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A Ride.

(Translated from the French of de Maupassant.)

The poor couple managed, with difficulty, to make both ends meet on the husband's small salary. Since their marriage, two children had been born, and what began by being "narrow circumstances" had developed into penury; the quiet, shame-faced, hidden penury of gentle folk who try to keep up appearances.

Hector de Gribelin had been brought up in the country, on his father's little property, and educated by an old tutor, a clergyman. The family was not well off, just able to live in a decently presentable way. At twenty, an appointment had been found for him, a clerkship at a hundred a year in the Admiralty. He drifted on to this sandbank in the way so many men drift: all in fact who are not prepared from the start for the rough and tumble of life, all whose outlook on the world is misty, who know nothing of its shoals and currents: those who have not been fitted from childhood for some definite special occupation and filled with strenuous determination to face the struggle: those in whose hands no tool, no weapon has been placed.

The first three years he spent in the office were horrible.

He met a few family friends, people behind the times and poorly off, like himself; people who lived in dreary, respectable, old-fashioned streets. These were the society he had: gentlemen in poor circumstances, humble, and proud, knowing nothing of the modern world, living on the top floors of large sleepy-looking houses. The flats in these houses, from top to bottom, were occupied by well-connected people, but money did not seem much more plentiful on the first floor than on the sixth. The families that lived there had once been prosperous, but the force of old undying prejudices, the everlasting anxiety to live up to aristocratic traditions, kept the men from doing anything and brought poverty in its train.

Among these acquaintances of his, Hector de Gribelin met a girl, well-born and poor like himself, and married her.

page 49

In four years of married life, two children were born.

Another four years passed. Pressed down by poverty, their only amusements were a walk in the public gardens on Sundays, and an occasional night at the theatre, say once or twice in the season, when someone in the office had a pass to give them.

But just as spring was coming round again, Hector's chief gave him some extra work, which brought him an unexpected fee of twenty pounds.

He brought the money home to his wife and said to her

"Henrietta, my dear, we ought to do something now we've got this. We might have some sort of excursion for the children."

After long discussion they decided on a picnic.

"Look here," said Hector, "once in a way won't hurt us. We'll hire a trap for you, the children, and the servant. I'll get a horse to ride from the livery stables. A ride will do me good."

All the week nothing was talked about but the picnic.

Every evening when Hector came home from the office, he caught up his eldest son, set him astride on his knee, and jumped him up and down as high as he could, saying:

"That's daddy riding to the picnic, next Sunday." And the little beggar spent all day astride a chair, dragging it round the room, shouting

"Daddy on a gee-gee! Daddy on a gee-gee"!

Even the maid of all work looked at the master with interest and wonder, when she reflected that he was going to ride beside the trap; at meal-times, she listened to him talking horses, and telling stories of his feats of horsemanship, years ago, at his father's home. He'd had a good training, never fear! Once he had the horse between his knees, there wasn't much he was afraid of, not he.

Then he would rub his hands together, and say to his wife:

"Now I tell you what I'd really like; I'd like to get a horse not too easy to manage. You'll see how I can ride, and if you like, we might come back by the Park about the time people are driving back. We'll be making a good effect, and it might be a good thing to come across page 50 some one from the office. That's the sort of thing makes a man respected by his superiors in the office."

The appointed day came, and with it the trap and also the horse. He went downstairs at once to have a look at his mount. He'd got his wife to sew straps to the bottom of his trousers, and carried a crop, bought the day before, under his arm.

He lifted the horse's feet, one after the other, and ran his hand along to the knee, felt his neck and ribs, prodded his haunches, opened his mouth, examined the teeth and announeed the animal's age; then, as the family reached the bottom of the stairs, he delivered a sort of half-theoretical, half-practical lecturette on horses in general, and this horse in particular, which he declared a very superior specimen of the race.

When they were all comfortably in their seats, he looked to see if the girths were tight enough, rose high on one stirrup and dropped down into the saddle.

