“ ‘Just look at me. Am I not charming? And you have sat like that for a whole night, alone with a pretty woman, without venturing to do anything, you great booby!’
“She was still smiling as she looked at him; she even began to laugh; and he was losing his head trying to find something suitable to say, no matter what. But he could think of nothing, nothing, and then, arming himself with Dutch courage, he said to himself: ‘It can’t be helped, I will risk everything,’ and suddenly without the slightest warning, he moved towards her, his arms extended, his lips protruding, and seizing her in his arms, kissed her.
“She sprang up with a bound, shouting: ‘Help! help!’ and screaming with terror; then she opened the carriage door, and waved her arm outside, mad with fear and trying to jump out, while Morin, who was almost distracted, and feeling sure that she would throw herself out, held her by her skirt and stammered: ‘Oh! Madame! Oh! Madame!’
“The train slackened speed, and then stopped. Two guards rushed up at the young woman’s frantic signals, and she threw herself into their arms, stammering: ‘That man tried—tried—to—to—’
“And then she fainted.
“They were at Mauzé station, and the gendarme on duty arrested Morin. When the victim of his brutality had regained her consciousness, she made her charge against him, and the police drew it up. The poor draper did not reach home till night, with a prosecution hanging over him for an outrage on morals in a public place.
II
“At that time I was editor-in-chief of the Fanal des Charentes, and I used to meet Morin every day at the Café du Commerce. The day after his adventure he came to see me, as he did not know what to do. I did not conceal my opinion from him. ‘You are no better than a pig. No decent man behaves like that.’
“He wept. His wife had given him a beating, and he foresaw his trade ruined, his name dragged through the mire and dishonoured, his friends outraged and cutting him in the street. In the end he excited my pity, and I sent for my colleague Rivet, a bantering but very sensible little man, to give us his advice.
“He advised me to see the Public Prosecutor, who was a friend of mine, and so I sent Morin home, and went to call on the magistrate. He told me that the woman who had been insulted was a young lady, Mademoiselle Henriette Bonnel, who had just received her certificate as a teacher in Paris, and who, being an orphan, spent her holidays with her uncle and aunt, who were very respectable lower middle-class people in Mauzé. What made Morin’s case all the more serious was, that the uncle had lodged a complaint. But the public official consented to let the matter drop if this complaint were withdrawn, so that we must try and get him to do this.
“I went back to Morin’s and found him in bed, ill with excitement and distress. His wife, a tall, rawboned woman with a beard, was abusing him continually, and she showed me into the room, shouting at me: ‘So you have come to see that pig, Morin. Well, there he is, the beauty!’ And she planted herself in front of the bed, with her hands on her hips. I told him how matters stood, and he begged me to go and see her uncle and aunt. It was a delicate mission, but I undertook it, and the poor devil never ceased repeating: ‘I assure you I did not even kiss her, no, not even that. I will take my oath on it!’
“I replied: ‘It doesn’t matter; you are nothing but a pig.’ And I took a thousand francs which he gave me, to employ them as I thought best, but as I did not care to venture to the house of her relations alone, I begged Rivet to go with me, which he agreed to do, on condition that we should go there at once, for he had some urgent business at La Rochelle the following afternoon. So two hours later we rang at the door of a nice country-house. A beautiful girl came and opened the door to us, who was assuredly the young lady in question, and I said to Rivet in a low voice: ‘Confound it! I begin to understand Morin!’
“The uncle, Monsieur Tonnelet, was, as it happened, a subscriber to the Fanal, and was a fervent political coreligionist of ours. He received us with open arms, and congratulated us and wished us joy; he was delighted at having the two editors of his favourite newspaper in his house, and Rivet whispered to me: ‘I think we shall be able to arrange the affair of that pig, Morin.’
“The niece had left the room, and I introduced the delicate subject. I invoked the spectre of scandal before his eyes; I emphasised the inevitable loss of esteem which the young lady would suffer if such an affair became known, for nobody would believe in a simple kiss. The good man seemed undecided, but could not make up his mind about anything without his wife, who would not be in until late that evening. But suddenly he uttered an exclamation of triumph: ‘Look here, I have an excellent idea. I shall not let you leave now that you are here. You can both dine here and spend the night, and when my wife comes home, I hope we shall be able to arrange matters.’
“Rivet resisted at first, but the wish to extricate that pig, Morin, decided him, and we accepted the invitation. So the uncle got up delighted, called his niece, and proposed that we should take a stroll in his grounds, saying: ‘We will leave serious matters until tonight.’ Rivet and he began to talk politics, and I soon found myself lagging a little
