Short Fiction

eyes. She walks up and down unceasingly, like a caged beast.

“I have had two bars put on the windows, have put up high screens, and have fixed the chairs to the floor, to prevent her from looking into the street to see if he is coming back.

“Oh, the poor parents! What a life they have and will have had!”

We had arrived at the top of the hill; the doctor turned round and said to me:

“Look at Riom from here.”

The sombre town wore the aspect of an ancient walled city. In the background, as far as the eye could reach, stretched a green, wooded plain, dotted with villages and towns, and drowned in a thin blue vapour which made the horizon a delight to the eyes. On the right, in the distance, was a line of high mountains with a succession of peaks, rounded or cut off sharply as with a sword-cut.

The doctor began to enumerate the places and peaks, telling me the history of each.

But I did not listen to him; I thought only of the mad woman, saw nothing but her. She seemed to hover like a melancholy ghost over all this wide country.

“What has become of the husband?” I asked abruptly.

My friend, somewhat surprised, answered after a pause:

“He’s living at Royat on the allowance made to him. He’s happy; he leads a gay life.”

As we were walking slowly homewards, both of us saddened and silent, an English dogcart passed us from behind, a fast-trotting thoroughbred in the shafts.

The doctor gripped my arm.

“There he is,” he said.

I saw nothing but a grey felt hat, tilted over one ear, above a pair of broad shoulders, disappearing in a cloud of dust.

Bombard

Life often seemed very hard to Simon Bombard! He was born with an incredible capacity for doing nothing and with an immoderate desire to follow this vocation. All effort, whether moral or physical, every movement accomplished for a purpose, appeared to him beyond his strength. As soon as he heard anyone speak of anything serious he became confused, his mind being incapable of tension or even attention.

The son of a linen-draper in Caen, he took things easily, as they said in the family, until he was twenty-five years of age. But as his parents were always nearer bankruptcy than fortune, he suffered greatly for want of money.

He was a big, tall fine-looking fellow, with red whiskers, cut Norman fashion, of florid complexion, blue eyes, with the first signs of a paunch, and dressed with the swagger elegance of a provincial on a holiday. He laughed and gesticulated on every occasion, displaying a noisy good nature with all the assurance of the commercial traveler. He considered that life was made principally for love and laughter, and as soon as it became necessary to curb his noisy enjoyment, he fell into a kind of chronic somnolence, being incapable of sadness.

His need of money harassed him until he formed the habit of repeating a phrase now celebrated in his circle of acquaintance: “For ten thousand francs a year, I would become an executioner.”

Now, he went each year to Trouville for a fortnight. He called this “spending the season.” He would install himself at the house of his cousins, who gave him the use of a room, and from the day of his arrival to that of his departure he would promenade along the board walk which extends along the great stretch of seashore.

He walked with an air of confidence, his hands in his pockets or crossed behind his back, always clothed in ample garments, with light waistcoats and showy cravats, his hat somewhat over his ear and a cheap cigar in one corner of his mouth.

He went along, brushing up against the elegantly dressed women and staring contemptuously at the men like a fellow ready for a fight, and seeking⁠—seeking⁠—seeking.

He was after a wife, counting entirely upon his face and his physique. He said to himself: “Why the devil, in all the crowd that comes here, should I not be able to find what I want?” And he hunted with the scent of a foxhound, with the keen instinct of a Norman, sure that he would recognize her, the woman who would make him rich, the moment he perceived her.

---

One Monday morning he murmured: “Hello! hello! hello!” The weather was superb, one of those yellow and blue days of the month of July, when one might say that there was a deluge of heat. The vast shore covered with people, costumes, colours, had the air of a garden of women; and the fishing boats with their brown sails, almost immovable upon the blue water which reflected them upside down, seemed asleep under the great sun at ten o’clock in the morning. There they remained, opposite the wooden pier, some near, some further off, some still further, as if overcome by a summer day idleness, too indifferent to seek the open sea, or even to return to port. And in the distance one could vaguely perceive in the mist the coast of Havre, showing two white points on its summit, the lighthouses of Sainte-Adresse.

He said to himself: “Hello, hello, hello!” For he had passed her now for the third time and perceived that she had noticed him, this mature woman, experienced and courageous, who was making a bid for his attention. He had noticed her before, because she seemed also in quest of someone. She was an Englishwoman, rather tall, a little thin, an audacious Englishwoman whom circumstances and much journeying had made a kind of man. Not bad, on the whole, walking along slowly with short steps, soberly and simply clothed, but wearing a queer sort of hat as Englishwomen always do. She had rather pretty eyes, high cheekbones, a little red, teeth that were too long and always visible.

When he came to the pier, he retraced his steps to see if she would meet him again. He met her and threw her an ardent glance, a glance