“Her name was Gudule,” said Mademoiselle Zoé.
“Her name was Gudule; and she was thought to be protected against the perils of love by a long and forked beard. A beard, which suddenly appeared on the chin of that saintly royal maiden venerated at Prague, protected her virginity. A beard, which was no longer young, sufficed not to protect the virtue of Gudule. Madame Cornouiller urged Gudule to utter the name of the man who had betrayed her and then abandoned her to distress. Gudule burst into tears, but refused to speak. Threats and entreaties were alike useless. Madame Cornouiller made a long and minute inquiry. She diplomatically questioned her neighbours — both men and women — the tradesmen, the gardener, the road surveyor, the gendarmes; nothing put her on the track of the culprit. Again she endeavoured to extract a full confession from Gudule. ‘In your own interest, Gudule, tell me who it is.’ Gudule remained silent. Suddenly Madame Cornouiller had a flash of enlightenment: ‘It is Putois!’ The cook wept and said nothing. ‘It is Putois! Why did I not guess it before? It is Putois! You unhappy girl! Oh you poor, unhappy girl!’
“Henceforth Madame Cornouiller was persuaded that Putois was the father of her cook’s child. Every one at Saint-Omer, from the President of the Tribunal to the lamplighter’s mongrel dog, knew Gudule and her basket. The news that Putois had seduced Gudule filled the town with laughter, astonishment and admiration. Putois was hailed as an irresistible lady-killer and the lover of the eleven thousand virgins. On these slight grounds there was ascribed to him the paternity of five or six other children born that year, who, considering the happiness that awaited them and the joy they brought to their mothers, would have done just as well not to put in an appearance. Among others were included the servant of Monsieur Maréchal, who kept the general shop with the sign of ‘Le Rendezvous des Pêcheurs,’ a baker’s errand girl, and the little cripple of the Pont-Biquet, who had all fallen victims to Putois’ charms. ‘The monster!’ cried the gossips.
“Thus Putois, invisible satyr, threatened with woes irretrievable all the maidens of a town, wherein, according to the oldest inhabitants, virgins had from time immemorial lived free from danger.
“Though celebrated thus throughout the city and its neighbourhood, he continued in a subtle manner to be associated especially with our home. He passed by our door, and it was believed that from time to time he climbed over our garden wall. He was never seen face to face. But we were constantly recognizing his shadow, his voice, his footprints. More than once, in the twilight, we thought we saw his back at the bend of the road. My sister and I were changing our opinions of him. He remained wicked and malevolent, but he was becoming childlike and simple. He was growing less real, and, if I may say so, more poetical. He was about to be included in the naïve cycle of children’s fairy tales. He was turning into Croquemitaine, into Père Fouettard, into the dustman who shuts little children’s eyes at night. He was not that sprite who by night entangles the colt’s tail in the stable. Not so rustic or so charming, yet he was just as frankly mischievous; he used to draw ink moustaches on my sister’s dolls. In our beds we used to hear him before we went to sleep: he was caterwauling on the roofs with the cats, he was barking with the dogs; he was groaning in the mill-hopper; he was mimicking the songs of belated drunkards in the street.
“What rendered Putois present and familiar to us, what interested us in him was that his memory was associated with all the objects that surrounded us. Zoé’s dolls, my exercise-books, the pages of which he had so often blotted and crumpled, the garden wall over which we had seen his red eyes gleam in the shadow, the blue flower-pot one winter’s night cracked by him if it were not by the frost; trees, streets, benches, everything reminded us of Putois, our Putois, the children’s Putois, a being local and mythical. In grace and in poetry he fell far short of the most awkward wild man of the woods, of the uncouthest Sicilian or Thessalian faun. But he was a demi-god all the same.
