Old Amable
PART I
The humid gray sky seemed to weigh down on the vast brown plain. The
odor of autumn, the sad odor of bare, moist lands, of fallen leaves, of
dead grass made the stagnant evening air more thick and heavy. The
peasants were still at work, scattered through the fields, waiting for
the stroke of the Angelus to call them back to the farmhouses, whose
thatched roofs were visible here and there through the branches of the
leafless trees which protected the apple-gardens against the wind.
At the side of the road, on a heap of clothes, a very small boy seated
with his legs apart was playing with a potato, which he now and then let
fall on his dress, whilst five women were bending down planting slips of
colza in the adjoining plain. With a slow, continuous movement, all
along the mounds of earth which the plough had just turned up, they drove
in sharp wooden stakes and in the hole thus formed placed the plant,
already a little withered, which sank on one side; then they patted down
the earth and went on with their work.
A man who was passing, with a whip in his hand, and wearing wooden shoes,
stopped near the child, took it up and kissed it. Then one of the women
rose up and came across to him. She was a big, red haired girl, with
large hips, waist and shoulders, a tall Norman woman, with yellow hair in
which there was a blood-red tint.
She said in a resolute voice:
"Why, here you are, Cesaire--well?"
The man, a thin young fellow with a melancholy air, murmured:
"Well, nothing at all--always the same thing."
"He won't have it?"
"He won't have it."
"What are you going to do?"
"What do you say I ought to do?"
"Go see the cure."
"I will."
"Go at once!"
"I will."
And they stared at each other. He held the child in his arms all the
time. He kissed it once more and then put it down again on the woman's
clothes.
In the distance, between two farm-houses, could be seen a plough drawn by
a horse and driven by a man. They moved on very gently, the horse, the
plough and the laborer, in the dim evening twilight.
The woman went on:
"What did your father say?"
"He said he would not have it."
"Why wouldn't he have it?"
The young man pointed toward the child whom he had just put back on the
ground, then with a glance he drew her attention to the man drawing the
plough yonder there.
And he said emphatically:
"Because 'tis his--this child of yours."
The girl shrugged her shoulders and in an angry tone said:
"Faith, every one knows it well--that it is Victor's. And what about it
after all? I made a slip. Am I the only woman that did? My mother also
made a slip before me, and then yours did the same before she married
your dad! Who is it that hasn't made a slip in the country? I made a
slip with Victor because he took advantage of me while I was asleep in
the barn, it's true, and afterward it happened between us when I wasn't
asleep. I certainly would have married him if he weren't a servant man.
Am I a worse woman for that?"
The man said simply:
"As for me, I like you just as you are, with or without the child. It's
only my father that opposes me. All the same, I'll see about settling
the business."
She answered:
"Go to the cure at once."
"I'm going to him."
And he set forth with his heavy peasant's tread, while the girl, with her
hands on her hips, turned round to plant her colza.
In fact, the man who thus went off, Cesaire Houlbreque, the son of deaf
old Amable Houlbreque, wanted to marry, in spite of his father, Celeste
Levesque, who had a child by Victor Lecoq, a mere laborer on her parents'
farm, who had been turned out of doors for this act.
The hierarchy of caste, however, does not exist in the country, and if
the laborer is thrifty, he becomes, by taking a farm in his turn, the
equal of his former master.
So Cesaire Houlbieque went off, his whip under his arm, brooding over his
own thoughts and lifting up one after the other his heavy wooden shoes
daubed with clay. Certainly he desired to marry Celeste Levesque. He
wanted her with her child because she was the wife he wanted. He could
not say why, but he knew it, he was sure of it. He had only to look at
her to be convinced of it, to feel quite queer, quite stirred up, simply
stupid with happiness. He even found a pleasure in kissing the little
boy, Victor's little boy, because he belonged to her.
And he gazed, without hate, at the distant outline of the man who was
driving his plough along the horizon.
But old Amable did not want this marriage. He opposed it with the
obstinacy of a deaf man, with a violent obstinacy.
Cesaire in vain shouted in his ear, in that ear which still heard a few
sounds:
"I'll take good care of you, daddy. I tell you she's a good girl and
strong, too, and also thrifty."
The old man repeated:
"As long as I live I won't see her your wife."
And nothing could get the better of him, nothing could make him waver.
One hope only was left to Cesaire. Old Amable was afraid of the cure
through the apprehension of death which he felt drawing nigh; he had not
much fear of God, nor of the Devil, nor of Hell, nor of Purgatory, of
which he had no conception, but he dreaded the priest, who represented to
him burial, as one might fear the doctors through horror of diseases.
For the last tight days Celeste, who knew this weakness of the old man,
had been urging Cesaire to go and find the cure, but Cesaire always
hesitated, because he had not much liking for the black robe, which
represented to him hands always stretched out for collections or for
blessed bread.
However, he had made up his mind, and he proceeded toward the presbytery,
thinking in what manner he would speak about his case.
The Abbe Raffin, a lively little priest, thin and never shaved, was
awaiting his dinner-hour while warming his feet at his kitchen fire.
As soon as he saw the peasant entering he asked, merely turning his head:
"Well, Cesaire, what do you want?"
"I'd like to have a talk with you, M. le Cure."
The man remained standing, intimidated, holding his cap in one hand and
his whip in the other.
"Well, talk."
Cesaire looked at the housekeeper, an old woman who dragged her feet
while putting on the cover for her master's dinner at the corner of the
table in front of the window.
He stammered:
"'Tis--'tis a sort of confession."
Thereupon the Abbe Raffin carefully surveyed his peasant. He saw his
confused countenance, his air of constraint, his wandering eyes, and he
gave orders to the housekeeper in these words:
"Marie, go away for five minutes to your room, while I talk to Cesaire."
The servant cast on the man an angry glance and went away grumbling.
The clergyman went on:
"Come, now, tell your story."
The young fellow still hesitated, looked down at his wooden shoes, moved
about his cap, then, all of a sudden, he made up his mind:
"Here it is: I want to marry Celeste Levesque."
"Well, my boy, what's there to prevent you?"
"The father won't have it."
"Your father?"
"Yes, my father."
"What does your father say?"
"He says she has a child."
"She's not the first to whom that happened, since our Mother Eve."
"A child by Victor Lecoq, Anthime Loisel's servant man."
"Ha! ha! So he won't have it?"
"He won't have it."
"What! not at all?"
"No, no more than an ass that won't budge an inch, saving your presence."
"What do you say to him yourself in order to make him decide?"
"I say to him that she's a good girl, and strong, too, and thrifty also."
"And this does not make him agree to it. So you want me to speak to
him?"
"Exactly. You speak to him."
"And what am I to tell your father?"
"Why, what you tell people in your sermons to make them give you sous."
In the peasant's mind every effort of religion consisted in loosening the
purse strings, in emptying the pockets of men in order to fill the
heavenly coffer. It was a kind of huge commercial establishment, of
which the cures were the clerks; sly, crafty clerks, sharp as any one
must be who does business for the good God at the expense of the country
people.
He knew full well that the priests rendered services, great services to
the poorest, to the sick and dying, that they assisted, consoled,
counselled, sustained, but all this by means of money, in exchange for
white pieces, for beautiful glittering coins, with which they paid for
sacraments and masses, advice and protection, pardon of sins and
indulgences, purgatory and paradise according to the yearly income and
the generosity of the sinner.
The Abbe Raffin, who knew his man and who never lost his temper, burst
out laughing.
"Well, yes, I'll tell your father my little story; but you, my lad,
you'll come to church."
Houlbreque extended his hand in order to give a solemn assurance:
"On the word of a poor man, if you do this for me, I promise that I
will."
"Come, that's all right. When do you wish me to go and find your
father?"
"Why, the sooner the better-to-night, if you can."
"In half an hour, then, after supper."
"In half an hour."
"That's understood. So long, my lad."
"Good-by till we meet again, Monsieur le Cure; many thanks."
"Not at all, my lad."
And Cesaire Houlbreque returned home, his heart relieved of a great
weight.
He held on lease a little farm, quite small, for they were not rich, his
father and he. Alone with a female servant, a little girl of fifteen,
who made the soup, looked after the fowls, milked the cows and churned
the butter, they lived frugally, though Cesaire was a good cultivator.
But they did not possess either sufficient lands or sufficient cattle to
earn more than the indispensable.
The old man no longer worked. Sad, like all deaf people, crippled with
pains, bent double, twisted, he went through the fields leaning on his
stick, watching the animals and the men with a hard, distrustful eye.
Sometimes he sat down on the side of the road and remained there without
moving for hours, vaguely pondering over the things that had engrossed
his whole life, the price of eggs, and corn, the sun and the rain which
spoil the crops or make them grow. And, worn out with rheumatism, his
old limbs still drank in the humidity of the soul, as they had drunk in
for the past sixty years, the moisture of the walls of his low house
thatched with damp straw.
