Read Ebook: Le Râmâyana - tome premier Poème sanscrit de Valmiky by Valmiki Fauche Hippolyte Translator

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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 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 Jos?, 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 Jos?!"

"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 Jos?, 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 "Boeuf Couronn?," 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 P?re 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 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 Boeuf Couronn?, 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."

THIRD EVENING.

I went back to the slope and followed the road Joseph had taken, inquiring for him as I went along, but could hear nothing except that he had been seen to pass, and had not returned. The road led me to the right of the forest, and I went in to question the forester, whose house, a very ancient building, stands at the top of a large tract of heathland lying on the hillside. It is a melancholy place, though you can see from there to a great distance; and nothing grows there at the edge of the oak-copses but brake and furze.

The forester of those days was Jarvois, a relation of mine, born in Verneuil. As soon as he saw me, and because I did not often walk that way, he was so friendly and hospitable that I could not get away.

"Your comrade, Joseph, was here about an hour ago," he said, "and asked if the charcoal-burners were in the woods; his master probably told him to inquire. He spoke clear enough and was steady on his legs, and he went on up to the big oak; you need not be uneasy. And now you are here, you must drink a bottle with me, and wait till my wife comes back with the cows, for she will be hurt if you go away without seeing her."

Thinking there was no reason to worry, I stayed with my relations till sunset. It was about the middle of February; and when it got to be nearly dark I said good-night, and took the upper road, intending to cross to Verneuil and go home by the straight road, without returning to Saint-Chartier, where I had nothing further to do.

My relative explained the road, as I had never been in the forest more than once or twice in my life. You know that in these parts we seldom go far from home, especially those of us who till the ground, and keep near our dwellings like chicks round a coop.

So, in spite of a warning, I kept too far to the left; and instead of striking a great avenue of oaks, I got among the birches, at least a mile and a half from where I ought to have been.

The night was dark, and I could not see a thing; for in those days the forest of Saint-Chartier was still a fine one,--not as to size, for it was never very large, but from the age of the trees, which allowed no light from the sky to get through them. What it thus gained in grandeur and greenery it made you pay for in other ways. Below it was all roots and brambles, sunken paths and gullies full of spongy black mud, out of which you could hardly draw your feet, and where you sank knee-deep if you got even a little way off the track. Presently, getting lost in the forest and scratched and muddied in the opens, I began to curse the luckless time and the luckless place.

After struggling and wading till I was overheated, though the night was chilly, I got among some dry brake which were up to my chin; and looking straight before me, I saw in the gray of the night something like a huge black mass in the middle of an open tract. I felt sure it was the big oak, and that I had reached the end of the forest. I had never seen the tree, but I had heard tell of it, for it was famous as one of the oldest in the country; and from the talk of others I knew pretty well how it was shaped. You must surely have seen it. It is a gnarled tree, topped in its youth by some accident so that it grew in breadth and thickness; its foliage, shrivelled by the winter, still clung to it, and it stood up there like a rock looking to heaven.

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