Fruitfulness Part 30

"I am very much afraid that your procession will be soaked," said Marianne. "Just look at the rain approaching!"

During the last few moments there had appeared in the hitherto spotless sky a huge, livid cloud, rising from the west and urged along by a sudden squall. It presaged a return of the violent stormy showers of the previous night.

"Rain! Oh, we don't care about that," the girl responded with an air of superb defiance. "It will never dare to come down before we get home."

Then, with a comical semblance of authority, she disposed her people in the order which she had planned in her mind a week previously. And the procession set off through the admiring village, amid the smiles of all the good women hastening to their doorsteps, and then spread out along the white road between the fertile fields, where bands of startled larks took wing, carrying their clear song to the heavens. It was really magnificent.

At the head of the party were Rose and Frederic, side by side on their bicycles, opening the nuptial march with majestic amplitude. Behind them followed the three maids of honor, the younger sisters, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, the tallest first, the shortest last, and each on a wheel proportioned to her growth. And with berets* on their heads, and their hair down their backs, waving in the breeze, they looked adorable, suggesting a flight of messenger swallows skimming over the ground and bearing good tidings onward. As for Gregoire the page, restive and always ready to bolt, he did not behave very well; for he actually tried to pa.s.s the royal couple at the head of the procession, a proceeding which brought him various severe admonitions until he fell back, as duty demanded, to his deferential and modest post. On the other hand, as the three maids of honor began to sing the ballad of Cinderella on her way to the palace of Prince Charming, the royal couple condescendingly declared that the song was appropriate and of pleasing effect, whatever might be the requirements of etiquette. Indeed, Rose, Frederic, and Gregoire also ended by singing the ballad, which rang out amid the serene, far-spreading countryside like the finest music in the world.

* The beret is the Pyreneean tam-o'-shanter.

Then, at a short distance in the rear, came the chariot, the good old family wagon, which was now crowded. According to the prearranged programme it was Gervais who held the ribbons, with Claire beside him.

The two strong horses trotted on in their usual leisurely fas.h.i.+on, in spite of all the gay whip-cracking of their driver, who also wished to contribute to the music. Inside there were now seven people for six places, for if the three children were small, they were at the same time so restless that they fully took up their share of room. First, face to face, there were Ambroise and Andree, the betrothed couple who were being honored by this glorious welcome. Then, also face to face, there were the high and mighty rulers of the region, Mathieu and Marianne, the latter of whom kept little Nicolas, the last prince of the line, on her knees, he braying the while like a little donkey, because he felt so pleased. Then the last places were occupied by the rulers' granddaughter and grandson, Mademoiselle Berthe and Monsieur Christophe, who were as yet unable to walk long distances. And the chariot rolled on with much majesty, albeit that for fear of the rain the curtains of stout white linen had already been half-drawn, thus giving the vehicle, at a distance, somewhat of the aspect of a miller's van.

Further back yet, as a sort of rear-guard, was a group on foot, composed of Blaise, Denis, Madame Desvignes, and her daughters Charlotte and Marthe. They had absolutely refused to take a fly, finding it more pleasant to walk the mile and a half which separated Chantebled from Janville. If the rain should fall, they would manage to find shelter somewhere. Besides, Rose had declared that a suite on foot was absolutely necessary to give the procession its full significance. Those five last comers would represent the mult.i.tude, the great concourse of people which follows sovereigns and acclaims them. Or else they might be the necessary guard, the men-at-arms, who watched for the purpose of foiling a possible attack from some felon neighbor. At the same time it unfortunately happened that worthy Madame Desvignes could not walk very fast, so that the rear-guard was soon distanced, to such a degree indeed that it became merely a little lost group, far away.

Still this did not disconcert Rose, but rather made her laugh the more.

At the first bend of the road she turned her head, and when she saw her rear-guard more than three hundred yards away she raised cries of admiration. "Oh! just look, Frederic! What an interminable procession!

What a deal of room we take up! The cortege is becoming longer and longer, and the road won't be long enough for it very soon."

Then, as the three maids of honor and the page began to jeer impertinently, "just try to be respectful," she said. "Count a little.

There are six of us forming the vanguard. In the chariot there are nine, and six and nine make fifteen. Add to them the five of the rear-guard, and we have twenty. Wherever else is such a family seen? Why, the rabbits who watch us pa.s.s are mute with stupor and humiliation."

Then came another laugh, and once more they all took up the song of Cinderella on her way to the palace of Prince Charming.

