The Flood: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

THE FLOOD

I.

My name is Louis Roubien. I am seventy years old. I was born in the
village of Saint-Jory, several miles up the Garonne from Toulouse.

For fourteen years I battled with the earth for my daily bread. At last,
prosperity smiled on we, and last month I was still the richest farmer
in the parish.

Our house seemed blessed, happiness reigned there. The sun was our
brother, and I cannot recall a bad crop. We were almost a dozen on the
farm. There was myself, still hale and hearty, leading the children to
work; then my young brother, Pierre, an old bachelor and retired sergeant;
then my sister, Agathe, who came to us after the death of her husband.
She was a commanding woman, enormous and gay, whose laugh could be heard
at the other end of the village. Then came all the brood: my son, Jacques;
his wife, Rosie, and their three daughters, Aimee, Veronique, and Marie.
The first named was married to Cyprica Bouisson, a big jolly fellow, by
whom she had two children, one two years old and the other ten months.
Veronique was just betrothed, and was soon to marry Gaspard Rabuteau. The
third, Marie, was a real young lady, so white, so fair, that she looked as
if born in the city.

That made ten, counting everybody. I was a grandfather and a great-grandfather.
When we were at table I had my sister, Agathe, at my right, and my brother,
Pierre, at my left. The children formed a circle,seated according to age,
with the heads diminishing down to the baby of ten months, who already ate
his soup like a man. And let me tell you that the spoons in the plates made a
clatter. The brood had hearty appetites. And what gayety between the mouthfuls!
I was filled with pride and joy when the little ones held out their hands
toward me, crying:

"Grandpa, give us some bread! A big piece, grandpa!"

Oh! the good days! Our farm sang from every corner. In the evening, Pierre
invented games and related stories of his regiment. On Sunday Agathe made
cakes for the girls. Marie knew some canticles, which she sang like a
chorister.
She looked like a saint, with her blond hair falling on her neck and her
hands folded on her apron.

I had built another story on the house when Aimee had married Cyprien; and
I said laughingly that I would have to build another after the wedding of
Veronique and Gaspard. We never cared to leave each other. We would sooner
have built a city behind the farm, in our enclosure. When families are united,
it is so good to live and die where one has grown up!

The month of May had been magnificent that year. It was long since the
crops gave such good promise. That day precisely, I had made a tour of
inspection with my son, Jacques. We started at about three o'clock.
Our meadows on the banks of the Garonne were of a tender green. The
grass was three feet high, and an osier thicket, planted the year before,
had sprouts a yard high. From there we went to visit our wheat and our
vines, fields bought one by one as fortune came to us. The wheat was
growing strong; the vines, in full flower, promised a superb vintage. And
Jacques laughed his good laugh as he slapped me on the shoulder.

"Well, father, we 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 was seven o'clock; the sun was setting. The sky
was blue, an immense blue sheet of profound purity, in which the rays of the
setting sun were like a golden dust. Never had I seen the village drowsing in
so sweet a peace. Upon the tiled roofs a rosy tint was fading. I heard a
neighbor's laugh, then the voices of children at the turn in the road in front
of our place. Farther away and softened by the distance, rose the sounds of
flocks entering their sheds. The great voice of the Garonne roared continually;
but it was to me as the voice of the silence, so accustomed
to it was I.

Little by little the sky paled; the village became more drowsy. It was the
evening of a beautiful day; and I thought that all our good fortune--the big
harvests, the happy house, the betrothal of Veronique--came to us from above
in the purity of the dying light. A benediction spread over us with the
farewell of the evening.

Meanwhile I had returned to the center of the room. The girls were chattering.
We listened to them, smiling. Suddenly, across the serenity of the country,
a terrible cry sounded, a cry of distress and death:

"The Garonne! The Garonne!"

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