The warm autumn sun was beating down on the farmyard. Under the grass,
which had been cropped close by the cows, the earth soaked by recent
rains, was soft and sank in under the feet with a soggy noise, and the
apple trees, loaded with apples, were dropping their pale green fruit in
the dark green grass.
Four young heifers, tied in a line, were grazing and at times looking
toward the house and lowing. The fowls made a colored patch on the
dung-heap before the stable, scratching, moving about and cackling, while
two roosters crowed continually, digging worms for their hens, whom they
were calling with a loud clucking.
The wooden gate opened and a man entered. He might have been forty years
old, but he looked at least sixty, wrinkled, bent, walking slowly,
impeded by the weight of heavy wooden shoes full of straw. His long arms
hung down on both sides of his body. When he got near the farm a yellow
cur, tied at the foot of an enormous pear tree, beside a barrel which
served as his kennel, began at first to wag his tail and then to bark for
joy. The man cried:
“Down, Finot!”
The dog was quiet.
A peasant woman came out of the house. Her large, flat, bony body was
outlined under a long woollen jacket drawn in at the waist. A gray skirt,
too short, fell to the middle of her legs, which were encased in blue
stockings. She, too, wore wooden shoes, filled with straw. The white cap,
turned yellow, covered a few hairs which were plastered to the scalp, and
her brown, thin, ugly, toothless face had that wild, animal expression
which is often to be found on the faces of the peasants.
The man asked:
“How is he gettin’ along?”
The woman answered:
“The priest said it’s the end–that he will never live through the
night.”
Both of them went into the house.
After passing through the kitchen, they entered a low, dark room, barely
lighted by one window, in front of which a piece of calico was hanging.
The big beams, turned brown with age and smoke, crossed the room from one
side to the other, supporting the thin floor of the garret, where an army
of rats ran about day and night.
The moist, lumpy earthen floor looked greasy, and, at the back of the
room, the bed made an indistinct white spot. A harsh, regular noise, a
difficult, hoarse, wheezing breathing, like the gurgling of water from a
broken pump, came from the darkened couch where an old man, the father of
the peasant woman, was dying.
The man and the woman approached the dying man and looked at him with
calm, resigned eyes.
The son-in-law said:
“I guess it’s all up with him this time; he will not last the night.”
The woman answered:
“He’s been gurglin’ like that ever since midday.” They were silent. The
father’s eyes were closed, his face was the color of the earth and so dry
that it looked like wood. Through his open mouth came his harsh, rattling
breath, and the gray linen sheet rose and fell with each respiration.
The son-in-law, after a long silence, said:
“There’s nothing more to do; I can’t help him. It’s a nuisance, just the
same, because the weather is good and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
His wife seemed annoyed at this idea. She reflected a few moments and
then said:
“He won’t be buried till Saturday, and that will give you all day
tomorrow.”
The peasant thought the matter over and answered:
“Yes, but to-morrow I’ll have to invite the people to the funeral. That
means five or six hours to go round to Tourville and Manetot, and to see
everybody.”
The woman, after meditating two or three minutes, declared:
“It isn’t three o’clock yet. You could begin this evening and go all
round the country to Tourville. You can just as well say that he’s dead,
seem’ as he’s as good as that now.”
The man stood perplexed for a while, weighing the pros and cons of the
idea. At last he declared:
“Well, I’ll go!”
He was leaving the room, but came back after a minute’s hesitation:
“As you haven’t got anythin’ to do you might shake down some apples to
bake and make four dozen dumplings for those who come to the funeral, for
one must have something to cheer them. You can light the fire with the
wood that’s under the shed. It’s dry.”
He left the room, went back into the kitchen, opened the cupboard, took
out a six-pound loaf of bread, cut off a slice, and carefully gathered
the crumbs in the palm of his hand and threw them into his mouth, so as
not to lose anything. Then, with the end of his knife, he scraped out a
little salt butter from the bottom of an earthen jar, spread it on his
bread and began to eat slowly, as he did everything.
He recrossed the farmyard, quieted the dog, which had started barking
again, went out on the road bordering on his ditch, and disappeared in
the direction of Tourville.
As soon as she was alone, the woman began to work. She uncovered the
meal-bin and made the dough for the dumplings. She kneaded it a long
time, turning it over and over again, punching, pressing, crushing it.
Finally she made a big, round, yellow-white ball, which she placed on the
corner of the table.
Then she went to get her apples, and, in order not to injure the tree
with a pole, she climbed up into it by a ladder. She chose the fruit with
care, only taking the ripe ones, and gathering them in her apron.
A voice called from the road:
“Hey, Madame Chicot!”
She turned round. It was a neighbor, Osime Favet, the mayor, on his way
to fertilize his fields, seated on the manure-wagon, with his feet
hanging over the side. She turned round and answered:
“What can I do for you, Maitre Osime?”
“And how is the father?”
She cried:
“He is as good as dead. The funeral is Saturday at seven, because there’s
lots of work to be done.”
The neighbor answered:
“So! Good luck to you! Take care of yourself.”
To his kind remarks she answered:
“Thanks; the same to you.”
And she continued picking apples.
When she went back to the house, she went over to look at her father,
expecting to find him dead. But as soon as she reached the door she heard
his monotonous, noisy rattle, and, thinking it a waste of time to go over
to him, she began to prepare her dumplings. She wrapped up the fruit, one
by one, in a thin layer of paste, then she lined them up on the edge of
the table. When she had made forty-eight dumplings, arranged in dozens,
one in front of the other, she began to think of preparing supper, and
she hung her kettle over the fire to cook potatoes, for she judged it
useless to heat the oven that day, as she had all the next day in which
to finish the preparations.
Her husband returned at about five. As soon as he had crossed the
threshold he asked:
“Is it over?”
