PITOU arrived at Villers-Cotterets by that part of the park which is called the Pheasantry. He walked across the dancing place, always abandoned during the week, and to which he had three weeks previously conducted Catherine.
What a number of things had happened to Pitou and to France during those three weeks!
Then, having followed the long avenue of chestnuttrees, he reached the square before the château, and knocked at the back door of the college presided over by the Abbé Fortier.
It was full three years since Pitou had left Haramont, while it was only three weeks since he had left Villers-Cotterets. It was therefore very natural that he should not have been recognized at Haramont, and that he should have been recognized at Villers-Cotterets.
In a moment a rumor ran through the town that Pitou had returned there with young Sebastien Gilbert; that both of them had gone into the house of the Abbé Fortier; that Sebastien looked much the same as when he had left them, but that Pitou had a helmet and a long sword.
The result of this was that a great crowd had assembled at the principal gate; for they calculated that if Pitou had gone into the chateau by the small private door, he would come out of it by the great gate in the Rue de Soissons.
This was his direct road for going to Pleux.
In fact, Pitou remained at the Abbé Fortier's only long enough to deliver into the hands of the abbé's sister the letter from the doctor, the young lad himself, and five double louis destined to pay his board.
The Abbé Fortier's sister was at first much terrified when she saw so formidable a soldier advancing through the garden; but soon, beneath the dragoon's helmet, she recognized the placid and honest face of Pitou, which somewhat tranquillized her.
And finally, the sight of the five double louis reassured her altogether.
This terror of the poor old maid can be the more readily explained, by informing our readers that the Abbé Fortier had gone out with his pupils to give them a walk, and that she was quite alone in the house.
Pitou, after having delivered the letter and the five double louis, embraced Sebastien, and left the house, clapping his helmet on his head with due military bravado.
Sebastien had shed some tears on separating from Pitou, although the separation was not to be of long duration, and notwithstanding that his society was not exceedingly amusing; but his hilarity, his mildness, his continued obligingness, had touched the heart of young Gilbert. Pitou had the disposition of those fine great Newfoundland dogs, who sometimes fatigue you very much, but who in the end disarm your anger by licking your hand.
There was one thing which diminished Sebastien's grief, which was that Pitou promised that he would often go to see him. One thing diminished Pitou's regret, and this was that Sebastien thanked him for his promise.
But now let us for a while follow our hero from the house of the Abbé Fortier to that of his Aunt Angélique, situated, as our readers already know, at the farther end of Pleux.
On leaving the Abbé Fortier's house, Pitou found some twenty persons who were waiting for him. His strange equipment, a description of which had been given throughout the town, was in part known to those assembled. On seeing him thus return from Paris, where so much fighting was going on, they presumed that Pitou had been fighting too, and they wished to hear the news.
This news Pitou communicated with his accustomed majesty. The taking of the Bastille, the exploits of Monsieur Billot and of Monsieur Maillard, of Messieurs Elie and Hullin; how Billot had fallen into the ditch of the fortress, and how he, Pitou, had dragged him out of it; finally, how they had saved Monsieur Gilbert, who during six or seven days had been one of the prisoners confined there.
The auditors already knew most of the details that Pitou had related to them. They had read all these details in the newspapers of the day; but however faithful the editor of a newspaper may be in his writings, he is always less interesting than an ocular witness who relates the incidents,—who may be interrupted, and who resumes; who may be questioned, and replies.
Now Pitou resumed, replied, gave all the details, showing, when interrupted, the greatest obligingness, in all his answers the greatest possible amenity.
The result of all this was that in about an hour's conversation at the door of the Abbé Fortier, in which he gave a succinct narrative, the Rue de Soissons was crowded with auditors, when one of the persons present, observing some signs of anxiety in Pitou's countenance, took upon himself to say:—
“But he is fatigued, poor Pitou; and we are keeping him here upon his legs instead of allowing him to go to his Aunt Angélique's house, poor dear woman, who will be so delighted at seeing him again.”
“It is not that I am fatigued,” said Pitou, “but that I am hungry; I have never been fatigued, but I am hungry.”
Then, and in consequence of this ingenuous declaration, the crowd, who highly respected the cravings of Pitou's stomach, respectfully made way for him to pass, and Pitou, followed by some persons more inveterately curious than the rest, was permitted to wend his way to Pleux; that is to say, to the house of his Aunt Angélique.
