Some neighboring villagers, excited by rivalry, who had also paid attention to tactics, were to come to Haramont for a kind of contest.
A deputation from these villagers was present under the command of an old sergeant.
The announcement of such a spectacle brought many persons together, and the parade-ground of Haramont early in the day was occupied by crowds of young children, and at a later hour by the fathers and mothers of the champions.
Four drums beat in four different directions,—those of Largny, Ver, Taillefontaine, and Vivières.
Haramont was a centre, and had its four cardinal points.
A fifth replied; it preceded the thirty-three National Guards of Haramont.
Among the spectators was a portion of the aristocracy and of the bourgeoisie of Villers-Cotterets come to be amused.
There were also many farmers who had come to see.
Soon Catherine and Madame Billot came. Just at this moment the National Guard of Haramont came from the village, headed by Pitou, a drum, and a fife. Pitou was on a great white horse, which Maniquet had lent him for the purpose of making a representation of Marquis de Lafayette ad vivum at Haramont.
Pitou grasped his sword and bestrode the huge horse.
If he did not represent the aristocracy, he at least represented the bone and sinew of the land.
The entrance of Pitou, and of those who had conferred so much honor on the province, was saluted by loud acclamations.
All had hats alike, with the national cockade, and marched in two ranks in the most perfect order.
When they reached the parade all approved of them.
Pitou caught a glance of Catherine and blushed. She trembled.
This was the most exciting portion of the review.
He put his men through the manual, and every command excited much attention and applause.
The other villagers appeared excited and irregular. Some were half armed, others half instructed, and they were completely demoralized by the comparison. Pitou's men became vain of their excellence.
Both were uncertain, however, as to cause and effect.
From the manual they passed to the drill.
Here the sergeant expected to rival Pitou.
In consideration of his age, the sergeant had received the command, and marched his men back and forth by files.
He could do nothing more.
Pitou, with his sword under his arm, and his helmet on his brow, looked on with infinite superiority.
When the sergeant saw his heads of column become lost amid the trees, while the rear took the back track to Haramont; when he saw his squares disperse, and squads and platoons lose their commandants,—he was greeted by a disapproving sound from his own soldiers.
A cry was heard from Haramont:—
"Pitou! Pitou! Pitou!"
"Yes, Pitou!" echoed the men of the other villages, offended at an inferiority which they attributed to their instructors.
Pitou, on his white horse, placed himself at the head of his men, to whom he gave the right, and gave the command in such a tone that the very oaks trembled.
As if by miracle, the broken files united, the manæuvres were well executed, Pitou made such good use of his books and of Father Clovis's instructions.
The army, with one voice, saluted him Imperator on the field of battle.
Pitou dismounted, and covered with sweat, received the salutations of the crowd.
He did not, however, see Catherine.
All at once Pitou heard her voice. It was not necessary for him to seek her. She had sought him.
His triumph was immense.
"What!" said she, with an air in strange contrast with her pale face. "Have you become proud because you are a great general?"
"Oh, no!" replied Pitou. "Good-morning, Mademoiselle Billot."
Then to Madame Billot:—
"I am happy to salute you, Madame Billot."
Turning to Catherine, he said:—
"Mademoiselle, you are wrong. I am not a great general, but only a young man anxious to serve my country."
What he had said was borne through the crowd, and treated as a sublime sentiment.
"Ange," said Catherine, "I must speak to you."
"Ah! at last! at last!" thought he, and said:—
"When you please."
"Return to the farm with us."
"Very well."
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Chapter XXXIX
Honey and Absinthe
CATHERINE contrived to be alone with Pitou in spite of her mother's presence.
Old Mother Billot had some gossips, who walked by her and maintained conversation.
Catherine, who had left her horse, returned on foot with Pitou.
Such arrangements surprise no one in the country, where people are more indulgent than they are in great cities.
It seemed natural enough for Monsieur Pitou to talk to Mademoiselle Billot. It may be none ever noticed it.
On that day all enjoyed the silence and thickness of the woods. All glory and happiness seems to reside amid the primeval grandeur of the forests.
"Here I am, Mademoiselle Catherine," said Pitou, when they were alone.
"Why have you for so long a time not visited our farm? That is wrong, Pitou."
"But, Mademoiselle, you know the reason!"
"I do not. You are wrong."
Pitou bit his lips. It annoyed him to hear Catherine tell a falsehood.
She saw and understood his expression.
"But, Pitou, I have something to tell you."
"Ah!" said he. "The other day you saw me in the hut?"
"Yes, I did."
"You saw me?"
"Yes."
She blushed.
"What were you doing there?"
"You knew me?"
"At first I did not. I did afterwards."
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes one does not pay attention."
"Certainly."
Both were silent, for each had too much to think of.
Catherine said at last: "Then it was you? What were you doing there? Why did you hide yourself?"
"Hide myself? Why?"
