Marie did not answer at once. She was still wrapped in her morning dressing-gown, which, from the buttons being torn off, displayed her throat, in all the disorder of a woman just risen from her bed.
“I have scarcely read a hundred pages,” she ended by saying. “My parents came yesterday.”
And she spoke in a painful tone of voice, with a sourness about her mouth. When she was younger, she longed to live in the midst of the woods. She was for ever dreaming that she met a huntsman who was sounding his horn. He approached her and knelt down. This took place in a copse, very far away, where roses were blooming like in a park. Then, suddenly, they had been married, and afterwards lived there, wandering about till eternity. She, very happy, wished for nothing more; he, as tender and submissive as a slave, was continually at her feet.
“I had a talk with your husband this morning,” said Octave. “You do not go out enough, and I have persuaded him to take you to the theatre.”
But she shook her head, turning pale and shivering. A silence ensued. She again beheld the narrow dining-room with its cold light. Jules’s image, sullen and correct, had suddenly cast a shadow over the huntsman of the romance whom she had been imagining, and the sound of whose horn in the distance again rang in her ears. Every now and then she listened: perhaps he was coming. Her husband had never taken her feet in his hands to kiss them; he had never either knelt beside her to tell her he adored her. Yet, she loved him well; but she was surprised that love did not contain more sweetness.
“What stifles me, you know,” resumed she, returning to the book, “is when there are passages in novels about the characters telling one another of their love.”
Octave then sat down. He wished to laugh, not caring for such sentimental trifling.
“I detest a lot of phrases,” said he. “When two persons adore each other, the best thing is to prove it at once.”
But she did not seem to understand, her eyes remained undimmed. He stretched out his hand, slightly touching hers, and leant over so close to her to observe a passage in the book that his breath warmed her shoulder through the open dressing-gown; yet she remained insensible. Then, he rose up, full of a contempt mingled with pity. As he was leaving, she said:
“I read very slowly, I shall not have finished it before tomorrow. It will be amusing to-morrow! Look in during the evening.”