From Maupassant’s Le Diable (The Devil – French online here, English here). I sat down to read La Horla for Halloween and rediscovered how rich the rest of the collection is – Clochette especially is surprisingly close in feel to his mentor Flaubert’s Un Coeur Simple (A Simple Heart). This one is very different – a small masterpiece of the old peasant farce, something that could equally well be the basis of a Boccaccio tale but never pulled off with the same verve.

A woman employed to watch over the dying has agreed with a farmer to accept a lump sum instead of her normal daily wage, each party thereby hoping to steal a bargain on the other. Finding that the farmer’s mother isn’t dying as quickly as hoped, she improvises.

She came at daybreak, and found Honore eating his soup, which he had made himself before going to work, and the sick-nurse asked him: “Well, is your mother dead?” “She is rather better, on the contrary,” he replied, with a sly look out of the corner of his eyes. And he went out.

La Rapet, seized with anxiety, went up to the dying woman, who remained in the same state, lethargic and impassive, with her eyes open and her hands clutching the counterpane. The nurse perceived that this might go on thus for two days, four days, eight days, and her avaricious mind was seized with fear, while she was furious at the sly fellow who had tricked her, and at the woman who would not die.

Nevertheless, she began to work, and waited, looking intently at the wrinkled face of Mother Bontemps. When Honore returned to breakfast he seemed quite satisfied and even in a bantering humor. He was decidedly getting in his wheat under very favorable circumstances.

La Rapet was becoming exasperated; every minute now seemed to her so much time and money stolen from her. She felt a mad inclination to take this old woman, this, headstrong old fool, this obstinate old wretch, and to stop that short, rapid breath, which was robbing her of her time and money, by squeezing her throat a little. But then she reflected on the danger of doing so, and other thoughts came into her head; so she went up to the bed and said: “Have you ever seen the Devil?” Mother Bontemps murmured: “No.”

Then the sick-nurse began to talk and to tell her tales which were likely to terrify the weak mind of the dying woman. Some minutes before one dies the Devil appears, she said, to all who are in the death throes. He has a broom in his hand, a saucepan on his head, and he utters loud cries. When anybody sees him, all is over, and that person has only a few moments longer to live. She then enumerated all those to whom the Devil had appeared that year: Josephine Loisel, Eulalie Ratier, Sophie Padaknau, Seraphine Grospied.

Mother Bontemps, who had at last become disturbed in mind, moved about, wrung her hands, and tried to turn her head to look toward the end of the room. Suddenly La Rapet disappeared at the foot of the bed. She took a sheet out of the cupboard and wrapped herself up in it; she put the iron saucepan on her head, so that its three short bent feet rose up like horns, and she took a broom in her right hand and a tin pail in her left, which she threw up suddenly, so that it might fall to the ground noisily.

When it came down, it certainly made a terrible noise. Then, climbing upon a chair, the nurse lifted up the curtain which hung at the bottom of the bed, and showed herself, gesticulating and uttering shrill cries into the iron saucepan which covered her face, while she menaced the old peasant woman, who was nearly dead, with her broom.

Terrified, with an insane expression on her face, the dying woman made a superhuman effort to get up and escape; she even got her shoulders and chest out of bed; then she fell back with a deep sigh. All was over, and La Rapet calmly put everything back into its place; the broom into the corner by the cupboard the sheet inside it, the saucepan on the hearth, the pail on the floor, and the chair against the wall. Then, with professional movements, she closed the dead woman’s large eyes, put a plate on the bed and poured some holy water into it, placing in it the twig of boxwood that had been nailed to the chest of drawers, and kneeling down, she fervently repeated the prayers for the dead, which she knew by heart, as a matter of business.

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Elle arriva, en effet, au jour levant.

Honoré, avant de se rendre aux terres, mangeait sa soupe, qu’il avait faite lui-même.

La garde demanda :

— Eh ben, vot’mé a-t-all’ passé ?

Il répondit, avec un pli malin au coin des yeux :

— All’va plutôt mieux.

Et il s’en alla.

La Rapet, saisie d’inquiétude, s’approcha de l’agonisante, qui demeurait dans le même état, oppressée et impassible, l’œil ouvert et les mains crispées sur sa couverture.

Et la garde comprit que cela pouvait durer deux jours, quatre jours, huit jours ainsi ; et une épouvante étreignit son cœur d’avare, tandis qu’une colère furieuse la soulevait contre ce finaud qui l’avait jouée et contre cette femme qui ne mourait pas.

Elle se mit au travail néanmoins et attendit, le regard fixé sur la face ridée de la mère Bontemps.

Honoré revint pour déjeuner ; il semblait content, presque goguenard ; puis il repartit. Il rentrait son blé, décidément, dans des conditions excellentes.

