The history of the gods and goddesses of the Grecian Olympus formed part of the education of young persons. By dint of looking at the engravings Pitou had become acquainted with mythology. He had seen Jupiter metamorphose himself into a bull, to carry off Europa; into a swan, that he might approach and make love to the daughter of King Tyndarus. He had, in short, seen other gods transforming themselves into forms more or less picturesque; but that one of his Majesty’s police-officers should have transformed himself into an ass had never come within the scope of his erudition. King Midas himself had never had anything of the animal but the ears,—and he was a king,—he made gold at will,—he had therefore money enough to purchase the whole skin of the quadruped.
Somewhat reassured by what he saw, or rather by what he did not see, Pitou threw himself down on the grassy bank of the roadside, wiped with his sleeve his broad red face, and thus luxuriously reclining on the fresh clover, he yielded himself up to the satisfaction of perspiring in tranquillity.
But the sweet emanations from the clover and marjoram could not make Pitou forget the pickled pork made by Madame Billot, and the quarter of a six-pound loaf which Catherine allotted to him at every meal,—that is to say, three times a day.
This bread at that time cost four sous and a half a pound, a most exorbitant price, equivalent at least to nine sous in our days, and was so scarce throughout France that when it was eatable, it passed for the fabulous brioche,1which the Duchess of Polignac advised the Parisians to feed upon when flour should altogether fail them.
Pitou therefore said to himself philosophically that Mademoiselle Catherine was the most generous princess in the world, and that Father Billot’s farm was the most sumptuous palace in the universe.
Then, as the Israelites on the banks of the Jordan, he turned a dying eye towards the east, that is to say,
in the direction of that thrice happy farm, and sighed heavily.
But sighing is not so disagreeable an operation to a man who stands in need of taking breath after a violent race.
Pitou breathed more freely when sighing, and he felt his ideas, which for a time had been much confused and agitated, return to him gradually with his breath.
“Why is it,” reasoned he with himself, “that so many extraordinary events have happened to me in so short a space of time? Why should I have met with more accidents within the last three days than during the whole course of my previous life?
“It is because I dreamed of a cat that wanted to fly at me,” continued Pitou.
And he made a gesture signifying that the source of all his misfortunes had been thus already pointed out to him.
“Yes,” added he, after a moment’s reflection, “but this is not the logic of my venerable friend the Abbé Fortier. It is not because I dreamed of an irritated cat that all these adventures have happened to me. Dreams are only given to a man as a sort of warning, and this is why an author said, ‘Thou hast been dreaming, beware!—Cave, somniasti!’
“Somniasti,” said Pitou, doubtingly, and with somewhat of alarm; “am I then again committing a barbarism? Oh, no; I am only making an elision; it was somniavisti which I should have said, in grammatical language.
“It is astonishing,” cried Pitou, considering himself admiringly, “how well I understand Latin since I no longer study it!”
And after this glorification of himself, Pitou resumed his journey.
Pitou walked on very quickly, though he was much tranquillized. His pace was somewhere about two leagues an hour.
The result of this was that two hours after he had recommenced his walk Pitou had got beyond Nanteuil, and was getting on towards Dammartin.
Suddenly the ears of Pitou, as acute as those of an Osage Indian, were struck with the distant sound of a horse’s feet upon the paved road.
“Oh,” cried Pitou, scanning the celebrated verse of Virgil,—
“‘Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.'”
And he looked behind him.
But he saw nothing.