The Bagpipers

by George Sand

"Tell me quick, my boy, if you have seen my children, or if you know whether they are here."

"They came this morning," I said, "and so did I and my cousin Brulette. Your daughter Thérence is in there, very quiet and tranquil, and my cousin is close by, at a wedding with your dear good son Huriel."

"Thank God, I am not too late!" said Père Bastien. "Joseph has gone on to Nohant expecting to find them there together."

"Joseph! Did he come with you? They did not expect you for five or six days, and Huriel told us—"

"Just see how matters turn out in this world," said Père Bastien, drawing me out on the road so as not to be overheard. "Of all the things that are blown about by the wind, the brains of lovers are the lightest! Did Huriel tell you all that relates to Joseph?"

"Yes, everything."

"When Joseph saw Thérence and Huriel starting for these parts, he whispered something in Huriel's ear. Do you know what he told him?"

"Yes, I know, Père Bastien, but—"

"Hush! for I know, too. Seeing that my son changed color, and that Joseph rushed into the woods in a singular way, I followed him and ordered him to tell me what secret he had just told Huriel. 'Master,' he replied, 'I don't know if I have done well or ill; but I felt myself obliged to do it; this is what it is, for I am also bound to tell you.' Thereupon he told me how he had received a letter from friends telling him that Brulette was bringing up a child that could only be her own. After telling me all this, with much suffering and anger, he begged me to follow Huriel and prevent him from committing a great folly and swallowing a bitter shame. When I questioned him as to the age of the child and he had read me the letter he carried with him, as though it were a remedy for his wounded love, I did not feel at all sure that it was not written to plague him,—more especially as the Carnat lad, who wrote the letter (in answer to a proposal of Joseph's to be properly admitted as a bagpiper in your parts), seemed to have an ill-natured desire to prevent his return. Besides, remembering the modesty and proper behavior of that little Brulette, I felt more and more persuaded that injustice was being done her; and I could not help blaming and ridiculing Joseph for so readily believing such a wicked story. Doubtless I should have done better, my good Tiennet, to have left him in the belief that Brulette was unworthy of his love; but I can't help that; a sense of justice guided my tongue, and prevented me from seeing the consequences. I was so displeased to hear an innocent young girl defamed that I spoke as I felt. It had a greater effect upon Joseph than I expected. He went instantly from one extreme to the other. Bursting into tears like a child, he let himself drop on the ground, tearing his clothes and pulling out his hair, with such anger and self-reproach that I had great trouble in pacifying him. Luckily his health has grown nearly as strong as yours; for a year sooner such despair, seizing him in this manner, would have killed him. I spent the rest of the day and all that night in trying to compose his mind. It was not an easy thing for me to do. On the one hand, I knew that my son had fallen in love with Brulette in a very earnest way from the day he first saw her, and that he was only reconciled to life after Joseph had given up a suit which thwarted his hopes. On the other hand, I have always felt a great regard for Joseph, and I know that Brulette has been in his thoughts since childhood. I had to sacrifice one or the other, and I asked myself if I should not do a selfish deed in deciding for the happiness of my own son against that of my pupil. Tiennet, you don't know Joseph, and perhaps you have never known him. My daughter Thérence may have spoken of him rather severely. She does not judge him in the same way that I do. She thinks him selfish, hard, and ungrateful. There is some truth in that; but what excuses him in my eyes cannot excuse him in those of a young girl like Thérence. Women, my lad, only want us to love them. They take into their hearts alone the food they live on. God made them so; and we men are fortunate if we are worthy to understand this."

"I think," I remarked to the Head-Woodsman, "that I do now understand it, and that women are very right to want nothing else of us but our hearts, for that is the best thing in us."