One Sunday, after vespers, he came again, bowed politely, fetched a bit of paper out of his waistcoat-pocket and sat down on a chair by the stove. This visit annoyed her: with the quickness with which small-minded people weigh and think over a matter, her eyes went to the window to see if anybody had observed him come in and was likely to set evil tongues a-clacking. It was almost bound to be so; and, to keep her honour safe, she opened her door, mumbling something about “warm weather” and “the tobacco-smoke which made her cough.”
She went to her room, fetched some money and paid the bill. The smith sat where he was, knocked out his little stone pipe and put it in his inside pocket; he did not look at his money and, in his hoarse little voice, began to talk of quite common things: of wind and weather and the current news of the village; always chatting in the same tone, a jumble of long, breathless statements. From this he went on to his dreary, lonely life, the monotonous quiet of it and the danger of thieves, sickness and sudden death. She said not a word, but, against the bright window-curtains, the sharp, heavy profile of her face, together with the flutes of her white cap, went up and down in a continual nodding assent to everything he said. At the end, she took pleasure in hearing him talk, nor now looked upon that clean-washed face of his as at all so ugly. It even did her good to see some one sitting there who came to enliven the monotony of that long Sunday evening. By her leave, he had lighted a fresh pipe; and she now sat sniffing up that unaccustomed smell, which rose in little puffs from behind the stove and floated round the room, filling it with long rows of blue curls. ‘Twas as if she were overcome by that quite new smell of tobacco and she felt inclined to sleep; she stood up, to get rid of that slackness, shut the front-door and, without thinking what she was doing, asked if he would have some coffee. He nodded, gladly.
She put the kettle on and got the coffee-pot ready, fetched out her best cups and spoons and the white sugar. When the steam came rushing from the spout, she poured water on the coffee and they sat down, one on each side of the table, to sip the savoury drink in tiny draughts. ‘Twas long since she had felt so comfortable and for the first time she thought with dislike of her lonely life. ‘Twas late when he went home; she came with him to the door ... and saw black figures that strolled past in the street and perhaps had seen him leave. She had bad dreams all night: the people pointed their fingers at her and slanderous tongues spread ugly things about her. The whole of the next day her thoughts were in the smithy; she swept the pavement more carefully and farther than usual, went now and then and looked out of window; and her little curtains were left open with a split in the middle. Yesterday, she had forgotten to give the canary fresh water to drink. The people looked at her in the street; two or three god-fearing gossips had let her walk home alone. This gave her great pain; ‘twas as though a heavy load were weighing day and night on her breast; and yet she was not sorry for what had happened. All these trifles could not make her forget her content. She said her prayers and performed her little duties with as much care as before and lived on, alone.
On Sunday, she went to church very early and prayed long: it did her so much good, that delightful whispering with God, that sweet kind Lord Who listened to her so patiently and always sent her away with fresh courage, strengthened to walk on bravely along life’s irksome way. Sometimes she was frightened at her behaviour! She was gnawed by a reproachful thought: that she had left the straight path, that she no longer lived for God alone, that she was forgetting her dear saints and busy with sinful thoughts. And yet, when she carefully considered everything, nothing had happened that seemed to her blameworthy; all that change in her life had come as of itself and in spite of herself; and really, after all, there was no harm in it. She prayed for that good man, who certainly needed her spiritual aid: he went so seldom to church and lived in such a dreary black hole. Her prayers and interest would for sure bring him to a better frame of mind. And yet she must watch, keep strong, avoid the dangers: her honour was a tender thing; and people were wicked. She stayed longer than usual in the confessional and offered special prayers to every saint in the church.
When she was back at home, she began her little Sunday duties: the lace-pillow was put away that day and she did nothing but arrange things, put things in their places, gather a fresh nosegay for the porcelain vase before Our Lady’s statue and see to her cooking. She picked the withered leaves from the geraniums, bound the branches of the phlox to the trellis and gave them fresh water from a little flowered can. She was specially fond of her little pot of musk: it stood on the window-seat, opposite her chair, carefully set in a rush cage stuck into the earth and fastened at the top with a thread. Sometimes she took it on her lap, bent her face over it and sniffed the pleasant smell in long draughts, until she was almost drunk with it.
In the afternoon, she sat down at the window and read her Thomas à Kempis. Then all was quite still: no hammering behind the wall, no boys in the street, only the soft tapping of the canary in his food-trough and the tick of the pendulum; everything was quiet as though in an enchanted sleep. The sun glowed through the geranium-leaves and cast on the red-tiled floor a broad, round shadow which took the whole afternoon to creep from the legs of the stove to the front-door.
The flies buzzed round on the rafters of the ceiling or ran along the cracks of the white-scoured table. Her thoughts wandered wearily and lazily through the wise maxims of her book and she sometimes sat peering at the funny shape of a coloured initial which, after long looking, became such a silly figure, one that no longer looked in the least like a letter, but was rather something in the form of a vice.... The lines of print ran into one another, the maxims said all sorts of foolish things, her eyes closed, her head nodded and she sank, with all those peaceful things, into perfect rest.
After dinner, the smith had had a sleep; then he washed his face, put on his best clothes and went past her window to vespers. In the evening, she saw him again when he went to the customers for a pot of beer: this time he gave her a friendly nod.
For her, Sunday passed like all the other days; she prayed longer and closed her shutter earlier for fear of the drunkards. After saying a long row of graces which she knew by heart, she went to her bedroom. In the stuffy air of that closed upper chamber, she lay thinking. She was not sleepy and it was nice, in the evening stillness, covered in her white sheets, to lie with her eyes looking through the split in the white curtains at the moon which hung shining outside.
Now she gave free scope to her thoughts, until all of that had again been pondered round and pondered out. Then it became so funny to her: ‘twas as if she were long dead now and floating in a pale and scented air in the company of sweet saints and angels. But it was oh, so hazy and indistinct! It always escaped her when she wanted to enjoy it more closely and to give the thing a name.