No longer did they feel the smoky breath of Paris that feeds the trees of her suburbs, but the scent of gorse drawn up on the salt breeze and carried out to the wide sea. And the sails of the pleasure boats, seen above the banks, looked to them like the sails of the small coasting-boats, seen beyond the wide plain that stretched from their doorstep to the very edge of the waves.
They walked slowly on, Luc Le Ganidec and Jean Kerderen, happy and sad, filled with a sweet melancholy, the dull, deep-seated melancholy of a caged beast that remembers.
And by the time Luc had finished stripping the slender switch of its skin, they reached the corner of the wood where every Sunday they ate their lunch.
They found again the two bricks they had hidden in a coppice, and they lit a little fire of branches to cook their black puddings on the point of their knife.
And when they had lunched, eaten their bread to the last crumb, and drunk their wine to the last drop, they remained sitting side by side in the grass, silent, gazing absently into space, eyes drowsily half closed, stretched out beside the field poppies; the leather of their shakos and the leather of their buttons gleamed under the burning sun and fascinated the larks that hovered singing above their heads.
As it drew towards noon, they began to throw occasional glances in the direction of Bezons village, for it was nearly time for the cowgirl to come.
She came past them every Sunday, on her way to milk her cow and take it back to its shed; it was the only cow in the district that was out at grass; it was pastured in a narrow meadow further along, on the fringe of the wood.
Very soon they caught sight of the servant-girl, the only human being walking across the fields, and they were filled with joy by the dazzling flashes of light reflected from the tin pail in the blazing sunshine. They never talked about her. They were content just to see her, without understanding why.
She was a tall lusty wench, auburn-haired and burnt by the heat of days spent in the open air, a tall bold wench of the Parisian countryside.
Once, seeing them always sitting in the same spot, she said to them:
“Good morning; d’you always come here?”
Luc Le Ganidec, the more daring, stammered:
“Yes, we come for a rest.”
That was all. But next Sunday she laughed when she saw them, she laughed in the protective, good-humoured fashion of an experienced woman fully conscious of their timidity, and she cried:
“What d’you sit there for? Are you watching the grass grow?”
Luc smiled joyously back:
“Maybe so.”
She retorted:
“Well, it’s slow enough.”
He replied, laughing all the time:
“It is that.”
She went on. But when she came back with her pail full of milk, she stopped again in front of them, and said:
“Would you like a drop? It’ll remind you of your home.”
With the instinctive understanding of a woman of their own class, herself far from her native place perhaps, she had put into words their deepest emotions.
They were both touched. Then, not without difficulty, she poured a little milk down the narrow neck of the pint bottle in which they carried their wine; and Luc drank first, in little gulps, stopping every moment to see whether he was taking more than his share. Then he gave the bottle to Jean.
She remained standing in front of them, hands on hips, her pail resting on the ground at her feet, happy in the pleasure she was giving them.
Then she went off, crying:
“Well, goodbye! See you next Sunday.”
And as long as they could see it, their eyes followed her tall figure getting farther away and smaller, as if it were merging itself in the green shadows of the trees.
When they left the barracks on the Sunday after that, Jean said to Luc:
“Oughtn’t we to buy her something nice?”
They could not make up their minds in this exceedingly awkward matter of choosing a delicacy for the cowgirl.
Luc was in favour of a scrap of chitterlings, but Jean preferred caramels, for he loved sweets. His advice carried the day, and they bought a pennyworth of red and white sweets at the grocer’s.
They ate their lunch faster than usual, excited by the thought of what was coming.
Jean saw her first.
“There she is,” he said.
Luc added:
“Yes, there she is.”
She began laughing a long way off, as soon as she saw them, and cried:
“And how are you? All right?”
They answered in one breath:
“How’s yourself?”
Then she chatted away, she talked of the simple things that interested them, of the weather, the crops, of her employers.
They dared not offer their sweets, which were melting nicely in Jean’s pocket.
At last Luc plucked up heart and murmured:
“We’ve brought something.”
She demanded:
“What is’t, then?”
So Jean, red to the ears, drew out the tiny twist paper and offered it to her.
She began eating the little bits of sugar, rolling them from one cheek to the other and forming little swollen lumps under the flesh. The two soldiers sat in front of her and watched her, excited and very pleased.
Then she went on to milk her cow, and, as she came back, gave them some milk again.
They thought of her all week and spoke of her more than once. Next Sunday she sat down beside them for a longer chat, and the three of them, sitting side by side, stared absently into space, hugging their knees with clasped hands, and told each other little tales and little details of the villages where they were born, while farther off the cow, seeing the servant-girl pausing on her way, stretched towards her its
