They drove at a much quicker pace to-day, the snow being harder; and all the way to Dieppe, during the long, dull hours of the journey, through all the jolting and rattling of the conveyance, in the falling shades of evening and later in the profound darkness, he continued with unabated persistency his vengeful and monotonous whistling; forcing his wearied and exasperated fellow travelers to follow the song from end to end and to remember every word that corresponded to each note.
And Boule de Suif wept on, and at times a sob which she could not repress broke out between two couplets in the darkness.
MISS HARRIET
There were seven of us in a break, four women and three men, one of which latter was on the box seat beside the coachman, and we were following, at a foot pace, the broad highway which serpentines along the coast.
Setting out from Etretat at break of day, in order to visit the ruins of Tancarville, we were still asleep, benumbed by the fresh air of the morning. The women, especially, who were little accustomed to these early excursions, let their eyelids fall and rise every moment, nodding their heads or yawning, quite insensible to the emotion of the breaking of day.
It was autumn. On both sides of the road, the bare fields stretched out, yellowed by the corn and wheat stubble which covered the soil, like a beard that had been badly shaved. The spongy earth seemed to smoke. The larks were singing, high up in the air, while other birds piped in the bushes.
The sun rose at length in front of us, a bright red on the plane of the horizon; and in proportion as it ascended, growing clearer from minute to minute, the country seemed to awake, to smile, to shake itself, stretch itself, like a young girl who is leaving her bed, in her white vapor chemise. The Count of Etraille, who was seated on the box, cried:
"Look! look! a hare!" and he extended his arm towards the left, pointing to a piece of hedge. The animal threaded its way along, almost concealed by the field, raising only its large ears. Then it swerved across a deep rut, stopped, pursued again its easy course, changed its direction, stopped anew, disturbed, spying out every danger, undecided as to the route it should take; when suddenly it began to run with great bounds of the hind legs, disappearing finally, in a large patch of beet-root. All the men had woke up to watch the course of the beast.
Rene Lemanoir then exclaimed:
"We are not at all gallant this morning," and regarding his neighbor, the little Baroness of Serennes, who struggled against sleep, he said to her in a subdued voice: "You are thinking of your husband, Baroness.
Rea.s.sure yourself; he will not return before Sat.u.r.day, so you have still four days."
She responded to him with a sleepy smile: "How rude you are." Then, shaking off her torpor, she added: "Now, let somebody say something that will make us all laugh. You, Monsieur Chenal, who have the reputation of possessing a larger fortune than the Duke of Richelieu, tell us a love story in which you have been mixed up, anything you like."
Leon Chenal, an old painter, who had once been very handsome, very strong, very proud of his physique, and very amiable, took his long white beard in his hand and smiled, then, after a few moments"
reflection, he became suddenly grave.
"Ladies, it will not be an amusing tale; for I am going to relate to you the most lamentable love affair of my life, and I sincerely hope that none of my friends have ever pa.s.sed through a similar experience."
I
I was at the time twenty-five years of age, and I was making daubs along the coast of Normandy. I call "making daubs" that wandering about, with a bag on one"s back, from mountain to mountain, under the pretext of studying and of sketching nature. I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which one is perfectly free, without shackles of any kind, without care, without preoccupation, without thinking even of to-morrow. One goes in any direction one pleases, without any guide, save his fancy, without any counselor save his eyes. One pulls up, because a running brook seduces one, because one is attracted, in front of an inn, by the smell of potatoes frying.
Sometimes it is the perfume of clematis which decides one in his choice, or the nave glance of the servant at an inn. Do not despise me for my affection for these rustics. These girls have a soul as well as feeling, not to mention firm cheeks and fresh lips; while their hearty and willing kisses have the flavor of wild fruit. Love always has its price, come whence it may. A heart that beats when you make your appearance, an eye that weeps when you go away, are things so rare, so sweet, so precious, that they must never be despised.
I have had rendezvoux in ditches in which cattle repose, and in barns among the straw, still steaming from the heat of the day. I have recollections of canvas being spread on rude and elastic benches, and of hearty and fresh, free kisses, more delicate and unaffectedly sincere than the subtle attractions of charming and distinguished women.
But what one loves most amidst all these varied adventures is the country, the woods, the risings of the sun, the twilight, the light of the moon. These are, for the painter, honeymoon trips with nature. One is alone with her in that long and tranquil rendezvous. You go to bed in the fields, amidst marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide open, you watch the going down of the sun, and descry in the distance the little village, with its pointed clock tower, which sounds the hour of midnight.
