The Earth Read online

  ‘Where shall we put him?’ asked the old woman.

  The two girls, who were following them quite bewildered, did not know: their father had a little bedroom upstairs, partitioned off from the loft; and it was hardly possible to carry him up there. On the ground floor, beyond the kitchen, was the big bedroom containing two beds which their father had made over to them. It was pitch-dark in the kitchen and the young man and the old woman stood waiting, their arms aching, not daring to go any further for fear of tripping over the furniture.

  ‘Come on, we can't stand here all day!’

  Finally Françoise lit a candle and at that moment in came the wife of Bécu the gamekeeper, scenting that something was amiss, probably warned by that mysterious force which makes any news spread like wildfire through a village.

  ‘Goodness me, what's up with the poor man? Oh, I see, he's had a fit. Quick, sit him down on a chair.’

  But Frimat's wife thought differently. What's the point of sitting a man down if he can't sit upright? The best thing would be to lay him down on one of his daughters' beds. They were beginning to squabble about it when Fanny appeared with Nénesse: she had heard what had happened as she was buying some vermicelli at Macqueron's and had come to see, full of concern for her cousins.

  So they deposited Mouche onto a chair next to the table on which the candle was burning. His chin fell onto his chest, his arms and legs hung limply down. Through the twitching on the left side of his face his eye had opened, and through the corner of his twisted mouth he was wheezing more than ever. Silence fell; death was lurking in this damp room with its peeling walls and large black fireplace.

  Jean was still standing there, embarrassed, while the two girls and the three women, their hands dangling at their sides, continued to watch the old man.

  ‘I'll go and fetch the doctor, if you like,’ he suggested uncertainly.

  Bécu's wife shook her head; none of the others answered: if it turned out to be nothing, why spend money for the doctor to come? And if it was the end, what good could the doctor do?

  ‘Vulnerary's good,’ said Frimat's wife.

  ‘I've got some spirits of camphor,’ said Fanny in a low voice.

  ‘That's good, too,’ declared Bécu's wife.

  Quite at a loss, Lise and Françoise were listening, unable to make up their mind what to do, one dandling her baby Jules, the other awkwardly holding a cupful of water that her father had refused to drink. Seeing this, Fanny spoke abruptly to Nénesse, who was fascinatedly watching the contorted expression on the dying man's face.

  ‘Run back to the house and ask for the little bottle of spirits of camphor in the cupboard on the left… You understand? In the cupboard on the left. And go to Grandpa Fouan and your aunt La Grande and tell them that Uncle Mouche is very poorly… Go on, off with you, quick!’

  When the little boy had scampered off, the women continued to discuss the case. Bécu's wife knew a man who had been saved by having the soles of his feet tickled for three hours. Frimat's wife, remembering that she still had some lime tea from the two sous' worth she had bought for her husband last winter, went off to fetch it, and she was just bringing back her little bag of it and Lise was lighting a fire, having first handed her baby to Françoise, when Nénesse reappeared.

  ‘Grandpa Fouan was in bed… La Grande said if Uncle Mouche hadn't drunk so much he wouldn't feel so sick.’

  But Fanny was examining the bottle and exclaimed:

  ‘You silly boy, I told you on the left! You've brought the eau de Cologne!’

  ‘That's good, too,’ said Bécu's wife once more.

  They made the old man drink a cup of lime tea by forcing a spoon between his clenched teeth. Then they rubbed his head with eau de Cologne. And still he wasn't any better, it was enough to make you despair. His face turned even blacker, they had to lift him up in the chair because he was slumping forward and threatening to fall flat on the floor.

  ‘Oh,’ said Nénesse, who had gone back to the door, ‘I don't know if it's going to rain… The sky's a funny colour.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jean, ‘I saw a nasty big cloud coming up.’

  And as if reminded of his first idea:

  ‘Never mind, I'll still go and fetch the doctor if you like.’

  Lise and Françoise were looking at each other anxiously. Finally, with the generosity of youth, the latter said:

  ‘Yes, Corporal, you go to Cloyes to fetch Monsieur Finet… It shan't be said that we didn't do what was right.’

