let fall on his dress, while five women bent down with their rumps
in the air, were picking sprigs of colza in the adjoining plain. With a
slow continuous movement, all along the great cushions of earth which the
plow had just turned up, they drove in sharp wooden stakes, and then
cast at once into the hole so formed the plant, already a little
withered, which sank on the side; then they covered over the root, and
went on with their work.

A man who was passing, with a whip in his hand, and wearing wooden shoes,
stopped near the child, took it up, and kissed it. Then one of the women
rose up, and came across to him. She was a big, red-haired girl, with
large hips, waist, and shoulders, a tall Norman woman, with yellow hair
in which there was a blood-red tint.

She said, in a resolute voice:

"Here you are, Cesaire--well?"

The man, a thin young fellow with a melancholy air, murmured:

"Well, nothing at all--always the same."

"He won't have it?"

"He won't have it."

"What are you going to do?"

"What do you say I ought to do?"

"Go see the cure."

"I will."

"Go at once!"

"I will."

And they stared at each other. He held the child in his arms all the
time. He kissed it once more, and then put it down again on the woman's
clothes.

In the distance, between two farm-houses, could be seen a plow drawn by a
horse, and driven along by a man. They moved on very gently, the horse,
the plow, and the laborer, under the dim evening sky.

The woman went on:

"What, then, did your father say?"

"He said he would not have it."

"Why wouldn't he have it?"

The young man pointed towards the child whom he had just put back on the
ground, then with a glance he drew her attention to the man drawing the
plow yonder there.

And he said emphatically:

"Because 'tis his--this child of yours."

The girl shrugged her shoulders, and in an angry tone said:

"Faith everyone knows it well--that it is Victor's. And what about it
after all? I made a slip. Am I the only woman that did? My mother also
made a slip before me, and then yours did the same before she married
your dad! Who is it that hasn't made a slip in the country. I made a slip
with Victor, because he took advantage of me while I was asleep in the
barn, it's true, and afterwards it happened between us when I wasn't
asleep. I certainly would have married him if he weren't a servant-man.
Am I a worse woman for that?"

The man said simply:

"As for m