“Yes, monsieur, he’s just come from Paris—that’s where he brought his bride from.”
“Aha! so he went to Paris for a wife?”
“I’ll tell you, messieurs: Cadet’s a sly one, who’ll never let anyone play it on him! The girls of his village, they’re a lot of hussies, and so, to be sure of getting something good, he went to Paris to look for a wife.”
“He must be a very clever rascal.”
“Oh! he’s the shrewdest lady-killer within six leagues; his mother she lets him do just as he wants to, so off he goes to Paris, where he had business anyway. After some time he writes home as how he’s found the woman as suits him. Well, well! she must be virtue and innocence itself, you see! for Cadet knows what’s what in the matter of women.”
“And he found this treasure in Paris?”
“Not just in Paris, but in the outskirts. So, as he took his charmer’s fancy, he brought her back with him, and he’s going to marry her. That’s why I’d like to have you come to the wedding, to tell me what you think of my nephew’s choice.”
Auguste would have liked to make the acquaintance of the bride whom Monsieur Cadet Eustache had found in the suburbs of Paris. He thought of Denise, and imagined that Monsieur Rondin’s nephew had found some young village maiden as fresh and pretty and alluring as the little milkmaid. That thought made him sigh.
“Perhaps she too is married!” he said to himself; “for she was in love with someone; she told me as much when she said that she would never love me.”
Auguste had ceased to smile since his memories had taken him back to Montfermeil. The peasant, surprised by his neighbor’s melancholy, dared not suggest again his coming to the wedding, and Bertrand said under his breath: