The Chouans by Honoré de Balzac (open ebook txt) 📕

not belie its exterior.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil was asking herself how it was possible for human beings to live in such habitual filth, when a ragged boy about eight or nine years old suddenly presented his fresh and rosy face, with a pair of fat cheeks, lively eyes, ivory teeth, and a mass of fair hair, which fell in curls upon his half-naked shoulders. His limbs were vigorous, and his attitude had the charm of that amazement and naive curiosity which widens a child’s eyes. The little fellow was a picture of beauty.

“Where is your mother?” said Marie, in a gentle voice, stooping to kiss him between the eyes.

After receiving her kiss the child slipped away like an eel, and disappeared behind a muck-heap which was piled at the top of a mound between the path and the house; for, like many Breton farmers who have a system of agriculture that is all their own, Galope-Chopine put his manure in an elevated spot, so that by the time it was wanted for use the rains had deprived it of all its virtue. Alone for a few minutes, Marie had time to make an inventory. The room in which she waited for Barbette was the whole house. The most obvious and sumptuous object was a vast fireplace with a mantle-shelf of blue granite. The etymology of that word was shown by a strip of green serge, edged with a pale-green ribbon, cut in scallops, which covered and overhung the whole shelf, on which stood a colored plaster cast of the Holy Virgin. On the pedestal of the statuette were two lines of a religious poem very popular in Brittany:—

“I am the mother of God, Protectress of the sod.”

Behind the Virgin a hideous image, daubed with red and blue under pretence of painting, represented Saint-Labre. A green serge bed of the shape called “tomb,” a clumsy cradle, a spinning-wheel, common chairs, and a carved chest on which lay utensils, were about the whole of Galope-Chopine’s domestic possessions. In front of the window stood a chestnut table flanked by two benches of the same wood, to which the sombre light coming through the thick panes gave the tone of mahogany. An immense cask of cider, under the bung of which Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed a pool of yellow mud, which had decomposed the flooring, although it was made of scraps of granite conglomerated in clay, proved that the master of the house had a right to his Chouan name, and that the pints galloped down either his own throat or that of his friends. Two enormous jugs full of cider stood on the table. Marie’s attention, caught at first by the innumerable spider’s-webs which hung from the roof, was fixing itself on these pitchers when the noise of fighting, growing more and more distinct, impelled her to find a hiding-place, without waiting for the woman of the house, who, however, appeared at that moment.

“Good-morning, Becaniere,” said Marie, restraining a smile at the appearance of a person who bore some resemblance to the heads which architects attach to window-casings.

“Ha! you come from d’Orgemont?” answered Barbette, in a tone that was far from cordial.

“Yes, where can you hide me? for the Chouans are close by—”

“There,” replied Barbette, as much amazed at the beauty as by the strange apparel of a being she could hardly believe to be of her own sex,—“there, in the priest’s hiding-place.”

She took her to the head of the bed, and was putting her behind it, when they were both startled by the noise of a man springing into the courtyard. Barbette had scarcely time to drop the curtain of the bed and fold it about the girl before she was face to face with a fugitive Chouan.

“Where can I hide, old woman? I am the Comte de Bauvan,” said the new-comer.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil quivered as she recognized the voice of the belated guest, whose words, still a secret to her, brought about the catastrophe of La Vivetiere.

“Alas! monseigneur, don’t you see, I have no place? What I’d better do is to keep outside and watch that no one gets in. If the Blues come, I’ll let you know. If I stay here, and they find me with you, they’ll burn my house down.”

Barbette left the hut, feeling herself incapable of settling the interests of two enemies who, in virtue of the double role her husband was playing, had an equal right to her hiding-place.

“I’ve only two shots left,” said the count, in despair. “It will be very unlucky if those fellows turn back now and take a fancy to look under this bed.”

He placed his gun gently against the headboard behind which Marie was standing among the folds of the green serge, and stooped to see if there was room for him under the bed. He would infallibly have seen her feet, but she, rendered desperate by her danger, seized his gun, jumped quickly into the room, and threatened him. The count broke into a peal of laughter when he caught sight of her, for, in order to hide herself, Marie had taken off her broad-brimmed Chouan hat, and her hair was escaping, in heavy curls, from the lace scarf which she had worn on leaving home.

“Don’t laugh, monsieur le comte; you are my prisoner. If you make the least movement, you shall know what an offended woman is capable of doing.”

As the count and Marie stood looking at each other with differing emotions, confused voices were heard without among the rocks, calling out, “Save the Gars! spread out, spread out, save the Gars!”

Barbette’s voice, calling to her boy, was heard above the tumult with very different sensations by the two enemies, to whom Barbette was really speaking instead of to her son.

“Don’t you see the Blues?” she cried sharply. “Come here, you little scamp, or I shall be after you. Do you want to be shot? Come, hide, quick!”

While these things took place rapidly a Blue jumped into the marshy courtyard.

“Beau-Pied!” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

Beau-Pied, hearing her voice, rushed into the cottage, and aimed at the count.

“Aristocrat!” he cried, “don’t stir, or I’ll demolish you in a wink, like the Bastille.”

“Monsieur Beau-Pied,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, in a persuasive voice, “you will be answerable to me for this prisoner. Do as you like with him now, but you must return him to me safe and sound at Fougeres.”

“Enough, madame!”

“Is the road to Fougeres clear?”

“Yes, it’s safe enough—unless the Chouans come to life.”

Mademoiselle de Verneuil picked up the count’s gun gaily, and smiled satirically as she said to her prisoner, “Adieu, monsieur le comte, au revoir!”

Then she darted down the path, having replaced the broad hat upon her head.

“I have learned too late,” said the count, “not to joke about the virtue of a woman who has none.”

“Aristocrat!” cried Beau-Pied, sternly, “if you don’t want me to send you to your ci-devant paradise, you will not say a word