The high roads stretched far way, white with moonlight.
The insurrectionary army was continuing its heroic march through the
cold, clear country. It was like a mighty wave of enthusiasm. The
thrill of patriotism, which transported Miette and Silvère, big
children that they were, eager for love and liberty, sped, with
generous fervour, athwart the sordid intrigues of the Macquarts and the
Rougons. At intervals the trumpet-voice of the people rose and drowned
the prattle of the yellow drawing-room and the hateful discourses of
uncle Antoine. And vulgar, ignoble farce was turned into a great
historical drama.
On quitting Plassans, the insurgents had taken the road to Orcheres.
They expected to reach that town at about ten o’clock in the morning.
The road skirts the course of the Viorne, following at some height the
windings of the hillocks, below which the torrent flows. On the left,
the plain spreads out like an immense green carpet, dotted here and
there with grey villages. On the right, the chain of the Garrigues
rears its desolate peaks, its plateaux of stones, its huge rusty
boulders that look as though they had been reddened by the sun. The
high road, embanked along the riverside, passes on amidst enormous
rocks, between which glimpses of the valley are caught at every step.
Nothing could be wilder or more strikingly grand than this road out of
the hillside. At night time, especially, it inspires one with a feeling
of deep awe. The insurgents advanced under the pale light, along what
seemed the chief street of some ruined town, bordered on either side
with fragments of temples. The moon turned each rock into a broken
column, crumbling capital, or stretch of wall pierced with mysterious
arches. On high slumbered the mass of the Garrigues, suffused with a
milky tinge, and resembling some immense Cyclopean city whose towers,
obelisks, houses and high terraces hid one half of the heavens; and in
the depths below, on the side of the plain, was a spreading ocean of
diffused light, vague and limitless, over which floated masses of
luminous haze. The insurrectionary force might well have thought they
were following some gigantic causeway, making their rounds along some
military road built on the shore of a phosphorescent sea, and circling
some unknown Babel.
On the night in question, the Viorne roared hoarsely at the foot of the
rocks bordering the route. Amidst the continuous rumbling of the
torrent, the insurgents could distinguish the sharp, wailing notes of
the tocsin. The villages scattered about the plain, on the other side
of the river, were rising, sounding alarm-bells, and lighting signal
fires. Till daybreak the marching column, which the persistent tolling
of a mournful knell seemed to pursue in the darkness, thus beheld the
insurrection spreading along the valley, like a train of powder. The
fires showed in the darkness like stains of blood; echoes of distant
songs were wafted to them; the whole vague distance, blurred by the
whitish vapours of the moon, stirred confusedly, and suddenly broke
into a spasm of anger. For leagues and leagues the scene remained the
same.
These men, marching on under the blind impetus of the fever with which
the events in Paris had inspired Republican hearts, became elated at
seeing that long stretch of country quivering with revolt. Intoxicated
with enthusiastic belief in the general insurrection of which they
dreamed, they fancied that France was following them; on the other side
of the Viorne, in that vast ocean of diffused light, they imagined
there were endless files of men rushing like themselves to the defence
of the Republic. All simplicity and delusion, as multitudes so often
are, they imagined, in their uncultured minds, that victory was easy
and certain. They would have seized and shot as a traitor any one who
had then asserted that they were the only ones who had the courage of
their duty, and that the rest of the country, overwhelmed with fright,
was pusillanimously allowing itself to be garrotted.
They derived fresh courage, too, from the welcome accorded to them by
the few localities that lay along their route on the slopes of the
Garrigues. The inhabitants rose _en masse_ immediately the little army
drew near; women ran to meet them, wishing them a speedy victory, while
men, half clad, seized the first weapons they could find and rushed to
join their ranks. There was a fresh ovation at every village, shouts of
welcome and farewell many times reiterated.
Towards daybreak the moon disappeared behind the Garrigues and the
insurgents continued their rapid march amidst the dense darkness of a
winter night. They were now unable to distinguish the valley or the
hills; they heard only the hoarse plaints of the bells, sounding
through the deep obscurity like invisible drums, hidden they knew not
where, but ever goading them on with despairing calls.
Miette and Silvère went on, all eagerness like the others. Towards
daybreak, the girl suffered greatly from fatigue; she could only walk
with short hurried steps, and was unable to keep up with the long
strides of the men who surrounded her. Nevertheless she courageously
strove to suppress all complaints; it would have cost her too much to
confess that she was not as strong as a boy. During the first few
leagues of the march Silvère gave her his arm; then, seeing that the
standard was gradually slipping from her benumbed hands, he tried to
take it in order to relieve her; but she grew angry, and would only
allow him to hold it with one hand while she continued to carry it on
her shoulder. She thus maintained her heroic demeanour with childish
stubbornness, smiling at the young man each time he gave her a glance
of loving anxiety. At last, when the moon hid itself, she gave way in
the sheltering darkness. Silvère felt her leaning more heavily on his
arm. He now had to carry the flag, and hold her round the waist to
prevent her from stumbling. Nevertheless she still made no complaint.
“Are you very tired, poor Miette?” Silvère asked her.
“Yea, a little tired,” she replied in a weary tone.
“Would you like to rest a bit?”
She made no reply; but he realised that she was staggering. He
thereupon handed the flag to one of the other insurgents and quitted
the ranks, almost carrying the girl in his arms. She struggled a
little, she felt so distressed at appearing such a child. But he calmed
her, telling her that he knew of a cross-road which shortened the
distance by one half. They would be able to take a good hour’s rest and
reach Orcheres at the same time as the others.
It was then six o’clock. There must have been a slight mist rising from
the Viorne, for the darkness seemed to be growing denser. The young
people groped their way along the slope of the Garrigues, till they
came to a rock on which they sat down. Around them lay an abyss of
darkness. They were stranded, as it were, on some reef above a dense
void. And athwart that void, when the dull tramp of the little army had
died away, they only heard two bells, the one clear toned and ringing
doubtless at their feet, in some village across the road; and the other
far-off and faint, responding, as it were, with distant sobs to the
feverish plaints of the first. One might have thought that these bells
were recounting to each other, through the empty waste, the sinister
story of a perishing world.
Miette and Silvère, warmed by their quick march, did not at first feel
the cold. They remained silent, listening in great dejection to the
sounds of the tocsin, which made the darkness quiver. They could not
even see one another. Miette felt frightened, and, seeking for
Silvère’s hand, clasped it in her own. After the feverish enthusiasm
which for several hours had carried them along with the others, this
sudden halt and the solitude in which they found themselves side by
side left them exhausted and bewildered as though they had suddenly
awakened from a strange dream. They felt as if a wave had cast them
beside the highway, then ebbed back and left them stranded.
Irresistible reaction plunged them into listless stupor; they forgot
their enthusiasm; they thought no more of the men whom they had to
rejoin; they surrendered themselves to the melancholy sweetness of
finding themselves alone, hand in hand, in the midst of the wild
darkness.
“You are not angry with me?” the girl at length inquired. “I could
easily walk the whole night with you; but they were running too
quickly, I could hardly breathe.”
“Why should I be angry with you?” the young man said.
“I don’t know. I was afraid you might not love me any longer. I wish I
could have taken long strides like you, and have walked along without
stopping. You will think I am a child.”
Silvère smiled, and Miette, though the darkness prevented her from
seeing him, guessed that he was doing so. Then she continued with
determination: “You must not always treat me like a sister. I want to
be your wife some day.”
Forthwith she clasped Silvère to her bosom, and, still with her arms
about him, murmured: “We shall grow so cold; come close to me that we
may be warm.”
Then they lapsed into silence. Until that troublous hour, they had
loved one another with the affection of brother and sister. In their
ignorance they still mistook their feelings for tender friendship,
although beneath their guileless love their ardent blood surged more
wildly day by day. Given age and experience, a violent passion of
southern intensity would at last spring from this idyll. Every girl who
hangs on a youth’s neck is already a woman, a woman unconsciously, whom
a caress may awaken to conscious womanhood. When lovers kiss on the
cheeks, it is because they are searching, feeling for one another’s
lips. Lovers are made by a kiss. It was on that dark and cold December
night, amid the bitter wailing of the tocsin, that Miette and Silvère
exchanged one of those kisses that bring all the heart’s blood to the
lips.
They remained silent, close to one another. A gentle glow soon
penetrated them, languor overcame them, and steeped them in feverish
drowsiness. They were quite warm at last, and lights seemed to flit
before their closed eyelids, while a buzzing mounted to their brains.
This state of painful ecstasy, which lasted some minutes, seemed
endless to them. Then, in a kind of dream, their lips met. The kiss
they exchanged was long and greedy. It seemed to them as if they had
never kissed before. Yet their embrace was fraught with suffering and
they released one another. And the chilliness of the night having
cooled their fever, they remained in great confusion at some distance
one from the other.
Meantime the bells were keeping up their sinister converse in the dark
abyss which surrounded the young people. Miette, trembling and
frightened, did not dare to draw near to Silvère again. She did not
even know if he were still there, for she could no longer hear him
move. The stinging sweetness of their kiss still clung to their lips,
to which passionate phrases surged, and they longed to kiss once more.
But shame restrained them from the expression of any such desire. They
felt that they would rather never taste that bliss again than speak of
it aloud. If their blood had not been lashed by their rapid march, if
the darkness had not offered complicity, they would, for a long time
yet, have continued kissing each other on the cheeks like old
playfellows. Feelings of modesty were coming to Miette. She remembered
Justin’s coarseness. A few hours previously she had listened, without a
blush, to that fellow who called her a shameless girl. She had wept
without understanding his meaning, she had wept simply because she
guessed that what he spoke of must be base. Now that she was becoming a
woman, she wondered in a last innocent transport whether that kiss,
whose burning smart she could still feel, would not perhaps suffice to
cover her with the shame to which her cousin had referred. Thereupon
she was seized with remorse, and burst into sobs.
“What is the matter; why are you crying?” asked Silvère in an anxious
voice.
“Oh, leave me,” she faltered, “I do not know.”
Then in spite of herself, as it were, she continued amidst her tears:
“Ah! what an unfortunate creature I am! When I was ten years old people
used to throw stones at me. To-day I am treated as the vilest of
creatures. Justin did right to despise me before everybody. We have
been doing wrong, Silvère.”
The young man, quite dismayed, clasped her in his arms again, trying to
console her. “I love you,” he whispered, “I am your brother. Why say
that we have been doing wrong? We kissed each other because we were
cold. You know very well that we used to kiss each other every evening
before separating.”
“Oh! not as we did just now,” she whispered. “It must be wrong, for a
strange feeling came over me. The men will laugh at me now as I pass,
and they will be right in doing so. I shall not be able to defend
myself.”
The young fellow remained silent, unable to find a word to calm the
agitation of this big child, trembling at her first kiss of love. He
clasped her gently, imagining that he might calm her by his embrace.
She struggled, however, and continued: “If you like, we will go away;
we will leave the province. I can never return to Plassans; my uncle
would beat me; all the townspeople would point their fingers at me—”
And then, as if seized with sudden irritation, she added: “But no! I am
cursed! I forbid you to leave aunt Dide to follow me. You must leave me
on the highway.”
“Miette, Miette!” Silvère implored; “don’t talk like that.”
“Yes. I want to please you. Be reasonable. They have turned me out like
a vagabond. If I went back with you, you would always be fighting for
my sake, and I don’t want that.”
At this the young man again pressed a kiss upon her lips, murmuring:
“You shall be my wife, and nobody will then dare to hurt you.”
“Oh! please, I entreat you!” she said, with a stifled cry; “don’t kiss
me so. You hurt me.”
Then, after a short silence: “You know quite well that I cannot be your
wife now. We are too young. You would have to wait for me, and
meanwhile I should die of shame. You are wrong in protesting; you will
be forced to leave me in some corner.”
At this Silvère, his fortitude exhausted, began to cry. A man’s sobs
are fraught with distressing hoarseness. Miette, quite frightened as
she felt the poor fellow shaking in her arms, kissed him on the face,
forgetting she was burning her lips. But it was all her fault. She was
a little simpleton to have let a kiss upset her so completely. She now
clasped her lover to her bosom as if to beg forgiveness for having
pained him. These weeping children, so anxiously clasping one another,
made the dark night yet more woeful than before. In the distance, the
bells continued to complain unceasingly in panting accents.
“It is better to die,” repeated Silvère, amidst his sobs; “it is better
to die.”
“Don’t cry; forgive me,” stammered Miette. “I will be brave; I will do
all you wish.”
When the young man had dried his tears: “You are right,” he said; “we
cannot return to Plassans. But the time for cowardice has not yet come.
If we come out of the struggle triumphant, I will go for aunt Dide, and
we will take her ever so far away with us. If we are beaten——”
He stopped.
“If we are beaten?” repeated Miette, softly.
“Then be it as God wills!” continued Silvère, in a softer voice. “I
most likely shall not be there. You will comfort the poor woman. That
would be better.”
“Ah! as you said just now,” the young girl murmured, “it would be
better to die.”
At this longing for death they tightened their embrace. Miette relied
upon dying with Silvère; he had only spoken of himself, but she felt
that he would gladly take her with him into the earth. They would there
be able to love each other more freely than under the sun. Aunt Dide
would die likewise and join them. It was, so to say, a rapid
presentiment, a desire for some strange voluptuousness, to which
Heaven, by the mournful accents of the tocsin, was promising early
gratification. To die! To die! The bells repeated these words with
increasing passion, and the lovers yielded to the calls of the
darkness; they fancied they experienced a foretaste of the last sleep,
in the drowsiness into which they again sank, whilst their lips met
once more.
Miette no longer turned away. It was she, now, who pressed her lips to
Silvère’s, who sought with mute ardour for the delight whose stinging
smart she had not at first been able to endure. The thought of
approaching death had excited her; she no longer felt herself blushing,
but hung upon her love, while he in faltering voice repeated: “I love
you! I love you!”
But at this Miette shook her head, as if to say it was not true. With
her free and ardent nature she had a secret instinct of the meaning and
purposes of life, and though she was right willing to die she would
fain have known life first. At last, growing calmer, she gently rested
her head on the young man’s shoulder, without uttering a word. Silvère
kissed her again. She tasted those kisses slowly, seeking their
meaning, their hidden sweetness. As she felt them course through her
veins, she interrogated them, asking if they were all love, all
passion. But languor at last overcame her, and she fell into gentle
slumber. Silvère had enveloped her in her pelisse, drawing the skirt
around himself at the same time. They no longer felt cold. The young
man rejoiced to find, from the regularity of her breathing, that the
girl was now asleep; this repose would enable them to proceed on their
way with spirit. He resolved to let her slumber for an hour. The sky
was still black, and the approach of day was but faintly indicated by a
whitish line in the east. Behind the lovers there must have been a pine
wood whose musical awakening it was that the young man heard amidst the
morning breezes. And meantime the wailing of the bells grew more
sonorous in the quivering atmosphere, lulling Miette’s slumber even as
it had accompanied her passionate fever.
Until that troublous night, these young people had lived through one of
those innocent idylls that blossom among the toiling masses, those
outcasts and folks of simple mind amidst whom one may yet occasionally
find amours as primitive as those of the ancient Greek romances.
Miette had been scarcely nine years old at the time when her father was
sent to the galleys for shooting a gendarme. The trial of Chantegreil
had remained a memorable case in the province. The poacher boldly
confessed that he had killed the gendarme, but he swore that the latter
had been taking aim at him. “I only anticipated him,” he said, “I
defended myself; it was a duel, not a murder.” He never desisted from
this line of argument. The presiding Judge of the Assizes could not
make him understand that, although a gendarme has the right to fire
upon a poacher, a poacher has no right to fire upon a gendarme.
Chantegreil escaped the guillotine, owing to his obviously sincere
belief in his own innocence, and his previous good character. The man
wept like a child when his daughter was brought to him prior to his
departure for Toulon. The little thing, who had lost her mother in her
infancy, dwelt at this time with her grandfather at Chavanoz, a village
in the passes of the Seille. When the poacher was no longer there, the
old man and the girl lived upon alms. The inhabitants of Chavanoz, all
sportsmen and poachers, came to the assistance of the poor creatures
whom the convict had left behind him. After a while, however, the old
man died of grief, and Miette, left alone by herself, would have had to
beg on the high roads, if the neighbours had not remembered that she
had an aunt at Plassans. A charitable soul was kind enough to take her
to this aunt, who did not, however, receive her very kindly.
Eulalie Chantegreil, the spouse of _méger_ Rebufat, was a big, dark,
stubborn creature, who ruled the home. She led her husband by the
noise, said the people of the Faubourg of Plassans. The truth was,
Rebufat, avaricious and eager for work and gain, felt a sort of respect
for this big creature, who combined uncommon vigour with strict
sobriety and economy.
Thanks to her, the household thrived. The _méger_ grumbled one evening
when, on returning home from work, he found Miette installed there. But
his wife closed his mouth by saying in her gruff voice: “Bah, the
little thing’s strongly built, she’ll do for a servant; we’ll keep her
and save wages.”
This calculation pleased Rebufat. He went so far as to feel the little
thing’s arms, and declared with satisfaction that she was sturdy for
her age. Miette was then nine years old. From the very next day he made
use of her. The work of the peasant-woman in the South of France is
much lighter than in the North. One seldom sees them employed in
digging the ground, carrying loads, or doing other kinds of men’s work.
They bind sheaves, gather olives and mulberry leaves; perhaps their
most laborious work is that of weeding. Miette worked away willingly.
Open-air life was her delight, her health. So long as her aunt lived
she was always smiling. The good woman, in spite of her roughness, at
last loved her as her own child; she forbade her doing the hard work
which her husband sometimes tried to force upon her, saying to the
latter:
“Ah! you’re a clever fellow! You don’t understand, you fool, that if
you tire her too much to-day, she won’t be able to do anything
to-morrow!”
This argument was decisive. Rebufat bowed his head, and carried the
load which he had desired to set on the young girl’s shoulders.
The latter would have lived in perfect happiness under the secret
protection of her aunt Eulalie, but for the teasing of her cousin, who
was then a lad of sixteen, and employed his idle hours in hating and
persecuting her. Justin’s happiest moments were those when by means of
some gross falsehood he succeeded in getting her scolded. Whenever he
could tread on her feet, or push her roughly, pretending not to have
seen her, he laughed and felt the delight of those crafty folks who
rejoice at other people’s misfortunes. Miette, however, would stare at
him with her large black childish eyes gleaming with anger and silent
scorn, which checked the cowardly youngster’s sneers. In reality he was
terribly afraid of his cousin.
The young girl was just attaining her eleventh year when her aunt
Eulalie suddenly died. From that day everything changed in the house.
Rebufat gradually come to treat her like a farm-labourer. He
overwhelmed her with all sorts of rough work, and made use of her as a
beast of burden. She never even complained, however, thinking that she
had a debt of gratitude to repay him. In the evening, when she was worn
out with fatigue, she mourned for her aunt, that terrible woman whose
latent kindliness she now realised. However, it was not the hard work
that distressed her, for she delighted in her strength, and took a
pride in her big arms and broad shoulders. What distressed her was her
uncle’s distrustful surveillance, his continual reproaches, and the
irritated employer-like manner he assumed towards her. She had now
become a stranger in the house. Yet even a stranger would not have been
so badly treated as she was. Rebufat took the most unscrupulous
advantage of this poor little relative, whom he pretended to keep out
of charity. She repaid his harsh hospitality ten times over with her
work, and yet never a day passed but he grudged her the bread she ate.
Justin especially excelled in wounding her. Since his mother had been
dead, seeing her without a protector, he had brought all his evil
instincts into play in trying to make the house intolerable to her. The
most ingenious torture which he invented was to speak to Miette of her
father. The poor girl, living away from the world, under the protection
of her aunt, who had forbidden any one ever to mention the words
“galleys” or “convict” before her, hardly understood their meaning. It
was Justin who explained it to her by relating, in his own manner, the
story of the murder of the gendarme, and Chantegreil’s conviction.
There was no end to the horrible particulars he supplied: the convicts
had a cannonball fastened to one ankle by a chain, they worked fifteen
hours a day, and all died under their punishment; their prison, too,
was a frightful place, the horrors of which he described minutely.
Miette listened to him, stupefied, her eyes full of tears. Sometimes
she was roused to sudden violence, and Justin quickly retired before
her clenched fists. However, he took a savage delight in thus
instructing her as to the nature of prison life. When his father flew
into a passion with the child for any little negligence, he chimed in,
glad to be able to insult her without danger. And if she attempted to
defend herself, he would exclaim: “Bah! bad blood always shows itself.
