It was striking eight when I came up to the farm. As a rule, everybody is in bed by then. But to-day was the feast of the patron-saint of the village; and there must have been dancing and drinking till nightfall. At that moment, the darkness was so thick that I could hardly see anything in front of me. I found the gate locked. Clinging to the trees and pulling myself through the thorns and brambles, I climbed across the bank and dropped into the orchard. I at once called softly to the dog, so that he should recognise a friend's voice, and, as soon as I was certain of his silence, I walked quietly to the house, where there was a light in two of the windows at the back of the farm-yard. Not daring to take the path that led to the door, I made my way as best I could through the long grass. I was shivering in my dress; and my feet were frozen. Whenever the moon peeped through two clouds, I quickly flung myself against a tree and waited without moving for the darkness to return. Cows were lying here and there on the grass: at each lull in the storm, I heard the heavy breathing of the sleeping animals; and their peacefulness soothed my troubled mind.
Some thirty yards from the house, I stopped, uncertain what to do. It can be approached only by going a little higher, for it is built on a mound in the centre of the yard. The whole length of the one-storeyed, thatched buildings was without a tree or any dark corner where I could shelter.
I was still hesitating, when suddenly a shadow passed across one of the windows. I seemed to recognise Rose, and my rising curiosity made me cover in a moment the distance that separated me from her. Once there, against the window-pane, I thought of nothing else.
No, it was not fear but sorrow that oppressed me from the first glance within: Rose was laughing at the top of her voice, her mouth opened in a paroxysm of mirth. She was laughing a silly, brutish laugh, lying back in her chair, with her knees wide apart and her hands on her hips. A lamp stood near her on the long table around which the men were eating and drinking; under its torn shade the light flared unevenly, lighting up some things with ruthless clearness and leaving others in complete darkness. Of the men, I could see nothing distinctly except their heavy jaws and coarse hands and the lighter patches of their white shirts and blue smocks. I could make out very little of the large, low-ceilinged room. A rickety chair here; an old dresser there, with a few battered dishes on it. At regular intervals, a brass pendulum sends forth gleams as it catches the light; and the smouldering fire in the tall chimney-place flickers for a moment and illumines the strings of beans and onions drying round the hearth. On the floor, in the middle of the room, two little cowherds are quarrelling for the possession of a goose, no doubt won as a prize in the village. The poor thing, lying half-dead, with its wings and legs tied up, utters piteous sounds, which are the signal for a burst of laughter and coarse jokes.
But suddenly all is silence. A door opens at the far end of the room and on the threshold stands the mistress, with a candle in her hand and some bottles under her arm. The fear inspired by the old madwoman is obvious at once. The two urchins take refuge under the table with their prey, Rose's laughter ceases abruptly and, through the window-panes, I hear the steady ticking of the clock and the clatter of the spoons in the bowls.
The old woman has sat down in the full light. She is eating, with bent back, lowered head and jerky, nervous movements, while her wicked little sunken eyes peer from under her heavy, matted brows. She speaks some curt words in patois, too fast for me to catch their sense; but her strident voice hurts my ears. The conversation becomes livelier by degrees and soon everybody is speaking at once....
I wait in vain for an absent look, a gesture of annoyance, an expression of pain on Rose's part. No, she seems at her ease among these people, as she was at the great house, as she is and as she will be everywhere. She follows the remarks of one and all and shows the same attention which she vouchsafes to me when I speak to her. From time to time, she says a word or two; and I recognise the shrill voice and the vulgar gestures that used to hurt me so much during our early talks.
I remained there for a long time, always waiting, always hoping. Excited by liquor, the men began to quarrel; and I heard the old woman hurl a torrent of vile insults at them. Rose took the part of one of the men and interfered, using language as coarse as theirs.
3
It was late when I went away. The clouds had dispersed, the wind had dropped; the moonbeams were making pools of silver on the ground through the trees; and, when I reached the open fields, they appeared to me cold, immense, infinite under a molten sky.