The house flourished, Sanxi grew, and Bertrande increased in beauty. Her sorrow and her new sense of responsibility ennobled her physical charm. She acquired unconsciously a manner of gracious command. Eight years after the departure of her husband she no longer had the first tender radiance which had so pleased the young man, but a greater and more mature beauty had taken its place.
Eight years after the departure of Martin Guerre, Bertrande his wife was seated in the Chamber instructing her son in the catechism. The first warm days of summer were come, and neither mother nor son was paying as great attention as might have been paid to the lesson in hand. The room, large, dusky, cool, shut them effectively from the affairs of the kitchen and the courtyard. The wooden shutters were opened wide, but the window was high. It let in the sunshine but did not permit a view of the yard. The peace of the summer day without, the quiet half hour alone with Sanxi, the release from the continual round of practical duties had relaxed Bertrande. She looked at Sanxi’s cool young cheek beside her knee and thought, “At last I begin to be at peace.”
And her thought, sweeping backward quickly over all the moments of anguish, of desire, of hatred, even, hours of fierce resentment against Martin for making her suffer, for holding her from any other life than a prolonged fruitless waiting for his return, hours of terror when she had contemplated his death in some engagement of the Spanish wars, hours to be remembered with horror in which she had desired his death that she might be free of the agony of incertitude—all these reviewed in a moment with a sharp inward knowledge of herself, her thought returned like a tired dove to this moment of peace in which love was only love for Sanxi, as innocent and cool and gentle as the curve of his cheek. She regarded him thoughtfully and tenderly, and Sanxi, lifting his eyes to hers, smiled with a secret amusement.
“Repeat the answer, my son,” said Bertrande.
Sanxi did so, his delight deepening.
“But you have given me that reply for two questions, Sanxi. You do not attend.”
“No, mother, for three questions, the same answer,” said Sanxi, suddenly hilarious.
“You must not make fun of sacred things,” she said to him as gravely as she could, but neither of them was deceived, and as they smiled at each other, a hubbub arose in the courtyard which made Sanxi run to the window. Standing on his tiptoes, he still could not see much but the adjoining buildings. The tumult increased, with shrill cries, definitely joyous. Bertrande de Rols turned toward the door, leaning slightly forward in her chair. The noise, advancing through the kitchen, was approaching the Chamber, and suddenly the door swung open to admit Martin’s Uncle Pierre, his four sisters and a bearded man dressed in leather and steel, who paused on the threshold as the others crowded forward. Behind him all the household servants and one or two men from the fields showed their excited ruddy faces. The old housekeeper, pushing past him, almost beside herself with joy, curtsied as low as she could, and cried:
“It is he, Madame!”
“It is Martin, my child,” said Uncle Pierre.
“Bertrande,” cried the sisters in chorus, “here is our brother Martin!”
Their voices filled the room, echoing from the low beams and the stone walls; they were all talking at once, and, as Bertrande rose to her feet, keeping one hand on the back of the chair to steady herself against a sudden, quickly passing dizziness, the bearded figure advanced gravely, surrounded by the agitated forms of the sisters, the uncle, the servants, who were now all swarming in behind the original group.
It was dark at the far end of the room. Bertrande stood in the sunlight and met, as in a dream, the long-anticipated moment, her breath stilled and her heart beating wildly. The figure in leather and steel advanced with even tread, a stockier figure than that of the man who had gone away eight years before, broader in the shoulder, developed, mature. The beard was strange, being rough and thick, but above it the eyes were like those of Martin, the forehead, the whole cast of the countenance, like and unlike to Bertrande’s startled recognition, and as he advanced from the shadow he seemed to Bertrande a stranger, the stranger of the wooded pathway, then her loved husband, then a man who might have been Martin’s ancestor but not young Martin Guerre.
When he had advanced to within a few feet of her, he stopped, and she read in his eyes a surprise and an admiration so intense that her limbs seemed all at once bathed in a soft fire. She was frightened.
“Madame,” said the stranger who was her husband, “you are very beautiful.”
“Cap de Diou!” exclaimed the uncle. “Are you surprised that your wife is beautiful?”
“Beautiful, yes, I knew, but beauty such as this I did not remember.”
“Yes, Martin, yes,” cried the sisters. “She has changed, you are right. It is another beauty.”
“But why do you stand there? Embrace her, my nephew.”
And then Bertrande felt on her cheek the imprint of the bearded lips, and on her shoulders the weight of the strong hands, felt with a shock the actual masculinity of the embrace, so strange for one who had been long accustomed only to the light touch of Sanxi’s mouth. The embrace released her from her trance, reminding her of the last kiss which she had given Martin at the edge of the wheat field, and all the emotion tightly held in check for so many years was in her voice as she cried:
“Ah, why have you been away so long! Cruel! Cruel! I have almost forgotten your face! Even your voice, Martin, is strange in my ears.”
“Bertrande,” said Pierre Guerre with gravity, “this is no proper welcome for your husband, to overwhelm him with reproaches. You forget yourself, my child, indeed you do. My nephew, you must pardon her. It is the excess of emotion. We cannot tell you how we rejoice at your return. It was the greatest of sorrows to your father that you were gone so long. But that is over. I praise God that you are safely with us, no longer a boy, but a man grown. In times like these a house has need of a master and a child of a protector.”
“I praise God also,” said Bertrande softly, “and I ask your pardon, my husband.”
“No, Uncle,” came the reply. “She does well to reproach the man who left you all so long unprotected. It is I who should ask pardon of her. But you must believe me: until I passed through Rieux I did not know that my father was dead.” And, bending above her hand, he promised Bertrande that he would never again leave her and that he would do all in his power to atone for the neglect which he had shown her. Bertrande was deeply touched and not a little surprised. Uncle Pierre remarked:
“It is well done, my nephew. I can see that the wars have done more for you than strengthen bone and muscle. You have spoken like a true father and like the head of a house.”
Behind him the four sisters of Martin were agitated by murmurs of approval, and there were cries of approval and admiration from the servants, who, crowding forward, all wished to salute their long-absent master.
He greeted them all, inquiring for certain ones who had died during his absence, questioned them about their families and their health, praised them for their loyalty and good service, and appeared so genuinely pleased to see them all that their enthusiasm redoubled.
Bertrande, watching him, said to herself:
“He is noble, he is generous, he is like his father again, but become gracious.”
But suddenly the master, putting aside gently the servants who stood between him and Bertrande, cried:
“But where is Sanxi? Where