listened, but she was mistaken.
She fell asleep again and found herself on a high road, an endless road, which she followed. Suddenly in the middle of the road she perceived a basket, a large farmer’s basket, lying there, and this basket frightened her.
She ended by opening it, and Pierrot, concealed in it, seized her hand and would not let go. She ran away in terror with the dog hanging to the end of her arm, which he held between his teeth.
At daybreak she arose, almost beside herself, and ran to the chalk pit.
He was yelping, yelping still; he had yelped all night. She began to sob and called him by all sorts of endearing names. He answered her with all the tender inflections of his dog’s voice.
Then she wanted to see him again, promising herself that she would give him a good home till he died.
She ran to the chalk digger, whose business it was to excavate for chalk, and told him the situation. The man listened, but said nothing. When she had finished he said:
“You want your dog? That will cost four francs.” She gave a jump. All her grief was at an end at once.
“Four francs!” she said. “The idea of it! Four francs!”
“Do you suppose I am going to bring my ropes, my windlass, and set it up, and go down there with my boy and let myself be bitten, perhaps, by your cursed dog for the pleasure of giving it back to you? You should not have thrown it down there.”
She walked away, indignant. Four francs!
As soon as she entered the house she called Rose and told her of the quarryman’s charges. Rose, always resigned, repeated:
“Four francs! That is a good deal of money, madame.” Then she added: “If we could throw him something to eat, the poor dog, so he will not die of hunger.”
Madame Lefèvre approved of this and was quite delighted. So they set out again with a big piece of bread and butter.
They cut it in mouthfuls, which they threw down one after the other, speaking by turns to Pierrot. As soon as the dog finished one piece he yelped for the next.
They returned that evening and the next day and every day. But they made only one more trip.
One morning as they were just letting fall the first mouthful they suddenly heard a tremendous barking in the pit. There were two dogs there. Another had been thrown in, a large dog.
“Pierrot!” cried Rose. And Pierrot yelped and yelped. Then they began to throw down some food. But each time they noticed distinctly a terrible struggle going on, then plaintive cries from Pierrot, who had been bitten by his companion, who ate up everything as he was the stronger.
It was in vain that they specified, saying:
“That is for you, Pierrot.” Pierrot evidently got nothing.
The two women, dumbfounded, looked at each other and Madame Lefèvre said in a sour tone:
“I could not feed all the dogs they throw in there! We must give it up.”
And, suffocating at the thought of all the dogs living at her expense, she went away, even carrying back what remained of the bread, which she ate as she walked along.
Rose followed her, wiping her eyes on the corner of her blue apron.
A Norman
We had just left Rouen, and were going along the road to Jumièges at a brisk trot. The light carriage spun along between the fields, then the horse slowed down to climb the hill of Canteleu.
At that point there is one of the most magnificent views in the world. Behind us Rouen, the town of churches, of Gothic belfries, carved like ornaments of ivory; in front, Saint-Sever, the suburb of factories, which raises its thousand smoking chimneys to the great sky, opposite the thousand sacred spires of the old city.
Here is the steeple of the cathedral, the highest of the human monuments; and down there the “Fire Pump” of “La Foudre,” its rival, almost as tall, which overtops by a metre the highest pyramid of Egypt.
Before us the undulating Seine winds along, sown with islands, bordered on the right by white cliffs, crowned by a forest, and on the left by immense level fields, with another forest on their edge, far away in the distance.
From place to place, great ships were anchored along the banks of the wide river. Three enormous steamers were going out, one after another, toward Havre; and a string of boats consisting of a three master, two schooners, and a brig, were coming up to Rouen, towed by a little tug, which vomited a cloud of black smoke.
My companion, born in the country, did not see this surprising landscape from the same point of view as I. But he smiled continually; he seemed to be laughing to himself. Suddenly he exclaimed: “Ah! you are about to see something funny—the chapel of Father Matthew. That is something really good, my boy.”
I looked at him in astonishment. He continued:
“I am going to give you a flavour of Normandy that will remain in your nose. Father Matthew is the handsomest Norman in the province and his chapel is one of the wonders of the world, no more nor less. But I will give you first a few words of explanation. Father Matthew, or ‘Father Booze’ as they also call him, is an old sergeant-major, returned to his native village. He unites, in admirable proportions, the perfect humbug of the old soldier and the sly malice of the Norman. On his return to these parts, thanks to innumerable protectors and incredible trickeries, he was made the guardian of a miraculous chapel, a chapel protected by the Virgin, and frequented principally by pregnant girls. He baptized the marvelous statue there as: Notre Dame du Gros-Ventre, and he treats it with a certain mocking familiarity which does not exclude respect. He has himself composed and had printed a special prayer for his Good Virgin. This prayer is a masterpiece of unintentional irony,
