Alphonse looking at me, and I could not always keep from blushing.

One afternoon as Henri Deslois came in to the room smiling, M. Alphonse said, "You know I have sold the house on the hill." The two men looked at one another. They both grew so pale that I was afraid they were going to die where they stood. Then M. Alphonse got out of his chair and stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Henri Deslois went to the door and tried to close it. Madame Alphonse put her lace down on her knee and said, as though she were repeating a lesson, "The house was of no particular good, and I am very pleased that it has been sold." Henri Deslois came and stood by the table, so close to me that he could have touched me. He said in a voice that was not quite firm, "I am sorry you have sold it without having mentioned it to me, for I intended to buy it." M. Alphonse wriggled like an earthworm. He made a great effort to laugh out loud, and as he laughed he said, "You would have bought it? What would you have done with it?" Henri Deslois put his hand on the back of my chair and answered, "I would have lived in it as Jean le Rouge did." M. Alphonse walked up and down in front of the chimney. His face had changed into a yellow earthy colour. His hands were in his trouser pockets, and he picked up his feet so quickly that it looked as though he were pulling at them with a cord which he held in each hand. Then he came and leaned on the table opposite us, and looking at us one after the other with his glittering eyes, he bent forward and said, "Well, I have sold it now, so it is all over."

During the silence which followed we could hear the white mare pawing the ground with her shoe as though she were calling her master. Henri Deslois went towards the door. Then he came back to me and picked up my work which had fallen from my hands without my having noticed it.

He kissed his sister, and before he went, he said, looking at me, "I shall see you to-morrow."

Next morning Madame Deslois came into the linen-room. She came straight to me, and was very rude. But M. Alphonse told her to be quiet, and, turning to me, he said, "Madame Alphonse has asked me to tell you that she would like to keep you in her service. But she wants you in future to come to ma.s.s with us." He tried to smile, and added, "We will drive you there and back." It was the first time that he had ever spoken directly to me. His voice was rather husky, as though he felt some awkwardness in saying these things to me. I don't know what made me think that he was lying, and that Madame Alphonse had not said anything of the kind. Besides, he looked so much like the Mother Superior that I could not help defying him. I told him that I didn't care about driving, and that I should go to ma.s.s at Sainte Montagne as before. He sucked in his lower lip and began biting it. Then Madame Deslois stepped forward threateningly, and told me that I was insolent.

She kept on repeating this word as though she could not find any others. She shouted it more and more loudly, and lost all control of herself. The white of her eyes was becoming quite red, and she raised her hand to strike me. I stepped back quickly behind my chair. Madame Deslois b.u.mped into the chair and knocked it over, and caught at the table so as not to fall down. Her harsh voice terrified me. I wanted to leave the linen-room, but M. Alphonse had placed himself in front of the door, and I came back into the room and faced Madame Deslois across the table. She began to speak again in a strangled sort of voice. She used words which I didn't understand, but there was something about what she said and the way in which she said it which I hated. At last she stopped speaking, and shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't forget that I am his mother."

M. Alphonse came towards me. He took hold of my arm and said, "Come, now, listen to me." I shook myself loose, pushed him away and ran out of the house. The last words that Madame Deslois had said hammered on my brain as though they really were a hammer with one end of it pointed. "I am his mother, do you hear?--his mother." Oh, mother Marie-Aimee, how beautiful you were when compared to this other mother, and how I loved you! How your many-coloured eyes beamed and lit up your black dress, and how pure your face was under your white cap! I could see you as clearly as though you were really in front of me.

I was quite astonished to find myself in front of the house on the hill, and when I got there I saw that snow was falling in a regular hurricane. I went into the house for shelter, and went straight into the room which looked out on the garden. I tried to think, but my ideas whirled round in my head like the snow-flakes, which looked as though they were climbing up from the ground and falling from the sky at the same time. And every time that I made an effort to think, the only things I could think of were little bits of a song which the children used to sing in the convent, and which ran--

The old girl jumped and jumped about And jumped until she died.

