Timbuktu

     The boulevard was a teeming river of life in the golden dust of the setting sun. The entire sky was a blinding red, and behind the Madeleine a huge swarm threw a huge slanted shower of fire into the long avenue, shimmering like the cloud from a blaze.

     The happy crowd, palpitating, went beneath this fiery mist and seemed to be in the middle of a finale. The faces were golden, the black hats and the frocks had flashes of purple, and the shoe polish reflected flames onto the asphalt of the pavements.

    Before the cafés, groups of men were drinking shining drinks of all different colours that one would have considered precious stones melted into the glass.

    In the middle of the consumers with light clothes that were slightly darkened, two officers in full uniform made everyone lower their eyes due to the blinding light reflecting from the golden items in their clothes. They were chatting, joyous without reason, in this glory of life, in the radiant rays of the evening, and they watched in the opposite direction of the crowd, the slow men and the hurrying women who left behind them a delightful and moving aroma.

    Suddenly an enormous black man, dressed in black, big-bellied, decorated with trinkets on a drill vest, with a gleaming face as if it had bee polished, walked past them with an air of triumph. He laughed at the crowd, he laughed at the newspaper vendors, he laughed at the bursting sky, he laughed at the whole of Paris. He was so tall that he stood way above everyone else, and behind him the crowd turned round to gawk at him.

    But suddenly he saw the officers and stumbling through the drinkers he rushed forward to them. When he was before their table he set his gleaming and happy eyes on them and the corners of his mouth were raised all the way up to his ears, uncovering his white teeth, as clear as a crescent moon against a dark sky. The two men, baffled, regarded this ebony giant without understanding his gaiety.

    "Hello, Lieutenant," he shouted in a voice that made all the other tables laugh. One of the two was in charge of a battalion, the other a colonel.

    "I don't know who you are, monsieur, and I don't know what you want from me," said the former.

     "I liked you a lot Lieutenant Védié, I know you from HQ at Bézi, lots of grapes, looked for me."

    The officer, completely stunned, looked directly at the man, searching the darkest recesses of his memory, but suddenly he shouted. "Timbuktu?"

    The black man, radiant, clapped him on the thigh while laughing an impossibly violent laugh and bellowed. "Yes, yes, there we go, Lieutenant, you recognize Timbuktu, good day."

    The Lieutenant held out his hand, himself laughing now. Then Timbuktu became serious once more. He shook the officer’s hand and, too quickly for the other to do anything about it, kissed him, as is the black and Arab way. Confused, the military man told him off with a severe tone. "Come come, Timbuktu we're not in Africa. Sit down and tell me how you've ended up here."

    Timbuktu stretched his belly and mumbled because he was speaking so quickly. "Won lots of money, lots, big restaurant, good eatings, Prussians, me stole a lot, a lot, french cuisine, Timbuktu, cook for the Emperor, two hundred thousand francs for me, ha ha ha ha!" And he laughed, contorted he was laughing so much, shouting with a crazed happiness of life.

    When the officer--who understood his strange way of speaking--had interrogated him for a while, he said to him, "All right then, I'll see you again soon, Timbuktu."

     The black man immediately got up and shook, this time, the hand that was offered to him and departed laughing all the while. "Good day, Lieutenant, good day!"

    He left so happy that he was gesticulating while walking and people thought he was mad.

    "Who was that brute?" the colonel asked.

    The commander replied, "A brave chap and a brave soldier. I'll tell you what I know of him; it's rather funny."

    Well, you know that at the start of the war in 1870 I was posted to Béziers, or as the black guy called it, Bézi. We weren't at all under siege, but more blocked off. The Prussian lines surrounded us from all sides, out of range of the cannons, and they didn't fire at us either. Instead, they were starving us, little by little.

    At the time I was a Lieutenant. Our garrison was composed of troops of all sorts: the remnants of other decimated regiments; runaways; people who had been separated from the rest of the army. Anyway, we had all sorts, even eleven Turks who arrived at the garrison one night, God knows how, or from where.  They arrived at the gates looking tired, ragged, starved and drunk.

    I saw very soon that they were rebelled against any form of discipline, they were always outside and always drunk. I tried the police cells, even tried prison, but nothing worked. My men were disappearing for days at a time, as if they had burried themselves underground, and then they would reappear legless. They didn't have any money. Where did they drink? And how? With what?

    The whole thing was really beginning to intrigue me, even more so because these savages interested me with their eternal laughter and their character like big mischievous children.

    Then I saw that they all obeyed the biggest one religiously, the one who you just met. He was in charge and could make them do whatever he wanted, and it was he who prepared their mysterious outings as an all-powerful and unrivalled leader. I sent for him and interrogated him. Our conversation lasted three hours, since it took a great effort to understand the gobbledegook that came out of his mouth. Him, the poor devil, made unheard of efforts to try and be understood, inventing words, gesticulating, he was sweating from the effort, wiping his forehead, breathing deeply, stopping and starting again suddenly when he thought he was onto a better way of expressing himself.