She answered:
“Not yet; he’s still gurglin’.”
They went to look at him. The old man was in exactly the same condition.
His hoarse rattle, as regular as the ticking of a clock, was neither
quicker nor slower. It returned every second, the tone varying a little,
according as the air entered or left his chest.
His son-in-law looked at him and then said:
“He’ll pass away without our noticin’ it, just like a candle.”
They returned to the kitchen and started to eat without saying a word.
When they had swallowed their soup, they ate another piece of bread and
butter. Then, as soon as the dishes were washed, they returned to the
dying man.
The woman, carrying a little lamp with a smoky wick, held it in front of
her father’s face. If he had not been breathing, one would certainly have
thought him dead.
The couple’s bed was hidden in a little recess at the other end of the
room. Silently they retired, put out the light, closed their eyes, and
soon two unequal snores, one deep and the other shriller, accompanied the
uninterrupted rattle of the dying man.
The rats ran about in the garret.
The husband awoke at the first streaks of dawn. His father-in-law was
still alive. He shook his wife, worried by the tenacity of the old man.
“Say, Phemie, he don’t want to quit. What would you do?”
He knew that she gave good advice.
She answered:
“You needn’t be afraid; he can’t live through the day. And the mayor
won’t stop our burying him to-morrow, because he allowed it for Maitre
Renard’s father, who died just during the planting season.”
He was convinced by this argument, and left for the fields.
His wife baked the dumplings and then attended to her housework.
At noon the old man was not dead. The people hired for the day’s work
came by groups to look at him. Each one had his say. Then they left again
for the fields.
At six o’clock, when the work was over, the father was still breathing.
At last his son-in-law was frightened.
“What would you do now, Phemie?”
She no longer knew how to solve the problem. They went to the mayor. He
promised that he would close his eyes and authorize the funeral for the
following day. They also went to the health officer, who likewise
promised, in order to oblige Maitre Chicot, to antedate the death
certificate. The man and the woman returned, feeling more at ease.
They went to bed and to sleep, just as they did the preceding day, their
sonorous breathing blending with the feeble breathing of the old man.
When they awoke, he was not yet dead.
Then they began to be frightened. They stood by their father, watching
him with distrust, as though he had wished to play them a mean trick, to
deceive them, to annoy them on purpose, and they were vexed at him for
the time which he was making them lose.
The son-in-law asked:
“What am I goin’ to do?”
She did not know. She answered:
“It certainly is annoying!”
The guests who were expected could not be notified. They decided to wait
and explain the case to them.
Toward a quarter to seven the first ones arrived. The women in black,
their heads covered with large veils, looking very sad. Then men, ill at
ease in their homespun coats, were coming forward more slowly, in
couples, talking business.
Maitre Chicot and his wife, bewildered, received them sorrowfully, and
suddenly both of them together began to cry as they approached the first
group. They explained the matter, related their difficulty, offered
chairs, bustled about, tried to make excuses, attempting to prove that
everybody would have done as they did, talking continually and giving
nobody a chance to answer.
They were going from one person to another:
“I never would have thought it; it’s incredible how he can last this
long!”
The guests, taken aback, a little disappointed, as though they had missed
an expected entertainment, did not know what to do, some remaining
seated others standing. Several wished to leave. Maitre Chicot held them
back:
“You must take something, anyhow! We made some dumplings; might as well
make use of ’em.”
The faces brightened at this idea. The yard was filling little by little;
the early arrivals were telling the news to those who had arrived later.
Everybody was whispering. The idea of the dumplings seemed to cheer
everyone up.
The women went in to take a look at the dying man. They crossed
themselves beside the bed, muttered a prayer and went out again. The men,
less anxious for this spectacle, cast a look through the window, which
had been opened.
Madame Chicot explained her distress:
“That’s how he’s been for two days, neither better nor worse. Doesn’t he
sound like a pump that has gone dry?”
When everybody had had a look at the dying man, they thought of the
refreshments; but as there were too many people for the kitchen to hold,
the table was moved out in front of the door. The four dozen golden
dumplings, tempting and appetizing, arranged in two big dishes, attracted
the eyes of all. Each one reached out to take his, fearing that there
would not be enough. But four remained over.
Maitre Chicot, his mouth full, said:
“Father would feel sad if he were to see this. He loved them so much when
he was alive.”
A big, jovial peasant declared:
“He won’t eat any more now. Each one in his turn.”
This remark, instead of making the guests sad, seemed to cheer them up.
It was their turn now to eat dumplings.
Madame Chicot, distressed at the expense, kept running down to the cellar
continually for cider. The pitchers were emptied in quick succession. The
company was laughing and talking loud now. They were beginning to shout
as they do at feasts.
Suddenly an old peasant woman who had stayed beside the dying man, held
there by a morbid fear of what would soon happen to herself, appeared at
the window and cried in a shrill voice:
“He’s dead! he’s dead!”
Everybody was silent. The women arose quickly to go and see. He was
indeed dead. The rattle had ceased. The men looked at each other, looking
down, ill at ease. They hadn’t finished eating the dumplings. Certainly
the rascal had not chosen a propitious moment. The Chicots were no longer
weeping. It was over; they were relieved.
They kept repeating:
“I knew it couldn’t ‘last. If he could only have done it last night, it
would have saved us all this trouble.”
Well, anyhow, it was over. They would bury him on Monday, that was all,
and they would eat some more dumplings for the occasion.
The guests went away, talking the matter over, pleased at having had the
chance to see him and of getting something to eat.
And when the husband and wife were alone, face to face, she said, her
face distorted with grief:
“We’ll have to bake four dozen more dumplings! Why couldn’t he have made
up his mind last night?”
The husband, more resigned, answered:
“Well, we’ll not have to do this every day.”
This work was published before January 1, 1931, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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