The Village Rector

XIX

A DEATH BLOW

At the be­gin­ning of the fol­low­ing year, in spite of Madame Graslin's as­sump­tion of strength, her friends be­gan to no­tice symp­toms which fore­shad­owed her com­ing death. To all the doc­tor's re­marks, and to the in­quiries of the most clear-​sight­ed of her friends, Veronique made the in­vari­able an­swer that she was per­fect­ly well. But when the spring opened she went round to vis­it her forests, farms, and beau­ti­ful mead­ows with a child­like joy and de­light which be­trayed to those who knew her best a sad fore­bod­ing.

Find­ing him­self obliged to build a small ce­ment­ed wall be­tween the dam of the Gabou and the park of Mon­teg­nac along the base of the hill called es­pe­cial­ly La Cor­reze, Ger­ard took up the idea of en­clos­ing the whole for­est and thus unit­ing it with the park. Madame Graslin agreed to this, and ap­point­ed thir­ty thou­sand francs a year to this work, which would take sev­en years to ac­com­plish and would then with­draw that fine for­est from the rights ex­er­cised by gov­ern­ment over the non-​en­closed forests of pri­vate in­di­vid­uals. The three ponds of the Gabou would thus be­come a part of the park. These ponds, am­bi­tious­ly called lakes, had each its is­land.

This year, Ger­ard had pre­pared, in col­lu­sion with Gros­setete, a sur­prise for Madame Graslin's birth­day. He had built a lit­tle her­mitage on the largest of the is­lands, rus­tic on the out­side and el­egant­ly ar­ranged with­in. The old banker took part in the con­spir­acy, in which Farrabesche, Fresquin, Clousi­er's nephew, and near­ly all the well-​to-​do peo­ple in Mon­teg­nac co-​op­er­at­ed. Gros­setete sent down some beau­ti­ful fur­ni­ture. The clock tow­er, copied from that at Ve­vay, made a charm­ing ef­fect in the land­scape. Six boats, two for each pond, were se­cret­ly built, paint­ed, and rigged dur­ing the win­ter by Farrabesche and Guepin, as­sist­ed by the car­pen­ter of Mon­teg­nac.

When the day ar­rived (about the mid­dle of May) af­ter a break­fast Madame Graslin gave to her friends, she was tak­en by them across the park--which was fine­ly laid out by Ger­ard, who, for the last five years, had im­proved it like a land­scape ar­chi­tect and nat­ural­ist--to the pret­ty mead­ow of the val­ley of the Gabou, where, at the shore of the first lake, two of the boats were float­ing. This mead­ow, wa­tered by sev­er­al clear stream­lets, lay at the foot of the fine amp­ithe­atre where the val­ley of the Gabou be­gins. The woods, cleared in a sci­en­tif­ic man­ner, so as to pro­duce no­ble mass­es and vis­tas that were charm­ing to the eye, en­closed the mead­ow and gave it a soli­tude that was grate­ful to the soul. Ger­ard had re­pro­duced on an em­inence that chalet in the val­ley of Sion above the road to Brieg which trav­ellers ad­mire so much; here were to be the dairy and the cow-​sheds of the chateau. From its gallery the eye roved over the land­scape cre­at­ed by the en­gi­neer which the three lakes made wor­thy of com­par­ison with the beau­ties of Switzer­land.

The day was beau­ti­ful. In the blue sky, not a cloud; on earth, all the charm­ing, grace­ful things the soil of­fers in the month of May. The trees plant­ed ten years ear­li­er on the banks--weep­ing wil­lows, osier, alder, ash, the as­pen of Hol­land, the poplars of Italy and Vir­ginia, hawthorns and ros­es, aca­cias, birch­es, all choice growths ar­ranged as their na­ture and the lay of the land made suit­able--held amid their fo­liage a few fleecy va­pors, born of the wa­ters, which rose like a slen­der smoke. The sur­face of the lakelet, clear as a mir­ror and calm as the sky, re­flect­ed the tall green mass­es of the for­est, the tops of which, dis­tinct­ly de­fined in the limpid at­mo­sphere, con­trast­ed with the groves be­low wrapped in their pret­ty veils. The lakes, sep­arat­ed by broad cause­ways, were three mir­rors show­ing dif­fer­ent re­flec­tions, the wa­ters of which flowed from one to an­oth­er in melo­di­ous cas­cades. These cause­ways were used to go from lake to lake with­out pass­ing round the shores. From the chalet could be seen, through a vista among the trees, the thank­less waste of the chalk com­mons, re­sem­bling an open sea and con­trast­ing with the fresh beau­ty of the lakes and their ver­dure.

When Veronique saw the joy­ous­ness of her friends as they held out their hands to help her in­to the largest of the boats, tears came in­to her eyes and she kept si­lence till they touched the bank of the first cause­way. As she stepped in­to the sec­ond boat she saw the her­mitage with Gros­setete sit­ting on a bench be­fore it with all his fam­ily.

“Do they wish to make me re­gret dy­ing?” she said to the rec­tor.

“We wish to pre­vent you from dy­ing,” replied Clousi­er.

“You can­not make the dead live,” she an­swered.

Mon­sieur Bon­net gave her a stern look which re­called her to her­self.

“Let me take care of your health,” said Roubaud, in a gen­tle, per­sua­sive voice. “I am sure I can save to this re­gion its liv­ing glo­ry, and to all our friends their com­mon tie.”

Veronique bowed her head, and Ger­ard rowed slow­ly to­ward the is­land in the mid­dle of the lake, the largest of the three, in­to which the over­flow­ing wa­ter of the first was rip­pling with a sound that gave a voice to that de­light­ful land­scape.

“You have done well to make me bid farewell to this rav­ish­ing na­ture on such a day,” she said, look­ing at the beau­ty of the trees, all so full of fo­liage that they hid the shore. The on­ly dis­ap­pro­ba­tion her friends al­lowed them­selves was to show a gloomy si­lence; and Veronique, re­ceiv­ing an­oth­er glance from Mon­sieur Bon­net, sprang light­ly ashore, as­sum­ing a live­ly air, which she did not re­lin­quish. Once more the host­ess, she was charm­ing, and the Gros­setete fam­ily felt she was again the beau­ti­ful Madame Graslin of for­mer days.

“In­deed, you can still live, if you choose!” said her moth­er in a whis­per.

At this gay fes­ti­val, amid these glo­ri­ous cre­ations pro­duced by the re­sources of na­ture on­ly, noth­ing seemed like­ly to wound Veronique, and yet it was here and now that she re­ceived her death-​blow.

The par­ty were to re­turn about nine o'clock by way of the mead­ows, the road through which, as love­ly as an En­glish or an Ital­ian road, was the pride of its en­gi­neer. The abun­dance of small stones, laid aside when the plain was cleared, en­abled him to keep it in good or­der; in fact, for the last five years it was, in a way, macadamized. Car­riages were await­ing the com­pa­ny at the open­ing of the last val­ley to­ward the plain, al­most at the base of the Roche-​Vive. The hors­es, raised at Mon­teg­nac, were among the first that were ready for the mar­ket. The man­ag­er of the stud had se­lect­ed a dozen for the sta­bles of the chateau, and their present fine ap­pear­ance was part of the pro­gramme of the fete. Madame Graslin's own car­riage, a gift from Gros­setete, was drawn by four of the finest an­imals, plain­ly har­nessed.

Af­ter din­ner the hap­py par­ty went to take cof­fee in a lit­tle wood­en kiosk, made like those on the Bospho­rus, and placed on a point of the is­land from which the eye could reach to the far­ther lake be­yond. From this spot Madame Graslin thought she saw her son Fran­cis near the nurs­ery-​ground for­mer­ly plant­ed by Farrabesche. She looked again, but did not see him; and Mon­sieur Ruf­fin point­ed him out to her, play­ing on the bank with Gros­setete's chil­dren. Veronique be­came alarmed lest he should meet with some ac­ci­dent. Not lis­ten­ing to re­mon­strance, she ran down from the kiosk, and jump­ing in­to a boat, be­gan to row to­ward her son. This lit­tle in­ci­dent caused a gen­er­al de­par­ture. Mon­sieur Gros­setete pro­posed that they should all fol­low her and walk on the beau­ti­ful shore of the lake, along the curves of the moun­tain­ous bluffs. On land­ing there Madame Graslin saw her son in the arms of a wom­an in deep mourn­ing. Judg­ing by the shape of her bon­net and the style of her clothes, the wom­an was a for­eign­er. Veronique was star­tled, and called to her son, who present­ly came to­ward her.

“Who is that wom­an?” she asked the chil­dren round about her; “and why did Fran­cis leave you to go to her?”

“The la­dy called him by name,” said a lit­tle girl.

