The Flood | Page 2

shall never want for bread nor for wine. You must be
a friend of the Divine Power to have silver showered upon your land in
this way."
We often joked among ourselves of our past poverty. Jacques was right.
I must have gained the friendship of some saint or of God himself, for
all the luck in the country was for us. When it hailed the hail ceased on
the border of our fields. If the vines of our neighbors fell sick, ours
seemed to have a wall of protection around them. And in the end I grew
to consider it only just. Never doing harm to any one, I thought that
happiness was my due.
As we approached the house, Rose gesticulated, calling out:

"Hurry up!"
One of our cows had just had a calf, and everybody was excited. The
birth of that little beast seemed one more blessing. We had been
obliged recently to enlarge the stables, where we had nearly one
hundred head of animals--cows and sheep, without counting the horses.
"Well, a good day's work!" I cried. "We will drink to-night a bottle of
ripened wine."
Meanwhile, Rose took us aside and told us that Gaspard, Veronique's
betrothed, had come to arrange the day for the wedding. She had
invited him to remain for dinner.
Gaspard, the oldest son of a farmer of Moranges, was a big boy of
twenty years, known throughout the country for his prodigious strength.
During a festival at Toulouse he had vanquished Martial, the "Lion of
the Midi." With that, a nice boy, with a heart of gold. He was even
timid, and he blushed when Veronique looked him squarely in the face.
I told Rose to call him. He was at the bottom of the yard, helping our
servants to spread out the freshly-washed linen. When he entered the
dining room, where we were, Jacques turned toward me, saying:
"You speak, father."
"Well," I said, "you have come, my boy, to have us set the great day?"
"Yes, that is it, Father Roubien," he answered, very red.
"You mustn't blush, my boy," I continued. "It will be, if you wish, on
Saint- Felicite day, the 10th of July. This is the 23rd of June, so you
will have only twenty days to wait. My poor dead wife was called
Felicite, and that will bring you happiness. Well? Is it understood?"
"Yes, that will do--Sainte-Felicite day. Father Roubien."
And he gave each of us a grip that made us wince. Then he embraced
Rose, calling her mother. This big boy with the terrific fists loved
Veronique to the point of losing his appetite.
Now," I continued, "you must remain for dinner. Well, everybody to
the table. I have a thundering appetite, I have."
That evening we were eleven at table. Gaspard was placed next to
Veronique, and he sat looking at her, forgetting his plate, so moved at
the thought of her belonging to him that, at times, the tears sprang to
his eyes. Cyprien and Aimee, married only three years, smiled. Jacques
and Rose, who had had twenty-five years of married life, were more
serious, but, surreptitiously, they exchanged tender glances. As for me,

I seemed to relive in those two sweethearts, whose happiness seemed to
bring a corner of Paradise to our table. What good soup we had that
evening! Aunt Agathe, always ready with a witticism, risked several
jokes. Then that honest Pierre wanted to relate his love affair with a
young lady of Lyons. Fortunately, we were at the dessert, and every
one was talking at once. I had brought two bottles of mellowed wine
from the cellar. We drank to the good fortune of Gaspard and
Veronique. Then we had singing. Gaspard knew some love songs in
dialect. We also asked Marie for a canticle. She stood up and sang in a
flute-like voice that tickled one's ears.
I went to the window, and Gaspard joined me there.
"Is there no news up your way?" I asked him.
"No," he answered. "There is considerable talk about the heavy rains of
the last few days. Some seem to think that they will cause trouble."
In effect, it had rained for sixty hours without stopping. The Garonne
was very much swollen since the preceding day, but we had confidence
in it, and, as long as it did not overflow its banks, we could not look on
it as a bad neighbor.
"Bah!" I exclaimed, shrugging my shoulders. "Nothing will happen. It
is the same every year. The river puts up her back as if she were furious,
and she calms down in a night. You will see, my boy, that it will
amount to nothing this time. See how beautiful the weather is!"
And I pointed to the sky. It