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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marie Claire, by Marguerite Audoux
+
+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: Marie Claire
+
+Author: Marguerite Audoux
+
+Translator: John N.  Raphael
+
+Release Date: February 12, 2007 [EBook #20572]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE CLAIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Marguerite Audoux]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MARIE CLAIRE
+
+
+BY
+
+MARGUERITE AUDOUX
+
+
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+JOHN N. RAPHAEL
+
+
+
+WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
+
+ARNOLD BENNETT
+
+
+
+AND AN AFTERWORD BY THE TRANSLATOR
+
+
+
+
+LONDON
+
+G. BELL & SONS, LTD.
+
+1911
+
+
+
+
+_This Edition is intended for circulation only in India, and the
+British Colonies_
+
+
+
+  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+  LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+The origins of this extraordinary book are sufficiently curious and
+sufficiently interesting to be stated in detail.  They go back to some
+ten years ago, when the author, after the rustic adventures which she
+describes in the following pages, had definitely settled in Paris as a
+working sempstress.  The existence of a working sempstress in Paris, as
+elsewhere, is very hard; it usually means eleven hours' close
+application a day, six full days a week, at half a crown a day.  But
+already Marguerite Audoux's defective eyesight was causing anxiety, and
+upsetting the regularity of her work, so that in the evenings she was
+often less fatigued than a sempstress generally is.  She wanted
+distraction, and she found it in the realization of an old desire to
+write.  She wrote, not because she could find nothing else to do, but
+because at last the chance of writing had come.  That she had always
+loved reading is plain from certain incidents in this present book; her
+opportunities for reading, however, had been limited.  She now began,
+in a tentative and perhaps desultory fashion, to set down her youthful
+reminiscences.  About this time she became acquainted, through one of
+its members, and by one of those hazards of destiny which too rarely
+diversify the dull industrial life of a city, with a circle of young
+literary men, of whom possibly the most important was the regretted
+Charles Louis Philippe, author of "Bubu de Montparnasse," and other
+novels which have a genuine reputation among the chosen people who know
+the difference between literature and its counterfeit.  This circle of
+friends used to meet at Philippe's flat.  It included a number of
+talented writers, among whom I should mention MM. Iehl (the author of
+"Cauët"), Francis Jourdain, Paul Fargue, Larbaud, Chanvin, Marcel Ray,
+and Régis Gignoux (the literary and dramatic critic).  Marguerite
+Audoux was not introduced as a literary prodigy.  Nobody, indeed, was
+aware that she wrote.  She came on her merits as an individuality, and
+she took her place beside several other women who, like herself, had no
+literary pretensions.  I am told by one of the intimates of the
+fellowship that the impression she made was profound.  And the fact is
+indubitable that her friends are at least as enthusiastic about her
+individuality as about this book which she has written.  She was a
+little over thirty, and very pretty, with an agreeable voice.  The
+sobriety of her charm, the clear depth of her emotional faculty, and
+the breadth of her gentle interest in human nature handsomely conquered
+the entire fellowship.  The working sempstress was sincerely esteemed
+by some of the brightest masculine intellects in Paris.
+
+This admiring appreciation naturally encouraged her to speak a little
+of herself.  And one evening she confessed that she, too, had been
+trying to write.  On another evening she brought some sheets of
+manuscript--the draft of the early chapters of "Marie Claire"--and read
+them aloud.  She read, I am told, very well.  The reception was
+enthusiastic.  One can imagine the ecstatic fervour of these young men,
+startled by the apparition of such a shining talent.  She must continue
+the writing of her book, but in the mean time she must produce some
+short stories and sketches for the daily papers!  Her gift must be
+presented to the public instantly!  She followed the advice thus
+urgently offered, and several members of the circle (in particular,
+Régis Gignoux and Marcel Ray) gave themselves up to the business of
+placing the stories and sketches; Marcel Ray devoted whole days to the
+effort, obtaining special leave from his own duties in order to do so.
+In the result several stories and sketches appeared in the _Matin,
+Paris Journal_ (respectively the least and the most literary of Paris
+morning papers), and other organs.  These stories and sketches, by the
+way, were republished in a small volume, some time before "Marie
+Claire," and attracted no general attention whatever.
+
+Meanwhile the more important work proceeded, slowly; and was at length
+finished.  Its composition stretched over a period of six years.
+Marguerite Audoux never hurried nor fatigued herself, and though she
+re-wrote many passages several times, she did not carry this revision
+to the meticulous excess which is the ruin of so many ardent literary
+beginners in France.  The trite phrase, "written with blood and tears,"
+does not in the least apply here.  A native wisdom has invariably saved
+Marguerite Audoux from the dangerous extreme.  In his preface to the
+original French edition, M. Octave Mirbeau appositely points out that
+Philippe and her other friends abstained from giving purely literary
+advice to the authoress as her book grew and was read aloud.  With the
+insight of artists they perceived that hers was a talent which must be
+strictly let alone.  But Parisian rumour has alleged, not merely that
+she was advised, but that she was actually helped in the writing by her
+admirers.  The rumour is worse than false--it is silly.  Every
+paragraph of the work bears the unmistakable and inimitable work of one
+individuality.  And among the friends of Marguerite Audoux, even the
+most gifted, there is none who could possibly have composed any of the
+passages which have been singled out as being beyond the accomplishment
+of a working sempstress.  The whole work and every part of the work is
+the unassisted and untutored production of its author.  This statement
+cannot be too clearly and positively made.  Doubtless the spelling was
+drastically corrected by the proof-readers; but to have one's spelling
+drastically corrected is an experience which occurs to nearly all women
+writers, and to a few male writers.
+
+The book completed, the question of its proper flotation arose.  I use
+the word "flotation" with intent.  Although Marguerite Audoux had
+originally no thought of publishing, her friends were firmly bent not
+simply on publishing, but on publishing with the maximum of éclat.  A
+great name was necessary to the success of the enterprise, a name
+which, while keeping the sympathy of the artists, would impose itself
+on the crowd.  Francis Jourdain knew Octave Mirbeau.  And Octave
+Mirbeau, by virtue of his feverish artistic and moral enthusiasms, of
+his notorious generosity, and of his enormous vogue, was obviously the
+heaven-appointed man.  Francis Jourdain went to Octave Mirbeau and
+offered him the privilege of floating "Marie Claire" on the literary
+market of Paris.  Octave Mirbeau accepted, and he went to work on the
+business as he goes to work on all his business; that is to say, with
+flames and lightnings.  For some time Octave Mirbeau lived for nothing,
+but "Marie Claire."  The result has been vastly creditable to him.
+"Marie Claire" was finally launched in splendour.  Its path had been
+prepared with really remarkable skill in the Press and in the world,
+and it was an exceedingly brilliant success from the start.  It ran a
+triumphant course as a serial in one of the "great reviews," and within
+a few weeks of its publication as a book thirty thousand copies had
+been sold.  The sale continues more actively than ever.  Marguerite
+Audoux lives precisely as she lived before.  She is writing a further
+instalment of her pseudonymous autobiography, and there is no apparent
+reason why this new instalment should not be even better than the first.
+
+Such is the story of the book.
+
+My task is not to criticise the work.  I will only say this.  In my
+opinion it is highly distinguished of its kind (the second part in
+particular is full of marvellous beauty); but it must be accepted for
+what it is.  It makes no sort of pretence to display those constructive
+and inventive artifices which are indispensable to a great masterpiece
+of impersonal fiction.  It is not fiction.  It is the exquisite
+expression of a temperament.  It is a divine accident.
+
+ARNOLD BENNETT.
+
+
+
+
+MARIE CLAIRE
+
+
+PART I
+
+One day a number of people came to the house.  The men came in as
+though they were going into church, and the women made the sign of the
+cross as they went out.
+
+I slipped into my parents' bedroom and was surprised to see that my
+mother had a big lighted candle by her bedside.  My father was leaning
+over the foot of the bed looking at my mother.  She was asleep with her
+hands crossed on her breast.
+
+Our neighbour, la mère Colas, kept us with her all day.  As the women
+went out again she said to them, "No, she would not kiss her children
+good-bye."  The women blew their noses, looked at us, and la mère Colas
+added, "That sort of illness makes one unkind, I suppose."  A few days
+afterwards we were given new dresses with big black and white checks.
+
+La mère Colas used to give us our meals and send us out to play in the
+fields.  My sister, who was a big girl, scrambled into the hedges,
+climbed the trees, messed about in the ponds, and used to come home at
+night with her pockets full of creatures of all kinds, which frightened
+me and made la mère Colas furiously angry.
+
+What I hated most were the earthworms.  The red elastic things made me
+shiver with horror, and if I happened to step on one it made me quite
+ill.  When I had a pain in my side la mère Colas used to forbid my
+sister to go out.  But my sister got tired of remaining indoors and
+wanted to go out and take me with her.  So she used to go and collect
+earthworms, and hold them up close to my face.  Then I said that I
+wasn't in pain any more, and la mère Colas used to send us both out of
+doors.  One day my sister threw a handful of earthworms on to my dress.
+I jumped back so quickly that I fell into a tub of hot water.  La mère
+Colas was very angry while she undressed me.  I was not very much hurt.
+She promised my sister a good slapping, and called to the sweeps, who
+were passing, to come in and take her away.  All three of them came in,
+with their black bags and their ropes.  My sister howled and cried for
+mercy.  I was very much ashamed at being all undressed.
+
+
+
+
+My father often took us to a place where there were men who drank wine.
+He used to put me on a table among the glasses, and make me sing.  The
+men would laugh and kiss me, and try and make me drink wine.  It was
+always dark when we went home.  My father took long steps, and rocked
+himself as he walked.  He nearly tumbled down lots of times.  Sometimes
+he would begin to cry and say that his house had been stolen.  Then my
+sister used to scream.  It was always she who used to find the house.
+One morning la mère Colas got angry with us and told us that we were
+children of misfortune, and that she would not feed us any longer.  She
+said we could go and look for our father, who had gone away nobody knew
+where.  When her anger had passed she gave us our breakfasts as usual,
+but a few days afterwards we were put into père Chicon's cart.  The
+cart was full of straw and bags of corn.  I was tucked away behind in a
+little hollow between the sacks.  The cart tipped down at the back, and
+every jolt made me slip on the straw.
+
+I was very frightened all the way along.  Every time I slipped I
+thought I was going to fall out of the cart, or that the sacks were
+going to fall on me.  We stopped at an inn.  A woman lifted us down,
+shook the straw on our dresses, and gave us some milk to drink.  I
+heard her say to père Chicon, "You really think their father will take
+care of them, then?"  Père Chicon shook his head, and knocked his pipe
+against the table.  Then he made a funny face and said, "He may be
+anywhere.  Young Girard told me he had met him on the Paris road."
+After a while père Chicon took us to a big house with a lot of steps
+leading up to the door.  He had a long talk with a gentleman who waved
+his arms about and talked about the dignity of labour.  I wondered what
+that was.  The gentleman put his hand on my head and patted it, and I
+heard him say several times, "He did not tell me that he had any
+children."  I understood that he was talking of my father, and I asked
+if I could not see him.  The gentleman looked at me without answering,
+and then asked père Chicon, "How old is she?"  "About five," said père
+Chicon.  All this time my sister was playing up and down the steps with
+a kitten.  We went back into the cart and to mère Colas again.  She was
+cross with us and pushed us about.  A few days afterwards she took us
+to the railway station, and that evening we went to a big house, where
+there were a lot of little girls.
+
+Sister Gabrielle separated us at once.  She said that my sister was big
+enough to be with the middle-sized girls, while I was to stay with the
+little ones.  Sister Gabrielle was quite small, quite old, quite thin,
+and all bent up.  She managed the dormitory and the refectory.  She
+used to make the salad in a huge yellow jar.  She tucked her sleeves up
+to her shoulders, and dipped her arms in and out of the salad.  Her
+arms were dark and knotted, and when they came out of the jar, all
+shining and dripping, they made me think of dead branches on rainy days.
+
+
+
+
+I made a chum at once.  She came dancing up to me and looked impudent,
+I thought.  She did not stand any higher than the bench on which I was
+sitting.  She put her elbows on my knees and said: "Why aren't you
+playing about?"  I told her that I had a pain in my side.  "Oh, of
+course," she said, "your mother had consumption, and Sister Gabrielle
+said you would soon die."  She climbed up on to the bench, and sat
+down, hiding her little legs underneath her.  Then she asked me my name
+and my age, and told me that her name was Ismérie, that she was older
+than I was, and that the doctor said she would never get any bigger.
+She told me also that the class mistress was called Sister Marie-Aimée,
+that she was very unkind, and punished you severely if you talked too
+much.  Then all of a sudden she jumped down and shouted "Augustine."
+Her voice was like a boy's voice, and her legs were a little twisted.
+At the end of recreation I saw her on Augustine's back.  Augustine was
+rolling her from one shoulder to the other, as if she meant to throw
+her down.  When she passed me Ismérie said in that big voice of hers,
+"You will carry me too sometimes, won't you?"  I soon became friends
+with Augustine.
+
+
+
+
+My eyes were not well.  At night my eyelids used to close up tight, and
+I was quite blind until I had them washed.  Augustine was told off to
+take me to the infirmary.  She used to come and fetch me from the
+dormitory every morning.  I could hear her coming before she got to the
+door.  She caught hold of my hand and pulled me along, and she didn't
+mind a bit when I bumped against the beds.  We flew down the passages
+like the wind and rushed down two flights of stairs like an avalanche.
+My feet only touched a step now and again.  I used to go down those
+stairs as if I was falling down a well.  Augustine had strong hands and
+held me tight.  To go to the infirmary we had to pass behind the chapel
+and then in front of a little white house.  There we hurried more than
+ever.  One day when I fell on to my knees she pulled me up again and
+smacked my head saying, "Do be quick, we are in front of the dead
+house."  After that she was always afraid of my falling again, and used
+to tell me when we got in front of the dead house.  I was frightened
+chiefly because Augustine was frightened.  If she rushed along like
+that there must be danger.  I was always out of breath when I got to
+the infirmary.  Somebody pushed me on to a little chair, and the pain
+in my side had been gone a long time when they came and washed my eyes.
+It was Augustine who took me into Sister Marie-Aimée's classroom.  She
+put on a timid kind of voice, and said, "Sister, here is a new girl."
+I expected to be scolded; but Sister Marie-Aimée smiled, kissed me
+several times, and said, "You are too small to sit on a bench, I shall
+put you in here."  And she sat me down on a stool in the hollow of her
+desk.  It was ever so comfortable in the hollow of her desk, and the
+warmth of her woollen petticoat soothed my body, which was bruised all
+over by tumbling about on the wooden staircases, and on the stone ones.
+Often two feet hemmed me in on each side of my stool, and two warm legs
+made a back for me.  A soft hand pressed my head on to the woollen
+skirt between the knees, and the softness of the hand and the warmth of
+the pillow used to send me to sleep.  When I woke up again the pillow
+became a table.  The same hand put bits of cake on it, and bits of
+sugar and sweets sometimes.  And all round me I heard the world living.
+A voice with tears in it would say, "No, Sister, I didn't do it."  Then
+shrill voices would say, "Yes, she did, Sister."  Above my head a full
+warm voice called for silence.  And then there would be the rap of a
+ruler on the desk.  It would make an enormous noise down in my hollow.
+Sometimes the feet would be drawn away from my little stool, the knees
+would be drawn together, the chair would move, and down to my nest came
+a white veil, a narrow chin, and smiling lips with little white pointed
+teeth behind them.  And last of all I saw two soft eyes which seemed to
+cuddle me and make me feel comfortable.
+
+
+
+
+When my eyes got better I used to get an alphabet as well as sweets and
+cakes.  It was a little book with pictures next to the words.  I often
+used to look at a great big strawberry which I fancied as big as a bun.
+When it was not cold in the classroom, Sister Marie-Aimée put me on a
+bench between Ismérie and Marie Renaud, who slept in the two beds next
+to mine in the dormitory.  Now and then she used to let me go back to
+my hollow again, and I loved that.  I used to find books there with
+pictures, which made me forget all about the time.
+
+One morning Ismérie took me into a corner, and told me with great
+secrecy that Sister Marie-Aimée was not going to take the class any
+more.  She was going to take Sister Gabrielle's place in the dormitory
+and the refectory.  She did not tell me who had told her this, but she
+said it was an awful shame.  She was very fond of Sister Gabrielle, who
+used to treat her like a little child.  She did not like "that Sister
+Marie-Aimée," as she used to call her when she knew that nobody heard
+her but ourselves.  She said that Sister Marie-Aimée would not let her
+climb on to our backs, and that we should not be able to make fun of
+her as we used to of Sister Gabrielle, who always went upstairs
+sideways.  In the evening after prayers Sister Gabrielle told us that
+she was going.  She kissed us all, beginning with the smallest of us.
+We went up to the dormitory making a dreadful noise.  The big girls
+whispered together and said they would not put up with Sister
+Marie-Aimée.  The little ones snivelled as though they were going into
+danger.  Ismérie, whom I was carrying upstairs on my back, was crying
+noisily.  Her little fingers hurt my throat, and her tears fell down my
+neck.  Nobody thought of laughing at Sister Gabrielle, who went
+upstairs slowly, saying "Hush, hush," all the time, without making the
+noise any less.  The servant in the little dormitory was crying too.
+She shook me a little while she was undressing me and said, "I'm sure
+you are pleased at having that Sister Marie-Aimée of yours."  We used
+to call the servant Bonne Esther.  I liked her best of the three
+servants.  She was rather rough sometimes, but she was fond of us.
+When I coughed she used to get up and put a piece of sugar in my mouth.
+And often she took me out of my bed when I was cold and warmed me in
+her own.
+
+
+
+
+Next morning we went down to the refectory in dead silence.  The
+servants told us to remain standing.  Several of the big girls stood
+very straight and looked proud.  Bonne Justine stood at one end of the
+table.  She looked sad and bent her head.  Bonne Néron, who looked like
+a gendarme, walked up and down in the middle of the refectory.  Now and
+then she looked at the clock, and shrugged her shoulders.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée came in, leaving the door open behind her.  She seemed to
+me to be taller than usual, in her white apron and white cuffs.  She
+walked slowly, looking at us all.  The rosary, which hung at her side,
+made a little clickety sound, and her skirt swung a little as she
+walked.  She went up the three steps to her desk, and made a sign to us
+to sit down.  In the afternoon she took us out for a walk in the
+country.  It was very hot.  I went and sat down near her on a little
+hillock.  She was reading a book, and every now and then looked at the
+little girls who were playing in a field below us.  She looked at the
+sun which was setting, and kept on saying "How lovely it is, how lovely
+it is."
+
+That evening the birch which Sister Gabrielle kept in the dormitory was
+put away in a cupboard, and in the refectory the salad was turned with
+two long wooden spoons.  These were the only changes.  We went into
+class from nine o'clock till twelve, and in the afternoon we cracked
+nuts, which were sold to an oil merchant.  The bigger girls used to
+crack them with a hammer, and the little ones took them out of the
+shells.  We were forbidden to eat them, and it was not easy, anyhow.
+One of the girls would always sneak if we did, because she was greedy
+too, and jealous.  Bonne Esther used to peep into our mouths.
+Sometimes she caught a very greedy girl.  Then she used to roll her
+eyes at her, give her a little smack, and say, "I've got my eye on
+you."  Some of us she trusted.  She would make us turn round and open
+our mouths and pretend to look at them, and then she said, "Shut your
+beaks, birdies," and laughed.
+
+I often wanted to eat the nuts.  But I would look at Bonne Esther and
+blush at the idea of cheating her, because she trusted me.  But after a
+time I wanted to eat nuts so badly that I could not think of anything
+else.  Every day I tried to think of some way of eating them without
+being caught.  I tried to slip some into my sleeves, but I was so
+awkward that I always dropped them.  Besides, I wanted to eat a lot of
+them, a great big lot.  I thought I should like to eat a sackful.  One
+day I managed to steal some.  Bonne Esther, who was taking us up to
+bed, slipped on a nutshell and dropped her lantern, which went out.  I
+was close to a big bowl of nuts, and I took a handful and put them in
+my pocket.  As soon as everybody was in bed I took the nuts out of my
+pocket, put my head under the sheets and crammed them into my mouth.
+But it seemed to me at once as though everybody in the dormitory must
+hear the noise that my jaws were making.  I did all I could to munch
+slowly and quietly, but the noise thumped in my ears like the blows of
+a mallet.
+
+Bonne Esther got up, lit the lamp, stooped down and looked under the
+beds.  When she came to mine I looked out at her trembling.  She
+whispered,  "Aren't you asleep yet?" and went on looking.  She went
+down to the end of the dormitory, opened the door, and closed it again;
+but she was hardly back in bed with the light out before the latch of
+the door made a little sound as though somebody were opening it.  Bonne
+Esther lit her lamp again and said, "Whatever is it?  It cannot be the
+cat opening the door by itself."  It seemed to me that she was afraid.
+I heard her moving about in her bed, and all of a sudden she called
+out, "Oh dear, oh dear."  Ismérie asked her what the matter was.  She
+said that a hand had opened the door, and she had felt a breath on her
+face.  In the twi-darkness we saw the door half open.  I was very
+frightened.  I thought it was the devil who had come to fetch me.  We
+waited a long, long time, but we heard nothing more.  Bonne Esther
+asked if one of us would get up and put the light out, although it was
+not very far from her own bed.  Nobody answered.  Then she called me.
+I got up and she said, "You are such a good little girl that ghosts
+won't do any harm to you."  She put her head under the bedclothes, and
+I blew the lamp out.  And directly it was put out I saw thousands of
+shining specks of light, and felt something cold on my cheeks.  I was
+sure that there were green dragons, with mouths aflame, under the beds.
+I could feel their claws on my feet, and lights were jumping about on
+each side of my head.  I wanted to sit down, and when I got to my bed I
+was quite sure that my two feet had gone.  When I dared, I stooped down
+and felt for them.  They were very cold.  I went to sleep at last
+holding them in my two hands.
+
+In the morning Bonne Esther found the cat on a bed near the door.  She
+had had kittens during the night.  When Sister Marie-Aimée was told
+about it, she said that the cat had certainly opened the door by
+jumping at the latch.  But we never felt sure about that, and the
+little girls used to talk about it in low voices for a long time.
+
+
+
+
+Next week all the girls who were eight years old went down to the big
+dormitory.  I had a bed near the window, quite close to Sister
+Marie-Aimée's room.  Marie Renaud and Ismérie again had their beds on
+each side of me.  When we were in bed Sister Marie-Aimée often used to
+come and sit by me.  She would take one of my hands and pat it, and
+look out of the window.  One night there was a big fire in the
+neighbourhood, and the whole dormitory was lit up.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+opened the window wide, shook me, and said, "Wake up, come and see the
+fire."  She took me in her arms, passed her hands over my face to wake
+me, and said again, "Come and see the fire; see how beautiful it is."
+I was so sleepy that my head fell on her shoulder.  Then she boxed my
+ears, and called me a little silly, and I woke up and began to cry.
+She took me in her arms again, sat down, and rocked me, holding me
+close to her.  She bent her head forward towards the window.  Her face
+looked transparent, and her eyes were full of light.  Ismérie hated
+Sister Marie-Aimée to come to the window.  It prevented her from
+talking, and she always had something to say.  Her voice was so loud
+that one heard it at the other end of the dormitory.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée used to say, "There's Ismérie talking again;" and Ismérie
+used to answer, "There's Sister Marie-Aimée scolding again."  Her
+daring frightened me, but Sister Marie-Aimée used to pretend not to
+hear her.  But one day she said, "I forbid you to answer me, little
+dwarf."  Ismérie answered, "No-sums."  This was a word which we had
+made up ourselves.  It meant, "Look at my nose and see if I care."
+Sister Marie-Aimée reached for a cane.  I was dreadfully afraid she was
+going to whip Ismérie.  But Ismérie threw herself down flat on her
+stomach and wriggled about and made funny noises.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+pushed her away with her foot, threw the cane away, and said, "Oh, you
+horrible little thing!"  Afterwards I noticed that she used to avoid
+looking at her, and never seemed to hear the rude things she said.  But
+she forbade us to carry her about on our backs.
+
+That never prevented Ismérie from climbing on to mine like a monkey.  I
+hadn't the courage to push her away, and I used to stoop down a little
+to let her get well up.  She always wanted to ride when we went up to
+the dormitory.  It was very hard for her to get up the stairs.  She
+used to laugh about it herself, saying that she hopped up like an old
+hen going to roost.  As Sister Marie-Aimée always went upstairs first,
+I used to wait and go up among the last girls.  But sometimes Sister
+Marie-Aimée would turn round suddenly.  Then Ismérie slipped down my
+body to the ground with wonderful quickness and skill.  I always felt a
+little bit awkward when I caught Sister Marie-Aimée's eye, and Ismérie
+always said, "See what a fool you are.  You were caught again."  Marie
+Renaud would never let her climb up on to her back.  She used to say
+that she wore her dress out and made it dirty.
+
+
+
+
+Esmérie was a little chatterbox, but Marie Renaud hardly ever talked at
+all.  Every morning she used to help me to make my bed.  She would pass
+her hands over the sheets to smooth them out, and always refused my
+help in making her bed, because she said I rolled the sheets all kinds
+of ways.  I never could understand why her bed was so smooth when she
+got up.  One day she told me that she pinned her sheets and her
+blankets to the mattress.  She had all kinds of little hiding-places
+full of all kinds of things.  At table she always used to eat some of
+yesterday's dessert.  The dessert of the day went into her pocket.  She
+used to finger it there, and would munch a little bit of it from time
+to time.  I often found her sitting in corners making lace with a pin.
+Her great pleasure was brushing, folding, and putting things in order.
+That was why my shoes were always well brushed and my Sunday dress
+carefully folded.  But one day a new servant came, whose name was
+Madeleine.  She soon found out that I did not take care of my own
+things.  She got excited, and said I was a great big lazy girl, and
+that I made other people wait on me as though I were a countess.  She
+said it was a shame to make poor little Marie Renaud work.  Bonne Néron
+agreed with her, and said I was puffed up with pride, that I thought I
+was better than anybody else, that I never did anything like other
+girls.  They both said, together, that they had never seen a girl like
+me, and both of them leaned over me and shouted at me together.  They
+made me think of two noisy fairies, a black one and a white one.
+Madeleine was fresh and fair, with full, open lips, and teeth which
+were wide apart.  Her tongue was broad and thick, and moved about into
+the corners of her mouth when she talked.  Bonne Néron raised her hand
+to me, and said, "Drop your eyes this minute!"  As they went away, I
+heard her say to Madeleine: "She makes you ashamed of yourself when she
+looks at you like that."  I had known for a long time that Bonne Néron
+looked like a bull, but I could not find out what animal Madeleine was
+like.  I thought it over for several days, thinking of all the animals
+I knew, and at last I gave it up.  She was fat, and her hips swayed
+when she walked.  She had a piercing voice, which surprised everybody.
+She asked leave to sing in church, but as she did not know the hymns.
+Sister Marie-Aimée told me to teach her.  After that Marie Renaud was
+allowed to brush and smooth out my things without anybody taking any
+notice of it.  She was so pleased that she gave me a safety-pin as a
+present, so as to fasten up my handkerchief, which I was always losing.
+Two days later I lost both the safety-pin and the handkerchief.  Oh,
+that handkerchief!  It was a perfect nightmare!  I used to lose one
+regularly every week.  Sister Marie-Aimée gave us a clean
+pocket-handkerchief in return for the dirty one which we had to throw
+down on to the ground in front of her.  I never thought of mine till
+the last moment.  And then I turned out all my pockets, I ran about
+like a mad thing into the dormitory, up and down the passages, and up
+to the garret hunting for it everywhere.  Oh dear, oh dear! if I could
+only find a handkerchief somewhere!  As I passed in front of the
+picture of the Virgin, I would put my hands together and pray
+fervently, "Admirable Mother, make me find a handkerchief."  But I
+never did find one, and I went downstairs again red in the face, out of
+breath, feeling dreadfully unhappy, and not daring to take the clean
+handkerchief which Sister Marie-Aimée handed to me.  Before she spoke,
+I could hear the scolding which I knew I deserved.  And even when
+Sister Marie-Aimée said nothing at all, I could see her frown, and her
+eyes looked crossly at me and followed me about.  I felt crushed with
+shame, so crushed that I could scarcely lift my feet.  I tried to hide
+in the corners as I walked; and, in spite of it all, next time I had
+lost my handkerchief again.  Madeleine used to look at me with sham
+compassion.  But she could not always prevent herself from telling me
+that I deserved to be punished severely.  She seemed very fond of
+Sister Marie-Aimée.  She waited on her always, and she would burst into
+tears at her slightest word.  Then Sister Marie-Aimée had to soothe her
+by patting her cheeks, and she would laugh and cry at the same time,
+and move her shoulders about, showing her white neck.  Bonne Néron used
+to say that she looked like a cat.
+
+
+
+
+Bonne Néron left one day after a scene in the middle of luncheon.  It
+happened during a dead silence.  All of a sudden she shouted out, "Yes;
+I want to go, and I am going!"  Sister Marie-Aimée looked at her in
+astonishment, and Bonne Néron faced her, putting her head down, shaking
+it, butting at her almost, and shouting all the time that she would not
+be ordered about by a bit of a baby.  She walked backwards as she
+shouted, got to the door, and pulled it open.  Before she went out of
+the room she threw one of her long arms out at Sister Marie-Aimée, and
+shrieked, "She isn't even twenty-five!"  Some of the little girls were
+frightened, others burst out laughing.  Madeleine got quite hysterical.
+She threw herself on to the floor at Sister Marie-Aimée's knees,
+kissing her dress, and winding her arms round her legs.  She got hold
+of her two hands and mumbled over them with her big, moist mouth,
+screaming all the time as though some terrible catastrophe had
+happened.  Sister Marie-Aimée could not shake her off.  At last she got
+angry.  Then Madeleine fainted, and fell on her back.  As she was
+undoing her Sister Marie-Aimée made a sign towards the part of the room
+where I was.  I thought she wanted me, and ran to her; but she sent me
+back again, "No; not you.  Marie Renaud," she said.  She gave her keys
+to Marie, and, although she had never been in Sister Marie-Aimée's
+room, she found the bottle of salts which Sister Marie-Aimée wanted
+without any loss of time.
+
+
+
+
+Madeleine soon got better, and took Bonne Néron's place.  She got more
+authority over us.  She was still timid and submissive to Sister
+Marie-Aimée, but she made up for that by shouting at us, for any reason
+and no reason, that she was "there to look after us," and was "not our
+servant."  The day she fainted I had seen her neck.  I had never dreamt
+of anything so beautiful.  But she was a stupid girl, and I never
+minded what she said to me.  That used to make her very angry.  She
+used to say all kinds of rude things to me, and always finished up by
+calling me "Miss Princess."  She could not forgive me for Sister
+Marie-Aimée's affection for me, and whenever she saw the Sister kissing
+me she got quite red with anger.
+
+I began to grow, and my health was pretty good.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+said that she was proud of me.  She used to squeeze me so tight when
+she kissed me that she sometimes hurt me.  Then she would say, putting
+her fingers on my forehead, "My little girl; my little child."  During
+recreation I often used to sit near her, and listen to her reading.
+She read in a deep voice, and when the people in the book displeased
+her more than usual, she used to shut it up angrily, and come and play
+games with us.
+
+She wanted me to be quite faultless.  She would say: "I want you to be
+perfect.  Do you hear, child?  Perfect."  One day she thought I had
+told a lie.  There were three cows which used to graze on some land in
+the middle of which was a great big chestnut tree.  The white cow was
+wicked, and we were afraid of it, because it had knocked a little girl
+down once.  That day I saw the two red cows, and just under the
+chestnut tree I saw a big black cow.  I said to Ismérie:
+
+"Look; the white cow has been sent away because she was wicked, I
+expect."  Ismérie, who was cross that day, screamed, and said that I
+was always laughing at the others, and trying to make them believe
+things which were not true.  I showed her the cow.  She said it was a
+white one.  I said, "No, it is a black one."  Sister Marie-Aimée heard
+us.  She was very angry, and said, "How dare you say that the cow is
+black?"  Then the cow moved.  She looked black and white now, and I
+understood that I had made a mistake because of the shadow of the
+chestnut tree.  I was so surprised that I could not find anything to
+say.  I did not know how to explain it.  Sister Marie-Aimée shook me.
+"Why did you tell a lie?" she said.  I answered that I did not know.
+She sent me into a corner in the shed, and told me that I should have
+nothing but bread and water that day.  As I had not told a lie, the
+punishment did not worry me.  The shed had a lot of old cupboards in
+it, and some garden tools.  I climbed from one thing on to the other,
+and got right up and sat on the top of the highest cupboard.  I was ten
+years old, and it was the first time that I had ever been alone.  I
+felt pleased at this.  I sat there, swinging my legs, and began to
+imagine a whole invisible world.  The old cupboard with rusty locks
+became the entrance gate to a magnificent palace.  I was a little girl
+who had been left on the top of a mountain.  A beautiful lady dressed
+like a fairy had seen me up there, and came to fetch me.  Three or four
+lovely ducks ran in front of her.  They had just come up to me when I
+saw Sister Marie-Aimée standing in front of the cupboard with the rusty
+locks and looking about for me everywhere.  I did not know that I was
+sitting on the cupboard.  I still believed myself to be on the top of
+the mountain, and I felt cross because Sister Marie-Aimée's arrival had
+made the palace and the lovely lady disappear.  She saw my legs
+swinging, and just as she saw me I remembered that I was sitting on the
+cupboard.  She stood there for a moment looking up at me.  Then she
+took a piece of bread, a piece of sausage, and a little bottle of wine
+out of the pocket of her dress, showed me one thing after the other,
+and in an angry voice said, "This _was_ for you.  There!"  And she put
+it all back into her pocket and went away.  A moment afterwards
+Madeleine brought me some bread and water, and I remained in the shed
+till evening.
+
+
+
+
+Sister Marie-Aimée had been growing sadder and sadder for some time.
+She never played with us any more, and she even used to forget our
+dinner time.  Madeleine would send me to the chapel to fetch her, and I
+would find her there on her knees with her face hidden in her hands.  I
+had to pull at her dress before she took any notice of me.  Often I
+thought that she had been crying, but I never dared to look at her
+closely for fear she would get angry.  She seemed lost in thought, and
+when we spoke to her, she answered "Yes" or "No" quite sharply.
+
+But she took a great interest in the little feast which we had at
+Easter every year.  She had the cakes brought in, and we put them on a
+table and covered them with a white cloth, so that the greedy girls
+should not see them all at the same time.  On feast days we were
+allowed to talk as much as we liked at table, and we made a tremendous
+noise.  Sister Marie-Aimée waited on us with a smile and a word for
+each of us.  That day she was going to serve the cakes, and Madeleine,
+who was helping her, was taking off the cloth which covered them.  Then
+a cat, which had been under the cloth, jumped down and ran away.
+Sister Marie-Aimée and Madeleine both said "Oh," and Madeleine said,
+"The dirty beast has been nibbling all the cakes."  Sister Marie-Aimée
+did not like the cat.  She stood perfectly still for a minute, then ran
+to the corner, took a stick and ran after it.  It was horrible.  The
+cat was frightened out of its wits, and jumped this way and that out of
+the way of the stick with which Sister Marie-Aimée kept hitting the
+benches and the walls.  All the little girls were frightened, and ran
+towards the door.  Sister Marie-Aimée stopped them.  "Nobody is to go
+out," she said.  I hardly knew her.  Her lips were pressed together,
+her cheeks were as white as her cap, and her eyes, which seemed to
+flame, frightened me so that I hid my face in the hollow of my arm.  I
+did not want to do so, but I soon looked up again.  The cat hunt was
+still going on.  Sister Marie-Aimée, with her stick in the air, ran
+after the cat without saying a word.  Her lips were open, and I could
+see her little pointed teeth.  She ran about, jumping over the benches,
+and climbed up on to the table, lifting her petticoats as she did so.
+When she was going to hit the cat it jumped and ran up a curtain right
+on to the top of the window.  Madeleine, who had been following Sister
+Marie-Aimée about, wanted to go and fetch a longer stick, but Sister
+Marie-Aimée stopped her, and said, "It is lucky to have got away."
+Bonne Justine, who was standing near me, hid her eyes and murmured,
+"Oh, it is shameful, shameful!" and I thought it was shameful, too.  I
+felt as though Sister Marie-Aimée had grown smaller.  I had always
+thought her quite faultless.  I compared this scene with another one,
+which had happened one day when there was a big storm.  That day Sister
+Marie-Aimée had been wonderful.  While she was chasing the cat I could
+see her, that other day, as she stood on a bench, and closed the
+windows quietly, lifting her lovely arms.  Her wide sleeves fell down
+on her shoulders, and while we shivered and shook in terror at the
+lightning and the whistling wind she said quietly, "It is quite a
+storm."  Sister Marie-Aimée made the little girls stand on the other
+side of the room.  She opened the door wide, and the cat rushed out.
+
+
+
+
+One afternoon I was surprised to see that it was not our old priest who
+was saying vespers.  This one was a tall, fine man.  He sang with a
+strong, jerky voice.  We talked about him all the evening.  Madeleine
+said he was a handsome man, and Sister Marie-Aimée thought, she said,
+that he had a young voice, but that he pronounced his words like an old
+man, and that he was distinguished looking.  When he came to pay us a
+visit two or three days afterwards, I saw that he had white hair in
+little curls round his neck, and that his eyes and his eyebrows were
+very black.  He asked for those of us who were preparing their
+catechism, and wanted to know everybody's name.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+answered for me.  She put her hand on my head and said, "This is our
+Marie Claire."  When Ismérie came up in her turn he looked at her in
+surprise, and made her turn round and walk for him to see.  He said
+that she was no bigger than a child of three, and when he asked Sister
+Marie-Aimée if she was intelligent, Ismérie turned round sharply and
+said that she was not as stupid as the rest of us.  He burst out
+laughing, and I saw that his teeth were very white.  When he spoke he
+jerked himself forward as though he wanted to catch his words again.
+They seemed to drop out of his mouth in spite of himself.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée took him as far as the gate of the courtyard.  She never
+used to take any visitors further than the door of the room.  She came
+back, climbed up to her desk again, and after a moment she said,
+without looking at anybody, "He really is a very distinguished man."
+
+Our new priest lived in a little house near the chapel.  In the evening
+he used to walk in the avenue of linden trees.  He often passed close
+to the playground where we were playing, and he always used to bow very
+low to Sister Marie-Aimée.  Every Thursday afternoon he came to see us.
+He sat down, leaning against the back of his chair, and crossing his
+legs, he told us stories.  He was very pleasant, and Sister Marie-Aimée
+used to say that he laughed as though he enjoyed it.  Sometimes Sister
+Marie-Aimée was ill.  Then he used to go up and see her in her room.
+We would see Madeleine passing with a teapot and two cups.  She was red
+in the face and very busy.
+
+When the summer was over, M. le Curé came to see us after dinner and
+spent the evenings with us.  When nine o'clock struck he used to go,
+and Sister Marie-Aimée always went with him down the passage to the big
+front door.
+
+
+
+
+He had been with us for a year, and I could never get used to making
+confession to him.  He often used to look at me and laugh in a way that
+made me think that he remembered my faults.  We went to confession on
+fixed days.  Each one of us took her turn.  When there were only one or
+two to go in before me I began to tremble.  My heart beat dreadfully
+fast, and I got cramp in my stomach, which prevented me from breathing
+properly.  When my turn came I got up and felt my legs trembling under
+me.  My head buzzed, and my cheeks turned cold.  I fell on my knees in
+the confessional and M. le Curé's voice, which sounded as though it
+came from a long way off, gave me confidence.  But he always had to
+help me to remember my faults.  If he hadn't, I should have forgotten
+half of them.  At the end of confession he always asked me what my name
+was.  I longed to tell him another name, but while I was wondering if I
+dare, my own name used to slip out of my mouth.
+
+It was getting near the time for our Communion.  It was to be in May,
+and preparations for it were beginning.  Sister Marie-Aimée composed
+some new hymns.  She had made one, which was a sort of thanksgiving for
+M. le Curé.  A fortnight before the ceremony they separated us from the
+others.  We had prayed all day long.  Madeleine was supposed to see
+that we were not disturbed at prayer, but she often used to disturb us
+herself by quarrelling with one of us.  My fellow communicant was
+called Sophie.  She was a quiet little girl, and we always kept out of
+the quarrels.  We used to talk over serious matters.  I often told her
+how much I hated confession, and how frightened I was that I should
+pass through my communion badly.  She was very good, and she did not
+understand what I had to be afraid of.  She thought that I was not
+pious enough, and she had noticed that I used to go to sleep during
+prayers.  She confessed to me that she was very frightened of death.
+She used to talk about it in a low voice, and looked very frightened.
+Her eyes were green, and her hair was so lovely that Sister Marie-Aimée
+would never have it cut short like that of the other girls.
+
+At last the great day came.  My general confession had passed off all
+right.  It gave me the same feeling that a bath does.  I felt very
+clean after it, but I trembled so when I was given the holy wafer that
+a bit of it stuck in my teeth.  A sort of dizziness came over me, and I
+felt as though a big black curtain had dropped in front of my eyes, I
+thought I heard Sister Marie-Aimée's voice asking "Are you ill," and I
+seemed to know that she went with me as far as my fald-stool, and that
+she put my taper into my hand and said, "Hold it tight."  My throat had
+grown so tight that I could not swallow, and I felt a liquid dropping
+from my mouth into my throat.  Then I was wildly frightened, for
+Madeleine had warned us that if we bit the holy wafer the blood of
+Christ would stream from our mouths, and that nobody would be able to
+stop it.  Sister Marie-Aimée wiped my face and whispered quite low,
+"Take care, dear.  Are you ill?"  My throat loosened, and I swallowed
+the wafer.  Then at last I dared to look down to see the blood on my
+dress, but I saw only a little grey spot like a drop of water.  I put
+my handkerchief to my lips and wiped my face.  There was no blood on
+it.  I did not feel quite sure yet, but when we got up to sing I tried
+to sing with the others.  When M. le Curé came to see us later in the
+day Sister Marie-Aimée told him that I had almost fainted at Communion.
+He took my chin in his hand and tipped my face up towards him.  Then,
+after looking into my eyes, he began to laugh, and said that I was a
+very sensitive little girl.
+
+
+
+
+After our first communion we did not attend class any more.  Bonne
+Justine taught us to sew.  We made caps for peasant women.  It was not
+very difficult, and as it was something new I worked hard.  Bonne
+Justine said that I should make a very good needle-woman.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée used to kiss me and say, "So you would, if you could only
+get over your laziness."  But when I had made a few caps and had to go
+on doing the same thing over and over again, my laziness got the better
+of me.  The work bored me, and I could not make up my mind to do it.  I
+could have remained for hours and hours without moving, watching the
+others work.  Marie Renaud never spoke to us while she was sewing.  Her
+stitches were so small and so close together that one needed good eyes
+to see them.  Ismérie sang all the time she sewed, and nobody ever
+scolded her.  Some of the girls sewed with bent backs and a frown on
+their foreheads.  Their  fingers  were moist, and their needles
+squeaked.  Others sewed slowly and carefully, without getting tired or
+bored, counting their stitches under their breath.  That is the way I
+should have liked to sew.  I used to scold myself for not doing so, and
+then I used to imitate them for a few minutes.  But the least sound
+disturbed me, and I would stop and listen, or look at what was going on
+all round me.  Madeleine said that my nose was always in the air.  I
+spent most of my time imagining needles which would sew all by
+themselves.  For a long time I hoped that an old woman, whom nobody
+would see but I, would come out of the big fireplace and sew my cap for
+me very quickly.  At last I took no notice of Sister Marie-Aimée's
+scolding, and she didn't know what to do to make me work.  One day she
+decided that I was to read aloud twice a day.  It was a great joy for
+me.  The time to begin reading never seemed to come quickly enough, and
+I was always sorry when I closed the book.
+
+
+
+
+When I had finished reading Sister Marie-Aimée used to make Colette the
+cripple sing to us.  She always sang the same songs, but her voice was
+so lovely that we never got tired of listening to it.  She sang quite
+simply, without stopping her work, and she kept time with her needle as
+she sang.  Bonne Justine, who knew all about everybody, told us that
+Colette had been brought in with both legs broken, when she was quite a
+tiny child.  She was twenty now.  She walked with great difficulty,
+helping herself with two sticks, and she would never use crutches
+because she was afraid of looking like an old woman.  During recreation
+I always used to see her alone on a bench.  She kept on throwing
+herself back and stretching.  Her dark eyes had such big pupils that
+one hardly saw the whites at all.  I felt drawn towards her.  I should
+have liked to have been her friend.  She seemed very proud, and
+whenever I did any little thing for her she had a way of saying, "Thank
+you, little one," which made me remember that I was only twelve years
+old.  Madeleine told me, mysteriously, that we were not allowed to talk
+to Colette alone, and when I wanted to know why, she reeled out a long
+complicated story which told me nothing at all.  I asked Bonne Justine,
+who used a lot of words which I didn't understand, but told me that a
+little girl like me must not be alone with Colette.  I could never
+understand why.  I noticed that every time one of the big girls gave
+her her arm to help her to walk about a little, three or four other
+girls always came up and talked and laughed with them.  I thought that
+she had no friends.  A feeling of great pity drew me to her, and one
+day when she was all alone I asked her to take my arm for a little
+walk.  I was standing in front of her timidly, but I knew that she
+would not refuse.  She looked at me and said, "You know it is not
+allowed."  I nodded "Yes."  She looked at me again.  "Aren't you afraid
+of being punished?" she said.  I shook my head to say "No."  I wanted
+to cry and it made my throat feel tight.  I helped her to get up.  She
+leaned on her stick with one hand and put all her weight on my
+shoulder.  I could see how difficult it was for her to walk.  She did
+not say a word to me while we were walking, and when I had taken her
+back to her bench she looked at me and said, "Thank you, Marie Claire."
+When she saw me with Colette, Bonne Justine raised her arms to heaven
+and made the sign of the cross.  At the other end of the playground
+Madeleine shook her fist at me and shouted.
+
+
+
+
+When evening came I saw that Sister Marie-Aimée knew what I had done,
+but she never said a word about it.  At recreation next day she drew me
+towards her, took my head in her two hands and bent towards me.  She
+didn't say anything to me, but her eyes plunged right into my face.  I
+felt as though I were wrapped up in her eyes.  I felt as though a soft
+warmth was all round me, and I felt comfortable.  She gave me a long
+kiss on the forehead, then smiled at me and said, "There.  You are my
+beautiful white lily."  I thought her so beautiful, and her eyes shone
+so with several colours in them, that I said to her, "And you, too,
+mother; you are a lovely flower."  She said in an off-hand way, "Yes;
+but I don't count among the lilies now."  Then she said almost roughly,
+"Don't you love Ismérie any more?"  "Yes, mother."  "Really.  Then what
+about Colette?"  "I love Colette too."  "Oh, you love everybody!" she
+said.
+
+
+
+
+I used to give Colette my arm nearly every day.  She never talked to me
+much, and then only about the other girls.  When I sat down next to her
+she used to look at me queerly.  She said she thought I was a queer
+little thing.  One day she asked me if I thought her pretty.  Directly
+she said it, I remembered that Sister Marie-Aimée said that she was as
+black as a mole.  I saw, however, that she had a broad forehead, fine
+big eyes, and the rest of her face was small and refined.  Whenever I
+looked at her, I didn't quite know why, but I thought of a well, deep
+and dark, and full of hot water.  No, I didn't think her pretty, but I
+wouldn't tell her so because she was a cripple.  I said she would be
+much prettier if her skin were whiter.  Little by little I became her
+friend.  She told me that she hoped to go away and get married like
+Nina had done.  Nina used to come and see us on Sundays with her child.
+Colette took hold of my arm and said, "You see, I must get married.  I
+must."  Then she stretched herself, bending her whole body forward.
+Sometimes she used to cry, and was in such deep trouble that I could
+not find anything to say to her.  She would look at her poor twisted
+legs, and groan out, "There would have to be a miracle for me to get
+away from here."
+
+All of a sudden I got the idea that the Virgin could bring this miracle
+about.  Colette thought it a splendid idea.  She was quite surprised
+that she had never thought of it.  It was only fair that she should
+have legs like the others.  She wanted to see about it at once.  She
+explained to me that several girls would be necessary for the nine
+days' prayer, and said that we must go and purify ourselves at
+communion, and that during nine days we would pray all the time, so as
+to get help from Our Lady in heaven.  This had to be done in the
+greatest secrecy.  It was arranged that Sophie should be one of us
+because she was so very good, and Colette said she would talk to some
+of the big girls who were good, too.  Two days afterwards it was all
+arranged.  Colette was to fast during the nine days.  On the tenth day,
+which would be a Sunday, she would go to communion as usual, leaning on
+her stick and the arm of one of us.  Then, when she had taken the holy
+wafer, she would make a vow to bring up her children in the love of the
+Virgin, and after that she would rise up straight and would sing the
+"Te Deum" in her beautiful voice, and we would all sing it with her.
+
+For nine days I prayed more fervently than I had ever prayed before.
+The ordinary prayers seemed insipid.  I recited the Virgin's Litany.  I
+hunted up the most beautiful hymns of praise that I could find, and
+repeated them without getting tired.  "Star of the Morning, make
+Colette whole."  The first time, I remained on my knees for so long
+that Sister Marie-Aimée scolded me.  Nobody noticed the little signs
+which we made to one another, and the nine days of prayer passed off
+without any one knowing anything about them.
+
+
+
+
+Colette was very pale when she came to mass.  Her cheeks were thinner
+than ever, and she stood with her eyes cast down.  Her eyelids were
+deep violet.  I thought to myself that the end of her martyrdom had
+come, and I was filled with a deep joy.  Quite close to me, the picture
+of the Virgin in a flowing white robe smiled as it looked at me, and in
+an outburst of all my faith my thoughts cried out, "Oh, Mirror of
+Justice, make Colette whole!"  My temples were stretched tightly.  I
+was straining every nerve to keep my thoughts from wandering, and I
+went on saying, "Oh, Mirror of Justice, make Colette whole!"  Colette
+went up to the communion table.  Her stick made a little clickety noise
+on the flagstones.  When she was on her knees the girl who had gone up
+to the table with her came back to us with the stick.  She knew that it
+would be of no further use.
+
+Colette tried to get up, and fell back again on to her knees.  Her hand
+reached out to take her stick, and when she didn't find it by her side,
+she tried again to raise herself without it.  She clung to the Holy
+Table and caught hold of the arm of one of the Sisters, who was taking
+communion with her.  Then her shoulders rocked and she fell over,
+pulling the Sister down with her.  Two of us rushed forward and dragged
+poor Colette to her bench.  But I was still hoping against hope, and
+until mass was over I was hoping to hear the Te Deum.  As soon as I
+could, I went back to Colette.  The big girls were round her trying to
+console her, and advising her to give herself to God for ever.  She was
+crying gently, not sobbing.  Her head was bent a little forward, and
+her tears fell on her hands, which were crossed one over the other.  I
+kneeled down in front of her, and when she looked at me, I said:
+
+"Perhaps you can get married even though you are a cripple."  Colette's
+story was soon known to everybody.  Everybody felt so sad about it that
+we stopped playing noisy games.  Ismérie thought she was telling me a
+tremendous piece of news when she told me all about it.  Sophie told me
+that we must submit to the will of Our Lady, because She knew what was
+necessary for Colette's happiness better than we did.
+
+
+
+
+I should have liked to have known whether Sister Marie-Aimée knew about
+Colette.  I did not see her till the afternoon, when we were out
+walking.  She did not look sad.  She looked almost pleased.  I had
+never seen her look so pretty.  Her whole face shone.  While we were
+out I noticed that she walked as though something was lifting her up.
+I never remembered to have seen her walk like that.  Her veil fluttered
+a little at the shoulders, and her stomacher didn't hide all her neck.
+She paid no attention to us.  She was looking at nothing, but she
+seemed to be seeing something.  Every now and then she smiled as though
+somebody were talking to her from inside.
+
+In the evening after dinner I found her sitting on the old bench under
+the big linden tree.  M. le Curé was sitting next to her with his back
+against the tree.  They looked serious.  I thought they were talking
+about Colette, and I remained standing some distance from them.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée was saying, as though she were answering a question, "Yes,
+when I was fifteen."  M. le Curé said, "You had no vocation at
+fifteen."  I didn't hear what Sister Marie-Aimée answered, but M. le
+Curé went on, "Or, rather, at fifteen you had every possible vocation.
+A kind word, or a little indifference would be enough to change your
+whole life."  He said nothing for a moment, and then, in a lower tone,
+he said, "Your parents were very much to blame."  Sister Marie-Aimée
+answered, "I regret nothing."  They remained for a long time without
+saying a word.  Then Sister Marie-Aimée raised one finger as though she
+were impressing something on him, and said, "Everywhere, in spite of
+all and always."  M. le Curé stretched his hand out a little way,
+laughed, and repeated, "Everywhere, in spite of all and always."
+
+The goodnight bell sounded all of a sudden, and M. le Curé went off,
+down the avenue of linden trees.  For a long time afterwards I used to
+repeat the words I had heard them say, but I could never fit them in to
+poor Colette's story.
+
+
+
+
+Colette had given up all hopes of a miracle to take her away, and yet
+she could not make up her mind to remain.  When she saw all the girls
+of her own age go one by one, she began to rebel.  She would not go to
+confession anymore, and she would not take holy communion.  She used to
+go to mass because she sang there, and she was fond of music.  I often
+stopped with her and consoled her.  She explained to me that marriage
+meant love.
+
+
+
+
+Sister Marie-Aimée, who had not been well for some time, became quite
+ill.  Madeleine nursed her devotedly and treated us dreadfully badly.
+She was particularly unkind to me, and when she saw me tired of sewing
+she would say, trying to turn her nose up, "If mademoiselle objects to
+sewing, she had better take a broom and sweep."  One Sunday she hit
+upon the idea of making me clean the stairs during mass.  It was
+January.  A damp cold which came up from the passages climbed the steps
+and got under my dress.  I swept as hard as I could to keep warm.  The
+sound of the harmonium came from the chapel out to me.  From time to
+time I recognized Madeleine's thin piercing tones, and M. le Curé's
+jerky notes.  I could follow mass by the singing.  All of a sudden
+Colette's voice rose above all the others.  It was strong and pure.  It
+broadened, drowned the sound of the harmonium, drowned everything else,
+and then seemed to fly away over the linden trees, over the house, and
+over the church spire itself.  It made me tremble, and when the voice
+came down to earth, trembling a little as it went back into the church
+and was swept up by the sound of the harmonium again, I began to cry,
+sobbing as though I were quite a little girl.  Then Madeleine's sharp
+voice pierced through the others once more, and I swept and swept hard
+as though my broom could scratch out the voice which was so
+disagreeable to me.
+
+
+
+
+That was the day Sister Marie-Aimée called me to her.  She had been up
+in her room for two months.  She was a little better, but I noticed
+that her eyes did not shine at all.  They made me think of a rainbow
+which had almost melted away.  She made me tell her funny little
+stories about what had been going on, and she tried to smile while she
+was listening to me, but her lips only smiled on one side of her mouth.
+She asked me if I had heard her screaming.  "Oh yes," I said, I had
+heard her during her illness.  She had screamed so dreadfully in the
+middle of the night that the whole dormitory had been kept awake.
+Madeleine was coming and going.  We heard her splashing water about,
+and when I asked her what was the matter with Sister Marie-Aimée, she
+said, as she hurried past, that she had rheumatism.  I remembered at
+once that Bonne Justine used to have rheumatism too, but she had never
+screamed like that, and I remember wondering whether poor Sister
+Marie-Aimée's legs were swollen to three times their size, like those
+of Bonne Justine.  Her cries got worse and worse.  One of them was so
+terrible that it seemed to come right out of her vitals.  Then we had
+heard her moaning, and that was all.  A few moments afterwards
+Madeleine had come up and whispered to Marie Renaud, Marie Renaud had
+put on her dress, and I heard her go downstairs; Directly afterwards
+she came back with M. le Curé.  He rushed into Sister Marie-Aimée's
+room, and Madeleine closed the door behind him.  He did not remain very
+long, but he went away again much more slowly than he had come.  He
+walked with his head sunk down between his shoulders, and his right
+hand was holding his cloak over his left arm, as though he were
+carrying something valuable.  I thought to myself that he was taking
+away the holy oils, and I did not dare ask whether Sister Marie-Aimée
+were dead.  I have never forgotten the blow I got from Madeleine's fist
+when I clung to her dress.  She knocked me right over and whispered, as
+she ran past, "She is better."  As soon as Sister Marie-Aimée was well
+again, Madeleine was kinder, and everything went on as before.
+
+
+
+
+I disliked sewing as much as ever, and my hatred for it began to make
+Sister Marie-Aimée uneasy.  She mentioned it in front of me to M. le
+Curé's sister.  M. le Curé's sister was an old maid with a long face
+and big faded eyes.  We called her Mademoiselle Maximilienne.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée told her how anxious she was about my future.  She said
+that I learned things easily, but that no kind of sewing interested me.
+She had noticed for some time that I was fond of study, and she had
+made inquiries to find out whether I had no distant relatives who would
+look after me, she said.  But the only relation I had was an old woman
+who had adopted my sister, but refused to take me.  Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne offered to take me into her dressmaking business.  M. le
+Curé thought that was a very good idea, and said that he would be
+pleased to go and teach me a little, twice a week.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+seemed really happy at this.  She did not know what to say to thank
+them.  It was agreed that I should go to Mademoiselle Maximilienne as
+soon as M. le Curé returned from a journey to Rome, which he had to
+make.  Sister Marie-Aimée would get my outfit ready for me, and
+Mademoiselle Maximilienne would go to the Mother Superior and ask her
+permission, she said.  I felt dreadfully uncomfortable at the idea that
+the Mother Superior was to have anything to do with it.  I could not
+forget the unkind look she always gave me when she passed the old bench
+and saw me sitting there with Sister Marie-Aimée and M. le Curé.  So I
+waited impatiently to hear what she would say to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne.  M. le Curé had been away for a week, and Sister
+Marie-Aimée used to talk to me every day about my new work.  She told
+me how glad she would be to see me on Sundays.  She gave me all kinds
+of good advice, told me to be good and to take care of my health.
+
+
+
+
+The Mother Superior sent for me one morning.  When I went into her room
+I noticed that she was sitting in a big red armchair.  I began to
+remember some ghost stories which I had heard the girls tell about her,
+and when I saw her sitting there, all black in the middle of all that
+red, I compared her in my mind to a huge poppy which had grown in a
+cellar.  She opened and closed her eyelids several times.  She had a
+smile on her face which was like an insult.  I felt myself blushing,
+but I did not turn my eyes away.  She gave a little sneering chuckle,
+and said, "You know why I sent for you?"  I answered that I thought it
+was to talk to me about Mademoiselle Maximilienne.  She sneered again,
+"Oh, yes; Mademoiselle Maximilienne," she said.  "Well, my child, you
+must undeceive yourself.  We have made up our minds to place you on a
+farm in Sologne."  She half closed her eyes and snapped out, "You are
+to be a shepherdess, young woman."  Then she added, rapping the words
+out, "You will look after the sheep."  I said simply, "Very well,
+mother."  She pulled herself up out of the depths of her armchair and
+asked me, "Do you know what looking after the sheep means?"  I answered
+that I had seen shepherdesses in the fields.  She bent her yellow face
+towards me and went on, "You will have to clean the stables.  They
+smell very unpleasantly, and the shepherdesses are dirty.  You will
+help in the work of the farm, and be taught to milk the cows and look
+after the pigs."  She spoke very loud, as though she were afraid I
+should not understand her.  I answered as I had answered before, "Very
+well, mother."  She pulled herself up by the arms of her chair,
+fastened her shining eyes on me, and said, "You don't mean to tell me
+that you are not proud?"  I smiled, and said, "No, mother."  She seemed
+very much surprised, but, as I went on smiling, her voice grew softer.
+"Really, my child?" she said.  "I always thought you were proud."  She
+dropped back into her chair again, hid her eyes under their lids, and
+began talking quickly in a monotonous voice, as she did when she said
+prayers.  She said that I must obey my masters, that I must never
+forget my religious duties, and that the farmer's wife would come and
+fetch me the day before the feast of St. John.
+
+I went out of her room with feelings which I could not express.  But I
+felt horribly afraid of hurting Sister Marie-Aimée's feelings.  How
+could I tell her?  I had no time to think.  Sister Marie-Aimée was
+waiting for me in the passage.  She took hold of my two shoulders, bent
+her face towards me, and said, "Well?" She looked anxious.  I said,
+"She wants me to be a shepherdess."  She did not understand, and
+frowned, "A shepherdess," she said.  "What do you mean?"  I hurried on,
+"She has found a place for me in a farm, and I am to milk cows and look
+after the pigs."  Sister Marie-Aimée pushed me away so roughly that I
+bumped against the wall.  She ran towards the door.  I thought she was
+going to the Mother Superior's room, but she went out, and came back
+again, and began walking up and down the passage, taking long steps.
+Her fists were clenched, and she kept tapping with her foot on the
+floor.  She was breathing hard.  Then she leaned up against the wall,
+let her arms fall as though she were overcome, and, in a voice which
+seemed to come from a long way off, she said: "She is revenging
+herself.  Yes, she is revenging herself."  She came back to me, took my
+two hands affectionately in hers, and asked, "Didn't you tell her that
+you would not go?  Didn't you beg her to let you go to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne?"  I shook my head and repeated in her own words exactly
+what the Mother Superior had said to me.  She listened without
+interrupting me.  Then she told me to say nothing about it to the other
+girls.  She thought that everything would be all right when M. le Curé
+came back.
+
+
+
+
+Next Sunday, as we were getting into line to go to mass, Madeleine ran
+into the room like a mad thing.  She threw her arms up in the air,
+cried out, "M. le Curé is dead!" and fell right down across the table
+near her.  Everybody stopped talking, and we all ran to Madeleine, who
+was screaming and crying.  We wanted to know all about it.  But she
+rocked herself up and down on the table, and kept on repeating, "He is
+dead! he is dead!"  I could not think at all.  I did not know whether I
+was sorry or not, and all the time mass was going on, Madeleine's voice
+sounded in my ears like a bell.  There was no walk that day.  Even the
+little girls kept quite quiet.  I went to look for Sister Marie-Aimée.
+She had not been at mass, and I knew from Marie Renaud that she was not
+ill.  I found her in the refectory.  She was sitting on her little
+platform.  She was leaning her head sideways on the table, and her arms
+were hanging down beside her chair.  I sat myself down some distance
+away from her.  But when I heard her moaning I began to sob too, hiding
+my face in my hands.  But I did not sob long, and I knew that I was not
+as sorry as I wanted to be.  I tried to cry, but I could not shed a
+single tear.  I was a little bit ashamed of myself because I believed
+that one ought to cry when somebody died, and I didn't dare uncover my
+face for fear that Sister Marie-Aimée should think that I was hard
+hearted.  I listened to her crying.  Her moaning reminded me of the
+wind at winter-time in the big fireplace.  It went up and down as if
+she were trying to compose a kind of song.  Then her voice stumbled and
+broke, and ended up in deep trembling notes.  A little before
+dinner-time, Madeleine came into the refectory.  She took Sister
+Marie-Aimée away with her, putting her arm round her, and taking care
+of her as they walked.  In the evening she told us that M. le Curé had
+died in Rome, and that he would be brought back to be buried with his
+family.
+
+
+
+
+Next day Sister Marie-Aimée looked after us as usual.  She didn't cry
+any more, but she would not let us talk to her.  She walked along with
+her eyes on the ground, and seemed to have forgotten me.  I had only
+one day more, as the Mother Superior had told me I should be fetched
+next day, for the day after was the feast of St. John.  In the evening,
+at the end of prayers, when Sister Marie-Aimée had said, "Lord, be
+pitiful to exiles and give your aid to prisoners," she added, in a loud
+voice, "We will say a prayer for one of your companions who is going
+out into the world."  I understood at once that she was talking of me,
+and I felt that I was as much to be pitied as the exiles and the
+prisoners were.  I could not get to sleep that night.  I knew that I
+was going next day, but I didn't know what Sologne was like.  I
+imagined it to be a country very far off, where there were large plains
+with flowers on them.  I imagined myself the shepherdess of a troop of
+beautiful white sheep, with two dogs by my side which kept the sheep in
+order at a sign from me.  I would not have dared to tell Sister
+Marie-Aimée so, but just then I liked the idea of being a shepherdess
+much better than the idea of being in a shop.  Ismérie, who was snoring
+loud, next to me, reminded me of my comrades again.
+
+It was such a bright night that I could see all the beds quite
+distinctly.  I looked at one after the other, stopping a little at
+those of the girls I was fond of.  Almost opposite me I saw my friend
+Sophie, with her magnificent hair.  It was scattered about over the
+pillow, and lighted up the bed quite brightly.  A little further down
+the room were the beds of Chemineau the Proud, and her twin sister, the
+Fool.  Chemineau the Proud had a big smooth white forehead and gentle
+eyes.  She never said it was not true when she was accused of doing
+anything wrong.  She simply shrugged her shoulders and looked round her
+with contempt.  Sister Marie-Aimée used to say that her conscience was
+as white as her forehead.  Chemineau the Fool was half as tall again as
+her sister.  Her hair was coarse, and came down nearly to her eyebrows.
+Her shoulders were square, and her hips were broad.  We used to call
+her the sister's watch-dog.  And down at the other end of the dormitory
+was Colette.  She still believed that I was going to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne.  She was quite sure that I should get married very soon,
+and she had made me promise to come and fetch her as soon as I was
+married.  I thought about her for a long time.  Then I looked at the
+window and the shadows of the linden trees were thrown in my direction.
+It was as though they had come to say good-bye to me, and I smiled at
+them.  On the other side of the lindens I could see the infirmary.  It
+looked as though it were trying to hide itself, and its little windows
+made me think of weak eyes.  I looked at the infirmary for some time,
+thinking of Sister Agatha.  She was so bright and so good that the
+little girls always laughed when she scolded them.  She did the
+doctoring.  When one of us went to her with a bad finger, she always
+had something funny to say, and she always knew whether we were greedy
+or vain, and would promise us a cake or a ribbon accordingly.  She used
+to pretend to look for it, and while we were looking to see where it
+was, the bad place on the finger would be pricked, washed, and tied up.
+I remember a chilblain that I had on my foot which would not get well.
+One morning Sister Agatha said to me solemnly, "Listen, Marie Claire.
+I must put something miraculous on this, and if your foot is not better
+in three days, we shall have to cut it off."  For three days I was very
+careful not to walk on that foot so as not to disturb this miraculous
+something.  I thought it must be a piece of the true cross, or perhaps
+a piece of the veil of the Holy Virgin.  On the third day my foot was
+completely cured, and when I asked Sister Agatha what the miraculous
+remedy was that she had put on it, she laughed, called me a little
+silly, and showed me a box of ointment which was called "miraculous
+ointment."
