The Horseman on the Roof (37 page)

He reproached himself for the night spent listening for sounds and attaching importance to them.

“If you want to be someone,” he told himself, “try not to understand anything. Then courage comes easy and it is impressive.
You
speak your thoughts out loud, and people always know what you're at. Nobody can have confidence in you. Stupidity always works wonders. Here, anyway, nothing could be more help. Peasants, in our place, would have slept.”

In addition, he was very dissatisfied with this
esprit d'escalier
coming to him now as he crept along the hedges.

As he drew near the houses, he perceived that they were humming like beehives. From the open doors and windows he saw clouds of flies coming out. He knew what that meant.

There was no smell, however. He went to take a look: it was the expected sight, but the corpses were a month old. Of a woman, all that was left was the enormous legbones protruding from a trampled skirt, a torn bodice over bones, and hair without a head. The skull had broken loose and rolled under the table. The man was in a heap in the corner. They must have been eaten by the chickens that had huddled together on Angelo's arrival, silent, one foot raised, but very arrogant. Swarms of bees and huge wasps had deserted their hives and built combs and nests between the stovepipe and the fireplace.

Angelo heard a shot. It had been loud and not far away. He looked first toward the road, then realized that the noise had come from their little hill. He returned there at the double.

The young woman was standing, pale as death, with a pistol in her hand.

“What did you fire at?”

Her face contorted with horrible laughter, while the tears poured down her cheeks. Her teeth were chattering and she could only stare shudderingly at Angelo. He had already seen horses in this state. He stroked her skillfully with his hand. At length the eyes, swollen with tears and flooded now with tenderness, turned away, and the young woman sighed.

“I'm quite absurd,” she said, withdrawing rather nervously from Angelo's hands, “but this won't happen to me again. I was taken by surprise, and by something nobody can get used to. I fired at the bird. When you had gone, he became extremely pressing and, I must say, extremely charming. I've never heard anything more horrible than that lullaby he kept endlessly singing to me. I felt sirupy from head to foot, and had a longing to close my eyes. I must have yielded to it for two seconds and he was on me. He stank. He struck me with his beak here.”

She had a small scratch close to her eye.

“That carrion bird certainly had its beak full of cholera,” thought Angelo. “Can the disease be transmitted this way?” He was aghast.

He made the young woman drink some alcohol. He himself took a good gulp of it. He carefully disinfected the little red spot; it was really nothing much, the merest graze.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” he said. “Pardon my language, but what does it matter? There's nothing but dead bodies in the farms over there. This place is unhealthy. I didn't even look for water when I saw how things were. Let's go.”

They set off along the ridge, through the pine woods.

“Do you know what sort of bird it was, really?” said the young woman.

“No.”

“A crow. They were crows that wooed us last night; and it was a crow that passed from words to deeds this morning and at which I so stupidly fired.”

“It wasn't stupid,” said Angelo. “Let's remember to reload your pistol directly we've calmed down a bit. But I've never heard crows with voices like that.”

“No more have I. When you left me just now, I was tired out by our sleepless night, and perhaps I was dreaming with my eyes open, but I've never heard a creature address me in that way. It was repulsive, but seductive to a degree you can't imagine. It was horrible. I could understand perfectly and realized that I was giving in, that I was consenting. It was only at the first peck that I screamed and leaped for my pistols. Even the stink of it didn't disgust me, to tell the truth.”

“Forget it,” said Angelo, rather roughly.

The forest was warm and very light, in spite of the cloudy sky, which seemed bent on rain. A few puffs of wind were already moist. The pines, very tall and widely spaced, left free a wide expanse of undergrowth.

They reached a ledge overlooking a valley covered with red earth and the straight lines of a fairly large vineyard. A prosperous farm, with a green-shuttered house, sheds, sheepfolds, and stables, sprawled there between wide ponds, under tall plane trees already turned to copper. Two threads of smoke rose from the chimney of the house and that of the farm buildings respectively. Here the people were alive.

They descended by a rugged track, but the young woman was an excellent rider and above all she wanted to atone for the pistol shot. At the bottom they found a lane, which ran straight through the vines toward the tall plane trees. Everything was well kept and gave evidence of hard work and constant care.

They were trotting toward the fountain when someone sitting by its basin stood up, fifty yards ahead of them, and shouted to them to stop. At the same time he raised a gun to his shoulder.

The morning's events had brought Angelo before the bar of his Italy, and in spite of the weapon pointed at him he slowed his horse to a walk but continued to advance.

“Don't move or I'll fill you with lead,” shouted the man.

He was young, and, in spite of several weeks' growth of beard and hands black with filth, he wore with ease a well-cut hunting-jacket and a fine pair of boots.

Angelo advanced upon him without replying; on the contrary, clenching his teeth. He never took his eye off the black circle of the barrel facing him and the extremely dirty finger resting on the trigger.

He was on top of the young man, who hastily fell back, continuing to shout the order to stop.

“Don't be unpleasant,” he said. “We haven't come to harm you. All we want is water.”

“We don't want anyone coming near our water,” said the young man. “We leave others alone; let them leave us alone.”

“I suppose this is too complicated for you,” said Angelo, “but I have no wish to cause any extra fright, either in you or in your family. Are there any other fountains besides this one where we can fill our kettle?”

“Go to the village.”

“Excuse me,” said Angelo coldly; “I never go to the devil when people suggest it.”

He dismounted without looking at the gun. He went to the young woman's stirrup.

“Pass me the kettle, please; it's tied to your saddlebag.”

While she was untying it she whispered: “I've still got one loaded pistol.”

“It's not needed,” he answered a low voice.

“Here's my kettle,” he said, placing it on the ground six paces from the young man. “I'm not interested in going near your water, but this lady wishes to drink and so do I. If you have a grain of common sense, this is what you'll do. Go and fill a jug at your fountain—at the spout, please, not from the basin—and come and pour it yourself into our kettle.”

