"I am going to join him; and perhaps we shall return together."
She climbed the hill, and knelt at the foot of the tree where Clotilde died. She prayed to her mother to watch over her from on high, and to guide her in her journey. Then she descended the hill, in the direction of the town; she followed the road that he had taken, and wished that she could discover his footprints.
XXIII
SISTER ANNE'S JOURNEY.—THE FOREST
The dumb girl had begun her journey at daybreak; it was a cold but fine morning; a heavy frost had dried up the roads, frozen the streams, and checked the torrents. The fields were deserted; the peasants who were abroad wasted no time, but hastened to return to their cabins and sit down in front of the fireplace, where the stumps they had brought from the forest snapped and crackled. A bright fire enlivens the long winter evening, and the poor beggar, as he passes through a village, stops and gazes enviously at the flame that shines through a cottage window, overjoyed when he finds an opportunity to warm himself on the public square, before a bundle or two of straw which other poor wretches have set on fire.
It was only four hours since Sister Anne had set out, and her eyes were already struck by the novelty of what she saw. Having never seen anything besides her own cabin, her woods, and the village of Vizille, she paused in amazement before a forge, or a mill, or a country house, which seemed to her a very castle. Everything was new to her; but how was she to find her way in this world, which seemed to her so immense, how could she find that city which she could not name, and of which she did not even know the direction? Sometimes these thoughts made her heart sink; she would stop and look sadly about; then she would think of Frédéric, and resume her journey.
Toward midday, she arrived at a small hamlet, and knocked at the door of a peasant's cottage; it was opened by a young woman, who was nursing one child, while four others played about her, and an old woman kindled the fire with an armful of dry branches she had just brought from the woods.
"What do you want, my good woman?" asked the young mother. Sister Anne gazed at the picture before her, and could not take her eyes from the child at its mother's breast. A gleam of joy lighted up her face; one could see that she was thinking at that moment:
"I will nurse my child, too; I will carry him at my bosom and receive his caresses."
"Why don't you say what you want?" said the old woman, without taking her eyes from the fire.
"Oh! see how pale she is, mother!" said the younger woman; "and how she seems to be suffering! To think of such a young thing, and so near her time, travelling about when it's as cold as this!—You are going to join your husband, I suppose?"