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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Putois, by Anatole France
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+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 grandfather, my daughter, your
+grandfather, Eloi Bergeret, who was not amused with trifles, thought
+highly of this bit, principally because of its origin. He called it 'The
+Anatomy of Putois.' And he used to say that he preferred, in certain
+respects, the anatomy of Putois to the anatomy of Quaresmeprenant. 'If
+the description by Xenomanes,' he said, 'is more learned and richer
+in unusual and choice expressions, the description of Putois greatly
+surpasses it in clarity and simplicity of style.' He held this opinion
+because Doctor Ledouble, of Tours, had not yet explained chapters
+thirty, thirty-one, and thirty-two of the fourth book of Rabelais."
+
+"I do not understand at all," said Pauline.
+
+"That is because you did not know Putois, my daughter. You must
+understand that Putois was the most familiar figure in my childhood and
+in that of your Aunt Zoe. In the house of your grandfather Bergeret we
+constantly spoke of Putois. Each believed that he had seen him."
+
+Pauline asked:
+
+"Who was this Putois?"
+
+Instead of replying, Monsieur Bergeret commenced to laugh, and
+Mademoiselle Bergeret also laughed, her lips pressed tight together.
+Pauline looked from one to the other. She thought it strange that her
+aunt should laugh so heartily, and more strange that she should laugh
+with and in sympathy with her brother. It was indeed singular, as the
+brother and sister were quite different in character.
+
+"Papa, tell me what was Putois? Since you wish me to know, tell me."
+
+"Putois, my daughter, was a gardener. The son of honest
+market-gardeners, he set up for himself as nurseryman at Saint-Omer. But
+he did not satisfy his customers and got in a bad way. Having given
+up business, he went out by the day. Those who employed him could not
+always congratulate themselves."
+
+At this, Mademoiselle Bergeret, laughing, rejoined;
+
+"Do you recall, Lucien, when our father could not find his ink, his
+pens, his sealing-wax, his scissors, he said: 'I suspect Putois has been
+here'?"
+
+"Ah!" said Monsieur Bergeret, "Putois had not a good reputation."
+
+"Is that all?" asked Pauline.
+
+"No, my daughter, it is not all. Putois was remarkable in this, that
+while we knew him and were familiar with him, nevertheless--"
+
+"--He did not exist," said Zoe.
+
+Monsieur Bergeret looked at his sister with an air of reproach.
+
+"What a speech, Zoe! and why break the charm like that? Do you 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 the gardener.'
+At once the gardener was. He lived."
+
+"Dear master," said Monsieur Goubin, "how could he live since he did not
+exist?"
+
+"He had a sort of existence," replied Monsieur Bergeret.
+
+"You mean an imaginary existence," Monsieur Goubin replied,
+disdainfully.
+
+"Is it nothing then, but an imaginary existence?" exclaimed the master.
+"And have not mythical beings the power to influence men! Consider
+mythology, Monsieur Goubin, and you will perceive that they are not real
+beings but imaginary beings that exercise the most profound and lasting
+influence on the mind. Everywhere and always, beings who have no more
+reality than Putois have inspired nations with hatred and love, terror
+and hope, have advised crimes, received offerings, made laws and
+customs. Monsieur Goubin, think of the eternal mythology. Putois is a
+mythical personage, the most obscure, I grant you, and of the lowest
+order. The coarse satyr, who in olden times sat at the table with our
+peasants in the North, was considered worthy of appearing in a picture
+by Jordaens and a fable by La Fontaine. The hairy son of Sycorax
+appeared in the noble world of Shakespeare. Putois, less fortunate,
+will be always neglected by artists and poets. He lacks bigness and the
+unusual style and character. He was conceived by minds too reasonable,
+among people who knew how to read and write, and who had not that
+delightful imagination in which fables take root. I think, Messieurs,
+that I have said enough to show you the real nature of Putois."
+
+"I understand it," said Monsieur Goubin. And Monsieur Bergeret continued
+his discourse.
+
+"Putois was. I can affirm it. He was. Consider it, gentlemen, and you
+will admit that a state of being by no means implies substance, and
+means only the bonds attributed to the subject, expresses only a
+relation."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said Jean Marteau; "but a being without attributes is a
+being less than nothing. I do not remember who at one time said, 'I am
+that I am.' Pardon my lapse of memory. One cannot remember everything.
+But the unknown who spoke in that fashion was very imprudent. In letting
+it be understood by this thoughtless observation that he was deprived of
+attributes and denied all relations, he proclaimed that he did not exist
+and thoughtlessly suppressed himself. I wager that no one has heard of
+him since."--"You have lost," answered Monsieur Bergeret.
