Great French Short Stories

by Paul Negri

  She replied:

  “He is my father!”

  At that he trembled, remembering the prophecy of the Gypsy, and the old woman thought of the hermit’s words. Her son’s glory doubtless was only the dawn of eternal splendor. Both of them sat open-mouthed, under the light of the candelabrum on the table.

  They must have been very handsome in their youth. The mother still had all her hair and its fine plaits, like drifts of snow, hung to the bottom of her cheeks. The father, with his tall figure and long beard, resembled a church statue.

  Julian’s wife urged them not to wait for him. She herself put them into her own bed, and then closed the casement window. They fell asleep. The day was about to dawn and on the other side of the stained-glass window, small birds were beginning to sing.

  Julian had crossed the park and he walked with a nervous stride in the forest enjoying the softness of the grass and the mildness of the air.

  Shadows from the trees spread over the moss. At times the moon made white spots in the glades, and he hesitated to continue, thinking he saw a pool of water, or the surface of the still ponds merged with the color of the grass. A deep silence was everywhere. He found not one of the beasts which a few minutes earlier were wandering around his castle.

  The wood thickened and the darkness grew more dark. Puffs of warm wind passed by, full of enervating smells. He sank into piles of dead leaves, and he leaned against an oak in order to catch his breath.

  Suddenly, behind his back, a blacker mass leapt out. It was a wild boar. Julian had only time enough to seize his bow, and he was grieved at this as if by a misfortune.

  Then, after leaving the woods, he saw a wolf trotting along a hedge.

  Julian shot an arrow at it. The wolf stopped, turned its head to look at him, and went on again. As it trotted on, it always kept the same distance, stopped from time to time, and as soon as it was aimed at, began again to run.

  In this manner, Julian covered an endless plain, then some small sand-hills, and finally came out on a plateau which looked over a large expanse of country. Flat stones were scattered about between ruined burial vaults. You stumbled over bones of dead men. In some places worm-eaten crosses leaned over in a mournful way. But forms stirred in the indistinct shadows of the tombs. Hyenas, terrified and panting, rose out of them. With their nails clattering on the paving-stones, they came up to him and sniffed at him, showing their gums as they yawned. He unsheathed his sword. They went off at once in every direction, and continuing their limping precipitous gallop, they disappeared in a distant cloud of dust.

  One hour later, in a ravine he came upon a mad bull, its horns lowered and pawing the sand with its foot. Julian thrust his lance under its dew-lap. The weapon was shattered as if the animal had been of bronze. He closed his eyes, expecting his death. When he opened them again, the bull had disappeared.

  Then his soul sank with shame. A superior power was destroying his strength. In order to return home, he went back into the forest.

  It was tangled with creepers. He was cutting them with his sword when a marten slipped abruptly between his legs. A panther made a bound over his shoulder and a serpent coiled its way up an ash tree.

  A monstrous jackdaw in the foliage was looking at Julian. Here and there, between the branches appeared quantities of large sparks, as if the firmament had showered all of its stars into the forest. They were eyes of animals, wildcats, squirrels, owls, parrots and monkeys.

  Julian shot his arrows at them, and the arrows with their feathers alighted on the leaves like white butterflies. He threw stones at them, and the stones, without touching anything, fell to the ground. He cursed himself, wanted to fight, shouted imprecations, and choked with rage.

  And all the animals he had hunted appeared again forming around him a narrow circle. Some sat on their haunches and others were fully erect. He stayed in the middle, frozen with horror, incapable of the slightest movement. Through a supreme effort of his will, he took one step. The ones perched on trees opened their wings, those treading on the ground stretched their limbs, and all went with him.

  The hyenas walked in front of him, the wolf and the boar behind. The bull, on his right, swayed its head, and on his left, the serpent wound through the grass, while the panther, arching its back, advanced with long velvet-footed strides. He went as slowly as possible in order not to irritate them. He saw coming out from the dark of the bushes porcupines, foxes, vipers, jackals and bears.

  Julian began to run, and they ran. The serpent hissed, the stinking beasts slavered. The boar rubbed Julian’s heels with his tusks, the wolf the inside of his hands with the hairs of its snout. The monkeys pinched him and made faces. The marten rolled over his feet. A bear, with a backhanded swipe of its paw, knocked off his hat, and the panther scornfully dropped an arrow which it had been holding in its mouth.

  An irony was apparent in their sly movements. While watching him from the corner of their eyes, they seemed to be meditating a plan of revenge. Deafened by the buzzing of insects, lashed by the tails of birds, suffocated by all the breathing around him, he walked with his arms stretched out and his eyes closed like a blind man, without even having the strength to cry for mercy.

  The crow of a cock rang through the air. Others answered it. It was day and he recognized, beyond the orange trees, the ridge of his palace roof.

  Then, at the edge of a field he saw, three paces off, some red-legged partridge fluttering in the stubble. He unfastened his cloak and cast it over them like a net. When he uncovered them, he found only one, dead for a long time and rotten.

  This disappointment exasperated him more than all the others. His thirst for slaughter seized him again. Since there were no animals, he would willingly massacre humans.

