III

AUTUMN

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.  I had made myself a farmer; the Durance, my first sweetheart, was now a good mother to me, who seemed to take pleasure in making my fields rich and fertile.  Little by little, by following the new methods of agriculture, I became one of the wealthiest landowners in the neighbourhood.

We had purchased the oak-tree walk and the meadows bordering on the river, at the death of my wife’s parents.  I had had a modest house built on this land, but we were soon obliged to enlarge it; each year I found a means of rounding off our property by the addition of some neighbouring field, and our granaries were too small for our harvests.

Those first fifteen years were uneventful and happy.  They passed away in serene joy, and all they have left within me is the remembrance of calm and continued happiness.  My uncle Lazare, on retiring to our home, had realised his dream; his advanced age did not permit of his reading his breviary of a morning; he sometimes regretted his dear church, but consoled himself by visiting the young vicar who had succeeded him.  He came down from the little room he occupied at sunrise, and often accompanied me to the fields, enjoying himself in the open air, and finding a second youth amidst the healthy atmosphere of the country.

One sadness alone made us sometimes sigh.  Amidst the fruitfulness by which we were surrounded, Babet remained childless.  Although we were three to love one another we sometimes found ourselves too much alone; we would have liked to have had a little fair head running about amongst us, who would have tormented and caressed us.

Uncle Lazare had a frightful dread of dying before he was a great-uncle.  He had become a child again, and felt sorrowful that Babet did not give him a comrade who would have played with him.  On the day when my wife confided to us with hesitation, that we would no doubt soon be four, I saw my uncle turn quite pale, and make efforts not to cry.  He kissed us, thinking already of the christening, and speaking of the child as if it were already three or four years old.

And the months passed in concentrated tenderness.  We talked together in subdued voices, awaiting some one.  I no longer loved Babet:  I worshipped her with joined hands; I worshipped her for two, for herself and the little one.

The great day was drawing nigh.  I had brought a midwife from Grenoble who never moved from the farm.  My uncle was in a dreadful fright; he understood nothing about such things; he went so far as to tell me that he had done wrong in taking holy orders, and that he was very sorry he was not a doctor.