THE IDIOTS
We were driving along the road from Treguier to Kervanda. We passed at asmart trot between the hedges topping an earth wall on each side ofthe road; then at the foot of the steep ascent before Ploumar the horsedropped into a walk, and the driver jumped down heavily from the box.He flicked his whip and climbed the incline, stepping clumsily uphillby the side of the carriage, one hand on the footboard, his eyes on theground. After a while he lifted his head, pointed up the road with theend of the whip, and said--
"The idiot!"
The sun was shining violently upon the undulating surface of the land.The rises were topped by clumps of meagre trees, with their branchesshowing high on the sky as if they had been perched upon stilts. Thesmall fields, cut up by hedges and stone walls that zig-zagged overthe slopes, lay in rectangular patches of vivid greens and yellows,resembling the unskilful daubs of a naive picture. And the landscape wasdivided in two by the white streak of a road stretching in long loopsfar away, like a river of dust crawling out of the hills on its way tothe sea.
"Here he is," said the driver, again.
In the long grass bordering the road a face glided past the carriageat the level of the wheels as we drove slowly by. The imbecile face wasred, and the bullet head with close-cropped hair seemed to lie alone,its chin in the dust. The body was lost in the bushes growing thickalong the bottom of the deep ditch.
It was a boy's face. He might have been sixteen, judging from thesize--perhaps less, perhaps more. Such creatures are forgotten bytime, and live untouched by years till death gathers them up into itscompassionate bosom; the faithful death that never forgets in the pressof work the most insignificant of its children.
"Ah! there's another," said the man, with a certain satisfaction in histone, as if he had caught sight of something expected.
There was another. That one stood nearly in the middle of the road inthe blaze of sunshine at the end of his own short shadow. And he stoodwith hands pushed into the opposite sleeves of his long coat, his headsunk between the shoulders, all hunched up in the flood of heat. From adistance he had the aspect of one suffering from intense cold.
"Those are twins," explained the driver.
The idiot shuffled two paces out of the way and looked at us over hisshoulder when we brushed past him. The glance was unseeing and staring,a fascinated glance; but he did not turn to look after us. Probably theimage passed before the eyes without leaving any trace on the misshapenbrain of the creature. When we had topped the ascent I looked over thehood. He stood in the road just where we had left him.
The driver clambered into his seat, clicked his tongue, and we wentdownhill. The brake squeaked horribly from time to time. At the foot heeased off the noisy mechanism and said, turning half round on his box--
"We shall see some more of them by-and-by."
"More idiots? How many of them are there, then?" I asked.
"There's four of them--children of a farmer near Ploumar here. . . . Theparents are dead now," he added, after a while. "The grandmother liveson the farm. In the daytime they knock about on this road, and they comehome at dusk along with the cattle. . . . It's a good farm."
We saw the other two: a boy and a girl, as the driver said. They weredressed exactly alike, in shapeless garments with petticoat-like skirts.The imperfect thing that lived within them moved those beings to howlat us from the top of the bank, where they sprawled amongst the toughstalks of furze. Their cropped black heads stuck out from the brightyellow wall of countless small blossoms. The faces were purple withthe strain of yelling; the voices sounded blank and cracked like amechanical imitation of old people's voices; and suddenly ceased when weturned into a lane.
I saw them many times in my wandering about the country. They lived onthat road, drifting along its length here and there, according to theinexplicable impulses of their monstrous darkness. They were anoffence to the sunshine, a reproach to empty heaven, a blight on theconcentrated and purposeful vigour of the wild landscape. In time thestory of their parents shaped itself before me out of the listlessanswers to my questions, out of the indifferent words heard in waysideinns or on the very road those idiots haunted. Some of it was told byan emaciated and sceptical old fellow with a tremendous whip, while wetrudged together over the sands by the side of a two-wheeled cart loadedwith dripping seaweed. Then at other times other people confirmed andcompleted the story: till it stood at last before me, a tale formidableand simple, as they always are, those disclosures of obscure trialsendured by ignorant hearts.
When he returned from his military service Jean-Pierre Bacadou found theold people very much aged. He remarked with pain that the work of thefarm was not satisfactorily done. The father had not the energy ofold days. The hands did not feel over them the eye of the master.Jean-Pierre noted with sorrow that the heap of manure in the courtyardbefore the only entrance to the house was not so large as it shouldhave been. The fences were out of repair, and the cattle suffered fromneglect. At home the mother was practically bedridden, and the girlschattered loudly in the big kitchen, unrebuked, from morning to night.He said to himself: "We must change all this." He talked the matter overwith his father one evening when the rays of the setting sun enteringthe yard between the outhouses ruled the heavy shadows with luminousstreaks. Over the manure heap floated a mist, opal-tinted and odorous,and the marauding hens would stop in their scratching to examine witha sudden glance of their round eye the two men, both lean and tall,talking in hoarse tones. The old man, all twisted with rheumatism andbowed with years of work, the younger bony and straight, spoke withoutgestures in the indifferent manner of peasants, grave and slow.But before the sun had set the father had submitted to the sensiblearguments of the son. "It is not for me that I am speaking," insistedJean-Pierre. "It is for the land. It's a pity to see it badly used. I amnot impatient for myself." The old fellow nodded over his stick. "I daresay; I dare say," he muttered. "You may be right. Do what you like. It'sthe mother that will be pleased."
