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diff --git a/21993-h/21993-h.htm b/21993-h/21993-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5cb9a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/21993-h/21993-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5026 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta charset="UTF-8" /> + <title> + The Devil’s Pool, by George Sand—A Project Gutenberg eBook + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover" /> + <style> /* <![CDATA[ */ + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +h1 { + font-weight: bold; + font-size: 240%; +} + +h2 { + margin-top: 4em; + font-weight: bold; + font-size: 200%; +} + +h3 { + font-weight: bold; + font-size: 150%; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +.bold {font-weight: bold;} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p2bot {margin-bottom: 2em;} +.p3 {margin-top: 3em;} +.p3bot {margin-bottom: 3em;} + +.fs100 {font-size: 100%;} +.fs120 {font-size: 120%;} +.fs175 {font-size: 175%;} +.fs240 {font-size: 240%;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +x-ebookmaker hr.chap {width: 0%; display: none;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse;} + +.center2 { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} +.noindent {text-indent: 0em;} +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +img.w60 {width: 60%;} +img.w70 {width: 70%;} +img.w80 {width: 80%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* for non-image large letter dropcaps */ +.drop-capy {text-indent: -.9em;} + + + +.drop-capy:first-letter { + float: left; + margin: 0.11em 0.2em 0em .4em; + font-size: 250%; + line-height:0.7em; + clear: both; +} + +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-capy {text-indent: 0em;} + +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-capy:first-letter { + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%;} + +.footnotes { + border: dashed 1px; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 3em; + padding-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; +} + +.footnote { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 90%; +} + +.footnote p {text-indent: 0em;} + +.footnote .label { + position: absolute; + right: 70%; + text-align: right; +} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none; +} + +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em 0 0 0;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry { + display: inline-block; + font-size: 80% + } + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block;} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: 0em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: 2em;} + +.illowp60 {width: 60%;} +.illowp70 {width: 70%;} +.illowp80 {width: 80%;} +.illowe5 {width: 5em;} +.illowe11 {width: 11em;} + +x-ebookmaker-drop, .x-ebookmaker-drop {} + + + /* ]]> */ </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The devil's pool, by George Sand</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The devil's pool</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: George Sand<br /> +Translators: Jane Minot Sedgwick and Ellery Sedgwick<br /> +Etcher: E. Abot</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 4, 2007 [eBook #21993]<br /> +[Most recently updated: September 7, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEVIL'S POOL ***</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="figcenter illowp80" id="cover"> + <img class="w80" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover created by the transcriber" /> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<p class="fs240 center noindent p2 p2bot">THE DEVIL’S POOL</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<div class="figcenter illowp80" id="frontispiece"> + <img class="w80" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="Frontispiece" /> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<h1>THE DEVIL’S POOL</h1> + +<p class="center p2 p2bot noindent"><span class="fs100">By</span><br /> +<span class="fs120">George Sand</span></p> + +<p class="center p2 p2bot noindent"><span class="fs100">TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY</span><br /> +<span class="fs120">JANE MINOT SEDGWICK</span><br /> +<span class="fs100">AND</span><br /> +<span class="fs120">ELLERY SEDGWICK</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter illowe5" id="title1"> + <img class="w70" src="images/title1.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<p class="center p2 p2bot noindent">WITH AN ETCHING BY E. ABOT</p> + +<div class="figcenter illowe11" id="title2"> + <img class="w70" src="images/title2.jpg" alt="(Publisher colophon)" /> +</div> + + +<p class="center p2 p2bot noindent"><span class="fs120">BOSTON<br /> +LITTLE, BROWN, & CO.</span><br /> +<span class="fs100">1901</span></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p class="center p2 p2bot noindent">Copyright, 1894, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">George H. Richmond & Co.</span></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Table_of_Contents">Table of Contents</h2> + +<table class="autotable center2"> +<tr> +<td class="tdc">Chapter</td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#I">I</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Tillage of the Soil</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#II">II</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Father Maurice</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#III">III</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Germain, the Skilled Husbandman</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#IV">IV</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Mother Guillette</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#V">V</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Petit-Pierre</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#VI">VI</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   On the Heath</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#VII">VII</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Underneath the Big Oaks</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#VIII">VIII</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Evening Prayer</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#IX">IX</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Despite the Cold</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#X">X</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Beneath the Stars</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#XI">XI</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Belle of the Village</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#XII">XII</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Master</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#XIII">XIII</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Old Woman</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#XIV">XIV</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Return to the Farm</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#XV">XV</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Mother Maurice</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#XVI">XVI</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   Little Marie</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +<td class="tdl">   Appendix</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Ia">I</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   A Country Wedding</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#IIa">II</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Wedding Favors</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#IIIa">III</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Wedding</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#IVa">IV</a></td> +<td class="tdl">   The Cabbage</td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="intro"> + <img class="w60" src="images/intro.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<p class="fs175 center noindent p2 p3bot">THE DEVIL’S POOL</p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_AUTHOR_TO_THE_READER">THE AUTHOR TO THE READER</h2> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">A la sueur de ton visaige</span>,</div> + <div class="verse indent2"><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tu gagnerais ta pauvre vie</span>.</div> + <div class="verse indent0"><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Après long travail et usaige</span>,</div> + <div class="verse indent2"><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Voicy la <i>mort</i> qui te convie.</span><a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<p class="drop-capy p2">This quaint old French verse, written under one of Holbein’s pictures, +is profoundly melancholy. The engraving represents a laborer driving his +plow through the middle of a field. Beyond him stretches a vast horizon, +dotted with wretched huts; the sun is sinking behind the hill. It is the +end of a hard day’s work. The peasant is old, bent, and clothed in rags. +He is urging onward a team of four thin and exhausted horses; the +plowshare sinks into a stony and ungrateful soil. One being only is +active and alert in this scene of toil and sorrow. It is a fantastic +creature. A skeleton armed with a whip, who acts as plowboy to the old +laborer, and running along through the furrow beside the terrified +horses, goads them on. This is the specter Death, whom Holbein has +introduced allegorically into that series of religious and philosophic +subjects, at once melancholy and grotesque, entitled “The Dance of +Death.”</p> + +<p>In this collection, or rather this mighty composition, where Death, who +plays his part on every page, is the connecting link and predominating +thought, Holbein has called up kings, popes, lovers, gamesters, +drunkards, nuns, courtesans, thieves, warriors, monks, Jews, and +travelers,—all the people of his time and our own; and everywhere the +specter Death is among them, taunting, threatening, and triumphing. He +is absent from one picture only, where Lazarus, lying on a dunghill at +the rich man’s door, declares that the specter has no terrors for him; +probably because he has nothing to lose, and his existence is already a +life in death.</p> + +<p>Is there comfort in this stoical thought of the half-pagan Christianity +of the Renaissance, and does it satisfy religious souls? The upstart, +the rogue, the tyrant, the rake, and all those haughty sinners who make +an ill use of life, and whose steps are dogged by Death, will be surely +punished; but can the reflection that death is no evil make amends for +the long hardships of the blind man, the beggar, the madman, and the +poor peasant? No! An inexorable sadness, an appalling fatality brood +over the artist’s work. It is like a bitter curse, hurled against the +fate of humanity.</p> + +<p>Holbein’s faithful delineation of the society in which he lived is, +indeed, painful satire. His attention was engrossed by crime and +calamity; but what shall we, who are artists of a later date, portray? +Shall we look to find the reward of the human beings of to-day in +the contemplation of death, and shall we invoke it as the penalty of +unrighteousness and the compensation of suffering?</p> + +<p>No, henceforth, our business is not with death, but with life. We +believe no longer in the nothingness of the grave, nor in safety bought +with the price of a forced renunciation; life must be enjoyed in order +to be fruitful. Lazarus must leave his dunghill, so that the poor need +no longer exult in the death of the rich. All must be made happy, that +the good fortune of a few may not be a crime and a curse. As the laborer +sows his wheat, he must know that he is helping forward the work of +life, instead of rejoicing that Death walks at his side. We may +no longer consider death as the chastisement of prosperity or the +consolation of distress, for God has decreed it neither as the +punishment nor the compensation of life. Life has been blessed by Him, +and it is no longer permissible for us to leave the grave as the only +refuge for those whom we are unwilling to make happy.</p> + +<p>There are some artists of our own day, who, after a serious survey of +their surroundings, take pleasure in painting misery, the sordidness of +poverty, and the dunghill of Lazarus. This may belong to the domain of +art and philosophy; but by depicting poverty as so hideous, so degraded, +and sometimes so vicious and criminal, do they gain their end, and is +that end as salutary as they would wish? We dare not pronounce judgment. +They may answer that they terrify the unjust rich man by pointing out to +him the yawning pit that lies beneath the frail covering of wealth; just +as in the time of the Dance of Death, they showed him his gaping grave, +and Death standing ready to fold him in an impure embrace. Now, they +show him the thief breaking open his doors, and the murderer stealthily +watching his sleep. We confess we cannot understand how we can reconcile +him to the human nature he despises, or make him sensible of the +sufferings of the poor wretch whom he dreads, by showing him this +wretch in the guise of the escaped convict or the nocturnal burglar. The +hideous phantom Death, under the repulsive aspect in which he has been +represented by Holbein and his predecessors, gnashing his teeth and +playing the fiddle, has been powerless to convert the wicked and console +their victims. And does not our literature employ the same means as the +artists of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance?</p> + +<p>The revelers of Holbein fill their glasses in a frenzy to dispel the +idea of Death, who is their cup-bearer, though they do not see him. The +unjust rich of our own day demand cannon and barricades to drive out +the idea of an insurrection of the people which Art shows them as slowly +working in the dark, getting ready to burst upon the State. The Church +of the Middle Ages met the terrors of the great of the earth with the +sale of indulgences. The government of to-day soothes the uneasiness of +the rich by exacting from them large sums for the support of policemen, +jailors, bayonets, and prisons.</p> + +<p>Albert Durer, Michael Angelo, Holbein, Callot, and Goya have made +powerful satires on the evils of their times and countries, and their +immortal works are historical documents of unquestionable value. We +shall not refuse to artists the right to probe the wounds of society +and lay them bare to our eyes; but is the only function of art still +to threaten and appall? In the literature of the mysteries of iniquity, +which talent and imagination have brought into fashion, we prefer the +sweet and gentle characters, which can attempt and effect conversions, +to the melodramatic villains, who inspire terror; for terror never cures +selfishness, but increases it.</p> + +<p>We believe that the mission of art is a mission of sentiment and love, +that the novel of to-day should take the place of the parable and the +fable of early times, and that the artist has a larger and more poetic +task than that of suggesting certain prudential and conciliatory +measures for the purpose of diminishing the fright caused by his +pictures. His aim should be to render attractive the objects he has at +heart, and, if necessary, I have no objection to his embellishing them +a little. Art is not the study of positive reality, but the search for +ideal truth, and the “Vicar of Wakefield” was a more useful and healthy +book than the “Paysan Perverti,” or the “Liaisons Dangereuses.”</p> + +<p>Forgive these reflections of mine, kind reader, and let them stand as +a preface, for there will be no other to the little story I am going +to relate to you. My tale is to be so short and so simple, that I felt +obliged to make you my apologies for it beforehand, by telling you what +I think of the literature of terror.</p> + +<p>I have allowed myself to be drawn into this digression for the sake of a +laborer; and it is the story of a laborer which I have been meaning to +tell you, and which I shall now tell you at once.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In toil and sorrow thou shalt eat</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The bitter bread of poverty.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">After the burden and the heat,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Lo! it is Death who calls for thee.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_i"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_i.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"> <a id="I"></a>I</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Tillage of the Soil</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">I had just been looking long and sadly at Holbein’s plowman, and was +walking through the fields, musing on rustic life and the destiny of +the husbandman. It is certainly tragic for him to spend his days and his +strength delving in the jealous earth, that so reluctantly yields up her +rich treasures when a morsel of coarse black bread, at the end of the +day’s work, is the sole reward and profit to be reaped from such arduous +toil. The wealth of the soil, the harvests, the fruits, the splendid +cattle that grow sleek and fat in the luxuriant grass, are the property +of the few, and but instruments of the drudgery and slavery of the many. +The man of leisure seldom loves, for their own sake, the fields and +meadows, the landscape, or the noble animals which are to be converted +into gold for his use. He comes to the country for his health or for +change of air, but goes back to town to spend the fruit of his vassal’s +labor.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the peasant is too abject, too wretched, and too +fearful of the future to enjoy the beauty of the country and the charms +of pastoral life. To him, also, the yellow harvest-fields, the rich +meadows, the fine cattle represent bags of gold; but he knows that +only an infinitesimal part of their contents, insufficient for his daily +needs, will ever fall to his share. Yet year by year he must fill those +accursed bags, to please his master and buy the right of living on his +land in sordid wretchedness.</p> + +<p>Yet nature is eternally young, beautiful, +and generous. She pours forth poetry and beauty on all creatures and +all plants that are allowed free development. +She owns the secret of happiness, of which no one has ever robbed her. +The happiest of men would be he who, knowing the full meaning of his +labor, should, while working with his hands, find his happiness and his +freedom in the exercise of his intelligence, and, having his heart in +unison with his brain, should at once understand his own work and love +that of God. The artist has such delights as these in contemplating and +reproducing the beauties of nature; but if his heart be true and tender, +his pleasure is disturbed when he sees the miseries of the men who +people this paradise of earth. True happiness will be theirs when mind, +heart, and hand shall work in concert in the sight of Heaven, and there +shall be a sacred harmony between God’s goodness and the joys of his +creatures. Then, instead of the pitiable and frightful figure of Death +stalking, whip in hand, across the fields, the painter of allegories +may place beside the peasant a radiant angel, sowing the blessed grain +broadcast in the smoking furrow.</p> + +<p>The dream of a serene, free, poetic, +laborious, and simple life for the tiller of the soil is not so +impossible that we should banish it as a chimera. The sweet, sad words +of Virgil: “Oh, happy the peasants of the field, if they knew their own +blessings!” is a regret, but, like all regrets, it is also a prophecy. +The day will come when the laborer too may be an artist, and may at +least feel what is beautiful, if he cannot express it,—a matter of far +less importance. Do not we know that this mysterious poetic intuition +is already his, in the form of instinct and vague reverie? Among those +peasants who possess some of the comforts of life, and whose moral +and intellectual development is not entirely stifled by extreme +wretchedness, pure happiness that can be felt and appreciated exists +in the elementary stage; and, moreover, since poets have already raised +their voices out of the lap of pain and of weariness, why should we say +that the labor of the hands excludes the working of the soul? Without +doubt this exclusion is the common result of excessive toil and of deep +misery; but let it not be said that when men shall work moderately and +usefully there will be nothing but bad workers and bad poets. The man +who draws in noble joy from the poetic feeling is a true poet, though he +has never written a verse all his life.</p> + +<p>My thoughts had flown in this direction, without my perceiving that +my confidence in the capacity of man for education was strengthened by +external influences. I was walking along the edge of a field, which some +peasants were preparing to sow. The space was vast as that in Holbein’s +picture; the landscape, too, was vast and framed in a great sweep of +green, slightly reddened by the approach of autumn. Here and there in +the great russet field, slender rivulets of water left in the furrows by +the late rains sparkled in the sunlight like silver threads. The day was +clear and mild, and the soil, freshly cleft by the plowshare, sent up +a light steam. At the other extremity of the field, an old man, whose +broad shoulders and stern face recalled Holbein’s plowman, but whose +clothes carried no suggestion of poverty, was gravely driving his plow +of antique shape, drawn by two placid oxen, true patriarchs of the +meadow, tall and rather thin, with pale yellow coats and long, drooping +horns. They were those old workers who, through long habit, have grown +to be <i>brothers</i>, as they are called in our country, and who, when one +loses the other, refuse to work with a new comrade, and pine away with +grief. People who are unfamiliar with the country call the love of the +ox for his yoke-fellow a fable. Let them come and see in the corner of +the stable one of these poor beasts, thin and wasted, restlessly lashing +his lean flanks with his tail, violently breathing with mingled terror +and disdain on the food offered him, his eyes always turned toward the +door, scratching with his hoof the empty place at his side, sniffing the +yokes and chains which his fellow used to wear, and incessantly calling +him with melancholy lowings. The ox-herd will say: “There is a pair +of oxen gone; this one will work no more, for his brother is dead. We +ought to fatten him for the market, but he will not eat, and will soon +starve himself to death.”</p> + +<p>The old laborer worked slowly, silently, and +without waste of effort His docile team were in no greater haste than +he; but, thanks to the undistracted steadiness of his toil and the +judicious expenditure of his strength, his furrow was as soon plowed as +that of his son, who was driving, at some distance from him, four less +vigorous oxen through a more stubborn and stony piece of ground.</p> + +<p>My attention was next caught by a fine spectacle, a truly noble subject +for a painter. At the other end of the field a fine-looking youth was +driving a magnificent team of four pairs of young oxen, through whose +somber coats glanced a ruddy, glow-like flame. They had the short, curly +heads that belong to the wild bull, the same large, fierce eyes and +jerky movements; they worked in an abrupt, nervous way that showed how +they still rebelled against the yoke and goad, and trembled with anger +as they obeyed the authority so recently imposed. They were what is +called “newly yoked” oxen. The man who drove them had to clear a corner +of the field that had formerly been given up to pasture, and was +filled with old tree-stumps; and his youth and energy, and his eight +half-broken animals, hardly sufficed for the Herculean task.</p> + +<p>A child of six or seven years old, lovely as an angel, wearing round his +shoulders, over his blouse, a sheepskin that made him look like a little +Saint John the Baptist out of a Renaissance picture, was running along +in the furrow beside the plow, pricking the flanks of the oxen with a +long, light goad but slightly sharpened. The spirited animals quivered +under the child’s light touch, making their yokes and head-bands creak, +and shaking the pole violently. Whenever a root stopped the advance +of the plowshare, the laborer would call every animal by name in his +powerful voice, trying to calm rather than to excite them; for the oxen, +irritated by the sudden resistance, bounded, pawed the ground with their +great cloven hoofs, and would have jumped aside and dragged the plow +across the fields, if the young man had not kept the first four in order +with his voice and goad, while the child controlled the four others. +The little fellow shouted too, but the voice which he tried to make of +terrible effect, was as sweet as his angelic face. The whole scene was +beautiful in its grace and strength; the landscape, the man, the child, +the oxen under the yoke; and in spite of the mighty struggle by which +the earth was subdued, a deep feeling of peace and sweetness reigned +over all. Each time that an obstacle was surmounted and the plow resumed +its even, solemn progress, the laborer, whose pretended violence was +but a trial of his strength, and an outlet for his energy, instantly +regained that serenity which is the right of simple souls, and looked +with fatherly pleasure toward his child, who turned to smile back at +him. Then the young father would raise his manly voice in the solemn +and melancholy chant that ancient tradition transmits, not indeed to all +plowmen indiscriminately, but to those who are most perfect in the art +of exciting and sustaining the spirit of cattle while at work. This +song, which was probably sacred in its origin, and to which mysterious +influences must once have been attributed, is still thought to +possess the virtue of putting animals on their mettle, allaying their +irritation, and of beguiling the weariness of their long, hard toil. +It is not enough to guide them skilfully, to trace a perfectly straight +furrow, and to lighten their labor by raising the plowshare or driving +it into the earth; no man can be a consummate husbandman who does not +know how to sing to his oxen, and that is an art that requires taste +and especial gifts.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth, this chant is only a recitative, +broken off and taken up at pleasure. Its irregular form and its +intonations that violate all the rules of musical art make it impossible +to describe.</p> + +<p>But it is none the less a noble song, and so appropriate is it to the +nature of the work it accompanies, to the gait of the oxen, to the peace +of the fields, and to the simplicity of the men who sing it, that no +genius unfamiliar with the tillage of the earth, and no man except an +accomplished laborer of our part of the country, could repeat it. At the +season of the year when there is no work or stir afoot except that of +the plowman, this strong, sweet refrain rises like the voice of the +breeze, to which the key it is sung in gives it some resemblance. Each +phrase ends with a long trill, the final note of which is held with +incredible strength of breath, and rises a quarter of a tone, sharping +systematically. It is barbaric, but possesses an unspeakable charm, and +anybody, once accustomed to hear it, cannot conceive of another song +taking its place at the same hour and in the same place, without +striking a discord.</p> + +<p>So it was that I had before my eyes a picture the reverse of that of +Holbein, although the scene was similar. Instead of a wretched old man, +a young and active one; instead of a team of weary and emaciated horses, +four yoke of robust and fiery oxen; instead of death, a beautiful +child; instead of despair and destruction, energy and the possibility of +happiness.</p> + +<p>Then the old French verse, “À la sueur de ton visaige,” etc., and +Virgil’s “O fortunatos . . . agricolas,” returned to my mind, and seeing +this lovely child and his father, under such poetic conditions, and with +so much grace and strength, accomplish a task full of such grand +and solemn suggestions, I was conscious of deep pity and involuntary +respect. Happy the peasant of the fields! Yes, and so too should I be +in his place, if my arm and voice could be endowed with sudden strength, +and I could help to make Nature fruitful, and sing of her gifts, without +ceasing to see with my eyes or understand with my brain harmonious +colors and sounds, delicate shades and graceful outlines; in short, the +mysterious beauty of all things. And above all, if my heart continued +to beat in concert with the divine sentiment that presided over the +immortal sublimity of creation.</p> + +<p>But, alas! this man has never understood the mystery of beauty; this +child will never understand it. God forbid that I should not think them +superior to the animals which are subject to them, or that they have not +moments of rapturous insight that soothe their toil and lull their cares +to sleep. I see the seal of the Lord upon their noble brows, for they +were born to inherit the earth far more truly than those who have bought +and paid for it. The proof that they feel this is that they cannot be +exiled with impunity, that they love the soil they have watered with +their tears, and that the true peasant dies of homesickness under the +arms of a soldier far from his native field. But he lacks some of my +enjoyments, those pure delights which should be his by right, as a +workman in that immense temple which the sky only is vast enough +to embrace. He lacks the consciousness of his sentiment. Those who +condemned him to slavery from his mother’s womb, being unable to rob him +of his vague dreams, took away from him the power of reflection.</p> + +<p>Yet, imperfect being that he is, sentenced to eternal childhood, he is +nobler than the man in whom knowledge has stifled feeling. Do not set +yourselves above him, you who believe yourselves invested with a lawful +and inalienable right to rule over him, for your terrible mistake shows +that your brain has destroyed your heart, and that you are the blindest +and most incomplete of men! I love the simplicity of his soul more than +the false lights of yours; and if I had to narrate the story of his +life, the pleasure I should take in bringing out the tender and touching +side of it would be greater than your merit in painting the degradation +and contempt into which he is cast by your social code.</p> + +<p>I knew the young man and the beautiful child; I knew their history, for +they had a history. Everybody has his own, and could make the romance +of his life interesting, if he could but understand it. Although but a +peasant and a laborer, Germain had always been aware of his duties and +affections. He had related them to me clearly and ingenuously, and I had +listened with interest. After some time spent in watching him plow, it +occurred to me that I might write his story, though that story were as +simple, as straightforward, and unadorned as the furrow he was tracing.</p> + +<p>Next year that furrow will be filled and covered by a fresh one. Thus +disappear most of the footprints made by man in the field of human life. +A little earth obliterates them, and the furrows we have dug succeed one +another like graves in a cemetery. Is not the furrow of the laborer of +as much value as that of the idler, even if that idler, by some absurd +chance, have made a little noise in the world, and left behind him an +abiding name?</p> + +<p>I mean, if possible, to save from oblivion the furrow of Germain, +the skilled husbandman. He will never know nor care, but I shall take +pleasure in my talk.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_ii"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_ii.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="II"></a>II</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Father Maurice</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">“Germain,” said his father-in-law one day, “you must decide about +marrying again. It is almost two years now since you lost my daughter, +and your eldest boy is seven years old! You are almost thirty, my boy, +and you know that in our country a man is considered too old to go to +housekeeping again after that age; you have three nice children, and +thus far they have not proved a burden to us at all. My wife and my +daughter-in-law have looked after them as well as they could, and loved +them as they ought. Here is Petit-Pierre almost grown up. He goads the +oxen very well; he knows how to look after the cattle; and he is strong +enough to drive the horses to the trough. So it is not he that worries +us. But the other two, love them though we do, God knows the poor little +innocents give us trouble enough this year; my daughter-in-law is about +to lie in, and she has yet another baby to attend to. When the child +we are expecting comes, she will not be able to look after your little +Solange, and above all your Sylvain, who is not four years old, and who +is never quiet day or night. He has a restless disposition like yours; +that will make a good workman of him, but it makes a dreadful child, and +my old wife cannot run fast enough to save him when he almost tumbles +into the ditch, or when he throws himself in front of the tramping +cattle. And then with this other that my daughter-in-law is going to +bring into the world, for a month at least her next older child will +fall on my wife’s hands. Besides, your children worry us, and give us +too much to do; we hate to see children badly looked after, and when we +think of the accidents that may befall them, for want of care, we cannot +rest. So you need another wife, and I another daughter-in-law. Think +this over, my son. I have called it to your mind before. Time flies, +and the years will not wait a moment for you. It is your duty to your +children and to the rest of us, who wish all well at home, to marry as +soon as you can.”</p> + +<p>“Very well, father,” answered the son-in-law, “if you +really wish it, I must do as you say. But I do not wish to hide it from +you that it will make me very sad, and that I hardly wish for anything +but to drown myself. We know who it is we lose, we never know whom we +find. I had a good wife, a pretty wife, sweet, brave, good to her father +and mother, good to her husband, good to her children, good to toil in +the fields and in the house, well fitted to work,—in short, good for +everything; and when you had given her to me, and I took her, we did +not place it among our promises that I should go and forget about her if +I had the misfortune to lose her.”</p> + +<p>“What you say shows your good heart, Germain,” answered Father Maurice. +“I know that you loved my daughter and that you made her happy, and +that had you been able to satisfy Death by going in her place, Catherine +would be alive to-day, and you would be in the graveyard. She deserved +all your love, and if you are not consoled, neither are we. But I do not +speak to you of forgetting her: God wished her to leave us, and we do +not let a day go by without telling him in our prayers and thoughts, +and words and actions, that we keep her memory and still sorrow for her +loss. But if she could speak to you from the other world, and let you +know what she wishes, she would tell you to find a mother for her little +orphans. So the question is to find a woman who will be worthy to take +her place. It will not be easy, but it is not impossible. And when +we shall find her for you, you will love her as you used to love my +daughter, because you are a good man, and because you will be thankful +to her for helping us and for loving your children.”</p> + +<p>“Very well, Father Maurice, I shall do as you wish, as I have always +done.”</p> + +<p>“It is only justice, my son, to say that you have always listened to the +friendly advice and good judgment of the head of the house. So let us +consult about your choice of a new wife. First, I don’t advise you to +take a young girl. That is not what you need. Youth is careless, and, as +it is hard work to bring up three children, especially when they are of +another bed, you must have a good soul, wise and gentle, and well used +to work. If your wife is not about the same age as you, she will have +no reason to accept such a duty. She will find you too old and your +children too young. She will be complaining, and your children will +suffer.”</p> + +<p>“This is just what makes me uneasy. Suppose the poor little things +should be badly treated, hated, beaten?”</p> + +<p>“God grant not,” answered the old man. “But bad women are more rare with +us than good, and we shall be stupid if we cannot pick out somebody who +will suit us.”</p> + +<p>“That is true, father. There are good girls in our village. There is +Louise, Sylvaine, Claudie, Marguerite—yes, anybody you want.”</p> + +<p>“Gently, gently, my boy. All these girls are too young, or too poor, +or too pretty; for surely we must think of that too, my son. A pretty +woman is not always as well behaved as another!”</p> + +<p>“Then you wish me to take an ugly wife?” said Germain, a little uneasy.</p> + +<p>“No, not ugly at all, for this woman will bear you other children, and +there is nothing more miserable than to have children who are ugly and +weak and sickly. But a woman still fresh and in good health, who is +neither pretty nor ugly, would suit you exactly.”</p> + +<p>“I am quite sure,” said Germain, smiling rather sadly, “that to get +such a woman as you wish, you must have her made to order. All the more +because you don’t wish her to be poor, and the rich are not easy to get, +particularly for a widower.”</p> + +<p>“And suppose she were a widow herself, Germain? A widow without children +and with a good portion?”</p> + +<p>“For the moment, I cannot think of anybody like this in our parish.”</p> + +<p>“Nor I either. But there are others elsewhere.”</p> + +<p>“You have somebody in mind, father. Then tell me, at once, who it is.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_iii"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_iii.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="III"></a>III</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Germain, the Skilled Husbandman</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">“Yes, I have somebody in mind,” replied Father Maurice. “It is a +Leonard, the widow of a Guérin. She lives at Fourche.”</p> + +<p>“I know neither the woman nor the place,” answered Germain, resigned, +but growing more and more melancholy.</p> + +<p>“Her name is Catherine, like your dead wife’s.”</p> + +<p>“Catherine? Yes, I shall be glad to have to pronounce that name, +Catherine; and yet if I cannot love one as much as the other, it will +pain me all the more. It will bring her to my mind more often.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, you will love her. She is a good soul, a woman with a warm +heart. I have not seen her for a long time. She was not an ugly girl +then. But she is no longer young. She is thirty-two. She comes of a good +family, honest people all of them, and for property she has eight or ten +thousand francs in land which she would sell gladly in order to invest +in the place where she settles. For she, too, is thinking of marrying +again, and I know that if your character pleases her, she will not be +dissatisfied with your situation.”</p> + +<p>“So you have made all the arrangements?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, except that I have not had an opinion from either of you, and that +is what you must ask each other when you meet. The woman’s father is +a distant connection of mine, and he has been a good friend to me. You +know Father Leonard well?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have seen you two talking at the market, and at the last you +lunched together. Then it was about her that he spoke to you so long?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly. He watched you selling your cattle and saw that you drove +a shrewd bargain, and that you were a good-looking fellow and appeared +active and intelligent; and when I told him what a good fellow you were +and how well you have behaved toward us, without one word of vexation or +anger during the eight years we have been living and working together, +he took it into his head to marry you to his daughter. This suits me, +too, I admit, when I think of her good reputation and the honesty of her +family and the prosperous condition I know her affairs are in.”</p> + +<p>“I see, Father Maurice, that you have an eye to money.”</p> + +<p>“Of course I do; you have, too, have you not?”</p> + +<p>“I do look toward it, if you wish, for your sake; but you know that, +for my own part, I don’t worry whether I gain or not in what we make. I +don’t understand about profit-sharing; I have no head for that sort +of thing. I understand the ground; I understand cattle, horses, carts, +sowing, threshing, and provender. As for sheep, and vineyards, and +vegetables, petty profits, and fine gardening, you know that is your +son’s business. I don’t have much to do with it. As to money, my memory +is short, and I should rather give up everything than fight about what +is yours and what is mine. I should be afraid of making some mistake and +claiming what does not belong to me, and if business were not so clear +and simple I should never find my way in it.”</p> + +<p>“So much the worse, my son; and this is the reason I wish you to have a +wife with a clear head to fill my place when I am gone. You never wished +to understand our accounts, and this might lead you into a quarrel with +my son, when you don’t have me any longer to keep you in harmony and +decide what is each one’s share.”</p> + +<p>“May you live long, Father Maurice. But do not worry about what will +happen when you die. I shall never quarrel with your son. I trust +Jacques as I do you; and as I have no property of my own, and all that +might accrue to me comes from your daughter and belongs to our children, +I can rest easy, and you, too. Jacques would never rob his sister’s +children for the sake of his own, for he loves them all equally.”</p> + +<p>“You are right, Germain. Jacques is a good son, a good brother, and a +man who loves the truth. But Jacques may die before you, before your +children grow up; and in a family we must always remember never to +leave children without a head to look after them and govern their +disagreements; otherwise, the lawyer-people mix themselves up in it, +stir them up to fight, and make them eat up everything in law-suits. +So we ought not to think of bringing home another person, man or woman, +without remembering that some day or other that person may have to +control the behavior and business of twenty or thirty children and +grandchildren, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. We never know how big a +family can grow, and when a hive is so full that the bees must form new +swarms, each one wishes to carry off her share of the honey. When I took +you for my son, although my daughter was rich and you were poor, I never +reproached her for choosing you. I saw that you were a hard worker, and +I knew very well that the best fortune for people in such a country as +ours is a pair of arms and a heart like yours. When a man brings these +into a family, he brings enough. But with a woman it is different. Her +work indoors saves, but it does not gain. Besides, now that you are +a father, looking for a second wife, you must remember that your new +children will have no claim on the property of your children by another +wife; and if you should happen to die they might suffer very much—at +least, if your wife had no money in her own right. And then the children +which you will add to our colony will cost something to bring up. If +that fell on us alone, we should surely take care of them without a word +of complaint; but the comfort of everybody would suffer, and your eldest +children would bear their share of hardship. When families grow too +large, if money does not keep pace, misery comes, no matter how bravely +you bear up. This is what I wished to say, Germain; think it over, +and try to make the widow Guérin like you; for her discretion and her +dollars will help us now and make us feel easy about the future.”</p> + +<p>“That is true, Father. I shall try to please her and to like her.”</p> + +<p>“To do that you must go to find her, and see her.”</p> + +<p>“At her own place? At Fourche? That is a great way from here, is it not? +And we scarcely have time to run off at this season of the year.”</p> + +<p>“When it is a question of a love-match you must make up your mind to +lose time, but when it is a sensible marriage of two people, who take +no sudden fancies and know what they want, it is very soon decided. +To-morrow is Saturday; you will make your day’s work a little shorter +than usual. You must start after dinner about two o’clock. You will be +at Fourche by nightfall. The moon rises early. The roads are good, and +it is not more than three leagues distant. It is near Magnier. Besides, +you will take the mare.”</p> + +<p>“I had just as lief go afoot in this cool weather.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but the mare is pretty, and a suitor looks better when he comes +well mounted. You must put on your new clothes and carry a nice present +of game to Father Leonard. You will come from me and talk with him, pass +all of Sunday with his daughter, and come back Monday morning with a yes +or no.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” answered Germain calmly, and yet he did not feel very calm.</p> + +<p>Germain had always lived soberly, as industrious peasants do. Married +at twenty, he had loved but one woman in his life, and after her death, +impulsive and gay as his nature was, he had never played nor trifled +with another. He had borne a real sorrow faithfully in his heart, and +it was not without misgiving nor without sadness that he yielded to his +father-in-law; but that father had always governed the family wisely, +and Germain, entirely devoted as he was to the common welfare and so, +by consequence, to the head of the house, who represented it, could not +understand that he might have wronged his own good sense and hurt the +interests of all. Nevertheless, he was sad. Few days went by when he did +not cry in secret, for his wife, and although loneliness began to weigh +on him, he was more afraid of entering into a new marriage than desirous +of finding a support in his sorrow. He had a vague idea that love might +have consoled him by coming to him of a sudden, for this is the only way +love can console. We never find it when we seek it; it comes over us +unawares.</p> + +<p>This cold-blooded scheme of marriage that Father Maurice had opened to +him, this unknown woman he was to take for his bride, perhaps even all +that had been said to him of her virtue and good sense, made him pause +to think. And he went away musing as men do whose thoughts are too few +to divide into hostile factions, not scraping up fine arguments for +rebellion and selfishness but suffering from a dull grief, submissive to +ills from which there is no escape.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Father Maurice had returned to the farm, while Germain, +between sunset and dark, spent the closing hour of the day in repairing +gaps the sheep had made in the hedge of a yard near the farm-buildings. +He lifted up the branches of the thorn-bushes and held them in place +with clods of earth, whilst the thrushes chattered in the neighboring +thicket and seemed to call to him to hurry, for they were eager to come +and see his work as soon as he had gone.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_iv"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_iv.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="IV"></a>IV</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Mother Guillette</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">Father Maurice found at his house an old neighbor who had come to talk +with his wife, seeking at the same time to secure a few embers to light +her fire. Mother Guillette lived in a wretched hut two gunshots away +from the farm. Still she was a willing and an orderly woman. Her poor +dwelling was clean and neat, and the care with which her clothes were +mended showed that she respected herself in the midst of her penury.</p> + +<p>“You have come to fetch your evening fire, Mother Guillette,” said the +old man to her. “Is there anything else you want?”</p> + +<p>“No, Father Maurice,” answered she; “nothing for the present. I am no +beggar, as you know, and I take care not to abuse the kindness of my +friends.”</p> + +<p>“That is very true. Besides, your friends are always ready to do you a +service.”</p> + +<p>“I was just talking to your wife, and I was asking her if Germain had +finally decided to marry again.”</p> + +<p>“You are no gossip,” replied Father Maurice; “we can talk in your +presence without having any foolish tale-bearing to fear. So I will tell +my wife and you that Germain has made up his mind absolutely. To-morrow +morning he starts for the farm at Fourche.”</p> + +<p>“Good enough!” cried Mother Maurice; “poor child! God grant he may find +a woman as good and true as he.”</p> + +<p>“So he is going to Fourche?” remarked Mother Guillette; “how lucky that +is! It is exactly what I want. And since you were just asking me +if there were anything I wished for, I am going to tell you, Father +Maurice, how you can do me a service.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me what it is; we like to help you.”</p> + +<p>“I wish Germain would be so kind as to take my daughter along with him.”</p> + +<p>“Where? To Fourche?”</p> + +<p>“No, not to Fourche, but to Ormeaux. She is to stay there the rest of +the year.”</p> + +<p>“What!” exclaimed Mother Maurice, “are you going to separate from your +daughter?”</p> + +<p>“She must go out to work and earn her living. I am sorry enough, and she +is too, poor soul. We could not make up our minds to part Saint John’s +Day, but now that Saint Martin’s is upon us, she finds a good place as +shepherdess at the farms at Ormeaux. On his way home from the fair the +other day, the farmer passed by here. He caught sight of my little Marie +tending her three sheep on the common.</p> + +<p>“‘You have hardly enough to do, my little girl,’ said he; ‘three sheep +are not enough for a shepherdess: would you like to take care of a +hundred? I will take you along. Our shepherdess has fallen sick. She is +going back to her family, and if you will be at our farm before a week +is over, you shall have fifty francs for the rest of the year up to +Saint John’s Day.’</p> + +<p>“The child refused, but she could not help thinking it over and telling +me about it, when she came home in the evening, and found me downhearted +and worried about the winter, which was sure to be hard and long; for +this year the cranes and wild ducks were seen crossing the sky a whole +month before they generally do. We both of us cried, but after a time +we took heart. We knew that we could not stay together, since it is hard +enough for one person to get a living from our little patch of ground. +Then since Marie is old enough,—for she is going on to sixteen,—she +must do like the rest, earn her own living and help her poor mother.”</p> + +<p>“Mother Guillette,” said the old laborer, “if it were only fifty francs +you needed to help you out of your trouble, and save you from sending +away your daughter, I should certainly find them for you, although +fifty francs is no trifle for people like us. But in everything we must +consult common sense as well as friendship. To be saved from want this +year will not keep you from want in the future, and the longer your +daughter takes to make up her mind, the harder you both will find it +to part. Little Marie is growing tall and strong. She has not enough at +home to keep her busy. She might get into lazy habits....”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I am not afraid of that!” exclaimed Mother Guillette. “Marie is as +active as a rich girl at the head of a large family can be. She never +sits still with her arms folded for an instant, and when we have no work +to do, she keeps dusting and polishing our old furniture until it shines +like a mirror. The child is worth her weight in gold, and I should much +rather have her enter your service as a shepherdess than go so far away +to people I don’t know. You would have taken her at Saint John’s Day; +but now you have hired all your hands, and we cannot think of that till +Saint John’s Day next year.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I consent with all my heart, Guillette. I shall be very glad to +take her. But in the mean time she will do well to learn her work, and +accustom herself to obey others.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that is true, no doubt. The die is cast. The farmer at Ormeaux +sent to ask about her this morning; we consented, and she must go. But +the poor child does not know the way, and I should not like to send her +so far alone. Since your son-in-law goes to Fourche to-morrow, perhaps +he can take her. It seems that Fourche is close to her journey’s end. At +least, so they tell me, for I have never made the trip myself.”</p> + +<p>“It is very near indeed, and my son will show her the way. Naturally, he +might even take her up behind him on the mare. That will save her shoes. +Here he comes for supper. Tell me, Germain, Mother Guillette’s little +Marie is going to become a shepherdess at Ormeaux. Will you take her +there on your horse?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” answered Germain, who, troubled as he was, never felt +indisposed to do a kindness to his neighbor.</p> + +<p>In our community a mother would not think of such a thing as to trust +a girl of sixteen to a man of twenty-eight. For Germain was really +but twenty-eight, and although according to the notions of the +country people he was considered rather old to marry, he was still the +best-looking man in the neighborhood. Toil had not wrinkled and worn him +as it does most peasants who have passed ten years in tilling the soil. +He was strong enough to labor for ten more years without showing signs +of age, and the prejudices of her time must have weighed heavily on the +mind of a young girl to prevent her from seeing that Germain had a fresh +complexion, eyes sparkling and blue as skies in May, ruddy lips, fine +teeth, and a body well shaped and lithe as a young horse that has never +yet left his pasture.</p> + +<p>But purity of manners is a sacred custom in some districts far distant +from the corrupted life of great cities, and amongst all the +households of Belair, the family of Maurice was known to be honest and +truth-loving. Germain was on his way to find a wife. Marie was a child, +too young and too poor to be thought of in this light, and unless he +were a heartless and a bad man he could not entertain one evil thought +concerning her. Father Maurice felt no uneasiness at seeing him take the +pretty girl on the crupper. Mother Guillette would have thought herself +doing him a wrong had she asked him to respect her daughter as his +sister. Marie embraced her mother and her young friends twenty times, +and then mounted the mare in tears. Germain, sad on his own account, +felt all the more sympathy for her sorrow, and rode away with a +melancholy air, while all the people of the neighborhood waved good-by +to Marie without a thought of harm.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_v"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_v.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="V"></a>V</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Petit-Pierre</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">The gray was young, good-looking, and strong. She carried her double +burden with ease, laying back her ears and champing her bit like the +high-spirited mare she was. Passing in front of the pasture, she caught +sight of her mother, whose name was the Old Gray as hers was the Young +Gray, and she whinnied in token of good-by. The Old Gray came nearer +the hedge, and striking her shoes together she tried to gallop along the +edge of the field in order to follow her daughter; then seeing her fall +into a sharp trot, the mare whinnied in her turn and stood in an uneasy +attitude, her nose in the air and her mouth filled with grass that she +had no thought of eating.</p> + +<p>“That poor beast always knows her offspring,” said Germain, trying to +keep Marie’s thoughts from her troubles. “That reminds me, I never kissed +Petit-Pierre before I started. The naughty boy was not there. Last night +he wished to make me promise to take him along, and he wept for an hour +in bed. This morning again, he tried everything to persuade me. Oh, how +sly and coaxing he is! But when he saw that he could not gain his point, +the young gentleman got into a temper. He went off to the fields, and I +have not seen him all day.”</p> + +<p>“I have seen him,” said little Marie, striving to keep back her tears; +“he was running toward the clearing with Soulas’ children, and I felt +sure that he had been away from home a long time, for he was hungry and +was eating wild plums and blackberries. I gave him the bread I had for +lunch, and he said, ‘Thank you, dear Marie; when you come to our house, +I will give you some cake.’ He is a dear little child, Germain.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he is,” answered the laborer; “and there is nothing I would not do +for him. If his grandmother had not more sense than I, I could not have +helped taking him with me, when I saw him crying as though his poor +little heart would burst.”</p> + +<p>“Then why did you not take him, Germain? He would have been very little +trouble. He is so good when you please him.”</p> + +<p>“He would probably have been in the way in the place where I am going. +At least Father Maurice thought so. On the other hand, I should have +thought it well to see how they received him. For no one could help +being kind to such a nice child. But at home they said that I must not +begin by showing off all the cares of the household. I don’t know why I +speak of this to you, little Marie; you can’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I do; I know that you are going away to marry; my mother spoke +to me about it, and told me not to mention it to a soul, either at home +or at my destination, and you need not be afraid; I shall not breathe a +word about it.”</p> + +<p>“You are very right. For the deed isn’t done yet. Perhaps I shall not +suit this woman.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you will, Germain; why should you not suit her?”</p> + +<p>“Who knows? I have three children, and that is a heavy burden for a +woman who is not their mother.”</p> + +<p>“Very true. But are not your children like other children?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think so?”</p> + +<p>“They are lovely as little angels, and so well brought up that you can’t +find better children.”</p> + +<p>“There’s Sylvain. He is none too obedient.”</p> + +<p>“He is so very little. He can’t help being naughty. But he is very +bright.”</p> + +<p>“He is bright it is true, and very brave. He is not afraid of cows +nor bulls, and if he were given his own way, he would be climbing on +horseback already with his elder brother.”</p> + +<p>“Had I been in your place, I would have taken the eldest boy along. +Surely people would have liked you at once for having such a pretty +child.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if a woman is fond of children. But if she is not.”</p> + +<p>“Are there women who don’t love children?”</p> + +<p>“Not many, I think, but still there are some, and that is what troubles +me.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know this woman at all, then?”</p> + +<p>“No more than you, and I fear that I shall not know her better after I +have seen her. I am not suspicious. When people say nice things to me, +I believe them, but more than once I have had good reason to repent, for +words are not deeds.”</p> + +<p>“They say that she is a very good woman.”</p> + +<p>“Who says so? Father Maurice?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, your father-in-law.”</p> + +<p>“That is all very well. But he knows her no more than I.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you will soon see. Pay close attention, and let us hope that you +will not be deceived.”</p> + +<p>“I have it. Little Marie, I should be very much obliged if you would +come into the house for a minute before you go straight on to Ormeaux. +You are quick-witted; you have always shown that you are not stupid, +and nothing escapes your notice. Should you see anything to rouse your +suspicions, you must warn me of it very quietly.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! no, Germain, I will not do that; I should be too much afraid of +making a mistake; and, besides, if a word lightly spoken were to turn +you against this marriage, your family would bear me a grudge, and I +have plenty of troubles now without bringing any more on my poor dear +mother.”</p> + +<p>As they were talking thus, the gray pricked up her ears and shied; then +returning on her steps, she approached the bushes, where she began to +recognize something which had frightened her at first. Germain cast +his eye over the thicket, and in a ditch, beneath the branches of a +scrub-oak, still thick and green, he saw something which he took for a +lamb.</p> + +<p>“The little creature is strayed or dead, for it does not move. Perhaps +some one is looking for it; we must see.”</p> + +<p>“It is not an animal,” cried little Marie; “it is a sleeping child. It +is your Petit-Pierre.”</p> + +<p>“Heavens!” exclaimed Germain; “see the little scamp asleep so far away +from home, and in a ditch where a snake might bite him!”</p> + +<p>He lifted up the child, who smiled as he opened his eyes and threw his +arms about his father’s neck, saying: “Dear little father, you are going +to take me with you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; always the same tune. What were you doing there, you naughty +Pierre?”</p> + +<p>“I was waiting for my little father to go by. I was watching the road, +and I watched so hard that I fell asleep.”</p> + +<p>“And if I had passed by without seeing you, you would have been out of +doors all night, and a wolf would have eaten you up.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I knew very well that you would see me,” answered Petit-Pierre, +confidently.</p> + +<p>“Well, kiss me now, bid me good-by, and run back quickly to the house, +unless you wish them to have supper without you.”</p> + +<p>“Are you not going to take me, then?” cried the little boy, beginning to +rub his eyes to show that he was thinking of tears.</p> + +<p>“You know very well that grandpapa and grandmama do not wish it,” said +Germain, fortifying himself behind the authority of his elders, like a +man who distrusts his own.</p> + +<p>The child would not listen. He began to cry with all his might, saying +that as long as his father was taking little Marie, he might just as +well take him too. They replied that they must pass through great woods +filled with wicked beasts who eat up little children. The gray would not +carry three people; she had said so when they were starting, and in the +country where they were going there was no bed and no supper for little +boys. All these good reasons could not persuade Petit-Pierre; he threw +himself on the ground, and rolled about, shrieking that his little +father did not love him any more, and that if he did not take him he +would never go back to the house at all, day or night.</p> + +<p>Germain had a father’s heart, as soft and weak as a woman’s. His wife’s +death, and the care which he had been obliged to bestow all alone on his +little ones, as well as the thought that these poor motherless children +needed a great deal of love, combined to make him thus. So such a sharp +struggle went on within him, all the more because he was ashamed of his +weakness and tried to hide his confusion from little Marie, that the +sweat started out on his forehead, and his eyes grew red and almost +ready to weep. At last he tried to get angry, but as he turned toward +little Marie in order to let her witness his strength of mind, he saw +that the good girls face was wet with tears; all his courage forsook him +and he could not keep back his own, scold and threaten as he would.</p> + +<p>“Truly your heart is too hard,” said little Marie at last, “and for +myself I know that I never could refuse a child who felt so badly. Come, +Germain, let’s take him. Your mare is well used to carrying two people +and a child, for you know that your brother-in-law and his wife, who is +much heavier than I, go to market every Saturday with their boy on this +good beast’s back. Take him on the horse in front of you. Besides, I +should rather walk on foot all alone than give this little boy so much +pain.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” answered Germain, who was dying to allow himself to give +way. “The gray is strong, and could carry two more if there were room on +her back. But what can we do with this child on the way? He will be cold +and hungry, and who will take care of him to-night and to-morrow, put +him to bed, wash him, and dress him? I don’t dare give this trouble to +a woman I don’t know, who will think, doubtless, that I am exceedingly +free and easy with her to begin with.”</p> + +<p>“Trust me, Germain, you will know her at once by the kindness or the +impatience that she shows. If she does not care to receive your Pierre, +I will take charge of him myself. I will go to her house and dress him, +and I will take him to the fields with me to-morrow. I will amuse him +all day long, and take good care that he does not want for anything.”</p> + +<p>“He will tire you, my poor girl, and give you trouble. A whole day is a +long time.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all; it will give me pleasure; he will keep me company, and that +will make me less sad the first day that I must pass in a new place. I +shall fancy that I am still at home.”</p> + +<p>Seeing that little Marie was pleading for her, the child seized upon her +skirt and held it so tight that they must have hurt him in order to +tear it away. When he perceived that his father was weakening, he took +Marie’s hand in both his tiny sunburned fists and kissed her, leaping +for joy, and pulling her toward the mare with the burning impatience +children feel in their desires.</p> + +<p>“Come along,” said the young girl, lifting him in her arms; “let us try +to quiet his poor little heart. It is fluttering like a little bird; and +if you feel the cold when night comes on, tell me, my Pierre, and I will +wrap you in my cape. Kiss your little father, and beg his pardon for +being naughty. Tell him that you will never, never be so again. Do you +hear?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, provided that I always do just as he wishes. Isn’t it +so?” said Germain, drying the little boy’s eyes with his handkerchief. +“Marie, you are spoiling the little rascal. But really and truly, you +are too good, little Marie. I don’t know why you did not come to us +as shepherdess last Saint John’s Day. You would have taken care of my +children, and I should much rather pay a good price for their sake than +try to find a woman who will think, perhaps, she is doing me a great +kindness if she does not detest them.”</p> + +<p>“You must not look on the dark side of things,” answered little Marie, +holding the horse’s bridle while Germain placed his son in front of the +big pack-saddle covered with goatskin. “If your wife does not care for +children, take me into your service next year, and you may be sure I +shall amuse them so well that they will not notice anything.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_vi"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_vi.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="VI"></a>VI</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">On the Heath</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">“Dear me,” said Germain, after they had gone a few steps farther, “what +will they think at home when they miss the little man? The family will +be worried, and will be looking everywhere for him.”</p> + +<p>“You can tell the man who is mending the road up there that you are +taking him along, and ask him to speak to your people.”</p> + +<p>“That is very true, Marie; you don’t forget anything. It never occurred +to me that Jeannie must be there.”</p> + +<p>“He lives close to the farm, and he will not fail to do your errand.”</p> + +<p>When they had taken this precaution, Germain put the mare to a trot, and +Petit-Pierre was so overjoyed that for a time he forgot that he had +gone without his dinner; but the motion of the horse gave him a hollow +feeling in his stomach, and at the end of a league, he began to gape and +grow pale, and confessed that he was dying of hunger.</p> + +<p>“This is the way it begins,” exclaimed Germain. “I was quite sure that +we should not go far without this young gentleman crying with hunger or +thirst.”</p> + +<p>“I am thirsty, too!” said Petit-Pierre.</p> + +<p>“Very well, then, let’s go to Mother Rebec’s tavern at Corlay, the +sign of ‘The Dawn’—a pretty sign, but a poor lodging. You will take +something to drink, too, will you not, Marie?”</p> + +<p>“No, no; I don’t want anything. I will hold the mare while you go in +with the child.”</p> + +<p>“But I remember, my good girl, that this morning you gave the bread from +your own breakfast to my Pierre. You have had nothing to eat. You would +not take dinner with us at home; you would do nothing but cry.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I was not hungry; I felt too sad, and I give you my word that even +now I have no desire to eat.”</p> + +<p>“You must oblige yourself to eat, little girl, else you will fall sick. +We have a long way to go, and it will not do to arrive half-starved and +beg for bread before we say how d’ ye do. I shall set you a good example +myself, although I am not very hungry: and I am sure that I can, for, +after all, I did not eat any dinner. I saw you crying, you and your +mother, and it made me feel sad. Come along. I am going to tie the gray +at the door. Get down; I wish you to.”</p> + +<p>All three entered the inn, and in less than fifteen minutes the fat, +lame hostess was able to place before them a nice-looking omelette, some +brown bread, and a bottle of light wine.</p> + +<p>Peasants do not eat quickly, and little Pierre had such a good appetite +that a whole hour passed before Germain could think of starting out +again. At first little Marie ate in order to be obliging; then little +by little she grew hungry. For, at sixteen, a girl cannot fast for long, +and country air is dictatorial.</p> + +<p>The kind words with which Germain knew how to comfort her and strengthen +her courage, produced their effect. She tried hard to persuade herself +that seven months would soon be over, and to think of the pleasure in +store for her when she saw once more her family and her hamlet; for +Father Maurice and Germain had both promised to take her into their +service. But just as she began to cheer up and play with little Pierre, +Germain was so unfortunate as to point out to her from the inn window +the lovely view of the valley which can all be seen from this height, +and which looks so happy and green and fertile.</p> + +<p>Marie looked and asked if the houses of Belair were in sight.</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” said Germain, “and the farm, too, and even your house—see! +that tiny gray spot not far from Godard’s big poplar, below the belfry.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, I see it,” said the little girl; and then she began to cry.</p> + +<p>“I ought not to have made you think of it,” said Germain. “I can do +nothing but stupid things to-day. Come along, Marie; let’s start, and in +an hour, when the moon rises, it will not be hot.”</p> + +<p>They resumed their journey across the great heath, and for fear of +tiring the young girl and the child by too rapid a trot, Germain did not +make the gray go very fast. The sun had set when they left the road to +enter the wood.</p> + +<p>Germain knew the way as far as Magnier, but he thought it would be +shorter to avoid the Chantaloube road and descend by Presles and La +Sépulture, a route he was not in the habit of taking on his way to the +fair. He lost his way, and wasted more time before he reached the wood. +Even then he did not enter it on the right side, although he did not +perceive his mistake, so that he turned his back on Fourche, and took a +direction higher up on the way to Ardente.</p> + +<p>He was prevented still further from finding his way by a thick mist +which rose as the night fell; one of those mists which come on autumn +evenings when the whiteness of the moonlight renders them more undefined +and more treacherous. The great pools of water scattered through the +glades gave forth a vapor so dense that when the gray crossed them, +their presence was known only by a splashing noise, and the difficulty +with which she drew her feet from the mud.</p> + +<p>At last they found a good straight road, and when they came to the end +of it, and Germain tried to discover where he was, he saw that he was +lost. For Father Maurice had told him, when he explained the way, that +on leaving the wood he must descend a very steep hillside, cross a wide +meadow, and ford the river twice. He had even warned him to cross this +river carefully; for, early in the season, there had been great rains, +and the water might still be higher than usual. Seeing neither hillside +nor meadows, nor river, but a heath, level and white as a mantle of +snow, Germain stopped, looked about for a house, and waited for a +passer-by, but could find nothing to set him right. Then he retraced his +steps and reentered the wood. But the mist thickened yet more, the moon +was completely hidden, the roads were execrable, and the quagmires deep. +Twice the gray almost fell. Her heavy load made her lose courage, and +although she kept enough sagacity to avoid the tree-trunks, she could +not prevent her riders from striking the great branches which overhung +the road at the height of their heads and caused them great danger. +In one of these collisions Germain lost his hat, and only recovered it +after much difficulty. Petit-Pierre had fallen asleep, and, lying like +a log in his father’s arms, hampered him so that he could no longer hold +up nor direct the horse.</p> + +<p>“I believe we are bewitched,” exclaimed Germain, stopping; “for the +wood is not large enough to get lost in, if a man is not drunk, and here +we have been turning round and round for two hours at least, without +finding a way out. The gray has but one idea in her head, and that is to +get home. It is she who is deceiving me. If we wish to go home, we have +only to give her the bit. But when we are perhaps but two steps from +our journey’s end, it would be foolish to give up and return such a long +road; and yet I am at a loss what to do. I can’t see sky or earth, and +I am afraid that the child will catch the fever if we remain in this +cursed fog, or that he will be crushed beneath our weight if the horse +falls forward.”</p> + +<p>“We must not persist longer,” said little Marie. “Let’s dismount, +Germain. Give me the child; I can carry him perfectly well, and I know +better than you how to keep the cloak from falling open and leaving +him exposed. You lead the mare by her bridle. Perhaps we shall see more +clearly when we are nearer the ground.”</p> + +<p>This precaution was of service only in saving them from a fall, for the +fog hung low and seemed to stick to the damp earth.</p> + +<p>Their advance was painfully slow, and they were soon so weary that they +halted when they reached a dry spot beneath the great oaks.</p> + +<p>Little Marie was in a violent sweat, but she uttered not a word of +complaint, nor did she worry about anything. Thinking only of the child, +she sat down on the sand and laid it upon her knees, while Germain +explored the neighborhood, after having fastened the gray’s reins to the +branch of a tree.</p> + +<p>But the gray was very dissatisfied with the journey. She reared +suddenly, broke the reins loose, burst her girths, and giving, by way of +receipt, half a dozen kicks higher than her head, she started across the +clearing, showing very plainly that she needed no one to show her the +way home.</p> + +<p>“Well, here we are afoot,” said Germain, after a vain attempt to catch +the horse, “and it would do us no good now if we were on the good road, +for we should have to ford the river on foot, and since these paths are +filled with water, we may be sure that the meadow is wholly submerged. +We don’t know the other routes. We must wait until this fog clears. It +can’t last more than an hour or two; as soon as we can see clearly, we +shall look about for a house, the first we come to near the edge of the +wood. But for the present we can’t stir from here. There is a ditch +and a pond over there. Heaven knows what is in front of us, and what is +behind us is more than I can say now, for I have forgotten which way we +came.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_vii"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_vii.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="VII"></a>VII</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Underneath the Big Oaks</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">“Well, we must be patient, Germain,” said little Marie. “We are not +badly off on this little hillock. The rain does not pierce the leaves of +these big oaks, and we can light a fire, for I can feel old stumps which +stir readily and are dry enough to burn. You have a light, Germain, have +you not? You were smoking your pipe a few minutes ago.”</p> + +<p>“I did have; my tinderbox was in my bag on the saddle with the game that +I was bringing to my bride that is to be, but that devilish mare has run +away with everything, even with my cloak, which she will lose and tear +to bits on every branch she comes to.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, Germain; saddle and +cloak and bag are all there on the ground at your feet. The gray burst +her girths, and threw off everything as she ran away.”</p> + +<p>“That’s true, thank God,” exclaimed the laborer; “if we can grope about +and find a little dead wood, we shall be able to dry ourselves and get +warm.”</p> + +<p>“That’s not difficult,” said little Marie; “dead wood always cracks +when you step on it. But will you give me the saddle?”</p> + +<p>“What do you want of it?”</p> + +<p>“To make a bed for the child. No, not that way. Upside down. He will +not roll off into the hollow, and it is still very warm from the horse’s +back. Prop it up all around with the stones that you see there.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t see a stone; you must have cat’s eyes.”</p> + +<p>“There, it is all done, Germain. Hand me your cloak so that you can wrap +up his little feet, and throw my cape over his body. Just see if he is +not as comfortable as though he were in his own bed, and feel how warm +he is.”</p> + +<p>“You certainly know how to take care of children, Marie.”</p> + +<p>“I need not be a witch to do that; now get your tinderbox from your bag, +and I will arrange the wood.”</p> + +<p>“This wood will never catch fire; it is too damp.”</p> + +<p>“You are always doubting, Germain. Don’t you remember when you were a +shepherd, and made big fires in the fields right in the midst of the +rain?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that is a knack that belongs to children who take care of sheep; +but I was made to drive the oxen as soon as I could walk.”</p> + +<p>“That is what has made your arms strong and your hands quick! Here, the +fire is built; you shall see whether it does not burn. Give me the light +and a handful of dry ferns. That is all right. Now blow; you are not +consumptive, are you?”</p> + +<p>“Not that I know of,” said Germain, blowing like a smith’s bellows. In +an instant the flame leaped up, and throwing out a red glare, it rose +finally in pale blue jets under the oak branches, battling with the fog, +and gradually drying the atmosphere for ten feet around.</p> + +<p>“Now I am going to sit by the child, so that the sparks may not fall +on him,” said the young girl. “Pile on the wood and stir up the fire, +Germain; we shall not catch cold nor fever here, I will answer for it.”</p> + +<p>“Upon my word, you are a clever girl,” said Germain; “and you know how +to make a fire like a little fairy of the night. I feel quite revived, +and my courage has come back again; for with my legs drenched up to the +knees, and with the thought of staying this way till daylight, I was in +a very bad temper just now.”</p> + +<p>“And when people are in a bad temper they don’t think of anything,” +answered little Marie.</p> + +<p>“And are you never bad-tempered?”</p> + +<p>“No, never; what is the good of it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course, there is no good; but how can you help it when you have +troubles? Yet Heaven knows that you have not lacked them, my little +girl; for you have not always been happy.”</p> + +<p>“It is true that my mother and I have suffered. We have had sorrows, but +we have never lost heart.”</p> + +<p>“I should never lose heart, no matter how hard my work was,” said +Germain, “but poverty would make me very sad; for I have never wanted +for anything. My wife made me rich, and I am rich still; I shall be +so as long as I work on the farm; and that will be always, I hope. But +everybody must suffer his share! I have suffered in another way.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; you have lost your wife. That is very sad.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Germain, I have wept for her many a time. She was so very kind! But +don’t let us talk about her longer, for I shall burst out crying. All my +troubles are ready to come back to me to-day.”</p> + +<p>“It is true, she loved you dearly, little Marie. She used to make a +great deal of you and your mother. Are you crying? Come, my girl, I +don’t want to cry....”</p> + +<p>“But you are crying, Germain! You are crying as hard as I. Why should +a man be ashamed to weep for his wife? Don’t let me trouble you. That +sorrow is mine as well as yours.”</p> + +<p>“You have a kind heart, Marie, and it does me good to weep with you. Put +your feet nearer the fire; your skirts are all soaked, too, poor little +girl. I am going to take your place by the boy. You move nearer the +fire.”</p> + +<p>“I am hot enough,” said Marie; “and if you wish to sit down, take a +corner of the cloak. I am perfectly comfortable.”</p> + +<p>“The truth is that it is not so bad here,” said Germain, as he sat down +beside her. “Only I feel very hungry again. It is almost nine o’clock, +and I have had such hard work in walking over these vile roads that I +feel quite tired out. Are you not hungry, too, little Marie?”</p> + +<p>“I?—not at all. I am not accustomed like you to four meals a day, and +I have been to bed so often without my supper that once more does not +trouble me.”</p> + +<p>“A woman like you is very convenient; she costs nothing,” said Germain, +smiling.</p> + +<p>“I am not a woman,” exclaimed Marie, naïvely, without perceiving the +direction the husbandman’s ideas had taken. “Are you dreaming?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I believe I must be dreaming,” answered Germain. “Perhaps hunger +is making my mind wander.”</p> + +<p>“How greedy you are,” answered she, brightening in her turn. “Well, if +you can’t live five or six hours without eating, have you not game in +your bag and fire to cook it?”</p> + +<p>“By Jove, that’s a good idea! But how about the present to my future +father-in-law?”</p> + +<p>“You have six partridges and a hare! I suppose you do not need all of +them to satisfy your appetite.”</p> + +<p>“But how can we cook them without a spit or andirons. They will be +burned to a cinder!”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” said little Marie; “I warrant that I can cook them for you +under the cinders without a taste of smoke. Have you never caught larks +in the fields, and cooked them between two stones? Oh! that is true—I +keep forgetting that you have never been a shepherd. Come, pluck the +partridge. Not so hard! You will tear the skin.”</p> + +<p>“You might be plucking the other to show me how!”</p> + +<p>“Then you wish to eat two? What an ogre you are! They are all plucked. I +am going to cook them.”</p> + +<p>“You would make a perfect little sutler’s girl, Marie, but unhappily you +have no canteen, and I shall have to drink water from this pool!”</p> + +<p>“You would like some wine, would you not? Possibly you might prefer +coffee. You imagine yourself under the trees at the fair. Call out the +host. Some wine for the good husbandman of Belair!”</p> + +<p>“You little witch, you are making fun of me! Would not you drink some +wine if you had it?”</p> + +<p>“I? At Mother Rebec’s, with you to-night, I drank some for the second +time in my life. But if you are very good, I shall give you a bottle +almost full, and excellent too.”</p> + +<p>“What? Marie, I verily believe you are a witch!”</p> + +<p>“Were you not foolish enough to ask for two bottles of wine at the inn? +You and your boy drank one, and the other you set before me. I hardly +drank three drops, yet you paid for both without looking.”</p> + +<p>“What then?”</p> + +<p>“Why, I put the full one in my basket, because I thought that you or +your child would be thirsty on the journey. And here it is.”</p> + +<p>“You are the most thoughtful girl I have ever met. Although the poor +child was crying when we left the inn, that did not prevent her from +thinking of others more than of herself. Little Marie, the man who +marries you will be no fool.”</p> + +<p>“I hope not, for I am not fond of fools. Come, eat up your partridges; +they are done to a turn; and for want of bread, you must be satisfied +with chestnuts.”</p> + +<p>“Where the deuce did you find chestnuts, too?”</p> + +<p>“It is extraordinary! All along the road I picked them off the branches +as we went along, and filled my pockets.”</p> + +<p>“And are they cooked, too?”</p> + +<p>“Where would my wits have been had I not had sense enough to put the +chestnuts in the fire as soon as it was lighted? That is the way we +always do in the fields.”</p> + +<p>“So we are going to take supper together, little Marie. I want to +drink your health and wish you a good husband, just the sort of a man +that will suit you. Tell me what kind you want.”</p> + +<p>“I should find that very difficult, Germain, for I have not thought +about it yet.”</p> + +<p>“What, not at all? Never?” said Germain, as he began to eat with a +laborer’s appetite, yet stopping to cut off the more tender morsels for +his companion, who persisted in refusing them and contented herself with +a few chestnuts.</p> + +<p>“Tell me, little Marie,” he went on, seeing that she had no intention +of answering him, “have you never thought of marrying? Yet you are old +enough?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” she said, “but I am too poor. I need at least a hundred +crowns to marry, and I must work five or six years to scrape them +together.”</p> + +<p>“Poor girl, I wish Father Maurice were willing to give me a hundred +crowns to make you a present of.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you kindly, Germain. What do you suppose people would say of me?”</p> + +<p>“What do you wish them to say of you? They know very well that I am too +old to marry you. They would never believe that I—that you—”</p> + +<p>“Look, Germain, your child is waking up,” said little Marie.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_viii"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_viii.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Evening Prayer</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">Petit-Pierre had raised his head and was looking about him with a +thoughtful air.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that is the way he always does, whenever he hears the sound of +eating,” said Germain. “The explosion of a cannon would not rouse him, +but if you work your jaws near him, he opens his eyes at once.”</p> + +<p>“You must have been just like him at his age,” said little Marie, with +a sly smile. “See! my Petit-Pierre, you are looking for your canopy. +To-night it is made all of green, my child; but your father eats his +supper none the less. Do you wish to sup with him? I have not eaten your +share; I thought that you might claim it.”</p> + +<p>“Marie, I wish you to eat,” cried the husbandman; “I shall not touch +another morsel. I am a greedy glutton. You are depriving yourself for +our sake. It is not fair. I am ashamed. It takes away all my appetite. I +will not have my son eat his supper unless you take some too.”</p> + +<p>“Leave us alone,” said little Marie; “you have not the key to our +appetites. Mine is tight shut to-day, but your Pierre’s is as wide open +as a little wolf’s. Just see how he seizes his food. He will be a strong +workman too, some day!”</p> + +<p>In truth, Petit-Pierre showed very soon whose son he was, and though +scarcely awake and wholly at a loss to know where he was and how he +had come there, he began to eat ravenously. As soon as his hunger was +appeased, feeling excited as children do who break loose from their +wonted habits, he had more wit, more curiosity, and more good sense than +usual. He made them explain to him where he was, and when he found that +he was in the midst of a forest, he grew a little frightened.</p> + +<p>“Are there wicked beasts in this forest?” he demanded of his father.</p> + +<p>“No, none at all. Don’t be afraid.”</p> + +<p>“Then you told a story when you said that if I went with you into the +great forest, the wolves would carry me off.”</p> + +<p>“Just see this logician,” said Germain, embarrassed.</p> + +<p>“He is right,” replied little Marie. “That is what you told him. He has +a good memory, and has not forgotten. But, little Pierre, you must learn +that your father never tells a story. We passed through the big forest +whilst you were sleeping, and now we are in the small forest where there +are no wicked beasts.”</p> + +<p>“Is the little forest very far away from the big one?”</p> + +<p>“Far enough; besides, the wolves never go out of the big forest. And +then, if some of them should come here, your father would kill them.”</p> + +<p>“And you too, little Marie?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, we, too, for you would help also, my Pierre. You are not +frightened, are you? You would beat them soundly?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed, I would,” said the child, proudly, as he struck a heroic +attitude; “we would kill them.”</p> + +<p>“There is nobody like you for talking to children and for making them +listen to reason,” said Germain to little Marie. “To be sure, it is +not long ago since you were a small child yourself, and you have not +forgotten what your mother used to say to you. I believe that the +younger one is, the better one gets on with children. I am very much +afraid that a woman of thirty who does not yet know what it is to be a +mother, would find it hard to prattle to children and reason with them.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Germain? I don’t know why you have such a bad idea of this woman; +you will change your mind.”</p> + +<p>“The devil take the woman!” exclaimed Germain. “I wish I were going away +from her forever. What do I want of a wife whom I don’t know?”</p> + +<p>“Little father,” said the child, “why is it that you speak so much of +your wife to-day, since she is dead?”</p> + +<p>“Then you have not forgotten your poor, dear mother?”</p> + +<p>“No; for I saw her placed in a beautiful box of white wood, and my +grandmother led me up to her to kiss her and say good-by. She was very +white and very stiff, and every evening my aunt made me pray God that +she might go to him in Heaven and be warm. Do you think that she is +there now?”</p> + +<p>“I hope so, my child; but you must always pray. It shows your mother +that you love her.”</p> + +<p>“I am going to say my prayers,” answered the boy. “I forgot them +to-night. But I can’t say them all alone, for I always forget something. +Little Marie must help me.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my Pierre, I will help you,” said the young girl. “Come and kneel +down in my lap.”</p> + +<p>The child knelt down on the girl’s skirt. He clasped his little hands +and began to say his prayers, at first with great care and earnestness, +for he knew the beginning very well, then slowly and with more +hesitation, and finally repeating word by word after Marie, when he came +to that place in his prayer where sleep overtook him so invariably that +he had never been able to learn the end. This time again the effort of +close attention and the monotony of his own accent produced their wonted +effect. He pronounced the last syllables with great difficulty, and only +after they were thrice repeated.</p> + +<p>His head grew heavy and fell on Marie’s breast; his hands unclasped, +divided, and fell open on his knees. By the light of the camp-fire, +Germain watched his little darling hushed at the heart of the young +girl, who, as she held him in her arms and warmed his fair hair with +her sweet breath, had herself fallen into a holy reverie, and prayed in +quiet for the soul of Catherine.</p> + +<p>Germain was touched. He tried to express to little Marie the grateful +esteem which he felt for her, but he could find no fitting words.</p> + +<p>He approached her to kiss his son, whom she held close to her breast, +and he could scarcely raise his lips from little Pierre’s brow.</p> + +<p>“You kiss too hard,” said Marie, gently pushing away the husbandman’s +head. “You will wake him. Let me put him back to bed, for the boy has +left us already for dreams of paradise.”</p> + +<p>The child allowed Marie to lay him down, but feeling the goatskin on the +saddle, he asked if he were on the gray. Then opening his big blue eyes, +and keeping them fixed on the branches for a minute, he seemed to be +dreaming, wide-awake as he was, or to be struck with an idea which had +slipped his mind during the daytime, and only assumed a distinct form at +the approach of sleep.</p> + +<p>“Little father,” said he, “if you wish to give me a new mother, I hope +it will be little Marie.”</p> + +<p>And without waiting for an answer, he closed his eyes and slept.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_ix"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_ix.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="IX"></a>IX</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Despite the Cold</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">Little Marie seemed to give no more heed to the child’s odd words than +to regard them as a proof of friendship. She wrapped him up with care, +stirred the fire, and as the fog resting on the neighboring pool gave +no sign of lifting, she advised Germain to lie near the fire and take a +nap.</p> + +<p>“I see that you are sleepy already,” said she, “for you don’t say a word +and you gaze into the fire, just as your little boy was doing.”</p> + +<p>“It is you who must sleep,” answered the husbandman, “and I will take +care of both of you, for I have never felt less sleepy than I do now. I +have fifty things to think of.”</p> + +<p>“Fifty is a great many,” said the little girl, with a mocking accent. +“There are lots of people who would be delighted to have one.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if I am too stupid to have fifty, I have one, at least, which has +not left me for the past hour.”</p> + +<p>“And I shall tell it to you as well as I told you those you thought of +before.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, do tell me if you know, Marie. Tell me yourself. I shall be glad +to hear.”</p> + +<p>“An hour ago,” she answered, “your idea was to eat—and now it is to +sleep.”</p> + +<p>“Marie, I am only an ox-driver, but, upon my word, you take me for an +ox. You are very perverse, and it is easy to see that you do not care to +talk to me, so go to sleep. That will be better than to pick flaws in a +man who is out of sorts.”</p> + +<p>“If you wish to talk, let’s talk,” said the girl, half reclining +near the child and resting her head against the saddle. “You torment +yourself, Germain, and you do not show much courage for a man. What +wouldn’t I say if I didn’t do my best to fight my own troubles?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s very true, and that’s just what I am thinking of, my +poor child. You are going to live, away from your friends, in a horrid +country full of moors and fens, where you will catch the autumn fevers. +Sheep do not pay well there, and this is always discouraging for a +shepherdess if she means well. Then you will be surrounded by strangers +who may not be kind to you and will not know how much you are worth. It +makes me more sorry than I can tell you, and I have a great desire to +take you home to your mother instead of going on to Fourche.”</p> + +<p>“You talk very kindly, but there is no reason for your misgivings, my +poor Germain. You ought not to lose heart on your friend’s account, and +instead of showing me the dark side of my lot, you should show me the +bright side, as you did after lunch at Rebec’s.”</p> + +<p>“What can I do? That’s the way it appeared to me then, and now my ideas +are changed. It is best for you to take a husband.”</p> + +<p>“That cannot be, Germain, and as it is out of the question, I think no +more about it.”</p> + +<p>“Yet such a thing might happen. Perhaps if you told me what kind of a +man you want, I might imagine somebody.”</p> + +<p>“Imagining is not finding. For myself, I never imagine, for it does no +good.”</p> + +<p>“You are not looking for a rich man?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not, for I am as poor as Job.”</p> + +<p>“But if he were comfortably off, you wouldn’t be sorry to have a good +house, and good food, and good clothes, and to live with an honest +family who would allow you to help your mother.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes indeed! It is my own wish to help my mother.”</p> + +<p>“And if this man were to turn up, you would not be too hard to please, +even if he were not so very young.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! There you must excuse me, Germain. That is just the point I insist +on. I could never love an old man.”</p> + +<p>“An old man, of course not; but a man of my age, for example!”</p> + +<p>“Your age is too old for me, Germain. I should like Bastien’s age, +though Bastien is not so good-looking as you.”</p> + +<p>“Should you rather have Bastien, the swineherd?” said Germain, +indignantly. “A fellow with eyes shaped like those of the pigs he +drives!”</p> + +<p>“I could excuse his eyes, because he is eighteen.”</p> + +<p>Germain felt terribly jealous.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said he, “it’s clear that you want Bastien, but, none the less, +it’s a queer idea.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that would be a queer idea,” answered little Marie, bursting into +shouts of laughter, “and he would make a queer husband. You could gull +him to your heart’s content. For instance, the other day, I had picked +up a tomato in the curate’s garden. I told him that it was a fine, red +apple, and he bit into it like a glutton. If you had only seen what a +face he made. Heavens! how ugly he was!”</p> + +<p>“Then you don’t love him, since you are making fun of him.”</p> + +<p>“That wouldn’t be a reason. But I don’t like him. He is unkind to his +little sister, and he is dirty.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you care for anybody else?”</p> + +<p>“How does that concern you, Germain?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all, except that it gives me +something to talk about. I see very well, little girl, that you have a +sweetheart in your mind already.”</p> + +<p>“No, Germain, you’re wrong. I have no sweetheart yet. Perhaps one may +come later, but since I cannot marry until I have something laid by, I +am destined to marry late in life and with an old man.”</p> + +<p>“Then take an +old man without delay.”</p> + +<p>“No. When I am no longer young, I shall not +care; for the present, it is different.”</p> + +<p>“I see that I displease you, +Marie; that’s clear enough,” said Germain, impatiently, and without +stopping to weigh his words.</p> + +<p>Little Marie did not answer. Germain bent over her. She was sleeping. +She had fallen back, overcome, stricken down, as it were, by slumber, as +children are who sleep before they cease to babble.</p> + +<p>Germain was glad that she had not caught his last words. He felt that +they were unwise, and he turned his back to distract his attention and +change his thoughts.</p> + +<p>It was all in vain. He could neither sleep nor think of anything except +the words he had just spoken. He walked about the fire twenty times; he +moved away; he came back. At last, feeling himself tremble as though he +had swallowed gunpowder, he leaned against the tree which sheltered the +two children, and watched them as they slept.</p> + +<p>“I know not how it is,” thought he; “I have never noticed that little +Marie is the prettiest girl in the countryside. She has not much color, +but her little face is fresh as a wild rose. What a charming mouth she +has, and how pretty her little nose is! She is not large for her age, +but she is formed like a little quail and is as light as a bird. I +cannot understand why they made so much fuss at home over a big, fat +woman with a bright red face. My wife was rather slender and pale, and +she pleased me more than any one else. This girl is very frail, but she +is healthy, and she is pretty to watch as a white kid. And then she has +such a gentle, frank expression. You can read her good heart in her eyes +even though they are closed in sleep. As to wit, I must confess she +has more than ever my dear Catherine had, and she would never become +wearisome. She is gay, wise, industrious, loving, and she is amusing. I +don’t know what more I could wish for....</p> + +<p>“But what is the use of thinking of all this?” Germain went on, trying +to look in another direction. “My father-in-law would not hear of it, +and all the family would think me mad! Besides, she would not have +me herself, poor child! She thinks me too old; she told me so. She is +unselfish, and does not mind poverty and worry, wearing old clothes, and +suffering from hunger for two or three months every year, so long as she +can satisfy her heart some day and give herself to the man she loves. +She is right. I should do the same in her place, and even now, if I had +my own way, instead of marrying a wife whom I don’t care for, I would +choose a girl after my own heart.”</p> + +<p>The more Germain tried to compose himself by reasoning, the further he +was from succeeding. He walked away a dozen steps, to lose himself in +the fog; then, all of a sudden, he found himself on his knees beside the +two sleeping children. Once he wished to kiss Petit-Pierre, who had +one arm about Marie’s neck, and made such a mistake that Marie felt a +breath, hot as fire, cross her lips, and awaking, looked about her with +a bewildered expression, totally ignorant of all that was passing within +his mind.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t see you, my poor children,” said Germain, retreating rapidly. +“I almost stumbled over you and hurt you.”</p> + +<p>Little Marie was so innocent that she believed him, and fell asleep +again. Germain walked to the opposite side of the fire, and swore to God +that he would not stir until she had waked. He kept his word, but not +without a struggle. He thought that he would go mad.</p> + +<p>At length, toward midnight, the fog lifted, and Germain could see the +stars shining through the trees. The moon freed herself from the mist +which had hidden her, and began to sow her diamonds over the damp moss. +The trunks of the oak-trees remained in impressive darkness, but beyond, +the white branches of the birch-trees seemed a long line of phantoms in +their shrouds. The fire cast its reflection in the pool; and the frogs, +growing accustomed to the light, hazarded a few shrill and uneasy +notes; the rugged branches of the old trees, bristling with dim-colored +lichens, crossed and intertwined themselves, like great gaunt arms, +above the travelers’ heads. It was a lovely spot, but so lonely and +so sad that Germain, unable to endure it more, began to sing and throw +stones into the water to forget the dread weariness of solitude. He was +anxious also to wake little Marie, and when he saw her rise and look +about at the weather, he proposed that they start on their journey.</p> + +<p>“In two hours,” said he, “the approach of morning will chill the air so +that we can’t stay here in spite of our fire. Now we can see our way, +and we shall soon find a house which will open its doors to us, or at +least a barn where we can pass the rest of the night under shelter.”</p> + +<p>Marie had no will of her own, and although she was longing to sleep, she +made ready to follow Germain. The husbandman took his boy in his arms +without awaking him, and beckoned Marie to come nearer, in order to +cover her with his cloak. For she would not take her own mantle, which +was wrapped about the child.</p> + +<p>When he felt the young girl so close to him, Germain, who for a time had +succeeded in distracting his mind and raising his spirits, began to lose +his head once more. Two or three times he strode ahead abruptly, leaving +her to walk alone. Then seeing how hard it was for her to follow, he +waited, drew her quickly to his side, and pressed her so tight that she +was surprised, and even angry, though she dared not say so.</p> + +<p>As they knew not the direction whence they had come, they had no idea of +that in which they were going. So they crossed the wood once more, and +found themselves afresh before the lonely moor. Then they retraced their +steps, and after much turning and twisting they spied a light across the +branches.</p> + +<p>“Good enough! Here’s a house,” exclaimed Germain. “And the people are +already astir, for the fire is lighted. It must be very late.”</p> + +<p>It was no house, but the camp-fire, which they had covered before they +left, and which had sprung up in the breeze.</p> + +<p>They had tramped for two hours, only to find themselves at the very +place from which they had started.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_x"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_x.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="X"></a>X</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Beneath the Stars</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">“This time I give up,” said Germain, stamping his foot. “We are +bewitched, that is certain, and we shall not get away from here before +broad day. The devil is in this place!”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s of no use to get angry,” said Marie. “We must take what is +given us. Let us make a big fire. The child is so well wrapped up that +he is in no danger, and we shall not die from a single night out of +doors. Where have you hidden the saddle, Germain? Right in the midst of +the holly-bushes,—what a goose you are! It’s very convenient to get it +from there!”</p> + +<p>“Stop, child; hold the boy while I pull his bed from the thorns. I didn’t +want you to scratch your hands.”</p> + +<p>“It’s all done. Here’s the bed, and a few scratches are not +saber-cuts,” replied the brave girl.</p> + +<p>She proceeded to put the child to bed again, and Petit-Pierre was so +sound asleep this time that he knew nothing of his last journey. Germain +piled so much wood on the fire that the forest all about glowed with the +light.</p> + +<p>Little Marie had come to the end of her powers, and although she did not +complain, her legs would support her no longer. She was white, and her +teeth chattered with cold and weakness. Germain took her in his arms to +warm her. The uneasiness, the compassion, the tenderness of movement he +could not repress, took possession of his heart and stilled his senses. +As by a miracle his tongue was loosened, and every feeling of shame +vanished.</p> + +<p>“Marie,” said he, “I like you, and I am very sorry that you don’t like +me. If you would take me for your husband, there are no fathers, nor +family, nor neighbors, nor arguments which could prevent me from giving +myself to you. I know how happy you would make my children, and that you +would teach them to love the memory of their mother, and with a quiet +conscience I could satisfy the wishes of my heart. I have always been +fond of you, and now I love you so well that were you to ask me to +spend all my life in doing your pleasure, I would swear to do it on the +instant. Please think how much I love you, and try to forget my age. +Think that it is a wrong notion to believe that a man of thirty is old. +Besides, I am but twenty-eight. A young girl is afraid that people will +talk about her if she takes a man ten or twelve years older than she, +simply because that is not the custom in our country, but I have heard +say that in other countries people don’t look at it in this light, and +that they had rather allow a sensible man of approved courage to support +a young girl, than trust her to a mere boy, who may go astray, and, from +the honest fellow they thought him, turn into a good-for-nothing. +And then years don’t always make age. That depends on the health and +strength a person has. When a man is used up by overwork and poverty, +or by a bad life, he is old before twenty-five. While I—but Marie, +you are not listening....”</p> + +<p>“Yes I am, Germain; I hear you perfectly,” +answered little Marie, “but I am thinking over what my mother used to +tell me so often: that a woman of sixty is to be pitied greatly when +her husband is seventy or seventy-five and can no longer work to support +her. He grows feeble, and it becomes her duty to nurse him at the very +age when she begins to feel great need of care and rest herself, and so +it is that the end comes in a garret.”</p> + +<p>“Parents do well to say so, I admit,” answered Germain, “but then +they would sacrifice all their youth, the best years of their life, +to calculating what will become of them at the age when a person is no +longer good for anything, and when it is a matter of indifference which +way death comes. But I am in no danger of starving in my old age. I am +even going to lay by something, since I live with my wife’s parents and +spend nothing. And then, you see, I shall love you so well that I can +never grow old. They say that when a man is happy he keeps sound, and I +know well that in love for you, I am younger than Bastien; for he does +not love you; he is too stupid, too much of a child to understand how +pretty and how good you are, and how you were made for people to court. +Do not hate me, Marie. I am not a bad man. I made my Catherine happy, +and on her death-bed she swore before God that she had had only +happiness of me, and she asked me to marry again. Her spirit must have +spoken to her child to-night. Did you not hear the words he said? How +his little lips quivered as his eyes stared upward, watching something +that we could not see! He was surely looking at his mother, and it was +she who made him say that he wished you to take her place.”</p> + +<p>“Germain,” answered Marie, amazed and yet thoughtful, “you speak +frankly, and everything that you say is true. I am sure that I should do +well to love you if it did not displease your parents too much. But what +can I do? My heart does not speak for you. I am very fond of you, but +though your age does not make you ugly, it makes me afraid. It seems as +if you were some such relation to me, as an uncle or a godfather, that I +must be respectful toward you, and that there might be moments when you +would treat me like a little girl rather than like your wife and your +equal. And perhaps my friends would make fun of me, and although it +would be silly to give heed to that, I think that I should be a little +sad on my wedding-day.”</p> + +<p>“Those are but childish reasons, Marie; you speak like a child.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that is true; I am a child,” said she, “and it is on that account +I am afraid of too sensible a man. You must see that I am too young for +you, since you just found fault with me for speaking foolishly. I can’t +have more sense than my age allows.”</p> + +<p>“O Heavens! How unlucky I am to be so clumsy and to express so ill what +I think!” cried Germain. “Marie, you don’t love me. That is the long +and short of it. You find me too simple and too dull. If you loved me +at all, you would not see my faults so clearly. But you do not love me. +That is the whole story.”</p> + +<p>“That is not my fault,” answered she, a little hurt that he was speaking +with less tenderness. “I am doing my best to hear you, but the more I +try the less I can get it into my head that we ought to be husband and +wife.”</p> + +<p>Germain did not answer. His head dropped into his hands, and little +Marie could not tell whether he wept or sulked or was fast asleep. She +felt uneasy when she saw him so cast down, and could not guess what was +passing in his mind. But she dared not speak to him more, and as she +was too astonished at what had passed to have any desire to sleep, she +waited impatiently for dawn, tending the fire with care and watching +over the child, whose existence Germain appeared to forget. Yet Germain +was not asleep. He did not mope over his lot. He made no plans to +encourage himself, nor schemes to entrap the girl. He suffered; he felt +a great weight of grief at his heart. He wished that he were dead. The +world seemed to turn against him, and if he could have wept at all, his +tears would have come in floods. But mingled with his sorrow there was a +feeling of anger against himself, and he felt choked, without the power +or the wish to complain.</p> + +<p>When morning came, and the sounds of the country brought it to Germain’s +senses, he lifted his head from his hands and rose. He saw that little +Marie had slept no more than he, but he knew no words in which to tell +her of his anxiety. He was very discouraged. Hiding the gray’s saddle +once more in the thicket, he slung his sack over his shoulder and took +his son by the hand.</p> + +<p>“Now, Marie,” said he, “we are going to try to end our journey. Do you +wish me to take you to Ormeaux?”</p> + +<p>“Let us leave the woods together,” answered she, “and when we know where +we are, we shall separate, and go our different ways.”</p> + +<p>Germain did not answer. He felt hurt that the girl did not ask him to +take her as far as Ormeaux, and he did not notice that he had asked her +in a tone well fitted to provoke a refusal.</p> + +<p>After a few hundred steps, they met a wood-cutter, who pointed out the +highroad, and told them that when they had crossed the plain, one +must turn to the right, the other to the left, to gain their different +destinations, which were so near together that the houses of Fourche +were in plain sight from the farm of Ormeaux, and <i>vice versa</i>.</p> + +<p>When they had thanked him and passed on, the wood-cutter called them +back to ask whether they had not lost a horse.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “I found a pretty gray mare in my yard, where perhaps a +wolf had driven her to seek refuge; my dogs barked the whole night long, +and at daybreak I saw the mare under my shed. She is there now. Come +along with me, and if you recognize her, you may take her.”</p> + +<p>When Germain had given a description of the gray, and felt convinced +that it was really she, he started back to find his saddle. Little Marie +offered to take his child to Ormeaux, whither he might go to get him +after he had introduced himself at Fourche.</p> + +<p>“He is rather dirty after the night that we have passed,” said she. “I +will brush his clothes, wash his pretty face, and comb his hair, and +when he looks neat and clean, you can present him to your new family.”</p> + +<p>“Who told you that I wish to go to Fourche?” answered Germain, +petulantly. “Perhaps I shall not go.”</p> + +<p>“But truly, Germain, it is your duty to go there. You will go there,” +replied the girl.</p> + +<p>“You seem very anxious to have me married off, so that you may be quite +sure that I shall not trouble you again?”</p> + +<p>“Germain, you must not think of that any more. It is an idea which came +to you in the night, because this unfortunate mishap took away your +spirits. But now you must come to your senses. I promise you to forget +everything that you said to me, and not to breathe it to a soul.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, say what you wish. It is not my custom to deny what I have spoken. +What I told you was true and honest, and I shall not blush for it before +anybody.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but if your wife were to know that just before you came you were +thinking of another woman, it would prejudice her against you. So take +care how you speak now. Don’t look at me before everybody with such a +rapt expression. Think of Father Maurice, who relies on your obedience, +and who would be enraged at me if I were to turn you from his will. +Good-by, Germain. I take Petit-Pierre in order to force you to go to +Fourche. He is a pledge which I keep on your behalf.”</p> + +<p>“So you want to go with her?” said the husbandman to his son, seeing +that the boy had clasped Marie’s hands and was following her resolutely.</p> + +<p>“Yes, father,” answered the child, who had heard the conversation and +understood after his own fashion the words spoken so unguardedly before +him. “I am going away with my dearest little Marie. You shall come to +find me when you have done marrying, but I wish Marie to be my little +mother.”</p> + +<p>“You see how much he wishes it,” said Germain to the girl. “Listen to +me, Petit-Pierre,” he added. “I wish her to be your mother and to stay +with you always. It is she who does not wish to. Try to make her grant +you what she has denied me.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be afraid, father, I shall make her say yes. Little Marie does +everything that I wish.”</p> + +<p>He walked away with the young girl. Germain stood alone, sadder and more +irresolute than ever.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_xi"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_xi.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="XI"></a>XI</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Belle of the Village</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">And after all, when he had brushed the dust of travel from his clothes +and from his horse’s harness, when he had mounted the gray, and when he +had learned the road, he felt that there was no retreat and that he must +forget that anxious night as though it had been a dangerous dream.</p> + +<p>He found Father Leonard seated on a trim bench of spinach-green. The six +stone steps leading up to the door showed that the house had a cellar. +The walls of the garden and of the hemp-field were plastered with lime +and sand. It was a handsome house, and might almost have been mistaken +for the dwelling of a bourgeois.</p> + +<p>Germain’s future father-in-law came forward to meet him, and having +plied him, for five minutes, with questions concerning his entire +family, he added that conventional phrase with which one passer-by +addresses another concerning the object of his journey: “So you are +taking a little trip in this part of the country?”</p> + +<p>“I have come to see you,” replied the husbandman, “to give you this +little present of game with my father’s compliments, and to tell you +from him that you ought to know with what intentions I come to your +house.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, ho!” said Father Leonard, laughing and tapping his capacious +stomach, “I see, I understand, I am with you, and,” he added with a +wink, “you will not be the only one to pay your court, young man. There +are three already in the house dancing attendance like you. I never turn +anybody away, and I should find it hard to say yes or no to any of them, +for they are all good matches. Yet, on account of Father Maurice and for +the sake of the rich fields you till, I hope that it may be you. But my +daughter is of age and mistress of her own affairs. She will do as +she likes. Go in and introduce yourself. I hope that you will draw the +prize.”</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” answered Germain, amazed to find himself an extra +when he had counted on being alone in the field. “I was not aware that +your daughter was supplied already with suitors, and I did not come to +quarrel over her.”</p> + +<p>“If you supposed that because you were slow in coming, my daughter would +be left unprovided for, you were greatly mistaken, my son,” replied +Father Leonard with unshaken good humor. “Catherine has the wherewithal +to attract suitors, and her only difficulty lies in choosing. But come +in; don’t lose heart. The woman is worth a struggle.”</p> + +<p>And pushing in Germain by the shoulders with boisterous gaiety, he +called to his daughter as they entered the house:</p> + +<p>“So, Catherine, here is another!”</p> + +<p>This cordial but unmannerly method of introduction to the widow, in +the presence of her other devotees, completed Germain’s distress and +embarrassment. He felt the awkwardness of his position, and stood for a +few moments without daring to look upon the beauty and her court.</p> + +<p>The Widow Guérin had a good figure and did not lack freshness, but her +expression and her dress displeased Germain the instant he saw her. +She had a bold, self-satisfied look, and her cap, edged with three lace +flounces, her silk apron, and her fichu of fine black lace were little +in accord with the staid and sober widow he had pictured to himself.</p> + +<p>Her elaborate dress and forward manners inclined Germain to judge the +widow old and ugly, although she was certainly not either. He thought +that such finery and playful manners might well suit little Marie’s +years and wit, but that the widow’s fun was labored and over bold, and +that she wore her fine clothes in bad taste.</p> + +<p>The three suitors were seated at a table loaded with wines and meats +which were spread out for their use throughout the Sunday morning; for +Father Leonard liked to show off his wealth, and the widow was not sorry +to display her pretty china and keep a table like a rich lady. Germain, +simple and unsuspecting as he was, watched everything with a penetrating +glance, and for the first time in his life he kept on the defensive when +he drank. Father Leonard obliged him to sit down with his rivals, and +taking a chair opposite he treated him with great politeness, and talked +to him rather than to the others.</p> + +<p>The present of game, despite the breach Germain had made on his own +account, was still plenteous enough to produce its effect. The widow +did not look unaware of its presence, and the suitors cast disdainful +glances in its direction.</p> + +<p>Germain felt ill at ease in this company, and did not eat heartily. +Father Leonard poked fun at him.</p> + +<p>“You look very melancholy,” said he, “and you are ill-using your glass. +You must not allow love to spoil your appetite, for a fasting lover can +make no such pretty speeches as he whose ideas are brightened with a +drop of wine.”</p> + +<p>Germain was mortified at being thought already in love, and the +artificial manner of the widow, who kept lowering her eyes with a +smile as a woman does who is sure of her calculations, made him long to +protest against his pretended surrender; but fearing to appear uncivil, +he smiled and held his peace.</p> + +<p>He thought the widow’s beaus, three bumpkins. They must have been rich +for her to admit of their pretensions. One was over forty, and fat as +Father Leonard; another had lost an eye, and drank like a sot. The +third was a young fellow, and nice-looking too; but he kept insisting on +displaying his wit, and would say things so silly that they were +painful to hear. Yet the widow laughed as though she admired all his +foolishness, and made small proof of her good taste thereby. At first +Germain thought her infatuated with him, but soon he perceived that +he himself was especially encouraged, and that they wished him to make +fresh advances. For this reason he felt an increasing stiffness and +severity which he took no pains to conceal.</p> + +<p>The time came for mass, and they rose from table to go thither in +company. It was necessary to walk as far as Mers, a good half-league +away, and Germain was so tired that he longed to take a nap before they +went; but he was not in the habit of missing mass, and he started with +the others.</p> + +<p>The roads were filled with people, and the widow marched proudly along, +escorted by her three suitors, taking an arm, first of one and then of +another, and carrying her head high with an air of importance. She was +eager to display the fourth to the eyes of the passers-by; but Germain +felt so ridiculous to be dragged along in the train of a petticoat +where all the world might see, that he kept at a respectable distance, +chatting with Father Leonard, and succeeded in occupying his attention +so well that they did not look at all as if they belonged to the party.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_xii"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_xii.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="XII"></a>XII</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Master</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">When they reached the village, the widow halted to allow them to catch +up. She was bent upon making her entry with all her train; but Germain, +denying her this pleasure, deserted Father Leonard, and after conversing +with several acquaintances, he entered the church by another door. The +widow was vexed.</p> + +<p>When mass was over, she made her appearance in triumph on the lawn, +where dancing was going on, and she began her dance with her three +lovers in turn. Germain watched her and saw that she danced well, but +with affectation.</p> + +<p>“So, you don’t ask my daughter?” said Leonard, tapping him on the +shoulder. “You are too easily frightened.”</p> + +<p>“I have not danced since I lost my wife,” answered the husbandman.</p> + +<p>“But now that you are looking for another, mourning’s over in heart as +well as in clothes.”</p> + +<p>“That’s no reason, Father Leonard. Besides, I am too old and I don’t +care for dancing.”</p> + +<p>“Listen,” said Father Leonard, drawing him toward a retired corner, +“when you entered my house you were vexed to see the place already +besieged, and I see that you are very proud. But that is not reasonable, +my boy. My daughter is used to a great deal of attention, particularly +since she left off her mourning two years ago, and it is not her place +to lead you on.”</p> + +<p>“Has your daughter been thinking of marrying for two years already +without making her choice?” asked Germain.</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t wish to hurry, and she is right. Although she has lively +manners, and although you may not think that she reflects a great deal, +she is a woman of excellent common sense, and knows very well what she +is about.”</p> + +<p>“It does not appear to me so,” said Germain ingenuously, “for she has +three suitors in her train, and if she knew her own mind, there are two +of them, at least, whom she would find superfluous and request to stay +at home.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Germain, you don’t understand at all. She doesn’t wish the old +man, nor the blind man, nor the young man, I am quite certain; yet if +she were to turn them off, people would think that she wished to remain +a widow, and nobody else would come.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I see. These three are used for a guide-post.”</p> + +<p>“As you like. What is the harm if they are satisfied?”</p> + +<p>“Every man to his taste,” said Germain.</p> + +<p>“I see that yours is different. Now supposing that you are chosen, then +they would leave the coast clear.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, supposing! and meanwhile how much time should I have to whistle?”</p> + +<p>“That depends on your persuasive tongue, I suppose. Until now, my +daughter has always thought that she would pass the best part of her +life while she was being courted, and she is in no hurry to become the +servant of one man when she can order so many others about. So she will +please herself as long as the game amuses her; but if you please her +more than the game, the game will cease. Only you must not lose courage. +Come back every Sunday, dance with her, let her know that you are +amongst her followers, and if she finds you more agreeable and better +bred than the others, some fine day she will tell you so, no doubt.”</p> + +<p>“Excuse me, Father Leonard. Your daughter has the right to do as she +pleases, and it is not my business to blame her. If I were in her place, +I should do differently. I should be more frank, and should not waste +the time of men who have, doubtless, something better to do than dancing +attendance on a woman who makes fun of them. Still, if that is what +amuses her and makes her happy, it is no affair of mine. Only there is +one thing I must tell you which is a little embarrassing, since you have +mistaken my intentions from the start, for you are so sure of what is +not so, that you have given me no chance to explain. You must know, +then, that I did not come here to ask for your daughter in marriage, but +merely to buy a pair of oxen which you are going to take to market next +week, and which my father-in-law thinks will suit him.”</p> + +<p>“I understand, Germain,” answered Leonard very calmly; “you changed your +plans when you saw my daughter with her admirers. It is as you please. +It seems that what attracts some people repels others, and you +are perfectly welcome to withdraw, for you have not declared your +intentions. If you wish seriously to buy my cattle, come and see them in +the pasture, and whether we make a bargain or not, you will come back to +dinner with us before you return.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t wish to trouble you,” answered Germain. “Perhaps you have +something to do here. I myself am tired of watching the dancing and +standing idle. I will go to see your cattle, and I will soon join you at +your house.”</p> + +<p>Then Germain made his escape, and walked away toward the meadows where +Leonard had pointed out to him some of his cattle. It was true that +Father Maurice intended to buy, and Germain thought that if he were +to bring home a fine pair of oxen at a reasonable price, he might more +easily receive a pardon for wilfully relinquishing the purpose of his +journey. He walked rapidly, and soon found himself at some distance from +Ormeaux. Then of a sudden, he felt a desire to kiss his son and to see +little Marie once again, although he had lost all hope and even had +chased away the thought that he might some day owe his happiness to her. +Everything that he had heard and seen: this woman, flirtatious and vain; +this father, at once shrewd and short-sighted, encouraging his daughter +in habits of pride and untruth; this city luxury, which seemed to him a +transgression against the dignity of country manners; this time wasted +in foolish, empty words; this home so different from his own; and above +all, that deep uneasiness which comes to a laborer of the fields when +he leaves his accustomed toil: all the trouble and annoyance of the past +few hours made Germain long to be with his child and with his little +neighbor. Even had he not been in love, he would have sought her to +divert his mind and raise his spirits to their wonted level.</p> + +<p>But he looked in vain over the neighboring meadows. He saw neither +little Marie nor little Pierre, and yet it was the hour when shepherds +are in the fields. There was a large flock in a pasture. He asked of +a young boy who tended them whether the sheep belonged to the farm of +Ormeaux.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the child.</p> + +<p>“Are you the shepherd? Do boys tend the flocks of the farm, amongst +you?”</p> + +<p>“No, I am taking care of them to-day, because the shepherdess went away. +She was ill.”</p> + +<p>“But have you not a new shepherdess, who came this morning?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, surely; but she, too, has gone already.”</p> + +<p>“What! gone? Did she not have a child with her?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, a little boy who cried. They both went away after they had been +here two hours.”</p> + +<p>“Went away! Where?”</p> + +<p>“Where they came from, I suppose. I didn’t ask them.”</p> + +<p>“But why did they go away?” asked Germain, growing more and more uneasy.</p> + +<p>“How the deuce do I know?”</p> + +<p>“Did they not agree about wages? Yet that must have been settled +before.”</p> + +<p>“I can tell you nothing about it. I saw them come and go, nothing more.”</p> + +<p>Germain walked toward the farm and questioned the farmer. Nobody could +give him an explanation; but after speaking with the farmer, he felt +sure that the girl had gone without saying a word, and had taken the +weeping child with her.</p> + +<p>“Can they have been ill-treating my son?” cried Germain.</p> + +<p>“It was your son, then? How did he happen to be with the little girl? +Where do you come from, and what is your name?”</p> + +<p>Germain, seeing that after the fashion of the country they were +answering him with questions, stamped his foot impatiently, and asked to +speak with the master.</p> + +<p>The master was away. Usually, he did not spend the whole day when he +came to the farm. He was on horseback, and he had ridden off to one of +his other farms.</p> + +<p>“But, honestly,” said Germain, growing very anxious, “can’t you tell me +why this girl left?”</p> + +<p>The farmer and his wife exchanged an odd smile. Then the former answered +that he knew nothing, and that it was no business of his. All that +Germain could learn was that both girl and child had started off toward +Fourche. He rushed back to Fourche. The widow and her lovers were still +away; so was Father Leonard. The maid told him that a girl and a child +had come to ask for him, but that as she did not know them, she did not +wish to let them in, and had advised them to go to Mers.</p> + +<p>“And why did you refuse to let them in?” said Germain, angrily. “People +are very suspicious in this country, where nobody opens the door to a +neighbor.”</p> + +<p>“But you see,” answered the maid, “in a house as rich as this, I +must keep my eyes open. When the master is away, I am responsible for +everything, and I cannot open the door to the first person that comes +along.”</p> + +<p>“It is a bad custom,” said Germain, “and I had rather be poor than +to live in constant fear like that. Good-by to you, young woman, and +good-by to your vile country.”</p> + +<p>He made inquiries at the neighboring house. The shepherdess and child +had been seen. As the boy had left Belair suddenly, carelessly dressed, +with his blouse torn, and his little lambskin over his shoulders, and +as little Marie was necessarily poorly clad at all times, they had been +taken for beggars. People had offered them bread. The girl had accepted +a crust for the child, who was hungry, then she had walked away with him +very quickly, and had entered the forest.</p> + +<p>Germain thought a minute, then he asked whether the farmer of Ormeaux +had not been at Fourche.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” they answered, “he passed on horseback a few seconds after the +girl.”</p> + +<p>“Was he chasing her?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, so you understand?” answered the village publican, with a laugh. +“Certain it is that he is the devil of a fellow for running after girls. +But I don’t believe that he caught her; though, after all, if he had +seen her—”</p> + +<p>“That is enough, thank you!” And he flew rather than ran to Leonard’s +stable. Throwing the saddle on the gray’s back, he leaped upon it, and +set off at full gallop toward the wood of Chanteloube.</p> + +<p>His heart beat hard with fear and anger; the sweat poured down his +forehead; he spurred the mare till the blood came, though the gray +needed no pressing when she felt herself on the road to her stable.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_xiii"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_xiii.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Old Woman</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">Germain came soon to the spot where he had passed the night on the +border of the pool. The fire was smoking still. An old woman was +gathering the remnants of the wood little Marie had piled there. Germain +stopped to question her. She was deaf and mistook his inquiries.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my son,” said she, “this is the Devil’s Pool. It is an evil spot, +and you must not approach it without throwing in three stones with your +left hand, while you cross yourself with the right. That drives away the +spirits. Otherwise trouble comes to those who go around it.”</p> + +<p>“I am not asking about that,” said Germain, moving nearer her, and +screaming at the top of his lungs. “Have you seen a girl and a child +walking through the wood?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the old woman, “a little child was drowned there.”</p> + +<p>Germain shook from head to foot; but happily the hag added:</p> + +<p>“That happened a long time ago. In memory of the accident they raised +a handsome cross there. But one stormy night, the bad spirits threw it +into the water. You can still see one end of it. If anybody were unlucky +enough to pass the night here, he could never find his way out before +daylight. He must walk and walk, and though he went two hundred leagues +into the forest, he must always return to the same place.”</p> + +<p>The peasant’s imagination was aroused in spite of himself, and the +thought of the evils that must come in order that the old woman’s +assertions might be vindicated, took so firm a hold of his mind that he +felt chilled through and through. Hopeless of obtaining more news, he +remounted, and traversed the woods afresh, calling Pierre with all his +might, whistling, cracking his whip, and snapping the branches that the +whole forest might reëcho with the noise of his coming; then he +listened for an answering voice, but he heard no sound save the cowbells +scattered through the glades, and the wild cries of the swine as they +fought over the acorns.</p> + +<p>At length Germain heard behind him the noise of a horse following in +his traces, and a man of middle age, dark, sturdy, and dressed after the +city fashion, called to him to stop. Germain had never seen the farmer +of Ormeaux, but his instinctive rage told him at once that this was +the man. He turned, and eyeing him from head to foot, waited for him to +speak.</p> + +<p>“Have not you seen a young girl of fifteen or sixteen go by with a small +boy?” asked the farmer, with an assumed air of indifference, although he +was evidently ill at ease.</p> + +<p>“What do you want of her?” answered Germain, taking no pains to conceal +his anger.</p> + +<p>“I might tell you that that is none of your business, my friend. But +as I have no reasons for secrecy, I shall tell you that she is a +shepherdess whom I engaged for a year, before I knew her. When I saw +her, she looked too young and frail to work on the farm. I thanked her, +but I wished to pay the expenses of her short journey, and while my back +was turned, she went off in a huff. She was in such a hurry that she +forgot even some of her belongings and her purse, which has certainly +not much in it, probably but a few pennies; but since I was going in +this direction, I hoped to meet her, and give her back the things which +she left behind, as well as what I owe her.”</p> + +<p>Germain had too honest a heart not to pause at hearing a story which, +however unlikely, was not impossible. He fastened his penetrating gaze +on the farmer, who submitted to the examination with a plentiful supply +of impudence or of good faith.</p> + +<p>“I wish to get at the bottom of this matter,” said Germain; “and,” +continued he, suppressing his indignation, “the girl lives in my +village. I know her. She can’t be far away. Let’s ride on together; we +shall find her, no doubt.”</p> + +<p>“You are right,” said the farmer; “let’s move on; but if we do not find +her before we reach the end of this road, I shall give up, for I must +turn off toward Ardentes.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, oh!” thought the peasant, “I shall not part with you, even if I +have to follow you around the Devil’s Pool for twenty-four hours.”</p> + +<p>“Stop,” said Germain suddenly, fixing his eyes on a clump of broom which +waved in a peculiar manner. “Halloa! halloa! Petit Pierre, is that you, +my child?”</p> + +<p>The boy recognized his father’s voice, and came out from the broom +leaping like a young deer; but when he saw Germain in company with the +farmer, he stopped dismayed, and stood irresolute. “Come, my Pierre, +come. It is I,” cried the husbandman, as he leaped from his horse and +ran toward his boy to take him in his arms; “and where is little Marie?”</p> + +<p>“She is hiding there, because she is afraid of that dreadful black man, +and so am I.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t be afraid. I am here. Marie, Marie. It is I.”</p> + +<p>Marie crept toward them, but the moment she saw Germain with the farmer +close behind, she sprang forward, and throwing herself into his arms, +clung to him as a daughter to her father.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my brave Germain!” she cried, “you will defend me. I am not afraid +when you are near.”</p> + +<p>Germain shuddered. He looked at Marie. She was pale; her clothes were +torn by the thorns which had scratched her as she passed, rushing toward +the brake like a stag chased by the hunters. But neither shame nor +despair were in her face.</p> + +<p>“Your master wishes to speak to you,” said he, his eyes fixed on her +features.</p> + +<p>“My master!” she exclaimed fiercely; “that man is no master of mine, and +he never shall be. You, Germain, you are my master. I want you to take +me home with you. I will be your servant for nothing.”</p> + +<p>The farmer advanced, feigning impatience. “Little girl,” said he, “you +left something behind at the farm, which I am bringing back to you.”</p> + +<p>“No, you are not, sir,” answered little Marie. “I didn’t forget +anything, and I have nothing to ask of you.”</p> + +<p>“Listen a moment,” returned the farmer. “It’s I who have something to +tell you. Come with me. Don’t be afraid. It’s only a word or two.”</p> + +<p>“You may say them aloud. I have no secrets with you.”</p> + +<p>“At any rate, do take your money.”</p> + +<p>“My money? You owe me nothing, thank God!”</p> + +<p>“I suspected as much,” said Germain under his breath, “but I don’t care, +Marie. Listen to what he has to say to you, for—I am curious to know. +You can tell me afterward. Go up to his horse. I shall not lose sight of +you.”</p> + +<p>Marie took three steps toward the farmer. He bent over the pommel of his +saddle, and lowering his voice he said:</p> + +<p>“Little girl, here is a bright golden louis for you. Don’t say anything +about it; do you hear? I shall say that I found you too frail to work +on my farm. There will be no more talk about that. I shall be passing by +your house one of these days; and if you have not said anything, I will +give you something more; and then if you are more sensible, you have +only to speak. I will take you home with me, or I will come at dusk and +talk with you in the meadows. What present would you like me to bring +you?”</p> + +<p>“Here, sir, is the present I have for you,” answered little Marie, +aloud, as she threw the golden louis in his face with all her might. “I +thank you heartily, and I beg that if you come anywhere near our house, +you will be good enough to let me know. All the boys in the neighborhood +will go out to welcome you, because, where I live, we are very fond of +gentlemen who try to make love to poor girls. You shall see. They will +be on the lookout for you.”</p> + +<p>“You lie with your dirty tongue,” cried the farmer, raising his stick +with a dangerous air. “You wish to make people believe what is not so, +but you shall never get a penny out of me. We know what kind of a girl +you are.”</p> + +<p>Marie drew back, frightened, and Germain sprang to the bridle of the +farmer’s horse and shook it violently.</p> + +<p>“I understand now,” said he; “it is easy to see what is going on. Get +down, my man, get down; I want to talk to you.”</p> + +<p>The farmer was not eager to take up the quarrel. Anxious to escape, +he set spurs to his horse and tried to loosen the peasant’s grasp by +striking down his hands with a cane; but Germain dodged the blow, and +seizing hold of his antagonist’s leg, he unseated him and flung him +to the earth. The farmer regained his feet, but although he defended +himself vigorously, he was knocked down once more. Germain held him to +the ground. Then he said:</p> + +<p>“Poor coward, I could thrash you if I wished. But I don’t want to do +you an injury, and, besides, no amount of punishment would help your +conscience—but you shall not stir from this spot until you beg the +girl’s pardon, on your knees.”</p> + +<p>The farmer understood this sort of thing, and wished to take it all as a +joke. He made believe that his offense was not serious, since it lay +in words alone, and protested that he was perfectly willing to ask her +pardon, provided he might kiss the girl afterward. Finally, he proposed +that they go and drink a pint of wine at the nearest tavern, and so part +good friends.</p> + +<p>“You are disgusting!” answered Germain, rubbing his victim’s head in the +dirt, “and I never wish to see your nasty face again. So blush, if you +are able, and when you come to our village, you had better slink along +Sneak’s Alley.”<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>He picked up the farmer’s holly-stick, broke it over his knee to show +the strength of his wrists, and threw away the pieces with disgust. Then +giving one hand to his son and the other to little Marie, he walked +away, still trembling with anger.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> This is the road, which, diverging from the principal street at the +entrance of villages, makes a circuit about them. Persons who are in +dread of receiving some well deserved insult, are supposed to take this +route to escape attention.</p> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_xiv"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_xiv.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Return to the Farm</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">At the end of fifteen minutes they had left the heath behind them. +They trotted along the highroad, and the gray whinnied at each familiar +object. Petit-Pierre told his father as much as he could understand of +what had passed.</p> + +<p>“When we reached the farm,” said he, “that man came to speak to my Marie +in the fold where we had gone to see the pretty sheep. I had climbed +into the manger to play, and that man did not see me. Then he said good +morning to Marie, and he kissed her.”</p> + +<p>“You allowed him to kiss you, Marie?” said Germain, trembling with +anger.</p> + +<p>“I thought it was a civility, a custom of the place to new-comers, just +as at your farm the grandmother kisses the young girls who enter her +service to show that she adopts them and will be a mother to them.”</p> + +<p>“And next,” went on little Pierre, who was proud to have an adventure to +tell of, “<i>that man</i> told you something wicked, which you have told me +never to repeat and not even remember; so I forgot it right away. Still, +if father wishes, I will tell him what it was—”</p> + +<p>“No, Pierre, I don’t wish to hear, and I don’t wish you ever to think of +it again.”</p> + +<p>“Then I will forget it all over again,” replied the child. “Next, <i>that +man</i> seemed to be growing angry because Marie told him that she was +going away. He told her he would give her whatever she wanted,—a +hundred francs! And my Marie grew angry too. Then he came toward her as +if he wished to hurt her. I was afraid, and I ran to Marie and cried. +Then <i>that man</i> said: ‘What’s that? Where did that child come from? Put +it out,’ and he raised his cane to beat me. But my Marie prevented him, +and she spoke to him this way: ‘We will talk later, sir; now I must take +this child back to Fourche, and then I shall return.’ And as soon as +he had left the fold, my Marie spoke to me this way: ‘We must run, my +Pierre; we must get away as quickly as we can, for this is a wicked +man and he is trying to do us harm.’ Then when we had gone back of the +farm-houses, we crossed a little meadow, and we went to Fourche to find +you. But you were not there, and they wouldn’t let us wait. And then +<i>that man</i>, riding his black horse, came behind us, and we ran on as +fast as we could and hid in the woods. And then he followed us, and +when we heard him coming, we hid again. And then, when he had passed, +we began to run toward home, and then you came and found us, and that is +how it all happened. I haven’t forgotten anything, have I, my Marie?”</p> + +<p>“No, my Pierre, that is the whole truth. Now, Germain, you must be my +witness, and tell everybody in the village that if I did not stay there +it was not from want of courage and industry.”</p> + +<p>“And, Marie, I want to ask of you whether a man of twenty-eight is too +old when there is a woman to be defended and an insult to be revenged. +I should like to know whether Bastien or any other pretty boy, ten years +better off than I, would not have been knocked to pieces by <i>that man</i>, +as Petit-Pierre says. What do you think?”</p> + +<p>“I think, Germain, that you have done me a great service, and that I +shall be grateful all my life.”</p> + +<p>“Is that all?”</p> + +<p>“Little father,” said the child, “I forgot to ask little Marie what I +promised. I have not had time yet, but I will speak to her at home, and I +will speak to my grandmother too.”</p> + +<p>The child’s promise set Germain to thinking. He must explain his conduct +to his family and give his objections to the widow Guam, and all the +while conceal the true reasons which had made him so judicious and so +decided. When a man is proud and happy, it seems an easy task to thrust +his happiness upon others, but to be repulsed on one side and blamed on +the other is not a very pleasant position.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, Petit-Pierre was fast asleep when they reached the farm, +and Germain put him to bed undisturbed. Then he began upon all sorts of +explanations, Father Maurice, seated on a three-legged stool before the +door, listened with gravity; and, although he was ill-content with +the result of the journey, when Germain told him about the widow’s +systematic coquetry, and demanded of his father-in-law whether he had +the time to go and pay his court fifty-two Sundays in the year at the +risk of being dismissed in the end, the old man nodded his head in +assent and answered: “You were not wrong, Germain; that could never be.” +And then, when Germain described how he had been obliged to bring back +little Marie, with the utmost haste, in order to protect her from the +insults or perhaps from the violence of a wicked master, Father Maurice +nodded approvingly again and said: “You were not wrong, Germain; that +was right.”</p> + +<p>When Germain had told his story, and had set forth all his reasons, the +old farmer and his wife heaved deep, simultaneous sighs of resignation, +and looked at each other. Then the head of the house rose and said: +“God’s will be done. Love can’t be made to order.”</p> + +<p>“Come to supper, Germain,” said his mother-in-law. “It is unfortunate +that this did not come to a better end, but, after all, it seems that +God did not wish it. We must look elsewhere.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” added the old man, “as my wife says, we must look elsewhere.”</p> + +<p>There was no more noise at the house, and on the morrow, when +Petit-Pierre rose with the larks at dawn, he was no longer excited +by the extraordinary events of the preceding days. Like other little +peasants of his age, he became indifferent, forgot everything that had +been running in his head, and thought only of playing with his brothers, +and of pretending to drive the horses and oxen like a man. Germain +plunged into his work, and tried to forget, too; but he became so +absent-minded and so sad that everybody noticed it. He never spoke to +little Marie, he never even looked at her, and yet had anybody asked him +in what meadow she was, or by what road she had passed, there was not a +moment in the day when he could not have answered if he would. He dared +not ask his family to take her in at the farm during the winter, and yet +he knew well how she must suffer from want. But she did not suffer; and +Mother Guillette could not understand how her little store of wood never +grew less, and how her shed was full in the morning, although she +had left it almost empty at night. It was the same with the wheat and +potatoes. Somebody entered by the garret window, and emptied a sack on +the floor without awaking a soul or leaving a trace of his coming. The +widow was at once uneasy and delighted. She made her daughter promise to +tell nobody, and said that were people to know of the miracle performed +at her house they would take her for a witch. She felt confident that +the devil had a share in it, but she was in no hurry to pick a quarrel +with him by calling down the priest’s exorcisms on the house. It would +be time enough, she said, when Satan should come to demand her soul in +return for his gifts.</p> + +<p>Little Marie understood the truth better, but she dared not speak to +Germain, for fear of seeing him return to his dreams of marriage, and, +before him, she pretended to perceive nothing.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_xv"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_xv.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="XV"></a>XV</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Mother Maurice</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">One day, Mother Maurice was alone in the orchard with Germain, and spoke +to him kindly:</p> + +<p>“My poor son, I believe you are not well. You don’t eat as well as +usual; you never laugh; you talk less and less. Perhaps one of us, or +all of us, have hurt your feelings, without knowing and without wishing +it.”</p> + +<p>“No, my mother,” answered Germain, “you have always been as kind to +me as the mother who brought me into the world, and I should be very +ungrateful if I were to complain of you or your husband, or of anybody +in the household.”</p> + +<p>“Then, my child, it is the sorrow for your wife’s death which comes back +to you. Instead of growing lighter with time, your grief becomes worse, +and as your father has said very wisely, it is absolutely necessary for +you to marry again.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my mother, that is my opinion, but the women whom you advised +me to ask don’t suit me. Whenever I see them, instead of forgetting my +Catherine, I think of her all the more.”</p> + +<p>“Apparently that’s because we have n’t been able to understand your +taste. You must help us by telling us the truth. There must be a woman +somewhere who is made for you, for God does n’t make anybody without +placing his happiness in somebody else. So if you know where to find +this woman whom you need, take her, and be she pretty or ugly, young or +old, rich or poor, we have made up our minds, my husband and I, to give +our consent, for we are tired of seeing you so sad, and we can never be +happy while you are sorrowful.”</p> + +<p>“My mother, you are as kind as the kind Lord, and so is my father,” +answered Germain; “but your compassion brings small help to my troubles, +for the girl I love doesn’t care for me.”</p> + +<p>“She is too young, then? It’s foolish for you to love a young girl.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, mother dear, I have been foolish enough to love a young girl, and +it’s my fault. I do my best to stop thinking of it, but, working or +sleeping, at mass or in bed, with my children or with you, I can think +of nothing else.”</p> + +<p>“Then it’s like a fate cast over you, Germain. There’s but one remedy, +and it is that this girl must change her mind and listen to you. It’s my +duty to look into this, and see whether it’s practicable. Tell me where +she lives, and what’s her name.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my dear mother, I dare not,” said Germain, “because you will make +fun of me.”</p> + +<p>“I shall not make fun of you, Germain, because you are in trouble, and I +don’t wish to make it harder for you. Is it Fanchette?”</p> + +<p>“No, mother, of course not.”</p> + +<p>“Or Rosette?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me, then, for I shall never finish if I must name every girl in +the countryside.”</p> + +<p>Germain bowed his head, and could not bring himself to answer.</p> + +<p>“Very good,” said Mother Maurice, “I shall let you alone for to-day; +to-morrow, perhaps, you will be more confidential with me, or possibly +your sister-in-law will question you more cleverly.” And she picked up +her basket to go and spread her linen on the bushes.</p> + +<p>Germain acted like children who make up their minds when they see that +they are no longer attracting attention. He followed his mother, and at +length, trembling, he named Marie of Guillette.</p> + +<p>Great was the surprise of Mother Maurice. Marie was the last person she +would have dreamed of. But she had the delicacy not to cry out, and made +her comments to herself. Then seeing that her silence hurt Germain, she +stretched out her basket toward him and said:</p> + +<p>“Is there any reason for not helping me at my work. Carry this load, and +come and talk with me. Have you reflected well, Germain? Are you fully +decided?”</p> + +<p>“Alas, dear mother, you mustn’t speak in that way. I should be decided +if I had a chance of success, but as I could never be heard, I have only +made up my mind to cure myself, if I can.”</p> + +<p>“And if you can’t.”</p> + +<p>“There is an end to everything, Mother Maurice: when the horse is laden +too heavily, he falls, and when the cow has nothing to eat, she dies.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say that you will die, if you do not succeed. God grant +not, Germain. I don’t like to hear a man like you talk of those things; +for what he says, he thinks. You are very brave, and weakness +is dangerous for strong men. Take heart; I can’t conceive that a +poverty-stricken girl, whom you have honored so much as to ask her to +marry you, will refuse you.”</p> + +<p>“Yet it’s the truth: she does refuse me.”</p> + +<p>“And what reasons does she give you?”</p> + +<p>“That you have always been kind to her, and that her family owes a great +deal to yours, and that she doesn’t wish to displease you by turning me +away from a rich marriage.”</p> + +<p>“If she says that, she proves her good sense, and shows what an honest +girl she is. But, Germain, she doesn’t cure you; for of course she +tells you that she loves you and would marry you if we were willing?”</p> + +<p>“That’s the worst part of all. She says that her heart can never be +mine.”</p> + +<p>“If she says what she doesn’t think in order to keep you at a safer +distance, the child deserves our love, and we should pass over her youth +on account of her great good sense.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Germain, struck by a hope he had never held before; “that +would be very wise and right of her! But if she is so sensible, I am +sure it is because I displease her.”</p> + +<p>“Germain,” said Mother Maurice, “you must promise me not to worry for a +whole week. Keep from tormenting yourself, eat, sleep, and be as gay as +you used to be. For my part, I’ll speak to my husband, and if I gain +his consent, you shall know the girl’s real feelings toward you.”</p> + +<p>Germain promised, and the week passed without a single word in private +from Father Maurice, who seemed to suspect nothing. The husbandman did +his best to look calm, but he grew ever paler and more troubled.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_xvi"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_xvi.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">Little Marie</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">At length, on Sunday morning, when mass was over, his mother-in-law +asked Germain what encouragement he had had from his sweetheart since +the conversation in the orchard.</p> + +<p>“Why, none at all,” answered he; “I haven’t spoken to her.”</p> + +<p>“How can you expect to win her if you don’t speak to her?”</p> + +<p>“I have spoken to her but once,” replied Germain. “That was when we were +together at Fourche, and since then I haven’t said a single word. Her +refusal gave me so much pain that I had rather not hear her begin again +to tell me that she doesn’t love me.”</p> + +<p>“But, my son, you must speak to her now; your father gives his approval. +So make up your mind. I tell you to do it, and, if need be, I shall +order you to do it, for you can’t rest in this uncertainty.”</p> + +<p>Germain obeyed. He reached Mother Guillette’s house, hanging his +head with a hopeless air. Little Marie sat alone before the hearth so +thoughtful that she did not hear Germain’s step. When she saw him before +her, she started from her chair in surprise and grew very red.</p> + +<p>“Little Marie,” said he, sitting down near her, “I come to trouble you +and to give you pain. I know it very well, but the man and his wife at +home [it was thus after the peasant fashion that he designated the heads +of the house] wish me to speak to you, and beg you to marry me. You +don’t care for me. I am prepared for it.”</p> + +<p>“Germain,” answered little Marie, “are you sure that you love me?”</p> + +<p>“It pains you, I know, but it isn’t my fault. If you could change your +mind, I should be so very happy, and certain it is that I don’t deserve +it. Look at me, Marie; am I very terrible?”</p> + +<p>“No, Germain,” she answered, with a smile, “you are better looking than +I.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t make fun of me; look at me charitably; as yet, I have never lost +a single hair nor a single tooth. My eyes tell you plainly how much I +love you. Look straight into my eyes. It is written there, and every +girl knows how to read that writing.”</p> + +<p>Marie looked into Germain’s eyes with playful boldness; then of a sudden +she turned away her head and trembled.</p> + +<p>“Good God,” exclaimed Germain, “I make you afraid; you look at me as +though I were the farmer of Ormeaux. Don’t be afraid of me, please +don’t; that hurts me too much. I shall not say any bad words to you, I +shall not kiss you if you will not have me, and when you wish me to go +away, you have only to show me the door. Must I go in order to stop your +trembling?”</p> + +<p>Marie held out her hand toward the husbandman, but without turning her +head, which was bent on the fireplace, and without saying a word.</p> + +<p>“I understand,” said Germain. “You pity me, for you are kind; you are +sorry to make me unhappy; but you can’t love me.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you say these things to me, Germain?” answered little Marie, +after a pause. “Do you wish to make me cry?”</p> + +<p>“Poor little girl, you have a kind heart, I know; but you don’t love me, +and you are hiding your face for fear of letting me see your dislike and +your repugnance. And I? I dare not even clasp your hand! In the forest, +when my boy was asleep and you were sleeping too, I almost kissed you +very gently. But I would have died of shame rather than ask it of you, +and that night I suffered as a man burning over a slow fire. Since +that time I have dreamed of you every night. Ah! how I have kissed you, +Marie! Yet during all that time you have slept without a dream. And now, +do you know what I think? I think that were you to turn and look at me +with the eyes I have for you, and were you to move your face close to +mine, I believe I should fall dead for joy. And you, you think that if +such a thing were to happen, you would die of anger and shame!”</p> + +<p>Germain spoke as in a dream, not hearing the words he said. Little Marie +was trembling all the time, but he was shaking yet more and did not +notice it. Of a sudden, she turned. Her eyes were filled with tears, and +she looked at him reproachfully. The poor husbandman thought that this +was the last blow, and without waiting for his sentence, he rose to go, +but the girl stopped him, and throwing both her arms about him, she hid +her face in his breast.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Germain,” she sobbed, “didn’t you feel that I loved you?”</p> + +<p>Then Germain had gone mad, if his son, who came galloping into the +cottage on a stick, with his little sister on the crupper, scourging the +imaginary steed with a willow branch, had not brought him to his senses. +He lifted the boy and placed him in the girl’s arms.</p> + +<p>“See,” said he, “by loving me, you have made more than one person +happy.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_ia"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_ia.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<p class="fs175 center noindent p2 p3bot">APPENDIX</p> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="Ia"></a>I</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">A Country Wedding</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">Here ends the history of Germain’s marriage as he told it to me himself, +good husbandman that he is. I ask your forgiveness, kind reader, that I +know not how to translate it better; for it is a real translation that +is needed by this old-fashioned and artless language of the peasants +of the country “that I sing,” as they used to say. These people speak +French that is too true for us, and since Rabelais and Montaigne, the +advance of the language has lost for us many of its old riches. Thus +it is with every advance, and we must make the best of it. Yet it is +a pleasure still to hear those picturesque idioms used in the old +districts in the center of France; all the more because it is the +genuine expression of the laughing, quiet, and delightfully talkative +character of the people who make use of it. Touraine has preserved +a certain precious number of patriarchal phrases. But Touraine was +civilized greatly during the Renaissance, and since its decline she +is filled with fine houses and highroads, with foreigners and traffic. +Berry remained as she was, and I think that after Brittany and a few +provinces in the far south of France, it is the best preserved district +to be found at the present day. Some of the costumes are so strange and +so curious that I hope to amuse you a few minutes more, kind reader, +if you will allow me to describe to you in detail a country +wedding—Germain’s, for example—at which I had the pleasure of +assisting several years ago.</p> + +<p>For, alas! everything passes. During my life alone, more change has +taken place in the ideas and in the customs of my village than had +been seen in the centuries before the Revolution. Already half the +ceremonies, Celtic, Pagan, or of the Middle Ages, that in my childhood I +have seen in their full vigor, have disappeared. In a year or two more, +perhaps, the railroads will lay their level tracks across our deep +valleys, and will carry away, with the swiftness of lightning, all our +old traditions and our wonderful legends.</p> + +<p>It was in winter about the carnival season, the time of year when, in +our country, it is fitting and proper to have weddings. In summer the +time can hardly be spared, and the work of the farm cannot suffer three +days’ delay, not to speak of the additional days impaired to a greater +or to a less degree by the moral and physical drunkenness which +follows a gala-day. I was seated beneath the great mantelpiece of the +old-fashioned kitchen fireplace when shots of pistols, barking of dogs, +and the piercing notes of the bagpipe told me that the bridal pair were +approaching. Very soon Father and Mother Maurice, Germain, and little +Marie, followed by Jacques and his wife, the closer relatives, and the +godfathers and godmothers of the bride and groom, all made their entry +into the yard.</p> + +<p>Little Marie had not yet received her wedding-gifts,—favors, as they +call them,—and was dressed in the best of her simple clothes, a dress +of dark, heavy cloth, a white fichu with great spots of brilliant color, +an apron of carnation,—an Indian red much in vogue at the time, but +despised nowadays,—a cap of very white muslin after that pattern, +happily still preserved, which calls to mind the head-dress of Anne +Boleyn and of Agnes Sorrel. She was fresh and laughing, but not at +all vain, though she had good reason to be so. Beside her was Germain, +serious and tender, like young Jacob greeting Rebecca at the wells of +Laban. Another girl would have assumed an important air and struck an +attitude of triumph, for in every rank it is something to be married +for a fair face alone. Yet the girl’s eyes were moist and shone with +tenderness. It was plain that she was deep in love and had no time to +think of the opinions of others. Her little air of determination was not +absent, but everything about her denoted frankness and good-will. There +was nothing impertinent in her success, nothing selfish in her sense +of power. Never have I seen so lovely a bride, when she answered with +frankness her young friends who asked if she were happy:</p> + +<p>“Surely I have nothing to complain of the good Lord.”</p> + +<p>Father Maurice was spokesman. He came forward to pay his compliments, +and give the customary invitations. First he fastened to the mantelpiece +a branch of laurel decked out with ribbons; this is known as the +<i>writ</i>—that is to say, the letter of announcement. Next he gave +to every guest a tiny cross made of a bit of blue ribbon sewn to a +transverse bit of pink ribbon—pink for the bride, blue for the groom. +The guests of both sexes were expected to keep this badge to adorn their +caps or their button-holes on the wedding-day. This is the letter of +invitation, the admission ticket.</p> + +<p>Then Father Maurice paid his congratulations. He invited the head of the +house and all his <i>company</i>,—that is to say, all his children, all his +friends, and all his servants,—to the benediction, <i>to the feast, to +the sports, to the dance, and to everything that follows</i>. He did not +fail to say, “I have come <i>to do you the honor of inviting you</i>”; a very +right manner of speech, even though it appears to us to convey the wrong +meaning, for it expresses the idea of doing honor to those who seem +worthy of it.</p> + +<p>Despite the generosity of the invitation carried from house to house +throughout the parish, politeness, which is very cautious amongst +peasants, demands that only two persons from each family take advantage +of it—one of the heads of the house, and one from the number of their +children.</p> + +<p>After the invitations were made, the betrothed couple and their families +took dinner together at the farm.</p> + +<p>Little Marie kept her three sheep on the common, and Germain tilled the +soil as though nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>About two in the afternoon before the day set for the wedding, the music +came. The music means the players of the bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy, +their instruments decorated with long streaming ribbons, playing an +appropriate march to a measure which would have been rather slow for +feet foreign to the soil, but admirably adapted to the heavy ground and +hilly roads of the country.</p> + +<p>Pistol-shots, fired by the young people and the children, announced +the beginning of the wedding ceremonies. Little by little the guests +assembled, and danced on the grass-plot before the house in order to +enter into the spirit of the occasion. When evening was come they began +strange preparations; they divided into two bands, and when night had +settled down they proceeded to the ceremony of the <i>favors</i>.</p> + +<p>All this passed at the dwelling of the bride, Mother Guillette’s +cottage. Mother Guillette took with her her daughter, a dozen pretty +shepherdesses, friends and relatives of her daughter, two or three +respectable housewives, talkative neighbors, quick of wit and strict +guardians of ancient customs. Next she chose a dozen stout fellows, +her relatives and friends; and last of all the parish hemp-dresser, a +garrulous old man, and as good a talker as ever there was.</p> + +<p>The part which, in Brittany, is played by the bazvalon, the village +tailor, is taken in our part of the country by the hemp-dresser and the +wool-carder, two professions which are unusually combined in one. He +is present at all ceremonies, sad or gay, for he is very learned and +a fluent talker, and on these occasions he must always figure as +spokesman, in order to fulfil with exactitude certain formalities used +from time immemorial. Traveling occupations, which bring a man into the +midst of other families, without allowing him to shut himself up within +his own, are well fitted to make him talker, wit, storyteller, and +singer.</p> + +<p>The hemp-dresser is peculiarly skeptical. He and another village +functionary, of whom we have spoken before, the grave-digger, are always +the daring spirits of the neighborhood. They have talked so much about +ghosts, and they know so well all the tricks of which these malicious +spirits are capable, that they fear them scarcely at all. It is +especially at night that all of them—grave-diggers, hemp-dressers, and +ghosts—do their work. It is also at night when the hemp-dresser tells +his melancholy stories. Permit me to make a digression.</p> + +<p>When the hemp has reached the right stage, that is to say, when it has +been steeped sufficiently in running water, and half dried on the bank, +it is brought into the yard and arranged in little upright sheaves, +which, with their stalks divided at the base, and their heads bound in +balls, bear in the dusk some small resemblance to a long procession +of little white phantoms, standing on their slender legs, and moving +noiselessly along the wall.</p> + +<p>It is at the end of September, when the nights are still warm, that they +begin to beat it by the pale light of the moon. By day the hemp has been +heated in the oven; at night they take it out to beat it while it is +still hot. For this they use a kind of horse surmounted by a wooden +lever which falls into grooves and breaks the plant without cutting it. +It is then that you hear in the night that sudden, sharp noise of three +blows in quick succession. Then there is silence; it is the movement of +the arm drawing out the handful of hemp to break it in a fresh spot. The +three blows begin again; the other arm works the lever, and thus it goes +on until the moon is hidden by the early streaks of dawn. As the work +continues but a few days in the year, the dogs are not accustomed to it, +and yelp their plaintive howls toward every point of the horizon.</p> + +<p>It is the time of unwonted and mysterious sounds in the country. The +migrating cranes fly so high that by day they are scarcely visible. By +night they are only heard, and their hoarse wailing voices, lost in the +clouds, sound like the parting cry of souls in torment, striving to find +the road to heaven, yet forced by an unconquerable fate to wander near +the earth about the haunts of men; for these errant birds have strange +uncertainties, and many a mysterious anxiety in the course of their airy +flight. Sometimes they lose the wind when the capricious gusts battle, +or come and go in the upper regions. When this confusion comes by day, +you can see the leader of the file fluttering aimlessly in the air, then +turn about and take his place at the tail of the triangular phalanx, +while a skilful manœuver of his companions forms them soon in good +order behind him. Often, after vain efforts, the exhausted leader +relinquishes the guidance of the caravan; another comes forward, tries +in his turn, and yields his place to a third, who finds the breeze, and +continues the march in triumph. But what cries, what reproaches, what +protests, what wild curses or anxious questionings are exchanged in an +unknown tongue amongst these winged pilgrims!</p> + +<p>Sometimes, in the resonant night, you can hear these sinister noises +whirling for a long time above the housetops, and as you can see +nothing, you feel, despite your efforts, a kind of dread and kindred +discomfort, until the sobbing multitude is lost in boundless space.</p> + +<p>There are other noises too which belong to this time of year, and which +sound usually in the orchards. Gathering the fruit is not yet over, and +the thousand unaccustomed cracklings make the tree seem alive. A branch +groans as it bends beneath a burden which has reached, of a sudden, +the last stage of growth; or perhaps an apple breaks from the twig, and +falls on the damp earth at your feet with a dull sound. Then you hear +rush by, brushing the branches and the grass, a creature you cannot +see; it is the peasant’s dog, that prowling and uneasy rover, at once +impudent and cowardly, always wandering, never sleeping, ever seeking +you know not what, spying upon you, hiding in the brush, and taking +flight at the sound of a falling apple, which he thinks a stone that you +are throwing at him.</p> + +<p>It is during those nights, nights misty and gray, that the hemp-dresser +tells his weird stories of will-o’-the-wisps and milk-white hares, of +souls in torment and wizards changed to wolves, of witches’ vigils at +the cross-roads, and screech-owls, prophetesses of the graveyard. I +remember passing the early hours of such a night while the hemp-dressing +was going on, and the pitiless strokes, interrupting the dresser’s story +at its most awful place, sent icy shivers through our veins. And often +too the good man continued his story as he worked, and four or five +words were lost, terrible words, no doubt, which we dared not make him +repeat, and whose omission added a mystery yet more fearful to the +dark mysteries of the story which had gone before. It was in vain the +servants warned us that it was too late to stay without doors, and that +bedtime had sounded for us long since; they too were dying to hear more; +and then with what terror we crossed the hamlet on our way home! How +deep did the church porch appear to us, and how thick and black the +shadows of the old trees! The graveyard we dared not see; we shut our +eyes tight as we passed it.</p> + +<p>But no more than the sacristan is the hemp-dresser gifted solely +with the desire of frightening; he loves to make people laugh; he is +sarcastic and sentimental at need, when love and marriage are to be +sung. It is he who collects and keeps stored in his memory the oldest +songs, and who transmits them to posterity. And so it is he who acts at +weddings the part we shall see him play at the presentation of little +Marie’s favors.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_iia"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_iia.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="IIa"></a>II</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Wedding Favors</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">When all the guests were met together in the house, the doors and +windows were closed with the utmost care; even the garret window was +barricaded; boards and benches, logs and tables were placed behind every +entrance, just as if the inhabitants were making ready to sustain a +siege; and within these fortifications solemn stillness prevailed until +at a distance were heard songs and laughter and the sounds of rustic +music. It was the band of the bridegroom, Germain at the head, followed +by his most trusty companions and by the grave-digger, relatives, +friends, and servants, who formed a compact and merry train. Meanwhile, +as they came nearer the house they slackened their pace, held a council +of war, and became silent. The girls, shut up in the house, had arranged +little loop-holes at the windows by which they could see the enemy +approach and deploy in battle array. A fine, cold rain was falling, +which added zest to the situation, while a great fire blazed on the +hearth within. Marie wished to cut short the inevitable slowness of this +well-ordered siege; she had no desire to see her lover catch cold, +but not being in authority she had to take an ostensible share in the +mischievous cruelty of her companions.</p> + +<p>When the two armies met, a discharge of firearms on the part of the +besiegers set all the dogs in the neighborhood to barking. Those within +the house dashed at the door with loud yelps, thinking that the attack +was in earnest, and the children, little reassured by the efforts of +their mothers, began to weep and to tremble. The whole scene was played +so well that a stranger would have been deceived, and would have made +his preparations to fight a band of brigands. Then the grave-digger, +bard and orator of the groom, took his stand before the door, and with +a rueful voice, exchanged the following dialogue with the hemp-dresser, +who was stationed above the same door:</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “Ah, my good people, my fellow-townsmen, for the +love of Heaven, open the door.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “Who are you, and what right have you to call us +your dear fellow-townsmen? We don’t know you.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “We are worthy folk in great distress. Don’t be +afraid of us, my friends. Extend us your hospitality. Sleet is falling; +our poor feet are frozen, and our journey home has been so long that our +sabots are split.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “If your sabots are split, you can look on +the ground; you will find very soon a sprig of willow to make some +<i>arcelets</i> [small curved blades of iron which are fastened on split +sabots to hold them together].”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “Willow <i>arcelets</i> are scarcely strong enough. You +are making fun of us, good people, and you would do better to open your +doors. We can see a splendid fire blazing in your dwelling. The spit +must be turning, and we can make merry with you, heart and belly. So +open your doors to poor pilgrims who will die on the threshold if you +are not merciful.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “Ah ha! so you are pilgrims? You never told us that. +And what pilgrimage do you come from, may I ask?”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “We shall tell you that when you open the door, for +we come from so far that you would never believe it.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “Open the door to you? I rather think not. We can’t +trust you. Tell us, is it from Saint Sylvain of Pouligny that you come?”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “We have been at Saint Sylvain of Pouligny, but we +have been farther still.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “Then you have been as far as Saint Solange?”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “At Saint Solange we have been, sure enough, but we +have been farther yet.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “You are lying. You have never been as far as Saint +Solange.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “We have been farther, for now we are come from +Saint Jacques of Compostelle.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “What absurdity are you telling us? We don’t know +that parish. We can easily see that you are bad people, brigands, +nobodies, and liars. Go away with your nonsense. We are on our guard. +You can’t come in.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “Ah, my poor fellow, take pity on us. We are not +pilgrims, as you have guessed, but we are unlucky poachers pursued by +the keepers. Even the police are after us, and if you don’t hide us in +your hay-loft, we shall be taken and led off to prison.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “And who will prove you are what you say you +are, this time? For you have told us one lie already that you can’t +maintain.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “If you will let us in, we shall show you a pretty +piece of game we have killed.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “Show it right away, for we have our suspicions.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “All right, open the door or a window to let us pass +the creature in.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “Oh, no, not quite so foolish. I am looking at you +through a little chink, and I can see neither hunters nor game amongst +you.”</p> + +<p>Here an ox-driver, a thick-set fellow of herculean strength, detached +himself from a group where he had stood unperceived, and raised toward +the window a plucked goose, spitted on a strong iron bar decorated with +tufts of straw and ribbons.</p> + +<p>“Ho, ho!” cried the hemp-dresser, after cautiously extending an arm to +feel the roast. “That isn’t a quail nor a partridge; it isn’t a hare +nor a rabbit; it’s something like a goose or a turkey. Upon my word, +you’re clever hunters, and that game didn’t make you run very far. +Move on, you rogues; we know all your lies, and you had best go home and +cook your supper. You are not going to eat ours.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “O Heavens, where can we go to cook our game? It is +very little for so many as we, and, besides, we have neither place nor +fire. At this time every door is closed, and every soul asleep. You are +the only people who are celebrating a wedding at home, and you must be +hardhearted indeed to let us freeze outside. Once again, good people, +open the door; we shall not cost you anything. You can see that we bring +our own meat; only a little room at your hearth, a little blaze to cook +with, and we shall go on our way rejoicing.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “Do you suppose that we have too much room here, and +that wood is bought for nothing?”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “We have here a small bundle of hay to make the +fire. We shall be satisfied with that; only grant us leave to place the +spit across your fireplace.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “That will never do. We are disgusted, and don’t +pity you at all. It is my opinion that you are drunk, that you need +nothing, and that you only wish to come in and steal away our fire and +our daughters.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “Since you won’t listen to reason, we shall make our +way in by force.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “Try, if you want; we are shut in well enough to +have no fear of you, and since you are impudent fellows, we shall not +answer you again.”</p> + +<p>Thereupon the hemp-dresser shut the garret window with a bang, and came +down into the room below by a step-ladder. Then he took the bride by +the hand, the young people of both sexes followed, and they all began to +sing and chatter merrily, while the matrons sang in piercing voices, and +shrieked with laughter in derision and bravado at those without who were +attempting an attack.</p> + +<p>The besiegers, on their side, made a great hubbub. They discharged their +pistols at the doors, made the dogs growl, whacked the walls, shook +the blinds, and uttered frightful shrieks. In short, there was such a +pandemonium that nobody could hear, and such a cloud of dust that nobody +could see.</p> + +<p>And yet this attack was all a sham. The time had not come for breaking +through the etiquette. If, in prowling about, anybody were to find an +unguarded aperture, or any opening whatsoever, he might try to slip in +unobserved, and then, if the carrier of the spit succeeded in placing +his roast before the fire, and thus prove the capture of the hearth, the +comedy was over and the bridegroom had conquered.</p> + +<p>The entrances of the house, however, were not numerous enough for any to +be neglected in the customary precautions, and nobody might use violence +before the moment fixed for the struggle.</p> + +<p>When they were weary of dancing and screams, the hemp-dresser began +to think of capitulation. He went up to his window, opened it with +precaution, and greeted the baffled assailants with a burst of laughter.</p> + +<p>“Well, my boys,” said he, “you look very sheep-faced. You thought there +was nothing easier than to come in, and you see that our defense is +good. But we are beginning to have pity on you, if you will submit and +accept our conditions.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “Speak, good people. Tell us what we must do to +approach your hearth.”</p> + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>: “You must sing, my friends; but sing a song we don’t +know,—one that we can’t answer by a better.”</p> + +<p>“That’s not hard to do,” answered the grave-digger, and he thundered in +a powerful voice:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“‘Six months ago, ’twas in the spring....’”</p> +</div> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“‘I wandered through the sprouting grass,’”</p> +</div> + + +<p class="noindent">answered the hemp-dresser +in a slightly hoarse but terrible voice. “You must be jesting, my poor +friends, singing us such time-worn songs. You see very well that we can +stop you at the first word.”</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“‘She was a prince’s daughter....’”</p> +</div> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“‘Right gladly would she wed,’”</p> +</div> + + +<p class="noindent">answered the hemp-dresser. +“Come, move on to the next; we know that a little too well.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “How do you like this one?”—</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“‘As I was journeying home from Nantes.’”</p> +</div> + + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“‘Weary, oh, weary, was I, was I.’”</p> +</div> + + +<p>“That dates from my grandmother’s time. Let’s have another.”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“‘One day I went a-walking....’”</p> +</div> + + +<p><i>The Hemp-dresser</i>:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“‘Along a lovely wood!’”</p> +</div> + + +<p>“That one is too stupid! Our little children wouldn’t take the trouble +to answer you. What! Are these all you know?”</p> + +<p><i>The Grave-digger</i>: “Oh, we shall sing you so many that you will never +be able to hear them all.”</p> + +<p>In this way a full hour passed. As the two antagonists were champions +of the country round in the matter of songs, and as their store seemed +inexhaustible, the contest might last all night with ease, all the +more because the hemp-dresser, with a touch of malice, allowed several +ballads of ten, twenty, or thirty couplets to be sung through, feigning +by his silence to admit his defeat. Then the bridegroom’s camp rejoiced +and sang aloud in chorus, and thought that this time the foe was +worsted; but at the first line of the last couplet, they heard the +hoarse croaking of the old hemp-dresser bellow forth the second rhyme. +Then he cried:</p> + +<p>“You need not tire yourselves by singing such a long one, my +children—we know that one to our finger-tips.”</p> + +<p>Once or twice, however, the hemp-dresser made a wry face, contracted his +brow, and turned toward the expectant housewives with a baffled air. +The grave-digger was singing something so old that his adversary had +forgotten it, or perhaps had never even heard it; but instantly the good +gossips chanted the victorious refrain through their noses with voices +shrill as a sea-mew’s, and the grave-digger, forced to surrender, went +on to fresh attempts.</p> + +<p>It would have taken too long to wait for a decision of the victory. The +bride’s party declared itself disposed to be merciful, provided that the +bride were given a present worthy of her.</p> + +<p>Then began the song of the favors to a tune solemn as a church chant.</p> + +<p>The men without sang together in bass voices:</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“‘Open the door, true love,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Open the door;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I have presents for you, love,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Oh, say not adieu, love.’”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<p>To this the women answered from within in falsetto, with mournful +voices:</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“‘My father is sorry, my mother is sad,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And I am a maiden too kind by far</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At such an hour my gate to unbar.’”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<p>The men took up the first verse as far as the fourth line and modified +it thus:</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“‘And a handkerchief new, love.’”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<p>But, on behalf of the bride, the women answered in the same way as at +first.</p> + +<p>For twenty couplets, at least, the men enumerated all the +wedding-presents, always mentioning something new in the last line: a +handsome apron, pretty ribbons, a cloth dress, laces, a golden cross, +and even a hundred pins to complete the modest list of wedding-presents. +The refusal of the women could not be shaken, but at length the men +decided to speak of</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“A good husband, too, love.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<p>And the women answered, turning toward the bride and singing in unison +with the men:</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“‘Open the door, true love,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Open the door;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Here’s a sweetheart for you, love,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Pray let us enter, too, love.’”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_iiia"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_iiia.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="IIIa"></a>III</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Wedding</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">Immediately the hemp-dresser drew back the wooden bolt which barred the +door within. At this time it was still the only fastening known in most +of the dwellings of our hamlet. The groom’s band burst into the bride’s +house, but not without a struggle; for the young men quartered within, +and even the old hemp-dresser and the gossips, made it their duty to +defend the hearth. The spit-bearer, upheld by his supporters, had to +plant the roast before the fireplace. It was a regular battle, although +people abstained from striking, and there was no anger shown in this +struggle. But everybody was pushing and shoving so hard, and there was +so much playful pride in this display of muscular strength, that the +results might well have been serious, although they did not appear so +across the laughs and songs. The poor old hemp-dresser, fighting like a +lion, was pinned to the wall and squeezed by the crowd until his breath +almost left him. More than one champion was upset and trodden under foot +involuntarily; more than one hand, jammed against the spit, was covered +with blood. These games are dangerous, and latterly the accidents have +been so severe that our peasants have determined to allow the ceremony +of the favors to fall into disuse; I believe we saw the last at the +marriage of François Meillant, although there was no real struggle on +that occasion.</p> + +<p>The battle was earnest enough, however, at Germain’s wedding. It was +a point of honor on one side to invade, on the other to defend, Mother +Guillette’s hearth. The great spit was twisted like a screw beneath +the strong fists which fought for it. A pistol-shot set fire to a small +quantity of hemp arranged in sheaves and laid on a wicker shelf near +the ceiling. This incident created a diversion, and while some of the +company crowded about to extinguish the sparks, the grave-digger, who +had climbed unbeknown into the garret, came down the chimney and seized +the spit, at the very moment when the ox-driver, who was defending it +near the hearth, raised it above his head to prevent it from being torn +away. Some time before the attack, the women had taken the precaution +to put out the fire lest in the struggle somebody should fall in and get +burned. The jocular grave-digger, in league with the ox-driver, grasped +the trophy and tossed it easily across the andirons. It was done! Nobody +might interfere. The grave-digger sprang to the middle of the room +and lighted a few wisps of straw, which he placed about the spit under +pretense of cooking the roast, for the goose was in pieces and the floor +was strewn with its scattered fragments.</p> + +<p>Then there was a great deal of laughter and much boastful dispute. +Everybody showed the marks of the blows he had received, and as it +was often a friend’s hand that had struck them, there was no word of +complaint nor of quarreling. The hemp-dresser, half flattened out, kept +rubbing the small of his back and saying that, although it made small +difference to him, he protested against the ruse of his friend, the +grave-digger, and that if he had not been half dead, the hearth had +never been captured so easily. The women swept the floor and order +was restored. The table was covered with jugs of new wine. When the +contestants had drunk together and taken breath, the bridegroom was led +to the middle of the chamber, and, armed with a wand, he was obliged to +submit to a fresh trial.</p> + +<p>During the struggle, the bride and three of her companions had been +hidden by her mother, godmother, and aunts, who had made the four girls +sit down in a remote corner of the room while they covered them with +a large white cloth. Three friends of Marie’s height, with caps of a +uniform size, were chosen, so that when they were enveloped from head to +toe by the cloth it was impossible to tell them apart.</p> + +<p>The bridegroom might not touch them, except with the tip of his staff, +and then merely to designate which he thought to be his wife. They +allowed him time enough to make an examination with no other help than +his eyes afforded, and the women, placed on either side, kept zealous +watch lest cheating should occur. Should he guess wrong, he might not +dance with his bride, but only with her he had chosen by mistake.</p> + +<p>When Germain stood in front of these ghosts wrapped in the same shroud, +he feared he should make a wrong choice; and, in truth, that had +happened to many another, so carefully and conscientiously were the +precautions made. His heart beat loud. Little Marie did her best to +breathe hard and shake the cloth a little, but her malicious companions +followed her example, and kept poking the cloth with their fingers, so +that there were as many mysterious signals as there were girls beneath +the canopy. The square head-dresses upheld the cloth so evenly that it +was impossible to discern the contour of a brow outlined by its folds.</p> + +<p>After ten minutes’ hesitation, Germain shut his eyes, commended his soul +to God, and stretched out the wand at random. It touched the forehead +of little Marie, who cast the cloth from her, and shouted with triumph. +Then it was his right to kiss her, and lifting her in his strong arms, +he bore her to the middle of the room, where together they opened the +dance, which lasted until two in the morning. The company separated to +meet again at eight. As many people had come from the country round, and +as there were not beds enough for everybody, each of the village +maidens took to her bed two or three other girls, while the men spread +themselves pell-mell on the hay in the barn-loft. You can imagine well +that they had little sleep, for they did nothing but wrestle and joke, +and tell foolish stories. Properly, there were three sleepless nights at +weddings, and these we cannot regret.</p> + +<p>At the time appointed for departure, when they had partaken of +milk-soup, seasoned with a strong dose of pepper to stimulate the +appetite,—for the wedding-feast gave promise of great bounty,—the +guests assembled in the farm-yard. Since our parish had been abolished, +we had to go half a league from home to receive the marriage blessing. +It was cool and pleasant weather, but the roads were in such wretched +condition that everybody was on horseback, and each man took a companion +on his crupper, whether she were young or old. Germain started on the +gray, and the mare, well-groomed, freshly shod, and decked out +with ribbons, pranced about and snorted fire from her nostrils. The +husbandman went to the cottage for his bride in company with his +brother-in-law, Jacques, who rode the old gray, and carried Mother +Guillette on the crupper, while Germain returned to the farm-yard in +triumph, holding his dear little wife before him.</p> + +<p>Then the merry cavalcade set out, escorted by the children, who ran +ahead and fired off their pistols to make the horses jump. Mother +Maurice was seated in a small cart, with Germain’s three children and +the fiddlers. They led the march to the sound of their instruments. +Petit-Pierre was so handsome that his old grandmother was pride itself. +But the eager child did not stay long at her side. During a moment’s +halt made on the journey, before passing through a difficult piece of +road, he slipped away and ran to beg his father to carry him in front on +the gray.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” replied Germain, “that will call forth some disagreeable joke; +we mustn’t do it.”</p> + +<p>“It’s little that I care what the people of Saint Chartier say,” said +little Marie. “Take him up, Germain, please do; I shall be prouder of +him than I am of my wedding-gown.”</p> + +<p>Germain yielded, and the pretty trio darted into the crowd borne by the +triumphant gallop of the gray.</p> + +<p>And so it was; the people of Saint Chartier, although they were very +sarcastic, and somewhat disdainful of the neighboring parishes which had +been annexed to theirs, never thought of laughing when they saw such +a handsome husband, such a lovely wife, and a child that a king’s wife +might court. Petit-Pierre was all dressed in light blue cloth, with a +smart red waistcoat so short that it descended scarcely below his chin. +The village tailor had fitted his armholes so tight that he could not +bring his two little hands together. But, oh, how proud he was! He wore +a round hat, with a black-and-gold cord, and a peacock’s plume which +stuck out proudly from a tuft of guinea feathers. A bunch of flowers, +bigger than his head, covered his shoulder, and ribbons fluttered to his +feet. The hemp-dresser, who was also the barber and hair-dresser of the +district, had cut his hair evenly, by covering his head with a bowl, and +clipping off the protruding locks, an infallible method for guiding the +shears. Thus arrayed, the poor child was less poetic, certainly, than +with his curls streaming in the wind, and his Saint John Baptist’s +sheepskin about him; but he knew nothing of this, and everybody admired +him and said that he had quite the air of a little man. His beauty +triumphed over everything, for what is there over which the exceeding +beauty of childhood could not triumph?</p> + +<p>His little sister, Solange, had, for the first time in her life, a +peasant’s cap in place of the calico hood which little girls wear until +they are two or three years old. And what a cap it was! Longer and +larger than the poor little thing’s whole body. How beautiful she +thought it! She dared not even turn her head; so she kept quite still +and thought the people would take her for the bride.</p> + +<p>As for little Sylvain, he was still in long clothes, and, fast asleep on +his grandmother’s knees, he did not even know what a wedding was.</p> + +<p>Germain looked at his children tenderly, and when they reached the town +hall, he said to his bride:</p> + +<p>“Marie, I have come here with a happier heart than I had the day when I +brought you home from the forest of Chanteloube, thinking that you could +never love me. I took you in my arms to put you on the ground as I do +here; but I thought that never again should we be mounted on the good +gray with the child on our knees. I love you so dearly, I love these +little creatures so dearly, I am so happy that you love me and that you +love them, and that my family love you, and I love your mother so well +and all my friends so well, and everybody else so well to-day, that I +wish I had three or four hearts to fill all of them; for surely one is +too small to hold so much love and so much happiness. It almost makes my +stomach ache.”</p> + +<p>There was a crowd at the door of the town hall and another at the church +to see the pretty bride. Why should we not tell about her dress? it +became her so well. Her muslin cap, without spot and covered with +embroidery, had lappets trimmed with lace. At that time peasant women +never allowed a single lock to be seen, and, although they conceal +beneath their caps splendid coils of hair tied up with tape to hold the +coif in place, even to-day it would be thought a scandal and a shame for +them to show themselves bareheaded to men. Nowadays, however, they allow +a slender braid to appear over their foreheads, and this improves their +appearance very much. Yet I regret the classic head-dress of my time; +its spotless laces next the bare skin gave an effect of pristine purity +which seemed to me very solemn; and when a face looked beautiful thus it +was with a beauty of which nothing can express the charm and unaffected +majesty.</p> + +<p>Little Marie wore her cap thus, and her forehead was so white and so +pure that it defied the whiteness of linen to cast it in the shade. +Although she had not closed an eye the night before, the morning air +and, yet more, the joy within of a soul pure as the heaven, and, more +than all, a small secret flame guarded with the modesty of girlhood, +caused a bloom to mount to her cheeks delicate as the peach-blossom in +the first beams of an April sun.</p> + +<p>Her white scarf, modestly crossed over her breast, left visible only the +soft curves of a neck rounded like a turtle-dove’s; her home-made cloth +gown of myrtle-green outlined her pretty figure, which looked already +perfect, yet which must still grow and develop, for she was but +seventeen. She wore an apron of violet silk with the bib our peasant +women were so foolish as to suppress, which added so much elegance and +decency to the breast. Nowadays they display their scarfs more proudly, +but there is no longer in their dress that delicate flower of the purity +of long ago, which made them look like Holbein’s virgins. They are more +forward and more profuse in their courtesies. The good old custom used +to be a kind of staid reserve which made their rare smile deeper and +more ideal.</p> + +<p>During the offertory, after the fashion of the day, Germain placed the +“thirteen”—that is to say, thirteen pieces of silver—in his bride’s +hand. He slipped over her finger a silver ring of a form unchanged +for centuries, but which is replaced for henceforth by the golden +wedding-ring. As they walked out of church, Marie said in a low voice:</p> + +<p>“Is this really the ring I wanted? Is it the one I asked you for, +Germain?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered he, “my Catherine wore it on her finger when she died. +There is but one ring for both my weddings.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Germain,” said the young woman, in a serious and impressive +tone. “I shall die with it on, and if I go before you, you must keep it +for the marriage of your little Solange.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="chapter_iva"> + <img class="w60" src="images/chapter_iva.jpg" alt="(Ornament)" /> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak"><a id="IVa"></a>IV</h2> +<p class="center noindent fs120 bold">The Cabbage</p> + +<p class="drop-capy p2">They mounted and returned very quickly to Belair. The feast was +bountiful, and, mingled with songs and dances, it lasted until +midnight. For fourteen hours the old people did not leave the table. The +grave-digger did the cooking, and did it very well. He was celebrated +for this, and he would leave his fire to come in and dance and sing +before and after every course. And yet this poor Father Bontemps was +epileptic. Who would have thought it? He was fresh and strong, and merry +as a young man. One day we found him in a ditch, struck down by his +malady at nightfall. We carried him home with us, in a wheelbarrow, and +we spent all night in caring for him. Three days afterward, he was at a +wedding, singing like a thrush, jumping like a kid, and bustling about +after his old fashion. When he left a marriage, he would go to dig a +grave, and nail up a coffin. Then he would become very grave, and +though nothing of this appeared in his gay humor, it left a melancholy +impression which hastened the return of his attacks. His wife was +paralyzed, and had not stirred from her chair for twenty years. His +mother is living yet, at a hundred and forty, but he, poor man, so happy +and good and amusing, was killed last year by falling from his loft +to the sidewalk. Doubtless he died a victim to a fatal attack of his +disease, and, as was his habit, had hidden in the hay, so as not to +frighten and distress his family. In this tragic manner he ended a life +strange as his disposition—a medley of things sad and mad, awful and +gay; and, in the midst of all, his heart was ever good and his nature +kind.</p> + +<p>Now we come to the third day of the wedding, the most curious of all, +which is kept to-day in all its vigor. We shall not speak of the roast +which they carry to the bridal bed; it is a very silly custom, and hurts +the self-respect of the bride, while it tends to ruin the modesty of +the attendant girls. Besides, I believe that it is practised in all the +provinces, and does not belong peculiarly to our own.</p> + +<p>Just as the ceremony of the wedding favors is a symbol that the heart +and home of the bride are won, that of the cabbage is a symbol of the +fruitfulness of marriage. When breakfast is over on the day after the +wedding, this fantastic representation begins. Originally of Gallic +derivation, it has passed through primitive Christianity, and little by +little it has become a kind of mystery, or droll morality-play of the +Middle Ages.</p> + +<p>Two boys, the merriest and most intelligent of the company, disappear +from breakfast, and after costuming themselves, return escorted by dogs, +children, and pistol-shots. They represent a pair of beggars—husband +and wife—dressed in rags. The husband is the filthier of the two; it is +vice which has brought him so low; the wife is unhappy and degraded only +through the misdeeds of her husband.</p> + +<p>They are called the gardener and the gardener’s wife, and they pretend +it is their duty to guard and care for the sacred cabbage. The husband +has several names, each with a meaning. Sometimes they call him the +“scarecrow,” because his head is covered with straw or hemp, and because +his legs and a portion of his body are surrounded with straw to hide +his nakedness, ill concealed by his rags. He has also a great belly, +or hump, constructed of straw or hay underneath his blouse. Then he is +known as the “ragamuffin,” on account of his covering of rags. Lastly he +is termed the “infidel,” and this is most significant of all, because by +his cynicism and his debauchery he is supposed to typify the opposite of +every Christian virtue.</p> + +<p>He comes with his face all smeared with soot and the lees of wine, and +sometimes made yet more hideous by a grotesque mask. An earthenware cup, +notched and broken, or an old sabot attached to his girdle by a cord, +shows that he has come to beg for alms of wine. Nobody refuses him, and +he pretends to drink; then he pours the wine on the ground by way of +libation. At every step he falls, rolls in the mud, and feigns to be +a prey to the most shameful drunkenness. His poor wife runs after him, +picks him up, calls for help, arranges his hempen locks, which straggle +forth in unkempt wisps from beneath his filthy hat, sheds tears over her +husband’s degradation, and pours forth pathetic reproaches.</p> + +<p>“Wretched man,” she cries, “see the misery to which your wickedness +has brought us. I have to spend all my time sewing and working for you, +mending your clothes. You tear and bedraggle yourself incessantly. You +have eaten up all my little property; our six children lie on straw, and +we are living in a stable with the beasts. Here we are forced to beg for +alms, and, besides, you are so ugly and vile and despicable that very +soon they will be tossing us bread as if we were dogs. Ah, my poor +people, take pity on us! Take pity on me! I haven’t deserved my lot, +and never had woman a more dirty and detestable husband. Help me to +pick him up, else the wagons will run over him as they run over broken +bottles, and I shall be a widow, and that will end by killing me with +grief, though all the world says it would be an excellent riddance +for me.” Such is the part of the gardener’s wife, and her continued +lamentations last during the entire play. For it is a genuine +spontaneous comedy acted on the spur of the moment in the open air, +along the roads and across the fields, aided by every chance occurrence +that presents itself. Everybody shares in the acting, people within the +wedding-party and people without, wayfarers and dwellers in houses, for +three or four hours of the day, as we shall see. The theme is always the +same, but the variations are infinite; and it is here that we can see +the instinct of mimicry, the abundance of droll ideas, the fluency, the +wit at repartee, and even the natural eloquence of our peasants.</p> + +<p>The rôle of gardener’s wife is intrusted commonly to a slender man, +beardless and fresh of face, who can give a great appearance of truth to +his personification and plays the burlesque despair naturally enough to +make people sad and glad at once, as they are in real life. These thin, +beardless men are not rare among us, and, strangely enough, they are +sometimes most remarkable for their muscular strength.</p> + +<p>When the wife’s misfortunes have been explained, the young men of the +company try to persuade her to leave her drunken husband and to amuse +herself with them. They offer her their arms and drag her away. Little +by little she gives way; her spirits rise, and she begins to run about, +first with one and then with another, and grows more scandalous in her +behavior: a fresh “morality”; the ill-conduct of the husband excites and +aggravates the evil in the wife.</p> + +<p>Then the “infidel” wakes from his drunkenness. He looks about for his +companion, arms himself with a rope and a stick and rushes after her. +They make him run, they hide, they pass the wife from one to another, +they try to divert her attention and to deceive her jealous spouse. His +friends try to get him drunk. At length he catches his unfaithful wife, +and wishes to beat her. What is truest and most carefully portrayed in +this play is that the jealous husband never attacks the men who carry +off his wife. He is very polite and prudent with them, and wishes only +to take vengeance on the sinning woman, because she is supposed to be +too feeble to offer resistance.</p> + +<p>At the moment, however, when he raises his stick and prepares his cord +to strike the delinquent, all the men in the party interpose and throw +themselves between husband and wife.</p> + +<p>“Don’t strike her! Never strike your wife,” is the formula repeated to +satiety during these scenes. They disarm the husband, and force him to +pardon and to kiss his wife, and soon he pretends to love her better +than ever. He walks along, his arm linked in hers, singing and dancing +until, in a new access of drunkenness, he rolls upon the ground, +and then begin all over again the lamentations of the wife, her +discouragements, her pretended unfaithfulness, her husband’s jealousy, +the interference of the neighbors, and the reconciliation. In all +this there is a simple and even coarse lesson, which, though it savors +strongly of its Middle-Age origin, does not fail to fix its impression +if not on the married folk, who are too loving or too sensible to +have need of it, at least upon the children and the young people. The +“infidel,” racing after young girls and pretending to wish to kiss them, +frightens and disgusts them to such a degree that they fly in unaffected +terror. His dirty face and his great stick, harmless as it is, make +the children shriek aloud. It is the comedy of customs in their most +elementary but their most striking state.</p> + +<p>When this farce is well under way, people make ready to hunt for the +cabbage. They bring a stretcher and place upon it the “infidel,” armed +with a spade, a cord, and a large basket. Four powerful men raise him +on their shoulders. His wife follows on foot, and after her come +the “elders” in a body with serious and thoughtful looks; then the +wedding-march begins by couples to a step tuned to music. Pistol-shots +begin anew, and dogs bark louder than ever at the sight of the filthy +“infidel” borne aloft in triumph. The children swing incense in derision +with sabots fastened at the end of a cord.</p> + +<p>But why this ovation to an object so repulsive? They are marching to the +capture of the sacred cabbage, emblem of the fruitfulness of marriage, +and it is this drunkard alone who can bear the symbolic plant in his +hand. Doubtless, there is in it a pre-Christian mystery which recalls +the Saturnalian feasts or some rout of the Bacchanals. Perhaps this +“infidel,” who is, at the same time, preeminently a gardener, is +none other than Priapus himself, god of gardens and of drunkenness, a +divinity who must have been pure and serious in his origin as is the +mystery of birth, but who has been degraded bit by bit through license +of manners and distraction of thought.</p> + +<p>However this may be, the triumphal procession arrives at the bride’s +house, and enters the garden. Then they select the choicest cabbage, and +this is not done very quickly, for the old people keep consulting and +disputing interminably, each one pleading for the cabbage he thinks most +suitable. They put it to vote, and when the choice is made the gardener +fastens his cord to the stalk, and moves away as far as the size of the +garden permits. The gardener’s wife takes care that the sacred +vegetable shall not be hurt in its fall. The wits of the wedding, the +hemp-dresser, the grave-digger, the carpenter, and the sabot-maker, form +a ring about the cabbage, for men who do not till the soil, but pass +their lives in other people’s houses, are thought to be, and are really, +wittier and more talkative than simple farmhands. One digs, with a +spade, a ditch deep enough to uproot an oak. Another places on his +nose a pair of wooden or cardboard spectacles. He fulfils the duties of +“engineer,” walks up and down, constructs a plan, stares at the workmen +through his glasses, plays the pedant, cries out that everything will be +spoiled, has the work stopped and begun afresh as his fancy directs, and +makes the whole performance as long and ridiculous as he can. This is +an addition to the formula of an ancient ceremony held in mockery of +theorists in general, for peasants despise them royally, or from hatred +of the surveyors who decide boundaries and regulate taxes, or of the +workmen employed on bridges and causeways, who transform commons into +highways, and suppress old abuses which the peasants love. Be this as it +may, this character in the comedy is called the “geometrician,” and +does his best to make himself unbearable to those who are toiling with +pickaxe and shovel.</p> + +<p>After a quarter of an hour spent in mummery, and difficulties raised in +order to avoid cutting the roots, and to transplant the cabbage without +injury, while shovelfuls of dirt are tossed into the faces of the +onlookers,—so much the worse for him who does not retreat in time, +for were he bishop or prince he must receive the baptism of earth,—the +“infidel” pulls the rope, the “infidel’s wife” holds her apron, and the +cabbage falls majestically amidst the applause of the spectators. Then a +basket is brought, and the “infidel” pair plant the cabbage therein +with every care and precaution. They surround it with fresh earth, and +support it with sticks and strings, such as city florists use for their +splendid potted camellias; they fix red apples to the points of the +sticks, and twist sprigs of thyme, sage, and laurel all about them; they +bedeck the whole with ribbons and streamers; they place the trophy +upon the stretcher with the “infidel,” whose duty it is to maintain its +equilibrium and preserve it from harm; and, at length, they move away +from the garden in good order and in marching step.</p> + +<p>But when they are about to pass the gate, and again when they enter the +yard of the bridegroom’s house, an imaginary obstacle blocks the way. +The bearers of the burden stagger, utter loud cries, retreat, advance +once more, and, as though crushed by a resistless force, they pretend +to sink beneath its weight. While this is going on, the bystanders shout +loudly, exciting and steadying this human team.</p> + +<p>“Slowly, slowly, my child. There, there, courage! Look out! Be patient! +Lower your head; the door is too low! Close up; it’s too narrow! A little +more to the left; now to the right; on with you; don’t be afraid; you’re +almost there.”</p> + +<p>Thus it is that in years of plentiful harvest, the ox-cart, loaded to +overflowing with hay or corn, is too broad or too high to enter the +barn door. Thus it is that the driver shouts at the strong beasts, to +restrain them or to urge them on; thus it is that with skill and mighty +efforts they force this mountain of riches beneath the rustic arch of +triumph. It is, above all, the last load, called “the cart of sheaves,” +which requires these precautions, for this is a rural festival, and +the last sheaf lifted from the last furrow is placed on the top of the +cart-load ornamented with ribbons and flowers, while the foreheads of +the oxen and the whip of the driver are decorated also. The triumphant +and toilsome entry of the cabbage into the house is a symbol of the +prosperity and fruitfulness it represents.</p> + +<p>Safe within the bridegroom’s yard, the cabbage is taken from its +stretcher and borne to the topmost peak of the house or barn. Whether it +be a chimney, a gable, or a dove-cote that crowns the roof, the burden +must, at any risk, be carried to the very highest point of the building. +The “infidel” accompanies it as far as this, sets it down securely, and +waters it with a great pitcher of wine, while a salvo of pistol-shots +and demonstrations of joy from the “infidel’s wife” proclaim its +inauguration.</p> + +<p>Without delay, the same ceremony is repeated all over again. Another +cabbage is dug from the garden of the husband and is carried with the +same formalities and laid upon the roof which his wife has deserted to +follow him. These trophies remain in their places until the wind and the +rain destroy the baskets and carry away the cabbage. Yet their lives are +long enough to give some chance of fulfilment to the prophecies which +the old men and women make with bows and courtesies.</p> + +<p>“Beautiful cabbage,” they say, “live and flourish that our young bride +may have a fine baby before a year is over; for if you die too quickly +it is a sign of barrenness, and you will stick up there like an ill +omen.”</p> + +<p>The day is already far gone when all these things are accomplished. All +that remains undone is to take home the godfathers and godmothers of the +newly married couple. When the so-called parents dwell at a distance, +they are accompanied by the music and the whole wedding procession as +far as the limits of the parish; there they dance anew on the highroad, +and everybody kisses them good-by. The “infidel” and his wife are then +washed and dressed decently, if the fatigue of their parts has not +already driven them away to take a nap.</p> + +<p>Everybody was still dancing and singing and eating in the Town Hall of +Belair at midnight on this third day of the wedding when Germain was +married. The old men at table could not stir, and for good reason. They +recovered neither their legs nor their wits until dawn on the morrow. +While they were regaining their dwellings, silently and with uncertain +steps, Germain, proud and active, went out to hitch his oxen, leaving +his young wife to slumber until daylight. The lark, caroling as it +mounted to the skies, seemed to him the voice of his heart returning +thanks to Providence. The hoar-frost, sparkling on the leafless bushes, +seemed to him the whiteness of April flowers that comes before the +budding leaves. Everything in nature was laughing and happy for him. +Little Pierre had laughed and jumped so much the evening before that he +did not come to help lead his oxen; but Germain was glad to be alone. +He fell on his knees in the furrow he was about to plow afresh, and said +his morning prayer with such a burst of feeling that two tears rolled +down his cheeks, still moist with sweat.</p> + +<p>Afar off he heard the songs of the boys from neighboring villages, who +were starting on their return home, singing again in their hoarse voices +the happy tunes of the night before.</p> + + +<p class="center noindent p3">THE END.</p> + + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK The Devil’s Pool ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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