The Works of Guy de Maupassant Volume VIII Part 47

"'He did go away.

"'I have never seen one or the other of them since, monsieur, and thus I have lived for the last twenty years.

"'Can you imagine what all this meant to me? Can you understand this monstrous punishment, this slow perpetual laceration of a mother's heart, this abominable, endless waiting? Endless, did I say? No: it is about to end, for I am dying. I am dying without ever again seeing either of them--either one or the other!

"'He--the man I loved--has written to me every day for the last twenty years; and I--I have never consented to see him, even for one second; for I had a strange feeling that, if he came back here, it would be at that very moment my son would again make his appearance! Ah! my son!

my son! Is he dead? Is he living? Where is he hiding? Over there, perhaps, at the other side of the ocean, in some country so far away that even its very name is unknown to me! Does he ever think of me?

Ah! if he only knew! How cruel children are! Did he understand to what frightful suffering he condemned me, into what depths of despair, into what tortures, he cast me while I was still in the prime of life, leaving me to suffer like this even to this moment, when I am going to die--me, his mother, who loved him with all the violence of a mother's love! Oh! isn't it cruel, cruel?

"'You will tell him all this, monsieur--will you not? You will repeat for him my last words:

"'My child, my dear, dear child, be less harsh towards poor women!

Life is already brutal and savage enough in its dealings with them. My dear son, think of what the existence of your poor mother has been ever since the day when you left her. My dear child, forgive her, and love her, now that she is dead, for she has had to endure the most frightful penance ever inflicted on a woman.'

"She gasped for breath, shuddering, as if she had addressed the last words to her son and as if he stood by her bedside.

"Then she added:

"'You will tell him also, monsieur, that I never again saw--the other.'

"Once more she ceased speaking, then, in a broken voice she said:

"'Leave me now, I beg of you. I want to die all alone, since they are not with me.'"

Maitre Le Brument added:

"And I left the house, messieurs, crying like a fool, so vehemently, indeed, that my coachman turned round to stare at me.

"And to think that, every day, heaps of dramas like this are being enacted all around us!

"I have not found the son--that son--well, say what you like about him, but I call him that criminal son!"

THE SPASM

The hotel-guests slowly entered the dining-room, and sat down in their places. The waiters began to attend on them in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on so as to enable those who were late to arrive, and so as to avoid bringing back the dishes; and the old bathers, the _habitues_, those whose season was advancing, gazed with interest towards the door, whenever it opened, with a desire to see new faces appearing.

This is the princ.i.p.al distraction of health-resorts. People look forward to the dinner-hour in order to inspect each day's new arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.

A vague longing springs up in the mind, a longing for agreeable meetings, for pleasant acquaintances, perhaps for love-adventures. In this life of elbowings, not only those with whom we have come into daily contact, but strangers, a.s.sume an extreme importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself, and sociability is the order of the day.

We cherish antipathies for a week and friends.h.i.+ps for a month; we see other people with different eyes when we view them through the medium of the acquaintances.h.i.+p that is brought about at health-resorts. We discover in men suddenly, after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in the park where the generous spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and astonis.h.i.+ng merits, and a month afterwards, we have completely forgotten these new friends, so fascinating when we first met them.

There also are formed lasting and serious ties more quickly than anywhere else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very quickly; and with the affection thus originated is mingled something of the sweetness and self-abandonment of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the dear and tender memories of those first hours of friends.h.i.+p, the memory of those first conversations through which we have been able to unveil a soul, of those first glances which interrogate and respond to the questions and secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation of opening our hearts to those who are willing to open theirs to us.

And the melancholy of health-resorts, the monotony of days that are all alike, help from hour to hour in this rapid development of affection.

Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the appearance of strange faces.

Only two appeared, but very remarkable-looking, a man and a woman--father and daughter. They immediately produced the same effect on my mind as some of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm, the charm a.s.sociated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims of fatality. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooping, with hair perfectly white, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy; and there was in his bearing, and in his person that austerity peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was also very thin, very pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out with utter la.s.situde. We meet people like this from time to time who seem too weak for the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to walk, to do all that we do every day. This young girl was very pretty, with the diaphanous beauty of a phantom; and she ate with extreme slowness, as if she were almost incapable of moving her arms.

It must have been she a.s.suredly who had come to take the waters.

They found themselves facing me at the opposite side of the table; and I at once noticed that the father had a very singular nervous spasm.

Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand made a hook-like movement, a sort of irregular zigzig, before it succeeded in touching what it was in search of; and, after a little while, this action was so wearisome to me that I turned aside my head in order not to see it.

I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her left hand.

After dinner, I went for a stroll in the park of the thermal establishment. This led towards the little Auvergnese station of Chatel Guyot, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, of that mountain from which flow so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of extinct volcanoes. Over there, above us, the domes, which had once been craters, raised their mutilated heads on the summit of the long chain. For Chatel Guyot is situated at the spot where the region of domes begins.

Beyond it, stretches out the region of peaks, and further on again the region of precipices.

The "Puy de Dome" is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these mountain-heights.

This evening it was very warm. I walked up and down a shady path, on the side of the mountain overlooking the park, listening to the opening strains of the Casino band.

And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my direction. I saluted them, as we are accustomed to salute our hotel-companions at health resorts; and the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me,

"Could you not, monsieur, point out to us a short walk, nice and easy, if that is possible? and excuse my intrusion on you."

I offered to show them the way towards the valley through which the little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall craggy, wooded slopes.

They gladly accepted my offer.

And we talked naturally about the virtues of the waters.

"Oh!" he said, "My daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous disorders. At one time, the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another time, they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another time they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day, her condition is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator of the body, that Protean source of diseases with a thousand forms and a thousand susceptibilities to attack. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad."

Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his hand came back to my mind, and I asked him.

"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves somewhat affected?"

He replied calmly:

"Mine? Oh! no--my nerves have always been very steady."

Then suddenly, after a pause, he went on:

"Ah! You were alluding to the spasm in my hand every time I want to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience which I had. Just imagine! this daughter of mine was actually buried alive?"

I could only give utterance to the word "Ah!" so great were my astonishment and emotion.