“I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman was making a chicken fricassee for dinner in a large fireplace, in which hung the stewpot, black with smoke.
“ ‘You have visitors, then, at the present time?’ said I to her.
“She answered in an offended tone of voice:
“ ‘I have a lady, an English lady, of a certain age. She is occupying the other room.’
“For an extra five sous a day, I obtained the privilege of dining out in the court when the weather was fine.
“My place was then set in front of the door, and I commenced to gnaw with hunger the lean limbs of the Normandy chicken, to drink the clear cider, and to munch the hunk of white bread, which, though four days old, was excellent.
“Suddenly, the wooden barrier which opened on to the highway was opened, and a strange person directed her steps toward the house. She was very thin, very tall, enveloped in a Scotch shawl with red checks. You would have believed that she had no arms, if you had not seen a long hand appear just above the hips, holding a white tourist’s umbrella. The face of a mummy, surrounded with sausage rolls of plaited grey hair, which bounded at every step she took, made me think, I know not why, of a pickled herring adorned with curling papers. Lowering her eyes, she passed quickly in front of me, and entered the house.
“This singular apparition made me curious. She undoubtedly was my neighbour, the aged English lady of whom our hostess had spoken.
“I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had begun to paint at the end of that beautiful valley, which, you know, extends as far as Étretat, lifting my eyes suddenly, I perceived something singularly attired standing on the crest of the declivity; it looked like a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I returned to the house at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance of this eccentric old creature. But she did not respond to my polite advances, was insensible even to my little attentions. I poured water out for her with great alacrity, I passed her the dishes with great eagerness. A slight, almost imperceptible movement of the head, and an English word, murmured so low that I did not understand it, were her only acknowledgments.
“I ceased taking any notice of her, although she had disturbed my thoughts. At the end of three days, I knew as much about her as did Madame Lecacheur herself.
“She was called Miss Harriet. Seeking out a secluded village in which to pass the summer, she had been attracted to Bénouville, some six months before, and did not seem disposed to leave it. She never spoke at table, ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book of Protestant propaganda. She gave a copy of it to everybody. The curé himself had received no less than four copies, at the hands of an urchin to whom she had paid two sous’ commission. She said sometimes to our hostess, abruptly, without the slightest preliminary leading up to this declaration:
“ ‘I love the Saviour above all; I worship him in all creation; I adore him in all nature; I carry him always in my heart.’
“And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her brochures which were destined to convert the universe.
“In the village she was not liked. In fact, the schoolmaster had declared that she was an atheist, and a kind of stigma attached to her. The curé, who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded:
“ ‘She is a heretic, but God does not wish the death of the sinner, and I believe her to be a person of pure morals.’
“These words, ‘atheist,’ ‘heretic,’ words which no one can precisely define, threw doubts into some minds. It was asserted, however, that this English woman was rich, and that she had passed her life in travelling through every country in the world, because her family had thrown her off. Why had her family thrown her off? Because of her natural impiety?
“She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles, one of those obstinate puritans of whom England produces so many, one of those good and insupportable old women who haunt the tables d’hôte of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterannean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias, their petrified vestal manners, their indescribable toilettes, and a certain odour of india-rubber, which makes one believe that at night they slip themselves into a case of that material. When I meet one of these people in a hotel, I flee like the birds when they see a scarecrow in a field.
“This woman, however, appeared so singular that she did not displease me.
“Madame Lecacheur, hostile by instinct to everything that was not rural, felt in her narrow soul a kind of hatred for the ecstatic extravagances of the old girl. She had found a phrase by which to describe her, I know not how, but a phrase assuredly contemptuous, which had sprung to her lips, invented probably by some confused and mysterious travail of soul. She said: ‘That woman is a demoniac.’ This phrase, as uttered by that austere and sentimental creature, seemed to me irresistibly comic. I, myself, never called her now anything else but ‘the demoniac,’ feeling a singular pleasure in pronouncing this word on seeing her.
“I would ask Mother Lecacheur: ‘Well, what is our demoniac doing today?’ To which my rustic friend would respond, with an air of having been scandalized:
“ ‘What