At that in­stant Madame Sauvi­at and Ger­ard, who had out­stripped the rest of the com­pa­ny, came up.

“Who is that wom­an, my dear child?” asked Madame Graslin as soon as Fran­cis reached her.

“I don't know,” he an­swered; “but she kissed me as you and grand­mam­ma kissed me--she cried,” whis­pered Fran­cis in his moth­er's ear.

“Shall I go af­ter her?” asked Ger­ard.

“No!” said Madame Graslin, with an abrupt­ness that was not usu­al in her.

With a del­ica­cy for which Veronique was grate­ful, Ger­ard led away the chil­dren and went back to de­tain the rest of the par­ty, leav­ing Madame Sauvi­at, Madame Graslin, and Fran­cis alone.

“What did she say to you?” asked Madame Sauvi­at of her grand­son.

“I don't know; she did not speak French.”

“Couldn't you un­der­stand any­thing she said?” asked Veronique.

“No; but she kept say­ing over and over,--and that's why I re­mem­ber it, --_My dear broth­er_!”

Veronique took her moth­er's arm and led her son by the hand, but she had scarce­ly gone a dozen steps be­fore her strength gave way.

“What is the mat­ter? what has hap­pened?” said the oth­ers, who now came up, to Madame Sauvi­at.

“Oh! my daugh­ter is in dan­ger!” said the old wom­an, in gut­tural tones.

It was nec­es­sary to car­ry Madame Graslin to her car­riage. She signed to Aline to get in­to it with Fran­cis, and al­so Ger­ard.

“You have been in Eng­land,” she said to the lat­ter as soon as she re­cov­ered her­self, “and there­fore no doubt you speak En­glish; tell me the mean­ing of the words, _my dear broth­er_.”

On be­ing told, Veronique ex­changed a look with Aline and her moth­er which made them shud­der; but they re­strained their feel­ings.

The shouts and joy­ous cries of those who were as­sist­ing in the de­par­ture of the car­riages, the splen­dor of the set­ting sun as it lay up­on the mead­ows, the per­fect gait of the beau­ti­ful hors­es, the laugh­ter of her friends as they fol­lowed her on horse­back at a gal­lop, --none of these things roused Madame Graslin from her tor­por. Her moth­er or­dered the coach­man to has­ten his hors­es, and their car­riage reached the chateau some time be­fore the oth­ers. When the com­pa­ny were again as­sem­bled, they were told that Veronique had gone to her rooms and was un­able to see any one.

“I fear,” said Ger­ard to his friends, “that Madame Graslin has had some fa­tal shock.”

“Where? how?” they asked.

“To her heart,” he an­swered.

The fol­low­ing day Roubaud start­ed for Paris. He had seen Madame Graslin, and found her so se­ri­ous­ly ill that he wished for the as­sis­tance and ad­vice of the ablest physi­cian of the day. But Veronique had on­ly re­ceived Roubaud to put a stop to her moth­er and Aline's en­treaties that she would do some­thing to ben­efit her; she her­self knew that death had strick­en her. She re­fused to see Mon­sieur Bon­net, send­ing word to him that the time had not yet come. Though all her friends who had come from Limo­ges to cel­ebrate her birth­day wished to be with her, she begged them to ex­cuse her from ful­fill­ing the du­ties of hos­pi­tal­ity, say­ing that she de­sired to re­main in the deep­est soli­tude. Af­ter Roubaud's de­par­ture the oth­er guests re­turned to Limo­ges, less dis­ap­point­ed than dis­tressed; for all those whom Gros­setete had brought with him adored Veronique. They were lost in con­jec­ture as to what might have caused this mys­te­ri­ous dis­as­ter.

One evening, two days af­ter the de­par­ture of the com­pa­ny, Aline brought Cather­ine to Madame Graslin's apart­ment. La Farrabesche stopped short, hor­ri­fied at the change so sud­den­ly wrought in her mis­tress, whose face seemed to her al­most dis­tort­ed.

“Good God, madame!” she cried, “what harm that girl has done! If we had on­ly fore­seen it, Farrabesche and I, we would nev­er have tak­en her in. She has just heard that madame is ill, and sends me to tell Madame Sauvi­at she wants to speak to her.”

“Here!” cried Veronique. “Where is she?”

“My hus­band took her to the chalet.”

“Very good,” said Madame Graslin; “tell Farrabesche to go else­where. In­form that la­dy that my moth­er will go to her; tell her to ex­pect the vis­it.”

As soon as it was dark Veronique, lean­ing on her moth­er's arm, walked slow­ly through the park to the chalet. The moon was shin­ing with all its bril­lian­cy, the air was soft, and the two wom­en, vis­ibly af­fect­ed, found en­cour­age­ment, of a sort, in the things of na­ture. The moth­er stopped now and then, to rest her daugh­ter, whose suf­fer­ings were poignant, so that it was well-​nigh mid­night be­fore they reached the path that goes down from the woods to the slop­ing mead­ow where the sil­very roof of the chalet shone. The moon­light gave to the sur­face of the qui­et wa­ter, the tint of pearls. The lit­tle nois­es of the night, echo­ing in the si­lence, made soft­est har­mo­ny. Veronique sat down on the bench of the chalet, amid this beau­teous scene of the star­ry night. The mur­mur of two voic­es and the foot­fall of two per­sons still at a dis­tance on the sandy shore were brought by the wa­ter, which some­times, when all is still, re­pro­duces sounds as faith­ful­ly as it re­flects ob­jects on the sur­face. Veronique rec­og­nized at once the exquisite voice of the rec­tor, and the rus­tle of his cas­sock, al­so the move­ment of some silken stuff that was prob­ably the ma­te­ri­al of a wom­an's gown.

“Let us go in,” she said to her moth­er.

Madame Sauvi­at and her daugh­ter sat down on a crib in the low­er room, which was in­tend­ed for a sta­ble.

“My child,” they heard the rec­tor say­ing, “I do not blame you,--you are quite ex­cus­able; but your re­turn may be the cause of ir­repara­ble evil; she is the soul of this re­gion.”

“Ah! mon­sieur, then I had bet­ter go away to-​night,” replied the stranger. “Though--I must tell you--to leave my coun­try once more is death to me. If I had stayed a day longer in that hor­ri­ble New York, where there is nei­ther hope, nor faith, nor char­ity, I should have died with­out be­ing ill. The air I breathed op­pressed my chest, food did not nour­ish me, I was dy­ing while full of life and vig­or. My suf­fer­ings ceased the mo­ment I set foot up­on the ves­sel to re­turn. I seemed to be al­ready in France. Oh! mon­sieur, I saw my moth­er and one of my sis­ters-​in-​law die of grief. My grand­fa­ther and grand­moth­er Tascheron are dead; dead, my dear Mon­sieur Bon­net, in spite of the pros­per­ity of Tascheronville,--for my fa­ther found­ed a vil­lage in Ohio and gave it that name. That vil­lage is now al­most a town, and a third of all the land is cul­ti­vat­ed by mem­bers of our fam­ily, whom God has con­stant­ly pro­tect­ed. Our tillage suc­ceed­ed, our crops have been enor­mous, and we are rich. The town is Catholic, and we have man­aged to build a Catholic church; we do not al­low any oth­er form of wor­ship, and we hope to con­vert by our ex­am­ple the many sects which sur­round us. True re­li­gion is in a mi­nor­ity in that land of mon­ey and self­ish in­ter­ests, where the soul is cold. Nev­er­the­less, I will re­turn to die there, soon­er than do harm or cause dis­tress to the moth­er of our Fran­cis. On­ly, Mon­sieur Bon­net, take me to-​night to the par­son­age that I may pray up­on _his_ tomb, the thought of which has brought me here; the near­er I have come to where _he_ is, the more I felt my­self an­oth­er be­ing. No, I nev­er ex­pect­ed to feel so hap­py again as I do here.”

“Well, then,” said the rec­tor, “come with me now. If there should come a time when you might re­turn with­out do­ing in­jury, I will write to you, Denise; but per­haps this vis­it to your birth­place will stop the home­sick­ness, and en­able you to live over there with­out suf­fer­ing--”

“Oh! to leave this coun­try, now so beau­ti­ful! What won­ders Madame Graslin has done for it!” she ex­claimed, point­ing to the lake as it lay in the moon­light. “All this fine do­main will be­long to our dear Fran­cis.”

“You shall not go away, Denise,” said Madame Graslin, who was stand­ing at the sta­ble door.

Jean-​Fran­cois Tascheron's sis­ter clasped her hands on see­ing the spec­tre which ad­dressed her. At that mo­ment the pale Veronique, stand­ing in the moon­light, was like a shade de­fined up­on the dark­ness of the open door-​way. Her eyes alone shone like stars.

