The works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 5

He spoke in a calm, cool way as if he were sure of his logic and the strength of his argument. The baron, disconcerted by this fresh view of the matter, could find nothing to say in reply, and Julien, feeling his advantage, added:

"But fortunately, nothing is settled. I know the man who is going to marry her and he is an honest fellow with whom everything can yet be satisfactorily arranged. I will see to the matter myself."

With that he went out of the room, wishing to avoid any further discussion, and taking the silence with which his words were received to mean acquiescence.

As soon as the door had closed after his son-in-law, the baron exclaimed:

"Oh, this is more than I can stand!"

Jeanne, catching sight of her father's horrified expression, burst into a clear laugh which rang out as it used to do whenever she had seen something very funny:

"Papa, papa!" she cried. "Did you hear the tone in which he said 'twenty thousand francs!'"

The baroness, whose smiles lay as near the surface as her tears, quivered with laughter as she saw Jeanne's gayety, and thought of her son-in-law's furious face, and his indignant exclamations and determined attempt to prevent this money, which was not his, being given to the girl he had seduced. Finally the baron caught the contagion and they all three laughed till they ached as in the happy days of old. When they were a little calmer, Jeanne said:

"It is very funny, but really I don't seem to mind in the least what he says or does now. I look upon him quite as a stranger, and I can hardly believe I am his wife. You see I am able to laugh at his – his want of delicacy."

And the parents and child involuntarily kissed each other, with smiles on their lips, though the tears were not very far from their eyes.

Two days after this scene, when Julien had gone out for a ride, a tall, young fellow of about four or five-and-twenty, dressed in a brand-new blue blouse, which hung in stiff folds, climbed stealthily over the fence, as if he had been hiding there all the morning, crept along the Couillards' ditch, and went round to the other side of the château where Jeanne and her father and mother were sitting under the plane-tree. He took off his cap and awkwardly bowed as he came towards them, and, when he was within speaking distance, mumbled:

"Your servant, monsieur le baron, madame and company." Then, as no one said anything to him he introduced himself as "Desiré Lecoq."

This name failing to explain his presence at the château, the baron asked:

"What do you want?"

The peasant was very disconcerted when he found he had to state his business. He hesitated, stammered, cast his eyes from the cap he held in his hands to the château roof and back again, and at last began:

"M'sieu l'curé has said somethin' to me about this business – " then, fearing to say too much and thus injure his own interests, he stopped short.

"What business?" asked the baron. "I don't know what you mean."

"About your maid – what's her name – Rosalie," said the man in a low voice.

Jeanne, guessing what he had come about, got up and went away with her child in her arms.

"Sit down," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had just left.

The peasant took the seat with a "Thank you, kindly," and then waited as if he had nothing whatever to say. After a few moments, during which no one spoke, he thought he had better say something, so he looked up to the blue sky and remarked:

"What fine weather for this time of year to be sure. It'll help on the crops finely." And then he again relapsed into silence.

The baron began to get impatient.

"Then you are going to marry Rosalie?" he said in a dry tone, going straight to the point.

At that all the crafty suspicious nature of the Normandy peasant was on the alert.

"That depends," he answered quickly. "Perhaps I am and perhaps I ain't, that depends."

All this beating about the bush irritated the baron.

"Can't you give a straightforward answer?" he exclaimed. "Have you come to say you will marry the girl or not?"

The man looked at his feet as though he expected to find advice there:

"If it's as M'sieu l'curé says," he replied, "I'll have her; but if it's as M'sieu Julien says, I won't."

"What did M. Julien tell you?"

"M'sieu Julien told me as how I should have fifteen hundred francs; but M'sieu l'curé told me as how I should 'ave twenty thousand. I'll have her for twenty thousand, but I won't for fifteen hundred."

The baroness was tickled by the perplexed look on the yokel's face and began to shake with laughter as she sat in her armchair. Her gayety surprised the peasant, who looked at her suspiciously out of the corner of his eye as he waited for an answer.

The baron cut short all this haggling.

"I have told M. le curé that you shall have the farm at Barville, which is worth twenty thousand francs, for life, and then it is to become the child's. That is all I have to say on the matter, and I always keep my word. Now is your answer yes or no?"

A satisfied smile broke over the man's face, and, with a sudden loquacity:

"Oh, then, I don't say no," he replied. "That was the only thing that pulled me up. When M'sieu l'curé said somethin' to me about it in the first place, I said yes at once, 'specially as it was to oblige M'sieu l'baron who'd be sure to pay me back for it, as I says to myself. Ain't it always the way, and doesn't one good turn always deserve another? But M'sieu Julien comes up and then it was only fifteen 'undred francs. Then I says to myself, 'I must find out the rights o' this and so I came 'ere. In coorse I b'lieved your word, M'sieu l'baron, but I wanted to find out the rights o' the case. Short reck'nings make long friends, don't they, M'sieu l'baron?"

He would have gone on like this till dinner-time if no one had interrupted him, so the baron broke in with:

"When will you marry her?"

The question aroused the peasant's suspicions again directly.

"Couldn't I have it put down in writin' first?" he asked in a halting way.

"Why bless my soul, isn't the marriage-contract good enough for you?" exclaimed the baron, angered by the man's suspicious nature.

"But until I get that I should like it wrote down on paper," persisted the peasant. "Havin' it down on paper never does no harm."

"Give a plain answer, now at once," said the baron, rising to put an end to the interview. "If you don't choose to marry the girl, say so. I know someone else who would be glad of the chance."

The idea of twenty thousand francs slipping from his hands into someone else's, startled the peasant out of his cautiousness, and he at once decided to say "yes":

"Agreed, M'sieu l'baron!" he said, holding out his hand as if he were concluding the purchase of a cow. "It's done, and there's no going back from the bargain."

The baron took his hand and cried to the cook:

"Ludivine! Bring a bottle of wine."

The wine was drunk and then the peasant went away, feeling a great deal lighter-hearted than when he had come.

Nothing was said about this visit to Julien. The drawing up of the marriage-contract was kept a great secret; then the banns were published and Rosalie was married on the Monday morning. At the church a neighbor stood behind the bride and bridegroom with a child in her arms as an omen of good luck, and everyone thought Desiré Lecoq very fortunate. "He was born with a caul," said the peasants with a smile.

When Julien heard of the marriage he had a violent quarrel with the baron and baroness and they decided to shorten their visit at Les Peuples. Jeanne was sorry but she did not grieve as before when her parents went away, for now all her hopes and thoughts were centered on her son.

IX

Now Jeanne was quite well again she thought she would like to return the Fourville's visit, and also to call on the Couteliers. Julien had just bought another carriage at a sale, a phaeton. It only needed one horse, so they could go out twice a month, now, instead of once, and they used it for the first time one bright December morning.

After driving for two hours across the Normandy plains they began to go down to a little valley, whose sloping sides were covered with trees, while the level ground at the bottom was cultivated. The ploughed fields were followed by meadows, the meadows by a fen covered with tall reeds, which waved in the wind like yellow ribbons, and then the road took a sharp turn and the Château de la Vrillette came in sight. It was built between a wooded slope on the one side and a large lake on the other, the water stretching from the château wall to the tall fir-trees which covered the opposite acclivity.

The carriage had to pass over an old draw-bridge and under a vast Louis XIII. archway before it drew up in front of a handsome building of the same period as the archway, with brick frames round the windows and slated turrets. Julien pointed out all the different beauties of the mansion to Jeanne as if he were thoroughly acquainted with every nook and corner of it.

"Isn't it a superb place?" he exclaimed. "Just look at that archway! On the other side of the house, which looks on to the lake, there is a magnificent flight of steps leading right down to the water. Four boats are moored at the bottom of the steps, two for the comte and two for the comtesse. The lake ends down there, on the right, where you can see that row of poplars, and there the river, which runs to Fécamp, rises. The place abounds in wild-fowl, and the comte passes all his time shooting. Ah! it is indeed a lordly residence."

The hall door opened and the fair-haired comtesse came to meet her visitors with a smile on her face. She wore a trailing dress like a châtelaine of the middle ages, and, exactly suited to the place in which she lived, she looked like some beautiful Lady of the Lake.

Four out of the eight drawing-room windows looked on to the lake, and the water looked dull and dismal, overshadowed as it was by the gloomy fir-trees which covered the opposite slope.

The comtesse took both Jeanne's hands in hers as if she had known her for ages, placed her in a seat and then drew a low chair beside her for herself, while Julien, who had regained all his old refinement during the last five months, smiled and chatted in an easy, familiar way. The comtesse and he talked about the rides they had had together. She laughed a little at his bad horsemanship, and called him "The Tottering Knight," and he too laughed, calling her in return "The Amazon Queen."

A gun went off just under the window, and Jeanne gave a little cry. It was the comte shooting teal, and his wife called him in. There was the splash of oars, the grating of a boat against the stone steps and then the comte came in, followed by two dogs of a reddish hue, which lay down on the carpet before the door, while the water dripped from their shaggy coats.

The comte seemed more at his ease in his own house, and was delighted to see the vicomte and Jeanne. He ordered the fire to be made up, and Madeira and biscuits to be brought.

"Of course you will dine with us," he exclaimed.

Jeanne refused the invitation, thinking of Paul; and as he pressed her to stay and she still persisted in her refusal, Julien made a movement of impatience. Then afraid of arousing her husband's quarrelsome temper, she consented to stay, though the idea of not seeing Paul till the next day was torture to her.

They spent a delightful afternoon. First of all the visitors were taken to see the springs which flowed from the foot of a moss-covered rock into a crystal basin of water which bubbled as if it were boiling, and then they went in a boat among the dry reeds, where paths of water had been formed by cutting down the rushes.

The comte rowed (his two dogs sitting each side of him with their noses in the air) and each vigorous stroke of the oars lifted the boat half out of the water and sent it rapidly on its way. Jeanne let her hand trail in the water, enjoying the icy coolness, which seemed to soothe her, and Julien and the comtesse, well wrapped up in rugs, sat in smiling silence in the stern of the boat, as if they were too happy to talk.

The evening drew on, and with it the icy, northerly wind came over the withered reeds. The sun had disappeared behind the firs, and it made one cold only to look at the crimson sky, covered with tiny, red fantastically-shaped clouds.

They all went in to the big drawing-room where an enormous fire was blazing. The room seemed to be filled with an atmosphere of warmth and comfort, and the comte gayly took up his wife in his strong arms like a child, and gave her two hearty kisses on her cheeks.

Jeanne could not help smiling at this good-natured giant to whom his moustaches gave the appearance of an ogre. "What wrong impressions of people one forms every day," she thought; and, almost involuntarily, she glanced at Julien. He was standing in the doorway his eyes fixed on the comte and his face very pale. His expression frightened her and, going up to him, she asked:

"What is the matter? are you ill?"

"There's nothing the matter with me," he answered, churlishly. "Leave me alone. I only feel cold."

Dinner was announced and the comte begged permission for his dogs to come into the dining-room. They came and sat one on each side of their master, who every minute threw them some scrap of food. The animals stretched out their heads, and wagged their tails, quivering with pleasure as he drew their long silky ears through his fingers.

After dinner, when Jeanne and Julien began to say good-bye, the comte insisted on their staying to see some fishing by torchlight. They and the comtesse stood on the steps leading down to the lake, while the comte got into his boat with a servant carrying a lighted torch and a net. The torch cast strange trembling reflections over the water, its dancing glimmers even lighting up the firs beyond the reeds; and suddenly, as the boat turned round, an enormous fantastic shadow was thrown on the background of the illumined wood. It was the shadow of a man, but the head rose above the trees and was lost against the dark sky, while the feet seemed to be down in the lake. This huge creature raised its arms as if it would grasp the stars; the movement was a rapid one, and the spectators on the steps heard a little splash.

The boat tacked a little, and the gigantic shadow seemed to run along the wood, which was lighted up as the torch moved with the boat; then it was lost in the darkness, then reappeared on the château wall, smaller, but more distinct; and the loud voice of the comte was heard exclaiming:

"Gilberte, I have caught eight!"

The oars splashed, and the enormous shadow remained standing in the same place on the wall, but gradually it became thinner and shorter; the head seemed to sink lower and the body to get narrower, and when M. de Fourville came up the steps, followed by the servant carrying the torch, it was reduced to his exact proportions, and faithfully copied all his movements. In the net he had eight big fish which were still quivering.

As Jeanne and Julien were driving home, well wrapped up in cloaks and rugs which the Fourvilles had lent them,

"What a good-hearted man that giant is," said Jeanne, almost to herself.

"Yes," answered Julien; "but he makes too much show of his affection, sometimes, before people."

A week after their visit to the Fourvilles, they called on the Couteliers, who were supposed to be the highest family in the province, and whose estate lay near Cany. The new château, built in the reign of Louis XIV, lay in a magnificent park, entirely surrounded by walls, and the ruins of the old château could be seen from the higher parts of the grounds.

A liveried servant showed the visitors into a large, handsome room. In the middle of the floor an enormous Sèvres vase stood on a pedestal, into which a crystal case had been let containing the king's autograph letter, offering this gift to the Marquis Léopold Hervé Joseph Germer de Varneville, de Rollebosc de Coutelier. Jeanne and Julien were looking at this royal present when the marquis and marquise came in, the latter wearing her hair powdered.

The marquise thought her rank constrained her to be amiable, and her desire to appear condescending made her affected. Her husband was a big man, with white hair brushed straight up all over his head, and a haughtiness in his voice, in all his movements, in his every attitude which plainly showed the esteem in which he held himself. They were people who had a strict etiquette for everything, and whose feelings seemed always stilted, like their words.

They both talked on without waiting for an answer, smiled with an air of indifference, and behaved as if they were accomplishing a duty imposed upon them by their superior birth, in receiving the smaller nobles of the province with such politeness. Jeanne and Julien tried to make themselves agreeable, though they felt ill at ease, and when the time came to conclude their visit they hardly knew how to retire, though they did not want to stay any longer. However, the marquise, herself, ended the visit naturally and simply by stopping short the conversation, like a queen ending an audience.

"I don't think we will call on anyone else, unless you want to," said Julien, as they were going back. "The Fourvilles are quite as many friends as I want."

And Jeanne agreed with him.

Dark, dreary December passed slowly away. Everyone stayed at home like the winter before, but Jeanne's thoughts were too full of Paul for her ever to feel dull. She would hold him in her arms covering him with those passionate kisses which mothers lavish on their children, then offering the baby's face to his father:

"Why don't you kiss him?" she would say. "You hardly seem to love him."

Julien would just touch the infant's smooth forehead with his lips, holding his body as far away as possible, as if he were afraid of the little hands touching him in their aimless movements. Then he would go quickly out of the room, almost as though the child disgusted him.

The mayor, the doctor, and the curé came to dinner occasionally, and sometimes the Fourvilles, who had become very intimate with Jeanne and her husband. The comte seemed to worship Paul. He nursed the child on his knees from the time he entered Les Peuples to the time he left, sometimes holding him the whole afternoon, and it was marvelous to see how delicately and tenderly he touched him with his huge hands. He would tickle the child's nose with the ends of his long moustaches, and then suddenly cover his face with kisses almost as passionate as Jeanne's. It was the great trouble of his life that he had no children.

March was bright, dry, and almost mild. The Comtesse Gilberte again proposed that they should all four go for some rides together, and Jeanne, a little tired of the long weary evenings and the dull, monotonous days, was only too pleased at the idea and agreed to it at once. It took her a week to make her riding-habit, and then they commenced their rides.

They always rode two and two, the comtesse and Julien leading the way, and the comte and Jeanne about a hundred feet behind. The latter couple talked easily and quietly as they rode along, for, each attracted by the other's straightforward ways and kindly heart, they had become fast friends. Julien and the comtesse talked in whispers alternated by noisy bursts of laughter, and looked in each other's eyes to read there the things their lips did not utter, and often they would break into a gallop, as if impelled by a desire to escape alone to some country far away.