+
+
+
+
+It was late at night when I went to sleep, and I began to expect the
+farmer's wife directly morning came.  I wanted her to come, and I was
+afraid of her coming.  Sister Marie-Aimée looked up quickly every time
+the door opened.  Just as we were finishing dinner, the porteress came
+and asked if I were ready to go.  Sister Marie-Aimée said that I should
+be ready in a moment.  She got up and told me to go with her.  She
+helped me to dress, gave me a little bundle of linen, and all of a
+sudden she said, "They will bring him back to-morrow, and you will not
+be there."  Then she looked into my eyes, "Swear to me," she said,
+"that you will say a _De Profundis_ for him every night."  I promised
+to do so.  Then she pulled me to her quite roughly, pressed me to her
+hard, and ran off to her room.  I heard her saying as she went, "My
+God! this is too much!"  I crossed the courtyard by myself, and the
+farmer's wife, who was waiting for me, took me away.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+I was tucked in among a lot of old baskets in a cart covered with a
+hood, and when the horse stopped of his own accord at the farm it had
+been dark for a long time.
+
+The farmer came out of the house carrying a lantern which he held high
+up in the air, and which only lit up the toes of his wooden shoes.  He
+came and helped us to get out of the cart, then he lifted his lantern
+up to my face, stood back a little and said, "What a funny little
+servant girl."
+
+His wife took me to a room where there were two beds.  She showed me
+mine, and told me that I should be all alone on the farm with the
+cowherd next day, because every one was going to the feast of St. John.
+As soon as I was up next morning, the cowherd took me to the stables to
+help him give the fodder to the cattle.  He showed me the sheep pens,
+and told me that I was going to look after the lambs instead of old
+Bibiche.  He explained to me that the lambs were taken from their
+mothers every year, and that a special shepherdess was needed to look
+after them.  He also told me that the name of the farm was
+Villevieille, and that everybody was happy there because Master[1]
+Silvain the farmer, and Pauline, his wife, were kind people.
+
+When he had seen to all the animals the cowherd made me sit down next
+to him in the chestnut avenue.  Sitting there we could see the bend in
+the lane which went up towards the high-road, and the whole of the
+farm.  The farm buildings formed a square and the huge dunghill in the
+middle of the yard gave off a warm smell, which mixed with the smell of
+the half-dried hay.  The farm was wrapped in silence.  I sat and looked
+all round me.  I could see nothing but pine trees and corn fields.  I
+felt as though I had suddenly been dropped into a faraway country,
+where I should always remain, along with the cowherd, and the animals
+which I could hear moving in their stables.  It was very hot and I was
+numb with a heavy longing to go to sleep, but fear of all the new
+things which were round me prevented me from letting myself drop off.
+Flies of all possible colours whizzed round me with a little snoring
+noise.  The cowherd was making a basket of rushes, and the dogs lay at
+our feet fast asleep.
+
+Just as the sun was setting, the farmer's cart turned slowly round the
+bend in the lane.  There were five people in it, two men and three
+women.  As they passed us, the farmer's wife smiled down at me, and the
+others leaned forward to see me.  Soon afterwards the farm filled with
+noise, and as it was too late to make soup for supper we all supped off
+a piece of bread and a bowl of milk.
+
+
+[1] On a French farm the farmer is always called "Master."
+
+
+
+
+Next day the farmer's wife gave me a cloak, and I went out with old
+Bibiche to learn how to look after the lambs.  Old Bibiche and her dog
+Castille were so like one another that I always thought they must
+belong to the same family.  They looked about the same age, and their
+eyes were about the same colour.  Whenever the lambs ran off the path
+Bibiche would say, "Bark, Castille, bark."  She said it very quickly,
+almost in one word, and even when Castille did not bark the lambs got
+back into line again.  The old woman's voice was so like that of her
+dog.
+
+When harvesting began it seemed to me as though I were taking part in
+something full of mystery.  Men went up to the corn and laid it on the
+ground with regular sweeping strokes, while others picked it up again
+in sheaves, which they stacked one against the other.  The cries of the
+harvesters seemed to come from above sometimes, and every now and then
+I looked up quickly, expecting to see golden corn-laden chariots fly
+past above my head.
+
+We all had our evening meal together.  Everybody sat down where they
+pleased at the long table, and the farmer's wife filled our plates to
+the brim.  The younger ones munched with appetite, while the older ones
+cut each mouthful as though it were something precious.  Everybody ate
+in silence, and the brown bread looked whiter in their black hands.  At
+the end of the meal the elder ones talked about harvests with the
+farmer, while the younger ones talked and laughed with Martine, the
+shepherdess.  She answered everybody's jokes, and laughed heartily at
+them; but if one of the men stretched out a hand towards her she
+skipped out of the way, and never let him get hold of her.  Nobody paid
+any attention to me.  I sat on a pile of logs a little way away from
+the rest of them, and looked at all their faces.  Master Silvain had
+big brown eyes which looked at each one in turn, and rested quietly on
+them as he looked.  He never raised his voice, and leaned his open
+hands on the table when he spoke.  His wife's voice was serious  and
+pre-occupied.  She always looked as though she were expecting some
+misfortune to happen and she scarcely smiled at all, even when all the
+others were roaring with laughter.
+
+Old Bibiche always thought that I was falling asleep.  She would come
+and pull my sleeve, and take me off to bed.  Her bed was next to mine.
+She mumbled her prayers while she was undressing, and always blew the
+lamp out without waiting to see whether I was ready.
+
+
+
+
+Directly after the harvest, Bibiche let me go to the fields alone with
+her dog.  Old Castille didn't care for my company.  She used to leave
+me whenever she could and go back to the farm to Bibiche.  I had a lot
+of trouble in keeping my lambs together.  They ran every way at once.
+I compared myself to Sister Marie-Aimée, who always said that her
+little flock was hard to manage.  And yet she used to get us together
+at one stroke of the bell and she could always make us perfectly quiet
+by raising her voice a little.  But I might raise my voice or crack my
+whip as much as I liked, the lambs did not understand me, and I was
+obliged to run about all round the flock as though I were a sheep dog.
+One evening two lambs were missing.  I always stood in the doorway
+every evening to let them in one by one so that I could count them
+easily.  I went into the pen and tried to count them again.  It was not
+easy and I had to give it up at last, for every time I counted them
+again I made their number more than there really were.  At last I made
+up my mind that I must have counted them wrong the first time, and I
+did not say anything to anybody.
+
+Next morning when I let them out I counted them once more.  There
+really were two missing.  I felt very uneasy.  All day long I hunted
+about the fields for them, and in the evening, when I was quite certain
+that they were missing, I told the farmer's wife.  We searched high and
+low for those lambs for several days, but we could not find them.  The
+farmer first, and then his wife took me apart, and tried to make me
+confess that men had come and taken the lambs away.  They promised me
+that I should not be scolded if I would tell the truth.  It was no good
+my saying that I really did not know what had become of them, I could
+see that they did not believe me.
+
+After this I was frightened when I went into the fields because I knew
+now that there were men who hid themselves and came and stole the
+sheep.  I was always thinking that I saw some one moving about behind
+the bushes.  I very soon learned to count my lambs by glancing at them,
+and whether they were all together or scattered about, I knew in a
+minute whether all of them were there.
+
+
+
+
+Autumn came and I began to feel unhappy.  I missed Sister Marie-Aimée.
+I longed so to see her that I used to shut my eyes and believe that she
+was coming up the path.  When I did this I could really hear her steps
+and the rustling of her dress on the grass.  When I felt her quite
+close to me I opened my eyes and she disappeared at once.  For a long
+time I had the idea of writing to her, but I did not dare to ask for
+pen and paper.  The farmer's wife did not know how to write, and nobody
+at the farm ever got any letters.  I plucked up courage one day and
+asked Master Silvain if he would take me to town with him that morning.
+He didn't answer at once.  His big quiet eyes rested on me for a time,
+and then he said that a shepherdess ought never to leave her flock.  He
+said that he didn't mind taking me to mass in the village now and then,
+but that I must not expect him to take me to the town.  This answer
+quite stunned me.  It was as though I had learned of a great
+misfortune.  And every time I thought of it I could see Sister
+Marie-Aimée.  She was like some precious thing which the farmer had
+smashed all to pieces by accident.
+
+On the following Saturday Master Silvain and his wife left in the
+morning as usual, but instead of remaining in town until evening they
+came back in the afternoon with a dealer who wanted to buy some of the
+lambs.  I had never thought that one could go to the town and come back
+again in so short a time.  The idea occurred to me that one day I would
+leave my lambs in the meadow and would run into the town for one kiss
+from Sister Marie-Aimée.  I soon found that that would not be possible,
+and I decided to go off in the night.  I hoped that I should not take
+much longer that the farmer's horse did, and that by leaving in the
+middle of the night I could be back in time to take the lambs to
+pasture in the morning.
+
+That evening I went to bed in my clothes, and when the big clock
+sounded twelve I slipped out on tip-toe with my shoes in my hand.  I
+leaned against a cart and laced them up, and ran off as fast as I could
+into the dark.  I soon got past the outbuildings of the farm, and then
+I saw that the night was not very dark.  The wind was blowing very
+hard, and big black clouds were rolling across the sky under the moon.
+It was a long way to the high-road, and to get there I had to cross a
+wooden bridge which was out of repair.  The rain of the last few days
+had swelled the little river and the water splashed up on to the bridge
+through the rotten planks.  I began to get nervous because the water
+and the wind between them made a noise that I had never heard before.
+But I refused to be frightened, and ran across the slippery bridge as
+quickly as I dared.
+
+I got to the high-road sooner than I had expected to, and I turned to
+the left as I had seen the farmer turn when he went to market.  But a
+little further along the road divided into two and I didn't know which
+road to take.  I ran a little way up one road and then a little way up
+another.  It was the road to the left that seemed to be the likely one.
+I took it, and walked fast to make up for lost time.
+
+In the distance I saw a black mass which covered the whole country.  It
+seemed to be coming slowly towards me, and for a moment I wanted to
+turn back and run.  A dog began to bark and that gave me a little
+confidence, and almost directly afterwards I saw that the black mass in
+front of me was a wood through which the road passed.  When I got into
+it the wind seemed to be rougher than ever.  It blew in gusts, and the
+trees struck at one another and rattled their branches, and moaned and
+stooped down to get out of its way.  I heard long whistling sounds as
+the branches cracked and clattered and fell.
+
+Then I heard steps behind me and felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned
+round quickly but I saw nobody.  Yet I was sure that somebody had
+touched me with his finger, and the steps went on as though some
+invisible person were walking round and round me.  I began to run so
+fast that I didn't know whether my feet were touching the ground or not.
+
+The stones sprang out under my shoes and rattled behind me like a
+little hailstorm.  I had only one idea, and that was to run and run
+until I got out of the forest.
+
+At last I came to a clearing.  It was lit up by a pale moon and the
+tearing wind whirled heaps of leaves up and threw them down again, then
+rolled them about and about, and turned them over in all directions.
+
+I wanted to stop to get my breath, but the big trees were swinging
+backwards and forwards with a deafening noise.  Their shadows, which
+looked like great black animals, threw themselves flat along the road
+and then slipped away and hid behind the trees.  Some of these shadows
+had shapes which I recognized.  But most of them hovered and jumped
+about in front of me as though they wanted to prevent me from passing.
+Some of them frightened me so that I took a little run, and jumped over
+them.  I was dreadfully afraid that they would catch at my feet.
+
+The wind went down a little, and rain began to fall in large drops.  I
+had got to the other side of the clearing, and when I came to a little
+path which disappeared into the wood again, I saw a white wall at the
+end of it.  I went a little way along the path, and saw that it was a
+house.  Without thinking at all I knocked at the door.  I wanted to ask
+the people to shelter me until the wind stopped.  I knocked a second
+time, and heard somebody moving.  I thought the door was going to be
+opened, but a window was opened on the first floor.  A man in a
+night-cap called out, "Who is there?"  I answered, "A little girl."  He
+seemed surprised.  "A little girl?" he said, and asked me where I came
+from, where I was going, and what I wanted.  I had not expected all
+these questions, and I said that I had come from the farm, but then
+told a lie, and said that I was going to see my mother who was ill.  I
+asked him to let me into the house until the rain stopped.  He told me
+to wait, and I heard him talking to somebody else.  Then he came back
+to the window, and asked me if there was anybody with me.  He asked me
+how old I was; and when I said I was thirteen, he said I must be a
+brave girl to come through the wood alone at night.  He remained
+leaning out of the window a moment, trying to see my face, which was
+looking up towards him.  Then he turned his head to right and left
+trying to look into the darkness of the wood, and advised me to go on a
+little further.  There was a village at the other side of the wood, he
+said, and I should find houses there where I could dry my clothes.
+
+I went on into the night.  The moon had hidden itself altogether, and a
+drizzling rain was falling.  I had to walk a long time before I got to
+the village.  All the houses were shut up, and I could hardly see them
+in the dark.  A blacksmith was the only person up.  When I got to his
+house I went up the two steps, meaning to rest there.  He was busy with
+a great iron bar, which he was heating in a fire of red coal, and when
+his arm went up with the bellows he looked like a giant.  Every time
+the bellows came down the coal flew up and crackled.  That made a
+glimmering light which lit up the walls, on which scythes, saws, and
+all kinds of knives were hanging.  The man's forehead was wrinkled, and
+he was staring at the fire.  I dared not talk to him, and I went away
+without making any noise.
+
+When it became quite light I saw that I was not very far from the town.
+I began to recognize the places where Sister Marie-Aimée used to take
+us when we went for our walks.  I was walking very slowly now, and
+dragged my feet after me because they hurt me.  I was so tired that it
+was all I could do not to sit down on one of the heaps of stone which
+were on each side of the road.
+
+The sound of a horse and cart rattling along the road as fast as they
+could go made me turn round, and I remained standing quite still with
+my heart beating fast.  I had recognized the bay mare and the farmer's
+black beard.  He stopped the mare quite close to me, leaned out of the
+cart, and lifted me up into it by the belt of my dress.  He sat me down
+next to him on the seat, turned the horse round and drove off again at
+full speed.  When we got to the wood Master Silvain made the horse slow
+down.  He turned to me, looked at me, and said, "It is lucky for you
+that I caught you up.  Otherwise you would have been brought back to
+the farm between two gensdarmes."  As I didn't answer, he said again,
+"Perhaps you don't know that there are gensdarmes who bring little
+girls back, when they run away."  I said, "I want to go and see Sister
+Marie-Aimée."  "Are you unhappy with us?" he asked.  I said again, "I
+want to go and see Sister Marie-Aimée."  He looked as though he didn't
+understand, and went on asking me questions, going over the names of
+everybody on the farm, and asking me if they were kind to me.  I made
+the same answer every time.  At last he lost patience with me, sat
+straight up, and said, "What an obstinate child."  I looked up at him
+and said that I should run away again if he would not take me to Sister
+Marie-Aimée.  I went on looking at him, waiting for an answer, and I
+could see quite well that he didn't know what to say.  He kept still,
+and thought for several minutes.  Then he put his hand on my knee and
+said, "Listen to me, child, and try and understand what I am going to
+tell you."  And when he had finished speaking I understood that he had
+promised to keep me until I was eighteen without ever letting me go to
+the town.  I understood, too, that the Mother Superior could do what
+she liked with me, and that if I ran away again she would have me
+locked up, because I ran about the woods during the night.  Then the
+farmer said that he hoped I should forget the convent and that I should
+grow fond of him, and of his wife, because they wished me to be happy
+with them.  I was very miserable, and it was all I could do not to cry.
+"Come," said the farmer holding out his hand.  "Let us be good friends,
+shall we?"  I put my hand into his, and he held it rather tight.  I
+said I should like to be friends.  He cracked his whip, and we soon got
+through the wood.  Rain was still falling in a fine shower like a fog,
+and the ploughed fields looked drearier than ever.  In a field by the
+road a man came towards us waving his arms.  I thought he was
+threatening me at first, but when he was quite close to us I saw that
+he was holding something in his left arm, and that his right arm was
+moving up and down as though he were working a scythe.  I was so
+puzzled that I looked at Master Silvain.  As though he were answering a
+question, he said, "It is Gaboret, sowing."  A few minutes afterwards
+we got to the farm.  The farmer's wife was waiting for us in the
+doorway.  When she saw me she opened her mouth wide as though she had
+been a long time without breathing, and her serious face looked a
+little less anxious for a moment.  I ran past her, went into the room
+to fetch my cloak, and went straight out to the pens.  The sheep rushed
+out, tumbling over one another.  They ought to have been in the fields
+a long time before.
+
+
+
+
+All day long I thought over what the farmer had said to me.  I could
+not understand why the Mother Superior wanted to prevent me from seeing
+Sister Marie-Aimée.  I understood that Sister Marie-Aimée could do
+nothing though, and I made my mind up to wait, thinking that a day
+would come when nobody could prevent me from seeing her again.  At
+bedtime the farmer's wife went up with me to put an extra blanket on my
+bed, and when she had said "good night," she told me not to call her
+"madame" any more.  She wanted me to call her Pauline.  Then she went
+away, after telling me that both she and her husband looked upon me as
+a child of the house, and that she would do all she could to make me
+happy at the farm.
+
+Next day Master Silvain made me sit next to his brother at table.  He
+told him with a laugh that he was not to let me want for anything,
+because he wanted me to grow.  The farmer's brother was called Eugène.
+He spoke very little, but he always looked at each person who spoke,
+and his little eyes often seemed to be laughing at them.  He was thirty
+years old, but he did not look more than twenty.  He always had an
+answer to any question he was asked, and I felt no awkwardness at
+sitting next to him.  He squeezed himself against the wall so as to
+give me more room at the table, and when the farmer told him to look
+after me, all he said was, "You need not worry."
+
+Now, after all the fields had been ploughed Martine took her sheep a
+long way off to some pasture land called the common.  The cowherd and I
+took our flock down the meadows and into the woods where there was
+fern.  I suffered from the cold although I had a big woollen cloak
+which covered me down to my feet.  The cowherd often had to light a
+fire.  He would bake potatoes and chestnuts in the ashes and share them
+with me.  He taught me how to know from which side the wind was coming,
+so as to make use of the least shelter against the cold.  And as we sat
+over the fire and tried to keep ourselves warm he would sing me a song
+about "Water and Wine."  It was a song which had about twenty verses in
+it.  Water and Wine accused one another of ruining the human race, and
+at the same time praised themselves tremendously.  As far as I could
+see Water was right, but the cowherd said that Wine was not wrong.  We
+used to sit and talk together for hours.  He would tell me of his own
+home, which was a long way off from Sologne.  He told me that he had
+always been a cowherd, and that when he was a child a bull had knocked
+him down and hurt him.  He had been ill a long time after that, and the
+pains in his limbs had made him scream.  Then the pains had gone away,
+but he had become all twisted up as I saw him now.  He remembered the
+names of all the farms where he had been cowherd.  Some of the farmers
+were kind, and some were not, but he had never come across such kind
+masters as at Villevieille.  He said, too, that Master Silvain's cows
+were not a bit like those of his own country, which were small, and had
+horns like pointed spindles.  The Villevieille cows were big, strong
+animals with rough crumpled horns.  He was very fond of them and used
+to call each one by name when he talked to them.  The one he liked best
+was a beautiful white cow which Master Silvain had bought in the
+spring.  She was always lifting her head and looking into the distance,
+and then all of a sudden she would start off at a run.  The cowherd
+used to call out, "Stop where you are, Blanche!  Stop!"  She usually
+obeyed him, but sometimes he had to send the dog after her.  Sometimes,
+too, she used to try and run even when the dog stopped her, and would
+only come back to the herd when the dog bit her muzzle.  The cowherd
+used to pity her because, he said, he couldn't say what or whom she was
+regretting.
+
+
+
+
+In the month of December the cows remained in the stables.  I thought
+that we should keep the sheep in too, but the farmer's brother
+explained to me that Sologne was a very poor country, and that the
+farmers could not make enough forage to feed the sheep, as well.  So
+now I used to go off all by myself with the sheep down the meadows and
+into the woods.  All the birds had gone.  Mist spread over the ploughed
+fields and the woods were full of silence.
+
+There were days when I felt so lonely that I began to believe that the
+earth had fallen all to pieces round me, and when a crow cawed as it
+flew past in the grey sky its great hoarse voice seemed to me to be
+singing of the misfortunes of the world.  Even the sheep were quiet.  A
+dealer had taken away all the lambs, and the little ewes did not know
+how to play alone.  They went along pressing up close to each other,
+and even when they were not cropping what grass there was, their heads
+were bent.  Some of them made me think of little girls I had known.  I
+used to pass them and stroke them, and make them raise their heads, but
+their eyes looked down again at once, and the pupils were like glass
+without a gleam in it.
+
+One day I was surprised by such a thick fog that I could not see my
+way.  All of a sudden I found myself near a big wood which I didn't
+know.  The tops of the trees were lost in the fog, and the ferns looked
+as though they were all wrapped in wool.  White shadows came down from
+the trees and glided with long transparent trains over the dead leaves.
+I pushed the sheep towards the meadow, which was quite near, but they
+clustered together and refused to go on.  I went in front of them to
+see what was preventing them from going any further, and I recognized
+the little river which flowed at the bottom of the hill.
+
+I could scarcely see the water.  It seemed to be sleeping under a thick
+white woollen blanket.  I stood looking at it for one long minute, then
+I got my sheep together and took them back along the road.  While I was
+trying to find out where the farm was, the sheep ran round the wood and
+got into a lane with a hedge on each side of it.  The fog was getting
+thicker than ever, and I thought I was walking between two high walls.
+I followed the sheep without knowing where they were taking me.
+Suddenly they left the lane and turned to the right; but I stopped
+them.  I saw a church just in front of us.  The doors were wide open,
+and on either side I could see two red lamps which lit up a grey
+vaulted roof.  There were two straight lines of huge pillars, and at
+the other end one could just see the windows with their small panes on
+which a light was shining.  It was all I could do to keep the sheep
+from going into the church, and as I was pushing them away I noticed
+that they were covered with little white beads.  They shook themselves
+every moment and the beads made a tinkling sound.  I got very anxious,
+for I knew that Master Silvain must be waiting for us, and wondering
+where we were.  I felt sure that if I were to go back the way I had
+come I must soon find the farm, so making as little noise as I could I
+pushed the sheep back into the lane which led to the church.  As I was
+going into the lane a man's voice sounded right over my head.  The
+voice said, "Let the poor brutes go home."  As he spoke the man turned
+the sheep back towards the church again, and I recognized Eugène, the
+farmer's brother.  He passed his hand over the back of one of the sheep
+and said, "How pretty they are with their little frost balls.  But it
+is not good for them."
+
+I was not at all surprised at meeting him there.  I showed him the
+church and asked him what it was.  "It was for you," he said.  "I was
+afraid that you would not find the avenue of chestnut trees, and I hung
+up a lantern on each side."  I felt all confused.  It was only a few
+moments afterwards that I understood that the great pillars, blackened
+and worn by centuries, were simply the trunks of the chestnut trees,
+and then I recognized the small-paned windows of the farmhouse kitchen,
+which the fire lit up from inside.  Eugène counted the sheep himself.
+He helped me to make them a warm litter of straw, and as we left the
+pen together he asked me if I really didn't know what had become of the
+two lambs that had been lost.  I felt dreadfully ashamed at the thought
+that he could believe that I had told a lie, and I could not help
+crying, and told him that they had disappeared without my having seen
+how or where they went.  Then he told me that he had found them drowned
+in a water-hole.  I thought he was going to scold me for not having
+watched them better, but he said gently, "Go and get warm; you have got
+all the rime of Sologne in your hair."  I made up my mind that I would
+go and see the waterhole.  But during the night snow fell so quickly
+that we couldn't go out to the fields next day.
+
+I helped old Bibiche to mend the household linen; Martine sat down to
+her spinning wheel, and I sang to them while we sewed and Martine span.
+
+
+
+
+While we sat at work that evening the dogs never stopped barking.
+Martine seemed anxious.  She listened to the dogs, and then turning to
+the farmer she said, "I am afraid this weather will bring the wolves
+down."  The farmer got up to go out and talk to the dogs, and took his
+lantern to make a round of the outhouses.  During the week that the
+snow lasted hundreds of crows came to the farm.  They were so hungry
+that nothing frightened them.  They went into the cow-house and the
+pens and into the granary, and they made very free with the corn ricks.
+The farmer killed a lot of them.  We cooked some of them with bacon and
+cabbage.  Everybody thought them very good, but the dogs wouldn't eat
+them.
+
+
+
+
+The first day we let the sheep and cows out, the pine trees were still
+heavy with snow.  The hill was all white too.  It seemed to have come
+closer to the farm.  All this white dazzled me.  I could not find
+things in their places, and every moment I was afraid that I should not
+see the blue smoke curling up over the farm roofs any longer.  The
+sheep could not find anything to eat, and ran about searching.  I did
+not let them scatter too much.  They looked like moving snow, and I was
+obliged to watch them closely so as not to lose sight of them.  I
+managed to get them together in a meadow which skirted a big wood.  The
+whole forest was busy getting rid of the snow which weighed it down.
+The big branches threw the snow off at one shake, while the others
+which were not so strong, stooped and bent themselves to make it slip
+down.  I had never been into this forest.  I only knew that it was a
+very big one, and that Martine sometimes took her sheep there.  The
+pine trees were very tall, and the ferns grew very high.
+
+I had been watching a big clump of ferns for a long time.  I thought I
+had seen it move, and I heard a sound come out of it as though a bit of
+stick had broken under a footstep.  I felt frightened.  I thought there
+was somebody there.  Then I heard the same sound again much nearer, but
+without seeing anything move.  I tried to reassure myself by saying to
+myself that it was a hare, or some other little animal which was
+looking for food; but in spite of all I could try to think, I felt
+there was somebody there.  I felt so nervous that I made up my mind to
+go nearer the farm.  I had taken two steps towards my sheep when they
+huddled together and moved away from the wood.  I was looking about to
+see what had frightened them, when quite close to me, in the very
+middle of the flock, I saw a yellow dog carrying off one of the sheep
+in his mouth.  My first idea was that Castille had gone mad; but at the
+same moment Castille tumbled up against my dress and howled
+plaintively.  Then I guessed that it was a wolf.  It was carrying off a
+sheep which it held by the middle of its body.  It climbed up a hillock
+without any difficulty, and as it jumped the broad ditch which
+separated the field from the forest its hind legs made me think of
+wings.  At that moment I should not have thought it at all
+extraordinary if it had flown away over the trees.  I stood there for a
+few moments, without knowing whether I was frightened.  Then I felt
+that I could not take my eyes away from the ditch.  My eyelids had
+become so stiff that I thought I should never be able to close them
+again.  I wanted to call out, so that they should hear me at the farm,
+but I could not get my voice out of my throat.  I wanted to run, but my
+legs were trembling so that I was obliged to sit down on the wet grass.
+Castille went on howling as though she were in pain, and the sheep
+remained huddled together.
+
+When I got them back to the farm at last, I ran to look for Master
+Silvain.  As soon as he saw me he guessed what had happened.  He called
+his brother and took down their two guns, and I tried to show him which
+way the wolf had gone.  They both came back at nightfall without having
+found him.  We talked of nothing else all the evening.  Eugène wanted
+to know what the wolf looked like; and old Bibiche got angry when I
+said that he had a long yellow coat like Castille, but that he was much
+handsomer than she was.
+
+
+
+
+A few days afterwards it was Martine's turn.  She had just taken her
+sheep out, and she had hardly reached the end of the avenue of chestnut
+trees when we heard her shouting.  Everybody rushed out of the house.
+I got to Martine first.  She was stooping down and pulling as hard as
+she could at a sheep which a wolf had just killed, and was trying to
+carry off.  The wolf had the sheep by the throat, and was pulling as
+hard as Martine was.  Martine's dog bit the wolf's legs, but he didn't
+seem to feel it, and when Master Silvain fired full at him he rolled
+over with a piece of the sheep's throat between his teeth.  Martine's
+eyes were staring and her mouth had become quite white.  Her cap had
+slipped off her head, and the parting which divided her hair into two
+made me think of a broad path on which one could walk without any
+danger.  The usual strong expression of her face had changed into a sad
+little grimace, and her hands kept opening and closing, the two of them
+keeping time.  She had been leaning against the chestnut tree, and she
+went up to Eugène, who was looking at the wolf.  She stood by him for a
+moment looking at the dead wolf too, and said aloud: "Poor brute!  How
+hungry he must have been!"  The farmer put the wolf and the sheep on
+the same wheelbarrow, and wheeled them back to the farm.  The dogs
+followed, sniffing at the barrow, and looking frightened.
+
+For several days the farmer and his brother went out shooting in the
+neighbourhood.  Whenever Eugène came anywhere near me he would stop and
+say a kind word.  He told me that the noise they made with their guns
+drove the wolves away, and that one very rarely saw any in that part of
+the country.  But although he said that there was little or no danger I
+didn't dare go back to the big forest.  I preferred to go up on to the
+hill which was covered only with broom and ferns.
+
+
+
+
+It the beginning of the spring the farmer's wife taught me how to milk
+the cows and look after the pigs.  She said she wanted to make a good
+farmer of me.  I could not help thinking of the Mother Superior and the
+disdainful tone in which she had said to me, "You will milk the cows
+and look after the pigs."  When she said that, she said it as though
+she were giving me a punishment, and here I was delighted at having
+them to look after.  I used to lean my forehead against a cow's flank
+to get a better purchase, and I very soon filled my pail.  At the top
+of the milk a foam used to form which caught all kinds of changing
+colours, and when the sun passed over it it became so marvellously
+beautiful that I was never tired of looking at it.
+
+Looking after the pigs never disgusted me.  Their food was boiled
+potatoes and curdled milk.  I used to dip my hands into the bucket to
+mix it all up, and I loved making them wait for their food a few
+minutes.  Their eager cries and the way they wriggled their snouts
+about always amused me.
+
+
+
+
+When May came Master Silvain added a she goat to my flock.  He had
+bought it to help Pauline to feed the little baby she had got after
+they had been married ten years.  This goat was more difficult to take
+care of than all the rest of the flock.  It was always her fault when
+my flock got into the standing oats, which were pretty high.  The
+farmer saw what had happened and scolded me.  He said that I must have
+been asleep in a corner while my sheep were trampling his oats down.
+Every day I had to pass near a wood of young pine trees.  The goat used
+to get there in three jumps, and it was while I was looking for her
+that my lambs got into the oats.
+
+The first time I waited ever so long for her to come back by herself.
+I made my voice as soft as I could and called to her.  At last I made
+up my mind to go and fetch her, but the young pines were so close
+together that I didn't know how to get after her.  On the other hand, I
+could not go away without knowing what had happened to the goat.  I
+thought I remembered the place where she had disappeared, and I went in
+there, putting my hands in front of my face to keep the thorns off.  I
+saw her almost at once through my fingers.  She was quite near me.  I
+stretched my hands out to get hold of one of her horns, but she backed
+through the branches, which flew back and struck me in the face.  At
+last, however, I got hold of her and brought her back to the flock.
+She began again next day, and every day she did the same thing.  I got
+my sheep as far away as I could from the oats, and rushed after her.
+She was a white goat, and the first time I saw her I thought that she
+was like Madeleine.  She had the same kind of eyes, set far away from
+each other.  When I forced her to come out of the pine trees, she
+looked at me for a long time without moving her eyes, and I thought
+that Madeleine must have been turned into a goat.  Sometimes I told her
+not to do it again, and I was quite sure that she understood me when I
+told her how unkind she was.  As I was struggling out of the pine wood
+my hair fell all about me, and I shook my head to throw it forward.
+The goat sprang to one side bleating with fear.  She lowered her horns
+and came at me, but I lowered my head and shook my hair at her.  My
+hair was long and dragged along the ground.  She rushed off, leaping
+this way and that.  Every time she went into the pine wood I took my
+revenge on her by frightening her with my hair.  Master Silvain
+surprised us one morning when I was butting at her.  He laughed and
+laughed till I didn't know which way to look.  I tried to throw my hair
+back quickly.  The she goat came close up to me.  She looked at me,
+stretching her neck and wriggling her back about in the funniest way.
+The farmer could not stop laughing.  He bent almost double, holding his
+sides and simply roared with laughter.  All I could see of him were his
+eyebrows, his beard, and his big hat.  His shouts of laughter made me
+want to cry.  When he had stopped laughing he asked me all about it.  I
+told him how wicked the goat had been, and he shook his finger at her
+and laughed again.  Martine took her out next day; but the day after
+she said that she would rather leave the farm than take out that she
+goat again.  It was possessed of the devil, she said.
+
+Old Bibiche used to say that goats ought to be beaten, but I remembered
+the only time I had beaten mine.  Her ribs had made such a strange
+hollow sound that I never dared touch her again.  She was left free to
+run about the farm, and one day she disappeared.  We never found out
+what had become of her.
+
+The feast of St. John was drawing near, and to celebrate the
+anniversary of my arrival on the farm Eugène said that I must be taken
+to the village.  In honour of this feast day the farmer's wife gave me
+a yellow dress which she used to wear when she was a girl.  The village
+was called Sainte Montague.  It only had one street, at the end of
+which was a church.  Martine took me into mass, which had already
+begun.  She pushed me on to a bench and she sat down on the one in
+front of me.  There were two women behind me who never stopped talking
+about yesterday's market, and the men near the door talked out loud
+without seeming to mind.  They only stopped talking when the priest
+mounted the pulpit.  I thought he was going to preach, but he only gave
+out notices of the weddings.  Every time he mentioned a name the women
+leaned to right and left and smiled.  I never even thought of praying.
+I looked at Martine, who was on her knees.  Her dark curls had got out
+from under her embroidered cap.  Her shoulders were broad, and her
+white bodice was fastened at the waist with a black ribbon.  The whole
+of her made one think of something fresh and new, and yet the Mother
+Superior had told me that shepherdesses were dirty.  I thought of
+Martine and how smart she always looked in her short striped petticoat,
+her stockings, which were always tightly drawn, and her wooden shoes
+covered with leather, which she blacked like boots.  She was always
+very careful of her flock, and the farmer's wife used to say that she
+knew every one of her sheep.  When we came out of mass she left me and
+ran up to an old woman, whom she kissed tenderly.  Then I lost sight of
+her and remained all by myself, not knowing where to go.  A little way
+off I saw the inn of the "White Horse."  There was a noise of voices
+there and I could hear dishes and plates rattling.  People went in in
+crowds, and presently there was nobody left outside.  I was going back
+into the church to wait for Martine to come and fetch me when I saw
+Eugène.  He took me by the hand, and said, laughing as he spoke, "If
+your dress had not been as yellow as it is I should certainly have
+forgotten you."  He looked at me as though he were making fun of me and
+as though he were amused at something.  He took me to the schoolmaster
+and asked him to give me luncheon, and to take me for a walk with the
+children.  The schoolmaster was dressed like the gentlemen of the town.
+Eugène wore a blue blouse, and I was very much surprised to see them so
+friendly together.  While we were waiting for lunch the schoolmaster
+lent me a book of fairy tales, and when the time came for the walk I
+would much rather have been left alone to finish the book.
+
+On the village green the boys and girls were dancing in the sunshine
+and the dust.  I thought that they danced too roughly, and that they
+were too noisy.
+
+I felt very sad, and when the cart drove us back to the farm at
+nightfall I felt really glad to be back in the silence and the sweet
+smell of the meadows again.
+
+
+
+
+A few days after that, on our way home from the forest, a sheep which
+had been grazing near the hedge jumped right up into the air.  I went
+to see what was the matter, and saw that his nose was bleeding.  I
+thought that he must have pricked himself with a big thorn, and after
+having washed him I didn't think anything more about it.  Next day I
+was terrified to see that his head had swollen up till it was almost as
+big as his body.  It frightened me so much that I screamed.  Martine
+came running up, and she began screaming too, and everybody came.  I
+explained what had happened the day before, and the farmer said that
+the sheep must have been bitten by a viper.  He would have to be cared
+for, and must be left in the stable until the swelling had gone down.
+I asked nothing better than to look after the poor brute, but when I
+was alone with it I felt frightened to death.  That enormous head,
+which wobbled on the little body, made me half crazy with terror.  The
+great big eyes, the enormous mouth and the ears, which stood straight
+up, made a monster almost impossible to imagine.  The poor beast always
+remained in the middle of the stable, as though he were afraid of
+bumping himself against the wall.  I tried to go to him, telling myself
+that it was only a sheep after all, but I could not.  But directly he
+turned towards me I felt dreadfully sorry for him.  Sometimes I used to
+think that this dreadful face which wobbled from right to left was
+reproaching me.  Then something seemed to wobble inside my head, and I
+felt as though I were going mad.  I quite understood that I was
+perfectly capable of letting him die of hunger.  I told the cowherd
+about it, and he said that he would look after the sheep as long as the
+inflammation lasted.  He laughed at me a little, and said he could not
+understand how I could be afraid of a sick sheep.
+
+I was able to do him a good turn afterwards, and I was very glad.  When
+he let the bull out one morning, he had slipped and fallen in front of
+him.  The bull had sniffed and smelt at him.  He was a young bull,
+which had been brought up on the farm, and was a little bit wild.  The
+cowherd was afraid of him, and felt quite certain that he would
+remember that he had seen him on the ground in front of him.  I should
+have liked to make him understand that there was nothing to be afraid
+of, but I didn't know what to say to prevent his being frightened.  I
+was quite surprised at noticing all of a sudden how old he was.  His
+hat had dropped on to the ground, and I noticed for the first time that
+his hair was quite grey.  I thought about him all day long, and next
+day, while the cows were going out one by one, I went into the stable.
+The cowherd was looking at the bull, who was pulling at the chain.  I
+went up to him, patted him, and let him loose.  The cowherd stood on
+one side, and the bull rushed out as if he were mad.  The herd looked
+at him in surprise, and limped after him.  I was not nearly so
+frightened of the bull as I had been of the sheep with the swollen
+face, and I used to go into the stable every day, slipping in quietly
+so as not to be seen.  But Eugène had seen me.  He took me aside one
+morning, and, looking right into my eyes with his little eyes, he said,
+"Why did you let the bull loose?"  I was afraid the cow-herd would be
+scolded if I told the truth, and tried to find something to say to him.
+I began to say that I didn't let him loose.  Then Eugène gave a little
+chuckle, and said, "You don't mean to tell me that you tell lies, do
+you?"  I told him everything, and they sold the bull next Saturday.
+
+
+
+
+I had often noticed how kind Eugène was to everybody.  Whenever the
+farmer had any difficulties with his men he always used to call his
+brother, who would settle everything with a few words.  Eugène did the
+same work on the farm as Master Silvain did, but he always refused to
+go to market.  He said that he would not know how to sell even a
+cheese.  He walked slowly, rocking himself a little as he walked, as
+though he were trying to keep time with his oxen.  He went to Sainte
+Montagne nearly every Sunday.  When the weather was bad he would remain
+in the living-room at the farm house and read.  I used to hope that he
+would leave his book behind him one day; but he never forgot it, and
+always took it to his room with him.  One of my great troubles was that
+I could not find anything to read in the farm, and I used to pick up
+any bits of printed paper that I saw lying about.  The farmer's wife
+had noticed this, and said that I should become a miser some day.  One
+Sunday, when I had screwed up my courage and asked Eugène for a book,
+he gave me a book of songs.  All through the summer I took it with me
+to the fields.  I made up tunes for the songs which I liked best.  Then
+I got tired of them, and when I was helping Pauline to clean up the
+farm for All Saints Day, I found several almanacks.  Pauline told me to
+take them up to the garret, but I pretended to forget, and carried them
+off to read in secret, one after the other.  They were full of amusing
+stories, and the winter went by without my ever noticing the cold.
+
+When I took them up to the garret at last, I hunted about up there to
+see if I could not find any others.  The only thing I found was a
+little book without any cover.  The corners of the leaves were rolled
+up as if it had been carried about in somebody's pocket for a long
+time.  The two first pages were missing, and the third page was so
+dirty that I could not read the print.  I took it under the skylight,
+to see a little better, and I saw that it was called "The Adventures of
+Telemachus."  I opened it here and there, and the few words that I read
+interested me so much that I put it in my pocket at once.
+
+While I was on my way down from the garret, it suddenly occurred to me
+that Eugène might have put the book there, and that he might come and
+look for it at any time.  So I put it back on the black rafter where I
+had found it.  Every time I could manage to go to the garret I looked
+to see whether it was still in its place, and I read it as much and as
+often as ever I could.
+
+
+
+
+Just about that time I had another sick sheep.  Its flanks were hollow,
+as though it had not eaten for a long while.  I went and asked the
+farmer's wife what I ought to do with it.  She was plucking a chicken,
+and asked me whether the sheep was "drawn."  I didn't answer at once.
+I didn't quite know what she meant.  Then I thought that probably
+whenever a sheep was ill it was "drawn," and I said "Yes."  And so as
+to make it quite clear, I added, "It is quite flat."  Pauline began to
+laugh at me.  She called Eugène, and said, "Eugène!  One of Marie
+Claire's sheep is drawn and flat too."  That made Eugène laugh.  He
+said I was only a second-hand shepherdess, and explained to me that
+sheep were "drawn" when their stomachs were swollen.
+
+Two days afterwards Pauline told me that she and Master Silvain saw
+that they would never make a good shepherdess of me, and that they were
+going to give me work to do in the house.  Old Bibiche was not good for
+much, and Pauline could not do everything herself because of her baby.
+When they told me this, my first thought was that I should be able to
+go up to the garret more often, and I kissed Pauline and thanked her.
+
+
+
+
+So I became a farm servant.  I had to kill the chickens and the
+rabbits.  I hated doing it, and Pauline could never understand why.
+She said I was like Eugène, who ran away when a pig was being killed.
+However, I wanted to try and kill a chicken so as to show that I did my
+best.  I took it into the granary.  It struggled in my hands, and the
+straw all round me got red.  Then it became quite still, and I put it
+down for Bibiche to come and pluck it.  But when she came she cackled
+with laughter because the chicken had got on to its feet again, and was
+in the middle of a basket of corn.  It was eating greedily, as though
+it wanted to get well as quickly as possible after the way in which I
+had hurt it.  Bibiche got hold of it, and when she had passed the blade
+of her knife across its neck the straw was much redder than it had been
+before.
+
+Instead of going to sleep in the middle of the day, I used to go up to
+the garret to read.  I opened the book anywhere, and every time I read
+it over again I found something new in it.  I loved this book of mine.
+For me it was like a young prisoner whom I went to visit secretly.  I
+used to imagine that it was dressed like a page, and that it waited for
+me on the black rafter.  One evening I went on a lovely journey with
+it.  I had closed the book, and was leaning on my elbows and looking
+out of the skylight in the garret.  It was almost evening, and the pine
+trees looked less green.  The sun was pushing its way into the white
+clouds which hollowed themselves and then swelled out again, like down
+and feathers do when you push something into a sackful of them.
+
+Without quite knowing how, I found myself, all of a sudden, flying over
+a wood with Telemachus.  He held me by the hand, and our heads touched
+the blue of the sky.  Telemachus said nothing, but I knew that we were
+going up into the sun.  Old Bibiche called to me from below.  I
+recognized her voice, although it was so far off.  She must be very
+angry, I thought, to be calling so loud.  I didn't care.  I saw nothing
+but the bright flakes of white down, which surrounded the sun and which
+were opening slowly to let us pass in.  A tap on my arm brought me back
+with a rush into the garret.  Old Bibiche was pulling me away from the
+skylight, and saying, "Why do you make me shout like that?  I have
+called you at least twenty times to come and get your supper!"  A
+little while later I missed the book from the rafter.  But it had
+become a friend which I carried about in my heart, and I have always
+remembered it.
+
+
+
+
+Two days before Christmas, Master Silvain got ready to kill a pig.  He
+sharpened two big knives, and, after having made a litter of fresh
+straw in the middle of the yard, he sent for the pig, which made such a
+noise that I was sure he knew what was going to happen.  Master Silvain
+roped up his four feet, and, while he fastened them to pegs which he
+had hammered into the ground, he said to his wife, "Hide the knives,
+Pauline.  Don't let him see them!"  Pauline gave me a sort of deep
+dish, which I was to hold carefully, so as not to lose a single drop of
+the blood which I was to catch in it.  The farmer went to the pig,
+which had fallen on its side.  He went down on one knee in front of
+him, and, after having felt his neck, he reached his hand out behind
+his back to his wife; she gave him the bigger of the two knives.  He
+put the point on the place he had marked with his finger, and pressed
+it slowly in.  The pig's cries were just like the cries of a baby.  A
+drop of blood came from the wound and rolled slowly down in a long red
+line.  Then two spurts ran up the knife and fell on the farmer's hand.
+When the blade was right in up to the handle.  Master Silvain put his
+weight on it for a moment and drew it out again as slowly as he had put
+it in.  When I saw the blade come out again all striped with red, I
+felt my mouth grow cold and dry.  My fingers went limp, and the dish
+toppled over to one side.  Master Silvain saw it.  He gave me one look
+and said to his wife, "Take the dish away from her."  I could not say a
+word, but I shook my head to say "No."  The farmer's look had taken my
+nervousness away, and I held the dish quite steadily under the spurt of
+blood which came out from the pig's wound.  When the pig was quite
+still, Eugène came up.  He looked amazed at seeing me carefully
+catching the last red drops which were rolling down one by one like
+tears.  "Do you mean to say you caught the blood?" he asked.  "Yes,"
+said the farmer; "that shows that she is not a chicken heart, like
+you."  "It is quite true," said Eugène to me, "I hate seeing animals
+killed."  "Nonsense," said Master Silvain.  "Animals are made to feed
+us just as wood is made to warm us."  Eugène turned away a little, as
+though he were ashamed of his weakness.  His shoulders were thin, and
+his neck was as round as Martine's.  Master Silvain used to say that he
+was the living portrait of their mother.
+
+I had never seen Eugène angry.  He hummed songs all day long.  In the
+evening he used to come back from the fields sitting sideways on one of
+the oxen, and he nearly always sang the same song.  It was the story of
+a soldier, who went back to the war after he had learned that the girl
+he had been engaged to marry had married another man.  He used to dwell
+on the refrain, which finished like this--
+
+  And when a bullet comes and takes
+    Away my precious life,
+  You'll know I died because you were
+    Another fellow's wife.[1]
+
+
+Pauline always used to treat Eugène with much respect.  She could never
+understand my freedom with him.  The first evening that she saw me
+sitting next to him on the bench outside the door she made signs to me
+to come in.  But Eugène called me back, saying, "Come and listen to the
+wood owl."  We often used to be sitting on the bench, still, when
+everybody had gone to bed.  The wood owl came quite near to an old elm
+tree which was by the door, and we used to think that it was saying
+"good night" to us.  Then it would fly away, its great wings passing
+over us in silence.  Sometimes a voice would sing on the hillside.  I
+used to tremble when I heard it.  The full voice coming out of the
+night reminded me of Colette.  Eugène would get up to go in when the
+voice stopped singing, but I always used to stop, hoping to hear it
+again.  Then he would say, "Come along in: it is all over."
+
+
+[1] Quand par un tour de maladresse
+      Un boulet m'emportera
+    Allons adieu chère maitresse
+      Je m'en vais dans les combats.
+
+
+
+
+And now that the winter was with us again, and we could no longer sit
+on the bench by the door, there seemed to be a sort of secret
+understanding between us.  Whenever he was making fun of anybody, his
+queer little eyes used to look for mine, and whenever he gave an
+opinion he used to turn to me as though he expected me to approve or
+disapprove.  It seemed to me that I had always known him, and deep down
+in my thoughts I used to call him my big brother.  He was always asking
+Pauline if she was pleased with me.  Pauline said that there was no
+need to tell him the same thing, over and over again.  The only thing
+she reproached me with was that I had no system in my work.  She used
+to say that I was just as likely to begin at the end of it as at the
+beginning.  I had not forgotten Sister Marie-Aimée, but I was no longer
+as sick with longing for her as I used to be.  And I was happy on the
+farm.
+
+
+
+
+In the month of June the men came, as they came every year, to shear
+the sheep.  They brought bad news with them.  All over the country the
+sheep were falling ill as soon as they had been shorn, and numbers of
+them were dying.  Master Silvain took his precautions, but in spite of
+all he could do, a hundred of the sheep fell sick.  A doctor said that
+by bathing them in the river a good many of them might be saved.  So
+the farmer got into the water up to his middle, and dipped the sheep in
+one by one.  He was red hot, and the perspiration rolled down his
+forehead and fell in great drops into the river.  That evening when he
+went to bed he was feverish, and next day he died of inflammation of
+the lungs.  Pauline could not believe in her misfortune, and Eugène
+wandered about the stables and the outhouses with frightened eyes.
+
+
+
+
+Soon after the farmer's death, the landlord of the farm came to see us.
+He was a little dry stick of a man, who never kept still for a minute,
+and if he did stand still he always seemed to be dancing on one foot.
+His face was clean-shaven, and his name was M. Tirande.  He came into
+the living-room where I was sitting with Pauline.  He walked round the
+room with his shoulders hunched up.  Then he said, pointing to the
+baby, "Take him away.  I want a talk with the goodwife."  I went out
+into the yard, and managed to pass the window as often as I could.
+Pauline had not moved from her chair.  Her hands lay on her knees, and
+she was bending her head forward as though she were trying to
+understand something very difficult.  M. Tirande was talking without
+looking at her.  He kept walking from the fireplace to the door and
+back again, and the noise of his heels on the tiled floor got mixed up
+with his broken little voice.  He came out again as fast as he had come
+in, and I went and asked Pauline what he had said.  She took the baby
+in her arms and, crying as she told me, she said that M. Tirande was
+going to take the farm away from her and give it to his son, who had
+just got married.
+
+At the end of the week M. Tirande came back with his son and his
+daughter-in-law.  They visited the outhouses first, and when they came
+into the house, M. Tirande stopped in front of me a minute, and told me
+that his daughter-in-law had made up her mind to take me into her
+service.  Pauline heard him say so, and made a step towards me.  But
+just then Eugène came in with a lot of papers in his hand, and
+everybody sat down round the table.  While they were all reading the
+papers and signing, I looked at M. Tirande's daughter-in-law.  She was
+a big, dark woman with large eyes and a bored look.  She left the farm
+with her husband without having glanced at me once.  When their cart
+had disappeared down the avenue of chestnut trees, Pauline told Eugène
+what M. Tirande had said to me.  Eugène, who was leaving the room,
+turned to me suddenly.  He looked very angry, and his voice was quite
+changed.  He said that these people were disposing of me as though I
+were a bit of furniture which belonged to them.  While Pauline was
+pitying me, Eugène told me that it was M. Tirande who had told Master
+Silvain to take me on the farm.  He reminded Pauline how sorry the
+farmer had been because I was such a weakling, and he told me that he
+was very sorry not to be able to take me with them to their new farm.
+We were all three standing in the living-room.  I could feel Pauline's
+sad eyes on my head, and Eugène's voice made me think of a hymn.
+Pauline was to leave the farm at the end of the summer.
+
+I worked hard every day to put the linen in order.  I didn't want
+Pauline to take away a single piece of torn linen with her, I worked
+hard with my darning-needle, as Bonne Justine had taught me, and I
+folded every piece as well as I could.
+
+In the evening I found Eugène sitting on the bench by the door.  The
+moon was shining on the roofs of the sheep-pens, and there was a white
+cloud over the dung-heap which looked like a tulle veil.  There was no
+sound whatever from the cow-house.  All that we heard was the squeaking
+of the cradle which Pauline was rocking to put her child to sleep.
+
+As soon as the corn had been got in, Eugène began getting ready to go.
+The cowherd took away the cattle, and old Bibiche went off in the cart
+with all the birds of the poultry-yard.  In a few days nothing was left
+at the farm but the two white oxen, which Eugène would trust to nobody
+but himself.  He fastened them to the cart which was to take Pauline
+and her child.  The little fellow was fast asleep in a basket full of
+straw, and Eugène put him into the cart without waking him up.  Pauline
+covered him with her shawl, made the sign of the cross towards the
+house, took up the reins, and the cart went slowly off under the
+chestnut trees.
+
+I wanted to go with them as far as the high-road, and I followed the
+cart, walking behind the oxen, between Eugène and Martine.  None of us
+spoke.  Every now and then Eugène gave the oxen a friendly pat.  We
+were quite a long way on the road when Pauline saw that the sun was
+setting.  She stopped the horse, and, when I had climbed on to the step
+to kiss her good-bye, she said sadly, "God be with you, my girl.
+Behave well."  Then her voice filled with tears, and she added, "If my
+poor husband were living he would never have given you up."  Martine
+kissed me, and smiled.  "We may see one another again," she said.
+Eugène took his hat off.  He held my hand in his for a long time, and
+said slowly, "Good-bye, dear little friend.  I shall always remember
+you."
+
+I walked a little way back, and turned round to see them again, and,
+although it was getting dark, I saw that Eugène and Martine were
+walking hand in hand.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+The new farmers came next day.  The farm hands and the serving women
+had come early in the morning, and when the masters arrived in the
+evening I knew that they were called Monsieur and Madame Alphonse.  M.
+Tirande remained at Villevieille for two days, and went off after
+reminding me that I was in his daughter-in-law's service now, and that
+I should have to do no more outside work on the farm.
+
+
+
+
+The very first week she was there Madame Alphonse had had Eugène's room
+turned into a linen-room, and she had set me to work at a big table on
+which were a number of pieces of linen which I was to make into sheets
+and other things.  She came and sat down next to me, and worked at
+making lace.  She would remain for whole days at a time without saying
+a word.  Sometimes she talked to me about the linen presses which her
+mother had, full of all kinds of linen.
+
+Her voice had no ring to it, and she scarcely moved her lips when she
+spoke.  M. Tirande seemed very fond of his daughter-in-law.  Every time
+he came he always asked her what she would like him to give her.  She
+cared for nothing but linen, and he went off saying that he would get
+her some more.
+
+M. Alphonse never appeared at all except at meal times.  I should have
+found it very difficult to say what he did with his time.  His face
+reminded me of the Mother Superior's face somehow.  Like her, he had a
+yellow skin and his eyes glittered.  He looked as though he carried a
+brazier inside him which might burn him up at any minute.  He was very
+pious, and every Sunday he and Madame Alphonse went to mass in the
+village where M. Tirande lived.  At first they wanted to take me in
+their cart, but I refused.  I preferred going to Sainte Montagne, where
+I always hoped to meet Pauline or Eugène.  Sometimes one of the farm
+hands came with me, but more often I would go alone by a little cross
+road, which made the way much shorter.  It was a steep and stony bit of
+road which ran uphill through the broom.  On the very top of it I
+always used to stop in front of Jean le Rouge's house.  This house was
+low-roofed and spreading.  The walls were as black as the thatch which
+covered it, and it was quite easy to pass by the house without seeing
+it at all, for the broom grew so high all round it.  I used to go in
+for a chat with Jean le Rouge, whom I had known ever since I had been
+at Villevieille farm.  He had always worked for Master Silvain, who
+thought very highly of him.  Eugène used to say of him that one could
+set him to anything, and that whatever he did he did well.
+
+
+
+
+Now M. Alphonse refused to employ him any more.  He spoke of sending
+him away from the house on the hill.  Jean le Rouge was so upset by the
+idea that he could talk of nothing else.
+
+Directly after mass I used to go home by the same road.  Jean's
+children would crowd round me to get the blessed bread, which I brought
+out of church for them.  There were six of them, and the eldest was not
+yet twelve years old.  There was hardly one mouthful of my blessed
+bread, so I used to give it to Jean's wife to divide up and give to the
+children in equal shares.  While she was doing this, Jean le Rouge
+would set a stool for me in front of the fire and would seat himself on
+a log of wood, which he would roll to the fireplace with his foot.  His
+wife put some twigs on the fire with a pair of heavy pincers, and as we
+sat and talked we watched the big yellow potatoes cooking in the pot
+which hung from a hook in the fireplace.
+
+On the very first Sunday Jean le Rouge had told me that he, too, was a
+foundling.  And little by little he had told me that when he was twelve
+he had been put to work with a woodcutter who used to live in the house
+on the hill.  He had very soon learned how to climb up the trees to
+fasten a rope to the top branches so as to pull them over.  When the
+day's work was done and he had his faggot of wood on his back, he would
+go on ahead so as to get to the house first.  And there he used to find
+the woodcutter's little daughter cooking the soup for supper.  She was
+of the same age as he was, and they had become the best of friends at
+once.
+
+Then, one Christmas Eve, came the misfortune.  The old woodcutter, who
+thought that the children were fast asleep, went off to midnight mass.
+But directly he had gone they got up.  They wanted to prepare midnight
+supper for the old man's return, and they danced with glee at the
+surprise they were getting ready for him.  While the little girl was
+cooking the chestnuts and putting the pot of honey and the jug of cider
+on the table, Jean le Rouge heaped great logs on to the fire.  Time
+went on, the chestnuts were cooked, and the woodcutter had not yet come
+home.  It seemed a long time.  The children sat down on the floor in
+front of the fire to keep themselves warm, leaned up against one
+another, and fell asleep.  Jean woke up at the little girl's screams.
+He could not understand at first why she was throwing her arms about
+and shrieking at the fire.  He jumped to his feet to run away from her,
+and then he saw that she was ablaze.  She had opened the door to the
+garden, and as she ran out she lit the trees up.  Then Jean had caught
+hold of her and thrown her into the little well.  The water had put the
+flames out, but when Jean tried to pull her out of the well he found
+her so heavy that he thought she must be dead.  She made no movement,
+and it took him a long time to get her out.  At last, when he did get
+her out, he had to drag her along like a bundle of sticks back to the
+house.
+
+The logs had become great red embers.  Only the biggest one, which was
+wet, went on smoking and crackling.  The little girl's face was all
+bloated, and was black with violet veins in it.  Her body, which was
+half naked, was covered with big red burns.
+
+She was ill for many months, and when at last they thought she was
+cured, they found out that she had become dumb.  She could hear
+perfectly well, she could even laugh like everybody else, but it was
+quite impossible for her to speak a single word.
+
+While Jean le Rouge was telling me these things his wife used to look
+at him and move her eyes as if she were reading a book.  Her face still
+bore deep burn marks, but one soon got accustomed to it, and remembered
+nothing of her face but the mouth with its white teeth, and her eyes,
+which were never still.  She used to call her children with a long, low
+cry, and they came running up, and always understood all the signs she
+made to them.  I was so sorry that they had to leave the house on the
+hill.  They were the last friends I had left, and I thought of telling
+Madame Alphonse about them, hoping that she might get her husband to
+keep them on.  I found an opportunity one day, when M. Tirande and his
+son had come into the linen-room talking about the changes they were
+going to make at the farm.  M. Alphonse said he didn't want any cattle.
+He spoke of buying machinery, cutting down the pine trees and clearing
+the hillside.  The stables would do for sheds for the machines, and he
+would use the house on the hill to store fodder in.  I don't know
+whether Madame Alphonse was listening.  She went on making lace, and
+seemed to be giving her full attention to it.  As soon as the two men
+had gone I plucked up courage to talk of Jean le Rouge.  I told her how
+useful he had been to Master Silvain.  I told her how sorry he was to
+leave the house in which he had lived for so long, and when I stopped,
+trembling for the answer which was coming, Madame Alphonse took her
+needles out of the thread.  "I believe I have made a mistake," she
+said.  She counted up to nineteen, and said again, "What a nuisance it
+is.  I shall have to undo a whole row."  When I told Jean le Rouge
+about this, he was angry, and shook his fist at Villevieille.  His wife
+put her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, and he was quiet at
+once.
+
+Jean le Rouge left the house on the hill at the end of January, and I
+was very sad.
+
+
+
+
+I had no friends left now.  I hardly recognized the farm any more.  All
+these new people had made themselves quite at home there, and I seemed
+to myself to be a new-comer.  The serving-woman looked at me with
+distrust, and the ploughman avoided talking to me.  The servant's name
+was Adèle.  All day long you could hear her grumbling and dragging her
+wooden shoes after her as she walked.  She made a noise even when she
+was walking on straw.  She used to eat her meals standing, and answer
+her master and mistress quite rudely.
+
+M. Alphonse had taken away the bench which was by the door, and had put
+up little green bushes with trellis-work round them.  He cut down the
+old elm tree, too, to which the wood owl used to come on summer
+evenings.
+
+Of course the old tree had not shaded the house for a long time.  It
+only had one tuft of leaves right up on the top.  It looked like a head
+which bent over to listen to what people underneath were saying.  The
+woodcutters who came to cut it down said that it would not be an easy
+thing to do.  They said there was some danger that when it fell it
+would crash through the roof of the house.
+
+At last, after a lot of talk, they decided to rope it round and pull it
+over so that it fell on to the dung-heap.  It took two men all day to
+cut it down, and just when we thought that it was going to drop nicely,
+one of the ropes worked loose, and the old elm jumped and fell to one
+side.  It slipped down the roof, knocking down a chimney and a large
+number of tiles, bumped a piece out of the wall, and fell right across
+the door.  Not one of its branches touched the dung-heap.  M. Alphonse
+yelled with rage.  He laid hold of the axe belonging to one of the
+woodcutters, and struck the tree so violent a blow that a piece of bark
+flew against the linen-room window and broke a pane.
+
+Madame Alphonse saw the bits of glass fall on me.  She jumped up in
+more excitement than I had ever seen her show, and with trembling hands
+and fearful eyes she examined closely every bit of the table-cloth
+which I was embroidering.  But she did not see me wiping away the blood
+from my cheek, which had been cut by a bit of glass.  She was so afraid
+that something might happen to the piles of linen which were beginning
+to grow that she took me off next day to her mother's to show me how
+the linen should be put into the closets.
+
+
+
+
+Madame Alphonse's mother was called Madame Deslois, but when the
+ploughmen talked about her they always said "the good woman of the
+castle."  She had only been to Villevieille once.  She had come close
+up to me and looked at me with her eyes half shut.  She was a big woman
+who walked bent double as if she were looking for something on the
+ground.  She lived in a big house called the Lost Ford.
+
+Madame Alphonse took me along by a path near a little river.  It was
+the end of March, and the meadows were already in flower.  Madame
+Alphonse walked straight along the path, but I got a lot of pleasure
+out of walking in the soft grass.
+
+We soon came to the wood where the wolf had taken my lamb.  I had
+always had a mysterious fear of this wood, and when we left the path by
+the river to go through it I shook with fear.  And yet the road was a
+broad one.  It must even have been a carriage road, for there were deep
+ruts in it.
+
+Above our heads heaps of pine needles tickled one another and rustled.
+They made a gentle noise, not a bit like the whispering, with silences
+in between, which I used to hear in the forest when the snow was on it.
+But in spite of all I could not help looking behind me.  We didn't walk
+very far through the wood.  The road turned to the left and we got to
+the courtyard of the Lost Ford immediately.  The little river ran
+behind the stables as it did at Villevieille, but here the meadows were
+quite close together, and the buildings looked as though they were
+trying to hide among the sapling pines.  The living house didn't look
+anything like the farms thereabouts.  The ground floor was built of
+very thick old walls, and the first floor looked as though it had been
+put on top of them as a makeshift.  The house did not look a bit like a
+castle to me.  It made me think of an old tree trunk out of which a
+baby tree had sprouted, and sprouted badly.
+
+Madame Deslois came to the door when she heard us arrive.  She winked
+her little eyes as she looked at me and said at once in a loud voice
+that she had dropped a halfpenny in the straw, and that it was very
+funny that nobody had found it, as it had been lost for a week.  While
+she spoke she moved her foot about and stirred the straw which was in
+front of the door.  Madame Alphonse cannot have heard her.  Her big
+eyes were staring into the house, and she was almost excited when she
+said why we had come.  Madame Deslois said that she would take me to
+the linen-room herself.  She put the keys into the locks of the
+cupboards, and after having told me to be very careful, and to
+disarrange nothing, she left me alone.
+
+It didn't take me long to open and close the great shining cupboards.
+I should have liked to go away at once.  This big cold linen-room
+frightened me like a prison.  My feet sounded on the tiles as though
+there were deep vaults underneath them.  All of a sudden it seemed to
+me that I should never get out of this linen-room again.  I listened to
+see whether I could hear any animals stirring, but I only heard Madame
+Deslois' voice.  It was a rough, strong voice which went right through
+the walls, and could be heard everywhere.  I was going to the window so
+as to feel a little less lonely, when a door which I had not noticed
+suddenly opened behind me.  I turned round and saw a young man come in.
+He wore a long white smock and a grey cap.  He stood standing as though
+he were surprised to see anybody there, and I went on looking at him
+without being able to take my eyes away.  He walked right across the
+linen-room, and he and I stared and stared at one another.  Then he
+went out, banging himself against the woodwork of the door.  A moment
+afterwards he passed by the window and our eyes met again.  I felt
+quite uncomfortable, and without knowing why, I went and shut the doors
+which he had left open.
+
+Presently Madame Alphonse came and fetched me, and I went back to
+Villevieille with her.
+
+Since M. Alphonse had taken Pauline's place I had got into the habit of
+going and sitting in a bush which had grown into the shape of a chair.
+It was in the middle of a shrubbery not far from the farm.  Now that
+spring was beginning I used to go and sit there when the ploughmen were
+smoking their pipes at the stable doors.  I used to sit there listening
+to the little noises of the evening, and I longed to be like the trees.
+That evening I thought of the man I had seen at Lost Ford.  But every
+time I tried to remember the exact colour of his eyes they pierced into
+my own eyes so that they seemed to be lighting me all up inside.
+
+
+
+
+The next Sunday was Easter Sunday.  Adèle had gone to mass in M.
+Alphonse's cart.  I remained alone, with one of the ploughmen, to look
+after the farm.  After luncheon the ploughman went to sleep on a heap
+of straw in front of the door, and I went to my shrubbery to spend the
+afternoon.  I tried to hear the bells ringing, but the farm was too far
+from the villages round, and I could hear none of them.
+
+I began to think about Sister Marie-Aimée, and my thoughts went back to
+Sophie, who used to come and wake me up every year so that I should
+hear all the bells ringing in Easter together.  One year she didn't
+wake up.  She was so upset at that, that next year she put a big stone
+in her mouth to keep herself from sleeping.  Every time she nodded off
+her teeth met on the stone, and she woke up.
+
+I sat and thought about High Mass where Colette used to sing in her
+beautiful voice, and I could see our afternoon on the lawn, and Sister
+Marie-Aimée busy with the special dinner which they gave us on feast
+days.  And that evening when dinner-time came I should see, instead of
+sister Marie-Aimée's sweet loving face, Madame Alphonse's hard face and
+her husband's glittering eyes, which frightened me so.  And as I sat
+and thought how long I should still have to stay on the farm I felt
+deeply discouraged.
+
+When I was tired of crying I saw with astonishment that the sun was
+quite low.  Through the branches of my shrubbery I watched the long
+thin shadows of the poplar trees growing longer than ever on the grass,
+and quite close to me I saw a long shadow which was moving.  It came
+forward, then stopped, and then came forward again.  I understood at
+once that somebody was going to pass my hiding-place, and almost
+immediately the man in the white smock walked into the shrubbery,
+stooping to get out of the way of the branches.  I felt cold all over.
+I soon got control of myself, but I could not help trembling nervously.
+He remained standing in front of me without saying a word.  I sat and
+looked at his eyes, which were very gentle, and I began to feel warm
+again.  I noticed that, as Eugène used to, he wore a coloured shirt and
+a cravat tied under the collar, and when he spoke it seemed to me that
+I had known his voice for a long time.  He leaned against a big branch
+opposite me, and asked me if I had no relations.  I said "No."  His eye
+ran along the branch covered with young shoots, and without looking at
+me he said again, "Then you are all alone in the world."  I answered
+quickly, "Oh no, I have Sister Marie-Aimée!"  And without leaving him
+time to ask any more questions I told him how I had longed for her, and
+how impatiently I was waiting and hoping to see her again.  Talking
+about her made me so happy that I could not stop talking.  I told him
+of her beauty and of her intelligence, which seemed to me to be above
+everything in the world.  I told him, too, how sorry she had been when
+I went away, and of the joy that I knew she would feel when she saw me
+come back.
