For two or three years he seemed to have been nursing some secret anxiety, to be troubled by some care, some mental disturbance, which was gradually increasing. He remained at table a long time after dinner, with his head in his hands, sad and devoured by sorrow. He always spoke hastily, sometimes even brutally, and it even seemed as if he bore a grudge against his wife, for at times he answered her roughly, almost angrily.
One day, when a neighbour’s boy came for some eggs, and she spoke very crossly to him, as she was very busy, her husband suddenly came in, and said to her in his unpleasant voice: “If that were your own child you would not treat him so.” She was hurt, and did not reply, and then she went back into the house, with all her grief awakened afresh, and at dinner, the farmer neither spoke to her, nor looked at her, and he seemed to hate her, to despise her, to know something about the affair at last. In consequence, she lost her head, and did not venture to remain alone with him after the meal was over, but she left the room and hastened to the church.
It was getting dusk; the narrow nave was in total darkness, but she heard footsteps in the choir, for the sacristan was preparing the tabernacle lamp for the night. That spot of trembling light, which was lost in the darkness of the arches, looked to Rose like her last hope, and with her eyes fixed on it, she fell on her knees. The chain rattled as the little lamp swung up into the air, and almost immediately the small bell rang out the Angelus through the increasing mist. She went up to him, as he was going out.
“Is Monsieur le Curé at home?” she asked. “Of course he is; this is his dinnertime.” She trembled as she rang the bell of the priest’s house. The priest was just sitting down to dinner, and he made her sit down also. “Yes, yes, I know all about it; your husband has mentioned the matter to me that brings you here.” The poor woman nearly fainted, and the priest continued: “What do you want, my child?” And he hastily swallowed several spoonfuls of soup, some of which dropped on to his greasy cassock. But Rose did not venture to say anything more, and she got up to go, but the priest said: “Courage. …”
And she went out, and returned to the farm, without knowing what she was doing. The farmer was waiting for her, as the labourers had gone away during her absence, and she fell heavily at his feet, and shedding a flood of tears, she said to him: “What have you got against me?”
He began to shout and to swear: “What have I got against you? That I have no children, by God! When a man takes a wife, he does not want to be left alone with her until the end of his days. That is what I have against you. When a cow has no calves, she is not worth anything, and when a woman has no children, she is also not worth anything.”
She began to cry, and said: “It is not my fault! It is not my fault!” He grew rather more gentle when he heard that, and added: “I do not say that it is, but it is very annoying, all the same.”
Part V
From that day forward, she had only one thought; to have a child, another child; she confided her wish to everybody, and in consequence of this, a neighbour told her of an infallible method. This was, to make her husband a glass of water with a pinch of ashes in it, every evening. The farmer consented to try it, but without success; so they said to each other: “Perhaps there are some secret ways.” And they tried to find out. They were told of a shepherd who lived ten miles off, and so Vallin one day drove off to consult him. The shepherd gave him a loaf on which he made some marks; it was kneaded up with herbs, and both of them were to eat a piece of it before and after their mutual caresses; but they ate the whole loaf without obtaining any results from it.
Next, a schoolmaster unveiled mysteries, and processes of love which were unknown in the country, but infallible, so he declared; yet none of them had the desired effect. Then the priest advised them to make a pilgrimage to the shrine at Fécamp. Rose went with the crowd and prostrated herself in the abbey, and mingling her prayers with the coarse wishes of the peasants around her, she prayed that she might be fruitful a second time; but it was in vain, and then she thought that she was being punished for her first fault, and she was seized by terrible grief. She was wasting away with sorrow; her husband was also ageing prematurely, and was wearing himself out in useless hopes.
Then war broke out between them; he called her names and beat her. They quarreled all day long, and when they were in bed together at night he flung insults and obscenities at her, panting with rage, until one night, not being able to think of any means of making her suffer more, he ordered her to get up and go and stand out of doors in the rain, until daylight. As she did not obey him, he seized her by the neck, and began to strike her in the face with his fists, but she said nothing, and did not move. In his exasperation he knelt on her stomach, and with clenched teeth, and mad with rage, he began to beat her. Then in her despair she rebelled, and flinging him against the wall with a furious gesture, she sat up, and in an altered voice, she