Aunt Angélique was not at home; she had gone doubtless to visit some neighbors, and the door was locked.
Several persons then invited Pitou to go to their houses and take the nourishment he stood in need of; but Pitou proudly refused.
“But,” said they to him, “you see, dear Pitou, that your aunt's door is locked.”
“The door of an aunt cannot remain locked before an obedient and hungry nephew,” answered Pitou, majestically.
And drawing his long sabre, the sight of which made men and children start back with affright, he introduced the point of it between the bolt and the staple of the lock, gave a vigorous jerk, and the door flew open, to the great admiration of all present, who no longer doubted the great exploits of Pitou, since they saw him with so much audacity expose himself to the anger of the illtempered old maid.
The interior of the house was in precisely the same state as when Pitou had left it. The famous leather armchair royally held its state in the centre of the room; two or three other mutilated chairs and stools formed the lame court of the great armchair; at the end of the room was the kneading-trough; on the right, the cupboard, and on the left, the chimney.
Pitou entered the house with a bland smile. He had no quarrel with all these poor articles of furniture; on the contrary, they were the friends of his youth. They were, it is true, almost as hard in their nature as Aunt Angélique; but when they were opened, there was something good to be found in them; while had Aunt Angélique been opened, her inside would certainly have been found dryer and worse than her exterior.
Pitou, upon the instant, gave a proof of what we have advanced to the persons who had followed him, and who, seeing what was going on, were waiting outside the house, curious to see what would be the result when Aunt Angélique should return home.
It was, moreover, very perceptible that all these persons felt great sympathy for Pitou. We have said that Pitou was hungry, so hungry that it had been perceived by the change in his countenance.
Therefore he lost no time; he went straight to the kneading-trough and cupboard.
In former times—we say former times, although scarcely three weeks had elapsed since Pitou's departure; for in our opinion, time is to be measured, not by its duration, but by the events which have occurred; in former times, Pitou, unless urged on by the Evil Spirit, or by irresistible hunger, both of them infernal powers, and which much resemble each other—in former times Pitou would have seated himself upon the threshold of the closed door, and humbly waited the return of Aunt Angélique; when she had returned, would have bowed to her with a soft smile; then, standing aside, would have made room for her to pass, would have followed her into the house, would have gone for a loaf and a knife, that she might measure out his portion to him; then, his share being cut off, he would have cast a longing eye, a single look, tearful and magnetic,—he thought it so at least,—magnetic to such a degree as to call forth the cheese or any other dainty from the shelf of the cupboard.
Magnetism which rarely succeeded, but which, however, sometimes did succeed.
But now Pitou, having become a man, no longer acted thus; he tranquilly raised the lid of the bread-trough, drew from his pocket his long clasp-knife, took the loaf and angularly cut off a slice which might have weighed a good kilogram (two pounds), as is elegantly said since the adoption of the new-system weights.
Then he let fall the loaf into the trough again, and the cover on the loaf.
After which, without allowing his equanimity to be at all disturbed, he went to the cupboard.
It appeared to Pitou for an instant that he heard the growling voice of Aunt Angélique; but the cupboarddoor creaked upon its hinges, and this noise, which had all the power of reality, drowned the other, which had only the influence of imagination.
At the time when Pitou was one of the household, the avaricious aunt would provide only viands of a coarse description, such as Marolles cheese, or thin slices of highly salted bacon, surrounded by the verdant leaves of an enormous cabbage; but since this fabulous devourer had left the country, the aunt, despite of her avarice, would cook up for herself dishes that would last her for a whole week, and which were of a much more succulent description.
Sometimes it would be a good piece of beef à la mode, surrounded by carrots and onions, stewed in the gravy; sometimes a haricot of mutton with savory potatoes, big as a child's head, or long as cucumbers; sometimes a calf's foot, flavored with some shallots in vinegar, to give it more piquancy; sometimes it was a gigantic omelet made in the great frying-pan and variegated with a quantity of chives and parsley, or enamelled with slices of bacon, one of which sufficed for the dinner of the old woman, even on the days when she had the greatest appetite.
During the whole week Aunt Angélique would, with great discretion, enjoy the savory dish, making only such breaches in the precious morsel as the exigencies of the moment required.
Each day did she rejoice in being alone to consume such good things, and during the thrice happy week she thought of her nephew, Ange Pitou, as often as she placed her hand upon the dish or raised a mouthful to her lips.
