One day, when a neighbor’s boy came for some eggs, and she spoke rather crossly to him, as she was very busy, her husband suddenly came in and said to her in his unpleasant voice:  “If that were your own child you would not treat him so.”  She was hurt and did not reply, and then she went back into the house, with all her grief awakened afresh; and at dinner the farmer neither spoke to her nor looked at her, and he seemed to hate her, to despise her, to know something about the affair at last.  In consequence she lost her composure, and did not venture to remain alone with him after the meal was over, but left the room and hastened to the church.

It was getting dusk; the narrow nave was in total darkness, but she heard footsteps in the choir, for the sacristan was preparing the tabernacle lamp for the night.  That spot of trembling light, which was lost in the darkness of the arches, looked to Rose like her last hope, and with her eyes fixed on it, she fell on her knees.  The chain rattled as the little lamp swung up into the air, and almost immediately the small bell rang out the Angelus through the increasing mist.  She went up to him, as he was going out.

“Is Monsieur le Cure at home?” she asked.  “Of course he is; this is his dinnertime.”  She trembled as she rang the bell of the parsonage.  The priest was just sitting down to dinner, and he made her sit down also.  “Yes, yes, I know all about it; your husband has mentioned the matter to me that brings you here.”  The poor woman nearly fainted, and the priest continued:  “What do you want, my child?” And he hastily swallowed several spoonfuls of soup, some of which dropped on to his greasy cassock.  But Rose did not venture to say anything more, and she got up to go, but the priest said:  “Courage.”

And she went out and returned to the farm without knowing what she was doing.  The farmer was waiting for her, as the laborers had gone away during her absence, and she fell heavily at his feet, and, shedding a flood of tears, she said to him:  “What have you got against me?”

He began to shout and to swear:  “What have I got against you?  That I have no children, by—–.  When a man takes a wife it is not that they may live alone together to the end of their days.  That is what I have against you.  When a cow has no calves she is not worth anything, and when a woman has no children she is also not worth anything.”

She began to cry, and said:  “It is not my fault!  It is not my fault!” He grew rather more gentle when he heard that, and added:  “I do not say that it is, but it is very provoking, all the same.”

PART V