Chapter VI: Part III (1)

The new farmers came next day. The farm hands and the serving women had come early in the morning, and when the masters arrived in the evening I knew that they were called Monsieur and Madame Alphonse. M. Tirande remained at Villevieille for two days, and went off after reminding me that I was in his daughter-in-law's service now, and that I should have to do no more outside work on the farm.

The very first week she was there Madame Alphonse had had Eugène's room turned into a linen-room, and she had set me to work at a big table on which were a number of pieces of linen which I was to make into sheets and other things. She came and sat down next to me, and worked at making lace. She would remain for whole days at a time without saying a word. Sometimes she talked to me about the linen presses which her mother had, full of all kinds of linen.

Her voice had no ring to it, and she scarcely moved her lips when she spoke. M. Tirande seemed very fond of his daughter-in-law. Every time he came he always asked her what she would like him to give her. She cared for nothing but linen, and he went off saying that he would get her some more.

M. Alphonse never appeared at all except at meal times. I should have found it very difficult to say what he did with his time. His face reminded me of the Mother Superior's face somehow. Like her, he had a yellow skin and his eyes glittered. He looked as though he carried a brazier inside him which might burn him up at any minute. He was very pious, and every Sunday he and Madame Alphonse went to mass in the village where M. Tirande lived. At first they wanted to take me in their cart, but I refused. I preferred going to Sainte Montagne, where I always hoped to meet Pauline or Eugène. Sometimes one of the farm hands came with me, but more often I would go alone by a little cross road, which made the way much shorter. It was a steep and stony bit of road which ran uphill through the broom. On the very top of it I always used to stop in front of Jean le Rouge's house. This house was low-roofed and spreading. The walls were as black as the thatch which covered it, and it was quite easy to pass by the house without seeing it at all, for the broom grew so high all round it. I used to go in for a chat with Jean le Rouge, whom I had known ever since I had been at Villevieille farm. He had always worked for Master Silvain, who thought very highly of him. Eugène used to say of him that one could set him to anything, and that whatever he did he did well.

Now M. Alphonse refused to employ him any more. He spoke of sending him away from the house on the hill. Jean le Rouge was so upset by the idea that he could talk of nothing else.

Directly after mass I used to go home by the same road. Jean's children would crowd round me to get the blessed bread, which I brought out of church for them. There were six of them, and the eldest was not yet twelve years old. There was hardly one mouthful of my blessed bread, so I used to give it to Jean's wife to divide up and give to the children in equal shares. While she was doing this, Jean le Rouge would set a stool for me in front of the fire and would seat himself on a log of wood, which he would roll to the fireplace with his foot. His wife put some twigs on the fire with a pair of heavy pincers, and as we sat and talked we watched the big yellow potatoes cooking in the pot which hung from a hook in the fireplace.

On the very first Sunday Jean le Rouge had told me that he, too, was a foundling. And little by little he had told me that when he was twelve he had been put to work with a woodcutter who used to live in the house on the hill. He had very soon learned how to climb up the trees to fasten a rope to the top branches so as to pull them over. When the day's work was done and he had his faggot of wood on his back, he would go on ahead so as to get to the house first. And there he used to find the woodcutter's little daughter cooking the soup for supper. She was of the same age as he was, and they had become the best of friends at once.

Then, one Christmas Eve, came the misfortune. The old woodcutter, who thought that the children were fast asleep, went off to midnight mass. But directly he had gone they got up. They wanted to prepare midnight supper for the old man's return, and they danced with glee at the surprise they were getting ready for him. While the little girl was cooking the chestnuts and putting the pot of honey and the jug of cider on the table, Jean le Rouge heaped great logs on to the fire. Time went on, the chestnuts were cooked, and the woodcutter had not yet come home. It seemed a long time. The children sat down on the floor in front of the fire to keep themselves warm, leaned up against one another, and fell asleep. Jean woke up at the little girl's screams. He could not understand at first why she was throwing her arms about and shrieking at the fire. He jumped to his feet to run away from her, and then he saw that she was ablaze. She had opened the door to the garden, and as she ran out she lit the trees up. Then Jean had caught hold of her and thrown her into the little well. The water had put the flames out, but when Jean tried to pull her out of the well he found her so heavy that he thought she must be dead. She made no movement, and it took him a long time to get her out. At last, when he did get her out, he had to drag her along like a bundle of sticks back to the house.

The logs had become great red embers. Only the biggest one, which was wet, went on smoking and crackling. The little girl's face was all bloated, and was black with violet veins in it. Her body, which was half naked, was covered with big red burns.

She was ill for many months, and when at last they thought she was cured, they found out that she had become dumb. She could hear perfectly well, she could even laugh like everybody else, but it was quite impossible for her to speak a single word.

While Jean le Rouge was telling me these things his wife used to look at him and move her eyes as if she were reading a book. Her face still bore deep burn marks, but one soon got accustomed to it, and remembered nothing of her face but the mouth with its white teeth, and her eyes, which were never still. She used to call her children with a long, low cry, and they came running up, and always understood all the signs she made to them. I was so sorry that they had to leave the house on the hill. They were the last friends I had left, and I thought of telling Madame Alphonse about them, hoping that she might get her husband to keep them on. I found an opportunity one day, when M. Tirande and his son had come into the linen-room talking about the changes they were going to make at the farm. M. Alphonse said he didn't want any cattle. He spoke of buying machinery, cutting down the pine trees and clearing the hillside. The stables would do for sheds for the machines, and he would use the house on the hill to store fodder in. I don't know whether Madame Alphonse was listening. She went on making lace, and seemed to be giving her full attention to it. As soon as the two men had gone I plucked up courage to talk of Jean le Rouge. I told her how useful he had been to Master Silvain. I told her how sorry he was to leave the house in which he had lived for so long, and when I stopped, trembling for the answer which was coming, Madame Alphonse took her needles out of the thread. "I believe I have made a mistake," she said. She counted up to nineteen, and said again, "What a nuisance it is. I shall have to undo a whole row." When I told Jean le Rouge about this, he was angry, and shook his fist at Villevieille. His wife put her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, and he was quiet at once.

Jean le Rouge left the house on the hill at the end of January, and I was very sad.

I had no friends left now. I hardly recognized the farm any more. All these new people had made themselves quite at home there, and I seemed to myself to be a new-comer. The serving-woman looked at me with distrust, and the ploughman avoided talking to me. The servant's name was Adèle. All day long you could hear her grumbling and dragging her wooden shoes after her as she walked. She made a noise even when she was walking on straw. She used to eat her meals standing, and answer her master and mistress quite rudely.

M. Alphonse had taken away the bench which was by the door, and had put up little green bushes with trellis-work round them. He cut down the old elm tree, too, to which the wood owl used to come on summer evenings.

Of course the old tree had not shaded the house for a long time. It only had one tuft of leaves right up on the top. It looked like a head which bent over to listen to what people underneath were saying. The woodcutters who came to cut it down said that it would not be an easy thing to do. They said there was some danger that when it fell it would crash through the roof of the house.

At last, after a lot of talk, they decided to rope it round and pull it over so that it fell on to the dung-heap. It took two men all day to cut it down, and just when we thought that it was going to drop nicely, one of the ropes worked loose, and the old elm jumped and fell to one side. It slipped down the roof, knocking down a chimney and a large number of tiles, bumped a piece out of the wall, and fell right across the door. Not one of its branches touched the dung-heap. M. Alphonse yelled with rage. He laid hold of the axe belonging to one of the woodcutters, and struck the tree so violent a blow that a piece of bark flew against the linen-room window and broke a pane.

Madame Alphonse saw the bits of glass fall on me. She jumped up in more excitement than I had ever seen her show, and with trembling hands and fearful eyes she examined closely every bit of the table-cloth which I was embroidering. But she did not see me wiping away the blood from my cheek, which had been cut by a bit of glass. She was so afraid that something might happen to the piles of linen which were beginning to grow that she took me off next day to her mother's to show me how the linen should be put into the closets.

Madame Alphonse's mother was called Madame Deslois, but when the ploughmen talked about her they always said "the good woman of the castle." She had only been to Villevieille once. She had come close up to me and looked at me with her eyes half shut. She was a big woman who walked bent double as if she were looking for something on the ground. She lived in a big house called the Lost Ford.

Madame Alphonse took me along by a path near a little river. It was the end of March, and the meadows were already in flower. Madame Alphonse walked straight along the path, but I got a lot of pleasure out of walking in the soft grass.

We soon came to the wood where the wolf had taken my lamb. I had always had a mysterious fear of this wood, and when we left the path by the river to go through it I shook with fear. And yet the road was a broad one. It must even have been a carriage road, for there were deep ruts in it.

Above our heads heaps of pine needles tickled one another and rustled. They made a gentle noise, not a bit like the whispering, with silences in between, which I used to hear in the forest when the snow was on it. But in spite of all I could not help looking behind me. We didn't walk very far through the wood. The road turned to the left and we got to the courtyard of the Lost Ford immediately. The little river ran behind the stables as it did at Villevieille, but here the meadows were quite close together, and the buildings looked as though they were trying to hide among the sapling pines. The living house didn't look anything like the farms thereabouts. The ground floor was built of very thick old walls, and the first floor looked as though it had been put on top of them as a makeshift. The house did not look a bit like a castle to me. It made me think of an old tree trunk out of which a baby tree had sprouted, and sprouted badly.

Madame Deslois came to the door when she heard us arrive. She winked her little eyes as she looked at me and said at once in a loud voice that she had dropped a halfpenny in the straw, and that it was very funny that nobody had found it, as it had been lost for a week. While she spoke she moved her foot about and stirred the straw which was in front of the door. Madame Alphonse cannot have heard her. Her big eyes were staring into the house, and she was almost excited when she said why we had come. Madame Deslois said that she would take me to the linen-room herself. She put the keys into the locks of the cupboards, and after having told me to be very careful, and to disarrange nothing, she left me alone.

It didn't take me long to open and close the great shining cupboards. I should have liked to go away at once. This big cold linen-room frightened me like a prison. My feet sounded on the tiles as though there were deep vaults underneath them. All of a sudden it seemed to me that I should never get out of this linen-room again. I listened to see whether I could hear any animals stirring, but I only heard Madame Deslois' voice. It was a rough, strong voice which went right through the walls, and could be heard everywhere. I was going to the window so as to feel a little less lonely, when a door which I had not noticed suddenly opened behind me. I turned round and saw a young man come in. He wore a long white smock and a grey cap. He stood standing as though he were surprised to see anybody there, and I went on looking at him without being able to take my eyes away. He walked right across the linen-room, and he and I stared and stared at one another. Then he went out, banging himself against the woodwork of the door. A moment afterwards he passed by the window and our eyes met again. I felt quite uncomfortable, and without knowing why, I went and shut the doors which he had left open.

Presently Madame Alphonse came and fetched me, and I went back to Villevieille with her.

Since M. Alphonse had taken Pauline's place I had got into the habit of going and sitting in a bush which had grown into the shape of a chair. It was in the middle of a shrubbery not far from the farm. Now that spring was beginning I used to go and sit there when the ploughmen were smoking their pipes at the stable doors. I used to sit there listening to the little noises of the evening, and I longed to be like the trees. That evening I thought of the man I had seen at Lost Ford. But every time I tried to remember the exact colour of his eyes they pierced into my own eyes so that they seemed to be lighting me all up inside.

The next Sunday was Easter Sunday. Adèle had gone to mass in M. Alphonse's cart. I remained alone, with one of the ploughmen, to look after the farm. After luncheon the ploughman went to sleep on a heap of straw in front of the door, and I went to my shrubbery to spend the afternoon. I tried to hear the bells ringing, but the farm was too far from the villages round, and I could hear none of them.

I began to think about Sister Marie-Aimée, and my thoughts went back to Sophie, who used to come and wake me up every year so that I should hear all the bells ringing in Easter together. One year she didn't wake up. She was so upset at that, that next year she put a big stone in her mouth to keep herself from sleeping. Every time she nodded off her teeth met on the stone, and she woke up.

I sat and thought about High Mass where Colette used to sing in her beautiful voice, and I could see our afternoon on the lawn, and Sister Marie-Aimée busy with the special dinner which they gave us on feast days. And that evening when dinner-time came I should see, instead of sister Marie-Aimée's sweet loving face, Madame Alphonse's hard face and her husband's glittering eyes, which frightened me so. And as I sat and thought how long I should still have to stay on the farm I felt deeply discouraged.

When I was tired of crying I saw with astonishment that the sun was quite low. Through the branches of my shrubbery I watched the long thin shadows of the poplar trees growing longer than ever on the grass, and quite close to me I saw a long shadow which was moving. It came forward, then stopped, and then came forward again. I understood at once that somebody was going to pass my hiding-place, and almost immediately the man in the white smock walked into the shrubbery, stooping to get out of the way of the branches. I felt cold all over. I soon got control of myself, but I could not help trembling nervously. He remained standing in front of me without saying a word. I sat and looked at his eyes, which were very gentle, and I began to feel warm again. I noticed that, as Eugène used to, he wore a coloured shirt and a cravat tied under the collar, and when he spoke it seemed to me that I had known his voice for a long time. He leaned against a big branch opposite me, and asked me if I had no relations. I said "No." His eye ran along the branch covered with young shoots, and without looking at me he said again, "Then you are all alone in the world." I answered quickly, "Oh no, I have Sister Marie-Aimée!" And without leaving him time to ask any more questions I told him how I had longed for her, and how impatiently I was waiting and hoping to see her again. Talking about her made me so happy that I could not stop talking. I told him of her beauty and of her intelligence, which seemed to me to be above everything in the world. I told him, too, how sorry she had been when I went away, and of the joy that I knew she would feel when she saw me come back.

While I talked his eyes were fixed on my face, but they seemed to look much further. After a silence he asked again, "Have you no friends here?" "No," I said; "all those whom I loved have gone;" and I added rather angrily, "They have even turned out Jean le Rouge." "And yet," he said, "Madame Alphonse is not unkind?" I told him that she was neither unkind, nor kind, and that I should leave her without any regret.

Then we heard the sound of M. Alphonse's cart-wheels, and I got up to go. He stood aside a little to let me pass him, and I left him alone in the shrubbery.

That evening I took advantage of the unusually good humour of Adèle to ask her if she knew any of the ploughmen at the Lost Ford. She said she only knew some of the old ones, for since Madame Deslois had been a widow the new ones never stayed with her. A sort of fear which I could not have explained kept me from mentioning the young man in the white smock, and Adèle added with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her eldest son has come back from Paris. The farm hands will be happier."

Next day, while Madame Alphonse was working at her lace, I sewed and thought about the ploughman in the white smock. I could not in my mind help comparing him to Eugène. He spoke like Eugène did, and they seemed like one another somehow.

That evening I thought I saw him near the stables, and a moment later he came into the linen-room. His eyes just glanced at me and then he looked straight at Madame Alphonse. He held his head high and the left side of his mouth drooped a little. Madame Alphonse said, in a happy voice, when she saw him, "Why, there's Henri!" and she let him kiss her on both cheeks, and told him to bring a chair up next to her. But he sat sideways on the table, pushing the linen to one side. Adèle came into the room, and Madame Alphonse said, "If you see my husband, tell him that my brother is here."

It was some minutes before I understood. Then I realized suddenly that the young man in the white smock was Madame Deslois's eldest son. A sense of shame which I had never felt before made me blush fiercely, and I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about Sister Marie-Aimée. I felt that I had thrown the thing that I loved best to the winds, and do what I could, I could not keep back two big tears which tickled the corners of my mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was hemming. Henri Deslois remained sitting on the corner of the table for a long time. I could feel that he was looking at me, and his eyes were like a heavy weight which prevented me from lifting up my head.

Two days afterwards I found him in the shrubbery. When I saw him sitting there my legs felt weak under me, and I stood still. He got up at once so that I should sit down; but I remained standing and looking at him. He had the same gentleness in his eyes that I had noticed the first time, and, as if he expected me to tell him another story, "Have you nothing to tell me this evening?" he asked. Words danced across my brain, but they did not seem to be worth speaking, and I shook my head to say no. He said, "I was your friend the other day." Recollection of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I only said, "You are Madame Alphonse's brother." I left him and did not dare to go back to the shrubbery again. He often came back to Villevieille. I never used to look at him, but his voice always made me feel very uncomfortable.

Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time after mass. Every Sunday I used to pass the house on the hill. Sometimes I would look in through the gaps in the shutters, and when, as I sometimes did, I bumped my head, the noise it made used to frighten me. One Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on the door. I put my finger on the latch and the door fell open with a loud noise. I had not expected it to open so quickly, and I stood there longing to shut it and go away. Then as there was no more noise, and as the sun had streamed into the house making a big square of light, I made up my mind to go in, and went in, leaving the door open. The big fireplace was empty. There was no hook, there was no pot, and the big andirons had gone. The only things left in the room were the logs of wood which Jean le Rouge's children used to use as stools. The bark was worn off them, and the tops of them were polished, as if with wax, from the children sitting on them.

The second room was quite empty. There were no tiles on the floor, and the feet of the beds had made little holes in the beaten earth. There was no lock to the other door either, and I went out into the garden. There were a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and the fruit trees were all in flower. Most of them were very old. Some of them looked like hunchbacks, and their branches bent towards the ground, as though they found that even the flowers were too heavy for them to carry. At the bottom of the garden the hill ran down to an immense plain where the cattle used to graze, and right at the end a row of poplars made a sort of barrier which kept the sky out of the meadow land. Little by little I recognized one place after another. There was a little river at the bottom of the hill. I could not see the water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side to let it pass. The river disappeared behind the buildings of Villevieille farm. There the roofs were of the same colour as the chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them. Here and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees. Then it plunged into the great pine wood, which looked quite black, in which the Lost Ford was hidden. That was the road I had taken with Madame Alphonse, when we went to her mother's house. Her brother must have come that way that day when he found me in the shrubbery. There was nobody on the road today. Everything was tender green, and I could see no white smock among the clumps of trees. I tried to see the shrubbery but the farm hid it. Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several times since Easter. I could not have told how I knew that he was there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking round that way.

Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there alone. He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me. I had looked at him as I had done the first time, and he went away without saying anything. And now that I was in the open garden surrounded by broom in flower I longed to be able to live there always. There was a big apple tree leaning over me, dipping the end of its branches in the spring. The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks over the beds. This garden of flowers and clear water seemed to me to be the most beautiful garden in the world. And when I turned my head towards the house, which stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect extraordinary people to come out of it. The house seemed full of mystery to me. Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made when he stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille.

I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds. I began to imagine that I was a little tree, and that the wind stirred me as it liked. The same fresh breeze which made the broom rock passed over my head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like the other trees did I stooped down and dipped my fingers in the clear waters of the spring.

Another sound made me look at the house again, and I was not in the least surprised when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed in the doorway. His head was bare, and his arms were swinging. He stepped out into the garden and looked far off into the plain. His hair was parted on the side, and was a little thin at the temples. He remained perfectly still for a long minute, then he turned to me. There were only two trees between us. He took a step forward, took hold of the young tree in front of him with one hand, and the branches in flower made a bouquet over his head. It grew so light that I thought the bark of the trees was glittering, and every flower was shining. And in Henri Deslois's eyes there was so deep a gentleness that I went to him without any shame. He didn't move when I stopped in front of him. His face became whiter than his smock, and his lips quivered. He took my two hands and pressed them hard against his temples. Then he said very low, "I am like a miser who has found his treasure again." At that moment the bell of Sainte Montagne Church began to ring. The sound of the bell ran up the hillsides, and after resting over our heads for a moment ran on and died away in the distance.

The hours passed, the day grew older, and the cattle disappeared from the plain. A white mist rose from the little river, then a stone slipped behind the barrier of poplar trees, and the broom flowers began to grow darker. Henri Deslois went back towards the farm with me. He walked in front of me on the narrow path, and when he left me just before we came to the avenue of chestnut trees I knew that I loved him even more than Sister Marie-Aimée.

The house on the hill became our house. Every Sunday I found Henri Deslois waiting there, and as I used to do when Jean le Rouge lived there, I took my blessed bread to the house on the hill after mass and we used to laugh as we divided it.

We both had the same kind of feeling of liberty which made us run races round the garden and wet our shoes in the brooklets from the spring. Henri Deslois used to say, "On Sundays I, too, am seventeen years old." Sometimes we would go for long walks in the woods which skirted the hill. Henri Deslois was never tired of hearing me talk about my childhood, and Sister Marie-Aimée. Sometimes we talked about Eugène, whom he knew. He used to say that he was one of those men whom one liked to have for a friend. I told him what a bad shepherdess I had been, and although I felt sure he would laugh at me, I told him the story of the sheep which was all swollen up. He didn't laugh. He put a finger on my forehead and said, "Love is the only thing that will cure that."

One day we stopped near an immense field of corn. It was so big that we could not see the end of it. Thousands of white butterflies were floating about over the corn ears. Henri Deslois didn't speak, and I watched the ears of corn which were stooping and stretching as though they were getting ready to fly. It looked as though the butterflies were bringing them wings to help them, but it was no good for the corn ears to get excited. They could not get away from the ground. I told my idea to Henri Deslois, who looked at the corn for a long time, and then, as though he were speaking to himself, and dragging the words out, he said, "It is much the same kind of thing with a man. Sometimes a woman comes to him. She looks like the white butterflies of the plain. He doesn't know whether she comes up from the earth or whether she comes down from the sky. He feels that with her he could live on the wind which passes, and the fresh young flowers. But like the root which holds the corn to earth a mysterious bond holds him to his duty, which is as strong as the earth." I thought that his voice had an accent of suffering, and that the corners of his mouth drooped more than usual. But almost immediately his eyes looked into mine, and he said in a stronger voice, "We must have confidence in ourselves."

Summer passed and the autumn, and in spite of the bad weather of December we could not make up our minds to leave the house on the hill. Henri Deslois used to bring books with him which we would read, sitting on the logs of wood in the back room which looked into the garden. I went back to the farm at nightfall, and Adèle, who thought I was spending my time dancing in the village, was always surprised that I looked so sad.

Almost every day Henri Deslois came to Villevieille. I could hear him from a long way off. He rode a great white mare which trotted heavily, and he rode her without saddle or bridle. She was a patient and a gentle brute. Her master used to let her run loose in the yard while he went in to say "good day," to Madame Alphonse. As soon as M. Alphonse heard him he would come into the linen-room. The two of them would speak of improvements on the farm or about people whom they knew. But there was always a word or a sentence in their conversation which came straight to me from Henri Deslois. I often used to catch M. Alphonse looking at me, and I could not always keep from blushing.

One afternoon as Henri Deslois came in to the room smiling, M. Alphonse said, "You know I have sold the house on the hill." The two men looked at one another. They both grew so pale that I was afraid they were going to die where they stood. Then M. Alphonse got out of his chair and stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Henri Deslois went to the door and tried to close it. Madame Alphonse put her lace down on her knee and said, as though she were repeating a lesson, "The house was of no particular good, and I am very pleased that it has been sold." Henri Deslois came and stood by the table, so close to me that he could have touched me. He said in a voice that was not quite firm, "I am sorry you have sold it without having mentioned it to me, for I intended to buy it." M. Alphonse wriggled like an earthworm. He made a great effort to laugh out loud, and as he laughed he said, "You would have bought it? What would you have done with it?" Henri Deslois put his hand on the back of my chair and answered, "I would have lived in it as Jean le Rouge did." M. Alphonse walked up and down in front of the chimney. His face had changed into a yellow earthy colour. His hands were in his trouser pockets, and he picked up his feet so quickly that it looked as though he were pulling at them with a cord which he held in each hand. Then he came and leaned on the table opposite us, and looking at us one after the other with his glittering eyes, he bent forward and said, "Well, I have sold it now, so it is all over." During the silence which followed we could hear the white mare pawing the ground with her shoe as though she were calling her master. Henri Deslois went towards the door. Then he came back to me and picked up my work which had fallen from my hands without my having noticed it. He kissed his sister, and before he went, he said, looking at me, "I shall see you to-morrow."

Next morning Madame Deslois came into the linen-room. She came straight to me, and was very rude. But M. Alphonse told her to be quiet, and, turning to me, he said, "Madame Alphonse has asked me to tell you that she would like to keep you in her service. But she wants you in future to come to mass with us." He tried to smile, and added, "We will drive you there and back." It was the first time that he had ever spoken directly to me. His voice was rather husky, as though he felt some awkwardness in saying these things to me. I don't know what made me think that he was lying, and that Madame Alphonse had not said anything of the kind. Besides, he looked so much like the Mother Superior that I could not help defying him. I told him that I didn't care about driving, and that I should go to mass at Sainte Montagne as before. He sucked in his lower lip and began biting it. Then Madame Deslois stepped forward threateningly, and told me that I was insolent. She kept on repeating this word as though she could not find any others. She shouted it more and more loudly, and lost all control of herself. The white of her eyes was becoming quite red, and she raised her hand to strike me. I stepped back quickly behind my chair. Madame Deslois bumped into the chair and knocked it over, and caught at the table so as not to fall down. Her harsh voice terrified me. I wanted to leave the linen-room, but M. Alphonse had placed himself in front of the door, and I came back into the room and faced Madame Deslois across the table. She began to speak again in a strangled sort of voice. She used words which I didn't understand, but there was something about what she said and the way in which she said it which I hated. At last she stopped speaking, and shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't forget that I am his mother."

M. Alphonse came towards me. He took hold of my arm and said, "Come, now, listen to me." I shook myself loose, pushed him away and ran out of the house. The last words that Madame Deslois had said hammered on my brain as though they really were a hammer with one end of it pointed. "I am his mother, do you hear?--his mother." Oh, mother Marie-Aimée, how beautiful you were when compared to this other mother, and how I loved you! How your many-coloured eyes beamed and lit up your black dress, and how pure your face was under your white cap! I could see you as clearly as though you were really in front of me.

I was quite astonished to find myself in front of the house on the hill, and when I got there I saw that snow was falling in a regular hurricane. I went into the house for shelter, and went straight into the room which looked out on the garden. I tried to think, but my ideas whirled round in my head like the snow-flakes, which looked as though they were climbing up from the ground and falling from the sky at the same time. And every time that I made an effort to think, the only things I could think of were little bits of a song which the children used to sing in the convent, and which ran--

The old girl jumped and jumped about
And jumped until she died.
The old girl jumped and jumped about
And jumped until she died.[1]

I felt less unhappy in this silent house. The softly falling snow was pretty, and the trees were as beautiful as on that day when I had seen them all in bloom. Then suddenly I remembered, quite clearly all that had just happened. I saw Madame Deslois's hand with its square fingers, and shivered all over. What an ugly hand it was, and what a large one! Then I remembered the expression on M. Alphonse's face when he took hold of my arm, and I remembered as I thought of it that I had seen the same expression once before on a little girl's face. It was one day when I had picked up a pear which had fallen from the tree. She had rushed at me, saying, "Give me half of it, and I won't tell."

I felt so disgusted at the idea of sharing it with her that, although Sister Marie-Aimée might have seen me, I had gone back to the tree and put the pear down where it had fallen.

Thinking of all these things, I longed and longed to see Sister Marie-Aimée again. I should have liked to have gone to her at once, but I remembered that Henri Deslois had said as he went, "I shall see you to-morrow." Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting for me, and wondering what had become of me. I went out of the house to run back to Villevieille. I had only gone a few steps when I saw him coming up. The white mare didn't find it very easy to climb the snow-covered path. Henri Deslois was bareheaded, as he had been the first time he came. His smock billowed out with the wind, and he had a hand on the mane of the mare. The mare stood in front of me. Her master leaned down and took my two hands which I held up to him. There was on his face a look of worry which I had never seen before. I noticed, too, that his eyebrows met, like those of Madame Deslois. He was a little out of breath, and said, "I knew that I should find you here." He opened his mouth again, and I felt quite certain that his words were going to bring me happiness. He held my hands tighter, and said in the same breathless voice as before, "I can no longer be your friend." I thought that somebody had struck me a violent blow on the head. There was a noise of a saw in my ears. I could see Henri Deslois trembling, and I heard him say, "How cold I am!" Then I no longer felt the warmth of his hand on mine. And when I realized that I was standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing but a great white shape which was slipping noiselessly across the snow.

[1] On a tant fait sauter la vieille,
Qu'elle est morte en sautillant,
Tireli,
Sautons, sautons, la vieille!

I went slowly down the other side of the hill, walking in the snow, which squeaked under my feet. About half-way a peasant offered me a lift in his cart. He was going to town too, and it was not long before we got to the Orphanage. I rang the bell, and the porteress looked out at me through the peephole. I recognized her. It was "Ox Eye" still. We had named her Ox Eye because her eyes were big and round like a daisy. She opened the gate when she recognized me, and told me to come in; but before she shut the gate behind me she said, "Sister Marie-Aimée is not here." I didn't answer, so she said again, "Sister Marie-Aimée is not here." I heard what she said quite well, but I didn't pay any attention to it. It was like a dream where the most extraordinary things happen without seeming to be of any importance at all. I looked at her great big eyes and said, "I have come back." She closed the gate behind me and left me standing under the eaves of her little house in the gateway, while she went to tell the Mother Superior. She came back, saying that the Mother Superior wanted to speak to Sister Désirée-des-Anges before she saw me.

A bell rang. Ox Eye got up and told me to go with her. It was snowing again. It was almost dark in the Mother Superior's room. At first I saw nothing but the fire, which was whistling and flaming. Then I heard the Mother Superior's voice. "So you have come back?" she said. I tried to think steadily, but I was not quite sure whether I had come back or not. She said, "Sister Marie-Aimée is not here." I thought that my bad dream was coming on again, and coughed to try and wake myself. Then I looked at the fire and tried to find out why it whistled like that. The Mother Superior spoke again. "Are you ill?" she said. I answered "No." The heat did me good, and I felt better. I was beginning to understand at last that I had come back to the Orphanage, and that I was in the Mother Superior's room. My eyes met hers, and I remembered everything. She laughed a little, and said, "You have not changed much. How old are you now?"

I told her that I was eighteen years old. "Really," she said. "Going out into the world has not made you grow much." She leaned one elbow on the table, and asked me why I had come back. I wanted to tell her that I had come back to see Sister Marie-Aimée, but I was afraid of hearing her say once more that Sister Marie-Aimée was not there, and I remained silent. She opened a drawer, took out a letter, which she covered with her open hand, and said in the weary voice of a person who has been bothered unnecessarily, "This letter had already told me that you had become a bold, proud girl." She pushed the letter from her as though she were tired, and in a long breath she said, "You can work in the kitchen here until we find you something else to do." The fire went on whistling. I went on looking at it, but I could not make out which of the three logs was making the noise. The Mother Superior raised her monotonous voice to draw my attention. She warned me that Sister Désirée-des-Anges would watch me very closely, and that I should not be allowed to talk to my former companions. I saw her point to the door, and I went out into the snow.

At the other side of the yard I could see the kitchens. Sister Désirée-des-Anges, who was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the door. I could see nothing of her but her cap and her black dress, and I imagined her to be old and withered. I thought of running away. I need only run to the gate and tell Ox Eye that I had come on a visit. She would let me out, and that would be all.

Instead of going to the gate I went towards the buildings where I had lived when I was a child. I didn't know why I went there, but I could not help it. I felt very tired, and I should have liked to lie down and sleep for a long time.

The old bench was in the same place. I wiped some of the snow off it with my hands, and sat down leaning against the linden tree as M. le Curé used to do. I was waiting for something, and I didn't know what. I looked up at the window of Sister Marie-Aimée's room. The pretty embroidered curtains were no longer there, and although the window was just like the other windows now, I thought it quite different. And though the thick calico curtains were the same in this room as in the others, they seemed to me to make that window look like a face with its eyes shut.