The Catalans: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

would have no honey that year. The bees were all dying.
    “When he goes away for his military service it will be all right,” repeated Dominique, in a stronger voice.
    “Who?”
    “Francisco.”
    “Whose Francisco?”
    “En Jaume Camairerrou’s Francisco.”
    “I never heard of him.”
    “Yes, you have. He is En Cisoul’s cousin: your own godchild’s cousin-german.”
    “Which En Cisoul?”
    “The faubourg En Cisoul, of course,” adding in a louder voice, “En Jourda’s son, your own godchild.”
    “Oh? Well, I don’t mind him.”
    “I say it will be all right when he has gone for his military service.”
    “I dare say: but it was five francs a kilo in the war.”
    I T WAS FROM that time on that Madeleine began to feel that her family did not like Francisco. It was not that they forbade her to play with him—nothing so hard or definite—but there was an air of disapproval, and a determination not to be pleased with Francisco that survived even the nine days’ wonder of his name being in the paper: he was first in a drawing competition for all the primary schools of the department. Jean Fajal, a remote and silent man, usually benign, though wordless, stared at the paper for a long while and said, “He will grow proud, no doubt: too proud for his trade.”
    They had every worldly reason for discouraging the association. Francisco came from the most savage part of the faubourg, el Cagareill, the quarter in front of the sea, and his father, Jaume Cortade, called Camairerrou, was as poor as he was savage. He was very savage. Francisco himself was the product of a freakish passion for a Genoese woman, a strange waif who came in with one of the Corsican fishing boats: Camairerrou installed her in his uncouth hovel, where she died among the nets and lobster pots within the year.
    But it went on, in spite of their disapproval: it went on, but of necessity they saw less of one another once school was over and done with. Francisco went first, being the older: the schoolmaster wanted him to stay and go on to the school at Argelès, said it was a waste to leave now, and even called on old Camairerrou; but it was no good, Francisco wanted to be out, and the old man could see no reason why a boy who could pull on a rope should stay penned in a school. So he left, and at once he was a man. On the last day of his last term he was a boy, playing quite childishly with the other boys in the street as they went home; and on the first day of the new term he passed them as they straggled by the fish-market, he passed them with his sea-boots on, carrying a basket with En Cisoul, a hundredweight of sardines, for the boats had been out all night. He nodded to them as he went by, but it was a man nodding to boys of his acquaintance, not a boy grinning at his equals.
    This change impressed Madeleine beyond words: she had always thought him wonderful, but this new fine creature in tall sea-boots and a scarlet handkerchief struck her dumb: she felt that she had been far too familiar, far too presuming, and for a while she fell back into her position of an unarmed, suppliant admirer.
    But she too was changing. She was not yet the equal of her lovely cousin, Mimi’s daughter Carmen, but her childish plainness had quite gone. She was growing into her features, and she was shooting up like a young willow; already she had that supple, upright, thoroughbred carriage that is supposed to come from carrying burdens on one’s head. Her nose was still unformed, and a great deal of the child lingered about her face, but her fan tastic bloom of complexion had begun, and it was obvious, even to her family, that she was growing into a very handsome young woman.
    It was at this time that she attracted the attention of Mme. Roig. Mme. Roig had known her before—she knew everybody—but she had not taken any particular notice of the girl until one day Madeleine and her Aunt Mimi decorated the chapel of the Curé d’Ars, acting as substitutes for