  In the confusion, they had not even unhitched the horse and Jean had only to jump into the seat of the cart. There was a clatter of wheels and he was gone. Frimat's wife then mentioned the priest; but the others made a sign to show that they were having trouble enough as it was. And when Nénesse proposed to walk the two miles to Bazoches-le-Doyen, his mother snapped at him: of course she wouldn't let him go off on a night like this, with such a dreadful angry red sky. Anyway, since the old man couldn't understand or answer, they might just as well disturb the priest for a block of stone.

  The painted cuckoo-clock struck ten. They were surprised to think they'd been there more than two hours without being able to do anything! But nobody talked of giving up, fascinated as they were by the spectacle of the old man and determined to stay until the end. There was a ten-pound loaf on the bread-board, with a knife. First the girls, ravenous despite their distress, mechanically cut themselves slices of bread that they ate dry, without noticing; then the three women followed suit, the loaf got smaller and smaller, there was always one or other of them who was cutting into it and munching. By now they had lit another candle and they had not even remembered to snuff the old one. It was a dismal sight, this poor peasant's bare, gloomy room, filled with the death-rattle of the body slumped beside the table.

  All of a sudden, half an hour after Jean had left, Mouche tipped over and fell on the floor. He was dead.

  ‘Didn't I say so? Yet you had to send for the doctor!’ Bécu's wife remarked acidly.

  Françoise and Lise burst into tears again; the two tender-hearted girls adored each other and now they instinctively flung themselves into each other's arms, stammering disjointed phrases:

  ‘Oh dear God, there's only us two now. It's all over, there's just us two now… Oh dear God, what's going to become of us?’

  But they couldn't leave the dead man lying on the floor, so Frimat's wife and Bécu's wife did what was necessary straight away. As they did not dare move the body, they took the mattress from one of the beds, brought it in and laid Mouche on it, covering him with a sheet up to his chin. Meanwhile, Fanny lit the tallow candles in the two other candlesticks and put them on the ground, like church candles, at each side of his head. That was all that was needed for the moment, except that the left eye which they had closed three times with their thumb persisted in opening again and seemed to be looking at everybody out of that twisted, purple face which stood out boldly against the pale canvas mattress cover.

  Lise had eventually put Jules to bed and the wake began. Twice Fanny and Bécu's wife said they were going, because Frimat's wife was offering to look after the two girls; but they did not go; they stayed chatting in whispers, casting sideways glances at the dead man; while Nénesse, who had got hold of the eau de Cologne bottle, was emptying vast quantities of it over his hands and hair.

  It struck twelve o'clock. Bécu's wife raised her voice.

  ‘And what about Doctor Finet, eh? He gives you plenty of time to peg out. More than two hours to fetch him over from Cloyes.’

  The door opening into the yard had been left open and a gust of air came in, blowing out the candles at each side of the dead man. All were terrified, and as they were relighting the candles the stormy blast came again, more frightening than before, and a long swelling roar arose from the furthest reaches of the dark countryside. It was like the thundering hooves of a ravaging army approaching with branches creaking and groaning and the fields moaning as they were rent asunder. The women had run
to the door and saw a lurid, copper-coloured mass of cloud writhing across the livid sky. Suddenly there was a rattle of gunfire and a shower of bullets which lashed and rebounded on the ground at their feet.

  And then they uttered their cry of disaster and distress.

  ‘Hail! A hailstorm!’

  Pale and sick with shock, they stood and watched the calamity. It lasted a bare ten minutes. There was no thunder, but great flashes of lightning seemed to be running incessantly along the ground in broad bands of phosphorescent blue; the darkness of the night was now lit up by countless pale streaks of hail hurtling down like jets of glass. The noise was deafening, like machine-gun fire or a train rushing at full speed over an endless metal bridge. The wind was gusting furiously and the slanting hailstones scythed down like bullets everything in their path, piling up until they covered the whole ground with a layer of white.

  ‘Oh God, it's hail! Oh, what a disaster! Look, they're as big as hen's eggs!’

