 THE ACCURSED

Two Diabolical Tales

by

CLAUDE SEIGNOLLE

TRANSLATED BY BERNARD WALL

FOREWORD BY LAWRENCE DURRELL

LONDON

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.

RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET

 FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1967

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, 1956, no portion may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

This translation © George Allen & Unwin Ltd 1967

Translated from the French

LES MALEDICTIONS © Claude Seignolle, Paris, 1963

 Printed in Great Britain in 11 point Juliana type by Clarke, Doble & Brendon Ltd Cattedown, Plymouth

FOREWORD

BY LAWRENCE DURRELL

It is perhaps the very diversity of his gifts and interests that has prevented Claude Seignolle so far from reaching the wide public that his work deserves. The scholars know him and rightly value his unique contributions to folklore; the novelists know well that his novels are a distinct contribution to literature, written as they are with the pure and forceful eye of the poet. Finally, those who are interested in the devil keep their eyes open for every new tale by this strange diabolist...

These tales of mystery and horror have a quality which is entirely their own.

I speak of diversity in his work, yet to anyone who looks at the whole range of it there is also a great unity - a unity of intention, of attitude. Everything he turns out has a sort of Seigtiollisme about it - the mark of a temperament which is at once curious, poetic and also realistic. He has achieved something rather strange. The devils, the werewolves and vampires he has discovered as a scholar have been carefully captured for literature; in the toils of his sinuous vivid unaffected prose they struggle in vain. He holds them firmly under his pen. They appear in his novels as disturbing realities, and the attitude he adopts towards them is so matter-of-fact that the reader rapidly finds himself believing in them, as presumably the author himself does. It is doubly curious that (I speak of the artist now, not the scholar) he should be French, for the tradition to which he so effectively contributes is not a French tradition at all. It is essentially the Romantic-Gothic tradition which calls to mind names like E. T. A. Hoffman, Mary Shelley, Maturin, Poe.

Yet in the actual execution of Seignolle there is a very special quality which comes, I believe, from the fact that he is a Frenchman and not either a German or an Englishman; he treats his frightening subject-matter with a rather terrifying lucidity and intellectual control which makes it most convincing. He is of course a born story-teller, but you never feel with his work (as you so often do with the Gothic school) that the writer has set out to epater you, or to frighten you. You feel that he is cooly describing something which is taking place before his eyes, and that these strange creatures of the human subconscious do really exist and can at will materialise before our eyes.

And if you feel at all incredulous about it a glance into one of his scholarly compilations will suffice to show you that whole communities believe in them as well! The sorcerer, the vampire... they are still alive today, acting invisibly on the secret life of man: they are not the dead subject-matter for scholarship alone, but also fitting material for the poet who is always turning over the stones of the human mind to see what might lie underneath. It does not take long to become completely seduced, completely Seignollisé. It is this curious taste of mystery which gives him poetic density in his work even when he is writing of things very far removed from the diabolical. In his memoirs of the war, for example, in La Gueule there is little enough about vampires or such matters; but the tone of his prose charges the atmosphere with the feeling of poetry and mystery. Poetic mystery hangs like a mist over his work. And yet - diable! - he is not dreamy, diffuse, sentimental; he is gay, strong, truthful and intense.

But this volume consists of two of his ‘diabolical’ stories only, and it is in my opinion long overdue. Seignolle has won a distinct place for himself in literature and his particular temperamental gift of qualities - poetry, mystery and irony set him apart from most writers of the day. II est seul dans son genre!

MALVENUE

 I

The August night air was stifling. The moment had not yet come for the fresh breath of morning to release its perfumes and spread them far and wide. Silence struggled to insinuate itself between the noises that kept the night alive: croakings coming from the ponds, regular and tedious as the ticking of a clock; loud or disturbed cries from the woods that were made still more mysterious by the darkness; creakings that gnawed at the quiet. The walls of the la Noue farm, under the rough coat of pale limewash, gleamed in the moonlight against the shadowy fields. Wooden shutters and windows were open to inhale what little fresh air there was. On uncovered beds each person slept the same deep, laborious sleep, their muscles still preserving the rhythm of the day's work and sometimes harvesting in the void. Each one was genuinely suffering, but none woke up to escape from the nightmare of pointless effort. The women moaned with exhaustion. They felt a twisting in their loins as if they still really were hoisting up the loathsome swaths bristling with hostile thistles. In their heads the pale tide of corn was still unfolding with its thousands of sheaves that had to be bound and lifted and carried to an immense, arrogant stack with an insatiable appetite for grain and straw. And meanwhile the men were scything their ever-renewed vision of a sea of stalks.

But for the people at la Noue their overburden of work had every reason to mingle with their sleep. It had been the worst job of the summer, but now the harvest was in. Before dusk fell the sun's last rays had slowly coloured and then discoloured the tall stack topped by the branch of fresh birch, bearing a red ribbon, which Antoine - la Noue's master - had thrust in with a sharp jab of victory as if he were the only conqueror. His action had brought the first trace of a smile to their faces. They all shouted and waved their hats in the air with their bruised arms. Antoine announced that the harvest feast would be tomorrow. But he distributed some pints of white wine on account, which brought a moment of youthful jollity.

It was only six hundred yards back to the farm, yet when they arrived the corn-conquerors felt as if their arms and legs had suddenly been scythed too; they began swearing that they couldn't have gone a step further, and collapsed onto the benches. Only the old tramp who had been taken on the previous day (no-one knew him from Adam) seemed to be suffering less than the others. He took his time before he sat down, slowly produced his penknife, opened it, and carefully cut a slice off the loaf. He scraped the table with his long bony hand so as to gather up all the crumbs which he then put in his mouth with the help of the worn blade. Then he waited for la Galiotte to hand him his plate of soup.

The old servant paid far more attention to this man than she had ever paid to the dozens of other casual labourers of a similar kind whose trouser-seats had polished the same benches in the past. This man hadn't the ways of those vagabonds who stray from small town to farm and from farm to small town, who begin a job and never finish it, and whose laziness is matched only by their nasty smell. No, this one had no smell either good or bad, he had done the work of four men, and when served with soup had nodded in gratitude and respect to la Galiotte - so much so that an involuntary blush of pleasure had mounted to her age-lined cheeks. He was the last to go to bed and the only one to accept the barn, crammed with its heady scent of hay.

And now this forcibly-sleeping and unconsciously-working world had been wrapped in four hours of night. But in her room Jeanne was awake. If she felt light and rested it was because her young body hadn't had to pump out sweat from all its pores. The palms of her hands were not full of prickles, nor were her arms and neck bitten red by the sun. She was the mistress’s daughter. She was given other, easier work. Her mother, Henriette, took the extra work on herself.

Her maxim was that at sixteen you do everything badly so the best is to do as little as possible. Jeanne sat up in bed. She felt she couldn't breathe. She rolled up the sleeves of her linen night-dress with its little blue faded flowers, and undid the front buttons which fastened up to the neck. Now she could breathe better. The material swelled and expanded over her breasts.

Suddenly she stiffened and began listening. But she could hear nothing but the chirping of the crickets, the croaking of the frogs, and the caress of night as it slid over the earth. She quickly jumped out of bed. She didn't like this lying awake. Her bare feet felt the coolness of the tiles. She didn't know what to do and was getting ready to get back into bed when she felt a presence forcing her back to the window. Her heart-beats spread like a fan and she started with a stab of anguish. Her calm returned when she realised that at this time of night everyone on the farm would be struggling to drown their fatigue in sleep and no-one would feel like taking a stroll in the yard.

Her half-open bedroom door gave into the living-room. The remains of a fire were still smouldering in the hearth, just a few embers still glowing in the ashes. Now and again a stronger light flickered over the iron at the back of the fireplace. Without thinking, Jeanne picked up her skirt, put it on, and searched around for her wooden clogs. She could only find one, but that was enough for what she was going to do. Soundlessly she left the bedroom and felt drawn towards the fireplace. As she passed the table she was careful not to knock against the bench. If she was to succeed in what she could no longer resist doing, then silence was needed as an ally. She went up to the remains of the fire, stretched out her clog and hastily filled it with the brightest embers. Strange, she felt she was floating on the red lake of the tiles. Stranger still, the pain of the glowing embers didn't pierce her fingers. The clog was filled at last. She left the room.

She set straight out along the track for Naullins. Her mind was made up: that was where she was going with her light tread. Her lips were frozen tight in a fierce smile. Her steps grew quicker, and then quicker still. The ground was warm. Her bare feet became fevered. Savage pleasure penetrated her body and heated her blood. Soon she broke into a run, both hands holding the clog in front of her, its wood smoking with the burning embers. Its acrid smell oppressed her, intoxicated her, and left a trail of life behind her. Far ahead the la Croule woods smudged the night with an endless band of black that melted into the Sologne ridge. A faint mist was floating over the Malnoue water pit. The girl ran, walked, then ran again. At last, a few steps away, rose the stack. It looked like a great tower, bulging with a great belly, Jeanne approached and touched the bristles which pricked her.

And now her heart beat wildly, not because she had run so far but because she was there at last with the smoking clog, the evilly smoking clog. The girl coughed. With quick movements she thrust the embers into the foot of the stack, bent down, blew them. A small flame rose and then went out. With more blowing it returned and gained a grip on the straw. Another smell, a sweeter one, mingled with that of the charred wood. Jeanne broke into uncontrollable laughter. A ruddy glow ran up the sides of the great loaf. It ran as Jeanne had run to reach this spot. Already it was as tall as a man, and it went on climbing. Long flames shot out like angry arms. Jeanne was frightened and started back. She could never have believed that it would be as easy as this. She drew still further back. At moments she felt anguish. At others she wanted to yell with joy. Flames begot flames which bit relentlessly at the stomach of the stack, and the burning corn gave off an infinity of sparks.

At last the crest fell in onto the eaten-up inner part, now white hot like iron hammered at the forge. The beribboned branch planted by Antoine gave a quick mewing sound. In one swoop the total harvest crackled and collapsed. A great suffocating breath swirled round the girl as her eyes drank in the slaughter. Flakes of flame flew far and wide. The fire sank rapidly and night closed over it once more. Jeanne was disappointed. She would have liked it to go on for ever.

She knew that her action was worse than a crime, for no-one would know that she was to blame. But now it was time to flee. The Naullins people might arrive at any moment. Already their dog had begun to bark. She turned round. She was on the point of springing into a run when she froze in her tracks. A shadow was advancing towards her along the path.

Jeanne covered her mouth with her hands so as to stifle her frightened cry. The figure approached without speaking. He came slowly, but soon he would reach her. Finally she heard a strangled voice, as if in holy terror.

‘It's you, Malvenue! And after all the trouble we took...’

The girl had never heard a voice like it - a mixture of fear and dismay. And she had been expecting anger and blows! She still held her empty clog, gnawed by the embers, in her hand.

‘Who is it?’

‘It's me, Lucas.’

She managed a forced laugh. If it was Lucas she'd be able to shut his mouth. He was a man and she was a girl. He was a servant and she was the mistress. But her anxiety remained.

‘Are the others coming?’ she asked.

'No, I couldn’t sleep, I went out into the yard, I saw you leaving... If I'd known I’d have stopped you in time...’

Jeanne felt her strength returning. She went up close to the servant. Her body touched his. He, too, was lightly clad. He felt her rounded body and her soft flesh. He didn’t dare open his mouth. Yet the furnace beside them which was pouring its smoke upwards into the sky and thickening the night should by rights have made him knock up the neighbouring farmers so that they could seize the guilty girl and punish her there and then. But when the girl put her she-devil’s body against his, his will left him.

She drew away after a minute and took him by the hand.

‘Come on,’ she said in a voice that was suddenly hard, ‘there's nothing more worth seeing here; it's all over...'

He followed her with a stumbling step. She didn't leave go of his hand.

Jeanne walked with a clenched jaw and forced him to fall into step. Then she started speaking in a low voice as if talking to herself.

‘It's no use trying to understand, it was stronger than me, as if I'd been forced to do it. I don't come into it.'

‘But...’

‘But what?’

‘But they’ll find out. What’ll you tell them?’

She gave a quick shrug of her shoulders. 'Don’t worry, tomorrow there’ll be someone ready for the Angillon police.'

‘That’s too much. You’re not going to...?’

The la Noue farmyard was just in front of them.

‘Go straight back to bed,’ she commanded imperiously, ‘all I ask is that you never remember this... never.’

She pressed against him again. She wanted to show him how feminine she could be.

‘Now go, and keep mum, or else...’

He didn’t dare take her in his arms as he would have liked, and, pausing a little, he made his way to the garret at the other end of the stable buildings. He would have liked to feel the girl's warmth against his body again. At last, with a gesture of frustration, he melted into the shadows. Noiselessly Jeanne went into the barn where the tramp with the hands of a bishop was asleep. She felt in the dark for one of the man's clogs. On finding it she went to the living-room and filled it with embers. Before going out again she looked into her bedroom and retrieved her second clog.

What she was doing she was doing almost in spite of herself. The same force that had urged her to get up, run, and set the stack on fire, now propelled her towards the cess-pit. When she reached it she raised one of the stone slabs and threw in her two clogs: the one she had just fetched from her room and the one in which she had carried evil to the stack. She also poured in the embers from the tramp's clog. All was swallowed up in the slime of the manure. Nobody would ever go down there to find two innocent girl’s clogs. She could wear others. She lowered the slab carefully back. Then she went and put the tramp's burnt clog in an obvious place on the path to Naullins.

This done she was overtaken with the longing for sleep. Soon she was back in her room with the door closed. She had just enough energy left to get into bed. Her eyes were already closing. She lay stretched out. Her chestnut hair tumbled across her pillow. She sighed deeply. Soon she fell into peaceful sleep while the other farm people went on uselessly scything and gathering up the sheaves that were now no more than a heap of smoking ashes.

* * *

She was awakened from sleep by cries re-echoing against the farm walls. Among the threats and insults she could distinguish Antoine's loud voice and la Galiotte's shrill one. The girl got up and tried to shake herself awake, but her eyelids were still heavy and she lay down again so as to go on sleeping. Then she remembered. There was a tight feeling round her heart. She leapt up and ran to the window. From there she saw the people of la Noue, and the labourers hired for the harvest, all gesticulating and shouting by the barn wall. They had surrounded the tramp. The man stood motionless with folded arms. He looked larger and prouder than the others. He was holding himself in control so as not to answer the rough insults showered upon him. At one moment Antoine picked up some rope from the ground and raised it as if to strike him. Whereupon silence fell. Jeanne heard the farmer’s voice.

‘You haven’t even the courage to answer... you don’t know what to say to explain your crime... I’ve learnt my lesson being kind to scoundrels like you... The police will soon be here and I promise you I’ll give them this rope to hang you with. They’ll probably find that it was you who set fire to the Presly barn and cut old Breton’s throat at la Garenne... I’d like to smash your face in before somebody else does... I’ve every right... you just wait...'

But he calmed down and his arm fell back to his side. Before he threw the rope away he spat in the tramp’s face. The man didn’t even flinch. His deep calm gaze went from one face to the next, and it seemed as if no-one but Antoine - who had the strength of his blind fury - dared to look into the coldness of his blue eyes. His face was pale as a death mask. His greying hair was unkempt, and the sun made it look like a saint’s halo. He hadn’t had time to put on his patched and threadbare jacket, nor his old and greening cloth cap. His feet were bare. He was holding tightly on to one of his clogs. The other, all charred within, was in la Galiotte’s hand. At times she broke out with a cracked voice:

‘I would never have thought it of him. A decent-looking man like that.’

The old carpenter, Grattebois, Antoine’s father, kept nodding solemn agreement as he tried to draw non-existent puffs from his unlit pipe.

Jeanne was seized with trembling. Her guilt laid hold of bit her lip, and glanced quickly in his direction. He was standing a little apart from the now silent group. The girl saw him turn his head uneasily now and then towards the farm. She realised that he was longing to get a glimpse of her and yet was afraid of her appearing. It never crossed her mind that he would accuse her; her only fear was that he would give himself away by a word or by his pallor.

Then she went back to her bed and knelt down, pressing against it. With her face buried in the ruffled bedclothes she wept unrestrainedly. And she bit the lavender-steeped cotton coverings so as to stifle her distress. Little by little the idea of owning up grew upon her. She began telling herself that they mightn’t even dare to punish her as she was the daughter of the former master. She wouldn’t be thrown into prison like that innocent tramp who wasn’t even defending himself. She got up, rubbed her eyes which were red with tears, dressed, and passed her two hands over her cheeks to calm the fire beneath the skin. She was ready to go and take the blame before them all. She had already decided what to say. When she owned up she would stand beside the man they were accusing. She would turn to him first and ask him to forgive her. Then the moment would come when she had to address her step-father, Antoine. It would help her to speak if she caught her mother, Henriette’s, eyes, or la Galiotte’s who had always had a soft spot for her. As for the others, they could go off and look for jobs elsewhere. And as for the police, Lucas could be sent to stop them half way. They could be told to go back to town, that it was all a private misunderstanding and they'd mistakenly accused a well-behaved casual labourer who, after all, wouldn’t have sweated blood and then wantonly set fire to what was partly his own work. Antoine might box her ears a couple of times for punishment. She deserved that. A couple of times, no more, she didn’t deserve more, and it wouldn’t make the lost corn grow again.

As for Lucas, she would be quits with him which would be all to the good, as, come to think of it, he wasn’t really her type.

She took hold of the door handle and gave a determined pull. It creaked and this made her think of something else that had happened. She paused. A heaviness slid down the nape of her neck and forced her to lower her head in spite of herself. It was then that she saw on the ground near the wall the long piece of stone that she had found two days before in a bramble bush. She picked it up with a quick motion, rather as if it were a live animal that might bite or escape. But the stone was docile, and fitted nicely into her hand. The girl tossed it in the air, the better to clasp it. Then she squeezed it so tight that it left an imprint on her skin.

Warmth ran along her arm to sink into her neck. A new ardour took hold of her, made her heart beat faster, her nostrils quiver. A brightness went in and out of her wild eyes. The slight fold on either side of her full lips, which betrayed her sensuality, deepened and brought into relief the velvety roundness of her cheeks. Finally the star-like birthmark on her skin exactly in the centre of her forehead - for which she was nicknamed ‘Marquee’ or ‘Malvenue’ - lost its bluish tint and turned red. Jeanne was smiling with hate. She slipped the stone under the mattress and went out.

Nothing could stop her now, and nothing did. The Angillon police had arrived. They already had the tramp handcuffed and were preparing to mount their horses. Jeanne pushed aside the men who were shouting insults at the incendiary, then, approaching him herself, she looked at him first in the eye and then up and down with utter contempt.

‘You’re a dirty vagabond,’ she cried out at last. ‘I hate you, you understand? I hated you from the very moment you came here...’

The police smiled in spite of themselves. Antoine laid his hand on the girl’s shoulder.

‘Now then, darling,’ he said in a fatherly way, ‘calm down, he’s sort of deaf and you’re wasting your time, let him go and get what he deserves.’

‘That’s it,’ said the others, ‘let them...’ and they made the gesture of throat-cutting, but took care not to say the word in front of the man.

"Trials are slow,' the sergeant explained, "he’s got the right to a defence... and if he's a good liar it’ll be slower still.’

"I hate you, you ruffian,' persisted Jeanne.

‘Maivenue’s in a bad mood,' someone chaffed.

"She’s within her rights,' said another reasonably.

Now that the police had their victim on the end of a chain they were anxious to be gone. The sergeant got into his saddle and shouted to Antoine as he went off:

‘You’ll be summoned before long, the man is sure to confess...’

At that moment Jeanne was seized with rage and grabbed the clog from la Galiotte’s hand:

‘Stop,' she shouted, ‘you’re forgetting the evidence against him.’

And she ran towards them. As she handed the clog to the sergeant she met the tramp’s eye. His look went straight to her heart and hurt her. But she didn’t bat an eyelid. The man saw the flash in her eyes, and he shrugged his shoulders painfully and gave a slow shake of his head. Then he turned to the other la Noue people.

They realised he was going to speak and came forward. The man stretched his manacled hands towards Jeanne who was still stiff and defiant. There was no trace of despair in his rough, strong voice.

‘You’d better know that you’ve got a girl in your midst who enjoys doing evil. She has the mark of hell on her forehead. One day soon she’ll get the punishment she deserves.’

Without another word he turned back to the police and made a sign that he was ready to go.

Once the man had gone, everyone had something to say. It was not the masters who were loudest in their lamentations but the workers hired for the harvest. They knew now that Antoine had no reason to organize the harvest-home feast, but they had thought so much about the food they would get through on that day that the very idea that they were going to get nothing gave them cramps and pains. One of them came up to Antoine and acted as spokesman. The others nodded their heads in silent approval of all that he said.

‘We're leaving,' the man said, ‘and our regrets won't bring you back the cartloads of sheaves that were burnt... Let's hope that next year, when it comes to the work and the harvest home, there'll be better luck, for both you and us... That's so, isn't it, fellows?'

‘That's right,' they answered in a tone calculated to reveal the depth of their disappointment.

Antoine could read the irritation on their faces beneath the dust adhering to the sweat.

‘Wait,' he said, 'I wouldn't like it to be thought that we don't keep our word here at la Noue. The harm has been done but that doesn't wipe out your labours. We'll give you the wine we'd put aside for the harvest home, and you can each take away a piece of the pig that was going to be cooked... All I ask is that you go and enjoy yourselves somewhere else, because here we don't feel like celebrating...'

They couldn't wish for more. So, while the meat and drink were being shared out, they began showing exaggerated compassion for Antoine and the farm people.

‘Don't worry,' la Galiotte said as she came to and fro with pieces of salted pork, ‘there've been worse things than this. For instance, only take the death of poor Moarc'h... a man in his prime... that's a disaster we could well have been spared.'

She broke off sharp. First Henriette and then Antoine had given her a meaning look. Silence made her last phrase more telling But none of the men seemed to notice the old servant's embarrassment, nor that of the farmer and his wife. They were too busy packing the painful week's deserts into their haversacks.

‘If only you kept a dog,' said the eldest of the casual labourers, his words whistling through teeth decayed by bad wine, ‘we would have heard it bark and then, Lord, we might have managed something, all of us together, isn't that so, fellows?'

They nodded.

'But that's the way it is,' the old man went on, 'you haven't a dog... you're the only people in the whole region who haven't got one... If you want one, well, I know...'

Henriette interrupted him by pointing to a piece of chain hanging from a ring on the outer wall of the main building. Below it the rainwater had made a rusty mess on the rough whitewash.

‘A long time ago,' she said, 'imagine, it was before the girl was born, we had a good one, but he went mad and one night he ran away. We've often tried to keep others since then, but it's been no go, after a few days off they've gone and nothing could stop them, not even a chain. The ways of animals! We've given up trying to have one. We just do what we can. The cowman has more to do but he manages somehow. It just takes getting used to...'

When the greedy haversacks were full the men went off to collect their clothes. After a good look round to see they had left nothing behind, they went - some to the town, some to other farms. At the turn of the road they looked back and waved half-hearted goodbyes.

The sun rose straight and struck hard. It was now ten o'clock. The cows were lowing over their swollen udders. The morning had been spent in speeches that had added nothing to the loss of the stack. With features still tense, Antoine signed to Lucas and the cowman to follow him. All three went off to the stable where the morning's work had still to be done. Henriette went to fetch the milk pails. Then Jeanne went up to la Galiotte.

The servant was carefully drying her hands, still greasy with boiled salt pork, on her blue fabric apron. The salt had slid between her almost stiff fingers and eaten into the cracks that stayed there, summer and winter.

‘Galiotte,’ said Jeanne, looking the woman in the eye, ‘Galiotte, why don’t they want it to be known how that man died? Tell me. I promise I won’t say a word to anyone. Now I'm no longer a kid. I’m sixteen and I want to know. It’s my right.’

The old woman quickly turned away. Without waiting to finish drying her hands she dropped her apron and went off with her jerky step to join Henriette.

On the stroke of eleven the Langlois people reached la Noue. On passing through the police had told them of the crime committed by the man walking beside their horses. So Germain and Leon Turpault had arrived. The two brothers sat on the edge of the drinking-trough and solemnly listened to Antoine’s story. When he had finished they shook their heads and said a few consoling words, thinking what a narrow escape they themselves had had. The same tramp had appeared six days earlier at their place, Langlois. They had engaged him on the strength of his looks. He began straightaway doing three men’s work, and never complained, in spite of his age. He was a master scyther such as you rarely found. Then, just two days ago, after scything since dawn, he suddenly downed tools and went away without a word, as if worried about something he alone knew of. When Germain tried to persuade him to stay, he was struck by the anxiety that furrowed his high, noble forehead. Neither kind words nor promises could make him alter his sudden decision.

The three men looked at one another in silence for a moment. Finally the Turpault brothers left, still congratulating themselves on their lucky escape. Just as they were rounding the bend Léon’s son, Blaise, arrived, coming from Naullins. Antoine had gone into the living-room, and Jeanne was going out with a pail in the direction of the well. On seeing the boy her eyes shone with delight, but she didn't stop and her voice was casual as she called:

‘Hullo there, you're late, your people have just left, if you want to catch them up you must hurry... goodbye.’

And she set about fastening the pail to the long well chain, then let the iron rings slide through her hands. The bottom of the pail hit the water with a dull thud. Blaise came up to Jeanne, but dared not address her; she had never spoken to him so indifferently before and, worse, here she was pretending she thought he’d gone. When she did involuntarily turn her head towards him, he immediately smiled - his lips pulled back to show teeth like a young wolf’s. Then she became downright aggressive. She didn’t acknowledge his smile, but with a knee on the edge of the well she hauled up the pail of water with wide sweeps of her arms. The water leapt up in sheets and spilled back down the walls of the well like a rainstorm, so much so that the pail was half empty when it reached the top. Blaise helped her set it on the stone. For thanks he got a blank stare up and down. She frowned. She wanted to look hostile but on each of her sunburnt cheeks a small dimple belied her attitude, so that the boy broke out into a loud healthy laugh.

‘You’re just trying to make fun of me,’ he said, ‘it looks as though you enjoy it, and as for me, heavens, I don’t know whether you’re glad to see me or have stopped caring for me any more... Yet three days ago, we both . .. you remember?’

Jeanne tossed back her autumn-coloured hair falling over her shoulders. Then, looking up at him - for he was over a head taller than her - she fixed him with what she knew to be a dominating look:

‘It’s not your business whether I like seeing you or not. You think what you like and if you don't like me then don’t come back.'

Blaise was taken aback. He hadn’t expected that sort of answer.

‘The way you’ve changed... I didn’t mean that, Malvenue.’ This time Jeanne’s fury knew no bounds.

‘First, I don’t want to be called Malvenue any more, you understand? People who like me oughtn’t to call me that. It isn’t my fault if they dropped me on the floor when I was born, so they say, for otherwise I wouldn’t have this mark... it’s nothing to do with me.’

And she passed her hand over the starry mark in the middle of her forehead. It was as if a violent blow had torn the skin. Two faint furrows in the shape of a cross branded her, and a blue tint played there sometimes, but since last evening there was sometimes another tint - red.

‘I didn’t mean...’ Blaise said, embarrassed.

‘I know,’ she said, calming down, ‘people call people names without meaning anything bad, just as a joke... and then they only know you by that name and tease you for the rest of your life...’

Finally she looked down again, and for the boy it seemed as though the sun had lost its radiance. She took his hand.

‘I don’t want you to seem to be making fun of me too.’

Her voice softened and even trembled with controlled affection.

Awkwardly Blaise clasped her little wet hand. He was a handsome boy, his manly face proclaiming his twenty years. His shirt, making a deep ‘V’ on his chest, gave length to his neck and sunburnt features. His black short hair fell in little curls on his high forehead. He had no trace of the heavy waddling walk of his family or of their roughness of speech. Jeanne knew how to handle him. He was made for her. But since she had found that stone she felt a need to make him suffer - him and everyone else. It was a hungry need, like that of a stray dog.

Just as Blaise was taking Jeanne’s hand, Lucas came out of the stable. When he saw them so close he came hurrying up, his lips tight with vexation and his sweaty face reddening. Though not as tall as the Langlois boy, he was certainly as strong. His arm muscles protruded with every movement and his shirt was stretched tight over his thick chest. He was ten years older and he, too, wanted Jeanne, and since last night he knew he had an advantage over Blaise who stood there smiling and sensitive like a girl. So as he drew near Lucas was thinking that the Langlois boy had suffered a serious setback during the night, yet must be far from suspecting it, or he wouldn't be lingering around paying hopeless court. The thought gave Lucas confidence. On seeing him Jeanne pushed Blaise away, picked up the pail and went slyly off, humming. Her hurried departure made Lucas ironical and aggressive. He said to the Naullins boy:

'You can clear out now... you can see she's not there any more.'

'All right, all right,' said the other, conciliating, not shifting his eyes from the door of the living-room which Jeanne had just entered. He took not the slightest notice of Lucas who stood there with his hands on his hips, trying to provoke him with jeers. Then at last he made off with slow short steps as if he found it difficult to uproot his feet from the ground.

Now Lucas went into the living-room in his turn. Near the fireplace, her back turned on the room, la Galiotte was preparing the meal. Along the wall were ranged the pots brought out to cook the harvest-home - now empty and useless. At the end of a bench Grattebois was bent double over a fit of coughing, then he painfully spat onto the tiled floor. At first Lucas didn't see Jeanne. She had gone through into her own room, but as soon as she saw him through the open door she beckoned to him. He hesitated, then went in. The girl closed the door and began talking to him in a low voice, as if preparing him for a mystery.

'You won't tell anyone what I'm going to say?... You promise?'

'Well that... of course, yes.'

Lucas was uneasy and suddenly heavy-hearted and felt ready for every promise as for every damnation.

"Well, I've got a stone that gives a power...'

She slipped her arm under the mattress and produced the stone she had hidden there. She offered it to Lucas. Her action was so sudden and unexpected that he started back, but she forced the stone into his hesitating hand. Then he felt calm. At first he had thought she was going to tell him that she didn't want anything more to do with him.

"What do you think of it?' Jeanne went on.

He made a face. ‘It's just an ordinary stone,’ he said, ‘it couldn't give any powers. Is that what you're so secretive about?'

‘Look at it. Can't you see anything?'

‘Nothing at all.'

‘Examine it properly. Don't just stand squinting at the ground.'

She was shaken with impatience and her hair went flying over her shoulders.

There, can't you see an eyehole, and look, isn't that the shape of a worn nose, isn't it? Look at the lips underneath.'

‘Could be,' the fellow muttered after a hesitation.

The girl put the stone back in its hiding-place. In the living-room Grattebois was still coughing and spitting. Suddenly la Galiotte shouted at him to go and take his filth elsewhere.

‘Yes,’ Jeanne said, coming close to Lucas, ‘I found it the day before yesterday in an odd place I'll show you presently, when we've eaten, there are bits of carved stone there of every shape and size, they've been carved into the shape of ears, chins, noses - all the things that go to make a head. And I tell you that there's a power in them, and that's why I asked you not to tell...'

‘I see,’ said Lucas, 'and what power do you get?'

She pulled him towards her and spoke close to him. Her words hissed and the servant shuddered.

'You understand... it was this stone that gave me the strength to get up during the night and set fire to the stack. It was this stone that drove me to do it because I kept it for so you see its power?'

He was uneasy and tried to draw away, but the girl hooked her nails into his skin, through his shirt.

‘Yes,' she pressed on, ‘without the stone I would have fallen asleep like an animal and woken up joylessly as on every day of the year, whereas now I know that I am going to find pleasure when I want it and that this stone will help me.'

Lucas stiffened with fear.

Took, you're not going to set fire to anything more, are you?'

‘I haven't the faintest idea, I'll do what comes into my head. I've a feeling that all I need do is hold this stone and I'll be strong enough...'

There was a pause, and then she added mockingly:

‘So you see I've let you into my secret... you're my accomplice.'

‘You're joking, Jeanne.’

‘Do you think I was joking last night? And over the tramp? And do you think I would joke with you?'

She laughed, but Lucas didn't want to laugh. He drew back to the door and nervously seized the handle. Jeanne wagged her finger threateningly.

‘Above all not a word to anyone about what I've just told you. Presently I'll show you the hiding-place.'

Lucas opened the door, only to be assailed by sharp words from la Galiotte.

‘You've no business in that room, you good-for-nothing, you... Can't you leave the girl alone? What more did you want from her?'

He lowered his eyes and took his seat. At that moment Antoine came in. When he heard what la Galiotte was saying he frowned suspiciously. Jeanne came in in her turn. Antoine gave her a long look and discovered certain details in her that he had never noticed before. He couldn't banish the picture of the late Moarc’h, the Breton, former master of la Noue. Then he became grave and instinctively made the sign of the cross, though he wasn't all that much of a believer.

* * *

It was siesta time. In the farms everyone gave themselves over to a slumber that relaxed work-knotted muscles. The sun’s rays were like torrents of fire flooding the land. They unfurled waves of heat that rolled at man’s height like a sea-swell and distorted the horizon. In this sultry weather flies emerged in swarms from hidden places and dispersed in murmuring thousands. They vied with each other in stinging, as at the approach of a storm. The sky was an unnatural blue. It was as heavy as it was deep. The crickets alone enjoyed themselves, with their song of unending praise. Jeanne was walking along the path to la Groule without giving a thought to the sun which, from its zenith, beat down relentlessly everywhere and with all its strength. Lucas was following as best he could. Rolled under his arm he had a sack of soft hemp and a dead hare.

Lucas was homesick for his dark garret and his bed with its stale smell of sweat. Every tree made his longing for it sharper. He would have liked to lie down under that leafy oak for instance, flat out on his stomach, his face in the crook of his arm, and sleep and, better still, feel the cool caress of thick grass.

'How much further?’ he moaned.

His words were heavy on his tongue. Jeanne didn’t answer. She was far ahead, and there was a cloud of dust behind her. She took a right turning up towards the wood. Here the path was harder to find. The grass only left room for a faint track over which it was slowly gaining ground like a healing wound. On either side the meadows were trying to recover from their close shearing of the month before. Soon the track came to a dead end. It ran into netting erected to ward off the invasion of rabbits and their restless young offspring which that year were as numerous as stars on a summer night. Lucas caught Jeanne up. They jumped the netting.

The ground was soft. The heath was drawing in heat and giving it out like a sponge.

‘Is this it?' he asked.

Jeanne's head moved slowly from side to side.

"Come on,' she said abruptly.

And off she ran towards another barrier of netting over which she lightly jumped. Lucas set himself to face more running, jumping and running. Not far away, in a hollow against the slope of Sologne, there were some tall rushes making a broad splash of green. Behind there was a wide extent of sandy quarry that looked as if it had been pile-driven by a thousand moles working for a hundred years.

Lucas slowed down and shouted,

‘You're not going to la Malnoue by any chance?'

She turned towards him without stopping. She made a mocking sign. Ragged ends of words reassured him.

‘No... you great ass... what of it?"

To the left was a hawthorn hedge, as prickly as a coalman's hair. Jeanne went straight towards it, and when she had reached it she gave a start. There was a stick lying on the ground, white on one side, reddish-brown and green on the other. It was stretched out like a dead grass-snake, and it was that that the girl first thought it was. She smiled at her mistake and picked it up, using it to push brambles aside at a place where they were dried and leafless and as though reddened by fire. Lucas came up and peered into the hollow that she had just made with the stick. Simultaneously she exclaimed:

‘There, look at that one.'

She stuck her arm in without bothering about the pain. The thorns tore at her damp skin. Her hand extracted a mossy stone that she scratched at vigorously. There, framed in the living moss, was the rough carving of an ear and a portion of cheek as smooth as marble.

‘Look,' she said, ‘it’s almost as good as the other one!'

She radiated joy, and Lucas couldn't take his eyes from her face. His thoughts were a hundred miles away from the stone. Jeanne’s beauty had become unreal. As he saw her now she was no longer the girl of la Noue but a statue that had come to life and then, gradually, frozen again. He gave a cry of dismay. Immediately the charm was broken and Jeanne pulled herself together and scoffed:

‘Look at you. What’s the matter with you?’

To conceal his confusion he touched the stone that she held in her hand. He kept trying to recall where on earth he could have seen a stone like that, for it wasn’t the first time that he had been struck by the elongation of an ear to a point like a claw.

‘Tell me, Jeanne, how did you know that this thing was here? I feel I’ve already seen an ear just like that...'

The girl looked at him gravely. He could see she was hesitating. Then she began speaking. He watched the little flame growing in her wild eyes as the words tumbled out:

‘I don’t know... it was stronger than me, it was the day before yesterday, and I remembered that la Galiotte and my mother always made the sign of the cross when they passed... And then there was the tramp who began reproaching me as soon as he arrived as if he’d known me all my life.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Yes, when he saw I didn’t join in helping the others, he said straight out, “You ought to be giving us a hand, my child, instead of going off to forbidden places... You’ll have a dirty trick played on you. Don’t go where you’re planning to go, don’t... you’ll only be punished.'

‘And where were you planning to go?’

‘Here... But I don’t like being ordered about. He even took hold of my arm and tried to force me to stay... I don’t only be punished.” But as things are now, if anyone’s been punished, it’s him.'

Lucas joined in the girl's laughter.

‘You’re always a one for stories,’ he said, ‘in any case what he said wasn't so very bad, he wanted to have fun frightening you... he thought you were timid.'

'Perhaps, but that didn't stop me coming here and then I couldn't do otherwise, some force drew me...'

She turned her head towards the brambles.

‘It's the force I feel when I touch one of these stones... Now, at this very moment.’

She broke off suddenly. There was a crackling of dead branches somewhere far away behind the hedge. Jeanne and Lucas stood on tiptoe. Suddenly they caught sight of Blaise. He was coming in their direction along the other side of the hedge, behaving for all the world as if he was poaching. He walked with his head down and now and again kicked the brushwood. With a quick nudge the girl made Lucas run with her towards the nearby wood.

‘Quick, we must hide,’ she urged.

The idea of ambushing Blaise didn't displease him. They crossed a comer of young birches, close together as if in a procession. A protracted sound of falling leaves broke the silence. On reaching the edge of the great trees of la Croule they fell flat on their faces in the middle of the bracken dried up by the heath's burning breath. They recovered their breath. Jeanne smiled and her dimples reappeared. Lucas was pale with frustration. What was this superfluous man doing? They lingered a moment to allow the freshness of the woods to seep into them. They couldn't see Blaise now. He must have gone off. The girl seemed disappointed. Lucas smiled with contentment. But he suddenly jumped up as though he had been bitten. He hurried Jeanne to her feet too. Once they were standing he took her arms, and his hands squeezed them to breaking-point. The girl gave a cry of pain.

‘Leave me alone... Have you gone mad?’

But he was the prey to incomprehensible fear. He spoke with difficulty.

‘I remember now, Malvenue. Those bits of stone have to be left where they are... you must take care, they bring bad luck... I remember now... come quick, we must go...’

Jeanne wanted to be rid of the embrace that was crushing her flesh down to the bone. Finally he let her go and went on talking with gestures as much as words. The veins swelled in his temples. The blood rose to his head and kindled the memories that burst forth from his bps.

‘Come away, every kind of misfortune is lying in wait for us... Those stones were thrown there shortly after you were born... la Galiotte made me swear never to think of that stone head that brings bad luck... Hurry, we’ve got to get away, terrible things may happen if we stay here...' The girl pushed him away with a thump on the chest. ‘You’re just a coward and a fool,' she said scornfully.

He was afraid to open his mouth again. And yet he knew that those bits of stone had once been part of a head of a statue. And what he remembered made him quail - the fears they had all had at la Noue in those days, but above all the strange death of Moarc’h, the former master of the house, which was still a mystery. Lucas had been no more than a boy at the time, and had never known all the details of the evil caused by that head. People don’t tell things to children. To know the full story, the sixteen years of forgetfulness that had passed by since that time would have to be wiped out, and the misty twilight of that autumn of 1896 re-evoked.

 II

Dusk was slowly closing in on the tilled soil, and thickening the November mist falling from the sky and rising from the earth. Moarc’h gripped the handles of his plough firmly, now and again stretching to disperse the weight of toil lying on his rump like a badly-balanced sack of flour. His feet twisted as the earth twisted under the ploughshare. Each time the team swerved he swore at the oxen, at his own impatience and at the oncoming night. Each time he began a new furrow he measured with his eye the distance still to be covered to finish off this field which sloped so awkwardly between the wood and the marsh. He wanted to have done with this job of work that had kept him at it since dawn. He'd be able to stop when he reached the edge of the solid ground and count himself lucky. Lucky to have reclaimed this piece of land from the heath so recently barren, and from the la Croule wood whose roots had been hooked in the soil for centuries. But he wanted more. Twenty furrows of new soil could be reclaimed from the low-lying Malnoue marsh, lost in its reeds and rank undergrowth. These twenty furrows were enough to make it worth risking the worst. His mind was working too, imagining the long swaying necks of golden corn topped by their heads of grain. And his desire not to lose anything warded off the risk as his eyes sought to ward off the dusk. 

He began coaxing his docile team over the edge of the marsh. The oxen didn’t sink into the ground that he had feared unsafe, and nor did the plough. Noiselessly the steel turned the compact earth. A strong smell of clay rose from the upturned soil.

Now that the difficulty he feared seemed to have vanished, Moarc'h urged the oxen on. He even began humming a tune to quicken their steps. He knew how to charm animals; a short whistle, or a tune, made at just the right moment, sufficed. His eyes never left the hooves as they hooked into the tufts of reeds and stubborn undergrowth. As he proceeded the la Noue farmer thought of the idiocy of his late father-in-law and of others, too, before him, who had never dared put this formidable strip of land under the plough. And all because on winter evenings they told tales of how the marsh and the area round it had a curse on them. There were thousands of silly stories... far too many for a small strip of mud and water. A smile chased away the precocious wrinkles that lined his square, bony, Celtic face intersected by a short, black, unkempt moustache. But by degrees he grew tense again, and he had to drive away the thoughts that kept surfacing in his mind. He took off his hat - shapeless with rain and stiff with dirt. The skin on his half-bald skull was white, and looked as though it had been stuck onto his brown sunburnt face: the impression was of a russet apple peeled on top. With a sweeping gesture he scratched round the top of his head and put his hat on again. And as he reclaimed furrow after furrow he thought of all the past generations that had forfeited hundreds of pounds of good grain as well as a mountain of straw. His mind dwelt on all those quantities that had been lost for ever. He shrugged his shoulders as much with irritation as to relax his muscles.

But at that point he was oppressed by a fresh apprehension. Night was coming up, and mist was clamping down on the nearby marsh. He suddenly felt as tired as if he was working twice as hard, as if the top part of his body was having to forge a furrow in its turn - through the whirling mist. He began to feel as if he was swallowing mouthfuls of smoke. A taste of iron and dead leaves rested on his palate like some poisonous sap. He didn’t dare breathe deeply. Something was weighing him down. He felt alone with the mystery that he had just been jeering at. He wanted to get finished quickly and make tracks for la Noue. But one furrow led to the next as surely as an empty glass wants to be filled. He tightened his grasp on the wooden handles. The silence had become so powerful that he hardly liked to break it by shouting to the oxen. He was afraid of some unexpected and inexplicable echo. The team advanced between the two pale walls of fog that gently parted at their approach.

Then Moarc’h felt the need to assure himself that a legend is only a legend, just as nonsense is nonsense and nothing else, nothing else at all... He opened his mouth for a forced laugh, but the only result was to get another vaporous gulp. He couldn't stop his imagination working on the power of this marsh and its sluggish water. He imagined the ghosts of the victims - once flesh and blood - that had been taken by the marsh, calm and ordinary though it looked; literally swallowed up, neither more nor less, so diabolical was its appetite. He tried to make out the tall line of strong reeds that preserved him from that danger. But he could no longer see anything, and anguish seeped into him just as the mist seeped into his unresisting clothes. It was while he was making the decision to stop his labours, for he had done enough, that the plough suddenly sank into the soil.

It felt as if a powerful hand was pulling at the plough. The Breton instinctively let go the handles and jumped sideways, away from the marsh. 

‘Ah... there...' he cried in his fear. Every muscle was tense, every pore discharged its drop of sweat. He pulled himself together and approached the oxen. They hadn't become embogged, but were waiting patiently. He needed living contact; he addressed them aloud and touched their buttocks. Then he leant against the plough and pushed it, and as he jerked it backwards and forwards he felt pain sliding into his arms and legs. He shook the plough again, with added rage. Soon activity dissipated his anguish. But the plough was stuck fast, as if wedged in cement.

Then, still tugging, he heard a grating noise and realized that the blade was jammed under a heavy stone. He broke into noisy bursts of furious laughter which came in paroxysms, piercing the smoky mist. By pressing first from one side, then from the other, he tried to get the ploughshare free. But the blade was so awkwardly placed that he soon lost patience and threw precaution to the winds. Cursing and swearing in frustration, he lashed out at the team, so that the astonished oxen jerked forward. The ploughshare first scraped, then broke through whatever it was that was keeping it prisoner. Moarc'h levered with all his might. The plough

leapt out of the earth and the hole in which it was stuck. It heeled over, always in the wake of the panic-stricken, advancing oxen. The marsh lay ahead.

Now the outline of the reeds could be seen through the mist. The team was making straight for the marsh. They were already sinking into the sticky soil. Involuntarily the Breton made the sign of the cross. Now the team was slowing down, impeded by the treacherous soil that was gurgling like a pressed sponge. Then they drew to a halt, trying to shake off the hampering mud that was up round their legs. Quickly, desperately, Moarc’h unharnessed the plough, then set about rescuing the oxen from their fate. As he drew near them he could feel the caress of the opening earth round his own ankles. He struck the animals so savagely that he managed to make them extract their front legs and, this achieved, he was able to drive them onto soil made firm by greenery. Then, still swearing, he relaxed and took a deep breath. He tried to make his hand gentle as he stroked the fleshy rumps of his trembling beasts. But he was doing things by fits and starts. Dusk was heavy on the white backs of the oxen. The Breton now went back to the plough and managed somehow to get it into the half-opened furrow.

It was then that he became aware of a large, well-rounded clod of earth poised on the edge of the hole that the ploughshare had made while he was pulling it free. As he neared it he felt his anger welling back. He stamped his heel to crush the object that had defied him, and his coarse, heavy, mud-clogged boots drew from it a dull thud. 

'Damn this unlucky stone!' he swore; and he bent down and took it in his hands to get it away from the tilled soil. It was very heavy and he had to turn it over so as to lift it against his stomach. Underneath he could see the whitish part where the steel blade had cut it. It was heavy. He felt as though he was lifting a chunk of iron drawn by a powerful magnet embedded in the soil. When at last he reached the edge of the path he hurled it down with all the force of his rage. He felt furious with it for causing so much panic. As it fell the stone became partly detached from its casing of clay and sand. And the features of a time-worn face could be seen.

* * *

The evening meal began with the usual silence that helps muscles to relax. Two paraffin lamps were placed at either end of the thick oak table which had been worn down over long years by the friction of elbows and hands and sliding plates, so that it looked as though it had been waxed. When you touched it you could feel the sweetness of time gone by entering your skin. Gusts of warmth from the fireplace had removed the insipid, tenacious smell of skimmed milk. Moarc’h was receiving the gentle buffets from the fire. He was sitting at one end of the table on a stool. Henriette, his wife, was on his right at the end of the long bench - its squat legs had been rubbed so often with cloth and velvet petticoats that they were as polished and soft as the surface of the table. Sitting next to her was Antoine, the head labourer. He was a big fellow of twenty-five with shoulders as wide as a scarecrow’s; a man from Berry with red curly hair, his spotty skin drawn tight over a face in which his eyes looked like two holes, sometimes cunning, sometimes sly; a brash lad both in word and deed, but in spite of everything the sort needed on farms where there's work to be done.

Facing Henriette and Antoine was the almost always empty place for la Galiotte, the servant of the previous master of la Noue. She was a good woman grown old before her time, as dried up as you are in your coffin; like the women you see in small towns, sitting near the fountain or on their doorstep, wearing starched lace bonnets and humble black dresses with little white collars that have been carefully ironed; add in swift gestures, never superfluous, suited to the need; and a love of old habits and traditions that put them on a level with religious practices.

She was part of the farm and they kept her as you keep a piece of family furniture which, though outdated, is indispensable. At the other end of the table, alone and badly placed near the door which was unable to keep out the mist, was Lucas the young cowherd. He was a lazy good-for-nothing, as docile before food as he was vicious with cattle. A boy you had almost to drive with a stick. He was rising thirteen, but had been so whipped into health by the open air that he looked sixteen.

Toing and froing between the table and the pot steaming on the hearth, la Galiotte was filling the soup plates one after another. Henriette got up so as to help her but, as always, for this was her way, la Galiotte obliged her to let her do it alone. She placed the brimful plates on the table briskly, deftly. Then you could smell how the bacon had splintered and penetrated the very heart of the cabbage and turnips, and your greedy nose could gorge on the muggy, salty odour.

Moarc'h had a lively memory of early days when he himself had been a mere farmhand and only had a right to a place at the far end of the table where Lucas was now sitting brandishing his pewter spoon in eagerness to seize his prey. In those days the master of la Noue was père Morin, Henriette's father. He was a fellow known for twenty miles around as the most honest-dealing and outspoken farmer on the slopes of Sologne. He was a man who always made the right decision and no nonsense about it; the kind of man who gives his trust to those who deserve it. Moarc’h had done all he could to stay in the employ of a man like that. In those days the Breton dug and ploughed like two men. What's more, he only went once a week to Chappelle d'Angillon, the village, to have the ever more bristling growth of beard removed from his chin. He didn't go in for drink or girls. And yet there was no shortage of girls, and pretty ones too, in the main room of the café on a Sunday, where the ceding was hung with faded paper garlands.

Moarc'h was twenty-six when he first came to la Noue.

It was a long time since he’d left his croft in Brittany, which was too poor to feed him, the youngest of ten children. His solid frame, thick and round, to which his head was welded by a sturdy neck, was the best of all guarantees for Morin. In those days Henriette was a child of eleven who was kept at light but useful work. Then, as surely as the years pass and as land work kills you under your eyes, the little girl became a big girl and then a woman with a vengeance. Her breasts and hips began to protrude from her child’s body and take shape, like a sack of corn that is slowly filled. From that time Moarc’h never admitted or showed, but kept to himself, the new desires that this body aroused in him. His strength lay in his never displaying the ever-increasing interest he felt in Henriette. As he was a strong lad, less pushing and above all less mannered than the others working at la Noue, the girl began looking on him as special and following him around. She wanted to complete the pleasure she experienced at feeling herself desired. But all she achieved by trying to attract him was to get as if caught in a trap.

This strength that the Breton showed - in finding himself close to Henriette a hundred times a day without anyone being able to perceive that her body made him ill with desire - finally made an impression on old Morin. The farmer spent his time sacking farmhand after farmhand. And he didn’t have to look far for replacements. They presented themselves six at a time. And even while they were answering his questions, their eyes were prying over his shoulder for a glimpse of the girl who was the only reason for their eagerness. So one fine day, and after some reflection, the good farmer realized that he had an idea: if Henriette, who for some was both a bait and an obstacle to work, became for Moarc’h a reason for devoting himself to the interests of la Noue, then there was no ground for hesitation: the Breton could make his daughter happy and take the farm in hand, for a second head and a strong arm were needed.

While keeping most of his joy to himself, Moarc’h let it be understood that he would be as good a husband as son-in-law. What Henriette thought counted for very little. Peasant custom was for the father to hand his daughter over to the man who suited him, whether he was handsome or ugly, young or old. If the girl found that the husband suited her too, then it was so much the better.

Mercifully, at the time, Henriette’s joy was complete. It was not till the following year that regrets set in. The Breton alone showed no surprise. He had always supposed that sooner or later things would turn out like that. Two years later his father-in-law was carried off by a fever that took hold of his throat, and Moarc’h was left master of the destinies of la Noue.

And so after eight years of marriage, Henriette still sat on the same bench. She was as young as ever. She was as desirable as ever, almost virginal. As always she sat beside the surly Breton as he dipped his spoon into his steaming soup. He had done, and would continue to do, everything possible to keep the la Noue farm going. And it would always be at his wife's expense. He had never been able to awaken the youthful vigour of her body - which had once been prepared to writhe with pleasure, but was now weary with fruitless expectation. Antoine knew Henriette and what she was undergoing. At times he had a way of looking at her that embarrassed her and made her hurry off and do things somewhere else, at a distance from him. But she could feel a will-power penetrating her, and helping her to master life and time. Her heart beat faster, and she felt the need to return and be near him - like in the past when she had sought out Moarc’h. She gave way to this weakness without realizing that she was thus fanning his love for her and causing him pain. She never missed an opportunity of calling him to help her - whether to lift a sack somewhere where they'd be cramped for room, or to arrange logs in a dimly-lit shed. He had never yet made a pass at her, but was ready for the worst once she agreed.

Though Moarc'h showed no signs of noticing anything, and left them both alone, Antoine had an open hatred for his master that grew every day. By turning over all his resentments in his mind he had come to think that he had rights over the farmer's wife, and that there was not room for both of them at la Noue. He knew that Henriette would be held back by boundless fidelity to the Breton so long as he was still obstinately there. He had decided to take action in one way or another, no matter what the means.

When Moarc'h had finished rubbing bread round the bottom of his plate, he seized the cider jug with a wide sweep of his arm and filled up his glass. He drank it off then crossed his arms high on his chest and gazed round the table.

‘Yes,' he said, nodding his head as if complimenting himself in advance, ‘yes... you people don't realize that I've just been doing a good piece of work... work that no-one before me has ever dared to take on...'

‘Ah,' said la Galiotte as she went to move a pan of boiling water from the red embers of the fire.

‘Wait a minute,' he said to the good woman who immediately paused to listen. Then he continued, addressing them generally: ‘Yes, I've snatched at least twenty furrows from the Malnoue marsh... What do you think of that?'

‘Good heavens,' la Galiotte exclaimed, returning to sit on the bench in her astonishment, ‘and weren't you put off by all the stories they tell? And the danger of the soil opening up, and sucking you in, you, the oxen, and all...?'

‘Lord, and it's heavy, that lot,' said Antoine, unable to conceal his surprise.

'Did you plough the whole edge of the marsh?' asked Henriette in her turn, for she wanted an accurate picture of his conquest.

The cowherd seemed the only one uninterested in the news. His head was drooping, he was dozy, half-asleep.

'I stopped at just the right moment.' Moarc'h went on. Even the recollection made a light sweat break out on his back. "And what I took in I took in properly. All those old folks' tales are a lot of rubbish... do you still believe that anyone who touches that corner gets a curse? Take a look at me...'

And he gestured to show he was very much alive, but omitted the part about the fears he'd had while working. He turned to Antoine and added: Tomorrow us two and the boy can take the harrow down and do the sowing.'

La Galiotte felt she was being unreasonably attacked, so said peevishly:

‘It's wrong not to believe us, the others and me, we get it from our old folk who had it from those before them. Some young 'un is always getting caught in that marsh because, like you, he won't believe it's bad... Have you ever heard about Justin, Henriette's grandfather's young brother? He wanted to lay traps in the middle of the reeds just for the fun of it, and no-one ever saw him again. Then there was that Louis of the family before. He’d been in wars all over Europe and had seen in some country or other, I've forgotten which, the way they drain their marshes, and when he came back he wanted to do the same... He dug a deep gutter, but it only drew off the top part of the water and in no time the mud had closed in again. That Louis thought he was very clever, he thought he could get the better of his land, but he couldn't get the better of Malnoue... it gave him a fever and a month later he was dead... I can remember them saying that he got so wasted with the fever that a child could have pushed his coffin on a wheelbarrow... though when he was alive he was a fine figure of a man, with plenty of flesh and muscle, like you...'

Moarc'h became defensive. While listening he had been oppressed by vague feelings of dread. What he had done seemed rather more serious than he had thought at the time. The others were silent and uneasy as they looked at him.

Antoine contracted his brows in concentration. He had noticed the return of fear in the Breton, and a wicked idea began stirring in his head. But now Moarc'h's avarice had once more got the upper hand and lulled his fears. He thumped his fists on the table and repeated obstinately:

‘You can believe what you like... you can believe what you like. But here I am alive and kicking. It's all fairy-stories and no-one should listen to them...'

Antoine said, knowingly:

'La Galiotte's right. It was bad to take the plough into that soft ground, but it was also a way of bringing bad luck back with you.'

‘Don't work yourself up,' Moarc’h answered nervously, ‘just listen to what I say and leave me alone...'

And then he remembered what he had discovered. He turned to la Galiotte and said in a tone at first playful, then greedy.

‘You must remember, mother Galiotte, what Henriette's father said about the marsh... He didn't say it brought only bad luck. He said there was wealth there too...'

‘Of course,' broke in the servant taking up the same tone, as if to imply she didn't believe all she had just been saying, 'of course... He said there was a chest of real gold somewhere there, that had got swallowed up with the brigand who stole it from a castle in Sologne. The man lost his way in the dark and the slime gobbled him up as you'd gobble up an egg, no more, no less.'

Silence fell, and then Moarc'h went on, ‘So... he was another dogged by bad luck.'

‘Is that what it is?' the servant exclaimed as she saw the knowing look in the farmer's eye, ‘is that what it is? You didn't find the treasure by any chance, did you?'

The cowherd's laugh broke the ensuing silence. It sounded thin and shrill like a whistle made of elder wood.

At that the Breton shouted:

‘Keep your mouth shut, you lout, and do what I tell you... Go to the stable and look in the right hand corner. Against the buckets you'll see my toolbag for the plough. Bring it here with what's inside. And be quick about it. Then they'll see what I found there.'

The boy didn't budge so Moarc'h repeated, ‘D’you hear me? You're ready to laugh all right, but not to obey. Take the lamp and get along with you, and mind you don't go too near the kennel or you might lose the seat of your trousers... Patiaud has been after them for ages and you know what his bite feels like...'

The boy did know. He got up and rubbed his ankle. He had suddenly remembered the pain the snarling dog had inflicted on him a month ago. He went out. As soon as he got outside, the yard came to life with Patiaud's barks. Then he calmed down and you could only hear his growls muffled by the kennel.

‘Well, what did you find?' Henriette asked impatiently.

Moarc'h could see that the same question was also hanging on the lips of the other two. He didn’t answer but asked la Galiotte to go and fetch a stiff brush and a pail of water. That only whetted their curiosity. Antoine got up and went to the door.

‘I’ll give Lucas a hand,' he said.

‘Stay where you are,' said the farmer, ‘he doesn't need you and it'll do him good to be out at night and near that dog he's ill-treated so often... He’ll perhaps be sorry he's made him so savage.’

Antoine sat down again with obvious regret. La Galiotte had found the brush used every year for cleaning out the barrel in which the cider-apples fermented. She had heard Moarc'h's remarks about the dog and, as usual, had her views on the subject.

‘Patiaud should be got rid of, he’s getting worse and worse... Until recently he was some good with the cows though he’s bitten one or two of them... but now there’s no going near him. And then the peculiar look he gives me now, though he always used to obey me at least. It's as though he doesn’t know me.'

'There's no understanding animals,' said Moarc'h; "here's a dog who's always threatening as if he's unhappy here, but try to lose him at the other end of the region - as I've done a dozen times - and back he comes as fast as his legs will carry him... You'd think he wanted to get back to his chain.'

‘We should get another dog,' said Henriette, ‘we've got to think of the cattle!'

At that moment the cowherd pushed the door open with his knee. He burst in followed by a volley of barks. Moarc'h got up and took the sack. Lucas was breathless with his violent effort as he put the lamp back on the table.

‘God,' the farmer swore, ‘you've dragged it along the ground, look, it's almost burst underneath.'

‘I only had one hand,' panted the boy, ‘and your sack's heavy... I can hardly lift it. It weighs a good twenty pounds... and in any case it isn't real treasure.'

‘How do you know? What do you know about it?' the Breton asked, half-serious, half-amused.

‘I know there's no sound of gold pieces. It's only a big stone.'

‘Ah,' the others said, visibly disappointed.

‘A stone!' said Antoine, the most upset of all.

‘You just wait,' said Moarc'h, and plunged both hands into the sack.

* * *

Now they were standing around him, with their eyes on the sack and its mysterious contents. They followed the invisible motions of his hands lost within the coarse, patched canvas. Then at last the farmer produced his find. He displayed it with a smile of triumph. The clay casing had not all come off - it was still sticking in the hollows. The ears stood out clearly. The one on the right was misshapen and ended in a point. It looked like a claw. Erosion had rounded the chin and left its leprous mark. The neck, beneath, was surprisingly slender and gave an impression of energy. Then finally there was the broken place, whiter than the rest. It was here that the ploughshare had struck, and mutilated the statue. Clay sealed the eyes and mouth in sleep and silence, just as it had placed its thick veil on the ears and the stone hair. Everyone began exclaiming. In spite of everything there was a faint note of disappointment.

'It's the head of a saint...'

'Or of the Virgin...'

'It's very old... but then, all stones are old.'

Moarc’h let them talk. When they had finished he said sententiously, as though the fact that he had found it enabled him to know more about it than the others:

Well, it's older than that, I’m telling you. It's ancient, perhaps as old as the world.'

'What makes you say that?' Henriette asked him.

'What makes me say it?' he answered in a serious voice, 'well, I can tell that it is, that's all.'

And he carried the stone to the sink corner and placed it on the paved floor.

'Bring the lamp,' he ordered, 'and Galiotte, bring the brush and water. They say the dumb speak with their eyes. We'll see if it's true.'

And he laughed. The others laughed too, as you face bad luck with a good heart. They felt they must keep calm in spite of the stone head lying obediently at the master's feet. Discoveries like this didn't happen every day and it was best to take advantage of them. Antoine held the lamp with a steady hand, while Moarc'h scrubbed hard and la Galiotte poured water on the stone face. Moarc’h began by scrubbing the mouth. The clay was already soft and it soon disappeared. The bps could then be seen. They were long and thin, and formed a wide, hypocritical mouth. Then the brush attacked the nose, which came straight out of its clay covering. It s tip had been worn away by the ages, like the chin. Then the Breton set about repairing the blindness of the clay-blocked eyes. The water poured by la Galiotte spilled over the paving and spread, brown and ochre with purple streaks.

‘You'd think it was bleeding,' said Antoine in a jeering voice as he took the lamp in his other hand.

No-one rose to his joke. They all felt something weighing on them. Antoine said no more. And the stone eyes had as clear a look as the eyes of those gazing at them. They were large and wide-open. The holes of the pupils went deep and were the source of the life that had suddenly lit up the whole face. They gave strength to the jaws, gentleness to the cheeks and forehead, and determination and hypocrisy to the mouth. Everything seemed to spring from their void.

‘She looks evil,' Henriette said gravely, ‘as though she was going to insult us... and yet she's beautiful.'

She knelt down to touch the head. She passed her hand over the face. It was damp but soft and cold like marble. She said to Moarc'h:

‘Touching it like that gives you a nice feeling.'

As the Breton wasn't listening, she turned to Antoine and took his hand.

‘You touch,' she said.

Antoine felt Henriette's hand searing his as if she had a burning fever, but he didn't touch the head. The farmer's wife got up. La Galiotte remained motionless. The watching stone seemed to make her uneasy. Antoine had lost all desire to make the chatty remarks that had been itching on his tongue. Lucas was looking from one to the other restlessly. He went up to Antoine. Moarc'h, who was kneeling, had an obsessive idea that he couldn't shake off. He seemed to see reproach in those eyes, frozen in every expression from gentleness to anger. It occurred to him that he might have done wrong in bringing the head back to the farm where it had no business to be. Finally he rose slowly, his joints creaking.

‘Henriette,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to tell the priest on Sunday...'

Then he changed his mind.

‘No, you mustn’t tell him anything, he might want to put it in his church or keep it for himself.'

And to la Galiotte he said:

‘So you see I’ve found treasure of a kind. Next time I have to take stuff to Aubigny I'll show it to the antique dealer. He’ll give me several louis for it. Finds like this can’t come his way every day, all alive though made of stone.'

‘Good idea, my child,' she said with a sigh. ‘I must admit I wouldn’t know where to put a head like that, and to tell you the truth I had a fear I might be tripping over it somewhere or other year in year out. To my mind it hasn’t got an honest look and the sooner you get rid of it the better.' 

‘She’s right,’ Antoine broke in, ‘but all the same you ought to celebrate a thing like that.' He was looking at the empty glasses on the table.

‘Certainly,' said the Breton. ‘Henriette, fetch the brandy!' 

The farmer’s wife went to fetch the bottle of plum brandy from the bottom of the clock-case whose wooden sides were quivering with the weight of the copper pendulum. And suddenly she felt as if the clock’s quivering had entered her body. A dampness broke out on her temples, ran down her neck, her breast, her hips, to die out on her thighs. It was a long time since she had felt such pleasure.

Moarc’h had handed the brush back to la Galiotte and taken the head over to the fire where he propped it up straight against the hearthstone, in spite of the broken neck. He was now sitting with his back to it on his unsteady stool. Antoine was already at the table. Henriette poured out a big dollop of alcohol for the two men.

‘Drink up,' she said.

Her voice had changed. It sounded gay and vibrated in your ear. Her lips were open to display her pretty, sharp, regular, white teeth. She leant over between Moarc’h and Antoine. Her bust had become ampler. The Breton was surprised and frowned, but immediately afterwards another thought struck him. Antoine was disturbed by her new odour. He ended in a fit of nervous laughter. The two men raised their glasses and drank down the fiery plum. At long last la Galiotte had taken off the pan of water that had been suffering on the embers. With Henriette's help she cleared away. In the sink corner the greasy washing-up water drove away the remains of melted clay. Sipping his drink, Moarc'h talked to Antoine about work still to be done. At the other end of the table Lucas was nodding, sometimes opening a heavy eyelid. He was waiting for Antoine to go to bed. He wasn't going to go without him, even if it meant staying up all night.

Suddenly he leapt up and in doing so shook the table. The almost empty glasses tottered. Moarc'h lost his temper.

'You good-for-nothing, you're never going to get anywhere. Here, go and help la Galiotte. Take the left-overs to Patiaud.'

But when he saw Lucas's ravaged face, and its pallor - as though it was being bled by an invisible hand from behind - he fell silent. They all realized that the boy couldn't find his voice, try as he might. He was standing stock still with wide unblinking eyes fixed on a point behind the farmer.

Finally the Breton forced him to speak.

‘Hey, what's the matter? What's happened?'

The boy didn't answer at once. He seemed to have been seized by a sudden and incomprehensible sickness. However he managed to wrench a few words from his constricted throat:

‘The stone... it... The head... it...’

‘The stone, the head, what?' Moarc'h pressed, with a quick look over his shoulder towards the fireplace.

'It moved,' he managed to say.

The Breton leant against the table. A sudden pallor brought out the lines on his face. They all turned so as to look at the head, and it seemed to them that of its own accord it had moved away from the hearth. Its eyes were looking straight at the table. They were threatening and full of hatred. Its bps trembled. The woman’s head that been hacked from stone seemed to be alive, her cheeks throbbed like a heart. They all thought that she was about to speak, so strange was the scene. Anguish had hold of them. Finally a flame in the hearth rose higher than the rest and plunged the head into shadow again. And immediately the stone’s anger vanished.

On seeing this, and the reason for the cowherd’s mistake, the Breton felt his incipient fear evaporating. He was the first to laugh. The others followed suit. The boy, too, returned to reality. Healthy colour came back to his cheeks. Moarc’h went up to the hearth, picked up the head, and went and put it outside, against the living-room wall next to the kennel. The dog broke out into an uproar. The farmer lingered to let the fresh air whip against his face. When he came in again the women were still pale. They were trying to restore themselves by getting on with the washing-up. Lucas was sitting at the table, leaning heavily on his elbows. He still bore faint traces of fright. Moarc’h shrugged his shoulders. Antoine refilled his glass and gave it to him. A vague smile was playing on his lips.

‘Here, boss,’ he said jokingly, 'drink this and you’ll feel better. You had quite a turn.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense.'

Moarc’h took the glass his farmhand pushed towards him and drank it off in one gulp. Soon the alcohol made his eyes sparkle. He went up to Henriette and put an arm round her waist. The woman showed her surprise by looking in astonishment first at la Galiotte then at Antoine. Her husband’s rough, clumsy hand went up to her round soft shoulders. The gesture was heavy; the Breton leaned forward.

‘Isn’t it true,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘isn’t it true that the sooner we’re alone tonight the happier you’ll be...

That night la Galiotte found it hard to get to sleep. The chain made too much noise, the noise that the dog dragged after him as other beasts dragged creaking wheels. Yet the woman's ears were inured to the noise. It had always lain as lightly on her as the other farm noises. What made her uneasy was that just now the noise had changed. It alone pierced her ears. No whining accompanied it, and it was that that made it so worrying to listen to. Something unusual must be happening to make Patiaud silent though he was moving about so restlessly. That old dog was cunning. And it was because he was so that la Galiotte feared the presence of a prowler. But she tried to calm herself by thinking that it was her age that made her so timid. To drive out the thoughts that were weighing her down she got up and went to the window giving out onto the yard. Slowly she pushed open the green wooden shutters. The dog was chained just below. She was afraid of being heard. Patiaud dragged on his chain as if he had gone mad, but he didn't bark. He was breathing noisily, though, and now and again emitted a groan such as she had never heard before.

She leant out and discerned against the wall the pale smudge made by Moarc'h's find. She shuddered. Yet curiosity urged her to stay. Her sight was too weak to penetrate the veils of darkness. But suddenly she thought she saw the stone's outline come to life and move slowly along the wall. She nearly screamed. The head was gleaming as the moon fell on it. It was coming and going in front of the dog. The dog was motionless, his forelegs flexed, ready to leap or flee. The moon was reflected in his black coat, making it as glossy as if oil had been poured over it. The scene was so unreal that la Galiotte passed her hand over her eyes. She felt she was dreaming though fully awake. She sighed, suddenly tired, and closed the shutters. Then quickly she slipped back into the still-warm sheets. She had a long coughing fit as though to drive away the outer cold that had managed to get into her throat. And Patiaud still didn't bark.

All that could be heard was his raucous breathing, almost like a death rattle.

La Galiotte was going to sleep. Yet on the edge of sleep she had yet again to go over each corner of the farm in her mind. It was necessary. Though the farm didn't belong to her she had come to see herself as its owner. She'd arrived just before she was fourteen and was at once taken on as a poultry-girl. The master of those days had held her in esteem. When his wife died he asked her to take charge of his daughter. Had she wanted to, she could have married the master and today been the Breton's mother-in-law. He had done better than she had. Bah - that was only a quick thought, just long enough to smile at. Oh if only the accursed dog would stop that terrified whining he was doing now.

Did sleep want her or not? O God, now she was thinking of the big tall bed in the master's room. Tonight Henriette must have had a job defending herself from Moarc'h. For once the Breton had seemed affectionate. She approved of that. Ah... those two still failed to understand each other after so many years of marriage. And that suddenly made her think that the sides of the dark oak wardrobe needed a good polishing. It was a long time since that wood had had its share of caresses. It needed them if you wanted to make its skin gleam.

There she was... sleep had come at last.

When her span of sleep was over, la Galiotte woke up. No-one was up yet. And no-one would get up before she was up herself. She pushed off the sheet and red satin eiderdown, got out of bed, pulled on her black woollen stockings, and dressed without regret. The yard was frozen in silence. The woman's thoughts went to Patiaud. She pushed open the shutter which banged sharply against the wall. The early morning was cold, dingy. La Galiotte waited for the dog to start his usual growling. But her wait was not disturbed.

Surprised, she leaned out. Patiaud was no longer there. The woman could see his long chain dragging along the ground. The empty collar was caught beneath the head which was lying on one side. It looked as though the dog had rolled it along and fought with it. La Galiotte rushed out. She went straight to the statue. She could see that Patiaud had bitten into the neck with his fangs. There were still some hairs sticking to the stone lips.

* * *

December brought some damp chilly weather that lingered on before the arrival of the winter cold. There was ground frost, but it didn’t go deep. The early sun flicked it away as you flick away with the inside of your sleeve the flour that falls on the table when you're kneading dough. It was morning. Along the whitened road going down to Chapelle-d’Angillon the la Noue horse was hard put to it to hold back the weight of the cart. Sacks of potatoes (so full that potatoes were escaping through holes) lolled against the cart's openwork sides. Moarc’h was walking in the middle of the road on a level with the wheels. His regular step clicked dryly and his chin was sunk against his chest. His cap was well clamped down on his head to protect his ears, and his hands were shut at the bottom of his trouser pockets. From time to time he kicked the ground with his big nailed boots to get life back into his numbed feet. There was no need to drive the horse for it followed the road by instinct. Lying at the bottom of the little valley, towards the Maladrerie - the ‘Maladrie’ as it was called locally - was a river of white mist.

Moarc'h didn't immediately notice that the horse was rearing slightly in an effort to hold back a sudden onrush of the cart. Caught between two forces, the wheels squeaked. The Breton turned his head and gave vent to his surprise in an oath. At this point on the road, and with the same load, the horse didn’t usually have to hold back in this way. Indeed this was the first time such a thing had happened. Suddenly the shafts rose like arms uplifted in distress. The horse neighed and broke into a short trot that made him lose his grip. The cart was pressing him on faster than the bite of the whip could ever do. Moarc’h ran forward, seized hold of and manipulated the handle of the brake, so that the wooden blocks beneath made firm contact with the iron wheels. There was a skid and a shriek and the forward impetus seemed broken. But just as the wheels seemed to have come to a standstill, they leapt forward again, first slowly, then faster and faster. Moarc’h tried to press the brake-handle further home but it was already at its maximum. He was so utterly amazed that his quickness of decision momentarily deserted him. But finally he ran forward, seized the horse's bit to help him to resist, was brutal in his efforts to push the beast back. But neither blows nor cries were of any avail. Then, so as to avoid being injured or even crushed to death, he moved to one side while the horse was irresistibly borne on.

There was only one solution now, if the worst was to be avoided. There was a pile of wood on the side of the road. He just had time to seize a log and throw it under one of the wheels. The cart stopped with a violent jolt. The horse skidded and nearly fell. Simultaneously the other wheel, the free one, drove the cart over towards the ditch. However it stopped on the edge, just avoiding heeling over. Once the crisis was past, Moarc’h took off his cap and dried the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand.

‘Devil take that brake,’ he swore, ‘and this accursed wheel which I’ll never get straight.’

Then it occurred to him that Antoine and Lucas had overloaded the cart. Those two could never measure anything by eye. Rage took hold of him. The one time that he hadn’t supervised the loading, the work had been badly done. There were no two ways about it; back be must go to la Muuc and take off the extra sacks. If he didn’t do that, he would let himself in for more risks. After turning the cart round with difficulty he went back up the road, regardless of the horse’s breathlessness, and the strain and fear that were still quivering in the beast’s flanks.

As soon as he reached the farmyard he called for Antoine. Antoine, who was cutting wood under the lean-to of the woodshed, put down his chopper and stared at the cart which had stopped near the drinking-trough.

'Why did you put so much on?’ Moarc’h shouted at him, gesticulating. 'It’s a load that nearly made me lose the whole lot, and the horse could have broken his legs.’

"What makes you think there's too much?'

But Moarc'h broke in impatiently:

‘Come on, give us a hand.'

He climbed onto the cart and slid down the first sack he laid his hands on. Antoine came and put it on his back. Then the farmer caught sight of Lucas sitting on the chopping block.

'Come on you lazy good-for-nothing, or I’ll come and give you a clout. Come and help.’

All this noise drew la Galiotte from the living-room where she was moulding cheeses. As soon as he caught sight of her Moarc’h gave her similar orders:

'Come on,’ he said roughly, 'it wouldn’t be too much for you to lend a hand.’

The woman pretended not to hear. She didn’t like being spoken to like that, especially by someone she had first known as a mere farmhand. At a gesture of her hands, all the poultry-yard came clucking around her; at another gesture the assembly broke up again. Only the jerky, patient hens remained.

'You back already?’ she said astonished.

The farmer calmed down, and said in self-justification:

‘If only those two had taken some trouble and not put so many sacks on the cart I wouldn’t have nearly overturned just now, and I wouldn’t be back wasting my time . .. You’d think they did it on purpose.’

La Galiotte came up with her short footsteps.

'Count them.' she said, which was common sense.

‘I shouldn’t bother.' said Antoine, winking in the direction of Lucas who was now reluctantly helping. 'You'll find the usual number of sacks... It’s hardly likely that our Lucas would have put on an extra one.'

'You must take off some more,' ordered Moarc’h. ‘It’s too heavy for the brakes which anyway don’t grip properly.' 

When the farmer had distributed the weight of the remaining sacks he got ready to leave. At that moment Antoine caught sight of the stone head wedged under a sack.

‘And your statue! ’ he cried.

Then, in turn serious and teasing, he stared the Breton in the eye and said:

‘Why don’t you leave it here? Perhaps it’s the statue that’s too heavy.'

Moarc’h had quite forgotten the statue and for the time being it was the least of his worries. But he answered:

‘Leave it where it is. If there’s a good God, he’ll see to it that I get double the price I ask because of this waste of time. And that won’t be stealing.’

His cheeks creased in a smile. But, seeing that the others were watching him, he resumed his harassed air. He didn’t want to seem to have got over the distressing incident as quickly as that.

* * *

After unloading his sacks at Aubigny, Moarc’h went looking for the antique shop. Soon he saw its sign - a piece of flat sheet-iron representing a red Phrygian cap on which was painted in white lettering: 

‘Billou, old furniture and antiques.'

He stopped the cart a little way from the shop. While getting down he was already rehearsing the words that would increase the value of his find. He regirthed his horse several times in an attempt to rid himself of a certain uneasiness, but finally, after several hesitations, he made up his mind and pushed the glass door open. The echo of a tinkling bell was lost in the distance. The Breton shut the door behind him without noticing that it set the bell tinkling again. The first thing that struck him was that the daylight was insufficient to dispel the shadow at the far end of the shop: ten yards ahead, and it was darkness. The strong smell of old wood, mustiness and furniture polish commanded respect. He automatically removed his cap as he did on the rare occasions he went to church and, with what for him was unusual patience, he awaited the dealer's arrival. His eyes took in everything. He was first attracted by the large pieces of dusty furniture whose iron fittings had been browned by time.

There were at least a dozen of them in a row and still others were hidden in the gloom. Then he saw, ranged just inside the shop window, a series of fire-backs decorated with lilies and blistered with heat and cold. It occurred to him that any one of them would be highly acceptable at la Noue. He saw in his mind's eye the one at present affixed to the back of the farm fireplace, a makeshift piece of sheet-iron, deeply cracked and looking like the top of a burnt tart. But, as he pointed out to himself, he hadn't come to give money but to receive it.

After he had made a quick review of the ceiling from which was hanging a whole galaxy of out-of-date lanterns, he began searching around for any object that resembled his find. But he could see no statue or piece of stone of any kind and was thinking of leaving when a strong singing voice came to him from the dark depths:

‘I must apologize,' it said, 'but could you wait a minute...’

Though the farmer was alone he nodded his assent deeply. He did not speak. His thoughts had returned to those cast-iron fire-backs on which the dates had been carefully moulded as well. One of them, marked 1697, would soon be two hundred years old. He whistled his astonishment and satisfaction. That was something in favour of his stone which was at least as old as that, if not older. The fire-backs were covered with mouldings, an infinite series of cupids, garlands and arabesques. He shook his head. That one must come from some stately home and its only destination would be another.

It must be worth at least three louis. Probably the dealer had bought it for ten francs and would ask a hundred. If he decided to buy one, he told himself, and of course that meant the cheapest and the thickest, he would put it back to front without a second thought. He was not going to provide his folk with distractions. If he got five louis for his stone, as he hoped, he could go up to twenty francs. He approached and touched one of the fire-backs with a hesitating hand. He liked its thickness. It was well worth twenty francs. He wouldn't pay a penny more. To confirm his decision he gave the fire-back a gentle kick and it produced a dull sound.

He hadn't heard the antique-dealer coming in. And when addressed from behind his back he jumped and turned quickly.

‘I see you've already made your choice,' the dealer said. And, noting that he had to do with a country fellow, he dispensed with superfluous politeness.

‘If that's the one you want you can have it for fifty francs.' As he spoke he too gave it a kick, as if to prove its quality by its sound. The Breton’s expression was one of self-defence and disappointment.

‘That’s not why I came,' he said, backing to the door.

The antique-dealer, who was used to going about the region and could size up his customers at a glance, smiled a knowing smile, not untouched by malice.

‘Of course, I fully appreciate that you want it only for use, not for putting in a collection.’

And he gave a little cough, amused by his own words. ‘And in that case I’ll lower my price to, well say forty francs.' Moarc’h realized that he would have to say why he had come without any further delay. This smooth talker was clever enough to lead him by the end of his nose into buying the fire-back. And heaven knew what else - perhaps one of those chandeliers that might fall on your head and kill you outright. Or one of those huge wardrobes that would fit in four times as much linen as existed at la Noue.

'Look,' he said, 'I found an antique when I was ploughing up a field and I've come to sell it... Are you interested?'

And he turned his head towards the street - profiting from the occasion to see whether the cart was where he'd left it. Then he turned back to the man and looked him over with sudden apprehension: who knew but that he might send him away and tell him his shop was crammed with old things already and anyway ancient sculptures had lost all value since they'd started making new ones. So with a rapid calculation he thought of a lower price. He didn't want to take the head away with him. The antique-dealer, however, was giving Moarc'h a look of astonishment and seemed devoured with curiosity and impatience that promised well. They both went out into the street and towards the cart. There the Breton pulled towards him the sack in which he had placed the stone. He opened it and showed it. The antique-dealer nodded his head with the air of a connoisseur.

'Let's take it inside,' he said, 'we'll be able to talk more comfortably.'

The farmer took out the stone and returned to the shop.

'Careful, careful,' the antique-dealer kept saying, making ineffectual attempts to help him.

Moarc'h placed it on a corner of a chest where the full light from the window could fall on it. The head, against the dark background, seemed to leap into life. He felt proud of it, rather as if it had been his own work.

'It's a good piece of work in spite of its wicked look,' he said, to make the man say something.

The antique-dealer scrutinized it from near and far, with one eye shut and then the other; then he lifted it.

'What a curious work,' he said, as if to himself.

He managed with difficulty to turn it over. When he saw the fresh cut he made no attempt to conceal his sudden disappointment.

'Yes, a fine work, a fine job of work, of course, but you’ve murdered an antique of the first order. Look at this piece cut off the neck. You should have been more careful...'

This seemed to him such an elementary point that he marked his disapproval with little aspirations of saliva. Then he began asking question after question. He talked like a judge condemning an act of vandalism. Had the rest of the statue come to light? The head must surely have had a body. That fracture wasn’t a chip, was it? Sure not? There must have been another piece below... it needed digging up. And so on and so on.

More and more uneasy, Moarc’h answered with a 'my word! ’ every comment handed out by the other. At last he decided that he must say something positive and not be led on like a schoolboy.

‘I came to sell you this head and nothing else. How much can you give me?’

But the antique-dealer wouldn’t stop. He asked more questions in an insinuating and coaxing way so as to drag from him every detail he wanted to know.

'Don’t they make pilgrimages to that place? Don’t they have legends that would help to identify the find? That’s important and could increase the value...

He thought better of it and adopted a gentler tone.

‘Umm, of course by that I mean increase its archaeological value, for you’re now talking to the archaeologist, not the antique-dealer.’

The Breton couldn’t have cared less about all that. Yet he spoke, though with some reserve, of the evil powers ascribed to the useless, glaucous waters of la Malnoue. What he said gave the dealer food for thought. He leant even closer to the head.

'Curious,' he murmured. 'Malnoue could be translated as "bad fountain”. It’s certainly a fountain made into a divinity

by the Gauls, then by the Gallo-Romans, and Christianized later. This may well be a portrait of that ancient Melusine who haunts low-lying water... In that case...'

He lifted a would-be threatening finger and broke into an incredulous, bantering and bitter laugh that upset Moarc'h.

"... In that case, beware! You shouldn't have provoked this water witch. But in any case, I'd be surprised if this was Melusine, for she was only personified relatively late as you can see in the frescoes on the capitals of certain churches, and on... But to be brief, your head has a definitely archaic and primitive stamp... What is obvious is that the author of this sculpture wanted to represent an evil goddess of his religion, and he was highly successful in putting hatred into her features. For instance for the past few minutes I've felt a certain uneasiness. As for the gloss on the face, I'd be ready to bet with my hand in the fire that it comes from practices that certainly lasted a long time. It must have been rubbed... With what in view?'

He suddenly struck his forehead as if to extract from it something he had suddenly remembered.

'Ah yes, that's it,' he exclaimed to himself, 'I once saw something of the same kind. It was in Nièvre where I lived as a boy, but I remember it as if it was yesterday. Near a spring there was an old stone statue. Sterile women - or those who couldn't bear children if you prefer - came from miles away to pass their hands over its face. Yes, that's it. They stroked it, then they scratched off a bit of the stone near the stomach and put the scrapings in a glass of the spring water and drank it. Some went so far as to immerse themselves in the pool... After which it seems there was no stopping the flow of babies...'

And he burst out laughing.

‘Your statue must have the same history, but at a period further back. If by any chance your wife has touched this stone, she'd be able to give you another little chap... but perhaps you have too many already. In that case, if I bought this, you'd owe it to me that you'd been saved a mishap in the nick of time.'

In saying this the antique-dealer had no idea that he was opening an old wound in Moarc'h. For Henriette had never been able to have a child. It looked as if either he or she was incapable of making one. And here was this man laughing. Judging that he had waited long enough, the Breton said in a determined voice:

‘Now you must tell me what you can give me for it, because, you see, I've still got some miles to go as I said a while ago. My farm's near Chappelle d'Angillon and when I get back there’s work to be done. Come on, name a price, and we'll see if we can agree on it. It can't be so very difficult...'

The dealer once more became serious. ‘My proposal,' he said, ‘is that you leave it here with me, I'll take on selling it for the highest price, and I'll give you a share of the sale.'

That wasn't what Moarc'h wanted, and he said so. The dealer wasn't surprised. After a moment's silence he offered three louis. The Breton, with a show of temper, went to the chest and picked up the stone as if his mind were made up.

‘I'm taking it away again,' he said, and made to go out.

‘Wait,’ said the dealer, conciliating.

‘I want five,’ Moarc'h said firmly.

‘Of course you do,' said the dealer mockingly, ‘but you'd better realise that there’s no-one hereabouts or anywhere else who'd give you as much as that. And take my advice, don't show it around, it could end up in the local museum. There are people on the watch for private finds of this kind and they'd be quick to inform against you... The State is entitled to claim part of its value, the law's quite clear on that and don't forget it... whereas from me you've nothing to fear..

The farmer realized where his advantage lay. He wondered if he'd been asking too much. He was only selling a stone, after all, not a pig. And so they came to an understanding. Three louis, and the fire-back which the dealer threw in, completed the transaction.

As he left, the dealer asked him confidentially for his name, the name of his farm and other little necessary details, as he put it, to authenticate the carving. The Breton hesitated and then satisfied his curiosity. He kept turning over this part in his mind on the road home; then he thought no more about it, because the heavy fire-back, adorned with heraldic bearings, was there jogging at the back of the cart, making him imagine what the la Noue fireplace would be like when renewed by this ancient object. Occasionally he touched his pocket where the three louis lay. He thought he had finished once and for all with his antique and felt happy at having done so well with what was, after all, only an old piece of useless stone.

* * *

That winter the snow came late; it collected in huge clouds which, like disembowelled eiderdowns, emptied out their white ashes, making January begin as December should have. It unfurled in long lace veils (with invisible weft) and within two days had conquered the region. Then in its turn the wind blew up loud and strong and scattered the snow-clouds. On the horizon the pale blue sky met the sheet of whiteness that covered the earth like a new skin. Then, when the wind had tired of moving it about, hollowing it out, piling it up, it fell in its turn. It was now that the great cold came, silent and glum. It slid into the living snow which was wearied with running before the wind. It took hold of it so thoroughly that it sent it to sleep and turned it to ice. But its aim was to go deeper, to reach the soil crouching beneath this outer shell. It wanted to grip it between its icy teeth, feast itself on its sap and its seed. But in spite of its relentlessness it only hardened the snow, frozen to stone. And that brought appeasement to all and everyone with lands already sown. And Moarc'h felt more joy than anyone. He saw in his mind's eye the slow labour of growth that was being brought about, and brought to perfection, beneath the protective warmth of the brooding snow.

And his hope extended to the new field at la Malnoue where the grain sown last November was alive and stirring.

* * *

It was a limpid morning. There was a pale teasing sun. With Antoine's help Moarc'h had brought the cart out into the yard in the middle of the snow now dirtied with earth and soot. They had taken the wheels off one by one to put a new provision of grease in the hubs. If it isn't properly fed, iron devours iron. Then wheels run badly like those disabled people who wobble from left to right followed by the mocking cries of children. In the living-room fire the flames rose, enlivened by the cold outside. It lapped round the thick cast-iron fire-back that the farmer had brought from Aubigny. 

La Galiotte, hooded, returned from emptying big bucketfuls of insipid foodstuff in the pigsty. To her eyes, dazzled by the snow outside, the shadow of the living-room was like balm. She put down her buckets and wiped her hands on her blue apron which was shiny over her thighs. She didn’t rub her hands hard for she was afraid of opening up her wretched sores. Henriette was sitting on one of the benches carefully scraping potatoes - brought up as she had been to waste nothing. La Galiotte stood still and watched her a moment, warming her chapped hands under her arms. Henriette was humming. Her skin looked fresher. Her cheeks were warm with life. Her eyes shone. This was not the effect of the snow lighting up the objects around her. It was something quite different. For some time now la Galiotte had suspected, and was only amazed that Moarc'h hadn't guessed too. She went up to the bench and touched Henriette's chin with her dry hand. She put a mute interrogation into her eyes which spoke better than words. The other looked at her wide-eyed, and la Galiotte could read their powerful expression of joy.

‘So it's that?' she said.

And that was all. Henriette didn't speak. But her lips half-opened in a smile. Then la Galiotte went to the door and pulled it open sharply. Once again the outside glare struck her like a blow on the head and entered the room with its fresh breath. She called to Moarc’h. Her voice was deliberately rough. She grumbled. She was happy. 

‘At last,' she thought; ‘he made it that time.' 

Moarc’h hadn’t heard her call. His muscles tensed, he was lifting the wheel which Antoine was guiding so that the axle should fall exactly into the hub filled with red grease. When she saw that the operation was over, la Galiotte called again. This time she was impatient.

‘Come on here,' she shouted, ‘Henriette wants to tell you... You mustn't keep her waiting. You're going to get a pretty big surprise...'

‘What?' He was annoyed at being torn away from the pleasure of his work. ‘Carry on. I’ll be back in a minute,' he said to Antoine.

He went over to the door with his heavy measured tread. On the threshold he turned back to see how the cart looked now that it was tightly gripped between its two wheels with their spokes all taut and swelling like toiling muscles. And he wiped his hands on the sides of his faded velvet trousers.

‘What on earth can she be wanting to tell him that'll surprise him?' Antoine wondered, put out at having to wait to know.

And so now Moarc'h knew. Henriette had told him everything. About the beginning, when there was uncertainty, and the present when the truth was beyond all doubt. He was proud of this good that had happened to him, too, and that he had awaited for so long. His mind now felt at ease about his land and la Noue. He could have expressed his pride, but he kept it to himself. All he did was pat his wife's shoulder in a friendly way. Then he flopped down on the bench near to her, as if his legs had suddenly been cut off. He gave a long sigh and looked at la Galiotte.

The good woman shook her head. She would never have expected him to show so little feeling. Henriette was disappointed too; she got up, went to the fire and began poking it. Summoned to new life, the flame lit up her eyes shining with tears. Moarc’h bent his head. He couldn’t help recalling the bitter disappointments of the past; of how he’d faffed while others bewailed up hill and down dale that their wives produced them like weeds. Next he thought of the unkindness that had come through resentment, of the sharp words that had left pain in the heart, pain in the eyes, of his feeling of leading a strenuous life to no purpose. All this had resulted in giving him an excessive love for his land. Ah, his land knew what to do with the seed he threw on it, and with its female strength fertilized it as it did for thousands and thousands of others.

What he couldn’t understand was how Henriette, otherwise a woman like other women, could be lazier than the laziest land. He had always vainly tried to hold before his eyes a little parcel of land full of stones where even the tiniest shoots of grass wouldn’t grow. So now he was doubting, as he had often doubted before. Henriette must be mistaken. That was it, she must be mistaken yet again. He got up as he did in moments of anger, and paced from one end of the room to the other.

‘He still doesn’t believe it,' Henriette said sadly to la Galiotte who was looking at her out of the comer of her eye.

Moarc’h stopped pacing at last.

‘It’s now eight years since I’ve given up hope,' he said, trying hard to appear calm. ‘It’s too hard to believe that it’s suddenly happened.'

Henriette said gravely:

‘We women are never mistaken, and I could even tell you how long it’s been growing.'

‘Well tell me, and let’s see,' he said tensely.

‘It was the evening you brought in that stone head, you remember? - about three months ago... And if you don't believe me I'm going to show you my stomach, because it’s beginning to show. Here, look!'

And she began undoing her apron. He stopped her with a gesture.

'If you're as sure as all that...'

And he felt pacified. It was then that he remembered his visit to the antique-dealer at Aubigny. And how that knowledgeable man had said that the head might have the power to exorcize infertility. He managed to smile.

"Good Lord,' he said as he slipped his two hands in the pockets of his jacket, 'Good Lord, with his ways of making fun of people, that fellow...'

‘Who are you talking about?' asked Henriette.

‘The fellow I sold the head to. He told me that if you stroked it it was enough to...'

Then suddenly, struck with a thought:

'You did stroke it, didn't you?'

He had had a new fear. Supposing it had been he who couldn't... This had occurred to him but he had never really believed it. That, no, absolutely not.

His wife's answer put him at rest.

‘Yes, don't you remember? I touched her almost straight away. You didn't want to stroke her... You don't know what pleasure it was just feeling the softness of her cheeks and forehead.'

‘I like it better like that,' he said under his breath.

And realizing that he was believing in the antique-dealer's suppositions in spite of himself, he let out a disagreeable laugh. Yet he tried to banish from his memory the scene where he saw himself clutching the stone against his body. He persuaded himself that the man had said ‘stroke', not ‘hold', and they weren't at all the same thing. Finally, he felt that to round off this good day he needed to walk in the open air, hear the snow crunching under his feet and see how it was protecting the land and the seed.

‘I'm going to cut some wood above Malnoue,' he said.

He felt behind the door and looked annoyed.

‘Where's my black jacket been put?' he grumbled.

* * *

He slung his axe over his shoulder which was padded by two thicknesses of coats. The cold was still there. After so much time it had come to weigh like lead. As he pressed down on his joints they cracked as the snow cracked beneath his heavy boots. Moarc'h went straight to la Malnoue. On one side was a meadow, on the other a patch of oats, but they were all alike and made one vast immaculate field in their first-communion dress. At each step his feet sank in up to his ankles. The blue of the sky entered each hole his footsteps made. It would be a well-filled year, it would give the best of everything. He felt it would be a year of abundance and not of straggling poverty. If the snow held it would be better than manure. It only worried the carters who fumed because their wheels got stuck. His progress became slower. He began thinking about the child Henriette was making. He delighted in thinking that it might be a boy. A sturdy boy, strong and vigorous like heather. In thinking that, he took pleasure, too, in measuring with his eye the expanse that surrounded him, glistening in the sun. Later it would be his son's. He would show him the things he should do and the things he shouldn't do. He would teach him his secrets: how best to sow, how to drive back weeds, how to scythe flattened corn and hay, and lots of other things too, all useful. And if the boy only wanted to do things his way, he would be set to work on jobs that would overcome his obstinacy.

Each step became more difficult, and reminded him of shoots over the Sologne moors when you sometimes had to lift your feet in the same kind of way to get over the tufts of heather that stretched like endless waves, tall and compact, and concealed octopus-like brambles under their pink foam.

He told himself again that at all costs it must be a boy. He had wanted a boy and a boy it would be. When you sow wheat it’s wheat that grows, not oats.

To make way for a path the hedge had been holed. As soon as he had passed through it he came in sight of the green mass of reeds that guarded over the marsh. And finally the whole field was within view. He pressed forward, then suddenly stopped, with knee braced and heart thumping. A ball of saliva hardened in his throat. Rage surged up in him in great gusts. The lower part of the field, the part reclaimed from the marsh, had been washed of snow; it lay like a great corpse with its stomach brown and sullied. Nearly half the crop was exposed to the cold. The eddying wind had carried away the bulk of the snow. The thin layer that remained had been melted by the warmth of the marsh. There had been no resisting this ill-starred wind that had licked at the tender shoots. Moarc'h ran. The harm had already been done, he could see. He dropped on his knees. He placed his warm hands on the frozen earth. With blows of his axe he ripped open the hardened soil and investigated. Rage lent speed to his actions. The shoots were there, but blasted, scorched by the cold. Like buck-shot that had missed its target, the seeds had been useless. He threw down his axe in fury. Then, picking it up again, he crossed the dead field, kicking it with great blows of his heels.

It was the first time winter had played a trick like this on him; just when his wife had fulfilled his desires, the field into which he had put so much work had rudely cheated him.

 III

Lucas turned over in his mind the fear he had felt in Moarc’h's time. Not a greater fear then, but very great now that this man's daughter seemed to become more evil with every moment that passed.

'So, you're still afraid?' Jeanne said mockingly.

She thrust the phrase at him as if she were thrusting a spur into the side of a team of oxen. But he remained motionless, stiffened by a dumb fear that persisted in his mind and made his look more and more wide-eyed. As though memories stretched out before his eyes in letters of fire and, hypnotized, he couldn't turn away. The girl lashed out at him afresh.

‘You're a coward... I thought you were a man, and there you are afraid of stones. Now, Blaise...'

At this Lucas seemed to come back to his senses.

'Blaise what? What would Blaise have done? He has nothing to do with us.'

His face turned crimson in his excitement. Jeanne laughed.

'Just look at you! I wouldn't have believed it. The mere mention of Blaise's name works you up more than anything I can say. It looks as if that boy means more to you than I do...'

‘You'd better not go too far with your teasing, Jeanne. You forget I know things that can't be shouted out in the yard at la Noue.'

As he spoke he drew near to her. He put his hand just where her long black skirt enclosed the red check blouse threaded with blue. His fingers faltered at first, then tightened and gradually took courage. Malvenue didn't move. She knew that a man who has tasted a woman obeys her more readily. She even drew closer to him. So the man brought his other hand into use so as to hold her more tightly. He pressed slowly, strongly, on both sides, as if he wanted to have her waist in a vice-like grasp. And Jeanne's waist became slimmer. The girl smelt Lucas’s hot stale breath as he leant his face towards her. She didn't slap him. She controlled herself sufficiently not to shove him away. He must hold her a little longer. When it was enough, Jeanne loosed herself from his hold and immediately picked up the sack which had fallen into the bracken.

‘Here,' she said, trying to seem moved, ‘here, taken this and help me...'

She stopped. She made herself sound loving:

‘I nearly lost my head... You're strong, Lucas, and I love your strength.'

He didn't answer but took the proffered sack. Jeanne saw his lips were drawn in a possessive smile.

‘Come,' he said at last, anxious to please her. ‘Come, I'll do what you want, but you’ll have to swear.’

And Lucas tried to take her by the waist again. But she closed her eyes an instant and drew back sharply as though she hadn't seen what he was doing. From a few steps’ distance she said in a sing-song voice:

‘You’ll have to swear... You’ll have to swear...’ She picked up her skirt and mimicked a curtsey. ‘I swear to you...' she teased, still singing, '... you swear to me...'

She stopped, and asked mischievously, ‘and what exactly must I swear?’

The young man seemed put out by the girl's mockery, but he carried through his sentence to the end:

‘You’ll have to swear that from now on you’ll give the cold shoulder to that Blaise who’s always following you around...'

Malvenue’s laughter re-echoed through the trees. Lucas was threatening and imploring all at once.

‘Don't forget, Jeanne, that we're sharing a secret... and then I can’t get rid of this need I have of you.'

‘Good,' she said seriously, ‘I'll give you what you're asking for and you’ll do as I want?’

‘Yes,' he said. His voice was strangled by the violence of his joy.

‘Then begin by helping me to gather the pieces of stone, then take them to la Noue and hide them in the pigsty behind the bran heap. Of course no-one must see you. Tomorrow we'll stick them together.'

And without another word she ran towards the hedge. By the time Lucas reached her - he was again uneasy - he saw that she had already got the sack half full.

‘Hurry up, you,' she ordered.

Her tone was hard. She was no longer thinking about play-acting. She knew she was doing something serious. But she was a hundred miles from foreseeing the consequences.

She helped Lucas to hoist the sack on his shoulder.

"It's time to be off,' she hurried him. ‘You go ahead, I'll catch up.’

He turned round on her with a frown of jealousy.

‘You’re not waiting for that Blaise, are you? Remember, you promised...'

‘Don’t worry, I’m coming after you, only I have to have another look, there might be a piece left behind under the grass.’ 

He went off, grumbling. Now and again he turned back to look at Jeanne. The girl pretended to be searching the undergrowth. She was longing for him to disappear over the hump of the field. The minute he was out of sight she found a gap in the hedge. Then she was on the other side of it. The heath was empty as far as the eye could see. She felt oppressed with sudden despair. Her heart missed a beat. She would have liked to have Blaise with her in this warm countryside that was so redolent of life. She would like to run with him in the cool woods. The boy must be somewhere around. He hadn’t had time to get so very far. She swore at that fool Lucas for delaying her. Nearby was an old stump lying on its side. It was like a huge dead spider lying on its back with its legs towards the sky. Jeanne approached, raised her skirt, and stepped up among its roots. She could see nothing but the immense lake of bad land enclosed by a long ridge of brambles that made a sort of green and russet embankment. Then she got down, and to chase her frustration away, she tried to move the stump. She grasped a thick root pasted over with dried mud like dead flesh. She puffed and panted in vain - but, little by little, calmed down.

She felt a hand on her back pushing her gently against the nigged root. She controlled her surprise, and didn’t turn her head.

‘Would you like me to help you?' Blaise whispered in her ear.

She trembled with the caress of his warm bps, but instead of showing her pleasure she turned on him and repulsed him:

'What? I didn’t ask you for anything...'

‘Every time I run into you you're doing work which isn't suitable, so I want to help you.'

‘I can do this work alone, like the rest...'

He said again, making fun of her:

'If you really have to turn this stump over then I'll help you, otherwise you’ll never do it... But perhaps it isn’t urgent?’

She turned on him with a snarl:

'It’s my business, isn’t it, if you set traps around our place?'

'I don’t set traps. Who told you I did?'

'Just now I saw you near here nosing around in the bushes.'

He looked down to hide his confusion. But his voice showed some relief:

'Oh I set traps if they want it that way. But the only thing I want to catch is too clever for me... it's a lovely animal, young and vigorous.'

He looked up and fixed her in the eyes.

‘Sometimes I manage to get my hands on her, but I can never hold her... She always manages to escape. But with luck, perhaps one day ..

It was Jeanne’s turn to feel her cheeks blushing with confusion.

‘I’m off,' she said dryly.

He held her back. He was on the point of saying, 'You see...’ but used other faltering words instead: 'I'd like...'

'You'd like what?'

‘I'd like you for myself alone.'

She laughed and drew away from him.

'You, too, want me for yourself alone?' A flame beyond all control blazed in her eyes. ‘Anyone who wants me for himself alone will have to face the worst...’

Blaise didn't realize that the girl was no longer herself. He didn't notice that the faint blue on her forehead had been replaced by a red smudge. All he could see was Jeanne's alluring body. He spoke without taking his eyes off her. His words seemed to come tumbling out of their own accord:

‘I think I would face the worst for you...'

Malvenue pressed herself against him.

‘You think?' she murmured ironically.

‘Yes.'

'Then set fire to your people's farm and I'll be yours...'

At first he was struck dumb, then he started to smile.

'That's the way it must be,' she went on, 'or you'll never have me... Goodbye!'

He would have liked to answer with some joke, but she was already beyond the hedge.

* * *

On reaching la Noue, Malvenue found Lucas under the oaktree. As soon as he caught sight of her he called to her and began to rub his shoulder. He said at least ten times that he had never known anything like it; in his opinion, the nearer he got to the farm, the heavier the sack of stones had become. So much so that he had had to drag it along the ground for the last hundred yards. It was as if the shapeless stones had suddenly turned into metal and sharp and piercing metal at that. Now at last they were in the pigsty, hidden behind the bran heap as Jeanne had said. And the young man permitted himself a more familiar tone towards this girl who had virtually given herself to him for a sack of stones.

So great was his delight that he dismissed all fear of la Malnoue from his mind, and with it the far-away, vague story about Moarc'h at grips with the ancient stone head.

* * *

Now that Albin, master of Rudesses farm, had poured the brandy into the thick earthenware mug and pushed it along the table to Lucas, the young man forgot his rage against Antoine for sending Jeanne and himself so far to help bring in the corn. Albin told him to drink up; and after a glance at Malvenue, who was kneeling on the grey paving teasing a scabby mongrel kitten, he seized the mug and drank down a huge gulp. Immediately afterwards he began spluttering and gasping. The white heat had flowed from the mug as if from a crucible in which it was melting. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. The farmer gave a fat contented laugh at the sight of the effect of his brandy. He told Lucas to put down the rest, that he wouldn't often have the opportunity of tasting something with a bouquet like that. Lucas didn't have to be asked twice. He took in another mouthful - less this time. Strength waxed within him and he felt the need to take in and let out great gusts of breath, like MordTacier the blacksmith with his huge leather bellows. Then the master of Rudesses farm pointed his thumb towards Jeanne with a knowing wink.

The young man nodded to encourage him to do what he seemed to want to do. So Albin filled another mug and went over to the girl.

"Here, my little one, I'm sure you've never tasted syrup like this. Would you like to try it?'

The rascal now winked at her, and jerked his chin towards Lucas. Jeanne pushed the mug away, though he wanted with all his might to make her to drink it. Meanwhile Lucas was looking at her with eyelids heavy with malice and a bantering smile on his lips. So she took the mug, and with her eyes fixed on Lucas let the fiery spirit burn her tongue, rend her throat and devour her breast. Only she squeezed the mug so tight that it nearly broke. Albin gave a whistle of admiration. Lucas went on smiling. He narrowed his eyes to taunt the girl on and force her to drink up. When Jeanne had finished she gave the mug back to the farmer. Her hand was steady. Her eyes were still fixed on Lucas, but with such intensity that he lowered his head.

‘We're leaving.' she said in a firm voice.

On going out she jumped over the doorstep. A few paces more and her heart began beating so violently that it felt as if it would tear itself out, and a scythe seemed to cut her legs off at the knees. However she continued to walk straight. Then she felt so dizzy that she nearly started spinning round like a top.

‘Word of honour,' Lucas said as he caught up with her,

‘I didn't expect to see you drinking like that. You looked as though you were swallowing milk. Honour bright.'

At last Malvenue came back to her senses. Now the fire of the fruit was stabbing her flesh. But she said:

‘Well, it wasn't much stronger than milk. The taste was different, that’s all.'

The sun was setting on the horizon. The heat was as thick and static as in a stable. It had a pungent smell. They were on the path that went down through the Sommeraire woods, a thread of freshness running through the thicket. Lucas was close behind Jeanne, putting his feet in her footsteps. At one moment she could feel his breath on her neck. She turned. He then saw the redness that suffused her face and made it look round. He felt a desire to take her in his arms and bite her cheeks which had been given life and made velvety by the alcohol. He leant towards her and caught her round the waist. She threw him off and gave him a cuff. She laughed. He laughed too as he caught her again and held her firm. Each blow added fuel to his desire. The liquor circulating in his muscles was also circulating in his blood, making him desire the pleasure he hoped to draw from the girl.

'Let yourself go,' he kept saying.

Suddenly he gave a cry of pain. He let go and put his hands to his stomach. Malvenue had managed to get him with a kick of her knee. Off she went again roaring with laughter. The young man tried to overcome his pain as best he could and ran after her.

When they came up to la Croule wood Malvenue stopped. In the meadow beside her, over which the setting sun was spreading its purple rays, there were enough hares wandering about to fill a hundred hunters’ bags, and unskilled hunters at that. Jeanne had never seen so many at once. As soon as they caught sight of her, the nearest ones scampered off into the wood with little unfrightened leaps. With the advent of Lucas, more of them went jumping off because he made so much noise. Irritated, Malvenue signalled to him to stand still and say nothing. The lad obeyed in spite of himself. The laughter still on his lips turned to hiccups which he tried to control by shutting his mouth tight. With the effort of running, the vapours of alcohol had gone. Now all he felt was the pain the girl had inflicted on him with her knee. He drew near with a light step. A dozen hares were peaceably nibbling the grass, but one after another they darted off into the coppice which swallowed them up with its leafy jaws and looked^as if it was going to digest them whole and alive, as reptiles do. Soon there was only one hare left, plump and lively. Its leaps were curiously supple, a little like those of cats when they dance their revels beneath the moon and vainly try to scratch it.

‘Let’s catch that one,’ whispered Jeanne.

She advanced, followed by Lucas. The hare didn't seem to mind their presence. All he showed was his tawny grey back and short tail topped with a tuft of white. They were only a few steps away from him. Now they felt in the grip of the ancient animal instinct latent in every human being from the time when he was an animal too, defending and attacking with tooth and claw. But just when they were going to catch their prey, a shrill clucking sound made them turn. Behind them an enormous cock-pheasant was poised on one leg, waiting, its puffed-out feathers lit with all the fires of heaven and earth. Jeanne and Lucas looked at one another in mute astonishment.

Never before had they seen a hare they could approach, nor a pheasant that approached them. A lightning action, and they could strangle both. It was just a matter of choosing. Jeanne chose the hare. She leapt on him. The silky coat slipped between her fingers. The hare withdrew three leaps and seemed to be waiting again.

‘Come on,' she called to Lucas.

But the pheasant clucked. Still motionless, it seemed to be asking to have its neck wrung.

‘Wait,' Lucas answered, ‘first I’m going to catch this one.'

‘Come on,' Jeanne appealed, ‘that one’ll drive you mad with its tricks; I'm sure the hare will be much easier. I only just missed him just now.'

The girl advanced again. Once again her fingers slipped on the grey coat. The hare fled, and stopped further on. He rolled in the dry, rustling leaves of last autumn. Jeanne shot out her hand. He fled again, avoiding Lucas who threw himself forward. And each time either of them thought they’d got him, he escaped. With each failure, they started again tirelessly, convinced of success this time. With leap after leap, and run after run, and throwing-out-of-arms after throwing-out-of-arms, they had crossed la Croule without noticing.

Suddenly they realized they were on the edge of the dead land of la Malnoue.

* * *

With a few bounds the huge hare had crossed the lost field. Soon he was beneath the marsh reeds. There he paused and seemed to be mocking the two whom he could lead just where he wanted. Jeanne nodded her head determinedly at Lucas. ‘We’ve got him this time.’ But Lucas hesitated. He had only to find himself on the edge of the Malnoue land to feel he had lost his legs. He well knew that a curse had lain on it for generations. The girl still pushed ahead. But he stumbled and then came to a halt, immobilized in the midst of the digging that had been done there in the past and that now was partially filled in.

It was a field of long grassy scars. A deep silence drove life away. The hare was crouching on his hind legs. He was waiting patiently. Jeanne abandoned Lucas to his fears and made a dash at the hare, her arms stretched out. This time she was certain of catching him. But at that moment she was pushed in the back by an invisible hand and fell flat on her stomach, her arms still outstretched. Her bps were crushed against the sand. There was a taste of mud and blood in her mouth. She didn’t shout, nor try to find an explanation for why she had fallen. The hare was there, his back towards her, looking towards the marsh.

‘This time I really will get you,' Malvenue thought. She held her breath and spread out her fingers so as better to hook the skin just behind the head, at the point where it was loose. Suddenly the hare turned round. The girl snatched back her hand as if a viper was going to bite her. She stifled a cry of dismay and horror.

The hare had shown his face and the face was frightful. The eye-sockets were empty, deep and bloody. The nostrils were gaping open to the bone. The lips moved in slimy putrescence. Only the teeth retained some semblance of life. But the girl could see at once that there was no tongue. The skin on the head was dangling in decay. Jeanne took all that in in a split second. But what appalled her most of all was that the dead head was resting on a living, healthy body, plump, sleek of fur and fleet of foot.

Still on her knees, she reeled back. Her knees had been scratched by sharp, cutting stones. She was so out-of-breath that she felt she was suffocating. Like a great overflowing river, dusk slid over the Malnoue field. It seemed to come from the la Croule wood, dark and heavy on the ridge. The hare was still motionless. He was waiting. Far behind Jeanne, Lucas had come to a standstill. He hadn't seen. He could only think of la Galiotte’s warnings. The sterile soil burnt his feet as if hell lay below. The girl was no more than a dim shadow, only just in sight. As for the hare, he had forgotten it. So he was startled when Malvenue got up and came back to him, trembling all over.

‘Did you see it?’ she asked, still terrified, ‘did you see it near to?'

He glanced over towards the reeds. The hare had disappeared. The girl's inexplicable fright made him want to swagger, boast. He seemed suddenly to forget his own fears.

‘Of course I saw it,' he said, ‘and if I'd been here it wouldn’t have got away. Heaven knows where it’s hidden itself now. Come on, we must be getting back.’

While speaking he started off with long strides in the opposite direction from the marsh, towards the track leading away from la Malnoue. Jeanne followed him slowly. She wanted to tell him about the frightful spectacle of the fleshless head, but she was afraid Lucas would make fun of her and tell her she couldn’t hold her liquor. And supposing that was it? Alcohol could cause hallucinations. She felt she must know. She called Lucas back when he was already on the path.

‘Hey there, wait, there's still enough light for us to find it in the reeds. Come back and help me. We must catch it, I want to see it nearer.'

He was reluctant to stop. And it was only Jeanne’s sneering at him that decided him to come back. And even then, he looked as if he was on the rack.

‘Look at you, you're as frightened as you were this afternoon, and you a man. Just now you were being a know-all. You're not afraid of a girl, but when it comes to a little bit of water, you're scared stiff...'

The marsh was about fifty paces away from them. They walked towards it side by side, both equally oppressed. Dusk was pouring out darkness over the valley. It must be getting late. By now Malvenue had lost all desire to see the strange hare. But she decided to take five or six more steps so as not to be seen capitulating too soon by the trembling young man beside her. Suddenly they both stopped in their tracks.

'Listen!’

'I heard.'

From the circle of reeds that encompassed the Malnoue water-hole there had come an extraordinary sound. You would have taken it for the regular noise that washer-women make when they beat out their washing... plick, plock, plick, plock. Jeanne and Lucas turned to look at one another. It seemed as if there must be someone actually in the middle of the clump of reeds that everyone avoided like the plague.

‘But,' said Lucas in a half-whisper, ‘you'd have to be mad to come and do your washing here... and at this time of day.'

And his anxieties were forthwith extinguished. He found the idea that someone could be doing their washing in la Malnoue reassuring.

‘You'd have to be mad,' he repeated.

'Let's go and look,' said Jeanne. This diversion made her happy and relaxed again too.

They ran. The plick-plock noise became clearer and clearer. ‘Plick' for beating the washing out, ‘plock' for dipping it in the water. Soon the girl began thinking it sounded like a dance tune that the hurdy-gurdy played at Angillon. At last the reeds were just ahead of them. They went on without bothering about the unstable ground. Now they, too, were among the reeds.

Plick, plock, plick, plock...

The mud grasped at their challenging feet. Jeanne pushed aside the tall stalks, some living, some partly dry. Lucas did the same. Neither had any further thought of fear. They wanted to see. They felt the need to mock. They didn't even notice that they were in clay and ooze up to their ankles. Then, with a final gesture, they pushed aside the last rushes that guarded over the water, and the surface of la Malnoue became visible, deep green in the twilight. There were water-lilies floating on the surface, their yellow eyes out of the water. It was about as wide as the farmyard at la Noue. But in the middle the water seemed to be moving: it's skin was quivering. But they didn't stay to look at that - their eyes were for the music made by the washing. At first they could see nobody.

The noise seemed to come from the opposite bank, the bank where started the land cleared and ploughed by Moarc'h long ago. They searched, looking this way and that. The veils of night were already thick. Ah, there it was, there on a little clearing by the water that they hadn’t noticed at first, at the very place where the hare had disappeared... a form quickly rising and falling. They could see it moving plainly as it bent and rose. Each movement brought its distinctive sound, as regular yet different as the ticking of a clock. She was hammering and hammering, as forcefully as MordTacier on his anvil. Bursts of water leapt up on all sides from her washing-beater. With one hand she was beating, with the other folding and unfolding a long pale length of material.

‘Well,' Lucas murmured, ‘who would have thought that women came to do their washing in a place like this... We'll have to tell la Galiotte. She’ll never believe us.'

He felt completely freed from his fear. He could almost have laughed out loud at this person who came where nobody wanted to so much as put their toe.

The washing-woman stopped at last. She unfolded the material that she had just beaten out with such energy. It was a sheet. She gathered it in and with wide open arms flung it into the water like a fisherman casting his net. To Jeanne's and Lucas's great astonishment the sheet didn't sink. It floated, smoothed out, on the water. Without any more ado the washer-woman took another bundle, a wet one, and began beating.

Plick, plock, plick, plock...

This time the tune was sadder. Sometimes the harmonium in the church at Angillon took it into its head to play in this funereal way.

Suddenly Lucas clutched Jeanne’s arm. His grip nearly broke the bone. A rattle of horror hacked at his throat. He staggered back and extricated himself as best he could from the giant greenery which, though soft, was cutting. Each time he raised a foot the water and the muddy clay answered with a hollow, angry sound. The shapeless bps of the putrescent earth made plaints of thwarted greed. At last he managed to push away the slimy tentacles that were trying to hold him back. He was on firm earth. He fled. He ran with all his might. He howled with fright. The night threw back his voice like a great bronze bell.

Meanwhile Jeanne hadn’t budged. Her feet were a little deeper in the mud. The stagnant water came almost to her knees. Her dress floated round her like a faded petal. The girl was fascinated. She made no effort to follow Lucas in his flight. Her eyes were so straining towards what she saw that they hurt as if they were being tom out. One of her hands was clasping her throat, the other was over her mouth. The form was still at its washing, with no regard for anything else. It beat and beat. The arm rose and fell measuredly, tirelessly, but the body, clothed in some fashion of long ago, ceased at the shoulders. There was no head.

Jeanne stayed like that for a long time, motionless, transfixed with fear, the water mounting up to her thighs, her whole body in a fever. For a long time she heard the plick plock made by the apparition. Night had almost fallen. The sheet was still floating. It was moving slowly towards her. It wasn't sinking. It was of a spotless white that repelled the night. The sheet that the headless woman was tirelessly beating was in a roll under her bat - she hadn’t unfolded it. Then she piled it up as if to carry it away. Jeanne felt her strength ebbing. She closed her eyes.

She felt a booming noise in her ears, then seemed to hear the sound of familiar voices shouting. At last she made out her own name. The noise of the beating stopped. She opened her eyes again. The strange washer-woman had disappeared. Her glance went to the water where the floating sheet should have been. There was nothing - nothing except herself sinking a little deeper with every motion she made. She could still hear voices - then she distinctly recognized Antoine's voice, then the grumbling of Grattebois. Beams of light made holes in the rushes. 

The rushes were violently brushed to one side. Hands were stretched towards her and wrenched her from the rotten earth which had been sure of its prey this time.

 IV

In the year 1897, which began so badly for Moarc'h, the snow lay for two solid months enriching the soil. Then the weather turned mild. Winds warmed by a stronger sun forced the cold to unloose its grip on the snow which remained in patches in the fields. One morning, when walking over his land, the Breton realized that the ice had lost its crackling skin. The earth had regained its soft sweet smell. Now he knew that, unless there was an unexpected setback, no further freeze-up need be feared.

When the earth had perforce drunk in the snow-water, it dried and became soft. This was the moment the fanner was waiting for. With Antoine's help he began preparing a new bed for the spring corn. That done he took a heavy sack of seed under his left arm. He hooked his fingers firmly round the middle of the sack and with his other hand he scattered the seed.

On the horizon a spinney of poplars had managed to entwine the setting sun in its spidery branches. Nightfall saw Moarc'h on his way home, telling himself he had now done with his rebellious field. As he arrived back at the farm a noise of wheels and bells could be heard on the road from Langlois. A covered cart, drawn by two horses, entered the yard and turned round the water-trough. It stopped before the door of the main room. It was Turpin the Ménétréol miller, a man white with flour and small and round like one of his sacks.

'Hey, there,' he said, pulling in the reins after laying his whip on the seat.

He got down with difficulty. Moarc’h went straight up to him and took the thick half-closed hand that the miller held out to him.

‘Good morning, père Turpin,' he said unamiably, ‘we'd given you up...'

The miller gave a helpless smile. In every farm he was greeted with the same reproach, said with more or less good humour. In the old days he'd been always ahead of his work and his rounds took place regularly, but now that he was weighed down by the years no-one could count on getting their flour at the appointed time. La Galiotte came out of the living-room. She and Turpin both hailed from Clémont and, what was more, they were the same age. As soon as they caught sight of each other they drew near and patted each other roughly on the back.

‘You're not getting any thinner, young 'un,' la Galiotte said, drawing back to assess his girth, ‘you must be guzzling flour through your nose and ears as well as your mouth...'

‘You're not getting any fatter, my girl,' the miller replied in the same tone of voice, closing his fist on the old woman's arm, ‘you must be living one long Lent. I swear you'll soon be as pitifully thin as a rake.'

La Galiotte shook her arm free.

'You're hurting me,' she groaned. 'At one time you were more gallant and gentle than that, and humbler too, especially when we went together with the sheep out on the la Sauldre pastures... Why, you don't even remember.'

As if he didn’t remember! He set to screwing up his eyes in a knowing way, then finally let go of her.

‘Naughty, d’you think I forget as easily as that?’

But Moarc’h couldn’t care less about what they might have been up to long ago. His concern was for the sacks of flour. So this time, as on every other visit, he broke up the happy exchange of banter.

‘How many sacks have you brought back?’ he asked.

I’ve done my very best for you,’ the miller replied, serious again. ‘Everything you gave me at the beginning of the autumn is there in my cart. Tell your fellows to pull back the cover, and it’ll be in your loft in no time.’

Then the Breton turned jovial.

‘That’s a good job done, père Turpin,’ he said, ‘but you’ve taken your time and no mistake. We’ve nearly run out of bread.’ 

‘You all say that, but you know quite well that I’m no longer young, and the fellows I employ are good for nothing. If only my two boys hadn’t married away from home...’ And he let out a sigh.

The farmer wanted to give him some advice.

‘You’re wasting your time doing your rounds yourself. Get a young man onto the job.’

The miller made a defensive gesture.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. If I told you I go on shoving these wretched sacks of grain and flour around merely as an excuse to keep on the road you wouldn’t believe me, you’d think it so absurd... You’re not the understanding kind... All the same, you might as well know that it’s a pleasure I can’t give up. It’s like a vice...’

‘Of course,’ the Breton agreed, for he didn’t want to provoke the miller.

Then he called out for the farmhands to help. Next he went towards the loft.

As he was passing in front of the living-room door his eyes fell on the stone head from la Malnoue propped up against the wall near the doorstep.

‘Good God!' he exclaimed, stopping dead.

La Galiotte heard him and came up.

'Oh yes, I hadn't told you,' she said, putting her hands on her hips. Tour man from Aubigny came. He was very sorry to miss you, but as I told him, if you don't warn people in advance, they can't guess someone's coming. To put it in a nutshell, he produced your find from his carriage - a lovely trap, you should have seen it, with wheels and sides as delicate as reeds, not to mention the mare which was as sprightly as a girl in love. Oh yes, as I was saying, he produced the stone and put it where you see it now. He said he'd come specially to bring it back. He seemed in a hurry to be off so he even said no to a glass of the plum. You've got to do the right thing with people of that sort, especially as he must be rich as he was in no hurry for you to pay him back...'

‘Good God,' said Moarc'h.

And then: ‘Did he take away the fire-back?'

‘He obviously didn't think of it,' la Galiotte went on, ‘he was in too much of a hurry. You felt he was anxious to get away. He even looked at the head in a funny way. Once he'd put it down he heaved a sigh as if he was glad to be rid of it. Listen, I'll tell you something. That man was just like me, he was frightened of that horrible stone. You ought to throw it into the marsh, where it belongs...'

‘Did he tell you why he didn't want it any more?' asked Moarc'h, disconcerted by such generosity.

‘Well, about that he said he had had enough trouble as it was, and he preferred to lose a bit of money and get some peace. He even went on to say that you and your stone could go to the devil.'

Suddenly the old woman's words flowed into his ears like cream.

‘In that case,' he said, ‘it isn't at all a bad deal for us.'

‘Yes, but I think the man is right, that stone frightens me and you ought to get rid of it.'

‘Don't talk any more nonsense!'

Turpin had drawn near. When he saw the statue he began asking questions, as he was amused and curious.

‘Hey, sonny, what's that I see? You didn't make it by any chance?'

Moarc'h's answer was immediate. There was a touch of pride in his voice:

'Nowadays no-one can make heads like that, they've lost the knack. I found that ancient stone when I was ploughing up our new field at la Malnoue on the edge of the water-hole.' The miller showed lively astonishment.

‘What, you found it near a place like Malnoue and you're prepared to risk keeping it at your farm?’

Moarc'h forced a laugh.

‘So you believe in old wives' tales too?'

‘Believe in them? Look, obviously you don't know what la Malnoue is. It's worse than anything... At this very moment, under our feet, under the farmyard, there's a big river running from one end to the other of the great loop in the Loire. The whole of Sologne is floating like those islands of green weed you see on ponds. Some call this river la Malnoue, and they say it goes out into the ocean, always underground of course...’

The farmer broke in:

‘Listen, we haven't time to waste. You can tell us your story some other time, it'll amuse la Galiotte. Come on, get your sacks ready. Night is coming on.'

But the miller caught him by his jacket and held him still by force.

‘Listen. Wait a minute... Let me tell you again, la Malnoue is so evil there's nothing it can't do... It has tentacles everywhere underground in these parts. It's a daughter of the devil. As for you, you don’t realize that the devil can work evil with water, too. He doesn't only use fire, he has to have command over both, master them, otherwise one would put the other out, and that's why he's got hold of la Malnoue. I tell you I've heard it groaning behind a fire-back in a Clémont farm, and that's not far from here, what, and that was only two years ago. The heat of the fire made it sizzle against the cast-iron fire-back. You bet it’s the same in your farm - as in all the Sologne farms. La Malnoue wells up behind your fireplace. If you defy it it can rot your buildings - your fields - make your people ill - and worse still...'

The miller's face was crimson with conviction. It looked as though, in his effort to silence him, the devil whom he had been unmasking had marked him with the colour of hell. His face sat incongruously on the great white sack of his body. La Galiotte was listening with grave nods of approval. She was following the movements of his mouth, ready to fill in any details he mightn't know. Moarc'h, too, was forced to listen because the miller was holding his jacket so tight that there was a risk of it tearing...

'And that head,' the miller went on, 'might well be the head of the wicked stone shepherdess who watches over and directs la Malnoue. Others claim there's a lovely one, too, like Our Lady. It was you who said that the spot where you picked it up was called la Malnoue and that there was a water-hole... So can't you see that's the final proof... Hurry up and put it back where you found it - if you don't, something terrible will happen that our wizard at Ménétréol can't put right, though he can do anything about everything...'

La Galiotte made a sententious gesture of approval.

‘You seem to have become twenty again, miller,' laughed Moarc'h so as to hide the fear that had hit him in the stomach.

As he spoke he managed to loose the miller's hold on his jacket. The miller on his side calmed down and seemed to feel some remorse.

'You mustn't think I'm angry... but you looked so obstinate I felt I had to give you a bit of a fright. Anyway, get rid of that stone. And now to work, you're right, it's getting late and I've still a long way to go.'

The farm-hands were already on the cart. Antoine called impatiently to the miller.

‘Here I am, here I am...' the miller answered.

La Galiotte went to the stable, muttering against la Malnoue and all the devils of Sologne. The Breton passed through the living-room and climbed up to the loft by the ladder in the outhouse. He opened the high door onto the yard and they heard him manoeuvring the big pulley which he attached firmly to the beam that jutted out beyond the roof just over the cart. Standing on the load of flour, Turpin and Antoine stretched up their arms to get hold of the end of the rope. Lucas was standing gaping idly.

Moarc’h shouted to him to come and help pull.

* * *

All the sacks were now in storage. Moarc’h was thinking of the stone head. He signalled to Antoine and told him to fetch it and attach it to a rope. His find still had some value. It must be put aside. Who knew - he might be able to sell it again. When it was attached, Antoine signed to Moarc’h who began hauling it up with Lucas’s help. 

Antoine couldn’t help laughing; 'It looks as if it's being hanged', he joked. Then suddenly the rope became weightless. Moarc’h heard a shout from the cart, and then a sharp cry of pain. Moarc’h rushed to the opening. Down below the miller was sprawling against the side of the cart. The stone was at his feet. Antoine was bending over the motionless man. As he straightened himself he gave the stone a rough kick. It rolled over and came to a stop against a sack.

‘Where did it hit him?’ Moarc’h asked.

‘It's nothing said Antoine. 'I only got him on the corner of his boot, but for a minute it looked as though it was going to crush his chest. He threw himself back just in time.'

Then, mockingly:

‘I have a feeling it did it deliberately... Don’t you agree?’

'It was all your fault,' answered the Breton edgily, 'you should have tied the rope tighter. This time twist it round several times and tie a firm knot.'

Finally the miller got to his feet and took a few limping steps. Emotion and pain still had hold of him. He was now white from his hair to his clogs - like a ghost. He began threatening Moarc’h.

‘I warned you that stone was evil.'

The Breton didn’t answer. He was still chewing over what Antoine had said.

* * *

The last days of March brought torrents of icy rain. There were heavy clouds. They rose dark over the horizon. They seemed to be following a planned course so as just to touch the distant heights of la Borne and get a rest from their labours. They made you think of a huge heavy herd of pregnant cattle harried by angry dogs. And the invisible dogs chasing the water-laden smoke were the bad winds of March. You could hear them howling when they got caught by accident in branches. You could also hear them crashing their great drops of rain on the roofs and walls. It was as though they were shaking off their sweat. And the obedient clouds always ran before them, emptying themselves out without ever seeming to shed their grey hide.

At la Noue, as elsewhere, they got tired of waiting for the long-delayed fine weather to come. You would never have thought April was so near - it seemed as if autumn had only just begun. Suddenly everyone gave way to depression. Lucas, alone, wasn’t cast down. For him this was a good opportunity to get more unnecessary sleep.

That afternoon milking-time came to shake off boredom. With his fork Antoine started up the work of every morning and every evening, year in, year out. While raking, he watched Henriette milking. Her back was towards him. The rapid movements of her hands made her shoulders roll. Her head gave a little jerk with each movement Her long brown hair burst out of the red kerchief knotted round her head to keep her hair in place. Her rounded arms stretched the pale material of her blouse. Her red and white cotton apron emphasized her buttocks resting squarely on the low stool. Once again he was possessed by the thrust of life that he could only satisfy in his imagination.

At that moment Henriette called him and asked for another pail. She had already filled one. He brought her another, cold and empty. The farmer’s wife moved to another cow and put the pail down on the straw beneath it. Antoine couldn’t help saying:

‘Why don’t you hold it between your knees, it’s less tiring...'

She looked at him. He could read reproach in her eyes, even vexation, and certainly no reflection of his own desire.

T don’t feel as I did before,’ she said and turned her head away, ‘you mustn’t hold it against me.'

‘You’ve changed a lot,’ he said in a lower voice, ‘it’s almost as though you’re under a spell.’

‘It could be,’ she answered.

* * *

That evening, after the meal, and long after everyone else had gone to bed, Moarc’h set about going to bed himself. But before leaving the living-room he pushed the embers of the fire together and to one side of the hearth, out of the reach of the accursed wind which had managed to insert a finger into the chimney and was digging in the ashes. The fire-back cemented in at the back of the grate looked like an oven door closed on baking bread. The Breton remembered what the miller had said, and couldn’t help leaning forward to hear if there was a gurgling sound behind the metal.

Old Turpin's stupidity brought a smile to his lips. Quite absurd - this famous Malnoue having tentacles everywhere and menacing every farm! When all was said and done, what wrong had he committed by reclaiming a strip of land on the edge of the water-hole? He touched the fire-back. It was very thick and held in the heat and would still hold it for a long time. Then he went to see if the doors and shutters were well fastened against the body-blows of the wind. Then he stretched. Finally he turned out the lamp which left the fingering foul smell of paraffin, and off he went to his room.

Henriette was in bed. She was lying on her back with her head flat on the pillow covered in red cretonne. The eiderdown had been cast onto the floor. The blanket, tucked in tightly under the mattress, was stretched like the skin of Henriette's stomach. The lamp, still alight on the bedside table, made her look like someone dead, and called for respect, while her nightdress, half-unbuttoned and revealing the top of her breasts, aroused desire.

Moarc'h felt his blood becoming hot with pleasure. His veins swelled. He felt a sudden longing to wake Henriette up and offer her his strength. As he took off his jacket which hampered his movements he could feel the cold waiting to pounce on his skin and deposit its harm. Then he forgot his desire. He half undressed and got clumsily into the bed already warmed by his wife; at least she served that purpose. He rested his large body close to hers. Henriette shook him off. Without the slightest annoyance he turned over and put out the lamp. After a minute he groped for the eiderdown in the dark and pulled it up right over his head. He only fell asleep when he had managed to warm the very bottom of the bed, cold as the bottom of a well, and driven from his ears the splashing of rain and the cries of the wind.

Something woke him up, but not the wind. He was surprised to have regained consciousness in the middle of the night. Probably it was the cold that had dragged him back from sleep. Like invisible leeches it had sucked the warm blood from his shoulders and replaced it with icicles. Outside the wind was still chasing the rain. The roof was leaking. The water had managed to get into the room through a crack in the ceding. It was dripping onto the floor. The first drips hadn’t made a noise, but now they had made a puddle into which the others splashed. The noise of the rain-drops removed Moarc’h further and further from sleep, and made him think of a heavenly Malnoue. So as to get to sleep again he pulled the eiderdown round his ears.

Suddenly a dull thud shook the ceiling and made the farmer sit up. The noise came from above. Soon it was a loud rolling noise along the floor of the loft. The woodwork creaked. Moarc’h stayed stock still, transfixed with amazement, and held his breath so as to hear better. But the noise stopped and did not recommence. Moarc’h thought of the explanation: a rat - and heaven alone knew how many there were in the loft - had knocked over the large wooden bowl for playing skittles. It was that that had rolled.

As he settled down again into the warmth of the bed he recalled the splendid skittle matches he used to play with his father-in-law and others long ago. That bowl rolled uncannily well. Its weight took it just where you wanted it to go, granted of course that you knew it well, as you know a good tool. At last he fell asleep thinking that he’d have to go up and find it and wedge it in a comer so that it wouldn't cause any more sudden alarms. And his hand made a sketchy movement of taking hold of it by the holes in the wood, hollowed nose and eye-sockets that made it look like an old skull.

* * *

It was almost midday when Moarc’h remembered the bowl and how he’d intended to put it in some safe place in the loft. As he had a free moment before the meal he climbed up there by the ladder in the outhouse.

No sooner had he lifted the trap door than dust seized him by the throat and the floor of the loft began creaking. Dryness had made it garrulous. A spider's web caught on his face and made his skin quiver. He walked past the stone head. He saw it with all the surprise of a new discovery. For him it already belonged to old-time memories, and who could tell but that it wouldn't stay up here for years, like them? Since the antique-dealers in town didn't want to have anything to do with it, who else would? No sooner had he passed a few steps beyond it than he had forgotten about it. He looked over at the heap of grain tipped out on the floor and kept in place by planks. He went up to it and stirred it around a bit with the wooden scoop lying against it - having first removed some hardened droppings left by a cat. Soon he threw the scoop aside. What he wanted was to find that skittle bowl - the bowl that had rolled about last night and could do so again. He looked around the part of the loft that was just above his bedroom, but he couldn't see it and told himself that la Galiotte must have tidied it away.

Then he began wondering why she should have done this as he hadn't asked anyone to do it. He went on and finally found himself facing the old barrel. The wooden bowl was underneath it. So the good woman had put it back after all. He tested it to see if it was wedged tightly, and as he touched it he could feel the thick layer of dust that covered it. He was surprised and took a closer look. The bowl was covered with at least two years' dust, a regular wig of it. Yet there had been the noise in the night, and there was no other object in the loft capable of producing it. The thing was impossible - he must have been dreaming! After all it didn't matter that much. But so as to give his search some purpose he took up the bowl in both hands and went back to the trap door through which cool pure air was mounting. He threw it down to the foot of the ladder. It landed on the outhouse floor with a gentle thud.

Then he too went down the ladder, shutting the trap door after him. Arrived at the bottom he gave the bowl a kick that sent it rolling against the wall, between a heap of scrap iron and an old cracked iron pot in which was a fistful of rusty bent nails. When he’d done that his hunger told him it was time for food.

* * *

At la Noue all was sleeping. The rainy season was over. The April night extended far beyond the moon, which made a small hole in it. The cold was congealed in its milky light. The first part of the night, when all animals and men are in deep slumber, was drawing to a close. One after another the solemn vibrating strokes of the Angillon church-clock sounded and re-echoed among the hills. Twelve of them vigorously wished each other goodnight. An hour later there would be only one stroke, a sad one. The only people to hear that would be those who had no need of the strength and consolation of night, or those who didn’t deserve sleep, the sick weary of their beds, and lawyers weary of spending the whole day seated between the arms of their archbishop’s chairs.

But Moarc’h, though he was weary down to his very bones, woke up to hear the distant chimes and then, echoing them, the nearer, rather off-key chimes of the clock in the living-room. He would have preferred not to know how the night was progressing. He turned heavily over. The wood of the bed creaked. The eiderdown smothered him in its soft warmth. He threw it off and onto Henriette who was making a faintly hoarse sound as she breathed. He still felt too hot, and was irritated by his subjection to the heat’s feverish embrace. Then, so as to enable his great body to breathe, he put one leg out from under the cover and let it dangle in the darkness. The cold creeping right up his leg then drove the fever away and made it icy. So he put his leg back in again and at once began feeling again the over-heat of the sheets. The barking of the Langlois dogs in the distance made him think of the howling of wolves.

Now that he was thoroughly awake, there was his mind working away as minds do. He didn't want to think, hut couldn't stop himself doing so. The next day's worries nagged at him, though there were still six hours of night to go. To drive them away he tried to concentrate on pleasant memories from the past. But what with nice and nasty thoughts the path to sleep eluded him entirely. He pulled out his too-hot arms and stretched them along beside him on top of the coverings, and then tried to relax his body as if he was sleeping. But all the darkness around him weighed on him and forced him to put his arms in again. Now his discomfort moved to his head, which seemed to be struggling against something. He glanced blindly in the direction of the window where the shutter was acting as a stopper to prevent the night getting out of the room. Shafts of moonlight slid in through the slats. Moarc'h got up and went over to the imprisoning window. He walked carefully so as not to bump into anything. He opened the shutter. A flood of moonlight flowed over his arms. He thought it best to take a deep breath and then return to bed. There was enmity around the bed. The Breton had rarely felt so alone. He stretched out his hand to touch his wife's body as it lay in the grip of sleep. Somewhat reassured, he sighed noisily, stretched, lay down full length and pulled his shirt down under him.

Suddenly a dull thud set the ceding vibrating. Moarc’h didn't stir. Then silence. Then a second thud. Moarc'h irresistibly raised his eyes to the thick beams that supported the floor of the loft above. But the moonlight didn't extend that far and he saw nothing. He could only hear, and that was worse than seeing. The second thud had sounded as if caused by iron. It fell direct on his heart; it struck him as if he was laid out flat on an anvil. He suffered. Then there was another thud, then another, on and on. The strong, bitter sweat of fear sprang from his pores from end to end of his body. Henriette continued in her peaceful sleep.

At the height of the din there came the rolling noise of that other night, put into the background by a month's hard work. His thoughts flew back to the skittle bowl that had filled him with such childish terror. He was about to laugh with relief when he remembered that he had brought it downstairs. At this actual moment it was in the outhouse. Then came a sensation as if a steel blade had entered his stomach and was cutting it with little jabs of fear as far as his loins. He tried to rid himself of the fear that was working such havoc with his body, and which was now attacking the muscles of his arms and legs. He could only master it by action. He stood up but could hardly control his movements. He stumbled into his clothes and got dressed. He didn't want to light the lamp. Resolutely he made for the door. But while groping for the latch he changed his mind and went back to light the paraffin-soaked wick. The smell of the smoke consoled him. Slowly he left the room and on the other side of the door was greeted by the reassuring smell from the dying embers in the living-room and the whiff of curdled milk.

Accompanied by his shadow which was cast by the lamp, and heartened by the lively ticking of the dock, he reached the outhouse. At the foot of the almost perpendicular ladder leading to the loft he threw a glance, greedy with hope, at the foot of the heap of scrap-iron where he had put the bowl. He saw it at once, and the shock was as if he had been given a blow in the legs. He lost all desire to climb the ladder. He no longer wanted to see.

For, up above, the thumping noise had begun again. He wanted to flee, and yet felt drawn - by an attraction more powerful than his poor human strength. He climbed with the help of one hand; the other held the lamp whose fluttering tongue of flame was the very image of his terror. He had lost command over his movements. His forehead struck the trap-door. Though so near to seeing, he made one more effort at escape, but his fears were weaker than his head which relentlessly pushed and raised the flap. The ring that served to lift the door from within suddenly turned over and fell on its other side with a bang that nearly split Moarc’h’s head in two. He reeled and clung to the ladder, then Went on raising the trap-door. It opened further and further and he saw nothing. Finally his eyes could explore the whole loft. It was full of night. Except that the skylight let in the same rays as in his room below. Everywhere was black, save where that shaft of moonlight fell. Outside that pale beam nothing could be seen. Except, yes, no, perhaps... except for the white round shape of that stone head moving about on the floor.

Panic and stupefaction assailed him. Yet he managed to get down the ladder. The trap-door banged shut with a noise that sent him on his way. He regained the bedroom. He shook his wife. Fear had dug a furrow from the nape of his neck to the small of his back, and from his throat to his stomach.

Henriette woke up in surprise, startled to feel such heavy hands passing all over her body. Then she realized.

‘It's you, is it!' she exclaimed.

She touched him, and could feel that he was already dressed, and trembling.

‘What on earth's happened?' she asked.

He drew back from the bed and collapsed in a corner. His fright had gone too deep.

* * *

For the rest of the night, and the whole of the next day, Moarc'h was in the grip of a fever that no-one could explain. Sometimes his teeth chattered. At other times he raised himself up on his elbows, his head lolling, his eyes wandering, and speaking in a voice that seemed to come from beyond a thick wall. He was raving, and no-one could understand what he was saying and hence no-one could get a clue as to the cause of his cruel sickness.

‘It must be some evil spell,' la Galiotte moaned, shaking her head.

'He must have knocked his head against a beam,' Antoine kept repeating. ‘Don't worry. Bretons are tough.'

As for Henriette, she was overcome with pity at seeing her man in such distress. She kept watch, kneeling by his bedside. This in its turn upset Ajitoine, so much so that he took Henriette's hand and held it fast.

Towards the end of the afternoon Moarc'h opened his eyes and began talking comprehensibly.

‘I’ve a pain in my head,' he groaned, staring at the silent group. 'I've a pain behind my eyes. I saw something terrifying. Why didn't you wake me earlier? You could have pulled me out of my nightmare...'

He passed his damp hands over his forehead, then let them fall again, as if they were bearing all the weight of his suffering.

He was on the point of raising himself up, when suddenly he fell back onto the sheet.

‘Up there,' he groaned in anguish, ‘I remember. Hurry... go and fetch the wizard from Ménétréol, the one Turpin was talking about the other day... That man can do anything... He's got to come - this very moment. He will have to help me. Hurry, Antoine, take the trap and bring him back... quickly, quickly.'

At first they didn't understand what he wanted. He said it again, and even implored...

‘Quick, Antoine, go and get him straightaway!'

As Ajitoine showed no readiness to obey, la Galiotte and Henriette went out to do what the master had asked. But Antoine drove them back with abrupt gestures and went to the stables himself. They could hear him swearing, then the farm walls re-echoed with the sharp trot of the horse and the smooth roll of the wheels.

Ajitoine came back with the man at dusk. The wizard looked about sixty. The road had covered him with a layer of dust. He was still wearing his blacksmith's apron - a fine apron of soft leather, smelling new and fresh like a Sunday suit, which he absolutely insisted on wearing. The man who "could do anything’ was small, thin, well-shaven, but the smuts from his forge had smeared their mark on his face. The top of his head was absolutely bald, the skin stretched over it like a drum. His cunning eyes were dose together as if to take up less room and strike with greater effect. His voice was beginning to crack with age. It bored into Moarc'h and drove away his torpor.

‘Well, my fine fellow,' the good man said, leaning towards the bed, "so you insisted on seeing me? And why was that?'

A part of the room was lit by the lamp. Outside full night had come down. The Breton lay flat and began trembling again.

‘There’s something wrong,' he said, holding the man's gaze. La Galiotte shot out of the darkness and came and patted down the eiderdown as if to make it give greater warmth. Moarc'h could also see Henriette, who was pale, and Antoine leaning against the door-frame with a mocking look playing round his lips.

If the farmer was to confide in this man then he had to be alone with him, and he was so anxious to start talking that he managed to summon up his voice of authority for barely the length of time it took to dismiss his household.

‘Off with you, go away, there's no need for you to know what I know... Get back to your work instead of idling here... and shut the door.'

The wizard turned and with a slight nod of his head urged them to obey. It was as though he was telling them not to worry, that he would see to everything... in a word, that he had taken over.

No sooner was the door closed than Moarc’h began pouring out his troubles.

‘Look,' he said in a harsh whisper, the tone in which secrets are imparted, "look, my farm is being haunted by an evil stone - an ancient head I found when ploughing. Last night I heard a noise in the loft up there, above us...' he paused and gave a fearful look at the ceiling.

'Go on,' encouraged the man, ‘don’t hold anything back, tell me everything, it’s bad for your brain to keep all your torments shut up in it!'

'So I took a lamp and climbed up there... and I saw... it was horrible...'

‘What did you see?’ urged the wizard, curious to know.

‘I saw the stone head... she was alive, lit up from inside .. . she was moving, but with nothing pushing her. And I was afraid. Help me... You can do everything.'

The man, who knew how to make people value his advice, said nothing.

'You can do everything,' Moarc’h repeated, desperate. 'So tell me what to do so as not to hear her any more, even in my sleep? It isn’t my fault that the ploughshare made a cut through her neck... Do something about it and you’ll be well paid.'

'You’re sure you didn’t dream what you’ve told me?’ the wizard said at last, lowering his eyelids till his eyes were shut.

'Of course not... You could cut off my hand...'

The wizard nodded and went on:

‘I asked that because I’m often called out just for bad dreams that come with fevers... people think the things have really happened and get frightened. Of course, this business could be serious, but you have to be absolutely sure of what you’re telling me. Can you recall any detail that would really prove that you weren’t dreaming?’

The Breton remembered that he had run back from the outhouse and woken up his wife. He told the man that and added that it was after that that he’d lost his memory. Without a word the wizard got up and left the room. He stayed away a long while. When he came back he had a more anxious look.

'There’s something peculiar about this,' he told Moarc’h.

’A man of your strength shouldn’t have been frightened that easily... Your plough cut the neck of that head, you say? Is there a statue in your field, then? And, if I get you right, you cut off its head?"

The farmer nodded. His chest heaved with deep sighs. The wizard from Ménétréol went on talking. His voice became heavier and heavier until it gradually enfolded the Breton like a mist of cottonwool, and soon it had isolated him from the rest of the world. Moarc’h heard:

‘I’m going to try to conjure away the evil by sending the power this head unleashes to sleep. Only, my good fellow, I must tell you that you did wrong when you separated the head from the rest of the body. If I were you, I’d stick it on again just as soon as possible. For all we know the statue is the devil in person. So you'll dig around in the place where you unearthed it and put it back on its stone shoulders. That's where it belongs, and when you've done that it'll have no reason for harming you. Take my word for it, if it makes all that noise in your loft it's because it wants you to take it back where you found it.'

With a violent effort the Breton wrenched himself from the torpor in which the wizard had enclosed him.

That I can't do,' he cried, T can't go and plough up my corn at la Malnoue just for a piece of stone. I won't. I prefer to wait till the harvest's in. Then I'll do it, I promise you.’

'As you like,' the man answered, stretching out his arms to make it quite clear that he bore no responsibility for the consequences of this refusal. 'Only, look out, take care - until you put it back in that field - that you don't break it or move it from the place where it now is. That would be a double misfortune.'

Then he stretched out his chin, anxious and questioning: ‘Do your people know the tricks this head is playing on you?'

Moarc'h immediately put his hand on the wizard’s. 'No,' he said sharply, 'no, they don't know and mustn't know, otherwise I couldn't keep anyone... and they'd be capable of throwing the head away in some corner of the woods, whereas you say it mustn't be moved.'

‘Yes, you're right,' the good man answered, disengaging his hand from the farmer's clammy one, 'above all, you mustn't move it. If you did that your misfortunes would never end. I'll let them think I've come for some other reason... and in that case I'll send the stone to sleep from my own house. Don't worry, I've got everything there I need. Nothing can hold out against me.'

Then, after a pause, 'You can give me what you like... a louis would suit me.'

'A louis!' repeated Moarc’h, taken aback.

He felt it was dear, but, as this man had him in his hands, he acquiesced and picked up his trousers which la Galiotte had folded and put on the floor. He pulled out his handkerchief. There was a knot in the corner. To hide what he was doing from the wizard, he hunched his shoulder and quickly undid the knot. One of the coins slid onto the sheet. Then he tied the knot again. He managed the operation so that the other louis didn't dink. He picked up the coin and gave it to the man who pocketed it without looking at it and started to go without a word of thanks. Moarc'h just managed to catch him by his apron.

'And what about my fever?' he asked, 'aren’t you going to take that away?’

'I could calm it down for you if that would make you happy,’ he said.

And from one of his pockets he extracted a filthy notebook and tore out a leaf on which he wrote with a carpenter’s pencil unearthed from the depths of another pocket. With each stroke of the pencil he stuck out the tip of his tongue. When he had finished he folded the leaf carefully and handed it to the Breton, frowning the while to emphasize the importance of what he was doing.

‘Tomorrow morning, as soon as you hear the first words of the day being spoken by anyone, you must swallow this paper. Soon your illness will be over. But you must have confidence in this and not drag a doctor into the business...'

He made the sign of the cross backwards way and then slowly went from the room, backwards. Moarc’h could hear la Galiotte questioning him. Then, in his impatience, the Breton unfolded the leaf. Avid to know, he managed to make out the following strange and incomprehensible words in the wizard's handwriting: ‘Abraxas, garroze, eglatus.’

Then he re-folded the paper apprehensively, as if he had just done something injurious to his cure.

 V

Antoine and Grattebois had had great difficulty in bringing Jeanne back to la Noue. But now the girl was in the living-room where she had flopped down onto a bench, her back to the table, her hands gripping the seat on either side of her. She held herself taut, as if she was afraid of being sucked in again. All the la Noue people were standing around in a state of worry and concern. They were watching every movement of her head which was still weighed down with terror. No-one spoke. Their horror was still on them. If the rescue-party hadn't arrived when it did, it would have been too late to save the girl who had stirred up the ancient curse of Malnoue.

The spectacle of Jeanne - immobile, frozen, defenceless, sinking little by little into the marsh, that area that was neither land nor water - was still vividly with them. If Lucas hadn't rushed into la Noue howling his terror like a damned soul escaped from hell, the girl would have been engulfed for ever and left no more than a painful memory. Oh yes, she certainly owed him a pretty big candle. But she also owed something to Antoine and old Grattebois - who smoked as much as he talked little. One of them had seized her by the waist, the other by a shoulder, and they’d pulled and heaved at the risk of themselves becoming victims of Malnoue. They had struggled back just in time to escape its slimy fangs - at the feel of its new prey the marsh became hungry and gaped wider. They had dragged the girl into the broken reeds. She was unconscious. Antoine had to slap her hard to bring her round - so much so that he felt ashamed, and to remove the bad impression had gently chafed her arms and legs, coated as these were with mud, and stinking of death. When the women finally arrived, heralded by strident cries, and knelt down to help, Antoine pushed them roughly away, saying that a man's hand was stronger than all their wailing. As he bent over Malvenue to listen to her breathing, his face had grazed her breast.

And that was what he was still thinking about when standing with the silent group gathered round the girl who sat with closed eyes and apparently struggling with a nightmare. His attitude was the same as that of the others - he was frowning and making brief, inconclusive gestures - but now and again Henriette caught him glancing at Jeanne’s blouse which moved up and down as the girl’s life flowed back. At last she opened her eyes and saw the group around her. The light from the lamps on the table behind her lit up their anxious faces. She found it hard to distinguish who was who in this strange tableau where the faces looked like masks. She thought she was in another world. But gradually the fresco came to life. Jeanne had come to herself completely.

Now each of them wanted to say their say. First came Henriette who, as the mother, said she was dead with anxiety. Then la Galiotte started preaching. Antoine asked questions, and even Grattebois permitted himself two words that summed up his relief. As they spoke, colour returned to Jeanne’s white cheeks, and now she felt nothing but acute exhaustion. She bent down and put her hands on her legs in an automatic gesture. She left the caked mud and stifled a cry of fright.

She remembered. The others saw her blanch again. She looked at them. A thin veil seemed to cover her eyes.

'Where's Lucas?' she asked in a small voice.

La Galiotte sat down beside her. Her old woman's panting was the only sound to break the renewed silence.

"Lucas... he's hardly any better than you are. He's in his comer rolled up in bedclothes, shivering with fear... he doesn't say anything but you can see it in his eyes, just as in yours. Come along, Jeanne darling, admit that you wanted to make a fool of him and were caught in your own trap...'

"You must tell us,' Henriette said, stroking her daughter's forehead; "we want to know what you were both doing in such an evil place, and after nightfall. You didn't go to the Rudesses farm, did you? Tell us, come along.'

Grattebois wanted to know too. His curiosity was so great that his lazy tongue got into brief motion:

"You won't be punished,' he said.

Henriette threw a hostile look towards him. Suddenly she became aggressive:

"What's all this talk about punishing her after the disaster that nearly happened...'

Antoine calmed her down and, with a rapid exchange of glances, made his father resume his habitual silence. Jeanne started to speak. She held back nothing of what she had seen. Their faces took on a look of incredulity. Of course the girl must have dreamt the story she was telling with so much conviction. As if a woman would go and do her washing at nightfall in dirty water that no-one wanted to go near even by day! - and a headless woman at that! La Galiotte, as she went on listening, was the only one to start rumpling her black apron and twitching her thin shoulders in a way that made her lean first to one side and then the other. At times her lips trembled as if the inside of her head was being slowly twisted by pain. Her behaviour was so disturbing that no-one could help looking at her.

At last Jeanne finished her story. Her first fear now was that they would laugh at her, and there was no doubt that had it not been for la Galiotte's display of anxiety there would have been laughter all round. As it was the old woman's behaviour had its effect on the others.

It looks as though the girl's story has thoroughly disturbed you,' Antoine said, clearing his throat.

There was malice shining in his eyes, but he said nothing more. Before replying, la Galiotte made as if to shake off a burden. Then she sighed and spoke as if to herself. Her voice was dry and querulous:

‘Of course it has disturbed me... Perhaps other people have seen what little Jeanne saw... and as for the ones who have seen such a thing, well...'

Henriette turned pale. Two involuntary tears sprang to her reddened eyes, and everyone saw them falling down her tired, tanned cheeks.

‘Well what?' asked Jeanne urgently, for she couldn't understand why the old woman was so agitated.

La Galiotte put her hand on Malvenue's shoulder and started a massaging movement, as if the girl's heart was in her hand.

‘You'll find out, little Jeanne,' she said, ‘we can't tell you, but...'

Henriette shut her up sharply.

‘She has no need ever to know, and anyway you're not to go putting ideas into her head, as you did with her father.'

