Read The Widow for Free Online Page B

hand.
    He went up to the old man. “Well, now …” he said, as though the other had not been deaf.
    And he winked at him, but Couderc, instead of responding to this overture, turned his head away. He was probably wary, perhaps frightened, for when Jean came closer, he took two or three steps in the direction of his cows, as if to maintain the distance between them.
    So, with his sack almost full of grass, Jean returned to the house.
    Tati, all dressed up and wearing a hat, was putting a saucepan on the fire, which she had finally lit.
    â€œI suppose you don’t go to church?” she said without turning around.
    There was a smell of onion being cooked. She took some cloves from the cupboard, and two bay leaves.
    â€œGive the grass to the rabbits. Have a look at my stew now and then. If it sticks to the bottom, add a drop of water, but only a drop, and put the pot on the side of the stove.”
    A piece of mirror hung below a calendar. She looked at herself to straighten her hat, got her prayer book with its cover of black wool cloth. Then she turned to face him.
    â€œYou’ll manage?” she asked.
    And always that little glance in which he could read satisfaction, even a kind of promise, but a slight reservation as well. She was not distrustful. Only, she still needed to watch him for a time.
    â€œI’ll manage!”
    â€œIf you want to wash, just draw some water from the well. There’s soap and a towel in the laundry.”
    Why were her eyes filling with sudden laughter?
    â€œYou haven’t got a razor, I’ll bet. For today, you can use the old man’s. It must be in his room. I’ll bring you one when I go to St. Amand.”
    A little while later, she was walking along the canal, short and solid, dressed in black from head to toe, clutching her prayer book to her bosom and holding an umbrella in her other hand.
    He shaved in the kitchen, in front of the scrap of mirror, and then went to wash in the yard with the ice-cold water he drew from the well.
    When he felt clean, with his chest bare under his open shirt, and his hair still damp, he wanted to smoke, but he had no cigarettes left. Nor had he the money to buy any.
    By dint of prowling through the house, he managed to find a packet of rough-cut tobacco on the kitchen mantelpiece. Some pipes belonging to the old man were hanging in a rack. He chose one, and then, feeling a certain distaste for smoking a pipe Couderc had used before him, he went to the cupboard for the bottle of brandy, filled the bowl, and let the liquid trickle out through the stem.
    From time to time he glanced at René, widow Couderc’s son, stuck there in his frame, with cap, uniform, and the lopsided face of a degenerate.
    â€œA little punk …” he growled.
    He knew what he was talking about. A dirty little brute, and a liar in the bargain.
    The stew was simmering, the meat was beginning to sizzle in the saucepan, and he did not forget, when he was afraid it might stick, to pour in a drop of water as he had been bidden.
    After which he went outside, aimlessly, and reached the tow-path, as free as air, like a man utterly without ties.
    The old man was still with his cows across the water. The fisherman had rigged two bottom lines fitted with huge red floats, probably for carp or tench, and now he sat motionless on his campstool.
    Cyclists were still passing, and some of them had bunches of lilac tied to the handlebars, people doubtless on their way to visit relatives in town. One of the bargees, standing up in his dinghy, was giving the side of his unladen barge a coat of resin, using a long-handled brush.
    Jean reached the lock. The lock-keeper—he had a wooden leg—was sitting on his doorstep, mending an eel trap. The door was open. A baby was crying. And on the other side of the water the house in the brickyard had its door open too, but it was impossible to see what was going on inside.
    He was about to turn back,