    I inferred eventually that he was the son of a Chief, a sort of black king from around Timbuktu. I asked him his name. He replied something like Chavaharibouhalikhranafotapolara. It seemed simpler to me to give him the name of his homeland, 'Timbuktu.' And, eight days later, no one in the entire garrison called him anything but that.

    Nevertheless, we were still obsessed to the point of mania with finding out where this African ex-prince found his booze. I stumbled upon the answer in a rather unexpected way.

    One morning I was on the ramparts, scanning the horizon, when I saw something moving in a vine tree. We were nearing the time that the grapes were harvested, and the grapes were ripe. But I didn't think about that at all. I thought that a spy was approaching the town, and I organised an expedition to catch the prowler. I took command of the operation myself, after having been given the general's permission.

    I made three little groups of troops go out in three different directions via three different gates, and these would team up near the site of the suspect vine tree and surround it. In order to be sure of blocking the spy's retreat, I made one of these detachments take a long route round which meant an extra hour's walk at least. A man who had stayed at the observation point gave me a sign from the ramparts that the spy hadn't left the field. We approached silently, crawling, almost lying completely in the ruts of the field. Eventually, we came to the designated point. I motioned to my troops who burst forward, running to the vine tree and finding... Timbuktu, crawling on all fours in the middle of the vines and was eating all the grapes, or rather tearing them from the vines like a dog eating soup; with a full mouth, even biting off bits of the plant when gnashing at the grapes.

    I wanted to get him up, but there wasn't a chance of that happening, and then I understood why he was on the ground like that on his hands and knees. Whenever we stood him up, he swayed a few seconds, held out his arms and fell flat on his face. He was drunk as I'd ever seen any man be drunk.

    We took him back carrying him between two poles. For the entirety of the trip he did not stop laughing, gesticulating madly with his hands and legs all the while.

    It was in that last part that the real mystery existed. My men would eat the grapes down themselves. Then, when they were too drunk to move, they slept where they lay.

    Timbuktu, on the other hand, had a love of the vines that went beyond all belief and all reason. He lived in the vines like the thrushes, who he hated as a jealous rival would hate. "The thrushes have eaten all the grapes, arses!" he would repeat over and over.

    One night, I was called for. You could see on the plain that something was approaching. I hadn't taken my telescope and I couldn't make anything out very well. One would have said it looked like a long snake, or a convoy, what do I know?

    I sent some men ahead of this strange caravan that soon enough made its triumphal entrance.  Timbuktu and nine of his companions had on top of some sort of makeshift altar—made from chairs—eight grimacing, bloody severed heads. The tenth Turk was pulling a horse along whose tail was attached to another horse, and six more were behind that one, joined together in the same way.

    This is what I was told. Having left for the vine trees, my Africans had suddenly seen a Prussian detachment approaching a village. Instead of fleeing, they hid themselves. Then, when the officers had dismounted at an inn for refreshments, the eleven men had ambushed them, chased off the uhlans who thought they were under attack, killed the two sentries, and then the colonel and the five officers that made up his escort.

    I kissed Timbuktu that day. But I saw that he was walking with a little difficulty. I thought he was injured, he laughed and said, “Me, I provide for my country.”

    The thing was that Timbuktu never went into battle for honour, but for personal gain. Everything that he found, everything that he thought might have any value, especially anything shiny, he put in his pocket! And what a pocket! It was more of a chasm that began at his hips and finished at his ankles. Having learnt the word from his time in his army, he called it his “depth”, and it was his depth in effect.

    For this reason he had hacked off the gold from the Prussian uniforms, the leather from the helmets, the buttons etc. and had thrown all of it into his “depth”, that was so full it was overflowing.

    Every day he threw into it any shining object that caught his eye, bits of tin or coins, which put him in a very happy mood.

    He wanted to take everything back with him to his land of ostriches, which seemed to be almost like a brother to him, this son of a king tortured by the desire to engulf shiny bodies. If he hadn’t had his depth, what would he have done? In that scenario, he would have swallowed everything instead.

    Every morning his pocket was empty. He must have had a shop where he kept all his riches. But where?  I couldn’t find out.

    The general, having been alerted to Timbuktu’s exploits, ordered the bodies that had been left in the village to be quickly buried before anyone discovered that they had been decapitated. The Prussians went back there the next day. The mayor and seven notable locals were executed on the spot as reprisals, for having given away their position.

    The winter came. We were exhausted and demoralized. Now we were fighting every day. The starved men could no longer walk. Only the eight Turks (three had been killed) had retained their weight and were always gleaming, energized and ready to go into battle. Timbuktu was even getting bigger.

