Green Mare

Sixteen

After attending Mass the Durs (or the Berthiers or the Corenpots) were accustomed to visit the graves of the Durs who had passed over in order to ensure their benevolence, and to give themselves an appetite for lunch. As they left the cemetery they would wriggle their shoulders in their Sunday clothes, glad to be alive and eager for food to fill the uncomfortable void which fear had created in their bellies. And they would be a little angry with the Durs who were dead. Since they were dead, they had no need to call themselves Dur (or Berthier or Corenpot). When one went to visit them one no longer knew oneself. Durs above and Durs below, it was all one family, and at moments one was not too sure which was above. Such moments were not agreeable: one had a feeling of being more committed as to the future than even by the cure's sermons. The cure was also frightening with his warnings of lean kine and scanty fortune for the evil-doers, those guilty of too much ardour in bed with their wives, or who neglected their duty to their neighbour or to the Church. But when he spoke of death his sermons were not frightening: they were all about souls, and that was all right. Indeed, in a sense it was quite pleasant. Listening to him, one could not envisage one’s own personal end; one just kept going for ever.

But it was not like that with the Durs below the ground. There were four or five of them laid out side by side in all weathers, summer and winter, and there was always one to complain, “I have no one on my right!” or “no one on my left”; or there might be one separated from the others, alone in the middle of the cemetery or in a corner, who grumbled, “I’m all alone — all alone. . This was displeasing to the Durs above, especially the old ones. They dared not say or think anything to cross them, lest they should irritate them still more. They wagged their heads and said mildly, but without any undue display of haste:

“It comes to each of us in his turn. . We shall take our places when the time comes, with the family. . And you needn’t think it’s always fine weather with us either. . ”

But when they had left the cemetery behind they thrust their chins out of their collars saying that they were in no hurry to go and join those others, and that they felt full of life and filled with the desire to stay alive. They resolved to hang on tooth and nail to the surface of the plain, let those rotting below think what they liked of it, and above all to eat well, by God, and drink their fill. So long as they could drink the health of the Durs who had passed on, they were still Durs on the right side. Look to your appetite, and God bless the departed!

That morning after Mass, Adelaide stood by the graves of the Haudouins with her four children, her sister-in-law and her sister-in-law’s three children. Spread over the paths of the cemetery the Durs, the Berthiers, the Corenpots, the Messelons, the Rousseliers and all the Christians in the parish had come to pay their respects to their relatives down below. Bent over the graves they plucked away a blade of grass or a plantain, stirred the surface of the soil with their fingers as though to soothe the dead, like running a hand through their hair: small attentions costing nothing, and which helped them to be patient. But on this Sundav there was no doing anything with the dead. Never had they been more restless or more peevish. At first the living had put it down to the heat and had murmured to them that they must try to bear it and that soon there would be rain. But those below had merely complained more loudlv, growing increasingly agitated until they broke out into a great clamour, abusing the living, exchanging insults among themselves, swearing by the Evil

One and by the Cross, restless, dangerous, malignant as caged beasts. The husband of Leonie Bardon, buried that spring, cried out that he had had enough of lying alongside his brother, Maxime; he wanted Leonie to come and lie between them, and he tried to wish a fever on her so that she might die. There was also an old man crying for his oxen. .

“Let them come and blow a little warmth into my hands — just once!. .”

“How much longer is it going to be before you come and lie here? How many more Sundays are you going to put it off?. .”

“He’s the one who stole forty sous from me in seventy-seven!”

“In seventy-seven. .”

“My oxen!”

“Would it inconvenience you so much to come a little earlier?”

“Some fresh dead are what we want!”

“Thief!”

“We were three girls going to the woods. .”

“Six feet of earth like the rest of us. .”

“Pig!. .”

“Alfred killed me. . ”

“Slut that you were!”

. he hit me with a hoe. .”

“Put me somewhere else!”

“You let him have you all the same!”

“I want one on each side of me.”

“Oh, how good it was to feel pain!. .”

“Three girls going to the woods. .”

“Liar!”

“My oxen!. .”

