Her life flowed on as a little brook flows under grass on a Sunday noon in summer, flowed on in calm seclusion, far from the bustle of the crowd, secretly, steadily, uninterrupted save by ever-recurring little incidents, peacefully approaching old age. She sat in her little white room, behind the muslin curtains, making lace. Her cottage stood a little way back from the street, shining behind a neatly-raked flower-garden.

The door was always shut and the curtains carefully drawn. Inside, everything was very clean: smooth, bare walls and the ceiling washed with milk-white chalk through which shone a soft touch of blue; and this bright cleanliness contrasted soberly with the things that hung on the wall. The chairs and furniture stood placed with care, as though nailed to the floor; over the mantel hung the copper Christ, a thin, elongated figure of Our Lord, with its sharp projections which shone when the sun touched them: a little figure which, so long dead, hung there so firmly nailed and looked so calmly from out of the small dark shadow-lines of its face.

The stove stood freshly blackened, with the waved white sand on its polished pipe.10 Over the door of the bedroom steps hung the glass case with the waxen image of Our Lady, a girlish figure clad in broad white folds, with bright-red, cherry cheeks, smiling sweetly upon a doll which she carried in her arms. On the other wall was a glaring framed print, in which a Child Jesus romped with curly-headed angels in a motley green wood, with behind it a sunny perspective gleaming with paradisian delights.

From the ceiling, in a white cage, hung the canary, which hopped from one perch to the other, all day long, without ever singing. On the window-seat, behind the little curtains, blossomed tall geraniums and phlox, which, through the mesh of the muslin curtains, sent a blissful fragrance through the room.

Life went its monotonous gait, measured by the slow tick of the hanging clock, that big, stupid, laughing face which so pitilessly turned its two unequal fingers round and round. Outside, close by, went the steel blows of the smith’s hammer or the biting file that grated against her wall.

The sun that laughed so pleasantly through the windows and came and put all those things in a white gleaming light beamed right through into her little white soul: it was yet like that of a child, had remained innocent, never been soiled or troubled; and, now that the bad storm-time was over, it lay still in the passionless restfulness of waning life, quite taken up with all manner of harmless occupations, devotions and acquired ways of an old, god-fearing woman-person. Her face, which was wreathed in a round white goffered cap, had the smooth, yellow, waxen pallor of the statue of Our Lady, in church, and her features the severe, sober kindliness of nuns’. She was dressed in modest, stiffly-falling folds of unrumpled lilac silk, like the queens in old prints.

She spent those long, quiet days at her lace-pillow. That was her only amusement, her treasure: this half-rounded arch of smooth, blue paper on the wooden pillow-stool, occupied by a swarm of copper pins, with coloured-glass heads, and of finely-turned wooden bobbins, with slender necks and notched bodies, hanging side by side from fine white threads or heaped up behind a steel bodkin. All this array of pins, holes, drawers and trays had for her its own form and meaning, a small world in which she knew her way so well. Her deft white fingers knew how to throw, change, catch and pick up those bobbins so nimbly, so swiftly; she stuck her pins, which were to give the thread its lie and form, so accurately and surely; and, under her hand, the lace grew slowly and imperceptibly into a light thread network, grew with the leaves and flowers of her geraniums and phlox and the silent course of time.

‘Twas quite a feast when, in the evening, she wound off the ravelled end and carefully examined the white web. She closely followed all the knots, curves and twists of those transparent little veins; and ‘twas with regret that she rolled up the lace again and put it away in the drawer.

When all her peaceful thoughts had been fully pondered, when all that life of every day, all that even round of happenings, like little white flakes floating in the sunny sky, had drifted by through the thought-chambers of her soul and when the light began to fail out of doors and in, she took her rosary and prayed, for hours on end, slowly telling the smooth beads between her fingers until, when it grew quite dark, she started awake and became aware that for some time she had been telling the strokes of the smith’s hammer on the other side of the wall. Then she laid herself between the white sheets and tried to sleep.

Two days ago the grid of her stove broke and today she had taken it to be mended; she had been to the smith’s and now she could not get out of her mind what she had seen there: a black cave, like an oven, down three steps; a dark hole hung and filled on every side with black iron tools; and, amid all this jumble, an anvil and, in the red glow from the dancing light of the smithy fire, a small, stunted, black little fellow, hidden out of knowledge in that gloom; a bent, thin little man wound in a leathern apron and with a black face, from which a pair of good-humoured eyes peered out at her, through the shining glasses of his copper-rimmed spectacles, like two little lights in the dark. She had gone down those three steps, looking round shyly, afraid of getting dirty; had explained her business to that impish little chap; and had then hastily fled from that hell. Now it seemed to her that those two eyes had looked at her so kindly; and she wondered how any one could live in such a hole and be a Christian creature ... and yet that smith looked as if he had a good heart.

