He fell into a heavy sleep, during which his trouble swelled and burst within him, forced its way out, and took on form and feature.—The same vision constantly returned.
When he awoke, two hours later, he found his cheeks wet with tears and his hands over his face. Then he took pity upon himself, and, having begun to weep in his dream, he let the tears flow freely that he would have forced back had they sought an outlet on the previous day.
He deemed himself a miserable wretch, and wept over his fate, at first madly, convulsively, and then with joy, as if, in weeping, he had poured out all his sorrow forever. He wept to think that he was caught, powerless, between two contrary, irreconcilable things: that he wished for the one, and thirsted, against his will, for the other. He beat his hands upon the ground; he tore his cravat, which strangled him; he ground the reeds with his teeth, and cried aloud like a child,—he, an orphan:
“O God! my mother!”
And he would have wept on for a long while, perhaps, and emptied the springs of bitterness in his heart, had he not suddenly felt a warm caress—two soft, warm, moist caresses upon his cheek, his forehead, his closed eyes.
He half opened his eyelids and saw Blanchet standing beside him, touching his face with his pendant lip as he used to touch Livette’s hand when in search of a bit of sugar.
Another animal had imitated Blanchet; it was the dondaïre, Le Doux, the drover’s favorite, the leader of his drove of wild bulls and cows, whose bell he had not heard, but who had recognized his master.
The compassion of these two dumb animals aggravated Renaud’s bitter grief at first. Like children, who begin to howl as soon as you sympathize with them, he, when he found he was so wretched as to arouse the pity of beasts, cried aloud in his heart, but stifled the cry at his throat; then, touched at the sight of their kindly faces, and distracted thereby from his own thoughts, he became suddenly calm, sat up, put out his hand toward the muzzles of the powerful yet docile creatures, and spoke to them:
“Good fellows, good fellows! oh! yes, good fellows!”
Day began to break. And the great black bull and the white horse, both, as if in answer to the man and in answer likewise to the first gleam of returning day, which sent a thrill of delight over all the plain, stretched out their necks toward the east; and the neighing of the horse arose, loud and shrill as a flourish of trumpets, sustained by the bass of the bull’s bellowing.