A Surprise
My brother and I were brought up by our uncle, the abbé Loisel—the curé Loisel, as we called him. Our parents died when we were small, and he had taken us into his rectory and raised us.
For eighteen years he had had the parish of Join-le-Sault, not far from Yvetot. It was a small village, set in the very middle of the Norman plateau known as the pays de Caux, dotted with farms whose orchards rose up here and there amidst the fields.
The village, apart from the farm cottages scattered over the plain, consisted of a mere six houses fronting on both sides of the main road, with the church at one end and the new town hall at the other.
My brother and I passed our childhood playing in the cemetery. The place was sheltered from the wind, and there my uncle gave us our lessons, the three of us sitting side by side on the one stone tomb, that of my uncle’s predecessor, whose wealthy family had seen to it that he was buried sumptuously.
To train our memories, my uncle made us learn by heart the names of the deceased that were painted on the black wooden crosses; and to train us in observation as well he made us begin our odd recitation now from one end of the graveyard, now from the other, or sometimes from the middle. He would point abruptly to a grave, and say, “The one in the third row, with the cross leaning to the left: whose is that?” When a burial took place, we made haste to learn what was to be painted on the wooden symbol, and we often went to the carpenter’s shop, to see the epitaph before it was placed on the tomb. My uncle would ask, “Do you know the new one?” And we would reply in unison, “Yes, uncle,” and immediately begin to recite: “Here lies Joséphine Rosalie Gertrude Malandain, widow of Theodore Magloire Césaire, deceased at the age of seventy-two years, mourned by her family: a faithful daughter, faithful wife and faithful mother. Her soul is in heaven.”
My uncle was a tall, big-boned priest, square-built in his ideas as in his frame. His soul itself seemed hard and definite, like an answer in a catechism. He often spoke to us of God in thundering voice, always uttering the word as violently as though he were firing a pistol. His God was not God the good and just, but simply God. He seemed to think of Him as a burglar thinks of a policeman, or a prisoner of the judge.
He brought us up harshly, teaching us to tremble rather than to love.
When one of us was fourteen and the other fifteen, he sent us to board, at a special reduced rate, at the seminary in Yvetot. This was a large, dreary building, full of curés, whose pupils were almost without exception destined for the priesthood. I can never think of the place even now without a shudder. It smelled of prayers the way a fish-market smells of fish. Oh! That dreary school, with its eternal religious ceremonies, its freezing Mass every morning, its periods of meditation, its gospel-recitations, and the reading from pious books during meals! Oh! Those dreary days passed within those cloistering walls, where nothing was spoken of but God—the explosive God of my uncle.
We lived there in narrow, contemplative, unnatural piety—and also in a truly meritorious state of filth, for I well remember that the boys were made to wash their feet but three times a year, the night before each vacation. As for baths, they were as unknown as the name of Victor Hugo. Our masters apparently held them in the greatest contempt.
My brother and I graduated the same year, and with a few sous in our pockets we woke up one morning to find ourselves in Paris, working at eighteen hundred francs a year in a government office, thanks to the influence, exercised on our behalf, of the Archbishop of Rouen.
For a while we continued to be very good boys, my brother and I, living together in the little lodging we had rented, like two night-birds torn from their nest and cast out into the dazzling sunlight, blinded and bewildered.
But little by little the Paris air, new comrades, and the theaters took away a little of our numbness. Certain new desires, different from heavenly joys, began to awaken within us, and, on a certain evening—the same evening—after long hesitation and uneasiness and the fears of a soldier before his first battle, we allowed ourselves to—how shall I put it—allowed ourselves to be seduced by two little neighbors, two shopgirls, who worked and lived together.
Soon an exchange took place between our two establishments, a division. My brother took the girls’ flat and kept one of them to live with him. The other came to live with me. Mine was named Louise. She was twenty-two, perhaps. A good girl, fresh, gay and round—especially round in a certain place. She moved in with me like a little wife taking possession of a man and of everything connected with that man. She organized the household, made everything neat, cooked, kept careful account of expenses, and in addition introduced me to many pleasant things with which I was unfamiliar.
My brother was also very happy. The four of us always had dinner together, one day in his rooms, the next day in mine, and there was never a cloud or a care.
For time to time I received a letter from my uncle, who continued to think that I was living with my brother, and who gave me news of the village, of his maid, of recent deaths, of the crops and harvests—all mixed in with bits of advice on the dangers of life and the turpitudes of the world.
These letters arrived in the morning, by the eight o’clock mail. The concierge slipped them under the door, giving a knock with her broom handle to attract our attention. Louise would get out of bed, pick up the blue envelope, and sit down beside me and read me the letter from the “curé Loisel,” as she also came to call him.
For six months we were happy.
Then, one night, about one o’clock in the morning, a violent peal of the doorbell made us jump. We hadn’t been asleep—far from it—at that particular moment. Louise said, “What can that be?” And I answered, “I haven’t any idea. Probably a mistake.” And we stopped what we were doing and lay there pressed closely one against the other, our ears strained to catch any sound, very much on edge.
