These people did not bring any particular religion with them from their native country, by which, as the Jews, they could be distinguished among other persons; but regulate themselves, in religious matters, according to the country where they live. Being very inconstant in their choice of residence, they are likewise so in respect to religion. No Gipsey has an idea of submission to any fixed profession of faith: it is as easy for him to change his religion at every new village, as for another person to shift his coat. They suffer themselves to be baptised in Christian countries; among Mahometans to be circumcised. They are Greeks with Greeks, Catholics with Catholics, and again profess themselves to be Protestants, whenever they happen to reside where protestantism prevails. There are not, perhaps, any other people among whom marriages are contracted with so little consideration, or solemnised with so little ceremony, as among the Gipseys. No sooner has a boy attained the age of fourteen or fifteen years, than he begins to perceive that something more than mere eating and drinking is necessary to him. Having no fear of consequences, nor being under any restraint from his parents, he forms a connection with the girl he most fancies, of twelve, or at most thirteen, years old, without any scruple of conscience, whether she be his nearest relation, or an entire stranger; but it is to be observed, that a Gipsey never marries a person who is not of the true Gipsey breed. God’s commandments are unknown to him; and human laws cannot have much influence over one who lives in a desert, remote from the observation of any ruling power. The term of courtship is very short, often only long enough for the parties to communicate their mutual inclination. They do not wait for any marriage ceremony, as it is a matter of no consequence to them, whether it be performed afterwards, or not at all. Yet they do not seem to be entirely indifferent about matrimony, p. 62not on account of conforming to any institution, but from a pride they have in imitating what is done by other people, lest they should appear to be inferior to them. As the very early age of the parties, or some other irregularity, might meet with objections from a regular clergyman, they frequently get one of their own people to act the priest, and tack the decent couple together. A marriage being thus accomplished, the man provides a stone for an anvil, a pair of pincers, a file, and hammers away as a smith; or works at some other trade, he may have just learned from his father: then begins his peregrination. Should his wife commit a fault at a future time, he gives her half a dozen boxes on the ear; or very likely, for some trifling cause, turns her off entirely. Her conduct must, in general, be very much regulated by his will; and she is obliged to be more attentive to him than to herself. When the woman lies-in, which happens frequently, these people being remarkably prolific, the child is brought forth, either in their miserable hut, or, according to circumstances, it may be in the open air, but always easily and fortunately: a woman of the same kind performs the office of midwife. True Gipsey like, for want of some vessel, they dig a hole in the ground, which is filled up with cold water, and the new-born child washed in it. This being done, it is wrapped up in some old rags, which the motherly foresight has taken care to provide. p. 63Next comes the christening, at which ceremony they prefer strangers, for witnesses, rather than their own caste: but what kind of folks their guests are, may be collected from the mode of entertaining them.

  When the christening is over, the father takes the sponsors to an alehouse, or if none be near, to some other house, where he treats them with cakes and brandy.  If he is a little above the lowest state of misery, and has a mind to be generous, other things are provided; but he does not join the company, being employed in serving his guests.  Thus the affair ends.  The lying-in woman passes her short time of confinement, seldom exceeding eight days, with her child, in the hut, or under a tent, in the smoke by the fire.  Refreshments are often sent from the godfathers and godmothers; yet they are sometimes so uncivil, that they do not hesitate to quarrel with them or even to discharge them from the trust, if they think the present too small, or do not like the provisions.  When this happens, they have another christening, in some other place; nay, sometimes even a third.

Gipsey women, as already mentioned, frequently smear their children over with a particular kind of ointment, and then lay them in the sun, or before the fire, in order that the skin may be more completely parched, and their black beauty thereby increased.  They never use a cradle, nor even p. 64possess such a piece of furniture; the child sleeps in its mother’s arms, or on the ground.  When the lying-in is over, the Gipsey woman goes to church, and thence, immediately, either to begging or stealing.  While the child remains in her arms, perhaps imagining that people will be less severe in their chastisements, she is more rapacious than at other times, and takes whatever she can lay her hands on.  If she cannot escape without a beating, she endeavours to screen herself by holding up the child to receive the blows, till she finds an opportunity of retiring imperceptibly, and running away.

When the child gets a little stronger, and has attained the age of three or four months, the mother seldom carries it on the arm, but at her back; there it sits, winter and summer, in a linen rag, with its head over her shoulder.  If she have more children, in course of time, which is generally the case, as this race of beings is so prolifick, she leads one or two by the hand, while such as are older run by her side; and thus attended, she strolls through the villages and into houses.  Notwithstanding their dark complexion, and bad nursing, writers are unanimous in stating, that these children are good-looking, well shaped, lively, clever, and have fine eyes.  The mother plaits their black hair on the crown of the head, partly to keep it out of their face, and partly for ornament.  This p. 65is all she ever does towards decorating her offspring; for in summer the children wear no clothes till ten years of age, and in winter they are forced to be content with a few old rags hung about them.

No sooner is the child, whether boy or girl, capable of running about, than it is taught to dance; which talent consists in jumping on one foot, and constantly striking behind with the other.  As the young Gipsey grows up, all kinds of postures are added, in hopes of diverting, and thereby to obtain a reward from persons who happen to pass the parents’ habitation.  What the children are further taught, especially by their mothers, is the art of stealing, which they often put in practice, as before related.  Instruction or school is never thought of; nor do they learn any business, except perhaps to blow the fire when the father forges, or to assist in goldwashing.

By the twelfth or thirteenth year, a boy acquires some knowledge of his father’s trade; and then becomes emancipated from parental authority; as he now begins to think of forming his own separate connections.  The Gipseys, in common with uncivilised people, entertain unbounded love for their children: this is a source of the most unpardonable neglect.  Gipsey children never feel the rod; they fly into the most violent passion, and at the same time hear nothing from their parents but flattery and coaxing.  In return, they act, as is commonly p. 66the consequence of such education, with the greatest ingratitude.  This excessive fondness for their children is, however, attended with one advantage:—when they are indebted to any person, which is frequently the case in Hungary and Transylvania, the creditor seizes a child, and by that means obtains a settlement of his demand; as the Gipsey will immediately exert every method to discharge the debt, and procure the release of his darling offspring.

To the beforegoing account of Gipsey marriages, and education, there are but few exceptions; comprised in a small proportion of them who have fixed habitations.  The character of people being formed by the instruction they receive in their early years, can it then be thought surprising that Gipseys should be idlers, thieves, murderers, and incendiaries?  Is it probable, that man should become diligent, who has been educated in laziness?  Can it be expected those should leave every person in possession of his own property, whose father and mother have taught them to steal, from their earliest infancy?  Who can have a general idea of fair dealing, that knows not right from wrong, nor has ever learned the distinction between good and evil, virtue and vice?  Punishments inflicted on others, for their crimes, have no effect upon one who is not sufficiently attentive to take warning by the examples of strangers: and when, by his own experience, p. 67he is taught not to lay hands on the property of others, he is become so hardened, that the milder punishments leave no lasting impression; while the more severe ones, which reach the life, cannot have any effect on him, and are, as before observed, totally disregarded by his fellows.  So long therefore as the education of the Gipseys continues to be what it is, we cannot hope that they should leave off their vile practices and filthy habits.

p. 68CHAPTER IX.