“No, my child, you shall not leave the coun­try you have come so far to see again; you shall be hap­py here, or God will refuse to help me; it is He, no doubt, who has brought you back.”

She took the as­ton­ished Denise by the hand, and led her away by a path to­ward the oth­er shore of the lake, leav­ing her moth­er and the rec­tor, who seat­ed them­selves on the bench.

“Let her do as she wish­es,” said Madame Sauvi­at.

A few mo­ments lat­er Veronique re­turned alone, and was tak­en back to the chateau by her moth­er and Mon­sieur Bon­net. Doubt­less she had formed some plan which re­quired se­cre­cy, for no one in the neigh­bor­hood ei­ther saw Denise or heard any men­tion of her.

Madame Graslin took to her bed that day and nev­er but once left it again; she went from bad to worse dai­ly, and seemed an­noyed and thwart­ed that she could not rise,--try­ing to do so on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, and ex­press­ing a de­sire to walk out in­to the park. A few days, how­ev­er, af­ter the scene we have just re­lat­ed, about the be­gin­ning of June, she made a vi­olent ef­fort, rose, dressed as if for a gala day, and begged Ger­ard to give her his arm, declar­ing that she was re­solved to take a walk. She gath­ered up all her strength and ex­pend­ed it on this ex­pe­di­tion, ac­com­plish­ing her in­ten­tion in a parox­ysm of will which had, nec­es­sar­ily, a fa­tal re­ac­tion.

“Take me to the chalet, and alone,” she said to Ger­ard in a soft voice, look­ing at him with a sort of co­quetry. “This is my last ex­cur­sion; I dreamed last night the doc­tors ar­rived and cap­tured me.”

“Do you want to see your woods?” asked Ger­ard.

“For the last time, yes,” she an­swered. “But what I re­al­ly want,” she added, in a coax­ing voice, “is to make you a sin­gu­lar propo­si­tion.”

She asked Ger­ard to em­bark with her in one of the boats on the sec­ond lake, to which she went on foot. When the young man, sur­prised at her in­ten­tion, be­gan to move the oars, she point­ed to the her­mitage as the ob­ject of her com­ing.

“My friend,” she said, af­ter a long pause, dur­ing which she had been con­tem­plat­ing the sky and wa­ter, the hills and shores, “I have a strange re­quest to make of you; but I think you are a man who would obey my wish­es--”

“In all things, sure that you can wish on­ly what is good.”

“I wish to mar­ry you,” she an­swered; “if you con­sent you will ac­com­plish the wish of a dy­ing wom­an, which is cer­tain to se­cure your hap­pi­ness.”

“I am too ug­ly,” said the en­gi­neer.

“The per­son to whom I re­fer is pret­ty; she is young, and wish­es to live at Mon­teg­nac. If you will mar­ry her you will help to soft­en my last hours. I will not dwell up­on her virtues now; I on­ly say her na­ture is a rare one; in the mat­ter of grace and youth and beau­ty, one look will suf­fice; you are now about to see her at the her­mitage. As we re­turn home you must give me a se­ri­ous yes or no.”

Hear­ing this con­fi­dence, Ger­ard un­con­scious­ly quick­ened his oars, which made Madame Graslin smile. Denise, who was liv­ing alone, away from all eyes, at the her­mitage, rec­og­nized Madame Graslin and im­me­di­ate­ly opened the door. Veronique and Ger­ard en­tered. The poor girl could not help a blush as she met the eyes of the young man, who was great­ly sur­prised at her beau­ty.

“I hope Madame Farrabesche has not let you want for any­thing?” said Veronique.

“Oh no! madame, see!” and she point­ed to her break­fast.

“This is Mon­sieur Ger­ard, of whom I spoke to you,” went on Veronique. “He is to be my son's guardian, and af­ter my death you shall live to­geth­er at the chateau un­til his ma­jor­ity.”

“Oh! madame, do not talk in that way!”

“My dear child, look at me!” replied Veronique, ad­dress­ing Denise, in whose eyes the tears rose in­stant­ly. “She has just ar­rived from New York,” she added, by way of in­tro­duc­tion to Ger­ard.

The en­gi­neer put sev­er­al ques­tions about the new world to the young wom­an, while Veronique, leav­ing them alone, went to look at the third and more dis­tant lake of the Gabou. It was six o'clock as Veronique and Ger­ard re­turned in the boat to­ward the chalet.

“Well?” she said, look­ing at him.

“You have my promise.”

