The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2 (of 8) eBook

But now the time had come for him to pay his debt, and he paid it.  Although tolerably well known as a painter with a future in store for him, he was not rich.  But what did that matter?  He mortgaged that future which people prophesied for him, and gave himself over, bound hand and foot, to a picture dealer.  Then he had the poor woman taken to an excellent asylum, where she could have not only every care, but every necessary comfort and even luxury.  Alas! however, general paralysis never forgives.  Sometimes it releases its prey, like the cruel cat releases the mouse, for a brief moment, only to lay hold of it again later, more fiercely than ever.  Fanny had that period of abatement in her symptoms, and one morning the physician was able to say to the young man:  “You are anxious to remove her?  Very well!  But you will soon have to bring her back, for the cure is only apparent, and her present state will only endure for a month, at most, and then, only if the patient is kept free from every excitement and excess!”

“And without that precaution?” Guerland asked him.  “Then,” the doctor replied; “the final crisis will be all the nearer; that is all.  But whether it would be nearer or more remote, it will not be the less fatal.”  “You are sure of that?” “Absolutely sure.”

Francois Guerland took tall Fanny out of the asylum, installed her in splendid apartments, and went to live with her there.  She had grown old, bloated, with white hair, and sometimes wandered in her mind, and she did not recognize in him the poor little lad on whom she had taken pity in the days gone by, nor did he remind her of the circumstance.  He allowed her to believe that she was adored by a rich young man, who was passionately devoted to her.  He was young, ardent, and caressing.  Never had a mistress such a lover, and for three weeks, before she relapsed into the horrors of madness, which were happily soon terminated by her death, she intoxicated herself with the ecstasy of his kisses, and thus bade farewell to conscient life in an apotheosis of love.

The other day, at dessert, after an artists’ dinner, they were speaking of Francois Guerland, whose last picture at the Salon had been so deservedly praised.  “Ah! yes,” one of them said, with a contemptuous voice and look.  “That handsome fellow Guerland!” And another, accentuating the insinuation, added boldly:  “Yes, that is exactly it!  That handsome, too handsome fellow Guerland, the man who allows himself to be kept by women.”

AN ARTIST

“Bah!  Monsieur,” the old mountebank said to me; “it is a matter of exercise and habit, that is all!  Of course, one requires to be a little gifted that way, and not to be butter-fingered, but what is chiefly necessary is patience and daily practice for long, long years.”