Next day, she was thinking again of the little man and his dark, haunted hole; and she sniffed the scent of her geraniums with a new pleasure and looked with more gladness at her trim little dwelling and her lace-pillow. She now enjoyed, realized, with all the sensual luxury of her soul, that peaceful life of hers, something like that of the yellow, waxen Virgin high up there on the wall, under her glass shade. And yet she was sorry for her good neighbour: it must be so dreary alone, amid all that dirt.... She worked at her lace, prayed and tried to think of nothing more.

He brought the new grid home himself. At first, she was shy with the man: she got up, went to the stove, turned back again and only now and then dared look at the smith from under her eyes. He was wrapped up in his work, stood bending over the stove, trying to fix the grid. Seen like that in the light, the little chap looked quite different to her eyes: he was no longer young, his breath came quickly; but in all that he did there was something so friendly, so kindly, something almost well-mannered, that went oddly with his dirty clothes and his black face. The little smith was known in the village as a lively person, who led a lonely life, but who was able also to divert a company: he knew his customers and knew how to manage them all. Here he took good care not to dirty the floor: he spat his tobacco-juice into the coal-box and touched nothing with his hands. When at last the grid was fixed, he stayed talking a little: he spoke of her nice little life among all those white things; paid her a compliment on her pretty flowers and shining copper; and then came close to look at her lace-pillow. Lastly, seeing that she was not at her ease, that she answered his remarks so shortly and hesitatingly, he gave a push to his cap, refused to say what she owed him and was gone with a skip and a jump.

One Sunday, after vespers, he came again, bowed politely, fetched a bit of paper out of his waistcoat-pocket and sat down on a chair by the stove. This visit annoyed her: with the quickness with which small-minded people weigh and think over a matter, her eyes went to the window to see if anybody had observed him come in and was likely to set evil tongues a-clacking. It was almost bound to be so; and, to keep her honour safe, she opened her door, mumbling something about “warm weather” and “the tobacco-smoke which made her cough.”

She went to her room, fetched some money and paid the bill. The smith sat where he was, knocked out his little stone pipe and put it in his inside pocket; he did not look at his money and, in his hoarse little voice, began to talk of quite common things: of wind and weather and the current news of the village; always chatting in the same tone, a jumble of long, breathless statements. From this he went on to his dreary, lonely life, the monotonous quiet of it and the danger of thieves, sickness and sudden death. She said not a word, but, against the bright window-curtains, the sharp, heavy profile of her face, together with the flutes of her white cap, went up and down in a continual nodding assent to everything he said. At the end, she took pleasure in hearing him talk, nor now looked upon that clean-washed face of his as at all so ugly. It even did her good to see some one sitting there who came to enliven the monotony of that long Sunday evening. By her leave, he had lighted a fresh pipe; and she now sat sniffing up that unaccustomed smell, which rose in little puffs from behind the stove and floated round the room, filling it with long rows of blue curls. ‘Twas as if she were overcome by that quite new smell of tobacco and she felt inclined to sleep; she stood up, to get rid of that slackness, shut the front-door and, without thinking what she was doing, asked if he would have some coffee. He nodded, gladly.

She put the kettle on and got the coffee-pot ready, fetched out her best cups and spoons and the white sugar. When the steam came rushing from the spout, she poured water on the coffee and they sat down, one on each side of the table, to sip the savoury drink in tiny draughts. ‘Twas long since she had felt so comfortable and for the first time she thought with dislike of her lonely life. ‘Twas late when he went home; she came with him to the door ... and saw black figures that strolled past in the street and perhaps had seen him leave. She had bad dreams all night: the people pointed their fingers at her and slanderous tongues spread ugly things about her. The whole of the next day her thoughts were in the smithy; she swept the pavement more carefully and farther than usual, went now and then and looked out of window; and her little curtains were left open with a split in the middle. Yesterday, she had forgotten to give the canary fresh water to drink. The people looked at her in the street; two or three god-fearing gossips had let her walk home alone. This gave her great pain; ‘twas as though a heavy load were weighing day and night on her breast; and yet she was not sorry for what had happened. All these trifles could not make her forget her content. She said her prayers and performed her little duties with as much care as before and lived on, alone.

