Original Short Stories — Volume 13Maupassant, Guy de
General
Original Short Stories — Volume 13
Maupassant, Guy de
Short stories, French -- Translations into English
Then he darted across the mountain, falling among the stones, overcome
by the most frightful anguish that can wring a child's heart, and with
a face like death reached the sitting-room, where his parents were
waiting. He became bewildered again as he led them to the gloomy
reservoir. He could not find his way. At last he reached the spot. “It
is there; yes, it is there!”
But the cistern had to be emptied, and the proprietor would not permit
it as he needed the water for his lemon trees.
The two bodies were found, however, but not until the next day.
You see, my dear friend, that this is a simple news item. But if you had
seen the hole itself your heart would have been wrung, as mine was, at
the thought of the agony of that child hanging to his brother's hands,
of the long suspense of those little chaps who were accustomed only
to laugh and to play, and at the simple incident of the giving of the
watch.
I said to myself: “May Fate preserve me from ever receiving a similar
relic!” I know of nothing more terrible than such a recollection
connected with a familiar object that one cannot dispose of. Only think
of it; each time that he handles this sacred watch the survivor will
picture once more the horrible scene; the pool, the wall, the still
water, and the distracted face of his brother-alive, and yet as lost as
though he were already dead. And all through his life, at any moment,
the vision will be there, awakened the instant even the tip of his
finger touches his watch pocket.
And I was sad until evening. I left the spot and kept on climbing,
leaving the region of orange trees for the region of olive trees, and
the region of olive trees for the region of pines; then I came to a
valley of stones, and finally reached the ruins of an ancient castle,
built, they say, in the tenth century by a Saracen chief, a good man,
who was baptized a Christian through love for a young girl. Everywhere
around me were mountains, and before me the sea, the sea with an almost
imperceptible patch on it: Corsica, or, rather, the shadow of Corsica.
But on the mountain summits, blood-red in the glow of the sunset, in the
boundless sky and on the sea, in all this superb landscape that I had
come here to admire I saw only two poor children, one lying prone on the
edge of a hole filled with black water, the other submerged to his neck,
their hands intertwined, weeping opposite each other, in despair. And
it seemed as though I continually heard a weak, exhausted voice saying:
“Good-by, little brother, I am going to give you my watch.”
This letter may seem rather melancholy, dear friend. I will try to be
more cheerful some other day.
A CREMATION
Last Monday an Indian prince died at Etretat, Bapu Sahib Khanderao
Ghatay, a relation of His Highness, the Maharajah Gaikwar, prince of
Baroda, in the province of Guzerat, Presidency of Bombay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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