“What can I do for you, Master Osime?”
“How’s your father getting on?”
“He’s practically gone,” she shouted. “The funeral’s on Saturday at seven, seeing as we’re in a hurry to do the colza.”
“Right,” replied the neighbour. “Good luck to you! Are you well?”
“Thank you, yes,” she replied to his polite inquiry. “And you too?”
Then she went on picking her apples.
As soon as she came in, she went to her father, expecting to find him dead. But from the door she could hear his noisy, monotonous death-rattle, and to save time decided that it was useless to go to his bedside. She began to make the dumplings.
She wrapped the apples, one by one, in a thin leaf of paste, then lined them up along the edge of the table. When she had made forty-eight, arranged in dozens one in front of the other, she began to think of getting supper ready, and hung her pot over the fire, to cook the potatoes; for she had reflected that it was useless to light the range that day, having still the whole of the next day in which to complete her preparations for the funeral.
Her husband returned about five o’clock. As soon as he had crossed the threshold he inquired:
“Is it over yet?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “The gurgling’s still going on.”
They went to the bed. The old man was in exactly the same condition. His raucous breathing, regular as the working of a clock, had become neither quicker nor slower. It came from second to second, with slight variations in the pitch, determined by the passage of the air as it entered and left his chest.
His son-in-law stared at him, then said:
“He’ll go out when we’re not thinking of it, like a candle.”
They went back to the kitchen, and began their supper in silence. When they had swallowed the soup, they ate a slice of bread and butter as well; then, as soon as the plates were washed, they went back to the dying man’s room.
The woman, holding a small lamp with a smoky wick, passed it in front of her father’s face. If he had not been breathing he would certainly have been taken for dead.
The bed belonging to the two peasants was hidden at the other end of the room, in a sort of recess. They got into bed without speaking a word, extinguished the light, and closed their eyes; soon two uneven snores, one deep, the other shriller, accompanied the uninterrupted rattle of the dying man.
The rats ran to and fro in the loft.
The husband awoke with the first pale glimmer of dawn. His father-in-law was still alive. He shook his wife, uneasy at the old man’s resistance.
“I say, Phémie, he won’t finish it off. What would you do about it?”
He knew her to be of good counsel.
“He won’t get through the day, for certain,” she replied. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. And then the mayor won’t stand in the way of the burial tomorrow just the same, seeing what he did for old Father Rénard, who died just at sowing-time.”
He was convinced by the voice of reason, and went off to the fields.
His wife cooked the dumplings, and then finished all the work of the farmhouse.
At midday, the old man was not dead. The day-labourers hired for the transplanting of the colza came in a group to look at the aged man who was so reluctant to take his leave. Each said his say, then went off again to the fields.
At six, when they returned from work, her father was still breathing. His son-in-law at last became alarmed.
“What’s to do now, Phémie?”
She had no more idea than he what was best to do. They went to find the mayor. He promised that he would shut his eyes and authorise the burial on the next day. The officer of health, whom they went to see, also undertook, as a favour to Master Chicot, to antedate the death certificate. The man and the woman went home reassured.
They went to bed and slept as on the night before, mingling their sonorous breathing with the fainter breathing of the old man.
When they awoke, he was not dead.
At that they were overwhelmed. They remained standing at the father’s bedside, looking at him with distrust, as though he had meant to play a shabby trick on them, to deceive and annoy them for his own amusement; above all, they grudged him the time he was making them waste.
“What are we to do?” asked the son-in-law.
She had no idea, and answered:
“It’s vexing, it is.”
They could not now put off the guests, who would be arriving at any moment. They decided to wait for them and explain the situation.
About ten to seven the first guests appeared. The women dressed in black, their heads wrapped in large veils, came in with a melancholy air. The men, ill at ease in their cloth coats, advanced more slowly, two and two, talking business.
Maître Chicot and his wife, dismayed, received them with distressed explanations; as they accosted the first group of guests, both of them burst into sudden premeditated and simultaneous sobs. They explained their story, recounted their embarrassment, offered chairs, ran to and fro, made excuses, tried to prove that anybody would have acted in the same way, talking incessantly, suddenly became so talkative that they gave no one a chance to reply.
They went from one to the next.
“We’d never ha’ thought it; it’s not to be believed he could ha’ lasted like this!”
The bewildered guests, a little disappointed, like people who have been robbed of a long-expected ceremony, did not know what to do, and remained seated or standing. Some were anxious to go. Maître Chicot restrained them.
“We’ll break a bit of food together all the same. We’ve made some dumplings; better make the best of the chance.”
Faces brightened at the thought. The guests began to talk in low voices. Gradually the yard filled; the first comers were
