Marie Claire Part 3

Silvain the farmer, and Pauline, his wife, were kind people.

When he had seen to all the animals the cowherd made me sit down next to him in the chestnut avenue. Sitting there we could see the bend in the lane which went up towards the high-road, and the whole of the farm. The farm buildings formed a square and the huge dunghill in the middle of the yard gave off a warm smell, which mixed with the smell of the half-dried hay. The farm was wrapped in silence. I sat and looked all round me. I could see nothing but pine trees and corn fields. I felt as though I had suddenly been dropped into a faraway country, where I should always remain, along with the cowherd, and the animals which I could hear moving in their stables. It was very hot and I was numb with a heavy longing to go to sleep, but fear of all the new things which were round me prevented me from letting myself drop off.

Flies of all possible colours whizzed round me with a little snoring noise. The cowherd was making a basket of rushes, and the dogs lay at our feet fast asleep.

Just as the sun was setting, the farmer's cart turned slowly round the bend in the lane. There were five people in it, two men and three women. As they pa.s.sed us, the farmer's wife smiled down at me, and the others leaned forward to see me. Soon afterwards the farm filled with noise, and as it was too late to make soup for supper we all supped off a piece of bread and a bowl of milk.

[1] On a French farm the farmer is always called "Master."

Next day the farmer's wife gave me a cloak, and I went out with old Bibiche to learn how to look after the lambs. Old Bibiche and her dog Castille were so like one another that I always thought they must belong to the same family. They looked about the same age, and their eyes were about the same colour. Whenever the lambs ran off the path Bibiche would say, "Bark, Castille, bark." She said it very quickly, almost in one word, and even when Castille did not bark the lambs got back into line again. The old woman's voice was so like that of her dog.

When harvesting began it seemed to me as though I were taking part in something full of mystery. Men went up to the corn and laid it on the ground with regular sweeping strokes, while others picked it up again in sheaves, which they stacked one against the other. The cries of the harvesters seemed to come from above sometimes, and every now and then I looked up quickly, expecting to see golden corn-laden chariots fly past above my head.

We all had our evening meal together. Everybody sat down where they pleased at the long table, and the farmer's wife filled our plates to the brim. The younger ones munched with appet.i.te, while the older ones cut each mouthful as though it were something precious. Everybody ate in silence, and the brown bread looked whiter in their black hands. At the end of the meal the elder ones talked about harvests with the farmer, while the younger ones talked and laughed with Martine, the shepherdess. She answered everybody's jokes, and laughed heartily at them; but if one of the men stretched out a hand towards her she skipped out of the way, and never let him get hold of her. n.o.body paid any attention to me. I sat on a pile of logs a little way away from the rest of them, and looked at all their faces. Master Silvain had big brown eyes which looked at each one in turn, and rested quietly on them as he looked. He never raised his voice, and leaned his open hands on the table when he spoke. His wife's voice was serious and pre-occupied. She always looked as though she were expecting some misfortune to happen and she scarcely smiled at all, even when all the others were roaring with laughter.

Old Bibiche always thought that I was falling asleep. She would come and pull my sleeve, and take me off to bed. Her bed was next to mine.

She mumbled her prayers while she was undressing, and always blew the lamp out without waiting to see whether I was ready.

Directly after the harvest, Bibiche let me go to the fields alone with her dog. Old Castille didn't care for my company. She used to leave me whenever she could and go back to the farm to Bibiche. I had a lot of trouble in keeping my lambs together. They ran every way at once.

I compared myself to Sister Marie-Aimee, who always said that her little flock was hard to manage. And yet she used to get us together at one stroke of the bell and she could always make us perfectly quiet by raising her voice a little. But I might raise my voice or crack my whip as much as I liked, the lambs did not understand me, and I was obliged to run about all round the flock as though I were a sheep dog.

One evening two lambs were missing. I always stood in the doorway every evening to let them in one by one so that I could count them easily. I went into the pen and tried to count them again. It was not easy and I had to give it up at last, for every time I counted them again I made their number more than there really were. At last I made up my mind that I must have counted them wrong the first time, and I did not say anything to anybody.

