Complete Works of Emile Zola (1776 page)

One May morning I met him looking quite cheerless. He did not know what to do, and was rambling through the streets on the look-out for something to interest him. The pavement was muddy; and although the unforeseen was encountered from place to place by the pedestrian’s feet, it was only in the form of a puddle. I took pity on him, and suggested going into the fields to see if the hawthorn were in flower.

For an hour I had to listen to a lot of long philosophical orations, all of which pointed to the nihility of our pleasures. Houses gradually became scarcer. Already on the thresholds of the doors, we perceived dirty brats rolling over fraternally with great dogs. As we reached the real country, Léon suddenly stopped before a group of children playing in the sun. He fondled one of them, and then owned to me that he adored fair heads.

For my part I have always liked those narrow lanes, confined between a couple of hedges, which are free from the ruts of great waggon-wheels. The ground is covered with fine moss, as soft to the feet as a velvety carpet. One treads amid mystery and silence; and when an amorous couple lose themselves there, the thorns in the verdant wall compel the fond girl to press against her lover’s heart. Léon and I found ourselves in one of these out-of-the-way walks, where kisses are only overheard by feathered songsters. The first smile of spring had vanquished my philosopher’s misanthropy. He experienced prolonged tenderness for each drop of dew, and sang like a schoolboy who had broken out of bounds.

The lane continued to stretch ahead. The high thick hedges were all our horizon. This sort of confinement, and our ignorance as to where we were, made us doubly merry.

The pathway gradually became narrower; we had to walk in single file. The hedges began to take sudden turns, and the lane was transformed into a labyrinth.

Then, at the narrowest part, we heard a sound of voices; next, three persons appeared at one of the leafy corners. Two young men marched in front, putting aside the branches that were too long. A young woman followed them.

I stopped and bowed. The young fellow facing me did the same. After that we looked at each other. The position was delicate; the hedges shutting us in on either side were thicker than ever, and neither of us seemed inclined to turn round. It was then that Léon, who was behind me, standing up on tip-toe, perceived the young woman. Without uttering a word, he dashed bravely in among the hawthorns; his clothes were torn by the brambles, and a few drops of blood appeared upon his hands. I had to do as he had done.

The young men passed by, thanking us. The young woman, as if to reward Léon for his self-sacrifice, stopped before him, wavering, gazing at him with her great black eyes. He immediately sought to frown, and could not.

When she had disappeared I came out of the bush, sending gallantry to the deuce. A thorn had torn my neck, and my hat was so beautifully suspended between two branches that I had the greatest difficulty imaginable in getting it down. Léon shook himself. As I had given the pretty passer-by a friendly nod, he inquired if I knew her.

“Certainly,” I answered. “Her name’s Antoinette. She was three months my neighbour.”

We had begun walking on again. He held his tongue. Then I talked to him of Mademoiselle Antoinette.

She was a fresh and delicate little party, with a half-mocking, half-tender look, a determined air, and a smart, nimble gait; in a word, she was a nice girl. She could be distinguished among her fellows by her open-heartedness and probity, qualities peculiarly rare in the society in which she lived. She expressed an opinion about her own self without vanity, as also without modesty, and announced openly that she was born to love and take her pleasure where fancy led her.

For three long winter months I had seen her living, poor and alone, on the produce of her labour. She acted thus without display, without uttering that big word virtue, because that was her idea at the time. So long as her needle sped on, I never knew her to have a lover. She was a good comrade to the men who came to see her; she pressed their hands, laughed with them, but bolted her door at the first pretence of a kiss. I confess I had tried to court her a bit. One day when I offered her a ring and pendants, she said:

“My friend, take back your jewellery. When I give myself away it is only for a flower.”

When in love she was idle and indolent. Lace and silk then took the place of calico. She carefully got rid of all traces of the needle, and the work-girl became a grand lady.

Besides, when in love, she maintained her grisette liberty. The man she was enamoured of soon knew it; he knew quite as quickly when she loved him no more. She was not, however, one of those pretty, capricious creatures who change their sweetheart each time they wear out a pair of shoes. She had a broad intelligence and a great heart. But the poor girl often made mistakes; she placed her own hands in others that were unworthy, and rapidly withdrew them in disgust. And so she was tired of this Latin Quarter, where the young men appeared to her very old.

