PUTOIS

By Anatole France

Translated by William Patten.

the translation which I try is by Fredric Chapman , so some part of it is different. I showed the first paragraph in parenthesis .

I

This garden of our childhood, said Monsieur Bergeret, this garden that
one could pace off in twenty steps, was for us a whole world, full of
smiles and surprises.

"Lucien, do you recall Putois?" asked Zoe, smiling as usual, the lips
pressed (compressed), bending over her work (her nose over her needlework).

"Do I recall Putois! Of all the faces (figures)I saw as a child that of Putois remains the clearest in my remembrance. All the features of his face and his character are fixed in my mind. He had a pointed cranium (a long head) ..."

"A low forehead," added Mademoiselle Zoe.

And the brother and sister recited alternately, in a monotonous voice,
with an odd gravity, the points in a sort of description (following points of a kind of police description):

"A low forehead."

"Squinting eyes."

"A shifty glance."

"Crow's-feet at the temples."

"The cheek-bones sharp, red and shining."

"His ears had no rims to them."

"The features were devoid of all expression."

"His hands, which were never still, alone expressed his meaning."

"Thin, somewhat bent, feeble in appearance..."

"In reality he was unusually strong."

"He easily bent a five-franc piece between the first finger and the
thumb..."

"Which was enormous."

"His voice was drawling..."

"And his speech mild."

Suddenly Monsieur Bergeret exclaimed: "Zoe! we have forgotten 'Yellow
hair and sparse beard.' Let us begin all over again."

Pauline, who had listened with astonishment to this strange recital,
asked her father and aunt how they had been able to learn by heart this
bit of prose, and why they recited it as if it were a litany.

Monsieur Bergeret gravely answered:

"Pauline, what you have heard is a text, I may say a liturgy, used by
the Bergeret family. It should be handed down to you so that it may
not perish with your aunt and me. Your grandfather, my daughter, your
grandfather, Eloi Bergeret, who was not amused with trifles, thought
highly of this bit, principally because of its origin. He called it 'The
Anatomy of Putois.' And he used to say that he preferred, in certain
respects, the anatomy of Putois to the anatomy of Quaresmeprenant. 'If
the description by Xenomanes,' he said, 'is more learned and richer
in unusual and choice expressions, the description of Putois greatly
surpasses it in clarity and simplicity of style.' He held this opinion
because Doctor Ledouble, of Tours, had not yet explained chapters
thirty, thirty-one, and thirty-two of the fourth book of Rabelais."

"I do not understand at all," said Pauline.

"That is because you did not know Putois, my daughter. You must
understand that Putois was the most familiar figure in my childhood and
in that of your Aunt Zoe. In the house of your grandfather Bergeret we
constantly spoke of Putois. Each believed that he had seen him."

Pauline asked:

"Who was this Putois?"

Instead of replying, Monsieur Bergeret commenced to laugh, and
Mademoiselle Bergeret also laughed, her lips pressed tight together.
Pauline looked from one to the other. She thought it strange that her
aunt should laugh so heartily, and more strange that she should laugh
with and in sympathy with her brother. It was indeed singular, as the
brother and sister were quite different in character.

"Papa, tell me what was Putois? Since you wish me to know, tell me."

"Putois, my daughter, was a gardener. The son of honest
market-gardeners, he set up for himself as nurseryman at Saint-Omer. But
he did not satisfy his customers and got in a bad way. Having given
up business, he went out by the day. Those who employed him could not
always congratulate themselves."

At this, Mademoiselle Bergeret, laughing, rejoined;

"Do you recall, Lucien, when our father could not find his ink, his
pens, his sealing-wax, his scissors, he said: 'I suspect Putois has been
here'?"

"Ah!" said Monsieur Bergeret, "Putois had not a good reputation."

"Is that all?" asked Pauline.

"No, my daughter, it is not all. Putois was remarkable in this, that
while we knew him and were familiar with him, nevertheless--"

"--He did not exist," said Zoe.

