BOOK FOURTH.
THE MOTHER.
CHAPTER I.
DEATH PASSES BY.
This same evening, the mother, whom we have seen making her way almost by chance, had been walking all day long. Moreover, it was the story of all her days, to go straight on and never stop. For her sleep of exhaustion in the first corner that she came to was no more rest than what she ate here and there, as birds go picking about, was food. She ate and slept just enough to keep her from falling down dead.
She had spent the night before in a deserted house; civil war causes such ruins. She had found, in a neglected field, four walls, an open door, a little straw under a portion of the roof, and she slept on this straw and under this roof, feeling the rats run over the straw, and seeing the stars shine through the roof. She had slept some hours, then she awoke in the middle of the night and started on her journey again, in order to travel as far as possible before the full heat of the day. For those travelling on foot in summer, midnight is more agreeable than midday.
She followed to the best of her ability the general route indicated to her by the peasant at Vautortes; she went as nearly as possible toward the west. Any one near her would have heard her say repeatedly, in a low voice, "La Tourgue." Besides the names of her three children, she knew nothing but this word.
As she walked along, she was deep in meditation. She
