THE FAMILY LUMINEAU.
The family was assembled in the large living-room, or "house-place" of
the farm. As the girl entered all eyes were turned upon her, but not a
word was spoken. Feeling isolated, she crept along beside the wall,
trying by lessening the noise of her sabots the sooner to escape
observation, and having reached the chimney-corner, stooped down and
held out her hands to the fire, as if she were cold.
Her sister Eleonore, a tall young woman with horse-like profile,
lifeless blue eyes, and heavy apathetic face, drew back either to make
way for her or to mark the ill-feeling existing between them, and
continued to eat her slice of bread and few scraps of meat standing,
the time-honoured custom among the women of La Vendee. The
chimney-corner, blackened with smoke, hid them from the rest of the
family as they stood one on either side; the dancing flames between
them lit up, from time to time, the inmates and contents of the big
house-place, built at a period when wood was plentiful, and houses
and furniture were intended to last; while overhead numberless rafters
discoloured with smoke and dust, joined the huge centre beam. The
fitful flames anon rested on the woodwork of two four-post beds that
stood against the wall, each with a walnut wood chest beside it, by
aid of which the occupants mounted to the heavy structures, two
wardrobes, some photographs, and a rosary hung round a copper crucifix
over the nearest bed.
The three men at the table in the centre of the room were seated on
the same bench in order of precedence; first, at the farthest end from
the door, the father, then Mathurin, then Francois. A small petroleum
lamp shed its light upon their bent heads, upon the soup-tureen, a
dish of cold bacon, and another of uncooked apples. They were not
eating from the tureen as do many peasant farmers, but each had his
plate, and beside it his metal spoon, fork, and knife, not a
pocket-knife but a proper table one, a luxury introduced by Francois
on his return from military service; from which the old farmer had
drawn his conclusion that the outside world was full of changes.
Toussaint Lumineau looked worried and kept silence. His calm, strong
face, though that of an old man, contrasted strangely with the
deformed features of his eldest son, Mathurin. Formerly they had been
alike; but since the misfortune of which they never spoke and which
yet haunted the memories of all at La Fromentiere, the son was only
the grotesque suffering caricature of his father. The enormous head,
covered with a bush of tawny hair, was sunk between his high,
thickened shoulders. The width of chest, length of arms, and size of
hands denoted a man of gigantic stature; but when this giant,
supported by his crutches, stood up, one saw a poor twisted, thickened
torso, with contorted powerless legs dragging after it; a
prize-fighter's body terminating in two wasted limbs, capable at most
of supporting it for a few seconds, and from which even, powerless as
they now were, the life was gradually ebbing. Scarce thirty years of
age, the beard which grew almost to his cheek-bones was grey in
places. Above the muddy-veined cheek-bones, from out the tangled mass
of hair and beard which gave him the appearance of a wild animal,
shone a pair of deep blue eyes, small, sad-looking, whence would flash
all suddenly the wild exasperation of one condemned to a living death,
who counted each stage of his torture. It was as though one half of
him were assisting with impotent rage at the slow agony of the other.
His forehead was lined with wrinkles which made deep furrows between
the eyebrows.
"Our poor eldest son, the handsomest of them all, what a wreck he is!"
their mother used sorrowfully to say.
She had reason to pity him. Six years ago he had come home from his
military service as handsome a fellow as when he went. The three
years of barrack life had passed over his simple peasant nature, over
his dreams of ploughing the land and harvesting, over the tenets of
faith he held in common with his race, with scarce a trace of harm.
Innate contempt of the life led in towns had been his protection.
"Lumineau's eldest son is not like other lads; he is not a bit
changed," was the verdict of the neighbours.
One evening when he had taken a waggon-load of corn to the
flour-miller of Chalons, he came back with empty sacks, but beside
him, sitting upon a pile of them, was a laughing girl from
Sallertaine, Felicite Gauvrit, of La Seuliere, whom he wished to take
for wife. The dusk of evening was over the roads, it was hard to
distinguish ruts from tufts of grass; but he, all absorbed in his
sweetheart, confident that his horse knew the way, was not even
holding the reins that had fallen and were dragging on the ground. And
suddenly, as they were descending a hill close to La Fromentiere, the
horse, struck by a branch from a tree, started into a gallop. The
waggon jerked from side to side, was in danger of being upset; the
wheels were on the bank, the girl wanted to jump out.
"Don't be frightened, Felicite, I will manage him!" cried her lover.
And standing up he leant forward to seize the horse by the bit and
stop him. But whether the darkness, a jolt, or ill-luck deceived him,
he overbalanced and fell along the harness. There were two
simultaneous cries, one from the waggon, one from beneath it. The
wheel had gone over his limbs. When Felicite Gauvrit could get to her
lover's assistance, she found him trying in vain to struggle up from
the ground. For eight months Mathurin was groaning in agony; then his
groans ceased, his sufferings grew less acute; but first the feet
became paralyzed, then the knees, and gradually the slow death
mounted.... At the present time he could only drag his lower limbs
after him, crawling on his knees and wrists, grown to an enormous
size. He could still guide a punt upon the canals of the Marais, but
his strength was soon exhausted. In a hand-cart, such as farm children
use for a plaything, the father or brother would draw him to the more
distant fields whither the plough had preceded them; and thus, utterly
useless, the young man would look on at the work to which he was born,
and which he still loved so passionately. "Our poor eldest Lumineau,
the handsomest of them all!"
His gay spirits had flown; his character had become as changed and
warped as his body. He had grown hard, suspicious, cruel. His brothers
and sisters hid all their little concerns from the man who looked upon
the happiness of others as a personal wrong to himself; they feared
his skill at ferreting out any love-making; the treachery which would
prompt him to try and mar it. He, who never could hope now to inspire
love, could not brook that others should possess it. Above all, could
not brook that another should take the place which came to him by
right of birth, that of future master, of the father's successor to
the farm.
On that account he was jealous of Francois, and still more of Andre,
the handsome young Chasseur d'Afrique, their father's favourite. He
even was jealous of the farm-servant, who might become dangerous, did
he marry Rousille.
Sometimes Mathurin Lumineau said to himself:
"If only I could get well again! I believe I do feel better!" At other
times a kind of rage would take possession of him, and he would not
speak for days, would hide away in corners or in the stables, until a
flood of tears would melt his passion. At those times one man only
could go near him: his father. One thing alone softened the cripple's
churlishness, and that was to look on the home fields, to see the oxen
at work, the seed sown which should yield abundantly in its season,
and to gaze out on to the horizon where he had tasted of the fulness
of life.
For the whole six years in which the girl he had loved had deserted
him, he had never once been into the town of Sallertaine, even to
Easter Communion, which he no longer attended. Nor had he ever met
Felicite Gauvrit, of La Seuliere, along the lanes.
He sometimes asked Eleonore:
"Do you ever hear any talk of her marrying? Is she still as handsome
as when she loved me?"
When Marie-Rose went into the supper-room that night, it was Mathurin
only whom she furtively glanced at, and his face seemed to her to wear
a malicious smile, as though he had seen, or guessed Jean's absence.
Near Mathurin sat Francois, a very different looking man from the
other, of middle height, stout, red faced, easy going. Of him,
Rousille had no fear.
He was more pleasure-loving than the rest of the family. No great
worker, extravagant, running off to all the fairs and markets, easy to
get on with because he needed the indulgence of others. Physically and
morally the counterpart of Eleonore, two years his senior, like her he
had a broad face, dull blue eyes, and the same apathetic nature which
so often called forth lectures from their father.
But while the girl in the protection of her home remained pure under
the influence of her good mother, now dead, who, like so many of the
simple peasant women of those parts, had lived a humble saint-like
life, Francois had been ruined by barrack life.
