The Earth Read online

  ‘Well?’ he asked when she was still some distance away. ‘Is it going to be for today or tomorrow? I suppose you imagine that God can wait for you?’

  ‘They're on their way, Father, they're on their way,’ retorted the old woman, as cool as a cucumber.

  At that very moment, Hilarion, who was carrying the last few pieces of paving out, passed by clasping an enormous stone against his midriff. He was rolling on his crooked legs but he was built like a bridge and strong as an ox and showed no sign of dropping it. Dribbles were running from his hare-lip but there was not a drop of sweat on his leathery skin.

  Outraged at La Grande's unconcern, Father Godard tackled her:

  ‘Tell me, La Grande, since I've got you on your own, do you think it's kind of you, seeing you're so rich, to let your only grandson turn into a beggar?’

  She replied roughly:

  ‘His mother disobeyed me. Her son means nothing to me.’

  ‘Well, I've warned you before and I warn you again, you'll go to hell if you don't show charity. He'd have starved the other day if I hadn't given him something and today I've had to think up something for him to do.’

  On hearing the word hell, La Grande gave a thin smile. As she used to say, she knew all too well that, for the poor, hell was here below. But, rather than the priest's threats, it was the sight of Hilarion carrying the flagstones that had given her an idea. She was surprised, she would never have imagined that he could be so strong, with his bow legs:

  ‘If he wants work,’ she said at last, ‘I might perhaps be able to find him some after all.’

  ‘He belongs in your house, La Grande, take him in.’

  ‘We'll see, send him round tomorrow.’

  Hilarion had understood what was being said and started trembling so violently that he nearly crushed his feet by dropping his last piece of paving-stone outside. And as he went away he gave his grandmother a furtive look, like a scared, beaten, defeated animal.

  Another half an hour passed. Bécu had grown tired of tolling the bell and had gone back to his pipe. And La Grande stood there silent and unmoved as though her mere presence was an adequate token of the respect due to the priest. Meanwhile the latter, with rising exasperation, kept going to the door of the church to glare in the direction of the Buteaus' house on the other side of the empty square.

  ‘Go on, ring the bell, Bécu!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘If they're not here within three minutes, I'm off.’

  Then, as the bell began furiously tolling again, sending the venerable rooks cawing into the air, the Buteaus and their guests could be seen filing out of the house one by one and crossing the square. Lise was at her wits' end. As there was still no trace of the godmother, they had decided to make their way slowly towards the church, hoping to give her a chance of catching up with them. The distance was not much more than a hundred yards and Father Godard pitched into them straight away.

  ‘Please tell me if you're doing this for fun, will you? I've done it to oblige you and now you've kept me waiting an hour! Let's get on with it.’

  And he pushed all of them towards the baptistery, the mother carrying the baby, her father, the grandfather Fouan, Uncle Delhomme, Aunt Fanny and even Monsieur Charles, looking every inch the godfather in his black morning coat.

  ‘Please, Father Godard,’ asked Buteau with an exaggerated humility hiding more than a little derision, ‘could we possibly prevail on your kindness to wait just a little while longer?’

  ‘What do you mean, wait longer?’

  ‘For the godmother, Father.’

  Father Godard looked as if he might have a fit. Red as a turkeycock, he choked:

  ‘Get another one!’

  They all looked at each other; Delhomme and Fanny shook their heads and Fouan said firmly:

  ‘We can't do that, it would be a silly thing to do.’

  ‘You must accept our apologies, Father,’ said Monsieur Charles, feeling that his superior status and upbringing compelled him to offer an explanation. ‘In a way it's our fault but not our fault. My wife has written to say definitely that she will be back this morning. She's in Chartres.’

  Father Godard caught his breath, beside himself with rage and this time he could restrain himself no longer.

  ‘In Chartres, in Chartres… I'm sorry that you're involved in this, Monsieur Charles. But this can't go on, I absolutely refuse to put up with it any longer.’

