As the day had been a fatiguing one for every body, they all went to bed soon after dinner. The whole village was wrapped in that perfect stillness of the country, which is almost like a religious silence, and the girls, who were accustomed to the noisy evenings of their establishment, felt rather impressed by the perfect repose of the sleeping village, and they shivered, not with cold, but with those little shivers of solitude which come over uneasy and troubled hearts.
As soon as they were in bed, two and two together, they clasped each other in their arms, as if to protect themselves against this feeling of the calm and profound slumber of the earth. But Rosa the Jade, who was alone in her little dark cupboard, felt a vague and painful emotion come over her.
She was tossing about in bed, unable to get to sleep, when she heard the faint sobs of a crying child close to her head through the partition. She was frightened, and called out, and was answered by a weak voice, broken by sobs. It was the little girl, who was always used to sleeping in her mother's room, and who was frightened in her small attic.
Rosa was delighted, got up softly so as not to awaken anyone, and went and fetched the child. She took her into her warm bed, kissed her and pressed her to her bosom, cossetted her, lavished exaggerated manifestations of tenderness on her, and at last grew calmer herself and went to sleep. And till morning, the candidate for confirmation slept with her head on the prostitute's naked bosom.
At five o'clock, the little church bell ringing the Angelus, woke the women up, who usually slept the whole morning long.
The peasants were up already, and the women went busily from house to house, carefully bringing short, starched, muslin dresses in band—boxes, or very long wax tapers, with a bow of silk fringed with gold in the middle, and with dents in the wax for the fingers.
The sun was already high in the blue sky, which still had a rosy tint towards the horizon, like a faint trace of dawn, remaining. Families of fowls were walking about outside houses, and here and there a black cock, with a glistening breast, raised his head, which was crowned by his red comb, flapped his wings, and uttered his shrill crow, which the other cocks repeated.
Vehicles of all sorts came from neighboring parishes, and discharged tall, Norman women, in dark dresses, with neck—handkerchiefs crossed over the bosom, which were fastened with silver brooches, a hundred years old.
The men had put on their blouses over their new frock—coats, or over their old dress—coats of green cloth, the two tails of which hung down below their blouses. When the horses were in the stable, there was a double line of rustic conveyances along the road; carts, cabriolets, tilburies, char—a—bancs, traps of every shape and age, resting on their shafts, or else with them in the air.
The carpenter's house was as busy as a beehive. The ladies, in dressing—jackets and petticoats, with their hanging down, thin, short hair, which looked as if it were faded and worn by use, were busy dressing the child, who was standing motionless on a table, while Madame Tellier was directing the movements of her battalion. They washed her, did her hair, dressed her, and with the help of a number of pins, they arranged the folds of her dress, and took in the waist, which was too large.