Sister Anne Part 45

"Aim at his ear."

"I should have to see it, first."

"No matter," said the mayor; "we must capture the animal, dead or alive; take good aim, and fire; and we, that is I myself and the bravest men here, will guard you with our hoes; and, _morgue!_ if he comes at us, we'll give him a warm reception."

The mayor's speech revived the courage of the villagers; they formed in line and stood with upraised hoes, ready to strike. Latouche finally decided to fire, although he was not at all eager to do so. He stood behind the line, pa.s.sed the barrel of his gun between two peasants, spent five minutes taking aim, and at last pulled the trigger--and the gun missed fire, luckily for Dubourg, who had no suspicion of the danger he had escaped.

The mayor was in despair, Latouche refused to try again, and the peasants made no motion. Suddenly our sleeper turned over, with a yawn which everybody took for a roar. Instantly the most courageous dropped their weapons and fled, pushing and crowding one another, and listening to nothing but their fright; the boys tumbled over the girls, the women dragged their husbands away, Latouche climbed a tree, the mayor was thrown down by Bertrand, the most agile leaped the hedge, the heaviest slipped and fell when they tried to run. Claudine fell flat, as did several of her neighbors, and, in the confusion, all the women, young and old, were more on exhibition than they were in the habit of being in public; but no one paid any heed to them; the most seductive objects do not stop fugitives, for in great crises we do not give a thought to such trifles.

But Dubourg was now fully awake; he rubbed his eyes, and, first of all, s.n.a.t.c.hed off his wig, which prevented his seeing, then removed his cloak, in which he was stifling. He stood up, for he heard shouts, cries of terror, words that he did not understand--in short, an uproar, the cause of which he was very far from suspecting. He left the shed and went out into the garden, where he was thunderstruck by the scene before his eyes. There was ample ground for amazement; but as he saw some very pleasing details amid the chaos, he walked on, saying to himself:

"I don't know what insect has stung all these people, but they have a strange way of receiving travellers in this country; one ought to have little difficulty in making acquaintances."

The boldest of the villagers, hearing no repet.i.tion of the roaring, gradually turned his head; he saw Dubourg's features, which were in no wise alarming when they were no longer surrounded by that infernal wig.

"Well, well! who's that man, and where did he come from?" said the peasant.

At that, all his companions turned their heads and stared at Dubourg, who, having politely a.s.sisted Claudine to rise, thus answered the mayor, who repeated the question:

"I am an unfortunate devil, albeit an honest man, who, when surprised by the storm last night, did not know where to go, so took the liberty of lying on yonder bundles of straw, where I slept without waking until this moment. I trust that I have done no harm."

"You say you slept under that shed?" said the mayor.

"To be sure."

"And the big beast didn't eat you?" asked Bertrand.

"What big beast?"

"_Pardi!_ the beast with long hair and red mane that was lying there."

Dubourg turned, and his eye fell on his cloak and wig; he divined the source of the peasants' terror, and gave way to a longing to laugh, which he could not control for several minutes. The villagers, hearing his laughter, began to take courage; the fugitives stopped, the women rose and arranged their dresses; everybody looked at Dubourg and awaited an explanation from him. He went back to the shed, took his cloak in one hand and his wig in the other, and returned to the villagers.

"Here, my friends, is the beast that seems to have frightened you. I abandon it to your wrath."

As he spoke, he threw the cloak and wig on the ground; and the peasants drew near, ventured to touch them, and laughed with Dubourg, saying:

"What! is that what it was? Mon Dieu! what a pack of idiots!"

At this juncture, Latouche descended from his pear-tree, crying:

"I told you that that idiot of a Bertrand, who's as cowardly as a hare, had told us some fool story, and taken a nut-cracker for an ox. Tell me, now, if I wasn't right."

"_Morguienne!_" retorted Bertrand; "I don't see but what my nut-cracker gave you a good fright, too; for you climbed that pear-tree like a cat, and knocked Claudine down when you ran by her."

"Hush!" said Latouche, turning as red as a beet at Bertrand's retort; "hush, you clown! I only climbed the tree so that I could aim better at what you called an animal."

"And you threw your gun away!"

"Unintentionally, of course."

"Come, come," said Dubourg; "I am the cause of all this confusion; and, in truth, I don't wonder you were frightened when you saw me at a distance in this cloak and wig; the bravest men aren't always eager to fight with a savage beast, and Monsieur Latouche must be very brave to have dared to fire at me."

This adroit speech conciliated everybody, and Latouche recovered his good humor.

"This stranger expresses himself well," he said; "he is certainly a learned man."

Dubourg might easily have pa.s.sed himself off as a baron again, he had created such a favorable impression; but since the happenings at Chambertin's, he was little inclined to play the n.o.bleman; and when the mayor asked him whence he had come in such an extraordinary costume, he instantly invented a fable of robbers who had attacked and stripped him, stifled his cries with the wig, and wrapped him in the cloak, probably intending to carry him to their cavern, when they had taken alarm at the sound of horses' steps, and had run away, leaving him in the midst of the fields.

This tale aroused the deepest interest among the villagers, in Dubourg's favor; they found him very agreeable, having ceased to be afraid of him.