Next morning when I let them out I counted them once more. There really were two missing. I felt very uneasy. All day long I hunted about the fields for them, and in the evening, when I was quite certain that they were missing, I told the farmer's wife. We searched high and low for those lambs for several days, but we could not find them. The farmer first, and then his wife took me apart, and tried to make me confess that men had come and taken the lambs away. They promised me that I should not be scolded if I would tell the truth. It was no good my saying that I really did not know what had become of them, I could see that they did not believe me.

After this I was frightened when I went into the fields because I knew now that there were men who hid themselves and came and stole the sheep. I was always thinking that I saw some one moving about behind the bushes. I very soon learned to count my lambs by glancing at them, and whether they were all together or scattered about, I knew in a minute whether all of them were there.

Autumn came and I began to feel unhappy. I missed Sister Marie-Aimee.

I longed so to see her that I used to shut my eyes and believe that she was coming up the path. When I did this I could really hear her steps and the rustling of her dress on the gra.s.s. When I felt her quite close to me I opened my eyes and she disappeared at once. For a long time I had the idea of writing to her, but I did not dare to ask for pen and paper. The farmer's wife did not know how to write, and n.o.body at the farm ever got any letters. I plucked up courage one day and asked Master Silvain if he would take me to town with him that morning.

He didn't answer at once. His big quiet eyes rested on me for a time, and then he said that a shepherdess ought never to leave her flock. He said that he didn't mind taking me to ma.s.s in the village now and then, but that I must not expect him to take me to the town. This answer quite stunned me. It was as though I had learned of a great misfortune. And every time I thought of it I could see Sister Marie-Aimee. She was like some precious thing which the farmer had smashed all to pieces by accident.

On the following Sat.u.r.day Master Silvain and his wife left in the morning as usual, but instead of remaining in town until evening they came back in the afternoon with a dealer who wanted to buy some of the lambs. I had never thought that one could go to the town and come back again in so short a time. The idea occurred to me that one day I would leave my lambs in the meadow and would run into the town for one kiss from Sister Marie-Aimee. I soon found that that would not be possible, and I decided to go off in the night. I hoped that I should not take much longer that the farmer's horse did, and that by leaving in the middle of the night I could be back in time to take the lambs to pasture in the morning.

That evening I went to bed in my clothes, and when the big clock sounded twelve I slipped out on tip-toe with my shoes in my hand. I leaned against a cart and laced them up, and ran off as fast as I could into the dark. I soon got past the outbuildings of the farm, and then I saw that the night was not very dark. The wind was blowing very hard, and big black clouds were rolling across the sky under the moon.

It was a long way to the high-road, and to get there I had to cross a wooden bridge which was out of repair. The rain of the last few days had swelled the little river and the water splashed up on to the bridge through the rotten planks. I began to get nervous because the water and the wind between them made a noise that I had never heard before.

But I refused to be frightened, and ran across the slippery bridge as quickly as I dared.

I got to the high-road sooner than I had expected to, and I turned to the left as I had seen the farmer turn when he went to market. But a little further along the road divided into two and I didn't know which road to take. I ran a little way up one road and then a little way up another. It was the road to the left that seemed to be the likely one.

I took it, and walked fast to make up for lost time.

In the distance I saw a black ma.s.s which covered the whole country. It seemed to be coming slowly towards me, and for a moment I wanted to turn back and run. A dog began to bark and that gave me a little confidence, and almost directly afterwards I saw that the black ma.s.s in front of me was a wood through which the road pa.s.sed. When I got into it the wind seemed to be rougher than ever. It blew in gusts, and the trees struck at one another and rattled their branches, and moaned and stooped down to get out of its way. I heard long whistling sounds as the branches cracked and clattered and fell.

Then I heard steps behind me and felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned round quickly but I saw n.o.body. Yet I was sure that somebody had touched me with his finger, and the steps went on as though some invisible person were walking round and round me. I began to run so fast that I didn't know whether my feet were touching the ground or not.

The stones sprang out under my shoes and rattled behind me like a little hailstorm. I had only one idea, and that was to run and run until I got out of the forest.

At last I came to a clearing. It was lit up by a pale moon and the tearing wind whirled heaps of leaves up and threw them down again, then rolled them about and about, and turned them over in all directions.

I wanted to stop to get my breath, but the big trees were swinging backwards and forwards with a deafening noise. Their shadows, which looked like great black animals, threw themselves flat along the road and then slipped away and hid behind the trees. Some of these shadows had shapes which I recognized. But most of them hovered and jumped about in front of me as though they wanted to prevent me from pa.s.sing.

Some of them frightened me so that I took a little run, and jumped over them. I was dreadfully afraid that they would catch at my feet.

The wind went down a little, and rain began to fall in large drops. I had got to the other side of the clearing, and when I came to a little path which disappeared into the wood again, I saw a white wall at the end of it. I went a little way along the path, and saw that it was a house. Without thinking at all I knocked at the door. I wanted to ask the people to shelter me until the wind stopped. I knocked a second time, and heard somebody moving. I thought the door was going to be opened, but a window was opened on the first floor. A man in a night-cap called out, "Who is there?" I answered, "A little girl." He seemed surprised. "A little girl?" he said, and asked me where I came from, where I was going, and what I wanted. I had not expected all these questions, and I said that I had come from the farm, but then told a lie, and said that I was going to see my mother who was ill. I asked him to let me into the house until the rain stopped. He told me to wait, and I heard him talking to somebody else. Then he came back to the window, and asked me if there was anybody with me. He asked me how old I was; and when I said I was thirteen, he said I must be a brave girl to come through the wood alone at night. He remained leaning out of the window a moment, trying to see my face, which was looking up towards him. Then he turned his head to right and left trying to look into the darkness of the wood, and advised me to go on a little further. There was a village at the other side of the wood, he said, and I should find houses there where I could dry my clothes.

I went on into the night. The moon had hidden itself altogether, and a drizzling rain was falling. I had to walk a long time before I got to the village. All the houses were shut up, and I could hardly see them in the dark. A blacksmith was the only person up. When I got to his house I went up the two steps, meaning to rest there. He was busy with a great iron bar, which he was heating in a fire of red coal, and when his arm went up with the bellows he looked like a giant. Every time the bellows came down the coal flew up and crackled. That made a glimmering light which lit up the walls, on which scythes, saws, and all kinds of knives were hanging. The man's forehead was wrinkled, and he was staring at the fire. I dared not talk to him, and I went away without making any noise.

When it became quite light I saw that I was not very far from the town.

I began to recognize the places where Sister Marie-Aimee used to take us when we went for our walks. I was walking very slowly now, and dragged my feet after me because they hurt me. I was so tired that it was all I could do not to sit down on one of the heaps of stone which were on each side of the road.

The sound of a horse and cart rattling along the road as fast as they could go made me turn round, and I remained standing quite still with my heart beating fast. I had recognized the bay mare and the farmer's black beard. He stopped the mare quite close to me, leaned out of the cart, and lifted me up into it by the belt of my dress. He sat me down next to him on the seat, turned the horse round and drove off again at full speed. When we got to the wood Master Silvain made the horse slow down. He turned to me, looked at me, and said, "It is lucky for you that I caught you up. Otherwise you would have been brought back to the farm between two gensdarmes." As I didn't answer, he said again, "Perhaps you don't know that there are gensdarmes who bring little girls back, when they run away." I said, "I want to go and see Sister Marie-Aimee." "Are you unhappy with us?" he asked. I said again, "I want to go and see Sister Marie-Aimee." He looked as though he didn't understand, and went on asking me questions, going over the names of everybody on the farm, and asking me if they were kind to me. I made the same answer every time. At last he lost patience with me, sat straight up, and said, "What an obstinate child." I looked up at him and said that I should run away again if he would not take me to Sister Marie-Aimee. I went on looking at him, waiting for an answer, and I could see quite well that he didn't know what to say. He kept still, and thought for several minutes. Then he put his hand on my knee and said, "Listen to me, child, and try and understand what I am going to tell you." And when he had finished speaking I understood that he had promised to keep me until I was eighteen without ever letting me go to the town. I understood, too, that the Mother Superior could do what she liked with me, and that if I ran away again she would have me locked up, because I ran about the woods during the night. Then the farmer said that he hoped I should forget the convent and that I should grow fond of him, and of his wife, because they wished me to be happy with them. I was very miserable, and it was all I could do not to cry.