    “You lots of hunger, I good meat,” he said to me one day, and he brought me an excellent fillet of meat. But from what animal? We no longer had any cattle, or sheep, or goats, or donkeys, or pigs. It was impossible to procure a horse from anywhere. I thought about all that after I had devoured my meal. Then a horrible thought came to me. These black men were born very close to a country where it was not uncommon to eat human meat! And every day there were plenty of soldiers who died around the town! I asked Timbuktu. He didn’t want to reply. I didn’t press him further, but from then on I refused his gifts.

    He adored me. One night, the snow fell on the outposts without warning. We were sat on the ground. I looked over pityingly at the poor Africans shivering beneath this dusting of white and frozen snow. Since I was also extremely cold, I started coughing. I immediately felt something fall on me, like a great and warm quilt. It was Timbktu’s coat that he had thrown around my shoulders.

    I stood up and gave him back his jacket. “Take this back, old boy; you need it more than I do.”

    “No, Lieutenant, for you, me no need, me warm, warm.” And he looked at me with pleading eyes.

    “Come now; take it back, that’s an order.”

    The African stood up, took out his sword that he could wield like a scythe in one hand, and in the other held the coat that I had refused. “If you no keep the coat, I cut, no one’s coat.”

    He would have done it. I took the coat.

Eight days later we had been defeated. Some of our men had managed to escape. The others were to leave the town and go to over to the victors.

    I was going over to the place d’Armes where we were meant to meet when I was left stunned and silent when I saw a giant black man before me, dressed in white cotton drill and topped with a straw hat. It was Timbuktu. He seemed radiant and was walking with his hands in his pockets past a little boutique where you could see two glasses and two plates.

    “What are you doing?” I asked him.

    “Me no leave. Me good cook, me make colonel eat, me eat Prussians, me steal lots, lots.”

    It was a freezing ten degrees. I was shivering before this African in drill. So he took me by the arm and made me enter, I saw a large sign that he was only going to put on his door after we left because he had some decency.

    And I read this notice, written by the hand of some accomplice:

MONSIEUR TIMBUKTU’S MILITARY CUISINE

PREVIOUS COOK FOR THE EMPEROR

Parisian Artist—Moderate prices

    Despite the heavy heart I had at that time, I couldn’t help but laugh. And I left my African to his new trade.

    Was it better to do that than to be taken away a prisoner?

    You have just seen that the rascal succeeded.

    Béziers, today, belongs to Germany. The Timbuktu restaurant is a backwards start.

The Confession (L'Aveu)

     The midday sun falls and splashes on the fields. They stretch into the distance, undulating, between the clusters of trees in the farms, and the various harvests, the ripe rye and the yellow wheat, the clear green oats, the sombre green clovers, spreading a big stripy coat restless and soft on the naked belly of the earth.

    In the distance, at the top of a hill, lined up like soldiers, an endless line of cows—some lying down, others standing—blink their large eyes in the dazzling sunlight, chewing and grazing surface of clover the size of a lake.

     Two women, a mother and her daughter, walk at a steady hurried pace one before the other, across a straight path flattened in the harvests, towards the army of animals.

     They are both carrying two buckets made of zinc, kept from bumping into their bodies by a round piece of wood; and the metal, with each step they take, reflects a blinding white flame because of the relentless sun.

     They walk in silence. They are on their way to milk the cows. They arrive, put a bucket on the ground and approach the first two animals, making them stand with a little kick in the flank. The animal gets up, slowly, first onto its two front legs and then, with more effort, lifts its rump which seems even heavier with the weight of the huge dangling udders of white flesh.

     The two Malvoires, mother and daughter, on their knees beneath the cows, pull on the enlarged udders with an energetic hand movement which sprays, with each squeeze, a thin thread of milk into the bucket. The slightly yellow foam climbs upwards as the women go from animal to animal to the end of the long line.

     When they finished milking one, they would leave it, giving it a little greenery to chew on.

     Then they depart, more slowly, weighed down by the milk they are carrying, the mother in front and the daughter behind.

     But she suddenly stops, drops her load, sits down and begins to cry. Mother Malivoire, having heard the footsteps behind her stop, turns around and stops surprised. "What's the matter?"

     And the daughter, Céleste, a tall red-head with dark cheeks, freckled as if they had been licked by drops of fire falling on her face, one day where she was brushing her hair in the sun, murmured through the sort of groan that children make after being beaten, “I can’t carry my milk anymore!”

     The mother looked at her suspiciously, and repeated, “What’s the matter?” Céeste started up again, collapsed on the floor between her two buckets, hiding her eyes with her pinafore, “It’s too hard. I can’t do it.”