He had submitted to military discipline, but without understanding the
necessity for it; therefore without deriving the corresponding
benefit. He had been subject to his superiors, had received
punishment, had been sent hither and thither for three years; but he
had never made a friend, never felt himself encouraged in the few
halting intentions for good that he had taken with him from the home
life, never been treated as a man, who has a soul, and whom sacrifice,
however humble, can ennoble. On the other hand, he fell an easy prey
to all the evils of a soldier's life; the loose talk at mess, the
drinking habits of his companions, the constant endeavour to shirk
duty, the prejudices, in a word the hundred and one corruptions into
which young men can sink who are taken from their homes and sent out
into the world, new to the temptations of great cities, without a
guide at the very period when most they stand in need of one.
Neither better nor worse than the average of men home from military
training, he had brought back with him to La Fromentiere a remembrance
of illicit pleasures that followed him everywhere; defiance of all
authority, a disgust for the hard, uncertain, often unproductive work
of farming, which he contrasted with vague notions about civil
employment of which the leisure and privileges had been vaunted to
him. How far off was he now from the simple son of the marshes, with
fearless eyes, the inseparable companion, model and protector of
Andre, who, twirling his tamarind stick, would make the round of the
canals to see if the cows had strayed from the meadows, or to search
for any ducks which might have wandered into the ditches! With
unwilling spirit, and because he had nothing better to do, he had
returned to the care of the animals and to follow the plough. The
proximity of Chalons, its wine shops and taverns was a temptation to
him; urged on by his companions, weak and passive, he suffered himself
to be led away. On Tuesdays, particularly, market day, the poor old
father too often saw his son of seven-and-twenty start off from the
farm under various pretexts before it was dawn, to come back late at
night, stupefied, insensible to reproaches. It was an ever abiding
grief to the father. Francois had made La Fromentiere no longer the
sacred abode beloved by, defended by all, which no one had dreamed of
deserting. In that room where they were now assembled what a long line
of mothers and children, of grandsires and grandames, united or
resigned, had lived and died!
In those high beds ranged against the walls how many children had been
born, fed, and at last had slept their last sleep! There had been
sorrow and weeping there, but never ingratitude.
A whole forest might have been re-planted if all the wood burned in
that chimney, by those bearing the same name, could have re-taken
root. What was in store for his descendants hereafter?
The old farmer had noticed for months past that Francois and Eleonore
were plotting something; they received letters, one and the other, of
which they never spoke; they talked together in corners; sometimes of
a Sunday, Eleonore would write a letter on plain paper, not such as
she would use when writing to a friend. And the thought had come to
him that his two children, weary of rule and scoldings, were on the
look-out for a farm in some neighbouring parish, where they would be
their own masters--it was a thought he dared not dwell upon; he cast
it from him as unjust. Still it haunted his mind, for the future of La
Fromentiere was his one chief care, and, since his eldest son's
misfortune, Francois was the heir. When work went well, the father
would think joyfully, "After all, the lad is buckling to again."
In truth, of the four young people assembled that September evening in
the farm house-place, one only personified intact all the
characteristics, all the energy of the race, and this was little
Rousille, who was eating the crust of bread given her by Eleonore; one
face alone expressed the joy of living, the health of body and soul,
the brave spirit of one who has not yet had to do battle but who bides
her time, and this was the face of the girl to whom no one, as yet,
had spoken a word, and who was standing erect in the chimney-corner.
"Now the soup is finished," said the farmer. "Come, Mathurin, try a
slice of bacon with me."
"No. It is always the same thing with us."
"Well, and so much the better," replied the father, "bacon is very
good fare; I like it."
But the cripple, shrugging his shoulders, pushed away the dish,
muttering:
"I suppose other meat is too dear for us now, eh?"
Toussaint Lumineau's brows contracted at the mention of former
prosperity, but he replied, gently:
"You are right, my poor boy, it is a bad year, and expenses are
heavy," then, wishing to change the subject--"Has Jean not come in
yet?"
Three voices, in succession, replied:
"I have not seen him!"
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
After a silence, during which all eyes were turned towards the
chimney-corner.
"It would be best to ask Rousille," exclaimed Eleonore, "she must
know."
The girl half turning towards the table, her profile standing out in
the firelight, answered:
"Of course I do. I met him at the turn of the road by our swing gate;
he was going shooting."
"Again!" exclaimed the farmer. "Once for all this must be put a stop
to. To-night, when I was tying up my cabbages, the keeper of M. le
Marquis reprimanded me for that lad's poaching."
"But is he not free to shoot plovers?" asked Rousille. "Everyone
does."
A simultaneous snort proceeding from Eleonore and Francois marked
their hostility to the _Boquin_, the alien, Rousille's friend.
The farmer, reassured by the reflection that the keeper would not
trouble himself about Nesmy's shooting in the neutral ground of the
Marais, where anyone was free to go after wild-fowl as much as he
pleased, resumed his supper.
Francois was already nodding, and ate no more.
The cripple drank slowly, his eyes fixed on space, perhaps he was
thinking of the time when he, too, loved shooting.
There was an interval of apparent peace.
The summer breeze came through the chinks of the door with a gentle
murmur, regular as the waves on a seashore.
The two girls sitting on either side of the chimney-corner, were each
giving all their attention to the peeling of an apple, the conclusion
of their supper. But the farmer's mind was unsettled by the keeper's
words, and by Mathurin's "Meat is too dear for us, now." The old man
was looking back to the long ago, when the four children before him
had been busied with their own childish experiences, and could only
take their little part in the parents' interests according to their
age. First he looked at Mathurin, then at Francois, as though to
appeal to their memory about the old days when as tiny boys they drove
the cattle, or fished for eels. Too moved longer to keep silence, he
ended by saying:
"Ah, the country side has changed greatly since M. le Marquis' time!
Do you remember him, Mathurin?"
"Yes," returned Mathurin's thick voice. "I remember him. A big fellow,
very red in the face, who used to call out when he came in, 'Good
evening, my lads! Has father another bottle of old wine in the cellar?
Go and ask him, Mathurin, or you, Francois.'"
"Yes, that was just him all over," said the good farmer, with an
affectionate smile.
"He knew how to drink; and you would never find noblemen so affable as
ours; they would tell you stories that made you die with laughing. And
rich, children! They never used to mind waiting for the rent if there
had been a bad harvest. They have even made me a loan, more than once,
to buy oxen or seed. They were hot-tempered, but not to those who knew
how to manage them; while these agents...." he made a violent gesture
as if to knock someone down.
"Yes," replied Mathurin, "they are a bad lot."
"And Mademoiselle Ambroisine! She used to come to play with you,
Eleonore, but particularly with Rousille, for she was between Eleonore
and Rousille for age. I should say she must be about twenty-five by
now. How pretty she used to look, with her lace frocks, her hair
dressed like one of the saints in a church, her pretty laughing nods
to everyone she met when she went into Sallertaine. Ah, what a pity
that they have gone away. There are people who do not regret them; but
I am not one of those!"
Mathurin shook his tawny head, and in a voice that rose at the
slightest contradiction, exclaimed:
"What else could they do? They are ruined."
"Oh, ruined! Not so bad as that."
"You only need to look at the Chateau, shut up these eight years like
a prison; only need to hear what people say. All their property is
mortgaged; the notary makes no secret about it. You will see before
long that La Fromentiere is sold, and we with it!"