"Come," said the farmer holding out his hand. "Let us be good friends, shall we?" I put my hand into his, and he held it rather tight. I said I should like to be friends. He cracked his whip, and we soon got through the wood. Rain was still falling in a fine shower like a fog, and the ploughed fields looked drearier than ever. In a field by the road a man came towards us waving his arms. I thought he was threatening me at first, but when he was quite close to us I saw that he was holding something in his left arm, and that his right arm was moving up and down as though he were working a scythe. I was so puzzled that I looked at Master Silvain. As though he were answering a question, he said, "It is Gaboret, sowing." A few minutes afterwards we got to the farm. The farmer's wife was waiting for us in the doorway. When she saw me she opened her mouth wide as though she had been a long time without breathing, and her serious face looked a little less anxious for a moment. I ran past her, went into the room to fetch my cloak, and went straight out to the pens. The sheep rushed out, tumbling over one another. They ought to have been in the fields a long time before.

All day long I thought over what the farmer had said to me. I could not understand why the Mother Superior wanted to prevent me from seeing Sister Marie-Aimee. I understood that Sister Marie-Aimee could do nothing though, and I made my mind up to wait, thinking that a day would come when n.o.body could prevent me from seeing her again. At bedtime the farmer's wife went up with me to put an extra blanket on my bed, and when she had said "good night," she told me not to call her "madame" any more. She wanted me to call her Pauline. Then she went away, after telling me that both she and her husband looked upon me as a child of the house, and that she would do all she could to make me happy at the farm.

Next day Master Silvain made me sit next to his brother at table. He told him with a laugh that he was not to let me want for anything, because he wanted me to grow. The farmer's brother was called Eugene.

He spoke very little, but he always looked at each person who spoke, and his little eyes often seemed to be laughing at them. He was thirty years old, but he did not look more than twenty. He always had an answer to any question he was asked, and I felt no awkwardness at sitting next to him. He squeezed himself against the wall so as to give me more room at the table, and when the farmer told him to look after me, all he said was, "You need not worry."

Now, after all the fields had been ploughed Martine took her sheep a long way off to some pasture land called the common. The cowherd and I took our flock down the meadows and into the woods where there was fern. I suffered from the cold although I had a big woollen cloak which covered me down to my feet. The cowherd often had to light a fire. He would bake potatoes and chestnuts in the ashes and share them with me. He taught me how to know from which side the wind was coming, so as to make use of the least shelter against the cold. And as we sat over the fire and tried to keep ourselves warm he would sing me a song about "Water and Wine." It was a song which had about twenty verses in it. Water and Wine accused one another of ruining the human race, and at the same time praised themselves tremendously. As far as I could see Water was right, but the cowherd said that Wine was not wrong. We used to sit and talk together for hours. He would tell me of his own home, which was a long way off from Sologne. He told me that he had always been a cowherd, and that when he was a child a bull had knocked him down and hurt him. He had been ill a long time after that, and the pains in his limbs had made him scream. Then the pains had gone away, but he had become all twisted up as I saw him now. He remembered the names of all the farms where he had been cowherd. Some of the farmers were kind, and some were not, but he had never come across such kind masters as at Villevieille. He said, too, that Master Silvain's cows were not a bit like those of his own country, which were small, and had horns like pointed spindles. The Villevieille cows were big, strong animals with rough crumpled horns. He was very fond of them and used to call each one by name when he talked to them. The one he liked best was a beautiful white cow which Master Silvain had bought in the spring. She was always lifting her head and looking into the distance, and then all of a sudden she would start off at a run. The cowherd used to call out, "Stop where you are, Blanche! Stop!" She usually obeyed him, but sometimes he had to send the dog after her. Sometimes, too, she used to try and run even when the dog stopped her, and would only come back to the herd when the dog bit her muzzle. The cowherd used to pity her because, he said, he couldn't say what or whom she was regretting.

