For fifty years the ladies of Pont-l’Évêque envied Madame Aubain her servant Felicity.

For a hundred francs a year she cooked, and cleaned, sewed, washed, ironed, could harness a horse, fatten up poultry, churn butter; and she remained loyal to her mistress who, all the same, was not an agreeable person.

Madame Aubain had married a fine young fellow without a fortune, who died at the beginning of 1809, leaving her two very young children, and a great number of debts. Then she sold her real estate, except the farm of Toucques, and the farm of Geffosses, whose rents amounted to five thousand francs at the outside, and she quitted the house at Saint-Milaine to settle in another one less costly, which had belonged to her ancestors, and was situated behind the market-place.

This house, covered with tiles, was set between a lane and an alley that gave on the river. Inside, its ground levels were unequal, and were the cause of frequent stumbles. A narrow vestibule separated the kitchen from the living-room, where Madame Aubain passed the whole day, seated near the window casement on a straw-bottomed chair. Against the wainscoting, painted white, were lined up eight mahogany chairs. An old piano carried, under a barometer, a heaped pyramid of wooden and cardboard boxes. Two deep arm-chairs, tapestry covered, flanked the yellow marble mantelpiece in the style of Louis XV. The clock in the middle represented a temple of Vesta—and the whole room smelled slightly musty, for the floor was lower than the garden.

On the first floor there was, first of all, ‘Madame’s’ room, very big, hung with a wallpaper with pale flowers, and containing the portrait of ‘Monsieur’ in the costume of a muscadin. It communicated with a smaller room, where two children’s couches were to be seen without their mattresses. Then came the drawing-room, always shut up, and filled with furniture covered with a sheet. Then a corridor led to a study: books and papers filled the shelves of a book-case surrounding with its three sides a large blackwood desk. The two end panels were invisible beneath pen-and-ink sketches, landscapes in body colour, and Audran’s engravings, souvenirs of better times and vanished luxury. A dormer window on the second story lighted Felicity’s room, looking out on the fields.

She rose with the dawn so as not to miss Mass, and worked without stopping until evening; then, dinner being finished, the dishes put away and the door fast shut, she covered the faggots with ashes, and fell asleep before the hearth, her rosary in her hand. Nobody in her marketing could show more obstinacy. As to her cleanliness, the polish on her saucepans was the despair of other servants. Thrifty, she ate slowly, and gathered up from the table with her fingers the crumbs of the loaf—a twelve-pound loaf, baked specially for her, which lasted twenty days.

All through the year she carried a cotton handkerchief fixed at her back by a pin, a bonnet that hid her hair, grey stockings, a red skirt, and over her bodice an apron with a bib like a hospital nurse.

Her face was thin and her voice sharp. At twenty-five years of age you would have guessed her to be forty. After her fiftieth year she showed no traces of any age at all; and, always silent, upright in carriage, and measured in gesture, she seemed a woman made of wood, functioning automatically.

II

She had had, like any one else, her love story.

Her father, a mason, had been killed in falling from a scaffolding. Then her mother died, her sisters scattered; a farmer took her in, and employed her, while still a little girl, in guarding cows in the fields. She shivered under her rags, drank flat on her stomach the water of the pools, for no pretext at all was beaten, and finally was dismissed for a theft of thirty pence which she had not committed. She took service in another farm, became hen girl there, and, as she pleased her employers, her comrades were jealous of her.

One day in the month of August (she was eighteen then) they took her with them to the fair at Colleville. Straightway she was bewildered, stupefied by the noise of the fiddlers, the lights in the trees, the motley of the costumes, the laces, the gold crosses—this mass of people who leapt simultaneously. She was keeping modestly in the background when a young man, well-to-do in appearance, smoking his pipe, with his two elbows on the pole of a small wagon, came to invite her to dance. He recompensed her with cider, with coffee, with cake, with a scarf, and offered to lead her out again. She did not know what to answer, and wanted to run away. He departed.

Another evening on the road to Beaumont she wanted to pass a big wagon of hay that was going along slowly, and as she brushed past the wheels she recognized Theodore.

At once he spoke of the harvests and the notables of the district, for his father had left Colleville for the farm of Écots, so that now they were neighbours. ‘Ah’, she said. He added that they were wanting to set him up for himself. Yet he wasn’t in a hurry; he was waiting for a wife to his taste. She hung her head. Then he asked her if she was thinking of marriage. She answered, smiling, that it wasn’t right to laugh at her. ‘But I’m not, I give you my word!’ and with his left arm he encircled her waist: she walked on, held up by his embrace: they went more slowly. The wind was soft, the stars shone, the huge wagon-load of hay swayed before them, and the four horses, dragging their feet, raised the dust. Then, without being told, they turned to the right. He hugged her again. She disappeared into the shadows.

Theodore, the following week, got her to promise to meet him.

They met at the far end of the courtyard, under an isolated tree. She was not innocent, in the fashion of ladies, but common sense and the instinct of honour kept her from yielding. This resistance exasperated Theodore’s love so much that in order to satisfy it (or perhaps quite ingenuously) he proposed to marry her. She hesitated to believe him. He swore great oaths.

Soon he admitted something annoying; his parents last year had bought him off conscription; but any day they could take him again. The idea of serving terrified him. This cowardice was in Felicity’s eyes a proof of affection; her own redoubled. She stole out at night, and when she got to the meeting place Theodore tortured her with his anxiety and his entreaties.

At last he announced that he would go himself to headquarters to get information, and that he would bring her word on the following Sunday between eleven and twelve at night.

When the moment came she ran to her lover.

In his place she found one of his friends. He told her that she would not see him again. To assure himself from conscription Theodore had married a very rich old woman, Madame Lehoussais, of Toucques.

She gave way to a burst of extravagant grief. She threw herself on the ground, cried aloud, called on the good God, and groaned, all alone in the country till sunrise. Then she went back to the farm, and declared her intention of leaving it, and at the end of a month, having received her wages, she tied all her little belongings in a handkerchief, and went to Pont-l’Évêque.

In front of the inn she asked some questions of a lady in a widow’s cap, who happened at the time to be looking for a cook. The girl did not know much, but she seemed so anxious to please and to have so few unreasonable demands, that Madame Aubain finished by saying:

‘All right, I’ll take you.’

Felicity a quarter of an hour afterwards was settled in her house.

At first she lived there in a sort of tremor caused by the ‘kind of house’, and the memory of ‘Monsieur’ hovering over everything. Paul and Virginia, one aged seven, the other hardly four, seemed to her to be made of precious stuff; she carried them on her back like a horse, and Madame Aubain forbade her to kiss them every minute, and that mortified her. Yet she was happy. The gentleness of the environment had melted her sorrow.

Every Thursday friends came to take a hand at boston-whist. Felicity prepared in advance the cards and the footwarmers. They arrived at eight o’clock very punctually, and went away before the stroke of eleven.

Each Monday morning the second-hand dealer who lodged under the alley spread out his scrap iron on the ground. Then the town was filled with a hum of voices, in which were mingled the neighing of horses, the bleating of sheep, the grunting of pigs, and the dry rattle of traps on the road. About midday, at the height of the market, could be seen on the threshold a tall old peasant, his cap pulled down, his nose hooked, and who was Robelin, the farmer of Geffosses. A short time after it was Liébard, the farmer of Toucques, small, red, fat, wearing a grey jacket and leggings fitted with spurs.

Both of them offered their landlady fowls or cheeses. Felicity invariably baffled their tricks, and they went away full of consideration for her.

On indeterminate occasions Madame Aubain received a visit from the Marquis de Germanville, one of her uncles, ruined by debauchery, who lived at Falaise, on the last morsel of his property. He arrived always at lunch time, with a frightful little dog, whose paws dirtied all the furniture. In spite of his efforts to appear a gentleman, even going so far as to lift his hat every time he said: ‘My late father’, his old habits got the better of him; he poured out for himself glass after glass, and let out some rather free stories. Felicity would push him outside politely: ‘You’ve had enough of it, Monsieur de Germanville! We’ll see you another time!’ And she shut the door.

She opened it with pleasure to Monsieur Bourais, an ex-solicitor. His white cravat, and his bald head, the frill of his shirt, his wide brown frockcoat, his way of taking snuff, making a circle with his arm, his whole personality produced in her the excitement into which the sight of extraordinary men throws us.

As he managed the estate of ‘Madame’ he shut himself up with her for hours in monsieur’s study: he was always afraid of compromising himself, he had a great respect for the magistracy, and had pretensions to Latin.

To instruct the children in a pleasant fashion he made them a present of a geography with engravings. They represented different scenes in the world, cannibals with feathers in their hair, a monkey carrying off a young lady, Bedouins in the desert, a whale being harpooned, etc.

Paul explained these engravings to Felicity. This, in fact, was all her literary education.

The children’s education was taken in hand by Guyot, a poor wretch employed at the Town Hall, famous for his fine handwriting, a man who sharpened his penknife on his boot.

When the weather was clear they would go early in the morning to the farm of Geffosses.

The courtyard is sloping, the house in the middle: and the sea, in the distance, appears like a grey stain.

Felicity took out of her basket slices of cold meat, and they lunched in a room attached to the dairy. It was the only remnant of a pleasure house which had not disappeared. The wall-paper hung in rags, and trembled in the draughts. Madame Aubain leant forward, overwhelmed with memories: the children did not dare to speak. ‘But go out and play’, she would say. They decamped.

Paul went up into the barn, caught birds, played ducks and drakes with stones on the pond, or with a stick hit the big casks that resounded like drums.

Virginia fed the rabbits, rushed to gather cornflowers, and the swift motion of her legs showed her little embroidered drawers.

One autumn evening they came back through the meadows.

The moon in its first quarter lit up a part of the sky, and a mist was floating like a veil on the windings of the River Toucques. Oxen, stretched amid the turf, tranquilly watched those four people pass. In the third meadow some of them rose, and formed a circle before them. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Felicity, and murmuring a sort of low song she patted the one who was nearest on the spine; he turned round, the others imitated him. But when the succeeding field was crossed a formidable bellowing arose. It was a bull that the fog had concealed. He advanced towards the two women. Madame Aubain was going to run. ‘No, no, not so quick!’ They quickened their steps all the same, and heard behind them a sonorous breathing coming nearer them. His hoofs, like hammers, beat the grass of the fields; there, he was galloping now! Felicity turned round and tore up with her two hands clods of earth which she threw in his eyes. He lowered his muzzle, shook his horns, and trembled with fury, bellowing horribly. Madame Aubain, at the end of the grass with her two children, was madly seeking how to get over the high bank. Felicity retired steadily before the bull, and continually flung bits of turf that blinded him, while she cried: ‘Hurry up, hurry up!’ Madame Aubain climbed over the ditch, pushed Virginia up, then Paul, fell several times in trying to climb over the slope, and by dint of courage succeeded.

The bull had driven Felicity into a corner against an opening in the hedge; his slaver sprayed on her face, a second more and he would have gored her. She had time to slip between two bars, and the big beast, quite surprised, stopped short.

This event for many years was a topic of conversation at Pont-l’Évêque. Felicity felt no pride about it, not even considering that she had done anything heroic.

Virginia took up all her time, for she suffered, as a result of her fright, from an affection of the nerves, and Monsieur Pourpart, the doctor, advised sea baths at Trouville.

In those days they were not crowded. Madame Aubain made inquiries, consulted Bourais, and made preparations as for a long journey.

Her luggage went off the night before in Liébard’s cart. The next day he brought two horses, one of which had a woman’s saddle fitted with a velvet backrest; and on the croup of the second a coat, rolled up, formed a sort of seat. Madame Aubain mounted there behind him. Felicity took charge of Virginia, and Paul straddled Monsieur Lechaptois’s donkey, lent on condition they would take great care of it.

The road was so bad that the eight kilometres took two hours. The horses sank up to the pasterns in the mud, and to free themselves made brusque movements with their haunches; or else they stumbled against the hedges; other times they had to jump over them. Liébard’s mare, at certain spots, stopped suddenly. Liébard waited patiently until she resumed her walk, and he talked about the people whose estates bordered the road, adding moral reflections to their story. Thus, in the middle of Toucques as they passed under windows surrounded by nasturtiums, he said with a shrug of his shoulders: ‘There’s a Madame Lehoussais lives there, who, instead of taking a young husband—’ Felicity did not hear the rest: the horses trotted, the donkey galloped; they all went in single file up a path; a gate swung round, two stable boys appeared, they got down beside the dung water on the very threshold of the door.