The horse at once began to play up and all but threw him.

"Whoa, mare, easy, whoa, mare" Hector tried to soothe it, feeling rather upset.

As soon as the horse had quieted down and the rider regained his self-possession, he asked

"Is everybody ready?"

To which all replied together "Yes."

Whereupon he gave the order,

"Off!" and the party moved away.

Every eye was fixed on him. He trotted along, rising very high in the stirrups: every time he dropped back into the saddle, the recoil instantly sent him flying sky-high. Every few minutes he looked as if he must tumble on to the mane: his eyes were fixed, staring straight ahead: his features drawn, his cheeks pale.

His wife had one of the children on her knees, and the maid the other: both of them kept on saying, "Look at daddy! look at daddy!"

The two youngsters, intoxicated with pleasure and motion and fresh air, joined in with shrill shouts. At last the horse got restive owing to the noise, and started galloping. In his efforts to check the horse, Hector's hat fell off, and the driver had to jump down from his seat and pick it up. When Hector had taken the hat page 51 from him, he called out to his wife, from far behind:

"Stop the children screaming, can't you? You'll end up by making him bolt!"

They lunched on the grass, under the trees, with provisions they had brought in a hamper.

Although the driver was looking after the three horses, Hector jumped up every few minutes to see if his mount had everything it wanted; he patted its neck and fed it on bread and cake and sugar. He said,

"By jove, this horse can trot and no mistake. I must say he rather shook me up at first. But as you saw I soon found my seat. Now he knows his master, and won't try any more tricks."

They came back by the Park, as had been arranged.. The huge drive was swarming with carriages. Along the sidewalks there was an endless crowd of people on foot, stretching out like two interminable black ribbons. The whole scene was bathed and flooded in sunshine, which flashed back from the varnished panels, the polished steel of the harness and the brass handles of the carriage doors. The whole mass of people and carriages and horses seemed to be throbbing with the exhilaration of light and movement. In the distance, the obelisk towered up out of a golden haze.

Hector's horse, as soon as they reached the drive, suddenly developed an unexpected energy. He picked his way at a fast trot through the maze of wheels, making for his stable, in spite of all Hector's efforts to make him go slow.

Soon the trap was left far, far behind; and now, when he reached the Trades' Hall, the horse, seeing the open square before it, plunged off to the right and broke into a gallop.

An old woman in an apron was just crossing the road in leisurely fashion, exactly in front of Hector, who was bearing down on her at full speed. Being quite unable to control the animal, he began screaming at the top of his voice:

"Hi! you there! Hi! Look out!"

Perhaps she was deaf. At any rate she quietly continued on her way, till the horse struck her with his chest, going as hard as a steam engine, and sent her flying head over page 52 heels to lie in the gutter a dozen yards away.

People shouted: "Stop him! Stop him!" and Hector, in desperation, clung with both hands to the mane, shouting "Help!"

A fearful shock sent him shooting like a cannon-ball over the head of his steed, and dropped him right into the arms of the policeman who had thrown himself in the horse's way.

In a moment, an angry crowd collected round him, shouting and waving their arms. One old gentleman in particular seemed furiously indignant: an old gentleman wearing a large star on his coat, who had a long white moustache. He said over and over again

"By Gad, Sir! a fellow who can't ride better than that should stay at home. A fellow who can't manage a horse, sir, coming and killing people in the street!"

Four men stood round the old woman and lifted her up. She looked as if she was dead, with her sallow face and her bonnet all awry and grey with dust.

"Take the woman to a chemist's" ordered the old gentleman, "and we'll go to the police station."

Hector marched off, with a policeman on each side of him: a third policeman led the horse. The crowd followed. Suddenly the trap with the family drove up. His wife jumped down, the maid lost her head, the children howled. He explained that he was just coming home: that he'd upset an old woman: that it was nothing.

They went on, distracted.

