The Christmas break was coming. The fields had their seeds. Jacquier still felt in the hollow of his palm the handful of grains that are thrown with a measured movement, for that is what is more precious than gold.
Heavy rains came out of the west, carried by heavy clouds which followed one another incessantly. You could hear the mysterious march of the wind blowing away so far that it was no more than a murmur; but he returned, with rumblings, to the oaks which kept their dead leaves, the remains of summer. Troops of crows circled the castles{33}groves where they rested motionless for some time, their wings folded, their beaks down, like strange black fruits. They all flew away together, as if at a secret command. From the bottom of the valley, a mist was rising, a kind of big white cloud which rolled and which the sun could hardly dissipate. We could only see the heads of the aspens on the shore, which seemed to float. There were cries in the air that seemed to spring from things; the call of the shepherds mingled with the sound of overflowing water, the wind, the pounding of the rain.
Claire Lautier, as soon as Simon was back, made him sit down in front of the big wood fire. She took off his stockings and stretched out his bare feet towards the embers, so that they were quite dry. She watched over him more than ever, and sometimes, for no apparent reason, she hugged him. It seemed to her that few days had passed since she had carried him under this roof, so{34}that he was in the cradle. She would have liked to be able to sing again over her eyes the airs which had so often closed them.
Now, having tucked him into his little bed, she would go away, then she would come back a few hours later, hiding her lamp, to see him sleeping, so peacefully, so securely. Then she kissed his forehead without waking him, full of the torments and the greatest sweetness of this world.
Sometimes she thought she loved him too much. If he had been like those wicked and disgraced children who upset their parents, his heart would perhaps have become less attached. But he was so peaceful, so studious, always a little dreamy and gentle; you could see him at school where he liked to isolate himself in a corner of the class or the yard. His eyes only really awakened under the gaze of Claire Lautier, in his beloved shadow. All the joy was up there, at the top of the Valley of the Ages. There was no word said{35}chord, no movement too abrupt, but a slip of peace.
"When I grow up, I won't leave the Ages," he often said to Claire.
She whispered:
"This child saves me...
When he was not at home, at the rare moments of respite, she locked herself in her room. That evening she took a white wooden box from the chest of drawers; she began to reread the letters of Jacques Renaud, the one she had loved and who was dead. Then she called, in the depths of her heart, to her brother, whose peaceful and loyal face she saw in a small golden frame.
“You see... My life would be over without this little one. He already has your look... He doesn't belong to this woman... He belongs to us. He will be good like you, brave like you.
She remembered Jacques Renaud forever, a boy so simple and straightforward, too, and that supreme evening when she had greeted him for the last time. He hadn't{36}returned on leaving, under the branches of the Bost chestnut grove, because he must have been crying. Nothing had been known of this love in the country, because the war had to be over in order to make an accord.
He was dead, and she remained in this life. But God had sent Simon to her and she was no longer alone, with a heavy heart. She heard the child coming, replaced the dear relics in their box.
Simon handed him a letter the postman had given him to avoid a long detour. She took it trembling and calmed down quickly. It was the wheelwright from Bonnal who asked to buy twelve large abalones from the Bois de Lafond. She hid her first trouble by leafing through Simon's books and notebooks. He pulled out of the bag in which, each morning, Claire kept, between two plates, the midday lunch, a pouch of sugar, another of coffee and a bottle of rapeseed oil for the sweet salad. He did the little things every week{37}commissions at the grocery store in Bonnal. Claire did not fail to say:
“Your account is correct. You weren't one penny wrong.
She marveled, far from believing that, if the child had not been of a good nature, he would soon have been puffed up with vanity. But he smiled, pirouetted on one heel and said:
-It's not difficult!
Tonight, as the weather was getting colder, she thought that Simon would take a thicker woolen waistcoat tomorrow. She left him alone in the bedroom, where a small walnut cupboard, which she had ordered for him from the Bonnal carpenter, contained his clothes and the articulated animals that the teacher was learning to carve. He had built a tiny cart, with wheels painted red, and two cows painted yellow to pull it. In it he put a potato, which was enough to fill it, or some{38}chestnuts. He stirred and growled as he had seen Jacquier do when the oxen, under the goad, flexed their muscles to get out of a stony path. But he quickly calmed down and leafed through Sacred History, full of images that carried him far away, to unknown countries where there was always sunshine.
