Maurice Level - Thirty Hours with a Corpse, and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol

“I risked asking whether he had any relatives or friends.

“‘Friends!’ The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘As to relatives, he may have a great-nephew in some corner in France, but he won’t get anything. Everything he has will go to the woman who has been his housekeeper for fifteen years. She boasts about it. She declares he has often told her that not a halfpenny of his money is to go to his family, that he was not such a fool as to let his death make them rich, that she shall have everything. You will guess whether she counts the coppers.’

“Suddenly I began to hate my father. Was he not the cause of all my misfortunes?

“I went away and wandered about the streets, paying no attention to where I was going. A sense of injury blotted out every other feeling. I must have been walking a very long while when, almost fainting with hunger, I went into a low eating-house, near the fortifications I think it was… When I had paid the bill I had not one farthing left, and there were still six days before the end of the month. What was to become of me? As I wondered, my fingers touched the knife I had used to cut my bread. It was a long knife, thin, pointed—I don’t know why I took it, but I did.

“I am not trying to excuse myself or lessen my crime, but the feeling of having that knife in my pocket, close against my side, turned my brain… I grasped the handle… I tried the blade with my fingers… And without knowing how or why it happened, I found myself standing in front of my father’s house.

“I didn’t argue with myself about it; there was no fighting against any horrible ideas. I wasn’t thinking at all. Deliberately, without any kind of hesitation, I rang the courtyard bell… The door opened. I muttered the first name that came into my head… and I went up the stairs.

“When I got to the door of my father’s flat, I stopped, vaguely aware of the madness of what I was doing. If I rang, no one would open the door at that hour of night… If I made any noise, the neighbors would come out to see what was the matter… I should be flung downstairs.

“I felt in my pocket for the key of my own door and slipped it quietly in the keyhole. It went in without a sound… I turned it as easily as a burglar would… Something gave way… The door opened. Stupefied by the coincidence of the key of my door exactly fitting his, I stood perfectly still in the dark for some seconds, asking myelf for the first time what I was doing there.

“At the same moment I saw a line of light on the carpet. Very quietly I opened a second door.

“A man—my father—was sitting with his back to me. He did not raise his head.

“A lamp with a lowered green shade lit the table over which he was bending. All the rest of the room was in deep shadow. He was writing. I could only see his bald head and thin shoulders. Holding my breath, I stole behind him and drew myself up on tiptoe. A large sheet of paper lay on his blotter. I read:

Underneath there were three lines of smaller writing. The words the neighbors had spoken flashed into my mind, and I seemed to see the greedy old servant who had taken the place that ought to have been my mother’s.

“A frenzy ran through me. So I, his son, I who was going to die of hunger, I was beside him, starving at the very moment when with a few strokes of his pen he was going to do this abominable thing, make it irrevocable. Not a farthing would come to me, his own flesh and blood, who would die for need of it… All was for the old harridan who was counting the minutes till he died… It was impossible. He should not do it… I bent forward and read:

“‘I leave all I possess, money, houses…’

“I ground my teeth. He started violently, turned his head, and seeing my face, which at that moment must have been terrifying, cried out, with an instinctive movement covering the paper with his arm as if to prevent my seeing it.

“… The knife was in my hand… I drove it forward, and with a force that seemed to make my own bones creak, sent the blade through his neck above his collar…

“Then I realized what I had done… I rushed away… You know the rest…”

He took off his eyeglasses and dried his eyes. Drops of sweat were running down his face; he was trembling violently.

The judge, who had been watching him closely, unfolded a large sheet of paper stained with a brown mark, and said:

“And you read nothing else on this page?”

He shook his head.

“Well, listen. I will read the rest to you:

“‘I leave all I possess, money, houses, and furniture to Jean Gautet, my son, asking him to forgive me for having been the bad father I—’

“You didn’t leave him time to finish.”

The murderer drew himself up with a jerk, his eyes wild, his mouth gaping as he stammered:

“To my son?… Me?… I?…”

There was a pause; then he burst into a shriek of wild laughter, beating his head, and swaying about as he yelled:

“I am rich! I am rich!”

He had gone mad.

WITH LONG strokes, slow and rhythmic, Jean Madek thrust his scythe into the wheat, and at the touch of the blade the sheaths that quivered at the end of the stalks fell down softly with a long froufrou like silk.

He advanced, measuring his steps by the supple balance of his arm, and behind him the ground showed itself brown, spotted here and there by groups of stones, bristling with thick-set sprigs of reddish straw.

His old mother followed close behind him, her back bent as she gathered up the scattered stalks, and seeing only her feet dragging their heavy sabots, her two wrinkled, knotted hands and her body covered with rags, one might have imagined she was some animal crouching on its four feet.

The sun mounted in the horizon. A heavy heat weighed on everything, wrapping the country in torpor, and the field looked like a large piece of ripe fruit, its sap rising in a penetrating perfume.

Gleaning steadily, the old woman grumbled:

“What’s your wife doing as late as this? When’s she coming?”

“She’ll bring dinner at twelve o’clock.”

The old woman shrugged her shoulders:

“At least she’s not overtiring herself !…”

“She’s like everyone else. Whether she’s here or at the farm, she’s at work.”

“Oh! Work of that sort!…”

Then, as if talking to herself as she continued to scrape the ground:

“Our master isn’t here either this morning. Perhaps he stayed behind to give her a hand?…”

The man held back his scythe:

“What do you mean by that?”

“Me?… Nothing… Words… Something to say…”

Jean went on with his work. The old woman began again as if speaking to herself:

“My dead husband wouldn’t have had it… When he went to the fields, I didn’t stay behind to keep the master company.”

A second time the reaper raised his head.

“Why are you telling me that?”

“I was thinking, inside me, that your father was more suspicious than you are…”

The son straightened himself with a jerk.

“What is it? What do you mean? You must have some reason for talking like this…”

“If you must have it, then,” blurted the old woman from her stooping position, “people are gossiping about you and about Céline… Nasty gossip, too!”

“Who gossips?”

“No one… and everyone… What’s more, you can’t blame them: they can’t help seeing what’s under their noses.”

“Lies!”

Without seeming to hear him, the old woman pushed aside a clod of earth with her foot and continued:

“I’m telling you for your good. I’m your mother, and I oughtn’t to hide anything from you… You can be angry if you like. But you’ve had your warning.”