On their Sickness, Death, and Burial.

We have before had occasion to mention the constant good health of these people; and it is fact, that they do enjoy it more uninterruptedly, and perfectly, than persons of the most regular habits, and who pay the greatest attention to themselves.  They get no cold nor defluxions, from the inclemency of the air.  They are not subject to rashes; even poisons, or epidemical disorders, have no effect upon them.  Any prevailing sickness penetrates sooner into ten habitations of civilised people, than it finds its way under a Gipsey’s tent, or into his hut.  They are equally liable to the small-pox and measles with other people, though with infinitely less danger; and they are subject to a disorder in the eyes, occasioned by the continual smoke and steam in their huts, during the winter season: excepting these complaints, the Gipseys, in general, experience little inconvenience till the time comes that Nature demands her own back again, and entirely destroys the machine.  Though this be not always at a great age, it is generally at an advanced period; it being very uncommon for a Gipsey to die early in life, or during his childhood.  Their love of life is excessive; yet they hardly ever take p. 69the advice of a physician, or use medicines, even in the most dangerous maladies.  They generally leave every thing to nature, or good fortune: if they do any thing, it is, to mix a little saffron in their soup, or bleed and scarify themselves; having observed that their horses use bleeding, as a remedy for disorders.  When the sickness indicates danger, and that the universal enemy to life is really in earnest, the Gipsey breaks out into sighs and lamentations, on account of his departure; till at last he gives up the ghost, in his usual place of residence—under a tree, or in his tent.

The preparations for death are usually regulated according to a person’s religious principles; but the Gipsey, who neither knows nor believes any thing concerning the immortality of the soul, or of rewards and punishments beyond this life, for the most part dies like a beast—ignorant of himself and his Creator, as well as utterly incapable of forming any opinion respecting a higher destination.

The Gipsey’s decease is instantly succeeded by the most frantic lamentations: parents, in particular, who have lost their children, appear inconsolable.  Little can be said of their burials; only, that on those occasions the cries and bewailings are redoubled, and become very violent.  When the leader of a horde dies, things are conducted more quietly.  His own people carry him, p. 70with great respect, to the grave, where each one appears earnest and attentive; although at the same time employed in a manner to excite laughter.

This is the mode of proceeding when a Gipsey dies a natural death.  But it often happens that he loses his life by violent means—not by his own hands for self-murder and infanticide are equally unheard of among them.  No Gipsey ever puts a period to his own existence on account of vexation, anxiety, or despair; as, besides his unbounded love of life, care or despair is totally unknown to him.

Even in the greatest distress, the Gipsey is never troubled with low spirits; ever merry and blythe, he dies not till he cannot help it: this often happens on the gallows, attended with scenes ridiculous as the most ludicrous imagination could invent.  One man requested, as a particular act of grace, that he might not be hanged with his face towards the high road; saying, “Many of his acquaintance passed that way, and he should be very much ashamed to be seen by them hanging on a gallows.”  At another time the relations of a Gipsey who was leading to execution, perceiving, by the discourse and gestures of the criminal, how unwillingly he advanced, not having the least inclination to be hanged, addressed themselves to the magistrates and officers of justice, with the following p. 71wise remonstrance: “Gentlemen, pray do not compel a man to a thing for which you see he has no desire nor inclination.”  Such scenes happen at almost every Gipsey execution, which are proofs that these people are quite deficient in thought or consideration.

p. 72CHAPTER X.

Political Regulations peculiar to the Gipseys.

When the Gipseys first arrived in Europe, they had leaders and chiefs, to conduct the various tribes in their migrations.  This was necessary, not only to facilitate their progress through different countries and quarters of the globe, but to unite their force if necessary, and thereby enable them to make a more formidable resistance when opposed: and likewise to carry any plan, they might have formed, more readily into execution.  We accordingly find, in old books, mention made of knights, counts, dukes, and kings.  Krantz and Munster mention counts, and knights, in general terms, among the Gipseys; other people give us the very names of these dignified men: Crusius cites a duke Michael; Muratori a duke Andreas; and Aventinus records a king Zindelo: not to speak of inscriptions on monuments, erected in different places, to the memories of duke Panuel, count Johannis; and a noble knight Petrus, in the fifteenth century.  But no comment is requisite to shew how improperly these appellations were applied.  Though the Gipsey chiefs might be gratified with these titles, and their dependants probably esteemed them people of rank, it was merely p. 73a ridiculous imitation of what they had seen and admired among civilised people.  Nevertheless, the custom of having leaders and chiefs over them prevails to this time, at least in Hungary and Transylvania; probably it may also still exist in Turkey, and other countries where these people live together in great numbers.

Their chiefs—or waywodes, as they proudly call them—were formerly of two degrees in Hungary.  Each petty tribe had its own leader; beside which, there were four superior waywodes, of their own caste, on both sides the Danube and Teisse, whose usual residences were at Raab, Lewentz, Szathmar, and Kaschau: to these the smaller waywodes were accountable.  It would appear extraordinary that any well-regulated state should allow these people a distinct establishment in the heart of the country, did not the Hungarian writers assign a reason: viz. that in the commotions and troubles, occasioned by the Turkish wars, in former centuries, they were, by means of their waywodes, more easily summoned, when occasion required, and rendered useful to the community.  But the Gipseys in Hungary and Transylvania were permitted to choose, from their own people, only the small waywodes of each tribe.

Peace in the Wilderness by Marion Zimmer Bradley - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78807/pg78807-images.html

 

In front of the building, half farm-house, half manor-house, one of those rural habitations of a mixed character which were all but seigneurial, and which are at the present time occupied by large cultivators, the dogs lashed beside the apple-trees in the orchard near the house, kept barking and howling at the sight of the shooting-bags carried by the gamekeepers and the boys. In the spacious dining-room kitchen, Hautot Senior and Hautot Junior, M. Bermont, the tax-collector, and M. Mondaru, the notary were taking a pick and drinking a glass before going out to shoot, for it was the opening day. Hautot Senior, proud of all his possessions, talked boastfully beforehand of the game which his guests were going to find on his lands. He was a big Norman, one of those powerful, sanguineous, bony men, who lift wagon-loads of apples on their shoulders. Half-peasant, half-gentleman, rich, respected, influential, invested with authority he made his son César go as far as the third form at school, so that he might be an educated man, and there he had brought his studies to a stop for fear of his becoming a fine gentleman and paying no attention to the land. César Hautot, almost as tall as his father, but[Pg 269] thinner, was a good son, docile, content with everything, full of admiration, respect, and deference, for the wishes and opinions of his sire. M. Bermont, the tax-collector, a stout little man, who showed on his red cheeks a thin network of violet veins resembling the tributaries and the winding courses of rivers on maps, asked: "And hares—are there any hares on it?"

Hautot Senior answered:

"As much as you like, especially in the Puysatier lands."

"Which direction are we to begin at?" asked the notary, a jolly notary fat and pale, big paunched too, and strapped up in an entirely new hunting-costume bought at Rouen.

"Well, that way, through these grounds. We will drive the partridges into the plain, and we will beat there again."

And Hautot Senior rose up. They all followed his example, took their guns out of the corners, examined the locks, stamped with their feet in order to feel themselves firmer in their boots which were rather hard, not having as yet been rendered flexible by the heat of the blood. Then they went out; and the dogs, standing erect at the ends of their lashes, gave vent to piercing howls while beating the air with their paws.

They set forth for the lands referred to. They consisted of a little glen, or rather a long undulating stretch of inferior soil, which had on that account remained uncultivated, furrowed with mountain-torrents, covered with ferns, an excellent preserve for game.

The sportsmen took up their positions at some distance from each other, Hautot Senior posting himself[Pg 270] at the right, Hautot Junior at the left, and the two guests in the middle. The keeper and those who carried the game-bags followed. It was the solemn moment when the first shot it awaited, when the heart beats a little, while the nervous finger keeps feeling at the gun-lock every second.

Suddenly the shot went off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped, and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at a single flight to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and he disappeared in his turn into the thicket, in quest of his game.

Almost at the same instant, a second shot was heard.

"Ha! ha! the rascal!" exclaimed M. Bermont, "he will unearth a hare down there."

They all waited, with their eyes riveted on the heap of branches through which their gaze failed to penetrate.

The notary, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, shouted:

"Have you got them?"

Hautot Senior made no response.

Then César, turning towards the keeper, said to him:

"Just go, and assist him, Joseph. We must keep walking in a straight line. We'll wait."

And Joseph, an old stump of a man, lean and knotty, all whose joints formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine, searching at every opening through which a passage could be effected with the cautiousness of a fox. Then, suddenly, he cried:[Pg 271]

"Oh! come! come! an unfortunate thing has occurred."

They all hurried forward, plunging through the briers.

The elder Hautot, who had fallen on his side, in a fainting condition, kept both his hands over his stomach, from which flowed down upon the grass through the linen vest torn by the lead, long streamlets of blood. As he was laying down his gun, in order to seize the partridge, within reach of him, he had let the firearm fall, and the second discharge going off with the shock, had torn open his entrails. They drew him out of the trench; they removed his clothes, and they saw a frightful wound, through which the intestines came out. Then, after having bandaged him the best way they could, they brought him back to his own house, and they awaited the doctor, who had been sent for, as well as a priest.

When the doctor arrived, he gravely shook his head, and, turning towards young Hautot, who was sobbing on a chair:

"My poor boy," said he, "this has not a good look."

But, when the dressing was finished, the wounded man moved his fingers, opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around his troubled, haggard glances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to understand, and he murmured:

"Ah! good God! this has done for me!"

The doctor held his hand.

"Why no, why no, some days of rest merely—it will be nothing."

Hautot returned:[Pg 272]

"It has done for me! My stomach is split! I know it well."

Then, all of a sudden:

"I want to talk to the son, if I have the time."

Hautot Junior, in spite of himself, shed tears, and kept repeating like a little boy.

"P'pa, p'pa, poor p'ps!"

But the father, in a firmer tone:

"Come! stop crying—this is not the time for it. I have to talk to you. Sit down there quite close to me. It will be quickly done, and I will be more calm. As for the rest of you, kindly give me one minute."

They all went out, leaving the father and son face to face.

As soon as they were alone:

"Listen, son! you are twenty-four years; one can say things like this to you. And then there is not such mystery about these matters as we import into them. You know well that your mother is seven years dead, isn't that so? and that I am not more than forty-five years myself, seeing that I got married at nineteen. Is not that true?"

The son faltered:

"Yes, it is true."

"So then your mother is seven years dead, and I have remained a widower. Well! a man like me cannot remain without a wife at thirty-seven isn't that true?"

The son replied:

"Yes, it is true."

The father, out of breath, quite pale, and his face contracted with suffering, went on:

"God! what pain I feel! Well, you understand. Man is not made to live alone, but I did not want to[Pg 273] take a successor to your mother, since I promised her not to do so. Then—you understand?"

"Yes, father."

"So, I kept a young girl at Rouen, Reu de l'Eperlan 18, in the third story, the second door—I tell you all this, don't forget—but a young girl, who has been very nice to me, loving, devoted, a true woman, eh? You comprehend, my lad?"

"Yes, father."

"So then, if I am carried off, I owe something to her, but something substantial, that will place her in a safe position. You understand?"

"Yes, father."

"I tell you that she is an honest girl, and that, but for you, and the remembrance of your mother, and again but for the house in which we three lived, I would have brought her here, and then married her, for certain—listen—listen, my lad. I might have made a will—I haven't done so. I did not wish to do so—for it is not necessary to write down things—things of this sort—it is too hurtful to the legitimate children—and then it embroils everything—it ruins everyone! Look you, the stamped paper, there's no need of it—never make use of it. If I am rich, it is because I have not made use of what I have during my own life. You understand, my son?"

"Yes, father."

"Listen again—listen well to me! So then, I have made no will—I did not desire to do so—and then I knew what you were; you have a good heart; you are not niggardly, not too near, in any way, I said to myself that when my end approached I would tell you all about it, and that I would beg of you not to forget the girl.[Pg 274] And then listen again! When I am gone, make your way to the place at once—and make such arrangements that she may not blame my memory. You have plenty of means. I leave it to you—I leave you enough. Listen! You won't find her at home every day in the week. She works at Madame Moreau's in the Rue Beauvoisine. Go there on a Thursday. That is the day she expects me. It has been my day for the past six years. Poor little thing! she will weep!—I say all this to you, because I have known you so well, my son. One does not tell these things in public either to the notary or to the priest. They happen—everyone knows that—but they are not talked about, save in case of necessity. Then there is no outsider in the secret, nobody except the family, because the family consists of one person alone. You understand?"

"Yes, father."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes, father."

"Do you swear it?"

"Yes, father."

"I beg of you, I implore of you, son do not forget. I bind you to it."

"No, father."

"You will go yourself. I want you to make sure of everything."

"Yes, father."

"And, then, you will see—you will see what she will explain to you. As for me, I can say no more to you. You have vowed to do it."

"Yes, father."

"That's good, my son. Embrace me. Farewell.[Pg 275] I am going to break up, I'm sure. Tell them they may come in."

Young Hautot embraced his father, groaning while he did so; then, always docile, he opened the door, and the priest appeared in a white surplice, carrying the holy oils.

But the dying man had closed his eyes, and he refused to open them again, he refused to answer, he refused to show, even by a sign, that he understood.

He had spoken enough, this man; he could speak no more. Besides he now felt his heart calm; he wanted to die in peace. What need had he to make a confession to the deputy of God, since he had just done so to his son, who constituted his own family?

He received the last rites, was purified and absolved, in the midst of his friends and his servants on their bended knees, without any movement of his face indicating that he still lived.

He expired about midnight, after four hours' convulsive movements, which showed that he must have suffered dreadfully in his last moments.

---

PART II

It was on the following Tuesday that they buried him, the shooting opened on Sunday. On his return home, after having accompanied his father to the cemetery, César Hautot spent the rest of the day weeping. He scarcely slept at all on the following night, and he felt so sad on awakening that he asked himself how he could go on living.

