This particular Sunday was the day of the village festival, the annual
festival in honor of the patron saint, which in Normandy is called the
assembly.
For the last eight days quaint-looking vehicles in which live the
families of strolling fair exhibitors, lottery managers, keepers
of shooting galleries and other forms of amusement or exhibitors of
curiosities whom the peasants call “wonder-makers” could be seen coming
along the roads drawn slowly by gray or sorrel horses.
The dirty wagons with their floating curtains, accompanied by a
melancholy-looking dog, who trotted, with his head down, between the
wheels, drew up one after the other on the green in front of the town
hall. Then a tent was erected in front of each ambulant abode, and
inside this tent could be seen, through the holes in the canvas,
glittering things which excited the envy or the curiosity of the village
youngsters.
As soon as the morning of the fete arrived all the booths were opened,
displaying their splendors of glass or porcelain, and the peasants on
their way to mass looked with genuine satisfaction at these modest shops
which they saw again, nevertheless, each succeeding year.
Early in the afternoon there was a crowd on the green. From every
neighboring village the farmers arrived, shaken along with their wives
and children in the two-wheeled open chars-a-bancs, which rattled along,
swaying like cradles. They unharnessed at their friends' houses and
the farmyards were filled with strange-looking traps, gray, high, lean,
crooked, like long-clawed creatures from the depths of the sea. And each
family, with the youngsters in front and the grown-up ones behind,
came to the assembly with tranquil steps, smiling countenances and open
hands, big hands, red and bony, accustomed to work and apparently tired
of their temporary rest.
A clown was blowing a trumpet. The barrel-organ accompanying the
carrousel sent through the air its shrill jerky notes. The lottery-wheel
made a whirring sound like that of cloth tearing, and every moment the
crack of the rifle could be heard. And the slow-moving throng passed on
quietly in front of the booths resembling paste in a fluid condition,
with the motions of a flock of sheep and the awkwardness of heavy
animals who had escaped by chance.
The girls, holding one another's arms in groups of six or eight, were
singing; the youths followed them, making jokes, with their caps over
their ears and their blouses stiffened with starch, swollen out like
blue balloons.
The whole countryside was there--masters, laboring men and women
servants.
Old Amable himself, wearing his old-fashioned green frock coat, had
wished to see the assembly, for he never failed to attend on such an
occasion.
He looked at the lotteries, stopped in front of the shooting galleries
to criticize the shots and interested himself specially in a very simple
game which consisted in throwing a big wooden ball into the open mouth
of a mannikin carved and painted on a board.
Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Daddy Malivoire, who
exclaimed:
“Ha, daddy! Come and have a glass of brandy.”
And they sat down at the table of an open-air restaurant.
They drank one glass of brandy, then two, then three, and old Amable
once more began wandering through the assembly. His thoughts became
slightly confused, he smiled without knowing why, he smiled in front of
the lotteries, in front of the wooden horses and especially in front of
the killing game. He remained there a long time, filled with delight,
when he saw a holiday-maker knocking down the gendarme or the cure, two
authorities whom he instinctively distrusted. Then he went back to the
inn and drank a glass of cider to cool himself. It was late, night came
on. A neighbor came to warn him:
“You'll get back home late for the stew, daddy.”
Then he set out on his way to the farmhouse. A soft shadow, the warm
shadow of a spring night, was slowly descending on the earth.
When he reached the front door he thought he saw through the window
which was lighted up two persons in the house. He stopped, much
surprised, then he went in, and he saw Victor Lecoq seated at the table,
with a plate filled with potatoes before him, taking his supper in the
very same place where his son had sat.
And he turned round suddenly as if he wanted to go away. The night was
very dark now. Celeste started up and shouted at him:
“Come quick, daddy! Here's some good stew to finish off the assembly
with.”
He complied through inertia and sat down, watching in turn the man, the
woman and the child. Then he began to eat quietly as on ordinary days.
Victor Lecoq seemed quite at home, talked from time to time to Celeste,
took up the child in his lap and kissed him. And Celeste again served
him with food, poured out drink for him and appeared happy while
speaking to him. Old Amable's eyes followed them attentively, though he
could not hear what they were saying.
When he had finished supper (and he had scarcely eaten anything, there
was such a weight at his heart) he rose up, and instead of ascending to
his loft as he did every night he opened the gate of the yard and went
out into the open air.
When he had gone, Celeste, a little uneasy, asked:
“What is he going to do?”
Victor replied in an indifferent tone:
“Don't bother yourself. He'll come back when he's tired.”
Then she saw after the house, washed the plates and wiped the table,
while the man quietly took off his clothes. Then he slipped into the
dark and hollow bed in which she had slept with Cesaire.
The yard gate opened and old Amable again appeared. As soon as he
entered the house he looked round on every side with the air of an old
dog on the scent. He was in search of Victor Lecoq. As he did not see
him, he took the candle off the table and approached the dark niche in
which his son had died. In the interior of it he perceived the man lying
under the bed clothes and already asleep. Then the deaf man noiselessly
turned round, put back the candle and went out into the yard.
Celeste had finished her work. She put her son into his bed, arranged
everything and waited for her father-in-law's return before lying down
herself.
She remained sitting on a chair, without moving her hands and with her
eyes fixed on vacancy.
As he did not come back, she murmured in a tone of impatience and
annoyance:
“This good-for-nothing old man will make us burn four sous' worth of
candles.”
Victor answered from under the bed clothes:
“It's over an hour since he went out. We ought to see whether he fell
asleep on the bench outside the door.”
“I'll go and see,” she said.
She rose up, took the light and went out, shading the light with her
hand in order to see through the darkness.
She saw nothing in front of the door, nothing on the bench, nothing on
the dung heap, where the old man used sometimes to sit in hot weather.
But, just as she was on the point of going in again, she chanced to
raise her eyes toward the big apple tree, which sheltered the entrance
to the farmyard, and suddenly she saw two feet--two feet at the height
of her face belonging to a man who was hanging.
She uttered terrible cries:
“Victor! Victor! Victor!”
He ran out in his shirt. She could not utter another word, and turning
aside her head so as not to see, she pointed toward the tree with her
outstretched arm.
Not understanding what she meant, he took the candle in order to find
out, and in the midst of the foliage lit up from below he saw old Amable
hanging high up with a stable-halter round his neck.
A ladder was leaning against the trunk of the apple tree.
Victor ran to fetch a bill-hook, climbed up the tree and cut the halter.
But the old man was already cold and his tongue protruded horribly with
a frightful grimace.