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Updated: June 22, 2025
Thousands of white butterflies were floating about over the corn ears. Henri Deslois didn't speak, and I watched the ears of corn which were stooping and stretching as though they were getting ready to fly. It looked as though the butterflies were bringing them wings to help them, but it was no good for the corn ears to get excited. They could not get away from the ground.
I should have liked to have gone to her at once, but I remembered that Henri Deslois had said as he went, "I shall see you to-morrow." Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting for me, and wondering what had become of me. I went out of the house to run back to Villevieille. I had only gone a few steps when I saw him coming up.
I tried to see the shrubbery but the farm hid it. Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several times since Easter. I could not have told how I knew that he was there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking round that way. Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there alone. He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me.
He himself didn't care about working in the fields, and had found work with a butcher in the town. Then he told me that the Lost Ford was quite near Villevieille, and asked me if I knew it. I nodded my head to say that I did. He went on to say that his father and mother had been there for some months, and that there had been feasting there last week because Henri Deslois was married.
Another sound made me look at the house again, and I was not in the least surprised when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed in the doorway. His head was bare, and his arms were swinging. He stepped out into the garden and looked far off into the plain. His hair was parted on the side, and was a little thin at the temples. He remained perfectly still for a long minute, then he turned to me.
I thought that somebody had struck me a violent blow on the head. There was a noise of a saw in my ears. I could see Henri Deslois trembling, and I heard him say, "How cold I am!" Then I no longer felt the warmth of his hand on mine. And when I realized that I was standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing but a great white shape which was slipping noiselessly across the snow.
I often used to catch M. Alphonse looking at me, and I could not always keep from blushing. One afternoon as Henri Deslois came in to the room smiling, M. Alphonse said, "You know I have sold the house on the hill." The two men looked at one another. They both grew so pale that I was afraid they were going to die where they stood.
Henri Deslois put his hand on the back of my chair and answered, "I would have lived in it as Jean le Rouge did." M. Alphonse walked up and down in front of the chimney. His face had changed into a yellow earthy colour. His hands were in his trouser pockets, and he picked up his feet so quickly that it looked as though he were pulling at them with a cord which he held in each hand.
I gave him one of my two gold coins, and he ran off. I put the ticket and the change in copper which he had brought me into my pocket, went across the line with him, and climbed into the train. The young man stood at the carriage door for a minute, and went off, turning back once as he went. His eyes were full of gentleness, like those of Henri Deslois.
Her master used to let her run loose in the yard while he went in to say "good day," to Madame Alphonse. As soon as M. Alphonse heard him he would come into the linen-room. The two of them would speak of improvements on the farm or about people whom they knew. But there was always a word or a sentence in their conversation which came straight to me from Henri Deslois.
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