“Oh, the warmth of feeling pain!. .”

“A woman without a halfpenny. .”

“You took my bill-hook.”

“The mule. .”

“It’s time you came down here!”

“Guste Berthier first!”

“No, Philibert Messelon!”

“Oh, how warm it was, the ice on the Chat-Bleu pond!” “Three girls…”

“No, this week!”

“Liar!”

“You hid everything from me!”

“Neither warmth nor cold. .”

“I went away with my sons. . ”

“Murderer!”

“You’re the one who wanted to get married!”

“. . with my sons, in the evening. .”

“And God — what’s God doing? One never hears anything of Him!”

“God is in Heaven.”

“On earth, too, just a little.”

“But here below there is no more God!”

“Three girls. .”

“Three bitches!”

“He never counted the change.”

“Murderer!”

“Thief!”

“They don’t want to die.”

“Three girls going to the woods. .”

“Eight years I’ve been waiting for her.”

“I was boiling the linen in the washtub.

“You were always after him.”

. I scalded myself — oh, the delight!”

“And the ice on the Chat-Bleu pond!”

“Swine!”

“He took me on the grass.”

“But at the age of seventy-five, really!”

“We were three girls. .”

“Three bitches!. .”

Marie Dur ran to the sacristy to fetch the cure. Shrugging his shoulders he came with her to the graveyard, but, as was only to be expected, heard nothing. He was concerned only with the voices of the living and the souls of the dead. The clamour of the bodies rotting in the ground was nothing to him, and he was resolved not to hear. And while he urged the faithful to depart, the dead continued their commotion, untroubled by his presence.

Old Jules Haudouin was among the most vehement, but not with rage against the living. His fury was directed at old Maloret, Tine Maloret and the four-year-old boy who lay together three graves away, whose nearness had always troubled his repose. Adelaide stood listening to him with deference, now and then approving with a nod or a dry sound in her throat. Erect and thin in her black dress, her head enclosed in her bonnet with its ribbons tied beneath her chin, she gazed at the three graves of the Ma-lorets, pursing her lips and contracting her nostrils as though she suspected the three deceased not merely of giving off a stench beneath her nose but of doing it on purpose.

Zephe Maloret, Ana'is and their two sons stood with heads bowed, affecting to meditate in all quietness of heart. It was as though they did not hear the voice of old Haudouin rising from below, and this was what Adelaide thought: and so she began to repeat aloud the old man’s words. Jules Haudouin spoke, and Adelaide said after him:

“What was Tine Maloret after all? A wench the men passed round among themselves, a trollop who could be had in a ditch for thirty sous, that’s what Tine was! And the sons she bore still trying to find out who their fathers were! And that’s the sort they put in the cemetery these days, along with respectable people!. .”

The Malorets spoke no word in protest, and Zephe, proposing to withdraw, signed to Ana'is and his two sons. But the Durs, the Berthiers, the Corenpots, the Messelons, the Rousseliers, the Rugearts, the Coutants, the Domines, the Boeufs, the Trousquets, the Pignons, the Caroches, the Bonbols the Clergerons, the Dubuclars ran to listen to Jules Haudouin. They formed a circle three rows deep round Zephe and Adelaide, and they could not be ignored.

“I have no intention of replying,” said Zephe.

“You’d find it difficult!” retorted Jules Haudouin from below.

“You’d find it difficult. .” his daughter-in-law repeated, “—because I have not exaggerated by a hair’s breadth, and Tine was what we all know and what I have said and I could go on telling about her all to-day and all to-morrow if good taste and my sense of propriety did not restrain me! And the same is true of old Alaloret. What could I not say of him if I chose?”

“We have no intention of replying,” said Zephe and Noel together.

“Let’s go,” said Ana'is.

But the Durs, the Coutants, the Bonbols and the Cler-gerons murmured in Zephe’s ear:

“Why don’t you answer him? You must answer!”

Zephe gazed towards his father’s grave, but old Maloret was voiceless and Tine was not comfortable either. There was nothing to be heard but the voice of Jules Haudouin.

