When everybody had had a look at the dying man, they
thought of the refreshments; but as there were too
many people for the kitchen to hold, the table was
moved out in front of the door. The four dozen
golden dumplings, tempting and appetizing, arranged
in two big dishes, attracted the eyes of all.
Each one reached out to take his, fearing that there
would not be enough. But four remained over.
Maitre Chicot, his mouth full, said:
“Father would feel sad if he were to see this.
He loved them so much when he was alive.”
A big, jovial peasant declared:
“He won’t eat any more now. Each
one in his turn.”
This remark, instead of making the guests sad, seemed
to cheer them up. It was their turn now to eat
dumplings.
Madame Chicot, distressed at the expense, kept running
down to the cellar continually for cider. The
pitchers were emptied in quick succession. The
company was laughing and talking loud now. They
were beginning to shout as they do at feasts.
Suddenly an old peasant woman who had stayed beside
the dying man, held there by a morbid fear of what
would soon happen to herself, appeared at the window
and cried in a shrill voice:
“He’s dead! he’s dead!”
Everybody was silent. The women arose quickly
to go and see. He was indeed dead. The rattle
had ceased. The men looked at each other, looking
down, ill at ease. They hadn’t finished
eating the dumplings. Certainly the rascal had
not chosen a propitious moment. The Chicots were
no longer weeping. It was over; they were relieved.
They kept repeating:
“I knew it couldn’t ’last.
If he could only have done it last night, it would
have saved us all this trouble.”
Well, anyhow, it was over. They would bury him
on Monday, that was all, and they would eat some more
dumplings for the occasion.
The guests went away, talking the matter over, pleased
at having had the chance to see him and of getting
something to eat.
And when the husband and wife were alone, face to
face, she said, her face distorted with grief:
“We’ll have to bake four dozen more dumplings!
Why couldn’t he have made up his mind last night?”
The husband, more resigned, answered:
“Well, we’ll not have to do this every
day.”
It was after dinner, and we were talking about adventures
and accidents which happened while out shooting.
An old friend, known to all of us, M. Boniface, a
great sportsman and a connoisseur of wine, a man of
wonderful physique, witty and gay, and endowed with
an ironical and resigned philosophy, which manifested
itself in caustic humor, and never in melancholy,
suddenly exclaimed:
“I know a story, or rather a tragedy, which
is somewhat peculiar. It is not at all like those
which one hears of usually, and I have never told
it, thinking that it would interest no one.
