The first thing which they perceived was the crucifix which popular piety habitually places at the entrance to all villages.
Alas! even at Haramont they felt the strange progression which Paris was making towards atheism. The nails which fastened the right arm and the feet of the figure of Christ had broken off, from rust having eaten through them. The figure was hanging, suspended only by the left arm; and no one had had the pious idea of replacing the symbol of that liberty, that equality, that fraternity which every one was in those days preaching.
Pitou was not devout, but he had the traditions of his childhood. That this holy symbol should have been thus neglected, wounded him to the heart. He searched the hedges for one of those creeping plants which are as thin and as tenacious as iron wire, laid his helmet and his sabre on the grass, climbed up the cross, refastened the right arm of the Divine Martyr to it, kissed the feet, and descended.
During this time Sebastien was praying on his knees at the foot of the cross. For whom was he praying Who can tell?
Perhaps for that vision of his childhood which he fondly hoped once more to find beneath the great trees; for that unknown mother who is never unknown; for if she has not nourished us from her breast, yet is she still our mother.
His holy action being accomplished, Pitou replaced his helmet on his head, and replaced his sabre in his belt.
When Sebastien had concluded his prayer, he made the sign of the cross, and again took Pitou’s hand.
Both of them then entered the village, and advanced towards the cottage in which Pitou had been born, in which Sebastien had been nursed.
Pitou knew every stone in Haramont, and yet he could not find the cottage. He was obliged to inquire what had become of it, and the person he applied to showed him a small house built of stone, with a slated roof.
The garden of this house was surrounded by a wall.
Aunt Angélique had sold her sister’s house, and the new proprietor, having full right to do so, had pulled down everything,—the old walls, which had again become dust; the old door, with a hole cut in it to allow ingress to the cat; the old windows, with their panes, half glass, half paper, upon which had appeared in strokes the elementary lessons Pitou had received in writing; the thatched roof with its green moss, and the plants which had grown and blossomed on its summit. The new proprietor had pulled down all this; all had disappeared.
The gate was closed, and lying on the threshold, was a big black dog, who showed his teeth to Pitou.
“Come,” said Pitou, the tears starting from his eyes; “let us be gone, Sebastien. Let us go to a place where at least I am sure that nothing will have changed.”
And Pitou dragged Sebastien to the cemetery where his mother had been buried.
He was right, the poor boy! There nothing had been changed, only the grass had grown; it grows so rapidly in cemeteries that there was some chance even that he would not be able to recognize his mother’s grave. Fortunately, at the same time that the grass had grown, a branch of a weeping-willow which Pitou had planted had, in three years, become a tree. He went straight to the tree and kissed the earth which it overshadowed, with the same instinctive piety with which he had kissed the feet of the figure of Christ.
When he rose from the ground, he felt the branches of the willow, agitated by the wind, waving around his head.
He then stretched out his arms, and clasping the branches, pressed them to his heart.
It was as if he was holding the hair of his mother, which he was embracing for the last time.
The two youths remained a considerable time by the side of this grave, and evening was approaching.
It was necessary that they should leave it,—the only thing that appeared to have any remembrance of Pitou.
When about to leave it, Pitou for a moment had the idea of breaking off a slip of the willow and placing it in his helmet; but just when he was raising his hand to do so, he paused.