+
+While I talked his eyes were fixed on my face, but they seemed to look
+much further.  After a silence he asked again, "Have you no friends
+here?"  "No," I said; "all those whom I loved have gone;" and I added
+rather angrily, "They have even turned out Jean le Rouge."  "And yet,"
+he said, "Madame Alphonse is not unkind?"  I told him that she was
+neither unkind, nor kind, and that I should leave her without any
+regret.
+
+Then we heard the sound of M. Alphonse's cart-wheels, and I got up to
+go.  He stood aside a little to let me pass him, and I left him alone
+in the shrubbery.
+
+That evening I took advantage of the unusually good humour of Adèle to
+ask her if she knew any of the ploughmen at the Lost Ford.  She said
+she only knew some of the old ones, for since Madame Deslois had been a
+widow the new ones never stayed with her.  A sort of fear which I could
+not have explained kept me from mentioning the young man in the white
+smock, and Adèle added with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her eldest
+son has come back from Paris.  The farm hands will be happier."
+
+Next day, while Madame Alphonse was working at her lace, I sewed and
+thought about the ploughman in the white smock.  I could not in my mind
+help comparing him to Eugène.  He spoke like Eugène did, and they
+seemed like one another somehow.
+
+That evening I thought I saw him near the stables, and a moment later
+he came into the linen-room.  His eyes just glanced at me and then he
+looked straight at Madame Alphonse.  He held his head high and the left
+side of his mouth drooped a little.  Madame Alphonse said, in a happy
+voice, when she saw him, "Why, there's Henri!" and she let him kiss her
+on both cheeks, and told him to bring a chair up next to her.  But he
+sat sideways on the table, pushing the linen to one side.  Adèle came
+into the room, and Madame Alphonse said, "If you see my husband, tell
+him that my brother is here."
+
+It was some minutes before I understood.  Then I realized suddenly that
+the young man in the white smock was Madame Deslois's eldest son.  A
+sense of shame which I had never felt before made me blush fiercely,
+and I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about Sister Marie-Aimée.  I
+felt that I had thrown the thing that I loved best to the winds, and do
+what I could, I could not keep back two big tears which tickled the
+corners of my mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was hemming.
+Henri Deslois remained sitting on the corner of the table for a long
+time.  I could feel that he was looking at me, and his eyes were like a
+heavy weight which prevented me from lifting up my head.
+
+
+
+
+Two days afterwards I found him in the shrubbery.  When I saw him
+sitting there my legs felt weak under me, and I stood still.  He got up
+at once so that I should sit down; but I remained standing and looking
+at him.  He had the same gentleness in his eyes that I had noticed the
+first time, and, as if he expected me to tell him another story, "Have
+you nothing to tell me this evening?" he asked.  Words danced across my
+brain, but they did not seem to be worth speaking, and I shook my head
+to say no.  He said, "I was your friend the other day."  Recollection
+of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I
+only said, "You are Madame Alphonse's brother."  I left him and did not
+dare to go back to the shrubbery again.  He often came back to
+Villevieille.  I never used to look at him, but his voice always made
+me feel very uncomfortable.
+
+
+
+
+Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time
+after mass.  Every Sunday I used to pass the house on the hill.
+Sometimes I would look in through the gaps in the shutters, and when,
+as I sometimes did, I bumped my head, the noise it made used to
+frighten me.  One Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on the door.
+I put my finger on the latch and the door fell open with a loud noise.
+I had not expected it to open so quickly, and I stood there longing to
+shut it and go away.  Then as there was no more noise, and as the sun
+had streamed into the house making a big square of light, I made up my
+mind to go in, and went in, leaving the door open.  The big fireplace
+was empty.  There was no hook, there was no pot, and the big andirons
+had gone.  The only things left in the room were the logs of wood which
+Jean le Rouge's children used to use as stools.  The bark was worn off
+them, and the tops of them were polished, as if with wax, from the
+children sitting on them.
+
+The second room was quite empty.  There were no tiles on the floor, and
+the feet of the beds had made little holes in the beaten earth.  There
+was no lock to the other door either, and I went out into the garden.
+There were a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and the fruit
+trees were all in flower.  Most of them were very old.  Some of them
+looked like hunchbacks, and their branches bent towards the ground, as
+though they found that even the flowers were too heavy for them to
+carry.  At the bottom of the garden the hill ran down to an immense
+plain where the cattle used to graze, and right at the end a row of
+poplars made a sort of barrier which kept the sky out of the meadow
+land.  Little by little I recognized one place after another.  There
+was a little river at the bottom of the hill.  I could not see the
+water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side
+to let it pass.  The river disappeared behind the buildings of
+Villevieille farm.  There the roofs were of the same colour as the
+chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them.  Here
+and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees.  Then it
+plunged into the great pine wood, which looked quite black, in which
+the Lost Ford was hidden.  That was the road I had taken with Madame
+Alphonse, when we went to her mother's house.  Her brother must have
+come that way that day when he found me in the shrubbery.  There was
+nobody on the road today.  Everything was tender green, and I could see
+no white smock among the clumps of trees.  I tried to see the shrubbery
+but the farm hid it.  Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several
+times since Easter.  I could not have told how I knew that he was
+there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking
+round that way.
+
+Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there
+alone.  He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me.
+I had looked at him as I had done the first time, and he went away
+without saying anything.  And now that I was in the open garden
+surrounded by broom in flower I longed to be able to live there always.
+There was a big apple tree leaning over me, dipping the end of its
+branches in the spring.  The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a
+tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks over the beds.  This
+garden of flowers and clear water seemed to me to be the most beautiful
+garden in the world.  And when I turned my head towards the house,
+which stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect extraordinary
+people to come out of it.  The house seemed full of mystery to me.
+Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought
+that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made when he
+stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille.
+
+I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had
+not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom
+and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds.  I began to
+imagine that I was a little tree, and that the wind stirred me as it
+liked.  The same fresh breeze which made the broom rock passed over my
+head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like the other trees did I
+stooped down and dipped my fingers in the clear waters of the spring.
+
+Another sound made me look at the house again, and I was not in the
+least surprised when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed in the
+doorway.  His head was bare, and his arms were swinging.  He stepped
+out into the garden and looked far off into the plain.  His hair was
+parted on the side, and was a little thin at the temples.  He remained
+perfectly still for a long minute, then he turned to me.  There were
+only two trees between us.  He took a step forward, took hold of the
+young tree in front of him with one hand, and the branches in flower
+made a bouquet over his head.  It grew so light that I thought the bark
+of the trees was glittering, and every flower was shining.  And in
+Henri Deslois's eyes there was so deep a gentleness that I went to him
+without any shame.  He didn't move when I stopped in front of him.  His
+face became whiter than his smock, and his lips quivered.  He took my
+two hands and pressed them hard against his temples.  Then he said very
+low, "I am like a miser who has found his treasure again."  At that
+moment the bell of Sainte Montagne Church began to ring.  The sound of
+the bell ran up the hillsides, and after resting over our heads for a
+moment ran on and died away in the distance.
+
+The hours passed, the day grew older, and the cattle disappeared from
+the plain.  A white mist rose from the little river, then a stone
+slipped behind the barrier of poplar trees, and the broom flowers began
+to grow darker.  Henri Deslois went back towards the farm with me.  He
+walked in front of me on the narrow path, and when he left me just
+before we came to the avenue of chestnut trees I knew that I loved him
+even more than Sister Marie-Aimée.
+
+The house on the hill became our house.  Every Sunday I found Henri
+Deslois waiting there, and as I used to do when Jean le Rouge lived
+there, I took my blessed bread to the house on the hill after mass and
+we used to laugh as we divided it.
+
+We both had the same kind of feeling of liberty which made us run races
+round the garden and wet our shoes in the brooklets from the spring.
+Henri Deslois used to say, "On Sundays I, too, am seventeen years old."
+Sometimes we would go for long walks in the woods which skirted the
+hill.  Henri Deslois was never tired of hearing me talk about my
+childhood, and Sister Marie-Aimée.  Sometimes we talked about Eugène,
+whom he knew.  He used to say that he was one of those men whom one
+liked to have for a friend.  I told him what a bad shepherdess I had
+been, and although I felt sure he would laugh at me, I told him the
+story of the sheep which was all swollen up.  He didn't laugh.  He put
+a finger on my forehead and said, "Love is the only thing that will
+cure that."
+
+
+
+
+One day we stopped near an immense field of corn.  It was so big that
+we could not see the end of it.  Thousands of white butterflies were
+floating about over the corn ears.  Henri Deslois didn't speak, and I
+watched the ears of corn which were stooping and stretching as though
+they were getting ready to fly.  It looked as though the butterflies
+were bringing them wings to help them, but it was no good for the corn
+ears to get excited.  They could not get away from the ground.  I told
+my idea to Henri Deslois, who looked at the corn for a long time, and
+then, as though he were speaking to himself, and dragging the words
+out, he said, "It is much the same kind of thing with a man.  Sometimes
+a woman comes to him.  She looks like the white butterflies of the
+plain.  He doesn't know whether she comes up from the earth or whether
+she comes down from the sky.  He feels that with her he could live on
+the wind which passes, and the fresh young flowers.  But like the root
+which holds the corn to earth a mysterious bond holds him to his duty,
+which is as strong as the earth."  I thought that his voice had an
+accent of suffering, and that the corners of his mouth drooped more
+than usual.  But almost immediately his eyes looked into mine, and he
+said in a stronger voice, "We must have confidence in ourselves."
+
+
+
+
+Summer passed and the autumn, and in spite of the bad weather of
+December we could not make up our minds to leave the house on the hill.
+Henri Deslois used to bring books with him which we would read, sitting
+on the logs of wood in the back room which looked into the garden.  I
+went back to the farm at nightfall, and Adèle, who thought I was
+spending my time dancing in the village, was always surprised that I
+looked so sad.
+
+Almost every day Henri Deslois came to Villevieille.  I could hear him
+from a long way off.  He rode a great white mare which trotted heavily,
+and he rode her without saddle or bridle.  She was a patient and a
+gentle brute.  Her master used to let her run loose in the yard while
+he went in to say "good day," to Madame Alphonse.  As soon as M.
+Alphonse heard him he would come into the linen-room.  The two of them
+would speak of improvements on the farm or about people whom they knew.
+But there was always a word or a sentence in their conversation which
+came straight to me from Henri Deslois.  I often used to catch M.
+Alphonse looking at me, and I could not always keep from blushing.
+
+One afternoon as Henri Deslois came in to the room smiling, M. Alphonse
+said, "You know I have sold the house on the hill."  The two men looked
+at one another.  They both grew so pale that I was afraid they were
+going to die where they stood.  Then M. Alphonse got out of his chair
+and stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Henri Deslois went
+to the door and tried to close it.  Madame Alphonse put her lace down
+on her knee and said, as though she were repeating a lesson, "The house
+was of no particular good, and I am very pleased that it has been
+sold."  Henri Deslois came and stood by the table, so close to me that
+he could have touched me.  He said in a voice that was not quite firm,
+"I am sorry you have sold it without having mentioned it to me, for I
+intended to buy it."  M. Alphonse wriggled like an earthworm.  He made
+a great effort to laugh out loud, and as he laughed he said, "You would
+have bought it?  What would you have done with it?"  Henri Deslois put
+his hand on the back of my chair and answered, "I would have lived in
+it as Jean le Rouge did."  M. Alphonse walked up and down in front of
+the chimney.  His face had changed into a yellow earthy colour.  His
+hands were in his trouser pockets, and he picked up his feet so quickly
+that it looked as though he were pulling at them with a cord which he
+held in each hand.  Then he came and leaned on the table opposite us,
+and looking at us one after the other with his glittering eyes, he bent
+forward and said, "Well, I have sold it now, so it is all over."
+During the silence which followed we could hear the white mare pawing
+the ground with her shoe as though she were calling her master.  Henri
+Deslois went towards the door.  Then he came back to me and picked up
+my work which had fallen from my hands without my having noticed it.
+He kissed his sister, and before he went, he said, looking at me, "I
+shall see you to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+Next morning Madame Deslois came into the linen-room.  She came
+straight to me, and was very rude.  But M. Alphonse told her to be
+quiet, and, turning to me, he said, "Madame Alphonse has asked me to
+tell you that she would like to keep you in her service.  But she wants
+you in future to come to mass with us."  He tried to smile, and added,
+"We will drive you there and back."  It was the first time that he had
+ever spoken directly to me.  His voice was rather husky, as though he
+felt some awkwardness in saying these things to me.  I don't know what
+made me think that he was lying, and that Madame Alphonse had not said
+anything of the kind.  Besides, he looked so much like the Mother
+Superior that I could not help defying him.  I told him that I didn't
+care about driving, and that I should go to mass at Sainte Montagne as
+before.  He sucked in his lower lip and began biting it.  Then Madame
+Deslois stepped forward threateningly, and told me that I was insolent.
+She kept on repeating this word as though she could not find any
+others.  She shouted it more and more loudly, and lost all control of
+herself.  The white of her eyes was becoming quite red, and she raised
+her hand to strike me.  I stepped back quickly behind my chair.  Madame
+Deslois bumped into the chair and knocked it over, and caught at the
+table so as not to fall down.  Her harsh voice terrified me.  I wanted
+to leave the linen-room, but M. Alphonse had placed himself in front of
+the door, and I came back into the room and faced Madame Deslois across
+the table.  She began to speak again in a strangled sort of voice.  She
+used words which I didn't understand, but there was something about
+what she said and the way in which she said it which I hated.  At last
+she stopped speaking, and shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't
+forget that I am his mother."
+
+M. Alphonse came towards me.  He took hold of my arm and said, "Come,
+now, listen to me."  I shook myself loose, pushed him away and ran out
+of the house.  The last words that Madame Deslois had said hammered on
+my brain as though they really were a hammer with one end of it
+pointed.  "I am his mother, do you hear?--his mother."  Oh, mother
+Marie-Aimée, how beautiful you were when compared to this other mother,
+and how I loved you!  How your many-coloured eyes beamed and lit up
+your black dress, and how pure your face was under your white cap!  I
+could see you as clearly as though you were really in front of me.
+
+
+
+
+I was quite astonished to find myself in front of the house on the
+hill, and when I got there I saw that snow was falling in a regular
+hurricane.  I went into the house for shelter, and went straight into
+the room which looked out on the garden.  I tried to think, but my
+ideas whirled round in my head like the snow-flakes, which looked as
+though they were climbing up from the ground and falling from the sky
+at the same time.  And every time that I made an effort to think, the
+only things I could think of were little bits of a song which the
+children used to sing in the convent, and which ran--
+
+  The old girl jumped and jumped about
+    And jumped until she died.
+  The old girl jumped and jumped about
+    And jumped until she died.[1]
+
+
+I felt less unhappy in this silent house.  The softly falling snow was
+pretty, and the trees were as beautiful as on that day when I had seen
+them all in bloom.  Then suddenly I remembered, quite clearly all that
+had just happened.  I saw Madame Deslois's hand with its square
+fingers, and shivered all over.  What an ugly hand it was, and what a
+large one!  Then I remembered the expression on M. Alphonse's face when
+he took hold of my arm, and I remembered as I thought of it that I had
+seen the same expression once before on a little girl's face.  It was
+one day when I had picked up a pear which had fallen from the tree.
+She had rushed at me, saying, "Give me half of it, and I won't tell."
+
+I felt so disgusted at the idea of sharing it with her that, although
+Sister Marie-Aimée might have seen me, I had gone back to the tree and
+put the pear down where it had fallen.
+
+Thinking of all these things, I longed and longed to see Sister
+Marie-Aimée again.  I should have liked to have gone to her at once,
+but I remembered that Henri Deslois had said as he went, "I shall see
+you to-morrow."  Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting for me,
+and wondering what had become of me.  I went out of the house to run
+back to Villevieille.  I had only gone a few steps when I saw him
+coming up.  The white mare didn't find it very easy to climb the
+snow-covered path.  Henri Deslois was bareheaded, as he had been the
+first time he came.  His smock billowed out with the wind, and he had a
+hand on the mane of the mare.  The mare stood in front of me.  Her
+master leaned down and took my two hands which I held up to him.  There
+was on his face a look of worry which I had never seen before.  I
+noticed, too, that his eyebrows met, like those of Madame Deslois.  He
+was a little out of breath, and said, "I knew that I should find you
+here."  He opened his mouth again, and I felt quite certain that his
+words were going to bring me happiness.  He held my hands tighter, and
+said in the same breathless voice as before, "I can no longer be your
+friend."  I thought that somebody had struck me a violent blow on the
+head.  There was a noise of a saw in my ears.  I could see Henri
+Deslois trembling, and I heard him say, "How cold I am!"  Then I no
+longer felt the warmth of his hand on mine.  And when I realized that I
+was standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing but a great white
+shape which was slipping noiselessly across the snow.
+
+
+[1] On a tant fait sauter la vieille,
+      Qu'elle est morte en sautillant,
+            Tireli,
+    Sautons, sautons, la vieille!
+
+
+
+
+I went slowly down the other side of the hill, walking in the snow,
+which squeaked under my feet.  About half-way a peasant offered me a
+lift in his cart.  He was going to town too, and it was not long before
+we got to the Orphanage.  I rang the bell, and the porteress looked out
+at me through the peephole.  I recognized her.  It was "Ox Eye" still.
+We had named her Ox Eye because her eyes were big and round like a
+daisy.  She opened the gate when she recognized me, and told me to come
+in; but before she shut the gate behind me she said, "Sister
+Marie-Aimée is not here."  I didn't answer, so she said again, "Sister
+Marie-Aimée is not here."  I heard what she said quite well, but I
+didn't pay any attention to it.  It was like a dream where the most
+extraordinary  things happen without seeming to be of any importance at
+all.  I looked at her great big eyes and said, "I have come back."  She
+closed the gate behind me and left me standing under the eaves of her
+little house in the gateway, while she went to tell the Mother
+Superior.  She came back, saying that the Mother Superior wanted to
+speak to Sister Désirée-des-Anges before she saw me.
+
+A bell rang.  Ox Eye got up and told me to go with her.  It was snowing
+again.  It was almost dark in the Mother Superior's room.  At first I
+saw nothing but the fire, which was whistling and flaming.  Then I
+heard the Mother Superior's voice.  "So you have come back?" she said.
+I tried to think steadily, but I was not quite sure whether I had come
+back or not.  She said, "Sister Marie-Aimée is not here."  I thought
+that my bad dream was coming on again, and coughed to try and wake
+myself.  Then I looked at the fire and tried to find out why it
+whistled like that.  The Mother Superior spoke again.  "Are you ill?"
+she said.  I answered "No."  The heat did me good, and I felt better.
+I was beginning to understand at last that I had come back to the
+Orphanage, and that I was in the Mother Superior's room.  My eyes met
+hers, and I remembered everything.  She laughed a little, and said,
+"You have not changed much.  How old are you now?"
+
+I told her that I was eighteen years old.  "Really," she said.  "Going
+out into the world has not made you grow much."  She leaned one elbow
+on the table, and asked me why I had come back.  I wanted to tell her
+that I had come back to see Sister Marie-Aimée, but I was afraid of
+hearing her say once more that Sister Marie-Aimée was not there, and I
+remained silent.  She opened a drawer, took out a letter, which she
+covered with her open hand, and said in the weary voice of a person who
+has been bothered unnecessarily, "This letter had already told me that
+you had become a bold, proud girl."  She pushed the letter from her as
+though she were tired, and in a long breath she said, "You can work in
+the kitchen here until we find you something else to do."  The fire
+went on whistling.  I went on looking at it, but I could not make out
+which of the three logs was making the noise.  The Mother Superior
+raised her monotonous voice to draw my attention.  She warned me that
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges would watch me very closely, and that I should
+not be allowed to talk to my former companions.  I saw her point to the
+door, and I went out into the snow.
+
+At the other side of the yard I could see the kitchens.  Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges, who was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the
+door.  I could see nothing of her but her cap and her black dress, and
+I imagined her to be old and withered.  I thought of running away.  I
+need only run to the gate and tell Ox Eye that I had come on a visit.
+She would let me out, and that would be all.
+
+Instead of going to the gate I went towards the buildings where I had
+lived when I was a child.  I didn't know why I went there, but I could
+not help it.  I felt very tired, and I should have liked to lie down
+and sleep for a long time.
+
+The old bench was in the same place.  I wiped some of the snow off it
+with my hands, and sat down leaning against the linden tree as M. le
+Curé used to do.  I was waiting for something, and I didn't know what.
+I looked up at the window of Sister Marie-Aimée's room.  The pretty
+embroidered curtains were no longer there, and although the window was
+just like the other windows now, I thought it quite different.  And
+though the thick calico curtains were the same in this room as in the
+others, they seemed to me to make that window look like a face with its
+eyes shut.
+
+The yard began to get dark, and the lights lit up the rooms inside.  I
+meant to get up from the bench, thinking, "Ox Eye will open the gate
+for me;" but my body felt crushed, and I seemed to have two broad, hard
+hands weighing heavily on my head.  And, as though I had spoken them
+aloud, the words, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me," repeated
+themselves over and over again.  All of a sudden a voice, with pity in
+it, said, quite close to me, "Please, Marie Claire, don't sit out here
+in the snow."  I raised my head, and standing in front of me was a
+young, quite young, sister, whose face was so beautiful that I could
+not remember ever to have seen such a face before.  She bent over me to
+help me up, and, as I could hardly stand upright, she put my arm under
+hers, and said, "Lean on me."  Then I saw that she was taking me to the
+kitchen, the great glass door of which was bright with light.  I didn't
+think of anything.  The snow pricked my face, and my eyelids were
+burning.  When I went into the kitchen, I recognized the two girls who
+were standing by the big square oven.  They were Veronique the Minx,
+and Mélanie the Plump, and I seemed to hear Sister Marie-Aimée talking
+to them by these names.  Mélanie nodded to me as I passed her, and
+leaning on the young sister's arm, I went into a room in which there
+was a night-light burning.  The  room  was divided into two by a big
+white curtain.  The young sister made me sit down on a chair, which she
+took from behind the curtain, and went out without saying a word.  A
+little while afterwards Mélanie the Plump and Veronique the Minx came
+in to put clean sheets on the little iron bed beside me.  When they had
+finished, Veronique, who had not looked at me at all till then, turned
+to me and said that nobody had ever thought that I should come back.
+She said it as though she were reproaching me for something shameful.
+Mélanie put her hands together under her chin, and put her head on one
+side, just as she used to do when she was a little girl.  She smiled
+affectionately at me, and said, "I am very glad that you have been sent
+to the kitchen."  Then she patted the bed, and said, "You are taking my
+place.  I used to sleep here."  She pointed to the curtain, and in a
+low voice she said, "This is where Sister Désirée-des-Anges sleeps."
+When they had gone out, closing the door behind them, I sat closer to
+the bed.  The big white curtain made me feel uncomfortable.  I thought
+I could see shadows moving in the folds which the night-light left in
+darkness.  Then I heard the dinner-bell.  I recognized it, and without
+knowing what I was doing I counted the strokes.  Everything was quite
+still for some time, and then the young sister came into the room
+bringing me a bowl of steaming soup.  She pulled the big curtain back
+and said, "This is your room, and that is mine."  I felt quite
+reassured when I saw that her little iron bedstead was exactly the same
+as my own.  I began to wonder whether she was Sister Désirée-des-Anges,
+but I dared not believe it, and asked her.  She nodded "Yes," and
+drawing her chair close to mine, she put her face in the full light and
+said, "Don't you recognize me?"  I looked at her without answering.
+No, I didn't recognize her.  In fact, I was certain that I had never
+seen her; for I was certain that one could never forget her face if one
+had seen it once.  She made a funny little grimace, and said, "I can
+see you don't remember poor Désirée Joly."  Désirée Joly?  Of course I
+remembered her.  She was a girl who had become a novice.  Her face was
+rosier than roses.  She had a beautiful, slim figure, and used to laugh
+all day long.  We all loved her.  She used to jump about so when she
+played with us that Sister Marie-Aimée often used to say to her, "Come
+now, come now, not so high, please, Mademoiselle Joly!  You are showing
+your knees!"  Even now, when I was looking at her, I could not remember
+her.  She said "Yes, the dress makes a lot of difference."  She pulled
+up her sleeves; and making the same funny little face again, she said,
+"Forget that I am Sister Désirée-des-Anges, and remember that Désirée
+Joly used to be very fond of you."  Then she went on quickly, "I
+recognized you at once," she said.  "You still have the same baby
+face."  When I told her I had imagined Sister Désirée-des-Anges to be
+old and cross, she answered, "We were both wrong.  I had been told that
+you were vain and proud; but when I saw you crying in the middle of the
+snow, I thought only that you were suffering, and I went to you."  When
+she had helped me to bed, she divided the room again with the curtain,
+and I went to sleep at once.
+
+But I didn't sleep well.  I woke up every minute.  There was a heavy
+stone on my chest still, and when I managed to throw it off, it split
+up into several pieces, which fell back on me and crushed my limbs.
+Then I dreamed that I was on a road full of sharp pointed stones which
+cut me.  I walked along it with difficulty.  On both sides of the road
+there were fields, vines, and houses.  All the houses were covered with
+snow, but the trees were laden with fruit, and were in bright sunshine.
+I left the road and went into the fields, stopping at all the trees to
+taste the fruit.  But the fruit was bitter, and I threw it away.  I
+tried to go into the snow-covered houses, but they had no doors.  I
+went back on to the road and the stones gathered round me so fast that
+I could not go on.  Then I called for help.  I called as loud as I
+could, but nobody heard me.  And when I felt I was going to be buried
+under a huge heap of stones, I struggled so hard to get away from them
+that I woke myself up.  For a moment I thought I was still dreaming.
+The ceiling of the room seemed to be a tremendous height.  The rod from
+which the white curtain was hanging glittered here and there, and the
+branch of boxwood which was nailed to the wall threw a shadow on the
+statue of the Virgin which was in the corner.  Then a cock crowed.  He
+crowed several times, as though he wanted to make me forget his first
+crow, which had stopped short, as if he were in pain.  The night-light
+began to flicker.  It flickered for a long time before it went out, and
+when the room was quite dark I heard Sister Désirée-des-Anges breathing
+gently and regularly.
+
+
+
+
+Long before daybreak I got up to begin my work in the  kitchen.
+Mélanie showed me how to lift the big coppers.  It was a matter of
+skill as well as of strength.  It took me more than a week before I
+could even move one of them.  Mélanie taught me how to ring the heavy
+waking bell.  She showed me how to put my shoulders into the work so as
+to pull the rope, and I soon got into the way of it.  And every
+morning, whether it were cold or raining, I used to enjoy ringing the
+bell.  It had a clear sound which the wind increased or lessened, and I
+never got tired of hearing it.  There were days when I rang so long
+that Sister Désirée-des-Anges would open her window and would say
+pleadingly, "That'll do, that'll do."
+
+Since I had come to the kitchen, Veronique the Minx used to look away
+from me when she spoke, and if I asked her where anything was, she
+would point to it without speaking.  Sister Désirée-des-Anges used to
+watch her, and would curl her lip as she watched.  She was not as
+quick-tempered as she used to be when she was a novice, but she was
+full of life still and full of fun.  Every evening we used to meet in
+our room, and she would make me laugh at her remarks at what had been
+going on during the day.  Sometimes my laughter ended in a sob.  Then
+she used to put her hands together as the saints do in the pictures,
+raise her eyes and say, "Oh, how I wish that your sorrow would leave
+you."  Then she would kneel on the ground and pray, and I often used to
+go to sleep before she got up again.
+
+Work in the kitchen was very hard.  I used to help Mélanie polish up
+the coppers, and wash the tiled floors.  She did most of the work
+herself.  She was as strong as a man, and was always ready to help me.
+As soon as she found that I was tired, she used to force me to sit down
+on a chair, and would say smilingly, "Recreation time."  A few days
+after I had arrived, she reminded me of the difficulties she used to
+have in learning her catechism.
+
+She had not forgotten that during a whole season I had spent all my
+recreation time trying to teach her to learn it by heart.  And now she
+delighted in making me rest.
+
+Veronique's work was the preparation of the vegetables, and she also
+took the meat in from the butcher.  She used to stand stiffly by the
+scales until the butcher's boys put the meat on.  She was always
+grumbling at them, saying that the meat was cut too small or cut too
+big.  The butcher boys used to get angry with her and were rude to her
+sometimes, and Sister Désirée-des-Anges told me at last to take the
+meat in instead of her.  She came to the scales just the same next day;
+but I was there with Sister Désirée-des-Anges, who was telling me how
+to weigh the meat.
+
+
+
+
+One morning one of the two butchers looked at me and spoke my name.
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges and I looked at the butcher boy in surprise.
+He was a new one, but I soon recognized him.  He was the eldest son of
+Jean le Rouge.  He was delighted to see me again, and told me that his
+parents had got a good place at the Lost Ford.  He himself didn't care
+about working in the fields, and had found work with a butcher in the
+town.  Then he told me that the Lost Ford was quite near Villevieille,
+and asked me if I knew it.  I nodded my head to say that I did.  He
+went on to say that his father and mother had been there for some
+months, and that there had been feasting there last week because Henri
+Deslois was married.  I heard him say a few words more which I didn't
+understand.  Then the daylight in the kitchen turned into black night,
+and I felt the tiles give way under my feet and drag me down into a
+bottomless hole.  I remember Sister Désirée-des-Anges coming to help
+me, but an animal had fastened itself on my chest.  It made a dreadful
+sound which it hurt me to hear.  It was like a horrible sob which
+always stopped at the same place.  Then the light came back again, and
+I could see above me the faces of Sister Désirée-des-Anges and Mélanie.
+Both were smiling anxiously, and Mélanie's broad, red face looked like
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges' pointed pale one.  I sat up in bed, wondering
+why I was there by daylight, but I didn't get up.  I remembered little
+Jean le Rouge, and for hours and hours I fought with my pain.
+
+When Sister Désirée-des-Anges came into the room at bedtime she sat
+down on the foot of my bed.  She put her two hands together like the
+saints did.  "Tell me of your sorrow," she said.  I told her, and it
+seemed to me that every word I spoke took some of my suffering away
+with it.
+
+When I had told her everything, Sister  Désirée-des-Anges  fetched "The
+Imitation of Jesus Christ," and began to read aloud.  She read in a
+gentle and resigned voice, and there were words which sounded like the
+end of a moan.
+
+On the days which followed, I saw little Jean le Rouge again.  He told
+me some more about the Lost Ford, and while he said how happy his
+parents were and how kind the master was to them, I could see the house
+on the hill with its garden in flower, and its spring from which the
+little brooklets crawled down to the river, hiding themselves under the
+broom.  I often spoke of it to Sister Désirée-des-Anges, who listened
+to me meditatively.  She knew the neighbourhood and every corner of the
+place, and one evening, when she sat dreaming and I asked her what she
+was thinking about, she said, "Summer will be over soon, and I was
+thinking that the trees were full of fruit."
+
+
+
+
+During the month of September a number of religious paid visits to the
+Mother Superior.  Ox Eye used to ring the bell to announce them.  Every
+time she rang Veronique went out to see who was coming in.  She always
+had something disagreeable to say about each one of the sisters whom
+she recognized.  One evening the bell sounded.  Veronique, who was
+looking out, said, "Well, here's one whom nobody expected."  She put
+her head into the kitchen again, and said, "It is Sister Marie-Aimée."
+The big spoon which I had in my hand slipped through my fingers and
+dropped into the copper.  I rushed to the door, pushing past Veronique,
+who wanted to keep me back.  Mélanie rushed after me.  "Don't," she
+said, "the Mother Superior can see you."  But I rushed out to Sister
+Marie-Aimée.  I rushed into her arms with such force that we nearly
+fell over together.  She clasped me tight and held me.  She was
+trembling and almost crazy with joy.  She took my head in her hands,
+and, as if I had been quite a little child, she kissed me all over my
+face.  Her stiff linen cap made a noise like paper when you crumple it
+up, and her broad sleeves fell back to her shoulders.  Mélanie was
+right, the Mother Superior saw me.  She came out of the chapel and came
+towards us.  Sister Marie-Aimée saw her.  She stopped kissing me, and
+put her hand on my shoulder.  I put my arm round her, fearing that she
+would be taken away from me, and the two of us stood and watched the
+Mother Superior.  She passed in front of us without raising her eyes,
+and didn't seem to see Sister Marie-Aimée, who bowed gravely to her.
+
+As soon as she had gone I dragged Sister Marie-Aimée off to the old
+bench.  She stopped a moment, and before sitting down she said, "It is
+as though things were waiting for us."  She sat down.  She leaned
+against the linden tree, and I kneeled down in the grass at her feet.
+There were no more rays in her eyes.  It was as though the colours in
+them had all been mixed up together.  Her dear little face had grown
+smaller, and seemed to have gone further back into her cap.  Her
+stomacher had not the beautiful curve on her chest that it used to
+have, and her hands were so thin that the blue veins in them showed up
+quite clearly.  She hardly glanced at the window of her room, but
+looked out on the linden trees and round the courtyard, and as she
+caught sight of the Mother Superior's house, these words fell from her
+like a sigh, "We must forgive others if we wish to be forgiven."  Then
+she looked at me again, and said, "Your eyes are sad."  She passed the
+palms of her hands over my eyes, as if she wanted to wipe out something
+which displeased her, and, keeping them there so that my eyes remained
+shut, "How we suffer,"' she said.  Then she took her hands away and
+clasped mine, and, with her eyes on my face, she said, as though she
+were praying, "My sweet daughter, listen to me.  Never become a poor
+religious."  She heaved a long sigh of regret, and said, "Our dress of
+black and white tells others that we are creatures of strength and of
+brightness.  At our bidding all tears are dried, and all who suffer
+come to us for consolation, but nobody thinks of our own suffering.  We
+are like women without faces."  Then she spoke of the future.  She
+said, "I am going where the missionaries go.  I shall live there in a
+house full of terror.  Before my eyes will pass unceasingly everything
+that is hideous, everything that is ugly, everything that is bad."  I
+listened to her deep voice.  There was a note of passion in it.  It was
+as though she were taking on to her own shoulders all the suffering of
+the world.  Her fingers loosed mine.  She passed them over my cheeks,
+and in a gentle voice, and sweet, she said, "The purity of your face
+will always remain graven on my mind."  Then she looked out, away and
+past me, and added, "God has given us remembrance, and it is not in
+anybody's power to take that away from us."  She got up from the bench.
+I went with her across the yard, and when Ox Eye had closed the heavy
+gate behind her, I stood and listened to the echo of its closing.
+
+That evening Sister Désirée-des-Anges came into the room later than
+usual.  She had been taking part in special prayer for Sister
+Marie-Aimée, who was going away to nurse the lepers.
+
+
+
+
+Winter came again.  Sister Désirée-des-Anges had soon guessed my love
+of reading, and she brought me all the books in the sisters' library,
+one after the other.  Most of the books were childish books, and I read
+quickly, turning over several pages at a time.  I preferred stories of
+travel, and I used to read at night by the night-light.  Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges used to scold me when she woke up; but as soon as she
+went to sleep I took up the book again.  Little by little we became
+great friends.  The white curtain was no longer drawn between our beds
+at night time.  All sense of constraint had disappeared between us, and
+all our thoughts were in common.  She was cheerful and bright always.
+The one thing that annoyed her in her life was her nun's costume.  She
+found it heavy and uncomfortable, and she used to say that it hurt her.
+"When I dress," she said, "I always feel as though I were putting
+myself into a house where it is always night."  She was always glad to
+get out of her dress in the evening, and loved walking about the room
+in her night-dress.  She used to say, making that funny little face, "I
+am beginning to get used to it, but at first that cap crushed my cheeks
+and the dress weighed my shoulders down."
+
+When the spring came she began to cough.  She had a little dry cough
+which used to make itself heard from time to time, and her long slim
+body seemed to become more fragile than ever.  She was as bright and
+cheerful as before, but she complained that her dress became heavier
+and heavier.
+
+
+
+
+One night in May she tossed about and dreamed aloud.  I had been
+reading all night, and noticed all of a sudden that daylight was
+coming.  I blew out the night-light and tried to sleep a little.  I was
+just dropping off when Sister Désirée-des-Anges said, "Open the window,
+he is coming to-day."  I looked to see whether she was asleep, and saw
+that she was sitting up in bed.  She had drawn back her blanket, and
+was untying the strings of her night-cap.  She took it off and threw it
+to the foot of the bed.  Then she shook her head, her short hair rolled
+into curls on her forehead, and I recognized Désirée Joly at once.  I
+was a little bit frightened, and got up.  She said again, "Open the
+window and let him in."  I opened the window wide, and when I turned
+round Sister Désirée-des-Anges was holding out her clasped hands
+towards the sun, and in a voice which had suddenly grown weaker, she
+said, "I have taken off my dress.  I could not stand it any longer."
+She lay down quietly, and her face became quite still.  I held my
+breath for a long time to listen to hers.  Then I breathed hard, as
+though I could give her my breath, but when I looked at her more
+closely I saw that she had breathed her last.  Her eyes were wide open,
+and seemed to be looking at a sunbeam which was coming towards her like
+a long arrow.  Swallows flew past the window and flew back again,
+chirruping like little girls, and my ears were filled with sounds which
+I had never heard before.  I looked up to the windows of the
+dormitories, hoping that somebody would hear what I had to say, but I
+saw nothing but the face of the big clock which seemed to be looking
+down into the room over the linden trees.
+
+It was five o'clock.  I pulled the blanket up over Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges and went out and rang the bell.  I rang for a long
+time.  The notes went far, far away.  They went right away to where
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges had gone.  I went on ringing because it seemed
+to me that the bells were telling the world that Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges was dead.  I went on ringing too, because I hoped
+that she would pop her beautiful face out of the window and say,
+"That'll do, that'll do, Marie Claire."
+
+Mélanie pulled the rope out of my hands.  The bell, which was up, fell
+back all wrong, and gave a sort of groan.  "You have been ringing for a
+quarter of an hour or more," Mélanie said.  I answered, "Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges is dead."  Veronique went into the room after us.
+She noticed that the white curtain was not drawn between the two beds,
+and said that she thought it was disgraceful for a religious to let her
+hair be seen.  Mélanie passed her finger over a tear which was rolling
+down each of her cheeks.  Her head was more on one side than ever, and
+she whispered quite low, "She is even prettier than she was before."
+The sunshine bathed the bed, and covered the dead woman from head to
+foot.
+
+I remained with her all day.  Some of the sisters came to see her.  One
+of them covered her face with a napkin, but as soon as she had gone, I
+uncovered it again.  Mélanie came and spent the night by the bedside
+with me.  When she had closed the window she lit the big lamp, "so that
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges should not be in the dark," she said.
+
+
+
+
+A week afterwards Ox Eye came to the kitchen.  She told me to get ready
+to go the same day.  In the hollow of her hand she held two gold
+pieces, which she put side by side on the corner of the oven, and,
+touching one after the other with her finger, she said, "Our Mother
+Superior sends you forty francs."  I did not want to go away without
+saying good-bye to Colette and to Ismérie, whom I had often seen at the
+other side of the lawn; but Mélanie assured me that they didn't care
+for me any more.  Colette could not understand why I was not married
+yet, and Ismérie could not forgive me for being so fond of Sister
+Marie-Aimée.
+
+Mélanie went to the gate with me.  As we passed the old bench, I saw
+that one of its legs was broken, and that one end of it had fallen into
+the grass.  At the gate I found a woman waiting.  Her eyes were hard.
+She said, "I am your sister."  I didn't recognize her.  It was twelve
+years since I had seen her.  Directly we got outside she caught hold of
+my arm, and in a voice as hard as her eyes, she asked me how much money
+I had.  I showed her the two gold pieces which I had just received.
+Then she said, "You will do better to remain in the town, where you
+will find it easier to get something to do."  As we walked on she told
+me she was married to a gardener in the neighbourhood, and that she
+didn't intend to give herself any particular trouble over me.  We got
+to the railway station.  She took me on to the platform because she
+wanted me to help her carry some parcels.  She said "good-bye" when her
+train went off, and I remained there and watched it go.  Almost
+immediately another train stopped.  The railway men ran up and down the
+platform calling to the passengers for Paris to cross over.  In that
+one moment I saw Paris with its great houses like palaces, with roofs
+so high that they were lost in the clouds.  A young man bumped into me.
+He stopped and said, "Are you going to Paris, mademoiselle?"  I
+scarcely hesitated, and said, "Yes; but I have no ticket."  He held out
+his hand.  "Give me the money," he said, "and I will go and get it for
+you."  I gave him one of my two gold coins, and he ran off.  I put the
+ticket and the change in copper which he had brought me into my pocket,
+went across the line with him, and climbed into the train.
+
+The young man stood at the carriage door for a minute, and went off,
+turning back once as he went.  His eyes were full of gentleness, like
+those of Henri Deslois.
+
+The train whistled once, as though to warn me, and as it moved off it
+whistled a second time, a long whistle like a scream.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+
+And now may I tell you what I know about Marguerite Audoux, the author
+of the book you have just read?  I know very little more of her than
+you do, for you have read the book, and Marguerite Audoux is Marie
+Claire.  If Marie Claire in English does not please you, the fault is
+mine.  I have tried hard to translate into English the uneducated,
+unspoilt purity of language, the purity of thought which are the
+characteristics of the French; but the task was no easy one, much as I
+loved it in the doing.
+
+Marguerite Audoux herself is a plump and placid little woman, of about
+thirty-five.  She lives in a sixth-floor garret in the Rue Leopold
+Robert, in Paris.  From her window she has a view of roof-tops and the
+Montparnasse cemetery.  When she learned of the success of her book,
+with which she had lived for six years, she cried.  "I felt dreadfully
+frightened at first," she said, "I felt very uneasy.  I felt as though
+I had become known too quickly, as though I were a criminal of note.
+Now my one wish is to work again."  She reads a good deal.  Her
+favourite authors are Chateaubriand and Maeterlinck.  In Maeterlinck
+she loves the mystery.  "We never know people properly," she says.
+"They are just as difficult to understand as things that happen are.
+We never know whose fault it is when good or bad things happen, and we
+don't really know whether we ought to be angry or to be sorry with
+people who do harm.  Wicked people are like a thunderstorm, don't you
+think?  And a lazy woman is like a hot room.  Both are unhealthy, but
+they cannot help it."
+
+Marguerite Audoux does not say these things to be clever.  She says
+them quite simply, and they express her natural way of thought, which
+is simplicity and purity itself.
+
+She wrote her book when and how she could, on scraps of cheap paper,
+and she does not know herself, now, whether she hoped to have it
+published when she wrote it.  She did hope for publication when she had
+finished it, but that was because she was hungry.
+
+I met a friend just outside Marguerite Audoux's house after my first
+visit to her.  "Tiens," he said, "tu viens de la mansarde de Génie
+l'ouvrière."  And the clever little pun was true.  Marguerite Audoux is
+a genius, and she does not understand what people mean when they ask
+her "how" she "writes."  She opens her weak eyes very wide at the
+question, laughs as a child laughs when it doesn't understand, and
+says, "But I don't know.  The thoughts come, and I write them down.  I
+only wish that I could spell them better."
+
+When the committee of the Vie Heureuse was voting on her book before
+awarding her the 200 pound prize for the best book of the year,
+somebody suggested the possibility that she had had help with it.
+Madame Séverine was sent to fetch the manuscript.  It was passed round,
+examined, and no more doubt was possible.
+
+I hope you will find the pleasure in reading Marie Claire that I found
+in translating it.  I should like to say quite earnestly--and perhaps a
+little shamefacedly, because we hate saying these things out loud--that
+when I had read it I felt awed.  The book had worked upon me.  Do you
+remember the impression made on you by moonlight upon the snow in the
+country?  You must be quite alone to feel it.  The purity of it all
+makes you wish that you were a cleaner man or woman, and, till you rub
+shoulders with people again, you mean to try hard to be cleaner and
+better.  Marie Claire made me feel just exactly like that.
+
+JOHN N. RAPHAEL.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Marie Claire, by Marguerite Audoux
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marie Claire, by Marguerite Audoux
+
+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: Marie Claire
+
+Author: Marguerite Audoux
+
+Translator: John N.  Raphael
+
+Release Date: February 12, 2007 [EBook #20572]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE CLAIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<A NAME="img-front"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Marguerite Audoux" BORDER="2" WIDTH="345" HEIGHT="481">
+<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 345px">
+Marguerite Audoux
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+MARIE CLAIRE
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+MARGUERITE AUDOUX
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+TRANSLATED BY
+<BR>
+JOHN N. RAPHAEL
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
+<BR>
+ARNOLD BENNETT
+<BR><BR>
+AND AN AFTERWORD BY THE TRANSLATOR
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+LONDON
+<BR>
+G. BELL &amp; SONS, LTD.
+<BR>
+1911
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+<I>This Edition is intended for circulation only in India, and the
+British Colonies</I>
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,<BR>
+LONDON AND BECCLES.<BR>
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+CONTENTS
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<CENTER>
+
+<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%">
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER 1 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap12">CHAPTER 12</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap23">CHAPTER 23</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap34">CHAPTER 34</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap45">CHAPTER 45</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap56">CHAPTER 56</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER 2 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap13">CHAPTER 13</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap24">CHAPTER 24</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap35">CHAPTER 35</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap46">CHAPTER 46</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap57">CHAPTER 57</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER 3 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap14">CHAPTER 14</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap25">CHAPTER 25</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap36">CHAPTER 36</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap47">CHAPTER 47</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap58">CHAPTER 58</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER 4 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap15">CHAPTER 15</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap26">CHAPTER 26</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap37">CHAPTER 37</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap48">CHAPTER 48</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap59">CHAPTER 59</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER 5 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap16">CHAPTER 16</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap27">CHAPTER 27</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap38">CHAPTER 38</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap49">CHAPTER 49</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap60">CHAPTER 60</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER 6 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap17">CHAPTER 17</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap28">CHAPTER 28</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap39">CHAPTER 39</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap50">CHAPTER 50</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap61">CHAPTER 61</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER 7 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap18">CHAPTER 18</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap29">CHAPTER 29</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap40">CHAPTER 40</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap51">CHAPTER 51</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap62">CHAPTER 62</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER 8 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap19">CHAPTER 19</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap30">CHAPTER 30</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap41">CHAPTER 41</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap52">CHAPTER 52</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap63">CHAPTER 63</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER 9 </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap20">CHAPTER 20</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap31">CHAPTER 31</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap42">CHAPTER 42</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap53">CHAPTER 53</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap64">CHAPTER 64</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER 10</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap21">CHAPTER 21</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap32">CHAPTER 32</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap43">CHAPTER 43</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap54">CHAPTER 54</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap65">CHAPTER 65</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap11">CHAPTER 11</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap22">CHAPTER 22</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap33">CHAPTER 33</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap44">CHAPTER 44</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap55">CHAPTER 55</A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="16%"><A HREF="#chap66">AFTERWORD</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+INTRODUCTION
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The origins of this extraordinary book are sufficiently curious and
+sufficiently interesting to be stated in detail.  They go back to some
+ten years ago, when the author, after the rustic adventures which she
+describes in the following pages, had definitely settled in Paris as a
+working sempstress.  The existence of a working sempstress in Paris, as
+elsewhere, is very hard; it usually means eleven hours' close
+application a day, six full days a week, at half a crown a day.  But
+already Marguerite Audoux's defective eyesight was causing anxiety, and
+upsetting the regularity of her work, so that in the evenings she was
+often less fatigued than a sempstress generally is.  She wanted
+distraction, and she found it in the realization of an old desire to
+write.  She wrote, not because she could find nothing else to do, but
+because at last the chance of writing had come.  That she had always
+loved reading is plain from certain incidents in this present book; her
+opportunities for reading, however, had been limited.  She now began,
+in a tentative and perhaps desultory fashion, to set down her youthful
+reminiscences.  About this time she became acquainted, through one of
+its members, and by one of those hazards of destiny which too rarely
+diversify the dull industrial life of a city, with a circle of young
+literary men, of whom possibly the most important was the regretted
+Charles Louis Philippe, author of "Bubu de Montparnasse," and other
+novels which have a genuine reputation among the chosen people who know
+the difference between literature and its counterfeit.  This circle of
+friends used to meet at Philippe's flat.  It included a number of
+talented writers, among whom I should mention MM. Iehl (the author of
+"Cauët"), Francis Jourdain, Paul Fargue, Larbaud, Chanvin, Marcel Ray,
+and Régis Gignoux (the literary and dramatic critic).  Marguerite
+Audoux was not introduced as a literary prodigy.  Nobody, indeed, was
+aware that she wrote.  She came on her merits as an individuality, and
+she took her place beside several other women who, like herself, had no
+literary pretensions.  I am told by one of the intimates of the
+fellowship that the impression she made was profound.  And the fact is
+indubitable that her friends are at least as enthusiastic about her
+individuality as about this book which she has written.  She was a
+little over thirty, and very pretty, with an agreeable voice.  The
+sobriety of her charm, the clear depth of her emotional faculty, and
+the breadth of her gentle interest in human nature handsomely conquered
+the entire fellowship.  The working sempstress was sincerely esteemed
+by some of the brightest masculine intellects in Paris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This admiring appreciation naturally encouraged her to speak a little
+of herself.  And one evening she confessed that she, too, had been
+trying to write.  On another evening she brought some sheets of
+manuscript&mdash;the draft of the early chapters of "Marie Claire"&mdash;and read
+them aloud.  She read, I am told, very well.  The reception was
+enthusiastic.  One can imagine the ecstatic fervour of these young men,
+startled by the apparition of such a shining talent.  She must continue
+the writing of her book, but in the mean time she must produce some
+short stories and sketches for the daily papers!  Her gift must be
+presented to the public instantly!  She followed the advice thus
+urgently offered, and several members of the circle (in particular,
+Régis Gignoux and Marcel Ray) gave themselves up to the business of
+placing the stories and sketches; Marcel Ray devoted whole days to the
+effort, obtaining special leave from his own duties in order to do so.
+In the result several stories and sketches appeared in the <I>Matin,
+Paris Journal</I> (respectively the least and the most literary of Paris
+morning papers), and other organs.  These stories and sketches, by the
+way, were republished in a small volume, some time before "Marie
+Claire," and attracted no general attention whatever.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile the more important work proceeded, slowly; and was at length
+finished.  Its composition stretched over a period of six years.
+Marguerite Audoux never hurried nor fatigued herself, and though she
+re-wrote many passages several times, she did not carry this revision
+to the meticulous excess which is the ruin of so many ardent literary
+beginners in France.  The trite phrase, "written with blood and tears,"
+does not in the least apply here.  A native wisdom has invariably saved
+Marguerite Audoux from the dangerous extreme.  In his preface to the
+original French edition, M. Octave Mirbeau appositely points out that
+Philippe and her other friends abstained from giving purely literary
+advice to the authoress as her book grew and was read aloud.  With the
+insight of artists they perceived that hers was a talent which must be
+strictly let alone.  But Parisian rumour has alleged, not merely that
+she was advised, but that she was actually helped in the writing by her
+admirers.  The rumour is worse than false&mdash;it is silly.  Every
+paragraph of the work bears the unmistakable and inimitable work of one
+individuality.  And among the friends of Marguerite Audoux, even the
+most gifted, there is none who could possibly have composed any of the
+passages which have been singled out as being beyond the accomplishment
+of a working sempstress.  The whole work and every part of the work is
+the unassisted and untutored production of its author.  This statement
+cannot be too clearly and positively made.  Doubtless the spelling was
+drastically corrected by the proof-readers; but to have one's spelling
+drastically corrected is an experience which occurs to nearly all women
+writers, and to a few male writers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The book completed, the question of its proper flotation arose.  I use
+the word "flotation" with intent.  Although Marguerite Audoux had
+originally no thought of publishing, her friends were firmly bent not
+simply on publishing, but on publishing with the maximum of éclat.  A
+great name was necessary to the success of the enterprise, a name
+which, while keeping the sympathy of the artists, would impose itself
+on the crowd.  Francis Jourdain knew Octave Mirbeau.  And Octave
+Mirbeau, by virtue of his feverish artistic and moral enthusiasms, of
+his notorious generosity, and of his enormous vogue, was obviously the
+heaven-appointed man.  Francis Jourdain went to Octave Mirbeau and
+offered him the privilege of floating "Marie Claire" on the literary
+market of Paris.  Octave Mirbeau accepted, and he went to work on the
+business as he goes to work on all his business; that is to say, with
+flames and lightnings.  For some time Octave Mirbeau lived for nothing,
+but "Marie Claire."  The result has been vastly creditable to him.
+"Marie Claire" was finally launched in splendour.  Its path had been
+prepared with really remarkable skill in the Press and in the world,
+and it was an exceedingly brilliant success from the start.  It ran a
+triumphant course as a serial in one of the "great reviews," and within
+a few weeks of its publication as a book thirty thousand copies had
+been sold.  The sale continues more actively than ever.  Marguerite
+Audoux lives precisely as she lived before.  She is writing a further
+instalment of her pseudonymous autobiography, and there is no apparent
+reason why this new instalment should not be even better than the first.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such is the story of the book.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My task is not to criticise the work.  I will only say this.  In my
+opinion it is highly distinguished of its kind (the second part in
+particular is full of marvellous beauty); but it must be accepted for
+what it is.  It makes no sort of pretence to display those constructive
+and inventive artifices which are indispensable to a great masterpiece
+of impersonal fiction.  It is not fiction.  It is the exquisite
+expression of a temperament.  It is a divine accident.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+ARNOLD BENNETT.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+MARIE CLAIRE
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+PART I
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+One day a number of people came to the house.  The men came in as
+though they were going into church, and the women made the sign of the
+cross as they went out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I slipped into my parents' bedroom and was surprised to see that my
+mother had a big lighted candle by her bedside.  My father was leaning
+over the foot of the bed looking at my mother.  She was asleep with her
+hands crossed on her breast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our neighbour, la mère Colas, kept us with her all day.  As the women
+went out again she said to them, "No, she would not kiss her children
+good-bye."  The women blew their noses, looked at us, and la mère Colas
+added, "That sort of illness makes one unkind, I suppose."  A few days
+afterwards we were given new dresses with big black and white checks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+La mère Colas used to give us our meals and send us out to play in the
+fields.  My sister, who was a big girl, scrambled into the hedges,
+climbed the trees, messed about in the ponds, and used to come home at
+night with her pockets full of creatures of all kinds, which frightened
+me and made la mère Colas furiously angry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What I hated most were the earthworms.  The red elastic things made me
+shiver with horror, and if I happened to step on one it made me quite
+ill.  When I had a pain in my side la mère Colas used to forbid my
+sister to go out.  But my sister got tired of remaining indoors and
+wanted to go out and take me with her.  So she used to go and collect
+earthworms, and hold them up close to my face.  Then I said that I
+wasn't in pain any more, and la mère Colas used to send us both out of
+doors.  One day my sister threw a handful of earthworms on to my dress.
+I jumped back so quickly that I fell into a tub of hot water.  La mère
+Colas was very angry while she undressed me.  I was not very much hurt.
+She promised my sister a good slapping, and called to the sweeps, who
+were passing, to come in and take her away.  All three of them came in,
+with their black bags and their ropes.  My sister howled and cried for
+mercy.  I was very much ashamed at being all undressed.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<P>
+My father often took us to a place where there were men who drank wine.
+He used to put me on a table among the glasses, and make me sing.  The
+men would laugh and kiss me, and try and make me drink wine.  It was
+always dark when we went home.  My father took long steps, and rocked
+himself as he walked.  He nearly tumbled down lots of times.  Sometimes
+he would begin to cry and say that his house had been stolen.  Then my
+sister used to scream.  It was always she who used to find the house.
+One morning la mère Colas got angry with us and told us that we were
+children of misfortune, and that she would not feed us any longer.  She
+said we could go and look for our father, who had gone away nobody knew
+where.  When her anger had passed she gave us our breakfasts as usual,
+but a few days afterwards we were put into père Chicon's cart.  The
+cart was full of straw and bags of corn.  I was tucked away behind in a
+little hollow between the sacks.  The cart tipped down at the back, and
+every jolt made me slip on the straw.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was very frightened all the way along.  Every time I slipped I
+thought I was going to fall out of the cart, or that the sacks were
+going to fall on me.  We stopped at an inn.  A woman lifted us down,
+shook the straw on our dresses, and gave us some milk to drink.  I
+heard her say to père Chicon, "You really think their father will take
+care of them, then?"  Père Chicon shook his head, and knocked his pipe
+against the table.  Then he made a funny face and said, "He may be
+anywhere.  Young Girard told me he had met him on the Paris road."
+After a while père Chicon took us to a big house with a lot of steps
+leading up to the door.  He had a long talk with a gentleman who waved
+his arms about and talked about the dignity of labour.  I wondered what
+that was.  The gentleman put his hand on my head and patted it, and I
+heard him say several times, "He did not tell me that he had any
+children."  I understood that he was talking of my father, and I asked
+if I could not see him.  The gentleman looked at me without answering,
+and then asked père Chicon, "How old is she?"  "About five," said père
+Chicon.  All this time my sister was playing up and down the steps with
+a kitten.  We went back into the cart and to mère Colas again.  She was
+cross with us and pushed us about.  A few days afterwards she took us
+to the railway station, and that evening we went to a big house, where
+there were a lot of little girls.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sister Gabrielle separated us at once.  She said that my sister was big
+enough to be with the middle-sized girls, while I was to stay with the
+little ones.  Sister Gabrielle was quite small, quite old, quite thin,
+and all bent up.  She managed the dormitory and the refectory.  She
+used to make the salad in a huge yellow jar.  She tucked her sleeves up
+to her shoulders, and dipped her arms in and out of the salad.  Her
+arms were dark and knotted, and when they came out of the jar, all
+shining and dripping, they made me think of dead branches on rainy days.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<P>
+I made a chum at once.  She came dancing up to me and looked impudent,
+I thought.  She did not stand any higher than the bench on which I was
+sitting.  She put her elbows on my knees and said: "Why aren't you
+playing about?"  I told her that I had a pain in my side.  "Oh, of
+course," she said, "your mother had consumption, and Sister Gabrielle
+said you would soon die."  She climbed up on to the bench, and sat
+down, hiding her little legs underneath her.  Then she asked me my name
+and my age, and told me that her name was Ismérie, that she was older
+than I was, and that the doctor said she would never get any bigger.
+She told me also that the class mistress was called Sister Marie-Aimée,
+that she was very unkind, and punished you severely if you talked too
+much.  Then all of a sudden she jumped down and shouted "Augustine."
+Her voice was like a boy's voice, and her legs were a little twisted.
+At the end of recreation I saw her on Augustine's back.  Augustine was
+rolling her from one shoulder to the other, as if she meant to throw
+her down.  When she passed me Ismérie said in that big voice of hers,
+"You will carry me too sometimes, won't you?"  I soon became friends
+with Augustine.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<P>
+My eyes were not well.  At night my eyelids used to close up tight, and
+I was quite blind until I had them washed.  Augustine was told off to
+take me to the infirmary.  She used to come and fetch me from the
+dormitory every morning.  I could hear her coming before she got to the
+door.  She caught hold of my hand and pulled me along, and she didn't
+mind a bit when I bumped against the beds.  We flew down the passages
+like the wind and rushed down two flights of stairs like an avalanche.
+My feet only touched a step now and again.  I used to go down those
+stairs as if I was falling down a well.  Augustine had strong hands and
+held me tight.  To go to the infirmary we had to pass behind the chapel
+and then in front of a little white house.  There we hurried more than
+ever.  One day when I fell on to my knees she pulled me up again and
+smacked my head saying, "Do be quick, we are in front of the dead
+house."  After that she was always afraid of my falling again, and used
+to tell me when we got in front of the dead house.  I was frightened
+chiefly because Augustine was frightened.  If she rushed along like
+that there must be danger.  I was always out of breath when I got to
+the infirmary.  Somebody pushed me on to a little chair, and the pain
+in my side had been gone a long time when they came and washed my eyes.
+It was Augustine who took me into Sister Marie-Aimée's classroom.  She
+put on a timid kind of voice, and said, "Sister, here is a new girl."
+I expected to be scolded; but Sister Marie-Aimée smiled, kissed me
+several times, and said, "You are too small to sit on a bench, I shall
+put you in here."  And she sat me down on a stool in the hollow of her
+desk.  It was ever so comfortable in the hollow of her desk, and the
+warmth of her woollen petticoat soothed my body, which was bruised all
+over by tumbling about on the wooden staircases, and on the stone ones.
+Often two feet hemmed me in on each side of my stool, and two warm legs
+made a back for me.  A soft hand pressed my head on to the woollen
+skirt between the knees, and the softness of the hand and the warmth of
+the pillow used to send me to sleep.  When I woke up again the pillow
+became a table.  The same hand put bits of cake on it, and bits of
+sugar and sweets sometimes.  And all round me I heard the world living.
+A voice with tears in it would say, "No, Sister, I didn't do it."  Then
+shrill voices would say, "Yes, she did, Sister."  Above my head a full
+warm voice called for silence.  And then there would be the rap of a
+ruler on the desk.  It would make an enormous noise down in my hollow.
+Sometimes the feet would be drawn away from my little stool, the knees
+would be drawn together, the chair would move, and down to my nest came
+a white veil, a narrow chin, and smiling lips with little white pointed
+teeth behind them.  And last of all I saw two soft eyes which seemed to
+cuddle me and make me feel comfortable.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<P>
+When my eyes got better I used to get an alphabet as well as sweets and
+cakes.  It was a little book with pictures next to the words.  I often
+used to look at a great big strawberry which I fancied as big as a bun.
+When it was not cold in the classroom, Sister Marie-Aimée put me on a
+bench between Ismérie and Marie Renaud, who slept in the two beds next
+to mine in the dormitory.  Now and then she used to let me go back to
+my hollow again, and I loved that.  I used to find books there with
+pictures, which made me forget all about the time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One morning Ismérie took me into a corner, and told me with great
+secrecy that Sister Marie-Aimée was not going to take the class any
+more.  She was going to take Sister Gabrielle's place in the dormitory
+and the refectory.  She did not tell me who had told her this, but she
+said it was an awful shame.  She was very fond of Sister Gabrielle, who
+used to treat her like a little child.  She did not like "that Sister
+Marie-Aimée," as she used to call her when she knew that nobody heard
+her but ourselves.  She said that Sister Marie-Aimée would not let her
+climb on to our backs, and that we should not be able to make fun of
+her as we used to of Sister Gabrielle, who always went upstairs
+sideways.  In the evening after prayers Sister Gabrielle told us that
+she was going.  She kissed us all, beginning with the smallest of us.
+We went up to the dormitory making a dreadful noise.  The big girls
+whispered together and said they would not put up with Sister
+Marie-Aimée.  The little ones snivelled as though they were going into
+danger.  Ismérie, whom I was carrying upstairs on my back, was crying
+noisily.  Her little fingers hurt my throat, and her tears fell down my
+neck.  Nobody thought of laughing at Sister Gabrielle, who went
+upstairs slowly, saying "Hush, hush," all the time, without making the
+noise any less.  The servant in the little dormitory was crying too.
+She shook me a little while she was undressing me and said, "I'm sure
+you are pleased at having that Sister Marie-Aimée of yours."  We used
+to call the servant Bonne Esther.  I liked her best of the three
+servants.  She was rather rough sometimes, but she was fond of us.
+When I coughed she used to get up and put a piece of sugar in my mouth.
+And often she took me out of my bed when I was cold and warmed me in
+her own.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<P>
+Next morning we went down to the refectory in dead silence.  The
+servants told us to remain standing.  Several of the big girls stood
+very straight and looked proud.  Bonne Justine stood at one end of the
+table.  She looked sad and bent her head.  Bonne Néron, who looked like
+a gendarme, walked up and down in the middle of the refectory.  Now and
+then she looked at the clock, and shrugged her shoulders.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée came in, leaving the door open behind her.  She seemed to
+me to be taller than usual, in her white apron and white cuffs.  She
+walked slowly, looking at us all.  The rosary, which hung at her side,
+made a little clickety sound, and her skirt swung a little as she
+walked.  She went up the three steps to her desk, and made a sign to us
+to sit down.  In the afternoon she took us out for a walk in the
+country.  It was very hot.  I went and sat down near her on a little
+hillock.  She was reading a book, and every now and then looked at the
+little girls who were playing in a field below us.  She looked at the
+sun which was setting, and kept on saying "How lovely it is, how lovely
+it is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening the birch which Sister Gabrielle kept in the dormitory was
+put away in a cupboard, and in the refectory the salad was turned with
+two long wooden spoons.  These were the only changes.  We went into
+class from nine o'clock till twelve, and in the afternoon we cracked
+nuts, which were sold to an oil merchant.  The bigger girls used to
+crack them with a hammer, and the little ones took them out of the
+shells.  We were forbidden to eat them, and it was not easy, anyhow.
+One of the girls would always sneak if we did, because she was greedy
+too, and jealous.  Bonne Esther used to peep into our mouths.
+Sometimes she caught a very greedy girl.  Then she used to roll her
+eyes at her, give her a little smack, and say, "I've got my eye on
+you."  Some of us she trusted.  She would make us turn round and open
+our mouths and pretend to look at them, and then she said, "Shut your
+beaks, birdies," and laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I often wanted to eat the nuts.  But I would look at Bonne Esther and
+blush at the idea of cheating her, because she trusted me.  But after a
+time I wanted to eat nuts so badly that I could not think of anything
+else.  Every day I tried to think of some way of eating them without
+being caught.  I tried to slip some into my sleeves, but I was so
+awkward that I always dropped them.  Besides, I wanted to eat a lot of
+them, a great big lot.  I thought I should like to eat a sackful.  One
+day I managed to steal some.  Bonne Esther, who was taking us up to
+bed, slipped on a nutshell and dropped her lantern, which went out.  I
+was close to a big bowl of nuts, and I took a handful and put them in
+my pocket.  As soon as everybody was in bed I took the nuts out of my
+pocket, put my head under the sheets and crammed them into my mouth.
+But it seemed to me at once as though everybody in the dormitory must
+hear the noise that my jaws were making.  I did all I could to munch
+slowly and quietly, but the noise thumped in my ears like the blows of
+a mallet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Bonne Esther got up, lit the lamp, stooped down and looked under the
+beds.  When she came to mine I looked out at her trembling.  She
+whispered,  "Aren't you asleep yet?" and went on looking.  She went
+down to the end of the dormitory, opened the door, and closed it again;
+but she was hardly back in bed with the light out before the latch of
+the door made a little sound as though somebody were opening it.  Bonne
+Esther lit her lamp again and said, "Whatever is it?  It cannot be the
+cat opening the door by itself."  It seemed to me that she was afraid.
+I heard her moving about in her bed, and all of a sudden she called
+out, "Oh dear, oh dear."  Ismérie asked her what the matter was.  She
+said that a hand had opened the door, and she had felt a breath on her
+face.  In the twi-darkness we saw the door half open.  I was very
+frightened.  I thought it was the devil who had come to fetch me.  We
+waited a long, long time, but we heard nothing more.  Bonne Esther
+asked if one of us would get up and put the light out, although it was
+not very far from her own bed.  Nobody answered.  Then she called me.
