Part 11 (1/2)
So many of your wildly impulsive people repent them of their generosities as soon as the magnanimous fervour has cooled. The grandeur of Paragot lay in the fact that he never repented. He was fantastic, self-indulgent, wastrel, braggart, what you will; but he had an exaggerated notion of the value of every human soul save his own. The destiny of poor Blanquette was to him of infinitely more importance than that of the wayward genius that was Paragot. The pathos of his point of view had struck me, even as a child, when he discoursed on my prospects.
”I am Paragot, my son,” he would say, ”a film full of wind and wonder, fantasy and folly, driven like thistledown about the world. I do not count. But you, my little Asticot, have the Great Responsibility before you. It is for you to uplift a corner of the veil of Life and show joy to men and women where they would not have sought it. Work now and gather wisdom, my son, so that when the Great Day comes you may not miss your destiny.” And once, he added wistfully--”as I have missed mine.”
As Paragot decided that we should not start off then and there into the unknown but remain at the cafe until we had laid our plan of campaign, Blanquette took her valise into the house, and, for the rest of the day, busied herself in the kitchen with the _patronne_; Paragot drank with the villagers in the cafe; and I, when Thierry and Narcisse had given me all the companions.h.i.+p they had to offer, curled myself up on the mattress spread in a corner of the tiny _salle a manger_ and went to sleep.
The next morning Paragot awakened with an Idea. He would go to Aix-les-Bains which was close by, and would return in the evening. The nature of his errand he would not tell me. Who was I, little grey worm that I was, to question his outgoings and his incomings? The little grey worm would stay with Blanquette and Narcisse and see to it that they did not bite each other. I humbly accepted the rebuke and obeyed the behest.
The afternoon found the three of us in a field under a tree; Blanquette embracing her knees, and the dog asleep with his throat across her feet.
She was wearing her old cotton dress, and as she had been helping the _patronne_ all the morning, her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows displaying stout, stubby arms. The top b.u.t.ton of her bodice was open; she was bare-headed, but her hair, little deeper in shade than her tanned face and neck, was coiled neatly. Had it not been for the hard grip of the day before I should have jealously resented her admission into our vagabond fraternity. As it was, from the height of my sixteen-year-old masculinity I somewhat looked down upon her: not as poor Blanquette, the zither-playing vagrant; but as a girl. Could we, creation's lords, do with a creature of an inferior s.e.x in our wanderings? Could she perform our feats of endurance? I questioned her anxiously.
”_Moi?_” she laughed, ”I am as strong as any man. You will see.”
She leaped to her feet and, before I could protest, had picked me off the ground like a kitten and was tossing me in her arms.
”_Voila!_” she said, depositing me tenderly on the gra.s.s; and having collected the dislodged Narcisse she embraced her knees and laughed again. It was a kind honest laugh; a good-natured, big boy's laugh, coming full out of her eyes and shewing her strong white teeth. I lost the sense of insult in admiration of her strength.
”You should have been a boy, Blanquette,” said I.
She a.s.sented, acknowledging at once her inferiority and thus restoring my self respect.
”You are lucky, you, to be one. In this world the egg is for the men and the sh.e.l.l is for the women.”
”Why don't you cut off your hair and put on boy's clothes?” I asked.
”Then you would get the egg. No one could tell the difference.”
”You don't think I look like a woman? I? _Mon Dieu!_ Where are your eyes?”
She was actually indignant with me who had thought to please her: my first encounter with the bewildering paradox of woman.
”_Ah! mais non_,” she panted. ”I may be strong like a man, but _grace a Dieu_, I don't resemble one. Look.”
And she sat bolt upright, her hands at her waist developing her bust to its full extent. She was not _jolie, jolie_, she explained, but she was as solidly built as another; I was to examine myself and see how like I was to the flattest of boards. Routed I chewed blades of gra.s.s in silence until she spoke again.
”Tell me of the _patron_.”
”The _patron_?” I asked, puzzled.
”Yes--Monsieur--your master.”
”You must call him _maitre_,” said I, ”not _patron_.” For the _patron_ was any peddling ”boss,” the leader of a troupe of performing dogs or the miserable landlord of a village inn, Paragot a _patron_!
”I meant no harm. I have too much respect for him,” said Blanquette, humbly.
Again reinstated in my position of superiority I explained the Master to her feminine intelligence.
”He has been to every place in the world and knows everything that is to be known, and speaks every language that is spoken under the sun, and has read every book that ever was written, and I have seen him break a violin over a man's head.”