She stopped and turned away her distraught face. Jeanne was suddenly tense. Perhaps she was at last going to learn something about the mystery surrounding her father's death. But Henriette didn't want worries to get lodged in her daughter's head. Her eyes looked into Jeanne's who read fear and distraction in them.

‘You thought you saw someone,' she said in rapid, persuasive tones. ‘But you and Lucas have been imagining things.

You ran after your hare and stupidly slipped into the marsh, That's the truth, isn't it? Then you were so frightened that you mistook some shadow for a ghost. That’s the whole truth about this fantastic story?’

It was partly true, but Jeanne had taken care not to tell the whole truth about the strange hare that had drawn them as if by force to the water-hole. She herself saw it all: the task of that monstrous animal had been to lure her to the phantom washer-woman, and the role of the pheasant had been to hold them back. Jeanne thought this but didn’t say it. They really would have had grounds for laughter...

La Galiotte remained deep in thought. Suddenly she started, and seemed to call Henriette and Antoine to witness:

‘But the head,’ she exclaimed, ‘the head wasn’t there, as little Jeanne says. The head, don’t you see?’

‘Devil take that head,’ cried Antoine, ‘I’ve already told you I don't want to hear another word about it.'

And he seized one of the lamps in his strong grasp. Shadows ran along the walls and dissolved in the black recesses of the room.

'It's high time we went to bed,' he said again. ‘Otherwise we'll be too tired to work tomorrow.'

La Galiotte helped Jeanne up. She took her to her room. As they went she said some reassuring words:

‘Come to bed, darling, and don’t think about it again. As your mother said, and she’s quite right, you must surely have imagined the whole thing... I myself once mistook a weathercock for a ghost... when I was about your age.’

She spoke without smiling and her sigh belied her words. They went into the room followed by Henriette, and Antoine came as far as the door to give them light. Jeanne was lying on her bed, the material of her dress stretched tight over her figure. The farmer lingered on, motionless and as if spellbound. His eyes seemed to be lifting up her blouse and caressing the warm skin beneath. Henriette could read his thoughts.

'What's the matter with you?' she said aggressively. ‘This evening you keep looking at her in that funny way.'

He felt silly.

‘Me? Why should I look at her? She's only a kid.'

And he made as if to turn and go, but at that moment la Galiotte, who was holding the girl's hands, asked him to bring the lamp nearer. He quickly did so. Jeanne's body was outstretched, her eyes shut, her legs dangling over the side of the bed. Her uplifted skirt showed her rounded thighs, still fouled with traces of clay.

‘She needs sleep,' the old woman said, and started to lift Jeanne's legs onto the bed.

But she was trembling and clumsy and had no strength left. Without relinquishing the lamp, Antoine helped her with one hand. The gentle light emphasized Jeanne's limbs and picked out her shape still more. But he wasn’t allowed to savour this position of youthful abandon to the full. Henriette plucked his sleeve and pulled him back so sharply that she nearly tore the cloth. He went out reluctantly.

When all three had left Jeanne’s room, la Galiotte pulled the door gently to and signed to the others to follow her. She went to the outhouse and there, in a low and trembling voice, told them what the girl must never know.

‘Now I can tell you. Well, I believe everything the little one said... the statue did come back this evening... She is still asking to be rejoined to her head. Years don’t count with statues. Don’t you people agree?’

Nobody answered. Grattebois, who was almost entirely ignorant of this tale and had no taste for ghost stories - any more than for any of the devil’s work - immediately withdrew from the group and returned to his fireside where he pulled on his juicy pipe. They could hear him spitting into the embers which thereupon hissed. The old woman went on:

‘The pieces should have been thrown back into the marsh... but when you, Antoine, left them in the bushes nearby you were just following your own ideas, you didn't think it important. And now anyone who lays hands on those pieces will pay dear for your laziness...'

Antoine made a vague gesture of self-defence. He made fun of the woman, but deep down he was uneasy.

"Come, you're not really trying to make us believe that that statue still wants her head! That was all right for Moarc'h who believed more in the devil than in God...'

‘Don't start mocking!' Henriette implored.

She then turned to the old woman and questioned her with controlled emotion:

‘And the sheets she was beating out? What was the meaning of that?'

La Galiotte shut her eyes. She seemed to be thinking things over.

‘I hardly dare say it,' she said at last, ‘but they might be two winding-sheets. Some disaster is on the way...'

In the half-shadow her lips could no longer be seen. Her words seemed to come from the beyond.

'Two winding-sheets that she was preparing for two people who are to die...'

* * *

The cowherd got up earlier than usual, and made a noisy entrance into the living-room. He took the bread from the bin then clumsily dropped the lid which crashed to the floor. La Galiotte sat up in bed as if the noise had been an axe that had chopped her sleep off. She immediately felt guilty - had she overslept? But she could see that the dawn was only just coming up. She called out to ask who it was. The boy came to the door and opened it a little.

‘It's me,' he said, pushing his tousled head into the room. The old woman could see that his bright black eyes were still tired. She could also see an accumulation of fear.

‘Oh, so it's you,' she teased, ‘it's you, is it, full of courage this morning... it can t be more than five o'clock... even the cock's not stirring. Usually we have to wait for you to give you the cows... What's the matter with you?'

Without further invitation the cowherd entered the room.

La Galiotte got up and dressed. She didn't want to give the boy an excuse for broadcasting that they'd had a talk when he was up and she still in bed.

‘It looks as though you're thoroughly worried,' she said. ‘Why did you make so much noise? What is it?'

He answered at last. ‘It's because I couldn't sleep all night on account of Lucas... He frightened me.'

‘What on earth are you talking about?'

‘Yes, he kept saying that the devil was near him, just near him, pulling him by his hair and his feet and his fingers. I didn't know what to say. All I could do was listen. I didn't want to see and I pulled the bedclothes over my head. I didn’t want the devil to do those things to me too. Couldn't you hear him shouting? ’

La Galiotte chuckled. ‘Shouting? Who? The devil?'

‘Now, now, you mustn't joke. You know quite well the devil doesn't talk. No, Lucas. He was shouting even louder than I do when I call the cows if they've gone up to the far end of the fields. He never stopped trying to keep away the devil all night, I swear it. There's no doubt he brought him back with him from la Malnoue last night... I lay stock still for hours though I ached all over... I thought I was going to die of suffocation under the bedclothes, but better die there than in hell... don't you agree? And then at last he stopped when dawn came, he stopped his tossing and his shouting... I daresay the devil had gone; I expect he doesn't like daylight.'

While he was prattling on without pausing to draw a breath the old woman finished dressing. She remade her bed with a few deft strokes, not one more than usual.

‘You shouldn't have let yourself get all upset,' she said smiling on and off and patting the cowherd on the shoulder.

‘Lucas caught a fever in the marsh water and had a nightmare. There’s nothing more to it than that...'

‘Anyway he got me thoroughly scared,' the boy went on in his small quick voice that babbled away in her ear and finally got on her nerves, ‘especially when he said, “The stones must be taken away, they must be told where the stones are hidden, the stones don't belong to la Noue, la Galiotte and the others must be told.” That’s what he said when he talked to the devil.'

The smile froze on the woman’s lips. The cowherd saw that la Galiotte was frightened now, in the same way as he was, and that doubled his own fear.

Then the woman left the room and he could hear her knocking sharply on the master's door and shouting:

‘Hey, Henriette, Antoine, get up!'

She called over and over again and at last Antoine emerged.

He was barefoot and trying to stuff his shirt into his trousers, as if he were cramming washing into a washing-bag. La Galiotte left him no time for questions.

‘Hurry, Lucas must be woken up. I knew that someone had done something stupid. The idiot has found the pieces of the head and brought them back to the farm. The cowherd heard him talking about it in the night. So hurry up, we've got to find out...'

Antoine said nothing. He was thoroughly annoyed. He’d had just about enough of the whole business of the head and Malnoue. On going to bed last night he’d had to calm down his wife, and now, first thing in the morning, he was again being pushed around to do something about it. He swore and stretched to wake up his muscles. Then he scratched his fingers through his sleep-tangled hair to straighten it. Then Henriette emerged in her turn, also trying to shake off the aftermath of sleep.

'We’ve got to find out what’s happened at once,' said la Galiotte.

Henriette looked at the servant and felt her fright of the evening before seeping back.

'Come on then,' she said, suddenly decisive, 'she's right. If those stones were ever found at la Noue we’d be in trouble. Yesterday our Jeanne nearly disappeared in the marsh. And that's enough...'

La Galiotte had already opened the living-room door. Antoine was on the point of dismissing the women as crazy when he recalled his own fear... the appalling scene when the Breton... He didn't want to dwell on the details of that nightmare, and clacked his tongue with disgust. And now, if the remains of that same head were ever to be found again at the farm, there was a risk of the same evil returning, and, for all anyone knew, this time it might be the current master of the la Noue lands, both good and bad, who would be its first victim.

They crossed the yard swathed in the mists of dawn, and quickly reached the far end of the barn where the farmhands slept. They went in. Lucas was asleep, lying on his side, half naked. He looked rather like a wrestler worn out by a tough fight. It was plain to all that he had been in mortal combat with his nightmare. One of his hands was embedded right down in the straw of his disembowelled mattress; the ticking, browned by the passage of time, had produced large wounds under the stress of his nails, and the surroundings of the bed were littered with golden straw shredded by the years. Hoarse breathing came from the fellow's throat. Without more ado Antoine took him by the hair and shook him He woke up screaming, wrested from sleep by the physical pain and his own outcry. His foot beat violently in the void in an effort at defence. At last he recognized Antoine, and heard him, and fear was added to his suffering.

'Now just tell me the truth. Did you find the forbidden stones? And where did you put them? Come along, tell me, or I'll pull out your hair by the fistful.'

Antoine let go. Lucas knelt up on his mattress. Dizziness came and went in his head like the bubble in a builder's level operated by an apprentice. He couldn’t keep it straight. At one point he looked towards the open door and stared at the yard as if he expected someone to appear. Finally, after some hesitation, he sighed and spoke.

'Yes, the stones are here, but it wasn't me who wanted to bring them back... All I did was what Jeanne told me. It was she who found them in the hedge, over there on the way to la Croule.'

"And where are they?' la Galiotte broke in, for she was more and more distraught by the thought of such provocation.

'Show us where you put them,' commanded Antoine, trying to control his anger, 'now at once!'

Lucas dressed as best he could and led the way out. The others followed in silence. Once in the yard he turned his back on them and walked with more self-confidence. As he passed in front of the living-room he looked through the open door. For a moment he feared that Jeanne might be up. He didn't want her to see him showing the hiding-place to the others. Once the sack had been hauled out into the yard he would act all innocent and the trick would be played. He would then deny having admitted anything. Antoine could have discovered the sack by chance...

But fear descended on him again for all that before he reached the pigsty, and he slowed down his pace. Antoine gave him a blow to speed him up again. When he reached the low door of the sty Lucas pushed it open and disappeared inside. La Galiotte and Henriette gave one another a look of understanding without exchanging a word: if the stones were there, then it would explain the strange sickness that had attacked the pigs since yesterday at midday, covering their skins with leprous patches. Antoine was not thinking the same thing, but he clenched his fists. The sack was sticky with manure. The pieces of the head bumped together inside.

'Here it is,' he said, and immediately added apprehensively, 'You won't tell Jeanne that it was me who showed you where she made me put it... I wouldn't want...'

A box on the ear cut short his sentence, and Antoine had another ready when Henriette held him back.

‘Leave him alone,' she said, ‘that won’t do any good. What we’ve got to do now is get rid of the stones... First things first.'

Antoine pushed his wife away. Lucas knew Antoine. He knew he was now quite ready to beat him up mercilessly, he might break one of his limbs, heaven knew what. Or even kill him. He ran to the protection of la Galiotte who was keeping to one side, obsessed by the sack from the womb of which, silent yet active, sprang the hellish rage which, already...

‘Listen,' he shouted to Antoine, ‘listen, I’ll tell you something worse Malvenue has done...'

Henriette calmed her man and went over to Lucas. She had forgotten the remains of the head for the moment. Her eyes were full of a mother’s anger. She rose up like a viper:

‘You just tell immediately the worse thing our Jeanne has done. Tell us quickly so that Antoine will have an extra reason for punishing a cowardly liar.'

Lucas’s forehead came out in thick beads of sweat. Soon they made his whole face glisten. He felt cornered. He would have liked to remain silent but couldn’t hold out any longer. His salvation lay in telling the truth. It was high time to turn Antoine’s anger against the girl who set fire to ricks. Once they knew they’d leave him alone and even give him a reward. He tried to talk in a confident tone but lacked the assurance. Then at last he made up his mind.

‘It was Jeanne who___’

At that moment a laughing voice made them all turn round.

‘What did that wicked girl do? ’

Lucas quickly put his hand in front of his mouth as if to hold in the words he was about to utter. Jeanne approached them with her light laugh. As she walked she went on passing her comb through her long supple hair. There was nothing troubled about her actions. It was as though her fright of the evening before had never existed. The only trace left were the stains of clay on the edge of her skirt.

'Are you all right, little one?’ asked the farmer, gentle all of a sudden.

'Look at that one,' said Henriette indignantly, pointing at Lucas, 'he want's to tell us that you did something worse than finding the stones...'

And she turned on Lucas: 'Go on then, what did she do? Go on, tell us, we'd like to know.'

These words corked up Lucas's throat, especially as he saw Malvenue’s eyes flaming like the rick itself.

'Tell them, Lucas,' she urged with a sneer, 'tell them it was me who set fire to the rick the other night... You can also say it was la Galiotte... or Antoine... or even the police from Angillon... There's no knowing... when a fellow like you wants to tell the worst, anything can be expected.'

‘I didn't want to say anything,' Lucas tried to explain, his head bent.

That soothed Henriette, but Antoine wanted to teach him a lesson. Jeanne saw what he intended to do, and said:

'That won't get anywhere... better ask him what he wanted to accuse me of... you'll be lucky if he tells you.'

'Who cares about what tale he tells,' said Antoine, calming down, 'all I want is to put an end to idiocies such as bringing stones to the farm like the ones in the sack. Of course you, my girl, had no way of knowing, but Lucas... And now they must be thrown where they should already be. That'll please your mother and the old woman. Aren't I right, womenfolk?'

He didn't add that he would share their feelings of relief. They nodded their immediate approval.

'You,' he said turning to Lucas, 'you’ll take that sack to la Malnoue... you brought it here so you'll take it away again and you'll throw it into the marsh... as far in as possible.'

‘I’ll go too,' Jeanne said.

Lucas began making excuses in a stifled voice.

'I couldn't go there... I don't want to go back there.' Jeanne went up to him, looked him in the eye, and spat straight in his face.

'I don't want help from a coward,' she said.

* * *

As Malvenue left la Noue, pushing the loaded wheelbarrow with some difficulty, she thought contemptuously of Lucas's treachery and the cowardice of the two women. She also thought of Antoine and his pointless rages, and she felt alone, very much alone. So she was doubly delighted when she rounded a bend in the path and caught sight of Blaise. He had come to find her and shouted the moment he saw her. But she behaved as though she neither saw nor heard him. And that made her experience even more delight.

Soon he was beside her.

‘Where are you going?' he asked in a happy voice.

She said nothing. So he barred her way and forced her to hand over the wheelbarrow which he pushed more easily than she had. Jeanne followed him. Her eyes had become deep purple. They were riveted on Blaise's tall supple body and his light step. The boy was lovely to watch as he moved so effortlessly in spite of the heavy load. Jeanne knew that he would do what she asked him, anything, whether good or bad. And it was that that turned in her. The demon of evil placed his wings of red flame in her strangely vivid eyes, and the starry mark on her forehead had the same tint.

Suddenly Blaise felt the force of that hellish gaze upon him. The back of his neck felt as if coals were burning it, and he turned his head abruptly. The girl's eyes immediately drew him, and he saw that same flame in them that he had noticed the day before. He was afraid of it, it meant that Jeanne was again getting ready to wound him. He slowed down. Why had she behaved like this in the last few days? Whereas previously... ! He gave a deep sigh.

'Aren’t you happy?' asked Malvenue in a nagging voice. 'If you're not happy, you can go away.'

He stopped, dropping the wheelbarrow with a hollow sound.

'You’re hurting me, Jeanne. And you know very well I’d help you, even doing the worst.'

His last words brought back to his mind what the girl had asked him to do the day before. He regained a little of his confidence.

'By the way, I can tell you I had a good laugh when you asked me to set our place on fire.’

She came close to him and spoke with her eyes fixed on his. He could smell the sweetness of her breath.

'You haven’t mentioned it to any of your people, have you?’

'Of course not... they wouldn’t have seen the joke.'

Jeanne seized him by the wrists.

'But it isn’t a joke... and you were quite right not to mention it. They mustn’t suspect that you, the son...'

'On you go with your fun...'

'Look and see if I’m joking,’ she then said softly, 'look at me.’

A wicked fold turned her mouth down. Blaise then realized that she was speaking her mind and that she really wanted what she had asked of him. The voice she spoke with was no longer her own. A demon held her in his power and spoke through her lips. The words were being wrung from her - out they tumbled and she couldn’t hold them back. But how could Blaise know that?

'As things are, it’s the only way to have me. If you want me for yourself you have to pay the price... buy me with flames.'

Blaise would have preferred not to have heard, but as he lightly touched Jeanne’s body, which had become more desirable than ever, he began unconsciously to admit the idea of the criminal act. The girl’s fresh breath was like rare perfume, intoxicating him.

'Well,' she said, 'have you made up your mind?’

She drew away. He had a sudden fear of losing her and never being able to get her back.

'Well?' she repeated.

He acquiesced with his head, and was at once overwhelmed by the weight of remorse even before having done the deed.

Then the purple wings folded and left Malvenue’s eyes. Once again they danced and sparkled like stars at night. The girl shook her long hair. It seemed as if she had come running from far away. She looked at the boy standing there speechless.

'Get a move on,' she said in a laughing voice. 'What are you waiting for?’

* * *

They were near the flourishing wall of water-fattened reeds. Jeanne was following Blaise who had the sack in his arms and was thinking over the girl’s monstrous demands. There were trails of ashen white over Malvenue’s sunburnt face as though, here and there, life had withdrawn. This was because she could picture herself as she had been the evening before, with her legs embedded in that mute devouring clay.

'Don’t go too near,' she murmured uneasily.

'You’d have to be an imbecile to let yourself get caught in that,' he said, in a voice that was itself struggling to extract itself from another quagmire - the criminal promise he had just made with the intention of carrying it out. 'A kid of four, perhaps,' he added, 'but not you or me.’

Jeanne said nothing. She was seeing the apparitions again.

Then she chased them away, explaining them in the light of common sense: the decomposed hare and the woman by the waterside must have been hallucinations caused by the liquor drunk at the Rudesses farm. So their natural colour, the the colour of life, returned to her cheeks.

They had reached the thinnest part of the reed belt. Beyond lay the Malnoue water. The girl told Blaise to tip the sack out onto the ground. This he did, then picked up one of the stones. He passed it from one hand to the other, turned it over, examined it, weighed it, and struck it against his echoing clog.

'What an odd stone,' he remarked at last.

'Do what I do,' said Malvenue urgently.

And she picked up a piece of the statue and with a wide sweep of her arm threw it right into the middle of Malnoue. It left her hand almost by itself. A slight foam gathered on the still water which then spread out in wavy rings as sinuous as a snake. Then Blaise did likewise. He threw with his tougher man's strength, but his stone hardly went farther than the girl's. One after another they struck at the water and as they went on throwing, its surface foamed in great bubbles rising from the decayed depths and bursting with a foetid stink. Soon the rings of water became waves. You would have thought la Malnoue was an enormous cauldron boiling on one of the mouths of hell.

Blaise and Jeanne shouted encouragement to each other to see who could throw the furthest. They threw with such zeal that they didn't notice a very strange thing. They were so engrossed in their game that they didn’t notice that the waves were rising and spreading out over the ground right as far as their feet. No, they saw nothing, so absorbed were they in their throwing match. All they saw was that there were four more pieces to go. Blaise threw one, Jeanne another. Then Blaise threw his last which described its parbola and disappeared, and he took a deep breath and laughed.

Jeanne laughed too. With her legs firmly planted on the ground she was on the point of throwing her last... when her laughter stopped dead. The stone had moved in her hand. Automatically her hold on it slackened. The stone made a convulsive movement. That was it, it was throbbing. The girl let out a cry of mingled exhilaration and fear.

‘Blaise, I've got Bold of a Heart that’s alive!’

The boy laughed louder.

‘Then throw away the heart that's alive before it bleeds on your dress... it might stain it...'

Blaise’s words and laughter annoyed her, so she threw with all the strength of her vexation. They followed the stone's parabola and saw an enormous, terrifying, foamy jet of water mounting up as broad as an oaktree. Then the girl clutched the boy's arm. At last they had noticed the turmoil that was agitating the baleful waters of la Malnoue. And they were fully aware that they had caused it.

A wind came up and blew in eddies. It roared like an angry beast. It sucked up the black swollen water and then dropped it again in a cascade. The foam frothed in huge bubbles. The reeds were torn up by this strange sudden fury. Malvenue seized hold of Blaise's jacket. They found it difficult to back away. The careering wind enlarged its span and seemed to be trying to hurl them back into the water as they retreated. Jeanne had her finger's in the lad's shirt. Her nails scratched his skin. The material gave. She put her arms round him, her faced crushed against his chest. The lad's skin felt warm. She pressed her lips against it. Blaise struggled for both of them. He didn't see that nothing now mattered for Jeanne except himself. All he could feel was a delicate burn on his chest that went on expanding.

Suddenly a flash of light shot across the sky. He looked up. A great black shadow had spread out, overtaking the day. The flash was followed by a rumbling. The storm was on them, the whole of it, marshalling all the fiery particles wandering in the sky. Blaise shook Jeanne. He pushed her with all his might in the interests of their escape. Then, at last, the girl turned her face to him, and her eyes in which there danced spangled embers of gold and moire, at once heavy and penetrating. He could see her lips reaching forward with desire. A new flash of lightning flooded him with wet fire and bowed him over onto Malvenue. He melted his lips into hers at the same time as the noise of the thunder burst around them.

Then the wind fell. And immediately great warm drops of rain streaked from the sky, falling straight. They were heavy drops and splashed on the thirsty soil. They rolled in the August dust. Then they poured down like a waterfall. It was rather as if the stirred-up water of Malnoue was falling back as rain. The drops pierced the damp heat floating between the raging clouds above and the earth which they were beginning to churn up and gulley.

Those first drops splashed onto Jeanne's and Blaise's hair as they clung together. The lad tried to protect Jeanne by wrapping her round in his arms, but he didn't remove his lips from hers. The flames from on high crackled to the scale of God - or of the devil (it is for others to judge who uses such threats). Soon the rain became heavier, contemptuously battering and buffeting the couple standing there. Blaise held out, but Jeanne trembled with pleasure in his arms. The lad lifted her and carried her to the shelter of the wood. The water flattened Malvenue’s long hair and streaked her face. Her dress stuck to her figure and made her look naked. Blaise held her fast to his chest. He could still feel the wold scented taste of her lips on his own. It was as if he'd had nothing to drink but a single draught of some marvellous and rare wine. She rested her brow against his neck. He was carrying her as he had wanted so badly to carry the prey that eluded him but was now in the trap of his arms. A fine white mist rose from the ground. Now and again the sun tried to penetrate the dark fat clouds that blackened the sky. The noise of the water cutting into the soil was deafening.

Then Jeanne suddenly became heavy, as heavy as a piece of rock. Blaise couldn’t carry her any further. So he sat her down in the mud that covered the earth, and Jeanne drew him towards her. He lay down beside her under the rain.

Blaise wanted Jeanne’s body. He pulled at the material that clung to her skin. The girl relaxed to help him. The rain poured down. Blaise was impatient, became rougher. Everything happened at once. The rain poured down... Jeanne was naked, shimmering with rain. She spread out her arms and closed them round Blaise. Their skin slid, one on the other. Blaise held her tight... and suddenly she gave a quick cry. For those two, the rain and the mud had vanished in flash.

* * *

The blue field of the sky reappeared, with the great gold sunflower of the sun planted in it. The storm had passed as quickly as it had come. Summer had no control over its moods. Grass had been flattened, the earth penetrated, and bodies stamped with an indelible mark. Now clothes were dry.

Before reaching la Noue, Jeanne had to push Blaise off towards Langlois. The lad didn't want to leave her. She found it hard to get it into his head that no-one must see them together. He parted from her at last with the bitterness of regret deep in his heart. ‘Just wait and see,' he said, 'I'll keep my promise and you’ll be mine again.’ His voice showed resolution, but a veil of sadness hid the fire of his desire. Jeanne laughed. ‘Promises? What promises? When their own interests are at stake, men are so full of promises that they promise without knowing what they’re promising! ’ She laughed because she had forgotten the demand she had made of the boy, and twice over. The evil influence was no longer upon her. Its power seemed to have left her in proportion as the stones disappeared in the Malnoue water, taking with them their ransom of evil.

Now, as she entered the yard at la Noue, she could think of nothing but the new joy coursing through her pleasure-awakened body. She only returned to reality when la Galiotte called to her.

'Jeanne, my little one, where on earth have you been? What a mess you're in! You must have been caught in the rain.'

Malvenue's fear of being found out made her look down and say nothing.

'Do you know where the lightning struck?' the old woman went on without appearing to notice the girl's embarrassment; 'It went right into your room, through the window, but left without doing any harm at all. I've never seen such a thing before, though at my time of life one knows all about the wicked ways of storms... Oh yes, I think you'll have to go to the village before evening... you'll have to tell Guillon...'

But Jeanne was no longer listening. She ran to her room and shut the door. She had suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to fetch the stone that was there to throw it away with the others. She felt a wave of hatred for this piece of the statue that should by rights be in the depths of la Malnoue. Slipping her hand under the mattress, she stifled a cry of pain. The stone must have been touched by the lightning. The mattress had been left intact, but beneath it the stone was burning like a large red ember.

* * *

The graves clustered round the old church facing over towards the ever-wakeful river. They were pressed so close that some had been welded together by overgrowing grass and wild boxwood. Without the grave-digger who tended the graveyard, even the little footpaths would soon have been eaten up by the rank vegetation that fed on the flesh of the dead. The enclosure, surrounded by a russet-coloured wall with patches of green, sent forth a scent of worm-eaten wood, rich sap and burnt grass. The big oak gate, looking towards the church porch, had difficulty with one of its wings which whined every time it was pushed open; the other had for long been immovable, its hinges swollen with rust. Nothing could restore it to life - neither the hefty pushes of men nor the soothing caress of oil; nothing made any difference.

It was one of the worse afflictions from which iron suffers, for iron, too, has its ills. Jeanne pushed the wing that was still alive and crossed the threshold in one stride, as if invited in by the whine. Dull heavy sounds rose from among the dead. The storm had swept the main alley. The air was mild. Jeanne had never been here before, but on this occasion her steps had forced her towards the infirm gate. What had happened was that la Galiotte had sent her to the village to tell Guillon, the butcher, that the calf was now ready. That was all. And now here she was in the graveyard which, in the normal way, left her indifferent.

The sounds she had heard succeeded one another at regular intervals. She looked in their direction. Some distance away a head and a back were rising and falling. Spadefuls of sandy earth were jumping into the air and falling in a swelling heap - scattering and rolling like piled-up grain. As the girl approached she could hear the man's puffing and panting. The grave was already deep. The grave-digger hadn't heard her coming. The dust from the earth had mingled with the sweat pouring down his neck, making trickles of dirt. Jeanne called out to him. He started and stood straight. He was old. His face was crimson with exertion.

The only thing he said was ‘Ah,' as he relaxed. Then: ‘What do you want, little girl?’

A moment ago she wouldn’t have known the answer. But now she said urgently:

‘Where's the place where they put Moarc’h of la Noue? He was my father.'

The grave-digger didn't have to think. The Breton’s death had caused enough stir for him to remember easily. And then he knew his world. In his mind a name called up either the serenity of a face emptied by fever, or the twisted features of those who had departed in the agony of some violent ill. He looked the girl up and down.

'So you're Malvenue,' he said after a pause. There, go over to your left and count up to the ninth tombstone... That's the one.'

Then he spat thin saliva into his cupped hands and again cut through the silence with his violation of the earth - the earth into which, presently, a useless slip of a man would be thrown capable of nothing but feeding a few flowers. Jeanne meanwhile counted the grassy mounds. The ninth grave was her father's all right. The stone lay horizontally, and was covered with lumps of moss which made the chiselled lettering stand out more clearly. First of all Malvenue looked at the dates - 1857-1897. Then she looked at the oak cross which was heeling so far over it was a wonder it didn't fall. The wood was warped with damp, and wind and time had had their way with it too: the first had displaced it and pressed it against the slab of stone, the second had flayed it and exposed its nerves. The girl's eyes now returned to the stone. It was more deeply set in the earth at the foot than at the head.

Towards the head, near the cross, it looked as though an attempt had been made to raise it, and fairly recently at that. The grass to one side was flat. Jeanne bent down in spite of herself. Some force held her by her neck and pushed her head towards the sides of the slab. Then she saw that one of the corners had been broken off. The new cut, white as milk, gleamed against the dark weathered colour of the stone. The piece removed was as big as a fist. Jeanne immediately began looking around. She knew she had to find that piece of stone. A sense of insecurity oppressed her. She got up and ran towards the man who was preparing the eternal resting-place. Once again he gave a little start, and stopped working.

'Couldn't you find it?' he asked.

But he could see at a glance that the girl was frightened.

‘What, have you seen a ghost?' he teased, and in spite of himself he rediscovered his laugh which he had supposed dead and buried long ago.

‘Please come,' Jeanne pleaded.

He had some difficulty in getting out of his hole. It was as though his hole suited him and he didn't want to leave it any more - that way his journey would be shorter. The girl walked quickly. He joined up with her at his own slow pace. With an impatient gesture she pointed out the chipped stone. He leant near to get a good look. His thick hand with swollen fingers that remained clenched through age-long spade-handling ran clumsily over the surface of the chip. He too looked around for the missing piece. He turned his head towards Jeanne and straightened.

‘I put the cross in again this morning,' he said. ‘The storm was so bad that it flew quite a distance, though I must say it's the first time I've seen a cross go travelling to the other end of the graveyard.'

Malvenue couldn't have cared less about the cross. It was the lifted stone, and the chip, that had sent her in search of the grave-digger. The grave-digger continued, and what he said clarified her hitherto confused thought:

‘It looks as though... someone had tried to raise the stone and a piece of it came off in his hand. Perhaps that's what you're thinking...'

Jeanne made no answer. She now felt that she understood why she had come here against her will. Somehow she had had to see this break. If it hadn't been for that her feet would never have led her towards this other world. But what tormented her most was her subjection to the force that had made her come. The grave-digger passed his hand over his cheeks which bristled with thick, ruddy hair like thatch. At last he prepared to return to his work for the dead who - for all their lack of life - went on demanding labour from others. A faint smile wandered over his face which was as creased as an old piece of material. Jeanne could hear him muttering an attempt at a joke:

'I expect it's a soul that hasn't got enough good deeds to its credit to merit heaven... Probably it tried to get out of its hole.'

And his laugh rattled dryly.

Jeanne had shut her eyes. Her fingers were clasping her throat. The old man didn't see that she was digging her nails into her skin. He thought she was sad, whereas she was in anguish.

'Come on, little one, don't be upset, don't try to understand what an old companion of the dead like me can't always understand.'

'But they wanted...' she began.

'Let it go, little one, you'll never know the answer. For all you know that one, who was your father, tried to stretch his legs in the night. It's a long time since I stopped worrying. The dead can do what they like here - it's their home, after all.'

And once again he rasped at the silence with a laugh that did him good.

Jeanne left the graveyard to the old grave-digger, already half a skeleton and with such a wry sense of humour. Relief did not come to her until she had reached the short cut to la Noue.

* * *

It was a cool night. There was a damp wind from the direction of Berry. It followed on the morning's storm and brought some fluffy clouds whitened by the moon. It was as if it had stolen some sheep-shearings and scattered them over the sky. It groaned when it ran against the slopes of Sologne. Jeanne couldn't get to sleep; the wind's grumbling prevented her. She turned her face to the wall. She thought she might sleep if she covered up her ears. She forced the night to enter her head. But the quarrel which had set Antoine against Lucas at suppertime, just as she got back from the graveyard, kept on invading her thoughts.

Antoine had been trailing his rancour around with him all day. He couldn’t get Lucas’s bitter words about the girl out of his mind. Even more than the defiant act of bringing the sack back to la Noue, Lucas’s words possessed him more and more - like those plants you grow in a bottle. The time comes when the roots open out like a fist and the bottle explodes. The lad’s words had seemed relatively inoffensive at first. But by degrees, and with the help of bitter thoughts, they had swollen and grown bad roots that of a sudden had burst in Antoine’s head.

‘After what you said about our Jeanne, you’ll have to go,' Antoine had said.

‘She’s not your daughter,’ Lucas had replied. Then Antoine had struck him with the flat of his hand, as if to say Jeanne really was his daughter. And then Lucas had defended himself. He had thrown himself at him headlong. They had had a real hard fight, with fists and feet. La Galiotte and Grattebois had hardly been able to separate them. Jeanne had said nothing. All she had done was change her place to get a better view of the couple fighting for her. They had to be left at it - it would make her pleasure last longer. She felt proud and happy. In the end Lucas, humiliated and threatening, had had to go. He had given Jeanne a nasty look but said nothing. So all had turned out for the best. The others had gone on talking of the fight for some time. Antoine, back at his end of the table, had said nothing. Now and again he had glanced at Jeanne and seemed to relax. She had come to bed early, exhausted by the love and fear with which the day had alternately enfolded her.

And now she began quivering as though Blaise’s fingers were again caressing her skin. In the end she dozed off, but in no time woke again with a sigh. She had the impression she’d been asleep for hours. The wind had dropped. Suddenly, far away, the Angillon dogs began barking furiously as though they had gone mad. Jeanne thought they must all have joined in to make a din like that. She would have liked to know the time. Dawn couldn't be far off. She wanted to get up and leave her purposeless bed.

And now there was barking near at hand. It came from the foot of the slope. The three dogs of la Maladrerie were answering their brothers in the village. The night was tom by their fierce yelps which at one point seemed to be dying down only to start up again on a more mournful note that presently became a death howl. Jeanne had never liked dogs. She cursed the Maladrerie farmers for having such surly ones. At last their cries became plaintive and died. The silence of the night returned.

The silence worked on Jeanne's thoughts. Without knowing why, she found herself imagining that at that very moment she was at la Maladrerie and had to get back to la Noue in a hurry. And so, as a game, she started counting her steps: the ones she would have to make. And her legs tautened as if she was taking the short cut. But why take this path and not the road? She made no effort to find out.

Soon she had taken two hundred steps. She should now be above la Maladrerie, at the place where the path rose more steeply to cross the narrow hill. She went on walking. Two hundred, three hundred steps. Her legs were tired and aching. It was long and painful but she couldn't stop counting. She felt the new silence was urging her on. At last her muscles ceased their effort and claimed a period of rest. If she had calculated aright she would be near the hut at Boucheron. There was a dog there too. She made herself small in her bed and listened anxiously. And she heard the day-labourer's mongrel throw out short cross barks. He, too, was compelled to make his outcry, like the ones at the Angillon farm and the three at la Maladrerie. Dogs don't bark for nothing at night. And they don't let out death howls without reason. Jeanne listened. She would have liked day to come and drive away this tenacious night that was sticking like glue. The Boucheron mongrel was now making death-howls.

Jeanne tried to empty her mind, but her legs started dragging at her muscles again, and in her head the walking recommenced accompanied by heart-beats no longer her own. The mongrel had stopped barking. Now Jeanne had to tramp through the fields of la Noue. Moisture spread over her body. There, there were no dogs. She was stifled with anguish. She was still counting. Now the person walking as she was in her imagination would have come in sight of the farm buildings. She knew that nothing had stopped him and that nothing would stop him. She knew he was walking briskly and that he would soon arrive. She dared not throw off the thick wool bed-coverings that were preventing her from breathing. She was afraid of lying naked, and defenceless, on her bed.

She imagined a vague shadow crossing the farmyard and pushing open the door into the living-room, which was never locked. At that she pulled the bedclothes over her head. She shut her eyes so tightly that she saw smudges of red light. Now, that was it. He must be there.

In response to her thought the living-room door creaked. It was being pushed open. It creaked again. A muffled tread, quieter than Jeanne had ever heard before, grazed the floor. The footsteps were so light that they barely touched the ground. The passage of a child would have made more noise. The muffled tread came to her bedroom door. It was too late to bolt it. Jeanne suffered from wild fear. Her breathing became short and tight. Her eyes opened in spite of herself. She could see the pale light the moon was casting as far as her bed. Now she heard nothing and was on the point of regaining her breath when the door began slowly opening, with a creak like the living-room door. The girl repressed a cry. Her nails dug into her thighs and pierced her flesh. The pain failed to tear away her anguish.

The muffled tread began again, then hesitated. It approached the bed then as suddenly went away again. Jeanne tried to make out a human shape but could see no-one. Then it occurred to her that such soft footsteps could not belong to a living person. Her fear became raw and riddled her breast. Sometimes tormented souls returned to implore help from the living. But what dead person could be in need of her help, of the help of Jeanne Moarc'h? And what ghost had reproaches to make against her, a mere girl, who had never said anything against the dead?

The sound of creeping in her bedroom came and went. At last it made its way towards the comer of the room near the oak chest-of-drawers decorated with brass suns. In that corner there was a light chair. The chair creaked. A weight bore down on it at length. Jeanne could still see nothing. Silence returned, then a sigh, then further sighs followed by deep breaths as sad as lamentations.

She had no idea how long she stayed like that with her nerves all tense. She was on the point of losing consciousness when the chair gave another creak. And the window banged to with a sharp click. Jeanne felt as if she was being cut in two. The dead footsteps were making straight for her. She crouched in the corner of the bed. She pressed herself against the wall. She would have liked to melt into it, to disappear. By now a cry of alarm was beyond her powers. At the peak of her terror she seemed to feel the unseen presence lifting up her bed. There was a crash on the tiled floor. Immediately afterwards her bedroom door banged to and then, echoing it, was the bang of the living-room door. For all her longing to flee, all she could do was raise herself on her elbows. She wanted to see what had fallen on the floor but was held down by her own muscles.

The Bucheron mongrel started barking again. Then, freed at last, Jeanne looked at the floor which was lit up by the moon. A piece of stone lay there. She saw in her mind's eye the slab over her father's grave. Was this stone the chip missing from his tomb? She had to know. This time even her fear couldn't hold her back. She slipped out of bed and stretched out her hand, picked up the stone and held it tight.

Then she realized that she was holding a piece of the statue, the last piece that should have been hurled into la Malnoue that morning. It had fallen out of her bed. So she was mistaken. She went to the door. It was shut. She went to the window. When she saw it was closed her heart tightened, until she realized that it must have been the wind. She opened it. The action restored her a little, and when she touched the cool window pane she persuaded herself yet again that she had had a nightmare. But at that moment the howls of the three Maladrerie dogs rose up above the slopes. Without relinquishing the stone, she slipped on her skirt and blouse and went out like a creature demented. Down below the fringes of the well were gleaming like a bright wreath. Jeanne was going to get rid of the stone by throwing it in. There the water was good and deep. She ran towards it. Far away the Maladrerie dogs were howling, egging each other on as if whoever was frightening them had stopped and was waiting. Jeanne arrived at the well, but some force within the stone held her back. She turned away and looked in the direction of the la Croule path. The stone in her hand seemed to grow lighter. In a trice Jeanne was on the path. A torpor enveloped her, and she knew she was obeying, though she didn’t want to obey any more. She stopped and threw the stone into a cart rut. Tomorrow, when the carts came along, the hellish object would be reduced to dust.

Her evil burden jettisoned, she immediately heard yet again the sharp barks of the Boucheron mongrel. So she knew that the presence was coming back, and coming quicker than it had left. The half-raised tomb-stone imposed itself on her mind. Now she saw it raised right up over an empty grave. That must be it, her father was damned. It was he who had come and it was he who was returning. He must have wings, huge black wings that help the dead to move around silently.

She ran and shut herself up in her room. Behind the bed was a dark empty space. She crouched down in it with her face to the wall. She was bent and kneeling as it expecting some punishment. She was trembling and her teeth were chattering.

'He ought to be here,' she said, and made the sign of the cross. She risked a glance at the closed window. At that moment there was a quick flash and a dull thud, and something fell onto the floor. The stone she had thrown in the rut was back again on the very spot where she had picked it up just now. It had been thrown in from the yard. The window pane was broken.

The need for action steadied Malvenue. She hurried out, but there was nothing supernatural to draw her attention - only the enormous stable toad crawling along, as real as could be, balancing its plump pimply body on its thin bandy legs. Either blessings or curses were attributed to it. According to events, it was harmful or helpful. Sometimes it was welcome, sometimes unwelcome; sometimes dreaded, sometimes hoped-for. Jeanne had seen it a hundred times without the idea of harming it entering her head. But now she picked up a stick and hammered it to pulp. Each time she struck it she gave a cry of disgust, and with each blow her fear diminished.

The noise of the breaking window had awoken the others. They ran out. At first they were speechless with surprise. Then Henriette spoke, followed by la Galiotte and Antoine.

'But Jeanne, what's got hold of you?'

'What are you hitting?’

'Well, little Jeanne. Was it you who made that noise?’

She didn’t answer. She was still hitting at the puddle of flesh and blood left by the base but innocent creature.

Antoine came up to the girl and took her arm.

'Leave me alone,' she said nastily.

Suddenly la Galiotte gave a cry of dismay. In the distance, behind the hill concealing the Langlois farm, the huge red light of a fire was rising. The flames spread out against the background of the sky already touched by the dawn. Then suddenly, as if released by the fire, two gunshots raked the glowing silence. Jeanne threw down her stick and covered her mouth with her hands. She was suffering as if she had just been hit.

‘My God,’ she groaned, seized by cruel apprehension. ‘My God... Supposing...'

 VI

As soon as the Ménétréol wizard had departed, Moarc’h felt his fever and fear increasing. They held him in thrall all night. But thank heavens the next morning la Galiotte got up early and began muttering to herself in the living-room. Then the Breton could take the magic leaf from beneath his pillow and devoutly swallow it. An hour later all fear and ever had left him. He got up and ate with a good appetite. And soon he felt an irresistible impulse to go over his property and review it in detail, for all the world as if he had nearly lost it for ever.

So there he was on the Langlois track. The surrounding countryside was bathed in a harsh light that hurt his eyes; the passing cold of the morning whipped his cheeks. He felt he was rediscovering the smell of the soil. The dew tingled in his mouth and nose. The grass was thick and lush. His arteries beat with the fullness of life. His first thought was to make for the patch of barley at the extreme limit of his land on the valley side, but some force drew him towards the la Croule woods in the opposite direction. So he retraced his steps. He was now on the grassy Malnoue path. He climbed the slope. His step became light and supple. He could see the hedge of hazel-trees - it had become swollen with leaves since he’d been there last. All along the way, green and yellow clusters of wartwort filled in the holes of a new and clumsy wall. Soon the Breton was beyond the hedge. A mist shining in the sun marked the marsh. The reeds and tall grasses were tinted blue and green. The water-hole was a living scar on his land and bred mosquitoes, just as the scars of animals fed flies. The stagnant water sent out its own characteristic smell - a greasy, green, sickening smell.

Moarc'h's gaze didn't dwell on this lost land, but switched to the slope of corn beyond. His eyes shone with pride. He made straight for the sheet of green which already came up to his knees. He breathed deeply of the freshness that rose from the land he had worked at so hard and that harboured all his hopes.

Then suddenly he saw himself back in bed with his strange illness. His confidence at once diminished. He took another look at his corn, and particularly at the strip reclaimed from the marsh. There seemed nothing unusual about it, and yet he felt a mounting uneasiness. Against the green backcloth of the corn he seemed to see the man from Ménétréol telling him to plough up his field and find the stone and put the head back on the shoulders. Moarc'h felt like telling the wizard to go to the devil. As things now stood, he told himself, there was no doubt but that the good man had cast a spell over the head. It was already five months since the head had been separated from the body, so surely it could wait another two. And anyway where exactly was the body? It was difficult to recall. The sun fell straight onto the la Croule wood. It seemed to give strength to the great choir of birds bathing in its light. The wizard's words ceased to nag in the Breton's ears. They lost their meaning. The very idea of mutilating that field made him give a nervous laugh that shook his shoulders.

He went around everywhere, and as he walked he whistled. He spent hours catching up on life, after having thought he had lost to it. And as he went back to la Noue nothing could have stopped him except the living-room door - his legs were ready to carry him leagues further.

He pushed it open and went in. After the freshness of out of doors the usual smell of milk seemed heavy. The flies were on their endless round of revels. They tried to settle on his face. He tried to squash them with clasps of his hands. A big bluebottle went from one wall to another, bashing into each in turn. Its flight vibrated like metal. It finally landed on a square of cheese. He drove it away with a flick of his cap. The clock said ten o'clock. In an hour the others would be back. So he decided to sharpen the scythes, and went to fetch them from the outhouse where they hung.

He was just going out again when he heard a creak from the loft above. He stood and listened uneasily. His thoughts flew to the head, and in spite of the Ménétréol man's protection from afar he was struck with fear like a blow in the back of his neck. The noise became more explicit. He could make out a man's footsteps, and this decided him to climb the ladder. He raised the trap-door hesitantly and found himself face to face with Antoine.

His back more bent than usual, and his look strained, Antoine showed surprise and embarrassment. Moarc'h leapt at him, seized him by the scruff of the neck and shook him like a rabbit.

‘What are you doing here?' he shouted. ‘I’ve caught you, you dirty thief. So you're not working in the fields. You're taking advantage of my absence to steal my things... You just wait... I'll make you stop wanting what belongs to me... '

Antoine offered no resistance. Finally his shirt tore. He could have defended himself. He could have thrown his master down the trap-door with one push. He would have vented his hatred in such a blow, and such an opportunity might never recur. Yet he did nothing. Something seemed to stop him.

At last Moarc'h calmed down and let him go.

‘You know I've forbidden everyone to come up here,' he said in a worried voice as if ashamed of his violence. ‘And what's more you know perfectly well I don't want you to have to do with her.'

Antoine spoke. His voice trembled as though he was still being shaken.

'Well,' he said, 'whether you want it or not, I have to do with her, because if she counted on you for her share of life, she would have died of boredom long ago... To begin with she doesn't love you any more.'

'What?' said Moarc’h, frowning as if to understand better, 'You say she doesn't love me any more?’

At that moment there was a sound from behind the central pillar. Antoine clenched his fists but didn't look round.

'Hullo,' said the Breton, astonished, 'who’s with you?’

He took a step forward. Antoine held out his arms to bar his way.

'Come now,' Antoine said sharply, 'don’t start pretending. You know perfectly well who’s there. You said it yourself!’

Moarc'h was more and more bewildered. He stopped and swore.

'Devil take who’s there. What I don't want is anyone coming up here again. I suppose la Galiotte told you to throw her in the marsh or somewhere. Don’t think I don't know what goes on behind my back.’ He stamped his foot in a fresh outburst of rage. 'Where would it get you? And anyway, as I say, she’s my property and not yours...'

When Antoine realized they were talking at cross-purposes he relaxed and put up no defence as he was pushed to the ladder and forced down it.

‘The best is for you to be off,' Moarc'h said. ‘You've no business here. Be off. Keep your strength for tomorrow. At dawn we're starting a new job.'

When Antoine had gone, Moarc'h went round the pillar, taking care not to look at the head. Then he saw Henriette. She was kneeling and sobbing with her face in her hands. Her head was bowed in shame.

The sun had suddenly gone down, but Moarc’h’s room retained a whitish light. He had no clear idea of the time or whether it was day or night. It could be a thousand years ago or a thousand years ahead. He was deep in his huge bed, as soft as though made of thick velvety fog. Beside him stretched an empty space, endlessly long and wide; a space that seemed to him made for someone he was waiting for. That must be it, for at times his eyes went over to the closed door. His hands and body were trembling with impatience; his eyes shining with desire; his heart almost breaking with fear. His gestures were wide and easy. He was fully dressed. A pickaxe and shovel were crossed above his bed like a wall-trophy. Blood was flowing from either side of his mouth. It tasted like liquor. Though he was bleeding, he could feel no pain. His body weighed no more than a goose feather. He must have been bleeding for a long time and the feeling of lightness must come from having no more blood. And always he looked towards the door. And always the blood flowed that tasted like liquor. Finally the door started growing - growing beyond all measure. Soon he had to raise his head to gauge its height. He felt his lips smiling with joy. He left his bed. The door gleamed. It seemed to be resting on emptiness, but when he got near he saw it was standing in a strip of water. He entered the water. It wasn’t deep. He just felt a coldness as when his feet were at the bottom of the bed. He stretched out his hand to push the door. Then he saw that his arm had grown beyond all measure and that the door always retreated before his hand. He realized he would have to walk. He walked. The water slowly rose from his ankle to his calf, from his calf to his knee, from his knee to his stomach. Blood was coming out of his nose and ears, but it had lost all taste. The water was still rising - from his stomach to his chest and from his chest to his neck. There it stopped. To the touch it didn't feel like water, but like mist - a mist as soft as the mist in bed.

Moarc’h knew where he was going and he knew that nothing could stop him going further and further into the water. When the water was at shoulder level its surface became hard and cutting, like ice. It tightened, and cut like coarse rope. It tightened more and more. He felt the pain and began to smile. He knew he had to smile and it was so easy. He knew that other people besides himself had felt this sensation on the executioner’s block. It was pleasant. He wanted it to go on for ever. He passed water-lilies - yellow, pink, all the colours of the rainbow. Above there was an arch of tall reeds. The door came towards him. His eyes remained fixed on the door. The cutting feeling round his neck relaxed. The door became smaller. Slippery clay banks and decaying greenstuff rose all around him. His breath came in short stabs that pierced his chest. Rats and reptiles slid over the water. A frog called out to a toad. A lizard came to taste the dried blood in his ear-holes. The water got thicker. He wanted to extricate himself from his mud. He tried to pull himself out. He shut his eyes to make it easier. With each effort he felt darkness in his head. And each time this darkness shone like a spark. He was on the edge of the Malnoue marsh. He shivered with sudden fright. The door opened. A white mass emerged, floating on the mud. It came forward like a ship under a light breeze. It was a long piece of stone. Moarc’h scrutinized it and saw that it was a statue. It was a woman’s body dressed in clothes of bygone days. It was soft like a corpse. With a twist of his loins he freed himself from the liquid earth and lay down beside the statue, preparing to kiss its stone mouth. But it had no head. Thick, dead blood had formed a scab on the decapitated neck. He felt as if he had been jabbed by a pickaxe in the stomach. He seized the statue and pressed against it to get rid of his pain. Immediately he began to feel better. He touched the stone stomach. It was fat and palpitating. It was alive. 

Then, suddenly, Moarc’h found himself alone, standing in the middle of the square of corn of la Malnoue, which had all been ploughed up as if by some gigantic ploughshare. The ripening stalks and ears were en- meshed with the soil. At that moment a distant sound came from la Noue. It approached rapidly, echoing as it came. Stone and wood clashed in the rhythm of a disorderly dance. Moarc’h leant against a nearby hedge. From there he could see the whole dead field. Then a bowl came rolling and bouncing along the path - it was the stone head he had cut off. He felt another pickaxe-jab in his stomach. He wanted to get inside the hedge so as to find a safe hiding-place. But the hedge suddenly disappeared. He was alone in the middle of the cornfield. The stone head rolled towards the edge of the marsh. It disappeared then leapt out of the grass at a man's height. He approached. He could see where the statue was hiding. It was standing upright on its paralysed legs. It turned towards the head and, with a series of leaps, offered its stiffened shoulders to receive it. He wanted to flee but pushed forward in the direction of the marsh. He advanced stiffly, with a stone-like rigidity taking hold of each limb in turn. Only his eyes remained alive and they were fixed on that stone head that was vainly attempting to take its rightful place as a head on its stone body. Soon he was so near the head that he could make out its features. Then terror seized him. As it took its leaps the stone features expressed hope, frustration, grief. And the head never managed to take its rightful place as a head. And with each leap, it made that noise of stone against wood. Moarc’h wanted to pick it up and place it himself on the neck - but that only made it leap further. It nearly fell on him and crushed him. At last he managed to get hold of it and hold it in his hands. He rose to put an end to its torment. But now the body had disappeared. So he stood there with that now useless head, its eyes expressing fierce loathing. Then Antoine appeared and snatched the head from him by force and hurled it into the water of the marsh. As he turned to run, Moarc’h found himself facing the body, which had belatedly returned. He seized it round the middle and grasped it tight in his arms. His eyes were searching everywhere for Antoine. He opened his mouth to call to the head which was sending up bubbles as it sank into the mud. No sound came from him. The statue was all warm. Its stomach had become fatter and softer. The head had reached the bottom of the marsh. He could hear the noise it made as it touched bottom. A flight of ravens passed overhead. Moarc'h still held the stone body tight against him. The ravens returned and circled round again. The statue's heart was beating. The noise of stone on wood started up again. It was shorter and sharper. It came from the sky. Moarc'h looked up. The ravens were circling round a falling white object. They were escorting it. It was the stone head; it was flying too. It had reached a point just above him and was falling headlong. He tried to ward it off. But his arms were numbed. He lay on the ground and proffered his chest. The head came more quickly. It was about to strike him. He made a desperate effort to avoid it. But he couldn't move. As it landed it grazed his cheek, his neck...

