Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part three

Moreover, Catherine would get to the high-road by a line which formed an angle with the forest. By taking a straight direction, Pitou would gain a quarter of a league, so that the whole distance for him would be only two leagues and a half for the whole journey.

Two leagues and a half was a mere nothing of a walk for a man who appeared to have robbed Tom Thumb or to have at least pilfered the seven-league-boots which Tom had taken from the ogre.

Pitou had scarcely imagined this project before he put it into execution.

While Catherine was going towards the high-road, he, Pitou, stooping down behind the high waving corn, stole across to the forest.

In an instant he had reached the border of the wood; and once there, he jumped across the wide ditch which bounded it, then rushed beneath the trees, less graceful, but as rapid as a terrified deer.

He ran for a quarter of an hour in this way, and at the end of that time he perceived the wood becoming lighter, for he had nearly reached the opposite edge near the road.

There he stopped, leaning against an enormous oak, which completely concealed him behind its knotted trunk. He felt perfectly sure that he had got ahead of Catherine.

He waited ten minutes,—even a quarter of an hour,—but saw no one.

Had she forgotten something that she should have taken with her, and returned to the farm for it? This was possible.

With the greatest possible precaution, Pitou crept near the road, stretched out his head from behind a great beechtree, which grew upon the very edge of the ditch, belonging, as it were, half to the road, half to the forest. From this he had a good view of the plain, and could have perceived anything that was moving upon it; he, however, could discern nothing.

He felt assured, therefore, that Catherine must have returned to the farm.

Pitou retraced his steps. Either she had not yet reached the farm, and he would see her return to it, or she had reached it, and he would see her come out again.

Pitou extended the compass of his long legs, and began to remeasure the distance which separated him from the plain.

He ran along the sandy part of the road which was softer to his feet, when he suddenly paused.

Pitou had raised his eyes, and at the opposite end of the road he saw at a great distance, blending as it were with the blue horizon of the forest, the white horse and the red jacket of Catherine.

The pace of Catherine’s horse was an amble.

The horse, ambling along, had left the high-road, having turned into a bridle-path, at the entrance of which was a direction-post, bearing the following inscription:—

“Path leading from the road of La Ferté-Milon to Boursonne.”

It was, as we have said, from a great distance that Pitou perceived this, but we know that distance was of no consequence to Pitou.

“Ah!” cried he, again darting into the forest, “it is not then to La Ferté-Milon that she was going, but to Boursonne! And yet I am not mistaken; she said La Ferté-Milon more than ten times; she had a commission given to her to make purchases at La Ferté-Milon. Dame Billot herself spoke of La Ferté-Milon.”

And while saying these words, Pitou continued running. Pitou ran faster and faster still. Pitou ran like a madman.

For Pitou, urged on by doubt, the first symptom of jealousy, was no longer biped. Pitou appeared to be one of those winged machines, which Dædalus in particular, and the great mechanicians of antiquity in general, imagined so well, but, alas! executed so badly.

He greatly resembled at that moment those figures stuffed with straw, with long reed arms, placed over toyshops, which the wind keeps turning in every direction.

Arms, legs, head, all are in motion; all are turning; all seem to be flying.

Pitou’s immensely long legs measured paces of at least five feet, so widely could he distend them; his hands, like two broad bats at the end of two long sticks, struck upon the air like oars. His head—all mouth, all nostrils, and all eyes—absorbed the air, which it sent forth again in noisy breathing.