International Short Stories: French - Various
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INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORIES
COMPILED BY
FRANCIS J. REYNOLDS
FRENCH
1910
FRENCH STORIES
A PIECE OF BREAD _By Francois Coppee_
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE _By Honore de Balzac_
THE AGE FOR LOVE _By Paul Bourget_
MATEO FALCONE _By Prosper Merimee_
THE MIRROR _By Catulle Mendes_
MY NEPHEW JOSEPH _By Ludovic Halevy_
A FOREST BETROTHAL _By Erckmann-Chatrian_
ZADIG THE BABYLONIAN _By Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire_
ABANDONED _By Guy de Maupassant_
THE GUILTY SECRET _By Paul de Kock_
JEAN MONETTE _By Eugene Francois Vidocq_
SOLANGE _By Alexandre Dumas_
THE BIRDS IN THE LETTER-BOX _By Rene Bazin_
JEAN GOURDON'S FOUR DAYS _By Emile Zola_
BARON DE TRENCK _By Clemence Robert_
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA _By Henry Murger_
THE WOMAN AND THE CAT _By Marcel Prevost_
GIL BLAS AND DR. SANGRADO _By Alain Rene Le Sage_
A FIGHT WITH A CANNON _By Victor Hugo_
TONTON _By A. Cheneviere_
THE LAST LESSON _By Alphonse Daudet_
CROISILLES _By Alfred de Musset_
THE VASE OF CLAY _By Jean Aicard_
A PIECE OF BREAD
BY FRANCOIS COPPEE
The young Due de Hardimont happened to be at Aix in Savoy, whose waters he
hoped would benefit his famous mare, Perichole, who had become wind-broken
since the cold she had caught at the last Derby,--and was finishing his
breakfast while glancing over the morning paper, when he read the news of
the disastrous engagement at Reichshoffen.
He emptied his glass of chartreuse, laid his napkin upon the restaurant
table, ordered his valet to pack his trunks, and two hours later took the
express to Paris; arriving there, he hastened to the recruiting office and
enlisted in a regiment of the line.
In vain had he led the enervating life of a fashionable swell--that was
the word of the time--and had knocked about race-course stables from the
age of nineteen to twenty-five. In circumstances like these, he could not
forget that Enguerrand de Hardimont died of the plague at Tunis the same
day as Saint Louis, that Jean de Hardimont commanded the Free Companies
under Du Guesclin, and that Francois-Henri de Hardimont was killed at
Fontenoy with "Red" Maison. Upon learning that France had lost a battle on
French soil, the young duke felt the blood mount to his face, giving him a
horrible feeling of suffocation.
And so, early in November, 1870, Henri de Hardimont returned to Paris with
his regiment, forming part of Vinoy's corps, and his company being the
advance guard before the redoubt of Hautes Bruyeres, a position fortified
in haste, and which protected the cannon of Fort Bicetre.
It was a gloomy place; a road planted with clusters of broom, and broken
up into muddy ruts, traversing the leprous fields of the neighborhood; on
the border stood an abandoned tavern, a tavern with arbors, where the
soldiers had established their post. They had fallen back here a few days
before; the grape-shot had broken down some of the young trees, and all of
them bore upon their bark the white scars of bullet wounds. As for the
house, its appearance made one shudder; the roof had been torn by a shell,
and the walls seemed whitewashed with blood. The torn and shattered arbors
under their network of twigs, the rolling of an upset cask, the high swing
whose wet rope groaned in the damp wind, and the inscriptions over the
door, furrowed by bullets; "Cabinets de societe--Absinthe--Vermouth--Vin a
60 cent. le litre"--encircling a dead rabbit painted over two billiard
cues tied in a cross by a ribbon,--all this recalled with cruel irony the
popular entertainment of former days. And over all, a wretched winter sky,
across which rolled heavy leaden clouds, an odious sky, angry and hateful.
At the door of the tavern stood the young duke, motionless, with his gun
in his shoulder-belt, his cap over his eyes, his benumbed hands in the
pockets of his red trousers, and shivering in his sheepskin coat. He gave
himself up to his sombre thoughts, this defeated soldier, and looked with
sorrowful eyes toward a line of hills, lost in the fog, where could be
seen each moment, the flash and smoke of a Krupp gun, followed by a
report.
Suddenly he felt hungry.
Stooping, he drew from his knapsack, which stood near him leaning against
the wall, a piece of ammunition bread, and as he had lost his knife, he
bit off a morsel and slowly ate it.