  He climbed the three terraces, broke open the door with a blow of his fist, but at the bottom of the staircase, the thought of his dear wife softened his heart. She was doubtless sleeping and he would surprise her.

  Taking off his sandals, he gently turned the lock and went in.

  The pallor of the dawn was darkened as it came through the leaded stained-glass windows. Julian’s feet caught in some clothes on the floor, and a bit farther on, he knocked against a buffet still laden with dishes. “She must have been eating,” he said to himself, and he moved toward the bed which was lost in the darkness at the end of the room. When he reached the edge of the bed, in order to kiss his wife, he leaned over the pillow where the two heads were lying one close to the other. Then against his mouth he felt the touch of a beard.

  He drew back, believing that he was losing his mind. But he came back close to the bed, and as his fingers felt about, they touched very long hair. To convince himself of his error, he again slowly passed his hand over the pillow. It was really a beard this time and a man! A man in bed with his wife!

  Overcome with unbounded rage, he leaped on them and struck with his dagger. He stamped and foamed, with roars of a wild beast. Then he stopped. The dead, pierced to the heart, had not even moved. He listened closely to their death-rattles which were almost the same, and as they grew feebler, another groan from far off took them up. At first indistinct, this plaintive long-drawn voice came closer, swelled and became cruel. Terrified, he recognized the belling of the large black stag.

  As he turned around, he thought he saw, in the frame of the door, his wife’s ghost, with a light in her hand.

  She had been drawn there by the din of the murder. In one wide glance she understood everything, and fleeing in horror, dropped her torch.

  He picked it up.

  Before him his mother and father were lying on their backs, with a hole in their breasts. Their faces, of a majestic gentleness, seemed to be keeping an eternal secret. Splashes and pools of blood spread over their white skin, over the sheets of the bed, on the floor, and over an ivory crucifix hanging in the alcove. The scarlet reflection from the stained-glass window, which the sun was striking, lit up the red patches and cast many others throughout the apartment. Julian wal
ked toward the two dead figures, saying to himself, and wanting to believe, that this was not possible, that he was mistaken, that at times there are inexplicable resemblances. Finally he bent down slightly to look at the old man close to, and he saw, between the partly closed eyelids, a glazed eyeball which burned him like fire. Then he went to the other side of the bed, where the other body lay, whose white hair covered a part of her face. Julian passed his fingers under the plaits and raised the head. He looked at it as he held it at arm’s length in one hand, while in his other hand he held up a torch for light. Drops, oozing from the mattress, fell one by one on the floor.

  At the end of the day, he presented himself before his wife. In a voice not his own, he first ordered her not to answer him, not to approach him, not even to look at him, and to follow, under pain of damnation, all his instructions, which were irrevocable.

  The funeral was carried out according to the directions he had left in writing, on a prie-Dieu, in the chamber of the dead. He left to her his palace, his vassals, all his possessions, without even retaining the clothes of his body and his sandals which would be found at the head of the stairs.

  She had obeyed the will of God in causing his crime, and she was to pray for his soul because henceforth he did not exist.

  The dead were buried with great pomp, in the church of a monastery three days’ journey from the castle. A monk, with his hood pulled down, followed the procession, far from all the others, and no one dared to speak to him.

  During the mass, he remained flat on his stomach, in the middle of the portal, his arms like a cross and his forehead in the dust.

  After the burial, they saw him take the road which led to the mountains. He turned to look back several times, and finally disappeared.

  III

  He went off, begging his way through the world.

  He held out his hand to horsemen on the roads, and approached harvesters with genuflections, or remained motionless before the gate of courtyards. His face was so sad that he was never refused alms.

  In a spirit of humility, he would tell his story. Then all would flee from him, as they made the sign of the cross. In villages which he had already passed through, as soon as he was recognized, people would shut their doors, threaten him with words, and throw stones at him. The most charitable placed a bowl on their window-sill, then closed the shutters so as not to see him.

  Being repulsed everywhere, he avoided men. He lived on roots, plants, spoiled fruit and shellfish which he found along the beaches.

  Sometimes, at the turn of a hillside, he saw down below a jumble of crowded roofs, with stone spires, bridges, towers, dark streets crisscrossing, from which a continuous hum rose up to him.

  The need to mingle with other beings made him go down into the town. But the brutish expressions on the faces, the uproar of the crafts, the emptiness of the words froze his heart. On feast days, when the ringing of the cathedral bells made everyone joyful from daybreak, he watched the inhabitants leave their houses, and the dancing on the squares, the barley-beer jugs at the crossroads, the damask hangings in front of the houses of princes; and when evening came, he watched through the windows of the ground floor the long family table where grandparents held small children on their knees. Sobs would choke him and he would go back toward the country.

  With feelings of love he watched colts in the pasture, birds in their nests, insects on the flowers. But all, as he drew near, would run off, or hide in terror or quickly fly away.

  He sought solitary places. But the wind brought to his ears sounds like the death-rattle. The drops of dew falling to the ground reminded him of other drops of heavier weight. Every evening the sun spread blood over the clouds, and every night, in his dreams, his parricide began over again.

