The Old Man
The warm autumn sunlight fell across the farmyard through the tall beeches at the roadside. Under the turf cropped by the cows, the earth was soft and moist with recent rain, and sank underfoot with a sound of sucked-in water; the apple trees laden with apples strewed the dark-green herbage with pale-green fruit.
Four young heifers were grazing, tethered in a line; from time to time they lowed towards the house; cocks and hens lent colour and movement to the dungheap in front of the cowshed, running round, cackling noisily, scratching in the dust, while the two cocks crowed without ceasing, looking for worms for their hens, and calling to them with lively clucks.
The wooden gate opened; a man came in, aged perhaps forty, but looking sixty, wrinkled and bent, walking with long strides, weighed down by heavy sabots filled with straw. Arms of abnormal length hung down by the side of his body. As he drew near the farmhouse, a yellow cur, tied to the foot of an enormous pear-tree, beside a barrel which served as his kennel, wagged his tail, and began to bark joyously.
“Down, Finot!” cried the man.
The dog was silent.
A peasant woman came out of the house. Her broad, flat, bony body was plainly visible through a tight-fitting woollen jersey. A grey skirt, too short, reached halfway down her legs, which were hidden in blue stockings; she too wore sabots filled with straw. A yellowing white bonnet covered the sparse hair that clung round her skull, and her face, brown, thin, ugly, toothless, bore the savage and brutalised expression found often in the faces of peasants.
“How is he?” asked the man.
“Parson says it’s the end,” replied the woman; “he won’t last through the night.”
The two of them went into the house.
After passing through the kitchen, they entered a low, dark room, faintly lit by a window, in front of which hung a rag of Norman chintz. Huge beams in the ceiling, brown with age, dark and smoke-begrimed, ran across the room from one side to the other, carrying the light floor of the loft, where crowds of rats ran about both by day and by night.
The earthen floor, damp and uneven, had a greasy look; at the far end of the room the bed was a dim white patch. A hoarse regular sound, a harsh, rattling, and whistling sound, with a gurgling note like that made by a broken pump, came from the darkened couch, where an old man lay dying, the woman’s father.
The man and the woman came up and stared at the dying man with their calm, patient eyes.
“This time, it’s the end,” said the son-in-law; “he won’t even last till nightfall.”
“He’s been gurgling like that since midday,” answered his wife.
Then they were silent. Her father’s eyes were closed, his face was the colour of earth, so dry that it looked as though carved of wood. Between his half-open lips issued a laboured, clamorous breathing, and at every breath the grey calico sheet over his chest heaved and fell.
After a long silence the son-in-law declared:
“There’s nothing to do but leave him to snuff out. There’s nothing we can do. But it’s annoying all the same, because of the colzas; now the weather’s good, I’ll have to transplant them to morrow.”
His wife seemed uneasy at this idea. She pondered for some moments, then said:
“Seeing that he’s going to die, we won’t bury him before Saturday; that will leave you tomorrow for the colza.”
The peasant meditated.
“Yes,” he said, “but then tomorrow I’ll have to bid the guests for the funeral; it’ll take me a good five or six hours to go and see everyone from Tourville to Manetot.”
The woman, after pondering for two or three minutes, declared:
“It’s barely three, so you could start going round tonight and go all over Tourville way. You may as well say he’s dead, seeing that he can’t last through the afternoon.”
For a few moments the man remained in doubt, pondering over the consequences and the advantages of the idea.
“Very well, I’ll go,” he said at last.
He made as though to go out, then came back, and said, after a brief hesitation:
“Seeing that you’ve no work on hand, shake down some cooking-apples, and then you might make four dozen dumplings for the people that will be coming to the funeral; they’ll want cheering up. Light the range with the faggot under the shed by the winepress. It’s dry.”
He left the room, went back into the kitchen, opened the cupboard, took out a six-pound loaf, carefully cut off a slice, gathered the crumbs fallen on to the shelf in the hollow of his hand, and crammed them into his mouth, in order to waste nothing. Then on the tip of his knife he picked up a bit of salt butter from the bottom of a brown earthenware pot and spread it on his bread, which he began to eat slowly, as he did everything.
