Thirty Hours with a Corpse, and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol

The Bastard

SEATED ON his stool, an elbow on the table, the man ate his supper slowly, a long interval between every spoonful of soup. The woman was standing by the big open hearth, now and again pushing the blazing twigs into place with her sabot. She talked incessantly, paying no attention to the obstinate silence with which her remarks were received.

“Is it true that the Chaputs have got rid of their old hens? that the Rizoys’ butter has turned?”

Without raising his head he murmured: “I don’t know.”

“And you—what sort of prices did you get?”

“Bah!”

“Why are you so short tonight? What’s the matter with you?”

He put his spoon down. His arms stretched out before him, his two fists on the table, he drew a deep breath as if he were on the point of lifting a heavy sack.

“The matter… the matter…”

He stopped, drew back the plate he had pushed away, cut himself a piece of bread, shut his knife, and drying his mouth with the back of his hand, said:

“Nothing.”

She insisted:

“You’re put out about something…”

For a time there was silence, broken only by the sound of the rain and the wind outside. The fire blazed cheerfully, throwing big lights and shadows on the walls.

Presently the woman said:

“Have you finished your soup? Would you like anything else?”

He shook his head, and his “no” was short and sharp. Ignoring his tone, she began to talk again, telling him the gossip of the village, dwelling on details in the way one would if a man had been absent for a long time and wanted to hear about everyone and everything.

“Do you know about the Heutrots’ dog? The big brown dog? They say it’s gone mad. While they were getting a gun to shoot it, it ran away and no one knows where it is.”

The man whistled between his teeth. She burst out:

“Is that all you’ve got to say? I don’t know what’s the matter with you tonight… Been to the inn, I suppose… though usually when you’ve been there you come home in a good temper, ready to talk! Tonight not a word: you’ve eaten your food as if it was poison, and you haven’t even asked where the boy is.”

He turned slowly toward her, and looking straight in her eyes, asked:

“Is it long since you saw Big Jacquet?”

She was raising her leg to push back a log that had rolled too far forward; the abrupt question seemed to transfix her, and she stood with her foot in the air as she stammered:

“Big Jacquet?… Not for a long time… Why?”

“I thought he came here today…”

“He didn’t.”

“What are you lying for? The postman told me he saw him come out of here this morning.”

She tried to retract:

“That’s right… he looked in for a moment as he passed… I’d forgotten… Why should I remember such a small thing?…”

She shrugged her shoulders and turned away. But the man wanted to talk now.

“Stay where you are,” he said roughly. “I have something to say to you!”

She tried to turn it off, but she had grown very pale and her voice was uncertain.

“What are you looking at me like that for?”

He placed his hand heavily on her shoulder.

“Sit down. This has lasted long enough. It’s got to be settled sooner or later… I’m tired of being the laughing-stock of the village… with them all talking about it even when I’m there. God knows I’ve tried not to believe it… but I’ve had too much of it. I want to know the truth. Big Jacquet is your lover.”

She started violently.

“How have you the face to say such a thing!…”

“It’s no words I want. I want proof. I know now, you see, I know.”

He repeated the “I know! I know!” several times, emphasizing the words by striking his chest heavily at each repetition. Now that he had made the accusation, his anger blazed out. He banged his big hands on the table, shouting imprecations and threats. The woman was trembling, too terrified by this unchained fury to attempt to defend herself with any conviction.

“You thought it would go on like this always, that I was too stupid ever to find out. You’ll see whether I am stupid or not… And that’s not all. Whose child is he, the boy? Which of us is his father?”

She snatched up her apron and hid her face in it, sobbing:

“How can you talk like that… how can you…”

He seized her wrists; his eyes were bloodshot and it was through clenched teeth that he hissed:

“Which of us is his father? Which of us is his father?”

“How could it be any one but you?” she gasped between her sobs. “You know it as well as I do.”

In spite of himself he was moved by her words, by her tears, and his voice softened a little.

“I know nothing about it… Nothing at all… Answer…”

Though she was nearly frightened out of her wits, she saw that her husband was weakening, and feeling she was getting the upper hand she raised her voice:

“For your sake as well as mine, I refuse to take any notice of such a question.”

But anger had mastered him again. The accumulated wrath of months had only subsided for a moment to burst forth with renewed violence. His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper as he said, his arm raised threateningly:

“Listen… You will tell me the truth or—take care! There’ll be murder in this house. I want to know who the father of that child is… We’ll settle about you and me afterwards… But I’ll know about the child now. Do you hear—at once. Do you think

I am going on bringing up another man’s bastard, breaking my back in the sun and rain to leave him a few acres of land? Do you hear? Do you understand? There’ll be murder in this house, I tell you. You and him and the village between you all, you’ll end by driving me mad. I’m done with it!… It’s got to stop… You had nothing but the chemise you stood in when I married you, and long before that they used to see you lying about behind the mills with Jacquet… When the child was born eight months to the day after the wedding, you told me it was the fright you got when the cow went astray. I believed you… but I know better now. They’ve taken care to open my eyes. He isn’t mine, that child! If he is, swear it. Then I shall know what to do. Swear—swear before God!”

Her face was hidden in her hands; her teeth were chattering. She made no reply.

“You whor—”

At this moment the door opened and the child came in, his sabots covered with mud, the hood of his cape over his head. The threatening attitude and loud voice alarmed him. The man did not finish the word. His arm fell, and his voice faltered as he pushed his wife from him, ordering:

“Go to bed.”

Then he turned to the boy, trying to soften his voice as he said:

“You stay here.”

The frightened child took off his cloak, placed his sabots in a corner near the door, and stood motionless.

The man went to a stool near the fire where he sat for some time lost in thought, his elbows on his knees. Presently he raised his head and beckoned to the boy.

“Come here…”

He drew him between his knees, and taking the small head in his hands looked intently at his face in the light of the lamp. He stared with desperate intensity, every nerve strained in the effort to see whom the child resembled. A wave of tenderness rushed through him at the contact with the frightened little creature. He felt he would rather never see the child again than find in him any resemblance to the Other. But some influence he could not control riveted his eyes to the face, fastened his fingers in the hair, pressed his knees tightly against the slim form… Neither could he master a feeling of hate that burned deep down in his heart. At first he hesitated, but desire for the truth proved irresistible. The eyes, the small eyes deep-set in their sockets, they were the eyes of the Other… The mouth that seemed to be always smiling… his mouth; the front teeth with the spaces between them, above all, the hair, the dry, stiff hair that stood up in ruddy disorder… all, everything, down to the smallest detail… Nothing was lacking. God in Heaven!… It was true then. She had deceived him, the whore! She had foisted her lover’s child on him.

The evidence was there, shrieking at him… No need for further proof… the living one stood before him… But he still struggled against certainty, fighting with himself, not wanting to believe, trying to reason away conviction…

He loved this child he had believed his own; he had watched it grow up out of babyhood; it called him “father,” and he was never so happy as when it was running beside him in the fields… Could any one feel like that toward the child of another man?… Surely there was something unique in the feeling a man has for his own flesh and blood, a tenderness he could never have for the child of another man?… The eyes, the hair, the teeth, the mouth might seem the same—but was he not imagining it?

…A noise like a moan broke the silence. He listened… It sounded again… then there came a sort of scratching outside the door, a growl. He pushed the child away, and the boy sat down by the fire and began to play with the twigs. He went to the window, opened it, peered out, and shut it again quickly.

He had seen a large dark mass crouching across the threshold. He knew all the dogs in the village, and by the pointed nose and eyes that glittered in the shadow he had recognized the Heutrots’ dog.

He took his gun from the corner, put two cartridges in it, and was on the point of opening the window to fire when it occurred to him that the noise would frighten the child. He placed the gun on the table, saying:

“Go and find your mother and tell her not to be frightened. I am going to fire at the Heutrots’ dog.”

The child turned toward him. Kneeling before the fire, he was in the full light, and as he made a quick movement his likeness to Big Jacquet was striking… terrifying…

The man’s anger blazed up again; he bent down and was drawing the boy toward him when suddenly an oath strangled in his throat.

There, near the cheek, almost at the corner of the mouth, was a light brown mole, smaller, but a mole exactly like the bigger one Big Jacquet called his “Beauty-Spot.”

The last vestige of doubt vanished. No, this was not his child; he was the child of the other man… Everything round him seemed to fade away, and the blaze on the hearth seemed to enter his chest and burn his flesh. He seized the boy by the collar.

“Get out… Never let me see you again… Out with you!”

The child resisted, but he dragged him with one hand to the door, pulled it open and flung him out as one would some unclean beast, and banged it to again.

A ferocious growl… a cry of agony rang through the darkness. The man stood stupefied, unable to think. But the mother, who had been listening in the next room, came hurrying out. Not seeing the child and noting the wildness in her husband’s eyes, she shouted:

“What have you done?”

Another cry rang out:

“Mother… Moth…”

She rushed outside calling:

“My little one! My little one!”

The child lay panting at the bottom of the steps, his face all torn by the dog’s fangs. The beast tried to keep its grip on its prey, but she paid no attention to it, and seizing the boy in her arms dragged him away.

She laid him on the table. His throat was open, his breath came in short gasps. She showered passionate kisses on his poor mud-filled hair, on his poor little blood-covered face, on his open mouth from which the death-rattle was coming…

…Crouched in a heap on the floor, his eyes shut, his fingers in his ears, the man was sobbing:

“My little one, Holy Virgin, save my little one!”