THE STRANGE FESTIVAL (_continuation_)

It was a meal spread in a great room with a low ceiling, like those offered on the eve of a country wedding to relatives who had come from a distance.

The two children had let go the schoolboy’s hands and had rushed into an adjoining room from whence could be heard childish voices and the clatter of spoons on plates. Meaulnes climbed over a bench boldly and calmly and found himself seated beside two old peasant women. He at once began to eat with fierce appetite; and only after a while did he raise his head to look at other guests and listen.

Little, as a matter of fact, was being said. These folk seemed but slightly acquainted. They must have come, some from far off in the country, others from distant towns. Scattered about along the tables were some old men with side whiskers and others clean-shaven, who might have been old sailors. Dining near them other old men looked very much like the first: the same tanned faces, the same sharp eyes under bushy eyebrows, the same narrow ties like shoestrings. But it was easy to see that these had never voyaged farther than the other end of the parish, and if they had been tossed and beaten by winds and storms it had occurred on that rough yet undangerous voyage in cutting the furrow to the field end and guiding back the plough. Few women were to be seen; only some old peasant women with round faces as wrinkled as apples under their goffered caps.

With every one of these guests Meaulnes felt confident and at ease. Later he came to explain that feeling by saying: If you have ever done something unpardonable you sometimes think, in the midst of much bitterness: ‘Yet there are people in the world who would forgive me.’ You imagine old people, indulgent grandparents, who are, beforehand, certain that all you do is well done. Undoubtedly the guests in the hall had been chosen from good folk of that kind; the rest were young people and children.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, two old women were chatting close to Meaulnes.

‘Even if all is for the best,’ said the elder in a very shrill comical voice which she vainly tried to soften, ‘the lovers will not be here before three o’clock to-morrow.’

‘Be quiet! or you’ll make me angry,’ replied the other in the most peaceful manner.

She was wearing over her forehead a knitted hood.

‘Let’s work it out!’ replied the first, undisturbed. ‘An hour and a half by train from Bourges to Vierzon and seven leagues by coach from Vierzon here....’

The talk went on. Meaulnes lost not a word. This friendly squabble helped to clear matters up a little. Frantz de Galais, the son of the house--who was a student or a sailor or perhaps a cadet in the Navy, one could not be sure--had gone to Bourges to fetch a young girl and marry her: strange to say, this boy, who must be very young and very fantastic, arranged everything in his own way at the manor. He had wanted the house where his fiancée was to live to look like a festive palace. And to welcome the young girl he had himself invited these children and these kind-hearted old people. Such were the points which the discussion of the two women elucidated. They left everything else in mystery and always came back to the question of the lovers’ return. The one insisted on to-morrow morning, the other on to-morrow afternoon.

‘Poor old Moinelle, you always are so stupid,’ said the younger quickly.

‘Poor Adèle, you’re always so obstinate. I haven’t seen you for four years and you haven’t changed an atom,’ replied the other with a shrug of her shoulders, but in the most peaceful voice.

And thus they had it out together, without the least bad feeling.

Meaulnes joined in with the hope of learning more: ‘Is she as pretty as people say, Frantz’s sweetheart?’

They looked at him bewildered. No one but Frantz had seen the girl. Coming home from Toulon one evening, he had found her wandering in great distress in one of the gardens of Bourges which are called Les Marais. Her father, a weaver, had turned her out of the house. She was very pretty and Frantz had decided at once to marry her. It was a strange story, but had not his father M. de Galais and his sister Yvonne always allowed him to do as he liked!

Meaulnes was cautiously going to put other questions when a charming couple appeared at the doorway; a girl of sixteen wearing a velvet bodice and a skirt with deep flounces, a young fellow in peg-top trousers and a frock coat with a high collar. They crossed the room dancing a _pas de deux_; others followed, then again others rushed through screaming and chased by a tall ghastly Pierrot in dangling sleeves, who wore a black cap and smiled from a toothless mouth. He was running in big clumsy strides, as if each step preceded a jump, and he flapped his long empty sleeves. The girls were a little frightened of him, the young men shook him by the hand, and he appeared to be the delight of the children, who chased him with shrieks and laughter. As he passed he looked at Meaulnes with his glassy eyes, and the schoolboy thought he recognised, now completely clean-shaven, the companion of M. Maloyau, the bohemian who a little while before was hanging up the lanterns.

The meal ended. Every one rose.

In the corridors round games and country dances began. A band played a minuet somewhere. Meaulnes, with his head half hidden by the collar of his cloak, as by a ruff, felt himself a different person. He, too, caught the fun of it all and began to chase the tall Pierrot through the corridors, how like the wings of a theatre where the play had overflowed from the stage, in every direction. He thus found himself part of a gay crowd in extravagant fancy dress. Sometimes he opened a door and was in a room with a magic lantern. Children clapped loudly. Sometimes, in a corner of the room devoted to dancing, he talked with some dandy and tried hastily to find out the sort of dress to be worn on the days following.

Rather troubled at last by all this gaiety offered him, and every moment fearing lest his partly open cloak would reveal his schoolboy overall, he sought refuge for a while in the quietest and darkest part of the dwelling. No other sound could be heard there but the muffled music of a piano.

He entered another door and found himself in a dining-room lit by a hanging lamp. There also fun was on, but fun for the children. Some of these, seated on hassocks, were busy turning over the pages of albums open on their knees; others, squatting on the floor in front of a chair, were gravely engaged in displaying pictures on the seat; others, again, near the fire said nothing and did nothing but listen to the hum of the fête audible throughout the great house.

One door of this dining-room was wide open. In the next room could be heard the piano being played. Meaulnes, inquisitively, put his head in. It was a sort of drawing-room parlour; a woman or a young girl, with a brown cloak thrown over her shoulders and her back turned, was very softly playing tunes of round games and nursery rhymes. Close to her, on the sofa, six or seven little boys and girls sat in a row as in a picture, good as children are when it grows late, and listened. Only now and again one of them, using his wrist as prop, lifted himself up, slid down to the ground, and passed into the dining-room: then one of those who had finished looking at the pictures came to take his place.

After the ball where everything was charming but feverish and mad, where he had himself so madly chased the tall Pierrot, Meaulnes found that he had dropped into the most peaceful happiness on earth.

Noiselessly, while the girl played on, he went back to sit in the dining-room, and opening one of the big red books scattered on the table, he absent-mindedly began to read.

Almost at once one of the little boys crouched on the floor came up to him, and catching hold of his arm, climbed on his knee to look over; another settled on the other side. Then began a dream like his old dream. His mind could dwell on the fancy that he was married and in his own home during a beautiful evening and that this lovely unknown person playing the piano, close to him, was his wife.