"Dinner made me lose my head altogether. I sat beside her, and my hand continually met hers under the tablecloth, my foot touched hers and our glances met.
"After dinner we took a walk by moonlight, and I whispered all the tender things I could think of to her. I held her close to me, kissed her every moment, while her uncle and Rivet were arguing as they walked in front of us. They went in, and soon a messenger brought a telegram from her aunt, saying that she would not return until the next morning at seven o"clock by the first train.
""Very well, Henriette," her uncle said, "go and show the gentlemen their rooms." She showed Rivet his first, and he whispered to me: "There was no danger of her taking us into yours first." Then she took me to my room, and as soon as she was alone with me I took her in my arms again and tried to arouse her emotion, but when she saw the danger she escaped out of the room, and I retired very much put out and excited and feeling rather foolish, for I knew that I should not sleep much, and I was wondering how I could have committed such a mistake, when there was a gentle knock at my door, and on my asking who was there a low voice replied: "I"
"I dressed myself quickly and opened the door, and she came in. "I forgot to ask you what you take in the morning," she said; "chocolate, tea or coffee?" I put my arms round her impetuously and said, devouring her with kisses: "I will take-I will take-"
"But she freed herself from my arms, blew out my candle and disappeared and left me alone in the dark, furious, trying to find some matches, and not able to do so. At last I got some and I went into the pa.s.sage, feeling half mad, with my candlestick in my hand.
"What was I about to do? I did not stop to reason, I only wanted to find her, and I would. I went a few steps without reflecting, but then I suddenly thought: "Suppose I should walk into the uncle"s room what should I say?" And I stood still, with my head a void and my heart beating. But in a few moments I thought of an answer: "Of course, I shall say that I was looking for Rivet"s room to speak to him about an important matter," and I began to inspect all the doors, trying to find hers, and at last I took hold of a handle at a venture, turned it and went in. There was Henriette, sitting on her bed and looking at me in tears. So I gently turned the key, and going up to her on tiptoe I said: "I forgot to ask you for something to read, mademoiselle."
"I was stealthily returning to my room when a rough hand seized me and a voice-it was Rivet"s-whispered in my ear: "So you have not yet quite settled that affair of Morin"s?"
"At seven o"clock the next morning Henriette herself brought me a cup of chocolate. I never have drunk anything like it, soft, velvety, perfumed, delicious. I could hardly take away my lips from the cup, and she had hardly left the room when Rivet came in. He seemed nervous and irritable, like a man who had not slept, and he said to me crossly:
""If you go on like this you will end by spoiling the affair of that pig of a Morin!"
"At eight o"clock the aunt arrived. Our discussion was very short, for they withdrew their complaint, and I left five hundred francs for the poor of the town. They wanted to keep us for the day, and they arranged an excursion to go and see some ruins. Henriette made signs to me to stay, behind her parents" back, and I accepted, but Rivet was determined to go, and though I took him aside and begged and prayed him to do this for me, he appeared quite exasperated and kept saying to me: "I have had enough of that pig of a Morin"s affair, do you hear?"
"Of course I was obliged to leave also, and it was one of the hardest moments of my life. I could have gone on arranging that business as long as I lived, and when we were in the railway carriage, after shaking hands with her in silence, I said to Rivet: "You are a mere brute!" And he replied: "My dear fellow, you were beginning to annoy me confoundedly."
"On getting to the Fa.n.a.l office, I saw a crowd waiting for us, and as soon as they saw us they all exclaimed: "Well, have you settled the affair of that pig of a Morin?" All La Roch.e.l.le was excited about it, and Rivet, who had got over his ill-humor on the journey, had great difficulty in keeping himself from laughing as he said: "Yes, we have managed it, thanks to Labarbe: And we went to Morin"s.
"He was sitting in an easy-chair with mustard plasters on his legs and cold bandages on his head, nearly dead with misery. He was coughing with the short cough of a dying man, without any one knowing how he had caught it, and his wife looked at him like a tigress ready to eat him, and as soon as he saw us he trembled so violently as to make his hands and knees shake, so I said to him immediately: "It is all settled, you dirty scamp, but don"t do such a thing again."