And then there was a second peal of the bell, and then a third, and then a fourth long peal filled our room with so much noise that we both sat up. This was no mistake: whoever it was, wanted us. I quickly pulled on my drawers and slippers and ran to the vestibule door, fearing some disaster. But before opening, I called, “Who is there? What do you want?”
A voice, a loud voice, the voice of my uncle, replied: “It’s me, Jean. Open your door, I don’t want to sleep on the stairs!”
I thought I would go crazy. But what was there to do? I rushed back into the bedroom and in a trembling voice said to Louise, “It’s my uncle. Hide!” Then I opened the outer door and the curé Loisel almost knocked me down with his carpetbag.
“What were you up to, you scamp? Why didn’t you open?”
I stammered that I had been asleep.
“Asleep at first, perhaps, but just now after you spoke to me—what were you up to then?”
I stammered that I had left my key in my trousers, and to prevent further discussion I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him violently on both cheeks.
That calmed him, and he explained his presence. “I’m here for four days, scapegrace,” he announced. “I wanted to take a look at the hellhole of Paris, to give myself an idea of what the real hell is like.” He gave a laugh like a roaring storm, then continued: “Put me up any way you can. We can lay one of your mattresses on the floor. But where’s your brother? Asleep? Wake him up! Wake him up!”
I felt that I was rapidly losing my wits, but managed to say, “Jacques isn’t home yet. He had a lot of extra work, night work, at the office.”
My uncle accepted that, rubbed his hands, and asked me how my work was going. Then he made for the door of my bedroom. I almost seized him by the collar. “No, no, this way, uncle.” An idea came to me. “You must be hungry after your trip. Come and have a bite of something.”
He smiled. “You’re right. I am hungry. I wouldn’t mind a snack.” And I pushed him into the dining room.
Dinner had been at our house that night, and the cupboard was full. I took out a piece of cold beef, and the curé lit into it heartily. I kept urging him to eat, kept filling his glass and reminding him of wonderful meals we had had in Normandy, to stimulate his appetite. When he had finished he pushed away his plate and said, “That’s that: I’ve had all I can manage.” But I had other things in reserve—I knew the good man’s weakness—and I brought out a chicken paté, a potato salad, a pot of cream, and some excellent wine that was left over from dinner. He almost fell over backwards in astonishment at my scale of living, pulled his plate toward him, and began all over again. It was getting late, and as he kept eating I kept trying to think of a way out, but nothing practical occurred to me.
Finally he got up from the table, and I felt my knees weaken. I tried to keep him where we were. “Here, uncle—some brandy. It’s old, it’s good.” But he declared, “No, this time I’m really through. Let’s see the rest of your quarters.”
I well knew that there was no holding him back, and shivers ran up and down my spine. What would happen? What kind of a scene and scandal? What violence, perhaps?
I followed him, filled with a wild desire to open the window and throw myself into the street. I followed him stupidly, not daring to say a word to restrain him, knowing myself lost, almost fainting with anguish, yet nevertheless hoping that some chance would come to my aid.
He entered the bedroom. One last hope lifted my heart: Louise, sweet thing, had drawn the bed curtains, and not a thing in the room betrayed the presence of a woman. Her dresses, her collars and cuffs, her stockings, her shoes, her gloves, her pins and rings—everything had disappeared. I stammered: “Let’s not go to bed now, uncle. The sun is almost up.”
“You’re a good boy to be willing to sit talking with an old man,” he answered. “But I could do with an hour or two of sleep.”
And he approached the bed, candle in hand. I waited, breathless, frantic. With one gesture he pulled the curtains open! It was a warm June night, and Louise and I had taken off the blankets, and on the bed was only a sheet, which Louise, in her desperation, had pulled over her head. Doubtless to make herself feel more securely hidden, she had rolled herself into a ball, and pressed tight against the sheet her—her contours were clearly visible.
I could hardly stand up.
My uncle turned to me, grinning so widely that I almost collapsed with astonishment. “So!” he cried, merrily. “Joking, were you! You didn’t want to wake your brother. Well—I’ll wake him, and you’ll see how.” And I saw his hand, his big peasant’s hand, upraised; and as he choked with laughter it fell, with a terrific sound, on the—contours before him.
There was a terrible cry in the bed; and then a furious tempest under the sheet. It heaved, billowed and shook: the poor girl couldn’t get out, so tightly had she rolled herself in.
Finally a leg appeared at one end, an arm at the other, then the head, then the bosom, naked and panting; and Louise, furious, sat up and looked at us with eyes shining like lanterns.
My uncle, speechless, started back, his mouth open, as though he had seen the devil himself. He was breathing like an ox.
I considered the situation too serious to cope with, and rushed madly out.
I didn’t return for two days. Louise had gone, leaving the key with the concierge. I never saw her again.
My uncle? He disinherited me in favor of my brother, who, warned by Louise, swore that he had refused to continue living with me because of my dissolute behavior, which he was unwilling to countenance.
I will never marry. Women are too dangerous.