However, he kept thinking until evening that, in or[Pg 276]der to obey the last wish of his father, he ought to repair to Rouen next day, and see this girl Catholine Donet, who resided in the Rue d'Eperlan in the third story, second door. He had repeated to himself in a whisper, just as a little boy repeats a prayer, this name and address, a countless number of times, so that he might not forget them, and he ended by lisping them continually, without being able to stop or to think of what it was, so much were his tongue and his mind possessed by the appellation.

According, on the following day, about eight o'clock, he ordered Graindorge to be yoked to the tilbury, and set forth, at the quick trotting pace of the heavy Norman horse, along the high road from the Ainville to Rouen. He wore his black frock coat drawn over his shoulders, a tall silk hat on his head, and on his legs his breeches with straps; and he did not wish, on account of the occasion, to dispense with the handsome costume, the blue overall which swelled in the wind, protected the cloth from dust and from stains, and which was to be removed quickly on reaching his destination the moment he had jumped out of the coach.

He entered Rouen accordingly just as it was striking ten o'clock, drew up, as he had usually done at the Hotel des Bon-Enfants, in the Rue des Trois-Mares, submitted to the hugs of the landlord and his wife and their five children, for they had heard the melancholy news; after that, he had to tell them all the particulars about the accident, which caused him to shed tears, to repel all the proffered attentions which they sought to thrust upon him merely because he was wealthy, and to decline even the breakfast they wanted him to partake of, thus wounding their sensibilities.[Pg 277]

Then, having wiped the dust off his hat, brushed his coat and removed the mud stains from his boots, he set forth in search of the Rue de l'Eperlan, without venturing to make inquiries from anyone, for fear of being recognized and arousing suspicions.

At length, being unable to find the place, he saw a priest passing by, and, trusting to the professional discretion which churchmen possess, he questioned the ecclesiastic.

He had only a hundred steps farther to go; it was exactly the second street to the right.

Then he hesitated. Up to that moment, he had obeyed, like a mere animal, the expressed wish of the deceased. Now he felt quite agitated, confused, humiliated, at the idea of finding himself—the son—in the presence of this woman who had been his father's mistress. All the morality which lies buried in our breasts, heaped up at the bottom of our sensuous emotions by centuries of hereditary instruction, all that he had been taught since he had learned his catechism about creatures of evil life, to instinctive contempt which every man entertains towards them, even though he may marry one of them, all the narrow honesty of the peasant in his character, was stirred up within him, and held him back, making him grow red with shame.

But he said to himself:

"I promised the father, I must not break my promise."

Then he gave a push to the door of the house bearing the number 18, which stood ajar, discovered a gloomy-looking staircase, ascended three flights, perceived a door, then a second door, came upon the string of a bell, and pulled it. The ringing, which resounded in the[Pg 278] apartment before which he stood, sent a shiver through his frame. The door was opened, and he found himself facing a young lady very well dressed, a brunette with a fresh complexion who gazed at him with eyes of astonishment.

He did not know what to say to her, and she who suspected nothing, and who was waiting for the other, did not invite him to come in. They stood looking thus at one another for nearly half-a-minute, at the end of which she said in a questioning tone:

"You have something to tell me Monsieur?" He falteringly replied:

"I am M. Hautot's son."

She gave a start, turned pale, and stammered out as If she had known him for a long time:

"Monsieur César?"

"Yes."

"And what next?"

"I have come to speak to you on the part of my father."

She articulated:

"Oh my God!"

She then drew back so that he might enter. He shut the door and followed her into the interior. Then he saw a little boy of four or five years playing with a cat, seated on a floor in front of a stove, from which rose the steam of dishes which were being kept hot.

"Take a seat," she said.

He sat down.

She asked:

"Well?"

He no longer ventured to speak, keeping his eyes fixed on the table which stood in the center of the room,[Pg 279] with three covers laid on it, one of which was for a child. He glanced at the chair which had its back turned to the fire. They had been expecting him. That was his bread which he saw, and which he recognized near the fork, for the crust had been removed on account of Hautot's bad teeth. Then, raising his eyes, he noticed on the wall his father's portrait, the large photograph taken at Paris the year of the exhibition, the same as that which hung above the bed in the sleeping apartment at Ainville.

The young woman again asked:

"Well, Monsieur César?"

He kept staring at her. Her face was livid with anguish; and she waited, her hands trembling with fear.

Then he took courage.

"Well, Mam'zelle, papa died on Sunday last just after he had opened the shooting."

She was so much overwhelmed that she did not move. After a silence of a few seconds, she faltered in an almost inaudible tone:

"Oh! it is not possible!"

Then, on a sudden, tears showed themselves in her eyes, and covering her face with her hands, she burst out sobbing.

At that point the little boy turned round, and, seeing his mother weeping, began to howl. Then, realizing that this sudden trouble was brought about by the stranger, he rushed at César, caught hold of his breeches with one hand, and with the other hit him with all his strength on the thigh. And César remained agitated, deeply affected, with this woman mourning for his father at one side of him, and the little boy defending his mother at the other. He felt their emotion taking[Pg 280] possession of himself, and his eyes were beginning to brim over with the same sorrow; so, to recover her self-command, he began to talk:

"Yes," he said, "the accident occurred on Sunday, at eight o'clock—."

And he told, as if she were listening to him, all the facts without forgetting a single detail, mentioning the most trivial matters with the minuteness of a countryman. And the child still kept assailing him, making kicks at his ankles.

When he came to the time at which his father had spoken about her, her attention was caught by hearing her own name, and, uncovering her face she said:

"Pardon me! I was not following you; I would like to know—If you did not mind beginning over again."

He related everything at great length, with stoppages, breaks and reflections of his own from time to time. She listened to him eagerly now perceiving with a woman's keen sensibility all the sudden changes of fortune which his narrative indicated, and trembling with horror, every now and then, exclaiming:

"Oh, my God!"

The little fellow, believing that she had calmed down, ceased beating César, in order to catch his mother's hand, and he listened, too, as if he understood.

When the narrative was finished, young Hautot continued:

"Now we will settle matters together in accordance with his wishes."

"Listen: I am well off he has left me plenty of means. I don't want you to have anything to complain about—"

But she quickly interrupted him.[Pg 281]

"Oh, Monsieur César, Monsieur César, not to-day. I am cut to the heart—another time—another day. No, not to-day. If I accept, listen! 'Tis not for myself—no, no, no, I swear to you. 'Tis for the child. Besides this provision will be put to his account."

Thereupon, César scared, divined the truth, and stammering:

"So then—'tis his—the child?"

"Why, yes," she said.

And Hautot, Junior, gazed at his brother with a confused emotion, intense and painful.

After a lengthened silence, for she had begun to weep afresh, César, quite embarrassed, went on:

"Well, then, Mam'zelle Donet I am going. When would you wish to talk this over with me?"

She exclaimed:

"Oh! no, don't go! don't go. Don't leave me all alone with Emile. I would die of grief. I have no longer anyone, anyone but my child. Oh! what wretchedness, what wretchedness. Mousieur César! Stop! Sit down again. You will say something more to me. You will tell me what he was doing over there all the week."

And César resumed his seat, accustomed to obey.

