Short Fiction

showed a phenomenal fecundity, producing, four times a year, a litter of little animals, belonging to all varieties of the canine race. François, after having chosen the one he would leave her “to take the milk,” would pick up the others in his stable apron and pitilessly throw them into the river.

Soon the cook joined her complaints to those of the gardener. She found dogs under her kitchen range, in the cupboards, and in the coal bin, and they stole everything they could see.

The master lost his patience and ordered François to get rid of Cocotte. The man was inconsolable, and tried to place her somewhere. No one wanted her. Then he resolved to lose her, and put her in charge of a car driver who was to leave her in the country the other side of Paris, near Joinville-le-Pont.

That same evening Cocotte was back.

It became necessary to take stern measures. For the sum of five francs, they persuaded the guard on a train to Havre to take her. He was to let her loose when they arrived.

At the end of three days, she appeared again in her stable, harassed, emaciated, torn and exhausted.

The master took pity on her, and did not insist.

But the dogs soon returned in greater numbers than ever, and were more provoking. And as a great dinner was being given one evening, a truffled fowl was carried off by a dog, under the nose of the cook, who did not dare to take it away.

This time the master was angry, and calling François, said to him hotly: “If you don’t drown this beast before tomorrow morning, I shall fire you out, do you understand?”

The man was thunderstruck, but he went up to his room to pack his trunk, preferring to leave his job. Then he thought that he would not be likely to get in anywhere else, dragging this unwelcome beast behind him; he remembered that he was in a good house, well paid and well fed; and he said to himself that it was not worth while giving up all this for a dog. He thought of his own interests and ended by resolving to get rid of Cocotte at dawn the next day.

However, he slept badly. At daybreak he was up; and, taking a strong rope, he went in search of the dog. She arose slowly, shook herself, stretched her limbs, and came to greet her master. Then his courage failed and he began to stroke her tenderly, smoothing her long ears, kissing her on the muzzle, lavishing upon her all the loving names that he could think of.

A neighbouring clock struck six; he could delay no longer. He opened the door; “Come,” said he. The beast wagged her tail, understanding only that she was going out.

They reached the bank and he chose a place where the water seemed deepest. Then he tied one end of the cord to the beautiful leather collar, and taking a great stone, attached it to the other end. Then he seized Cocotte in his arms and kissed her furiously, as one does when taking leave of a person. Then he held her tight around the neck, fondling her and calling her “My pretty Cocotte, my little Cocotte,” and she responded as best she could, growling with pleasure.

Ten times he tried to throw her in, and each time his courage failed him.

Then, abruptly, he decided to do it, and, with all his force, hurled her as far as possible. She tried at first to swim, as she did when taking a bath, but her head, dragged by the stone, went under again and again. She threw her master a look of despair, a human look, battling, as a person does when drowning. Then, the whole front part of the body sank while the hind paws kicked madly out of the water; then they disappeared also.

For five minutes bubbles of air came to the surface, as if the river had begun to boil. And François, haggard, and at his wits’ end, with palpitating heart, believed he saw Cocotte writhing in the slime. And he said to himself, with the simplicity of a peasant: “What does she think of me now, the poor beast?”

He almost became mad. He was sick for a month, and each night saw the dog again. He felt her licking his hands; he heard her bark.

They had to call a physician. Finally he grew better; and his master and mistress took him to their estate at Biessard, near Rouen.

There he was still on the bank of the Seine. He began to go bathing. Every morning he went down with the groom to swim across the river.

One day, as they were amusing themselves splashing in the water, François suddenly cried out to his companion:

“Look at what is coming towards us. I am going to make you taste a cutlet.”

It was an enormous carcass, swelled and stripped of its hair, its paws moving forward in the air, following the current.

François approached it, and continued to joke:

“By God, it is rather high! What a catch, my boy, there is plenty of meat on it!”

And he turned around it, keeping at a distance from the great, putrefying body.

Then, suddenly, he was silent, and looked at it in strange fashion. He approached it again, this time as if he were going to touch it. He carefully examined the collar, then put out his hand and grasped the neck, twirled it around, drew it towards him, and read upon the green copper that still adhered to the discoloured leather: “Mademoiselle Cocotte, the property of François, the coachman.” The dead dog had found her master, sixty miles from their home!

He uttered a fearful cry, and began to swim with all his might towards the bank, shouting all the way. And when he reached the land, he ran off wildly, stark naked, through the country. He was mad!

The Jewels

Monsieur Lantin having met the young woman at a soirée, at the