“He asked, ‘Will you come and see her grave?’ I nodded assent, for I couldn’t speak.  He rose, lighted a lantern, and we walked through the blinding rain by the light of the lantern.

“He opened a gate, and I saw some crosses of black wood.

“Suddenly he stopped before a marble slab and said:  ‘There it is,’ and he flashed the lantern close to it so that I could read the inscription: 

           “’ToLouise Hortense MARINET,
        “’Wife of Jean-Francois Lebrument, Farmer,
      “‘She was A faithful wife.  God rest her soul.’

“We fell on our knees in the damp grass, he and I, with the lantern between us, and I saw the rain beating on the white marble slab.  And I thought of the heart of her sleeping there in her grave.  Ah! poor heart! poor heart!  Since then I come here every year.  And I don’t know why, but I feel as if I were guilty of some crime in the presence of this man who always looks as if he forgave me.”

THE DEVIL

The peasant and the doctor stood on opposite sides of the bed, beside the old, dying woman.  She was calm and resigned and her mind quite clear as she looked at them and listened to their conversation.  She was going to die, and she did not rebel at it, for her time was come, as she was ninety-two.

The July sun streamed in at the window and the open door and cast its hot flames on the uneven brown clay floor, which had been stamped down by four generations of clodhoppers.  The smell of the fields came in also, driven by the sharp wind and parched by the noontide heat.  The grass-hoppers chirped themselves hoarse, and filled the country with their shrill noise, which was like that of the wooden toys which are sold to children at fair time.

The doctor raised his voice and said:  “Honore, you cannot leave your mother in this state; she may die at any moment.”  And the peasant, in great distress, replied:  “But I must get in my wheat, for it has been lying on the ground a long time, and the weather is just right for it; what do you say about it, mother?” And the dying old woman, still tormented by her Norman avariciousness, replied yes with her eyes and her forehead, and thus urged her son to get in his wheat, and to leave her to die alone.

But the doctor got angry, and, stamping his foot, he said:  “You are no better than a brute, do you hear, and I will not allow you to do it, do you understand?  And if you must get in your wheat today, go and fetch Rapet’s wife and make her look after your mother; I will have it, do you understand me?  And if you do not obey me, I will let you die like a dog, when you are ill in your turn; do you hear?”

The peasant, a tall, thin fellow with slow movements, who was tormented by indecision, by his fear of the doctor and his fierce love of saving, hesitated, calculated, and stammered out:  “How much does La Rapet charge for attending sick people?” “How should I know?” the doctor cried.  “That depends upon how long she is needed.  Settle it with her, by Heaven!  But I want her to be here within an hour, do you hear?”