Sixteen: Of the Maple Tree

On the road after leaving Paris and the haunted barn, Delphine refuses the cart, walking beside Thomas and Père Matthieu. Using rough cloths taken from a plague-struck farmhouse, she reflects on the family’s deaths and on how the pestilence reveals people’s true natures. Thomas teases her; Delphine answers in kind, their banter hinting at a gentler bond.

Père Matthieu, observing their ease, wonders what changed between them and interrogates his own failings—his loneliness and drinking—before recognizing a stab of jealousy at their closeness. The trio presses on through a devastated countryside.

On the fifth day, they camp by a swollen stream and try to spear fish. Their efforts yield one small trout. Delphine forages only a few acorns, some walnuts, and a broken horseshoe, which Thomas greets with irritation. They choke down bitter acorn meal and the scant fish before settling to sleep hungry.

At dawn, while the men doze, Delphine amuses herself with pebbles and then pretends to stir a grand stew with a spear. Père Matthieu plays along, savoring the imagined feast; Thomas grumbles but listens. Before they leave, the priest finds a stray walnut and the horseshoe, though the stump Delphine slept against seems to have vanished from sight.

They move on, none of them noticing the quiet marvel behind them: the maple stump has become a tree. Their hardship continues, tempered by small comforts, as shifting affections and jealousies reshape their companionship.