“ ‘Not so loud . . . Lower your voice . . . Someone may hear . . .’
“He got rid of me as quickly as possible, pushing me toward the door with vague words.
“ ‘Leave me your address . . . I will see what I can do for you . . . Yes . . . I will see . . . I am ill . . . I will write to you . . .’
“I went home trying to collect my ideas.
“I waited a whole week; he made no sign. I dared not go back to him, fearing I might upset him again. I told myself he could never let me die of hunger. I took to walking near his house. As far as I could without letting them guess my secret, I got the neighbors to talk.
“ ‘Oh!’ said one of them, ‘if you are hoping to move him in any way, you’d better give it up at once . . . He has no more heart than a paving-stone. In any case, his money won’t be of any use to him much longer. He is so ill he can hardly drag himself about . . .’
“I risked asking whether he had any relatives or friends.
“ ‘Friends!’ The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘As to relatives, he may have a great-nephew in some corner in France, but he won’t get anything. Everything he has will go to the woman who has been his housekeeper for fifteen years. She boasts about it. She declares he has often told her that not a halfpenny of his money is to go to his family, that he was not such a fool as to let his death make them rich, that she shall have everything. You will guess whether she counts the coppers.’
“Suddenly I began to hate my father. Was he not the cause of all my misfortunes?
“I went away and wandered about the streets, paying no attention to where I was going. A sense of injury blotted out every other feeling. I must have been walking a very long while when, almost fainting with hunger, I went into a low eating-house, near the fortifications I think it was . . . When I had paid the bill I had not one farthing left, and there were still six days before the end of the month. What was to become of me? As I wondered, my fingers touched the knife I had used to cut my bread. It was a long knife, thin, pointed—I don’t know why I took it, but I did.
“I am not trying to excuse myself or lessen my crime, but the feeling of having that knife in my pocket, close against my side, turned my brain . . . I grasped the handle . . . I tried the blade with my fingers . . . And without knowing how or why it happened, I found myself standing in front of my father’s house.
“I didn’t argue with myself about it; there was no fighting against any horrible ideas. I wasn’t thinking at all. Deliberately, without any kind of hesitation, I rang the courtyard bell . . . The door opened. I muttered the first name that came into my head . . . and I went up the stairs.
“When I got to the door of my father’s flat, I stopped, vaguely aware of the madness of what I was doing. If I rang, no one would open the door at that hour of night . . . If I made any noise, the neighbors would come out to see what was the matter . . . I should be flung downstairs.
“I felt in my pocket for the key of my own door and slipped it quietly in the keyhole. It went in without a sound . . . I turned it as easily as a burglar would . . . Something gave way . . . The door opened. Stupefied by the coincidence of the key of my door exactly fitting his, I stood perfectly still in the dark for some seconds, asking myelf for the first time what I was doing there.
“At the same moment I saw a line of light on the carpet. Very quietly I opened a second door.
“A man—my father—was sitting with his back to me. He did not raise his head.
“A lamp with a lowered green shade lit the table over which he was bending. All the rest of the room was in deep shadow. He was writing. I could only see his bald head and thin shoulders. Holding my breath, I stole behind him and drew myself up on tiptoe. A large sheet of paper lay on his blotter. I read:
‘THIS IS MY WILL.’
Underneath there were three lines of smaller writing. The words the neighbors had spoken flashed into my mind, and I seemed to see the greedy old servant who had taken the place that ought to have been my mother’s.
“A frenzy ran through me. So I, his son, I who was going to die of hunger, I was beside him, starving at the very moment when with a few strokes of his pen he was going to do this abominable thing, make it irrevocable. Not a farthing would come to me, his own flesh and blood, who would die for need of it . . . All was for the old harridan who was counting the minutes till he died . . . It was impossible. He should not do it . . . I bent forward and read:
“ ‘I leave all I possess, money, houses . . .’
“I ground my teeth. He started violently, turned his head, and seeing my face, which at that moment must have been terrifying, cried out, with an instinctive movement covering the paper with his arm as if to prevent my seeing it.
“. . . The knife was in my hand . . . I drove it forward, and with a force that seemed to make my own bones creak, sent the blade through his neck above his collar . . .
“Then I realized what I had done . . . I rushed away . . . You know the rest . . .”
He took off his eyeglasses and dried his eyes. Drops of sweat were running down his face; he was trembling violently.
The judge, who had been watching him closely, unfolded a large sheet of paper stained with a brown mark, and said:
“And you read nothing else on this page?”
He shook his head.
“Well, listen. I will read the rest to you:
“ ‘THIS IS MY WILL.
“ ‘I leave all I possess, money, houses, and furniture to Jean Gautet, my son, asking him to forgive me for having been the bad father I—’
“You didn’t leave him time to finish.”
The murderer drew himself up with a jerk, his eyes wild, his mouth gaping as he stammered:
“To my son? . . . Me? . . . I? . . .”
There was a pause; then he burst into a shriek of wild laughter, beating his head, and swaying about as he yelled:
“I am rich! I am rich!”
He had gone mad.
In the Wheat
WITH LONG strokes, slow and rhythmic, Jean Madek thrust his scythe into the wheat, and at the touch of the blade the sheaths that quivered at the end of the stalks fell down softly with a long froufrou like silk.
He advanced, measuring his steps by the supple balance of his arm, and behind him the ground showed itself brown, spotted here and there by groups of stones, bristling with thick-set sprigs of reddish straw.
His old mother followed close behind him, her back bent as she gathered up the scattered stalks, and seeing only her feet dragging their heavy sabots, her two wrinkled, knotted hands and her body covered with rags, one might have imagined she was some animal crouching on its four feet.
The sun mounted in the horizon. A heavy heat weighed on everything, wrapping the country in torpor, and the field looked like a large piece of ripe fruit, its sap rising in a penetrating perfume.
Gleaning steadily, the old woman grumbled:
“What’s your wife doing as late as this? When’s she coming?”
“She’ll bring dinner at twelve o’clock.”
The old woman shrugged her shoulders:
“At least she’s not overtiring herself ! . . .”
“She’s like everyone else. Whether she’s here or at the farm, she’s at work.”
“Oh! Work of that sort! . . .”
Then, as if talking to herself as she continued to scrape the ground:
“Our master isn’t here either this morning. Perhaps he stayed behind to give her a hand? . . .”
The man held back his scythe:
“What do you mean by that?”
“Me? . . . Nothing . . . Words . . . Something to say . . .”
Jean went on with his work. The old woman began again as if speaking to herself:
“My dead husband wouldn’t have had it . . . When he went to the fields, I didn’t stay behind to keep the master company.”
A second time the reaper raised his head.
“Why are you telling me that?”
“I was thinking, inside me, that your father was more suspicious than you are . . .”
The son straightened himself with a jerk.
“What is it? What do you mean? You must have some reason for talking like this . . .”
“If you must have it, then,” blurted the old woman from her stooping position, “people are gossiping about you and about Céline . . . Nasty gossip, too!”
“Who gossips?”
“No one . . . and everyone . . . What’s more, you can’t blame them: they can’t help seeing what’s under their noses.”
“Lies!”
Without seeming to hear him, the old woman pushed aside a clod of earth with her foot and continued:
“I’m telling you for your good. I’m your mother, and I oughtn’t to hide anything from you . . . You can be angry if you like. But you’ve had your warning.”
“I tell you it’s all lies. Céline is a good housewife, never tired of work; she has everything she wants . . . Why should she be unfaithful? Why? . . .”
The old woman made a vague gesture: “Who can tell?”
Changing her tone, she went on:
“Besides, I’m not saying she is . . . I’m only speaking for the good of both of you. She is young, she likes to amuse herself, to dress smartly, to go to market on Saturdays. Temptation often takes people quickly. At the beginning they see no harm in it. They let someone give them a ribbon, a fichu, a comb for the hair, a watch-chain . . . And to be able to wear them, they say they were bargains, got for next to nothing . . . that they picked them up on the road. Perhaps it’s true . . .”
Every one of the slow words struck into the husband’s brain. He thought of his wife’s return one evening after she had accompanied the master to the town. He pictured her as he saw her the following Sunday with her lace fichu and moiré ribbons. Above all, he saw the gold chain she said she had picked up on the road . . .
The monotonous voice of the old woman continued:
“It’s not her that I’m meaning, of course! But a husband isn’t always there: he’s in the fields: he goes off to do his month’s military service . . .”
The man was no longer listening. His two hands crossed on his scythe, his eyes vague, he was absorbed in the recollections that crowded into his mind. All kinds of little incidents gave weight to the insinuations of the old woman: the master, a known libertine, very hard on all his workers, but always particularly amiable to him: the wife coquettish. And suddenly he remembered that in a week he would have to leave for a long month with his regiment.
At the bottom of the field, under the big trees, a call rang out, and raising himself, Jean Madek saw the head and shoulders of his wife emerging from the gold of the plain, and a few steps behind her, swinging his short, thick stick among the corn, the master with his red face and big, shady-brimmed hat.
And a laughing voice cried:
“Here’s the pittance!”
One by one the workers rose out of the corn, sat down under a tree and began to eat their dinner.
Jean sat silent, slowly cutting his black bread into pieces.
“Why are you so quiet, Madek?” said the farmer.
“Are you ill?” added the wife.
“No, but the sun strikes hard. It must have been better in the house?”
The master broke into a laugh:
“You’re about right there!”
The meal finished, everyone lay down for a nap. They would start work again when the sun had lost a little of its ardor. Madek did not sleep. Lying on his stomach, his chin in his hands, he was lost in thought . . .
As two o’clock struck, the men got up, went back to the field, and once more over the gold of the corn, unruffled by any breeze, there sang the rhythmic sound of the scythes.
When they were all at work the master stretched himself slowly, and in a sleepy voice shouted to the wife of Madek:
“Come and give an eye here, Céline; have you by any chance a needle with you?”
“Yes, master.”
“Then come and put a stitch in my blouse. The cows are in the meadow. There’s plenty of time before you need fetch them. The sun has turned. It’s too hot here just now. I’m going over there under the apple tree. Come to me when you’ve finished your sheaf. Come by the path so as not to beat down the corn.”
They smiled stealthily at each other. But Madek, who was watching, had seen. He made a movement as if to speak, then he lowered his head and went on with the reaping.
The old woman had gone. It was now his wife who was following him. When she had tied up her sheaf he said, without turning:
“Didn’t you hear what the master said to you?”
“Yes, I did . . .”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“I’m just going . . .”
She fastened up her hair, which had come undone while she stooped; and, her two hands flat on her hips, her waist swaying under her bright petticoat, she strolled along the path, a cornflower between her teeth.
He watched her being swallowed up in the verdure as one is swallowed up in the sea, and when she had quite disappeared in the shadow of the apple tree that stood out on the horizon, he set to work again.
His movements had lost their quiet ease of the morning. He went forward in jerks, stopping sharply, then on again, his head lowered, his jaw clenched, an ugly frown on his forehead.
All the old woman had said was fermenting in him like new wine, fizzing in his temples, filling him with a sort of drunken rage. At first there had been doubt; then had followed certainty, which had taken deeper root because of the incidents that had just happened.
He was advancing, and before him he seemed to see his wife and the master laughing and kissing each other in the shadow of the apple tree.
He was advancing, throwing the weight of his whole body into his arms. Behind him the sheaves fell, and the field that his scythe devoured seemed to grow larger. Never in the earliest vigor of his manhood had he been able to work like that.
From a distance, a fellow-worker called: “Are you going to cut it all today?”
Without looking up, he replied:
“Perhaps.”
When he was only a few yards from the apple tree he stopped, listening intently; murmurs reached him. A voice, the voice of his wife, said:
“No . . . He might be able to see us . . .”
And another rougher one replied:
“Keep still! He’s at the other end of the field. It’ll be half an hour before he gets here . . . Come closer! . . .”
For some seconds he stood as if transfixed, livid under his sunburn; then, with a sharp gesture of decision, he went on reaping. But he had slowed down. The sweep of the scythe was almost noiseless. The wheat fell to the earth without a sound. When he was almost under the tree he heard the sound of kisses. Pulling himself up to his fullest height, with a furious movement he lifted the scythe. The blade leapt up, gleaming white in the sun, came down and plunged . . . Two horrible shrieks rang out, and two frightful things, two heads, bounded up and fell again, bespattering the stalks that broke with a grating sound . . .
The scythe flew up out of the corn-waves, all red . . .
Madek threw it away, and waving his bloody hands in the air, roared:
“Help! . . . An accident . . . They were there! . . .”
The Beggar
IT WAS growing dark, and the beggar stopped at a ditch by the side of the road and looked for a corner where he could spend the night. He rolled himself up in a sack that was his nearest approach to an overcoat, placed the little packet he carried on the end of his stick under his head for a pillow, and exhausted by fatigue and hunger, sank down and watched the stars prick through the dark sky.
The road, which was bordered by woods, was deserted. The birds were asleep in the trees. Away in the distance the village made a big black patch, and a lump came into the old man’s throat as he lay there in the calm and silence.
He had never kno
wn his parents. Picked up out of charity, he had been brought up on a farm, but at an early age he had taken to the road looking for work that would provide him with food. Life had been very hard on him. He had never known anything of it but miseries: long winter nights spent under the shadow of mills; the shame of begging, the desire to die, to go to sleep and never wake again. All the men he had come in contact with had been suspicious and unkind. His great trouble was that everyone seemed to fear him; children ran away when they saw him; the dogs barked at his dusty rags.
But in spite of it all he bore no one any ill-will; he had a simple, kindly nature dulled by misfortune.
He was falling asleep when horse-bells sounded in the distance. He raised his head and saw a bright light moving above the ground. He watched it without interest. He could distinguish a heavy wagon and a big horse. The load was so high and so broad it seemed to fill the road. A man walked near the horse humming a song.
Soon the song ceased. The road was uphill. The hoofs of the horse struck and grated violently on the stones. With voice and whip the man urged the animal on:
“Gee up! . . . Up.”
It was pulling with all its strength, its neck stretched out. Twice or thrice it stopped, almost fell on its knees, got up again and made an effort that strained its hide from shoulder to hind-quarters.
But it was winded, and the wagon stopped. The wagoner, his shoulder against the wheel, his hands on the spokes, cried still louder: “Up! Gee up . . . up there! . . .”
In vain the horse strained all its muscles: the cart did not move.
“Up there! Up . . .”
Its feet apart, its nostrils throbbing, the animal stood still, trembling with the strain of keeping the front of its hoofs in the soil so that it should not be dragged back by the enormous load. As he bent over the wheel the wagoner caught sight of the beggar sitting on the edge of the ditch, and hailed him:
“A hand, comrade! The brute won’t go any further. Come and help to give a push.”
The beggar got up and pushing with all his feeble strength cried with the other:
“Up, up! . . .”
It was useless.
Thirty Hours with a Corpse Page 8