At length the hour of return arrived, and in order to celebrate this return the Inspector had given permission for a wild boar to be killed. It was with this intention that François had got up at three in the morning, headed off the beast, and made his report to old Guillaume, that the latter had gone in person to verify the report, that the keepers of the sub-district of Chavigny, the natural helpers and sworn allies of the inhabitants of the Maison Neuve, had arranged a meeting at the Saut du Cerf, and that Bernard, dreaming the sweetest dream at the idea of this return, had come down combed, curled, titivated and a glad smile on his face when the letter placed before his eyes by Mathieu Goguelue had suddenly changed this smile into a frown and this joy into disquietude.

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE PARISIAN.

  AS a matter of fact Bernard had recognized in the address of the letter the writing of a young man called Louis Chollet, the son of a wood-merchant in Paris, who had come to dwell two years before this date in the house of a Monsieur Raisin, the leading timber-merchant of Villers-Cotterets, and at the same time Maire of the town.

  He was there learning the practical side of his trade, that is to say he was filling the post of first salesman with Monsieur Raisin; just as in Germany, and more especially on the banks of the Rhine, the sons of the most important hotel-keepers take the position of head-waiters in the establishments of their father’s colleagues in other cities.

  Chollet senior was very rich, and allowed his son for pocket money 500 francs a month. With 500 francs a month at Villers-Cotterets one can keep a tilbury, a riding horse and a carriage-horse. Moreover, and more especially when one gets one’s clothes made in Paris, and one can have one’s tailor paid out of the paternal till, one becomes the king of provincial fashion. That was what had occurred in the case of Louis Chollet. Young, rich, a handsome fellow, accustomed to Parisian life, whose facile amours had given him that notion of women which young men acquire who have never known anything else but grisettes or cocottes, Chollet had come to think that nothing in petticoats could by any manner of means resist his fascinations.

  So on his arrival and on the very first Sunday, thinking that, thanks to his coat cut in the latest fashion, his trousers of a tender and delicate hue, his open-worked shirt and his gold watch with its countless trinkets, he would only have, like another Soliman, to fling his handkerchief, he had presented himself in the dancing saloon, and having made an examination of all the young ladies, had flung the handkerchief to Catherine Blum.

  Unfortunately he had met the same rebuff as had three centuries before befallen the illustrious Soldan to whom we have had the honour to compare him; the handkerchief was not lifted up any more by the modern Roxana than by the Roxana of the middle ages, and the Parisian (such was the nickname with which the new-comer had been baptized) had been labouring in vain.

  Moreover, as the Parisian had paid marked attention to Catherine, Catherine had not appeared at the dance on the following Sunday. And this was done in quite a natural way. She had read in Bernard’s eyes the disquietude which the assiduity of the budding salesman had caused Bernard, and she had proposed to her cousin to go and pass the next Sunday at the Maison Neuve — a proposal that he accepted with enthusiasm — her cousin remaining at home, instead of spending that day at Villers-Cotterets, as he had been accustomed to do ever since Catherine had come to town. But the Parisian had not regarded himself as beaten; he had ordered shirts from Mademoiselle Rigolot, then handkerchiefs, then collars, and this had given him many occasions of seeing her — occasions on which she displayed the utmost politeness as first saleswoman, and the utmost coldness as a woman. These visits of the Parisian to Mademoiselle Rigolot’s — visits which were obvious in their intent — had much alarmed Bernard. But how to prevent them? The future wood-merchant was the sole and unique judge of the number of shirts, handkerchiefs, and collars that he needed, and if it was his pleasure to have twenty-four dozen shirts, forty-eight dozen handkerchiefs and six hundred collars, that was no business of Bernard Watrin’s.

  Besides it was his right to order his shirts one by one and his handkerchiefs and his collars one by one, a fact which allowed of entering Mademoiselle Rigolot’s shop 365 times a year!

