She replied, with a sleepy smile:
“How silly you are.” Then, shaking off her torpor, she added: “Now, let somebody say something that will make us all laugh. You, Monsieur Chenal, who have the reputation of possessing a larger fortune than the Duc de Richelieu, tell us a love story in which you have been involved, anything you like.”
Léon Chenal, an old painter, who had once been very handsome, very strong, who was very proud of his physique and very popular, took his long white beard in his hand and smiled; then, after a few moments’ reflection, he became suddenly grave.
“Ladies, it will not be an amusing tale; for I am going to relate to you the most lamentable love affair of my life, and I sincerely hope that none of my friends may ever inspire a similar passion.”
I
“At that time I was twenty-five years old, and I was daubing along the coast of Normandy. I call ‘daubing’ to wander about, with a knapsack on one’s back, from inn to inn, under the pretext of making studies and sketches from nature. I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free, without shackles of any kind, without a care, without a single preoccupation, without even a thought of tomorrow. You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your fancy, without any counselor save what pleases your eyes. You pull up, because a running brook seduces you, or because you are attracted, in front of an inn, by the smell of fried potatoes. Sometimes it is the perfume of clematis which decides you in your choice, or the glance of the servant at an inn. Do not despise these rustic affections. These girls have souls as well as bodies, firm cheeks and fresh lips; while their hearty and willing kisses have the flavor of wild fruit. Love always has its savour, come whence it may. A heart that beats when you make your appearance, an eye that weeps when you go away, these are things so rare, so sweet, so precious, that they must never be despised.
“I have had rendezvous in ditches full of primroses, behind the stable in which the cattle slept, and among the straw in garrets still warm from the heat of the day. I have memories of course grey linen on supple strong bodies, and of hearty, fresh, free kisses, more delicate, in their sincere brutality, than the subtle attractions of charming and distinguished women.
“But what you love most in these pilgrimages of adventure are the country, the woods, the sunrises, the twilights, the light of the moon. For the painter these are honeymoon trips with Nature. You are alone with her in a long, quiet rendezvous. You go to bed in the fields amid marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide open, beneath the bright sunset, you watch in the distance the little village, with its pointed clock-tower, which sounds the hour of noon.
“You sit down by the side of a spring which gushes out from the foot of an oak, amid a covering of tall, fragile weeds, glistening with life. You go down on your knees, bend forward, and drink the cold and pellucid water, wetting your mustache and nose; you drink it with a physical pleasure, as though you were kissing the spring, lip to lip. Sometimes, when you encounter a deep hole, along the course of these tiny brooks, you plunge into it, quite naked, and on your skin, from head to foot, like an icy and delicious caress, you feel the lovely and gentle quivering of the current.
“You are gay on the hills, melancholy on the verge of pools, exalted when the sun is drowned in an ocean of bloodred shadows, and when it casts on the rivers its red reflection. And at night, under the moon, as it passes across the roof of heaven, you think of things, singular things, which would never have occurred to your mind under the brilliant light of day.
“So, in wandering through the same country where we are this year, I came to the little village of Bénouville, on the rocky coast, between Yport and Étretat. I came from Fécamp, following the coast, a high coast, perpendicular as a wall, with projecting and rugged rocks falling sheer down into the sea. I had walked since morning on the close-clipped grass, as smooth and as yielding as a carpet, which grows along the edge of the cliff, fanned by the salt breezes of the ocean. Singing lustily, I walked with long strides, looking sometimes at the slow and lazy flight of a gull, with its short, white wings, sailing in the blue heavens, sometimes at the green sea, or at the brown sails of a fishing bark. In short, I had passed a happy day, a day of liberty and freedom from care.
“I was shown a little farmhouse, where travellers were put up, a kind of inn, kept by a peasant, which stood in the centre of a Norman court, surrounded by a double row of beeches.
“Leaving the court, I reached the hamlet, which was shut in by great trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.
“She was an old country woman, wrinkled and austere, who always seemed to receive customers reluctantly, with a kind of contempt.
“It was the month of May: the flowering apple trees covered the court with a roof of perfumed flowers, with a whirling shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon the people and upon the grass.
“I said:
“ ‘Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?’
“Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:
“ ‘That depends; everything is let; but, all the same, there will be no harm in looking.’
“In five minutes we had come to an agreement, and I deposited
