At last I inquired:
"Why do you scream like that?"
"I have lost my poor dog," he replied in a tone of discouragement and despair.
"How is that-you have lost your dog?"
"Yes. He was just a year old. He had never been outside the shop. I wanted to take him to have a run in the woods. He had never seen the gra.s.s nor the leaves and he was almost wild. He began to run about and bark and he disappeared in the wood. I must also add that he was greatly afraid of the train. That may have driven him mad. I kept on calling him, but he has not come back. He will die of hunger in there."
Without turning towards her husband, the young woman said:
"If you had left his chain on, it would not have happened. When people are as stupid as you are they do not keep a dog."
"But, my dear, it was you-" he murmured timidly.
She stopped short, and looking into his eyes as if she were going to tear them out, she began again to cast in his face innumerable reproaches.
It was growing dark. The cloud of vapor that covers the country at dusk was slowly rising and there was a poetry in the air, induced by the peculiar and enchanting freshness of the atmosphere that one feels in the woods at nightfall.
Suddenly the young man stopped, and feeling his body feverishly, exclaimed:
"Oh, I think that I-"
She looked at him.
"Well, what?"
"I did not notice that I had my coat on my arm."
"Well-?"
"I have lost my pocketbook-my money was in it."
She shook with anger and choked with indignation.
"That was all that was lacking. How stupid you are! how stupid you are! Is it possible that I could have married such an idiot! Well, go and look for it, and see that you find it. I am going on to Versailles with monsieur. I do not want to sleep in the wood."
"Yes, my dear," he replied gently. "Where shall I find you?"
A restaurant had been recommended to me. I gave him the address.
He turned back and, stooping down as he searched the ground with anxious eyes, he moved away, screaming "tuituit" every few moments.
We could see him for some time until the growing darkness concealed all but his outline, but we heard his mournful "tuituit," shriller and shriller as the night grew darker.
As for me, I stepped along quickly and happily in the soft twilight, with this little unknown woman leaning on my arm. I tried to say pretty things to her, but could think of nothing. I remained silent, disturbed, enchanted.
Our path was suddenly crossed by a high road. To the right I perceived a town lying in a valley.
What was this place? A man was pa.s.sing. I asked him. He replied:
"Bougival."
I was dumfounded.
"What, Bougival? Are you sure?"
"Parbleu, I belong there!"
The little woman burst into an idiotic laugh.
I proposed that we should take a carriage and drive to Versailles. She replied:
"No, indeed. This is very funny and I am very hungry. I am really quite calm. My husband will find his way all right. It is a treat to me to be rid of him for a few hours."
We went into a restaurant beside the water and I ventured to ask for a private compartment. We had some supper. She sang, drank champagne, committed all sorts of follies.
That was my first serious flirtation.
OUR LETTERS
Eight hours of railway travel induce sleep for some persons and insomnia for others with me, any journey prevents my sleeping on the following night.
At about five o"clock I arrived at the estate of Abelle, which belongs to my friends, the Murets d"Artus, to spend three weeks there. It is a pretty house, built by one of their grandfathers in the style of the latter half of the last century. Therefore it has that intimate character of dwellings that have always been inhabited, furnished and enlivened by the same people. Nothing changes; nothing alters the soul of the dwelling, from which the furniture has never been taken out, the tapestries never unnailed, thus becoming worn out, faded, discolored, on the same walls. None of the old furniture leaves the place; only from time to time it is moved a little to make room for a new piece, which enters there like a new-born infant in the midst of brothers and sisters.
The house is on a hill in the center of a park which slopes down to the river, where there is a little stone bridge. Beyond the water the fields stretch out in the distance, and here one can see the cows wandering around, pasturing on the moist gra.s.s; their eyes seem full of the dew, mist and freshness of the pasture. I love this dwelling, just as one loves a thing which one ardently desires to possess. I return here every autumn with infinite delight; I leave with regret.
After I had dined with this friendly family, by whom I was received like a relative, I asked my friend, Paul Muret: "Which room did you give me this year?"
"Aunt Rose"s room."
An hour later, followed by her three children, two little girls and a boy, Madame Muret d"Artus installed me in Aunt Rose"s room, where I had not yet slept.
When I was alone I examined the walls, the furniture, the general aspect of the room, in order to attune my mind to it. I knew it but little, as I had entered it only once or twice, and I looked indifferently at a pastel portrait of Aunt Rose, who gave her name to the room.
This old Aunt Rose, with her curls, looking at me from behind the gla.s.s, made very little impression on my mind. She looked to me like a woman of former days, with principles and precepts as strong on the maxims of morality as on cooking recipes, one of these old aunts who are the bugbear of gaiety and the stern and wrinkled angel of provincial families.
I never had heard her spoken of; I knew nothing of her life or of her death. Did she belong to this century or to the preceding one? Had she left this earth after a calm or a stormy existence? Had she given up to heaven the pure soul of an old maid, the calm soul of a spouse, the tender one of a mother, or one moved by love? What difference did it make? The name alone, "Aunt Rose," seemed ridiculous, common, ugly.
I picked up a candle and looked at her severe face, hanging far up in an old gilt frame. Then, as I found it insignificant, disagreeable, even unsympathetic, I began to examine the furniture. It dated from the period of Louis XVI, the Revolution and the Directorate. Not a chair, not a curtain had entered this room since then, and it gave out the subtle odor of memories, which is the combined odor of wood, cloth, chairs, hangings, peculiar to places wherein have lived hearts that have loved and suffered.
I retired but did not sleep. After I had tossed about for an hour or two, I decided to get up and write some letters.
I opened a little mahogany desk with bra.s.s tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, which was placed between the two windows, in hope of finding some ink and paper; but all I found was a quill-pen, very much worn, and chewed at the end. I was about to close this piece of furniture, when a shining spot attracted my attention it looked like the yellow head of a nail. I scratched it with my finger, and it seemed to move. I seized it between two finger-nails, and pulled as hard as I could. It came toward me gently. It was a long gold pin which had been slipped into a hole in the wood and remained hidden there.