But after a few mouthfuls, he had enough of it; the bread was hard and had
a bitter taste. No fresh would be given until the next morning's
distribution, so the commissary officer had willed it. This was certainly
a very hard life sometimes. The remembrance of former breakfasts came to
him, such as he had called "hygienic," when, the day after too over-heating
a supper, he would seat himself by a window on the ground floor of
the Cafe-Anglais, and be served with a cutlet, or buttered eggs with
asparagus tips, and the butler, knowing his tastes, would bring him a fine
bottle of old Leoville, lying in its basket, and which he would pour out
with the greatest care. The deuce take it! That was a good time, all the
same, and he would never become accustomed to this life of wretchedness.
And, in a moment of impatience, the young man threw the rest of his bread
into the mud.
At the same moment a soldier of the line came from the tavern, stooped and
picked up the bread, drew back a few steps, wiped it with his sleeve and
began to devour it eagerly.
Henri de Hardimont was already ashamed of his action, and now with a
feeling of pity, watched the poor devil who gave proof of such a good
appetite. He was a tall, large young fellow, but badly made; with feverish
eyes and a hospital beard, and so thin that his shoulder-blades stood out
beneath his well-worn cape.
"You are very hungry?" he said, approaching the soldier.
"As you see," replied the other with his mouth full.
"Excuse me then. For if I had known that you would like the bread, I would
not have thrown it away."
"It does not harm it," replied the soldier, "I am not dainty."
"No matter," said the gentleman, "it was wrong to do so, and I reproach
myself. But I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of me, and as I have
some old cognac in my can, let us drink a drop together."
The man had finished eating. The duke and he drank a mouthful of brandy;
the acquaintance was made.
"What is your name?" asked the soldier of the line.
"Hardimont," replied the duke, omitting his title. "And yours?"
"Jean-Victor--I have just entered this company--I am just out of the
ambulance--I was wounded at Chatillon--oh! but it was good in the
ambulance, and in the infirmary they gave me horse bouillon. But I had
only a scratch, and the major signed my dismissal. So much the worse for
me! Now I am going to commence to be devoured by hunger again--for,
believe me, if you will, comrade, but, such as you see me, I have been
hungry all my life."
The words were startling, especially to a Sybarite who had just been
longing for the kitchen of the Cafe-Anglais, and the Duc de Hardimont
looked at his companion in almost terrified amazement. The soldier smiled
sadly, showing his hungry, wolf-like teeth, as white as his sickly face,
and, as if understanding that the other expected something further in the
way of explanation or confidence:
"Come," said he, suddenly ceasing his familiar way of speaking, doubtless
divining that his companion belonged to the rich and happy; "let us walk
along the road to warm our feet, and I will tell you things, which
probably you have never heard of--I am called Jean-Victor, that is all,
for I am a foundling, and my only happy remembrance is of my earliest
childhood, at the Asylum. The sheets were white on our little beds in the
dormitory; we played in a garden under large trees, and a kind Sister took
care of us, quite young and as pale as a wax-taper--she died afterwards of
lung trouble--I was her favorite, and would rather walk by her than play
with the other children, because she used to draw me to her side and lay
her warm thin hand on my forehead. But when I was twelve years old, after
my first communion, there was nothing but poverty. The managers put me as
apprentice with a chair mender in Faubourg Saint-Jacques. That is not a
trade, you know, it is impossible to earn one's living at it, and as proof
of it, the greater part of the time the master was only able to engage the
poor little blind boys from the Blind Asylum. It was there that I began to
suffer with hunger. The master and mistress, two old Limousins--afterwards
murdered, were terrible misers, and the bread, cut in tiny pieces for each
meal, was kept under lock and key the rest of the time. You should have
seen the mistress at supper time serving the soup, sighing at each
ladleful she dished out. The other apprentices, two blind boys, were less
unhappy; they were not given more than I, but they could not see the
reproachful look the wicked woman used to give me as she handed me my
plate. And then, unfortunately, I was always so terribly hungry. Was it my
fault, do you think? I served there for three years, in a continual fit of
hunger. Three years! And one can learn the work in one month. But the
managers could not know everything, and had no suspicion that the children
were abused. Ah! you were astonished just now when you saw me take the
bread out of the mud? I am used to that for I have picked up enough of it;
and crusts from the dust, and when they were too hard and dry, I would
soak them all night in my basin. I had windfalls sometimes, such as pieces
of bread nibbled at the ends, which the children would take out of their
baskets and throw on the sidewalks as they came from school. I used to try
to prowl around there when I went on errands. At last my time was ended at
this trade by which no man can support himself. Well, I did many other
things, for I was willing enough to work. I served the masons; I have been
shop-boy, floor-polisher, I don't know what all! But, pshaw; to-day, work
is lacking, another time I lose my place: Briefly, I never have had enough
to eat. Heavens! how often have I been crazy with hunger as I have passed
the bakeries! Fortunately for me; at these times I have always remembered
the good Sister at the Asylum, who so often told me to be honest, and I
seemed to feel her warm little hand upon my forehead. At last, when I was
eighteen I enlisted; you know as well as I do, that the trooper has only
just enough. Now,--I could almost laugh--here is the siege and famine! You
see, I did not lie, when I told you, just now that I have always, always,
been hungry!"
The young duke had a kind heart and was profoundly moved by this terrible
story, told him by a man like himself, by a soldier whose uniform made him
his equal. It was even fortunate for the phlegm of this dandy, that the
night wind dried the tears which dimmed his eyes.
"Jean-Victor," said he, ceasing in his turn, by a delicate tact, to speak
familiarly to the foundling, "if we survive this dreadful war, we will
meet again, and I hope that I may be useful to you. But, in the meantime,
as there is no bakery but the commissary, and as my ration of bread is
twice too large for my delicate appetite,--it is understood, is it
not?--we will share it like good comrades."
It was strong and hearty, the hand-clasp which followed: then, harassed
and worn by their frequent watches and alarms, as night fell, they
returned to the tavern, where twelve soldiers were sleeping on the straw;
and throwing themselves down side by side, they were soon sleeping
soundly.
Toward midnight Jean-Victor awoke, being hungry probably. The wind had
scattered the clouds, and a ray of moonlight made its way into the room
through a hole in the roof, lighting up the handsome blonde head of the
young duke, who was sleeping like an Endymion.
Still touched by the kindness of his comrade, Jean-Victor was gazing at
him with admiration, when the sergeant of the platoon opened the door and
called the five men who were to relieve the sentinels of the out-posts.
The duke was of the number, but he did not waken when his name was called.
"Hardimont, stand up!" repeated the non-commissioned officer.
"If you are willing, sergeant," said Jean-Victor rising, "I will take his
duty, he is sleeping so soundly--and he is my comrade."
"As you please."
The five men left, and the snoring recommenced.
But half an hour later the noise of near and rapid firing burst upon the
night. In an instant every man was on his feet, and each with his hand on
the chamber of his gun, stepped cautiously out, looking earnestly along
the road, lying white in the moonlight.
"What time is it?" asked the duke. "I was to go on duty to-night."
"Jean-Victor went in your place."
At that moment a soldier was seen running toward them along the road.
"What is it?" they cried as he stopped, out of breath.
"The Prussians have attacked us, let us fall back to the redoubt."
"And your comrades?"
"They are coming--all but poor Jean-Victor."
"Where is he?" cried the duke.
"Shot through the head with a bullet--died without a word!--ough!"
* * * * *
One night last winter, the Due de Hardimont left his club about two
o'clock in the morning, with his neighbor, Count de Saulnes; the duke had
lost some hundred louis, and had a slight headache.
"If you are willing, Andre," he said to his companion, "we will go home on
foot--I need the air."
"Just as you please, I am willing, although the walking may he bad."
They dismissed their coupes, turned up the collars of their overcoats, and
set off toward the Madeleine. Suddenly an object rolled before the duke
which he had struck with the toe of his boot; it was a large piece of
bread spattered with mud.
Then to his amazement, Monsieur de Saulnes saw the Due de Hardimont pick
up the piece of bread, wipe it carefully with his handkerchief embroidered
with his armorial bearings, and place it on a bench, in full view under
the gaslight.
"What did you do that for?" asked the count, laughing heartily, "are you
crazy?"
"It is in memory of a poor fellow who died for me," replied the duke in a
voice which trembled slightly, "do not laugh, my friend, it offends me."
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
BY HONORE DE BALZAC
In a sumptuous palace of Ferrara, one winter evening, Don Juan Belvidero
was entertaining a prince of the house of Este. In those days a banquet
was a marvelous affair, which demanded princely riches or the power of a
nobleman. Seven pleasure-loving women chatted gaily around a table lighted
by perfumed candles, surrounded by admirable works of art whose white
marble stood out against the walls of red stucco and contrasted with the
rich Turkey carpets. Clad in satin, glittering with gold and laden with
gems which sparkled only less brilliantly than their eyes, they all told
of passions, intense, but of various styles, like their beauty. They
differed neither in their words nor their ideas; but an expression, a
look, a motion or an emphasis served as a commentary, unrestrained,
licentious, melancholy or bantering, to their words.
