The Will

by Guy de Maupassant

　　

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I knew that tall young fellow, Rene de Bourneval. He was an agreeableman, though rather melancholy and seemed prejudiced against everything,was very skeptical, and he could with a word tear down social hypocrisy.He would often say:"There are no honorable men, or, at least, they are only relatively sowhen compared with those lower than themselves."He had two brothers, whom he never saw, the Messieurs de Courcils. Ialways supposed they were by another father, on account of the differencein the name. I had frequently heard that the family had a strangehistory, but did not know the details. As I took a great liking to Renewe soon became intimate friends, and one evening, when I had been diningwith him alone, I asked him, by chance: "Are you a son of the first orsecond marriage?" He grew rather pale, and then flushed, and did notspeak for a few moments; he was visibly embarrassed. Then he smiled inthe melancholy, gentle manner, which was peculiar to him, and said:"My dear friend, if it will not weary you, I can give you some verystrange particulars about my life. I know that you are a sensible man,so I do not fear that our friendship will suffer by my I revelations; andshould it suffer, I should not care about having you for my friend anylonger."My mother, Madame de Courcils, was a poor little, timid woman, whom herhusband had married for the sake of her fortune, and her whole life wasone of martyrdom. Of a loving, timid, sensitive disposition, she wasconstantly being ill-treated by the man who ought to have been my father,one of those boors called country gentlemen. A month after theirmarriage he was living a licentious life and carrying on liaisons withthe wives and daughters of his tenants. This did not prevent him fromhaving three children by his wife, that is, if you count me in. Mymother said nothing, and lived in that noisy house like a little mouse.Set aside, unnoticed, nervous, she looked at people with her bright,uneasy, restless eyes, the eyes of some terrified creature which cannever shake off its fear. And yet she was pretty, very pretty and fair,a pale blonde, as if her hair had lost its color through her constantfear."Among the friends of Monsieur de Courcils who constantly came to herchateau, there was an ex-cavalry officer, a widower, a man who wasfeared, who was at the same time tender and violent, capable of the mostdetermined resolves, Monsieur de Bourneval, whose name I bear. He was atall, thin man, with a heavy black mustache. I am very like him. He wasa man who had read a great deal, and his ideas were not like those ofmost of his class. His great-grandmother had been a friend ofJ. J. Rousseau's, and one might have said that he had inherited somethingof this ancestral connection. He knew the Contrat Social, and theNouvelle Heloise by heart, and all those philosophical books whichprepared in advance the overthrow of our old usages, prejudices,superannuated laws and imbecile morality."It seems that he loved my mother, and she loved him, but their liaisonwas carried on so secretly that no one guessed at its existence. Thepoor, neglected, unhappy woman must have clung to him in despair, and inher intimacy with him must have imbibed all his ways of thinking,theories of free thought, audacious ideas of independent love; but beingso timid she never ventured to speak out, and it was all driven back,condensed, shut up in her heart."My two brothers were very hard towards her, like their father, and nevergave her a caress, and, accustomed to seeing her count for nothing in thehouse, they treated her rather like a servant. I was the only one of hersons who really loved her and whom she loved."When she died I was seventeen, and I must add, in order that you mayunderstand what follows, that a lawsuit between my father and mother hadbeen decided in my mother's favor, giving her the bulk of the property,and, thanks to the tricks of the law, and the intelligent devotion of alawyer to her interests, the right to make her will in favor of whom shepleased."We were told that there was a will at the lawyer's office and wereinvited to be present at the reading of it. I can remember it, as if itwere yesterday. It was an imposing scene, dramatic, burlesque andsurprising, occasioned by the posthumous revolt of that dead woman, bythe cry for liberty, by the demands of that martyred one who had beencrushed by our oppression during her lifetime and who, from her closedtomb, uttered a despairing appeal for independence."The man who believed he was my father, a stout, ruddy-faced man, wholooked like