From that day onwards, Jan changed his ways, affecting cheerfulness all the time to reassure his parents. He was seen again at balls, cabarets, and branding fetes. At the celebrations at the Fonvieille fete, he actually led the farandole. His father said: "He's got over it." His mother, however, still had her fears and kept an eye on her boy more than ever.... Jan slept in the same room as Cadet, close to the silkworms' building. The poor mother even made up her bed in the next room to theirs ... explaining by saying that the silkworms would need attention during the night. Then came the feast day of St. Eli, patron saint of farmers. There were great celebrations in the farm.... There was plenty of Château-Neuf for everybody and the sweet wine flowed in rivers. Then there were crackers, and fireworks, and coloured lanterns all over the nettle trees. Long live St. Eli! They all danced the farandole until they dropped. Cadet scorched his new smock.... Even Jan looked content, and actually asked his mother for a dance. She cried with joy. At midnight they all went to bed; everybody was tired out. But Jan himself didn't sleep. Cadet said later that he had been sobbing the whole night. Oh, I tell you, he was well smitten that one.... * * * * * The next morning the mother heard someone running across her sons' bedroom. She felt a sort of presentiment: --Jan, is that you? Jan didn't reply, he was already on the stairs. His mother got up at once: --Jan, where are you going? He went up into the loft, she followed him: --In heavens name, son! He shut and bolted the door: --Jan, Jan, answer me. What are you doing? Her old trembling hands felt for the latch.... A window opened; there was the sound of a body hitting the courtyard slabs. Then ... an awful silence. The poor lad had told himself: "I love her too much.... I want to end it all...." Oh, what pitiful things we are! It's all too much; even scorn can't kill love.... That morning, the village people wondered who could be howling like that, down there by Estève's farm. It was the mother in the courtyard by the stone table which was covered with dew and with blood. She was wailing over her son's lifeless body, limp, in her arms. THE POPE'S MULE When Provencal people talked about an aggressive man with a grudge, they used to say, "Beware of that man!... he is like the Pope's mule, who saved up her kick for seven years." I have long been trying to find out where the saying came from, and what this papal mule and the seven year kick was all about. Nobody, not even Francet Mamaï, my fife player, who knows the Provencal legends like the back of his hand, has been able to tell me. Francet, like me, thinks that it is from an old tale from Avignon, but he has not heard of it elsewhere. --You'll find it in the Cicada's open library, the old piper told me with a snigger.