"Curiosity might have made you."
"I have no curiosity."
She stamped the ground most impatiently with her little foot.
"You were," said she, "in a place you do not visit often."
"You saw I was reading."
"I do not know."
"If you saw me, you do."
"I did see you very distinctly; but what were you reading?"
"My tactics."
"What is that?"
"A book in which I learned what I have since taught my men. To study, Madame, one must be alone."
"True; in the forest nothing disturbs you."
"Nothing."
They were again silent; the rest of the party rode before them.
"When you study thus," said Catherine, "do you study long?"
"Whole days sometimes."
"Then you had been long there?"
"Very long."
"It is surprising that I did not see you when I came."
Here she told an untruth, and Pitou felt disposed to expose her. But he was in love, and sorry for her. In his view her faults amounted to a virtue,—circumspection.
"I may have slept; I sometimes do when I study too much."
"Well, while you slept I must have passed you. I went to the old pavilion."
"Ah!" said Pitou, "what pavilion?"
Catherine blushed again. This time her manner was so affected that he could not believe her.
"Charny's pavilion. There is the best balm in the country. I had hurt myself, and needed some leaves. I hurt my hand."
As if he wished to believe her, Ange looked at her hands.
"Ah!" said she, "not my hands, but my foot."
"Did you get what you wanted?"
"Ah, yes! You see I do not limp."
Catherine fancied
that she had succeeded; she fancied Pitou had seen and knew nothing. She said, and it was a great mistake:—
"Then Monsieur Pitou would have cut us. He is proud of his position, and disdains peasants since he has become an officer."
Pitou was wounded. So great a sacrifice, even though feigned, demands another recompense; and as Catherine seemed to seek to mystify Pitou, and as she doubtless laughed at him when she was with Isidore de Charny, all Pitou's good-humor passed away. Self-love is a viper asleep, on which it is never prudent to tread unless you crush it at once.
"Mademoiselle," said he, "it seems rather that you cut me."
"How so?"
"First, you refused me work, and drove me from the farm. I said nothing to Monsieur Billot, for, thank God! I yet have a heart and hands."
"I assure you, Monsieur Pitou—"
"It matters not; of course you can manage your own affairs. If, then, you saw me at the pavilion, you should have spoken to me, instead of running away, as if you were robbing an orchard."
The viper had stung. Catherine was uneasy.
"I run away!" said she.
"As if your barn had been on fire. Mademoiselle, I had not the time to shut my book before you sprang on the pony and rode away. He had been tied long enough, though, to eat up all the bark of an oak."
"Then a tree was destroyed; but why, Monsieur Pitou, do you tell me this?"
Catherine felt that all presence of mind was leaving her.
"Ah, you were gathering balm!" said Pitou. "A horse does much in an hour."
Catherine said, "In an hour?"
"No horse, Mademoiselle, could strip a tree of that size in less time. You must have been collecting more balm than would suffice to cure all the wounds received at the Bastille."
Catherine could not say a word.
Pitou was silent; he knew he had said enough.
Mother Billot paused at the cross-road to bid adieu to her friends.
Pitou was in agony, for he felt the pain of the wounds he had inflicted, and was like a bird just ready to fly away.
"Well! what says the officer?" said Madame Billot.
"That he wishes you good-day."
"Then good-day. Come, Catherine."
"Ah! tell me the truth," murmured Catherine.
"What?"
"Are you not yet my friend?"
"Alas!" said the poor fellow, who, as yet without experience, began to make love, through confessions which only the skilful know how to manage.
Pitou felt that his secret was rushing to his lips; he felt that the first word Catherine said would place him in her power.
He was aware, though, if he spoke he would die when Catherine confessed to him what as yet he only suspected.
He was silent as an old Roman, and bowed to Catherine with a respect which touched the young girl's heart, bowed to Madame Billot, and disappeared.
Catherine made a bound as if she would follow him.
Madame Billot said to her daughter:—
"He is a good lad, and has much feeling."
When alone, Pitou began a long monologue on the following theme:—
"This is what is called love; at certain times it is very sweet, but at others very bitter."
The poor lad did not know that in love there is both honey and absinthe, and that Monsieur Isidore had all the honey.
From this hour, during which she had suffered horribly, Catherine conceived a kind of respectful fear for Pitou, which a few days before she was far from feeling towards him.
When one cannot inspire love, it is not bad to inspire fear; and Pitou, who had great ideas of personal dignity, would have been not a little flattered had he discovered the existence even of such a sentiment.
As he was not, however, physiologist enough to see what the ideas of a woman a league and a half from him are, he wept and sang a countless number of songs, the theme of which was unfortunate love.
Pitou at last reached his own room, where he found his chivalric guard had placed a sentinel. The man, dead drunk, lay on a bench with his gun across his legs.
Pitou awoke him.
