Fire in the Blood by Irène Némirovsky Read Free Book Online Page A

take off my clogs, order some wine and sit down at my usual place, on the left-hand side of the room near the window, from where I can see the hen-house, the laundry and a little garden being drenched by rain.
    Everything is permeated by the silence of an autumn evening in a sleepy little village. In front of me is a mirror that frames my wrinkled face, a face so mysteriously change d o ver the past few years that I scarcely recognise myself. Bah! A sweet, sensual warmth seeps into my bones; I warm my hands at the sputtering wood-burning stove whose smell makes me feel sleepy and slightly sick. The door opens and a young man in a cap appears, or a man in his best Sunday clothes, or a little girl who's come to fetch her father, calling out in a shrill little voice, "You in there? Mum's wantin' you," before she disappears with a burst of laughter.
    A few years ago old Declos used to come here every Sunday, like clockwork; he never played cards, he was too mean to risk his money, but he would sit beside the card table, his pipe gripped in the corner of his mouth, and look on silently. Whenever someone asked his advice, he would gesture to them to leave him alone, as if he were refusing to take alms. He's dead and buried now, and in his place is Marc Ohnet, bare-headed and dressed in a leather waistcoat, sitting at a table with a bottle of Beaujolais.
    The way a man drinks in company tells you nothing about him, but the way he drinks when alone reveals, without him realising it, the very depths of his soul. There is a particular manner in which a man turns the stem of the glass in his hand, tilts the bottle and watches the wine pour, brings the glass to his lips, then winces and puts it down again when someone calls out to him, picks it up again with a false little cough and downs it in one go, eyes closed, as if seeking forgetfulness at the bottom of the glass-a manner that shows he is preoccupied with something or troubled by worrying thoughts. Marc Ohnet has been spotted; my eight farmers continue to play cards, but now and then they cast furtiv e g lances in his direction. He feigns indifference. It's getting darker. Someone lights the large brass gas lamp hanging from the ceiling; the men put away their cards and begin getting ready to go home. That's when they start talking. First about the weather, the cost of living and the harvest. Then they turn towards Marc Ohnet.
    "We haven't seen you in quite a while, Monsieur Marc." "Not since old Declos's funeral," someone else says.
    The young man makes a vague gesture and mutters he's been busy.
    They talk about Declos and what he left: "the most beautiful land in the region."
    "Now, he knew about farming ... A miser. A penny was a penny to him. No one round here liked him much, but he knew about farming."
    Silence. They've given the dead man their greatest compliment and, in some way, they've made it clear to the young man that they take the side of the dead man and not the living, the old not the young, the husband not the lover. For certain things are known, of course . . . where Brigitte is concerned, at least. They stare at Marc, curiosity burning in their eyes.
    "His wife," someone says finally.
    Marc looks up and frowns. "What about his wife?" Cautious little comments slip from the farmers' lips along with the smoke from their pipes:
    "His wife . . . She was very young for him, of course, but then, when he married her, he was already rich, and she ..." "There was Coudray, but it was falling to bits."
    "She should have left these parts, of course, it was only thanks to Declos that she kept what she had."
    "No one ever knew where she came from."
    "She was Mademoiselle Cecile's illegitimate daughter," someone said with a crude laugh.
    "I might have thought the same as you if I hadn't known Mademoiselle Cecile. The poor woman wasn't like that, that's for sure. She only ever left the house to go to church."
    "Sometimes that's all it takes."
    "Maybe, but not Mademoiselle Cecile .