La Rapet s’exaspérait ; chaque minute écoulée lui semblait, maintenant, du temps volé, de l’argent volé. Elle avait envie, une envie folle de prendre par le cou cette vieille bourrique, cette vieille têtue, cette vieille obstinée, et d’arrêter, en serrant un peu, ce petit souffle rapide qui lui volait son temps et son argent.

Puis elle réfléchit au danger ; et, d’autres idées lui passant par la tête, elle se rapprocha du lit.

Elle demanda :

— Vos avez-t-il déjà vu l’Diable ?

La mère Bontemps murmura :

— Non.

Alors la garde se mit à causer, à lui conter des histoires pour terroriser son âme débile de mourante.

Quelques minutes avant qu’on expirât, le Diable apparaissait, disait-elle, à tous les agonisants. Il avait un balai à la main, une marmite sur la tête, et il poussait de grands cris. Quand on l’avait vu, c’était fini, on n’en avait plus que pour peu d’instants. Et elle énumérait tous ceux à qui le Diable était apparu devant elle, cette année-là : Joséphin Loisel, Eulalie Ratier, Sophie Padagnau, Séraphine Grospied.

La mère Bontemps, émue enfin, s’agitait, remuait les mains, essayait de tourner la tête pour regarder au fond de la chambre.

Soudain la Rapet disparut au pied du lit. Dans l’armoire, elle prit un drap et s’enveloppa dedans ; elle se coiffa de la marmite, dont les trois pieds courts et courbés se dressaient ainsi que trois cornes ; elle saisit un balai de sa main droite, et, de la main gauche, un seau de fer-blanc, qu’elle jeta brusquement en l’air pour qu’il retombât avec bruit.

Il fit, en heurtant le sol, un fracas épouvantable ; alors, grimpée sur une chaise, la garde souleva le rideau qui pendait au bout du lit, et elle apparut, gesticulant, poussant des clameurs aiguës au fond du pot de fer qui lui cachait la face, et menaçant de son balai, comme un diable de guignol, la vieille paysanne à bout de vie.

Éperdue, le regard fou, la mourante fit un effort surhumain pour se soulever et s’enfuir ; elle sortit même de sa couche ses épaules et sa poitrine ; puis elle retomba avec un grand soupir. C’était fini.

Et la Rapet, tranquillement, remit en place tous les objets, le balai au coin de l’armoire, le drap dedans, la marmite sur le foyer, le seau sur la planche et la chaise contre le mur. Puis, avec les gestes professionnels, elle ferma les yeux énormes de la morte, posa sur le lit une assiette, versa dedans l’eau du bénitier, y trempa le buis cloué sur la commode et, s’agenouillant, se mit à réciter avec ferveur les prières des trépassés qu’elle savait par cœur, par métier.

From Guy de Maupassant’s Mon Oncle Sosthene in his collection Les Soeurs Rondoli. I much appreciate how many drinking idioms I’ve learned from his stories – even if, as here, I often can’t find that they’re anything but a phrase of his own invention.

À six heures on se mit à table. À dix heures on mangeait encore et nous avions bu, à cinq, dix huit bouteilles de vin fin, plus quatre de champagne. Alors mon oncle proposa ce qu’il appelait la « tournée de l’archevêque ». On plaçait en ligne, devant soi, six petits verres qu’on remplissait avec des liqueurs différentes ; puis il les fallait vider coup sur coup pendant qu’un des assistants comptait jusqu’à vingt. C’était stupide ; mais mon oncle Sosthène trouvait cela « de circonstance ».

At six we sat down at the table. At ten we were still eating and we had drunk – between the five of us – eighteen bottles of wine and four more of champagne. Then my uncle proposed what he termed the ‘ tournée de l’archevêque.’ You were to place in a row in front of you six small glasses that you then filled with different liqueurs; then you had to empty them one after the other while one of the attendees counted to twenty. It was stupid but my uncle Sosthenes found it ‘in the spirit’.

I want to say ‘tournée de l’archevêque’ is a pun – building ‘the archbishop’s round (of drinks)’ off a more technical term for an archbishop’s itinerary of visits around his diocese (or whatever his province is termed) – ‘the archbishop’s tour.’

From Ch. 2 of Maupassant’s Les Soeurs Rondoli:

Le train partit.

Elle demeurait immobile à sa place, les yeux fixés devant elle dans une pose renfrognée de femme furieuse. Elle n’avait pas même jeté un regard sur nous.

Paul se mit à causer avec moi, disant des choses apprêtées pour produire de l’effet, étalant une devanture de conversation pour attirer l’intérêt comme les marchands étalent en montre leurs objets de choix pour éveiller le désir.

Mais elle semblait ne pas entendre.

I’d advertise spoilers if I thought anyone would read this.  The conclusion to Maupassant’s Les Tombales:

I went off, quite struck, asking myself what I had just seen, to what race of beings belonged this sepulchral huntress.  Was she a common girl, an inspired prostitute who went to gather among the graves men gloomy – haunted by a woman, wife or mistress – and still troubled with the memory of lost caresses? Was she unique?  Are there more like her? Is it a profession? Do they patrol the cemetery as they do the pavement?  Les Tombales! Or rather had she alone had this admirable idea – so truly philosophical – of exploiting the love longings that come back to life in these funereal place?

