They descended the slope, hired a boat at Croisset, and passed the rest
of the afternoon drowsily moored under the willows alongside an island,
soothed to slumber by the soft spring weather, and rocked by the
wavelets of the river. Then they went back at nightfall.
The evening's repast, eaten by the light of a tallow candle, was still
more painful for Madeleine than that of the morning. Father Duroy, who
was half drunk, no longer spoke. The mother maintained her dogged
manner. The wretched light cast upon the gray walls the shadows of heads
with enormous noses and exaggerated movements. A great hand was seen to
raise a pitchfork to a mouth opening like a dragon's maw whenever any
one of them, turning a little, presented a profile to the yellow,
flickering flame.
As soon as dinner was over, Madeleine drew her husband out of the house,
in order not to stay in this gloomy room, always reeking with an acrid
smell of old pipes and spilt liquor. As soon as they were outside, he
said: "You are tired of it already."
She began to protest, but he stopped her, saying: "No, I saw it very
plainly. If you like, we will leave to-morrow."
"Very well," she murmured.
They strolled gently onward. It was a mild night, the deep,
all-embracing shadow of which seemed filled with faint murmurings,
rustlings, and breathings. They had entered a narrow path, overshadowed
by tall trees, and running between two belts of underwood of
impenetrable blackness.
"Where are we?" asked she.
"In the forest," he replied.
"Is it a large one?"
"Very large; one of the largest in France."
An odor of earth, trees, and moss--that fresh yet old scent of the
woods, made up of the sap of bursting buds and the dead and moldering
foliage of the thickets, seemed to linger in the path. Raising her head,
Madeleine could see the stars through the tree-tops; and although no
breeze stirred the boughs, she could yet feel around her the vague
quivering of this ocean of leaves. A strange thrill shot through her
soul and fleeted across her skin--a strange pain gripped her at the
heart. Why, she did not understand. But it seemed to her that she was
lost, engulfed, surrounded by perils, abandoned by everyone; alone,
alone in the world beneath this living vault quivering there above her.