“To our father Putois’ character appeared very differently, it was symbolical and had a philosophical signification. Our father had a vast pity for humanity. He did not think men very reasonable. Their errors, when they were not cruel, entertained and amused him. The belief in Putois interested him as a compendium and abridgment of all the beliefs of humanity. Our father was ironical and sarcastic; he spoke of Putois as if he were an actual being. He was sometimes so persistent, and described each detail with such precision, that our mother was quite astonished. ‘Anyone would say that you are serious, my love, she would say frankly, and yet you know perfectly . . . .’ He replied gravely ‘The whole of Saint-Omer believes in the existence of Putois. Could I be a good citizen and deny it? One must think well before suppressing an article of universal belief.’
“Only very clear-headed persons are troubled by such scruples. At heart my father was a follower of Gassendi. He compromised between his individual views and those of the public: with the Saint-Omerites he believed in the existence of Putois, but he did not admit his direct intervention in the theft of the melons and the seduction of the cook. In short, like a good citizen he professed his faith in the existence of Putois, and he dispensed with Putois when explaining the events which happened in the town. Wherefore, in this case as in all others, he proved himself a good man and a thoughtful.
“As for our mother, she felt herself in a way responsible for the birth of Putois, and she was right. For in reality Putois was born of our mother’s taradiddle, as Caliban was born of a poet’s invention. The two crimes, of course, differed greatly in magnitude, and my mother’s guilt was not so great as Shakespeare’s. Nevertheless, she was alarmed and dismayed at seeing so tiny a falsehood grow indefinitely, and so trifling a deception meet with a success so prodigious that it stopped nowhere, spread throughout the whole town, and threatened to spread throughout the whole world. One day she grew pale, believing that she was about to see her fib rise in person before her. On that day, her servant, who was new to the house and neighhourhood, came and told her that a man was asking for her. He wanted he said, to speak to Madame. ‘What kind of a man is he?’ ‘A man in a blouse. He looked like a country labourer.’ ‘Did he give his name?’ ‘Yes, Madame.’ ‘Well, what is it?’ ‘Putois.’ ‘Did he tell you that that was his name?’ ‘Putois, yes Madame.’ ‘And he is here?’ ‘Yes, Madame. He is waiting in the kitchen.’ ‘You have seen him?’ ‘Yes, Madame.’ ‘What does he want?’ ‘He did not say. He will only tell Madame.’ ‘Go and ask him.’
“When the servant returned to the kitchen, Putois was no longer there. This meeting between Putois and the new servant was never explained. But I think that from that day my mother began to believe that Putois might possibly exist, and that perhaps she had not invented.”
RIQUET
QUARTER DAY had come. With his sister and daughter, Monsieur Bergeret was leaving the dilapidated old house in the Rue de Seine to take up his abode in a modern flat in the Rue de Vaugirard. Such was the decision of Zoé and the Fates.
During the long hours of the morning, Riquet wandered sadly through the devastated rooms. His most cherished habits were upset. Strange men, badly dressed, rude and foul-mouthed, disturbed his repose. They penetrated even to the kitchen where they stepped into his dish of biscuit and his bowl of fresh water. The chairs were carried off as fast as he curled himself up on them; the carpets were pulled roughly from under his weary limbs. There was no abiding-place for him, not even in his own home.
To his credit, be it said, that at first he attempted resistance. When the cistern was carried off he barked furiously at the enemy. But no one responded to his appeal; no one encouraged him, there was no doubt about it his efforts were regarded with disapproval. Mademoiselle Zoé said to him sharply: “Be quiet!” And Mademoiselle Pauline added: “Riquet, you are silly!”
Henceforth he would abstain from useless warnings. He would cease to strive alone for the public weal. In silence he deplored the devastation of the household. From room to room he sought in vain for a little quiet. When the furnitur
e removers penetrated into a room where he had taken refuge, he prudently hid beneath an as yet unmolested table or chest of drawers. But this precaution proved worse than useless; for soon the piece of furniture tottered over him, rose, then fell with a crash threatening to crush him. Terrified, with his hair all turned up the wrong way, he fled to another refuge no safer than the first.
But these inconveniences and even dangers were as nothing to the agony he was suffering at heart. His sentiments were the most deeply affected.