Mother Liébard, seeing her mistress, was prodigal in demonstrations of joy. She served them a lunch where there was roast beef, tripe, black sausage, a fricassee of chicken, sparkling cider, a fruit tart, and plums in brandy, accompanying the whole with polite observations to madame, who seemed in better health, to mademoiselle, become ‘magnificent’, to Mr. Paul, grown singularly ‘stout’; without forgetting their late grandparents, whom the Liébards had known, being in the service of the family for several generations. The farm had, like them, an old-time character. The beams of the roof were worm-eaten, the walls black with smoke, the tiles grey with dust. An oak dresser carried all sorts of utensils, jugs, plates, pewter, basins, wolf traps, sheep shears; an enormous syringe made the children laugh. Not a tree in the three courtyards but had mushrooms at its base, or in its branches a bunch of mistletoe. The wind had thrown down several. They had sprouted again in the middle, and all were bent under the number of their apples. The thatch roofs, like brown velvet, and all unequal in thickness, resisted the strongest gales. Yet the wagon-shed was falling in ruins. Madame Aubain said she would see about it, and bade them reharness the beasts.

They were half an hour yet before they reached Trouville. The little caravan dismounted to pass the Écores Hill; it was a rock overhanging the ships; and three minutes later, at the end of the quay, they entered the courtyard of the Golden Lamb, Mother David’s inn.

Virginia, from the beginning, felt herself more robust, the result of the change of air and the action of the baths. She took them in her chemise, for lack of a bathing costume; and her maid dressed her afterwards in the shed of a customs man who looked after the bathers.

In the afternoon they would go with the donkey past the Black Rocks in the direction of Hennequeville. The path at first rose between land undulating like the lawns of a gentleman’s estate, then arrived at a plateau, where alternated pasture ground and cultivated fields. At the edge of the road, among the clusters of reeds, grew holly bushes; here and there a tall dead tree made zigzags with its branches on the blue air.

Almost always they rested in a meadow, with Deauville on their left, Havre on their right, and in front the open sea. It was brilliant in the sunshine, smooth like a mirror, so gentle that its murmur could scarcely be heard. Hidden sparrows chirped, and the immense vault of the sky formed a cover for all. Madame Aubain, seated, would work at her sewing; Virginia beside her, plaited reeds; Felicity pulled up lavender; Paul, who was bored, wanted to go away.

Other times they crossed the River Toucques in a boat, and looked for shells. The low tide left uncovered sea urchins, scallops, jellyfish; and the children ran to catch the puffs of foam that the wind carried up. The sleepy waves, falling on the sand, rolled in along the beach; they stretched as far as eye could see, but on the landward side had for limit the dunes separating it from the Marais, a wide meadow, shaped like a hippodrome. When they were coming back that way Trouville, at the foot of its sloping hillock, grew bigger at each step, and with all its different-sized houses, seemed to spread out in gay disorder.

The days on which it was too hot they did not leave their room. The dazzling brightness outside plastered bars of light between the slats of the shutters. No noise in the village. Down below on the pavement, nobody. This widespread silence increased everything’s tranquillity. In the distance the hammers of the caulkers plugged the keels, and a heavy breeze brought a scent of tar.

The principal amusement was the homecoming of the ships. As soon as they had passed the buoys they began to tack. Their sails dropped to two-thirds of the masts: and the foresail swelling like a balloon they came on, gliding in the plashing of the waves, to the middle of the harbour, where the anchor suddenly fell. Then the boat drew up beside the quay. The sailors threw over the edge the quivering fish; a row of carts was waiting, and women in cotton bonnets ran forward to take the baskets and embrace their men.

One of the women one day accosted Felicity, who a little while afterwards came into the room full of joy. She had refound a sister: and Nastasie Barette, wife of Leroux, appeared, holding a baby at her breast, another child clinging to her right hand, and at her left a little fellow with his fists on his hips, and his beret over one ear.

At the end of a quarter of an hour Madame Aubain dismissed her.

They were always to be met hanging about the kitchen, or on the walks they took. The husband did not show himself.

Felicity took a liking to them. She bought them bedclothes, shirts, a cooking stove; evidently they were exploiting her. This weakness irritated Madame Aubain, who, besides, didn’t like the familiarities of the nephew, for he talked to her son as to an equal; and, as Virginia had a cough, and the weather was no longer good, she returned to Pont-l’Évêque.

Monsieur Bourais gave her advice on the choice of a school. The one at Caen was considered the best. Paul was sent there, and said good-bye stoutly, pleased to go and live in a house where he would have comrades.

Madame Aubain resigned herself to the separation from her son because it was indispensable. Virginia thought of it less and less. Felicity missed the noise he made. But an occupation came along to distract her. Starting at Christmas, she took the little girl every day to Catechism.

III

When she had made a genuflexion at the door she walked on under the high nave between the double row of chairs, opened Madame Aubain’s pew, sat down, and looked all round her. The boys on the right, the girls on the left, filled the stalls of the choir; the priest stood near the lectern; on a stained-glass window in the apse the Holy Ghost hovering over the virgin; another showed her on her knees before the Infant Jesus, and behind the ciborium a group carved in wood represented Saint Michael subduing the dragon.

The priest gave them first a short account of Sacred History. She thought she saw Paradise, the deluge, the tower of Babel, cities in flames, peoples dying, idols overthrown; and she retained from this state of amazement respect for the Most High, and fear of His wrath. Then she wept, listening to the Passion. Why had they crucified Him, this One who loved the children, who fed the multitudes, who cured the blind, and had desired, in His gentleness, to be born amid the poor, on the dung of a stable? Seed time, harvest, the winepress, all the familiar things of which the Gospel speaks, existed in her life; the passage of God had sanctified them; and she loved the lambs more tenderly for love of the Lamb of God, the doves because of the Holy Ghost.

She had trouble in imagining its shape; for it was not only a bird, but besides that, a fire, and at other times a breath. Maybe it was its light that flickered at nights on the edge of the marshes, its breath that pushed the clouds, its voice that made the bells ring sweetly; and she stayed in adoration, enjoying the freshness of the walls and the tranquillity of the church.

As to the dogmas, she understood none of them, did not even try to understand them. The priest discoursed, the children recited, she finished by going to sleep; and woke up suddenly when, as they came out, their wooden shoes clattered on the flagstones.

It was in this way, by dint of hearing it, that she learned the catechism, her religious education having been neglected in her youth; and from that time she imitated all the practices of Virginia, fasting as she did, going to confession with her. On Corpus Christi day together they erected a street altar.

She worried about the first communion in advance. She was in a flutter about the slippers, about the wreath, about the book, about the gloves. With what inner tremblings she helped her mother dress her!

All through the Mass she was in an agony. Monsieur Bourais hid a part of the choir from her; but just in front the flock of girls, wearing their white crowns over their lowered veils, formed as it were a field of snow; and she recognized from afar her dear little one by her dainty neck and contemplative attitude. The bells rang out: heads bent: there was a silence. To an outburst of organ music the choristers and the congregation began to sing the Agnus Dei; then the march past of the boys began; and after them the girls rose. Step by step, and hands joined in prayer, they went towards the altar, ablaze with candles, knelt on the first step, received in turn the wafer, and in the same order returned and knelt in their places. When it was Virginia’s turn Felicity bent forward to see her, and with the imagination which true tenderness bestows, it seemed to her that she herself was this child. Virginia’s face became her own, her dress clothed her; her heart beat in her breast; at the moment when she opened her mouth, shutting her eyes, she almost fainted.

Next day, early, she presented herself in the vestry so that the priest might give her communion. She received it devoutly, but did not taste the same delights.

Madame Aubain wanted to make her daughter accomplished: and as Guyot could not teach either English or music, she resolved to send her to the boarding school of the Ursulines at Honfleur.

The child made no objections. Felicity sighed, finding madame hard-hearted. Then she thought that her mistress, perhaps, was right. These matters went beyond her province.

Finally, one day, an old van stopped before the door, and from it stepped a nun, who had come to get mademoiselle. Felicity lifted the baggage on to the top, gave injunctions to the coachman, and placed under the seat six pots of jam, and a dozen pears, with a bunch of violets.

Virginia, at the last moment, was shaken by a huge sob; she embraced her mother, who kissed her on the forehead, repeating: ‘Come now, courage, courage!’ The steps were drawn up, the carriage set out.

Then Madame Aubain fainted: and in the evening all her friends, the Lormeau household, Madame Lechaptois, those ladies Rochefeuille, Monsieur de Houpeville, and Bourais put in an appearance to console her.

The loss of her daughter was at first very grievous. But three times a week she got a letter from her, the other days she wrote to her, walked in her garden, read a little, and in this way filled the emptiness of the hours.

In the morning, from habit, Felicity went into Virginia’s room and looked at the walls. She missed not having her hair to comb, her boots to lace, to tuck her in her bed—and not seeing continually her pretty face, not having to hold her hand when they went out together. Not having enough work to do, she tried to make lace. Her fingers were too clumsy and broke the threads. She was good for nothing, could not sleep, to use her own expression was ‘a wreck’.

To ‘cheer herself up’ she asked permission to have a visit from her nephew Victor.

He arrived on Sunday after mass, with rosy cheeks, his chest bare, breathing the odour of the country he had passed through. At once she set his place. They had lunch facing each other: and herself eating as little as possible to keep down the expense, she stuffed him with food to such an extent that he finished by going to sleep. At the first stroke of the bell for vespers she woke him, brushed his trousers, tied his tie, and went to church, leaning on his arm in maternal pride.

His parents charged him always to bring something home, maybe a packet of brown sugar, soap, brandy, sometimes even money. He brought his clothes to be mended, and she accepted this task, glad of the chance which forced him to come back.

In August his father took him with him on the coasting trade.

It was holiday time. The arrival of the children consoled her. But Paul had become capricious, and Virginia was no longer young enough to be spoken to as an equal, and that put a feeling of constraint, a barrier between them.

Victor went in turn to Morlaix, to Dunkirk, and to Brighton. On his return from each voyage he made her a present. The first time it was a box covered with shells; the second a coffee cup; the third a big gingerbread man. He grew handsome, with a good carriage, nice frank eyes, and a little leather cap worn well to the front like a pilot. He amused her by telling her stories mixed with nautical terms.

On Monday, 14th July 1819 (she did not forget the date), Victor announced that he was engaged for a trip and, during the night of the day after next, by the Honfleur steamer, he would go to join his schooner, which was going to sail from Havre quite soon. He would be, maybe, away for two years.

The prospect of such an absence grieved Felicity; and to say another good-bye to him on Wednesday evening, after madame’s dinner, she put on her clogs and hurried down the four leagues which separated Pont-l’Évêque from Honfleur.

When she was at the crossroads before the Calvary, instead of taking the path to the left she took the one to the right, lost herself in the yards, and came back on her tracks; the people she accosted advised her to hurry. She walked right round the harbour, stumbled over ropes; then the land dropped before her, lights intersected each other, and she thought herself mad, perceiving horses in the air.

On the edge of the quay others whinnied, terrified of the sea. The tackle that lifted them set them down in a boat where travellers elbowed one another among casks of cider, baskets of cheese, sacks of grain; you could hear hens cackling, the captain was swearing; and a boy was standing leaning on the cathead, indifferent to all that. Felicity, who had not recognized him, screamed ‘Victor!’ He raised his head; she rushed forward, when the gangway was suddenly pulled back.

The steamer which was towed by women, singing, left the port. Its timbers creaked, heavy waves whipped its prow. The vessel had turned, nobody was seen any longer—and, on the sea silvered by the moon, it made a black spot that steadily paled, sank, disappeared.

Felicity, passing near the Calvary, wanted to recommend to God that which she cherished most. And she prayed a long time, standing, her face bathed in tears, her eyes towards the clouds. The town slept, customs officials walked about, and the water fell without ceasing through the holes of the sluice. Two o’clock struck.

The reception room of the convent did not open before day-break. A delay, quite certainly, would annoy madame; and, in spite of her desire to embrace the other child, she returned. The servant girls at the inn were waking as she entered Pont-l’Évêque.

The poor lad was going to roll about on the waves for months. His former voyages had not frightened her. From England and Brittany people came back; but America, the Colonies, the West Indies, that was to be lost in an uncertain land, at the other end of the world.