He came back at the close of the day, took his place at the end of the
table in the kitchen and when the earthen bowl containing the soup had
been placed before him he placed round it his crooked fingers, which
seemed to have kept the round form of the bowl and, winter and summer, he
warmed his hands, before commencing to eat, so as to lose nothing, not
even a particle of the heat that came from the fire, which costs a great
deal, neither one drop of soup into which fat and salt have to be put,
nor one morsel of bread, which comes from the wheat.
Then he climbed up a ladder into a loft, where he had his straw-bed,
while his son slept below stairs at the end of a kind of niche near the
chimneypiece and the servant shut herself up in a kind of cellar, a black
hole which was formerly used to store the potatoes.
Cesaire and his father scarcely ever talked to each other. From time to
time only, when there was a question of selling a crop or buying a calf,
the young man would ask his father's advice, and, making a speaking-
trumpet of his two hands, he would bawl out his views into his ear, and
old Amable either approved of them or opposed them in a slow, hollow
voice that came from the depths of his stomach.
So one evening Cesaire, approaching him as if about to discuss the
purchase of a horse or a heifer, communicated to him at the top of his
voice his intention to marry Celeste Levesque.
Then the father got angry. Why? On the score of morality? No,
certainly. The virtue of a girl is of slight importance in the country.
But his avarice, his deep, fierce instinct for saving, revolted at the
idea that his son should bring up a child which he had not begotten
himself. He had thought suddenly, in one second, of the soup the little
fellow would swallow before becoming useful on the farm. He had
calculated all the pounds of bread, all the pints of cider that this brat
would consume up to his fourteenth year, and a mad anger broke loose from
him against Cesaire, who had not bestowed a thought on all this.
He replied in an unusually strong voice:
"Have you lost your senses?"
Thereupon Cesaire began to enumerate his reasons, to speak about
Celeste's good qualities, to prove that she would be worth a thousand
times what the child would cost. But the old man doubted these
advantages, while he could have no doubts as to the child's existence;
and he replied with emphatic repetition, without giving any further
explanation:
"I will not have it! I will not have it! As long as I live, this won't
be done!" And at this point they had remained for the last three months
without one or the other giving in, resuming at least once a week the
same discussion, with the same arguments, the same words, the same
gestures and the same fruitlessness.
It was then that Celeste had advised Cesaire to go and ask for the cure's
assistance.
On arriving home the peasant found his father already seated at table,
for he came late through his visit to the presbytery.
They dined in silence, face to face, ate a little bread and butter after
the soup and drank a glass of cider. Then they remained motionless in
their chairs, with scarcely a glimmer of light, the little servant girl
having carried off the candle in order to wash the spoons, wipe the
glasses and cut the crusts of bread to be ready for next morning's
breakfast.
There was a knock, at the door, which was immediately opened, and the
priest appeared. The old man raised toward him an anxious eye full of
suspicion, and, foreseeing danger, he was getting ready to climb up his
ladder when the Abbe Raffin laid his hand on his shoulder and shouted
close to his temple:
"I want to have a talk with you, Father Amable."
Cesaire had disappeared, taking advantage of the door being open. He did
not want to listen, for he was afraid and did not want his hopes to
crumble slowly with each obstinate refusal of his father. He preferred
to learn the truth at once, good or bad, later on; and he went out into
the night. It was a moonless, starless night, one of those misty nights
when the air seems thick with humidity. A vague odor of apples floated
through the farmyard, for it was the season when the earliest applies
were gathered, the "early ripe," as they are called in the cider country.
As Cesaire passed along by the cattlesheds the warm smell of living
beasts asleep on manure was exhaled through the narrow windows, and he
heard the stamping of the horses, who were standing at the end of the
stable, and the sound of their jaws tearing and munching the hay on the
racks.
He went straight ahead, thinking about Celeste. In this simple nature,
whose ideas were scarcely more than images generated directly by objects,
thoughts of love only formulated themselves by calling up before the mind
the picture of a big red-haired girl standing in a hollow road and
laughing, with her hands on her hips.
It was thus he saw her on the day when he first took a fancy for her. He
had, however, known her from infancy, but never had he been so struck by
her as on that morning. They had stopped to talk for a few minutes and
then he went away, and as he walked along he kept repeating:
"Faith, she's a fine girl, all the same. 'Tis a pity she made a slip
with Victor."
Till evening he kept thinking of her and also on the following morning.
When he saw her again he felt something tickling the end of his throat,
as if a cock's feather had been driven through his mouth into his chest,
and since then, every time he found himself near her, he was astonished
at this nervous tickling which always commenced again.
