“Anyway, even when we saw what was going on, we didn’t dare to make too much fuss about it on account of Arthur, who isn’t much liked seeing he thinks himself the sharpest man that ever was, looking as though he thought we were all a lot of fools, and taking our money all the same. He’s a kind of feller people don’t care about. And I must tell you that Arthur’d made a bet one day last year when the bar was full of men. ‘I don’t care who else’s wife gets off with somebody,’ was what he said. ‘I’ll see mine doesn’t, and she never will.’ ‘What do you bet?’ Laroudelle asked. ‘What do I bet?’ Arthur answered. ‘Well, the day it’s proved, I’ll put up a barrel with a bung hole in it, slap in the middle of this room, and anyone who wants can have drinks for a whole week without paying!’ Now that’s a sort of bet that only an idiot too damned pleased with himself could have made, isn’t it, now? Everyone knew he’d lost his bet since the Foncimagne business, but no one was willing to take on the job of telling him so. What with the temptation of the free drinks on one side, and the fear of getting Adèle into trouble on the other, the end of it was that everyone preferred holding their tongues.
“As no one was taking advantage of the bet, we amused ourselves by watching to see if Arthur’d be given the go-by for the second time. Six months before, no one would have thought that wretched Tardivaux man would have had a dog’s chance, but Foncimagne being now off the map altered everything. So two or three of us started watching out to see how things were shaping. It wasn’t easy to get a line on it, because Adèle wasn’t going to ring the church bells to give us warning. So we weren’t any of us ready to say whether Arthur was being fooled over again or not.
“One day when I went off alone to get a drink, I noticed a great change. Tardivaux, who usually never took his eyes off Adèle, had stopped looking at her. I said to myself: ‘If you’ve stopped looking at her, that means there’s no need to!’ And Adèle, who hardly looked at him before, was looking at him now. Then I said once more to myself: ‘Oho, my girl, so he’s got you!’ That’s all I said, just in a whisper, but I’d made up my mind about it. Now you’ve noticed this, I expect: men look at women beforehand, and women look at men afterwards. Then, two days later, there was Adèle complaining of a headache, and taking a bicycle to get a bit of fresh air, so she said, exactly like Judith. And the next day she did the same thing. And then you might have seen Tardivaux spending less time in the bar and getting his horse saddled, to have a look at the country around, he said. And I said to myself, ‘Arthur,’ I said, ‘you’re a cuckold all over again!’ And to make more sure of it, I made my round in the direction Adèle’d taken, keeping out of sight as I always do. Being a country policeman, I know all the byroads and the bushy corners in the country around here, where the women and girls like to come for their love affairs, away from prying eyes. When I saw the shining nickel-plate of a bike in a thicket, and further on Tardivaux’s horse tied up all by himself, I knew all right, by that token, that Arthur might very well soon be having to stand drinks all the year around, if his bet was still on. But I can tell you I was surprised when I caught sight of that jaundice-faced Putet woman prowling about there. That seemed a funny thing to me. Likely enough, I said to myself, that old lump of carrion spotted the bike and the horse with no one on him, like I had.
“Well, then!—all these things you know about already, Putet’s nasty imaginings, Toumignon’s scrap with Nicolas before a whole church full of people and Saint Roch knocked down onto the ground and seeming as if he was done for, and Coiffenave ringing the bell as though there was a revolution, and Rose Bivaque losing her blue ribbon of the Holy Virgin because she’d been having too much of a good time with Claudius Brodequin, and the Montéjour people besmearing the war memorial, and Courtebiche getting on her high horse, and Saint-Choul escaping from a volley of tomatoes, and Foncimagne unable to satisfy those two greedy women of his, and Hortense Girodot eloping with her sweetheart, and Tafardel sputtering with rage, and old Mother Fouache belching out a lot of claptrap from morning till night, and Babette Manapoux going even harder at it with her tongue than she did with her clothes beater—all that, as I needn’t tell you, made Clochemerle a funny kind of place, and different from anything the oldest man in the town could recall, not even racking his memory.
