To every complaint Palmyre, who was scouring the tiled floor of the kitchen in the dark, made the same answer, which sounded like a refrain of misery.
"Sure enough, we've all of us got our troubles; they bring us to the grave!"
Rose was at length deciding to light the candle when La Grande came in with her knitting. During the summer there was no evening meeting; but, to avoid using even a candle-end, she was wont to spend an hour at her brother's before groping her way to bed in the darkness. She established herself forthwith; and Palmyre, who had still the pots and pans to scour, breathed not a word more, over-awed by the sight of her grandmother.
"If you want any hot water, my girl," said Rose, "undo a faggot."
Then she contained herself for a moment, and forced herself to talk of other matters. In La Grande's presence the Fouans avoided complaining, knowing how pleased she was whenever she heard them regret having parted with their property. But passion was too much for Rose, and finally she spoke again:
"And you may as well put on the whole faggot at once, if they call that a faggot, indeed! Merely some dead twigs and hedge-clippings! Fanny must certainly scrape the floor of her wood-house to send us rotten stuff like that!"
Fouan, who had remained at table, with his glass full, then broke the silence in which he had seemingly wished to enwrap himself.
"God a' mercy!" he shouted. "Haven't we had enough of your faggots? They're muck, and we know it! But what's to be said, pray, of the beastly dregs that Delhomme gives me for wine?"
He raised his glass to the candle and glanced at it.
"Eh? What the devil has he put into it? It's worse even than the rinsings of casks. And he's the honest one! The two others would let us die o' thirst, before they'd go and fetch us even a bottle of water from the river."
At length he made up his mind to drink his wine at a gulp. But he spat violently afterwards.
"Ugh! the poison! P'raps it's to kill me right off."
After that Fouan and Rose gave way to their rancour, and, casting all restraint aside, relieved their aching hearts. There was a perfect litany of recriminations, each in turn exposing his or her wrongs. Take, for instance, the ten quarts of milk per week. To begin with, they only got six; and then what milk it was! Although it didn't pass through the priest's hands it must be real Christian milk, judging by the way it was baptised! The same with the eggs. They must have been specially ordered of the fowls, for such little ones could never have been found in all the Cloyes markets. They were regular curiosities, and so grudgingly given, that they had time enough to go bad on the way. As for the cheeses! Cheeses indeed! Rose was doubled up with colic every time she ate any. She ran to fetch one, insisting on Palmyre's tasting it. Well, wasn't it horrible? Didn't this demand redress? They must put flour into it, and perhaps plaster as well. Then Fouan struck in, lamenting that he was cut down to a sou's worth of tobacco per day; and Rose immediately regretted her black coffee which she had had to give up. Finally, both together, they taxed their children with the death of their decrepit old dog, which they had drowned the day before, because he cost them too much to keep.
"I gave them everything," cried the old fellow; "and the scamps don't care a damn about me. It'll kill us for certain—it makes us so wild to be left in such wretchedness!"
At length they became silent, and La Grande, who had not unclosed her lips, looked from one to the other with her round, evil, bird-of-prey-like eyes.
"Serve you right!" said she.
Just at that moment, however, Buteau came in. Palmyre, having finished her work, took advantage of the opening of the door to slip out and make her escape, with the fifteen sous which Rose had just put into her hand. Buteau stood motionless in the middle of the room, maintaining the prudent silence of the peasant, who will never be the first to speak. A couple of minutes elapsed, and then the father was forced to open the discussion.
"So you've made up your mind. That's fortunate. We've had plenty of time to wait for you during these last ten days."
The son swayed carelessly from side to side, and eventually said: "One can't do more than one can. Every one knows how his bread bakes."
"Possibly. But if things were to go on at that rate, you'd be eating your bread while we starved. You signed, and you ought to pay up on the right day."
Seeing his father's ill-humour, Buteau began to laugh.
"If I'm too late, you know, I can go back. It's not so nice to have to pay as it is. Some don't pay at all."
This allusion to Hyacinthe disquieted Rose, who, not daring to interfere, confined herself to twitching her husband's jacket. He had made a gesture of anger, but checked himself.
"Good. Hand over your fifty francs. I've drawn out the receipt."
Buteau leisurely fumbled in his clothes. He had glanced in a vexed way at La Grande, and seemed put out by her presence. She dropped her knitting, and glared at him in expectation of seeing the money produced. The parents, too, had drawn near, and never took their eyes off the young fellow's hand. Under the stare of those three pairs of eyes, he reluctantly drew out his first five-franc piece.
"One," said he, laying it down on the table. Others followed, more and more slowly. He went on counting them aloud, in faltering tones. After producing the fifth he stopped, and had to make an exhaustive search to find another; then he shouted loudly and emphatically:
"And six!"
The Fouans still waited, but nothing more came.
"What, six?" the father said at last. "There ought to be ten. Are you making fun of us? Last quarter, forty francs; and only thirty this time."
Buteau immediately assumed a whining tone. Nothing prospered. Wheat had fallen still lower, the oats were wretched. There was even a swelling on his horse's stomach, and he had had to send twice for Monsieur Patoir. In short, he was ruined, and he didn't know how to make both ends meet.
"That's no concern of mine," repeated the old man furiously. "Hand over the fifty francs, or I'll summons you!"
He grew cooler, however, as it occurred to him to accept the six coins on account; and he spoke of making out a fresh receipt.
"Then you will give me the twenty francs next week? I'll put that on the paper."
Buteau, however, had immediately snatched up the money lying on the table.
"No, no! None of that! We must be quits. Leave the receipt as it is, or I'm off. Likely thing! It wouldn't be worth while my pinching and screwing if I were still to be in your debt."
Then there was a terrible scene. Both father and son held out stubbornly, untiringly repeating the same phrases; the one exasperated at not having pocketed the money in the first instance, the other clutching it firmly, and determined not to give it up again without having the receipt in full. Once more the mother had to twitch her husband's jacket, and once more he gave way.
"There, you confounded thief; there's the paper! You ought to have it smacked on your jaw! Hand over the money."
The transfer was made from fist to fist, and Buteau, having played the comedy out, began to laugh. He went off, pleasant and contented, wishing the company a very good evening. Fouan, who looked exhausted, had sat down at the table; and La Grande, before resuming her knitting, shrugged her shoulders and shouted in his face:
"You stupid fool!"
Silence ensued. Then the door re-opened, and Hyacinthe came in. Having been informed by La Trouille that his brother was to pay that night, he had watched him on the road, and had waited for him to leave before presenting himself in his turn. His mild expression was simply due to the maudlin effects of dissipation over-night. From the doorway, his glance fell straight on the six five-franc pieces which Fouan had been imprudent enough to leave on the table.
"Ah, it's Hyacinthe," exclaimed Rose, pleased to see him.
"Yes, it's me. Hope I see you all well!"
He came forward, with his eyes riveted on the white coins, which glistened like so many moons in the candle light. His father, who had turned his head, observed his look, and perceived the money with a start of disquietude. He clapped a plate over the coins to hide them, but it was too late.