+
+"He corrected the bad effect of these egotistical expressions by
+employing quantities of adjectives, and he is often spoken of,
+most often without judgment."--"I do not understand," said Monsieur
+Goubin.--"It is not necessary to understand," replied Jean Marteau. And
+he begged Monsieur Bergeret to speak of Putois.--"It is very kind of you
+to ask me," said the master.--"Putois was born in the second half of the
+nineteenth century, at Saint-Omer. He would have been better off if he
+had been born some centuries before in the forest of Arden or in the
+forest of Broceliande. He would then have been a remarkably clever evil
+spirit."--"A cup of tea, Monsieur Goubin," said Pauline.--"Was Putois,
+then, an evil spirit?" said Jean Marteau.--"He was evil," replied
+Monsieur Bergeret; "he was, in a way, but not absolutely. It was true
+of him as with those devils that are called wicked, but in whom one
+discovers good qualities when one associates with them. And I
+am disposed to think that injustice has been done Putois. Madame
+Cornouiller, who, warned against him, had at once suspected him of being
+a loafer, a drunkard, and a robber, reflected that since my mother, who
+was not rich, employed him, it was because he was satisfied with little,
+and asked herself if she would not do well to have him work instead of
+her gardener, who had a better reputation, but expected more. The
+time had come for trimming the yews. She thought that if Madame Eloi
+Bergeret, who was poor, did not pay Putois much, she herself, who was
+rich, would give him still less, for it is customary for the rich to
+pay less than the poor. And she already saw her yews trimmed in straight
+hedges, in balls and in pyramids, without her having to pay much. 'I
+will keep an eye open,' she said, 'to see that Putois does not loaf
+or rob me. I risk nothing, and it will be all profit. These vagabonds
+sometimes do better work than honest laborers. She resolved to make a
+trial, and said to my mother: 'Dearest, send me Putois. I will set him
+to work at Mont-plaisir.' My mother would have done so willingly.
+But really it was impossible. Madame Cornouiller waited for Putois at
+Montplaisir, and waited in vain. She followed up her ideas and did not
+abandon her plans. When she saw my mother again, she complained of not
+having any news of Putois. 'Dearest, didn't you tell him that I was
+expecting him?'--'Yes! but he is strange, odd.'--'Oh, I know that kind.
+I know your Putois by heart. But there is no workman so crazy as to
+refuse to come to work at Montplaisir. My house is known, I think.
+Putois must obey my orders, and quickly, dearest. It will be sufficient
+to tell me where he lives; I will go and find him myself.' My mother
+answered that she did not know where Putois lived, that no one knew his
+house, that he was without hearth or home. 'I have not seen him again,
+Madame. I believe he is hiding.' What better could she say?"
+
+Madame Cornouiller heard her distrustfully; she suspected her of
+misleading, of removing Putois from inquiry, for fear of losing him or
+making him ask more. And she thought her too selfish. "Many judgments
+accepted by the world that history has sanctioned are as well founded as
+that."--"That is true," said Pauline.--"What is true?" asked Zoe, half
+asleep.--"That the judgments of history are often false. I remember,
+papa, that you said one day: 'Madame Roland was very ingenuous to
+appeal to the impartiality of posterity, and not perceive that, if her
+contemporaries were ill-natured monkeys, their posterity would be also
+composed of ill-natured monkeys.'"--"Pauline," said Mademoiselle Zoe
+severely, "what connection is there between the story of Putois and this
+that you are telling us?"--"A very great one, my aunt."--"I do not grasp
+it."--Monsieur Bergeret, who was not opposed to digressions, answered
+his daughter: "If all injustices were finally redressed in the world,
+one would never have imagined another for these adjustments. How do you
+expect posterity to pass righteous judgment on the dead? How question
+them in the shades to which they have taken flight? As soon as we are
+able to be just to them we forget them. But can one ever be just? And
+what is justice? Madame Cornouiller, at least, was finally obliged to
+recognize that my mother had not deceived her and that Putois was not to
+be found. However, she did not give up trying to find him. She asked all
+her relatives, friends, neighbors, servants, and tradesmen if they knew
+Putois, Only two or three answered that they had never heard of him. For
+the most part they believed they had seen him. 'I have heard that name,'
+said the cook, 'but I cannot recall his face.'--'Putois! I must know
+him,' said the street-sweeper, scratching his ear. 'But I cannot tell
+you who it is.' The most precise description came from Monsieur Blaise,
+receiver of taxes, who said that he had employed Putois to cut wood in
+his yard, from the 19th to the 28d of October, the year of the comet.