     The mother, for the third time, asked, “What’s the matter then?”

     And the daughter groaned, “I think I’m pregnant,” and began to sob.

     The old woman put down her load as well, so speechless that she could not think of anything to say. Eventually, she mumbled, “You… you’re a pregnant peasant… Can this really be?”

     The Malivoire were rich farmers, affluent, respected, with a certain poise, respected, cunning and powerful.

     Céleste stuttered, “I think so yes, all the same.”

     The alarmed mother looked at her broken and tearful daughter in front of her. After a few seconds, she shrieked, “You’re pregnant down there! You’re pregnant down there! Where did you catch that from you wench!”

     And Céleste, shaken by the emotion of it all, murmured, “I think it was in Polyte’s cart.”

     The old woman searched for an explanation, searched to understand, searched to know who put this curse on her daughter. If this was a rich and respectable man, perhaps they could make do. That would only be partly bad; but that would thwart them all the same, given the proposals and their position.

     She started up again, “And who was it that did this to you, you whore?”

     And Céleste, resolved to tell the story, blubbered, “I think it was Polyte.” Then the mother, crazed by anger, jumped on her daughter and started to hit her so frenetically that her bonnet came off.

     She hit her head with powerful blows, and her back, every part of her body, and Céleste completely laid out between the buckets, that protected her slightly, could only hide her face in her hands.

     All the cows, surprised, had stopped grazing and had turned round to watch them with their big eyes. The one at the end mooed, her nose directed towards the two women.

     After having hit her to the point of exhaustion, mother Malivoire, breathless, stopped and regaining her spirits, wanted to be completely updated on the situation. “Polyte,” she said, “how is this possible? How could you do it, with a coachman. Had you taken leave of your senses? Do I need to curse you, to be sure, you good-for-nothing?”

     And Céleste, still on the floor, murmered into the ground, “I didn’t have to pay for the travel.” And the old woman from Normandy understood.

     Every week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Céleste went to take the farm’s produce—poultry, egs, cream—into the town.

     She left at seven in the morning with her two enormous baskets under her arms, dairy in one and chickens in the other; and she went to wait for the Yvetot post cart by the large road.

     She would put down all of her products and sit on the roadside, while the chickens, with their short and sharp beaks, and the geese, with their long and rounded beaks, popping their heads through the bars, watched with their round eyes, stupid and surprised.

     Soon the old cart like a little yellow safe topped with a black leather helmet, would arrive. And Polyte, the driver, a large and happy man, paunchy even though he was still young, and so burnt by the sun, cooked by the wind, soaked by the downpour, and so tarnished by the spirits he drank that he had a brick-coloured neck and face, shouted from down the road while cracking his whip.

     “Good day, Mademoiselle Céleste. How are you?”

     She would hand him the baskets one by one and he would squeeze them into the upper part of the car; the she would get in by lifting her leg right up to get to the step, showing a strong calf slipped into a low stocking. And each time Polyte would repeat the same pleasantry, “My goodness, it hasn’t got any thinner.”

     And she would life, finding this funny.

     Then he’d shout a ‘Giddy-up’ to get his malnourished horse to on its way again. Céleste, getting her purse from the bottom of her pocket, would slowly take ten sous from it, ten sous for her and four for the baskets, and would pass them to Polyte iver his shoulder. He took them saying, “Have we not had enough of a joke today?” and would laugh raucously while turning round to look at her.

     This cost a lot of money for her, handing over this half-franc for just three kilometres of travl. And when she didn’t have any sous, she suffered even more, not being able to bring herself to give him the money.

     And one day, when she went to pay, she asked, “For a good person like me, could you only charge six sous?”

     He began to laugh, “Six sous, my sweet, you’re definitely worth more than that.”

     She persisted, “That would only mean a difference of two francs per month for you.”

     She shouted and cracked the whip, “Listen, I’m easy-going about this sort of thing. I will waive the fee for a little fun.”

     Naively she asked, “What do you mean by that?”

     He was laughing so much that he was coughing, “A little fun is a little fun, for God’s sake, a little fun between a boy and a girl, having two without any music.”

     She understood, blushed, and declared, “I’m not into that sort of fun, Monsieur Polyte.”

     But he was not put-off, and repeated, having more fun every time he said it, “You’ll get there, my sweet, a little fun between boy and girl.”

     And since then, every time she paid him he had taken to asking her, “Is today the day for some fun?”

     She would humour him, and replying “Not today thanks, monsieur Polyte, but next Saturday for sure!”

     And he would burst out laughing and say, “Saturday it is, my sweet!”

     But in her head she would calculate that in two years of taking the lift, she had paid forty-eight francs to Polyte, and forty-eight francs was not to be found simply on the floor, and she also calculated that within two years she would have paid almost a hundred francs.