On Sunday, she went to church very early and prayed long: it did her so much good, that delightful whispering with God, that sweet kind Lord Who listened to her so patiently and always sent her away with fresh courage, strengthened to walk on bravely along life’s irksome way. Sometimes she was frightened at her behaviour! She was gnawed by a reproachful thought: that she had left the straight path, that she no longer lived for God alone, that she was forgetting her dear saints and busy with sinful thoughts. And yet, when she carefully considered everything, nothing had happened that seemed to her blameworthy; all that change in her life had come as of itself and in spite of herself; and really, after all, there was no harm in it. She prayed for that good man, who certainly needed her spiritual aid: he went so seldom to church and lived in such a dreary black hole. Her prayers and interest would for sure bring him to a better frame of mind. And yet she must watch, keep strong, avoid the dangers: her honour was a tender thing; and people were wicked. She stayed longer than usual in the confessional and offered special prayers to every saint in the church.

When she was back at home, she began her little Sunday duties: the lace-pillow was put away that day and she did nothing but arrange things, put things in their places, gather a fresh nosegay for the porcelain vase before Our Lady’s statue and see to her cooking. She picked the withered leaves from the geraniums, bound the branches of the phlox to the trellis and gave them fresh water from a little flowered can. She was specially fond of her little pot of musk: it stood on the window-seat, opposite her chair, carefully set in a rush cage stuck into the earth and fastened at the top with a thread. Sometimes she took it on her lap, bent her face over it and sniffed the pleasant smell in long draughts, until she was almost drunk with it.

In the afternoon, she sat down at the window and read her Thomas À Kempis. Then all was quite still: no hammering behind the wall, no boys in the street, only the soft tapping of the canary in his food-trough and the tick of the pendulum; everything was quiet as though in an enchanted sleep. The sun glowed through the geranium-leaves and cast on the red-tiled floor a broad, round shadow which took the whole afternoon to creep from the legs of the stove to the front-door.

The flies buzzed round on the rafters of the ceiling or ran along the cracks of the white-scoured table. Her thoughts wandered wearily and lazily through the wise maxims of her book and she sometimes sat peering at the funny shape of a coloured initial which, after long looking, became such a silly figure, one that no longer looked in the least like a letter, but was rather something in the form of a vice.... The lines of print ran into one another, the maxims said all sorts of foolish things, her eyes closed, her head nodded and she sank, with all those peaceful things, into perfect rest.

After dinner, the smith had had a sleep; then he washed his face, put on his best clothes and went past her window to vespers. In the evening, she saw him again when he went to the customers for a pot of beer: this time he gave her a friendly nod.

For her, Sunday passed like all the other days; she prayed longer and closed her shutter earlier for fear of the drunkards. After saying a long row of graces which she knew by heart, she went to her bedroom. In the stuffy air of that closed upper chamber, she lay thinking. She was not sleepy and it was nice, in the evening stillness, covered in her white sheets, to lie with her eyes looking through the split in the white curtains at the moon which hung shining outside.

Now she gave free scope to her thoughts, until all of that had again been pondered round and pondered out. Then it became so funny to her: ‘twas as if she were long dead now and floating in a pale and scented air in the company of sweet saints and angels. But it was oh, so hazy and indistinct! It always escaped her when she wanted to enjoy it more closely and to give the thing a name.

It was night when the smith came home, a little tipsy, deceived by his great thirst and the double effect of the beer in that warm weather. He was very cheery, without really knowing why; something like a soft buzzing fire ran through all his body and made him tingle with happiness. They had chaffed him that evening about the old maid next door and he now felt inclined just to tell her about it.

Wasn’t it a shame for two people to lie here so quietly and drearily, parted by a bit of a wall, when they could have been amusing each other?... His white neighbour was sure to be asleep by now ... and, if he only dared ... and, quicker indeed than he intended, he gave three little taps on the wall and lay listening, all agog.... Three like little taps answered! This was so unexpected that at first he sat wondering whether he could believe his ears; then he began to swim and sprawl in his bed, bit his teeth so as not to shout out his overflowing delight and started banging on the wall, this time with his fists. It was too late to-night: to-morrow, he would go to her and ask her ... and then they would both ... and he would no longer be alone, always alone, and would have some one to care for him, to look after him.... In all this happiness he drowsed off gently, rocked in another world, like a little wax doll in a pale-blue paper box.

She had started out of her sleep at those three taps and had answered, not knowing why; then she had got frightened at that wild man behind her wall, had jumped out of bed and struck a light and sat waiting until the noise stopped; then she commended her soul into the Lord’s hands and fell softly asleep.

The first time that he went to see her, he found the door shut. Once, when he met her in the street, she kept her eyes carefully cast down and passed him without a sign of greeting. Her curtains remained drawn and she never came to the door now. He went home and sat musing on his anvil. All his plan was blown to bits; he found himself sadly duped and turned red with anger when folk spoke of his dear neighbour. He hammered and filed from morning till night; and she must now be making her lace.

