Great French Short Stories

by Paul Negri

“Ah! what does he do there?”

  “Nothing wrong. But it is not the farmers he stays with, it is the farm hands who are as different from us as possible and those who are not from this country. There is one in particular, who comes from some distance, and who tells him stories.”

  “Ah! the swineherd.”

  “Yes. Did you know him? . . . Your brother each evening in order to listen to him, follows him into the pigsties. He comes back only for dinner, but with no appetite, and his clothes reeking. Remonstrances have no effect. He stiffens under constraint. On certain mornings, at dawn, before any of us are up, he runs off to accompany that swineherd to the gate when he is leading off his herd to graze.”

  “He knows he must not leave.”

  “You knew also! One day he will escape from me, I am sure. One day he will leave . . .”

  “No, I will speak to him, mother. Don’t be alarmed.”

  “I know he will listen to a great deal from you. Did you see how he watched you that first evening, with what prestige your rags were covered, and the purple robe your father put on you! I was afraid that in his mind he will confuse one with the other, and that he is attracted first by the rags. But now this idea seems ridiculous to me. For if you, my child, had been able to foresee such unhappiness, you would not have left us, would you?”

  “I don’t know now how I was able to leave you, you who are my mother.”

  “Well, tell him all that.”

  “I will tell him that tomorrow evening. Now kiss me on my forehead as you used to when I was small and you watched me fall asleep. I am sleepy.”

  “Go to bed. I am going to pray for all of you.”

  Dialogue with the Younger Brother

  Beside the prodigal’s, there is a room not too small, with bare walls. The prodigal, a lamp in his hand, comes close to the bed where his younger brother is lying, his face toward the wall. He begins in a low voice, so as not to disturb him if the boy is sleeping.

  “I would like to talk to you, brother.”

  “What is stopping you?”

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “I don’t have to sleep in order to dream.”

  “You were dreaming? Of what?”

  “What do you care? If I can’t understand my dreams, I don’t think you will be able to explain them to me.”

  “Are they that subtle, then? If you told them to me, I would try.”

  “Do you choose your dreams? Mine are what they want to be, and are freer than I . . . What have you come here for? Why are you disturbing me in my sleep?”

  “You aren’t sleeping, and I’m here to speak gently to you.”

  “What have you to say to me?”

  “Nothing, if that is the tone you take.”

  “Then goodbye.”

  The prodigal goes toward the door, but puts the lamp on the floor so that the room is barely lighted. Then, coming back, he sits on the edge of the bed and in the dark strokes for a long time the boy’s forehead which is kept turned away.

  “You answer me more gruffly than I ever did your brother. Yet I too rebelled against him.”

  The stubborn boy suddenly sat up.

  “Tell me, is it my brother that sent you?”

  “No, not him, but our mother.”

  “So, you wouldn’t have come of your own accord.”

  “But I came as a friend.”

  Half sitting up on his bed, the boy looks straight at the prodigal.

  “How could one of my family be my friend?”

  “You are mistaken about our brother . . .”

  “Don’t speak to me about him! I hate him! My whole heart cries out against him. He’s the reason for my answering you gruffly.”

  “Explain why.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Tell me just the same.”

  The prodigal rocks his brother in his arms and already the boy begins to yield.

  “The evening you returned, I couldn’t sleep. All night I kept thinking: I had another brother, and I didn’t know it . . . That is why my heart beat so hard when, in the courtyard of our house, I saw you come covered with glory.”

  “Alas, I was covered then with rags.”

  “Yes, I saw you. You were already glorious. And I saw what our father did. He put a ring on your finger, a ring the like of which our brother does not have. I did not want to question anyone about you. All that I knew was that you had come from very far away, and that your eyes, at table . . .”

  “Were you at the feast?”

  “Oh! I know you did not see me. During the whole meal you looked far off without seeing anything. And it was all right when on the second evening you spoke with our father, but on the third . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “Ah! you could have said to me at least one word of love!”

  “You were expecting me then?”

  “Impatiently! Do you think I would hate our brother so much if you had not gone to talk with him that evening and for so long? What did you find to say to each other? You certainly know, if you are like me, that you can have nothing in common with him.”

  “I had behaved very wrong toward him.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “At any rate toward our father and mother. You know that I ran away from home.”

  “Yes, I know. A long time ago, wasn’t it?”

  “When I was about your age.”

  “Ah! And that’s what you call behaving wrong?”

  “Yes, it was wrong, it was my sin.”

  “When you left, did you feel you were doing wrong?”

  “No, I felt duty-bound to leave.”

  “What has happened since then to change your first truth into an error?”

  “I suffered.”

  “And is that what makes you say: I did wrong?”

  “No, not exactly. That is what made me reflect.”

  “Then, before, you didn’t reflect?”

  “Yes, but my weak reason let itself be conquered by my desires.”

  “As later by your suffering. So that today you have come back . . . conquered.”

  “No, not exactly,—resigned.”

  “At any rate, you have given up being what you wanted to be.”

