Chapter V: The Delirium of Starvation

Too old a man to think of contesting the spoils for which he had returned to Gregory's tavern, Yvon hurried back home and reached his hut towards midnight.

On entering, a torch of resinous wood, fastened near the wall by an iron ring, lighted a heart-rending spectacle. Stretched out near the hearth lay Den-Brao, his face covered by his mason's jacket; himself expiring of inanition, he wished to escape the sight of the agony of his family. His wife, Gervaise, so thin that the bones of her face could be counted, was on her knees near a straw pallet where Julyan lay in convulsions. Almost fainting, Gervaise struggled with her son who was alternately crying with fury and with pain and in the frenzy of starvation sought to apply its teeth to his own arms. Nominoe, the elder, lay flat on his face, on the pallet with his brother. He would have been taken for dead but for the tremor that from time to time ran over his frame still more emaciated than his brother's. Finally Jeannette, about three years old, murmured in her cradle with a dying voice: "Mother ... I am hungry.... I am hungry!"

At the sound of Yvon's steps, Gervaise turned her head: "Father!" said she in despair, "if you bring nothing with you, I shall kill my children to shorten their agony ... and then myself!"

Yvon threw down his bow and took his bag from his shoulders. Gervaise judged from its size and obvious weight that it was full. She wrenched it from Yvon's hands with savage impatience, thrust her hand in it, pulled out the chunk of roasted meat and raising it over her head to show it to the whole family cried out in a quivering voice: "Meat!... Oh, we shall not yet die! Den-Brao.... Children!... Meat!... Meat!" At these words Den-Brao sat up precipitately; Nominoe, too feeble to rise, turned on his pallet and stretched out his eager hands to his mother; little Jeannette eagerly looked up from her cradle; while Julyan, whom his mother was not now holding, neither heard nor saw aught but was biting into his arms in the delirium of starvation, unnoticed by either Yvon or any other member of the family. All eyes were fixed upon Gervaise, who running to a table and taking a knife sliced off the meat crying: "Meat!... Meat!"

"Give me!... Give me!" cried Den-Brao, stretching out his emaciated arms, and he devoured in an instant the piece that he received.

"You next, Jeannette!" said Gervaise, throwing a slice to the little girl who uttered a cry of joy, while her mother herself, yielding to the cravings of starvation bit off mouthfuls from the slice that she reached out to her oldest son, Nominoe, who, like the rest, pounced upon the prey, and fell to eating in silent voracity. "And now, you, Julyan," continued Gervaise. The lad made no answer. His mother stooped down over him: "Julyan, do not bite your arm! Here is meat, dear boy!" But his elder brother, Nominoe, having swallowed up his own slice, brusquely seized that which his mother was tendering to Julyan. Seeing that the latter continued motionless, Gervaise insisted: "My child, take your arm from your teeth!" But hardly had she pronounced these words than, turning towards Yvon, she cried: "Come here, father.... His arm is icy and rigid ... so rigid that I cannot withdraw it from his jaws."

Yvon rushed to the pallet where Julyan lay. The little boy had expired in the convulsion of hunger, although less unfeebled than his brother and sister. "Step aside," Yvon said to Gervaise; "step aside!" She realized that Julyan was dead, obeyed Yvon's orders and went on to eat. But her hunger being appeased, she approached her son's corpse and sobbed aloud:

"My poor little Julyan!" she lamented. "Oh, my dear child! You died of hunger!... A few minutes longer and you would have had something to eat like the others ... at least for to-day!"

"Where did you get this roast, father?" asked Den-Brao.

"I found the tracks of a buck," answered Yvon dropping his eyes; "I followed the animal but failed to come up to it. In that way I went as far as the tavern of Gregory the Hollow-bellied. He was at supper.... I shared his repast, and he gave me what you have just eaten."

"Such a gift! and in days of famine, father! in such days when only seigneurs and the clergy do not suffer of hunger!"

"I made the tavern-keeper sympathize with our distress," Yvon answered brusquely, and, in order to put an end to the subject he added: "I am worn out with fatigue; I must rest," saying which he walked into the contiguous room to stretch himself out on his couch, while his son and daughter remained on their knees near the body of little Julyan. The other two children fell asleep, still saying they were hungry. After a long and troubled sleep, Yvon woke up. It was day. Gervaise and her husband still knelt near Julyan. His brother and sister were saying: "Mother, give us something to eat; we are hungry!"

"Later, dear little ones," answered the unhappy woman to console them; "later you shall have something to eat."

Den-Brao raised his head and asked: "Where are you going, father?"

"I am going to dig the grave of my little grandson.... I wish to save you the sad task."

"Dig ours also, father," Den-Brao replied with a dejected mien. "We shall all die to-night. For a moment allayed, our hunger will rise more violent than last night ... dig a wide grave for us all."

"Despair not, my children. It has stopped snowing. I may be able to find again the traces of the buck."

Yvon picked up a spade with which to dig Julyan's grave near where the boy's great-grandfather, Leduecq, lay buried. Near the place was a heap of dead branches that had been gathered shortly before by the woodsmen serfs to turn into coal. After the grave was dug, Yvon left his spade near it and as the snow had ceased falling he started anew in pursuit of the buck. It was in vain. Nowhere were the animal's tracks to be seen. It grew night with the prospect of a long darkness, seeing the moon would not rise until late. Yvon was reminded by the pangs of hunger, that began to assail him, that in his hut the sufferings must have returned. A spectacle, even more distressing than that of the previous night now awaited him--the convulsive cries of starving children, the moaning of their mother, the woe-begone looks and dejectment of his son who lay on the floor awaiting death, and reproaching Yvon for having prolonged his own and the sufferings of his family with their lives. Such was the prostration of these wretched beings that, without turning their heads to Yvon, or even addressing a single word to him, they let him carry out the corpse of the deceased child.

An hour later Yvon re-entered his hut. It was pitch dark; the hearth was cold. None had even the spirit to light a resin torch. Hollow and spasmodic rattlings were heard from the throats of those within. Suddenly Gervaise jumped up and groped her way in the dark towards Yvon crying: "I smell roast meat ... just as last night ... we shall not die!... Den-Brao, your father has brought some more meat!... Come, children, come for your share.... A light quick!"

"No, no! We want no light!" Yvon cried in a tremulous voice. "Take!" said he to Gervaise, who was tugging at the bag on his shoulders. "Take!... Divide this venison among yourselves, and eat in the dark!"

The wretched family devoured the meat in the dark; their hunger and feebleness did not allow them to ask what kind of meat it was. But Yvon fled from the hut almost crazed with horror. Abomination! His family was again feeding upon human flesh!