You sit down by the side of a spring which gushes out from the foot of an oak, amidst a covering of fragile herbs, upright and redolent of life. You go down on your knees, bend forward, you drink that cold and pellucid water which wets your moustache and nose, you drink it with a physical pleasure, as though you kissed the spring, lip to lip.
Sometimes, when you encounter a deep hole, along the course of these tiny brooks, you plunge into it, quite naked, and you feel on your skin, from head to foot, like an icy and delicious caress, the lovely and gentle quivering of the current.
You are gay on the hills, melancholy on the verge of pools, exalted when the sun is crowned in an ocean of blood-red shadows, and when it casts on the rivers its red reflection. And, at night, under the moon, which pa.s.ses across the vault of heaven, you think of things, and singular things, which would never have occurred to your mind under the brilliant light of day.
So, in wandering through the same country where we are this year, I came to the little village of Benouville, on the Falaise, between Yport and Etretat. I came from Fecamp, following the coast, a high coast, and as perpendicular as a wall, with its projecting and rugged rocks falling perpendicularly into the sea. I had walked since the morning on the shaven gra.s.s, as smooth and as yielding as a carpet. And singing l.u.s.tily, I walked with long strides, looking sometimes at the slow and ambling flight of a gull, with its short, white wings, sailing in the blue heavens, sometimes on the green sea, at the brown sails of a fishing bark. In short, I had pa.s.sed a happy day, a day of listlessness and of liberty.
I was shown a little farm house, where travelers were put up, a kind of inn, kept by a peasant, which stood in the center of a Norman court, which was surrounded by a double row of beeches.
Quitting the Falaise, I gained the hamlet, which was hemmed in by great trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.
She was an old, wrinkled and austere rustic, who seemed always to succ.u.mb to the pressure of new customs with a kind of contempt.
It was the month of May: the spreading apple-trees covered the court with a whirling shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon people and upon the gra.s.s.
I said:
"Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?"
Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:
"That depends; everything is let; but, all the same, there will be no harm in looking."
In five minutes we were in perfect accord, and I deposited my bag upon the bare floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed, two chairs, a table, and a wash-stand. The room looked into the large and smoky kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm and the farmer, who was a widower.
I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman frica.s.seed a chicken for dinner in a large fireplace, in which hung the stew pot, black with smoke.
"You have travelers, then, at the present time?" I said to her.
She answered, in an offended tone of voice:
"I have a lady, an English lady, who has attained to years of maturity.
She is going to occupy my other room."
I obtained, by means of an extra five sous a day, the privilege of dining out in the court when the weather was fine.
My cover was then placed in front of the door, and I commenced to gnaw with my teeth the lean members of the Normandy chicken, to drink the clear cider, and to munch the hunk of white bread, which was four days old, though excellent.
Suddenly, the wooden barrier which gave into the highway, was opened, and a strange person directed her steps towards the house. She was very slender, very tall, enveloped in a Scotch shawl with red borders, and one might have believed that she had no arms, if one had not seen a long hand appear just above the haunches, holding a white tourist umbrella.
The face of a mummy, surrounded with sausage rolls of plaited, gray hair, which bounded at every step she took, made me think, I know not why, of a sour herring adorned with curling papers. Lowering her eyes, she pa.s.sed quickly in front of me, and entered the house.
That singular apparition made me yearn. She undoubtedly was my neighbor, the aged English lady of whom our hostess had spoken.
I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had installed myself to commence painting, at the end of that beautiful valley, which you know, and which extends as far as Etretat, I perceived, in lifting my eyes suddenly, something singularly attired, standing on the crest of the declivity; one might indeed say, a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I re-entered the house at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance of this old original. But she did not respond to my polite advances, was insensible even to my little attentions. I poured water out for her with great alacrity; I pa.s.sed her the dishes with great eagerness. A slight, almost imperceptible movement of the head, and an English word, murmured so low that I did not understand it, were her only acknowledgments.
I ceased occupying myself with her, although she had disturbed my thoughts.
At the end of three days, I knew as much about her as did Madame Lecacheur herself.
She was called Miss Harriet. Seeking out a secluded village in which to pa.s.s the summer, she had been attracted to Benouville, some six months before, and did not seem disposed to quit it. She never spoke at table, ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book, treating of some protestant propaganda. She gave a copy of it to everybody. The cure himself had received no less than four copies, conveyed by an urchin to whom she had paid two sous" commission. She said sometimes to our hostess, abruptly, without preparing her in the least for the declaration:
"I love the Savior more than all; I admire him in all creation; I adore him in all nature, I carry him always in my heart."
And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her brochures which were destined to convert the universe.
In the village she was not liked. In fact, the schoolmaster had declared that she was an atheist, and that a kind of reprobation weighed down on her. The cure, who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded: