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Marie Claire
by Marguerite Audoux
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All day long I thought over what the farmer had said to me. I could not understand why the Mother Superior wanted to prevent me from seeing Sister Marie-Aimee. I understood that Sister Marie-Aimee could do nothing though, and I made my mind up to wait, thinking that a day would come when nobody could prevent me from seeing her again. At bedtime the farmer's wife went up with me to put an extra blanket on my bed, and when she had said "good night," she told me not to call her "madame" any more. She wanted me to call her Pauline. Then she went away, after telling me that both she and her husband looked upon me as a child of the house, and that she would do all she could to make me happy at the farm.

Next day Master Silvain made me sit next to his brother at table. He told him with a laugh that he was not to let me want for anything, because he wanted me to grow. The farmer's brother was called Eugene. He spoke very little, but he always looked at each person who spoke, and his little eyes often seemed to be laughing at them. He was thirty years old, but he did not look more than twenty. He always had an answer to any question he was asked, and I felt no awkwardness at sitting next to him. He squeezed himself against the wall so as to give me more room at the table, and when the farmer told him to look after me, all he said was, "You need not worry."

Now, after all the fields had been ploughed Martine took her sheep a long way off to some pasture land called the common. The cowherd and I took our flock down the meadows and into the woods where there was fern. I suffered from the cold although I had a big woollen cloak which covered me down to my feet. The cowherd often had to light a fire. He would bake potatoes and chestnuts in the ashes and share them with me. He taught me how to know from which side the wind was coming, so as to make use of the least shelter against the cold. And as we sat over the fire and tried to keep ourselves warm he would sing me a song about "Water and Wine." It was a song which had about twenty verses in it. Water and Wine accused one another of ruining the human race, and at the same time praised themselves tremendously. As far as I could see Water was right, but the cowherd said that Wine was not wrong. We used to sit and talk together for hours. He would tell me of his own home, which was a long way off from Sologne. He told me that he had always been a cowherd, and that when he was a child a bull had knocked him down and hurt him. He had been ill a long time after that, and the pains in his limbs had made him scream. Then the pains had gone away, but he had become all twisted up as I saw him now. He remembered the names of all the farms where he had been cowherd. Some of the farmers were kind, and some were not, but he had never come across such kind masters as at Villevieille. He said, too, that Master Silvain's cows were not a bit like those of his own country, which were small, and had horns like pointed spindles. The Villevieille cows were big, strong animals with rough crumpled horns. He was very fond of them and used to call each one by name when he talked to them. The one he liked best was a beautiful white cow which Master Silvain had bought in the spring. She was always lifting her head and looking into the distance, and then all of a sudden she would start off at a run. The cowherd used to call out, "Stop where you are, Blanche! Stop!" She usually obeyed him, but sometimes he had to send the dog after her. Sometimes, too, she used to try and run even when the dog stopped her, and would only come back to the herd when the dog bit her muzzle. The cowherd used to pity her because, he said, he couldn't say what or whom she was regretting.



In the month of December the cows remained in the stables. I thought that we should keep the sheep in too, but the farmer's brother explained to me that Sologne was a very poor country, and that the farmers could not make enough forage to feed the sheep, as well. So now I used to go off all by myself with the sheep down the meadows and into the woods. All the birds had gone. Mist spread over the ploughed fields and the woods were full of silence.

There were days when I felt so lonely that I began to believe that the earth had fallen all to pieces round me, and when a crow cawed as it flew past in the grey sky its great hoarse voice seemed to me to be singing of the misfortunes of the world. Even the sheep were quiet. A dealer had taken away all the lambs, and the little ewes did not know how to play alone. They went along pressing up close to each other, and even when they were not cropping what grass there was, their heads were bent. Some of them made me think of little girls I had known. I used to pass them and stroke them, and make them raise their heads, but their eyes looked down again at once, and the pupils were like glass without a gleam in it.

One day I was surprised by such a thick fog that I could not see my way. All of a sudden I found myself near a big wood which I didn't know. The tops of the trees were lost in the fog, and the ferns looked as though they were all wrapped in wool. White shadows came down from the trees and glided with long transparent trains over the dead leaves. I pushed the sheep towards the meadow, which was quite near, but they clustered together and refused to go on. I went in front of them to see what was preventing them from going any further, and I recognized the little river which flowed at the bottom of the hill.

I could scarcely see the water. It seemed to be sleeping under a thick white woollen blanket. I stood looking at it for one long minute, then I got my sheep together and took them back along the road. While I was trying to find out where the farm was, the sheep ran round the wood and got into a lane with a hedge on each side of it. The fog was getting thicker than ever, and I thought I was walking between two high walls. I followed the sheep without knowing where they were taking me. Suddenly they left the lane and turned to the right; but I stopped them. I saw a church just in front of us. The doors were wide open, and on either side I could see two red lamps which lit up a grey vaulted roof. There were two straight lines of huge pillars, and at the other end one could just see the windows with their small panes on which a light was shining. It was all I could do to keep the sheep from going into the church, and as I was pushing them away I noticed that they were covered with little white beads. They shook themselves every moment and the beads made a tinkling sound. I got very anxious, for I knew that Master Silvain must be waiting for us, and wondering where we were. I felt sure that if I were to go back the way I had come I must soon find the farm, so making as little noise as I could I pushed the sheep back into the lane which led to the church. As I was going into the lane a man's voice sounded right over my head. The voice said, "Let the poor brutes go home." As he spoke the man turned the sheep back towards the church again, and I recognized Eugene, the farmer's brother. He passed his hand over the back of one of the sheep and said, "How pretty they are with their little frost balls. But it is not good for them."

I was not at all surprised at meeting him there. I showed him the church and asked him what it was. "It was for you," he said. "I was afraid that you would not find the avenue of chestnut trees, and I hung up a lantern on each side." I felt all confused. It was only a few moments afterwards that I understood that the great pillars, blackened and worn by centuries, were simply the trunks of the chestnut trees, and then I recognized the small-paned windows of the farmhouse kitchen, which the fire lit up from inside. Eugene counted the sheep himself. He helped me to make them a warm litter of straw, and as we left the pen together he asked me if I really didn't know what had become of the two lambs that had been lost. I felt dreadfully ashamed at the thought that he could believe that I had told a lie, and I could not help crying, and told him that they had disappeared without my having seen how or where they went. Then he told me that he had found them drowned in a water-hole. I thought he was going to scold me for not having watched them better, but he said gently, "Go and get warm; you have got all the rime of Sologne in your hair." I made up my mind that I would go and see the waterhole. But during the night snow fell so quickly that we couldn't go out to the fields next day.

I helped old Bibiche to mend the household linen; Martine sat down to her spinning wheel, and I sang to them while we sewed and Martine span.



While we sat at work that evening the dogs never stopped barking. Martine seemed anxious. She listened to the dogs, and then turning to the farmer she said, "I am afraid this weather will bring the wolves down." The farmer got up to go out and talk to the dogs, and took his lantern to make a round of the outhouses. During the week that the snow lasted hundreds of crows came to the farm. They were so hungry that nothing frightened them. They went into the cow-house and the pens and into the granary, and they made very free with the corn ricks. The farmer killed a lot of them. We cooked some of them with bacon and cabbage. Everybody thought them very good, but the dogs wouldn't eat them.



The first day we let the sheep and cows out, the pine trees were still heavy with snow. The hill was all white too. It seemed to have come closer to the farm. All this white dazzled me. I could not find things in their places, and every moment I was afraid that I should not see the blue smoke curling up over the farm roofs any longer. The sheep could not find anything to eat, and ran about searching. I did not let them scatter too much. They looked like moving snow, and I was obliged to watch them closely so as not to lose sight of them. I managed to get them together in a meadow which skirted a big wood. The whole forest was busy getting rid of the snow which weighed it down. The big branches threw the snow off at one shake, while the others which were not so strong, stooped and bent themselves to make it slip down. I had never been into this forest. I only knew that it was a very big one, and that Martine sometimes took her sheep there. The pine trees were very tall, and the ferns grew very high.

I had been watching a big clump of ferns for a long time. I thought I had seen it move, and I heard a sound come out of it as though a bit of stick had broken under a footstep. I felt frightened. I thought there was somebody there. Then I heard the same sound again much nearer, but without seeing anything move. I tried to reassure myself by saying to myself that it was a hare, or some other little animal which was looking for food; but in spite of all I could try to think, I felt there was somebody there. I felt so nervous that I made up my mind to go nearer the farm. I had taken two steps towards my sheep when they huddled together and moved away from the wood. I was looking about to see what had frightened them, when quite close to me, in the very middle of the flock, I saw a yellow dog carrying off one of the sheep in his mouth. My first idea was that Castille had gone mad; but at the same moment Castille tumbled up against my dress and howled plaintively. Then I guessed that it was a wolf. It was carrying off a sheep which it held by the middle of its body. It climbed up a hillock without any difficulty, and as it jumped the broad ditch which separated the field from the forest its hind legs made me think of wings. At that moment I should not have thought it at all extraordinary if it had flown away over the trees. I stood there for a few moments, without knowing whether I was frightened. Then I felt that I could not take my eyes away from the ditch. My eyelids had become so stiff that I thought I should never be able to close them again. I wanted to call out, so that they should hear me at the farm, but I could not get my voice out of my throat. I wanted to run, but my legs were trembling so that I was obliged to sit down on the wet grass. Castille went on howling as though she were in pain, and the sheep remained huddled together.

