The next week, having got twenty-four hours’ leave, he went to see his people, who farmed a small holding at Tourteville, near Yvetot.
He waited till the meal was over, for the moment when coffee with a dash of brandy softens the heart, to tell his parents that he had found a girl so completely to his taste that no other so perfectly suited to him could possibly exist.
The old people, on hearing this, became very cautious and asked for particulars. However, he had concealed nothing from them except the colour of her skin.
She was a servant, without much money, but strong, thrifty, clean, well-conducted and sensible. These were things that were more valuable than money in the hands of a bad housewife. Besides, she had a few sous left her by the woman who had brought her up, quite a number of sous, almost a little dowry—fifteen hundred francs in the savings-bank. The old people, won over by his account and having confidence in his judgment, gradually gave way; then he reached the ticklish point of the explanation. Laughing in a forced way, he said: “There is only one thing that may upset you. There is not a scrap of white about her.” They could not understand what he meant and he was obliged to explain at length and with many precautions, so as to avoid shocking them, that she belonged to the dark race of which they had only seen samples in the coloured picture-books.
Then they became anxious, perplexed, alarmed as if he had proposed to marry the Devil.
The mother said: “Black? How much of her? Is she altogether black?”
He replied: “Surely: altogether, just as you are white all over!”
The father said: “Black? Is she as black as the kettle?”
The son answered: “Perhaps a little bit less! She is black but not black enough to be repulsive. The curé’s cassock is black enough but it is no uglier than a white surplice.”
The father said: “Are there any blacker than she is in her own country?”
The son, with an air of conviction, exclaimed: “Certainly!”
But the old man shook his head. “It can’t be pleasant?”
“It is not more unpleasant than anything else, you soon get accustomed to it.”
The mother asked: “They don’t soil their underwear more than others, those creatures?”
“No more than you do, considering it is the colour of her skin.”
After a great many more questions it was agreed that the old people should see the girl before taking any decision, and that the young fellow, whose military service would be finished in another month, should bring her to the house so that they might pass judgment upon her, then they could talk the matter over and decide whether she was too dark to be received into the Boitelle family.
Antoine accordingly announced that on Sunday, the 22nd of May, the day of his discharge, he would start for Tourteville with his sweetheart.
For the visit to her lover’s parents she had put on her most beautiful and most showy clothes, in which yellow, red and blue predominated, so that she looked as if decorated for a national fête.
At the Havre station everybody stared at her, and Boitelle was proud of being seen arm-in-arm with a person who attracted so much attention. Then, in the third-class carriage, seated beside him, she caused such surprise among the peasants that those in the adjoining compartments stood up on the seats to have a good look at her over the wooden partition that divided the carriage. One child, frightened at her appearance, began to cry, another hid its face in its mother’s apron.
However, all went well until they reached the station. As the train slowed down on the drawing near Yvetot, Antoine felt as uncomfortable as he felt at inspection when not sure of himself. Then, leaning out of the window, in the distance he recognised his father holding the bridle of the horse harnessed to the cart, and his mother standing at the barrier that held back the spectators.
He alighted first, took hold of his sweetheart’s hand and holding himself erect as if escorting a general, he went to meet his father and mother.
The mother, seeing the black lady in gaily coloured clothes with her son, was so amazed that she had not a word to say and the father found it difficult to hold the horse that kept rearing first at the engine, then at the Negress. But Antoine, suddenly filled with joy at seeing the old people, rushed forward with open arms, kissed his mother and his father too in spite of the nag’s fright, then turning to his companion, at whom the wonder-struck passersby stopped to stare, he explained:
“Here she is. I told you that a first glimpse was rather upsetting, but as soon as you know her, as sure as I am here, there is nothing better in the world. Say how-d’you-do to her to make her feel at home.”
Thereupon old Mother Boitelle, almost frightened out of her wits, made a sort of curtsy, while the father took off his cap and murmured: “My best wishes.” Then without further delay they clambered into the cart, the two women at the back on chairs that made them bounce up and down at every jolt and the two men in front on the seat.
Nobody said a word. Antoine, feeling anxious, was whistling a barrack-room song. The father whipped up the nag and the mother looked out of the corner of her eyes, casting sly glances at the Negress, whose brow and cheekbones shone in the sunlight like well-polished shoes.
Antoine, wanting to break the
