"I would like to see how you paint pictures? Will you? I have been very curious."[3]
And she colored up as though she had given utterance to words extremely audacious.
I conducted her to the bottom of the Pet.i.t-Val, where I had commenced a large picture.
She remained standing near me, following all my gestures with concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing, perhaps, that she was disturbing me she said to me: "Thank you," and walked away.
But in a short time she became more familiar, and accompanied me every day, her countenance exhibiting visible pleasure. She carried her folding stool under her arm, and would not consent to my carrying it, and she sat always by my side. She would remain there for hours, immovable and mute, following with her eye the point of my brush, in its every movement. When I would obtain, by a large splatch of color spread on with a knife, a striking and unexpected effect, she would, in spite of herself, give vent to a half-suppressed "Ah!" of astonishment, of joy, of admiration. She had the most tender respect for my canvases, an almost religious respect for that human reproduction of a part of nature"s work divine. My studies appeared to her as a kind of pictures of sanct.i.ty, and sometimes she spoke to me of G.o.d, with the idea of converting me.
Oh! He was a queer good-natured being, this G.o.d of hers. He was a sort of village philosopher without any great resources, and without great power; for she always figured him to herself as a being quivering over injustices committed under his eyes, and as though he was helpless to prevent them.
She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to be the confidant of his secrets and of his contrarieties. She said:
"G.o.d wills, or G.o.d does not will," just like a sergeant announcing to a recruit: "The colonel has commanded."
At the bottom of her heart, she deplored my ignorance of the intentions of the Eternal, which she strove, and felt herself compelled to impart to me.
Almost every day, I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it from the ground, in my box of colors, in my polished shoes, standing in the mornings in front of my door, those little pious brochures, which she, no doubt, received directly from Paradise.
I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected cordiality.
But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in her manner; but, for a while, I paid little attention to it.
When I walked about, whether to the bottom of the valley, or through some country lanes, I would see her suddenly appear, as though she were returning from a rapid walk. She would then sit down abruptly, out of breath, as though she had been running, or overcome by some profound emotion. Her face would be red, that English red which is denied to the people of all other countries; then, without any reason, she would grow pale, become the color of the ground and seem ready to faint away.
Gradually, however, I would see her regain her ordinary color, whereupon she would begin to speak.
Then, without warning, she would break off in the middle of a sentence, spring up from her seat, and march off so rapidly and so strangely, that it would, sometimes, put me to my wits ends to try and discover whether I had done or said anything to displease or offend her.
I finally came to the conclusion that this arose from her early habits and training, somewhat modified, no doubt, in honor of me, since the first days of our acquaintanceship.
When she returned to the farm, after walking for hours on the wind-beaten coast, her long curled hair would be shaken out and hanging loose, as though it had broken away from its bearings. It was seldom that this gave her any concern; looking sometimes as though she had just returned from dining _sans ceremonie_; her locks having become dishevelled by the breezes.
She would then go up to her room in order to adjust what I called her gla.s.s lamps; and when I would say to her, in the familiar gallantry, which, however, always offended her:
"You are as beautiful as a planet to-day, Miss Harriet," a little blood would immediately mount into her cheeks, the blood of a young maiden, the blood of sweet fifteen.
Then she would become abruptly savage and cease coming to watch me paint. I thought thus:
"This is only a fit of temper she is pa.s.sing through."
But it did not always pa.s.s away. When I spoke to her sometimes, she would answer me, either with an air of affected indifference, or in sullen anger; and became by turns rude, impatient, and nervous. For a time I never saw her except at meals, and we spoke but little. I concluded, at length, that I must have offended her in something: and, accordingly, I said to her one evening:
"Miss Harriet, why is it that you do not act towards me as formerly?
What have I done to displease you? You are causing me much pain!"
She responded, in an angry tone, in a manner altogether _sui generis_:
"I be always with you the same as formerly.[4] It is not true, not true," and she ran upstairs and shut herself up in her room.
At times she would look upon me with strange eyes. Since that time I have often said to myself that those who are condemned to death must look thus when they are informed that their last day has come. In her eye there lurked a species of folly, a folly at once mysterious and violent; and even more; a fever, an exasperated desire, impatient, and at once incapable of being realized and unrealizable!
Nay, it seemed to me that there was also going on within her a combat, in which her heart struggled against an unknown force that she wished to overcome, and even, perhaps, something else. But what could I know? What could I know?
III
This was indeed a singular revelation.
For some time I had commenced to work, as soon as daylight appeared, on a picture, the subject of which was as follows:
A deep ravine, steep banks, dominated by two declivities, lined with brambles and long rows of trees, hidden, drowned in that milky vapor, clad in that musty robe which sometimes floats over valleys, at break of day. And at the extreme end of that thick and transparent fog, you see coming or, rather already come, a human couple, a stripling and a maiden, embraced, inter-laced, she, with head leaning on him, he, inclined towards her, and lips to lips.