“So there was Clochemerle turned topsy-turvy, and the men all talking nothing but politics and shouting so you couldn’t hear yourself speak, and every woman about the way the others were carrying on and who they’d been with, and bawling as loud as the men but more severe and bitter over it, as they always are. And then, on top of all this, there were those hundred soldiers, hot stuff all of ’em, and ready to go off like their own rifles, and thinking of nothing but indulging themselves, you know how. And all our women were in such a state from letting their minds keep dwelling on them that they got a sort of epidemic of being unable to restrain themselves, and our men began to lose weight from having too much of it, like young married couples. And then, to cap it all, there was a boiling hot sun. Clochemerle was becoming like a regular steam boiler, and no means of stopping the pressure. It simply had to bust, one way or another. Yes, I said to myself it’ll have to bust—or else the grape harvest’ll have to come along double-quick. The harvesting was due in a fortnight, and if it came quick that’d settle everything, because of keeping everybody busy from early morning, and the sweating and toiling, and the concern about the wine being good, which is what they always think of most. It’d have sobered them down and put ’em in the way of being serious again, that harvesting would. When the wine’s fermented, the whole of Clochemerle’s like a big happy family, with one thought, and that is, to get high prices for their stuff from the people coming from Lyons and Villefranche and Belleville. But they weren’t given the fortnight. That boiler bust before it was over.
“And now I’m going to tell you about that confounded business—stupid, it was—that happened all of a sudden like those claps of thunder that we get sometimes here in Beaujolais about the middle of June, with a hailstorm immediately following. Sometimes in one hour the whole crop’s done for. It’s a sad time for the whole countryside, those years.
“Well, now I’m coming to the great event. First of all, you must imagine Clochemerle with the troops in occupation, in a state of siege. At the Torbayon Inn, where Tardivaux had put his guardroom, there was the guard, a complete section billeted in the barns where they used to keep hay, in the days when horses were wanted for the public conveyances. There was a sentry posted in front of the inn, and another one exactly opposite, by Monks’ Alley, at the side of the urinal. There were other sentries elsewhere, of course, but it’s only those two who are important in what happened. Besides these, in the courtyard of the inn, and in the main street by the doors of the houses, there were soldiers hanging about everywhere. You see now what it was like?
“Very well, then. It was September 19th, 1923, a month after Saint Roch’s Day, which had started all those commotions I’ve told you about. Yes, it was September 19th, and a day with a sun that made you sweat, one of those days when you can’t stop drinking, with a hint of a storm somewhere or other in the sky though you couldn’t see it, but which might come down on you any moment—the sort that puts you all on edge. Before going on my round, just a short one to keep me occupied, and to give an eye to things because I like to do my job well, and also, I don’t mind telling you, on account of Louise (I give you her name, it won’t hurt her), a woman you could have quite a good time with if you took her the right way, and was good to me on occasions, when I felt like going to see her, and it was always at times like those that I did feel I’d like to—well, before starting off to work, seeing it was the sort of weather that made you thirstier than usual, I went along for a drink at Torbayon’s. When you’re a country policeman you can always get one easy enough: first one man and then another’s wanting to stand you one, seeing they’ve all got an interest in keeping on good terms with you.
“Well, so I went in there. It w
asn’t two o’clock yet, that meant not much after midday, with the ordinary time. The heat was blazing, I can tell you! So in I went. There was the same old crowd of slackers that’s always hanging around at Adèle’s, Ploquin, Poipanel, Machavoine, Laroudelle, and the rest of ’em. ‘Hullo, Beausoleil,’ they called out, ‘is your gullet feeling like the road to Montéjour?’ (That’s the road here that goes so steep downhill.) ‘Well, I don’t mind lending a hand to help on with the good work,’ I answered. They had a good laugh at that. ‘Bring a glass, then, Adèle,’ they said, ‘and a couple of jugfuls.’ Then we clinked glasses, and stayed there without saying anything, twisting our hats about on our heads, except that I’d got my cap as I always have, but we were feeling pleased enough to be drinking good stuff and seeing all that sun shining in at the doorway while we were well in the shade, and I felt like staying there.