You’ll end at the galleys like your father.”
At this Miette sobbed, stung to the heart, powerless and overwhelmed
with shame.
She was already growing to womanhood at this period. Of precocious
nature, she endured her martyrdom with extraordinary fortitude. She
rarely gave way, excepting when her natural pride succumbed to her
cousin’s outrages. Soon even, she was able to bear, without a tear, the
incessant insults of this cowardly fellow, who ever watched her while
he spoke, for fear lest she should fly at his face. Then, too, she
learnt to silence him by staring at him fixedly. She had several times
felt inclined to run away from the Jas-Meiffren; but she did not do so,
as her courage could not brook the idea of confessing that she was
vanquished by the persecution she endured. She certainly earned her
bread, she did not steal the Rebufats’ hospitality; and this conviction
satisfied her pride. So she remained there to continue the struggle,
stiffening herself and living on with the one thought of resistance.
Her plan was to do her work in silence, and revenge herself for all
harsh treatment by mute contempt. She knew that her uncle derived too
much advantage from her to listen readily to the insinuations of
Justin, who longed to get her turned out of doors. And in a defiant
spirit she resolved that she would not go away of her own accord.
Her continuous voluntary silence was full of strange fancies. Passing
her days in the enclosure, isolated from all the world, she formed
ideas for herself which would have strangely shocked the good people of
the Faubourg. Her father’s fate particularly occupied her thoughts. All
Justin’s abuse recurred to her; and she ended by accepting the charge
of murder, saying to herself, however, that her father had done well to
kill the gendarme who had tried to kill him. She had learnt the real
story from a labourer who had worked for a time at the Jas-Meiffren.
From that moment, on the few occasions when she went out, she no longer
even turned if the ragamuffins of the Faubourg followed her, crying:
“Hey! La Chantegreil!”
She simply hastened her steps homeward, with lips compressed, and
black, fierce eyes. Then after shutting the gate, she perhaps cast one
long glance at the gang of urchins. She would have become vicious, have
lapsed into fierce pariah savagery, if her childishness had not
sometimes gained the mastery. Her extreme youth brought her little
girlish weaknesses which relieved her. She would then cry with shame
for herself and her father. She would hide herself in a stable so that
she might sob to her heart’s content, for she knew that, if the others
saw her crying, they would torment her all the more. And when she had
wept sufficiently, she would bathe her eyes in the kitchen, and then
again subside into uncomplaining silence. It was not interest alone,
however, which prompted her to hide herself; she carried her pride in
her precocious strength so far that she was unwilling to appear a
child. In time she would have become very unhappy. Fortunately she was
saved by discovering the latent tenderness of her loving nature.
The well in the yard of the house occupied by aunt Dide and Silvère was
a party-well. The wall of the Jas-Meiffren cut it in halves. Formerly,
before the Fouques’ property was united to the neighbouring estate, the
market-gardeners had used this well daily. Since the transfer of the
Fouques’ ground, however, as it was at some distance from the
outhouses, the inmates of the Jas, who had large cisterns at their
disposal, did not draw a pail of water from it in a month. On the other
side, one could hear the grating of the pulley every morning when
Silvère drew the water for aunt Dide.
One day the pulley broke. The young wheelwright made a good strong one
of oak, and put it up in the evening after his day’s work. To do this
he had to climb upon the wall. When he had finished the job he remained
resting astride the coping, and surveyed with curiosity the large
expanse of the Jas-Meiffren. At last a peasant-girl, who was weeding
the ground a few feet from him, attracted his attention. It was in
July, and the air was broiling, although the sun had already sank to
the horizon. The peasant-girl had taken off her jacket. In a white
bodice, with a coloured neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and the
sleeves of her chemise turned up as far as her elbows, she was
squatting amid the folds of her blue cotton skirt, which was secured to
a pair of braces crossed behind her back. She crawled about on her
knees as she pulled up the tares and threw them into a basket. The
young man could only see her bare, sun-tanned arms stretching out right
and left to seize some overlooked weed. He followed this rapid play of
her arms complacently, deriving a singular pleasure from seeing them so
firm and quick. The young person had slightly raised herself on
noticing that he was no longer at work, but had again lowered her head
before he could distinguish her features. This shyness kept him in
suspense. Like an inquisitive lad he wondered who this weeder could be,
and while he lingered there, whistling and beating time with a chisel,
the latter suddenly slipped out of his hand. It fell into the
Jas-Meiffren, striking the curb of the well, and then bounding a few
feet from the wall. Silvère looked at it, leaning forward and
hesitating to get over. But the peasant-girl must have been watching
the young man askance, for she jumped up without saying anything,
picked up the chisel, and handed it to Silvère, who then perceived that
she was a mere child. He was surprised and rather intimidated. The
young girl raised herself towards him in the red glare of the sunset.
The wall at this spot was low, but nevertheless too high for her to
reach him. So he bent low over the coping, while she still raised
herself on tiptoes. They did not speak, but looked at each other with
an air of smiling confusion. The young man would indeed have liked to
keep the girl in that position. She turned to him a charming head, with
handsome black eyes, and red lips, which quite astonished and stirred
him. He had never before seen a girl so near; he had not known that
lips and eyes could be so pleasant to look at. Everything about the
girl seemed to possess a strange fascination for him—her coloured
neckerchief, her white bodice, her blue cotton skirt hanging from
braces which stretched with the motion of her shoulders. Then his
glance glided along the arm which was handing him the tool; as far as
the elbow this arm was of a golden brown, as though clothed with
sun-burn; but higher up, in the shadow of the tucked-up sleeve, Silvère
perceived a bare, milk-white roundness. At this he felt confused;
however, he leant further over, and at last managed to grasp the
chisel. The little peasant-girl was becoming embarrassed. Still they
remained there, smiling at each other, the child beneath with upturned
face, and the lad half reclining on the coping of the wall. They could
not part from each other. So far they had not exchanged a word, and
Silvère even forgot to say, “Thank you.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Marie,” replied the peasant-girl; “but everybody calls me Miette.”
Again she raised herself slightly, and in a clear voice inquired in her
turn: “And yours?”
“My name is Silvère,” the young workman replied.
A pause ensued, during which they seemed to be listening complacently
to the music of their names.
“I’m fifteen years old,” resumed Silvère. “And you?”
“I!” said Miette; “oh, I shall be eleven on All Saints’ Day.”
The young workman made a gesture of surprise. “Ah! really!” he said,
laughing, “and to think I took you for a woman! You’ve such big arms.”
