The Bagpipers

by George Sand

"Yes," I replied, "but I don't dream of it any longer."

"Well for you!" said Joseph; "for you could never have been happy with her. She has tastes and ideas which don't belong to the ground she has grown in; she needs another wind to rock her; the one that blows here is not pure enough and it might wither her. She feels all this, though she may not know how to say it; and I tell you that unless Huriel is treacherous, I shall find her still free, a year or two hence."

So saying, Joseph, as if wearied out by letting himself talk so much, dropped his head on his pillow and went to sleep. For the last hour I had been struggling to keep awake, for I was tired out myself. I slept soundly, and when at daybreak I called him he did not answer. I looked about, and he was gone without awaking any one.

Brulette went the next day to see Mariton, to break the news to her, and find out what had passed between her and her son. She would not let me accompany her, and told me on her return that she could not get Mariton to say much, because her master Benoît was ill and even in some danger from congestion of the brain. I concluded, therefore, that the woman, being obliged to nurse her master, had not had time to talk with her son as much as he would have liked, and consequently he had become jealous, as his nature led him to be at such times.

"That is very likely," said Brulette, "for the wiser Joseph gets through ambition the more exacting he becomes. I think I liked him better when he was simple and submissive as he used to be."

When I related to Brulette all that he had said to me the night before, she replied: "If he really has so high an ambition, we should only hamper him by showing an anxiety he does not wish for. Leave him in God's care! If I were the flirt you declared I was in former times, I should be proud to be the cause of his endeavoring to improve his mind and his career; but I am not; and my feeling is chiefly regret that he does nothing for his mother or himself."

"But isn't he right when he says that you can only choose between Huriel and him?"

"There is time enough to think about that," she said, laughing with her lips, though her face was not cheerful, "especially as the only two lovers Joseph allows me are running away as fast as their legs can go."

During the next week the arrival of the child which the monk had brought was the subject of village gossip and the torment of the inquisitive. So many tales were founded upon it that Charlot came near being the son of a prince, and every one wanted to borrow money of Père Brulet, or sell goods to him, convinced that the stipend which induced his granddaughter to take up a duty so contrary to her tastes must at least be a princely revenue. The jealousy of some and the discontent of others made the old man enemies, which he had never had in his life, and he was much astonished by it; for, simple, pious soul that he was, it had never occurred to him that the matter might give occasion for gossip. Brulette, however, only laughed and persuaded him to pay no attention to it.

Days and weeks went by and we heard nothing of Joseph, or of Huriel, or of the Woodsman and his daughter. Brulette wrote to Thérence and I to Huriel, but we got no answers. Brulette was troubled and even annoyed; so much so that she told me she did not mean to think anything more of those foreigners, who did not even remember her, and made no return for the friendship she had offered them. So she began once more to dress herself smartly and appear at the dances; for the gallants complained of her gloomy looks and the headaches she talked of ever since her trip to the Bourbonnais. The journey had been rather criticised; people even said she had some secret love over there, either for Joseph or for some one else; and they expected her to be more amiable than ever, before they would forgive her for going off without a word to any one.