"No, no, that is not the way to part after a lifelong friendship.
Bring down your pride, Joseph, and ask pardon of this honest girl.
She is my daughter, their word is now pledged, and I am glad of it;
but she must remain your sister. A woman forgives a brother for what
she could never pardon in a lover."
"She may pardon me if she can and if she will," said Joseph; "but if
I am guilty, I can receive no absolution but my own. Hate me,
Brulette; that may be best for me. I see I have done the one thing
that was needed to lose your regard. I can never get it back; but if
you pity me, don't tell me so. I ask nothing further of you."
"All this would not have happened," said Brulette, "if you had done
your duty, which was to go and see your mother. Go now, Joseph; but,
above all, don't tell her what you have accused me of. She would die
of grief."
"My dear daughter," said the Head-Woodsman, still detaining Joseph,
"I think we do better not to scold children until their minds are
quiet. Otherwise, they take things crookedly and do not profit by
rebuke. To my thinking Joseph has times of aberration; and if he
does not make honorable amends as readily as others do, it is perhaps
because he feels his wrong-doing and suffers more from his own
self-blame than from the blame of others. Set him an example of good
sense and kindness. It is not difficult to forgive when we are
happy, and you ought to be content to be loved as you are here. More
love you could not have; for I now know things of you which make me
hold you in such esteem that here are a pair of hands that will wring
the neck of whoever insults you deliberately. But that was not the
nature of Joseph's insult, which came from excitement, not
reflection, and shame followed so swiftly that his heart is now
making you full reparation. Come, Joseph, add your word to mine; I
ask no more than that of you; and Brulette too, will be satisfied,
will you not, my daughter?"
"You don't know him, father, if you think he will say that word,"
replied Brulette; "but I won't exact it, because I want, above all
things, to satisfy you. And so, Joseph, I forgive you, though you
don't care much about that. Stay and breakfast with us, and talk
about something else; what has happened is forgotten."
Joseph said not a word, but he took off his hat and laid down his
stick as if meaning to stay. The two girls re-entered the house to
prepare the meal, and Huriel, who took great care of his horse, began
to groom and currycomb him. I looked after Charlot, whom Brulette
handed over to my keeping; and the Head-Woodsman, wishing to divert
Joseph's mind, talked music, and praised the variations he had given
to his song.
"Never speak to me of that song again," said Joseph; "it can only
remind me of painful things, and I wish to forget it."
"Well then," said Père Bastien, "play me something of your own
composition, here and now, just as the thought comes to you."
Joseph led the way into the park, and we heard him in the distance
playing such sad and plaintive airs that his soul seemed really
prostrate with contrition and repentance.
"Do you hear him?" I said to Brulette; "that is certainly his way of
confessing, and if sorrow is a reparation, he gives you of his best."
"I don't think there is a very tender heart beneath that rough pride
of his," replied Brulette. "I feel, just now, like Thérence; a
little tenderness is more attractive to me than much talent. But I
forgive him; and if my pity is not as great as Joseph wants to make
it by his music, it is because I know he has a consolation of which
my indifference cannot deprive him,--I mean the admiration which he
and others feel for his talents. If Joseph did not care for that
more than for love or friendship, his tongue would not now be dumb
and his eye dry to the reproof of friendship. He is quite capable of
asking for what he wants."
"Well," said the Head-Woodsman, returning alone from the park, "did
you hear him, my children? He said all he could and would say, and,
satisfied to have drawn tears from my old eyes, he has gone away
tranquillized."
"But you could not keep him to breakfast," said Thérence, smiling.
"No," answered her father; "he played too well not to be three parts
comforted; and he prefers to go away in that mood, rather than after
some folly he might be led into saying or doing at table."