The mother was pleased with her daughter-in-law. Jean-Pierre broughtthe two-wheeled spring-cart with a rush into the yard. The gray horsegalloped clumsily, and the bride and bridegroom, sitting side by side,were jerked backwards and forwards by the up and down motion of theshafts, in a manner regular and brusque. On the road the distancedwedding guests straggled in pairs and groups. The men advanced withheavy steps, swinging their idle arms. They were clad in town clothes;jackets cut with clumsy smartness, hard black hats, immense boots,polished highly. Their women all in simple black, with white caps andshawls of faded tints folded triangularly on the back, strolled lightlyby their side. In front the violin sang a strident tune, and the biniousnored and hummed, while the player capered solemnly, lifting high hisheavy clogs. The sombre procession drifted in and out of the narrowlanes, through sunshine and through shade, between fields and hedgerows,scaring the little birds that darted away in troops right and left. Inthe yard of Bacadou's farm the dark ribbon wound itself up into a massof men and women pushing at the door with cries and greetings. Thewedding dinner was remembered for months. It was a splendid feast in theorchard. Farmers of considerable means and excellent repute were to befound sleeping in ditches, all along the road to Treguier, even as lateas the afternoon of the next day. All the countryside participated inthe happiness of Jean-Pierre. He remained sober, and, together with hisquiet wife, kept out of the way, letting father and mother reap theirdue of honour and thanks. But the next day he took hold strongly, andthe old folks felt a shadow--precursor of the grave--fall upon themfinally. The world is to the young.
When the twins were born there was plenty of room in the house, for themother of Jean-Pierre had gone away to dwell under a heavy stone in thecemetery of Ploumar. On that day, for the first time since his son'smarriage, the elder Bacadou, neglected by the cackling lot of strangewomen who thronged the kitchen, left in the morning his seat under themantel of the fireplace, and went into the empty cow-house, shaking hiswhite locks dismally. Grandsons were all very well,
but he wanted hissoup at midday. When shown the babies, he stared at them with a fixedgaze, and muttered something like: "It's too much." Whether he meant toomuch happiness, or simply commented upon the number of his descendants,it is impossible to say. He looked offended--as far as his old woodenface could express anything; and for days afterwards could be seen,almost any time of the day, sitting at the gate, with his nose over hisknees, a pipe between his gums, and gathered up into a kind of ragingconcentrated sulkiness. Once he spoke to his son, alluding to thenewcomers with a groan: "They will quarrel over the land." "Don't botherabout that, father," answered Jean-Pierre, stolidly, and passed, bentdouble, towing a recalcitrant cow over his shoulder.
He was happy, and so was Susan, his wife. It was not an ethereal joywelcoming new souls to struggle, perchance to victory. In fourteen yearsboth boys would be a help; and, later on, Jean-Pierre pictured two bigsons striding over the land from patch to patch, wringing tribute fromthe earth beloved and fruitful. Susan was happy too, for she did notwant to be spoken of as the unfortunate woman, and now she had childrenno one could call her that. Both herself and her husband had seensomething of the larger world--he during the time of his service; whileshe had spent a year or so in Paris with a Breton family; but had beentoo home-sick to remain longer away from the hilly and green country,set in a barren circle of rocks and sands, where she had been born.She thought that one of the boys ought perhaps to be a priest, but saidnothing to her husband, who was a republican, and hated the "crows,"as he called the ministers of religion. The christening was a splendidaffair. All the commune came to it, for the Bacadous were richand influential, and, now and then, did not mind the expense. Thegrandfather had a new coat.
Some months afterwards, one evening when the kitchen had been swept,and the door locked, Jean-Pierre, looking at the cot, asked his wife:"What's the matter with those children?" And, as if these words, spokencalmly, had been the portent of misfortune, she answered with a loudwail that must have been heard across the yard in the pig-sty; forthe pigs (the Bacadous had the finest pigs in the country) stirred andgrunted complainingly in the night. The husband went on grinding hisbread and butter slowly, gazing at the wall, the soup-plate smokingunder his chin. He had returned late from the market, where he hadoverheard (not for the first time) whispers behind his back. He revolvedthe words in his mind as he drove back. "Simple! Both of them. . . .Never any use! . . . Well! May be, may be. One must see. Would ask hiswife." This was her answer. He felt like a blow on his chest, but saidonly: "Go, draw me some cider. I am thirsty!"
She went out moaning, an empty jug in her hand. Then he arose, took upthe light, and moved slowly towards the cradle. They slept. He looked atthem sideways, finished his mouthful there, went back heavily, and satdown before his plate. When his wife returned he never looked up,but swallowed a couple of spoonfuls noisily, and remarked, in a dullmanner--
"When they sleep they are like other people's children."
She sat down suddenly on a stool near by, and shook with a silenttempest of sobs, unable to speak. He finished his meal, and remainedidly thrown back in his chair, his eyes lost amongst the black raftersof the ceiling. Before him the tallow candle flared red and straight,sending up a slender thread of smoke. The light lay on the rough,sunburnt skin of his throat; the sunk cheeks were like patches ofdarkness, and his aspect was mournfully stolid, as if he had ruminatedwith difficulty endless ideas. Then he said, deliberately--
"We must see . . . consult people. Don't cry. . . . They won't all belike that . . . surely! We must sleep now."
