The child was nearly eight months old, and she did not recognize it. It
had grown rosy and chubby all over, like a little roll of fat. She threw
herself on it, as if it had been some prey, and kissed it so violently
that it began to scream with terror; and then she began to cry herself,
because it did not know her, and stretched out its arms to its nurse as
soon as it saw her. But the next day it began to know her, and laughed
when it saw her, and she took it into the fields, and ran about
excitedly with it, and sat down under the shade of the trees; and then,
for the first time in her life, she opened her heart to somebody,
although he could not understand her, and told him her troubles; how
hard her work was, her anxieties and her hopes, and she quite tired the
child with the violence of her caresses.
She took the greatest pleasure in handling it, in washing and dressing
it, for it seemed to her that all this was the confirmation of her
maternity; and she would look at it, almost feeling surprised 'that it
was hers, and would say to herself in a low voice as she danced it in
her arms: “It is my baby, it's my baby.”
She cried all the way home as she returned to the farm and had scarcely
got in before her master called her into his room; and she went, feeling
astonished and nervous, without knowing why.
“Sit down there,” he said. She sat down, and for some moments they
remained side by side, in some embarrassment, with their arms hanging at
their sides, as if they did not know what to do with them, and looking
each other in the face, after the manner of peasants.
The farmer, a stout, jovial, obstinate man of forty-five, who had lost
two wives, evidently felt embarrassed, which was very unusual with him;
but, at last, he made up his mind, and began to speak vaguely,
hesitating a little, and looking out of the window as he talked. “How is
it, Rose,” he said, “that you have never thought of settling in life?”
She grew as pale as death, and, seeing that she gave him no answer, he
went on: “You are a good, steady, active and economical girl; and a wife
like you would make a man's fortune.”
She did not move, but looked frightened; she did not even try to
comprehend his meaning, for her thoughts were in a whirl, as if at the
approach of some great danger; so, after waiting for a few seconds, he
went on: “You see, a farm without a mistress can never succeed, even
with a servant like you.” Then he stopped, for he did not know what else
to say, and Rose looked at him with the air of a person who thinks that
he is face to face with a murderer and ready to flee at the slightest
movement he may make; but, after waiting for about five minutes, he
asked her: “Well, will it suit you?” “Will what suit me, master?” And he
said quickly: “Why, to marry me, by Heaven!”
She jumped up, but fell back on her chair, as if she had been struck,
and there she remained motionless, like a person who is overwhelmed by
some great misfortune. At last the farmer grew impatient and said:
“Come, what more do you want?” She looked at him, almost in terror, then
suddenly the tears came into her eyes and she said twice in a choking
voice: “I cannot, I cannot!” “Why not?” he asked. “Come, don't be silly;
I will give you until tomorrow to think it over.”
And he hurried out of the room, very glad to have got through with the
matter, which had troubled him a good deal, for he had no doubt that she
would the next morning accept a proposal which she could never have
expected and which would be a capital bargain for him, as he thus bound
a woman to his interests who would certainly bring him more than if she
had the best dowry in the district.
Neither could there be any scruples about an unequal match between them,
for in the country every one is very nearly equal; the farmer works with
his laborers, who frequently become masters in their turn, and the
female servants constantly become the mistresses of the establishments
without its making any change in their life or habits.
Rose did not go to bed that night. She threw herself, dressed as she
was, on her bed, and she had not even the strength to cry left in her,
she was so thoroughly dumfounded. She remained quite inert, scarcely
knowing that she had a body, and without being at all able to collect
her thoughts, though, at moments, she remembered something of what had
happened, and then she was frightened at the idea of what might happen.
Her terror increased, and every time the great kitchen clock struck the
hour she broke out in a perspiration from grief. She became bewildered,
and had the nightmare; her candle went out, and then she began to
imagine that some one had cast a spell over her, as country people so
often imagine, and she felt a mad inclination to run away, to escape and
to flee before her misfortune, like a ship scudding before the wind. An
owl hooted; she shivered, sat up, passed her hands over her face, her
hair, and all over her body, and then she went downstairs, as if she
were walking in her sleep. When she got into the yard she stooped down,
so as not to be seen by any prowling scamp, for the moon, which was
setting, shed a bright light over the fields. Instead of opening the
gate she scrambled over the fence, and as soon as she was outside she
started off. She went on straight before her, with a quick, springy
trot, and from time to time she unconsciously uttered a piercing cry.
Her long shadow accompanied her, and now and then some night bird flew
over her head, while the dogs in the farmyards barked as they heard her
pass; one even jumped over the ditch, and followed her and tried to bite
her, but she turned round and gave such a terrible yell that the
frightened animal ran back and cowered in silence in its kennel.
The stars grew dim, and the birds began to twitter; day was breaking.
The girl was worn out and panting; and when the sun rose in the purple
sky, she stopped, for her swollen feet refused to go any farther; but
she saw a pond in the distance, a large pond whose stagnant water looked
like blood under the reflection of this new day, and she limped on
slowly with her hand on her heart, in order to dip both her feet in it.
