Part 4 (2/2)
But no; he stopped short after his bound, and again planted himself on the ground more energetically and more resolutely than the first time.
Ah, then I grew angry, and my whip came into play; I grasped it firmly and began to strike the horse with all my strength to the right and left. But Brutus, he too lost patience, and, instead of the cold and immovable opposition that at first he had shown, I met with furious retaliations, strange springs, bucking, extraordinary rearing, fantastic whirling; and in the midst of this battle, while the infatuated horse bounded and reared, while I, exasperated, struck with vigor the leather pommel with my broken whip, Brutus still found time to give me glances not only of surprise and impatience, but also of anger and indignation. While I was asking the horse for the obedience which he refused me, it is certain that he expected from me something that I was not doing.
”How did it end? To my shame, to my great shame, I was pitifully unhorsed by an incomparable feat! Brutus understood, I think, that he would not get the better of me by violence, and judged it necessary to try cunning; after a pause which was most certainly a moment of reflection, the horse rose up, head down, upright on his fore-feet, with the skill, the calm, and the perfect equilibrium of a clown who walks on his hands. Thus I tumbled into the sand, which, by good-luck, was thick in that spot.
”I tried to get up. I screamed and fell back ridiculously, flat on my stomach, on my nose. At the slightest movement I felt as though a knife ran through my left leg. It's a slight matter, however--the rupture of a slender sinew; but though slight, the injury was none the less painful.
I succeeded, nevertheless, in turning over and sitting up; but just when, while rubbing my eyes, filled with sand, I was beginning to ask myself what in the midst of this tumult had become of my miserable dapple-gray, I saw over my head a large horse's hoof descending. Then this large hoof pressed, with a certain gentleness, however, on my chest, and pushed me delicately back on the ground, on my back this time.
”I was greatly discouraged; and feeling incapable of another effort, I remained in that position, continuing to ask myself what sort of a horse I had bought at Cheri's, closing my eyes, and awaiting death.
”Suddenly I heard a curious trampling around me; a quant.i.ty of little hard things struck me on the face. I opened my eyes, and perceived Brutus, who, with his fore-feet and hind-legs, was trying with incredible activity and prodigious skill to bury me in the sand. He was doing his best, poor beast, and from time to time he stopped to gaze at his work; then, raising his head, he neighed and began his work again.
That lasted for a good three or four minutes, after which Brutus, judging me doubtless sufficiently interred, placed himself very respectfully on his knees before my tomb--on his knees, literally on his knees! He was saying, I suppose, a little prayer. I looked at him. It interested me extremely.
”His prayer finished, Brutus made a slight bow, went off a few steps, stopped, then, beginning to gallop, made at least twenty times the circuit of the open s.p.a.ce in the middle of which he had buried me.
Brutus galloped very well, with even stride, head well held, on the right foot, making around me a perfect circle. I followed him with my eyes, but it made me uneasy to see him go round and round and round. I had the strength to cry 'Stop! stop!' The horse stopped and seemed embarra.s.sed, without doubt asking himself what there was still to be done; but he perceived my hat, which in my fall had got separated from me, and at once made a new resolution: he walked straight to the hat, seized it in his teeth, and galloped off, this time by one of the six alleys that led from my tomb.
”Brutus got farther and farther away, and disappeared; I remained alone.
I was puzzled, positively puzzled. I shook off the little coating of dust which covered me, and without getting up, by the help of my two arms and right leg--to move my left leg was not to be thought of--I succeeded in dragging myself to a little gra.s.sy slope on the edge of one of the alleys. Once there, I could sit down, after a fas.h.i.+on, and I began to shout with all the strength of my lungs, 'Hi, there! hi! hi, there!' No answer. The woods were absolutely deserted and still. The only thing to be done was to wait till some one pa.s.sed by to aid me.
”For half an hour I had been in that hateful position when I perceived in the distance, at the very end of the same alley by which he had gone off, Brutus coming back, with the same long gallop he had used in going.
A great cloud of dust accompanied the horse. Little by little, in that cloud, I perceived a tiny carriage--a pony-carriage; then in that little pony-carriage a woman, who drove herself, and behind the woman a small groom.
”A few moments later Brutus, covered with foam, stopped before me, let my hat drop at my feet and neighed, as though to say, 'I've done my duty; here is help.' But I no longer bothered myself about Brutus and the explanations that he made me. My only thoughts were for the fairy who was to relieve me, and who, after lightly jumping from her little carriage, was coming quickly towards me. Besides, she, too, was examining me curiously, and all at once we both exclaimed, at the same time:
”'Mme. de Noriolis!'
”'M. de La Roche-Targe!'
”A little while ago George spoke to us of his aunt, and mentioned how she had married him quite young, at one stroke, without giving him time to reflect or breathe. I, too, have an aunt, and between us for a number of years there has been a perpetual battle. 'Marry.' 'I don't want to marry.' 'Do you want young girls? There is Mademoiselle A, Mademoiselle B, Mademoiselle C.' 'I don't want to marry.' 'Do you want widows? There is Madame D, Madame E, Madame F.' 'I don't want to marry.'
”Mme. de Noriolis figured always in the first rank in the series of widows, and I noticed that my aunt put stress, with evident favoritism, on all the good points and advantages that I should find in that marriage. She didn't have to tell me that Mme. de Noriolis was very pretty--any one could see that; or that she was very rich--I knew it already. But she explained to me that M. de Noriolis was an idiot, who had had the merit of making his wife perfectly miserable, and that thus it would be very easy for the second husband to make himself very much loved.
”Then, when she had discoursed at length on the virtues, graces, and merits of Mme. de Noriolis, my aunt, who is clever and knows my weakness, pulled out of her desk a topographical map, and spread it out with care on the table.
”It was the map of the district of Chatellerault, a very correct and minute map, that my aunt had gone herself to the military station to buy, with the view of convincing me that I ought to marry Mme. de Noriolis. The places of Noriolis and of La Roche-Targe were scarcely three kilometers apart in that map. My aunt, with her own hands, had drawn a line of red ink, and slily united the two places, and she forced me to look at her little red line, saying to me, 'Two thousand acres without a break, when the places of Noriolis and La Roche-Targe are united; what a chance for a hunter!'
”I closed my eyes, so strong was the temptation, and repeated my refrain, 'I don't want to marry.' But I was afraid, seriously afraid; and when I met Mme. de Noriolis I always saw her surrounded, as by a halo, by the little red line of my aunt, and I said to myself: 'A charming, and clever, and sensible woman, whose first husband was an idiot, and this and that, and two thousand acres without a break. Run away, wretch, run away, since you don't wish to marry.'
”And I ran away! But this time by what means could I run away? I was there, miserable, in the gra.s.s, covered with sand, with my hair in disorder, my clothes in rags, and my unfortunate leg stiff. And Mme. de Noriolis came nearer, looking spick and span--always in the halo of the little red line--and said to me:
”'You, M. de La Roche-Targe, is it you? What are you doing there? What has happened to you?'
”I frankly confessed my fall.
”'At least you are not wounded?'
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