Julien placed his mouth to her ear, and whispered: "This evening you
will be my wife."
Although she had learned many things during her sojourn in the
country, she dreamed of nothing as yet but the poetry of love, and was
surprised. His wife? Was she not that already?
Then he began to kiss her temples and neck, little light kisses.
Startled each time afresh by these masculine kisses to which she was
not accustomed, she instinctively turned away her head to avoid them,
though they delighted her. But they had come to the edge of the wood.
She stopped, embarrassed at being so far from home. What would they
think?
"Let us go home," she said.
He withdrew his arm from her waist, and as they turned round they
stood face to face, so close that they could feel each other's breath
on their faces. They gazed deep into one another's eyes with that gaze
in which two souls seem to blend. They sought the impenetrable unknown
of each other's being. They sought to fathom one another, mutely and
persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life
be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness,
or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble
tête-à-tête of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had never
yet seen each other.
Suddenly, Julien, placing his two hands on his wife's shoulders,
kissed her full on the lips as she had never before been kissed. The
kiss, penetrating as it did her very blood and marrow, gave her such a
mysterious shock that she pushed Julien wildly away with her two arms,
almost falling backward as she did so.
"Let us go away, let us go away," she faltered.
He did not reply, but took both her hands and held them in his. They
walked home in silence, and the rest of the afternoon seemed long. The
dinner was simple and did not last long, contrary to the usual Norman
custom. A sort of embarrassment seemed to paralyze the guests. The two
priests, the mayor, and the four farmers invited, alone betrayed a
little of that broad mirth that is supposed to accompany weddings.
They had apparently forgotten how to laugh, when a remark of the
mayor's woke them up. It was about nine o'clock; coffee was about to
be served. Outside, under the apple-trees of the first court, the bal
champêtre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all
that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a
grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle
shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins
and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The
boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the
instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the
unrestrained voices seemed to fall from the air in shreds, in little
fragments of scattered notes.
Two large barrels surrounded by flaming torches were tapped, and two
servant maids were kept busy rinsing glasses and bowls in order to
refill them at the tap whence flowed the red wine, or at the tap of
the cider barrel. On the table were bread, sausages and cheese. Every
one swallowed a mouthful from time to time, and beneath the roof of
illuminated foliage this wholesome and boisterous fête made the
melancholy watchers in the dining-room long to dance also, and to
drink from one of those large barrels, while they munched a slice of
bread and butter and a raw onion.