One seemed to say: "My beauty has power to rekindle the frozen heart of
age." Another: "I love to repose on soft cushions and think with rapture
of my adorers." A third, a novice at these fetes, was inclined to blush.
"At the bottom of my heart I feel compunction," she seemed to say. "I am a
Catholic and I fear hell; but I love you so--ah, so dearly--that I would
sacrifice eternity to you!" The fourth, emptying a cup of Chian wine,
cried: "Hurrah, for pleasure! I begin a new existence with each dawn.
Forgetful of the past, still intoxicated with the violence of yesterday's
pleasures, I embrace a new life of happiness, a life filled with love."
The woman sitting next to Belvidero looked at him with flashing eyes. She
was silent. "I should have no need to call on a bravo to kill my lover if
he abandoned me." Then she had laughed; but a comfit dish of marvelous
workmanship was shattered between her nervous fingers.
"When are you to be grand duke?" asked the sixth of the prince, with an
expression of murderous glee on her lips and a look of Bacchanalian frenzy
in her eyes.
"And when is your father going to die?" said the seventh, laughing and
throwing her bouquet to Don Juan with maddening coquetry. She was an
innocent young girl who was accustomed to play with sacred things.
"Oh, don't speak of it!" cried the young and handsome Don Juan. "There is
only one immortal father in the world, and unfortunately he is mine!"
The seven women of Ferrara, the friends of Don Juan, and the prince
himself gave an exclamation of horror. Two hundred years later, under
Louis XV, well-bred persons would have laughed at this sally. But perhaps
at the beginning of an orgy the mind had still an unusual degree of
lucidity. Despite the heat of the candles, the intensity of the emotions,
the gold and silver vases, the fumes of wine, despite the vision of
ravishing women, perhaps there still lurked in the depths of the heart a
little of that respect for things human and divine which struggles until
the revel has drowned it in floods of sparkling wine. Nevertheless, the
flowers were already crushed, the eyes were steeped with drink, and
intoxication, to quote Rabelais, had reached even to the sandals. In the
pause that followed a door opened, and, as at the feast of Balthazar, God
manifested himself. He seemed to command recognition now in the person of
an old, white-haired servant with unsteady gait and drawn brows; he
entered with gloomy mien and his look seemed to blight the garlands, the
ruby cups, the pyramids of fruits, the brightness of the feast, the glow
of the astonished faces and the colors of the cushions dented by the white
arms of the women; then he cast a pall over this folly by saying, in a
hollow voice, the solemn words: "Sir, your father is dying!"
Don Juan rose, making a gesture to his guests, which might be translated:
"Excuse me, this does not happen every day."
Does not the death of a parent often overtake young people thus in the
fulness of life, in the wild enjoyment of an orgy? Death is as unexpected
in her caprices as a woman in her fancies, but more faithful--Death has
never duped any one.
When Don Juan had closed the door of the banquet hall and walked down the
long corridor, which was both cold and dark, he compelled himself to
assume a mask, for, in thinking of his role of son, he had cast off his
merriment as he threw down his napkin. The night was black. The silent
servant who conducted the young man to the death chamber, lighted the way
so insufficiently that Death, aided by the cold, the silence, the gloom,
perhaps by a reaction of intoxication, was able to force some reflections
into the soul of the spendthrift; he examined his life, and became
thoughtful, like a man involved in a lawsuit when he sets out for the
court of justice.
Bartholomeo Belvidero, the father of Don Juan, was an old man of ninety,
who had devoted the greater part of his life to business. Having traveled
much in Oriental countries he had acquired there great wealth and learning
more precious, he said, than gold or diamonds, to which he no longer gave
more than a passing thought. "I value a tooth more than a ruby," he used
to say, smiling, "and power more than knowledge." This good father loved
to hear Don Juan relate his youthful adventures, and would say,
banteringly, as he lavished money upon him: "Only amuse yourself, my dear
child!" Never did an old man find such pleasure in watching a young man.
Paternal love robbed age of its terrors in the delight of contemplating so
brilliant a life.
