The Mayor was just going to sit down to breakfast, when he was told that
the rural policeman was waiting for him at the Mansion-house with two
prisoners, and he went there immediately, and found old Hochedur
standing up and watching a middle-class couple of mature years, with a
severe look.
The man, a fat old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed utterly
dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout, fat woman, with shining
cheeks, looked at the agent of the authorities who had arrested them,
with defiant eyes.
"What is it? What is it? Hochedur?"
The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning at
his usual time, in order to go on his beat from the forest of Champioux
as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed anything
unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and that the wheat
was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was going over his vines
a second time, called out to him: "Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and have a
look into the skirts of the wood, in the first thicket, and you will
catch a pair of pigeons there that must be a hundred and thirty years
old between them!"
He went in the direction that had been indicated to him, and had gone
into the thicket, and there he heard words and gasps, which made him
suspect a flagrant breach of morality. Advancing, therefore, on his
hands and knees, as if to surprise a poacher, he had arrested the couple
who were there present, at the very moment when they were going to
abandon themselves to their natural instincts.
The Mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was
certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and so he began to
question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak voice
that he could scarcely be heard.
"What is your name?" "Nicolas Beaurain." "Your occupation?"
"Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris." "What were you doing in
the wood?" The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat
stomach; and his hand resting on his thighs, and the Mayor continued:
"Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?" "No,
Monsieur." "So you confess it?" "Yes, Monsieur." "What have you to say
in your defense?" "Nothing, Monsieur." "Where did you meet the partner
in your misdemeanor?" "She is my wife, Monsieur." "Your wife?" "Yes,
Monsieur." "Then ... then ... you do not live together ... in Paris?" "I
beg your pardon, Monsieur, but we are living together!" "But in that
case ... you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to get caught
like that, in the country at ten o'clock in the morning."
The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he murmured: "It was
she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a woman has
got a thing into her head ... you know ... you cannot get it out of
it."
The Mayor, who liked open speaking, smiled and replied: "In your case,
the contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had
had the idea only in her head!" Then Monsieur Beaurain was seized with
rage, and turning to his wife, he said: "Do you see to what you have
brought us with your poetry? And now we shall have to go before the
Courts, at our age, for a breach of morals! And we shall have to shut up
the shop, sell our good will and go to some other neighborhood! That's
what it has come to!"
Madame Beaurain got up, and without looking at her husband, she
explained herself without any embarrassment, without useless modesty,
and almost without hesitation.
"Of course, Monsieur, I know that we have made ourselves ridiculous.
Will you allow me to plead my cause like an advocate; or rather like a
poor woman; and I hope that you will be kind enough to send us home, and
to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.
"Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance on
Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop, and I
was a young lady in a ready made clothing establishment. I remember it,
as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays here
occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Levéque, with whom I lived in
the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had not. He used to
bring us here, and one Saturday, he told me, laughing, that he should
bring a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what he meant,
but I replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous, Monsieur.
"The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in
those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to yield
to him, and I did not yield. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a lovely
day, the sort of day that tickles your heart. When it is fine, even now,
just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and when I am in
the country I utterly lose my head. The verdure, the swallows flying so
swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet poppies, the daisies, all
that makes me quite excited! It is like champagne when one is not used
to it!
"Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to
penetrate into your body by your eyes when you looked, and by your mouth
when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each other every
minute, and that gave me something to look at! Monsieur Beaurain and I
walked behind them, without speaking much, for when people do not know
each other they do not find anything to talk about. He looked timid, and
I liked to see his embarrassment. At last we got to the little wood; it
was as cool as in a bath there, and we all four sat down. Rose and her
lover joked me because I looked rather stern, but you will understand
that could not be otherwise. And then they began to kiss and hug again,
without putting any more restraint upon themselves than if we had not
been there; and then they whispered together, and then got up and went
off among the trees, without saying a word. You may fancy what I looked
like, alone with this young fellow, whom I saw for the first time. I
felt so confused at seeing them go that it gave me courage and I began
to talk. I asked him what his business was, and he said he was a linen
draper's assistant, as I told you just now. We talked for a few minutes
and that made him bold, and he wanted to take liberties with me, but I
told him sharply to keep his own place. Is not that true, Monsieur
Beaurain?"
Monsieur Beaurain, who was looking at his feet in confusion, did not
reply, and she continued: "Then he saw that I was virtuous, and he began
to make love to me nicely, like an honorable man, and from that time he
came every Sunday, for he was very much in love with me. I was very fond
of him also, very fond of him! He was a good-looking fellow, formerly,
and in short he married me the next September, and we started in
business in the Rue des Martyrs.
"It was a hard struggle for some years, Monsieur. Business did not
prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and then we
had grown unaccustomed to them. One has other things in one's head, and
thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches, when one is in
business. We were growing old by degrees without perceiving it, like
quiet people who do not think much about love. One does not regret
anything as long as one does not notice what one has lost.
"And after that, Monsieur, business went better, and we became tranquil
as to the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what passed
within me, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little
boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers
which are drawn about the streets, made me cry; the smell of violets
sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart
beat! Then I used to get up and go onto the doorstep to look at the
blue sky between the roofs. When one looks at the sky from a street, it
looks like a river which descends on Paris, winding as it flows, and the
swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. This sort of things is very
stupid at my age! But what can one do, Monsieur? when one has worked all
one's life? A moment comes in which one perceives that one could have
done something else, and then, one regrets, oh! yes, one feels great
regret! Just think that for twenty years I might have gone and had
kisses in the woods, like other women. I used to think how delightful it
would be to lie under the trees, loving some one! And I thought of it
everyday and every night! I dreamt of the moonlight on the water, until
I felt inclined to drown myself.
"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first. I
knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my needles
and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain never said
much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also understood quite
well, that I also no longer appealed to anyone!
"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed an excursion into the country
to him, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed
without any distrust, and we arrived here this morning, about nine
o'clock.
"I felt quite young again when I got among the corn, for a woman's heart
never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is at
present, but just like he was formerly! That I will swear to you,
Monsieur. As true as I am standing here, I was intoxicated. I began to
kiss him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him.
He kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning!
What is the matter with you?...' I did not listen to him, I only
listened to my own heart, and I made him come into the woods with me....
There it is.... I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole
truth."
The Mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and said:
"Go in peace, Madame, and sin no more ... under the trees."