Chapter 151
section 151 of complete original short stories of guy de maupassant this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by tatiana chichilla columbus ohio section 151 a family I was to see my old friend, Simone Radovan, of whom I had lost sight for fifteen years. At one time he was my most intimate friend, the friend who knows one's thoughts, with whom one passes long, quiet, happy evenings, to whom one tells one's secret love affairs, and who seems to draw out those rare, ingenious, delicate thoughts born of that sympathy that gives a sense of repose.
For years we had been scarcely separated. We had lived, traveled, thought, and dreamed together, had liked the same things, had admired the same books, understood the same authors, trembled with the same sensations, and very often laughed at the same individuals, whom we understood completely by merely exchanging a glance. Then he married. He married quite suddenly a little girl from the provinces who had come to Paris in search of a husband.
How in the world could that little thin, insipidly fair girl with her weak hands, her light, vacant eyes, and her clear, silly voice, who was exactly like a hundred thousand marriageable dolls, have picked up that intelligent, clever young fellow. Can anyone understand these things? No doubt he had hoped for happiness, simple, quiet, and long-enduring happiness, in the arms of a good, tender, and faithful woman. He had seen all that in the transparent looks of
that schoolgirl with light hair. He had not dreamed of the fact that an active, living, and vibrating man grows weary of everything as soon as he understands the stupid reality, unless, indeed, he becomes so brutalized that he understands nothing whatever. What would he be like when I meet him again? Still lively, witty, light-hearted, and enthusiastic?
Or in a state of mental torpor induced by provincial life? A man may change greatly in the course of fifteen years. The train stopped at a small station, and as I got out of the carriage, a stout, very stout man with red cheeks and big stomach rushed up to me with open arms, exclaiming,
George! I embraced him, but I had not recognized him. And then I said in astonishment, By Jove, you have not grown thin! and he replied with a laugh what did you expect good living a good table and good nights eating
and sleeping that is my existence i looked at him closely trying to discover in that broad face the features i held so dear his eyes alone had not changed but i no longer saw the same expression in them and i said to myself if the expression be the reflection of the mind the thoughts in that head are not what they used to be formerly those thoughts which i knew so well yet his eyes were bright, full of happiness and friendship, but they had not that clear, intelligent expression which
shows us as much as words the brightness of the intellect. Suddenly he said, here are my two eldest children. A girl of fourteen, who is almost a woman, and a boy of thirteen, in the dress of a boy from Elysee, came forward in a hesitating and awkward manner, and I said in a low voice, are they yours? Of course they are, he replied, laughing. How many have you? Five, there are three more at home. He said this in a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and I felt profound
pity, mingled with the feeling of vague contempt for this vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species. I got into a carriage, which he drove himself, and we set off through the town, a dull, sleepy, gloomy town where nothing was moving in the streets except a few dogs and two or three maidservants. Here and there, a shopkeeper, standing at his door, took off his hat, and Simone returned his salute and told me the man's name, no doubt to show me that he knew all the inhabitants
personally, and the font struck me that he was thinking of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream of all those who bury themselves in the provinces. We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden that was an imitation of a park, and stopped in front of a turreted house which tried to look like a chateau. That is my den, said Simone, so that I might compliment him on it. It is charming, I replied. A lady appeared on the steps, dressed
for company, and with company phrases already prepared. She was no longer the light-haired, insipid girl I had seen in church fifteen years previously, but a stout lady in curls and flounces, one of those ladies of uncertain age, without intellect, without any of those things that go to make a woman. In short, she was a mother, a stout, commonplace mother, a human breeding machine which procreates without any other preoccupation but her children and her cookbook.
She welcomed me, and I went into the hall, where three children, ranged according to their height, seemed set out for review, like firemen before the mayor. And I said, Ah, ah, so there are the others. Simone, radiant with pleasure, introduced them. Jeanne, Sophie, and Gontran.
