The Earth Read online

  Françoise was so astounded that she dropped her flail. Although she must have been expecting it, she would never have thought that Jean would dare to ask straight out, like that. Why hadn't he mentioned it to her first? She felt she was being rushed and she could not have said whether it was hope or fear that was making her tremble. So she stood between the two men, in her unbuttoned bodice, her blood coursing so hotly through her body that they could even feel the warmth themselves.

  Buteau gave Fouan no time to reply. He went on with growing fury:

  ‘You've got a cheek too. An old man of thirty-three marrying a girl of eighteen? Fifteen years' difference, that's all! How disgusting can you be! We'll find some tender little lasses for you, you leathery old bugger!’

  Jean was beginning to become annoyed.

  ‘What's it got to do with you, if I want her and she wants me?’

  And he turned towards Françoise, to make her say something. But still tense and scared, she did not seem to understand. She could not say no, yet she did not say yes. Moreover, Buteau was looking daggers at her, daring her to say yes. If she were to marry, he would lose her and he would lose the land as well. The sudden realization of this consequence made his rage boil over.

  ‘Look, Father, and you, Delhomme, don't you find it disgusting for this little girl to go to this old devil here who doesn't even belong here, a rolling stone who comes from God knows where? A rotten carpenter who became a farm labourer because he had something shady to hide, I'll be bound.’

  He was giving vent to all his hatred of the worker from the town.

  ‘So what? If I want her and she wants me,’ Jean repeated, restraining himself and remembering that, out of consideration for her, he had promised himself that Françoise must be the first to tell what had happened between them. ‘Say something, Françoise.’

  ‘It's true,’ cried Lise, anxious to marry off her sister and be rid of her. ‘What right have you to talk, if they like each other? She doesn't need your consent, if she wasn't so nice she'd send you packing… Why can't you shut up?’

  Then Buteau saw that what he feared would happen if the girl were to talk. Particularly, he was afraid that if the relationship became known, their marriage would appear the sensible thing to do. At that very moment La Grande came into the yard, followed by the Charles, who were coming back with Élodie. He motioned to them to come over, not knowing what he would say. Then, puffing out his cheeks, he thought of something and, shaking his fist threateningly at his wife and sister-in-law, he screamed:

  ‘You fucking cows! Yes, cows and bitches the pair of them! Shall I tell you? I sleep with both of them! And suppose that's why they both bugger me about? I'm telling you, with the pair of them, the dirty trollops!’

  The words hit the Charles full in the face as they stood gaping. Madame Charles hurriedly interposed her body in front of Élodie, who was listening, and pushing her towards the garden she too shouted in a very loud voice:

  ‘Come and see the lettuces and cabbages. Oh, aren't they lovely!’

  Buteau ranted on, inventing details, describing how as soon as one of them had had her oats, it was time for the other one to come and get stuffed; and he poured it all out, in the coarsest terms, a flood of sewage, words so obscene that they are never spoken. Merely surprised at this sudden outburst, Lise simply shrugged her shoulders, repeating:

  ‘He's mad. Stark staring mad.’

  ‘Tell him he's lying,’ Jean exclaimed to Françoise.

  ‘Of course he's lying,’ said Françoise calmly.

  ‘Oh, so I'm lying,’ Buteau said. ‘So it's not true that during the harvest you were crying out for it? But now it's my turn to make you dance, you couple of sluts!’

  Jean was paralysed and bewildered by such insane audacity. How could he now explain that he had had Françoise? It seemed a nasty thing to do, especially as she was giving him no help. Moreover the others, the Delhommes, Fouan and La Grande, were holding back. They hadn't seemed surprised, they were obviously thinking that if the young rip was in fact going to bed with the pair of them, it was up to him to do what he liked with them. When you've got certain rights, you have to exercise them.

  Seeing this and feeling secure in his position of undisputed possession, Buteau smelt victory. He turned to Jean:

  ‘And you, young fellow-me-lad, just keep your nose out of my affairs in future… And to start with, fuck off!… So you won't? You just wait!’

  He picked up his flail and whirled the swingle round his head. Jean only just had time to catch hold of the other one, Françoise's, to defend himself. The others shouted and tried to separate them: but the two men looked so terrifying that they drew back. The long handles had a reach of several yards and their blows cleared the yard. They stood alone in the middle, at some distance from each other, making wide sweeps with their swingles. Their teeth were clenched; not a word was spoken. The only sound was the sharp crack of wood on wood as they parried the blows.

  Buteau had struck first and as Jean was still bending down he would have had his head split open had he not jerked himself backwards. At once, tensing his muscles, he quickly lifted his flail and brought it down like a thresher smashing the grain from the ear. But the other man had already struck again and the two dogwood swingles bounced back on their leather straps like a wild flight of wounded birds. Three times they clashed. All that could be seen was the threatening staves, swirling and whistling through the air at the end of their handles, in readiness to flash down and split open a skull.

  However, Delhomme and Fouan were just rushing to intervene when the women gave a shriek. Jean had rolled over into the straw, caught off his guard by a sweeping blow along the ground, which had hit him on the legs, fortunately not with full force. He sprang to his feet flourishing his flail and with his rage compounded by pain, swept his swingle in a wide arc so that it came down to the right whereas Buteau was expecting it from the left. An inch to one side and Buteau would have been brained; but the blow brushed diagonally past his ear and landed full on his arm; the bone snapped in two with a sound of breaking glass.

  ‘You murderer!’ screamed Buteau. ‘He's killed me!’

  With wild, bloodshot eyes Jean let go of his weapon. Then for a moment he looked at them all, as though bewildered by all that had just happened so rapidly; and then he went off, limping, with a furious, despairing gesture.

  When he went round the corner of the house, making for the plain, he caught sight of La Trouille, who had been watching the battle over the garden hedge. She was still chortling over it, for she had been lurking around since neither she nor her father had been invited to the christening party. Wouldn't Jesus Christ be amused by this nice little family party ending with his brother's arm being broken! She found it so funny that she was squirming about as though being tickled and ready to lie down on her back like a cat.

  ‘Oh, Corporal, what a whack!’ she exclaimed. ‘The bone went crack! What a lark!’

  He slowed down without making any reply, looking quite overcome. She followed him, whistling up her geese which she had brought along with her as a pretext for loitering and listening under walls. Without thinking, he was making his way back to the threshing machine which was still working in the failing light. He was thinking to himself that it was all over, he could never visit the Buteaus again nor would they let him have Françoise. How stupid it was! All in the space of ten minutes: a quarrel he had not sought and that unfortunate blow at the very moment when things were going well! And now, there would never be another chance! The rumble of the machine in the dusk went on and on like a mournful lament.

  But at the corner of the crossroads an encounter took place: La Trouille's geese, on their way home, found themselves face to face with old Saucisse's geese making their own way down to the village. The two ganders in the lead suddenly stopped, resting their weight on one leg and stretching their yellow beaks towards each other; and the beaks of each flock all pointed in the same direction as their leaders', as
they rested their bodies on the same leg. For a split second, they all stood stock-still, like two armed patrols on reconnaissance exchanging the password. Then, round-eyed and satisfied, one of the ganders went straight on while the other one swung left; and each flock followed its leader, pit-patting about their business in the same uniform waddle.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 1

  EVER since May, after shearing the sheep and selling the lambs, Soulas the shepherd had been taking out the whole of the La Borderie flock, nearly four hundred in all, which he looked after by himself with the help of the young pigherd Auguste and his two fearsome dogs, Emperor and Massacre. Until August his flock would be feeding on the fallow land, in the meadows of clover and lucerne or else on the uncultivated roadside verges; and barely three weeks ago, immediately after the harvest, he had finally penned them on the stubble, for the last few scorching, sunny days of September.

  It was the hateful season when Beauce was stripped and desolate and its bare fields stretched out without a single tuft of green. The earth was cracked, completely parched by the summer heat and drought, and as all plant growth disappeared, all that was left was the dirty stain of dead weeds and the fields of hard, bristly stubble stretching away to the horizon in all directions, so that the mournful, desolate plain looked as though it had been devastated by some universal fire which had left a murky yellow gleam behind on the ground, a sinister shining yellow, like the lurid glow of a storm. Everything was yellow, but a yellow that was fearfully sad, with baked earth, shorn-off wheat stalks, cart tracks rutted and worn bare by the wheels. At the slightest gust of wind, vast clouds of dust flew up, covering the banks and hedges with powder. And the blue sky and blazing sun were but one more element of sadness gazing down on this scene of desolation.

  And in fact there was a high wind that day, with sudden warm gusts of air which sent great clouds scudding across the sky, and when the sun broke through it was like glowing red-hot iron, burning the skin. Ever since morning Soulas had been waiting for water for himself and his flock; it was to be brought up from the farm, because the stubble where he was pasturing was to the north of Rognes, far from any pond. In the pen, formed by hurdles attached to stakes stuck into the ground, the sheep were lying panting on their bellies, while the two dogs, stretched out outside the pen, were panting too, with their tongues hanging out. To have a little shade, the shepherd had sat down against the little two-wheeled hut that he pushed about each time he changed the pen and which was his bedroom, wardrobe and larder. But by twelve o'clock, the sun was high in the sky and he stood up, looking into the distance to see if Auguste was coming back from the farm where he had sent him to find out why the water-cart had not come.

  At last the little pigherd appeared, shouting:

  ‘They're on their way, they hadn't got any horses this morning.’

  ‘Well, stupid, didn't you bring a bottle of water back with you?’

  ‘No, I didn't think of it. I did have a drink myself.’

  Soulas gave him a cuff, which the boy ducked. He was swearing but decided to eat even without a drink, although his throat was as dry as a lime-kiln. Keeping a weather-eye open, Auguste, in response to Soulas's orders, went and fetched the week-old bread, old nuts and dry cheese out of the cart, and both of them started to eat, closely watched by the dogs who came and sat down in front of them, snapping up the odd crust which was so hard that it sounded like a dry bone when they cracked it between their jaws. Despite his seventy years, the shepherd's gums were as active as the pigherd's teeth. He was still straight-backed, tough and as knotty as a hawthorn stick, his face even more gnarled and worn, as though hewn from a tree, and with a tangled mop of faded earth-coloured hair. And the little pigherd got his clout after all, a cuff which sent him flat on his face in the cart just as he was unsuspectingly putting away the remains of the bread and cheese.

  ‘Take that, you little devil, there's more where that came from.’ By two o'clock still nothing had appeared. It was hotter than ever, and quite unbearable during the occasional lulls when the wind dropped altogether. And then the wind would blow up tiny whirlwinds of dust, stifling and blinding, to exacerbate his agonizing thirst. The shepherd, waiting with stoical patience, without complaint, finally gave a grunt of satisfaction.

  ‘They're not too soon, for God's sake!’

  Two carts, scarcely the size of a fist, had just appeared on the horizon at the edge of the plain; in the first one, driven by Jean, Soulas had recognized the barrel of water, whilst the second one, driven by Tron, was loaded with bags of wheat that he was taking over to a mill whose tall timber structure could be seen some couple of furlongs away. This last cart stopped on the road and Tron accompanied the other man up over the stubble to the sheep-pen, on the pretext of lending a hand but in reality to relax and have a short chat.

  ‘So you wanted us all to croak with thirst,’ the shepherd called out.

  And the sheep themselves, having smelt the water, made a disorderly rush towards the hurdles, plaintively bleating.

  ‘Wait a sec!’ Jean replied. ‘There's enough for everyone!’

  They set up the trough at once and filled it from a wooden runnel; and as it had a leak, the dogs were able to lick the water up as it dripped through; while unable to wait, the shepherd and the little pigherd drank out of the runnel itself. The whole flock trooped along and the only sound to be heard was the welcome bubbling of the water, and the glug-glug of thirsty throats, as man and beast happily splashed and soaked it up.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Soulas eventually, having recovered his good humour, ‘if you were kind you'd give me a hand to shift the pen along a bit.’

  Jean and Tron agreed. In the big areas of stubble the pen would not remain in the same place for more than two or three days, just time for the sheep to crop the weeds, before moving on; and this system had the additional advantage of manuring the land, section by section. While the shepherd and his dogs looked after the sheep, the two men and the little pigherd pulled up the stakes and moved the hurdles fifty yards further on and then fastened them again in a big square into which the sheep moved of their own accord, before it was completely closed in.

  Despite his age, Soulas pushed his cart along to bring it closer to the pen. Then, referring to Jean, he said:

  ‘What's up with him? You'd think he was going to his own funeral.’

  And as the young man, who was sick at heart ever since he thought he had lost Françoise, sadly shook his head, Soulas added:

  ‘Eh? There must be a woman behind it!… Ah, those bitches, they ought all to have their necks wrung.’

  Tron was a handsome fellow, built like a colossus and with a cheerful ingenuous air. He gave a laugh:

  ‘People say that when they're past it.’

  ‘I'm past it, I'm past it, am I?’ repeated the shepherd scornfully. ‘Have I ever tried with you? And let me tell you, sonny, there's one woman you'd do better to keep away from, that'll end in trouble, never fear!’

  This reference to his relationship with Jacqueline made the farm-hand blush to the roots of his hair. Soulas had caught them at it one morning behind some bags of oats at the end of the barn and, consumed with hatred for this former scullery-maid who now treated her former companions so shabbily, he had finally decided to open his master's eyes; but hardly had he started talking when his master gave him such a terrifying look that he had stopped short and decided not to say anything more until Jacqueline pushed him to the end of his tether by getting him dismissed. And so they lived like cat and dog, he afraid of being discarded like a useless old animal, she waiting until she was powerful enough to force Hourdequin to do it, for he was fond of his shepherd. In the whole of Beauce there was not one shepherd better at pasturing his sheep, without loss or damage, and cropping a field so close that not a blade of grass was left.

  Yielding to the urge to talk which sometimes seizes people who live solitary lives, the old man went on:

  ‘Ah, if my bitch of a wife had
n't drunk up all my pay every week before drinking herself to death, I'd've left the farm like a shot to get away from all that filth. That Cognet girl! She works harder with her bum than with her hands and her soft skin's got her further than her brains. When you think that the master lets her sleep in the same bed as our poor dead mistress and that she's wheedled him into eating alone with her, as if she really was his wife! I expect that she'll chuck us all out one day, as soon as she can, and him too, I reckon. A slut who's slept around with the scum of the earth.’

  At every sentence, Tron was clenching his fists more tightly in one of his terrible repressed rages which were all the more terrifying because of his immense strength.

  ‘That's enough!’ he exclaimed. ‘If you were still a man, I'd've shut you up long ago… She's got more decency in her little finger than you in your whole body.’

  But Soulas merely grinned and shrugged his shoulders, and though he never laughed his face suddenly creaked into a cackle like a rusty old pulley.

  ‘You silly booby, you're as stupid as she's clever! She could display her virginity in a show-case and you'd believe it. I'm telling you that every Tom, Dick and Harry has got across her. I get around, I've only got to keep my eyes open and don't need to look far to see the girls who get stuffed. But you'd never believe how often I've seen her getting stuffed, it's so often. Look, there was the old hunchback Matheas who's died since, he had her in the stables when she was just fourteen; and later on when she was kneading bread that young rapscallion of a pigherd Guillaume, he's in the army now, had her actually leaning against the trough, and all the farm-hands that have come and gone have had her in the straw, on sacks on the ground, in every corner you can think of. And there's no need to look so far. If you're interested, there's someone here that I noticed in the hayloft one morning, busy doing a few press-ups!’