Miss Harriet
There were seven of us in the drag, four women and three men, one of whom was on the box seat beside the coachman. We were following, at a walking pace, the winding coast road up the hill.
Having set out from Étretat at daybreak, in order to visit the ruins of Tancarville, we were still half asleep, benumbed by the fresh air of the morning. The women, especially, who were little accustomed to early rising, let their eyelids fall every moment, nodding their heads or yawning, quite insensible to the glory of the dawn.
It was autumn. On both sides of the road the bare fields stretched out, yellowed by the corn and wheat stubble which covered the soil like a badly shaved beard. The misty earth looked as if it were steaming. Larks were singing in the air, while other birds piped in the bushes.
At length the sun rose in front of us, a bright red on the edge of the horizon; and as it ascended, growing clearer from minute to minute, the country seemed to awake, to smile, to shake and stretch itself, like a young girl leaving her bed in a white chemise of vapour. The Comte d’Étraille, who was seated on the box, cried:
“Look! look! a hare!” and he stretched out his arm to the left, pointing to a patch of clover. The animal scurried along, almost concealed by the field, only its large ears visible. Then it swerved across a deep furrow, stopped, started off again at top speed, changed its course, stopped anew, uneasy, spying out every danger, and undecided as to the route it should take. Suddenly it began to run, with great bounds from its hind legs, disappearing finally in a large patch of beetroot. All the men had wakened up to watch the animal’s movements.
René Lemanoir then exclaimed:
“We are not at all gallant this morning,” and looking at his neighbor, the little Baronne de Sérennes, who was struggling with drowsiness, he said to her in a subdued voice: “You are thinking of your husband, Baronne. Reassure yourself; he will not return before Saturday, so you still have four days.”
She replied, with a sleepy smile:
“How silly you are.” Then, shaking off her torpor, she added: “Now, let somebody say something that will make us all laugh. You, Monsieur Chenal, who have the reputation of possessing a larger fortune than the Duc de Richelieu, tell us a love story in which you have been involved, anything you like.”
Léon Chenal, an old painter, who had once been very handsome, very strong, who was very proud of his physique and very popular, took his long white beard in his hand and smiled; then, after a few moments’ reflection, he became suddenly grave.
“Ladies, it will not be an amusing tale; for I am going to relate to you the most lamentable love affair of my life, and I sincerely hope that none of my friends may ever inspire a similar passion.”
I
“At that time I was twenty-five years old, and I was daubing along the coast of Normandy. I call ‘daubing’ to wander about, with a knapsack on one’s back, from inn to inn, under the pretext of making studies and sketches from nature. I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free, without shackles of any kind, without a care, without a single preoccupation, without even a thought of tomorrow. You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your fancy, without any counselor save what pleases your eyes. You pull up, because a running brook seduces you, or because you are attracted, in front of an inn, by the smell of fried potatoes. Sometimes it is the perfume of clematis which decides you in your choice, or the glance of the servant at an inn. Do not despise these rustic affections. These girls have souls as well as bodies, firm cheeks and fresh lips; while their hearty and willing kisses have the flavor of wild fruit. Love always has its savour, come whence it may. A heart that beats when you make your appearance, an eye that weeps when you go away, these are things so rare, so sweet, so precious, that they must never be despised.
“I have had rendezvous in ditches full of primroses, behind the stable in which the cattle slept, and among the straw in garrets still warm from the heat of the day. I have memories of course grey linen on supple strong bodies, and of hearty, fresh, free kisses, more delicate, in their sincere brutality, than the subtle attractions of charming and distinguished women.
“But what you love most in these pilgrimages of adventure are the country, the woods, the sunrises, the twilights, the light of the moon. For the painter these are honeymoon trips with Nature. You are alone with her in a long, quiet rendezvous. You go to bed in the fields amid marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide open, beneath the bright sunset, you watch in the distance the little village, with its pointed clock-tower, which sounds the hour of noon.
“You sit down by the side of a spring which gushes out from the foot of an oak, amid a covering of tall, fragile weeds, glistening with life. You go down on your knees, bend forward, and drink the cold and pellucid water, wetting your mustache and nose; you drink it with a physical pleasure, as though you were kissing the spring, lip to lip. Sometimes, when you encounter a deep hole, along the course of these tiny brooks, you plunge into it, quite naked, and on your skin, from head to foot, like an icy and delicious caress, you feel the lovely and gentle quivering of the current.