Monsieur Bergeret looked at his sister with an air of reproach.

"What a speech, Zoe! and why break the charm like that? Do you dare say
it, Zoe? Zoe, can you prove it? To maintain that Putois did not exist,
that Putois never was, have you sufficiently considered the conditions
of existence and the modes of being? Putois existed, my sister. But it
is true that his was a peculiar existence."

"I understand less and less," said Pauline, discouraged.

"The truth will be clear to you presently, my daughter. Know then that
Putois was born fully grown. I was still a child and your aunt was a
little girl. We lived in a little house, in a suburb of Saint-Omer. Our
parents led a peaceful, retired life, until they were discovered by
an old lady named Madame Cornouiller, who lived at the manor of
Montplaisir, twelve miles from town, and proved to be a great-aunt of
my mother's. By right of relationship she insisted that our father
and mother come to dine every Sunday at Montplaisir, where they were
excessively bored. She said that it was the proper thing to have a
family dinner on Sunday and that only people of common origin failed to
observe this ancient custom. My father was bored to the point of tears
at Montplaisir. His desperation was painful to contemplate. But Madame
Cornouiller did not notice it. She saw nothing, My mother was braver.
She suffered as much as my father, and perhaps more, but she smiled."

"Women are made to suffer," said Zoe.

"Zoe, every living thing is destined to suffer. In vain our parents
refused these fatal invitations. Madame Cornouiller came to take
them each Sunday afternoon. They had to go to Montplaisir; it was
an obligation from which there was absolutely no escape. It was an
established order that only a revolt could break. My father finally
revolted and swore not to accept another invitation from Madame
Cornouiller, leaving it to my mother to find decent pretexts and varied
reasons for these refusals, for which she was the least capable. Our
mother did not know how to pretend."

"Say, Lucien, that she did not like to. She could tell a fib as well as
any one."

"It is true that when she had good reasons she gave them rather than
invent poor ones. Do you recall, my sister, that one day she said at
table: 'Fortunately, Zoe has the whooping-cough; we shall not have to go
to Montplaisir for some time'?"

"That was true!" said Zoe.

"You got over it, Zoe. And one day Madame Cornouiller said to my mother:
Dearest, I count on your coming with your husband to dine Sunday at
Montplaisir.' Our mother, expressly bidden by her husband to give Madame
Cornouiller a good reason for declining, invented, in this extremity, a
reason that was not the truth. 'I am extremely sorry, dear Madame, but
that will be impossible for us. Sunday I expect the gardener.'

"On hearing this, Madame Cornouiller looked through the glass door of
the salon at the little wild garden, where the prickwood and the lilies
looked as though they had never known the pruning-knife and were likely
never to know it. 'You expect the gardener! What for?'

"'To work in the garden.'

"And my mother, having involuntarily turned her eyes on this little
square of weeds and plants run wild, that she had called a garden,
recognized with dismay the improbability of her excuse.

"'This man,' said Madame Cornouiller, 'could just as well work in your
garden Monday or Tuesday. Moreover, that will be much better.' One
should not work on Sunday.'

"'He works all the week.'

"I have often noticed that the most absurd and ridiculous reasons are
the least disputed: they disconcert the adversary. Madame Cornouiller
insisted, less than one might expect of a person so little disposed to
give up. Rising from her armchair, she asked:

"'What do you call your gardener, dearest?'

"'Putois,' answered my mother without hesitation.

"Putois was named. From that time he existed. Madame Cornouiller took
herself off, murmuring: 'Putois! It seems to me that I know that name.
Putois! Putois! I must know him. But I do not recollect him. Where does
he live?'

"'He works by the day. When one wants him one leaves word with this one
or that one.'

"'Ah! I thought so, a loafer and a vagabond--a good-for-nothing. Don't
trust him, dearest.'

"From that time Putois had a character.'"

Putois in Persian

Potuis II