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

The Appalling Gift

M. ANDMME. Jutelier recoiled in horror as they unpacked Aunt Sophie’s gift. M. Jutelier was the first to recover his powers of speech, but it was only to enunciate in accents of despair, “And to think that now we have to put that thing somewhere where she can see it!” Whereupon Mme. Jutelier, whose temperament led her to dare extreme measures, cried out, “Never! I’d rather have her cut us out of her will and be done with it.” But her husband shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t talk nonsense.”

Once again they stood in despairing silence while on the table in front of them the vase spread out its enormous lacquered paunch, decorated with flowers, with fruit, and with seashells. In the middle of these decorations, a coiled serpent darted out a long red tongue, and here and there the leaves of waterplants hung in festoons that were intended to be decorative. The base was blue and the inside was salmon pink. “There is no doubt about it,” murmured M. Jutelier, “that thing has no equal for ugliness.”

“It simply means,” said Mme. Jutelier, “that our apartment is ruined.”

“Oh, la, la la!” groaned M. Jutelier, “and it was all so nice and cosy.”

Giving free rein to his despair he cast his eyes about the room for some place to put the terrifying gift with results that would not be too disastrous. The mantelpiece—impossible. The table—less possible still. The buffet—the thought brought tears to his eyes. He suggested the salon, but Mme. Jutelier announced firmly, “If that thing goes through the door of the salon, I go through the street door.”

“In the bedroom,” he ventured.

Mme. Jutelier turned pale with anger.

“Not in my room! Why not in your office?”

M. Jutelier explained that was the very last place one could think of. As an architect he was called upon to receive clients, who would flee from the mere presence of such an object. They passed all their rooms in review, and at the mention of each one Mme. Jutelier set up stubborn opposition. She had not been collecting the loveliest bibelots and weeding out everything that was not in perfect taste, for all these years, in order to have this monstrosity thrust in among her treasures. And then suddenly M. Jutelier smote his forehead.

“How many times a year does Aunt Sophie come to visit us? Twice, or say three times. In the winter she does not go out because of her rheumatism, and from July to October she is in the country. Being a personage above the common station, and expecting to be received with the ceremonies due her, she always announces her visits in advance. All we have to do is to put this horror in the attic and bring it down when we hear she is coming. That way we can arrange everything, and later on, at the very last, when the poor old lady is dead, why then, if we have a country house, it will do to put it in the guest chamber.”

“To give our guests the nightmare? No, sir, when that time comes we’ll smash it.”

“All right then; smash it if you want to”—and having made mutual concessions they embraced each other.

Next Sunday Aunt Sophie arrived. They had carefully put chairs on each landing so that the dear lady could rest on her way up, and they had set the vase on the table so that her eye would fall on it the very first thing. But being a discreet old soul, she pretended not to see it at once, and her niece had to remark, with an ecstatic smile, “Do you think your vase is in the right place?”

“Yes,” murmured Aunt Sophie, “but I think I should have preferred the mantelpiece. Then you can see it a second time in the mirror.”

“Your aunt is right,” said Mme. Jutelier to her husband, “and if we put a green plant in it—”

“Well, do as you want to,” said Aunt Sophie, “but for my part I’d rather see a little moss with artificial roses stuck in it. They look so pretty if you use all the colors. I’ll send you some. I have a lot.”

The household burst into a chorus of thanks, and Aunt Sophie departed, charmed.

“Well,” said M. Jutelier when they were alone again, “everything went off very well, and we are all right for the moment. You will see; everything will arrange itself.”

They put the vase out of sight, and life went on as usual. About Easter time Aunt Sophie came back. This time she brought the promised flowers, and this was the occasion of an affectionate and delightful discussion. Ought the artificial roses to be arranged according to color or according to size? Aunt Sophie’s opinion prevailed, and with her own hands she erected a hanging garden of the most ravishing description.

Summer came and brought vacation. Autumn came and brought rheumatism. As New Year’s Day approached the household trembled before a new fear. Suppose Aunt Sophie took it into her head to make them another New Year’s gift! She did not have this idea, however, but another one, a hundred times more dreadful. One day she called without sending word ahead; but fortunately Mme. Jutelier had seen her getting out of the taxi, and had just time to climb to the sixth story and bring down the object of art.

This alarm served its purpose. Since such an incident might occur again, they practiced the maneuver until it was all carefully worked out. As soon as a new maid was engaged, before they showed her in which closet Monsieur kept his coats, or where Madame kept her hats, they showed her, the very first thing, where the vase belonged, and told her how if by any chance a fat lady—dressed in black, wearing a capote, and carrying an umbrella no matter what the weather—should arrive when they were away, she must first of all lock the door of the dining-room and not open it on any pretext whatever until she had put the vase on the mantelpiece.

And yet this did not keep Madame Jutelier from saying to Aunt Sophie every time she called, “Come and see us oftener, my dear aunt; you are neglecting us.”

On the third Monday in February, after her usual custom, Aunt Sophie wrote a letter to announce her coming. As soon as they received it, everybody got ready to greet her. Madame Jutelier said to her maid after lunch, “Josephine, go to the sixth story, get the vase, dust it, and bring it down here.”

She was just getting its place ready on the mantelpiece when a terrible crash made her leap up and rush out to the landing, with her heart in her mouth and a terrible foreboding in her soul.

The misfortune exceeded the worst that she could imagine. Hanging over the banister, with round eyes, Josephine was staring down upon the shattered fragments of the vase. It had been smashed so small that the whole stairway was powdered with it. At his wife’s shriek of dismay, M. Jutelier came running. For a moment he was too stupefied to speak, and then he had the most absurd ideas.

“Why don’t you send a telegram to say you’re very sick?”

“But Aunt Sophie is already on the way!”

“Suppose I try to find another vase like it?”

“In an hour?”

They waited, overwhelmed. At three o’clock Aunt Sophie came. Immediately the pallor of her young relatives struck her.

“What is wrong, my children? You look out of sorts.”

“Henri will explain,” sobbed Mme. Jutelier. And Henri explained. “A misfortune, a great misfortune. The beautiful vase that you gave us, the vase we loved so much—all broken! That miserable maid of ours. We told her never to dust it with a feather duster, and she knocked it off on the floor this very morning.”

He burst into tears, which were almost genuine. Aunt Sophie drew herself up and murmured, “That is certainly too bad. That is certainly too bad.”

“Oh,” groaned her niece, “I shall never feel the same again.”

“You must never utter such words except over human beings,” said her aunt with a certain dryness.

“And yet—oh aunt, aunt, you do not know—you can’t know how much we liked it. It was so pretty, and then, besides, it came from you.”

Aunt Sophie had not yet accepted the armchair that her nephew was delicately pushing up behind her. Madame Jutelier waited for a gesture, for a word, but Aunt Sophie crossed her cloak over her breast and started toward the door. M. and Mme. Jutelier held out suppliant arms toward her. She paused and lifted her finger: “Never mind. I know where to find one just like it, and I will go there right away. Only this time you must do what I do with my own valuable things. You must have it cemented fast to the mantelpiece. All you have to do is to hunt up my workman. In fact, it will be simpler if I send him to you myself.”