The Earth Page 20

  ‘But in that case,’ said Flore, ‘Lise will become quite a good match, with her little boy… That big innocent the Corporal knew what he was doing after all when he kept persisting.’

  ‘Unless,’ added Coelina, ‘Buteau doesn't take his place… His share is also going to do pretty well, out of the road.’

  Bécu's wife turned round, nudging with her elbow:

  ‘Look out. Not a word!’

  Lise herself was approaching, cheerfully swinging her jug. And they all began lining up at the fountain again.

  Chapter 6

  LISE and Françoise had got rid of Blanchette, who had become too fat and too old for calving; and they had resolved to go to Cloyes that Saturday to buy another cow at the market. Jean volunteered to take them there in one of the farm-carts. He had asked to have the afternoon off and Hourdequin had given him permission to have the cart, in view of the rumour that the young man and the elder Mouche girl were thinking of getting married. In fact, they had decided to marry; at least, Jean had promised to approach Buteau on the matter in the course of the following week. A decision had to be taken at last between one or other of them.

  So they left at one o'clock, Jean sitting in front with Lise while Françoise sat by herself on the back seat. He kept turning round and smiling at her; he could feel her warm knees against his back. What a pity she was fifteen years younger than he! And if, after much reflection and procrastination he was resigned to marrying the older sister, the reason was probably, at the bottom of his heart, the thought of living as one of the family, close to the younger one. And also, you just let matters slide and do lots of things without knowing why, just because one day you've said that you would!

  As they entered Cloyes, he put on the safety ratchet and set the horse up the steep slope by the cemetery; and as they came up to the crossing formed by the Rue Grande and the Rue Grouaise, intending to leave the cart at the Jolly Ploughman, Jean suddenly pointed towards a man's back disappearing down the latter street.

  ‘I say, that looks like Buteau.’

  ‘It is,’ said Lise. ‘I expect he's going to see Monsieur Baillehache. Do you think he's going to accept his share?’

  Jean cracked his whip and laughed:

  ‘You can never tell, he's such a crafty customer!’

  Buteau had pretended not to see them although he had recognized them in the distance. He was walking along with a stoop, and they watched him disappear, both thinking to themselves that they would be able to clear matters up, although neither spoke. In the courtyard of the Jolly Ploughman, Françoise, who had not said a word, was the first to jump down by way of one of the wheels. The courtyard was already full of unhitched carts resting on their shafts and the old inn was bustling and humming with activity.

  ‘Well, shall we go?’ enquired Jean when he came back after stabling his horse.

  ‘Certainly, straight away.’

  However, after leaving the inn, instead of going through the Rue du Temple straight to the cattle market, the three of them loitered, stopping here and there along the Rue Grande, among the fruit and vegetable sellers on each side of the street. Jean was wearing a silk cap and a large blue smock over black worsted trousers; the girls were also in their Sunday best, their hair caught up in their little round caps and wearing similar dresses, dark fleecy woollen bodices over steel-grey skirts with large pink striped cotton aprons. They were not walking arm-in-arm but in single file, their hands dangling and elbowed by the crowd. Servants and housewives were jostling each other in front of the peasant women squatting beside the one or two open baskets which they had brought in and simply dumped on the ground. They recognized Frimat's wife, her wrists aching from carrying her two baskets overflowing with all sorts of produce, lettuce, beans, plums and even three live rabbits. An old man had just emptied out a cartload of potatoes, which he was selling by the bushel. Two women, a mother and daughter, the latter, Norine by name, well known for her easy virtue, were spreading cod and salted and red herrings on a rickety table, tipping out their barrels so that people's throats were caught by their powerful smell of brine. And the Rue Grande, normally deserted during the week despite its fine shops, its chemists, ironmongers and above all its smart fancy goods store, Lambourdieu's Bazaar, was never wide enough on Saturdays when the shops were packed out and the roadway blocked with the stalls overflowing onto it.