  He made himself a hair shirt with iron spikes. On his knees he climbed every hill which had a chapel at the top. But his pitiless thought darkened the splendor of the tabernacles, and tortured him throughout the maceration of his penance.

  He did not revolt against God who had inflicted this action on him, and yet he was in despair through having been able to commit it.

  His own person filled him with such horror that, hoping for release from it, he risked his life in dangers. He saved paralytics from fires and children from the bottom of chasms. The abyss threw him back and the flames spared him.

  Time did not relieve his suffering. It grew intolerable. He resolved to die.

  One day when he was on the brink of a fountain and leaning over in order to judge the depths of the water, he saw appear opposite him an emaciated old man, with a white beard and so sorrowful a look that he could not hold back his weeping. The other also was weeping. Without recognizing his image, Julian vaguely remembered a face which resembled that one. He uttered a cry. It was his father. He thought no more of killing himself.

  Thus, bearing the weight of his memory, he traveled through many countries. He came to a river which was dangerous to cross because of its violence and because there was on its banks a large stretch of mud. For a long time no one had dared cross it.

  An old boat, whose stern was embedded, raised its prow among the reeds. On examining it, Julian discovered a pair of oars, and the thought came to him to spend his life in the service of others.

  He began by constructing on the banks a kind of roadway which would permit people to reach the channel. He broke his nails in moving gigantic stones, and pressed them against his stomach in order to carry them, slipped in the mud, sank into it, and almost perished several times.

  Then he repaired the boat with pieces of ship wreckage and made a hut for himself with clay and tree-trunks.

  Since the crossing was known, travelers appeared. They called to him from the other bank, by waving flags. Quickly Julian jumped into his barge. It was very heavy, and they would overweigh it with all kinds of baggage and bundles, not to mention the beasts of burden which increased the crowding as they kicked in fear. He asked nothing for his work. Some would give him the remains of food which they pulled out of their wallets or worn-out clothes they no longer wanted. The roughest of them shouted blasphemies. Julian reproved them gently and they answered with words of abuse. He was content to bless them.

  His only furniture was a small table, a stool, a bed of dry leaves and three clay cups. Two holes in the wall served as windows. On one side barren plains stretched out as far as the eye could see, dotted here and there with pale ponds. In front of him, the great river rolled forth its greenish waves. In the spring, the damp earth had a smell of decay. Then, a riotous wind raised up the dust in whirling clouds. It came in everywhere, muddied the water, and made a crunching sound under the gums. A little later, there were swarms of mosquitoes, which did not stop buzzing and stinging day or night. Then, terrible frosts would come which gave to everything the rigidity of stone, and aroused a mad need to eat meat.

  Months passed when Julian saw no one. He often closed his eyes and tried in his memory to return to his youth. The courtyard of the castle would appear with greyhounds on the steps, page boys in the armory, and, under a vine arbor, a blond-haired adolescent between an old man dressed in furs and a lady wearing a large coif. Suddenly, the two corpses were there. He threw himself flat on his stomach, on his bed, and repeated through his tears:

  “Ah! poor father! poor mother! poor mother!”

  And fell into a drowsiness where funereal visions continued.

  One night when he was sleeping, he thought he heard someone calling him. He listened and could only make out the roar of the waves.

  But the same voice called out again:

  “Julian!”

  It came from the other bank, which seemed extraordinary to him, considering the breadth of the river.

  A third time someone called:

  “Julian!”

  And that loud voice had the resonance of a church bell.

  He lit his lantern and went out of the hut. A furious hurricane filled the night. There was total darkness, pierced here and there by th
e whiteness of the leaping waves.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Julian untied the painter. Instantly the water became calm. The barge glided over it and reached the other bank where a man was waiting.

  He was wrapped in a tattered cloth. His face was like a plaster mask and his two eyes were redder than coals. As he brought the lantern close to him, Julian saw that he was covered with a hideous leprosy; yet his bearing had the majesty of a king.

  As soon as he entered the barge, it sank prodigiously, overwhelmed by his weight. It rose again with a shake, and Julian began to row.

  At each stroke of the oar, the backwash of the waves raised its bow. Blacker than ink, the water raced furiously on both sides of the planking. It hollowed out chasms and made mountains. The shallop leaped over them, then went down again into the depths where it whirled, tossed about by the wind.

  Julian bent his body, stretched out his arms, and propping himself with his feet, swung back with a twist of his waist, in order to get more power. The hail lashed his hands, the rain rolled down his back, the fierceness of the wind stifled him and he stopped. Then the boat was set adrift. But, feeling that something momentous was at stake, an order which he should not disobey, he took up his oars again. The banging of the tholes cut through the uproar of the storm.

  The small lantern burned in front of him. Birds as they fluttered about hid it from time to time. But he could always see the eyeballs of the Leper who stood at the stern, motionless as a pillar.

  That lasted a long time, a very long time.

  When they came to the hut, Julian shut the door. He saw the Leper sitting on the stool. The kind of shroud which covered him had fallen to his hips. His shoulders, his chest and his thin arms were hidden under a coating of scaly pustules. Immense wrinkles furrowed his brow. Like a skeleton, he had a hole in place of a nose, and his bluish lips exhaled a breath as thick as fog and nauseous.