The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de Maupassant
in the fourth form. The third year’s work was only tolerable and he had to begin the second over again, so that he was in rhetoric when he was twenty.
He was now a big, fair young man, with downy whiskers and a faint sign of a mustache. He now came home to “The Poplars” every Sunday, riding over in a couple of hours, his mother, Aunt Lison and the baron starting out early to go and meet him.
Although he was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him as though he were a child, and when he returned to school in the evening she would charge him anxiously not to go too fast and to think of his poor mother, who would break her heart if anything happened to him.
One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul, saying that he would not be home on the following day because some friends had arranged an excursion and had invited him. She was tormented with anxiety all day Sunday, as though she dreaded some misfortune, and on Thursday, as she could endure it no longer, she set out for Havre.
He seemed to be changed, though she could not have told in what manner. He appeared excited and his voice seemed deeper. And suddenly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he said: “I say, mother, as long as you have come to-day, I want to tell you that I will not be at ‘The Poplars’ next Sunday, for we are going to have another excursion.”
She was amazed, smothering, as if he had announced his departure for America. At last, recovering herself, she said: “Oh, Poulet, what is the matter with you? Tell me what is going on.”
He began to laugh, and kissing her, replied: “Why, nothing, nothing, mamma. I am going to have a good time with my friends; I am just at that age.”
She had nothing to say, but when she was alone in the carriage all manner of ideas came into her mind. She no longer recognized him, her Poulet, her little Poulet of former days. She felt for the first time that he was grown up, that he no longer belonged to her, that he was going to live his life without troubling himself about the old people. It seemed to her that one day had wrought this change in him. Was it possible that this was her son, her poor little boy who had helped her to replant the lettuce, this great big bearded youth who had a will of his own!
For three months Paul came home only occasionally, and always seemed impatient to get away again, trying to steal off an hour earlier each evening. Jeanne was alarmed, but the baron consoled her, saying: “Let him alone; the boy is twenty years old.”
One morning, however, an old man, poorly dressed, inquired in German-French for “Madame la Vicomtesse,” and after many ceremonious bows, he drew from his pocket a dilapidated pocketbook, saying: “Che un betit bapier bour fous,” and unfolding as he handed it to her a piece of greasy paper. She read and reread it, looked at the Jew, read it over again and asked: “What does it mean?”
He obsequiously explained: “I will tell you. Your son needed a little money, and as I knew that you are a good mother, I lent him a trifle to help him out.”
Jeanne was trembling. “But why did he not ask me?” The Jew explained at length that it was a question of a debt that must be paid before noon the following day; that Paul not being of age, no one would have lent him anything, and that his “honor would have been compromised” without this little service that he had rendered the young man.
Jeanne tried to call the baron, but had not the strength to rise, she was so overcome by emotion. At length she said to the usurer: “Would you have the kindness to ring the bell?”
He hesitated, fearing some trap, and then stammered out: “If I am intruding, I will call again.” She shook her head in the negative. He then rang, and they waited in silence, sitting opposite each other.
When the baron came in he understood the situation at once. The note was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid one thousand, saying close to the man’s face: “And on no account come back.” The other thanked him and went his way.
The baron and Jeanne set out at once for Havre. On reaching the college they learned that Paul had not been there for a month. The principal had received four letters signed by Jeanne saying that his pupil was not well and then to tell how he was getting along. Each letter was accompanied by a doctor’s certificate. They were, of course, all forged. They were all dumbfounded, and stood there looking at each other.
The principal, very much worried, took them to the commissary of police. Jeanne and her father stayed at a hotel that night. The following day the young man was found in the apartment of a courtesan of the town. His grandfather and mother took him back to “The Poplars” and not a word was exchanged between them during the whole journey.
A week later they discovered that he had contracted fifteen thousand francs’ worth of debts within the last three months. His creditors had not come forward at first, knowing that he would soon be of age.
They entered into no discussion about it, hoping to win him back by gentleness. They gave him dainty food, petted him, spoiled him. It was spring and they hired a boat for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne’s fears, so that he might amuse himself on the water.
They would not let him have a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre.
He was there with nothing to do and became irritable and occasionally brutally so. The baron was worried at the discontinuance of his studies. Jeanne, distracted at the idea of a separation, asked herself what they could do with him.
One evening he did not come home. They learned that he had gone out in a boat with two sailors. His mother, beside herself with anxiety, went down to Yport without a hat in the dark. Some men were on the beach, waiting for the boat to come in. There was a light on board an incoming boat, but Paul was not on board. He had made them take him to Havre.
The police sought him in vain; he could not be found. The woman with whom he had been found the first time had also disappeared without leaving any trace; her furniture was sold and her rent paid. In Paul’s room at “The Poplars” were found two letters from this person, who seemed to be madly in love with him. She spoke of a voyage to England, having, she said, obtained the necessary funds.
The three dwellers in the château lived silently and drearily, their minds tortured by all kinds of suppositions. Jeanne’s hair, which had become gray, now turned perfectly white. She asked in her innocence why fate had thus afflicted her.
She received a letter from the Abbé Tolbiac: “Madame, the hand of God is weighing heavily on you. You refused Him your child; He took him from you in His turn to cast him into the hands of a prostitute. Will not you open your eyes at this lesson from Heaven? God’s mercy is infinite. Perhaps He may pardon you if you return and fall on your knees before Him. I am His humble servant. I will open to you the door of His dwelling when you come and knock at it.”
She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abbé, begged for absolution.
He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. “You will soon feel the effects of the divine mercy,” he declared.
Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement of the consolation promised her by the abbé. The letter ran:
“My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave me — five thousand francs — and you see that I am bound in honor to return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa’s fortune, for I shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious difficulties.
“Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also grandfather