"No, Mathurin, that I shall not see, thank God, I shall be dead before
that. Besides, our nobles are not like us, my boy; they always have
property to come into when their own money runs a little short. I hope
better things than you. It is my idea that M. Henri will one day come
back to the Chateau, that he will stand just where you now are, and
with outstretched hand, say: 'Good day, Father Lumineau!' and
Mademoiselle Ambroisine too, who will be so delighted to kiss my two
girls on both cheeks, as we do in the Marais, and cry, 'How do you do,
Eleonore? How do you do, Marie-Rose?' Ah, it may all come about sooner
than you suppose."
With eyes raised to the mantel-piece, the old man seemed to be seeing
his master's daughter standing between his own two girls, while
something like a tear moistened his eyelids.
But Mathurin, striking the table with his fist, said, as he turned his
peevish face towards his father:
"Do you believe they are thinking of us? I tell you, no, unless it is
about Midsummer. I'll wager that the keeper just now asked you again
for the rent? The beggar only has that one word in his mouth."
Toussaint Lumineau leant back on the bench, thought for a moment, then
said in a low voice:
"You are right. Only one never can tell if the master really did order
him to speak as he did, Mathurin. He often invents words!"
"Yes, yes. And what did you answer?"
"That I would pay at Michaelmas."
"With what?"
A few minutes before the two girls had gone into the kitchen, to the
left of the house-place, and thence came in the sound of running water
and the washing of dishes. Every evening, at this hour, the men were
left to themselves; it was the time when they discussed matters of
interest. Already, in the previous year, the farmer had borrowed from
his eldest son the larger portion of the money that he had inherited
from his mother. He could therefore only hope for help from the
younger; but of that he had so little doubt that, speaking in a low
voice to avoid being overheard by his daughters, he said:
"I was thinking that Francois would help."
Francois, roused from his sleepiness by the foregoing talk, answered
hastily:
"No, no. Do not count on me. It cannot be done...." He had not the
courage to look his father in the face as he spoke, but fixed his gaze
on the ground like a schoolboy.
His father was not angry, he only replied gently:
"I would have repaid you, Francois, as I shall repay your brother. One
year is not like another. Good times will come back to us." And he
waited, looking at the thick tawny hair and bull neck of his eldest
son that scarcely rose above the table. But Francois must have already
made up his mind, and that very decidedly, for in a half-smothered
voice he made answer:
"Father, I cannot; nor can Eleonore. Our money is our own, is it not?
and each of us is free to use it as he or she pleases? Ours is already
invested. What does it matter to us if the Marquis does have to wait a
year for his money? You say he is so rich."
"What matter to us, Francois?" Then, and not till then, the father's
voice rose and became authoritative. He did not put himself into a
passion, he rather felt hurt as though not recognising his own flesh
and blood; it was as if, all suddenly, there had dawned upon him
without his understanding it the wide gulf that existed between the
feelings of the present generation and the past, and he said:
"What you say is not to my taste, Francois Lumineau. For my part, I
consider it a duty to pay what I owe--the family at the Chateau have
never done me a wrong. I and your mother, and Mathurin, who have known
them better than you, have always respected them; do you understand?
They are perfectly justified in spending their wealth as it seems them
best; that is a matter that does not concern us.... Not pay? And do
you know that they could turn us out of La Fromentiere?"
"Bah!" returned Francois. "And what does it matter whether we are here
or elsewhere? as far as farming goes, it does not pay so mighty well
anywhere."
Treacherously, without seeing the old man's pallor, struck to the
heart, he thus seceded from La Fromentiere. The sound of washing of
dishes was heard no more in the adjacent kitchen, the girls were
listening.
The farmer made no reply; but, rising, he drew himself up to his full
height, passed before his son, his intimidated son, who watched him
from the corner of his eye, and flung open the door that led into the
courtyard. A rush of air, the scent of leaves, the breath of green
fields, came into the heated room redolent of food. Francois,
hastening to make off, sidled along the wall, passed through the
kitchen, exchanging a few words with Eleonore as he went, and going
through the girls' bedchamber went out into the night.
