Part 10 (1/2)

Renaud mounted Blanchet once more, but he was moved to pity for him.

And the horse, sometimes letting himself slide upon his shoeless feet, his four legs perfectly stiff, sometimes putting one foot before the other, testing the ground, which was firm and hard beneath his weight, but soft beneath his sharp, scaly hoof, carried him at last away from the clayey tract.

Pity and remorse at once were awakened in Renaud's heart by Livette's horse.

What right had he, the drover, to ruin the favorite steed of his darling fiancee in the service of his pa.s.sion for a witch?

So Renaud dismounted, removed Blanchet's saddle and bridle, and said to him: ”Go! do what you will.” Then he cut a bundle of reeds with which he made himself a bed, and lay upon his back, with his saddle under his head and a handkerchief over his face, waiting for dawn.

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 G.o.d! 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 _dondare_, 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 compa.s.sion 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 ba.s.s of the bull's bellowing.

Instantly a chorus of neighs and bellows arose on all sides of Renaud.

His free drove had pa.s.sed the night in the neighborhood. He was surrounded by the familiar forms of his own beasts.

They came at the call of Blanchet and Le Doux and the drover's voice.

The mares were white as salt. Some of them came trotting up, some galloping, some followed by their foals; and pa.s.sed their heads between the reeds, peered curiously in, and stood there,--or else, with a cunning air, set off again, as who should say: ”There's the tamer, let us be off!” And there was a great kicking and flinging of heels away from the man's side.

Some bulls, thin, nervous black fellows, whipping their sides with their long tails, also came up, took alarm, remembering that they had been punished for some shortcoming, and, turning tail, decamped in the same way, and when they were out of sight, suddenly stopped.

But as the _dondare_ remained there, few of the horses and cattle left the spot.

Some, the oldest or the wisest, slowly a.s.sumed a kneeling posture, as if to resume their interrupted repose, then, scenting the approaching sun, wound their tongues about the tufts of salt gra.s.s, drew them into their mouths and chewed placidly, while the silvery foam fell from their muzzles.

Others, in the same posture, lazily licked their sides. A mother, nursing her calf, watched him with a calm, gentle eye.

Here a stallion drew near a mare, reached her side in two bounds, with tail in air and bristling mane, and bold, sonorous, trumpet-like call--then reared, and when the mare leaped aside, bit at her and with a sudden sidewise movement dodged the kick she aimed at him.

More than one bull, too, paid court to the other s.e.x, rose clumsily on his hind legs, only to fall again on his four feet, with nothing beneath him.

The awakening of the drove was not complete. The animals were still dull and heavy. They were awaiting the coming of the sun.