When I got them back to the farm at last, I ran to look for Master Silvain. As soon as he saw me he guessed what had happened. He called his brother and took down their two guns, and I tried to show him which way the wolf had gone. They both came back at nightfall without having found him. We talked of nothing else all the evening. Eugene wanted to know what the wolf looked like; and old Bibiche got angry when I said that he had a long yellow coat like Castille, but that he was much handsomer than she was.



A few days afterwards it was Martine's turn. She had just taken her sheep out, and she had hardly reached the end of the avenue of chestnut trees when we heard her shouting. Everybody rushed out of the house. I got to Martine first. She was stooping down and pulling as hard as she could at a sheep which a wolf had just killed, and was trying to carry off. The wolf had the sheep by the throat, and was pulling as hard as Martine was. Martine's dog bit the wolf's legs, but he didn't seem to feel it, and when Master Silvain fired full at him he rolled over with a piece of the sheep's throat between his teeth. Martine's eyes were staring and her mouth had become quite white. Her cap had slipped off her head, and the parting which divided her hair into two made me think of a broad path on which one could walk without any danger. The usual strong expression of her face had changed into a sad little grimace, and her hands kept opening and closing, the two of them keeping time. She had been leaning against the chestnut tree, and she went up to Eugene, who was looking at the wolf. She stood by him for a moment looking at the dead wolf too, and said aloud: "Poor brute! How hungry he must have been!" The farmer put the wolf and the sheep on the same wheelbarrow, and wheeled them back to the farm. The dogs followed, sniffing at the barrow, and looking frightened.

For several days the farmer and his brother went out shooting in the neighbourhood. Whenever Eugene came anywhere near me he would stop and say a kind word. He told me that the noise they made with their guns drove the wolves away, and that one very rarely saw any in that part of the country. But although he said that there was little or no danger I didn't dare go back to the big forest. I preferred to go up on to the hill which was covered only with broom and ferns.



It the beginning of the spring the farmer's wife taught me how to milk the cows and look after the pigs. She said she wanted to make a good farmer of me. I could not help thinking of the Mother Superior and the disdainful tone in which she had said to me, "You will milk the cows and look after the pigs." When she said that, she said it as though she were giving me a punishment, and here I was delighted at having them to look after. I used to lean my forehead against a cow's flank to get a better purchase, and I very soon filled my pail. At the top of the milk a foam used to form which caught all kinds of changing colours, and when the sun passed over it it became so marvellously beautiful that I was never tired of looking at it.

Looking after the pigs never disgusted me. Their food was boiled potatoes and curdled milk. I used to dip my hands into the bucket to mix it all up, and I loved making them wait for their food a few minutes. Their eager cries and the way they wriggled their snouts about always amused me.



When May came Master Silvain added a she goat to my flock. He had bought it to help Pauline to feed the little baby she had got after they had been married ten years. This goat was more difficult to take care of than all the rest of the flock. It was always her fault when my flock got into the standing oats, which were pretty high. The farmer saw what had happened and scolded me. He said that I must have been asleep in a corner while my sheep were trampling his oats down. Every day I had to pass near a wood of young pine trees. The goat used to get there in three jumps, and it was while I was looking for her that my lambs got into the oats.

The first time I waited ever so long for her to come back by herself. I made my voice as soft as I could and called to her. At last I made up my mind to go and fetch her, but the young pines were so close together that I didn't know how to get after her. On the other hand, I could not go away without knowing what had happened to the goat. I thought I remembered the place where she had disappeared, and I went in there, putting my hands in front of my face to keep the thorns off. I saw her almost at once through my fingers. She was quite near me. I stretched my hands out to get hold of one of her horns, but she backed through the branches, which flew back and struck me in the face. At last, however, I got hold of her and brought her back to the flock. She began again next day, and every day she did the same thing. I got my sheep as far away as I could from the oats, and rushed after her. She was a white goat, and the first time I saw her I thought that she was like Madeleine. She had the same kind of eyes, set far away from each other. When I forced her to come out of the pine trees, she looked at me for a long time without moving her eyes, and I thought that Madeleine must have been turned into a goat. Sometimes I told her not to do it again, and I was quite sure that she understood me when I told her how unkind she was. As I was struggling out of the pine wood my hair fell all about me, and I shook my head to throw it forward. The goat sprang to one side bleating with fear. She lowered her horns and came at me, but I lowered my head and shook my hair at her. My hair was long and dragged along the ground. She rushed off, leaping this way and that. Every time she went into the pine wood I took my revenge on her by frightening her with my hair. Master Silvain surprised us one morning when I was butting at her. He laughed and laughed till I didn't know which way to look. I tried to throw my hair back quickly. The she goat came close up to me. She looked at me, stretching her neck and wriggling her back about in the funniest way. The farmer could not stop laughing. He bent almost double, holding his sides and simply roared with laughter. All I could see of him were his eyebrows, his beard, and his big hat. His shouts of laughter made me want to cry. When he had stopped laughing he asked me all about it. I told him how wicked the goat had been, and he shook his finger at her and laughed again. Martine took her out next day; but the day after she said that she would rather leave the farm than take out that she goat again. It was possessed of the devil, she said.

Old Bibiche used to say that goats ought to be beaten, but I remembered the only time I had beaten mine. Her ribs had made such a strange hollow sound that I never dared touch her again. She was left free to run about the farm, and one day she disappeared. We never found out what had become of her.

The feast of St. John was drawing near, and to celebrate the anniversary of my arrival on the farm Eugene said that I must be taken to the village. In honour of this feast day the farmer's wife gave me a yellow dress which she used to wear when she was a girl. The village was called Sainte Montague. It only had one street, at the end of which was a church. Martine took me into mass, which had already begun. She pushed me on to a bench and she sat down on the one in front of me. There were two women behind me who never stopped talking about yesterday's market, and the men near the door talked out loud without seeming to mind. They only stopped talking when the priest mounted the pulpit. I thought he was going to preach, but he only gave out notices of the weddings. Every time he mentioned a name the women leaned to right and left and smiled. I never even thought of praying. I looked at Martine, who was on her knees. Her dark curls had got out from under her embroidered cap. Her shoulders were broad, and her white bodice was fastened at the waist with a black ribbon. The whole of her made one think of something fresh and new, and yet the Mother Superior had told me that shepherdesses were dirty. I thought of Martine and how smart she always looked in her short striped petticoat, her stockings, which were always tightly drawn, and her wooden shoes covered with leather, which she blacked like boots. She was always very careful of her flock, and the farmer's wife used to say that she knew every one of her sheep. When we came out of mass she left me and ran up to an old woman, whom she kissed tenderly. Then I lost sight of her and remained all by myself, not knowing where to go. A little way off I saw the inn of the "White Horse." There was a noise of voices there and I could hear dishes and plates rattling. People went in in crowds, and presently there was nobody left outside. I was going back into the church to wait for Martine to come and fetch me when I saw Eugene. He took me by the hand, and said, laughing as he spoke, "If your dress had not been as yellow as it is I should certainly have forgotten you." He looked at me as though he were making fun of me and as though he were amused at something. He took me to the schoolmaster and asked him to give me luncheon, and to take me for a walk with the children. The schoolmaster was dressed like the gentlemen of the town. Eugene wore a blue blouse, and I was very much surprised to see them so friendly together. While we were waiting for lunch the schoolmaster lent me a book of fairy tales, and when the time came for the walk I would much rather have been left alone to finish the book.

On the village green the boys and girls were dancing in the sunshine and the dust. I thought that they danced too roughly, and that they were too noisy.

I felt very sad, and when the cart drove us back to the farm at nightfall I felt really glad to be back in the silence and the sweet smell of the meadows again.



A few days after that, on our way home from the forest, a sheep which had been grazing near the hedge jumped right up into the air. I went to see what was the matter, and saw that his nose was bleeding. I thought that he must have pricked himself with a big thorn, and after having washed him I didn't think anything more about it. Next day I was terrified to see that his head had swollen up till it was almost as big as his body. It frightened me so much that I screamed. Martine came running up, and she began screaming too, and everybody came. I explained what had happened the day before, and the farmer said that the sheep must have been bitten by a viper. He would have to be cared for, and must be left in the stable until the swelling had gone down. I asked nothing better than to look after the poor brute, but when I was alone with it I felt frightened to death. That enormous head, which wobbled on the little body, made me half crazy with terror. The great big eyes, the enormous mouth and the ears, which stood straight up, made a monster almost impossible to imagine. The poor beast always remained in the middle of the stable, as though he were afraid of bumping himself against the wall. I tried to go to him, telling myself that it was only a sheep after all, but I could not. But directly he turned towards me I felt dreadfully sorry for him. Sometimes I used to think that this dreadful face which wobbled from right to left was reproaching me. Then something seemed to wobble inside my head, and I felt as though I were going mad. I quite understood that I was perfectly capable of letting him die of hunger. I told the cowherd about it, and he said that he would look after the sheep as long as the inflammation lasted. He laughed at me a little, and said he could not understand how I could be afraid of a sick sheep.

