"That is Carnat's bagpipe, but he is not playing it; it is some one
more clumsy even than he."
"Clumsy? Do you call Carnat clumsy with the bagpipe?"
"Not clumsy with his hands, but clumsy in his ideas, Tiennet. Poor
man, he is not worthy of the blessing of a bagpipe! and that fellow
who is trying it now deserves that the good God should stop his
breath."
"That's very strange talk, and I don't know where you have picked it
up. How do you know that is Carnat's bagpipe? It seems to me that
bagpipes are all alike, and grunt in the same way. I do hear that
the one down there is not properly played, and the tune is rather
choked off; but that doesn't trouble me, for I couldn't do as well.
Do you think you could do any better?"
"I don't know; but there are certainly some who can play better than
that fellow and better than Carnat, his master. There are some who
have got at the truth of the thing."
"Do you know them? Where are the people that you are talking about?"
"I don't know. But somewhere truth must be, and when one has neither
time nor means to search for it, one's only chance is to meet it."
"So your head is running on music, is it, José? I never should have
thought it. I have always known you as mute as a fish, never
catching nor humming a tune. When you used to practise on the
cornstalks like the herd-boys, you made such a jumble of the tunes
that nobody recognized them. In the matter of music we all thought
you more simple than children, who fancy they can play the bagpipes
with reeds; if you are not satisfied with Carnat, who keeps such good
time for dancing, and manages his fingers so skilfully, I am more
than ever sure your ear can't be good."
"Yes, yes," said Joseph, "you are right to reprove me, for I say
foolish things and talk of what I know nothing about. Well,
good-night, Tiennet; forget what I said, for it is not what I wanted
to say; but I will think it over and try to tell you better another
time."
And off he went, quickly, as if sorry for having spoken; but
Brulette, who came out of our house just then with my sister, called
to him and brought him back to me, saying,--
"It is time to put an end to these tales. Here is my cousin, who has
heard so much gossip about Joseph that she begins to think he is a
werewolf; the thing must be cleared up, once for all."
"Let it be as you say," said Joseph, "for I am tired of being taken
for a sorcerer; I would rather be thought an idiot."
"You are neither an idiot nor crazy," returned Brulette; "but you are
very obstinate, my poor José. You must know, Tiennet, that the lad
has nothing wrong in his head, except a fancy for music, which is not
so unreasonable as it is dangerous."
"Then," answered I, "I understand what he was saying to me just now.
But where the devil did he pick up these ideas?"
"Wait a minute!" said Brulette; "we must not irritate him unjustly.
Don't be in a hurry to say he can't make music; though perhaps you
think, like his mother and my grandfather, that his mind is as dense
to that as it used to be to the catechism. But I can tell you that
Mariton, and grandfather, and you are the ones who know nothing about
it. Joseph can't sing,--not that he is short of breath, but because
he can't make his throat do as he wants it; and as he isn't able to
satisfy himself he prefers not to use a voice he doesn't know how to
manage. Therefore, naturally enough, he wants to play upon some
instrument which has a voice in place of his own, and which can sing
for him whatever comes in his head. It is because he has failed to
get this borrowed voice that our poor lad is so sad and dreamy and
wrapped up in himself."
"It is exactly as she tells you," remarked Joseph, who seemed
comforted to hear the young girl lift his thoughts out of his heart
and make me comprehend them. "But she does not tell you that she has
a voice for me, so sweet, so clear, which repeats so correctly the
music she hears that ever since I was a child my greatest pleasure is
to listen to her."
"Yes," said Brulette, "but we always had a crow to pick with each
other. I liked to do as all the other little girls who kept their
flocks did; that is, sing at the top of my voice so that I could be
heard a long distance. Screaming like that, I outdid my strength and
spoilt all, and hurt José's ears. Then, after I settled down to
singing reasonably, he thought I had a good memory for all the tunes
that were singable, those which pleased the lad and those that put
him in a rage; and more than once I've known him turn his back on me
suddenly and rush off without a word, though he had asked me to sing.
For that matter, he is not always civil or kind; but as it is he, I
laugh instead of getting angry. I know very well he'll come back,
for his memory is not sure, and when he has heard an air that pleases
him he comes to me for it, and he is pretty sure to find it in my
head."
I remarked to Brulette that as Joseph had such a poor memory he
didn't seem to me born to play the bagpipes.
"Oh nonsense!" she said, "it is just there that you have got to turn
your opinion wrong side out. You see, my poor Tiennet, that neither
you nor I know the _truth of the thing_, as José says. But by dint
of living with him and his visions I have come to understand what he
either does not know or dares not say. The 'truth of the thing' is
that José thinks he can invent his own music; and he does invent it,
for sure. He has succeeded in making a flute out of a reed, and he
plays upon it; I don't know how, for he won't let me, nor any one
else, hear him. When he wants to play he goes off, on Sundays and
sometimes at night, into lonely places where he can flute as he
likes; but when I ask him to play for me he answers that he does not
yet know what he wants to know, and that he can't do as I ask until
it is worth while. That's why, ever since he invented his
instrument, he goes off on Sundays and sometimes, during the week, at
night, when his music grips him hard. So you see, Tiennet, that it
is all very harmless. But it is time we should have an explanation
between us three; for José has now set his mind on spending his next
wages--up to this time he has always given them to his mother--in
buying a bagpipe; and, as he knows he is a poor hand at farm-labor
and yet his heart is set on relieving his mother of hard work, he
wants to take up the business of playing the bagpipe because, true
enough, it pays well."