  “What my pride persuaded me to be.”

  The boy remains silent a moment, then suddenly cries with a sob:

  “Brother! I am the boy you were when you left. Tell me. Did you find nothing but disappointments on your wanderings? Is all that I imagine outside and different from here, only an illusion? All the newness I feel in me, is that madness? Tell me, what did you meet on your way that seemed so tragic? Oh! what made you come back?”

  “The freedom I was looking for, I lost. When captive, I had to serve.”

  “I am captive here.”

  “Yes, but I mean serving bad masters. Here you are serving your parents.”

  “Ah! serving for the sake of serving! At least don’t we have the freedom of choosing our bondage?”

  “I had hoped for that. As far as my feet carried me, I walked, like Saul in search of his she-asses, in search of my desire. But there where a kingdom was waiting for him, I found wretchedness. And yet . . .”

  “Didn’t you mistake the road?”

  “I walked straight ahead.”

  “Are you sure? And yet there are still other kingdoms, and lands without kings, to discover.”

  “Who told you?”

  “I know it, I feel it. I have already the impression of being the lord over them.”

  “Proud boy!”

  “Ah! ah! that’s something our brother said to you. Why do you repeat it to me now? Why didn’t you keep that pride? You would not have come back.”

  “Then I would never have known you.”

  “Yes, yes, out there where I would have joined you, you would have recognized me as your brother. It seems to me even that I am leaving in order to find you.”

  “That you are leaving?”

  “Haven’
t you understood? Aren’t you yourself encouraging me to leave?”

  “I wanted to spare your returning, but by sparing your departure.”

  “No, no, don’t tell me that. No, you don’t mean that. You yourself left like a conqueror, didn’t you?”

  “And that is what made my bondage seem harder to me.”

  “Then, why did you give in to it? Were you already so tired?”

  “No, not then. But I had doubts.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Doubts about everything, about myself. I wanted to stop and settle down somewhere. The comfort which this master promised me was a temptation . . . Yes, I feel it clearly now. I failed.”

  The prodigal bows his head and hides his face in his hands.

  “But at first?”

  “I had walked for a long time through large tracts of wild country.”

  “The desert?”

  “It wasn’t always the desert.”

  “What were you looking for there?”

  “I myself do not understand now.”

  “Get up from my bed. Look, on the table beside it, there, near that torn book.”

  “I see a pomegranate split open.”

  “The swineherd brought it to me the other evening, after he had not been back for three days.”

  “Yes, it is a wild pomegranate.”

  “I know. It is almost unbearably bitter. And yet I feel, if I were sufficiently thirsty, I would bite into it.”

  “Ah! now I can tell you. That is the thirst I was looking for in the desert.”

  “A thirst which that sour fruit alone can quench . . .”

  “No, but it makes you love that thirst.”

  “Do you know where it can be picked?”

  “In a small deserted orchard you reach before evening. No longer does any wall separate it from the desert. A stream flowed through it. Some half-ripe fruit hung from the branches.”

  “What fruit?”

  “The same which grows in our garden, but wild. It had been very hot all day.”

  “Listen. Do you know why I was expecting you this evening? I am leaving before the end of the night. Tonight, this night, as soon as it grows pale . . . I have girded my loins. Tonight I have kept on my sandals.”

  “So, what I was not able to do, you will do?”

  “You opened the way for me, and it will help me to think of you.”

  “It is for me to admire you, and for you to forget me, on the contrary. What are you taking with you?”

  “You know that as the youngest, I have no share in the inheritance. I am taking nothing.”

  “That is better.”

  “What are you looking at through the window?”

  “The garden where our dead forefathers are sleeping.”

  “Brother . . .” (and the boy who has gotten out of bed, puts, around the prodigal’s neck, his arm which has become as tender as his voice)—“Come with me.”

  “Leave me! leave me! I am staying to console our mother. Without me you will be braver. It is time now. The sky turns pale. Go without making any noise. Come! kiss me, my young brother, you are taking with you all my hopes. Be strong. Forget us. Forget me. May you never come back . . . Go down quietly. I am holding the lamp . . .”

  “Ah! give me your hand as far as the door.”

  “Be careful of the steps as you go down.”

  Jules Renard

  THE DARK LANTERN

  La Lanterne Sourde

  I. Crazy Tiennette

  CHRIST PUNISHED

  As she passes the foot of the cross set outside the village, apparently to protect it from surprises, crazy Tiennette notices that the Christ has fallen down.

  No doubt, that night, a heavy wind has weakened the nails and thrown him to the ground.

  Tiennette blesses herself and rights the Christ with many precautions, as she would a person still alive. She cannot set him back upon the tall cross; she cannot leave him all alone, at the side of the path.

  What is more, he has hurt himself in the fall and some of his fingers are off.

  “I must bring the Christ to the carpenter,” she says, “and he will mend them.”

  She hugs him reverently around the middle and bears him off, not running. But he is so heavy he slips through her arms, and she must often hoist him up again with a rough jolt.

