The Widow Read Online Free PDF Page A

Look at the face he’s pulling….”
    She opened a brown-painted cupboard, took out two glasses, showed them to the old man, and pushed a jug into his hand.
    â€œHe’s deaf as a post. He can’t even speak any more, not since he fell out of a hay wagon. An old piece of junk, that’s what he is…. But when it comes to certain things he knows well enough how to act the lamb with Tati.”
    An excited flame had danced in her eyes and she looked the man over from head to foot.
    â€œTati’s what I’ve been called since I was a child. I don’t even know why. He’s gone to draw some wine…. You’re a foreigner, I’ll bet?”
    It was as if she were hesitating to take definite possession of him. She was still a little wary.
    â€œNo. I’m French.”
    â€œOh! …”
    Disappointment. She did not try to hide it.
    â€œI could have sworn you were a foreigner. They pass this way sometimes, rather your style. The Chagots, at Drevant, had one for years, a Polack who used to sleep in the stable and could turn his hand to anything.”
    It was the man’s turn to murmur: “Oh!”
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œJean.”
    All this time she was taking various things out of her baskets: two aprons, noodles, cans of sardines, a spool of black thread, a parcel of cold meat wrapped in wax paper. The old man came back with the jug full of ice-cold white wine.
    â€œWhy don’t you sit down? … You wanted to get to Montluçon?”
    â€œIt’s all one to me.”
    â€œTo get a job in a factory, eh?”
    She had stoked the stove and poured water into a pan.
    â€œEver worked an incubator before?”
    â€œI think I’d know how.”
    â€œWait while I go and feed the fowls. I think we might work out something.”
    She sat down to take off her shoes and put on a pair of black sabots. The pink slip—an odd electric, bluish pink—still showed under her dress, and it was impossible not to look at the patch of skin on her cheek, hairy and so silky.
    â€œYou can have a drink. Look at the old fool: he doesn’t dare help himself because I just caught him with that bitch of a Félicie.”
    She poured out a drink for him. The old man was tall and thin, his face covered with a gray stubble, his eyes rimmed with red.
    â€œYou can have a drink, Couderc!” she shouted in his ear. “But when it comes to your bit of fun, you can wait quite a while yet….”
    How many times had she made the round of the kitchen already?
    Yet there had not been a single wasted movement. The two slices of ham had been put away in a cupboard. Water was heating. The fire, livened up, was purring away. All the parcels she had brought back had been put away, and now she was going out with a basketful of grain.
    â€œChuck … chuck … chuck …”
    He saw her, in the sun, by the cart leaning on its shafts, surrounded by at least a hundred chickens, all of them white, with ducks, geese, and turkeys by way of background.
    â€œChuck … chuck … chuck …”
    She cast the grain in handfuls, like a sower, but she did not forget Jean standing framed in the doorway.
    It was hot. The sun was so high there was scarcely any shade left. The old man had sat down in his corner by the hearth, and kept looking at the floor.
    Beyond the fence which enclosed the garden, Jean saw a narrow boat, varnished like a toy, drawn by a donkey and gliding slowly along the canal. And since the canal was higher than the yard, there was the odd sight of a boat passing at head height. A little girl in red, with flaxen hair, was running along the deck. A woman was knitting, managing the tiller with her hips.
    â€œYou’ll eat with us. Saturday, we don’t put on anything much, on account of it being market day. Now, look at the old goat and tell me if it isn’t bad luck….”
    She set the table. Coarse,