I am not easily affronted, but I was so now at being thus received;
and I went off home to put up the cart and to inquire after my
family. After that, the day being too far gone to go to work, I
sauntered about the village to see if everything was in its old
place, and found no change, except that one of the trees felled on
the common before the cobbler's door had been chopped up into sabots,
and that Père Godard had trimmed up his poplar and put new flags on
his path. I certainly supposed that my journey into the Bourbonnais
had made a stir, and I expected to be assailed with questions which I
might find it hard to answer; but the folks in our region are very
indifferent, and I seemed, for the first time, to realize how dull
they were,--being obliged to tell a good many that I had just
returned from a trip. They did not even know I had been away.
Towards evening, as I was loitering home, I met the friar on his way
to La Chatre, and he told me that Père Brulet wanted me to sup with
him.
What was my astonishment on entering the house to see Père Brulet on
one side of the table, and his granddaughter on the other, gazing at
the monk's basket which lay open before them, and in it a big baby
about a year old, sitting on a pillow and trying to eat some
blackheart cherries, the juice of which had daubed and stained his
face!
Brulette seemed to me thoughtful and rather sad; but when she saw my
amazement she couldn't help laughing; after which she wiped her eyes,
for she seemed to me to have been shedding tears of grief or vexation
rather than of gayety.
"Come," she said at last, "shut the door tight and listen to us.
Here is grandfather who wants to tell you all about the fine present
the monk has brought us."
"You must know, nephew," said Père Brulet, who never smiled at
pleasant things any more than he frowned at disagreeable ones, "that
this is an orphan child; and we have agreed with the monk to take
care of him for the price of his board. We know nothing about the
child, neither his father, his mother, his country, nor anything
else. He is called Charlot, and that is all we do know. The pay is
good, and the friar gave us the preference because he met Brulette in
the Bourbonnais, and hearing where she lived and how well-behaved she
was, and, moreover, that she was not rich and had time at her
disposal, he thought he could give her a pleasure and do her a
service by putting the little fellow under her charge and letting her
earn the money."
Though the matter was tolerably surprising, I was not much astonished
at first hearing of it, and only asked if the monk was formerly known
to Père Brulet, and whether he could trust him as to the future
payment.
"I had never seen him," replied the old man, "but I knew that he had
been in this neighborhood several times, and he is known to persons
in whom I have confidence, and who informed me, two or three days
ago, of the matter he was to come about. Besides, a year's board is
paid in advance, and when the money doesn't come it will be soon
enough to worry."
"Very good, uncle; you know your own affairs; but I should not have
expected to see my cousin, who loves her freedom, tied down to the
care of a little monkey who is nothing to her, and who, be it said
without offence, is not at all nice in his appearance."
"That is just what annoys me," said Brulette, "and I was saying so to
my grandfather as you came in. And," she added, rubbing the muzzle
of the little animal with her handkerchief, "no wiping will make his
mouth any better; I wish I could have begun my apprenticeship with a
child that was prettier to kiss. This one looks surly, and won't
even smile; he cares only for things to eat."
"Bah!" said Père Brulet, "he is not uglier than all children of his
age, and it is your business to make him nice. He is tired with his
journey, and doesn't know where he is, nor what we mean to do with
him."
Père Brulet went out to look for his knife, which he had left at a
neighbor's, and I began to get more and more surprised when alone
with Brulette. She seemed annoyed at times, and even distressed.
"What worries me is that I don't know how to take care of a child,"
she said. "I could not bear to let a poor creature that can't help
itself suffer; but I am so unhandy; I am sorry now that I never was
inclined to look after the little ones."
"It is a fact," I said, "that you don't seem born for the business,
and I can't understand why your grandfather who I never thought was
eager after money, should put such a care upon you for the sake of a
few crowns."
"You talk like a rich man." she said. "Remember that I have no
dower, and that a fear of poverty has always deterred me from
marrying."
"That's a very bad reason, Brulette. You have been and still will be
sought after by men who are richer than you, and who love your sweet
eyes and your pretty chatter."
"My sweet eyes will fade, and my pretty chatter won't be worth much
when the beauty has gone. I don't wish to be reproached at the end
of a few years with having lost my dower of charms and brought
nothing more solid into the household."
"Is it that you are really thinking of marrying--since we left the
Bourbonnais?" I asked. "This is the first time I ever heard you talk
of money."
"I am not thinking of it any more than I have always thought,"
returned Brulette, but in a less confident tone than usual, "I never
said I meant to live unmarried."
"I see how it is!" I cried, laughing, "you are thinking of it, and
you needn't try to hide it from me, for I have given up all hopes of
my own. I see plainly enough that in taking care of this little
wretch, who has money and no mother, you are laying up a store, like
the squirrels. If not, your grandfather, whom you have always ruled
as if he were your grandson, would not have forced you to take such a
boy to nurse."
Brulette lifted the child from the table, and as she carried him to
her grandfather's bed she gave him a rather sad look.
"Poor Charlot!" she said, "I'll do my best for you; you are much to
be pitied for having come into the world, and it is my belief that
nobody wanted you."
But her gayety soon returned; she even had some hearty laughs at
supper in feeding Charlot, who had the appetite of a little wolf, and
answered all her attentions by trying to scratch her face.
Toward eight o'clock Joseph came in and was very well received by
Père Brulet; but I observed that Brulette, who had just been putting
Charlot to bed, closed the curtains quickly as if to hide him, and
seemed disturbed all the time that Joseph remained. I observed also
that not a word was said to him of this singular event, either by the
old man or by Brulette, and I therefore thought it my duty to hold my
tongue. Joseph was cross, and said as little as possible in answer
to my uncle's questions. Brulette asked him if he had found his
mother in good health, and if she had been surprised and pleased to
see him. Then, as he said "yes" to everything, she asked if he had
not tired himself too much by walking to Saint-Chartier and back in
one evening.
"I did not wish to let the day go by without paying my respects to
your grandfather," he said; "and now, as I really am tired, I shall
go and spend the night with Tiennet, if I don't inconvenience him."
I answered that it would give me pleasure, and took him to my house
where, after we were in bed, he said: "Tiennet, I am really on the
point of departure. I came here only to get away from the woods of
Alleu, for I was sick of them."
"That's the worst of you, Joseph; you were there with friends who
took the place of those you left here in the same way--"
"Well, it is what I choose to do," he said, rather shortly; then in a
milder tone he added: "Tiennet, Tiennet, there are some things one
can tell, and others which force us to keep silence. You hurt me
to-day in telling me I could never please Brulette."
"Joseph, I never said anything of the kind, for the reason that I
don't know if you really care for her."
"You do know it," he replied; "and you blame me for not having opened
my heart to you. But how could I? I am not one of those who tell
their secrets willingly. It is my misfortune; I believe I have
really no other illness than one sole idea, always stretching toward
the same end, and always beaten back when it rises to my lips.
Listen to me now, while I do feel able to talk; for God knows how
soon I may fall mute again. I love; and I see plainly I am not
loved. So many years have passed in this way (for I loved Brulette
when we were little children) that I have grown accustomed to the
pain. I have never flattered myself that I could please her; I have
lived in the belief that she would never care for me. Lately,
however, I saw by her coming to the Bourbonnais that I was something
to her, and it gave me strength and the will not to die. But I soon
perceived that she met some one over there who suited her better than
I."
"I know nothing about it," I replied; "but if it were so, that some
one you speak of gave you no ground for complaint or reproach."
"That is true," said Joseph; "and my anger is unjust,--all the more
because Huriel, knowing Brulette to be an honest girl, and not being
able to marry her so long as he remains in the fraternity of
muleteers, has himself done what he could to separate from her. I
can still hope to return to Brulette hereafter, more worthy of her
than I have been; but I cannot bear to stay here now, for I am still
nothing better than I was in the past. There is something in the
manner and language of every one who speaks to me that seems to mean:
'You are sick, you are thin, you are ugly, you are feeble, you know
nothing new and nothing good that can interest us in you.' Yes,
Tiennet, what I tell you is exactly so; my mother seemed frightened
by my face when she saw me, and she cried so when she kissed me that
the pain of seeing her was greater than the joy. This evening, too,
Brulette looked annoyed when I came in, and her grandfather, good and
kind as he always is to me, seemed uneasy lest I should stay too
long. Now don't tell me that I imagined all that. Like all those
who speak little, I see much. My time has not yet come; I must go,
and the sooner the better."
"I think you ought to take at least a few days' rest," I said; "for I
fancy you mean to go to a great distance, and I do not think it
friendly in you to give us unnecessary anxiety."
"You need not be anxious, Tiennet. I have all the strength I want,
and I shall not be ill again. I have learned one thing; and that is
that frail bodies, to which God has given slender physical powers,
are provided with a force of will which carries them farther than the
vigorous health of others. I was not exaggerating when I told you
over there that I became, as it were, a new man on seeing Huriel
fight so boldly; and that I was wide awake in the night when I heard
his voice saying to me, 'Come, cheer up! I am a man, and as long as
you are not one you will count for nothing.' I want therefore to
shake myself free of my poor nature, and return here some day as good
to look at and better to hear than all Brulette's other lovers."
"But," I said, "suppose she makes her choice before you return? She
is going on nineteen, and for a girl as much courted as she is it is
time to decide."
"She will decide only between Huriel and me," answered Joseph, in a
confident tone. "There is no one but him and myself who are capable
of teaching her to love. Excuse me, Tiennet; I know, or at least I
believe, that you dreamed of it."
"Yes," I replied, "but I don't dream of it any longer."
"Well for you!" said Joseph; "for you could never have been happy
with her. She has tastes and ideas which don't belong to the ground
she has grown in; she needs another wind to rock her; the one that
blows here is not pure enough and it might wither her. She feels all
this, though she may not know how to say it; and I tell you that
unless Huriel is treacherous, I shall find her still free, a year or
two hence."
So saying, Joseph, as if wearied out by letting himself talk so much,
dropped his head on his pillow and went to sleep. For the last hour
I had been struggling to keep awake, for I was tired out myself. I
slept soundly, and when at daybreak I called him he did not answer.
I looked about, and he was gone without awaking any one.
