He smiled, lowered his tone, and added:
“The best.”
Then, turning to the astonished lieutenant, he presented
“Comte de Ronfi-Quedissac.”
The old man took both his hands, saying:
“My dear lieutenant, you have saved my daughter’s
life. I have only one way of thanking you.
You may come in a few months to tell me—if
you like her.”
One year later, on the very same day, Captain Lare
and Miss Louise-Hortense-Genevieve de Ronfi-Quedissac
were married in the church of St. Thomas Aquinas.
She brought a dowry of six thousand francs, and was
said to be the prettiest bride that had been seen
that year.
The shadows of a balmy night were slowly falling.
The women remained in the drawing-room of the villa.
The men, seated, or astride of garden chairs, were
smoking outside the door of the house, around a table
laden with cups and liqueur glasses.
Their lighted cigars shone like eyes in the darkness,
which was gradually becoming more dense. They
had been talking about a frightful accident which
had occurred the night before—two men and
three women drowned in the river before the eyes of
the guests.
General de G——remarked:
“Yes, these things are affecting, but they are
not horrible.
“Horrible, that well-known word, means much
more than terrible. A frightful accident like
this affects, upsets, terrifies; it does not horrify.
In order that we should experience horror, something
more is needed than emotion, something more than the
spectacle of a dreadful death; there must be a shuddering
sense of mystery, or a sensation of abnormal terror,
more than natural. A man who dies, even under
the most tragic circumstances, does not excite horror;
a field of battle is not horrible; blood is not horrible;
the vilest crimes are rarely horrible.
“Here are two personal examples which have shown
me what is the meaning of horror.
“It was during the war of 1870. We were
retreating toward Pont-Audemer, after having passed
through Rouen. The army, consisting of about twenty
thousand men, twenty thousand routed men, disbanded,
demoralized, exhausted, were going to disband at Havre.
“The earth was covered with snow. The night
was falling. They had not eaten anything since
the day before. They were fleeing rapidly, the
Prussians not being far off.
“All the Norman country, sombre, dotted with
the shadows of the trees surrounding the farms, stretched
out beneath a black, heavy, threatening sky.
“Nothing else could be heard in the wan twilight
but the confused sound, undefined though rapid, of
a marching throng, an endless tramping, mingled with
the vague clink of tin bowls or swords. The men,
bent, round-shouldered, dirty, in many cases even
in rags, dragged themselves along, hurried through
the snow, with a long, broken-backed stride.
