Short Fiction

proud of this queer paternity. You might say what you please, you never saw many men like him! He was a queer case⁠—wasn’t he?

He observed:

“That makes six. Nom de nom!⁠—what a christening!”

And a great burst of laughter went up. A number of strangers entered the tavern. Others were still waiting outside for their chance. People asked each other:

“How many’s he got?”

“Got six.”

Mother ’Toine carried this new family to the yellow hen; and the hen clucked crazily, bristled up her feathers, and opened her wings as wide as she could to shelter the ever-increasing multitude of her little ones.

“There’s another!” yelled ’Toine.

He was mistaken⁠—there were three more! It was a triumph! The last chick burst open its shell at seven o’clock that evening. All the eggs were hatched. And ’Toine, wild with joy, free again, glorious, kissed the little creature on the back⁠—nearly smothered it with his lips. He wanted to keep that one in his bed⁠—just that one⁠—until next day, feeling seized with a natural affection for the tiny thing to which he had given life; but the old woman took it away like the others in spite of his supplications.

All those present were delighted, and as they went home they talked of nothing else. Horslaville, the last to linger, asked:

“Say, Pap ’Toine⁠—going to invite me to fricassee the first, eh?”

The face of ’Toine grew radiant at the idea of a fricassee; and the fat man answered:

“For sure, I’ll invite you⁠—for sure, my son-in-law.

The Christening

“Now, doctor, a little cognac.”

“With pleasure.”

And the old naval doctor, holding out his little glass, watched the precious liquor rising to the brim, flecked with golden gleams.

Then he lifted it to the level of his eye, passed it in front of the light from the lamp, sniffed it, sucked in a few drops that he rolled a long time on his tongue and on the moist, sensitive flesh of his palate, then said:

“Oh, the divine poison! Or rather, the seductive assassin, the adorable destroying angel!

“You know nothing about it, you people. You have read, it is true, that excellent book called L’Assommoir, but you have not seen, as I have, drink exterminate a whole tribe of savages, a small Negro kingdom, drink carried in kegs landed, with the most peaceful air, by red-bearded English sailors.

“But now listen. I have seen, with my own eyes, the strangest and most amazing drama of strong drink, and quite near here, in Brittany, in a little village in the neighbourhood of Pont l’Abbé.

“I was living at the time, on a year’s leave, in a country-house left me by my father. You know that flat coast where the wind whistles day and night over the gorse bushes, and where one still sees here and there, upright or lying along the ground, those monstrous stones which were once gods and which have retained something disturbing in their attitude, in their aspect, their shape. They always look to me as if they were just going to come alive, and I should see them set out across the countryside, with slow heavy steps, the steps of granite giants, or fly off on vast wings, stone wings, towards a Druid heaven.

“The sea encloses and dominates the horizon, the restless sea, full of black-headed rocks, always covered with a slaver of foam, like dogs who lie in wait for the fishermen.

“And they, these men, they go down to this terrible sea which overturns their fishing-cobbles with one shake of his blue-green back, and swallows them down like pellets. They go out in their small boats, day and night, brave, anxious, and drunk. Drunk they most often are. ‘When the bottle is full,’ they say, ‘you see the reef; but when it’s empty, you see it no more.’

“Go into the thatched cottages. You’ll never find the father there. And if you ask the wife what has become of her man, she stretches her arm towards the sombre sea, muttering and frothing out its white saliva along the shore. He slept below it one evening when he had drunk a little too deeply. And the eldest son as well. She has four boys left, four tall striplings, fair-skinned and sturdy. Their turn next.

---

“I was living then in a country-house near Pont l’Abbé. I lived alone with my servant, an old sailor, and a Breton family who took care of the property in my absence. It consisted of three people, two sisters and the man who had married one of them, and who looked after my garden.

“This same year, about Christmas-time, my gardener’s spouse was brought to bed of a boy.

“The husband came to ask me to stand godfather. I could hardly refuse, and he borrowed ten francs, for christening-expenses, he said.

“The ceremony was arranged for the second of January. For eight days the ground had been covered with snow, a vast carpet, colourless and sombre, which seemed, in this low flat country, to stretch out over illimitable wastes. The sea, far beyond the white plain, looked black; and we could see it moving restlessly, shaking its back, rolling its waves, as if it wanted to fling itself on its pale neighbour, who seemed dead, so quiet, so sad, so cold she lay.

“At nine o’clock in the morning, Papa Kérandec arrived in front of my door with his sister-in-law, the big Kermagan, and the nurse who was carrying the child rolled up in a quilt.

“And then we all set out for the church. It was cold enough to split the dolmens, one of those piercing cold days which crack the skin and cause frightful pain with their bitter cold that burns like fire.

“As for me, I was thinking of the poor little creature who was being carried in front of us, and I thought to myself that this Breton race really was made of iron, since children were able, from the moment they were born, to survive such excursions.

“We arrived in front of the church, but the door remained