“You are gay on the hills, melancholy on the verge of pools, exalted when the sun is drowned in an ocean of bloodred shadows, and when it casts on the rivers its red reflection. And at night, under the moon, as it passes across the roof of heaven, you think of things, singular things, which would never have occurred to your mind under the brilliant light of day.
“So, in wandering through the same country where we are this year, I came to the little village of Bénouville, on the rocky coast, between Yport and Étretat. I came from Fécamp, following the coast, a high coast, perpendicular as a wall, with projecting and rugged rocks falling sheer down into the sea. I had walked since morning on the close-clipped grass, as smooth and as yielding as a carpet, which grows along the edge of the cliff, fanned by the salt breezes of the ocean. Singing lustily, I walked with long strides, looking sometimes at the slow and lazy flight of a gull, with its short, white wings, sailing in the blue heavens, sometimes at the green sea, or at the brown sails of a fishing bark. In short, I had passed a happy day, a day of liberty and freedom from care.
“I was shown a little farmhouse, where travellers were put up, a kind of inn, kept by a peasant, which stood in the centre of a Norman court, surrounded by a double row of beeches.
“Leaving the court, I reached the hamlet, which was shut in by great trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.
“She was an old country woman, wrinkled and austere, who always seemed to receive customers reluctantly, with a kind of contempt.
“It was the month of May: the flowering apple trees covered the court with a roof of perfumed flowers, with a whirling shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon the people and upon the grass.
“I said:
“ ‘Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?’
“Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:
“ ‘That depends; everything is let; but, all the same, there will be no harm in looking.’
“In five minutes we had come to an agreement, and I deposited my bag upon the earthen floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed, two chairs, a table, and a washstand. The room opened into the large and smoky kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm and with the woman herself, who was a widow.
“I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman was making a chicken fricassee for dinner in a large fireplace, in which hung the stewpot, black with smoke.
“ ‘You have visitors, then, at the present time?’ said I to her.
“She answered in an offended tone of voice:
“ ‘I have a lady, an English lady, of a certain age. She is occupying the other room.’
“For an extra five sous a day, I obtained the privilege of dining out in the court when the weather was fine.
“My place was then set in front of the door, and I commenced to gnaw with hunger the lean limbs of the Normandy chicken, to drink the clear cider, and to munch the hunk of white bread, which, though four days old, was excellent.
“Suddenly, the wooden barrier which opened on to the highway was opened, and a strange person directed her steps toward the house. She was very thin, very tall, enveloped in a Scotch shawl with red checks. You would have believed that she had no arms, if you had not seen a long hand appear just above the hips, holding a white tourist’s umbrella. The face of a mummy, surrounded with sausage rolls of plaited grey hair, which bounded at every step she took, made me think, I know not why, of a pickled herring adorned with curling papers. Lowering her eyes, she passed quickly in front of me, and entered the house.
“This singular apparition made me curious. She undoubtedly was my neighbour, the aged English lady of whom our hostess had spoken.
“I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had begun to paint at the end of that beautiful valley, which, you know, extends as far as Étretat, lifting my eyes suddenly, I perceived something singularly attired standing on the crest of the declivity; it looked like a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I returned to the house at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance of this eccentric old creature. But she did not respond to my polite advances, was insensible even to my little attentions. I poured water out for her with great alacrity, I passed her the dishes with great eagerness. A slight, almost imperceptible movement of the head, and an English word, murmured so low that I did not understand it, were her only acknowledgments.
“I ceased taking any notice of her, although she had disturbed my thoughts. At the end of three days, I knew as much about her as did Madame Lecacheur herself.
“She was called Miss Harriet. Seeking out a secluded village in which to pass the summer, she had been attracted to Bénouville, some six months before, and did not seem disposed to leave it. She never spoke at table, ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book of Protestant propaganda. She gave a copy of it to everybody. The curé himself had received no less than four copies, at the hands of an urchin to whom she had paid two sous’ commission. She said sometimes to our hostess, abruptly, without the slightest preliminary leading up to this declaration:
“ ‘I love the Saviour above all; I worship him in all creation; I adore him in all nature; I carry him always in my heart.’