At each new wreck her face became a little more sad. She told men disagreeable truths, and scolded herself for being unable to live without loving. Then she shut herself up, until her heart broke the bars.

I had met her the previous evening. She was in great grief: a sweetheart had just thrown her over, whilst she still cared for him a little.

“Of course I know,” she had said to me, “that in a week’s time I should have left him myself: he was an unkind fellow. But I still kissed him tenderly on both cheeks. It’s a loss of at least thirty kisses.”

She had added, that since then she had had two suitors at her heels who overwhelmed her with bouquets. She let them do so, and sometimes held this language to them: “My friends, I love neither of you; you would be great fools to quarrel for my smiles. Be amicable, instead. I can see you are good chaps; we will amuse ourselves like old chums. But, at the first quarrel, I leave you.”

The poor fellows, therefore, warmly shook hands, whilst wishing each other at the deuce. It was probably them whom we had just met.

Such was Mademoiselle Antoinette: a poor loving heart gone astray in the land of debauchery; a gentle, charming girl who sprinkled her crumbs of tenderness to all the thieving sparrows on the road.

I gave Léon these details. He listened to me without showing much interest, without encroaching on my confidence by the least question. When I was silent he said:

“That girl is too frank; I don’t like her way of understanding love.”

He had tried so hard to frown that he had at length succeeded in doing so.

III

We had at last got away from the hedges. The Seine was running at our feet; on the opposite bank a village was reflected in the river. We were in a familiar neighbourhood; we had often wandered in the islands down stream.

After a long rest beneath a neighbouring oak, Léon announced that he was dying of hunger and thirst, just as I was about to tell him I was dying of thirst and hunger. Then we held council. The result was touching in its unanimity. We would go to the village; there, we would procure a large basket; this basket would be nicely filled with viands and bottles; finally all three, the basket and ourselves, would make for the most verdant isle.

Twenty minutes later, it only remained for us to find a boat. I had obligingly taken charge of the basket. I say basket, and the term is modest enough. Léon walked on ahead, inquiring of each angler along the river bank for a boat. They were all engaged. I was on the point of suggesting to my companion that we should spread our table on the continent, when some one directed us to a place where he said we might perhaps find what we required.

The man lived in a cottage standing at the corner of two streets, at the end of the village. And it happened that, on turning this corner, we again found ourselves face to face with Mademoiselle Antoinette, followed by her two lovers. One of them, like myself, was bending beneath the weight of an enormous basket; the other, like Léon, had the busy appearance of a man in search of something he could not find. I cast a look of pity on the poor fellow who was bathed in perspiration, whilst Léon seemed to be thanking me for having accepted a burden that made the young woman laugh rather wickedly.

The man who let out the boats was smoking on the threshold of his door. For fifty years he had seen thousands of couples come and borrow his oars to reach the desert He loved those amorous blondes who set out with starched fichus and came back with them a trifle crumpled, and with their ribbons in great disorder. He smiled at them on their return, when they thanked him for his boats, which were so familiar with the isles where the grass grew highest, that they went there almost of their own accord. As soon as the worthy man caught sight of our baskets he advanced to meet us.

“Young people,” he said, “I have only one boat left. Those who are too hungry had better sit down to table over there under the trees.”

That remark was certainly a very clumsy one: you never own before a woman that you are too hungry. We held our tongues, hesitating, not daring after that to refuse the boat. Antoinette, who still had a mocking air about her, nevertheless took pity on us.

“You gentlemen,” she said, addressing Léon, “made a sacrifice for us this morning; we will do the same now.”

I looked at my philosopher. He hesitated; he stuttered like a person who is afraid to say what he thinks. When he saw me fix my eyes on him, he exclaimed:

“But there is no question of self-sacrifice now: one boat will suffice. These gentlemen will put us ashore at the first island we come to, and will pick us up on their return. Do you agree to that arrangement, gentlemen?”

