up. He looked amazed at seeing me carefully
catching the last red drops which were rolling down one by one like
tears. "Do you mean to say you caught the blood?" he asked. "Yes,"
said the farmer; "that shows that she is not a chicken heart, like
you." "It is quite true," said Eugene to me, "I hate seeing animals
killed." "Nonsense," said Master Silvain. "Animals are made to feed
us just as wood is made to warm us." Eugene turned away a little, as
though he were ashamed of his weakness. His shoulders were thin, and
his neck was as round as Martine's. Master Silvain used to say that he
was the living portrait of their mother.

I had never seen Eugene angry. He hummed songs all day long. In the
evening he used to come back from the fields sitting sideways on one of
the oxen, and he nearly always sang the same song. It was the story of
a soldier, who went back to the war after he had learned that the girl
he had been engaged to marry had married another man. He used to dwell
on the refrain, which finished like this--

And when a bullet comes and takes
Away my precious life,
You'll know I died because you were
Another fellow's wife.[1]

Pauline always used to treat Eugene with much respect. She could never
understand my freedom with him. The first evening that she saw me
sitting next to him on the bench outside the door she made signs to me
to come in. But Eugene called me back, saying, "Come and listen to the
wood owl." We often used to be sitting on the bench, still, when
everybody had gone to bed. The wood owl came quite near to an old elm
tree which was by the door, and we used to think that it was saying
"good night" to us. Then it would fly away, its great wings passing
over us in silence. Sometimes a voice would sing on the hillside. I
used to tremble when I heard it. The full voice coming out of the
night reminded me of Colette. Eugene would get up to go in when the
voice stopped singing, but I always used to stop, hoping to hear it
again. Then he would say, "Come along in: it is all over."

[1] Quand par un tour de maladresse
Un boulet m'emportera
Allons adieu chere maitresse
Je m'en vais dans les combats.

And now that the winter was with us again, and we could no longer sit
on the bench by the door, there seemed to be a sort of secret
understanding between us. Whenever he was making fun of anybody, his
queer little eyes used to look for mine, a