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The Scintillating Nature of Illicit
Love...
They were three full, exquisite days-a true honeymoon.
They were at the Hotel-de-Boulogne, on the harbour; and
they lived there, with drawn blinds and closed doors,
with flowers on the floor, and iced syrups were brought
them early in the morning.
Towards evening they took a covered boat and went to dine
on one of the islands. It was the time when one hears
by the side of the dockyard the caulking-mallets sounding
against the hull of vessels. The smoke of the tar rose
up between the trees; there were large fatty drops on
the water, undulating in the purple colour of the sun,
like floating plaques of Florentine bronze.
They rowed down in the midst of moored boats, whose long
oblique cables grazed lightly against the bottom of the
boat. The din of the town gradually grew distant; the
rolling of carriages, the tumult of voices, the yelping
of dogs on the decks of vessels. She took off her bonnet,
and they landed on their island.
They sat down in the low-ceilinged room of a tavern, at
whose door hung black nets. They ate fried smelts, cream
and cherries. They lay down upon the grass; they kissed
behind the poplars; and they would fain, like two Robinsons,
have lived for ever in this little place, which seemed
to them in their beatitude the most magnificent on earth.
It was not the first time that they had seen trees, a
blue sky, meadows; that they had heard the water flowing
and the wind blowing in the leaves; but, no doubt, they
had never admired all this, as if Nature had not existed
before, or had only begun to be beautiful since the gratification
of their desires.
At night they returned. The boat glided along the shores
of the islands. They sat at the bottom, both hidden by
the shade, in silence. The square oars rang in the iron
thwarts, and, in the stillness, seemed to mark time, like
the beating of a metronome, while at the stern the rudder
that trailed behind never ceased its gentle splash against
the water.
Once the moon rose; they did not fail to make fine phrases,
finding the orb melancholy and full of poetry. She even
began to sing-
"One night, do you remember, we were sailing,"
etc.
Her musical but weak voice died away along the waves,
and the winds carried off the trills that Leon heard pass
like the flapping of wings about him.
She was opposite him, leaning against the partition of
the shallop, through one of whose raised blinds the moon
streamed in. Her black dress, whose drapery spread out
like a fan, made her seem more slender, taller. Her head
was raised, her hands clasped, her eyes turned towards
heaven. At times the shadow of the willows hid her completely;
then she reappeared suddenly, like a vision in the moonlight.
Leon, on the floor by her side, found under his hand a
ribbon of scarlet silk. The boatman looked at it, and
at last said- "Perhaps it belongs to the party I
took out the other day. A lot of jolly folk, gentlemen
and ladies, with cakes, champagne, cornets-everything
in style! There was one especially, a tall handsome man
with small moustaches, who was that funny! And they all
kept saying, ŒNow tell us something, Adolphe-Dolpe,'
I think."
She shivered.
"You are in pain?" asked Leon, coming closer
to her.
"Oh, it's nothing! No doubt, it is only the night
air."
"And who doesn't want for women, either," softly
added the sailor, thinking he was paying the stranger
a compliment.
Then, spitting on his hands, he took the oars again.
Yet they had to part. The adieux were sad. He was to send
his letters to Mere Rollet, and she gave him such precise
instructions about a double envelope that he admired greatly
her amorous astuteness.
"So you can assure me it is all right?" she
said with her last kiss.
"Yes, certainly."
"But why," he thought afterwards as he came
back through the streets alone, "is she so very anxious
to get this power of attorney?"
by Gustave Flaubert
from Madame Bovary,
Part III, Chapter 3
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