  And when she does, the nails that pierce the Christ’s feet hook to Tiennette’s skirt and raise it a little and uncover her legs.

  “Will you stop that now, Lord!” she says to him.

  And Tiennette, simple, gives the Christ’s cheeks a few light slaps, but delicately, with all respect.

  THE SNOWCHILD

  Snow is falling, and through the streets, bareheaded, crazy Tiennette is running like a crazy woman. She plays all alone, catches the white flies as they fall in her violet hands, sticks out her tongue to dissolve the light candy she can just taste, and, with the tip of her finger, draws sticks and rings on the bright sheet.

  Farther on she guesses that this little star print has fallen from a bird, this big one from a goose, and this other strange one from the sky maybe.

  Then the shoes that made her as tall as the roof thatch and dizzied her so come loose. She topples and stays on the ground a long while, making a cross, being good, until her portrait sinks in.

  Then she makes herself a snowchild.

  His limbs are twisted and shrunken from the cold. His eyes have been gouged out, his nose has one hole to take the place of two, his mouth has no teeth, and his skull has no hair, because hair and teeth are too hard.

  “The poor little thing!” says Tiennette.

  She clasps him to her heart and whistles a lullaby, then, once he starts to melt, she changes him quickly and give him a maternal roll in the fresh snow so the bed that envelops him will be clean.

  TIENNETTE LOST

  Tiennette goes out at her pleasure, walks where she will; and her innocence protects her. She walks hurriedly, never strolls, always seems in flight.

  This morning, having left home one hour ago by the clock, she stops and says:

  “Oh God! I’ve lost myself!”

  She searches, reflects, worried, hunting for herself.

  The countryside has vanished under snow. It fills the tree branches; this one seems to have dressed as a traveler waiting for the coach.

  But Tiennette spies her own tracks, still fresh, in the snow, and the idea comes to her: she will follow and find herself again.

  Sometimes she softly sets her feet inside the deep prints, and if other tracks cross hers she stoops and sets them right. Sometimes she runs, losing her breath, as if there were wolves at her back.

  When she reaches the village and recognizes her house among the crouching shapes:

  “I probably went back home,” she thinks.

  She stops hurrying. She takes a breath, drops her anxiety from her shoulders like a shawl grown too heavy, pushes open the door, and says calmly:

  “I knew it; there I am!”

  THE STICK

  Tiennette rolls a stick between her fingers, scratches it with her nails, bites it with the tips of her teeth, strips its bark off. She moves on down the road and says to the trees:

  “You must have heard that this is my wedding day. I’m serious, I mean it. He loves me, I expect him soon.”

  She gives them smiles left and right, already rehearsing the ceremony.

  But a voice from among the trees gives her an order:

  “Take off your cap, Tiennette.”

  She pauses, looks at the trees, hears breathing among them, and asks, trembling:

  “Is it really you this time?”

  “Yes, Tiennette; take off your cap.”

  Reassured, she throws away her cap, just as she threw away the leaves she pulled from her stick.

  “Take off your jacket, Tiennette.”

  She obeys, throws away her jacket just as she threw away the thin branches she pulled from her stick.

  “Take
off your skirt, Tiennette.”

  She reaches a hand around to undo the knotted strings, but she sees the stick in her other hand, naked, its bark pulled off, and, abruptly waking up, Tiennette shamefacedly picks up her cap and jacket and runs away, far from the libertine who wanted to trap her again and who stays there, behind the trees, laughing.

  II. Tiennot

  THE CHERRY MAN

  Tiennot, walking through the market place, sees baskets filled with cherries so fat and red they cannot be real. He says to the owner:

  “Let me eat as many cherries as I want, and we’ll settle for ten pennies.”

  The owner agrees, sure of a profit, because cherries aren’t scarce this year and he could afford to give away a barrowful for ten pennies, at the price they bring in.

  Tiennot lies down on his right side among the baskets.

  Not hurrying, he chooses the finest cherries and eats them one by one.

  Slowly he empties the first basket, then the second.

  The owner smiles. Now and then some market people come to watch. The druggist shows up, then the café owner. Everyone gives Tiennot encouragement.

  He carefully keeps from answering. Without moving he methodically opens and closes his mouth. At times, when a passing cherry is more juicy than the others, he seems to be asleep.

  The owner, already uneasy, thinks:

  “I may not lose anything on this, but I won’t gain much by it.”

  And the ten-cent piece clenched between his teeth shrinks in value.

  Suddenly reviving, he says:

  “Well?”

  Tiennot stirs, tries to lift himself, but the effort seems painful. In the end he only changes position, rolls over on his left side, gropes for another basket.

  But he has worked up an appetite, and now he begins to devour the cherry stones as well.

  THE SPRING AND THE SUGAR

  Tiennot is quenching his thirst with spring water. His hand serves as a cup at first; later he prefers a straight drink and he lies down over the spring, wetting his chin and nose. When he stops to breathe, he looks around at the animals and the water’s white plume as it rises.