Volume III Part 19 (2/2)
”Yes,” he replied, ”and more perhaps It quite depends upon yourself”
And with the quiet conscience of an honorable ravely:
”You need only be very complaisant”
And he added,you twenty francs I aood action”
VIOLATED
”Really,” Paul repeated, ”really!”
”Yes, I who am here before you have been violated, and violated by!
But if I were to tell you immediately by whom, there would be no story, eh? And as you want a story, eh? And as you want a story, I will tell you all about it fro
”I had been shooting over the waste land in the heart of Brittany for a week, which borders on the Black Mountain It is a desolate and wild country, but it abounds in ga, and when one meets anybody, it is just the sanorant of French, and when I got to an inn at night, I had to ens to let the people know that I wanted supper and bed
”As I happened to be in a hted h for uessfollowed, absolutely followed, by another sportsman who seemed to wish to enter into conversation withthe horizon several times, and I had attributed it to the chances of sport, which brought us both to the saame, but now I could not behis little pair of co strides, and took short cuts, so as to catch me up at the half circle
”As he seerew obstinate also, and he spent his whole day in trying to catchto baffle hi at _hide-and-seek_; the consequences were, that when it was getting dark, I had completely lost myself in the e near, and not even a church spire in the distance The only land-mark, was the hateful outline of that cursed man, about five hundred yards off
”Of course he had won the gaood face on the matter, and allow him to join me, or rather I should have to join him myself, if I did not wish to sleep in the open air and with an empty stomach, and so I went up to him, and asked my way in a half-surly manner
”He replied very affably, that there was no inn in the neighborhood, as the nearest village was five leagues off, but that he lived only about an hour's walk off, and that he considered hi able to offer me hospitality
”I was utterly done up, and how could I refuse? So ent off through the heather and furze; I walking slowly because I was so tired, and he went tripping along s like a basset hound's, which seemed untirable
”And yet he was an old ly built, for I could have knocked hi on him; but how he could walk, the beast!
”But he was not a troublesoined he would have been, and he did not at all seem to wish to enter into conversation with iven his invitation, and I had accepted it and thanked hiain, and alked on in silence, and only his glances worried me, for I felt them on me, as if he wished to force me into an intimacy, which my closed lips refused But on the whole, his tenacious looks, which I noticed furtively, appeared sy!
”But I could not give hiht, for he was certainly not handsos were short, and rather bandy and he was thin and narrow-chested His face was like a bit of parchment, furrowed and wrinkled, without a hair on it to hide the folds in his skin His hair reseray locks falling onto his greasy collar; he had a nose like a ferret, and rat's eyes, but he was able to offer ht, and it was not requisite that he should be handsome, in order to do that
[Footnote 9: A lay brother in a monastery, who is devoted to the instruction of the poor--TRANSLATOR]
”Capital food, and very co, a real old, well-furnished e fireplace, where a large fire was blazing, dinner was laid; I will say nosince , no doubt! A _salels would have taken up arms; buckwheat cakes, in crea and hardly ever to be found in Brittany, a cheese to make any one eat a four pound loaf if he only smelt the rind! The whole washed clown by Chaood that it made a man fancy that he had sed a deity in velvet breeches; not to , not dry but green, on the contrary, whichsentlere, a choirister, a sapper, and so was I, I must confess, and, uponour Gargantuan feed! But we certainly talked, but what about? About shooting, certainly, and about wo! Yes, yes, about women, I am quite sure, and he told some funny stories, did the little oldover the large fireplace, and which represented his grandime She was a woman who had certainly played soood legs and thighs when she was seventy
”'It is extraordinary,' I remarked, 'how like you are to that portrait'