After the third child, also a boy, was born, Jean-Pierre went about hiswork with tense hopefulness. His lips seemed more narrow, more tightlycompressed than before; as if for fear of letting the earth he tilledhear the voice of hope that murmured within his breast. He watched thechild, stepping up to the cot with a heavy clang of sabots on the stonefloor, and glanced in, along his shoulder, with that indifference whichis like a deformity of peasant humanity. Like the earth they master andserve, those men, slow of eye and speech, do not show the inner fire; sothat, at last, it becomes a question with them as with the earth,what there is in the core: heat, violence, a force mysterious andterrible--or nothing but a clod, a mass fertile and inert, cold andunfeeling, ready to bear a crop of plants that sustain life or givedeath.
The mother watched with other eyes; listened with otherwise expectantears. Under the high hanging shelves supporting great sides of baconoverhead, her body was busy by the great fireplace, attentive to the potswinging on iron gallows, scrubbing the long table where the field handswould sit down directly to their evening meal. Her mind remained by thecradle, night and day on the watch, to hope and suffer. That child, likethe other two, never smiled, never stretched its hands to her, neverspoke; never had a glance of recognition for her in its big black eyes,which could only stare fixedly at any glitter, but failed hopelessly tofollow the brilliance of a sun-ray slipping slowly along the floor.When the men were at work she spent long days between her three idiotchildren and the childish grandfather, who sat grim, angular, andimmovable, with his feet near the warm ashes of the fire. The feebleold fellow seemed to suspect that there was something wrong with hisgrandsons. Only once, moved either by affection or by the sense ofproprieties, he attempted to nurse the youngest. He took the boy up fromthe floor, clicked his tongue at him, and essayed a shaky gallop of hisbony knees. Then he looked closely with his misty eyes at the child'sface and deposited him down gently on the floor again. And he sat, hislean shanks crossed, nodding at the steam escaping from the cooking-potwith a gaze senile and worried.
Then mute affliction dwelt in Bacadou's farmhouse, sharing the breathand the bread of its inhabitants; and the priest of the Ploumar parishhad great cause for congratulation. He called upon the rich landowner,the Marquis de Chavanes, on purpose to deliver himself with joyfulunction of solemn platitudes about the inscrutable ways of Providence.In the vast dimness of the curtained drawing-room, the little man,resembling a black bolster, leaned towards a couch, his hat onhis knees, and gesticulated with a fat hand at the elongated,gracefully-flowing lines of the clear Parisian toilette from which thehalf-amused, half-bored marquise listened with gracious languor. He wasexulting and humble, proud and awed. The impossible had come to pass.Jean-Pierre Bacadou, the enraged republican farmer, had been to masslast Sunday--had proposed to entertain the visiting priests at the nextfestival of Ploumar! It was a triumph for the Church and for the goodcause. "I thought I would come at once to tell Monsieur le Marquis. Iknow how anxious he is for the welfare of our country," declared thepriest, wiping his face. He was asked to stay to dinner.
The Chavanes returning that evening, after seeing their guest to themain gate of the park, discussed the matter while they strolled inthe moonlight, trailing their long shadows up the straight avenue ofchestnuts. The marquise, a royalist of course, had been mayor of thecommune which includes Ploumar, the scattered hamlets of the coast, andthe stony islands that fringe the yellow flatness of the sands. He hadfelt his position insecure, for there was a strong republican element inthat part of the country; but now the conversion of Jean-Pierre madehim safe. He was very pleased. "You have no idea how influentialthose people are," he explained to his wife. "Now, I am sure, the nextcommunal election will go all right. I shall be re-elected." "Yourambition is perfectly insatiable, Charles," exclaimed the marquise,gaily. "But, ma chere amie," argued the husband, seriously, "it's mostimportant that the right man should be mayor this year, because of theelections to the Chamber. If you think it amuses me . . ."
Jean-Pierre had surrendered to his wife's mother. Madame Levaille wasa woman of business, known and respected within a radius of at leastfifteen miles. Thick-set and stout, she was seen about the country, onfoot or in an acquaintance's cart, perpetually moving, in spite of herfifty-eight years, in steady pursuit of business. She had houses in allthe hamlets, she worked quarries of granite, she freighted coasterswith stone--even traded with the Channel Islands. She was broad-cheeke
d,wide-eyed, persuasive in speech: carrying her point with the placid andinvincible obstinacy of an old woman who knows her own mind. She veryseldom slept for two nights together in the same house; and the waysideinns were the best places to inquire in as to her whereabouts. She hadeither passed, or was expected to pass there at six; or somebody, comingin, had seen her in the morning, or expected to meet her that evening.After the inns that command the roads, the churches were the buildingsshe frequented most. Men of liberal opinions would induce small childrento run into sacred edifices to see whether Madame Levaille was there,and to tell her that so-and-so was in the road waiting to speak to herabout potatoes, or flour, or stones, or houses; and she would curtailher devotions, come out blinking and crossing herself into the sunshine;ready to discuss business matters in a calm, sensible way across a tablein the kitchen of the inn opposite. Latterly she had stayed for a fewdays several times with her son-in-law, arguing against sorrow andmisfortune with composed face and gentle tones. Jean-Pierre felt theconvictions imbibed in the regiment torn out of his breast--not byarguments but by facts. Striding over his fields he thought it over.There were three of them. Three! All alike! Why? Such things did nothappen to everybody--to nobody he ever heard of. One--might pass. Butthree! All three. Forever useless, to be fed while he lived and . . .What would become of the land when he died? This must be seen to. Hewould sacrifice his convictions. One day he told his wife--
"See what your God will do for us. Pay for some masses."
