Marie Claire

by Marguerite Audoux

I had often noticed how kind Eugène was to everybody. Whenever the farmer had any difficulties with his men he always used to call his brother, who would settle everything with a few words. Eugène did the same work on the farm as Master Silvain did, but he always refused to go to market. He said that he would not know how to sell even a cheese. He walked slowly, rocking himself a little as he walked, as though he were trying to keep time with his oxen. He went to Sainte Montagne nearly every Sunday. When the weather was bad he would remain in the living-room at the farm house and read. I used to hope that he would leave his book behind him one day; but he never forgot it, and always took it to his room with him. One of my great troubles was that I could not find anything to read in the farm, and I used to pick up any bits of printed paper that I saw lying about. The farmer's wife had noticed this, and said that I should become a miser some day. One Sunday, when I had screwed up my courage and asked Eugène for a book, he gave me a book of songs. All through the summer I took it with me to the fields. I made up tunes for the songs which I liked best. Then I got tired of them, and when I was helping Pauline to clean up the farm for All Saints Day, I found several almanacks. Pauline told me to take them up to the garret, but I pretended to forget, and carried them off to read in secret, one after the other. They were full of amusing stories, and the winter went by without my ever noticing the cold.

When I took them up to the garret at last, I hunted about up there to see if I could not find any others. The only thing I found was a little book without any cover. The corners of the leaves were rolled up as if it had been carried about in somebody's pocket for a long time. The two first pages were missing, and the third page was so dirty that I could not read the print. I took it under the skylight, to see a little better, and I saw that it was called "The Adventures of Telemachus." I opened it here and there, and the few words that I read interested me so much that I put it in my pocket at once.

While I was on my way down from the garret, it suddenly occurred to me that Eugène might have put the book there, and that he might come and look for it at any time. So I put it back on the black rafter where I had found it. Every time I could manage to go to the garret I looked to see whether it was still in its place, and I read it as much and as often as ever I could.

Just about that time I had another sick sheep. Its flanks were hollow, as though it had not eaten for a long while. I went and asked the farmer's wife what I ought to do with it. She was plucking a chicken, and asked me whether the sheep was "drawn." I didn't answer at once. I didn't quite know what she meant. Then I thought that probably whenever a sheep was ill it was "drawn," and I said "Yes." And so as to make it quite clear, I added, "It is quite flat." Pauline began to laugh at me. She called Eugène, and said, "Eugène! One of Marie Claire's sheep is drawn and flat too." That made Eugène laugh. He said I was only a second-hand shepherdess, and explained to me that sheep were "drawn" when their stomachs were swollen.

Two days afterwards Pauline told me that she and Master Silvain saw that they would never make a good shepherdess of me, and that they were going to give me work to do in the house. Old Bibiche was not good for much, and Pauline could not do everything herself because of her baby. When they told me this, my first thought was that I should be able to go up to the garret more often, and I kissed Pauline and thanked her.

So I became a farm servant. I had to kill the chickens and the rabbits. I hated doing it, and Pauline could never understand why. She said I was like Eugène, who ran away when a pig was being killed. However, I wanted to try and kill a chicken so as to show that I did my best. I took it into the granary. It struggled in my hands, and the straw all round me got red. Then it became quite still, and I put it down for Bibiche to come and pluck it. But when she came she cackled with laughter because the chicken had got on to its feet again, and was in the middle of a basket of corn. It was eating greedily, as though it wanted to get well as quickly as possible after the way in which I had hurt it. Bibiche got hold of it, and when she had passed the blade of her knife across its neck the straw was much redder than it had been before.

Instead of going to sleep in the middle of the day, I used to go up to the garret to read. I opened the book anywhere, and every time I read it over again I found something new in it. I loved this book of mine. For me it was like a young prisoner whom I went to visit secretly. I used to imagine that it was dressed like a page, and that it waited for me on the black rafter. One evening I went on a lovely journey with it. I had closed the book, and was leaning on my elbows and looking out of the skylight in the garret. It was almost evening, and the pine trees looked less green. The sun was pushing its way into the white clouds which hollowed themselves and then swelled out again, like down and feathers do when you push something into a sackful of them.

Without quite knowing how, I found myself, all of a sudden, flying over a wood with Telemachus. He held me by the hand, and our heads touched the blue of the sky. Telemachus said nothing, but I knew that we were going up into the sun. Old Bibiche called to me from below. I recognized her voice, although it was so far off. She must be very angry, I thought, to be calling so loud. I didn't care. I saw nothing but the bright flakes of white down, which surrounded the sun and which were opening slowly to let us pass in. A tap on my arm brought me back with a rush into the garret. Old Bibiche was pulling me away from the skylight, and saying, "Why do you make me shout like that? I have called you at least twenty times to come and get your supper!" A little while later I missed the book from the rafter. But it had become a friend which I carried about in my heart, and I have always remembered it.