“And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her brochures which were destined to convert the universe.
“In the village she was not liked. In fact, the schoolmaster had declared that she was an atheist, and a kind of stigma attached to her. The curé, who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded:
“ ‘She is a heretic, but God does not wish the death of the sinner, and I believe her to be a person of pure morals.’
“These words, ‘atheist,’ ‘heretic,’ words which no one can precisely define, threw doubts into some minds. It was asserted, however, that this English woman was rich, and that she had passed her life in travelling through every country in the world, because her family had thrown her off. Why had her family thrown her off? Because of her natural impiety?
“She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles, one of those obstinate puritans of whom England produces so many, one of those good and insupportable old women who haunt the tables d’hôte of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterannean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias, their petrified vestal manners, their indescribable toilettes, and a certain odour of india-rubber, which makes one believe that at night they slip themselves into a case of that material. When I meet one of these people in a hotel, I flee like the birds when they see a scarecrow in a field.
“This woman, however, appeared so singular that she did not displease me.
“Madame Lecacheur, hostile by instinct to everything that was not rural, felt in her narrow soul a kind of hatred for the ecstatic extravagances of the old girl. She had found a phrase by which to describe her, I know not how, but a phrase assuredly contemptuous, which had sprung to her lips, invented probably by some confused and mysterious travail of soul. She said: ‘That woman is a demoniac.’ This phrase, as uttered by that austere and sentimental creature, seemed to me irresistibly comic. I, myself, never called her now anything else but ‘the demoniac,’ feeling a singular pleasure in pronouncing this word on seeing her.
“I would ask Mother Lecacheur: ‘Well, what is our demoniac doing today?’ To which my rustic friend would respond, with an air of having been scandalized:
“ ‘What do you think, sir? She picked up a toad which had its leg battered, carried it to her room, put it in her washstand, and dressed its wound as if it were a human. If that is not profanation, I should like to know what is!’
“On another occasion, when walking along the shore, she had bought a large fish which had just been caught, simply to throw it back into the sea again. The sailor, from whom she had bought it, though paid handsomely, was greatly provoked at this act—more exasperated, indeed, than if she had put her hand into his pocket and taken his money. For a whole month he could not speak of the circumstance without getting into a fury and denouncing it as an outrage. Oh yes! She was indeed a demoniac, this Miss Harriet, and Mother Lecacheur must have had an inspiration of genius in thus christening her.
“The stable-boy, who was called Sapeur, because he had served in Africa in his youth, entertained other aversions. He said, with a knowing air: ‘She is an old hag who has had her day.’ If the poor woman had but known.
“Céleste, the little servant, did not like waiting on her, but I was never able to understand why. Probably her only reason was that she was a stranger, of another race, of a different tongue, and of another religion. She was a demoniac in brief!
“She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and searching for God in nature. I found her one evening on her knees in a cluster of bushes. Having discovered something red through the leaves, I brushed aside the branches, and Miss Harriet at once rose to her feet, confused at having been found thus, looking at me with eyes as frightened as those of an owl surprised in open day.
“Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly see her on the edge of the cliff, standing like a semaphore signal. She gazed passionately at the vast sea, glittering in the sunlight, and the boundless sky empurpled with fire. Sometimes I would distinguish her at the bottom of a valley, walking quickly, with her elastic English step; and I would go towards her, mysteriously attracted, simply to see her visionary expression, her dried-up, ineffable features, full of an inward and profound happiness.
“Often I would encounter her in the corner of a field sitting on the grass, under the shadow of an apple tree, with her little Bible lying open on her knee, while she looked meditatively into the distance.
“I could no longer tear myself away from that quiet country neighbourhood, bound to it as I was by a thousand links of love for its soft and sweeping landscapes. I was happy at this farm, which was out of the world, far removed from everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good, healthy, beautiful green soil, which we ourselves shall fertilise with our bodies some day. And, I must confess, there was perhaps a certain amount of curiosity which kept me at Mother Lecacheur’s. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet, and to learn what passes in the solitary souls of those wandering old, English dames.
