The Village Rector

X

THIRD PHASE OF VERONIQUE'S LIFE

When Madame Graslin re­cov­ered from the long ill­ness that fol­lowed the birth of her child, which was not till the close of 1829, an ill­ness which forced her to keep her bed and re­main in ab­so­lute re­tire­ment, she heard her hus­band talk­ing of an im­por­tant piece of busi­ness he was anx­ious to con­cede. The ducal house of Navar­reins had of­fered for sale the for­est of Mon­teg­nac and the un­cul­ti­vat­ed lands around it.

Graslin had nev­er yet ex­ecut­ed the clause in his mar­riage con­tract with his wife which obliged him to in­vest his wife's for­tune in lands; up to this time he had pre­ferred to em­ploy the mon­ey in his bank, where he had ful­ly dou­bled it. He now be­gan to speak of this in­vest­ment. Hear­ing him dis­cuss it Veronique ap­peared to re­mem­ber the name of Mon­teg­nac, and asked her hus­band to ful­fil his en­gage­ment about her prop­er­ty by pur­chas­ing these lands. Mon­sieur Graslin then pro­posed to see the rec­tor, Mon­sieur Bon­net, and in­quire of him about the es­tate, which the Duc de Navar­reins was de­sirous of sell­ing be­cause he fore­saw the strug­gle which the Prince de Polignac was forc­ing on be­tween lib­er­al­ism and the house of Bour­bon, and he au­gured ill of it; in fact, the duke was one of the bold­est op­posers of the _coup-​d'Etat_.

The duke had sent his agent to Limo­ges to ne­go­ti­ate the mat­ter; telling him to ac­cept any good sum of mon­ey, for he re­mem­bered the Rev­olu­tion of 1789 too well not to prof­it by the lessons it had taught the aris­toc­ra­cy. This agent had now been a month lay­ing siege to Graslin, the shrewdest and wari­est busi­ness head in the Limousin,--the on­ly man, he was told by prac­ti­cal per­sons, who was able to pur­chase so large a prop­er­ty and pay for it on the spot. The Abbe Dutheil wrote a line to Mon­sieur Bon­net, who came to Limo­ges at once, and was tak­en to the ho­tel Graslin.

Veronique de­ter­mined to ask the rec­tor to din­ner; but the banker would not let him go up to his wife's apart­ment un­til he had talked to him in his of­fice for over an hour and ob­tained such in­for­ma­tion as ful­ly sat­is­fied him, and made him re­solve to buy the for­est and do­mains of Mon­teg­nac at once for the sum of five hun­dred thou­sand francs. He ac­qui­esced read­ily in his wife's wish that this pur­chase and all oth­ers con­nect­ed with it should be in ful­fil­ment of the clause of the mar­riage con­tract rel­ative to the in­vest­ment of her dowry. Graslin was all the more ready to do so be­cause this act of jus­tice cost him noth­ing, he hav­ing dou­bled the orig­inal sum.

At this time, when Graslin was ne­go­ti­at­ing the pur­chase, the Navar­reins do­mains com­prised the for­est of Mon­teg­nac which con­tained about thir­ty thou­sand acres of un­used land, the ru­ins of the cas­tle, the gar­dens, park, and about five thou­sand acres of un­cul­ti­vat­ed land on the plain be­yond Mon­teg­nac. Graslin im­me­di­ate­ly bought oth­er lands in or­der to make him­self mas­ter of the first peak in the chain of the Cor­rezan moun­tains on which the vast for­est of Mon­teg­nac end­ed. Since the im­po­si­tion of tax­es the Duc de Navar­reins had nev­er re­ceived more than fif­teen thou­sand francs per an­num from this manor, once among the rich­est tenures of the king­dom, the lands of which had es­caped the sale of “pub­lic do­main” or­dered by the Con­ven­tion, on ac­count prob­ably of their bar­ren­ness and the known dif­fi­cul­ty of re­claim­ing them.

When the rec­tor went at last to Madame Graslin's apart­ment, and saw the wom­an not­ed for her piety and for her in­tel­lect of whom he had heard speak, he could not re­strain a ges­ture of amaze­ment. Veronique had now reached the third phase of her life, that in which she was to rise in­to grandeur by the ex­er­cise of the high­est virtues,--a phase in which she be­came an­oth­er wom­an. To the Lit­tle Vir­gin of Titian, hid­den at eleven years of age be­neath a spot­ted man­tle of small-​pox, had suc­ceed­ed a beau­ti­ful wom­an, no­ble and pas­sion­ate; and from that wom­an, now wrung by in­ward sor­rows, came forth a saint.