The household furniture he regarded not as things inert, but as living benevolent creatures, beneficent spirits, whose departure foreshadowed cruel misfortunes. Dishes, sugar-basins, pots and pans, all the kitchen divinities; arm-chairs, carpets, cushions, all the fetishes of the hearth, its lares and its domestic gods had vanished. He could not believe that so great a disaster would ever be repaired. And sorrow filled his little heart to overflowing. Fortunately Riquet’s heart resembled human hearts in being easily distracted and quick to forget its misfortunes.
During the long absence of the thirsty workmen, when old Angélique’s broom raised ancient dust from the floor, Riquet breathed an odour of mice and watched the flight of a spider; thus was his versatile mind diverted. But he soon relapsed into sadness.
On the day of departure, when he beheld things growing hourly worse and worse, he grew desperate. It seemed to him above all things disastrous when he saw the linen being piled in dark cases. Pauline with eager haste was putting her frocks into a trunk. He turned away from her, as if she were doing something wrong. He shrank up against the wall and thought to himself: “Now the worst has come; this is the end of everything.” Then, whether it were that he believed things ceased to exist when he did not see them, or whether he was simply avoiding a painful sight, he took care not to look in Pauline’s direction. It chanced that as she was passing to and fro she noticed Riquet’s attitude. It was sad: but to her it seemed funny, and she began to laugh. Then, still laughing, she called out: “Come here! Riquet, come to me!” But he did not stir from his corner, and would not even turn his head. He was not then in the mood to caress his young mistress, and, through some secret instinct, through a kind of presentiment, he was afraid of approaching the gaping trunk. Pauline called him several times. Then, as he did not respond, she went and took him up in her arms. “How unhappy we are!” she said to him; “what is wrong then?” Her tone was ironical. Riquet did not understand irony. He lay in Pauline’s arms, sad and inert, affecting to see nothing and to hear nothing. “Riquet, look at me!” She said it three times and three times in vain. Then, pretending to be in a rage: “Silly creature,” she cried, “in with you”; and she threw him into the trunk and shut the lid on him. At that moment her aunt having called her, she went out of the room, leaving Riquet in the trunk.
He was seized with wild alarm; for he was very far from supposing that he had been playfully thrown into the trunk for a mere joke. Esteeming his situation about as bad as it could be, he was desirous not to make it worse by any imprudence. So he remained motionless for a few moments, holding his breath. Then he deemed it expedient to explore his dark prison. With his paws he felt the skirts and the linen on to which he had been so cruelly precipitated, endeavouring to find some way out of this terrible place. He had been thus engaged for two or three minutes, when he was called by Monsieur Bergeret, who had been getting ready to go out.
“Riquet! Riquet! Come for a walk on the quays, that is the land of glory. True they have disfigured it by erecting a railway station of hideous proportions and striking ugliness. Architecture is a lost art. They have pulled down a nice looking house at the corner of the Rue du Bac. They will doubtless put some unsightly building in its place. I trust that at least our architects may abstain from introducing on to the Quai d’Orsay that barbarous style of which they have given such a horrid example at the corner of the Rue Washington and the Champs Élysées! … Riquet! Riquet! Come for a walk on the quays. That is a glorious land. But architecture has deteriorated sadly since the days of Gabriel and of Louis. … Where is the dog? … Riquet! Riquet!”
The sound of Monsieur Bergeret’s voice was a great consolation to Riquet. He replied by making a noise with his paws, scratching frantically against the wicker sides of the trunk.
“Where is the dog?” her father asked Pauline as she was returning with a pile of linen in her arms.
“He is in the trunk, Papa.”
“What, in the trunk! Why is he there?” asked Monsieur Bergeret.
“Because he was silly,” replied Pauline.
Monsieur Bergeret liberated his friend. Riquet followed him into the hall, wagging his tail. Then a sudden thought occurred to him. He went back into the room, ran up to Pauline and rubbed against her skirt. And not until he had wildly caressed her as evidence of his loyalty did he rejoin his master on the staircase. He would have felt himself deficient in wisdom and religious feeling had he failed to display these signs of affection to one who had been so powerful as to plunge him into a deep trunk.