  From this number of days however we must subtract the Sundays, not that Mademoiselle Rigolot shut her shop on Sundays, but every Saturday at eight o’clock at night Bernard came for his cousin, whom he brought back every Monday at eight in the morning. And it was noteworthy that the moment this custom was known by the Parisian, the latter had never once had the idea of ordering anything on Sunday from Mademoiselle Rigolot, or so much as inquiring on that day whether the articles ordered by him during the week were ready.

  It was during this time that the proposal to send Catherine to Paris had proceeded from Mademoiselle Rigolot — a proposal which, as was said before, had been favourably received by Guillaume and his wife and to which Bernard would have offered much more resistance, had he not considered that the execution of this project put seventy-two kilometres between the detested Louis Chollet and the beloved Catherine Blum.

  This idea had so far as Bernard was concerned softened the pain of separation.

  But although there was no railway at that epoch, seventy-two kilometres were no hindrance for a lover, more especially when that lover, being an amateur salesman, had no need to ask leave of his employer and possessed 500 francs a month of pocket money.

  The result was that for the two journeys that Bernard had made to Paris in the space of eighteen months, Chollet, who was master of his own actions and who cashed every 30th of the month the same sum as poor Bernard pocketed on the 365th day of the year, the result was, I say, that for these two journeys Chollet made twelve. Another remarkable thing was that ever since Catherine’s departure for Paris Ghollet had ceased to buy shirts at Mademoiselle Rigolot’s, Place de la Fontaine at Villers-Cotterets, and bought them in Paris from Madame Cretté and Company, 15, Rue Bourg l’Abbé.

  Of course Catherine had immediately put Bernard in possession of this knowledge, which had considerable importance for Mademoiselle Rigolot, but much more for him. Now the human heart is so made that though he was sure of the feeling which his cousin had vowed him, this courtship of the Parisian did not fail to alarm him. A score of times he had had the idea of picking a good quarrel with Louis Chollet — one of those differences which are ended by a sword-thrust or a pistol-shot; and as, thanks to his special opportunities of practice, Bernard wielded a pistol in first-class style, and as, thanks to one of his chums who had been fencing master in a line regiment, and who in a neighbourly way had given him as many lessons as he chose to take, he handled the rapier very prettily, the matter pushed to its final consequences would only have moderately disquieted him. But how to pick a quarrel with a man with whom he had had no disagreement; a man who was polite towards everybody and more particularly with him? The thing was impossible.

  He had to bide his time. Bernard had bided it for eighteen months and during these eighteen months it had never offered. But now on the very day on which Catherine Blum was to return he was given a letter addressed to the girl and he recognized that the address was written in his rival’s hand. One can therefore understand the excitement and paleness which had seized Bernard at the mere sight of this letter. He turned it over and over, as we have said, in his hand, drew out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. Then, as if thinking he might have need once more of his handkerchief, he kept it under his left arm instead of putting it in his pocket and with the air of a man who takes a great resolution he unsealed the letter. Mathieu looked at him doing so with his wicked smile and, perceiving that he became paler and paler as he read on, he cried:

  “Look you, Monsieur Bernard, that is just what I told myself when I took that letter out of Pierre’s pocket.... I said: ‘Well, well, now I must be off and enlighten Monsieur Bernard as to the goings on of this Parisian and at the same time I shall get Pierre dismissed his place,’ and so it happened, when Pierre came and said he had lost the letter — the ass, as if he could not have said he had put it in the post, eh? That would have had this advantage, that the Parisian thinking that the first had gone would not have written a second and consequently Mademoiselle Catherine would not have received it, and not having received it would not have answered it!”

  At that moment, Bernard, who was reading the letter through for the second time, interrupted himself and shouted: “How do you mean, ‘answered,’ you wretch! Catherine answered the Parisian’s letter?”

  “Oh, oh,” said Mathieu, protecting his cheek with his hand for fear of a sound box on the ear. “I don’t exactly say that.”

  “What do you say, then?”

  “I say that Mademoiselle Catherine is a woman and that sin always tempts a daughter of Eve.”

  “I ask you positively if Catherine answered, do you understand, Mathieu?”

