The nurse looked at the man in surprise. She had never yet treated death as a gamble. She hesitated, tempted by the thought of making a lucky bargain. Then she suspected that she was being tricked.
“I’ll not say one way or the other until I’ve seen your mother,” she replied.
“Come on, then, and look at her.”
She dried her hands and went with him at once.
On the way not a word passed between them. She walked with a hurried step, while he stretched his great limbs as if he had a brook to cross at each stride.
The cows, lying down in the fields, overpowered by the heat, raised their heads heavily, lowing faintly as the couple passed them, as if asking for fresh grass.
As he drew near the house, Honoré murmured:
“Perhaps it’s all over after all.” His unconscious wish spoke in the tones of his voice.
But the old woman was far from dead. She was lying on her back, in her wretched bed, her hands outside the purple oriental counterpane, her terrible emaciated hands, knotted like the talons of some strange beast, or like a crab’s claws, doubled up by rheumatism, fatigue and the daily toil which had been her lot. Mother Rapet went over to the bed and considered the dying woman. She felt her pulse, touched her chest and listened to her breathing, asked her a question to hear her voice in reply, then, having looked at her again for a long time, she went out, followed by Honoré. His conviction was strengthened. The old woman would not last out the night. He asked: “Well?”
The nurse answered: “H’m. She’ll last two days, p’raps three. You can make it six francs the lump sum.”
He cried out at that:
“Six francs! Six francs! Have you lost your wits! I swear she won’t live more than five or six hours—no longer.”
They argued for a while, both very obstinate.
At last he had to give way, the nurse was at the point of going, time was passing, and his corn couldn’t be got in without him.
“All right,” he said. “Six francs, all told—including the washing of the corpse.”
“Done! Six francs.”
He went out with great strides towards his corn, which lay on the ground under the fierce sun that ripens the harvest.
The nurse went back into the house.
She had brought her sewing, for when she was tending the dying or dead, she worked unceasingly—sometimes for herself, sometimes for the family who employed her in this double task for an extra fee.
All at once, she asked:
“I suppose you’ve seen the priest at any rate, Mother Bontemps?”
The old woman shook her head; and Mother Rapet, who was pious, got up with alacrity.
“Good God! Is it possible? I’ll go and fetch M. le Curé.”
With that she ran to the presbytery in such haste that the urchins in the marketplace, seeing her hurrying thus, thought some accident had happened.
The priest came out immediately in his surplice, preceded by a choir boy who rang a little bell to herald the passing of God through the calm, brilliant countryside. Men who were working a long way off took off their great hats and stood without moving, until the white robe disappeared behind a farm; the women who were gathering the sheaves stood upright and made the sign of the cross; some black hens, terrified, flew along to ditches with a wild, jerky gait to a hole well known to them, where they disappeared hurriedly; a colt tethered in a field took fright at the sight of the surplice and started running round and round at the end of his string, throwing his hind legs high in the air. The choir boy in his red skirt walked quickly and the priest with his head drooping slightly on one side and crowned with its square biretta, followed him, murmuring his prayers as he went; last of all came old Rapet, all bowed down, nearly doubled in two as though she were trying to walk and prostrate herself at the same time, her fingers clasped as in church.
Honoré, from the distance, saw them pass. He asked: “Where’st a going, Father?”
His labourer, quicker-witted than he, replied: “He’s taking the Sacrament to your mother, bless you.” The peasant was not at all astonished.
“That’s all to the good, anyhow.”
And he went on with his work again. Mother Bontemps made her confession, received absolution and was given communion; and the priest went home again, leaving the two women alone in the stifling bedroom.
Then old Rapet began to think about the dying woman, and wondered whether she was going to last much longer.
The day was drawing in, fresher air came in in sharp gusts: a picture of Epinal, held by two pins, fluttered against the wall; the little curtains at the window, once white but yellowed now and spotted with fly blow, looked ready to take flight, to tear themselves free, as if they, like the soul of the old woman, would like to depart.
She lay there, motionless, her eyes open, seeming to await with utter indifference the death which was so close, yet so slow to come. Her breathing, sharp now, whistled a little in the contracted throat. She would die very soon and the world would hold one woman less whom nobody would regret.
As night fell Honoré came indoors. Going up to the bed, he saw that his mother was still living and he asked: “How are you?” just as he used to do when she was sick. Then he sent old Rapet away, telling her:
“Tomorrow at five o’clock without fail.”
She repeated:
“Tomorrow, five o’clock.”
She came, in fact, at daybreak. Honoré was drinking the soup he had made for himself before going out into the fields.
The nurse asked him:
“Well, has your mother gone yet?”
He replied
