One thing gave me still more to think about in the following days.
It was discovered in Aulnières that Joseph every now and then stayed
out at night.
People joked about it, thinking he had a love-affair; but it was no
use following and watching him, no one ever saw him turn to inhabited
parts, or speak to a living person. He went away across the fields
into the open country so quickly and slyly that it was impossible to
find out his secret. He returned about dawn, and went to work like
the rest; but instead of being weary, he seemed livelier and more
contented than usual.
This was noticed three times in the course of the winter, which was
very long and very severe that year. But neither the snow nor the
north wind was able to keep Joseph from going off at night when the
fancy took him. People imagined he was one of those who walk or work
in their sleep; but it was nothing of the kind, as you will see.
On Christmas Eve, as Véret, the sabot-maker, was on his way to keep
the midnight feast with his parents at Ourouer, he saw under the big
elm Râteau, not the giant who is said to walk under it with a rake on
his shoulder, but a tall dark man who did not have a good face, and
who was whispering quite low to another man not so tall, and who had
a more Christian kind of look. Véret was not actually afraid, and he
passed near enough to listen to what they were saying. But as soon
as the other two saw him, they separated. The dark man made off,
nobody knows where, and his comrade, coming up to Véret, said to him
in a strangled sort of voice,--
"Where are you going, Denis Véret?"
The shoemaker began to be uneasy; and knowing that you must not speak
to the things of darkness, especially near an evil tree, he continued
his way without looking round; but he was followed by the being he
took to be a spirit, who walked behind, keeping step with him.
When they reached the end of the open ground the pursuer turned to
the left, saying, "Good-night, Denis Véret!"
And then for the first time Véret recognized Joseph, and laughed at
his own fears; but still without being able to imagine for what
purpose and in whose company Joseph had come to the big elm between
one and two o'clock in the morning.
When this last affair came to my knowledge I felt very sorry, and
reproached myself for not trying to turn Joseph from the evil ways he
seemed to be taking. But I had let so much time elapse I did not
like to take the matter up then. I spoke to Brulette, who only made
fun of it; from which I began to believe they had a secret love for
each other of which I had been the dupe, like other folks who tried
to see magic in it and only saw fire.
I was more grieved than angry. Joseph, so slack at his work and so
cranky, seemed to me a weak stay and a poor companion for Brulette.
I could have told her that (putting myself entirely out of the
question) she could have played a better game with her cards; but I
was afraid to say it, thinking I might make her angry, and so lose
her friendship, which seemed to me very sweet, even without her other
favors.
One night, coming home, I found Joseph sitting on the edge of the
fountain which is called the Font de Fond. My house, then known by
the name of "God's crossing," because it was built where two roads,
since altered, crossed each other, looked out upon that fine
greensward which you saw not long ago sold and cut up as waste
land,--a great misfortune for the poor, who used it as a common to
feed their beasts, but hadn't enough money to buy it. It was a wide
bit of pasture-land, very green, and watered here and there by the
brook, which was not kept within bounds but ran as it pleased through
the grass, cropped short by the flocks, and always pleasing to the
eye as it stretched away in the distance.
I contented myself with bidding Joseph good-evening; but he rose and
walked beside me, as if seeking a conversation, and seemed so
agitated that I was quite uneasy about him.
"What's the matter with you?" I said at last, seeing that he was
talking at random, and twisting his body and groaning as though he
had stepped on an ant-hill.
"How can you ask me?" he said, impatiently. "Is it nothing to you?
Are you deaf?"
"Who? why? what is it?" I cried, thinking he must see some vision,
and not very anxious to share it.
Then I listened, and heard in the distance the sound of a bagpipe,
which seemed to me natural enough.
"Well," I said, "that's only some musician returning from a wedding
over at Berthenoux. Why should that annoy you?"