"In that city of mine? I thought you were brought up there as well as I."
"Certainly, but with this difference, that my life ended when my so-called bringing up began. All that was really worth living for I left behind me when I entered those walls, for the joyous sunny years of my early boyhood were the only ones worth having."
He spoke in a tone half bitter, half resentful. But in Eugénie's mind the old angry feeling blazed up hotly again. How dared he speak as if he had ever had anything to give up? What did he know of sacrifice, of renunciation? For her, indeed, childhood and happiness might truly be said to have come to an end together. As her father's confidant, early initiated into all the family affairs, she had made acquaintance on her first entrance into life with that graduated scale of care, humiliation, and despair, with that bitter school of sorrow, which had steeled her character, but had also robbed her of all the joys of youth. How different had been her husband's position, how different all his past life! And yet he spoke as if he had known unhappiness!
Arthur seemed to read these thoughts in her face, as he turned to hold back a drooping branch which would have brushed against her.
"You think I, of all people, have no right to complain? It may be so. At any rate I have always been told that my existence is a most enviable one. But I assure you a life like mine is sometimes desperately void and wretched. When fortune heaps all her gifts before a man, he just treads them under foot, because he does not know what use to make of them. The life is so empty and miserable that one would gladly escape in the end from this gilded felicity they vaunt so loudly, and rush out of it anywhere--anywhere, even into the midst of storm and tempest!"
Eugénie's dark eyes were fixed in speechless astonishment on his face. He flushed suddenly, remembering perhaps that he had been guilty of an unpardonable mistake; he had betrayed some feeling in his wife's presence. The young man frowned and cast a reproachful angry glance at the forest which had thus led him astray. Next minute he resumed his old indifferent manner.
"Just now we have more storm and tempest than we care about," said he negligently, going on in front so as completely to turn his back on her. "It is blowing a gale up there on the hills. We shall have to wait until the worst is over; we cannot go down at present."
And truly the storm met them with such force, as they issued from the wood, that they had some trouble to keep their footing. It was plainly out of the question to go on now, for at this spot the road grew steep and led straight down into the valley; they would have been in danger of being caught up by the wind and hurled bodily into the depths below. There was therefore nothing for it but to wait here under the shelter of the trees until the hurricane should subside.
They stood under a mighty pine-tree which reared itself high aloft on the very verge of the forest. The storm roared and rustled in its great green arms, as it stretched them protectingly over its younger and weaker fellows, and swayed them groaning up and down every now and then in spite of their strength, but the giant, whitish-grey trunk, offered shelter and support to Eugénie, who stood leaning against it. Two persons might have found room there in case of need, but they would have been placed in the closest proximity to each other, and it was this consideration, no doubt, which induced Arthur to remain standing some paces off. He was but very imperfectly sheltered, and the raindrops, accumulated on the branches from the last shower, poured down plentifully upon him as the wind moved them to and fro; his hair was blown about and the drops chased each other over his uncovered brow, still he made no attempt to change his place.
"Would you ... would you not rather come here?" asked Eugénie, hesitating and squeezing herself to one side, so as to make room for him on the only dry spot.