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repel.
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    Maria sat thinking, while the adults conversed. The wine from the
arrière-côte
had loosened up the men, and the black smoke and fantastical creatures no longer seemed quite as threatening, but they were discussing them all the same, to decide whether they should send for the constabulary or the exorcists, or place their faith instead in the ancient wisdom which says that the countryside protects us from evil if our hearts are pure. All the men had to do was look at Auntie Angèle in the rocking chair where the women had firmly placed her; Angèle, her aged countenance aglow with stew and wine, wearing a new headpiece with ribbons the color of forget-me-nots, seemed to be sculpted from a fine smooth wood with noble veins, and all the men had to do was glance over at the dear old thing to contemplate the courage with which our lands are blessed. And there were even a few of them who thought that it was these very lowlands that had made the women like this, in their armchairs of old age, women who, in spite of the stove, the garden, the hens, the cows, the remedies, and the prayers, would take up their headscarves and their rosaries without a moment’s hesitation to go off and rescue an innocent life in danger. They are good companions to us, thought the men as they sipped their wine, and our land is a fine one. And while the chanterelle pie may have had something to do with their assertion, this did not contradict its basic sincerity, for the men from the lowlands loved their land and their women, and they knew that the land and the women were connected, as surely as they themselves belonged to their acres, as surely as they saw the toil of harvest and hunt as a tribute to be paid to the magnanimity of fate.
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    The priest, who disapproved of talk of exorcists, and ordinarily did not miss an opportunity to take his flock to task, sensed the battle against superstition was drowning in the honey pear he had been served along with a full glass of excellent wine. But he was a decent sort, who liked fine fare because he was of a kindly nature (whereas others are only tolerant because they are forever indulging in the sins of the flesh), and no sooner had he left the seminary and arrived in the village than he learned that people of the land rarely drifted from their faith, and that a man had to choose his battles if he wanted to find his place among them. So this was exactly how he thought of his ministry: he wanted to be among them, not against them, and this subsequently entitled him not only to the consideration of those he ministered to but also to certain generous secular gifts in the form of the hare pâté and quince jam that Eugénie could transform into provender fit for a king.
    And so in this pleasant atmosphere, with everyone well imbued with the sweetness of thyme honey and the tannins of our vines, Marcelot broached a topic that seemed timely to him:
    â€œSince the little lass has been here, we’ve had our finest seasons, wouldn’t you say?”
    In the well-heated room where the old women were nodding off, and the men were tilting back their chairs as they savored the evening brandy, and Maria was thinking, looking at no one but noticing everything, there came a long sigh as if the very farm itself were inhaling and exhaling a lungful of nocturnal air before holding its breath in anticipation. A heavy silence fell, filled with the din of fifteen bodies diffusing in the air an elevated flow of alertness and concentration. And yet you could sense a powerful rush of desire in this sudden petrifaction, and you knew that everyone there was only sitting still in expectation of a long-awaited burgeoning. Only Maria seemed to be absent from the events in the room, but the others held themselves as tautly as the bow of a Cheyenne Indian (or so the priest imagined the scene, for he was reading a book written by a missionary in Indian territory) and in that moment of complete