PITOU ran as if all the demons of the infernal regions were at his heels, and in a few seconds he was outside the town.
On turning round the corner of the cemetery, he very nearly ran his head against the hind part of a horse.
“Why, good Lord!” cried a sweet voice well known to Pitou, “where are you running to at this rate, Monsieur Ange? You have very nearly made Cadet run away with me, you frightened us both so much.”
“Ah, Mademoiselle Catherine!” cried Pitou, replying rather to his own thoughts than to the question of the young girl. “Ah, Mademoiselle Catherine, what a misfortune! great God, what a misfortune!”
“Oh, you quite terrify me!” said the young girl, pulling up her horse in the middle of the road. “What, then, has happened, Monsieur Ange?”
“What has happened!” said Pitou; and then, lowering his voice as if about to reveal some mysterious iniquity, “why, it is, that I am not to be an abbé, Mademoiselle.”
But instead of receiving the fatal intelligence with all those signs of commiseration which Pitou had expected, Mademoiselle Billot gave way to a long burst of laughter.
“You are not to be an abbé?” asked Catherine.
“No,” replied Pitou, in perfect consternation; “it appears that it is impossible.”
“Well, then, you can be a soldier,” said Catherine.
“Undoubtedly. You should not be in despair for such a trifle. Good Lord! I at first thought that you had come to announce to me the sudden death of your aunt.”
“Oh,” said Pitou, feelingly, “it is precisely the same thing to me as if she were dead indeed, since she has driven me out of her house.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Catherine, laughing; “you have not now the satisfaction of weeping for her.”
And Catherine began to laugh more heartily than before, which scandalized poor Pitou more than ever.
“But did you not hear that she has turned me out of doors?” rejoined the student, in despair.
“Well, so much the better,” she replied.
“You are very happy in being able to laugh in that manner, Mademoiselle Billot; and it proves that you have a most agreeable disposition, since the sorrows of others make so little impression upon you.”
“And who has told you, then, that, should a real misfortune happen to you, I would not pity you, Monsieur Ange?”
“You would pity me if a real misfortune should befall me! But do you not, then, know that I have no other resource?”
“So much the better again!” cried Catherine.
“But one must eat!” said he; “one cannot live without eating! and I, above all, for I am always hungry.”
“You do not wish to work, then, Monsieur Pitou?”
“Work, and at what? Monsieur Fortier and my Aunt Angélique have told me more than a hundred times that I was fit for nothing. Ah! if they had only apprenticed me to a carpenter or a blacksmith, instead of wanting to make an abbé of me! Decidedly, now, Mademoiselle Catherine,” said Pitou, with a gesture of despair, “decidedly there is a curse upon me.”
“Alas!” said the young girl, compassionately, for she knew, as did all the neighborhood, Pitou's lamentable story. “There is some truth in what you have just now said, my dear Monsieur Ange; but why do you not do one thing?”
“What is it?” cried Pitou, eagerly clinging to the proposal which Mademoiselle Billot was about to make, as a drowning man clings to a willow branch. “What is it; tell me?”
“You had a protector; at least, I think I have heard so.”
“You were the schoolfellow of his son, since he was educated, as you have been, by the Abbé Fortier.”
“I believe I was indeed, and I have more than once saved him from being thrashed.”
“Well, then, why do you not write to his father? He will not abandon you.”
“Why, I would certainly do so, did I know what had become of him; but your father perhaps knows this, Mademoiselle Billot, since Doctor Gilbert is his landlord.”
“I know that he sends part of the rent of the farm to him in America, and pays the remainder to a notary at Paris.”
“Ah!” said Pitou, sighing, “in America; that is very far.”
“You would go to America,—you?” cried the young girl, almost terrified at Pitou's resolution.
“Who, I, Mademoiselle Catherine! Never, never! If I knew where to go, and how to procure food, I should be very happy in France.”
“Very happy!” repeated Mademoiselle Billot.
Pitou cast down his eyes. The young girl remained silent. This silence lasted some time. Pitou was plunged in meditations which would have greatly surprised the Abbé Fortier, with all his logic.
