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Updated: August 29, 2024
What she felt she could not put into her singing, for the machinery, unknown and tyrannical, was not hers. Twice before she had heard Parpon sing at mass when the miller's wife was buried, and he, forgetting the world, had poured forth all his beautiful voice; and on that notable night before the Louis Quinze.
"He was my brother! Do you not see?" he demanded fiercely, his eyes full of misery. "Do you not see that it was you? Yes, yes, it was you." Stooping, Valmond caught the little man in an embrace. "It was I that killed him, Parpon. It was I, comrade. You saved my life," he added significantly. "The girl threw, but missed," said Parpon. "She does not know but that she struck him."
Yet when the body of the miller's wife lay in the church, he had sung so that men and women wept and held each other's hands for joy. He had never sung since, however; his voice of silver was locked away in the cabinet of secret purposes which every man has somewhere in his own soul. "What will you say to the Bishop, Parpon?" asked the Cure.
"I will teach her to sing first; then she shall go to Quebec, and afterwards to Paris, my friend," he answered. The girl's eyes were dilating with a great joy. "Ah, Parpon good Parpon!" she whispered. "But Paris! Paris! There's gossip for you, thick as mortar," cried the charcoalman, and the mealman's fingers beat a tattoo on his stomach. Parpon waved his hand.
"What the devil do you expect?" roared the blacksmith, blowing the bellows hard in his excitement, one arm still round his daughter's shoulder. "D'you think we're going to play leap-frog into the Tuileries? There's blood to let, and we're to let it!" "Good, my leeches!" said Parpon; "you shall have blood to suck. But we'll leave the English be.
Again he waved the crowd to be gone, and they scattered, whispering to each other; for nothing like this had ever occurred in Pontiac before, nor had they ever seen the Cure with this granite look in his face, or heard his voice so bitterly hard. He did not move until he had seen them all started homewards from the Four Corners. One person remained beside him Parpon the dwarf.
He leaned over the pulpit, and, pausing, looked down at his congregation. Then, all at once, he was aware that he had created a profound impression. Just in front of him, his eyes burning with a strange fire, sat Monsieur Valmond. Parpon, beside him, hung over the back of a seat, his long arms stretched out, his hands applauding in a soundless way.
He murmured a prayer, and crossed himself thrice. The Cure made ready to read the office for the dying. "My son," he said, "do you truly and earnestly repent you of your sins?" Valmond's eyes suddenly grew misty, his breathing heavier. He scarcely seemed to comprehend. "I have paid the price I have loved you all. Parpon where are you? Elise!"
She tossed her head and struck straight home. "It isn't a game of pass it on from gentleman to beetle." "You think he's a gentleman?" he asked. "As sure as I think you're a beetle." He laughed, took off his cap, and patted himself on the head. "Parpon, Parpon!" said he, "if Jean Malboir could see you now, he'd put his foot on you and crush you dirty beetle!"
The girl stepped inside and came to her father. Lajeunesse's arm ran round her shoulder. There was no corner of his heart into which she had not crept. "Out with it, Parpon!" called the blacksmith hoarsely, for the daughter's voice had followed herself into those farthest corners of his rugged nature.
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