Time pushed past, divided into even days, along a smooth road that led down the mountain-slope of summer. The leaves fell from the geraniums and the phlox. The neatly-cut-out paper fly-catcher was put away and the lamp hung up in its place. With the sad, short days came the grey, misty sky, the dismal, dripping rain and the white snow. The village lay dead for half the day, dark, with here and there a little ray of light gleaming through the shutters.

And it became gradually drearier for her: that calm rest, in which she had once found such a pure delight, was now a heavy weariness. She longed for change, for something different which she could not justly define, or else to live again as before, alone and with nothing but herself. She had struggled and fought to rid herself of that obsession, but it followed her everywhere: she saw him go by, even when her eyes were fixed on the lace-pillow, the stove, or the chair on which he had sat; and there was that constant hammering and scratching behind her wall: everywhere she saw those two kind eyes behind the copper rims of his spectacles; and she sometimes caught herself contentedly tracing the good-natured features of his little black face. She had prayed more than ever and evoked quite new saints; and now she let herself drift along at God’s pleasure, no longer even thinking of her weakness. Perhaps she was the instrument of a Blessed Providence, destined blindly to do good.

The little curtains had long been pushed apart again; and, each time that she heard approaching footsteps, her heart went beating and her eyes looked eagerly to see if by chance ... it was not he.

Sometimes, an anxious fluttering drove her to the front-door, where she stood looking round for a while and then, ashamed of herself, went indoors again. Quite against her habit, she now made use of her glass: in the middle of her work, she went to see if the two glossy black tresses lay neatly on her forehead and if the ribbons of her cap were properly tied and fastened. She put on her clothes more carefully and folded and refolded her kerchief till it enclosed her body in a pretty shape. From before the moment of starting for church, her heart began to beat; she shut her garden-gate more noisily and stepped loudly along the pavement until she came to the smith’s first window, firmly resolved this time at least to look up and say good-morning; but she always met some one who noticed her; and she was in church by the time that, with a sigh, she had put off her intention until next day.

At night, in bed, she lay thinking over all these little events; and it was a glad day or a sad day for her according as she had more or less often caught sight of the little smith.

One evening, after benediction, she saw him come walking under the trees of the churchyard. Not a soul saw them. Now she really must have courage; but again the blood came to her throat and she felt that once again it would lead to nothing. He had just looked round before she came up to him and then he sat down on the stone step before the Calvary, as though he wanted to chat with her there at his ease:

“Good-evening, Sofie,” he said, with a smile. “Have you been to say your prayers. Don’t you ever say a little one for me? I want it so badly: my soul’s as black as my apron and I can’t even read a prayer-book....”

He made all this speech in a soft, fondling little tone and then sat smirking to see what she would say. There was nothing that she longed for more than to save his soul:

“Can you say the Rosary?” she asked.

“Yes, but I haven’t one.”

“Would you like me to give you one?”

“Oh, rather ... if you’ll be so good!”

She bent close to him and whispered in his ear:

“Come and fetch it, to-morrow evening, when it’s dark.”

They walked together through the peaceful twilit churchyard and, with a cordial “Good-evening,” went home well pleased with themselves.

For her it was an endless day; all the time she stood considering what she should say to him. He was coming and would sit smoking there again behind the stove. Already she heard his pleasant, whispering talk and saw his kind, upturned glance. She moved about restlessly to set everything in order. The shutters were closed quite early and the lamp burning. Now she went and had one more look outside and it was pitch-dark, with never a moon. On the stroke of eight, the door opened: he was there, with his Sunday jacket on, his red scarf and his leather shoes. She was most friendly, but did not at first know how to begin the conversation.

He lit his pipe and snuffled some news of the village and of people who were married, sick or dead. She made coffee, turned up the lamp and opened her bedroom door to give an outlet to the tobacco-smoke. Straight opposite him, deep in the half-darkness, he saw all that show of white: against the wall stood the bed, under a white canopy of curtains hanging in folds, set off with a white ball-fringe; also a praying-desk with velvet cushions, above which was an image of the Sacred Heart, with gold flowers, and, hanging from a brass chain, a perpetual light glimmering in a little red glass; and, all around, on the white walls, little statues and pictures, like a devout little tabernacle ashine with cleanliness. They drank their fragrant cup of coffee and nibbled lumps of white sugar.

“And my rosary?” he asked.

She fetched it out of the drawer of her lace pillow and came and sat close to him to teach him how to say it:

“Here, at the little cross, the I Believe in God the Father; then, at each big bead, an Our Father; and, at the little ones, a Hail Mary.”

