He smiled in a piteous manner, one of those smiles with which one veils the most horrible suffering, and replied in a coaxing but agonized tone:
“If you were really nice, we should remain here, both of us.”
She indicated no with her head, without opening her mouth.
He insisted:
“I beg of you, my darling.”
Then she roughly broke out:
“You know what I said to you. If you are not satisfied, the door is open. No one wishes to keep you. As for myself, I have promised; I shall go.”
He placed his two elbows upon the table, covered his face with his hands, and remained there pondering sorrowfully.
The boat people came down again, shouting as usual, and set off in their vessels for the ball at La Grenouillère.
Madeleine said to Paul:
“If you are not coming, say so, and I will ask one of these gentlemen to take me.”
Paul rose:
“Let us go!” murmured he.
And they left.
The night was black, the sky full of stars, but the air was heat-laden by oppressive breaths of wind, burdened with emanations, and with living germs, which destroyed the freshness of the night. It offered a heated caress, made one breathe more quickly, gasp a little, so thick and heavy did it seem. The boats started on their way, bearing Venetian lanterns at the prow. It was not possible to distinguish the craft, but only the little coloured lights, swift and dancing up and down like frenzied glowworms, while voices sounded from all sides in the shadows. The young people’s skiff glided gently along. Now and then, when a fast boat passed near them, they could, for a moment, see the white back of the rower, lit up by his lantern.
When they turned the elbow of the river, La Grenouillère appeared to them in the distance. The establishment en fête, was decorated with flags and garlands of coloured lights, in grape-like clusters. On the Seine some great barges moved about slowly, representing domes, pyramids, and elaborate monuments in fires of all colours. Illuminated festoons hung right down to the water, and sometimes a red or blue lantern, at the end of an immense invisible fishing-rod, seemed like a great swinging star.
All this illumination spread a light around the café, lit up the great trees on the bank, from top to bottom, the trunks standing out in pale gray and the leaves in milky green upon the deep black of the fields and the heavens. The orchestra, composed of five suburban artists, flung far its public-house dance-music, poor of its kind and jerky, inciting Madeleine to sing anew.
She wanted to go in at once. Paul wanted first to take a stroll on the island, but he was obliged to give way. The attendance was now more select. The boatmen, almost alone, remained, with here and there some better class people, and young men escorted by girls. The director and organiser of this spree, looking majestic in a jaded black suit, walked about in every direction, bald-headed and worn by his old trade of purveyor of cheap public amusements.
Fat Pauline and her companions were not there; and Paul breathed again.
They danced; couples opposite each other capered in the maddest fashion, throwing their legs in the air, until they were upon a level with the noses of their partners.
The women, whose thighs seemed disjointed, pranced around with flying skirts which revealed their underclothing, wriggling their stomachs and hips, causing their breasts to shake, and spreading the powerful odour of perspiring female bodies.
The men squatted like toads, some making obscene gestures; some twisted and distorted themselves, grimacing and hideous; some turned cartwheels on their hands, or, perhaps, trying to be funny, posed with exaggerated gracefulness.
A fat servant-maid and two waiters served refreshments.
The café boat being only covered with a roof and having no wall whatever to shut it in, this harebrained dance flaunted in the face of the peaceful night and of the firmament powdered with stars.
Suddenly, Mont-Valérien, opposite, appeared, illumined, as if some conflagration had arisen behind it. The radiance spread and deepened upon the sky, describing a large luminous circle of white, wan light. Then something or other red appeared, grew greater, shining with a burning crimson, like that of hot metal upon the anvil. It gradually developed into a round body rising from the earth; and the moon, freeing herself from the horizon, rose slowly into space. As she ascended, the purple tint faded and became yellow, a shining bright yellow, and the satellite grew smaller in proportion as her distance increased.
Paul watched the moon for some time, lost in contemplation, forgetting his mistress; when he returned to himself the latter had vanished.
He sought her, but could not find her. He threw his anxious eye over table after table, going to and fro unceasingly, inquiring for her from one person and then another. No one had seen her. He was tormented with uneasiness, when one of the waiters said to him:
“You are looking for Madame Madeleine, are you not? She left a few moments ago, with Madame Pauline.” And at the same instant, Paul perceived the cabin-boy and the two pretty girls standing at the other end of the café, all three holding each other’s waists and lying in wait for him, whispering to one another. He understood, and, like a madman, dashed off into the island.
He first ran toward Chatou, but having reached the plain, retraced his steps. Then he began to search the dense coppices, occasionally roaming about distractedly, or halting to listen.
The toads all about him poured out their short metallic notes.
From the direction of Bougival, some unknown bird warbled a song which reached him faintly from the distance.
Over the broad fields the moon shed a soft light, resembling powdered wool; it penetrated the foliage, silvered the bark of the poplars, and riddled with its brilliant rays the waving tops of the great trees. The entrancing poetry of this summer night had, in spite of himself, entered
