II
“At that time I was editor-in-chief of the Fanal des Charentes, and I used to meet Morin every day at the Café du Commerce. The day after his adventure he came to see me, as he did not know what to do. I did not conceal my opinion from him. ‘You are no better than a pig. No decent man behaves like that.’
“He wept. His wife had given him a beating, and he foresaw his trade ruined, his name dragged through the mire and dishonoured, his friends outraged and cutting him in the street. In the end he excited my pity, and I sent for my colleague Rivet, a bantering but very sensible little man, to give us his advice.
“He advised me to see the Public Prosecutor, who was a friend of mine, and so I sent Morin home, and went to call on the magistrate. He told me that the woman who had been insulted was a young lady, Mademoiselle Henriette Bonnel, who had just received her certificate as a teacher in Paris, and who, being an orphan, spent her holidays with her uncle and aunt, who were very respectable lower middle-class people in Mauzé. What made Morin’s case all the more serious was, that the uncle had lodged a complaint. But the public official consented to let the matter drop if this complaint were withdrawn, so that we must try and get him to do this.
“I went back to Morin’s and found him in bed, ill with excitement and distress. His wife, a tall, rawboned woman with a beard, was abusing him continually, and she showed me into the room, shouting at me: ‘So you have come to see that pig, Morin. Well, there he is, the beauty!’ And she planted herself in front of the bed, with her hands on her hips. I told him how matters stood, and he begged me to go and see her uncle and aunt. It was a delicate mission, but I undertook it, and the poor devil never ceased repeating: ‘I assure you I did not even kiss her, no, not even that. I will take my oath on it!’
“I replied: ‘It doesn’t matter; you are nothing but a pig.’ And I took a thousand francs which he gave me, to employ them as I thought best, but as I did not care to venture to the house of her relations alone, I begged Rivet to go with me, which he agreed to do, on condition that we should go there at once, for he had some urgent business at La Rochelle the following afternoon. So two hours later we rang at the door of a nice country-house. A beautiful girl came and opened the door to us, who was assuredly the young lady in question, and I said to Rivet in a low voice: ‘Confound it! I begin to understand Morin!’
“The uncle, Monsieur Tonnelet, was, as it happened, a subscriber to the Fanal, and was a fervent political coreligionist of ours. He received us with open arms, and congratulated us and wished us joy; he was delighted at having the two editors of his favourite newspaper in his house, and Rivet whispered to me: ‘I think we shall be able to arrange the affair of that pig, Morin.’
“The niece had left the room, and I introduced the delicate subject. I invoked the spectre of scandal before his eyes; I emphasised the inevitable loss of esteem which the young lady would suffer if such an affair became known, for nobody would believe in a simple kiss. The good man seemed undecided, but could not make up his mind about anything without his wife, who would not be in until late that evening. But suddenly he uttered an exclamation of triumph: ‘Look here, I have an excellent idea. I shall not let you leave now that you are here. You can both dine here and spend the night, and when my wife comes home, I hope we shall be able to arrange matters.’
“Rivet resisted at first, but the wish to extricate that pig, Morin, decided him, and we accepted the invitation. So the uncle got up delighted, called his niece, and proposed that we should take a stroll in his grounds, saying: ‘We will leave serious matters until tonight.’ Rivet and he began to talk politics, and I soon found myself lagging a little behind with the girl, who was really charming! charming! and with infinite precautions I began to speak to her about her adventure, and try to make her my ally. She did not, however, appear in the least confused, and listened to me with an air of great amusement.
“I said to her: ‘Just think, Mademoiselle, how unpleasant it will be for you. You will have to appear in court, to encounter malicious glances, to speak before everybody, and to relate in public that unfortunate occurrence in the railway-carriage. Do you not think, between ourselves, that it would have been much better for you to have put that dirty scoundrel in his place without calling for assistance, and merely to have changed your carriage?’
“She began to laugh, and replied: ‘What you say is quite true! but what could I do? I was frightened, and when one is frightened, one does not stop to reason with oneself. As soon as I realized the situation, I was very sorry that I had called out, but then it was too late. You must also remember that the idiot threw himself upon me like a madman, without saying a word and looking like a lunatic. I did not even know what he wanted of me.’
“She looked me full in the face, without being nervous or intimidated, and I said to myself: ‘She is a girl with her wits about her: I can quite see how that pig, Morin, came to make a mistake,’ and I went on, jokingly: ‘Come, Mademoiselle, confess that he was excusable, for after all, a man cannot find himself opposite such a pretty girl as you are, without feeling a legitimate desire to kiss her.’
