After dinner Jean walked out into the village. He was careful not to wave his arms about or talk to himself. At several doorways he bowed stiffly to groups of people, silenced like frogs in a pool by his approach, and there were no bursts of laughter after he had passed by. Soon the last house was behind him, and the road stretched away between two black armies of pine trees, a faint grey ribbon in the fading light. The trees breathed softly upon him, and thousands of sprouting needles scented the woodland cathedral like censers. He could laugh now, shake his shoulders, snap his fingers and shout, "I'm a Master, a Master, a Master!" and repeat this distich, pausing at the cesuras: Par quels secrets ressorts—par quel enchaînement—le ciel a-t-il conduit—ce grand événement?
[III]
JEAN was afraid that the talk would lag, and the fear of silence caused the priest and Mme. d'Artiailh to squander thoughtlessly and rapidly all possible topics of conversation. Soon there would be no more to say. Noémi's dress overflowed her chair, as a magnolia flower its vase, and the perfume of her young body, like that of some heavy-scented flower that one removes from one's room at night, filled the little parlour whose walls were covered with religious pictures. Noémi had at last descended from her pedestal, and Jean darted furtive glances at her. It seemed to him that he had her under a magnifying glass, and he searched eagerly for faults, for "defects" in this humanly vibrating metal: at either side of her nose there were little black dots; at the base of her neck the skin must have been burnt by stale tincture of iodine. A fleeting smile at something the priest was saying gave Jean a glimpse of the white shining line of teeth, and he noticed one dull one that looked questionable. His scrutiny of her prevented the big dark eyes from being raised to meet his—perhaps this was his way of warding off her examination of himself. What a mercy that the priest could sermonize without assistance from anyone. In spite of his little round body, there was nothing jovial about him; his corpulence could not mask his austerity, and thus he was popular with the town people, but misunderstood by the farmers. Several of the former had, with his help, reached a high state of holiness. As often happens, he attained to power by meekness. He was always pleasant and apologetic, but his will could not be withstood. He kept the prettiest girls of the town from going to the Sunday dance, and he stood sanctimoniously in the way of the young men's love affairs. And no one knew that it was he who, at the eleventh hour, had kept the postmistress from adultery. He had now made up his mind that it was bad for Jean to remain single, and he was especially anxious that the house of Péloueyre should not become one day the house of Cazenave, that the wolf should not hide in the fold.
Jean had never noticed how deeply women breathed; Noémi's breast almost touched her chin when she drew in her breath. Without further efforts to make conversation, the priest got up, saying that these young people would perhaps like to be left to themselves, and he begged Madame d'Artiailh to accompany him into the garden; his greengages were doing wonderfully.
Now, as though in preparation for an experiment in entomology, there were in the shadowy room only this little black frightened male and the resplendent female. Jean neither moved nor raised his eyes; he couldn't now, for she was watching him. The girl looked at this larva that was her fate, while the youth she had dreamed of, that all girls dream of—he whose strong arms and firm flesh they conjure up through sleepless nights—faded into the obscurity of the priest's parlour, melted away until there was only Jean cringing in his dark corner like a frightened cricket. She saw her fate, and knew that she could not avoid it. The son of the Péloueyres could not be refused. Noémi's parents might have feared that Jean would slip through their fingers, but they dreamed less of their daughter objecting than she did herself. For a quarter of an hour the centre of her future existence had been sitting on the edge of a chair, squirming and biting his nails. He stood up, looking shorter standing than when sitting, and stammered out a phrase that had to be repeated before it was intelligible to Noémi: "I know I'm not worthy to..." She protested, "Oh, Monsieur!" But Jean plunged into an orgy of humility. He knew no one could love him, and only asked to be allowed to love. Words and phrases poured logically from his lips. For twenty-three years he had been waiting for the chance to open his heart to a woman. His eloquence and his gesticulating showed that he felt there was no one but himself who could set forth the beauty of his soul, and in this as a matter of fact he was right. Noémi looked at the door. She wasn't surprised, for she had heard a great deal about Jean Péloueyre. People had told her of his peculiarities; "a bit cracked" was the general opinion.