She drew over another chair for herself in front of the stove, where the dishes had all this time been simmering, took Emile upon her knees, and asked César a thousand questions about his father with reference to matters of an intimate nature, which made him feel without reasoning on the subject, that she had loved Hautot with all the strength of her frail woman's heart.

And, by the natural concatenation of his ideas—which were rather limited in number—he recurred once[Pg 282] more to the accident, and set about telling the story over again with all the same details.

When he said:

"He had a hole in his stomach—you could put your two fists into it."

She gave vent to a sort of shriek, and the tears gushed forth again from her eyes.

Then seized by the contagion of her grief, César began to weep, too, and as tears always soften the fibers of the heart, he bent over Emile whose forehead was close to his own mouth, and kissed him.

The mother, recovering her breath, murmured:

"Poor lad, he is an orphan now!"

"And so am I," said César.

And they ceased to talk.

But suddenly the practical instinct of the housewife, accustomed to be thoughtful about many things, revived in the young woman's breast.

"You have perhaps taken nothing all the morning, Monsieur César."

"No, Mam'zelle."

"Oh! you must be hungry. You will eat a morsel."

"Thanks," he said, "I am not hungry; I have had too much trouble."

She replied:

"In spite of sorrow, we must live. You will not refuse to let me get something for you! And then you will remain a little longer. When you are gone, I don't know what will become of me."

He yielded after some further resistance, and, sitting down with his back to the fire, facing her, he ate a plateful of tripe, which had been bubbling in the stove, and drank a glass of red wine. But he would not allow[Pg 283] her to uncork the bottle of white wine. He several times wiped the mouth of the little boy, who had smeared all his chin with sauce.

As he was rising up to go, he asked:

"When would you like me to come back to speak about this business to you, Mam'zelle Donet?"

"If it is all the same to you, say next Thursday, Monsieur César. In that way, I would lose none of my time, as I always have my Thursdays free."

"That will suit me—next Thursday."

"You will come to lunch. Won't you?"

"Oh! On that point I can't give you a promise."

"The reason I suggested is that people can chat better when they are eating. One has more time too."

"Well, be it so. About twelve o'clock, then."

And he took his departure, after he had again kissed little Emile, and pressed Mademoiselle Donet's hand.

---

PART III

The week appeared long to César Hautot. He had never before found himself alone, and the isolation seemed to him insupportable. Till now, he had lived at his father's side, just like his shadow, followed him into the fields, superintended the execution of his orders, and, when they had been a short time separated, again met him at dinner. They had spent the evenings smoking their pipes, face to face with one another, chatting about horses, cows or sheep, and the grip of their hands when they rose up in the morning might have been regarded as a manifestation of deep family affection on both sides.

Now César was alone, he went vacantly through the[Pg 284] process of dressing the soil of autumn, every moment expecting to see the tall gesticulating silhouette of his father rising up at the end of a plain. To kill time, he entered the houses of his neighbors, told about the accident to all who had not heard of it, and sometimes repeated it to the others. Then, after he had finished his occupations and his reflections, he would sit down at the side of a road, asking himself whether this kind of life was going to last for ever.

He frequently thought of Mademoiselle Donet. He liked her. He considered her thoroughly respectable, a gentle and honest young woman, as his father had said. Yes, undoubtedly she was an honest girl. He resolved to act handsomely towards her, and to give her two thousand francs a year, settling the capital on the child. He even experienced a certain pleasure in thinking that he was going to see her on the following Thursday and arrange this matter with her. And then the notion of this brother, this little chap of five, who was his father's son, plagued him, annoyed him a little, and, at the same time, exhibited him. He had, as it were, a family in this brat, sprung from a clandestine alliance, who would never bear the name of Hautot, a family which he might take or leave, just as he pleased, but which would recall his father.

And so, when he saw himself on the road to Rouen on Thursday morning, carried along by Graindorge trotting with clattering foot-beats, he felt his heart lighter, more at peace than he had hitherto felt it since his bereavement.

On entering Mademoiselle Donet's apartment, he saw the table laid as on the previous Thursday with the sole difference that the crust had not been removed from[Pg 285] the bread. He pressed the young woman's hand, kissed Emile on the cheeks, and sat down, more at ease than if he were in his own house, his heart swelling in the same way. Mademoiselle Donet seemed to him a little thinner and paler. She must have grieved sorely. She wore now an air of constraint in his presence, as if she understood what she had not felt the week before under the first blow of her misfortune, and she exhibited an excessive deference towards him, a mournful humility, and made touching efforts to please him, as if to pay him back by her attentions for the kindness he had manifested towards her. They were a long time at lunch talking over the business, which had brought him there. She did not want so much money. It was too much. She earned enough to live on herself, but she only wished that Emile might find a few sous awaiting him when he grew big. César held out, however, and even added a gift of a thousand francs for herself for the expense of mourning.

When he had taken his coffee, she asked:

"Do you smoke?"

"Yes—I have my pipe."

He felt in his pocket. Good God! He had forgotten it! He was becoming quite woebegone about it when she offered him a pipe of his father that had been shut up in a cupboard. He accepted it, took it up in his hand, recognized it, smelled it, spoke of its quality in a tone of emotion, filled it with tobacco, and lighted it. Then, he set Emile astride on his knee, and made him play the cavalier, while she removed the tablecloth, and put the soiled plates at one end of the sideboard in order to wash them as soon as he was gone.[Pg 286]

About three o'clock, he rose up with regret, quite annoyed at the thought of having to go.

"Well! Mademoiselle Donet," he said, "I wish you good evening, and am delighted to have found you like this."

She remained standing before him, blushing, much affected, and gazed at him while she thought of the other.

"Shall we not see one another again?" she said.

He replied simply:

"Why, yes, mam'zelle, if it gives you pleasure."

"Certainly, Monsieur César. Will next Thursday suit you then?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle Donet."

"You will come to lunch, of course?"

"Well—if you are so kind as to invite me, I can't refuse."

"It is understood, then, Monsieur César—next Thursday at twelve, the same as to-day."

"Thursday at twelve, Mam'zelle Donet!"

Down Went McGinty By FOX HOLDEN - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63703/pg63703-images.html

 

The Voices by Edward Wellen - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78790/pg78790-images.html

 

Resembling in appearance all the wooden hostelries of the High Alps situated at the foot of glaciers in the barren rocky gorges that intersect the summits of the mountains, the Inn of Schwarenbach serves as a resting place for travellers crossing the Gemini Pass. It remains open for six months in the year and is inhabited by the family of Jean Hauser; then, as soon as the snow begins to fall and to fill the valley so as to make the road down to Loeche impassable, the father and his three sons go away and leave the house in charge of the old guide, Gaspard Hari, with the young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, and Sam, the great mountain dog. The two men and the dog remain till the spring in their snowy prison, with nothing before their eyes except the immense white slopes of the Balmhorn, surrounded by light, glistening summits, and are shut in, blocked up and buried by the snow which rises around them and which envelops, binds and crushes the little house, which lies piled on the roof, covering the windows and blocking up the door. It was the day on which the Hauser family were going to return to Loeche, as winter was approaching, and the descent was becoming dangerous. Three mules started first, laden with baggage and led by the three sons. Then the mother, Jeanne Hauser, and her daughter Louise mounted a fourth mule and set off in their turn and the father followed them, accompanied by the two men in charge, who were to escort the family as far as the brow of the descent. First of all they passed round the small lake, which was now frozen over, at the bottom of the mass of rocks which stretched in front of the inn, and then they followed the valley, which was dominated on all sides by the snow-covered summits.

