"The country is worth it," he added with a resigned air in the same
tone in which he said: "It is the air of the Val, which is cool."
Then they went home to dinner, and the little Corsican woman behaved
as if she had known them for twenty years.
But Jeanne was worried. When Julien again held her in his arms, would
she experience the same strange and intense sensation that she had
felt on the moss beside the spring? And when they were alone together
that evening she trembled lest she should still be insensible to his
kisses. But she was reassured, and this was her first night of love.
The next day, as they were about to set out, she decided that she
would not leave this humble cottage, where it seemed as though a fresh
happiness had begun for her.
She called her host's little wife into her room and, while making
clear that she did not mean it as a present, she insisted, even with
some annoyance, on sending her from Paris, as soon as she arrived, a
remembrance, a remembrance to which she attached an almost
superstitious significance.
The little Corsican refused for some time, not wishing to accept it.
But at last she consented, saying:
"Well, then, send me a little pistol, a very small one."
Jeanne opened her eyes in astonishment. The other added in her ear, as
one confides a sweet and intimate secret: "It is to kill my
brother-in-law." And smiling, she hastily unwound the bandages around
the helpless arm, and showing her firm, white skin with the scratch of
a stiletto across it, now almost healed, she said: "If I had not been
almost as strong as he is, he would have killed me. My husband is not
jealous, he knows me; and, besides, he is ill, you know, and that
quiets your blood. And, besides, madame, I am an honest woman; but my
brother-in-law believes all that he hears. He is jealous for my
husband and he will surely try it again. Then I shall have my little
pistol; I shall be easy, and sure of my revenge."
Jeanne promised to send the weapon, kissed her new friend tenderly and
they set out on their journey.
The rest of the trip was nothing but a dream, a continual series of
embraces, an intoxication of caresses. She saw nothing, neither the
landscape, nor the people, nor the places where they stopped. She saw
nothing but Julien.