"It would be a good idea," said my sister, who was listening to us,
"if Joseph really has a talent for it. But, before buying the
bagpipe, it is my opinion he ought to know something about using it."
"That's a matter of time and patience," said Brulette, "and there's
no hindrance there. Don't you know that for some time past Carnat's
son has been learning to play, so as to take his father's place."
"Yes," I answered, "and I see what will come of it. Carnat is old
and some one might have a chance for his custom; but his son wants
it, and will get it because he is rich and has influence in the
neighborhood; while you, José, have neither money to buy your bagpipe
nor a master to teach you, nor friends who like your music to push
you on."
"That is true," replied Joseph, sadly; "I have nothing but my idea,
my reed, and--_her_."
So saying he motioned towards Brulette, who took his hand
affectionately as she answered:--
"José, I believe in what you have in your head, but I can't feel
certain that you will ever get it out. To will and to do are not the
same thing; to dream music and play the flute differ widely. I know
what you have in your ears, in your brain, in your heart,--the music
of the good God; for I saw it in your eyes when I was a little thing
and you took me on your knee and said, in a weird kind of way,
'Listen, and don't make a noise, and try to remember what you hear.'
Then I did listen faithfully, and all I heard was the wind talking in
the trees, or the brook murmuring along the pebbles; but you, you
heard something else, and you were so certain of it that I was, too,
for sympathy. Well, my lad, keep the music that is so sweet and dear
in your secret heart, but don't try to make yourself a piper by
profession; for if you do, one of two things will happen. Either you
will never make your bagpipes say what the wind and the brook whisper
in your ear, or you will become such a fine and delicate musician
that all the petty pipers in the countryside will pick a quarrel with
you and prevent you from getting custom. They will wish you ill and
do you harm, for that's their way to prevent others from sharing
their profits and their fame. There are a dozen here and in the
neighborhood who can't agree together, but who will join and support
each other in keeping out a new hand. Your mother, who hears them
talk on Sundays,--for they are thirsty folk and accustomed to drink
late at night after the dances,--is very unhappy to think you want to
join such a set of people. They are rough and ill-behaved, and
always foremost in quarrels and fights. The habit of being at all
festivals and idle resorts makes them drunkards and spendthrifts. In
short, they are a tribe unlike any of the people belonging to you,
among whom, she thinks, you will go to the bad. As for me, I think
they are jealous and revengeful, and would try to crush your spirit,
and perhaps your body, too. And so, José, I do ask you to at least
put off your plan and lay aside your wishes, and even to give them up
altogether, if it is not asking too much of your friendship for me,
and for your mother and Tiennet."
As I supported Brulette's arguments, which seemed to me sound, Joseph
was in despair; but presently he took courage and said:--
"I thank you for your advice, my friends, which I know is given for
my good; but I beg you to leave me my freedom of mind for a short
time longer. When I have reached a point I think I shall reach, I
will ask you to hear me play the flute, or the bagpipe if it please
God to enable me to buy one. Then, if you decide that my music is
good for anything it will be worth while for me to make use of my
talent and I will face the struggle for love of it. If not, I will
go on digging the earth and amusing myself with my reed-pipe on
Sundays, without making a living and so offending anybody. Promise
me this, and I will have patience."
We made the promise, to quiet him, for he seemed more annoyed by our
fears than touched by our sympathy. I looked in his face by the
light of the stars, and saw it even more distinctly because the
bright water of the fountain was before us like a mirror, which
reflected on our faces the whiteness of the sky. I noticed that his
eyes had the very color of the water and seemed as usual to be
looking at things which the rest of us did not see.
A month later Joseph came to see me at my own house.
"The time has come," he said, with a clear look and a confident
voice, "for the two persons whose judgment I trust to hear me play.
I want Brulette to come here to-morrow night, because here we can be
quiet by ourselves. I know your relations start on a pilgrimage
to-morrow on account of that fever your brother had; so that you will
be alone in the house, which is far enough in the country for no one
to overhear us. I have spoken to Brulette, and she is willing to
leave the village after nightfall; I shall wait for her on the lower
road, and we can get here without any one seeing us. Brulette relies
on you not to tell of it; and her grandfather, who approves of
whatever she wishes, consents too, if you will make that promise,
which I have given for you."