In the month of December the cows remained in the stables. I thought that we should keep the sheep in too, but the farmer's brother explained to me that Sologne was a very poor country, and that the farmers could not make enough forage to feed the sheep, as well. So now I used to go off all by myself with the sheep down the meadows and into the woods. All the birds had gone. Mist spread over the ploughed fields and the woods were full of silence.

There were days when I felt so lonely that I began to believe that the earth had fallen all to pieces round me, and when a crow cawed as it flew past in the grey sky its great hoa.r.s.e voice seemed to me to be singing of the misfortunes of the world. Even the sheep were quiet. A dealer had taken away all the lambs, and the little ewes did not know how to play alone. They went along pressing up close to each other, and even when they were not cropping what gra.s.s there was, their heads were bent. Some of them made me think of little girls I had known. I used to pa.s.s them and stroke them, and make them raise their heads, but their eyes looked down again at once, and the pupils were like gla.s.s without a gleam in it.

One day I was surprised by such a thick fog that I could not see my way. All of a sudden I found myself near a big wood which I didn't know. The tops of the trees were lost in the fog, and the ferns looked as though they were all wrapped in wool. White shadows came down from the trees and glided with long transparent trains over the dead leaves.

I pushed the sheep towards the meadow, which was quite near, but they cl.u.s.tered together and refused to go on. I went in front of them to see what was preventing them from going any further, and I recognized the little river which flowed at the bottom of the hill.

I could scarcely see the water. It seemed to be sleeping under a thick white woollen blanket. I stood looking at it for one long minute, then I got my sheep together and took them back along the road. While I was trying to find out where the farm was, the sheep ran round the wood and got into a lane with a hedge on each side of it. The fog was getting thicker than ever, and I thought I was walking between two high walls.

I followed the sheep without knowing where they were taking me.

Suddenly they left the lane and turned to the right; but I stopped them. I saw a church just in front of us. The doors were wide open, and on either side I could see two red lamps which lit up a grey vaulted roof. There were two straight lines of huge pillars, and at the other end one could just see the windows with their small panes on which a light was shining. It was all I could do to keep the sheep from going into the church, and as I was pushing them away I noticed that they were covered with little white beads. They shook themselves every moment and the beads made a tinkling sound. I got very anxious, for I knew that Master Silvain must be waiting for us, and wondering where we were. I felt sure that if I were to go back the way I had come I must soon find the farm, so making as little noise as I could I pushed the sheep back into the lane which led to the church. As I was going into the lane a man's voice sounded right over my head. The voice said, "Let the poor brutes go home." As he spoke the man turned the sheep back towards the church again, and I recognized Eugene, the farmer's brother. He pa.s.sed his hand over the back of one of the sheep and said, "How pretty they are with their little frost b.a.l.l.s. But it is not good for them."

I was not at all surprised at meeting him there. I showed him the church and asked him what it was. "It was for you," he said. "I was afraid that you would not find the avenue of chestnut trees, and I hung up a lantern on each side." I felt all confused. It was only a few moments afterwards that I understood that the great pillars, blackened and worn by centuries, were simply the trunks of the chestnut trees, and then I recognized the small-paned windows of the farmhouse kitchen, which the fire lit up from inside. Eugene counted the sheep himself.

He helped me to make them a warm litter of straw, and as we left the pen together he asked me if I really didn't know what had become of the two lambs that had been lost. I felt dreadfully ashamed at the thought that he could believe that I had told a lie, and I could not help crying, and told him that they had disappeared without my having seen how or where they went. Then he told me that he had found them drowned in a water-hole. I thought he was going to scold me for not having watched them better, but he said gently, "Go and get warm; you have got all the rime of Sologne in your hair." I made up my mind that I would go and see the waterhole. But during the night snow fell so quickly that we couldn't go out to the fields next day.

I helped old Bibiche to mend the household linen; Martine sat down to her spinning wheel, and I sang to them while we sewed and Martine span.