LITMIR.BIZ

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easily to Bertrande and to Monsieur Guerre. His presence did not greatly enliven the scene. Sanxi, who was excessively healthy, did not know how to be unhappy, and whether he played or rested, the place where he happened to be was for his mother the only joyous spot on the farm. For the rest, the household waited. Work went on, but the feeling of expectation was always in the air.

      The fourth year after Martin’s departure his father, though an expert horseman, was thrown from his horse, and, his head striking against a rock as he fell, he was killed instantly. Bertrande, who had seen him ride away from the house, firm and erect in the saddle, could hardly believe the servants who came with the news an hour later. Still, there was something fitting in the manner of his death, which was abrupt, violent and absolute. The peremptory summons and the prompt obedience were like everything else in his way of living. It would have been difficult to conceive of him as grown old, yielding, little by little, perforce, his authority, hesitating and dwindling, and yet, if Martin had not returned, holding on to a life thoroughly exhausted in order not to leave the house without a master.

      The shock of his death threw the family into confusion. Something like a panic seemed to overpower the servants and to reduce the four sisters of Martin to helpless children. And yet at the end of the day, Bertrande, finding for the first time a moment to herself, was surprised to consider how completely his death had been accepted, how long he seemed to have been dead who was not yet buried, whose death, early that morning, has been almost as remote as the day of judgment.

      Pierre Guerre, the brother of Monsieur Guerre, had arrived in the afternoon and had announced his position as head of the family. He was a lesser man than his brother, shorter and broader of frame, with something of the family countenance but without the quality of great distinction that somehow had belonged to the old master. No less honest, but more simple, easier to approach, a good farmer, a solid soldier, Uncle Pierre had entered the kitchen and crossed with sober dignity to his brother’s chair by the hearth. He had assigned tasks, taken the legal matters into consideration, sent for the priest and made public the news of the death. The panic had subsided, the servants had gone about their business as usual, the older sisters had returned to their homes, and Bertrande had said to herself:

      “Now it will be safe for Martin to return.”

      She did not expect him to appear magically. She made her own estimate of the time that it might take the news, traveling uncertainly about the countryside, to reach him, and how long it would take him to make the journey home. And hope flourished and wore greener branches than in many a long day. But as the year which she had allowed passed on and drew to a close, her hope again declined, and there were times when despair took its place entirely. She no longer had the fine sense of immortality which she had felt before the death of Martin’s parents. Death had now become an actuality rather than a possibility. Death was something that not only could happen but that did happen.

      A new fear assailed her. When she thought of Martin as perhaps dead, his remembered features suddenly dissolved, and the more she strove to recollect his appearance, the vaguer grew her memory. When she was not trying to remember him, his face would sometimes reappear, suddenly distinct in color and outline. Then she would start and tremble inwardly and try to hold the vision. But the harder she tried, the dimmer grew the face. The same thing had happened to her, she now remembered, after her mother’s death. The beloved image had faded. An impression of warmth, of security, the tones of the voice, the pressure of the hand had remained, but she could not see her mother’s face. She had spoken of this to Madame Guerre, who had replied:

      “There are people like that. They do not remember with their eyes, but with their ears, maybe. With me, it is the eye, and I could tell you at any moment in which chest I have laid away anything that you might want. I do not remember where it is, I see it. I cast my eye, as it were, over all my arrangements, and I see where I have laid the article which you desire.”

      Once indeed Bertrande thought that Martin had returned. She was walking on the path to the lower fields and was near the place where she had said farewell to her husband almost five years before. A man coming toward her under the shadow of the trees moved with Martin’s gait and was so like him in build that Bertrande stopped, her hand on her breast and her heart leaping suddenly in such wild delight that she could hardly breathe. But the figure, approaching, lost its likeness to the man she loved. She saw presently that he was a stranger and that his features did not resemble those of Martin Guerre in the least. He did not even come near enough to pass her, but some few yards away turned off into the 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

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