Brulette went the next day to see Mariton, to break the news to her,
and find out what had passed between her and her son. She would not
let me accompany her, and told me on her return that she could not
get Mariton to say much, because her master Benoît was ill and even
in some danger from congestion of the brain. I concluded, therefore,
that the woman, being obliged to nurse her master, had not had time
to talk with her son as much as he would have liked, and consequently
he had become jealous, as his nature led him to be at such times.
"That is very likely," said Brulette, "for the wiser Joseph gets
through ambition the more exacting he becomes. I think I liked him
better when he was simple and submissive as he used to be."
When I related to Brulette all that he had said to me the night
before, she replied: "If he really has so high an ambition, we should
only hamper him by showing an anxiety he does not wish for. Leave
him in God's care! If I were the flirt you declared I was in former
times, I should be proud to be the cause of his endeavoring to
improve his mind and his career; but I am not; and my feeling is
chiefly regret that he does nothing for his mother or himself."
"But isn't he right when he says that you can only choose between
Huriel and him?"
"There is time enough to think about that," she said, laughing with
her lips, though her face was not cheerful, "especially as the only
two lovers Joseph allows me are running away as fast as their legs
can go."
During the next week the arrival of the child which the monk had
brought was the subject of village gossip and the torment of the
inquisitive. So many tales were founded upon it that Charlot came
near being the son of a prince, and every one wanted to borrow money
of Père Brulet, or sell goods to him, convinced that the stipend
which induced his granddaughter to take up a duty so contrary to her
tastes must at least be a princely revenue. The jealousy of some and
the discontent of others made the old man enemies, which he had never
had in his life, and he was much astonished by it; for, simple, pious
soul that he was, it had never occurred to him that the matter might
give occasion for gossip. Brulette, however, only laughed and
persuaded him to pay no attention to it.
Days and weeks went by and we heard nothing of Joseph, or of Huriel,
or of the Woodsman and his daughter. Brulette wrote to Thérence and
I to Huriel, but we got no answers. Brulette was troubled and even
annoyed; so much so that she told me she did not mean to think
anything more of those foreigners, who did not even remember her, and
made no return for the friendship she had offered them. So she began
once more to dress herself smartly and appear at the dances; for the
gallants complained of her gloomy looks and the headaches she talked
of ever since her trip to the Bourbonnais. The journey had been
rather criticised; people even said she had some secret love over
there, either for Joseph or for some one else; and they expected her
to be more amiable than ever, before they would forgive her for going
off without a word to any one.
Brulette was too proud to give in to cajoling them, but she dearly
loved pleasure, and being drawn in that direction, she gave Charlot
in charge of her neighbor, Mère Lamouche, and took her amusement as
before.
One evening, as I was coming back with her from the pilgrimage of
Vaudevant, which is a great festival, we heard Charlot howling, far
as we were from the house.
"That dreadful child," said Brulette, "is never out of mischief. I
am sure I don't know who can ever manage him."
"Are you sure," I said, "the Mère Lamouche takes as good care of him
as she promised you?"
"Of course she does. She has nothing else to do, and I pay her
enough to satisfy her."
Charlot continued to yell, and the house looked as though it were
locked up and there was no one in it. Brulette ran and knocked
loudly on the door, but no one answered except Charlot, who screamed
louder than ever, either from fright, or loneliness, or anger.
I was obliged to climb to the thatch of the roof and clamber down
through the trap-door of the loft. I opened the door for Brulette
and then we saw Charlot all alone, rolling in the ashes, where by
great good luck there was no fire, and purple as a beet from
screaming.
"Heavens!" cried Brulette, "is that the way to care for the poor
little wretch? Well, whoso takes a child gets a master. I ought to
have known it, and either not taken this one, or given up my own
enjoyments."
So saying, she carried Charlot to her own home, half in pity and half
impatiently, and having washed, fed, and consoled him as best she
could, she put him to sleep, and sat down to reflect, with her head
in her hands. I tried to show her that it would be easy enough, by
sacrificing the money she was gaining, to employ some kindly, careful
woman to take charge of the boy.
"No," she exclaimed, "I must look after him, because I am responsible
for him, and you see what looking after him means. If I think I can
let up for one day it is just that very day that I ought not to have
done so. Yes, that's it, I ought not," she said, crying. "It would
be wrong; and I should be sorry for it all my life."
"On the other hand, you would do wrong if the child were to be the
gainer by it. He is not happy with you, and he might be elsewhere."
"Why, isn't he happy with me? I hope he is, except on the days when
I am absent; and so I say I will not absent myself again."
"I tell you he is no better off when you are here."
"What do you mean?" cried Brulette, striking her hands with vexation;
"where have you heard that? Did you ever see me ill-treat the child,
or even threaten him? Can I help it if he is an unpleasant child
with a sulky disposition? If he were my own I could not do better
for him."
"Oh! I know you are not unkind to him and never let him want for
anything, because you are a dear, sweet Christian; but you can't love
him, for that doesn't depend upon yourself. He feels this without
knowing it, and that keeps him from loving and caressing others.
Animals know when people like them or dislike them; why shouldn't
little human beings do the same?"