Her skin bore the yel­low tinge which col­ors the aus­tere faces of abbess­es who have been fa­mous for their mac­er­ations. The at­ten­uat­ed tem­ples were al­most gold­en. The lips had paled, the red of an opened pomegranate was no longer on them, their col­or had changed to the pale pink of a Ben­gal rose. At the cor­ners of the eyes, close to the nose, sor­rows had made two shin­ing tracks like moth­er-​of-​pearl, where tears had flowed; tears which ef­faced the marks of small-​pox and glazed the skin. Cu­rios­ity was in­vin­ci­bly at­tract­ed to that pearly spot, where the blue threads of the lit­tle veins throbbed pre­cip­itate­ly, as though they were swelled by an in­flux of blood brought there, as it were, to feed the tears. The cir­cle round the eyes was now a dark-​brown that was al­most black above the eye­lids, which were hor­ri­bly wrin­kled. The cheeks were hol­low; in their folds lay the sign of solemn thoughts. The chin, which in youth was full and round, the flesh cov­er­ing the mus­cles, was now shrunk­en, to the in­jury of its ex­pres­sion, which told of an im­pla­ca­ble re­li­gious sever­ity ex­er­cised by this wom­an up­on her­self.

At twen­ty-​nine years of age Veronique's hair was scanty and al­ready whiten­ing. Her thin­ness was alarm­ing. In spite of her doc­tor's ad­vice she in­sist­ed on suck­ling her son. The doc­tor tri­umphed in the re­sult; and as he watched the changes he had fore­told in Veronique's ap­pear­ance, he of­ten said:--

“See the ef­fects of child­birth on a wom­an! She adores that child; I have of­ten no­ticed that moth­ers are fond­est of the chil­dren who cost them most.”

Veronique's fad­ed eyes were all that re­tained even a mem­ory of her youth. The dark blue of the iris still cast its pas­sion­ate fires, to which the wom­an's life seemed to have re­treat­ed, de­sert­ing the cold, im­pas­si­ble face, and glow­ing with an ex­pres­sion of de­vo­tion when the wel­fare of a fel­low-​be­ing was con­cerned.

Thus the sur­prise, the dread of the rec­tor ceased by de­grees as he went on ex­plain­ing to Madame Graslin all the good that a large own­er of prop­er­ty could do at Mon­teg­nac pro­vid­ed he lived there. Veronique's beau­ty came back to her for a mo­ment as her eyes glowed with the light of an un­hoped-​for fu­ture.

“I will live there,” she said. “It shall be my work. I will ask Mon­sieur Graslin for mon­ey, and I will glad­ly share in your re­li­gious en­ter­prise. Mon­teg­nac shall be fer­til­ized; we will find some means to wa­ter those arid plains. Like Moses, you have struck a rock from which the wa­ters will gush.”

The rec­tor of Mon­teg­nac, when ques­tioned by his friends in Limo­ges about Madame Graslin, spoke of her as a saint.

The day af­ter the pur­chase was con­clud­ed Mon­sieur Graslin sent an ar­chi­tect to Mon­teg­nac. The banker in­tend­ed to re­store the chateau, gar­dens, ter­race, and park, and al­so to con­nect the cas­tle grounds with the for­est by a plan­ta­tion. He set him­self to make these im­prove­ments with vain­glo­ri­ous ac­tiv­ity.

A few months lat­er Madame Graslin met with a great mis­for­tune. In Au­gust, 1830, Graslin, over­tak­en by the com­mer­cial and bank­ing dis­as­ters of that pe­ri­od, be­came in­volved by no fault of his own. He could not en­dure the thought of bankrupt­cy, nor that of los­ing a for­tune of three mil­lions ac­quired by forty years of in­ces­sant toil. The moral mal­ady which re­sult­ed from this an­guish of mind ag­gra­vat­ed the in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­ease al­ways ready to break forth in his blood. He took to his bed. Since her con­fine­ment Veronique's re­gard for her hus­band had de­vel­oped, and had over­thrown all the hopes of her ad­mir­er, Mon­sieur de Grandville. She strove to save her hus­band's life by un­remit­ting care, with no re­sult but that of pro­long­ing for a few months the poor man's tor­tures; but the respite was very use­ful to Gros­setete, who, fore­see­ing the end of his for­mer clerk and part­ner, ob­tained from him all the in­for­ma­tion nec­es­sary for the prompt liq­ui­da­tion of the as­sets.