+One morning, Madame Cornouiller, out of breath, dropped into my father's
+office. 'I have seen Putois. Ah! I have seen him.'--'You believe
+it?'--'I am sure. He was passing close by Monsieur Tenchant's wall. Then
+he turned into the Rue des Abbesses, walking quickly. I lost him.'--'Was
+it really he?'--'Without a doubt. A man of fifty, thin, bent, the air of
+a vagabond, a dirty blouse.'--'It is true,'" said my father, "'that this
+description could apply to Putois.'--'You see! Besides, I called him. I
+cried: "Putois!" and he turned around.'--'That is the method,' said
+my father, 'that they employ to assure themselves of the identity of
+evil-doers that they are hunting for.'--'I told you that it was he! I
+know how to find him, your Putois. Very well! He has a bad face. You
+had been very careless, you and your wife, to employ him. I understand
+physiognomy, and though I only saw his back, I could swear that he is a
+robber, and perhaps an assassin. The rims of his ears are flat, and that
+is a sign that never fails.'--'Ah! you noticed that the rims of his ears
+were flat?'--'Nothing escapes me. My dear Monsieur Bergeret, if you do
+not wish to be assassinated with your wife and your children, do not let
+Putois come into your house again. Take my advice: have all your
+locks changed.'--Well, a few days afterward, it happened that Madame
+Cornouiller had three melons stolen from her vegetable garden. The
+robber not having been found, she suspected Putois. The gendarmes were
+called to Montplaisir, and their report confirmed the suspicions of
+Madame Cornouiller. Bands of marauders were ravaging the gardens of the
+countryside. But this time the robbery seemed to have been committed by
+one man, and with singular dexterity. No trace of anything broken, no
+footprints in the damp earth. The robber could be no one but Putois.
+That was the opinion of the corporal, who knew all about Putois, and
+had tried hard to put his hand on that bird. The 'Journal of Saint-Omer'
+devoted an article to the three melons of Madame Cornouiller, and
+published a portrait of Putois from descriptions furnished by the town.
+'He has,' said the paper, 'a low forehead, squinting eyes, a shifty
+glance, crow's-feet, sharp cheek-bones, red and shining. No rims to
+the ears. Thin, somewhat bent, feeble in appearance, in reality he is
+unusually strong. He easily bends a five-franc piece between the first
+finger and the thumb.' There were good reasons for attributing to him a
+long series of robberies committed with surprising dexterity. The whole
+town was talking of Putois. One day it was learned that he had been
+arrested and locked up in prison. But it was soon recognized that the
+man that had been taken for him was an almanac seller named Rigobert. As
+no charge could be brought against him, he was discharged after fourteen
+months of detention on suspicion. And Putois remained undiscoverable.
+Madame Cornouiller was the victim of another robbery, more audacious
+than the first. Three small silver spoons were taken from her sideboard.
+She recognized in this the hand of Putois, had a chain put on the door
+of her bedroom, and was unable to sleep....
+
+About ten o'clock in the evening, Pauline having gone to her room,
+Mademoiselle Bergeret said to her brother: "Do not forget to relate how
+Putois betrayed Madame Cornouiller's cook."--"I was thinking of it, my
+sister," answered Monsieur Bergeret. "To omit it would be to lose the
+best of the story. But everything must be done in order. Putois was
+carefully searched for by the police, who could not find him. When it
+was known that he could not be found, each one considered it his duty to
+find him; the shrewd ones succeeded. And as there were many shrewd ones
+at Saint-Omer and in the suburbs, Putois was seen simultaneously in the
+streets, in the fields, and in the woods. Another trait was thus added
+to his character. He was accorded the gift of ubiquity, the attribute
+of many popular heroes. A being capable of leaping long distances in
+a moment, and suddenly showing himself at the place where he was least
+expected, was honestly frightening. Putois was the terror of Saint-Omer.
+Madame Cornouiller, convinced that Putois had stolen from her three
+melons and three little spoons, lived in a state of fear, barricaded at
+Montplaisir. Bolts, bars, and locks did not reassure her. Putois was
+for her a frightfully subtle being who could pass through doors. Trouble
+with her servants redoubled her fear. Her cook having been betrayed,
+the time came when she could no longer hide her misfortune. But she
+obstinately refused to name her betrayer."--"Her name was Gudule," said
+Mademoiselle Zoe.--"Her name was Gudule, and she believed that she was
+protected from danger by a long, forked bead that she wore on her chin.
+The sudden appearance of a beard protected the innocence of that holy
+daughter of the king that Prague venerates. A beard, no longer youthful,
+did not suffice to protect the virtue of Gudule. Madame Cornouiller
+urged Gudule to tell her the man. Gudule burst into tears, but kept
+silent. Prayers and menaces had no effect. Madame Cornouiller made a
+long and circumstantial inquiry. She adroitly questioned her neighbors
+and tradespeople, the gardener, the street-sweeper, the gendarmes;
+nothing put her on the track of the culprit. She tried again to obtain
+from Gudule a complete confession. 'In your own interest, Gudule, tell
+me who it is.' Gudule remained mute. All at once a ray of light flashed
+through the mind of Madame Cornouiller: 'It is Putois!' The cook cried,
+but did not answer. 'It is Putois! Why did I not guess it sooner? It
+is Putois! Miserable! miserable! miserable!' and Madame Cornouiller
+remained convinced that it was Putois. Everybody at Saint-Omer, from the
+judge to the lamplighter's dog, knew Gudule and her basket At the news
+that Putois had betrayed Gudule, the town was filled with surprise,
+wonder, and merriment....
