“Hours passed away in this silent and sinister
communion with the dead. A pale light at length
announced the dawn of a new day; then a red ray streamed
in on the bed, making a bar of light across the coverlet
and across her hands. This was the hour she had
so much loved. The awakened birds began to sing
in the trees.
“I opened the window to its fullest extent and
drew back the curtains that the whole heavens might
look in upon us, and, bending over the icy corpse,
I took in my hands the mutilated head and slowly, without
terror or disgust, I imprinted a kiss, a long kiss,
upon those lips which had never before been kissed.”
Leon Chenal remained silent. The women wept.
We heard on the box seat the Count d’Atraille
blowing his nose from time to time. The coachman
alone had gone to sleep. The horses, who no longer
felt the sting of the whip, had slackened their pace
and moved along slowly. The drag, hardly advancing
at all, seemed suddenly torpid, as if it had been freighted
with sorrow.
[Miss Harriet appeared in Le Gaulois,
July 9, 1883, under the title of Miss Hastings.
The story was later revised, enlarged; and partly
reconstructed. This is what De Maupassant wrote
to Editor Havard March 15, 1884, in an unedited
letter, in regard to the title of the story that
was to give its name to the volume:
“I do not believe that Hastings
is a bad name, inasmuch as it is
known all over the world, and recalls
the greatest facts in English
history. Besides, Hastings
is as much a name as Duval is with us.
“The name Cherbuliez selected,
Miss Revel, is no more like an
English name than like a Turkish
name. But here is another name as
English as Hastings, and more euphonious;
it is Miss Harriet.
I will ask you therefore to substitute
Harriet for Hastings.”
It was in regard to this very tittle
that De Maupassant had a disagreement with Audran
and Boucheron director of the Bouffes Parisiens
in October, 1890 They had given this title to an operetta
about to be played at the Bouffes. It ended
however, by their ceding to De Maupassant, and
the title of the operetta was changed to Miss Helyett.]
The former soldier, Mederic Rompel, familiarly called
Mederic by the country folks, left the post office
of Roily-le-Tors at the usual hour. After passing
through the village with his long stride, he cut across
the meadows of Villaume and reached the bank of the
Brindille, following the path along the water’s
edge to the village of Carvelin, where he commenced
to deliver his letters. He walked quickly, following
the course of the narrow river, which frothed, murmured
and boiled in its grassy bed beneath an arch of willows.
Mederic went on without stopping, with only this thought
in his mind: “My first letter is for the
Poivron family, then I have one for Monsieur Renardet;
so I must cross the wood.”
