Speaker 1: The spasm by Gui the Mopossan. The hotel guests slowly
entered the dining room and took their places. The waiters
did not hurry themselves in order to keep the lake
commers a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing
in the dishes a second time. The old paters, the Bituet,
whose season was almost over plans, gazed toward the door
whenever it opened, to see what new faces might appear.
This is the principal distraction 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, unknown strangers assume an extreme importance. Curiosity is aroused,
sympathy is ready to exhibit itself, and sussibility 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 discover in men suddenly, after an hour's
shat 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 everywhere else. People see each other
every day. They become acquainted very quickly, and their affection
is tinged with the sweetness and unrestrained of long standing 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 unveiled, of those first
glances which interrogate and respond to questions and secret thoughts
which 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 to
us in return. And the melancholy of watering places. The
monotony of days that are all alike proves hourly and
incentive to this hard expansion. While this evening, as on
every other evening, were awaited, the appearance of strange faces
only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man
and a woman, father and daughter. They immediately reminded me
of some Edgar Poe's 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 compreably youthful physiognomy. And there was
in his bearing and his person that ausrity peculiar to Protestants.
The daughter, who was probably twenty four twenty five, was
more 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 und described a sort of zig zag 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 e
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 in a station of Chatelguyon,
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 their ragged peaks above
the rest in the long mountain chain. For Chatelguillon 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 Pewted Dome
is the highest of the domes. The peak of Sansy
is the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the
most precipitous 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's hotel
companions 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 pardon my tribling you. I offered to
show them the way toward the valley through which the
little river flowed, a deep valley forming a garge between
two tall, craggy woody 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 arom au comprincipled
nervous attacks. At one time the doctors think she has
an attack of heart disease. At another time they imagine
it is some affection of the liver, And at another
they did declare it to be a disease of the spine.
To day, this broad in melody that assumes a thousand
forms 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 have 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
is this not the result of our redity? Are not
your own nerves somewhat affected? He replied calmly, mine, Oh no,
My nerves have always been very steady. Then suddenly, after
a pause, he went on, ah, you are alluding to
the jerky movement on my hand every time I try
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 after, Ah, so great
were my astonishment and emotion, he continued, Here is a sorry.
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 all dress. You may easily imagine my state
of mind when I re 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, after exhausted and
sunk into my easy chair, without the capacity to think
or the strength to move. I was nothing 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 Valette Prosper, who had assisted
me in placing Juliette in her coffin and aid me
in preparing her for the last sleep, 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 know 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, an 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 open, my legs stretched out, my body limp, inanimate,
and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great doorbell,
the great bell of the Vestpule, rang out. I started
so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous
sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a voult.
I turned round to see what the hour was. By
the clock, it was just two in the morning. Who
could be coming at such an hour? And abruptly the
bell again rang 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
throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the door briskly,
and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure standing
erect something that resembled apparition. I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering,
who 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 specter.
I kept moving away, making a sign with my hands,
as if to try the phantom away that gesture which
you have noticed, the 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 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, said that befallen me. I made her
go up to my room and sit down in my
easy chair. Then I rang exactly for prosper to get
him to rekindle the fire, and to bring some wine,
and to summon assistance. The man entered start 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 effaced the traces of the theft.
He had not even taken the trouble to put pat
the coffin into this place, feeling sure besides that he
would not be suspected by me, as had 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 side of those
strange beings of his 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 minut in silence, I added, let us go in doors.
I think it's growing cold, and we made our way
back to the hotel end of the spasm.