II
“We became acquainted in a rather singular manner. I had just finished a study which seemed to me rather striking. It must have been, for it was sold for ten thousand francs, fifteen years later. It was as simple, however, as twice two make four, and had nothing to do with academic rules. The whole of the right side of my canvas represented a rock, an enormous jagged rock, covered with seawrack, brown, yellow, and red, across which the sun poured like a stream of oil. The light fell upon the stone, and gilded it as if with fire, but the sun itself was behind me and could not be seen. That was all. A foreground dazzling with light, blazing, superb.
“On the left was the sea, not the blue sea, the slate-coloured sea, but a sea of jade, greenish, milky, and hard under the overcast sky.
“I was so pleased with my work that I danced as I carried it back to the inn. I wished that the whole world could have seen it at one and the same moment. I can remember that I showed it to a cow, which was browsing by the wayside, exclaiming, at the same time: ‘Look at that, my old beauty; you will not often see its like again.’
“When I had reached the front of the house, I immediately called out to Mother Lecacheur, bawling with all my might:
“ ‘Hello, there, Landlady! Come here and look at this.’
“The woman came and looked at my work with stupid eyes, which distinguished nothing, and did not even recognize whether the picture represented an ox or a house.
“Miss Harriet was coming into the house, and she passed behind me just at the moment when, holding out my canvas at arm’s length, I was exhibiting it to the female innkeeper. The ‘demoniac’ could not help but see it, for I took care to exhibit the thing in such a way that it could not escape her notice. She stopped abruptly and stood motionless, stupefied. It was her rock which was depicted, the one which she usually climbed to dream away her time undisturbed.
“She uttered a British ‘Oh,’ which was at once so accentuated and so flattering, that I turned round to her, smiling, and said:
“ ‘This is my latest study, Mademoiselle.’
“She murmured ecstatically, comically, and tenderly:
“ ‘Oh! Monsieur, you understand nature in a most thrilling way!’
“I coloured up, of course, and was more excited by that compliment than if it had come from a queen. I was seduced, conquered, vanquished. I could have embraced her—upon my honour.
“I took my seat at the table beside her, as I had always done. For the first time, she spoke, drawling out in a loud voice:
“ ‘Oh! I love nature so much.’
“I offered her some bread, some water, some wine. She now accepted these with the vacant smile of a mummy. I then began to converse with her about the scenery.
“After the meal, we rose from the table together and walked leisurely across the court; then, attracted by the fiery glow which the setting sun cast over the surface of the sea, I opened the outside gate which faced in the direction of the cliff, and we walked on side by side, as satisfied as any two persons could be who have just learned to understand and penetrate each other’s motives and feelings.
“It was a misty, relaxing evening, one of those enjoyable evenings which impart happiness to mind and body alike. All is joy, all is charm. The luscious and balmy air, loaded with the perfume of grass, with the perfumes of grass-wrack, with the odour of the wild flowers, caresses the nostrils with its wild perfume, the palate with its salty savour, the soul with a penetrating sweetness. We were going to the brink of the abyss which overlooked the vast sea, which rolled its little waves below us, at a distance of less than a hundred metres.
“We drank, with open mouth and expanded chest, that fresh breeze from the ocean which glides slowly over the skin, salted as it is by long contact with the waves.
“Wrapped in her plaid shawl, with a look of inspiration as she faced the breeze, the English woman gazed fixedly at the great sun ball as it descended toward the horizon. Far off in the distance a three-master in full sail was outlined on the bloodred sky and a steamship, somewhat nearer, passed along, leaving behind it a trail of smoke on the horizon. The red sun globe sank slowly lower and lower and presently touched the water just behind the motionless vessel, which, in its dazzling effulgence, looked as though framed in a flame of fire. We saw it plunge, grow smaller and disappear, swallowed up by the ocean.
“Miss Harriet gazed in rapture at the last gleams of the dying day. She seemed longing to embrace the sky, the sea, the whole landscape.
“She murmured: ‘Ah! I love—I love—’ I saw a tear in her eye. She continued: ‘I wish I were a little bird, so that I could mount up into the firmament.’
“She remained standing as I had often before seen her, perched on the cliff, her face as red as her shawl. I should have liked to have sketched her in my album. It would have been a caricature of ecstasy.
“I turned away so as not to laugh.
“I then spoke to her of painting as I would have done to a fellow artist, using the technical terms common among the devotees of the profession. She listened attentively, eagerly seeking to divine the meaning of the terms, so as to understand my thoughts. From time to time she would exclaim: ‘Oh! I understand, I understand. It is very interesting.’
