Then she made a fight to keep a few handfuls of the leaves from the greedy beaks which rose all round her, saying that something must really be saved for the rabbits.  She would surely get angry with them if they went on like that, and give them nothing but dry bread in future.  However, she was obliged to give way.  The geese tugged at her apron so violently that she was almost pulled down upon her knees; the ducks gobbled away at her ankles; two of the pigeons flew upon her head, and some of the fowls fluttered about her shoulders.  It was the ferocity of creatures who smell flesh:  the fat plantains, the crimson poppies, the milky dandelions, in which remained some of the life of the dead.  Desiree laughed loudly, and felt that she was on the point of slipping down, and letting go of her last two handfuls, when the fowls were panic-stricken by a terrible grunting.

‘Ah! it’s you, my fatty,’ she exclaimed, quite delighted; ’eat them up, and set me at liberty.’

The pig waddled in; he was no longer the little pig of former days—­pink as a newly painted toy, with a tiny little tail, like a bit of string; but a fat wobbling creature, fit to be killed, with a belly as round as a monk’s, and a back all bristling with rough hairs, that reeked of fatness.  His stomach had grown quite yellow from his habit of sleeping on the manure heap.  Waddling along on his shaky feet, he charged with lowered snout at the scared fowls, and so left Desiree at liberty to escape, and take the rabbits the few scraps of green stuff which she had so strenuously defended.  When she came back, all was peace again.  The stupid, ecstatic-looking geese were lazily swaying their long necks about, the ducks and turkeys were waddling in ungainly fashion alongside the wall; the fowls were quietly clucking and peaking at invisible grains on the hard ground of the stable; while the pig, the goat, and the big cow, were drowsily blinking their eyes, as though they were falling asleep.  Outside it had just begun to rain.

‘Ah! well, there’s a shower coming on!’ cried Desiree, throwing herself down on the straw.  ’You had better stay where you are, my dears, if you don’t want to get soaked.’

Then she turned to Albine and added:  ’How stupid they all look, don’t they?  They only wake up just to eat!’

Albine still remained silent.  The merry laughter of that buxom girl as she struggled amidst those greedy necks and gluttonous beaks, which tickled and kissed her, and seemed bent on devouring her very flesh, had rendered the unhappy daughter of the Paradou yet paler than she had been before.  So much gaiety, so much vitality, so much boisterous health made her despair.  She strained her feverish arms to her desolate bosom, which desertion had parched.

‘And Serge?’ she asked again, in the same clear, stubborn voice.

‘Hush!’ said Desiree.  ’I heard him just now.  He hasn’t finished yet——­ We have been making a pretty disturbance; La Teuse must surely have grown deaf this afternoon——­ Let us keep quiet now.  I like to hear the rain fall.’