The door remained closed and Jean talked on and on; the room seemed full of him and his gestures, and Noémi became uncomfortably conscious of a desire to cry. At last he came to an end, and she was frightened as though imprisoned in a room that contained a hidden bat. When Madame d'Artiailh and the priest came back she flung her arms about her mother's neck without dreaming that such a gesture might be taken for acquiescence. The priest and Jean touched cheeks, and the two ladies walked out of the presbytery alone, so as not to awaken the curiosity of the neighbours. Through a crack in the shutters, perhaps Jean saw Noémi's slightly rumpled dress glide past after Madame d'Artiailh's slim mincing figure; the magnolia flower had wilted almost imperceptibly, seemed less alive. It had already been cut.
Most of Jean's time was spent in cringing concealment; his one great concern was to avoid being seen, and for several days now he was confused and stupefied by the unavoidable fluttering and commotion around him. Fate had drawn him out of obscurity, and Nietzsche's words, like some magical incantation, had turned his world upside down. He was like a little night-bird, stranded in daylight, its eyes blinking and its head sunk between its wings. The people about him had changed too: M. Jêrome's régime went to pieces—he often cut short his siesta now, in order to accompany the priest back to the presbytery. The Cazenaves' Thursday visits came to an end, but they made known their existence by circulating infamous stories about Jean's personality and certain of his peculiarities which, it was said, rendered him unfit for matrimony.
In his excessive humility, Jean wondered how it was that the d'Artiailhs could be envied on his account; everyone was saying that Noémi well deserved the happiness that was in store for her. The ancient house of d'Artiailh was on the rocks; M. d'Artiailh, having been fleeced in several financial enterprises, was now an industrious and unashamed employé at the Town Hall, and it was common knowledge that they had had to dispense with the services of their servant.
Jean looked at himself in his mirror, and concluded that he was not hideous. The priest was spreading his opinion abroad that, though young Péloueyre was not much to look at, he was at least very intelligent; and every evening Noémi's respectful silence before Jean's eloquence from the couch in the drawing-room inclined him to agree with the priest that serious young women appreciated the intellectual accomplishments of their fiancés. Speaking to her now, he dropped into his old habit of making faces and gestures and reciting verses without warning, and Noémi, though pushing herself farther and farther towards the other end of the couch, seemed to him as lenient to his outpourings as the trees along the empty road had been. He shared his inmost thoughts with her now, even to a discussion of this Nietzsche, who would perhaps cause a complete readjustment of his life. Noémi wiped the perspiration from her hands with a tiny handkerchief, and her eyes never left the door leading to the room where her parents were conversing in tones fortunately low enough to prevent her from understanding anything. M. d'Artiailh was uneasy at what people were saying about his future son-in-law. He had been robbed and cheated throughout his life, and was certain now that, behind what seemed to be a turn in his fortunes, a disaster was lurking. His wife assured him, however, that the only foundations for the slanderous gossip were the ill-will of the Cazenaves, and Jean's avoidance of women for religious reasons or out of shyness.
Eleven o'clock chimed in the moonlight, and Madame d'Artiailh entered without a cough, or a knock, or any hope of surprising the young people in a compromising attitude. She excused herself for disturbing the "turtledoves," and made a pointed reference to the curfew. Jean touched Noémi's hair with his lips, and took his leave. He strode down the silent street, followed by his shadow. His firm step stirred the watch-dogs from their sleep, and the moonlight kept them noisily awake. It was strange that he no longer felt agitated in Noémi's presence. Before, at High Mass, when she had glided past him in her carefully ironed frock, it had been otherwise. He shook his head to rid himself of the thought of that approaching night in September when she would be his. Of course, that night would never come; war would break out, someone would die, or an earthquake....