"And the _Don Quixote_ of which we coloured the engravings together?"
"I have it still!"
He recalled to her mind the day of her first communion, and how pretty she had been at vespers, with her white veil and her large wax-taper, whilst the girls were all taking their places in a row around the choir, and the bell was tinkling.
These memories, no doubt, had little charm for Mademoiselle Roque. She had not a word to say; and, a minute later:
"Naughty fellow! never to have written a line to me, even once!"
Frederick urged by way of excuse his numerous occupations.
"What, then, are you doing?"
He was embarra.s.sed by the question; then he told her that he was studying politics.
"Ha!"
And without questioning him further:
"That gives you occupation; while as for me----!"
Then she spoke to him about the barrenness of her existence, as there was n.o.body she could go to see, and nothing to amuse her or distract her thoughts. She wished to go on horseback.
"The vicar maintains that this is improper for a young lady! How stupid these proprieties are! Long ago they allowed me to do whatever I pleased; now, they won"t let me do anything!"
"Your father, however, is fond of you!"
"Yes; but----"
She heaved a sigh, which meant: "That is not enough to make me happy."
Then there was silence. They heard only the noise made by their boots in the sand, together with the murmur of falling water; for the Seine, above Nogent, is cut into two arms. That which turns the mills discharges in this place the superabundance of its waves in order to unite further down with the natural course of the stream; and a person coming from the bridge could see at the right, on the other bank of the river, a gra.s.sy slope on which a white house looked down. At the left, in the meadow, a row of poplar-trees extended, and the horizon in front was bounded by a curve of the river. It was flat, like a mirror. Large insects hovered over the noiseless water. Tufts of reeds and rushes bordered it unevenly; all kinds of plants which happened to spring up there bloomed out in b.u.t.tercups, caused yellow cl.u.s.ters to hang down, raised trees in distaff-shape with amaranth-blossoms, and made green rockets spring up at random. In an inlet of the river white water-lilies displayed themselves; and a row of ancient willows, in which wolf-traps were hidden, formed, on that side of the island, the sole protection of the garden.
In the interior, on this side, four walls with a slate coping enclosed the kitchen-garden, in which the square patches, recently dug up, looked like brown plates. The bell-gla.s.ses of the melons shone in a row on the narrow hotbed. The artichokes, the kidney-beans, the spinach, the carrots and the tomatoes succeeded each other till one reached a background where asparagus grew in such a fashion that it resembled a little wood of feathers.
All this piece of land had been under the Directory what is called "a folly." The trees had, since then, grown enormously. Clematis obstructed the hornbeams, the walks were covered with moss, brambles abounded on every side. Fragments of statues let their plaster crumble in the gra.s.s. The feet of anyone walking through the place got entangled in iron-wire work. There now remained of the pavilion only two apartments on the ground floor, with some blue paper hanging in shreds.
Before the facade extended an arbour in the Italian style, in which a vine-tree was supported on columns of brick by a rail-work of sticks.
Soon they arrived at this spot; and, as the light fell through the irregular gaps on the green herbage, Frederick, turning his head on one side to speak to Louise, noticed the shadow of the leaves on her face.
She had in her red hair, stuck in her chignon, a needle, terminated by a gla.s.s bell in imitation of emerald, and, in spite of her mourning, she wore (so artless was her bad taste) straw slippers trimmed with pink satin--a vulgar curiosity probably bought at some fair.
He remarked this, and ironically congratulated her.
"Don"t be laughing at me!" she replied.
Then surveying him altogether, from his grey felt hat to his silk stockings:
"What an exquisite you are!"
After this, she asked him to mention some works which she could read. He gave her the names of several; and she said:
"Oh! how learned you are!"
While yet very small, she had been smitten with one of those childish pa.s.sions which have, at the same time, the purity of a religion and the violence of a natural instinct. He had been her comrade, her brother, her master, had diverted her mind, made her heart beat more quickly, and, without any desire for such a result, had poured out into the very depths of her being a latent and continuous intoxication. Then he had parted with her at the moment of a tragic crisis in her existence, when her mother had only just died, and these two separations had been mingled together. Absence had idealised him in her memory. He had come back with a sort of halo round his head; and she gave herself up ingenuously to the feelings of bliss she experienced at seeing him once more.
For the first time in his life Frederick felt himself beloved; and this new pleasure, which did not transcend the ordinary run of agreeable sensations, made his breast swell with so much emotion that he spread out his two arms while he flung back his head.
A large cloud pa.s.sed across the sky.
"It is going towards Paris," said Louise. "You"d like to follow it--wouldn"t you?"
"I! Why?"
"Who knows?"
And surveying him with a sharp look:
"Perhaps you have there" (she searched her mind for the appropriate phrase) "something to engage your affections."
"Oh! I have nothing to engage my affections there."
"Are you perfectly certain?"
"Why, yes, Mademoiselle, perfectly certain!"
In less than a year there had taken place in the young girl an extraordinary transformation, which astonished Frederick. After a minute"s silence he added:
"We ought to "thee" and "thou" each other, as we used to do long ago--shall we do so?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because----"
He persisted. She answered, with downcast face:
"I dare not!"
They had reached the end of the garden, which was close to the sh.e.l.l-bank. Frederick, in a spirit of boyish fun, began to send pebbles skimming over the water. She bade him sit down. He obeyed; then, looking at the waterfall:
""Tis like Niagara!" He began talking about distant countries and long voyages. The idea of making some herself exercised a fascination over her mind. She would not have been afraid either of tempests or of lions.
Seated close beside each other, they collected in front of them handfuls of sand, then, while they were chatting, they let it slip through their fingers, and the hot wind, which rose from the plains, carried to them in puffs odours of lavender, together with the smell of tar escaping from a boat behind the lock. The sun"s rays fell on the cascade. The greenish blocks of stone in the little wall over which the water slipped looked as if they were covered with a silver gauze that was perpetually rolling itself out. A long strip of foam gushed forth at the foot with a harmonious murmur. Then it bubbled up, forming whirlpools and a thousand opposing currents, which ended by intermingling in a single limpid stream of water.
Louise said in a musing tone that she envied the existence of fishes:
"It must be so delightful to tumble about down there at your ease, and to feel yourself caressed on every side."