Putois | Page 2

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.'"

II
Messieurs Goubin and Jean Marteau having arrived, Monsieur Bergeret
put them in touch with the conversation.
"We were speaking of him whom my mother caused to be born
gardener at Saint-Omer and whom she christened. He existed from that
time on."
"Dear master, will you kindly repeat that?" said Monsieur Goubin,
wiping the glass of his monocle.
"Willingly," replied Monsieur Bergeret. "There was no gardener. The
gardener did not exist. My mother said: 'I am waiting for