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They were crowded, as we passed along, by curious lookers on, consisting principally of the three thousand idlers who formed the garrison, Albanian Arnauts most of them, splendid fellows, blue-eyed, with long fair moustaches, dressed in the fustanella and the rest of the picturesque palikare costume.
She put the money into her mother's hand, for she did not know how to spend it. It was her mother who decided what to do. "We must go at once to Maraucourt," she said. "But are you strong enough?" Perrine asked doubtfully. "I must be. We have waited too long in the hope that I should get better. And while we wait our money is going. What poor Palikare has brought us will go also.
From now on the traffic was intense. Perrine needed all her wits and eyes about her. After what seemed a long time they arrived at the Market and Grain-of-Salt jumped off the donkey. But while he was getting down Palikare had time to gaze about him, and when Perrine tried to make him go through the iron gate at the entrance he refused to budge.
Counting the florin at two francs, they found they had nine francs and eighty-five centimes. "You see we have more than what is needed for a doctor," insisted Perrine. "He won't cure me with words; we shall have to buy medicine." "I have an idea. You can imagine that all the time I was walking beside Palikare I did not waste my time just talking to him, although he likes that.
A short time ago Perrine would not have had any scruples and she would have quickly emptied the nest, without a thought, but the sorrows that she had experienced had made her very thoughtful for the griefs of others; in this same manner her love for Palikare had made her feel an affection for all animals that she had not known in her early childhood.
At an early hour she busied herself with brushing Palikare and making his beautiful coat shine so that he would look his best. How she kissed him! How she stroked him while her tears fell!
Were they crazy? Then she began to find all kind of faults with the unfortunate Palikare. "Oh, very well," said Grain-of-Salt, after a lengthy discussion; "we'll take him to the Market." Perrine breathed. The thought of only getting twenty francs had stunned her. In their terrible distress what would twenty francs be? A hundred francs even was not sufficient for their pressing needs.
She was standing there undecided when a policeman told her roughly that she was blocking up the street and that she must move on. "Go forward, or go back, but don't stand there," he ordered. She could not go forward, for Palikare had no intention of doing so.
She had ready some boiling water which she had put on the fire after cooking the rice; this she poured over the things. Kneeling on the grass, she soaped and rubbed until all were clean; then she rinsed them and hung them on a line to dry. While she worked, Palikare, who was tied up at a short distance from her, had glanced her way several times.
When Palikare saw that instead of being hitched to the wagon, a rope was put round his neck, his surprise was great; and still more surprised was he when Grain-of-Salt, who did not want to walk all the way from Charonne to the Horse Market, climbed up on a chair and from the chair onto his back. But as Perrine held him and spoke to him, he offered no resistance.
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