The old girl jumped and jumped about And jumped until she died.[1]

I felt less unhappy in this silent house. The softly falling snow was pretty, and the trees were as beautiful as on that day when I had seen them all in bloom. Then suddenly I remembered, quite clearly all that had just happened. I saw Madame Deslois's hand with its square fingers, and shivered all over. What an ugly hand it was, and what a large one! Then I remembered the expression on M. Alphonse's face when he took hold of my arm, and I remembered as I thought of it that I had seen the same expression once before on a little girl's face. It was one day when I had picked up a pear which had fallen from the tree.

She had rushed at me, saying, "Give me half of it, and I won't tell."

I felt so disgusted at the idea of sharing it with her that, although Sister Marie-Aimee might have seen me, I had gone back to the tree and put the pear down where it had fallen.

Thinking of all these things, I longed and longed to see Sister Marie-Aimee again. I should have liked to have gone to her at once, but I remembered that Henri Deslois had said as he went, "I shall see you to-morrow." Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting for me, and wondering what had become of me. I went out of the house to run back to Villevieille. I had only gone a few steps when I saw him coming up. The white mare didn't find it very easy to climb the snow-covered path. Henri Deslois was bareheaded, as he had been the first time he came. His smock billowed out with the wind, and he had a hand on the mane of the mare. The mare stood in front of me. Her master leaned down and took my two hands which I held up to him. There was on his face a look of worry which I had never seen before. I noticed, too, that his eyebrows met, like those of Madame Deslois. He was a little out of breath, and said, "I knew that I should find you here." He opened his mouth again, and I felt quite certain that his words were going to bring me happiness. He held my hands tighter, and said in the same breathless voice as before, "I can no longer be your friend." I thought that somebody had struck me a violent blow on the head. There was a noise of a saw in my ears. I could see Henri Deslois trembling, and I heard him say, "How cold I am!" Then I no longer felt the warmth of his hand on mine. And when I realized that I was standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing but a great white shape which was slipping noiselessly across the snow.

[1] On a tant fait sauter la vieille, Qu'elle est morte en sautillant, Tireli, Sautons, sautons, la vieille!

I went slowly down the other side of the hill, walking in the snow, which squeaked under my feet. About half-way a peasant offered me a lift in his cart. He was going to town too, and it was not long before we got to the Orphanage. I rang the bell, and the porteress looked out at me through the peephole. I recognized her. It was "Ox Eye" still.

We had named her Ox Eye because her eyes were big and round like a daisy. She opened the gate when she recognized me, and told me to come in; but before she shut the gate behind me she said, "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here." I didn't answer, so she said again, "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here." I heard what she said quite well, but I didn't pay any attention to it. It was like a dream where the most extraordinary things happen without seeming to be of any importance at all. I looked at her great big eyes and said, "I have come back." She closed the gate behind me and left me standing under the eaves of her little house in the gateway, while she went to tell the Mother Superior. She came back, saying that the Mother Superior wanted to speak to Sister Desiree-des-Anges before she saw me.

A bell rang. Ox Eye got up and told me to go with her. It was snowing again. It was almost dark in the Mother Superior's room. At first I saw nothing but the fire, which was whistling and flaming. Then I heard the Mother Superior's voice. "So you have come back?" she said.

I tried to think steadily, but I was not quite sure whether I had come back or not. She said, "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here." I thought that my bad dream was coming on again, and coughed to try and wake myself. Then I looked at the fire and tried to find out why it whistled like that. The Mother Superior spoke again. "Are you ill?"

she said. I answered "No." The heat did me good, and I felt better.

I was beginning to understand at last that I had come back to the Orphanage, and that I was in the Mother Superior's room. My eyes met hers, and I remembered everything. She laughed a little, and said, "You have not changed much. How old are you now?"