He went back across the yard, quieted the dog, who began to bark again, went out on to the road which ran alongside his ditch, and departed in the direction of Tourville.
Left alone, the woman set about her task. She took the lid off the flour bin and prepared the paste for the dumplings. For a long time she worked it, turning it over and over, kneading it, squeezing it, and beating it. Then she made a large ball of it, yellowish white in colour, and left it on the corner of the table.
Then she went to get the apples, and, to avoid injuring the tree with a stick, she climbed into it with the aid of a stool. She chose the fruit with care, taking only the ripest, and heaped them in her apron.
A voice called from the road:
“Hey there! Madame Chicot!”
She turned round. It was a neighbour, Master Osime Favet, the mayor, on his way to manure his fields, seated on the manure cart, with his legs dangling over the side. She turned round and replied:
“What can I do for you, Master Osime?”
“How’s your father getting on?”
“He’s practically gone,” she shouted. “The funeral’s on Saturday at seven, seeing as we’re in a hurry to do the colza.”
“Right,” replied the neighbour. “Good luck to you! Are you well?”
“Thank you, yes,” she replied to his polite inquiry. “And you too?”
Then she went on picking her apples.
As soon as she came in, she went to her father, expecting to find him dead. But from the door she could hear his noisy, monotonous death-rattle, and to save time decided that it was useless to go to his bedside. She began to make the dumplings.
She wrapped the apples, one by one, in a thin leaf of paste, then lined them up along the edge of the table. When she had made forty-eight, arranged in dozens one in front of the other, she began to think of getting supper ready, and hung her pot over the fire, to cook the potatoes; for she had reflected that it was useless to light the range that day, having still the whole of the next day in which to complete her preparations for the funeral.
Her husband returned about five o’clock. As soon as he had crossed the threshold he inquired:
“Is it over yet?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “The gurgling’s still going on.”
They went to the bed. The old man was in exactly the same condition. His raucous breathing, regular as the working of a clock, had become neither quicker nor slower. It came from second to second, with slight variations in the pitch, determined by the passage of the air as it entered and left his chest.
His son-in-law stared at him, then said:
“He’ll go out when we’re not thinking of it, like a candle.”
They went back to the kitchen, and began their supper in silence. When they had swallowed the soup, they ate a slice of bread and butter as well; then, as soon as the plates were washed, they went back to the dying man’s room.
The woman, holding a small lamp with a smoky wick, passed it in front of her father’s face. If he had not been breathing he would certainly have been taken for dead.
The bed belonging to the two peasants was hidden at the other end of the room, in a sort of recess. They got into bed without speaking a word, extinguished the light, and closed their eyes; soon two uneven snores, one deep, the other shriller, accompanied the uninterrupted rattle of the dying man.
The rats ran to and fro in the loft.
The husband awoke with the first pale glimmer of dawn. His father-in-law was still alive. He shook his wife, uneasy at the old man’s resistance.
“I say, Phémie, he won’t finish it off. What would you do about it?”
He knew her to be of good counsel.
“He won’t get through the day, for certain,” she replied. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. And then the mayor won’t stand in the way of the burial tomorrow just the same, seeing what he did for old Father Rénard, who died just at sowing-time.”
He was convinced by the voice of reason, and went off to the fields.
His wife cooked the dumplings, and then finished all the work of the farmhouse.
At midday, the old man was not dead. The day-labourers hired for the transplanting of the colza came in a group to look at the aged man who was so reluctant to take his leave. Each said his say, then went off again to the fields.
At six, when they returned from work, her father was still breathing. His son-in-law at last became alarmed.
“What’s to do now, Phémie?”
She had no more idea than he what was best to do. They went to find the mayor. He promised that he would shut his eyes and authorise the burial on the next day. The officer of health, whom they went to see, also undertook, as a favour to Master Chicot, to antedate the death certificate. The man and the woman went home reassured.
