“Seventy francs.”
“A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you—I remained.”
“Manures!”
“And I shall remain to-night, to-morrow, all other days, all my life!”
“To Monsieur Caron of Argueil, a gold medal!”
“For I have never in the society of any other person found so complete a charm.”
“To Monsieur Bain of Givry-Saint-Martin.”
“And I shall carry away with me the remembrance of you.”
“For a merino ram!”
“But you will forget me; I shall pass away like a shadow.”
“To Monsieur Belot of Notre-Dame.”
“Oh, no! I shall be something in your thought, in your life, shall I not?”
“Porcine race; prizes—equal, to Messrs. Leherisse and Cullembourg, sixty francs!”
Rodolphe was pressing her hand, and he felt it all warm and quivering like a captive dove that wants to fly away; but, whether she was trying to take it away or whether she was answering his pressure; she made a movement with her fingers.
He exclaimed— “Oh, I thank you! You do not repulse me!
You are good!
You understand that I am yours!
Let me look at you; let me contemplate you!”
A gust of wind that blew in at the window ruffled the cloth on the table, and in the square below all the great caps of the peasant women were uplifted by it like the wings of white butterflies fluttering.
“Use of oil-cakes,” continued the president.
He was hurrying on:
“Flemish manure-flax-growing-drainage-long leases-domestic service.”
Rodolphe was no longer speaking.
They looked at one another.
A supreme desire made their dry lips tremble, and wearily, without an effort, their fingers intertwined.
“Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux, of Sassetot-la-Guerriere, for fifty-four years of service at the same farm, a silver medal—value, twenty-five francs!”
“Where is Catherine Leroux?” repeated the councillor.
She did not present herself, and one could hear voices whispering—
“Go up!”
“Don’t be afraid!”
“Oh, how stupid she is!”
“Well, is she there?” cried Tuvache.
“Yes; here she is.”
“Then let her come up!”
Then there came forward on the platform a little old woman with timid bearing, who seemed to shrink within her poor clothes.
On her feet she wore heavy wooden clogs, and from her hips hung a large blue apron.
Her pale face framed in a borderless cap was more wrinkled than a withered russet apple.
And from the sleeves of her red jacket looked out two large hands with knotty joints, the dust of barns, the potash of washing the grease of wools had so encrusted, roughened, hardened these that they seemed dirty, although they had been rinsed in clear water; and by dint of long service they remained half open, as if to bear humble witness for themselves of so much suffering endured.
Something of monastic rigidity dignified her face.
Nothing of sadness or of emotion weakened that pale look.
In her constant living with animals she had caught their dumbness and their calm.
It was the first time that she found herself in the midst of so large a company, and inwardly scared by the flags, the drums, the gentlemen in frock-coats, and the order of the councillor, she stood motionless, not knowing whether to advance or run away, nor why the crowd was pushing her and the jury were smiling at her.
Thus stood before these radiant bourgeois this half-century of servitude.
“Approach, venerable Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux!” said the councillor, who had taken the list of prize-winners from the president; and, looking at the piece of paper and the old woman by turns, he repeated in a fatherly tone—“Approach! approach!”
“Are you deaf?” said Tuvache, fidgeting in his armchair; and he began shouting in her ear, “Fifty-four years of service.
A silver medal!
Twenty-five francs!
For you!”
Then, when she had her medal, she looked at it, and a smile of beatitude spread over her face; and as she walked away they could hear her muttering
“I’ll give it to our cure up home, to say some masses for me!”