At the police-station the business was soon settled. He gave his name, Hector de Gribelin, clerk in the Admiralty: and they waited for news of the injured woman. The policeman who had gone to enquire came back. She had recovered consciousness, but complained of great internal agony. She was a charwoman, 65 years of age, Mrs. Simon by name.

On hearing she was not dead Hector plucked up courage again, and undertook to pay the expenses of medical attendance. Then he flew to the chemist's. A crowd was blocking the entrance. The old woman was lying helplessly in an arm-chair, groaning; her hands hung down listless, her face had lost all expression. Two page 53 doctors were examining her. No limbs were broken, but there might be internal injuries.

Hector spoke to her:

"Are you in much pain?"

"Oh, yes, sir!"

"Where?"

"Feels like as there was a fire burnin' in me stummick, sir."

One of the doctors came up to him and said:

"Are you the person responsible for the accident?"

"Yes."

"This woman ought to be sent to a private hospital. I can recommend an establishment where the charge is six shillings per diem. Would you like me to make the necessary arrangements?"

Hector thanked him, greatly relieved, and went home with his mind at ease. He found his wife in tears, and comforted her.

"It's nothing at all. The Simon woman is better already. In three days' time there won't be a sign of it left. I've sent her to hospital: it's nothing at all."

Nothing at all!

After leaving the office next day he went to enquire about Mrs. Simon. He found her engaged in drinking beef tea, and looking as if she enjoyed it.

"Well," said he, "and how are you?" She answered,

"It aint no better, sir. I'm feelin' awful agony, sir. It aint no better."

The doctor was unable to give an opinion as yet. Complications might have arisen.

Three days later, Hector called again. The old woman's complexion was improving, and her eyes looking bright and clear. As soon as she saw him, she began groaning. "I won't never be fit to move again, sir. I won't never be fit to move, not till I ends my days, sir." A cold shiver ran down Hector's spine. He asked for the doctor. The doctor shrugged his shoulders: "My dear sir, I can't tell. There's no knowing how the case stands. When they try to lift her up, she yells. They can't even move the couch she's lying on without piercing screams. I'm bound to believe what she tells me: one can't see page 54 inside a patient. I've no right to suppose she's telling lies until I actually see her walk."

The old woman lay and listened, never moving, with expressionless eyes.

A week went by: a fortnight: a month. Mrs. Simon never left her couch. She ate five meals a day, grew stout, chatted cheerfully with the other patients, and seemed contentedly resigned to her bed-ridden state; in fact she seemed to look on it as a well-earned rest, after fifty years spent in climbing up and down stairs, making beds, carrying coals from floor to floor, sweeping and scrubbing and the like.

Hector in desperation came to see her every day. Every day he found her peaceful and contented, declaring she could not make the slightest movement.

Every evening his wife, miserably anxious, poor soul, asked him

"How about Mrs. Simon?" And every time he had to give the same despondent answer

"No change, none whatever!"

They got rid of their servant, whose wages were becoming too heavy an item. They were even more economical than before. The whole of the extra work money had long since gone.

Then Hector summoned four famous doctors to a consultation about the old woman. She let them examine her, feel her, auscultate her, thump her; watching them the while with ferret eyes. At last one of them said:

"She must be made to walk."

"I can't do it, gen'elmen, please kind gen'elmen, I can't nohow."

They took hold of her under the arms, raised her up, and dragged her along for several steps. But she slipped out of their hands and fell heavily to the ground, uttering such appalling yells that they carried her back to the coach with infinite care.

After consulting, they gave a non-committal opinion: deciding, however, that she was unfit for work.

When Hector brought home the news to his wife, she dropped into a chair, gasping out

"Wouldn't it be cheaper to have her here?"

"What d'you mean? Here, in the house?" asked page 55 Hector in horror-struck tones.

But she had already resigned herself to the inevitable, and as the tears suffused her eyes, answered gently,

"It's not my fault, you know, dear."