‘Let's get going.’

He was followed by a dirty, ragged, twelve-year-old urchin carrying the chain under one arm and the stand and the poles over his shoulder, while in his free hand he was swinging the cross-staff in a tattered old cardboard box.

They all set off without waiting for Buteau, whom they had just spied standing motionless beside one field, the largest of all, at the place known as Les Cornailles. This field of roughly five acres adjoined the one where Coliche had dragged Françoise along the ground a few days ago. Thinking there was no point in coming any further, Buteau had stopped here, absorbed in a brown study. As the others came up, they saw him bend down, pick up a handful of soil and then let it slip slowly through his fingers, as though sizing it up and seeing how it smelt.

‘Here we are,’ said Grosbois, pulling a greasy notebook out of his pocket. ‘I've already drawn up a little detailed plan of each bit of land, just as you asked me, Monsieur Fouan. Now we have to divide the whole lot into three parts, and that's what we're going to do together. That's right, isn't it? Now tell me what your ideas are on the subject.’

The light was better now and large masses of cloud went scudding across the livid sky, driven before the icy wind which scourged the sad and dreary plain of Beauce. However, not one of the men seemed aware of these blasts of ocean air which were filling out their smocks like sails and threatening to blow away their hats. All five of them, dressed in their Sunday best in view of the solemnity of the occasion, had now fallen silent. As they stood beside the field set in the middle of this boundless plain, their faces took on the fixed, dreamy look of sailors idly musing on their lonely life spent among the vast expanses of the sea. This flat, fertile plain, easy to cultivate but requiring continuous care, has made its inhabitants cold and reflective; their only passion is for the earth.

‘We must split everything into three,’ said Buteau in the end.

Grosbois shook his head and an argument ensued. Through his contact with the larger farms, he had been won over by progressive ideas and he sometimes took the liberty of disagreeing with his smallholder clients over the policy of dividing land into excessively small holdings. When you had plots of land no bigger than a pocket handkerchief, didn't it make movement and transport ruinously expensive? Was it proper farming when you had little garden-sized plots where you couldn't use the right rotation or machines? The only sensible thing was to come to some agreement, not cut up a field like a piece of cake; it was sheer murder. If one person was prepared to accept the arable land, the other could take the pasture; and then you could arrange so that every share was equal and the final allocation would be made by drawing lots.

Buteau was still young enough to have kept a sense of humour: he took Grosbois's remarks as a joke:

‘And suppose I end up with nothing but pasture, what am I going to eat, grass? That's not good enough, I want a bit of everything, hay for my cow and my horse, wheat and vine for me.’

Fouan nodded approvingly. Successive generations had always split up the land like that; and then each holding would be built up afresh through the acquisition of other land through purchase or marriage.

As the prosperous owner of more than sixty acres, Delhomme could afford to take a broader view, but he did not want to create trouble, he had come along on his wife's behalf merely to ensure that the survey was fairly done. And as for Jesus Christ, he had gone off in pursuit of a flock of larks, his hands full of stones. As soon as one of them remained fluttering for a couple of seconds motionless against the wind, he would bring it down as skilfully as any primitive savage. He knocked down three of them and stuffed them into his pocket, all bloody as they were.

‘That's enough blather,’ said Buteau, addressing the surveyor with cheerful familiarity. ‘Just you cut it up into three parts. And take care it's not six, because it seems to me that you've got one eye on Chartres and the other on Orléans this morning!’

Offended by this remark, Grosbois drew himself up and retorted with some hauteur:

‘Young man, see if you can be as drunk as me and keep your eyes open… Is there any clever person here who would like to use my cross-staff instead of me?’

As nobody took up the challenge, with a triumphant air he sharply called out to his boy, who was lost in admiration at Jesus Christ's skill at killing birds; the cross was set up on its stand but as the stakes were being thrust into the ground another dispute arose over the way to divide the field up. The surveyor, supported by Fouan and Delhomme, wanted to divide it up into three strips parallel to the valley of the Aigre, whereas Buteau was demanding that the strips should run at right angles to the valley, on the objection that the soil became progressively shallower going down the slope. In that way, everyone would have a fair share of the poor soil, whilst otherwise the third strip would consist of nothing but poor quality land. But Fouan was becoming annoyed: he insisted that the topsoil was the same all over and pointed out that the previous division of the land between him, Mouche and La Grande had been conducted on the same basis, as was proved by the fact that the third strip would be bordering Mouche's own five-acre plot. For his part, Delhomme made the very valid point that even if that strip were less good, its owner would benefit as soon as they opened up the road which was going to run along the edge of the field, at that very spot.

‘Oh yes!’ Buteau cried. ‘That famous direct route from Rognes to Châteaudun via La Borderie. That's something you'll not see for donkey's years.’

And when they persisted despite his objection, he went on protesting through clenched teeth. Even Jesus Christ had joined them and they all became absorbed in observing Grosbois draw the dividing lines, watching him like hawks as though they suspected him of wanting to cheat by giving one of the strips an extra inch or two. Three times Delhomme went over to put his eye at the slit in the cross-staff head to be quite sure that the wire cut the pole cleanly. Jesus Christ swore at the wretched little boy for not holding the chain properly taut. But Buteau in particular followed the operation step by step, counting every yard and redoing the sums in his own way, mumbling with his lips.