From that time on Felicity thought exclusively of her nephew. On sunny days she tormented herself with thirst; when a storm came on she feared the thunder for him. Listening to the wind which howled in the chimney and blew off the tiles, she saw him beaten by the same tempest, at the top of a shattered mast, all his body thrown back under a sheet of foam; or else—souvenirs of the geography engravings—he was devoured by savages, captured in a wood by monkeys, was dying along a deserted seashore. And never did she speak of her anxieties.

Madame Aubain had others for her daughter. The good sisters found that she was affectionate but delicate. The slightest emotion unnerved her. The piano had to be given up.

Her mother required a regular correspondence from the convent. One morning that the postman did not come she was impatient: and she walked about the living-room from her chair to the window. It was really extraordinary! For four days no news.

So that she might find comfort in her example Felicity said to her:

‘Look at me, madame: it’s six months since I’ve had any!’

‘From whom?’

The servant replied gently:

‘But—from my nephew!’

‘Oh—your nephew!’ and, shrugging her shoulders, Madame Aubain went on with her walking as if to say: ‘I did not think about him! Moreover, I don’t care! a cabin boy, a beggar, a fine business—while my daughter—Think of it!’

Felicity, although brought up on rudeness, was indignant against madame, then forgot.

It seemed to her quite easy to lose one’s head about the little girl’s concerns.

The two children had an equal importance; one of her heart-strings united them, and their destinies should be the same.

The chemist told her that Victor’s boat had arrived at Havana. He had read the information in a gazette.

Because of the cigars she imagined Havana a country where nothing else was done but smoke, and Victor moving among the niggers in a cloud of tobacco. Could he ‘in case of need’ come back by land? What distance was it from Pont-l’Évêque? To learn that she asked Monsieur Bourais.

He got his atlas, then began explanations about the longitudes, and he had a fine pedant’s smile in face of Felicity’s bewilderment. At length with his pocket pencil he showed her the indentations on an oval mark, a black imperceptible point, adding: ‘That’s it’. She leaned over the map; this network of coloured lines tired her eyes, without teaching her anything; and, Bourais inviting her to say what was worrying her, she begged him to show her the house where Victor was living. Bourais raised his arms, sneezed, laughed enormously; such ingenuousness excited his joy: and Felicity did not understand the cause of it—she who was expecting, perhaps, even to see a photograph of her nephew, so limited was her intelligence.

It was a fortnight afterwards that Liébard, at the hour when the market was on, as was his custom, came into the kitchen and gave her a letter which her brother-in-law had sent. Since neither of the two know how to read, she had recourse to her mistress.

Madame Aubain, who was counting stitches in her knitting, put her work down beside her, unsealed the letter, trembled, and in a low voice with a serious look:

‘It’s bad news…you are being told of. Your nephew—’

He was dead. They told her no more.

Felicity fell on a chair, leaning her head on the wall, and shut her eyes, and her eyelids suddenly grew pink. Then, her head drooping, her eyes fixed, she repeated at intervals:

‘Poor little chap! Poor little chap!’

Liébard looked at her, emitting deep sighs. Madame Aubain was trembling slightly.

She proposed to her to go and see her sister at Trouville.

Felicity answered by a gesture that she had no need to go there.

There was a silence. Good old Liébard thought it proper to go away. Then she said:

‘It’s nothing to them!’

Her head sank down again; and mechanically she lifted, from time to time, the long knitting-needles on the work-table.

Some women passed in the courtyard with a barrow heaped with dripping linen.

As she saw them through the window panes she remembered her washing; she had soaked it the night before, to-day it had to be rinsed, and she left the room.

Her washboard and her tub were on the brink of the River Toucques. She flung on the bank a heap of chemises, tucked up her sleeves, took up her beating-stick; and the heavy blows she gave were heard in the other gardens alongside. The fields were empty, the wind rippled the river; at the bottom long weeds swept over like the hair of dead men floating in the water. She restrained her sorrow till evening, was very brave; but, in her room she abandoned herself to it, lying flat, face down on her mattress, her eyes in her pillow, and her fists against her temples.

Much later, from Victor’s captain himself, she learnt the circumstances of his death. He had been bled too much at the hospital for yellow fever. Four doctors were looking after him at once. He died immediately, and the chief had said:

‘Tut, tut, that’s another one!’

His parents had always treated him barbarously. She preferred not to see them again; and they made no advances, either through forgetfulness or the callousness of the wretched poor.

Virginia grew weaker.

Shortness of breath, a cough, a continual fever, and red spots on her cheek-bones revealed some deep-seated affection. Monsieur Pourpart had advised a stay in Provence. Madame Aubain made up her mind to go there, and would have immediately recalled her daughter home except for the climate of Pont-l’Évêque.

She made an arrangement with a man who hired carriages to take her to the convent every Thursday. There is in the gardens a terrace from which you can discern the Seine. Virginia would walk there on her arm, on the fallen grape-vine leaves. Sometimes the sun, shining through the clouds, made her blink her eyelids, when she looked at the sails in the distance, and all the horizon from the château of Tancarville to the lighthouse at Havre. Then they rested in the arbour. Her mother had got a little barrel of an excellent Malaga wine; and, laughing at the idea of being drunk, she would drink two fingers of it, not more.

Her strength improved. The autumn slipped away quietly. Felicity reassured Madame Aubain. But one evening that she had been on an errand in the neighbourhood she met before the door Monsieur Pourpart’s gig: and he himself was in the vestibule. Madame Aubain was tying on her hat.

‘Give me my footwarmer, my purse, my gloves: be quicker, can’t you?’

Virginia had an inflammation of the lungs: it was perhaps hopeless.

‘Not yet,’ said the doctor, and the two of them got into the carriage under the snowflakes which eddied around. Night was about to fall. It was very cold.

Felicity rushed into the church to light a candle. Then she ran after the gig, which she rejoined an hour later, leaped lightly up behind, where she was holding on by the twisted cords, when a reflection came to her. ‘The courtyard is not shut. If robbers get in?’ and she got down.

Next day at sunrise she presented herself at the doctor’s. He had come in, and gone out again to the country. Then she stayed in the inn, thinking that strangers would bring her a letter. At length at dawn she took the coach to Lisieux.

The convent was situated at the end of a steep lane. About the middle she heard strange sounds, a death knell. ‘It’s for other people,’ she thought, and Felicity pulled violently at the knocker.

At the end of several minutes slippers dragged along, the door half opened, and a nun appeared.

The good sister said with an air of compunction that ‘she had just passed’. At the same time the knell of Saint Leonard’s redoubled its peal.

Felicity arrived at the second story.

From the threshold of the room she saw Virginia, stretched on her back, her hands joined, her mouth open, and her head thrown back under a black cross bending towards her, between motionless curtains, less white than her face. Madame Aubain, at the foot of the couch which she clasped with her hands, uttered sobs of agony. The Mother Superior was standing on the right. Three candlesticks on the chest of drawers made red splashes, and the mist whitened the windows. Nuns took away Madame Aubain.

For two nights Felicity did not leave the dead girl. She repeated the same prayers, threw holy water on the sheets, came back and sat down, and looked at her. At the end of the first watch she noticed that the face had got yellow, the lips blue, the nose pinched, the eyes sunk. She kissed them several times, and would not have felt an immense astonishment if Virginia had reopened them: for souls like hers the supernatural is quite simple. She dressed her, wrapped her in her shroud, lifted her into her coffin, placed a wreath on her, spread out her hair. Her hair was fair, of an extraordinary length for her age. Felicity cut off a thick lock, the half of which she slipped into her bosom, resolved never to part with it.

The body was carried back to Pont-l’Évêque, in obedience to the wishes of Madame Aubain, who followed the hearse in a closed carriage.

After the mass they took another three-quarters of an hour to reach the cemetery. Paul walked in front and sobbed. Monsieur Bourais was behind, then the principal inhabitants, the women covered in black mantles, and Felicity. She thought of her nephew, and not having been able to render him these honours, felt an increase of grief as if they were burying him with the other.

Madame Aubain’s despair was without bounds.

First she revolted against God, finding Him unjust for having taken her daughter, she who had never done any wrong, and whose conscience was so pure. But no! she should have taken her south. Other doctors would have saved her! She accused herself, wanted to join her, cried out in distress amid her dreams. One dream, above all, obsessed her. Her husband, clad like a sailor, was coming back from a long voyage, and said to her weeping, that he had got orders to take away Virginia. Then they arranged to find a hiding place somewhere.

One day she came in from the garden completely upset. The father and daughter (she pointed out the place) had appeared to her just now, one after the other, and they did nothing; they looked at her.

For several months she remained in her room inert. Felicity lectured her gently; she must keep herself for her son, and for the other, in memory of ‘her’.

‘Her’, took up Madame Aubain, as if awakening, ‘oh, yes! yes! You do not forget her!’ An allusion to the cemetery which it had been scrupulously forbidden to mention.

Felicity went there every day.

At four o’clock exactly she passed alongside the houses, climbed the slope, opened the gate, and arrived at Virginia’s tomb. It was a little column of rose marble, with a flagstone at the base, and chains around, framing a little garden. The flower-beds were invisible under a coverlet of flowers. She watered their leaves, renewed the sand, knelt down the better to work the earth. Madame Aubain, when she could come there, felt some comfort, a kind of consolation.

Then years slipped by, all alike, and without other episodes than the return of the great feasts: Easter, the Assumption, All Saints. Inside happenings marked the dates which they used for reference later on. Thus in 1825 two glaziers white-washed the vestibule; in 1827 a bit of the roof, falling into the courtyard, almost killed a man. In the summer of 1828 it was madame’s turn to provide the sacred bread for Mass. Bourais, about this time, absented himself mysteriously; and the old acquaintances, little by little, passed away; Guyot, Liébard, Madame Lechaptois, Robelin, Uncle Germanville, paralysed a long time ago.

One night the driver of the mail coach announced in Pont-l’Évêque the July Revolution. A new sub-prefect was appointed a few days afterwards; the Baron de Larsonnière, an ex-consul in America, who had living with him, besides his wife, his sister-in-law, with three young ladies, already pretty big. They were seen on their lawn, dressed in floating blouses; they possessed a negro and a parrot. Madame Aubain received a visit from them, and did not fail to return it. When they appeared in the farthest distance Felicity ran to warn her. But one thing was alone capable of moving her, her son’s letters.

He could not follow any career, being wrapped up in taverns. She paid his debts; he ran up others; and the sighs which Madame Aubain uttered, knitting near her window, could be heard by Felicity, turning her spinning-wheel in the kitchen.

They took walks together beside the wall where the pears grew; and talked always of Virginia, asking each other if such and such a thing would have pleased her; on such an occasion what would she probably have said?

All her little possessions occupied a press in the room with the two beds. Madame Aubain inspected them as seldom as possible. One summer day she resigned herself to it, and moths flew from the wardrobe.

Her dresses were there in a row under a shelf, on which there were three dolls, hoops, doll’s furniture, the washbowl she had used. They took out as well underskirts, stockings, handkerchiefs, and spread them on the two couches before folding them up again. The sun shone on those poor objects, showing up the stains and the folds made by the body’s movements. The air was hot and blue, a blackbird chirped, everything seemed alive in a deep sweetness. They found a little plush hat, with long hair, chestnut coloured; but it was all eaten by insects. Felicity claimed it for herself. Their eyes met, filled with tears; finally the mistress opened her arms, the servant flung herself into them; and they clung together, satisfying their grief in a kiss that equalized them.

It was the first time in their lives, Madame Aubain not being of an expansive nature. Felicity was grateful for it, as for a kindness, and henceforth cherished her with an animal devotion and a religious veneration.

The kindness of her heart developed.

When she heard in the street the drums of a regiment on the march she stationed herself before the door with a jug of cider, and offered the soldiers a drink. She looked after the victims of cholera. She protected the Poles; and there was even one of them who declared he wanted to marry her. But they quarrelled: for one morning, coming in from the Angelus, she found him in her kitchen, into which he had made his way, and fixed himself up a dish of meat with vinegar sauce which he was eating quietly.

