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When the strange lady took Jean-Pierre out of the cradle she had seen it without looking in that direction she had started. But now she stood motionless near the empty cradle, on the spot where the axe had fallen out of her right hand before with a loud noise, looking on in silence whilst Jean-Pierre was being wrapped up in the soft cloak. She had nothing to give him.
It was not because the man was a Walloon who hardly understood German, for Nikolas Rocherath of "Good Hope" his house having received that name because it could be seen a good distance off in the Venn, it being the largest in the village was a German, but because he could not understand what the gentleman meant. What did he want with Lisa Solheid's Jean-Pierre? Adopt him?
Käte had refused the seat on the chopping-block, which the old man had offered her with a certain gallantry. She could not rest, she walked restlessly up and down in front of the little window, trying in vain to look through the dark pane. The child inside screamed more and more loudly. Old Rocherath laughed: what a roar that was to be sure, Jean-Pierre had powerful lungs.
"But, ma chere amie," argued the husband, seriously, "it's most important that the right man should be mayor this year, because of the elections to the Chamber. If you think it amuses me . . ." Jean-Pierre had surrendered to his wife's mother. Madame Levaille was a woman of business, known and respected within a radius of at least fifteen miles.
Then at other times other people confirmed and completed the story: till it stood at last before me, a tale formidable and simple, as they always are, those disclosures of obscure trials endured by ignorant hearts. When he returned from his military service Jean-Pierre Bacadou found the old people very much aged. He remarked with pain that the work of the farm was not satisfactorily done.
A year or so afterwards the girl was born. A girl. Jean-Pierre heard of it in the fields, and was so upset by the news that he sat down on the boundary wall and remained there till the evening, instead of going home as he was urged to do. A girl! He felt half cheated. However, when he got home he was partly reconciled to his fate.
The old man, all twisted with rheumatism and bowed with years of work, the younger bony and straight, spoke without gestures in the indifferent manner of peasants, grave and slow. But before the sun had set the father had submitted to the sensible arguments of the son. "It is not for me that I am speaking," insisted Jean-Pierre. "It is for the land. It's a pity to see it badly used.
Come, do be happy too, Paul, you are generally so very kind. And now let's think about what we are to call the boy" her voice was very tender "our boy." They no longer heard the wind that had increased to a storm by now. They had so much to consider. "Jean-Pierre," no, that name should not be kept in any case.
Come out!" shouted Jean-Pierre, loudly. The nightingales ceased to sing. "Nobody?" went on Jean-Pierre. "Nobody there. A swindle of the crows. That's what this is. Nobody anywhere. I despise it. Allez! Houp!" He shook the gate with all his strength, and the iron bars rattled with a frightful clanging, like a chain dragged over stone steps. A dog near by barked hurriedly.
In The New York Times of November 25, 1997, Bruno Giussani explained: "Almost no one in the United States has ever heard of Jean-Pierre Cloutier, yet he is one of the leading figures of the French-speaking Internet community. It was a publication that gave readers the feeling that they were living 'week after week in the intimacy of a planetary revolution'."
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