need of all the accumulated authority of antiquity, even as his father had need of it now.
Martin resembled his father greatly, both physically and in disposition. Bertrande, who sometimes observed his smothered resentment, or impatience at his inferior position, understood both the impatience and the attitude which kept it in control, the acceptance of things as they were, and said quietly to herself:
“In his day he will make a protector for this family as like his own father as two men well may be, and for that thanks to God.”
Outwardly, Martin had the swarthy skin, the high forehead, the gray eyes, the flat, short nose, the lips, the high cleft chin of his father, and something of his father’s build. Too early labor at the plow had rounded his shoulders. Nevertheless he was a skillful swordsman and boxer, agile, tall, and well-developed for his years. “Not a pretty man,” as the servant had said, “but a very distinguished man.” His ugliness was ancestral, and that in itself was good.
People so reasonable, so devoted, so strongly loving and hard working should have been exempt, one feels, from the vagaries of a malicious fate. Nevertheless, the very virtues of their way of life gave rise to a small incident, and from that incident developed the whole train of misfortune which singled out Bertrande de Rols from the peace and obscurity of her tradition.
It was a day in autumn. The vintage was done and the winter wheat was being put in the ground. Since the men were not expected to return to the farm at noon, Bertrande had taken Martin’s lunch to him, and while he ate, she sat beside him on the sun-warmed, roughened earth at the edge of the field. She was bare-footed and bare-headed, the bodice of her gown open a little at the throat because of the noonday heat. The flesh at the edge of the gown was creamy, and the color deepened upward into a warm tan, growing richer and brighter on the rounded cheeks; and at the edge of the hair, in the shadow of the thick dark locks, the creamy color showed again, now moist from the sheltered heat. She watched her husband with tender, happy eyes. Before them, the cultivated ground slanted downward to a hazel copse. They could hear above them the murmur of the stream, reduced from its full summer flow, where it ran under the chestnut trees, before it circled the field, running below them through the copse and on into the narrowing valley. Across the valley and on the higher slopes, the beech and oak woods were tinged with gold and russet, and higher still a blue haze seemed to be gathering, like threads of smoke. Leaf, earth, and wine in the still sunlight gave forth the odors of their substances; the air was full of autumn fragrance. Martin, when he had finished his lunch, wrapped the fragments of bread and cheese and put them in his wallet. He returned the earthen wine jug to the hands of his wife and said:
“I am going away for a little while.”
Bertrande made an exclamation of surprise.
“You may well be astonished,” replied Martin. “This is the way of it. This morning I took from my father’s granary enough seed wheat to plant the half of this field.”
“You did not ask him for it?” cried Bertrande in alarm.
“Certainly, no. He would have denied it to me because it is his notion that I should put aside whatever grain I need from my own harvesting. But this year I have more land under cultivation than I had hoped to have. Should I let it go to waste? He has finished his planting; the wheat remains unused. So I took it, and I have planted it. Was it not well done?”
“It was well done,” she answered, “but I am afraid for you.”
“I am afraid for myself,” he said with a smile. “Without a doubt, he would flay me. Therefore I am going away. When he has had time to reflect, he will see that it was well done, and he will forgive me. Then I can return. You remember the bear?”
He rubbed his hand reminiscently along his jaw while Bertrande also smiled a little.
“You will have to be gone at least a week,” she said. “Perhaps longer. If I could send you word . . .”
“Eight days should be enough,” said Martin. “It is done for the good of the house—he will see that. And it is better that you should not know where I am in case he asks you. I shall go to Toulouse, then further, so that you can answer honestly, ‘I do not know where he is.’ Embrace my little son for me, and do not be disturbed.”
She kissed him on both cheeks, feeling the warmth of the sun upon his flesh, caressing with her hand the short smooth beard, and then, in a brief premonition of disaster, held to his arm and would not let him go.
“Do not distress yourself,” he repeated tenderly. “I shall be safe. I shall enjoy myself, moreover. And I shall see you in a week.”
So he went off. Once he turned to wave with a free, elated gesture, and then the shadows of the trees engulfed his figure. Bertrande returned to the farm, swinging the empty jug from a forefinger and thinking of the path which led down the valley beside the torrent falling and tumbling toward the Neste. Once she stepped aside to let pass a herd of swine being driven up into the oak forest to feed on acorns. She greeted the swineherd absently, thinking of Martin’s journey, and how he would pass village after village, ford the cold streams, follow the narrow passes beside the Neste and eventually emerge into the greater valley of the Garonne, see the level fields, the walled cities, broad roads traversed by bands of merchants and armed men. The woods were still after the passage of the beasts—no insects and few birds. She wished that she might have gone with Martin. At the farm she found Sanxi, and was glad that she had not gone.
The afternoon passed as usual, but at suppertime, when Monsieur Guerre asked her where Martin was, and she answered, as had been arranged between them, “I do not know,” she trembled beneath the cold gray gaze, penetrating and clear as a beam of light reflected from a wall of ice.
When it was learned that certain baskets of grain had been removed from the granary, the anger of Monsieur Guerre was terrible, as she had known it would be, and she was thankful that Martin’s shoulders were beyond the reach of his father’s heavy whip. At the end of a week the anger of Monsieur Guerre had not abated. Apprehensively Bertrande listened at the approach of every passer-by, started and turned cold each time the door to the house creaked on its broad hinges, and hoped that Martin might be fortunately delayed. Again and again she wished that some arrangement had been made between them by which she might meet and warn him. As week followed week, alarm at his prolonged absence began to mingle with the fear of his premature return. At the end of a month she was almost certain that some evil must have befallen him, and in great fear and agitation presented herself before the father of the family and confessed all that she knew of Martin’s design.
Monsieur Guerre listened to her in silence, without moving a finger. Then he answered coldly:
“Madame, that my son should have become a thief is the greatest shame I have ever been asked to bear. Since he is my son, my only son, and since the welfare of the house depends upon the succession of an heir, I consider it my duty to forgive him. When he returns and confesses his crime, and has borne his punishment, I shall withdraw my anger. Until that time, no matter how distant it may be, rest assured, Madame, my anger shall exist. You may return to your work, Madame.”
It was terrible to her to be addressed in this manner by a man whom she so greatly respected. “For their children,” wrote the learned Etienne Pasquier a few years later, “fathers and mothers are the true images of God upon earth,” and this was not an opinion which Pasquier imposed upon his time, but one in which he had been schooled. Bertrande admitted the inflexible justice of Martin’s father, and regretted bitterly that she had fallen in with Martin’s plans for avoiding punishment. How much better if he had stayed and submitted! He would now be forgiven and all would be well. She now prayed that he return at once. But the winter deepened