I was able to do him a good turn afterwards, and I was very glad. When he let the bull out one morning, he had slipped and fallen in front of him. The bull had sniffed and smelt at him. He was a young bull, which had been brought up on the farm, and was a little bit wild. The cowherd was afraid of him, and felt quite certain that he would remember that he had seen him on the ground in front of him. I should have liked to make him understand that there was nothing to be afraid of, but I didn't know what to say to prevent his being frightened. I was quite surprised at noticing all of a sudden how old he was. His hat had dropped on to the ground, and I noticed for the first time that his hair was quite grey. I thought about him all day long, and next day, while the cows were going out one by one, I went into the stable. The cowherd was looking at the bull, who was pulling at the chain. I went up to him, patted him, and let him loose. The cowherd stood on one side, and the bull rushed out as if he were mad. The herd looked at him in surprise, and limped after him. I was not nearly so frightened of the bull as I had been of the sheep with the swollen face, and I used to go into the stable every day, slipping in quietly so as not to be seen. But Eugene had seen me. He took me aside one morning, and, looking right into my eyes with his little eyes, he said, "Why did you let the bull loose?" I was afraid the cow-herd would be scolded if I told the truth, and tried to find something to say to him. I began to say that I didn't let him loose. Then Eugene gave a little chuckle, and said, "You don't mean to tell me that you tell lies, do you?" I told him everything, and they sold the bull next Saturday.



I had often noticed how kind Eugene was to everybody. Whenever the farmer had any difficulties with his men he always used to call his brother, who would settle everything with a few words. Eugene did the same work on the farm as Master Silvain did, but he always refused to go to market. He said that he would not know how to sell even a cheese. He walked slowly, rocking himself a little as he walked, as though he were trying to keep time with his oxen. He went to Sainte Montagne nearly every Sunday. When the weather was bad he would remain in the living-room at the farm house and read. I used to hope that he would leave his book behind him one day; but he never forgot it, and always took it to his room with him. One of my great troubles was that I could not find anything to read in the farm, and I used to pick up any bits of printed paper that I saw lying about. The farmer's wife had noticed this, and said that I should become a miser some day. One Sunday, when I had screwed up my courage and asked Eugene for a book, he gave me a book of songs. All through the summer I took it with me to the fields. I made up tunes for the songs which I liked best. Then I got tired of them, and when I was helping Pauline to clean up the farm for All Saints Day, I found several almanacks. Pauline told me to take them up to the garret, but I pretended to forget, and carried them off to read in secret, one after the other. They were full of amusing stories, and the winter went by without my ever noticing the cold.

When I took them up to the garret at last, I hunted about up there to see if I could not find any others. The only thing I found was a little book without any cover. The corners of the leaves were rolled up as if it had been carried about in somebody's pocket for a long time. The two first pages were missing, and the third page was so dirty that I could not read the print. I took it under the skylight, to see a little better, and I saw that it was called "The Adventures of Telemachus." I opened it here and there, and the few words that I read interested me so much that I put it in my pocket at once.

While I was on my way down from the garret, it suddenly occurred to me that Eugene might have put the book there, and that he might come and look for it at any time. So I put it back on the black rafter where I had found it. Every time I could manage to go to the garret I looked to see whether it was still in its place, and I read it as much and as often as ever I could.



Just about that time I had another sick sheep. Its flanks were hollow, as though it had not eaten for a long while. I went and asked the farmer's wife what I ought to do with it. She was plucking a chicken, and asked me whether the sheep was "drawn." I didn't answer at once. I didn't quite know what she meant. Then I thought that probably whenever a sheep was ill it was "drawn," and I said "Yes." And so as to make it quite clear, I added, "It is quite flat." Pauline began to laugh at me. She called Eugene, and said, "Eugene! One of Marie Claire's sheep is drawn and flat too." That made Eugene laugh. He said I was only a second-hand shepherdess, and explained to me that sheep were "drawn" when their stomachs were swollen.

Two days afterwards Pauline told me that she and Master Silvain saw that they would never make a good shepherdess of me, and that they were going to give me work to do in the house. Old Bibiche was not good for much, and Pauline could not do everything herself because of her baby. When they told me this, my first thought was that I should be able to go up to the garret more often, and I kissed Pauline and thanked her.



So I became a farm servant. I had to kill the chickens and the rabbits. I hated doing it, and Pauline could never understand why. She said I was like Eugene, who ran away when a pig was being killed. However, I wanted to try and kill a chicken so as to show that I did my best. I took it into the granary. It struggled in my hands, and the straw all round me got red. Then it became quite still, and I put it down for Bibiche to come and pluck it. But when she came she cackled with laughter because the chicken had got on to its feet again, and was in the middle of a basket of corn. It was eating greedily, as though it wanted to get well as quickly as possible after the way in which I had hurt it. Bibiche got hold of it, and when she had passed the blade of her knife across its neck the straw was much redder than it had been before.

Instead of going to sleep in the middle of the day, I used to go up to the garret to read. I opened the book anywhere, and every time I read it over again I found something new in it. I loved this book of mine. For me it was like a young prisoner whom I went to visit secretly. I used to imagine that it was dressed like a page, and that it waited for me on the black rafter. One evening I went on a lovely journey with it. I had closed the book, and was leaning on my elbows and looking out of the skylight in the garret. It was almost evening, and the pine trees looked less green. The sun was pushing its way into the white clouds which hollowed themselves and then swelled out again, like down and feathers do when you push something into a sackful of them.

Without quite knowing how, I found myself, all of a sudden, flying over a wood with Telemachus. He held me by the hand, and our heads touched the blue of the sky. Telemachus said nothing, but I knew that we were going up into the sun. Old Bibiche called to me from below. I recognized her voice, although it was so far off. She must be very angry, I thought, to be calling so loud. I didn't care. I saw nothing but the bright flakes of white down, which surrounded the sun and which were opening slowly to let us pass in. A tap on my arm brought me back with a rush into the garret. Old Bibiche was pulling me away from the skylight, and saying, "Why do you make me shout like that? I have called you at least twenty times to come and get your supper!" A little while later I missed the book from the rafter. But it had become a friend which I carried about in my heart, and I have always remembered it.



Two days before Christmas, Master Silvain got ready to kill a pig. He sharpened two big knives, and, after having made a litter of fresh straw in the middle of the yard, he sent for the pig, which made such a noise that I was sure he knew what was going to happen. Master Silvain roped up his four feet, and, while he fastened them to pegs which he had hammered into the ground, he said to his wife, "Hide the knives, Pauline. Don't let him see them!" Pauline gave me a sort of deep dish, which I was to hold carefully, so as not to lose a single drop of the blood which I was to catch in it. The farmer went to the pig, which had fallen on its side. He went down on one knee in front of him, and, after having felt his neck, he reached his hand out behind his back to his wife; she gave him the bigger of the two knives. He put the point on the place he had marked with his finger, and pressed it slowly in. The pig's cries were just like the cries of a baby. A drop of blood came from the wound and rolled slowly down in a long red line. Then two spurts ran up the knife and fell on the farmer's hand. When the blade was right in up to the handle. Master Silvain put his weight on it for a moment and drew it out again as slowly as he had put it in. When I saw the blade come out again all striped with red, I felt my mouth grow cold and dry. My fingers went limp, and the dish toppled over to one side. Master Silvain saw it. He gave me one look and said to his wife, "Take the dish away from her." I could not say a word, but I shook my head to say "No." The farmer's look had taken my nervousness away, and I held the dish quite steadily under the spurt of blood which came out from the pig's wound. When the pig was quite still, Eugene came up. He looked amazed at seeing me carefully catching the last red drops which were rolling down one by one like tears. "Do you mean to say you caught the blood?" he asked. "Yes," said the farmer; "that shows that she is not a chicken heart, like you." "It is quite true," said Eugene to me, "I hate seeing animals killed." "Nonsense," said Master Silvain. "Animals are made to feed us just as wood is made to warm us." Eugene turned away a little, as though he were ashamed of his weakness. His shoulders were thin, and his neck was as round as Martine's. Master Silvain used to say that he was the living portrait of their mother.

I had never seen Eugene angry. He hummed songs all day long. In the evening he used to come back from the fields sitting sideways on one of the oxen, and he nearly always sang the same song. It was the story of a soldier, who went back to the war after he had learned that the girl he had been engaged to marry had married another man. He used to dwell on the refrain, which finished like this—

And when a bullet comes and takes Away my precious life, You'll know I died because you were Another fellow's wife.[1]

Pauline always used to treat Eugene with much respect. She could never understand my freedom with him. The first evening that she saw me sitting next to him on the bench outside the door she made signs to me to come in. But Eugene called me back, saying, "Come and listen to the wood owl." We often used to be sitting on the bench, still, when everybody had gone to bed. The wood owl came quite near to an old elm tree which was by the door, and we used to think that it was saying "good night" to us. Then it would fly away, its great wings passing over us in silence. Sometimes a voice would sing on the hillside. I used to tremble when I heard it. The full voice coming out of the night reminded me of Colette. Eugene would get up to go in when the voice stopped singing, but I always used to stop, hoping to hear it again. Then he would say, "Come along in: it is all over."

[1] Quand par un tour de maladresse Un boulet m'emportera Allons adieu chere maitresse Je m'en vais dans les combats.



And now that the winter was with us again, and we could no longer sit on the bench by the door, there seemed to be a sort of secret understanding between us. Whenever he was making fun of anybody, his queer little eyes used to look for mine, and whenever he gave an opinion he used to turn to me as though he expected me to approve or disapprove. It seemed to me that I had always known him, and deep down in my thoughts I used to call him my big brother. He was always asking Pauline if she was pleased with me. Pauline said that there was no need to tell him the same thing, over and over again. The only thing she reproached me with was that I had no system in my work. She used to say that I was just as likely to begin at the end of it as at the beginning. I had not forgotten Sister Marie-Aimee, but I was no longer as sick with longing for her as I used to be. And I was happy on the farm.



