verdure was hardly yet tinged with the first golden hues of autumn.
They were still arm in arm. There was between them that indefinable constraint — the result of a newly-formed intimacy — which has made too rapid progress. When they came to think that they had only known each other for eight days at the most, they experienced a sort of uneasy feeling at finding themselves thus alone in presence of each other, in the open fields, like happy lovers. Feeling themselves still strangers and compelled to treat one another as comrades, they hardly dared to look at one another; they conversed only in hesitating sentences, as if from fear of giving mutual offence unwittingly. Each was for the other the unknown — the unknown which terrifies and yet attracts. In the lagging walk like that of lovers, in their pleasant and light words, even in the smiles which they exchanged the moment their eyes met, one could read the uneasiness and embarrassment of two beings whom hazard has unceremoniously brought together. Never had William thought he would suffer so much from his first adventure, and he waited its end with real anguish.
They had begun to walk on again, easting glances on the hillside, their fits of silence only broken by intermittent conversation, in which they gave vent to none of their real thoughts, but simply to pass remarks about the trees, the sky, or the landscape which was spread out before them.
Madeleine was approaching her twentieth year. She had on a very simple dress of grey material set off with a trimming of blue ribbons; and on her head of gorgeous bright red hair, which seemed to emit a golden gleam and was twisted and done up behind in an enormous chignon, she wore a little round straw hat. She was a tall, handsome girl, and her strong, supple limbs gave promise of rare energy. Her face was characteristic. The upper part was firm, almost masculine in its sternness; there were no soft lines in the forehead: the temples, the nose, and cheekbones were angular, and gave to the face the cold, hard appearance of marble; in this severe setting were large eyes, of a dull grey green colour, yet at times a smile would impart to them an intelligent brightness. The lower part of the face, on the contrary, was of exquisite delicacy: there was a voluptuous softness in the cheeks, and in the corners of the mouth, where nestled two light dimples; the chin was double, the upper one small and nervous, the lower one soft and round; the features were here no longer hard and stiff, they were plump, lively, and covered with a silky down; they had an infinite variety of expression and a charming delicacy where the down was wanting: in the centre the lips bright and rosy, though somewhat thick, seemed too red for this fair face, at once stern and childish.
This strange physiognomy was in fact a combination of sternness and childishness. When the upper part was at rest, when the lips were contracted in moments of thought or anger, one could see nothing but the harsh forehead, the nervous outline of the nose, the dull eyes, the firm, strong features. Then, the moment a smile relaxed the mouth, the upper part seemed to soften, leaving nothing visible, but the soft lines of the cheeks and the chin. It might be called the smile of a little girl on the face of a grown woman. The complexion was of soft, transparent whiteness, with just a touch or two of red about the angles of the temples, while the veins gave a soft blue tinge to this satinlike skin.
Often would Madeleine’s ordinary expression, an expression of stem pride, melt suddenly into a look of unspeakable tenderness, the tenderness of a weak and conquered woman. One phase of her being had never developed beyond childhood. As she followed the narrow path leaning on William’s arm, she had serious moods which made the young fellow feel peculiarly dejected, while at times she would be subject to sudden fits of unconstraint and involuntary submissiveness which restored him to hope. By her firm and somewhat measured tread one saw at once that she had ceased to be a young girl.
William was five years older than Madeleine. He was tall and thin and of aristocratic bearing. His long face, with its sharp features, would have been ugly, but for the purity of his complexion and the loftiness of his brow. His whole aspect betokened the intelligent and yet enfeebled descendant of a strong race. At times, he would be seized with a sudden nervous shudder and seem as timid as a child. Slightly bent, he spoke with hesitating gestures, scanning Madeleine with his eyes before opening his lips. He was afraid of displeasing her and trembled lest his person, his attitude, or his voice should be disagreeable to her.
Always distrustful of himself, he appeared humble and fawning. Yet, when he thought himself slighted, he would draw himself up in a burst of pride. It was in this pride that his strength lay. He would perhaps have been guilty of acts of cowardice, had there not been in him an innate proudness, a nervous susceptibility which made him resist everything which hurt his finer feelings. He was one of those beings with tender and deep emotions who feel a poignant need of love and tranquillity, who willingly allow themselves to be lulled into an eternal peacefulness; these beings, with the sensitiveness of a woman, easily forget the world for the retreat of their own heart, in the certitude of their own nobleness, the moment the world entangles them in its shame and misery. If William forgot himself in Madeleine’s smiles, if he felt an exquisite delight in surveying her pearly complexion, there would come at times, unconsciously, a curl of disdain on his lips, when his young companion cast on him a cold, almost deriding glance.
The young couple had turned the bend in the road to Champs-Girard, and were now in a lane which extends with hopeless monotony between two grey walls. They hastened on in order to get out of this narrow passage. Then they continued their walk across fields where the footpath was hardly defined. They passed by the foot of the hill where the enormous Robinson chestnut-trees grow, and arrived at Aulnay. This quick walk had heated their blood. The genial warmth of the sun dispelled their restraint, in the free air which blew on their faces from the fresh warm wind. The tacit state of warfare in which they alighted from the train had gradually given place to the familiarity of comrades. They were forgetting their previous stiffness: the country was filling them with such a feeling of comfort, that they no longer thought of eyeing one another or standing on their guard.
At Aulnay they stopped for a moment in the shade of the big trees, under which it is always delightfully cool. They had been warm in the sun; they now felt the delicious coolness of the leaves as they fell on their shoulders.
“Hang it, if I know where we are,’’ exclaimed William after they had recovered their breath.” Do people eat, I wonder, in this country?”
“Yes, no fear,” replied Madeleine gaily, “we shall be at table in half-an-hour. Come this way.’’
She led him quickly towards the lane bordered with palings which leads on to the open country. Here, she withdrew her arm from William’s, and began to run like a young dog filled with a sudden feeling of friskiness. All her girlishness awoke in her, and she again became a little child in the cool shade, in the chilly silence under the trees. Her smiles lit up her whole face and imparted a luminous transparency to her grey eyes: the girlish graces of her cheeks and lips softened the hard lines of her forehead. She would run forward, then come back, shouting joyously, holding her skirts in her hand, filling the lane with the rustling of her dress and leaving behind her a vague perfume of violet. William kept looking at her with supreme delight: he had forgotten the cold, proud woman, he felt happy, he indulged his feelings of tenderness for this big child who would run away from him with a wave of the hand to follow her, and then, suddenly turning round, run up and lean half-wearily, half-caressingly on his shoulder.
In one place, the road has been cut through a sand hill, and the surface of the ground is covered with a fine dust into which the feet sink. Madeleine took a delight in picking the softest places. She would raise little shrill cries as she felt her boots disappearing. She would try to take long strides, and laugh, when held back by the moving sand, at not being able to get on, just as a twelve-year-old girl would have done.
Then the road ascends with sudden turns between wooded knolls. This end of the valley has a lonely and wild aspect which takes one by surprise on emerging from the cool shades of Aulnay: a few rocks peep out of the ground, the grass on the slopes is browned by the sun, and big briars struggle in the ditches. Madeleine took William’s arm in silence: she was tired, and was touched with an indefinable feeling on this stony, deserted road, where there was no house to be seen, and which wound about in a sort of ominous hollow. Still trembling from the effects of her gambols and laughter she put no check on herself. William felt her warm arm press against his own. At this moment, he knew that this woman was