     So one day, a spring day, when they were alone, when he asked her his usual question, “Is today the day for some fun?”, she replied, “As you wish, Monsieur Polyte.”

     He was not overcome with surprise at all, and stepped over the back bench mumbling in a happy voice, “Let’s get on with it then. I knew we’d get there.”

     And the old horse began to trot off so softly that he seemed to be dancing on the spot, deaf to the occasional shouts of “Giddy-up, love, giddy-up.”

     Three months later Céleste noticed she was pregnant.

     She had said all of this to her mother in a choked voice. And the old woman, white with fury, asked, “How much did that cost, then?”

     “Four months, that’s about eight francs.”

     Then the old peasant’s exploded in a frenzy of rage and she fell upon her daughter again with flying fists until she was out of breath. After, having stood back up, she said, “Did you tell him you’re pregnant?”

     “No. Of course not.”

     “Why haven’t you said anything to him yet?”

     “Because he might have made me pay back the money!”

     And the old woman fell into thought, and then said, picking up her buckets, “Come on, get up and try to walk.” After a short silence, she spoke again, “Don’t say anything to him until he sees something; I reckon we could get six to eight months out of this.”

     And Céleste—still crying, having got to her feet, with dishevelled hair, looking sore and swollen—began walking again with a heavy step, murmuring, “I swear, I won’t say a word.”

Rose

The two young women appeared to be buried beneath a blanket of flowers. They sat alone on the carriage laden with flowers like a giant basket. On the little bench at the front, two wicker baskets covered with white satin were full of violets from Nice, and on the bear-skin that was draped over the girls' laps a mountain of  roses, mimosas, wallflowers, tuberoses, margaritas, and blossom from orange trees, tied together with silk ribbons, seemed to crush the two delicate bodies, allowing just their shoulders, arms and a little of their blouses - one white and one blue - to surface from this perfumed and brimming bed.
     The coachman's whip has a sheath of anemones around it, the rains of the horses are upholstered with flowers too, the axes of the wheels are decorated with reseda; and instead of lanterns, two round and enormous bouquets hang there in their place, looking like the wheeled and flowered beast's two strange eyes.
     The carriage is cantering along the road, the rue d'Antibes, preceded, followed, accompanied by a crowd of other vehicles covered in flowers, full of women underneath a wave of violets. Because today is the fête des fleurs in Cannes.
     They come to the boulevard de la Fonciere, where the battle takes place. All along the immense avenue, a double line of crews covered in decorations come and go like an endless ribbon. Flowers are thrown to everyone. They fly through the air like bullets, hit the fresh faces, float around and fall back into the ground where an army of kids collects them.
     Watching everything is a compact, loud and calm crowd, lined up on the pavement. It was contained by mounted policemen who went up and down the line with brutish intentions, pushing the curious members of the crowd back with their feet, as if they were there to prevent the masses from contaminating the rich.
     In the carts people recognise each other, call each other, chuck flowers at each other. A carriage full of pretty women dressed in red like devils attracts and seduces the eyes. A man who resembles the portraits of Henry IV, with an ardent happiness, throws a huge bouquet attached to him with some elastic. Expecting the blow, women protect their eyes and men duck their heads, but the gracious, speedy and docile projectile projectile comes back to its master who throws it immediately towards a new target.
     The two young women fill and empty their arms of their arsenal and receive a hail of bouquets in return; then, after an hour of battle, finally a little weary, they ask the coachman to follow the road along the Golfe-Juan, which hugs the coast.
     The sun was disappearing behind Esterel, painting in black, beneath a fiery sunset, the serrated silhouette of the long mountain. The calm sea stretches, blue and clear, the the horizon where it mingles with the sky, and the fleet, anchored in the middle of the gulf, appears to be a group of monstrous beasts, immobile on the water, like apocalyptic animals, armoured and crooked, topped with spindly masts like feathers, and with eyes that light up when the night comes.
     The young women, stretched out on the heavy bear-skin, watched the countryside languidly. One eventually said, "Oh how there are such delicious evenings, where everything seems good. Isn't that right, Margot?"
     The other replied, "Yes, it is good. But it's still missing something." The first said, smiling, "A little love?"
     "Yes"
     They fell quiet, looking in front of them, then the one called Marguerite murmured, "Life seems intolerable without that, I need to be loved, and I haven't been apart from my do. We are the same, wouldn't you say, Simone?"
     "Why no, my darling. I much prefer not being loved by anyone than being loved by whoever. Do you believe that it would be pleasant for me if, for example, someone loved me like... like..."
     She looked around for someone who could love her, casting her eye over the vast countryside. Her gaze, having gone along the horizon, fell on the two metal buttons that shined off the back of the coachman, and she said,laughing, "like my coachman."
     Mme Margot smiled thinly and said in a low voice, "I assure you that it is very amusing being loved by a servant. That has happened to me two or three times. They roll their eyes in such a funny way you just die laughing. Naturally, one has to appear all the more strict the more they fall in love, then one shows them the door, one day, under the first pretext that comes to mind, because it would become ridiculous if someone noticed."
     Mme Simone listened, with her gaze fixed ahead, then declared, "No. The heart of my valet does not seem sufficient to me. Tell me then how you know they loved you."
     "I know just as I do with other men; it's when they become stupid."
     "The other men don't seem too stupid to me, when they love me."
     "Idiots, my love, incapable of talking, of responding, of understanding anything."
     "But how did it feel being loved by a servant? Were you moved, flattered?"
     "Moved? No. Flattered, yes, a little. One is always flattered by the love of a man, whoever he may be."
     "Oh come now, Margot!"
     "It's true, my darling. Listen, I'll tell you a little story of mine. You will see how strange and curious the feelings we have are when this sort of thing happens."