And Moarc’h woke up. He stifled a cry. His shirt was drenched. His arms were clasping Henriette who was curled up beside him. His outstretched fingers were holding his wife's stomach. He drew away from her. The movement shook her from the depths of sleep. She turned over, but didn't wake. At that moment something slid against the Breton’s cheek. He held his breath with fear. He put up his hand to feel. It felt like down. He went on feeling. A peppering of dust had fallen from the ceiling onto his face. He shook himself and blew sideways towards his cheek and chin. He glanced at the window. Night must be coming to an end - it was already paling. He decided he'd better stay awake. He drew closer to Henriette.

Suddenly a noise like the one in his nightmare set the ceiling trembling. A new fall of dust slid from between the boards and landed beside him on the bedclothes. He sat up. He knew that noise only too well. Sweat beaded his forehead and trickled down his face like tears. It rolled down his cheeks and fell on the rough skin of his chest. It smelt of fear. The noise up above became louder. It was like a mad festival. Stone against wood. The head was demanding its body. He hadn't the strength to cry out. He blocked his ears and groaned. Beside him his wife was sleeping calmly. The stone head was making the whole loft re-echo. He was afraid it would come down and force him to take it to Malnoue. And he was afraid it would then draw him on and drown him in the green slimy water. With each thud from aloft episodes of his dream came back to him and attached themselves to reality. He didn't dare light the lamp. At last there was silence. It took him by surprise and made him feel even more frantic than the noise. He felt he was going mad. He got up, pulled on his trousers and slipped into his shoes. He went out and stumbled towards the living-room door. Now he was in the yard. Now in the stable. He shook the horse, harnessed it, pulled it out and fixed it to the trap. All this in no time. The night was mild and clear. It drank up his sweat. He jumped agilely into the seat, flicked at the horse with the whip, and set off at a gallop.

Far away behind him dawn was rising over the valley. Moarc'h was on his way to the Ménétréol man to tell him that the head had broken the spell he had cast on it, and that he, Moarc'h, was ready to do anything he was told.

* * *

When he got back, Henriette and the farm-hands were in the stable. The noise had brought them out. They saw Moarc'h leap down from the still-moving trap. He almost lost his balance and heeled over, but with a flourish of his arms he straightened himself again. Meanwhile the horse, left to its own devices, made straight for the stable. Moarc'h strode towards the living-room, gesticulating, and entered. Antoine only just had time to run and stop the horse before it broke the shafts. He calmed him down, unharnessed him, tied him up and returned to the two women. They hadn’t moved. Henriette was weeping nervously. La Galiotte was staring at the living-room door in open-mouthed amazement.

* * *

‘Get a solid piece of rope,' the Ménétréol man had said when Moarc'h woke him up like one insane.

And now Moarc'h, rope in hand, was climbing up to the loft. He was so frightened that he could no longer feel his fear.

And there was the head, standing on its wounded neck. It was against the master pillar that was chipped as though with a hatchet. Moarc'h's muscles were flexed, ready. In all he did he was following the wizard's instructions. First he gave it a wide berth, crouching down like a huntsman stalking its game, and thus he negotiated the lower part under the sloping roof. He stumbled into sacks of flour, skirted the master pillar, and was soon exactly behind the head. From this point he could no longer see it as it was the other side of the master pillar. And of course - as he realized - it could no longer see him. Then slowly he crept towards it. The blacksmith's words were throbbing in his ears: ‘You'll tie her up, tightly, and then she'll leave you in peace.' He reached the pillar and, kneeling, he thrust out his hands. Then lowered them with a shout of victory. The rope was over the head, and he pulled with all his might, the stone echoing against the wood with the impact of his action. He tightened the rope round head and pillar until it nearly broke; then he knotted it and tied it again. He wound it round ten times and made ten knots. He used up the total length of the rope. When he had finished he got up and went round to look at the head from the front. It was scarred by the bonds of the rope. He made sure with a kick that all was fast. Then he started to laugh. He laughed as though he would never stop. He was laughing as he went down the ladder. But a nasty hiccup mingled with his joy and hurt his throat. Soon he was at the bottom of the ladder. Now it was an effort to go on laughing. His stocky frame was nervous and seemed to be shaking, and in spite of his feat his legs were weak. He leaned against the ladder, let his laugh die, and tried to rid himself of his hiccups. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths. Then his head began to go round.

Suddenly he felt the ladder vibrating against his back. He jumped to one side and looked up, but could see nothing. At first he didn't notice that his hiccups had stopped, but was going out all the same, when all the timbered walls started to creak. The sounds were slight, like the ones made by furniture at night. He hardly dared breathe. Little by little the sounds became louder. Then the top of the ladder gave a jump. Moarc'h wanted to run but terror froze him to the spot. Soon the whole building threatened to fall in. The beams groaned, the ceiling cracked, the joists rasped, the stone walls snorted. Up in the loft both wood and stone were being rocked by some gigantic force. The Breton was defenceless. His reason began to give. Then he let out a shriek of terror. If he couldn't get away he would be crushed beneath the weight of the building. He fell on his knees in an attitude of prayer, his eyes raised towards the trap-door whose square of light made a gap in the ceiling. He sobbed, his hand to his forehead. He begged forgiveness. He swore that he would find the body of the statue. He made every promise under the sun.

Then suddenly he felt lighter. This last promise had freed him from fear. Silence and calm returned. He rose to his feet and went out backwards. He stumbled over some farm implements that had fallen. He looked down at them. They were a pick-axe and a shovel. He picked them up.

* * *

The la Noue people were still standing silent outside the barn. They had heard their master's shrieks. The shrieks were doubly intolerable in the full light of a quiet morning. No body said anything. Then they saw the Breton emerging from the outhouse. They saw the tools he was carrying. He was walking with quick steps. He passed them, but he didn't stop nor even glance at them. Henriette made a movement to follow him, but la Galiotte held her back.

* * *

‘If she refuses to be quiet,' the wizard had said, donning his apron, 'Then go, and be quick about it... don’t let anything stop you.'

Nothing stopped him. Neither the peaceful blue of the sky nor the gentle warmth that calmed his senses. On the green and gold path that led to la Malnoue there was nothing to distract Moarc'h from his aim. He went straight, treading like a man who had made up his mind to face the worst. His hands stuck to the wooden handles of the tools. He held them tight. All he wanted was to dig his field and unearth the stone body. La Malnoue was still a long way off. He ran. He tripped over stones that had been raked up by harrows in fields nearby and thrown there to harden the tracks. Soon he was short of breath. He paused. His strength was not equal to his haste. Then on he went again. His muscles had formed a stitch to the left of his stomach and this impeded his progress. Several times he bent down so as to chase the pain away.

At last he was on the other side of the hedge and the marsh lay before him. The blue air was full of the croaking of frogs. He began to run. Now the Malnoue cornfield was in front of him, rippling in a light fresh wind. Moarc’h entered his field with great strides. The green corn fell flat as he crushed it beneath his feet. The Breton began searching for the place where the stone had been. It was difficult to remember exactly. First he looked to this side, then to that. It must be there in the middle. He took his pickaxe in both hands, raised it, and struck. The steel entered the green corn-stalks, rustled, and then plunged into the earth. With three blows he unloosed a clod and pulled it up by its green scruff. Now he began scalping the whole field. When he had cleared it and made a big gap in the living flanks, he began digging. Horseflies rose from the earth and settled on his neck. Soon there was a trench cutting under the ever-rustling corn. But he still hadn't found what he was looking for, even at ten yards from the edge. He must have made a mistake. He began again, a little further on. The sun mounted the sky and beat down like a furnace. Its rays hammered on the Breton's bare head but nothing could put a stop to his growing madness. He was surrounded by life. A flight of larks twittered in the deep of the sky. A cuckoo threw out its changeless notes. From the wood came the crunching of cartwheels. In the distance the cowbells of the la Noue herd scattered their tinkle on the air. A bonfire of dead grasssentits incense far and wide. And Moarc’h went on digging. He dug a deep vein in the earth and its ruddy blood came out in great clods. The spade lifted them and cast them aside. They piled up on the new corn and crushed it flat. Still he went on. He was doing the work of two men. The profit won when he ploughed up the marshland was already lost. Now the field was no more than holes and humps, from which there burst isolated tufts of fresh growing corn. But the stillborn strip of land had still not produced the stone body.

'Whatever happens, you must find that statue,' the Ménétréol man had said as his parting shot as he accompanied Moarc’h back to his trap. Now his madness was wrestling with what remained of the field. Yet for all the hacking of his pickaxe he never found the bewitched stone. Finally he hurled his tool away in fury. He returned to the path. He was too tired to look back to contemplate his work of death. He returned straight as he had come. He had now made up his mind. He would untie the head and come back and throw it into this devilish Malnoue.

Thoroughly shaken by his exertion, Moarc'h crossed the farmyard and went to the well. He drew up a bucket of fresh water and drank it straight off without worrying about his nose or his clothes, both of which got a good dose. That done he entered the living-room. La Galiotte and Henriette both stopped their work and watched him apprehensively. They saw that his eyes were fixed and bulging beyond his eye-lids. Moarc'h ordered la Galiotte:

‘Fetch me the wheelbarrow.'

He was going to say something to Henriette too, but changed his mind. As he passed her his arm skimmed her hard belly.

Now he was back in the loft confronting the head still tied to the master pillar. The loft was as hot as an oven; the air seemed breathless as if burnt up by the heat. Moarc'h was in a hurry to get it over. His knife was heavy in his pocket. He pulled it out and opened it with a practised hand. He went forward, the blade emerging from his fist like a pointing finger. He cut between the wood and the stone. The cord was strong. Finally the sections of rope fell to the ground one after another. Soon the last of them had been cut. The head rolled as if it had just been executed again. It rolled between Moarc’h's legs and he gave a sudden jump.

He threw down his knife and picked up the stone, hugging it to his stomach. His arms were tired and it felt heavy. Slowly he made his way to the trap-door, then turned to get a proper footing on the ladder: he had to rely on his feet alone for his hands were imprisoned by his wretched burden. He made for the first step, then the second, then fumbled his way down. With each step he had to lean forward. The stone was at the level of his chest. Then he had to lift it up a little further so that its coldness rubbed against his cheek - but little by little the coldness seemed to diminish, giving place to warmth. Soon the stone felt as soft as a woman's skin. He was still groping his way down. His rough cheek could feel the stone cheek softening. His burden became lighter. He went down more slowly - he didn’t dare break the contact which was as delightful as a caress. There he was, cheek to cheek with the evil creature. Half way down the ladder he stopped. He had an impression that his love-making days had returned. The stone had become quivering flesh in his arms. He didn’t want to break the charm. He closed his eyes. He was on the point of losing awareness of everything when his ear was assailed by the sound of la Galiotte’s piercing voice from across the yard:

‘Here’s the wheelbarrow. Do you want any help?’

He came to himself immediately. Once again the stone weighed on his arms like lead and seemed to push him. He felt he was falling. Fear leapt from his throat like a cork and he cried out. He fell with a soft bump. The stone was on top of him and crushed his chest. His throat rattled. The head now rolled down beside him. It stood upright on its severed neck with face and features motionless as the sculptor who sculpted it two thousand years ago wanted them.

* * *

Moarc’h’s cry made the women leap up. La Galiotte was the first on the scene. She took in everything at a glance. Suppressing her emotion she quickly closed the door. Henriette mustn’t see. But for all la Galiotte’s speed, Henriette just had time to get a glimpse of her husband’s body spreadeagled on the ground. She put her hand against her mouth and bit it. Tears sprang from her eyes and she ran away. The weight in her belly leapt.

'Antoine, Antoine! ’ she cried.

She tripped and fell heavily.

* * *

Meanwhile in the outhouse at the foot of the ladder la Galiotte was lifting up Moarc’h’s body under the arms. His chest folded like a piece of cloth. Soon the death rattle ceased. La Galiotte knelt down. She put her ear against his mouth from which issued two streams of blood, like moustaches, and listened. Then she examined his eyes. They were fixed, frozen in death. She closed the eyelids and muttered a fragment of prayer. That done, she passed her long gnarled fingers over the pale cheeks. Scattering tears, she picked herself up with a jerk of the knee. She needed air and sun. She left the outhouse where she could already sense the smell of death mingled with the pure strong odour of milk. With an uncertain step she crossed the living-room. From the doorway she saw Henriette lying on the ground clutching her belly in both hands. In no time la Galiotte was by her side.

At that moment Antoine appeared along the Langlois track. He was walking with a slight swaying of his body as though the rhythm of the scythe was still in his muscles. As soon as he caught sight of the women he increased his pace. Soon he was with them. He could see that Henriette was suffering though she said nothing. He could also see that his presence brought her some relief.

'What happened?’ he asked.

'You'll find out,' the old woman snapped, 'but first help to get her in, we must put her flat on her bed. The pains have come on and I've got an idea it'll soon be over. Hurry, blow up the fire... I shall need hot water.'

Antoine was looking stupid and emotional.

'Ah, do you think so?’ he said.

* * *

Henriette was shivering on her bed, her fingers clawing at the sheets. At each thrust of her belly, her mouth twisted. It would only be a few hours, la Galiotte thought. She also thought that she would be able to manage the delivery by herself, that her rough hands would recover all their suppleness and skill. She went back to Antoine in the living-room. Her next job was to tell him what had happened to Moarc'h.

She gripped him by his shirt and made him follow her. As soon as he saw he gave a cry of dismay.

'Good God,' he exclaimed, 'I never expected this.'

La Galiotte pointed to the head with a sudden access of rage.

'It was that diabolical stone... I was sure it would happen!' Then, with sudden resolution: 'Just wait a minute, you'll see.'

And she searched among the tools and seized the heavy sledge-hammer used for driving in posts.

'All the same, I never expected this... ' Antoine repeated. He couldn't take his eyes from Moarc'h's body, crushed by bis own folly.

La Galiotte raised the sledge-hammer as high as she could and hit the stone skull. The blow sent a chip flying from the very middle of the forehead. Now she tried even harder and the next time she smashed the head. At that precise moment a long cry of pain came through the walls to their ears. It was Henriette. They hurried in. Antoine wanted to go into the room with her, but la Galiotte held him back.

'Stay here,' she said, 'this isn't your job.'

And she banged the door behind her.

Henriette was writhing in agony. And she was mumbling some words, but la Galiotte didn't listen.

'Someone has... just hammered... my stomach. Oh, those blows . .. My God, I'm being broken... '

La Galiotte was reassuring. 'Yes of course, darling.'

Then after one final spasm of pain came the sudden relaxation. The stomach subsided and the tortured body relaxed. Only the chest kept up the rhythm of the arduous movement. La Galiotte held the baby in trembling arms. It was a girl. The small body was full of nervous life. The first thing la Galiotte saw was the blue starry mark in the very centre of the forehead. She thought it was a birthmark caused by some craving that Henriette had had.

How could she know that in reality it was the sign of something much more disturbing?

 VII

After his flight from Antoine, the humiliated Lucas had made straight for la Maladrerie. There he had drunk the alcohol of forgetfulness with Hervé, son of the farm, his Sunday companion. Then he'd thrown himself on the straw in the barn and curled up in sleep. When dawn came Hervé shook him awake and pointed to the Naullins farm, far away but plainly visible, now reduced to ashes. Lucas's thoughts immediately turned to Jeanne... once again she had started a fire and would accuse him, his flight being too good a pretext to be missed. So he forestalled her. He went into the town and, after some hesitation, entered the police station.

The sergeant had just come downstairs. He was grumbling because that morning he had been woken up too early. He was buckling his belt round his plump stomach and stamping his heels on the floor to help push his feet into the bottom of his boots. He looked up at Lucas without a word. His wife brought in his big leather satchel which he had forgotten on the kitchen table. The other policeman entered in his turn in Lucas’s wake and greeted his chief. Then he turned to the young man.

‘And what do you want? If you've come about the Langlois fire, tell them we’ll be there as soon as we possibly can.'

Lucas hung his head. Just the mere fact of being there made him uneasy. He had never before been at close quarters with such redoubtable uniforms. The blue cloth and shining boots reinforced the power of the men and of the law they represented. He suddenly felt afraid that things might turn against him. He wanted to speak, but everything prevented him. The very smell of the place reduced him to silence and timidity. It smelt of ink, fusty paper and a lot of other hostile things. So he wanted to get out. When the sergeant saw his disarray he tried to reassure him.

‘As you're from la Noue,' he said with complacency, ‘you've seen at first hand how quick we are at catching malefactors - what?'

He raised his forefinger and winked at his colleague who looked equally self-satisfied. Lucas realized it was time to tell the whole story. His words poured out:

‘But you locked up someone who’d done nothing wrong,' he said. ‘It wasn't him who set fire to our hayrick, it was Jeanne, the mistress's daughter. I saw her taking the burning cinders in her clog and throwing them at the foot of the stack. That's the way it was. I swear it.'

But the policemen didn't seem surprised. All they did was exchange a knowing smile and say:

‘Why didn't you tell us before?'

‘I couldn't, I was afraid of... Jeanne... She was threatening me!’

They had a good laugh.

‘What was that strip of a girl threatening you with and frightening you with - a big fellow like you, eh?'

‘You wouldn't understand... and then there's all I want to tell you before she starts telling more lies, for instance that it was me who set fire to the Langlois farm last night...’

At that the two of them exchanged significant glances and at once become suspicious.

‘Well, was it you who set fire to it?' asked the sergeant in a tone that turned Lucas to ice. ‘You didn't want to own up so you began by accusing a child who couldn't possibly do any harm to anyone.'

They gave him a searching look up and down with that inquisitorial air they knew so well how to assume, and set to peppering him with rough questions that left him dumb with dismay.

‘You’ve been fighting... your face is covered with bruises...'

‘You crept into the barn and set it on fire...'

‘Why did you do it? Come on!'

‘So it was you who set the rick on fire after all.'

‘You’ll get a double sentence for leaving an innocent man in prison...'

A big fist came down on his shoulder. When he felt the hand of the law Lucas collapsed into the nearest chair just as though he was guilty.

He could hear the muffled noise made by the sergeant's fingers as he groped in his leather satchel. Then the clear sound of a steel chain. A click made him look up. A pair of handcuffs whose bracelets shone like solid silver was being held towards him. He leapt up and thrust his hands into his pockets.

‘No, no,' he cried in despair, ‘I swear it wasn't me, it was that Jeanne... It was she who set fire to the rick the other night. She accused the day-labourer, and I’m afraid she’s going to accuse me of the fire last night. Come, we’ll make her own up... Come, hurry...'

And half in tears, half commanding, he pulled them towards the door by their sleeves. The policemen shook him off, undecided. Lucas’s tone of conviction made them uneasy. His assurance didn’t seem put on. In any case in their hearts they weren’t displeased to think that the old labourer might be innocent. They had been won over to feelings of friendship for the old tramp now in his cell. He never complained. The first day he had spent sitting on the board that served as bed and bench, his lips sealed, his hands together, fingers entwined. The sergeant who went along every hour to make sure he hadn’t escaped always found him in the same position, with unfocussed eyes and long white hair slightly pushed back as though by a breeze. He looked like a churchman or one of those austere impenetrable old men who keep the precepts of the great Saint Simon. It had occurred to the police to send for the Angillon priest, but on thinking it over they had decided that policemen and priests had different spheres. Next day the prisoner had appeared in a new light; he welcomed the two men with a gentle smile and even began calmly speaking. His sweet voice impressed them. It was the first time they had arrested a tramp with the manners of an aristocrat. They showed themselves kindly without knowing it. So much so that when the sergeant's wife heard her husband swearing so much by this prisoner, she mockingly asked him whether they had brought in a prince or a cardinal. They began making every excuse to visit him, so as to listen to his advice and watch his beautiful face reflecting the meaning of his words and bringing them to life. They should by rights have taken him to the central prison at Bourges by now, where the innocent and the worst criminals of the region were thrown together. It was there that the real punitive sentences were given. But they had fixed things so as to keep him a few days longer - as you keep a delightful guest. What was odd was that they never felt tempted to question him about his crime. All they did was listen to his voice. As he sat on his plank the man seemed to be in a pulpit and, it had to be admitted, his sermons were far better than those of the parish priest. His voice was like music - it pleased as few voices please. It throbbed like organ notes and sounded the whole scale. It was a rainbow of tone. It was almost heavenly, that enchanting voice that seemed ceaselessly to be forcing you to friendship.

Two nights before, as dusk fell, his behaviour had been strange and incomprehensible. He had let out a sudden cry which, within the confines of his cell, had sounded like an explosion of poor quality gunpowder. The policemen had rushed to the door. The tramp was on his knees, his forehead bent as in the confessional when your tongue and head are bowed down with the weight of your sins. He was groaning. The sergeant went up to him and asked why he had shouted.

The tramp shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘You'd never understand.' 

For the first time it had occurred to the policeman that the good man's noble features must conceal some flame of insanity. They emerged from the cell very disturbed, and watched him for a long time through the slightly open peep-hole. Last night the prisoner had groaned again for a while, but by now he must be asleep. And now here was this farm-hand saying he was innocent.

So they were very much disposed to find another person guilty. They could pass by la Noue on their way to Naullins. It wouldn't be time wasted; it might well be the reverse if there was any truth in this fellow's story. But they wanted to tell the prisoner the good news before they left. They thought it would straighten out his ideas and cure him of his nascent madness. So they went to the room that served as a cell and pulled back the big bolt with its shrill, cold, reluctant music. Presently the heavy wooden door braced with sheets of nailed iron was open. They stood dumbfounded.

The cell was empty.

* * *

Full daylight had driven away the refuse of dawn. In the blue light of morning the Langlois farm, its guts eaten away, was no more than a charred and blackened shell. Fire had borne away the pride of the brothers Turpault. In the midst of the smoking ruins, neighbours came and went. Boys were doing some pilfering on the side. Everyone was talking at once. The general commotion suggested a fair-day at Aubigny. The two brothers, their features lined by despair, were wandering about among these useless people and now and again picking up useless charred remains.

Suddenly Léon ran to his brother.

‘Listen, Germain, what about the man I shot at while he was escaping with a torch?'

'Good God, yes,' the other exclaimed as he in his turn tried to put some order into his thoughts, ‘and I called out to you. He went off in that direction, towards la Noue... We must find out at once if you got him.'

When the women heard this they began clucking with fear.

‘Yes,' they said reassuring themselves, ‘Léon is a good shot - he would have hit a bull's-eye.'

‘If I got him,' Léon went on, ‘he can't be far away - he must be breathing his last somewhere around.'

The men formed a group. All were tense and silent.

‘Let's go and look,' Léon decided.

And off he went with long strides. His brother signed to the women to stay behind. Antoine and several other neighbours who had tried to put out the fire followed the Langlois farmers. They all felt the same anger as the Turpaults, for the incendiary could just as well have set fire to their farms.

‘If he isn't dead, we can finish him off,' Antoine threw out roughly.

‘We'll do the policemen's job and do justice on the spot,' someone else said in the same tone.

‘We mustn't let him get away and begin somewhere else...'

‘Listen, Léon,' said a fourth anxiously, ‘are you sure you hit him?’

Turpault didn't answer. He had already taken a hundred strides in the direction of la Noue. He was measuring the range of his gunshots. As far again, and it would be time to start searching. As he went it occurred to him that he might have missed the man. They would think him a bungler, but it couldn't be helped.

He stopped suddenly and bent down. On the beaten earth little drops of blood were hardening in the sun. He began a hurried search and cried out:

‘Great God, come and look...'

They gathered round in a group. Léon showed them the stump of a torch that he had just picked up. They exclaimed with glee and then began shouting like huntsmen on a trail The culprit couldn't be far off. Judging by the blood he'd lost. So they scattered and began beating the undergrowth with all the more rage as the man they were looking for was enfeebled by his wounds.

Suddenly a violent cry followed by a struggle made them turn and look at the hedge where Germain was. They ran headlong - they stopped in their tracks, paralysed by the scene that met their eyes. Turpault was fighting and rolling over on the ground with a supple and lively adversary who was scratching his face with all the fury of a wild cat. Once recovered from their shock, the others came forward to lend a hand. And then they recognized Jeanne Moarc'h and with difficulty pulled her away from Germain. Antoine blanched. The girl still scratched and kicked in silence. Finally they managed to hold her still. Her hair had fallen over her face. She threw it back with a brisk gesture, and her blazing eyes looked at each in turn. Then with a sudden leap she tried to escape again.

'Let me go,' she cried.

They were tempted to obey, but when they saw Léon getting up and wiping his blood-covered face with the back of his hand, they held on even tighter.

'Why did you do it?' he said, coming up to her threateningly.

These words shook Antoine. He thought Léon was accusing the girl of setting fire to the Langlois farm. He threw himself between Jeanne and Turpault. As he spoke he lay his hand against his heart:

‘I can swear that it wasn’t her... At the time of the fire, she was at home...’

He stopped and hesitated. His voice changed.

'Look. She wasn’t hit by your shot.'

He turned back to Jeanne, avoiding her eye, seized the edge of her blouse and ripped at the material. Those who were holding her let go and moved away. Malvenue drew herself up haughtily. Her blouse hung round her skirt. Her bare breasts made them all feel ill at ease.

‘Look, I say,' repeated Antoine, aggressive now, ‘can you see any bullet wounds?'

His eyes flashed. He pulled up Jeanne's blouse as best he could and tried to protect her by putting his arm round her waist. But she pushed him away violently. The first to speak was Léon, gentler now.

‘Of course it wasn't her. Who said I was accusing her? All I wanted to know was why she'd leapt on me.'

The others would have liked to say something too, if only to distract them from their thoughts. They were no longer thinking about the criminal they were looking for. The mere sight of the girl's body had disturbed them with the same disturbance as could be read in Antoine's eyes and in Léon Turpault's words.

It was only an exclamation from Germain, who had gone back to search the hedge, that turned everyone's eyes from Malvenue who was still standing erect in contemptuous silence.

‘There... this body... that's our man.'

Germain bent down and then reeled back as if he'd been hit. Léon came and looked in his turn. He cried out and fell onto his knees. The others gathered round and at once recognized Blaise's body, almost drowned in the tall grass. His chest was tom by gunshot. His face was twisted in pain. And then there was that vomit of black blood, black and hardened, on which steel-coloured flies had already settled. Each man was as shattered as if he had just found his own son.

And then Jeanne's voice started to hammer at them. Her words were broken by sobs. No-one dared stop her. Léon stayed on the ground as if he had been struck by lightning. Germain had gone pale and was struggling with a dizziness that forced him to close his eyes.

'Look what you've done to your boy... It was one of you who fired, I'm certain... It might have been you, his father, or you, his uncle, who did that... And tell me why? He didn't want to do any harm... He didn't know... He loved me... It didn't even occur to you that it might be your Blaise who started the fire... You're just stupid... A son, he doesn't belong to his father or his mother, he couldn't care less about his people... Your son was made for me...'

As she spoke her voice became more and more cutting. A deep flush suffused her cheeks.

'I hate you, you hear me, I hate you... You've done me the worst turn ever... You've only been half-punished, you'll have to pay a heavy price for the harm you've done me... I'll only go on living so as to show my hatred... You've stolen my life...'

At last she stopped. Léon had got up. He went straight to her. Pain and anger were struggling inside him. Germain, too, had got control of his distress and began moving in on her. Quickly Antoine pushed the girl towards the track.

'Get back to the farm quickly. Don't stay, or they'll kill you. Make off, for the love of God...’

Jeanne let out a sob of pain and fled towards la Noue.

* * *

Once there, she shut herself in her room. She threw herself on her bed. She threw herself as, a moment ago, she would have liked to throw herself on the track and die.

Despair had made a lump in her throat and was strangling her. It went on swelling. But as she went on embracing the bed as though it were the body of a big man, tears came to relieve her. Her bed was lifeless - as lifeless as Blaise's body was at that moment. The thought renewed Jeanne's grief. A bout of rapid hiccups dragged at her shoulders.

The worst of her suffering found its way out.

She lay flat on her stomach. Her breath penetrated and warmed the material. Her lips trembled. Another sigh shuddered in her throat. Then at last she relaxed and let her arms hang. The blood weighted her hand which swung like a pendulum and, all unwitting, slid under the mattress. The last piece of the statue was still there. She pulled it out of its hiding-place, put it up against her cheek and let it caress her.

Then she began beseeching the stone:

‘Don't be so wicked... Help me now I'm suffering... Give Blaise back to me - you know you can... I'll still do what you want...'

Suddenly sharp noises broke the silence in which the farmyard was bathed. Quick sharp noises of iron against stone, and a breathless voice that she knew well. She got up and went to the window. The police were there. They were tying up their horses at the yard entrance. They were there with Lucas who was following them as if tied to them. He was swearing and threatening. Jeanne understood immediately. Anger leapt up in her. Yet she had the strength to keep a grip on herself. She wanted to hear what Lucas was going to say. Antoine had just arrived and went up to meet them. He was tense and aggressive. The two women, who had gone out to hear the news and whom Jeanne had passed without seeing them, stood stock still under the living-room window. Lucas was silent and didn't dare look at Antoine who had stopped three paces away from him. Everyone could hear the sergeant giving Lucas the order to speak. As he spoke he looked only at the sergeant as though calling him to witness what he was saying. He was almost choking.

‘Yes, yes, it was Jeanne who set fire to the rick... I saw her, she took the embers in her clog. On her way back she threw her clog into the cesspool - all you've got to do is look for it.'

Jeanne jumped from her window and ran towards the boy. She stopped several paces from him. He hadn't time to protect his face with his hands. With deadly accuracy Jeanne threw the sharp stone she held in her hand. Lucas gave such a cry of pain that everyone fell back. He collapsed and rolled on the ground with his hands to his face. He rolled over in his blood that gushed out between his fingers. After a moment’s indecision the men rushed forward. They bent down and lifted up his head. The stone had caught him full on the side of his face. The cutting edge had opened up his Ups and cheek. His eye had burst, and there flowed a thick liquid from it, mixed with the pumping blood. The dust and dirt of the farmyard increased the horror of the wound. Lucas’s pain was so intense that he had stopped groaning. The women let out little cries of dismay that floated on the silence.

No-one dared approach Jeanne as she stood motionless. Her attitude was still menacing - she had picked up the stone which had ricochetted back to her after striking Lucas. She gave a second's glance at the sculpted eye, the leprous nose and the corner of the mouth. Then she smiled at the thought that but for the stone - which had compelled her hand to behave like that - the wretched Lucas would still be denouncing her and, for all she knew, would have convinced the police of her guilt. A wave of warmth ran along her arm. Her hand was grasping the piece of statue once again. It filled her with strength and pleasure. She let out a sudden mad laugh. The others were so surprised and disconcerted that they didn’t know what to do. They drew away from Lucas. Only la Galiotte managed to overcome her stunned condition. She went and knelt beside the farm-hand and applied her coarse apron to the wound. It soaked up the blood like a sponge.

The others stood looking at the girl who had cut open the lad’s face without uttering a word. They were in a curious state, as if under a spell. Although Lucas lay stretched out on the ground like a beast struck down by a hammer, it was as if Jeanne had never thrown the stone, and as if Lucas had said nothing against her.

‘You can take him away,' Jeanne said with contempt, ‘his lies haven’t done him any good.'

And then, savagely:

‘Wouldn’t you have done the same in my place? Wouldn’t you?’

She pushed back the lock of hair that kept falling over her face. She wanted everyone’s approval. But la Galiotte and even Henriette were reproaching her by their silence. And Antoine, who might have encouraged her with some collusive gesture, stood motionless and avoided her gaze. So she shouted:

‘Don’t you all see that he’s the guilty one? I saw him as I’m seeing you now. I swear...'

The stone was weighing in her hand and Malvenue realized that it wanted to strike again. Smash in the faces of those shilly-shallying policemen. Make another gash in the garrulous Lucas’s face before he denounced her further. A swaying motion was communicated to her arm. But Jeanne didn’t want to throw it at the women, nor at Antoine who had come to her defence against the Turpaults. As she gripped the piece of statue she began to feel frightened for it was growing soft under the pressure of her fingers. She gripped even tighter and the stone seemed to be turning into flesh. It now had human warmth and was trying to slip out of its prison bars of fingers. It slipped and wriggled like a captive frog. Jeanne was quivering with fear, but she held on furiously. She realized that its life had come back to it. But the others mustn’t see that the stone was alive. The swaying of her arm became more and more threatening.

‘Stop,' commanded Antoine, ‘you don’t know what you’re doing. Put that stone down.'

She could see the fear on their faces. Their eyes were anxiously following the course of her arm. She knew she had only to open her hand for the stone to escape and cut open some other face. But she didn’t want to see blood on another face. She tried to overcome the power in her arm.

As she couldn't do so she summoned up enough will to run and shut herself in her room. There she knelt down on her bed. She was still clasping the stone, which had now become mere stone again. In fury she used the cutting edge to slash at the plaster of the wall. She foamed at the mouth and ground her teeth in time with the slashing of the stone against the plaster. She was determined to wear out the stubborn power of which she had never felt so much the slave. The wall was covered with long deep gashes of the sort that only the devil's claws can make.

Suddenly she felt someone was there. She turned round and gave a start. Near the window, his back to the wall, the old tramp was standing motionless. She hadn't heard him coming. The door hadn't creaked. The man looked bigger. His long face was austere. At first Jeanne was struck dumb with bewilderment, then it occurred to her that in view of Lucas's accusations the man had been set free so as to confront her and force her to own up. So she stuck out her chin and defied him:

‘It wasn't me,' she said. ‘Lucas is a liar. He's got it in for me because I didn't give myself to him.'

The other made no movement, nor did he speak. He just looked at her, and that look seemed to her like a piece of heaven, a tiny piece in which hatred, wickedness and lying had no place. A piece of heaven that was small when seen like that, in the eyes of a tramp, but huge if imagined in space. Rather like some far-away and inaccessible land. Jeanne got off the bed. Her free hand still clung to the wood. Her bravado had gone. She was even trembling. Another power was trying to guide her. She repeated her words, but with less assurance:

‘It wasn't me. It was him... only him.'

She grasped the stone tight. Now she would have liked to break it, turn it into sand as it must have been at the beginning of the world. And still the tramp's aliveness was concentrated only in his heavenly eyes. The girl slipped to the

floor and knelt, mastered. She wanted to hear his voice. The silence oppressed her. Now she was almost crawling on the red paving. Tears came to her eyes. They were tears of remorse, pain, and hatred too. At last the man raised one hand. He held out two fingers. His gesture was slow. He spoke:

‘Little one, through your curiosity you have become a tool of the devil. You are going to go back to your master, it is time that you yourself told your people the evil you have done. It will make your future sufferings lighter.'

His lips hardly opened. He seemed to be speaking without parting his teeth. His voice wasn't the one that Jeanne remembered. It echoed as though it were coming out of a well, as though it were hitting against a long vault. Then Jeanne thought she saw the man rising, leaving the ground, no more nor less, as a ghost would, or God himself.

‘You are going to pay,' he went on. 'I tried to stop you when there was still time... you remember that... but you were determined to go your own way. Alas I see that the demon of evil has come - his mark is already on your forehead. But you can save your father’s soul, who was all unknowingly guilty of your damnation. To do that you must go and throw the stone you’re holding into the Malnoue... you must do it this very minute. Only you must take care... your master is waiting for you... throw the stone and don’t answer his call. Don’t forget... throw the stone as you threw the others... throw...'

His voice grew weaker. It seemed to detach itself from his throat and depart from his body. Now it was in the yard. Jeanne began trembling - all the others would be able to hear it. He continued to repeat the final words as his voice became fainter and fainter. Now it must be on the Boucheron short cut... how she hoped none of the others had heard it! His voice was now inaudible - but he himself was still there, motionless, calm. In his eyes there was now the white flame of reproach, now the black flame of severity. The man moved, went to the door, opened it. Then Jeanne managed to let out a great cry from her oppressed breast. Antoine came quickly. He hesitated a moment before entering the girl's room. Finally he pushed the door open and saw her still kneeling tensely at the foot of the bed, her eyes fixed on the empty wall.

‘What's the matter?' he said gruffly.

She pointed to the wall.

‘There, look, don't you recognize the tramp who set... who is back from...'

Her tongue refused to add another word. Antoine saw nothing. But he was afraid of going too near Jeanne because she was still clutching the stone that had maimed Lucas's face.

‘There's no-one... you're raving... you just don't know what you're saying any more. You shouldn't have hit... it could cost us a lot...'

Then Henriette and la Galiotte arrived. The police stayed behind in the yard. They had decided they must tend Lucas who was still lying on his bed of earth and stones, barely breathing. Henriette was on the point of scolding her daughter, but she had no time to open her mouth. Jeanne got to her feet and turned towards them. The first thing they saw was the wide red scar on her forehead. They let out a cry of dismay. The girl looked as if she had received a blow exactly on the starry mark on her brow. And the appalling thing was that the mark was growing larger under their eyes. It looked as if all the veins of her face had burst in turn, and the blood was fanning out beneath the skin. Already half her face was burnt by the strange flame that stamped the worst of birthmarks on her flesh. Malvenue seemed to have no idea that she was slowly becoming disfigured. She made as if to walk towards them. They all backed away. They were all afraid, horribly afraid. The girl seemed to be under a spell. The red flame had eaten up all her face and stopped halfway down her neck. Jeanne noticed nothing. She still clutched the stone.

'Don’t look at me, look at that man over there,' she said, pointing to the wall. 'Look at him.’

Antoine leant over towards the women and spoke in a low anxious voice. His eyes never left Jeanne’s hand.

'There’s more to it than what's happening to her face,' he whispered. 'I think she’s gone mad - she thinks she can see the tramp, the one who’s in prison.'

Malvenue had heard. She pulled herself up threateningly. Below her neck her skin was white. Suddenly she cried out:

'But look - he isn’t in prison any more, he’s there, look quickly, he’s leaving, he’s sinking into the wall, quick, look! ’ Henriette’s distress was becoming like red hot lead. The lead was boiling in her veins and binning her flesh. Her suffering became so dreadful that she suddenly fainted. Antoine just had time to catch her in his arms and lie her gently on the floor. La Galiotte stood transfixed, as stiff as a scarecrow. Molten lead had started forming in her veins, too, but suddenly it had gone cold, and hardened. As it congealed it froze the old woman and set its earthy colour on her face. Then, without lowering her head, Jeanne spoke to Antoine, who didn’t dare meet her eye.

That man and Lucas are right... It was me who set fire to the rick, and it was me who urged Blaise to set fire to the Langlois farm... I believe I’m going to be damned for ever, but I know that before that I can save my father’s soul which has been suffering for sixteen years...’

At these last words la Galiotte came to life and let out such a piercing scream that Antoine felt as though his stomach was being bored through by a master-carpenter who, moreover, had placed his knees on either side, one on his thighs, the other on his chest. Outside the police looked over towards the house. They didn’t know why the woman had screamed. The scream had bitten into them. They rose and went to the door.

'You there,' the sergeant shouted from outside - he didn’t dare go in - ‘you there, has there been been another... has anything serious happened? What is it?'

It was then that la Galiotte appeared in the doorway. She was walking backwards. She descended the doorstep. Her arms were out in front of her and it looked as if she was trying to push away some horrifying spectacle. She hiccuped with fright.

Over there at the entrance to the yard the horses suddenly started pawing the ground and neighing with fear. They pulled on their bridles and tried to make off. The sun dimmed over. And a curious bluish mist formed that thickened and turned yellowish before your eyes. It was as heavy and oppressive as the old woman's slow withdrawal - she seemed as if driven mad by what she saw and the others hadn't yet seen. This evil autumn mist, obscuring the sky, rarely occurred in full summer. It was the sort that overtakes you in the very middle of your work and forces you to down tools. It was composed of thick glaucous vapours, flowing like pus and tepid as poison. The police could not have known that a similar mist had overtaken the former master of la Noue, Moarc'h the Breton, when many years ago he was applying all his might to help his plough penetrate the virgin womb of la Malnoue. But even though they couldn't know that, they could sense that the mist that had gathered augured no good. They could sense it as you sense that fine weather will replace rain by a softening of the wind. And they sensed it: their throats contracted as if a hangman's rope were round their necks, a rope that periodically tightened. Behind them the horses were still in the throes of their animal panic. To throw off his anguish, the sergeant gave vent to a great shout:

‘Devil take these hellish vapours,' he swore.

At that moment la Galiotte managed to stammer a few words:

‘It's that head... it... it has... come back.'

The police stared at the doorway. Antoine, who had gone out by the back, came and joined them.

Then, in this sickly-coloured mist there appeared, at man’s height, a scarlet head cut off halfway down the neck. This head came out of the living-room and advanced slowly, borne by the vapours. Antoine suddenly saw again, and with great clarity, the stone head that Moarc’h had found. The police were tense. The thick mist devoured la Galiotte. The head continued to approach.

But then, as if he had woken from a bad dream, Antoine saw it was Jeanne’s face. He immediately told himself that he had let the old woman’s fears possess him and thus hadn’t realized that it was Jeanne, with her body swathed in mist. He put out his hand to touch what the mist was concealing. He stretched out his hand a little further, averting his glance from the now hideous features - the pupils of the eyes were glowing like embers and the whites were scarred with blue veins as sinuous as grass roots. He stretched out his arm full length, prepared for his hand to alight on any part of the girl’s body. He threw it out so as to clasp her body good and proper and rid himself of his nightmare. He thrust it out as if wielding a sickle - but all it met with was the mist that made a plinth for Jeanne Moarc’h’s scarlet head.

For a moment Antoine was still, distraught to the point of dying on his feet. He hadn’t the strength to search around for where he should have touched. And then a light wind rose and died in the farmyard. It whipped the farmer. The sun penetrated the mist and pierced it with white light. Then Jeanne could be seen whole, her body straight. The redness that had covered her face was fading. It was now no more than a sign of anger. Malvenue was there, fiercely there, fixing the policemen as they stood behind Antoine. They, too, had realized their mistake.

‘Well! What an amazing thing!' the sergeant exclaimed.

Antoine said nothing. His fear now was that the girl would proclaim her misdeeds in front of everyone, including the two policemen. Inside, Henriette had regained consciousness. She now emerged, holding onto the walls. Antoine went to help her but didn't dare tell her what had happened. La Galiotte was in the pigsty, kneeling beside Lucas who groaned in pain with each pump of blood. The sun broke through the mist and dissipated it. Jeanne was still there, clasping the accursed stone in her hand. And an appeasing force was drawing her towards the heights of the Sologne. Her features became gentler. She left the yard with a calm, confident step.

‘Come back, Jeanne,' shouted Antoine, who sensed catastrophe.

And with a gesture of authority he drew the policemen after him. When she saw them following her she ran as fast as she could and without a moment's hesitation took the path to la Malnoue. The power that drew her on helped and sustained her. There was no weariness in her legs. The more swiftly and agilely she ran the greater her exhilaration. The men struggled after her. They called to her in loud voices but she didn't hear. Now and again the stone came to life in her hand. It palpitated. Soon Malvenue seemed to feel fingers clasping hers. They seemed to come from an arm and an invisible body.

As for the men, they tripped with every step. This chase seemed to them the hardest work they had ever done. Yet they were tough, tougher than this dishevelled girl who seemed to be carried by wings, for she followed the track without seeming to touch it. As the men ran and called, they swore with pain. At every moment their feet caught in the deep ruts and twisted. It was not long before Jeanne reached the marsh. By now the stone fingers were clasping and tugging with such strength that more than once she nearly fell. Now the soil that her father had once wrung from la Malnoue was beneath her feet. Jeanne made straight for the reeds. The sun was beating fiercely down on their green skin which received the heat and gave back freshness in return. Jeanne skirted the tall greenery. Then she stopped.

In front of her there was a gap in the rushes just wide enough for a body such as hers to get through. Two invisible arms seemed to be pulling them aside and holding them apart. Beyond this tender-coloured passage-way gleamed the water of la Malnoue, drawing her on like a legendary diamond. It was here, Malvenue suddenly remembered, that she had seen the nocturnal washer-woman. Her heart contracted, but still obeyed the pressure of the stone fingers. On she went. Her feet sank into the rotten earth. Fat green lizards slipped between the reed-stalks. A long-haired water-rat, filthy with ooze, took a motionless look at her out of its intense little brown eyes. Frightened frogs leapt from the mud around Jeanne to break into the calm waters. She pressed forward. Her legs were hurting. Then the stone fingers holding her hand loosed their grip. Jeanne stopped. She felt a heavy weight on her shoulders. She began to sink. Already the flesh of her thighs was freezing in the water. Her skirt spread like a great bell around her. Now coldness clung round her womb and extinguished the fire she had felt there since yesterday. Her weight sank deeper. The mud spread over her blouse and caressed her breasts. The bell of her skirt had disappeared in the marsh. It was now the turn of her shoulders which disappeared with a noise like breathing in hot liquid from a spoon. Like strangling hands the clay gathered round her neck. Jeanne held high the hand that clasped the bewitched stone. It was as if she didn’t want to give it back to this cruel and exacting Malnoue - or not at once. She managed to laugh, and there was mockery in her laughter as if she was playing a game. The clay lay its viscous and foetid fingers on her lips. Malvenue shut her mouth tight. She was now possessed by horror and couldn’t express her horror with a cry. All she knew was that she was damned. She was haggard like an animal in a trap. She tried to defend herself, but all she achieved was a spasm of the last agony. Her raised arm relaxed. It began to follow her into the moving tomb. Her lovely glowing eyes, still wide open, were put out by clay eyelids. Her hair was pulled straight up as if the rotten earth was preparing to fix it in a bun. Then it, too, disappeared. All that remained of Malvenue was her hand clasping the stone. The stone seemed to be welded to her fingers. To separate it her wrist would have to be cut off. It is only by the will of God or the Devil that the dead take an object with them as they die. It is only by the will of One or the Other that they give it back. The ooze surged in great bubbles round that hand which suddenly loosed its dead fingers and let the stone which carried the eye, the nose and the mouth of evil fall into the marsh.

* * *

At that moment the village grave-digger, digging a grave in the enclosure of the dead, heard a long sigh followed by another shorter one. He stood up. He rarely had company and this morning he would welcome a chat. He would be able to move his tongue for a while which was there motionless in his mouth and sleeping like a log. He propped his spade against the side of the grave and struggled out of his hole. His dry old limbs creaked. He took a look around, but there was no-one there. Yet he couldn't have been dreaming, he had certainly heard those sighs coming from the row where he had been digging. He looked round again. His thoughts flew to the old gate which gave better warning than a bell. It was shut. So then he thought to himself that he must have been dreaming after all... at his age... really... He walked along and found himself on a level with the grave of that Breton from la Noue. And suddenly he thought about his daughter who had come the day before. But, good heavens, why was he thinking about her so intensely? He wondered about it for a while and, before going back to his digging, let his eyes fall on Moarc'h's tombstone. And that made him start. It had been laid back flat. And the corner piece of the slab which even this morning had still been missing had been stuck on with such skill that nothing showed. The cross was firmly planted in the ground. It looked as though it had taken root. And the voracious grass all around the slab had been pulled up. And no-one could have done that without the gate giving its creak of agony and without him noticing - him, of all people, who would have heard the breathing of someone buried alive.

* * *

Antoine was the first to reach la Malnoue. All he could see was the thick wall of rushes rustling in the breeze. Great gouts of sweat were breaking out all over his body. Then the two others arrived. First they looked at the rushes, then at the farmer. There was a short pause in which the only sound was the broken rhythm of their breathing - the breathing of men at the extreme limit of effort and anguish.

Then at last Antoine shouted: "Jeanne... Jeanne... Where are you?'

At that moment they heard shouting that made them swivel round. Two men were running towards them from the Coudray direction, waving wildly as they came. Antoine recognized them at once - they worked on the Bourrées farm. One was Marcellin, the Solognot from Sainte-Montaine; the other was Gervais from Beauce. They were returning from woodcutting and carrying on their shoulders big hooks for pulling tree-trunks. They had soon arrived. They spoke with difficulty:

‘We saw her going into the marsh... Come on, we know where she is.'

They advanced on la Malnoue and pushed aside the rushes with no fear of sinking. It was the exact spot where Jeanne had found the way to death.

'It's there... Marcellin and me saw it all... Your Jeanne is mad, and that's for sure.'

They glanced towards the police.

'Unless she'd done something wrong,' Gervais added in an undertone.

All that could be seen were a few broken stalks half-sunk into the ooze. Exasperation surged up in Antoine. He seized one of the wooden hooks from the farm-hands and walked into the marsh with firm steps. The others moved about indecisively, making useless gestures:

'Be careful,' the sergeant shouted.

But he seized the other hook and followed the farmer. The two men sank in as far as their knees and at once began dragging their hooks through the slime. They panted. They were feeling for the soft object that must by now be all that was left of Malvenue’s body. Then the others found poles and entered the marsh in their turn. Soon they, too, were sounding the morass of decay. Now and again one of them gave a shout, then the others would look at him, but it was only a shout of fear as the marsh tried to suck in a new victim. The man who had shouted would make a sudden movement to get his leg back onto firmer ground, would lean on it confidently, then once again his foot would start sinking, and he would shout again, and again the others would believe that he had made the find. They were all taken in every time.

Suddenly Gervais called to them. His pole had struck an outstretched form, then slid over it. They were all held fast by the mud and it took some time for them to gather round the Bourrées farm-hand. At last, one after the other, they prodded the long narrow form with their poles - it could only be Jeanne’s stiffened body. The five men worked hard, but with each movement the ground threatened to open up and engulf them. Then, by degrees, the marsh seemed to be losing its grip. Ever so slowly the body came up and, as it did so, became lighter. Now it wasn’t far from the surface. Antoine let go the handle which he was pulling with Gervais and plunged his arms into the mud. Even his anguish couldn’t stop his lips creasing with disgust. He drew his hands together and grasped the body in both arms. Then he gave a quick look of dismay at the sergeant. He had expected to feel soft flesh. But his hands were touching hard solid skin.

He swore. 'Give me a hand.'

Now they were all clasping the long stiffened corpse. 'It can't be Jeanne,' they were thinking.

But they said nothing. They were having a twofold struggle - with the marsh and with the horror of the moment which turned their faces a ghastly white.

Finally they wrested it from its watery prison. Now that it was no longer upheld by the clay, the thing was as heavy as a rock. It was only a long stone dripping with slime and stinking of rotten weeds. They were on the point of letting it drop back, but before doing so looked at Antoine. Antoine’s words came out in a stammer:

‘It isn’t... and yet!... You’d think it was Jeanne's body... What if...’

His features collapsed with emotion. The men dragged the stone onto firm ground. The mud dripped away and there was a glimpse of light brown skin. It was an ancient statue that had lost its head. Yet its shape was so like Malvenue’s that they thought they must be dreaming. Great blue and black flies immediately began alighting on the statue, trying to batten on the decay as though it was carrion.

‘Jeanne’s body is like that,' Antoine whispered, his hands joined in respect.

'But it’s not her, there’d have to be a head,' the others answered in grave toneless voices.

'Nevertheless Jeanne's body is like that,' Antoine repeated in the same voice that seemed to moan.

'But it’s not her, because there’s no head,' answered the others in the same grave and toneless voice.

It was like a lugubrious chorus, similar to a hymn to the dead, with, as obsessive background music, the anguish humming in all their heads. At last, to relieve the tension, the sergeant bent down and scratched at the break in the neck.

