The Project Gutenberg EBook of Putois, by Anatole France

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Title: Putois
1907

Author: Anatole France

Release Date: October 27, 2007 [EBook #23219]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUTOIS ***

Produced by David Widger

PUTOIS

By Anatole France

Translated by William Patten.

Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.

Dedicated to Georges Brandes

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, bending over her work.

"Do I recall Putois! Of all the faces 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 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:

"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 gran