Short Fiction

One evening, about eight months ago, a friend of mine, Louis R., had invited together some college friends. We drank punch, and smoked, and talked about literature and art, telling amusing stories from time to time, as young men do when they come together. Suddenly the door opened wide, and one of my best friends from childhood entered like a hurricane. “Guess where I come from!” he shouted immediately. “Mabille’s, I bet,” one of us replied. “No,” said another, “you are too cheerful; you have just borrowed some money, or buried your uncle, or pawned your watch.” A third said: “You have been drunk, and as you smelt Louis’s punch, you came up to start all over again.”

“You are all wrong. I have come from P⁠⸺ in Normandy, where I have been spending a week, and from which I have brought along a distinguished criminal friend of mine, whom I will introduce, with your permission.” With these words he drew from his pocket a skinned hand. It was a horrible object; black and dried, very long and looking as if it were contracted. The muscles, of extraordinary power, were held in place on the back and palm by a strip of parchment-like skin, while the narrow, yellow nails still remained at the tips of the fingers. The whole hand reeked of crime a mile off.

“Just fancy,” said my friend, “the other day the belongings of an old sorcerer were sold who was very well known all over the countryside.

Last summer I rented a country cottage on the banks of the Seine, several miles from Paris, and I used to go out to sleep there every night. After a while, I formed the acquaintance of one of my neighbours, a man between thirty and forty years of age, who really was one of the queerest characters I have ever met. He was an old boating-man, crazy on the subject of boats, and was always either in, or on, or by the water. He must have been born in a boat, and probably he will die in one, some day, while taking a last outing.

One evening, as we were walking along the banks of the Seine, I asked him to tell me about some of his nautical experiences. Immediately his face lighted up, and he became eloquent, almost poetical, for his heart was full of an all-absorbing, irresistible, devouring passion⁠—a love for the river.

“Ah!” said he, “how many recollections I have of the river that flows at our feet! You street-dwellers have no idea what the river really is. But let a fisherman pronounce the word. To him it means mystery, the unknown, a land of mirage and phantasmagoria, where odd things that have no real existence are seen at night and strange noises are heard; where one trembles without knowing the reason why, as when passing through a cemetery⁠—and indeed the river is a sinister cemetery without graves.

It had been freezing hard for a week. At two o’clock it began to snow, by the evening the ground was covered, and heavy snowflakes obscured the closest objects. At six o’clock the detachment set out. Two men by themselves marched ahead to act as scouts. Then came a platoon of ten men commanded by the lieutenant himself. The remainder advanced in two long columns. A couple of hundred yards away on the left and right flanks a few soldiers marched in couples. The snow, which was still falling, powdered them white in the darkening shadows, and, as it did not melt on their uniforms, they were barely distinguishable in the dark from the general pallor of the landscape.

From time to time they halted, and then not a sound could be heard but that imperceptible rustle of falling snow, a vague and sinister sound, which is felt rather than heard. An order was given in whispers, and when the march was resumed they had left behind them a sort of white phantom standing in the snow, growing more and more indistinct until finally it disappeared. These were the living signposts which were to guide the army.

The scouts slowed their pace. Something was looming up in front of them.

“Swing to the right,” said the lieutenant, “that’s the woods of Ronfi; the château is more to the left.”

Noon had just struck. The school-door opened and the youngsters streamed out tumbling over one another in their haste to get out quickly. But instead of promptly dispersing and going home to dinner as was their daily wont, they stopped a few paces off, broke up into knots and set to whispering.

The fact was that that morning Simon, the son of La Blanchotte, had, for the first time, attended school.

They had all of them in their families heard of La Blanchotte; and although in public she was welcome enough, the mothers among themselves treated her with compassion of a somewhat disdainful kind, which the children had caught without in the least knowing why.

As for Simon himself, they did not know him, for he never went abroad, and did not play around with them through the streets of the village or along the banks of the river. So they did not like him much, and it was with a certain delight, mingled with astonishment, that they gathered in groups this morning, repeating to each other this phrase pronounced by a lad of fourteen or fifteen who appeared to know all about it, so sagaciously did he wink: “You know Simon⁠—well, he has no father.”

La Blanchotte’s son appeared in his turn upon the threshold of the school.

At last, just as they were sitting down to table, the innkeeper himself appeared. He was a former horse-dealer, a stout asthmatic man with perpetual wheezings and blowings and rattlings of phlegm in his throat. His father had transmitted to him the name of Follenvie.

“Mademoiselle Elizabeth Rousset?” he said.

Boule de Suif started and turned round. “That is my name.”

“Mademoiselle, the Prussian officer wants to speak to you at once.”

“To me?”

“Yes, if you really are Mademoiselle Elizabeth Rousset.”

She hesitated, thought for a moment, and then declared roundly: “That may be, but I’m not going.”

There was a movement round about her⁠—everybody was much exercised as to the reason of this summons. The Count came over to her.

“You may do wrong to refuse, madame, for it may entail considerable annoyance not only on yourself but on the rest of your companions. It is a fatal mistake ever to offer resistance to people who are stronger than ourselves. The step can have no possible danger for you⁠—it is probably about some little formality that has been omitted.”

One and all concurred with him, implored and urged and scolded, till they ended by convincing her; for they were all apprehensive of the results of her obstinacy.

“Well, it is only for your sakes that I am doing it!” she said at last. The Countess pressed her hand. “And we are most grateful to you.”

She left the room, and the others agreed to wait for her before beginning the meal. Each one lamented at not having been asked for instead of this hotheaded, violent young woman, and mentally prepared any number of platitudes for the event of being called in their turn.