They went to bed and slept as on the night before, mingling their sonorous breathing with the fainter breathing of the old man.
When they awoke, he was not dead.
At that they were overwhelmed. They remained standing at the father’s bedside, looking at him with distrust, as though he had meant to play a shabby trick on them, to deceive and annoy them for his own amusement; above all, they grudged him the time he was making them waste.
“What are we to do?” asked the son-in-law.
She had no idea, and answered:
“It’s vexing, it is.”
They could not now put off the guests, who would be arriving at any moment. They decided to wait for them and explain the situation.
About ten to seven the first guests appeared. The women dressed in black, their heads wrapped in large veils, came in with a melancholy air. The men, ill at ease in their cloth coats, advanced more slowly, two and two, talking business.
Maître Chicot and his wife, dismayed, received them with distressed explanations; as they accosted the first group of guests, both of them burst into sudden premeditated and simultaneous sobs. They explained their story, recounted their embarrassment, offered chairs, ran to and fro, made excuses, tried to prove that anybody would have acted in the same way, talking incessantly, suddenly became so talkative that they gave no one a chance to reply.
They went from one to the next.
“We’d never ha’ thought it; it’s not to be believed he could ha’ lasted like this!”
The bewildered guests, a little disappointed, like people who have been robbed of a long-expected ceremony, did not know what to do, and remained seated or standing. Some were anxious to go. Maître Chicot restrained them.
“We’ll break a bit of food together all the same. We’ve made some dumplings; better make the best of the chance.”
Faces brightened at the thought. The guests began to talk in low voices. Gradually the yard filled; the first comers were telling the news to the new arrivals. They whispered together; everyone was cheered at the thought of the dumplings.
The women went in to see the dying man. They crossed themselves at the bedside, stammered a prayer, and came out again. The men, less eager for the spectacle, threw a single glance through the window, which had been set ajar.
Madame Chicot recounted the death agony.
“For two days now he’s been like that, neither more nor less, neither higher nor lower. Isn’t it just like a pump run dry?”
When everybody had seen the dying man, their thoughts were turned towards the collation; but as the guests were too numerous for the kitchen to hold, the table was carried out in front of the door. The four dozen dumplings, golden and appetising, attracted all eyes, set out in two large dishes. Everyone reached forward to take one, fearing that there were not enough. But four were left over.
Maître Chicot, his mouth full, declared:
“If the old man could see us, it’ud be a rare grief to him; he was rare and fond of them in his time.”
“He’ll never eat any more now,” said a fat, jovial peasant. “We all come to it in the end.”
This reflection, far from saddening the guests, appeared to cheer them up. At the moment it had come to them to eat the dumplings.
Madame Chicot, heartbroken at the expense, ran ceaselessly to and from the cellar to fetch cider. The jugs came up and were emptied one after another. Everyone was laughing now, talking loudly, beginning to shout, as people will shout at meals.
Suddenly an old peasant woman, who had remained near the dying man, held there by a greedy terror of the thing which was so soon to come to her, appeared at the window and shouted in a shrill voice:
“He’s gone! He’s gone!”
Everyone was silent. The women rose quickly, to go and see.
He really was dead. The rattle had ceased. The men looked at one another with downcast eyes. The old blackguard had chosen his time ill.
The Chicots were no longer crying. It was all over; they were calm. They kept on saying:
“We knew it couldn’t last. If only he could have made up his mind last night, we shouldn’t have had all this bother.”
Never mind, it was all over. They would bury him on Monday, that was all, and would eat more dumplings for the occasion.
The guests departed, talking of the affair, pleased all the same at having seen it, and also at having had a bite to eat.
And when the man and his wife were by themselves, face to face, she said, with her face contracted with anguish:
“All the same, I shall have to make four dozen more dumplings. If only he could have made up his mind last night!”
And her husband, more resigned, replied:
“You won’t have to do it every day.”