It was at the bridge over the Yeuse that the first drops of rain, big drops they were, began to fall. The big livid cloud, urged on by a terrible wind, was galloping across the sky, filling it with the clamor of a tempest. And almost immediately afterwards the rain-drops increased in volume and in number, lashed by so violent a squall that the water poured down as if by the bucketful, or as if some huge sluice-gate had suddenly burst asunder overhead. One could no longer see twenty yards before one. In two minutes the road was running with water like the bed of a torrent.

Then there was a _sauve-qui-peut_ among the procession. It was learnt later on that the people of the rear-guard had luckily been surprised near a peasant's cottage, in which they had quietly sought refuge. Then the folks in the wagon simply drew their curtains, and halted beneath the shelter of a wayside tree for fear lest the horses should take fright under such a downpour. They called to the bicyclists ahead of them to stop also, instead of obstinately remaining in such a deluge.

But their words were lost amid the rush of water. However, the little girls and the page took a proper course in crouching beside a thick hedge, though the betrothed couple wildly continued on their way.

Frederic, the more reasonable of the two, certainly had sense enough to say: "This isn't prudent on our part. Let us stop like the others, I beg you."

But from Rose, all excitement, transported by her blissful fever, and insensible, so it seemed, to the pelting of the rain, he only drew this answer: "Pooh! what does it matter, now that we are soaking? It is by stopping that we might do ourselves harm. Let us make haste, all haste.

In three minutes we shall be at home and able to make fine sport of those laggards when they arrive in another quarter of an hour."

They had just crossed the Yeuse bridge, and they swept on side by side, although the road was far from easy, being a continual ascent for a thousand yards or so between rows of lofty poplars.

"I a.s.sure you that we are doing wrong," the young man repeated. "They will blame me, and they will be right."

"Oh! well," cried she, "I'm amusing myself. This bicycle bath is quite funny. Leave me, then, if you don't love me enough to follow me."

He followed her, however, pressed close beside her, and sought to shelter her a little from the slanting rain. And it was a wild, mad race on the part of that young couple, almost linked together, their elbows touching as they sped on and on, as if lifted from the ground, carried off by all that rus.h.i.+ng, howling water which poured down so ragefully.

It was as though a thunder-blast bore them along. But at the very moment when they sprang from their bicycles in the yard of the farm the rain ceased, and the sky became blue once more.

Rose was laughing like a lunatic, and looked very flushed, but she was soaked to such a point that water streamed from her clothes, her hair, her hands. You might have taken her for some fairy of the springs who had overturned her urn on herself.

"Well, the fete is complete," she exclaimed breathlessly. "All the same, we are the first home."

She then darted upstairs to comb her hair and change her gown. But to gain just a few minutes, eager as she was to cook the crawfish, she did not take the trouble to put on dry linen. She wished the pot to be on the fire with the water, the white wine, the carrots and spices, before the family arrived. And she came and went, attending to the fire and filling the whole kitchen with her gay activity, like a good housewife who was glad to display her accomplishments, while her betrothed, who had also come downstairs again after changing his clothes, watched her with a kind of religious admiration.

At last, when the whole family had arrived, the folks of the brake and the pedestrians also, there came a rather sharp explanation. Mathieu and Marianne were angry, so greatly had they been alarmed by that rush through the storm.

"There was no sense in it, my girl," Marianne repeated. "Did you at least change your linen?"

"Why yes, why yes!" replied Rose. "Where are the crawfish?"

Mathieu meantime was lecturing Frederic. "You might have broken your necks," said he; "and, besides, it is by no means good to get soaked with cold water when one is hot. You ought to have stopped her."

"Well, she insisted on going on, and whenever she insists on anything, you know, I haven't the strength to prevent her."

At last Rose, in her pretty way, put an end to the reproaches. "Come, that's enough scolding; I did wrong, no doubt. But won't anybody compliment me on my _court-bouillon_? Have you ever known crawfish to smell as nice as that?"

The lunch was wonderfully gay. As they were twenty, and wished to have a real rehearsal of the wedding feast, the table had been set in a large gallery adjoining the ordinary dining-room. This gallery was still bare, but throughout the meal they talked incessantly of how they would embellish it with shrubs, garlands of foliage, and clumps of flowers.

During the dessert they even sent for a ladder with the view of indicating on the walls the main lines of the decorations.

For a moment or so Rose, previously so talkative, had lapsed into silence. She had eaten heartily, but all the color had left her face, which had a.s.sumed a waxy pallor under her heavy hair, which was still damp. And when she wished to ascend the ladder herself to indicate how some ornament should be placed, her legs suddenly failed her, she staggered, and then fainted away.

Everybody was in consternation, but she was promptly placed in a chair, where for a few minutes longer she remained unconscious. Then, on coming to her senses, she remained for a moment silent, oppressed as by a feeling of pain, and apparently failing to understand what had taken place. Mathieu and Marianne, terribly upset, pressed her with questions, anxious as they were to know if she felt better. She had evidently caught cold, and this was the fine result of her foolish ride.

By degrees the girl recovered her composure, and again smiled. She then explained that she now felt no pain, but that it had suddenly seemed to her as if a heavy paving-stone were lying on her chest; then this weight had melted away, leaving her better able to breathe. And, indeed, she was soon on her feet once more, and finished giving her views respecting the decoration of the gallery, in such wise that the others ended by feeling rea.s.sured, and the afternoon pa.s.sed away joyously in the making of all sorts of splendid plans. Little was eaten at dinner, for they had done too much honor to the crawfish at noon. And at nine o'clock, as soon as Celeste arrived for Andree, the gathering broke up. Ambroise was returning to Paris that same evening. Blaise and Denis were to take the seven o'clock train the following morning. And Rose, after accompanying Madame Desvignes and her daughters to the road, called to them through the darkness: "Au revoir, come back soon." She was again full of gayety at the thought of the general rendezvous which the family had arranged for the approaching weddings.

Neither Mathieu nor Marianne went to bed at once, however. Though they did not even speak of it together, they thought that Rose looked very strange, as if, indeed, she were intoxicated. She had again staggered on returning to the house, and though she only complained of some slight oppression, they prevailed on her to go to bed. After she had retired to her room, which adjoined their own, Marianne went several times to see if she were well wrapped up and were sleeping peacefully, while Mathieu remained anxiously thoughtful beside the lamp. At last the girl fell asleep, and the parents, leaving the door of communication open, then exchanged a few words in an undertone, in their desire to tranquillize each other. It would surely be nothing; a good night's rest would suffice to restore Rose to her wonted health. Then in their turn they went to bed, the whole farm lapsed into silence, surrendering itself to slumber until the first c.o.c.kcrow. But all at once, about four o'clock, shortly before daybreak, a stifled call, "Mamma! mamma!" awoke both Mathieu and Marianne, and they sprang out of bed, barefooted, s.h.i.+vering, and groping for the candle. Rose was again stifling, struggling against another attack of extreme violence. For the second time, however, she soon regained consciousness and appeared relieved, and thus the parents, great as was their distress, preferred to summon n.o.body but to wait till daylight. Their alarm was caused particularly by the great change they noticed in their daughter's appearance; her face was swollen and distorted, as if some evil power had transformed her in the night. But she fell asleep again, in a state of great prostration; and they no longer stirred for fear of disturbing her slumber. They remained there watching and waiting, listening to the revival of life in the farm around them as the daylight gradually increased. Time went by; five and then six o'clock struck. And at about twenty minutes to seven Mathieu, on looking into the yard, and there catching sight of Denis, who was to return to Paris by the seven o'clock train, hastened down to tell him to call upon Boutan and beg the doctor to come at once. Then, as soon as his son had started, he rejoined Marianne upstairs, still unwilling to call or warn anybody. But a third attack followed, and this time it was the thunderbolt.

Rose had half risen in bed, her arms thrown out, her mouth distended as she gasped "Mamma! mamma!"

Then in a sudden fit of revolt, a last flash of life, she sprang from her bed and stepped towards the window, whose panes were all aglow with the rising sun. And for a moment she leant there, her legs bare, her shoulders bare, and her heavy hair falling over her like a royal mantle.

Never had she looked more beautiful, more dazzling, full of strength and love.

But she murmured: "Oh! how I suffer! It is all over, I am going to die."

Her father darted towards her; her mother sustained her, throwing her arms around her like invincible armor which would s.h.i.+eld her from all harm.

"Don't talk like that, you unhappy girl! It is nothing; it is only another attack which will pa.s.s away. Get into bed again, for mercy's sake. Your old friend Boutan is on his way here. You will be up and well again to-morrow."

"No, no, I am going to die; it is all over."

She fell back in their arms; they only had time to lay her on her bed.

And the thunderbolt fell: without a word, without a glance, in a few minutes she died of congestion of the lungs.

