the night the flickering flame was his only entertainment. In his immobility he appeared hardly human. The reflection of his boots on the wet pavement, which looked like a lake, prolonged him downwards and gave him from a distance the air of some amphibious monster half out of water. Observed more closely he had at once a monkish and a military appearance. The coarse features of his countenance, magnified under the shadow of his hood, were sad and placid. He wore a thick moustache, short and grey. He was an old copper, a man of some two-score years. Crainquebille went up to him softly, and in a weak hesitating voice, said: ‘Mort aux vaches!’

Then he awaited the result of those sacred words. But nothing came of them. The constable remained motionless and silent, with his arms folded under his short cloak. His eyes were wide open; they glistened in the darkness and regarded Crainquebille with sadness, vigilance, and scorn.

Crainquebille, astonished, but still resolute, muttered:

‘Mort aux vaches! I tell you.’

There was a long silence in the chill darkness and the falling of the fine penetrating rain. At last the constable spoke:

‘Such things are not said.… For sure and for certain they are not said. At your age you ought to know better. Pass on.’

‘Why don’t you arrest me?’ asked Crainquebille.

The constable shook his head beneath his dripping hood:

‘If we were to take up all the addlepates who say what they oughtn’t to, we should have our work cut out! … And what would be the use of it?’

Overcome by such magnanimous disdain, Crainquebille remained for some time stolid and silent, with his feet in the gutter. Before going, he tried to explain:

‘I didn’t mean to say: Mart aux vaches! to you. It was not for you more than for another. It was only an idea.’

The constable replied sternly but kindly:

‘Whether an idea or anything else, it ought not to be said, because when a man does his duty and endures much, he ought not to be insulted with idle words.… I tell you again to pass on.’

Crainquebille, with head bent and arms hanging limp, plunged into the rain and the darkness.

Translated by Winifred Stephen.