In the month of June the men came, as they came every year, to shear the sheep. They brought bad news with them. All over the country the sheep were falling ill as soon as they had been shorn, and numbers of them were dying. Master Silvain took his precautions, but in spite of all he could do, a hundred of the sheep fell sick. A doctor said that by bathing them in the river a good many of them might be saved. So the farmer got into the water up to his middle, and dipped the sheep in one by one. He was red hot, and the perspiration rolled down his forehead and fell in great drops into the river. That evening when he went to bed he was feverish, and next day he died of inflammation of the lungs. Pauline could not believe in her misfortune, and Eugene wandered about the stables and the outhouses with frightened eyes.



Soon after the farmer's death, the landlord of the farm came to see us. He was a little dry stick of a man, who never kept still for a minute, and if he did stand still he always seemed to be dancing on one foot. His face was clean-shaven, and his name was M. Tirande. He came into the living-room where I was sitting with Pauline. He walked round the room with his shoulders hunched up. Then he said, pointing to the baby, "Take him away. I want a talk with the goodwife." I went out into the yard, and managed to pass the window as often as I could. Pauline had not moved from her chair. Her hands lay on her knees, and she was bending her head forward as though she were trying to understand something very difficult. M. Tirande was talking without looking at her. He kept walking from the fireplace to the door and back again, and the noise of his heels on the tiled floor got mixed up with his broken little voice. He came out again as fast as he had come in, and I went and asked Pauline what he had said. She took the baby in her arms and, crying as she told me, she said that M. Tirande was going to take the farm away from her and give it to his son, who had just got married.

At the end of the week M. Tirande came back with his son and his daughter-in-law. They visited the outhouses first, and when they came into the house, M. Tirande stopped in front of me a minute, and told me that his daughter-in-law had made up her mind to take me into her service. Pauline heard him say so, and made a step towards me. But just then Eugene came in with a lot of papers in his hand, and everybody sat down round the table. While they were all reading the papers and signing, I looked at M. Tirande's daughter-in-law. She was a big, dark woman with large eyes and a bored look. She left the farm with her husband without having glanced at me once. When their cart had disappeared down the avenue of chestnut trees, Pauline told Eugene what M. Tirande had said to me. Eugene, who was leaving the room, turned to me suddenly. He looked very angry, and his voice was quite changed. He said that these people were disposing of me as though I were a bit of furniture which belonged to them. While Pauline was pitying me, Eugene told me that it was M. Tirande who had told Master Silvain to take me on the farm. He reminded Pauline how sorry the farmer had been because I was such a weakling, and he told me that he was very sorry not to be able to take me with them to their new farm. We were all three standing in the living-room. I could feel Pauline's sad eyes on my head, and Eugene's voice made me think of a hymn. Pauline was to leave the farm at the end of the summer.

I worked hard every day to put the linen in order. I didn't want Pauline to take away a single piece of torn linen with her, I worked hard with my darning-needle, as Bonne Justine had taught me, and I folded every piece as well as I could.

In the evening I found Eugene sitting on the bench by the door. The moon was shining on the roofs of the sheep-pens, and there was a white cloud over the dung-heap which looked like a tulle veil. There was no sound whatever from the cow-house. All that we heard was the squeaking of the cradle which Pauline was rocking to put her child to sleep.

As soon as the corn had been got in, Eugene began getting ready to go. The cowherd took away the cattle, and old Bibiche went off in the cart with all the birds of the poultry-yard. In a few days nothing was left at the farm but the two white oxen, which Eugene would trust to nobody but himself. He fastened them to the cart which was to take Pauline and her child. The little fellow was fast asleep in a basket full of straw, and Eugene put him into the cart without waking him up. Pauline covered him with her shawl, made the sign of the cross towards the house, took up the reins, and the cart went slowly off under the chestnut trees.

I wanted to go with them as far as the high-road, and I followed the cart, walking behind the oxen, between Eugene and Martine. None of us spoke. Every now and then Eugene gave the oxen a friendly pat. We were quite a long way on the road when Pauline saw that the sun was setting. She stopped the horse, and, when I had climbed on to the step to kiss her good-bye, she said sadly, "God be with you, my girl. Behave well." Then her voice filled with tears, and she added, "If my poor husband were living he would never have given you up." Martine kissed me, and smiled. "We may see one another again," she said. Eugene took his hat off. He held my hand in his for a long time, and said slowly, "Good-bye, dear little friend. I shall always remember you."

I walked a little way back, and turned round to see them again, and, although it was getting dark, I saw that Eugene and Martine were walking hand in hand.



PART III

The new farmers came next day. The farm hands and the serving women had come early in the morning, and when the masters arrived in the evening I knew that they were called Monsieur and Madame Alphonse. M. Tirande remained at Villevieille for two days, and went off after reminding me that I was in his daughter-in-law's service now, and that I should have to do no more outside work on the farm.



The very first week she was there Madame Alphonse had had Eugene's room turned into a linen-room, and she had set me to work at a big table on which were a number of pieces of linen which I was to make into sheets and other things. She came and sat down next to me, and worked at making lace. She would remain for whole days at a time without saying a word. Sometimes she talked to me about the linen presses which her mother had, full of all kinds of linen.

Her voice had no ring to it, and she scarcely moved her lips when she spoke. M. Tirande seemed very fond of his daughter-in-law. Every time he came he always asked her what she would like him to give her. She cared for nothing but linen, and he went off saying that he would get her some more.

M. Alphonse never appeared at all except at meal times. I should have found it very difficult to say what he did with his time. His face reminded me of the Mother Superior's face somehow. Like her, he had a yellow skin and his eyes glittered. He looked as though he carried a brazier inside him which might burn him up at any minute. He was very pious, and every Sunday he and Madame Alphonse went to mass in the village where M. Tirande lived. At first they wanted to take me in their cart, but I refused. I preferred going to Sainte Montagne, where I always hoped to meet Pauline or Eugene. Sometimes one of the farm hands came with me, but more often I would go alone by a little cross road, which made the way much shorter. It was a steep and stony bit of road which ran uphill through the broom. On the very top of it I always used to stop in front of Jean le Rouge's house. This house was low-roofed and spreading. The walls were as black as the thatch which covered it, and it was quite easy to pass by the house without seeing it at all, for the broom grew so high all round it. I used to go in for a chat with Jean le Rouge, whom I had known ever since I had been at Villevieille farm. He had always worked for Master Silvain, who thought very highly of him. Eugene used to say of him that one could set him to anything, and that whatever he did he did well.



Now M. Alphonse refused to employ him any more. He spoke of sending him away from the house on the hill. Jean le Rouge was so upset by the idea that he could talk of nothing else.

Directly after mass I used to go home by the same road. Jean's children would crowd round me to get the blessed bread, which I brought out of church for them. There were six of them, and the eldest was not yet twelve years old. There was hardly one mouthful of my blessed bread, so I used to give it to Jean's wife to divide up and give to the children in equal shares. While she was doing this, Jean le Rouge would set a stool for me in front of the fire and would seat himself on a log of wood, which he would roll to the fireplace with his foot. His wife put some twigs on the fire with a pair of heavy pincers, and as we sat and talked we watched the big yellow potatoes cooking in the pot which hung from a hook in the fireplace.

On the very first Sunday Jean le Rouge had told me that he, too, was a foundling. And little by little he had told me that when he was twelve he had been put to work with a woodcutter who used to live in the house on the hill. He had very soon learned how to climb up the trees to fasten a rope to the top branches so as to pull them over. When the day's work was done and he had his faggot of wood on his back, he would go on ahead so as to get to the house first. And there he used to find the woodcutter's little daughter cooking the soup for supper. She was of the same age as he was, and they had become the best of friends at once.

Then, one Christmas Eve, came the misfortune. The old woodcutter, who thought that the children were fast asleep, went off to midnight mass. But directly he had gone they got up. They wanted to prepare midnight supper for the old man's return, and they danced with glee at the surprise they were getting ready for him. While the little girl was cooking the chestnuts and putting the pot of honey and the jug of cider on the table, Jean le Rouge heaped great logs on to the fire. Time went on, the chestnuts were cooked, and the woodcutter had not yet come home. It seemed a long time. The children sat down on the floor in front of the fire to keep themselves warm, leaned up against one another, and fell asleep. Jean woke up at the little girl's screams. He could not understand at first why she was throwing her arms about and shrieking at the fire. He jumped to his feet to run away from her, and then he saw that she was ablaze. She had opened the door to the garden, and as she ran out she lit the trees up. Then Jean had caught hold of her and thrown her into the little well. The water had put the flames out, but when Jean tried to pull her out of the well he found her so heavy that he thought she must be dead. She made no movement, and it took him a long time to get her out. At last, when he did get her out, he had to drag her along like a bundle of sticks back to the house.

The logs had become great red embers. Only the biggest one, which was wet, went on smoking and crackling. The little girl's face was all bloated, and was black with violet veins in it. Her body, which was half naked, was covered with big red burns.

She was ill for many months, and when at last they thought she was cured, they found out that she had become dumb. She could hear perfectly well, she could even laugh like everybody else, but it was quite impossible for her to speak a single word.