After the Poles there was old Father Colmiche, an old man, who passed for having done terrible things in ’93. He lived on the riverside, in the ruins of a pigsty. Urchins used to peer at him through the chinks in the wall, and threw stones which fell on the wretched bed where he lay, continually shaken by a cold, with very long hair, inflamed eyelids, and on his arm a tumour bigger than his head. She got linen for him, tried to clean out his hovel, had dreams of settling him in the washhouse, without annoying Madame. When cancer knocked him out she bandaged him every day, sometimes brought him cake, put him in the sun on a bundle of hay; and the poor old man, drooling and trembling, thanked her in his feeble voice, fearing to lose her, stretching out his hands when he saw her going off. He died: she had a Mass said for the repose of his soul.

That day a great happiness came to her; just at dinner-time Madame de Larsonnières’s negro presented himself, holding the parrot in its cage, with the stand, the chain, and the padlock. A note from the baroness announced to Madame Aubain that, her husband being raised to the prefecture, they were leaving that evening; and she begged her to accept the bird as a souvenir, and in token of her respect.

For a long time he had filled Felicity’s imagination, for he came from America, and this word recalled Victor, so much so that she had made inquiries about it from the negro. Once even she had said:

‘Madame would like to have it!’

The negro had repeated the remark to his mistress who, not being able to take the bird with her, had got rid of it in this way.

IV

He was called Loulou. His body was green, the tips of his wings rose, his front blue, and his throat golden.

But he had the tiresome mania of biting his stand, pulling out his feathers, spilling the water from his bath. Madame Aubain, whom he bored, gave him for good to Felicity.

She undertook to instruct him. Soon he repeated: ‘Nice boy!’ ‘Your servant, sir!’ ‘Hail Mary!’ He was placed beside the door, and some people were astonished that he did not answer to the name of Jacquot, since all parrots are called Jacquot. He was compared to a goose, to a blockhead: so many dagger blows for Felicity! Strange obstinacy of Loulou not speaking at the time people were looking.

Nevertheless he courted company; for on Sundays, when those ladies Rochefeuille, Monsieur de Houpeville, and some new friends—Onfroy the apothecary, Monsieur Varin, and Captain Mathieu—were making up their party at cards, he knocked on the window panes with his wings, and thrashed about so violently that it was impossible to hear oneself.

Bourais’s face, no doubt, seemed to him very funny. As soon as he saw him he began to laugh, to laugh with all his might. The peals of his voice rebounded in the courtyard, the echoes repeated them, the neighbours came to their windows laughing too; and so as not to be seen by the parrot, Monsieur Bourais slipped along the wall, hiding his profile with his hat, reached the river, then entered by the garden gate; and the glances he directed at the bird lacked tenderness.

The butcher’s boy had snapped his fingers at Loulou, who had ventured to thrust his head into his basket; and since then he had always tried to pinch him through his shirt. Fabu threatened to wring his neck, although he was not cruel, in spite of the tattooing on his arm, and his thick whiskers. On the contrary he had rather a liking for the parrot, wanting, in a jovial mood, to teach him swear words. Felicity, who was frightened at this kind of behaviour, put him in the kitchen. His little chain was taken off, and he moved about the house.

When he came down the stairs he leaned the curve of his beak on the steps, raised his right claw, then the left, and she was afraid that such gymnastics would make him dizzy. He became ill, was not able to speak or eat. There was a growth under his tongue, as there sometimes is in hens. She cured him, tearing out the lump with her nails. Monsieur Paul one day was imprudent enough to puff the smoke of a cigar into his nostrils; another time that Madame Lormeau annoyed him with the end of her sunshade he snapped the ferule off; finally he got lost.

She had put him on the grass to let him refresh himself, went away for a moment; and when she came back, no parrot. At first she looked for him in the bushes, at the water edge, and on the roofs, without heeding her mistress who cried to her: ‘Take care. You are mad!’ Then she inspected all the gardens of Pont-l’Évêque: and she stopped the passers-by: ‘You haven’t seen anywhere, by chance, my parrot?’ To those who did not know the parrot she described him. Suddenly she thought she distinguished, behind the mill, at the bottom of the slope, a green thing fluttering about. But at the top of the hill, nothing! A pedlar affirmed that he had just met it in Saint-Milaine in Mother Simon’s shop. She ran there. Nobody knew what she meant. Finally she came back, worn out, her slippers in rags, death in her soul; and, seated in the centre of the garden seat, near madame, she was recounting all her adventures, when a light weight fell on her shoulder—Loulou! What the deuce had he done? Maybe he had taken a stroll in the neighbourhood.

She had trouble in recovering from it, or rather, she never did recover.

As a result of a chill she got a sore throat; a little after, an ear-ache. Three years after, she was deaf; and she spoke very loud, even in the church. Although her sins might have been broadcast to all the corners of the parish, without dishonouring her, or inconveniencing the world, the priest thought it right to receive her confession only in the vestry.

Illusory buzzings in the ear completely confused her. Often her mistress would say: ‘Gracious! how stupid you are!’ And she would reply: ‘Yes, madame,’ looking for something round her.

The little circle of her ideas narrowed still more, and the ringing of the bells, the lowing of the herds no longer existed. All creatures functioned in ghostly silence. One noise alone now reached her ears, the voice of the parrot.

As if to amuse her, he would reproduce the tick-tack of the turnspit, the shrill cry of the fishmonger, the saw of the carpenter who lived opposite: and when the bell rang, imitated Madame Aubain: ‘Felicity! the door! the door!’

They had dialogues together; he reeling off to satiety the three phrases of his repertory, and she answering by words without coherence but in which her soul unbosomed itself. Loulou, in her isolation, was almost a son, a lover. He climbed up her fingers, nibbled at her lips, hung on to her neckerchief; and as she bent her forehead, shaking her head as children’s nurses do, the big wings of her bonnet and the wings of the bird shook together.

When the clouds gathered and the thunder growled, he would utter cries, recalling perhaps the deluges of his native forests.

The trickling of water excited him almost to delirium: he fluttered about madly, rose to the roof, turned over everything, and went through the window to dabble in the garden; but came back quickly to one of the andirons and, hopping about to dry his wings, showed now his tail, and now his beak.

One morning of the terrible winter of 1837, when she had put him before the hearth because of the cold, she found him dead in the middle of his cage, his head down, his claws in the wire meshing. A congestion had killed him, no doubt. She believed he had been poisoned by parsley; and, in spite of the absence of all proof, her suspicions centred on Fabu.

She wept so much that her mistress said to her: ‘Well, then, have him stuffed’.

She asked advice from the chemist, who had always been good to the parrot.

He wrote to Havre. A certain Fellacher undertook the business. But, as the stage coach sometimes mislaid parcels, she resolved to carry it herself as far as Honfleur.

Apple trees bare of leaves, one after another, bordered the sides of the road. Ice covered the ditches. Dogs barked around the farms; and, her hands under her cloak, with her little black wooden shoes and her basket, she walked quickly in the centre of the road.

She crossed the forest, passed Haut Chêne, reached Saint Gatien.

Behind her, in a cloud of dust, and carried away by its own impetus on the hill, a mailcoach at a full gallop rushed on her like a whirlwind. Seeing this woman, who did not get out of the way, the driver stood up on the hood, and the postilion shouted too, while the four horses that he could not hold back went quicker than ever; the two first just grazed her; with a twist of the reins he drew them to the side of the road, but in a temper, raised his arm, and with a full swing, with his big whip, gave her such a lash from stomach to the twist of hair at the nape of her neck, that she fell on her back.

Her first gesture, when she came back to consciousness, was to open her basket. Loulou was not hurt, fortunately. She felt a burning on her right cheek: she raised her hands to it, and they were red. Blood was flowing.

She sat down on a pile of road metal, patted her face with her handkerchief, then she ate a crust of bread, put in her basket by way of precaution, and consoled herself for her wound in looking at the bird.

When she reached the heights of Ecquemauville she saw the lights of Honfleur sparkling in the night like a cluster of stars; the sea, farther off, stretched out vaguely. Then a feeling of faintness stopped her, and the wretchedness of her childhood, the disappointment of her first love, the departure of her nephew, the death of Virginia, like the waves of a tide, returning all at once, and rising to her throat, choked her.

Then she wanted to speak to the captain of the boat, and without telling him what she was sending, she gave him careful orders.

Fellacher kept the parrot a long time. He always promised it for the next week; at the end of six months he announced the shipping of a box, and there was no more question of it. She could only think that Loulou would never come back. ‘They’ll have stolen him from me,’ she thought.

Finally he arrived—and splendid, upright on the branch of a tree, which was screwed in a mahogany base, one claw in the air, his head sideways, and biting a nut which the birdstuffer had gilded through love of the grandiose.

She shut it up in her room.

This spot, to which she admitted few people, had the look at once of a chapel and a bazaar, it contained so many religious objects and heteroclite things.

A big wardrobe was in the way when one opened the door. In front of the window, overhanging the garden, a round window looked out at the courtyard; a table near the truckle bed bore a water jug, two combs, and a cube of blue soap on a chipped plate. On the walls were seen strings of beads, medals, several Holy Virgins, a holy-water basin of coco-nut; on the chest of drawers covered with a cloth like an altar, the shellbox that Victor had given her: then a watering pot and a balloon, writing exercise books, the geography with engravings, a pair of boots; and on the nail which held up the mirror, hung by its ribbons, the little plush hat. Felicity even pushed this kind of respect so far as to keep one of monsieur’s coats. All the old stuff that Madame Aubain did not want any more she took for her room. That was why there were artificial flowers at the side of the drawers, and the picture of the Count of Artois in the recess of the dormer window.

By way of shelf, Loulou was established on a part of the chimney-piece which jutted into the room. Every morning as she waked up she saw him in the light of dawn, and recalled then the days that were gone, insignificant actions, down to their least detail, without grief, full of tranquillity.

Communicating with no one, she lived in the torpor of the sleep-walker. The processions of Corpus Christi day roused her. She went to beg from the neighbours torches and straw matting to embellish the altar set up in the street.

At the church she contemplated steadily the Holy Ghost, and noticed that it had a look of the parrot. The resemblance seemed to her still more noticeable on an Épinal picture, representing the baptism of Our Lord. With its purple wings and emerald body it was really the portrait of Loulou.

Having bought it she hung it in the place of the Count of Artois, so that with the same look she could see them both. They became associated in her thoughts, the parrot becoming sanctified by this union with the Holy Ghost, which became more alive and intelligible in her eyes. The Father, to give utterance to his will, had not chosen a dove, since these beasts have no voice, but rather one of the ancestors of Loulou. And Felicity said her prayers, looking at the picture, but from time to time turned a little to the bird.

She wanted to join the Sisters of the Virgin; Madame Aubain dissuaded her.

An event of some importance took place: Paul’s marriage.

After having been at first a notary clerk, then in business, in the Customs, in the Treasury, and having even taken some steps to get into the Water and Forests Department, at the age of thirty-six, suddenly, by a heaven-sent inspiration, he had discovered his real road: the Registry Office. And he had shown such high talents that an auditor had offered him his daughter, promising him his protection.

Paul, become serious minded, brought her to his mother.

She looked down on the customs of Pont-l’Évêque, behaved like a princess, hurt Felicity. Madame Aubain, when she went away, felt relieved.

The following week they learned of the death of Monsieur Bourais, in Lower Brittany, in an inn. The rumour of suicide was confirmed: doubts rose about his honesty. Madame Aubain studied her accounts, and was not long in finding the whole list of his evil deeds; embezzlement of arrears, pretended sales of wood, false receipts, etc.

These acts of baseness afflicted her greatly. In March 1853 she was seized by a pain in the chest; her tongue seemed covered with smoke; leeches did not calm the fever; and on the eighth day she died, being exactly seventy-two years old.

She was considered younger, because of her brown hair, whose folds surrounded her pale face, marked with the smallpox. Few friends mourned her, her way of living had displayed a haughtiness which kept people at a distance.

Felicity wept for her, as masters are not wept for. That madame should die before her upset her ideas, seemed to her contrary to the order of things, inadmissible and monstrous.

Ten days after (the time to rush to Besançon) the heirs arrived; the daughter-in-law went through the drawers, chose the best of the furniture, sold the rest; then they went down to the Registry Office again.

Madame’s chair, her table, her footwarmer, the eight chairs were gone. The place of the engravings was marked by yellow squares on the walls. They had taken away the two little beds, with their mattresses, and in the cupboard none of Virginia’s belongings were seen any more. Felicity climbed the stairs, drunk with grief.

The next day there was a notice on the door: the apothecary shouted in her ear that the house was for sale.

She staggered and was obliged to sit down.

