This sketch is a mere outline of the facts repeated by Monsieur de Chessel under the promptings of private spite. His experience of the world had enabled him to unravel some of the mysteries lurking at Clochegourde. But though Madame de Mortsauf’s sublime attitude might deceive the world, it could not cheat the alert wits of love.
When I found myself alone in my little bedroom, an intuition of the truth made me start up in bed. I could not endure to be at Frapesle when I might be gazing at the windows of her room. I dressed myself, stole downstairs, and got out of the house by a side door in a tower where there was a spiral stair. The fresh night air composed my spirit. I crossed the Indre by the Moulin-Rouge bridge, and presently got into the heaven-sent little boat opposite Clochegourde, where a light shone in the end window towards Azay.
Here I fell back on my old dreams, but peaceful now, and soothed by the warbling of the songster of lovers’ nights and the single note of the reed warbler. Ideas stole through my brain like ghosts, sweeping away the clouds which till now had darkened the future. My mind and senses alike were under the spell. With what passion did my longing go forth to her! How many times did I repeat, like a madman, “Will she be mine?”
If, during the last few days, the universe had expanded before me, now, in one night, it gained a centre. All my will, all my ambitions were bound up in her; I longed to be all I might for her sake, and to fill and heal her aching heart. How lovely was that night spent below her window, in the midst of murmurous waters, plashing over the mill-wheels, and broken by the sound of the clock at Saché as it told the hours. In that night, so full of radiance, when that starry flower illumined my life, I plighted my soul to her with the faith of the hapless Castilian Knight whom we laugh at in Cervantes—the faith of the beginnings of love.
At the first streak of dawn in the sky, the first piping bird, I fled to the park of Frapesle; no early country yokel saw me, no one suspected my escapade, and I slept till the bell rang for breakfast.
Notwithstanding the heat, when breakfast was over I went down to the meadow to see the Indre and its islets once more, the valley and its downs of which I professed myself an ardent admirer; but, with a swiftness of foot which might defy that of a runaway horse, I went back to my boat, my willows, and my Clochegourde. All was still and quivering, as the country is at noon. The motionless foliage was darkly defined against the blue sky; such insects as live in sunshine—green dragonflies and iridescent flies—hovered round the ash-trees and over the reeds; the herds chewed the cud in the shade, the red earth glowed in the vineyards, and snakes wriggled over the banks. What a change in the landscape that I had left so cool and coy before going to sleep!
On a sudden I leaped out of the punt, and went up the road to come down behind Clochegourde, for I fancied I had seen the Count come out. I was not mistaken; he was skirting a hedge, going no doubt towards a gate opening on the Azay road by the side of the river.
“How are you this morning. Monsieur le Comte?”
He looked at me with a pleased expression. He did not often hear himself thus addressed.
“Quite well,” said he. “You must be very fond of the country to walk out in this heat?”
“Was I not sent here to live in the open air?”
“Well, then, will you come and see them reaping my rye?”
“With pleasure,” said I. “But I am, I must confess to you, deplorably ignorant. I do not know rye from wheat, or a poplar from an aspen; I know nothing of fieldwork, or of the ways of tilling the land.”
“Well then, come along,” said he gleefully, turning back by the hedge. “Come by the little upper gate.”
He walked along inside the hedge, and I outside.
“You will never learn anything from Monsieur de Chessel,” said he; “he is much too fine a gentleman to trouble himself beyond looking through his steward’s accounts.”
So he showed me his yards and outbuildings, his flower-garden, orchards, and kitchen-gardens. Finally, he led me along the avenue of acacias and ailantus on the river bank, where, at the further end, I saw Madame de Mortsauf and the two children.
A woman looks charming under the play of the frittered, quivering tracery of leaves. Somewhat surprised, no doubt, by my early visit, she did not move, knowing that we should go to her. The Count bid me admire the view of the valley, which, from thence, wore quite a different aspect from any I had seen from the heights. You might have thought yourself in a corner of Switzerland. The meadow-land, channeled by the brooks that tumble into the Indre, stretches far into the distance, and is lost in mist. On the side towards Montbazon spreads a wide extent of verdure; everywhere else the eye is checked by hills, clumps of trees, and rocks.
We hastened our steps to greet Madame de Mortsauf, who suddenly dropped the book in which Madeleine was reading and took Jacques on her knee, in a fit of spasmodic coughing.
“Why, what is the matter?” said the Count, turning pale.
“He has a relaxed throat,” said the mother, who did not seem to see me; “it will be nothing.”
She was supporting his head and his back, and from her eyes shot two rays that infused life into the poor feeble boy.
“You are extraordinarily rash,” said the Count sharply; “you expose him to a chill from the river, and let him sit on