He had fallen upon a day—it was Monday—when Aunt Angélique had cooked an old cock with rice, which had boiled so long, surrounded with its bland covering of paste, that the bones had left the flesh, and the flesh had become almost tender.
It was a formidable dish; it was served up in a deep wide porringer, which, though black externally, was resplendent and attractive to the eye.
The meat was placed above the rice, looking like small islands on the bosom of a vast lake; and the cock's comb, rising above them all, looked like the crest of Ceuta in the Straits of Gibraltar.
Pitou had not even the courtesy to utter one word of admiration on seeing this great marvel.
Spoiled by good living, he forgot—the ungrateful fellow!—that such magnificence had never until then inhabited the cupboard of Aunt Angélique.
He held his great hunch of bread in his right hand.
He seized the vast dish in his left, and held it in equilibrium by the pressure of his immense square thumb, buried as far as the first joint in the unctuous mess, the odor of which was grateful to his olfactory organs. At this moment it appeared to Pitou that a shadow interposed between the light of the doorway and himself.
He turned round, smiling, for Pitou's was one of those artless dispositions whose faces always give evidence of the satisfaction of their hearts.
The shadow was the body of Aunt Angélique.
Of Aunt Angélique, more miserly, more crabbed, and more skin-and-bone than ever.
In former days—we are obliged incessantly to return to the same figure of speech; that is to say, to the comparative, as comparison alone can express our thought—in former times, at the sight of Aunt Angélique, Pitou would have let fall the dish, and while Aunt Angélique would have bent forward in despair to pick up the fragments of her fowl and the grains of rice, he would have bounded over her head, and would have taken to his heels, carrying off his bread under his arm.
But Pitou was no longer the same; his helmet and his sabre had less changed him, physically speaking, than his having associated with the great philosophers of the day had changed him morally.
Instead of flying terrified from his aunt, he approached her with a gracious smile, opened wide his arms, and although she endeavored to escape the pressure, embraced her with all his might, squeezing the old maid energetically to his breast, while his hands, the one loaded with the dish containing the fowl and rice, and the other with the bread and knife, were crossed behind her back.
When he had accomplished this most nephew-like act, which he considered as a duty imposed upon him, and which it was necessary to fulfil, he breathed with all the power of his vast lungs, and said:—
“Aunt Angélique, you may well be surprised; but it is indeed your poor Pitou.”
When he had clasped her so fervently in his arms, the old maid imagined that, having been surprised in the very act by her, Pitou had wished to suffocate her, as Hercules, in former days, had strangled Anttæus.
She, on her side, breathed more freely when she found herself relieved from this dangerous embrace.
Only Aunt Angélique had remarked that Pitou had not even manifested his admiration of the dish he was devouring.
Pitou was not only ungrateful, but he was also ill-bred.
But there was one thing which disgusted Aunt Angelique more than the rest; and this was that formerly, while she would be seated in state in her leather arm chair, Pitou would not even dare to sit down on one of the dilapidated chairs or one of the lame stools which surrounded it; but now instead of this, after having so cordially embraced her, Pitou had very coolly ensconced himself in her own armchair, had placed the dish between his knees, and was leisurely devouring its contents.
In his powerful right hand he held the knife already mentioned, the blade of which was wide and long,—a perfect spatula, with which Polyphemus himself might have eaten his pottage.
In the other hand he held a bit of bread three fingers wide and six inches long,—a perfect broom, with which he swept up the rice; while on its side, the knife, in seeming gratitude, pushed the meat upon the bread.
A learned, though pitiless manuvre, the result of which, in a few minutes, was that it caused the blue and white of the interior of the dish to become visible, as during the ebbing tide we gradually perceive the rings and marks upon the quays of a seaport.
We must renounce attempting to describe the frightful perplexity and despair of Aunt Angélique.
At one moment she imagined that she could call out.
Pitou, however, smiled at her with such a fascinating air that the words expired before Aunt Angélique could give them utterance.
Then she attempted to smile in her turn, hoping to exorcise that ferocious animal called hunger, which had taken up its abode in the stomach of her nephew.
But the proverb is right; the famished stomach of Pitou remained both deaf and dumb.
His aunt, instead of smiling, wept.
This somewhat incommoded Pitou, but it did not prevent his eating.
“Oh, oh! Aunt, how good you are,” said he, “to cry thus with joy on my arrival! Thanks, my good aunt, thanks.”
Evidently the French Revolution had completely denaturalized this man.
