'Ragu, Ragu, it is you!' Bonnaire repeated.
The other already had his staff in his hand, his wallet on his shoulder. But as he was recognised why should he go off? It was certain now that he had not mistaken his road.
'It's me, sure enough, my old Bonnaire,' he replied; 'and since you are still alive, though you are ten years older than I, I have certainly a right to be alive also—though it's true that I'm very battered.'
Then, in the jeering tone of former times, he resumed: 'So you give me your word for it, that splendid big garden yonder, with those pretty houses, is really Beauclair? Well, since I've got here, I've only to look for an inn where they'll let me sleep in a corner of the stables.'
Why had he come back? What plans were rife under that bald skull, behind that wrinkled face, ravaged by so many years of evil and vagabond life? Bonnaire, who grew more and more anxious, could already picture Ragu disturbing the festival on the morrow by some scandal or other. He dared not question him at once, but he felt that it would be best to have him in his charge. Moreover, he was full of pity; his heart was quite stirred at finding the unhappy man in such a state of destitution.
'There are no more inns,' he answered; 'you will have to come to my place. You'll be able to eat as much as you like there, and you will sleep in a comfortable bed. Then we can have a chat. You'll tell me what you want, and I'll help you to content yourself if possible.'
But Ragu jeered again: 'Oh! what I want,' he retorted—'why, the wishes of an old beggar like me, more or less infirm, are of no account at all. What I want, indeed! Why, I wanted to see you all again, to give a glance in passing at the place where I was born. The idea worried me, and I shouldn't have died easy in mind if I hadn't come for a stroll in this direction. That's a thing anybody may do, isn't it? The roads are still free.'
'No doubt.'
'Well, so I started—oh! years ago. When a man's got bad legs and never a copper, he doesn't make much progress. All the same, one reaches one's destination at last, since here I am. And, it's understood, let's go to your place, since you offer me hospitality like a good comrade.'
The night was falling, and the two old men were able to cross new Beauclair without being remarked. On the way Ragu's astonishment increased; he glanced to right and to left, but could not recognise a single spot. At last, when Bonnaire stopped before one of the most charming of the dwellings, a house standing amidst a clump of fine trees, an exclamation escaped Ragu, showing that he still retained his ideas of former times: 'What! you've made your fortune; you've become a bourgeois now!'