VII
The shooting of wood pigeons provided Jean with an excuse for spending his days away from her to whom his mere presence was a torture. He got up so quietly in the mornings that Noémi did not wake, and when she opened her eyes he had left the house and was driving in a little cart over the muddy roads. He unharnessed his horse at a farm, hid himself close to the hut, and whittled a signal, fearing lest some doves might already be in sight. Cadette’s grandson replied that all was clear, and the waiting began. Long, mist-wrapped, dreaming hours: tinkling sheep-bells, shepherds calling faintly, rooks cawing in the tree-tops.
At four o’clock Jean started for home, but in order to arrive as late as possible he went for a moment into the church. His lips did not form any prayer, but his heart bled before a hidden presence. Tears came frequently, and it seemed to him that his head was resting upon invisible knees. Later, Jean threw his day’s bag of slate-coloured birds upon the kitchen table, their crops still swollen with acorns. His boots smoked when he stretched them towards the fire, and the warm tongue of a dog touched his hand. Cadette was putting bread in the soup, and Jean followed her into the dining-room. Noémi spoke to him: “I didn’t know you had come back....” Then—“Aren’t you going to wash your hands?” The shutters of his room were still open, and in the rain-water in the ruts the reflection of a lantern glittered coldly. Jean washed his hands without cleaning his fingernails, and at first the edge of the dining table prevented Noémi from seeing them. He watched her furtively; how white her ears were!
Noémi’s appetite had gone, and Jean insisted clumsily upon her taking a second helping of mutton: “But I tell you I’m not hungry!” A little smile of apology, or perhaps the pouting suggestion of a kiss calmed his brief impatience. Noémi looked at her husband with the eyes of a God-fearing person at the point of death, and the smile that played about her mouth was forced as though to cheer a dying friend. It was Jean, Jean Péloueyre, who had banished the gleam from her eyes, and the colour from her cheeks, her lips, and her ears. His mere presence was cutting at the roots of her life, and he loved her the better for the suffering he caused her. No victim had ever been so adored by its tormentor.
M. Jêrome alone flourished. Troubles other than his own were not apparent to him, and his announcement that he was conscious of a definite improvement in the state of his health abounded everyone. His asthma allowed him a certain freedom, and he could now sleep until dawn without the help of a narcotic. To have denied admittance to Dr. Pieuchon whose son was spitting blood and undergoing treatment from his father had, M. Jêrome said, brought him good luck. He had broken with his old friend through fear of contagion, and he declared that his daughter-in-law could minister to all his needs—she was more competent than a doctor. Nothing, not even the ceremonies of his toilet, dismayed her. Under her supervision his loathsome diet became quite delicious. The juice of an orange or a lemon and sometimes a spoonful of old Armagnac filled the gaps left by forbidden condiments, and produced a thing which M. Jêrome swore he had lacked for fifteen years—an appetite. And after a few shy attempts, Noémi was able to establish the habit of encouraging her father-in-law’s digestion by reading aloud to him. She was indefatigable, and could carry it through to a finish without showing that she heard his short regular breathing, the overture to sleep. One o’clock would strike; an hour less of shuddering disgust in the darkness of the room above, of waiting for the loathsome body beside her to move from the sleep simulated out of pity for her. Often the touch of a leg waked her, and she would creep into the crevice between the bed and the wall where the slightest touch made her tremble with apprehension. Then Jean, believing her to be asleep, would risk a furtive caress, and it was Noémi’s turn to pretend, left he should be tempted to go further.