Eat Him If You Like Read Free Page A

Then he asked, ‘What’s this plan of yours to divert the Nizonne that everyone’s talking about?’
    ‘Well, Jean Frédérique, it’s a question of changing the river’s course slightly. At the moment, a lot of water runs into the fields and is wasted. Uncultivated land will be transformed into pastureland and our insalubrious countryside will become hospitable and prosperous. People will benefit from these works for hundreds of years to come. I finished my report this morning and I shall send it to the government shortly.’
    ‘Well, if you manage to convince those men in the ministry, then it won’t be a waste of ink,’ said Jean Frédérique, clasping Alain’s hands warmly.
    ‘You should stand for election to Parliament!’ exclaimed Antony admiringly, flattering Alain.
    ‘Oh, it is quite enough to be deputy mayor of Beaussac. My political ambition stops there,’ he replied. He then asked the stonemason if he had spotted the carpenter from Fayemarteau in the crowd.
    ‘Brut? I saw him earlier at one of the inns, but I can’t remember whether it was Élie Mondout’s or Mousnier’s place.’
    Alain glanced in the direction of the two inns in the centre of the village. They were packed. Men clustered around thetables and bottles were being passed around. There were so many people at the inns that Anna Mondout – the beautiful young girl who wanted to learn to read and write – was also bringing carafes of wine to the fair’s entrance. She went over and served the horse traders, who were leaning against the priest’s garden wall. They clinked their glasses, which flashed in the light.
    ‘To the Emperor! To victory! To the destruction of Prussia and the death of Bismarck! If he ever dares to come to Hautefaye, we’ll give him something to remember us by!’
    Anna moved on to the labourers, gelders and wheelwrights, and filled their glasses with the nectar.
    ‘Is this rainwater you’re bringing us?’
    ‘It’s Noah, a white wine from Rossignol.’
    ‘Blow me, that’s strong!’ said the men, tasting it and giving their verdict.
    They paid their three sous, but thought that the wine was rather expensive. Anna – a sweet, pale girl with dark eyes and long eyelashes, wearing a grey and green dress – went on her way. Her straw hat blew off and her hair glinted red in the sun. Nearby, a pedlar was trying to sell a bundle of newspapers that had just arrived from Nontron. Even those who only knew how to read a few basic words in large print were snapping them up and trying to decipher the front page of the Dordogne Echo . Some of them were holding the paper upside down.
    ‘I don’t have my glasses. Can somebody read what it says?’
    A broad-shouldered man in a black frock-coat read aloud the front-page headline above the five columns thatAlain had not wanted to read to his mother. ‘ DEFEAT AT FROESCHWILLER, REICHSHOFFEN, WOERTH AND FORBACH ,’ he announced, and then summed up the article below and gave his opinion. ‘Things aren’t going as well as hoped for the French armies at the border. The Emperor is done for. They’re out of ammunition.’
    Alain recognised the arrogant voice. It belonged to his cousin, Camille de Maillard.
    ‘This pointless war, supposedly “fresh and joyous”, is turning into a disaster,’ he continued. ‘Yet the Minister for War promised that “we are ready, more than ready. This will be a Sunday stroll from Paris to Berlin.” Well, that’s news to me, because Reichshoffen was a massacre.’
    Piarrouty rose from his perch on the low, stone wall and turned to face the crowd. Around Alain’s cousin, the news hit like a punch in the stomach.
    ‘That’s not true!’ cried someone in protest. ‘That’s impossible! You don’t know what’s going on. To say that our emperor, who beat the Austrians in Italy and the Russians in the Crimea, isn’t capable of holding back a few Prussians. Come now …’
    ‘Our army has had to retreat to the Moselle!’ responded de