Une Vie, a Piece of String and Other Stories eBook

Merely to breathe was enough for Jeanne, and the restful calm of the country was like a soothing bath.  She felt as though her heart was expanding and she began dreaming of love.  What was it?  She did not know.  She only knew that she would adore him with all her soul and that he would cherish her with all his strength.  They would walk hand in hand on nights like this, hearing the beating of their hearts, mingling their love with the sweet simplicity of the summer nights in such close communion of thought that by the sole power of their tenderness they would easily penetrate each other’s most secret thoughts.  This would continue forever in the calm of an enduring affection.  It seemed to her that she felt him there beside her.  And an unusual sensation came over her.  She remained long musing thus, when suddenly she thought she heard a footstep behind the house.  “If it were he.”  But it passed on and she felt as if she had been deceived.  The air became cooler.  The day broke.  Slowly bursting aside the gleaming clouds, touching with fire the trees, the plains, the ocean, all the horizon, the great flaming orb of the sun appeared.

Jeanne felt herself becoming mad with happiness.  A delirious joy, an infinite tenderness at the splendor of nature overcame her fluttering heart.  It was her sun, her dawn!  The beginning of her life!  Thoroughly fatigued at last, she flung herself down and slept till her father called her at eight o’clock.  He walked into the room and proposed to show her the improvements of the castle, of her castle.  The road, called the parish road, connecting the farms, joined the high road between Havre and Fecamp, a mile and a half further on.

Jeanne and the baron inspected everything and returned home for breakfast.  When the meal was over, as the baroness had decided that she would rest, the baron proposed to Jeanne that they should go down to Yport.  They started, and passing through the hamlet of Etouvent, where the poplars were, and going through the wooded slope by a winding valley leading down to the sea, they presently perceived the village of Yport.  Women sat in their doorways mending linen; brown fish-nets were hanging against the doors of the huts, where an entire family lived in one room.  It was a typical little French fishing village, with all its concomitant odors.  To Jeanne it was all like a scene in a play.  On turning a corner they saw before them the limitless blue ocean.  They bought a brill from a fisherman and another sailor offered to take them out sailing, repeating his name, “Lastique, Josephin Lastique,” several times, that they might not forget it, and the baron promised to remember.  They walked home, chattering like two children, carrying the big fish between them, Jeanne having pushed her father’s walking cane through its gills.

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CHAPTER II