‘And is the little one well?’ asked the doctor, taking up his hat.
‘Pretty well,’ answered Jeanbernat. ‘She’s never here. She often disappears all day long – still, she may be in the upstair rooms.’
He raised his head and called: ‘Albine! Albine!’ Then with a shrug of his shoulders, he added: ‘Yes, my word, she is a nice hussy… Well, till next time, Monsieur le Cure. I’m always at your disposal.’
Abbe Mouret, however, had no time to accept the Philosopher’s challenge. A door suddenly opened at the end of the vestibule; a dazzling breach was made in the black darkness of the wall, and through the breach came a vision of a virgin forest, a great depth of woodland, beneath a flood of sunbeams. In that sudden blaze of light the priest distinctly perceived certain far-away things: a large yellow flower in the middle of a lawn, a sheet of water falling from a lofty rock, a colossal tree filled with a swarm of birds; and all this steeped, lost, blazing in such a tangle of greenery, such riotous luxuriance of vegetation, that the whole horizon seemed one great burst of shooting foliage. The door banged to, and everything vanished.
‘Ah! the jade!’ cried Jeanbernat, ‘she was in the Paradou again!’
Albine was now laughing on the threshold of the vestibule. She wore an orange-coloured skirt, with a large red kerchief fastened round her waist, thus looking like some gipsy in holiday garb. And she went on laughing, her head thrown back, her bosom swelling with mirth, delighted with her flowers, wild flowers which she had plaited into her fair hair, fastened to her neck, her bodice, and her bare slender golden arms. She seemed like a huge nosegay, exhaling a powerful perfume.
‘Ay, you are a beauty!’ growled the old man. ‘You smell of weeds enough to poison one – would any one think she was sixteen, that doll?’
Albine remained unabashed, however, and laughed still more heartily. Doctor Pascal, who was her great friend, let her kiss him.
‘So you are not frightened in the Paradou?’ he asked.
‘Frightened? What of?’ she said, her eyes wide open with astonishment. ‘The walls are too high, no one can get in. There’s only myself. It is my garden, all my very own. A fine big one, too. I haven’t found out where it ends yet.’
‘And the animals?’ interrupted the doctor.
‘The animals? Oh! they don’t hurt; they all know me well.’
‘But it is very dark under the trees?’
‘Course! there’s shade: if there were none, the sun would burn my face up. It is very pleasant in the shade among the leaves.’
She flitted about, filling the little garden with the rustling sweep of her skirts, and scattering round the pungent odour of wild flowers which clung to her. She had smiled at Abbe Mouret without trace of shyness, without heed of the astonished look with which he observed her. The priest had stepped aside. That fair-haired maid, with long oval face, glowing with life, seemed to him to be the weird mysterious offspring of the forest of which he had caught a glimpse in a sheet of sunlight.
‘I say, I have got some blackbird nestlings; would you like them?’ Albine asked the doctor.
‘No, thanks,’ he answered, laughing. ‘You should give them to the Cure’s sister; she is very fond of pets. Good day, Jeanbernat.’
Albine, however, had fastened on the priest.
‘You are the vicar of Les Artaud, aren’t you? You have a sister? I’ll go and see her. Only you must not speak to me about God. My uncle will not have it.’
‘You bother us, be off,’ exclaimed Jeanbernat, shrugging his shoulders. Then bounding away like a goat, dropping a shower of flowers behind her, she disappeared. The slam of a door was heard, and from behind the house came bursts of laughter, which died away in the distance like the scampering rush of some mad animal let loose among the grass.
‘You’ll see, she will end by sleeping in the Paradou,’ muttered the old man with indifference.
And as he saw his visitors off, he added: ‘If you should find me dead one of these fine days, doctor, just do me the favour of pitching me into the muck-pit there, behind my lettuces. Good evening, gentlemen.’
He let the wooden gate which closed the hedge fall to again, and the house assumed once more its aspect of happy peacefulness in the noonday sunlight, amidst the buzzing of the big flies that swarmed all up the ivy even to the roof tiles.
IX
The gig once more rolled along the road skirting the Paradou’s interminable wall. Abbe Mouret, still silent, scanned with upturned eyes the huge boughs which stretched over that wall, like the arms of giants hidden there. All sorts of sounds came from the park: rustling of wings, quivering of leaves, furtive bounds at which branches snapped, mighty sighs that bowed the young shoots – a vast breath of life sweeping over the crests of a nation of trees. At times, as he heard a birdlike note that seemed like a human laugh, the priest turned his head, as if he felt uneasy.
‘A queer girl!’ said his uncle as he eased the reins a little. ‘She was nine years old when she took up her quarters with that old heathen. Some brother of his had ruined himself, though in what I can’t remember. The little one was at school somewhere when her father killed himself. She was even quite a little lady, up to reading, embroidery, chattering, and strumming on the piano. And such a coquette too! I saw her arrive with open-worked stockings, embroidered skirts, frills, cuffs, a heap of finery. Ah, well! the finery didn’t last long!’
He laughed. A big stone nearly upset the gig.
‘It will be lucky if I don’t leave a wheel in this cursed road!’ he muttered. ‘Hold on, my boy.’
The wall still stretched beside them: the priest still listened.
‘As you may well imagine,’ continued the doctor, ‘the Paradou, what with its sun, its stones, and its thistles, would wreck a whole outfit every day. Three or four mouthfuls, that’s all it made of all the little one’s beautiful dresses. She used to come back naked. Now she dresses like a savage. To-day she was rather presentable; but sometimes she has scarcely anything on beyond her shoes and chemise. Did you hear her? The Paradou is hers. The very day after she came she took possession of it. She lives in it; jumps out of the window when Jeanbernat locks the door, bolts off in spite of all, goes nobody knows whither, buries herself in some invisible burrows known only to herself. She must have a fine time in that wilderness.’
‘Hark, uncle!’ interrupted Abbe Mouret. ‘Isn’t that some animal running behind the wall?’
Uncle Pascal listened.
‘No,’ he said after a minute’s silence, ‘it is the rattle of the trap on the stones. No, the child doesn’t play the piano now. I believe she has even forgotten how to read. Just picture to yourself a young lady gone back to a state of primevalness, turned out to play on a desert island. My word, if ever you get to know of a girl who needs proper bringing up, I advise you not to entrust her to Jeanbernat. He has a most primitive way of letting nature alone. When I ventured to speak to him about Albine he answered me that he must not prevent trees from growing as they pleased. He says he is for the normal development of temperaments… All the same, they are very interesting, both of them. I never come this way without paying them a visit.’
The gig was now emerging from the hollowed road. At this point the