“After that, I had a look at Adèle. I’d no hopes in that direction, but watching her coming and going, and bending forward in attitudes that made you see her at her best, that gave me pleasant things to think about. She kept turning away accidental-like and going over and standing near Tardivaux’s table, and there she’d talk to him in whispers, with now and then a joke, loud so that everyone could hear, but what mattered most she said softly, and she spoke soft more often than loud, and everyone could see she was doing it the way two people have when they know each other in and out and are settling up their arrangements together. And then she worked it so she could touch Tardivaux now and then, and she looked at the clock, and next she gave the captain a smile which wasn’t the same as the one for the customers. It hurt us to think that all of us there, who’d spent so much at the inn, never got a smile like that from Adèle. And there they were, those two, gazing at each other and saying I don’t know what, as though we hadn’t been there at all, and for Adèle, who wasn’t much of a talker, to go on like that was a most surprising thing altogether.
“Well, there were moments when it was quite plain that they were as intimate as they ever could be, with nothing more to hide from each other. We felt a bit awkward at last, and started talking about this and that so as to pretend we didn’t notice how they were carrying on. But there was Arthur. ‘It’s his pride—and his stupidity—that’s making him blind, . . .’ I was saying to myself. Thinking like that made me turn around and look towards the door of the passage leading into the courtyard. I saw it a little way open, and I could have sworn there was someone stuck there behind it so that he could see into the bar. But I’d no time to think what to do, because just at that moment Tardivaux was getting up to go. He was standing up by Adèle’s side, and she was looking at him quite close, and he, thinking no one had noticed their goings-on, passed his hand gently over Adèle, not at all in the manner of a customer who’s afraid of being blackguarded for it, and Adèle never stepped away from him as she would have from an ordinary customer. Having the peak of my cap down over my eyes, I saw the whole thing without their knowing it. After that, Tardivaux went out, and Adèle stayed in the doorway, watching him go.
“At that very moment the door of the passage opened, and there was Arthur as white as a sheet and looking strange and funnylike, as though he couldn’t hold himself in any longer, and he strode across the bar and went out too, pushing Adèle aside. We were all of us wondering, ‘Where’s he rushing off to, then?’ Before we had time to think where, all of a sudden we heard the noise of high words and a fight going on, and Tardivaux’s voice shouting out: ‘Come here, men!’ ‘Come along, let’s have a look!’ we said. Every man of us was getting up to go, when bang, there was a rifleshot quite close to us, and there was Adèle falling to the ground before our very eyes, saying ‘Ooo—ooo—ooo,’ with only her breast and her stomach moving, and more quick than at ordinary times. It was a shocking thing, it really was. There was Adèle wounded by a shot that some damned addlepated idiot of a soldier had let off without knowing how or why, in the scurry. But I’ll explain. . . .
“While the others were attending to Adèle, I dashed outside, where my duty lay. And, my god, it was a pretty sight, I can tell you! There was civilians and soldiers all higgledy-piggledy in the middle of the street, and all of ’em seeing red, and hammering away hard at each other, and bawling and yelling, and all the time other people were arriving from every direction with thick sticks and iron bars and bayonets. And stones began flying, and everything else our people could get hold of. Good lord, it was a sight! Then I sprang into the middle of it all and yelled out at the top of my voice: ‘In the name of the law!’ Damned little they cared about the law—and nor did I, really, and I let out right and left with the best of ’em. At moments like that you might be somebody else—you don’t recognize yourself. A real riot, it was, and everyone lost his head completely, that’s certain. People ask how a riot starts—well, it’s like that, without a word of warning, and no one knows what it’s all about, though they’re right in the thick of it themselves.
“And then what did those fools of soldiers do but let off some more shots! Still, it did stop the scuffling because it raised a panic. Things were getting too serious altogether. And folks hadn’t any breath left—that was another reason—they’d used up too much strength and hadn’t kept any in reserve.