The mayor drew up a report, and Latouche observed:

"I have been saying for a long while that there are robbers in the neighborhood; they stole two hens from me a week ago, and that isn't all they've done. We must have a general _battue_, neighbors; I'll take charge of it, and you know what a good hand I am at making plans. We will begin immediately after the constables have made theirs in pursuance of monsieur le maire's report."

Awaiting the general _battue_, they turned their attention to Dubourg, who obviously stood in need of refreshment. Everyone wanted to treat him, to give him food and lodging. Every male villager cordially offered him a jacket to replace his cloak, and urged him to make his house his home for a few days. Dubourg gave the preference to Bertrand, because he had not forgotten certain impressions he had received when he a.s.sisted Claudine to rise. Bertrand's better half seemed flattered by that honor; she courtesied to the stranger, and accompanied the courtesy with a smile, which smile meant many things. After all that Dubourg had witnessed, it was a great triumph for her over her neighbors.

The mayor, as the official head of the commune, had the privilege of offering him a stout woollen jacket to replace the coat the robbers had stolen from him. As compensation, he awarded to himself the famous cloak, with which he proposed to make a winter coverlet; and Monsieur Latouche secured the wig, which he had well earned by his behavior throughout the affair.

The villagers returned to their customary occupations: some to the fields, others to their cottages. Bertrand, who had a large field to plow, went off to his work, enjoining upon his wife to take good care of the gentleman until his return. Claudine promised, and kept her word.

She was active and obliging; she was most anxious to prove to the stranger that he had done well to give her the preference, and she spared no trouble to make him content with his choice. For his part, Dubourg desired to efface the ghastly impression produced by his appearance in the village, and we know that he had a great talent for making himself agreeable to the ladies; and so, when Bertrand returned from the field at night, his wife ran to meet him, saying:

"_Jarni!_ goodman, what fools we was to be afraid of that gentleman; he's just like anybody else, you see, and he knows a lot more'n you do."

Dubourg was extremely well treated by the villagers, and he found it very convenient to pa.s.s some little time among those honest folk, who strove, by their attentions, to make him forget his misadventure. He paid for his entertainment by telling ghost stories in the evening. To the peasant, a man who can talk for hours of interesting, terrifying, and, consequently, amusing things, is a veritable treasure. Dubourg was such a man, and when Monsieur Latouche was present he always sprinkled his tales with a few Latin words; whereupon the village oracle, although he did not understand, would turn to the peasants and say:

"This is all true, my friends; he just made oath to it in German."

But, after a fortnight, Dubourg began to tire of telling the peasants fairy tales in the evening and making love to their wives during the day; and he determined to leave the village, and go in search of news of his former companions. He still had in his pocket, untouched, the hundred francs he had earned by acting Hippolyte; with that amount he could safely set out without being obliged to disguise himself as a strange beast. Despite all that Claudine could do to detain him, he determined to go. He thanked the mayor, Latouche, and all the villagers for their kind treatment. He thanked Bertrand, and especially his wife, with peculiar warmth. Then, with a stout knotted stick in his hand, which harmonized with his jacket, and a broad-brimmed hat in place of his wig, he left the village, saying to himself:

"Those people who saw me playing the swell will never recognize me; and that is precisely what I desire."

However, he deemed it prudent to avoid Voreppe, where he might fall in with Floridor or some member of his troupe. Nor did he care to pa.s.s through Gren.o.ble, where Durosey might still be lying in wait for him, and a creditor's eyes are not easily deceived. So he headed for Vizille, where he hoped to find Frederic, or, at least, to learn something about him.

He strode gayly along, singing all the time, and sitting down on the gra.s.s to eat the provisions with which Claudine had filled his pockets; for women think of everything. Dubourg blessed Madame Bertrand's foresight.

"How can I be melancholy," he thought, "when I have had ample proof, a hundred times over, that tender-hearted women will always take an interest in my fate! Here's to Claudine's health, and Madame Chambertin's, and Goton's, and little Delphine's, and all the others to whom I owe so many pleasant hours and delicious memories."

He drank their healths in water from a brook, for he could adapt himself to anything. Moreover, he had money and might have wine, which consideration made the water seem less disagreeable. Toward nightfall, he drew near Vizille.

"If monsieur le comte learned of Frederic's amourette from Menard," he said to himself, "he probably came here after him, and I shall not find him; but I shall find the pretty blonde, and she will tell me what has happened."

He did not then know that the poor girl could not tell him anything. He walked through the valley, entered the woods, looked about, and called, but saw no one. At last he discovered the cabin; he entered the garden, which was deserted; then he went into the little house, where he found no one but old Marguerite, dozing in her big armchair.

Surprised not to find the girl, Dubourg left the cabin; he was afraid that the story he had invented for Menard would prove to be true, and that Frederic had really taken his sweetheart away with him. He was on his way to the village to try to learn something about Sister Anne, when, in one of the paths in the forest, he met her walking slowly toward her home.

Her whole bearing was so dejected, her features wore an expression of such profound sorrow, that Dubourg was touched. He gazed at her for several minutes, saying to himself:

"Poor creature! he has gone, and he didn't take you! How much better it would have been for you if he had never come!"