A ray of sunlight fell into that little white, glistening, frozen desert and illuminated it with a cold and dazzling flame. No living thing appeared among this ocean of mountains. There was no motion in this immeasurable solitude and no noise disturbed the profound silence.

By degrees the young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, a tall, long-legged Swiss, left old man Hauser and old Gaspard behind, in order to catch up the mule which bore the two women. The younger one looked at him as he approached and appeared to be calling him with her sad eyes. She was a young, fairhaired little peasant girl, whose milk-white cheeks and pale hair looked as if they had lost their color by their long abode amid the ice. When he had got up to the animal she was riding he put his hand on the crupper and relaxed his speed. Mother Hauser began to talk to him, enumerating with the minutest details all that he would have to attend to during the winter. It was the first time that he was going to stay up there, while old Hari had already spent fourteen winters amid the snow, at the inn of Schwarenbach.

Ulrich Kunsi listened, without appearing to understand and looked incessantly at the girl. From time to time he replied: “Yes, Madame Hauser,” but his thoughts seemed far away and his calm features remained unmoved.

They reached Lake Daube, whose broad, frozen surface extended to the end of the valley. On the right one saw the black, pointed, rocky summits of the Daubenhorn beside the enormous moraines of the Lommern glacier, above which rose the Wildstrubel. As they approached the Gemmi pass, where the descent of Loeche begins, they suddenly beheld the immense horizon of the Alps of the Valais, from which the broad, deep valley of the Rhone separated them.

In the distance there was a group of white, unequal, flat, or pointed mountain summits, which glistened in the sun; the Mischabel with its two peaks, the huge group of the Weisshorn, the heavy Brunegghorn, the lofty and formidable pyramid of Mount Cervin, that slayer of men, and the Dent-Blanche, that monstrous coquette.

Then beneath them, in a tremendous hole, at the bottom of a terrific abyss, they perceived Loeche, where houses looked as grains of sand which had been thrown into that enormous crevice that is ended and closed by the Gemmi and which opens, down below, on the Rhone.

The mule stopped at the edge of the path, which winds and turns continually, doubling backward, then, fantastically and strangely, along the side of the mountain as far as the almost invisible little village at its feet. The women jumped into the snow and the two old men joined them. “Well,” father Hauser said, “good-by, and keep up your spirits till next year, my friends,” and old Hari replied: “Till next year.”

They embraced each other and then Madame Hauser in her turn offered her cheek, and the girl did the same.

When Ulrich Kunsi’s turn came, he whispered in Louise’s ear, “Do not forget those up yonder,” and she replied, “No,” in such a low voice that he guessed what she had said without hearing it. “Well, adieu,” Jean Hauser repeated, “and don’t fall ill.” And going before the two women, he commenced the descent, and soon all three disappeared at the first turn in the road, while the two men returned to the inn at Schwarenbach.

They walked slowly, side by side, without speaking. It was over, and they would be alone together for four or five months. Then Gaspard Hari began to relate his life last winter. He had remained with Michael Canol, who was too old now to stand it, for an accident might happen during that long solitude. They had not been dull, however; the only thing was to make up one’s mind to it from the first, and in the end one would find plenty of distraction, games and other means of whiling away the time.

Ulrich Kunsi listened to him with his eyes on the ground, for in his thoughts he was following those who were descending to the village. They soon came in sight of the inn, which was, however, scarcely visible, so small did it look, a black speck at the foot of that enormous billow of snow, and when they opened the door Sam, the great curly dog, began to romp round them.

“Come, my boy,” old Gaspard said, “we have no women now, so we must get our own dinner ready. Go and peel the potatoes.” And they both sat down on wooden stools and began to prepare the soup.

The next morning seemed very long to Kunsi. Old Hari smoked and spat on the hearth, while the young man looked out of the window at the snow-covered mountain opposite the house.

In the afternoon he went out, and going over yesterday’s ground again, he looked for the traces of the mule that had carried the two women. Then when he had reached the Gemmi Pass, he laid himself down on his stomach and looked at Loeche.

The village, in its rocky pit, was not yet buried under the snow, from which it was sheltered by the pine woods which protected it on all sides. Its low houses looked like paving stones in a large meadow from above. Hauser’s little daughter was there now in one of those gray-colored houses. In which? Ulrich Kunsi was too far away to be able to make them out separately. How he would have liked to go down while he was yet able!

But the sun had disappeared behind the lofty crest of the Wildstrubel and the young man returned to the chalet. Daddy Hari was smoking, and when he saw his mate come in he proposed a game of cards to him, and they sat down opposite each other, on either side of the table. They played for a long time a simple game called brisque and then they had supper and went to bed.

The following days were like the first, bright and cold, without any fresh snow. Old Gaspard spent his afternoons in watching the eagles and other rare birds which ventured on those frozen heights, while Ulrich returned regularly to the Gemmi Pass to look at the village. Then they played cards, dice or dominoes and lost and won a trifle, just to create an interest in the game.

One morning Hari, who was up first, called his companion. A moving, deep and light cloud of white spray was falling on them noiselessly and was by degrees burying them under a thick, heavy coverlet of foam. That lasted four days and four nights. It was necessary to free the door and the windows, to dig out a passage and to cut steps to get over this frozen powder, which a twelve hours’ frost had made as hard as the granite of the moraines.

They lived like prisoners and did not venture outside their abode. They had divided their duties, which they performed regularly. Ulrich Kunsi undertook the scouring, washing and everything that belonged to cleanliness. He also chopped up the wood while Gaspard Hari did the cooking and attended to the fire. Their regular and monotonous work was interrupted by long games at cards or dice, and they never quarrelled, but were always calm and placid. They were never seen impatient or ill-humored, nor did they ever use hard words, for they had laid in a stock of patience for their wintering on the top of the mountain.

Sometimes old Gaspard took his rifle and went after chamois, and occasionally he killed one. Then there was a feast in the inn at Schwarenbach and they revelled in fresh meat. One morning he went out as usual. The thermometer outside marked eighteen degrees of frost, and as the sun had not yet risen, the hunter hoped to surprise the animals at the approaches to the Wildstrubel, and Ulrich, being alone, remained in bed until ten o’clock. He was of a sleepy nature, but he would not have dared to give way like that to his inclination in the presence of the old guide, who was ever an early riser. He breakfasted leisurely with Sam, who also spent his days and nights in sleeping in front of the fire; then he felt low-spirited and even frightened at the solitude, and was seized by a longing for his daily game of cards, as one is by the craving of a confirmed habit, and so he went out to meet his companion, who was to return at four o’clock.

The snow had levelled the whole deep valley, filled up the crevasses, obliterated all signs of the two lakes and covered the rocks, so that between the high summits there was nothing but an immense, white, regular, dazzling and frozen surface. For three weeks Ulrich had not been to the edge of the precipice from which he had looked down on the village, and he wanted to go there before climbing the slopes which led to Wildstrubel. Loeche was now also covered by the snow and the houses could scarcely be distinguished, covered as they were by that white cloak.