While Jeannette was expressing the milk, Claire was busy preparing the meal with great concern. It was like a hole in his head where thoughts were spinning, rising, falling. Madame Lautier had not written, as she did at that time. What became of her? She never gave her news more than two or three times each year. The days had gathered; today Simon was growing up fast and could discover the truth that she had not yet dared to tell him. What stuff was this woman in that she cared little about her child? But Claire was afraid to accuse aloud the one who was,{39}despite everything, Simon's mother.
Times were getting more troubled. There was everywhere a fury of pleasure, a kind of anger. To the sound of a mechanical piano, in Bonnal, boys and girls no longer left the ball before the morning cockcrow. They danced things from the city, waddled steps, without frankness, with abandonments as if a great bond was coming undone. More bourrées, more songs. The church was often empty; she expected so many returns. Father Remier preached for chairs, as they said, except on holy days. If there was nothing left in the world but money and the desire to look up was taken from hearts, what would happen? Even the dogs raised their heads: then their eyes became beautiful. Today, nothing but money; we never had enough and we believed that everything can be paid for.
Claire saw in her mind the new balls where the girls wore dresses à la{40}fashions that showed too much skin, without concern for winter and decency. It was a great pleasure that offered itself constantly. And these fairs, where the earth no longer had its true place, ruddy vanity showed itself there; a hunger less for wheat than for money. On the one hand, the cold fever of avarice which mounted with gain; on the other, a spreading richness, bubbling like a wine that has not yet been able to be fermented. Everywhere this great anguish, this slide. In the cities, they said it was more terrible, in those rumors where Simon's mother lived. One had to hope, however, despite those days when money did not match work and seemed to lose the merit that purified it. There were always, here and there, good people whom evil had not seized. Claire remembered that a small number of the righteous can save everything. What terrified him,{41}would resume. She felt that he would adapt quickly to a new existence, being of a good character, but malleable. Without the force of example, he would be lost. She reflected that she had given him more than her life, for she had surpassed herself. Yet it would be ripped from her chest, but that which was the great pain, a flood of blood that would flow from her and leave her weak forever, seemed less cruel to her than the thought of knowing that he would live with a heart without defense. For a year, she had wanted to get used to his departure. He might not escape her altogether. Madame Lautier, with age, would become better, touched by the grace of which Abbé Remier spoke from the pulpit.
She slowly pushed back her pain. She heard the child singing in the bedroom. He was still near her; everything would undoubtedly work out; she was asking God.
Simon gently opened the door, and,{42}walking at a cat's pace, he came to surprise Claire by jumping happily around her neck. She was so gripped that she pressed her hands to her bodice.
“Go read by the fire,” she said.
He obediently obeys. While she was cutting the bread for the soup, she looked furtively at the little slanted forehead, the drooping curls, the swelling of the eyelids, so soft, so pure. And she whispered:
“My God, I know he's not mine... But don't take him away from me yet.{44}{43}
III
The rains stopped. On the horizon, a high blue door opened; the good weather passed. Fine days; a crisp, cold sky, like a snow-white flower. The bare woods left their sordid appearance, that air of great misery which grips the heart; their branches became new, rubbed with light, with rays, drops of gold at their tips. The water purified itself, mirroring a star, an arc of the moon, a willow branch according to the hour. The morning frosts made an immaculate dust and Simon, on his way to school, amused himself by breaking as he walked the little mirrors embedded in the hollows of the hardened earth and which burst with a dry noise.{45}He was completely unconcerned, surrendering to Claire's vigilance, which spared him any trouble. A blackbird coming out of a hedge of thorns, a flash of spring, in the distance, the word of the wind filled him with a confused joy. He was always a child full of sweetness who dreaded the brutal games of his classmates, without ever showing it. That Christmas evening, he was happy to be on vacation. When he returned, Claire said to him:
“We will be very quiet. I would like to keep you always close to me. I am jealous of your master who sees you from morning till night.