These meditations, though rising from an obscure point, had become lucid; then they again became confused, though brilliant, like the lightning whose origin is concealed, whose source is lost.
During this time Cadet had again moved on, though at a walk, and Pitou walked at Cadet's side, with one hand leaning on one of the panniers. As to Mademoiselle Catherine, who had also become full of thought, she allowed her reins to fall upon her courser's neck, without fearing that he would run away with her. Moreover, there were no monsters on the road, and Cadet was of a race which had no sort of relation to the steeds of Hippolytus.
Pitou stopped mechanically when the horse stopped. They had arrived at the farm.
“Well, now, is it you, Pitou?” cried a broad-shouldered man, standing somewhat proudly by the side of a pond to which he had led his horse to drink.
“Eh! good Lord! Yes, Monsieur Billot, it is myself.”
“Another misfortune has befallen this poor Pitou,” said the young girl, jumping off her horse, without feeling at all uneasy as to whether her petticoat hitched or not, to show the color of her garters; “his aunt has turned him out of doors.”
“And what has he done to the old bigot?” said the farmer.
“It appears that I am not strong enough in Greek.”
He was boasting, the puppy. He ought to have said in Latin.
“Not strong enough in Greek!” exclaimed the broadshouldered man. “And why should you wish to be strong in Greek?”
“To construe Theocritus and read the Iliad.”
“And of what use would it be to you to construe Theocritus and read the Iliad?”
“It would be of use in making me an abbé.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Monsieur Billot, “and do I know Greek? do I know Latin? do I know even French? do I know how to read do I know how to write? That does not hinder me from sowing, from reaping, and getting my harvest into the granary.”
“Yes, but you, Monsieur Billot, you are not an abbé; you are a cultivator of the earth, agricola, as Virgil says. O fortunatos nimium—“
“Well, and do you then believe that a cultivator is not equal to a black-cap; say, then, you shabby chorister you, is he not so, particularly when this cultivator has sixty acres of good land in the sunshine, and a thousand louis in the shade?”
“I had been always told that to be an abbé was the best thing in the world. It is true,” added Pitou, smiling with his most agreeable smile, “that I did not always listen to what was told me.”
“And I give you joy, my boy. You see that I can rhyme like any one else when I set to work. It appears to me that there is stuff in you to make something better than an abbé, and that it is a lucky thing for you not to take to that trade, particularly as times now go. Do you see now, as a farmer I know something of the weather, and the weather just now is bad for abbés.”
“Yes, we shall have a storm,” rejoined the farmer, “and that ere long, believe me. You are honest, you are learned—”
Pitou bowed, much honored at being called learned, for the first time in his life.
“You can therefore gain a livelihood without that.”
Mademoiselle Billot, while taking the fowls and pigeons out of the panniers, was listening with much interest to the dialogue between Pitou and her father.
“Gain a livelihood,” rejoined Pitou; “that appears a difficult matter to me.”
“Do! why, I can lay lime-twigs, and set wires for rabbits. I can imitate, and tolerably well, the notes of birds, can I not, Mademoiselle Catherine?”
“Oh, that is true enough!” she replied. “He can whistle like a blackbird.”
“Yes, but all this is not a trade, a profession,” observed Father Billot.
“And that is what I say, by heaven!”
“You swear,—that is already something.”
“How, did I swear?” said Pitou. “I beg your pardon for having done so, Monsieur Billot.”
“Oh, there is no occasion, none at all,” said the farmer; “it happens also to me sometimes. Eh! thunder of heaven!” cried he, turning to his horse, “will you be quiet, hey? These devils of Perch horses, they must be always neighing and fidgeting about. But now, tell me,” said he, again addressing Pitou, “are you lazy?”
“I do not know. I have never done anything but Latin and Greek, and—”
“And I must admit that I did not take to them very readily.”
“So much the better,” cried Billot; “that proves you are not so stupid as I thought you.”
Pitou opened his eyes to an almost terrific width; it was the first time he had ever heard such an order of things advocated, and which was completely subversive of all the theories which up to that time he had been taught.
“I ask you,” said Billot, “if you are so lazy as to be afraid of fatigue.”