"Infernal fool I was!" thought he, irritated at his own carelessness. "La Grande is right."
Then, aloud, and coarsely: "You do well to come and pay us, for as true as that candle's shining, I'd have sent the lawyer to you to-morrow."
"Yes, La Trouille told me so," groaned Hyacinthe very humbly: "and so I put myself about to come, because you surely can't wish my death, do you? Pay, good Lord! what's one to pay with, when one hasn't even bread enough to live on? We've sold everything—oh! I'm not kidding; come and see for yourself if you think I'm kidding. There are now no sheets on the beds, no more furniture, no nothing! And on the top of that, I'm ill."
A guffaw of incredulity interrupted him. He went on without heeding:
"Perhaps it doesn't show much, but, all the same, there's something wrong in my inside. I cough, I feel that I'm going. If I could only get some broth! But when one can't even get broth, one kicks the bucket, eh? That's true enough. To be sure I'd pay you if I had the money. Tell me where there is any, and I will give you some, and boil a bit of beef to begin with. It's now a fortnight since I tasted meat, indeed it is! on my honour."
Rose began to be affected, while Fouan got more angry.
"You've turned everything into drink, you good-for-nothing vagabond. So much the worse for you! You've pledged all that fine land that had been in the family for years and years! Yes, you've been on the spree for months, you and your daughter; and if it's finished now, well, go and die."
Hyacinthe hesitated no longer, but sobbed.
"It isn't fatherly to say that. Only unnatural people cast off their children. It's because I'm good-hearted that I shall come to grief. If you hadn't any money one could make allowances! But when a father has the cash, does he refuse alms to a son? I shall go and beg at other people's houses; and a nice thing that'll be—a very nice thing indeed!"
At every phrase, jerked out amid his tears, he made the old man tremble by casting side-long glances at the plate. Then, pretending to suffocate, he screamed in a deafening way as if he were having his throat cut.
Rose, who was quite upset and vanquished by his sobs, clasped her hands in supplication to Fouan.
"Come, husband."
But he, struggling with himself, and still refusing, cut her short.
"No, no, he's only making fools of us. Will you hold your tongue, you brute? Is there any sense in howling like that? The neighbours will come in. You're making us ill."
This only made the sot increase his clamour, as he bellowed out:
"I haven't told you. But the lawyer is coming to-morrow to put in an execution for a bill I gave Lambourdieu. I'm a swine; I disgrace you; I must put an end to it. Pig that I am, and I deserve to be soused in the Aigre for good. If I only had thirty francs!"
Fouan, tried beyond endurance, and overcome by the scene, started at the mention of thirty francs. He removed the plate. What good was it, when the scamp saw the money and counted it through the china?
"You want the whole. In God's name, is that reasonable? Look here! You're driving us distracted. Take half, and go; and don't let us see you again."
Hyacinthe, suddenly cured, apparently took counsel with himself. Then he declared:
"No, fifteen francs is too little; it would be of no use. Call it twenty, and I'll leave you."
Then, when he'd got the four five-franc pieces, he made them all laugh by relating what a trick he had played Bécu, with some imitation bottom lines so placed in the reserved part of the Aigre that the rural constable had tumbled into the water while trying to get them out. At last he went away, after getting himself offered a glass of the bad wine sent by Delhomme, whom he called a dirty scoundrel to dare send such stuff to a father.
"He's a pleasant fellow, anyhow!" said Rose, when the door had shut behind him.
La Grande had risen, and was folding up her knitting, prior to leaving. She stared at her sister-in-law and then at her brother; and finally in her turn she went out after screaming, in a fit of passion long suppressed:
"Not a copper, you infernal fools! Never ask me for a copper, never!"
Outside, she met Buteau, who was returning from Macqueron's, having been astonished to see Hyacinthe come in there, looking very lively, and rattling a pocketful of crowns. He had at once smelt a rat.
"Oh, yes! The rascal's making off with your money. Ah, what a night of it he'll make! and what an ass he'll think you are!"
Buteau, beside himself, knocked with both fists at the Fouans' door. If they hadn't let him in he would have broken it down. The old folks were already going to bed. The mother had taken off her cap and her dress, and was in her petticoat, with her grey hair falling over her temples. When they decided to open the door, he burst in upon them, shouting in a stifled voice:
"My money! My money!"
They recoiled in fear and bewilderment, not understanding him as yet.
"Do you suppose I half-kill myself for that scoundrel, my brother? So he's to do nothing, and I'm to provide for him! Oh, no! Oh, no!"
Fouan tried to deny it, but Buteau coarsely interrupted him.
"What's that? Oh, you're going to lie, now! I tell you he's got my money. I smelt it; I heard it rattling in the blackguard's pocket! My money, that I sweated for, and that he's going to spend in tipple! If it's not so, show it me! Show me the coins, if you have them still. I know them; I can tell them. Show me the coins!"
He stubbornly repeated this phrase a score of times, as if applying the spur to his anger. He got to thumping the table with his fist, demanding the coins on the spot, at once, swearing that he did not want to take them back, but simply to see them. Then, as the old folks shook and stammered, he burst out furiously:
"He's got them; that's clear! Hell and thunder, if I ever bring you another copper! One might bleed one's-self for you; but I'd sooner cut off my arms than keep that sodden cur!"
At last, however, the father also got into a passion.
"Now then, haven't you about finished," said he. "Is it any business of yours what we do? The money's my own, and I can do what I like with it."
"What's that you say?" retorted Buteau, going up to him, pale and with clenched fists. "So you expect me to give up everything. Well, then, I tell you it's simply filthy—yes, filthy—to get money out of your children, when you have certainly enough to live on. Oh! it's no use your denying it! You've got a hoard in there, I know!"
The startled old man was struggling wildly, his voice and arms both failing him, with nought of his old authority left to turn his son out.
"No, no; there's not a copper. Will you go off?"
"Suppose I look! Suppose I look!" repeated Buteau, already opening some drawers and tapping the walls.
Rose, terrified, and dreading an encounter between father and son, hung on the latter's shoulder, and faltered:
"You unfortunate fellow, do you want to kill us?"
Turning sharply upon her, he seized her by the wrists, and shouted in her face, regardless of her poor, grey, worn, and weary head:
"It's all your fault! It was you that gave the money to Hyacinthe. You never liked me, you old hag!"
With these words he gave her so rough a push that, uttering a faint cry, she fell swooning in a heap against the wall. He looked at her for an instant as she reclined there, huddled up like a bundle of rags, and then madly rushed out, slamming the door and swearing.
The next day Rose could not leave her bed. Doctor Finet was called in, and returned three times, without being able to afford her any relief. At his third visit, finding her in extremity, he took Fouan aside, and asked as a favour to be allowed to write out the burial certificate, and leave it. This plan, which he generally adopted for distant hamlets, would save him a journey. Nevertheless, Rose survived for thirty-six hours longer. The doctor, when questioned, had replied that she was dying of old age and over-work: that the end was bound to come when the body was worn out. But in Rognes, where the story was known, all the folks said that she had died of "curdled blood," meaning apoplexy. There were a great many people at the funeral, and Buteau and the rest of the family behaved with great decorum.
When the grave had been filled up, old Fouan went back alone to the house where the two of them had lived and suffered for fifty years. He ate a bit of bread and cheese standing. Then he prowled through the empty buildings and garden, not knowing what occupation would enable him to get rid of his grief. He had nothing more to do now, so he went up to his old fields on the plateau to see if the wheat were growing.
CHAPTER III.
For a whole year Fouan lived in this fashion, silent and alone, in the empty house. He was ever to be found there on his legs, roaming hither and thither with trembling hands and doing nothing. He would stay for hours in front of the mouldy troughs in the cow-house; and then he would turn and station himself at the door of the empty barn, as if riveted there in profound reverie. The garden still gave him some occupation; but he was growing weaker, and stooped more and more, as though the soil were recalling him little by little to herself. Twice had he been picked up lying face downwards among his young salads.
Since those twenty francs had been given to Hyacinthe, Delhomme alone paid his share of the allowance. Buteau stubbornly refused a single copper, declaring he would rather go into a court of law than see his money pass into the pockets of his disreputable brother. The latter did, indeed, from time to time, wring some alms from his father, whom his tearful heroics prostrated.
Then it was that Delhomme, seeing the old man's growing distress, his enfeeblement and forlornness, conceived the notion of taking him into his own home. Why should not Fouan sell the house and live at his daughter's? He would want for nothing there; and they would no longer have to pay him the two hundred francs' allowance. The next day Buteau, having heard of this offer, hastened to make a similar one, with an elaborate display of filial affection. Money to fling away—no, no, indeed! But if it were merely a question of caring for his father, why the latter could come and eat and sleep and enjoy himself. At bottom, no doubt, Buteau's idea must have been that his sister was only trying to get hold of the old man with the intention of grabbing the suppositious hoard. Yet even he was beginning to doubt the existence of that money, which he had hunted after in vain. And he was in two minds—offering his father a shelter out of pride, expecting that the old man would refuse, and yet exasperated at the notion that he might accept Delhomme's hospitality. Fouan, on his side, displayed great repugnance, almost dread, as regards both proposals. No, no! Better dry bread in his own house than roast meat at other people's; it was less bitter. He had lived there and there he would die.
So things went on till mid-July—Saint Henri's day, which was the patronal feast-day of Rognes. A travelling ball-room, under canvas, was usually set up in the meadows of the Aigre; and on the road, in front of the municipal offices, there were three stalls, one kept by a cheap-jack, who sold everything down to ribbons; a shooting-gallery, and a game of turn-about, at which sticks of barley-sugar could be won. That day Monsieur Baillehache, who was breakfasting at La Borderie, profited by the occasion to go and have a chat with Delhomme, who begged him to accompany him to Fouan's, and persuade the old man to listen to reason. Since Rose's death the notary also had advised Fouan to take up his abode with his daughter and sell the house, which was now uselessly large. It was worth some three thousand francs; and he, the notary, even offered to take care of the money and to pay Fouan the interest on it in little sums, according to his humble wants.
They found the old fellow in his customary bewilderment, trudging about at random in a state of stupor, in front of a heap of wood, which he wanted to saw up without having the strength to do so. That morning his poor hands shook even more than usual, for on the night before he had undergone a terrible onslaught from Hyacinthe, who, to get hold of twenty francs, in view of the morrow's festivity, had brought all his resources into play, bellowing maddeningly, crawling on the ground, and threatening to kill himself with a knife which he had purposely concealed up his sleeve. At this the old man had given the twenty francs, as he at once confessed, with an air of anguish, to the notary.
"Tell me, would you do otherwise? I'm dead beat, dead beat!"
So Monsieur Baillehache took advantage of the circumstance.
"I've not come to talk about all that," said he. "You can't keep on like this. You won't even have your own skin left you. At your age it isn't prudent to live alone; and if you don't want to be eaten alive, you must listen to your daughter. Sell this place and go and live with her!"
"Ah! so that's your advice, too?" muttered Fouan.
He glanced askance at Delhomme, who affected to hold himself aloof. However, remarking the old man's look of distrust, he spoke out.
"You know, father," he began, "that I say nothing, because you perhaps imagine that I have some selfish object in inviting you. Good gracious, no! You'll give us extra work at home, but then it annoys me to see you so uncomfortably situated when you might be living at ease."
"Well, well," replied the old fellow, "we must think it over. As soon as I make up my mind, I'll be sure and let you know."
Neither his son-in-law nor the notary could get anything more out of him. He complained of being bustled. His authority, which had gradually died out, just lingered in this obstinacy of old age—this obstinacy which made him regardless even of his own comfort and well-being. In addition to his vague dread at the idea of no longer having a house of his own—a dread which was by no means unnatural, seeing how much he already suffered from having no land left him—he said "no," because they all wanted to make him say "yes." The brutes had something to gain by it, then? Well, he would say "yes" when he chose to do so, and not before.
On the evening before, Hyacinthe having been weak enough in his rapture to show La Trouille his four five-franc pieces, had gone to sleep clutching them in his hand, for on the last occasion the minx had stolen one from under his bolster, taking advantage of the fact that he had come home drunk to assert that he must have lost it out of doors. On awaking he had a fright, the coins having escaped from his grasp during his sleep; but he found them again, quite warm, under his buttocks, and was then thrilled with a mighty joy. His mouth was already watering at the thought of how he would spend the cash at Lengaigne's. It was the village fête, and no one with any decency would go back home at night-time with any change left in his pocket. During the morning La Trouille vainly coaxed her father to give her one of the five-franc pieces, just a little one, she said; but he repulsed her, and was not even grateful for the stolen eggs with which she made him an omelette. No, no! It didn't suffice that she was fond of her father; money was made for men. Then in a fit of wrath she put on her blue poplin dress—a present dating from the period of plenty—saying that she, too, was going to enjoy herself. She hadn't got twenty yards from the door when she turned round and called out:
"Father, father, look!"
Her hand was raised, and she displayed between the tips of her slender fingers a five-franc piece which shone like a sun.
Hyacinthe fancied that he had been robbed, and, growing pale, he fumbled in his pockets. But the twenty francs were there all right. The hussy must have sold some of her geese, and the dodge striking him as funny, he chuckled paternally and let her go.
He was only strict on one point: morality; and it was on that account that, half-an-hour later, he fell into a violent passion. He also was going out, and was on the point of fastening the door, when a peasant, in holiday garb, passing along on the road below, hailed him.
"Hyacinthe, ahoy! Hyacinthe!"
"What is it?"
"I have just seen your daughter."
"What of it?"
"Well, there's a fellow with her."
"Whereabouts are they?"
"In the ditch over there, at the corner of Guillaume's field."
On hearing this Hyacinthe raised both hands furiously to heaven.
"All right; thanks," said he to the peasant. "I'll fetch my whip. The dirty drab! Bringing dishonour on me like this, indeed!"
Having returned into his house, he took down from behind the door, on the left, a long horse-whip which he only used on these occasions; then with the whip under his arm he set out, creeping past the bushes as if after some game, so as to come upon the guilty couple unawares.
When, however, he turned round the bend of the road, Nénesse, who was keeping watch on a heap of stones, caught sight of him. It was Delphin who was with La Trouille. The two were taking turns, the one acting as outpost while the other amused himself.
"Look out!" cried Nénesse; "here's Hyacinthe."
He had seen the whip, and he started off across country like a hare.
La Trouille and Delphin were in the grassy ditch. What a nuisance! So here was her father coming! Still she had her wits sufficiently about her to hand Delphin her five-franc piece.
"Look here," said she, "hide this somewhere. You can give it me back again. Quick, cut away, hang you!"
Hyacinthe came up like a hurricane, shaking the ground as he ran, and brandishing his whip, which smacked with a sound like that of crackling flames.
"Oh, you foul drab, you!" he shouted; "I'll rouse you!"
He was so infuriated, on recognising the rural constable's son, that he missed the lad, as the latter scuttled off on all fours through the brambles. La Trouille, hampered by her petticoats, could neither escape nor plead innocence. A lash of the whip soon set her upright, and brought her out of the ditch. Then the sport began.
"Take that, you dirty troll! See if that won't quiet you!"
La Trouille, without saying a word, accustomed to these races, leapt away like a goat. Her father's usual tactics were to bring her back home like that, and then lock her up. So she tried to make her escape towards the plain, hoping to tire him out; and on this occasion she all but succeeded, thanks to a chance encounter. For the last moment or so, Monsieur Charles and Elodie, whom he was taking to the fête, had been standing there stock-still, in the middle of the road. They had seen everything; the young girl staring wide with innocent stupefaction, the father red with shame and bursting with indignation. The worst was that as that shameless hussy La Trouille recognised him she tried to obtain his protection. He repulsed her, but the whip was within range, and, to avoid it, she took to dodging round her uncle and cousin; while her father swore more loudly than ever, coarsely reproaching her with her misbehaviour. Meantime he also dodged round Monsieur Charles, and launched forth a volley of lashes, with all his might. Monsieur Charles, dumbfounded and aghast at being thus encircled, could only bury Elodie's face in his waistcoat, so that she might not see or hear anything. To such an extent did he lose his wits, that he himself became very coarse.
"Now, then, you dirty troll, will you leave me alone? Whoever cursed me with such a family in this strumpets' country?"
As soon as La Trouille was dislodged she felt that she was lost. One lash of the whip, which curled round her up to her arm-pits, made her spin like a top; another knocked her down, and dragged out a wisp of her hair. After that, brought back into the right road, her only idea was to get home as sharply as possible. She leapt over the hedges, cleared the ditches, and cut across the vineyards, without fear of impalement on the stakes. However, her little legs could no longer hold out; the lashes still rained down upon her round shoulders, upon her loins, indeed over all her precocious flesh. Not that she cared a straw; she had got to think it rather amusing to be tickled so hard. With a nervous laugh she finally leapt into the house, and took refuge in a corner, where the big whip could no longer reach her.
"Hand over your five francs," said the father, "by way of penalty."
She swore that she had lost them while running home, whereupon he sniggered incredulously, and rummaged her all over. Finding nothing, he flew into a passion again.
"What! So you've given them to your gallant! You blessed fool! You amuse them, and then you pay them!"
After that he went off in a towering rage, locking her in, and calling out that she should stay there all by herself till the next day, as he didn't mean to return.
La Trouille, when once he had gone off, made an inspection of her body, which was just striped with two or three weals. Then she put her hair straight, and tidied her dress. Finally, she calmly undid the lock—a trick at which she had grown extremely skilful—and bolted off, without even taking the trouble to refasten the door. Nicely robbed the robbers would find themselves, if any came! She knew where to find Nénesse and Delphin again: in a copse beside the Aigre. They were, indeed, waiting for her there; and now it was her cousin Nénesse's turn. He had three francs with him, the other threepence. She had got her money back, and she decided good-naturedly that they would spend the whole lot together. They returned to the fair, and she set them a-shooting for macaroons, after buying herself a big bow of red satin, which she stuck in her hair.
Meanwhile, on arriving at Lengaigne's, Hyacinthe fell in with Bécu, who had his official badge fastened on to a new blouse. The scamp apostrophised the constable vehemently.
"Look here, you! You've a pretty way of going your rounds! D'you know where I found your swine of a boy?"
"Where?"
"Why, with my daughter! I'll write to the prefect and have you cashiered, you swine's father—swine, yourself!"
This made Bécu fire up.
"Daughter, indeed! Why, she's always flourishing her legs in the air—and so now she's led Delphin astray? Hell and thunder! I'll send the gendarmes after her!"
"Just try it on, you thief!"
Then the two snarled in each other's faces, till, all at once, the strain was relaxed, and their fury dropped.
"We must have an explanation; let's go in and liquor," said Hyacinthe.
"I haven't a copper," replied Bécu.
Then the other merrily produced his first five-franc piece, tossed it in the air, and stuck it in his eye.
"Well, shall we spend it, you gay dog? Come along, my buck! It's my turn now; you've paid often enough."
They went into Lengaigne's, chuckling for joy, and slapping each other affectionately on the back. Lengaigne had had an idea that year. As the owner of the strolling ball-room refused to come and pitch his tent in the village, disgusted at not having cleared his expenses the year before, the innkeeper had daringly made a ball-room of his barn, which adjoined his tavern, with its front door communicating with the road. He had even made another doorway in the party-wall, so that ball-room and tavern communicated. This idea had brought him the custom of the whole village, and his rival, Macqueron, was furious at having his house empty.
"Two quarts at once; one for each of us!" yelled Hyacinthe.
As Flore, bewildered and radiant at sight of the throng of people, was attending to his order, he noticed that his arrival had interrupted Lengaigne, who had been reading a letter aloud, standing amid a group of peasants. On being questioned, the taverner replied, with a deal of dignity that, it was a letter sent by his son Victor from the regiment.
"Ah, indeed, the rascal!" said Bécu, becoming interested. "And what does he say? You must begin it again for us."
So Lengaigne read it over again.
"My Dear Parents,—This is to tell you that we have been here at Lille in Flanders for a month, less seven days. The country's not bad except for the dearness of the wine, for which we have to pay as much as eightpence a quart."
In all the four closely-written pages there was hardly anything else. The same detail recurred with infinite monotony, spun out into lengthened phrases. However, they all expressed surprise each time that the price of the wine was mentioned. So there were parts like that! How horrid! In the last lines of the letter came an attempt at spongeing: a request for twelve francs to replace a lost pair of shoes.
"Ah, the rascal!" repeated the rural constable. "Something like a fellow that, good God."
After the first two quarts, Hyacinthe asked for two more: bottled wine, at a franc apiece, paying as he was served so as to create astonishment, and rapping his money on the table, in a way that revolutionised the tavern. When the first five-franc piece had been expended in drink, he pulled out a second one, screwed it into his eye, as before, and cried out that there was plenty more where that one had come from. So the afternoon slipped by, amid a bustle of drinkers passing in and out, and increasing tipsiness. Dull and sedate though they were on work-days, they were now all yelling, thumping, and spitting vehemently. It occurred to one tall thin fellow to get shaved, and Lengaigne sat him down forthwith in the midst of them, and scraped his skin so roughly, that the razor was heard going over the leathery integument as if at work on a scalded pig. A second took the first one's place; 'twas fine sport. And how the tongues wagged! There was Macqueron, now, who didn't dare show himself outside. Wasn't it this fool of an assessor's own fault if the usual ball hadn't come? Arrangements might have been made. But, sure enough, he preferred voting roads, and getting three times as much money for his land as it was worth. This allusion provoked a tempest of laughter. Fat Flore, whose triumph the day was to be, kept neglecting her customers to run to the door, bursting into insolent mirth, whenever she saw Cœlina's jaundiced visage behind the opposite window-panes.
"Cigars! Madame Lengaigne," thundered Hyacinthe at last. "Expensive ones, mind! Penny each!"
As night was falling, and the petroleum lamps were being lit, Madame Bécu came in to look for her husband. But he had started on a monstrous game at cards.
"Are you coming?" she said; "it's past eight. You must have some dinner."
He stared at her with tipsy majesty.
"Go to blazes!" he replied.
Then Hyacinthe displayed intense delight. "Madame Bécu," said he, "I invite you. Eh? Yes, we'll just peck a bit, between the three of us. D'ye hear there, mistress? Give us your best: some ham, some rabbit, and dessert. And don't be anxious. Just look here. Attention!"
He then pretended to fumble himself all over. Then he suddenly produced his third coin, and held it up.
"Cuckoo! Aha, there it is!"
Everybody was doubled up with laughter, and one fat man all but suffocated. That rascal Hyacinthe was thundering funny! And some of them, by way of a joke, felt him from head to foot, as if he had had crowns all over him.
"I say, La Bécu," he repeated a dozen times over while he was eating, "if Bécu don't mind, we'll sleep together? What do you say?"
She was very dirty, not having known, she said, that she should stop at the fête; and she laughed, did this dark pole-cat of a woman, wiry and rusty like an old needle; while Hyacinthe, without further delay, grabbed hold of her legs under the table. Meantime the husband, blind drunk, dribbled and chuckled, shouting out that two men would be none too many for the hussy.
It was ten o'clock when the ball began. Through the communicating doorway the four lamps, fastened by iron wires to the beams, could be seen blazing. Clou, the farrier, was there with his trombone, as well as the nephew of a Bazoches-le-Doyen rope-maker, who played the violin. The admission was free, but you paid two sous for each dance you joined in. The beaten soil underfoot had just been watered, on account of the dust. Whenever the instruments left off playing, the sharp, regular detonations of the neighbouring shooting-gallery could be heard. The road, usually so gloomy, was all ablaze with the reflectors of the two other booths; the trinket stall glittered with gildings, while the turn-about was bedecked with mirrors and hung with red curtains like a chapel.
"Hallo! Why, there's my little daughter!" cried Hyacinthe, with swimming eyes.
So it was. La Trouille was just coming into the ball, attended by Delphin and Nénesse; and the father did not seem at all surprised to see her there, although he had locked her in. She not merely had the red bunch of ribbons flaunting in her hair, for round her neck there was now a heavy imitation coral necklace, formed of beads of sealing-wax, which showed blood-red against her dark skin. All three of them, moreover, tired of rambling about in front of the booths, were dull and sticky with sweetmeats, of which they had eaten more than they could digest. Delphin, who was only happy when out and about in all the hidden nooks of the country-side, wore a blouse, and his shaggy round savage-like head was bare. Nénesse, on the other hand, already yearning after the refinements of town life, was clad in a suit of dittos bought at Lambourdieu's, one of those scant outfits turned out wholesale by cheap Paris clothiers; and he wore a round felt hat, to mark his contempt of the village, which he looked down upon.
"Petty!" called Hyacinthe. "Little daughter, come and taste this. First-rate, ain't it?"
He let her drink out of his glass, while Madame Bécu asked Delphin sternly:
"What have you done with your cap?"
"Lost it."
"Lost it? Come here, and and I'll cuff you!" But Bécu interposed, chuckling complacently at the recollection of his son's precocious gallantries.
"Let him be! He's getting a big boy now. And so, you scum of the earth, you've been amusing yourselves together? Ah! the lickerish dog."
"Go and play," concluded Hyacinthe paternally. "And mind you're to be good."
"They're as drunk as pigs," said Nénesse, with an air of disgust, as he went back to the ball-room.
La Trouille laughed.
"I should just think so! I quite expected it. That's why they're so amiable."
The dancing was getting lively. The explosive blasts of Clou's trombone, which smothered the faint music of the little fiddle, were all that could be heard. The ground, watered over copiously, was turning to mud under the thick-soled boots of the dancers; and presently, from all the shaken petticoats, from the jackets and bodices that grew moist under the arm-pits with broad stains of sweat, there uprose a strong goat-like smell, accentuated by the smoky acridity of the lamps. Between two quadrilles, a sensation was created by the arrival of Berthe, Macqueron's daughter, arrayed in a foulard dress, exactly like those that the tax-collector's young ladies had worn at Cloyes, on Saint Lubin's day. Could her parents have given her leave to come? Or had she slipped out behind their backs? It was observable that she danced all the time with the son of a wheelwright, whom her father had forbidden her to speak to, on account of a family quarrel. Jests were bandied about. Apparently she was no longer content with her pernicious solitary habits.
Hyacinthe, tipsy as he was, had, for the last moment or so, noticed that beast Lequeu, stationed beside the communicating doorway, and watching Berthe as she curvetted about in her gallant's arms. He could not restrain himself.
"I say, Monsieur Lequeu," he exclaimed, "you're not leading your sweetheart out?"
"What sweetheart?" asked the schoolmaster, green with bile.
"Why, the pretty dark-ringed eyes, over there!"
Lequeu, furious at having been detected, turned his back, and stood motionless, in one of those haughty spells of silence in which he enwrapped himself, out of prudence and disdain. Lengaigne having come forward, Hyacinthe buttonholed him. "Aha! he had given that paper-stainer over there one for his nob! Rich girls for him, indeed! Not that Berthe was such a catch, for she had a peculiar physical defect." Being now thoroughly aflame, he swore to the truth of his assertion. It was current talk from Cloyes to Châteaudun. Stupefied by this information, the others craned over to look at Berthe, making slight grimaces of repugnance whenever her white skirts came flying round that way, in the course of the dance.
"You old rogue," resumed Hyacinthe, beginning to address Lengaigne familiarly, "your girl's all right."
"Rather!" replied the taverner, complacently.
Suzanne was now in Paris, in the swell set, people said. Lengaigne, acting discreetly, used to hint at a good situation she had there. Meanwhile peasants still kept coming in, and a farmer having asked after Victor, the letter was produced again. "My dear Parents,—This is to tell you that we have been here, at Lille in Flanders ..." They all listened anew; even people who had already heard the letter read five or six times over, gathered round again. Not really eightpence a quart? Yes, really; eightpence!
"A beastly country!" repeated Bécu. At that moment Jean made his appearance; at once going to glance into the ball-room, as if he were looking for some one. Then he returned looking disappointed and uneasy. For the last two months he had not dared to pay such frequent visits to Buteau, for he felt that the latter was cool, not to say hostile. Doubtless he, Jean, had ill-concealed his feelings for Françoise, the growing affection which now fevered him, and his comrade had noticed it. It must have displeased him, interfering with his plans.
"Good evening," said Jean, drawing near a table where Fouan and Delhomme were drinking a bottle of beer.
"Will you join us, Corporal?" said Delhomme, politely.
Jean accepted; and after clinking glasses:
"Funny thing Buteau hasn't turned up," he said.
"Here he is, pat!" said Fouan.
And, indeed, Buteau now came in, but all by himself, and Jean's face grew still darker. The other strolled round the tavern, shaking hands; then, on reaching his father and brother-in-law's table, he stood there, refusing to sit down or to take anything.
"Lise and Françoise don't dance, then?" Jean finally asked, in a faltering voice.
Buteau looked at him hard out of his little grey eyes.
"Françoise has gone to bed," he replied; "it's the best place for young folks."
An incident near them now attracted their attention, and cut the conversation short. It was Hyacinthe at loggerheads with Flore, whom he had asked for a quart of rum to make some punch, and who refused to bring it.
"No! No more! You're drunk enough."
"Hallo! what's that she's saying? Do you fancy that I sha'n't pay? Why, I'll buy up your whole shanty, if you like. I've merely to blow my nose. Here! Look at this!"
He had concealed his fourth five-franc piece in his hand; and now pinching his nose with his fingers, he blew it loudly, and apparently drew out the coin, which he then paraded round like a monstrance.
"That's what I blow from my nose, when I've got a cold!"
A round of applause shook the walls, and Flore, quite vanquished, brought the quart of rum and some sugar. Next a salad-bowl was wanted, and then the scamp took possession of the whole room, stirring the punch, with his elbows squarely set, while his red face was lighted up by the glow of the flames, which increased the heat of the atmosphere, already densely befogged by the lamps and pipes. Buteau, exasperated at sight of the money, suddenly broke out:
"You thundering swine, aren't you ashamed of tippling away like that with the money you rob our father of?"
The other adopted a low-comedy tone.
"Oh, it's you, young 'un! I suppose it's your empty stomach that makes you talk such rot!"
"I tell you, you're a dirty beast, and you'll finish at the galleys. To begin with, it was you that killed our mother with grief."
The sot rattled his spoon and stirred up a tempest of flame in the salad-bowl, while he split his sides with laughter.
"Right you are; go on. Sure enough it was me—supposing it wasn't you!"
"And I tell you further that spendthrifts of your kidney don't deserve that the corn should grow. Only to think that our property—yes, all that land that the old folks took so much trouble to leave us—has been pledged by you, and handed over to others. You dirty blackguard, what have you done with the land?"
At this Hyacinthe was roused. His punch went out, and he settled himself, leaning back in his chair, seeing that all the drinkers were silently listening, to judge between him and his brother.
"The land!" he yelled: "why, what the deuce does the land care for you? You're its slave, it robs you of your enjoyments, your strength, your life! You idiot! And it doesn't so much as make you rich! While I, who fold my arms and despise it, confining myself to giving it a kick or two, why, I, you see, am independent and can wet my whistle! Oh, you confounded simpleton!"
The peasants laughed again, while Buteau, surprised by the roughness of the attack, could only mutter:
"A good-for-nothing lazy lout; who does no work and boasts of it."
"Land, indeed! A lot of humbug!" resumed Hyacinthe, now thoroughly aroused. "Well, you must be an ancient, if you still believe in humbug like that! Does it exist, this land? It's mine, it's yours, it's nobody's. Wasn't it once the old 'uns? And hadn't he to cut it up to give it to us? And won't you cut it up for your young 'uns? Very well, then! It comes and goes, increases and diminishes—diminishes especially; for there you are, a fine gentleman with your seven or eight acres, when father had over twenty. I got disgusted with my share. It was too little, so I blued the lot. And, besides, I like sound investments, and, look'ee! young 'un, land's shaky! I would not put a copper into it. It's bad business, and there's an ugly catastrophe at hand that'll wipe you all out. Bankruptcy! A set of blockheads!"
A death-like silence gradually spread through the tavern. No one laughed now. The anxious faces of the peasants were turned towards this tall ruffian, who, in his cups, poured out the muddled contents of his brain—the confused ideas that he had formed as an Algerian campaigner, as a hanger-about-town, and tavern politician. What was paramount in him was the old leaven of '48, the humanitarian communistic views of one who still worshipped at the shrine of '89.
"Liberty, equality, fraternity!" he shouted. "We must hark back to the Revolution. We were swindled in the division of property; the gentlefolks have taken everything, and, by God, they shall be forced to give it back. Isn't one man as good as another? Is it fair, for instance, such a lot of land held by that ass at La Borderie, while I've got none? I want my rights; I want my share; everybody shall have his share."
Bécu, who was too drunk to uphold the principle of authority, approved without understanding. Still, he had a gleam of sense left, and imposed certain limitations.
"That's so, that's so," said he; "but the king's the king, and what is mine isn't yours."
A murmur of approbation ran round, and Buteau took his revenge.
"Don't listen to him; he's only fit to kill!"
There was a fresh burst of laughter, and Hyacinthe, losing all control, stood up, wildly shaking his fists in the air.
"Just you wait a bit. I'll talk to you, you cursed coward! You're in fine feather now, because you've got the mayor, the assessor, and that twopenny-halfpenny deputy on your side! You lick his boots, and you are fool enough to think that he's a power and will help you to sell your corn. Well, I, who have nothing to sell, I don't care a fig for you or your mayor, assessor, deputy, or gendarmes! To-morrow, it'll be our turn to be the stronger; and it won't be me alone, it'll be all the poor devils who are starving to death. Ay, and it'll be you, too; you, I say! when you've got tired of keeping the gentlefolks, without having so much as a crust of bread to eat yourselves. A pretty plight they'll be in, the landowners. They'll have their jaws broken, and the land'll be free for any one to take. D'ye hear, young 'un? I'll take that land of yours and —— on it!"
"You just try it on, and I'll shoot you down like a dog!" shouted Buteau, so wild with rage that he went out, slamming the door after him.
Lequeu, having listened with a reserved air, had already left, unwilling, as an official, to compromise himself any further. Fouan and Delhomme, with their faces over their liquor, breathed not a word; feeling ashamed, and knowing that if they interposed the sot would only shout the louder. The peasants at the surrounding tables were eventually getting angry. What! Their property wasn't their own? It would be taken from them? And, growling, they were about to pummel the communist soundly and turn him out, when Jean rose up. He had not taken his eyes off the speaker, or missed one of his words, as he sat there listening with a serious face, as if seeking what justice might underlie these things that shocked him.
"Hyacinthe," said he quietly, "you'd better hold your tongue. It's not the sort of thing to say; and if by any chance you are right, you're not very clever to put yourself so in the wrong."
So wise a remark from so cool a speaker calmed Hyacinthe instantaneously. He fell back in his chair, declaring that, after all, he didn't care a fig. He then began larking again: kissed Madame Bécu, whose husband was asleep with his head on the table, and finished up the punch, drinking out of the salad-bowl. The laughter had recommenced, amid the dense smoke, and he was voted a funny fellow, all the same.
At the far end of the barn, the dancing was still going on. Clou was still smothering the squeaky notes of the little fiddle with his thunderous blasts of trombone accompaniment. Sweat drained off the bodies of the dancers, and exhaled amid the ruddy smoke of the lamps. La Trouille, whirling about in turn in the arms of Nénesse and Delphin, was conspicuous by her red bow. Berthe, too, was still there, faithful to her gallant and dancing with no one else. In a corner, some young men whom she had cast off were tittering together. Oh, well; if that great gawky was willing, she did right to stick to him; there were plenty of others who, for all her money, would have certainly thought twice before marrying her.
"Let's go home to bed," said Fouan at last to Jean and Delhomme.
Outside, when Jean had left them, the old man walked on in silence, apparently pondering over all he had just heard. Then, abruptly, as if that had decided him, he turned to his son-in-law.
"I'll sell the shanty and come and live with you. That's settled. Good-bye!"
He went slowly home. His heart was heavy; as his boots stumbled over the dark road, a terrible sadness made him stagger like a drunken man. As it was, he had no land, and he would soon have no house. It seemed to him that people were already sawing down the old rafters and pulling off the slates from over his head. He now had not the shelter of a single stone left him; he was like a beggar wandering along the roads, by day and night, unceasingly; and when it rained, the chill, never-ending downpour would fall upon his head.
CHAPTER IV.
The bright August sun had been climbing the horizon since five o'clock, and La Beauce displayed its ripe grain under the glowing sky. Since the last summer showers, the green, ever-growing expanse had little by little turned yellow. It was now a tawny sea of fire, that seemed to reflect the flaming atmosphere: a sea that gleamed and swelled at the least breath of wind. Nothing but corn; corn to infinity, without a glimpse of house or tree! Now and then in the heat of the day, a leaden calm enwrapped the ears, while a fruitful odour rose smoking from the soil. The period of gestation was finishing; it could be realised that the swelling seed was bursting from the womb in warm, heavy grain. At sight of this mighty plain, this giant harvest, one felt uneasy as to whether man, with his insect-like form, so small amid such immensity, would ever be able to get through it.
During the last week, at La Borderie, Hourdequin, having finished his barley, had been engaged upon his wheat. During the previous year his reaping-machine had got out of order; and, discouraged by his servants' hostility, and having himself grown doubtful as to the efficacy of machinery, he had had to provide himself with a staff of reapers since Ascension Day. According to custom, he had hired them at Mondoubleau, in Le Perche. There was the foreman, a tall, lean fellow, five other reapers, and six pickers-up, four of them women and two of them girls. A cart had brought them to Cloyes, where a conveyance from the farm had gone to fetch them. Everybody slept in the sheep-cot—empty at that time of year—the girls, women, and men being all huddled together pell-mell in the straw, half-undressed on account of the great heat.
This was the season when Jacqueline had the most trouble. The sunrise and sunset decided the work of the day or the morrow. They shook off their fleas at three in the morning, and returned to their straw at about ten at night. She always had to be up the first, for the four o'clock soup; just as she went to bed the last, after serving the heavy nine o'clock meal of bacon, beef, and cabbage. Between these two meals there were three others; bread and cheese at eight, soup again at twelve, a sop of milk by way of a snack in the afternoon. In all, five meals, copiously washed down with cider and wine, for the harvesters, who work hard, are exacting as regards their food. However, she merely laughed, as if stimulated by her duties. She was lithe like a cat, with sinews of iron, and her resistance to fatigue was all the more surprising, on account of her amours with that big lubber Tron, whose soft flesh whetted her appetites. She had made him her creature, and she took him into the barns, the hay-loft, and even the sheep-cot, now that the shepherd, whose espionage she feared, passed the night out-of-doors with his sheep. And withal she became more supple and active. Hourdequin neither saw nor heard anything. He was in his harvest fever, something out of the common, the great annual crisis of his passion for the soil. His brain became on fire, his heart beat fast, and his flesh quivered at sight of the ripe, falling grain.
The nights were so sultry that year, that sometimes Jean could not stay in the loft, where he slept, near the stable. He preferred to stretch himself, with all his clothes on, on the pavement of the yard. It was not merely the intolerable living heat of the horses, and the exhalations from their litter, that drove him outside; but sleeplessness, the ever-present image of Françoise, the constant idea of her coming, of his seizing her, and devouring her with his embraces. Now that Jacqueline, being busy elsewhere, left him to himself, his affection for the young girl turned into a madness of longing. Scores of times, while he suffered at night-time, in a state of semi-somnolence, he swore that he would go the next day and win her; but, on rising up, as soon as he had dipped his head into a bucket of cold water, he thought it disgusting: he was too old for her. And then the next night the torture began again. When the harvesters arrived, he recognised among them a woman, now married to one of the reapers, with whom he had been familiar two years before, while she was yet a girl. One evening he slipped into the sheep-cot, and pulled her by the feet as she lay between her husband and her brother, who were both snoring open-mouthed. She got up and came to him, and they lay silently together in the sultry darkness on the trodden soil which, although it had been raked over, still retained, from the winter sojourn of the sheep, so keen an ammoniacal odour as to bring tears into one's eyes. During the three weeks that the reapers were there, he came back to the sheep-cot every night.
After the second week in August, the work made progress. The reapers had started with the northern fields, and were working down towards those which bordered the valley of the Aigre. The immense stretch of corn fell sheaf by sheaf. Every cut of the scythe told, leaving a circular incision. The puny insects, seemingly lost amid their gigantic task, came forth from it in triumph. Behind them, as they slowly marched onward in line, the razed ground re-appeared, bristling with stubble, over which trampled the pickers-up, bending down It was the season when there was the most gaiety about the vast sad solitude of La Beauce, now full of people and animated by the constant motion of labourers, carts, and horses. As far as the eye could reach, there were parties advancing with the same slant progress, with the same swinging of their arms; some so near that the swish of the steel was audible, others extending in black streaks, like ants, as far as the edge of the sky. On all sides gaps were appearing, as though the plain were a piece of cloth wearing into holes all over. Shred by shred, amid the ant-like activity, La Beauce was stripped of her court mantle formed of cloth-of-gold, her sole summer adornment, the loss of which left her desolate and naked. During the last days of the harvest, the heat was overpowering, especially one day when Jean near the Buteaus' land, and, with his cart and pair, was removing some sheaves to a field of the farm where a large stack, six and twenty feet high, was to be built with some three thousand trusses. The stubble was splitting atwain with the drought, and the heat scorched the motionless wheat which was still standing. The latter seemed as if it were itself flaming with visible fire, in the quivering of the sun-rays. Not the shelter of a leaf; no shadow on the ground save the scanty ones of the toilers. Perspiring since the morning under this blazing sky, Jean had been loading and unloading his cart, without saying a word, simply glancing at each journey towards the field where Françoise, bending double, was slowly gathering behind the reaping Buteau.
Buteau had had to take Palmyre to help him; for Françoise did not suffice, and he could not rely on Lise, who had been in the family way for the last eight months. This had exasperated him. After all the precautions he had taken, how could it possibly have happened? He used to jostle his wife about, accusing her of having done it on purpose, and complaining lugubriously for hours together, as if some destitute wretch or stray animal were coming to eat him out of house and home. Although eight months had gone by, he never noticed Lise's condition without abusing it. Curse the thing! A goose was not so stupid! It was the ruin of the household!
That morning she had come to help in the gathering; but he had sent her back, furious with her heavy, clumsy movements. She was to return, however, with the four o'clock snack.
"Good God!" said Buteau, who was bent on finishing a bit of ground; "My back's baked, and my tongue's a perfect chip."
Then he straightened himself; his sockless feet were thrust into thick shoes, and he wore nothing but a shirt and canvas smock, the former hanging half out of the open smock and showing the hair of his sweating chest down to the navel.
"I must have another drink!" said he.
Then he took from under his jacket on the ground a quart bottle of cider, which he had sheltered there. At last, having swallowed two mouthfuls of the tepid drink, he thought of the girl.
"Aren't you thirsty?"
"Yes."
Françoise took a deep draught from the bottle without repugnance. While she bent backward, with her loins curved, and her rounded bust straining the thin material of her dress, he looked at her askance. She also was dripping with moisture, in a print dress half undone, the body being unhooked at the top and showing her white flesh. Under the blue handkerchief with which she had covered her head and neck, her eyes seemed very large in her quiet face, glowing with the heat.
Without another word Buteau, with his hips swinging, resumed his work, felling a swath with every stroke of his scythe, the swish of which kept time to his tread. Stooping down again, she followed him, carrying in her right hand her sickle, which she made use of to gather up each armful of corn from among the thistles. At every three steps she laid the wheat regularly in bundles. Whenever he straightened himself, just long enough to pass the back of his hand over his brow, and saw Françoise too far in the rear, stooping, with her head quite close to the ground, in the position of an expectant animal, he called out to her in a husky voice, his tongue seemingly getting drier than ever:
"Now, then, lazybones! You ought to know better than to fool away your time like that!"
In the adjacent field, where for three days the straw of the bundles had been drying, Palmyre was engaged in binding the sheaves. He did not watch her; for, contrary to the usual practice, he had arranged to pay her per hundred sheaves, on the pretext that she was old and worn out, and had lost her strength, so that he should lose if he paid her by time—at the rate of a franc and a-half per day, which was what the younger women earned. Even to secure this piecework she had had to implore him; and he had taken advantage of her position, assuming the resigned air of a Christian performing a work of charity. The poor creature collected three or four bundles—as many as her shrivelled arms could hold—and then tightly tied the sheaf with a band she had prepared. This work, so fatiguing that it is usually reserved for the men, was exhausting her. Her breast was crushed by the constant loads it had to sustain; her arms were strained by dint of embracing such massive bundles, and tugging at the bands of straw. She had brought with her in the morning a bottle, which she went and filled every hour or so at a neighbouring stagnant, poisonous pool; and she drank greedily of the water, in spite of the diarrhœa, which had torn her to pieces since the beginning of the hot weather, her health being already ruined by over-work.
The azure of the sky had grown pale, as if it were whitened by the heat; and burning coals seemed to fall from the sun, now glowing more fiercely than ever. It was the oppressive noontide hour of the siesta. Delhomme and his party, who had been stacking some sheaves near by—four below, and one to roof the others in with—had already disappeared, and were all lying down in some hollow. For an instant longer old Fouan could be seen, still standing up. He had sold his house a fortnight previously, since when he had been living with his son-in-law, following the harvest-work with all the feverishness of yore. In his turn, he soon felt obliged to lie down, and also disappeared from view. There was nothing remaining against the blank horizon, or the blazing background of the stubble, save the withered figure of La Grande, who was examining a tall stack which her people had begun to erect among a little tribe of smaller ones already partially pulled to pieces. She seemed like a tree hardened by age, with nothing to fear from the sun, as, without a drop of perspiration on her, she stood there bolt upright, feeling sternly indignant with the sleepers.
"Pish! My skin's absolutely crackling," said Buteau at last.
And, turning to Françoise:
"Let's sleep a bit!"
He looked round him for a little shade, but found none. The sun was beating down perpendicularly, and there was not so much as a bush to shelter them. At last he noticed that at the end of the field, in a sort of little ditch, some wheat which was still standing threw a brown streak of shadow.
"Hullo there, Palmyre!" cried he. "Don't you follow our example?"
She was fifty paces off, and replied in a stifled voice, which reached them like a whisper:
"No, no! I haven't time."
She was now the only worker left in all the glowing plain. If she didn't take her franc-and-a-half home with her at night-time, Hilarion would beat her; for he no longer confined himself to his accustomed ill-usage, but robbed her as well, that he might have money to buy brandy with. However, her strength was now forsaking her. Her flat figure, planed straight like a plank by sheer hard work, creaked as if it were about to snap at every fresh sheaf she picked up and bound. With ashen face, worn like some old copper coin, seemingly sixty years of age though actually but thirty-five, she let the burning sun drink up her life-blood in the despairing efforts she made, like a beast of burden about to fall and perish.
Buteau and Françoise had stretched themselves side by side. They were steaming with sweat, now that they had ceased to move about, and they lay in silence with closed eyes. A leaden slumber instantly weighed them down; they slept for an hour; and the perspiration poured unceasingly from their limbs in the motionless, heavy, furnace-like atmosphere. When Françoise opened her eyes again, she saw Buteau lying on his side, watching her with the jaundiced look that had disturbed her for some time past. She re-closed her eyelids, and pretended to go to sleep again. Without his having yet spoken to her, she knew well enough that he desired her, now that she had grown up, and was quite a woman. The idea maddened her. Would he dare, the swine! he whom she heard rioting with her sister every night? Never before had his lustful manner so exasperated her. Would he dare? And she awaited his addresses, unconsciously wishing for them, but resolved, if he touched her, to strangle him.
As she closed her eyes Buteau suddenly seized hold of her.
"You swine! you swine!" she stammered, repulsing him.