The baron was warming his feet at the fire, and was listening to the
farmer's talk about country matters. He talked about marriages, births
and deaths, then about the fall in the price of grain and the latest news
about cattle. The “Veularde” (as he called a cow that had been bought at
the fair of Veules) had calved in the middle of June. The cider had not
been first-class last year. Apricots were almost disappearing from the
country.
Then we had dinner. It was a good rustic meal, simple and abundant, long
and tranquil. And while we were dining I noticed the special kind of
friendly familiarity which had struck me from the start between the baron
and the peasant.
Outside, the beeches continued sighing in the night wind, and our two
dogs, shut up in a shed, were whining and howling in an uncanny fashion.
The fire was dying out in the big fireplace. The maid-servant had gone to
bed. Maitre Lebrument said in his turn:
“If you don't mind, M'sieu le Baron, I'm going to bed. I am not used to
staying up late.”
The baron extended his hand toward him and said: “Go, my friend,” in so
cordial a tone that I said, as soon as the man had disappeared:
“He is devoted to you, this farmer?”
“Better than that, my dear fellow! It is a drama, an old drama, simple
and very sad, that attaches him to me. Here is the story:
“You know that my father was colonel in a cavalry regiment. His orderly
was this young fellow, now an old man, the son of a farmer. When my
father retired from the army he took this former soldier, then about
forty; as his servant. I was at that time about thirty. We were living in
our old chateau of Valrenne, near Caudebec-en-Caux.
“At this period my mother's chambermaid was one of the prettiest girls
you could see, fair-haired, slender and sprightly in manner, a genuine
soubrette of the old type that no longer exists. To-day these creatures
spring up into hussies before their time. Paris, with the aid of the
railways, attracts them, calls them, takes hold of them, as soon as they
are budding into womanhood, these little sluts who in old times remained
simple maid-servants. Every man passing by, as recruiting sergeants did
formerly, looking for recruits, with conscripts, entices and ruins them
--these foolish lassies--and we have now only the scum of the
female sex for servant maids, all that is dull, nasty, common and
ill-formed, too ugly, even for gallantry.
“Well, this girl was charming, and I often gave her a kiss in dark
corners; nothing more, I swear to you! She was virtuous, besides; and I
had some respect for my mother's house, which is more than can be said of
the blackguards of the present day.
“Now, it happened that my man-servant, the ex-soldier, the old farmer you
have just seen, fell madly in love with this girl, perfectly daft. The
first thing we noticed was that he forgot everything, he paid no
attention to anything.
“My father said incessantly:
“'See here, Jean, what's the matter with you? Are you ill?'
“He replied:
“'No, no, M'sieu le Baron. There's nothing the matter with me.'
“He grew thin; he broke glasses and let plates fall when waiting on the
table. We thought he must have been attacked by some nervous affection,
and sent for the doctor, who thought he could detect symptoms of spinal
disease. Then my father, full of anxiety about his faithful man-servant,
decided to place him in a private hospital. When the poor fellow heard of
my father's intentions he made a clean breast of it.
“'M'sieu le Baron'
“'Well, my boy?'
“'You see, the thing I want is not physic.'
“'Ha! what is it, then?'
“'It's marriage!'
“My father turned round and stared at him in astonishment.
“'What's that you say, eh?'
“'It's marriage.”
“'Marriage! So, then, you jackass, you're to love.'
“'That's how it is, M'sieu le Baron.'
“And my father began to laugh so immoderately that my mother called out
through the wall of the next room:
“'What in the world is the matter with you, Gontran?'
“He replied:
“'Come here, Catherine.'
“And when she came in he told her, with tears in his eyes from sheer
laughter, that his idiot of a servant-man was lovesick.
“But my mother, instead of laughing, was deeply affected.
“'Who is it that you have fallen in love with, my poor fellow?' she
asked.
“He answered without hesitation:
“'With Louise, Madame le Baronne.'
“My mother said with the utmost gravity: 'We must try to arrange this
matter the best way we can.'
“So Louise was sent for and questioned by my mother; and she said in
reply that she knew all about Jean's liking for her, that in fact Jean
had spoken to her about it several times, but that she did not want him.
She refused to say why.
“And two months elapsed during which my father and mother never ceased to
urge this girl to marry Jean. As she declared she was not in love with
any other man, she could not give any serious reason for her refusal. My
father at last overcame her resistance by means of a big present of
money, and started the pair of them on a farm--this very farm. I did
not see them for three years, and then I learned that Louise had died of
consumption. But my father and mother died, too, in their turn, and it
was two years more before I found myself face to face with Jean.