     Four years ago in the autumn I found myself without a chambermaid. I had trialled five or six one after the other who were completely inept, and I was becoming desperate when I read, in the little newspaper adverts, that a young girl proficient in sewing, embroidery and hairdressing was looking for work, and that she would be an excellent chambermaid. She spoke English, too.
    I wrote to the given address and the next day, the person in question came to my house. She was quite tall, thin, a little pale, and of a very timid disposition. She had beautiful black eyes, an excellent complexion and I liked her straight away. I asked for her references, and she gave me one in English because she had just come from, she said, the house of Lady Rymwell, where she had worked for ten years.
     The reference confirmed that the young girl had left of her own will to return to France and that she had nothing to reproach her for, except for a slight French coquettish attitude.
     The prudish nature of this English phrase even made me smile a little and I hired her on the spot.
     She moved into my house that very same day; she was called Rose.
     One month later, I absolutely adored her. She was an veritable find, a pearl, a phenomenon.
     She knew how to style hair with a taste that knew no bounds; she could shape the rim of a hat better than the best stylists and even knew how to make dresses.
     I was left astounded by her faculties. I had never been served so well.
     She clothed me quickly and with a lightness of touch that was astonishing. I never felt her fingers on my skin, and nothing is more unpleasant than the feel of a maid's hand on one's skin. I soon fell into excessively lazy habits because it was so lovely to be dressed from head to toe, and from shirt to gloves by this tall timid girl, still a little bashful and who never spoke. When I came out of the bath she massaged me until I was half-asleep on my divan. Goodness, I considered her an inferior friend rather than a simple servant.
     One day, however, my concierge in a very mysterious tone asked to speak to me. I was surprised and let him enter. He was a very serious man, an ex-soldier, and he used to be my husband's orderly.
     He appeared disturbed by what he was about to say. Eventually, he mumbled, "Madame, the town's police commissioner is downstairs."
     Brusquely, I asked him, "What does he want?"
     "He wants to do a search of the hotel."
     Of course, the police are very useful, but I detest them. I find that it is not a noble profession, and I replied, both irritated and insulted in equal measure, "Why? For what end? He's not coming in."
     "He believes that there is a criminal hiding here."
     Now I was scared and asked him to allow the commissioner to come up in order to obtain some explanation. He was quite a well-educated man, and had been decorated with the Legion of Honour. He apologized and begged his pardon then said that I had a criminal among my workforce!
     I was disgusted; I replied that I vouched for the whole staff in the hotel and would go through the list.
     "The concierge, Pierre Courtin, ex-serviceman."
     "It's not him."
     "The coachman, Francois Pingau, a peasant from Champagne, the son of my father's farmer."
     "It's not him."
     "A stable valet, from Champagne also, and also the son of peasants who I know, and the valet whom you have just seen."
     "It's not him."
     "In which case, Monsieur, you see that you are mistaken."
     "Pardon me, madame, but I am sure that is not the case. As it is a formidable criminal, would you mind bringing out all your staff in front of you and me?"
     I resisted at first, but gave in eventually, and made all my staff, male and female, line up in front of him. The commissioner took one look at them and said, "This is not all of them."
     "Excuse me, Monsieur, all that remains is my chambermaid, a young girl who you could not confuse with a criminal."
     "May I see her too?"
     "Certainly", and I called Rose who came immediately. As soon as she came in the commissioner made a gesture and two men whom I had not seen hidden behind a door jumped on her, grabbed her hands and tied them up with rope.
     I screamed with fury and I wanted to jump in to defend her. The commissioner stopped me, saying, "This girl, madame, is a man who goes by the name of Jean-Nicolas Lecapet, condemned to death in 1879 for rape and murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. He has been on the run for four months. We have been looking for him ever since."
     I was completely stunned, motionless. I did not believe it. The commissioner laughed, "I can prove it to you. He has a tattoo on his right arm." He lifted his sleeve, revealing his right arm to indeed be tattooed.
     The policeman added with a certain malice, "Leave the rest to us for the other bits of evidence," and they took my chambermaid away.
   