  “Perhaps yes, and perhaps no. But you know, don’t you, that silence gives consent.”

  “Mathieu!” cried the young man, making a threatening gesture.

  “In any case he was to have started this morning to meet her with the tilbury.”

  “Did he start?”

  “How do I know,” said Mathieu, “since I slept in the bakehouse! But would you like to know?”

  “Yes, certainly I should.”

  “Well. That’s easy. If you inquire at Villers-Cotterets of the first person you meet: ‘Has Louis Chollet been seen going in the direction of Gondreville with his tilbury? ‘you will get the answer, yes.”

  “Yes! Then he has been?”

  “Yes and no. I am an imbecile, as you know — I tell you he was to have gone. I don’t say he went.”

  “But how can you know that? “(As a matter of fact the letter had been unsealed and resealed.)

  “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps the Parisian opened it again to write a P.S.”

  “So it wasn’t you who unsealed the letter and then resealed it?”

  “What would have been the use? Can I read? Am I not a brute beast that could never for the life of him learn his A B C?”

  “That’s true,” muttered Bernard; “but tell me, how do you know he was to go and meet her?”

  “Oh! he told me, you know; ‘Mathieu,’ said he, ‘we must have the nag dressed down bright and early; I’m off at six o’clock in the morning in the tilbury, to meet Catherine.’”

  “Did he say Catherine right out, like that?”

  “Oh! he made no bones about that, I warrant you.”

  “Ha!” growled Bernard, “I only wish I’d been there, to hear the brute say it!”

  “Yes indeed! you would have given him a clout on the head, as you did me... or rather, you wouldn’t have, — not you!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you shoot straight, that’s true enough, but then there are plenty of trees in Monsieur Raisin’s wood-yard all pitted with pistol-balls to prove he’s not a bad hand neither... because you are a tidy swordsman, true for you, but he had a bout the other day with the Sub-Inspector, an old Lifeguardsman, and he gave him a fine dance, they do tell me!”

  “So!” cried Bernard, “so you think that would have stopped me, eh?”

  “I don’t say that, no! but you would have thought twice before you struck the Parisian; he’s not like poor Mathieu Goguelue, just as defenceless as a child.”

  A good-natured impulse, a feeling of compassion and almost of shame, stirred in Bernard’s heart, and holding out his hand to Mathieu, “Forgive me,” he said, “I did wrong.” Mathieu put his chilly, trembling hand in Bernard’s. “And yet... and yet...” resumed Bernard, “and yet you don’t like me, you know you don’t, Mathieu!”

  “God Almighty!” protested the vagabond, “how can you say such a thing, Monsieur Bernard?”

  “Not to mention that you tell a lie every time you open your mouth.”

  “Well, well!” retorted Mathieu, “granted I told a lie... What is it to me, after all, whether the Parisian is, or is not, Mademoiselle Catherine’s sweetheart, and whether he goes to meet her in his tilbury, or whether he doesn’t, now that Monsieur Raisin, who does whatever Monsieur Chollet tells him, in hopes the man will marry his daughter Euphrosine, has sent old Pierre about his business, and taken me on in his place?... It will be just as well for me, I own freely, if they don’t find” out it was I who, out of devotion to you, took the letter out of the old chap’s pocket. He has a vile temper, has master Pierre, the sly old devil! — and when the hunt is up, why! you know, Monsieur Bernard, we must ware the boar’s tushes!”

  Bernard, buried in his own thoughts and crumpling the letter meantime between his fingers, nevertheless heard plainly enough what Mathieu was saying, though no one would have supposed so. Suddenly, turning upon him and slapping the letter against his thigh:

  “Well, Mathieu, I must say, you are a...”

  “Oh! out with it, Monsieur Bernard,” put in Mathieu, “out with it; it’s always bad to keep a thing in!”

  “You are a scoundrel!” said Bernard; “get out of the house with you!”

  And he took a step towards the vagabond to push him out by main force. But as his way was, Mathieu made no sort of resistance; Bernard’s one step in advance he answered by two in the opposite direction.