Then, turning to the right, he reached the Loemmern glacier. He went along with a mountaineer’s long strides, striking the snow, which was as hard as a rock, with his iron-pointed stick, and with his piercing eyes he looked for the little black, moving speck in the distance, on that enormous, white expanse.

When he reached the end of the glacier he stopped and asked himself whether the old man had taken that road, and then he began to walk along the moraines with rapid and uneasy steps. The day was declining, the snow was assuming a rosy tint, and a dry, frozen wind blew in rough gusts over its crystal surface. Ulrich uttered a long, shrill, vibrating call. His voice sped through the deathlike silence in which the mountains were sleeping; it reached the distance, across profound and motionless waves of glacial foam, like the cry of a bird across the waves of the sea. Then it died away and nothing answered him.

He began to walk again. The sun had sunk yonder behind the mountain tops, which were still purple with the reflection from the sky, but the depths of the valley were becoming gray, and suddenly the young man felt frightened. It seemed to him as if the silence, the cold, the solitude, the winter death of these mountains were taking possession of him, were going to stop and to freeze his blood, to make his limbs grow stiff and to turn him into a motionless and frozen object, and he set off running, fleeing toward his dwelling. The old man, he thought, would have returned during his absence. He had taken another road; he would, no doubt, be sitting before the fire, with a dead chamois at his feet. He soon came in sight of the inn, but no smoke rose from it. Ulrich walked faster and opened the door. Sam ran up to him to greet him, but Gaspard Hari had not returned. Kunsi, in his alarm, turned round suddenly, as if he had expected to find his comrade hidden in a corner. Then he relighted the fire and made the soup, hoping every moment to see the old man come in. From time to time he went out to see if he were not coming. It was quite night now, that wan, livid night of the mountains, lighted by a thin, yellow crescent moon, just disappearing behind the mountain tops.

Then the young man went in and sat down to warm his hands and feet, while he pictured to himself every possible accident. Gaspard might have broken a leg, have fallen into a crevasse, taken a false step and dislocated his ankle. And, perhaps, he was lying on the snow, overcome and stiff with the cold, in agony of mind, lost and, perhaps, shouting for help, calling with all his might in the silence of the night.. But where? The mountain was so vast, so rugged, so dangerous in places, especially at that time of the year, that it would have required ten or twenty guides to walk for a week in all directions to find a man in that immense space. Ulrich Kunsi, however, made up his mind to set out with Sam if Gaspard did not return by one in the morning, and he made his preparations.

He put provisions for two days into a bag, took his steel climbing iron, tied a long, thin, strong rope round his waist, and looked to see that his iron-shod stick and his axe, which served to cut steps in the ice, were in order. Then he waited. The fire was burning on the hearth, the great dog was snoring in front of it, and the clock was ticking, as regularly as a heart beating, in its resounding wooden case. He waited, with his ears on the alert for distant sounds, and he shivered when the wind blew against the roof and the walls. It struck twelve and he trembled: Then, frightened and shivering, he put some water on the fire, so that he might have some hot coffee before starting, and when the clock struck one he got up, woke Sam, opened the door and went off in the direction of the Wildstrubel. For five hours he mounted, scaling the rocks by means of his climbing irons, cutting into the ice, advancing continually, and occasionally hauling up the dog, who remained below at the foot of some slope that was too steep for him, by means of the rope. It was about six o’clock when he reached one of the summits to which old Gaspard often came after chamois, and he waited till it should be daylight.

The sky was growing pale overhead, and a strange light, springing nobody could tell whence, suddenly illuminated the immense ocean of pale mountain summits, which extended for a hundred leagues around him. One might have said that this vague brightness arose from the snow itself and spread abroad in space. By degrees the highest distant summits assumed a delicate, pink flesh color, and the red sun appeared behind the ponderous giants of the Bernese Alps.

Ulrich Kunsi set off again, walking like a hunter, bent over, looking for tracks, and saying to his dog: “Seek, old fellow, seek!”

He was descending the mountain now, scanning the depths closely, and from time to time shouting, uttering aloud, prolonged cry, which soon died away in that silent vastness. Then he put his ear to the ground to listen. He thought he could distinguish a voice, and he began to run and shouted again, but he heard nothing more and sat down, exhausted and in despair. Toward midday he breakfasted and gave Sam, who was as tired as himself, something to eat also, and then he recommenced his search.

When evening came he was still walking, and he had walked more than thirty miles over the mountains. As he was too far away to return home and too tired to drag himself along any further, he dug a hole in the snow and crouched in it with his dog under a blanket which he had brought with him. And the man and the dog lay side by side, trying to keep warm, but frozen to the marrow nevertheless. Ulrich scarcely slept, his mind haunted by visions and his limbs shaking with cold.

Day was breaking when he got up. His legs were as stiff as iron bars and his spirits so low that he was ready to cry with anguish, while his heart was beating so that he almost fell over with agitation, when he thought he heard a noise.

Suddenly he imagined that he also was going to die of cold in the midst of this vast solitude, and the terror of such a death roused his energies and gave him renewed vigor. He was descending toward the inn, falling down and getting up again, and followed at a distance by Sam, who was limping on three legs, and they did not reach Schwarenbach until four o’clock in the afternoon. The house was empty and the young man made a fire, had something to eat and went to sleep, so worn out that he did not think of anything more.

He slept for a long time, for a very long time, an irresistible sleep. But suddenly a voice, a cry, a name, “Ulrich!” aroused him from his profound torpor and made him sit up in bed. Had he been dreaming? Was it one of those strange appeals which cross the dreams of disquieted minds? No, he heard it still, that reverberating cry-which had entered his ears and remained in his flesh-to the tips of his sinewy fingers. Certainly somebody had cried out and called “Ulrich!” There was somebody there near the house, there could be no doubt of that, and he opened the door and shouted, “Is it you, Gaspard?” with all the strength of his lungs. But there was no reply, no murmur, no groan, nothing. It was quite dark and the snow looked wan.

The wind had risen, that icy wind that cracks the rocks and leaves nothing alive on those deserted heights, and it came in sudden gusts, which were more parching and more deadly than the burning wind of the desert, and again Ulrich shouted: “Gaspard! Gaspard! Gaspard.” And then he waited again. Everything was silent on the mountain.

Then he shook with terror and with a bound he was inside the inn, when he shut and bolted the door, and then he fell into a chair trembling all over, for he felt certain that his comrade had called him at the moment he was expiring.

He was sure of that, as sure as one is of being alive or of eating a piece of bread. Old Gaspard Hari had been dying for two days and three nights somewhere, in some hole, in one of those deep, untrodden ravines whose whiteness is more sinister than subterranean darkness. He had been dying for two days and three nights and he had just then died, thinking of his comrade. His soul, almost before it was released, had taken its flight to the inn where Ulrich was sleeping, and it had called him by that terrible and mysterious power which the spirits of the dead have to haunt the living. That voiceless soul had cried to the worn-out soul of the sleeper; it had uttered its last farewell, or its reproach, or its curse on the man who had not searched carefully enough.