In the street, Monsieur Bergeret and his dog beheld the sad sight of their household furniture scattered over the pavement. The removers had gone off to the public-house round the corner, leaving the plate-glass mirror of Mademoiselle Zoé’s wardrobe to reflect the passing procession of girls, workmen, shopkeepers, and Beaux Arts students, of drays, carts and cabs, and the chemist’s shop with its bottles and its serpents of Æsculapius. Leaning against a post was Monsieur Bergeret senior, smiling in his frame, mild, pale and delicate looking, with his hair ruffled. With affectionate respect the son contemplated his parent whom he moved away from the post. He likewise lifted out of harm’s way Zoé’s little table, which looked ashamed at finding itself in the street.
Meanwhile Riquet was patting his master’s legs with his paws, looking up at him with sorrowing beautiful eyes, which seemed to say:
“Thou, who wert once so rich and so powerful, canst thou have become poor? Canst thou have lost thy power, O my Master? Thou permittest men clothed in vile rags to invade thy sitting-room, thy bedroom, thy dining-room, to throw themselves upon thy furniture and pull it out of doors, to drag down the staircase thy deep arm-chair, thy chair and mine, for in it we repose side by side in the evening and sometimes in the morning too. I heard it groan in the arms of those tatterdemalions; that chair which is a fetish and a benignant spirit. Thou didst offer no resistance to the invaders. But if thou dost no longer possess any of those genii who once filled thy dwelling, if thou hast lost all, even those little divinities, which thou didst put on in the morning when getting out of bed, those slippers which I used to bite in my play, if thou art indigent and poor, O my Master, then what will become of me?”
THE MEDITATIONS OF RIQUET
I
MEN, beasts and stones grow great as they come near and loom enormous when their are upon me. It is not so with me. I remain equally great wheresoever I am.
II
When my master places for me beneath the table the food which he was about to put into his own mouth, it is in order that he may tempt me and that he may punish me if I yield to temptation. For I cannot believe that he would deny himself for my sake.
III
The smell of dogs is sweet in the nostrils.
IV
My master keeps me warm when I lie behind him in his chair. It is because he is a god. In front of the fire-place is a hot stone. That stone is divine.
V
I speak when I please. From my master’s mouth proceed likewise sounds which make sense. But his meaning is not so dear as that expressed by the sounds of my voice. Every sound that I utter has a meaning. From my master’s lips come forth many idle noises. It is difficult but necessary to divine the thoughts of the master.
VI
To eat is good. To have eaten is better. For the enemy who lieth in wait to take your food is quick and crafty.
VII
All is flux and reflux. I alone remain.
VIII
I am in the centre of all things; men, beasts and things, friendly and adverse, are ranged about me.
IX
In sleep one beholdeth men, dogs, horses, trees, forms pleasant and unpleasant. When one awaketh these forms have vanished.
X
Reflection. I love my master, Bergeret, because he is powerful and terrible.
XI
An action for which one has been beaten is a bad action. An action for which one has received caresses or food is a good action.
XII
At nightfall evil powers prowl round the house. I bark in order that my master may be warned and drive them away.
XIII
Prayer. O my master, Bergeret, god of courage, I adore thee. When thou art terrible, be thou praised. When thou art kind be thou praised. I crouch at thy feet: I lick thy hands. When, seated before thy table spread, thou devourest meats in abundance, thou art very great and very beautiful. Very great art thou and very beautiful when, striking fire out of a thin splint of wood, thou changest night into day. Keep me in thine house and keep out every other dog. And thou, Angélique, the cook, divinity good and great, I fear thee and I venerate thee in order that thou mayest give me much to eat.
XIV
A dog who lacketh piety towards men and who scorneth the fetishes assembled in his master’s house liveth a miserable and a wandering life.
XV
One day, from a broken pitcher, filled with water which was being carried across the parlour, water ran on to the polished floor. A thrashing must have been the punishment of that dirty pitcher.
XVI
Men possess the divine power of opening all doors. I by myself am only able to open a few. Doors are great fetishes which do not readily obey dogs.
XVII
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 359