“And everything I could say of Tine and old Maloret might be said of the rest of them!”

“And everything I could say of Tine and old Maloret might be said of the rest of them,” repeated his daughter-in-law. “Tine has her living image among you, and you all know who it is, and how some people get their living with flowered aprons and frills and furbelows that they flaunt on the roads. And what’s more the parents aren’t ashamed to buy winnowing-machines with the money! And all this is true!”

The Messelons, the Corenpots and the Berthiers nudged each other with their elbows and the laughter broke out from behind their moustaches. Zephe’s cheeks were burning.

“I shan’t answer. I shall say nothing, although I might say a great deal. I know things w%ich plenty of people don’t know.”

Juliette, standing at her mother’s side, was frightened at the threat and murmured:

“Don’t goad him too far. Don’t forget they’ve got the letter!”

Adelaide knew well enough what was in her mind, but urged on by the voice and the fury of old Jules Haudouin she could no longer contain herself.

“No letter is going to stop me saying what everyone knows, the things that went on between Tine and her own father, and the vile habits they have in that family! Marguerite had her share, too!”

Anai's burst into tears, and Zephe protested in a thin voice:

“It’s not true! It’s an invention — all lies that people tell about us!”

His body was bowed, and he leaned on the shoulders of his sons. Zephe was well aware that the shameful habits of his family were known to all the village, but since they were only mentioned in a whisper, and never in his presence, the fact had caused him no discomfort. A tale that travels under cover is no more than a legend, and what people think of it has no substance. But those who listened to Adelaide were now compelled with horror to contemplate the sin of the Malorets in the light of dav. Many among them were ill at ease and secretly resented her outspokenness. What were things coming to, if it was no longer possible to sin without being publicly denounced? The cure, who had been engaged in conversation in a corner of the cemetery, now drew near the gathering to receive the last salutations. He, too, did not care to see truth brought too zealously out into the open: there were privacies upon which God himself, in his own interest, did not intrude, and the Malorets were so constituted that they might, almost without sinning, bestow upon their daughters that which rightly belonged to their wives. He entered the circle and cried with his customary vigour: “What do you mean by making this disgraceful noise in the place of the dead? And after hearing Mass! You should be ashamed! Adelaide Haudouin, how dare you,

in the presence of your own children-”

“Why don’t you speak to Zephe as well, Monsieur le Cure? Ask him who began it!”

“I? But I didn’t even want to answer! It’s no crime to know what one knows.”

“Lies are all you know! And in any case, when one has a daughter like yours-!”

“Silence!” roared the cure. “Adelaide Haudouin, you’re the one who should be ashamed!”

“So I’m to be ashamed, am I, Monsieur le Cure! But it’s nothing but pretty speeches and money and flowered aprons for that sly little baggage living like a street-woman in Paris, and after starting at home with her own father to show her how! New dresses and money and aprons and winnowing-machines and anything else you like! Get down into the gutter and that's where you’ll find money, and more money after that, and its easy enough if you know how, when your own father. .”

Adelaide was raving, shaking Juliette and Aunt Helene, who were clinging to her arms. The cure perceived that she was in a state of exaltation which might carry her very far, and he admired her for it a little, and began to think harshly of the Alalorets. He signed to Zephe and his boys to leave the cemetery. The Malorets, trembling with fear and shame, were not even angry. Zephe followed the cure, whimpering in a small voice:

“I can’t believe… I can’t believe it has happened. . ”

“You’re nothing but a clod,” said the cure in a voice which the spectators were intended to hear. “Your private affairs don’t interest me in the least!”

Alexis left the group of Haudouins, and going in pursuit of Tintin Maloret, who was walking at the end of the file, let fly with a kick. Tintin uttered no protest; he gave a little jump, drawing close to the cure's cassock, and brushed the dust off the seat of his Sunday breeches. The incident somewhat abated Adelaide’s transports, and her revilings gradually died down, to cease entirely as Zephe and his family passed through the gateway.

At the time when Mass was due to end Honore and Ferdinand had set off along the road to meet their families. Ferdinand was filled with rejoicing at the departure of Marguerite Maloret.