“We returned home.
“The next day, on seeing me, she approached me, cordially holding out her hand; and we at once became firm friends.
“She was a good creature who had a kind of soul on springs, which became enthusiastic at a bound. She lacked equilibrium, like all women who are spinsters at the age of fifty. She seemed to be preserved in vinegary innocence, though her heart still retained something of youth and of girlish effervescence. She loved both nature and animals with a fervent ardour, a love like old wine, mellow through age, with a sensual love that she had never bestowed on men.
“One thing is certain: a bitch feeding her pups, a mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at its side, a bird’s nest full of young ones, squeaking, with their open mouths and enormous heads, and no feathers, made her quiver with the most violent emotion.
“Poor solitary beings! Sad wanderers from table d’hôte to table d’hôte, poor beings, ridiculous and lamentable, I love you ever since I became acquainted with Miss Harriet!
“I soon discovered that she had something she would like to tell me, but dared not, and I was amused at her timidity. When I started out in the morning with my box on my back, she would accompany me to the end of the village, silent, but evidently struggling inwardly to find words with which to begin a conversation. Then she would leave me abruptly, and, with jaunty step, walk away quickly.
“One day, however, she plucked up courage:
“ ‘I would like to see how you paint pictures? Will you show me? I have been very curious.’
“And she coloured up as though she had given utterance to words extremely audacious.
“I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had commenced a large picture.
“She remained standing near me, following all my gestures with concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing, perhaps, that she was disturbing me, she said to me: ‘Thank you,’ and walked away.
“But in a short time she became more familiar, and accompanied me every day, with visible pleasure. She carried her folding stool under her arm, would not consent to my carrying it, and she sat by my side. She would remain there for hours immovable and mute, following with her eye the point of my brush in its every movement. When I would obtain, by a large splatch of colour spread on with a knife, a striking and unexpected effect, she would, in spite of herself, give vent to a half-suppressed ‘Oh!’ of astonishment, of joy, of admiration. She had the most tender respect for my canvases, an almost religious respect for that human reproduction of a part of nature’s divine work. My studies appeared to her as a species of holy pictures, and sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of converting me.
“Oh! He was a queer creature, this God of hers. He was a sort of village philosopher without any great resources, and without great power; for she always pictured him to herself as a being in despair over injustices committed under his eyes, as if he were helpless to prevent them.
“She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to be the confidante of his secrets and of his whims. She said: ‘God wills, or God does not will,’ just like a sergeant announcing to a recruit: ‘The colonel has commanded.’
“At the bottom of her heart she deplored my ignorance of the intentions of the Eternal, which she strove, nay, felt herself compelled, to impart to me.
“Every day, I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it from the ground, in my box of colours, in my polished shoes, standing in the mornings in front of my door, those little pious brochures, which she, no doubt, received directly from Paradise.
“I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected cordiality. But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in her manner, though, for a while, I paid little attention to it.
“When I was painting, whether in my valley or in some country lane, I would see her suddenly appear with her rapid, springy walk. She would then sit down abruptly, out of breath, as though she had been running or were overcome by some profound emotion. Her face would be red, that English red which is denied to the people of all other countries; then, without any reason, she would turn ashy pale and seem about to faint away. Gradually, however, her natural colour would return and she would begin to speak.
“Then, without warning, she would break off in the middle of a sentence, spring up from her seat and walk away so rapidly and so strangely that I was at my wits’ ends to discover whether I had done or said anything to displease or wound her.
“I finally came to the conclusion that those were her normal manners, somewhat modified no doubt in my honour during the first days of our acquaintance.
“When she returned to the farm, after walking for hours on the windy coast, her long curls often hung straight down, as if their springs had been broken. This had hitherto seldom given her any concern, and she would come to dinner without embarrassment all dishevelled by her sister, the breeze.
“But now she would go up to her room in order to adjust what I called her glass lamps. When I would say to her, with familiar gallantry, which, however, always offended her: ‘You are as beautiful as a planet today, Miss Harriet,’ a little blood would immediately mount into her cheeks, the blood of a young maiden, the blood of sweet fifteen.
“Then she became quite savage, and ceased coming to watch me paint. But I always thought: ‘This is only a fit of temper. It will pass.’