“Though you are, I know, with­out prej­udices,” she went on, “I must not leave you ig­no­rant of the rea­son why that poor girl, brought back here by home­sick­ness, left the place orig­inal­ly.”

“A false step?”

“Oh, no!” said Veronique. “Should I of­fer her to you if that were so? She is the sis­ter of a work­man who died on the scaf­fold--”

“Ah! Tascheron,” he said, “the mur­der­er of old Pin­gret.”

“Yes, she is the sis­ter of a mur­der­er,” said Madame Graslin, in a bit­ter tone; “you are at lib­er­ty to take back your promise and--”

She did not fin­ish, and Ger­ard was obliged to car­ry her to the bench be­fore the chalet, where she re­mained un­con­scious for some lit­tle time. When she opened her eyes Ger­ard was on his knees be­fore her and he said in­stant­ly:--

“I will mar­ry Denise.”

Madame Graslin took his head in both hands and kissed him on the fore­head; then, see­ing his sur­prise at so much grat­itude, she pressed his hand and said:

“Be­fore long you will know the se­cret of all this. Let us go back to the ter­race, for it is late; I am very tired, but I must look my last on that dear plain.”

Though the day had been in­sup­port­ably hot, the storms which dur­ing this year dev­as­tat­ed parts of Eu­rope and of France but re­spect­ed the Limousin, had run their course in the basin of the Loire, and the at­mo­sphere was sin­gu­lar­ly clear. The sky was so pure that the eye could seize the slight­est de­tails on the hori­zon. What lan­guage can ren­der the de­light­ful con­cert of busy sounds pro­duced in the vil­lage by the re­turn of the work­ers from the fields? Such a scene, to be right­ly giv­en, needs a great land­scape artist and al­so a great painter of the hu­man face. Is there not, by the bye, in the las­si­tude of Na­ture and that of man a cu­ri­ous affin­ity which is dif­fi­cult to grasp? The de­press­ing heat of a dog-​day and the rar­ifi­ca­tion of the air give to the least sound made by hu­man be­ings all its sig­ni­fi­ca­tion. The wom­en seat­ed on their doorsteps and wait­ing for their hus­bands (who of­ten bring back the chil­dren) gos­sip with each oth­er while still at work. The roofs are cast­ing up the lines of smoke which tell of the evening meal, the gayest among the peas­antry; af­ter which, they sleep. All ac­tions ex­press the tran­quil cheer­ful thoughts of those whose day's work is over. Songs are heard very dif­fer­ent in char­ac­ter from those of the morn­ing; in this the peas­ants im­itate the birds, whose war­bling at night is to­tal­ly un­like their notes at dawn. All na­ture sings a hymn to rest, as it sang a hymn of joy to the com­ing sun. The slight­est move­ments of liv­ing be­ings seem tint­ed then with the soft, har­mo­nious col­ors of the sun­set cast up­on the land­scape and lend­ing even to the dusty road­ways a placid air. If any dared de­ny the in­flu­ence of this hour, the loveli­est of the day, the flow­ers would protest and in­tox­icate his sens­es with their pen­etrat­ing per­fumes, which then ex­hale and min­gle with the ten­der hum of in­sects and the amorous note of birds.

The brooks which thread­ed the plain be­yond the vil­lage were veiled in fleecy va­por. In the great mead­ows through which the high-​road ran, --bor­dered with poplars, aca­cias, and ailan­thus, wise­ly in­ter­min­gled and al­ready giv­ing shade,--enor­mous and just­ly cel­ebrat­ed herds of cat­tle were scat­tered here and there, some still graz­ing, oth­ers ru­mi­nat­ing. Men, wom­en, and chil­dren were end­ing their day's work in the hay-​field, the most pic­turesque of all the coun­try toils. The night air, fresh­ened by dis­tant storms, brought on its wings the sat­is­fy­ing odors of the new­ly cut grass or the fin­ished hay. Ev­ery fea­ture of this beau­ti­ful panora­ma could be seen per­fect­ly; those who feared a com­ing storm were fin­ish­ing in haste the hay-​stacks, while oth­ers fol­lowed with their pitch­forks to fill the carts as they were driv­en along the rows. Oth­ers in the dis­tance were still mow­ing, or turn­ing the long lines of fall­en grass to dry it, or has­ten­ing to pile it in­to cocks. The joy­ous laugh of the mer­ry work­ers min­gling with the shouts of the chil­dren tum­bling each oth­er in the hay, rose on the air. The eye could dis­tin­guish the pink, red, or blue pet­ti­coats, the ker­chiefs, and the bare legs and arms of the wom­en, all wear­ing broad-​brimmed hats of a coarse straw, and the shirts and trousers of the men, the lat­ter al­most in­vari­ably white. The last rays of the sun were fil­ter­ing through the long lines of poplars plant­ed be­side the trench­es which di­vid­ed the plain in­to mead­ows of un­equal size, and ca­ress­ing the groups of hors­es and carts, men, wom­en, chil­dren, and cat­tle. The cat­tle­men and the shep­herd-​girls were be­gin­ning to col­lect their flocks to the sound of rus­tic horns.

The scene was noisy, yet silent,--a para­dox­ical state­ment, which will sur­prise on­ly those to whom the char­ac­ter of coun­try life is still un­known. From all sides came the carts, laden with fra­grant fod­der. There was some­thing, I know not what, of tor­por in the scene. Veronique walked slow­ly and silent­ly be­tween Ger­ard and the rec­tor, who had joined her on the ter­race.

Through the open­ings made by the ru­ral lanes run­ning down be­low the ter­race to the main street of Mon­teg­nac Ger­ard and Mon­sieur Bon­net could see the faces of men, wom­en, and chil­dren turned to­ward them; watch­ing more par­tic­ular­ly, no doubt, for Madame Graslin. How much of ten­der­ness and grat­itude was ex­pressed on those faces! How many bene­dic­tions fol­lowed Veronique's foot­steps! With what rev­er­ent at­ten­tion were the three bene­fac­tors of a whole com­mu­ni­ty re­gard­ed! Man was adding a hymn of grat­itude to the oth­er chants of evening.

While Madame Graslin walked on with her eyes fas­tened on the long, mag­nif­icent green pas­tures, her most cher­ished cre­ation, the priest and the may­or did not take their eyes from the groups be­low, whose ex­pres­sion it was im­pos­si­ble to mis­in­ter­pret; pain, sad­ness, and re­gret, min­gled with hope, were plain­ly on all those faces. No one in Mon­teg­nac or its neigh­bor­hood was ig­no­rant that Mon­sieur Roubaud had gone to Paris to bring the best physi­cian sci­ence af­ford­ed, or that the bene­fac­tress of the whole dis­trict was in the last stages of a fa­tal ill­ness. In all the mar­kets through a cir­cum­fer­ence of thir­ty miles the peas­ants asked those of Mon­teg­nac,--

“How is your good wom­an now?”

The great vi­sion of death hov­ered over the land, and dom­inat­ed that ru­ral pic­ture. Afar, in the fields, more than one reaper sharp­en­ing his scythe, more than one young girl, her arms rest­ing on her fork, more than one farmer stack­ing his hay, see­ing Madame Graslin, stood mute and thought­ful, ex­am­in­ing that no­ble wom­an, the bless­ing of the Cor­reze, seek­ing some fa­vor­able sign or mere­ly look­ing to ad­mire her, im­pelled by a feel­ing that ar­rest­ed their work.

“She is out walk­ing; there­fore she must be bet­ter.”

These sim­ple words were on ev­ery lip.

Madame Graslin's moth­er, seat­ed on the iron bench which Veronique had for­mer­ly placed at the end of the ter­race, stud­ied ev­ery move­ment of her daugh­ter; she watched her step in walk­ing, and a few tears rolled from her eyes. Aware of the se­cret ef­forts of that su­per­hu­man courage, she knew that Veronique at that mo­ment was suf­fer­ing the tor­tures of a hor­ri­ble agony, and on­ly main­tained her­self erect by the ex­er­cise of her hero­ic will. The tears--they seemed al­most red--which forced their way from those aged eyes, and fur­rowed that wrin­kled face, the parch­ment of which seemed in­ca­pable of soft­en­ing un­der any emo­tion, ex­cit­ed those of young Graslin, whom Mon­sieur Ruf­fin had be­tween his knees.

“What is the mat­ter, my boy?” said the tu­tor, anx­ious­ly.

“My grand­moth­er is cry­ing,” he an­swered.

Mon­sieur Ruf­fin, whose eyes were on Madame Graslin as she came to­ward them, now looked at Madame Sauvi­at, and was pow­er­ful­ly struck by the as­pect of that old head, like that of a Ro­man ma­tron, pet­ri­fied with grief and moist­ened with tears.