He then learned that his thirty men, good and true, had ordered an entertainment at old Father Tellier's—the old man was the Vatel of Haramont—and that twelve ladies were to crown the Turenne who had overcome the Condé of the next canton.
Pitou was too much fatigued for his stomach not to have suffered.
Pitou, being led by his sentinel to the banquet-hall, was received with acclamations which made the very walls tremble.
He bowed, sat down in silence, and with his natural coolness attacked the veal and salad.
This state of feeling lasted until his stomach was filled and his heart relieved.
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Chapter XL
An Unexpected Dénouement
FEASTING after sorrow is either an increase of grief or an absolute consolation.
Pitou saw, after the lapse of two hours, that his grief was not increased.
He arose when his companions could not.
He made even an oration on Spartan sobriety to them, when they were all dead drunk.
He bade them go away when they were asleep under the table.
We must say that the ladies disappeared during the dessert.
Pitou thought; amid all his glory and honor, the prominent subject was his last interview with Catherine.
Amid the half hints of his memory, he recalled the fact that her hand had often touched his, and that sometimes her shoulder had pressed his own, and that he on certain occasions had known all her beauties.
He then looked around him like a man awaking from a drunken dream.
He asked the shadows why so much severity towards a young woman, perfect in grace, could have been in his heart.
Pitou wished to reinstate himself with Catherine.
But how?
A Lovelace would have said, "That girl laughs at and deceives me. I will follow her example."
Such a character would have said: "I will despise her, and make her ashamed of her love as of so much disgrace.
"I will terrify and dishonor her, and make the path to her rendezvous painful."
Pitou, like a good fellow, though heated with wine and love, said to himself, "Sometime I will make Catherine ashamed that she did not love me."
Pitou's chaste ideas would not permit him to fancy that Catherine did aught but coquet with Monsieur de Charny, and that she laughed at his laced boots and golden spurs.
How delighted Pitou was to think that Catherine was not in love with either a boot or a spur!
Some day Monsieur Isidore would go to the city and marry a countess. Catherine then would seem to him an old romance.
All these ideas occupied the mind of the commander of the National Guard of Haramont.
To prove to Catherine that he was a good fellow, he began to recall all the bad things he had heard during the day.
But Catherine had said some of them. He thought he would tell them to her.
A drunken man without a watch has no idea of time.
Pitou had no watch, and had not gone ten paces before he was as drunk as Bacchus or his son Thespis.
He did not remember that he had left Catherine three hours before, and that, half an hour later, she must have reached the farm.
To that place he hurried.
Let us leave him among the trees, bushes, and briers, threshing with his stick the great forest of Orléans, which returned blows with usury.
Let us return to Catherine, who went home with her mother.
There was a swamp behind the farm, and when there, they had to ride in single file.
The old lady went first.
Catherine was about to go when she heard a whistle.
She turned and saw in the distance the cap of Isidore's valet.
She let her mother ride on; and the latter, being but a few paces from home, felt no uneasiness.
The servant came.
"Mademoiselle," s
aid he, "my master wishes to see you to-night, and begs you to meet him somewhere at eleven, if you please."
"Has he met with any accident?" inquired Catherine, with much alarm.
"I do not know. He received to-night a letter with a black seal from Paris. I have already been here an hour."
The clock of Villers-Cotterets struck ten.
Catherine looked around.
"Well, the place is dark; tell your master I will wait for him here."
The man rode away.
Catherine followed her mother home.
What could Isidore have to tell her at such an hour?
Love-meetings assume more smiling forms.
That was not the question. Isidore wished to see her, and the hour was of no importance. She would have met him in the graveyard of Villers-Cotterets at midnight.
She would not then even think, but kissed her mother and went to her room.
Her mother went to bed.
She suspected nothing, and if she had, it mattered not, for Catherine was mistress there.
Catherine neither undressed nor went to bed.
She heard the chime of half after ten. At a quarter before eleven she put out the lamp and went into the dining-room. The windows opened into the yard. She sprang out.
She hurried to the appointed place with a beating heart, placing one hand on her bosom and the other on her burning head. She was not forced to wait long.
She heard the galloping of a horse.
She stepped forward.
Isidore was before her.
Without dismounting, he took her hand, lifted her on to his stirrup, embraced her, and said:—
"Catherine, yesterday my brother George was killed at Versailles. My brother Olivier has sent for me; I must go."
Catherine uttered an exclamation of grief, and clasped De Charny in her arms.
"If," said she, "they killed one brother, they will kill another."
"Be that as it may, my eldest brother has sent for me; Catherine, you know I love you."
"Stay, stay!" said the poor girl, who was only aware of the fact that Isidore was going.
"Honor and vengeance appeal to me."
"Alas! alas!"
And she threw herself pale and trembling into his arms.
A tear fell from De Charny's eyes on the young girl's brow.
"You weep; thank God, you love me!"
"Yes; but my eldest brother has written to me, and you see I must obey."
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