He bolted three fourths of the fowl, and left a small quantity of the rice at the bottom of the dish, saying:
“You like the rice best, do you not, my dear aunt? It is softer for your teeth. I leave you the rice.”
This attention, which she no doubt imagined to be a sarcasm, almost suffocated Aunt Angélique. She resolutely advanced towards young Pitou, snatched the dish from his hands, uttering a blasphemous expression, which, twenty years subsequently, would have appeared admirably suitable to a grenadier of the old guard.
“Oh, Aunt,” cried he, “you regret your fowl, do you not?”
“The villain!” cried Aunt Angélique, “I believe that he is jeering at me.”
“Aunt,” said he, majestically, “it was not my intention to eat without paying for what I ate. I have money. I will, if you please, board regularly with you; only I shall reserve to myself the right of choosing my own dinner.”
“Rascal!” exclaimed Aunt Angélique.
“Let us see; we will calculate each portion at four sous. I now owe you for one meal; four sous' worth of rice and two sous' of bread,—six sous.”
“Six sous!” cried the aunt, “six sous! why there is eight sous' worth of rice and six sous' of bread, without counting anything else.”
“Oh, I know I have not allowed anything for the fowl, my good aunt, knowing that it came from your poultryyard; he was an old acquaintance,—I knew him at once by his comb.”
“He was worth his price, however.”
“He was nine years old, at least; I stole him from under his mother's wing for you. He was then barely as big as my fist; and I recollect even that you beat me, because when I brought him home to you I did not bring you corn enough to feed him the next day. Mademoiselle Catherine gave me some barley. He was my property, and I ate my property; I had good right to do so.”
His aunt, mad with anger, pulverized the Revolutionary hero with a look; she had no voice.
“Get out of this!” murmured she.
“What, at once, so soon after having dined, without even giving me time to digest my dinner? Ah! Aunt, Aunt, that is by no means polite.”
Pitou, who had again sat down, rose from the armchair. He found, and that with a most lively feeling of satisfaction, that his stomach could not have contained a single grain of rice more than he had swallowed.
“Aunt,” said he, majestically, “you are an unfeeling relative. I will demonstrate to you that you are now acting as wrongly towards me as you have always done; that you are still as harsh, still as avaricious as ever. Well! I will not allow you to go about telling every one that I have devoured your property.”
He placed himself on the threshold of the door, and in a stentorian voice which might be heard, not only by the inquisitive persons who had accompanied him, and had been present during the whole of this scene, but also by every one who was passing at a distance of five hundred paces:—
“I call these worthy people to witness that, having arrived from Paris, on foot, after having taken the Bastille, being tired and hungry, I seated myself in this house; that I ate my relative's provisions; that I was so harshly reproached for the food of which I partook, that I was so pitilessly driven from the house, that I feel myself compelled to go.”
Pitou delivered this exordium in so pathetic a tone that the neighbors began to murmur against the old woman.
“A poor traveller,” continued Pitou, “who has walked nine leagues; a worthy lad, honored with the confidence of Monsieur Gilbert and Monsieur Billot, and who was charged by them to bring back Sebastien Gilbert to the Abbé Fortier; one of the conquerors of the Bastille; a friend of Monsieur Bailly and of General de Lafayette,—I call upon you all to witness that I have been turned out.”
The murmurs went on increasing.
“And,” pursued he, “as I am not a mendicant, as, when I am reproached for the bread I eat, I pay for it, here is half a crown which I lay down as payment for that which I have eaten in my aunt's house!”
And saying this, Pitou proudly drew a half-crown from his pocket, and threw it on the table, from which in the sight of all it rebounded, hopped into the dish, and half buried itself in the remaining rice.
This last act completely confounded the old woman. She bent down, beneath the universal reprobation to which she had exposed herself, and which was testified by a long, loud murmur. Twenty hands were held out to Pitou, who left the hut, shaking the dust from his shoes on the threshold, and disappeared from his aunt's eyes, escorted by a crowd of persons offering him his meals and lodging, happy to be the hosts of a conqueror of the Bastille, a friend of Monsieur Bailly and of General de Lafayette.
Aunt Angélique picked the half-crown out of the rice, wiped it, and put it into the saucer, where it was to wait, with many others, its transmigration into an old louis.
But while putting by This half-crown of which she had become possessed in so singular a manner, she sighed, reflecting that perhaps Pitou had had full right to eat the whole of the contents of the dish, since he had so amply paid for it.
