This arrangement being concluded, Dufresne urged Edouard to make haste to provide him with the necessary papers, that he might go to Adeline, whom he was burning to see again. As for Edouard, having pledged his country house, the last shelter of his family, and having obtained the proceeds of his notes, he abandoned himself anew to the frantic passion which dominated him.
XXIV
KIND HEARTS.—GRATITUDE
Adeline was still at the pretty country house. She had arrived there very unhappy and melancholy; but in due time the peaceful country, and the first caresses of her daughter, brought a little repose to her soul; she became resigned to her fate. In the early days after her arrival, she still hoped that Edouard would join her, that he would weary of the false pleasures to which he had abandoned himself, and would open his eyes concerning the people who surrounded him; but she speedily lost this last hope. She wrote to her husband, but he did not reply; she received news from Paris through her mother, and that news was most distressing; she learned in what excesses the man whom she still loved was indulging; she shuddered as she thought of Edouard’s weakness and Dufresne’s vengeance. She wrote again, but her letters were returned to her unopened. This last mark of indifference and contempt cut Adeline to the quick; she waited in silence, and without a complaint, for the man whose joy she had once been, to remember the bonds which attached him to her.
As she was walking in the country one day, with her little Ermance in her arms, Adeline, absorbed by her thoughts, did not notice that she had gone farther than usual; but at last fatigue compelled her to stop; she looked about her: not recognizing her surroundings, and fearing that she would lose her way if she should attempt to return, she bent her steps toward a farm house, which she saw at some distance, in order to ask her way, and to obtain a guide if that were necessary.
She soon arrived at Guillot’s, for it was his farm which she had seen. Louise was in front of her door, driving the ducks and fowls into their coops; Sans-Souci was in the yard, piling bundles of hay. The children were wallowing in the mud according to their custom, with the geese and the chickens.
This picture brought a smile to Adeline’s lips. She regretted that she had not been born in a village, where the days are all alike, monotonous perhaps, but at all events free from trouble and bitterness.
The farmer’s wife cordially invited the young lady to enter the house. She took little Ermance in her arms and dandled her, while answering the questions of Adeline, who learned that she was more than two leagues from her home, and who, touched by the frank and hearty welcome of the villagers, consented to rest for a few moments, and to share the repast prepared for the men about to return from their work.
The clock struck six; that was the time when the people at the farm assembled to partake gayly of their simple but substantial meal, seasoned always by appetite.
Guillot appeared, bringing wood according to his custom. Sans-Souci entered the living room humming a ballad, and Jacques deposited in a corner the instruments of toil. The farmer examined the young lady with the stupid expression which was habitual with him; Jacques bowed and took his seat without paying much attention to Adeline, while she, as she glanced at the newcomers, tried to remember an incident long ago dispelled from her memory.
They took their places at the table; Jacques was seated beside Adeline, who was surprised by his courtesy, by his frank manners, and by his gentleness with the children. From time to time she cast a glance at that stern face, adorned with heavy moustaches, and bearing the scars of several wounds. Jacques did not notice the young lady’s scrutiny; it was impossible for him to recognize her whom he had seen but once, through the gate of a garden, and to whom he had paid little heed. But as she gazed at Jacques’s face and especially at his enormous moustaches, Adeline remembered the place where she had seen him, and she could not restrain an exclamation of surprise.