  He exploded:

  ‘You can't think up enough insults to offer the good Lord, in the person of his servant, can you? Every time I come to Rognes, I'm given another slap in the face. Well, I'm going and I shan't come back. You can tell your mayor you can find your own priest and pay him if you want one. I'll speak to my bishop about it, I'll tell him what you're like, I know he'll understand. Oh yes, we'll see who'll be punished. You can live without a priest, like the beasts in the fields.’

  They were all listening to him with the curiosity and, if the truth were known, the utter indifference of practical people who had lost their fear of his God of wrath and chastisement. Why be frightened and deferential and seek pardon when the idea of the devil now merely made them laugh and they no longer believed in an avenging Lord who sent the wind and the hail and the thunder? It was just a waste of time; it was much more sensible to keep your respect for the forces of law and order: they were stronger.

  Father Godard could see that Buteau was jeering, that La Grande was full of disdain and even Delhomme and Fouan were quite unimpressed beneath their pretence of solemn deference; and seeing his flock slipping from his grasp was the last straw.

  ‘I know quite well that your cows are more religious than you. Goodbye! And you can dip your child in the duckpond to baptize him, you heathen savages.’

  He rushed away to the vestry, flung off his surplice, rushed back through the church and was gone like the wind, leaving the christening party standing staring, open-mouthed and speechless.

  But worst of all, at that moment, just as Father Godard was hurrying down Macqueron's new street, they saw coming along the road a carriage containing Madame Charles and Élodie. The former explained that she had stopped off at Châteaudun to see her little darling and she had promised to take her away for a couple of days' holiday. She was very sorry at arriving so late, she hadn't even driven over to Roseblanche to drop her luggage.

  ‘We must run after Father Godard,’ said Lise. ‘It's only dogs who aren't baptized.’

  Buteau set off at a run and they heard him bounding down Macqueron's street like the priest. But the latter had a good start and had crossed the bridge and was at the top of the slope before he caught sight of Buteau coming round a bend in the road.

  ‘Father Godard! Father Godard!’

  He finally turned round and waited for him to come up.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The godmother's arrived. You can't refuse to baptize someone!’

  For a brief moment he stood stock-still. Then, at the same furious pace, he set off down the hill after Buteau and it was like this that they went back into the church without exchanging a word. He gabbled through the service, rushed the godparents through their credo, anointed the baby, put on the salt, poured over the water, still fuming. In next to no time, they were signing the register.

  ‘Oh, Father,’ said Madame Charles, ‘I brought you a box of sweets but it's in my trunk.’

  He thanked her with a gesture and went off, not before saying again, as he looked at all of them:

  ‘And this time it's really goodbye!’

  Quite breathless from the speed of the ceremony, the Buteaus and their guests watched him disappear round the corner of the square, his black cassock swirling in the air. The whole village was out in the fields; there were just three little boys hoping for some sugared almonds. The only sound breaking the silence was the distant, unceasing rumble of the threshing machine.

  As soon as they had gone back to Buteau's house, where the carriage had been left with the trunk, everyone agreed that th
ey would have a drink and then come back in the evening for dinner. It was only four o'clock, what could they have found to do together until seven? So when the glasses and the two bottles of wine had been put on the kitchen table, Madame Charles insisted on having her trunk fetched down, so that she could give her presents. From it she produced, rather too late, the baby's dress and bonnet and then six boxes of sweets, which she gave to the baby's mother.

  ‘Are they from Mummy's shop?’ enquired Élodie, who was standing watching them.

  Only momentarily embarrassed, Madame Charles replied calmly:

  ‘No, my pet, your mother doesn't sell that sort.’

  Then, turning to Lise:

  ‘You know, I also thought of some linen for you. There's nothing more useful than old linen… I asked my daughter and I've ransacked all her cupboards.’

  On hearing the word linen, the whole family gathered round, Françoise, La Grande, the Delhommes and even Fouan. Standing in a circle round the trunk, they watched the old lady unpack a whole bundle of linen, fresh from the wash but still smelling strongly of musk. First of all there were some fine linen sheets, in tatters, and then some torn women's shifts, from which the lace had plainly been ripped.

  Madame Charles unfolded them and shook them out as she explained:

  ‘Well, the sheets aren't new, you know. They must have been used for five years or more and in the long run they get worn where the body rubs. As you can see, they've got a big hole in the middle; but the edges are still good, you can cut lots of things out of them.’

  They all peered at them and ran their fingers over them, nodding approvingly, particularly the women, La Grande and Fanny, whose tight lips betrayed their secret envy. As for Buteau, he laughed to himself, titillated by lewd thoughts which he refrained from uttering for the sake of propriety; whereas Fouan and Delhomme looked very solemn, showing due respect for fine linen, the other true sort of wealth after land.

  ‘As for the shifts,’ Madame Charles continued, proceeding to unfold them, ‘just look at them, they're not a bit worn… Well, they're a bit torn, of course, they get really rough treatment and as you can't always stitch them together again because it eventually makes them bulky and look rather poverty-stricken, so we prefer to throw them away as old linen. But you can find some use for them, Lise.’

  ‘I'll wear them,’ the farmer's wife exclaimed. ‘I don't mind if my shift's been mended.’

  ‘And as for me,’ said Buteau, winking mischievously, ‘I wouldn't mind if you made me some handkerchieves out of them.’

  This time they laughed openly, and then Élodie, who had not missed a single sheet or shift, exclaimed:

  ‘Oh, what a funny smell! Isn't it strong! Is that all Mummy's linen?’

  Without a moment's hesitation, Madame Charles replied:

  ‘Of course it is, darling. That's to say, it belonged to the girls in the shop. You need a lot when you're in business.’

  As soon as Lise, helped by Françoise, had tumbled it all into her wardrobe, they at last had their drink, toasting the baby who had been christened Laure, after her godmother. Then they relaxed and chatted for a while and, sitting on the trunk, Monsieur Charles could be overheard questioning his wife, too impatient to wait until he was alone with her, in his anxiety to hear how things were going down in Chartres. He was still very much interested and his thoughts constantly dwelt on this house which he had expended so much energy on setting up and which he now greatly missed. The news was not good. Of course, their daughter Estelle was a woman of character and brains; but their son-in-law Vaucogne, that flabby loafer Achille, was definitely failing to back her up. He spent all day and every day smoking his pipes and letting everything get broken-down and dirty: the bedroom curtains were full of stains, the mirror in the little red drawing-room was cracked, the washstand jugs and basins were all chipped and he didn't do a hand's turn; and a man's hand was so necessary if the furniture in a house was to be kept decent! At each fresh piece of damage his wife told him about, Monsieur Charles gave a sigh, his shoulders drooped and his face grew paler. One final complaint, whispered in a quieter voice, was the last straw:

  ‘And do you know, he takes the girl in No. 5, a fat one, upstairs himself.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Oh yes, I'm sure of it, I saw them.’

  Trembling with exasperation, Monsieur Charles clenched his fist in a sudden outburst of indignation.

  ‘The scoundrel! Tiring out his staff and frittering away his profits!… Oh, that's the end!’

  Madame Charles motioned to him to be quiet, for Élodie was coming back from the farmyard where she had been to look at the hens. They drank another bottle, the trunk was loaded back onto the carriage and the Charles walked back behind it. And everyone else left to see if all was well at home until it was time for dinner.

  As soon as they had gone, Buteau, unhappy at having wasted an afternoon, stripped off his jacket and started threshing in the corner of the farmyard that was paved, for he needed a bag of wheat. But he soon became bored with threshing alone; in order to warm to the job, he needed the rhythm of two flails beating in time. So he called to Françoise, who often helped him at threshing, for she had as strong a back and as powerful arms as any young man. Although this primitive method of threshing was slow and tiring, he had always refused to buy a horse-mill, saying like all the other smallholders that he preferred to thresh from one day to the next, according to his needs.

