When the old woman took to her bed, the old women of the village took turns looking after her, as they do there.
Then Marie was no longer given anything to eat; everybody in the village chased her away and nobody even wanted to give her work as they used to.
It was as if they all spat on her, and the men even stopped considering her a woman, such vile things they said to her.
At times, very rarely, when they got drunk on Sundays, they amused themselves by tossing coins to her, like that, right on the ground; Marie silently picked them up.
She had begun to cough up blood by then.
Finally her ragged clothes turned into real shreds, so that she was ashamed to show herself in the village; and she had gone barefoot ever since she came back.
It was then that the schoolchildren, the whole band— there were over forty of them—began especially to mock her and even threw mud at her.
She had asked the cowherd to let her tend the cows, but the cowherd had chased her away.
Then she herself, without permission, began going out with the herd for the whole day, away from the house.
As she was very useful to the cowherd and he noticed it, he no longer chased her away and sometimes even gave her the leftovers from his dinner, some cheese and bread.
He considered it great charity on his part.
When her mother died, the pastor saw no shame in disgracing Marie before all the people in church.
Marie stood behind the coffin, as she was, in her rags, and wept.
Many people came to see how she would weep and walk behind the coffin; then the pastor—he was still a young man and his whole ambition was to become a great preacher—turned to them all and pointed at Marie.
'Here is the one who caused this respected woman's death' (which wasn't true, because she had been sick for two years), 'here she stands before you and dares not look up, because she is marked by the finger of God; here she is, barefoot and in rags—an example to those who lose their virtue!
Who is she?
She is her own daughter!' and more in the same vein.
And imagine, almost everyone there liked this meanness, but . . . here a peculiar thing occurred; here the children stepped in, because by then the children were all on my side and had begun to love Marie.
This is how it happened.
I wanted to do something for Marie; she badly needed money, but I never had a penny while I was there.
I had a small diamond pin, and I sold it to a certain peddler: he went from village to village trading in old clothes.
He gave me eight francs, though it was worth a good forty.
I spent a long time trying to meet Marie alone; we finally met outside the village, by a hedge, on a side path to the mountain, behind a tree.
There I gave her the eight francs and told her to be sparing of them, because I wouldn't have more, and then I kissed her and said she shouldn't think I had any bad intentions, and that I had kissed her not because I was in love with her but because I felt very sorry for her, and that from the very start I had never regarded her as guilty but only as unfortunate.
I wanted very much to comfort her right then and to assure her that she shouldn't regard herself as so low before everyone, but she didn't seem to understand.
I noticed it at once, though she was silent almost all the while and stood before me looking down and terribly embarrassed.
When I finished, she kissed my hand, and I took her hand at once and wanted to kiss it, but she quickly pulled it back.
Just then the children suddenly spied us, a whole crowd of them; I learned later that they had been spying on me for a long time.
They began to whistle, clap their hands, and laugh, and Marie ran away.
I wanted to speak to them, but they started throwing stones at me.
That same day everybody knew about it, the entire village; it all fell on Marie again: they now disliked her still more.
I even heard that they wanted to condemn her and punish her, but, thank God, it blew over. The children, however, wouldn't let her alone, teased her worse than before, threw mud at her; they chased her, she ran away from them with her weak chest, gasping for breath; they kept at it, shouting, abusing her.
Once I even picked a fight with them.
Then I started talking with them, talking every day, whenever I had a chance.
They sometimes stood and listened, though they kept up their abuse.
I told them how unfortunate Marie was; soon they stopped abusing me and would silently walk away.
We gradually began to talk. I didn't hide anything from them, I told them everything.
They listened very curiously and soon started to feel sorry for Marie.
Some started greeting her kindly when they met; the custom there, when you met someone, whether you knew them or not, was to bow and say: 'Good day.'
I can imagine how surprised Marie was. Once two girls got some food and brought it to her, gave it to her, then came and told me.
They said Marie burst into tears and now they loved her very much.
Soon they all began to love her, and at the same time they began to love me as well.
They started coming to see me often, asking me to tell them stories; it seems I did it well, because they liked listening to me very much.
And later I studied and read everything only so as to tell them afterwards, and for three years after that I told them all sorts of things.
When everybody accused me afterwards—Schneider, too— of talking to them like grown-ups, without hiding anything, I replied that it was shameful to lie to them, they knew everything anyway, no matter how you hid it, and might learn it in a bad way, while from me it wouldn't be in a bad way.
You only had to remember yourself as a child.
They didn't agree ... I kissed Marie two weeks before her mother died; when the pastor gave his sermon, all the children were already on my side.
I told them about it at once and explained the pastor's action; they all became angry with him, some so much that they sent stones through the pastor's windows.
I stopped them, because that was a bad thing; but everyone in the village learned all about it at once, and here they began to accuse me of having corrupted the children.
Then they found out that the children loved Marie and became terribly frightened; but Marie was happy now.