially my companion, who was screaming, struggling, and twisting, and trying with hands and feet to get hold of a corner of a sheet, a curtain or anything else, while in the middle of the room stood my landlord in a morning coat with the concierge by his side, and a chimney-sweep, as black as the devil, who were looking at us with stupid eyes.

“I sprang up in a rage, ready to jump at his throat, and shouted:

“ ‘What the deuce are you doing in my room?’

“The chimney-sweep laughed so that he let his brush fall on to the floor. The concierge seemed to have gone mad, and the landlord stammered:

“ ‘But, Monsieur, it was⁠—it was⁠—about the chimney⁠—the chimney, the chimney which⁠—’

“ ‘Go to the devil!’ I roared. So he took off his hat, which he had kept on in his confusion, and said, in a confused but very civil manner:

“ ‘I beg your pardon, Monsieur; if I had known, I should not have disturbed you; I should not have come. The concierge told me you had gone out. Pray excuse me.’ And they all went out.

“Ever since that time I never draw the curtains, but I am always very careful to lock the door first.”

A Normandy Joke

The procession came in sight in the hollow road shaded by the tall trees which grew on the slopes of the farm. The newly-married couple came first, then the relations, then the guests, and lastly the poor of the neighbourhood, while the village urchins who hovered about like flies, ran in and out of the ranks, or climbed up the trees to see it better.

The bridegroom was a fine young lad, Jean Patu, the richest farmer in the neighbourhood. Above all things, he was an ardent sportsman who seemed to lose all common sense in order to satisfy that passion, who spent large sums on his dogs, his keepers, his ferrets, and his guns. The bride, Rosalie Roussel, had been courted by all the likely young fellows in the district, as they all thought her prepossessing, and they knew that she would have a good dowry, but she had chosen Patu⁠—partly, perhaps, because she liked him better than she did the others, but still more, like a careful Normandy girl, because he had more crown pieces.

When they went in at the wide gateway of the husband’s farm, forty shots resounded without anyone seeing those who fired. The shooters were hidden in the ditches, and the noise seemed to please the men very much, who were sprawling about heavily in their best clothes. Patu left his wife, and running up to a farm servant whom he perceived behind a tree, he seized his gun, and fired a shot himself, kicking his heels about like a colt. Then they went on, beneath the apple trees heavy with fruit, through the high grass and through the herd of calves, who looked at them with their great eyes, got up slowly and remained standing with their muzzles turned toward the wedding party.

The men became serious when they came within measurable distance of the wedding-dinner. Some of them, the rich ones, had on tall, shining silk hats, which seemed altogether out of place there; others had old head-coverings with a long nap, which might have been taken for moleskin, while the humbler among them wore caps. All the women had on shawls, which they wore as loose wraps, holding the ends daintily under their arms. They were red, parti-coloured, flaming shawls, and their brightness seemed to astonish the black fowls on the dungheap, the ducks on the side of the pond, and the pigeons on the thatched roofs. All the green of the countryside, of the grass and the trees, seemed to be accentuated by these flaming colours, and the contrast between them was dazzling in the midday sun.

The extensive farm-buildings seemed to await the party at the end of that archway of apple trees, and a sort of vapour came out of open door and windows, an almost overwhelming smell of eatables, which permeated the vast building, issuing from its openings and even from its very walls. Like a serpent the string of guests extended through the yard; when the foremost of them reached the house, they broke the chain and dispersed, while behind they were still coming in at the open gate. The ditches were now lined with urchins and poor people filled with curiosity. The shots did not cease, but came from every side at once, injecting a cloud of smoke, and that powdery