It is only man who receives nothing! Neither his labour, nor his foresight, nor his courage can preserve him from misfortune; his fellow beings are often his worst enemies and his old age is often the extreme of misery. Such is our share of existence.
Some people would like to change these things, but no one has the courage and the good sense which are necessary.
Finally, at nightfall we separated, to think over, each alone in his corner, the terrible blow that had overwhelmed us.
XIX
On the following day, which was the first of November, at dawn, I set out for Graufthal. I had put on my blouse, my thick shoes, and my felt hat. The trees along the roadside were bending under their covering of frost; occasionally a blackbird or a thrush would rise from under the white brushwood, uttering its cry, as if to bid me farewell. I have often thought of it since; I was on the path of exile, George; it was only beginning, and extended very far.
Towards seven o'clock I arrived under the large rocks, where the most wretched huts in the village were situated—the others were built along the banks of the river—and I stopped before that of Father Ykel. I went through the kitchen into the smoky little parlour of the inn. Nothing was stirring; I thought I was alone and I was about to call, when I saw Ykel, sitting behind the stove, his short black pipe, with a copper cover, between his teeth, and his cotton cap pushed over one ear; he did not move, as he had had, a few weeks before, an attack of rheumatism, brought on by his long fishing excursions among the mountain streams, and also at night by torchlight, amid the mists.
The valley had never known such a fisher; he sold crawfish and trout to the great hotels of Strasbourg. Unhappily, as we all have to pay for our imprudences, sooner or later, he had been attacked by the rheumatism, and now all he could do was to sit and think about the best places in the river and the great hauls he used to make.
When I discovered him, his little green eyes were already fixed upon me.
"Is it you, Father Frederick?" he said. "What is your business here among these rascals who are robbing us? If I were you, I would stay quietly in the forest; the wolves are much better neighbours."
"We cannot always do as we like," I answered. "Are your three upper rooms still empty, and have you room enough in your stable for two cows?"