He kissed her as usual, peacefully, unable to discover the ardor and the anguish that were watching. She hastened to milk the brettes. Jacquier had completed his task earlier than usual. It was the Christmas break. Claire wanted her to be watched jealously. The loosening of the bond of customs made him still{46} dearer the memory of past festivals. Simon asked her to take him to midnight mass:
"I'm old now, I can watch," he said, rising to his feet.
She hesitated, afraid of tiring him, but she agreed, thinking that she would walk with him and hold his little hand in hers on the way.
After the evening meal, Claire, Jeannette and Simon took their places in front of the fireplace. Jacquier, who had gone out, soon returned, carrying with precaution, like a fragile thing, a stump of apple tree, which had become very dry, near the boiler where the food for the pigs was being cooked. He placed it on the pile of embers and sat down on the salt box. The flame swirled around the log; he looked at her with a sort of joy, with his round eyes, with their reddened and slanting lids.
—I remember one who was{47}almond tree, he growled, and that my father had kept for two couples of years, near the oven. Lady, there are none of those trees there. It made an all-white fire speckled with blue. Nails had come to my neck, to my arms. My mother passed coals of it nine times under a bramble stalk. I was quickly healed. My skin became smooth like the skin of an apple.
Claire nodded; she had no doubts about the virtues of the Yule log, and she turned her grave face towards the fire as she breathed in the smell of fruit. She remembered the wakes when the Hall of Ages was full of people, young and old. People chatted freely there. Many stories were told; then we danced, tapping our heels hard. In a corner, they had pushed the cherry tree table where, sometimes, a waiter leaning on his elbow near a glass of cider sang an air of bourree in a voice that grew hoarse from encouraging the couples to shoot well. Of these dances, only good marriages{48}were out! We also danced the Jew's harp, which we lead by swinging a wooden bar, sometimes straddling, sometimes turning on the heads, without breaking the rhythm:
Who will dance the best
The Jew's harp, the Jew's harp,
Who will dance the best
The Jew's harp of us two!
So turn, you hardly turn there,
So jump, you don't jump!
There were fiddlers to play the hurdy-gurdy from which came the chirping of an insect, and others to inflate the cabin, rolling their eyes happily. And then it was midnight mass, a big golden bush in the shadows that you could see for miles around. Today many stayed at home. Winter had passed in people's hearts; the angels wept for the stars of old.
Claire came out of her reverie and looked at Simon, whom Jacquier amused by cutting apples into cubes that fit together.{49}were inside each other. The last chestnuts sizzled in the perforated frying pan that Jeannette was shaking. Outside was whistling an icy wind and, through the window, the moon showed its brightening quarter.
Jacquier says with malicious good-naturedness:
“The weather is getting milder. Under the chimney the ice has melted.
He added between two puffs of a pipe:
“Frost before Christmas is worth a hundred crowns.
Simon laughed when chestnuts burst. Grilled to perfection, Claire poured them into a wicker basket and covered them with a mop. She took one, skinned it, blew on it, then slipped it into Simon's mouth. Jacquier ran to fetch two bottles of corked cider in which they had put a grain of oats to make it foam. He uncorked them and poured drinks from the glasses he had placed on the table.{50}Coming back to the fireside, he said abruptly:
“You know, miss, three years ago we lost four pigs, with all due respect, and we haven't lost any since. I understood why. I slipped under the raised stone a piece of red tile which I used to mark, in fair. But you had to know that.
-Maybe.
-It's certain.
Simon fell asleep. Claire clapped her hands.