Marcellin gave the stone belly a kick. Antoine pushed him away. Marcellin read reproach in his eyes, for all the world as if this headless statue really were the body of the late Jeanne Moarc’h of la Noue and his behaviour had been a sort of profanation.

All Saints, 1946 - Easter, 1948

MARIE THE WOLF

The hot breath of June had turned the tall grass brown and sucked up the sap that had been overlooked by the equally parched sun. The drought had it all its own way in this corner of Sologne where the only water was the almost dried-up river Rere. Pails were bringing up mud and pebbles from the bottom of wells. The sand, the shrubs, the thin woods and the fields were all tormented with thirst. And the peasants, who suffered most of all from the sky's parsimoniousness, had never before faced such a lean future.

Marie was walking along a path that led to a stretch of heath painted with a thick coat of light by the sun. Nearby a small pinewood creaked at some invisible touch. Marie paused. She had just noticed the recent passing of a roe. Then on she pressed towards the heath, for it was there that the woodland animal had gone. She followed the footmarks printed in the sand, but then they petered out. The girl paused again and raised her face to the wind. Its direction was in her favour and with its help she'd be able to take the animal by surprise and see it tremble with fear as she trembled with joy.

She set off against the sky's breath and noiselessly drew aside the heather that grew as tall as bushes. Her mouth half-open, she sniffed all around and pierced the undergrowth with her searching eyes. A birch copse decked in tender green drew her attention. She ran there, then threw herself on the ground and started to crawl. Under the low branches she found a lair, but it was empty. The footprints continued beyond. Further on a cluster of hazel trees, surrounded by a mass of giant-tentacled blackberry bushes, seemed to call to her in its turn. She approached, sensing a presence. At that moment a huge crackling of branches made her jump in spite of her presentiment. Before even seeing anything she had picked up a stone and, as the fawn-coloured beast fled with long leaps over the heather, she threw the harmless weapon with all her might but it fell far from the roe. Then she gave chase, leaping with the agility of the panic-stricken animal itself. Finally, as she lost breath, she tried to cut her prey off, but lost its traces. So she stopped, exhausted, and burst out laughing, her whole body possessed by indefinable delight.

Marie Ribaud's face was lit with eyes of sulphur; they were far from round, like no-one else's, and suggested those of a wild beast. With each intake of breath her nose caught the wandering scents and always found their source. Her whole eighteen-year-old being was redolent of the wasteland. Her full bps opened on the moist whiteness of her teeth and stood out sharply against her skin which wind and weather had coloured with their touch. The pulsing of her neck on certain days caused a strange fever that slightly hollowed her cheeks and emphasized her determined chin. At such times she became secretive. She disappeared for long hours, went no-one knew where, but always came back contented, serene with a serenity that made her people happy.

When at work she was as tough as a boy. Farm work had broadened her shoulders, and the basic needs of man had strengthened her chest. Her long legs were delicately muscled and shaped to run for pleasure as much as for toil.

She was in no hurry to rejoin her father and brothers who were scything the grass in the Bâtards hayfield. She knew they both expected her and didn't expect her. They knew her wandering moods and didn't despair, though sometimes her young strength was badly needed, especially during the heavy summer labours when the least help makes all the difference.

‘She isn't made for work in the fields,’ her father complained. ‘But she’s made to help us live our life,' answering his two sons.

She was standing in a daze on the heath when a hand that felt like moist leather slid over her closed eyelids. And simultaneously she felt a weight on her shoulders. She jumped. Soon firm but gentle hands were pulling her head backwards and a broad chest was pressed against her back. Calming her own heart-beats, she felt those of Martin as they jumped with joy against her.

She took his strong hand and crushed the palm against her lips. Then, just like that and because she felt like it, she bit it firmly, deeply.

He gave a cry of pain.

‘Ow, Marie, you hurt me.'

She turned round, trembling.

‘Then you shouldn’t have frightened me,' she said, happy that he was there at that moment. Then, lower, and with passion:

'I bit you as I love you.'

Martin Malgrain was now in front of her. He was tall, broad, on the hefty side. Over on the track a light cart was harnessed to a mare whose ears were fighting against a swarm of nagging flies. The intoxication flooding Marie’s senses had drowned the noise of its approach.

As he said nothing but just looked at her with the tenderness that is the eternal wealth of lovers, she went on:

‘I’m going to turn over the hay in the field by the wood...' He was sitting at her feet on a slope covered with short grass.

‘Come here,' he said.

He said it again.

She shook her head. But he forced her down beside him, pulling at her skirt. So she obeyed and leant her cheek against his chest. Suddenly the indefinable fragrance of rustling gorse wafted towards them.

‘You are my life,' she said gravely.

Martin looked into the distant haze of the sky. He stroked Marie's long hair.

‘You are my whole life,' she repeated.

She didn't want an answer. Words meant nothing. Martin knew he must keep quiet. He and Marie felt so right one against the other that they were happy with nothing but that. The dancing air melting in the heat distorted the horizon as in a dream. Marie knelt up, placed her hands at the back of Martin's neck and drew his face towards hers. In the space of an instant Martin glimpsed a wild gleam in her eyes, Marie got up quickly and fled. He was taken aback. He wanted to catch her up, hold her to him again, dominate her. But Marie was already far away. Then he felt his love becoming more intense.

* * *

‘So you've not changed your mind yet?'

Short and thin, her bun high on her head and as if the continuation of some piece of organic sinew, mother Malgrain furiously wiped the table for at least the tenth time.

‘So you're still going with her, are you? Answer me.'

Martin, seated, finished eating a piece of cheese that his knife had spread with difficulty over a crust of bread.

‘Give me something to drink, mother,’ he said at last, ‘your cheese makes me thirsty.'

Mother Malgrain filled a bowl with rough wine and handed it to him. He thanked her with a movement of his head. The woman looked as fragile as a dandelion seed. Those seeing her for the first time always wanted to spare her effort. But in fact she could beat two women at work, and to ask her to do something was to do a service to her nature.

‘So you've not changed your mind?’ she said again, as restless as a fly before a storm.

Instead of answering, Martin handed her his empty bowl. Then he got up, snapped his knife shut, and prepared to go out.

'So you’re still seeing that Marie, eh?' she nagged on. ‘You're still seeing her?'

Every day he had to submit to his mother's reproaches, for she could not abide his courting of Marie Ribaud. So he had reached the point of ignoring what she said, as you ignore the barking of a dog. Today, however, mother Malgrain was outdoing herself. Now she became positively angry:

‘You can ask Marie if she'd follow you around if you didn't have parents like us. Just ask her...'

Then, coaxingly, ‘I say that, but I know really that you'll be sensible, that you're just having a bit of fun with her, eh, my boy? That's it, isn't it?'

At last Martin answered.

‘Sure. Though yesterday we derided that we'd soon be married.'

His mother was thunderstruck. She didn't know what to say. She'd hoped he'd get tired of the girl, or realize that she wasn't his type.

So she threatened:

‘Your father won't sit down under that, so you needn't think he will.'

‘He'll have to, or else...' And Martin waved his hand at the countryside. ‘Or else I'll just go. Then I shan't be a bother to you. You see, I'm ready for anything.'

‘If your father was here you wouldn't talk like that, and that's certain.'

‘I would. I'd say exactly what I've said.'

But as he imagined his father's reaction, he pressed his hands together.

His father, the agent of the château Rerin, was dictatorial both in appearance and character, and not easily swayed. This was his strength, the strength that had enabled him to make such a profit with his mill over near Orleans. His ruthlessness had earned him the reputation of an unashamed money-grubber. He was said to be so self-seeking and grasping that he would pick up a farthing from under the hooves of a galloping horse. Many other malicious things were said about him. And in the region he and his wife were called 'foreigners’ - and that was the worst insult of all.

'Sure I want her to be my wife, and that she’ll be,’ repeated Martin, slapping his thigh with the flat of his hand the better to drive home his point.

‘Ah my boy,' groaned his mother, raising her eyes to the sky, ‘amuse yourself with her, but don’t make her your wife. I’ve been told things. If only you knew...'

‘Oh, so that's it...'

She went up to him and whispered:

'Do you know what they say about Marie?'

'Whatever it is, it's just stories, I know that.'

'Do you know they say she's got an evil gift, that she's damned?'

Martin raised his head. He crossed his arms savagely over his chest and fixed his mother's eyes with his own:

'Are you crazy, mother?' he said. 'If you’re just going to repeat lies, I’m off.'

She put her small hands on her son’s bare arms to detain him. ‘But it’s true, and I can tell you who it is that says so.' 

‘Right, tell me.'

‘People who heard it from old grandmother Ribaud who died three years ago.'

'Just old wives’ tales,' he answered. ‘She talked nonsense, that old woman, and it’s too easy to quote the dead anyway. I don’t believe you. I love Marie, so leave me alone.'

Sharp nails dug into Martin's arm.

'Don't go with her, she's a girl who traffics with the devil. Don’t go with her,' she implored him.

‘Oh leave her alone,' Martin said, going to the door. ‘What harm’s she done you for you to make up those things about her?’

He wanted to be alone. He went out. A vivid smell of summer, gentle but clinging, came from the neighbouring heath and immediately filled him with hope. Martin went to the chestnut alley where there was warm shade. At the end of the path was the Bâtards farm with its deplorable buildings due to the intemperance and negligence of the landlord. As if equally responsible for this injustice, Martin turned round and looked at his parents’ house standing in the middle of its plot of well-manured ground in which they indulged the luxury of growing flowers and shrubs.

It was insolently new, this house that Malgrain had had built at his own expense in the place of the modest dwelling which had hitherto seemed perfectly adequate for the agent. It was not without secret intentions that the former miller had emptied some stockings of their louis, to a large extent won by means of little scoopfuls taken left and right from customers' sacks (go and see if it's the mill that ate those little missing bits). If he had equally sacrificed some of his gold to help the execution of certain urgent works that the château Rerin needed, this was because he knew very well what he was doing and had made his calculations. He saw himself as the future master of this domain of over a thousand acres, acres consisting of woods, moorland and lazy land that the Ribauds, as good farmers paving rent in kind, had fertilized with their sweat for generation after generation.

Martin passed in front of the iron gate that guarded the park. A great flat skeleton, this gate encrusted with rust. A grassy avenue led up to the château Rerin, which in fact was no more than an old manor house with decrepit walls happily concealed behind a propitiously-placed mop of honeysuckle. In the past, in the time of the great Monsieur des Gardettes, senior, the building was well kept and full of life. Today, with Monsieur des Gardettes, junior, a scholar, there was no more than this potential ruin and an old spinster servant, yellow and dumb as a statue. The count’s greatest concern was to follow the footsteps of the past.

That was his real life. It was his weakness, and his strength too: nothing else existed for him. ‘To hell with letters,' he said, ‘creditors, worries. Just leave me to my work.' 

It was his misfortune, but he didn't know it. He was heading for a fall. The place would have to change its master. No-one could live by dreams alone. Malgrain knew all this and sometimes rubbed his large greedy hands with satisfaction. ‘Well done,' he thought, ‘a little more patience and to have the lot for a song.' Martin knew his father’s designs. He did not share them.

Turning over these teasing thoughts, he arrived at the elm that shaded the entrance to the Bâtards farm, beneath the shelter of which ploughs and harrows were put. For the Ribauds it was elm-tool-shed; for Martin it was elm-waiting-place. Marie did not delay in coming out of the living-room. She crossed the yard, singing. When she saw him, she came.

He pressed her against him and buried his face for a minute in her dark hair which held the odour of fresh milk.

* * *

That evening Marie asked questions. She asked so many that they became imperative.

In the afternoon Martin had told her about his mother’s stories. He'd laughed and joked about them, but she hadn’t joined in his laughter.

And now she asked questions as if it was her right.

‘I want to know. I want to know why people say I've got a gift...'

Her father and mother looked at each other and tried to remember. They had to dig back into the past, and a past consisting of desperately hard work makes stiff digging. Her father couldn’t remember the details of the story, he could only recall the broad outline, and vaguely at that. 

‘Your grandmother would have been able to tell you,' he said. ‘She used to talk about it to her cronies on winter evenings over the fire...'

Her mother, whose memory was less sluggish, put the bits of a not wholly vanished picture together.

They were sitting outside. Some on benches they had brought out, others on the ground which for once wasn't clamouring for something to be done to it. The night and the silence gave the mother the raw materials of mystery that she needed for telling her tale. The night provided the setting that each wanted; the silence took over from the story-teller whenever she paused, and knew better than she did how to keep curiosity at boiling-point.

Thus Marie learnt...

It was nightfall in that terrible winter of 1870, a winter marked by the threefold catastrophe of invasion, famine and cold - which in turn gave rise to a thousand other ills.

The cold buried its huge icy fingers deep in the soil. It took hold of Sologne and lingered on to spread hoarfrost over the back of the poor world. Visible in steam as it touched mouths, it swung its great fluid body to and fro at the will of the biting winds. Its sovereignty over the winter months made its cruel demands. It rolled this way and that and sprawled over everything. In the woods its frolics gave rise to dull pain in the tall trees whose branches had already been tormented by summer lightning and the rage of autumn winds. The tender flesh of young pinetrees split open with dry sonorous cries. Men heard these forebodings of disaster and quailed, powerless.

Among the poor, this winter had killed off many of the old and snatched away the life of many new-born babies. Grave-diggers had to lean with all their might on the rigid, branch-like limbs of the dead to lay them flat in pine coffins smelling of spring. In opening the hardened soil they swore against the cold that bit their ears for the fun of it and put absurd icicles in their moustaches. The earth was taking a little rest between is two labours of autumn and spring, before the plough would start tearing its newly-soft belly into long thin strips. Good beasts lay side by side on thick beds of soft straw in the comparative warmth of stables with walls coated with cow-dung. Wild animals came prowling round the farms, pushed by a hunger that knotted their entrails as the cold knotted affliction in their chests. And woodcutters dared not venture into distant felling areas for fear of encountering hungry wolves whose howls would strike like axe-blows and undermine their courage.

The only visible sign of life from the Bâtards outhouses was the smoke rising from the manure-heap shrivelled against the pigsty. Bright snow made the yard and rooftops one. In slaking its thirst the cold had changed the muddy pond into a block of dark ice. An old trapped pail slept peacefully, its handle folded back on its tired sides. The track of a slide on the ice showed the passer-by that the farmer had young and vigorous children. Opposite the pigsty, and keeping to themselves, were the larger buildings: the vast barn full of the grass of life - granary of intoxicating scents; and, just near, the stable with its lazy sounds of moving chains and muffled lowing. The buildings occupied by Ribaud and his family dominated the dependencies and were separated from them by a small yard; here were the dog-kennel and two battered cook-pots full of old bits of iron wedded together by all-devouring rust.

But for the whitish smoke from the chimney, the misty breath from the manure-heap and the whimpering of livestock, one would have thought that the farm was abandoned.

Along the frozen mud path, covered by soft snow, there walked a tall broad-shouldered man followed at some distance by animals barely visible in the dark. On coming in sight of the Bâtards farm he stopped. Stopped his beasts, and then advanced into the yard alone. He walked proudly. His clogs crunched. As he approached he saw the flame from the hearth throw out a red glow over the living-room windows. Arrived at the door he knocked with his fist, showing no hesitation.

‘Come in,' said a voice from within.

He pushed the door, hut it resisted.

‘Come in,' repeated the voice, louder this time. Tut your shoulder against it. You’d think the blasted ice wanted everything for itself.'

With a strong thrust of his shoulder, the man pushed again at the oak door which creaked, then opened.

The farm living-room was immediately apparent, and startlingly full of life. The fire was busily devouring the logs of which it was not stinted, and threw its heat into the blood of those assembled, lighting up their work with its soft flames, making the twigs sparkle, the pinewood crackle, the chestnut whistle, the cauldron bubble, and the wet coat of a large dog stink as he lay on his side with a wistful look in his eyes. All the Ribauds were there. The grandmother, broken by age, marked by crippling labours, and losing a little more of her strength with each day that passed, was asleep, her chin sunk in the wrinkled skin of her neck. Young mistress Ribaud was doing her bit, kneading dough with big sweeps of the arm, or running to lift up a brown baby who was exhausting itself with new feats as it felt strength mounting in its little limbs. Seated on folded sacks on the floor were two boys of nine and eleven; knife in hand they were doing things with wood. The master was at the millstone, already worried about the responsibilities received with the last breath of his father who had died two months ago - killed by work rather than age.

On seeing the stranger standing in the doorway, everyone stopped what they were doing. The dog growled, bared his worn-down fangs, and stood up threateningly, but the farmer silenced him with a gesture, pushed him down and made him find a place beneath the flour-lined flour-bin. To see the animal’s suddenly frightened look, you’d think he’d been bewitched.

The newcomer made no friendly gesture. With his wide blue wool trousers, held at the waist by a red belt, you’d think he was an escaped soldier. Or perhaps a clown - with that short black fringed cape, and the black mud-spattered fur cap held in place by a handkerchief knotted under his chin.

He seemed of no particular age, and of all the ages of man.

After throwing a swift glance behind him, and quietly closing the door, he said at last, and to everyone’s relief: ‘We’re hungry, me and my beasts.’

He spoke slowly, with difficulty. You felt he wasn’t used to doing it much.

‘How many beasts have you?’ asked Ribaud.

‘About six.’

‘And you’re taking beasts around in this cold?’

The man didn’t answer. He went out and whistled. Then he came back and planted himself in the doorway. The heat of the fire fought with the freezing air that swept in as the waters of a pool sweep over a meadow once the floodgates are lifted. Each one thought of telling him to shut the door, but no-one dared, so much did this man inspire fear. Soon the nervous padding of paws was hammering on the floor of the yard. The dog under the flour-bin immediately sent up a death like howl. The stranger’s beasts arrived to the tune of raucous whistles, and soon long menacing snouts could be seen around the threshold of the door, while large eyes with purple pupils fixed the flames in the fireplace.

‘Wolves!’

Heeing to the other end of the room in their fright, the boys, Marc and Julien, huddled together in a comer. The woman snatched the baby up from the floor and put it back in its cradle. The old woman woke up completely, but remained cushioned against shock. Ribaud unhooked his gun. The wolves were grouped around their master’s legs.

‘So you’re a wolf-drover,’ said Ribaud sharply.

‘Give us something to eat,’ the drover commanded briefly. The farmer gripped the crook of his gun hard enough to break it. He knew that threats would count for nothing against this man who had the strength of his beasts and the mystery that surrounded them. He said, without turning his head:

‘Mother, and you Louise, prepare a mash.'

The children couldn’t take their eyes off the wolves standing there, ready for any butchery. They were spellbound. They had been told so often about the fierceness and cruelty of wolves, and their mother’s threat returned to their minds, 'If you're not good, I'll give you to the wolf...'

And here was not one but several wolves, and only three jumps away!

‘Take your animals away from the door,' said Ribaud, afraid that his children might catch one of those unhealthy fevers brought on by fear and so difficult to throw off.

The wolf-drover made a surly face but ordered his animals back into the yard. His orders were brief, more cutting than a whip. With each word his lips twisted, and he spoke from the comer of his mouth and from between clenched teeth.

‘Get out... be off...'

'And see that they don’t go in with our good beasts,’ the farmer added.

As if in answer, the cows set up a frightened mooing. They had sensed the dangerous presence. Ribaud wanted to put the man outside, but the drover only leaned more heavily against followed by the grandmother bringing another. The plates contained potatoes and crumbed bread swollen with hot water. The wolves pressed forward again.

‘Give them to me,' said the man.

He went and put the dishes down for his beasts. The mash smoked doubly out in the cold. The beasts growled, but didn’t hurry to appease their appetites. They seemed to be waiting for something.

Old grandmother Ribaud, who always acted in silence, looked anxiously at her son. If the animals didn’t want this, then what on earth did they want?

'Go and fetch some pastries,' Ribaud said to his wife.

She brought some on a wooden plate. He took it and handed it to the drover.

'This is for you.' he said.

The man didn’t thank him. He grabbed all the pastries, broke them up and threw them into the mash. That done he said to his beasts, ‘Let’s eat.'

The beasts approached the plates, their backs curved, broken in to firm obedience. They swallowed noisily the insipid swollen bread mixed with sweet and scented pastries.

Then, getting down on his hands and knees and pushing aside the grunting muzzles, the drover made a place for himself and ate straight out of the plate with obvious satisfaction.

Once his hunger had been appeased he came back to Ribaud who was watching the scene with stupefaction from the door.

'How old’s your youngest child?’

'A year.’

'Boy, girl?’

'Girl.'

'Show me.’

'But...'

'There’s nothing to fear. I want to thank...’

Ribaud was relieved.

‘If that’s it, then take it as said.’

'No, I want to...’

And he pushed the farmer aside and entered, leaving such an animal stench in his wake that Ribaud turned away. He reached the bench and sat down. Then everyone could see that under his cape there was an unbleached linen bag hanging from his shoulder.

‘I don’t like your heat,' he said, casting a baleful look at the logs. ‘Show me the little girl!' he added at once.

But the anxious mother didn’t want to show the child.

‘Go on,’ said the farmer.

Marie was shown to the man.

'Let me have her on my knee.'

The mother glanced at the husband.

'Go on,' he said.

When the drover had the child on his knee he spoke to her without the slightest malice.

'Listen, little one, I'm going to give you a gift.'

He went on very low so that no-one could understand what he was saying. His words were gutteral and followed by mysterious gestures. Marie looked at him solemnly, her mouth open. As he spoke the man unfastened his bag and there peeped out the head of a wolf-cub two or three months old. Marie was delighted and clapped her hands, thinking it was a game. But the wolf-cub was frightened and wouldn't come out of the bag where he felt safe.

‘Has she ever eaten meat, your daughter?' asked the driver.

‘No,' they all answered together with bated breath.

He returned the ensuing silence with silence, while he took the child's little hand and put it into the wolf-cub's mouth.

The mother stifled a cry and leapt forward to take her child. Ribaud stopped her with a look.

Now the drover was speaking gravely:

‘You've got the gift, Marie... you’ll understand wolves, your hands will be able to stay and cure their bites... you'll chew bread to make the paste that'll cure... you'll put it on the wound... it'll be a sort of medicine. Only, remember, you'll lose the gift at my death.'

That said, he gave the child back to its mother, got up and went out without looking at anyone. Quiet and replete, his animals were waiting for him in the yard. ‘I'm...' he said. And they walked off into the night that had hardened the cold...

Marie woke up with a start. The sun was striking the wall of her room with a golden round like an eye.

The fever of the night had passed. She found that she was naked on her unmade bed. She sat up with an effort and let her legs hang down, as tired as if after a long night’s run. Her feet felt the cool of the tiles. Then she tried to remember all she had dreamed or imagined during her restless sleep: certainly the wolf-drover and his howling beasts had played their part.

Had her mother really told her that story? Had that strange man really held her on his knees? Had he really put her baby hand into the wolf-cub’s mouth? Had he really given her some power? She looked at her hands, and then at greater length at the one which...

She stood up. A great weariness weighed down her limbs. She went to the window, flung it wide open. The morning sun was so gentle that it immediately cheered her up. But a faraway heat mist, low on the horizon, foretold that all would soon be heavy.

Today was the feast of St John and it was going to be fine. It would be the kind of St John’s day that the young dream about; it was the kind of sky that, when it deepened and became dotted with stars, would be love’s accomplice.

That was all that was needed to restore Marie to her happy spirits. She dressed and looked at herself smiling in the farm’s one mirror - covered with fly-stains at that. Then, her thoughts filled with the sun and her ears humming with the song of birds, she went and drew a pail of water and washed her face in her cupped hands. Once her skin was cool and soft, her night fears seemed childish.

* * *

And now it was dusk. The parish priest, vested as for Mass, came forward with dignity to bless the mountain of faggots that rose as high as a house on the square at the intersection of the Nancay and Souesmes roads. With a flourish he sprinkled holy^water from his aspergillum. He Christianised the ephemeral monument that these peasants - unconscious heirs of a pagan cult long since forgotten - had built without thinking to harm the good God's religion. Some of the women muttered prayers. Nearly everyone made the sign of the cross.

The sacristan put a flame to the base of the pyre. Ever since morning this little flame had been in people's minds, and a need for happiness had made each one hope that his own faggot would be the first to be kindled. Swiftly the massive pile of wood seemed to lose weight and become transparent with flames. Night fell, pierced by the thousand earthly stars of the thousand St John fires that vied with the stars of heaven. Everyone was so proud of their handiwork that they felt no fatigue as they tirelessly threw on fresh branches, dry and still warm with the last rays of the sun. And in spite of the harm done to the countryside by the huge star, they were happy thus to prolong its heat.

Martin was looking for Marie. As he searched dark corners whence rose laughter sharpened by pleasure, his impatience grew. Gradually the fire became a dependency of hell and the fierce shadows that it cast over the nearby buildings seemed like damned souls. The priest had gone, his conscience perhaps at peace. Martin couldn’t find Marie and so found this St John's day very sad.

Someone jostled him and he found himself in a ring where outstretched hands groped for other outstretched hands. His neighbours were singing their heads off. Many had drank, and the heat of the fire excited their intoxication. Martin caught sight of Marie's brothers. They exchanged the joy of the moment with a nod.

At last the well-known laugh rang in his ears. Breaking the chain of arms and mad bodies, Marie came and took her place in the ring beside him. Her hand squeezed his. Her eyes sparkled with all the sparks of the fire. Then Martin found joy again and, in his turn, joined his voice with the song of the others. Marie sang too. Now and again she threw back her head and offered her throat to the flames as they sank lower and lower.

Finally the skeleton of branches collapsed and flung out fragments more or less everywhere. The people immediately cried victory as though a dreaded enemy had just fallen at their feet.

‘Let’s jump over the fire,' cried a man’s strong voice.

The girls left the ring and, drunk with smoke and song, watched a boy as he prepared to jump.

To the accompaniment of claps and cries he easily cleared the wide heap of embers and dying flames.

‘You'll be married in no time,' cried one.

Spurred on by the excitement, others jumped. Those who fell short were pitilessly hissed by those who nevertheless didn't dare do as much.

‘Boo, you old bachelor. No girl for you!'

Without saying a word, Marie pushed aside the boy who was preparing to jump. He moved away, laughing. She took off her clogs and, lifting high her skirt, she jumped. The girls said nothing but the boys clapped. Marie landed well clear of the scattered fire, but her bare foot struck a still-burning ember. The pain pierced her heel. Marie bit the inside of her lip. No-one noticed that she was hurt. She went up to Martin smiling, and yet she was suffering. If she'd been alone, she'd have cried. At that moment voices shouted:

‘Your turn, Malgrain.'

Martin went to jump, but Marie didn't want him to. She pulled him away, right away from the remains of the fire.

Once they were clear of the general fever, he reproached her, laughing,

‘Why didn’t you let me jump? I wanted to show them we’d be married this year.’

‘I don't know...'

‘I could have jumped it easily, like you.'

‘I know. Don't ask me.'

For a moment she thought she’d tell him about all her fears, about her father’s story, about her night. Anxiety seemed to suffocate her. To dissipate it she pressed up against him. He put his bare strong arm round her waist, his arm full of gentleness yet determination.

‘People get engaged on St John’s day, you know,’ he whispered.

Then Marie let him kiss her. And pleasure mounted in her like sap.

Then a strident voice rose from the hubbub of all the other voices. It belonged to Baptiste, of the Guepreux farm.

‘I’m going to jump now,’ he was yelling. Tm going to jump as no-one has ever jumped before. I’m going to jump so far that the girl I want won’t be able to refuse me anything.’

It was obvious he’d drunk his fill. That made the company laugh even more, and egg him on. So much so that Baptiste started getting bawdy and, before taking his run, demanded silence. He obtained it at once because what a drunk is going to say is always funny.

‘I’m jumping so that Marie Ribaud will be in my bed before the end of the year, and, word of a Grodafieu, she will be.’

Martin let go of Marie. He thrust his way through the crowd and got to the front, near the dying fire.

Then Baptiste turned on them a limp look that drew the biggest laugh of all:

‘Watch, everyone, I’m jumping and I’ll sleep with Marie. Marie, where are you? Go and wait for me on the other side.’

Marie had joined Martin. She knew his rages. She tried to restrain him. She tugged at his arm. She felt his muscles grow taut.

'Come on,’ she said in his ear, ‘can’t you see he's drunk? He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Come on, let’s go.'

‘For goodness’ sake,’ said Martin, ‘anyone would think you were taking his side.’

'He’s not worth bothering about. You can see everyone’s laughing at him.'

‘And at you at the same time,' he retorted harshly.

Baptiste Grodafieu was the son of the Guépreux farm on the Angillon road. It was a farm of the same type as Bâtards. Poverty everywhere. Walls bulging with age like the belly of a master shoemaker. A rickety doorstep concealing the ill-starred toad who brought uneasiness to superstitious farmers, a little beast that made you say when you saw it as dusk fell, ‘he’ll bring us bad luck, for God’s sake’ - as if you didn’t work hard enough with arms and legs without having to worry your head the best part of the night. Guépreux farm had laurels too, planted long ago along the buildings; but they had now become trees with trunks as thick as thighs, and had produced great cracks right up to the roof, not to mention the low branches that harboured the dry mud in which rats and reptiles swarm.

They worked, these people. In summer, if necessary, they worked by moonlight. Often poachers would stop in their tracks hearing father Grodafieu’s breath punctuating that of the blade as he cut a hayfield at night, while behind him his wife plied the great wooden rake in the scattered grass.

They had one son, just one, Baptiste. The best fruit often his its worm. Baptiste was far from having their perseverance, their capacity for endless work. He was one of those that the peasants viewed as a villager and the village viewed as a peasant. ‘One of those who slipped through without God seeing,' as the saying goes. Not because nature had overlooked him, for he had his full share of muscle, vigour and health, but because he combined laziness with capriciousness, hypocrisy with cowardice. Finally, and to put it in a nutshell, he didn’t belong in the midst of this busy hive working to live in its comer of earth without flowers. To make up, he ran after girls more than most country folk. By now they were all bored with him, having first fallen for his cunning and carefree ways.

Since the beginning of the year he had taken a fancy to Marie Ribaud, and rebuffs, sarcasm and even blows had spurred him to persevere and suppress his impatience as much as encouragement would have done - rather as drought, hail and poor soil spurred on his father to persevere and hope. So basically, so it seemed, the son took after the father. Only each had chosen his own path.

Baptiste often prowled around the Bâtards farm like a fox round a hen-run, scenting the propitious moment for solitary meetings with the girl he coveted. But the boy’s ingenious manoeuvres, far from flattering Marie, exasperated her. She had enough will to resist his voice - a little too smooth for a peasant's son.

At the Bâtards farm no-one seemed to notice these repeated assaults, and in any case didn’t attach much importance to them. If Marie had been different, they might have worried. If and when it became necessary, they would get the big stick ready, but for the time being they didn’t bother. The individual in question wasn’t worth the time it would take.

As Baptiste prepared for his jump, Martin broke away from Marie and went to the other side, to the place where the drunkard would land. But in the general uproar of jeers and jibes, Baptiste stumbled and fell headlong before he had taken two steps. So, jumping the fire the other way round, Martin joined him and lifted him up before anyone else had time to touch him.

Grodafieu was so drunk that he didn’t recognize Martin.

‘Thanks, old boy,’ he said.

‘Are you still going to jump for Marie?' And Martin held him by the collar, choking him.

‘Of course I am, because I... because I want her,’ he managed to blurt out.

‘Do you know who lam?’

‘Oh it's you, Martin. Give me Marie at once. She's mine.'

'Right. Here she is.'

Martin let go of him. The drunkard swayed. Martin's fist struck him full in the face. Baptiste collapsed a second time. Martin bent over him and shook him.

'If you want Marie again,' he threatened, Tm ready to give her to you, and in the same way.'

‘And so am I,' said Julien who had managed to join them.

'And so are we all,' echoed the other lads who didn't like Grodafieu.

The drunkard had passed out. Blood had come to his lips. The girls were worried.

‘You've not killed him by any chance?'

‘Don’t you believe it. That type never dies.’

And as if to prove it, Baptiste half-opened his eyes and tried to get up. He groaned, slavering blood and alcohol. Then they left him and the jumping continued with renewed energy.

During all this time Marc had stayed beside his sister who wanted to hit Baptiste too.

'Stay here,' Marc urged her, 'you'll only make things worse. Let Martin do it. Martin must be the one to punish him, it'll do him good.'

* * *

Now that the St John fire was thoroughly dead and the old people had salvaged the embers capable of preventing evil from entering their homes, the young people dispersed into the welcoming night. Marie's brothers had disappeared with their girls. They had offered to lead them towards pleasure.

Marie and Martin walked slowly. The flames of the fire, together with the quarrel, had excited their senses and they felt this St John was intended to appease them.

Knowing that the stars made everyone who watched them lose their head finally, Martin asked Marie to point them out to him.

'Do you know where the Little Bear is?' he asked her gently, bringing her to a halt.

'There, in that part of the sky,' she answered without any hesitation, happy to show that she knew, though the game required that she shouldn't know at once.

She pointed. Her arm brushed Martin's face.

‘And the Chariot?' he asked, hoping that she would show herself ignorant - as she ought.

At that moment they were accosted by several men, panting for breath and holding lanterns up to their faces.

‘Oh, here you are!' they exclaimed. ‘We've been searching for you everywhere. About this accident that's happened at the Rouges farm.

Irritated by their arrival, Martin answered curtly,

‘Accident at Rouges farm? What has that to do with us?'

'We're not talking to you, Malgrain,' they replied, ‘but to Marie Ribaud, because she's the one who can save the Maujin boy.'

At these words Marie gripped an arm in the dark, one of the arms that were gesticulating to bring home the words of these men whose pale faces were staining the night.

The Maujin boy provoked the wolf, and so's been bitten - is that it?" she asked nastily.

They started back, seeming to fear being equally bitten by her words.

She went on:

‘You know perfectly well I can't cure that.'

As no-one answered she said again, trying to control her anger,

'Go away. You've been told lies about me. Go, I tell you. I can't do anything to help the boy.'

She was trembling.

Martin explained in his turn, trying to keep calm,

‘You don't understand, you people. Be off where you came from. Marie isn't a witch.'

'But... but...' protested the others.

'I'll make you go, and quickly.'

Martin was about to give the nearest one a push when a woman's voice, a pathetically anxious voice, reached them from the end of the field. Such a wailing voice that it seemed to be grated on the rough ceiling of the stars.

'How about it, menfolk, have you found her, have you found Marie? Bring her quickly. My little boy - perhaps it's rabies he's got. O my God, bring her quickly. No-one else can cure him.'

'If it's not rabies, then it's certainly gangrene,' the man that Martin had wanted to drive away said importantly.

'And I don't envy the conscience of anyone who could save him,' added another coming up to Marie who had turned away so as not to hear them.

Suddenly she said, 'Right.'

She had just taken a sudden and mad decision. She added in a strained voice:

'You might have got hold of better lanterns to light the way.'

‘You're not going to go,’ Martin protested in dismay.

Sobs were still coming from the other end of the field. A mother's sobs that entered the heart like ice.

'Come on, we must be quick,' ordered Marie who had now taken command.

She led the way. The group of men, grave and silent, followed. A long way behind trailed Martin, desire still in him. He didn't understand the hope placed in Marie. But neither of them had the slightest premonition of the tragic morrows that would be born that night.

* * *

The little Maujin boy of Rouges farm was lying on the big farm table. His torn clothes bore witness to a desperate assault. There was still the residue of terror in his eyes. His whole body shook with sobs.

The external appearance of the injury was in fact not too bad - but that meant nothing. Everyone knew that if it was not combated at once, the poison would spread through the little starry openings in the skin.

That evening the boy, who had poaching in his blood, had gone over to Fons-Chauds where the woods were thick and almost trackless, thus left to themselves and full of mystery. This was where those who hunted according to instinct went. It was here, in this haunt of wild animals, that the boy had gone the day before to set his trap under the dead leaves, an old trap with rusty teeth but still capable of holding prisoner a roe or a fox.

On returning to find his victim, a tree had at first hidden it from view though he could hear its short breath and jerky movements. He ran forward to see and immediately felt fright like a whip-lash at the back of his neck.

A wolf was in the trap.

The boy would have fled and returned to the safety of Rouges farm, but fear had cut off his legs. Meanwhile the sight of this child of man had given all its savage vigour back to the trapped beast. With a desperate effort the wolf rose above the pain of its broken paw and, with the zeal of ten generations of wildness behind it, wrenched up the pegs that pinned the trap deep in the soil. With a leap it bounded in the horror-struck boy’s direction, reaching him first at the level of his waist, nipping the material and a small portion of skin - enough at any rate to bring the boy back to his senses and enable him to make a dash for it. But a second attack - he could feel the hairy touch against his neck and smell an unfamiliar smell - inserted pain into his shoulder. If the trap, together with the howling wolf, hadn't then been caught in the root of a tree, the boy would certainly be dead.

When the men trooped silently in, heralded by the mother's wails, the boy who had been bitten resumed his lamentations.

Marie went straight to the table, her breathing cut short by her leaping heart. Gently she took hold of the boy’s hand and saw his torn shoulder. She leaned forward, uncertain.

It was a nasty bite all right. The sharp teeth, possibly poisoned, had left blackening blisters. And the infection would spread in no time, as Marie could see. No question of believing or not believing. She must take action before the worst happened.

Father Maujin came up. His face was pale with emotion.

‘The wretched boy,' he said with an effort, 'I told him not to go hunting in those places... Wretched boy, I...'

They all looked at him to see what would come next. But all he did was keep on repeating the same words, which were perfectly useless for curing his son.

Confronted with everybody’s inactivity, Marie’s emotion subsided and she became more business-like.

The mother implored her, ‘Marie, make him better!'

Martin looked at Marie, trying to read her face. She gave him a smile as if to beg his forgiveness, but he saw that her mind was made up and became uneasy.

Then she turned to the women present.

‘Bread,' she said, ‘and quickly.’

When they had brought it to her she went on in a low, hard voice:

‘Out, all of you. I want to be alone.'

They obeyed and went out noiselessly. Old Maujin repeated yet again, ‘Ah that wretched boy, I told him...'

His brother silenced him and pulled him out of the room.

It was already well into the night. Naked necks and arms shivered in its coolness. Some of the farm folk were relieved after the heat. Women leant their tired limbs against the farm’s rough wall which gave back in lukewarm form the heat it had received from the sun. Mother Maujin said nothing. She had her back against the closed door so as to be the first to go in again.

Marie chewed the bread and looked the boy in the eye. Little Maujin held her steadfast gaze and blinked with fear.

She passed her hands over the torn shoulder. He gave a jump at that first contact. Then little by little he drifted into sleepiness. Marie profited by a moment when his head was turned away to apply the chewed bread.

Now she felt quite calm and clear-headed to the point of torture. Now at last she would find out. Her hands laid the paste on gently. It was still warm with saliva.

'Do you feel any better?' she asked anxiously.

He stared at her for a moment. The struggle going on between friendship and fear was apparent in his wide-open eyes. Slowly he dropped his eyelids and answered:

'Yes. I can't feel anything now.'

Overwhelmed by this revelation, Marie drew back.

'I've cured him, I've cured him,' she repeated over and over again like a pulse.

She pulled away the dough sticking to the wound, and threw away this thing that made her different from other people.

At that moment the door opened a little and she could hear anxious voices. Then the door opened wide and they all entered, burning with curiosity. The mother took hold of her son's head. He had fainted and she thought he was dead so cried out as if she was mad.

Marie was at a loss to understand the reason for this cry. She stayed near the table, her arms crossed, her head high, ready to defend herself.

But, evil in her despair, the Maujin mother pointed her long bony finger at her:

'Look at the she-wolf. She's finished off the harm begun by her brothers. Take a look at her, the accursed one who kills children. Look at her, she's...'

She couldn't go on, but made no effort to suppress a heavy sob.

The evil word had been spoken.

All the others looked.

‘Wolf, wolf,' they shouted, and backed away.

Martin, outraged, thrust aside those who stood in his way and rushed on Maujin. But by now Maujin had recovered his authority of a father.

‘You've no right to be here at all, you son of a thief,' he shouted. ‘Get out of my house, Malgrain.'

And so saying he pushed him towards the door.

Martin wanted to strike him, but the others were all joining in pushing him out with blows and insults.

Marie had gone pale. Her brown skin had turned an ashen grey. She moved forward to come to Martin's help, and to fight and justify herself, but the poison was already at work. She was surrounded by ten faces on which you could read suspicion and malicious talk. She could see so much hatred and fear that she felt tears of helplessness rising to her eyes. Then she fled to go and hide this shame and injustice.

In the farmyard she passed Martin without seeing him. He was returning to the living-room with a pitchfork in his hand.

On seeing a haggard Martin entering the room, the women's sudden fear broke out in their cries, while the men seized on any weapons that lay to hand. They could feel the pressure of a great struggle, one of blood for blood.

The Maujin woman put her arms round her boy and pulled him up. As soon as the seemingly lifeless little body left the surface of the thick farm table, it bent limp as if life was terrifyingly absent. He fell, and his feet struck first the bench and then the hard floor.

The other women clustered round. But they dragged the boy so clumsily that his head swung as if it was unattached to his body. ‘Now that he's dead,' they thought, ‘we must save his soul from that she-devil and the onslaughts of this other wizard who's come to spread more evil...'

They stretched the child out on the bed in the neighbouring bedroom and pushed a heavy oak chest against the door, thereby burying themselves in the brutal but protective darkness.

Meanwhile in the living-room the onset of drama put a tragic mask on everyone's face.

Martin was the best armed and the most determined. His pitchfork gleamed with its four prongs. When he thrust it into the bench that Maujin had equipped himself with as a shield, he could feel the measure of his strength. He gave a sharp pull on the handle, heavy with stable filth, and the bench came away with it. With another swift motion he had freed the fork, and its steel teeth sang for a moment in the hostile silence. The others now realized that his only enemy was the farmer of les Rouges. They no longer feared for themselves, and drew aside with relief.

Martin's eyes shone with scorn as he looked at these grown-up men who for all their toughness cringed in fear from a man who had only just become a man.

Then he advanced on Maujin as he stood there, still and defenceless, his neck veins sticking out and as if ready to spurt blood. The flames from the dying candles that no-one had thought of changing made the shadows dance on their faces.

Martin controlled himself. He no longer dared to strike a man whose sole arm was the rage in his eyes.

But Maujin spoke. His words were jerky, but his man’s strength was powerful.

‘Can't yon see that the she-wolf has cast her spell on him?

You devil... your place is in hell...'

The sweat was coursing down his low stubborn forehead. The women's sobs could be heard from the adjoining room.

‘Hit me if you like,' Maujin challenged, upheld by the feeling that justice was on his side. ‘Hit me... as you can. A Malgrain knows well how to do harm...'

Martin poised his pitchfork.

When he saw this immediate threat, the farmer shrank backwards. For a moment Martin thought he was going to collapse on the ground even before being forced to. But he wanted to hear some more threats so as to be able to hit harder, so as to be able to do so with less remorse.

'Just say that again... say that Marie Ribaud is a she-wolf, say she has a curse on her, and that’s she’s cast a spell on me, just say it again. Come on, say it...'

Maujin was gripped by sudden fear. The others could see his despair. Martin on his side saw in advance the momentum with which they would hurl themselves upon him. He struck straight out, blindly. He felt flesh biting at the teeth of his weapon, and the fork had quite a different weight.

Hands seized hold of him. He collapsed, powerless against such combined forces. Grimacing faces were pushed near his own. He felt pain in his whole body. He was being crushed and pulled to pieces. With a gasp he shouted 'Marie’ and then ceased moving.

The others recoiled in sudden fear.

The silence of the farmyard was then broken by the sound of footsteps. They all looked towards the door. They wanted to flee from any passer-by who might be coming in and who might spread the news of the slaughter. It was Baptiste Grodafieu.

The lower part of his face was covered with blood. Two boys were holding him by the arms. All three were belching alcohol. The avengers saw at once that they had nothing to fear. Drunkeness sends the memory to sleep and no-one believes what drunkards say.

When he saw Martin lying inanimate on the ground, Baptiste’s hatred returned.

'Ah there you are, you son of a snake, this time it’s my turn to smash your head in and I won’t do it by halves.'

He pushed aside his two companions, went up to Martin’s body and gave it a heavy kick with his clogged foot.

'Filth,’ he cried, 'you want everything for yourself... you want Marie, and the jeers of the others round the fire, and everything. If you could have broken my head, you'd have done it, wouldn't you? Oh, so you can't answer. You just wait. I'll do what you have to do with people you don't want another word from... No more of that wanting Marie, you must lose that taste, you must lose everything. There, take that, I was saving it up for you, you beast - ‘

He sobered up with kicking, and when he looked round he saw old Maujin's body with his face clenched in pain and the fork sticking straight into him. In the grip of sudden terror he looked all around him and saw he was alone. The others had all fled and left him as if guilty of the fate of those two men who were perhaps dead already, mourned by those invisible women whose cries were being blown over the short St John's night by the fresh breeze of dawn.

He managed to summon up just enough strength to flee, too.

* * *

Meanwhile Marie was running along the track, her hair all awry and her breast heavy with unshed tears. The sand flew out beneath her bare feet, and the wind that had risen to stir the calm leafy trees seemed to be giving her the name which she would now have to bear:

'She-wolf... she-wolf...'

She wandered about for a long time in her despair. The heath offered her its silence and she threw herself into it. Cunning brambles pulled at her skirt and the material tore like a wail of complaint. It seemed to her that the sterile earth was groaning too.

‘You are a wolf, Marie! Marie, the wolf!’

She paused, fell on her knees, and made the sign of the cross. She bit her fists and the blood was like the taste of her delirium.

‘I’m not a wolf, no, I'm not a wolf.'

She got up and went on aimlessly running. In a wood the branches clutched at her and pulled her back more cruelly even than hating hands.

Then the girl, cursed by others, lost consciousness in the midst of a jumble of laughs and threats.

* * *

She woke up on the edge of a clearing, her face at the mercy of the sun. Her head was teeming with painful splinter-thrusts - the words of her perdition. She pushed aside the long loose hair covering her eyes, and got up with a sense of pain and exhaustion throughout her whole body. Those hostile brambles made her legs feel as if they were on fire, but her soul was aflame with other feelings: the curse cast on her by human beings. And everything seemed to proclaim the truth of the night that had just passed.

As she walked her thoughts became clearer. Perhaps too clear. In a violent desire to be absolutely certain she set out resolutely along the track to the Rouges farm.

There was an immense calm over the world. The air vibrated with nothing but the gossipy chattering of crickets. The static corn and oats were patiently awaiting the orders of their rider, the dancing wind.

With a fainting heart Marie made out the great roof of Rouges lost behind a garden of peaceful apple-trees. Everything was so real and the sun had brought so much truth to it all that she closed her eyelids twice for a long time so as to try to conjure up doubts.

At that moment she caught sight of one of the farm servants cutting the living grass with a rusty sickle.

‘Hullo!’ she shouted.

The other straightened, and on catching sight of Marie she let out that stupid cry of fear that simple-minded women are always prepared to give voice to.

‘Oh! Oh! My God! It's Marie!' she screamed.

Marie came up quickly.

'Yes, it's me, and what of it?'

‘My God, save me...'

‘What do you mean?'

'Get back, with your curse. Wolf...'

Marie swayed. The woman stood, spellbound, her eyes wide open as if she were seeing a ghost. Now her mouth was chewing incoherent words.

‘Oh, but, oh, no...'

Then she prepared to flee without turning her back, which is the thing to do when you see the devil. But Marie took her shoulder. She had to know. The other woman tried to shrug off her grasp, and they fell together. The servant was underneath and as rigid as a sleeping woman at a fair, her eyes fixed on the bewitched girl whose words were coming jerkily from her lips.

‘Tell me... last night... did I cure him?’

Marie could feel the woman trembling more and more. So she rested all her weight on her. Her knees brought a dull sound from the woman's thin flat chest, and she began making strangled noises, ‘Ah, ah, oh...'

Marie repeated:

‘Answer me. Did I cure the Maujin boy?'

She relaxed the pressure of her knee.

‘And is it true I'm a wolf?'

The woman got back her breath. Then she nodded ‘yes', and ready for the worst, closed her eyes.

‘And have you seen Martin Malgrain?' Marie was suddenly anxious.

Once again the woman opened her eyes, drowned in superstition, and then spoke:

‘That Martin Malgrain, he's the devil... I saw him kill our master. But God gave the others enough strength to get him down before he could do more harm.'

Then the woman fell silent.

‘They... they killed him, did they? They killed him?' Marie shouted.

With every word she uttered she hit the woman's arm with her fist.

‘No, no, the other croaked.

‘Tell me, tell me everything.

At last the woman made up her mind.

‘Ah,' she groaned. She was weeping with pain. ‘He ran away this morning... My God, I'm hurt all over. She intends to kill me. He ran away, he's capable of anything, the healer said so this morning...'

The healer had come around dawn.

He'd leant over the half-naked body of old Maujin who was moaning away, and taken a long look at the four red marks. Then after a moment’s reflection he took a cheerful view of the affliction and decided it could easily be cured. Work in the fields would suffer for a while for lack of a master hand. He, too, had asked to be left alone while at his task of healing, for his secrets needed mystery if they were to have quick results.

When the others trooped anxiously back, they saw the healer completing his cure by tracing with his swollen fingers such a quantity of signs of the cross that, added together, they must have constituted a big heap of relieving balm.

‘This will be quite a short affair,' he'd said contentedly. Then, so as to get things clear, he had asked how and why the whole thing had happened. They told him, not without withholding some of the facts, and when he had heard the story he asked to see the bewitched young man. They took him to the outhouse.

‘It was risky putting him there,' he commented sententiously as he followed them.

The healer was quite right, so everyone felt, for the fellow might well bring sickness to the cattle in the stable next door.

They threw open the door and all immediately stood back, for they were unarmed. But the low room where they had thrown Martin - unconscious and his face caked with blood - was empty. Martin had disappeared.

'Did you bolt the door?' the healer asked with a shade of malice.

No-one answered. They trooped quickly back to the house. Little Maujin was still lying in his room, watched over by the women who were distributing their sympathy between the groaning father and the motionless son.

The healer took a look at the bite on the shoulder.

'That's been thoroughly cured,' he'd said. 'Whoever did that knows his job.'

And his surprise had made him nod his head and smack his toothless gums together.

Once Marie realized that the servant had no more to tell she pushed her away. But now the woman made no effort to escape but just let out stupid sobs with the help of wide, frightened gesticulations.

‘Oh, oh,’ she said, 'that Martin is bewitched... like you. Don't hurt me again. Oh, oh.'

But Marie wasn't listening. She felt drawn everywhere at once by a force coming from heaven knew where.

* * *

Bâtard farmyard was dozing away under the heat. The open door of the living-room invited her in. Within was the consolation of the familiar furniture and walls.

Marie both wanted and didn't want to go in.

The men were coming back from the wood. Her father had the axe over his shoulder; the brothers had billhooks under their belts.

The mother came quickly to the doorway to see who was coming. First there was a look of hope on her face, but that soon changed into sadness.

Marie would have liked to run to her, to them all, and tell them everything, console them as much as they would console her, but she was held back by a stronger emotion: her mother, her father, her brothers, weren't lost, but what about Martin?

‘Listen,' her mother threw out, ‘you haven't seen our Marie?'

'No,' the father said, 'we haven't seen a soul.'

'You mustn't start imagining things,' Marc said. ‘She'll be back. You know the way she is...'

‘Of course,' Julien said.

The brothers took off the billhooks that were cutting at their hips, and the father put down his axe.

‘We're hungry,' they said.

‘And you dare eat,' the mother said reproachfully.

‘Of course we've got to eat,' the father said. ‘Our muscles don't take our head worries into account.'

* * *

Crouching against the wall of the agent's house, under the kitchen window, Marie was waiting to catch a few words that might feed her hunger for knowledge. She had to wait a long time, but at last the Malgrain woman threw out some bitter fodder.

‘And this is the first time your boy's been away for so long. We must find out where he is...'

The agent made no answer. Marie could hear his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth. ‘It doesn't stop him drinking,' she thought. ‘He ought to be out looking for him.'

The woman went on:

‘You’re not anxious to know what he's up to?'

‘Bah,' he answered after a while, and with apparent indifference, ‘wait till this evening, anyway. He’s probably having difficulty waking up in some ditch. He’s been drinking, that's what it is. Boys of that age can’t hold it.’

