In spite of all this a voice told me that my house was on fire;--I could almost smell it, and without further words I started off, thinking as I went how careless I had been, to leave everything at sixes and sevens. Other conflagrations had been caused by the enemy, and I always had had warning enough to transport my most precious possessions across the bridge, and get them behind walls, so that I saved my money, my best pieces of work, furniture and tools, and all those things that people accumulate, and which are dear to us because they are like fragments of a happy past. This time, however, nothing had been placed in safety, and I could almost hear my old woman’s voice from the other world, berating me for my stupidity. As I trudged along, I tried to find a good answer to these reproaches, but my only excuse was that I had been in a hurry to get to her sick-bed. I endeavored to persuade myself also, that there was no real cause for alarm, but the thought kept coming back and back, like a fly that settles on your nose, till I was all in a cold perspiration, in spite of the fact that I was walking at a good round pace. As I climbed up the long wooded hill just after you pass Villiers, I saw a chaise coming down; I could not tell who was driving at first, but when it got nearer, I recognized Jojot, the miller from Moulot. He pulled up as soon as he caught sight of me. “Poor old boy!” he cried, waving his whip, and though I expected it, the wind was just knocked out of me, and I could not say a word, but stood there like a stick, with my mouth open. “There is no use in your keeping on, Colas; you might as well go back where you came from. The whole thing is burned, flat as the palm of your hand; it will only make you sick to see it.” Every word seemed to wring my heartstrings, but I tried to put a good face on it, and said: “I know, I know, but I must go on all the same.” “What for, if the whole place is in ruins?” “I want to pick up the pieces.” “There aren’t any pieces,” said he, “not so much as you could put on the end of your finger.” “Jojot,” said I, “there is no use your trying to persuade me that there is absolutely nothing left! My apprentices and the neighbors would not stand by, and see all I have in the world burnt to ashes, without trying to save a few sticks of furniture for me!” “You don’t know anything about it,” cried he. “Why, your neighbors are the very ones who set your house on fire!” I was perfectly crushed at this news, and he, with the sort of perverse satisfaction one has in making out anything as bad as possible, went on to tell me the whole story from the beginning.