I told her that I was eighteen years old. "Really," she said. "Going out into the world has not made you grow much." She leaned one elbow on the table, and asked me why I had come back. I wanted to tell her that I had come back to see Sister Marie-Aimee, but I was afraid of hearing her say once more that Sister Marie-Aimee was not there, and I remained silent. She opened a drawer, took out a letter, which she covered with her open hand, and said in the weary voice of a person who has been bothered unnecessarily, "This letter had already told me that you had become a bold, proud girl." She pushed the letter from her as though she were tired, and in a long breath she said, "You can work in the kitchen here until we find you something else to do." The fire went on whistling. I went on looking at it, but I could not make out which of the three logs was making the noise. The Mother Superior raised her monotonous voice to draw my attention. She warned me that Sister Desiree-des-Anges would watch me very closely, and that I should not be allowed to talk to my former companions. I saw her point to the door, and I went out into the snow.

At the other side of the yard I could see the kitchens. Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the door. I could see nothing of her but her cap and her black dress, and I imagined her to be old and withered. I thought of running away. I need only run to the gate and tell Ox Eye that I had come on a visit.

She would let me out, and that would be all.

Instead of going to the gate I went towards the buildings where I had lived when I was a child. I didn't know why I went there, but I could not help it. I felt very tired, and I should have liked to lie down and sleep for a long time.

The old bench was in the same place. I wiped some of the snow off it with my hands, and sat down leaning against the linden tree as M. le Cure used to do. I was waiting for something, and I didn't know what.

I looked up at the window of Sister Marie-Aimee's room. The pretty embroidered curtains were no longer there, and although the window was just like the other windows now, I thought it quite different. And though the thick calico curtains were the same in this room as in the others, they seemed to me to make that window look like a face with its eyes shut.

The yard began to get dark, and the lights lit up the rooms inside. I meant to get up from the bench, thinking, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me;" but my body felt crushed, and I seemed to have two broad, hard hands weighing heavily on my head. And, as though I had spoken them aloud, the words, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me," repeated themselves over and over again. All of a sudden a voice, with pity in it, said, quite close to me, "Please, Marie Claire, don't sit out here in the snow." I raised my head, and standing in front of me was a young, quite young, sister, whose face was so beautiful that I could not remember ever to have seen such a face before. She bent over me to help me up, and, as I could hardly stand upright, she put my arm under hers, and said, "Lean on me." Then I saw that she was taking me to the kitchen, the great gla.s.s door of which was bright with light. I didn't think of anything. The snow p.r.i.c.ked my face, and my eyelids were burning. When I went into the kitchen, I recognized the two girls who were standing by the big square oven. They were Veronique the Minx, and Melanie the Plump, and I seemed to hear Sister Marie-Aimee talking to them by these names. Melanie nodded to me as I pa.s.sed her, and leaning on the young sister's arm, I went into a room in which there was a night-light burning. The room was divided into two by a big white curtain. The young sister made me sit down on a chair, which she took from behind the curtain, and went out without saying a word. A little while afterwards Melanie the Plump and Veronique the Minx came in to put clean sheets on the little iron bed beside me. When they had finished, Veronique, who had not looked at me at all till then, turned to me and said that n.o.body had ever thought that I should come back.

She said it as though she were reproaching me for something shameful.

Melanie put her hands together under her chin, and put her head on one side, just as she used to do when she was a little girl. She smiled affectionately at me, and said, "I am very glad that you have been sent to the kitchen." Then she patted the bed, and said, "You are taking my place. I used to sleep here." She pointed to the curtain, and in a low voice she said, "This is where Sister Desiree-des-Anges sleeps."

When they had gone out, closing the door behind them, I sat closer to the bed. The big white curtain made me feel uncomfortable. I thought I could see shadows moving in the folds which the night-light left in darkness. Then I heard the dinner-bell. I recognized it, and without knowing what I was doing I counted the strokes. Everything was quite still for some time, and then the young sister came into the room bringing me a bowl of steaming soup. She pulled the big curtain back and said, "This is your room, and that is mine." I felt quite rea.s.sured when I saw that her little iron bedstead was exactly the same as my own. I began to wonder whether she was Sister Desiree-des-Anges, but I dared not believe it, and asked her. She nodded "Yes," and drawing her chair close to mine, she put her face in the full light and said, "Don't you recognize me?" I looked at her without answering.

