Jacqueline had flitted through the silent house in the first faint glimmer of dawn. As she crossed the yard she gave a start on seeing the old shepherd, Soulas, already up. But her desire was so strong that she paid no heed. So much the worse! She slipped past the stable, accommodating fifteen horses, where four of the farm waggoners slept, and made for the garret at the end where Jean had his bed—some straw and a coverlet, but no sheets. Embracing him in his sleep, closing his mouth with a kiss to stifle his cry of surprise, palpitating and out of breath, she whispered:

"It's me, you big stupid! Don't be alarmed. Quick, quick; let's make haste!"

But he took fright. He wouldn't, there, in his own bed, for fear of a surprise. The ladder of the loft was near there, however, so they climbed up, leaving the trap-door open, and fell amid the hay.

"Oh, you big stupid! you big stupid!" repeated Jacqueline in ecstacy, with her coo in the throat, which seemed to rise from her loins.

It was near upon two years since Jean Macquart had come to the farm. On leaving the army he had fallen in, at Bazoches-le-Doyen, with a fellow-soldier—a cabinetmaker like himself—at the house of whose father, a small village contractor and builder employing two or three hands, he had resumed his calling. But his heart was no longer in his work. Seven years of service had put his hand out of practice, and had so set him against the saw and plane that he seemed a different being. Formerly, at Plassans, he stayed hard at work on his wood, without aptitude for book-learning, just knowing the three R's, but yet very reflective and very painstaking, resolved on making himself independent of his horrible family. Old Macquart kept him in leading-strings, appropriated his mistresses under his very eyes, and went every Saturday to the door of his workshop to rob him of his wages. Accordingly, when ill-usage and over-work had killed his mother, he followed the example of his sister Gervaise—who had just run off to Paris with a lover—and decamped, so as not to have to keep his vagabond father. Now he hardly knew himself again; not that he had grown lazy in his turn, but life in the army had enlarged his mind. Politics, for instance, which had once bored him, now absorbed him and led him to reason upon equality and fraternity; so that, what with habits of mouching, troublesome and indolent sentinel work, a sleepy life in barracks, and the wild rough-and-tumble of war, he had so changed that the tools dropped from his hands; he dreamt of his campaign in Italy; and a yearning for rest, a longing to stretch himself on the grass and forget everything, benumbed his efforts.

One morning his master installed him at La Borderie, to make some repairs. There was a good month's work, rooms to floor, doors and windows to be set right almost everywhere. Jean blissfully dragged the work on for six weeks. Meanwhile his master died, and the son, a married man, went off to set up shop in his wife's part of the country. Left at La Borderie, where rotting wood was always coming to light and needing attention, the cabinetmaker did several jobs on his own account; then, as the harvest was beginning, he lent a hand and stayed six weeks longer; so that, noting his zeal, and how kindly he took to agriculture, the farmer ended by keeping him altogether. In less than a year, the ex-artisan became a capital farm servant, carting, ploughing, sowing, reaping, and seeming to satisfy his desire for peace in the restfulness of agriculture. Away with saw and plane! His interest was somewhere else! He seemed born for a field life, with his sober, deliberate way, his love of systematic work, his ox-like temperament inherited from his mother. He started on his new career delightedly with a relish for the country that peasants never know, a relish due to odds and ends of sentimental reading, and to notions of simplicity, virtue, and perfect bliss, such as are found in moral tales for children.

To tell the truth, another cause had kept him, and made him happy at the farm. While he was mending the doors, La Cognette had made a display of her charms amid his shavings. The temptation had, indeed, come from her, for she was attracted by the big fellow's sturdy limbs, and judged him, by his regular massive features, to be a man of virility. He yielded; and then continued as he had begun, dreading that he might be deemed a fool, and tormented, moreover, by a craving for the licentious hussy, who knew so well how to raise men's passions. At heart his native honesty made protest. It was dishonourable to dally with the sweetheart of M. Hourdequin, to whom he owed a debt of gratitude. Of course he adduced justifications: she wasn't the master's wife, but only his Poll, and as she played him false here, there, and everywhere, he might as well profit by it as let others do so. However, such excuses did not prevent his uneasiness from increasing in proportion as he saw the farmer grow more and more fascinated. No doubt it would not end well.

Among the hay Jean and Jacqueline were restraining their breath, when the former, whose ears were on the alert, heard the frame of the ladder creak. He leapt up, and, at the risk of his life, dropped down the opening that was used for throwing fodder down. Hourdequin's head just then appeared on the other side, on a level with the trap-door. He saw at the same glance the shadow of the retreating man, and the woman, still supine, with her legs in the air. Such a fury seized hold of him, that it never occurred to him to descend in pursuit of the gallant; but, with a buffet that would have felled an ox, he overturned Jacqueline, who was now getting up on to her knees again.

"Strumpet!" he shouted.

With a shriek of rage, she denied the evidence.