And Ulrich felt that it was there, quite close to him, behind the wall, behind the door which he had just fastened. It was wandering about, like a night bird which lightly touches a lighted window with his wings, and the terrified young man was ready to scream with horror. He wanted to run away, but did not dare to go out; he did not dare, and he should never dare to do it in the future, for that phantom would remain there day and night, round the inn, as long as the old man’s body was not recovered and had not been deposited in the consecrated earth of a churchyard.

When it was daylight Kunsi recovered some of his courage at the return of the bright sun. He prepared his meal, gave his dog some food and then remained motionless on a chair, tortured at heart as he thought of the old man lying on the snow, and then, as soon as night once more covered the mountains, new terrors assailed him. He now walked up and down the dark kitchen, which was scarcely lighted by the flame of one candle, and he walked from one end of it to the other with great strides, listening, listening whether the terrible cry of the other night would again break the dreary silence outside. He felt himself alone, unhappy man, as no man had ever been alone before! He was alone in this immense desert of Snow, alone five thousand feet above the inhabited earth, above human habitation, above that stirring, noisy, palpitating life, alone under an icy sky! A mad longing impelled him to run away, no matter where, to get down to Loeche by flinging himself over the precipice; but he did not even dare to open the door, as he felt sure that the other, the dead man, would bar his road, so that he might not be obliged to remain up there alone:

Toward midnight, tired with walking, worn out by grief and fear, he at last fell into a doze in his chair, for he was afraid of his bed as one is of a haunted spot. But suddenly the strident cry of the other evening pierced his ears, and it was so shrill that Ulrich stretched out his arms to repulse the ghost, and he fell backward with his chair.

Sam, who was awakened by the noise, began to howl as frightened dogs do howl, and he walked all about the house trying to find out where the danger came from. When he got to the door, he sniffed beneath it, smelling vigorously, with his coat bristling and his tail stiff, while he growled angrily. Kunsi, who was terrified, jumped up, and, holding his chair by one leg, he cried: “Don’t come in, don’t come in, or I shall kill you.” And the dog, excited by this threat, barked angrily at that invisible enemy who defied his master’s voice. By degrees, however, he quieted down and came back and stretched himself in front of the fire, but he was uneasy and kept his head up and growled between his teeth.

Ulrich, in turn, recovered his senses, but as he felt faint with terror, he went and got a bottle of brandy out of the sideboard, and he drank off several glasses, one after anther, at a gulp. His ideas became vague, his courage revived and a feverish glow ran through his veins.

He ate scarcely anything the next day and limited himself to alcohol, and so he lived for several days, like a drunken brute. As soon as he thought of Gaspard Hari, he began to drink again, and went on drinking until he fell to the ground, overcome by intoxication. And there he remained lying on his face, dead drunk, his limbs benumbed, and snoring loudly. But scarcely had he digested the maddening and burning liquor than the same cry, “Ulrich!” woke him like a bullet piercing his brain, and he got up, still staggering, stretching out his hands to save himself from falling, and calling to Sam to help him. And the dog, who appeared to be going mad like his master, rushed to the door, scratched it with his claws and gnawed it with his long white teeth, while the young man, with his head thrown back drank the brandy in draughts, as if it had been cold water, so that it might by and by send his thoughts, his frantic terror, and his memory to sleep again.

In three weeks he had consumed all his stock of ardent spirits. But his continual drunkenness only lulled his terror, which awoke more furiously than ever as soon as it was impossible for him to calm it. His fixed idea then, which had been intensified by a month of drunkenness, and which was continually increasing in his absolute solitude, penetrated him like a gimlet. He now walked about the house like a wild beast in its cage, putting his ear to the door to listen if the other were there and defying him through the wall. Then, as soon as he dozed, overcome by fatigue, he heard the voice which made him leap to his feet.

At last one night, as cowards do when driven to extremities, he sprang to the door and opened it, to see who was calling him and to force him to keep quiet, but such a gust of cold wind blew into his face that it chilled him to the bone, and he closed and bolted the door again immediately, without noticing that Sam had rushed out. Then, as he was shivering with cold, he threw some wood on the fire and sat down in front of it to warm himself, but suddenly he started, for somebody was scratching at the wall and crying. In desperation he called out: “Go away!” but was answered by another long, sorrowful wail.

Then all his remaining senses forsook him from sheer fright. He repeated: “Go away!” and turned round to try to find some corner in which to hide, while the other person went round the house still crying and rubbing against the wall. Ulrich went to the oak sideboard, which was full of plates and dishes and of provisions, and lifting it up with superhuman strength, he dragged it to the door, so as to form a barricade. Then piling up all the rest of the furniture, the mattresses, palliasses and chairs, he stopped up the windows as one does when assailed by an enemy.

But the person outside now uttered long, plaintive, mournful groans, to which the young man replied by similar groans, and thus days and nights passed without their ceasing to howl at each other. The one was continually walking round the house and scraped the walls with his nails so vigorously that it seemed as if he wished to destroy them, while the other, inside, followed all his movements, stooping down and holding his ear to the walls and replying to all his appeals with terrible cries. One evening, however, Ulrich heard nothing more, and he sat down, so overcome by fatigue, that he went to sleep immediately and awoke in the morning without a thought, without any recollection of what had happened, just as if his head had been emptied during his heavy sleep, but he felt hungry, and he ate.

The winter was over and the Gemmi Pass was practicable again, so the Hauser family started off to return to their inn. As soon as they had reached the top of the ascent the women mounted their mule and spoke about the two men whom they would meet again shortly. They were, indeed, rather surprised that neither of them had come down a few days before, as soon as the road was open, in order to tell them all about their long winter sojourn. At last, however, they saw the inn, still covered with snow, like a quilt. The door and the window were closed, but a little smoke was coming out of the chimney, which reassured old Hauser. On going up to the door, however, he saw the skeleton of an animal which had been torn to pieces by the eagles, a large skeleton lying on its side.

They all looked close at it and the mother said:

“That must be Sam,” and then she shouted: “Hi, Gaspard!” A cry from the interior of the house answered her and a sharp cry that one might have thought some animal had uttered it. Old Hauser repeated, “Hi, Gaspard!” and they heard another cry similar to the first.

Then the three men, the father and the two sons, tried to open the door, but it resisted their efforts. From the empty cow-stall they took a beam to serve as a battering-ram and hurled it against the door with all their might. The wood gave way and the boards flew into splinters. Then the house was shaken by a loud voice, and inside, behind the side board which was overturned, they saw a man standing upright, with his hair falling on his shoulders and a beard descending to his breast, with shining eyes, and nothing but rags to cover him. They did not recognize him, but Louise Hauser exclaimed:

“It is Ulrich, mother.” And her mother declared that it was Ulrich, although his hair was white.

He allowed them to go up to him and to touch him, but he did not reply to any of their questions, and they were obliged to take him to Loeche, where the doctors found that he was mad, and nobody ever found out what had become of his companion.

Little Louise Hauser nearly died that summer of decline, which the physicians attributed to the cold air of the mountains.

Know Thy Neighbor By ELISABETH R. LEWIS - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32287/pg32287-images.html