Part 39 (1/2)

Beyond the park, between the village and the walls, lay the cultivated parts of Blangy,--meadows where the cows were grazing, small properties surrounded by hedges, filled with fruit of all kinds, nut and apple trees. By way of frame, the heights on which the n.o.ble forest-trees were ranged, tier above tier, closed in the scene. The countess had come out in her slippers to look at the flowers in her balcony, which were sending up their morning fragrance; she wore a cambric dressing-gown, beneath which the rosy tints of her white shoulders could be seen; a coquettish little cap was placed in a bewitching manner on her hair, which escaped it recklessly; her little feet showed their warm flesh color through the transparent stockings; the cambric gown, unconfined at the waist, floated open as the breeze took it, and showed an embroidered petticoat.

”Oh! are you there?” she said.

”Yes.”

”What are you looking at?”

”A pretty question! You have torn me from the contemplation of Nature.

Tell me, countess, will you go for a walk in the woods this morning before breakfast?”

”What an idea! You know I have a horror of walking.”

”We will only walk a little way; I'll drive you in the tilbury and take Joseph to hold the horses. You have never once set foot in your forest; and I have just noticed something very curious, a phenomenon; there are spots where the tree-tops are the color of Florentine bronze, the leaves are dried--”

”Well, I'll dress.”

”Oh, if you do, we can't get off for two hours. Take a shawl, put on a bonnet, and boots; that's all you want. I shall tell them to harness.”

”You always make me do what you want; I'll be ready in a minute.”

”General,” said Blondet, waking the count, who grumbled and turned over, like a man who wants his morning sleep. ”We are going for a drive; won't you come?”

A quarter of an hour later the tilbury was slowly rolling along the park avenue, followed by a liveried groom on horseback.

The morning was a September morning. The dark blue of the sky burst forth here and there from the gray of the clouds, which seemed the sky itself, the ether seeming to be the accessory; long lines of ultramarine lay upon the horizon, but in strata, which alternated with other lines like sand-bars; these tones changed and grew green at the level of the forests. The earth beneath this overhanging mantle was moistly warm, like a woman when she rises; it exhaled sweet, luscious odors, which yet were wild, not civilized,--the scent of cultivation was added to the scents of the woods. Just then the Angelus was ringing at Blangy, and the sounds of the bell, mingling with the wild concert of the forest, gave harmony to the silence. Here and there were rising vapors, white, diaphanous.

Seeing these lovely preparations of Nature, the fancy had seized Olympe Michaud to accompany her husband, who had to give an order to a keeper whose house was not far off. The Soulanges doctor advised her to walk as long as she could do so without fatigue; she was afraid of the midday heat and went out only in the early morning or evening. Michaud now took her with him, and they were followed by the dog he loved best,--a handsome greyhound, mouse-colored with white spots, greedy, like all greyhounds, and as full of vices as most animals who know they are loved and petted.

So, then the tilbury reached the pavilion of the Rendezvous, the countess, who stopped to ask how Madame Michaud felt, was told she had gone into the forest with her husband.

”Such weather inspires everybody,” said Blondet, turning his horse at hazard into one of the six avenues of the forest; ”Joseph, you know the woods, don't you?”

”Yes, monsieur.”

And away they went. The avenue they took happened to be one of the most delightful in the forest; it soon turned and grew narrower, and presently became a winding way, on which the suns.h.i.+ne flickered through rifts in the leafy roof, and where the breeze brought odors of lavender, and thyme, and the wild mint, and that of falling leaves, which sighed as they fell. Dew-drops on the trees and on the gra.s.s were scattered like seeds by the pa.s.sing of the light carriage; the occupants as they rolled along caught glimpses of the mysterious visions of the woods,--those cool depths, where the verdure is moist and dark, where the light softens as it fades; those white-birch glades o'ertopped by some centennial tree, the Hercules of the forest; those glorious a.s.semblages of knotted, mossy trunks, whitened and furrowed, and the banks of delicate wild plants and fragile flowers which grow between a woodland road and the forest. The brooks sang. Truly there is a nameless pleasure in driving a woman along the ups and downs of a slippery way carpeted with moss, where she pretends to be afraid or really is so, and you are conscious that she is drawing closer to you, letting you feel, voluntarily or involuntarily, the cool moisture of her arm, the weight of her round, white shoulder, though she merely smiles when told that she hinders you in driving. The horse seems to know the secret of these interruptions, and he looks about him from right to left.

It was a new sight to the countess; this nature so vigorous in its effects, so little seen and yet so grand, threw her into a languid revery; she leaned back in the tilbury and yielded herself up to the pleasure of being there with Emile; her eyes were charmed, her heart spoke, she answered to the inward voice that harmonized with hers. He, too, glanced at her furtively; he enjoyed that dreamy meditation, while the ribbons of the bonnet floated on the morning breeze with the silky curls of the golden hair. In consequence of going they knew not where, they presently came to a locked gate, of which they had not the key.

Joseph was called up, but neither had he a key.

”Never mind, let us walk; Joseph can take care of the tilbury; we shall easily find it again.”

Emile and the countess plunged into the forest, and soon reached a small interior cleared s.p.a.ce, such as is often met with in the woods. Twenty years earlier the charcoal-burners had made it their kiln, and the place still remained open, quite a large circ.u.mference having been burned over. But during those twenty years Nature had made herself a garden of flowers, a blooming ”parterre” for her own enjoyment, just as an artist gives himself the delight of painting a picture for his own happiness.

The enchanting spot was surrounded by fine trees, whose tops hung over like vast fringes and made a dais above this flowery couch where slept the G.o.ddess. The charcoal-burners had followed a path to a pond, always full of water. The path is there still; it invites you to step into it by a turn full of mystery; then suddenly it stops short and you come upon a bank where a thousand roots run down to the water and make a sort of canvas in the air. This hidden pond has a narrow gra.s.sy edge, where a few willows and poplars lend their fickle shade to a bank of turf which some lazy or pensive charcoal-burner must have made for his enjoyment.

The frogs hop about, the teal bathe in the pond, the water-fowl come and go, a hare starts; you are the master of this delicious bath, decorated with iris and bulrushes. Above your head the trees take many att.i.tudes; here the trunks twine down like boa-constrictors, there the beeches stand erect as a Greek column. The snails and the slugs move peacefully about. A tench shows its gills, a squirrel looks at you; and at last, after Emile and the countess, tired with her walk, were seated, a bird, but I know not what bird it was, sang its autumn song, its farewell song, to which the other songsters listened,--a song welcome to love, and heard by every organ of the being.

”What silence!” said the countess, with emotion and in a whisper, as if not to trouble this deep peace.

They looked at the green patches on the water,--worlds where life was organizing; they pointed to the lizard playing in the sun and escaping at their approach,--behavior which has won him the t.i.tle of ”the friend of man.” ”Proving, too, how well he knows him,” said Emile. They watched the frogs, who, less distrustful, returned to the surface of the pond, winking their carbuncle eyes as they sat upon the water-cresses. The sweet and simple poetry of Nature permeated these two souls surfeited with the conventional things of life, and filled them with contemplative emotion. Suddenly Blondet shuddered. Turning to the countess he said,--