Manon jumped up. The inspiration was obvious, and yet passionate in its demands. She must get rid of this pollution, put it at once out of her life, her life that was Paul’s. A great tenderness was awake in her, a feeling that this little room was sacred, and that it had to be resanctified. She lit another candle and set to work to cleanse it; sweeping up the broken glass and crockery and carrying it out in a box to the ruins across the road. She set the furniture in order, and finding the blue and white jug broken on the floor, and Paul’s bunch of yellow palm lying beside it, she gathered up this emblem of the spring, found another bowl for it, and placed it in the same place on the table. There remained that red stain on the floor. It revolted her, but she made a mop of an old sack, and washed out the stain. Yet her ideal of purification was not complete; this room was to have a living atmosphere, warmth, light, homeliness. She wanted Paul to see it again as he had seen it before that savage fight. She lit the stove, put a pan of water on to boil, spread a clean cloth on the table, laid two plates, two cups, two knives and forks, a dish of meat, cheese and bread. Then she drew the arm-chair close to the stove and sat down to wait. Philosophe, undisturbed by these practical yet spiritual activities, still slept, and the dog’s passivity was a piece of comforting naturalism, like the bunch of yellow palm on the table.
Paul returned earlier than he had expected. She ran to the door to meet him, and found him struggling with the bundle that he had left lying on the path.
“I had forgotten this, and nearly fell over it.”
She caught hold of one end, and helped him in with it. Then she closed the door, and, going to the stove, pretended to be busy making her coffee, but she was all waiting—as a woman waits—to see whether her man had the inward and the outward vision.
Paul noticed everything, the clean floor, the bunch of palm on the table by the window, the white cloth, the tidy dresser. It was good, all good, the very touch his heart asked for. He looked at Philosophe, who had not troubled to get up and greet him. Tranquillity had returned; Manon had washed away the stains.
He went softly across the kitchen, and put a shy man’s arm round her.
“What a good piece of work you make of life,” he said.
She turned to him quickly.
“Here is your chair by the stove.”
She was looking up into his face; he was grey, weary to the point of exhaustion, but the shine in his eyes broke through all the physical shadows.