+I got up and she said, "You are such a good little girl that ghosts
+won't do any harm to you."  She put her head under the bedclothes, and
+I blew the lamp out.  And directly it was put out I saw thousands of
+shining specks of light, and felt something cold on my cheeks.  I was
+sure that there were green dragons, with mouths aflame, under the beds.
+I could feel their claws on my feet, and lights were jumping about on
+each side of my head.  I wanted to sit down, and when I got to my bed I
+was quite sure that my two feet had gone.  When I dared, I stooped down
+and felt for them.  They were very cold.  I went to sleep at last
+holding them in my two hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the morning Bonne Esther found the cat on a bed near the door.  She
+had had kittens during the night.  When Sister Marie-Aimée was told
+about it, she said that the cat had certainly opened the door by
+jumping at the latch.  But we never felt sure about that, and the
+little girls used to talk about it in low voices for a long time.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<P>
+Next week all the girls who were eight years old went down to the big
+dormitory.  I had a bed near the window, quite close to Sister
+Marie-Aimée's room.  Marie Renaud and Ismérie again had their beds on
+each side of me.  When we were in bed Sister Marie-Aimée often used to
+come and sit by me.  She would take one of my hands and pat it, and
+look out of the window.  One night there was a big fire in the
+neighbourhood, and the whole dormitory was lit up.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+opened the window wide, shook me, and said, "Wake up, come and see the
+fire."  She took me in her arms, passed her hands over my face to wake
+me, and said again, "Come and see the fire; see how beautiful it is."
+I was so sleepy that my head fell on her shoulder.  Then she boxed my
+ears, and called me a little silly, and I woke up and began to cry.
+She took me in her arms again, sat down, and rocked me, holding me
+close to her.  She bent her head forward towards the window.  Her face
+looked transparent, and her eyes were full of light.  Ismérie hated
+Sister Marie-Aimée to come to the window.  It prevented her from
+talking, and she always had something to say.  Her voice was so loud
+that one heard it at the other end of the dormitory.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée used to say, "There's Ismérie talking again;" and Ismérie
+used to answer, "There's Sister Marie-Aimée scolding again."  Her
+daring frightened me, but Sister Marie-Aimée used to pretend not to
+hear her.  But one day she said, "I forbid you to answer me, little
+dwarf."  Ismérie answered, "No-sums."  This was a word which we had
+made up ourselves.  It meant, "Look at my nose and see if I care."
+Sister Marie-Aimée reached for a cane.  I was dreadfully afraid she was
+going to whip Ismérie.  But Ismérie threw herself down flat on her
+stomach and wriggled about and made funny noises.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+pushed her away with her foot, threw the cane away, and said, "Oh, you
+horrible little thing!"  Afterwards I noticed that she used to avoid
+looking at her, and never seemed to hear the rude things she said.  But
+she forbade us to carry her about on our backs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That never prevented Ismérie from climbing on to mine like a monkey.  I
+hadn't the courage to push her away, and I used to stoop down a little
+to let her get well up.  She always wanted to ride when we went up to
+the dormitory.  It was very hard for her to get up the stairs.  She
+used to laugh about it herself, saying that she hopped up like an old
+hen going to roost.  As Sister Marie-Aimée always went upstairs first,
+I used to wait and go up among the last girls.  But sometimes Sister
+Marie-Aimée would turn round suddenly.  Then Ismérie slipped down my
+body to the ground with wonderful quickness and skill.  I always felt a
+little bit awkward when I caught Sister Marie-Aimée's eye, and Ismérie
+always said, "See what a fool you are.  You were caught again."  Marie
+Renaud would never let her climb up on to her back.  She used to say
+that she wore her dress out and made it dirty.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<P>
+Esmérie was a little chatterbox, but Marie Renaud hardly ever talked at
+all.  Every morning she used to help me to make my bed.  She would pass
+her hands over the sheets to smooth them out, and always refused my
+help in making her bed, because she said I rolled the sheets all kinds
+of ways.  I never could understand why her bed was so smooth when she
+got up.  One day she told me that she pinned her sheets and her
+blankets to the mattress.  She had all kinds of little hiding-places
+full of all kinds of things.  At table she always used to eat some of
+yesterday's dessert.  The dessert of the day went into her pocket.  She
+used to finger it there, and would munch a little bit of it from time
+to time.  I often found her sitting in corners making lace with a pin.
+Her great pleasure was brushing, folding, and putting things in order.
+That was why my shoes were always well brushed and my Sunday dress
+carefully folded.  But one day a new servant came, whose name was
+Madeleine.  She soon found out that I did not take care of my own
+things.  She got excited, and said I was a great big lazy girl, and
+that I made other people wait on me as though I were a countess.  She
+said it was a shame to make poor little Marie Renaud work.  Bonne Néron
+agreed with her, and said I was puffed up with pride, that I thought I
+was better than anybody else, that I never did anything like other
+girls.  They both said, together, that they had never seen a girl like
+me, and both of them leaned over me and shouted at me together.  They
+made me think of two noisy fairies, a black one and a white one.
+Madeleine was fresh and fair, with full, open lips, and teeth which
+were wide apart.  Her tongue was broad and thick, and moved about into
+the corners of her mouth when she talked.  Bonne Néron raised her hand
+to me, and said, "Drop your eyes this minute!"  As they went away, I
+heard her say to Madeleine: "She makes you ashamed of yourself when she
+looks at you like that."  I had known for a long time that Bonne Néron
+looked like a bull, but I could not find out what animal Madeleine was
+like.  I thought it over for several days, thinking of all the animals
+I knew, and at last I gave it up.  She was fat, and her hips swayed
+when she walked.  She had a piercing voice, which surprised everybody.
+She asked leave to sing in church, but as she did not know the hymns.
+Sister Marie-Aimée told me to teach her.  After that Marie Renaud was
+allowed to brush and smooth out my things without anybody taking any
+notice of it.  She was so pleased that she gave me a safety-pin as a
+present, so as to fasten up my handkerchief, which I was always losing.
+Two days later I lost both the safety-pin and the handkerchief.  Oh,
+that handkerchief!  It was a perfect nightmare!  I used to lose one
+regularly every week.  Sister Marie-Aimée gave us a clean
+pocket-handkerchief in return for the dirty one which we had to throw
+down on to the ground in front of her.  I never thought of mine till
+the last moment.  And then I turned out all my pockets, I ran about
+like a mad thing into the dormitory, up and down the passages, and up
+to the garret hunting for it everywhere.  Oh dear, oh dear! if I could
+only find a handkerchief somewhere!  As I passed in front of the
+picture of the Virgin, I would put my hands together and pray
+fervently, "Admirable Mother, make me find a handkerchief."  But I
+never did find one, and I went downstairs again red in the face, out of
+breath, feeling dreadfully unhappy, and not daring to take the clean
+handkerchief which Sister Marie-Aimée handed to me.  Before she spoke,
+I could hear the scolding which I knew I deserved.  And even when
+Sister Marie-Aimée said nothing at all, I could see her frown, and her
+eyes looked crossly at me and followed me about.  I felt crushed with
+shame, so crushed that I could scarcely lift my feet.  I tried to hide
+in the corners as I walked; and, in spite of it all, next time I had
+lost my handkerchief again.  Madeleine used to look at me with sham
+compassion.  But she could not always prevent herself from telling me
+that I deserved to be punished severely.  She seemed very fond of
+Sister Marie-Aimée.  She waited on her always, and she would burst into
+tears at her slightest word.  Then Sister Marie-Aimée had to soothe her
+by patting her cheeks, and she would laugh and cry at the same time,
+and move her shoulders about, showing her white neck.  Bonne Néron used
+to say that she looked like a cat.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+
+<P>
+Bonne Néron left one day after a scene in the middle of luncheon.  It
+happened during a dead silence.  All of a sudden she shouted out, "Yes;
+I want to go, and I am going!"  Sister Marie-Aimée looked at her in
+astonishment, and Bonne Néron faced her, putting her head down, shaking
+it, butting at her almost, and shouting all the time that she would not
+be ordered about by a bit of a baby.  She walked backwards as she
+shouted, got to the door, and pulled it open.  Before she went out of
+the room she threw one of her long arms out at Sister Marie-Aimée, and
+shrieked, "She isn't even twenty-five!"  Some of the little girls were
+frightened, others burst out laughing.  Madeleine got quite hysterical.
+She threw herself on to the floor at Sister Marie-Aimée's knees,
+kissing her dress, and winding her arms round her legs.  She got hold
+of her two hands and mumbled over them with her big, moist mouth,
+screaming all the time as though some terrible catastrophe had
+happened.  Sister Marie-Aimée could not shake her off.  At last she got
+angry.  Then Madeleine fainted, and fell on her back.  As she was
+undoing her Sister Marie-Aimée made a sign towards the part of the room
+where I was.  I thought she wanted me, and ran to her; but she sent me
+back again, "No; not you.  Marie Renaud," she said.  She gave her keys
+to Marie, and, although she had never been in Sister Marie-Aimée's
+room, she found the bottle of salts which Sister Marie-Aimée wanted
+without any loss of time.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+
+<P>
+Madeleine soon got better, and took Bonne Néron's place.  She got more
+authority over us.  She was still timid and submissive to Sister
+Marie-Aimée, but she made up for that by shouting at us, for any reason
+and no reason, that she was "there to look after us," and was "not our
+servant."  The day she fainted I had seen her neck.  I had never dreamt
+of anything so beautiful.  But she was a stupid girl, and I never
+minded what she said to me.  That used to make her very angry.  She
+used to say all kinds of rude things to me, and always finished up by
+calling me "Miss Princess."  She could not forgive me for Sister
+Marie-Aimée's affection for me, and whenever she saw the Sister kissing
+me she got quite red with anger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I began to grow, and my health was pretty good.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+said that she was proud of me.  She used to squeeze me so tight when
+she kissed me that she sometimes hurt me.  Then she would say, putting
+her fingers on my forehead, "My little girl; my little child."  During
+recreation I often used to sit near her, and listen to her reading.
+She read in a deep voice, and when the people in the book displeased
+her more than usual, she used to shut it up angrily, and come and play
+games with us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She wanted me to be quite faultless.  She would say: "I want you to be
+perfect.  Do you hear, child?  Perfect."  One day she thought I had
+told a lie.  There were three cows which used to graze on some land in
+the middle of which was a great big chestnut tree.  The white cow was
+wicked, and we were afraid of it, because it had knocked a little girl
+down once.  That day I saw the two red cows, and just under the
+chestnut tree I saw a big black cow.  I said to Ismérie:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look; the white cow has been sent away because she was wicked, I
+expect."  Ismérie, who was cross that day, screamed, and said that I
+was always laughing at the others, and trying to make them believe
+things which were not true.  I showed her the cow.  She said it was a
+white one.  I said, "No, it is a black one."  Sister Marie-Aimée heard
+us.  She was very angry, and said, "How dare you say that the cow is
+black?"  Then the cow moved.  She looked black and white now, and I
+understood that I had made a mistake because of the shadow of the
+chestnut tree.  I was so surprised that I could not find anything to
+say.  I did not know how to explain it.  Sister Marie-Aimée shook me.
+"Why did you tell a lie?" she said.  I answered that I did not know.
+She sent me into a corner in the shed, and told me that I should have
+nothing but bread and water that day.  As I had not told a lie, the
+punishment did not worry me.  The shed had a lot of old cupboards in
+it, and some garden tools.  I climbed from one thing on to the other,
+and got right up and sat on the top of the highest cupboard.  I was ten
+years old, and it was the first time that I had ever been alone.  I
+felt pleased at this.  I sat there, swinging my legs, and began to
+imagine a whole invisible world.  The old cupboard with rusty locks
+became the entrance gate to a magnificent palace.  I was a little girl
+who had been left on the top of a mountain.  A beautiful lady dressed
+like a fairy had seen me up there, and came to fetch me.  Three or four
+lovely ducks ran in front of her.  They had just come up to me when I
+saw Sister Marie-Aimée standing in front of the cupboard with the rusty
+locks and looking about for me everywhere.  I did not know that I was
+sitting on the cupboard.  I still believed myself to be on the top of
+the mountain, and I felt cross because Sister Marie-Aimée's arrival had
+made the palace and the lovely lady disappear.  She saw my legs
+swinging, and just as she saw me I remembered that I was sitting on the
+cupboard.  She stood there for a moment looking up at me.  Then she
+took a piece of bread, a piece of sausage, and a little bottle of wine
+out of the pocket of her dress, showed me one thing after the other,
+and in an angry voice said, "This <I>was</I> for you.  There!"  And she put
+it all back into her pocket and went away.  A moment afterwards
+Madeleine brought me some bread and water, and I remained in the shed
+till evening.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+
+<P>
+Sister Marie-Aimée had been growing sadder and sadder for some time.
+She never played with us any more, and she even used to forget our
+dinner time.  Madeleine would send me to the chapel to fetch her, and I
+would find her there on her knees with her face hidden in her hands.  I
+had to pull at her dress before she took any notice of me.  Often I
+thought that she had been crying, but I never dared to look at her
+closely for fear she would get angry.  She seemed lost in thought, and
+when we spoke to her, she answered "Yes" or "No" quite sharply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But she took a great interest in the little feast which we had at
+Easter every year.  She had the cakes brought in, and we put them on a
+table and covered them with a white cloth, so that the greedy girls
+should not see them all at the same time.  On feast days we were
+allowed to talk as much as we liked at table, and we made a tremendous
+noise.  Sister Marie-Aimée waited on us with a smile and a word for
+each of us.  That day she was going to serve the cakes, and Madeleine,
+who was helping her, was taking off the cloth which covered them.  Then
+a cat, which had been under the cloth, jumped down and ran away.
+Sister Marie-Aimée and Madeleine both said "Oh," and Madeleine said,
+"The dirty beast has been nibbling all the cakes."  Sister Marie-Aimée
+did not like the cat.  She stood perfectly still for a minute, then ran
+to the corner, took a stick and ran after it.  It was horrible.  The
+cat was frightened out of its wits, and jumped this way and that out of
+the way of the stick with which Sister Marie-Aimée kept hitting the
+benches and the walls.  All the little girls were frightened, and ran
+towards the door.  Sister Marie-Aimée stopped them.  "Nobody is to go
+out," she said.  I hardly knew her.  Her lips were pressed together,
+her cheeks were as white as her cap, and her eyes, which seemed to
+flame, frightened me so that I hid my face in the hollow of my arm.  I
+did not want to do so, but I soon looked up again.  The cat hunt was
+still going on.  Sister Marie-Aimée, with her stick in the air, ran
+after the cat without saying a word.  Her lips were open, and I could
+see her little pointed teeth.  She ran about, jumping over the benches,
+and climbed up on to the table, lifting her petticoats as she did so.
+When she was going to hit the cat it jumped and ran up a curtain right
+on to the top of the window.  Madeleine, who had been following Sister
+Marie-Aimée about, wanted to go and fetch a longer stick, but Sister
+Marie-Aimée stopped her, and said, "It is lucky to have got away."
+Bonne Justine, who was standing near me, hid her eyes and murmured,
+"Oh, it is shameful, shameful!" and I thought it was shameful, too.  I
+felt as though Sister Marie-Aimée had grown smaller.  I had always
+thought her quite faultless.  I compared this scene with another one,
+which had happened one day when there was a big storm.  That day Sister
+Marie-Aimée had been wonderful.  While she was chasing the cat I could
+see her, that other day, as she stood on a bench, and closed the
+windows quietly, lifting her lovely arms.  Her wide sleeves fell down
+on her shoulders, and while we shivered and shook in terror at the
+lightning and the whistling wind she said quietly, "It is quite a
+storm."  Sister Marie-Aimée made the little girls stand on the other
+side of the room.  She opened the door wide, and the cat rushed out.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+
+<P>
+One afternoon I was surprised to see that it was not our old priest who
+was saying vespers.  This one was a tall, fine man.  He sang with a
+strong, jerky voice.  We talked about him all the evening.  Madeleine
+said he was a handsome man, and Sister Marie-Aimée thought, she said,
+that he had a young voice, but that he pronounced his words like an old
+man, and that he was distinguished looking.  When he came to pay us a
+visit two or three days afterwards, I saw that he had white hair in
+little curls round his neck, and that his eyes and his eyebrows were
+very black.  He asked for those of us who were preparing their
+catechism, and wanted to know everybody's name.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+answered for me.  She put her hand on my head and said, "This is our
+Marie Claire."  When Ismérie came up in her turn he looked at her in
+surprise, and made her turn round and walk for him to see.  He said
+that she was no bigger than a child of three, and when he asked Sister
+Marie-Aimée if she was intelligent, Ismérie turned round sharply and
+said that she was not as stupid as the rest of us.  He burst out
+laughing, and I saw that his teeth were very white.  When he spoke he
+jerked himself forward as though he wanted to catch his words again.
+They seemed to drop out of his mouth in spite of himself.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée took him as far as the gate of the courtyard.  She never
+used to take any visitors further than the door of the room.  She came
+back, climbed up to her desk again, and after a moment she said,
+without looking at anybody, "He really is a very distinguished man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our new priest lived in a little house near the chapel.  In the evening
+he used to walk in the avenue of linden trees.  He often passed close
+to the playground where we were playing, and he always used to bow very
+low to Sister Marie-Aimée.  Every Thursday afternoon he came to see us.
+He sat down, leaning against the back of his chair, and crossing his
+legs, he told us stories.  He was very pleasant, and Sister Marie-Aimée
+used to say that he laughed as though he enjoyed it.  Sometimes Sister
+Marie-Aimée was ill.  Then he used to go up and see her in her room.
+We would see Madeleine passing with a teapot and two cups.  She was red
+in the face and very busy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the summer was over, M. le Curé came to see us after dinner and
+spent the evenings with us.  When nine o'clock struck he used to go,
+and Sister Marie-Aimée always went with him down the passage to the big
+front door.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+
+<P>
+He had been with us for a year, and I could never get used to making
+confession to him.  He often used to look at me and laugh in a way that
+made me think that he remembered my faults.  We went to confession on
+fixed days.  Each one of us took her turn.  When there were only one or
+two to go in before me I began to tremble.  My heart beat dreadfully
+fast, and I got cramp in my stomach, which prevented me from breathing
+properly.  When my turn came I got up and felt my legs trembling under
+me.  My head buzzed, and my cheeks turned cold.  I fell on my knees in
+the confessional and M. le Curé's voice, which sounded as though it
+came from a long way off, gave me confidence.  But he always had to
+help me to remember my faults.  If he hadn't, I should have forgotten
+half of them.  At the end of confession he always asked me what my name
+was.  I longed to tell him another name, but while I was wondering if I
+dare, my own name used to slip out of my mouth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was getting near the time for our Communion.  It was to be in May,
+and preparations for it were beginning.  Sister Marie-Aimée composed
+some new hymns.  She had made one, which was a sort of thanksgiving for
+M. le Curé.  A fortnight before the ceremony they separated us from the
+others.  We had prayed all day long.  Madeleine was supposed to see
+that we were not disturbed at prayer, but she often used to disturb us
+herself by quarrelling with one of us.  My fellow communicant was
+called Sophie.  She was a quiet little girl, and we always kept out of
+the quarrels.  We used to talk over serious matters.  I often told her
+how much I hated confession, and how frightened I was that I should
+pass through my communion badly.  She was very good, and she did not
+understand what I had to be afraid of.  She thought that I was not
+pious enough, and she had noticed that I used to go to sleep during
+prayers.  She confessed to me that she was very frightened of death.
+She used to talk about it in a low voice, and looked very frightened.
+Her eyes were green, and her hair was so lovely that Sister Marie-Aimée
+would never have it cut short like that of the other girls.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last the great day came.  My general confession had passed off all
+right.  It gave me the same feeling that a bath does.  I felt very
+clean after it, but I trembled so when I was given the holy wafer that
+a bit of it stuck in my teeth.  A sort of dizziness came over me, and I
+felt as though a big black curtain had dropped in front of my eyes, I
+thought I heard Sister Marie-Aimée's voice asking "Are you ill," and I
+seemed to know that she went with me as far as my fald-stool, and that
+she put my taper into my hand and said, "Hold it tight."  My throat had
+grown so tight that I could not swallow, and I felt a liquid dropping
+from my mouth into my throat.  Then I was wildly frightened, for
+Madeleine had warned us that if we bit the holy wafer the blood of
+Christ would stream from our mouths, and that nobody would be able to
+stop it.  Sister Marie-Aimée wiped my face and whispered quite low,
+"Take care, dear.  Are you ill?"  My throat loosened, and I swallowed
+the wafer.  Then at last I dared to look down to see the blood on my
+dress, but I saw only a little grey spot like a drop of water.  I put
+my handkerchief to my lips and wiped my face.  There was no blood on
+it.  I did not feel quite sure yet, but when we got up to sing I tried
+to sing with the others.  When M. le Curé came to see us later in the
+day Sister Marie-Aimée told him that I had almost fainted at Communion.
+He took my chin in his hand and tipped my face up towards him.  Then,
+after looking into my eyes, he began to laugh, and said that I was a
+very sensitive little girl.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+
+<P>
+After our first communion we did not attend class any more.  Bonne
+Justine taught us to sew.  We made caps for peasant women.  It was not
+very difficult, and as it was something new I worked hard.  Bonne
+Justine said that I should make a very good needle-woman.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée used to kiss me and say, "So you would, if you could only
+get over your laziness."  But when I had made a few caps and had to go
+on doing the same thing over and over again, my laziness got the better
+of me.  The work bored me, and I could not make up my mind to do it.  I
+could have remained for hours and hours without moving, watching the
+others work.  Marie Renaud never spoke to us while she was sewing.  Her
+stitches were so small and so close together that one needed good eyes
+to see them.  Ismérie sang all the time she sewed, and nobody ever
+scolded her.  Some of the girls sewed with bent backs and a frown on
+their foreheads.  Their  fingers  were moist, and their needles
+squeaked.  Others sewed slowly and carefully, without getting tired or
+bored, counting their stitches under their breath.  That is the way I
+should have liked to sew.  I used to scold myself for not doing so, and
+then I used to imitate them for a few minutes.  But the least sound
+disturbed me, and I would stop and listen, or look at what was going on
+all round me.  Madeleine said that my nose was always in the air.  I
+spent most of my time imagining needles which would sew all by
+themselves.  For a long time I hoped that an old woman, whom nobody
+would see but I, would come out of the big fireplace and sew my cap for
+me very quickly.  At last I took no notice of Sister Marie-Aimée's
+scolding, and she didn't know what to do to make me work.  One day she
+decided that I was to read aloud twice a day.  It was a great joy for
+me.  The time to begin reading never seemed to come quickly enough, and
+I was always sorry when I closed the book.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+
+<P>
+When I had finished reading Sister Marie-Aimée used to make Colette the
+cripple sing to us.  She always sang the same songs, but her voice was
+so lovely that we never got tired of listening to it.  She sang quite
+simply, without stopping her work, and she kept time with her needle as
+she sang.  Bonne Justine, who knew all about everybody, told us that
+Colette had been brought in with both legs broken, when she was quite a
+tiny child.  She was twenty now.  She walked with great difficulty,
+helping herself with two sticks, and she would never use crutches
+because she was afraid of looking like an old woman.  During recreation
+I always used to see her alone on a bench.  She kept on throwing
+herself back and stretching.  Her dark eyes had such big pupils that
+one hardly saw the whites at all.  I felt drawn towards her.  I should
+have liked to have been her friend.  She seemed very proud, and
+whenever I did any little thing for her she had a way of saying, "Thank
+you, little one," which made me remember that I was only twelve years
+old.  Madeleine told me, mysteriously, that we were not allowed to talk
+to Colette alone, and when I wanted to know why, she reeled out a long
+complicated story which told me nothing at all.  I asked Bonne Justine,
+who used a lot of words which I didn't understand, but told me that a
+little girl like me must not be alone with Colette.  I could never
+understand why.  I noticed that every time one of the big girls gave
+her her arm to help her to walk about a little, three or four other
+girls always came up and talked and laughed with them.  I thought that
+she had no friends.  A feeling of great pity drew me to her, and one
+day when she was all alone I asked her to take my arm for a little
+walk.  I was standing in front of her timidly, but I knew that she
+would not refuse.  She looked at me and said, "You know it is not
+allowed."  I nodded "Yes."  She looked at me again.  "Aren't you afraid
+of being punished?" she said.  I shook my head to say "No."  I wanted
+to cry and it made my throat feel tight.  I helped her to get up.  She
+leaned on her stick with one hand and put all her weight on my
+shoulder.  I could see how difficult it was for her to walk.  She did
+not say a word to me while we were walking, and when I had taken her
+back to her bench she looked at me and said, "Thank you, Marie Claire."
+When she saw me with Colette, Bonne Justine raised her arms to heaven
+and made the sign of the cross.  At the other end of the playground
+Madeleine shook her fist at me and shouted.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+
+<P>
+When evening came I saw that Sister Marie-Aimée knew what I had done,
+but she never said a word about it.  At recreation next day she drew me
+towards her, took my head in her two hands and bent towards me.  She
+didn't say anything to me, but her eyes plunged right into my face.  I
+felt as though I were wrapped up in her eyes.  I felt as though a soft
+warmth was all round me, and I felt comfortable.  She gave me a long
+kiss on the forehead, then smiled at me and said, "There.  You are my
+beautiful white lily."  I thought her so beautiful, and her eyes shone
+so with several colours in them, that I said to her, "And you, too,
+mother; you are a lovely flower."  She said in an off-hand way, "Yes;
+but I don't count among the lilies now."  Then she said almost roughly,
+"Don't you love Ismérie any more?"  "Yes, mother."  "Really.  Then what
+about Colette?"  "I love Colette too."  "Oh, you love everybody!" she
+said.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+
+<P>
+I used to give Colette my arm nearly every day.  She never talked to me
+much, and then only about the other girls.  When I sat down next to her
+she used to look at me queerly.  She said she thought I was a queer
+little thing.  One day she asked me if I thought her pretty.  Directly
+she said it, I remembered that Sister Marie-Aimée said that she was as
+black as a mole.  I saw, however, that she had a broad forehead, fine
+big eyes, and the rest of her face was small and refined.  Whenever I
+looked at her, I didn't quite know why, but I thought of a well, deep
+and dark, and full of hot water.  No, I didn't think her pretty, but I
+wouldn't tell her so because she was a cripple.  I said she would be
+much prettier if her skin were whiter.  Little by little I became her
+friend.  She told me that she hoped to go away and get married like
+Nina had done.  Nina used to come and see us on Sundays with her child.
+Colette took hold of my arm and said, "You see, I must get married.  I
+must."  Then she stretched herself, bending her whole body forward.
+Sometimes she used to cry, and was in such deep trouble that I could
+not find anything to say to her.  She would look at her poor twisted
+legs, and groan out, "There would have to be a miracle for me to get
+away from here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All of a sudden I got the idea that the Virgin could bring this miracle
+about.  Colette thought it a splendid idea.  She was quite surprised
+that she had never thought of it.  It was only fair that she should
+have legs like the others.  She wanted to see about it at once.  She
+explained to me that several girls would be necessary for the nine
+days' prayer, and said that we must go and purify ourselves at
+communion, and that during nine days we would pray all the time, so as
+to get help from Our Lady in heaven.  This had to be done in the
+greatest secrecy.  It was arranged that Sophie should be one of us
+because she was so very good, and Colette said she would talk to some
+of the big girls who were good, too.  Two days afterwards it was all
+arranged.  Colette was to fast during the nine days.  On the tenth day,
+which would be a Sunday, she would go to communion as usual, leaning on
+her stick and the arm of one of us.  Then, when she had taken the holy
+wafer, she would make a vow to bring up her children in the love of the
+Virgin, and after that she would rise up straight and would sing the
+"Te Deum" in her beautiful voice, and we would all sing it with her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For nine days I prayed more fervently than I had ever prayed before.
+The ordinary prayers seemed insipid.  I recited the Virgin's Litany.  I
+hunted up the most beautiful hymns of praise that I could find, and
+repeated them without getting tired.  "Star of the Morning, make
+Colette whole."  The first time, I remained on my knees for so long
+that Sister Marie-Aimée scolded me.  Nobody noticed the little signs
+which we made to one another, and the nine days of prayer passed off
+without any one knowing anything about them.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap18"></A>
+
+<P>
+Colette was very pale when she came to mass.  Her cheeks were thinner
+than ever, and she stood with her eyes cast down.  Her eyelids were
+deep violet.  I thought to myself that the end of her martyrdom had
+come, and I was filled with a deep joy.  Quite close to me, the picture
+of the Virgin in a flowing white robe smiled as it looked at me, and in
+an outburst of all my faith my thoughts cried out, "Oh, Mirror of
+Justice, make Colette whole!"  My temples were stretched tightly.  I
+was straining every nerve to keep my thoughts from wandering, and I
+went on saying, "Oh, Mirror of Justice, make Colette whole!"  Colette
+went up to the communion table.  Her stick made a little clickety noise
+on the flagstones.  When she was on her knees the girl who had gone up
+to the table with her came back to us with the stick.  She knew that it
+would be of no further use.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Colette tried to get up, and fell back again on to her knees.  Her hand
+reached out to take her stick, and when she didn't find it by her side,
+she tried again to raise herself without it.  She clung to the Holy
+Table and caught hold of the arm of one of the Sisters, who was taking
+communion with her.  Then her shoulders rocked and she fell over,
+pulling the Sister down with her.  Two of us rushed forward and dragged
+poor Colette to her bench.  But I was still hoping against hope, and
+until mass was over I was hoping to hear the Te Deum.  As soon as I
+could, I went back to Colette.  The big girls were round her trying to
+console her, and advising her to give herself to God for ever.  She was
+crying gently, not sobbing.  Her head was bent a little forward, and
+her tears fell on her hands, which were crossed one over the other.  I
+kneeled down in front of her, and when she looked at me, I said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps you can get married even though you are a cripple."  Colette's
+story was soon known to everybody.  Everybody felt so sad about it that
+we stopped playing noisy games.  Ismérie thought she was telling me a
+tremendous piece of news when she told me all about it.  Sophie told me
+that we must submit to the will of Our Lady, because She knew what was
+necessary for Colette's happiness better than we did.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap19"></A>
+
+<P>
+I should have liked to have known whether Sister Marie-Aimée knew about
+Colette.  I did not see her till the afternoon, when we were out
+walking.  She did not look sad.  She looked almost pleased.  I had
+never seen her look so pretty.  Her whole face shone.  While we were
+out I noticed that she walked as though something was lifting her up.
+I never remembered to have seen her walk like that.  Her veil fluttered
+a little at the shoulders, and her stomacher didn't hide all her neck.
+She paid no attention to us.  She was looking at nothing, but she
+seemed to be seeing something.  Every now and then she smiled as though
+somebody were talking to her from inside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the evening after dinner I found her sitting on the old bench under
+the big linden tree.  M. le Curé was sitting next to her with his back
+against the tree.  They looked serious.  I thought they were talking
+about Colette, and I remained standing some distance from them.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée was saying, as though she were answering a question, "Yes,
+when I was fifteen."  M. le Curé said, "You had no vocation at
+fifteen."  I didn't hear what Sister Marie-Aimée answered, but M. le
+Curé went on, "Or, rather, at fifteen you had every possible vocation.
+A kind word, or a little indifference would be enough to change your
+whole life."  He said nothing for a moment, and then, in a lower tone,
+he said, "Your parents were very much to blame."  Sister Marie-Aimée
+answered, "I regret nothing."  They remained for a long time without
+saying a word.  Then Sister Marie-Aimée raised one finger as though she
+were impressing something on him, and said, "Everywhere, in spite of
+all and always."  M. le Curé stretched his hand out a little way,
+laughed, and repeated, "Everywhere, in spite of all and always."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The goodnight bell sounded all of a sudden, and M. le Curé went off,
+down the avenue of linden trees.  For a long time afterwards I used to
+repeat the words I had heard them say, but I could never fit them in to
+poor Colette's story.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap20"></A>
+
+<P>
+Colette had given up all hopes of a miracle to take her away, and yet
+she could not make up her mind to remain.  When she saw all the girls
+of her own age go one by one, she began to rebel.  She would not go to
+confession anymore, and she would not take holy communion.  She used to
+go to mass because she sang there, and she was fond of music.  I often
+stopped with her and consoled her.  She explained to me that marriage
+meant love.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap21"></A>
+
+<P>
+Sister Marie-Aimée, who had not been well for some time, became quite
+ill.  Madeleine nursed her devotedly and treated us dreadfully badly.
+She was particularly unkind to me, and when she saw me tired of sewing
+she would say, trying to turn her nose up, "If mademoiselle objects to
+sewing, she had better take a broom and sweep."  One Sunday she hit
+upon the idea of making me clean the stairs during mass.  It was
+January.  A damp cold which came up from the passages climbed the steps
+and got under my dress.  I swept as hard as I could to keep warm.  The
+sound of the harmonium came from the chapel out to me.  From time to
+time I recognized Madeleine's thin piercing tones, and M. le Curé's
+jerky notes.  I could follow mass by the singing.  All of a sudden
+Colette's voice rose above all the others.  It was strong and pure.  It
+broadened, drowned the sound of the harmonium, drowned everything else,
+and then seemed to fly away over the linden trees, over the house, and
+over the church spire itself.  It made me tremble, and when the voice
+came down to earth, trembling a little as it went back into the church
+and was swept up by the sound of the harmonium again, I began to cry,
+sobbing as though I were quite a little girl.  Then Madeleine's sharp
+voice pierced through the others once more, and I swept and swept hard
+as though my broom could scratch out the voice which was so
+disagreeable to me.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap22"></A>
+
+<P>
+That was the day Sister Marie-Aimée called me to her.  She had been up
+in her room for two months.  She was a little better, but I noticed
+that her eyes did not shine at all.  They made me think of a rainbow
+which had almost melted away.  She made me tell her funny little
+stories about what had been going on, and she tried to smile while she
+was listening to me, but her lips only smiled on one side of her mouth.
+She asked me if I had heard her screaming.  "Oh yes," I said, I had
+heard her during her illness.  She had screamed so dreadfully in the
+middle of the night that the whole dormitory had been kept awake.
+Madeleine was coming and going.  We heard her splashing water about,
+and when I asked her what was the matter with Sister Marie-Aimée, she
+said, as she hurried past, that she had rheumatism.  I remembered at
+once that Bonne Justine used to have rheumatism too, but she had never
+screamed like that, and I remember wondering whether poor Sister
+Marie-Aimée's legs were swollen to three times their size, like those
+of Bonne Justine.  Her cries got worse and worse.  One of them was so
+terrible that it seemed to come right out of her vitals.  Then we had
+heard her moaning, and that was all.  A few moments afterwards
+Madeleine had come up and whispered to Marie Renaud, Marie Renaud had
+put on her dress, and I heard her go downstairs; Directly afterwards
+she came back with M. le Curé.  He rushed into Sister Marie-Aimée's
+room, and Madeleine closed the door behind him.  He did not remain very
+long, but he went away again much more slowly than he had come.  He
+walked with his head sunk down between his shoulders, and his right
+hand was holding his cloak over his left arm, as though he were
+carrying something valuable.  I thought to myself that he was taking
+away the holy oils, and I did not dare ask whether Sister Marie-Aimée
+were dead.  I have never forgotten the blow I got from Madeleine's fist
+when I clung to her dress.  She knocked me right over and whispered, as
+she ran past, "She is better."  As soon as Sister Marie-Aimée was well
+again, Madeleine was kinder, and everything went on as before.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap23"></A>
+
+<P>
+I disliked sewing as much as ever, and my hatred for it began to make
+Sister Marie-Aimée uneasy.  She mentioned it in front of me to M. le
+Curé's sister.  M. le Curé's sister was an old maid with a long face
+and big faded eyes.  We called her Mademoiselle Maximilienne.  Sister
+Marie-Aimée told her how anxious she was about my future.  She said
+that I learned things easily, but that no kind of sewing interested me.
+She had noticed for some time that I was fond of study, and she had
+made inquiries to find out whether I had no distant relatives who would
+look after me, she said.  But the only relation I had was an old woman
+who had adopted my sister, but refused to take me.  Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne offered to take me into her dressmaking business.  M. le
+Curé thought that was a very good idea, and said that he would be
+pleased to go and teach me a little, twice a week.  Sister Marie-Aimée
+seemed really happy at this.  She did not know what to say to thank
+them.  It was agreed that I should go to Mademoiselle Maximilienne as
+soon as M. le Curé returned from a journey to Rome, which he had to
+make.  Sister Marie-Aimée would get my outfit ready for me, and
+Mademoiselle Maximilienne would go to the Mother Superior and ask her
+permission, she said.  I felt dreadfully uncomfortable at the idea that
+the Mother Superior was to have anything to do with it.  I could not
+forget the unkind look she always gave me when she passed the old bench
+and saw me sitting there with Sister Marie-Aimée and M. le Curé.  So I
+waited impatiently to hear what she would say to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne.  M. le Curé had been away for a week, and Sister
+Marie-Aimée used to talk to me every day about my new work.  She told
+me how glad she would be to see me on Sundays.  She gave me all kinds
+of good advice, told me to be good and to take care of my health.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap24"></A>
+
+<P>
+The Mother Superior sent for me one morning.  When I went into her room
+I noticed that she was sitting in a big red armchair.  I began to
+remember some ghost stories which I had heard the girls tell about her,
+and when I saw her sitting there, all black in the middle of all that
+red, I compared her in my mind to a huge poppy which had grown in a
+cellar.  She opened and closed her eyelids several times.  She had a
+smile on her face which was like an insult.  I felt myself blushing,
+but I did not turn my eyes away.  She gave a little sneering chuckle,
+and said, "You know why I sent for you?"  I answered that I thought it
+was to talk to me about Mademoiselle Maximilienne.  She sneered again,
+"Oh, yes; Mademoiselle Maximilienne," she said.  "Well, my child, you
+must undeceive yourself.  We have made up our minds to place you on a
+farm in Sologne."  She half closed her eyes and snapped out, "You are
+to be a shepherdess, young woman."  Then she added, rapping the words
+out, "You will look after the sheep."  I said simply, "Very well,
+mother."  She pulled herself up out of the depths of her armchair and
+asked me, "Do you know what looking after the sheep means?"  I answered
+that I had seen shepherdesses in the fields.  She bent her yellow face
+towards me and went on, "You will have to clean the stables.  They
+smell very unpleasantly, and the shepherdesses are dirty.  You will
+help in the work of the farm, and be taught to milk the cows and look
+after the pigs."  She spoke very loud, as though she were afraid I
+should not understand her.  I answered as I had answered before, "Very
+well, mother."  She pulled herself up by the arms of her chair,
+fastened her shining eyes on me, and said, "You don't mean to tell me
+that you are not proud?"  I smiled, and said, "No, mother."  She seemed
+very much surprised, but, as I went on smiling, her voice grew softer.
+"Really, my child?" she said.  "I always thought you were proud."  She
+dropped back into her chair again, hid her eyes under their lids, and
+began talking quickly in a monotonous voice, as she did when she said
+prayers.  She said that I must obey my masters, that I must never
+forget my religious duties, and that the farmer's wife would come and
+fetch me the day before the feast of St. John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I went out of her room with feelings which I could not express.  But I
+felt horribly afraid of hurting Sister Marie-Aimée's feelings.  How
+could I tell her?  I had no time to think.  Sister Marie-Aimée was
+waiting for me in the passage.  She took hold of my two shoulders, bent
+her face towards me, and said, "Well?" She looked anxious.  I said,
+"She wants me to be a shepherdess."  She did not understand, and
+frowned, "A shepherdess," she said.  "What do you mean?"  I hurried on,
+"She has found a place for me in a farm, and I am to milk cows and look
+after the pigs."  Sister Marie-Aimée pushed me away so roughly that I
+bumped against the wall.  She ran towards the door.  I thought she was
+going to the Mother Superior's room, but she went out, and came back
+again, and began walking up and down the passage, taking long steps.
+Her fists were clenched, and she kept tapping with her foot on the
+floor.  She was breathing hard.  Then she leaned up against the wall,
+let her arms fall as though she were overcome, and, in a voice which
+seemed to come from a long way off, she said: "She is revenging
+herself.  Yes, she is revenging herself."  She came back to me, took my
+two hands affectionately in hers, and asked, "Didn't you tell her that
+you would not go?  Didn't you beg her to let you go to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne?"  I shook my head and repeated in her own words exactly
+what the Mother Superior had said to me.  She listened without
+interrupting me.  Then she told me to say nothing about it to the other
+girls.  She thought that everything would be all right when M. le Curé
+came back.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap25"></A>
+
+<P>
+Next Sunday, as we were getting into line to go to mass, Madeleine ran
+into the room like a mad thing.  She threw her arms up in the air,
+cried out, "M. le Curé is dead!" and fell right down across the table
+near her.  Everybody stopped talking, and we all ran to Madeleine, who
+was screaming and crying.  We wanted to know all about it.  But she
+rocked herself up and down on the table, and kept on repeating, "He is
+dead! he is dead!"  I could not think at all.  I did not know whether I
+was sorry or not, and all the time mass was going on, Madeleine's voice
+sounded in my ears like a bell.  There was no walk that day.  Even the
+little girls kept quite quiet.  I went to look for Sister Marie-Aimée.
+She had not been at mass, and I knew from Marie Renaud that she was not
+ill.  I found her in the refectory.  She was sitting on her little
+platform.  She was leaning her head sideways on the table, and her arms
+were hanging down beside her chair.  I sat myself down some distance
+away from her.  But when I heard her moaning I began to sob too, hiding
+my face in my hands.  But I did not sob long, and I knew that I was not
+as sorry as I wanted to be.  I tried to cry, but I could not shed a
+single tear.  I was a little bit ashamed of myself because I believed
+that one ought to cry when somebody died, and I didn't dare uncover my
+face for fear that Sister Marie-Aimée should think that I was hard
+hearted.  I listened to her crying.  Her moaning reminded me of the
+wind at winter-time in the big fireplace.  It went up and down as if
+she were trying to compose a kind of song.  Then her voice stumbled and
+broke, and ended up in deep trembling notes.  A little before
+dinner-time, Madeleine came into the refectory.  She took Sister
+Marie-Aimée away with her, putting her arm round her, and taking care
+of her as they walked.  In the evening she told us that M. le Curé had
+died in Rome, and that he would be brought back to be buried with his
+family.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap26"></A>
+
+<P>
+Next day Sister Marie-Aimée looked after us as usual.  She didn't cry
+any more, but she would not let us talk to her.  She walked along with
+her eyes on the ground, and seemed to have forgotten me.  I had only
+one day more, as the Mother Superior had told me I should be fetched
+next day, for the day after was the feast of St. John.  In the evening,
+at the end of prayers, when Sister Marie-Aimée had said, "Lord, be
+pitiful to exiles and give your aid to prisoners," she added, in a loud
+voice, "We will say a prayer for one of your companions who is going
+out into the world."  I understood at once that she was talking of me,
+and I felt that I was as much to be pitied as the exiles and the
+prisoners were.  I could not get to sleep that night.  I knew that I
+was going next day, but I didn't know what Sologne was like.  I
+imagined it to be a country very far off, where there were large plains
+with flowers on them.  I imagined myself the shepherdess of a troop of
+beautiful white sheep, with two dogs by my side which kept the sheep in
+order at a sign from me.  I would not have dared to tell Sister
+Marie-Aimée so, but just then I liked the idea of being a shepherdess
+much better than the idea of being in a shop.  Ismérie, who was snoring
+loud, next to me, reminded me of my comrades again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was such a bright night that I could see all the beds quite
+distinctly.  I looked at one after the other, stopping a little at
+those of the girls I was fond of.  Almost opposite me I saw my friend
+Sophie, with her magnificent hair.  It was scattered about over the
+pillow, and lighted up the bed quite brightly.  A little further down
+the room were the beds of Chemineau the Proud, and her twin sister, the
+Fool.  Chemineau the Proud had a big smooth white forehead and gentle
+eyes.  She never said it was not true when she was accused of doing
+anything wrong.  She simply shrugged her shoulders and looked round her
+with contempt.  Sister Marie-Aimée used to say that her conscience was
+as white as her forehead.  Chemineau the Fool was half as tall again as
+her sister.  Her hair was coarse, and came down nearly to her eyebrows.
+Her shoulders were square, and her hips were broad.  We used to call
+her the sister's watch-dog.  And down at the other end of the dormitory
+was Colette.  She still believed that I was going to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne.  She was quite sure that I should get married very soon,
+and she had made me promise to come and fetch her as soon as I was
+married.  I thought about her for a long time.  Then I looked at the
+window and the shadows of the linden trees were thrown in my direction.
+It was as though they had come to say good-bye to me, and I smiled at
+them.  On the other side of the lindens I could see the infirmary.  It
+looked as though it were trying to hide itself, and its little windows
+made me think of weak eyes.  I looked at the infirmary for some time,
+thinking of Sister Agatha.  She was so bright and so good that the
+little girls always laughed when she scolded them.  She did the
+doctoring.  When one of us went to her with a bad finger, she always
+had something funny to say, and she always knew whether we were greedy
+or vain, and would promise us a cake or a ribbon accordingly.  She used
+to pretend to look for it, and while we were looking to see where it
+was, the bad place on the finger would be pricked, washed, and tied up.
+I remember a chilblain that I had on my foot which would not get well.
+One morning Sister Agatha said to me solemnly, "Listen, Marie Claire.
+I must put something miraculous on this, and if your foot is not better
+in three days, we shall have to cut it off."  For three days I was very
+careful not to walk on that foot so as not to disturb this miraculous
+something.  I thought it must be a piece of the true cross, or perhaps
+a piece of the veil of the Holy Virgin.  On the third day my foot was
+completely cured, and when I asked Sister Agatha what the miraculous
+remedy was that she had put on it, she laughed, called me a little
+silly, and showed me a box of ointment which was called "miraculous
+ointment."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap27"></A>
+
+<P>
+It was late at night when I went to sleep, and I began to expect the
+farmer's wife directly morning came.  I wanted her to come, and I was
+afraid of her coming.  Sister Marie-Aimée looked up quickly every time
+the door opened.  Just as we were finishing dinner, the porteress came
+and asked if I were ready to go.  Sister Marie-Aimée said that I should
+be ready in a moment.  She got up and told me to go with her.  She
+helped me to dress, gave me a little bundle of linen, and all of a
+sudden she said, "They will bring him back to-morrow, and you will not
+be there."  Then she looked into my eyes, "Swear to me," she said,
+"that you will say a <I>De Profundis</I> for him every night."  I promised
+to do so.  Then she pulled me to her quite roughly, pressed me to her
+hard, and ran off to her room.  I heard her saying as she went, "My
+God! this is too much!"  I crossed the courtyard by myself, and the
+farmer's wife, who was waiting for me, took me away.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap28"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+PART II
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I was tucked in among a lot of old baskets in a cart covered with a
+hood, and when the horse stopped of his own accord at the farm it had
+been dark for a long time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The farmer came out of the house carrying a lantern which he held high
+up in the air, and which only lit up the toes of his wooden shoes.  He
+came and helped us to get out of the cart, then he lifted his lantern
+up to my face, stood back a little and said, "What a funny little
+servant girl."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His wife took me to a room where there were two beds.  She showed me
+mine, and told me that I should be all alone on the farm with the
+cowherd next day, because every one was going to the feast of St. John.
+As soon as I was up next morning, the cowherd took me to the stables to
+help him give the fodder to the cattle.  He showed me the sheep pens,
+and told me that I was going to look after the lambs instead of old
+Bibiche.  He explained to me that the lambs were taken from their
+mothers every year, and that a special shepherdess was needed to look
+after them.  He also told me that the name of the farm was
+Villevieille, and that everybody was happy there because Master[1]
+Silvain the farmer, and Pauline, his wife, were kind people.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he had seen to all the animals the cowherd made me sit down next
+to him in the chestnut avenue.  Sitting there we could see the bend in
+the lane which went up towards the high-road, and the whole of the
+farm.  The farm buildings formed a square and the huge dunghill in the
+middle of the yard gave off a warm smell, which mixed with the smell of
+the half-dried hay.  The farm was wrapped in silence.  I sat and looked
+all round me.  I could see nothing but pine trees and corn fields.  I
+felt as though I had suddenly been dropped into a faraway country,
+where I should always remain, along with the cowherd, and the animals
+which I could hear moving in their stables.  It was very hot and I was
+numb with a heavy longing to go to sleep, but fear of all the new
+things which were round me prevented me from letting myself drop off.
+Flies of all possible colours whizzed round me with a little snoring
+noise.  The cowherd was making a basket of rushes, and the dogs lay at
+our feet fast asleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just as the sun was setting, the farmer's cart turned slowly round the
+bend in the lane.  There were five people in it, two men and three
+women.  As they passed us, the farmer's wife smiled down at me, and the
+others leaned forward to see me.  Soon afterwards the farm filled with
+noise, and as it was too late to make soup for supper we all supped off
+a piece of bread and a bowl of milk.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] On a French farm the farmer is always called "Master."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap29"></A>
+
+<P>
+Next day the farmer's wife gave me a cloak, and I went out with old
+Bibiche to learn how to look after the lambs.  Old Bibiche and her dog
+Castille were so like one another that I always thought they must
+belong to the same family.  They looked about the same age, and their
+eyes were about the same colour.  Whenever the lambs ran off the path
+Bibiche would say, "Bark, Castille, bark."  She said it very quickly,
+almost in one word, and even when Castille did not bark the lambs got
+back into line again.  The old woman's voice was so like that of her
+dog.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When harvesting began it seemed to me as though I were taking part in
+something full of mystery.  Men went up to the corn and laid it on the
+ground with regular sweeping strokes, while others picked it up again
+in sheaves, which they stacked one against the other.  The cries of the
+harvesters seemed to come from above sometimes, and every now and then
+I looked up quickly, expecting to see golden corn-laden chariots fly
+past above my head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We all had our evening meal together.  Everybody sat down where they
+pleased at the long table, and the farmer's wife filled our plates to
+the brim.  The younger ones munched with appetite, while the older ones
+cut each mouthful as though it were something precious.  Everybody ate
+in silence, and the brown bread looked whiter in their black hands.  At
+the end of the meal the elder ones talked about harvests with the
+farmer, while the younger ones talked and laughed with Martine, the
+shepherdess.  She answered everybody's jokes, and laughed heartily at
+them; but if one of the men stretched out a hand towards her she
+skipped out of the way, and never let him get hold of her.  Nobody paid
+any attention to me.  I sat on a pile of logs a little way away from
+the rest of them, and looked at all their faces.  Master Silvain had
+big brown eyes which looked at each one in turn, and rested quietly on
+them as he looked.  He never raised his voice, and leaned his open
+hands on the table when he spoke.  His wife's voice was serious  and
+pre-occupied.  She always looked as though she were expecting some
+misfortune to happen and she scarcely smiled at all, even when all the
+others were roaring with laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Old Bibiche always thought that I was falling asleep.  She would come
+and pull my sleeve, and take me off to bed.  Her bed was next to mine.
+She mumbled her prayers while she was undressing, and always blew the
+lamp out without waiting to see whether I was ready.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap30"></A>
+
+<P>
+Directly after the harvest, Bibiche let me go to the fields alone with
+her dog.  Old Castille didn't care for my company.  She used to leave
+me whenever she could and go back to the farm to Bibiche.  I had a lot
+of trouble in keeping my lambs together.  They ran every way at once.
+I compared myself to Sister Marie-Aimée, who always said that her
+little flock was hard to manage.  And yet she used to get us together
+at one stroke of the bell and she could always make us perfectly quiet
+by raising her voice a little.  But I might raise my voice or crack my
+whip as much as I liked, the lambs did not understand me, and I was
+obliged to run about all round the flock as though I were a sheep dog.
+One evening two lambs were missing.  I always stood in the doorway
+every evening to let them in one by one so that I could count them
+easily.  I went into the pen and tried to count them again.  It was not
+easy and I had to give it up at last, for every time I counted them
+again I made their number more than there really were.  At last I made
+up my mind that I must have counted them wrong the first time, and I
+did not say anything to anybody.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next morning when I let them out I counted them once more.  There
+really were two missing.  I felt very uneasy.  All day long I hunted
+about the fields for them, and in the evening, when I was quite certain
+that they were missing, I told the farmer's wife.  We searched high and
+low for those lambs for several days, but we could not find them.  The
+farmer first, and then his wife took me apart, and tried to make me
+confess that men had come and taken the lambs away.  They promised me
+that I should not be scolded if I would tell the truth.  It was no good
+my saying that I really did not know what had become of them, I could
+see that they did not believe me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After this I was frightened when I went into the fields because I knew
+now that there were men who hid themselves and came and stole the
+sheep.  I was always thinking that I saw some one moving about behind
+the bushes.  I very soon learned to count my lambs by glancing at them,
+and whether they were all together or scattered about, I knew in a
+minute whether all of them were there.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap31"></A>
+
+<P>
+Autumn came and I began to feel unhappy.  I missed Sister Marie-Aimée.
+I longed so to see her that I used to shut my eyes and believe that she
+was coming up the path.  When I did this I could really hear her steps
+and the rustling of her dress on the grass.  When I felt her quite
+close to me I opened my eyes and she disappeared at once.  For a long
+time I had the idea of writing to her, but I did not dare to ask for
+pen and paper.  The farmer's wife did not know how to write, and nobody
+at the farm ever got any letters.  I plucked up courage one day and
+asked Master Silvain if he would take me to town with him that morning.
+He didn't answer at once.  His big quiet eyes rested on me for a time,
+and then he said that a shepherdess ought never to leave her flock.  He
+said that he didn't mind taking me to mass in the village now and then,
+but that I must not expect him to take me to the town.  This answer
+quite stunned me.  It was as though I had learned of a great
+misfortune.  And every time I thought of it I could see Sister
+Marie-Aimée.  She was like some precious thing which the farmer had
+smashed all to pieces by accident.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the following Saturday Master Silvain and his wife left in the
+morning as usual, but instead of remaining in town until evening they
+came back in the afternoon with a dealer who wanted to buy some of the
+lambs.  I had never thought that one could go to the town and come back
+again in so short a time.  The idea occurred to me that one day I would
+leave my lambs in the meadow and would run into the town for one kiss
+from Sister Marie-Aimée.  I soon found that that would not be possible,
+and I decided to go off in the night.  I hoped that I should not take
+much longer that the farmer's horse did, and that by leaving in the
+middle of the night I could be back in time to take the lambs to
+pasture in the morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening I went to bed in my clothes, and when the big clock
+sounded twelve I slipped out on tip-toe with my shoes in my hand.  I
+leaned against a cart and laced them up, and ran off as fast as I could
+into the dark.  I soon got past the outbuildings of the farm, and then
+I saw that the night was not very dark.  The wind was blowing very
+hard, and big black clouds were rolling across the sky under the moon.
+It was a long way to the high-road, and to get there I had to cross a
+wooden bridge which was out of repair.  The rain of the last few days
+had swelled the little river and the water splashed up on to the bridge
+through the rotten planks.  I began to get nervous because the water
+and the wind between them made a noise that I had never heard before.
+But I refused to be frightened, and ran across the slippery bridge as
+quickly as I dared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I got to the high-road sooner than I had expected to, and I turned to
+the left as I had seen the farmer turn when he went to market.  But a
+little further along the road divided into two and I didn't know which
+road to take.  I ran a little way up one road and then a little way up
+another.  It was the road to the left that seemed to be the likely one.
+I took it, and walked fast to make up for lost time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the distance I saw a black mass which covered the whole country.  It
+seemed to be coming slowly towards me, and for a moment I wanted to
+turn back and run.  A dog began to bark and that gave me a little
+confidence, and almost directly afterwards I saw that the black mass in
+front of me was a wood through which the road passed.  When I got into
+it the wind seemed to be rougher than ever.  It blew in gusts, and the
+trees struck at one another and rattled their branches, and moaned and
+stooped down to get out of its way.  I heard long whistling sounds as
+the branches cracked and clattered and fell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then I heard steps behind me and felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned
+round quickly but I saw nobody.  Yet I was sure that somebody had
+touched me with his finger, and the steps went on as though some
+invisible person were walking round and round me.  I began to run so
+fast that I didn't know whether my feet were touching the ground or not.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The stones sprang out under my shoes and rattled behind me like a
+little hailstorm.  I had only one idea, and that was to run and run
+until I got out of the forest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last I came to a clearing.  It was lit up by a pale moon and the
+tearing wind whirled heaps of leaves up and threw them down again, then
+rolled them about and about, and turned them over in all directions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wanted to stop to get my breath, but the big trees were swinging
+backwards and forwards with a deafening noise.  Their shadows, which
+looked like great black animals, threw themselves flat along the road
+and then slipped away and hid behind the trees.  Some of these shadows
+had shapes which I recognized.  But most of them hovered and jumped
+about in front of me as though they wanted to prevent me from passing.
+Some of them frightened me so that I took a little run, and jumped over
+them.  I was dreadfully afraid that they would catch at my feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wind went down a little, and rain began to fall in large drops.  I
+had got to the other side of the clearing, and when I came to a little
+path which disappeared into the wood again, I saw a white wall at the
+end of it.  I went a little way along the path, and saw that it was a
+house.  Without thinking at all I knocked at the door.  I wanted to ask
+the people to shelter me until the wind stopped.  I knocked a second
+time, and heard somebody moving.  I thought the door was going to be
+opened, but a window was opened on the first floor.  A man in a
+night-cap called out, "Who is there?"  I answered, "A little girl."  He
+seemed surprised.  "A little girl?" he said, and asked me where I came
+from, where I was going, and what I wanted.  I had not expected all
+these questions, and I said that I had come from the farm, but then
+told a lie, and said that I was going to see my mother who was ill.  I
+asked him to let me into the house until the rain stopped.  He told me
+to wait, and I heard him talking to somebody else.  Then he came back
+to the window, and asked me if there was anybody with me.  He asked me
+how old I was; and when I said I was thirteen, he said I must be a
+brave girl to come through the wood alone at night.  He remained
+leaning out of the window a moment, trying to see my face, which was
+looking up towards him.  Then he turned his head to right and left
+trying to look into the darkness of the wood, and advised me to go on a
+little further.  There was a village at the other side of the wood, he
+said, and I should find houses there where I could dry my clothes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I went on into the night.  The moon had hidden itself altogether, and a
+drizzling rain was falling.  I had to walk a long time before I got to
+the village.  All the houses were shut up, and I could hardly see them
+in the dark.  A blacksmith was the only person up.  When I got to his
+house I went up the two steps, meaning to rest there.  He was busy with
+a great iron bar, which he was heating in a fire of red coal, and when
+his arm went up with the bellows he looked like a giant.  Every time
+the bellows came down the coal flew up and crackled.  That made a
+glimmering light which lit up the walls, on which scythes, saws, and
+all kinds of knives were hanging.  The man's forehead was wrinkled, and
+he was staring at the fire.  I dared not talk to him, and I went away
+without making any noise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When it became quite light I saw that I was not very far from the town.
+I began to recognize the places where Sister Marie-Aimée used to take
+us when we went for our walks.  I was walking very slowly now, and
+dragged my feet after me because they hurt me.  I was so tired that it
+was all I could do not to sit down on one of the heaps of stone which
+were on each side of the road.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sound of a horse and cart rattling along the road as fast as they
+could go made me turn round, and I remained standing quite still with
+my heart beating fast.  I had recognized the bay mare and the farmer's
+black beard.  He stopped the mare quite close to me, leaned out of the
+cart, and lifted me up into it by the belt of my dress.  He sat me down
+next to him on the seat, turned the horse round and drove off again at
+full speed.  When we got to the wood Master Silvain made the horse slow
+down.  He turned to me, looked at me, and said, "It is lucky for you
+that I caught you up.  Otherwise you would have been brought back to
+the farm between two gensdarmes."  As I didn't answer, he said again,
+"Perhaps you don't know that there are gensdarmes who bring little
+girls back, when they run away."  I said, "I want to go and see Sister
+Marie-Aimée."  "Are you unhappy with us?" he asked.  I said again, "I
+want to go and see Sister Marie-Aimée."  He looked as though he didn't
+understand, and went on asking me questions, going over the names of
+everybody on the farm, and asking me if they were kind to me.  I made
+the same answer every time.  At last he lost patience with me, sat
+straight up, and said, "What an obstinate child."  I looked up at him
+and said that I should run away again if he would not take me to Sister
+Marie-Aimée.  I went on looking at him, waiting for an answer, and I
+could see quite well that he didn't know what to say.  He kept still,
+and thought for several minutes.  Then he put his hand on my knee and
+said, "Listen to me, child, and try and understand what I am going to
+tell you."  And when he had finished speaking I understood that he had
+promised to keep me until I was eighteen without ever letting me go to
+the town.  I understood, too, that the Mother Superior could do what
+she liked with me, and that if I ran away again she would have me
+locked up, because I ran about the woods during the night.  Then the
+farmer said that he hoped I should forget the convent and that I should
+grow fond of him, and of his wife, because they wished me to be happy
+with them.  I was very miserable, and it was all I could do not to cry.
+"Come," said the farmer holding out his hand.  "Let us be good friends,
+shall we?"  I put my hand into his, and he held it rather tight.  I
+said I should like to be friends.  He cracked his whip, and we soon got
+through the wood.  Rain was still falling in a fine shower like a fog,
+and the ploughed fields looked drearier than ever.  In a field by the
+road a man came towards us waving his arms.  I thought he was
+threatening me at first, but when he was quite close to us I saw that
+he was holding something in his left arm, and that his right arm was
+moving up and down as though he were working a scythe.  I was so
+puzzled that I looked at Master Silvain.  As though he were answering a
+question, he said, "It is Gaboret, sowing."  A few minutes afterwards
+we got to the farm.  The farmer's wife was waiting for us in the
+doorway.  When she saw me she opened her mouth wide as though she had
+been a long time without breathing, and her serious face looked a
+little less anxious for a moment.  I ran past her, went into the room
+to fetch my cloak, and went straight out to the pens.  The sheep rushed
+out, tumbling over one another.  They ought to have been in the fields
+a long time before.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap32"></A>
+
+<P>
+All day long I thought over what the farmer had said to me.  I could
+not understand why the Mother Superior wanted to prevent me from seeing
+Sister Marie-Aimée.  I understood that Sister Marie-Aimée could do
+nothing though, and I made my mind up to wait, thinking that a day
+would come when nobody could prevent me from seeing her again.  At
+bedtime the farmer's wife went up with me to put an extra blanket on my
+bed, and when she had said "good night," she told me not to call her
+"madame" any more.  She wanted me to call her Pauline.  Then she went
+away, after telling me that both she and her husband looked upon me as
+a child of the house, and that she would do all she could to make me
+happy at the farm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next day Master Silvain made me sit next to his brother at table.  He
+told him with a laugh that he was not to let me want for anything,
+because he wanted me to grow.  The farmer's brother was called Eugène.
+He spoke very little, but he always looked at each person who spoke,
+and his little eyes often seemed to be laughing at them.  He was thirty
+years old, but he did not look more than twenty.  He always had an
+answer to any question he was asked, and I felt no awkwardness at
+sitting next to him.  He squeezed himself against the wall so as to
+give me more room at the table, and when the farmer told him to look
+after me, all he said was, "You need not worry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, after all the fields had been ploughed Martine took her sheep a
+long way off to some pasture land called the common.  The cowherd and I
+took our flock down the meadows and into the woods where there was
+fern.  I suffered from the cold although I had a big woollen cloak
+which covered me down to my feet.  The cowherd often had to light a
+fire.  He would bake potatoes and chestnuts in the ashes and share them
+with me.  He taught me how to know from which side the wind was coming,
+so as to make use of the least shelter against the cold.  And as we sat
+over the fire and tried to keep ourselves warm he would sing me a song
+about "Water and Wine."  It was a song which had about twenty verses in
+it.  Water and Wine accused one another of ruining the human race, and
+at the same time praised themselves tremendously.  As far as I could
+see Water was right, but the cowherd said that Wine was not wrong.  We
+used to sit and talk together for hours.  He would tell me of his own
+home, which was a long way off from Sologne.  He told me that he had
+always been a cowherd, and that when he was a child a bull had knocked
+him down and hurt him.  He had been ill a long time after that, and the
+pains in his limbs had made him scream.  Then the pains had gone away,
+but he had become all twisted up as I saw him now.  He remembered the
+names of all the farms where he had been cowherd.  Some of the farmers
+were kind, and some were not, but he had never come across such kind
+masters as at Villevieille.  He said, too, that Master Silvain's cows
+were not a bit like those of his own country, which were small, and had
+horns like pointed spindles.  The Villevieille cows were big, strong
+animals with rough crumpled horns.  He was very fond of them and used
+to call each one by name when he talked to them.  The one he liked best
+was a beautiful white cow which Master Silvain had bought in the
+spring.  She was always lifting her head and looking into the distance,
+and then all of a sudden she would start off at a run.  The cowherd
+used to call out, "Stop where you are, Blanche!  Stop!"  She usually
+obeyed him, but sometimes he had to send the dog after her.  Sometimes,
+too, she used to try and run even when the dog stopped her, and would
+only come back to the herd when the dog bit her muzzle.  The cowherd
+used to pity her because, he said, he couldn't say what or whom she was
+regretting.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap33"></A>
+
+<P>
+In the month of December the cows remained in the stables.  I thought
+that we should keep the sheep in too, but the farmer's brother
+explained to me that Sologne was a very poor country, and that the
+farmers could not make enough forage to feed the sheep, as well.  So
+now I used to go off all by myself with the sheep down the meadows and
+into the woods.  All the birds had gone.  Mist spread over the ploughed
+fields and the woods were full of silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were days when I felt so lonely that I began to believe that the
+earth had fallen all to pieces round me, and when a crow cawed as it
+flew past in the grey sky its great hoarse voice seemed to me to be
+singing of the misfortunes of the world.  Even the sheep were quiet.  A
+dealer had taken away all the lambs, and the little ewes did not know
+how to play alone.  They went along pressing up close to each other,
+and even when they were not cropping what grass there was, their heads
+were bent.  Some of them made me think of little girls I had known.  I
+used to pass them and stroke them, and make them raise their heads, but
+their eyes looked down again at once, and the pupils were like glass
+without a gleam in it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day I was surprised by such a thick fog that I could not see my
+way.  All of a sudden I found myself near a big wood which I didn't
+know.  The tops of the trees were lost in the fog, and the ferns looked
+as though they were all wrapped in wool.  White shadows came down from
+the trees and glided with long transparent trains over the dead leaves.
+I pushed the sheep towards the meadow, which was quite near, but they
+clustered together and refused to go on.  I went in front of them to
+see what was preventing them from going any further, and I recognized
+the little river which flowed at the bottom of the hill.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I could scarcely see the water.  It seemed to be sleeping under a thick
+white woollen blanket.  I stood looking at it for one long minute, then
+I got my sheep together and took them back along the road.  While I was
+trying to find out where the farm was, the sheep ran round the wood and
+got into a lane with a hedge on each side of it.  The fog was getting
+thicker than ever, and I thought I was walking between two high walls.
+I followed the sheep without knowing where they were taking me.