Sometimes it seemed as if something irritated Gilberte. Her sharp tones would be borne on the breeze to the ears of the couple loitering behind, and the comte would say to Jeanne, with a smile:

"I don't think my wife got out of bed the right side this morning."

One evening, as they were returning home, the comtesse began to spur her mare, and then pull her in with sudden jerks on the rein.

"Take care, or she'll run away with you," said Julien two or three times.

"So much the worse for me; it's nothing to do with you," she replied, in such cold, hard tones that the clear words rang out over the fields as if they were actually floating in the air.

The mare reared, kicked, and foamed at the mouth and the comte cried out anxiously:

"Do take care what you are doing, Gilberte!"

Then, in a fit of defiance, for she was in one of those obstinate moods that will brook no word of advice, she brought her whip heavily down between the animal's ears. The mare reared, beat the air with her fore legs for a moment, then, with a tremendous bound, set off over the plain at the top of her speed. First she crossed a meadow, then some ploughed fields, kicking up the wet heavy soil behind her, and going at such a speed that in a few moments the others could hardly distinguish the comtesse from her horse.

Julien stood stock still, crying: "Madame! Madame!" The comte gave a groan, and, bending down over his powerful steed, galloped after his wife. He encouraged his steed with voice and hand, urged it on with whip and spur, and it seemed as though he carried the big animal between his legs, and raised it from the ground at every leap it took. The horse went at an inconceivable speed, keeping a straight line regardless of all obstacles; and Jeanne could see the two outlines of the husband and wife diminish and fade in the distance, till they vanished altogether, like two birds chasing each other till they are lost to sight beyond the horizon.

Julien walked his horse up to his wife, murmuring angrily: "She is mad to-day." And they both went off after their friends, who were hidden in a dip in the plain. In about a quarter of an hour they saw them coming back, and soon they came up to them.

The comte, looking red, hot and triumphant, was leading his wife's horse. The comtesse was very pale; her features looked drawn and contracted, and she leant on her husband's shoulder as if she were going to faint. That day Jeanne understood, for the first time, how madly the comte loved his wife.

All through the following month the comtesse was merrier than she had ever been before. She came to Les Peuples as often as she could, and was always laughing and jumping up to kiss Jeanne. She seemed to have found some unknown source of happiness, and her husband simply worshiped her now, following her about with his eyes and seeking every pretext for touching her hand or her dress.

"We are happier now than we have ever been before," he said, one evening, to Jeanne. "Gilberte has never been so affectionate as she is now; nothing seems to vex her or make her angry. Until lately I was never quite sure that she loved me, but now I know she does."

Julien had changed for the better also; he had become gay and good-tempered, and their friendship seemed to have brought peace and happiness to both families.

The spring was exceptionally warm and forward. The sun cast his warm rays upon the budding trees and flowers from early morn until the sweet, soft evening. It was one of those favored years when the world seems to have grown young again, and nature to delight in bringing everything to life once more.

Jeanne felt a vague excitement in the presence of this reawakening of the fields and woods. She gave way to a sweet melancholy and spent hours languidly dreaming. All the tender incidents of her first hours of love came back to her, not that any renewal of affection for her husband stirred her heart; that had been completely destroyed; but the soft breeze which fanned her cheek and the sweet perfume which filled the air seemed to breathe forth a tender sigh of love which made her pulse beat quicker. She liked to be alone, and in the warm sunshine, to enjoy these vague, peaceful sensations which aroused no thoughts.

One morning she was lying thus half-dormant, when suddenly she saw in her mind that sunlit space in the little wood near Etretat where for the first time she had felt thrilled by the presence of the man who loved her then, where he had for the first time timidly hinted at his hopes, and where she had believed that she was going to realize the radiant future of her dreams. She thought she should like to make a romantic, superstitious pilgrimage to the wood, and she felt as if a visit to that sunny spot would in some way alter the course of her life.