Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant. Guy de Maupassant
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enough, and will give us time to look round.”
Caravan put his hand to his forehead, and, in the came timid voice in which he always spoke of his chief, the very thought of whom made him tremble, he said:
“I must let them know at the office.”
“Why?” she replied. “On occasions like this, it is always excusable to forget. Take my advice, and don’t let him know; your chief will not be able to say anything to you, and you will put him in a nice fix.
“Oh! yes, that I shall, and he will be in a terrible rage, too, when he notices my absence. Yes, you are right; it is a capital idea, and when I tell him that my mother is dead, he will be obliged to hold his tongue.”
And he rubbed his hands in delight at the joke, when he thought of his chief’s face; while upstairs lay the body of the dead old woman, with the servant asleep beside it.
But Madame Caravan grew thoughtful, as if she were preoccupied by something which she did not care to mention, and at last she said:
“Your mother had given you her clock, had she not – the girl playing at cup and ball?”
He thought for a moment, and then replied:
“Yes, yes; she said to me (but it was a long time ago, when she first came here): ‘I shall leave the clock to you, if you look after me well.’”
Madame Caravan was reassured, and regained her serenity, and said:
“Well, then, you must go and fetch it out of her room, for if we get your sister here, she will prevent us from taking it.”
He hesitated.
“Do you think so?”
That made her angry.
“I certainly think so; once it is in our possession, she will know nothing at all about where it came from; it belongs to us. It is just the same with the chest of drawers with the marble top, that is in her room; she gave it me one day when she was in a good temper. We will bring it down at the same time.”
Caravan, however, seemed incredulous, and said:
“But, my dear, it is a great responsibility!”
She turned on him furiously.
“Oh! Indeed! Will you never change? You would let your children die of hunger, rather than make a move. Does not that chest of drawers belong to us, as she gave it to me? And if your sister is not satisfied, let her tell me so, me! I don’t care a straw for your sister. Come, get up, and we will bring down what your mother gave us, immediately.”
Trembling and vanquished, he got out of bed and began to put on his trousers, but she stopped him:
“It is not worth while to dress yourself; your underwear is quite enough. I mean to go as I am.”
They both left the room in their night clothes, went upstairs quite noiselessly, opened the door and went into the room, where the four lighted tapers and the plate with the sprig of box alone seemed to be watching the old woman in her rigid repose, for Rosalie, who was lying back in the easy chair with her legs stretched out, her hands folded in her lap, and her head on one side, was also quite motionless, and was snoring with her mouth wide open.
Caravan took the clock, which was one of those grotesque objects that were produced so plentifully under the Empire. A girl in gilt bronze was holding a cup and ball, and the ball formed the pendulum.
“Give that to me,” his wife said, “and take the marble slab off the chest of drawers.”
He put the marble slab on his shoulder with considerable effort, and they left the room. Caravan had to stoop in the doorway, and trembled as he went downstairs, while his wife walked backwards, so as to light him, and held the candlestick in one hand, carrying the clock under the other arm.
When they were in their own room, she heaved a sigh.
“We have got over the worst part of the job,” she said; “so now let us go and fetch the other things.”
But the bureau drawers were full of the old woman’s wearing apparel, which they must manage to hide somewhere, and Madame Caravan soon thought of a plan.
“Go and get that wooden packing case in the vestibule; it is hardly worth anything, and we may just as well put it here.”
And when he had brought it upstairs they began to fill it. One by one they took out all the collars, cuffs, chemises, caps, all the well-worn things that had belonged to the poor woman lying there behind them, and arranged them methodically in the wooden box in such a manner as to deceive Madame Braux, the deceased woman’s other child, who would be coming the next day.
When they had finished, they first of all carried the bureau drawers downstairs, and the remaining portion afterwards, each of them holding an end, and it was some time before they could make up their minds where it would stand best; but at last they decided upon their own room, opposite the bed, between the two windows, and as soon as it was in its place Madame Caravan filled it with her own things. The clock was placed on the chimney-piece in the dining-room, and they looked to see what the effect was, and were both delighted with it and agreed that nothing could be better. Then they retired, she blew out the candle, and soon everybody in the house was asleep.
It was broad daylight when. Caravan opened his eyes again. His mind was rather confused when he woke up, and he did not clearly remember what had happened for a few minutes; when he did, he felt a weight at his heart, and jumped out of bed, almost ready to cry again.
He hastened to the room overhead, where Rosalie was still sleeping in the same position as the night before, not having awakened once. He sent her to do her work, put fresh tapers in the place of those that had burnt out, and then he looked at his mother, revolving in his brain those apparently profound thoughts, those religious and philosophical commonplaces which trouble people of mediocre intelligence in the presence of death.
But, as his wife was calling him, he went downstairs. She had written out a list of what had to be done during the morning, and he was horrified when he saw the memorandum:
1. Report the death at the mayor’s office. 2. See the doctor who had attended her. 3. Order the coffin. 4. Give notice at the church. 5. Go to the undertaker. 6. Order the notices of her death at the printer’s. 7. Go to the lawyer. 8. Telegraph the news to all the family.
Besides all this, there were a number of small commissions; so he took his hat and went out. As the news had spread abroad, Madame Caravan’s female friends and neighbors soon began to come in and begged to be allowed to see the body. There had been a scene between husband and wife at the hairdresser’s on the ground floor about the matter, while a customer was being shaved. The wife, who was knitting steadily, said: “Well, there is one less, and as great a miser as one ever meets with. I certainly did not care for her; but, nevertheless, I must go and have a look at her.”
The husband, while lathering his patient’s chin, said: “That is another queer fancy! Nobody but a woman would think of such a thing. It is not enough for them to worry you during life, but they cannot even leave you at peace when you are dead:” But his wife, without being in the least disconcerted, replied: “The feeling is stronger than I am, and I must go. It has been on me since the morning. If I were not to see her, I should think about it all my life; but when I have had a good look at her, I shall be satisfied.”
The knight of the razor shrugged his shoulders and remarked in a low voice to the gentleman whose cheek he was scraping: “I just ask you, what sort of ideas do you think these confounded females have? I should not amuse myself by going to see a corpse!” But his wife had heard him and replied very quietly: “But it is so, it is so.” And then, putting her knitting on the counter, she went upstairs to the first floor, where she met two other neighbors, who had just come, and who were discussing the event with Madame Caravan, who was giving them the details, and they all went together to the death chamber. The four women went in softly, and, one after the other, sprinkled the bed clothes with the salt water, knelt down, made the sign of the cross while they mumbled a prayer. Then they rose from their knees and looked for some time at the corpse with round, wide-open eyes and mouths partly open, while the