Chocolat Read Online Free PDF Page A

Gras parade.
           “Now, I have you down as a peanut brittle man.” I kept my face serious, for this purchase of sweets is serious business. “It’s good value, easy to share, doesn’t melt in your pockets and you can get”— I indicated with hands held apart — “oh, this much at least for five francs. Am I right?”
           No answering smile, but a nod, as of one businessman to another. The coin was warm and a little sticky. He took the packet with care.
           “I like the little gingerbread house,” he said gravely. “In the window.” In the doorway the three others nodded shyly, pressing together as if to give themselves courage. “It’s cool.” The American word was uttered with a kind of defiance, like smoke from a secret cigarette. I smiled.
           “Very cool,” I agreed. “If you like, you and your friends can come over and help me eat it where I take it down.”
           Eyes widened.
           “Cool!”
           “Hypercool”
           “When?”
           I shrugged. “I’ll tell Anouk to remind you,” I told them. “That’s my little girl.”
           “We know. We saw her. She doesn’t go to school.” This last was uttered with some envy..
           “She will on Monday. It’s a pity she doesn’t have any friends yet, because I told her she could ask them over. You know, to help me with the displays.” Feet shuffled, sticky hands held out, shoving and pushing to be first in line.
           “We can”
           “I can—”
           “I’m Jeannot ”
           “Claudine—”
           “Lucie.”
           I sent them out with a sugar mouse each and watched them fan across the square like dandelion seeds in the wind. A slice of sunlight glanced off their backs one after the other as they ran — red-orange-green-blue — then they were gone. From the shaded arch of St Jeromes I saw the priest, Francis Reynaud, watching them with a look of curiosity and, I thought, disapproval. I felt a moment’s surprise. Why should he disapprove? Since his duty visit on our first day he has not called again, though I have heard of him often from other people. Guillaume speaks of him with respect, Narcisse with temper, Caroline with that archness which I sense she adopts when speaking of any man under fifty. There is little warmth in their speech. He is not a local, I understand. A Paris seminarian, all his learning from books he does not know the land, its needs, its demands. This from Narcisse, who has had a running feud with the priest ever since he refused to attend Mass during the harvesting season. A man who does not suffer fools, says Guillaume, with that small gleam of humour from behind his round spectacles, that is to say so many of us, with our foolish little habits and our unbreakable routines. He pats Charly’s head affectionately as he says it, and the dog gives his single, solemn bark.
           “He thinks it’s ridiculous to be so devoted to a dog,” said Guillaume ruefully. “He’s far too polite to say so, but he thinks it’s inappropriate. A man of my age…” Before his retirement Guillaume was a master at the local school. There are only two teachers there now to deal with the falling numbers, though many of the older people still refer to Guillaume as le maitre d’ecole. I watch as he scratches Charly gently behind the ears, and I am sure I sense the sadness I saw in him at the carnival; a furtive look which is almost guilt.
           “A man of any age can choose his friends where he likes,” I interrupted with some heat. “Perhaps monsieur le cure could learn a few things from Charly himself.” Again that sweet, sad almost-smile.
           “Monsieur le cure tries his best,” he told me gently. “We should not expect more.”
           I did not answer. In my profession it is a truth quickly learned that the process of giving is without