"I'm going to tell you a brave story, my dear," began Jacquier. There used to be, not far from Ambazac, a good mill that was owned by a miller whose eyes were bigger than his stomach. He had a cute daughter and he dreamed for her of a beautiful castle with a paved courtyard where carriages made for her pleasure would roll. The son-in-law he wanted would have all his gold teeth. And the suitors do not{51} showed only white women, just like the Christians they were. The miller, scarcely had they said a word, sent them away gruffly. The little one, who found them nice and who would have liked to choose quickly, was grieving, seeing the time when she would be alone. One pleasant morning a young man knocked at the door, and the knock, made with a bent finger, chased away all the singing birds. There was a great silence, so great that you could hear a lizard running. The miller looked at the newcomer and shouted madly that he only wanted a boy with a golden jaw and stronger than the bull. But the suitor burst out laughing and showed his golden teeth which were shining in the sun. The miller clapped the guy's hand and the marriage was decided.
'You have fine teeth,' he says, 'but to have my daughter you must be strong enough to bring to the mill wheel that big stream that flows over there.{52}
“It is understood, Môssieu le miller.
“The boy left. The good people came on the way and shouted that it was the devil who had knocked at his door. The evening passed without a hitch, but around midnight we heard a sound of thunder, a crash of broken rocks and a long red flame spinning in the air. Those of the village chattered their teeth, while the devil raised the stream as he would a great serpent. But a good man said to the miller who was white as his flour:
“—Climb quickly to the chicken coop. Wake up the hens so that the rooster crows before the devil has finished his job.
"No sooner said than done. The first cry of the rooster drove the Infernal away and the stream resumed its bed. There's always a place where the water makes a sharp bend, where the crowing of the rooster stopped the devil."
Simon exclaimed:{53}
“You scared me, Jacquier.
Claire resumed:
-Oh! You scared him. Come and let me hide you, child.
And, to distract him, she took the child's hands and led him to the middle of the room. He leaned back a little and she said:
"We're going to shoot. I hold you well.
For the round, she bent her legs in order to see him better with her flexible neck and her gaze sliding under the curved eyelashes. She sang:
In my beautiful castle,
My aunt, shoot, shoot, shoot!
Laughing, he tugged on Claire's hands.
The girls have passed
O ford! oh ford! oh ford!
The girls have passed
O ford, fair knights!
She crouched down, drew the child to her and lifted him up in her arms. So much-{54}Belle, who had roasted herself in front of the big fire, was barking with joy. Ten-thirty clock bell rang. Claire opened the door. She remained on the threshold for some time, facing the wind. A murmur of bells came to her, a light sound that came and went, softened by the moonlight, mingled with the rustling of the river, the white vapors of the waters.
“We have to get ready,” she said. This is the first motion. Take a lantern, Jacquier; on the way back, the moon could hide.
She put a felt cap on Simon's head, wrapped him in a hooded coat. Then she lifted her hair in front of a mirror that hung near the window, and covered her head with a black hat, adorned with a simple ribbon of the same color. Jacquier covered the fire with ashes, moved the chairs away from the fireplace. A cricket began to say its crystal rosary. Claire and Simon went out into the yard, with Jean{55}neat who had taken her cape and adjusted her starched headdress. Tant-Belle went to bed in the barn and Jacquier locked the door.
They walked briskly down the sunken lane. The high moon lit up the valley. Above the river, it made a current of milky mists where brilliant parcels floated, scattered stars. Enchantment where the trees, the stones, the gorse, the junipers became things so light that they seemed to tremble in a kind of silent wind. In the distance, in uncovered springs, a light came and went, a snowy cloth that the fairy was wringing.
As Claire and Simon approached the river, the lock at the Chanaud mill showed more clearly its frosted roller, constantly turning. The water near the bridge was so calm that the moon was reflected in it without a wrinkle. On the road, people came in small groups. An owl{56} on the hunt uttered its cry in the neighboring chestnut groves.
The road was wide towards Bonnal. Claire and Simon, Jeannette and Jacquier walked peacefully and exchanged few words. They saw the first houses in the town. The inn appeared, with the glare of the big lamps in the ballroom. Couples swayed there in heavy masses, in the tobacco smoke, to the blows of a mechanical piano. Claire hurried on. The bells began to ring in the wood-scaled steeple. They went away, far away, over the fields, carrying the joy of angels and shepherds, the great news which always surprised the old world.
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