“Oh, with regard to fatigue, that is quite another thing,” replied Pitou; “no, no, no; I could go ten leagues without being fatigued.”
“Good! that's something, at all events,” rejoined Billot; “by getting a few pounds of flesh more off your bones, you could set up for a runner.”
“A few pounds more!” cried Pitou, looking at his own lanky form, his long arms and his legs, which had much the appearance of stilts; “it seems to me, Monsieur Billot, that I am thin enough as it is.”
“Upon my word, my friend,” cried Billot, laughing very heartily, “you are a perfect treasure.”
It was also the first time that Pitou had been estimated at so high a price, and therefore was he advancing from surprise to surprise.
“Listen to me,” said the farmer; “I ask you whether you are lazy in respect to work?”
“I do not know, not I; for I have never worked.”
Catherine also began to laugh, but this time Père Billot took the matter in a serious point of view.
“Those rascally priests!” said he, shaking his clenched fist towards the town; “and this is the way they bring up lads, in idleness and uselessness. In what way, I ask you, can this great stripling here be of service to his brethren?”
“Ah! not of much use, certainly; that I know full well,” replied Pitou; “fortunately I have no brothers.”
“By brethren I mean men in general,” observed Billot. “Would you, perchance, insist that all men are not brothers?”
“Oh, that I acknowledge; moreover, it is so said in the gospel.”
“And equals,” continued the farmer.
“Ah! as to that,” said Pitou, “that is quite another affair. If I had been the equal of Monsieur Fortier, he would not so often have thrashed me with his cat-o'-ninetails and his cane; and if I had been the equal of my aunt, she would not have turned me out of doors.”
“I tell you that all men are equal,” rejoined the farmer, “and we will very soon prove it to the tyrants.”
“And the proof of this is, that I will take you into my house.”
“You will take me into your house, my dear Monsieur Billot?” cried Pitou, amazed. “Is it not to make game of me that you say this?”
“No; come now, tell me, what would you require to live?”
“Zounds! about three pounds of bread daily.”
“Well, well,” said the farmer; “I see it will not be very expensive to keep you in food. My lad, you shall be fed.”
“Monsieur Pitou,” said Catherine, “ had you not something to ask my father?”
“Who? I, Mademoiselle! Oh, good Lord, no!”
“And why was it that you came here, then?”
“Because you were coming here.”
“Ah!” cried Catherine, “that is really very gallant; but I accept compliments only at their true value. You came, Monsieur Pitou, to ask my father if he had any news of your protector.”
“Ah, that is true!” replied Pitou. “Well, now, how very droll! I had forgotten that altogether.”
“You are speaking of our worthy Monsieur Gilbert?” said the farmer, in a tone which evinced the very high consideration he felt for his landlord.
“Precisely,” said Pitou. “But I have no longer any need of him; and since Monsieur Billot takes me into his house, I can tranquilly wait his return from America.”
“In that case, my friend, you will not have to wait long, for he has returned.”
“Really!” cried Pitou; “and when did he arrive?”
“I do not know exactly; but what I know is, that he was at Havre a week ago; for I have in my holsters a packet which comes from him, which he sent to me as soon as he arrived, and which was delivered to me this very morning at Villers-Cotterets; and in proof of that, here it is.”
“Who was it told you that it was from him, Father?” said Catherine.
“Why, zounds! since there is a letter in the packet—”
“Excuse me, Father,” said Catherine, smiling, “but I thought that you could not read. I only say this, Father, because you make a boast of not knowing how to read.”
“Yes, I do boast of it. I wish that people should say, 'Father Billot owes nothing to any man,—not even a schoolmaster. Father Billot made his fortune himself.' That is what I wish people to say. It was not, therefore, I who read the letter. It was the quartermaster of the gendarmerie, whom I happened to meet.”
“And what did this letter tell you, Father? He is always well satisfied with us, is he not?”
