Short Fiction

the power of love! This rich girl had followed this man, this peasant. She had stooped herself to a life without charm, luxury, or refinement of any sort, she had accustomed herself to an entirely simple existence. And she still loved him. She had become the wife of a country clodhopper, with a bonnet and a canvas skirt. She sat on a cane chair, she ate broth made of potatoes, cabbage, and bacon, out of an earthen platter set on a deal table. She slept on straw at his side.

“She had never a thought for anything but him. She had regretted neither jewels, nor fine clothes, nor fashion, nor the comfort of armchairs, nor the perfumed warmth of tapestry-hung rooms, nor the softness of down whereon the body sinks to rest. She had never needed anything but him; so only that he was there, she wanted nothing.

“In early youth she had forsaken life and the world and those who had loved and nurtured her. She had come, alone with him, to this wild ravine. And he had been everything to her, all that a woman desires, all that she dreams of, all that she ceaselessly awaits, all for which she never ceases to hope. He had filled her existence with happiness from its beginning to its close.

“She could not have been happier.

“And all night long, as I listened to the hoarse breathing of the old soldier lying on his pallet beside the woman who had followed him so far, I thought of this strange and simple adventure, of her happiness, so complete, built of so little.

“I left next morning, after shaking hands with the old couple.”

---

The teller of the tale was silent. A woman said:

“All the same, her ideal was too easy of attainment, her needs too primitive, her demands on life too simple. She must have been a stupid girl.”

Another woman said slowly:

“What does it matter? She was happy.”

In the distance, on the rim of the world, Corsica receded into the night, sinking slowly back into the sea, withdrawing the vast shadow that had appeared as though itself would tell the story of the two humble lovers sheltered by its shores.

Farewell

The two friends were finishing dinner. From the café window they saw the boulevard, covered with people. They felt the caress of the warm airs that drift through Paris on calm summer nights, making a man raise his eyes towards the passersby, rousing in him a desire to get away, far away to some distant place, no one knows where, under green leaves; making him dream of moonlit rivers and glowworms and nightingales.

One of the two, Henri Simon, sighing deeply, said:

“Ah! I’m getting old. It’s sad. Once, on nights like this, I felt the devil in my bones. Today I feel nothing but regrets. Life goes so fast!”

He was already somewhat fat, aged perhaps forty-five, and very bald.

The other, Pierre Carnier, infinitesimally older, but slimmer and more lively, replied:

“As for me, my dear chap, I’ve grown old without noticing it in the least. I was always a gay dog, a jolly fellow, vigorous and all that. But when a man looks in his mirror every day, he does not see old age doing its work, for it is slow and regular, and changes the face so gradually that the transitions are imperceptible. That is the only reason why we do not die of grief after only two or three years of its ravages. For we cannot appreciate them. In order to realise them, we should have to go without looking at our faces for six months on end⁠—then what a blow it would be!

“And women, my dear chap, how sorry I am for the poor things! The whole of their happiness, the whole of their power, the whole of their lives, lies in their beauty, which lasts ten years.

“Well, I have grown old without suspecting it, and thought myself almost an adolescent when I was nearly fifty. Not feeling within myself any infirmity of any sort, I went on my way, happy and carefree.

“The revelation of decay came to me in a simple but terrible manner, and prostrated me for nearly six months⁠ ⁠… then I resigned myself to my lot.

“I have often been in love, like all men, but once more than usual.

“I met her at the seaside, at Étretat, about twelve years ago now, shortly after the war. There is nothing so charming as the beach there, in the morning, at the bathing-hour. It is small, curved like a horseshoe, framed in the high white cliffs pierced with those curious holes known as the Gates, one very large, stretching its gigantic limb into the sea, the other opposite it, low and round; the crowd of women gathers together within the frame of high rocks, thronging the narrow tongue of shingle, covering it with a brilliant garden of bright frocks. The sun falls full upon the slopes, on sunshades of every hue, on the greenish-blue sea; everything is gay and charming, a smiling scene. You go and sit right at the edge of the water, and watch the ladies bathing. They come down the beach draped in a flannel wrap which they cast off with a pretty gesture as they reach the foamy fringe of the small waves; and go into the sea with swift little steps, sometimes interrupted by a shiver of delicious cold, a brief catching of the breath.

“Very few stand this bathing-test. There they can be judged, from the calf to the throat. Above all, when they leave the water, their weaknesses are plain to see; although the seawater is a powerful stimulant to flabby bodies.

“The first time that I saw this young woman under these conditions, I was ravished and seduced. She stood the test triumphantly. There are faces, too, whose charm comes home to us instantaneously, conquers us at sight. We think we have found the woman we were born to love. I suffered that sensation, that shock of