She replied with provoking archness: 'Are we going to Rouen to talk of him?'
He colored. 'I am a fool. You intimidate me.'
She was delighted. 'I? Impossible.'
He seated himself beside her. She exclaimed: 'Ah! a stag!' The train was passing through the forest of Saint-Germain and she had seen a frightened deer clear an alley at a bound. As she gazed out of the open window, Duroy bending over her, pressed a kiss upon her neck. For several moments she remained motionless, then raising her head, she said: 'You tickle me, stop!'
But he did not obey her.
She repeated: 'Stop, I say!'
He seized her head with his right hand, turned it toward him and pressed his lips to hers. She struggled, pushed him away and repeated: 'Stop!'
He did not heed her. With an effort, she freed herself and rising, said: 'Georges, have done. We are not children, we shall soon reach Rouen.'
'Very well,' said he, gaily, 'I will wait.'
Reseating herself near him she talked of what they would do on their return; they would keep the apartments in which she had lived with her first husband, and Duroy would receive Forestier's position on 'La Vie Francaise.' In the meantime, forgetting her injunctions and his promise, he slipped his arm around her waist, pressed her to him and murmured: 'I love you dearly, my little Made.'
The gentleness of his tone moved the young woman, and leaning toward him she offered him her lips; as she did so, a whistle announced the proximity of the station. Pushing back some stray locks upon her temples, she exclaimed:
'We are foolish.'
He kissed her hands feverishly and replied:
'I adore you, my little Made.'
On reaching Rouen they repaired to a hotel where they spent the night. The following morning, when they had drunk the tea placed upon the table in their room, Duroy clasped his wife in his arms and said: 'My little Made, I feel that I love you very, very much.'
She smiled trustfully and murmured as she returned his kisses: 'I love you too--a little.'
The visit to his parents worried Georges, although he had prepared his wife. He began again: 'You know they are peasants, real, not sham, comic-opera peasants.'
She smiled. 'I know it, you have told me often enough.'
'We shall be very uncomfortable. There is only a straw bed in my room; they do not know what hair mattresses are at Canteleu.'
She seemed delighted. 'So much the better. It would be charming to sleep badly--when--near you--and to be awakened by the crowing of the cocks.'
He walked toward the window and lighted a cigarette. The sight of the harbor, of the river filled with ships moved him and he exclaimed: 'Egad, but that is fine!'
Madeleine joined him and placing both of her hands on her husband's shoulder, cried: 'Oh, how beautiful! I did not know that there were so many ships!'
An hour later they departed in order to breakfast with the old couple, who had been informed several days before of their intended arrival. Both Duroy and his wife were charmed with the beauties of the landscape presented to their view, and the cabman halted in order to allow them to get a better idea of the panorama before them. As he whipped up his horse, Duroy saw an old couple not a hundred meters off, approaching, and he leaped from the carriage crying: 'Here they are, I know them.'
The man was short, corpulent, florid, and vigorous, notwithstanding his age; the woman was tall, thin, and melancholy, with stooping shoulders--a woman who had worked from childhood, who had never laughed nor jested.
Madeleine, too, alighted and watched the couple advance, with a contraction of her heart she had not anticipated. They did not recognize their son in that fine gentleman, and they would never have taken that handsome lady for their daughter-in-law. They walked along, passed the child they were expecting, without glancing at the 'city folks.'
Georges cried with a laugh: 'Good day, Father Duroy.'
Both the old man and his wife were struck dumb with astonishment; the latter recovered her self-possession first and asked: 'Is it you, son?'
The young man replied: 'Yes, it is I, Mother Duroy,' and approaching her, he kissed her upon both cheeks and said: 'This is my wife.'
The two rustics stared at Madeleine as if she were a curiosity, with anxious fear, combined with a sort of satisfied approbation on the part of the father and of jealous enmity on that of the mother.
M. Duroy, senior, who was naturally jocose, made so bold as to ask with a twinkle in his eye: 'May I kiss you too?' His son uttered an exclamation and Madeleine offered her cheek to the old peasant; who afterward wiped his lips with the back of his hand. The old woman, in her turn, kissed her daughter-in-law with hostile reserve. Her ideal was a stout, rosy, country lass, as red as an apple and as round.
The carriage preceded them with the luggage. The old man took his son's arm and asked him: 'How are you getting on?'
'Very well.'
'That is right. Tell me, has your wife any means?'
Georges replied: 'Forty thousand francs.'
His father whistled softly and muttered: 'Whew!' Then he added: 'She is a handsome woman.' He admired his son's wife, and in his day had considered himself a connoisseur.
Madeleine and the mother walked side by side in silence; the two men joined them. They soon reached the village, at the entrance to which stood M. Duroy's tavern. A pine board fastened over the door indicated that thirsty people might enter. The table was laid. A neighbor, who had come to assist, made a low courtesy on seeing so beautiful a lady appear; then recognizing Georges, she cried: 'Oh Lord, is it you?'
He replied merrily: 'Yes, it is I, Mother Brulin,' and he kissed her as he had kissed his father and mother. Then he turned to his wife:
'Come into our room,' said he, 'you can lay aside your hat.'
They passed through a door to the right and entered a room paved with brick, with whitewashed walls and a bed with cotton hangings.
A crucifix above a holy-water basin and two colored prints, representing Paul and Virginia beneath a blue palm-tree, and Napoleon I. on a yellow horse, were the only ornaments in that neat, but bare room.
When they were alone, Georges embraced Madeleine.
'Good morning, Made! I am glad to see the old people once more. When one is in Paris one does not think of this place, but when one returns, one enjoys it just the same.'
At that moment his father cried, knocking on the partition with his fist: 'Come, the soup is ready.'
They re-entered the large public-room and took their seats at the table. The meal was a long one, served in a truly rustic fashion. Father Duroy, enlivened by the cider and several glasses of wine, related many anecdotes, while Georges, to whom they were all familiar, laughed at them.
Mother Duroy did not speak, but sat at the board, grim and austere, glancing at her daughter-in-law with hatred in her heart.
Madeleine did not speak nor did she eat; she was depressed. Wherefore? She had wished to come; she knew that she was coming to a simple home; she had formed no poetical ideas of those peasants, but she had perhaps expected to find them somewhat more polished, refined. She recalled her own mother, of whom she never spoke to anyone--a governess who had been betrayed and who had died of grief and shame when Madeleine was twelve years old. A stranger had had the little girl educated. Her father without doubt. Who was he? She did not know positively, but she had vague suspicions.
The meal was not yet over when customers entered, shook hands with M. Duroy, exclaimed on seeing his son, and seating themselves at the wooden tables began to drink, smoke, and play dominoes. The smoke from the clay pipes and penny cigars filled the room.
Madeleine choked and asked: 'Can we go out? I cannot remain here any longer,'