  Then retiring backwards, glancing over his shoulder the while so as not to miss the door.

  “Maybe, it would pay you better to thank me differently; but there! it is your way.... Every man to his taste, as they say. Till we meet again, Monsieur Bernard! till we meet again...!”

  Then having finally reached the door, he cried in a tone in which was concentrated all the bitterness of hi3 hatred, old and new alike:

  “Do you hear, I say? Till we meet again! “And quickening his gait, usually so slow and heavy, he jumped the ditch dividing the high road from the forest, and diving under the shade of the great trees, disappeared from view.

  CHAPTER VII.

  JEALOUSY.

  BUT the eye of Bernard, instead of following Mathieu, as he thus retreated with threats and menaces, had already returned to the letter.

  “Yes,” he muttered, “I quite understand his writing the letter; those Parisians, they stick at nothing. But that she should come back exactly the way he points out or accept a place in his tilbury is what I cannot believe. Ah! pardieu! so there you are, François! Welcome! welcome!”

  These words were addressed to the young keeper who now opened Père Guillaume’s door, as he opened the commencement of the present story.

  “Yes, it is I,” said he, “Faith, I came to see whether you were not dead of a stroke by now.”

  “No, not yet,” said Bernard, a smile curling his lip.

  “Then let us be off,” said François. “Bobineau, La Feuille, Lajeunesse and Berthelin are at the Stag’s Leap by now, and if Daddy Grumbler finds us here when he comes home, it is we shall catch it worse than the boar.”

  “Meanwhile come here!” said Bernard.

  These words were uttered in a harsh and imperious tone which was so little Bernard’s way that François looked at him in wonder. But noting at once the pallor of his face, the disturbance of his countenance and the letter he held in his hand and which seemed to be the cause of the alteration that had taken place in the look and manners of the young man, he came forward, half smiling, half uneasy, and putting his hand to his cap like a soldier saluting his superior officer, said, “Here, sir!”

  Bernard, seeing his eyes fixed on the letter, hastily put the hand that held it behind his back, and laying the other on François’ shoulder said, “What do you think of the Parisian?”

  “The young man who is at M. Raisin, the timber-merchant’s?”

  “Yes.”

  François tossed his head and gave an approving click of the tongue.

  “I say that he is well dressed, and always in the latest fashion apparently.”

  “His clothes are not the question.”

  “His looks, then? Well, he is a good-looking fellow, I cannot say otherwise.” And he made a gesture of appreciation.

  “I am not speaking of him from the physical point of view,” said Bernard impatiently. “I am speaking of his morals.”

  “His morals?” cried François, showing by his tone of voice that as soon as it was a question of morality his opinion would be totally changed.

  “Yes, his morals,” repeated Bernard.

  “Well,” replied François, “I think that in point of morals he would never put himself out to find the trail of Mother Watrin’s cow, if she was lost in Meutard meadows. And yet a cow leaves a fine trail behind her.”

  “Yes, but he is quite good for marking down a doe, putting her up and following her till she is caught, especially if the said pretty doe wears a bonnet and a petticoat!”

  François’ face at this suggestion assumed an expression of approving jocularity which there was no mistaking.

  “Oh, upon my word, he has the name of being a rare sportsman in that line!”

  “Be it so,” rejoined Bernard, clenching his fist, “but don’t let him come trespassing on my land, or let the poacher beware!”

  He had spoken these words so menacingly that François glanced at him in alarm.

  “Why,” said he, “what is the matter?”

  “Come nearer,” said Bernard.

  The young man complied. Bernard put his right arm round his companion’s neck, and placing Chollet’s letter before his eyes with his left hand asked, “What do you say to that letter?”

  François looked first at him, then at the letter, and at last read:

  “‘Dear Catherine,’ — Oh, your cousin, I suppose?”

  “Yes,” said Bernard.

  “Well, it seems to me it would not skin his mouth to call her Mademoiselle Catherine, like other people.”

  “Yes, to begin with. But wait, you have not finished.”