By Guy de Maupassant
UNE VEUVE (A short story in French)
UNA VIUDA (A short story in Spanish)
This story
was told during the hunting season at the Chateau Baneville. The autumn had
been rainy and sad. The red leaves, instead of rustling under the feet, were
rotting under the heavy downfalls.
The forest was as damp as it could be. From it
came an odor of must, of rain, of soaked grass and wet earth; and the
sportsmen, their backs hunched under the downpour, mournful dogs, with tails
between their legs and hairs sticking to their sides, and the young women, with
their clothes drenched, returned every evening, tired in body and in mind.
After dinner, in the large drawing-room,
everybody played lotto, without enjoyment, while the wind whistled madly around
the house. Then they tried telling stories like those they read in books, but
no one was able to invent anything amusing. The hunters told tales of wonderful
shots and of the butchery of rabbits; and the women racked their brains for
ideas without revealing the imagination of Scheherezade. They were about to
give up this diversion when a young woman, who was idly caressing the hand of
an old maiden aunt, noticed a little ring made of blond hair, which she had
often seen, without paying any attention to it.
She fingered it gently and asked,
"Auntie, what is this ring? It looks as if it were made from the hair of a
child."
The old lady blushed, grew pale, then answered
in a trembling voice: "It is sad, so sad that I never wish to speak of it.
All the unhappiness of my life comes from that. I was very young then, and the
memory has remained so painful that I weep every time I think of it."
Immediately everybody wished to know the story, but
the old lady refused to tell it. Finally, after they had coaxed her for a long
time, she yielded. Here is the story:
"You have often heard me speak of the Santeze
family, now extinct. I knew the last three male members of this family. They
all died in the same manner; this hair belongs to the last one. He was thirteen
when he killed himself for me. That seems strange to you, doesn't it?
"Oh! it was a strange family--mad, if you will,
but a charming madness, the madness of love. From father to son, all had
violent passions which filled their whole being, which impelled them to do wild
things, drove them to frantic enthusiasm, even to crime. This was born in them,
just as burning devotion is in certain souls. Trappers have not the same nature
as minions of the drawing-room. There was a saying: 'As passionate as a
Santeze.' This could be noticed by looking at them. They all had wavy hair,
falling over their brows, curly beards and large eyes whose glance pierced and
moved one, though one could not say why.
"The grandfather of the owner of this hair, of
whom it is the last souvenir, after many adventures, duels and elopements, at
about sixty- five fell madly in love with his farmer's daughter. I knew them
both. She was blond, pale, distinguished-looking, with a slow manner of
talking, a quiet voice and a look so gentle that one might have taken her for a
Madonna. The old nobleman took her to his home and was soon so captivated with
her that he could not live without her for a minute. His daughter and
daughter-in-law, who lived in the chateau, found this perfectly natural, love
was such a tradition in the family. Nothing in regard to a passion surprised
them, and if one spoke before them of parted lovers, even of vengeance after
treachery, both said in the same sad tone: 'Oh, how he must have suffered to
come to that point!' That was all. They grew sad over tragedies of love, but
never indignant, even when they were criminal.
"Now, one day a young man named Monsieur de
Gradelle, who had been invited for the shooting, eloped with the young girl.
"Monsieur de Santeze remained calm as if nothing had
happened, but one morning he was found hanging in the kennels, among his dogs.
"His son died in the same manner in a hotel in
Paris during a journey which he made there in 1841, after being deceived by a
singer from the opera.
"He left a twelve-year-old child and a widow,
my mother's sister. She came to my father's house with the boy, while we were
living at Bertillon. I was then seventeen.
"You have no idea how wonderful and precocious
this Santeze child was. One might have thought that all the tenderness and
exaltation of the whole race had been stored up in this last one. He was always
dreaming and walking about alone in a great alley of elms leading from the
chateau to the forest. I watched from my window this sentimental boy, who
walked with thoughtful steps, his hands behind his back, his head bent, and at
times stopping to raise his eyes as if he could see and understand things that
were not comprehensible at his age.
