The works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 5

And in a second, the crowd of sightseers had fallen back two hundred meters.

La Roqué was lifted up, turned round, and placed in a sitting posture, and she now remained weeping with her hands clasped over her face.

The occurrence was discussed among the crowd; and young lads' eager eyes curiously scrutinized this naked body of a girl. Renardet perceived this, and abruptly taking off his vest, he flung it over the little girl, who was entirely lost to view under the wide garment.

The spectators drew near quietly. The wood was filled with people, and a continuous hum of voices rose up under the tangled foliage of the tall trees.

The Mayor, in his shirt sleeves, remained standing, with his stick in his hands, in a fighting attitude. He seemed exasperated by this curiosity on the part of the people, and kept repeating:

"If one of you come nearer, I'll break his head just as I would a dog's."

The peasants were greatly afraid of him. They held back. Dr. Labarbe, who was smoking, sat down beside La Roqué, and spoke to her in order to distract her attention. The old woman soon removed her hands from her face, and she replied with a flood of tearful words, emptying her grief in copious talk. She told the whole story of her life, her marriage, the death of her man, a bullsticker, who had been gored to death, the infancy of her daughter, her wretched existence as a widow without resources and with a child to support. She had only this one, her little Louise, and the child had been killed – killed in this wood. All of a sudden, she felt anxious to see it again, and dragging herself on her knees towards the corpse, she raised up one corner of the garment that covered her; then she let it fall again, and began wailing once more. The crowd remained silent, eagerly watching all the mother's gestures.

But all of a sudden, a great swaying movement took place, and there was a cry of "the gendarmes! the gendarmes!"

The gendarmes appeared in the distance, coming on at a rapid trot, escorting their captain and a little gentleman with red whiskers, who was bobbing up and down like a monkey on a big white mare.

The steward had just found M. Putoin, the examining magistrate, at the moment when he was mounting his horse to take his daily ride, for he posed as a good horseman to the great amusement of the officers.

He alighted along with the captain, and passed the hands of the Mayor and the Doctor, casting a ferret-like glance on the linen vest which swelled above the body lying underneath.

When he was thoroughly acquainted with the facts, he first gave orders to get rid of the public, whom the gendarmes drove out of the wood, but who soon reappeared in the meadow, and formed a hedge, a big hedge of excited and moving heads all along the Brindelle, on the other side of the stream.

The doctor in his turn, gave explanations, of which Renardet took a note in his memorandum book. All the evidence was given, taken down, and commented on without leading to any discovery. Maxime, too, came back without having found any trace of the clothes.

This disappearance surprised everybody; no one could explain it on the theory of theft, and as these rags were not worth twenty sous, even this theory was inadmissible.

The examining magistrate, the mayor, the captain, and the doctor, set to work by searching in pairs, putting aside the smallest branches along the water.

Renardet said to the judge:

"How does it happen that this wretch has concealed or carried away the clothes, and has thus left the body exposed in the open air and visible to everyone?"

The other, sly and knowing, answered:

"Ha! Ha! Perhaps a dodge? This crime has been committed either by a brute or by a crafty blackguard. In any case we'll easily succeed in finding him."

The rolling of a vehicle made them turn their heads round. It was the deputy magistrate, the doctor and the registrar of the court who had arrived in their turn. They resumed their searches, all chatting in an animated fashion.

Renardet said suddenly:

"Do you know that I am keeping you to lunch with me?"

Everyone smilingly accepted the invitation, and the examining magistrate, finding that the case of little Louise Roqué was quite enough to bother about for one day, turned towards the Mayor:

"I can have the body brought to your house, can I not? You have a room in which you can keep it for me till this evening."

The other got confused, and stammered:

"Yes – no – no. To tell the truth, I prefer that it should not come into my house on account of – on account of my servants who are already talking about ghosts in – in my tower, in the Fox's tower. You know – I could no longer keep a single one. No – I prefer not to have it in my house."

The magistrate began to smile:

"Good! I am going to get it carried off at once to Roug, for the legal examination."

Turning towards the door:

"I can make use of your trap can I not?"

"Yes, certainly."

Everybody came back to the place where the corpse lay. La Roqué now, seated beside her daughter, had caught hold of her head, and was staring right before her, with a wandering listless eye.

The two doctors endeavored to lead her away, so that she might not witness the dead girl's removal; but she understood at once what they wanted to do, and, flinging herself on the body, she seized it in both arms. Lying on top of the corpse, she exclaimed:

"You shall not have it – 'tis mine – 'tis mine now. They have killed her on me, and I want to keep her – you shall not have her – !"

All the men, affected and not knowing how to act, remained standing around her. Renardet fell on his knees, and said to her:

"Listen, La Roqué, it is necessary in order to find out who killed her. Without this, it could not be found out. We must make a search for him in order to punish him. When we have found him, we'll give her up to you. I promise you this."

This explanation shook the woman's mind, and a feeling of hatred manifested itself in her distracted glance.

"So then they'll take him?"

"Yes, I promise you that."

She rose up, deciding to let them do as they liked; but, when the captain remarked:

"'Tis surprising that her clothes were not found."

A new idea, which she had not previously thought of, abruptly found an entrance into her brain, and she asked:

"Where are her clothes. They're mine. I want them. Where have they been put?"

They explained to her that they had not been found. Then she called out for them with desperate obstinacy and with repeated moans.

"They're mine – I want them. Where are they? I want them!"

The more they tried to calm her the more she sobbed, and persisted in her demands. She no longer wanted the body, she insisted on having the clothes, as much perhaps through the unconscious cupidity of a wretched being to whom a piece of silver represents a fortune, as through maternal tenderness.

And when the little body rolled up in blankets which had been brought out from Renardet's house, had disappeared in the vehicle, the old woman standing under the trees, held up by the Mayor and the Captain, exclaimed:

"I have nothing, nothing, nothing in the world, not even her little cap – her little cap."

The curé had just arrived, a young priest already growing stout. He took it on himself to carry off La Roqué, and they went away together towards the village. The mother's grief was modified under the sugary words of the clergyman, who promised her a thousand compensations. But she incessantly kept repeating:

"If I had only her little cap."