“Necessarily.”
“A natural child?”
“As you please about that.”
“A jealous husband? No, no adulterers! If this does really happen to be my own story, I should prefer not to be the fruit of an unlawful love. My mother—poor woman, I have perhaps nothing with which to reproach her—is saving me from the vengeance of some brother or savage uncle, capable of killing me in order to hide a discreditable or clandestine marriage.”
“Very good; I’ll be the Spanish nobleman—some implacable uncle who is trying to kill the child! The innocent creature is concealed in the bottom of the lake, at the risk of a little drowning, after having been thrown out of the window, to save it from all danger.”
“Oh, no, no, M. Goefle! you are altogether too fantastic! That is not my style at all. I always maintain a certain verisimilitude, even in romancing, for you can neither make people laugh nor cry with impossible situations. No, no, we must have some regular assassins, as ugly and grotesque as they can be made. While they are standing guard on top of the boulders, watching the window, the boat, which fortunately has already stealthily received its precious charge—that’s the regular style—glides noiselessly along beneath the rocks, under the very feet of the unsuspecting watch. The audience is affected, and all the more because it is laughing at the same time at the faces of the assassins—people like extremely to laugh and cry at the same time—and the curtain falls on the first act, amid thunders of applause!”
“Excellent, excellent!” said M. Goefle; “but, while you are moving the boat, will there be no person at the window?”
“Certainly. Have I not two hands? With the left I propel the skiff over the limpid waves, and with the right I hold up at the window the faithful waiting-woman, who has lowered down the basket, and who lifts towards heaven her pretty little wooden arms in an attitude of supplication, and prays in a sweet voice, ‘Divine Providence! watch over the child of mystery!’”
“Yes, but the mother; is she not to be seen?”
“No, that would not be the correct thing.”