It was the farmer's custom every night to cross his threshold and
breathe the fresh air before going to rest; to-night as usual he
walked out to the middle of the courtyard to judge of the weather for
the morrow. Some light clouds were gliding away towards the west,
rear-guard of a bank of more extended clouds deep down in the horizon.
Swept on by the wind to the neighbouring coast they formed themselves
into transparent islands, separating abysses of deep-blue sky studded
with stars. With the leisurely movement of a laden vessel the wind
bore on towards the ever-changing sea the kiss of earth, the scent and
thrill of vegetation, the scattered seeds, the germs entangled in the
dust failing hither and thither in mysterious rain-showers, the voice
of innumerable insects that sing in the grasses, and have no other
witness than the winds.
There was a sense of content, a series of waves, as it were, of calm
and fecundity following one upon the other, which should spread abroad
in many a sea-solitude the scent of the harvests of France.
And the farmer, drinking in the air wherein floated the essence of his
beloved Vendee, felt that love-thrill within him which, unable to
express, he experienced for it to the very marrow of his bones.
"How is it with these young people," he thought, "that they can he
indifferent to the farmstead? I have been young in my day, but it
would have taken a good deal to make me leave La Fromentiere. Perhaps
they find it dull; the house is not like it was in my dear wife's
time; I do not know how to keep them together as she did." And he
thought of la mere Lumineau, the good, saving housewife, haughty
towards strangers, loving to her own, who, with a word in the right
place, could always so quietly influence and control her boys, and
check the rivalry of her girls. Around him the stables, the barns, the
huge hayrick glistened in the moonlight.
A distant shot resounded from the Marais. Toussaint heard it, and his
thoughts turned at once to the man shooting. At the same instant a
voice behind him exclaimed:
"There's another plover down for Rousille!"
"That's enough, Mathurin!" said his father, who, without looking back,
had recognised the speaker. "Do not be telling tales, which you know
irritate me, against your sister. I am troubled to-night, my boy,
troubled enough about Francois."
The crutches striking on the gravel came nearer, and the farmer felt
the shaggy head touch his shoulder as the cripple straightened
himself.
"I am only speaking the truth, father," he said in a low voice, "these
are no tales. It makes my blood boil to see this _Boquin_ making love
to my sister in order to get hold of our money, and play the master
here. A fellow who has not a halfpenny to bless himself with! There is
no time to be lost, if he is to be brought to his senses."
"Do you really believe," asked the father, bending down a little to
him, "that a girl like Rousille would listen to my hired labourer?
Does she care anything for him, Mathurin?"
It was a weakness of Toussaint Lumineau to lend too ready ear to the
judgment and strictures of his eldest son. Even now that all hope had
been abandoned of seeing him his successor; after all the many proofs
experienced of the violence and malevolence of the cripple, he still
retained predominant influence over the father.
"Father, they are lovers!" As a whispered breath the words came to the
father's ear.
Rage at the happiness of others had distorted the younger man's
features. Toussaint Lumineau looked down at the face raised to his, so
white in the moonlight, and was struck by the air of suffering it
wore.
"If you watched them as I do," continued his son, "you would see that
though they never speak to each other indoors, outside they always
contrive to meet. I have often caught them talking and laughing
together like acknowledged lovers. You do not know that Jean Nesmy; he
is audacity itself. He lets you think that he likes shooting, and I do
not say but what he may, but he does not carry his love for it to
that extent, I'll be bound. Is it only for his own pleasure that he
is off to the far end of the Marais to shoot plovers; only for his own
pleasure that he risks malarial fever fishing for eels; that he spends
whole nights out after being hard at work all day? No, I tell you, it
is for Rousille, for Rousille, for Rousille!" His voice had risen, it
could be heard from within the house.
"I will be on the watch, my boy," returned his father soothingly, "do
not you worry yourself."
"Ah, if I were you, I would go at dawn to-morrow along the road to the
Marais, and if I caught them together...."
