“Dear child,” she said to me, “do not get too hot.” Then, stroking my hair and my neck, she gave me a little slap on the cheek, adding, “Thou art in a bath!”
This is the only time I ever received from her that verbal caress, the lover’s tu. I stood looking at the pretty hedgerows full of red berries, of sloes, and blackberries; I listened to the children shouting; I gazed at the girls pulling the grapes, at the cart full of vats, at the men with baskets on their backs—I stamped every detail on my memory, down to the young almond-tree by which she was standing, bright, flushed, and laughing, under her parasol.
Then I set to work to gather the fruit with a steady, wordless perseverance and a slow, measured step that left my spirit free. I tasted the ineffable pleasure of a physical employment such as carries life along, regulating the rush of passion which, but for this mechanical movement, was very near a conflagration. I learned how much wisdom comes of labor, and I understood monastic rule.
For the first time in many days, the Count was neither sullen nor vicious. His boy so well, the future Duc de Lenoncourt-Mortsauf, rosy and fair, and smeared with grape-juice, gladdened his heart. This being the last day of the vintage, the General had promised his people a dance in the evening in the field by Clochegourde, in honor of the return of the Bourbons; thus the festival was to be complete for everybody. On our way home, the Countess took my arm; she leaned on me so as to let my heart feel all the weight of her hand, like a mother who longs to impart her gladness, and said in my ear:
“You bring us good fortune.”
And to me, knowing of her sleepless nights, her constant alarms, and her past life, through which she had indeed been supported by the hand of God, but in which all had been barren and weariful, these words, spoken in her deep, soft voice, brought such joys as no woman in the world could ever give me again.
“The monotonous misery of my days is broken, and life is bright with hope,” she added after a pause. “Oh, do not desert me! Do not betray my innocent superstitions! Be my eldest, the providence of the little ones.”
This is no romance, Natalie; none can discern the infinite depth of such feelings who have not in early life sounded the great lakes on whose shores we live. If to many souls the passions have been as lava-torrents flowing between parched banks, are there not others in which a passion subdued by insurmountable obstacles has filled the crater of the volcano with limpid waters?
We had one more such festival. Madame de Mortsauf wished that her children should learn something of practical life, and know by what hard labor money must be earned; she had, therefore, given each certain revenues depending on the chances of produce. Jacques was owner of the walnut crop, Madeleine of the chestnuts. A few days after we went forth to the chestnut and walnut harvests. Thrashing Madeleine’s chestnut-trees; hearing the nuts fall, their spiny husks making them rebound from the dry velvety moss of the unfertile soil on which chestnuts grow; seeing the solemn gravity of the little girl as she looked at the piles, calculating their value, which meant for her such pleasures as she could give herself without control; then the congratulations of Manette, the children’s maid, the only person who ever filled the Countess’ place with them; the lesson to be derived from this little business, of toil requisite to reap the humblest harvest, so often imperiled by variation of climate—all these things made up a little drama, the children’s ingenuous delight forming a charming contrast with the sober hues of early autumn.
Madeleine had a loft of her own, where I saw the brown crop safely stowed, sharing in her delight. I am thrilled to this day as I remember the clatter of each basketful of chestnuts rolling out over the yellow chaff that formed the flooring. The Count bought some for the house; the farm bailiffs, the laborers, everyone in the neighborhood found buyers from Mignonne, a kindly name which the peasants in those parts are ready to give even to a stranger, but which seemed especially appropriate to Madeleine.
Jacques was not so lucky for his walnut harvest. It rained several days; but I comforted him by advising him to keep his nuts for a time and sell them later. Monsieur de Chessel had told me that the walnut crop had failed in le Brehémont, in the district round Amboise, and the country about Vouvray. Nut oil is largely used in Touraine. Jacques would make at least forty sous on each tree, and there were two hundred trees, so the sum would be considerable. He meant to buy himself a saddle and bridle for a pony. His wish led to a general discussion, and his father led him to consider the uncertainty of such returns, and the need for making a reserve fund for the years when the trees should be bare of fruit, so as to secure an average income.
I read the Countess’ heart in her silence; she was delighted to see Jacques listening to his father, and the father winning back some of the reverence he had forfeited, and all thanks to the subterfuge she had arranged. I told you when describing this woman that no earthly language can ever do justice to her character and genius. While these little scenes are enacted the spirit revels in them with joy, but does not analyze them; but how clearly they afterwards stand out against the gloomy background of a life of vicissitude! They shine like diamonds, set amid