What distressed her most was leaving her room—so convenient for poor Loulou. Enveloping him with a look of anguish she implored the Holy Ghost, and contracted the idolatrous habit of saying her prayers on her knees before the parrot. Sometimes the sun, entering through the dormer window, fell on his glass eye, and caused it to shoot out a fine luminous beam, which put her in ecstasies.

She had an income of three hundred and eighty francs, a legacy from her mistress. The garden furnished her with vegetables. As to dresses, she possessed enough of them to clothe her to the end of her days, and she saved light by going to bed at dusk.

She hardly ever went out, so as to avoid the second-hand dealer’s shop, where was displayed some of the old furniture. Since her attack of dizziness she limped in one leg, and, her strength diminishing, Mother Simon, ruined in the grocery business, came every morning to cut her wood and to pump her water.

Her eyes grew weaker. The shutters were no longer opened. Many years passed. And the house was not let, nor sold.

In terror lest she should be sent away Felicity did not ask for any repairs. The laths of the roof were rotting. During the whole of one winter, her pillow was damp. After Easter she spat blood.

Then Mother Simon had recourse to a doctor. Felicity wanted to know what was the matter with her. But, too deaf to hear, a single word reached her, ‘Pneumonia!’ It was one she knew, and she replied quietly: ‘Ah, like madame’, finding it natural to follow her mistress.

The time for setting up the street altars drew near. The first was always at the foot of the hill, the second before the posthouse, the third about the middle of the road. There were rival factions about that one; and the parishioners finally chose Madame Aubain’s courtyard.

Her difficulty in breathing and fever grew worse. Felicity was wretched at doing nothing for the altar. If she had had something to put there at least! Then she thought of the parrot. It was not suitable, the neighbours objected. But the priest granted permission for it; she was so happy that she begged him to accept, when she should be dead, Loulou, her only treasure.

From Tuesday to Saturday, the eve of Corpus Christi, she coughed more frequently. In the evening, her face drawn, her lips stuck to her gums, vomitings made their appearance; and the next day, at daybreak, feeling herself very low, she got them to call the priest.

Three old women surrounded her during the extreme unction. Then she declared that she required to speak to Fabu.

He arrived in his Sunday clothes, ill at ease in this lugubrious atmosphere.

‘Forgive me,’ she said, with an effort to stretch out her arm, ‘I thought it was you who had killed him!’

What was the meaning of gossip like that? To suspect him of a murder, a man like him! and he was indignant, was going to make a row.

‘She hasn’t her wits, you can see that easily enough.’

Felicity from time to time spoke to the ghosts. The old women went away. Madame Simon had her breakfast.

A little later she took Loulou, and lifting him close to Felicity: ‘Come, then! Say good-bye!’

Although he was not a corpse the worms were devouring him; one of his wings was broken, the stuffing protruded from his stomach. But blind now, she kissed him on the head, and pressed him against her cheek. Mother Simon took him, to put him on the street altar.

V

From the grass was wafted up the scent of summer; the flies buzzed; the sun glinted on the river, and warmed the roofs. Mother Simon returned to the room and slept peacefully.

Church bells woke her; people were coming out from vespers. Felicity’s delirium dropped. Thinking of the procession, she saw it, just as if she were following it.

All the school children, the choristers, and the fire brigade were marching along the pavements, while in the middle of the road were advancing, first the head beadle, armed with his halberd, the under-beadle with his big cross, the teacher supervising the boys, the nun anxious for her little girls; three of the prettiest, curly-haired like angles, were throwing petals of roses into the air; the deacon with outspread arms conducted the music; and two censer swingers turned at each step to the Holy Sacrament, which, under a dais of flaming red velvet, upheld by four churchwardens, the priest in his fine chasuble was carrying. A crowd of people jostled behind, between the white cloths covering the house walls; and the foot of the hill was reached.

A cold sweat wet Felicity’s temples. Mother Simon sponged it with a towel, saying that one day we must all go that way. The murmur of the crowd grew, was very loud for a moment, died away.

A volley shook the window panes. It was the postilions saluting the Monstrance. Felicity rolled her eyeballs, and said, as loud as she could: ‘Does he look all right?’ tormented by the parrot.

Her death agony began. A rattle, more and more hurried, caused her sides to heave. Bubbles of foam came to the corners of her mouth, and all her body trembled.

Soon the blare of ophicleides was distinguished, the clear voices of the children, the deep voices of the men. All was still at intervals, and the tramp of feet which the flowers muffled made the noise of a flock on the turf.

The clergy appeared in the courtyard. Madame Simon climbed on a chair to reach the round window, and in this way commanded a view of the altar.

Green garlands were hanging on the altar, adorned with a flounce in English point lace. There was in the centre a little box enclosing the relics, two orange trees at the corners, and, all its length, silver candlesticks and porcelain vases, whence sprang sunflowers, lilies, peonies, foxgloves, bunches of hortensias.

This mass of dazzling colours descended in a sloping line from the table to the carpet, trailing on the paving-stones; and rare objects drew the eye. A silver-gilt sugar basin had a crown of violets, earrings in Alencon quartz gleamed in the moss, two Chinese screens displayed their landscapes. Loulou, hidden under the roses, only showed his blue front like a sheet of lapis-lazuli.

The churchwardens, the choristers, the children ranged themselves on three sides of the courtyard. The priest slowly mounted the steps, and placed on the lace his huge, glittering ‘Golden Sun’. Everybody knelt. There was a great silence. And the censers, swinging in full flight, slipped on their chains.

An azure vapour rose into Felicity’s room. She distended her nostrils, scenting it with a mystic sensuality: then she shut her eyes. Her lips smiled. The beats of her heart slowed one by one, more unsteady each time, more gentle like a fountain that is exhausted, like an echo that disappears; and when she breathed her last breath she thought she saw in the heavens as they opened, a gigantic parrot, flying above her head.

The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller 

CHAPTER I - THE CURSE

Julian's father and mother dwelt in a castle built on the slope of a hill, in the heart of the woods.

The towers at its four corners had pointed roofs covered with leaden tiles, and the foundation rested upon solid rocks, which descended abruptly to the bottom of the moat.

In the courtyard, the stone flagging was as immaculate as the floor of a church. Long rain-spouts, representing dragons with yawning jaws, directed the water towards the cistern, and on each window-sill of the castle a basil or a heliotrope bush bloomed, in

painted flower-pots.

A second enclosure, surrounded by a fence, comprised a fruit-orchard, a garden decorated with figures wrought in bright-hued flowers, an arbour with several bowers, and a mall for the diversion of the pages. On the other side were the kennel, the stables, the bakery, the wine-press and the barns. Around these spread a pasture, also enclosed by a strong hedge.

Peace had reigned so long that the portcullis was never lowered; the moats were filled with water; swallows built their nests in the cracks of the battlements, and as soon as the sun shone too strongly, the archer who all day long paced to and fro on the curtain, withdrew to the watch-tower and slept soundly.

Inside the castle, the locks on the doors shone brightly; costly tapestries hung in the apartments to keep out the cold; the closets overflowed with linen, the cellar was filled with casks of wine, and the oak chests fairly groaned under the weight of money-bags.

In the armoury could be seen, between banners and the heads of wild beasts, weapons of all nations and of all ages, from the slings of the Amalekites and the javelins of the Garamantes, to the broad-swords of the Saracens and the coats of mail of the Normans.

The largest spit in the kitchen could hold an ox; the chapel was as gorgeous as a king's oratory. There was even a Roman bath in a secluded part of the castle, though the good lord of the manor refrained from using it, as he deemed it a heathenish practice.

Wrapped always in a cape made of fox-skins, he wandered about the castle, rendered justice among his vassals and settled his neighbours' quarrels. In the winter, he gazed dreamily at the falling snow, or had stories read aloud to him. But as soon as the fine weather returned, he would mount his mule and sally forth into the country roads, edged with ripening wheat, to talk with the peasants, to whom he distributed advice. After a number of adventures he took unto himself a wife of high lineage.

She was pale and serious, and a trifle haughty. The horns of her head-dress touched the top of the doors and the hem of her gown trailed far behind her. She conducted her household like a cloister. Every morning she distributed work to the maids, supervised the making of preserves and unguents, and afterwards passed her time in spinning, or in embroidering altar-cloths. In response to her fervent prayers, God granted her a son!

Then there was great rejoicing; and they gave a feast which lasted three days and four nights, with illuminations and soft music.

Chickens as large as sheep, and the rarest spices were served; for the entertainment of the guests, a dwarf crept out of a pie; and when the bowls were too few, for the crowd swelled continuously, the wine was drunk from helmets and hunting-horns.

The young mother did not appear at the feast. She was quietly resting in bed. One night she awoke, and beheld in a moonbeam that crept through the window something that looked like a moving shadow. It was an old man clad in sackcloth, who resembled a

hermit. A rosary dangled at his side and he carried a beggar's sack on his shoulder. He approached the foot of the bed, and without opening his lips said: "Rejoice, O mother! Thy son shall be a saint."

She would have cried out, but the old man, gliding along the moonbeam, rose through the air and disappeared. The songs of the banqueters grew louder. She could hear angels' voices, and her head sank back on the pillow, which was surmounted by the bone of a martyr, framed in precious stones.

The following day, the servants, upon being questioned, declared, to a man, that they had seen no hermit. Then, whether dream or fact, this must certainly have been a communication from heaven; but she took care not to speak of it, lest she should be accused of presumption.

The guests departed at daybreak, and Julian's father stood at the castle gate, where he had just bidden farewell to the last one, when a beggar suddenly emerged from the mist and confronted him.  He was a gipsy--for he had a braided beard and wore silver bracelets on each arm. His eyes burned and, in an inspired way, he muttered some disconnected words: "Ah! Ah! thy son!—great bloodshed--great glory--happy always--an emperor's family."

Then he stooped to pick up the alms thrown to him, and disappeared in the tall grass.

The lord of the manor looked up and down the road and called as loudly as he could. But no one answered him! The wind only howled and the morning mists were fast dissolving.

He attributed his vision to a dullness of the brain resulting from too much sleep. "If I should speak of it," quoth he, "people would laugh at me." Still, the glory that was to be his son's dazzled him, albeit the meaning of the prophecy was not clear to him, and

he even doubted that he had heard it.

The parents kept their secret from each other. But both cherished the child with equal devotion, and as they considered him marked by God, they had great regard for his person. His cradle was lined with the softest feathers, and lamp representing a dove burned continually over it; three nurses rocked him night and day, and with his pink cheeks and blue eyes, brocaded cloak and embroidered cap he looked like a little Jesus. He cut all his teeth without even a whimper.

When he was seven years old his mother taught him to sing, and his father lifted him upon a tall horse, to inspire him with courage. The child smiled with delight, and soon became familiar with everything pertaining to chargers. An old and very learned monk

taught him the Gospel, the Arabic numerals, the Latin letters, and the art of painting delicate designs on vellum. They worked in the top of a tower, away from all noise and disturbance.

When the lesson was over, they would go down into the garden and study the flowers.

Sometimes a herd of cattle passed through the valley below, in charge of a man in Oriental dress. The lord of the manor, recognising him as a merchant, would despatch a servant after him.  The stranger, becoming confident, would stop on his way and after

being ushered into the castle-hall, would display pieces of velvet and silk, trinkets and strange objects whose use was unknown in those parts. Then, in due time, he would take leave, without having been molested and with a handsome profit.

At other times, a band of pilgrims would knock at the door. Their wet garments would be hung in front of the hearth and after they had been refreshed by food they would relate their travels, and discuss the uncertainty of vessels on the high seas, their long journeys across burning sands, the ferocity of the infidels, the caves of Syria, the Manger and the Holy Sepulchre. They made presents to the young heir of beautiful shells, which they carried in their cloaks.

The lord of the manor very often feasted his brothers-at-arms, and over the wine the old warriors would talk of battles and attacks, of war-machines and of the frightful wounds they had received, so that Julian, who was a listener, would scream with excitement;

then his father felt convinced that some day he would be a conqueror. But in the evening, after the Angelus, when he passed through the crowd of beggars who clustered about the church-door, he distributed his alms with so much modesty and nobility that his mother fully expected to see him become an archbishop in time.

His seat in the chapel was next to his parents, and no matter how long the services lasted, he remained kneeling on his “prie-dieu”, with folded hands and his velvet cap lying close beside him on the floor.

One day, during mass, he raised his head and beheld a little white mouse crawling out of a hole in the wall. It scrambled to the first altar-step and then, after a few gambols, ran back in the same direction. On the following Sunday, the idea of seeing the mouse again worried him. It returned; and every Sunday after that he watched for it; and it annoyed him so much that he grew to hate it and resolved to do away with it.

So, having closed the door and strewn some crumbs on the steps of the altar, he placed himself in front of the hole with a stick.  After a long while a pink snout appeared, and then whole mouse crept out. He struck it lightly with his stick and stood stunned

at the sight of the little, lifeless body. A drop of blood stained the floor. He wiped it away hastily with his sleeve, and picking up the mouse, threw it away, without saying a word about it to anyone.

All sorts of birds pecked at the seeds in the garden. He put some peas in a hollow reed, and when he heard birds chirping in a tree, he would approach cautiously, lift the tube and swell his cheeks; then, when the little creatures dropped about him in multitudes,

he could not refrain from laughing and being delighted with his own cleverness.

One morning, as he was returning by way of the curtain, he beheld a fat pigeon sunning itself on the top of the wall. He paused to gaze at it; where he stood the rampart was cracked and a piece of stone was near at hand; he gave his arm a jerk and the well-aimed missile struck the bird squarely, sending it straight into the moat below.

He sprang after it, unmindful of the brambles, and ferreted around the bushes with the litheness of a young dog.  The pigeon hung with broken wings in the branches of a privet

hedge. The persistence of its life irritated the boy. He began to strangle it, and its convulsions made his heart beat quicker, and filled him with a wild, tumultuous voluptuousness, the last throb of its heart making him feel like fainting.

At supper that night, his father declared that at his age a boy should begin to hunt; and he arose and brought forth an old writing-book which contained, in questions and answers, everything pertaining to the pastime. In it, a master showed a supposed pupil

how to train dogs and falcons, lay traps, recognise a stag by its fumets, and a fox or a wolf by footprints. He also taught the best way of discovering their tracks, how to start them, where their refuges are usually to be found, what winds are the most favourable, and further enumerated the various cries, and the rules of the quarry.

When Julian was able to recite all these things by heart, his father made up a pack of hounds for him. There were twenty-four greyhounds of Barbary, speedier than gazelles, but liable to get out of temper; seventeen couples of Breton dogs, great barkers,

with broad chests and russet coats flecked with white. For wild-boar hunting and perilous doublings, there were forty boarhounds as hairy as bears.

The red mastiffs of Tartary, almost as large as donkeys, with broad backs and straight legs, were destined for the pursuit of the wild bull. The black coats of the spaniels shone like satin; the barking of the setters equalled that of the beagles. In a special enclosure were eight growling bloodhounds that tugged at their chains and rolled their eyes, and these dogs leaped at men's throats and were not afraid even of lions.

All ate wheat bread, drank from marble troughs, and had high-sounding names.

Perhaps the falconry surpassed the pack; for the master of the castle, by paying great sums of money, had secured Caucasian hawks, Babylonian sakers, German gerfalcons, and pilgrim falcons captured on the cliffs edging the cold seas, in distant lands.  They were housed in a thatched shed and were chained to the perch in the order of size. In front of them was a little grass-plot where, from time to time, they were allowed to disport themselves. Bag-nets, baits, traps and all sorts of snares were manufactured.

Often they would take out pointers who would set almost immediately; then the whippers-in, advancing step by step, would cautiously spread a huge net over their motionless bodies. At the command, the dogs would bark and arouse the quails; and the ladies of the neighbourhood, with their husbands, children and hand-maids, would fall upon them and capture them with ease.

At other times they used a drum to start hares; and frequently foxes fell into the ditches prepared for them, while wolves caught their paws in the traps.

But Julian scorned these convenient contrivances; he preferred to hunt away from the crowd, alone with his steed and his falcon. It was almost always a large, snow-white, Scythian bird. His leather hood was ornamented with a plume, and on his blue feet were bells; and he perched firmly on his master's arm while they galloped across the plains. Then Julian would suddenly untie his tether and let him fly, and the bold bird would dart through the air like an arrow, One might perceive two spots circle around, unite, and then disappear in the blue heights. Presently the falcon would return with a mutilated bird, and perch again on his master's gauntlet with trembling wings.

Julian loved to sound his trumpet and follow his dogs over hills and streams, into the woods; and when the stag began to moan under their teeth, he would kill it deftly, and delight in the fury of the brutes, which would devour the pieces spread out on the warm

hide.

On foggy days, he would hide in the marshes to watch for wild geese, otters and wild ducks.

At daybreak, three equerries waited for him at the foot of the steps; and though the old monk leaned out of the dormer-window and made signs to him to return, Julian would not look around.

He heeded neither the broiling sun, the rain nor the storm; he drank spring water and ate wild berries, and when he was tired, he lay down under a tree; and he would come home at night covered with earth and blood, with thistles in his hair and smelling of

wild beasts. He grew to be like them. And when his mother kissed him, he responded coldly to her caress and seemed to be thinking of deep and serious things.

He killed bears with a knife, bulls with a hatchet, and wild boars with a spear; and once, with nothing but a stick, he defended himself against some wolves, which were gnawing corpses at the foot of a gibbet.

*       *       *       *       *

One winter morning he set out before daybreak, with a bow slung across his shoulder and a quiver of arrows attached to the pummel of his saddle. The hoofs of his steed beat the ground with regularity and his two beagles trotted close behind. The wind was blowing hard and icicles clung to his cloak. A part of the horizon cleared, and he beheld some rabbits playing around their burrows. In an instant, the two dogs were upon them, and seizing as many as they could, they broke their backs in the twinkling of an eye.

Soon he came to a forest. A woodcock, paralysed by the cold, perched on a branch, with its head hidden under its wing. Julian, with a lunge of his sword, cut off its feet, and without stopping to pick it up, rode away.

Three hours later he found himself on the top of a mountain so high that the sky seemed almost black. In front of him, a long, flat rock hung over a precipice, and at the end two wild goats stood gazing down into the abyss. As he had no arrows (for he had left his steed behind), he thought he would climb down to where they stood; and with bare feet and bent back he at last reached the first goat and thrust his dagger below its ribs. But the second animal, in its terror, leaped into the precipice. Julian threw himself forward to strike it, but his right foot slipped, and he fell, face downward and with outstretched arms, over the body of the first goat.

After he returned to the plains, he followed a stream bordered by willows. From time to time, some cranes, flying low, passed over his head. He killed them with his whip, never missing a bird. He beheld in the distance the gleam of a lake which appeared to be of

lead, and in the middle of it was an animal he had never seen before, a beaver with a black muzzle. Notwithstanding the distance that separated them, an arrow ended its life and Julian only regretted that he was not able to carry the skin home with him.

Then he entered an avenue of tall trees, the tops of which formed a triumphal arch to the entrance of a forest. A deer sprang out of the thicket and a badger crawled out of its hole, a stag appeared in the road, and a peacock spread its fan-shaped tail on the grass—and after he had slain them all, other deer, other stags, other badgers, other peacocks, and jays, blackbirds, foxes, porcupines, polecats, and lynxes, appeared; in fact, a host of beasts that grew more and more numerous with every step he took. Trembling, and with a look of appeal in their eyes, they gathered around Julian, but he did not stop slaying them; and so intent was he on stretching his bow, drawing his sword and whipping out his knife, that he had little thought for aught else. He knew that he was

hunting in some country since an indefinite time, through the very fact of his existence, as everything seemed to occur with the ease one experiences in dreams. But presently an extraordinary sight made him pause.

He beheld a valley shaped like a circus and filled with stags which, huddled together, were warming one another with the vapour of their breaths that mingled with the early mist.

For a few minutes, he almost choked with pleasure at the prospect of so great a carnage. Then he sprang from his horse, rolled up his sleeves, and began to aim.

When the first arrow whizzed through the air, the stags turned their heads simultaneously. They huddled closer, uttered plaintive cries, and a great agitation seized the whole herd. The edge of the valley was too high to admit of flight; and the animals ran around the enclosure in their efforts to escape. Julian aimed, stretched his bow and his arrows fell as fast and thick as raindrops in a shower.

Maddened with terror, the stags fought and reared and climbed on top of one another; their antlers and bodies formed a moving mountain which tumbled to pieces whenever it displaced itself. Finally the last one expired. Their bodies lay stretched out on the sand with foam gushing from the nostrils and the bowels protruding. The heaving of their bellies grew less and less noticeable, and presently all was still.

Night came, and behind the trees, through the branches, the sky appeared like a sheet of blood.

Julian leaned against a tree and gazed with dilated eyes at the enormous slaughter. He was now unable to comprehend how he had accomplished it.

On the opposite side of the valley, he suddenly beheld a large stag, with a doe and their fawn. The buck was black and of enormous size; he had a white beard and carried sixteen antlers.  His mate was the color of dead leaves, and she browsed upon the

grass, while the fawn, clinging to her udder, followed her step by step.

Again the bow was stretched, and instantly the fawn dropped dead, and seeing this, its mother raised her head and uttered a poignant, almost human wail of agony. Exasperated, Julian thrust his knife into her chest, and felled her to the ground.

The great stag had watched everything and suddenly he sprang forward. Julian aimed his last arrow at the beast. It struck him between his antlers and stuck there.

The stag did not appear to notice it; leaping over the bodies, he was coming nearer and nearer with the intention, Julian thought, of charging at him and ripping him open, and he recoiled with inexpressible horror. But presently the huge animal halted, and, with eyes aflame and the solemn air of a patriarch and a judge, repeated thrice, while a bell tolled in the distance: "Accursed! Accursed! Accursed! some day, ferocious soul, thou wilt murder thy father and thy mother!"

Then he sank on his knees, gently closed his lids and expired.

At first Julian was stunned, and then a sudden lassitude and an immense sadness came over him. Holding his head between his hands, he wept for a long time.

His steed had wandered away; his dogs had forsaken him; the solitude seemed to threaten him with unknown perils. Impelled by a sense of sickening terror, he ran across the fields, and choosing a path at random, found himself almost immediately at the gates of the castle.

That night he could not rest, for, by the flickering light of the hanging lamp, he beheld again the huge black stag. He fought against the obsession of the prediction and kept repeating: "No! No! No! I cannot slay them!" and then he thought: "Still, supposing I desired to?--" and he feared that the devil might inspire him with this desire.

During three months, his distracted mother prayed at his bedside, and his father paced the halls of the castle in anguish. He consulted the most celebrated physicians, who prescribed quantities of medicine. Julian's illness, they declared, was due to some injurious wind or to amorous desire. But in reply to their questions, the young man only shook his head. After a time, his strength returned, and he was able to take a walk in the

courtyard, supported by his father and the old monk.

But after he had completely recovered, he refused to hunt.

His father, hoping to please him, presented him with a large Saracen sabre. It was placed on a panoply that hung on a pillar, and a ladder was required to reach it. Julian climbed up to it one day, but the heavy weapon slipped from his grasp, and in falling grazed his father and tore his cloak. Julian, believing he had killed him, fell in a swoon.

After that, he carefully avoided weapons. The sight of a naked sword made him grow pale, and this weakness caused great distress to his family.

In the end, the old monk ordered him in the name of God, and of his forefathers, once more to indulge in the sport's of a nobleman.

The equerries diverted themselves every day with javelins and Julian soon excelled in the practice.

He was able to send a javelin into bottles, to break the teeth of the weather-cocks on the castle and to strike door-nails at a distance of one hundred feet.

One summer evening, at the hour when dusk renders objects indistinct, he was in the arbour in the garden, and thought he saw two white wings in the background hovering around the espalier. Not for a moment did he doubt that it was a stork, and so he threw

his javelin at it.

A heart-rending scream pierced the air.

He had struck his mother, whose cap and long streams remained nailed to the wall.

Julian fled from home and never returned.

CHAPTER II - THE CRIME

He joined a horde of adventurers who were passing through the place.

He learned what it was to suffer hunger, thirst, sickness and filth. He grew accustomed to the din of battles and to the sight of dying men. The wind tanned his skin. His limbs became hardened through contact with armour, and as he was very strong and brave,

temperate and of good counsel, he easily obtained command of a company.

At the outset of a battle, he would electrify his soldiers by a motion of his sword. He would climb the walls of a citadel with a knotted rope, at night, rocked by the storm, while sparks of fire clung to his cuirass, and molten lead and boiling tar poured from

the battlements.

