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Updated: May 23, 2025
My uncle made me an ill-humoured gesture. "Eh! allow me to speak. I don't want another avowal. She owned it to me herself." "She owned that to you, she owned that to you!" And I suddenly threw my arms round my uncle Lazare's neck. "Oh! how nice that is!" I added. "I had never spoken to her, truly. She told you that at the confessional, didn't she?
Had it borne away the sun that warmed my back, its leaves, its rays, all its May morning, I should have remained there, in ecstasy, gazing at Babet, running along the pathway, and swinging her skirts deliciously. For Babet had taken the valley's place in my heart, Babet was the spring, I had never spoken to her. Both of us blushed when we met one another in my uncle Lazare's church.
At that cry a murmur came from the heap of corpses. The sun, which was sinking, shed rays of a light fallow colour. The blue of the sky was softer. I finished reading my uncle Lazare's letter. "I simply wished," he continued, "to give you news of ourselves, and to beg you to come as soon as possible and make us happy. And here I am weeping and gossiping like an old child.
My uncle Lazare heard its wail in the dreaminess of his agony. He endeavoured to turn towards Babet, and, still smiling, said: "I have seen the child and die very happy." Then he gazed at the pale sky and yellow fields, and, throwing back his head, heaved a gentle sigh. No tremor agitated uncle Lazare's body; he died as one falls asleep.
But these reasons exasperated me the more: this letter, which had come to speak to me of happiness, burnt my heart, which had revolted against the folly of war. And I could not even read it! I was perhaps going to die without knowing what it contained, without perusing my uncle Lazare's affectionate remarks for the last time. We had reached the top of the hill.
We had become so calm that we remained silent and with dry eyes. In the presence of such great simplicity in death, all we experienced was a feeling of serene sadness. Twilight had set in, uncle Lazare's farewell had left us confident, like the farewell of the sun which dies at night to be born again in the morning.
Then gently, with a multitude of precautions, I succeeded in turning on my stomach. I rested my head on a large stone all splashed with gore, and drew my uncle Lazare's letter from my breast. I placed it before my eyes; but my tears prevented my reading it. And whilst the sun was roasting me in the back, the acrid smell of blood was choking me.
And with my heart's eyes I perceived Babet and my uncle Lazare stretching out their arms towards me. I had finished with the sanguinary struggles of my summer day. It was nearly fifteen years since I had married Babet In my uncle Lazare's little church. We had sought happiness in our dear valley.
Suddenly I was struck down; it seemed to me as if my breast opened and my shoulder was taken away. A frightful wind passed over my face. And I fell. The colonel fell beside me. I felt myself dying. I thought of those I loved, and fainted whilst searching with a withering hand for my uncle Lazare's letter. When I came to myself again I was lying on my side in the dust.
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