"Enough!" exclaimed his father, "you do yourself no good by so much
talking, Mathurin. Here is Eleonore coming to help you in."
Eleonore had come, as usual, to help Mathurin up the steps, and unlace
his boots. No sooner did she touch his arm than turning, he went in
with her. The sound of crutches and of footsteps died away; the father
was alone again.
"Come," he thought aloud, "if this be true, I will not suffer the
laugh to last long against me in the Marais!" He drew in a deep breath
of pure air, as though it were a bumper of wine, then to make sure
that Rousille had not gone out again, he entered the house by the door
in the middle, which was that of his daughter's bedchamber. All was
dark within; a ray of moonlight fell across the well-waxed wardrobes
furnishing the sides of the room--wardrobes always kept in perfect
order by Eleonore and Rousille. The farmer felt his way round the huge
walnut wood one which had formed his mother's dowry, had crossed the
room, and was making his way out into the kitchen communicating with
the large living-room where he and Mathurin slept, when behind him, in
the angle of a bed, a shadowy form arose:
"Father!"
He stopped.
"Is it you, Rousille? Are you not in bed?"
"No, I was waiting for you. I wanted to say something to you." They
were separated by the length of the room; the darkness was too great
for them to see each other. "As Francois cannot give you his money, I
have been thinking that I will give you mine."
"You are not afraid then that I shall not repay you?" the farmer asked
harshly.
The girlish voice, as if discouraged by this reception, and checked in
its enthusiasm, replied timidly:
"I will go to-morrow to fetch it ... the Michelonne's nephew has
it.... I will, indeed, and you shall have it the day after to-morrow."
If a tear rolled down his cheeks, the farmer was unaware of it; he
passed on into his own room.
Some minutes later, when Eleonore came into the room, a lighted candle
in her hand, Marie-Rose was no longer beside her bed, but was standing
before the open windows looking out on to the courtyard.
The farmhouse stood upon an eminence, and from this window there was a
view over the low wall, and through the arched gateway to the slopes
beyond, and even across the sedge-covered Marais.
The sisters often undressed without exchanging a word. Rousille was
gazing straight before her into the clear moonlight; her accustomed
eye could distinguish objects by it almost as accurately as by the
light of day. Immediately beyond the wall came a group of elms, under
shelter of which stood carts and ploughs, then a stretch of land lying
fallow, and beyond that again the broad flat expanse of marshland,
across which on most nights would come now faintly, now loudly, the
sound of the roll of the ocean, as of some far-off chariot that never
stopped. The immense grassy plain looked blue in the darkness; here
and there the water of a dyke shone in the moonlight. A few distant
lights, a window lit up, pierced the veil of mist that spread over the
meadows. Unerringly Rousille could name each farmstead to herself by
its beacon light, similar to that on the mast-head of a ship riding at
anchor; La Pinconniere, La Paree du Mont, both near; further away, Les
Levrelles; then so distant that their lights were only visible at
intervals, like tiny stars, La Terre-Aymont, La Seuliere, Malabrit,
and the flour-mill of Moque-Souris. By a group of starry points on the
right, she could discern the town of Sallertaine standing out on an
invisible mound in the middle of the Marais. Somewhere about there
Jean Nesmy was wading among the reeds, for love of Rousille. So she
continued to think of him; she seemed to see him so far, so very far
away, amid the dreamy shadows, and her lips pressed together, then
parted in a long, silent kiss.
There was a sudden swish of wings over the tiles of La Fromentiere.
"Do shut the window, Rousille," said Eleonore, waking up. "It is the
turn of the night, and blows in cold."
The sky was clear, the clouds had dispersed. The lights of
Moque-Souris were extinguished; those of Sallertaine had gradually
diminished like a bunch of currants pecked by birds.
"Until to-morrow, my Jean, in the dwarf orchard," murmured Rousille.
And slowly, musingly, the girl began unfastening her dress by the
light reflected from her white sheet, her young heart filled with
dreams of youth.