The spasm by g the Mopa sun. The hotel guests slowly entered the dining
room and took their places. The waiters did not hurry themselves in order to
keep the late comers a chance, and as avoid the trouble of bringing the
dishes a second time. The old bathers the bit way, whose season was
almost over planned, gazed towards the door whenever it opened, to see what
new faces might appear. This is the principal disfraction of watering places. People
look forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new arrivals,
to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.
We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make agreeable
acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In this life of elbowings,
a known strangers assume an extreme importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is
ready to exhibit itself, and sossibility is the order of day. We cherish
antipathies for a week and friendships for a month. We see people with different
eyes when we view them through the medium of acquaintanceship. At watering places,
we discovering men suddenly after an hour's chat in the evening after dinner under the
trees in the park, where the healing spring bubbles up a high intelligence and
astonishing merits. And a month afterward we have completely forgotten these new friends who
are so fascinating when we first met them. Permanent and serious ties are also
formed here, sooner than anyone else. People see each other every day.
They become acquainted very quickly, and their affection is staged with the sweetness and
honnestraint of long sending intimacies. We cherish in after years the dear and tender
memories of those first hours of friendship, the memory of those first conversations in
which a soul is unveiled, of those first glances which interrogate and respond to
questions and secret thoughts which out as not yet uttered, the memory of the
first cordial confidence, the memory of the delightful sensation of opening our hearts to
those who seemed to open theirs was in return, and the melancholy of watering
places, the monotony of days that are all alike, proves hourly and incentive
to this heart expansion. While this evening, as on every other evening,
were awaited the appearance of strange faces. Only two appeared, but they were
very remarkable, and men and a woman, father and daughter. They immediately
reminded me of some Edgar Post characters, And yet there was about them a
charm, the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims
of fate. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with
perfectly white hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy. And there was
in his bearing and his person that asserty peculiar to Protestants. The daughter,
who was probably twenty four twenty five, was small in stature, and was
also very thin, very pale, and had the air of one who was
worn out with utter lassitude. We meet people like this from time to time,
who seemed too weak for the tasks and the need of daily life,
too weak to move about, to walk, to do all that we do
every day. She was surrounded pretty, with a transparent, spiritual beauty,
and she ate with extreme slowness, as if she were almost incapable of moving
her arms. It must have been, she assuredly, who had come to
take the waters. They sat facing me on the opposite side of the table,
and I at once noticed that the father had a very singular nervous twitching
every time he wanted to reach an object. His undescribed a sort of zigzag
before succeeded in reaching what it was in search of. And after a little
while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside my head in order not
to see it. I noticed too that the young girl during me wore a
glove on her left hand. After dinner, I went for a stroll in
the park of the bathing establishment. This led toward the little over niestation of
Chatel Guyon, hidden in a garge at the foot of the high mountain,
from which flowed so many bowling springs arising from the deep bed of extinct volcanoes.
Over yonder above our heads, the domes of extinct craters lifted the erect
peaks above the rest in the long mountain chain. For Chatel Guyon is situated
at the entrance to the land of mountain domes. Beyond it stretches out the
region of peaks, and farther on again the region of precipitous summits. The
Pewed Dome is the highest of the domes. The peak of Sancy is the
loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitious of these mountain heights.
It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down
a shady path, listening to the opening strains of the casino band, which
was laying on an elevation overlooking the park, and I saw the father and
the daughter advancing slowly in my direction. I bowed as one bows to one
hotel companion's at watering place, and the man, coming suddenly to a halt,
said to me, could you not, monsieur tell us of a nice
walk to take, short, pretty and not steep, and perdom my tribling
you. I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the
little river flowed, a deep valley forming a guard between two tall, cracky
wooded slopes. They gladly accepted my offer, and we talked naturally about the
virtue of the waters. Oh, he said, my daughter is a slinged
malady, the seat of which is unknown. She suffers for all uncomprincipled nervous
attacks. At one time the doctors thinks she has an attack of heart disease.