“How long this fight lasted, I’ve no idea, and no one in Clochemerle could tell you. Four or five minutes, possibly. But quite enough to do some damage, the mad state we were all in. Damage—yes, you’d hardly believe it. Adèle wounded in the chest. Arthur, with a bayonet thrust in the shoulder. Then Tardivaux with his face smashed to a jelly by Arthur’s fist. And Tafardel with a blow from the butt end of a rifle on his head which made it swell up like a pumpkin. And Maniguant’s boy with a broken arm, and a soldier who’d got a nasty wound from a pickax, and two others who’d been hit in the stomach. And several others, Clochemerle people and soldiers, rubbing themselves and limping. And lastly, worst of all—a terrible thing—there was someone killed, fallen stone-dead from a stray bullet, a good sixty yards and more away; it was Tatave Saumat, who’s known as Tatave the Bleater, the Clochemerle idiot, a poor irresponsible chap who wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s always the innocent ones that get it!
“A shameful business altogether, by god it was! Everyone feeling bewildered, in a state of helpless amazement, and wondering how all these idiotic, disgraceful things had happened so quickly when no one had been wanting anything of the kind. Well, things do happen in a stupid way. And those I’m telling you of—well, they’d happened and they couldn’t be righted now, not with all the groaning and wailing of those who’d come along to see and were quite overcome with grief and pity, saying that they simply couldn’t ever have believed such things could take place in a town where the people are good sorts, take them on the whole—and it’s true, too, and being their policeman I ought to know. No, there’s nothing wrong with our people, indeed there isn’t! But it was too late, too late. You couldn’t get away from what you saw with your own eyes, and the pity of it all, looking at those poor sufferers, and specially Tatave, who was already white in the face, seeming as though he was surprised at being really dead, like the poor idiot he’d been during his lifetime, and not understanding any better now than he did then. As shy and cringing at finding himself in Heaven as he’d been here on earth, I expect!
“It’s easy enough to picture what happened after that. There was the bar at the Torbayon Inn looking like a hospital, and full of people come to see the wounded, and Mouraille and Basèphe going from one to the other with drugs and dressings, sweating all the time. And Arthur was inside there too, groaning and howling because he was wounded and a cuckold into the bargain, and because his wife had got damaged—and been had first, if you’ll excuse me. And Tardivaux making no less of a hullabaloo, and furious at the insult to his dignity as an officer, seeing that he’d had a good poke in the face from Torbayon’s fist, which had split his lip and smashed a couple of teeth, and that doesn’t look well on a captain, it certainly doesn’t. But the most pitifu
l sight was Adèle, lying there stretched out on the billiard table and making you sad to hear the little gentle whimpering sounds coming out of her mouth, and all our good women crowding around her, saying ‘Could you ever have believed it?’ and looking more doleful than if they were at confession. Somewhere in the front row you could have seen Judith, who’d come straight over from opposite when she heard what had happened, which just shows that Judith was kind enough so long as she didn’t have her men stolen from her. She’d opened Adèle’s bodice and chemise, taking the greatest care over it, and she was so upset at seeing the other woman bleeding that she kept saying over and over again: ‘I forgive Adèle everything, everything!’ That just shows how people feel more kindly disposed towards their fellow creatures directly they’re in trouble. Bending over her poor wounded neighbor, who might perhaps be going to die, made her feel like crying all the time, and sort of helpless and jumbled up in that sorrowing crowd she’d lost all physical feeling and hardly knew where she was. One man who was making a frightful fuss and noise in his own particular way was Tafardel, with a huge bump on his head and his left eye turned all purple. But it was giving him a wonderful flow of ideas, that blow he’d got on his head. He couldn’t stop writing and used up the whole of his notebook at one go, and all the time he was arguing against the curés and the aristocrats, who’d wanted to have him done in so as to hush up the truth, so he said. That made a touch of the comic in all this sad business. He’s a man with plenty of learning, Tafardel, there’s no denying it, but still, I’ve always thought him a little cracked, and that butt end of a rifle over his head wasn’t exactly the thing to put his brains in order.
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