And I would indeed have liked to know whose widow she was that day.

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Je m’en allai stupéfait, me demandant ce que je venais de voir, à quelle race d’êtres appartenait cette sépulcrale chasseresse. Était-ce une simple fille, une prostituée inspirée qui allait cueillir sur les tombes les hommes tristes, hantés par une femme, épouse ou maîtresse, et troublés encore du souvenir des caresses disparues ? Était-ce unique ? Sont-elles plusieurs ? Est-ce une profession ? Fait-on le cimetière comme on fait le trottoir ? Les Tombales ! Ou bien avait-elle eu seule cette idée admirable, d’une philosophie profonde d’exploiter les regrets d’amour qu’on ranime en ces lieux funèbres ?

Et j’aurais bien voulu savoir de qui elle était veuve, ce jour-là ?

 

From Menuet by Guy de Maupassant, in his short story collection Contes de la bécasse.  The narrator is recalling a memory from his youth that has never left him.  As a student he had taken the habit of visiting a park of a style no longer in fashion at the time.  There he made the acquaintance of a former dancing director of the Opera and his wife, a former star of the same.  The two visited the park each day, the director explaining their devotion as notre plaisir et notre vie … tout ce qui nous reste d’autrefois (our delight and our life … all that remains to us of the past.).  They perform the below scene for the narrator:

Then I saw something unforgettable.  They moved forward and back with childlike affectation, smiled, swayed, bent, leapt like two old puppets some old machine was making dance – puppets a bit broken and made long ago by a skilled craftsman according to the manner of his time.

And I watched them, my heart stirred with exceptional feelings, my soul touched by an inexpressible melancholy.  It seemed I was seeing a specter both pathetic and comical, the outmoded shadow of an entire age.  I wanted to laugh and needed to cry.  All at once they stopped, they had finished the movements of the dance.  For some seconds they remained standing, the one before the other, contorting their faces in an unexpected way.  Then they embraced, weeping.

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Alors je vis une chose inoubliable. Ils allaient et venaient avec des simagrées enfantines, se souriaient, se balançaient, s’inclinaient, sautillaient pareils à deux vieilles poupées qu’aurait fait danser une mécanique ancienne, un peu brisée, construite jadis par un
ouvrier fort habile, suivant la manière de son temps.

Et je les regardais, le cœur troublé de sensations extraordinaires, l’âme émue d’une
indicible mélancolie. Il me semblait voir une apparition lamentable et comique, l’ombre
démodée d’un siècle. J’avais envie de rire et besoin de pleurer. Tout à coup ils s’arrêtèrent, ils avaient terminé les figures de la danse. Pendant quelques secondes ils restèrent debout l’un devant l’autre, grimaçant d’une façon surprenante ; puis il s’embrassèrent en sanglotant.

 

In the spirit of yesterday’s deoc an doruis and by happy coincidence here are a few other terms of drinking interest I ran across today in a collection of Guy de Maupassant stories, Contes de la Becasse:

From Farce Normande:

Between each course everyone made a hole – the Normand hole – with a glass of (apple) brandy which flung fire in the body and madness in the mind.

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Entre chaque plat on faisait un trou, le trou normand, avec un verre d’eau-de-vie qui jetait du feu dans le corps et de la folie dans les têtes.

I’m honestly at a loss on how to put this in English since the relevant phrase – le trou normand – is literally just ‘the Normand hole’.  It refers to a drink taken between courses in the hope of facilitating digestion/dulling the senses just enough that you can keep going for the next.  Eau-de-vie in the Normand context has to be apple brandy (Calvados)

From Les Sabots:

She went to find a cup, sat down again, tasted the black liquor [coffee], made a grimace, but, under the master’s furious eye, drank it down to the bottom.  Then they had to drink the first glass of (apple) brandy for the rinse, the second for the followup-rinse, and the third for a kick in the ass.

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Elle alla chercher une tasse, se rassit, goûta la noire liqueur, fit la grimace, mais, sous l’œil furieux du maître, avala jusqu’au bout.Puis il lui fallut boire le premier verre d’eau-de-vie de la rincette, le second du pousse-rincette, et le troisième du coup-de-pied-au-cul.

Rincette is defined as the ‘little bit of liqueur poured in a cup after drinking coffee’

Pousse-rincette is, here, simply the followup to the first rinse.  The term seems more generally a synonym for the rincette – it is closer to the contemporary pousse-café.

Coup-de-pied-au-cul is literally ‘a kick in the ass.’  I can’t tell if this is a witticism of Maupassant’s or a legitimate Normand phrase now lost to use.