“As for me, my friend, it seemed as though the
world was coming to an end, that the eternal laws
had changed. I experienced the overwhelming dread
that one has in presence of things supernatural, in
presence of irreparable disasters. My childish
mind was bewildered, distracted. I began to cry
with all my might, without knowing why; a prey to a
fearful dread, sorrow, and astonishment. My father
heard me, turned round, and, on seeing me, started
toward me. I believe that he wanted to kill me,
and I fled like a hunted animal, running straight
ahead into the thicket.
“I ran perhaps for an hour, perhaps for two.
I know not. Darkness set in. I sank on the
grass, exhausted, and lay there dismayed, frantic with
fear, and devoured by a sorrow capable of breaking
forever the heart of a poor child. I was cold,
hungry, perhaps. At length day broke. I was
afraid to get up, to walk, to return home, to run farther,
fearing to encounter my father, whom I did not wish
to see again.
“I should probably have died of misery and of
hunger at the foot of a tree if the park guard had
not discovered me and led me home by force.
“I found my parents looking as usual. My
mother alone spoke to me “’How you frightened
me, you naughty boy. I lay awake the whole night.’
“I did not answer, but began to weep. My
father did not utter a single word.
“Eight days later I returned to school.
“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 has taken place in
my mind, what strange phenomenon has warped my ideas,
I do not know. But I no longer had a taste for
anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody,
a desire for anything whatever, any ambition, or any
hope. And I always see my poor mother on the
ground, in the park, my father beating her. My
mother died some years later; my, father still lives.
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.
“Confound it!” he said, with a gesture
of annoyance. “That is a real sorrow.
It will take me a month to color another!”
And he called out across the vast hall, now reeking
with smoke and full of men drinking, his everlasting:
“Garcon, un ’bock’—and
a new pipe.”
“My darlings,” said the comtesse, “you
might go to bed.”
The three children, two girls and a boy, rose and
kissed their grandmother. Then they said good-night
to M. le Cure, who had dined at the chateau, as was
his custom every Thursday.
The Abbe Mauduit lifted two of the children on his
knees, passing his long arms clad in black round their
necks, and kissing them tenderly on the forehead as
he drew their heads toward him as a father might.