She also began to laugh, as she lowered her eyes to her arms. Then they
ceased speaking. They remained for another moment gazing and smiling at
each other. And finally, as Silvère seemingly had no more questions to
ask her, Miette quietly withdrew and went on plucking her weeds,
without raising her head. The lad for his part remained on the wall for
a while. The sun was setting; a stream of oblique rays poured over the
yellow soil of the Jas-Meiffren, which seemed to be all ablaze—one
would have said that a fire was running along the ground—and, in the
midst of the flaming expanse, Silvère saw the little stooping
peasant-girl, whose bare arms had resumed their rapid motion. The blue
cotton skirt was now becoming white; and rays of light streamed over
the child’s copper-coloured arms. At last Silvère felt somewhat ashamed
of remaining there, and accordingly got off the wall.
In the evening, preoccupied with his adventure, he endeavoured to
question aunt Dide. Perhaps she would know who this Miette was who had
such black eyes and such red lips. But, since she had lived in the
house in the alley, the old woman had never once given a look behind
the wall of the little yard. It was, to her, like an impassable
rampart, which shut off her past. She did not know—she did not want to
know—what there might now be on the other side of that wall, in that
old enclosure of the Fouques, where she had buried her love, her heart
and her flesh. As soon as Silvère began to question her she looked at
him with childish terror. Was he, then, going to stir up the ashes of
those days now dead and gone, and make her weep like her son Antoine
had done?
“I don’t know,” she said in a hasty voice; “I no longer go out, I never
see anybody.”
Silvère waited the morrow with considerable impatience. And as soon as
he got to his master’s workshop, he drew his fellow-workmen into
conversation. He did not say anything about his interview with Miette;
but spoke vaguely of a girl whom he had seen from a distance in the
Jas-Meiffren.
“Oh! that’s La Chantegreil!” cried one of the workmen.
There was no necessity for Silvère to question them further, for they
told him the story of the poacher Chantegreil and his daughter Miette,
with that unreasoning spite which is felt for social outcasts. The
girl, in particular, they treated in a foul manner; and the insulting
gibe of “daughter of a galley-slave” constantly rose to their lips like
an incontestable reason for condemning the poor, dear innocent creature
to eternal disgrace.
However, wheelwright Vian, an honest, worthy fellow, at last silenced
his men.
“Hold your tongues, you foul mouths!” he said, as he let fall the shaft
of a cart that he had been examining. “You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves for being so hard upon the child. I’ve seen her, the little
thing looks a very good girl. Besides, I’m told she doesn’t mind work,
and already does as much as any woman of thirty. There are some lazy
fellows here who aren’t a match for her. I hope, later on, that she’ll
get a good husband who’ll stop this evil talk.”
Silvère, who had been chilled by the workmen’s gross jests and insults,
felt tears rise to his eyes at the last words spoken by Vian. However,
he did not open his lips. He took up his hammer, which he had laid down
near him, and began with all his might to strike the nave of a wheel
which he was binding with iron.
In the evening, as soon as he had returned home from the workshop, he
ran to the wall and climbed upon it. He found Miette engaged upon the
same labour as the day before. He called her. She came to him, with her
smile of embarrassment, and the charming shyness of a child who from
infancy had grown up in tears.
“You’re La Chantegreil, aren’t you?” he asked her, abruptly.
She recoiled, she ceased smiling, and her eyes turned sternly black,
gleaming with defiance. So this lad was going to insult her, like the
others! She was turning her back upon him, without giving an answer,
when Silvère, perplexed by her sudden change of countenance, hastened
to add: “Stay, I beg you—I don’t want to pain you—I’ve got so many
things to tell you!”
She turned round, still distrustful. Silvère, whose heart was full, and
who had resolved to relieve it, remained for a moment speechless, not
knowing how to continue, for he feared lest he should commit a fresh
blunder. At last he put his whole heart in one phrase: “Would you like
me to be your friend?” he said, in a voice full of emotion. And as
Miette, in surprise, raised her eyes, which were again moist and
smiling, he continued with animation: “I know that people try to vex
you. It’s time to put a stop to it. I will be your protector now. Shall
I?”
The child beamed with delight. This proffered friendship roused her
from all her evil dreams of taciturn hatred. Still she shook her head
and answered: “No, I don’t want you to fight on my account. You’d have
too much to do. Besides which, there are persons from whom you cannot
protect me.”
Silvère wished to declare that he would defend her against the whole
world, but she closed his mouth with a coaxing gesture, as she added:
“I am satisfied to have you as a friend.”
They then conversed together for a few minutes, lowering their voices
as much as possible. Miette spoke to Silvère of her uncle and her
cousin. For all the world she would not have liked them to catch him
astride the coping of the wall. Justin would be implacable with such a
weapon against her. She spoke of her misgivings with the fright of a
schoolgirl on meeting a friend with whom her mother has forbidden her
to associate. Silvère merely understood, however, that he would not be
able to see Miette at his pleasure. This made him very sad. Still, he
promised that he would not climb upon the wall any more. They were both
endeavouring to find some expedient for seeing each other again, when
Miette suddenly begged him to go away; she had just caught sight of
Justin, who was crossing the grounds in the direction of the wall.
Silvère quickly descended. When he was in the little yard again, he
remained by the wall to listen, irritated by his flight. After a few
minutes he ventured to climb again and cast a glance into the
Jas-Meiffren, but he saw Justin speaking with Miette, and quickly
withdrew his head. On the following day he could see nothing of his
friend, not even in the distance; she must have finished her work in
that part of the Jas. A week passed in this fashion, and the young
people had no opportunity of exchanging a single word. Silvère was in
despair; he thought of boldly going to the Rebufats to ask for Miette.
The party-well was a large one, but not very deep. On either side of
the wall the curb formed a large semicircle. The water was only ten or
twelve feet down at the utmost. This slumbering water reflected the two
apertures of the well, two half-moons between which the shadow of the
wall cast a black streak. On leaning over, one might have fancied in
the vague light that the half-moons were two mirrors of singular
clearness and brilliance. Under the morning sunshine, when the dripping
of the ropes did not disturb the surface of the water, these mirrors,
these reflections of the heavens, showed like white patches on the
green water, and in them the leaves of the ivy which had spread along
the wall over the well were repeated with marvellous exactness.
One morning, at an early hour, Silvère, as he came to draw water for
aunt Dide, bent over the well mechanically, just as he was taking hold
of the rope. He started, and then stood motionless, still leaning over.
He had fancied that he could distinguish in the well the face of a
young girl who was looking at him with a smile; however, he had shaken
the rope, and the disturbed water was now but a dim mirror that no
longer reflected anything clearly. Silvère, who did not venture to
stir, and whose heart beat rapidly, then waited for the water to
settle. As its ripples gradually widened and died away, he perceived
the image reappearing. It oscillated for a long time, with a swing
which lent a vague, phantom-like grace to its features, but at last it
remained stationary. It was the smiling countenance of Miette, with her
head and shoulders, her coloured neckerchief, her white bodice, and her
blue braces. Silvère next perceived his own image in the other mirror.
Then, knowing that they could see each other, they nodded their heads.
For the first moment, they did not even think of speaking. At last they
exchanged greetings.
“Good morning, Silvère.”
“Good morning, Miette.”