+Suddenly they left the lane and turned to the right; but I stopped
+them.  I saw a church just in front of us.  The doors were wide open,
+and on either side I could see two red lamps which lit up a grey
+vaulted roof.  There were two straight lines of huge pillars, and at
+the other end one could just see the windows with their small panes on
+which a light was shining.  It was all I could do to keep the sheep
+from going into the church, and as I was pushing them away I noticed
+that they were covered with little white beads.  They shook themselves
+every moment and the beads made a tinkling sound.  I got very anxious,
+for I knew that Master Silvain must be waiting for us, and wondering
+where we were.  I felt sure that if I were to go back the way I had
+come I must soon find the farm, so making as little noise as I could I
+pushed the sheep back into the lane which led to the church.  As I was
+going into the lane a man's voice sounded right over my head.  The
+voice said, "Let the poor brutes go home."  As he spoke the man turned
+the sheep back towards the church again, and I recognized Eugène, the
+farmer's brother.  He passed his hand over the back of one of the sheep
+and said, "How pretty they are with their little frost balls.  But it
+is not good for them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was not at all surprised at meeting him there.  I showed him the
+church and asked him what it was.  "It was for you," he said.  "I was
+afraid that you would not find the avenue of chestnut trees, and I hung
+up a lantern on each side."  I felt all confused.  It was only a few
+moments afterwards that I understood that the great pillars, blackened
+and worn by centuries, were simply the trunks of the chestnut trees,
+and then I recognized the small-paned windows of the farmhouse kitchen,
+which the fire lit up from inside.  Eugène counted the sheep himself.
+He helped me to make them a warm litter of straw, and as we left the
+pen together he asked me if I really didn't know what had become of the
+two lambs that had been lost.  I felt dreadfully ashamed at the thought
+that he could believe that I had told a lie, and I could not help
+crying, and told him that they had disappeared without my having seen
+how or where they went.  Then he told me that he had found them drowned
+in a water-hole.  I thought he was going to scold me for not having
+watched them better, but he said gently, "Go and get warm; you have got
+all the rime of Sologne in your hair."  I made up my mind that I would
+go and see the waterhole.  But during the night snow fell so quickly
+that we couldn't go out to the fields next day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I helped old Bibiche to mend the household linen; Martine sat down to
+her spinning wheel, and I sang to them while we sewed and Martine span.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap34"></A>
+
+<P>
+While we sat at work that evening the dogs never stopped barking.
+Martine seemed anxious.  She listened to the dogs, and then turning to
+the farmer she said, "I am afraid this weather will bring the wolves
+down."  The farmer got up to go out and talk to the dogs, and took his
+lantern to make a round of the outhouses.  During the week that the
+snow lasted hundreds of crows came to the farm.  They were so hungry
+that nothing frightened them.  They went into the cow-house and the
+pens and into the granary, and they made very free with the corn ricks.
+The farmer killed a lot of them.  We cooked some of them with bacon and
+cabbage.  Everybody thought them very good, but the dogs wouldn't eat
+them.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap35"></A>
+
+<P>
+The first day we let the sheep and cows out, the pine trees were still
+heavy with snow.  The hill was all white too.  It seemed to have come
+closer to the farm.  All this white dazzled me.  I could not find
+things in their places, and every moment I was afraid that I should not
+see the blue smoke curling up over the farm roofs any longer.  The
+sheep could not find anything to eat, and ran about searching.  I did
+not let them scatter too much.  They looked like moving snow, and I was
+obliged to watch them closely so as not to lose sight of them.  I
+managed to get them together in a meadow which skirted a big wood.  The
+whole forest was busy getting rid of the snow which weighed it down.
+The big branches threw the snow off at one shake, while the others
+which were not so strong, stooped and bent themselves to make it slip
+down.  I had never been into this forest.  I only knew that it was a
+very big one, and that Martine sometimes took her sheep there.  The
+pine trees were very tall, and the ferns grew very high.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had been watching a big clump of ferns for a long time.  I thought I
+had seen it move, and I heard a sound come out of it as though a bit of
+stick had broken under a footstep.  I felt frightened.  I thought there
+was somebody there.  Then I heard the same sound again much nearer, but
+without seeing anything move.  I tried to reassure myself by saying to
+myself that it was a hare, or some other little animal which was
+looking for food; but in spite of all I could try to think, I felt
+there was somebody there.  I felt so nervous that I made up my mind to
+go nearer the farm.  I had taken two steps towards my sheep when they
+huddled together and moved away from the wood.  I was looking about to
+see what had frightened them, when quite close to me, in the very
+middle of the flock, I saw a yellow dog carrying off one of the sheep
+in his mouth.  My first idea was that Castille had gone mad; but at the
+same moment Castille tumbled up against my dress and howled
+plaintively.  Then I guessed that it was a wolf.  It was carrying off a
+sheep which it held by the middle of its body.  It climbed up a hillock
+without any difficulty, and as it jumped the broad ditch which
+separated the field from the forest its hind legs made me think of
+wings.  At that moment I should not have thought it at all
+extraordinary if it had flown away over the trees.  I stood there for a
+few moments, without knowing whether I was frightened.  Then I felt
+that I could not take my eyes away from the ditch.  My eyelids had
+become so stiff that I thought I should never be able to close them
+again.  I wanted to call out, so that they should hear me at the farm,
+but I could not get my voice out of my throat.  I wanted to run, but my
+legs were trembling so that I was obliged to sit down on the wet grass.
+Castille went on howling as though she were in pain, and the sheep
+remained huddled together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I got them back to the farm at last, I ran to look for Master
+Silvain.  As soon as he saw me he guessed what had happened.  He called
+his brother and took down their two guns, and I tried to show him which
+way the wolf had gone.  They both came back at nightfall without having
+found him.  We talked of nothing else all the evening.  Eugène wanted
+to know what the wolf looked like; and old Bibiche got angry when I
+said that he had a long yellow coat like Castille, but that he was much
+handsomer than she was.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap36"></A>
+
+<P>
+A few days afterwards it was Martine's turn.  She had just taken her
+sheep out, and she had hardly reached the end of the avenue of chestnut
+trees when we heard her shouting.  Everybody rushed out of the house.
+I got to Martine first.  She was stooping down and pulling as hard as
+she could at a sheep which a wolf had just killed, and was trying to
+carry off.  The wolf had the sheep by the throat, and was pulling as
+hard as Martine was.  Martine's dog bit the wolf's legs, but he didn't
+seem to feel it, and when Master Silvain fired full at him he rolled
+over with a piece of the sheep's throat between his teeth.  Martine's
+eyes were staring and her mouth had become quite white.  Her cap had
+slipped off her head, and the parting which divided her hair into two
+made me think of a broad path on which one could walk without any
+danger.  The usual strong expression of her face had changed into a sad
+little grimace, and her hands kept opening and closing, the two of them
+keeping time.  She had been leaning against the chestnut tree, and she
+went up to Eugène, who was looking at the wolf.  She stood by him for a
+moment looking at the dead wolf too, and said aloud: "Poor brute!  How
+hungry he must have been!"  The farmer put the wolf and the sheep on
+the same wheelbarrow, and wheeled them back to the farm.  The dogs
+followed, sniffing at the barrow, and looking frightened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For several days the farmer and his brother went out shooting in the
+neighbourhood.  Whenever Eugène came anywhere near me he would stop and
+say a kind word.  He told me that the noise they made with their guns
+drove the wolves away, and that one very rarely saw any in that part of
+the country.  But although he said that there was little or no danger I
+didn't dare go back to the big forest.  I preferred to go up on to the
+hill which was covered only with broom and ferns.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap37"></A>
+
+<P>
+It the beginning of the spring the farmer's wife taught me how to milk
+the cows and look after the pigs.  She said she wanted to make a good
+farmer of me.  I could not help thinking of the Mother Superior and the
+disdainful tone in which she had said to me, "You will milk the cows
+and look after the pigs."  When she said that, she said it as though
+she were giving me a punishment, and here I was delighted at having
+them to look after.  I used to lean my forehead against a cow's flank
+to get a better purchase, and I very soon filled my pail.  At the top
+of the milk a foam used to form which caught all kinds of changing
+colours, and when the sun passed over it it became so marvellously
+beautiful that I was never tired of looking at it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Looking after the pigs never disgusted me.  Their food was boiled
+potatoes and curdled milk.  I used to dip my hands into the bucket to
+mix it all up, and I loved making them wait for their food a few
+minutes.  Their eager cries and the way they wriggled their snouts
+about always amused me.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap38"></A>
+
+<P>
+When May came Master Silvain added a she goat to my flock.  He had
+bought it to help Pauline to feed the little baby she had got after
+they had been married ten years.  This goat was more difficult to take
+care of than all the rest of the flock.  It was always her fault when
+my flock got into the standing oats, which were pretty high.  The
+farmer saw what had happened and scolded me.  He said that I must have
+been asleep in a corner while my sheep were trampling his oats down.
+Every day I had to pass near a wood of young pine trees.  The goat used
+to get there in three jumps, and it was while I was looking for her
+that my lambs got into the oats.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first time I waited ever so long for her to come back by herself.
+I made my voice as soft as I could and called to her.  At last I made
+up my mind to go and fetch her, but the young pines were so close
+together that I didn't know how to get after her.  On the other hand, I
+could not go away without knowing what had happened to the goat.  I
+thought I remembered the place where she had disappeared, and I went in
+there, putting my hands in front of my face to keep the thorns off.  I
+saw her almost at once through my fingers.  She was quite near me.  I
+stretched my hands out to get hold of one of her horns, but she backed
+through the branches, which flew back and struck me in the face.  At
+last, however, I got hold of her and brought her back to the flock.
+She began again next day, and every day she did the same thing.  I got
+my sheep as far away as I could from the oats, and rushed after her.
+She was a white goat, and the first time I saw her I thought that she
+was like Madeleine.  She had the same kind of eyes, set far away from
+each other.  When I forced her to come out of the pine trees, she
+looked at me for a long time without moving her eyes, and I thought
+that Madeleine must have been turned into a goat.  Sometimes I told her
+not to do it again, and I was quite sure that she understood me when I
+told her how unkind she was.  As I was struggling out of the pine wood
+my hair fell all about me, and I shook my head to throw it forward.
+The goat sprang to one side bleating with fear.  She lowered her horns
+and came at me, but I lowered my head and shook my hair at her.  My
+hair was long and dragged along the ground.  She rushed off, leaping
+this way and that.  Every time she went into the pine wood I took my
+revenge on her by frightening her with my hair.  Master Silvain
+surprised us one morning when I was butting at her.  He laughed and
+laughed till I didn't know which way to look.  I tried to throw my hair
+back quickly.  The she goat came close up to me.  She looked at me,
+stretching her neck and wriggling her back about in the funniest way.
+The farmer could not stop laughing.  He bent almost double, holding his
+sides and simply roared with laughter.  All I could see of him were his
+eyebrows, his beard, and his big hat.  His shouts of laughter made me
+want to cry.  When he had stopped laughing he asked me all about it.  I
+told him how wicked the goat had been, and he shook his finger at her
+and laughed again.  Martine took her out next day; but the day after
+she said that she would rather leave the farm than take out that she
+goat again.  It was possessed of the devil, she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Old Bibiche used to say that goats ought to be beaten, but I remembered
+the only time I had beaten mine.  Her ribs had made such a strange
+hollow sound that I never dared touch her again.  She was left free to
+run about the farm, and one day she disappeared.  We never found out
+what had become of her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The feast of St. John was drawing near, and to celebrate the
+anniversary of my arrival on the farm Eugène said that I must be taken
+to the village.  In honour of this feast day the farmer's wife gave me
+a yellow dress which she used to wear when she was a girl.  The village
+was called Sainte Montague.  It only had one street, at the end of
+which was a church.  Martine took me into mass, which had already
+begun.  She pushed me on to a bench and she sat down on the one in
+front of me.  There were two women behind me who never stopped talking
+about yesterday's market, and the men near the door talked out loud
+without seeming to mind.  They only stopped talking when the priest
+mounted the pulpit.  I thought he was going to preach, but he only gave
+out notices of the weddings.  Every time he mentioned a name the women
+leaned to right and left and smiled.  I never even thought of praying.
+I looked at Martine, who was on her knees.  Her dark curls had got out
+from under her embroidered cap.  Her shoulders were broad, and her
+white bodice was fastened at the waist with a black ribbon.  The whole
+of her made one think of something fresh and new, and yet the Mother
+Superior had told me that shepherdesses were dirty.  I thought of
+Martine and how smart she always looked in her short striped petticoat,
+her stockings, which were always tightly drawn, and her wooden shoes
+covered with leather, which she blacked like boots.  She was always
+very careful of her flock, and the farmer's wife used to say that she
+knew every one of her sheep.  When we came out of mass she left me and
+ran up to an old woman, whom she kissed tenderly.  Then I lost sight of
+her and remained all by myself, not knowing where to go.  A little way
+off I saw the inn of the "White Horse."  There was a noise of voices
+there and I could hear dishes and plates rattling.  People went in in
+crowds, and presently there was nobody left outside.  I was going back
+into the church to wait for Martine to come and fetch me when I saw
+Eugène.  He took me by the hand, and said, laughing as he spoke, "If
+your dress had not been as yellow as it is I should certainly have
+forgotten you."  He looked at me as though he were making fun of me and
+as though he were amused at something.  He took me to the schoolmaster
+and asked him to give me luncheon, and to take me for a walk with the
+children.  The schoolmaster was dressed like the gentlemen of the town.
+Eugène wore a blue blouse, and I was very much surprised to see them so
+friendly together.  While we were waiting for lunch the schoolmaster
+lent me a book of fairy tales, and when the time came for the walk I
+would much rather have been left alone to finish the book.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the village green the boys and girls were dancing in the sunshine
+and the dust.  I thought that they danced too roughly, and that they
+were too noisy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I felt very sad, and when the cart drove us back to the farm at
+nightfall I felt really glad to be back in the silence and the sweet
+smell of the meadows again.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap39"></A>
+
+<P>
+A few days after that, on our way home from the forest, a sheep which
+had been grazing near the hedge jumped right up into the air.  I went
+to see what was the matter, and saw that his nose was bleeding.  I
+thought that he must have pricked himself with a big thorn, and after
+having washed him I didn't think anything more about it.  Next day I
+was terrified to see that his head had swollen up till it was almost as
+big as his body.  It frightened me so much that I screamed.  Martine
+came running up, and she began screaming too, and everybody came.  I
+explained what had happened the day before, and the farmer said that
+the sheep must have been bitten by a viper.  He would have to be cared
+for, and must be left in the stable until the swelling had gone down.
+I asked nothing better than to look after the poor brute, but when I
+was alone with it I felt frightened to death.  That enormous head,
+which wobbled on the little body, made me half crazy with terror.  The
+great big eyes, the enormous mouth and the ears, which stood straight
+up, made a monster almost impossible to imagine.  The poor beast always
+remained in the middle of the stable, as though he were afraid of
+bumping himself against the wall.  I tried to go to him, telling myself
+that it was only a sheep after all, but I could not.  But directly he
+turned towards me I felt dreadfully sorry for him.  Sometimes I used to
+think that this dreadful face which wobbled from right to left was
+reproaching me.  Then something seemed to wobble inside my head, and I
+felt as though I were going mad.  I quite understood that I was
+perfectly capable of letting him die of hunger.  I told the cowherd
+about it, and he said that he would look after the sheep as long as the
+inflammation lasted.  He laughed at me a little, and said he could not
+understand how I could be afraid of a sick sheep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was able to do him a good turn afterwards, and I was very glad.  When
+he let the bull out one morning, he had slipped and fallen in front of
+him.  The bull had sniffed and smelt at him.  He was a young bull,
+which had been brought up on the farm, and was a little bit wild.  The
+cowherd was afraid of him, and felt quite certain that he would
+remember that he had seen him on the ground in front of him.  I should
+have liked to make him understand that there was nothing to be afraid
+of, but I didn't know what to say to prevent his being frightened.  I
+was quite surprised at noticing all of a sudden how old he was.  His
+hat had dropped on to the ground, and I noticed for the first time that
+his hair was quite grey.  I thought about him all day long, and next
+day, while the cows were going out one by one, I went into the stable.
+The cowherd was looking at the bull, who was pulling at the chain.  I
+went up to him, patted him, and let him loose.  The cowherd stood on
+one side, and the bull rushed out as if he were mad.  The herd looked
+at him in surprise, and limped after him.  I was not nearly so
+frightened of the bull as I had been of the sheep with the swollen
+face, and I used to go into the stable every day, slipping in quietly
+so as not to be seen.  But Eugène had seen me.  He took me aside one
+morning, and, looking right into my eyes with his little eyes, he said,
+"Why did you let the bull loose?"  I was afraid the cow-herd would be
+scolded if I told the truth, and tried to find something to say to him.
+I began to say that I didn't let him loose.  Then Eugène gave a little
+chuckle, and said, "You don't mean to tell me that you tell lies, do
+you?"  I told him everything, and they sold the bull next Saturday.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap40"></A>
+
+<P>
+I had often noticed how kind Eugène was to everybody.  Whenever the
+farmer had any difficulties with his men he always used to call his
+brother, who would settle everything with a few words.  Eugène did the
+same work on the farm as Master Silvain did, but he always refused to
+go to market.  He said that he would not know how to sell even a
+cheese.  He walked slowly, rocking himself a little as he walked, as
+though he were trying to keep time with his oxen.  He went to Sainte
+Montagne nearly every Sunday.  When the weather was bad he would remain
+in the living-room at the farm house and read.  I used to hope that he
+would leave his book behind him one day; but he never forgot it, and
+always took it to his room with him.  One of my great troubles was that
+I could not find anything to read in the farm, and I used to pick up
+any bits of printed paper that I saw lying about.  The farmer's wife
+had noticed this, and said that I should become a miser some day.  One
+Sunday, when I had screwed up my courage and asked Eugène for a book,
+he gave me a book of songs.  All through the summer I took it with me
+to the fields.  I made up tunes for the songs which I liked best.  Then
+I got tired of them, and when I was helping Pauline to clean up the
+farm for All Saints Day, I found several almanacks.  Pauline told me to
+take them up to the garret, but I pretended to forget, and carried them
+off to read in secret, one after the other.  They were full of amusing
+stories, and the winter went by without my ever noticing the cold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I took them up to the garret at last, I hunted about up there to
+see if I could not find any others.  The only thing I found was a
+little book without any cover.  The corners of the leaves were rolled
+up as if it had been carried about in somebody's pocket for a long
+time.  The two first pages were missing, and the third page was so
+dirty that I could not read the print.  I took it under the skylight,
+to see a little better, and I saw that it was called "The Adventures of
+Telemachus."  I opened it here and there, and the few words that I read
+interested me so much that I put it in my pocket at once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While I was on my way down from the garret, it suddenly occurred to me
+that Eugène might have put the book there, and that he might come and
+look for it at any time.  So I put it back on the black rafter where I
+had found it.  Every time I could manage to go to the garret I looked
+to see whether it was still in its place, and I read it as much and as
+often as ever I could.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap41"></A>
+
+<P>
+Just about that time I had another sick sheep.  Its flanks were hollow,
+as though it had not eaten for a long while.  I went and asked the
+farmer's wife what I ought to do with it.  She was plucking a chicken,
+and asked me whether the sheep was "drawn."  I didn't answer at once.
+I didn't quite know what she meant.  Then I thought that probably
+whenever a sheep was ill it was "drawn," and I said "Yes."  And so as
+to make it quite clear, I added, "It is quite flat."  Pauline began to
+laugh at me.  She called Eugène, and said, "Eugène!  One of Marie
+Claire's sheep is drawn and flat too."  That made Eugène laugh.  He
+said I was only a second-hand shepherdess, and explained to me that
+sheep were "drawn" when their stomachs were swollen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two days afterwards Pauline told me that she and Master Silvain saw
+that they would never make a good shepherdess of me, and that they were
+going to give me work to do in the house.  Old Bibiche was not good for
+much, and Pauline could not do everything herself because of her baby.
+When they told me this, my first thought was that I should be able to
+go up to the garret more often, and I kissed Pauline and thanked her.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap42"></A>
+
+<P>
+So I became a farm servant.  I had to kill the chickens and the
+rabbits.  I hated doing it, and Pauline could never understand why.
+She said I was like Eugène, who ran away when a pig was being killed.
+However, I wanted to try and kill a chicken so as to show that I did my
+best.  I took it into the granary.  It struggled in my hands, and the
+straw all round me got red.  Then it became quite still, and I put it
+down for Bibiche to come and pluck it.  But when she came she cackled
+with laughter because the chicken had got on to its feet again, and was
+in the middle of a basket of corn.  It was eating greedily, as though
+it wanted to get well as quickly as possible after the way in which I
+had hurt it.  Bibiche got hold of it, and when she had passed the blade
+of her knife across its neck the straw was much redder than it had been
+before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Instead of going to sleep in the middle of the day, I used to go up to
+the garret to read.  I opened the book anywhere, and every time I read
+it over again I found something new in it.  I loved this book of mine.
+For me it was like a young prisoner whom I went to visit secretly.  I
+used to imagine that it was dressed like a page, and that it waited for
+me on the black rafter.  One evening I went on a lovely journey with
+it.  I had closed the book, and was leaning on my elbows and looking
+out of the skylight in the garret.  It was almost evening, and the pine
+trees looked less green.  The sun was pushing its way into the white
+clouds which hollowed themselves and then swelled out again, like down
+and feathers do when you push something into a sackful of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without quite knowing how, I found myself, all of a sudden, flying over
+a wood with Telemachus.  He held me by the hand, and our heads touched
+the blue of the sky.  Telemachus said nothing, but I knew that we were
+going up into the sun.  Old Bibiche called to me from below.  I
+recognized her voice, although it was so far off.  She must be very
+angry, I thought, to be calling so loud.  I didn't care.  I saw nothing
+but the bright flakes of white down, which surrounded the sun and which
+were opening slowly to let us pass in.  A tap on my arm brought me back
+with a rush into the garret.  Old Bibiche was pulling me away from the
+skylight, and saying, "Why do you make me shout like that?  I have
+called you at least twenty times to come and get your supper!"  A
+little while later I missed the book from the rafter.  But it had
+become a friend which I carried about in my heart, and I have always
+remembered it.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap43"></A>
+
+<P>
+Two days before Christmas, Master Silvain got ready to kill a pig.  He
+sharpened two big knives, and, after having made a litter of fresh
+straw in the middle of the yard, he sent for the pig, which made such a
+noise that I was sure he knew what was going to happen.  Master Silvain
+roped up his four feet, and, while he fastened them to pegs which he
+had hammered into the ground, he said to his wife, "Hide the knives,
+Pauline.  Don't let him see them!"  Pauline gave me a sort of deep
+dish, which I was to hold carefully, so as not to lose a single drop of
+the blood which I was to catch in it.  The farmer went to the pig,
+which had fallen on its side.  He went down on one knee in front of
+him, and, after having felt his neck, he reached his hand out behind
+his back to his wife; she gave him the bigger of the two knives.  He
+put the point on the place he had marked with his finger, and pressed
+it slowly in.  The pig's cries were just like the cries of a baby.  A
+drop of blood came from the wound and rolled slowly down in a long red
+line.  Then two spurts ran up the knife and fell on the farmer's hand.
+When the blade was right in up to the handle.  Master Silvain put his
+weight on it for a moment and drew it out again as slowly as he had put
+it in.  When I saw the blade come out again all striped with red, I
+felt my mouth grow cold and dry.  My fingers went limp, and the dish
+toppled over to one side.  Master Silvain saw it.  He gave me one look
+and said to his wife, "Take the dish away from her."  I could not say a
+word, but I shook my head to say "No."  The farmer's look had taken my
+nervousness away, and I held the dish quite steadily under the spurt of
+blood which came out from the pig's wound.  When the pig was quite
+still, Eugène came up.  He looked amazed at seeing me carefully
+catching the last red drops which were rolling down one by one like
+tears.  "Do you mean to say you caught the blood?" he asked.  "Yes,"
+said the farmer; "that shows that she is not a chicken heart, like
+you."  "It is quite true," said Eugène to me, "I hate seeing animals
+killed."  "Nonsense," said Master Silvain.  "Animals are made to feed
+us just as wood is made to warm us."  Eugène turned away a little, as
+though he were ashamed of his weakness.  His shoulders were thin, and
+his neck was as round as Martine's.  Master Silvain used to say that he
+was the living portrait of their mother.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had never seen Eugène angry.  He hummed songs all day long.  In the
+evening he used to come back from the fields sitting sideways on one of
+the oxen, and he nearly always sang the same song.  It was the story of
+a soldier, who went back to the war after he had learned that the girl
+he had been engaged to marry had married another man.  He used to dwell
+on the refrain, which finished like this&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+And when a bullet comes and takes<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Away my precious life,</SPAN><BR>
+You'll know I died because you were<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Another fellow's wife.[1]</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Pauline always used to treat Eugène with much respect.  She could never
+understand my freedom with him.  The first evening that she saw me
+sitting next to him on the bench outside the door she made signs to me
+to come in.  But Eugène called me back, saying, "Come and listen to the
+wood owl."  We often used to be sitting on the bench, still, when
+everybody had gone to bed.  The wood owl came quite near to an old elm
+tree which was by the door, and we used to think that it was saying
+"good night" to us.  Then it would fly away, its great wings passing
+over us in silence.  Sometimes a voice would sing on the hillside.  I
+used to tremble when I heard it.  The full voice coming out of the
+night reminded me of Colette.  Eugène would get up to go in when the
+voice stopped singing, but I always used to stop, hoping to hear it
+again.  Then he would say, "Come along in: it is all over."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] Quand par un tour de maladresse<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Un boulet m'emportera</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Allons adieu chère maitresse</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Je m'en vais dans les combats.</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap44"></A>
+
+<P>
+And now that the winter was with us again, and we could no longer sit
+on the bench by the door, there seemed to be a sort of secret
+understanding between us.  Whenever he was making fun of anybody, his
+queer little eyes used to look for mine, and whenever he gave an
+opinion he used to turn to me as though he expected me to approve or
+disapprove.  It seemed to me that I had always known him, and deep down
+in my thoughts I used to call him my big brother.  He was always asking
+Pauline if she was pleased with me.  Pauline said that there was no
+need to tell him the same thing, over and over again.  The only thing
+she reproached me with was that I had no system in my work.  She used
+to say that I was just as likely to begin at the end of it as at the
+beginning.  I had not forgotten Sister Marie-Aimée, but I was no longer
+as sick with longing for her as I used to be.  And I was happy on the
+farm.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap45"></A>
+
+<P>
+In the month of June the men came, as they came every year, to shear
+the sheep.  They brought bad news with them.  All over the country the
+sheep were falling ill as soon as they had been shorn, and numbers of
+them were dying.  Master Silvain took his precautions, but in spite of
+all he could do, a hundred of the sheep fell sick.  A doctor said that
+by bathing them in the river a good many of them might be saved.  So
+the farmer got into the water up to his middle, and dipped the sheep in
+one by one.  He was red hot, and the perspiration rolled down his
+forehead and fell in great drops into the river.  That evening when he
+went to bed he was feverish, and next day he died of inflammation of
+the lungs.  Pauline could not believe in her misfortune, and Eugène
+wandered about the stables and the outhouses with frightened eyes.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap46"></A>
+
+<P>
+Soon after the farmer's death, the landlord of the farm came to see us.
+He was a little dry stick of a man, who never kept still for a minute,
+and if he did stand still he always seemed to be dancing on one foot.
+His face was clean-shaven, and his name was M. Tirande.  He came into
+the living-room where I was sitting with Pauline.  He walked round the
+room with his shoulders hunched up.  Then he said, pointing to the
+baby, "Take him away.  I want a talk with the goodwife."  I went out
+into the yard, and managed to pass the window as often as I could.
+Pauline had not moved from her chair.  Her hands lay on her knees, and
+she was bending her head forward as though she were trying to
+understand something very difficult.  M. Tirande was talking without
+looking at her.  He kept walking from the fireplace to the door and
+back again, and the noise of his heels on the tiled floor got mixed up
+with his broken little voice.  He came out again as fast as he had come
+in, and I went and asked Pauline what he had said.  She took the baby
+in her arms and, crying as she told me, she said that M. Tirande was
+going to take the farm away from her and give it to his son, who had
+just got married.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the end of the week M. Tirande came back with his son and his
+daughter-in-law.  They visited the outhouses first, and when they came
+into the house, M. Tirande stopped in front of me a minute, and told me
+that his daughter-in-law had made up her mind to take me into her
+service.  Pauline heard him say so, and made a step towards me.  But
+just then Eugène came in with a lot of papers in his hand, and
+everybody sat down round the table.  While they were all reading the
+papers and signing, I looked at M. Tirande's daughter-in-law.  She was
+a big, dark woman with large eyes and a bored look.  She left the farm
+with her husband without having glanced at me once.  When their cart
+had disappeared down the avenue of chestnut trees, Pauline told Eugène
+what M. Tirande had said to me.  Eugène, who was leaving the room,
+turned to me suddenly.  He looked very angry, and his voice was quite
+changed.  He said that these people were disposing of me as though I
+were a bit of furniture which belonged to them.  While Pauline was
+pitying me, Eugène told me that it was M. Tirande who had told Master
+Silvain to take me on the farm.  He reminded Pauline how sorry the
+farmer had been because I was such a weakling, and he told me that he
+was very sorry not to be able to take me with them to their new farm.
+We were all three standing in the living-room.  I could feel Pauline's
+sad eyes on my head, and Eugène's voice made me think of a hymn.
+Pauline was to leave the farm at the end of the summer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I worked hard every day to put the linen in order.  I didn't want
+Pauline to take away a single piece of torn linen with her, I worked
+hard with my darning-needle, as Bonne Justine had taught me, and I
+folded every piece as well as I could.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the evening I found Eugène sitting on the bench by the door.  The
+moon was shining on the roofs of the sheep-pens, and there was a white
+cloud over the dung-heap which looked like a tulle veil.  There was no
+sound whatever from the cow-house.  All that we heard was the squeaking
+of the cradle which Pauline was rocking to put her child to sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon as the corn had been got in, Eugène began getting ready to go.
+The cowherd took away the cattle, and old Bibiche went off in the cart
+with all the birds of the poultry-yard.  In a few days nothing was left
+at the farm but the two white oxen, which Eugène would trust to nobody
+but himself.  He fastened them to the cart which was to take Pauline
+and her child.  The little fellow was fast asleep in a basket full of
+straw, and Eugène put him into the cart without waking him up.  Pauline
+covered him with her shawl, made the sign of the cross towards the
+house, took up the reins, and the cart went slowly off under the
+chestnut trees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wanted to go with them as far as the high-road, and I followed the
+cart, walking behind the oxen, between Eugène and Martine.  None of us
+spoke.  Every now and then Eugène gave the oxen a friendly pat.  We
+were quite a long way on the road when Pauline saw that the sun was
+setting.  She stopped the horse, and, when I had climbed on to the step
+to kiss her good-bye, she said sadly, "God be with you, my girl.
+Behave well."  Then her voice filled with tears, and she added, "If my
+poor husband were living he would never have given you up."  Martine
+kissed me, and smiled.  "We may see one another again," she said.
+Eugène took his hat off.  He held my hand in his for a long time, and
+said slowly, "Good-bye, dear little friend.  I shall always remember
+you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I walked a little way back, and turned round to see them again, and,
+although it was getting dark, I saw that Eugène and Martine were
+walking hand in hand.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap47"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+PART III
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The new farmers came next day.  The farm hands and the serving women
+had come early in the morning, and when the masters arrived in the
+evening I knew that they were called Monsieur and Madame Alphonse.  M.
+Tirande remained at Villevieille for two days, and went off after
+reminding me that I was in his daughter-in-law's service now, and that
+I should have to do no more outside work on the farm.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap48"></A>
+
+<P>
+The very first week she was there Madame Alphonse had had Eugène's room
+turned into a linen-room, and she had set me to work at a big table on
+which were a number of pieces of linen which I was to make into sheets
+and other things.  She came and sat down next to me, and worked at
+making lace.  She would remain for whole days at a time without saying
+a word.  Sometimes she talked to me about the linen presses which her
+mother had, full of all kinds of linen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her voice had no ring to it, and she scarcely moved her lips when she
+spoke.  M. Tirande seemed very fond of his daughter-in-law.  Every time
+he came he always asked her what she would like him to give her.  She
+cared for nothing but linen, and he went off saying that he would get
+her some more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+M. Alphonse never appeared at all except at meal times.  I should have
+found it very difficult to say what he did with his time.  His face
+reminded me of the Mother Superior's face somehow.  Like her, he had a
+yellow skin and his eyes glittered.  He looked as though he carried a
+brazier inside him which might burn him up at any minute.  He was very
+pious, and every Sunday he and Madame Alphonse went to mass in the
+village where M. Tirande lived.  At first they wanted to take me in
+their cart, but I refused.  I preferred going to Sainte Montagne, where
+I always hoped to meet Pauline or Eugène.  Sometimes one of the farm
+hands came with me, but more often I would go alone by a little cross
+road, which made the way much shorter.  It was a steep and stony bit of
+road which ran uphill through the broom.  On the very top of it I
+always used to stop in front of Jean le Rouge's house.  This house was
+low-roofed and spreading.  The walls were as black as the thatch which
+covered it, and it was quite easy to pass by the house without seeing
+it at all, for the broom grew so high all round it.  I used to go in
+for a chat with Jean le Rouge, whom I had known ever since I had been
+at Villevieille farm.  He had always worked for Master Silvain, who
+thought very highly of him.  Eugène used to say of him that one could
+set him to anything, and that whatever he did he did well.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap49"></A>
+
+<P>
+Now M. Alphonse refused to employ him any more.  He spoke of sending
+him away from the house on the hill.  Jean le Rouge was so upset by the
+idea that he could talk of nothing else.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Directly after mass I used to go home by the same road.  Jean's
+children would crowd round me to get the blessed bread, which I brought
+out of church for them.  There were six of them, and the eldest was not
+yet twelve years old.  There was hardly one mouthful of my blessed
+bread, so I used to give it to Jean's wife to divide up and give to the
+children in equal shares.  While she was doing this, Jean le Rouge
+would set a stool for me in front of the fire and would seat himself on
+a log of wood, which he would roll to the fireplace with his foot.  His
+wife put some twigs on the fire with a pair of heavy pincers, and as we
+sat and talked we watched the big yellow potatoes cooking in the pot
+which hung from a hook in the fireplace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the very first Sunday Jean le Rouge had told me that he, too, was a
+foundling.  And little by little he had told me that when he was twelve
+he had been put to work with a woodcutter who used to live in the house
+on the hill.  He had very soon learned how to climb up the trees to
+fasten a rope to the top branches so as to pull them over.  When the
+day's work was done and he had his faggot of wood on his back, he would
+go on ahead so as to get to the house first.  And there he used to find
+the woodcutter's little daughter cooking the soup for supper.  She was
+of the same age as he was, and they had become the best of friends at
+once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, one Christmas Eve, came the misfortune.  The old woodcutter, who
+thought that the children were fast asleep, went off to midnight mass.
+But directly he had gone they got up.  They wanted to prepare midnight
+supper for the old man's return, and they danced with glee at the
+surprise they were getting ready for him.  While the little girl was
+cooking the chestnuts and putting the pot of honey and the jug of cider
+on the table, Jean le Rouge heaped great logs on to the fire.  Time
+went on, the chestnuts were cooked, and the woodcutter had not yet come
+home.  It seemed a long time.  The children sat down on the floor in
+front of the fire to keep themselves warm, leaned up against one
+another, and fell asleep.  Jean woke up at the little girl's screams.
+He could not understand at first why she was throwing her arms about
+and shrieking at the fire.  He jumped to his feet to run away from her,
+and then he saw that she was ablaze.  She had opened the door to the
+garden, and as she ran out she lit the trees up.  Then Jean had caught
+hold of her and thrown her into the little well.  The water had put the
+flames out, but when Jean tried to pull her out of the well he found
+her so heavy that he thought she must be dead.  She made no movement,
+and it took him a long time to get her out.  At last, when he did get
+her out, he had to drag her along like a bundle of sticks back to the
+house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The logs had become great red embers.  Only the biggest one, which was
+wet, went on smoking and crackling.  The little girl's face was all
+bloated, and was black with violet veins in it.  Her body, which was
+half naked, was covered with big red burns.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was ill for many months, and when at last they thought she was
+cured, they found out that she had become dumb.  She could hear
+perfectly well, she could even laugh like everybody else, but it was
+quite impossible for her to speak a single word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While Jean le Rouge was telling me these things his wife used to look
+at him and move her eyes as if she were reading a book.  Her face still
+bore deep burn marks, but one soon got accustomed to it, and remembered
+nothing of her face but the mouth with its white teeth, and her eyes,
+which were never still.  She used to call her children with a long, low
+cry, and they came running up, and always understood all the signs she
+made to them.  I was so sorry that they had to leave the house on the
+hill.  They were the last friends I had left, and I thought of telling
+Madame Alphonse about them, hoping that she might get her husband to
+keep them on.  I found an opportunity one day, when M. Tirande and his
+son had come into the linen-room talking about the changes they were
+going to make at the farm.  M. Alphonse said he didn't want any cattle.
+He spoke of buying machinery, cutting down the pine trees and clearing
+the hillside.  The stables would do for sheds for the machines, and he
+would use the house on the hill to store fodder in.  I don't know
+whether Madame Alphonse was listening.  She went on making lace, and
+seemed to be giving her full attention to it.  As soon as the two men
+had gone I plucked up courage to talk of Jean le Rouge.  I told her how
+useful he had been to Master Silvain.  I told her how sorry he was to
+leave the house in which he had lived for so long, and when I stopped,
+trembling for the answer which was coming, Madame Alphonse took her
+needles out of the thread.  "I believe I have made a mistake," she
+said.  She counted up to nineteen, and said again, "What a nuisance it
+is.  I shall have to undo a whole row."  When I told Jean le Rouge
+about this, he was angry, and shook his fist at Villevieille.  His wife
+put her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, and he was quiet at
+once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jean le Rouge left the house on the hill at the end of January, and I
+was very sad.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap50"></A>
+
+<P>
+I had no friends left now.  I hardly recognized the farm any more.  All
+these new people had made themselves quite at home there, and I seemed
+to myself to be a new-comer.  The serving-woman looked at me with
+distrust, and the ploughman avoided talking to me.  The servant's name
+was Adèle.  All day long you could hear her grumbling and dragging her
+wooden shoes after her as she walked.  She made a noise even when she
+was walking on straw.  She used to eat her meals standing, and answer
+her master and mistress quite rudely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+M. Alphonse had taken away the bench which was by the door, and had put
+up little green bushes with trellis-work round them.  He cut down the
+old elm tree, too, to which the wood owl used to come on summer
+evenings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course the old tree had not shaded the house for a long time.  It
+only had one tuft of leaves right up on the top.  It looked like a head
+which bent over to listen to what people underneath were saying.  The
+woodcutters who came to cut it down said that it would not be an easy
+thing to do.  They said there was some danger that when it fell it
+would crash through the roof of the house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, after a lot of talk, they decided to rope it round and pull it
+over so that it fell on to the dung-heap.  It took two men all day to
+cut it down, and just when we thought that it was going to drop nicely,
+one of the ropes worked loose, and the old elm jumped and fell to one
+side.  It slipped down the roof, knocking down a chimney and a large
+number of tiles, bumped a piece out of the wall, and fell right across
+the door.  Not one of its branches touched the dung-heap.  M. Alphonse
+yelled with rage.  He laid hold of the axe belonging to one of the
+woodcutters, and struck the tree so violent a blow that a piece of bark
+flew against the linen-room window and broke a pane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Madame Alphonse saw the bits of glass fall on me.  She jumped up in
+more excitement than I had ever seen her show, and with trembling hands
+and fearful eyes she examined closely every bit of the table-cloth
+which I was embroidering.  But she did not see me wiping away the blood
+from my cheek, which had been cut by a bit of glass.  She was so afraid
+that something might happen to the piles of linen which were beginning
+to grow that she took me off next day to her mother's to show me how
+the linen should be put into the closets.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap51"></A>
+
+<P>
+Madame Alphonse's mother was called Madame Deslois, but when the
+ploughmen talked about her they always said "the good woman of the
+castle."  She had only been to Villevieille once.  She had come close
+up to me and looked at me with her eyes half shut.  She was a big woman
+who walked bent double as if she were looking for something on the
+ground.  She lived in a big house called the Lost Ford.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Madame Alphonse took me along by a path near a little river.  It was
+the end of March, and the meadows were already in flower.  Madame
+Alphonse walked straight along the path, but I got a lot of pleasure
+out of walking in the soft grass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We soon came to the wood where the wolf had taken my lamb.  I had
+always had a mysterious fear of this wood, and when we left the path by
+the river to go through it I shook with fear.  And yet the road was a
+broad one.  It must even have been a carriage road, for there were deep
+ruts in it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Above our heads heaps of pine needles tickled one another and rustled.
+They made a gentle noise, not a bit like the whispering, with silences
+in between, which I used to hear in the forest when the snow was on it.
+But in spite of all I could not help looking behind me.  We didn't walk
+very far through the wood.  The road turned to the left and we got to
+the courtyard of the Lost Ford immediately.  The little river ran
+behind the stables as it did at Villevieille, but here the meadows were
+quite close together, and the buildings looked as though they were
+trying to hide among the sapling pines.  The living house didn't look
+anything like the farms thereabouts.  The ground floor was built of
+very thick old walls, and the first floor looked as though it had been
+put on top of them as a makeshift.  The house did not look a bit like a
+castle to me.  It made me think of an old tree trunk out of which a
+baby tree had sprouted, and sprouted badly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Madame Deslois came to the door when she heard us arrive.  She winked
+her little eyes as she looked at me and said at once in a loud voice
+that she had dropped a halfpenny in the straw, and that it was very
+funny that nobody had found it, as it had been lost for a week.  While
+she spoke she moved her foot about and stirred the straw which was in
+front of the door.  Madame Alphonse cannot have heard her.  Her big
+eyes were staring into the house, and she was almost excited when she
+said why we had come.  Madame Deslois said that she would take me to
+the linen-room herself.  She put the keys into the locks of the
+cupboards, and after having told me to be very careful, and to
+disarrange nothing, she left me alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It didn't take me long to open and close the great shining cupboards.
+I should have liked to go away at once.  This big cold linen-room
+frightened me like a prison.  My feet sounded on the tiles as though
+there were deep vaults underneath them.  All of a sudden it seemed to
+me that I should never get out of this linen-room again.  I listened to
+see whether I could hear any animals stirring, but I only heard Madame
+Deslois' voice.  It was a rough, strong voice which went right through
+the walls, and could be heard everywhere.  I was going to the window so
+as to feel a little less lonely, when a door which I had not noticed
+suddenly opened behind me.  I turned round and saw a young man come in.
+He wore a long white smock and a grey cap.  He stood standing as though
+he were surprised to see anybody there, and I went on looking at him
+without being able to take my eyes away.  He walked right across the
+linen-room, and he and I stared and stared at one another.  Then he
+went out, banging himself against the woodwork of the door.  A moment
+afterwards he passed by the window and our eyes met again.  I felt
+quite uncomfortable, and without knowing why, I went and shut the doors
+which he had left open.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently Madame Alphonse came and fetched me, and I went back to
+Villevieille with her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since M. Alphonse had taken Pauline's place I had got into the habit of
+going and sitting in a bush which had grown into the shape of a chair.
+It was in the middle of a shrubbery not far from the farm.  Now that
+spring was beginning I used to go and sit there when the ploughmen were
+smoking their pipes at the stable doors.  I used to sit there listening
+to the little noises of the evening, and I longed to be like the trees.
+That evening I thought of the man I had seen at Lost Ford.  But every
+time I tried to remember the exact colour of his eyes they pierced into
+my own eyes so that they seemed to be lighting me all up inside.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap52"></A>
+
+<P>
+The next Sunday was Easter Sunday.  Adèle had gone to mass in M.
+Alphonse's cart.  I remained alone, with one of the ploughmen, to look
+after the farm.  After luncheon the ploughman went to sleep on a heap
+of straw in front of the door, and I went to my shrubbery to spend the
+afternoon.  I tried to hear the bells ringing, but the farm was too far
+from the villages round, and I could hear none of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I began to think about Sister Marie-Aimée, and my thoughts went back to
+Sophie, who used to come and wake me up every year so that I should
+hear all the bells ringing in Easter together.  One year she didn't
+wake up.  She was so upset at that, that next year she put a big stone
+in her mouth to keep herself from sleeping.  Every time she nodded off
+her teeth met on the stone, and she woke up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I sat and thought about High Mass where Colette used to sing in her
+beautiful voice, and I could see our afternoon on the lawn, and Sister
+Marie-Aimée busy with the special dinner which they gave us on feast
+days.  And that evening when dinner-time came I should see, instead of
+sister Marie-Aimée's sweet loving face, Madame Alphonse's hard face and
+her husband's glittering eyes, which frightened me so.  And as I sat
+and thought how long I should still have to stay on the farm I felt
+deeply discouraged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I was tired of crying I saw with astonishment that the sun was
+quite low.  Through the branches of my shrubbery I watched the long
+thin shadows of the poplar trees growing longer than ever on the grass,
+and quite close to me I saw a long shadow which was moving.  It came
+forward, then stopped, and then came forward again.  I understood at
+once that somebody was going to pass my hiding-place, and almost
+immediately the man in the white smock walked into the shrubbery,
+stooping to get out of the way of the branches.  I felt cold all over.
+I soon got control of myself, but I could not help trembling nervously.
+He remained standing in front of me without saying a word.  I sat and
+looked at his eyes, which were very gentle, and I began to feel warm
+again.  I noticed that, as Eugène used to, he wore a coloured shirt and
+a cravat tied under the collar, and when he spoke it seemed to me that
+I had known his voice for a long time.  He leaned against a big branch
+opposite me, and asked me if I had no relations.  I said "No."  His eye
+ran along the branch covered with young shoots, and without looking at
+me he said again, "Then you are all alone in the world."  I answered
+quickly, "Oh no, I have Sister Marie-Aimée!"  And without leaving him
+time to ask any more questions I told him how I had longed for her, and
+how impatiently I was waiting and hoping to see her again.  Talking
+about her made me so happy that I could not stop talking.  I told him
+of her beauty and of her intelligence, which seemed to me to be above
+everything in the world.  I told him, too, how sorry she had been when
+I went away, and of the joy that I knew she would feel when she saw me
+come back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While I talked his eyes were fixed on my face, but they seemed to look
+much further.  After a silence he asked again, "Have you no friends
+here?"  "No," I said; "all those whom I loved have gone;" and I added
+rather angrily, "They have even turned out Jean le Rouge."  "And yet,"
+he said, "Madame Alphonse is not unkind?"  I told him that she was
+neither unkind, nor kind, and that I should leave her without any
+regret.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then we heard the sound of M. Alphonse's cart-wheels, and I got up to
+go.  He stood aside a little to let me pass him, and I left him alone
+in the shrubbery.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening I took advantage of the unusually good humour of Adèle to
+ask her if she knew any of the ploughmen at the Lost Ford.  She said
+she only knew some of the old ones, for since Madame Deslois had been a
+widow the new ones never stayed with her.  A sort of fear which I could
+not have explained kept me from mentioning the young man in the white
+smock, and Adèle added with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her eldest
+son has come back from Paris.  The farm hands will be happier."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next day, while Madame Alphonse was working at her lace, I sewed and
+thought about the ploughman in the white smock.  I could not in my mind
+help comparing him to Eugène.  He spoke like Eugène did, and they
+seemed like one another somehow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening I thought I saw him near the stables, and a moment later
+he came into the linen-room.  His eyes just glanced at me and then he
+looked straight at Madame Alphonse.  He held his head high and the left
+side of his mouth drooped a little.  Madame Alphonse said, in a happy
+voice, when she saw him, "Why, there's Henri!" and she let him kiss her
+on both cheeks, and told him to bring a chair up next to her.  But he
+sat sideways on the table, pushing the linen to one side.  Adèle came
+into the room, and Madame Alphonse said, "If you see my husband, tell
+him that my brother is here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was some minutes before I understood.  Then I realized suddenly that
+the young man in the white smock was Madame Deslois's eldest son.  A
+sense of shame which I had never felt before made me blush fiercely,
+and I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about Sister Marie-Aimée.  I
+felt that I had thrown the thing that I loved best to the winds, and do
+what I could, I could not keep back two big tears which tickled the
+corners of my mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was hemming.
+Henri Deslois remained sitting on the corner of the table for a long
+time.  I could feel that he was looking at me, and his eyes were like a
+heavy weight which prevented me from lifting up my head.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap53"></A>
+
+<P>
+Two days afterwards I found him in the shrubbery.  When I saw him
+sitting there my legs felt weak under me, and I stood still.  He got up
+at once so that I should sit down; but I remained standing and looking
+at him.  He had the same gentleness in his eyes that I had noticed the
+first time, and, as if he expected me to tell him another story, "Have
+you nothing to tell me this evening?" he asked.  Words danced across my
+brain, but they did not seem to be worth speaking, and I shook my head
+to say no.  He said, "I was your friend the other day."  Recollection
+of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I
+only said, "You are Madame Alphonse's brother."  I left him and did not
+dare to go back to the shrubbery again.  He often came back to
+Villevieille.  I never used to look at him, but his voice always made
+me feel very uncomfortable.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap54"></A>
+
+<P>
+Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time
+after mass.  Every Sunday I used to pass the house on the hill.
+Sometimes I would look in through the gaps in the shutters, and when,
+as I sometimes did, I bumped my head, the noise it made used to
+frighten me.  One Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on the door.
+I put my finger on the latch and the door fell open with a loud noise.
+I had not expected it to open so quickly, and I stood there longing to
+shut it and go away.  Then as there was no more noise, and as the sun
+had streamed into the house making a big square of light, I made up my
+mind to go in, and went in, leaving the door open.  The big fireplace
+was empty.  There was no hook, there was no pot, and the big andirons
+had gone.  The only things left in the room were the logs of wood which
+Jean le Rouge's children used to use as stools.  The bark was worn off
+them, and the tops of them were polished, as if with wax, from the
+children sitting on them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The second room was quite empty.  There were no tiles on the floor, and
+the feet of the beds had made little holes in the beaten earth.  There
+was no lock to the other door either, and I went out into the garden.
+There were a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and the fruit
+trees were all in flower.  Most of them were very old.  Some of them
+looked like hunchbacks, and their branches bent towards the ground, as
+though they found that even the flowers were too heavy for them to
+carry.  At the bottom of the garden the hill ran down to an immense
+plain where the cattle used to graze, and right at the end a row of
+poplars made a sort of barrier which kept the sky out of the meadow
+land.  Little by little I recognized one place after another.  There
+was a little river at the bottom of the hill.  I could not see the
+water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side
+to let it pass.  The river disappeared behind the buildings of
+Villevieille farm.  There the roofs were of the same colour as the
+chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them.  Here
+and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees.  Then it
+plunged into the great pine wood, which looked quite black, in which
+the Lost Ford was hidden.  That was the road I had taken with Madame
+Alphonse, when we went to her mother's house.  Her brother must have
+come that way that day when he found me in the shrubbery.  There was
+nobody on the road today.  Everything was tender green, and I could see
+no white smock among the clumps of trees.  I tried to see the shrubbery
+but the farm hid it.  Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several
+times since Easter.  I could not have told how I knew that he was
+there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking
+round that way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there
+alone.  He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me.
+I had looked at him as I had done the first time, and he went away
+without saying anything.  And now that I was in the open garden
+surrounded by broom in flower I longed to be able to live there always.
+There was a big apple tree leaning over me, dipping the end of its
+branches in the spring.  The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a
+tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks over the beds.  This
+garden of flowers and clear water seemed to me to be the most beautiful
+garden in the world.  And when I turned my head towards the house,
+which stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect extraordinary
+people to come out of it.  The house seemed full of mystery to me.
+Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought
+that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made when he
+stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had
+not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom
+and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds.  I began to
+imagine that I was a little tree, and that the wind stirred me as it
+liked.  The same fresh breeze which made the broom rock passed over my
+head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like the other trees did I
+stooped down and dipped my fingers in the clear waters of the spring.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another sound made me look at the house again, and I was not in the
+least surprised when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed in the
+doorway.  His head was bare, and his arms were swinging.  He stepped
+out into the garden and looked far off into the plain.  His hair was
+parted on the side, and was a little thin at the temples.  He remained
+perfectly still for a long minute, then he turned to me.  There were
+only two trees between us.  He took a step forward, took hold of the
+young tree in front of him with one hand, and the branches in flower
+made a bouquet over his head.  It grew so light that I thought the bark
+of the trees was glittering, and every flower was shining.  And in
+Henri Deslois's eyes there was so deep a gentleness that I went to him
+without any shame.  He didn't move when I stopped in front of him.  His
+face became whiter than his smock, and his lips quivered.  He took my
+two hands and pressed them hard against his temples.  Then he said very
+low, "I am like a miser who has found his treasure again."  At that
+moment the bell of Sainte Montagne Church began to ring.  The sound of
+the bell ran up the hillsides, and after resting over our heads for a
+moment ran on and died away in the distance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hours passed, the day grew older, and the cattle disappeared from
+the plain.  A white mist rose from the little river, then a stone
+slipped behind the barrier of poplar trees, and the broom flowers began
+to grow darker.  Henri Deslois went back towards the farm with me.  He
+walked in front of me on the narrow path, and when he left me just
+before we came to the avenue of chestnut trees I knew that I loved him
+even more than Sister Marie-Aimée.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The house on the hill became our house.  Every Sunday I found Henri
+Deslois waiting there, and as I used to do when Jean le Rouge lived
+there, I took my blessed bread to the house on the hill after mass and
+we used to laugh as we divided it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We both had the same kind of feeling of liberty which made us run races
+round the garden and wet our shoes in the brooklets from the spring.
+Henri Deslois used to say, "On Sundays I, too, am seventeen years old."
+Sometimes we would go for long walks in the woods which skirted the
+hill.  Henri Deslois was never tired of hearing me talk about my
+childhood, and Sister Marie-Aimée.  Sometimes we talked about Eugène,
+whom he knew.  He used to say that he was one of those men whom one
+liked to have for a friend.  I told him what a bad shepherdess I had
+been, and although I felt sure he would laugh at me, I told him the
+story of the sheep which was all swollen up.  He didn't laugh.  He put
+a finger on my forehead and said, "Love is the only thing that will
+cure that."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap55"></A>
+
+<P>
+One day we stopped near an immense field of corn.  It was so big that
+we could not see the end of it.  Thousands of white butterflies were
+floating about over the corn ears.  Henri Deslois didn't speak, and I
+watched the ears of corn which were stooping and stretching as though
+they were getting ready to fly.  It looked as though the butterflies
+were bringing them wings to help them, but it was no good for the corn
+ears to get excited.  They could not get away from the ground.  I told
+my idea to Henri Deslois, who looked at the corn for a long time, and
+then, as though he were speaking to himself, and dragging the words
+out, he said, "It is much the same kind of thing with a man.  Sometimes
+a woman comes to him.  She looks like the white butterflies of the
+plain.  He doesn't know whether she comes up from the earth or whether
+she comes down from the sky.  He feels that with her he could live on
+the wind which passes, and the fresh young flowers.  But like the root
+which holds the corn to earth a mysterious bond holds him to his duty,
+which is as strong as the earth."  I thought that his voice had an
+accent of suffering, and that the corners of his mouth drooped more
+than usual.  But almost immediately his eyes looked into mine, and he
+said in a stronger voice, "We must have confidence in ourselves."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap56"></A>
+
+<P>
+Summer passed and the autumn, and in spite of the bad weather of
+December we could not make up our minds to leave the house on the hill.
+Henri Deslois used to bring books with him which we would read, sitting
+on the logs of wood in the back room which looked into the garden.  I
+went back to the farm at nightfall, and Adèle, who thought I was
+spending my time dancing in the village, was always surprised that I
+looked so sad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Almost every day Henri Deslois came to Villevieille.  I could hear him
+from a long way off.  He rode a great white mare which trotted heavily,
+and he rode her without saddle or bridle.  She was a patient and a
+gentle brute.  Her master used to let her run loose in the yard while
+he went in to say "good day," to Madame Alphonse.  As soon as M.
+Alphonse heard him he would come into the linen-room.  The two of them
+would speak of improvements on the farm or about people whom they knew.
+But there was always a word or a sentence in their conversation which
+came straight to me from Henri Deslois.  I often used to catch M.
+Alphonse looking at me, and I could not always keep from blushing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One afternoon as Henri Deslois came in to the room smiling, M. Alphonse
+said, "You know I have sold the house on the hill."  The two men looked
+at one another.  They both grew so pale that I was afraid they were
+going to die where they stood.  Then M. Alphonse got out of his chair
+and stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Henri Deslois went
+to the door and tried to close it.  Madame Alphonse put her lace down
+on her knee and said, as though she were repeating a lesson, "The house
+was of no particular good, and I am very pleased that it has been
+sold."  Henri Deslois came and stood by the table, so close to me that
+he could have touched me.  He said in a voice that was not quite firm,
+"I am sorry you have sold it without having mentioned it to me, for I
+intended to buy it."  M. Alphonse wriggled like an earthworm.  He made
+a great effort to laugh out loud, and as he laughed he said, "You would
+have bought it?  What would you have done with it?"  Henri Deslois put
+his hand on the back of my chair and answered, "I would have lived in
+it as Jean le Rouge did."  M. Alphonse walked up and down in front of
+the chimney.  His face had changed into a yellow earthy colour.  His
+hands were in his trouser pockets, and he picked up his feet so quickly
+that it looked as though he were pulling at them with a cord which he
+held in each hand.  Then he came and leaned on the table opposite us,
+and looking at us one after the other with his glittering eyes, he bent
+forward and said, "Well, I have sold it now, so it is all over."
+During the silence which followed we could hear the white mare pawing
+the ground with her shoe as though she were calling her master.  Henri
+Deslois went towards the door.  Then he came back to me and picked up
+my work which had fallen from my hands without my having noticed it.
+He kissed his sister, and before he went, he said, looking at me, "I
+shall see you to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap57"></A>
+
+<P>
+Next morning Madame Deslois came into the linen-room.  She came
+straight to me, and was very rude.  But M. Alphonse told her to be
+quiet, and, turning to me, he said, "Madame Alphonse has asked me to
+tell you that she would like to keep you in her service.  But she wants
+you in future to come to mass with us."  He tried to smile, and added,
+"We will drive you there and back."  It was the first time that he had
+ever spoken directly to me.  His voice was rather husky, as though he
+felt some awkwardness in saying these things to me.  I don't know what
+made me think that he was lying, and that Madame Alphonse had not said
+anything of the kind.  Besides, he looked so much like the Mother
+Superior that I could not help defying him.  I told him that I didn't
+care about driving, and that I should go to mass at Sainte Montagne as
+before.  He sucked in his lower lip and began biting it.  Then Madame
+Deslois stepped forward threateningly, and told me that I was insolent.
+She kept on repeating this word as though she could not find any
+others.  She shouted it more and more loudly, and lost all control of
+herself.  The white of her eyes was becoming quite red, and she raised
+her hand to strike me.  I stepped back quickly behind my chair.  Madame
+Deslois bumped into the chair and knocked it over, and caught at the
+table so as not to fall down.  Her harsh voice terrified me.  I wanted
+to leave the linen-room, but M. Alphonse had placed himself in front of
+the door, and I came back into the room and faced Madame Deslois across
+the table.  She began to speak again in a strangled sort of voice.  She
+used words which I didn't understand, but there was something about
+what she said and the way in which she said it which I hated.  At last
+she stopped speaking, and shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't
+forget that I am his mother."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+M. Alphonse came towards me.  He took hold of my arm and said, "Come,
+now, listen to me."  I shook myself loose, pushed him away and ran out
+of the house.  The last words that Madame Deslois had said hammered on
+my brain as though they really were a hammer with one end of it
+pointed.  "I am his mother, do you hear?&mdash;his mother."  Oh, mother
+Marie-Aimée, how beautiful you were when compared to this other mother,
+and how I loved you!  How your many-coloured eyes beamed and lit up
+your black dress, and how pure your face was under your white cap!  I
+could see you as clearly as though you were really in front of me.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap58"></A>
+
+<P>
+I was quite astonished to find myself in front of the house on the
+hill, and when I got there I saw that snow was falling in a regular
+hurricane.  I went into the house for shelter, and went straight into
+the room which looked out on the garden.  I tried to think, but my
+ideas whirled round in my head like the snow-flakes, which looked as
+though they were climbing up from the ground and falling from the sky
+at the same time.  And every time that I made an effort to think, the
+only things I could think of were little bits of a song which the
+children used to sing in the convent, and which ran&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+The old girl jumped and jumped about<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And jumped until she died.</SPAN><BR>
+The old girl jumped and jumped about<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And jumped until she died.[1]</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I felt less unhappy in this silent house.  The softly falling snow was
+pretty, and the trees were as beautiful as on that day when I had seen
+them all in bloom.  Then suddenly I remembered, quite clearly all that
+had just happened.  I saw Madame Deslois's hand with its square
+fingers, and shivered all over.  What an ugly hand it was, and what a
+large one!  Then I remembered the expression on M. Alphonse's face when
+he took hold of my arm, and I remembered as I thought of it that I had
+seen the same expression once before on a little girl's face.  It was
+one day when I had picked up a pear which had fallen from the tree.
+She had rushed at me, saying, "Give me half of it, and I won't tell."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I felt so disgusted at the idea of sharing it with her that, although
+Sister Marie-Aimée might have seen me, I had gone back to the tree and
+put the pear down where it had fallen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thinking of all these things, I longed and longed to see Sister
+Marie-Aimée again.  I should have liked to have gone to her at once,
+but I remembered that Henri Deslois had said as he went, "I shall see
+you to-morrow."  Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting for me,
+and wondering what had become of me.  I went out of the house to run
+back to Villevieille.  I had only gone a few steps when I saw him
+coming up.  The white mare didn't find it very easy to climb the
+snow-covered path.  Henri Deslois was bareheaded, as he had been the
+first time he came.  His smock billowed out with the wind, and he had a
+hand on the mane of the mare.  The mare stood in front of me.  Her
+master leaned down and took my two hands which I held up to him.  There
+was on his face a look of worry which I had never seen before.  I
+noticed, too, that his eyebrows met, like those of Madame Deslois.  He
+was a little out of breath, and said, "I knew that I should find you
+here."  He opened his mouth again, and I felt quite certain that his
+words were going to bring me happiness.  He held my hands tighter, and
+said in the same breathless voice as before, "I can no longer be your
+friend."  I thought that somebody had struck me a violent blow on the
+head.  There was a noise of a saw in my ears.  I could see Henri
+Deslois trembling, and I heard him say, "How cold I am!"  Then I no
+longer felt the warmth of his hand on mine.  And when I realized that I
+was standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing but a great white
+shape which was slipping noiselessly across the snow.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] On a tant fait sauter la vieille,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Qu'elle est morte en sautillant,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">Tireli,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sautons, sautons, la vieille!</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap59"></A>
+
+<P>
+I went slowly down the other side of the hill, walking in the snow,
+which squeaked under my feet.  About half-way a peasant offered me a
+lift in his cart.  He was going to town too, and it was not long before
+we got to the Orphanage.  I rang the bell, and the porteress looked out
+at me through the peephole.  I recognized her.  It was "Ox Eye" still.
+We had named her Ox Eye because her eyes were big and round like a
+daisy.  She opened the gate when she recognized me, and told me to come
+in; but before she shut the gate behind me she said, "Sister
+Marie-Aimée is not here."  I didn't answer, so she said again, "Sister
+Marie-Aimée is not here."  I heard what she said quite well, but I
+didn't pay any attention to it.  It was like a dream where the most
+extraordinary  things happen without seeming to be of any importance at
+all.  I looked at her great big eyes and said, "I have come back."  She
+closed the gate behind me and left me standing under the eaves of her
+little house in the gateway, while she went to tell the Mother
+Superior.  She came back, saying that the Mother Superior wanted to
+speak to Sister Désirée-des-Anges before she saw me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A bell rang.  Ox Eye got up and told me to go with her.  It was snowing
+again.  It was almost dark in the Mother Superior's room.  At first I
+saw nothing but the fire, which was whistling and flaming.  Then I
+heard the Mother Superior's voice.  "So you have come back?" she said.
+I tried to think steadily, but I was not quite sure whether I had come
+back or not.  She said, "Sister Marie-Aimée is not here."  I thought
+that my bad dream was coming on again, and coughed to try and wake
+myself.  Then I looked at the fire and tried to find out why it
+whistled like that.  The Mother Superior spoke again.  "Are you ill?"
+she said.  I answered "No."  The heat did me good, and I felt better.
+I was beginning to understand at last that I had come back to the
+Orphanage, and that I was in the Mother Superior's room.  My eyes met
+hers, and I remembered everything.  She laughed a little, and said,
+"You have not changed much.  How old are you now?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I told her that I was eighteen years old.  "Really," she said.  "Going
+out into the world has not made you grow much."  She leaned one elbow
+on the table, and asked me why I had come back.  I wanted to tell her
+that I had come back to see Sister Marie-Aimée, but I was afraid of
+hearing her say once more that Sister Marie-Aimée was not there, and I
+remained silent.  She opened a drawer, took out a letter, which she
+covered with her open hand, and said in the weary voice of a person who
+has been bothered unnecessarily, "This letter had already told me that
+you had become a bold, proud girl."  She pushed the letter from her as
+though she were tired, and in a long breath she said, "You can work in
+the kitchen here until we find you something else to do."  The fire
+went on whistling.  I went on looking at it, but I could not make out
+which of the three logs was making the noise.  The Mother Superior
+raised her monotonous voice to draw my attention.  She warned me that
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges would watch me very closely, and that I should
+not be allowed to talk to my former companions.  I saw her point to the
+door, and I went out into the snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the other side of the yard I could see the kitchens.  Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges, who was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the
+door.  I could see nothing of her but her cap and her black dress, and
+I imagined her to be old and withered.  I thought of running away.  I
+need only run to the gate and tell Ox Eye that I had come on a visit.
+She would let me out, and that would be all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Instead of going to the gate I went towards the buildings where I had
+lived when I was a child.  I didn't know why I went there, but I could
+not help it.  I felt very tired, and I should have liked to lie down
+and sleep for a long time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old bench was in the same place.  I wiped some of the snow off it
+with my hands, and sat down leaning against the linden tree as M. le
+Curé used to do.  I was waiting for something, and I didn't know what.
