“Your boy is brave, Madame!”
The old woman, who was looking at her grape-vine, turned her dim eyes towards us and said in an abrupt tone:
“Brave! of course! My boys could not be anything else!”
A laugh escaped her—a laugh almost of pride, a strangled laugh that lost itself at once in the wind. Then she appeared to talk absently:
“My poor unfortunate son will some day be able to look forward to marriage, for there is no one so gentle as he is. But my two youngest, my two little ones! It’s too much! Oh, God, it’s too much!”
We could find nothing to say. There was nothing to say. With hair flying in the wind, she began again to scatter the ashes, like a sower of death. Her lips were compressed, and in her face there was a mixture of despair, bewilderment and defiance.
“What are you doing this for, Madame?” I asked, somewhat at random.
“You see, I’m mixing the ashes with the sulphate. It’s the season. I shall never finish: I’ve too much to do, too much to do.”
We had got up, as if we felt ashamed of disturbing this tireless worker in her task. Moved by a common impulse, we took off our hats to her.
“Good-night,” she said, “and good luck, too, you others.”