Volume IV Part 50 (1/2)

Cesaire had disappeared, taking advantage of the door being open He did not want to listen, so much was he afraid, and he did not want his hopes to crumble with each obstinate refusal of his father He preferred to learn the truth at once, good or bad, later on; and he went out into the night It was a hts when the air seeh the farathered, the ”soon ripe” ones, as they are called in the language of the peasantry As Cesaire passed along by the cattle-sheds, the warh the narros; and he heard near the stables the sta, and the sound of their jaws tearing and bruising the hay on the racks

He went straight ahead, thinking about Celeste In this sienerated directly by objects, thoughts of love only for up before thein a hollow road, and laughing with her hands on her hips

It was thus he saw her on the day when he first took a fancy for her He had, however, known her from infancy but never had he been so struck by her as on thatThey had stopped to talk for a fewhe kept repeating:

”Faith, she's a fine girl, all the same 'Tis a pity sheof her, and also on the followingtickling the end of his throat, as if a cock's feather had been driven through his mouth into his chest, and since then, every time he found hi which always coain

In three months, he made up his mind to marry her, so much did she please him He could not have said whence came this power over him, but he explained it by these words:

”I airl within hi force as one of the powers of hell He scarcely bothered hiression So much the worse, after all; it did her no harainst Victor Lecoq

But if the cure was not going to succeed, as he to do? He did not dare to think of it, so much did this anxious question torment him

He reached the presbytery and seated hiateway to await for the priest's return

He was there perhaps half-an-hour when he heard steps on the road, and he soon distinguished although the night was very dark, the still darker shadow of the sautane

He rose up, his legs giving way under hi to ask a question

The clergyayly:

”Well, ht”

Cesaire staht, 'tisn't possible”

”Yes, my lad, but not without trouble What an old ass your father is!”

The peasant repeated:

”'Tisn't possible!”

”Why, yes Come and look me up to-morrow at midday in order to settle about the publication of the banns”

The young man seized the cure's hand He pressed it, shook it, bruised it, while he stammered:

”True--true--true, Monsieur le Cure, on the word of an honest man, you'll see me to- took place in therich Cesaire, attired in new clothes, was ready since eight o'clock in theher to the Mayor's office; but, it was too early, he seated himself before the kitchen-table, and waited for the members of the family and the friends ere to acco, and the brown earth, the earth already fertilized by the autureat sheet of ice

It was cold in the thatched houses adorned hite caps; and the round apples in the trees of the enclosures see, powdered as they had been in the pleasantnorthern clouds, the gray clouds laden with glittering rain had disappeared, and the blue sky showed itself above the white earth on which the rising sun cast silvery reflections

Cesaire looked straight before hi happy