“She laughed more than ever, and showed her teeth, and said: ‘Between the desire and the act, Monsieur, there is room for respect.’ It was a curious expression to use, although not very clear. Abruptly I asked: ‘Well now, supposing I were to kiss you now, what would you do?’ She stopped, looked at me up and down, and then said calmly: ‘Oh! you? That is quite another matter.’
“I knew perfectly well, by Jove, that it was not the same thing at all, as everybody in the neighbourhood called me ‘Handsome Labarbe.’ I was thirty years old in those days, but I asked her: ‘And why, pray?’
“She shrugged her shoulders, and replied: ‘Well! because you are not so stupid as he is.’ And then she added, with a sidelong glance: ‘Nor so ugly, either.’
“Before she could make a movement to avoid me, I had planted a hearty kiss on her cheek. She sprang aside, but it was too late, and then she said: ‘Well, you are not very bashful, either! But don’t do that sort of thing again.’
“I put on a humble look and said in a low voice: ‘Oh! Mademoiselle, as for me, if I long for one thing more than another, it is to be summoned before a magistrate on the same charge as Morin.’
“ ‘Why?’ she asked.
“Looking steadily at her, I replied: ‘Because you are one of the most beautiful creatures living; because it would be an honour and a title to glory for me to have offered you violence, and because people would have said, after seeing you: “Well, Labarbe richly deserves what he has got, but he is a lucky fellow, all the same.” ’
“She began to laugh heartily again, and said: ‘How funny you are!’ And she had not finished the word funny, before I had her in my arms and was showering hungry kisses wherever I could find a place, on her hair, her forehead, her eyes, her mouth occasionally, on her cheeks, in fact, all over her head, some part of which she was obliged to leave exposed, in spite of herself, in order to defend the others. At last she managed to release herself, blushing and angry. ‘You are very ill-mannered, Monsieur,’ she said, ‘and I am sorry I listened to you.’
“I took her hand in some confusion, and stammered out: ‘I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle. I have offended you; I have acted like a brute! Do not be angry with me for what I have done. If you knew—’
“I vainly sought for some excuse, and in a few moments she said: ‘There is nothing for me to know, Monsieur.’ But I had found something to say, and I cried: ‘Mademoiselle, I have been in love with you for a whole year!’
“She was really surprised, and raised her eyes to look at me, and I went on: ‘Yes, Mademoiselle, listen to me. I do not know Morin, and I do not care anything about him. It does not matter to me in the least if he is committed for trial and locked up meanwhile. I saw you here last year; you were down there at the gate, and I was so taken with you, that the thought of you has never left me since, and it does not matter to me whether you believe me or not. I thought you adorable, and the remembrance of you took such a hold on me that I longed to see you again, and so I made use of that fool, Morin, as a pretext, and here I am. Circumstances have made me exceed the due limits of respect, and I can only beg you to pardon me.’
“She was trying to read the truth in my eyes, and was ready to smile again; then she murmured: ‘You humbug!’ But I raised my hand, and said in a sincere voice (and I really believe that I was sincere): ‘I swear to you that I am speaking the truth.’ She replied quite simply: ‘Really?’
“We were alone, quite alone, as Rivet and her uncle had disappeared in a side walk, and I made her a real declaration of love, prolonged and gentle, while I squeezed and kissed her fingers, and she listened to it as to something new and agreeable, without exactly knowing how much of it she was to believe, while in the end I felt agitated, and at last really myself believed what I said. I was pale, anxious, and trembling, and I gently put my arm round her waist, and spoke to her softly, whispering into the little curls over her ears. She seemed dead, so absorbed in thought was she.
“Then her hand touched mine, and she pressed it, and I gently circled her waist with a trembling, and gradually a firmer, grasp. She did not move now, and I touched her cheeks with my lips, and suddenly, without seeking them, mine met hers. It was a long, long kiss, and it would have lasted longer still, if I had not heard ‘Ahem, ahem’ just behind me. She made her escape through the bushes, and I, turning round, saw Rivet coming toward me. He stopped in the middle of the path and said without even smiling: ‘So that is the way in which you settle the affair of that pig, Morin.’
“I replied, conceitedly: ‘One does what one can, my dear fellow. But what about the uncle? How have you got on with him? I will answer for the niece.’
“ ‘I have not been so fortunate with him,’ he replied. Whereupon I took his arm, and we went indoors.