Often a stone would break his shield. Bridges crowded with men gave way under him. Once, by turning his mace, he rid himself of fourteen horsemen. He defeated all those who came forward to fight him on the field of honour, and more than a score of times it was believed that he had been killed.

However, thanks to Divine protection, he always escaped, for he shielded orphans, widows, and aged men. When he caught sight of one of the latter walking ahead of him, he would call to him to show his face, as if he feared that he might kill him by mistake.

All sorts of intrepid men gathered under his leadership, fugitive slaves, peasant rebels, and penniless bastards; he then organized an army which increased so much that he became famous and was in great demand.

He succoured in turn the Dauphin of France, the King of England, the Templars of Jerusalem, the General of the Parths, the Negus of Abyssinia and the Emperor of Calicut. He fought against Scandinavians covered with fish-scales, against negroes mounted on

red asses and armed with shields made of hippopotamus hide, against gold-coloured Indians who wielded great, shining swords above their heads. He conquered the Troglodytes and the cannibals. He travelled through regions so torrid that the heat of the sun would set fire to the hair on one's head; he journeyed through countries so glacial that one's arms would fall from the body; and he passed through places where the fogs were so dense that it seemed like being surrounded by phantoms.

Republics in trouble consulted him; when he conferred with ambassadors, he always obtained unexpected concessions. Also, if a monarch behaved badly, he would arrive on the scene and rebuke him. He freed nations. He rescued queens sequestered in towers. It was he and no other that killed the serpent of Milan and the dragon of Oberbirbach.

Now, the Emperor of Occitania, having triumphed over the Spanish Mussulmans, had taken the sister of the Caliph of Cordova as a concubine, and had had one daughter by her, whom he brought up in the teachings of Christ. But the Caliph, feigning that he wished to become converted, made him a visit, and brought with him a numerous escort. He slaughtered the entire garrison and threw the Emperor into a dungeon, and treated him with great cruelty in order to obtain possession of his treasures.

Julian went to his assistance, destroyed the army of infidels, laid siege to the city, slew the Caliph, chopped off his head and threw it over the fortifications like a cannon-ball.

As a reward for so great a service, the Emperor presented him with a large sum of money in baskets; but Julian declined it. Then the Emperor, thinking that the amount was not sufficiently large, offered him three quarters of his fortune, and on meeting a second refusal, proposed to share his kingdom with his benefactor. But Julian only thanked him for it, and the Emperor felt like weeping with vexation at not being able to show his gratitude, when he suddenly tapped his forehead and whispered a few words in the ear of one of his courtiers; the tapestry curtains parted and a young girl appeared.

Her large black eyes shone like two soft lights. A charming smile parted her lips. Her curls were caught in the jewels of her half-opened bodice, and the grace of her youthful body could be divined under the transparency of her tunic.

She was small and quite plump, but her waist was slender.

Julian was absolutely dazzled, all the more since he had always led a chaste life.

So he married the Emperor's daughter, and received at the same time a castle she had inherited from her mother; and when the rejoicings were over, he departed with his bride, after many courtesies had been exchanged on both sides.

The castle was of Moorish design, in white marble, erected on a promontory and surrounded by orange-trees.

Terraces of flowers extended to the shell-strewn shores of a beautiful bay. Behind the castle spread a fan-shaped forest. The sky was always blue, and the trees were swayed in turn by the ocean-breeze and by the winds that blew from the mountains that

closed the horizon.

Light entered the apartments through the incrustations of the walls. High, reed-like columns supported the ceiling of the cupolas, decorated in imitation of stalactites.

Fountains played in the spacious halls; the courts were inlaid with mosaic; there were festooned partitions and a great profusion of architectural fancies; and everywhere reigned a silence so deep that the swish of a sash or the echo of a sigh could be distinctly

heard.

Julian now had renounced war. Surrounded by a peaceful people, he remained idle, receiving every day a throng of subjects who came and knelt before him and kissed his hand in Oriental fashion.

Clad in sumptuous garments, he would gaze out of the window and think of his past exploits; and wish that he might again run in the desert in pursuit of ostriches and gazelles, hide among the bamboos to watch for leopards, ride through forests filled with

rhinoceroses, climb the most inaccessible peaks in order to have a better aim at the eagles, and fight the polar bears on the icebergs of the northern sea.

Sometimes, in his dreams, he fancied himself like Adam in the midst of Paradise, surrounded by all the beasts; by merely extending his arm, he was able to kill them; or else they filed past him, in pairs, by order of size, from the lions and the elephants to the ermines and the ducks, as on the day they entered Noah's Ark.

Hidden in the shadow of a cave, he aimed unerring arrows at them; then came others and still others, until he awoke, wild-eyed.

Princes, friends of his, invited him to their meets, but he always refused their invitations, because he thought that by this kind of penance he might possibly avert the threatened misfortune; it seemed to him that the fate of his parents depended on his refusal to slaughter animals. He suffered because he could not see them, and his other desire was growing well-nigh unbearable.

In order to divert his mind, his wife had dancers and jugglers come to the castle.

She went abroad with him in an open litter; at other times, stretched out on the edge of a boat, they watched for hours the fish disport themselves in the water, which was as clear as the sky. Often she playfully threw flowers at him or nestling at his feet, she played melodies on an old mandolin; then, clasping her hands on his shoulder, she would inquire tremulously: "What troubles thee, my dear lord?"

He would not reply, or else he would burst into tears; but at last, one day, he confessed his fearful dread.

His wife scorned the idea and reasoned wisely with him: probably his father and mother were dead; and even if he should ever see them again, through what chance, to what end, would he arrive at this abomination? Therefore, his fears were groundless, and he

should hunt again.

Julian listened to her and smiled, but he could not bring himself to yield to his desire.

One August evening when they were in their bed-chamber, she having just retired and he being about to kneel in prayer, he heard the yelping of a fox and light footsteps under the window; and he thought he saw things in the dark that looked like animals. The

temptation was too strong. He seized his quiver. His wife appeared astonished.

"I am obeying you," quoth he, "and I shall be back at sunrise."

However, she feared that some calamity would happen. But he reassured her and departed, surprised at her illogical moods.

A short time afterwards, a page came to announce that two strangers desired, in the absence of the lord of the castle, to see its mistress at once.

Soon a stooping old man and an aged woman entered the room; their coarse garments were covered with dust and each leaned on a stick.

They grew bold enough to say that they brought Julian news of his parents. She leaned out of the bed to listen to them. But after glancing at each other, the old people asked her whether he ever referred to them and if he still loved them.

"Oh! yes!" she said.

Then they exclaimed:

"We are his parents!" and they sat themselves down, for they were very tired.

But there was nothing to show the young wife that her husband was their son.

They proved it by describing to her the birthmarks he had on his body. Then she jumped out of bed, called a page, and ordered that a repast be served to them.

But although they were very hungry, they could scarcely eat, and she observed surreptitiously how their lean fingers trembled whenever they lifted their cups.

They asked a hundred questions about their son, and she answered each one of them, but she was careful not to refer to the terrible idea that concerned them.

When he failed to return, they had left their château; and had wandered for several years, following vague indications but without losing hope.

So much money had been spent at the tolls of the rivers and in inns, to satisfy the rights of princes and the demands of highwaymen, that now their purse was quite empty and they were obliged to beg. But what did it matter, since they were about to clasp again their son in their arms? They lauded his happiness in having such a beautiful wife, and did not tire of looking at her and kissing her.

The luxuriousness of the apartment astonished them; and the old man, after examining the walls, inquired why they bore the coat-of-arms of the Emperor of Occitania.

"He is my father," she replied.

And he marvelled and remembered the prediction of the gipsy, while his wife meditated upon the words the hermit had spoken to her. The glory of their son was undoubtedly only the dawn of eternal splendours, and the old people remained awed while the light from the candelabra on the table fell on them.

In the heyday of youth, both had been extremely handsome. The mother had not lost her hair, and bands of snowy whiteness framed her cheeks; and the father, with his stalwart figure and long beard, looked like a carved image.

Julian's wife prevailed upon them not to wait for him. She put them in her bed and closed the curtains; and they both fell asleep. The day broke and outdoors the little birds began to chirp.

Meanwhile, Julian had left the castle grounds and walked nervously through the forest, enjoying the velvety softness of the grass and the balminess of the air.

The shadow of the trees fell on the earth. Here and there, the moonlight flecked the glades and Julian feared to advance, because he mistook the silvery light for water and the tranquil surface of the pools for grass. A great stillness reigned everywhere, and he

failed to see any of the beasts that only a moment ago were prowling around the castle. As he walked on, the woods grew thicker, and the darkness more impenetrable. Warm winds, filled with enervating perfumes, caressed him; he sank into masses of dead leaves, and after a while he leaned against an oak-tree to rest and catch his breath.

Suddenly a body blacker than the surrounding darkness sprang from behind the tree. It was a wild boar. Julian did not have time to stretch his bow, and he bewailed the fact as if it were some great misfortune. Presently, having left the woods, he beheld a wolf

slinking along a hedge.

He aimed an arrow at him. The wolf paused, turned his head and quietly continued on his way. He trotted along, always keeping at the same distance, pausing now and then to look around and resuming his flight as soon as an arrow was aimed in his direction.

In this way Julian traversed an apparently endless plain, then sand-hills, and at last found himself on a plateau, that dominated a great stretch of land. Large flat stones were interspersed among crumbling vaults; bones and skeletons covered the ground, and here

and there some mouldy crosses stood desolate. But presently, shapes moved in the darkness of the tombs, and from them came panting, wild-eyed hyenas. They approached him and smelled him, grinning hideously and disclosing their gums. He whipped out his sword, but they scattered in every direction and continuing their

swift, limping gallop, disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Some time afterwards, in a ravine, he encountered a wild bull, with threatening horns, pawing the sand with his hoofs. Julian thrust his lance between his dewlaps. But his weapon snapped as if the beast were made of bronze; then he closed his eyes in

anticipation of his death. When he opened them again, the bull had vanished.

Then his soul collapsed with shame. Some supernatural power destroyed his strength, and he set out for home through the forest. The woods were a tangle of creeping plants that he had to cut with his sword, and while he was thus engaged, a weasel slid

between his feet, a panther jumped over his shoulder, and a serpent wound itself around the ash-tree.

Among its leaves was a monstrous jackdaw that watched Julian intently, and here and there, between the branches, appeared great, fiery sparks as if the sky were raining all its stars upon the forest. But the sparks were the eyes of wild-cats, owls, squirrels, monkeys and parrots.

Julian aimed his arrows at them, but the feathered weapons lighted on the leaves of the trees and looked like white butterflies. He threw stones at them; but the missiles did not strike, and fell to the ground. Then he cursed himself, and howled imprecations, and

in his rage he could have struck himself.

Then all the beasts he had pursued appeared, and formed a narrow circle around him. Some sat on their hindquarters, while others stood at full height. And Julian remained among them, transfixed with terror and absolutely unable to move. By a supreme effort of his will-power, he took a step forward; those that perched in the trees opened their wings, those that trod the earth moved their limbs, and all accompanied him.

The hyenas strode in front of him, the wolf and the wild boar brought up the rear. On his right, the bull swung its head and on his left the serpent crawled through the grass; while the panther, arching its back, advanced with velvety footfalls and long strides. Julian walked as slowly as possible, so as not to irritate them, while in the depth of bushes he could distinguish porcupines, foxes, vipers, jackals, and bears.

He began to run; the brutes followed him. The serpent hissed, the malodorous beasts frothed at the mouth, the wild boar rubbed his tusks against his heels, and the wolf scratched the palms of his hands with the hairs of his snout. The monkeys pinched him and made faces, the weasel tolled over his feet. A bear knocked his cap off with its huge paw, and the panther disdainfully dropped an arrow it was about to put in its mouth.

Irony seemed to incite their sly actions. As they watched him out of the corners of their eyes, they seemed to meditate a plan of revenge, and Julian, who was deafened by the buzzing of the insects, bruised by the wings and tails of the birds, choked by the stench of animal breaths, walked with outstretched arms and closed lids, like a blind man, without even the strength to beg for mercy.

The crowing of a cock vibrated in the air. Other cocks responded; it was day; and Julian recognised the top of his palace rising above the orange-trees.

Then, on the edge of a field, he beheld some red partridges fluttering around a stubble-field. He unfastened his cloak and threw it over them like a net. When he lifted it, he found only a bird that had been dead a long time and was decaying.

This disappointment irritated him more than all the others. The thirst for carnage stirred afresh within him; animals failing him, he desired to slaughter men.

He climbed the three terraces and opened the door with a blow of his fist; but at the foot of the staircase, the memory of his beloved wife softened his heart. No doubt she was asleep, and he would go up and surprise her. Having removed his sandals, he unlocked the door softly and entered.

The stained windows dimmed the pale light of dawn. Julian stumbled over some garment's lying on the floor and a little further on, he knocked against a table covered with dishes. "She must have eaten," he thought; so he advanced cautiously towards the bed which was concealed by the darkness in the back of the room. When he reached the edge, he leaned over the pillow where the two heads were resting close together and stooped to kiss his wife. His mouth encountered a man's beard.

He fell back, thinking he had become crazed; then he approached the bed again and his searching fingers discovered some hair which seemed to be very long. In order to convince himself that he was mistaken, he once more passed his hand slowly over the pillow. But this time he was sure that it was a beard and that a man was there! a man lying beside his wife!

Flying into an ungovernable passion, he sprang upon them with his drawn dagger, foaming, stamping and howling like a wild beast. After a while he stopped.

The corpses, pierced through the heart, had not even moved. He listened attentively to the two death-rattles, they were almost alike, and as they grew fainter, another voice, coming from far away, seemed to continue them. Uncertain at first, this plaintive

voice came nearer and nearer, grew louder and louder and presently he recognised, with a feeling of abject terror, the bellowing of the great black stag.

And as he turned around, he thought he saw the spectre of his wife standing at the threshold with a light in her hand.

The sound of the murder had aroused her. In one glance she understood what had happened and fled in horror, letting the candle drop from her hand. Julian picked it up.

His father and mother lay before him, stretched on their backs, with gaping wounds in their breasts; and their faces, the expression of which was full of tender dignity, seemed to hide what might be an eternal secret.

Splashes and blotches of blood were on their white skin, on the bed-clothes, on the floor, and on an ivory Christ which hung in the alcove. The scarlet reflection of the stained window, which just then was struck by the sun, lighted up the bloody spots and

appeared to scatter them around the whole room. Julian walked toward the corpses, repeating to himself and trying to believe that he was mistaken, that it was not possible, that there are often inexplicable likenesses.

At last he bent over to look closely at the old man and he saw, between the half-closed lids, a dead pupil that scorched him like fire. Then he went over to the other side of the bed, where the other corpse lay, but the face was partly hidden by bands of white

hair. Julian slipped his finger beneath them and raised the head, holding it at arm's length to study its features, while, with his other hand he lifted the torch. Drops of blood oozed from the mattress and fell one by one upon the floor.

At the close of the day, he appeared before his wife, and in a changed voice commanded her first not to answer him, not to approach him, not even to look at him, and to obey, under the penalty of eternal damnation, every one of his orders, which were

Irrevocable.

The funeral was to be held in accordance with the written instructions he had left on a chair in the death-chamber.

He left her his castle, his vassals, all his worldly goods, without keeping even his clothes or his sandals, which would be found at the top of the stairs.

She had obeyed the will of God in bringing about his crime, and accordingly she must pray for his soul, since henceforth he should cease to exist.

The dead were buried sumptuously in the chapel of a monastery which it took three days to reach from the castle. A monk wearing a hood that covered his head followed the procession alone, for nobody dared to speak to him. And during the mass, he lay flat on

the floor with his face downward and his arms stretched out at his sides.

After the burial, he was seen to take the road leading into the mountains. He looked back several times, and finally passed out of sight.

CHAPTER III - THE REPARATION

He left the country and begged his daily bread on his way.

He stretched out his hand to the horsemen he met in the roads, and humbly approached the harvesters in the fields; or else remained motionless in front of the gates of castles; and his face was so sad that he was never turned away.

Obeying a spirit of humility, he related his history to all men, and they would flee from him and cross themselves. In villages through which he had passed before, the good people bolted the doors, threatened him, and threw stones at him as soon as they

recognised him. The more charitable ones placed a bowl on the window-sill and closed the shutters in order to avoid seeing him.

Repelled and shunned by everyone, he avoided his fellow-men and nourished himself with roots and plants, stray fruits and shells which he gathered along the shores.

Often, at the bend of a hill, he could perceive a mass of crowded roofs, stone spires, bridges, towers and narrow streets, from which arose a continual murmur of activity.

The desire to mingle with men impelled him to enter the city. But the gross and beastly expression of their faces, the noise of their industries and the indifference of their remarks, chilled his very heart. On holidays, when the cathedral bells rang out at

daybreak and filled the people's hearts with gladness, he watched the inhabitants coming out of their dwellings, the dancers in the public squares, the fountains of ale, the damask hangings spread before the houses of princes; and then, when night came, he would

peer through the windows at the long tables where families gathered and where grandparents held little children on their knees; then sobs would rise in his throat and he would turn away and go back to his haunts.

He gazed with yearning at the colts in the pastures, the birds in their nests, the insects on the flowers; but they all fled from him at his approach and hid or flew away. So he sought solitude. But the wind brought to his ears sounds resembling death-rattles;

the tears of the dew reminded him of heavier drops, and every evening, the sun would spread blood in the sky, and every night, in his dreams, he lived over his parricide.

He made himself a hair-cloth lined with iron spikes. On his knees, he ascended every hill that was crowned with a chapel. But the unrelenting thought spoiled the splendour of the tabernacles and tortured him in the midst of his penances.

He did not rebel against God, who had inflicted his action, but he despaired at the thought that he had committed it.

He had such a horror of himself that he took all sorts of risks. He rescued paralytics from fire and children from waves. But the ocean scorned him and the flames spared him. Time did not allay his torment, which became so intolerable that he resolved to die.

One day, while he was stooping over a fountain to judge of its depth, an old man appeared on the other side. He wore a white beard and his appearance was so lamentable that Julian could not keep back his tears. The old man also was weeping. Without recognising him, Julian remembered confusedly a face that resembled his. He uttered a cry; for it was his father who stood before him; and he gave up all thought of taking his own life.

Thus weighted down by his recollections, he travelled through many countries and arrived at a river which was dangerous, because of its violence and the slime that covered its shores. Since a long time nobody had ventured to cross it.

The bow of an old boat, whose stern was buried in the mud, showed among the reeds. Julian, on examining it closely, found a pair of oars and hit upon the idea of devoting his life to the service of his fellow-men.

He began by establishing on the bank of the river a sort of road which would enable people to approach the edge of the stream; he broke his nails in his efforts to lift enormous stones which he pressed against the pit of his stomach in order to transport them from one point to another; he slipped in the mud, he sank into it, and several times was on the very brink of death.

Then he took to repairing the boat with debris of vessels, and afterwards built himself a hut with putty and trunks of trees.

When it became known that a ferry had been established, passengers flocked to it. They hailed him from the opposite side by waving flags, and Julian would jump into the boat and row over. The craft was very heavy, and the people loaded it with all sorts of

baggage, and beasts of burden, who reared with fright, thereby adding greatly to the confusion. He asked nothing for his trouble; some gave him left-over victuals which they took from their sacks or worn-out garments which they could no longer use.

The brutal ones hurled curses at him, and when he rebuked them gently they replied with insults, and he was content to bless them.

A little table, a stool, a bed made of dead leaves and three earthen bowls were all he possessed. Two holes in the wall served as windows. On one side, as far as the eye could see, stretched barren wastes studded here and there with pools of water; and in

front of him flowed the greenish waters of the wide river. In the spring, a putrid odour arose from the damp sod. Then fierce gales lifted clouds of dust that blew everywhere, even settling in the water and in one's mouth. A little later swarms of mosquitoes

appeared, whose buzzing and stinging continued night and day. After that, came frightful frosts which communicated a stone-like rigidity to everything and inspired one with an insane desire for meat. Months passed when Julian never saw a human being. He often

closed his lids and endeavored to recall his youth;—he beheld the courtyard of a castle, with greyhounds stretched out on a terrace, an armoury filled with valets, and under a bower of vines a youth with blond curls, sitting between an old man wrapped in furs and a lady with a high cap; presently the corpses rose before him, and then he would throw himself face downward on his cot and sob:

"Oh! poor father! poor mother! poor mother!" and would drop into a

fitful slumber in which the terrible visions recurred.

One night he thought that some one was calling to him in his sleep. He listened intently, but could hear nothing save the roaring of the waters.

But the same voice repeated: "Julian!"

It proceeded from the opposite shore, fact which appeared extraordinary to him, considering the breadth of the river.

The voice called a third time: "Julian!"

And the high-pitched tones sounded like the ringing of a church-bell.

Having lighted his lantern, he stepped out of his cabin. A frightful storm raged. The darkness was complete and was illuminated here and there only by the white waves leaping and tumbling.

After a moment's hesitation, he untied the rope. The water presently grew smooth and the boat glided easily to the opposite shore, where a man was waiting.

He was wrapped in a torn piece of linen; his face was like a chalk mask, and his eyes were redder than glowing coals. When Julian held up his lantern he noticed that the stranger was covered with hideous sores; but notwithstanding this, there was in his attitude something like the majesty of a king.

As soon as he stepped into the boat, it sank deep into the water, borne downward by his weight; then it rose again and Julian began to row.

With each stroke of the oars, the force of the waves raised the bow of the boat. The water, which was blacker than ink, ran furiously along the sides. It formed abysses and then mountains, over which the boat glided, then it fell into yawning depths

where, buffeted by the wind, it whirled around and around.

Julian leaned far forward and, bracing himself with his feet, bent backwards so as to bring his whole strength into play. Hail-stones cut his hands, the rain ran down his back, the velocity of the wind suffocated him. He stopped rowing and let the boat drift with

the tide. But realising that an important matter was at stake, a command which could not be disregarded, he picked up the oars again; and the rattling of the tholes mingled with the clamourings of the storm.

The little lantern burned in front of him. Sometimes birds fluttered past it and obscured the light. But he could distinguish the eyes of the leper who stood at the stern, as motionless as a column.

And the trip lasted a long, long time.

When they reached the hut, Julian closed the door and saw the man sit down on the stool. The species of shroud that was wrapped around him had fallen below his loins, and his shoulders and chest and lean arms were hidden under blotches of scaly pustules.

Enormous wrinkles crossed his forehead. Like a skeleton, he had a hole instead of a nose, and from his bluish lips came breath which was fetid and as thick as mist.

"I am hungry," he said.

Julian set before him what he had, a piece of pork and some crusts of coarse bread.

After he had devoured them, the table, the bowl, and the handle of the knife bore the same scales that covered his body.

Then he said: "I thirst!"

Julian fetched his jug of water and when he lifted it, he smelled an aroma that dilated his nostrils and filled his heart with gladness. It was wine; what a boon! but the leper stretched out his arm and emptied the jug at one draught.

Then he said: "I am cold!"

Julian ignited a bundle of ferns that lay in the middle of the hut. The leper approached the fire and, resting on his heels, began to warm himself; his whole frame shook and he was failing visibly; his eyes grew dull, his sores began to break, and in a faint voice he whispered:

"Thy bed!"

Julian helped him gently to it, and even laid the sail of his boat over him to keep him warm.

The leper tossed and moaned. The corners of his mouth were drawn up over his teeth; an accelerated death-rattle shook his chest and with each one of his aspirations, his stomach touched his spine.  At last, he closed his eyes.

"I feel as if ice were in my bones! Lay thyself beside me!" he commanded. Julian took off his garments; and then, as naked as on the day he was born, he got into the bed; against his thigh he could feel the skin of the leper, and it was colder than a serpent

and as rough as a file.

He tried to encourage the leper, but he only whispered:

"Oh! I am about to die! Come closer to me and warm me! Not with thy hands! No! with thy whole body."

So Julian stretched himself out upon the leper, lay on him, lips to lips, chest to chest.

Then the leper clasped him close and presently his eyes shone like stars; his hair lengthened into sunbeams; the breath of his nostrils had the scent of roses; a cloud of incense rose from the hearth, and the waters began to murmur harmoniously; an abundance of bliss, a superhuman joy, filled the soul of the swooning Julian, while he who clasped him to his breast grew and grew until his head and his feet touched the opposite walls of the cabin. The roof flew up in the air, disclosing the heavens, and Julian

ascended into infinity face to face with our Lord Jesus Christ, who bore him straight to heaven.