The Malgrain woman’s shrill voice went on insidiously, ‘I see; so you’ve no idea what girl your boy's with at the moment...'

'Good God!' Malgrain’s rage flared up suddenly, assiduously kindled by his wife.

* * *

By walking, stopping, then walking on again, Marie by chance found herself at the end of the main street that divided the village into two unequal parts. There she hid so as to watch. But she would have done better not to have come, for her attention was suddenly drawn by a gang of kids who were shouting at the tops of their voices. People were even coming to their doors to see what was happening.

'Marie what?’ chanted one of the children in a voice made still more strident by malice.

'Marie the wolf!’ all the others yelled back in a discord of children’s voices.

They had already turned the gossip of their homes into a game of their own.

Then they all let out wolf-like cries as in their ‘wolf, wolf" games.

Marie was about to run after them, to make them shut up, when she decided not to. She knew that she would only whet their enthusiasm. When they reached the end of the village, where the wood began, they hesitated, paused, then turned and hurried back to the warm safety of houses and the encouraging laughter of the grown-ups.

* * *

Now Marie was wandering about again, sometimes running. sometimes walking, her hair wild. The fields seemed to her as mournful as when under an autumn mist; the woods were hostile; the heath seemed stripped of its thousands of pearls of heather; and even the dazzling sun had become some ghastly and nightmarish halo. She ran like an animal roused from its lair, like a bird driven mad in a storm.

She sniffed at the four winds as they blew from each horizon in turn, but none of them brought her the scent of Martin, who was lost.

* * *

There, there it was again, that crackling of dead branches that had been following her for a good moment now. No, it wasn’t the echo of her own footsteps. Marie halted. For an instant the noise went on, by itself.

Then, not far away, a muffled voice called out, 'Marie, Marie, Marie...'

Marie answered with all the eagerness of hope.

'Martin! Martin!’

'Yes,' she heard.

Marie flung herself headlong towards the place from which this wonderful 'Yes’ had come.

'Martin, where are you?’ she implored.

And her thoughts turned to thanking heaven. 'My God, how good you are about my suffering.'

'Come here, here,' the feeble voice now said.

Marie had gone beyond the place where she expected to find Martin, and now the weak cries came from a quite different direction. Once more she offered her bare feet to the biting thorns and wounding roots. The muffled call went on.

'Here, here...'

Marie was totally bewildered. Then a stifled laugh came from a deep thicket, followed by a head that sprang out, and at first all you could see was a mouth grinning with delight at a trick well played, then the body appeared shaking with convulsions of laughter.

It was Baptiste. He advanced towards Marie who felt her legs giving way beneath her as though she were sinking in sand, She had to lean against a pine so as not to fall.

He was still laughing, and could hardly get his breath as he said:

'Good God, that was a good joke, it really was, one of the best...'

'Shut up, shut up,' said Marie, shutting her eyes to hold in her despair.

She could hear Baptiste's step coming nearer. It was accompanied by laughter. He kept the laughter going to build up his courage. Marie opened her eyes and gave him a look of such contempt that he stopped laughing and just stood stupidly.

‘It looks as though you want to kill me,' she shouted at him, ‘and this is the only way you can do it.'

The words slapped Baptiste in the face. He turned his eyes away from Marie.

'Good God,' he said, 'you seem to hate me, Marie. Yet surely we've a right to a little bit of fun, especially as you don’t look too happy.'

She said nothing, but suddenly threw herself to the ground in her distress. There she sobbed unrestrainedly. Her emotions seemed to be tearing her to pieces.

Meanwhile Baptiste thanked providence for Marie's weakness which had come just at the right moment. He'd be able to appease the desire he'd felt for so long better than he expected.

He bent over the defenceless girl and clasped her round the waist. But just as he was beginning to feel her soft flesh beneath her dress, he let out a shout of pain and clutched his stomach. He got up and staggered backwards. Marie had managed to get one of her legs loose and kicked out with all her might. Now he was bent over double, saying, 'Oh, oh, oh,' in his effort to throw up his pain.

Marie, all set to pounce and strike again, watched him suffering. It was her revenge.

Baptiste finally sat on an oak stump, still moaning his ‘Oh, oh, oh.'

Then, ‘Bitch,' he managed to say at last.

Marie said nothing. Activity had driven away her sobs. Baptiste soon got his breath back, even more of it than usual.

‘You bitch,' he shouted at her. ‘You turn decent people down yet you carry on with anyone you meet in the woods and even now you’re chasing after a male to get your female pleasure... You’re worried because you've been caught at it. I could tell everyone straight out that the Ribaud girl they think’s so decent is a thoroughly bad lot. Look how you’re holding your thighs tight to hide the truth about your goings-on. Do you want me to tell you? You’re going to see the Juine woman, aren’t you, to get rid of your wrongdoings, and now there’s everyone saying you’re the female of a wolf. Do you understand what all that means, eh? You’re just a lost soul, that's what you are.’

The words poured from his mouth like gunshots and each caused a fresh wound in Marie.

‘Yes,' he went on, defiling her with his male hatred, hitting out right and left like a ram but slowly backing away at the same time from the contempt in Marie’s eyes, ‘yes, it’s like Martin, you can chase after him, but it won’t be today or tomorrow that you’ll be feeling his pleasure in you, I can tell you that. And never again, never never. You’ll be sorry for throwing away what I offered you. You’ll have to be looking for someone else because yesterday, at Rouges farm, your Martin - they pulled out his guts and left him for the beasts in the forest.’

‘Stop,' Marie bawled, ‘stop, it isn’t true. You’re lying.’

At that Baptiste felt a wave of joy. He had found the sore place. So he clawed at it with all his might.

‘I’ll tell you. There’s a place near Souesmes where you wouldn’t let a lamb stray. You see, dead meat soon starts stinking in this sun and it attracts animals with pointed fangs like yours. If I knew the exact place where your Martin was, don’t worry, I wouldn’t tell you, for it would be too much if you began eating too. You've got your rights over him, haven't you. If I were you I'd go sniffing around after the stink of his decay. He must be a fine sight, your fellow.'

Suddenly he stopped as if in shame of all he'd just said, and fled. The clear drop of silence seemed to Marie almost as brutal as Baptiste's rage.

Night found her distraught, moving on as though she were drunk. Seeing that her future held nothing, she collapsed into the grass and her thoughts were drowned in the greedy blackness of the night.

* * *

Baptiste was groaning ostentatiously as he entered the agent's house. The Malgrains were at table and were not a little irritated by this interruption.

‘What have you come here for? You're someone we never see,' said Malgrain surlily.

Then, ‘What's the matter with you?' he added roughly.

‘I’ve come about my misfortune, and your Martin’s,' said Baptiste.

Taken aback by these words, mother Malgrain got up. Her husband moved along the bench to make room for the young fellow.

‘Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?' the woman asked. She had become as nervous and tetchy as a cloud of flies.

Grodafieu didn't answer until he had dropped onto the bench.

‘I don’t know where he is yet, but I’m searching without a moment's rest because we’re both brothers in the same misfortune.'

‘Please explain.' Malgrain was losing patience.

His elbows on the table the fellow began bewailing his fate. He even managed to squeeze out a few tears.

‘You look ill,' the Malgrain woman said. ‘If you're crying like that you must be in pain. Now I feel I could cry about our Martin all right, but I don't. I just feel hatred for that Marie who's stolen him from me. That's stronger than my pain and stops me from crying.'

Her husband urged Baptiste to talk.

Tell us what you know about Martin. You're just sitting there like a log. For God's sake say something.'

Then Baptiste told the story forged by his hatred so as to get his revenge.

‘... I must explain that I've been going with Marie for a long time now. We used to go to the woods before you and your Martin even came here. We were a whole group, and me and Marie used always to be beside each other, so we got used to being beside each other. Then as we grew older... well, we said things and started enjoying ourselves in other ways than just running and shouting.'

The agent lifted his hand to stop him.

‘That's not what we're asking you. We want to know about our boy.'

"Do let him talk,' the woman said. ‘We want to know the whole story so as to be able to throw it in Marie's face. Go on,boy.'

‘Well,' Baptiste said, ‘Marie became a lovely girl and she knew it. Then, I can’t think why, she started making me jealous. It was a thing that could have gone on a long time but she saw it was coming between us and beginning to make me ill. So she told me she’d like us to go out alone... which shows she liked me best, doesn't it?'

‘Go on,' the Malgrain woman said, encouraging. She screwed up her eyes.

‘After a few months we found we suited each other and we got engaged, without doing anything silly that forced us to it... It'll be exactly a year from harvest time. I was mad with joy. I'd had a word with her brothers and they'd said there couldn't be a better fellow for their sister in the whole region. One day they took me by the arm and off they led me to the Bâtards farm to speak to father and mother Ribaud. “Here’s the fellow who’s going to marry Marie,” they said, “he’s just the man for her, and what's more he’s just the third brother that's needed here." Father and mother Ribaud pretended to think it over and then they said that if I could make their daughter happy then they had nothing against it...'

Baptiste paused to observe the effect the beginning of his story was making. Malgrain had a finger in his waistcoat buttonhole which held up the hand that would have been doing nothing, and he was listening and trying to concentrate. With his other hand he was kneading pellets from the crumbs of the round loaf on the table. His wife was twisting the end of the dark blue kerchief she had thrown round her shoulders and which accentuated their narrowness.

'Go on, go on,’ they said, one after the other.

When he saw their interest, the Grodafieu boy summoned up all his spite.

'Marie was hiding in her room and came out and we kissed as if we hadn’t met for years and years. Then, while everyone was hugging Marie in turn the Ribaud father said to me in a frightening voice, “You'd better come back in a few minutes, I’ve something serious to tell you.” It was like a lump of plaster in the stomach. When I got back the others were in the fields. You can imagine how serious the thing was for Ribaud to stay behind. So I sat on the bench opposite him, as I'm opposite you now, mother Malgrain, and he looked away and said, “Young man, I've got to tell you about some things in the family that very few people know... things we don't tell everyone. As you haven't yet gone with Marie you could still change your mind and not speak to her again. I'll arrange it so that no-one thinks badly of you, not even her. Listen to this... our Marie has had to drag round a sort of chain and ball almost since her birth. She only half knows it and I can see she hasn't told you or I wouldn't be here now breaking your heart. The chain she drags around is - ” he hesitated, Ribaud did, “don't be afraid," he went on, “it's what you might call an evil spell that was cast on her. Marie is a bit bewitched." I felt all dizzy. “But how?" I said. “Bah, it would take too long to explain," he said, “all I can tell you is that some day or other she'll cause a misfortune bigger than herself... Neither her mother nor her brothers know about it and she doesn't really realize it herself, and you can understand that I who know the details am not going to tell her, and drive her mad with knowing she has so much power in her head ..

Mother Malgrain tapped the floor with her clog and exclaimed almost happily:

'So you see it's true what they say about her... And Martin told me I was a bar.'

'Go on,' Malgrain said without answering his wife.

'When he told me that, he was trembling,' the young man went on. ‘I did my best to find out about the misfortune Marie could bring about, but Ribaud wasn't prepared to say any more. All he added was, “Now you know you can either stay or be off and never come back. My conscience is at rest."

I didn't really believe what he'd said so I said, “I love your daughter enough to cure her of this thing, though I don't really understand it and you don't want to explain... and then it may be that you've got ideas into your head.” He shrugged his shoulders, “Good,” he said like someone taking over more responsibilities. I've never talked to Marie about it and we've gone on seeing each other day and night, and there've even been nights when she's been as if my wife...'

The Malgrain woman gave a brief display of hatred.

'She lied all right, the wretched girl...'

'I'd forgotten Ribaud's nonsense,' Baptiste resumed without pausing, because he didn't want the fine effect he was making to be spoilt, 'when misfortune struck two days ago on St John's night. That was the night that Marie nearly finished off the little Maujin boy of Rouges farm who'd been bitten by a wolf. They'd asked her to cure, and she wanted to kill. You can imagine how I felt when I heard. Marie wanting to kill a child who wouldn't even have crushed a caterpillar! It seemed unbelievable and yet it was the truth. The evil that old Ribaud had talked about - she'd at last got it out of herself...'

He gave a deep sigh and went on, assuming a tone of despair.

‘And now I come to your Martin. He'd gone to the Rouges farm with her, and as he's a good chap he defended her. He didn't realize... He was almost out of his wits. He had it in for everyone there. I dragged him out. He grew a bit calmer. I said to him, “Don't bother your head about Marie, don't think I bear you a grudge for defending her, it's just that she isn't worth it. Go back home and forget her." At that moment Marie came out, shouting all sorts of wicked things - perhaps she was casting spells! - and off she went at a run. Then Martin said to me, "You're right, she's just a damned soul. A little while ago she was saying that she wanted to do evil, that she'd been waiting for that day to do it, that she knew the power she had in her head. But all the same, I can't think why, I wanted to defend her." But he can t have really meant all that, because when he'd finished he dashed off after Marie. It isn't my fault if I couldn't hold him back, that son of yours. Obviously she must have cast a spell on him...'

He stopped and asked for a glass of wine. He drank it down at a gulp and showed well-earned pleasure.

‘It's exactly how I always thought,' the Malgrain mother groaned.

The agent said nothing for a minute, then he burst out angrily:

‘Why didn't you tell us all this earlier, you little fool? We could have held Martin back by force and then the evil wouldn’t have happened. All you had to do was keep the girl for yourself. You knew perfectly well she was chasing Martin. All you had to do was tell the boy to his face that she wasn't his business. It's all your fault.'

‘We were engaged,' Baptiste repeated, putting on a vague look.

The Malgrain wife went up behind her husband and laid her hand on his shoulder to calm him. But he pushed her away. She took no notice but said to Baptiste,

‘You could have come straight to us and told us about the risk Martin was running. We would have protected him against that Marie.'

Baptiste lowered his eyes and said, as if talking to himself:

‘I didn't know Martin had been caught by her. If I'd only known... And if only your boy had known, come to that. We were friends, him and me.'

‘We should have sent him to his uncle at Vierzon,' mother Malgrain sighed.

Baptiste got up and said with a briskness surprising after the way he'd just been so weak:

‘Very well, I'm going to find him and bring him back to you. No more bad blood.'

‘If you do that,' said Malgrain, bringing his hand down on the bench, ‘I'll give you two louis.'

‘It's a bargain.'

The agent shook the soft hand Baptiste extended.

‘And that's not all,' Grodafieu went on in a knowing way as he got ready to leave, ‘perhaps the Ribauds will have to leave the village. Don't you agree?'

Malgrain gave a crafty smile.

‘Don't worry,' he said.

His wife refilled Baptiste's empty glass.

‘Drink that,' she said, ‘you deserve it. And bring us back our Martin.'

* * *

The sun was striking midday. Its rays beat straight down. Father Malgrain was walking along jerking with rage. He was preparing what he was going to say to cut at the very heart of mother Ribaud. His wife could hardly keep up with him. She was throwing out bitter, high-pitched reproaches.

When the dog saw them coming into the Bâtards farmyard he growled and bared his fangs. His furious rush was halted by his chain. The living-room door was open. They went straight in as if it was their own house. Mother Ribaud was there, by the fireplace, blowing up the twigs she had put there to rekindle the fire.

On hearing a noise she turned round, and at the sight of the agent and his wife she felt bitter ill-will adding itself to her already tortured thoughts. She offered them chairs but they weren’t prepared to be softened. They were only too pleased to have found her alone.

‘So,' Malgrain bellowed in a voice swollen with arrogance, ‘so your daughter isn’t sharing herself with our Martin any more? She’s decided to spend her nights just with him, has she?’

‘Where is your Marie?’ the Malgrain wife pressed on, making herself even smaller with rage, ‘Where is that daughter of the devil?’

This was a lot for a mother to bear who already had her own share of anxiety and felt weak when confronted with people who treated her family with insolence and claimed to have rights over it. To gain time she raised the pot a notch higher on the chimney-hook which was thick with soot. She turned her back on them in the hope that the pause would give her menfolk time to get home before she had to answer.

Now mother Malgrain turned into a snake and hissed out the depth of her hatred.

‘She’s bewitched our boy. Though I warned Martin to be on his guard...’

She was exasperated by the woman’s continued silence. She went up and shouted right up against her back:

‘She’s damned, your Marie. You knew it and you kept it quiet. She can do evil. If you deny it, you’re a liar.'

'She’s playing about with our boy’ - it was Malgrain’s turn now, and he was breathing hard. To begin with, where is she, that Marie? And what’s she done with our Martin? We were waiting for him all yesterday, and all night.’

‘We must have Martin,’ the Malgrain woman chimed in, 'or else...’

Mother Ribaud turned on them and lifted one of her thin fingers. But realizing the ineptitude of her gesture she felt quite ill. These people were all-powerful; they could make her and her family poorer, they could even have them thrown out of the farm. She couldn’t withhold a sob.

On seeing her so upset, the other two gave scornful laughs and shrugged their shoulders.

'Where is Marie?’ the agent started shouting again, hitting out into space with his hairy fists.

And still no-one appeared to comfort mother Ribaud in her distraction, no member of her family to help her in her unequal struggle. She let them see the whole extent of her weakness.

‘Where is Marie?’ they went on demanding in turn, 'where is Marie? Good God... we want to know.’

'She hasn't come back yet,' mother Ribaud said at last, and hung her head to hide the sudden flush of shame.

For a moment the Malgrains were silenced. She could feel them sharpening their imagination to find the very worst.

The daughter of the wretched tenant farmer,’ the agent burst out at last, mastering a desire to lay hands on mother Ribaud, 'the daughter of the tenant farmer is sleeping out with our boy. That’s what we guessed...’

Suddenly the fire burst into flame as if given life by the breath of all this violence.

'You’re going to pay for it,’ Malgrain went on in a dull voice.

He was pale with rage. He suddenly signalled to his wife to follow him, then he spat on the floor at mother Ribaud’s feet. Once they had gone the farmer’s wife wiped her nose on the back of her hand and with the same gesture dried the tears that were falling down her cheeks.

In the yard the Malgrains were still howling insults at the sun-bathed walls, while mother Ribaud collapsed onto the creaking bench.

Then suddenly there was silence, dead silence, like the arrival of death. There followed fresh shouting. Mother Ribaud dashed to the window and felt blinded. She shook her head, closed her eyes, opened them again. Marie was there. It was Marie all right. Joy ran through her veins and spread over her face.

Marie’s tom clothes revealed her browned skin. Her wild unkempt hair, mingled with grass and bits of brushwood, fell over her shoulders. She was bowed down with weariness and fatigue.

She stood leaning against the cart, the butt of the agent’s abuse.

'She-devil, where is Martin?'

‘Tell me what you've done with him. Where is he?'

‘Tell me or I'll strangle you.'

'Have you come back with him? You wanted him, you wicked girl, as you've wanted other men.'

Mother Ribaud could hardly bear it. She would have liked to go out and take all their hatred upon herself, but she couldn’t move. Then she saw Malgrain moving in on Marie and striking her poor weary cheeks with his great heavy hands.

The impact of the blows had an almost immediate echo, as, with nervous gestures, Marie handed them back onto Malgrain's hard cheeks. Then she picked up a stick.

'Go back home,' she shouted, 'go away or I'll cut your heads open like the filthy beasts you are.'

She was going to hit him but he backed away and quickly left with his wife who was standing dumb with horror.

Someone was running along the path leading to the Salbris road. Marie, her arms dragged down by two heavy buckets spilling their thick swill, was just going out of the living-room, but she stopped and looked longingly to see if whoever was coming brought hope.

It was the servant from the Basses farm. He slowed down the running movements of his nervous little legs and came to a halt in front of Marie. She realized that she was the object of his errand. The boy took a deep breath. Marie put down her buckets.

‘Have you come to tell me anything about Martin?’ she said, anxious and happy at the same time.

'Goodness, no.'

Then who d’you want to see?’

‘You.'

‘Why?’

The thing is that I was passing by the main road to go to town it’s the tax-collector's day and there were papers to take to...'

‘What did you want to tell me? Say it quick.’

The boy had a moment’s hesitation. Then he put his hand against his pocket, and that seemed to bring him back to reality. ‘I saw the witch,’ he said in a low voice.

‘What witch?’ said Marie, shrugging her shoulders.

The Juine woman of course. Everyone knows her... the one who casts spells. Don’t you know her? - even though...’ Marie was getting impatient.

‘And what did the Juine woman do to you?’

‘She didn’t do anything. She told me to come and find you. She wants to talk to you at once. She’s waiting on the track near the main road.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know. Bye, I must be off to town.’

Marie caught the boy’s hand. He didn’t pull it away. She looked questioningly into his blue eyes. His honest gaze showed that he felt perfectly at peace.

‘You know who I am?'

‘Of course.'

And he laughed. Marie thought he was making fun of her. She squeezed his small hard hand. The boy seemed puzzled.

‘Aren't you Marie Ribaud any longer?' he said in innocent astonishment.

Living far from the world, right over in the Basses pastures, near the great heath, the news of the curse on Marie hadn't yet reached him.

Marie let go of him and gave him a smile.

‘You hurt me,' he complained, and rubbed his hand.

Marie asked him:

‘Were you afraid of the Juine woman just now?’

Before answering he took a step back and pulled from his pocket a long stick of honey-coloured sugar which he showed her mischievously.

‘She threw it at me,' he said. T thought it was a spell. I was terrified. There she was, still as an owl, quite a long way away. “Pick it up," she shouted, “and go and tell Marie Ribaud of Bâtards farm to come here at once. Off you go.” So here I am. Now I've said it, I'm off to town. Buy, Marie.'

He was soon far from the yard. Marie watched him till he was lost behind the motionless chestnut trees that stood like great balls against the hot horizon.

Now her fate was really sealed. All unwittingly the boy from Basses farm would take its bitterness to the town people. 'I saw the old witch,' he'd say, ‘and she told me to tell Marie Ribaud...' Then he'd find out and be terrified in his turn. On his return to Basses farm he'd go a long way round, tiring, yes, but less dangerous than passing near the Bâtards farm, that place of damnation.

Pondering these things, Marie picked up her buckets. As she walked along she thought yet again of Martin's face, of his tender expression, his full-lipped mouth. The witch could do a lot if she was willing to. She might even know where he was.

Hurriedly Marie emptied the buckets in the wooden trough in the pigsty. That done, she set off at a run.

* * *

When she reached the main road which was dazzling in the sun she could see no-one. She didn't want to call out, so she went back to the track full of pale shade.

At last her attention was drawn by a laugh, or something resembling it. It had the unpleasant throaty sound of the ‘rattles' used by altar boys at Easter time when the bells have been taken off to Rome. They turn them round with handles as if they were shaking a croaking frog by the leg. From her hiding-place behind a tree the Juine woman took pleasure in throwing her unwholesome joy, crossed with voracious malice, to all the echoes of the woods.

Marie made straight for the laughter. The Juine woman heard her coming and emerged from behind her tree, irritated at being run to ground so quickly.

‘Wretched girl,' she said in a vexed voice, ‘I wanted you to call out for me. You'll think I'm very inquisitive, but I wanted to know how you'd set about it...'

At first Marie was put off by her repulsive looks. Her next step was to try to understand what sort of trap lay behind the woman's words.

‘Perhaps you would have gone, “Coo-hoo,"' the woman suggested.

Marie made no answer. The Juine woman seemed to have a very bizarre way of thinking.

‘Or you might have shouted, “Where on earth are you, mother Juine?" '

She was delaying. Her eyes sought Marie's as though to burst them, and Marie had to lower her eyelids.

'Or else, "Hey, old witch!" What?’

Marie felt a sudden desire to run away from this ridiculous meeting. The woman went on and on making faces and throwing her lean but outsize and nervous arms into the air. She carried hatred in all her features. It was her great hatred that kept her alive - a reflection of the contempt she was met with in the region. Her skin was a mass of wrinkles. It wasn't as with decent, upright old people in whom each wrinkle marks a year. No, with her each one must be the ineffaceable imprint of a bad deed, and there were so many of them that Marie was scared. The Juine woman had tow hair like hemp, it was all encrusted with grime and strayed in slabs over her full shoulders. Her black dress, shot with the green of age, was heavy with the smell of at least ten years’ dirt.

She went on talking, but more slowly as if she wanted to be better understood.

‘Or you might have said, “Hullo, there, Juine, it’s me, Marie, Marie the wolf." ’

The Juine woman stuck out the end of her sharp tongue which darted over her sunken lips. A look of malice came into her face.

‘It's a fine name, isn't it, at least I think so. I just get called the Juine woman and nothing else. I would have liked to be called Juine the wolf, or even Juine the devil, but I haven't had your luck.'

Marie felt a violent desire to spit at the hideous woman, to express the extent of the contempt she felt.

‘Was that why you wanted to see me?' she said at last, after a shrug of the shoulders.

The old woman didn't want to lose face. She said,

‘No, my darling, it's for a better reason than that... it's to help you against all those people who wish you harm.'

‘I don't need you.'

‘Don't say that. I can do a lot for you... and no-one can do more than us both.'

She came near and put her wart-covered hand on Marie's bare arm. Marie pushed off the contact with disgust.

'I can do a lot,' she repeated, and she kept shutting her lashless eyes.

Then Marie said resolutely:

‘Can you tell me where Martin Malgrain is, and bring him back?'

The old woman felt there was a great deal of hope, as well as doubt, in that question. She manoeuvred skilfully.

‘Of course... that's the merest of nothings for me.'

Marie found it hard to believe her, yet she wanted to believe her so much that she felt all her hope returning.

‘Is that true?'

‘Yes, but you've got to let me help you do evil... to pay.'

‘To do evil? To pay?' Marie repeated, for she didn't understand. To pay what?'

'Bah, you’ll find out soon enough...'

Marie would have liked to know, but the old woman went on:

'We’re a bit on the same side, aren’t we? We’ve got the same master.'

And she let out a burst of nervous laughter.

‘Ah, I can see you’re searching around in your head to find out who that master is. Well, he’s the devil. You must be patient, darling, and you’ll get there. When? I can’t tell you that. As for me, I haven't seen him yet but I've felt him in me time after time, so often that I know what he’s like... There’s no saying no to both of us. I only need to ask to make Martin come back and he’ll do it. But he’ll only do it if you give him evil in exchange. It's his fee...’

Marie put her hands over her ears, but even so she could hear the Juine woman’s words - for she had now started to shout.

‘You have to pay the devil. He trades just like others who sell blessings.'

She laughed, and then suddenly turning serious:

'Now I come to think of it, you may not need me for that. All you’ve got to do is to say very loud the names of those you want misfortune to fall on... and then the devil will give you back your Martin. It's quite easy.'

Marie bit her lip so as not to come out at once with a name to feed the devil with. She fled, maddened by the thought that Martin's return might be bought at that price. She was maddened by the evil the witch had managed to put into her head. The evil whose cunning strength she was suddenly feeling.

She had left the Juine woman far away by the time she stopped. She passed her hands over her face as though to find herself again. 'Say the name of someone I hate and Martin will come back,' she murmured to herself over and over again.

She walked on again. A hen-pheasant flapped its wings in a thicket nearby and flew heavily into the air. The wood ended. Its sickly sweet breath gave way to the stifling heat of the heath which kept watch over the neighbouring fields for the slightest lack of care by which it could profit and extend.

So all seemed hostile to Marie. She stared at the sun still rising upwards. It divided up into other mobile suns, then fused together and flowed down onto her eyes as if to blind them. Then she felt sorry she hadn't been blind before her encounter with the Juine woman.

She couldn't get the physical picture of the witch out of her mind. And she kept on murmuring, 'Only say their name and Martin will come back. Only say… only...’

Little by little nature's habitual calm brought peace to her turmoil and restored to her heart its normal beat. She would have liked to sing, but no song came.

Marc was coming in from the fields, full of joy, with a spade on his shoulder. She run up to him.

'You’re funny, little sister. Since yesterday when you came back from heaven knows where, you don’t seem the same as before.'

She came out of her thoughts and said:

'It's so silly... I almost thought I'd been bewitched.'

'You don't know what you're talking about. Come on...'

And they made their way towards the farm shining yellow and russet against the neighbouring wood that made a cliff of greenery behind it.

* * *

That Sunday there was a full congregation in church. Up the aisle the faithful walked over the cool tiles that were also the lids of venerable tombs - as was shown by fragments of Latin worn away by footsteps. The solemn silence was broken now and again by quick bursts of coughing. The worthy priest did his respectful toing and froing in front of the discreetly-lit altar. A ray of sunshine, turned into a rainbow by the multicoloured stained glass window, was like a sign from heaven adding to God's greatness - God perhaps having assigned it to this spot to serve him in its fashion. The single altar-boy was bored, having no-one to share in his pranks.

The men were all on the same side, heads high, not knowing what to do with their heavy hands that were more used to handling tools than inactivity. And such gestures as they made faltered every time the beadle hit the floor with his big black stick, its tip covered like a finger with a copper thimble misshapen with wear.

When one of them stood up, the others rose in imitation. When one sat done, the others did the same even if it didn't harmonize with the Mass. The women were there in greater numbers and seemed more at ease. Some were moving their lips in fervent prayer. Others were resting from the secret fatigues of home. For if women don’t do the heavy work, they work all the time nonetheless, and at work whose wear-and-tear men underestimate.

They all jumped when the harmonium started up. Its sounds were sharp and shrill, thick and sweet, and they got right into the stone pillars that vibrated right up to the roof. They insinuated themselves into the statues and gave life to the good old plaster saints. The flowing music enveloped the high altar, backed up the priest’s movements, and opened the wide walls to what was grandiose in the Christian faith. And it took hold of the people who could not escape from the turgid emotions that crept up their backs and finally brought dew to their eyes. No-one noticed the lack of harmony.

Mother Ribaud arrived late owing to the distance she had to come, and she slipped into her usual place. But her neighbours immediately drew away from her, and she could not understand the hostility she saw in their eyes.

With the arrival of the Ribaud woman, all the others came back to earth. They made no further effort to give way to the charms of the heavenly music. Now their ears could only hear the sharp tap made when the pedals hit the floor, and the strange wheezing made by the emptying of the canvas lungs. The priest realized that this was the right moment for his sermon. The steps took him up into the pulpit and to his domination over all present. Signs of the cross reflected his own. In a flat voice he read a hurried list of the holy feasts in store and the pious thoughts suitable for this or that dead parishioner. Then he cleared his throat so as to get his words through better. As he spoke he kept a firm grip on the pulpit-ledge covered with thick purple velvet, and he swayed so as to throw his words further.

'My dear brethren,' he said, 'it is sometimes painful when a father has to speak about one of his children. Today this task has fallen to me. My sorrow in speaking to you will only be equalled, I think' - he coughed several times - ‘by yours when you learn... My dear brethren, the devil has put his seal on a girl in our parish. He has done it so brutally that we cannot hesitate to see it as his activity at its worst - ' 

There was a lot of rustling among the congregation. The women drew even further away from mother Ribaud who was listening distractedly, without understanding.

‘Yet,' the priest went on, ‘you must know, my dear brethren, that the evil he is doing is not incurable. Exorcism has a sovereign power of helping us... We can pray fervently that the suffering girl will be restored to her Christian purity... Remember the words of Our Lord...'

'It’s that Marie,' some of the women whispered, 'Marie Ribaud.’

And what began with whispers and murmurs was soon said out loud.

At last mother Ribaud understood and in her distraction she stumbled and knelt down on her priedieu. She was surrounded by all the ill will of the town - the acid words of the women, the muffled threats of the men as they pointed to the door.

The priest was worried and already regretted the words of his sermon. He tried to quieten them, but all he did was fan the flames of the fire he had started.

‘Brethren,' he said,‘don’t turn on a poor mother who suffers daily from an evil presence... I implore you to help her to endure her suffering. Brethren, do your duty as good and loyal Christians. My...'

But at this point he was interrupted by an angry voice. Mother Malgrain who never missed mass, as though she needed forgiveness for some grave misdeed, and had a good place in the church, could no longer contain her hatred. She forgot all the respect due to Our Lord and the saints and screamed:

‘It was her who brought this damned soul into the world. She’s the guilty one. She knew her daughter had this evil power when she was born, but she didn’t strangle her like an animal so that she couldn’t do harm...’

The priest pointed to the cross on which the Son of God suffered more than anyone, and for a longer time.

‘Look,' he said, ‘silence, please. You are desecrating...’

‘But her daughter’s got my son,' interjected the Malgrain woman, and she folded her arms to provide further evidence of her ire.

Mother Ribaud got to her feet with difficulty and went out.

On her way she upset some chairs, and their tail added to the confusion. So great was her grief that she didn’t even notice that she was pushed out by the beadle who shut the door firmly behind her.

* * *

The Ribauds were sitting silently at table. The mother was leaning on her elbows and sobbing. Marie was trying to imagine the scene in church that her mother had just described, and her worst suffering lay in the fact that she wasn’t more moved. But at least she began to see that her family’s distress begged for some consolation.

T knew,’ she murmured in a tired voice, ‘but I never had the courage to tell you that they all call me she-wolf and that I’m cursed.’

‘Not another word,’ her father said, rising.

And he went to look out at the yard so as not to have to say anything more.

‘I’ll go off somewhere,’ Marie said, suddenly decided. ‘If I stay here I’ll be causing you trouble. I feel it.'

And, lowering her voice,

‘I know it.’

Julien thumped her on the knee.

‘None of that,’ he said.

Their mother lifted her face that was shining with tears, and this did instead of words.

Marc put his arm round Marie.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, little sister.’

‘No,’ she said again, ‘it’s better for me to go. Not for always, of course, but for a while.'

The father said in a voice rough with emotion,

‘Don’t add to our troubles.'

‘We’ll defend you against the people who have it in for you,’ Julien said. ‘They’d better be careful not to come here, or I’ll make it my business to teach them a lesson they'll never forget.'

The mother began reproaching herself.

‘The trouble started some time ago. I shouldn't have told Marie that she had a gift.'

Ribaud bent his head and said:

‘It would have been better not to have had a tongue.'

‘You don't enter into it, mother,' Marie said crossly. ‘It's that accursed Maujin who...'

She pulled herself up sharp. She suddenly had a vivid recollection of the Juine woman's words. The wretched phrase went round and round in her head, ‘You've only got to curse someone's name loud, and misfortune will fall on him.' 

She imagined she could still hear the old woman muttering it. She was overwhelmed, and put her hands over her ears.

To relieve her own misery, mother Ribaud began describing again the scene in church.

‘Be quiet,' Marc said.

She insisted:

‘You can't stop me saying that the Malgrain woman must have been one of the people who talked about the whole thing to the priest... and I can't help thinking he preached like that to please the people who often go and visit him and give him more than us people.'

‘Ah, ah,' the father broke in, ‘that's all too likely, and her husband's no better than she is. I ran into him this morning and he shouted at me that we wouldn't be staying much longer at the Bâtards here. You can bet that if it was up to him, we'd be gone already. But luckily he isn't the master.'

Mother Ribaud was eyeing Marie, who looked down fiercely.

‘I'd enjoy kicking out his guts,' threatened Marc. And he made a gesture.

‘There are times when I feel like that too,' said his father, ‘but it would be a serious business for us all... we'd have the police in, a trial, prison and possibly worse.'

The others groaned. They felt more helpless than ever before.

Besides her own suffering, Marie shared the suffering of each of the others. Then she tried to put the idea of cursing into her head, following what the witch had advised. It was easy. She'd been preparing herself for it without knowing it. As action was now their last line of defence, she raised her head and, still and solemn, said with all the force of conviction:

‘Let the Malgrains be cursed.'

Her phrase was so full of hatred that the others all gasped. Then Marie fell back onto the bench. She was pale. Her nails scratched the table. Tears came from her eyes, which were now shut, and clung to her eyelashes.

They didn't understand. They couldn't understand.

Then Marie suddenly sat up, and they were worried at seeing the change that had come over her face. Martin had just come vividly into her mind. He was a Malgrain too.

‘My God,' she murmured, 'I feel I'm going to be punished. My God, forgive me.'

For a moment each of them tried to find some explanation for this weakness.

‘She’s suffering from delayed reaction,' the father said.

‘Leave me alone,' she said.

And as they all stayed round her, she implored:

‘Leave me, I want to be alone. Go away.'

‘She’s right,’ Marc said, 'come on, let’s go and finish the grass. If we get out it'll put our ideas straight. You come too, mother.'

When they had gone, Marie gave way to her sobs.

* * *

Suddenly the dog began barking furiously. His chain whipped at the kennel. Then he fell silent. Then came the sound of dragging footsteps.

The door was shut. There was a bump against it. Marie ran to open it, ready for anything: to return threat for threat, blow for blow. But instead she was gripped by astonishment and delight.

Martin was on the doorstep, within reach of her hands and her heart. He was shaking with fever. The blood he had lost had matted his hair and made him look like a tragic mask. He was all in.

Marie pulled him towards her and held him in her arms. When she drew him to her breast she found at last that contact that she had imagined so often in these last days and nights. Martin's sufferings passed into her, and she wanted to endure the biggest share of them. His rough cheek fell against her soft one and made it tremble. She helped him to the bench then quickly went back to shut the door. She pulled the bar across to hold it firmly shut on this precious possession that she had found at last. Martin was delirious.

'Marie,' he groaned, 'tell me where Marie is.'

And he looked at her with lifeless eyes.

It made her suffer as if from physical pain.

'Martin,' she exclaimed, 'here's Marie, here.'

‘Yes, that's right, tell me where she is,' he repeated.

'They’ve driven him mad,' she suddenly shouted. 'Look, I'm Marie, look at me.'

And she tried to force him to recognize her. He looked at her with eyes of lead.

'I want to sleep,' he said.

Then Marie pressed her lips against his which were filthy with blood and dirt. He pushed her away. She didn't care, she had caught the taste of his mouth. She was able to do all that was needed. She knew now the extent of Martin's delirium.

* * *

There was dust all over the floor of the loft and hanging from the ceiling. Cobwebs were spread out like sheets to dry.

Everything smelt of the past. The hiding-place that Marie chose might have been made for the purpose. She spread out warm hay. She spread it thickly, then dented it to fit the shape of Martin’s body. Thistles pricked her bare arms, and so that they shouldn’t also prick Martin she went through the hay to pull them out. This took some time. When the work was finished she went down.

Martin seemed double his weight. Marie summoned up all her strength to help him up the ladder whose rungs were shrivelled like old men's arms. The last few yards made difficult going. Then she lay Martin down. The scent of the hay mingled with the smell of his sweat.

Then she went down the ladder to fetch a jug of water still soft from the sweet air of the past night. With this she bathed his face and arms and brought balm to his tortured skin.

At last she left him, shutting the trap-door firmly behind her. Once back in the living-room she removed the bar from the door and flung it wide open. The sun leapt in full of life and joy, and her breast was freed from the burden of her anguish.

She went out into the yard. The dog jumped up at the end of his heavy chain. She patted him and set him free. He shot off, shaking the oppression from his neck. Marie took the track to the field where her family was working. Without her realizing it, songs of her childhood sprang to life in her head, the notes and the words falling accurately together. First she hummed, then sang out loud, then suddenly stopped. Standing still in the centre of the neighbouring heath a man was looking at her. It was Baptiste.

She neither slackened her pace nor hurried. Baptiste's eyes were following her. When she was some distance away she gave a furtive glance behind her. She was now as uneasy as some animal in terror that its lair will be discovered.

When Monsieur des Gardettes arrived at the farm, his behaviour was altogether uncharacteristic. No sooner was he in the yard than he began swearing, and no sooner had he seen Ribaud (who was raking scattered hay in front of the barn) than he went towards him with brisk and falsely resolute gestures.

When the farmer saw his landlord he froze and stood respectfully waiting, rake in hand. Ever since the recent events he’d been prepared for anything and had no illusions about this unexpected visit. As a good servant, he was the first to say good day. Monsieur de Gardettes came to a halt and answered testily enough to put an end to that. Ribaud looked into his eyes. All he could see was factitious anger, embarrassment, and genuine vexation.

With the aid of repeated little blows on the ground with his stick, the Count said at last:

‘I hesitated a long time before coming, Ribaud, because I didn’t want to believe... I didn’t want to believe it possible... So...'

Ribaud’s honest eyes, which reflected his every thought, put the Count off his stride and made him stammer the words that he had so carefully prepared so as to have an easy conscience.

'You don’t want to believe what, sir?’ asked Ribaud, without betraying on his face the slightest trace of the dizziness cascading, now, in his mind and heart.

Then, pulling himself together, the landlord said without any more ado:

'Your tenancy will end at All Saints. As I’m sure you’ll realize, I can’t keep people who can cause trouble.’

'So you’re sending us away,’ answered Ribaud without abandoning his apparent calm. 'You’re within your rights, but let me say that I can’t believe that it’s you who are talking, our good sir.’

A sudden pallor drove away the red from Monsieur des Gardettes’ cheeks. He turned on his heel and left. As with Ribaud, his legs found it hard to sustain his weight; only in his case, it was the weight of a bad deed.

'I'll end up by believing that there’s wizardry in this world,' Ribaud grumbled as he threw away his rake.

Then he struck is fist savagely against the tall barn door. Pain entered his bones. He suffered, but he thought no more about the mist that had suddenly come over his eyes.

At that moment there came the familiar sound of the castle carriage from the drive. It was coming towards the Bâtards farm. Just before the bend in front of the farm, Ribaud saw it taking a short cut, across the fields, without bothering about the corn. Malgrain was holding the reins. The farmer clenched his fists. The carriage drew up. The landlord went up to it. He jumped up beside the agent who gave an arrogant crack of his whip in the direction of the Bâtards. Then they set off for Fons-Chauds.

* * *

The Count had been working at his old mahogany desk delicately inlaid with copper arabesques and decorated with brilliant mother-of-pearl flowers - working on an archaeological essay - when Malgrain had brought down the flat of his hand on it with a sharp bang, a bang as sharp as his anger and as sharp as the landlord's surprise. Then without more ado the agent had sat down in the best chair, the one with a back as tall as a door and wrought like an ironworker's sign. He had sat down in that way to make it clear that he had some rights in château Rerin.

Monsieur des Gardettes had preserved his role of master with difficulty. The other was making too much display of feeling almost at home.

‘You'll have to get rid of the Ribauds,' he'd said.

The landlord had been so surprised at receiving orders from his agent that he couldn't make an immediate answer, thereby giving him the advantage. On seeing this Malgrain had gone on, emphasizing his point with fresh blows on the desk. 'And I want it to be as soon as possible.'

Monsieur des Gardettes had answered at last:

‘But what on earth's happened to you, my dear Malgrain?' 

‘I told you yesterday what's happening, but your thoughts were elsewhere, with all your antiquities. The fact is that the Bâtards tenancy is in the hands of the devil. If you don’t get rid of the Ribauds there'll be a curse on your property .. . the devil will get into it and you won't be able to get him out. Nothing will grow on your land but bad luck... for you and for us. There's also the fact that my son hasn't been home for days. There's the fact that Marie Ribaud is cursed... And the fact that this evil must be sent packing. You get it now. You get what's happening here?'

On hearing these words, the Count regained his calm. With a velvety smile he had tried to make the agent see reason.

‘So that's why you'd like me to get rid of the Ribauds whom I've had on my land all my life? Look, Malgrain... you’re not a child, you’re not going to believe silly stories bandied around I suppose by a few stupid and ignorant old spinsters, or jokers running short of a bad joke. As for your son, if he hasn't been home it's because he’s the age to go on a spree. You can’t prevent him enjoying himself. Think back yourself... In a word, back he'll come and have a good laugh at your fears. Come, Malgrain, pull yourself together and don’t get into such a state about nothing.'

The agent had felt deeply wounded by the Count's mockery. In his turn he played up his master:

'In that case it’s the end of me helping you. You can go and look for your old stones alone. If you can find someone to dig up your old tombs, so much the better for you.’

It was his only argument and it was always successful. It was a threat capable of sending the landlord running barefoot through brambles.

‘And then,’ he’d added severely, rising from his chair to give the impression of a final break, ‘we'll go into what you owe me...'

Monsieur des Gardettes was suddenly all over him to keep him.

‘Oh, not that, I need you too much. Just think... in a few days time, what, it could be even today, we're bound to find the stone tombs, the Roman sarcophagi that I'm searching for, that we've been searching for for months. And remember, I promised you a big reward!'

‘Give me that reward here and now and I'll go on digging for you - and better than before. I have a feeling the end of my pickaxe is soon going to reach those sarcophagi as you call them, and I feel sure they'll be finer than you imagine.'

Malgrain had become calm. It was he who was now calling the tune of the discussion.

The landlord suddenly felt ready for the worst sacrifices.

‘What exactly do you want?' he'd asked, his voice transformed.

"What I've already told you: to go and tell the Ribauds to get out.'

* * *

It must be nearly midnight, Malgrain was thinking. He couldn't get to sleep, though his wife beside him had for long been measuring out her sleep in little snores. A storm in the distance was spreading waves of freshness. Its sheet lightning kept raising the dark curtain of night, and familiar horizons could be seen but barely recognized in the strange glare; everything seemed larger than life, unreal.

The room still retained the heat of the day before. There was fever everywhere: in Malgrain's head, in his wife's slumbers, and in the tick-tock of the clock which forced the mind to work. The wind lashed its tail occasionally, with a loud rustling of leaves. And when silences fell on this animated night they hammered at his ears as fiercely as the noises; and little by little they begot strange fears.

Suddenly something brushed against the iron gate. It made the bell tinkle, and it wasn't the wind.

Malgrain took no notice of it at first, but soon he began wondering, and then, so as to put an end to his fancies - absurd in him for he wasn't, after all, a simple peasant - he got up and went to the window. Thick clouds were still at war in the distance, but they seemed weaker and as if worn out. Near at hand the night seemed to be restored to its habitual quiet. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to bed. In bed he tried again to find rest. He stretched out his limbs and relaxed.

But for all that sleep remained recalcitrant to his will. His mind was uneasy and his eyes stayed wide open. His wife stirred and breathed new kinds of sighs. And as though to keep her company the bell once again gave out its high-pitched plaint. Malgrain gave his wife's lean body a shake, as it lay, as usual, right over to her side of the bed so as not to roll into the hole made by her husband's weight.

'Hey, wake up,' he murmured uneasily.

She had difficulty in returning to reality, but finally her senses began to wake up, each one in turn.

‘What is it?' she said in a loud voice. She was in a bad temper at being woken.

‘Shut up, for God’s sake,' said Malgrain.

She went on questioning him sharply. She had it in for him for dragging her out of her peaceful sleep.

His anger grew. Incipient fear made his behaviour rough. As she wouldn't shut up, he seized her by the neck and put a large hand over her mouth. His own silence demanded and obtained the silence of his partner. Now she understood.

Now the sound of the bell was accompanied by growling.

‘Can you hear?’ he whispered.

She didn't answer, nor did she complain of the pain that was burning her lips and putting a taste of blood on her tongue.

The bell stopped its uneasy jangling, but after a brief silence the branch in front of the window crackled as if beneath some weight. Simultaneously they realized that the window was open.

‘You must shut the shutters!’ the woman said, ‘go and do it!’

‘Certainly not.'

‘Then get your gun.'

‘It’s upstairs.'

‘In that case, don't.'

She had scarcely ended her words when a howl rose from the yard, a long ferocious cry of pain. It was like a cry from the dead. The moaning itself was a terrifying threat attacking the Malgrains' hearts. The wife threw herself on her husband.

They suddenly broke out into a sweat that held them together in its sticky embrace.

Now the Malgrain woman’s fear was released in hiccups. As for Malgrain himself, he dared not look over at the window, still occasionally lit up by flashes from the storm. He thought it might be better to close the shutters so as to gain strength, but instead of taking action he merely trembled like the worst of cowards. Then he felt a violent pain piercing his chest as if he was in a sack full of sharp nails.

There were claws scratching on the window ledge.

‘The werewolf!' the Malgrain woman managed to bring out in a dead voice.

The agent said nothing. An hour ago he would have laughed at the idea, but now he was ready to believe anything.

At last he made an effort to get up. The hardest part was tearing himself away from his wife's body which was stiff with fear and gripped him as in the early excesses of love. He finally managed to extricate himself and got up. But now his legs failed him.

Outside the unseen animal was sniffing noisily.

Malgrain struggled against the blackness that put his actions out of control. He found the door. He pulled it open and climbed the staircase directly in front of him. Its steps sounded hollow beneath his feet. He went up slowly so as not to awaken further moaning. Up he went, his eyes open onto nothingness. He stopped on the landing for his heart to calm down. A badly-shut door banged to. He felt appalling, pain and couldn’t make up his mind whether to stay here, motionless, or go down again. Finally he went on. He wanted to get his gun which was hanging on the wall. Once he’d reached it he put out his hands in the darkness. The barrel was so cold that it made him jump.

A brutal, piercing cry of horror came to him from below, the cry of a woman in the embrace of death. He was down the stairs at a bound. The action freed him from the glue that has been hampering his movements. He was straightway by the bed and bent down to feel for his wife, to discover what was happening to her, to reassure her, reassure himself, let her feel his gun and, in case of need, fire a random shot to break the grip of terror.

But she wasn't there.

In the blackness he couldn't see her rigid form clinging to the woodwork of the bed. But she felt his presence near her, stretched out an arm and hit him. He stifled a cry. Clamminess again spread over his skin and his breath refused to come.

When the Malgrain woman spoke her trembling voice bored into her husband’s anguish and left him with great clots of fear.

'Look... just look.. .’

How could he look on this scene as a mere spectacle, when he was one of the two actors?

‘Look, there, in that corner of the cupboard,’ the Malgrain woman went on, less overwhelmed, now, than he.

Then he saw.

Two gleaming eyes, red, and intense with fury.

A tense growl completed the nightmare.

Malgrain wanted to aim his gun, but his arms refused to co-operate. He felt as if the whole structure of his body had suddenly been smitten by a thousand wounds. His wife could guess that he wanted to shoot, but the spell was on her too and forced her to whisper words that she didn't think.

‘Don't shoot... poor thing... it's the werewolf.'

Then she began making signs of the cross and stammering out prayers.

Suddenly the two red imprints of hell vanished. The growling stopped. All they could hear was the sound of the rolling storm, brought near, then borne away, by the waves of the wind. They were about to enter reality once more when the noise of scratching paws scraped on the oak floor just beside them. Then the animal from the night leapt headlong onto the crumpled bed.

Then their fear knocked them over. They fell to the floor. It's cold increased their fever.

Once on the bed the animal sniffed with short breaths at the smell of man that had sunk deep into the bedding.

Then from outside came an echo to those snufflings. A barely audible call stopped the animal short. Once again its claws were scratching the floor. Then in a pale flash of lightning they saw the long form of the wolf take flight - the form said to be taken on by those condemned to wander through the night because they have made a pact with the devil.

They stayed without moving until the uncertain light of day. At dawn the sky was washed clear of its stifling clouds. The moon shed its milky light over a countryside that had now become calm.

The Malgrains were still on the floor near the crumpled bed - two great embodiments of fear.

The square of the open window held their dead eyes prisoner, their eyes drowned in the night, avid for the day. Malgrain was still gripping his useless weapon.

At last the first chirpings of the birds threw out their notes of life and put an end to the Malgrains’ torment. The Malgrain woman could at last say what was on her mind.

'Did you really understand what happened?‘

‘You mean it was Marie?’

‘But of course!’

‘You mean… you mean she came after our son?’

‘Yes, or against us. We’re getting in her way.'

‘I see...'

‘Baptiste was right when he said Marie was a damned soul.'

‘Yes, but I couldn't have believed it had gone as far as that.'

'I've always told you but you’d never believe me.'

They went on talking for a long time, half in whispers and always repeating the same things. But they didn't dare get up until day had come up properly. Now and again their limbs trembled with a residue of their fright, as with an illness.

'When day dawned at last sleep relaxed what remained of their fears and lay heavily on their eyes. They slept as they were. The gun slipped from Malgrain’s hand.

When they awoke they looked at one another and each could read on the other's face the marks left by their night of horror.

‘Did you have a dream, Malgrain?' his wife asked.

The agent glanced at his weapon with its shining barrel.

‘No,' he said, ‘I think it really happened.'

He got up, swearing. He pulled on his trousers. He looked at the bed. Then he saw the traces of sand, sand from the garden. Blades of grass, too.

Then he looked at the floor scratched by long claw-marks. He went to the window and saw the broken and flattened flowers.

He came back to his wife. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, screwing up her thin dishevelled hair.

