“Run away, child. This is no place for you.”
I ran away, stupefied with a gentleness that was in such contrast with his face. Now I recognise it as a witness to his tremendous mastery of himself. I rushed out into the garden, carrying, like a bomb under my arm, the formidable utterance, Whether we live in this house or another. The idea had never occurred to me, could never have come to me, that we could live in another house. I felt as if I had been witnessing a sacrilege, but at the same time the sacrilege found harbour in my brain because it had had no immediate sanction, had been accompanied by no solemnity, was like any indifferent act, like an act of no consequence at all. Was it possible that such words could have been uttered as a mere aside, negligently, even smilingly!
For the first time my notions of life were turned topsy-turvey. I confided my bewilderment to Tem Bossette, who was ruminating, leaning upon the handle of his spade. He lent me a complaisant ear, but took the opportunity to impart to me a bit of his personal history:
“I had a son in the hospital. When I saw that he was going to die, I rolled him up in a quilt and went away with my bundle. He died at home.”
I could not grasp the immediate applicability of his story, which he had told proudly, as if recalling an act of heroism. He shortly condescended to explain:
“It’s your lawsuit that is worrying them.”
Our lawsuit? We had a lawsuit? I had no idea what it was, and though I felt shame for my ignorance I asked the vinedresser:
“What is a lawsuit?”
He scratched his nose, no doubt in search of a definition.
“It’s something about justice. One loses, one wins, just as it happens. But when one loses it’s a great bother. On account of the sheriffs, who walk into your house as into a mill.”