Gastien Pt 1 Read Free Page B

blood on the floor. Dazed, he wondered if he really was going to die, after all. Mercifully, he finally passed out.
    The next morning, he woke up where he had fallen. There was blood all over the floor and his back was a sticky, raw mess that burned like fire. It was barely dawn. Gastien tried to stand up but found he could not. He had lost too much blood. He collapsed back down to the floor. That woke up his father who came out with his mother in tow.
    “See your son, Marguerite? See what a weak little conne your oldest son is? YOU have made him a girl. He can’t even take a man’s beating and get on with his life. I shudder to think of how he will end up! He will probably end up in Paris, getting it up the ass like he deserves! That is all he is good for.”
    His mother did not dare say a word. The tears slid down her cheeks, and she rushed forward to help Gastien up off of the floor.
    “That’s right!” his father spat. “Run to him and baby him! All you are good for is spoiling our children. Get him out of my sight until he can work like a man! The sight of him has always made me sick!” With that his father went back into their bedroom.
    Gastien’s mother helped him to bed. He shared a bed with his brother Paul, who was pretending to be asleep. “Gastien, I am sorry, so sorry,” his mother whispered. “Don’t listen to him. Don’t let him get to you. He is not a man, he is an animal! You be the man, and someday you will stand up to him. Just try to stay out of trouble until then. There is greatness in you, Gastien! I know that without a doubt.”
    Gastien was too weak to even answer. She left, returning with water and soap, cleaning his back carefully. She then wrapped him in bandages. “I am sorry I can’t protect you. I am afraid he will kill all of us if I try!” She then went downstairs, returning with a broth that made him sleep for quite some time. He stayed in bed for a few days, finally getting up for longer and longer periods, regaining his strength. He returned to the vegetable fields and was back to shoveling dung within the week.
    He vowed he would do his best to please his father and try to work this farm until he was eighteen. Maybe if his father saw how hard he worked for the next two years, and how unhappy he still was, he would give him his blessing to go to Paris and attend Académie Julian . Académie Julian was a private art school, and Gastien knew it was expensive. If his father would give him a start he would work his way through. Surely if he worked hard enough and explained that he did not want the farm, his father would give him enough for a room while he worked to pay for school and food. He began to dream about when he would be eighteen and on his way to Paris.
    The days turned into weeks, then months, and finally a year. At last two years had passed. Gastien would turn eighteen in a month. He had swallowed his pride and his desires, only drawing by candlelight late at night, and always up at dawn to begin work on the farm. He shoveled more dung than his father, pulled more weeds, picked more vegetables. He managed his siblings, and found that many of them actually enjoyed the farm work. That made them easy to be managed. Although his father never said it, many times young Gastien would glance up and see admiration in his father’s eyes. He knew his father thought he was finally doing a good job.

 
V
    He knew he could not wait any longer. It was unfair to his siblings to do so, because the next oldest should start to be groomed for running the farm. He did not care that he would lose that right. Mon Dieu , he wanted out of there, and would never look back! He hoped the fils de pute that called himself their father died while shoveling shit. Gastien did his best to not let those feelings show.
    Today he came in at mid-day for a break, deciding that this was the day. Instead of going back to work, he went to the river and washed himself up, putting on a clean set of clothes.