The next day he appeared upon the scene again.  Coco, exhausted, had lain down.  When he saw the boy, he got up, expecting at last to have his place changed.

But the little peasant did not even touch the mallet, which was lying on the ground.  He came nearer, looked at the animal, threw at his head a clump of earth which flattened out against the white hair, and he started off again, whistling.

The horse remained standing as long as he could see him; then, knowing that his attempts to reach the near-by grass would be hopeless, he once more lay down on his side and closed his eyes.

The following day Zidore did not come.

When he did come at last, he found Coco still stretched out; he saw that he was dead.

Then he remained standing, looking at him, pleased with what he had done, surprised that it should already be all over.  He touched him with his foot, lifted one of his legs and then let it drop, sat on him and remained there, his eyes fixed on the grass, thinking of nothing.  He returned to the farm, but did not mention the accident, because he wished to wander about at the hours when he used to change the horse’s pasture.  He went to see him the next day.  At his approach some crows flew away.  Countless flies were walking over the body and were buzzing around it.  When he returned home, he announced the event.  The animal was so old that nobody was surprised.  The master said to two of the men: 

“Take your shovels and dig a hole right where he is.”

The men buried the horse at the place where he had died of hunger.  And the grass grew thick, green and vigorous, fed by the poor body.

DEAD WOMAN’S SECRET

The woman had died without pain, quietly, as a woman should whose life had been blameless.  Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back, her eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully arranged as though she had done it up ten minutes before dying.  The whole pale countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so resigned that one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body, what a quiet existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the death of this parent had been.

Kneeling beside the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible principles, and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister Eulalie, were weeping as though their hearts would break.  She had, from childhood up, armed them with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without weakness, and duty, without compromise.  He, the man, had become a judge and handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones without pity.  She, the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed her in this austere family, had become the bride of the Church through her loathing for man.

They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.