"It does not matter," said a second voice following hard on the first, "for I can go no further."
I jumped to my feet and my master started round in his chair. The first speaker was a girl, the second an old man. She had merely the comeliness of tanned and hair-bleached peasant youth; he was wizened, lined, browned and bent. A cotton umbrella shaded the girl's bare head and she carried in her hand a cane valise covered with grey canvas. The old man was burdened with two ancient shabby cases, one evidently containing a violin and the other some queerly shaped musical instrument. Both the new comers were wayworn and dirty, and my master seeing suffering on the old man's face rose and courteously offered him a chair.
"Sit down and rest," said he, "and Mademoiselle, you are thinking of going to Chambéry? But it is nearly a day's journey on foot."
"We have to play at a wedding tomorrow, Monsieur," said the girl piteously. "It was arranged two months ago, and we must get there in some manner."
"There is a railway station not far off," said I.
"Alas! we have only ten sous in the world, which is not enough to pay for our tickets," she answered. "Imagine, Monsieur, I had a piece of twenty francs in my pocket this morning, and I went to the station to get a ticket, for I had counted on going by railway, as my grandfather is so ill, and when I came to pay, I found I had lost my louis. How, the bon Dieu only knows. It is desolating, Monsieur; we had to walk so as to keep our engagement at Chambéry. If we miss it, nous sommes dans la purée pour tout de bon."
To be in the purée is to be in a very bad mess indeed. The prospect of abject pennilessness filled the damsel's eyes with woe.
"You earn your living by playing at weddings for folks to dance?" asked my master.
"Yes, Monsieur. My grandfather plays the violin and I the zither—we also go to fairs. In the winter we play at cafés in large towns. Life is hard, Monsieur, is it not?"
She closed her umbrella and laid it on the valise. The old man sat by the table, his head resting on his hands, saying nothing.