I said to her:
“You are not a Breton woman, are you?”
She answered:
“No, sir, I come from Lorraine.”
She added:
“You have come to look over the house?”
“Oh, yes, certainly.”
And I went in.
It seemed to me that I knew it all, the walls, the furniture. I was almost surprised not to find my own walking-sticks in the hall.
I made my way into the drawing room, a charming drawing room carpeted with rush mats, which looked out over the sea through its three large windows. On the mantel shelf, Chinese vases and a large photograph of a woman. I went to it at once, convinced that I recognised her too. And I did recognise her, although I was certain that I had never met her. It was she, the inexpressible she, she for whom I was waiting, whom I desired, she whom I summoned, whose face haunted my dreams. She, she whom one seeks always, in every place, she whom one is every moment just going to see in the street, just going to discover on a country road the instant one’s glance falls on a red sunshade over the cornfield, she who must surely already be in the hotel when I enter it on my travels, in the railway carriage I am just getting into, in the drawing room whose door is just opening to me.
It was she, assuredly, past all manner of doubt, it was she. I recognised her by her eyes which were looking at me, by her hair arranged English fashion, but above all by her mouth, by that smile which long ago I had surmised.
I asked at once:
“Who is this lady?”
The nun-like servant answered dryly:
“That is Madame.”
I continued:
“She is your mistress?”
In her austere conventional fashion, she replied:
“Oh, no, sir.”
I sat down and said firmly:
“Tell me about her.”
She stood amazed, motionless, obstinately silent.
I persisted:
“She is the owner of the house, then?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Then whose is this house?”
“It belongs to my master, Monsieur Tournelle.”
I pointed a finger towards the photograph.
“And this lady, who is she?”
“That is Madame.”
“Your master’s wife?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“His mistress, then?”
The nun had nothing to say. I went on, pricked by a vague jealousy, by a confused anger against this man who found this woman first.
“Where are they now?”
The servant murmured:
“Monsieur the gentleman is in Paris, but about Madame I know nothing.”
I shivered.
“Ah. They are no longer together?”
“No, sir.”
I became wily, and said solemnly:
“Tell me what happened, probably I could be of service to your master. I know this woman, she’s a bad lot.”
The old servant looked at me, and seeing my honest expression, she trusted me.
“Oh, sir, she did my master a bad turn. He made her acquaintance in Italy and he brought her away with him as if he had married her. She sang beautifully. He loved her so much, sir, that it was pitiful to see him. They were travelling in this district last year. And they discovered this house which had been built by a fool, an old fool who wanted to settle five miles from the village. Madame wanted to buy it outright, so that she could stay here with my master. And he bought the house to please her.
“They lived here all last summer, sir, and almost all the winter.
“And then, one morning at breakfast-time, Monsieur called me.
“ ‘Césaire, has Madame come in?’
“ ‘No, sir.’
“We waited for her the whole day. My master was like a madman. We sought everywhere; we did not find her. She had gone, sir, we never knew where or how.”
Oh, what a tide of joy surged in me! I would have liked to embrace the nun, to seize her round the waist and make her dance in the drawing room.
Oh, she had gone, she had escaped, she had left him, utterly wearied, disgusted with him! How happy I was!
The old woman went on:
“Monsieur almost died of grief, and he has gone back to Paris, leaving me here with my husband to sell the house. He is asking twenty thousand francs for it.”
But I was no longer listening. I was thinking of her. And all at once it struck me that I had only to set out again to come upon her, that this very springtime she would have been driven to come back to the place, to see the house, this charming house that she must have loved so dearly, to see it emptied of him.
I flung ten francs into the old woman’s hand. I snatched the photograph and rushed off at a run, pressing desperate kisses on the adorable face that looked up from the cardboard.
I regained the road and began to walk on, looking at her, her very self. How glorious that she was free, that she had got away! Without doubt I should meet her today or tomorrow, this week or next, now that she had left him. She had left him because my hour had come.
She was free, somewhere, in the world. I had only to find her now that I knew her.
And all the while I touched caressingly the bowed locks of ripe corn, I drank in the sea air that filled out my lungs, I felt the sun kissing my face. I had walked on, I walked on wild with joy, drunk with hope. I walked on, certain that I was going to meet her soon and lead her back to enjoy our turn in that charming home “For Sale.” How she would revel in it, this time!
Everybody for ten leagues round knew old ’Toine, “Big ’Toine,” ’Toine-Ma-Fine, Antoine Mâcheblé, also nicknamed Brulot—the tavern-keeper of Tournevent.
He had given celebrity to that little hamlet, hidden in a wrinkle of the valley which sloped down to the sea—a poor little peasant-village composed of ten Normandy cottages surrounded by ditches and trees.
They stood—all those houses—as if trying to shrink out of sight
