The Horseman on the Roof (58 page)

“You'll accompany me to Théus?” said the young woman.

“I shall certainly not leave you one yard before,” replied Angelo. “I've hired, booked, paid for and even—to conceal nothing from you—placed under the guard of a boy, who's only fifteen but as tough as they come and my devoted servant till death (or, rather, till the bottom of my purse, which I showed him)—the most agreeable, most comfortable, fastest little trap I could find here. It's ours, it's awaiting us. I shall drive you right to Théus. You will lean on my arm to mount the steps, if there are any, and I shall stay two days,” he added, so happy was he to see the color returning to her face. “Remember the long dress.”

“I was afraid you were busy buying yourself a horse,” she said. “I heard you having a long talk in the stables. I can easily recognize the sound of your voice in spite of the walls.”

Finally, new tapes were sewn on the skirt, the petticoat, and even the little embroidered drawers. The material itself had been torn and even holed by Angelo's nails—which had grown very long during his travels for want of scissors—and had needed big stitches to darn it.

He was rather worried about having let a cholera victim sleep in an inn bed, and he imparted his qualms in veiled terms to the postmaster, a man with a round sanguine face like a March moon.

“I'm used to all sorts,” was the placid reply.

“It is,” thought Angelo, “a case of cholera, of course, but a cured one.”

It was impossible to picture any kind of infection likely to attack with any chance of success these simple, ruddy, slow-eyed men and women, living in the poplar wood by the roadside.

They reached Théus two days later, in the evening. The village overlooked the deep valley from very high up. It was inhabited by even simpler, placider, and ruddier people. The château dominated the village. There were numerous flights of steps from terrace to terrace, all of them rustic, without trimmings, indeed very severe and much to Angelo's liking. He did not back out of his promises. He gave the young woman his arm. The Marquis was not there. There was no news of him.

“He certainly won't have thought of me,” said old Mme de Théus. “I expect he's up to some folly somewhere. They say life's strange down there.”

Angelo was about to undress in the comfortable room he had been given, complete with a four-poster bed, when there was a knock on his door.

It was the old Marquise. She was plump and ruddy too, in spite of her age, like the peasant women of the village. Her eyes were of that very clear blue which generally denotes a heart tender but free of superfluous pity. She had only come to inquire after the comfort of her guest, but she sat down carefully in an armchair.

Angelo was at last between walls like those of La Brenta. In the corridors he had recognized that smell which large and very old houses always have. He talked at great length to the old Marquise as he would have to his mother, and exclusively about the people and liberty.

It was after midnight when the old lady left him, wishing him good-night and telling him to sleep well.

A horse dealer from Remollon came to the bottom of the terraces and displayed four or five horses, among them an extremely proud animal, which Angelo bought with enthusiasm.

This horse gave him matchless pleasure for three days. He kept thinking of it. He saw himself galloping.

Every evening Pauline put on a long dress. The illness had made her little face sharper than ever. It was as smooth and pointed as a lance-head and, under the powder and rouge, faintly tinged with blue.

“How do you think I look?” she said.

“Very beautiful.”

The morning that he left, Angelo right away gave free rein to his horse, which he had himself, every day, fed with oats. It had a swiftness he could be proud of. He saw galloping toward him those rosy mountains, near enough now for him to make out the rising larches and firs on their lower slopes.

“Beyond is Italy,” he thought.

He was beside himself with joy.

Notes

Chapter Six

Chapter Thirteen

Copyright
©
1981 by Aline Giono

Le Hussard Sur Le Toit
copyright
©
1951

by Librairie Gallimard

Translation copyright
©
1953

by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

All rights reserved

This edition first published in 1982

by North Point Press

Second printing, 1995

Published in Canada by HarperCollins
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First eBook edition: November 2014