They were surprised by the strange sound of their voices, which became
singularly soft and sweet in that damp hole. The sound seemed, indeed,
to come from a distance, like the soft music of voices heard of an
evening in the country. They understood that it would suffice to speak
in a whisper in order to hear each other. The well echoed the faintest
breath. Leaning over its brink, they conversed while gazing at one
another’s reflection. Miette related how sad she had been the last
week. She was now working at the other end of the Jas, and could only
get out early in the morning. Then she made a pout of annoyance which
Silvère distinguished perfectly, and to which he replied by nodding his
head with an air of vexation. They were exchanging all those gestures
and facial expressions that speech entails. They cared but little for
the wall which separated them now that they could see each other in
those hidden depths.
“I knew,” continued Miette, with a knowing look, “that you came here to
draw water every morning at the same hour. I can hear the grating of
the pulley from the house. So I made an excuse, I pretended that the
water in this well boiled the vegetables better. I thought that I might
come here every morning to draw water at the same time as you, so as to
say good morning to you without anyone suspecting it.”
She smiled innocently, as though well pleased with her device, and
ended by saying: “But I did not imagine we should see each other in the
water.”
It was, in fact, this unhoped-for pleasure which so delighted them.
They only spoke to see their lips move, so greatly did this new frolic
amuse their childish natures. And they resolved to use all means in
their power to meet here every morning. When Miette had said that she
must go away, she told Silvère that he could draw his pail of water.
But he did not dare to shake the rope; Miette was still leaning over—he
could see her smiling face, and it was too painful to him to dispel
that smile. As he slightly stirred his pail, the water murmured, and
the smile faded. Then he stopped, seized with a strange fear; he
fancied that he had vexed her and made her cry. But the child called to
him, “Go on! go on!” with a laugh which the echo prolonged and rendered
more sonorous. She herself then nosily sent down a pail. There was a
perfect tempest. Everything disappeared under the black water. And
Silvère made up his mind to fill two pitchers, while listening to the
retreating steps of Miette on the other side of the wall.
From that day, the young people never missed their assignations. The
slumbering water, the white mirrors in which they gazed at one another,
imparted to their interviews a charm which long sufficed their playful,
childish imaginations. They had no desire to see each other face to
face: it seemed much more amusing to them to use the well as a mirror,
and confide their morning greetings to its echo. They soon came to look
upon the well as an old friend. They loved to bend over the motionless
water that resembled molten silver. A greenish glimmer hovered below,
in a mysterious half light, and seemed to change the damp hole into
some hiding-place in the depths of a wood. They saw each other in a
sort of greenish nest bedecked with moss, in the midst of fresh water
and foliage. And all the strangeness of the deep spring, the hollow
tower over which they bent, trembling with fascination, added
unconfessed and delightful fear to their merry laughter. The wild idea
occurred to them of going down and seating themselves on a row of large
stones which formed a kind of circular bench at a few inches above the
water. They would dip their feet in the latter, converse there for
hours, and no one would think of coming to look for them in such a
spot. But when they asked each other what there might be down there,
their vague fears returned; they thought it quite sufficient to let
their reflected images descend into the depths amidst those green
glimmers which tinged the stones with strange moire-like reflections,
and amidst those mysterious noises which rose from the dark corners.
Those sounds issuing from the invisible made them particularly uneasy;
they often fancied that voices were replying to their own; and then
they would remain silent, detecting a thousand faint plaints which they
could not understand. These came from the secret travail of the
moisture, the sighs of the atmosphere, the drops that glided over the
stones, and fell below with the sonorousness of sobs. They would nod
affectionately to each other in order to reassure themselves. Thus the
attraction which kept them leaning over the brink had a tinge of secret
terror, like all poignant charms. But the well still remained their old
friend. It was such an excellent pretext for meeting! Justin, who
watched Miette’s every movement, never suspected the cause of her
eagerness to go and draw some water every morning. At times, he saw her
from the distance, leaning over and loitering. “Ah! the lazy thing!” he
muttered; “how fond she is of dawdling about!” How could he suspect
that, on the other side of the wall, there was a wooer contemplating
the girl’s smile in the water, and saying to her: “If that red-haired
donkey Justin should illtreat you, just tell me of it, and he shall
hear from me!”
This amusement lasted for more than a month. It was July then; the
mornings were sultry; the sun shone brightly, and it was quite a
pleasure to come to that damp spot. It was delightful to feel the cold
breath of the well on one’s face, and make love amidst this spring
water while the skies were kindling their fires. Miette would arrive
out of breath after crossing the stubble fields; as she ran along, her
hair fell down over her forehead and temples; and it was with flushed
face and dishevelled locks that she would lean over, shaking with
laughter, almost before she had had time to set her pitcher down.
Silvère, who was almost always the first at the well, felt, as he
suddenly saw her smiling face in the water, as keen a joy as he would
have experienced had she suddenly thrown herself into his arms at the
bend of a pathway. Around them the radiant morning hummed with mirth; a
wave of warm light, sonorous with the buzzing of insects, beat against
the old wall, the posts, and the curbstone. They, however, no longer
saw the shower of morning sunshine, nor heard the thousand sounds
rising from the ground; they were in the depths of their green
hiding-place, under the earth, in that mysterious and awesome cavity,
and quivered with pleasure as they lingered there enjoying its fresh
coolness and dim light.
On some mornings, Miette, who by nature could not long maintain a
contemplative attitude, began to tease; she would shake the rope, and
make drops of water fall in order to ripple the mirrors and deface the
reflections. Silvère would then entreat her to remain still; he, whose
fervour was deeper than hers, knew no keener pleasure than that of
gazing at his love’s image reflected so distinctly in every feature.
But she would not listen to him; she would joke and feign a rough old
bogey’s voice, to which the echo imparted a raucous melodiousness.
“No, no,” she would say in chiding fashion; “I don’t love you to-day!
I’m making faces at you; see how ugly I am.”
And she laughed at seeing the fantastic forms which their spreading
faces assumed as they danced upon the disturbed water.
One morning she got angry in real earnest. She did not find Silvère at
the trysting-place, and waited for him for nearly a quarter of an hour,
vainly making the pulley grate. She was just about to depart in a rage
when he arrived. As soon as she perceived him she let a perfect tempest
loose in the well, shook her pail in an irritated manner, and made the
blackish water whirl and splash against the stones. In vain did Silvère
try to explain that aunt Dide had detained him. To all his excuses she
replied: “You’ve vexed me; I don’t want to see you.”
The poor lad, in despair, vainly questioned that sombre cavity, now so
full of lamentable sounds, where, on other days, such a bright vision
usually awaited him amid the silence of the stagnant water. He had to
go away without seeing Miette. On the morrow, arriving before the time,
he gazed sadly into the well, hearing nothing, and thinking that the
obstinate girl would not come, when she, who was already on the other
side slyly watching his arrival, bent over suddenly with a burst of
laughter. All was at once forgotten.
In this wise the well was the scene of many a little drama and comedy.
