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 cornflowers 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