Part 8 (2/2)

She was sewing the hem of an unbleached linen sheet, which fell about her in big folds. Seeing Jean enter, she dropped it. She remained dumb with surprise, not understanding how her husband could bring to her the son, educated in Germany, of a renegade father, traitor to Alsace. During the war she had had three brothers killed in the service of France.

”I met him coming to see me,” M. Bastian said, as if to excuse himself, ”and I begged him to enter, Marie.”

”Good day, madame,” said the young man, who was hurt by the astonishment and coolness of Madame Bastian's first glance, and who had stopped in the middle of the hall. ”Old memories brought me here.”

”Good day, Jean.”

The words died away before reaching the walls, papered with old peonies. One could hardly hear them. The silence which followed was so cruel that Jean grew pale, and M. Bastian, who had shut the door, and who, a little behind Jean, was scolding gently, with a shake of the head, those beautiful, severe eyes of the Alsatian woman, which did not lower themselves, intervened, saying:

”I have not told you, Marie, that I saw our friend Ulrich this morning in our vineyards of Sainte Odile. He spoke to me of this boy's return to Alsheim. He a.s.sured me that we ought to congratulate ourselves that we are going to see his nephew settle in the country.

He told me that he was one of ours.”

The silent lips of the Alsatian wore a vague smile of incredulity, which died as the words died. And Madame Bastian again began to sew.

Jean turned round, pale, as yet more miserable than irritated, and said in a low voice to M. Bastian:

”I knew that our two families were divided, but not to such an extent as they evidently are. I left Alsheim some time ago. You will excuse me for having come.”

”Stay, stay! I will explain to you. Believe me that we have nothing against you, no animosity whatever, neither one nor the other.”

The old man placed his hand on Jean's arm in a friendly manner:

”I do not want you to go like that. No; since you are here I will not let you say that I have sent you away without doing the honours. The thought would weigh heavy on me. I will not!”

”No, M. Bastian, I ought not to be here. I am in the way; I cannot stay one instant.”

He moved to go away. The solid hand of the old Mayor of Alsheim fastened round the wrist he held. His voice rose and became harsh.

”Presently. But do not at least refuse the civility I am accustomed to show to all who come here. It is the custom of the country and of the house. Drink with me, Jean Oberle, or I shall repudiate you, and we shall not even recognise each other.”

Jean remembered that no house in the country round Barr or Obernai, not even the oldest and richest, possessed better recipes for making beam-tree-berry brandy or cherry brandy, or elderberry wine, or wine made with dried grapes, or spring drinks. He saw that the old Mayor of Alsheim would be deeply hurt by a refusal, and that the offer was a means of showing his cordiality without disavowing in words, or in thought, the mother, queen, and mistress of the big house, who continued to ignore the guest, because the guest was the son of Joseph Oberle.

”So be it,” he said.

Then M. Bastian called, ”Odile!”

The hands that held the linen, near the stove, rested on the folds of her black dress, and for half a minute there were three human beings, each with very different thoughts, who awaited her who was going to enter at the end of the room, on the right, near the great walnut cupboard. She came out of the shadow of a neighbouring room and advanced into the light, while Jean controlled his feelings and was saying to himself, ”I did well to remember her!”

”Give me the oldest brandy that we have,” said the father.

Odile Bastian had at first smiled at her father, whom she saw near the door, then she had, with a movement of her brown eyebrows, shown her astonishment, without displeasure, when she recognised Jean Oberle near him; then the smile had disappeared when she saw her mother, bending over her work-table, dumb and holding herself aloof from what was going on around her. Then her bosom heaved, the words she was going to say were arrested before reaching her lips; and Odile Bastian, too intelligent not to guess the affront, too much a woman to emphasise the secret trouble, had simply and silently obeyed. She had sought a key in the drawer of a chest, had gone to the big cupboard, and raising herself on the tips of her toes, one hand leaning on one of the doors at the top of the piece of furniture, her head thrown back, she ransacked the depths of the hiding-place.

She was just the same girl, but more developed, who had lived in Jean's memory for years, and who had followed him over the world.

Her features were not regular. But in spite of that she was beautiful, with a strong, glowing beauty. She seemed like the statues of Alsace, which one sees on monuments and in French souvenir pictures, like those daughters of rich and warlike blood, wrathful and daring, while near them a more feminine Lorraine weeps sadly. She was tall; there were no hollows in her full cheeks, curving to a chin as firm and pink. It is true she did not wear the wide bows of black ribbon which make two wings on the head, but that only accentuated the unusual, the exceptional beauty of her hair, which was of the colour of ripe corn, of a perfectly dull, even tint, bound in bands round her temples and there twisted and raised on her head. Her eyebrows were of the same colour, long and finely marked, and the lashes, and even the eyes, slightly apart, where dwelt a soul at rest, were deep and pa.s.sionate. In a moment M.

Bastian had on a stand two gla.s.ses of cut crystal and a big-bellied black bottle. He took the bottle in one hand and with the other he drew out, without shaking it, a cork which swelled out as it left the neck, being damp as sapwood in spring time. At the same time a smell of ripe fruit was diffused under the beams of the room.

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