"Often after dinner on clear evenings, he would
say to me: 'Let us go outside and dream, cousin.' And we would go outside together
in the park. He would stop quickly before a clearing where the white vapor of
the moon lights the woods, and he would press my hand, saying: 'Look! look! but
you don't understand me; I feel it. If you understood me, we should be happy.
One must love to know! I would laugh and then kiss this child, who loved me
madly.
"Often, after dinner, he would sit on my mother's
knees. 'Come, auntie,' he would say, 'tell me some love-stories.' And my
mother, as a joke, would tell him all the old legends of the family, all the
passionate adventures of his forefathers, for thousands of them were current,
some true and some false. It was their reputation for love and gallantry which
was the ruin of every one of these-men; they gloried in it and then thought
that they had to live up to the renown of their house.
"The little fellow became exalted by these
tender or terrible stories, and at times he would clap his hands, crying: 'I,
too, I, too, know how to love, better than all of them!'
"Then, he began to court me in a timid and tender
manner, at which every one laughed, it was, so amusing. Every morning I had
some flowers picked by him, and every evening before going to his room he would
kiss my hand and murmur: 'I love you!'
"I was guilty, very guilty, and I grieved continually
about it, and I have been doing penance all my life; I have remained an old
maid--or, rather, I have lived as a widowed fiancee, his widow.
"I was amused at this childish tenderness,
and I even encouraged him. I was coquettish, as charming as with a man,
alternately caressing and severe. I maddened this child. It was a game for me
and a joyous diversion for his mother and mine. He was twelve! think of it! Who
would have taken this atom's passion seriously? I kissed him as often as he
wished; I even wrote him little notes, which were read by our respective
mothers; and he answered me by passionate letters, which I have kept. Judging
himself as a man, he thought that our loving intimacy was secret. We had
forgotten that he was a Santeze.
"This lasted for about a year. One evening in
the park he fell at my feet and, as he madly kissed the hem of my dress, he
kept repeating: 'I love you! I love you! I love you! If ever you deceive me, if
ever you leave me for another, I'll do as my father did.' And he added in a
hoarse voice, which gave me a shiver: 'You know what he did!'
"Istood there astonished. He arose, and
standing on the tips of his toes in order to reach my ear, for I was taller
than he, he pronounced my first name: 'Genevieve!' in such a gentle, sweet,
tender tone that I trembled all over. I stammered: 'Let us return! let us
return!' He said no more and followed me; but as we were going up the steps of
the porch, he stopped me, saying: 'You know, if ever you leave me, I'll kill
myself.'
"This time I understood that I had gone too far,
and I became quite reserved. One day, as he was reproaching me for this, I
answered: 'You are now too old for jesting and too young for serious love. I'll
wait.'
"I thought that this would end the matter. In
the autumn he was sent to a boarding-school. When he returned the following
summer I was engaged to be married. He understood immediately, and for a week
he became so pensive that I was quite anxious.
"On the morning of the ninth day I saw a
little paper under my door as I got up. I seized it, opened it and read: 'You
have deserted me and you know what I said. It is death to which you have
condemned me. As I do not wish to be found by another than you, come to the
park just where I told you last year that I loved you and look in the air.'
"I thought that I should go mad. I dressed as
quickly as I could and ran wildly to the place that he had mentioned. His
little cap was on the ground in the mud. It had been raining all night. I
raised my eyes and saw something swinging among the leaves, for the wind was
blowing a gale.
"I don't know what I did after that. I must
have screamed at first, then fainted and fallen, and finally have run to the
chateau. The next thing that I remember I was in bed, with my mother sitting beside
me.
"I thought that I had dreamed all this in a
frightful nightmare. I stammered: 'And what of him, what of him, Gontran?'
There was no answer. It was true!
"I did not dare see him again, but I asked
for a lock of his blond hair. Here-here it is!"
And the old maid stretched out her trembling
hand in a despairing gesture. Then she blew her nose several times, wiped her
eyes and continued:
"I broke off my marriage--without saying why.
And I--I always have remained the--the widow of this thirteen-year-old
boy." Then her head fell on her breast and she wept for a long time.
As the guests were retiring for the night a
large man, whose quiet she had disturbed, whispered in his neighbor's ear:
"Isn't it unfortunate to, be so sentimental?"
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