“That’s very good,” said M. Compagnon, for he had no grudge against literature, though for want of practice he could barely distinguish between a line of Racine and a line of Mallarmé.
But M. Bergeret said to himself:
“Perhaps, after all, this is a masterpiece?”
And, for fear of wronging beauty in disguise, he silently pressed the poet’s hand.
V
As he came out of the dean’s house, M. Bergeret met Madame de Gromance returning from Mass. This gave him great pleasure, for he always considered that the sight of a pretty woman is a stroke of good luck when it comes in the way of an honest man, and in his eyes Madame de Gromance was a most charming woman. She alone, of all the women in the town, knew how to dress herself with the skilful art that conceals art: and he was grateful to her for this, as well as for her carriage that displayed the lissom figure and the supple hips, mere hints though they were of a beauty veiled from the sight of the humble, poverty-stricken scholar, but which could yet serve him as an apposite illustration of some line of Horace, Ovid or Martial. His heart went out towards her for her sweetness and the amorous atmosphere that floated round her. In his mind he thanked her for that heart of hers that yielded so easily; he felt it as a personal favour, although he had no hope at all of ever sunning himself in the light of her smile. Stranger as he was in aristocratic circles, he had never been in the lady’s house, and it was merely by a stroke of extraordinary luck that someone introduced him to her in M. de Terremondre’s box, after the procession at the Jeanne d’Arc celebrations. Moreover, being a wise man with a sense of the becoming, he did not even hope for closer acquaintance. It was enough for him to catch a chance glimpse of her fair face as he passed in the street, and to remember, whenever he saw her, the tales they told about her in Paillot’s shop. Thus he owed some pleasant moments to her and accordingly felt a sort of gratitude towards her.
This New Year’s morning he caught sight of her in the porch of Saint-Exupère, as she stood lifting her petticoat with one hand so as to emphasise the pliant bending of the knee, while with the other she held a great prayer-book bound in red morocco. As he gazed, he offered up a mental hymn of thanksgiving to her for thus acting as a charming fairy-tale, a source of subtle pleasure to all the town. This idea he tried to throw into his smile as he passed.
Madame de Gromance’s notion of ideal womanhood was not quite the same as M. Bergeret’s. Hers was mingled with many society interests, and being of the world, she had a keen eye to worldly affairs. She was by no means ignorant of the reputation she enjoyed in the town, and hence, whenever she had no special desire to stand in anyone’s good graces, she treated him with cold hauteur. Among such persons she classed M. Bergeret, whose smile seemed merely impertinent. She replied to it, therefore, by a supercilious look which made him blush. As he continued his walk, he said to himself penitently: