The White House Part 27

"My dear Edouard, I don't attribute their ignorance as a crime to these poor people; I shall not undertake to cure them of their superst.i.tion, because I think that that might be too long a task; but I will call your attention to the fact that we are not now interested in knowing whether all nations have entertained a belief in magic, but simply whether these young men, who seem to be from fourteen to sixteen years of age, will consent to act as our guides, so that we may reach the town nearby, to-night."

"Yes, that's it," said Robineau; "it's no time for exhibiting knowledge--we must come to the point.--Tell us, young Auvergnats, will you take us to Saint-Amand? I am the Seigneur de la Roche-Noire, and I will reward you handsomely."

But neither the entreaties nor the promises of Robineau availed to induce anyone of the inhabitants of the hovel to undertake the task of guiding the travellers; the dread aroused by the White House, which it was necessary to pa.s.s, was stronger than their desire to oblige.

"Faith, messieurs," said Alfred, "as these mountaineers have decided not to guide us before morning, we have but one course to pursue, and that is to pa.s.s the night here."

"Let us pa.s.s the night here," said Edouard.

"J'en ai l'heureuse promesse, Vers le milieu de la nuit, L'amour m'ouvrira sans bruit L'alcove de ma maitresse!"[6]

"Oh, yes!" said Robineau; "if you find an alcove here, you'll be very clever! For my part, messieurs, it seems to me that before making up our minds to sleep in this stifling mouse-trap--to say nothing of the fact that it doesn't smell like the rose--we should apply to some others of the villagers; perhaps they are not all such cowards as these people!"

"Oh! they are all quite as superst.i.tious, my dear fellow!--As you see, this White House is to them what the White Lady is to the people of Glendearg in Sir Walter Scott's _Monastery_."

"This is no question of novels--we are not in Scotland; I tell you that I don't propose to sleep here myself, and I'll show you that I know how to get out of the fix we are in."

As he spoke, Robineau strode to the door of the hovel, opened it, and thrust his head out; but, terrified by the dense darkness which reigned in the mountains, there being no moon, and unable to discover a single light in the neighboring houses, he quickly drew in his head, closed the door, and returned crestfallen to his friends, saying:

"Well, if that suits you, let us sleep here; I am willing."

Alfred asked the head of the family if it would disturb him to allow them to pa.s.s the night under his roof. Far from that, the Auvergnat, his wife, his father and his children united in a.s.suring the young men that the house was at their service. Our travellers concluded that, although the people of Chadrat might be dull-witted and stupid, they were humane, kindly and hospitable; virtues which we do not always find among refined, clever and well-educated people.

As soon as it was decided that our travellers were to pa.s.s the night in the abode of the Auvergnats, they thought of nothing but making themselves comfortable and acting as if they belonged to the family.

Alfred and Edouard gayly made the best of it; they laughed and sang and chatted with the peasants; Robineau alone continued to scowl, and viewed everything with a pessimistic eye.

"What is your name, my good man?" Alfred asked the shepherd.

"My name is Claude, monsieur, and my wife's name is Claudine."

"And I'll bet that the children are called Claudinet," muttered Robineau with a shrug.

"What do you do?"

"I am a shepherd."

"And your children?"

"They work in the fields; we have a small field close by."

"And your father?"

"Oh! he don't do anything now, he's taking his rest.--As to our wife, she makes the soup and brings it to us in the fields."

"Are you satisfied with your lot?"

"What do you mean, monsieur?"

"I mean to ask if you are happy."

"Pardi! what more would we want? We have enough to eat and clothes to wear, and a good house to live in; ain't that enough?"

"My friend," said Edouard to Alfred, "this is man in his primitive state, without ambition, without desires; nature has given him none but pure and simple tastes, he has no vision of happiness outside of the place where he was born, and his desires never pa.s.s the summits of the mountains that surround his dwelling place. I maintain that this is such a man as Diogenes wished to find, but sought in vain among a people addicted to all sorts of pleasures, over-refined in its tastes and enslaved by its pa.s.sions."

"If this is Diogenes's man," said Robineau, tilting his bench, "he's a clean, gentlemanlike person!"

"What is there in that kettle? Your supper, I presume?" said Alfred.

"Yes, monsieur, the soup."

"Well, my friends, we will eat it with you. We had our supper at Ayda; but no matter, we will sup again, eh, Edouard?"

"Yes, to be sure; we will keep our hosts company. And then there is an indefinable attraction about such a meal in my eyes."

"They're not easily disgusted!" thought Robineau.

The soup being ready, the huge kettle was placed in the centre of the company; as the table was too small for the whole party to sit around it, the mountaineers considered it the simplest way to sit on the ground. Alfred and Edouard did the same, and Robineau alone remained on his bench.

"What, messieurs," he said to his friends, "you mean to sit on the floor?"

"Why not?" said Alfred; "we must do as these good people do."

"It's the most natural seat," said Edouard.

"You look like savages!"

"The savages are the children of nature, my dear fellow, and we are the children of prejudices."

"In that case, messieurs, I will go from here to-morrow without trousers and declare that that is the most natural costume."

"Oh! Robineau, that's very different! Decency is of all times--the fig-leaf dates from a long way back!--However, you are absolutely at liberty to show your posteriors to the people of Chadrat and to those on your own estate too, if it will give you any pleasure. As you have just bought the chateau, they will think that it's an ancient custom which you mean to revive, and it is possible that they will decide to imitate you, which would be extremely interesting, especially on the days of large parties."

During this colloquy the mistress of the hut distributed wooden plates and spoons to everybody, and the aged father cut slices of rye bread.

Despite his repugnance, Robineau accepted a plate of soup and ended by eating it like the others, although he muttered that it was too thick and too salt, and swore at the wine, which he considered too new. But the mountaineers did not notice his ill humor; they kept putting more soup into his plate, although he said that he had had enough. And the old man shared his bowlful with the old goat by his side, which seemed to be an old friend of the family.

During the supper Edouard returned to the subject of the White House, because the little that had been said about it had roused his curiosity.

"Pray tell us, good people," he said, "what you know about this place that frightens you so. How long has this White House been the terror of the country?"

"Oh, yes! do tell us that," said Alfred. "I like ghost stories; they make you shudder; it's delicious!"

Robineau said nothing, but he drew his seat a little nearer to the circle formed by the others.

"Well! messieurs," said the old man, "it ain't so very long that the White House has been such a scarecrow to all of us. I must tell you first that it ain't very far from here, to the left, at the foot of the mountains. You go down into a pretty little valley, where there's vines and lucern and some fine walnut trees, and the White House in the midst of it all."

"It doesn't seem to have made the land sterile at all events.--To whom does the house belong?"

"Oh! that's just what n.o.body don't know, monsieur, for it ain't ever been lived in, in the twenty years since it was built, unless the devil's been living there lately. You see, messieurs, that there's a pretty little cottage just about a hundred yards from the White House; it's a kind of a little farm house that used to belong to a man named Andre Sarpiotte. Andre was pretty well off; he had some good-sized flocks and some cash; so he went to work and built this house that we call the White House, because when it was new, it was just as pretty and white, and finer than any house hereabout. So Andre Sarpiotte built the house, thinking he'd sell it to some one as might want it; but, bless me! it's a big house, with a fine garden with walls all round it, and it was too high-priced for us poor folks!--So Andre, he couldn't get rid of it; but he took comfort for his disappointment with his little wife, for he was married, Andre was, and his wife had just give him a little boy."