Ah! the imbecile thunderbolt! Ah! the scythe, which with a single stroke blindly cuts down a whole springtide! It was all so brutally sudden, so utterly unexpected, that at first the stupefaction of Marianne and Mathieu was greater than their despair. In response to their cries the whole farm hastened up, the fearful news filled the place, and then all sank into the deep silence of death--all work, all life ceasing. And the other children were there, scared and overcome: little Nicolas, who did not yet understand things; Gregoire, the page of the previous day; Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, the three maids of honor, and their elders, Claire and Gervais, who felt the blow more deeply. And there were yet the others journeying away, Blaise, Denis, and Ambroise, travelling to Paris at that very moment, in ignorance of the unforeseen, frightful hatchet-stroke which had fallen on the family. Where would the terrible tidings reach them? In what cruel distress would they return!

And the doctor who would soon arrive too! But all at once, amid the terror and confusion, there rang out the cries of Frederic, the poor dead girl's affianced lover. He shrieked his despair aloud, he was half mad, he wished to kill himself, saying that he was the murderer and that he ought to have prevented Rose from so rashly riding home through the storm! He had to be led away and watched for fear of some fresh misfortune. His sudden frenzy had gone to every heart; sobs burst forth and lamentations arose from the woful parents, from the brothers, the sisters, from the whole of stricken Chantebled, which death thus visited for the first time.

Ah, G.o.d! Rose on that bed of mourning, white, cold, and dead! She, the fairest, the gayest, the most loved! She, before whom all the others were ever in admiration--she of whom they were so proud, so fond! And to think that this blow should fall in the midst of hope, bright hope in long life and sterling happiness, but ten days before her wedding, and on the morrow of that day of wild gayety, all jests and laughter!

They could again see her, full of life and so adorable with her happy youthful fancies--that princely reception and that royal procession.

It had seemed as if those two coming weddings, celebrated the same day, would be like the supreme florescence of the family's long happiness and prosperity. Doubtless they had often experienced trouble and had even wept at times, but they had drawn closer together and consoled one another on such occasions; none had ever been cut off from the good-night embraces which healed every sore. And now the best was gone, death had come to say that absolute joy existed for none, that the most valiant, the happiest; never reaped the fulness of their hopes. There was no life without death. And they paid their share of the debt of human wretchedness, paid it the more dearly since they had made for themselves a larger sum of life. When everything germinates and grows around one, when one has determined on unreserved fruitfulness; on continuous creation and increase, how awful is the recall to the ever-present dim abyss in which the world is fas.h.i.+oned, on the day when misfortune falls, digs its first pit, and carries off a loved one! It is like a sudden snapping, a rending of the hopes which seemed to be endless, and a feeling of stupefaction comes at the discovery that one cannot live and love forever!

Ah! how terrible were the two days that followed: the farm itself lifeless, without sound save that of the breathing of the cattle, the whole family gathered together, overcome by the cruel spell of waiting, ever in tears while the poor corpse remained there under a harvest of flowers. And there was this cruel aggravation, that on the eve of the funeral, when the body had been laid in the coffin, it was brought down into that gallery where they had lunched so merrily while discussing how magnificently they might decorate it for the two weddings. It was there that the last funeral watch, the last wake, took place, and there were no evergreen shrubs, no garlands of foliage, merely four tapers which burnt there amid a wealth of white roses gathered in the morning, but already fading. Neither the mother nor the father was willing to go to bed that night. They remained, side by side, near the child whom mother-earth was taking back from them. They could see her quite little again, but sixteen months old, at the time of their first sojourn at Chantebled in the old tumbledown shooting-box, when she had just been weaned and they were wont to go and cover her up at nighttime. They saw her also, later on, in Paris, hastening to them in the morning, climbing up and pulling their bed to pieces with triumphant laughter. And they saw her yet more clearly, growing and becoming more beautiful even as Chantebled did, as if, indeed, she herself bloomed with all the health and beauty of that now fruitful land. Yet she was no more, and whenever the thought returned to them that they would never see her again, their hands sought one another, met in a woful clasp, while from their crushed and mingling hearts it seemed as if all life, all future, were flowing away to nihility. Now that a breach had been made, would not every other happiness be carried off in turn? And though the ten other children were there, from the little one five years old to the twins who were four-and-twenty, all clad in black, all gathered in tears around their sleeping sister, like a sorrow-stricken battalion rendering funeral honors, neither the father nor the mother saw or counted them: their hearts were rent by the loss of the daughter who had departed, carrying away with her some of their own flesh. And in that long bare gallery which the four candles scarcely lighted, the dawn at last arose upon that death watch, that last leave-taking.