The Father
Jean de Valnoix is a friend of mine whom I visit from time to time. He lives in a little house in the woods at the edge of a river. He retired from Paris after leading a wild life for fifteen years. Suddenly he had enough of pleasures, dinners, men, women, cards, everything; and he came to live in this little place where he had been born.
There are two or three of us who go, from time to time, to spend a fortnight or three weeks with him. He is certainly delighted to see us when we arrive, and pleased to be alone again when we leave. So I went to see him last week, and he received me with open arms. We would spend the time, sometimes together, sometimes alone. Usually he reads and I work during the daytime, and every evening we talk until midnight.
Well, last Tuesday, after a scorching day, towards nine o’clock in the evening we were both of us sitting and watching the water flow at our feet; we were exchanging very vague ideas about the stars which were bathing in the current and which seemed to swim along ahead of us. Our ideas were very vague, confused, and brief, for our minds are very limited, weak, and powerless. I was growing sentimental about the sun, which dies in the Great Bear. One can only see it on very clear nights, it is so pale. When the sky is the least bit clouded it disappears. We were thinking of the creatures which people these worlds, of their possible forms, of their unthinkable faculties and unknown organs, of the animals and plants of every kind, of all the kingdoms and forms of matter, of all the things which man’s dreams can barely touch.
Suddenly a voice called from the distance: “Monsieur, Monsieur!”
Jean answered: “Here I am, Baptiste!”
When the servant had found us he announced: “It’s Monsieur’s gipsy.”
My friend burst out laughing, a thing which he rarely did, then he asked: “Is today the nineteenth of July?”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“Very well. Tell her to wait for me. Give her some supper. I’ll see her in ten minutes.”
When the man had disappeared my friend took me by the arm saying: “Let us walk along slowly, while I tell you this story.
“Seven years ago, when I arrived here, I went out one evening to take a walk in the forest. It was a beautiful day, like today, and I was walking along slowly under the great trees, looking at the stars through the leaves, drinking in the quiet restfulness of night and the forest.
“I had just left Paris forever. I was tired out, more disgusted than I can say by all the foolish, low, and nasty things which I had seen and in which I had participated for fifteen years.
“I walked along for a great distance in this deep forest, following a path which leads to the village of Crouzille, about ten miles from here.
“Suddenly my dog, Bock, a great Saint-Germain, which never left me, stopped short and began to growl. I thought that perhaps a fox, a wolf, or a boar might be in the neighbourhood; I advanced gently on tiptoe, in order to make no noise, but suddenly I heard mournful human cries, plaintive, muffled and moving.
“Surely some murder was being committed. I rushed forward, taking a tight grip on my heavy oak cane, a regular club.
“I was coming nearer to the moans, which now became more distinct, but strangely muffled. They seemed to be coming from some house, perhaps from the hut of some charcoal burner. Three feet ahead of me Bock was running, stopping, barking, starting again, very excited, and growling all the time. Suddenly another dog, a big black one with burning eyes, barred our progress. I could clearly see his white fangs, which seemed to be shining in his mouth.
“I ran towards him with uplifted stick, but Bock had already jumped, and the two beasts were rolling on the ground with their teeth buried in each other. I went past them and almost bumped into a horse lying in the road. As I stopped, in surprise, to examine the animal, I saw in front of me a wagon, or, rather, a caravan, such as are inhabited by circus people and the itinerant merchants who go from fair to fair.
“The cries were coming from there, frightful and continuous. As the door opened on the other side I turned around this vehicle and rushed up the three wooden steps, ready to jump on the malefactor.
“What I saw seemed so strange to me that I could not understand it at first. A man was kneeling, and seemed to be praying, while in the only bed something impossible to recognize, a half-naked creature, whose face I could not see, was moving, twisting about, and howling. It was a woman in labour.
“As soon as I understood the kind of accident which was the cause of these screams, I made my presence known, and the man, wild with grief, and apparently from the neighbourhood of Marseilles, begged me to save him, to save her, promising me with many words an incredible gratitude. I had never seen a birth; I had never helped a female creature, woman, dog, or cat, in such a circumstance, and I naively said so, as I stupidly watched this thing which was screaming so in the bed.
“Then when I had gathered my wits again, I asked the grief-stricken man why he did not go to the next village. His horse must have caught in a rut and had broken his leg.
“ ‘Well, my man,’ I exclaimed, ‘there are two of us now, and we will drag your wife to my house.’
“But the howling dogs forced us to go outside, and we had to separate them by beating them with our sticks, at the risk of killing them. Then the idea struck me to harness them with us, one to the right and the other to the left, in order to help us. In ten minutes everything was ready, and the wagon started forward slowly, shaking the poor, suffering woman each time it bumped over the deep ruts.
“Such a road, my friend! We were going along, panting, groaning, perspiring, slipping, and falling, while our poor dogs puffed along beside us.
“It took three hours to reach the cottage. When we arrived before the door the cries from the wagon had ceased. Mother and child were doing well.
“They were put to bed, and then I had a horse harnessed up in order to go for a physician, while the man, an inhabitant of Marseilles, reassured, consoled, and triumphant, was stuffing himself with food and getting dead drunk in order to celebrate this happy birth.
“It was a girl.
“I kept these people with me for a week. The mother, Mademoiselle Elmire, was an extraordinarily lucid fortune-teller, who promised me an interminable life and countless joys.
“The following year, on exactly the same day, towards nightfall, the servant who has just called me came to me in the smoking-room after dinner and said: ‘It’s the gipsy of last year who has come to thank Monsieur.’
“I had her come into the house, and I was dumbfounded when I saw beside her a tall blond fellow, a man from the North, who bowed and spoke to me as chief of the community. He had heard of my kindness to Mademoiselle Elmire, and he had not wished to let this anniversary go by without bringing to me their thanks and a testimony of their gratitude.
“I gave them supper in the kitchen, and offered them my hospitality for the night. They left the following day.
“The woman returns every year at the same date with the child, a fine little girl, and a new … lord and master each time. One man only, a fellow from Auvergne, who thanked me in his strange accent, came back two years in succession. The little girl calls them all ‘Papa,’ just as one says ‘Monsieur’ with us.”
We were arriving at the house, and we could barely distinguish three shadows standing on the steps, waiting for us. The tallest one took a few steps forward, made a great bow, and said: “Monsieur le Comte, we have come today in recognition of our gratefulness. …”
He was a Belgian!
After him, the little one spoke in the shrill, singing voice which children use when they recite a compliment.
I appeared to know nothing, and I took Mademoiselle Elmire to one side, and, after a few questions, I asked her: “Is that the father of your child?”
“Oh! no, Monsieur.”
“Is the father dead?”
“Oh! no, Monsieur. We still see each other from time to time. He is a gendarme.”
“What! then it wasn’t the fellow from Marseilles who was there at the birth?”
“Oh! no, Monsieur. That was a rascal who stole all my savings.”
“And the gendarme, the real father, does he know his child?”
“Oh! yes, Monsieur, and he loves her very much; but he can’t take care of her because he has others by his wife.”