Catherine's coquetries

by Camille Debans

Since the wedding of Jacques Percier and Suzanne, life had been all but unendurable in the pretty little cottage at the corner of the wood. Savin, convinced that his wife no longer loved him, experienced the countless pangs of ruined affection. Catherine had continued to pose as a martyr and he had persecuted her until she was indeed to be pitied. He had brutally resolved to give her cause to complain. He had exacted that the house should be irreproachably neat and orderly, and that the meals should be ready precisely on the hour. The breach had widened day by day. Savin had become more rude and Catherine more irreconcilable. They had addressed each other only in terms of hatred or anger. Nearly every day there had been disagreeable scenes between the two.

“Do not force me to use violence,” said Barrau savagely one day, at which remark Catherine was naturally indignant. Both were at love’s antipodes. All peace was at an end, and the more Catherine reflected the more she felt that nothing but her husband’s death could bring relief. And having an overwhelming desire to confide in somebody, she had thought of Bruno. But now she perceived how revolting it must have been to his noble mind. The words she had spoken had stunned and driven him away. However, she would not have told Bruno had he not urged, nay begged, her to do so. He had presumed, of course, that she was going to propose an elopement, and while that would have been a serious undertaking, he felt able to brave all for her. Once far away from St. Benoit, he had dreamed of working for Catherine and devoting himself to her happiness.

But when he heard the young woman proposing to kill Savin he could scarcely trust his ears, and we already have seen with what fear he fled from her. Like most of the peasants, Bruno was a very good marksman. He could handle a gun with considerable skill, and the idea had occurred to Catherine to address him just as she would have made the same proposition, under similar circumstances, to Firmin, Fadard, or even to Andoche, if the latter ever had had a thought for anything but the bottle. But Bruno was desperately in love with her and professedly willing to die for her sake. But she did not know that Bruno would sooner cut off his right hand or tear out his heart than lie in wait for an honest man to kill him. Not even for love’s sake could he resort to treachery and villainy.

Noticing how Bruno received her terrible suggestion, she had been moved to contrition.

“He did right to leave me in dismay, the honest fellow,” she had said as she entered the cottage. “I could embrace him for refusing. Who knows but that he may save my life a second time? Brave Bruno!”

Then her proposition in all its hideous blackness recurred to her. Her past life loomed up before her mind’s eye and mercilessly mocked and shamed her, and as she meditated—for the first time—she admitted to herself that she had been to blame from the day of the raspberry fête up to the time of Suzanne’s marriage. The crime she had contemplated now seemed impish and terrible. She repented of her wicked thoughts and thanked God that Bruno’s conduct had created in her this feeling, otherwise she might never have taken a step toward reconciliation.

Savin was in the forest. She now awaited him with some impatience. Courageously she made up her mind to tender the first advances and bring back her husband’s smile. All bickering should cease. The abyss on the verge of which Bruno’s flight had arrested her now seemed so dark and horrible. She would a thousand times rather endure the jeers of Rosalie and of the rest than ever again give way to such demon thoughts.

“Ah, well, I will make amends for all the harm I have done,” she mentally resolved as she busied herself about the supper.

Barrau had gone to Pierre qui Vire. A legend is associated with this place respecting the old Balance Rock. This rock leans against another in such a way as to form a perfect balance, and the story goes that each day when the town-clock at Vaumarin, a little village perched upon the opposite mountain, strikes twelve, the rock turns over three times. But some very precise people affirm that there is no town-clock at Vaumarin to strike the hour, and so the legend suffers. Others, however, declare that at midnight the rock, possessed of the devil, slowly turns three times. Many excursions are made to the place to watch the mysterious rock, especially by those who are not in the least afraid of goblins. A more lonely, dreary spot on earth could not be found. The rock is situated some three miles from any human habitation, in the midst of a dense and gloomy forest. All the paths leading to it are lined with deep ravines, some of them of frightful depth and filled with a mass of tangled roots and projecting bowlders. Just at the foot of Balance Rock an avalanche of stones has fallen, and these from time to time tumble headlong over the precipice with a thunderous crash. In awful confusion lie the rocks, forming such weird shapes as in the night are enough to fill with dread the bravest heart.

At the bottom of the gorge, in a rock-formed bed, rush the torrents of the Trinquelin River—as though to shun the grewsome spot. But amid these most solitary and desolate surroundings a convent stands on the granite rocks. A misanthropic priest founded it some twenty-five years ago, imposing on its members a code of rules so severe that several died within the first twelve months, and finally the code was somewhat modified. In winter there always is great suffering within its walls, but in the summer-time it is comfortable as well as beautiful.