The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

by Anatole France

  August 30, 1850

  The heavy heat compelled me to walk slowly. I kept close to the walls ofthe north quays; and, in the lukewarm shade, the shops of the dealersin old books, engravings, and antiquated furniture drew my eyes andappealed to my fancy. Rummaging and idling among these, I hastilyenjoyed some verses spiritedly thrown off by a poet of the Pleiad. Iexamined an elegant Masquerade by Watteau. I felt, with my eye, theweight of a two-handed sword, a steel gorgerin, a morion. What a thickhelmet! What a ponderous breastplate--Seigneur! A giant's garb? No--thecarapace of an insect. The men of those days were cuirassed likebeetles; their weakness was within them. To-day, on the contrary, ourstrength is interior, and our armed souls dwell in feeble bodies.

  ...Here is a pastel-portrait of a lady of the old time--the face, vaguelike a shadow, smiles; and a hand, gloved with an openwork mitten,retains upon her satiny knees a lap-dog, with a ribbon about its neck.That picture fills me with a sort of charming melancholy. Let those whohave no half-effaced pastels in their own hearts laugh at me! Like thehorse that scents the stable, I hasten my pace as I near my lodgings.There it is--that great human hive, in which I have a cell, for thepurpose of therein distilling the somewhat acrid honey of erudition. Iclimb the stairs with slow effort. Only a few steps more, and I shall beat my own door. But I divine, rather than see, a robe descending with asound of rustling silk. I stop, and press myself against the balustradeto make room. The lady who is coming down is bareheaded; she is young;she sings; her eyes and teeth gleam in the shadow, for she laughs withlips and eyes at the same time. She is certainly a neighbor, and a veryfamiliar one. She holds in her arms a pretty child, a little boy--quitenaked, like the son of a goddess; he has a medal hung round his neckby a little silver chain. I see him sucking his thumb and looking atme with those big eyes so newly opened on this old universe. The mothersimultaneously looks at me in a sly, mysterious way; she stops--I thinkblushes a little--and holds out the little creature to me. The baby hasa pretty wrinkle between wrist and arm, a pretty wrinkle about his neck,and all over him, from head to foot, the daintiest dimples laugh in hisrosy flesh.

  The mamma shows him to me with pride.

  "Monsieur," she says, "don't you think he is very pretty--my littleboy?"

  She takes one tiny hand, lifts it to the child's own lips, and, drawingout the darling pink fingers again towards me, says,

  "Baby, throw the gentleman a kiss."

  Then, folding the little being in her arms, she flees away with theagility of a cat, and is lost to sight in a corridor which, judging bythe odour, must lead to some kitchen.

  I enter my own quarters.

  "Therese, who can that young mother be whom I saw bareheaded on thestairs just now, with a pretty little boy?"

  And Therese replies that it was Madame Coccoz.

  I stare up at the ceiling, as if trying to obtain some furtherillumination. Therese then recalls to me the little book-peddler whotried to sell me almanacs last year, while his wife was lying in.

  "And Coccoz himself?" I asked.

  I was answered that I would never see him again. The poor little man hadbeen laid away underground, without my knowledge, and, indeed, with theknowledge of very few people, on a short time after the happy deliveryof Madame Coccoz. I leaned that his wife had been able to consoleherself: I did likewise.

  "But, Therese," I asked, "has Madame Coccoz got everything she needs inthat attic of hers?"

  "You would be a great dupe, Monsieur," replied my housekeeper, "if youshould bother yourself about that creature. They gave her notice to quitthe attic when the roof was repaired. But she stays there yet--in spiteof the proprietor, the agent, the concierge, and the bailiffs. I thinkshe has bewitched every one of them. She will leave the attic when shepleases, Monsieur; but she is going to leave in her own carriage. Let metell you that!"

  Therese reflected for a moment; and then uttered these words:

  "A pretty face is a curse from Heaven."

  "Then I ought to thank Heaven for having spared me that curse. But here!put my hat and cane away. I am going to amuse myself with a few pagesof Moreri. If I can trust my old fox-nose, we are going to have a nicelyflavoured pullet for dinner. Look after that estimable fowl, my girl,and spare your neighbors, so that you and your old master may be sparedby them in turn."

  Having thus spoken, I proceeded to follow out the tufted ramificationsof a princely genealogy.