Agnelette’s hand trembling more and more violently within his own, while the sweat fell from his own brow, as if he were engaged in the most arduous work; there was something diabolic at the bottom of it, as he knew quite well. At last he came to the little finger and endeavoured to pass the ring over it. This little finger, so small and transparent, that the ring should have hung as loosely upon it as a bracelet on one of Thibault’s, this little finger, in spite of all Agnelette’s efforts, refused to pass through the ring. “Ah! my God, Monsieur Thibault,” cried the child “what does this mean?”
“Ring of the Devil, return to the Devil!” cried Thibault, flinging the ring against a rock, in the hope that it would be broken. As it struck the rock, it emitted flame; then it rebounded, and in rebounding, fitted itself on to Thibault’s finger. Agnelette who saw this strange evolution of the ring, looked at Thibault in horrified amazement. “Well,” he said, trying to brave it out, “what is the matter?”
Agnelette did not answer, but as she continued to look at Thibault, her eye grew more and more wild and frightened. Thibault could not think what she was looking at, but slowly lifting her hand and pointing with her finger at Thibault’s head, she said, “Oh! Monsieur Thibault, Monsieur Thibault, what have you got there?”
“Where?” asked Thibault.
“There! there!” cried Agnelette, growing paler and paler.
“Well, but where?” cried the shoe-maker, stamping with his foot. “Tell me what you see.”
But instead of replying, Agnelette covered her face with her hands, and uttering a cry of terror, turned and fled with all her might.
Thibault, stunned by what had happened, did not even attempt to follow her; he stood rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak, as if thunderstruck.
What had Agnelette seen that had alarmed her so? What was it that she pointed to with her finger? Had God branded him, as He branded the first murderer? And why not? Had not he, like Cain, killed a man? and in the last sermon he had heard at Oigny had not the preacher said that all men were brothers? Thibault felt wild with misgivings; what had so terrified Agnelette? That he must find out without delay. At first he thought he would go into the town of Bourg-Fontaine and look at himself in a glass. But then, supposing the fatal mark was upon him, and others, besides Agnelette, were to see it! No, he must think of some other way of finding out. He could, of course, pull his hat over his brow, and run back to Oigny, where he had a fragment of mirror in which he could see himself; but Oigny was a long way off. Then he remembered that only a few paces from where he stood, there was a spring as transparent as crystal, which fed the pond near Baisemont, and those at Bourg; he would be able to see himself in that as clearly as in the finest mirror from Saint-Gobain. So Thibault went to the side of the stream and, kneeling down, looked at himself. He saw the same eyes, the same nose, and the same mouth, and not even the slightest little mark upon the forehead—he drew a breath of relief. But still, there must have been something. Agnelette had certainly not taken fright as she had, for nothing. Thibault bent over closer to the crystal water; and now he saw there was something bright that shone amid the dark curls on his head and fell over his forehead. He leaned closer still—it was a red hair. A red hair, but of a most peculiar red—not sandy coloured or carrotty; neither of a light shade nor a dark; but a red of the colour of blood, with a brightness of the most vivid flame. Without stopping to consider how a hair of such a phenomenal colour could possibly have grown there, he began trying to pull it out. He drew forward the curl where gleamed the terrible red hair, that it might hang over the water, and then taking hold of it carefully between his finger and thumb gave it a violent pull; but the hair refused to come away. Thinking that he had not got sufficient hold of it, he tried another way, winding the hair round his finger and again giving it a vigorous jerk—the hair cut into his fingers but remained as firmly rooted as ever. Thibault then turned it round two of his fingers and pulled again; the hair lifted a little bit of his scalp, but as to moving, Thibault might as well have tried to move the oak that threw its shady branches across the stream. Thibault began to think that he would do better to continue his walk to Croyolles; after all, as he remarked to himself, the questionable colour of a single hair would not hardly upset his plans of marriage. Neverthetheless, the wretched hair caused him a great deal of worry; he could not get it out of his mind, it seemed to dance before his eyes, dazzling him like flames of running fire, until at last, out of all patience, he stamped his foot, exclaiming, “By all the devils in hell! I am not far from home yet, and I’ll get the better of this confounded hair somehow.” Whereupon he set off running back towards his hut, went in and found his fragment of mirror, got hold of his hair again, seized a carpenter’s chisel, placed it so as to cut off the hair as close to the head as possible, and keeping hair and tool in this position, leant over his bench, and dug the chisel down with as much force as possible. The tool cut deeply into the wood of the bench, but the hair remained intact. He tried the same plan again, only this time he armed himself with a mallet, which he swung over his head and brought down with redoubled blows on the handle of the chisel—but he was as far as ever from carrying out his purpose. He noticed, however, that there was a little notch in the sharp edge of the chisel, just the width of a hair. Thibault sighed; he understood now that this hair, the price he had paid in return for his wish, belonged to the black wolf, and he gave up all further attempts to get rid of it.
CHAPTER VII
THE BOY AT THE MILL
Finding it impossible either to cut off or pull out the accursed hair, the only thing left for Thibault to do was to hide it as well as he could, by bringing the other hair over it; everybody would not, he hoped, have such eyes as Agnelette.
As we have already said, Thibault had a fine head of black hair, and by parting it down the side, and giving a certain turn to the front lock, he trusted that the one hair would pass unobserved.
He recalled with envy the young lords whom he had seen at the court of Madame de Maintenon, for, with their powdered wigs to cover it, the colour of their hair, whatever it might be, was of no moment. He, unfortunately, could not make use of powder to hide his, being prohibited from doing so by the sumptuary laws of the period.
However, having successfully managed, by an adroit turn of the comb, to hide his one red hair artistically under the others, Thibault decided to start again on his premeditated visit to the fair owner of the mill. He was careful this time, instead of inclining to the left, to verge towards the right, fearing to meet Agnelette if he followed the same path as he had taken that morning.
Emerging, therefore, on to the road leading to La Ferté-Milou, he then took the footpath which runs direct to Pisseleu across the fields. Arriving at Pisseleu, he continued along the valley in the direction of Croyolles, but had scarcely pursued this lower road for more than a few minutes, when, walking just ahead of him, he saw two donkeys being driven by a tall youth, whom he recognised as a cousin of his, named Landry. Cousin Landry was head boy at the mill, in the service of the owner whom Thibault was on his way to visit, and as the latter had but an indirect acquaintance with the widow Polet, he had counted on Landry to introduce him. It was a lucky chance therefore to come across his cousin like this, and Thibault hastened to overtake him.
Hearing footsteps behind him echoing his own, Landry turned and recognised Thibault. Thibault had always found Landry a pleasant and cheerful companion, and he was therefore very much astonished to see him looking sad and troubled. Landry waited for Thibault to come up to him, letting his donkeys go on alone. Thibault was the first to speak:
“Why, Cousin Landry,” he asked, “what’s the meaning of this? Here am I, putting myself out and leaving my work to come and shake hands with a friend and relation that I have not
