Ten Tales | Page 5

the bailiff, a scoffer, dressed invariably in black, scorned for his inelegant habit of carrying off what remained of his sugar; the town-clerk, the gentleman of acrostics, a person of much amiability and a feeble constitution, who sent to the illustrated journals solutions of enigmas and rebuses; and, lastly, the veterinary surgeon of the place, the only one who, from his position of atheist and democrat, was allowed to contradict the Captain. This practitioner, a man with tufted whiskers and eye-glasses, presided over the radical committee of electors, and when the cur�� took up a little collection among his devotees for the purpose of adorning his church with some frightful red and gilded statues, denounced, in a letter to the Si��cle, the cupidity of the Jesuits.
The Captain having gone out one evening for some cigars after an animated political discussion, the aforesaid veterinary grumbled to himself certain phrases of heavy irritation concerning "coming to the point," and "a mere fencing-master," and "cutting a figure." But as the object of these vague menaces suddenly returned, whistling a march and beating time with his cane, the incident was without result.
In short, the group lived harmoniously together, and willingly permitted themselves to be presided over by the new-comer, whose white beard and martial bearing were quite impressive. And the small city, proud of so many things, was also proud of its retired Captain.
III.
Perfect happiness exists nowhere, and Captain Mercadier, who believed that he had found it at the Caf�� Prosper, soon recovered from his illusion.
For one thing, on Mondays, the market-day, the Caf�� Prosper was untenantable.
From early morning it was overrun with truck-peddlers, farmers, and poultrymen. Heavy men with coarse voices, red necks, and great whips in their hands, wearing blue blouses and otter-skin caps, bargaining over their cups, stamping their feet, striking their fists, familiar with the servant, and bungling at billiards.
When the Captain came, at eleven o'clock, for his first glass of absinthe, he found this crowd gathered, and already half-drunk, ordering a quantity of lunches. His usual place was taken, and he was served slowly and badly. The bell was continually sounding, and the proprietor and the waiter, with napkins under their arms, were running distractedly hither and thither. In short, it was an ill-omened day, which upset his entire existence.
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Now, one Monday morning, when he was resting quietly at home, being sure that the caf�� would be much too full and busy, the mild radiance of the autumn sun persuaded him to go down and sit upon the stone seat by the side of the house. He was sitting there, depressed and smoking a damp cigar, when he saw coming down the end of the street--it was a badly paved lane leading out into the country--a little girl of eight or ten, driving before her a half-dozen geese.
As the Captain looked carelessly at the child he saw that she had a wooden leg.
There was nothing paternal in the heart of the soldier. It was that of a hardened bachelor. In former days, in the streets of Algiers, when the little begging Arabs pursued him with their importunate prayers, the Captain had often chased them away with blows from his whip; and on those rare occasions when he had penetrated the nomadic household of some comrade who was married and the father of a family, he had gone away cursing the crying babies and awkward children who had touched with their greasy hands the gilding on his uniform.
But the sight of that particular infirmity, which recalled to him the sad spectacle of wounds and amputations, touched, on that account, the old soldier. He felt almost a constriction of the heart at the sight of that sorry creature, half-clothed in her tattered petticoats and old chemise, bravely running along behind her geese, her bare foot in the dust, and limping on her ill-made wooden stump.
The geese, recognizing their home, turned into the poultry-yard, and the little one was about to follow them when the Captain stopped her with this question:
"Eh! little girl, what's your name?"
"Pierette, monsieur, at your service," she answered, looking at him with her great black eyes, and pushing her disordered locks from her forehead.
"You live in this house, then? I haven't seen you before."
"Yes, I know you pretty well, though, for I sleep under the stairs, and you wake me up every evening when you come home."
"Is that so, my girl? Ah, well, I must walk on my toes in future. How old are you?"
"Nine, monsieur, come All-Saints day."
"Is the landlady here a relative of yours?"
"No, monsieur, I am in service."
"And they give you?"
"Soup, and a bed under the stairs."
"And how came you to be lame like that, my poor little one?"
"By the kick of a cow when I was five."
"Have you a father or mother?"
The child blushed