“At last one autumn day about the end of October the idea came into my
head to go hunting on this part of my estate, which my father had told me
was full of game.
“So one evening, one wet evening, I arrived at this house. I was shocked
to find my father's old servant with perfectly white hair, though he was
not more than forty-five or forty-six years of age. I made him dine with
me, at the very table where we are now sitting. It was raining hard. We
could hear the rain battering at the roof, the walls, and the windows,
flowing in a perfect deluge into the farmyard; and my dog was howling in
the shed where the other dogs are howling to-night.
“All of a sudden, when the servant-maid had gone to bed, the man said in
a timid voice:
“'M'sieu le Baron.'
“'What is it, my dear Jean?'
“'I have something to tell you.'
“'Tell it, my dear Jean.'
“'You remember Louise, my wife.'
“'Certainly, I remember her.'
“'Well, she left me a message for you.'
“'What was it?'
“'A--a--well, it was what you might call a confession.'
“'Ha--and what was it about?'
“'It was--it was--I'd rather, all the same, tell you nothing
about it--but I must--I must. Well, it's this--it wasn't
consumption she died of at all. It was grief--well, that's the long
and short of it. As soon as she came to live here after we were married,
she grew thin; she changed so that you wouldn't know her, M'sieu le
Baron. She was just as I was before I married her, but it was just the
opposite, just the opposite.
“'I sent for the doctor. He said it was her liver that was affected--he
said it was what he called a “hepatic” complaint--I don't know these
big words, M'sieu le Baron. Then I bought medicine for her, heaps on
heaps of bottles that cost about three hundred francs. But she'd take
none of them; she wouldn't have them; she said: “It's no use, my poor
Jean; it wouldn't do me any good.” I saw well that she had some hidden
trouble; and then I found her one time crying, and I didn't know what to
do, no, I didn't know what to do. I bought her caps, and dresses, and
hair oil, and earrings. Nothing did her any good. And I saw that she was
going to die. And so one night at the end of November, one snowy night,
after she had been in bed the whole day, she told me to send for the
cure. So I went for him. As soon as he came--'
“'Jean,' she said, 'I am going to make a confession to you. I owe it to
you, Jean. I have never been false to you, never! never, before or after
you married me. M'sieu le Cure is there, and can tell you so; he knows my
soul. Well, listen, Jean. If I am dying, it is because I was not able to
console myself for leaving the chateau, because I was too fond of the
young Baron Monsieur Rene, too fond of him, mind you, Jean, there was no
harm in it! This is the thing that's killing me. When I could see him no
more I felt that I should die. If I could only have seen him, I might
have lived, only seen him, nothing more. I wish you'd tell him some day,
by and by, when I am no longer here. You will tell him, swear you, will,
Jean--swear it--in the presence of M'sieu le Cure! It will console me to
know that he will know it one day, that this was the cause of my death!
Swear it!'
“'Well, I gave her my promise, M'sieu It Baron, and on the faith of an
honest man I have kept my word.'
“And then he ceased speaking, his eyes filling with tears.
“Good God! my dear boy, you can't form any idea of the emotion that
filled me when I heard this poor devil, whose wife I had killed without
suspecting it, telling me this story on that wet night in this very
kitchen.
“I exclaimed: 'Ah! my poor Jean! my poor Jean!'
“He murmured: 'Well, that's all, M'sieu le Baron. I could not help it,
one way or the other--and now it's all over!'
“I caught his hand across the table, and I began to weep.
“He asked, 'Will you come and see her grave?' I nodded assent, for I
couldn't speak. He rose, lighted a lantern, and we walked through the
blinding rain by the light of the lantern.
“He opened a gate, and I saw some crosses of black wood.
“Suddenly he stopped before a marble slab and said: 'There it is,' and he
flashed the lantern close to it so that I could read the inscription:
“'TO LOUISE HORTENSE MARINET,
“'Wife of Jean-Francois Lebrument, Farmer,
“'SHE WAS A FAITHFUL WIFE. GOD REST HER SOUL.'
“We fell on our knees in the damp grass, he and I, with the lantern
between us, and I saw the rain beating on the white marble slab. And I
thought of the heart of her sleeping there in her grave. Ah! poor heart!
poor heart! Since then I come here every year. And I don't know why, but
I feel as if I were guilty of some crime in the presence of this man who
always looks as if he forgave me.”