The Bagpipers

by George Sand

Just then my aunt took Huriel apart, and bringing him close into my neighborhood said to him, "I want you to drink a glass of wine to my health, for it does my heart good to see your fine dancing, which stirred up the company and made the wedding go off so well."

Huriel seemed not to like to leave Brulette even for a moment, but the mistress of the house was very peremptory, and he could not help showing her civility. They sat down at an empty table, with a candle between them, face to face. My aunt Marghitonne was, as I told you, a very small woman who had never been a fool. She had the drollest little face you ever saw, very fair and very rosy, though she was in the fifties and had brought fourteen children into the world. I have never seen such a long nose as hers, with very small eyes sunken each side of it, sharp as gimlets, and so bright and mischievous that one couldn't look into them without wishing to laugh and chatter.

I saw, however, that Huriel was on his guard and was cautious about the wine she poured out for him. He seemed to feel there was something quizzical and inquisitive about her, and without knowing why, he put himself on the defence. My aunt, who since early morning had not stopped talking and moving about, had a very pretty taste for good wine, and had scarcely drunk a glass or two when the end of her long nose grew as red as a haw, and her broad mouth, with its rows of narrow white teeth (enough to furnish three ordinary mouths), began to smile from ear to ear. However, she was not at all upset as to judgment, for no woman could be gay without freedom and mischievous without spite better than she.

"Well, now, my lad," she said, after some general talk which served only to lead up to her object, "here you are, for good and all, pledged to our Brulette. You can't go back now, for what you wished has happened; everybody is talking, and if you could hear, as I do, what is being said on all sides you would find that they have saddled you with the past as well as the future of my pretty niece."

I saw that the words drove a knife into Huriel's heart, and knocked him from the stars into the brambles; but he put a good face upon the matter and answered, laughing: "I might wish, my good lady, to have had her past, for everything about her is beautiful and good; but as I can have her future only I expect to share it with the good God."

"And right you are," returned my aunt, laughing still and looking closely at him with her little green eyes, which were very near-sighted, so that she seemed about to prick his forehead with the sharp end of her nose. "When people love they should love right through, and not be repelled by anything."

"That is my intention," said Huriel, in a curt tone, which did not disconcert my aunt.

"And that's all the more to your credit," she continued, "because poor Brulette has more virtue than property. You know, I suppose, that you could put her dowry into that glass, and there are no louis d'or to her account."

"Well, so much the better," said Huriel, "the reckoning is the sooner made; I don't like to spend my time doing sums."

"And besides," said my aunt, "a child already weaned is less trouble in a household, especially if the father does his duty, as I'll warrant he will in this case."