The first thing I did was to look at the clock as I entered the waiting-
room of the station at Loubain, and I found that I had to wait two hours
and ten minutes for the Paris express.
I had walked twenty miles and felt suddenly tired. Not seeing anything
on the station walls to amuse me, I went outside and stood there racking
my brains to think of something to do. The street was a kind of
boulevard, planted with acacias, and on either side a row of houses of
varying shape and different styles of architecture, houses such as one
only sees in a small town, and ascended a slight hill, at the extreme end
of which there were some trees, as though it ended in a park.
From time to time a cat crossed the street and jumped over the gutters
carefully. A cur sniffed at every tree and hunted for scraps from the
kitchens, but I did not see a single human being, and I felt listless and
disheartened. What could I do with myself? I was already thinking of
the inevitable and interminable visit to the small cafe at the railway
station, where I should have to sit over a glass of undrinkable beer and
the illegible newspaper, when I saw a funeral procession coming out of a
side street into the one in which I was, and the sight of the hearse was
a relief to me. It would, at any rate, give me something to do for ten
minutes.
Suddenly, however, my curiosity was aroused. The hearse was followed by
eight gentlemen, one of whom was weeping, while the others were chatting
together, but there was no priest, and I thought to myself:
"This is a non-religious funeral," and then I reflected that a town like
Loubain must contain at least a hundred freethinkers, who would have made
a point of making a manifestation. What could it be, then? The rapid
pace of the procession clearly proved that the body was to be buried
without ceremony, and, consequently, without the intervention of the
Church.
My idle curiosity framed the most complicated surmises, and as the hearse
passed me, a strange idea struck me, which was to follow it, with the
eight gentlemen. That would take up my time for an hour, at least, and I
accordingly walked with the others, with a sad look on my face, and, on
seeing this, the two last turned round in surprise, and then spoke to
each other in a low voice.
No doubt they were asking each other whether I belonged to the town, and
then they consulted the two in front of them, who stared at me in turn.
This close scrutiny annoyed me, and to put an end to it I went up to
them, and, after bowing, I said:
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for interrupting your conversation, but,
seeing a civil funeral, I have followed it, although I did not know the
deceased gentleman whom you are accompanying."
"It was a woman," one of them said.
I was much surprised at hearing this, and asked:
"But it is a civil funeral, is it not?"
The other gentleman, who evidently wished to tell me all about it, then
said: "Yes and no. The clergy have refused to allow us the use of the
church."
On hearing this I uttered a prolonged "A-h!" of astonishment. I could
not understand it at all, but my obliging neighbor continued:
"It is rather a long story. This young woman committed suicide, and that
is the reason why she cannot be buried with any religious ceremony.
The gentleman who is walking first, and who is crying, is her husband."
I replied with some hesitation:
"You surprise and interest me very much, monsieur. Shall I be indiscreet
if I ask you to tell me the facts of the case? If I am troubling you,
forget that I have said anything about the matter."
The gentleman took my arm familiarly.
"Not at all, not at all. Let us linger a little behind the others, and I
will tell it you, although it is a very sad story. We have plenty of
time before getting to the cemetery, the trees of which you see up
yonder, for it is a stiff pull up this hill."
And he began:
"This young woman, Madame Paul Hamot, was the daughter of a wealthy
merchant in the neighborhood, Monsieur Fontanelle. When she was a mere
child of eleven, she had a shocking adventure; a footman attacked her and
she nearly died. A terrible criminal case was the result, and the man
was sentenced to penal servitude for life.
"The little girl grew up, stigmatized by disgrace, isolated, without any
companions; and grown-up people would scarcely kiss her, for they thought
that they would soil their lips if they touched her forehead, and she
became a sort of monster, a phenomenon to all the town. People said to
each other in a whisper: 'You know, little Fontanelle,' and everybody
turned away in the streets when she passed. Her parents could not even
get a nurse to take her out for a walk, as the other servants held aloof
from her, as if contact with her would poison everybody who came near
her.
"It was pitiable to see the poor child go and play every afternoon. She
remained quite by herself, standing by her maid and looking at the other
children amusing themselves. Sometimes, yielding to an irresistible
desire to mix with the other children, she advanced timidly, with nervous
gestures, and mingled with a group, with furtive steps, as if conscious
of her own disgrace. And immediately the mothers, aunts and nurses would
come running from every seat and take the children entrusted to their
care by the hand and drag them brutally away.
"Little Fontanelle remained isolated, wretched, without understanding
what it meant, and then she began to cry, nearly heartbroken with grief,
and then she used to run and hide her head in her nurse's lap, sobbing.
"As she grew up, it was worse still. They kept the girls from her, as if
she were stricken with the plague. Remember that she had nothing to
learn, nothing; that she no longer had the right to the symbolical wreath
of orange-flowers; that almost before she could read she had penetrated
that redoubtable mystery which mothers scarcely allow their daughters to
guess at, trembling as they enlighten them on the night of their
marriage.
"When she went through the streets, always accompanied by her governess,
as if, her parents feared some fresh, terrible adventure, with her eyes
cast down under the load of that mysterious disgrace which she felt was
always weighing upon her, the other girls, who were not nearly so
innocent as people thought, whispered and giggled as they looked at her
knowingly, and immediately turned their heads absently, if she happened
to look at them. People scarcely greeted her; only a few men bowed to
her, and the mothers pretended not to see her, while some young
blackguards called her Madame Baptiste, after the name of the footman who
had attacked her.
"Nobody knew the secret torture of her mind, for she hardly ever spoke,
and never laughed, and her parents themselves appeared uncomfortable in
her presence, as if they bore her a constant grudge for some irreparable
fault.
"An honest man would not willingly give his hand to a liberated convict,
would he, even if that convict were his own son? And Monsieur and Madame
Fontanelle looked on their daughter as they would have done on a son who
had just been released from the hulks. She was pretty and pale, tall,
slender, distinguished-looking, and she would have pleased me very much,
monsieur, but for that unfortunate affair.
"Well, when a new sub-prefect was appointed here, eighteen months ago,
he brought his private secretary with him. He was a queer sort of fellow,
who had lived in the Latin Quarter, it appears. He saw Mademoiselle
Fontanelle and fell in love with her, and when told of what occurred, he
merely said:
"'Bah! That is just a guarantee for the future, and I would rather it
should have happened before I married her than afterward. I shall live
tranquilly with that woman.'
"He paid his addresses to her, asked for her hand and married her, and
then, not being deficient in assurance, he paid wedding calls, as if
nothing had happened. Some people returned them, others did not; but,
at last, the affair began to be forgotten, and she took her proper place
in society.
"She adored her husband as if he had been a god; for, you must remember,
he had restored her to honor and to social life, had braved public
opinion, faced insults, and, in a word, performed such a courageous act
as few men would undertake, and she felt the most exalted and tender love
for him.
"When she became enceinte, and it was known, the most particular people
and the greatest sticklers opened their doors to her, as if she had been
definitely purified by maternity.
"It is strange, but so it is, and thus everything was going on as well as
possible until the other day, which was the feast of the patron saint of
our town. The prefect, surrounded by his staff and the authorities,
presided at the musical competition, and when he had finished his speech
the distribution of medals began, which Paul Hamot, his private
secretary, handed to those who were entitled to them.
"As you know, there are always jealousies and rivalries, which make
people forget all propriety. All the ladies of the town were there on the
platform, and, in his turn, the bandmaster from the village of Mourmillon
came up. This band was only to receive a second-class medal, for one
cannot give first-class medals to everybody, can one? But when the
private secretary handed him his badge, the man threw it in his face and
exclaimed:
"'You may keep your medal for Baptiste. You owe him a first-class one,
also, just as you do me.'
"There were a number of people there who began to laugh. The common herd
are neither charitable nor refined, and every eye was turned toward that
poor lady. Have you ever seen a woman going mad, monsieur? Well, we
were present at the sight! She got up and fell back on her chair three
times in succession, as if she wished to make her escape, but saw that
she could not make her way through the crowd, and then another voice in
the crowd exclaimed:
"'Oh! Oh! Madame Baptiste!'
"And a great uproar, partly of laughter and partly of indignation, arose.
The word was repeated over and over again; people stood on tiptoe to see
the unhappy woman's face; husbands lifted their wives up in their arms,
so that they might see her, and people asked:
"'Which is she? The one in blue?'
"The boys crowed like cocks, and laughter was heard all over the place.
"She did not move now on her state chair, but sat just as if she had been
put there for the crowd to look at. She could not move, nor conceal
herself, nor hide her face. Her eyelids blinked quickly, as if a vivid
light were shining on them, and she breathed heavily, like a horse that
is going up a steep hill, so that it almost broke one's heart to see her.
Meanwhile, however, Monsieur Hamot had seized the ruffian by the throat,
and they were rolling on the ground together, amid a scene of
indescribable confusion, and the ceremony was interrupted.
"An hour later, as the Hamots were returning home, the young woman, who
had not uttered a word since the insult, but who was trembling as if all
her nerves had been set in motion by springs, suddenly sprang over the
parapet of the bridge and threw herself into the river before her husband
could prevent her. The water is very deep under the arches, and it was
two hours before her body was recovered. Of course, she was dead."
The narrator stopped and then added:
"It was, perhaps, the best thing she could do under the circumstances.
There are some things which cannot be wiped out, and now you understand
why the clergy refused to have her taken into church. Ah! If it had been
a religious funeral the whole town would have been present, but you can
understand that her suicide added to the other affair and made families
abstain from attending her funeral; and then, it is not an easy matter
here to attend a funeral which is performed without religious rites."
We passed through the cemetery gates and I waited, much moved by what I
had heard, until the coffin had been lowered into the grave, before I
went up to the poor fellow who was sobbing violently, to press his hand
warmly. He looked at me in surprise through his tears and then said:
"Thank you, monsieur." And I was not sorry that I had followed the funeral.
________
-THE END
Guy de Maupassant's short story: Madame Baptiste
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