The door of the drawing-room was open. I went in, and in the depths of an easy chair I saw something trembling. A man, an old, paralyzed man. Madame Redavan came forward and said, This is my grandfather, monsieur. He is eighty-seven.
and then she shouted into the shaking old man's ears, This is a friend of Simone's, Papa. The old gentleman tried to say, Good day to me. He muttered,
Oh, oh, oh, and waved his hand. So I took a seat saying, You are very kind, monsieur. Simone had just come in, and he said with a laugh, So, you have met grandpapa's acquaintance.
He is a treasure, that old man. He is the delight of the children. But he is so greedy that he almost kills himself at every meal. You have no idea what he would eat if he were allowed to do as he pleased. but you will see you'll see he looks at all the sweets as if they were so many girls you never
saw anything so funny you will see presently i was then shown to my room to change my dress for dinner and hearing a great clatter behind me on the stairs i turned round and saw that all the children were following me behind their father to do me honor no doubt my windows looked out across a dreary interminable plain an ocean of grass of wheat and of oats without a clump of trees or any rising ground, a striking and melancholy picture of the life which they must be leading in that
house. A bell rang. It was for dinner, and I went downstairs. Madame Redavan took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we passed into the dining room. A footman wheeled in the old man in his wheelchair. He gave a greedy and curious look at the dessert, and as he turned his shaking head with difficulty from one dish to the other, Simone rubbed his hands. You will be amused, he said, and all the children, understanding that I was going to be indulged with the sight of their
greedy grandfather began to laugh, while their mother merely smiled and shrugged her shoulders, and Simone, making a speaking trumpet of his hands, shouted at the old man, This evening there is sweet creamed rice. The wrinkled face of the grandfather brightened, and he trembled more violently from head to foot, showing that he had understood and was very pleased. The dinner began. Just look, Simone whispered. The old man did not like the soup
and refused to eat it, but was obliged to do it for the good of his health, and the footman forced the spoon into his mouth, while the old man blew so energetically so as not to swallow the soup that it was scattered like a spray all over the table and over his neighbors. The children writhed with laughter at the spectacle, while their father, who was also amused, said, Is not the old man comical? During the whole meal they were taken up solely with him. He devoured
the dishes on the table with his eyes, and tried to seize them and pull them over to him with his trembling hands. They put them almost within his reach, to see his useless efforts, his trembling clutches at them, the piteous appeal of his whole nature, of his eyes, of his mouth, and of his nose as he smelt them, and he slobbered on his table napkin with eagerness while uttering inarticulate grunts, and the whole family was highly amused at this horrible and grotesque scene. Then they put
a tiny morsel on his plate, and he ate with feverish gluttony in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when the sweetened rice was brought in, he nearly had a fit, and groaned with greediness, and Gontran called out to him, you have eaten too much already, you can have no more, and they pretended not to give him any. Then he began to cry. He cried and trembled more violently than ever while all the children laughed. At last, however, they gave him his helping,
a very small piece, and as he ate the first mouthful he made a comical noise in his throat, and a movement with his neck as ducks do when they swallow too large a morsel, and when he had swallowed it he began to stamp his feet so as to get more. I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous tantalus, and interposed on his behalf. Come, give him a little more rice.
But Simone replied, Oh no, my dear fellow, if he were to eat too much, it would harm him at his age. I held my tongue and thought over those words. Oh, ethics! Oh, logic! Oh, wisdom! At his age!
So they deprived him of his only remaining pleasure out of regard for his health. His health! What would he do with it, inert and trembling wreck that he was? They were taking care of his life, so they said. His life? How many days? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? Or a hundred?
Why? For his own sake? Or to preserve for some time longer the spectacle of his impotent greediness in the family? There was nothing left for him to do in this life, nothing whatever. He had one single wish left, one sole pleasure. Why not grant him that last solace until he died?
After we had played cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to bed. I was low-spirited and sad, and I sat at my window. Not a sound could be heard outside with the beautiful warbling of a bird in a tree somewhere in the distance. no doubt the bird was singing in a low voice during the night to lull his mate who was asleep on her eggs and i thought of my poor friend's five children and pictured him to myself snoring by the side of his ugly wife end of section 151 recording by tatiana chichilla columbus ohio