  They did not dare to go into the yard to pick any up. The gale was increasing in violence; all the panes of glass in the windows were smashed; and the force of the hailstones was such that one hit and broke a jar, while others came rolling in up to the mattress on which the dead man lay.

  ‘They'd be less than five to a pound,’ said Bécu's wife, weighing them in her hand.

  Fanny and Frimat's wife made a despairing gesture:

  ‘Everything's gone, it's a massacre.’

  It was all over. They could hear the disastrous storm thundering away at great speed and a deathly hush fell. Above the cloud, the sky was now as black as ink. A slight, persistent rain was falling, soundlessly. On the ground, only the thick layer of hailstones could be discerned, a livid sheet which seemed to be gleaming with a pale half-light, like millions of tiny, endlessly glimmering nightlights.

  Nénesse had rushed outside and come back with a jagged and irregular block of ice, as big as his fist; and Frimat's wife, who was fidgeting, could not resist the temptation of going out to look as well.

  ‘I'm going to get my lamp,’ she said. ‘I must see what damage there is.’

  Fanny restrained her impatience for a few minutes longer and continued her lamentations. Oh, what a business! What dreadful damage to the vegetables and fruit-trees! The wheat and oats and barley weren't tall enough to have suffered much. But oh dear, what about the vines! And standing in the doorway she tried to peer through the impenetrable darkness of the night, trembling in a fever of uncertainty and imagining the countryside shot to pieces and bleeding from its wounds.

  ‘Well, girls,’ she said in the end, ‘I'm going to borrow a lamp from you and run and have a quick look at our vines.’

  She lit one of the two lamps and disappeared with Nénesse. Bécu did not own any land and so his wife was not really concerned but she was sighing and offering up prayers out of sheer habit, being always ready to moan. Even she felt drawn by curiosity to keep going back to the door; and she stayed there, watching with great interest as she saw the whole village becoming dotted with little stars of light. Between the cowshed and a barn, you could look out over the whole of Rognes from the farmyard. No doubt the hailstorm had aroused the peasants and they were all equally impatient to go and see their plot of land and too anxious to wait until morning. So one by one the lamps appeared, until there were dozens of them dancing and darting here and there. And Bécu's wife, knowing where each house was, was able to give a name to each lamp she saw.

  ‘Goodness, that's La Grande's light going on and they're coming out of Fouan's and that's Macqueron over there and Lengaigne next door. Gracious heavens, all those poor people, it's heartbreaking… Well, it can't be helped, off I go!’

  Lise and Françoise remained alone with their father's corpse. The rain continued to pour down and little gusts of damp air came in along the floor, making the candles run. They should have closed the door but neither of them thought of it for they, too, were preoccupied and shaken by the tragedy outside, despite their own bereavement. Wasn't it bad enough to have death in your home? God destroyed everything, you didn't even know if you'd be left a crust of bread to eat.

  ‘Poor Father,’ murmured Françoise. ‘How worried he'd've been! It's a good thing that he didn't see it.’

  And as her sister picked up their second lamp:

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I was thinking about the peas and beans. I'll be back in a minute.’

  Lise ran across the yard in the rain and went into the kitchen-garden. Françoise was left alone with the old man. Even she was standing in the doorway, excitedly watching the lamps going to and fro in the dark. It was heartbreaking.

  ‘Well? What's it like?’ she cried. ‘What's happened?’

  There was no reply, the lamp was moving about faster and faster, as if panic-stricken.

  ‘The beans have been stripped, haven't they?… And have the peas been damaged?… And how about the fruit and lettuce, for goodness' sake?’

  But when she distinctly heard a horrified cry of dismay, her mind was made up. She gathered up her skirts and ran out into the rain to join her sister. And the dead man was left alone in the empty kitchen, all stiff under his sheet between the two sad, smoky candles. His left eye still remained stubbornly open, staring at the old timbered ceiling.