“Madame, why did you not pre­vent her from com­ing out?” said the tu­tor to the old moth­er, au­gust and sa­cred in her silent grief.

As Veronique ad­vanced ma­jes­ti­cal­ly with her nat­ural­ly fine and grace­ful step, Madame Sauvi­at, driv­en by de­spair at the thought of sur­viv­ing her daugh­ter, al­lowed the se­cret of many things that awak­ened cu­rios­ity to es­cape her.

“How can she walk like that,” she cried, “wear­ing a hor­ri­ble horse­hair shirt, which pricks in­to her skin per­pet­ual­ly?”

The words hor­ri­fied the young man, who was not in­sen­si­ble to the exquisite grace of Veronique's move­ments; he shud­dered as he thought of the con­stant and ter­rif­ic strug­gle of the soul to main­tain its em­pire thus over the body.

“She has worn it thir­teen years,--ev­er since she ceased to nurse the boy,” said the old wom­an. “She has done mir­acles here, but if her whole life were known they ought to can­on­ize her. Since she came to Mon­teg­nac no one has ev­er seen her eat, and do you know why? Aline serves her three times a day a piece of dry bread, and veg­eta­bles boiled in wa­ter, with­out salt, on a com­mon plate of red earth like those they feed the dogs on. Yes, that's how the wom­an lives who has giv­en new life to this whole can­ton. She kneels to say her prayers on the edge of that hair-​shirt. She says she could not have that smil­ing air you know she al­ways has un­less she prac­tised these aus­ter­ities. I tell you this,” added the old wom­an, sink­ing her voice, “so that you may re­peat it to the doc­tor that Mon­sieur Roubaud has gone to fetch. If they could pre­vent my daugh­ter from con­tin­uing these penances, per­haps they might still save her, though death has laid its hand up­on her head. See for your­self! Ah! I must be strong in­deed to have borne so many things these fif­teen years.”

The old wom­an took her grand­son's hand and passed it over her fore­head and cheeks as if the child's touch shed a heal­ing balm there; then she kissed it with an af­fec­tion the se­cret of which be­longs to grand­moth­ers as much as it be­longs to moth­ers.

Veronique was now on­ly a few feet from the bench, in com­pa­ny with Clousi­er, the rec­tor, and Ger­ard. Il­lu­mi­nat­ed by the glow of the set­ting sun, she shone with a dread­ful beau­ty. Her yel­low fore­head, fur­rowed with long wrin­kles massed one above the oth­er like lay­ers of clouds, re­vealed a fixed thought in the midst of in­ward trou­bles. Her face, de­void of all col­or, en­tire­ly white with the dead, green­ish white­ness of plants with­out light, was thin, though not with­ered, and bore the signs of ter­ri­ble phys­ical suf­fer­ings pro­duced by men­tal an­guish. She fought her soul with her body, and _vice ver­sa_. She was so com­plete­ly de­stroyed that she no more re­sem­bled her­self than an old wom­an re­sem­bles her por­trait as a girl. The ar­dent ex­pres­sion of her eyes de­clared the despot­ic em­pire ex­er­cised by a de­vout will over a body re­duced to what re­li­gion re­quires it to be. In this wom­an the soul dragged the flesh as the Achilles of pro­fane sto­ry dragged Hec­tor; for fif­teen years she dragged it vic­to­ri­ous­ly along the stony paths of life around the ce­les­tial Jerusalem she hoped to en­ter, not by a vile de­cep­tion, but with ac­cla­ma­tion. No soli­tary that ev­er lived in the dry and arid deserts of Africa was ev­er more mas­ter of his sens­es than was Veronique in her mag­nif­icent chateau, among the soft, volup­tuous scenery of that op­ulent land, be­neath the pro­tect­ing man­tle of that rich for­est, whence sci­ence, the heir of Moses' wand, had called forth plen­ty, pros­per­ity, and hap­pi­ness for a whole re­gion. She con­tem­plat­ed the re­sults of twelve years' pa­tience, a work which might have made the fame of many a su­pe­ri­or man, with a gen­tle mod­esty such as Pon­torno has paint­ed in the sub­lime face of his “Chris­tian Chasti­ty ca­ress­ing the Ce­les­tial Uni­corn.” The mis­tress of the manor, whose si­lence was re­spect­ed by her com­pan­ions when they saw that her eyes were rov­ing over those vast plains, once arid, and now fer­tile by her will, walked on, her arms fold­ed, with a dis­tant look, as if to some far hori­zon, on her face.