We have seen that Pitou, without having been an applicant, had been elected. This was a happiness that he appreciated at its just value, especially when he saw the well-browned loaf which was placed at his left hand, the pot of cider which was on his right, and the piece of pickled pork on a plate before him. Since the moment that he lost his poor mother, and that was about five years since, Pitou had not, even on great festival days, partaken of such fare.
Therefore Pitou, full of gratitude, felt, as by degrees he bolted the bread which he devoured, and as he washed down the pork with large draughts of the cider,—therefore Pitou felt a vast augmentation of respect for the farmer, of admiration for his wife, and of love for his daughter. There was only one thing which disquieted him, and that was the humiliating function he would have to fulfil, during the day, of herding the sheep and cows,—a function so little in harmony with that which awaited him each evening, and the object of which was to instruct humanity in the most elevated principles of socialism and philosophy.
It was on this subject that Pitou was meditating immediately after his dinner. But even in this reverie the influence of that excellent dinner was sensibly manifested. He began to consider things in a very different point of view from that which he had taken of them when fasting. The functions of a shepherd and a cow-driver, which he considered as so far beneath him, had been fulfilled by gods and demi-gods.
Apollo, in a situation very similar to his own, that is to say, driven from Olympus by Jupiter, as he, Pitou had been driven from Pleux by his aunt, had become a shepherd, and tended the flocks of Admetus. It is true that Admetus was a shepherd-king; but then, Apollo was a god!
Hercules had been a cow-keeper, or something very like it, since—as we are told by mythology—he seized the cows of Geryon by the tail; for whether a man leads a cow by the tail or by the head depends entirely on the difference of custom of those who take care of them, and that is all; and this would not in any way change the fact itself that he was a cow-leader, that is to say, a cow-keeper.
And moreover, Tityrus, reclining at the foot of a beech-tree, of whom Virgil speaks, and who congratulates himself, in such beautiful verses, on the repose which Augustus has granted to him,—he also was a shepherd. And, finally, Melibæus was a shepherd, who so poetically bewails having left his domestic hearth.
Certainly, all these persons spoke Latin well enough to have been abbés, and yet they preferred seeing their goats browse on the bitter cytisus to saying mass or to chanting vespers. Therefore, taking everything into consideration, the calling of a shepherd had its charms. Moreover, what was to prevent Pitou from restoring to it the poetry and the dignity it had lost? who could prevent Pitou from proposing trials of skill in singing, to the Menalcas and the Palemons of the neighboring villages? No one, undoubtedly. Pitou had more than once sung in the choir; and but for his having once been caught drinking the wine out of the Abbé Fortier’s cruet, who, with his usual rigor, had on the instant dismissed the singing boy, this talent might have become transcendent. He could not play upon the pipe, ‘t is true, but he could imitate the note of every bird, which is very nearly the same thing. He could not make himself a lute with pipes of unequal thickness, as did the lover of Syrinx; but from the linden-tree or the chestnut he could cut whistles whose perfection had more than once aroused the enthusiastic applause of his companions. Pitou therefore could become a shepherd without great derogation of his dignity. He did not lower himself to this profession, so ill appreciated in modern days; he elevated the profession to his own standard.
Besides which, the sheepfolds were placed under the special direction of Mademoiselle Billot, and receiving orders from her lips was not receiving orders.