nor how I suffered; for a whole month I never left my room. Then, one evening, my father, furious at the state I was in for such a trifle, exclaimed:

“ ‘What will you do when real sorrow befalls you, when you lose your wife, your children? It’s impossible to be so stupid!’

“These words haunted me: ‘What will you do when real sorrow befalls you, when you lose your wife, your children?’ I began to see myself clearly. I saw how it was that an ordinary occurrence seemed as important to me as a great calamity; I realised that I was ordained to suffer horribly, and, aggravated by my sick sensitiveness, to be alive to every painful impression; and a panic fear of life seized me.

“I had no ambition, no desires; I decided to sacrifice all the possible joys of life in order to avoid the certain suffering. I said to myself: ‘Life is short, I will spend it in serving others, in easing their burdens and rejoicing in their happiness. As neither joy nor sorrow can touch me personally, any emotion I may feel will be weakened.’

“And yet if you knew how I am tormented, scarred by the misery of the world! But what would have been unbearable anguish has been converted into commiseration, pity.

“I could never have borne the suffering I see all round me had it been my own; I should have died in seeing my own child die, and, in spite of myself, I have still such an obscure, penetrating dread of life, that every time the postman comes to the presbytery I tremble with apprehension, although I have now nothing to fear.”

Abbé Mauduit ceased talking, he was gazing at the fire in the big, open hearth as if looking for mysterious signs, those hidden secrets of life which he might have experienced had he been less afraid of suffering. He continued in a low voice:

“I was right. I was not made for this life.”

The Countess said nothing; then, after a long silence, she exclaimed:

“I should not have the courage to go on living if it were not for my grandchildren!”

The priest got up to go without another word.

The servants were dozing in the kitchen, so the Countess accompanied him to the door leading into the garden, and watched his big, slow shadow, reflected in the gleam from a lamp, disappear into the night.

Then she returned to her seat by the fire and thought of many things that one never thinks of in one’s youth.

The Pedlar

To our still young and inexperienced minds, how many fleeting associations, trifling things, chance meetings, humble dramas that we witness, guess at, or suspect, become as it were, guiding threads that lead gradually to a knowledge of the desolating truth about life.

As I dream idly of the past while roaming aimlessly about the country, my head in the clouds, little forgotten things, grave and gay, flash constantly through my mind and then take their flight like the hedge-birds on my path.

This summer as I was wandering along a road in Savoy that overlooks the right bank of the Lake of Bourget, gazing upon the mass of shimmering blue water, water of a most unusual blue, pale, and streaked with the slanting rays of the setting sun, my heart was stirred with the emotion I have always felt, since childhood, for the smooth surface of lake, river, and sea. On the other bank of the immense watery plain whose ends stretched away out of sight⁠—one in the direction of the Rhône and the other towards Bourget⁠—the high jagged mountain rose to the last peak of the Dent-du-Chat. On either side of the road grapevines reached out from tree to tree, smothering the slender branches round which they twined under their leaves; spreading over the fields in green, yellow, and red garlands dotted with clusters of black grapes, which swung gaily between the tree-trunks.

The road was dusty, white, and deserted. Suddenly a man bending under a heavy load stepped out from the grove of tall trees that encloses the village of Saint-Innocent, and came in my direction, leaning on a stick. As he approached I saw he was a hawker, one of those wandering pedlars who sell from door to door throughout the countryside, and suddenly a memory of bygone days, a trifle, flashed into my mind, simply a meeting at night between Argenteuil and Paris when I was twenty-five.

At that time boating was the pleasure of my life. I had a room at a cheap eating-house in Argenteuil, and every evening I caught the civil-service train, that long slow train which deposits at station after station a crowd of fat, heavy men carrying small parcels, whose unattractive figures are due to lack of exercise, and the shocking fit of their trousers to the chairs provided in government offices. The train, which smelt of offices, cardboard boxes and official documents, landed me at Argenteuil, where my yawl awaited me, ready to skim over the water. With long strokes I set off for Bezons, Chatou, Epinay, or Saint-Ouen, where I dined. Then I went back, put away my boat, and, when there was a full moon, started off on foot for Paris.

Well, one night, on the white road, I saw a man walking in front of me. Oh, I was constantly meeting those night travellers of the Parisian suburbs so much dreaded by belated citizens. This man went slowly on before me, weighed down by a heavy load.

I soon overtook him, my footsteps echoing on the road. He stopped, turned round, then crossed the road as if to avoid me. As I was hurrying by he called out: “Hullo! Good evening, sir.”

I replied: “Good evening, mate.” He went on: “Are you going far?”

“To Paris.”

“You won’t be long, you are going at a good pace. I can’t walk quickly, my load is too heavy.”

I slackened my pace. Why was the man talking to me? What was he carrying in that big bundle?

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