‘She’s been playing with us, that Marie,’ she went on. ‘We mustn’t leave it at that. She’s sure to come back.'

And she seized her husband‘s hand.

‘You’ll have to go to the Bâtards with your gun. Wait... I know a way...’

She trotted over to the cupboard, rummaging in a pile of materials, and came back with a phial in the shape of a gigantic tear.

"Here’s some holy water. You must pour some onto your bullet and then you’ll be able to go and show that Marie how we people can defend ourselves.'

Malgrain agreed. For once in her life his wife was entirely right; they must show themselves to be the strong ones. The damned might be the masters of the night, but in daylight the boot was on the other foot. His thoughts urged him to act immediately; he did what his wife told him and, gun in hand, he resolutely set out.

* * *

The buckshot hit the living-room window at the Bâtards farm. The panes broke and the glass fell with a sharp crash. Marie and her mother, who were in the room, gave a jump and rushed out without speaking. The menfolk who were working in the stable ran out to see what was the matter.

‘Someone shot at the window,' the mother shouted in her fright. ‘It was lucky Marie and I weren't just behind it.'

‘Who did it?' asked the father breathlessly.

‘My God,' the woman went on in her own line of thought, ‘the shot came just near us.'

Marie ran to the window and saw the starry marks made by the shot on the outside plaster.

She sighed with relief. The shots hadn’t touched the roof in which there were gaps owing to the age of the tiles.

Father Ribaud and Marc tried to cheer up the mother with some good pats on the back. Now she let her emotion take its course.

‘And what about you, Marie, weren't you frightened?' Marc asked with a laugh.

‘Not for myself,' she said fiercely, but refrained from looking towards the object of her concern. ‘All the same, we ought to know who did it. They might do it again.'

The father was worried.

‘Good God,' he said, ‘who would have had the cheek? Do you believe it was done deliberately?'

Marie shrugged her shoulders.

‘There are lots of people who go shooting hereabouts, aren't there! And even more who go after farmyard game, and with bullets fit to kill a man!'

Julien pointed towards the chestnut alley.

‘The shot came from there,' he said.

At that moment a new burst of firing sounded high up, like a gust of wind. They crouched. Marie looked at the roof with feelings of despair.

‘That's too much,' the father said.

And he rushed to where the new shot had come from. Marie and her brothers followed. When they reached the alley they could see Malgrain in flight, gun in hand.

The agent turned round and saw them. He pulled up sharp, aimed at them, and cried.

‘Not a step further or I'll shoot.'

Then he saw Marie.

‘Oh, so you’re there, the damned one, you just wait till I reload. It was you I was after. Give me back our boy...'

They could hear him recharging his gun so rushed to the shelter of a chestnut tree. Marie wanted to stay in the middle of the alley, but Julien forced her to follow them.

As he couldn’t see them Malgrain was undecided what to do and pointed his weapon at random. Then he continued on his way, but moving backwards. As the silence seemed to be against him too, he threw out fresh threats shot through with hatred.

‘Take care, we have a right to fire on the damned. Oh your werewolf thinks she’s frightening us by coming to our house.

Well, before she starts that again she'll swallow one of my bullets and the devil will be powerless... powerless.'

When he was at last far enough away he turned round and made off with a big thump of boots.

‘If only I'd had a gun,' said Julien savagely.

'He's mad,' said the father. 'Not satisfied with turning us out, he now wants to shoot us.'

They looked at Marie. She hung her head. They spoke to her. She raised her head. Two lines of bright tears showed her pain.

* * *

Martin had been up in the loft for three days. Marie had hardly ever left him. Her presence had from the first calmed his delirium, and little by little the fever subsided. Now the mere sight of Marie was the best medicine he could have. Every time that Marie took him firmly in her arms, it seemed that life did so too.

No-one else at Bâtards farm had the slightest idea that he was in the loft. Not even the mother. Two tongues are too many to keep a secret.

Martin heard the ladder creaking. When he saw Marie he gave a deep sigh. As soon as the trap-door was shut he said:

‘There was a shot. Where were you, Marie? You weren't in danger? Tell me you weren't in danger.'

Marie reassured him.

‘Someone was out with his gun and made a mistake. My father chased him away.'

Her voice was no more than a murmur. Her eyes were looking at nothing. She added:

‘But he may come back.'

'In that case, he must be doing it deliberately,' said Martin. "No, people can often make mistakes more than once, until they finally manage to do what they meant to do. So in a while, when there’s no-one around, I’ll take you to some corner in the woods where no-one will find you. And you’ll hide there for as long as I tell you.”

Martin showed surprise.

‘It isn’t really necessary. I can walk quite all right now. Tomorrow I’ll go and see my father and mother.’

Marie threw herself on him and held him to her in despair. Then she said, trembling:

‘No, no, that’s the one thing you must never do. If you go back to them I’ll never see you again. You’re mine. I’ve a high price to pay for the right of keeping you.’

Martin was happy at hearing her say that. Now Marie had stopped trembling. She and he seemed to be one body, as before they had been one heart.

Marie didn’t cry out, but her nails clutched Martin as he offered her both pain and joy.

* * *

Like an empty coffin, a trough lay across the pathway and seemed to be the Juine woman’s trade-sign.

The worm-eaten door was half open. Marie glanced round before entering. She was afraid someone might see her visiting the wicked woman's hovel. Everyone kept away from this comer of the region. The walls were covered with deep wrinkles and the roof swollen with greenish moss. A garden that had been abandoned for years provided the hovel with a wig of tall grasses and brambles.

Marie made up her mind. She went in and called out: ‘Juine, mother Juine, are you at home?’

The interior was like the soul of its occupant: worse inside than out. Everything was in the image and likeness of the wicked woman: dirty, mysterious and smelly. Marie felt suffocated but gave a quick searching look around.

The witch was watching her from the back of the room where she sat motionless like a huge stuffed bird. But the old woman was far from being that. It was only her air of watching. When Marie finally caught sight of her she jumped. She hadn't been able to make her out against the darkness of the wall to which she seemed nailed.

The Juine woman suddenly sprang to life, took a pinch of snuff and gave a noisy sniff. She breathed in and drew the pinch up into her head. Her mouth opened in a crafty smile. She drew deliberately nearer and put her face into the ray filtering through the skylight. Her eyes gleamed with joy and malice.

'Well,' she said, and slid her hands under her arms as old people do when driven to it by the cold, 'Well, so back you’ve come to see me. I knew you’d be back. Whatever they may say, people are only too ready to come back. Of course you need my advice. Don’t you, Marie?’

As the Juine woman approached Marie she became all affable. She put out her dirty hands. Marie drew away.

‘Don't touch me,' she said.

The old woman showed her the bench.

‘Sit down there if you’d like to.’

Marie didn’t move, and she went on busily hunting around in a corner.

'No-one must look around too much in my palace,’ she said. 'It’s all old, and older than you think. I suppose you don’t remember old father Juine? There you had someone who knew how to toe the line...'

Marie was fully aware that the man must have had a wretched life, bound to this embittered and filthy woman who stuck to her will like glue.

She was overcome with a sense of weakness and needed all her courage to stay, and still more to say what she had come to say.

'Mother Juine, you've bewitched me. You're the cause of our being turned out of our rented farm. Unbewitch me, here and now.'

The old woman spat out her toothless laughter.

‘Unbewitch me, mother Juine, or else...'

‘Or else what?’ the woman asked, affecting fright.

Marie waited breathlessly.

‘Or else,' the Juine woman went on, ‘you'll cast a spell on me. Is that what you meant?'

Marie pressed her hands together. She grew pale with the violence of her nausea.

‘At that rate,' the old woman went on, ‘cast it quickly, before I cast a second spell on you, or three, or a dozen, or a hundred. Silly girl, do you really expect me to believe that?'

Marie was all too anxious to get away from the witch. But the Juine woman could guess what she was thinking. She went and shut the door and stood with her back to it.

‘Better stay,' she said, all honey. ‘As you know perfectly well, it wasn't to say that that you came...'

Faced with those piercing eyes Marie backed towards the fireplace like a cowering animal. Her only support was the little square of the skylight, all uncovered and letting in the safety of sunlight.

‘You didn't only come for me to kill the hatred you feel for the people who are against you, did you? You came because you're afraid of the power you feel.'

‘Yes,' Marie said, and clenched her teeth with the shame of it.

‘In that case I can't do anything. You've a power, and it doesn't come from me. It comes from the old man, from the devil himself.'

She moved away from the door and drove Marie off with a threatening forefinger.

‘Be off with you now,' she commanded, ‘I'll do nothing to stop you. Be off.'

Marie felt such deep mortification that she would rather have stayed for hours than obey.

‘Be off, I tell you. Now you know, I can’t do anything for you. Your master is the devil. You go and see him, he's the only one who can save you from the enormous harm you’re bound to cause not long from now.'

Suddenly the woman calmed down and adopted a tone of contempt.

'Hurry up, off with you.'

Marie was pale and humiliated and began to implore:

'But what must I do to get rid of that power?’

‘Weren’t you listening? You’ve got to see the old man - the devil - and no-one else. You’ve got to come to an understanding with him____’

Marie thought the old woman was making fun of her. Seeing the devil! Talking to him! She sighed with bitterness and disappointment. The Juine woman now began cajoling:

‘It isn’t all that hard. All you’ve got to do is meet him half way. You’ll be able to fix things up with him... you’re old enough to stand on your own feet, aren’t you? The curse mustn’t fall on your Martin when it’s still possible to ward it off...’

‘See him! Talk to him! ’ Marie went on saying, and shook

her head as if it was impossible.

‘All you’ve got to do is go to the mission cross, tonight, at midnight. If you take a black hen under your arm and wait patiently you’ll see the devil as sure as my name’s Juine, and you’ll save your Martin and your family from misfortune.’

Her last words coincided with Marie’s headlong escape.

After a pause, and as soon as the witch was sure she was alone, she said in a loud voice, ‘All the same, I’m much stronger than her.’ Then in grave and pensive mood she set out at full speed towards the Fons-Chauds wood, spitting out her broken laughter.

* * *

The Juine woman had been walking a long time in quick, even steps. Not till she approached Fons-Chauds did she slow

down. There she drew back brushwood, walked round brambles, tramped through clusters of young birches. Then, not finding the person she was looking for, she stopped and shouted:

‘Hey, where are you? Where are you?'

Her voice re-echoed from tree to tree, she listened to it then started up again, louder and longer this time.

Then the Juine woman heard the snapping of twigs and the rustling of dead leaves and knew that she had been heard. She also heard the noise of growling coming towards her more quickly. And a wolf leapt from the brushwood. It came towards her.

‘Drover, drover,' she shouted, frightened, ‘your wolfs after me.'

The drover’s voice was clear and close at hand.

‘Trri... trri... leave her alone.'

The wolf stopped and lay down on the short grass, his head between his feet, his tongue touching the sand. His growling ceased. But his fierce restless eyes were taking in every action of the old woman who had now grown pale.

A man appeared. He was tall and thin and broken with age, wretchedly clad in a torn shirt held in at the waist by a roll of red flannel like a zouave. His bare feet were tom with walking. They trod carelessly on the cutting roots. His eyes were sunk deep into the bonework of their sockets. The next thing that drew your attention were his emaciated cheeks, his long thin nose and his hard jaw.

‘Good day, drover,' the witch said.

‘So it’s you again, old woman!'

Juine agreed with a grimace. The man came nearer and said again:

‘I can see by your nasty smile that you need me again. You're not satisfied with all I've done for you. Now you're sticking to me worse than a tick on one of my beasts.'

The witch broke in:

‘It isn’t for me, but for the girl you’ve got to look after.'

'I Know. Don't go on repeating it.'

The old woman became demanding.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’ve no time to lose. You’ve got to do something more for her. I’ll tell you. It won’t be difficult. And the fact is you’ve got to go on helping the child up to the end. Now listen...'

And she explained. He agreed. When she had finished, she left. After a few steps she turned back and shouted:

‘Can you catch snakes alive? ’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Don’t ask, I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’ve an idea in my head...’

* * *

The large mission cross standing at the fork in the roads between Nancay-le-Vieux and Angilion was anointed with a powerful moonbeam. There was nothing living round this oak cross but the other shadowy, measureless cross on the ground which ever so slowly moved along the night as if to assure its own vigilant protection. The rank growth of the neighbouring heath was held back by a sand clearing. Thick shadows lay around.

Marie was walking slowly along beside the road. She was afraid to appear as a target on the shining road itself so pre-perred to stumble along in the heather. Dark warmth rose up from the night. Marie was carrying the black hen under her arm. It stretched out its neck in nervous jerks, and this helped the girl to keep a grip on reality.

Now she was approaching the place where sandy road and stone road interwove. Beyond stood the great oak cross stretching up towards heaven as if in fervent supplication.

Marie hesitated before making her way to its foot which was lit up like an altar awaiting a ceremony. This light gripped her tighter than the blackness all around her. Finally she walked quickly across the road and stood stock still with her back to the moon.

Such was the silence in the nearby woods that the slightest creaking of a branch caused an echo. Now and again the cries of the night-birds cut deep into Marie's heart. Little by little, and she could do nothing to keep it at bay, fear crept into her. She shivered as she looked into the night and blamed herself for her recklessness in coming.

Then over on the heath, not far from the cross, she caught sight of two slowly-swaying red points. They were heading straight for her, threateningly. Marie bit her hand so as not to let out a cry. Fear left its mark and drew blood.

She fell on her knees and dragged herself to the foot of the cross. She clasped the black hen tighter against her breast. It began clucking madly as though sharing her fright.

The glowering eyes had stopped dead on the other side of the road. Marie murmured:

‘His eyes? The devil! Oh no!’

So as to keep God out of this witchcraft she took care to avoid making the sign of the cross. Yet it would have been a big help.

Now the red points had gone to ground and were lost in the grass. In their place a tall outline arose which the moon immediately enveloped in a halo.

Marie rose to her feet and clung to the cross. The apparition seemed to have no fear of God for it continued its advance towards the wooden weapon against which Marie was crushed.

‘No, no,' Marie gave a sudden shout, ‘don't come any nearer, no.'

'Whereupon she was answered by that metallic laugh which is a sure sign of the devil's strength: a laugh made up of cutting, calcinating blades.

Then, as though thrown into cold water, the laughter came to an end. The living shadow spoke. It spoke, and made use of an old man's voice, just like the voice of the old men in the region - the same inflexions and intonations and the same cunning. Nothing had ever struck Marie as so strange.

'Why are you hiding, my little wolf? Are you afraid of me?'

Marie couldn’t draw a breath. Her heart was being crushed beneath an irresistible pressure. The apparition went on: 

‘My little wolf, I'm a sort of father to you. Tell me if anyone has been hurting you. Tell me, so I can punish them,' 

So the devil had appeared on earth for her... because she had carried out the ritual that makes him come. And that, owing to the black hen that was clucking away and trying to get to her master who was now so near.

Marie wanted that accursed master to be gone. But he was still drawing nearer. Now he was in the clear on the roadway. She could make him out better. His tall, broad, lean body was clothed in a dark blouse. The sash round his waist, such as she had never seen on any local man, was the only sign that he came from some mysterious other place.

As if to make fun of himself, he momentarily held his arms crossed over his head. Marie could not help thinking of her childhood, and she thought of all she had been told about the devil, about his power and also his stupidity. Clever people can trick him. But she was too frightened for that. Marie felt unable to utter a word. She couldn’t believe that she had already spoken to him and ordered him to stop.

Surly growls bored through the deep night. Was that another way the devil had of talking? The soul of one damned, ten damned, a hundred damned, who follow their master in procession, forestalling his actions, suffering so as to save him suffering, always on the run to satisfy his good pleasure, returning, going off again, in endless folly and pain... to pay, to pay...?

‘He has to be paid,’ Marie groaned. She understood. Then she thought: 'If the moon disappeared I wouldn't see him any more. Yes, but then he’d see me better. Perhaps he'd appear to me covered in flames...’

The devil was speaking again. The howling immediately stopped.

‘Let me deal with the Malgrains. I want to avenge you. I shan't harm your Martin. I gave you the power of healing. Do you want other powers?'

He let out a long laugh then added,

‘My little damned one.'

Horrified, Marie had received each word with pain. And the Juine woman hadn't told her what to do to drive the apparition away. If only, if only the evil one would stop moving and stay on the road.

But exactly then, as if in defiance of Marie's prayers, he started walking again. He approached the cross. His wooden clogs re-echoed. She could make out a bony face. She had been expecting another, taller form. No flames were coming from his mouth.

And he was drawing nearer and nearer.

Then, fearful that he might take her in his arms and bear her off to hell for ever, Marie had a sudden inspiration. She seized the black hen by the neck, shut her eyes and twisted it. She could feel the tender, warm bone becoming limp. She twisted and twisted. Then in a bound the black soul of the black creature took flight.

When she slowly opened her eyes Marie was not surprised to see that the road was empty. There was nothing to be heard but her own quick breathing.

Now she wasn't sure that she had seen what she had just seen. But the soft mass of warm black feathers revived her fear. Now the cross seemed to her powerless.

She left it, still clutching the dead hen which, for all she knew, might still afford her protection.

* * *

Marie returned to the Bâtards farm and went straight up into the loft as though she feared she would never see Martin again. He was still there, and asleep. In the half-light of a moonbeam his large body, with arms and legs outstretched, looked like a human star.

Gently she drew the soft, relaxed legs together. But for all her care her burning bands bit into his flesh and ran over his skin like a ripple over water. She felt him quiver.

‘Marie,' he sighed in his dream, into which Marie’s action had melted.

And again, to himself,

‘Marie...'

She stroked his hair.

‘Martin,' she said, with no idea of being overheard, ‘it’s hard defending oneself all alone.'

But this was too many words for a dream. Martin returned to reality and tried to sit up.

'Is that you, Marie?’

Faced with reality, he was still blind. Marie kept him lying down, lay beside him and put her cheek against his chest, still rising and falling with the rhythm of sleep.

'You’re burning,' he said, 'I like it when you’re burning.’ Then he murmured, ‘And you’re trembling; I like it when you're trembling.'

At that moment a tear she had wanted to keep to herself fell on Martin’s skin.

‘Aren’t you happy?’ he asked, and at once became sad. She said nothing but tried to hide her suffering with a smile, not realizing that he couldn’t see her smile. Then she leant forward and said in a passionate voice:

‘I love you, you know. I love you so much.'

Now Martin was showing signs of worry.

‘What’s happening all around us, Marie? Tell me, tell...' She pressed the tips of her fingers against her eyelids and let her palms rest against her cheeks.

‘I’m really cursed,' she said at last, all in one breath. ‘You’re not going to believe those old wives’ tales... That’s all the past.'

But now Martin had to know. And Marie told him. ‘Those shots the other day were aimed at me.'

This time he used all his force to try to get up, but Marie held him back and went on. It did her good to tell him.

'Listen to all I've got to say. The shots were aimed to kill the she-wolf that I am. It was your father who fired them.'

Martin took Marie by the shoulders and shook her to wake her up from the nightmare he thought she was dreaming up.

‘You're dreaming aloud, Marie. You're dreaming.'

Now a distant muffled explosion made a hole in the calm of the night. It came from the direction of the château Rerin, over a good half-mile of heath and wood. It was answered by an echo, a long howling sound of a wounded animal, and it lasted so long that Marie nearly died.

Martin grew tense, muscles, heart and breath.

Then there was silence.

‘Did you hear that? ' Marie said. That was aimed at me, too.'

'Quiet, quiet, you've no idea what you're talking about. It's not the first time a poacher's fired at night.'

She pushed him away and went on:

‘I'm telling you your father thought he was firing at me just now..

‘Don't say that.'

'Your father has had us turned out of Bâtards farm. You didn't know that, did you? He's putting it around everywhere that I'm putting a spell on it, and that I prowl round his house at night. And when his fear gets the better of him he fires. He fires on everything that moves. He thinks it's me. He thinks he's firing on me. Do you get it now? He wants to eliminate the savage beast he thinks I am...'

‘It's you who are thinking things...'

She sobbed, but her answer was as sharp as a blade:

‘Be quiet,' she said, ‘you know your father's capable of anything. You're a Malgrain yourself... so you know the Malgrains.'

He took the blow.

‘It's impossible,' he went on, ‘it's impossible.'

But he couldn't think of anything else to say.

‘I try to do good and I do harm,' Marie sighed, worn out. And she pressed up against him.

‘I love you so much,' she said again.

For a long time they stayed like that, close together. Marie fell asleep, and Martin in his turn stretched gently in repose.

* * *

Dawn came and summoned Martin out of doors. Noiselessly he left Marie still in deep sleep. He crossed the yard. The dog yapped a friendly good morning.

Now he was under cover in the chestnut alley and thinking of his father's harsh welcome and his mother's reproaches. He sighed at the thought of a battle lost in advance.

Suddenly he caught sight of a man with a gun moving quickly round the trees and brushwood as if following some fresh trail.

It did not take Martin long to recognize the broad shoulders and general bearing. He let out a cry of surprise in spite of himself:

"Father!'

The only answer was an oath. Malgrain stopped dead. Martin realized that perhaps he had difficulty in recognizing his voice. Perhaps it had changed under the impact of his fever.

"Martin!' he exclaimed at last.

There was joy in his surprise, but also a nervous reserve.

Martin drew near. There was no rushing into each other's arms. They were separated by recent events, and it was difficult to bridge the gap.

"Are you coming home?' his father said, holding in his emotion with an authoritarian movement of his jaw.

‘That depends on a whole lot of things.'

"Where were you? Tell me where you were.'

Now his ill-temper had returned and vibrated in his words. Martin hid his irritation and said:

"It's much too long a story to tell just like that/'

"So you don't want your mother and me to know - though that evil girl was trying to kill both of us.'

'I don't understand.'

‘Well, I'll answer for you. You were with that Marie, weren't you?'

‘Me with Marie? I haven't seen her for ages. I'd be very glad if you could tell me what's happened to her.'

He had regained his assurance and was inventing so impressively that his father was beginning to believe him.

‘I’ve been a long way away.' he sighed, ‘but anyway, now I'm back.'

Malgrain laid his heavy hand on his son's shoulder. He almost laughed with relief.

‘It's good to see you. But are you sure you haven’t been with that girl?'

‘Of course not. I've just said so.'

‘Well, good. But where were you? We’ve been very upset. Your mother's been in quite a state. No-one's been harming you, have they? ’

'I went to Sancerrois about some money to be got for a song.'

'Without Marie?' Malgrain was still suspicious.

And, without realizing it, he began striking Martin with words that were like blows.

‘Because you perhaps don't know that that girl is worse than a witch. She's a devil. A she-wolf. But it won’t take long to finish her off. During the night I hit her with my blessed bullet. She gave a cry like a wild beast...'

Martin seized his father by the arm.

‘No, it isn't true, you didn't mean to say that.'

Malgrain swore and shook off Martin's arm with a rough gesture.

'But by God, I'm on the watch for her and I won't miss next time, word of a Malgrain__’

‘I forbid you to do anything about her. Leave her alone.'

‘She spends all her nights working against us... Our nights now belong only to her.'

Martin could see the flash in his father's eyes. With a

sudden gesture he took hold of the gun barrel and gripped it tight.

'She's a werewolf,' the agent shouted, trying to wrench his gun free.

Martin tried to get at the trigger to release the death lodged there. Their fingers met at the same place and crushed each other. One of them found the trigger. The shot went off. The trees rustled. They let go of the weapon and it fell to the ground.

Then old Malgrain let out a cry like a female beast at bay.

‘You wanted to kill me, you accursed boy. That’s why you came. She sent you. You’ve been putting your stomachs together and she’s bewitched you. And so you came back to kill me. But you seem to forget that I’ve got fists. You know my fists of old, you know what they can do...’

And he threw himself on Martin who was already weakened by the short tussle over the gun as if it had been a long fight. Malgrain was about to strike him when a distant call stayed his hand. Martin swayed. The other’s heart broke with horror.

As clear as the tinkling of cowbells, Marie’s voice came to Martin’s help.

‘Martin! Martin! Where are you, Martin? ’

‘You liar,’ his father groaned. ‘You were with the wolf. You’re my son no longer. Go to her.’

He picked up his gun and took a step backwards. He nearly bent double at another cry from Marie. Then he fled. The only sound in the early morning was Marie’s worried cries. Then Martin turned towards her; he had another kind of fever in his tired body now.

* * *

All old Malgrain wanted was to get home and tell his wife the whole story. He was already sorry about what he had just said to the boy. He realized he’d played it all wrong.

What he should have done was take his son back and save him in spite of the she-wolf, then use him as an arm against her. He, after all, had nothing to fear. But when he recalled the boy's obstinacy, thoughts of judgement and revenge came crowding back. He would see that justice was done, and well done.

‘I must bring her down; I must kill her,' he said out loud to egg himself on.

He went into the garden, closing the fragile wooden gate with a huge bang. The bell tinkled vigorously in the gentle air. Mother Malgrain appeared in the doorway, all on edge, for every unexpected sound hit her head like the threat of an explosion.

He pushed her aside without a word when she took hold of him, then proceeded to the cupboard, took out the flask of holy water and poured the remainder of its contents into the barrel of his gun. Mother Malgrain looked at him questioningly. Then he spoke:

‘I've just seen our boy.'

Then, between clenched teeth:

‘He was with that Marie.'

His wife fell on her knees and gazed at the ceiling with hands joined. All she had heard were his first words - the words that had poured balm on her mother’s suffering.

‘O my God,' she said, ‘thank you...'

Malgrain shrugged his shoulders.

‘And I shall see to it that he comes back, and without her.'

That was all he said. Then he went out again, savagely determined. But no sooner was he out of the garden than he thought he heard that accursed growling.

He held back an exclamation. ‘Here she comes again he thought, ‘and in broad daylight, now!' - and he stopped dead in his tracks. A new torture began slowly creeping over him. It grew and stuck in just the right place. He turned and quickly retraced his steps. All of a sudden his weapon seemed as useless as a stick. The fact was that since hearing her calling for his son, his fear of Marie had grown hundredfold.

‘She's tough, that one,' he was thinking, ‘I must have hit her last night, she let out that cry...' He hammered furiously on the door with his butt.

Mother Malgrain was listening hard, but nevertheless gave a jump, opened then shut the door quickly after him, as if to prevent the evil coming in too. Malgrain went straight through to the bedroom to make sure the shutters were well closed, then came back into the kitchen and stood stock still in the middle of the room, exhausted with his worries.

‘"What’s the matter? ’ his wife ventured.

‘She’s still there,’ he muttered through his breath which was going out and in like a pair of bellows briskly at work.

‘Oh my God...’

Finally he pulled the bench into a corner of the room and sat down with his back to the wall and his gun levelled at the door. Then he ordered his wife to put the bar across the door as a further precaution.

Having done this she went and sat beside him. She wanted to hear everything.

‘And our boy? ’

‘I was as near to him as I am to you.’

‘Oh God, and where was that?'

‘In the alley.’

‘Why didn’t you bring him back with you?'

‘He had ears only for that Marie who was shouting to him to come back.’ Here he hissed his words. ‘She’s got him thoroughly in her clutches.'

‘My God, my God, grant...’

‘Shut up, we've had enough prayers,' he interrupted sharply. ‘As soon as she's stopped prowling round us, I'll go to the police. This must be stopped. The law is strong enough to throw people in prison who hold something that isn't theirs.'

After a long wait, broken by waves of anxiety, Malgrain at last decided to leave the corner of the room where he felt so strong. His wife followed him.

‘I’m off to bed,' he said. 'You keep watch by my side. Leave the light on so that the dark doesn't turn against us. D'you understand?’

She said nothing, nor did she stir from his side. She was transfixed with fear. She was quiet and obedient like a beast of the field.

He slid into bed with all his clothes on and kept a firm hold on his weapon. He threw out confused threats. His bare feet rubbed against the soft sheets. First soft... then alive!

A cry tore out of his throat. He threw off the covers, rolled out of bed and fell onto the floor. And the Malgrain woman saw. She scratched at her lips nervously. She backed away with her eyes starting out of her head. Between the sheets a snake was rearing up in fury, swaying, stiff, but ready to unstiffen so as to strike again.

For all her horror she managed to cry out:

‘Kill it, kill it!'

Now it was his turn to see it. He leapt up, seized hold of a poker, approached with the courage of madness and smote quickly and accurately. The creature's back was broken, but it still writhed. A second blow smashed in its head.

As soon as he was sure he had killed it he looked at his foot. The poison had entered by a needle-prick, but was pumping upwards with his blood and would soon reach his heart. Already Malgrain could feel death gripping him by the throat. He bellowed like a madman.

'Quick, the Talbo bottle, quick, quick . .

His wife unrivetted her eyes from the still-jerking reptile, and ran to the wall cupboard. She opened it. She put out a hand among all the bottles and then let out a cry:

‘O my God, the bottle's been broken.'

An acrid odour was perceptible, and a thick liquid was dripping down from one shelf to the next. A piece of the broken bottle was labelled: ‘Talbo wine.' It was a remedy composed of seven plants sovereignly effective against snakebites.

Malgrain was beside her in a second and brutally pushing her away. He saw. Tears of frustration leapt into his eyes.

But some liquid still remained in a hollow corner of one of the broken pieces. Pushing aside the other bottles he snatched hold of it and drank it down, glass splinters and all. Then he pulled his knife from his pocket and opened the wound. Before he had time to think of the pain, the cold blade had cut into his fiery flesh.

The Malgrain woman closed her eyes and reeled.

The excavations taking place on the site known as the ‘Roman cemetery’ extended for some thirty yards. Tufts of undergrowth made an arch of rustling leaves over the trench. Further down, the Rère rivulet, crammed with mud and greenstuff, could occasionally be seen gleaming. The hot day was drawing to a close and becoming heavier, and man’s endeavour made it heavier still.

Breathing with difficulty, and with fear creeping over his skin, the man who was wielding the pick in the sandy trench often gave a glance towards the surrounding trees. Just near him, full length on the floor of the trench itself, Monsieur des Gardettes was scraping with a trowel at a stone slab. Suddenly the other man jumped out of the trench.

‘I’m knocking off, sir,’ he said awkwardly.

His master gave a shrug of vexation.

‘Come, come, old Brunin,' he said, getting up, ‘you're not going to abandon me at the very moment I need you most. I’ve spent long enough persuading you to come and help me.’

‘I want to get off. And now this moment.’

‘But my dearest Brunin, you can’t refuse to help me open up this sarcophagus, the old stone tomb whose top we can already see. We’ll soon have our reward.'

The Count wanted to arouse Brunin's curiosity and interest, so now altered his approach:

‘... And then, if there's treasure inside, I'll give you your share...'

It was the last thing he should have said: 'tomb', 'treasure', 'share'. 'Share of bad luck, more like it,' the old peasant thought as he felt the sweat growing cold on his skin. And for all his normal aversion for words, he began pouring them out, more and more.

‘I warned you I couldn't spend long in a place like this. If I came it was only because you told me you'd be the only one to shift the earth as your friend Malgrain had gone to town for a few days. And then, you've always been good to us. But for all that I've had enough, I'm off.'

He lowered his voice:

‘And it's unlucky for people to open tombs. You didn't properly explain what the work was...'

When he saw the landlord's bitter smile, old Brunin plucked up courage. You must never appear as frightened as you are, especially before a ‘gentleman'. They repeat it, and if they deign to talk to you they make fun of your beliefs.

'I've got to help the wife with the cows,' he said. 'She's not strong enough now to lift the dung.'

In Brunin's eyes could be read the drama of the peasant's soul, devoured as it was by credulity.

Faced with this genuine distress, the Count tried a joke:

'It also has to do with that seven-headed creature you're so frightened of, what, and who's going to appear in the wood some day. Or with those fierce wolves and their ghostly drover. Come on, Brunin, you're wasting valuable time with your old wives' tales. Give me a couple more hours and you'll have all the time in the world to see to your cows... or, to be more exact, your cow.'

But the other man stuck to his guns. He put down his pick and spade and set off at a stride. He was anxious to keep out of the way of werewolves and other weird creatures

He didn’t want to risk provoking them.

Faced with this downright refusal, the landlord made a rapid decision. Some days of digging had given an edge to his impatience to get this sarcophagus open. He would set out immediately for the Bâtards farm. It would be the very devil if he couldn't find someone there to help him. With the aid of a little money, or even some concession... One or two of them could easily lift this stone. He spent a moment swearing against all the seven-headed or otherwise damned creatures of the Sologne. Then he too got out of the trench and went over to the trap in which the mare had brought him to the Rère. Then he shouted to the old peasant who had already gone some distance:

'Hey, Brunin, I'll give you a lift.'

When he reached him he helped him up and handed over the reins.

Brunin wanted to find some words to fill his humiliated silence.

'I know a short cut,' he said, ‘beyond the great oak...'

Then he turned towards his landlord and saw how worried he was.

Monsieur des Gardettes had not told Brunin the truth about his agent’s sudden departure. He had not said a word about the new, unrecognizable Malgrain. But now he was turning over the whole of that morning's scene in his mind. That big bully of a man all trembling with the fever he was trying to conceal; that silent woman with her shifty eyes, throwing their linen onto the floor of the cart itself... He could still hear the agent's violent words:

‘We're leaving, and if you'd only listen to me, you'd leave too. Go. Can't you feel the curse prowling round our house? You just look at the claws that child of damnation grows at night... You just look! '

And he had pointed out the tracks of claws starring the sand in the alley.

‘But, Malgrain, those are made by a dog! I can't understand a word you're saying! I only wish you'd remember that today we have a lot of work to do at Fons-Chauds. You promised me. My trap is ready. And you can sort out your ideas on the way.'

Then Malgrain had jerked his chin threateningly:

‘You'll have to go digging alone as far as I'm concerned. You'll get no more help from me in your digging up the dead... They want to rest, and they're taking their revenge by helping the living to take revenge. I've had enough bad luck through helping you dig up your ancient people.'

‘But where are you going? When will you be back? Why all this hurry?'

‘You won't see us again until that girl and the Ribauds have left. It's us or them. There was no mistake about it when I said there was a curse on that Marie. I knew she'd bring misfortune on us all... and now you’ve got the proof.'

‘What proof? I still can't understand you...'

‘I can see you'll never understand. The evil would have to get stuck on you first. But that won't take long. You're going to run straight into it...'

‘Look, Malgrain, I've had enough of listening to arguments that are just nonsense. Come now, you must think of the things that matter. Come ..

‘No, I'll never go with you again. We're leaving, as I said.'

And then the incomprehensible phrase:

‘Above all, never set foot in this house. Otherwise, when you open the door you'll..

His wife gave him a nudge and said in a low voice:

‘Be quiet. Supposing she heard .. .'

At that moment the Count noticed that Malgrain was limping and had a blood-stained bandage round his ankle.

‘What's happened to you, Malgrain?'

‘It's that bewitched girl who wants my death... it was her...’

And he had turned pale and put his hand on his shirt where his heart was.

On arriving at the Bâtards farm Monsieur des Gardettes emerged from his thoughts and came back to the present. Old Brunin got down slowly, then hurried off without claiming any pay for his day’s work. All he received was a quick, polite gesture from Monsieur des Gardettes as he, too, alighted from the trap.

There was no-one in the yard. No-one emerged from the barn or the living-room or anywhere else. As he advanced and called out their names the walls echoed them back. He cursed the work that kept the Ribauds away from the Bâtards farm. On his way back to the trap he caught sight of Baptiste. Realizing he had been spotted, the Grodafieu boy tried to hide.

The landlord went to where he was, calling all the time to make it quite plain that he had been seen. When he reached him he took him by the belt with all his authority and pulled him towards him.

‘You’re coming with me immediately. I’ll pay you well.’

Grodafieu made excuses:

T can’t, I’m expected at home, I’m already late.’

Baptiste had been very much put out by this unexpected encounter. He had returned to the farm to take Marie unawares, and this time she had given Martin away without meaning to by waving goodbye to him as she left for the fields, and he had responded, putting his head out of the loft skylight. So Baptiste now knew that his rival was there. He was watching for him but didn’t dare attack him; he was looking for a way of harming him without risk to himself.

'I’ll give you whatever you ask,’ continued Monsieur des Gardettes.

‘No, Monsieur le Comte, I'm expected at home, I can't go with you, not anywhere.'

The landlord felt suddenly enraged.

‘But Good God, does no-one understand! Does no-one realize the importance of my discovery? ’

Then, calmer:

‘Would two louis help you to make up your mind?'

Baptiste, who was on the point of leaving, paused.

‘Two louis?' he said. ‘And to do what?'

‘To help me lift up a big stone.'

‘Is that all? '

‘That's all. Come along.'

Baptiste seemed to be thinking it over.

‘Listen, sir, I'll make another proposal. Give me one louis and I'll find a tough man who’ll do the job better than me.'

The Count made a face.

‘’Why not you? But still... if I can have him straightaway...’

‘I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.’

‘Where is he then?’

‘Give me my money first.’

The Count searched his pockets, found a coin and gave it to Baptiste who greedily seized it. Then, as Monsieur des Gardettes said another significant ‘Now,’ he pointed to the Bâtards loft.

‘He’s up there,' he said, ‘go and look.'

And he fled as if he’d just stolen the louis he clutched in his hand.

Monsieur des Gardettes shrugged his shoulders in irritation. That Grodafieu boy came from really bad stock and he swore to himself that this was the very last time he’d be trifled with in this way. Meanwhile he went over to the farmhouse, entered the living-room, went to the foot of the loft ladder, and called out - though without much hope. His call was answered by footsteps. He went up and saw Martin.

Their mutual surprise threw them out for a moment.

'You, sir,' Martin exclaimed at last, 'you!'

And his face lit up with genuine delight.

'... And I was wanting so much to talk to you!'

'What are you doing here?' the Count asked. ‘Didn’t you know that your father’s been looking for you and you’ve been the cause of a whole lot of trouble that has been very much to your disadvantage?’

‘Let’s leave that aside,’ Martin said, tightening his lips as if he had a bitter taste in his mouth.

Then he asked, as much by his glance as in words:

‘Was it Marie who sent you?’

‘No, but I've no time to explain now. At this moment I want your help at Fons-Chauds. There’s work waiting to be done that I can’t carry on all by myself. I'm no longer young, and if you help me, I'll help you.’

‘If you want help on a job I'll do it for you. I'm not very strong again yet, but I’ll do what I can.'

The landlord's face relaxed in a smile.

‘You'll be carrying on what your father promised to do.' Martin could feel his body becoming hot.

‘Don't talk to me about him... please.'

‘All right, all right, but come. You won’t regret the time you give me.'

‘You'll let the Ribauds stay on here?’ Martin ventured.

‘If you want... but let's be off. I must know what's in that tomb before nightfall.'

* * *

Baptiste was approaching the agent's house. He was in no hurry. At the moment Martin was well guarded, for the Count would not easily let him go. Baptiste kept telling himself that he had played his cards well. He had never been so happy. He couldn't have taken a better revenge, and with such financial advantage to himself, and he was sure now of succeeding with Marie. Once Martin was back in the

Malgrains' clutches, Marie would come to him, Baptiste. He had been clever enough to wait and had thereby achieved his dream. He whistled with self-satisfaction.

The shutters were closed. But it didn’t occur to him for a moment that there could be nobody around. He entered the garden. The little bell tinkled with its usual surprise. He walked quickly up to the door and knocked. There was no other answer than the dull sound of thick wood.

‘Mother Malgrain! Father Malgrain! ’ he shouted.

He stepped back and looked around at the silent garden. He called again, uneasiness growing.

‘Hey, Father Malgrain, I’ve good news for you! ’

He rapped again. Now he was so afraid that he might fail to find the Malgrains at the strategic moment that he broke into a sweat. He thought, ‘If they don’t go and find their son when I’ve told them where he is, then Marie will . .

‘Where are you?’ he called out. ‘Where are you? Come quickly!'

He seized the doorknob and gave it a violent shake. At last it gave and the door started to open.

He let out a cry of joy. So the Malgrains were in after all. They must be asleep and that was why they hadn’t heard him. He pushed the door wide open.

There was a flash and thunder rent the air.

Baptiste fell, his stomach riddled with a hundred deathblows.

Firmly attached to the bench facing the door, the gun - now discharged - pointed in menace. The string tying the trigger to the handle had fallen to the floor, as limp and abandoned as Baptiste’s body. Baptiste had fallen a victim to the twisted course of his own machinations.

* * *

Down in the cornfield Marie was lifting ripened sheaves. The setting sun, while lengthening her shadow, set a diadem around her hair. She was thinking a thousand happy thoughts. Suddenly she paused, and listened. She had heard a shot. Bitterness came into her eyes. 'So he won't give up,' she murmured to herself.

Then she bent her body again over her work.

* * *

Woodland night was spreading under the trees. Monsieur des Gardettes had lost all his calm by now and was almost in a frenzy. The sarcophagus had been freed from its encasing womb of sand and was now exposed in all its mystery. Even Martin was savouring a hitherto unknown pleasure. He was in the grip of the demon curiosity and, all unknowing, of the greed that lies latent in every man.

The opening-up of the tomb called for skill as much as strength. First of all they introduced the keen blade of a knife underneath the lid so as to peel away the earth and clay that formed a sort of adhesive paste. This done, they inserted the sharp tip of an iron bar to act as a lever. On their first attempt the comer of the stone, weakened over the centuries by alternate damp and dry, broke into fine shreds, weathered on the outside and white on the inside - with that white that had been the pristine colour of the sarcophagus.

Finally they managed to lever up the top - just a little. For a moment they were both almost overcome with excitement. The Count imagined he saw long thigh-bones and a skull intact. As for Martin, he somehow thought that the person who had been lying there for so long would sit up and frighten them with a bony finger. But this moment was short-lived for the slab - purposely made heavy by those men of long ago - suddenly fell back with a thud as though in anger at being disturbed. That was when the Count was afraid it might crack. He had always dreamed of trophies, and the idea that he would at last be able to set up this evidence of an age of fable in front of his château - on a special lawn where it would be set off to advantage - made him more ready to break one of his own limbs than a single piece of this ancient stone.

Little by little they managed to prise it up again, though it was doing all it could to remain heavy and as if desirous to keep its secret. At each stage of its raising they propped it open with stones or chunks of wood. A strip of darkness already showed them the eternal night which had, until now, been shut up in the tomb. They could smell the overpowering odour of the grave, of earth that had long been dust, such as is the habitual exhalation of antiquity. For Monsieur des Gardettes it was a sweet and welcome perfume; for Martin the stink of decay.

In his excitement and impatience for the long-awaited moment when he would see the tomb’s contents at last, the Count said:

"One more heave and you’ll be able to wedge it open with the full length of the pickaxe. Then I’ll be able to have a good look in.’

Martin thought this imprudent. ‘We must take care the pick doesn’t slip,’ he said, ‘or you’ll be caught like a bird in a trap.’

With a final supreme effort, bent double, breathless, their muscles stretched to breaking-point, they managed to raise the stone. Martin deftly wedged the pick in place.

They hadn’t heard the footsteps of the tall, lean, old man who had been advancing slowly, hiding from tree to tree. Now he was quite near and having difficulty in holding back the lithe beast pressing on ahead of him. He kept saying, ‘Trri, trri,’ between his teeth. He was eyeing the two men and thinking of the treasure they wanted to do him out of. ‘It’s mine,' he kept saying to himself. ‘Everything around here is mine. This is my domain, my property. Wait a minute, wolf. You’re going to help me. Trri, trri...’

The dusk was thickening. The Count went to look for a lantern he had in his trap. He wanted to see his treasure properly and wring all possible pleasure from it.

It was flattened and shapeless, half bone, Half earth. On each side of it lay ancient vases. The Count let out an exclamation of delight. Martin couldn't help looking for the glow thrown out by gold.

Suddenly their hearts turned over as they heard a savage howl. They stood up as a man, as if the buried Roman had suddenly shouted at them. A dark agile form hurled itself against Martin who grabbed the lantern and backed to the end of the trench.

The Count meanwhile leapt out of it and fled to his trap, and his maddened mare bore him away at the gallop.

* * *

At the Bâtards farm the evening was following its normal course. The two Ribaud brothers, pitchfork in hand, were carrying dung from the stables to the manure heap, while under the two women's supple fingers rich milk was foaming into the pails and sending forth its fragrance. They would go on doing their work as dutiful servants to the very end of their days.

Suddenly a loud clatter brought everyone to a standstill, and the château trap came careering into the yard, right up as far as the living-room door, drawn by the prancing and froth-covered mare. A man was shouting and gesticulating from the seat. Not until he slid to the ground did they recognize Monsieur des Gardettes.

‘They've cast the devil's spell on him,' mother Ribaud said, and made the sign of the cross.

Ribaud and his sons went up to their landlord and took him by the arms, as you do with a drunkard, or someone possessed. On feeling the strength of their support, the Count relaxed and stopped shouting. The smell of his sweat told them that he was at the end of his tether. They conducted him into the living-room, sat him down and gave him a glass of their strong white liqueur which he swallowed greedily and in obvious need. The heat of the alcohol released his tongue.

‘Oh that wolf... that wolf... it leapt like a fury... like a fury.'

Ribaud said:

‘But anyway you're still alive. That's the main thing.'

But he added - though to himself for he knew the degree of respect due to masters even when they do you wrong:

‘... You deserve worse, much worse.'

‘But,' the Count went on, ‘it attacked... young Malgrain.'

On hearing these words Marie rushed up to him. Up till now she had been watching the scene with contempt - a man who could descend so low as to obey the Malgrains didn't deserve her pity, even if he was threatened by wolves. That was elementary justice. But now that he had mentioned Martin she took hold of him by his bramble-scarred ribbed jacket and displayed her panic in her lack of respect:

‘Martin! Where is he? Tell me, tell me!'

‘At Fons-Chauds. I'd taken him off with me to open a tomb. Yes, on the site of the cemetery, the Roman cemetery.'

Then she let him go and turned to the others who were gazing at her in astonishment.

‘Unharness the mare,' she ordered, ‘I must get there immediately.'

They found it quite a job to get the animal under control - she was kicking out dangerously and frothing at the mouth, still at the mercy of her fright. At last Marie took her unawares and leapt astride her hot and steaming back. The mare reared but the girl clung on, her naked thighs drawing in the animal's fever. She leant forward so as not to be thrown by the bucking and rearing, and at last gained control. She could feel warm foam penetrating her skin and flesh. She asked Marc to fetch her some bread which she slipped inside her bodice. Her father handed her a short whip.

Then she dug her heels into the mare’s belly and was off.

She needed all her strength of will to guide the animal through the darkness which was now almost complete. On and on she whipped in fury. The mare kicked and reared but pressed on through the gathering dark. The constant bucking and the oil-like surface of the mare's back nearly unseated Marie, but she clung on to the mane and her legs became one with the mare's flanks.

As the ground sped by beneath her it made her momentarily dizzy. Now she was across the heath and had come to the edge of Fons-Chauds. There the mare came to a sudden stop and Marie was pitched far into the heather.

She leapt to her feet. But the mare had turned and gone. She was already a long way off, heading back to the world of men which is so much less dangerous than the world of wild beasts to which the girl was trying to bring her back.

Marie could feel the ground still trembling with the impact of the thudding hooves. Then the galloping faded away, swallowed up in the darkness that came from down there.

Marie ran for a long time. Several times she got lost, but she knew the way to the Roman cemetery, that place of the olden days that had always aroused her curiosity. Now she was cursing it. At last she could just make out a glimmer, the glimmer of the lantern in the distance as it threw its fitful light over the trees, Stirring them and distorting them like a mirage. But she did not let her imagination play. She ran on, with doubt and despair in her soul.

The lantern had fallen over and cast a half light along the trench. Now the flame leapt, now it dwindled, as if about to go out. When it dwindled, the trench was wrapped in darkness. Marie could just discern a body lying on its sandy floor. She leapt down and took hold of the lantern with its strong scent of life. The sand was fresh. The girl bent over, panting.

Martin was lying on his stomach, his arms folded under his chest. Marie lifted his body, made twice as heavy by its immobility.

When she'd turned him over she saw a great clot of blood encrusted on his torn throat. She breathed in its sharp pain. She bent further over and heard a faint rattling breathing that she took to be a murmur.

It was a terrible wound. The wolf had implanted its teeth with the force of a ploughshare biting into the earth. When the animal had opened Martin's throat and tasted his blood, its savagery had increased. Marie couldn't drive away her picture of the scene. She saw the animal drunk with this man's sap and tearing away with quick movements of its jaws.

Martin had obviously had a desperate struggle. The sandy walls of the trench bore witness to it. Marie could see that the confined space had helped to make things worse, for it had made him unable to put up a proper defence. The wolf had had it all its own way in this grave-digger's hole. It had thrown Martin down and buried its fangs in him; he had immediately tried to free himself from the grip - as though that were possible. He must have seized the brute by its coat, for when Marie unclasped his clenched fists she saw they were clutching hard black bristles.

Martin's eyes had closed on his martyrdom. His hair was plastered down on his forehead. The sunburn of his face had paled as with oncoming winter. It was the moment for action. Hope was still ringing in Marie as she extracted the bread from her breast. She chewed it quickly into tiny morsels, and the memory of another cure brought some peace to her mind. She could see the Maujin boy lying on the table at the Rouges farm. The boy's words sounded vividly in her ears,

‘I can't feel anything now.’

She summoned up all her woman’s strength to free herself from the grip of despair, and with all her lover's strength she placed the remedy on the wound.

At the caress of this warmth the hardened blood for an instant became fluid and living. It flowed from beneath the salve of chewed bread. Marie thought that life was returning. Martin’s breathing was still hoarse, but it grew fainter and fainter. It looked as if he was holding himself in so as not to frighten her. She did not realize that this was his last burst of life. She slipped her hand onto his almost motionless chest and the contact awoke vivid memories that helped her to talk to him gently, as you do when you’re trying to calm a child in pain.

‘Martin,’ she said, ‘my Martin, look, I’m here, it’s me, look at me, you’re going to get better...’

He opened his eyes. He was looking so far away that at last she realized that they were no longer travelling the same road together.

Suddenly Marie felt a tremor on the back of her neck. With a quick reflex she turned round and stifled a cry of fright. But she managed to get up and confront it.

The wolf was there, above her, on the mound of sand thrown out of the hole. She could see mud flowing from its mouth, red with Martin's blood. She saw its muzzle upturned, scenting fresh blood. The brute could be on her in one leap. Careless of the danger, Marie brandished the lantern. As the flame returned to life it brought out yellow reflections in the wolf’s hate-filled eyes. The brute drew back as if Marie’s eyes were a trap, threatening it. Then, as if some fear that Marie could not understand had made it clumsy, it somersaulted into the trench. There it stood, just near Marie, its tail between its legs, its eyes rivetted on Marie’s and its uneasiness becoming more and more apparent. One of its ears was half torn away as if by a bullet. It was only just healing.

The girl advanced. The wolf drew back. In this way they gradually reached the widest part of the trench, the place where the stone was, the cause of the tragedy.

At that moment she caught sight of the sarcophagus and let out a cry that killed its own echo.

The heavy slab had fallen on a man's body.

Despite this new anguish, she drew near. The wolf lay down against the stone and moaned.

The man was dead, his chest crushed in. His head, chest and arms disappeared into the tomb. Marie was unable to see that the unknown man was holding the wretched bones of the man of old in a greedy grasp. Her eyes were fixed on the wide rolled red belt encircling the torn blouse.

And she remembered. The devil!

But on seeing the wolf licking the man's clothes, she understood better.

‘My God, the wolf-drover!’

Now the wolf was gazing at her with sad animal eyes. She couldn't understand that it wanted the consolation of her gentle she-wolf lamentations. An intolerable pressure lay on Marie’s heart and she ran back to Martin. What her mother had said was now throbbing in her head.

'She’ll lose the gift when I die... she’ll lose the gift when I die...'

When she reached Martin’s stiff body she nearly fell. 'When she touched him she understood everything, yet didn’t want to believe that nothingness had taken him despite her efforts. She lay down against him, close, embracing him with her arms and legs. The bread was still sticking to Martin's skin, concealing the wound through which his life had left him.

Tirelessly Marie went on:

‘Martin, you know, he can't be dead, the drover... I'll be able to cure you.’

As the lantern went out it buried them both in thick night. From afar came the anxious cries of her father and brothers. Nearby were the anxious moans of the wolf. It was scratching its master’s body with a gentle paw. Now and again two threatening points of red light glowed.

Autumn, 1945 - Spring, 1946