Little Brulette was now called "handsome Brulette," and was much
talked of in our country-side; for within the memory of man no
prettier girl or finer eyes or slimmer waist or rosier cheek or hair
of brighter gold had ever been seen; her hand was like satin, and her
foot as dainty as a young lady's.
All that tells you plain enough that my cousin did not work very
hard; she never went out in bad weather, took care to shade herself
from the sun, did not wash the clothes, and made no use of her limbs
to tire them.
Perhaps you will think she was idle? Not at all. She did everything
that she could not help doing fast and well. She had too much good
sense not to keep order and neatness in the household and take the
best care of her grandfather, as in duty bound. Moreover, she liked
finery too well not to do a good bit of sewing; but as to hard work,
she never so much as heard of it. There was no occasion that she
should, and therefore it can't be said she was to blame.
There are some families where toil and nothing else comes early to
warn young people that life is not so much a question of amusement in
this low world as of earning a living among their fellows. But in
Père Brulet's home there was little to do to make both ends meet.
The old man was only in the seventies, and being a good workman, very
clever at cutting stone (which, you know, is quite a science in these
parts), steady, and much in demand by every one, he earned a good
living; and, thanks to the fact of being a widower with no one to
support but his granddaughter, he had laid by quite a little sum
against illness or accident. Fortunately he kept his health, so
that, without riches, he was never in want.
My father, however, declared that Brulette loved ease and comfort too
well; meaning by that, that she might have to come down to other
things when it was time for her to marry. He agreed with me that she
was as sweet and amiable in her ways as in her person; but he would
not encourage me to court her in marriage. She was too poor, he
said, to be a lady, and he often declared that a wife should be
either rich or very full of energy. "At first sight, I like one as
well as the other," he would say; "though perhaps, on second
thoughts, I would rather have the energy than the money. But
Brulette has not enough of either to tempt a wise man."
I knew my father was right; but my cousin's sweet eyes and gentle
speech had more influence over me than he could have, and over other
young fellows too,--for you must know that I was not the only one.
From the time she was fifteen she was surrounded with striplings like
me, whom she knew how to restrain and order about as she had done in
her childish days. You might say she was born proud, and knew her
value long before compliments had given her an idea of it. She loved
praise and submission, and while she never allowed any one to make
free with her, she was very willing they should love her timidly. I,
like a good many others, was filled with the strongest desire to
please her, and at the same time I was often annoyed to find myself
only one of a crowd.
Two of us, however, were privileged to talk to her rather more
intimately, and to walk home with her when we met at a dance, or
after church. I mean Joseph Picot and I. But we gained little or
nothing by that; and perhaps, without saying so, we laid the blame to
each other.
Joseph was still on the farm at Aulnières, about a mile and a half
from Brulette's house, and half that distance from mine. He was a
mere laborer. Though he was not really handsome, some, who did not
object to a melancholy face, might think him so. His face was lean
and yellow, and his brown hair, falling straight from his head and
down his cheeks, made him even more puny in appearance.
Nevertheless, he was not ill-made, nor ungraceful in body, and there
was something in his closed jaw which always seemed to me the reverse
of weakness. He was thought ill because he moved slowly and had none
of the gayety of youth; but seeing him often, as I did, I knew it was
his nature to be so, and that he really was not suffering at all.
He was, however, a very poor laborer of the soil, not over careful
with cattle, and far from agreeable in temper. His wages were the
lowest that were ever paid to a plough-boy, and people were surprised
that his master still kept him; for nothing prospered with him,
either in the stable or the fields, and he was so sullen when
reproved that no one could do anything with him. But Père Michel
declared that he never gave any angry answer, and he preferred those
who submitted without a word, even if they did have sulky looks, to
those who deceived you with flattery.
His faithfulness and the contempt he showed at all times for
injustice made his master respect him, though he often remarked what
a pity it was that an honest, upright lad had such soft muscles and a
mind so indifferent to his work. But he kept him for what he was
worth, from habit, and also out of consideration for Père Brulet, who
was one of Père Michel's earliest friends.
In what I have said of Joseph you will readily see that he could not
please the girls. Indeed, they never looked at him, except to wonder
why they never caught his eye, which was large and clear as an owl's
and never seemed to see anything.
Yet I was always jealous of him, because Brulette paid him more
attention than she gave to any one else, and obliged me to do the
same. She no longer lectured him, and openly accepted his temper as
God made it, without getting angry or seeming at all annoyed. She
forgave him his want of gallantry, and even politeness,--two things
which she exacted from the rest of us. He might do all sorts of
stupid things,--such as sit down on a chair if she left it for a
moment, and oblige her to find another; or neglect to pick up her
balls of wool when they rolled away; or break a bodkin or some other
sewing utensil,--he might do all such things, and she would never say
an impatient word to him; whereas she scolded and ridiculed me if I
did a tenth part of them.
