woods in the direction of Sode. Their eyes had met, like those of strangers who met in a narrow path, and he had saluted her, but without recognition.
After he had gone, she stood there, ready to weep in her sick disappointment. The day was cool, a day toward the end of winter, and she wore a heavy black wool cape with a hood, and on her feet were the pointed wooden sabots of her mountains, but she seemed to be standing barefoot on the moss, and bareheaded. Martin’s hands were upon hers; she could see the familiar scars, the torn fingernail; and Martin’s head was bent and touching hers. She could not see his face for his cheek was against her forehead. From the pressure of his hands upon hers such peace and joy flowed into her body that all the woods seemed warm, bathed in autumnal sunlight. The moment faded and she stood alone again in the thin winter air. She realized then that she had not seen his face, and wondered if that might be of good or bad omen. But the touch of his hand had been very living, and she renewed her hope.
If she heard of there being strangers in town, as there so often were, smugglers from Spain, or deserters from one army for another passing from kingdom to kingdom by way of the Port de la Venasque who delayed their wanderings to visit awhile in the rich mountain villages, she sent for them and entertained them overnight, giving them food, wine and a warm place to sleep. Of these she inquired for news of Martin. Had they, while serving with the Duke of Savoy or under the old Constable Montmorency or with the young Duke of Guise, heard of any man named Martin Guerre? Or bivouacked with him? Or perhaps fought by his side? None of these wanderers had met with such a man. They gave her, in return for her hospitality, other news, of how, before the death of the old king, Guienne, Angoumois and Saintonge had risen in insurrection because of the salt tax, of how at Angoulême the king’s tax collectors had been beaten to death and sent “to salt the fish of the Charente,” their flesh being flung into the river. She heard of the cruel revenge which Montmorency took under the new king, Henry, the second of that name, at Bordeaux, burning alive those who had killed the tax collectors, and oppressing and humiliating the whole city most grievously. She learned of the siege of Metz and of Henry’s continuance of the quarrels of his father with the Emperor from men who had fought with Guise under the walls of that city. The Emperor had said, “I see now that Fortune is a woman; she prefers a young king to an old emperor,” and, fatigued and ill, “his face all pale and his eyes sunk in his head, his beard as white as the snow,” had made his resolve to abdicate and withdraw to Yuste, there on the other side of the Pyrenees in the Spanish monastery of the Cordeliers. Her imagination traveled far afield, thinking that wherever there was fighting, there Martin was likely to be; but of Martin himself she learned nothing. She charged these wanderers, upon their leave-taking, with a message to her husband, if they should chance to meet him:
“The old Master is dead. Come home.”
She even made a journey once to Rieux, where her mother’s sister then lived, thinking that to that town, which was a bishopric, almost as many travelers must come as to Toulouse. The town lay in a green meadow in a curve of the Arize, near to the spot at which that turbulent stream hurls itself into the Garonne. Behind it stood the wall of the Pyrenees. The delicate, bold spire of the cathedral, rising above the tiled roofs of the houses, seemed less tall than it was because of the height of the mountains. At the inn and at the cathedral doors Bertrande made her inquiries, and besought her aunt to question travelers whenever she might have the opportunity. She also begged that the death of Martin’s father be announced from the cathedral. But a nostalgia came upon her there—she had never before left the parish of Artigues. She missed Sanxi, and everything seemed strange. Even the room in which she slept in her aunt’s house seemed turned around, and the sun rose in the west and shone through western windows all the morning. Or so it seemed to Bertrande. After a few days she made her excuses to her aunt, and went home to Artigues.
And time went by. Meanwhile Sanxi, who in his earliest infancy had given some slight promise of growing to look like his father, daily grew more and more to resemble the sisters of Martin Guerre, who had their mother’s features and proportions rather than those of their father. This was at first a grief to Bertrande, although in considering Sanxi with his fresh young face and thick smooth chestnut hair, he seemed to her so altogether remarkable and charming that she could not wish him otherwise in any detail. She began to listen instead for the tones of his father’s voice in the boy’s light treble. So, nourishing her devotion with hope and with imagination, she took charge of Martin’s household, tended his child, and waited.
The house flourished, Sanxi grew, and Bertrande increased in beauty. Her sorrow and her new sense of responsibility ennobled her physical charm. She acquired unconsciously a manner of gracious command. Eight years after the departure of her husband she no longer had the first tender radiance which had so pleased the young man, but a greater and more mature beauty had taken its place.
Eight years after the departure of Martin Guerre, Bertrande his wife was seated in the Chamber instructing her son in the catechism. The first warm days of summer were come, and neither mother nor son was paying as great attention as might have been paid to the lesson in hand. The room, large, dusky, cool, shut them effectively from the affairs of the kitchen and the courtyard. The wooden shutters were opened wide, but the window was high. It let in the sunshine but did not permit a view of the yard. The peace of the summer day without, the quiet half hour alone with Sanxi, the release from the continual round of practical duties had relaxed Bertrande. She looked at Sanxi’s cool young cheek beside her knee and thought, “At last I begin to be at peace.”
And her thought, sweeping backward quickly over all the moments of anguish, of desire, of hatred, even, hours of fierce resentment against Martin for making her suffer, for holding her from any other life than a prolonged fruitless waiting for his return, hours of terror when she had contemplated his death in some engagement of the Spanish wars, hours to be remembered with horror in which she had desired his death that she might be free of the agony of incertitude—all these reviewed in a moment with a sharp inward knowledge of herself, her thought returned like a tired dove to this moment of peace in which love was only love for Sanxi, as innocent and cool and gentle as the curve of his cheek. She regarded him thoughtfully and tenderly, and Sanxi, lifting his eyes to hers, smiled with a secret amusement.
“Repeat the answer, my son,” said Bertrande.
Sanxi did so, his delight deepening.
“But you have given me that reply for two questions, Sanxi. You do not attend.”
“No, mother, for three questions, the same answer,” said Sanxi, suddenly hilarious.
“You must not make fun of sacred things,” she said to him as gravely as she could, but neither of them was deceived, and as they smiled at each other, a hubbub arose in the courtyard which made Sanxi run to the window. Standing on his tiptoes, he still could not see much but the adjoining buildings. The tumult increased, with shrill cries, definitely joyous. Bertrande de Rols turned toward the door, leaning slightly forward in her chair. The noise, advancing through the kitchen, was approaching the Chamber, and suddenly the door swung open to admit Martin’s Uncle Pierre, his four sisters and a bearded man dressed in leather and steel, who paused on the threshold as the others crowded forward. Behind him all the household servants and one or two men from the fields showed their excited ruddy faces. The old housekeeper, pushing past him, almost beside herself with joy, curtsied as low as she could, and cried:
“It is he, Madame!”
“It is Martin, my child,” said Uncle Pierre.
“Bertrande,” cried the sisters in chorus, “here is our brother Martin!”
Their voices filled the room, echoing from the low beams and the stone walls; they were all talking at once, and, as Bertrande rose to her feet, keeping one hand on the back of the chair to steady herself against a sudden, quickly passing dizziness, the bearded figure advanced gravely, surrounded by the agitated forms of the sisters, the uncle,
