"I'll buy it when this guy here quits trying to steal my money," Antonelli said. He turned back to Galtier. "Awright, you damn thief, I'll give you a dol lar ten for the bird."

"I steal?" Galtier assumed an injured expression. "I? No, monsieur, you are the thief. Even at a dollar forty, it is for me no bargain."

He ended up selling Antonelli the hen for a dollar and a quarter. He could have done better by refusing to deal with the American at all and getting more from a less able haggler, but he enjoyed the bargaining enough to make the deal at that price simply for the sake of having met a worthy opponent. Marie, no doubt, would cluck at him when he got back to the farm, but money was not the only thing that brought satisfaction to life.

When the Americans had snapped up all the chickens he had for sale, he put the crates back in the wagon and then wandered over to the edge of the river. More boats were tied up at the quays below the town than he was used to seeing there. Not all of them were the usual sort of fishing boats and tramp steamers, either. He didn't think he'd ever seen so many barges at Riviere-du- Loup. A lot of them looked new, as if they'd just been put together from green timber and had engines bolted to them. They wouldn't go far or fast. For a moment, he had trouble figuring out why they were there.

Then he did, and crossed himself. As soon as he'd done that, he looked around to see whether anyone -especially Father Pascal-had noticed. But the priest was nowhere in sight, for which he thanked God. So many men around Riviere-du-Loup, so many barges and boats of all kinds assembled here, could mean only one thing: the Americans were making ready to cross the St. Lawrence and inflict on the rest of Quebec all the delights their rule had brought here.

"Mauvais chance -bad luck," he murmured under his breath. Too much of France already lay under the boots of the Americans' German allieswould all the French speakers in the world now be occupied and tyrannized? "Prevent it, God," he said quietly.

He wanted to run to the church, so his prayers would have more effect. But who presided over the church in Riviere-du-Loup? No one other than the odious Father Pascal. To the priest, his own advancement counted for more than the fate of his countrymen. When the day of reckoning came (if God was kind enough to grant such), Father Pascal would have much for which to answer.

Glumly, Lucien walked to the general store and bought his monthly ration of kerosene with some of the money he'd got from selling the hens. He was pleased by how little he paid for it; compared to other things, it hadn't risen so sharply. It would, he expected, but it hadn't yet. He understood military bureaucracies and how slowly they worked, having been part of one himself, but hadn't expected to be able to turn that to his advantage. With another half-dollar of hen money, he bought hair ribbons in several bright colors for his womenfolk.

He put the kerosene and the ribbons into the back of the wagon. He was just coming up onto the seat when Angelique came out of the Loup-du-Nord hand in hand with an American soldier. "Look at that little whore," one housewife said to another near Lucien.

The second woman's claws also came out: "Why doesn't she simply tie a mattress on her back? It would save so much time."

And then, as if to prove their own virtue and piety, the two of them turned their backs on the barmaid and, noses in the air, strode into the church: Father Pascal's church. Galtier sat scratching his head for a minute or two, then flicked the reins and got the wagon moving. Getting out of Riviere-du-Loup felt more like escape than it ever had before.

"It is a very strange thing," he told the horse when he was out in open country and could safely have such conversations, "how those women despise Angelique, who at most gives the Americans her body, and think nothing of going in to confess themselves to Father Pascal, who has assuredly sold the Americans his soul. Do you understand this, mon cheval?

If the horse did understand, it kept its knowledge to itself.

"Well, I do not understand, either," Lucien said. "It is, to me, a complete and absolute mystery. Soon, though, I shall be home, and then, thank God, I shall have other things to worry about."

The horse kept walking.

Nellie Semphroch pasted a sign to the boards that still did duty for her shattered front window: YES, WE HAVE ICED COFFEE. She'd lettered it herself, along with the slogan just below: COME IN amp; TRY IT. IT'S GOOD. With summer's heat and humidity as they were, she would have lost half her business without iced coffee.

"Have to go to the bank," she muttered, and then laughed at herself. Banks in Washington, D.C., weren't safe these days. Anyone with any sense kept his money at home or in his store or buried in a tin can in a vacant lot. A robber might take it away from you, but the Army of Northern Virginia might take it away from the bank. The Confederates, from everything she'd seen of them, made the local robbers seem pikers by comparison.

Off in the distance, artillery rumbled. Nellie hadn't heard that sound since the early days of the war, for the Confederates' opening drive had pushed the front too far north for the gunfire to carry. It had returned with the U.S. Army's spring offensive, the breakout from Baltimore. But the breakout, like so many breakouts in the war, had not turned into a breakthrough. The Rebs, though they'd drawn back from Pennsylvania, still held most of Maryland, and U.S. forces were nowhere near ready to regain poor Washington.

As if to underscore that, a couple of Confederate soldiers came out of Mr. Jacobs' shoemaker's shop across the street, one of them holding a pair of marching boots, the other shiny black cavalry boots. The fellow with the cavalry boots must have told a joke, for the other Reb laughed and made as if to throw half his own footgear at him.

Nellie ducked back inside the coffeehouse and said, "I'm going over to Mr. Jacobs' for a few minutes, Edna."

"All right, Ma," her daughter answered from behind the counter. The place was busy -too busy, Nellie hoped, for Edna to get into any mischief while she was gone. Nicholas Kincaid wasn't in there soaking up coffee and mooning over Edna, which Nellie took for a good sign.

She had to hurry across the street to keep a big truck from running her down. The colored man at the wheel of the truck laughed because he'd made her scramble. She glared at him till the truck turned a corner and went out of sight. She was a white woman. She deserved better treatment from a Negro. But, she reminded herself sadly, she was also a damnyankee, and so deserving of no respect from Confederates, even black ones.

The bell above the shoemaker's door jingled as Nellie went inside. She'd thought Jacobs was alone, but he was in there talking with another gray-haired, nondescript man. They both fell silent, quite abruptly. Then Mr. Jacobs smiled. "Hello, Widow Semphroch," he said smoothly. "Don't be shy-this is my friend, Mr. Pfeiffer. Lou, Widow Semphroch runs the coffee house across the street. She is one of the nicest ladies I know."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," Lou Pfeiffer said.

"And you, Mr. Pfeiffer, I'm sure." Nellie glanced over at the shoemaker. "Since you have your friend here, Mr. Jacobs, I'll come back another time."

"Don't hurry off," Jacobs said. "Mr. Pfeiffer -Lou-was telling me some thing very interesting. You might even want to hear it yourself. If you're not too busy, why don't you stay?"

"Well, all right," Nellie said, a little surprised. She'd intended giving Mr. Jacobs some of the dirt she'd gleaned from the coffeehouse, and he had to know that. He wouldn't have wanted her to do it while anyone else was around. So why keep her here when she couldn't speak of what really mat tered? She shrugged. "Go ahead, Mr. Pfeiffer."