Catherine gave an almost imperceptible shrug of her shoulders.
She had no good reasons to give to Pitou, and nevertheless it was evident that his pertinacity fatigued her.
Therefore, breaking off the conversation:—
“Enough of this, Monsieur Pitou,” said she; “I am going to La Ferté-Milon.”
“Then I will run and saddle your horse, Mademoiselle Catherine.”
“By no means; on the contrary, remain where you are.”
“You refuse, then, to allow me to accompany you?”
“Remain here,” said Catherine, imperatively.
Pitou remained as if nailed to the spot, holding down his head and restraining a tear, which seared his eyelids as if it had been molten lead.
Catherine left Pitou where he was, went out, and ordered one of the farm-servants to saddle her horse.
“Ah!” murmured Pitou, “you think me changed, Mademoiselle Catherine; but it is you who are so, and much more changed than I am.”
Chapter XXXI
What decided Pitou to leave the Farm and return to Haramont, his real and only Country
DAME BILLOT, resigned without affectation to undertake the functions of an upper servant, had, without ill-humor, and with good-will, resumed her occupations. Movement, which had for an instant been suspended throughout the agricultural hierarchy, soon returned; and the farm once more resembled the interior of a humming and industrious hive.
While they were getting her horse ready, Catherine re-entered the house; she cast a glance at Pitou, whose body remained motionless, but whose head turned like a weather-cock, following each movement which the young girl made until she went upstairs to her own room.
“What is it Catherine has gone to her room for?” said Pitou to himself.
Poor Pitou! what had she gone there for? She went there to dress her hair, to put on a clean cap and a pair of finer stockings.
Then, when this supplementary toilet was completed, as she heard her horse pawing the ground beneath the window, she came down, kissed her mother, and set out.
Reduced to positive idleness, and feeling but ill-assured from a slight glance, half-indifferent, half-compassionate, which Catherine had addressed to him as she left the door, Pitou could not endure to remain in such a state of anxious perplexity.
Since Pitou had once more seen Catherine, it appeared to him that the life of Catherine was absolutely necessary to him.
And besides, in the depths of his heavy and dreaming mind, something like a suspicion came and went with the regularity of the pendulum of a clock.
It is the peculiar property of ingenuous minds to perceive everything in equal degree. These sluggish natures are not less sensible than others; they feel, but they do not analyze.
Analysis is the habit of enjoying and suffering; a man must have become, to a certain degree, habituated to sensations to see their ebullition in the depth of that abyss which is called the human heart.
There are no old men who are ingenuous.
When Pitou had heard the horse’s footsteps at a certain distance from the house, he ran to the door. He then perceived Catherine, who was going along a narrow crossroad, which led from the farm to the high-road to La Ferté-Milon, and terminated at the foot of a hill, whose summit was covered by a forest.
From the threshold of the door, he breathed forth an adieu to the young girl, which was replete with regret and kindly feeling.
But this adieu had scarcely been expressed by his hand and heart when Pitou reflected on one circumstance.
Catherine might have forbidden him to accompany her, but she could not prevent him from following her.
Catherine could, if she pleased, say to Pitou, “I will not see you;” but she could not very well say to him, “I forbid your looking at me.”
Pitou therefore reflected that as he had nothing to do, there was nothing in the world to prevent him from gaining the wood and keeping along the road which Catherine was going; so that without being seen, he would see her from a distance through the trees.
It was only a league and a half from the farm to La Ferté-Milon. A league and a half to go there, and a league and a half to return. What was that to Pitou?