the old man doubted these
advantages, while he could have no doubts as to the child's existence;
and he replied with emphatic repetition, without giving any further
explanation:
"I will not have it! I will not have it! As long as I live, this won't
be done!" And at this point they had remained for the last three months
without one or the other giving in, resuming at least once a week the
same discussion, with the same arguments, the same words, the same
gestures and the same fruitlessness.
It was then that Celeste had advised Cesaire to go and ask for the
cure's assistance.
On arriving home the peasant found his father already seated at table,
for he came late through his visit to the presbytery.
They dined in silence, face to face, ate a little bread and butter after
the soup and drank a glass of cider. Then they remained motionless in
their chairs, with scarcely a glimmer of light, the little servant girl
having carried off the candle in order to wash the spoons, wipe the
glasses and cut the crusts of bread to be ready for next morning's
breakfast.
There was a knock, at the door, which was immediately opened, and the
priest appeared. The old man raised toward him an anxious eye full of
suspicion, and, foreseeing danger, he was getting ready to climb up his
ladder when the Abbe Raffin laid his hand on his shoulder and shouted
close to his temple:
"I want to have a talk with you, Father Amable."
Cesaire had disappeared, taking advantage of the door being open. He
did not want to listen, for he was afraid and did not want his hopes to
crumble slowly with each obstinate refusal of his father. He preferred
to learn the truth at once, good or bad, later on; and he went out into
the night. It was a moonless, starless night, one of those misty nights
when the air seems thick with humidity. A vague odor of apples floated
through the farmyard, for it was the season when the earliest applies
were gathered, the "early ripe," as they are called in the cider
country. As Cesaire passed along by the cattlesheds the warm smell of
living beasts asleep on manure was exhaled through the narrow windows,
and he heard the stamping of the horses, who were standing at the end of
the stable, and the sound of their jaws tearing and munching the hay on
the racks.
He went straight ahead, thinking about Celeste. In this simple nature,
whose ideas were scarcely more than images generated directly by
objects, thoughts of love only
|