Then, she took care of him as if he were a brother. She kept a bit
of meat put by for him when he came to see her, and made him eat it
whether he was hungry or not, telling him he ought to strengthen his
stomach and make blood. She had an eye to his clothes just like
Mariton, and even took upon herself to make him new ones, saying that
his mother had not time to cut and sew them. Sometimes she would
lead her cattle to pasture over where he was at work, and talked to
him; though he talked very little, and very badly when he tried to do
so.
Besides all this, she would not allow any one to treat him with
contempt, or to make fun of his melancholy face and his staring eyes.
To all such remarks she replied that his health was not good; also
that he was not more stupid than other people; if he talked little,
it was not that he did not think; and, in short, that it was better
to be silent than to talk a great deal with nothing to say.
Sometimes I was tempted to contradict her; but she quickly cut me
short by saying,--
"You must have a very bad heart, Tiennet, to abandon that poor lad to
the jeers of others, instead of defending him when they torment him.
I thought better of you than that."
Then of course I did her will, and defended Joseph; though for my
part I could not see what illness or affliction he had, unless
laziness and distrust were infirmities of nature,--which might be
possible; though it certainly seemed to me in the power of man to
subdue them.
On his side, Joseph, without showing an aversion for me, treated me
just as coldly as he did the rest, and never appeared to remember the
assistance he got from me in his various encounters. Whether he
cared for Brulette, like all the others, or whether he cared only for
himself, he smiled in a strange manner and with an air of contempt
whenever she gave me the most trifling mark of friendship.
One day, when he had pushed the thing so far as to shrug his
shoulders, I resolved to have an explanation with him,--as quietly as
possible, so as not to displease my cousin, but frankly enough to
make him feel that if I put up with him in her presence with great
patience, I expected him to treat me in the same way. But as on that
occasion a number of Brulette's other lovers were present, I put off
doing this until the first time I should find him alone.
Accordingly, I went the next day to join him in a field where he was
at work.
I was a good deal surprised to find Brulette with him, sitting on the
roots of a big tree by the side of a ditch, where he was supposed to
be cutting brush to make pegs. But in fact he was cutting nothing at
all; though by way of work he was whittling something which he
quickly put in his pocket as soon as he saw me, closing his knife and
beginning to talk as if I had been his master and had caught him in a
fault, or as if he had been saying secret things to my cousin which I
had interrupted.
I was so troubled and vexed that I was going away without a word,
when Brulette called to me, and beginning to knit (for she too had
laid aside her work while talking to him), she told me to sit down
beside her.
It struck me it was only a sop to soothe my vexation, so I refused,
saying that the weather was not pleasant enough to sit about in
ditches. And truly, though not cold, it was very damp; the thaw had
made the brook full and the grass muddy. There was still a little
snow in the furrows, and the wind was disagreeable. According to my
notions, Brulette must have thought Joseph very interesting to make
her lead her flock out there in such weather--she who so often and so
readily turned them over to the care of her neighbor.
"José," said Brulette, "our friend Tiennet is sulky because he sees
we have a secret between us. Won't you let me tell it to him? His
advice will do no harm, and he will tell you just what he thinks of
your idea."
"He!" said Joseph, beginning to shrug his shoulders just as had done
the night before.
"Does your back itch whenever you see me?" I said to him, spitefully.
"I can scratch you in a way that will cure you once for all."
He looked at me from under his lids as if ready to bite me; but
Brulette touched him gently on the shoulder with the end of her
distaff, and calling him to her, she whispered in his ear.
"No, no!" he answered, without taking the trouble to hide his answer.
"Tiennet is no good at all to advise me,--he knows no more than your
goat; and if you tell him the least thing, I won't tell you anything
more."
Thereupon he picked up his shears and his chopper, and went to work
at some distance.
"There!" said Brulette, rising to call in her flock, "now he is
cross. But never mind, Tiennet, it is nothing serious,--I know his
fancies; there is nothing to be done, and indeed the best way is to
let him alone. He's a lad who has had a bee in his bonnet ever since
he came into the world. He doesn't know how to express what he
feels, and he really can't. It is better, therefore, to leave him to
himself; for if one worries him with questions, he only cries, and
then we have hurt his feelings for nothing."
"It is my opinion, though," I said to Brulette, "that you know how to
make him confess himself."
"I was mistaken," she answered; "I thought he had some much worse
trouble. It would make you laugh if I could tell you what the
trouble really is; but as he chooses to tell no one but me, let us
think no more about it."
"If it is such a little thing," I persisted, "you would not take so
much interest in it."