Susan embraced her man. He stood unbending, then turned on his heels andwent out. But afterwards, when a black soutane darkened his doorway,he did not object; even offered some cider himself to the priest.He listened to the talk meekly; went to mass between the two women;accomplished what the priest called "his religious duties" at Easter.That morning he felt like a man who had sold his soul. In the afternoonhe fought ferociously with an old friend and neighbour who had remarkedthat the priests had the best of it and were now going to eat thepriest-eater. He came home dishevelled and bleeding, and happening tocatch sight of his children (they were kept generally out of the way),cursed and swore incoherently, banging the table. Susan wept. MadameLevaille sat serenely unmoved. She assured her daughter that "It willpass;" and taking up her thick umbrella, departed in haste to see aftera schooner she was going to load with granite from her quarry.
A year or so afterwards the girl was born. A girl. Jean-Pierre heard ofit in the fields, and was so upset by the news that he sat down on theboundary wall and remained there till the evening, instead of going homeas he was urged to do. A girl! He felt half cheated. However, when hegot home he was partly reconciled to his fate. One could marry her toa good fellow--not to a good for nothing, but to a fellow with someunderstanding and a good pair of arms. Besides, the next may be a boy,he thought. Of course they would be all right. His new credulity knewof no doubt. The ill luck was broken. He spoke cheerily to his wife.She was also hopeful. Three priests came to that christening, and MadameLevaille was godmother. The child turned out an idiot too.
Then on market days Jean-Pierre was seen bargaining bitterly,quarrelsome and greedy; then getting drunk with taciturn earnestness;then driving home in the dusk at a rate fit for a wedding, but with aface gloomy enough for a funeral. Sometimes he would insist on his wifecoming with him; and they would drive in the early morning, shaking sideby side on the narrow seat above the helpless pig, that, with tied legs,grunted a melancholy sigh at every rut. The morning drives were silent;but in the evening, coming home, Jean-Pierre, tipsy, was viciouslymuttering, and growled at the confounded woman who could not rearchildren that were like anybody else's. Susan, holding on against theerratic swayings of the cart, pretended not to hear. Once, as they weredriving through Ploumar, some obscure and drunken impulse caused him topull up sharply opposite the church. The moon swam amongst light whiteclouds. The tombstones gleamed pale under the fretted shadows ofthe trees in the churchyard. Even the village dogs slept. Only thenightingales, awake, spun out the thrill of their song above the silenceof graves. Jean-Pierre said thickly to his wife--
"What do you think is there?"
He pointed his whip at the tower--in which the big dial of the clockappeared high in the moonlight like a pallid face without eyes--andgetting out carefully, fell down at once by the wheel. He pickedhimself up and climbed one by one the few steps to the iron gate of thechurchyard. He put his face to the bars and called out indistinctly--
"Hey there! Come out!"
"Jean! Return! Return!" entreated his wife in low tones.
He took no notice, and seemed to wait there. The song of nightingalesbeat on all sides against the high walls of the church, and flowed backbetween stone crosses and flat gray slabs, engraved with words of hopeand sorrow.
"Hey! Come out!" shouted Jean-Pierre, loudly.
The nightingales ceased to sing.
"Nobody?" went on Jean-Pierre. "Nobody there. A swindle of the crows.That's what this is. Nobody anywhere. I despise it. _Allez! Houp!_"
He shook the gate with all his strength, and the iron bars rattled witha frightful clanging, like a chain dragged over stone steps. A dognear by barked hurriedly. Jean-Pierre staggered back, and after threesuccessive dashes got into his cart. Susan sat very quiet and still. Hesaid to her with drunken severity--
"See? Nobody. I've been made a fool! _Malheur!_ Somebody will pay for it.The next one I see near the house I will lay my whip on . . . on theblack spine . . . I will. I don't want him in there . . . he only helpsthe carrion crows to rob poor folk. I am a man. . . . We will see ifI can't have children like anybody else . . . now you mind. . . . Theywon't be all . . . all . . . we see. . . ."
She burst out through the fingers that hid her face--
"Don't say that, Jean; don't say that, my man!"
He struck her a swinging blow on the head with the back of his handand knocked her into the bottom of the cart, where she crouched,thrown about lamentably by every jolt. He drove furiously, standingup, brandishing his whip, shaking the reins over the gray horse thatgalloped ponderously, making the heavy harness leap upon his broadquarters. The country rang clamorous in the night with the irritatedbarking of farm dogs, that followed the rattle of wheels all along theroad. A couple of belated wayfarers had only just time to step into theditch. At his own gate he caught the post and was shot out of the carthead first. The horse went on slowly to the door. At Susan's piercingcries the farm hands rushed out. She thought him dead, but he was onlysleeping where he fell, and cursed his men, who hastened to him, fordisturbing his slumbers.
Autumn came. The clouded sky descended low upon the black contoursof the hills; and the dead leaves danced in spiral whirls under nakedtrees, till the wind, sighing profoundly, laid them to rest in thehollows of bare valleys. And from morning till night one could see allover the land black denuded boughs, the boughs gnarled and twisted, asif contorted with pain, swaying sadly between the wet clouds andthe soaked earth. The clear and gentle streams of summer days rusheddiscoloured and raging at the stones that barred the way to the sea,with the fury of madness bent upon suicide. From horizon to horizon thegreat road to the sands lay between the hills in a dull glitter of emptycurves, resembling an unnavigable river of mud.
Jean-Pierre went from field to field, moving blurred and tall in thedrizzle, or striding on the crests of rises, lonely and high upon thegray curtain of drifting clouds, as if he had been pacing along the veryedge of the universe. He looked at the black earth, at the earthmute and promising, at the mysterious earth doing its work of life indeath-like stillness under the veiled sorrow of the sky. And it seemedto him that to a man worse than childless there was no promise inthe fertility of fields, that from him the earth escaped, defied him,frowned at him like the clouds, sombre and hurried above his head.Having to face alone his own fields, he felt the inferiority of man whopasses away before the clod that remains. Must he give up the hope ofhaving by his side a son who would look at the turned-up sods with amaster's eye? A man that would think
as he thought, that would feel ashe felt; a man who would be part of himself, and yet remain to tramplemasterfully on that earth when he was gone? He thought of some distantrelations, and felt savage enough to curse them aloud. They! Never! Heturned homewards, going straight at the roof of his dwelling, visiblebetween the enlaced skeletons of trees. As he swung his legs over thestile a cawing flock of birds settled slowly on the field; dropped downbehind his back, noiseless and fluttering, like flakes of soot.
That day Madame Levaille had gone early in the afternoon to the houseshe had near Kervanion. She had to pay some of the men who worked in hergranite quarry there, and she went in good time because her little housecontained a shop where the workmen could spend their wages without thetrouble of going to town. The house stood alone amongst rocks. A laneof mud and stones ended at the door. The sea-winds coming ashore onStonecutter's point, fresh from the fierce turmoil of the waves, howledviolently at the unmoved heaps of black boulders holding up steadilyshort-armed, high crosses against the tremendous rush of the invisible.In the sweep of gales the sheltered dwelling stood in a calm resonantand disquieting, like the calm in the centre of a hurricane. On stormynights, when the tide was out, the bay of Fougere, fifty feet below thehouse, resembled an immense black pit, from which ascended mutteringsand sighs as if the sands down there had been alive and complaining.At high tide the returning water assaulted the ledges of rock in shortrushes, ending in bursts of livid light and columns of spray, that flewinland, stinging to death the grass of pastures.
The darkness came from the hills, flowed over the coast, put out the redfires of sunset, and went on to seaward pursuing the retiring tide. Thewind dropped with the sun, leaving a maddened sea and a devastated sky.The heavens above the house seemed to be draped in black rags, held uphere and there by pins of fire. Madame Levaille, for this evening theservant of her own workmen, tried to induce them to depart. "An oldwoman like me ought to be in bed at this late hour," she good-humouredlyrepeated. The quarrymen drank, asked for more. They shouted over thetable as if they had been talking across a field. At one end fourof them played cards, banging the wood with their hard knuckles, andswearing at every lead. One sat with a lost gaze, humming a bar ofsome song, which he repeated endlessly. Two others, in a corner, werequarrelling confidentially and fiercely over some woman, looking closeinto one another's eyes as if they had wanted to tear them out, butspeaking in whispers that promised violence and murder discreetly, in avenomous sibillation of subdued words. The atmosphere in there was thickenough to slice with a knife. Three candles burning about the long roomglowed red and dull like sparks expiring in ashes.
The slight click of the iron latch was at that late hour as unexpectedand startling as a thunder-clap. Madame Levaille put down a bottleshe held above a liqueur glass; the players turned their heads; thewhispered quarrel ceased; only the singer, after darting a glance at thedoor, went on humming with a stolid face. Susan appeared in the doorway,stepped in, flung the door to, and put her back against it, saying, halfaloud--
"Mother!"
Madame Levaille, taking up the bottle again, said calmly: "Here you are,my girl. What a state you are in!" The neck of the bottle rang on therim of the glass, for the old woman was startled, and the idea that thefarm had caught fire had entered her head. She could think of no othercause for her daughter's appearance.
Susan, soaked and muddy, stared the whole length of the room towards themen at the far end. Her mother asked--
"What has happened? God guard us from misfortune!"
Susan moved her lips. No sound came. Madame Levaille stepped up to herdaughter, took her by the arm, looked into her face.
"In God's name," she said, shakily, "what's the matter? You have beenrolling in mud. . . . Why did you come? . . . Where's Jean?"
The men had all got up and approached slowly, staring with dullsurprise. Madame Levaille jerked her daughter away from the door, swungher round upon a seat close to the wall. Then she turned fiercely to themen--
"Enough of this! Out you go--you others! I close."
One of them observed, looking down at Susan collapsed on the seat: "Sheis--one may say--half dead."
Madame Levaille flung the door open.
"Get out! March!" she cried, shaking nervously.
They dropped out into the night, laughing stupidly. Outside, the twoLotharios broke out into loud shouts. The others tried to soothe them,all talking at once. The noise went away up the lane with the men,who staggered together in a tight knot, remonstrating with one anotherfoolishly.
"Speak, Susan. What is it? Speak!" entreated Madame Levaille, as soon asthe door was shut.
Susan pronounced some incomprehensible words, glaring at the table. Theold woman clapped her hands above her head, let them drop, and stoodlooking at her daughter with disconsolate eyes. Her husband had been"deranged in his head" for a few years before he died, and now she beganto suspect her daughter was going mad. She asked, pressingly--
"Does Jean know where you are? Where is Jean?"
"He knows . . . he is dead."
"What!" cried the old woman. She came up near, and peering at herdaughter, repeated three times: "What do you say? What do you say? Whatdo you say?"
Susan sat dry-eyed and stony before Madame Levaille, who contemplatedher, feeling a strange sense of inexplicable horror creep into thesilence of the house. She had hardly realised the news, further than tounderstand that she had been brought in one short moment face to facewith something unexpected and final. It did not even occur to her to askfor any explanation. She thought: accident--terrible accident--blood tothe head--fell down a trap door in the loft. . . . She remained there,distracted and mute, blinking her old eyes.
Suddenly, Susan said--
"I have killed him."
For a moment the mother stood still, almost unbreathing, but withcomposed face. The next second she burst out into a shout--
"You miserable madwoman . . . they will cut your neck. . . ."
She fancied the gendarmes entering the house, saying to her: "We wantyour daughter; give her up:" the gendarmes with the severe, hard facesof men on duty. She knew the brigadier well--an old friend, familiarand respectful, saying heartily, "To your good health, Madame!" beforelifting to his lips the small glass of cognac--out of the special bottleshe kept for friends. And now! . . . She was losing her head. She rushedhere and there, as if looking for something urgently needed--gave thatup, stood stock still in the middle of the room, and screamed at herdaughter--
"Why? Say! Say! Why?"
The other seemed to leap out of her strange apathy.
"Do you think I am made of stone?" she shouted back, striding towardsher mother.
"No! It's impossible . . ." said Madame Levaille, in a convinced tone.
"You go and see, mother," retorted Susan, looking at her with blazingeyes. "There's no money in heaven--no justice. No! . . . I did not know.. . . Do you think I have no heart? Do you think I have never heardpeople jeering at me, pitying me, wondering at me? Do you know how someof them were calling me? The mother of idiots--that was my nickname!And my children never would know me, never speak to me. They would knownothing; neither men--nor God. Haven't I prayed! But the Mother of Godherself would not hear me. A mother! . . . Who is accursed--I, or theman who is dead? Eh? Tell me. I took care of myself. Do you think Iwould defy the anger of God and have my house full of those things--thatare worse than animals who know the hand that feeds them? Who blasphemedin the night at the very church door? Was it I? . . . I only wept andprayed for mercy . . . and I feel the curse at every moment of theday--I see it round me from morning to night . . . I've got to keep themalive--to take care of my misfortune and shame. And he would come. Ibegged him and Heaven for mercy. . . . No! . . . Then we shall see. . . .He came this evening. I thought to myself: 'Ah! again!' . . . I hadmy long scissors. I heard him shouting . . . I saw him near. . . . Imust--must I? . . . Then take! . . . And I struck him in the throatabove the breastbone. . . . I never heard him even sigh. . .
. I lefthim standing. . . . It was a minute ago. How did I come here?"
Madame Levaille shivered. A wave of cold ran down her back, down herfat arms under her tight sleeves, made her stamp gently where she stood.Quivers ran over the broad cheeks, across the thin lips, ran amongst thewrinkles at the corners of her steady old eyes. She stammered--
"You wicked woman--you disgrace me. But there! You always resembled yourfather. What do you think will become of you . . . in the other world?In this . . . Oh misery!"
She was very hot now. She felt burning inside. She wrung her perspiringhands--and suddenly, starting in great haste, began to look for her bigshawl and umbrella, feverishly, never once glancing at her daughter, whostood in the middle of the room following her with a gaze distracted andcold.
"Nothing worse than in this," said Susan.
Her mother, umbrella in hand and trailing the shawl over the floor,groaned profoundly.
"I must go to the priest," she burst out passionately. "I do not knowwhether you even speak the truth! You are a horrible woman. They willfind you anywhere. You may stay here--or go. There is no room for you inthis world."
Ready now to depart, she yet wandered aimlessly about the room, puttingthe bottles on the shelf, trying to fit with trembling hands the coverson cardboard boxes. Whenever the real sense of what she had heardemerged for a second from the haze of her thoughts she would fancy thatsomething had exploded in her brain without, unfortunately, bursting herhead to pieces--which would have been a relief. She blew the candlesout one by one without knowing it, and was horribly startled by thedarkness. She fell on a bench and began to whimper. After a while sheceased, and sat listening to the breathing of her daughter, whom shecould hardly see, still and upright, giving no other sign of life. Shewas becoming old rapidly at last, during those minutes. She spoke intones unsteady, cut about by the rattle of teeth, like one shaken by adeadly cold fit of ague.
"I wish you had died little. I will never dare to show my old head inthe sunshine again. There are worse misfortunes than idiot children. Iwish you had been born to me simple--like your own. . . ."
She saw the figure of her daughter pass before the faint and lividclearness of a window. Then it appeared in the doorway for a second, andthe door swung to with a clang. Madame Levaille, as if awakened by thenoise from a long nightmare, rushed out.
"Susan!" she shouted from the doorstep.
She heard a stone roll a long time down the declivity of the rocky beachabove the sands. She stepped forward cautiously, one hand on the wallof the house, and peered down into the smooth darkness of the empty bay.Once again she cried--
"Susan! You will kill yourself there."
The stone had taken its last leap in the dark, and she heard nothingnow. A sudden thought seemed to strangle her, and she called no more.She turned her back upon the black silence of the pit and went up thelane towards Ploumar, stumbling along with sombre determination, as ifshe had started on a desperate journey that would last, perhaps, to theend of her life. A sullen and periodic clamour of waves rolling overreefs followed her far inland between the high hedges sheltering thegloomy solitude of the fields.
