Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part one

From that time forward the life of Pitou was pretty nearly that of most of the scholars, with this sole difference, that from his compositions being more defective than those of any of the rest, he was kept twice as often as any of his condisciples.

But it must be said there was one thing in Pitou’s nature which arose from the primary education he had received, or rather from that which he had not received,-a thing which is necessary to consider as contributing at least a third to the numerous penalties he underwent; and this was his natural inclination for animals.

The famous trunk which his Aunt Angélique had dignified with the name of desk, had become, thanks to its vastness, and the numerous compartments with which Pitou had decorated its interior, a sort of Noah’s ark, containing a couple of every species of climbing, crawling, or flying reptiles. There were lizards, adders, ant-eaters, beetles, and frogs, which reptiles became so much dearer to Pitou from their being the cause of his being subjected to punishment more or less severe.

It was in his walks during the week that Pitou made collections for his menagerie. He had wished for salamanders, which were very popular at Villers-Cotterets, being the crest of François I., who had them sculptured on every chimney-piece in the chateau. He had succeeded in obtaining them; only one thing had strongly preoccupied his mind, and he ended by placing this thing among the number of those which were beyond his intelligence; it was, that he had constantly found in the water these reptiles which poets have pretended exist only in fire. This circumstance had given to Pitou, who was a lad of precise mind, a profound contempt for poets.

Pitou, being the proprietor of two salamanders, set to work to find a chameleon; but this time his search was altogether vain, and success did not attend his labors. Pitou at last concluded, from these unfruitful researches, that the chameleon did not exist, or at all events that it existed in some other latitude.

This point being settled, Pitou did not obstinately continue his search for the chameleon.

The two other thirds of Pitou’s punishments were occasioned by those accursed solecisms and those confounded barbarisms, which sprang up in the themes written by Pitou as tares do in a field of wheat.

As to Sundays and Thursdays, days when there was no attendance at school, he had continued to employ them in laying his lime-twigs or in poaching; only, as Pitou was still growing taller, as he was already five feet six, and sixteen years of age, a circumstance occurred which somewhat withdrew Pitou’s attention from his favorite occupations.

Upon the road to the Wolf’s Heath is situated the village of Pisseleu, the same perhaps which gave a name to the beautiful Anne d’Heilly, the mistress of François I.

Near this village stood the farm-house of Father Billot, as he was called throughout the neighborhood, and at the door of this farm-house was standing, no doubt by chance, but almost every time when Pitou passed and repassed, a pretty girl from seventeen to eighteen years of age, fresh-colored, lively, jovial, and who was called by her baptismal name, Catherine, but still more frequently after her father’s name, La Billote.

Pitou began by bowing to La Billote; afterwards he by degrees became emboldened, and smiled while he was bowing; then at last one fine day, after having bowed, after having smiled, he stopped, and although blushing deeply, ventured to stammer out the following words, which he considered as great audacity on his part:

Ange and Catherine

“Good-day, Mademoiselle Catherine.”

Catherine was a good, kind-hearted girl, and she welcomed Pitou as an old acquaintance. He was in point of fact an old acquaintance, for during two or three years she had seen him passing and repassing before the farmgate at least once a week; only that Catherine saw Pitou, and Pitou did not see Catherine. The reason was, that at first when Pitou used to pass by the farm in this manner Catherine was sixteen years old and Pitou but fourteen. We have just seen what happened when Pitou in his turn had attained his sixteenth year.

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