LITMIR.BIZ

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and rolled down his hollow cheek. His lips quivered, he attempted to speak, gave a long sigh and then died. Nicolas’s hand, guided by Fine’s, closed his eyes. His face was serene.

      The faithful housekeeper took things in hand with a sort of stubborn determination. As was the custom in her native Cornouaille, the area from which the canon also came, she made the sign of the cross above the dead man’s head, then flung the window wide open to help the soul escape from the body. Then she lit a candle at the head of the bed and sent the maid off to inform the chapter and the banner-bearer’s wife, who was well versed in these ceremonies. When she arrived, the church bell was tolling the death knell. The two women laid out the body, placed one palm against the other and tied the hands together with a rosary. They put a chair at the foot of the bed and placed on it a bowl of holy water and a sprig of laurel.

      To Nicolas the hours that followed seemed interminable. Chilled to the bone, he had no awareness of what was going on around him. He had to respond to the greetings of all those who came to pay their last respects at the deathbed. Priests and nuns took it in turn to recite the litany for the dead. As was the custom, Fine served cider and pancakes to the visitors, many of whom remained in the large room, talking quietly.

      Monsieur de Ranreuil was among the first to arrive, without Isabelle. Her absence had further stirred Nicolas’s emotions on seeing his godfather again. Beneath his cavalier tone, the marquis had difficulty in disguising his sorrow at the loss of an old friend and, with it, thirty years of companionship. In the throng he scarcely had time to tell Nicolas that Monsieur de Sartine had written to say that he was pleased with him. It was agreed that the young man would go to Ranreuil after the funeral, which was to take place on Sunday.

      As the hours slipped slowly by, Nicolas watched the changes to the face of the dead man. The waxen complexion of the early hours had gradually turned copper-coloured, then black, and the shrunken flesh had now hardened into the outlines of a death mask. His feelings of tenderness were disappearing before this decomposing object that could no longer be his guardian. He had to collect himself in order to put aside this impression, but it came back to him several times before the body was placed in its coffin on Saturday morning.

      On Sunday the weather was fine and cold. In the afternoon the coffin was borne on a stretcher to the nearby collegiate church. In vain Nicolas looked for Isabelle in the crowd gathered there.

      He followed the hymns and prayers without thinking, withdrawing into himself. He examined the stained-glass window above the high altar which portrayed the miracles performed by Saint Aubin, the patron saint of this holy place. The great Gothic arch of predominantly blue glass and stone gradually lost its radiance as the winter shadows lengthened. The sun had disappeared. In the morning it had revealed itself in the glow of sunrise; it had shone in splendour in the glory of midday and now it was declining.

      Every man, thought Nicolas, has to go through the cycle of life like this. His gaze fell once more on the coffin draped in a black cloth decorated with silver flames that shimmered in the dim flicker of the candles around the catafalque. He felt overcome once more with sorrow and loneliness.

      The church was by now smothered in darkness. Inside, as happens in winter, the granite was weeping. The smoke from the incense and the candles mingled with the moisture oozing from the dark walls. The Dies Irae rang out like a final cry of despair. Shortly, pending a permanent burial place, the sad remains would be set down in the crypt near the twin recumbent figures of Tristan de Carné and his wife.

      Nicolas reflected that it was precisely here that he had been abandoned; almost twenty-two years previously Canon Le Floch had found him and taken him in. The idea that his guardian was returning to the earth at this very spot was in some mysterious way a consolation.

      Monday was bleak and Nicolas felt the after-effects of the journey and his grief. He could not decide whether to visit the marquis who, after the service, had repeated his desire to see him.

      Fine, oblivious to her own suffering, tried her best to take his mind off things. Yet despite all her efforts to cook him his favourite childhood dishes he would not touch them, making do with a piece of bread. He spent part of the day wandering through the marshes, staring at the sea-line merging into the pale horizon. He was overcome with a desire to go away and forget. He even went as far as the village of Batz, climbing up to the top of the church spire, as he always used to with Isabelle. He felt better up there, cut off from the world, looking out over the marshes and the ocean far below.

      When he came home, soaked through, he found Master Guiart, the notary, waiting for him with his back to the fire. He asked Nicolas and Fine to listen to the reading of a very short will, the main provisions of which lay in the final section: ‘I die without wealth, having always given to the poor the surplus that God was willing to grant me. The house I dwell in belongs to the chapter. I pray that providence sees to the needs of my ward. To him shall be given my gold repeater watch, to replace the one stolen from him recently in Paris. As to my possessions proper – clothes, furniture, silverware, paintings and books, he will understand that they be sold to procure an annuity at the rate of one in twenty for Mademoiselle Joséphine Pelven, my housekeeper, who for more than thirty years has devoted herself to my service.’

      Fine was crying and Nicolas attempted to console her. The notary reminded them that the young man had to pay the servant’s wages, and the doctor’s and apothecary’s fees, as well as for the hangings, chairs and candles for the funeral. Nicolas’s savings were fast diminishing.

      After the notary had left he felt like a stranger in his own house and could not bear to see Fine sitting there, grief-stricken. They stayed talking for a long time. She would return to where she came from, as she still had a sister in a village near Quimper, but she was worried above all about what would become of the person she had brought up. One by one the ties linking Nicolas to Guérande were snapping and he was drifting like a boat that had broken its moorings, carried away by swirling currents.

      On Tuesday Nicolas at last made up his mind to respond to his godfather’s invitation. He wanted to get away from the house on the old market square; Master Guiart had begun the inventory and valuation appraisement of the deceased’s possessions, and Fine was finishing her packing.

      He rode slowly and pensively, keeping his horse at walking pace. The weather was fine again but a hoar frost covered the moorland with white latticework. The ice in the ruts crackled beneath the horse’s hooves.

      As he neared Herbignac he remembered the traditional games of soule. This violent and rustic sport, which was as old as the hills, required physical strength, courage, a good pair of lungs and unfailing resilience as kicks and blows rained down on the players. Nicolas’s body still bore the marks. An injury to his right eyebrow had left a scar that was still visible and his left leg, broken when he was kicked with a clog, still caused him pain when the weather turned wet.

      Nevertheless he felt a certain elation at the memory of these frenzied runs in which the soulet, a pig’s bladder stuffed with sawdust and rags, had to be carried to the goal. The difficulty was that the playing area had no limits and the person carrying the soulet could be pursued anywhere, even into ponds and streams, and there were many of those in this part of the countryside. Also, punching, butting and hitting the players with a stick was allowed and even encouraged. At the end of every match the exhausted and bloodied combatants came together for some friendly feasting after a trip to a washtub had removed the caking of clay or mud which covered them. Sometimes the chase even continued as far as the banks of the River Vilaine.

      While these thoughts were going through his mind, the young man had neared his destination. As he watched the great oaks around the lake and the tops of the castle towers gradually rise up above the moorland, he strengthened his resolve to clear up the mystery of Isabelle’s disappearance.

      There had been no news or sign of her since he had left for Paris. At no point had she appeared, not even when Nicolas was in mourning. Perhaps she had forgotten about him, but more cruel than this was his present uncertainty. Although he dreaded the suffering of a definitive separation, he could no longer imagine a future in which his love might still be reciprocated. He was nothing,

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