No, I didn't recognize her. In fact, I was certain that I had never seen her; for I was certain that one could never forget her face if one had seen it once. She made a funny little grimace, and said, "I can see you don't remember poor Desiree Joly." Desiree Joly? Of course I remembered her. She was a girl who had become a novice. Her face was rosier than roses. She had a beautiful, slim figure, and used to laugh all day long. We all loved her. She used to jump about so when she played with us that Sister Marie-Aimee often used to say to her, "Come now, come now, not so high, please, Mademoiselle Joly! You are showing your knees!" Even now, when I was looking at her, I could not remember her. She said "Yes, the dress makes a lot of difference." She pulled up her sleeves; and making the same funny little face again, she said, "Forget that I am Sister Desiree-des-Anges, and remember that Desiree Joly used to be very fond of you." Then she went on quickly, "I recognized you at once," she said. "You still have the same baby face." When I told her I had imagined Sister Desiree-des-Anges to be old and cross, she answered, "We were both wrong. I had been told that you were vain and proud; but when I saw you crying in the middle of the snow, I thought only that you were suffering, and I went to you." When she had helped me to bed, she divided the room again with the curtain, and I went to sleep at once.

But I didn't sleep well. I woke up every minute. There was a heavy stone on my chest still, and when I managed to throw it off, it split up into several pieces, which fell back on me and crushed my limbs.

Then I dreamed that I was on a road full of sharp pointed stones which cut me. I walked along it with difficulty. On both sides of the road there were fields, vines, and houses. All the houses were covered with snow, but the trees were laden with fruit, and were in bright sunshine.

I left the road and went into the fields, stopping at all the trees to taste the fruit. But the fruit was bitter, and I threw it away. I tried to go into the snow-covered houses, but they had no doors. I went back on to the road and the stones gathered round me so fast that I could not go on. Then I called for help. I called as loud as I could, but n.o.body heard me. And when I felt I was going to be buried under a huge heap of stones, I struggled so hard to get away from them that I woke myself up. For a moment I thought I was still dreaming.

The ceiling of the room seemed to be a tremendous height. The rod from which the white curtain was hanging glittered here and there, and the branch of boxwood which was nailed to the wall threw a shadow on the statue of the Virgin which was in the corner. Then a c.o.c.k crowed. He crowed several times, as though he wanted to make me forget his first crow, which had stopped short, as if he were in pain. The night-light began to flicker. It flickered for a long time before it went out, and when the room was quite dark I heard Sister Desiree-des-Anges breathing gently and regularly.

Long before daybreak I got up to begin my work in the kitchen.

Melanie showed me how to lift the big coppers. It was a matter of skill as well as of strength. It took me more than a week before I could even move one of them. Melanie taught me how to ring the heavy waking bell. She showed me how to put my shoulders into the work so as to pull the rope, and I soon got into the way of it. And every morning, whether it were cold or raining, I used to enjoy ringing the bell. It had a clear sound which the wind increased or lessened, and I never got tired of hearing it. There were days when I rang so long that Sister Desiree-des-Anges would open her window and would say pleadingly, "That'll do, that'll do."

Since I had come to the kitchen, Veronique the Minx used to look away from me when she spoke, and if I asked her where anything was, she would point to it without speaking. Sister Desiree-des-Anges used to watch her, and would curl her lip as she watched. She was not as quick-tempered as she used to be when she was a novice, but she was full of life still and full of fun. Every evening we used to meet in our room, and she would make me laugh at her remarks at what had been going on during the day. Sometimes my laughter ended in a sob. Then she used to put her hands together as the saints do in the pictures, raise her eyes and say, "Oh, how I wish that your sorrow would leave you." Then she would kneel on the ground and pray, and I often used to go to sleep before she got up again.

Work in the kitchen was very hard. I used to help Melanie polish up the coppers, and wash the tiled floors. She did most of the work herself. She was as strong as a man, and was always ready to help me.

As soon as she found that I was tired, she used to force me to sit down on a chair, and would say smilingly, "Recreation time." A few days after I had arrived, she reminded me of the difficulties she used to have in learning her catechism.