+I looked up at the window of Sister Marie-Aimée's room.  The pretty
+embroidered curtains were no longer there, and although the window was
+just like the other windows now, I thought it quite different.  And
+though the thick calico curtains were the same in this room as in the
+others, they seemed to me to make that window look like a face with its
+eyes shut.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The yard began to get dark, and the lights lit up the rooms inside.  I
+meant to get up from the bench, thinking, "Ox Eye will open the gate
+for me;" but my body felt crushed, and I seemed to have two broad, hard
+hands weighing heavily on my head.  And, as though I had spoken them
+aloud, the words, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me," repeated
+themselves over and over again.  All of a sudden a voice, with pity in
+it, said, quite close to me, "Please, Marie Claire, don't sit out here
+in the snow."  I raised my head, and standing in front of me was a
+young, quite young, sister, whose face was so beautiful that I could
+not remember ever to have seen such a face before.  She bent over me to
+help me up, and, as I could hardly stand upright, she put my arm under
+hers, and said, "Lean on me."  Then I saw that she was taking me to the
+kitchen, the great glass door of which was bright with light.  I didn't
+think of anything.  The snow pricked my face, and my eyelids were
+burning.  When I went into the kitchen, I recognized the two girls who
+were standing by the big square oven.  They were Veronique the Minx,
+and Mélanie the Plump, and I seemed to hear Sister Marie-Aimée talking
+to them by these names.  Mélanie nodded to me as I passed her, and
+leaning on the young sister's arm, I went into a room in which there
+was a night-light burning.  The  room  was divided into two by a big
+white curtain.  The young sister made me sit down on a chair, which she
+took from behind the curtain, and went out without saying a word.  A
+little while afterwards Mélanie the Plump and Veronique the Minx came
+in to put clean sheets on the little iron bed beside me.  When they had
+finished, Veronique, who had not looked at me at all till then, turned
+to me and said that nobody had ever thought that I should come back.
+She said it as though she were reproaching me for something shameful.
+Mélanie put her hands together under her chin, and put her head on one
+side, just as she used to do when she was a little girl.  She smiled
+affectionately at me, and said, "I am very glad that you have been sent
+to the kitchen."  Then she patted the bed, and said, "You are taking my
+place.  I used to sleep here."  She pointed to the curtain, and in a
+low voice she said, "This is where Sister Désirée-des-Anges sleeps."
+When they had gone out, closing the door behind them, I sat closer to
+the bed.  The big white curtain made me feel uncomfortable.  I thought
+I could see shadows moving in the folds which the night-light left in
+darkness.  Then I heard the dinner-bell.  I recognized it, and without
+knowing what I was doing I counted the strokes.  Everything was quite
+still for some time, and then the young sister came into the room
+bringing me a bowl of steaming soup.  She pulled the big curtain back
+and said, "This is your room, and that is mine."  I felt quite
+reassured when I saw that her little iron bedstead was exactly the same
+as my own.  I began to wonder whether she was Sister Désirée-des-Anges,
+but I dared not believe it, and asked her.  She nodded "Yes," and
+drawing her chair close to mine, she put her face in the full light and
+said, "Don't you recognize me?"  I looked at her without answering.
+No, I didn't recognize her.  In fact, I was certain that I had never
+seen her; for I was certain that one could never forget her face if one
+had seen it once.  She made a funny little grimace, and said, "I can
+see you don't remember poor Désirée Joly."  Désirée Joly?  Of course I
+remembered her.  She was a girl who had become a novice.  Her face was
+rosier than roses.  She had a beautiful, slim figure, and used to laugh
+all day long.  We all loved her.  She used to jump about so when she
+played with us that Sister Marie-Aimée often used to say to her, "Come
+now, come now, not so high, please, Mademoiselle Joly!  You are showing
+your knees!"  Even now, when I was looking at her, I could not remember
+her.  She said "Yes, the dress makes a lot of difference."  She pulled
+up her sleeves; and making the same funny little face again, she said,
+"Forget that I am Sister Désirée-des-Anges, and remember that Désirée
+Joly used to be very fond of you."  Then she went on quickly, "I
+recognized you at once," she said.  "You still have the same baby
+face."  When I told her I had imagined Sister Désirée-des-Anges to be
+old and cross, she answered, "We were both wrong.  I had been told that
+you were vain and proud; but when I saw you crying in the middle of the
+snow, I thought only that you were suffering, and I went to you."  When
+she had helped me to bed, she divided the room again with the curtain,
+and I went to sleep at once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But I didn't sleep well.  I woke up every minute.  There was a heavy
+stone on my chest still, and when I managed to throw it off, it split
+up into several pieces, which fell back on me and crushed my limbs.
+Then I dreamed that I was on a road full of sharp pointed stones which
+cut me.  I walked along it with difficulty.  On both sides of the road
+there were fields, vines, and houses.  All the houses were covered with
+snow, but the trees were laden with fruit, and were in bright sunshine.
+I left the road and went into the fields, stopping at all the trees to
+taste the fruit.  But the fruit was bitter, and I threw it away.  I
+tried to go into the snow-covered houses, but they had no doors.  I
+went back on to the road and the stones gathered round me so fast that
+I could not go on.  Then I called for help.  I called as loud as I
+could, but nobody heard me.  And when I felt I was going to be buried
+under a huge heap of stones, I struggled so hard to get away from them
+that I woke myself up.  For a moment I thought I was still dreaming.
+The ceiling of the room seemed to be a tremendous height.  The rod from
+which the white curtain was hanging glittered here and there, and the
+branch of boxwood which was nailed to the wall threw a shadow on the
+statue of the Virgin which was in the corner.  Then a cock crowed.  He
+crowed several times, as though he wanted to make me forget his first
+crow, which had stopped short, as if he were in pain.  The night-light
+began to flicker.  It flickered for a long time before it went out, and
+when the room was quite dark I heard Sister Désirée-des-Anges breathing
+gently and regularly.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap60"></A>
+
+<P>
+Long before daybreak I got up to begin my work in the  kitchen.
+Mélanie showed me how to lift the big coppers.  It was a matter of
+skill as well as of strength.  It took me more than a week before I
+could even move one of them.  Mélanie taught me how to ring the heavy
+waking bell.  She showed me how to put my shoulders into the work so as
+to pull the rope, and I soon got into the way of it.  And every
+morning, whether it were cold or raining, I used to enjoy ringing the
+bell.  It had a clear sound which the wind increased or lessened, and I
+never got tired of hearing it.  There were days when I rang so long
+that Sister Désirée-des-Anges would open her window and would say
+pleadingly, "That'll do, that'll do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since I had come to the kitchen, Veronique the Minx used to look away
+from me when she spoke, and if I asked her where anything was, she
+would point to it without speaking.  Sister Désirée-des-Anges used to
+watch her, and would curl her lip as she watched.  She was not as
+quick-tempered as she used to be when she was a novice, but she was
+full of life still and full of fun.  Every evening we used to meet in
+our room, and she would make me laugh at her remarks at what had been
+going on during the day.  Sometimes my laughter ended in a sob.  Then
+she used to put her hands together as the saints do in the pictures,
+raise her eyes and say, "Oh, how I wish that your sorrow would leave
+you."  Then she would kneel on the ground and pray, and I often used to
+go to sleep before she got up again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Work in the kitchen was very hard.  I used to help Mélanie polish up
+the coppers, and wash the tiled floors.  She did most of the work
+herself.  She was as strong as a man, and was always ready to help me.
+As soon as she found that I was tired, she used to force me to sit down
+on a chair, and would say smilingly, "Recreation time."  A few days
+after I had arrived, she reminded me of the difficulties she used to
+have in learning her catechism.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had not forgotten that during a whole season I had spent all my
+recreation time trying to teach her to learn it by heart.  And now she
+delighted in making me rest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Veronique's work was the preparation of the vegetables, and she also
+took the meat in from the butcher.  She used to stand stiffly by the
+scales until the butcher's boys put the meat on.  She was always
+grumbling at them, saying that the meat was cut too small or cut too
+big.  The butcher boys used to get angry with her and were rude to her
+sometimes, and Sister Désirée-des-Anges told me at last to take the
+meat in instead of her.  She came to the scales just the same next day;
+but I was there with Sister Désirée-des-Anges, who was telling me how
+to weigh the meat.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap61"></A>
+
+<P>
+One morning one of the two butchers looked at me and spoke my name.
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges and I looked at the butcher boy in surprise.
+He was a new one, but I soon recognized him.  He was the eldest son of
+Jean le Rouge.  He was delighted to see me again, and told me that his
+parents had got a good place at the Lost Ford.  He himself didn't care
+about working in the fields, and had found work with a butcher in the
+town.  Then he told me that the Lost Ford was quite near Villevieille,
+and asked me if I knew it.  I nodded my head to say that I did.  He
+went on to say that his father and mother had been there for some
+months, and that there had been feasting there last week because Henri
+Deslois was married.  I heard him say a few words more which I didn't
+understand.  Then the daylight in the kitchen turned into black night,
+and I felt the tiles give way under my feet and drag me down into a
+bottomless hole.  I remember Sister Désirée-des-Anges coming to help
+me, but an animal had fastened itself on my chest.  It made a dreadful
+sound which it hurt me to hear.  It was like a horrible sob which
+always stopped at the same place.  Then the light came back again, and
+I could see above me the faces of Sister Désirée-des-Anges and Mélanie.
+Both were smiling anxiously, and Mélanie's broad, red face looked like
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges' pointed pale one.  I sat up in bed, wondering
+why I was there by daylight, but I didn't get up.  I remembered little
+Jean le Rouge, and for hours and hours I fought with my pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Sister Désirée-des-Anges came into the room at bedtime she sat
+down on the foot of my bed.  She put her two hands together like the
+saints did.  "Tell me of your sorrow," she said.  I told her, and it
+seemed to me that every word I spoke took some of my suffering away
+with it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I had told her everything, Sister  Désirée-des-Anges  fetched "The
+Imitation of Jesus Christ," and began to read aloud.  She read in a
+gentle and resigned voice, and there were words which sounded like the
+end of a moan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the days which followed, I saw little Jean le Rouge again.  He told
+me some more about the Lost Ford, and while he said how happy his
+parents were and how kind the master was to them, I could see the house
+on the hill with its garden in flower, and its spring from which the
+little brooklets crawled down to the river, hiding themselves under the
+broom.  I often spoke of it to Sister Désirée-des-Anges, who listened
+to me meditatively.  She knew the neighbourhood and every corner of the
+place, and one evening, when she sat dreaming and I asked her what she
+was thinking about, she said, "Summer will be over soon, and I was
+thinking that the trees were full of fruit."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap62"></A>
+
+<P>
+During the month of September a number of religious paid visits to the
+Mother Superior.  Ox Eye used to ring the bell to announce them.  Every
+time she rang Veronique went out to see who was coming in.  She always
+had something disagreeable to say about each one of the sisters whom
+she recognized.  One evening the bell sounded.  Veronique, who was
+looking out, said, "Well, here's one whom nobody expected."  She put
+her head into the kitchen again, and said, "It is Sister Marie-Aimée."
+The big spoon which I had in my hand slipped through my fingers and
+dropped into the copper.  I rushed to the door, pushing past Veronique,
+who wanted to keep me back.  Mélanie rushed after me.  "Don't," she
+said, "the Mother Superior can see you."  But I rushed out to Sister
+Marie-Aimée.  I rushed into her arms with such force that we nearly
+fell over together.  She clasped me tight and held me.  She was
+trembling and almost crazy with joy.  She took my head in her hands,
+and, as if I had been quite a little child, she kissed me all over my
+face.  Her stiff linen cap made a noise like paper when you crumple it
+up, and her broad sleeves fell back to her shoulders.  Mélanie was
+right, the Mother Superior saw me.  She came out of the chapel and came
+towards us.  Sister Marie-Aimée saw her.  She stopped kissing me, and
+put her hand on my shoulder.  I put my arm round her, fearing that she
+would be taken away from me, and the two of us stood and watched the
+Mother Superior.  She passed in front of us without raising her eyes,
+and didn't seem to see Sister Marie-Aimée, who bowed gravely to her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon as she had gone I dragged Sister Marie-Aimée off to the old
+bench.  She stopped a moment, and before sitting down she said, "It is
+as though things were waiting for us."  She sat down.  She leaned
+against the linden tree, and I kneeled down in the grass at her feet.
+There were no more rays in her eyes.  It was as though the colours in
+them had all been mixed up together.  Her dear little face had grown
+smaller, and seemed to have gone further back into her cap.  Her
+stomacher had not the beautiful curve on her chest that it used to
+have, and her hands were so thin that the blue veins in them showed up
+quite clearly.  She hardly glanced at the window of her room, but
+looked out on the linden trees and round the courtyard, and as she
+caught sight of the Mother Superior's house, these words fell from her
+like a sigh, "We must forgive others if we wish to be forgiven."  Then
+she looked at me again, and said, "Your eyes are sad."  She passed the
+palms of her hands over my eyes, as if she wanted to wipe out something
+which displeased her, and, keeping them there so that my eyes remained
+shut, "How we suffer,"' she said.  Then she took her hands away and
+clasped mine, and, with her eyes on my face, she said, as though she
+were praying, "My sweet daughter, listen to me.  Never become a poor
+religious."  She heaved a long sigh of regret, and said, "Our dress of
+black and white tells others that we are creatures of strength and of
+brightness.  At our bidding all tears are dried, and all who suffer
+come to us for consolation, but nobody thinks of our own suffering.  We
+are like women without faces."  Then she spoke of the future.  She
+said, "I am going where the missionaries go.  I shall live there in a
+house full of terror.  Before my eyes will pass unceasingly everything
+that is hideous, everything that is ugly, everything that is bad."  I
+listened to her deep voice.  There was a note of passion in it.  It was
+as though she were taking on to her own shoulders all the suffering of
+the world.  Her fingers loosed mine.  She passed them over my cheeks,
+and in a gentle voice, and sweet, she said, "The purity of your face
+will always remain graven on my mind."  Then she looked out, away and
+past me, and added, "God has given us remembrance, and it is not in
+anybody's power to take that away from us."  She got up from the bench.
+I went with her across the yard, and when Ox Eye had closed the heavy
+gate behind her, I stood and listened to the echo of its closing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening Sister Désirée-des-Anges came into the room later than
+usual.  She had been taking part in special prayer for Sister
+Marie-Aimée, who was going away to nurse the lepers.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap63"></A>
+
+<P>
+Winter came again.  Sister Désirée-des-Anges had soon guessed my love
+of reading, and she brought me all the books in the sisters' library,
+one after the other.  Most of the books were childish books, and I read
+quickly, turning over several pages at a time.  I preferred stories of
+travel, and I used to read at night by the night-light.  Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges used to scold me when she woke up; but as soon as she
+went to sleep I took up the book again.  Little by little we became
+great friends.  The white curtain was no longer drawn between our beds
+at night time.  All sense of constraint had disappeared between us, and
+all our thoughts were in common.  She was cheerful and bright always.
+The one thing that annoyed her in her life was her nun's costume.  She
+found it heavy and uncomfortable, and she used to say that it hurt her.
+"When I dress," she said, "I always feel as though I were putting
+myself into a house where it is always night."  She was always glad to
+get out of her dress in the evening, and loved walking about the room
+in her night-dress.  She used to say, making that funny little face, "I
+am beginning to get used to it, but at first that cap crushed my cheeks
+and the dress weighed my shoulders down."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the spring came she began to cough.  She had a little dry cough
+which used to make itself heard from time to time, and her long slim
+body seemed to become more fragile than ever.  She was as bright and
+cheerful as before, but she complained that her dress became heavier
+and heavier.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap64"></A>
+
+<P>
+One night in May she tossed about and dreamed aloud.  I had been
+reading all night, and noticed all of a sudden that daylight was
+coming.  I blew out the night-light and tried to sleep a little.  I was
+just dropping off when Sister Désirée-des-Anges said, "Open the window,
+he is coming to-day."  I looked to see whether she was asleep, and saw
+that she was sitting up in bed.  She had drawn back her blanket, and
+was untying the strings of her night-cap.  She took it off and threw it
+to the foot of the bed.  Then she shook her head, her short hair rolled
+into curls on her forehead, and I recognized Désirée Joly at once.  I
+was a little bit frightened, and got up.  She said again, "Open the
+window and let him in."  I opened the window wide, and when I turned
+round Sister Désirée-des-Anges was holding out her clasped hands
+towards the sun, and in a voice which had suddenly grown weaker, she
+said, "I have taken off my dress.  I could not stand it any longer."
+She lay down quietly, and her face became quite still.  I held my
+breath for a long time to listen to hers.  Then I breathed hard, as
+though I could give her my breath, but when I looked at her more
+closely I saw that she had breathed her last.  Her eyes were wide open,
+and seemed to be looking at a sunbeam which was coming towards her like
+a long arrow.  Swallows flew past the window and flew back again,
+chirruping like little girls, and my ears were filled with sounds which
+I had never heard before.  I looked up to the windows of the
+dormitories, hoping that somebody would hear what I had to say, but I
+saw nothing but the face of the big clock which seemed to be looking
+down into the room over the linden trees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was five o'clock.  I pulled the blanket up over Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges and went out and rang the bell.  I rang for a long
+time.  The notes went far, far away.  They went right away to where
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges had gone.  I went on ringing because it seemed
+to me that the bells were telling the world that Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges was dead.  I went on ringing too, because I hoped
+that she would pop her beautiful face out of the window and say,
+"That'll do, that'll do, Marie Claire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mélanie pulled the rope out of my hands.  The bell, which was up, fell
+back all wrong, and gave a sort of groan.  "You have been ringing for a
+quarter of an hour or more," Mélanie said.  I answered, "Sister
+Désirée-des-Anges is dead."  Veronique went into the room after us.
+She noticed that the white curtain was not drawn between the two beds,
+and said that she thought it was disgraceful for a religious to let her
+hair be seen.  Mélanie passed her finger over a tear which was rolling
+down each of her cheeks.  Her head was more on one side than ever, and
+she whispered quite low, "She is even prettier than she was before."
+The sunshine bathed the bed, and covered the dead woman from head to
+foot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I remained with her all day.  Some of the sisters came to see her.  One
+of them covered her face with a napkin, but as soon as she had gone, I
+uncovered it again.  Mélanie came and spent the night by the bedside
+with me.  When she had closed the window she lit the big lamp, "so that
+Sister Désirée-des-Anges should not be in the dark," she said.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap65"></A>
+
+<P>
+A week afterwards Ox Eye came to the kitchen.  She told me to get ready
+to go the same day.  In the hollow of her hand she held two gold
+pieces, which she put side by side on the corner of the oven, and,
+touching one after the other with her finger, she said, "Our Mother
+Superior sends you forty francs."  I did not want to go away without
+saying good-bye to Colette and to Ismérie, whom I had often seen at the
+other side of the lawn; but Mélanie assured me that they didn't care
+for me any more.  Colette could not understand why I was not married
+yet, and Ismérie could not forgive me for being so fond of Sister
+Marie-Aimée.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mélanie went to the gate with me.  As we passed the old bench, I saw
+that one of its legs was broken, and that one end of it had fallen into
+the grass.  At the gate I found a woman waiting.  Her eyes were hard.
+She said, "I am your sister."  I didn't recognize her.  It was twelve
+years since I had seen her.  Directly we got outside she caught hold of
+my arm, and in a voice as hard as her eyes, she asked me how much money
+I had.  I showed her the two gold pieces which I had just received.
+Then she said, "You will do better to remain in the town, where you
+will find it easier to get something to do."  As we walked on she told
+me she was married to a gardener in the neighbourhood, and that she
+didn't intend to give herself any particular trouble over me.  We got
+to the railway station.  She took me on to the platform because she
+wanted me to help her carry some parcels.  She said "good-bye" when her
+train went off, and I remained there and watched it go.  Almost
+immediately another train stopped.  The railway men ran up and down the
+platform calling to the passengers for Paris to cross over.  In that
+one moment I saw Paris with its great houses like palaces, with roofs
+so high that they were lost in the clouds.  A young man bumped into me.
+He stopped and said, "Are you going to Paris, mademoiselle?"  I
+scarcely hesitated, and said, "Yes; but I have no ticket."  He held out
+his hand.  "Give me the money," he said, "and I will go and get it for
+you."  I gave him one of my two gold coins, and he ran off.  I put the
+ticket and the change in copper which he had brought me into my pocket,
+went across the line with him, and climbed into the train.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young man stood at the carriage door for a minute, and went off,
+turning back once as he went.  His eyes were full of gentleness, like
+those of Henri Deslois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The train whistled once, as though to warn me, and as it moved off it
+whistled a second time, a long whistle like a scream.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+THE END
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap66"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+AFTERWORD
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+And now may I tell you what I know about Marguerite Audoux, the author
+of the book you have just read?  I know very little more of her than
+you do, for you have read the book, and Marguerite Audoux is Marie
+Claire.  If Marie Claire in English does not please you, the fault is
+mine.  I have tried hard to translate into English the uneducated,
+unspoilt purity of language, the purity of thought which are the
+characteristics of the French; but the task was no easy one, much as I
+loved it in the doing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marguerite Audoux herself is a plump and placid little woman, of about
+thirty-five.  She lives in a sixth-floor garret in the Rue Leopold
+Robert, in Paris.  From her window she has a view of roof-tops and the
+Montparnasse cemetery.  When she learned of the success of her book,
+with which she had lived for six years, she cried.  "I felt dreadfully
+frightened at first," she said, "I felt very uneasy.  I felt as though
+I had become known too quickly, as though I were a criminal of note.
+Now my one wish is to work again."  She reads a good deal.  Her
+favourite authors are Chateaubriand and Maeterlinck.  In Maeterlinck
+she loves the mystery.  "We never know people properly," she says.
+"They are just as difficult to understand as things that happen are.
+We never know whose fault it is when good or bad things happen, and we
+don't really know whether we ought to be angry or to be sorry with
+people who do harm.  Wicked people are like a thunderstorm, don't you
+think?  And a lazy woman is like a hot room.  Both are unhealthy, but
+they cannot help it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marguerite Audoux does not say these things to be clever.  She says
+them quite simply, and they express her natural way of thought, which
+is simplicity and purity itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She wrote her book when and how she could, on scraps of cheap paper,
+and she does not know herself, now, whether she hoped to have it
+published when she wrote it.  She did hope for publication when she had
+finished it, but that was because she was hungry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I met a friend just outside Marguerite Audoux's house after my first
+visit to her.  "Tiens," he said, "tu viens de la mansarde de Génie
+l'ouvrière."  And the clever little pun was true.  Marguerite Audoux is
+a genius, and she does not understand what people mean when they ask
+her "how" she "writes."  She opens her weak eyes very wide at the
+question, laughs as a child laughs when it doesn't understand, and
+says, "But I don't know.  The thoughts come, and I write them down.  I
+only wish that I could spell them better."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the committee of the Vie Heureuse was voting on her book before
+awarding her the 200 pound prize for the best book of the year,
+somebody suggested the possibility that she had had help with it.
+Madame Séverine was sent to fetch the manuscript.  It was passed round,
+examined, and no more doubt was possible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I hope you will find the pleasure in reading Marie Claire that I found
+in translating it.  I should like to say quite earnestly&mdash;and perhaps a
+little shamefacedly, because we hate saying these things out loud&mdash;that
+when I had read it I felt awed.  The book had worked upon me.  Do you
+remember the impression made on you by moonlight upon the snow in the
+country?  You must be quite alone to feel it.  The purity of it all
+makes you wish that you were a cleaner man or woman, and, till you rub
+shoulders with people again, you mean to try hard to be cleaner and
+better.  Marie Claire made me feel just exactly like that.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+JOHN N. RAPHAEL.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Marie Claire, by Marguerite Audoux
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marie Claire, by Marguerite Audoux
+
+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: Marie Claire
+
+Author: Marguerite Audoux
+
+Translator: John N.  Raphael
+
+Release Date: February 12, 2007 [EBook #20572]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE CLAIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Marguerite Audoux]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MARIE CLAIRE
+
+
+BY
+
+MARGUERITE AUDOUX
+
+
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+JOHN N. RAPHAEL
+
+
+
+WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
+
+ARNOLD BENNETT
+
+
+
+AND AN AFTERWORD BY THE TRANSLATOR
+
+
+
+
+LONDON
+
+G. BELL & SONS, LTD.
+
+1911
+
+
+
+
+_This Edition is intended for circulation only in India, and the
+British Colonies_
+
+
+
+  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+  LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+The origins of this extraordinary book are sufficiently curious and
+sufficiently interesting to be stated in detail.  They go back to some
+ten years ago, when the author, after the rustic adventures which she
+describes in the following pages, had definitely settled in Paris as a
+working sempstress.  The existence of a working sempstress in Paris, as
+elsewhere, is very hard; it usually means eleven hours' close
+application a day, six full days a week, at half a crown a day.  But
+already Marguerite Audoux's defective eyesight was causing anxiety, and
+upsetting the regularity of her work, so that in the evenings she was
+often less fatigued than a sempstress generally is.  She wanted
+distraction, and she found it in the realization of an old desire to
+write.  She wrote, not because she could find nothing else to do, but
+because at last the chance of writing had come.  That she had always
+loved reading is plain from certain incidents in this present book; her
+opportunities for reading, however, had been limited.  She now began,
+in a tentative and perhaps desultory fashion, to set down her youthful
+reminiscences.  About this time she became acquainted, through one of
+its members, and by one of those hazards of destiny which too rarely
+diversify the dull industrial life of a city, with a circle of young
+literary men, of whom possibly the most important was the regretted
+Charles Louis Philippe, author of "Bubu de Montparnasse," and other
+novels which have a genuine reputation among the chosen people who know
+the difference between literature and its counterfeit.  This circle of
+friends used to meet at Philippe's flat.  It included a number of
+talented writers, among whom I should mention MM. Iehl (the author of
+"Cauet"), Francis Jourdain, Paul Fargue, Larbaud, Chanvin, Marcel Ray,
+and Regis Gignoux (the literary and dramatic critic).  Marguerite
+Audoux was not introduced as a literary prodigy.  Nobody, indeed, was
+aware that she wrote.  She came on her merits as an individuality, and
+she took her place beside several other women who, like herself, had no
+literary pretensions.  I am told by one of the intimates of the
+fellowship that the impression she made was profound.  And the fact is
+indubitable that her friends are at least as enthusiastic about her
+individuality as about this book which she has written.  She was a
+little over thirty, and very pretty, with an agreeable voice.  The
+sobriety of her charm, the clear depth of her emotional faculty, and
+the breadth of her gentle interest in human nature handsomely conquered
+the entire fellowship.  The working sempstress was sincerely esteemed
+by some of the brightest masculine intellects in Paris.
+
+This admiring appreciation naturally encouraged her to speak a little
+of herself.  And one evening she confessed that she, too, had been
+trying to write.  On another evening she brought some sheets of
+manuscript--the draft of the early chapters of "Marie Claire"--and read
+them aloud.  She read, I am told, very well.  The reception was
+enthusiastic.  One can imagine the ecstatic fervour of these young men,
+startled by the apparition of such a shining talent.  She must continue
+the writing of her book, but in the mean time she must produce some
+short stories and sketches for the daily papers!  Her gift must be
+presented to the public instantly!  She followed the advice thus
+urgently offered, and several members of the circle (in particular,
+Regis Gignoux and Marcel Ray) gave themselves up to the business of
+placing the stories and sketches; Marcel Ray devoted whole days to the
+effort, obtaining special leave from his own duties in order to do so.
+In the result several stories and sketches appeared in the _Matin,
+Paris Journal_ (respectively the least and the most literary of Paris
+morning papers), and other organs.  These stories and sketches, by the
+way, were republished in a small volume, some time before "Marie
+Claire," and attracted no general attention whatever.
+
+Meanwhile the more important work proceeded, slowly; and was at length
+finished.  Its composition stretched over a period of six years.
+Marguerite Audoux never hurried nor fatigued herself, and though she
+re-wrote many passages several times, she did not carry this revision
+to the meticulous excess which is the ruin of so many ardent literary
+beginners in France.  The trite phrase, "written with blood and tears,"
+does not in the least apply here.  A native wisdom has invariably saved
+Marguerite Audoux from the dangerous extreme.  In his preface to the
+original French edition, M. Octave Mirbeau appositely points out that
+Philippe and her other friends abstained from giving purely literary
+advice to the authoress as her book grew and was read aloud.  With the
+insight of artists they perceived that hers was a talent which must be
+strictly let alone.  But Parisian rumour has alleged, not merely that
+she was advised, but that she was actually helped in the writing by her
+admirers.  The rumour is worse than false--it is silly.  Every
+paragraph of the work bears the unmistakable and inimitable work of one
+individuality.  And among the friends of Marguerite Audoux, even the
+most gifted, there is none who could possibly have composed any of the
+passages which have been singled out as being beyond the accomplishment
+of a working sempstress.  The whole work and every part of the work is
+the unassisted and untutored production of its author.  This statement
+cannot be too clearly and positively made.  Doubtless the spelling was
+drastically corrected by the proof-readers; but to have one's spelling
+drastically corrected is an experience which occurs to nearly all women
+writers, and to a few male writers.
+
+The book completed, the question of its proper flotation arose.  I use
+the word "flotation" with intent.  Although Marguerite Audoux had
+originally no thought of publishing, her friends were firmly bent not
+simply on publishing, but on publishing with the maximum of eclat.  A
+great name was necessary to the success of the enterprise, a name
+which, while keeping the sympathy of the artists, would impose itself
+on the crowd.  Francis Jourdain knew Octave Mirbeau.  And Octave
+Mirbeau, by virtue of his feverish artistic and moral enthusiasms, of
+his notorious generosity, and of his enormous vogue, was obviously the
+heaven-appointed man.  Francis Jourdain went to Octave Mirbeau and
+offered him the privilege of floating "Marie Claire" on the literary
+market of Paris.  Octave Mirbeau accepted, and he went to work on the
+business as he goes to work on all his business; that is to say, with
+flames and lightnings.  For some time Octave Mirbeau lived for nothing,
+but "Marie Claire."  The result has been vastly creditable to him.
+"Marie Claire" was finally launched in splendour.  Its path had been
+prepared with really remarkable skill in the Press and in the world,
+and it was an exceedingly brilliant success from the start.  It ran a
+triumphant course as a serial in one of the "great reviews," and within
+a few weeks of its publication as a book thirty thousand copies had
+been sold.  The sale continues more actively than ever.  Marguerite
+Audoux lives precisely as she lived before.  She is writing a further
+instalment of her pseudonymous autobiography, and there is no apparent
+reason why this new instalment should not be even better than the first.
+
+Such is the story of the book.
+
+My task is not to criticise the work.  I will only say this.  In my
+opinion it is highly distinguished of its kind (the second part in
+particular is full of marvellous beauty); but it must be accepted for
+what it is.  It makes no sort of pretence to display those constructive
+and inventive artifices which are indispensable to a great masterpiece
+of impersonal fiction.  It is not fiction.  It is the exquisite
+expression of a temperament.  It is a divine accident.
+
+ARNOLD BENNETT.
+
+
+
+
+MARIE CLAIRE
+
+
+PART I
+
+One day a number of people came to the house.  The men came in as
+though they were going into church, and the women made the sign of the
+cross as they went out.
+
+I slipped into my parents' bedroom and was surprised to see that my
+mother had a big lighted candle by her bedside.  My father was leaning
+over the foot of the bed looking at my mother.  She was asleep with her
+hands crossed on her breast.
+
+Our neighbour, la mere Colas, kept us with her all day.  As the women
+went out again she said to them, "No, she would not kiss her children
+good-bye."  The women blew their noses, looked at us, and la mere Colas
+added, "That sort of illness makes one unkind, I suppose."  A few days
+afterwards we were given new dresses with big black and white checks.
+
+La mere Colas used to give us our meals and send us out to play in the
+fields.  My sister, who was a big girl, scrambled into the hedges,
+climbed the trees, messed about in the ponds, and used to come home at
+night with her pockets full of creatures of all kinds, which frightened
+me and made la mere Colas furiously angry.
+
+What I hated most were the earthworms.  The red elastic things made me
+shiver with horror, and if I happened to step on one it made me quite
+ill.  When I had a pain in my side la mere Colas used to forbid my
+sister to go out.  But my sister got tired of remaining indoors and
+wanted to go out and take me with her.  So she used to go and collect
+earthworms, and hold them up close to my face.  Then I said that I
+wasn't in pain any more, and la mere Colas used to send us both out of
+doors.  One day my sister threw a handful of earthworms on to my dress.
+I jumped back so quickly that I fell into a tub of hot water.  La mere
+Colas was very angry while she undressed me.  I was not very much hurt.
+She promised my sister a good slapping, and called to the sweeps, who
+were passing, to come in and take her away.  All three of them came in,
+with their black bags and their ropes.  My sister howled and cried for
+mercy.  I was very much ashamed at being all undressed.
+
+
+
+
+My father often took us to a place where there were men who drank wine.
+He used to put me on a table among the glasses, and make me sing.  The
+men would laugh and kiss me, and try and make me drink wine.  It was
+always dark when we went home.  My father took long steps, and rocked
+himself as he walked.  He nearly tumbled down lots of times.  Sometimes
+he would begin to cry and say that his house had been stolen.  Then my
+sister used to scream.  It was always she who used to find the house.
+One morning la mere Colas got angry with us and told us that we were
+children of misfortune, and that she would not feed us any longer.  She
+said we could go and look for our father, who had gone away nobody knew
+where.  When her anger had passed she gave us our breakfasts as usual,
+but a few days afterwards we were put into pere Chicon's cart.  The
+cart was full of straw and bags of corn.  I was tucked away behind in a
+little hollow between the sacks.  The cart tipped down at the back, and
+every jolt made me slip on the straw.
+
+I was very frightened all the way along.  Every time I slipped I
+thought I was going to fall out of the cart, or that the sacks were
+going to fall on me.  We stopped at an inn.  A woman lifted us down,
+shook the straw on our dresses, and gave us some milk to drink.  I
+heard her say to pere Chicon, "You really think their father will take
+care of them, then?"  Pere Chicon shook his head, and knocked his pipe
+against the table.  Then he made a funny face and said, "He may be
+anywhere.  Young Girard told me he had met him on the Paris road."
+After a while pere Chicon took us to a big house with a lot of steps
+leading up to the door.  He had a long talk with a gentleman who waved
+his arms about and talked about the dignity of labour.  I wondered what
+that was.  The gentleman put his hand on my head and patted it, and I
+heard him say several times, "He did not tell me that he had any
+children."  I understood that he was talking of my father, and I asked
+if I could not see him.  The gentleman looked at me without answering,
+and then asked pere Chicon, "How old is she?"  "About five," said pere
+Chicon.  All this time my sister was playing up and down the steps with
+a kitten.  We went back into the cart and to mere Colas again.  She was
+cross with us and pushed us about.  A few days afterwards she took us
+to the railway station, and that evening we went to a big house, where
+there were a lot of little girls.
+
+Sister Gabrielle separated us at once.  She said that my sister was big
+enough to be with the middle-sized girls, while I was to stay with the
+little ones.  Sister Gabrielle was quite small, quite old, quite thin,
+and all bent up.  She managed the dormitory and the refectory.  She
+used to make the salad in a huge yellow jar.  She tucked her sleeves up
+to her shoulders, and dipped her arms in and out of the salad.  Her
+arms were dark and knotted, and when they came out of the jar, all
+shining and dripping, they made me think of dead branches on rainy days.
+
+
+
+
+I made a chum at once.  She came dancing up to me and looked impudent,
+I thought.  She did not stand any higher than the bench on which I was
+sitting.  She put her elbows on my knees and said: "Why aren't you
+playing about?"  I told her that I had a pain in my side.  "Oh, of
+course," she said, "your mother had consumption, and Sister Gabrielle
+said you would soon die."  She climbed up on to the bench, and sat
+down, hiding her little legs underneath her.  Then she asked me my name
+and my age, and told me that her name was Ismerie, that she was older
+than I was, and that the doctor said she would never get any bigger.
+She told me also that the class mistress was called Sister Marie-Aimee,
+that she was very unkind, and punished you severely if you talked too
+much.  Then all of a sudden she jumped down and shouted "Augustine."
+Her voice was like a boy's voice, and her legs were a little twisted.
+At the end of recreation I saw her on Augustine's back.  Augustine was
+rolling her from one shoulder to the other, as if she meant to throw
+her down.  When she passed me Ismerie said in that big voice of hers,
+"You will carry me too sometimes, won't you?"  I soon became friends
+with Augustine.
+
+
+
+
+My eyes were not well.  At night my eyelids used to close up tight, and
+I was quite blind until I had them washed.  Augustine was told off to
+take me to the infirmary.  She used to come and fetch me from the
+dormitory every morning.  I could hear her coming before she got to the
+door.  She caught hold of my hand and pulled me along, and she didn't
+mind a bit when I bumped against the beds.  We flew down the passages
+like the wind and rushed down two flights of stairs like an avalanche.
+My feet only touched a step now and again.  I used to go down those
+stairs as if I was falling down a well.  Augustine had strong hands and
+held me tight.  To go to the infirmary we had to pass behind the chapel
+and then in front of a little white house.  There we hurried more than
+ever.  One day when I fell on to my knees she pulled me up again and
+smacked my head saying, "Do be quick, we are in front of the dead
+house."  After that she was always afraid of my falling again, and used
+to tell me when we got in front of the dead house.  I was frightened
+chiefly because Augustine was frightened.  If she rushed along like
+that there must be danger.  I was always out of breath when I got to
+the infirmary.  Somebody pushed me on to a little chair, and the pain
+in my side had been gone a long time when they came and washed my eyes.
+It was Augustine who took me into Sister Marie-Aimee's classroom.  She
+put on a timid kind of voice, and said, "Sister, here is a new girl."
+I expected to be scolded; but Sister Marie-Aimee smiled, kissed me
+several times, and said, "You are too small to sit on a bench, I shall
+put you in here."  And she sat me down on a stool in the hollow of her
+desk.  It was ever so comfortable in the hollow of her desk, and the
+warmth of her woollen petticoat soothed my body, which was bruised all
+over by tumbling about on the wooden staircases, and on the stone ones.
+Often two feet hemmed me in on each side of my stool, and two warm legs
+made a back for me.  A soft hand pressed my head on to the woollen
+skirt between the knees, and the softness of the hand and the warmth of
+the pillow used to send me to sleep.  When I woke up again the pillow
+became a table.  The same hand put bits of cake on it, and bits of
+sugar and sweets sometimes.  And all round me I heard the world living.
+A voice with tears in it would say, "No, Sister, I didn't do it."  Then
+shrill voices would say, "Yes, she did, Sister."  Above my head a full
+warm voice called for silence.  And then there would be the rap of a
+ruler on the desk.  It would make an enormous noise down in my hollow.
+Sometimes the feet would be drawn away from my little stool, the knees
+would be drawn together, the chair would move, and down to my nest came
+a white veil, a narrow chin, and smiling lips with little white pointed
+teeth behind them.  And last of all I saw two soft eyes which seemed to
+cuddle me and make me feel comfortable.
+
+
+
+
+When my eyes got better I used to get an alphabet as well as sweets and
+cakes.  It was a little book with pictures next to the words.  I often
+used to look at a great big strawberry which I fancied as big as a bun.
+When it was not cold in the classroom, Sister Marie-Aimee put me on a
+bench between Ismerie and Marie Renaud, who slept in the two beds next
+to mine in the dormitory.  Now and then she used to let me go back to
+my hollow again, and I loved that.  I used to find books there with
+pictures, which made me forget all about the time.
+
+One morning Ismerie took me into a corner, and told me with great
+secrecy that Sister Marie-Aimee was not going to take the class any
+more.  She was going to take Sister Gabrielle's place in the dormitory
+and the refectory.  She did not tell me who had told her this, but she
+said it was an awful shame.  She was very fond of Sister Gabrielle, who
+used to treat her like a little child.  She did not like "that Sister
+Marie-Aimee," as she used to call her when she knew that nobody heard
+her but ourselves.  She said that Sister Marie-Aimee would not let her
+climb on to our backs, and that we should not be able to make fun of
+her as we used to of Sister Gabrielle, who always went upstairs
+sideways.  In the evening after prayers Sister Gabrielle told us that
+she was going.  She kissed us all, beginning with the smallest of us.
+We went up to the dormitory making a dreadful noise.  The big girls
+whispered together and said they would not put up with Sister
+Marie-Aimee.  The little ones snivelled as though they were going into
+danger.  Ismerie, whom I was carrying upstairs on my back, was crying
+noisily.  Her little fingers hurt my throat, and her tears fell down my
+neck.  Nobody thought of laughing at Sister Gabrielle, who went
+upstairs slowly, saying "Hush, hush," all the time, without making the
+noise any less.  The servant in the little dormitory was crying too.
+She shook me a little while she was undressing me and said, "I'm sure
+you are pleased at having that Sister Marie-Aimee of yours."  We used
+to call the servant Bonne Esther.  I liked her best of the three
+servants.  She was rather rough sometimes, but she was fond of us.
+When I coughed she used to get up and put a piece of sugar in my mouth.
+And often she took me out of my bed when I was cold and warmed me in
+her own.
+
+
+
+
+Next morning we went down to the refectory in dead silence.  The
+servants told us to remain standing.  Several of the big girls stood
+very straight and looked proud.  Bonne Justine stood at one end of the
+table.  She looked sad and bent her head.  Bonne Neron, who looked like
+a gendarme, walked up and down in the middle of the refectory.  Now and
+then she looked at the clock, and shrugged her shoulders.  Sister
+Marie-Aimee came in, leaving the door open behind her.  She seemed to
+me to be taller than usual, in her white apron and white cuffs.  She
+walked slowly, looking at us all.  The rosary, which hung at her side,
+made a little clickety sound, and her skirt swung a little as she
+walked.  She went up the three steps to her desk, and made a sign to us
+to sit down.  In the afternoon she took us out for a walk in the
+country.  It was very hot.  I went and sat down near her on a little
+hillock.  She was reading a book, and every now and then looked at the
+little girls who were playing in a field below us.  She looked at the
+sun which was setting, and kept on saying "How lovely it is, how lovely
+it is."
+
+That evening the birch which Sister Gabrielle kept in the dormitory was
+put away in a cupboard, and in the refectory the salad was turned with
+two long wooden spoons.  These were the only changes.  We went into
+class from nine o'clock till twelve, and in the afternoon we cracked
+nuts, which were sold to an oil merchant.  The bigger girls used to
+crack them with a hammer, and the little ones took them out of the
+shells.  We were forbidden to eat them, and it was not easy, anyhow.
+One of the girls would always sneak if we did, because she was greedy
+too, and jealous.  Bonne Esther used to peep into our mouths.
+Sometimes she caught a very greedy girl.  Then she used to roll her
+eyes at her, give her a little smack, and say, "I've got my eye on
+you."  Some of us she trusted.  She would make us turn round and open
+our mouths and pretend to look at them, and then she said, "Shut your
+beaks, birdies," and laughed.
+
+I often wanted to eat the nuts.  But I would look at Bonne Esther and
+blush at the idea of cheating her, because she trusted me.  But after a
+time I wanted to eat nuts so badly that I could not think of anything
+else.  Every day I tried to think of some way of eating them without
+being caught.  I tried to slip some into my sleeves, but I was so
+awkward that I always dropped them.  Besides, I wanted to eat a lot of
+them, a great big lot.  I thought I should like to eat a sackful.  One
+day I managed to steal some.  Bonne Esther, who was taking us up to
+bed, slipped on a nutshell and dropped her lantern, which went out.  I
+was close to a big bowl of nuts, and I took a handful and put them in
+my pocket.  As soon as everybody was in bed I took the nuts out of my
+pocket, put my head under the sheets and crammed them into my mouth.
+But it seemed to me at once as though everybody in the dormitory must
+hear the noise that my jaws were making.  I did all I could to munch
+slowly and quietly, but the noise thumped in my ears like the blows of
+a mallet.
+
+Bonne Esther got up, lit the lamp, stooped down and looked under the
+beds.  When she came to mine I looked out at her trembling.  She
+whispered,  "Aren't you asleep yet?" and went on looking.  She went
+down to the end of the dormitory, opened the door, and closed it again;
+but she was hardly back in bed with the light out before the latch of
+the door made a little sound as though somebody were opening it.  Bonne
+Esther lit her lamp again and said, "Whatever is it?  It cannot be the
+cat opening the door by itself."  It seemed to me that she was afraid.
+I heard her moving about in her bed, and all of a sudden she called
+out, "Oh dear, oh dear."  Ismerie asked her what the matter was.  She
+said that a hand had opened the door, and she had felt a breath on her
+face.  In the twi-darkness we saw the door half open.  I was very
+frightened.  I thought it was the devil who had come to fetch me.  We
+waited a long, long time, but we heard nothing more.  Bonne Esther
+asked if one of us would get up and put the light out, although it was
+not very far from her own bed.  Nobody answered.  Then she called me.
+I got up and she said, "You are such a good little girl that ghosts
+won't do any harm to you."  She put her head under the bedclothes, and
+I blew the lamp out.  And directly it was put out I saw thousands of
+shining specks of light, and felt something cold on my cheeks.  I was
+sure that there were green dragons, with mouths aflame, under the beds.
+I could feel their claws on my feet, and lights were jumping about on
+each side of my head.  I wanted to sit down, and when I got to my bed I
+was quite sure that my two feet had gone.  When I dared, I stooped down
+and felt for them.  They were very cold.  I went to sleep at last
+holding them in my two hands.
+
+In the morning Bonne Esther found the cat on a bed near the door.  She
+had had kittens during the night.  When Sister Marie-Aimee was told
+about it, she said that the cat had certainly opened the door by
+jumping at the latch.  But we never felt sure about that, and the
+little girls used to talk about it in low voices for a long time.
+
+
+
+
+Next week all the girls who were eight years old went down to the big
+dormitory.  I had a bed near the window, quite close to Sister
+Marie-Aimee's room.  Marie Renaud and Ismerie again had their beds on
+each side of me.  When we were in bed Sister Marie-Aimee often used to
+come and sit by me.  She would take one of my hands and pat it, and
+look out of the window.  One night there was a big fire in the
+neighbourhood, and the whole dormitory was lit up.  Sister Marie-Aimee
+opened the window wide, shook me, and said, "Wake up, come and see the
+fire."  She took me in her arms, passed her hands over my face to wake
+me, and said again, "Come and see the fire; see how beautiful it is."
+I was so sleepy that my head fell on her shoulder.  Then she boxed my
+ears, and called me a little silly, and I woke up and began to cry.
+She took me in her arms again, sat down, and rocked me, holding me
+close to her.  She bent her head forward towards the window.  Her face
+looked transparent, and her eyes were full of light.  Ismerie hated
+Sister Marie-Aimee to come to the window.  It prevented her from
+talking, and she always had something to say.  Her voice was so loud
+that one heard it at the other end of the dormitory.  Sister
+Marie-Aimee used to say, "There's Ismerie talking again;" and Ismerie
+used to answer, "There's Sister Marie-Aimee scolding again."  Her
+daring frightened me, but Sister Marie-Aimee used to pretend not to
+hear her.  But one day she said, "I forbid you to answer me, little
+dwarf."  Ismerie answered, "No-sums."  This was a word which we had
+made up ourselves.  It meant, "Look at my nose and see if I care."
+Sister Marie-Aimee reached for a cane.  I was dreadfully afraid she was
+going to whip Ismerie.  But Ismerie threw herself down flat on her
+stomach and wriggled about and made funny noises.  Sister Marie-Aimee
+pushed her away with her foot, threw the cane away, and said, "Oh, you
+horrible little thing!"  Afterwards I noticed that she used to avoid
+looking at her, and never seemed to hear the rude things she said.  But
+she forbade us to carry her about on our backs.
+
+That never prevented Ismerie from climbing on to mine like a monkey.  I
+hadn't the courage to push her away, and I used to stoop down a little
+to let her get well up.  She always wanted to ride when we went up to
+the dormitory.  It was very hard for her to get up the stairs.  She
+used to laugh about it herself, saying that she hopped up like an old
+hen going to roost.  As Sister Marie-Aimee always went upstairs first,
+I used to wait and go up among the last girls.  But sometimes Sister
+Marie-Aimee would turn round suddenly.  Then Ismerie slipped down my
+body to the ground with wonderful quickness and skill.  I always felt a
+little bit awkward when I caught Sister Marie-Aimee's eye, and Ismerie
+always said, "See what a fool you are.  You were caught again."  Marie
+Renaud would never let her climb up on to her back.  She used to say
+that she wore her dress out and made it dirty.
+
+
+
+
+Esmerie was a little chatterbox, but Marie Renaud hardly ever talked at
+all.  Every morning she used to help me to make my bed.  She would pass
+her hands over the sheets to smooth them out, and always refused my
+help in making her bed, because she said I rolled the sheets all kinds
+of ways.  I never could understand why her bed was so smooth when she
+got up.  One day she told me that she pinned her sheets and her
+blankets to the mattress.  She had all kinds of little hiding-places
+full of all kinds of things.  At table she always used to eat some of
+yesterday's dessert.  The dessert of the day went into her pocket.  She
+used to finger it there, and would munch a little bit of it from time
+to time.  I often found her sitting in corners making lace with a pin.
+Her great pleasure was brushing, folding, and putting things in order.
+That was why my shoes were always well brushed and my Sunday dress
+carefully folded.  But one day a new servant came, whose name was
+Madeleine.  She soon found out that I did not take care of my own
+things.  She got excited, and said I was a great big lazy girl, and
+that I made other people wait on me as though I were a countess.  She
+said it was a shame to make poor little Marie Renaud work.  Bonne Neron
+agreed with her, and said I was puffed up with pride, that I thought I
+was better than anybody else, that I never did anything like other
+girls.  They both said, together, that they had never seen a girl like
+me, and both of them leaned over me and shouted at me together.  They
+made me think of two noisy fairies, a black one and a white one.
+Madeleine was fresh and fair, with full, open lips, and teeth which
+were wide apart.  Her tongue was broad and thick, and moved about into
+the corners of her mouth when she talked.  Bonne Neron raised her hand
+to me, and said, "Drop your eyes this minute!"  As they went away, I
+heard her say to Madeleine: "She makes you ashamed of yourself when she
+looks at you like that."  I had known for a long time that Bonne Neron
+looked like a bull, but I could not find out what animal Madeleine was
+like.  I thought it over for several days, thinking of all the animals
+I knew, and at last I gave it up.  She was fat, and her hips swayed
+when she walked.  She had a piercing voice, which surprised everybody.
+She asked leave to sing in church, but as she did not know the hymns.
+Sister Marie-Aimee told me to teach her.  After that Marie Renaud was
+allowed to brush and smooth out my things without anybody taking any
+notice of it.  She was so pleased that she gave me a safety-pin as a
+present, so as to fasten up my handkerchief, which I was always losing.
+Two days later I lost both the safety-pin and the handkerchief.  Oh,
+that handkerchief!  It was a perfect nightmare!  I used to lose one
+regularly every week.  Sister Marie-Aimee gave us a clean
+pocket-handkerchief in return for the dirty one which we had to throw
+down on to the ground in front of her.  I never thought of mine till
+the last moment.  And then I turned out all my pockets, I ran about
+like a mad thing into the dormitory, up and down the passages, and up
+to the garret hunting for it everywhere.  Oh dear, oh dear! if I could
+only find a handkerchief somewhere!  As I passed in front of the
+picture of the Virgin, I would put my hands together and pray
+fervently, "Admirable Mother, make me find a handkerchief."  But I
+never did find one, and I went downstairs again red in the face, out of
+breath, feeling dreadfully unhappy, and not daring to take the clean
+handkerchief which Sister Marie-Aimee handed to me.  Before she spoke,
+I could hear the scolding which I knew I deserved.  And even when
+Sister Marie-Aimee said nothing at all, I could see her frown, and her
+eyes looked crossly at me and followed me about.  I felt crushed with
+shame, so crushed that I could scarcely lift my feet.  I tried to hide
+in the corners as I walked; and, in spite of it all, next time I had
+lost my handkerchief again.  Madeleine used to look at me with sham
+compassion.  But she could not always prevent herself from telling me
+that I deserved to be punished severely.  She seemed very fond of
+Sister Marie-Aimee.  She waited on her always, and she would burst into
+tears at her slightest word.  Then Sister Marie-Aimee had to soothe her
+by patting her cheeks, and she would laugh and cry at the same time,
+and move her shoulders about, showing her white neck.  Bonne Neron used
+to say that she looked like a cat.
+
+
+
+
+Bonne Neron left one day after a scene in the middle of luncheon.  It
+happened during a dead silence.  All of a sudden she shouted out, "Yes;
+I want to go, and I am going!"  Sister Marie-Aimee looked at her in
+astonishment, and Bonne Neron faced her, putting her head down, shaking
+it, butting at her almost, and shouting all the time that she would not
+be ordered about by a bit of a baby.  She walked backwards as she
+shouted, got to the door, and pulled it open.  Before she went out of
+the room she threw one of her long arms out at Sister Marie-Aimee, and
+shrieked, "She isn't even twenty-five!"  Some of the little girls were
+frightened, others burst out laughing.  Madeleine got quite hysterical.
+She threw herself on to the floor at Sister Marie-Aimee's knees,
+kissing her dress, and winding her arms round her legs.  She got hold
+of her two hands and mumbled over them with her big, moist mouth,
+screaming all the time as though some terrible catastrophe had
+happened.  Sister Marie-Aimee could not shake her off.  At last she got
+angry.  Then Madeleine fainted, and fell on her back.  As she was
+undoing her Sister Marie-Aimee made a sign towards the part of the room
+where I was.  I thought she wanted me, and ran to her; but she sent me
+back again, "No; not you.  Marie Renaud," she said.  She gave her keys
+to Marie, and, although she had never been in Sister Marie-Aimee's
+room, she found the bottle of salts which Sister Marie-Aimee wanted
+without any loss of time.
+
+
+
+
+Madeleine soon got better, and took Bonne Neron's place.  She got more
+authority over us.  She was still timid and submissive to Sister
+Marie-Aimee, but she made up for that by shouting at us, for any reason
+and no reason, that she was "there to look after us," and was "not our
+servant."  The day she fainted I had seen her neck.  I had never dreamt
+of anything so beautiful.  But she was a stupid girl, and I never
+minded what she said to me.  That used to make her very angry.  She
+used to say all kinds of rude things to me, and always finished up by
+calling me "Miss Princess."  She could not forgive me for Sister
+Marie-Aimee's affection for me, and whenever she saw the Sister kissing
+me she got quite red with anger.
+
+I began to grow, and my health was pretty good.  Sister Marie-Aimee
+said that she was proud of me.  She used to squeeze me so tight when
+she kissed me that she sometimes hurt me.  Then she would say, putting
+her fingers on my forehead, "My little girl; my little child."  During
+recreation I often used to sit near her, and listen to her reading.
+She read in a deep voice, and when the people in the book displeased
+her more than usual, she used to shut it up angrily, and come and play
+games with us.
+
+She wanted me to be quite faultless.  She would say: "I want you to be
+perfect.  Do you hear, child?  Perfect."  One day she thought I had
+told a lie.  There were three cows which used to graze on some land in
+the middle of which was a great big chestnut tree.  The white cow was
+wicked, and we were afraid of it, because it had knocked a little girl
+down once.  That day I saw the two red cows, and just under the
+chestnut tree I saw a big black cow.  I said to Ismerie:
+
+"Look; the white cow has been sent away because she was wicked, I
+expect."  Ismerie, who was cross that day, screamed, and said that I
+was always laughing at the others, and trying to make them believe
+things which were not true.  I showed her the cow.  She said it was a
+white one.  I said, "No, it is a black one."  Sister Marie-Aimee heard
+us.  She was very angry, and said, "How dare you say that the cow is
+black?"  Then the cow moved.  She looked black and white now, and I
+understood that I had made a mistake because of the shadow of the
+chestnut tree.  I was so surprised that I could not find anything to
+say.  I did not know how to explain it.  Sister Marie-Aimee shook me.
+"Why did you tell a lie?" she said.  I answered that I did not know.
+She sent me into a corner in the shed, and told me that I should have
+nothing but bread and water that day.  As I had not told a lie, the
+punishment did not worry me.  The shed had a lot of old cupboards in
+it, and some garden tools.  I climbed from one thing on to the other,
+and got right up and sat on the top of the highest cupboard.  I was ten
+years old, and it was the first time that I had ever been alone.  I
+felt pleased at this.  I sat there, swinging my legs, and began to
+imagine a whole invisible world.  The old cupboard with rusty locks
+became the entrance gate to a magnificent palace.  I was a little girl
+who had been left on the top of a mountain.  A beautiful lady dressed
+like a fairy had seen me up there, and came to fetch me.  Three or four
+lovely ducks ran in front of her.  They had just come up to me when I
+saw Sister Marie-Aimee standing in front of the cupboard with the rusty
+locks and looking about for me everywhere.  I did not know that I was
+sitting on the cupboard.  I still believed myself to be on the top of
+the mountain, and I felt cross because Sister Marie-Aimee's arrival had
+made the palace and the lovely lady disappear.  She saw my legs
+swinging, and just as she saw me I remembered that I was sitting on the
+cupboard.  She stood there for a moment looking up at me.  Then she
+took a piece of bread, a piece of sausage, and a little bottle of wine
+out of the pocket of her dress, showed me one thing after the other,
+and in an angry voice said, "This _was_ for you.  There!"  And she put
+it all back into her pocket and went away.  A moment afterwards
+Madeleine brought me some bread and water, and I remained in the shed
+till evening.
+
+
+
+
+Sister Marie-Aimee had been growing sadder and sadder for some time.
+She never played with us any more, and she even used to forget our
+dinner time.  Madeleine would send me to the chapel to fetch her, and I
+would find her there on her knees with her face hidden in her hands.  I
+had to pull at her dress before she took any notice of me.  Often I
+thought that she had been crying, but I never dared to look at her
+closely for fear she would get angry.  She seemed lost in thought, and
+when we spoke to her, she answered "Yes" or "No" quite sharply.
+
+But she took a great interest in the little feast which we had at
+Easter every year.  She had the cakes brought in, and we put them on a
+table and covered them with a white cloth, so that the greedy girls
+should not see them all at the same time.  On feast days we were
+allowed to talk as much as we liked at table, and we made a tremendous
+noise.  Sister Marie-Aimee waited on us with a smile and a word for
+each of us.  That day she was going to serve the cakes, and Madeleine,
+who was helping her, was taking off the cloth which covered them.  Then
+a cat, which had been under the cloth, jumped down and ran away.
+Sister Marie-Aimee and Madeleine both said "Oh," and Madeleine said,
+"The dirty beast has been nibbling all the cakes."  Sister Marie-Aimee
+did not like the cat.  She stood perfectly still for a minute, then ran
+to the corner, took a stick and ran after it.  It was horrible.  The
+cat was frightened out of its wits, and jumped this way and that out of
+the way of the stick with which Sister Marie-Aimee kept hitting the
+benches and the walls.  All the little girls were frightened, and ran
+towards the door.  Sister Marie-Aimee stopped them.  "Nobody is to go
+out," she said.  I hardly knew her.  Her lips were pressed together,
+her cheeks were as white as her cap, and her eyes, which seemed to
+flame, frightened me so that I hid my face in the hollow of my arm.  I
+did not want to do so, but I soon looked up again.  The cat hunt was
+still going on.  Sister Marie-Aimee, with her stick in the air, ran
+after the cat without saying a word.  Her lips were open, and I could
+see her little pointed teeth.  She ran about, jumping over the benches,
+and climbed up on to the table, lifting her petticoats as she did so.
+When she was going to hit the cat it jumped and ran up a curtain right
+on to the top of the window.  Madeleine, who had been following Sister
+Marie-Aimee about, wanted to go and fetch a longer stick, but Sister
+Marie-Aimee stopped her, and said, "It is lucky to have got away."
+Bonne Justine, who was standing near me, hid her eyes and murmured,
+"Oh, it is shameful, shameful!" and I thought it was shameful, too.  I
+felt as though Sister Marie-Aimee had grown smaller.  I had always
+thought her quite faultless.  I compared this scene with another one,
+which had happened one day when there was a big storm.  That day Sister
+Marie-Aimee had been wonderful.  While she was chasing the cat I could
+see her, that other day, as she stood on a bench, and closed the
+windows quietly, lifting her lovely arms.  Her wide sleeves fell down
+on her shoulders, and while we shivered and shook in terror at the
+lightning and the whistling wind she said quietly, "It is quite a
+storm."  Sister Marie-Aimee made the little girls stand on the other
+side of the room.  She opened the door wide, and the cat rushed out.
+
+
+
+
+One afternoon I was surprised to see that it was not our old priest who
+was saying vespers.  This one was a tall, fine man.  He sang with a
+strong, jerky voice.  We talked about him all the evening.  Madeleine
+said he was a handsome man, and Sister Marie-Aimee thought, she said,
+that he had a young voice, but that he pronounced his words like an old
+man, and that he was distinguished looking.  When he came to pay us a
+visit two or three days afterwards, I saw that he had white hair in
+little curls round his neck, and that his eyes and his eyebrows were
+very black.  He asked for those of us who were preparing their
+catechism, and wanted to know everybody's name.  Sister Marie-Aimee
+answered for me.  She put her hand on my head and said, "This is our
+Marie Claire."  When Ismerie came up in her turn he looked at her in
+surprise, and made her turn round and walk for him to see.  He said
+that she was no bigger than a child of three, and when he asked Sister
+Marie-Aimee if she was intelligent, Ismerie turned round sharply and
+said that she was not as stupid as the rest of us.  He burst out
+laughing, and I saw that his teeth were very white.  When he spoke he
+jerked himself forward as though he wanted to catch his words again.
+They seemed to drop out of his mouth in spite of himself.  Sister
+Marie-Aimee took him as far as the gate of the courtyard.  She never
+used to take any visitors further than the door of the room.  She came
+back, climbed up to her desk again, and after a moment she said,
+without looking at anybody, "He really is a very distinguished man."
+
+Our new priest lived in a little house near the chapel.  In the evening
+he used to walk in the avenue of linden trees.  He often passed close
+to the playground where we were playing, and he always used to bow very
+low to Sister Marie-Aimee.  Every Thursday afternoon he came to see us.
+He sat down, leaning against the back of his chair, and crossing his
+legs, he told us stories.  He was very pleasant, and Sister Marie-Aimee
+used to say that he laughed as though he enjoyed it.  Sometimes Sister
+Marie-Aimee was ill.  Then he used to go up and see her in her room.
+We would see Madeleine passing with a teapot and two cups.  She was red
+in the face and very busy.
+
+When the summer was over, M. le Cure came to see us after dinner and
+spent the evenings with us.  When nine o'clock struck he used to go,
+and Sister Marie-Aimee always went with him down the passage to the big
+front door.
+
+
+
+
+He had been with us for a year, and I could never get used to making
+confession to him.  He often used to look at me and laugh in a way that
+made me think that he remembered my faults.  We went to confession on
+fixed days.  Each one of us took her turn.  When there were only one or
+two to go in before me I began to tremble.  My heart beat dreadfully
+fast, and I got cramp in my stomach, which prevented me from breathing
+properly.  When my turn came I got up and felt my legs trembling under
+me.  My head buzzed, and my cheeks turned cold.  I fell on my knees in
+the confessional and M. le Cure's voice, which sounded as though it
+came from a long way off, gave me confidence.  But he always had to
+help me to remember my faults.  If he hadn't, I should have forgotten
+half of them.  At the end of confession he always asked me what my name
+was.  I longed to tell him another name, but while I was wondering if I
+dare, my own name used to slip out of my mouth.
+
+It was getting near the time for our Communion.  It was to be in May,
+and preparations for it were beginning.  Sister Marie-Aimee composed
+some new hymns.  She had made one, which was a sort of thanksgiving for
+M. le Cure.  A fortnight before the ceremony they separated us from the
+others.  We had prayed all day long.  Madeleine was supposed to see
+that we were not disturbed at prayer, but she often used to disturb us
+herself by quarrelling with one of us.  My fellow communicant was
+called Sophie.  She was a quiet little girl, and we always kept out of
+the quarrels.  We used to talk over serious matters.  I often told her
+how much I hated confession, and how frightened I was that I should
+pass through my communion badly.  She was very good, and she did not
+understand what I had to be afraid of.  She thought that I was not
+pious enough, and she had noticed that I used to go to sleep during
+prayers.  She confessed to me that she was very frightened of death.
+She used to talk about it in a low voice, and looked very frightened.
+Her eyes were green, and her hair was so lovely that Sister Marie-Aimee
+would never have it cut short like that of the other girls.
+
+At last the great day came.  My general confession had passed off all
+right.  It gave me the same feeling that a bath does.  I felt very
+clean after it, but I trembled so when I was given the holy wafer that
+a bit of it stuck in my teeth.  A sort of dizziness came over me, and I
+felt as though a big black curtain had dropped in front of my eyes, I
+thought I heard Sister Marie-Aimee's voice asking "Are you ill," and I
+seemed to know that she went with me as far as my fald-stool, and that
+she put my taper into my hand and said, "Hold it tight."  My throat had
+grown so tight that I could not swallow, and I felt a liquid dropping
+from my mouth into my throat.  Then I was wildly frightened, for
+Madeleine had warned us that if we bit the holy wafer the blood of
+Christ would stream from our mouths, and that nobody would be able to
+stop it.  Sister Marie-Aimee wiped my face and whispered quite low,
+"Take care, dear.  Are you ill?"  My throat loosened, and I swallowed
+the wafer.  Then at last I dared to look down to see the blood on my
+dress, but I saw only a little grey spot like a drop of water.  I put
+my handkerchief to my lips and wiped my face.  There was no blood on
+it.  I did not feel quite sure yet, but when we got up to sing I tried
+to sing with the others.  When M. le Cure came to see us later in the
+day Sister Marie-Aimee told him that I had almost fainted at Communion.
+He took my chin in his hand and tipped my face up towards him.  Then,
+after looking into my eyes, he began to laugh, and said that I was a
+very sensitive little girl.
+
+
+
+
+After our first communion we did not attend class any more.  Bonne
+Justine taught us to sew.  We made caps for peasant women.  It was not
+very difficult, and as it was something new I worked hard.  Bonne
+Justine said that I should make a very good needle-woman.  Sister
+Marie-Aimee used to kiss me and say, "So you would, if you could only
+get over your laziness."  But when I had made a few caps and had to go
+on doing the same thing over and over again, my laziness got the better
+of me.  The work bored me, and I could not make up my mind to do it.  I
+could have remained for hours and hours without moving, watching the
+others work.  Marie Renaud never spoke to us while she was sewing.  Her
+stitches were so small and so close together that one needed good eyes
+to see them.  Ismerie sang all the time she sewed, and nobody ever
+scolded her.  Some of the girls sewed with bent backs and a frown on
+their foreheads.  Their  fingers  were moist, and their needles
+squeaked.  Others sewed slowly and carefully, without getting tired or
+bored, counting their stitches under their breath.  That is the way I
+should have liked to sew.  I used to scold myself for not doing so, and
+then I used to imitate them for a few minutes.  But the least sound
+disturbed me, and I would stop and listen, or look at what was going on
+all round me.  Madeleine said that my nose was always in the air.  I
+spent most of my time imagining needles which would sew all by
+themselves.  For a long time I hoped that an old woman, whom nobody
+would see but I, would come out of the big fireplace and sew my cap for
+me very quickly.  At last I took no notice of Sister Marie-Aimee's
+scolding, and she didn't know what to do to make me work.  One day she
+decided that I was to read aloud twice a day.  It was a great joy for
+me.  The time to begin reading never seemed to come quickly enough, and
+I was always sorry when I closed the book.
