"Thank you, Germain," said the young wife in a serious tone and with
deep feeling. "I shall die with it, and if I die before you, you must
keep it for your little Solange."




IV

THE CABBAGE


They remounted their horses, and rode rapidly back to Belair. The
banquet was a sumptuous affair, and lasted, intermingled with dancing
and singing, until midnight. The old people did not leave the table for
fourteen hours. The grave-digger did the cooking, and did it very well.
He was renowned for that, and he left his ovens to come and dance and
sing between every two courses. And yet he was epileptic, was poor Père
Bontemps. Who would have suspected it? He was as fresh and vigorous and
gay as a young man. One day we found him lying like a dead man in a
ditch, all distorted by his malady, just at nightfall. We carried him to
our house in a wheelbarrow, and passed the night taking care of him.
Three days later, he was at a wedding, singing like a thrush, leaping
like a kid, and frisking about in the old-fashioned way. On leaving a
marriage-feast, he would go and dig a grave and nail up a coffin. He
performed those duties devoutly, and although they seemed to have no
effect on his merry humor, he retained a melancholy impression which
hastened the return of his attacks. His wife, a paralytic, had not left
her chair for twenty years. His mother is a hundred and forty years old
and is still alive. But he, poor man, so jovial and kind-hearted and