Short Fiction

hissed: “I have had a child, I have had one! I had it by Jacques; you know Jacques well. He promised to marry me, but he left this neighborhood without keeping his word.”

The man was thunderstruck, and could hardly speak, but at last he stammered out: “What are you saying? What are you saying?” Then she began to sob, and amidst her tears she said: “That is the reason why I did not want to marry you. I could never tell you, for you would have left me without any bread for my child. You have never had any children, so you cannot understand, you cannot understand!”

He said again, mechanically, with increasing surprise: “You have a child? You have a child?”

“You had me by force, as I suppose you know? I did not want to marry you,” she said, still sobbing.

Then he got up, lit the candle, and began to walk up and down, with his arms behind him. She was cowering on the bed and crying, and suddenly he stopped in front of her, and said: “Then it is my fault that you have no children?” She gave him no answer, and he began to walk up and down again, and then, stopping again, he continued: “How old is your child?” “Just six,” she whispered. “Why did you not tell me about it?” he asked. “How could I?” she replied, with a sigh.

He remained standing, motionless. “Come, get up,” he said. She got up, with some difficulty, and then, when she was standing on the floor, he suddenly began to laugh, with his hearty laugh of his good days, and seeing how surprised she was, he added: “Very well, we will go and fetch the child, as you and I can have none together.”

She was so scared that, if she had had the strength, she would assuredly have run away, but the farmer rubbed his hands and said: “I wanted to adopt one, and now we have found one. I asked the priest about an orphan, some time ago.”

Then, still laughing, he kissed his weeping and agitated wife on both cheeks, and shouted out, as if she could not hear him: “Come along, mother, we will go and see whether there is any soup left; I should not mind a plateful.”

She put on her petticoat, and they went downstairs; and while she was kneeling in front of the fireplace, and lighting the fire under the pot, he continued to walk up and down the kitchen in long strides, and said:

“Well, I am really glad of this: I must say I am glad; I am really very glad.”

A Country Excursion

For five months they had been talking of going to lunch at some country restaurant in the neighbourhood of Paris, on Madame Dufour’s birthday, and as they were looking forward very impatiently to the outing, they had risen very early that morning. Monsieur Dufour had borrowed the milkman’s cart, and drove himself. It was a very neat, two-wheeled conveyance. It had a roof supported by four iron posts to which were attached curtains, which had been raised so that they could see the countryside. The curtain at the back, alone, fluttered in the breeze like a flag. Madame Dufour, resplendent in a wonderful, cherry-coloured silk dress, sat by the side of her husband. The old grandmother and the daughter were accommodated with two chairs, and a yellow-haired youth, of whom, however, nothing was to be seen except his head, lay at the bottom of the trap.

After they had followed the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and passed the fortifications by the Porte Maillot, they began to enjoy the scenery.

When they got to the bridge of Neuilly, Monsieur Dufour said: “Here we are in the country at last!” At that warning, his wife grew sentimental about the beauties of nature. When they got to the crossroads at Courbevoie, they were seized with admiration for the tremendous view. Down there on the right was the spire of Argenteuil church, above it rose the hills of Sannois and the mill of Orgemont, while on the left, the aqueduct of Marly stood out against the clear morning sky. In the distance they could see the terrace of Saint-Germain, and opposite to them, at the end of a low chain of hills, the new fort of Cormeilles. Far in the background, a very long way off, beyond the plains and villages, one could see the sombre green of the forests.

The sun was beginning to burn their faces, the dust got into their eyes, and on either side of the road there stretched an interminable tract of bare, ugly country, which smelled unpleasant. You would have thought that it had been ravaged by a pestilence which had even attacked the buildings, for skeletons of dilapidated and deserted houses, or small cottages left in an unfinished state, as if the contractors had not been paid, reared their four roofless walls on each side.

Here and there tall factory-chimneys rose up from the barren soil, the only vegetation on that putrid land, where the spring breezes wafted an odour of petroleum and slate, mingled with another smell that was even still less agreeable. At last, however, they crossed the Seine a second time. It was delightful on the bridge; the river sparkled in the sun, and they had a feeling of quiet satisfaction and enjoyment in drinking in purer air, not impregnated by the black smoke of factories, nor by the miasma from the dumping-grounds. A man whom they met told them that the name of the place was Bezons; so Monsieur Dufour pulled up, and read the attractive announcement outside an eating-house:

“Restaurant Poulin, fish soups and fried fish, private rooms, arbours, and swings.”

“Well! Madame Dufour, will this suit you? Will you make up your mind at last?”

She read the announcement in her turn, and then looked at the house for a time.

It was a white country inn, built by the roadside, and through the open door