“A thorough young rascal,” said Ferdinand. “He reminds me of his Uncle Alphonse.”
All Ferdinand’s hopes were centred on his elder son. Frederic was always at the top of his class. He had not inherited his father’s graceless physical appearance, and his ready sociability made him popular with his schoolfellows. When he had incurred punishment he knew how to talk his way out of it, unlike Antoine, who paid the penalty in sullen silence. Frederic, in short, seemed plainly designed for the proud destiny of carrying on the fortunes of the Haudouins, or, as Antoine already said with that deplorable grin, of perpetuating the “green” branch of the family.
“He’ll never give me any anxiety,” said his father. “He’ll get on in the world.”
And so it turned out. Except for a trifling set-back when he was fifteen, Frederic headed straight for success. At that age, however, the poor boy fell in love with a girl who was killed in a railway accident. He thought his heart was broken for ever, and at first tried to express his grief in poetry. Finding that rhymes did not come easily to him, he looked round for some other outlet and decided that the least he could do would be to enter holy orders. He would become a preaching brother. At once he saw himself clad in fustian, with the tassel of a Franciscan’s girdle dangling at his calves. When he informed his family of this decision his father said simply:
“You’ll get no dessert until you have changed your mind.”
It was mortifying to Frederic that his vocation should be thought worthy of no more serious a hindrance; but after having held out for two months, and given his weekly pocket-money to the poor, he ended by yielding to his mother’s arguments in favour of a worldly career.
Ferdinand Haudouin’s home was a gloomy one. The father’s constraining presence, the mother’s conjugal disappointments, which induced in her a state of settled apathy, the withdrawn face of Lucienne, the clash of temperament between the two brothers, all gave rise of an atmosphere of rancour and mistrust. Frederic and Antoine felt for one another as brothers, but no more. The bond of brotherhood did not prevent anger and disdain, but merely made reconciliation easier.
On Sundays when the weather kept them indoors the household was more than usually dismal. Mine. Haudouin and the children were bored nearly to tears, while Ferdinand, checking his accounts, kept a sharp look-out to see that they did their homework. At these times Antoine prayed for his father to die during the week, and the very utterance of the prayer comforted him a little.
During the summer months they generally spent Sun-
days at Claquebue. Ferdinand harnessed his landau and drove them all to the home of Uncle Honore. For the children, who got on well with their cousins, it was a true day of rest, and Mine. Haudouin had the satisfaction of seeing her husband treated without ceremony by his brother.
Honore and Ferdinand did not entirely hate one another. There was indeed a kind of affection between them, and nothing that touched either, whether for good or ill, could leave the other wholly unmoved. Each despised the other, but Ferdinand seldom got the better of their arguments since his reasons for doing so were such as could not be avowed. “I think you're inclined to be tactless,” he would say, reproving Honore’s forthrightness; to which Honore, often catching him in the act, was able to reply, “You lie like a trooper!” This difference in tone was fairly constant between them. Both passed for extreme Republicans, anticlerical and even irreligious. Honore’s attitude in these matters was based upon no sort of calculation. He had been a Republican under the Empire and continued passionately to be one because it seemed to him that the Republic still needed defenders; he had turned anti-Clerical to resist the too-overt influence of the care, and he was irreligious because the vision of eternal life appalled him. Ferdinand, on the other hand, continued to worship in secret that which he publicly disavowed, and his brother’s zeal, moderate yet sincere, constantly affronted him. Unfortunately he had no means of conveying this to Honore without giving himself away, and he was even obliged to protest with a show of the utmost vigour when his brother remarked, “I tell you, vou’re like a fish out of water!”
Ferdinand's sole satisfaction lay in the thought that fortune had dealt with each according to his deserts, and that he had been infinitely more favoured than Honore. But even this was something that Honore might have disputed, for he had a wonderful capacity for happiness, and did not really belieye that any man’s lot was more enviable than his own. His perfect content was marred only by one shadow, which was, however, a heavy one. It was the recollection of a humiliation the smart of which could not be dulled by time. Having been prevented by circum-
stances from taking immediate revenge, Honore had resigned himself to enduring this open wound to his pride when, by a caprice of fate, his brother’s political activities reopened the matter, giving the old, half-buried story a new turn. This series of events began on an afternoon of brilliant sunshine, when Honore was cutting corn on the level expanse between the Raicart woods and the road which runs lengthwise through Claquebue.
Three
Upon reaching the road which separated the Champ-Brule from his house, Honore Haudouin laid down his scythe on the cut corn and straightened his tall figure in the glaring sunlight. Sweat had caused his shirt to stick to his back and formed wide wet pockets under his armpits. He pushed back his rush-hat and with the back of his hand wiped away the beads forming at the fringe of his grey, close-cropped hair. Looking to his left he saw the postman in the act of leaving his house, the last one in the village on the road itself, at the point where the plain narrowed between the river and an outcropping of the wood.
“Deodat’s ready to start,” he reflected. “It must be after four.”
He wanted something cold to drink, and crossed the road. In the kitchen of his house, with its closed shutters, he could hear his wife scrubbing the floor. The room felt cool as a cellar. For a moment he stayed motionless, enjoying the chill and the darkness which soothed his eyes after the harsh light. He slipped off his sabots to cool his bare feet on the tiles. From the depths of the kitchen a low, metallic voice reached him, somewhat out of breath.
“Everything’s on the table,” Adelaide said. “You’ll find two peeled onions beside the loaf. I put the bottle to cool in the tub.”
“Good,” said Honore, “but why are you bothering to scrub the kitchen? Anyone would think there was nothing more important to do.”
“There's plenty, but if Ferdinand comes to-morrow with the family-”
“What makes you think he’s going to start examining the kitchen floor?”
“All the same, he likes his house to be clean.”
“Oh, I see—his house. .”
“You always behave as though it was yours.”
Honore nearly let himself be entrapped into the quarrel which Adelaide was seeking, largely for the sake of the distraction; but to drink was more important. He groped round for the tub of cold water, plunged his arms in and rinsed his face. Then he drank from the bottle as long as his breath would hold out. Having quenched his thirst he was better able to judge the quality of the beverage, which was a mixture of rough wine and an infusion of herbs, leaving behind it a rather disagreeable flavour.
“No danger of getting drunk on this stuff!” he said with a slight annoyance.