第36章

Once or twice in my hearing she had referred to "my rust-coloured hair" with laughing vexation.Even then it was unruly, abhorring the restraints of civilization, and often in the heat of a dispute getting into the eyes of Madame de Lastaola, the possessor of coveted art treasures, the heiress of Henry Allegre.She proceeded in a reminiscent mood, with a faint flash of gaiety all over her face, except her dark blue eyes that moved so seldom out of their fixed scrutiny of things invisible to other human beings.

"The goats were very good.We clambered amongst the stones together.They beat me at that game.I used to catch my hair in the bushes.""Your rust-coloured hair," I whispered.

"Yes, it was always this colour.And I used to leave bits of my frock on thorns here and there.It was pretty thin, I can tell you.There wasn't much at that time between my skin and the blue of the sky.My legs were as sunburnt as my face; but really Ididn't tan very much.I had plenty of freckles though.There were no looking-glasses in the Presbytery but uncle had a piece not bigger than my two hands for his shaving.One Sunday I crept into his room and had a peep at myself.And wasn't I startled to see my own eyes looking at me! But it was fascinating, too.I was about eleven years old then, and I was very friendly with the goats, and I was as shrill as a cicada and as slender as a match.Heavens!

When I overhear myself speaking sometimes, or look at my limbs, it doesn't seem to be possible.And yet it is the same one.I do remember every single goat.They were very clever.Goats are no trouble really; they don't scatter much.Mine never did even if Ihad to hide myself out of their sight for ever so long."It was but natural to ask her why she wanted to hide, and she uttered vaguely what was rather a comment on my question:

"It was like fate." But I chose to take it otherwise, teasingly, because we were often like a pair of children.

"Oh, really," I said, "you talk like a pagan.What could you know of fate at that time? What was it like? Did it come down from Heaven?""Don't be stupid.It used to come along a cart-track that was there and it looked like a boy.Wasn't he a little devil though.

You understand, I couldn't know that.He was a wealthy cousin of mine.Round there we are all related, all cousins - as in Brittany.He wasn't much bigger than myself but he was older, just a boy in blue breeches and with good shoes on his feet, which of course interested and impressed me.He yelled to me from below, Iscreamed to him from above, he came up and sat down near me on a stone, never said a word, let me look at him for half an hour before he condescended to ask me who I was.And the airs he gave himself! He quite intimidated me sitting there perfectly dumb.Iremember trying to hide my bare feet under the edge of my skirt as I sat below him on the ground.

"C'est comique, eh!" she interrupted herself to comment in a melancholy tone.I looked at her sympathetically and she went on:

"He was the only son from a rich farmhouse two miles down the slope.In winter they used to send him to school at Tolosa.He had an enormous opinion of himself; he was going to keep a shop in a town by and by and he was about the most dissatisfied creature Ihave ever seen.He had an unhappy mouth and unhappy eyes and he was always wretched about something: about the treatment he received, about being kept in the country and chained to work.He was moaning and complaining and threatening all the world, including his father and mother.He used to curse God, yes, that boy, sitting there on a piece of rock like a wretched little Prometheus with a sparrow peeking at his miserable little liver.

And the grand scenery of mountains all round, ha, ha, ha!"She laughed in contralto: a penetrating sound with something generous in it; not infectious, but in others provoking a smile.

"Of course I, poor little animal, I didn't know what to make of it, and I was even a little frightened.But at first because of his miserable eyes I was sorry for him, almost as much as if he had been a sick goat.But, frightened or sorry, I don't know how it is, I always wanted to laugh at him, too, I mean from the very first day when he let me admire him for half an hour.Yes, even then I had to put my hand over my mouth more than once for the sake of good manners, you understand.And yet, you know, I was never a laughing child.

"One day he came up and sat down very dignified a little bit away from me and told me he had been thrashed for wandering in the hills.

"'To be with me?' I asked.And he said: 'To be with you! No.My people don't know what I do.' I can't tell why, but I was annoyed.

So instead of raising a clamour of pity over him, which I suppose he expected me to do, I asked him if the thrashing hurt very much.