Then, after some seconds, he added in a peculiar tone:
“You may boast of having splendid coolness.”
I burst out laughing.
“I? Why, pray? Coolness because I went to kill a fox? But what are you thinking of, my friend?”
And we quietly made our way across the park. All the household slept. The full moon seemed to give a yellow tint to the old gloomy building, whose slate roof glittered brightly. The two turrets that flanked it had two plates of light on their summits, and no noise disturbed the silence of this clear, sad night, sweet and still, which seemed in a death-trance. Not a breath of air, not a shriek from a toad, not a hoot from an owl; a melancholy numbness lay heavy on everything. When we were under the trees in the park, a sense of freshness stole over me, together with the odor of fallen leaves. My husband said nothing; but he was listening, he was watching, he seemed to be smelling about in the shadows, possessed from head to foot by the passion for the chase.
We soon reached the edges of the ponds.
Their tufts of rushes remained motionless; not a breath of air caressed it; but movements which were scarcely perceptible ran through the water. Sometimes the surface was stirred by something, and light circles gathered around, like luminous wrinkles enlarging indefinitely.
When we reached the hut where we were to lie in wait, my husband made me go in first; then he slowly loaded his gun, and the dry cracking of the powder produced a strange effect on me. He saw that I was shuddering, and asked:
“Does this trial happen to be quite enough for you? If so, go back.”
I was much surprised, and I replied:
“Not at all. I did not come to go back without doing anything. You seem queer this evening.”
He murmured, “As you wish,” and we remained there without moving.
At the end of about half-an-hour, as nothing broke the oppressive stillness of this bright autumn night, I said, in a low tone:
“Are you quite sure he is passing this way?”
Hervé winced as if I had bitten him, and with his mouth close to my ear, he said:
“Make no mistake about it. I am quite sure.”
And once more there was silence.
I believe I was beginning to get drowsy when my husband pressed my arm, and his voice, changed to a hiss, said:
“Do you see him over there under the trees?”
I looked in vain; I could distinguish nothing. And slowly Hervé now cocked his gun, all the time fixing his eyes on my face.
I was myself making ready to fire, and suddenly, thirty paces in front of us, appeared in the full light of the moon a man who was hurrying forward with rapid movements, his body bent, as if he were trying to escape.
I was so stupefied that I uttered a loud cry; but, before I could turn round, there was a flash before my eyes; I heard a deafening report, and I saw the man rolling on the ground, like a wolf hit by a bullet.
I burst into dreadful shrieks, terrified, almost going mad; then a furious hand—it was Hervé’s—seized me by the throat. I was flung down on the ground, then carried off by his strong arms. He ran, holding me up, till we reached the body lying on the grass, and he threw me on top of it violently, as if he wanted to break my head.
I thought I was lost; he was going to kill me; and he had just raised his heel up to my forehead when, in his turn, he was gripped, knocked down before I could yet realize what had happened.
I rose up abruptly, and I saw kneeling on top of him Porquita, my maid, clinging like a wild cat to him with desperate energy, tearing off his beard, his moustache, and the skin of his face.
Then, as if another idea had suddenly taken hold of her mind, she rose up, and, flinging herself on the corpse, she threw her arms around the dead man, kissing his eyes and his mouth, opening the dead lips with her own lips, trying to find in them a breath and a long, long kiss of lovers.
My husband, picking himself up, gazed at me. He understood, and falling at my feet, said:
“Oh! forgive me, my darling, I suspected you, and I killed this girl’s lover. It was my keeper that deceived me.”
But I was watching the strange kisses of that dead man and that living woman, and her sobs and her writhings of sorrowing love, and at that moment I understood that I might be unfaithful to my husband.
A Cock Crowed
Madame Bertha d’Avancelles had up till that time resisted all the prayers of her despairing adorer, Baron Joseph de Croissard. He had pursued her ardently in Paris during the winter, and now he was giving fêtes and shooting parties in her honor at his Château at Carville, in Normandy.
Monsieur d’Avancelles, her husband, saw nothing and knew nothing, as usual. It was said that he lived apart from his wife on account of physical weakness, for which Madame d’Avancelles would not pardon him. He was a short, stout, bald man, with short arms, legs, neck, nose and everything else, while Madame d’Avancelles, on the contrary, was a tall, dark and determined young woman, who laughed in her husband’s face with sonorous laughter, while he called her openly “Mrs. Housewife,” who looked at the broad shoulders, strong build and fair moustaches of her titled admirer, Baron Joseph de Croissard, with a certain amount of tenderness.
She had not, however, granted him anything as yet. The baron was ruining himself for her, and there was a constant round of fêting, hunting parties and new pleasures, to which he invited the neighboring nobility. All day long the hounds gave tongue in the woods, as they followed the fox or the wild boar, and every night dazzling fireworks mingled their burning plumes with the boars, while the illuminated windows of the drawing-room cast long rays of light onto the wide lawns, where shadows were moving to and fro.
It was autumn, the russet-colored season of the year, and the leaves were whirling about on the grass like flights of birds. One noticed the smell of damp earth in the air, of the naked earth, like one smells the odor of the bare skin, when a woman’s dress falls off her, after a ball.
One evening, in the previous spring, during an entertainment, Madame d’Avancelles had said to Monsieur de Croissard, who was worrying her by his importunities: “If I do succumb to you, my friend, it will not be before the fall of the leaf. I have too many things to do this summer to have any time for it.” He had not forgotten that bold and amusing speech, and every day he became more pressing, every day he pushed his approaches nearer,—to use a military phrase,—and gained a step in the heart of the fair, audacious woman, who seemed only to be resisting for form’s sake.
It was the day before a large wild-boar hunt, and in the evening Madame Bertha said to the baron with a laugh: “Baron, if you kill the brute, I shall have something to say to you.” And so, at dawn he was up and out, to try and discover where the solitary animal had its lair. He accompanied his huntsmen, settled the places for the relays, and organized everything personally to insure his triumph, and when the horns gave the signal for setting out, he appeared in a closely fitting coat of scarlet and gold, with his waist drawn in tight, his chest expanded, his eyes radiant, and as fresh and strong as if he had just got out of bed. They set off, and the wild boar set off through the underwood as soon as he was dislodged, followed by the hounds in full cry, while the horses set off at a gallop through the narrow sides cut in the forest, while the carriage which followed the chase at a distance, drove noiselessly along the soft roads.
From mischief, Madame d’Avancelles kept the baron by her side, and lagging behind at a walk in an interminably long and straight drive, over which four rows of oaks hung, so as to form almost an arch, while he, trembling with love and anxiety, listened with one ear to the young woman’s bantering chatter, while with the other he listened to the blast of the horns and to the cry of the hounds as they receded in the distance.
“So you