At another time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and
at another they declare it to be a disease of the spine. Today,
this protant malady that assumes a thousand farms and a thousand modes of attack,
is attributed to the stomach, which is the great cauldron and regulator of the
body. This is why we'll come here for my part. I am rather
inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case, it is very
sad. Immediately the remembrance of the violent, spasmodic movement of his hand came
back to my mind, and I asked him, but, as this is
not the result of aridity, are it not your own nerves somewhat affected?
He replied calmly, mine, Oh no, my nerves have always been very
steady. Then suddenly, after a pause, and he went on, ah,
you were alluding to the jerky movement on my hand every time I tried
to reach for anything. This arises from a terrible experience which I had just
imagine. This daughter of mine was actually buried alive. I could only utter,
Ah, so great were my astonishment and emotion, He continued, Here
is a story. It is simple. She yet had been subject for a
time to serious attacks of the heart, who believed that she had diseased of
the organ and were prepared for the worst. One day, she was carried
into the house called lifeless dead. She had fallen down unconscious in the garden.
The doctor certified that life was extinct. I watched by her side for
a day and two nights. I laid her with my own hands in the
coffin, which I accompanied to the cemetery where she was deposited in the family
vault. It is situated in the very heart of Lorraine. I wished to
have her interred with her jewels, bracelet, necklaces, rings, all presents
which she had received from me, and wearing her first ball dress. You
may easily imagine my seate of mind when I ever entered our home. She
was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many
years. I found my way to my own apartment in a half distracted condition,
exhausted and sunk into my easy chair, without the capacity to think or
the strength to move. I was not in better now than a suffering vibrating
machine, a human being who had, as it were, been flayed alive.
My soul was like an open wound. My old fallete Prosper, who
had assisted me in placing Giuliette in her coffin and aided me in preparing her
for the last leap, entered the room noiselessly and asked, does Monsieur want
anything? I merely shook my head in reply. Monsieur is wrong, he
urged, he will injure his health. Would Monsieur like me to put him
to bed? I answered, now let me alone, and he left the
room. I knew not how many hours slid away? Oh what a night,
What a night? He was called. My fire had died out in
the huge grate, and the wind, the winter wind, and icy wind,
a winter hurricane, blew with a regular sinister noise against the windows.
How many hours slipped away? There I was, without sleeping, powerless,
crushed, my eyes wide opened, my legs stretched out, my body limp
inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great doorbell, the
great bell of the vespule, rang out. I started so that my chair
cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous sound vibrated through the empty country house
as through a bolt. I turned round to see what the hour was by
the clock, It was just too in the morning. Who could be coming
at such an hour? And abruptly the bell again ran twice. The servants,
without doubt, were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle
and ascended the stairs. I was on the point of asking who is there?
Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the
heavy bolts. My heart was robbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened
the door briskly, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure sending erect
something that resembled an apparition. I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering,
who who are you? A voice replied, it is I father, It
was my daughter. I really thought I must be mad, and retreated backward
before this advancing inspector. I kept moving away, making a sign with my
hand as if to try the phantom away that gesture which you have noticed,
that gesture which has remained with me ever since. Do not be afraid,
Papa said the apparition. I was not dead. Somebody tried to steal my
rings and cut one of my fingers. The blood began to flow, and
that restored me to life. And in fact I could see that her hands
was covered with blood. I fell on my knees, choking with sobs,
and we were rattling in my throat. Then, when I had somewhat collected
my thoughts, though I was still so bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome
happiness that had befallen me, I made her go up to my room and
sit down in mazy chair. Then I rang exactly for prosper to get him
to the kindle the fire, and to bring some wine and to someone assistance.
The man entered said that my daughter opened his mouth with a gasp of
alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead. It was he who had
opened the vault, who had mutilated and then abandoned my daughter, for he
could not efface the traces of the theft. He had not even taken a
trouble to put back the coffin into this place, feeling sure besides that he
would not be suspected by me, as I trusted him absolutely. You see,
monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people. He was silent the night
had fallen, casting his shadows over the desolate, mournful veil, and a
sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by the sight of those strange
beings, of this young girl who had come back from the tomb, and
his father with his uncanny spasms. I found it impossible to make any comments
on this dreadful story. I only murmured, what a horrible thing. Then,
after it's silence, I added, let us go indoors. I think
he's growing cool, and we made our way back to the hotel end of
the spasm.