And later on, when he used to tell this story of his
wedding night, he generally added: “Ah!
As far as a joke went, it was a good joke. They
caught me in a snare, as if I had been a rabbit, the
dirty brutes, and they shoved my head into a bag.
But if I can only catch them some day, they had better
look out for themselves!”
That is how they amuse themselves in Normandy on a
wedding day.
Madame Berthe 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 fetes and shooting parties in her honor at
his Chateau 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 feting, 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.