While Jean le Rouge was telling me these things his wife used to look at him and move her eyes as if she were reading a book. Her face still bore deep burn marks, but one soon got accustomed to it, and remembered nothing of her face but the mouth with its white teeth, and her eyes, which were never still. She used to call her children with a long, low cry, and they came running up, and always understood all the signs she made to them. I was so sorry that they had to leave the house on the hill. They were the last friends I had left, and I thought of telling Madame Alphonse about them, hoping that she might get her husband to keep them on. I found an opportunity one day, when M. Tirande and his son had come into the linen-room talking about the changes they were going to make at the farm. M. Alphonse said he didn't want any cattle. He spoke of buying machinery, cutting down the pine trees and clearing the hillside. The stables would do for sheds for the machines, and he would use the house on the hill to store fodder in. I don't know whether Madame Alphonse was listening. She went on making lace, and seemed to be giving her full attention to it. As soon as the two men had gone I plucked up courage to talk of Jean le Rouge. I told her how useful he had been to Master Silvain. I told her how sorry he was to leave the house in which he had lived for so long, and when I stopped, trembling for the answer which was coming, Madame Alphonse took her needles out of the thread. "I believe I have made a mistake," she said. She counted up to nineteen, and said again, "What a nuisance it is. I shall have to undo a whole row." When I told Jean le Rouge about this, he was angry, and shook his fist at Villevieille. His wife put her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, and he was quiet at once.

Jean le Rouge left the house on the hill at the end of January, and I was very sad.



I had no friends left now. I hardly recognized the farm any more. All these new people had made themselves quite at home there, and I seemed to myself to be a new-comer. The serving-woman looked at me with distrust, and the ploughman avoided talking to me. The servant's name was Adele. All day long you could hear her grumbling and dragging her wooden shoes after her as she walked. She made a noise even when she was walking on straw. She used to eat her meals standing, and answer her master and mistress quite rudely.

M. Alphonse had taken away the bench which was by the door, and had put up little green bushes with trellis-work round them. He cut down the old elm tree, too, to which the wood owl used to come on summer evenings.

Of course the old tree had not shaded the house for a long time. It only had one tuft of leaves right up on the top. It looked like a head which bent over to listen to what people underneath were saying. The woodcutters who came to cut it down said that it would not be an easy thing to do. They said there was some danger that when it fell it would crash through the roof of the house.

At last, after a lot of talk, they decided to rope it round and pull it over so that it fell on to the dung-heap. It took two men all day to cut it down, and just when we thought that it was going to drop nicely, one of the ropes worked loose, and the old elm jumped and fell to one side. It slipped down the roof, knocking down a chimney and a large number of tiles, bumped a piece out of the wall, and fell right across the door. Not one of its branches touched the dung-heap. M. Alphonse yelled with rage. He laid hold of the axe belonging to one of the woodcutters, and struck the tree so violent a blow that a piece of bark flew against the linen-room window and broke a pane.

Madame Alphonse saw the bits of glass fall on me. She jumped up in more excitement than I had ever seen her show, and with trembling hands and fearful eyes she examined closely every bit of the table-cloth which I was embroidering. But she did not see me wiping away the blood from my cheek, which had been cut by a bit of glass. She was so afraid that something might happen to the piles of linen which were beginning to grow that she took me off next day to her mother's to show me how the linen should be put into the closets.



Madame Alphonse's mother was called Madame Deslois, but when the ploughmen talked about her they always said "the good woman of the castle." She had only been to Villevieille once. She had come close up to me and looked at me with her eyes half shut. She was a big woman who walked bent double as if she were looking for something on the ground. She lived in a big house called the Lost Ford.

Madame Alphonse took me along by a path near a little river. It was the end of March, and the meadows were already in flower. Madame Alphonse walked straight along the path, but I got a lot of pleasure out of walking in the soft grass.

We soon came to the wood where the wolf had taken my lamb. I had always had a mysterious fear of this wood, and when we left the path by the river to go through it I shook with fear. And yet the road was a broad one. It must even have been a carriage road, for there were deep ruts in it.

Above our heads heaps of pine needles tickled one another and rustled. They made a gentle noise, not a bit like the whispering, with silences in between, which I used to hear in the forest when the snow was on it. But in spite of all I could not help looking behind me. We didn't walk very far through the wood. The road turned to the left and we got to the courtyard of the Lost Ford immediately. The little river ran behind the stables as it did at Villevieille, but here the meadows were quite close together, and the buildings looked as though they were trying to hide among the sapling pines. The living house didn't look anything like the farms thereabouts. The ground floor was built of very thick old walls, and the first floor looked as though it had been put on top of them as a makeshift. The house did not look a bit like a castle to me. It made me think of an old tree trunk out of which a baby tree had sprouted, and sprouted badly.

Madame Deslois came to the door when she heard us arrive. She winked her little eyes as she looked at me and said at once in a loud voice that she had dropped a halfpenny in the straw, and that it was very funny that nobody had found it, as it had been lost for a week. While she spoke she moved her foot about and stirred the straw which was in front of the door. Madame Alphonse cannot have heard her. Her big eyes were staring into the house, and she was almost excited when she said why we had come. Madame Deslois said that she would take me to the linen-room herself. She put the keys into the locks of the cupboards, and after having told me to be very careful, and to disarrange nothing, she left me alone.

It didn't take me long to open and close the great shining cupboards. I should have liked to go away at once. This big cold linen-room frightened me like a prison. My feet sounded on the tiles as though there were deep vaults underneath them. All of a sudden it seemed to me that I should never get out of this linen-room again. I listened to see whether I could hear any animals stirring, but I only heard Madame Deslois' voice. It was a rough, strong voice which went right through the walls, and could be heard everywhere. I was going to the window so as to feel a little less lonely, when a door which I had not noticed suddenly opened behind me. I turned round and saw a young man come in. He wore a long white smock and a grey cap. He stood standing as though he were surprised to see anybody there, and I went on looking at him without being able to take my eyes away. He walked right across the linen-room, and he and I stared and stared at one another. Then he went out, banging himself against the woodwork of the door. A moment afterwards he passed by the window and our eyes met again. I felt quite uncomfortable, and without knowing why, I went and shut the doors which he had left open.

Presently Madame Alphonse came and fetched me, and I went back to Villevieille with her.

Since M. Alphonse had taken Pauline's place I had got into the habit of going and sitting in a bush which had grown into the shape of a chair. It was in the middle of a shrubbery not far from the farm. Now that spring was beginning I used to go and sit there when the ploughmen were smoking their pipes at the stable doors. I used to sit there listening to the little noises of the evening, and I longed to be like the trees. That evening I thought of the man I had seen at Lost Ford. But every time I tried to remember the exact colour of his eyes they pierced into my own eyes so that they seemed to be lighting me all up inside.



The next Sunday was Easter Sunday. Adele had gone to mass in M. Alphonse's cart. I remained alone, with one of the ploughmen, to look after the farm. After luncheon the ploughman went to sleep on a heap of straw in front of the door, and I went to my shrubbery to spend the afternoon. I tried to hear the bells ringing, but the farm was too far from the villages round, and I could hear none of them.

I began to think about Sister Marie-Aimee, and my thoughts went back to Sophie, who used to come and wake me up every year so that I should hear all the bells ringing in Easter together. One year she didn't wake up. She was so upset at that, that next year she put a big stone in her mouth to keep herself from sleeping. Every time she nodded off her teeth met on the stone, and she woke up.

I sat and thought about High Mass where Colette used to sing in her beautiful voice, and I could see our afternoon on the lawn, and Sister Marie-Aimee busy with the special dinner which they gave us on feast days. And that evening when dinner-time came I should see, instead of sister Marie-Aimee's sweet loving face, Madame Alphonse's hard face and her husband's glittering eyes, which frightened me so. And as I sat and thought how long I should still have to stay on the farm I felt deeply discouraged.

When I was tired of crying I saw with astonishment that the sun was quite low. Through the branches of my shrubbery I watched the long thin shadows of the poplar trees growing longer than ever on the grass, and quite close to me I saw a long shadow which was moving. It came forward, then stopped, and then came forward again. I understood at once that somebody was going to pass my hiding-place, and almost immediately the man in the white smock walked into the shrubbery, stooping to get out of the way of the branches. I felt cold all over. I soon got control of myself, but I could not help trembling nervously. He remained standing in front of me without saying a word. I sat and looked at his eyes, which were very gentle, and I began to feel warm again. I noticed that, as Eugene used to, he wore a coloured shirt and a cravat tied under the collar, and when he spoke it seemed to me that I had known his voice for a long time. He leaned against a big branch opposite me, and asked me if I had no relations. I said "No." His eye ran along the branch covered with young shoots, and without looking at me he said again, "Then you are all alone in the world." I answered quickly, "Oh no, I have Sister Marie-Aimee!" And without leaving him time to ask any more questions I told him how I had longed for her, and how impatiently I was waiting and hoping to see her again. Talking about her made me so happy that I could not stop talking. I told him of her beauty and of her intelligence, which seemed to me to be above everything in the world. I told him, too, how sorry she had been when I went away, and of the joy that I knew she would feel when she saw me come back.

While I talked his eyes were fixed on my face, but they seemed to look much further. After a silence he asked again, "Have you no friends here?" "No," I said; "all those whom I loved have gone;" and I added rather angrily, "They have even turned out Jean le Rouge." "And yet," he said, "Madame Alphonse is not unkind?" I told him that she was neither unkind, nor kind, and that I should leave her without any regret.

Then we heard the sound of M. Alphonse's cart-wheels, and I got up to go. He stood aside a little to let me pass him, and I left him alone in the shrubbery.