“But it did not always pass away. When I spoke to her now, she would answer me, either with an air of affected indifference, or in sullen anger; and she became by turns rude, impatient, and nervous. I never saw her except at meals, and we spoke but little. I concluded, at length, that I must have offended her in something: and, accordingly, I said to her one evening:
“ ‘Miss Harriet, why is it that you do not act towards me as formerly? What have I done to displease you? You are causing me much pain!’
“She responded, in an angry tone, which was very funny: ‘I am always the same to you as formerly. It is not true, not true,’ and she ran upstairs and shut herself up in her room.
“At times she would look upon me with strange eyes. Since that time I have often said to myself that those condemned to death must look thus when informed that their last day has come. In her eye there lurked a species of madness, an insanity at once mystical and violent—something more, a fever, an exasperated desire, impatient, unrealized and unrealizable!
“It seemed to me that there was also going on within her a combat, in which her heart struggled against an unknown force that she wished to overcome—perhaps, even, something else. But what could I know? What could I know?
III
“It was indeed a singular revelation.
“For some time I had commenced to work, as soon as daylight appeared, on a picture the subject of which was as follows:
“A deep ravine, enclosed, surmounted by two thickets of trees and vines, extended into the distance and was lost, submerged in that milky vapour, in that cloud like cotton down that sometimes floats over valleys at daybreak. And at the extreme end of that heavy, transparent fog one saw, or, rather, surmised, that a couple of human beings were approaching, a human couple, a youth and a maiden, their arms interlaced, embracing each other, their heads inclined toward each other, their lips meeting.
“A first ray of the sun, glistening through the branches, pierced that fog of the dawn, illuminated it with a rosy reflection just behind the rustic lovers, framing their vague shadows in a silvery background. It was well done; yes, indeed, well done.
“I was working on the declivity which led to the Valley of Étretat. On this particular morning I had, by chance, the sort of floating vapor which I needed. Suddenly something rose up in front of me like a phantom; it was Miss Harriet. On seeing me she was about to flee. But I called after her, saying: ‘Come here, come here, mademoiselle. I have a nice little picture for you.’
“She came forward, though with seeming reluctance. I handed her my sketch. She said nothing, but stood for a long time motionless, looking at it. Suddenly she burst into tears. She wept spasmodically, like men who have been struggling hard against shedding tears, but who can do so no longer, and abandon themselves to grief, though unwillingly. I got up, trembling, moved myself by the sight of a sorrow I did not understand, and I took her by the hand with a gesture of brusque affection, the real impulse of a Frenchman who acts more rapidly than he thinks.
“She let her hands rest in mine for a few seconds, and I felt them quiver, as if her whole nervous system were on the rack. Then she withdrew her hands abruptly, or, rather, tore them out of mine.
“I recognized that shiver as soon as I had felt it; I was deceived in nothing. Ah! the love thrill of a woman, whether she is fifteen or fifty years of age, whether she is of the people or in society, goes so straight to my heart that I never had any difficulty in understanding it!
“Her whole frail being trembled, vibrated, yielded. I knew it. She walked away before I had time to say a word, leaving me as surprised as if I had witnessed a miracle, and as troubled as if I had committed a crime.
“I did not go in to breakfast. I took a walk on the edge of the cliff, feeling that I could just as soon weep as laugh, looking on the adventure as both comic and deplorable, and my position as ridiculous, believing her unhappy enough to go mad.
“I asked myself what I ought to do. I judged I had better take leave of the place and almost immediately my resolution was formed.
“Somewhat sad and perplexed, I wandered about until dinner time, and entered the farmhouse just when the soup had been served.
“I sat down at the table as usual. Miss Harriet was there, eating away solemnly, without speaking to anyone, without even lifting her eyes. Her manner and expression were, however, the same as usual.
“I waited patiently till the meal had been finished, when, turning toward the landlady, I said: ‘Well, Madame Lecacheur, it will not be long now before I shall have to take my leave of you.’
“The good woman, at once surprised and troubled, replied in her drawling voice: ‘My dear sir, what is it you say? You are going to leave us after I have become so accustomed to you?’