“I was in a very difficult position on account of Valtier. Those visits to Zephe’s house were most embarrassing, but at the same time I could scarcely avoid them. I must say, I’m very glad she’s gone.”

“Good,” said Honore gently. “Good.”

“You say ‘good,’ but you look as though-”

“I do? But I’m as glad as you are that she’s gone. She had everything at sixes and sevens while she was here.” “Yes, especially as she was a bit — well, how shall I put it? — light-headed. . I’m sure that little incident last Thursday would never have happened if it hadn’t been for Marguerite. To start with, Juliette would have had no reason for going to the Malorets’. And then, it would never have entered Zephe’s head or — or Noel’s to — to— well, I’m sure they’d never have teased the poor child if Marguerite had not put them up to it. She must have made some rather broad jokes, I suppose, and Noel being there. . well, you know what these youngsters are. That’s why I really don’t feel there’s any need to take that matter too seriously, as Adelaide is inclined to do.” Honore wagged his head and smiled indulgently. When they were half-way to the church they encountered the Berthiers crossing to go down a side road.

“You’ve missed a fine old bust-up!” cried Clovis Berthier. “But Adelaide was there for the two of you, and the Malorets knew all about it!”

Ferdinand tugged at his nose, gazing apprehensively at his brother.

“What did he mean? What do you think can have happened?”

“How should I know?” said Honore.

They passed the Rousseliers, the Rugearts, the Boeufs and the Trousquets, who remarked in passing:

“There’s just been quite a commotion!”

“You’ve come just too late!”

“They had what you might call a family argument!” “Enough to take the roof off! It’s a wonder you didn’t hear!”

“Adelaide was as good as a man, any day!”

Honore remained tolerably calm, smiling and exchanging greetings and obliging his brother to continue walking at a leisurely pace. He answered suavely, “So I gather,” and “Well, it does seem like it.” But Ferdinand was in a state of increasing agitation, blushing, nudging his brother, turning his head to right and to left and seeming to turn it in a complete circle, so that one expected to find his Adam’s-apple round at the back and his neck twisted like a corkscrew. After meeting the Trousquets he found himself quite incapable of encountering any more of those returning from Mass, and turned back towards the house, the prey to a thousand hideous surmises which he poured into his brother’s ears.

“Supposing Zephe had the letter on him, and suppose he talked about the Prussian, and suppose the two women started fighting, and suppose Valtier were to find out!.

When they were home again Honore sat down in the shade while Ferdinand stayed in the middle of the yard, stretching his neck till it almost reached the road as he waited for the women to come in sight. Gustave and Clotilde were the first to arrive, a hundred yards ahead of the others.

“We told them off!” cried Gustave. “We said all the words we knew!”

“And all about Zephe and Marguerite and everything,” added Clotilde.

Ferdinand instantly lost a pound in weight.

“And Alexis kicked their bottom!”

“No, he didn’t,” said Clotilde. “It was me that kicked their bottom!”

“It wasn’t, it was Alexis!”

“It was me, I tell you, and the proof is-”

“Well, what’s the proof?”

“The proof is. .”

While they were stridently arguing the main body arrived.

“Well?” asked Ferdinand, in the voice of a dying man. “You'd better come indoors first,” said Flonore. “You must be very hot.”

When they were all in the kitchen he said:

“I hear you’ve been having words with Zephe?”

“We were standing by the graves with the Malorets beside us,” Adelaide began. “We weren’t doing anything at all, just standing there quite quietly, and-”

At a sceptical sound from Ferdinand she looked for support round the circle of witnesses. Honore’s four children and their cousin Antoine said yes with a single voice. Frederic alone conveyed by his attitude a sardonic disavowal, but Juliette covered it up by placing herself in front of him.

“And all of a sudden,” Adelaide went on, “Zephe started talking about my parents-in-law. Juliette could hear nearly as well as I could.”

“One moment!” exclaimed Ferdinand. “Juliette, leave the room while your mother tells us the exact words Zephe used.”