She sat down on a tuft of grass, took off her heavy shoes, which were
full of dust, pulled off her stockings and plunged her legs into the
still water, from which bubbles were rising here and there.
A feeling of delicious coolness pervaded her from head to foot, and
suddenly, while she was looking fixedly at the deep pool, she was seized
with dizziness, and with a mad longing to throw herself into it. All her
sufferings would be over in there, over forever. She no longer thought
of her child; she only wanted peace, complete rest, and to sleep
forever, and she got up with raised arms and took two steps forward. She
was in the water up to her thighs, and she was just about to throw her
self in when sharp, pricking pains in her ankles made her jump back, and
she uttered a cry of despair, for, from her knees to the tips of her
feet, long black leeches were sucking her lifeblood, and were swelling
as they adhered to her flesh. She did not dare to touch them, and
screamed with horror, so that her cries of despair attracted a peasant,
who was driving along at some distance, to the spot. He pulled off the
leeches one by one, applied herbs to the wounds, and drove the girl to
her master's farm in his gig.
She was in bed for a fortnight, and as she was sitting outside the door
on the first morning that she got up, the farmer suddenly came and
planted himself before her. “Well,” he said, “I suppose the affair is
settled isn't it?” She did not reply at first, and then, as he remained
standing and looking at her intently with his piercing eyes, she said
with difficulty: “No, master, I cannot.” He immediately flew into a
rage.
“You cannot, girl; you cannot? I should just like to know the reason
why?” She began to cry, and repeated: “I cannot.” He looked at her, and
then exclaimed angrily: “Then I suppose you have a lover?” “Perhaps that
is it,” she replied, trembling with shame.
The man got as red as a poppy, and stammered out in a rage: “Ah! So you
confess it, you slut! And pray who is the fellow? Some penniless, half-
starved ragamuffin, without a roof to his head, I suppose? Who is it, I
say?” And as she gave him no answer, he continued: “Ah! So you will not
tell me. Then I will tell you; it is Jean Baudu?”—“No, not he,” she
exclaimed. “Then it is Pierre Martin?”—“Oh! no, master.”
And he angrily mentioned all the young fellows in the neighborhood,
while she denied that he had hit upon the right one, and every moment
wiped her eyes with the corner of her blue apron. But he still tried to
find it out, with his brutish obstinacy, and, as it were, scratching at
her heart to discover her secret, just as a terrier scratches at a hole
to try and get at the animal which he scents inside it. Suddenly,
however, the man shouted: “By George! It is Jacques, the man who was
here last year. They used to say that you were always talking together,
and that you thought about getting married.”
Rose was choking, and she grew scarlet, while her tears suddenly stopped
and dried up on her cheeks, like drops of water on hot iron, and she
exclaimed: “No, it is not he, it is not he!” “Is that really a fact?”
asked the cunning peasant, who partly guessed the truth; and she
replied, hastily: “I will swear it; I will swear it to you—” She tried
to think of something by which to swear, as she did not venture to
invoke sacred things, but he interrupted her: “At any rate, he used to
follow you into every corner and devoured you with his eyes at meal
times. Did you ever give him your promise, eh?”
This time she looked her master straight in the face. “No, never, never;
I will solemnly swear to you that if he were to come to-day and ask me
to marry him I would have nothing to do with him.” She spoke with such
an air of sincerity that the farmer hesitated, and then he continued, as
if speaking to himself: “What, then? You have not had a misfortune, as
they call it, or it would have been known, and as it has no
consequences, no girl would refuse her master on that account. There
must be something at the bottom of it, however.”
She could say nothing; she had not the strength to speak, and he asked
her again: “You will not?” “I cannot, master,” she said, with a sigh,
and he turned on his heel.
She thought she had got rid of him altogether and spent the rest of the
day almost tranquilly, but was as exhausted as if she had been turning
the thrashing machine all day in the place of the old white horse, and
she went to bed as soon as she could and fell asleep immediately. In the
middle of the night, however, two hands touching the bed woke her. She
trembled with fear, but immediately recognized the farmer's voice, when
he said to her: “Don't be frightened, Rose; I have come to speak to
you.” She was surprised at first, but when he tried to take liberties
with her she understood and began to tremble violently, as she felt
quite alone in the darkness, still heavy from sleep, and quite
unprotected, with that man standing near her. She certainly did not
consent, but she resisted carelessly struggling against that instinct
which is always strong in simple natures and very imperfectly protected
by the undecided will of inert and gentle races. She turned her head now
to the wall, and now toward the room, in order to avoid the attentions
which the farmer tried to press on her, but she was weakened by fatigue,
while he became brutal, intoxicated by desire.
They lived together as man and wife, and one morning he said to her: “I
have put up our banns, and we will get married next month.”
She did not reply, for what could she say? She did not resist, for what
could she do?