“I glanced at Miss Harriet out of the corner of my eye. Her countenance did not change in the least. But Céleste, the little servant, looked up at me. She was a fat girl, of about eighteen years of age, rosy, fresh, as strong as a horse, and possessing the rare attribute of cleanliness. I had kissed her at odd times in out-of-the-way corners, after the manner of travellers—nothing more.
“The dinner being at length over, I went to smoke my pipe under the apple trees, walking up and down from one end of the enclosure to the other. All the reflections which I had made during the day, the strange discovery of the morning, that passionate and grotesque attachment for me, the recollections which that revelation had suddenly called up, recollections at once charming and perplexing, perhaps also that look which the servant had cast on me at the announcement of my departure—all these things, mixed up and combined, put me now in a reckless humour, gave me a tickling sensation of kisses on the lips, and in my veins a something which urged me on to commit some folly.
“Night was coming on, casting its dark shadows under the trees, when I descried Céleste, who had gone to fasten up the poultry yard at the other end of the enclosure. I darted towards her, running so noiselessly that she heard nothing, and as she got up from closing the small trapdoor by which the chickens got in and out, I clasped her in my arms and rained on her coarse, fat face a shower of kisses. She struggled, laughing all the time, as she was accustomed to do in such circumstances. Why did I suddenly loose my grip of her? Why did I at once experience a shock? What was it that I heard behind me?
“It was Miss Harriet, who had come upon us, who had seen us and who stood in front of us motionless as a spectre. Then she disappeared in the darkness.
“I was ashamed, embarrassed, more sorry at having been thus surprised by her than if she had caught me committing some criminal act.
“I slept badly that night. I was completely unnerved and haunted by sad thoughts. I seemed to hear loud weeping, but in this I was no doubt deceived. Moreover, I thought several times that I heard someone walking up and down in the house and opening the hall door.
“Towards morning I was overcome by fatigue and fell asleep. I got up late and did not go downstairs until the late breakfast, being still in a bewildered state, not knowing what kind of expression to put on.
“No one had seen Miss Harriet. We waited for her at table, but she did not appear. At length, Mother Lechacheur went to her room. The Englishwoman had gone out. She must have set out at break of day, as she was wont to do, in order to see the sun rise.
“Nobody seemed astonished at this and we began to eat in silence.
“The weather was hot, very hot, one of those still, sultry days when not a leaf stirs. The table had been placed out of doors, under an apple tree; and from time to time Sapeur had gone to the cellar to draw a jug of cider, everybody was so thirsty. Céleste brought the dishes from the kitchen, a ragout of mutton with potatoes, a cold rabbit, and a salad. Afterwards she placed before us a dish of cherries, the first of the season.
“As I wanted to wash and freshen these, I begged the servant to go and bring a pitcher of cold water.
“In about five minutes she returned, declaring that the well was dry. She had lowered the pitcher to the full extent of the cord, and had touched the bottom, but on drawing the pitcher up again, it was empty. Mother Lecacheur, anxious to examine the thing for herself, went and looked down the hole. She returned announcing that one could see clearly something in the well, something altogether unusual. Doubtless a neighbour had thrown some bundles of straw down, out of spite.
“I wished also to look down the well, hoping to see better, and I leaned over the brink. I perceived, indistinctly, a white object. What could it be? I then conceived the idea of lowering a lantern at the end of a cord. The yellow flame danced on the stone walls, and gradually sank deeper. All four of us were leaning over the opening, Sapeur and Céleste having now joined us. The lantern rested on a black and white, indistinct mass, singular, incomprehensible. Sapeur exclaimed:
“ ‘It is a horse. I see the hoofs. It must have escaped from the meadow, during the night, and fallen in headlong.’
“But, suddenly, a cold shiver attacked my spine, I first recognized a foot, then a clothed limb; the body was entire, but the other limb had disappeared under the water.
“I groaned and trembled so violently that the light of the lamp danced hither and thither over the object, discovering a slipper.
“ ‘It is a woman! who—who—is down there. It is Miss Harriet.’
“Sapeur alone did not manifest horror. He had witnessed worse things in Africa.
“Mother Lecacheur and Céleste began to scream and to shriek, and ran away.
“But it was necessary to recover the corpse of the dead woman. I attached the boy securely by the loins, then I lowered him slowly, by means of the pulley, and watched him disappear in the darkness. In his hands he had a lantern, and another rope. Soon I recognized his voice, which seemed to come from the centre of the earth, crying:
“ ‘Stop.’
