“It is your fault.”
The sheets, hanging around them, hemmed them in, like the curtains of a bed.
He leaned forward on his elbow, so that his face touched her knees.
“Why?—eh?—why?”
And as she remained silent, while he was in a condition in which words cost nothing, he tried to justify himself; accused himself of folly, of pride.
“Forgive me! Let everything be as it was before. Do you wish it?” And he caught her hand, which she allowed to remain in his.
A sudden gust of wind blew up the sheets, and they saw two peacocks, a male and a female. The female stood motionless, with her tail in the air. The male marched around her, erected his tail into a fan and bridled up, making a clucking noise.
Bouvard was clasping the hand of Madame Bordin. She very quickly loosed herself. Before them, open-mouthed and, as it were, petrified, was young Victor staring at them; a short distance away Victorine, stretched on her back, in the full light of day, was inhaling all the flowers which she had gathered.
The old horse, frightened by the peacocks, broke one of the lines with a kick, got his legs entangled in it, and, galloping through the farmyard, dragged the washed linen after him.
At Madame Bordin’s wild screams Marianne rushed up. Pére Gouy abused his horse: “Fool of a beast! Old bag of bones! Infernal thief of a horse!”—kicked him in the belly, and lashed his ears with the handle of a whip.