A first ray of the sun glistening through the branches, has traversed that fog of the dawn, has illuminated it with a rosy reflection, just behind the rustic lovers, on which can be seen their vague shadows in a clear silver. It was well done, yes, indeed, well done.
I was working on the declivity which led to the Val d"Etretat. This particular morning, I had, by chance, the sort of floating vapor, which was necessary for my purpose. Suddenly, an object appeared in front of me, a kind of phantom; it was Miss Harriet. On seeing me, she took to flight. But I called after her saying: "Come here, come here, Mademoiselle, I have a nice little picture for you."
She came forward, though with seeming reluctance. I handed her my sketch. She said nothing, but stood for a long time, motionless, regarding it; and, suddenly, she burst into tears. She wept spasmodically, like men who have been struggling hard against shedding tears, but who can do so no longer, and abandon themselves to grief, though still resisting. I got up, trembling, moved myself by the sight of a sorrow I did not comprehend, and I took her by the hand with an impulse of brusque affection, a true French impulse which impels one quicker than one thinks.
She let her hands rest in mine for a few seconds, and I felt them quiver as if her whole nervous system was twisting and turning. Then she withdrew her hands abruptly, or, rather tore them out of mine.
I recognized that shiver, as soon as I had felt it; I was deceived in nothing. Ah! the live shiver of a woman, whether she is fifteen or fifty years of age, whether she is one of the people or one of the _monde_, goes so straight to my heart that I never had any compunctions in understanding it!
Her whole frail being trembled, vibrated, swooned. I knew it. She walked away before I had time to say a word, leaving me as surprised as if I had witnessed a miracle, and as troubled as if I had committed a crime.
I did not go in to breakfast. I went to make a tour on the banks of the Falaise, feeling that I would just as lieve weep as laugh, looking on the adventure as both comic and deplorable, and my position as ridiculous, fain to believe that I had lost my head.
I asked myself what I ought to do. I debated with myself whether I ought to take my leave of the place and almost immediately my resolution was formed.
Somewhat sad and perplexed, I wandered about until dinner time, and I entered the farm house just when the soup had been served up.
I sat down at the table, as usual. Miss Harriet was there, munching away solemnly, without speaking to anyone, without even lifting eyes. She wore, however, her usual expression, both of countenance and manner.
I waited, patiently, till the meal had been finished, when, turning towards the landlady I said: "See here, Madame Lecacheur, it will not be long now before I shall have to take my leave of you."
The good woman, at once surprised and troubled, replied in a quivering voice: "My dear sir, what is it I have just heard you say? you are going to leave us, after I have become so much accustomed to you?"
I regarded Miss Harriet from the corner of my eye. Her countenance did not change in the least; but the under-servant came towards me with eyes wide open. She was a fat girl, of about eighteen years of age, rosy, fresh, as strong as a horse, yet possessing the rare attribute in one in her position--she was very neat and clean. I had embraced her at odd times, in out of the way corners, in the manner of a mountain guide, nothing more.
The dinner being at length over, I went to smoke my pipe under the apple trees, walking up and down at my ease, from one end of the court to the other. All the reflections which I had made during the day, the strange discovery of the morning, that grotesque love and pa.s.sionate attachment for me, the recollections which that revelation had suddenly called up, recollections at once charming and perplexing, perhaps, also, that look which the servant had cast on me at the announcement of my departure--all these things, mixed up and combined, put me now in a jolly humor of body, recalling the tickling sensation of kisses on the lips, and in the veins, something which urged me on to commit some folly.
Night having come on, casting its dark shadows under the trees, I descried Celeste, who had gone to shut the hen coops, at the other end of the enclosure. I darted towards her, running so noiselessly that she heard nothing, and as she got up from closing the small traps by which the chickens got in and out, I clasped her in my arms and rained on her coa.r.s.e, fat face a shower of kisses. She made a struggle, laughing all the same, as she was accustomed to do in such circ.u.mstances. Wherefore did I suddenly loose my grip of her? Why did I at once experience a shock? What was it that I heard behind me?
It was Miss Harriet who had come upon us, who had seen us, and who stood in front of us, as motionless as a specter. Then she disappeared in the darkness.
I was ashamed, embarra.s.sed, more desperate at having been surprised by her than if she had caught me committing some criminal act.
I slept badly that night; I was completely enervated and haunted by sad thoughts. I seemed to hear loud weeping; but in this I was no doubt deceived. Moreover, I thought several times that I heard some one walking up and down in the house, and who had opened my door from the outside.
Towards morning, I was overcome by fatigue and sleep seized on me. I got up late and did not go downstairs until breakfast time, being still in a bewildered state, not knowing what kind of face to put on.