Prosper was at once seized with an uncontrollable desire to share the cart seat with the farmer, and return to that secluded spot over yonder, nostalgia for which was already filling his heart with anguish. It was all so simple—he would alight at Remilly through which the farmer must needs pass. And in three minutes it was settled, the coveted trousers and blouse were lent to him, the farmer gave out everywhere that he was his man, and at about six in the evening he alighted in front of the village church, having only been stopped some two or three times on the road by the Prussian pickets.
'Yes, I'd had enough of it,' Prosper repeated after a pause. 'If they had only put us to some use, like over yonder, in Algeria; but to be always cantering up and down doing nothing, to feel that one serves no earthly purpose—all that ends by becoming unbearable. Besides, now that my poor Zephyr's dead I should be all alone. The only thing I can do is to go back to the fields. That's better than being a prisoner of the Prussians, eh? You have some horses, father Fouchard, you shall see if I'm fond of them and can take care of them?'
The old man's eyes glistened. He chinked glasses again, and without any show of eagerness, completed the business: 'Well, as it will be doing you a service, I'll agree to it—I'll take you. But as to wages, you mustn't talk of them, mind, till the war's over, for I really don't need any one, and the times are so hard.'
Meanwhile Silvine, seated with Charlot on her lap, had not taken her eyes off Prosper; and, now, on seeing him rise with the intention of going to the stables to make the acquaintance of the horses there, she once more asked him: 'And so you haven't seen Honoré?'
This question, so abruptly repeated, made Prosper start, as though it had suddenly thrown a flood of light upon a dim corner of his memory. He once more hesitated, but finally decided to speak out: 'Well, I didn't want to grieve you just now,' said he, 'but I fancy Honoré must have remained yonder——-'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, I think the Prussians did for him—I saw him lying back on a cannon, with his head raised and a hole just below his heart.'
Silence fell. Silvine had become frightfully pale, and old Fouchard, quite thunderstruck, set his glass, which he had just filled with the wine remaining in the bottle, upon the table again. 'You are sure of that?' the young woman asked in a choking voice.
'Well, as sure as one can be of anything one sees. It was on a little hillock just beside three trees, and it seems to me I could go there with my eyes shut.'
To her it seemed as though everything had crumbled away. Her lover, who had forgiven her, who had bound himself to her by a promise, whom she was to have married as soon as he got his discharge at the end of the war! And now they had killed him, and he was lying yonder with a hole below his heart! Never before had she felt such love for him. So intense was her desire to gaze upon him again, and, despite everything, secure him for herself even beneath the sod, that she was thoroughly aroused from her customary passivity. Roughly setting Charlot on the floor, she exclaimed: 'Well, I myself will only believe it when I've seen it. Since you know where it is, you shall take me there. And if it's true, if we find him, we'll bring him back here.'