From the hunting-jacket and boots Angelo judged that he must be the owner of the estate; on the other hand, there was the beard, the filth, and the gun. “I was even dirtier than he on the roofs of Manosque,” he thought, “but I had nothing. Besides, he could have fired just now. I wasn't stingy about giving him a target.”

He added, aloud, with the utmost insolence: “Since you prefer to act as my servant.”

“We've had our fill of fine manners, you know,” said the young man.

“Who's ‘we'?” replied Angelo, more insolently than ever.

The other growled, but did what he was asked.

“Now put your gun down and draw back ten paces while we turn.”

“I shan't shoot,” said the other; “be off with you.”

Angelo assumed his most English air, and accepted condescendingly. He transferred the water from the kettle to his goatskin bottle, then remounted and, making the young woman ride ahead, went off protecting the rear.

In the middle of the vineyard they found a public road leading toward thickly wooded and narrow gullies. They proceeded along it until they considered they were off the estate. They were at the entrance to a defile into which the road descended. They lit a fire against a bank. At last they could eat and drink.

They had been there about an hour, and were half asleep after their meal of bread and tea, when they heard the trotting of a horse. A mounted man was approaching, undoubtedly a dragoon. He had the red dolman.

“Don't let's move,” said Angelo. “He's alone and I'm his match.”

It was indeed a captain. He was riding in the open country as though on parade, with great arrogance and affectation. He was careful to make his little Sunday cloak flutter as it should. He passed without saluting.

It was still very dark under the cloudy sky. As often at the approach of rain, absolute quiet had laid hold of the countryside. Everything was motionless, down to the smallest blade of grass, and the topmost leaves of the trees did not stir.

Angelo asked permission to smoke a small cigar.

“They're very pretty,” said the young woman.

“They're very good,” he said, “but you're right, I like them besides because they're long and thin. If you feel sleepy, go to sleep, and I'll mount guard. If not, we ought perhaps to hold a little council of war. Are we going the right way?”

“Where are we, first of all?”

“I don't know. We'll see at the next village. Did you have a plan?”

“First of all, to get away, but I've done that. Next, as I told you, the idea of going to take refuge with my sister-in-law, at Théus near Gap. I realized it was no good taking the main road, because of all the barricades. Once I crossed over the mountains from this side with my husband. I've come back here instinctively.”

“If you know the country, that will make things easy.”

“I don't know it at all. We traveled partly by night in hired carriages. I only saw the scenery, not the route. I know one goes through Roussieux, and later through Chauvac, because we slept in both those villages, but that doesn't get us much further. I know the country is poor and deserted (that's what decided me). There's also a fairly important town called, I think, Sallerans, or something of the sort. And that's all I know.”

“It's better than nothing,” said Angelo. “Now we've got some landmarks. I can accompany you as far as Théus, because that's on my way. And I think it's just as well I should. But we must find a spot called Sainte-Colombe.”

He pulled from his pocket the piece of paper on which Giuseppe had drawn the famous map.

“With the name and this little plan,” he continued, “I believe we can get there, if we ask peasants the way. Apparently it's a hermitage in a gorge, precisely one of those deserts you mentioned. I have a rendezvous there with my foster-brother and his wife, who stayed behind at Manosque and are to join me after settling some business. We shall be four, and from then on our troubles will be over.”

“You misjudge me because of that pistol shot,” said the young woman, “but I don't consider we've had many troubles up to now. Without claiming that I exactly foresaw the crow, I did expect quite a bit of trouble and I was relying on myself alone. We'll go to Sainte-Colombe, since that's where your business is, and very gladly.”

“I'm so far from misjudging you,” said Angelo, “that I now ask you to let me reload your pistol.”

“I shall do it myself,” she said. “I like to be sure of my rounds.”

She took her tools from a satchel, and did the job very dexterously. She put in a full charge with a little extra, and backed up the bullet with small shot.

“We must take care not to goad her to heroism,” thought Angelo, who could be penetrating about other people. “There's enough there to kill three.”

He was also very intrigued by her way of tearing the wad with her teeth like a trooper and without braggadocio.

“A full charge like that will give a remarkable recoil,” said Angelo.

“A remarkable splash, too,” said she. “By the time my wrist hurts, the bullet will have already left for its address.”

They struck camp and entered the defile. The road descended gently and wound between wooded slopes. They emerged onto a little heath covered with pale junipers.

They had gone half a league over this wide empty space overwhelmed by clouds, when they saw a riderless horse trotting briskly toward them. They placed themselves so as to bar its way, but the animal suddenly swerved, almost under their noses, and set off at a gallop across the heath. There could be no question of catching it.

“It's the horse of that dragoon who passed us not long ago,” said Angelo. “The stirrups are hitting him in the belly. He'll bolt. So an officer lets his horse give him the slip. Not in the manual!”

He laughed at that arrogant man who had the good fortune to be in uniform. But a quarter of an hour later they found the captain lying in the middle of the road, his face already black, his cheek buried in his vomitings. There was obviously no need to help him.

They spurred their horses to a canter, and kept to it for a long time.

The heath must have stretched for three or four leagues in the direction they were traveling. From horseback they commanded a view over the low vegetation; as far as they could see there was nothing but this gray desolation and, ahead of them, a mass of lowering clouds, through which they could sometimes distinguish the black bulk of a mountain. They passed by a ruined house, long uninhabited. The roof and floors had caved in. In what remained of a small cellar, however, there were traces of a fire recently made between two stones. They heard a fox bark. Finally they perceived some thin fields, shocks of carefully scythed barley, almond orchards, and a crossroads with a small watering-trough and three houses. All three empty.