At the appointed hour I waited in front of my house, having closed
all the doors and windows, so that the passers-by (if any there were)
should think me in bed or absent. It was now spring; and as it had
thundered during the day, the sky was still thick with clouds. Gusts
of warm wind brought all the sweet smells of the month of May. I
listened to the nightingales answering each other from distance to
distance as far as I could hear, and I thought to myself that Joseph
would be hard put to it to flute like them. I saw the lights of the
houses in the village going out one by one; and about ten minutes
after the last disappeared I found the couple I was waiting for close
beside me. They had stepped so softly on the young grass and so
close to the big bushes at the side of the road that I had neither
seen nor heard them. I took them into the house, where the lamp was
lit; and when I looked at them--she with her hair so coquettishly
dressed, and he, as usual, cold and thoughtful--I could scarcely
suppose them to be ardently tender lovers.
While I talked a little with Brulette, to do the honors of the house
(which was quite a nice one, and I wanted her to take a fancy to it),
Joseph, without a word to me, had set about tuning his flute. He
found the damp weather had affected it, and he threw a handful of
flax chips on the hearth to warm it. When the chips blazed up they
cast a strong light upon his face, which was bent towards the
fireplace; and I thought his look so strange that I called Brulette's
attention to it in a low voice.
"You may think," I said to her, "that he hides by day and wanders off
at night solely to surfeit himself with that flute; but I know that
he has in him or about him some secret that he does not tell us."
"Bah!" she exclaimed, laughing; "just because Véret, the sabot-maker,
fancies he saw him with a tall, dark man near the Râteau elm!"
"Perhaps Véret dreamed that," I answered; "but as for me, I know what
I saw and heard in the forest."
"What did you see?" said José, suddenly, who had heard every word,
though we spoke quite low. "What did you hear? You saw him who is
my friend, but whom I cannot make known to you; and as for what you
heard, you are going now to hear it again if it pleases you to do so."
Thereupon he blew into his flute, his eye on fire and his face
blazing as if with fever.
Don't ask me what he played. I don't know if the devil would have
understood it; as for me, I didn't, except that it seemed the same
air I had heard among the brake, on the bagpipes. At that time I was
so frightened that I didn't listen to it all; but now, whether it was
that the music was longer, or that Joseph put some of his own into
it, he never stopped fluting for a quarter of an hour, setting his
fingers very delicately, never losing his breath, and getting such
sounds out of his miserable reed that you would have thought, at
times, there were three bagpipes going at once. At other times he
played so softly that you could hear the cricket indoors and the
nightingales without; and when José played low I confess I liked
it,--though the whole together was so little like what we were
accustomed to that it seemed to me a crazy racket.
"Oh, oh!" I exclaimed, when he had finished; "that's a mad sort of
music! Where the devil did you learn that? What is the use of it?
Is there any meaning in it?"
He did not answer, and seemed as if he had not heard me. He was
looking at Brulette, who was leaning against a chair with her face
turned to the wall.
As she did not say a word, José was seized with a rush of anger
either against her or against himself, and I saw him make a motion as
if to break his flute; but just at that moment the girl looked round,
and I was much surprised to see great tears running down her cheeks.
Joseph ran to her and caught her hands.
"Tell me what you feel, my darling!" he cried; "let me know if it is
pity for me that makes you cry, or whether it is pleasure."
"I don't know how pleasure in a thing like that could make me cry,"
she said. "Don't ask me if I feel pain or pleasure; all that I know
is that I can't help crying."
"But what were you thinking of while I played?" said Joseph, looking
fixedly at her.
"So many things that I can't give account of them," replied Brulette.
"Well, tell me one," he said, in a tone that was impatient and
dictatorial.
"I did not think of anything," said Brulette, "but a thousand
recollections of old times came into my mind. I seemed not to see
you playing, though I heard you clearly enough; you appeared to be no
older than when we lived together, and I felt as if you and I were
driven by a strong wind, sometimes through the ripe wheat, sometimes
into the long grass, at other times upon the running streams; and I
saw the fields, the woods, the springs, the flowery meadows, and the
birds in the sky among the clouds. I saw, too, in my dream, your
mother and my grandfather sitting before the fires, and talking of
things I could not understand; and all the while you were in the
corner on your knees saying your prayers, and I thought I was asleep
in my little bed. Then again I saw the ground covered with snow, and
the willows full of larks, and the nights full of falling stars; and
we looked at each other, sitting on a hillock, while the sheep made
their little noise of nibbling the grass. In short, I dreamed so
many things that they are all jumbled up in my head; and if they made
me cry, it was not for grief, but because my mind was shaken in a way
I can't at all explain to you."
"It is all right," said José. "What I saw and what I dreamed as I
played you saw too! Thank you, Brulette. Through you I know now
that I am not crazy, and that there is a truth in what we hear within
us, as there is in what we see. Yes, yes," he said, taking long
strides up and down the room and holding his flute above his head,
"it speaks!--that miserable bit of reed! it says what we think; it
shows what we see; it tells a tale as if with words; it loves like
the heart, it lives, it has a being! And now, José the madman, José
the idiot, José the starer, go back to your imbecility; you can
afford to do so, for you are as powerful, and as wise, and as happy
as others!"
So saying, he sat down and paid no further attention to anything
about him.