Chapter Three
They were three full, exquisite days--a true honeymoon. They were
at the Hotel-de-Boulogne, on the harbour; and they lived there,
with drawn blinds and closed doors, with flowers on the floor,
and iced syrups were brought them early in the morning.
Towards evening they took a covered boat and went to dine on one
of the islands. It was the time when one hears by the side of the
dockyard the caulking-mallets sounding against the hull of
vessels. The smoke of the tar rose up between the trees; there
were large fatty drops on the water, undulating in the purple
colour of the sun, like floating plaques of Florentine bronze.
They rowed down in the midst of moored boats, whose long oblique
cables grazed lightly against the bottom of the boat. The din of
the town gradually grew distant; the rolling of carriages, the
tumult of voices, the yelping of dogs on the decks of vessels.
She took off her bonnet, and they landed on their island.
They sat down in the low-ceilinged room of a tavern, at whose
door hung black nets. They ate fried smelts, cream and cherries.
They lay down upon the grass; they kissed behind the poplars; and
they would fain, like two Robinsons, have lived for ever in this
little place, which seemed to them in their beatitude the most
magnificent on earth. It was not the first time that they had
seen trees, a blue sky, meadows; that they had heard the water
flowing and the wind blowing in the leaves; but, no doubt, they
had never admired all this, as if Nature had not existed before,
or had only begun to be beautiful since the gratification of
their desires.
At night they returned. The boat glided along the shores of the
islands. They sat at the bottom, both hidden by the shade, in
silence. The square oars rang in the iron thwarts, and, in the
stillness, seemed to mark time, like the beating of a metronome,
while at the stern the rudder that trailed behind never ceased
its gentle splash against the water.
Once the moon rose; they did not fail to make fine phrases,
finding the orb melancholy and full of poetry. She even began to
sing--
"One night, do you remember, we were sailing," etc.
Her musical but weak voice died away along the waves, and the
winds carried off the trills that Leon heard pass like the
flapping of wings about him.
She was opposite him, leaning against the partition of the
shallop, through one of whose raised blinds the moon streamed in.
Her black dress, whose drapery spread out like a fan, made her
seem more slender, taller. Her head was raised, her hands
clasped, her eyes turned towards heaven. At times the shadow of
the willows hid her completely; then she reappeared suddenly,
like a vision in the moonlight.
Leon, on the floor by her side, found under his hand a ribbon of
scarlet silk. The boatman looked at it, and at last said--
"Perhaps it belongs to the party I took out the other day. A lot
of jolly folk, gentlemen and ladies, with cakes, champagne,
cornets--everything in style! There was one especially, a tall
handsome man with small moustaches, who was that funny! And they
all kept saying, 'Now tell us something, Adolphe--Dolpe,' I
think."
She shivered.
"You are in pain?" asked Leon, coming closer to her.
"Oh, it's nothing! No doubt, it is only the night air."
"And who doesn't want for women, either," softly added the
sailor, thinking he was paying the stranger a compliment.
Then, spitting on his hands, he took the oars again.
Yet they had to part. The adieux were sad. He was to send his
letters to Mere Rollet, and she gave him such precise
instructions about a double envelope that he admired greatly her
amorous astuteness.
"So you can assure me it is all right?" she said with her last
kiss.
"Yes, certainly."
"But why," he thought afterwards as he came back through the
streets alone, "is she so very anxious to get this power of
attorney?"