In three months he made up his mind to marry her, so much did she please
him. He could not have said whence came this power over him, but he
explained it in these words:
"I am possessed by her," as if the desire for this girl within him were
as dominating as one of the powers of hell. He scarcely bothered himself
about her transgression. It was a pity, but, after all, it did her no
harm, and he bore no grudge against Victor Lecoq.
But if the cure should not succeed, what was he to do? He did not dare
to think of it, the anxiety was such a torture to him.
He reached the presbytery and seated himself near the little gateway to
wait for the priest's return.
He was there perhaps half an hour when he heard steps on the road, and
although the night was very dark, he presently distinguished the still
darker shadow of the cassock.
He rose up, his legs giving way under him, not even venturing to speak,
not daring to ask a question.
The clergyman perceived him and said gaily:
"Well, my lad, it's all right."
Cesaire stammered:
"All right, 'tisn't possible."
"Yes, my lad, but not without trouble. What an old ass your father is!"
The peasant repeated:
"'Tisn't possible!"
"Why, yes. Come and look me up to-morrow at midday in order to settle
about the publication of the banns."
The young man seized the cure's hand. He pressed it, shook it, bruised
it as he stammered:
"True-true-true, Monsieur le Cure, on the word of an honest man, you'll
see me to-morrow-at your sermon."
PART II
The wedding took place in the middle of December. It was simple, the
bridal pair not being rich. Cesaire, attired in new clothes, was ready
since eight o'clock in the morning to go and fetch his betrothed and
bring her to the mayor's office, but it was too early. He seated himself
before the kitchen table and waited for the members of the family and the
friends who were to accompany him.
For the last eight days it had been snowing, and the brown earth, the
earth already fertilized by the autumn sowing, had become a dead white,
sleeping under a great sheet of ice.
It was cold in the thatched houses adorned with white caps, and the round
apples in the trees of the enclosures seemed to be flowering, covered
with white as they had been in the pleasant month of their blossoming.
This day the big clouds to the north, the big great snow clouds, had
disappeared and the blue sky showed itself above the white earth on which
the rising sun cast silvery reflections.
Cesaire looked straight before him through the window, thinking of
nothing, quite happy.
The door opened, two women entered, peasant women in their Sunday
clothes, the aunt and the cousin of the bridegroom; then three men, his
cousins; then a woman who was a neighbor. They sat down on chairs and
remained, motionless and silent, the women on one side of the kitchen,
the men on the other, suddenly seized with timidity, with that
embarrassed sadness which takes possession of people assembled for a
ceremony. One of the cousins soon asked:
"Is it not the hour?"
Cesaire replied:
"I am much afraid it is."
"Come on! Let us start," said another.
Those rose up. Then Cesaire, whom a feeling of uneasiness had taken
possession of, climbed up the ladder of the loft to see whether his
father was ready. The old man, always as a rule an early riser, had not
yet made his appearance. His son found him on his bed of straw, wrapped
up in his blanket, with his eyes open and a malicious gleam in them.
He bawled into his ear: "Come, daddy, get up. It's time for the
wedding."
The deaf man murmured-in a doleful tone:
"I can't get up. I have a sort of chill over me that freezes my back.
I can't stir."
The young man, dumbfounded, stared at him, guessing that this was a
dodge.
"Come, daddy; you must make an effort."
"I can't do it."
"Look here! I'll help you."
And he stooped toward the old man, pulled off his blanket, caught him by
the arm and lifted him up. But old Amable began to whine, "Ooh! ooh!
ooh! What suffering! Ooh! I can't. My back is stiffened up. The cold
wind must have rushed in through this cursed roof."
"Well, you'll get no dinner, as I'm having a spread at Polyte's inn.
This will teach you what comes of acting mulishly."
And he hurried down the ladder and started out, accompanied by his
relatives and guests.
The men had turned up the bottoms of their trousers so as not to get them
wet in the snow. The women held up their petticoats and showed their
lean ankles with gray woollen stockings and their bony shanks resembling
broomsticks. And they all moved forward with a swinging gait, one behind
the other, without uttering a word, moving cautiously, for fear of losing
the road which was-hidden beneath the flat, uniform, uninterrupted
stretch of snow.
As they approached the farmhouses they saw one or two persons waiting to
join them, and the procession went on without stopping and wound its way
forward, following the invisible outlines of the road, so that it
resembled a living chaplet of black beads undulating through the white
countryside.
In front of the bride's door a large group was stamping up and down the
open space awaiting the bridegroom. When he appeared they gave him a
loud greeting, and presently Celeste came forth from her room, clad in a
blue dress, her shoulders covered with a small red shawl and her head
adorned with orange flowers.
But every one asked Cesaire:
"Where's your father?"
He replied with embarrassment:
"He couldn't move on account of the pains."
And the farmers tossed their heads with a sly, incredulous air.
They directed their steps toward the mayor's office. Behind the pair
about to be wedded a peasant woman carried Victor's child, as if it were
going to be baptized; and the risen, in pairs now, with arms linked,
walked through the snow with the movements of a sloop at sea.
After having been united by the mayor in the little municipal house the
pair were made one by the cure, in his turn, in the modest house of God.
He blessed their union by promising them fruitfulness, then he preached
to them on the matrimonial virtues, the simple and healthful virtues of
the country, work, concord and fidelity, while the child, who was cold,
began to fret behind the bride.
As soon as the couple reappeared on the threshold of the church shots
were discharged from the ditch of the cemetery. Only the barrels of the
guns could be seen whence came forth rapid jets of smoke; then a head
could be seen gazing at the procession. It was Victor Lecoq celebrating
the marriage of his old sweetheart, wishing her happiness and sending her
his good wishes with explosions of powder. He had employed some friends
of his, five or six laboring men, for these salvos of musketry. It was
considered a nice attention.
The repast was given in Polyte Cacheprune's inn. Twenty covers were laid
in the great hall where people dined on market days, and the big leg of
mutton turning before the spit, the fowls browned under their own gravy,
the chitterlings sputtering over the bright, clear fire filled the house
with a thick odor of live coal sprinkled with fat--the powerful, heavy
odor of rustic fare.
They sat down to table at midday and the soup was poured at once into the
plates. All faces had already brightened up; mouths opened to utter loud
jokes and eyes were laughing with knowing winks. They were going to
amuse themselves and no mistake.
The door opened, and old Amable appeared. He seemed in a bad humor and
his face wore a scowl as he dragged himself forward on his sticks,
whining at every step to indicate his suffering. As soon as they saw him
they stopped talking, but suddenly his neighbor, Daddy Malivoire, a big
joker, who knew all the little tricks and ways of people, began to yell,
just as Cesaire used to do, by making a speaking-trumpet of his hands.
"Hallo, my cute old boy, you have a good nose on you to be able to smell
Polyte's cookery from your own house!"
A roar of laughter burst forth from the throats of those present.
Malivoire, excited by his success, went on:
"There's nothing for the rheumatics like a chitterling poultice! It
keeps your belly warm, along with a glass of three-six!"
The men uttered shouts, banged the table with their fists, laughed,
bending on one side and raising up their bodies again as if they were
working a pump. The women clucked like hens, while the servants
wriggled, standing against the walls. Old Amable was the only one that
did not laugh, and, without making any reply, waited till they made room
for him.
They found a place for him in the middle of the table, facing his
daughter-in-law, and, as soon as he was seated, he began to eat. It was
his son who was paying, after all; it was right he should take his share.
With each ladleful of soup that went into his stomach, with each mouthful
of bread or meat crushed between his gums, with each glass of cider or
wine that flowed through his gullet he thought he was regaining something
of his own property, getting back a little of his money which all those
gluttons were devouring, saving in fact a portion of his own means. And
he ate in silence with the obstinacy of a miser who hides his coppers,
with the same gloomy persistence with which he formerly performed his
daily labors.
But all of a sudden he noticed at the end of the table Celeste's child on
a woman's lap, and his eye remained fixed on the little boy. He went on
eating, with his glance riveted on the youngster, into whose mouth the
woman who minded him every now and then put a little morsel which he
nibbled at. And the old man suffered more from the few mouthfuls sucked
by this little chap than from all that the others swallowed.
The meal lasted till evening. Then every one went back home.
Cesaire raised up old Amable.
"Come, daddy, we must go home," said he.
And he put the old man's two sticks in his hands.
Celeste took her child in her arms, and they went on slowly through the
pale night whitened by the snow. The deaf old man, three-fourths tipsy,
and even more malicious under the influence of drink, refused to go
forward. Several times he even sat down with the object of making his
daughter-in-law catch cold, and he kept whining, without uttering a word,
giving vent to a sort of continuous groaning as if he were in pain.
When they reached home he at once climbed up to his loft, while Cesaire
made a bed for the child near the deep niche where he was going to lie
down with his wife. But as the newly wedded pair could not sleep
immediately, they heard the old man for a long time moving about on his
bed of straw, and he even talked aloud several times, whether it was that
he was dreaming or that he let his thoughts escape through his mouth, in
spite of himself, not being able to keep them back, under the obsession
of a fixed idea.
When he came down his ladder next morning he saw his daughter-in-law
looking after the housekeeping.
She cried out to him:
"Come, daddy, hurry on! Here's some good soup."
And she placed at the end of the table the round black earthen bowl
filled with steaming liquid. He sat down without giving any answer,
seized the hot bowl, warmed his hands with it in his customary fashion,
and, as it was very cold, even pressed it against his breast to try to
make a little of the living heat of the boiling liquid enter into him,
into his old body stiffened by so many winters.
Then he took his sticks and went out into the fields, covered with ice,
till it was time for dinner, for he had seen Celeste's youngster still
asleep in a big soap-box.
He did not take his place in the household. He lived in the thatched
house, as in bygone days, but he seemed not to belong to it any longer,
to be no longer interested in anything, to look upon those people, his
son, the wife and the child as strangers whom he did not know, to whom he
never spoke.
The winter glided by. It was long and severe.
Then the early spring made the seeds sprout forth again, and the peasants
once more, like laborious ants, passed their days in the fields, toiling
from morning till night, under the wind and under the rain, along the
furrows of brown earth which brought forth the bread of men.
The year promised well for the newly married pair. The crops grew thick
and strong. There were no late frosts, and the apples bursting into
bloom scattered on the grass their rosy white snow which promised a hail
of fruit for the autumn.
Cesaire toiled hard, rose early and left off work late, in order to save
the expense of a hired man.
His wife said to him sometimes:
"You'll make yourself ill in the long run."
He replied:
"Certainly not. I'm a good judge."
Nevertheless one evening he came home so fatigued that he had to get to
bed without supper. He rose up next morning at the usual hour, but he
could not eat, in spite of his fast on the previous night, and he had to
come back to the house in the middle of the afternoon in order to go to
bed again. In the course of the night he began to cough; he turned round
on his straw couch, feverish, with his forehead burning, his tongue dry
and his throat parched by a burning thirst.
However, at daybreak he went toward his grounds, but next morning the
doctor had to be sent for and pronounced him very ill with inflammation
of the lungs.
And he no longer left the dark recess in which he slept. He could be
heard coughing, gasping and tossing about in this hole. In order to see
him, to give his medicine and to apply cupping-glasses they had to-bring
a candle to the entrance. Then one could see his narrow head with his
long matted beard underneath a thick lacework of spiders' webs, which
hung and floated when stirred by the air. And the hands of the sick man
seemed dead under the dingy sheets.
Celeste watched him with restless activity, made him take physic, applied
blisters to him, went back and forth in the house, while old Amable
remained at the edge of his loft, watching at a distance the gloomy
cavern where his son lay dying. He did not come near him, through hatred
of the wife, sulking like an ill-tempered dog.
Six more days passed, then one morning, as Celeste, who now slept on the
ground on two loose bundles of straw, was going to see whether her man
was better, she no longer heard his rapid breathing from the interior of
his recess. Terror stricken, she asked:
"Well Cesaire, what sort of a night had you?"
He did not answer. She put out her hand to touch him, and the flesh on
his face felt cold as ice. She uttered a great cry, the long cry of a
woman overpowered with fright. He was dead.
At this cry the deaf old man appeared at the top of his ladder, and when
he saw Celeste rushing to call for help, he quickly descended, placed his
hand on his son's face, and suddenly realizing what had happened, went to
shut the door from the inside, to prevent the wife from re-entering and
resuming possession of the dwelling, since his son was no longer living.
Then he sat down on a chair by the dead man's side.
Some of the neighbors arrived, called out and knocked. He did not hear
them. One of them broke the glass of the window and jumped into the
room. Others followed. The door was opened again and Celeste
reappeared, all in tears, with swollen face and bloodshot eyes. Then old
Amable, vanquished, without uttering a word, climbed back to his loft.
The funeral took place next morning. Then, after the ceremony, the
father-in-law and the daughter-in-law found themselves alone in the
farmhouse with the child.
It was the usual dinner hour. She lighted the fire, made some soup and
placed the plates on the table, while the old man sat on the chair
waiting without appearing to look at her. When the meal was ready she
bawled in his ear
"Come, daddy, you must eat." He rose up, took his seat at the end of the
table, emptied his soup bowl, masticated his bread and butter, drank his
two glasses of cider and then took himself off.
It was one of those warm days, one of those enjoyable days when life
ferments, pulsates, blooms all over the surface of the soil.
Old Amable pursued a little path across the fields. He looked at the
young wheat and the young oats, thinking that his son was now under the
earth, his poor boy! He walked along wearily, dragging his legs after
him in a limping fashion. And, as he was all alone in the plain, all
alone under the blue sky, in the midst of the growing crops, all alone
with the larks which he saw hovering above his head, without hearing
their light song, he began to weep as he proceeded on his way.
Then he sat down beside a pond and remained there till evening, gazing at
the little birds that came there to drink. Then, as the night was
falling, he returned to the house, supped without saying a word and
climbed up to his loft. And his life went on as in the past. Nothing
was changed, except that his son Cesaire slept in the cemetery.
What could he, an old man, do? He could work no longer; he was now good
for nothing except to swallow the soup prepared by his daughter-in-law.
And he ate it in silence, morning and evening, watching with an eye of
rage the little boy also taking soup, right opposite him, at the other
side of the table. Then he would go out, prowl about the fields after
the fashion of a vagabond, hiding behind the barns where he would sleep
for an hour or two as if he were afraid of being seen and then come back
at the approach of night.
But Celeste's mind began to be occupied by graver anxieties. The farm
needed a man to look after it and cultivate it. Somebody should be there
always to go through the fields, not a mere hired laborer, but a regular
farmer, a master who understood the business and would take an interest
in the farm. A lone woman could not manage the farming, watch the price
of corn and direct the sale and purchase of cattle. Then ideas came into
her head, simple practical ideas, which she had turned over in her head
at night. She could not marry again before the end of the year, and it
was necessary at once to take care of pressing interests, immediate
interests.
Only one man could help her out of her difficulties, Victor Lecoq, the
father of her child. He was strong and understood farming; with a little
money in his pocket he would make an excellent cultivator. She was aware
of his skill, having known him while he was working on her parents' farm.
So one morning, seeing him passing along the road with a cart of manure,
she went out to meet him. When he perceived her, he drew up his horses
and she said to him as if she had met him the night before:
"Good-morrow, Victor--are you quite well, the same as ever?"
He replied:
"I'm quite well, the same as ever--and how are you?"
"Oh, I'd be all right, only that I'm alone in the house, which bothers me
on account of the farm."
Then they remained chatting for a long time, leaning against the wheel of
the heavy cart. The man every now and then lifted up his cap to scratch
his forehead and began thinking, while she, with flushed cheeks, went on
talking warmly, told him about her views, her plans; her projects for the
future. At last he said in a low tone:
"Yes, it can be done."
She opened her hand like a countryman clinching a bargain and asked:
"Is it agreed?"
He pressed her outstretched hand.
"'Tis agreed."
"It's settled, then, for next Sunday?"
"It's settled for next Sunday"
"Well, good-morning, Victor."
"Good-morning, Madame Houlbreque."
PART III
This particular Sunday was the day of the village festival, the annual
festival in honor of the patron saint, which in Normandy is called the
assembly.
For the last eight days quaint-looking vehicles in which live the
families of strolling fair exhibitors, lottery managers, keepers of
shooting galleries and other forms of amusement or exhibitors of
curiosities whom the peasants call "wonder-makers" could be seen coming
along the roads drawn slowly by gray or sorrel horses.
The dirty wagons with their floating curtains, accompanied by a
melancholy-looking dog, who trotted, with his head down, between the
wheels, drew up one after the other on the green in front of the town
hall. Then a tent was erected in front of each ambulant abode, and
inside this tent could be seen, through the holes in the canvas,
glittering things which excited the envy or the curiosity of the village
youngsters.
As soon as the morning of the fete arrived all the booths were opened,
displaying their splendors of glass or porcelain, and the peasants on
their way to mass looked with genuine satisfaction at these modest shops
which they saw again, nevertheless, each succeeding year.
Early in the afternoon there was a crowd on the green. From every
neighboring village the farmers arrived, shaken along with their wives
and children in the two-wheeled open chars-a-bancs, which rattled along,
swaying like cradles. They unharnessed at their friends' houses and the
farmyards were filled with strange-looking traps, gray, high, lean,
crooked, like long-clawed creatures from the depths of the sea. And each
family, with the youngsters in front and the grown-up ones behind, came
to the assembly with tranquil steps, smiling countenances and open hands,
big hands, red and bony, accustomed to work and apparently tired of their
temporary rest.
A clown was blowing a trumpet. The barrel-organ accompanying the
carrousel sent through the air its shrill jerky notes. The lottery-wheel
made a whirring sound like that of cloth tearing, and every moment the
crack of the rifle could be heard. And the slow-moving throng passed on
quietly in front of the booths resembling paste in a fluid condition,
with the motions of a flock of sheep and the awkwardness of heavy animals
who had escaped by chance.
The girls, holding one another's arms in groups of six or eight, were
singing; the youths followed them, making jokes, with their caps over
their ears and their blouses stiffened with starch, swollen out like blue
balloons.
The whole countryside was there--masters, laboring men and women
servants.
Old Amable himself, wearing his old-fashioned green frock coat, had
wished to see the assembly, for he never failed to attend on such an
occasion.
He looked at the lotteries, stopped in front of the shooting galleries to
criticize the shots and interested himself specially in a very simple
game which consisted in throwing a big wooden ball into the open mouth of
a mannikin carved and painted on a board.
Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Daddy Malivoire, who
exclaimed:
"Ha, daddy! Come and have a glass of brandy."
And they sat down at the table of an open-air restaurant.
They drank one glass of brandy, then two, then three, and old Amable once
more began wandering through the assembly. His thoughts became slightly
confused, he smiled without knowing why, he smiled in front of the
lotteries, in front of the wooden horses and especially in front of the
killing game. He remained there a long time, filled with delight, when
he saw a holiday-maker knocking down the gendarme or the cure, two
authorities whom he instinctively distrusted. Then he went back to the
inn and drank a glass of cider to cool himself. It was late, night came
on. A neighbor came to warn him:
"You'll get back home late for the stew, daddy."
Then he set out on his way to the farmhouse. A soft shadow, the warm
shadow of a spring night, was slowly descending on the earth.
When he reached the front door he thought he saw through the window which
was lighted up two persons in the house. He stopped, much surprised,
then he went in, and he saw Victor Lecoq seated at the table, with a
plate filled with potatoes before him, taking his supper in the very same
place where his son had sat.
And he turned round suddenly as if he wanted to go away. The night was
very dark now. Celeste started up and shouted at him:
"Come quick, daddy! Here's some good stew to finish off the assembly
with."
He complied through inertia and sat down, watching in turn the man, the
woman and the child. Then he began to eat quietly as on ordinary days.
Victor Lecoq seemed quite at home, talked from time to time to Celeste,
took up the child in his lap and kissed him. And Celeste again served
him with food, poured out drink for him and appeared happy while speaking
to him. Old Amable's eyes followed them attentively, though he could not
hear what they were saying.
When he had finished supper (and he had scarcely eaten anything, there
was such a weight at his heart) he rose up, and instead of ascending to
his loft as he did every night he opened the gate of the yard and went
out into the open air.
When he had gone, Celeste, a little uneasy, asked:
"What is he going to do?"
Victor replied in an indifferent tone:
"Don't bother yourself. He'll come back when he's tired."
Then she saw after the house, washed the plates and wiped the table,
while the man quietly took off his clothes. Then he slipped into the
dark and hollow bed in which she had slept with Cesaire.
The yard gate opened and old Amable again appeared. As soon as he
entered the house he looked round on every side with the air of an old
dog on the scent. He was in search of Victor Lecoq. As he did not see
him, he took the candle off the table and approached the dark niche in
which his son had died. In the interior of it he perceived the man lying
under the bed clothes and already asleep. Then the deaf man noiselessly
turned round, put back the candle and went out into the yard.
Celeste had finished her work. She put her son into his bed, arranged
everything and waited for her father-in-law's return before lying down
herself.
She remained sitting on a chair, without moving her hands and with her
eyes fixed on vacancy.
As he did not come back, she murmured in a tone of impatience and
annoyance:
"This good-for-nothing old man will make us burn four sous' worth of
candles."
Victor answered from under the bed clothes:
"It's over an hour since he went out. We ought to see whether he fell
asleep on the bench outside the door."
"I'll go and see," she said.
She rose up, took the light and went out, shading the light with her hand
in order to see through the darkness.
She saw nothing in front of the door, nothing on the bench, nothing on
the dung heap, where the old man used sometimes to sit in hot weather.
But, just as she was on the point of going in again, she chanced to raise
her eyes toward the big apple tree, which sheltered the entrance to the
farmyard, and suddenly she saw two feet--two feet at the height of her
face belonging to a man who was hanging.
She uttered terrible cries:
"Victor! Victor! Victor!"
He ran out in his shirt. She could not utter another word, and turning
aside her head so as not to see, she pointed toward the tree with her
outstretched arm.
Not understanding what she meant, he took the candle in order to find
out, and in the midst of the foliage lit up from below he saw old Amable
hanging high up with a stable-halter round his neck.
A ladder was leaning against the trunk of the apple tree.
Victor ran to fetch a bill-hook, climbed up the tree and cut the halter.
But the old man was already cold and his tongue protruded horribly with a
frightful grimace.
-THE END-
Guy De Maupassant's short story: Old Amable
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