he early spring made the seeds sprout forth again, and the peasants
once more, like laborious ants, passed their days in the fields, toiling
from morning till night, under the wind and under the rain, along the
furrows of brown earth which brought forth the bread of men.

The year promised well for the newly married pair. The crops grew thick
and strong. There were no late frosts, and the apples bursting into bloom
scattered on the grass their rosy white snow which promised a hail of
fruit for the autumn.

Cesaire toiled hard, rose early and left off work late, in order to save
the expense of a hired man.

His wife said to him sometimes:

"You'll make yourself ill in the long run."

He replied:

"Certainly not. I'm a good judge."

Nevertheless one evening he came home so fatigued that he had to get to
bed without supper. He rose up next morning at the usual hour, but he
could not eat, in spite of his fast on the previous night, and he had to
come back to the house in the middle of the afternoon in order to go to
bed again. In the course of the night he began to cough; he turned round
on his straw couch, feverish, with his forehead burning, his tongue dry
and his throat parched by a burning thirst.

However, at daybreak he went toward his grounds, but next morning the
doctor had to be sent for and pronounced him very ill with inflammation
of the lungs.

And he no longer left the dark recess in which he slept. He could be
heard coughing, gasping and tossing about in this hole. In order to see
him, to give his medicine and to apply cupping-glasses they had to-bring
a candle to the entrance. Then one could see his narrow head with his
long matted beard underneath a thick lacework of spiders' webs, which
hung and floated when stirred by the air. And the hands of the sick man
seemed dead under the dingy sheets.

Celeste watched him with restless activity, made him take physic, applied
blisters to him, went back and forth in the house, while old Amable
remained at the edge of his loft, watching at a distance the gloomy
cavern where his son lay dying. He did not come near him, through hatred
of the wife, sulking like an ill-tempered dog.

Six more days passed, then one morning, as Celeste, who now slept on the
ground on two loose bundles of straw, was going to see whether her man
was better, she no longer heard his rapid breathing from the interior of
his recess. Terror stricken, she asked:

"Well Cesaire, what s