The Confession (L'Aveu)

     The midday sun falls and splashes on the fields. They stretch into the distance, undulating, between the clusters of trees in the farms, and the various harvests, the ripe rye and the yellow wheat, the clear green oats, the sombre green clovers, spreading a big stripy coat restless and soft on the naked belly of the earth.

    In the distance, at the top of a hill, lined up like soldiers, an endless line of cows—some lying down, others standing—blink their large eyes in the dazzling sunlight, chewing and grazing surface of clover the size of a lake.

     Two women, a mother and her daughter, walk at a steady hurried pace one before the other, across a straight path flattened in the harvests, towards the army of animals.

     They are both carrying two buckets made of zinc, kept from bumping into their bodies by a round piece of wood; and the metal, with each step they take, reflects a blinding white flame because of the relentless sun.

     They walk in silence. They are on their way to milk the cows. They arrive, put a bucket on the ground and approach the first two animals, making them stand with a little kick in the flank. The animal gets up, slowly, first onto its two front legs and then, with more effort, lifts its rump which seems even heavier with the weight of the huge dangling udders of white flesh.

     The two Malvoires, mother and daughter, on their knees beneath the cows, pull on the enlarged udders with an energetic hand movement which sprays, with each squeeze, a thin thread of milk into the bucket. The slightly yellow foam climbs upwards as the women go from animal to animal to the end of the long line.

     When they finished milking one, they would leave it, giving it a little greenery to chew on.

     Then they depart, more slowly, weighed down by the milk they are carrying, the mother in front and the daughter behind.

     But she suddenly stops, drops her load, sits down and begins to cry. Mother Malivoire, having heard the footsteps behind her stop, turns around and stops surprised. "What's the matter?"

     And the daughter, Céleste, a tall red-head with dark cheeks, freckled as if they had been licked by drops of fire falling on her face, one day where she was brushing her hair in the sun, murmured through the sort of groan that children make after being beaten, “I can’t carry my milk anymore!”

     The mother looked at her suspiciously, and repeated, “What’s the matter?” Céeste started up again, collapsed on the floor between her two buckets, hiding her eyes with her pinafore, “It’s too hard. I can’t do it.”

     The mother, for the third time, asked, “What’s the matter then?”

     And the daughter groaned, “I think I’m pregnant,” and began to sob.

     The old woman put down her load as well, so speechless that she could not think of anything to say. Eventually, she mumbled, “You… you’re a pregnant peasant… Can this really be?”

     The Malivoire were rich farmers, affluent, respected, with a certain poise, respected, cunning and powerful.

     Céleste stuttered, “I think so yes, all the same.”

     The alarmed mother looked at her broken and tearful daughter in front of her. After a few seconds, she shrieked, “You’re pregnant down there! You’re pregnant down there! Where did you catch that from you wench!”

     And Céleste, shaken by the emotion of it all, murmured, “I think it was in Polyte’s cart.”

     The old woman searched for an explanation, searched to understand, searched to know who put this curse on her daughter. If this was a rich and respectable man, perhaps they could make do. That would only be partly bad; but that would thwart them all the same, given the proposals and their position.

     She started up again, “And who was it that did this to you, you whore?”

     And Céleste, resolved to tell the story, blubbered, “I think it was Polyte.” Then the mother, crazed by anger, jumped on her daughter and started to hit her so frenetically that her bonnet came off.

     She hit her head with powerful blows, and her back, every part of her body, and Céleste completely laid out between the buckets, that protected her slightly, could only hide her face in her hands.

     All the cows, surprised, had stopped grazing and had turned round to watch them with their big eyes. The one at the end mooed, her nose directed towards the two women.

     After having hit her to the point of exhaustion, mother Malivoire, breathless, stopped and regaining her spirits, wanted to be completely updated on the situation. “Polyte,” she said, “how is this possible? How could you do it, with a coachman. Had you taken leave of your senses? Do I need to curse you, to be sure, you good-for-nothing?”

     And Céleste, still on the floor, murmered into the ground, “I didn’t have to pay for the travel.” And the old woman from Normandy understood.

     Every week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Céleste went to take the farm’s produce—poultry, egs, cream—into the town.