She had not forgotten that during a whole season I had spent all my recreation time trying to teach her to learn it by heart. And now she delighted in making me rest.

Veronique's work was the preparation of the vegetables, and she also took the meat in from the butcher. She used to stand stiffly by the scales until the butcher's boys put the meat on. She was always grumbling at them, saying that the meat was cut too small or cut too big. The butcher boys used to get angry with her and were rude to her sometimes, and Sister Desiree-des-Anges told me at last to take the meat in instead of her. She came to the scales just the same next day; but I was there with Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who was telling me how to weigh the meat.

One morning one of the two butchers looked at me and spoke my name.

Sister Desiree-des-Anges and I looked at the butcher boy in surprise.

He was a new one, but I soon recognized him. He was the eldest son of Jean le Rouge. He was delighted to see me again, and told me that his parents had got a good place at the Lost Ford. He himself didn't care about working in the fields, and had found work with a butcher in the town. Then he told me that the Lost Ford was quite near Villevieille, and asked me if I knew it. I nodded my head to say that I did. He went on to say that his father and mother had been there for some months, and that there had been feasting there last week because Henri Deslois was married. I heard him say a few words more which I didn't understand. Then the daylight in the kitchen turned into black night, and I felt the tiles give way under my feet and drag me down into a bottomless hole. I remember Sister Desiree-des-Anges coming to help me, but an animal had fastened itself on my chest. It made a dreadful sound which it hurt me to hear. It was like a horrible sob which always stopped at the same place. Then the light came back again, and I could see above me the faces of Sister Desiree-des-Anges and Melanie.

Both were smiling anxiously, and Melanie's broad, red face looked like Sister Desiree-des-Anges' pointed pale one. I sat up in bed, wondering why I was there by daylight, but I didn't get up. I remembered little Jean le Rouge, and for hours and hours I fought with my pain.

When Sister Desiree-des-Anges came into the room at bedtime she sat down on the foot of my bed. She put her two hands together like the saints did. "Tell me of your sorrow," she said. I told her, and it seemed to me that every word I spoke took some of my suffering away with it.

When I had told her everything, Sister Desiree-des-Anges fetched "The Imitation of Jesus Christ," and began to read aloud. She read in a gentle and resigned voice, and there were words which sounded like the end of a moan.

On the days which followed, I saw little Jean le Rouge again. He told me some more about the Lost Ford, and while he said how happy his parents were and how kind the master was to them, I could see the house on the hill with its garden in flower, and its spring from which the little brooklets crawled down to the river, hiding themselves under the broom. I often spoke of it to Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who listened to me meditatively. She knew the neighbourhood and every corner of the place, and one evening, when she sat dreaming and I asked her what she was thinking about, she said, "Summer will be over soon, and I was thinking that the trees were full of fruit."

During the month of September a number of religious paid visits to the Mother Superior. Ox Eye used to ring the bell to announce them. Every time she rang Veronique went out to see who was coming in. She always had something disagreeable to say about each one of the sisters whom she recognized. One evening the bell sounded. Veronique, who was looking out, said, "Well, here's one whom n.o.body expected." She put her head into the kitchen again, and said, "It is Sister Marie-Aimee."

The big spoon which I had in my hand slipped through my fingers and dropped into the copper. I rushed to the door, pushing past Veronique, who wanted to keep me back. Melanie rushed after me. "Don't," she said, "the Mother Superior can see you." But I rushed out to Sister Marie-Aimee. I rushed into her arms with such force that we nearly fell over together. She clasped me tight and held me. She was trembling and almost crazy with joy. She took my head in her hands, and, as if I had been quite a little child, she kissed me all over my face. Her stiff linen cap made a noise like paper when you crumple it up, and her broad sleeves fell back to her shoulders. Melanie was right, the Mother Superior saw me. She came out of the chapel and came towards us. Sister Marie-Aimee saw her. She stopped kissing me, and put her hand on my shoulder. I put my arm round her, fearing that she would be taken away from me, and the two of us stood and watched the Mother Superior. She pa.s.sed in front of us without raising her eyes, and didn't seem to see Sister Marie-Aimee, who bowed gravely to her.