  Followed by Jean, Lise and Françoise made their leisurely way to the poultry market in the Rue Beaudonnière. Vast crates had come in from the farms full of crowing cockerels and scared ducks pushing their necks through the openwork sides. In other crates dead chickens, already plucked, were lying several layers deep. And the country women were out in force here too, each bringing along her five or six pounds of butter, her few dozen eggs and her large low fat, small medium fat and mature full fat cheeses, ash-grey in colour. A number of them had come with two brace of hens with their claws tied together. Ladies were bargaining and there was a throng of people round a big arrival of eggs outside the inn, the Poulterers' Arms. And amongst the men unloading the eggs, whom should they see but Palmyre; on Saturday, when there was no work in Rognes, she hired her services out in Cloyes, carting loads until her back was ready to break.

  ‘She certainly earns her keep!’ Jean remarked. People were still crowding in. Carriages were arriving along the Mondoubleau road, the horses trotting over the bridge one after the other. The gentle curves of the Loir stretched out on both sides as it flowed along level with the meadows, while in the gardens of the houses on the left, lilac and laburnum branches were dangling in the water. Upstream there was a bark mill loudly ticking away and a tall flour mill, an immense building perpetually covered in white flour from its blowers set in the roof.

  ‘Well?’ Jean asked again. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Yes, let's.’

  And they came back to the Rue Grande and stopped in the Place Saint-Lubin, opposite the town-hall, where the corn market was held. Lengaigne had brought along four sacks and was standing there with his hands in his pockets. Hourdequin was gestculating angrily as he stood talking in the middle of a group of silent, downcast peasants. They had been expecting a rise; but even at eighteen francs the price was weakening and they were afraid that by the end of the day it would have dropped another twenty centimes. Macqueron went by with his daughter Berthe holding his arm; she was wearing a rather shabby short coat, a muslin dress and a posy of roses and lilies of the valley on her hat.

  As Lise and Françoise, after turning into the Rue du Temple, were going along beside Saint George's church, against the wall of which were the stalls of the itinerant vendors of haberdashery, ironmongery and all sorts of materials, they exclaimed:

  ‘Oh, it's Aunt Rose!’

  And it was indeed old Fouan's wife, whom her daughter Fanny, having some oats to deliver for her husband, had brought along with her in her cart as a treat. They were both standing waiting in front of a perambulating knife-grinder who was sharpening the old woman's scissors… She had been having them sharpened by him for the last thirty years.

  ‘Well, well. It's you!’

  Fanny turned round and, recognizing Jean, added:

  ‘You're having a stroll round, are you?’

  However, hearing that the cousins were going to buy a cow to replace Blanchette, their interest was aroused and they went along with them, the oats now having been delivered. Left to his own devices, Jean followed behind the women walking four abreast; and so they arrived at the Place Saint-Georges.

  This vast square lay behind the apse of the church and was dominated by its old stone clock-tower. It was enclosed all round by bushy lime-trees and two sides were shut off by chains attached to stone posts; the two other sides had long wooden bars to which the animals were tethered. On this side of the square, overlooking some gardens, grass was growing like a meadow, whereas on the opposite side, alongside two roads lined with inns, the Saint George, the Good Harvesters and the Oak, it was hard and trodden down, full of wh
irling dust.

  Lise and Françoise, together with the others, had difficulty in crossing the centre of the square, which was packed with people. Amidst the confused mass of smocks of every shade of blue, ranging from the harsh blue of new linen to the pale blue of those faded by many a washday, the only thing you could pick out was the white round specks of little caps. A few ladies were parading with shiny silk parasols. There was laughter and sudden shouts which were lost in the steady buzz of voices, broken by horses neighing and the lowing of cows. Suddenly a donkey brayed very loudly:

  ‘This way!’ said Lise, looking round.

  The horses were at the far end, fastened to the bar, their bare coats rippling, attached merely by a rope round their neck and their tail. On the left the cows were almost entirely free, held only by their owners who kept them moving around to show them off. Groups of people were stopping to look at them; at such moments there was no laughter and very little was said.

