The Bagpipers

by George Sand

In what I have said of Joseph you will readily see that he could not please the girls. Indeed, they never looked at him, except to wonder why they never caught his eye, which was large and clear as an owl's and never seemed to see anything.

Yet I was always jealous of him, because Brulette paid him more attention than she gave to any one else, and obliged me to do the same. She no longer lectured him, and openly accepted his temper as God made it, without getting angry or seeming at all annoyed. She forgave him his want of gallantry, and even politeness,—two things which she exacted from the rest of us. He might do all sorts of stupid things,—such as sit down on a chair if she left it for a moment, and oblige her to find another; or neglect to pick up her balls of wool when they rolled away; or break a bodkin or some other sewing utensil,—he might do all such things, and she would never say an impatient word to him; whereas she scolded and ridiculed me if I did a tenth part of them.

Then, she took care of him as if he were a brother. She kept a bit of meat put by for him when he came to see her, and made him eat it whether he was hungry or not, telling him he ought to strengthen his stomach and make blood. She had an eye to his clothes just like Mariton, and even took upon herself to make him new ones, saying that his mother had not time to cut and sew them. Sometimes she would lead her cattle to pasture over where he was at work, and talked to him; though he talked very little, and very badly when he tried to do so.

Besides all this, she would not allow any one to treat him with contempt, or to make fun of his melancholy face and his staring eyes. To all such remarks she replied that his health was not good; also that he was not more stupid than other people; if he talked little, it was not that he did not think; and, in short, that it was better to be silent than to talk a great deal with nothing to say.

Sometimes I was tempted to contradict her; but she quickly cut me short by saying,—

"You must have a very bad heart, Tiennet, to abandon that poor lad to the jeers of others, instead of defending him when they torment him. I thought better of you than that."

Then of course I did her will, and defended Joseph; though for my part I could not see what illness or affliction he had, unless laziness and distrust were infirmities of nature,—which might be possible; though it certainly seemed to me in the power of man to subdue them.

On his side, Joseph, without showing an aversion for me, treated me just as coldly as he did the rest, and never appeared to remember the assistance he got from me in his various encounters. Whether he cared for Brulette, like all the others, or whether he cared only for himself, he smiled in a strange manner and with an air of contempt whenever she gave me the most trifling mark of friendship.

One day, when he had pushed the thing so far as to shrug his shoulders, I resolved to have an explanation with him,—as quietly as possible, so as not to displease my cousin, but frankly enough to make him feel that if I put up with him in her presence with great patience, I expected him to treat me in the same way. But as on that occasion a number of Brulette's other lovers were present, I put off doing this until the first time I should find him alone. Accordingly, I went the next day to join him in a field where he was at work.

I was a good deal surprised to find Brulette with him, sitting on the roots of a big tree by the side of a ditch, where he was supposed to be cutting brush to make pegs. But in fact he was cutting nothing at all; though by way of work he was whittling something which he quickly put in his pocket as soon as he saw me, closing his knife and beginning to talk as if I had been his master and had caught him in a fault, or as if he had been saying secret things to my cousin which I had interrupted.