Graslin died in April, 1831, and the wid­ow's grief yield­ed on­ly to Chris­tian res­ig­na­tion. Veronique's first words, when the con­di­tion of Mon­sieur Graslin's af­fairs were made known to her, were that she aban­doned her own for­tune to pay the cred­itors; but it was found that Graslin's own prop­er­ty was more than suf­fi­cient. Two months lat­er, the liq­ui­da­tion, of which Gros­setete took charge, left to Madame Graslin the es­tate of Mon­teg­nac and six hun­dred thou­sand francs, her whole per­son­al for­tune. The son's name re­mained un­taint­ed, for Graslin had in­jured no one's prop­er­ty, not even that of his wife. Fran­cis Graslin, the son, re­ceived about one hun­dred thou­sand francs.

Mon­sieur de Grandville, to whom Veronique's grandeur of soul and no­ble qual­ities were well known, made her an of­fer of mar­riage; but, to the sur­prise of all Limo­ges, Madame Graslin de­clined, un­der pre­text that the Church dis­cour­aged sec­ond mar­riages. Gros­setete, a man of strong com­mon-​sense and sure grasp of a sit­ua­tion, ad­vised Veronique to in­vest her prop­er­ty and what re­mained of Mon­sieur Graslin's in the Funds; and he made the in­vest­ment him­self in one of the gov­ern­ment se­cu­ri­ties which of­fered spe­cial ad­van­tages at that time, name­ly, the Three-​per-​cents, which were then quot­ed at fifty. The child Fran­cis re­ceived, there­fore, six thou­sand francs a year, and his moth­er forty thou­sand. Veronique's for­tune was still the largest in the de­part­ment.

When these af­fairs were all set­tled, Madame Graslin an­nounced her in­ten­tion of leav­ing Limo­ges and tak­ing up her res­idence at Mon­teg­nac, to be near Mon­sieur Bon­net. She sent for the rec­tor to con­sult about the en­ter­prise he was so anx­ious to car­ry on at Mon­teg­nac, in which she de­sired to take part. But he en­deav­ored un­selfish­ly to dis­suade her, telling her that her place was in the world and in so­ci­ety.

“I was born of the peo­ple and I wish to re­turn to the peo­ple,” she replied. On which the rec­tor, full of love for his vil­lage, said no more against Madame Graslin's ap­par­ent vo­ca­tion; and the less be­cause she had ac­tu­al­ly put it out of her pow­er to con­tin­ue in Limo­ges, hav­ing sold the ho­tel Graslin to Gros­setete, who, to cov­er a sum that was due to him, took it at its prop­er val­ua­tion.

The day of her de­par­ture, to­ward the end of Au­gust, 1831, Madame Graslin's nu­mer­ous friends ac­com­pa­nied her some dis­tance out of the town. A few went as far as the first re­lay. Veronique was in an open car­riage with her moth­er. The Abbe Dutheil (just ap­point­ed to a bish­opric) oc­cu­pied the front seat of the car­riage with old Gros­setete. As they passed through the place d'Aine, Veronique showed signs of a sud­den shock; her face con­tract­ed so that the play of the mus­cles could be seen; she clasped her in­fant to her breast with a con­vul­sive mo­tion, which old Madame Sauvi­at con­cealed by in­stant­ly tak­ing the child, for she seemed to be on the watch for her daugh­ter's ag­ita­tion. Chance willed that Madame Graslin should pass through the square in which stood the house she had for­mer­ly oc­cu­pied with her fa­ther and moth­er in her girl­ish days; she grasped her moth­er's hand while great tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

Af­ter leav­ing Limo­ges she turned and looked back, seem­ing to feel an emo­tion of hap­pi­ness which was no­ticed by all her friends. When Mon­sieur de Grandville, then a young man of twen­ty-​five, whom she de­clined to take as a hus­band, kissed her hand with an earnest ex­pres­sion of re­gret, the new bish­op no­ticed the strange man­ner in which the black pupil of Veronique's eyes sud­den­ly spread over the blue of the iris, re­duc­ing it to a nar­row cir­cle. The eye be­trayed un­mis­tak­ably some vi­olent in­ward emo­tion.

“I shall nev­er see him again,” she whis­pered to her moth­er, who re­ceived this con­fi­dence with­out be­tray­ing the slight­est feel­ing in her old face.

Madame Graslin was at that in­stant un­der the ob­ser­va­tion of Gros­setete, who was di­rect­ly in front of her; but, in spite of his shrewd­ness, the old banker did not de­tect the ha­tred which Veronique felt for the mag­is­trate, whom she nev­er­the­less re­ceived at her house. But church­men have far more per­cep­tion than oth­er men, and Mon­sieur Dutheil sud­den­ly star­tled Veronique with a priest­ly glance.

“Do you re­gret noth­ing in Limo­ges?” he asked her.

“Noth­ing, now that you are leav­ing it; and mon­sieur,” she added, smil­ing at Gros­setete, who was bid­ding her adieu, “will sel­dom be there.”

The bish­op ac­com­pa­nied Madame Graslin as far as Mon­teg­nac.

“I ought to walk this road in sack­cloth and ash­es,” she said in her moth­er's ear as they went on foot up the steep slope of Saint-​Leonard.

The old wom­an put her fin­ger on her lips and glanced at the bish­op, who was look­ing at the child with ter­ri­ble at­ten­tion. This ges­ture, and the lu­mi­nous look in the prelate's eyes, sent a shud­der through Veronique's body. At the as­pect of the vast plains stretch­ing their gray ex­panse be­fore Mon­teg­nac the fire died out of her eyes, and an in­fi­nite sad­ness over­came her. Present­ly she saw the vil­lage rec­tor com­ing to meet her, and to­geth­er they re­turned to the car­riage.

“There is your do­main, madame,” said Mon­sieur Bon­net, ex­tend­ing his hand to­ward the bar­ren plain.

A few mo­ments more, and the vil­lage of Mon­teg­nac, with its hill, on which the new­ly erect­ed build­ings struck the eye, came in sight, gild­ed by the set­ting sun, and full of the poesy born of the con­trast be­tween the beau­ti­ful spot and the sur­round­ing bar­ren­ness, in which it lay like an oa­sis in the desert. Madame Graslin's eyes filled sud­den­ly with tears. The rec­tor called her at­ten­tion to a broad white line like a gash on the moun­tain side.

“See what my parish­ioners have done to tes­ti­fy their grat­itude to the la­dy of the manor,” he said, point­ing to the line, which was re­al­ly a road; “we can now drive up to the chateau. This piece of road has been made by them with­out cost­ing you a pen­ny, and two months hence we shall plant it with trees. Mon­seigneur will un­der­stand what trou­ble and care and de­vo­tion were need­ed to ac­com­plish such a change.”

“Is it pos­si­ble they have done that?” said the bish­op.

“With­out ac­cept­ing any pay­ment for their work, Mon­seigneur. The poor­est put their hands in­to it, know­ing that it would bring a moth­er among them.”

At the foot of the hill the trav­ellers saw the whole pop­ula­tion of the neigh­bor­hood, who were light­ing fire-​box­es and dis­charg­ing a few guns; then two of the pret­ti­est of the vil­lage girls, dressed in white, came for­ward to of­fer Madame Graslin flow­ers and fruit.

“To be thus re­ceived in this vil­lage!” she ex­claimed, grasp­ing the rec­tor's hand as if she stood on the brink of a precipice.

The crowd ac­com­pa­nied the car­riage to the iron gates of the av­enue. From there Madame Graslin could see her chateau, of which as yet she had on­ly caught glimpses, and she was thun­der­struck at the mag­nif­icence of the build­ing. Stone is rare in those parts, the gran­ite of the moun­tains be­ing dif­fi­cult to quar­ry. The ar­chi­tect em­ployed by Graslin to re­store the house had used brick as the chief sub­stance of this vast con­struc­tion. This was ren­dered less cost­ly by the fact that the for­est of Mon­teg­nac fur­nished all the nec­es­sary wood and clay for its fab­ri­ca­tion. The frame­work of wood and the stone for the foun­da­tions al­so came from the for­est; oth­er­wise the cost of the restora­tions would have been ru­inous. The chief ex­pens­es had been those of trans­porta­tion, la­bor, and salaries. Thus the mon­ey laid out was kept in the vil­lage, and great­ly ben­efit­ed it.