That happy cavity, with its gleaming mirrors and musical echoes,
quickly ripened their love. They endowed it with such strange life, so
filled it with their youthful love, that, long after they had ceased to
come and lean over the brink, Silvère, as he drew water every morning,
would fancy he could see Miette’s smiling face in the dim light that
still quivered with the joy they had set there.
That month of playful love rescued Miette from her mute despair. She
felt a revival of her affections, her happy childish carelessness,
which had been held in check by the hateful loneliness in which she
lived. The certainty that she was loved by somebody, and that she was
no longer alone in the world, enabled her to endure the persecutions of
Justin and the Faubourg urchins. A song of joy, whose glad notes
drowned their hootings, now sounded in her heart. She thought of her
father with tender compassion, and did not now so frequently yield to
dreams of bitter vengeance. Her dawning love cooled her feverish
broodings like the fresh breezes of the dawn. At the same time she
acquired the instinctive cunning of a young girl in love. She felt that
she must maintain her usual silent and rebellious demeanour if she were
to escape Justin’s suspicions. But, in spite of her efforts, her eyes
retained a sweet unruffled expression when the lad bullied her; she was
no longer able to put on her old black look of indignant anger. One
morning he heard her humming to herself at breakfast-time.
“You seem very gay, Chantegreil!” he said to her suspiciously, glancing
keenly at her from his lowering eyes. “I bet you’ve been up to some of
your tricks again!”
She shrugged her shoulders, but she trembled inwardly; and she did all
she could to regain her old appearance of rebellious martyrdom.
However, though Justin suspected some secret happiness, it was long
before he was able to discover how his victim had escaped him.
Silvère, on his side, enjoyed profound happiness. His daily meetings
with Miette made his idle hours pass pleasantly away. During his long
silent companionship with aunt Dide, he recalled one by one his
remembrances of the morning, revelling in their most trifling details.
From that time forward, the fulness of his heart cloistered him yet
more in the lonely existence which he had adopted with his grandmother.
He was naturally fond of hidden spots, of solitary retirement, where he
could give himself up to his thoughts. At this period already he had
eagerly begun to read all the old odd volumes which he could pick up at
brokers’ shops in the Faubourg, and which were destined to lead him to
a strange and generous social religion and morality. His
reading—ill-digested and lacking all solid foundation—gave him glimpses
of the world’s vanities and pleasures, especially with regard to women,
which would have seriously troubled his mind if his heart had not been
contented. When Miette came, he received her at first as a companion,
then as the joy and ambition of his life. In the evening, when he had
retired to the little nook where he slept, and hung his lamp at the
head of his strap-bedstead, he would find Miette on every page of the
dusty old volume which he had taken at random from a shelf above his
head and was reading devoutly. He never came across a young girl, a
good and beautiful creature, in his reading, without immediately
identifying her with his sweetheart. And he would set himself in the
narrative as well. If he were reading a love story, it was he who
married Miette at the end, or died with her. If, on the contrary, he
were perusing some political pamphlet, some grave dissertation on
social economy, works which he preferred to romances, for he had that
singular partiality for difficult subjects which characterises persons
of imperfect scholarship, he still found some means of associating her
with the tedious themes which frequently he could not even understand.
For instance, he tried to persuade himself that he was learning how to
be good and kind to her when they were married. He thus associated her
with all his visionary dreamings. Protected by the purity of his
affection against the obscenity of certain eighteenth-century tales
which fell into his hands, he found particular pleasure in shutting
himself up with her in those humanitarian Utopias which some great
minds of our own time, infatuated by visions of universal happiness
have imagined. Miette, in his mind, became quite essential to the
abolition of pauperism and the definitive triumph of the principles of
the Revolution. There were nights of feverish reading, when his mind
could not tear itself from his book, which he would lay down and take
up at least a score of times, nights of voluptuous weariness which he
enjoyed till daybreak like some secret orgy, cramped up in that tiny
room, his eyes troubled by the flickering yellow light, while he
yielded to the fever of insomnia and schemed out new social schemes of
the most absurdly ingenuous nature, in which woman, always personified
by Miette, was worshipped by the nations on their knees.
He was predisposed to Utopian ideas by certain hereditary influences;
his grandmother’s nervous disorders became in him so much chronic
enthusiasm, striving after everything that was grandiose and
impossible. His lonely childhood, his imperfect education, had
developed his natural tendencies in a singular manner. However, he had
not yet reached the age when the fixed idea plants itself in a man’s
mind. In the morning, after he had dipped his head in a bucket of
water, he remembered his thoughts and visions of the night but vaguely;
nothing remained of his dreams save a childlike innocence, full of
trustful confidence and yearning tenderness. He felt like a child
again. He ran to the well, solely desirous of meeting his sweetheart’s
smile, and tasting the delights of the radiant morning. And during the
day, when thoughts of the future sometimes made him silent and dreamy,
he would often, prompted by some sudden impulse, spring up and kiss
aunt Dide on both cheeks, whereat the old woman would gaze at him
anxiously, perturbed at seeing his eyes so bright, and gleaming with a
joy which she thought she could divine.
At last, as time went on, Miette and Silvère began to tire of only
seeing each other’s reflection. The novelty of their play was gone, and
now they began to dream of keener pleasures than the well could afford
them. In this longing for reality which came upon them, there was the
wish to see each other face to face, to run through the open fields,
and return out of breath with their arms around each other’s waist,
clinging closely together in order that they might the better feel each
other’s love. One morning Silvère spoke of climbing over the wall, and
walking in the Jas with Miette. But the child implored him not to
perpetrate such folly, which would place her at Justin’s mercy. He then
promised to seek some other means.
The wall in which the well was set made a sudden bend a few paces
further on, thereby forming a sort of recess, where the lovers would be
free from observation, if they were to take shelter there. The question
was how to reach this recess. Silvère could no longer entertain the
idea of climbing over, as Miette had appeared so afraid. He secretly
thought of another plan. The little door which Macquart and Adélaïde
had set up one night long years previously had remained forgotten in
this remote corner. The owner of the Jas-Meiffren had not even thought
of blocking it up. Blackened by damp and green with moss, its lock and
hinges eaten away with rust, it looked like a part of the old wall.
Doubtless the key was lost; the grass growing beside the lower boards,
against which slight mounds had formed, amply proved that no one had
passed that way for many a long year. However, it was the lost key that
Silvère hoped to find. He knew with what devotion his aunt Dide allowed
the relics of the past to lie rotting wherever they might be. He
searched the house for a week without any result, and went stealthily
night by night to see if he had at last put his hand on the right key
during the daytime. In this way he tried more than thirty keys which
had doubtless come from the old property of the Fouques, and which he
found all over the place, against the walls, on the floors, and at the
bottom of drawers. He was becoming disheartened, when all at once he
found the precious key. It was simply tied by a string to the street
door latch-key, which always remained in the lock. It had hung there
for nearly forty years. Aunt Dide must every day have touched it with
her hand, without ever making up her mind to throw it away, although it
could now only carry her back sorrowfully into the past. When Silvère
had convinced himself that it really opened the little door, he awaited
the ensuing day, dreaming of the joyful surprise which he was preparing
for Miette. He had not told her for what he had been searching.
