"Do you hear that fellow ranting? How awful such talk as that sounds when one's in trouble!"
The sound of the schoolmaster's fulminating voice, combined with the proximity of Françoise in her death-agony, again revived the farmer's anguish of heart. The soil which he loved so dearly, loved with a sentimental passion, nay, almost with an intellectual one, had well nigh completed his ruin this last harvest. His fortune had all been drained away, and soon La Borderie would not even provide him with bare sustenance. Nothing seemed to do any good there—neither hard work, nor new systems, nor manures, nor machines. He habitually ascribed his failure to insufficient capital; but in his own mind he had some doubts about this, for ruin seemed to be general. The Robiquets had just been ejected by the bailiffs from La Chamade, and the Coquarts had been compelled to sell their farm of Saint-Juste. He himself could see no way of breaking his bonds; he had never more completely felt himself the prisoner of his land, and every day the money he spent and the labour he bestowed seemed to chain him more tightly to it. The final catastrophe, which would put an end to the antagonism of centuries between the small landowners and the large ones by annihilating them both, was now rapidly approaching. This was the advent of the predicted time; corn had fallen below fifty-six francs the quarter, so that it was being sold at a loss; and social transformations, stronger than the will of men, were bringing about the bankruptcy of the soil.
Stung with the consciousness of his ruin, Hourdequin now suddenly expressed approval of what Lequeu was saying.
"Deuce take it all, he's right! Let everything go to smash and all of us perish, and the whole soil be covered with weeds and brambles, since our race is decayed and the land exhausted!"
Then, referring to Jacqueline, he added:
"However, thank God, there is another complaint that will make an end of me before all that comes off!"
Inside the house La Grande and La Frimat could be heard walking about and muttering to each other. Jean, who was still leaning against the wall, shivered as he heard them. Then he returned into the house, and found that all was over. Françoise was dead; she had probably passed away some time previously. She had never opened her eyes again; and had kept her lips sealed, carrying away with her the secret she was so anxious to conceal. La Grande had only just discovered that she was dead by touching her. With her white shrunken face, on which there rested a resolute expression, she looked as though she were sleeping. Jean stood at the foot of the bed and stared at her, dazed and stupefied with confused thoughts, with the grief he felt at losing her, with the surprise caused him by the fact that she had refused to make a will, and with a vague sensation that a part of his existence was now shivered to pieces, and gone for ever.
Just at that moment, as Hourdequin, still gloomy and down-hearted, took his leave with a silent grasp of the hand, Jean saw a shadowy form flit away from the window and dart hastily along the road into the darkness. He fancied it was some prowling dog; but in reality it was Buteau, who had been spying through the window, to watch for Françoise's death, and who was now hastening to announce the news to Lise.