  The women immediately stopped to scrutinize a black and white Cotentin cow that a man and his wife had come to sell; the woman, very dark and with a stubborn look, was standing in front holding the animal; he was standing behind, stolid and motionless. They examined her with deep concentration for a good five minutes, but without exchanging a word or even a glance; then they walked on and stopped similarly to look at another cow twenty yards further on. This one, black and enormous, was being offered for sale by a girl, barely more than a child, pretty-looking, holding a hazel switch. Then they went on again and stopped another seven or eight times, for just as long, without saying a word, going all the way along the cows on sale. And then at the end they came back to the first cow and once again became absorbed in contemplation.

  This time, however, it was a more serious scrutiny. They were standing in line and peering keenly, trying to see what lay beneath the skin of the Cotentin. The woman selling her cow said nothing either but kept her eyes elsewhere, as if she had not seen them come back and take their stand. However, Fanny went forward and suddenly whispered something to Lise. Old Rose and Françoise also exchanged a remark in a low voice. Then they fell silent again and continued their still appraisal.

  ‘How much?’ Lise asked suddenly.

  ‘Four hundred francs!’ the farmer's wife replied.

  They pretended to take fright, and as they were looking round for Jean, to their surprise they found him just behind them with Buteau, both chatting together like old friends. Buteau had come over from La Chamade to buy a young pig and was in the middle of bargaining for one. The pigs were in a movable pen at the rear of the cart in which they had come; they were nipping at each other with their teeth and emitting ear-splitting squeals.

  ‘Twenty-two francs?’

  ‘No, thirty.’

  ‘You can stuff that.’

  And full of cheerful good humour he came over to the women, laughing with amusement at the look on the faces of his mother, sister and two cousins, exactly as if he had seen them only yesterday. Moreover, they too remained quite unmoved, seemingly ready to ignore their two years of quarrelling and estrangement. Only his mother, who had been told that he had first been seen in the Rue Grouaise, looked at him narrowly, trying to discover why he had gone to see the lawyer. But nothing of this was to be seen and neither uttered a single word on the subject.

  ‘Well, cousin,’ he went on, ‘it seems you're buying a cow? Jean was telling me. And look, there's one over there, there's not a sounder one in the market, a real good beast!’

  He was pointing in fact at the black and white Cotentin.

  ‘Not at four hundred francs, thank you,’ muttered Françoise.

  ‘Four hundred francs for you, my little chickabiddy!’ he said, slapping her jokingly on the back.

  But she was annoyed and angrily slapped him back.

  ‘Leave me alone, will you! I don't play about with men.’

  He laughed all the more and turned towards Lise, who was looking rather pale and serious.

  ‘And how about you, would you like me to try my hand? I bet you I'll get her for three hundred francs. Will you bet me five francs?’

  ‘That's all right with me… If you feel like trying.’

  Rose and Fanny nodded agreement, because they knew that he was a really tough bargainer, stubborn, insolent, a liar and a thief, ready to sell anything at three times its value and to get everything for nothing. So the women let him go on ahead with Jean while they lagged behind so that they did not seem to be together.

  The throng round the livestock was growing as groups moved out of the centre of the square, which was in the sun, to go under the trees. People were coming and going all the time; the blue smocks looked darker under the shadow of the lime-trees while the leaves cast green flecks on the florid faces. But no one was buying yet; not a single sale had been made although the market had been going for an hour. People were meditating, thinking things over. But a great disturbance suddenly stirred the warm air above their heads. Two horses tied side by side were rearing up and biting each other, whinnying furiously, their hooves scraping on the paving-stones. People were scared and some women took fright, but by dint of many oaths and a great cracking of whips like rifle shots, peace was restored. And on the ground, in the space left empty by the panic, a band of pigeons swooped down and scuttled here and there, pecking at the grains of oats in the dung.

  ‘Well, old girl, what's your price?’ Buteau asked the farmer's wife.

  She had observed the stratagem and she repeated calmly:

  ‘Four hundred francs.’

  At first he took it as a joke and said teasingly to the husband, who was still silently keeping in the background:

  ‘I say, old boy, is the missus thrown in at that price?’

  But while indulging in these pleasantries he was examining the cow closely; he saw that she had everything needed to make a good milch-cow: lean of head with slender horns, large eyes, a largish, thickly veined belly, fairly light limbs and a thin, very high set tail. He bent down and made sure that the udders were long and the dugs supple and properly placed, with a good orifice. Then, resting one hand on the cow's rump, he began to bargain, running his hand mechanically over the bones:

  ‘Four hundred francs, eh? You must be joking… How about three hundred?’ And his hand was checking the bones to see if they were strong and well jointed. His hand moved lower and slipped between the cow's thighs, where the skin, a beautiful saffron-yellow, gave promise of an abundant supply of milk.

  ‘Did we say three hundred?’

  ‘No, four hundred,’ replied the woman.

  He turned to go, came back and she decided to start talking:

  ‘Go on, she's a fine beast all round. She'll be two years old on Trinity Sunday and she'll be calving in a fortnight's time. She's just the cow you're looking for.’

  ‘Three hundred,’ he repeated.

  Then, as he was walking away, she glanced at her husband and cried:

  ‘Look, I don't want to hang about. I'll let you have her for three hundred and fifty, on the nail.’

  He stopped and began to run the cow down: she was badly built, had a weak back, had obviously had something wrong with her and you'd have to keep her for two years at a loss. Finally, he claimed that she had an injured foot, which was untrue. He was lying for the sake of it, with blatant insincerity, in the hope of annoying and bewildering the woman. But she shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Three hundred francs.’

  ‘No, three fifty.’

  She let him walk away. He went back to the women, told them that she was beginning to nibble and that he was going to bargain for another one. And they all went and stood by the tall black cow that the pretty girl was holding on a rope. This one was, in fact, three hundred francs. He seemed to find it not too much, went into raptures of delight and then suddenly went back to the first one.

  ‘So that's your last word, I've got to take my money elsewhere!’

  ‘Of course I would if I could but it's just not poss
ible! You must have the guts to back your fancy.’

  And bending down she took a handful of udder:

  ‘Just look how lovely that is!’

  He refused to agree and repeated:

  ‘Three hundred francs.’

  ‘No, three fifty.’

  That seemed to put an end to it. Buteau took hold of Jean's arm to show that he had lost interest. The women came up in a state of excitement; they thought the cow was worth the three hundred and fifty francs. Françoise in particular liked the look of her and talked of buying at that price. But Buteau was annoyed: who would think of letting himself be robbed like that? And he held out for nearly an hour, to the great anxiety of his cousins, who trembled with apprehension each time a buyer stopped in front of the cow. And Buteau never let her out of his sight, either; but that was how you played it, you had to have strong nerves. Certainly no one was going to put his hand into his pocket as quickly as that: they'd see if there was an idiot about stupid enough to pay more than three hundred for it. And it was a fact that no one showed the colour of their money, even though the market was coming to an end.

  Now they were putting some horses through their paces on the highway. One of them, all white, was galloping, excited by the deep-throated cry of a man who was holding onto the halter and running along beside it; while the veterinary surgeon Patoir, red-faced and bloated, was standing beside the buyer in a corner of the square, hands in pockets, watching and offering loud advice. The taverns were buzzing with a continual flood of customers who were going in, coming out and going in again, interminably arguing and bargaining. The bustle and noise had reached a deafening height: separated from its mother, a calf was bleating incessantly; dogs – black terriers and large yellow spaniels – were running around and yelping as someone in the crowd trod on their paws; and when there was a sudden silence, the only sound to be heard was a flock of rooks disturbed by the noise, cawing and wheeling round the top of the steeple. And dominating the warm smell of livestock, from a neighbouring blacksmith's, where the peasants were taking advantage of market day to have their horses shod, there arose a pestilential odour of burnt hoof.