Antoinette answered that she accepted. The baskets were carefully placed at the bottom of the boat. I took a seat close to mine, and as far away from the oars as possible. Antoinette and Léon, not being able to do otherwise no doubt, sat down side by side on the seat remaining vacant As to the two sweethearts, they continued to vie with each other in showing good humour and gallantry, and seized the oars in brotherly harmony.

They reached the current. There, as they balanced the boat, allowing it to descend the stream, Mademoiselle Antoinette pretended that the islands up the river were more deserted and shady. The oarsmen looked at one another disappointed. They turned the boat round and pulled laboriously up stream, struggling against the current, which was very strong at that spot. There is a kind of tyranny that is very oppressive and very sweet: it is the desire of a tyrant with rosy lips, who, in one of her moments of caprice, can ask for the world and pay for it with a kiss.

The young woman had leant over the side of the boat and dipped her hand in the water. She withdrew it full; then, dreamily, seemed to be counting the pearly drops escaping between her fingers. Léon watched her and held his tongue, apparently uncomfortable at finding himself so close to an enemy. Twice he opened his lips, no doubt to utter some stupidity; but he closed them quickly on noticing me smile. Yet neither of them seemed very pleased at being such close neighbours. They even slightly turned their backs to one another.

Antoinette, weary of wetting her lace, talked to me about her recent bereavement. She told me she had got over it. But she was still sad; she could not live without love in summer time. She did not know what to do until autumn came round again.

“I am looking out for a nest,” she added. “It must be al! in blue silk. One ought to love longer when furniture, carpets, and curtains are the colour of the sky. The sun would make a mistake, would forget itself there of an evening thinking it was slumbering in a cloud. But I seek in vain; men are so unkind.”

We were opposite an island. I tell the oarsmen to put us ashore. I had already one foot on the bank, when Antoinette protested, finding the island ugly and devoid of foliage, and declaring she would never consent to abandon us on such a rock. Léon had not moved from his seat. I returned to my place, and we continued to ascend the river.

The young woman, with childlike delight, began to describe the nest she had set her mind on. The room must be square; the ceiling high and arched. The hangings on the walls would be white, strewn with blue corn-flowers bound together in bunches with ribbon. At the four corners would be pier tables loaded with flowers; another table in the centre also covered with flowers. Then a sofa, but a small one, so that two persons could hardly sit there together whilst pressing very close to one another; no glass to attract the eyes and make one egotistically coquettish; very thick carpets and curtains to drown the sound of kisses. Flowers, sofa, carpet, curtains would be blue. She would put on a blue gown, and would not open the window on days when the sky was cloudy.

I wanted, in my turn, to ornament the room a bit, and spoke of the fireplace, a clock, a wardrobe.

“But,” she exclaimed in astonishment, “we shall not warm ourselves and we shall not want to know the time. I consider your wardrobe ridiculous. Do you think me so stupid as to drag our miseries into my nest? I wish to live there free, without care, not always, but for a few happy hours each summer evening. If men became angels they would get tired of Paradise itself. I know all about it I should have the key of Paradise in my pocket.”

We were opposite a second green isle. Antoinette clapped her hands. It was the most charming little deserted nook that any Robinson Crusoe of twenty summers could have dreamt of. The bank, which was rather high, was bordered by great trees, between which sweet-briars and grass struggled for supremacy in growth. An impenetrable wall built itself up there each spring, a wall of leaves, branches, moss, which continued to rise and reflected itself in the water. Outside, a rampart of interlaced boughs; within, one knew not what. This ignorance as to what the glades were like, this broad curtain of verdure quivering in the breeze, without ever opening, made the island a mysterious place of seclusion, which the passer-by on the neighbouring banks might easily have taken to be peopled by the pale nymphs of the river.

We rowed a long way round this enormous mass of foliage, before we found a landing-place. It seemed as if it had determined that it would only have the free birds for inhabitants. At last we were able to step on shore under a great bush spreading over the water. Antoinette watched us land, and straining her neck endeavoured to see beyond the trees.