ned.... You have no
idea how tenacious he is and obstinate.... What can I do ... tell me ...
what can I do?"

The little Marchioness sat up in bed to reflect, and then she suddenly
said: "Have him arrested!"

The little Baroness looked stupefied, and stammered out: "What do you
say? What are you thinking of? Have him arrested? Under what pretext?"
"That is very simple. Go to the Commissary of Police and say that a
gentleman has been following you about for three months; that he had the
insolence to go up to your apartments yesterday; that he has threatened
you with another visit to-morrow, and that you demand the protection of
the law, and they will give you two police officers, who will arrest
him."

"But, my dear, suppose he tells...." "They will not believe him, you
silly thing, if you have told your tale cleverly to the commissary, but
they will believe you, who are an irreproachable woman, and in
society." "Oh! I shall never dare to do it." "You must dare, my dear, or
you are lost." "But think that he will ... he will insult me if he is
arrested." "Very well, you will have witnesses, and he will be
sentenced." "Sentenced to what?" "To pay damages. In such cases, one
must be pitiless!" "Ah! speaking of damages.... There is one thing that
worries me very much ... very much indeed.... He left me two twenty
franc pieces on the mantelpiece." "Two twenty franc pieces?" "Yes." "No
more?" "No." "That is very little. It would have humiliated me. Well?"
"Well! What am I to do with that money?"

The little Marchioness hesitated for a few seconds, and then she replied
in a serious voice:

"My dear ... you must make ... you must make your husband a little
present with it.... That will be only fair!"

THE DEVIL

The peasant was standing opposite the doctor, by the bedside of the
dying old woman, and she, calmly resigned and quite lucid, looked at
them and listened to their talking. She was going to die, and she did
not rebel at it, for her time was over, as she was ninety-two.

The July sun streamed in at the window and the open door and cast its
hot flames onto the uneven brown clay floor, which had been stamped down
by four generations of clod-hoppers. The smell of the fields came in
also, driven by the sharp wind, and parched by the noontide heat. The
grasshoppers chirped themselves hoarse, and filled the country with
their shrill noise, which was like that of the wooden crickets which are
sold to children