At first sight, and from a dis­tance, the chateau presents an enor­mous red mass, thread­ed by black lines pro­duced by the point­ing, and edged with gray; for the win­dow and door cas­ings, the entab­la­tures, cor­ner stones, and cours­es be­tween the sto­ries, are of gran­ite, cut in facets like a di­amond. The court­yard, which forms a slop­ing oval like that of the Chateau de Ver­sailles, is sur­round­ed by brick walls di­vid­ed in­to pan­els by pro­ject­ing but­tress­es. At the foot of these walls are groups of rare shrubs, re­mark­able for the var­ied col­or of their greens. Two fine iron gates placed op­po­site to each oth­er lead on one side to a ter­race which over­looks Mon­teg­nac, on the oth­er to the of­fices and a farm-​house.

The grand en­trance-​gate, to which the road just con­struct­ed led, is flanked by two pret­ty lodges in the style of the six­teenth cen­tu­ry. The fa­cade on the court­yard look­ing east has three tow­ers,--one in the cen­tre, sep­arat­ed from the two oth­ers by the main build­ing of the house. The fa­cade on the gar­dens, which is ab­so­lute­ly the same as the oth­ers, looks west­ward. The tow­ers have but one win­dow on the fa­cade; the main build­ing has three on ei­ther side of the mid­dle tow­er. The lat­ter, which is square like a _cam­panile_, the cor­ners be­ing ver­mic­ulat­ed, is no­tice­able for the el­egance of a few carv­ings sparse­ly dis­tribut­ed. Art is timid in the provinces, and though, since 1829, or­na­men­ta­tion has made some progress at the in­sti­ga­tion of cer­tain writ­ers, landown­ers were at that pe­ri­od afraid of ex­pens­es which the lack of com­pe­ti­tion and skilled work­men ren­dered se­ri­ous.

The cor­ner tow­ers, which have three sto­ries with a sin­gle win­dow in each, look­ing to the side, are cov­ered with very high-​pitched roofs sur­round­ed by gran­ite balustrades, and on each pyra­mi­dal slope of these roofs crowned at the top with the sharp ridge of a plat­form sur­round­ed with a wrought iron rail­ing, is an­oth­er win­dow carved like the rest. On each floor the cor­bels of the doors and win­dows are adorned with carv­ings copied from those of the Ge­noese man­sions. The cor­ner tow­er with three win­dows to the south looks down on Mon­teg­nac; the oth­er, to the north, faces the for­est. From the gar­den front the eye takes in that part of Mon­teg­nac which is still called Les Tascherons, and fol­lows the high-​road lead­ing through the vil­lage to the chief town of the de­part­ment. The fa­cade on the court­yard has a view of the vast plains semi­cir­cled by the moun­tains of the Cor­reze, on the side to­ward Mon­teg­nac, but end­ing in the far dis­tance on a low hori­zon. The main build­ing has on­ly one floor above the ground-​floor, cov­ered with a mansarde roof in the old­en style. The tow­ers at each end are three sto­ries in height. The mid­dle tow­er has a stunt­ed dome some­thing like that on the Pavil­lon de l'Hor­loge of the palace of the Tu­ileries, and in it is a sin­gle room form­ing a belvedere and con­tain­ing the clock. As a mat­ter of econ­omy the roofs had all been made of gut­ter-​tiles, the enor­mous weight of which was eas­ily sup­port­ed by the stout beams and up­rights of the frame­work cut in the for­est.

Be­fore his death Graslin had laid out the road which the peas­antry had just built out of grat­itude; for these restora­tions (which Graslin called his fol­ly) had dis­tribut­ed sev­er­al hun­dred thou­sand francs among the peo­ple; in con­se­quence of which Mon­teg­nac had con­sid­er­ably in­creased. Graslin had al­so be­gun, be­fore his death, be­hind the of­fices on the slope of the hill lead­ing down to the plain, a num­ber of farm build­ings, prov­ing his in­ten­tion to draw some prof­it from the hith­er­to un­cul­ti­vat­ed soil of the plains. Six jour­ney­man-​gar­den­ers, who were lodged in the of­fices, were now at work un­der or­ders of a head gar­den­er, plant­ing and com­plet­ing cer­tain works which Mon­sieur Bon­net had con­sid­ered in­dis­pens­able.

