“It was already six, and they had not yet returned.  I told my servant to wait for them and I went to bed.  I soon fell asleep and slept like a top.  At daybreak I was awakened by my servant, who was bringing me my hot water.

“As soon as my eyes were open I asked:  ‘How about Kerandec?’

“The man hesitated and then stammered:  ’Oh! he came back, all right, after midnight, and so drunk that he couldn’t walk, and so were Kermagan and the nurse.  I guess they must have slept in a ditch, for the little one died and they never even noticed it.’

“I jumped up out of bed, crying: 

“‘What!  The child is dead?’

“’Yes, sir.  They brought it back to Mother Kerandec.  When she saw it she began to cry, and now they are making her drink to console her.’

“‘What’s that?  They are making her drink!’

“’Yes, sir.  I only found it out this morning.  As Kerandec had no more brandy or money, he took some wood alcohol, which monsieur gave him for the lamp, and all four of them are now drinking that.  The mother is feeling pretty sick now.’

“I had hastily put on some clothes, and seizing a stick, with the intention of applying it to the backs of these human beasts, I hastened towards the gardener’s house.

“The mother was raving drunk beside the blue body of her dead baby.  Kerandec, the nurse, and the Kermagan woman were snoring on the floor.  I had to take care of the mother, who died towards noon.”

The old doctor was silent.  He took up the brandy-bottle and poured out another glass.  He held it up to the lamp, and the light streaming through it imparted to the liquid the amber color of molten topaz.  With one gulp he swallowed the treacherous drink.

THE FARMER’S WIFE

Said the Baron Rene du Treilles to me: 

“Will you come and open the hunting season with me at my farm at Marinville?  I shall be delighted if you will, my dear boy.  In the first place, I am all alone.  It is rather a difficult ground to get at, and the place I live in is so primitive that I can invite only my most intimate friends.”

I accepted his invitation, and on Saturday we set off on the train going to Normandy.  We alighted at a station called Almivare, and Baron Rene, pointing to a carryall drawn by a timid horse and driven by a big countryman with white hair, said: 

“Here is our equipage, my dear boy.”

The driver extended his hand to his landlord, and the baron pressed it warmly, asking: 

“Well, Maitre Lebrument, how are you?”

“Always the same, M’sieu le Baron.”

We jumped into this swinging hencoop perched on two enormous wheels, and the young horse, after a violent swerve, started into a gallop, pitching us into the air like balls.  Every fall backward on the wooden bench gave me the most dreadful pain.

The peasant kept repeating in his calm, monotonous voice: