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  Unable to follow this reasoning, Buteau made a gesture of blank incredulity, albeit reassured by the thought that nobody would be wanting anything from him. Meanwhile, pricking up his ears at this man's confused account of large-scale state agriculture, Hourdequin had been listening patiently. The others were waiting for the end, like people watching a show. Lequeu's pale face had been growing increasingly purple and he had twice opened his mouth to intervene, although each time he had prudently thought better of it.

  ‘And what about my share?’ shouted Jesus Christ suddenly. ‘Everybody must have his share. Liberty, equality and fraternity for ever!’

  Hearing this, Canon lost his temper and lifted his hand as though about to strike his friend.

  ‘For Christ's sake, stop nattering about your liberty, equality and fraternity! Who needs liberty? What a joke! So you want us to end up in the pockets of the bourgeois again? Oh, no, the people are going to be forced to be happy in spite of themselves! So you'd be happy to have equality and fraternity with a bailiff's man? You sucker! It's because they swallowed all that crap that you republicans mucked everything up in 1848!’

  Quite at a loss, Jesus Christ said he supported the Great Revolution of '89.

  ‘You make me puke, do shut up! '89, '93, what a lovely sound! Just a pack of lies that people din into our ears! What good is all that nonsense compared with what still needs doing? You'll see, when the people have become the masters, and it won't be long, everything's collapsing and I promise you that our century, as they call it, will end with a bigger splash even than the last one. A real clean-out, a clean sweep of everything such as you've never seen!’

  Everyone sat aghast and even that drunk Jesus Christ shrank back frightened and repelled at the thought that they were no longer brothers-in-arms. Jean, who had hitherto been listening with interest, made a gesture of protest, too. But Canon had risen to his feet with his eyes blazing and his face lit up in prophetic ecstasy.

  ‘And it must come, it's bound to come, just like a stone you throw up has to come down. And it's not got anything to do with that old rubbish of priests and the afterlife and law and justice which no one's ever seen, any more than anyone's ever seen God! No, there's just the need we all have to be happy. Eh, you there, just tell yourself that we're all going to get together so that everybody will have a wonderful time with as little work as possible. Machines will do the work for us and all we'll have to do is to supervise them for four hours a day: we may even be able to just sit back and fold our arms. And all the pleasure you want, every one of our needs fostered and satisfied, meat, wine, women and three times as much of them as we have today, because we'll be stronger and healthier. No more poverty, no more sickness, no more old age because we'll be better organized, life will be easier with good hospitals and good old people's homes. A paradise on earth! The whole of science devoted to taking it easy. Real enjoyment at last!’

  Buteau enthusiastically banged his fist on the table, yelling:

  ‘No fucking taxes! No fucking military service! No fucking idiots! Nothing but pleasure, I'll sign on!’

  ‘Of course,’ said Delhomme. ‘It'd be against our own interest not to sign.’

  Fouan nodded approval and so did Macqueron, Clou and the others. Bécu, dazed at hearing all his authoritarian ideas turned upside down, went over and asked Hourdequin in a whisper whether this ruffian ought not to be locked up for attacking the Emperor. But the farmer shrugged his shoulders and calmed him down. Happiness! Yes, people were dreaming of achieving it through science just as they used to dream about achieving it through the law; well, perhaps it was more logical but it certainly wasn't going to happen tomorrow. Just as he was leaving again, calling out to Jean who had been listening intently to the discussion, Lequeu, who had been restraining himself, although bursting to intervene, suddenly exploded angrily:

  ‘Unless,’ he exclaimed in his shrill voice, ‘you've all kicked the bucket before all these splendid things happen. Either starved to death or shot by the police if hunger makes you obstreperous.’

  They were looking at him uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Certainly, if wheat continues to come in from America, in fifty years' time there won't be a single smallholder left in France. How can our land compare with theirs? We shall hardly be able to get going on organizing our agriculture before we're flooded with corn. I'm reading a book which tells the whole story, you're sunk.’