The ground-​floor apart­ments of the chateau, in­tend­ed on­ly for re­cep­tion-​rooms, had been sump­tu­ous­ly fur­nished; the up­per floor was rather bare, Mon­sieur Graslin hav­ing stopped for a time the work of fur­nish­ing it.

“Ah, Mon­seigneur!” said Madame Graslin to the bish­op, af­ter go­ing the rounds of the house, “I who ex­pect­ed to live in a cot­tage! Poor Mon­sieur Graslin was ex­trav­agant in­deed!”

“And you,” said the bish­op, adding af­ter a pause, as he no­ticed the shud­der than ran through her frame at his first words, “you will be ex­trav­agant in char­ity?”

She took the arm of her moth­er, who was lead­ing Fran­cis by the hand, and went to the long ter­race at the foot of which are the church and the par­son­age, and from which the hous­es of the vil­lage can be seen in tiers. The rec­tor car­ried off Mon­seigneur Dutheil to show him the dif­fer­ent sides of the land­scape. Be­fore long the two priests came round to the far­ther end of the ter­race, where they found Madame Graslin and her moth­er mo­tion­less as stat­ues. The old wom­an was wip­ing her eyes with a hand­ker­chief, and her daugh­ter stood with both hands stretched be­yond the balustrade as though she were point­ing to the church be­low.

“What is the mat­ter, madame?” said the rec­tor to Madame Sauvi­at.

“Noth­ing,” replied Madame Graslin, turn­ing round and ad­vanc­ing a few steps to meet the priests; “I did not know that I should have the ceme­tery un­der my eyes.”

“You can put it else­where; the law gives you that right.”

“The law!” she ex­claimed with al­most a cry.

Again the bish­op looked fixed­ly at Veronique. Dis­turbed by the dark glance with which the priest had pen­etrat­ed the veil of flesh that cov­ered her soul, drag­ging thence a se­cret hid­den in the grave of that ceme­tery, she said to him sud­den­ly:--

“Well, _yes_!”

The priest laid his hand over his eyes and was silent for a mo­ment as if stunned.

“Help my daugh­ter,” cried the old moth­er; “she is faint­ing.”

“The air is so keen, it over­comes me,” said Madame Graslin, as she fell un­con­scious in­to the arms of the two priests, who car­ried her in­to one of the low­er rooms of the chateau.

When she re­cov­ered con­scious­ness she saw the priests on their knees pray­ing for her.

“May the an­gel you vis­it­ed you nev­er leave you!” said the bish­op, bless­ing her. “Farewell, my daugh­ter.”

Over­come by those words Madame Graslin burst in­to tears.

“Tears will save her!” cried her moth­er.

“In this world and in the next,” said the bish­op, turn­ing round as he left the room.

The room to which they had car­ried Madame Graslin was on the first floor above the ground-​floor of the cor­ner tow­er, from which the church and ceme­tery and south­ern side of Mon­teg­nac could be seen. She de­ter­mined to re­main there, and did so, more or less un­com­fort­ably, with Aline her maid and lit­tle Fran­cis. Madame Sauvi­at, nat­ural­ly, took an­oth­er room near hers.

It was sev­er­al days be­fore Madame Graslin re­cov­ered from the vi­olent emo­tion which over­came her on that first evening, and her moth­er in­duced her to stay in bed at least dur­ing the morn­ings. At night, Veronique would come out and sit on a bench of the ter­race from which her eyes could rest on the church and ceme­tery. In spite of Madame Sauvi­at's mute but per­sis­tent op­po­si­tion, Madame Graslin formed an al­most mono­ma­ni­acal habit of sit­ting in the same place, where she seemed to give way to the black­est melan­choly.

“Madame will die,” said Aline to the old moth­er.

Ap­pealed to by Madame Sauvi­at, the rec­tor, who had wished not to seem in­tru­sive, came hence­forth very fre­quent­ly to vis­it Madame Graslin; he need­ed on­ly to be warned that her soul was sick. This true pas­tor took care to pay his vis­its at the hour when Veronique came out to sit at the cor­ner of the ter­race with her child, both in deep mourn­ing.