+
+With this reputation in the town and its environs he remained attached
+to our house by a thousand subtle ties. He passed before our door, and
+it was believed that he sometimes climbed the wall of our garden. He was
+never seen face to face. At any moment we would recognize his shadow,
+his voice, his footsteps. More than once we thought we saw his back in
+the twilight, at the corner of a road. To my sister and me he gradually
+changed in character. He remained mischievous and malevolent, but he
+became childlike and very ingenuous. He became less real and, I
+dare say, more poetical. He entered in the artless Cycle of childish
+traditions. He became more like Croquemitaine,* like Pere Fouettard, or
+the sand man who closes the children's eyes when evening comes.
+
+ *The national "bugaboo" or "bogy man."
+
+It was not that imp that tangled the colts' tails at night in the
+stable. Less rustic and less charming, but equally and frankly roguish,
+he made ink mustaches on my sister's dolls. In our bed, before going to
+sleep, we listened; he cried on the roofs with the cats, he howled with
+the dogs, he filled the mill hopper with groans, and imitated the songs
+of belated drunkards in the streets. What made Putois ever-present and
+familiar to us, what interested us in him, was that the remembrance of
+him was associated with all the objects about us. Zoe's dolls, my school
+books, in which he had many times rumpled and besmeared the pages; the
+garden wall, over which we had seen his red eyes gleam in the shadow;
+the blue porcelain jar that he cracked one winter's night, unless it
+was the frost; the trees, the streets, the benches--everything recalled
+Putois, the children's Putois, a local and mythical being. He did not
+equal in grace and poetry the dullest satyr, the stoutest fawn of
+Sicily or Thessaly. But he was still a demigod. He had quite a different
+character for our father; he was symbolical and philosophical. Our
+father had great compassion for men. He did not think them altogether
+rational; their mistakes, when they were not cruel, amused him and
+made him smile. The belief in Putois interested him as an epitome and a
+summary of all human beliefs. As he was ironical and a joker, he spoke
+of Putois as if he were a real being. He spoke with so much insistence
+sometimes, and detailed the circumstances with such exactness, that my
+mother was quite surprised and said to him in her open-hearted way:
+'One would say that you spoke seriously, my friend: you know well,
+however...' He replied gravely: 'All Saint-Omer believes in the
+existence of Putois. Would I be a good citizen if I deny him? One should
+look twice before setting aside an article of common faith.' Only
+a perfectly honest soul has such scruples. At heart my father was a
+Gassendiste.* He keyed his own particular sentiment with the public
+sentiment, believing, like the countryside, in the existence of Putois,
+but not admitting his direct responsibility for the theft of the
+melons and the betrayal of the cook. Finally, he professed faith in the
+existence of a Putois, to be a good citizen; and he eliminated Putois in
+his explanations of the events that took place in the town. By doing so
+in this instance, as in all others, he was an honorable and a sensible
+man.
+
+ * A follower of Gassendi (d. 1655), an exponent of Epicurus.
+
+"As for our mother, she reproached herself somewhat for the birth of
+Putois, and not without reason. Because, after all, Putois was the child
+of our mother's invention, as Caliban was the poet's invention. Without
+doubt the faults were not equal, and my mother was more innocent than
+Shakespeare. However, she was frightened and confused to see her little
+falsehood grow inordinately, and her slight imposture achieve such a
+prodigious success, that, without stopping, extended all over town
+and threatened to extend over the world. One day she even turned pale,
+believing that she would see her falsehood rise up before her. That day,
+a servant she had, new to the house and the town, came to say to her
+that a man wished to see her. He wished to speak to Madame. 'What man
+is it?'--'A man in a blouse. He looks like a laborer.'--'Did he give his
+name?'--'Yes, Madame.'--'Well! what is his name?'--'Putois.'--'He told
+you that was his name?'--'Putois, yes, Madame.'--'He is here?'--'Yes,
+Madame. He is waiting in the kitchen.'--'You saw him?'--'Yes,
+Madame.'--'What does he want?'--'He did not say. He will only tell
+Madame.'--'Go ask him.'
+
+"When the servant returned to the kitchen Putois was gone. This meeting
+of the new servant with Putois was never cleared up. But from that day
+I think my mother commenced to believe that Putois might well exist and
+that she had not told a falsehood after all."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Putois, by Anatole France
+
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