Jean and Hyacinthe were now the only ones left in the graveyard. The latter just watched the fire from a distance, disdaining to hurry off like the others. As he stood, quite motionless between two graves, he seemed to be absorbed in some visionary dream, and his sad, dissipated face expressed the mournful melancholy that lies at the end of every system of philosophy. Perhaps he was thinking that existence glides away and vanishes like smoke! And as serious meditation always had an exciting effect on him, he ended by giving vent to three detonations.
"God in heaven!" exclaimed the drunken Bécu, as he passed through the graveyard on his way to the fire, "if this wind continues, we may expect a downfall of dung!"
"Yes, indeed," replied Hyacinthe; and hurrying off he disappeared round the wall.
Jean was now alone. Away in the distance some huge whirling clouds of black smoke were rising from the ruins of La Borderie, casting shadows over the fields and the scattered sowers, who were still plodding backwards and forwards, making the same monotonous gestures. Then Jean's eyes slowly wandered back to the ground at his feet, and he gazed at the mounds of fresh soil beneath which Françoise and old Fouan were sleeping. His anger of the morning and his disgust for people and circumstances had vanished in a feeling of profound calm. In spite of himself he felt full of restfulness and hope; maybe it was owing to the warm sunshine.
Ah, yes, his master Hourdequin had had any amount of worry with all those new inventions; he had never reaped much advantage from his machines and artificial manures, and other scientific devices. And then La Cognette had come to finish him off; he was now asleep in the graveyard, and nothing remained of the farm, the very ashes of which the wind was now sweeping away. But what did it matter after all? Walls might be burned down, but the soil could not be burned. Earth, Mother earth, would always be there ready to nourish all who cast their seed upon her bosom. She had time enough before her, and space in plenty, and even now she yielded corn, and would yield still more when men knew how to treat her.
It was the same with the stories of the revolutionists—those political cataclysms which were predicted. The soil, it was said, would pass into other hands, and the harvests of other countries would swamp our own, till our land was over-run with brambles. Well, and what then? Is it within any one's power to harm the soil? It will always be there for any one who may be obliged to till it to escape dying from hunger. And even if weeds were to cover its surface for years together, that would be a rest for it, and it would grow young and fertile again. The soil cares nothing about our quarrels; this mighty toiler, ever absorbed in her workings, troubles herself no more about man than about a swarm of ants.
Jean had had his share of grief and trouble, pain and rebellion. And now Françoise was slain, Fouan was slain, the wicked seemed triumphant, the foul and sanguinary vermin of the villages were able to pollute and prey upon the soil. Ah, but who can tell? The frost which sears the crops, the hail which breaks them, the deluge which beats them down, are all perhaps necessary, and so it may be that blood and tears are equally essential to the world's progress. What does our unhappiness weigh in the great system of the stars and the sun? We only gain our bread by dint of a terrible daily struggle The soil alone remains fixed and imperishable, the mother from whom we all spring, and to whom we must all return; she whom her children love so keenly that they sin for her sake; she who utilises everything, even our crimes and our wretchedness, for purposes of creation, in view of attaining her own secret, mysterious ends.
For a long time some such confused, ill-formulated reverie as this rolled vaguely through Jean's mind as he lingered in the graveyard; but suddenly a trumpet sounded in the distance, the trumpet of the firemen of Bazoches-le-Doyen, who were arriving too late at the double-quick. Then, hearing the clarion-call, Jean drew himself up. It was like warfare passing by amid smoke; warfare with its horses, its cannons, and its clamorous carnage! Ah! confound it, since he no longer had the heart to till the old soil of France, he would defend it from invaders!
He was going off, when for a last time he turned his eyes from the two grassless graves to the endless plough-lands of La Beauce filled with sowers, all making the same ceaseless gesture. Mid corpses and seeds, sustenance was springing from the soil.