Adelaide had never been beautiful. Even in the davs when Honore had paid his court to her, her figure had already foretold the thin, hard, peasant-woman’s bodv, all bone and muscle. Never from the day of their marriage had he tried to pretend to himself that there was anything in his wife’s bodice to please the exploring hand. He knew also that she was of a quarrelsome disposition, and that she would not be long in losing all her teeth. He laughed as though at a practical joke he had played on himself, and told Adelaide that he had picked on a rum specimen. He would have liked her to have all imaginable attractions, but once she had become his wife there was no point in crying for the moon, and he loved her in any case. In his heart (he did not tell her this, and indeed sometimes talked to her severely about the inadequacy of her behind) he loved her for being what she was. He was certainly not going to make himself wretched over an insufficiency of bosom and buttocks. He made the best of what was there, and skinny though she was, when his hands reached out to her in their bed he could always find ways of seeming to have his arms full. Occasionally he reflected that he was lucky to have a vfife like Adelaide, who v'ould serve him throughout the thirty or forty years he had to live, as he would her; lucky also inasmuch as lie loved lier solidly, without even feeling the need to he unfaithful to her; and luekv, finally, in understanding nothing of all this. But for the most part lie did not think about it at all. He whistled on the plain as he guided his plough, stopped to piss and then went on again, spat downwind, talked to his oxen, stroking them now with the grain and now against it, laughed aloud, peeled a wand of green wood or carved a whistle for his lads, laughed again, kept his furrow straight and marvelled that life should be so good.
Honore’s joy in life was to the cure a highly distressing phenomenon, and one which aroused in him a strong feeling of professional jealousy. It seemed to him a lamentable object-lesson that a man should contrive to be so blatantly happy without the connivance of the Church. He had no personal animosity for Honore, and indeed liked him and pitied him for being sunk in error; but he was first and foremost a tactician in the battle for souls. He knew only too well that the souls of Claquebue, instead of constantly aspiring upward to the paths of Heaven, moved much more readily upon the level of the earth, where with the bodies they risked taking permanent root. It was necessary to keep them suitably poised, always ready for the leap skywards. So he multiplied his warnings, pasting his ban across the loins of women—“Danger— beware!” or at the best, “Do not linger!” To give them a greater substance he added the threat of punishment, not merely in the next world but in this very vale of tears. In their hearts, as he knew, the people of Claquebue did not trouble themselves overmuch as to the vicissitudes of the future life. The terrors of hell would never prevent them from sinning; but they would have stayed chaste a year on end if they had believed the harvest would be ruined by their failure to do so. This was the sort of bargain he offered them. In order to preserve their souls in a state of readiness for eternal beatitude, he had to make them anxious about the cattle and the harvest. The necessity was humiliating, but there it was, and after all the result was what counted.
But the mere presence of Honore in Claquebue was calculated to upset this result. Despite the notorious fact that he cared nothing for the cure's bans, his eyes were clear and his skin healthy, his animals did not die and his happiness shone undiminished from one year to the next. The cure dared not even suggest that he would suffer in the next world, since he was generally held, even by the most devout, to be such a good man that no one would have believed it. In short, the cure was reduced to maintaining that God withheld his wrath from Honore in consideration of the merits of Adelaide, who was a good Catholic; and he did his best by subtle stratagems to stir up discord in the Haudouin household, exhorting the wife when he had her in the confessional to refuse her husband’s embraces as often as she could, thereby winning indulgence for them both. Adelaide could never bring herself to make this sacrifice: but after her failures to do so she always made a point of saying a prayer, or two, as the case required. In matters of love she was far from adopting the passive attitude of her mother-in-law, and sometimes took the initiative with a boldness which Honore considered almost anarchic and certainly unsuitable on the part of a wife. Despite what the cure surmised, he remained very largely attached to the family traditions. Darkness was more favourable to his ardour; he held that male caprice had the force of law, and he disdained the pleasure of women. Adelaide did not at all see eve to eye with him, and this was a cause of frequent quarrels between them. She wanted her share, she wanted to be humoured, sometimes even by daylight. She pursued him with her importunities, resorting positively to gestures, and was invariably rebuffed by Honore, often with hot words.
Honore, however, by no means observed the family traditions to the letter. He had never paid any attention to his father’s strictures regarding the conservation of virility, but followed his humour entirely, unlike Ferdinand. It was not the only point of difference between the brothers. From their infancy Honore had recoiled instinctively from the calculating child who hid himself to watch men make water, and had learned the shame of sin before he knew its substance. And Ferdinand on his side was slightly afraid of the elder brother whose frankness was a con-
stant reproach to him; but he seldom gave him excuse for a rebuke.
During the warm weather their mother had been accustomed to wash her feet on the first Sunday of every month. She dragged her tub to the middle of the kitchen, choosing a time when the family was gathered together, so that the tedium of this necessary business might be relieved by conversation. Jules Haudouin and his two elder sons addressed her with eyes averted from her bare legs, while Ferdinand played silently by himself. On one of these Sundays Honore had noticed that Ferdinand, then aged nine, kept sending his marbles in the direction of the tub, and following the gaze of the boy’s half-closed eyes he caught him covertly peering beneath his mother’s thin cotton petticoat. “Ferdinand!” The younger boy jumped to his feet, blushing furiously. “You deserve a good clout!” said Honore. The incident had a permanent effect upon the relationship between the two brothers. Ferdinand never forgot it. He was always slightly ill-at-ease with Honore, as though standing at the seat of judgment. Neither age nor a successful career could alter this: he was always on the defensive. Honore, of course, forgot the incident almost immediately, but fresh reasons were always arising to reinforce his early aversion for his brother. Ferdinand’s exaggerated Puritanism seemed to him to conceal an unpleasant mystery, and this impression was the more disagreeable inasmuch as he had a warm friendship for his sister-in-law, Helene, and a secret admiration for her. He imagined her enduring with distaste the furtive onslaughts of that shamefaced male, as with irritating precautions, he gave rein to his sickly desires, wrapping them about with a morbid sense of propriety. His contempt for his brother was so far apparent in their conversation as to cause Helene to notice it. She asked Ferdinand the reason, and he replied with accusations rendered suspect by their very vehemence. Honore’s chief pastime, he maintained, was the pursuit of women, and the scorn he displayed for himself was nothing more than a treacherous manoeuvre whereby he hoped to disrupt a virtuous household and execute an abominable design. Ferdinand was in fact convinced of his brother’s profligacy, having been led into this error bv his freedom of speech.