“Why, what is the matter, Aunt Lison?”
Then the poor woman, her voice full of tears, and her whole body shaking with sorrow, replied:
“It was when he asked you — are not your — your — dear little feet cold? — no one ever said such things to me — to me — never — never — — “
Jeanne, surprised and compassionate, could still hardly help laughing at the idea of an admirer showing tender solicitude for Lison; and the vicomte had turned away to conceal his mirth.
But the aunt suddenly rose, laying her ball of wool on the floor and her knitting in the chair, and fled to her room, feeling her way up the dark staircase.
Left alone, the young people looked at one another, amused and saddened. Jeanne murmured:
“Poor aunt!” Julien replied. “She must be a little crazy this evening.”
They held each other’s hands and presently, gently, very gently, they exchanged their first kiss, and by the following day had forgotten all about Aunt Lison’s tears.
The two weeks preceding the wedding found Jeanne very calm, as though she were weary of tender emotions. She had no time for reflection on the morning of the eventful day. She was only conscious of a feeling as if her flesh, her bones and her blood had all melted beneath her skin, and on taking hold of anything, she noticed that her fingers trembled.
She did not regain her self-possession until she was in the chancel of the church during the marriage ceremony.
Married! So she was married! All that had occurred since daybreak seemed to her a dream, a waking dream. There are such moments, when all appears changed around us; even our motions seem to have a new meaning; even the hours of the day, which seem to be out of their usual time. She felt bewildered, above all else, bewildered. Last evening nothing had as yet been changed in her life; the constant hope of her life seemed only nearer, almost within reach. She had gone to rest a young girl; she was now a married woman. She had crossed that boundary that seems to conceal the future with all its joys, its dreams of happiness. She felt as though a door had opened in front of her; she was about to enter into the fulfillment of her expectations.
When they appeared on the threshold of the church after the ceremony, a terrific noise caused the bride to start in terror, and the baroness to scream; it was a rifle salute given by the peasants, and the firing did not cease until they reached “The Poplars.”
After a collation served for the family, the family chaplain, and the priest from Yport, the mayor and the witnesses, who were some of the large farmers of the district, they all walked in the garden. On the other side of the château one could hear the boisterous mirth of the peasants, who were drinking cider beneath the apple trees. The whole countryside, dressed in their best, filled the courtyard.
Jeanne and Julien walked through the copse and then up the slope and, without speaking, gazed out at the sea. The air was cool, although it was the middle of August; the wind was from the north, and the sun blazed down unpityingly from the blue sky. The young people sought a more sheltered spot, and crossing the plain, they turned to the right, toward the rolling and wooded valley that leads to Yport. As soon as they reached the trees the air was still, and they left the road and took a narrow path beneath the trees, where they could scarcely walk abreast.
Jeanne felt an arm passed gently round her waist. She said nothing, her breath came quick, her heart beat fast. Some low branches caressed their hair, as they bent to pass under them. She picked a leaf; two ladybirds were concealed beneath it, like two delicate red shells.
“Look, a little family,” she said innocently, and feeling a little more confidence.
Julien placed his mouth to her ear, and whispered: “This evening you will be my wife.”
Although she had learned many things during her sojourn in the country, she dreamed of nothing as yet but the poetry of love, and was surprised. His wife? Was she not that already?
Then he began to kiss her temples and neck, little light kisses. Startled each time afresh by these masculine kisses to which she was not accustomed, she instinctively turned away her head to avoid them, though they delighted her. But they had come to the edge of the wood. She stopped, embarrassed at being so far from home. What would they think?
“Let us go home,” she said.
He withdrew his arm from her waist, and as they turned round they stood face to face, so close that they could feel each other’s breath on their faces. They gazed deep into one another’s eyes with that gaze in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown of each other’s being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness, or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble tête-à-tête of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had never yet seen each other.
Suddenly, Julien, placing his two hands on his wife’s shoulders, kissed her full on the lips as she had never before been kissed. The kiss, penetrating as it did her very blood and marrow, gave her such a mysterious shock that she pushed Julien wildly away with her two arms, almost falling backward as she did so.
“Let us go away, let us go away,” she faltered.
He did not reply, but took both her hands and held them in his. They walked home in silence, and the rest of the afternoon seemed long. The dinner was simple and did not last long, contrary to the usual Norman custom. A sort of embarrassment seemed to paralyze the guests. The two priests, the mayor, and the four farmers invited, alone betrayed a little of that broad mirth that is supposed to accompany weddings.
They had apparently forgotten how to laugh, when a remark of the mayor’s woke them up. It was about nine o’clock; coffee was about to be served. Outside, under the apple-trees of the first court, the bal champêtre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the unrestrained voices seemed to fall from the air in shreds, in little fragments of scattered notes.
Two large barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of illuminated foliage this wholesome and boisterous fête made the melancholy watchers in the diningroom long to dance also, and to drink from one of those large barrels, while they munched a slice of bread and butter and a raw onion.
The mayor, who was beating time with his knife, cried: “By Jove, that is all right; it is like the wedding of Ganache.”
A suppressed giggle was heard, but Abbé Picot, the natural enemy of civil authority, cried: “You mean of Cana.” The other did not accept the correction. “No, monsieur le curé, I know what I am talking about; when I say Ganache, I mean Ganache.”
They rose from table and went into the drawingroom, and then outside to mix with the merrymakers. The guests soon left.
They went into the house. They were surprised to see Madame Adelaide sobbing on Julien’s shoulder. Her tears, noisy tears, as if blown out by a pair of bellows, seemed to come from her nose, her mouth and her eyes at the same time; and the young man, dumfounded, awkward, was supporting the heavy woman who had sunk into his arms to commend to his care her darling, her little one, her adored daughter.
The baron rushed toward them, saying: “Oh, no scenes, no tears, I beg of you,” and, taking his wife to a chair,