She had been married twice, and had twice been left a widow, and for ten years, until she was fifty, she had been the only commodity in the district, for pleasure, to which five villages came to amuse themselves on holidays.

“She was very pretty, I suppose?”

“No; she never was that.  It seems she was short, thin, with no bust or hips, at her best, I am told, and nobody can remember that she was pretty, even when she was young.”

“Then how can you explain ...?”

“How?” the magistrate exclaimed.  “Well! what about the eyes?  You could not have looked at them?”

“Yes, yes, you are right,” I replied.  “Those eyes explain many things, certainly.  They are the eyes of an innocent child.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed again, enthusiastically, “Cleopatra, Diana of Poiters, Ninon de L’Enclos, all the queens of love who were adored when they were growing old, must have had eyes like hers.  A woman who has such eyes can never grow old.  But if Babette lives to be a hundred, she will always be loved as she has been, and as she is.”

“As she is!  Bah!  By whom, pray?”

“By all the old men in the asylum, by all those who have preserved a fiber that can be touched, a corner of their heart that can be inflamed, or the least spark of desire left.”

“Do you think so?”

“I am sure of it.  And the superintendent loves her more than any of them do.”

“Impossible!”

“I would stake my head on it.”

“Well, after all, it is possible, and even probable; it is even certain.  I now remember ...”

And again I saw the insulting, ferocious, familiar look which she had given the superintendent.

“And who is la Frieze?” I asked the magistrate “I suppose you know that also?”

“He is a retired butcher, who had both his legs frozen in the war of 1870, and whom she is very fond of.  No doubt he is a cripple, with two wooden legs, but still a vigorous man enough, in spite of his fifty-three years.  The loins of a Hercules and the face of a satyr.  The superintendent is quite jealous of him!”

I thought the matter over again, and it seemed very probable to me.  “Does she love la Frieze?”

“Yes; he is the chosen lover.”

When we arrived at the host’s house a short time afterwards, we were surprised to find everybody in a terrible state of excitement.  A crime had been committed in the asylum; the gendarmes were there and our host was with them, so we instantly joined them. La Frieze had murdered the superintendent, and they gave us the details, which were horrible.  The former butcher had hidden behind a door, and catching hold of the other, had rolled onto the ground with him and bitten him in the throat, tearing out his carotid, from which the blood spurted into the murderer’s face.

I saw him, la Frieze.  His fat face, which had been badly washed, was still blood-stained; he had a low forehead, square jaws, pointed ears, sticking out from his head, and flat nostrils, like the muzzle of some wild animal; but above all, I saw Babette.