“Again I was obliged to go away. And I
was alone. Yes, monsieur.
“Then he went to England, to live with them,
with his wife’s parents. Do you understand?
They have him—they have my son for themselves.
They have stolen him from me. He writes to me
once a month. At first he came to see me.
But now he no longer comes.
“It is now four years since I saw him last.
His face then was wrinkled and his hair white.
Was that possible? This man, my son, almost an
old man? My little rosy child of old? No
doubt I shall never see him again.
“And so I travel about all the year. I
go east and west, as you see, with no companion.
“I am like a lost dog. Adieu, monsieur!
don’t stay here with me for it hurts me to have
told you all this.”
I went down the hill, and on turning round to glance
back, I saw the old woman standing on a broken wall,
looking out upon the mountains, the long valley and
Lake Chambon in the distance.
And her skirt and the queer little shawl which she
wore around her thin shoulders were fluttering tike
a flag in the wind.
We were just leaving the asylum when I saw a tall,
thin man in a corner of the court who kept on calling
an imaginary dog. He was crying in a soft, tender
voice: “Cocotte! Come here, Cocotte,
my beauty!” and slapping his thigh as one does
when calling an animal. I asked the physician,
“Who is that man?” He answered: “Oh!
he is not at all interesting. He is a coachman
named Francois, who became insane after drowning his
dog.”
I insisted: “Tell me his story. The
most simple and humble things are sometimes those
which touch our hearts most deeply.”
Here is this man’s adventure, which was obtained
from a friend of his, a groom:
There was a family of rich bourgeois who lived in
a suburb of Paris. They had a villa in the middle
of a park, at the edge of the Seine. Their coachman
was this Francois, a country fellow, somewhat dull,
kind-hearted, simple and easy to deceive.
One evening, as he was returning home, a dog began
to follow him. At first he paid no attention
to it, but the creature’s obstinacy at last
made him turn round. He looked to see if he knew
this dog. No, he had never seen it. It was
a female dog and frightfully thin. She was trotting
behind him with a mournful and famished look, her tail
between her legs, her ears flattened against her head
and stopping and starting whenever he did.
He tried to chase this skeleton away and cried:
“Run along! Get out! Kss! kss!”
She retreated a few steps, then sat down and waited.
And when the coachman started to walk again she followed
along behind him.
He pretended to pick up some stones. The animal
ran a little farther away, but came back again as
soon as the man’s back was turned.
Then the coachman Francois took pity on the beast
and called her. The dog approached timidly.
The man patted her protruding ribs, moved by the beast’s
misery, and he cried: “Come! come here!”
Immediately she began to wag her tail, and, feeling
herself taken in, adopted, she began to run along
ahead of her new master.