  But as he let fly, he suddenly became aware of all the scared faces looking at him. He did not even finish his sentence but ended with a furious gesture and pretended to go back to reading his paper.

  ‘It's certainly all that wheat from America which will sink you,’ said Canon, ‘as long as the people don't seize all the big estates.’

  ‘And my view,’ said Hourdequin in conclusion, ‘is that that wheat mustn't be allowed to come in. And now, vote for Monsieur Rochefontaine if you're tired of me on the town council and you want wheat at fifteen francs.’

  He climbed back into his gig, followed by Jean. Then, as the latter was whipping up the horse, after exchanging a stealthy look with Françoise, he said to his master:

  ‘One shouldn't think too much about all that sort of thing,’ at which Hourdequin nodded approvingly.

  In front of the inn, Macqueron was eagerly whispering to Delhomme, while Canon, who had relapsed into his previous air of complete unconcern, was finishing off the brandy and pulling the leg of the abashed Jesus Christ, calling him ‘Miss 1793’. Buteau had fallen into a brown study and suddenly realizing that Jean had left, he was surprised to see Françoise still standing at the door of the tap-room, where she, together with Berthe, had come to listen. He was irritated at having wasted his time talking politics when he had more serious matters in hand. Dirty things, politics, you couldn't help getting involved. He took Coelina into a corner and had a long argument with her; in the end she persuaded him not to make a row then and there; it would be better for Françoise to go back of her own accord, once they had calmed her down; and then he left too, threatening to come back with a rope and a stick if she couldn't be persuaded.

  The following Sunday, Monsieur Rochefontaine was elected and Hourdequin sent in his resignation to the préfet; Macqueron, as proud as a peacock and puffed up with his success, finally became mayor.

  That same evening, Lengaigne was caught with his trousers down outside the doorway of his triumphant rival. He shouted defiantly:

  ‘Now we're governed by shits, I can shit where I like!’

  Chapter 6

  A WEEK passed and still Françoise obstinately refused to go back to her sister. A dreadful scene took place in the street with Buteau dragging her along by her hair until she bit him so hard in the thumb that he had to let go; but Macqueron took fright and turned the girl out, too, on the grounds that as the representative of law and order he could no longer encourage such rebelliousness.

  But La Grande happened to be passing and she took Françoise in. She was now eighty-eight and her sole occupation, as death drew near, was to leave her wealth to her next-of-kin in such a way as to ensure endless litigation; she had drawn up an extraordinarily involved and deliberately complicated will in which, under the pretence of being fair to all, she would force them to tear each other apart; her idea was that, since she couldn't take it with her, she could at least die with the consolation that her bequests would poison the lives of her heirs. Thus her greatest pleasure was watching her family scratching each other's eyes out. So she was eager to set her niece up in her own home, restraining her instinctive meanness with the thought that she would get a lot of work out of the girl in exchange for a few crusts of bread. That very evening, she set Françoise to scrub her stairs and kitchen. Then, when Buteau appeared, she stood fast and met him like an old bird of prey, with a vicious beak all ready to peck; and the man who had blustered that he would wreck the Macquerons' house now stood there scared and at a loss for words, paralysed by the hopes of what he might inherit and too frightened to c
ross swords with the awesome La Grande.

  ‘I need Françoise, and I intend to keep her here because she doesn't like it at yours… Anyway, she's coming of age and you're going to have to pay her her due. We'll talk about that shortly.’

  Buteau left in a rage, terrified at the thought of all the trouble ahead.

  A week later, in fact, Françoise had her twenty-first birthday. It was about the middle of August. Now she was her own mistress. But she had really exchanged one drudgery for another, for she, too, went in dread of her mean, hard-hearted aunt as she slaved away in her house where everything was expected to shine without any help except from water and elbow-grease. One day she unthinkingly gave some corn to the hens and nearly had her skull cracked open with her aunt's stick. People used to say that in her anxiety to spare her horse, La Grande would yoke her grandson Hilarion to the plough; and even if that story was invented, it was true that she really did treat him like an animal, hitting him, cruelly overworking him and taking advantage of his brute force to leave him flattened and totally exhausted; moreover feeding him so badly, with crusts of bread and leftovers, like her pig, that he was always ravenous and completely terror-stricken. When Françoise realized that she was intended to become the second beast of burden, she had only one wish: to get away. And it was at this point that she suddenly decided that she must get married.