+
+
+
+
+When I had finished reading Sister Marie-Aimee used to make Colette the
+cripple sing to us.  She always sang the same songs, but her voice was
+so lovely that we never got tired of listening to it.  She sang quite
+simply, without stopping her work, and she kept time with her needle as
+she sang.  Bonne Justine, who knew all about everybody, told us that
+Colette had been brought in with both legs broken, when she was quite a
+tiny child.  She was twenty now.  She walked with great difficulty,
+helping herself with two sticks, and she would never use crutches
+because she was afraid of looking like an old woman.  During recreation
+I always used to see her alone on a bench.  She kept on throwing
+herself back and stretching.  Her dark eyes had such big pupils that
+one hardly saw the whites at all.  I felt drawn towards her.  I should
+have liked to have been her friend.  She seemed very proud, and
+whenever I did any little thing for her she had a way of saying, "Thank
+you, little one," which made me remember that I was only twelve years
+old.  Madeleine told me, mysteriously, that we were not allowed to talk
+to Colette alone, and when I wanted to know why, she reeled out a long
+complicated story which told me nothing at all.  I asked Bonne Justine,
+who used a lot of words which I didn't understand, but told me that a
+little girl like me must not be alone with Colette.  I could never
+understand why.  I noticed that every time one of the big girls gave
+her her arm to help her to walk about a little, three or four other
+girls always came up and talked and laughed with them.  I thought that
+she had no friends.  A feeling of great pity drew me to her, and one
+day when she was all alone I asked her to take my arm for a little
+walk.  I was standing in front of her timidly, but I knew that she
+would not refuse.  She looked at me and said, "You know it is not
+allowed."  I nodded "Yes."  She looked at me again.  "Aren't you afraid
+of being punished?" she said.  I shook my head to say "No."  I wanted
+to cry and it made my throat feel tight.  I helped her to get up.  She
+leaned on her stick with one hand and put all her weight on my
+shoulder.  I could see how difficult it was for her to walk.  She did
+not say a word to me while we were walking, and when I had taken her
+back to her bench she looked at me and said, "Thank you, Marie Claire."
+When she saw me with Colette, Bonne Justine raised her arms to heaven
+and made the sign of the cross.  At the other end of the playground
+Madeleine shook her fist at me and shouted.
+
+
+
+
+When evening came I saw that Sister Marie-Aimee knew what I had done,
+but she never said a word about it.  At recreation next day she drew me
+towards her, took my head in her two hands and bent towards me.  She
+didn't say anything to me, but her eyes plunged right into my face.  I
+felt as though I were wrapped up in her eyes.  I felt as though a soft
+warmth was all round me, and I felt comfortable.  She gave me a long
+kiss on the forehead, then smiled at me and said, "There.  You are my
+beautiful white lily."  I thought her so beautiful, and her eyes shone
+so with several colours in them, that I said to her, "And you, too,
+mother; you are a lovely flower."  She said in an off-hand way, "Yes;
+but I don't count among the lilies now."  Then she said almost roughly,
+"Don't you love Ismerie any more?"  "Yes, mother."  "Really.  Then what
+about Colette?"  "I love Colette too."  "Oh, you love everybody!" she
+said.
+
+
+
+
+I used to give Colette my arm nearly every day.  She never talked to me
+much, and then only about the other girls.  When I sat down next to her
+she used to look at me queerly.  She said she thought I was a queer
+little thing.  One day she asked me if I thought her pretty.  Directly
+she said it, I remembered that Sister Marie-Aimee said that she was as
+black as a mole.  I saw, however, that she had a broad forehead, fine
+big eyes, and the rest of her face was small and refined.  Whenever I
+looked at her, I didn't quite know why, but I thought of a well, deep
+and dark, and full of hot water.  No, I didn't think her pretty, but I
+wouldn't tell her so because she was a cripple.  I said she would be
+much prettier if her skin were whiter.  Little by little I became her
+friend.  She told me that she hoped to go away and get married like
+Nina had done.  Nina used to come and see us on Sundays with her child.
+Colette took hold of my arm and said, "You see, I must get married.  I
+must."  Then she stretched herself, bending her whole body forward.
+Sometimes she used to cry, and was in such deep trouble that I could
+not find anything to say to her.  She would look at her poor twisted
+legs, and groan out, "There would have to be a miracle for me to get
+away from here."
+
+All of a sudden I got the idea that the Virgin could bring this miracle
+about.  Colette thought it a splendid idea.  She was quite surprised
+that she had never thought of it.  It was only fair that she should
+have legs like the others.  She wanted to see about it at once.  She
+explained to me that several girls would be necessary for the nine
+days' prayer, and said that we must go and purify ourselves at
+communion, and that during nine days we would pray all the time, so as
+to get help from Our Lady in heaven.  This had to be done in the
+greatest secrecy.  It was arranged that Sophie should be one of us
+because she was so very good, and Colette said she would talk to some
+of the big girls who were good, too.  Two days afterwards it was all
+arranged.  Colette was to fast during the nine days.  On the tenth day,
+which would be a Sunday, she would go to communion as usual, leaning on
+her stick and the arm of one of us.  Then, when she had taken the holy
+wafer, she would make a vow to bring up her children in the love of the
+Virgin, and after that she would rise up straight and would sing the
+"Te Deum" in her beautiful voice, and we would all sing it with her.
+
+For nine days I prayed more fervently than I had ever prayed before.
+The ordinary prayers seemed insipid.  I recited the Virgin's Litany.  I
+hunted up the most beautiful hymns of praise that I could find, and
+repeated them without getting tired.  "Star of the Morning, make
+Colette whole."  The first time, I remained on my knees for so long
+that Sister Marie-Aimee scolded me.  Nobody noticed the little signs
+which we made to one another, and the nine days of prayer passed off
+without any one knowing anything about them.
+
+
+
+
+Colette was very pale when she came to mass.  Her cheeks were thinner
+than ever, and she stood with her eyes cast down.  Her eyelids were
+deep violet.  I thought to myself that the end of her martyrdom had
+come, and I was filled with a deep joy.  Quite close to me, the picture
+of the Virgin in a flowing white robe smiled as it looked at me, and in
+an outburst of all my faith my thoughts cried out, "Oh, Mirror of
+Justice, make Colette whole!"  My temples were stretched tightly.  I
+was straining every nerve to keep my thoughts from wandering, and I
+went on saying, "Oh, Mirror of Justice, make Colette whole!"  Colette
+went up to the communion table.  Her stick made a little clickety noise
+on the flagstones.  When she was on her knees the girl who had gone up
+to the table with her came back to us with the stick.  She knew that it
+would be of no further use.
+
+Colette tried to get up, and fell back again on to her knees.  Her hand
+reached out to take her stick, and when she didn't find it by her side,
+she tried again to raise herself without it.  She clung to the Holy
+Table and caught hold of the arm of one of the Sisters, who was taking
+communion with her.  Then her shoulders rocked and she fell over,
+pulling the Sister down with her.  Two of us rushed forward and dragged
+poor Colette to her bench.  But I was still hoping against hope, and
+until mass was over I was hoping to hear the Te Deum.  As soon as I
+could, I went back to Colette.  The big girls were round her trying to
+console her, and advising her to give herself to God for ever.  She was
+crying gently, not sobbing.  Her head was bent a little forward, and
+her tears fell on her hands, which were crossed one over the other.  I
+kneeled down in front of her, and when she looked at me, I said:
+
+"Perhaps you can get married even though you are a cripple."  Colette's
+story was soon known to everybody.  Everybody felt so sad about it that
+we stopped playing noisy games.  Ismerie thought she was telling me a
+tremendous piece of news when she told me all about it.  Sophie told me
+that we must submit to the will of Our Lady, because She knew what was
+necessary for Colette's happiness better than we did.
+
+
+
+
+I should have liked to have known whether Sister Marie-Aimee knew about
+Colette.  I did not see her till the afternoon, when we were out
+walking.  She did not look sad.  She looked almost pleased.  I had
+never seen her look so pretty.  Her whole face shone.  While we were
+out I noticed that she walked as though something was lifting her up.
+I never remembered to have seen her walk like that.  Her veil fluttered
+a little at the shoulders, and her stomacher didn't hide all her neck.
+She paid no attention to us.  She was looking at nothing, but she
+seemed to be seeing something.  Every now and then she smiled as though
+somebody were talking to her from inside.
+
+In the evening after dinner I found her sitting on the old bench under
+the big linden tree.  M. le Cure was sitting next to her with his back
+against the tree.  They looked serious.  I thought they were talking
+about Colette, and I remained standing some distance from them.  Sister
+Marie-Aimee was saying, as though she were answering a question, "Yes,
+when I was fifteen."  M. le Cure said, "You had no vocation at
+fifteen."  I didn't hear what Sister Marie-Aimee answered, but M. le
+Cure went on, "Or, rather, at fifteen you had every possible vocation.
+A kind word, or a little indifference would be enough to change your
+whole life."  He said nothing for a moment, and then, in a lower tone,
+he said, "Your parents were very much to blame."  Sister Marie-Aimee
+answered, "I regret nothing."  They remained for a long time without
+saying a word.  Then Sister Marie-Aimee raised one finger as though she
+were impressing something on him, and said, "Everywhere, in spite of
+all and always."  M. le Cure stretched his hand out a little way,
+laughed, and repeated, "Everywhere, in spite of all and always."
+
+The goodnight bell sounded all of a sudden, and M. le Cure went off,
+down the avenue of linden trees.  For a long time afterwards I used to
+repeat the words I had heard them say, but I could never fit them in to
+poor Colette's story.
+
+
+
+
+Colette had given up all hopes of a miracle to take her away, and yet
+she could not make up her mind to remain.  When she saw all the girls
+of her own age go one by one, she began to rebel.  She would not go to
+confession anymore, and she would not take holy communion.  She used to
+go to mass because she sang there, and she was fond of music.  I often
+stopped with her and consoled her.  She explained to me that marriage
+meant love.
+
+
+
+
+Sister Marie-Aimee, who had not been well for some time, became quite
+ill.  Madeleine nursed her devotedly and treated us dreadfully badly.
+She was particularly unkind to me, and when she saw me tired of sewing
+she would say, trying to turn her nose up, "If mademoiselle objects to
+sewing, she had better take a broom and sweep."  One Sunday she hit
+upon the idea of making me clean the stairs during mass.  It was
+January.  A damp cold which came up from the passages climbed the steps
+and got under my dress.  I swept as hard as I could to keep warm.  The
+sound of the harmonium came from the chapel out to me.  From time to
+time I recognized Madeleine's thin piercing tones, and M. le Cure's
+jerky notes.  I could follow mass by the singing.  All of a sudden
+Colette's voice rose above all the others.  It was strong and pure.  It
+broadened, drowned the sound of the harmonium, drowned everything else,
+and then seemed to fly away over the linden trees, over the house, and
+over the church spire itself.  It made me tremble, and when the voice
+came down to earth, trembling a little as it went back into the church
+and was swept up by the sound of the harmonium again, I began to cry,
+sobbing as though I were quite a little girl.  Then Madeleine's sharp
+voice pierced through the others once more, and I swept and swept hard
+as though my broom could scratch out the voice which was so
+disagreeable to me.
+
+
+
+
+That was the day Sister Marie-Aimee called me to her.  She had been up
+in her room for two months.  She was a little better, but I noticed
+that her eyes did not shine at all.  They made me think of a rainbow
+which had almost melted away.  She made me tell her funny little
+stories about what had been going on, and she tried to smile while she
+was listening to me, but her lips only smiled on one side of her mouth.
+She asked me if I had heard her screaming.  "Oh yes," I said, I had
+heard her during her illness.  She had screamed so dreadfully in the
+middle of the night that the whole dormitory had been kept awake.
+Madeleine was coming and going.  We heard her splashing water about,
+and when I asked her what was the matter with Sister Marie-Aimee, she
+said, as she hurried past, that she had rheumatism.  I remembered at
+once that Bonne Justine used to have rheumatism too, but she had never
+screamed like that, and I remember wondering whether poor Sister
+Marie-Aimee's legs were swollen to three times their size, like those
+of Bonne Justine.  Her cries got worse and worse.  One of them was so
+terrible that it seemed to come right out of her vitals.  Then we had
+heard her moaning, and that was all.  A few moments afterwards
+Madeleine had come up and whispered to Marie Renaud, Marie Renaud had
+put on her dress, and I heard her go downstairs; Directly afterwards
+she came back with M. le Cure.  He rushed into Sister Marie-Aimee's
+room, and Madeleine closed the door behind him.  He did not remain very
+long, but he went away again much more slowly than he had come.  He
+walked with his head sunk down between his shoulders, and his right
+hand was holding his cloak over his left arm, as though he were
+carrying something valuable.  I thought to myself that he was taking
+away the holy oils, and I did not dare ask whether Sister Marie-Aimee
+were dead.  I have never forgotten the blow I got from Madeleine's fist
+when I clung to her dress.  She knocked me right over and whispered, as
+she ran past, "She is better."  As soon as Sister Marie-Aimee was well
+again, Madeleine was kinder, and everything went on as before.
+
+
+
+
+I disliked sewing as much as ever, and my hatred for it began to make
+Sister Marie-Aimee uneasy.  She mentioned it in front of me to M. le
+Cure's sister.  M. le Cure's sister was an old maid with a long face
+and big faded eyes.  We called her Mademoiselle Maximilienne.  Sister
+Marie-Aimee told her how anxious she was about my future.  She said
+that I learned things easily, but that no kind of sewing interested me.
+She had noticed for some time that I was fond of study, and she had
+made inquiries to find out whether I had no distant relatives who would
+look after me, she said.  But the only relation I had was an old woman
+who had adopted my sister, but refused to take me.  Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne offered to take me into her dressmaking business.  M. le
+Cure thought that was a very good idea, and said that he would be
+pleased to go and teach me a little, twice a week.  Sister Marie-Aimee
+seemed really happy at this.  She did not know what to say to thank
+them.  It was agreed that I should go to Mademoiselle Maximilienne as
+soon as M. le Cure returned from a journey to Rome, which he had to
+make.  Sister Marie-Aimee would get my outfit ready for me, and
+Mademoiselle Maximilienne would go to the Mother Superior and ask her
+permission, she said.  I felt dreadfully uncomfortable at the idea that
+the Mother Superior was to have anything to do with it.  I could not
+forget the unkind look she always gave me when she passed the old bench
+and saw me sitting there with Sister Marie-Aimee and M. le Cure.  So I
+waited impatiently to hear what she would say to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne.  M. le Cure had been away for a week, and Sister
+Marie-Aimee used to talk to me every day about my new work.  She told
+me how glad she would be to see me on Sundays.  She gave me all kinds
+of good advice, told me to be good and to take care of my health.
+
+
+
+
+The Mother Superior sent for me one morning.  When I went into her room
+I noticed that she was sitting in a big red armchair.  I began to
+remember some ghost stories which I had heard the girls tell about her,
+and when I saw her sitting there, all black in the middle of all that
+red, I compared her in my mind to a huge poppy which had grown in a
+cellar.  She opened and closed her eyelids several times.  She had a
+smile on her face which was like an insult.  I felt myself blushing,
+but I did not turn my eyes away.  She gave a little sneering chuckle,
+and said, "You know why I sent for you?"  I answered that I thought it
+was to talk to me about Mademoiselle Maximilienne.  She sneered again,
+"Oh, yes; Mademoiselle Maximilienne," she said.  "Well, my child, you
+must undeceive yourself.  We have made up our minds to place you on a
+farm in Sologne."  She half closed her eyes and snapped out, "You are
+to be a shepherdess, young woman."  Then she added, rapping the words
+out, "You will look after the sheep."  I said simply, "Very well,
+mother."  She pulled herself up out of the depths of her armchair and
+asked me, "Do you know what looking after the sheep means?"  I answered
+that I had seen shepherdesses in the fields.  She bent her yellow face
+towards me and went on, "You will have to clean the stables.  They
+smell very unpleasantly, and the shepherdesses are dirty.  You will
+help in the work of the farm, and be taught to milk the cows and look
+after the pigs."  She spoke very loud, as though she were afraid I
+should not understand her.  I answered as I had answered before, "Very
+well, mother."  She pulled herself up by the arms of her chair,
+fastened her shining eyes on me, and said, "You don't mean to tell me
+that you are not proud?"  I smiled, and said, "No, mother."  She seemed
+very much surprised, but, as I went on smiling, her voice grew softer.
+"Really, my child?" she said.  "I always thought you were proud."  She
+dropped back into her chair again, hid her eyes under their lids, and
+began talking quickly in a monotonous voice, as she did when she said
+prayers.  She said that I must obey my masters, that I must never
+forget my religious duties, and that the farmer's wife would come and
+fetch me the day before the feast of St. John.
+
+I went out of her room with feelings which I could not express.  But I
+felt horribly afraid of hurting Sister Marie-Aimee's feelings.  How
+could I tell her?  I had no time to think.  Sister Marie-Aimee was
+waiting for me in the passage.  She took hold of my two shoulders, bent
+her face towards me, and said, "Well?" She looked anxious.  I said,
+"She wants me to be a shepherdess."  She did not understand, and
+frowned, "A shepherdess," she said.  "What do you mean?"  I hurried on,
+"She has found a place for me in a farm, and I am to milk cows and look
+after the pigs."  Sister Marie-Aimee pushed me away so roughly that I
+bumped against the wall.  She ran towards the door.  I thought she was
+going to the Mother Superior's room, but she went out, and came back
+again, and began walking up and down the passage, taking long steps.
+Her fists were clenched, and she kept tapping with her foot on the
+floor.  She was breathing hard.  Then she leaned up against the wall,
+let her arms fall as though she were overcome, and, in a voice which
+seemed to come from a long way off, she said: "She is revenging
+herself.  Yes, she is revenging herself."  She came back to me, took my
+two hands affectionately in hers, and asked, "Didn't you tell her that
+you would not go?  Didn't you beg her to let you go to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne?"  I shook my head and repeated in her own words exactly
+what the Mother Superior had said to me.  She listened without
+interrupting me.  Then she told me to say nothing about it to the other
+girls.  She thought that everything would be all right when M. le Cure
+came back.
+
+
+
+
+Next Sunday, as we were getting into line to go to mass, Madeleine ran
+into the room like a mad thing.  She threw her arms up in the air,
+cried out, "M. le Cure is dead!" and fell right down across the table
+near her.  Everybody stopped talking, and we all ran to Madeleine, who
+was screaming and crying.  We wanted to know all about it.  But she
+rocked herself up and down on the table, and kept on repeating, "He is
+dead! he is dead!"  I could not think at all.  I did not know whether I
+was sorry or not, and all the time mass was going on, Madeleine's voice
+sounded in my ears like a bell.  There was no walk that day.  Even the
+little girls kept quite quiet.  I went to look for Sister Marie-Aimee.
+She had not been at mass, and I knew from Marie Renaud that she was not
+ill.  I found her in the refectory.  She was sitting on her little
+platform.  She was leaning her head sideways on the table, and her arms
+were hanging down beside her chair.  I sat myself down some distance
+away from her.  But when I heard her moaning I began to sob too, hiding
+my face in my hands.  But I did not sob long, and I knew that I was not
+as sorry as I wanted to be.  I tried to cry, but I could not shed a
+single tear.  I was a little bit ashamed of myself because I believed
+that one ought to cry when somebody died, and I didn't dare uncover my
+face for fear that Sister Marie-Aimee should think that I was hard
+hearted.  I listened to her crying.  Her moaning reminded me of the
+wind at winter-time in the big fireplace.  It went up and down as if
+she were trying to compose a kind of song.  Then her voice stumbled and
+broke, and ended up in deep trembling notes.  A little before
+dinner-time, Madeleine came into the refectory.  She took Sister
+Marie-Aimee away with her, putting her arm round her, and taking care
+of her as they walked.  In the evening she told us that M. le Cure had
+died in Rome, and that he would be brought back to be buried with his
+family.
+
+
+
+
+Next day Sister Marie-Aimee looked after us as usual.  She didn't cry
+any more, but she would not let us talk to her.  She walked along with
+her eyes on the ground, and seemed to have forgotten me.  I had only
+one day more, as the Mother Superior had told me I should be fetched
+next day, for the day after was the feast of St. John.  In the evening,
+at the end of prayers, when Sister Marie-Aimee had said, "Lord, be
+pitiful to exiles and give your aid to prisoners," she added, in a loud
+voice, "We will say a prayer for one of your companions who is going
+out into the world."  I understood at once that she was talking of me,
+and I felt that I was as much to be pitied as the exiles and the
+prisoners were.  I could not get to sleep that night.  I knew that I
+was going next day, but I didn't know what Sologne was like.  I
+imagined it to be a country very far off, where there were large plains
+with flowers on them.  I imagined myself the shepherdess of a troop of
+beautiful white sheep, with two dogs by my side which kept the sheep in
+order at a sign from me.  I would not have dared to tell Sister
+Marie-Aimee so, but just then I liked the idea of being a shepherdess
+much better than the idea of being in a shop.  Ismerie, who was snoring
+loud, next to me, reminded me of my comrades again.
+
+It was such a bright night that I could see all the beds quite
+distinctly.  I looked at one after the other, stopping a little at
+those of the girls I was fond of.  Almost opposite me I saw my friend
+Sophie, with her magnificent hair.  It was scattered about over the
+pillow, and lighted up the bed quite brightly.  A little further down
+the room were the beds of Chemineau the Proud, and her twin sister, the
+Fool.  Chemineau the Proud had a big smooth white forehead and gentle
+eyes.  She never said it was not true when she was accused of doing
+anything wrong.  She simply shrugged her shoulders and looked round her
+with contempt.  Sister Marie-Aimee used to say that her conscience was
+as white as her forehead.  Chemineau the Fool was half as tall again as
+her sister.  Her hair was coarse, and came down nearly to her eyebrows.
+Her shoulders were square, and her hips were broad.  We used to call
+her the sister's watch-dog.  And down at the other end of the dormitory
+was Colette.  She still believed that I was going to Mademoiselle
+Maximilienne.  She was quite sure that I should get married very soon,
+and she had made me promise to come and fetch her as soon as I was
+married.  I thought about her for a long time.  Then I looked at the
+window and the shadows of the linden trees were thrown in my direction.
+It was as though they had come to say good-bye to me, and I smiled at
+them.  On the other side of the lindens I could see the infirmary.  It
+looked as though it were trying to hide itself, and its little windows
+made me think of weak eyes.  I looked at the infirmary for some time,
+thinking of Sister Agatha.  She was so bright and so good that the
+little girls always laughed when she scolded them.  She did the
+doctoring.  When one of us went to her with a bad finger, she always
+had something funny to say, and she always knew whether we were greedy
+or vain, and would promise us a cake or a ribbon accordingly.  She used
+to pretend to look for it, and while we were looking to see where it
+was, the bad place on the finger would be pricked, washed, and tied up.
+I remember a chilblain that I had on my foot which would not get well.
+One morning Sister Agatha said to me solemnly, "Listen, Marie Claire.
+I must put something miraculous on this, and if your foot is not better
+in three days, we shall have to cut it off."  For three days I was very
+careful not to walk on that foot so as not to disturb this miraculous
+something.  I thought it must be a piece of the true cross, or perhaps
+a piece of the veil of the Holy Virgin.  On the third day my foot was
+completely cured, and when I asked Sister Agatha what the miraculous
+remedy was that she had put on it, she laughed, called me a little
+silly, and showed me a box of ointment which was called "miraculous
+ointment."
+
+
+
+
+It was late at night when I went to sleep, and I began to expect the
+farmer's wife directly morning came.  I wanted her to come, and I was
+afraid of her coming.  Sister Marie-Aimee looked up quickly every time
+the door opened.  Just as we were finishing dinner, the porteress came
+and asked if I were ready to go.  Sister Marie-Aimee said that I should
+be ready in a moment.  She got up and told me to go with her.  She
+helped me to dress, gave me a little bundle of linen, and all of a
+sudden she said, "They will bring him back to-morrow, and you will not
+be there."  Then she looked into my eyes, "Swear to me," she said,
+"that you will say a _De Profundis_ for him every night."  I promised
+to do so.  Then she pulled me to her quite roughly, pressed me to her
+hard, and ran off to her room.  I heard her saying as she went, "My
+God! this is too much!"  I crossed the courtyard by myself, and the
+farmer's wife, who was waiting for me, took me away.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+I was tucked in among a lot of old baskets in a cart covered with a
+hood, and when the horse stopped of his own accord at the farm it had
+been dark for a long time.
+
+The farmer came out of the house carrying a lantern which he held high
+up in the air, and which only lit up the toes of his wooden shoes.  He
+came and helped us to get out of the cart, then he lifted his lantern
+up to my face, stood back a little and said, "What a funny little
+servant girl."
+
+His wife took me to a room where there were two beds.  She showed me
+mine, and told me that I should be all alone on the farm with the
+cowherd next day, because every one was going to the feast of St. John.
+As soon as I was up next morning, the cowherd took me to the stables to
+help him give the fodder to the cattle.  He showed me the sheep pens,
+and told me that I was going to look after the lambs instead of old
+Bibiche.  He explained to me that the lambs were taken from their
+mothers every year, and that a special shepherdess was needed to look
+after them.  He also told me that the name of the farm was
+Villevieille, and that everybody was happy there because Master[1]
+Silvain the farmer, and Pauline, his wife, were kind people.
+
+When he had seen to all the animals the cowherd made me sit down next
+to him in the chestnut avenue.  Sitting there we could see the bend in
+the lane which went up towards the high-road, and the whole of the
+farm.  The farm buildings formed a square and the huge dunghill in the
+middle of the yard gave off a warm smell, which mixed with the smell of
+the half-dried hay.  The farm was wrapped in silence.  I sat and looked
+all round me.  I could see nothing but pine trees and corn fields.  I
+felt as though I had suddenly been dropped into a faraway country,
+where I should always remain, along with the cowherd, and the animals
+which I could hear moving in their stables.  It was very hot and I was
+numb with a heavy longing to go to sleep, but fear of all the new
+things which were round me prevented me from letting myself drop off.
+Flies of all possible colours whizzed round me with a little snoring
+noise.  The cowherd was making a basket of rushes, and the dogs lay at
+our feet fast asleep.
+
+Just as the sun was setting, the farmer's cart turned slowly round the
+bend in the lane.  There were five people in it, two men and three
+women.  As they passed us, the farmer's wife smiled down at me, and the
+others leaned forward to see me.  Soon afterwards the farm filled with
+noise, and as it was too late to make soup for supper we all supped off
+a piece of bread and a bowl of milk.
+
+
+[1] On a French farm the farmer is always called "Master."
+
+
+
+
+Next day the farmer's wife gave me a cloak, and I went out with old
+Bibiche to learn how to look after the lambs.  Old Bibiche and her dog
+Castille were so like one another that I always thought they must
+belong to the same family.  They looked about the same age, and their
+eyes were about the same colour.  Whenever the lambs ran off the path
+Bibiche would say, "Bark, Castille, bark."  She said it very quickly,
+almost in one word, and even when Castille did not bark the lambs got
+back into line again.  The old woman's voice was so like that of her
+dog.
+
+When harvesting began it seemed to me as though I were taking part in
+something full of mystery.  Men went up to the corn and laid it on the
+ground with regular sweeping strokes, while others picked it up again
+in sheaves, which they stacked one against the other.  The cries of the
+harvesters seemed to come from above sometimes, and every now and then
+I looked up quickly, expecting to see golden corn-laden chariots fly
+past above my head.
+
+We all had our evening meal together.  Everybody sat down where they
+pleased at the long table, and the farmer's wife filled our plates to
+the brim.  The younger ones munched with appetite, while the older ones
+cut each mouthful as though it were something precious.  Everybody ate
+in silence, and the brown bread looked whiter in their black hands.  At
+the end of the meal the elder ones talked about harvests with the
+farmer, while the younger ones talked and laughed with Martine, the
+shepherdess.  She answered everybody's jokes, and laughed heartily at
+them; but if one of the men stretched out a hand towards her she
+skipped out of the way, and never let him get hold of her.  Nobody paid
+any attention to me.  I sat on a pile of logs a little way away from
+the rest of them, and looked at all their faces.  Master Silvain had
+big brown eyes which looked at each one in turn, and rested quietly on
+them as he looked.  He never raised his voice, and leaned his open
+hands on the table when he spoke.  His wife's voice was serious  and
+pre-occupied.  She always looked as though she were expecting some
+misfortune to happen and she scarcely smiled at all, even when all the
+others were roaring with laughter.
+
+Old Bibiche always thought that I was falling asleep.  She would come
+and pull my sleeve, and take me off to bed.  Her bed was next to mine.
+She mumbled her prayers while she was undressing, and always blew the
+lamp out without waiting to see whether I was ready.
+
+
+
+
+Directly after the harvest, Bibiche let me go to the fields alone with
+her dog.  Old Castille didn't care for my company.  She used to leave
+me whenever she could and go back to the farm to Bibiche.  I had a lot
+of trouble in keeping my lambs together.  They ran every way at once.
+I compared myself to Sister Marie-Aimee, who always said that her
+little flock was hard to manage.  And yet she used to get us together
+at one stroke of the bell and she could always make us perfectly quiet
+by raising her voice a little.  But I might raise my voice or crack my
+whip as much as I liked, the lambs did not understand me, and I was
+obliged to run about all round the flock as though I were a sheep dog.
+One evening two lambs were missing.  I always stood in the doorway
+every evening to let them in one by one so that I could count them
+easily.  I went into the pen and tried to count them again.  It was not
+easy and I had to give it up at last, for every time I counted them
+again I made their number more than there really were.  At last I made
+up my mind that I must have counted them wrong the first time, and I
+did not say anything to anybody.
+
+Next morning when I let them out I counted them once more.  There
+really were two missing.  I felt very uneasy.  All day long I hunted
+about the fields for them, and in the evening, when I was quite certain
+that they were missing, I told the farmer's wife.  We searched high and
+low for those lambs for several days, but we could not find them.  The
+farmer first, and then his wife took me apart, and tried to make me
+confess that men had come and taken the lambs away.  They promised me
+that I should not be scolded if I would tell the truth.  It was no good
+my saying that I really did not know what had become of them, I could
+see that they did not believe me.
+
+After this I was frightened when I went into the fields because I knew
+now that there were men who hid themselves and came and stole the
+sheep.  I was always thinking that I saw some one moving about behind
+the bushes.  I very soon learned to count my lambs by glancing at them,
+and whether they were all together or scattered about, I knew in a
+minute whether all of them were there.
+
+
+
+
+Autumn came and I began to feel unhappy.  I missed Sister Marie-Aimee.
+I longed so to see her that I used to shut my eyes and believe that she
+was coming up the path.  When I did this I could really hear her steps
+and the rustling of her dress on the grass.  When I felt her quite
+close to me I opened my eyes and she disappeared at once.  For a long
+time I had the idea of writing to her, but I did not dare to ask for
+pen and paper.  The farmer's wife did not know how to write, and nobody
+at the farm ever got any letters.  I plucked up courage one day and
+asked Master Silvain if he would take me to town with him that morning.
+He didn't answer at once.  His big quiet eyes rested on me for a time,
+and then he said that a shepherdess ought never to leave her flock.  He
+said that he didn't mind taking me to mass in the village now and then,
+but that I must not expect him to take me to the town.  This answer
+quite stunned me.  It was as though I had learned of a great
+misfortune.  And every time I thought of it I could see Sister
+Marie-Aimee.  She was like some precious thing which the farmer had
+smashed all to pieces by accident.
+
+On the following Saturday Master Silvain and his wife left in the
+morning as usual, but instead of remaining in town until evening they
+came back in the afternoon with a dealer who wanted to buy some of the
+lambs.  I had never thought that one could go to the town and come back
+again in so short a time.  The idea occurred to me that one day I would
+leave my lambs in the meadow and would run into the town for one kiss
+from Sister Marie-Aimee.  I soon found that that would not be possible,
+and I decided to go off in the night.  I hoped that I should not take
+much longer that the farmer's horse did, and that by leaving in the
+middle of the night I could be back in time to take the lambs to
+pasture in the morning.
+
+That evening I went to bed in my clothes, and when the big clock
+sounded twelve I slipped out on tip-toe with my shoes in my hand.  I
+leaned against a cart and laced them up, and ran off as fast as I could
+into the dark.  I soon got past the outbuildings of the farm, and then
+I saw that the night was not very dark.  The wind was blowing very
+hard, and big black clouds were rolling across the sky under the moon.
+It was a long way to the high-road, and to get there I had to cross a
+wooden bridge which was out of repair.  The rain of the last few days
+had swelled the little river and the water splashed up on to the bridge
+through the rotten planks.  I began to get nervous because the water
+and the wind between them made a noise that I had never heard before.
+But I refused to be frightened, and ran across the slippery bridge as
+quickly as I dared.
+
+I got to the high-road sooner than I had expected to, and I turned to
+the left as I had seen the farmer turn when he went to market.  But a
+little further along the road divided into two and I didn't know which
+road to take.  I ran a little way up one road and then a little way up
+another.  It was the road to the left that seemed to be the likely one.
+I took it, and walked fast to make up for lost time.
+
+In the distance I saw a black mass which covered the whole country.  It
+seemed to be coming slowly towards me, and for a moment I wanted to
+turn back and run.  A dog began to bark and that gave me a little
+confidence, and almost directly afterwards I saw that the black mass in
+front of me was a wood through which the road passed.  When I got into
+it the wind seemed to be rougher than ever.  It blew in gusts, and the
+trees struck at one another and rattled their branches, and moaned and
+stooped down to get out of its way.  I heard long whistling sounds as
+the branches cracked and clattered and fell.
+
+Then I heard steps behind me and felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned
+round quickly but I saw nobody.  Yet I was sure that somebody had
+touched me with his finger, and the steps went on as though some
+invisible person were walking round and round me.  I began to run so
+fast that I didn't know whether my feet were touching the ground or not.
+
+The stones sprang out under my shoes and rattled behind me like a
+little hailstorm.  I had only one idea, and that was to run and run
+until I got out of the forest.
+
+At last I came to a clearing.  It was lit up by a pale moon and the
+tearing wind whirled heaps of leaves up and threw them down again, then
+rolled them about and about, and turned them over in all directions.
+
+I wanted to stop to get my breath, but the big trees were swinging
+backwards and forwards with a deafening noise.  Their shadows, which
+looked like great black animals, threw themselves flat along the road
+and then slipped away and hid behind the trees.  Some of these shadows
+had shapes which I recognized.  But most of them hovered and jumped
+about in front of me as though they wanted to prevent me from passing.
+Some of them frightened me so that I took a little run, and jumped over
+them.  I was dreadfully afraid that they would catch at my feet.
+
+The wind went down a little, and rain began to fall in large drops.  I
+had got to the other side of the clearing, and when I came to a little
+path which disappeared into the wood again, I saw a white wall at the
+end of it.  I went a little way along the path, and saw that it was a
+house.  Without thinking at all I knocked at the door.  I wanted to ask
+the people to shelter me until the wind stopped.  I knocked a second
+time, and heard somebody moving.  I thought the door was going to be
+opened, but a window was opened on the first floor.  A man in a
+night-cap called out, "Who is there?"  I answered, "A little girl."  He
+seemed surprised.  "A little girl?" he said, and asked me where I came
+from, where I was going, and what I wanted.  I had not expected all
+these questions, and I said that I had come from the farm, but then
+told a lie, and said that I was going to see my mother who was ill.  I
+asked him to let me into the house until the rain stopped.  He told me
+to wait, and I heard him talking to somebody else.  Then he came back
+to the window, and asked me if there was anybody with me.  He asked me
+how old I was; and when I said I was thirteen, he said I must be a
+brave girl to come through the wood alone at night.  He remained
+leaning out of the window a moment, trying to see my face, which was
+looking up towards him.  Then he turned his head to right and left
+trying to look into the darkness of the wood, and advised me to go on a
+little further.  There was a village at the other side of the wood, he
+said, and I should find houses there where I could dry my clothes.
+
+I went on into the night.  The moon had hidden itself altogether, and a
+drizzling rain was falling.  I had to walk a long time before I got to
+the village.  All the houses were shut up, and I could hardly see them
+in the dark.  A blacksmith was the only person up.  When I got to his
+house I went up the two steps, meaning to rest there.  He was busy with
+a great iron bar, which he was heating in a fire of red coal, and when
+his arm went up with the bellows he looked like a giant.  Every time
+the bellows came down the coal flew up and crackled.  That made a
+glimmering light which lit up the walls, on which scythes, saws, and
+all kinds of knives were hanging.  The man's forehead was wrinkled, and
+he was staring at the fire.  I dared not talk to him, and I went away
+without making any noise.
+
+When it became quite light I saw that I was not very far from the town.
+I began to recognize the places where Sister Marie-Aimee used to take
+us when we went for our walks.  I was walking very slowly now, and
+dragged my feet after me because they hurt me.  I was so tired that it
+was all I could do not to sit down on one of the heaps of stone which
+were on each side of the road.
+
+The sound of a horse and cart rattling along the road as fast as they
+could go made me turn round, and I remained standing quite still with
+my heart beating fast.  I had recognized the bay mare and the farmer's
+black beard.  He stopped the mare quite close to me, leaned out of the
+cart, and lifted me up into it by the belt of my dress.  He sat me down
+next to him on the seat, turned the horse round and drove off again at
+full speed.  When we got to the wood Master Silvain made the horse slow
+down.  He turned to me, looked at me, and said, "It is lucky for you
+that I caught you up.  Otherwise you would have been brought back to
+the farm between two gensdarmes."  As I didn't answer, he said again,
+"Perhaps you don't know that there are gensdarmes who bring little
+girls back, when they run away."  I said, "I want to go and see Sister
+Marie-Aimee."  "Are you unhappy with us?" he asked.  I said again, "I
+want to go and see Sister Marie-Aimee."  He looked as though he didn't
+understand, and went on asking me questions, going over the names of
+everybody on the farm, and asking me if they were kind to me.  I made
+the same answer every time.  At last he lost patience with me, sat
+straight up, and said, "What an obstinate child."  I looked up at him
+and said that I should run away again if he would not take me to Sister
+Marie-Aimee.  I went on looking at him, waiting for an answer, and I
+could see quite well that he didn't know what to say.  He kept still,
+and thought for several minutes.  Then he put his hand on my knee and
+said, "Listen to me, child, and try and understand what I am going to
+tell you."  And when he had finished speaking I understood that he had
+promised to keep me until I was eighteen without ever letting me go to
+the town.  I understood, too, that the Mother Superior could do what
+she liked with me, and that if I ran away again she would have me
+locked up, because I ran about the woods during the night.  Then the
+farmer said that he hoped I should forget the convent and that I should
+grow fond of him, and of his wife, because they wished me to be happy
+with them.  I was very miserable, and it was all I could do not to cry.
+"Come," said the farmer holding out his hand.  "Let us be good friends,
+shall we?"  I put my hand into his, and he held it rather tight.  I
+said I should like to be friends.  He cracked his whip, and we soon got
+through the wood.  Rain was still falling in a fine shower like a fog,
+and the ploughed fields looked drearier than ever.  In a field by the
+road a man came towards us waving his arms.  I thought he was
+threatening me at first, but when he was quite close to us I saw that
+he was holding something in his left arm, and that his right arm was
+moving up and down as though he were working a scythe.  I was so
+puzzled that I looked at Master Silvain.  As though he were answering a
+question, he said, "It is Gaboret, sowing."  A few minutes afterwards
+we got to the farm.  The farmer's wife was waiting for us in the
+doorway.  When she saw me she opened her mouth wide as though she had
+been a long time without breathing, and her serious face looked a
+little less anxious for a moment.  I ran past her, went into the room
+to fetch my cloak, and went straight out to the pens.  The sheep rushed
+out, tumbling over one another.  They ought to have been in the fields
+a long time before.
+
+
+
+
+All day long I thought over what the farmer had said to me.  I could
+not understand why the Mother Superior wanted to prevent me from seeing
+Sister Marie-Aimee.  I understood that Sister Marie-Aimee could do
+nothing though, and I made my mind up to wait, thinking that a day
+would come when nobody could prevent me from seeing her again.  At
+bedtime the farmer's wife went up with me to put an extra blanket on my
+bed, and when she had said "good night," she told me not to call her
+"madame" any more.  She wanted me to call her Pauline.  Then she went
+away, after telling me that both she and her husband looked upon me as
+a child of the house, and that she would do all she could to make me
+happy at the farm.
+
+Next day Master Silvain made me sit next to his brother at table.  He
+told him with a laugh that he was not to let me want for anything,
+because he wanted me to grow.  The farmer's brother was called Eugene.
+He spoke very little, but he always looked at each person who spoke,
+and his little eyes often seemed to be laughing at them.  He was thirty
+years old, but he did not look more than twenty.  He always had an
+answer to any question he was asked, and I felt no awkwardness at
+sitting next to him.  He squeezed himself against the wall so as to
+give me more room at the table, and when the farmer told him to look
+after me, all he said was, "You need not worry."
+
+Now, after all the fields had been ploughed Martine took her sheep a
+long way off to some pasture land called the common.  The cowherd and I
+took our flock down the meadows and into the woods where there was
+fern.  I suffered from the cold although I had a big woollen cloak
+which covered me down to my feet.  The cowherd often had to light a
+fire.  He would bake potatoes and chestnuts in the ashes and share them
+with me.  He taught me how to know from which side the wind was coming,
+so as to make use of the least shelter against the cold.  And as we sat
+over the fire and tried to keep ourselves warm he would sing me a song
+about "Water and Wine."  It was a song which had about twenty verses in
+it.  Water and Wine accused one another of ruining the human race, and
+at the same time praised themselves tremendously.  As far as I could
+see Water was right, but the cowherd said that Wine was not wrong.  We
+used to sit and talk together for hours.  He would tell me of his own
+home, which was a long way off from Sologne.  He told me that he had
+always been a cowherd, and that when he was a child a bull had knocked
+him down and hurt him.  He had been ill a long time after that, and the
+pains in his limbs had made him scream.  Then the pains had gone away,
+but he had become all twisted up as I saw him now.  He remembered the
+names of all the farms where he had been cowherd.  Some of the farmers
+were kind, and some were not, but he had never come across such kind
+masters as at Villevieille.  He said, too, that Master Silvain's cows
+were not a bit like those of his own country, which were small, and had
+horns like pointed spindles.  The Villevieille cows were big, strong
+animals with rough crumpled horns.  He was very fond of them and used
+to call each one by name when he talked to them.  The one he liked best
+was a beautiful white cow which Master Silvain had bought in the
+spring.  She was always lifting her head and looking into the distance,
+and then all of a sudden she would start off at a run.  The cowherd
+used to call out, "Stop where you are, Blanche!  Stop!"  She usually
+obeyed him, but sometimes he had to send the dog after her.  Sometimes,
+too, she used to try and run even when the dog stopped her, and would
+only come back to the herd when the dog bit her muzzle.  The cowherd
+used to pity her because, he said, he couldn't say what or whom she was
+regretting.
+
+
+
+
+In the month of December the cows remained in the stables.  I thought
+that we should keep the sheep in too, but the farmer's brother
+explained to me that Sologne was a very poor country, and that the
+farmers could not make enough forage to feed the sheep, as well.  So
+now I used to go off all by myself with the sheep down the meadows and
+into the woods.  All the birds had gone.  Mist spread over the ploughed
+fields and the woods were full of silence.
+
+There were days when I felt so lonely that I began to believe that the
+earth had fallen all to pieces round me, and when a crow cawed as it
+flew past in the grey sky its great hoarse voice seemed to me to be
+singing of the misfortunes of the world.  Even the sheep were quiet.  A
+dealer had taken away all the lambs, and the little ewes did not know
+how to play alone.  They went along pressing up close to each other,
+and even when they were not cropping what grass there was, their heads
+were bent.  Some of them made me think of little girls I had known.  I
+used to pass them and stroke them, and make them raise their heads, but
+their eyes looked down again at once, and the pupils were like glass
+without a gleam in it.
+
+One day I was surprised by such a thick fog that I could not see my
+way.  All of a sudden I found myself near a big wood which I didn't
+know.  The tops of the trees were lost in the fog, and the ferns looked
+as though they were all wrapped in wool.  White shadows came down from
+the trees and glided with long transparent trains over the dead leaves.
+I pushed the sheep towards the meadow, which was quite near, but they
+clustered together and refused to go on.  I went in front of them to
+see what was preventing them from going any further, and I recognized
+the little river which flowed at the bottom of the hill.
+
+I could scarcely see the water.  It seemed to be sleeping under a thick
+white woollen blanket.  I stood looking at it for one long minute, then
+I got my sheep together and took them back along the road.  While I was
+trying to find out where the farm was, the sheep ran round the wood and
+got into a lane with a hedge on each side of it.  The fog was getting
+thicker than ever, and I thought I was walking between two high walls.
+I followed the sheep without knowing where they were taking me.
+Suddenly they left the lane and turned to the right; but I stopped
+them.  I saw a church just in front of us.  The doors were wide open,
+and on either side I could see two red lamps which lit up a grey
+vaulted roof.  There were two straight lines of huge pillars, and at
+the other end one could just see the windows with their small panes on
+which a light was shining.  It was all I could do to keep the sheep
+from going into the church, and as I was pushing them away I noticed
+that they were covered with little white beads.  They shook themselves
+every moment and the beads made a tinkling sound.  I got very anxious,
+for I knew that Master Silvain must be waiting for us, and wondering
+where we were.  I felt sure that if I were to go back the way I had
+come I must soon find the farm, so making as little noise as I could I
+pushed the sheep back into the lane which led to the church.  As I was
+going into the lane a man's voice sounded right over my head.  The
+voice said, "Let the poor brutes go home."  As he spoke the man turned
+the sheep back towards the church again, and I recognized Eugene, the
+farmer's brother.  He passed his hand over the back of one of the sheep
+and said, "How pretty they are with their little frost balls.  But it
+is not good for them."
+
+I was not at all surprised at meeting him there.  I showed him the
+church and asked him what it was.  "It was for you," he said.  "I was
+afraid that you would not find the avenue of chestnut trees, and I hung
+up a lantern on each side."  I felt all confused.  It was only a few
+moments afterwards that I understood that the great pillars, blackened
+and worn by centuries, were simply the trunks of the chestnut trees,
+and then I recognized the small-paned windows of the farmhouse kitchen,
+which the fire lit up from inside.  Eugene counted the sheep himself.
+He helped me to make them a warm litter of straw, and as we left the
+pen together he asked me if I really didn't know what had become of the
+two lambs that had been lost.  I felt dreadfully ashamed at the thought
+that he could believe that I had told a lie, and I could not help
+crying, and told him that they had disappeared without my having seen
+how or where they went.  Then he told me that he had found them drowned
+in a water-hole.  I thought he was going to scold me for not having
+watched them better, but he said gently, "Go and get warm; you have got
+all the rime of Sologne in your hair."  I made up my mind that I would
+go and see the waterhole.  But during the night snow fell so quickly
+that we couldn't go out to the fields next day.
+
+I helped old Bibiche to mend the household linen; Martine sat down to
+her spinning wheel, and I sang to them while we sewed and Martine span.
+
+
+
+
+While we sat at work that evening the dogs never stopped barking.
+Martine seemed anxious.  She listened to the dogs, and then turning to
+the farmer she said, "I am afraid this weather will bring the wolves
+down."  The farmer got up to go out and talk to the dogs, and took his
+lantern to make a round of the outhouses.  During the week that the
+snow lasted hundreds of crows came to the farm.  They were so hungry
+that nothing frightened them.  They went into the cow-house and the
+pens and into the granary, and they made very free with the corn ricks.
+The farmer killed a lot of them.  We cooked some of them with bacon and
+cabbage.  Everybody thought them very good, but the dogs wouldn't eat
+them.
+
+
+
+
+The first day we let the sheep and cows out, the pine trees were still
+heavy with snow.  The hill was all white too.  It seemed to have come
+closer to the farm.  All this white dazzled me.  I could not find
+things in their places, and every moment I was afraid that I should not
+see the blue smoke curling up over the farm roofs any longer.  The
+sheep could not find anything to eat, and ran about searching.  I did
+not let them scatter too much.  They looked like moving snow, and I was
+obliged to watch them closely so as not to lose sight of them.  I
+managed to get them together in a meadow which skirted a big wood.  The
+whole forest was busy getting rid of the snow which weighed it down.
+The big branches threw the snow off at one shake, while the others
+which were not so strong, stooped and bent themselves to make it slip
+down.  I had never been into this forest.  I only knew that it was a
+very big one, and that Martine sometimes took her sheep there.  The
+pine trees were very tall, and the ferns grew very high.
+
+I had been watching a big clump of ferns for a long time.  I thought I
+had seen it move, and I heard a sound come out of it as though a bit of
+stick had broken under a footstep.  I felt frightened.  I thought there
+was somebody there.  Then I heard the same sound again much nearer, but
+without seeing anything move.  I tried to reassure myself by saying to
+myself that it was a hare, or some other little animal which was
+looking for food; but in spite of all I could try to think, I felt
+there was somebody there.  I felt so nervous that I made up my mind to
+go nearer the farm.  I had taken two steps towards my sheep when they
+huddled together and moved away from the wood.  I was looking about to
+see what had frightened them, when quite close to me, in the very
+middle of the flock, I saw a yellow dog carrying off one of the sheep
+in his mouth.  My first idea was that Castille had gone mad; but at the
+same moment Castille tumbled up against my dress and howled
+plaintively.  Then I guessed that it was a wolf.  It was carrying off a
+sheep which it held by the middle of its body.  It climbed up a hillock
+without any difficulty, and as it jumped the broad ditch which
+separated the field from the forest its hind legs made me think of
+wings.  At that moment I should not have thought it at all
+extraordinary if it had flown away over the trees.  I stood there for a
+few moments, without knowing whether I was frightened.  Then I felt
+that I could not take my eyes away from the ditch.  My eyelids had
+become so stiff that I thought I should never be able to close them
+again.  I wanted to call out, so that they should hear me at the farm,
+but I could not get my voice out of my throat.  I wanted to run, but my
+legs were trembling so that I was obliged to sit down on the wet grass.
+Castille went on howling as though she were in pain, and the sheep
+remained huddled together.
+
+When I got them back to the farm at last, I ran to look for Master
+Silvain.  As soon as he saw me he guessed what had happened.  He called
+his brother and took down their two guns, and I tried to show him which
+way the wolf had gone.  They both came back at nightfall without having
+found him.  We talked of nothing else all the evening.  Eugene wanted
+to know what the wolf looked like; and old Bibiche got angry when I
+said that he had a long yellow coat like Castille, but that he was much
+handsomer than she was.
+
+
+
+
+A few days afterwards it was Martine's turn.  She had just taken her
+sheep out, and she had hardly reached the end of the avenue of chestnut
+trees when we heard her shouting.  Everybody rushed out of the house.
+I got to Martine first.  She was stooping down and pulling as hard as
+she could at a sheep which a wolf had just killed, and was trying to
+carry off.  The wolf had the sheep by the throat, and was pulling as
+hard as Martine was.  Martine's dog bit the wolf's legs, but he didn't
+seem to feel it, and when Master Silvain fired full at him he rolled
+over with a piece of the sheep's throat between his teeth.  Martine's
+eyes were staring and her mouth had become quite white.  Her cap had
+slipped off her head, and the parting which divided her hair into two
+made me think of a broad path on which one could walk without any
+danger.  The usual strong expression of her face had changed into a sad
+little grimace, and her hands kept opening and closing, the two of them
+keeping time.  She had been leaning against the chestnut tree, and she
+went up to Eugene, who was looking at the wolf.  She stood by him for a
+moment looking at the dead wolf too, and said aloud: "Poor brute!  How
+hungry he must have been!"  The farmer put the wolf and the sheep on
+the same wheelbarrow, and wheeled them back to the farm.  The dogs
+followed, sniffing at the barrow, and looking frightened.
+
+For several days the farmer and his brother went out shooting in the
+neighbourhood.  Whenever Eugene came anywhere near me he would stop and
+say a kind word.  He told me that the noise they made with their guns
+drove the wolves away, and that one very rarely saw any in that part of
+the country.  But although he said that there was little or no danger I
+didn't dare go back to the big forest.  I preferred to go up on to the
+hill which was covered only with broom and ferns.
+
+
+
+
+It the beginning of the spring the farmer's wife taught me how to milk
+the cows and look after the pigs.  She said she wanted to make a good
+farmer of me.  I could not help thinking of the Mother Superior and the
+disdainful tone in which she had said to me, "You will milk the cows
+and look after the pigs."  When she said that, she said it as though
+she were giving me a punishment, and here I was delighted at having
+them to look after.  I used to lean my forehead against a cow's flank
+to get a better purchase, and I very soon filled my pail.  At the top
+of the milk a foam used to form which caught all kinds of changing
+colours, and when the sun passed over it it became so marvellously
+beautiful that I was never tired of looking at it.
+
+Looking after the pigs never disgusted me.  Their food was boiled
+potatoes and curdled milk.  I used to dip my hands into the bucket to
+mix it all up, and I loved making them wait for their food a few
+minutes.  Their eager cries and the way they wriggled their snouts
+about always amused me.
+
+
+
+
+When May came Master Silvain added a she goat to my flock.  He had
+bought it to help Pauline to feed the little baby she had got after
+they had been married ten years.  This goat was more difficult to take
+care of than all the rest of the flock.  It was always her fault when
+my flock got into the standing oats, which were pretty high.  The
+farmer saw what had happened and scolded me.  He said that I must have
+been asleep in a corner while my sheep were trampling his oats down.
+Every day I had to pass near a wood of young pine trees.  The goat used
+to get there in three jumps, and it was while I was looking for her
+that my lambs got into the oats.
+
+The first time I waited ever so long for her to come back by herself.
+I made my voice as soft as I could and called to her.  At last I made
+up my mind to go and fetch her, but the young pines were so close
+together that I didn't know how to get after her.  On the other hand, I
+could not go away without knowing what had happened to the goat.  I
+thought I remembered the place where she had disappeared, and I went in
+there, putting my hands in front of my face to keep the thorns off.  I
+saw her almost at once through my fingers.  She was quite near me.  I
+stretched my hands out to get hold of one of her horns, but she backed
+through the branches, which flew back and struck me in the face.  At
+last, however, I got hold of her and brought her back to the flock.
+She began again next day, and every day she did the same thing.  I got
+my sheep as far away as I could from the oats, and rushed after her.
+She was a white goat, and the first time I saw her I thought that she
+was like Madeleine.  She had the same kind of eyes, set far away from
+each other.  When I forced her to come out of the pine trees, she
+looked at me for a long time without moving her eyes, and I thought
+that Madeleine must have been turned into a goat.  Sometimes I told her
+not to do it again, and I was quite sure that she understood me when I
+told her how unkind she was.  As I was struggling out of the pine wood
+my hair fell all about me, and I shook my head to throw it forward.
+The goat sprang to one side bleating with fear.  She lowered her horns
+and came at me, but I lowered my head and shook my hair at her.  My
+hair was long and dragged along the ground.  She rushed off, leaping
+this way and that.  Every time she went into the pine wood I took my
+revenge on her by frightening her with my hair.  Master Silvain
+surprised us one morning when I was butting at her.  He laughed and
+laughed till I didn't know which way to look.  I tried to throw my hair
+back quickly.  The she goat came close up to me.  She looked at me,
+stretching her neck and wriggling her back about in the funniest way.
+The farmer could not stop laughing.  He bent almost double, holding his
+sides and simply roared with laughter.  All I could see of him were his
+eyebrows, his beard, and his big hat.  His shouts of laughter made me
+want to cry.  When he had stopped laughing he asked me all about it.  I
+told him how wicked the goat had been, and he shook his finger at her
+and laughed again.  Martine took her out next day; but the day after
+she said that she would rather leave the farm than take out that she
+goat again.  It was possessed of the devil, she said.
+
+Old Bibiche used to say that goats ought to be beaten, but I remembered
+the only time I had beaten mine.  Her ribs had made such a strange
+hollow sound that I never dared touch her again.  She was left free to
+run about the farm, and one day she disappeared.  We never found out
+what had become of her.
+
+The feast of St. John was drawing near, and to celebrate the
+anniversary of my arrival on the farm Eugene said that I must be taken
+to the village.  In honour of this feast day the farmer's wife gave me
+a yellow dress which she used to wear when she was a girl.  The village
+was called Sainte Montague.  It only had one street, at the end of
+which was a church.  Martine took me into mass, which had already
+begun.  She pushed me on to a bench and she sat down on the one in
+front of me.  There were two women behind me who never stopped talking
+about yesterday's market, and the men near the door talked out loud
+without seeming to mind.  They only stopped talking when the priest
+mounted the pulpit.  I thought he was going to preach, but he only gave
+out notices of the weddings.  Every time he mentioned a name the women
+leaned to right and left and smiled.  I never even thought of praying.
+I looked at Martine, who was on her knees.  Her dark curls had got out
+from under her embroidered cap.  Her shoulders were broad, and her
+white bodice was fastened at the waist with a black ribbon.  The whole
+of her made one think of something fresh and new, and yet the Mother
+Superior had told me that shepherdesses were dirty.  I thought of
+Martine and how smart she always looked in her short striped petticoat,
+her stockings, which were always tightly drawn, and her wooden shoes
+covered with leather, which she blacked like boots.  She was always
+very careful of her flock, and the farmer's wife used to say that she
+knew every one of her sheep.  When we came out of mass she left me and
+ran up to an old woman, whom she kissed tenderly.  Then I lost sight of
+her and remained all by myself, not knowing where to go.  A little way
+off I saw the inn of the "White Horse."  There was a noise of voices
+there and I could hear dishes and plates rattling.  People went in in
+crowds, and presently there was nobody left outside.  I was going back
+into the church to wait for Martine to come and fetch me when I saw
+Eugene.  He took me by the hand, and said, laughing as he spoke, "If
+your dress had not been as yellow as it is I should certainly have
+forgotten you."  He looked at me as though he were making fun of me and
+as though he were amused at something.  He took me to the schoolmaster
+and asked him to give me luncheon, and to take me for a walk with the
+children.  The schoolmaster was dressed like the gentlemen of the town.
+Eugene wore a blue blouse, and I was very much surprised to see them so
+friendly together.  While we were waiting for lunch the schoolmaster
+lent me a book of fairy tales, and when the time came for the walk I
+would much rather have been left alone to finish the book.
+
+On the village green the boys and girls were dancing in the sunshine
+and the dust.  I thought that they danced too roughly, and that they
+were too noisy.
+
+I felt very sad, and when the cart drove us back to the farm at
+nightfall I felt really glad to be back in the silence and the sweet
+smell of the meadows again.
+
+
+
+
+A few days after that, on our way home from the forest, a sheep which
+had been grazing near the hedge jumped right up into the air.  I went
+to see what was the matter, and saw that his nose was bleeding.  I
+thought that he must have pricked himself with a big thorn, and after
+having washed him I didn't think anything more about it.  Next day I
+was terrified to see that his head had swollen up till it was almost as
+big as his body.  It frightened me so much that I screamed.  Martine
+came running up, and she began screaming too, and everybody came.  I
+explained what had happened the day before, and the farmer said that
+the sheep must have been bitten by a viper.  He would have to be cared
+for, and must be left in the stable until the swelling had gone down.
+I asked nothing better than to look after the poor brute, but when I
+was alone with it I felt frightened to death.  That enormous head,
+which wobbled on the little body, made me half crazy with terror.  The
+great big eyes, the enormous mouth and the ears, which stood straight
+up, made a monster almost impossible to imagine.  The poor beast always
+remained in the middle of the stable, as though he were afraid of
+bumping himself against the wall.  I tried to go to him, telling myself
+that it was only a sheep after all, but I could not.  But directly he
+turned towards me I felt dreadfully sorry for him.  Sometimes I used to
+think that this dreadful face which wobbled from right to left was
+reproaching me.  Then something seemed to wobble inside my head, and I
+felt as though I were going mad.  I quite understood that I was
+perfectly capable of letting him die of hunger.  I told the cowherd
+about it, and he said that he would look after the sheep as long as the
+inflammation lasted.  He laughed at me a little, and said he could not
+understand how I could be afraid of a sick sheep.
+
+I was able to do him a good turn afterwards, and I was very glad.  When
+he let the bull out one morning, he had slipped and fallen in front of
+him.  The bull had sniffed and smelt at him.  He was a young bull,
+which had been brought up on the farm, and was a little bit wild.  The
+cowherd was afraid of him, and felt quite certain that he would
+remember that he had seen him on the ground in front of him.  I should
+have liked to make him understand that there was nothing to be afraid
+of, but I didn't know what to say to prevent his being frightened.  I
+was quite surprised at noticing all of a sudden how old he was.  His
+hat had dropped on to the ground, and I noticed for the first time that
+his hair was quite grey.  I thought about him all day long, and next
+day, while the cows were going out one by one, I went into the stable.
+The cowherd was looking at the bull, who was pulling at the chain.  I
+went up to him, patted him, and let him loose.  The cowherd stood on
+one side, and the bull rushed out as if he were mad.  The herd looked
+at him in surprise, and limped after him.  I was not nearly so
+frightened of the bull as I had been of the sheep with the swollen
+face, and I used to go into the stable every day, slipping in quietly
+so as not to be seen.  But Eugene had seen me.  He took me aside one
+morning, and, looking right into my eyes with his little eyes, he said,
+"Why did you let the bull loose?"  I was afraid the cow-herd would be
+scolded if I told the truth, and tried to find something to say to him.
+I began to say that I didn't let him loose.  Then Eugene gave a little
+chuckle, and said, "You don't mean to tell me that you tell lies, do
+you?"  I told him everything, and they sold the bull next Saturday.
+
+
+
+
+I had often noticed how kind Eugene was to everybody.  Whenever the
+farmer had any difficulties with his men he always used to call his
+brother, who would settle everything with a few words.  Eugene did the
+same work on the farm as Master Silvain did, but he always refused to
+go to market.  He said that he would not know how to sell even a
+cheese.  He walked slowly, rocking himself a little as he walked, as
+though he were trying to keep time with his oxen.  He went to Sainte
+Montagne nearly every Sunday.  When the weather was bad he would remain
+in the living-room at the farm house and read.  I used to hope that he
+would leave his book behind him one day; but he never forgot it, and
+always took it to his room with him.  One of my great troubles was that
+I could not find anything to read in the farm, and I used to pick up
+any bits of printed paper that I saw lying about.  The farmer's wife
+had noticed this, and said that I should become a miser some day.  One
+Sunday, when I had screwed up my courage and asked Eugene for a book,
+he gave me a book of songs.  All through the summer I took it with me
+to the fields.  I made up tunes for the songs which I liked best.  Then
+I got tired of them, and when I was helping Pauline to clean up the
+farm for All Saints Day, I found several almanacks.  Pauline told me to
+take them up to the garret, but I pretended to forget, and carried them
+off to read in secret, one after the other.  They were full of amusing
+stories, and the winter went by without my ever noticing the cold.
+
+When I took them up to the garret at last, I hunted about up there to
+see if I could not find any others.  The only thing I found was a
+little book without any cover.  The corners of the leaves were rolled
+up as if it had been carried about in somebody's pocket for a long
+time.  The two first pages were missing, and the third page was so
+dirty that I could not read the print.  I took it under the skylight,
+to see a little better, and I saw that it was called "The Adventures of
+Telemachus."  I opened it here and there, and the few words that I read
+interested me so much that I put it in my pocket at once.
+
+While I was on my way down from the garret, it suddenly occurred to me
+that Eugene might have put the book there, and that he might come and
+look for it at any time.  So I put it back on the black rafter where I
+had found it.  Every time I could manage to go to the garret I looked
+to see whether it was still in its place, and I read it as much and as
+often as ever I could.
+
+
+
+
+Just about that time I had another sick sheep.  Its flanks were hollow,
+as though it had not eaten for a long while.  I went and asked the
+farmer's wife what I ought to do with it.  She was plucking a chicken,
+and asked me whether the sheep was "drawn."  I didn't answer at once.
+I didn't quite know what she meant.  Then I thought that probably
+whenever a sheep was ill it was "drawn," and I said "Yes."  And so as
+to make it quite clear, I added, "It is quite flat."  Pauline began to
+laugh at me.  She called Eugene, and said, "Eugene!  One of Marie
+Claire's sheep is drawn and flat too."  That made Eugene laugh.  He
+said I was only a second-hand shepherdess, and explained to me that
+sheep were "drawn" when their stomachs were swollen.
+
+Two days afterwards Pauline told me that she and Master Silvain saw
+that they would never make a good shepherdess of me, and that they were
+going to give me work to do in the house.  Old Bibiche was not good for
+much, and Pauline could not do everything herself because of her baby.
+When they told me this, my first thought was that I should be able to
+go up to the garret more often, and I kissed Pauline and thanked her.
+
+
+
+
+So I became a farm servant.  I had to kill the chickens and the
+rabbits.  I hated doing it, and Pauline could never understand why.
+She said I was like Eugene, who ran away when a pig was being killed.
+However, I wanted to try and kill a chicken so as to show that I did my
+best.  I took it into the granary.  It struggled in my hands, and the
+straw all round me got red.  Then it became quite still, and I put it
+down for Bibiche to come and pluck it.  But when she came she cackled
+with laughter because the chicken had got on to its feet again, and was
+in the middle of a basket of corn.  It was eating greedily, as though
+it wanted to get well as quickly as possible after the way in which I
+had hurt it.  Bibiche got hold of it, and when she had passed the blade
+of her knife across its neck the straw was much redder than it had been
+before.
+
+Instead of going to sleep in the middle of the day, I used to go up to
+the garret to read.  I opened the book anywhere, and every time I read
+it over again I found something new in it.  I loved this book of mine.
+For me it was like a young prisoner whom I went to visit secretly.  I
+used to imagine that it was dressed like a page, and that it waited for
+me on the black rafter.  One evening I went on a lovely journey with
+it.  I had closed the book, and was leaning on my elbows and looking
+out of the skylight in the garret.  It was almost evening, and the pine
+trees looked less green.  The sun was pushing its way into the white
+clouds which hollowed themselves and then swelled out again, like down
+and feathers do when you push something into a sackful of them.
+
+Without quite knowing how, I found myself, all of a sudden, flying over
+a wood with Telemachus.  He held me by the hand, and our heads touched
+the blue of the sky.  Telemachus said nothing, but I knew that we were
+going up into the sun.  Old Bibiche called to me from below.  I
+recognized her voice, although it was so far off.  She must be very
+angry, I thought, to be calling so loud.  I didn't care.  I saw nothing
+but the bright flakes of white down, which surrounded the sun and which
+were opening slowly to let us pass in.  A tap on my arm brought me back
+with a rush into the garret.  Old Bibiche was pulling me away from the
+skylight, and saying, "Why do you make me shout like that?  I have
+called you at least twenty times to come and get your supper!"  A
+little while later I missed the book from the rafter.  But it had
+become a friend which I carried about in my heart, and I have always
+remembered it.
+
+
+
+
+Two days before Christmas, Master Silvain got ready to kill a pig.  He
+sharpened two big knives, and, after having made a litter of fresh
+straw in the middle of the yard, he sent for the pig, which made such a
+noise that I was sure he knew what was going to happen.  Master Silvain
+roped up his four feet, and, while he fastened them to pegs which he
+had hammered into the ground, he said to his wife, "Hide the knives,
+Pauline.  Don't let him see them!"  Pauline gave me a sort of deep
+dish, which I was to hold carefully, so as not to lose a single drop of
+the blood which I was to catch in it.  The farmer went to the pig,
+which had fallen on its side.  He went down on one knee in front of
+him, and, after having felt his neck, he reached his hand out behind
+his back to his wife; she gave him the bigger of the two knives.  He
+put the point on the place he had marked with his finger, and pressed
+it slowly in.  The pig's cries were just like the cries of a baby.  A
+drop of blood came from the wound and rolled slowly down in a long red
+line.  Then two spurts ran up the knife and fell on the farmer's hand.
+When the blade was right in up to the handle.  Master Silvain put his
+weight on it for a moment and drew it out again as slowly as he had put
+it in.  When I saw the blade come out again all striped with red, I
+felt my mouth grow cold and dry.  My fingers went limp, and the dish
+toppled over to one side.  Master Silvain saw it.  He gave me one look
+and said to his wife, "Take the dish away from her."  I could not say a
+word, but I shook my head to say "No."  The farmer's look had taken my
+nervousness away, and I held the dish quite steadily under the spurt of
+blood which came out from the pig's wound.  When the pig was quite
+still, Eugene came up.  He looked amazed at seeing me carefully
+catching the last red drops which were rolling down one by one like
+tears.  "Do you mean to say you caught the blood?" he asked.  "Yes,"
+said the farmer; "that shows that she is not a chicken heart, like
+you."  "It is quite true," said Eugene to me, "I hate seeing animals
+killed."  "Nonsense," said Master Silvain.  "Animals are made to feed
+us just as wood is made to warm us."  Eugene turned away a little, as
+though he were ashamed of his weakness.  His shoulders were thin, and
+his neck was as round as Martine's.  Master Silvain used to say that he
+was the living portrait of their mother.
+
+I had never seen Eugene angry.  He hummed songs all day long.  In the
+evening he used to come back from the fields sitting sideways on one of
+the oxen, and he nearly always sang the same song.  It was the story of
+a soldier, who went back to the war after he had learned that the girl
+he had been engaged to marry had married another man.  He used to dwell
+on the refrain, which finished like this--
+
+  And when a bullet comes and takes
+    Away my precious life,
+  You'll know I died because you were
+    Another fellow's wife.[1]
+
+
+Pauline always used to treat Eugene with much respect.  She could never
+understand my freedom with him.  The first evening that she saw me
+sitting next to him on the bench outside the door she made signs to me
+to come in.  But Eugene called me back, saying, "Come and listen to the
+wood owl."  We often used to be sitting on the bench, still, when
+everybody had gone to bed.  The wood owl came quite near to an old elm
+tree which was by the door, and we used to think that it was saying
+"good night" to us.  Then it would fly away, its great wings passing
+over us in silence.  Sometimes a voice would sing on the hillside.  I
+used to tremble when I heard it.  The full voice coming out of the
+night reminded me of Colette.  Eugene would get up to go in when the
+voice stopped singing, but I always used to stop, hoping to hear it
+again.  Then he would say, "Come along in: it is all over."
+
+
+[1] Quand par un tour de maladresse
+      Un boulet m'emportera
+    Allons adieu chere maitresse
+      Je m'en vais dans les combats.
+
+
+
+
+And now that the winter was with us again, and we could no longer sit
+on the bench by the door, there seemed to be a sort of secret
+understanding between us.  Whenever he was making fun of anybody, his
+queer little eyes used to look for mine, and whenever he gave an
+opinion he used to turn to me as though he expected me to approve or
+disapprove.  It seemed to me that I had always known him, and deep down
+in my thoughts I used to call him my big brother.  He was always asking
+Pauline if she was pleased with me.  Pauline said that there was no
+need to tell him the same thing, over and over again.  The only thing
+she reproached me with was that I had no system in my work.  She used
+to say that I was just as likely to begin at the end of it as at the
+beginning.  I had not forgotten Sister Marie-Aimee, but I was no longer
+as sick with longing for her as I used to be.  And I was happy on the
+farm.
+
+
+
+
+In the month of June the men came, as they came every year, to shear
+the sheep.  They brought bad news with them.  All over the country the
+sheep were falling ill as soon as they had been shorn, and numbers of
+them were dying.  Master Silvain took his precautions, but in spite of
+all he could do, a hundred of the sheep fell sick.  A doctor said that
+by bathing them in the river a good many of them might be saved.  So
+the farmer got into the water up to his middle, and dipped the sheep in
+one by one.  He was red hot, and the perspiration rolled down his
+forehead and fell in great drops into the river.  That evening when he
+went to bed he was feverish, and next day he died of inflammation of
+the lungs.  Pauline could not believe in her misfortune, and Eugene
+wandered about the stables and the outhouses with frightened eyes.
+
+
+
+
+Soon after the farmer's death, the landlord of the farm came to see us.
+He was a little dry stick of a man, who never kept still for a minute,
+and if he did stand still he always seemed to be dancing on one foot.
+His face was clean-shaven, and his name was M. Tirande.  He came into
+the living-room where I was sitting with Pauline.  He walked round the
+room with his shoulders hunched up.  Then he said, pointing to the
+baby, "Take him away.  I want a talk with the goodwife."  I went out
+into the yard, and managed to pass the window as often as I could.
+Pauline had not moved from her chair.  Her hands lay on her knees, and
+she was bending her head forward as though she were trying to
+understand something very difficult.  M. Tirande was talking without
+looking at her.  He kept walking from the fireplace to the door and
+back again, and the noise of his heels on the tiled floor got mixed up
+with his broken little voice.  He came out again as fast as he had come
+in, and I went and asked Pauline what he had said.  She took the baby
+in her arms and, crying as she told me, she said that M. Tirande was
+going to take the farm away from her and give it to his son, who had
+just got married.
+
+At the end of the week M. Tirande came back with his son and his
+daughter-in-law.  They visited the outhouses first, and when they came
+into the house, M. Tirande stopped in front of me a minute, and told me
+that his daughter-in-law had made up her mind to take me into her
+service.  Pauline heard him say so, and made a step towards me.  But
+just then Eugene came in with a lot of papers in his hand, and
+everybody sat down round the table.  While they were all reading the
+papers and signing, I looked at M. Tirande's daughter-in-law.  She was
+a big, dark woman with large eyes and a bored look.  She left the farm
+with her husband without having glanced at me once.  When their cart
+had disappeared down the avenue of chestnut trees, Pauline told Eugene
+what M. Tirande had said to me.  Eugene, who was leaving the room,
+turned to me suddenly.  He looked very angry, and his voice was quite
+changed.  He said that these people were disposing of me as though I
+were a bit of furniture which belonged to them.  While Pauline was
+pitying me, Eugene told me that it was M. Tirande who had told Master
+Silvain to take me on the farm.  He reminded Pauline how sorry the
+farmer had been because I was such a weakling, and he told me that he
+was very sorry not to be able to take me with them to their new farm.
+We were all three standing in the living-room.  I could feel Pauline's
+sad eyes on my head, and Eugene's voice made me think of a hymn.
+Pauline was to leave the farm at the end of the summer.
+
+I worked hard every day to put the linen in order.  I didn't want
+Pauline to take away a single piece of torn linen with her, I worked
+hard with my darning-needle, as Bonne Justine had taught me, and I
+folded every piece as well as I could.
+
+In the evening I found Eugene sitting on the bench by the door.  The
+moon was shining on the roofs of the sheep-pens, and there was a white
+cloud over the dung-heap which looked like a tulle veil.  There was no
+sound whatever from the cow-house.  All that we heard was the squeaking
+of the cradle which Pauline was rocking to put her child to sleep.
+
+As soon as the corn had been got in, Eugene began getting ready to go.
+The cowherd took away the cattle, and old Bibiche went off in the cart
+with all the birds of the poultry-yard.  In a few days nothing was left
+at the farm but the two white oxen, which Eugene would trust to nobody
+but himself.  He fastened them to the cart which was to take Pauline
+and her child.  The little fellow was fast asleep in a basket full of
+straw, and Eugene put him into the cart without waking him up.  Pauline
+covered him with her shawl, made the sign of the cross towards the
+house, took up the reins, and the cart went slowly off under the
+chestnut trees.
+
+I wanted to go with them as far as the high-road, and I followed the
+cart, walking behind the oxen, between Eugene and Martine.  None of us
+spoke.  Every now and then Eugene gave the oxen a friendly pat.  We
+were quite a long way on the road when Pauline saw that the sun was
+setting.  She stopped the horse, and, when I had climbed on to the step
+to kiss her good-bye, she said sadly, "God be with you, my girl.
+Behave well."  Then her voice filled with tears, and she added, "If my
+poor husband were living he would never have given you up."  Martine
+kissed me, and smiled.  "We may see one another again," she said.
+Eugene took his hat off.  He held my hand in his for a long time, and
+said slowly, "Good-bye, dear little friend.  I shall always remember
+you."
+
+I walked a little way back, and turned round to see them again, and,
+although it was getting dark, I saw that Eugene and Martine were
+walking hand in hand.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+The new farmers came next day.  The farm hands and the serving women
+had come early in the morning, and when the masters arrived in the
+evening I knew that they were called Monsieur and Madame Alphonse.  M.
+Tirande remained at Villevieille for two days, and went off after
+reminding me that I was in his daughter-in-law's service now, and that
+I should have to do no more outside work on the farm.
+
+
+
+
+The very first week she was there Madame Alphonse had had Eugene's room
+turned into a linen-room, and she had set me to work at a big table on
+which were a number of pieces of linen which I was to make into sheets
+and other things.  She came and sat down next to me, and worked at
+making lace.  She would remain for whole days at a time without saying
+a word.  Sometimes she talked to me about the linen presses which her
+mother had, full of all kinds of linen.
+
+Her voice had no ring to it, and she scarcely moved her lips when she
+spoke.  M. Tirande seemed very fond of his daughter-in-law.  Every time
+he came he always asked her what she would like him to give her.  She
+cared for nothing but linen, and he went off saying that he would get
+her some more.
+
+M. Alphonse never appeared at all except at meal times.  I should have
+found it very difficult to say what he did with his time.  His face
+reminded me of the Mother Superior's face somehow.  Like her, he had a
+yellow skin and his eyes glittered.  He looked as though he carried a
+brazier inside him which might burn him up at any minute.  He was very
+pious, and every Sunday he and Madame Alphonse went to mass in the
+village where M. Tirande lived.  At first they wanted to take me in
+their cart, but I refused.  I preferred going to Sainte Montagne, where
+I always hoped to meet Pauline or Eugene.  Sometimes one of the farm
+hands came with me, but more often I would go alone by a little cross
+road, which made the way much shorter.  It was a steep and stony bit of
+road which ran uphill through the broom.  On the very top of it I
+always used to stop in front of Jean le Rouge's house.  This house was
+low-roofed and spreading.  The walls were as black as the thatch which
+covered it, and it was quite easy to pass by the house without seeing
+it at all, for the broom grew so high all round it.  I used to go in
+for a chat with Jean le Rouge, whom I had known ever since I had been
+at Villevieille farm.  He had always worked for Master Silvain, who
+thought very highly of him.  Eugene used to say of him that one could
+set him to anything, and that whatever he did he did well.
+
+
+
+
+Now M. Alphonse refused to employ him any more.  He spoke of sending
+him away from the house on the hill.  Jean le Rouge was so upset by the
+idea that he could talk of nothing else.
+
+Directly after mass I used to go home by the same road.  Jean's
+children would crowd round me to get the blessed bread, which I brought
+out of church for them.  There were six of them, and the eldest was not
+yet twelve years old.  There was hardly one mouthful of my blessed
+bread, so I used to give it to Jean's wife to divide up and give to the
+children in equal shares.  While she was doing this, Jean le Rouge
+would set a stool for me in front of the fire and would seat himself on
+a log of wood, which he would roll to the fireplace with his foot.  His
+wife put some twigs on the fire with a pair of heavy pincers, and as we
+sat and talked we watched the big yellow potatoes cooking in the pot
+which hung from a hook in the fireplace.
+
+On the very first Sunday Jean le Rouge had told me that he, too, was a
+foundling.  And little by little he had told me that when he was twelve
+he had been put to work with a woodcutter who used to live in the house
+on the hill.  He had very soon learned how to climb up the trees to
+fasten a rope to the top branches so as to pull them over.  When the
+day's work was done and he had his faggot of wood on his back, he would
+go on ahead so as to get to the house first.  And there he used to find
+the woodcutter's little daughter cooking the soup for supper.  She was
+of the same age as he was, and they had become the best of friends at
+once.
+
+Then, one Christmas Eve, came the misfortune.  The old woodcutter, who
+thought that the children were fast asleep, went off to midnight mass.
+But directly he had gone they got up.  They wanted to prepare midnight
+supper for the old man's return, and they danced with glee at the
+surprise they were getting ready for him.  While the little girl was
+cooking the chestnuts and putting the pot of honey and the jug of cider
+on the table, Jean le Rouge heaped great logs on to the fire.  Time
+went on, the chestnuts were cooked, and the woodcutter had not yet come
+home.  It seemed a long time.  The children sat down on the floor in
+front of the fire to keep themselves warm, leaned up against one
+another, and fell asleep.  Jean woke up at the little girl's screams.
+He could not understand at first why she was throwing her arms about
+and shrieking at the fire.  He jumped to his feet to run away from her,
+and then he saw that she was ablaze.  She had opened the door to the
+garden, and as she ran out she lit the trees up.  Then Jean had caught
+hold of her and thrown her into the little well.  The water had put the
+flames out, but when Jean tried to pull her out of the well he found
+her so heavy that he thought she must be dead.  She made no movement,
+and it took him a long time to get her out.  At last, when he did get
+her out, he had to drag her along like a bundle of sticks back to the
+house.
+
+The logs had become great red embers.  Only the biggest one, which was
+wet, went on smoking and crackling.  The little girl's face was all
+bloated, and was black with violet veins in it.  Her body, which was
+half naked, was covered with big red burns.
+
+She was ill for many months, and when at last they thought she was
+cured, they found out that she had become dumb.  She could hear
+perfectly well, she could even laugh like everybody else, but it was
+quite impossible for her to speak a single word.
+
+While Jean le Rouge was telling me these things his wife used to look
+at him and move her eyes as if she were reading a book.  Her face still
+bore deep burn marks, but one soon got accustomed to it, and remembered
+nothing of her face but the mouth with its white teeth, and her eyes,
+which were never still.  She used to call her children with a long, low
+cry, and they came running up, and always understood all the signs she
+made to them.  I was so sorry that they had to leave the house on the
+hill.  They were the last friends I had left, and I thought of telling
+Madame Alphonse about them, hoping that she might get her husband to
+keep them on.  I found an opportunity one day, when M. Tirande and his
+son had come into the linen-room talking about the changes they were
+going to make at the farm.  M. Alphonse said he didn't want any cattle.
+He spoke of buying machinery, cutting down the pine trees and clearing
+the hillside.  The stables would do for sheds for the machines, and he
+would use the house on the hill to store fodder in.  I don't know
+whether Madame Alphonse was listening.  She went on making lace, and
+seemed to be giving her full attention to it.  As soon as the two men
+had gone I plucked up courage to talk of Jean le Rouge.  I told her how
+useful he had been to Master Silvain.  I told her how sorry he was to
+leave the house in which he had lived for so long, and when I stopped,
+trembling for the answer which was coming, Madame Alphonse took her
+needles out of the thread.  "I believe I have made a mistake," she
+said.  She counted up to nineteen, and said again, "What a nuisance it
+is.  I shall have to undo a whole row."  When I told Jean le Rouge
+about this, he was angry, and shook his fist at Villevieille.  His wife
+put her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, and he was quiet at
+once.
+
+Jean le Rouge left the house on the hill at the end of January, and I
+was very sad.
+
+
+
+
+I had no friends left now.  I hardly recognized the farm any more.  All
+these new people had made themselves quite at home there, and I seemed
+to myself to be a new-comer.  The serving-woman looked at me with
+distrust, and the ploughman avoided talking to me.  The servant's name
+was Adele.  All day long you could hear her grumbling and dragging her
+wooden shoes after her as she walked.  She made a noise even when she
+was walking on straw.  She used to eat her meals standing, and answer
+her master and mistress quite rudely.
+
+M. Alphonse had taken away the bench which was by the door, and had put
+up little green bushes with trellis-work round them.  He cut down the
+old elm tree, too, to which the wood owl used to come on summer
+evenings.
+
+Of course the old tree had not shaded the house for a long time.  It
+only had one tuft of leaves right up on the top.  It looked like a head
+which bent over to listen to what people underneath were saying.  The
+woodcutters who came to cut it down said that it would not be an easy
+thing to do.  They said there was some danger that when it fell it
+would crash through the roof of the house.
+
+At last, after a lot of talk, they decided to rope it round and pull it
+over so that it fell on to the dung-heap.  It took two men all day to
+cut it down, and just when we thought that it was going to drop nicely,
+one of the ropes worked loose, and the old elm jumped and fell to one
+side.  It slipped down the roof, knocking down a chimney and a large
+number of tiles, bumped a piece out of the wall, and fell right across
+the door.  Not one of its branches touched the dung-heap.  M. Alphonse
+yelled with rage.  He laid hold of the axe belonging to one of the
+woodcutters, and struck the tree so violent a blow that a piece of bark
+flew against the linen-room window and broke a pane.
+
+Madame Alphonse saw the bits of glass fall on me.  She jumped up in
+more excitement than I had ever seen her show, and with trembling hands
+and fearful eyes she examined closely every bit of the table-cloth
+which I was embroidering.  But she did not see me wiping away the blood
+from my cheek, which had been cut by a bit of glass.  She was so afraid
+that something might happen to the piles of linen which were beginning
+to grow that she took me off next day to her mother's to show me how
+the linen should be put into the closets.
+
+
+
+
+Madame Alphonse's mother was called Madame Deslois, but when the
+ploughmen talked about her they always said "the good woman of the
+castle."  She had only been to Villevieille once.  She had come close
+up to me and looked at me with her eyes half shut.  She was a big woman
+who walked bent double as if she were looking for something on the
+ground.  She lived in a big house called the Lost Ford.
+
+Madame Alphonse took me along by a path near a little river.  It was
+the end of March, and the meadows were already in flower.  Madame
+Alphonse walked straight along the path, but I got a lot of pleasure
+out of walking in the soft grass.
+
+We soon came to the wood where the wolf had taken my lamb.  I had
+always had a mysterious fear of this wood, and when we left the path by
+the river to go through it I shook with fear.  And yet the road was a
+broad one.  It must even have been a carriage road, for there were deep
+ruts in it.
+
+Above our heads heaps of pine needles tickled one another and rustled.
+They made a gentle noise, not a bit like the whispering, with silences
+in between, which I used to hear in the forest when the snow was on it.
+But in spite of all I could not help looking behind me.  We didn't walk
+very far through the wood.  The road turned to the left and we got to
+the courtyard of the Lost Ford immediately.  The little river ran
+behind the stables as it did at Villevieille, but here the meadows were
+quite close together, and the buildings looked as though they were
+trying to hide among the sapling pines.  The living house didn't look
+anything like the farms thereabouts.  The ground floor was built of
+very thick old walls, and the first floor looked as though it had been
+put on top of them as a makeshift.  The house did not look a bit like a
+castle to me.  It made me think of an old tree trunk out of which a
+baby tree had sprouted, and sprouted badly.
+
+Madame Deslois came to the door when she heard us arrive.  She winked
+her little eyes as she looked at me and said at once in a loud voice
+that she had dropped a halfpenny in the straw, and that it was very
+funny that nobody had found it, as it had been lost for a week.  While
+she spoke she moved her foot about and stirred the straw which was in
+front of the door.  Madame Alphonse cannot have heard her.  Her big
+eyes were staring into the house, and she was almost excited when she
+said why we had come.  Madame Deslois said that she would take me to
+the linen-room herself.  She put the keys into the locks of the
+cupboards, and after having told me to be very careful, and to
+disarrange nothing, she left me alone.
+
+It didn't take me long to open and close the great shining cupboards.
+I should have liked to go away at once.  This big cold linen-room
+frightened me like a prison.  My feet sounded on the tiles as though
+there were deep vaults underneath them.  All of a sudden it seemed to
+me that I should never get out of this linen-room again.  I listened to
+see whether I could hear any animals stirring, but I only heard Madame
+Deslois' voice.  It was a rough, strong voice which went right through
+the walls, and could be heard everywhere.  I was going to the window so
+as to feel a little less lonely, when a door which I had not noticed
+suddenly opened behind me.  I turned round and saw a young man come in.
+He wore a long white smock and a grey cap.  He stood standing as though
+he were surprised to see anybody there, and I went on looking at him
+without being able to take my eyes away.  He walked right across the
+linen-room, and he and I stared and stared at one another.  Then he
+went out, banging himself against the woodwork of the door.  A moment
+afterwards he passed by the window and our eyes met again.  I felt
+quite uncomfortable, and without knowing why, I went and shut the doors
+which he had left open.
+
+Presently Madame Alphonse came and fetched me, and I went back to
+Villevieille with her.
+
+Since M. Alphonse had taken Pauline's place I had got into the habit of
+going and sitting in a bush which had grown into the shape of a chair.
+It was in the middle of a shrubbery not far from the farm.  Now that
+spring was beginning I used to go and sit there when the ploughmen were
+smoking their pipes at the stable doors.  I used to sit there listening
+to the little noises of the evening, and I longed to be like the trees.
+That evening I thought of the man I had seen at Lost Ford.  But every
+time I tried to remember the exact colour of his eyes they pierced into
+my own eyes so that they seemed to be lighting me all up inside.
+
+
+
+
+The next Sunday was Easter Sunday.  Adele had gone to mass in M.
+Alphonse's cart.  I remained alone, with one of the ploughmen, to look
+after the farm.  After luncheon the ploughman went to sleep on a heap
+of straw in front of the door, and I went to my shrubbery to spend the
+afternoon.  I tried to hear the bells ringing, but the farm was too far
+from the villages round, and I could hear none of them.
+
+I began to think about Sister Marie-Aimee, and my thoughts went back to
+Sophie, who used to come and wake me up every year so that I should
+hear all the bells ringing in Easter together.  One year she didn't
+wake up.  She was so upset at that, that next year she put a big stone
+in her mouth to keep herself from sleeping.  Every time she nodded off
+her teeth met on the stone, and she woke up.
+
+I sat and thought about High Mass where Colette used to sing in her
+beautiful voice, and I could see our afternoon on the lawn, and Sister
+Marie-Aimee busy with the special dinner which they gave us on feast
+days.  And that evening when dinner-time came I should see, instead of
+sister Marie-Aimee's sweet loving face, Madame Alphonse's hard face and
+her husband's glittering eyes, which frightened me so.  And as I sat
+and thought how long I should still have to stay on the farm I felt
+deeply discouraged.
+
+When I was tired of crying I saw with astonishment that the sun was
+quite low.  Through the branches of my shrubbery I watched the long
+thin shadows of the poplar trees growing longer than ever on the grass,
+and quite close to me I saw a long shadow which was moving.  It came
+forward, then stopped, and then came forward again.  I understood at
+once that somebody was going to pass my hiding-place, and almost
+immediately the man in the white smock walked into the shrubbery,
+stooping to get out of the way of the branches.  I felt cold all over.
+I soon got control of myself, but I could not help trembling nervously.
+He remained standing in front of me without saying a word.  I sat and
+looked at his eyes, which were very gentle, and I began to feel warm
+again.  I noticed that, as Eugene used to, he wore a coloured shirt and
+a cravat tied under the collar, and when he spoke it seemed to me that
+I had known his voice for a long time.  He leaned against a big branch
+opposite me, and asked me if I had no relations.  I said "No."  His eye
+ran along the branch covered with young shoots, and without looking at
+me he said again, "Then you are all alone in the world."  I answered
+quickly, "Oh no, I have Sister Marie-Aimee!"  And without leaving him
+time to ask any more questions I told him how I had longed for her, and
+how impatiently I was waiting and hoping to see her again.  Talking
+about her made me so happy that I could not stop talking.  I told him
+of her beauty and of her intelligence, which seemed to me to be above
+everything in the world.  I told him, too, how sorry she had been when
+I went away, and of the joy that I knew she would feel when she saw me
+come back.
+
+While I talked his eyes were fixed on my face, but they seemed to look
+much further.  After a silence he asked again, "Have you no friends
+here?"  "No," I said; "all those whom I loved have gone;" and I added
+rather angrily, "They have even turned out Jean le Rouge."  "And yet,"
+he said, "Madame Alphonse is not unkind?"  I told him that she was
+neither unkind, nor kind, and that I should leave her without any
+regret.
+
+Then we heard the sound of M. Alphonse's cart-wheels, and I got up to
+go.  He stood aside a little to let me pass him, and I left him alone
+in the shrubbery.
+
+That evening I took advantage of the unusually good humour of Adele to
+ask her if she knew any of the ploughmen at the Lost Ford.  She said
+she only knew some of the old ones, for since Madame Deslois had been a
+widow the new ones never stayed with her.  A sort of fear which I could
+not have explained kept me from mentioning the young man in the white
+smock, and Adele added with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her eldest
+son has come back from Paris.  The farm hands will be happier."
+
+Next day, while Madame Alphonse was working at her lace, I sewed and
+thought about the ploughman in the white smock.  I could not in my mind
+help comparing him to Eugene.  He spoke like Eugene did, and they
+seemed like one another somehow.
+
+That evening I thought I saw him near the stables, and a moment later
+he came into the linen-room.  His eyes just glanced at me and then he
+looked straight at Madame Alphonse.  He held his head high and the left
+side of his mouth drooped a little.  Madame Alphonse said, in a happy
+voice, when she saw him, "Why, there's Henri!" and she let him kiss her
+on both cheeks, and told him to bring a chair up next to her.  But he
+sat sideways on the table, pushing the linen to one side.  Adele came
+into the room, and Madame Alphonse said, "If you see my husband, tell
+him that my brother is here."
+
+It was some minutes before I understood.  Then I realized suddenly that
+the young man in the white smock was Madame Deslois's eldest son.  A
+sense of shame which I had never felt before made me blush fiercely,
+and I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about Sister Marie-Aimee.  I
+felt that I had thrown the thing that I loved best to the winds, and do
+what I could, I could not keep back two big tears which tickled the
+corners of my mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was hemming.
+Henri Deslois remained sitting on the corner of the table for a long
+time.  I could feel that he was looking at me, and his eyes were like a
+heavy weight which prevented me from lifting up my head.
+
+
+
+
+Two days afterwards I found him in the shrubbery.  When I saw him
+sitting there my legs felt weak under me, and I stood still.  He got up
+at once so that I should sit down; but I remained standing and looking
+at him.  He had the same gentleness in his eyes that I had noticed the
+first time, and, as if he expected me to tell him another story, "Have
+you nothing to tell me this evening?" he asked.  Words danced across my
+brain, but they did not seem to be worth speaking, and I shook my head
+to say no.  He said, "I was your friend the other day."  Recollection
+of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I
+only said, "You are Madame Alphonse's brother."  I left him and did not
+dare to go back to the shrubbery again.  He often came back to
+Villevieille.  I never used to look at him, but his voice always made
+me feel very uncomfortable.
+
+
+
+
+Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time
+after mass.  Every Sunday I used to pass the house on the hill.
+Sometimes I would look in through the gaps in the shutters, and when,
+as I sometimes did, I bumped my head, the noise it made used to
+frighten me.  One Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on the door.
+I put my finger on the latch and the door fell open with a loud noise.
+I had not expected it to open so quickly, and I stood there longing to
+shut it and go away.  Then as there was no more noise, and as the sun
+had streamed into the house making a big square of light, I made up my
+mind to go in, and went in, leaving the door open.  The big fireplace
+was empty.  There was no hook, there was no pot, and the big andirons
+had gone.  The only things left in the room were the logs of wood which
+Jean le Rouge's children used to use as stools.  The bark was worn off
+them, and the tops of them were polished, as if with wax, from the
+children sitting on them.
+
+The second room was quite empty.  There were no tiles on the floor, and
+the feet of the beds had made little holes in the beaten earth.  There
+was no lock to the other door either, and I went out into the garden.
+There were a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and the fruit
+trees were all in flower.  Most of them were very old.  Some of them
+looked like hunchbacks, and their branches bent towards the ground, as
+though they found that even the flowers were too heavy for them to
+carry.  At the bottom of the garden the hill ran down to an immense
+plain where the cattle used to graze, and right at the end a row of
+poplars made a sort of barrier which kept the sky out of the meadow
+land.  Little by little I recognized one place after another.  There
+was a little river at the bottom of the hill.  I could not see the
+water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side
+to let it pass.  The river disappeared behind the buildings of
+Villevieille farm.  There the roofs were of the same colour as the
+chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them.  Here
+and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees.  Then it
+plunged into the great pine wood, which looked quite black, in which
+the Lost Ford was hidden.  That was the road I had taken with Madame
+Alphonse, when we went to her mother's house.  Her brother must have
+come that way that day when he found me in the shrubbery.  There was
+nobody on the road today.  Everything was tender green, and I could see
+no white smock among the clumps of trees.  I tried to see the shrubbery
+but the farm hid it.  Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several
+times since Easter.  I could not have told how I knew that he was
+there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking
+round that way.
+
+Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there
+alone.  He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me.
+I had looked at him as I had done the first time, and he went away
+without saying anything.  And now that I was in the open garden
+surrounded by broom in flower I longed to be able to live there always.
+There was a big apple tree leaning over me, dipping the end of its
+branches in the spring.  The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a
+tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks over the beds.  This
+garden of flowers and clear water seemed to me to be the most beautiful
+garden in the world.  And when I turned my head towards the house,
+which stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect extraordinary
+people to come out of it.  The house seemed full of mystery to me.
+Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought
+that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made when he
+stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille.
+
+I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had
+not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom
+and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds.  I began to
+imagine that I was a little tree, and that the wind stirred me as it
+liked.  The same fresh breeze which made the broom rock passed over my
+head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like the other trees did I
+stooped down and dipped my fingers in the clear waters of the spring.
+
+Another sound made me look at the house again, and I was not in the
+least surprised when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed in the
+doorway.  His head was bare, and his arms were swinging.  He stepped
+out into the garden and looked far off into the plain.  His hair was
+parted on the side, and was a little thin at the temples.  He remained
+perfectly still for a long minute, then he turned to me.  There were
+only two trees between us.  He took a step forward, took hold of the
+young tree in front of him with one hand, and the branches in flower
+made a bouquet over his head.  It grew so light that I thought the bark
+of the trees was glittering, and every flower was shining.  And in
+Henri Deslois's eyes there was so deep a gentleness that I went to him
+without any shame.  He didn't move when I stopped in front of him.  His
+face became whiter than his smock, and his lips quivered.  He took my
+two hands and pressed them hard against his temples.  Then he said very
+low, "I am like a miser who has found his treasure again."  At that
+moment the bell of Sainte Montagne Church began to ring.  The sound of
+the bell ran up the hillsides, and after resting over our heads for a
+moment ran on and died away in the distance.
+
+The hours passed, the day grew older, and the cattle disappeared from
+the plain.  A white mist rose from the little river, then a stone
+slipped behind the barrier of poplar trees, and the broom flowers began
+to grow darker.  Henri Deslois went back towards the farm with me.  He
+walked in front of me on the narrow path, and when he left me just
+before we came to the avenue of chestnut trees I knew that I loved him
+even more than Sister Marie-Aimee.
+
+The house on the hill became our house.  Every Sunday I found Henri
+Deslois waiting there, and as I used to do when Jean le Rouge lived
+there, I took my blessed bread to the house on the hill after mass and
+we used to laugh as we divided it.
+
+We both had the same kind of feeling of liberty which made us run races
+round the garden and wet our shoes in the brooklets from the spring.
+Henri Deslois used to say, "On Sundays I, too, am seventeen years old."
+Sometimes we would go for long walks in the woods which skirted the
+hill.  Henri Deslois was never tired of hearing me talk about my
+childhood, and Sister Marie-Aimee.  Sometimes we talked about Eugene,
+whom he knew.  He used to say that he was one of those men whom one
+liked to have for a friend.  I told him what a bad shepherdess I had
+been, and although I felt sure he would laugh at me, I told him the
+story of the sheep which was all swollen up.  He didn't laugh.  He put
+a finger on my forehead and said, "Love is the only thing that will
+cure that."
+
+
+
+
+One day we stopped near an immense field of corn.  It was so big that
+we could not see the end of it.  Thousands of white butterflies were
+floating about over the corn ears.  Henri Deslois didn't speak, and I
+watched the ears of corn which were stooping and stretching as though
+they were getting ready to fly.  It looked as though the butterflies
+were bringing them wings to help them, but it was no good for the corn
+ears to get excited.  They could not get away from the ground.  I told
+my idea to Henri Deslois, who looked at the corn for a long time, and
+then, as though he were speaking to himself, and dragging the words
+out, he said, "It is much the same kind of thing with a man.  Sometimes
+a woman comes to him.  She looks like the white butterflies of the
+plain.  He doesn't know whether she comes up from the earth or whether
+she comes down from the sky.  He feels that with her he could live on
+the wind which passes, and the fresh young flowers.  But like the root
+which holds the corn to earth a mysterious bond holds him to his duty,
+which is as strong as the earth."  I thought that his voice had an
+accent of suffering, and that the corners of his mouth drooped more
+than usual.  But almost immediately his eyes looked into mine, and he
+said in a stronger voice, "We must have confidence in ourselves."
+
+
+
+
+Summer passed and the autumn, and in spite of the bad weather of
+December we could not make up our minds to leave the house on the hill.
+Henri Deslois used to bring books with him which we would read, sitting
+on the logs of wood in the back room which looked into the garden.  I
+went back to the farm at nightfall, and Adele, who thought I was
+spending my time dancing in the village, was always surprised that I
+looked so sad.
+
+Almost every day Henri Deslois came to Villevieille.  I could hear him
+from a long way off.  He rode a great white mare which trotted heavily,
+and he rode her without saddle or bridle.  She was a patient and a
+gentle brute.  Her master used to let her run loose in the yard while
+he went in to say "good day," to Madame Alphonse.  As soon as M.
+Alphonse heard him he would come into the linen-room.  The two of them
+would speak of improvements on the farm or about people whom they knew.
+But there was always a word or a sentence in their conversation which
+came straight to me from Henri Deslois.  I often used to catch M.
+Alphonse looking at me, and I could not always keep from blushing.
+
+One afternoon as Henri Deslois came in to the room smiling, M. Alphonse
+said, "You know I have sold the house on the hill."  The two men looked
+at one another.  They both grew so pale that I was afraid they were
+going to die where they stood.  Then M. Alphonse got out of his chair
+and stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Henri Deslois went
+to the door and tried to close it.  Madame Alphonse put her lace down
+on her knee and said, as though she were repeating a lesson, "The house
+was of no particular good, and I am very pleased that it has been
+sold."  Henri Deslois came and stood by the table, so close to me that
+he could have touched me.  He said in a voice that was not quite firm,
+"I am sorry you have sold it without having mentioned it to me, for I
+intended to buy it."  M. Alphonse wriggled like an earthworm.  He made
+a great effort to laugh out loud, and as he laughed he said, "You would
+have bought it?  What would you have done with it?"  Henri Deslois put
+his hand on the back of my chair and answered, "I would have lived in
+it as Jean le Rouge did."  M. Alphonse walked up and down in front of
+the chimney.  His face had changed into a yellow earthy colour.  His
+hands were in his trouser pockets, and he picked up his feet so quickly
+that it looked as though he were pulling at them with a cord which he
+held in each hand.  Then he came and leaned on the table opposite us,
+and looking at us one after the other with his glittering eyes, he bent
+forward and said, "Well, I have sold it now, so it is all over."
+During the silence which followed we could hear the white mare pawing
+the ground with her shoe as though she were calling her master.  Henri
+Deslois went towards the door.  Then he came back to me and picked up
+my work which had fallen from my hands without my having noticed it.
+He kissed his sister, and before he went, he said, looking at me, "I
+shall see you to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+Next morning Madame Deslois came into the linen-room.  She came
+straight to me, and was very rude.  But M. Alphonse told her to be
+quiet, and, turning to me, he said, "Madame Alphonse has asked me to
+tell you that she would like to keep you in her service.  But she wants
+you in future to come to mass with us."  He tried to smile, and added,
+"We will drive you there and back."  It was the first time that he had
+ever spoken directly to me.  His voice was rather husky, as though he
+felt some awkwardness in saying these things to me.  I don't know what
+made me think that he was lying, and that Madame Alphonse had not said
+anything of the kind.  Besides, he looked so much like the Mother
+Superior that I could not help defying him.  I told him that I didn't
+care about driving, and that I should go to mass at Sainte Montagne as
+before.  He sucked in his lower lip and began biting it.  Then Madame
+Deslois stepped forward threateningly, and told me that I was insolent.
+She kept on repeating this word as though she could not find any
+others.  She shouted it more and more loudly, and lost all control of
+herself.  The white of her eyes was becoming quite red, and she raised
+her hand to strike me.  I stepped back quickly behind my chair.  Madame
+Deslois bumped into the chair and knocked it over, and caught at the
+table so as not to fall down.  Her harsh voice terrified me.  I wanted
+to leave the linen-room, but M. Alphonse had placed himself in front of
+the door, and I came back into the room and faced Madame Deslois across
+the table.  She began to speak again in a strangled sort of voice.  She
+used words which I didn't understand, but there was something about
+what she said and the way in which she said it which I hated.  At last
+she stopped speaking, and shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't
+forget that I am his mother."
+
+M. Alphonse came towards me.  He took hold of my arm and said, "Come,
+now, listen to me."  I shook myself loose, pushed him away and ran out
+of the house.  The last words that Madame Deslois had said hammered on
+my brain as though they really were a hammer with one end of it
+pointed.  "I am his mother, do you hear?--his mother."  Oh, mother
+Marie-Aimee, how beautiful you were when compared to this other mother,
+and how I loved you!  How your many-coloured eyes beamed and lit up
+your black dress, and how pure your face was under your white cap!  I
+could see you as clearly as though you were really in front of me.
+
+
+
+
+I was quite astonished to find myself in front of the house on the
+hill, and when I got there I saw that snow was falling in a regular
+hurricane.  I went into the house for shelter, and went straight into
+the room which looked out on the garden.  I tried to think, but my
+ideas whirled round in my head like the snow-flakes, which looked as
+though they were climbing up from the ground and falling from the sky
+at the same time.  And every time that I made an effort to think, the
+only things I could think of were little bits of a song which the
+children used to sing in the convent, and which ran--
+
+  The old girl jumped and jumped about
+    And jumped until she died.
+  The old girl jumped and jumped about
+    And jumped until she died.[1]
+
+
+I felt less unhappy in this silent house.  The softly falling snow was
+pretty, and the trees were as beautiful as on that day when I had seen
+them all in bloom.  Then suddenly I remembered, quite clearly all that
+had just happened.  I saw Madame Deslois's hand with its square
+fingers, and shivered all over.  What an ugly hand it was, and what a
+large one!  Then I remembered the expression on M. Alphonse's face when
+he took hold of my arm, and I remembered as I thought of it that I had
+seen the same expression once before on a little girl's face.  It was
+one day when I had picked up a pear which had fallen from the tree.
+She had rushed at me, saying, "Give me half of it, and I won't tell."
+
+I felt so disgusted at the idea of sharing it with her that, although
+Sister Marie-Aimee might have seen me, I had gone back to the tree and
+put the pear down where it had fallen.
+
+Thinking of all these things, I longed and longed to see Sister
+Marie-Aimee again.  I should have liked to have gone to her at once,
+but I remembered that Henri Deslois had said as he went, "I shall see
+you to-morrow."  Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting for me,
+and wondering what had become of me.  I went out of the house to run
+back to Villevieille.  I had only gone a few steps when I saw him
+coming up.  The white mare didn't find it very easy to climb the
+snow-covered path.  Henri Deslois was bareheaded, as he had been the
+first time he came.  His smock billowed out with the wind, and he had a
+hand on the mane of the mare.  The mare stood in front of me.  Her
+master leaned down and took my two hands which I held up to him.  There
+was on his face a look of worry which I had never seen before.  I
+noticed, too, that his eyebrows met, like those of Madame Deslois.  He
+was a little out of breath, and said, "I knew that I should find you
+here."  He opened his mouth again, and I felt quite certain that his
+words were going to bring me happiness.  He held my hands tighter, and
+said in the same breathless voice as before, "I can no longer be your
+friend."  I thought that somebody had struck me a violent blow on the
+head.  There was a noise of a saw in my ears.  I could see Henri
+Deslois trembling, and I heard him say, "How cold I am!"  Then I no
+longer felt the warmth of his hand on mine.  And when I realized that I
+was standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing but a great white
+shape which was slipping noiselessly across the snow.
+
+
+[1] On a tant fait sauter la vieille,
+      Qu'elle est morte en sautillant,
+            Tireli,
+    Sautons, sautons, la vieille!
+
+
+
+
+I went slowly down the other side of the hill, walking in the snow,
+which squeaked under my feet.  About half-way a peasant offered me a
+lift in his cart.  He was going to town too, and it was not long before
+we got to the Orphanage.  I rang the bell, and the porteress looked out
+at me through the peephole.  I recognized her.  It was "Ox Eye" still.
+We had named her Ox Eye because her eyes were big and round like a
+daisy.  She opened the gate when she recognized me, and told me to come
+in; but before she shut the gate behind me she said, "Sister
+Marie-Aimee is not here."  I didn't answer, so she said again, "Sister
+Marie-Aimee is not here."  I heard what she said quite well, but I
+didn't pay any attention to it.  It was like a dream where the most
+extraordinary  things happen without seeming to be of any importance at
+all.  I looked at her great big eyes and said, "I have come back."  She
+closed the gate behind me and left me standing under the eaves of her
+little house in the gateway, while she went to tell the Mother
+Superior.  She came back, saying that the Mother Superior wanted to
+speak to Sister Desiree-des-Anges before she saw me.
+
+A bell rang.  Ox Eye got up and told me to go with her.  It was snowing
+again.  It was almost dark in the Mother Superior's room.  At first I
+saw nothing but the fire, which was whistling and flaming.  Then I
+heard the Mother Superior's voice.  "So you have come back?" she said.
+I tried to think steadily, but I was not quite sure whether I had come
+back or not.  She said, "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here."  I thought
+that my bad dream was coming on again, and coughed to try and wake
+myself.  Then I looked at the fire and tried to find out why it
+whistled like that.  The Mother Superior spoke again.  "Are you ill?"
+she said.  I answered "No."  The heat did me good, and I felt better.
+I was beginning to understand at last that I had come back to the
+Orphanage, and that I was in the Mother Superior's room.  My eyes met
+hers, and I remembered everything.  She laughed a little, and said,
+"You have not changed much.  How old are you now?"
+
+I told her that I was eighteen years old.  "Really," she said.  "Going
+out into the world has not made you grow much."  She leaned one elbow
+on the table, and asked me why I had come back.  I wanted to tell her
+that I had come back to see Sister Marie-Aimee, but I was afraid of
+hearing her say once more that Sister Marie-Aimee was not there, and I
+remained silent.  She opened a drawer, took out a letter, which she
+covered with her open hand, and said in the weary voice of a person who
+has been bothered unnecessarily, "This letter had already told me that
+you had become a bold, proud girl."  She pushed the letter from her as
+though she were tired, and in a long breath she said, "You can work in
+the kitchen here until we find you something else to do."  The fire
+went on whistling.  I went on looking at it, but I could not make out
+which of the three logs was making the noise.  The Mother Superior
+raised her monotonous voice to draw my attention.  She warned me that
+Sister Desiree-des-Anges would watch me very closely, and that I should
+not be allowed to talk to my former companions.  I saw her point to the
+door, and I went out into the snow.
+
+At the other side of the yard I could see the kitchens.  Sister
+Desiree-des-Anges, who was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the
+door.  I could see nothing of her but her cap and her black dress, and
+I imagined her to be old and withered.  I thought of running away.  I
+need only run to the gate and tell Ox Eye that I had come on a visit.
+She would let me out, and that would be all.
+
+Instead of going to the gate I went towards the buildings where I had
+lived when I was a child.  I didn't know why I went there, but I could
+not help it.  I felt very tired, and I should have liked to lie down
+and sleep for a long time.
+
+The old bench was in the same place.  I wiped some of the snow off it
+with my hands, and sat down leaning against the linden tree as M. le
+Cure used to do.  I was waiting for something, and I didn't know what.
+I looked up at the window of Sister Marie-Aimee's room.  The pretty
+embroidered curtains were no longer there, and although the window was
+just like the other windows now, I thought it quite different.  And
+though the thick calico curtains were the same in this room as in the
+others, they seemed to me to make that window look like a face with its
+eyes shut.
+
+The yard began to get dark, and the lights lit up the rooms inside.  I
+meant to get up from the bench, thinking, "Ox Eye will open the gate
+for me;" but my body felt crushed, and I seemed to have two broad, hard
+hands weighing heavily on my head.  And, as though I had spoken them
+aloud, the words, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me," repeated
+themselves over and over again.  All of a sudden a voice, with pity in
+it, said, quite close to me, "Please, Marie Claire, don't sit out here
+in the snow."  I raised my head, and standing in front of me was a
+young, quite young, sister, whose face was so beautiful that I could
+not remember ever to have seen such a face before.  She bent over me to
+help me up, and, as I could hardly stand upright, she put my arm under
+hers, and said, "Lean on me."  Then I saw that she was taking me to the
+kitchen, the great glass door of which was bright with light.  I didn't
+think of anything.  The snow pricked my face, and my eyelids were
+burning.  When I went into the kitchen, I recognized the two girls who
+were standing by the big square oven.  They were Veronique the Minx,
+and Melanie the Plump, and I seemed to hear Sister Marie-Aimee talking
+to them by these names.  Melanie nodded to me as I passed her, and
+leaning on the young sister's arm, I went into a room in which there
+was a night-light burning.  The  room  was divided into two by a big
+white curtain.  The young sister made me sit down on a chair, which she
+took from behind the curtain, and went out without saying a word.  A
+little while afterwards Melanie the Plump and Veronique the Minx came
+in to put clean sheets on the little iron bed beside me.  When they had
+finished, Veronique, who had not looked at me at all till then, turned
+to me and said that nobody had ever thought that I should come back.
+She said it as though she were reproaching me for something shameful.
+Melanie put her hands together under her chin, and put her head on one
+side, just as she used to do when she was a little girl.  She smiled
+affectionately at me, and said, "I am very glad that you have been sent
+to the kitchen."  Then she patted the bed, and said, "You are taking my
+place.  I used to sleep here."  She pointed to the curtain, and in a
+low voice she said, "This is where Sister Desiree-des-Anges sleeps."
+When they had gone out, closing the door behind them, I sat closer to
+the bed.  The big white curtain made me feel uncomfortable.  I thought
+I could see shadows moving in the folds which the night-light left in
+darkness.  Then I heard the dinner-bell.  I recognized it, and without
+knowing what I was doing I counted the strokes.  Everything was quite
+still for some time, and then the young sister came into the room
+bringing me a bowl of steaming soup.  She pulled the big curtain back
+and said, "This is your room, and that is mine."  I felt quite
+reassured when I saw that her little iron bedstead was exactly the same
+as my own.  I began to wonder whether she was Sister Desiree-des-Anges,
+but I dared not believe it, and asked her.  She nodded "Yes," and
+drawing her chair close to mine, she put her face in the full light and
+said, "Don't you recognize me?"  I looked at her without answering.
+No, I didn't recognize her.  In fact, I was certain that I had never
+seen her; for I was certain that one could never forget her face if one
+had seen it once.  She made a funny little grimace, and said, "I can
+see you don't remember poor Desiree Joly."  Desiree Joly?  Of course I
+remembered her.  She was a girl who had become a novice.  Her face was
+rosier than roses.  She had a beautiful, slim figure, and used to laugh
+all day long.  We all loved her.  She used to jump about so when she
+played with us that Sister Marie-Aimee often used to say to her, "Come
+now, come now, not so high, please, Mademoiselle Joly!  You are showing
+your knees!"  Even now, when I was looking at her, I could not remember
+her.  She said "Yes, the dress makes a lot of difference."  She pulled
+up her sleeves; and making the same funny little face again, she said,
+"Forget that I am Sister Desiree-des-Anges, and remember that Desiree
+Joly used to be very fond of you."  Then she went on quickly, "I
+recognized you at once," she said.  "You still have the same baby
+face."  When I told her I had imagined Sister Desiree-des-Anges to be
+old and cross, she answered, "We were both wrong.  I had been told that
+you were vain and proud; but when I saw you crying in the middle of the
+snow, I thought only that you were suffering, and I went to you."  When
+she had helped me to bed, she divided the room again with the curtain,
+and I went to sleep at once.
+
+But I didn't sleep well.  I woke up every minute.  There was a heavy
+stone on my chest still, and when I managed to throw it off, it split
+up into several pieces, which fell back on me and crushed my limbs.
+Then I dreamed that I was on a road full of sharp pointed stones which
+cut me.  I walked along it with difficulty.  On both sides of the road
+there were fields, vines, and houses.  All the houses were covered with
+snow, but the trees were laden with fruit, and were in bright sunshine.
+I left the road and went into the fields, stopping at all the trees to
+taste the fruit.  But the fruit was bitter, and I threw it away.  I
+tried to go into the snow-covered houses, but they had no doors.  I
+went back on to the road and the stones gathered round me so fast that
+I could not go on.  Then I called for help.  I called as loud as I
+could, but nobody heard me.  And when I felt I was going to be buried
+under a huge heap of stones, I struggled so hard to get away from them
+that I woke myself up.  For a moment I thought I was still dreaming.
+The ceiling of the room seemed to be a tremendous height.  The rod from
+which the white curtain was hanging glittered here and there, and the
+branch of boxwood which was nailed to the wall threw a shadow on the
+statue of the Virgin which was in the corner.  Then a cock crowed.  He
+crowed several times, as though he wanted to make me forget his first
+crow, which had stopped short, as if he were in pain.  The night-light
+began to flicker.  It flickered for a long time before it went out, and
+when the room was quite dark I heard Sister Desiree-des-Anges breathing
+gently and regularly.
+
+
+
+
+Long before daybreak I got up to begin my work in the  kitchen.
+Melanie showed me how to lift the big coppers.  It was a matter of
+skill as well as of strength.  It took me more than a week before I
+could even move one of them.  Melanie taught me how to ring the heavy
+waking bell.  She showed me how to put my shoulders into the work so as
+to pull the rope, and I soon got into the way of it.  And every
+morning, whether it were cold or raining, I used to enjoy ringing the
+bell.  It had a clear sound which the wind increased or lessened, and I
+never got tired of hearing it.  There were days when I rang so long
+that Sister Desiree-des-Anges would open her window and would say
+pleadingly, "That'll do, that'll do."
+
+Since I had come to the kitchen, Veronique the Minx used to look away
+from me when she spoke, and if I asked her where anything was, she
+would point to it without speaking.  Sister Desiree-des-Anges used to
+watch her, and would curl her lip as she watched.  She was not as
+quick-tempered as she used to be when she was a novice, but she was
+full of life still and full of fun.  Every evening we used to meet in
+our room, and she would make me laugh at her remarks at what had been
+going on during the day.  Sometimes my laughter ended in a sob.  Then
+she used to put her hands together as the saints do in the pictures,
+raise her eyes and say, "Oh, how I wish that your sorrow would leave
+you."  Then she would kneel on the ground and pray, and I often used to
+go to sleep before she got up again.
+
+Work in the kitchen was very hard.  I used to help Melanie polish up
+the coppers, and wash the tiled floors.  She did most of the work
+herself.  She was as strong as a man, and was always ready to help me.
+As soon as she found that I was tired, she used to force me to sit down
+on a chair, and would say smilingly, "Recreation time."  A few days
+after I had arrived, she reminded me of the difficulties she used to
+have in learning her catechism.
+
+She had not forgotten that during a whole season I had spent all my
+recreation time trying to teach her to learn it by heart.  And now she
+delighted in making me rest.
+
+Veronique's work was the preparation of the vegetables, and she also
+took the meat in from the butcher.  She used to stand stiffly by the
+scales until the butcher's boys put the meat on.  She was always
+grumbling at them, saying that the meat was cut too small or cut too
+big.  The butcher boys used to get angry with her and were rude to her
+sometimes, and Sister Desiree-des-Anges told me at last to take the
+meat in instead of her.  She came to the scales just the same next day;
+but I was there with Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who was telling me how
+to weigh the meat.
+
+
+
+
+One morning one of the two butchers looked at me and spoke my name.
+Sister Desiree-des-Anges and I looked at the butcher boy in surprise.
+He was a new one, but I soon recognized him.  He was the eldest son of
+Jean le Rouge.  He was delighted to see me again, and told me that his
+parents had got a good place at the Lost Ford.  He himself didn't care
+about working in the fields, and had found work with a butcher in the
+town.  Then he told me that the Lost Ford was quite near Villevieille,
+and asked me if I knew it.  I nodded my head to say that I did.  He
+went on to say that his father and mother had been there for some
+months, and that there had been feasting there last week because Henri
+Deslois was married.  I heard him say a few words more which I didn't
+understand.  Then the daylight in the kitchen turned into black night,
+and I felt the tiles give way under my feet and drag me down into a
+bottomless hole.  I remember Sister Desiree-des-Anges coming to help
+me, but an animal had fastened itself on my chest.  It made a dreadful
+sound which it hurt me to hear.  It was like a horrible sob which
+always stopped at the same place.  Then the light came back again, and
+I could see above me the faces of Sister Desiree-des-Anges and Melanie.
+Both were smiling anxiously, and Melanie's broad, red face looked like
+Sister Desiree-des-Anges' pointed pale one.  I sat up in bed, wondering
+why I was there by daylight, but I didn't get up.  I remembered little
+Jean le Rouge, and for hours and hours I fought with my pain.
+
+When Sister Desiree-des-Anges came into the room at bedtime she sat
+down on the foot of my bed.  She put her two hands together like the
+saints did.  "Tell me of your sorrow," she said.  I told her, and it
+seemed to me that every word I spoke took some of my suffering away
+with it.
+
+When I had told her everything, Sister  Desiree-des-Anges  fetched "The
+Imitation of Jesus Christ," and began to read aloud.  She read in a
+gentle and resigned voice, and there were words which sounded like the
+end of a moan.
+
+On the days which followed, I saw little Jean le Rouge again.  He told
+me some more about the Lost Ford, and while he said how happy his
+parents were and how kind the master was to them, I could see the house
+on the hill with its garden in flower, and its spring from which the
+little brooklets crawled down to the river, hiding themselves under the
+broom.  I often spoke of it to Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who listened
+to me meditatively.  She knew the neighbourhood and every corner of the
+place, and one evening, when she sat dreaming and I asked her what she
+was thinking about, she said, "Summer will be over soon, and I was
+thinking that the trees were full of fruit."
+
+
+
+
+During the month of September a number of religious paid visits to the
+Mother Superior.  Ox Eye used to ring the bell to announce them.  Every
+time she rang Veronique went out to see who was coming in.  She always
+had something disagreeable to say about each one of the sisters whom
+she recognized.  One evening the bell sounded.  Veronique, who was
+looking out, said, "Well, here's one whom nobody expected."  She put
+her head into the kitchen again, and said, "It is Sister Marie-Aimee."
+The big spoon which I had in my hand slipped through my fingers and
+dropped into the copper.  I rushed to the door, pushing past Veronique,
+who wanted to keep me back.  Melanie rushed after me.  "Don't," she
+said, "the Mother Superior can see you."  But I rushed out to Sister
+Marie-Aimee.  I rushed into her arms with such force that we nearly
+fell over together.  She clasped me tight and held me.  She was
+trembling and almost crazy with joy.  She took my head in her hands,
+and, as if I had been quite a little child, she kissed me all over my
+face.  Her stiff linen cap made a noise like paper when you crumple it
+up, and her broad sleeves fell back to her shoulders.  Melanie was
+right, the Mother Superior saw me.  She came out of the chapel and came
+towards us.  Sister Marie-Aimee saw her.  She stopped kissing me, and
+put her hand on my shoulder.  I put my arm round her, fearing that she
+would be taken away from me, and the two of us stood and watched the
+Mother Superior.  She passed in front of us without raising her eyes,
+and didn't seem to see Sister Marie-Aimee, who bowed gravely to her.
+
+As soon as she had gone I dragged Sister Marie-Aimee off to the old
+bench.  She stopped a moment, and before sitting down she said, "It is
+as though things were waiting for us."  She sat down.  She leaned
+against the linden tree, and I kneeled down in the grass at her feet.
+There were no more rays in her eyes.  It was as though the colours in
+them had all been mixed up together.  Her dear little face had grown
+smaller, and seemed to have gone further back into her cap.  Her
+stomacher had not the beautiful curve on her chest that it used to
+have, and her hands were so thin that the blue veins in them showed up
+quite clearly.  She hardly glanced at the window of her room, but
+looked out on the linden trees and round the courtyard, and as she
+caught sight of the Mother Superior's house, these words fell from her
+like a sigh, "We must forgive others if we wish to be forgiven."  Then
+she looked at me again, and said, "Your eyes are sad."  She passed the
+palms of her hands over my eyes, as if she wanted to wipe out something
+which displeased her, and, keeping them there so that my eyes remained
+shut, "How we suffer,"' she said.  Then she took her hands away and
+clasped mine, and, with her eyes on my face, she said, as though she
+were praying, "My sweet daughter, listen to me.  Never become a poor
+religious."  She heaved a long sigh of regret, and said, "Our dress of
+black and white tells others that we are creatures of strength and of
+brightness.  At our bidding all tears are dried, and all who suffer
+come to us for consolation, but nobody thinks of our own suffering.  We
+are like women without faces."  Then she spoke of the future.  She
+said, "I am going where the missionaries go.  I shall live there in a
+house full of terror.  Before my eyes will pass unceasingly everything
+that is hideous, everything that is ugly, everything that is bad."  I
+listened to her deep voice.  There was a note of passion in it.  It was
+as though she were taking on to her own shoulders all the suffering of
+the world.  Her fingers loosed mine.  She passed them over my cheeks,
+and in a gentle voice, and sweet, she said, "The purity of your face
+will always remain graven on my mind."  Then she looked out, away and
+past me, and added, "God has given us remembrance, and it is not in
+anybody's power to take that away from us."  She got up from the bench.
+I went with her across the yard, and when Ox Eye had closed the heavy
+gate behind her, I stood and listened to the echo of its closing.
+
+That evening Sister Desiree-des-Anges came into the room later than
+usual.  She had been taking part in special prayer for Sister
+Marie-Aimee, who was going away to nurse the lepers.
+
+
+
+
+Winter came again.  Sister Desiree-des-Anges had soon guessed my love
+of reading, and she brought me all the books in the sisters' library,
+one after the other.  Most of the books were childish books, and I read
+quickly, turning over several pages at a time.  I preferred stories of
+travel, and I used to read at night by the night-light.  Sister
+Desiree-des-Anges used to scold me when she woke up; but as soon as she
+went to sleep I took up the book again.  Little by little we became
+great friends.  The white curtain was no longer drawn between our beds
+at night time.  All sense of constraint had disappeared between us, and
+all our thoughts were in common.  She was cheerful and bright always.
+The one thing that annoyed her in her life was her nun's costume.  She
+found it heavy and uncomfortable, and she used to say that it hurt her.
+"When I dress," she said, "I always feel as though I were putting
+myself into a house where it is always night."  She was always glad to
+get out of her dress in the evening, and loved walking about the room
+in her night-dress.  She used to say, making that funny little face, "I
+am beginning to get used to it, but at first that cap crushed my cheeks
+and the dress weighed my shoulders down."
+
+When the spring came she began to cough.  She had a little dry cough
+which used to make itself heard from time to time, and her long slim
+body seemed to become more fragile than ever.  She was as bright and
+cheerful as before, but she complained that her dress became heavier
+and heavier.
+
+
+
+
+One night in May she tossed about and dreamed aloud.  I had been
+reading all night, and noticed all of a sudden that daylight was
+coming.  I blew out the night-light and tried to sleep a little.  I was
+just dropping off when Sister Desiree-des-Anges said, "Open the window,
+he is coming to-day."  I looked to see whether she was asleep, and saw
+that she was sitting up in bed.  She had drawn back her blanket, and
+was untying the strings of her night-cap.  She took it off and threw it
+to the foot of the bed.  Then she shook her head, her short hair rolled
+into curls on her forehead, and I recognized Desiree Joly at once.  I
+was a little bit frightened, and got up.  She said again, "Open the
+window and let him in."  I opened the window wide, and when I turned
+round Sister Desiree-des-Anges was holding out her clasped hands
+towards the sun, and in a voice which had suddenly grown weaker, she
+said, "I have taken off my dress.  I could not stand it any longer."
+She lay down quietly, and her face became quite still.  I held my
+breath for a long time to listen to hers.  Then I breathed hard, as
+though I could give her my breath, but when I looked at her more
+closely I saw that she had breathed her last.  Her eyes were wide open,
+and seemed to be looking at a sunbeam which was coming towards her like
+a long arrow.  Swallows flew past the window and flew back again,
+chirruping like little girls, and my ears were filled with sounds which
+I had never heard before.  I looked up to the windows of the
+dormitories, hoping that somebody would hear what I had to say, but I
+saw nothing but the face of the big clock which seemed to be looking
+down into the room over the linden trees.
+
+It was five o'clock.  I pulled the blanket up over Sister
+Desiree-des-Anges and went out and rang the bell.  I rang for a long
+time.  The notes went far, far away.  They went right away to where
+Sister Desiree-des-Anges had gone.  I went on ringing because it seemed
+to me that the bells were telling the world that Sister
+Desiree-des-Anges was dead.  I went on ringing too, because I hoped
+that she would pop her beautiful face out of the window and say,
+"That'll do, that'll do, Marie Claire."
+
+Melanie pulled the rope out of my hands.  The bell, which was up, fell
+back all wrong, and gave a sort of groan.  "You have been ringing for a
+quarter of an hour or more," Melanie said.  I answered, "Sister
+Desiree-des-Anges is dead."  Veronique went into the room after us.
+She noticed that the white curtain was not drawn between the two beds,
+and said that she thought it was disgraceful for a religious to let her
+hair be seen.  Melanie passed her finger over a tear which was rolling
+down each of her cheeks.  Her head was more on one side than ever, and
+she whispered quite low, "She is even prettier than she was before."
+The sunshine bathed the bed, and covered the dead woman from head to
+foot.
+
+I remained with her all day.  Some of the sisters came to see her.  One
+of them covered her face with a napkin, but as soon as she had gone, I
+uncovered it again.  Melanie came and spent the night by the bedside
+with me.  When she had closed the window she lit the big lamp, "so that
+Sister Desiree-des-Anges should not be in the dark," she said.
+
+
+
+
+A week afterwards Ox Eye came to the kitchen.  She told me to get ready
+to go the same day.  In the hollow of her hand she held two gold
+pieces, which she put side by side on the corner of the oven, and,
+touching one after the other with her finger, she said, "Our Mother
+Superior sends you forty francs."  I did not want to go away without
+saying good-bye to Colette and to Ismerie, whom I had often seen at the
+other side of the lawn; but Melanie assured me that they didn't care
+for me any more.  Colette could not understand why I was not married
+yet, and Ismerie could not forgive me for being so fond of Sister
+Marie-Aimee.
+
+Melanie went to the gate with me.  As we passed the old bench, I saw
+that one of its legs was broken, and that one end of it had fallen into
+the grass.  At the gate I found a woman waiting.  Her eyes were hard.
+She said, "I am your sister."  I didn't recognize her.  It was twelve
+years since I had seen her.  Directly we got outside she caught hold of
+my arm, and in a voice as hard as her eyes, she asked me how much money
+I had.  I showed her the two gold pieces which I had just received.
+Then she said, "You will do better to remain in the town, where you
+will find it easier to get something to do."  As we walked on she told
+me she was married to a gardener in the neighbourhood, and that she
+didn't intend to give herself any particular trouble over me.  We got
+to the railway station.  She took me on to the platform because she
+wanted me to help her carry some parcels.  She said "good-bye" when her
+train went off, and I remained there and watched it go.  Almost
+immediately another train stopped.  The railway men ran up and down the
+platform calling to the passengers for Paris to cross over.  In that
+one moment I saw Paris with its great houses like palaces, with roofs
+so high that they were lost in the clouds.  A young man bumped into me.
+He stopped and said, "Are you going to Paris, mademoiselle?"  I
+scarcely hesitated, and said, "Yes; but I have no ticket."  He held out
+his hand.  "Give me the money," he said, "and I will go and get it for
+you."  I gave him one of my two gold coins, and he ran off.  I put the
+ticket and the change in copper which he had brought me into my pocket,
+went across the line with him, and climbed into the train.
+
+The young man stood at the carriage door for a minute, and went off,
+turning back once as he went.  His eyes were full of gentleness, like
+those of Henri Deslois.
+
+The train whistled once, as though to warn me, and as it moved off it
+whistled a second time, a long whistle like a scream.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+
+And now may I tell you what I know about Marguerite Audoux, the author
+of the book you have just read?  I know very little more of her than
+you do, for you have read the book, and Marguerite Audoux is Marie
+Claire.  If Marie Claire in English does not please you, the fault is
+mine.  I have tried hard to translate into English the uneducated,
+unspoilt purity of language, the purity of thought which are the
+characteristics of the French; but the task was no easy one, much as I
+loved it in the doing.
+
+Marguerite Audoux herself is a plump and placid little woman, of about
+thirty-five.  She lives in a sixth-floor garret in the Rue Leopold
+Robert, in Paris.  From her window she has a view of roof-tops and the
+Montparnasse cemetery.  When she learned of the success of her book,
+with which she had lived for six years, she cried.  "I felt dreadfully
+frightened at first," she said, "I felt very uneasy.  I felt as though
+I had become known too quickly, as though I were a criminal of note.
+Now my one wish is to work again."  She reads a good deal.  Her
+favourite authors are Chateaubriand and Maeterlinck.  In Maeterlinck
+she loves the mystery.  "We never know people properly," she says.
+"They are just as difficult to understand as things that happen are.
+We never know whose fault it is when good or bad things happen, and we
+don't really know whether we ought to be angry or to be sorry with
+people who do harm.  Wicked people are like a thunderstorm, don't you
+think?  And a lazy woman is like a hot room.  Both are unhealthy, but
+they cannot help it."
+
+Marguerite Audoux does not say these things to be clever.  She says
+them quite simply, and they express her natural way of thought, which
+is simplicity and purity itself.
+
+She wrote her book when and how she could, on scraps of cheap paper,
+and she does not know herself, now, whether she hoped to have it
+published when she wrote it.  She did hope for publication when she had
+finished it, but that was because she was hungry.
+
+I met a friend just outside Marguerite Audoux's house after my first
+visit to her.  "Tiens," he said, "tu viens de la mansarde de Genie
+l'ouvriere."  And the clever little pun was true.  Marguerite Audoux is
+a genius, and she does not understand what people mean when they ask
+her "how" she "writes."  She opens her weak eyes very wide at the
+question, laughs as a child laughs when it doesn't understand, and
+says, "But I don't know.  The thoughts come, and I write them down.  I
+only wish that I could spell them better."
+
+When the committee of the Vie Heureuse was voting on her book before
+awarding her the 200 pound prize for the best book of the year,
+somebody suggested the possibility that she had had help with it.
+Madame Severine was sent to fetch the manuscript.  It was passed round,
+examined, and no more doubt was possible.
+
+I hope you will find the pleasure in reading Marie Claire that I found
+in translating it.  I should like to say quite earnestly--and perhaps a
+little shamefacedly, because we hate saying these things out loud--that
+when I had read it I felt awed.  The book had worked upon me.  Do you
+remember the impression made on you by moonlight upon the snow in the
+country?  You must be quite alone to feel it.  The purity of it all
+makes you wish that you were a cleaner man or woman, and, till you rub
+shoulders with people again, you mean to try hard to be cleaner and
+better.  Marie Claire made me feel just exactly like that.
+
+JOHN N. RAPHAEL.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Marie Claire, by Marguerite Audoux
+
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