     She left at seven in the morning with her two enormous baskets under her arms, dairy in one and chickens in the other; and she went to wait for the Yvetot post cart by the large road.

     She would put down all of her products and sit on the roadside, while the chickens, with their short and sharp beaks, and the geese, with their long and rounded beaks, popping their heads through the bars, watched with their round eyes, stupid and surprised.

     Soon the old cart like a little yellow safe topped with a black leather helmet, would arrive. And Polyte, the driver, a large and happy man, paunchy even though he was still young, and so burnt by the sun, cooked by the wind, soaked by the downpour, and so tarnished by the spirits he drank that he had a brick-coloured neck and face, shouted from down the road while cracking his whip.

     “Good day, Mademoiselle Céleste. How are you?”

     She would hand him the baskets one by one and he would squeeze them into the upper part of the car; the she would get in by lifting her leg right up to get to the step, showing a strong calf slipped into a low stocking. And each time Polyte would repeat the same pleasantry, “My goodness, it hasn’t got any thinner.”

     And she would life, finding this funny.

     Then he’d shout a ‘Giddy-up’ to get his malnourished horse to on its way again. Céleste, getting her purse from the bottom of her pocket, would slowly take ten sous from it, ten sous for her and four for the baskets, and would pass them to Polyte iver his shoulder. He took them saying, “Have we not had enough of a joke today?” and would laugh raucously while turning round to look at her.

     This cost a lot of money for her, handing over this half-franc for just three kilometres of travl. And when she didn’t have any sous, she suffered even more, not being able to bring herself to give him the money.

     And one day, when she went to pay, she asked, “For a good person like me, could you only charge six sous?”

     He began to laugh, “Six sous, my sweet, you’re definitely worth more than that.”

     She persisted, “That would only mean a difference of two francs per month for you.”

     She shouted and cracked the whip, “Listen, I’m easy-going about this sort of thing. I will waive the fee for a little fun.”

     Naively she asked, “What do you mean by that?”

     He was laughing so much that he was coughing, “A little fun is a little fun, for God’s sake, a little fun between a boy and a girl, having two without any music.”

     She understood, blushed, and declared, “I’m not into that sort of fun, Monsieur Polyte.”

     But he was not put-off, and repeated, having more fun every time he said it, “You’ll get there, my sweet, a little fun between boy and girl.”

     And since then, every time she paid him he had taken to asking her, “Is today the day for some fun?”

     She would humour him, and replying “Not today thanks, monsieur Polyte, but next Saturday for sure!”

     And he would burst out laughing and say, “Saturday it is, my sweet!”

     But in her head she would calculate that in two years of taking the lift, she had paid forty-eight francs to Polyte, and forty-eight francs was not to be found simply on the floor, and she also calculated that within two years she would have paid almost a hundred francs.

     So one day, a spring day, when they were alone, when he asked her his usual question, “Is today the day for some fun?”, she replied, “As you wish, Monsieur Polyte.”

     He was not overcome with surprise at all, and stepped over the back bench mumbling in a happy voice, “Let’s get on with it then. I knew we’d get there.”

     And the old horse began to trot off so softly that he seemed to be dancing on the spot, deaf to the occasional shouts of “Giddy-up, love, giddy-up.”

     Three months later Céleste noticed she was pregnant.

     She had said all of this to her mother in a choked voice. And the old woman, white with fury, asked, “How much did that cost, then?”

     “Four months, that’s about eight francs.”

     Then the old peasant’s exploded in a frenzy of rage and she fell upon her daughter again with flying fists until she was out of breath. After, having stood back up, she said, “Did you tell him you’re pregnant?”

     “No. Of course not.”

     “Why haven’t you said anything to him yet?”

     “Because he might have made me pay back the money!”

     And the old woman fell into thought, and then said, picking up her buckets, “Come on, get up and try to walk.” After a short silence, she spoke again, “Don’t say anything to him until he sees something; I reckon we could get six to eight months out of this.”

     And Céleste—still crying, having got to her feet, with dishevelled hair, looking sore and swollen—began walking again with a heavy step, murmuring, “I swear, I won’t say a word.”