Nêne/Part 1/Chapter 22

EANWHILE, at the Moulinettes, Madeleine was laboriously writing on a sheet of flowered notepaper that her brother had brought.

He sat at the table, opposite her, and the blue pools of his eyes were troubled and restless.

His accident had left its mark upon him; he carried his head low like a weakling who dares not look life in the face. His fine moustache, that he used to keep so trim, had grown bristly and seemed redder now in his emaciated face.

He had had one shock after another, these ten months since he was crippled.

First of all, the insurance company had given him only six hundred francs in all; when his expenses had been paid out of this, he had been left penniless.

For a few days in winter, he had found employment turning the crank of a grain separator, which was work for a child or a dotard, and he had performed it with a bad grace, just to earn his bread. In the spring he had found a fortnight's job at similar work in town. Then he had returned to Le Coudray where he had hunted up small odd jobs now and then, here and there. He was set to catching moles in the fields,—leading animals to fairs,—gathering rocks, or trimming brushwood hedges with a sickle: mere trifles that were put his way for the sake of charity.

He had applied for an appointment as letter carrier, counting firmly on getting it at once, as his right; but nothing had come of it. However, his hopes had risen again these last days, concerning this; that is why he was writing to Violette.

"Well now, what do you want me to say, big brother?"

Madeleine had written the date line and the usual form of address; and now she was waiting, pen in hand.

"Well?"

"Make her a pretty compliment first, if you don't mind, saying that I love her more than ever."

"What compliment?"

"Tell her she's a beauty—because she is! When she looks at you the weather brightens—it's as though the morning sun were beginning to shine. All around her the air is young and smells sweet, like a breeze playing among the apple blossoms!"

"Goose! That's only the scent she puts on!"

Madeleine laughed at his fervid air and resumed her writing. "I have told her she is the best-looking girl in the county. True or false, it'll please her. And I go on to say that you'd like to be always at her feet."

"Say I'm longing for the sight of her."

"Haven't you seen her in such a long time?"

He did not answer her immediately; his lips quivered; then he said shamefacedly:

"It's just ten months and three weeks."

"Oh, you poor boy!"

Madeleine dropped her pen and looked at him out of eyes brimming with pity.

"But then, why do you want me to write? Why do you want me to write compliments to a hussy who's thrown you over?"

"Please, Madeleine, don't say anything against her; I wouldn't like it. If she didn't love me I'd go crazy. But she does, I tell you! She hasn't thrown me over. It's her mother—she's forbidden her to see me—that's what she wrote me in her reply to the letter you put down for me at the hospital.— Her mother doesn't want her to speak to a Dissenter.— Some people get hard when they're old.— What can she do? Just wait, that's all.— I've tried to meet her; I went to Chantepie, but she didn't dare to come out.— Her mother's watching her every minute! I've waited for her by the wayside, too, at the hour when she was due to come home from her work—but I've never had any luck.— Oh, yes,—once! I saw her coming—but there was a girl who helps her coming along with her, so, of course, she didn't speak—she just waved her hand at me from a distance.— I can't stand it any longer; my head's swimming; I've got to talk to her!" He paused, and then he added with an air of determination: "Besides, I've got news for her!"

"What is it?" asked Madeleine.

"You'll say, first, that the matter of religion is not a hindrance. Let her tell that to her mother; I'm open to argument on that.— I'll see what I can do."

Madeleine pushed back the flowered paper angrily:

"You can't make my hand write that. I'd be too ashamed! Nobody in our family has ever changed himself. It's our pride. You'd be the first, and they'd point fingers at you!"

He kept silent.

"You don't stand up for our faith.… You leave your own people.… You give in. … Is that what you call being a man?"

She stopped, a little frightened at having flung such harsh words at her stricken brother. But it was her duty to speak out—there could be no doubt of that!—a duty hardly perceptible, yet as deeply rooted as the instinct of pity, which is in all good women—those guardians of the race.

He sat there in silence, head low, pale as death, and trembling.

"John, you're not a man! … You mustn't do this. It's mean! We've got to hold on—hold on"

He replied sullenly, with a break in his voice:

"Whatever you say doesn't matter; Violette wins. If it weren't for my being crippled, I wouldn't have come to this pass. Now I'm like an uprooted alder bush floating down stream."

She let her look dwell on him for a while as he sat there all huddled up and so pitiful with his big, untidied head, his quivering lips—and that empty sleeve hanging at his side. "Hold on! … Hold on! …"

She wasn't sorry she had spoken out as she had; she felt sure she had said only what had to be said. But, in the end, her mercy was upmost.

"Poor old dear, the hour of misery has indeed come upon you." She wept.

Then she picked up her pen and wrote the words of apostasy as she would have given a dying man his most outrageous wish, without a sound, for fear of showing how guiltily weak she knew herself to be.

When she had finished, she wiped her eyes and, seeing him still in the same dejected posture, she drew him to her and kissed him.

That gave him encouragement, and he said:

"There's something else I want her to know. I'm not rich just now, but I'm going to get a good job. I'm sure of it, now. They're looking for another postman at Château-Blanc, and I'm to get the job."

Madeleine wrote this down quickly.

"Are you sure? When are you going to be appointed?"

"Maybe in a week, maybe in a month, maybe to-morrow. It just depends on how long it'll take for the red tape."

His voice rang clear as he added:

"As soon as I'm postman at Château-Blanc I hope Violette's mother will change her mind and let us get married. I'll get good wages, and with what she can earn at her trade working at home, we'll be pretty well fixed, I'd say!"

He winked slyly and went on, taking her into his confidence. "Let me tell you, now: there are plenty of plums, only you must know how to get them! At first, I just made my application, all by myself. I've served my time in the army, haven't I? And they made me a corporal—and now I'm crippled—I've got the right on my side—and enough schooling—I've taught myself to write a little with my left hand.— All right! You think you have the job all sewed up tight? Well, you wait and see! Wait three months: nothing! six months: nothing! eight months: nothing!— Then I looked around and inquired, and some one told me: 'You'd better go and see M. Blanchard!' You have heard about M. Blanchard, haven't you? All the Dissenters voted for him at election; it wasn't our fault that he lost.— All the same, he has a big pull, being for the Government. I didn't like one bit hunting him up, because I don't like to ask favours. But I made up my mind. I told him my business and this and that, giving answer to all his questions. He asked me for whom I voted. I didn't want to answer directly, but I said: 'I am a Dissenter!' He just chuckled in his big beard: 'Good! good! You can count on my help, young man, my very best help!"

"Oh, then, yes! The thing's settled," said Madeleine, sealing the letter.

"You've said it!"

This Monsieur Blanchard had formally promised the same position to three others after John Clarandeau. And only a few days later he had obtained the job of postman at Château-Blanc for one of the most militant young Catholics, a sad specimen who had promised to go back on his affiliations, to vote openly, before witnesses, and to make his people vote the same way.