Susan had run out, swerving sharp to the left at the door, and on theedge of the slope crouched down behind a boulder. A dislodged stone wenton downwards, rattling as it leaped. When Madame Levaille called out,Susan could have, by stretching her hand, touched her mother's skirt,had she had the courage to move a limb. She saw the old woman go away,and she remained still, closing her eyes and pressing her side to thehard and rugged surface of the rock. After a while a familiar face withfixed eyes and an open mouth became visible in the intense obscurityamongst the boulders. She uttered a low cry and stood up. The facevanished, leaving her to gasp and shiver alone in the wilderness ofstone heaps. But as soon as she had crouched down again to rest, withher head against the rock, the face returned, came very near, appearedeager to finish the speech that had been cut short by death, only amoment ago. She scrambled quickly to her feet and said: "Go away, or Iwill do it again." The thing wavered, swung to the right, to the left.She moved this way and that, stepped back, fancied herself screamingat it, and was appalled by the unbroken stillness of the night. Shetottered on the brink, felt the steep declivity under her feet, andrushed down blindly to save herself from a headlong fall. The shingleseemed to wake up; the pebbles began to roll before her, pursued herfrom above, raced down with her on both sides, rolling past with anincreasing clatter. In the peace of the night the noise grew, deepeningto a rumour, continuous and violent, as if the whole semicircle of thestony beach had started to tumble down into the bay. Susan's feet hardlytouched the slope that seemed to run down with her. At the bottom shestumbled, shot forward, throwing her arms out, and fell heavily. Shejumped up at once and turned swiftly to look back, her clenched handsfull of sand she had clutched in her fall. The face was there, keepingits distance, visible in its own sheen that made a pale stain in thenight. She shouted, "Go away!"--she shouted at it with pain, with fear,with all the rage of that useless stab that could not keep him quiet,keep him out of her sight. What did he want now? He was dead. Deadmen have no children. Would he never leave her alone? She shriekedat it--waved her outstretched hands. She seemed to feel the breath ofparted lips, and, with a long cry of discouragement, fled across thelevel bottom of the bay.
She ran lightly, unaware of any effort of her body. High sharp rocksthat, when the bay is full, show above the glittering plain of bluewater like pointed towers of submerged churches, glided past her,rushing to the land at a tremendous pace. To the left, in the distance,she could see something shining: a broad disc of light in which narrowshadows pivoted round the centre like the spokes of a wheel. She hearda voice calling, "Hey! There!" and answered with a wild scream. So, hecould call yet! He was calling after her to stop. Never! . . . She torethrough the night, past the startled group of seaweed-gatherers whostood round their lantern paralysed with fear at the unearthly screechcoming from that fleeing shadow. The men leaned on their pitchforksstaring fearfully. A woman fell on her knees, and, crossing herself,began to pray aloud. A little girl with her ragged skirt full of slimyseaweed began to sob despairingly, lugging her soaked burden close tothe man who carried the light. Somebody said: "The thing ran out towardsthe sea." Another voice exclaimed: "And the sea is coming back! Look atthe spreading puddles. Do you hear--you woman--there! Get up!" Severalvoices cried together. "Yes, let us be off! Let the accursed thing go tothe sea!" They moved on, keeping close round the light. Suddenly a manswore loudly. He would go and see what was the matter. It had been awoman's voice. He would go. There were shrill protests from women--buthis high form detached itself from the group and went off running. Theysent an unanimous call of scared voices after him. A word, insulting andmocking, came back, thrown at them through the darkness. A woman moaned.An old man said gravely: "Such things ought to be left alone." They wenton slower, shuffling in the yielding sand and whispering to one anotherthat Millot feared nothing, having no religion, but that it would endbadly some day.
Susan met the incoming tide by the Raven islet and stopped, panting,with her feet in the water. She heard the murmur and felt the coldcaress of the sea, and, calmer now, could see the sombre and confusedmass of the Raven on one side and on the other the long white streak ofMolene sands that are left high above the dry bottom of Fougere Bayat every ebb. She turned round and saw far away, along the starredbackground of the sky, the ragged outline of the coast. Above it, nearlyfacing her, appeared the tower of Ploumar Church; a slender and tallpyramid shooting up dark and pointed into the clustered glitter of thestars. She felt strangely calm. She knew where she was, and beganto remember how she came there--and why. She peered into the smoothobscurity near her. She was alone. There was nothing there; nothing nearher, either living or dead.
The tide was creeping in quietly, putting out long impatient arms ofstrange rivulets that ran towards the land between ridges of sand. Underthe night the pools grew bigger with mysterious rapidity, whileth
e great sea, yet far off, thundered in a regular rhythm along theindistinct line of the horizon. Susan splashed her way back for afew yards without being able to get clear of the water that murmuredtenderly all around and, suddenly, with a spiteful gurgle, nearly tookher off her feet. Her heart thumped with fear. This place was too bigand too empty to die in. To-morrow they would do with her what theyliked. But before she died she must tell them--tell the gentlemen inblack clothes that there are things no woman can bear. She must explainhow it happened. . . . She splashed through a pool, getting wet to thewaist, too preoccupied to care. . . . She must explain. "He came in thesame way as ever and said, just so: 'Do you think I am going to leavethe land to those people from Morbihan that I do not know? Do you? Weshall see! Come along, you creature of mischance!' And he put his armsout. Then, Messieurs, I said: 'Before God--never!' And he said, stridingat me with open palms: 'There is no God to hold me! Do you understand,you useless carcase. I will do what I like.' And he took me by theshoulders. Then I, Messieurs, called to God for help, and next minute,while he was shaking me, I felt my long scissors in my hand. His shirtwas unbuttoned, and, by the candle-light, I saw the hollow of histhroat. I cried: 'Let go!' He was crushing my shoulders. He was strong,my man was! Then I thought: No! . . . Must I? . . . Then take!--and Istruck in the hollow place. I never saw him fall. . . . The old fathernever turned his head. He is deaf and childish, gentlemen. . . . Nobodysaw him fall. I ran out . . . Nobody saw. . . ."
