mistress, naturally intelligent, made for the pleasures of love. In Paris she would have been a notable courtesan.
The delights she afforded me enabled me to wait patiently for the end of Mme. de Jadelle’s test. My behaviour became quite irreproachable, I was pliant, docile, complaisant.
As for my betrothed, she must have found me quite delightful, and I was aware from certain signs that I was soon to be fully accepted. I was certainly one of the happiest men in the world, placidly waiting for the lawful kiss of a woman I adored in the arms of a young and beautiful girl of whom I was uncommonly fond.
This, madame, is where you must turn away a little. I have come to the delicate point.
One evening, as we were coming back from our ride, Mme. de Jadelle complained bitterly that the grooms had not given her mount certain attentions upon which she insisted. She even repeated several times: “They’d better take care, they’d better take care. I know how to catch them out.”
I passed a quiet night, in my bed. I woke up early, full of life and energy. And I dressed.
I had formed the habit of going every morning to smoke a cigarette on a turret of the château that had a spiral staircase, lit by a large window at the height of the first floor.
I was advancing silently, my feet in felt-soled morocco slippers, to ascend the first steps, when I saw Césarine leaning out of the window looking out.
I did not see the whole of Césarine but only one-half of Césarine, the lower half of her. I preferred this half! I might have preferred the upper half of Mme. de Jadelle. The half presented to me was delightful so, clad in a little white petticoat that hardly covered it.
I approached so softly that the young girl heard nothing. I kneeled down; with infinite caution I took hold of the two edges of the petticoat and lifted it quickly. Immediately I recognised, round, fresh, plump and smooth, my mistress’s secret face, and I pressed on it—pardon, madame—I pressed on it a tender kiss, the kiss of a lover who dares do anything.
I was surprised. There was a fragrance of verbena. But I had no time to think about it. I received a terrific blow, or rather a push in the face, that almost broke my nose. I heard a cry that made my hair stand on end. The woman turned round—it was Mme. de Jadelle.
She beat the air with her hands like a woman on the verge of fainting; for a few moments she stood gasping, lifted her hand as if to thrash me, then fled.
Ten minutes later, a dumbfounded Césarine brought me a letter. I read: “Mme. de Jadelle hopes that M. de Brives will relieve her of his company at once.”
I went.
Well, I am still disconsolate. I have tried by every means and every explanation to win pardon for my error. All my endeavours have been in vain.
Since that moment, do you know, I cherish in … in my heart … a faint fragrance of verbena that fills me with a wild longing to savour its sweetness again.
The Donkey
There was not a breath of air stirring; a heavy mist was lying over the river. It was like a layer of dull white cotton placed on the water. The banks themselves were indistinct, hidden behind strange fogs. But day was breaking and the hill was becoming visible. At its foot, in the dawning light of day, the plaster houses began to appear like white spots. Cocks were crowing in the barnyard.
On the other side of the river, hidden behind the fogs just opposite Frette, a slight noise from time to time broke the dead silence of the quiet morning. At times it was an indistinct plashing, like the cautious advance of a boat, then again a sharp noise like the rattle of an oar and then the sound of something dropping in the water. Then silence.
Sometimes whispered words, coming perhaps from a distance, perhaps from quite near, pierced through these opaque mists. They passed by like wild birds which have slept in the rushes and which fly away at the first light of day, crossing the mist and uttering a low and timid sound which wakes their brothers along the shores.
Suddenly along the bank, near the village, a barely perceptible shadow appeared on the water. Then it grew, became more distinct and, coming out of the foggy curtain which hung over the river, a flatboat, manned by two men, pushed up on the grass.
The one who was rowing rose and took a pailful of fish from the bottom of the boat, then he threw the dripping net over his shoulder. His companion, who had not made a motion, exclaimed: “Say, Mailloche, get your gun and see if we can’t land some rabbit along the shore.”
The other one answered: “All right. I’ll be with you in a minute.” Then he disappeared, in order to hide their catch.
The man who had stayed in the boat slowly filled his pipe and lighted it. His name was Labouise, but he was called Chicot, and was in partnership with Maillochon, commonly called Mailloche, practising the doubtful and undefined profession of junk-gatherers along the shore.
They were a low order of sailors and they navigated regularly only in the months of famine. The rest of the time they acted as junk-gatherers. Rowing about on the river day and night, watching for any prey, dead or alive, poachers on the water and nocturnal hunters, sometimes hunting deer in the Saint-Germain forests, sometimes looking for drowned people and searching their clothes, picking up floating rags and empty bottles; thus did Labouise and Maillochon live easily.
At times they would set out on foot about noon and stroll along straight ahead. They would dine in some inn on the shore and leave again side by side. They would remain away for a couple of days; then one morning
