Finally they arrived at their destination. Patissot at once wished to seek the shady corners of the park, hoping that the melancholy of the forest would quiet the irritated feelings of his companion. But quite another effect was produced than that which he hoped. As soon as she was among the leaves and saw the grass, she began to sing at the top of her lungs, bits of operas that remained in her giddy pate, trilling and warbling, passing from Robert le diable to Musette, fancying above all a sentimental song whose stanzas she sang with a sound as piercing as a gimlet.
Suddenly she announced that she was hungry and wished to return. Patissot, who was awaiting the hoped-for tenderness, tried in vain to detain her. Then she grew angry.
“I did not come here to bore myself, did I?” she snapped.
And he had to seek the Petit-Havre restaurant, near the place where the regattas were about to be held.
She ordered a tremendous breakfast, with a succession of dishes enough to feed a regiment. Then, not being able to wait while they were prepared, she demanded the relishes. A box of sardines was brought. She attacked it as if she were about to eat the tin box itself; but after she had consumed two or three of the little oily fish, she declared that she was no longer hungry, and desired to go to see the preparations for the regatta.
Patissot, in despair, and seized with hunger in his turn, absolutely refused to budge. She went away alone, promising to return for the dessert, and he began to eat by himself, not knowing how to bring this rebellious nature to the idealization of his dream. As she did not return, he went to search for her. She had met some friends, a band of boating men, half naked, red to the tips of their ears, and gesticulating, who were settling in shouts all the details of the race, in front of the house of the Constructor Fournaise.
Two gentlemen of respectable aspect, doubtless judges, listened attentively to them. As soon as she perceived Patissot, Octavie, hanging on the tanned arm of a tall devil, who certainly possessed more biceps than brains, whispered a few words in his ear.
The other answered:
“Agreed.”
And she went back quite joyfully to her former escort, with a lively and almost caressing expression.
“I want to go out in a boat,” said she.
Happy to see her in so charming a mood, he consented to this new desire, and engaged a craft.
But she obstinately refused to view the regattas, in spite of Patissot’s wish.
“I would rather be alone with you, my wolf,” said she.
His heart trembled. At last!
He took off his frock-coat and began to ply the oars furiously.
A monumental old mill, whose worm-eaten arms hung over the water, bestrode with its two arches a little inlet of the river. They passed swiftly beneath, and when they were on the other side they perceived in front of them an adorable bit of river, shaded by great trees that formed a sort of vault above. The little inlet wound, turned, and zigzagged to the left and to the right, continually revealing new horizons, large meadows on one side, and on the other a hillside all covered with chalets. They passed in front of a bathing establishment, almost buried in verdure, a charming rural nook, where gentlemen in fresh gloves, with ladies wreathed in flowers, displayed all the awkwardness of elegant folk in the country.
She uttered a cry of joy:
“We’ll have a bath there, presently.”
Then, further on in a sort of bay, she wished to stop.
“Come here, big one, near to me,” she said, coaxingly.
She put her arm around his neck, and with her head resting on his shoulder, she murmured:
“How happy I am! how delightful it is on the water!”
Patissot, in a word, was swimming in happiness; and he thought of those stupid boating men, who, without ever feeling the penetrating charm of the shores and the frail grace of the rose-trees, always go about panting, sweating, and brutalized by exercise, from the tavern where they breakfast to the tavern where they dine.
After a time the soothing influences about him sent him to sleep. When he awaked he was all alone! He called at first; nobody answered. Feeling very anxious, he climbed up the bank, fearing lest some misfortune had happened.
Then, far in the distance and coming toward him, he saw a long, slender wherry, which appeared to fly like an arrow. It was rowed by four oarsmen black as Negroes with the sun. They appeared to be skimming over the water; a woman held the tiller. Heavens! It seemed—It was she! To regulate the playing of the oars, she was singing in her shrill voice a boating song, which she interrupted a moment when they came in front of Patissot. Then, throwing him a kiss, she shouted to him:
“Get along, you big canary!”
IX
A Dinner and Some Ideas
On the occasion of the national celebration, Monsieur Antoine Perdrix, head of Monsieur Patissot’s bureau, was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He had been in the service thirty years under preceding governments and ten years under the present. His employees, although they murmured a little at being thus rewarded in the person of their chief, judged it proper to offer him a cross adorned with paste