The precaution seemed humiliating as well as unnecessary. However, Juliette did as he asked, and then repeated the words herself when she came back into the kitchen, including several that her mother had overlooked.

“Well, I must say!. .” muttered Honore.

Adelaide continued her recital, being constantly interrupted by Ferdinand, who sharply queried everything she said. She maintained that she had only referred to the family habits of the Alalorets in reply to an allusion so offensive that the blood had boiled in her veins.

“Zephe’s too cunning to have thrown away the entire value of the letter for the sake of a single remark,” said Ferdinand. “I’m sure the allusion was so vague that no one could understand it. Let me ask Antoine. He knows nothing about the letter.”

“I tell you, everyone understood perfectly that my mother-in-law-”

“Be quiet! I’m asking Antoine — and Clotilde — and Lu-cienne. I’m quite sure you’re exaggerating.”

Antoine did his best to annoy his father by pretending that he knew all about the contents of the letter but was afraid to say anything. Clotilde came to his support, announcing in a tone of starry-eyed innocence:

“I was holding Mummy’s skirt and I heard Zephe say to her, ‘The Prussian and your mother-in-law’. . But that’s all I remember.”

Honore had forgotten for the moment the path the letter must have travelled before coming to rest under the clock. Clotilde’s testimony seemed to him convincing, and he glared savagely at his brother, suspecting him of having let slip some of the truth in the course of his visits to Zephe’s house.

“I can see we mustn’t waste another day without getting that letter back,” he said.

It was now a simple matter for Adelaide to add:

“The cure was on the Malorets’ side, naturally, and so were all the other Clericals. You should have heard the noise the Durs and the Coutants and the Bonbols made when he said it was all the more shame on us, meaning about the Prussian. That’s exactly what he said — isn’t it, Juliette?”

Ferdinand no longer sought to dispute the facts. He murmured anxiously in Honore’s ear:

“Most unfortunate. . But after all, it was nothing but a slight argument in which you were not involved. The whole thing will be forgotten by to-morrow.”

Honore, however, gave no sign of anger. He was laughing at Adelaide’s story, and the episode of the kick on the behind gave him especial pleasure.

Shortly before they sat down to table Ferdinand cornered Antoine in the passage, and filled with resentment towards this son who had failed to support him in the argument, demanded in a low, fierce voice:

“The date of the first Assembly of the States-General?” Antoine stared at the floor. He had no intention of answering, and his father counted upon his obstinacy as an excuse for giving him a heavy imposition.

“It’s a date which no one has the right to forget. Yes or no, can vou tell me-”

Antoine’s stubborn face suddenly cleared.

“Uncle Honore! Uncle Honore! Father wants to know the date of the first Assembly of the States-General.” Uncle Honore at once guessed the state of affairs. He said solemnly:

“It must have been in eighty-three, the year two of Corenpot’s cows died.”

Ferdinand turned on his heels and began to walk wildly round the house. He totalled up the sum of his grievances against his brother and his interests in Claquebue. The account was already ordered in his mind. He had only to run over it, draw a line and close it. “I’ve had enough!” he muttered several times. The time had come for him to choose between his brother and Zephe Maloret, and he had decided for Zephe. His interests lay on the side that was linked with Valtier. He resolved that upon the next difference that arose between his brother and himself he would spepk the decisive words. Honore should leave the house and if possible the district, with sufficient monetary compensation to enable him to start again elsewhere. The sooner it happened, the better.

During the meal Ferdinand brooded over this decision, growing increasingly eager to put it into effect. He did his utmost to start an argument with Honore, who, however, answered him with an unshakeable placidity.

“What we want is a real man at the head of the Government,” said Ferdinand.

“Why not?” said Honore.

“A man with a bit of gumption, who’ll make France respected,” said Ferdinand.

“You’re not drinking anything.”

“I say it has got to be General Boulanger. You’ve no reason to say he’s a Clerical, none whatever! But even supposing he is a Clerical! I repeat-supposing he is}”

“Well, if he is, he is.”

“I believe in saying what I think. I don’t hide my opinions.”

“Fancy!”