  Quite simply, she wanted to put an end to the whole business. With her intractable sense of justice which had already bedevilled her as a child, she would have killed herself rather than return to her sister's home. Her cause was the only fair one and she despised herself for having been patient for so long; she said nothing about Buteau, all her strictures were reserved for Lise, for without her they would have been able to continue sharing the home. Now that the link was broken, and thoroughly broken, her only thought was to obtain possession of her property, her rightful share of the inheritance. It preyed on her mind from morning till night and she kept losing her temper at the thought of all the long drawn-out formalities. Really! That's mine, that's yours, surely you could settle the whole matter in three minutes. Perhaps it was because people were ganging up to rob her? She was suspicious of the whole family, and so she came to the conclusion that only a man, a husband, could extricate her from all this. Of course, Jean didn't own a square inch of land and he was fifteen years older than she was. But there was no other young man interested in marrying her and perhaps no one would risk it, fearing trouble from Buteau, of whom everyone in Rognes was so afraid that nobody was anxious to have him as an enemy. What else? She had been with Jean, which didn't mean very much because it had only happened that once; but he was very gentle and very decent. It might as well be him because she didn't love anybody else and she wanted someone or other to defend her; and this would infuriate Buteau, too. She would have a man of her own.

  As for Jean, he still felt very friendly towards her, although his desire for her had died down considerably, through having wanted her for so long. All the same, he had kept on seeing her, in his gentle, friendly way, because he considered himself her man and they had exchanged promises. He had waited patiently until she came of age, respecting her wish not to be hurried and in fact preventing her from causing trouble at her sister's. Now she could show more than adequate reasons to have all reasonable people on her side. So while criticizing her for her violent departure, he kept telling her that she now held all the cards. And as soon as she wanted to discuss other things, he would be ready. So one evening when he had come to meet her behind La Grande's cowshed, the marriage was arranged. There was a rotten old gate opening on to a blind corner and they were both leaning against it, he outside, she on the other side with the liquid manure flowing between their legs.

  She mentioned it first:

  ‘You know, Corporal,’ she said, looking him straight in the eyes, ‘if you're still willing, I am, now.’

  He looked at her too and replied slowly:

  ‘I hadn't mentioned it before because I might have seemed to be after your money. But you're right, now's the time.’

  Silence fell. The girl's hand was resting on the gate and he put his hand over it. Then he went on:

  ‘And you mustn't be bothered by the thought of the Cognet girl, because of all the stories about… I haven't even touched her for the last three years.’

  ‘Well, it's the same with me,’ she said. ‘I don't want the thought of Buteau to worry you. The dirty beast goes about telling everyone that he's had me. Perhaps you even think so yourself?’

  ‘Everyone in the village thinks so,’ he said gently, evading the question.

  Then, as she still kept looking at him:

  ‘Yes, I did think so. And I could understand it really, because I know what the fellow's like and you couldn't do anything else but give in.’

  ‘Oh, he tried hard enough all right, he felt me all over. But if I swear that he never went all the way, will you believe me?’

  ‘Yes, I believe you.’

  To show how pleased he was, he took hold of her hand and clutched it tightly in his, leaning his arm on the gate. Realizing that the flow of manure from the cowshed was wetting his shoes, he shifted his legs.

  ‘You seemed to be so willing to stay on in his house, you might have liked him catching hold of you.’

  She became embarrassed and her honest, straightforward gaze wavered.

  ‘Particularly as you didn't want to have anything to do with me either, d'you remember? Never mind, I was furious that I hadn't given you a baby but now I think it's better that's still to come. It's more decent like that.’

  He broke off to point out that she was standing in the muck.

  ‘Look, you're getting wet.’

  She moved her feet back too, and said in conclusion:

  ‘All right then, it's agreed.’

  ‘It's agreed, fix any date that suits you.’

  They did not even kiss but shook hands like good friends over the gate. Then each of them went their own way.

  That evening, when Françoise mentioned her intention of marrying Jean, explaining that she needed a man to help her to obtain her inheritance, La Grande at first said nothing, but her eyes opened wide as she sat there, straight-backed. She was weighing the profit and loss and the pleasure she would enjoy. Not until next day did she express her approval of the marriage. She had spent the whole night awake on her straw mattress, turning the matter over in her mind. She hardly ever slept and she would not close her eyes all night, thinking up unpleasant things to do to her family. This marriage seemed to her so full of consequences for everybody that she was fired with youthful ardour. She could already foresee the slightest difficulties and she intended to complicate them until they became disastrous. So much so that she informed her niece that, out of friendship, she would take charge of the whole affair. She emphasized these words with an awesome flourish of her stick; since the girl was being deserted, she would be a mother to her; and she would show them what's what!

  First of all, La Grande sent for her brother Fouan, to give an account of his guardianship. But the old man was incapable of explaining anything. It wasn't his fault if he'd been appointed her guardian; and anyway, since Monsieur Baillehache had done everything, she'd have to go to Monsieur Baillehache. Moreover, as soon as he realized that the Buteaus were under fire, his confusion became even greater. Age and the realization of his vulnerability had unmanned him, leaving him dazed and at everyone's mercy. Why quarrel with the Buteaus, anyway? He had nearly gone back to them twice already after spending his nights trembling with fear at seeing Jesus Christ and La Trouille prowling round his bedroom, even thrusting their bare arms under his bolster to try and steal his bonds. Surely they'd end by trying to murder him up at the Castle unless he made himself scarce one night. Unable to get anything out of him, La Grande sent him away in abject fear, threatening him that he'd end up in court if he'd laid hands on any of the girl's share of the property. Next, she put the fear of God into Delhomme, as a member of
the board of guardians; he went away so upset that Fanny, behind his back, hurriedly went round to say that they would sooner be out of pocket than have any court case. Things were going well; it was beginning to be amusing.

  The question was whether it was better to embark on settling the estate or to go ahead straight away with the marriage. La Grande thought it over for two nights and then decided in favour of an immediate marriage: with Françoise married to Jean and having a husband to help her claim her fair share, the Buteaus would be even more harassed. So she rushed to and fro like a two-year-old, saw to her niece's papers, got Jean to hand over his, arranged everything at the town-hall and the church; and her keenness even extended to lending the young couple the necessary money, although they had to sign a paper providing for repayment with interest at one hundred per cent. What really cut her to the quick was all the glasses of wine she had to offer in the course of making these arrangements; but she had her special brand of wine reserved for the family, so vinegary and undrinkable that people drank it with the greatest caution. She decided against a wedding-breakfast, because of the difficulties between the family: only Mass and a glass of the special to drink the health of the bride and groom. The Charles refused her invitation on the pretext of the trouble that their son-in-law was causing them, whilst Fouan, ill at ease, took to his bed and gave out that he was not well. So Delhomme was the only relative present and expressed his readiness to act as one of the witnesses for Jean, of whom he approved. For his part, the groom invited only his witnesses, his employer Hourdequin and one of the labourer's from the farm. Rognes was all agog, with everyone on their doorstep to see this marriage which had been rushed through at such speed and promised so much strife. At the town-hall, Macqueron, all puffed-up with his own importance, spun out the formalities in the presence of his predecessor. In church there was an unfortunate incident when Father Madeline fainted during the ceremony. He was ailing, for, living in the flat plain of Beauce, he missed his mountain air, as well as being heartbroken at the irreligiousness of his new parishioners and so upset by the constant gossiping and squabbling of the women that he no longer even dared threaten them with hellfire. They had sensed that he was a weakling and were taking advantage of him, even bullying him over matters concerning the services. However, Coelina and Flore and all of them heartily commiserated with him for falling head-first onto the altar, at the same time asserting that it foreboded the early demise of the wedding couple.