Calvary

My father was a notary public. Since time immemorial it had been so with the Mintié family. It would have appeared monstrous, almost revolutionary, if a member of the Mintié family had dared to break this family tradition and had renounced the scutcheons of gilt wood which were transmitted religiously from one generation to another like some title of nobility. At Saint-Michel-les-Hêtres and the surrounding country, my father occupied a position which ancestral pride, his dignified manners of a country gentleman, and, above all, his income of twenty thousand francs rendered very important, almost unshakeable. Mayor of Saint-Michel, member of the general council, acting justice of the peace, vice president of the agricultural commission, member of numerous agronomic and forestry societies, he did not overlook any of the petty or ambitious honors which carry with them a sort of prestige and influence. He was an excellent man, very honest and very gentle⁠—with a mania for killing. He could not see a bird, a cat, an insect⁠—anything at all that was alive⁠—without being seized with a strange desire to kill it. He waged a relentless trapper’s war on blackbirds, goldfinches, chaffinches and bullfinches. Felix was instructed to let my father know as soon as a bird appeared in our garden, and my father would leave everything⁠—clients, business, his meal⁠—to kill the bird. He would often lie in wait for hours, motionless, behind a tree on which the gardener had pointed out a little blueheaded titmouse.

Hardly had I time enough to squat down behind the oak tree, when on the road, at a distance of twenty paces in front of me, there suddenly appeared a large shadow, surprisingly immobile, like an equestrian statue of bronze, and this enormous shadow which obtruded itself almost entirely upon the brightness of the eastern sky was terrible to behold.⁠ ⁠… The man appeared to me superhuman, inordinately large against the sky!⁠ ⁠… He wore the flat cap of the Prussians, a long black cloak, under which the chest was bulging out greatly. Was he an officer or a plain soldier? I did not know, for I could not distinguish any insignia of rank on the dark uniform.⁠ ⁠… His features, at first indistinct, became more accentuated. He had clear eyes, very limpid, a broad beard, his bearing bespoke youthful strength; his face breathed power and kindness along with something noble, audacious and sad which struck me. Holding his hand flat on his thigh, he studied the country before him, and his horse scraped the ground with its hoofs and puffed long streams of vapor in the air through its quivering nostrils.⁠ ⁠… Evidently this Prussian was reconnoitering, he came to observe our position, the nature of the ground; undoubtedly a whole army was swarming behind him, waiting for a signal from this man to throw themselves on the plain!⁠ ⁠…

Well hidden in my woods, with rifle ready, I was watching him.⁠ ⁠… He was handsome indeed, life flowed abundantly in this robust body.⁠ ⁠… What a pity!

Toc, toc, toc.

And at the same time a small drawn otter skin bonnet appeared in the slight opening of the door, followed by two smiling eyes under a veil, then a long fur cape which outlined the slender body of a young woman.

“I am not disturbing you?⁠ ⁠… May I come in?”

Lirat, the painter, raised his head.

“Ah! it’s you, Madame!” he said in a curt tone, almost irritated, while shaking his hands soiled with pastel. “Why, yes, certainly.⁠ ⁠… Come right in!”

He left his easel and offered a seat.

“How is Charles?” he asked.

“He is all right, thank you.”

She sat down, smiling, and her smile was really charming as well as sad. Although covered with a veil, her clear eyes of pinkish blue, her very large eyes which illuminated her whole figure, seemed to be radiating infinite kindness.⁠ ⁠… She was dressed very elegantly, without striving to be pretentious. A little over-perfumed, however.⁠ ⁠… There was a moment of silence.

The studio of the painter Lirat, situated in a peaceful section of the Faubourg Saint Honoré, on Rodrigues Square, was a vast, bare place with grey walls, with rough carpentry work and without furniture. Lirat called it familiarly “his hangar.” A hangar it was, indeed, where the north winds blew and the rain entered the room through the small crevices in the roof. Two long tables of plain wood supported boxes of paint, scrap books, blocks, handles of fans, Japanese albums, casts, a mess of odd and useless things.

So I was at her house! For eight days the thought of this visit had tortured me. I had no special business, I simply wanted to see Juliette; some kind of keen curiosity, which I did not stop to analyze, drew me to her. Several times I had gone to the Rue Saint Petersbourg with the firm intention of calling on her, but at the last moment my nerve failed me, and I left without mustering sufficient courage to cross her threshold. And now I was the most embarrassed being in the world, and I regretted my foolish step, for obviously it was a foolish step. How would she receive me? What should I say? What caused me the greatest uneasiness was that after I had made a thorough search in my brain I found not a single phrase, not a single word with which to begin our conversation when Juliette entered. What if words should fail me and I should be left standing here with gaping mouth! How ridiculous that would be!

I examined the room into which Juliette was presently to come. It was a dressing room which also served as a parlor. It made a rather unfavorable impression on me. The toilet table, ostentatiously displayed with its two wash basins of cracked, pink cut glass, shocked me. The walls and ceiling, hung with loud red satin, the furniture, bordered with elaborate plush hangings, the knickknacks, costly and ugly, placed here and there on the furniture, the queer tables serving no apparent purpose, consols weighed down with heavy ornaments⁠—all this bespoke a vulgar taste.