a butcher, and my brothers, two great fellows of twenty andtwenty-two, were waiting quietly in their chairs. Monsieur de Bourneval,who had been invited to be present, came in and stood behind me. He wasvery pale and bit his mustache, which was turning gray. No doubt he wasprepared for what was going to happen. The lawyer double-locked the doorand began to read the will, after having opened, in our presence, theenvelope, sealed with red wax, of the contents of which he was ignorant."My friend stopped talking abruptly, and rising, took from his writing-table an old paper, unfolded it, kissed it and then continued: "This isthe will of my beloved mother:"'I, the undersigned, Anne Catherine-Genevieve-Mathilde deCroixluce, the legitimate wife of Leopold-Joseph Gontran de Councilssound in body and mind, here express my last wishes.I first of all ask God, and then my dear son Rene to pardon me forthe act I am about to commit. I believe that my child's heart isgreat enough to understand me, and to forgive me. I have sufferedmy whole life long. I was married out of calculation, thendespised, misunderstood, oppressed and constantly deceived by myhusband."'I forgive him, but I owe him nothing."'My elder sons never loved me, never petted me, scarcely treated meas a mother, but during my whole life I did my duty towards them,and I owe them nothing more after my death. The ties of bloodcannot exist without daily and constant affection. An ungratefulson is less than, a stranger; he is a culprit, for he has no rightto be indifferent towards his mother."'I have always trembled before men, before their unjust laws, theirinhuman customs, their shameful prejudices. Before God, I have nolonger any fear. Dead, I fling aside disgraceful hypocrisy; I dareto speak my thoughts, and to avow and to sign the secret of myheart."'I therefore leave that part of my fortune of which the law allowsme to dispose, in trust to my dear lover, Pierre-Germer-Simon deBourneval, to revert afterwards to our dear son Rene."'(This bequest is specified more precisely in a deed drawnup by a notary.)"'And I declare before the Supreme Judge who hears me, that I shouldhave cursed heaven and my own existence, if I had not found thedeep, devoted, tender, unshaken affection of my lover; if I had notfelt in his arms that the Creator made His creatures to love,sustain and console each other, and to weep together in the hours ofsadness."'Monsieur de Courcils is the father of my two eldest sons; Rene,alone, owes his life to Monsieur de Bourneval. I pray the Master ofmen and of their destinies, to place father and son above socialprejudices, to make them love each other until they die, and to loveme also in my coffin."'These are my last thoughts, and my last wish."'MATHILDE DE CROIXLUCE.'"Monsieur de Courcils had risen and he cried:"'It is the will of a madwoman.'"Then Monsieur de Bourneval stepped forward and said in a loud,penetrating voice: 'I, Simon de Bourneval, solemnly declare that thiswriting contains nothing but the strict truth, and I am ready to prove itby letters which I possess.'"On hearing that, Monsieur de Courcils went up to him, and I 'thoughtthat they were going to attack each other. There they stood, both ofthem tall, one stout and the other thin, both trembling. My mother'shusband stammered out: 'You are a worthless wretch!' And the otherreplied in a loud, dry voice: 'We will meet elsewhere, monsieur.I should have already slapped your ugly face and challenged you longsince if I had not, before everything else, thought of the peace of mindduring her lifetime of that poor woman whom you caused to suffer sogreatly.'"Then, turning to me, he said: 'You are my son; will you come with me?I have no right to take you away, but I shall assume it, if you arewilling to come with me: I shook his hand without replying, and we wentout together. I was certainly three parts mad."Two days later Monsieur de Bourneval killed Monsieur de Courcils in aduel. My brothers, to avoid a terrible scandal, held their tongues.I offered them and they accepted half the fortune which my mother hadleft me. I took my real father's name, renouncing that which the lawgave me, but which was not really mine. Monsieur de Bourneval died threeyears later and I am still inconsolable."He rose from his chair, walked up and down the room, and, standing infront of me, said:"Well, I say that my mother's will was one of the most beautiful, themost loyal, as well as one of the grandest acts that a woman couldperform. Do you not think so?"I held out both hands to him, saying:"I most certainly do, my friend."

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