Once in Europa Read Online Free Page B

could smell the new grass. They followed with their insolently patient eyes the two swallows who were building a nest on the cross beam above the horse’s stall, empty since the purchase of the tractor. They stared at the squares of sunlight on the north wall which had been in shadow all winter long. They became restless. They lowed for Félix before it was milking time. They wouldn’t eat their croquettes quietly whilst being milked. When they licked each other with their large tongues, they did so with a kind of frenzy, as if the salt they were tasting had to be a substitute for all the green grass outside.
    They want to be out, don’t they? They don’t need a calendar to tell them, and they don’t give a fuck what year it is. Tomorrow we’ll put ’em out, tomorrow when the grass is dry.
    Late the following morning Félix undid each cow’s chain and opened the large door of the stable.
    Myrtille turned towards the sudden light and felt her neck free. Then she tottered, like a convalescent, to the door. Once outside, she raised her head, bellowed and trotted in the direction of the green grass she could see in the meadow. With each step she found her strength again.
    Hold her back, Mick!
    The dog bounded after the cow and barked at her forelegs so that she stopped, her neck stretched out taut and straight, her ears up like a second pair of horns, and her imperturbable eyes staring through the sunshine at the meadow. Immobile, her muzzle, her neck, her haunches and her tail in one straight line, she was like the first statue ever made of a cow. The other cows were pushing through the stable door three at a time.
    Calm, for Christ’s sake! There’s enough for you all. Get back, Princesse!
    They trundled their way down the slope towards Myrtille. Mick saw the whole herd charging at him. His mouth open without a bark, without a whine, he slunk to the side of the road as they thundered past and triumphantly swept Myrtille into the field. As soon as they felt their feet in the grass, their stampede ended. Some threw their hind legs up into the air. One pair locked their horns and shoved against each other with all their weight. Some turnedslowly in circles, listening. The streams from the mountains above the village, white with froth because so much ice had melted, were babbling like madmen. The cuckoo was singing. Entire fields were suddenly changing their colour from green to butter-yellow, because the dandelions, shut at night, were opening their petals.
    Princesse mounted Mireille—when a cow is in heat, she often plays the bull.
    Get her off her!
    Mireille, with Princesse on her back, stood gazing at the mountains. The sunshine penetrated to the very marrow of their bones. When the dog approached, Princesse slid gently off Mireille’s back, and the wind from the northwest, from beyond the mountains, ruffled the hair between both their horns.
    Félix arranged the wire across the opening to the field, switched on the current, and, plucking a stalk of hemlock, held it against the live wire. After a second his hand shot up like a startled bird. He returned slowly to the house, stopping twice to look back at the happiness of the cows.
    He phoned the Inseminator to ask him to pass by for Princesse and gave him the code number of her previous insemination.
    In making hay there’s always a wager. The quicker the hay is in, the better it is. Yet the hay must be dry, otherwise it ferments. At the worst, tradition had it, damp hay could eventually set a house on fire. If you don’t take any risks you’ll never get your hay in early. At the best, you’ll be left with hay like straw. So, impatient, you bet on the sun lasting and the storm holding off. It’s not us making hay, repeated Albertine every year, it’s sun that makes the hay.
    This lottery made haymaking something of a fête. Each time they won they had cheated the sky. Sometimes they won by minutes,