“I then saw him fish something out of the water. It was the other limb. He bound the two feet together, and shouted anew:
“ ‘Haul up.’
“I commenced to wind him up, but I felt as if my arms were broken, my muscles relaxed, and I was in terror lest I should let the boy fall to the bottom. When his head appeared over the brink, I asked:
“ ‘Well,’ as if I expected he had a message from the woman lying at the bottom.
“We both got on to the stone slab at the edge of the well, and, face to face, hoisted the body.
“Mother Lecacheur and Céleste watched us from a distance, concealed behind the wall of the house. When they saw, issuing from the well, the black slippers and white stockings of the drowned person, they disappeared.
“Sapeur seized the ankles, and we pulled up the poor chaste woman, in the most immodest posture. The head was in a shocking state, bruised and black; and the long, grey hair, hanging down, out of curl forever, was muddy and dripping with water.
“ ‘In the name of all that is holy, how thin she is!’ exclaimed Sapeur, in a contemptuous tone.
“We carried her into the room, and as the women did not put in an appearance, I, with the assistance of the lad, dressed the corpse for burial.
“I washed her disfigured face. By the touch of my hand an eye was slightly opened; it seemed to scan me with that pale stare, with that cold, that terrible look which corpses have, a look which seems to come from the beyond. I plaited up, as well as I could, her dishevelled hair, and I arranged on her forehead a novel and singular coiffure. Then I took off her dripping wet garments, baring, not without a feeling of shame, as though I had been guilty of some profanation, her shoulders and her chest, and her long arms, slim as the twigs of branches.
“I next went to fetch some flowers, poppies, cornflowers, marguerites, and fresh, sweet smelling grass, with which to strew her funeral couch.
“Being the only person near her, it was necessary for me to fulfil the usual formalities. In a letter found in her pocket, written at the last moment, she asked that her body be buried in the village in which she had passed the last days of her life. A frightful thought then oppressed my heart. Was it not on my account that she wished to be laid at rest in this place?
“Towards evening, all the female gossips of the locality came to view the remains of the deceased; but I would not allow a single person to enter; I wanted to be alone; and I watched by the corpse the whole night.
“By the light of the candles, I looked at the body of this miserable woman, wholly unknown, who had died so lamentably and so far away from home. Had she left no friends, no relatives behind her? What had her infancy been? What had been her life? Whence had she come, all alone, a wanderer, like a dog driven from home? What secrets of suffering and of despair were sealed up in that disagreeable body, like a shameful defect, concealed all her life beneath that ridiculous exterior, which had driven away from her all affection and all love?
“How many unhappy beings there are! I felt that upon that human creature weighed the eternal injustice of implacable nature! Life was over with her, without her ever having experienced, perhaps, that which sustains the most miserable of us all—to wit, the hope of being once loved! Otherwise, why should she thus have concealed herself, have fled from others? Why did she love everything so tenderly and so passionately, everything living that was not a man?
“I understood, also, why she believed in a God, and hoped for compensation from him for the miseries she had endured. She had now begun to decompose, and to become, in turn, a plant. She would blossom in the sun, and be eaten up by the cattle, carried away in seed by the birds, and as flesh by the beasts, again to become human flesh. But that which is called the soul had been extinguished at the bottom of the dark well. She suffered no longer. She had changed her life for that of others yet to be born.
“Hours passed away in this silent and sinister communion with the dead. A pale light announced the dawn of a new day, and a bright ray glistened on the bed, shedding a dash of fire on the bedclothes and on her hands. This was the hour she had so much loved, when the waking birds began to sing in the trees.
“I opened the window wide, I drew back the curtains, so that the whole heavens might look in upon us. Then bending toward the glassy corpse, I took in my hands the mutilated head, and slowly, without terror or disgust, imprinted a long, long kiss upon those lips which had never before received the salute of love.”
Léon Chenal was silent. The women wept. We heard the Comte d’Étraille on the box seat blow his nose several times in succession. The coachman alone had gone to sleep. The horses, no longer feeling the sting of the whip, had slackened their pace and were dragging us slowly along. And the brake hardly moved at all, having become suddenly heavy, as if laden with sorrow.