Adиle added with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her eldest
son has come back from Paris. The farm hands will be happier."

Next day, while Madame Alphonse was working at her lace, I sewed and
thought about the ploughman in the white smock. I could not in my mind
help comparing him to Eugиne. He spoke like Eugиne did, and they
seemed like one another somehow.

That evening I thought I saw him near the stables, and a moment later
he came into the linen-room. His eyes just glanced at me and then he
looked straight at Madame Alphonse. He held his head high and the left
side of his mouth drooped a little. Madame Alphonse said, in a happy
voice, when she saw him, "Why, there's Henri!" and she let him kiss her
on both cheeks, and told him to bring a chair up next to her. But he
sat sideways on the table, pushing the linen to one side. Adиle came
into the room, and Madame Alphonse said, "If you see my husband, tell
him that my brother is here."

It was some minutes before I understood. Then I realized suddenly that
the young man in the white smock was Madame Deslois's eldest son. A
sense of shame which I had never felt before made me blush fiercely,
and I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about Sister Marie-Aimйe. I
felt that I had thrown the thing that I loved best to the winds, and do
what I could, I could not keep back two big tears which tickled the
corners of my mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was hemming.
Henri Deslois remained sitting on the corner of the table for a long
time. I could feel that he was looking at me, and his eyes were like a
heavy weight which prevented me from lifting up my head.




Two days afterwards I found him in the shrubbery. When I saw him
sitting there my legs felt weak under me, and I stood still. He got up
at once so that I should sit down; but I remained standing and looking
at him. He had the same gentleness in his eyes that I had noticed the
first time, and, as if he expected me to tell him another story, "Have
you nothing to tell me this evening?" he asked. Words danced across my
brain, but they did not seem to be worth speaking, and I shook my head
to say no. He said, "I was your friend the other day." Recollection
of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I
only said, "You are Madame Alphonse's brother." I left him and did not
dare to go back to the shrubbery again. He often came back to
Villevieille. I never used to look at him, but his voice always made
me feel very uncomfortable.




Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time
after mass. Every Sunday I used to pass the house on the hill.
Sometimes I would look in through the gaps in the shutters, and when,
as I sometimes did, I bumped my head, the noise it made used to
frighten me. One Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on the door.
I put my finger on the latch and the door fell open with a loud noise.
I had not expected it to open so quickly, and I stood there longing to
shut it and go away. Then as there was no more noise, and as the sun
had streamed into the house making a big square of light, I made up my
mind to go in, and went in, leaving the door open. The big fireplace
was empty. There was no hook, there was no pot, and the big andirons
had gone. The only things left in the room were the logs of wood which
Jean le Rouge's children used to use as stools. The bark was worn off
them, and the tops of them were polished, as if with wax, from the
children sitting on them.

The second room was quite empty. There were no tiles on the floor, and
the feet of the beds had made little holes in the beaten earth. There
was no lock to the other door either, and I went out into the garden.
There were a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and the fruit
trees were all in flower. Most of them were very old. Some of them
looked like hunchbacks, and their branches bent towards