lights and there he saw Juliette, as pretty as she had been at twenty, climbing the night toward the son.
He maneuvered within the legend; Fiéfié however, who followed him like a shadow, who had been his mouthpiece and who was his shadow, Fiéfié remained on the earth and suffered. Each Sunday he endlessly reenacted the experience of the rout, in the cafés of Chatelus, Saint-Goussaud, Mourioux, where wine no longer tasted like anything but wine, where derision had become his lot, which he could no longer endure; because there had been a time when people had listened, and having tasted their approval of the sovereign word that had, for a moment, been vested in him, he could not suffer the fickleness of his public and his sudden, total and irremediable disaffection. He sat wordlessly at the rickety tables where he spilled the morningâs first bottle and whimpering, stupefied, sorry-eyed, drank alone until evening. Then, a joker let slip the word America; Fiéfié seized on it, lifted his strained face, clownish and prophetic, with its beatific mask; he hesitated a moment but the perfidious glances and goad of wine convinced him, and flushed with urgency and conviction, more carried away with each word, half rising, straightening, now fully erect, he proclaimed the innocence of the son, the distant reign of the son, the glory of the son. The sudden roars of laughter drowned him, and the young Antoine was thrown to the ground in the café, wrists and ankles bound, beaten by the guards as over there. Then the insults, the blows, the overturned chairs, and in Mourioux in the scent of wisteria, near the windswept cemetery where the defeated Juliette slept, in Chatelus on the sloping square planted with elms, and throughout the night,Fiéfié collapsed magnificently, ranting and ruminating about America in the blood and rubble until he fell into a rough sleep in which he saw them, Toussaint proud and Juliette laughing like a bride, swept along at a gallop in a cabriolet driven by Antoine in top hat, exultant and upright in the coachmanâs seat, heading downhill into Lalléger on the road to Limoges, the Americas, and the beyond. Behind ran Fiéfié, and he could not catch up with them.
During the week, summer or winter, time existed for the two of them as it does when there is no longer a woman around: chaotic, indeterminate, childish without the grace or the inebriety of childhood. Though it was no longer anything more than a pilgrimage, Fiéfié arrived early from La Croix-du-Sud for work, with his sack full of pilgrimâs clutter, rusted tool parts, crusts of bread and bits of string, perhaps some freshly carved whistles. Without oxen now, they went out briefly for their dreary performance in the few unabandoned fields, planted the cabbage they lived on, brought back the buckwheat in a handkerchief. They lingered over meals at odd hours; a few old women still stopped in on them, out of curiosity or charity, old mother Jacquemin, ancient Marie Barnouille; passing a leftover ham, fromage blanc, or greens through the window, they could see them in the long, unspeakably dirty and cluttered kitchen; by ducking their heads they could make out the impassive Toussaint at the far end, the back window behind him, stormily indistinct and haloed like a pantocrator, and Fiéfié galloping nonstop from one end to the other of the devastated space, like several people at once, drinking from the bottle and stirring the stew, clearing the table onto the benches or the oven, drinking as he cut the bread and evoked someone else. But the old women, whowalked away laughing and feeling sorry for them, could tell us nothing more; for if the two had doubts, they kept them to themselves, without having to admit them to anyone, and if they felt triumphant, they also kept that to themselves, it was for their kitchen and their shadows alone, for this patinated place that did not offend them, for those
He maneuvered within the legend; Fiéfié however, who followed him like a shadow, who had been his mouthpiece and who was his shadow, Fiéfié remained on the earth and suffered. Each Sunday he endlessly reenacted the experience of the rout, in the cafés of Chatelus, Saint-Goussaud, Mourioux, where wine no longer tasted like anything but wine, where derision had become his lot, which he could no longer endure; because there had been a time when people had listened, and having tasted their approval of the sovereign word that had, for a moment, been vested in him, he could not suffer the fickleness of his public and his sudden, total and irremediable disaffection. He sat wordlessly at the rickety tables where he spilled the morningâs first bottle and whimpering, stupefied, sorry-eyed, drank alone until evening. Then, a joker let slip the word America; Fiéfié seized on it, lifted his strained face, clownish and prophetic, with its beatific mask; he hesitated a moment but the perfidious glances and goad of wine convinced him, and flushed with urgency and conviction, more carried away with each word, half rising, straightening, now fully erect, he proclaimed the innocence of the son, the distant reign of the son, the glory of the son. The sudden roars of laughter drowned him, and the young Antoine was thrown to the ground in the café, wrists and ankles bound, beaten by the guards as over there. Then the insults, the blows, the overturned chairs, and in Mourioux in the scent of wisteria, near the windswept cemetery where the defeated Juliette slept, in Chatelus on the sloping square planted with elms, and throughout the night,Fiéfié collapsed magnificently, ranting and ruminating about America in the blood and rubble until he fell into a rough sleep in which he saw them, Toussaint proud and Juliette laughing like a bride, swept along at a gallop in a cabriolet driven by Antoine in top hat, exultant and upright in the coachmanâs seat, heading downhill into Lalléger on the road to Limoges, the Americas, and the beyond. Behind ran Fiéfié, and he could not catch up with them.
During the week, summer or winter, time existed for the two of them as it does when there is no longer a woman around: chaotic, indeterminate, childish without the grace or the inebriety of childhood. Though it was no longer anything more than a pilgrimage, Fiéfié arrived early from La Croix-du-Sud for work, with his sack full of pilgrimâs clutter, rusted tool parts, crusts of bread and bits of string, perhaps some freshly carved whistles. Without oxen now, they went out briefly for their dreary performance in the few unabandoned fields, planted the cabbage they lived on, brought back the buckwheat in a handkerchief. They lingered over meals at odd hours; a few old women still stopped in on them, out of curiosity or charity, old mother Jacquemin, ancient Marie Barnouille; passing a leftover ham, fromage blanc, or greens through the window, they could see them in the long, unspeakably dirty and cluttered kitchen; by ducking their heads they could make out the impassive Toussaint at the far end, the back window behind him, stormily indistinct and haloed like a pantocrator, and Fiéfié galloping nonstop from one end to the other of the devastated space, like several people at once, drinking from the bottle and stirring the stew, clearing the table onto the benches or the oven, drinking as he cut the bread and evoked someone else. But the old women, whowalked away laughing and feeling sorry for them, could tell us nothing more; for if the two had doubts, they kept them to themselves, without having to admit them to anyone, and if they felt triumphant, they also kept that to themselves, it was for their kitchen and their shadows alone, for this patinated place that did not offend them, for those
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