  ‘Hi, Françoise, are you coming?’

  Lise was keeping an eye on a veal stew with carrots and, having asked her sister to do the same with a saddle of pork on a spit, she was not keen to let her go. But Buteau was in a bad mood and talked of giving the pair of them a drubbing:

  ‘Bloody women! I'll bash you over the head with your blasted saucepans! There's got to be one breadwinner in the house, otherwise you and that lot would eat us out of house and home.’

  So Françoise, who had already changed into dirty old clothes for cooking, was obliged to join him. She picked up a long-handled flail with a dogwood swingle attached by leather straps. It was her own flail, rubbed smooth and bound with cord to prevent her hand slipping. She swung it two-handed over her head and thwacked the whole length of the swingle down onto the sheaf. And she kept doing it again and again, lifting it high in the air, swinging it back as though on a hinge and then bringing it down with the regular rhythm of a blacksmith, while on the other side Buteau was doing the same, alternating with her. They soon warmed up and started to beat faster; all you could see were these swinging pieces of wood which sprang up again each time and swung round the back of their heads like birds soaring with their legs tied together.

  After ten minutes, Buteau gave a shout, the flails stopped and he turned the sheaf. Then the flailing began again. After a further ten minutes, he called another halt and opened up the sheaf. Six times it was pounded by the flails before all the ears had released their grain and he tied up the straw. The sheaves followed one after the other and for two hours the only sound in the house was the regular whack of the flails dominated by the never-ending rumble of the mechanical thresher.

  Françoise's cheeks were flushed, her wrists swollen, her skin burning; her body, all aglow, set the air quivering all around her. She was breathing heavily through her open mouth. Wisps of straw had caught in the dishevelled curls of her hair. At each upward swing of the flail, her right knee tightened her skirt and her taut round breast and hip pressed against the material so that all the curves of her sturdy body were revealed as though she were naked. One of the buttons of her bodice had torn off. Beneath the tan of her neck, Buteau could see her white flesh swelling with each swing of her arms and strong, muscular shoulders. It seemed to make him more excited, like a lustful woman thrusting and wriggling; and as the flails kept going, the hail of grain danced under the thwack-thwack of the two panting threshers.

  At a quarter to seven, as dusk was falling, Fouan and the Delhommes appeared.

  �
�We can't stop yet,’ Buteau shouted, without pausing. ‘Keep it up, Françoise!’

  She kept at it, threshing harder than ever, carried away by the noise and the effort. And that was how Jean came upon them when he in his turn arrived, having obtained permission to eat out. He felt a sudden pang of jealousy and looked at them almost as if he had caught them unawares, two helpmates joined together in this hot, tiring task, one bone and one flesh as they struck at the right time and place, both of them so dishevelled and glowing with sweat that they seemed to be begetting a child rather than threshing wheat. Perhaps Françoise, threshing away so eagerly, had the same feeling, because she suddenly stopped, all embarrassed. Thereupon Buteau, turning round, stood stock-still in surprise and anger.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  But at that very moment Lise came down ahead of Fouan and the Delhommes. They all came up together and she said brightly:

  ‘Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, I saw him this morning and invited him to come.’

  Her husband's flushed face took on such a frightening look that she hastened to add:

  ‘I've got an idea, Father, that he wants to ask you something.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked the old man.

  Jean was blushing and stammering, vexed that the matter should be raised like this so abruptly and in front of everyone. In any case, Buteau broke in first, for the smiling look which Lise had given Françoise told him well enough what it was all about.

  ‘Are you having us on? She's not for you, you dirty old man.’

  Buteau's coarse remark gave Jean courage to speak up.

  ‘It's this, old Fouan, it's quite simple… As you're Françoise's guardian, I have to ask you if I can have her, don't I? If she'd like me, then I'd like her. I'd like to marry her.’