That evening I took advantage of the unusually good humour of Adele to ask her if she knew any of the ploughmen at the Lost Ford. She said she only knew some of the old ones, for since Madame Deslois had been a widow the new ones never stayed with her. A sort of fear which I could not have explained kept me from mentioning the young man in the white smock, and Adele added with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her eldest son has come back from Paris. The farm hands will be happier."

Next day, while Madame Alphonse was working at her lace, I sewed and thought about the ploughman in the white smock. I could not in my mind help comparing him to Eugene. He spoke like Eugene did, and they seemed like one another somehow.

That evening I thought I saw him near the stables, and a moment later he came into the linen-room. His eyes just glanced at me and then he looked straight at Madame Alphonse. He held his head high and the left side of his mouth drooped a little. Madame Alphonse said, in a happy voice, when she saw him, "Why, there's Henri!" and she let him kiss her on both cheeks, and told him to bring a chair up next to her. But he sat sideways on the table, pushing the linen to one side. Adele came into the room, and Madame Alphonse said, "If you see my husband, tell him that my brother is here."

It was some minutes before I understood. Then I realized suddenly that the young man in the white smock was Madame Deslois's eldest son. A sense of shame which I had never felt before made me blush fiercely, and I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about Sister Marie-Aimee. I felt that I had thrown the thing that I loved best to the winds, and do what I could, I could not keep back two big tears which tickled the corners of my mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was hemming. Henri Deslois remained sitting on the corner of the table for a long time. I could feel that he was looking at me, and his eyes were like a heavy weight which prevented me from lifting up my head.



Two days afterwards I found him in the shrubbery. When I saw him sitting there my legs felt weak under me, and I stood still. He got up at once so that I should sit down; but I remained standing and looking at him. He had the same gentleness in his eyes that I had noticed the first time, and, as if he expected me to tell him another story, "Have you nothing to tell me this evening?" he asked. Words danced across my brain, but they did not seem to be worth speaking, and I shook my head to say no. He said, "I was your friend the other day." Recollection of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I only said, "You are Madame Alphonse's brother." I left him and did not dare to go back to the shrubbery again. He often came back to Villevieille. I never used to look at him, but his voice always made me feel very uncomfortable.



Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time after mass. Every Sunday I used to pass the house on the hill. Sometimes I would look in through the gaps in the shutters, and when, as I sometimes did, I bumped my head, the noise it made used to frighten me. One Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on the door. I put my finger on the latch and the door fell open with a loud noise. I had not expected it to open so quickly, and I stood there longing to shut it and go away. Then as there was no more noise, and as the sun had streamed into the house making a big square of light, I made up my mind to go in, and went in, leaving the door open. The big fireplace was empty. There was no hook, there was no pot, and the big andirons had gone. The only things left in the room were the logs of wood which Jean le Rouge's children used to use as stools. The bark was worn off them, and the tops of them were polished, as if with wax, from the children sitting on them.

The second room was quite empty. There were no tiles on the floor, and the feet of the beds had made little holes in the beaten earth. There was no lock to the other door either, and I went out into the garden. There were a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and the fruit trees were all in flower. Most of them were very old. Some of them looked like hunchbacks, and their branches bent towards the ground, as though they found that even the flowers were too heavy for them to carry. At the bottom of the garden the hill ran down to an immense plain where the cattle used to graze, and right at the end a row of poplars made a sort of barrier which kept the sky out of the meadow land. Little by little I recognized one place after another. There was a little river at the bottom of the hill. I could not see the water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side to let it pass. The river disappeared behind the buildings of Villevieille farm. There the roofs were of the same colour as the chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them. Here and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees. Then it plunged into the great pine wood, which looked quite black, in which the Lost Ford was hidden. That was the road I had taken with Madame Alphonse, when we went to her mother's house. Her brother must have come that way that day when he found me in the shrubbery. There was nobody on the road today. Everything was tender green, and I could see no white smock among the clumps of trees. I tried to see the shrubbery but the farm hid it. Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several times since Easter. I could not have told how I knew that he was there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking round that way.

Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there alone. He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me. I had looked at him as I had done the first time, and he went away without saying anything. And now that I was in the open garden surrounded by broom in flower I longed to be able to live there always. There was a big apple tree leaning over me, dipping the end of its branches in the spring. The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks over the beds. This garden of flowers and clear water seemed to me to be the most beautiful garden in the world. And when I turned my head towards the house, which stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect extraordinary people to come out of it. The house seemed full of mystery to me. Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made when he stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille.

I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds. I began to imagine that I was a little tree, and that the wind stirred me as it liked. The same fresh breeze which made the broom rock passed over my head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like the other trees did I stooped down and dipped my fingers in the clear waters of the spring.

Another sound made me look at the house again, and I was not in the least surprised when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed in the doorway. His head was bare, and his arms were swinging. He stepped out into the garden and looked far off into the plain. His hair was parted on the side, and was a little thin at the temples. He remained perfectly still for a long minute, then he turned to me. There were only two trees between us. He took a step forward, took hold of the young tree in front of him with one hand, and the branches in flower made a bouquet over his head. It grew so light that I thought the bark of the trees was glittering, and every flower was shining. And in Henri Deslois's eyes there was so deep a gentleness that I went to him without any shame. He didn't move when I stopped in front of him. His face became whiter than his smock, and his lips quivered. He took my two hands and pressed them hard against his temples. Then he said very low, "I am like a miser who has found his treasure again." At that moment the bell of Sainte Montagne Church began to ring. The sound of the bell ran up the hillsides, and after resting over our heads for a moment ran on and died away in the distance.

The hours passed, the day grew older, and the cattle disappeared from the plain. A white mist rose from the little river, then a stone slipped behind the barrier of poplar trees, and the broom flowers began to grow darker. Henri Deslois went back towards the farm with me. He walked in front of me on the narrow path, and when he left me just before we came to the avenue of chestnut trees I knew that I loved him even more than Sister Marie-Aimee.

The house on the hill became our house. Every Sunday I found Henri Deslois waiting there, and as I used to do when Jean le Rouge lived there, I took my blessed bread to the house on the hill after mass and we used to laugh as we divided it.

We both had the same kind of feeling of liberty which made us run races round the garden and wet our shoes in the brooklets from the spring. Henri Deslois used to say, "On Sundays I, too, am seventeen years old." Sometimes we would go for long walks in the woods which skirted the hill. Henri Deslois was never tired of hearing me talk about my childhood, and Sister Marie-Aimee. Sometimes we talked about Eugene, whom he knew. He used to say that he was one of those men whom one liked to have for a friend. I told him what a bad shepherdess I had been, and although I felt sure he would laugh at me, I told him the story of the sheep which was all swollen up. He didn't laugh. He put a finger on my forehead and said, "Love is the only thing that will cure that."



One day we stopped near an immense field of corn. It was so big that we could not see the end of it. Thousands of white butterflies were floating about over the corn ears. Henri Deslois didn't speak, and I watched the ears of corn which were stooping and stretching as though they were getting ready to fly. It looked as though the butterflies were bringing them wings to help them, but it was no good for the corn ears to get excited. They could not get away from the ground. I told my idea to Henri Deslois, who looked at the corn for a long time, and then, as though he were speaking to himself, and dragging the words out, he said, "It is much the same kind of thing with a man. Sometimes a woman comes to him. She looks like the white butterflies of the plain. He doesn't know whether she comes up from the earth or whether she comes down from the sky. He feels that with her he could live on the wind which passes, and the fresh young flowers. But like the root which holds the corn to earth a mysterious bond holds him to his duty, which is as strong as the earth." I thought that his voice had an accent of suffering, and that the corners of his mouth drooped more than usual. But almost immediately his eyes looked into mine, and he said in a stronger voice, "We must have confidence in ourselves."



Summer passed and the autumn, and in spite of the bad weather of December we could not make up our minds to leave the house on the hill. Henri Deslois used to bring books with him which we would read, sitting on the logs of wood in the back room which looked into the garden. I went back to the farm at nightfall, and Adele, who thought I was spending my time dancing in the village, was always surprised that I looked so sad.

Almost every day Henri Deslois came to Villevieille. I could hear him from a long way off. He rode a great white mare which trotted heavily, and he rode her without saddle or bridle. She was a patient and a gentle brute. Her master used to let her run loose in the yard while he went in to say "good day," to Madame Alphonse. As soon as M. Alphonse heard him he would come into the linen-room. The two of them would speak of improvements on the farm or about people whom they knew. But there was always a word or a sentence in their conversation which came straight to me from Henri Deslois. I often used to catch M. Alphonse looking at me, and I could not always keep from blushing.

One afternoon as Henri Deslois came in to the room smiling, M. Alphonse said, "You know I have sold the house on the hill." The two men looked at one another. They both grew so pale that I was afraid they were going to die where they stood. Then M. Alphonse got out of his chair and stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Henri Deslois went to the door and tried to close it. Madame Alphonse put her lace down on her knee and said, as though she were repeating a lesson, "The house was of no particular good, and I am very pleased that it has been sold." Henri Deslois came and stood by the table, so close to me that he could have touched me. He said in a voice that was not quite firm, "I am sorry you have sold it without having mentioned it to me, for I intended to buy it." M. Alphonse wriggled like an earthworm. He made a great effort to laugh out loud, and as he laughed he said, "You would have bought it? What would you have done with it?" Henri Deslois put his hand on the back of my chair and answered, "I would have lived in it as Jean le Rouge did." M. Alphonse walked up and down in front of the chimney. His face had changed into a yellow earthy colour. His hands were in his trouser pockets, and he picked up his feet so quickly that it looked as though he were pulling at them with a cord which he held in each hand. Then he came and leaned on the table opposite us, and looking at us one after the other with his glittering eyes, he bent forward and said, "Well, I have sold it now, so it is all over." During the silence which followed we could hear the white mare pawing the ground with her shoe as though she were calling her master. Henri Deslois went towards the door. Then he came back to me and picked up my work which had fallen from my hands without my having noticed it. He kissed his sister, and before he went, he said, looking at me, "I shall see you to-morrow."



