The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de Maupassant
he had recognized his patron, the old fellow made a grimace of satisfaction: “Yes, yes, I am going on — I am going on as well as you please.”
“Are you beginning to walk?”
“Like a rabbit, Mochieu — like a rabbit. I will dance a boree with my sweetheart on the first Sunday of the month.”
Andermatt felt his heart beating; he repeated: “It is true, then, that you are walking?”
Père Clovis ceased jesting. “Oh! not very much, not very much. No matter — I’m getting on — I’m getting on!”
Then the banker wanted to see at once how the vagabond walked. He kept rushing about the hole, got agitated, gave orders, as if he were going to float again a ship that had foundered.
“Look here, Gontran! you take the right arm. You, Bretigny, the left arm. I am going to keep up his back. Come on! together! — one — two — three! My dear father-in-law, draw the leg toward you — no, the other, the one that’s in the water. Quick, pray! I can’t hold out longer. There we are — one, two — there! — ouf!”
They had put the old trickster sitting on the ground; and he allowed them to do it with a jeering look, without in any way assisting their efforts.
Then they raised him up again, and set him on his legs, giving him his crutches, which he used like walking-sticks; and he began to step out, bent double, dragging his feet after him, whining and blowing. He advanced in the fashion of a slug, and left behind him a long trail of water on the white dust of the road.
Andermatt, in a state of enthusiasm, clapped his hands, crying out as people do at theaters when applauding the actors: “Bravo, bravo, admirable, bravo!!!”
Then, as the old fellow seemed exhausted, he rushed forward to hold him up, seized him in his arms, although his clothes were streaming, and he kept repeating:
“Enough, don’t fatigue yourself! We are going to put you back into your bath.”
And Père Clovis was plunged once more into his hole by the four men who caught him by his four limbs and carried him carefully like a fragile and precious object.
Then, the paralytic observed in a tone of conviction: “It is good water, all the same, good water that hasn’t an equal. It is worth a treasure, water like that!”
Andermatt turned round suddenly toward his father-in-law: “Don’t keep breakfast waiting for me.
I am going to the Oriols’, and I don’t know when I’ll be free. It is necessary not to let these things drag!”
And he set forth in a hurry, almost running, and twirling his stick about like a man bewitched.
The others sat down under the willows, at the side of the road, opposite Père Clovis’s hole.
Christiane, at Paul’s side, saw in front of her the high knoll from which she had seen the rock blown up.
She had been up there that day, scarcely a month ago. She had been sitting on that russet grass. One month! Only one month! She recalled the most trifling details, the tricolored parasols, the scullions, the slightest things said by each of them! And the dog, the poor dog crushed by the explosion! And that big youth, then a stranger to her, who had rushed forward at one word uttered by her lips in order to save the animal. To-day, he was her lover! her lover! So then she had a lover! She was his mistress — his mistress! She repeated this word in the recesses of her consciousness — his mistress! What a strange word! This man, sitting by her side, whose hand she saw tearing up one by one blades of grass, close to her dress, which he was seeking to touch, this man was now bound to her flesh and to his heart, by that mysterious chain, buried in secrecy and mystery, which nature has stretched between woman and man.
With that voice of thought, that mute voice which seems to speak so loudly in the silence of troubled souls, she incessantly repeated to herself: “I am his mistress! his mistress!” How strange, how unforeseen, a thing this was!
“Do I love him?” She cast a rapid glance at him. Their eyes met, and she felt herself so much caressed by the passionate look with which he covered her, that she trembled from head to foot. She felt a longing now, a wild, irresistible longing, to take that hand which was toying with the grass, and to press it very tightly in order to convey to him all that may be said by a clasp. She let her own hand slip along her dress down to the grass, then laid it there motionless, with the fingers spread wide. Then she saw the other come softly toward it like an amorous animal seeking his companion. It came nearer and nearer; and their little fingers touched. They grazed one another at the ends gently, barely, lost one another and found one another again, like lips meeting. But this imperceptible caress, this slight contact entered into her being so violently that she felt herself growing faint as if he were once more straining her between his arms.
And she suddenly understood how a woman can belong to some man, how she no longer is anything under the love that possesses her, how that other being takes her body and soul, flesh, thought, will, blood, nerves, — all, all, all that is in her, — just as a huge bird of prey with large wings swoops down on a wren.
The Marquis and Gontran talked about the future station, themselves won over by Will’s enthusiasm. And they spoke of the banker’s merits, the clearness of his mind, the sureness of his judgment, the certainty of his system of speculation, the boldness of his operations, and the regularity of his character. Father-in-law and brother-in-law, in the face of this probable success, of which they felt certain, were in agreement, and congratulated one another on this alliance.
Christiane and Paul did not seem to hear, so much occupied were they with each other.
The Marquis said to his daughter: “Hey! darling, you may perhaps one day be one of the richest women in France, and people will talk of you as they do about the Rothschilds. Will has truly a remarkable, very remarkable — a great intelligence.”
But a morose and whimsical jealousy entered all at once into Paul’s heart.
“Let me alone now,” said he, “I know it, the intelligence of all those engaged in stirring up business. They have only one thing in their heads — money! All the thoughts that we bestow on beautiful things, all the actions that we waste on our caprices, all the hours which we fling away for our distractions, all the strength that we squander on our pleasures, all the ardor and the power which love, divine love, takes from us, they employ in seeking for gold, in thinking of gold, in amassing gold!
The man of intelligence lives for all the great disinterested tendernesses, the arts, love, science, travels, books; and, if he seeks money, it is because this facilitates the true pleasures of intellect and even the happiness of the heart! But they — they have nothing in their minds or their hearts but this ignoble taste for traffic! They resemble men of worth, these skimmers of life, just as much as the picture-dealer resembles the painter, as the publisher resembles the writer, as the theatrical manager resembles the dramatic poet.”
He suddenly became silent, realizing that he had allowed himself to be carried away, and in a calmer voice he went on: “I don’t say that of Andermatt, whom I consider a charming man. I like him a great deal, because he is a hundred times superior to all the others.”
Christiane had withdrawn her hand. Paul once more stopped talking. Gontran began to laugh; and, in his malicious voice, with which he ventured to say everything, in his hours of mocking and raillery:
“In any case, my dear fellow, these men have one rare merit: that is, to marry our sisters and to have rich daughters, who become our wives.”
The Marquis, annoyed, rose up: “Oh! Gontran, you are perfectly revolting.”
Paul thereupon turned toward Christiane, and murmured: “Would they know how to die for one woman, or even to give her all their fortune — all — without keeping anything?”
This meant so clearly: “All I have is yours, including my life,” that she was touched, and she adopted this device in order to take his hands in hers: