The wedding took place in the middle of December. It was simple, the
bridal pair not being rich. Césaire, 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 savings had become livid, 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, powdered as
they had been in the pleasant month of their blossoming.
This day, the big northern clouds, the gray clouds laden with glittering
rain had disappeared, and the blue sky showed itself above the white
earth on which the rising sun cast silvery reflections.
Césaire looked straight before him through the window, thinking of
nothing 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
they 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:
"It is not the hour--is it?"
Césaire replied:
"I am much afraid it is."
"Come on! Let us start," said another.
Those rose up. Then Césaire, 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 look in them.
He bawled out into his ear: "Come, daddy, get up. 'Tis the time for the
wedding."
The deaf man murmured in a doleful tone:
"I can't, I have a sort of cold 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, we must force you to go."
"Look here! I'll help you."
And he stooped towards the old man, pulled off his blanket, caught him by
the arm and lifted him up. But the old Amable began to whine:
"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! What suffering! Ooh! I can't. My back is stiffened up.
'Tis the wind that must have rushed in through this cursed roof."
"Well, you'll have 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, then set out for his destination,
accompanied by his relatives and guests.
The men had turned up their trousers so as not to soil the ends of them
in the snow. The women held up their petticoats and showed their lean
ankles, their gray woolen stockings, and their bony shanks resembling
broomsticks. And they all moved forward balancing themselves on their
legs, one behind the other without uttering a word in a very gingerly
fashion through caution lest they might miss their way owing to flat,
uniform uninterrupted sweep of snow that obliterated the track.
As they approached some of the farm houses, 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 with black beads undulating through
the white country side.
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, Céleste 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 everyone asked Césaire:
"Where's your father?" he replied with embarrassment.
"He couldn't move on account of the pains."
And the farmers tossed their heads with an incredulous and waggish air.
They directed their steps towards 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 male peasants, in pairs, now went on, with
arms linked, 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 curé, in his turn, in the modest house of the
good God. He blessed their couplement 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, seized with cold, began bawling behind the backs of the
newly-married pair.
As soon as the couple reappeared on the threshold of the church, shots
were discharged in the moat 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 salvoes of musketry. It could be
seen that he carried the thing off well.
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 fowl browned under their own gravy,
the chitterling roasting over the warm bright fire, filled the house with
a thick odor of coal sprinkled with fat--the powerful and heavy odor of
rustic fare.
They sat down to table at midday, and speedily the soup flowed into the
plates. The faces already had 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 presented himself. He seemed in bad humor
and his face wore a scowl, and he dragged himself forward on his sticks,
whining at every step to indicate his suffering. The sight of him caused
great annoyance; but suddenly, his neighbor, Daddy Malivoire, a big
joker, who knew all the little tricks and ways of people, began to yell,
just as Césaire 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!"
An immense laugh burst forth from the throats of those present.
Malivoire, excited by his success, went on:
"There is 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
each 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 ladlefull of soup that fell into his stomach, with each
mouthful of bread or meat crushed under 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 gloomy tenacity which he exhibited in former days in
his persistent toils.
But all of a sudden he noticed at the end of the table Céleste'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 stuffing which he
nibbled at. And the old man suffered more from every mouthful taken in by
this little grub than by all that the others swallowed.
The meal lasted till evening. Then everyone went back home.
Césaire raised up old Amable.
"Come, daddy, we must go home," said he.
And put the old man's two sticks in his hands
Césaire 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, persisted in not
going on. 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 Césaire
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 loudly several times, whether it was
that he was dreaming or that he let his thoughts escape through his
mouth, in spite of himself, without 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 house-keeping.
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 gray pot filled
with smoking liquid. He sat down without giving any answer, seized the
hot jar, 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 water 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 Céleste'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 heavy. There were no slow frosts, and the apples bursting into bloom
let fall into the grass their rosy white snow, which promised a hail of
fruit for the autumn.
Césaire toiled hard, rose early and left off work late, in order to save
the expense of a laboring 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 go 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 towards his grounds, but, next morning,
the doctor had to be sent for, and pronounced him very ill from an
inflammation of the chest.
And he no longer quitted the obscure niche which he made use of to sleep
in. He could be heard coughing, panting, and tossing about in the
interior of this hole. In order to see him, to give his medicine, and to
apply cupping-glasses, it was necessary to bring a candle towards 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.
Céleste watched him with restless activity, made him take physic, applied
blister plasters to him, and was constantly waving up and down the house,
while the old Amable remained at the side of his loft, watching at a
distance the gloomy cave where his son was 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 Céleste, who was now asleep
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 low bed. Terror stricken, she asked:
"Well, Césaire, 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 Céleste rushing to call for help, he quickly descended, felt
in his turn the flesh of his son, and suddenly realizing what had
happened, went to shut the door from the inside, to prevent the wife
from reentering, and to resume possession of his 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 Céleste 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
farm-house with the child.
It was the usual dinner hour. She lighted the fire, divided the soup, and
placed the plated 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 out in his ear:
"Come, daddy, you must eat." He rose up, took his seat at the end of the
table, emptied his pot, 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, palpitates, blooms all over the surface of the soil.
Old Amable pursued a little path across the fields. He watched the young
wheat and the young oats, thinking that his son was now under the clay,
his poor boy. He went on at his customary pace, 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 while he proceeded on his way.
Then he sat down close to a pool, 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, Césaire, 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 did swallow 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 went out, prowled about the fields in
the fashion of a vagabond, went hiding behind the barns, where he slept
for an hour or two, as if he were afraid of being seen, and then he came
back at the approach of night.
But Céleste's mind began to be occupied by graver anxieties. The grounds
needed a man to look after them and work them. Somebody should be there
always to go through the fields, not a mere hired laborer, but a big
cultivator, a master, who would know the business and have the care of
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 extricate her from embarrassment, Victor Lecoq, the
father of her child. He was strong and well acquainted with farming
business; 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 his parents' farm.
So, one morning, seeing him passing along the road with a cart of dung,
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 grounds."
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. In the end, 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."
"'Tis fixed, then, for Sunday next?"
"'Tis fixed for Sunday next."
"Well, good morning, Victor."
"Good morning, Madame Houlbrèque."