  The little plot offered indeed a dreadful scene of devastation; and how heartrending were their cries of dismay, as the extent of the disaster was dimly perceived in the wavering light of the lamps! The glass of the sisters' lamp was so streaming with rain that they could hardly see as they walked around holding it close to the ground; in its narrow beam of light they could vaguely make out that the beans and peas had been cut down to the ground and the lettuce slashed and chopped about so much that no one could imagine using their leaves. But above all it was the trees which had suffered: the smaller branches and the fruit had been cut off as though with a knife; even the trunks were so battered that sap was oozing out of the holes in the bark. And further on in the vineyards it was worse; furious oaths mingled with wails of lament in the light of dozens of bobbing lamps. The plants seemed to have been mown down, the bunches of blossom were scattered all over the ground with broken branches and vine tendrils; not only would that year's vintage be ruined but the vinestocks themselves, stripped of their leaves, would wither and die. Nobody noticed the rain; a dog was howling dismally; women were bursting into tears, as though at the graveside. Despite their rivalry, Macqueron and Lengaigne were helping each other to illuminate their respective plots, going from one to the other uttering cries of ‘Christ Almighty!’ as they saw one ruined plant after another in the brief dim glimpse they had before darkness again swallowed it up. Although he was now landless, old Fouan wanted to have a look and was becoming annoyed. Gradually tempers were rising: was it possible to lose the fruit of a whole year's work in the space of a quarter of an hour? What had they done to deserve such punishment? There was no security or justice but just senseless, haphazard calamity bringing death and destruction to everyone. Suddenly La Grande bent down to pick up some stones and flung them furiously into the air as though to smash open the invisible sky. And she screamed:

  ‘You dirty pig up there! Why can't you leave us alone?’

  In the kitchen, Mouche, left alone on his mattress, was watching the ceiling with his one staring eye when two vehicles stopped in front of the door. It was Jean bringing Monsieur Finet, for whom he had had to wait three hours at the doctor's house; he had come back in the cart while Finet had brought his own gig.

  The doctor, tall and thin with the jaundiced look of a man who has failed to achieve his ambitions, went brusquely in. At the bottom of his heart, he loathed his village clientéle, whom he blamed for his own mediocrity.

  ‘What, nobody here?… Has he recovered?’

  Then, catching sight of the body:

  ‘No, it's too late! I told you so, I didn't want to come. It's always the same old story, they send for me when they're dead.’

&nb
sp; He was annoyed at having been called out at night to no purpose; and as Lise and Françoise came in just at that moment, his exasperation knew no bounds when he heard that they had waited two hours before sending for him.

  ‘Then you're responsible for his death, damn it all!… How stupid can you be? Eau de Cologne and lime tea for a stroke… And no one with him, either. True, he's not likely to run away…’

  ‘But Doctor,’ stammered Lise in tears, ‘it's because of the hailstorm.’

  Interested by this remark, Finet calmed down. Really? There'd been a hailstorm? Through spending his life amongst villagers, he had ended by developing their obsessions. Jean had joined them, and they both exclaimed in astonishment because they had not seen a single hailstone on their way from Cloyes. The people there had been spared and a few miles away they had been devastated. That was the truth of it! What bad luck to be in the wrong direction! And as Fanny now came back with the lamp and Bécu's and Frimat's wives followed, all three of them tearful and full of details of all the dreadful things they had seen, the doctor solemnly declared:

  ‘What a misfortune, what a terrible misfortune. There's no greater misfortune for the farmer.’

  He was interrupted by a muffled sound, a sort of gurgling. It came from the dead man, lying there forgotten between the two candles. They all stopped talking and the women made the sign of the cross.

  Chapter 3

  A MONTH went by. Old Fouan, who had been appointed Françoise's guardian, as she was just entering her fifteenth year, persuaded her and her sister Lise, ten years her senior, to rent their land to their cousin Delhomme, except for a bit of meadow, so that it would be properly cultivated and looked after. Now that the two girls were alone, with neither father nor brother, they would have had to take on a farm-hand, and with the rising cost of labour this was ruinously expensive. In any case, Delhomme was only doing it as a favour and promised to give up the lease as soon as one of them married, which would mean dividing their property between the two of them.