"That? It is from the water," he replied simply.
Sanitary authorities, take note. We survived it. And we kept ourselves as clean as we could. When we couldn't we consoled ourselves by remembering that the washed are less warm than the unwashed. M. l'Abbé told me that he dropped baths out of his scheme of things while the frost lasted. Were we not afraid to bathe? We confessed to a reasonable fear of being found one morning sitting in my square of green canvas, a pillar like Lot's wife, but of ice, not salt. He brooded on the picture I called up, I slid like a bag of coal down the hill.
Having administered comfort to "l'estomac embarrassé," we rationed our supply of water, we prayed for a thaw, Madame began to chirp again, the world was not altogether given over to the devil. But peace had forsaken our borders. Going into the kitchen one morning I found Madame in tears. M. Phillipot had occurred. The deluge was upon us.
Wearying of life in the South, he had come back to Révigny, his mother, of course, as always, upon his arm, and there, possessed of a thousand devils, he had bought a wooden house, and there his mother, with all the maddening malice of a perverse, inconsiderate animal, had been seized with an illness and was preparing to die.
And she had sent for Madame. No wonder the heavens fell.
"All my life she has ill-treated me," the poor little woman sobbed, "and now when I am si heureuse avec vous, when I earn good money, she sends for me. Quel malheur! What cruelty! You do not know what a rude enfer (hell) I have suffered with that woman. And chez nous, one was so happy. With Pappa and Clémence all was so peaceful, never a cross word, never a temper. Ah, what sufferings! Did not the contemplation of them turn Clémence from marriage for ever? Because of my so grande misère never would she marry. La belle-mère, she hated me. It was that she was jealous. But now when she is ill she sends for me. But I will not go. No, I will not."
"But, Madame, if she is ill? We could manage for a few days." She was riven with emotion, then the storm passed. Again we reasoned with her. She must go. After all, if the old woman was dying....
Madame did not believe in the possible dissolution of anything so entirely undesirable as her belle-mère, but in the end humanity prevailed. She would go, but for one night. She would come back early on the morrow.
"Ah, Mademoiselle, c'est un vrai voyage de sacrifice that I make." She put on her Sunday clothes, she took Clémence with her, she came back that night. Two days later a letter, then a telegram urged her forth again. We had almost to turn her out of the house. Was not one voyage of sacrifice enough in a lifetime of sorrow? And the belle-mère would not die. She, Madame, knew it. Protesting, weeping, she set out, to come back annoyed, sobered, enraged, bouleversée. La belle-mère had died. What else could one expect from such an ingrate?