The stranger paused a moment in reverie before this tender and calming spectacle.
What was taking place within him?
He alone could have told.
It is probable that he thought that this joyous house would be hospitable, and that, in a place where he beheld so much happiness, he would find perhaps a little pity.
He tapped on the pane with a very small and feeble knock.
They did not hear him.
He tapped again.
He heard the woman say,
“It seems to me, husband, that some one is knocking.”
“No,” replied the husband.
He tapped a third time.
The husband rose, took the lamp, and went to the door, which he opened.
He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan.
He wore a huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a hammer, a red handkerchief, a powder-horn, and all sorts of objects which were upheld by the girdle, as in a pocket, caused to bulge out.
He carried his head thrown backwards; his shirt, widely opened and turned back, displayed his bull neck, white and bare.
He had thick eyelashes, enormous black whiskers, prominent eyes, the lower part of his face like a snout; and besides all this, that air of being on his own ground, which is indescribable.
“Pardon me, sir,” said the wayfarer, “Could you, in consideration of payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in the garden, in which to sleep?
Tell me; can you?
For money?”
“Who are you?” demanded the master of the house.
The man replied:
“I have just come from Puy-Moisson.
I have walked all day long.
I have travelled twelve leagues.
Can you?—if I pay?”
“I would not refuse,” said the peasant, “to lodge any respectable man who would pay me.
But why do you not go to the inn?”
“There is no room.”
“Bah! Impossible.
This is neither a fair nor a market day.
Have you been to Labarre?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
The traveller replied with embarrassment: “I do not know. He did not receive me.”
“Have you been to What’s-his-name’s, in the Rue Chaffaut?”
The stranger’s embarrassment increased; he stammered,
“He did not receive me either.”
The peasant’s countenance assumed an expression of distrust; he surveyed the newcomer from head to feet, and suddenly exclaimed, with a sort of shudder:—
“Are you the man?—”
He cast a fresh glance upon the stranger, took three steps backwards, placed the lamp on the table, and took his gun down from the wall.
Meanwhile, at the words, Are you the man? the woman had risen, had clasped her two children in her arms, and had taken refuge precipitately behind her husband, staring in terror at the stranger, with her bosom uncovered, and with frightened eyes, as she murmured in a low tone,
“Tso-maraude.”1
All this took place in less time than it requires to picture it to one’s self.
After having scrutinized the man for several moments, as one scrutinizes a viper, the master of the house returned to the door and said:—
“Clear out!”
“For pity’s sake, a glass of water,” said the man.
“A shot from my gun!” said the peasant. Then he closed the door violently, and the man heard him shoot two large bolts.
A moment later, the window-shutter was closed, and the sound of a bar of iron which was placed against it was audible outside.
Night continued to fall.
A cold wind from the Alps was blowing.