Story: The Father

 

THE FATHER

Guy de Maupassant

Jean de Valnoix is a friend I visit from time to time. He lives in a little manor on the edge of a river, in a wood. He retired there after having lived the life of a madman in Paris for fifteen years. All of a sudden he had had enough of the pleasures, the dinners, the men, the women, the cards, everything, and he came back to live in the manor where he was born.

There are two or three of us who go from time to time to pass two or three weeks with him. He is of course enchanted to see us again when we arrive, and enchanted to be alone again when we have left.

So I went to see him last week, and he welcomed me with open arms. We were together for hours on end, and isolated for hours on end. In general, he reads and I work during the day, and every evening we chat until midnight.

So last Tuesday after a hot, stuffy day we were both sitting on the riverside towards nine in the evening, looking at the river at our feet and exchanging ideas, very vague ideas, about the stars that were shining in the river and seemed to be swimming there before us. We were exchanging very vague, very confused, very short ideas, as our minds were very limited, very weak, very impotent. I was being tender about the sun that was dying in the Big Dipper. It can only be seen on clear nights, it’s so pale. When the sky is a bit hazy, it disappears in its death-throes. We were imagining the beings that inhabit those worlds, their incredible forms, their unsuspected faculties, their unknown organisms, animals, plants, all the species, all the domains, all the essences, all the substances that the dreams of men cannot even imagine.

 

At one point a voice called out :

“Monsieur, monsieur !”

Jean replied :

“Over here, Baptiste.”

And when the servant had found us, he announced :

“It’s Monsieur’s gypsy.”

My friend began to laugh, a wild sort of laugh unusual for him, then he asked :

“So we are the 19th of July then ?”

“Why yes, Monsieur.”

“Very well. Tell her to wait. Give her something to eat. I’ll come back in in ten minutes.”

When the man had disappeared, my friend took me by the arm.

“Let’s take our time”, he said, “I’m going to tell you the story.”

“Seven years ago now, the year I arrived here, I went out one evening for a walk in the forest. It was a nice day, like today, and I was going along slowly under the big trees, contemplating the stars through the leaves, whole-heartedly breathing in and drinking the calm freshness of the night and the woods.

I had just left Paris for good. I was tired, so tired and disgusted, more than I can say by all the stupidities, all the baseness, all the dirty things that I had seen and participated in for fifteen years.

I went far, very far, into this deep wood, following the little road that goes up to the village of Crouzille fifteen kilometres from here.

All of a sudden my dog Bock, a big Saint-Germain that was always at my side, stopped in his tracks and began to growl. I thought he had detected a fox or a wolf or a wild boar ; and I advanced softly, on the points of my toes, so as not to make any noise, but suddenly I heard cries, human cries, plaintive, stifled, heartbreaking.

It sounded like someone was being murdered farther along and I began to run, clutching my heavy oak cane, a real club, in my right hand.

I approached the cries that now could be heard more distinctly, although they were strangely muted. One would have said that they came from a house, a collier’s hut perhaps. Bock, three paces in front of me, was running, stopping, starting up again, very excited, continuously growling. Suddenly another dog, a big black one with crazed eyes, blocked our way. I could see perfectly his white fangs that seemed to be shining in his mouth.

I ran up to it with my cane raised, but Bock had already hurled himself forward and the two animals were rolling on the ground together, their fangs clenched on each other’s throats. I went ahead and almost stumbled over a horse lying on the road. As I stopped, quite astonished, to examine the beast, I saw a vehicle, or rather a house on wheels, one of those homes of performers and fairground merchants that go around the countryside from fair to fair.

The cries were coming from there, horrible, continuous. As the door was on the other side, I went around this old jalopy and quickly ran up the three wooden steps, ready to fall upon the criminal.

What I saw seemed so strange that at first I didn’t understand what I saw. A man, on his knees, seemed to be praying, while in the bed something impossible to recognize, a half-naked being, bent, twisted, whose face I couldn’t see, was writhing, agitated, and screaming.

It was a woman in birth pains.

As soon as I understood the cause of the screams I made my presence known, and the man, a panic-stricken fellow from Marseilles or thereabouts, begged me to save her, to rescue her, endlessly promising me improbable rewards. I had never seen a birth, never intervened to save a female — woman, bitch or cat — in this situation, as I ingenuously explained as I looked, quite stupefied, at what was hurling so intensely in the bed.

Then, when I had recovered my senses I asked the devastated man why he hadn’t gone to the next village. His horse had broken its leg falling in a pit and couldn’t get up.

“Well then, my brave fellow,” I said to him, “now we’ll carry your wife over to my place !”

But the howls of the dogs forced us to go back out, and we had to separate them with blows of the club at the risk of killing them. Then I had the idea of harnessing them to us, one on the right and the other on the left, to help us advance. In ten minutes all was ready, and the vehicle set off slowly, shaking the poor woman with her torn flanks at every bump.

What a road, my dear fellow ! We went on panting, groaning, in sweat, sliding and sometimes falling, while our poor dogs were wheezing like bellows at our legs.

It took us three hours to reach the manor. When we arrived at the door the cries in the vehicle had stopped. The mother and child were well.

 

We put them in a good bed and then I sent a messenger to fetch a doctor, while the fellow from Marseilles, reassured, consoled, triumphant, stuffed himself with food and got dead drunk to celebrate the happy event.

It was a girl.

I kept them with me for eight days. The mother, Mademoiselle Elmire, was a clairvoyant who promised me an eternal life with an uncountable number of felicities.

The following year day for day towards nightfall, the servant who had called me just now came to find me in the barn after dinner, and told me :

“It’s the gypsy of last year who’s come to thank Monsieur.”

I told him to bring her in, and remained stupefied on seeing her beside a big fellow, tall and blond, a man of the North who, after having saluted me, spoke as the head of the community. He had learnt of my help for Mlle Elmire, and he didn’t want to let the anniversary pass by without bringing me their thanks and the witness of their gratitude.

I offered them dinner in the kitchen and hospitality for the night. They left the next day.

Well, the poor woman comes back every year at the same date with the child, a superb girl and a new… master every time. Only one of them, an Auvergnat who “chanked” me nicely, came back two years in a row. The little girl calls them all papa, the way we say “monsieur”.

 

We arrived back at the manor and saw three vague shadows standing on the lawn waiting for us.

The tallest one took four steps forward and, with a grand salutation, said :

“Monsieur the Count, we have come this day, as you know, to bear witness to our gratitude…”

He was a Belgian.

After him, the smallest one spoke, with the artificial and false voice of children reciting a lesson.

Playing the innocent I took Mlle Elmire apart, and after a few words asked her :

“Is he the father of your child ?”

“Oh no, Monsieur.“

“And the father, he’s dead ?”

“Oh no, Monsieur. We see each other from time to time. He’s a gendarme.”

“Ah so then it wasn’t the fellow from Marseilles, the first one, the one who was there at the birth ?”

“Oh no, Monsieur. That one was the rat who stole all my savings.”

“And the gendarme, the real father, does he know his child ?”

“Oh yes, Monsieur, and he even loves her a lot ; but he can’t take care of her because he has others, with his wife.”

With affection,

Ruben