“The trouble with you is, one never knows where you stand in matters of policy.”

“Well, that’s true,” said Honore. “I shall have to ask Clotilde what she thinks of General Boulanger. . Have a little more of this stew — go on, just a little! — and a glassful of wine to wash it down into the empty corner. . Tripe for the tripes! There’s nothing better against acidity.”

A warmth of discreet happiness had spread round the table. A silent laugh accompanied the plate of stew under Ferdinand’s nose, upsetting to his bellicose mood. When Deodat entered the yard Juliette and Honore rose together to greet him. One took his wallet and the other his cap. Honore turned laughing to his family and said softly:

“Here he is! It’s the postman!”

Deodat sat down opposite three glasses of wine which Adelaide had filled until they flowed over a little, just to show that she didn’t care when it was a matter of quenching the thirst of a good postman. He pulled out his handkerchief and said as he mopped his forehead:

“It’s hot!”

“He says it's hot,” explained Honore to the others.

“You must be tired,” said Adelaide. “It's so dry as well.” Deodat suddenly broke into laughter, with his head flung back, and he said to Adelaide:

“A fine thing happened to me just now!”

“No!”

“I w as coming back from Valbuisson, just going steadily along, the way — well, the wav one does. . And that reminds me, Ernest said to me the other day — your Ernest, that is — he said that I walked like a dismounted gendarme.”

“Ele must have been joking,” said Honore. “A dismounted gendarme indeed!”

“You think that too, do you? It’s what I thought when I came to think it over — just joking, I thought. . Well, so I was coming back from Valbuisson, not thinking of anything special and not worrying anv more than if I was sitting down with a litre in front of me, and then all of a sudden — it would have been just by the crossroads-well, say two hundred yards before you come to them, or perhaps a little less — well, all of a sudden I began to think that I wasn’t walking quite right. It was just a sort of idea, you know, the way one sometimes gets ideas. Well, so I went on walking for another minute or two, more for the sake of going on walking than for the sake of getting anywhere. And then I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s queer!’ I thought, and so I thought that perhaps after all I’d better have a look at my right boot. And do you know' what? All the front part of the sole and the metal toe-cap had come off, and there was nothing but two rows of nails in the middle which made me rock a bit every time I put my foot down, and that’s why I wasn’t walking right!. . But you haven’t heard the best of it vet! The best is that there wasn’t so much as a single nail missing from my left boot! So now what do you think of that!”

Honore looked at Deodat and saw his glowing face, his good, round face, the face of a man at peace who does not look past the end of his nose, but who sees his nose all right, and sees it plain: the face of a good postman who follows his nose and finishes his round and makes no mistake about it.

“Dcodat I owe you a word of thanks, seeing that I haven’t seen you since then.”

“Thanks for what, Honore?”

“For Juliette and for me, too. It takes something like what happened the day before yesterday to make you know that you value your daughter’s virginity. You don’t think of it otherwise.”

"I just happened to be passing,” said Dcodat, “and so I just happened to be passing, that’s all.”

After he had taken his leave there was a moment of affectionate silence in the dining-room. Ferdinand said in irritation to Honore:

“The old fool babbles more and more, and what’s worse, he loses letters. It’s high time he retired.”

“Have you found someone to take his place?”

“There are plenty who’d do the job better than he does.” “Well, if you’re in a hurry to recommend them to the Deputy, I might put in a word with the Malorets. I’m going to call on them this afternoon. Zephe still has a letter of mine which he has forgotten to give me.”

When the meal was over Honore rested for a little while, and then went and sawed logs in the woodshed to break the lethargic spell of a hot Sunday afternoon. He worked with neither haste nor fatigue, happy to feel his muscles regain their week-day ease. Ferdinand, annoyed that he should have deserted his guests for a task of so little consequence, bore his entire family off to the woods, and while they were walking told his wife about the family revolution which he had been meditating since the morning.

At four o’clock Honore came into the kitchen, where his wife and children were seated in silence, and drank a glass of wine. He smiled at them, pulled his jacket over his shoulders and set out along the road towards the centre of Claquebue.