And the farmer drew from his leather wallet a letter, which he handed to his daughter. Catherine read as follows:—
MY DEAR MONSIEUR BILLOT,—I have arrived from America, where I found a people richer, greater, and happier than the people of our country. This arises from their being free, which we are not. But we are also advanced toward a new era. Every one should labor to hasten the day when the light shall shine. I know your principles, Monsieur Billot. I know your influence over your brother farmers, and over the whole of that worthy population of workmen and laborers whom you order, not as a king, but as a father. Inculcate in them principles of self-devotedness and fraternity, which I have observed that you possess. Philosophy is universal: all men ought to read their duties by the light of its torch. I send you a small book, in which all these duties and all these rights are set forth. This little book was written by me, although my name does not appear upon the titlepage. Propagate the principles it contains, which are those of universal equality. Let it be read aloud in the long winter evenings. Reading is the pasture of the mind, as bread is the food of the body.
One of these days I shall go to see you, and propose to you a new system of farm-letting, which is much in use in America. It consists in dividing the produce of the land between the farmer and landlord. This appears to me more in conformity with the laws of primitive society, and above all more in accordance with the goodness of God. Health and fraternity.HONORÉ GILBERT,
Citizen of Philadelphia.“Oh! oh!” cried Pitou; “this is a well-written letter.”
“Is it not?” said Billot, delighted.
“Yes, my dear father,” observed Catherine; “but I doubt whether the quartermaster of the gendarmerie is of your opinion.”
“Because it appears to me that this letter may not only bring the doctor into trouble, but you also, my dear father.”
“Pshaw!” said Billot; “you are always afraid. But that matters not. Here is the pamphlet; and here is employment ready found for you, Pitou. In the evenings you shall read it.”
“In the daytime you will take care of the sheep and cows. In the mean time, there is your pamphlet.”
And the farmer took from one of his holsters one of those small pamphlets with a red cover of which so great a number were published in those days, either with or without permission of the authorities.
Only, in the latter case, the author ran the risk of being sent to the galleys.
“Read me the title of that book, Pitou, that I may always speak of the title until I shall be able to speak of the work itself. You shall read the remainder to me another time.”
Pitou read on the first page these words, which habit has since rendered very vague and very insignificant, but which at that period struck to the very fibres of all hearts:
“Of the Independence of Man, and the Liberty of Nations.”
“What do you say to that, Pitou?” inquired the farmer.
“I say that it appears to me, Monsieur Billot, that independence and liberty are the same thing. My protector would be turned out of Monsieur Fortier's class for being guilty of a pleonasm.”
“Pleonasm or not,” cried the farmer, “that book is the book of a man.”
“That matters not, Father,” said Catherine, with woman's admirable instinct. “Hide it, I entreat you! It will bring you into trouble. As to myself, I know that I am trembling even at the sight of it.”
“And why would you have it injure me, since it has not injured its author?”
“And how can you tell that, Father? It is eight days since that letter was written; and it could not have taken eight days for the parcel to have come from Havre. I also have received a letter this morning.”
“From Sebastian Gilbert, who has written to make inquiries. He desires me, even, to remember him to his foster-brother, Pitou. I had forgotten to deliver his message.”
“Well! he says that for three days he had been expecting his father's arrival in Paris, and that he had not arrived.”
“Mademoiselle is right,” said Pitou. “It seems to me that this non-arrival is disquieting.”
“Hold your tongue, you timid fellow, and read the doctor's treatise,” said the farmer; “then you will become not only learned, but a man.”
It was thus people spoke in those days; for they were at the preface of that great Grecian and Roman history which the French nation imitated, during ten years, in all its phases, devotedness, proscriptions, victories, and slavery.
Pitou put the book under his arm with so solemn a gesture that he completely gained the farmer's heart.
“And now,” said Billot, “have you dined?”
“No, sir,” replied Pitou, maintaining the semi-religious, semi-heroic attitude he had assumed since the book had been intrusted to his care.
“He was just going to get his dinner, when he was driven out of doors,” said the young girl.
“Well, then,” said Billot, “go in and ask my wife for the usual farm fare, and to-morrow you shall enter on your functions.”
Pitou, with an eloquent look, thanked Monsieur Billot, and, led by Catherine, entered the kitchen,—a domain placed under the absolute direction of Madame Billot.