Next morning Madame Deslois came into the linen-room. She came straight to me, and was very rude. But M. Alphonse told her to be quiet, and, turning to me, he said, "Madame Alphonse has asked me to tell you that she would like to keep you in her service. But she wants you in future to come to mass with us." He tried to smile, and added, "We will drive you there and back." It was the first time that he had ever spoken directly to me. His voice was rather husky, as though he felt some awkwardness in saying these things to me. I don't know what made me think that he was lying, and that Madame Alphonse had not said anything of the kind. Besides, he looked so much like the Mother Superior that I could not help defying him. I told him that I didn't care about driving, and that I should go to mass at Sainte Montagne as before. He sucked in his lower lip and began biting it. Then Madame Deslois stepped forward threateningly, and told me that I was insolent. She kept on repeating this word as though she could not find any others. She shouted it more and more loudly, and lost all control of herself. The white of her eyes was becoming quite red, and she raised her hand to strike me. I stepped back quickly behind my chair. Madame Deslois bumped into the chair and knocked it over, and caught at the table so as not to fall down. Her harsh voice terrified me. I wanted to leave the linen-room, but M. Alphonse had placed himself in front of the door, and I came back into the room and faced Madame Deslois across the table. She began to speak again in a strangled sort of voice. She used words which I didn't understand, but there was something about what she said and the way in which she said it which I hated. At last she stopped speaking, and shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't forget that I am his mother."

M. Alphonse came towards me. He took hold of my arm and said, "Come, now, listen to me." I shook myself loose, pushed him away and ran out of the house. The last words that Madame Deslois had said hammered on my brain as though they really were a hammer with one end of it pointed. "I am his mother, do you hear?—his mother." Oh, mother Marie-Aimee, how beautiful you were when compared to this other mother, and how I loved you! How your many-coloured eyes beamed and lit up your black dress, and how pure your face was under your white cap! I could see you as clearly as though you were really in front of me.



I was quite astonished to find myself in front of the house on the hill, and when I got there I saw that snow was falling in a regular hurricane. I went into the house for shelter, and went straight into the room which looked out on the garden. I tried to think, but my ideas whirled round in my head like the snow-flakes, which looked as though they were climbing up from the ground and falling from the sky at the same time. And every time that I made an effort to think, the only things I could think of were little bits of a song which the children used to sing in the convent, and which ran—

The old girl jumped and jumped about And jumped until she died. The old girl jumped and jumped about And jumped until she died.[1]

I felt less unhappy in this silent house. The softly falling snow was pretty, and the trees were as beautiful as on that day when I had seen them all in bloom. Then suddenly I remembered, quite clearly all that had just happened. I saw Madame Deslois's hand with its square fingers, and shivered all over. What an ugly hand it was, and what a large one! Then I remembered the expression on M. Alphonse's face when he took hold of my arm, and I remembered as I thought of it that I had seen the same expression once before on a little girl's face. It was one day when I had picked up a pear which had fallen from the tree. She had rushed at me, saying, "Give me half of it, and I won't tell."

I felt so disgusted at the idea of sharing it with her that, although Sister Marie-Aimee might have seen me, I had gone back to the tree and put the pear down where it had fallen.

Thinking of all these things, I longed and longed to see Sister Marie-Aimee again. I should have liked to have gone to her at once, but I remembered that Henri Deslois had said as he went, "I shall see you to-morrow." Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting for me, and wondering what had become of me. I went out of the house to run back to Villevieille. I had only gone a few steps when I saw him coming up. The white mare didn't find it very easy to climb the snow-covered path. Henri Deslois was bareheaded, as he had been the first time he came. His smock billowed out with the wind, and he had a hand on the mane of the mare. The mare stood in front of me. Her master leaned down and took my two hands which I held up to him. There was on his face a look of worry which I had never seen before. I noticed, too, that his eyebrows met, like those of Madame Deslois. He was a little out of breath, and said, "I knew that I should find you here." He opened his mouth again, and I felt quite certain that his words were going to bring me happiness. He held my hands tighter, and said in the same breathless voice as before, "I can no longer be your friend." I thought that somebody had struck me a violent blow on the head. There was a noise of a saw in my ears. I could see Henri Deslois trembling, and I heard him say, "How cold I am!" Then I no longer felt the warmth of his hand on mine. And when I realized that I was standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing but a great white shape which was slipping noiselessly across the snow.

[1] On a tant fait sauter la vieille, Qu'elle est morte en sautillant, Tireli, Sautons, sautons, la vieille!



I went slowly down the other side of the hill, walking in the snow, which squeaked under my feet. About half-way a peasant offered me a lift in his cart. He was going to town too, and it was not long before we got to the Orphanage. I rang the bell, and the porteress looked out at me through the peephole. I recognized her. It was "Ox Eye" still. We had named her Ox Eye because her eyes were big and round like a daisy. She opened the gate when she recognized me, and told me to come in; but before she shut the gate behind me she said, "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here." I didn't answer, so she said again, "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here." I heard what she said quite well, but I didn't pay any attention to it. It was like a dream where the most extraordinary things happen without seeming to be of any importance at all. I looked at her great big eyes and said, "I have come back." She closed the gate behind me and left me standing under the eaves of her little house in the gateway, while she went to tell the Mother Superior. She came back, saying that the Mother Superior wanted to speak to Sister Desiree-des-Anges before she saw me.

A bell rang. Ox Eye got up and told me to go with her. It was snowing again. It was almost dark in the Mother Superior's room. At first I saw nothing but the fire, which was whistling and flaming. Then I heard the Mother Superior's voice. "So you have come back?" she said. I tried to think steadily, but I was not quite sure whether I had come back or not. She said, "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here." I thought that my bad dream was coming on again, and coughed to try and wake myself. Then I looked at the fire and tried to find out why it whistled like that. The Mother Superior spoke again. "Are you ill?" she said. I answered "No." The heat did me good, and I felt better. I was beginning to understand at last that I had come back to the Orphanage, and that I was in the Mother Superior's room. My eyes met hers, and I remembered everything. She laughed a little, and said, "You have not changed much. How old are you now?"

I told her that I was eighteen years old. "Really," she said. "Going out into the world has not made you grow much." She leaned one elbow on the table, and asked me why I had come back. I wanted to tell her that I had come back to see Sister Marie-Aimee, but I was afraid of hearing her say once more that Sister Marie-Aimee was not there, and I remained silent. She opened a drawer, took out a letter, which she covered with her open hand, and said in the weary voice of a person who has been bothered unnecessarily, "This letter had already told me that you had become a bold, proud girl." She pushed the letter from her as though she were tired, and in a long breath she said, "You can work in the kitchen here until we find you something else to do." The fire went on whistling. I went on looking at it, but I could not make out which of the three logs was making the noise. The Mother Superior raised her monotonous voice to draw my attention. She warned me that Sister Desiree-des-Anges would watch me very closely, and that I should not be allowed to talk to my former companions. I saw her point to the door, and I went out into the snow.

At the other side of the yard I could see the kitchens. Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the door. I could see nothing of her but her cap and her black dress, and I imagined her to be old and withered. I thought of running away. I need only run to the gate and tell Ox Eye that I had come on a visit. She would let me out, and that would be all.

Instead of going to the gate I went towards the buildings where I had lived when I was a child. I didn't know why I went there, but I could not help it. I felt very tired, and I should have liked to lie down and sleep for a long time.

The old bench was in the same place. I wiped some of the snow off it with my hands, and sat down leaning against the linden tree as M. le Cure used to do. I was waiting for something, and I didn't know what. I looked up at the window of Sister Marie-Aimee's room. The pretty embroidered curtains were no longer there, and although the window was just like the other windows now, I thought it quite different. And though the thick calico curtains were the same in this room as in the others, they seemed to me to make that window look like a face with its eyes shut.

The yard began to get dark, and the lights lit up the rooms inside. I meant to get up from the bench, thinking, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me;" but my body felt crushed, and I seemed to have two broad, hard hands weighing heavily on my head. And, as though I had spoken them aloud, the words, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me," repeated themselves over and over again. All of a sudden a voice, with pity in it, said, quite close to me, "Please, Marie Claire, don't sit out here in the snow." I raised my head, and standing in front of me was a young, quite young, sister, whose face was so beautiful that I could not remember ever to have seen such a face before. She bent over me to help me up, and, as I could hardly stand upright, she put my arm under hers, and said, "Lean on me." Then I saw that she was taking me to the kitchen, the great glass door of which was bright with light. I didn't think of anything. The snow pricked my face, and my eyelids were burning. When I went into the kitchen, I recognized the two girls who were standing by the big square oven. They were Veronique the Minx, and Melanie the Plump, and I seemed to hear Sister Marie-Aimee talking to them by these names. Melanie nodded to me as I passed her, and leaning on the young sister's arm, I went into a room in which there was a night-light burning. The room was divided into two by a big white curtain. The young sister made me sit down on a chair, which she took from behind the curtain, and went out without saying a word. A little while afterwards Melanie the Plump and Veronique the Minx came in to put clean sheets on the little iron bed beside me. When they had finished, Veronique, who had not looked at me at all till then, turned to me and said that nobody had ever thought that I should come back. She said it as though she were reproaching me for something shameful. Melanie put her hands together under her chin, and put her head on one side, just as she used to do when she was a little girl. She smiled affectionately at me, and said, "I am very glad that you have been sent to the kitchen." Then she patted the bed, and said, "You are taking my place. I used to sleep here." She pointed to the curtain, and in a low voice she said, "This is where Sister Desiree-des-Anges sleeps." When they had gone out, closing the door behind them, I sat closer to the bed. The big white curtain made me feel uncomfortable. I thought I could see shadows moving in the folds which the night-light left in darkness. Then I heard the dinner-bell. I recognized it, and without knowing what I was doing I counted the strokes. Everything was quite still for some time, and then the young sister came into the room bringing me a bowl of steaming soup. She pulled the big curtain back and said, "This is your room, and that is mine." I felt quite reassured when I saw that her little iron bedstead was exactly the same as my own. I began to wonder whether she was Sister Desiree-des-Anges, but I dared not believe it, and asked her. She nodded "Yes," and drawing her chair close to mine, she put her face in the full light and said, "Don't you recognize me?" I looked at her without answering. No, I didn't recognize her. In fact, I was certain that I had never seen her; for I was certain that one could never forget her face if one had seen it once. She made a funny little grimace, and said, "I can see you don't remember poor Desiree Joly." Desiree Joly? Of course I remembered her. She was a girl who had become a novice. Her face was rosier than roses. She had a beautiful, slim figure, and used to laugh all day long. We all loved her. She used to jump about so when she played with us that Sister Marie-Aimee often used to say to her, "Come now, come now, not so high, please, Mademoiselle Joly! You are showing your knees!" Even now, when I was looking at her, I could not remember her. She said "Yes, the dress makes a lot of difference." She pulled up her sleeves; and making the same funny little face again, she said, "Forget that I am Sister Desiree-des-Anges, and remember that Desiree Joly used to be very fond of you." Then she went on quickly, "I recognized you at once," she said. "You still have the same baby face." When I told her I had imagined Sister Desiree-des-Anges to be old and cross, she answered, "We were both wrong. I had been told that you were vain and proud; but when I saw you crying in the middle of the snow, I thought only that you were suffering, and I went to you." When she had helped me to bed, she divided the room again with the curtain, and I went to sleep at once.

But I didn't sleep well. I woke up every minute. There was a heavy stone on my chest still, and when I managed to throw it off, it split up into several pieces, which fell back on me and crushed my limbs. Then I dreamed that I was on a road full of sharp pointed stones which cut me. I walked along it with difficulty. On both sides of the road there were fields, vines, and houses. All the houses were covered with snow, but the trees were laden with fruit, and were in bright sunshine. I left the road and went into the fields, stopping at all the trees to taste the fruit. But the fruit was bitter, and I threw it away. I tried to go into the snow-covered houses, but they had no doors. I went back on to the road and the stones gathered round me so fast that I could not go on. Then I called for help. I called as loud as I could, but nobody heard me. And when I felt I was going to be buried under a huge heap of stones, I struggled so hard to get away from them that I woke myself up. For a moment I thought I was still dreaming. The ceiling of the room seemed to be a tremendous height. The rod from which the white curtain was hanging glittered here and there, and the branch of boxwood which was nailed to the wall threw a shadow on the statue of the Virgin which was in the corner. Then a cock crowed. He crowed several times, as though he wanted to make me forget his first crow, which had stopped short, as if he were in pain. The night-light began to flicker. It flickered for a long time before it went out, and when the room was quite dark I heard Sister Desiree-des-Anges breathing gently and regularly.



Long before daybreak I got up to begin my work in the kitchen. Melanie showed me how to lift the big coppers. It was a matter of skill as well as of strength. It took me more than a week before I could even move one of them. Melanie taught me how to ring the heavy waking bell. She showed me how to put my shoulders into the work so as to pull the rope, and I soon got into the way of it. And every morning, whether it were cold or raining, I used to enjoy ringing the bell. It had a clear sound which the wind increased or lessened, and I never got tired of hearing it. There were days when I rang so long that Sister Desiree-des-Anges would open her window and would say pleadingly, "That'll do, that'll do."

Since I had come to the kitchen, Veronique the Minx used to look away from me when she spoke, and if I asked her where anything was, she would point to it without speaking. Sister Desiree-des-Anges used to watch her, and would curl her lip as she watched. She was not as quick-tempered as she used to be when she was a novice, but she was full of life still and full of fun. Every evening we used to meet in our room, and she would make me laugh at her remarks at what had been going on during the day. Sometimes my laughter ended in a sob. Then she used to put her hands together as the saints do in the pictures, raise her eyes and say, "Oh, how I wish that your sorrow would leave you." Then she would kneel on the ground and pray, and I often used to go to sleep before she got up again.

Work in the kitchen was very hard. I used to help Melanie polish up the coppers, and wash the tiled floors. She did most of the work herself. She was as strong as a man, and was always ready to help me. As soon as she found that I was tired, she used to force me to sit down on a chair, and would say smilingly, "Recreation time." A few days after I had arrived, she reminded me of the difficulties she used to have in learning her catechism.

She had not forgotten that during a whole season I had spent all my recreation time trying to teach her to learn it by heart. And now she delighted in making me rest.

Veronique's work was the preparation of the vegetables, and she also took the meat in from the butcher. She used to stand stiffly by the scales until the butcher's boys put the meat on. She was always grumbling at them, saying that the meat was cut too small or cut too big. The butcher boys used to get angry with her and were rude to her sometimes, and Sister Desiree-des-Anges told me at last to take the meat in instead of her. She came to the scales just the same next day; but I was there with Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who was telling me how to weigh the meat.



One morning one of the two butchers looked at me and spoke my name. Sister Desiree-des-Anges and I looked at the butcher boy in surprise. He was a new one, but I soon recognized him. He was the eldest son of Jean le Rouge. He was delighted to see me again, and told me that his parents had got a good place at the Lost Ford. He himself didn't care about working in the fields, and had found work with a butcher in the town. Then he told me that the Lost Ford was quite near Villevieille, and asked me if I knew it. I nodded my head to say that I did. He went on to say that his father and mother had been there for some months, and that there had been feasting there last week because Henri Deslois was married. I heard him say a few words more which I didn't understand. Then the daylight in the kitchen turned into black night, and I felt the tiles give way under my feet and drag me down into a bottomless hole. I remember Sister Desiree-des-Anges coming to help me, but an animal had fastened itself on my chest. It made a dreadful sound which it hurt me to hear. It was like a horrible sob which always stopped at the same place. Then the light came back again, and I could see above me the faces of Sister Desiree-des-Anges and Melanie. Both were smiling anxiously, and Melanie's broad, red face looked like Sister Desiree-des-Anges' pointed pale one. I sat up in bed, wondering why I was there by daylight, but I didn't get up. I remembered little Jean le Rouge, and for hours and hours I fought with my pain.

When Sister Desiree-des-Anges came into the room at bedtime she sat down on the foot of my bed. She put her two hands together like the saints did. "Tell me of your sorrow," she said. I told her, and it seemed to me that every word I spoke took some of my suffering away with it.

When I had told her everything, Sister Desiree-des-Anges fetched "The Imitation of Jesus Christ," and began to read aloud. She read in a gentle and resigned voice, and there were words which sounded like the end of a moan.

On the days which followed, I saw little Jean le Rouge again. He told me some more about the Lost Ford, and while he said how happy his parents were and how kind the master was to them, I could see the house on the hill with its garden in flower, and its spring from which the little brooklets crawled down to the river, hiding themselves under the broom. I often spoke of it to Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who listened to me meditatively. She knew the neighbourhood and every corner of the place, and one evening, when she sat dreaming and I asked her what she was thinking about, she said, "Summer will be over soon, and I was thinking that the trees were full of fruit."



During the month of September a number of religious paid visits to the Mother Superior. Ox Eye used to ring the bell to announce them. Every time she rang Veronique went out to see who was coming in. She always had something disagreeable to say about each one of the sisters whom she recognized. One evening the bell sounded. Veronique, who was looking out, said, "Well, here's one whom nobody expected." She put her head into the kitchen again, and said, "It is Sister Marie-Aimee." The big spoon which I had in my hand slipped through my fingers and dropped into the copper. I rushed to the door, pushing past Veronique, who wanted to keep me back. Melanie rushed after me. "Don't," she said, "the Mother Superior can see you." But I rushed out to Sister Marie-Aimee. I rushed into her arms with such force that we nearly fell over together. She clasped me tight and held me. She was trembling and almost crazy with joy. She took my head in her hands, and, as if I had been quite a little child, she kissed me all over my face. Her stiff linen cap made a noise like paper when you crumple it up, and her broad sleeves fell back to her shoulders. Melanie was right, the Mother Superior saw me. She came out of the chapel and came towards us. Sister Marie-Aimee saw her. She stopped kissing me, and put her hand on my shoulder. I put my arm round her, fearing that she would be taken away from me, and the two of us stood and watched the Mother Superior. She passed in front of us without raising her eyes, and didn't seem to see Sister Marie-Aimee, who bowed gravely to her.

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