Short Fiction

account of entanglements with women, when about sixty-five fell passionately in love with the daughter of his farmer. I knew them both. She was blond, pale, distinguished looking, with a soft voice and a sweet look, so sweet that she reminded one of a madonna. The old lord took her home with him, and immediately became so captivated that he could not do without her for a minute. His daughter and his daughter-in-law, who lived in the house, found this perfectly natural, so much was love a tradition of the family. When one was moved by a great passion, nothing surprised them, and, if anyone spoke in their presence of thwarted desires, of disunited lovers, or revenge upon some treachery, they would both say, in the same sad tones: ‘Oh! how he (or she) must have suffered before coming to that!’ Nothing more. They were moved with pity by all dramas of the heart and never spoke slightingly of them, even when they were criminal.

“One autumn, a young man, M. de Gradelle, invited for the hunting, eloped with the young woman.

“M. de Santèze remained calm, as if nothing had happened. But one morning they found him hanging in the kennel in the midst of the dogs.

“His son died in the same fashion, in a hotel in Paris, while on a journey in 1841, after having been deceived by an opera singer.

“He left a child twelve years old, and a widow, the sister of my mother. She came with the little boy to live at my father’s house, on our Bertillon estate. I was then seventeen.

“You could not imagine what an astonishing, precocious child this little Santèze was. One would have said that all the power of tenderness, all the exaltation of his race had fallen upon this one, the last. He was always dreaming and walking alone in a great avenue of elms that led from the house to the woods. I often watched this sentimental youngster from my window, as he walked up and down with his hands behind his back, with bowed head, sometimes stopping to look up, as if he saw and comprehended things beyond his age and experience.

“Often after dinner, on clear nights, he would say to me: ‘Let us go and dream, Cousin.’ And we would go together into the park. He would stop abruptly in the clear spaces, where the white vapour floats, that soft cotton with which the moon decorates the clearings in the woods, and say to me, seizing my hand: ‘Look! Look there! But you do not understand me, I feel it. If you understood me, you would be happy. In order to know, one must love.’ I would laugh and embrace him, this boy, who adored me so much as to die of love.

“Often, too, after dinner, he would seat himself upon my mother’s knee. ‘Come, Aunt,’ he would say to her, ‘tell us some love story.’ And my mother, as a joke, would tell him all the family legends, the passionate adventures of his fathers, for thousands of them were mentioned, true and false. It was their reputation that was the undoing of all these men. They got fancies, and then took pride in living up to the fame of their house.

“The little boy would get excited by these terrible or affecting tales, and sometimes he would clap his hands and cry out: ‘I, too; I, too, know how to love, better than any of them.’

“Then he began to pay me his court, so timidly, with such grave tenderness, that we laughed at it. Each morning I had flowers picked by him, and each evening, before going to his room, he would kiss my hand, murmuring: ‘I love you!’

“I was guilty, very guilty, and I have wept since, unceasingly, doing penance all my life, by remaining an old maid⁠—or rather, an affianced widow, his widow. I amused myself with this childish devotion, even inciting him. I was coquettish, and seductive, as if I were dealing with a grown man, caressing and deceiving. I excited this child. It was a joke to me, and a pleasing diversion to his mother and mine. He was twelve years old! Think of it! Who would have taken seriously this diminutive passion! I kissed him as much as he wished. I even wrote love letters to him that our mothers read. And he responded with letters of fire, that I still have. He thought our love intimacy was a secret, regarding himself as a man. We had forgotten that he was a Santèze!

“This lasted nearly a year. One evening, in the park, he threw himself down at my knees, kissing the hem of my dress, in a furious burst of passion, repeating: ‘I love you! I love you! I love you! I am dying of love for you. If you ever deceive me, understand, if you ever leave me for another, I shall do as my father did⁠—’ And he added in a low voice that gave one the shivers: ‘You know what he did!’

“Then, as I remained dumbfounded, he got up and, stretching himself on tiptoe, for I was much taller than he, he repeated in my ear, my name, my first name, ‘Geneviève!’ in a voice so sweet, so pretty, so tender that I trembled to my very feet.

“I stammered: ‘Let us return to the house!’ He said nothing further, but followed me. As we were going up the steps, he stopped me and said: ‘You know if you abandon me, I shall kill myself.’

“I understood now that I had gone too far, and immediately became more reserved. When he reproached me for it, one day, I answered him: ‘You are now too big for this kind of joking, and too young for serious love. I will wait.’

“I believed myself freed from him.

“He was sent away to school in the autumn. When he returned, the following summer, I had become engaged. He understood at once, and for over a week he looked so preoccupied