"Do you think I take too much?" she said. "Don't I owe it to the
woman who brought him into the world and who brought me up with more
care and kindness than she gave to her own child?"
"That's a good reason, Brulette. If it is Mariton you love in her
son, very good; in that case, I wish Mariton was my mother,--it would
be better for me than being your cousin."
"Leave that sort of nonsense to my other sweethearts," answered
Brulette, blushing a little. But no compliments ever came amiss to
her, though she pretended to laugh at them.
As we left the fields just opposite to my house she came in with me
to say good-evening to my sister.
But my sister was out, and Brulette could not wait, because her sheep
were in the road. In order to keep her a moment, I bethought me of
taking off her sabots, to remove the lumps of snow, and drying them.
And so, holding her as it were by the paws,--for she was obliged to
sit down while she waited for me to finish,--I tried to tell her,
better than I had ever yet dared to do, the trouble my love for her
was piling up in my heart.
But there! see the devilish thing,--I couldn't get out the crowning
word of it. I managed the second and the third, but the first
wouldn't come. My forehead was sweating. The girl could have helped
me out, if she only would, for she knew the tune of my song well
enough; others had sung it to her already. But with Brulette, one
had to have patience and discretion; and though I was not altogether
new at gallant speeches, those I had exchanged with others who were
less difficult than Brulette (just by way of getting my hand in) had
taught me nothing that was proper to say to a high-priced young girl
like my cousin.
All that I could manage was to hark back to the subject of her
favorite, Joseph. At first she laughed; then, little by little,
seeing that I was seriously finding fault with him, she became
herself serious. "Let the poor lad alone," she said; "he is much to
be pitied."
"But why and wherefore? Is he consumptive, or crazy, that you are so
afraid of his being meddled with?"
"He is worse than that," answered Brulette; "he is an egotist."
"Egotist" was one of the curate's words which Brulette had picked up,
though it was not used among us in my day. Brulette had a wonderful
memory; and that was how she sometimes came out with words which I
might have recollected too, only I did not, and consequently I could
not understand them.
I was too shy to ask her for an explanation and admit my ignorance.
Besides, I imagined it was a mortal illness; and I felt that such a
great affliction convicted me of injustice. I begged Brulette's
pardon for having annoyed her, adding,--
"If I had known what you tell me sooner, I shouldn't have felt any
bitterness or rancor for the poor fellow."
"How came you never to notice it?" she said. "Don't you see how he
makes every one give way to him and oblige him, without ever dreaming
of thanking them; how the least neglect affronts him, and the
slightest joke angers him; how he sulks and suffers about things
nobody else would ever notice; and how one must put one's best self
into a friendship with him without his ever comprehending that it is
not his due, but an offering made to God of love to our neighbor?"
"Is that the effect of illness?" I asked, a little puzzled by
Brulette's explanation.
"Isn't it the very worst thing he can have in his heart?" she replied.
"Does his mother know he has something the matter with his heart?"
"She guesses at it; but, you see, I can't talk to her about it for
fear of grieving her."
"Has no one tried to cure him?"
"I have done, and I mean to do, my best," she answered, continuing a
topic on which we didn't understand each other; "but I think my way
of managing him only makes him worse."
"It is true," I said, after reflecting awhile, "that the fellow
always did have something queer about him. My grandmother, who is
dead,--and you know how she piqued herself on foretelling the
future,--said he had misfortune written on his face; that he was
doomed to live in misery or to die in the flower of his age, because
of a line he has on his forehead. Ever since then, I declare to you
that when Joseph is gloomy I see that line of ill-luck, though I
never knew where my grandmother saw it. At such times I'm afraid of
him, or rather of his fate, and I feel led to spare him blame and
annoyance as if he was not long for this world."
"Bah!" said Brulette, laughing, "nothing but my great-aunt's fancies!
I remember them very well. Didn't she also tell you that light eyes,
like Joseph's, can see spirits and hidden things? As for me, I don't
believe a word of it, neither do I think he is in danger of dying.
People live a long time with a mind like his; they take their comfort
in worrying others, though perhaps, while threatening to die, they
will live to bury all about them."
I could not understand what she said, and I was going to question her
further, when she asked for her sabots and slipped her feet easily
into them, though they were so small I couldn't get my hand in.
Then, calling to her dog and shortening her petticoat, she left me,
quite anxious and puzzled by all she said, and as little advanced as
ever in my courtship.
The following Sunday, as she was starting for mass at Saint-Chartier,
where she liked better to go than to our own parish church, because
there was dancing in the market-place between mass and vespers, I
asked if I could go with her.
"No," she said. "I am going with my grandfather; and he does not
like a crowd of sweethearts after me along the roads."
"I am not a crowd of sweethearts," I said. "I am your cousin, and my
uncle never wanted me out of his way."
