LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

one of those rural habitations of a mixed character which were all but seigneurial, and which are at the present time occupied by large cultivators, the dogs, lashed beside the apple-trees in the orchard near the house, kept barking and howling at the sight of the shooting-bags carried by the gamekeepers and the boys. In the spacious dining-room kitchen, Hautot Senior and Hautot Junior, M. Bermont, the tax-collector, and M. Mondaru, the notary, were taking a bite and drinking some wine before going out to shoot, for it was the opening day.

      Hautot Senior, proud of all his possessions, talked boastfully beforehand of the game which his guests were going to find on his lands. He was a big Norman, one of those powerful, ruddy, bony men, who can lift wagonloads of apples on their shoulders. Half peasant, half gentleman, rich, respected, influential, invested with authority, he made his son C?sar go as far as the third form at school, so that he might be an educated man, and there he had brought his studies to a stop for fear of his becoming a fine gentleman and paying no attention to the land.

      C?sar Hautot, almost as tall as his father, but thinner, was a good son, docile, content with everything, full of admiration, respect, and deference for the wishes and opinions of his sire.

      M. Bermont, the tax-collector, a stout little man, who showed on his red cheeks a thin network of violet veins resembling the tributaries and the winding courses of rivers on maps, asked:

      "And hares--are there any hares on it?"

      Hautot Senior answered: "As many as you like, especially in the Puysatier lands."

      "Which direction shall we begin in?" asked the notary, a jolly notary, fat and pale, big-paunched too, and strapped up in an entirely new hunting costume bought at Rouen.

      "Well, that way, through these grounds. We will drive the partridges into the plain, and we will beat there again."

      And Hautot Senior rose up. They all followed his example, took their guns out of the corners, examined the locks, stamped with their feet in order to feel themselves firmer in their boots which were rather hard, not having as yet been rendered flexible by the heat of the blood. Then they went out; and the dogs, standing erect at the ends of their leashes, gave vent to piercing howls while beating the air with their paws.

      They set forth for the lands referred to. These consisted of a little glen, or rather a long undulating stretch of inferior soil, which had on that account remained uncultivated, furrowed with mountain-torrents, covered with ferns, an excellent preserve for game.

      The sportsmen took up their positions at some distance from each other, Hautot Senior posting himself at the right, Hautot Junior at the left, and the two guests in the middle. The keeper and those who carried the game-bags followed. It was the anxious moment when the first shot is awaited, when the heart beats a little, while the nervous finger keeps feeling at the trigger every second.

      Suddenly the shot went off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped, and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at great speed to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and disappeared in his turn into the thicket in quest of his game.

      Almost at the same instant, a second shot was heard.

      "Ha! ha! the rascal!" exclaimed M. Bermont, "he will unearth a hare down there."

      They all waited, with their eyes riveted on the heap of branches through which their gaze failed to penetrate.

      The notary, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, shouted:

      "Have you got them?"

      Hautot Senior made no response.

      Then C?sar, turning toward the keeper, said to him:

      "Just go and assist him, Joseph. We must keep walking in a straight line. We'll wait."

      And Joseph, an old stump of a man, lean and knotty, all of whose joints formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine, searching at every opening through which a passage could be effected with the cautiousness of a fox. Then, suddenly, he cried:

      "Oh! come! come! an unfortunate thing has occurred."

      They all hurried forward, plunging through the briers.

      The elder Hautot, who had fallen on his side, in a fainting condition, kept both his hands over his stomach, from which flowed down upon the grass through the linen vest torn by the lead, long streamlets of blood. As he was laying down his gun, in order to seize the partridge within reach of him, he had let the firearm fall, and the second discharge, going off with the shock, had torn open his entrails. They drew him out of the trench; they removed his clothes and they saw a frightful wound, through which the intestines came out. Then, after having bandaged him the best way they could, they brought him back to his own house, and awaited the doctor, who had been sent for, as well as a priest.

      When the doctor arrived, he gravely shook his head, and, turning toward young Hautot, who was sobbing on a chair:

      "My poor boy," said he, "this does not look well."

      But, when the dressing was finished, the wounded man moved his fingers, opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around him troubled, haggard glances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to understand, and he murmured:

      "Ah! good God! this has done for me!"

      The doctor held his hand.

      "Why no, why no, some days of rest merely--it will be nothing."

      Hautot returned:

      "It has done for me! My stomach is split open! I know it well."

      Then, all of a sudden:

      "I want to talk to the son, if I have the time."

      Hautot Junior, in spite of himself, shed tears, and kept repeating like a little boy:

      "P'pa, p'pa, poor p'pa!"

      But the father, in a firmer tone:

      "Come! stop crying--this is not the time for it. I have to talk to you. Sit down there quite close to me. It will be quickly done, and I shall be more calm. As for the rest of you, kindly give me one minute."

      They all went out, leaving the father and son face to face.

      As soon as they were alone:

      "Listen, son! you are twenty-four years; one can say things like this to you. And then there is not such mystery about these matters as we import into them. You know well that your mother has been seven years dead, isn't that so? and that I am not more than forty-five years myself, seeing that I got married at nineteen? Is not that true?"

      The son faltered:

      "Yes, it is true."

      "So then your mother has been seven years dead, and I have remained a widower. Well! a man like me cannot remain without a wife at thirty-eight, isn't that true?"

      The son replied:

      "Yes, it is true."

      The father, out of breath, quite pale, and his face contracted with suffering, went on:

      "God! what pain I feel! Well, you understand. Man is not made to live alone, but I did not want to take a successor to your mother, since I promised her not to do so. Then--you understand?"

      "Yes, father."

      "So, I kept a young girl at Rouen, Rue d'Eperlan 18, in the third story, the second door,--I tell you all this, don't forget,--but a young girl, who has been very nice to me, loving, devoted, a true woman, eh? You comprehend, my lad?"

      "Yes, father."

      "So then, if I am carried off, I owe something to her, something substantial, that will place her in a safe position. You understand?"

Скачать книгу