He sat with his legs drawn under his chair, with one hand at his chin, listening good-humouredly and, with a smile, repeating all she taught him. Her eyes shone with happiness. Now the talk went easily on church matters and all the things of her pious little life; she showed him the pictures in her prayer-book, explained all the attributes of the saints and told long stories of their lives and martyrdoms.

He, also, told her of his youth, when he made his first communion and was the best little man in the whole village. It was striking ten when he went home; and he had promised to come and listen to her again.

Every evening, when it grew dark, he sat peeping to see if there was no one in the street and then cautiously crept in through her gate. He brought her old books from his loft; and, while he smoked his pipe, she lit the candle before the statue of Our Lady and started talking, very gently, so as not to be heard outside. She read whole chapters out of Thomas À Kempis and The Pious Pilgrim, The Dove amongst the Rocks, The Spiritual Bridegroom, or The Sacred Meditations. They sat there for hours at a time gazing at each other and smiling. When it grew late, she went and looked outside and, when the moment was favourable, she carefully let him out. She thanked Our Lord for making her so happy and often prayed that it might last and she win the smith’s soul for Heaven and that their doing might all the same be kept hidden from wicked people.

St. Eloi’s Day is the holiday of smiths and husbandmen. In the morning, the farmers all went together to mass and thence, after a glass, to settle their yearly reckoning at the smith’s. At noon there was a big dinner at the inn. They ate much and drank more; and, from afternoon till late in the evening, the smiths’ men and the peasants loafed along the streets and sang ribald songs. The steadiest of them walked about talking, from one tavern to the other. They were nearly all drunk. She sat peeping at it from behind her curtain and was vexed at all this wantonness and rather glad that she had not yet seen “him” anywhere. She said her evening prayers and was just going to bed when she heard the door open and the smith stepped in.

He carried his pipe upside down in his mouth, his eyes looked wild and his speech was incoherent. She had never seen him like that; and she was frightened at his strange gestures. She wanted him to sit down, but he came up to her with his arms open, as if to catch hold of her. She stepped back in affright, pushed him away from her. His breath stank of drink and his thin legs tottered under him. She began to beseech him, that it was late and that he should go home and that people would know.... But his eyes looked at her roguishly and, with bent head and outstretched arms, he kept on trying to come closer. Filled with dread, she wavered away behind the tables and chairs, whimpering:

“If you please, if you please, Sander, go home; you frighten me!”

Suddenly, he nipped out the flame of the lamp with his fingers. It was quite dark.

“Sander! Sander! What do you want? Heavens! He’s drunk! And I’m here all alone! Lord God, St. Catherine, help!”

He still spoke not a word, but uttered ugly growls; and she heard his hands rub and grope along the wall, against herself. She pulled open the door of her bedroom and fled up the stairs and fell in a heap in the corner beside her bed. There she sat waiting, out of breath.... Yes, his heavy shoes had found the steps; and, still growling, he entered the room. He felt the bed, lay down flat on his stomach and reached out with his arms; then he found her sitting sighing. She felt those two weedy arms grasp her and was caught in them as in an iron band. She moaned and screamed for help. His dirty, slimy mouth pressed her lips ... and then she felt herself sink away, out of the world. The people who heard the cries came to see what was the matter. They hauled the drunkard outside and laid her on the bed. When they saw that she was better, they went away again.

She lay stretched out slackly in the dark. First, still quite overcome, as though drunk with sleep, she slowly, through that dim whirl of stormy thoughts, came to understand what had happened: all her misfortune, which yawned before her like a deep, black well. She was ashamed, disgusted with herself and felt a great aversion, a loathing for all the world: people were a pack of lustful pigs.... And he too: that was over now, suddenly over, for good and all.... And he ... no, he had deceived her, grievously defiled her. And now to have to go on living like that! It was done past recall: she was punished for her trustfulness ... and those same kind eyes and that friendly face; only yesterday, they had said their evening prayers together and so devoutly! Oh, ‘twas such a pity! And what would people say?... And the priest?... And Our Lord and all His dear saints?... She fell into ever-deepening despair and saw never a way out. Very far away shone her pure little life of former days, her white and peaceful little soul floating in that unruffled blue sanctity, in that fragrant twilight of evening after evening ... and all this he had now crushed in one second and stamped to pieces. And he was dead to her, he with whom she had dreamed so sweetly and lived in glad expectation. In her wretchedness, she was left stark alone, abandoned like a poor babe in the snow. She plunged her face into the white sheets and cried. She would have liked to pine away there, in that kindly darkness, and never, never to see daylight again.