From time to time, a train, passing on the iron bridge which crossed the end of the island, made a rolling as of thunder and suddenly disappeared, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, toward Paris or toward the sea. They returned home slowly, seating themselves on the bank, watching the moon rise and pour on the river her soft and yellow light, which seemed to fuse with the water, and the wrinkles of the current moved like waves of fire. The toads uttered their short and metallic cries. The calls of the night birds rang out on the air, and sometimes a large, mute shadow glided on the river, troubling her calm and luminous course. It was a band of freebooters who, throwing in suddenly their net, drew it back without noise into their boat, dragging in its vast and sombre mesh a shoal of shining and trembling gudgeons, like a treasure drawn from the bottom of the sea, a living treasure of silver fish.
Cora, deeply moved, leaned tenderly upon the arm of her husband, whose design she suspected, although nothing of it had been spoken between them. It was for them like a new betrothal, a second expectation of the kiss of love. Sometimes he would bestow a furtive caress behind her ear, on that charming spot of tender flesh where curls the first hair. She responded by a pressure of the hand, and they attracted while refusing each other, incited and held back by a will more energetic, by the phantom of the million. Cachelin, appeased by the hope which he felt around him, was happy. He drank deeply and ate much, feeling, born in him at twilight, the hour of poetry, that foolish tenderness which comes to the dullest persons in certain aspects of nature: a rain of light through the branches, a sunset behind the distant hills, with purple reflections on the water. He declared: “As for me, in the presence of such things I believe in God. It touches me here,” and he indicated the pit of his stomach. “I feel myself turned upside down. I feel queer. It seems to me I have been steeped in a bath which makes me want to cry.”
As for Lesable, his health rapidly improved. He was seized with sudden ardours, which he did not understand, and he felt a desire to run like a young colt, to roll in the grass and neigh with delight.
He thought the favoured time was approaching. It was a true wedding night. Then they had a new honeymoon full of caresses and hopes. Later they perceived that their experiments were fruitless and their confidence was in vain.
But in the midst of despair Lesable did not lose courage; he continued to make the most superhuman efforts. His wife, moved by the same desire and trembling with the same fear, more robust too than he, encouraged him in his attempts and stimulated his flagging ardour. They returned to Paris in the early days of October.
Life became hard for them again. Unkind words fell from their lips, and Cachelin, who scented the situation, harassed them with the coarse and venomous epigrams of an old trooper.
And one incessant thought pursued them, tortured them, and sharpened their mutual rancour—that of the unattainable legacy. Cora now carried a sharp tongue, and lashed her husband. She treated him like a little boy, a mere brat, a man of no importance. Cachelin at every meal repeated: “If I were rich, I should have children in plenty; when one is poor it is necessary to be reasonable.” Then turning to his daughter he added: “You must be like me; but there—” and he looked at his son-in-law significantly, accompanying the look with a movement of the shoulders full of contempt.
Lesable made no reply. He felt himself to be a superior man allied to a family of boors.
At the Ministry they noticed the alteration in his manner, and even the chief one day asked him: “Are you not ill? You appear to me to be somewhat changed.”
Lesable replied: “Not at all, my dear sir. I am a little tired, perhaps, having worked very constantly, as you may have seen.”
He counted very surely on his promotion at the end of the year, and he had resumed, in this hope, the laborious life of a model employee. But among the meagre bonuses that were distributed Lesable’s was the smallest of all, and Cachelin received nothing. Struck to the heart, Lesable sought the chief, whom, for the first time, he addressed as “Monsieur.”
“Of what use is it, Monsieur, to work as I do, if I do not reap any reward?”
The head of Monsieur Torchebeuf appeared to bristle.
“I have already told you, Monsieur Lesable, that I will admit of no discussion of this nature between us. I repeat to you again that your claim is unreasonable, your actual fortune being so great as compared to the poverty of your colleagues—”
Lesable could not contain himself. “But I have nothing, Monsieur. Our aunt has left her fortune to the first child which shall be born of our marriage. We live, my father-in-law and I, on our salaries.”
The chief was greatly surprised. “If you have no fortune today, you will be rich, in any case, at some future day. It amounts to the same thing.”
Lesable withdrew, more cast down by his failure than by the uncertainty of Aunt Charlotte’s million.
As Cachelin came to his desk some days later the handsome Maze entered with a smile on his lips; next Pitolet appeared, his eyes shining; then Boissel opened the door, and advanced with an excited air, tittering and exchanging meaning looks with the others. Old Savon continued his copying, his clay pipe in the corner of his mouth, seated on his high
