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Updated: May 14, 2025
She was so afraid that something might happen to the piles of linen which were beginning to grow that she took me off next day to her mother's to show me how the linen should be put into the closets. Madame Alphonse's mother was called Madame Deslois, but when the ploughmen talked about her they always said "the good woman of the castle." She had only been to Villevieille once.
He also told me that the name of the farm was Villevieille, and that everybody was happy there because Master Silvain the farmer, and Pauline, his wife, were kind people. When he had seen to all the animals the cowherd made me sit down next to him in the chestnut avenue. Sitting there we could see the bend in the lane which went up towards the high-road, and the whole of the farm.
Recollection of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I only said, "You are Madame Alphonse's brother." I left him and did not dare to go back to the shrubbery again. He often came back to Villevieille. I never used to look at him, but his voice always made me feel very uncomfortable. Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time after mass.
He said, too, that Master Silvain's cows were not a bit like those of his own country, which were small, and had horns like pointed spindles. The Villevieille cows were big, strong animals with rough crumpled horns. He was very fond of them and used to call each one by name when he talked to them. The one he liked best was a beautiful white cow which Master Silvain had bought in the spring.
When I told Jean le Rouge about this, he was angry, and shook his fist at Villevieille. His wife put her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, and he was quiet at once. Jean le Rouge left the house on the hill at the end of January, and I was very sad. I had no friends left now. I hardly recognized the farm any more.
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 could not see the water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side to let it pass. The river disappeared behind the buildings of Villevieille farm. There the roofs were of the same colour as the chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them. Here and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees.
Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made when he stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille. I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds.
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.
I felt quite uncomfortable, and without knowing why, I went and shut the doors which he had left open. Presently Madame Alphonse came and fetched me, and I went back to Villevieille with her. Since M. Alphonse had taken Pauline's place I had got into the habit of going and sitting in a bush which had grown into the shape of a chair. It was in the middle of a shrubbery not far from the farm.
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