At the age of sixty, Belvidero had become enamored of an angel of peace
and beauty. Don Juan was the sole fruit of this late love. For fifteen
years the good man had mourned the loss of his dear Juana. His many
servants and his son attributed the strange habits he had contracted to
this grief. Bartholomeo lodged himself in the most uncomfortable wing of
his palace and rarely went out, and even Don Juan could not intrude into
his father's apartment without first obtaining permission. If this
voluntary recluse came or went in the palace or in the streets of Ferrara
he seemed to be searching for something which he could not find. He walked
dreamily, undecidedly, preoccupied like a man battling with an idea or
with a memory. While the young man gave magnificent entertainments and the
palace re-echoed his mirth, while the horses pawed the ground in the
courtyard and the pages quarreled at their game of dice on the stairs,
Bartholomeo ate seven ounces of bread a day and drank water. If he asked
for a little poultry it was merely that he might give the bones to a black
spaniel, his faithful companion. He never complained of the noise. During
his illness if the blast of horns or the barking of dogs interrupted his
sleep, he only said: "Ah, Don Juan has come home." Never before was so
untroublesome and indulgent a father to be found on this earth;
consequently young Belvidero, accustomed to treat him without ceremony,
had all the faults of a spoiled child. His attitude toward Bartholomeo was
like that of a capricious woman toward an elderly lover, passing off an
impertinence with a smile, selling his good humor and submitting to be
loved. In calling up the picture of his youth, Don Juan recognized that it
would be difficult to find an instance in which his father's goodness had
failed him. He felt a newborn remorse while he traversed the corridor, and
he very nearly forgave his father for having lived so long. He reverted to
feelings of filial piety, as a thief returns to honesty in the prospect of
enjoying a well-stolen million.
Soon the young man passed into the high, chill rooms of his father's
apartment. After feeling a moist atmosphere and breathing the heavy air
and the musty odor which is given forth by old tapestries and furniture
covered with dust, he found himself in the antique room of the old man, in
front of a sick bed and near a dying fire. A lamp standing on a table of
Gothic shape shed its streams of uneven light sometimes more, sometimes
less strongly upon the bed and showed the form of the old man in
ever-varying aspects. The cold air whistled through the insecure windows,
and the snow beat with a dull sound against the panes.
This scene formed so striking a contrast to the one which Don Juan had
just left that he could not help shuddering. He felt cold when, on
approaching the bed, a sudden flare of light, caused by a gust of wind,
illumined his father's face. The features were distorted; the skin,
clinging tightly to the bones, had a greenish tint, which was made the
more horrible by the whiteness of the pillows on which the old man rested;
drawn with pain, the mouth, gaping and toothless, gave breath to sighs
which the howling of the tempest took Tip and drew out into a dismal wail.
In spite of these signs of dissolution an incredible expression of power
shone in the face. The eyes, hallowed by disease, retained a singular
steadiness. A superior spirit was fighting there with death. It seemed as
if Bartholomeo sought to kill with his dying look some enemy seated at the
foot of his bed. This gaze, fixed and cold, was made the more appalling by
the immobility of the head, which was like a skull standing on a doctor's
table. The body, clearly outlined by the coverlet, showed that the dying
man's limbs preserved the same rigidity. All was dead, except the eyes.
There was something mechanical in the sounds which came from the mouth.
Don Juan felt a certain shame at having come to the deathbed of his father
with a courtesan's bouquet on his breast, bringing with him the odors of a
banquet and the fumes of wine.
"You were enjoying yourself!" cried the old man, on seeing his son.
At the same moment the pure, high voice of a singer who entertained the
guests, strengthened by the chords of the viol by which she was
accompanied, rose above the roar of the storm and penetrated the chamber
of death. Don Juan would gladly have shut out this barbarous confirmation
of his father's words.
Bartholomeo said: "I do not grudge you your pleasure, my child."
These words, full of tenderness, pained Don Juan, who could not forgive
his father for such goodness.
"What, sorrow for me, father!" he cried.
"Poor Juanino," answered the dying man, "I have always been so gentle
toward you that you could not wish for my death?"
"Oh!" cried Don Juan, "if it were possible to preserve your life by giving
you a part of mine!" ("One can always say such things," thought the
spendthrift; "it is as if I offered the world to my mistress.")
The thought had scarcely passed through his mind when the old spaniel
whined. This intelligent voice made Don Juan tremble. He believed that the
dog understood him.
"I knew that I could count on you, my son," said the dying man. "There,
you shall be satisfied. I shall live, but without depriving you of a
single day of your life."
"He raves," said Don Juan to himself.
Then he said, aloud: "Yes, my dearest father, you will indeed live as long
as I do, for your image will be always in my heart."