SECOND PART (continued 2)

“You brute, you! You’ve hurt me something horrible.”

“Show me where.”

He slipped his stocking down over his boot and showed me his ankle, where a slight pink mark was just visible.

“It’s nothing at all.”

He smiled a little; then, “I shall tell Father,” he said in a cunning voice, “that it’s you who set snares.”

“Why, good Heavens, it’s one of your own!”

“Sure enough, you never set that one.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You would never know how to set them as well as that. Just show me how you did it.”

“Give me a lesson....”

That evening I came in very late for dinner; no-one knew where I was and Marceline had been anxious. But I did not tell her I had set six snares and so far from scolding Alcide had given him ten sous.

The next evening when I went with him to visit the snares, much to my entertainment I found two rabbits caught in them. Of course I let him take them. The shooting season had not yet begun. I wondered what became of the game, as it was impossible to dispose of it openly without the risk of getting into trouble. Alcide refused to tell me. Finally, I learnt, through Bute again, that Heurtevent was the receiver and his youngest son the go-between between Alcide and him. Was this going to give me an opportunity of a deeper insight into the secrets of that mysterious, unapproachable family? With what passionate eagerness I set about poaching!

I met Alcide every evening; we caught great numbers of rabbits and once even a young roe-deer which still showed some faint signs of life; I cannot recall without horror the delight Alcide took in killing it. We put the deer in a place of safety from which young Heurtevent could take it away at night.

From that moment I no longer cared for going out in the day, when there was so little to attract me in the emptied woods. I even tried to work—melancholy, purposeless work, for I had resigned my temporary lectureship—thankless, dreary work, from which I would be suddenly distracted by the slightest song, the slightest sound coming from the country outside; in every passing cry I heard an invitation. How often I have leapt from my reading and run to the window to see—nothing pass by! How often I have hurried out of doors.... The only attention I found possible was that of my five senses.

But when night fell—and it was the season now when night falls early—that was our hour. I had never before guessed its beauty; and I stole out of doors as a thief steals in. I had trained my eyes to be like a night-bird’s. I wondered to see the grass taller and more easily stirred, the trees denser. The dark gave everything fresh dimensions, made the ground look distant, lent every surface the quality of depth. The smoothest path looked dangerous. Everywhere one felt the awakening of creatures that lead a life of darkness.

“Where does your father think you are now?”

“In the stables looking after the cattle.”

Alcide slept there, I knew, close to the pigeons and the hens; as he was locked in at night, he used to creep out by a hole in the roof. There still hung about his clothes a steamy odour of fowls.

Then, as soon as the game had been collected, he would disappear abruptly into the dark, as if down a trap-door—without a sign of farewell, without a word of tomorrow’s rendezvous. I knew that before returning to the farm, where the dogs recognized him and kept silent, he used to meet the Heurtevent boy and deliver his goods. But where? Try as I might, I was never able to find out; threats, bribes, cunning—all failed; the Heurtevents remained inaccessible. I cannot say where my folly showed more triumphantly. Was it in this pursuit of a trivial mystery, which constantly eluded me—or had I even invented the mystery by the mere force of my curiosity? But what did Alcide do when he left me? Did he really sleep at the farm? Or did he simply make the farmer think so? My compromising myself was utterly useless; I merely succeeded in lessening his respect without increasing his confidence—and it both infuriated and distressed me.

After he had disappeared, I suddenly felt myself horribly alone; I went back across the fields, through the dew-drenched grass, my head reeling with darkness, with lawlessness, with anarchy; dripping, muddy, covered with leaves. In the distance there shone from the sleeping house, guiding me like a peaceful beacon, the lamp I had left alight in my study, where Marceline thought I was working, or the lamp of Marceline’s own bedroom. I had persuaded her that I should not have been able to sleep without first going out in this way. It was true; I had taken a loathing to my bed. How greatly I should have preferred the barn!

Game was plentiful that year; rabbits, hares, pheasants succeeded each other. After three evenings, Bute, seeing that everything was going so well, took it into his head to join us.

On the sixth of our poaching expeditions, we found only two of the twelve snares we had set; somebody had made a clearance during the daytime. Bute asked me for five francs to buy some more copper wire, as ordinary wire was no use.

The next morning I had the gratification of seeing my ten snares at Bocage’s house and I was obliged to compliment him on his zeal. What annoyed me most was that the year before I had foolishly offered fifty centimes for every snare that was brought in; I had therefore to give Bocage five francs. In the meantime Bute had bought some more wire with the five francs I had given him. Four days later, the same story! Ten fresh snares were brought in; another five francs to Bute; another five francs to Bocage. And as I congratulated him:

“It’s not me you must congratulate, Sir, it’s Alcide,” he said.

“No, really?” said I. Too much astonishment might have given me away. I controlled myself.

“Yes,” went on Bocage; “it can’t be helped, Sir, I’m growing old. The lad looks around the woods instead of me; he knows them very well; he can tell better than I can where to look out for the snares.” “I’m sure he can, Bocage.”

“So out of the fifty centimes you give me, I let him have twenty-five.”

“He certainly deserves it. What! Twenty snares in five days! Excellent work! The poachers had better be careful. I wager they’ll lie low now.”

“Oh, no, Sir. The more one takes, the more one finds. Game is very dear this year, and for the few pence it costs them ...”

I had been so completely diddled that I felt almost inclined to suspect old Bocage himself of having a hand in the game. And what specially vexed me in the business was not so much Alcide’s threefold traffic as his deceitfulness. And then what did he and Bute do with the money? I didn’t know. I should never know anything about creatures like them. They would always lie; they would go on deceiving me for the sake of deceiving. That evening I gave Bute ten francs instead of five and warned him it was for the last time, that if the snares were taken again, so much the worse, but I should not go on.

The next day up came Bocage; he looked embarrassed—which at once made me feel even more so. What had happened? Bocage told me that Bute had been out all night and had only come in at cockcrow. The fellow was as drunk as a fiddler; at Bocage’s first words, he had grossly insulted him and then flown at him and struck him....

“And I’ve come to ask, Sir,” said Bocage, “whether you authorize me,” (he accented the word a little) “whether you authorize me to dismiss him?”

“I’ll think about it, Bocage. I’m extremely sorry he should have been disrespectful. I’ll see ... Let me reflect a little and come again in two hours’ time.”

Bocage went out.

To keep Bute was to be painfully lacking in consideration for Bocage; to dismiss Bute was to ask for trouble. Well! there was nothing to be done about it. Let come what come might! I had only myself to blame.... And as soon as Bocage came back:

“You can tell Bute we have no further use for him here,” I said.

Then I waited. What would Bocage do? What would Bute say? It was not till evening that I heard rumours of scandal. Bute had spoken. I guessed it at first from the shrieks I heard coming from Bocage’s house; it was Alcide being beaten. Bocage would soon be coming up to see me; here he was; I heard his old footstep approaching and my heart beat even faster than when I was poaching. It was an intolerable moment. I should have to trot out a lot of fine sentiments. I should be obliged to take him seriously. What could I invent to explain things? How badly I should act! I would have given anything to throw up my part! Bocage came in. I understood absolutely nothing of what he was saying. It was absurd; I had to make him begin all over again. In the end, this is what I made out. He thought that Bute was the only guilty party; the inconceivable truth had escaped him—that I could have given Bute ten francs! What for? He was too much of a Normandy peasant to admit the possibility of such a thing. Bute must have stolen those ten francs. Not a doubt of it! When he said I had given them to him, he was merely adding a lie to a theft; it was a mere invention to explain away his theft; Bocage wasn’t the man to believe a trumped up story like that.... There was no more talk of poaching. If Bocage had beaten Alcide, it was only because the boy had spent the night out.

So then, I am saved! In Bocage’s eyes, at any rate, everything is all right. What a fool that fellow Bute is! This evening, I must say, I don’t feel much inclined to go out poaching.

I thought that everything was all over, when an hour later in came Charles. He looked far from amiable; the bare sight of him was enough; he struck me as even more tedious than his father. To think that last year!...

“Well, Charles! I haven’t seen you for ever so long!”

“If you had wanted to see me, Sir, you had only to come down to the farm. You won’t find me gallivanting about the woods at nights.”

“Oh, your father has told you ...”

“My father has told me nothing, because my father knows nothing. What’s the use of telling him at his age that his master is making a fool of him?”

“Take care, Charles, you’re going too far....”

“Oh, all right! You’re the master—you can do as you please.”

“Charles, you know perfectly well I’ve made a fool of no-one, and if I do as I please, it’s because it does no-one any harm but myself.”

He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“How can one defend your interests when you attack them yourself? You can’t protect both the keeper and the poacher at the same time.”

“Why not?”

“Because ... Oh, you’re a bit too clever for me, Sir. I just don’t like to see my master joining up with rogues and undoing the work that other people do for him.”

Charles spoke with more and more confidence as he went on. He held himself almost with dignity. I noticed he had cut off his whiskers. For that matter, what he said was sensible enough, and as I kept silence (what could I have said?), he went on:

“You taught me last year, Sir, that one has duties to one’s possessions. One ought to take one’s duties seriously and not play with them ... or else one doesn’t deserve to have possessions.”

Silence.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“For this evening, yes, Sir; but if you ask me some other time, Sir, I may perhaps tell you that my father and I are leaving La Morinière.”

And he went out, bowing very low. I hardly took time to reflect:

“Charles!... He’s right, by Jove!... Oh, if that’s what’s meant by possessions ... Charles!...” And I ran after him, caught him up in the dark and called out hastily, as if in a hurry to clinch my sudden determination:

“You can tell your father that I am putting La Morinière up for sale.”

Charles bowed again gravely and went away without a word.

The whole thing is absurd! Absurd!

That evening, Marceline was not able to come down to dinner and sent word to say she was unwell. Full of anxiety, I hurried up to her room. She reassured me quickly. “It’s nothing but a cold,” she said. She thought she had caught a chill.

“Couldn’t you have put on something warmer?”

“I put my shawl on the first moment I felt a shiver.”

“You should have put it on before you felt a shiver, not after.”

She looked at me and tried to smile.... Oh, perhaps it was because the day had begun so badly that I felt so anguished. If she had said aloud, “Do you really care whether I live or not?” I should not have heard the words more clearly.

“Oh,” I thought, “without a doubt, everything in my life is falling to pieces. Nothing that my hand grasps, can my hand hold.”

I sprang to Marceline and covered her pale face with kisses. At that, she broke down and fell sobbing on my shoulder....

“Oh, Marceline! Marceline! Let us go away. Anywhere else but here I shall love you as I did at Sorrento.... You have thought me changed, perhaps? But anywhere else, you will feel that there is nothing altered in our love.”

I had not cured her unhappiness, but how eagerly she clutched at hope!...

It was not late in the year, but the weather was cold and damp, and the last rosebuds were rotting unopened on the bushes. Our guests had long since left us. Marceline was not too unwell to see to the shutting up of the house, and five days later we left.