She had been scrambling amongst the boulders of the Raven and now foundherself, all out of breath, standing amongst the heavy shadows of therocky islet. The Raven is connected with the main land by a natural pierof immense and slippery stones. She intended to return home that way.Was he still standing there? At home. Home! Four idiots and a corpse.She must go back and explain. Anybody would understand. . . .
Below her the night or the sea seemed to pronounce distinctly--
"Aha! I see you at last!"
She started, slipped, fell; and without attempting to rise, listened,terrified. She heard heavy breathing, a clatter of wooden clogs. Itstopped.
"Where the devil did you pass?" said an invisible man, hoarsely.
She held her breath. She recognized the voice. She had not seen himfall. Was he pursuing her there dead, or perhaps . . . alive?
She lost her head. She cried from the crevice where she lay huddled,"Never, never!"
"Ah! You are still there. You led me a fine dance. Wait, my beauty, Imust see how you look after all this. You wait. . . ."
Millot was stumbling, laughing, swearing meaninglessly out ofpure satisfaction, pleased with himself for having run down thatfly-by-night. "As if there were such things as ghosts! Bah! It took anold African soldier to show those clodhoppers. . . . But it was curious.Who the devil was she?"
Susan listened, crouching. He was coming for her, this dead man. Therewas no escape. What a noise he made amongst the stones. . . . She sawhis head rise up, then the shoulders. He was tall--her own man! His longarms waved about, and it was his own voice sounding a little strange. . . because of the scissors. She scrambled out quickly, rushed to theedge of the causeway, and turned round. The man stood still on a highstone, detaching himself in dead black on the glitter of the sky.
"Where are you going to?" he called, roughly.
She answered, "Home!" and watched him intensely. He made a striding,clumsy leap on to another boulder, and stopped again, balancing himself,then said--
"Ha! ha! Well, I am going with you. It's the least I can do. Ha! ha!ha!"
She stared at him till her eyes seemed to become glowing coals thatburned deep into her brain, and yet she was in mortal fear of makingout the well-known features. Below her the sea lapped softly against therock with a splash continuous and gentle.
The man said, advancing another step--
"I am coming for you. What do you think?"
She trembled. Coming for her! There was no escape, no peace, no hope.She looked round despairingly. Suddenly the whole shadowy coast, theblurred islets, the heaven itself, swayed about twice, then came to arest. She closed her eyes and shouted--
"Can't you wait till I am dead!"
She was shaken by a furious hate for that shade that pursued her in thisworld, unappeased even by death in its longing for an heir that would belike other people's children.
"Hey! What?" said Millot, keeping his distance prudently. He was sayingto himself: "Look out! Some lunatic. An accident happens soon."
She went on, wildly--
"I want to live. To live alone--for a week--for a day. I must explainto them. . . . I would tear you to pieces, I would kill you twenty timesover rather than let you touch me while I live. How many times must Ikill you--you blasphemer! Satan sends you here. I am damned too!"
"Come," said Millot, alarmed and conciliating. "I am perfectly alive!. . . Oh, my God!"
She had screamed, "Alive!" and at once vanished before his eyes, as ifthe islet itself had swerved aside from under her feet. Millot rushedforward, and fell flat with his chin over the edge. Far below he saw thewater whitened by her struggles, and heard one shrill cry for help thatseemed to dart upwards along the perpendicular face of the rock, andsoar past, straight into the high and impassive heaven.
Madame Levaille sat, dry-eyed, on the short grass of the hill side, withher thick legs stretched out, and her old feet turned up in their blackcloth shoes. Her clogs stood near by, and further off the umbrellalay on the withered sward like a weapon dropped from the grasp of avanquished warrior. The Marquis of Chavanes, on horseback, one glovedhand on thigh, looked down at her as she got up laboriously, withgroans. On the narrow track of the seaweed-carts four men were carryinginland Susan's body on a hand-barrow, while several others straggledlistlessly behind. Madame Levaille looked after the procession. "Yes,Monsieur le Marquis," she said dispassionately, in her usual calm toneof a reasonable old woman. "There are unfortunate people on this earth.I had only one child. Only one! And they won't bury her in consecratedground!"
Her eyes filled suddenly, and a short shower of tears rolled down thebroad cheeks. She pulled the shawl close about her. The Marquis leanedslightly over in his saddle, and said--
"It is very sad. You have all my sympathy. I shall speak to the Cure.She was unquestionably insane, and the fall was accidental. Millot saysso distinctly. Good-day, Madame."
And he trotted off, thinking to himself: "I must get this old womanappointed guardian of those idiots, and administrator of the farm.It would be much better than having here one of those other Bacadous,probably a red republican, corrupting my commune."