beneath the tree. Then the delirium of his song burst forth. He seemed to swoon on certain notes, to have spasms of melodious emotion. Sometimes he would rest a moment, emitting only two or three slight sounds suddenly terminated on a sharp note. Or he would launch into a frenzy, pouring out his song, with thrills and jerks, like a mad song of love, followed by cries of triumph. Then he stopped, hearing beneath him a sigh so deep that it seemed as though a soul were transported. The sound was prolonged for a while, then it ended in a sob.
They were both very pale when they quitted their grassy retreat. The blue sky looked dull to them, the ardent sun was clouded over to their eyes, they perceived not the solitude and the silence. They walked quickly side by side, without speaking or touching each other, appearing to be irreconcilable enemies, as if disgust had sprung up between their bodies, and hatred between their souls. From time to time Henriette called out: “Mamma!”
They heard a noise in a thicket, and Henri fancied he saw a white dress being quickly pulled down over a fat calf. The stout lady appeared, looking rather confused, and more flushed than ever, her eyes shining and her breast heaving, and perhaps just a little too close to her companion. The latter must have had some strange experience, for his face was wrinkled with smiles that he could not check.
Madame Dufour took his arm tenderly, and they returned to the boats. Henri went on first, still without speaking, by the girl’s side, and he thought he heard a loud kiss being stifled. At last they got back to Bezons.
Monsieur Dufour, who had sobered up, was waiting for them very impatiently, while the youth with the yellow hair was having a mouthful of something to eat before leaving the inn. The carriage was in the yard, with the horse yoked, and the grandmother, who had already got in, was frightened at the thought of being overtaken by night, before they got back to Paris, the outskirts not being safe.
The young men shook hands with them, and the Dufour family drove off.
“Goodbye, until we meet again!” the oarsmen cried, and the answers they got were a sigh and a tear.
Two months later, as Henri was going along the Rue des Martyrs, he saw “Dufour, Ironmonger,” over a door. So he went in, and saw the stout lady sitting at the counter. They recognized each other immediately, and after an interchange of polite greetings, he inquired after them all.
“And how is Mademoiselle Henriette?” he inquired, specially.
“Very well, thank you; she is married.”
“Ah!” Mastering his feelings, he added: “To whom was she married?”
“To that young man who went with us, you know; he has joined us in business.”
“I remember him perfectly.”
He was going out, feeling unhappy, though scarcely knowing why, when Madame called him back.
“And how is your friend?” she asked, rather shyly.
“He is very well, thank you.”
“Please give him our compliments, and beg him to come and call when he is in the neighbourhood.” She blushed, then added: “Tell him it will give me great pleasure.”
“I will be sure to do so. Adieu!”
“I will not say that; come again, very soon.”
The next year, one very hot Sunday, all the details of that memorable adventure suddenly came back to him so clearly that he revisited the “private room” in the wood, and was overwhelmed with astonishment when he went in. She was sitting on the grass, looking very sad, while by her side, again in his shirtsleeves, the young man with the yellow hair was sleeping soundly, like some brute.
She grew so pale when she saw Henri, that at first he thought she was going to faint; then, however, they began to talk quite naturally, as if there had never been anything between them. But when he told her that he was very fond of that spot, and went there very often on Sundays, to dream of old memories, she looked into his eyes for a long time. “I, too, think of it every evening,” she replied.
“Come, my dear,” her husband said, with a yawn; “I think it is time for us to be going.”
In the Spring
When the first fine spring days come, and the earth awakes and assumes its garment of verdure, when the perfumed warmth of the air blows on our faces and fills our lungs, and even appears to penetrate our heart, we feel vague longings for undefined happiness, a wish to run, to walk at random, to inhale the spring. As the winter had been very severe the year before, this longing assumed an intoxicating feeling in May; it was like a superabundance of sap.
Well, one morning on waking, I saw from my window the blue sky glowing in the sun above the neighbouring houses. The canaries hanging in the windows were singing loudly, and so were the servants on every floor; a cheerful noise rose up from the streets, and I went out, with my spirits as bright as the day was, to go—I did not exactly know where. Everybody I met seemed to be smiling; an air of happiness appeared to pervade everything, in the warm light of returning spring. One might almost have said that a breeze of love was blowing through the city, and the young women whom I saw in the streets in their morning toilettes, in the depths of whose eyes there lurked a hidden tenderness, and who walked with languid grace, filled my heart with agitation.
Without knowing how or why, I found myself on the banks of the Seine. Steamboats were starting for Suresnes, and suddenly I was seized by an unconquerable wish to have a walk through the woods. The deck of the Mouche6 was crowded with passengers, for the sun in early spring draws you out of the house, in spite of yourself, and everybody moves about,