On the morrow, as soon as he heard the girl set her pitcher down, he
gently opened the door, sweeping away with a push the tall weeds which
covered the threshold. Stretching out his head, he saw Miette leaning
over the brink of the well, looking into the water, absorbed in
expectation. Thereupon, in a couple of strides, he reached the recess
formed by the wall, and thence called, “Miette! Miette!” in a soft
voice, which made her tremble. She raised her head, thinking he was on
the coping of the wall. But when she saw him in the Jas, at a few steps
from her, she gave a faint cry of surprise, and ran up to him. They
took each other’s hand, and looked at one another, delighted to be so
near, thinking themselves far handsomer like this, in the warm
sunshine. It was the middle of August, the Feast of the Assumption. In
the distance, the bells were pealing in the limpid atmosphere that so
often accompanies great days of festival, an atmosphere full of bright
gaiety.
“Good morning, Silvère!”
“Good morning, Miette!”
The voices in which they exchanged their morning greetings sounded
strange to them. They knew only the muffled accents transmitted by the
echo of the well. And now their voices seemed to them as clear as the
notes of a lark. And ah! how delightful it was in that warm corner, in
that holiday atmosphere! They still held each other’s hands. Silvère
leaning against the wall, Miette with her figure slightly thrown
backwards. They were about to tell each other all the soft things which
they had not dared to confide to the reverberations of the well, when
Silvère, hearing a slight noise, started, and, turning pale, dropped
Miette’s hands. He had just seen aunt Dide standing before him erect
and motionless on the threshold of the doorway.
The grandmother had come to the well by chance. And on perceiving, in
the old black wall, the white gap formed by the doorway which Silvère
had left wide open, she had experienced a violent shock. That open gap
seemed to her like a gulf of light violently illumining her past. She
once more saw herself running to the door amidst the morning
brightness, and crossing the threshold full of the transports of her
nervous love. And Macquart was there awaiting her. She hung upon his
neck and pressed against his bosom, whilst the rising sun, following
her through the doorway, which she had left open in her hurry,
enveloped them with radiance. It was a sudden vision which roused her
cruelly from the slumber of old age, like some supreme chastisement,
and awakened a multitude of bitter memories within her. Had the well,
had the entire wall, disappeared beneath the earth, she would not have
been more stupefied. She had never thought that this door would open
again. In her mind it had been walled up ever since the hour of
Macquart’s death. And amidst her amazement she felt angry, indignant
with the sacrilegious hand that had penetrated this violation, and left
that white open space agape like a yawning tomb. She stepped forward,
yielding to a kind of fascination, and halted erect within the
framework of the door.
Then she gazed out before her, with a feeling of dolorous surprise. She
had certainly been told that the old enclosure of the Fouques was now
joined to the Jas-Meiffren; but she would never have thought the
associations of her youth could have vanished so completely. It seemed
as though some tempest had carried off everything that her memory
cherished. The old dwelling, the large kitchen-garden, the beds of
green vegetables, all had disappeared. Not a stone, not a tree of
former times remained. And instead of the scene amidst which she had
grown up, and which in her mind’s eye she had seen but yesterday, there
lay a strip of barren soil, a broad patch of stubbles, bare like a
desert. Henceforward, when, on closing her eyes, she might try to
recall the objects of the past, that stubble would always appear to her
like a shroud of yellowish drugget spread over the soil, in which her
youth lay buried. In the presence of that unfamiliar commonplace scene
her heart died, as it were, a second time. Now all was completely,
finally ended. She was robbed even of her dreams of the past. Then she
began to regret that she had yielded to the attraction of that white
opening, of that doorway gaping upon the days which were now for ever
lost.
She was about to retire and close the accursed door, without even
seeking to discover who had opened it, when she suddenly perceived
Miette and Silvère. And the sight of the two young lovers, who, with
hanging heads, nervously awaited her glance, kept her on the threshold,
quivering with yet keener pain. She now understood all. To the very
end, she was destined to picture herself there, clasped in Macquart’s
arms in the bright sunshine. Yet a second time had the door served as
an accomplice. Where love had once passed, there was it passing again.
‘Twas the eternal and endless renewal, with present joys and future
tears. Aunt Dide could only see the tears, and a sudden presentiment
showed her the two children bleeding, with stricken hearts. Overwhelmed
by the recollection of her life’s sorrow, which this spot had just
awakened within her, she grieved for her dear Silvère. She alone was
guilty; if she had not formerly had that door made Silvère would not
now be at a girl’s feet in that lonely nook, intoxicating himself with
a bliss which prompts and angers the jealousy of death.
After a brief pause, she went up to the young man, and, without a word,
took him by the hand. She might, perhaps, have left them there,
chattering under the wall, had she not felt that she herself was, to
some extent, an accomplice in this fatal love. As she came back with
Silvère, she turned on hearing the light footfall of Miette, who,
having quickly taken up her pitcher, was hastening across the stubble.
She was running wildly, glad at having escaped so easily. And aunt Dide
smiled involuntarily as she watched her bound over the ground like a
runaway goat.
“She is very young,” she murmured, “she has plenty of time.”
She meant, no doubt, that Miette had plenty of time before her to
suffer and weep. Then, turning her eyes upon Silvère, who with a glance
of ecstasy had followed the child as she ran off in the bright
sunshine, she simply added: “Take care, my boy; this sort of thing
sometimes kills one.”
These were the only words she spoke with reference to the incident
which had awakened all the sorrows that lay slumbering in the depths of
her being. Silence had become a real religion with her. When Silvère
came in, she double-locked the door, and threw the key down the well.
In this wise she felt certain that the door would no longer make her an
accomplice. She examined it for a moment, glad at seeing it reassume
its usual gloomy, barrier-like aspect. The tomb was closed once more;
the white gap was for ever boarded up with that damp-stained mossy
timber over which the snails had shed silvery tears.
In the evening, aunt Dide had another of those nervous attacks which
came upon her at intervals. At these times she would often talk aloud
and ramble incoherently, as though she was suffering from nightmare.
That evening, while Silvère held her down on her bed, he heard her
stammer in a panting voice such words as “custom-house officer,”
“fire,” and “murder.” And she struggled, and begged for mercy, and
dreamed aloud of vengeance. At last, as always happened when the attack
was drawing to a close, she fell into a strange fright, her teeth
chattering, while her limbs quivered with abject terror. Finally, after
raising herself into a sitting posture, she cast a haggard look of
astonishment at one and another corner of the room, and then fell back
upon the pillow, heaving deep sighs. She was, doubtless, a prey to some
hallucination. However, she drew Silvère to her bosom, and seemed to
some degree to recognise him, though ever and anon she confused him
with someone else.