Short Fiction

his mouth at each hiccup. The poor man was covered with it! His cheeks, his beard, his hair, his neck, his clothes, all seemed to have been scoured and bathed in a basin of red. The blood had congealed upon him, and had grown stale, dull, and mixed with mud; a horrible sight.

“Wrapped in a great frieze cloak, the old man kept half opening sad, lightless, empty eyes, that seemed dazed with astonishment, like those of a shot beast fallen at the hunter’s feet; already three parts dead, besotted with surprise and terror, he stared at his slayer.

“ ‘Ah!’ cried the priest, ‘it’s Father Placide, the old shepherd from Les Moulins. The poor old man’s deaf, and cannot have heard. Dear! dear! you’ve killed the poor wretch!’

“The Sister had torn away his blouse and his shirt, and was gazing at a little purple hole, no longer bleeding, in the middle of his chest.

“ ‘There is nothing to be done,’ she said.

“The shepherd, gasping terribly, was still spitting blood at every one of his last breaths; in his throat, right down to the lungs, could be heard a ceaseless, sinister, gurgling sound.

“The priest, standing over him, raised his right hand, made the sign of the cross, and in a slow, solemn voice uttered the Latin words that wash clean the soul.

“Before he had finished, the old man was shaken with a brief shudder, as though something inside him had just broken. He had stopped breathing. He was dead.

“Turning round, I saw a spectacle more ghastly than the last agonies of the unfortunate man: the three old women, standing huddled together, were making hideous grimaces of anguish and horror.

“I went towards them, and they began to utter shrill screams and tried to run away, as though I were going to kill them too.

“Mother Jean-Jean, who could put no weight on her burnt leg, fell full length upon the floor.

“The Sister, abandoning the dead man, ran to her charges, and, without a word or a glance at me, wrapped them in their shawls, gave them their crutches, hustled them to the door, thrust them out of it, and vanished with them into the utter blackness of the night.

“I realised that I could not even send one Hussar with them; the mere noise of his sabre would have driven them out of their minds.

“The priest was still staring at the dead man.

“At last he turned round towards me.

“ ‘A bad business,’ he said, ‘a bad business.’ ”

One Night’s Entertainment

Sergeant-Major Varajou had got eight days’ leave to visit his sister, Mme. Padoie. Varajou, who was garrisoned at Rennes, and led a gay life there, finding himself penniless and in disgrace with his family, had written to his sister that he would be able to devote a week’s freedom to her. Not that he was very fond of Mme. Padoie, a sententious little woman, pious and always ill-tempered, but he needed money, he needed it badly, and he remembered that the Padoies were the only remaining relatives on whom he had not levied toll.

Varajou senior, formerly a horticulturist at Angers, had retired from business, had shut his purse to his scapegrace of a son, and had hardly set eyes on him for two years. His daughter had married Padoie, formerly a bank clerk, who had just been made a tax-collector at Vannes.

So Varajou betook himself by train to his brother-in-law’s house; he found him in his office, in the thick of a discussion with some Breton peasants from the neighbouring village. Padoie rose from his chair, held out a hand across the table piled with papers, and murmured:

“Take a seat, I’ll be ready to talk to you in a minute,” sat down again, and went on with the discussion.

The peasants did not understand his explanations, he did not understand their arguments; he spoke French, the others spoke a Breton dialect, and the clerk who was acting as interpreter did not seem to understand either party.

For a long time Varajou sat contemplating his brother-in-law, and thinking: “What an impossible ass!”

Padoie must have been nearly fifty years old; he was tall, thin, bony, slow and shaggy, with overarching eyebrows that formed hairy vaults over his eyes. His head was covered with a velvet cap, ornamented with a golden tassel; his glance was mild, as were all his characteristics; he was mild in word, deed and thought. Varajou silently reiterated: “What an impossible ass!”

He himself was one of your noisy roisterers, for whom life holds no greater pleasures than wine and bought women. Outside these two poles of existence, he understood nothing. Braggart, brawler, contemptuous of every living person, he despised the whole world from the heights of his ignorance. When he said: “Damn it, what a lark,” he had certainly expressed the highest degree of admiration of which he was capable.

At last Padoie dismissed the peasants, and asked:

“You going on all right?”

“Not bad, as you can see. What about you?”

“Fairly well, thanks. It’s very nice of you to think of coming to see us.”

“Oh, I’ve been thinking of coming to see you for a long time, but in the military profession one’s not so free, you know.”

“Oh, I know, I know. Never mind, it’s very nice of you.”

“And is Joséphine well?”

“Yes, yes, thanks, you’ll see her in a moment.”

“Where is she now, then?”

“She’s out visiting; we have a number of relatives here; it’s a very select town.”

“I’m sure it is.”

But the door opened, Mme. Padoie appeared. She approached her brother with no great show of joy, offered him her cheek, and said: “Have you been here long?”

“No, hardly half an hour.”

“Ah, I thought the train would be late. Come into the drawing room, will you?”

As soon as they were alone: “I’ve been hearing fine tales about you.”

“What have you heard?”

“It seems that you behave in the most disgraceful ways, that you drink and run up bills.”

He wore an air of profound astonishment.

“Never in my life.”

“Oh, don’t deny it, I know better.”

He made another attempt to defend himself,