"Well, keep out of mine now," she said,--"only for to-day. My father
and I want to talk with José, who is in the house and is going to
mass with us."
"Then he has come to propose marriage; and you are glad enough to
listen to him."
"Are you crazy, Tiennet? After all I told you about José!"
"You told me he had an illness that would make him live longer than
other people; and I don't see what there is in that to quiet me."
"Quiet you for what?" exclaimed Brulette, astonished. "What illness?
Where are your wits? Upon my word, I think all the men are crazy!"
Then, taking her grandfather's arm, who just then came out of the
house with José, she started, as light as a feather and gay as a
fawn, while my good uncle, who thought there was nothing like her,
smiled at the passers-by as much as to say, "You have no such girl as
that to show!"
I followed them at a distance, to see if Joseph drew any closer to
her on the way, and whether she took his arm, and whether the old man
left them together. Nothing of the kind. Joseph walked all the time
at my uncle's left, and Brulette on his right, and they seemed to be
talking gravely.
After the service I asked Brulette to dance with me.
"Oh, you are too late!" she said; "I have promised at least fifteen
dances. You must come back about vesper time."
This annoyance did not include Joseph, for he never danced; and to
avoid seeing Brulette surrounded by her other swains, I followed him
into the inn of the "Bœuf Couronné," where he went to see his
mother, and I to kill time with a few friends.
I was rather a frequenter of wine-shops, as I have already told
you,--not because of the bottle, which never got the better of my
senses, but from a liking for company and talk and songs. I found
several lads and lasses whom I knew and with whom I sat down to
table, while Joseph sat in a corner, not drinking a drop or saying a
word,--sitting there to please his mother, who liked to look at him
and throw him a word now and then as she passed and repassed. I
don't know if it ever occurred to Joseph to help her in the hard work
of serving so many people, but Benoit wouldn't have allowed such an
absent-minded fellow to stumble about among his dishes and bottles.
You have heard tell of the late Benoit? He was a fat man with a
topping air, rather rough in speech, but a good liver and a fine
talker when occasion served. He was upright enough to treat Mariton
with the respect she deserved; for she was, to tell the truth, the
queen of servants, and Benoit's house had never had so much custom as
while she reigned over it.
The thing Père Brulet warned her of never happened. The danger of
the business cured her of coquetry, and she kept her own person as
safe as she did the property of her master. The truth is, it was
chiefly for her son's sake that she had brought herself down to
harder work and greater discretion than was natural to her. In that
she was seen to be so good a mother that instead of losing the
respect of others, she had gained more since she served at the inn;
and that's a thing which seldom happens in our country villages,--nor
elsewhere, as I've heard tell.
Seeing that Joseph was paler and gloomier than usual, the thought of
what my grandmother had said of him, together with the illness (very
queer, it seemed to me) which Brulette imputed to him, somehow struck
my mind and touched my heart. No doubt he was still angry with me
for the harsh words I had used to him. I wanted to make him forget
them, and to force him to sit at our table, thinking I could unawares
make him a trifle drunk; for, like others of my age, I thought the
fumes of a little good white wine a sovereign cure for low spirits.
Joseph, who paid little attention to what was going on around him,
let us fill his glass and nudge his elbow so often that any one but
he would soon have felt the effects. Those who were inciting him to
drink, and thoughtlessly setting him the example, soon had too much;
but I, who wanted my legs for the dance, stopped short as soon as I
felt that I had had enough. Joseph fell into a deep cogitation,
leaned his two elbows on the table, and seemed to me neither brighter
nor duller than he was before.
No one paid any attention to him; everybody laughed and chattered on
their own account. Some began to sing, just as folks sing when they
have been drinking, each in his own key and his own time, one fellow
trolling his chorus beside another who trolls his, the whole together
making a racket fit to split your head, while the whole company
laughed and shouted so that nobody could hear anything at all.
Joseph sat still without flinching, and looked at us in his staring
way for quite a time. Then he got up and went away, without saying
anything.
I thought he might be ill, and I followed him. But he walked
straight and fast, like a man who was none the worse for wine; and he
went so far up the slope of the hill above the town of Saint-Chartier
that I lost sight of time, and came back again, for fear I should
miss my dance with Brulette.
She danced so prettily, my dear Brulette, that every eye was upon
her. She adored dancing and dress and compliments, but she never
encouraged any one to make serious love to her; and when the bell
rang for vespers, she would walk away, dignified and serious, into
church, where she certainly prayed a little, though she never forgot
that all eyes were on her.
As for me, I remembered that I had not paid my score at the Bœuf
Couronné, and I went back to settle with Mariton, who took occasion
to ask me where her son had gone.
"You made him drink," she said; "and that's not his habit. You might
at least not have let him wander off alone; accidents happen so
easily."