Mademoiselle Fifi Part 8

Boule de Suif only had not come down. She appeared.

She seemed to be rather confused, bashful; shyly, she walked up to her companions who, all with the same movement, turned away from her as if they had not seen her. The Count, dignified, took his wife by the arm and removed her from this impure contact.

The girl stood still, stupefied; then picking up all her courage she accosted the manufacturer's wife with a--"Good morning, Madame!"--humbly muttered. The other answered only with a short and impertinent nod accompanied by a look of outraged virtue.

Everybody seemed to be busy and kept away from her as if she were carrying some infectious germs in her skirt. Then they rushed up to the coach, in which she entered last, without being helped by anyone, and silently she took the seat she had occupied during the final part of the journey.

They feigned not to see her, not to know her; but Mme. Loiseau, looking at her indignantly from a distance, told her husband half aloud:--"Fortunately I am not sitting next to her."--

The heavy coach started and the journey was resumed.

First n.o.body spoke. Boule de Suif did not dare raise her eyes.

At the same time she felt indignant at all her companions, and humiliated for having yielded to the Prussian Officer into whose arms she had been hypocritically forced by them.

But the Countess, turning to Madame Carre-Lamadon, broke soon this painful silence.

--"I think you knew Madame d'Estrelles."

--"Yes, she is one of my friends."

--"What a charming woman!"

--"Fascinating! Really a select nature, besides highly educated, and an artist to the tips of her fingers. She sings delightfully and paints to perfection."

The manufacturer was talking with the Count, and in the middle of the clatter of the window-panes, one could catch here and there a word:--"Coupon--maturity--premium--term--"

Loiseau, who had stolen from the inn the old pack of cards, greasy after five years friction on dirty tables, started a game of "bezigue" with his wife.

The good sisters took from their belts the long rosaries, made simultaneously the sign of the cross and suddenly their lips began to move rapidly, becoming more and more accelerated, precipitating their vague murmur as if in a race of "orisons;" and now and then they kissed a medal, crossed themselves again, and resumed their swift and continuous mutterings.

Cornudet sat still and deep in thoughts. After they had traveled for three hours, Loiseau picked up his cards and said:--"I am hungry." Then his wife reached out for a package from which she drew a piece of cold veal. She cut it carefully in thin and neat slices and both began to eat.

--"Why shouldn't we do the same?"--said the Countess. Upon general consent, she unpacked the provisions prepared for the two couples.

In one of those oval dishes, the cover of which bears a china hare, to show that a hare pie lies inside, there were exquisite delicatessen, the white streams of lard crossing the brown meat of the game, mixed with other fine chopped meats. A handsome piece of Swiss-cheese, wrapped in a newspaper, had taken on its fat surface the imprint:--"Sundry items."

The two sisters opened a hunk of sausage which smelled of garlic; and Cornudet plunging at the same time both his hands in the large pockets of his baggy overcoat, drew from one four hard-boiled eggs and from the other the crust of a loaf of bread. He removed the sh.e.l.ls threw them under his feet, on the straw, and began to bite the eggs voraciously, dropping on his large beard small pieces of yellowish yolk which looked like stars.

Boule de Suif, in the haste and confusion of her departure, had not thought of taking provisions; and exasperated, suffocating with rage, she was looking on all those people who ate heartily. At first a tumultuous anger shook her, and she opened her mouth to tell them what she thought of them in a wave of insults that surged to her lips; but she could not speak, so exasperated was she with indignation.

n.o.body looked at her, took notice of her. She felt drowned in the scorn of those honest rascals who had first sacrificed her and then cast her away like something unclean and of no further use. Then she thought of her large basket full of good things, which they had devoured greedily, of her two chickens s.h.i.+ning in jelly, her pastry, her pears, her four bottles of claret; and suddenly, her furor having died out, like an over strung cord, she felt like crying. She made terrible efforts; stiffened herself up, swallowed her sobs like children, but the tears were surging, s.h.i.+ning at the border of her eyelids, and soon two big tears breaking away from her eyes coursed slowly down her cheeks. Others followed them more swiftly, running like drops of water filtering through rocks and fell regularly on the rounded curve of her bosom. She remained upright, her eyes motionless, her face rigid and pale, hoping that the others would not notice her.

But the Countess noticed it and called her husband's attention with a sign. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say:--"What can I do? It is not my fault!"--Madame Loiseau had a silent laugh of triumph and muttered: "She is weeping for shame!"--

The two good sisters had resumed their prayers after having rolled up in a paper the rest of their sausage.

Then Cornudet, who was digesting the eggs, stretched his long legs under the seat, sat back, crossed his arms, smiled like a man who has thought of a good joke and began to whistle the Ma.r.s.eillaise.

The faces of all the others darkened. Decidedly the popular song did not please his neighbors. They became nervous, fidgety, and seemed ready to howl like dogs that hear a barrel-organ. He noticed it, did not stop. At times he even p.r.o.nounced the words:

Amour sacre del la patrie, Conduis, soutiens, nos bras vengeurs, Liberte, liberte cherie, Combats avec tes defenseurs.

The snow being harder, the coach traveled more quickly, and as far as Dieppe, during the long dreary hours of the trip, through the jostles of the road, during the twilight, and later in the thick darkness of the coach, he kept on with a fierce obstinacy his monotonous and revengeful whistling, compelling the f.a.gged and exasperated hearers to follow the anthem from one end to the other, to remember every word that went with each measure.

And Boule de Suif was still weeping; and at times a sob, which she could not restrain, pa.s.sed between two verses in the night.

FINIS