     "So, if you can believe it, what I truly felt was not anger for having been used, tricked and ridiculed. It was not the shame of having been dressed, undressed, massaged and touched by this man... but a... profound humiliation... a woman's humiliation. Do you understand?"
     "I'm afraid I don't"
     "Ok, think about it. He had been convicted... for rape, this man... and I thought... about the woman he had raped and that... humiliated me. There, do you understand now?"
     And Madame Margot did not reply. She was looking straight in front of her, with a fixed gaze, at the two shining buttons on the livery, wearing that sphinx-like smile that women wear from time to time.

Old Boniface's Crime (Le Crime au père Boniface)

     That day, Boniface, the postman, upon leaving the post office, noticed that his round would be shorter than usual, and as a result felt a very light happiness. He was responsible for the area around the town of Vireville and, when he returned each evening, with his long and tired step, his legs had sometimes accumulated more than forty kilometres.
     So, the post round would be finished very quickly; he could even take his time on the way and get home three hours early. What luck!
     He left the town on the Sennemare path and began his work. It was June, the green and flourishing month, the true month for the plains.
     The man, dressed in his blue overalls and with a black kepi with a red stripe on his head, went across straight paths, the fields of oats, rape and wheat, and was nearly buried in the shoulder-high harvests. His head, just above the corn, seemed to be floating along a calm green sea that was undulating gently from a light breeze.
     He entered the farms through the wooden gate that was in the banks that were shaded by two rows of beech trees, greeting the peasant by his surname: "Hello, Monsieur Chicot!" he said, handing him his le Petit Normand newspaper. The farmer wiped his hand on his trousers, took the paper and slid it into his pocket, ready to read lazily after lunch. The dog, housed in a barrel at the foot of a tilting apple tree was yapping furiously, pulling on his chain; the pedestrian set off again at a military-march pace without turning round, stretching his long legs with his left hand over his bag full of papers and his right was managing his cane which was marching with a steady and hurried pace.
     He distributed the papers and letters in the hamlet of Sennemare then started his route again crossing fields to take the post to the tax-collecter who lived in a little isolated house about a kilometre from the village.
     He was the new tax collector. Monsieur Chapatis had arrived the week before and was recently married.
     He read the Paris newspaper and every now and then Boniface the postman would, when he had time, glance through his post before giving it to its owner.
     So, he opened his bag, took the sheet and pulled it from the other documents, unfolded it and started to read while still walking. The first page did not interest him at all; politics left him completely bored; he always skipped over the finances, but the different figures excited him.
     They were very full that day. He was so moved by the story of a crime carried out in the home of a gamekeeper that he had to stop in the middle of a clover field to re-read it at a slower pace. The events were terrible. A lumberjack had been passing by the house in the middle of a forest when he noticed some blood on the doorstep as if some one had had a nosebleed. "The gamekeeper must have killed a rabbit or something last night," he thought. But drawing nearer he noticed that the door was still slightly ajar and the lock had been broken. Then, terrified, he ran to the village to warn the mayor, and the latter had enlisted the constable and teacher for protection, and the four men went back to the house together. There the found the gamekeeper with a slit throat, his wife strangled on the bed and their little six year old girl suffocated between two mattresses.
    Boniface the postman was left so moved at the thought of this murder and its horrible circumstances that appeared fresh in his mind one after the other, that he felt a weakness of the knees and said out loud, "Good God, there are always some horrible people!"
     Then he put the paper back in its paper bag and started off again, with his head seeing vividly the scene of the crime. I soon came to the house of Monsieur Chapatis; he opened the little garden gate and walked up to the house. It was a low building, containing nothing more than a ground floor topped with a mansard roof. It was separated by around five hundred metres from the next house.
     The postman walked up the two steps to the entrance, put his hand on the lock and tried to open the door and found it was locked. Then, he saw that the blinds had not been opened at all, and that no one had left the house yet that day.
     He huge sentiment of worry came over him, because Monsieur Chapatis since his arrival had always got up fairly early. Boniface looked at his watch. It wasn't even ten past seven in the morning and he was therefore an hour early. It didn't matter, the tax-collecter should already be up.
     Then he examined the house, walking round it carefully, as if he was in some peril. He saw nothing to raise suspicion, apart from footsteps of a man in a patch of strawberries.
     But all of a sudden he stiffened, stock-still, crippled with fear, while passing in front of a window. Someone was groaning inside the house.
