“Since you desire it, since you have committed yourselves so far that you cannot withdraw, I will resign myself to it. Where you have tied the goat she will browse.”
Ah! that phrase, what a rôle it played in the disputes between the Lambert and Seron families, so frequent in later years.
Olympe’s parents were assailed day and night by these words, which they repeated to themselves aghast. “Where you have tied the goat she will browse.”
Jean Louis Lambert returned to Chauny and was married, a little disappointed at his wife’s coldness, but trusting to his passion to inspire her with the love he himself felt.
Olympe Lambert was tall, with a handsome figure like her mother’s; she had an olive complexion, large, velvety, and luminous eyes, a charming mouth with small teeth, a delicate nose with pink nostrils, brown hair with ruddy tints in it, handsome arms and hands, and a very small foot. It was impossible to discover a more fascinating creature to look at and one of less good-humour.
IV
BORN IN AN INN
DOCTOR SERON, after the death of his parents, had renewed acquaintance with one of his uncles on the maternal side, a physician in a hamlet in the department of Oise, between Verberie and Seulis. This uncle, then very old, had become a widower and, being without children, he ceded his practice to the son-in-law of his only remaining relative, and gladly welcomed the young couple in his house.
Living with his uncle, following his counsels, Jean Louis Lambert succeeded marvellously well with his new patients for three years. A son was born to them, and the young people were happy, he singing always the praise of love in his letters to his mother and father-in-law, while she “browsed” agreeably without wishing to confess it.
Doctor and Madame Seron congratulated themselves daily for the happy choice they had made in their daughter’s husband.