"He got up, choking, took my hands and kissed them as if they had belonged to a prince, cried, nearly fainted, embraced Rivet and even kissed Madame Morin, who gave him such a push as to send him staggering back into his chair; but he never got over the blow; his mind had been too much upset. In all the country round, moreover, he was called nothing but "that pig of a Morin," and that epithet went through him like a sword-thrust every time he heard it. When a street boy called after him "Pig!" he turned his head instinctively. His friends also overwhelmed him with horrible jokes and used to ask him, whenever they were eating ham, "Is it a bit of yourself?" He died two years later.
"As for myself, when I was a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies in 1875, I called on the new notary at Fousserre, Monsieur Belloncle, to solicit his vote, and a tall, handsome and evidently wealthy lady received me. "You do not know me again?" she said. And I stammered out: "Why-no-madame." "Henriette Bonnel." "Ah!" And I felt myself turning pale, while she seemed perfectly at her ease and looked at me with a smile.
"As soon as she had left me alone with her husband he took both my hands, and, squeezing them as if he meant to crush them, he said: "I have been intending to go and see you for a long time, my dear sir, for my wife has very often talked to me about you. I know-yes, I know under what painful circ.u.mstances you made her acquaintance, and I know also how perfectly you behaved, how full of delicacy, tact and devotion you showed yourself in the affair-" He hesitated and then said in a lower tone, as if he had been saying something low and coa.r.s.e, "in the affair of that pig of a Morin.""
SAINT ANTHONY
They called him Saint Anthony, because his name was Anthony, and also, perhaps, because he was a good fellow, jovial, a lover of practical jokes, a tremendous eater and a heavy drinker and a gay fellow, although he was sixty years old.
He was a big peasant of the district of Caux, with a red face, large chest and stomach, and perched on two legs that seemed too slight for the bulk of his body.
He was a widower and lived alone with his two men servants and a maid on his farm, which he conducted with shrewd economy. He was careful of his own interests, understood business and the raising of cattle, and farming. His two sons and his three daughters, who had married well, were living in the neighborhood and came to dine with their father once a month. His vigor of body was famous in all the countryside. "He is as strong as Saint Anthony," had become a kind of proverb.
At the time of the Prussian invasion Saint Anthony, at the wine shop, promised to eat an army, for he was a braggart, like a true Norman, a bit of a, coward and a bl.u.s.terer. He banged his fist on the wooden table, making the cups and the brandy gla.s.ses dance, and cried with the a.s.sumed wrath of a good fellow, with a flushed face and a sly look in his eye: "I shall have to eat some of them, nom de Dieu!" He reckoned that the Prussians would not come as far as Tanneville, but when he heard they were at Rautot he never went out of the house, and constantly watched the road from the little window of his kitchen, expecting at any moment to see the bayonets go by.
One morning as he was eating his luncheon with the servants the door opened and the mayor of the commune, Maitre Chicot, appeared, followed by a soldier wearing a black copper-pointed helmet. Saint Anthony bounded to his feet and his servants all looked at him, expecting to see him slash the Prussian. But he merely shook hands with the mayor, who said:
"Here is one for you, Saint Anthony. They came last night. Don"t do anything foolish, above all things, for they talked of shooting and burning everything if there is the slightest unpleasantness, I have given you warning. Give him something to eat; he looks like a good fellow. Good-day. I am going to call on the rest. There are enough for all." And he went out.
Father Anthony, who had turned pale, looked at the Prussian. He was a big, young fellow with plump, white skin, blue eyes, fair hair, unshaven to his cheek bones, who looked stupid, timid and good. The shrewd Norman read him at once, and, rea.s.sured, he made him a sign to sit down. Then he said: "Will you take some soup?"
The stranger did not understand. Anthony then became bolder, and pushing a plateful of soup right under his nose, he said: "Here, swallow that, big pig!"
The soldier answered "Ya," and began to eat greedily, while the farmer, triumphant, feeling he had regained his reputation, winked his eye at the servants, who were making strange grimaces, what with their terror and their desire to laugh.
