“I did not answer, but began to weep. My
father did not utter a single word.
“Eight days later I entered college.
“Well, my friend, it was all over with me.
I had witnessed the other side of things, the bad
side; I have not been able to perceive the good side
since that day. What things have passed in my
mind, what strange phenomena has warped my ideas?
I do not know. But I no longer have a taste for
anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody,
a desire for anything whatever, nor ambition, nor
hope. And I perceive always my poor mother on
the ground, lying in the avenue, while my father is
maltreating her. My mother died a few years after;
my father lives still. I have not seen him since.
Waiter, a ‘bock.’”
A waiter brought him his “bock,” which
he swallowed at a gulp. But, in taking up his
pipe again, trembling as he was he broke it. Then
he made a violent gesture:
“Zounds! This is indeed a grief, a real
grief. I have had it for a month, and it was
coloring so beautifully!”
He darted through the vast saloon, which was now full
of smoke and of people drinking, uttering his cry:
“Waiter, a ’bock’—and
a new pipe.”
Monsieur Savel, who was called in Mantes, “Father
Savel,” had just risen from bed. He wept.
It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were falling.
They fell slowly in the rain, resembling another rain,
but heavier and slower. M. Savel was not in good
spirit. He walked from the fireplace to the window,
and from the window to the fireplace. Life has
its somber days. It will no longer have any but
somber days for him now, for he has reached the age
of sixty-two. He is alone, an old bachelor, with
nobody about him. How sad it is to die alone,
all alone, without the disinterested affection of
anyone!
He pondered over his life, so barren, so void.
He recalled the days gone by, the days of his infancy,
the house, the house of his parents; his college days,
his follies, the time of his probation in Paris, the
illness of his father, his death. He then returned
to live with his mother. They lived together,
the young man and the old woman, very quietly, and
desired nothing more. At last the mother died.
How sad a thing is life! He has lived always
alone, and now, in his turn, he, too, will soon be
dead. He will disappear, and that will be the
finish. There will be no more of Savel upon the
earth. What a frightful thing! Other people
will live, they will live, they will laugh. Yes,
people will go on amusing themselves, and he will
no longer exist! Is it not strange that people
can laugh, amuse themselves, be joyful under that eternal
certainty of death! If this death were only probable,
one could then have hope; but no, it is inevitable,
as inevitable as that night follows the day.