     He approached, stepping over a bed of thyme, pressed his ear to the window to hear better. There was definite groaning. He heard long and painful breaths, a sort of wheezing, fighting. Then the groaning became louder, more frequent, more acute, and became cries.
     So Boniface, who did not doubt that a crime was being committed at that very moment in the house of the tax-collecter, ran as fast as he could, going back through the garden and across the fields, through the crops, running flat-out, with his bag shaking and bumping into his waist, and arrived, exhausted, puffing, frantic, at the door of the police station.
     Brigadier Malautour was fixing a broken chair, using hammer and nails. Officer Rautier was holding the broken item between his legs and was fixing a nail around the broken area; then the brigadier, chewing his moustache, with his round and wet eyes from the effort, hit his subordinate's fingers with the hammer.
     The postman, as soon as he saw them, shouted, "Come quick, someone's killing the tax collecter! Hurry, hurry!"
     The two men stopped their work and raised their head, those stunned heads of people whom one has just surprised and disturbed.
     Boniface, seeing that they were more surprised than in a hurry, and repeated, "Quickly, quickly! The thieves are in the house, I heard shouting, there's no time."
     The brigadier put down his hammer and asked, "How do you know about all this?"
     The postman replied, "I was delivering his paper with two letters when I saw that his door was locked and he wasn't up yet. I walked round the house to confirm and I heard groaning inside as if someone was being strangled or having their throat slit. It was then that I left as quickly as possible to get you. We're running out of time."
     The brigadier, standing up, said, "And you didn't try to aid yourself?"
     The postman, alarmed, replied, "I feared that I'd be outnumbered."
     Then the policeman, convinced, announced, "Let me get dressed and I'll follow your lead." He went into the police station followed by his soldier who brought the chair.
     They reappeared almost immediately, and all three started to walk at a tremendous pace towards the scene of the crime.
     Approaching the house, they slowed their pace as a precaution and the brigadier pulled out his gun, then they stealthily entered the garden and came up to the wall. There was nothing to suggest that the criminals had left; the door was still locked and the windows closed.
     "We've got them," murmured the brigadier.
     Old Boniface, his heart beating against his ribs with excitement, made him go round the other side and said, pointing at the canopy, "It's in there."
     And the brigadier went forward alone, and put his ear next to the board. The other two waited, ready for anything, with their eyes fixed on him.
     He stayed there immobile for a long time, listening. To get his head closer to the wooden shutter, he'd taken off his three-cornered hat and was holding it in his right hand.
     "What could he hear? His impassable body gave nothing away, but suddenly his moustache twitched and his cheeks wrinkled as if he were laughing silently, and stepping over the thyme bed once more he came back to the two men, who were looking at him baffled.
     Then he signalled for them to follow him on tip-toes, and coming before the front door once more he told Boniface to slide the post under the door.
     The postman, stupefied, did so in a docile way. "And now, off we go," said the brigadier.
     But as soon as they had passed the gate, he turned to the postman and mockingly said with his sardonic tone and his eyes shining with joy, "You're a sly one!"
     The old man asked, "How do you mean? I heard it all, I swear I heard it." But the officer, unable to hold it in any longer, and burst out laughing. He couldn't breathe he was laughing so hard, doubled up, with both his hands clutching is stomach, his eyes full of tears, with horrible grimaces around his nose. The other two, watching him, panicked.
     But since he couldn't even speak, or stop laughing, or make them understand what he was laughing at, he made a licentious hand gesture.
     Because they still didn't understand, he did it again, several times in a row, nodding his head back towards the house who's door was still closed.
     And the soldier, all of a sudden understanding as well, burst into laughter.
     The old man remained ignorant between the two men who were twisted with laughter.
     The brigadier eventually calmed down and playfully punched the old man in the stomach and shouted, "Oh you joker! I'll remember this as old Boniface's crime."
     The postman opened his enormous eyes and repeated, "I swear to you that I heard it."
     The brigadier began to laugh again. His soldier had sat down on the grass of the ditch to writhe at his own will. "Oh you heard it! And your wife, do you kill her in that way too eh? You old joker."
     "My wife...?" And he began to think for a long while, and then said, "My wife... yeah, she shouts when I hit her... Bur she shouts, shouting, like. Was Monsieur Chapatis hitting his one then?"
     Then the brigadier, in a delirious happiness, took him by the shoulders and turned him round like a puppet, and whispered in his ear something that stupefied the old man.
     Then, the postman murmured pensively, "No... not like that... not like that... not like that... she doesn't say anything, mine. I never would have thought, if it's possible... I would have sworn to God."
     Confused and disorientated, embarrassed, he went on his way through the fields while the policeman and the brigadier - still laughing - shouted crude jokes from afar, and watched his black kepi disappear on the tranquil harvest sea.