Jeanne of the Mill

Father Renard was the one who told stories: "In Martinique, a dangerous country: one never went out less than three or four." He leaned his back against the mill, and stretched his feet. An old peasant said that the four greatest orators were Tolstoy, then Wilhelm II, the pope and Jaurès. "You see therefore that Jaurès comes only last," he was answered. Jeanne hardly listened; she wore a bodice the color of tapestry, with two long pockets on the chest.
Mother Renard sometimes came out of the kitchen, and, when she spoke, feared to displease. The mill moreover had no wheel. "When I came back from Martinique, the miller before me told me that he had seen it once, it was all eaten by worms." These millers go to work in the factory.

*

In the same day, I went four times to the mill. (That I could make so much way: when I think of it, I see myself as a shadow.) The second time, Jeanne who was haymaking wanted to smile at me, but she only made a grimace from the sun. At the third, I left a packet of tobacco to father Renard, who was opening small fish. "You will still offer me a fry — if something peels you, it won't be from this onion"; the waters were lowering, he had well fished a thousand. At the last there was all this world, the peasant of the orators, a sergeant of the thirty-sixth, Madame Marsot.
But I would have done better to stick to the first time; the rest advanced nothing.

*

Jeanne was alone, in the morning, in her kitchen; and dressed like a little slattern. She made us coffee. Maurice and I in turn went to watch the runners of the rally, and make them put themselves in the water at the right place. Jeanne, who was just dressed for her kitchen, did not go out.
"What arms!" said Maurice; and he pinched them.
— "I am a tomboy," answered Jeanne. Then: "What hurts me is a wisdom tooth that is pushing, a real hammer. Yesterday I had cheeks that burned me, so bad I was.
— You were not wise before?"
She took an air of being elsewhere that confused us.

*

The runners showed little feeling: after the tenth, there were some to complain of the cold water, or the paths. The eighteenth came out one knows not from where. While Maurice interrogated him, Jeanne showed me the mill.
From the wheel room, one saw the waters flow at window height. So that after having looked at them a moment, one felt oneself depart oneself and cleave them — "But I have never traveled," Jeanne told me.
A faggot blocked the other window; the day, which passed, dazzled without sufficing. "The kid who watches us," said Jeanne: she separated from me, at the moment when I could have kissed her.

*

A murmur coming from the kitchen must have been mother Renard, who spoke to herself. Jeanne bent to open a dream book, and I caressed her breasts through the bodice.
I then experienced a light jealousy. I wondered how Jeanne would pass the Sunday afternoon and the Monday day. With what freedom Maurice spoke to her. As she said: "Ah, I have hair that hangs," he had answered: "I have some that hang too."

*

The neglected air of Jeanne was made to give me desire. Not that one imagined her more easily nude; but one expects less resistance from who is badly dressed.