When the Prussian had devoured his soup, Saint Anthony gave him another plateful, which disappeared in like manner; but he flinched at the third which the farmer tried to insist on his eating, saying: "Come, put that into your stomach; "twill fatten you or it is your own fault, eh, pig!"
The soldier, understanding only that they wanted to make him eat all his soup, laughed in a contented manner, making a sign to show that he could not hold any more.
Then Saint Anthony, become quite familiar, tapped him on the stomach, saying: "My, there is plenty in my pig"s belly!" But suddenly he began to writhe with laughter, unable to speak. An idea had struck him which made him choke with mirth. "That"s it, that"s it, Saint Anthony and his pig. There"s my pig!" And the three servants burst out laughing in their turn.
The old fellow was so pleased that he had the brandy brought in, good stuff, "fil en dix", and treated every one. They clinked gla.s.ses with the Prussian, who clacked his tongue by way of flattery to show that he enjoyed it. And Saint Anthony exclaimed in his face: "Eh, is not that superfine? You don"t get anything like that in your home, pig!"
From that time Father Anthony never went out without his Prussian. He had got what he wanted. This was his vengeance, the vengeance of an old rogue. And the whole countryside, which was in terror, laughed to split its sides at Saint Anthony"s joke. Truly, there was no one like him when it came to humor. No one but he would have thought of a thing like that. He was a born joker!
He went to see his neighbors every day, arm in arm with his German, whom he introduced in a jovial manner, tapping him on the shoulder: "See, here is my pig; look and see if he is not growing fat, the animal!"
And the peasants would beam with smiles. "He is so comical, that reckless fellow, Antoine!"
"I will sell him to you, Cesaire, for three pistoles" (thirty francs).
"I will take him, Antoine, and I invite you to eat some black pudding."
"What I want is his feet."
"Feel his belly; you will see that it is all fat."
And they all winked at each other, but dared not laugh too loud, for fear the Prussian might finally suspect they were laughing at him. Anthony, alone growing bolder every day, pinched his thighs, exclaiming, "Nothing but fat"; tapped him on the back, shouting, "That is all bacon"; lifted him up in his arms as an old Colossus that could have lifted an anvil, declaring, "He weighs six hundred and no waste."
He had got into the habit of making people offer his "pig" something to eat wherever they went together. This was the chief pleasure, the great diversion every day. "Give him whatever you please, he will swallow everything." And they offered the man bread and b.u.t.ter, potatoes, cold meat, chitterlings, which caused the remark, "Some of your own, and choice ones."
The soldier, stupid and gentle, ate from politeness, charmed at these attentions, making himself ill rather than refuse, and he was actually growing fat and his uniform becoming tight for him. This delighted Saint Anthony, who said: "You know, my pig, that we shall have to have another cage made for you."
They had, however, become the best friends in the world, and when the old fellow went to attend to his business in the neighborhood the Prussian accompanied him for the simple pleasure of being with him.
The weather was severe; it was freezing hard. The terrible winter of 1870 seemed to bring all the scourges on France at one time.
Father Antoine, who made provision beforehand, and took advantage of every opportunity, foreseeing that manure would be scarce for the spring farming, bought from a neighbor who happened to be in need of money all that he had, and it was agreed that he should go every evening with his cart to get a load.
So every day at twilight he set out for the farm of Haules, half a league distant, always accompanied by his "pig." And each time it was a festival, feeding the animal. All the neighbors ran over there as they would go to high ma.s.s on Sunday.
But the soldier began to suspect something, be mistrustful, and when they laughed too loud he would roll his eyes uneasily, and sometimes they lighted up with anger.
One evening when he had eaten his fill he refused to swallow another morsel, and attempted to rise to leave the table. But Saint Anthony stopped him by a turn of the wrist and, placing his two powerful hands on his shoulders, he sat him down again so roughly that the chair smashed under him.
A wild burst of laughter broke forth, and Anthony, beaming, picked up his pig, acted as though he were dressing his wounds, and exclaimed: "Since you will not eat, you shall drink, nom de Dieu!" And they went to the wine shop to get some brandy.
The soldier rolled his eyes, which had a wicked expression, but he drank, nevertheless; he drank as long as they wanted him, and Saint Anthony held his head to the great delight of his companions.