Then the three men, the father and the two sons, tried to open the door, but it resisted their efforts.  From the empty cow-stall they took a beam to serve as a battering-ram and hurled it against the door with all their might.  The wood gave way and the boards flew into splinters.  Then the house was shaken by a loud voice, and inside, behind the side board which was overturned, they saw a man standing upright, with his hair falling on his shoulders and a beard descending to his breast, with shining eyes, and nothing but rags to cover him.  They did not recognize him, but Louise Hauser exclaimed: 

“It is Ulrich, mother.”  And her mother declared that it was Ulrich, although his hair was white.

He allowed them to go up to him and to touch him, but he did not reply to any of their questions, and they were obliged to take him to Loeche, where the doctors found that he was mad, and nobody ever found out what had become of his companion.

Little Louise Hauser nearly died that summer of decline, which the physicians attributed to the cold air of the mountains.

Original short stories, Vol. 5.

Guy de maupassant
original short stories
Translated by
Albert M. C. McMASTER, B.A. 
A. E. Henderson, B.A. 
Mme. Quesada and Others

VOLUME V.

MONSIEUR PARENT

George’s father was sitting in an iron chair, watching his little son with concentrated affection and attention, as little George piled up the sand into heaps during one of their walks.  He would take up the sand with both hands, make a mound of it, and put a chestnut leaf on top.  His father saw no one but him in that public park full of people.

The sun was just disappearing behind the roofs of the Rue Saint-Lazare, but still shed its rays obliquely on that little, overdressed crowd.  The chestnut trees were lighted up by its yellow rays, and the three fountains before the lofty porch of the church had the appearance of liquid silver.

Monsieur Parent, accidentally looking up at the church clock, saw that he was five minutes late.  He got up, took the child by the arm, shook his dress, which was covered with sand, wiped his hands, and led him in the direction of the Rue Blanche.  He walked quickly, so as not to get in after his wife, and the child could not keep up with him.  He took him up and carried him, though it made him pant when he had to walk up the steep street.  He was a man of forty, already turning gray, and rather stout.  At last he reached his house.  An old servant who had brought him up, one of those trusted servants who are the tyrants of families, opened the door to him.

“Has madame come in yet?” he asked anxiously.

The servant shrugged her shoulders: 

“When have you ever known madame to come home at half-past six, monsieur?”