The Brethren by Robert Merle Page B

us.
    Their delay was rewarded, for, after a long silence, we could hear my father say: “Madame, you might have avoided offending me in front of my friends and my children, and this on the eve of my departure for the war unsure that you will ever see me again.”
    There was another silence, broken by my mother’s trembling and tearful voice:
    “My dear husband, I did not think to brook your anger in reciting a prayer of the Catholic religion in which we were married.”
    Here we could hear sobs as my father replied: “My friend, it is too late for tears.” But his tone was considerably softened, and Barberine later told Cathau that if my mother had persevered in her tears and silence, everything might have turned out for the best. Instead, my mother added,
    “Truly I did not mean any harm. I only wanted to bring you the protection of the Virgin.”
    “Is Christ not enough for you?” cried my father angrily. “Why do you need the intercession of your little gods and goddesses? Have you no sense, woman? There’s nothing but pagan superstition, stinking idolatry and pestiferous ignorance of God’s Word in your worship. I’ve explained this to you a thousand times, Madame, and since you have the good fortune to know how to read, why do you refuse to seek the Word of God as it is given in the Holy Scriptures, rather than relying blindly on the tales of your priests?”
    At this point, little Hélix gave my arm a terrible pinch and I responded with an elbow, which missed its mark and hit a kettle, knocking it with a great crash to the kitchen floor. The door of the great hall flew open and my father’s head appeared, flushed crimson, his eyes ablaze, and he thundered, “What are you doing in here? To bed! To bed! Or every last one of you’ll get the whip, boys and girls alike, young and old, no matter what your condition!” Barberine gave a shriek, and, seizing her lamp, disappeared into the stairwell, all of us on her heels, panting with terror.
    Cathau, the lithe chambermaid Cabusse had taken such a fancy to, slept in the little room adjoining my mother’s bedroom, and she took a hasty leave of Barberine on the first landing, her eyes and lips full of the commentary they would share the next morning but must now sleep on. Our nurse, lamp in hand, shepherded her little troop into the room in the west tower where she slept in a bed whose great size was commensurate with her own. Catherine’s bed was next tohers, little Hélix’s on the other side, but shoved against the wall to allow passage between them, while Samson and I shared a bed on the far side of the fireplace. In the frigid winter weather, we lit a great blaze at nightfall against the terrible glacial draughts blowing through the machicolations pierced in the walls, which, during an attack, permitted rocks, hot pitch or boiling water to be hurled on any attackers, but which now allowed the humidity of the moats to infiltrate our beds.
    Barberine placed the oil lamp on the night table and came to tuck us into our beds with the care, caresses and kisses with which she always dosed these rites, her deep, lyrical voice finding sweet words for each one of us (including Samson, though she’d never suckled him), calling little Hélix “My big rascal! Little devil! Sweet sorceress!”; Catherine “My little golden écu! My pearl of God!”; Samson “My little fox cub! My curly little St John!”; and me “My sweet! Dear heart! My little rooster!” These are only examples of her nicknames for us, for she imagined new ones every night, each one perfectly fitting the person and the occasion, never calling one of us by a name she’d used for another on another night, which, I’m sure, would have wounded us no end.
    Catherine and Samson fell asleep during this rite, but not little Hélix, who, leaning on one elbow, and behind Barberine’s spacious back, made her last faces at me. I did not doze off either, but only pretended to do so, and, turning on my