Chapter II: The Fall

The damsel went her way, with a branch of walnut in her hand, driving her ass before her, apparently oblivious of the fact that the young man had alighted from his cabriolet. She did not look back, but contented herself with calling out from time to time: "Go on there, White Jean;" and White Jean went none the faster.

Auguste soon overtook the milkmaid. He walked behind her a few moments, to examine her; she was well-built, so far as one could judge of her shape beneath the thick wrapper in which she was muffled; her foot was certainly small, although encased in heavy shoes, and her woolen stockings covered a shapely leg, which he could examine at his leisure, for a milkmaid wears very short skirts.

Auguste stepped forward; the girl looked up and seemed surprised to see the young man of the cabriolet walking by her side. But she turned her head away, with another "go on!" to her ass, in which there was no touch of romance.

Our young exquisite gazed closely at the girl, who wore a cap perched on top of her head, which concealed none of her features.

"She is very pretty," he said to himself; "fine eyes, a pretty mouth, a complexion like the rose; but nothing extraordinary, after all. Her freshness is the freshness of a village girl; she's a mere country beauty, and I should have done as well to stay in the carriage. However, as I have alighted, I may as well try to gain something by it."

And the young man continued to stare at the milkmaid, with a smile on his face; but she, apparently annoyed by the fine gentleman's scrutiny, said to him sharply:

"Shall you soon be through looking at me?"

"Isn't it within the law to admire you?"

"No, I don't like to have anyone eye me like that."

"If you weren't so pretty, people would look at you less."

"If this is the way you talk to your ladies in Paris, you must have lots of faces in your head! When you look at a body so close, you'll know her again; but here among us, we don't call it decent; and you'd better not come here to play monkey tricks like this!"

"I made a mistake in leaving the cabriolet," thought Auguste. However, he continued to walk beside the girl, and said to her after a moment:

"Are you a milkmaid?"

"Pardi! anyone can see that. Have you just guessed it?"

"Will you sell me some milk?"

"I haven't got any."

"Do you carry it to Paris?"

"I don't go so far as that."

"Where do you come from?"

"You're very inquisitive."

The girl's tone was not encouraging, and Auguste looked along the road to see whether he could still see his cabriolet; but it had disappeared, for White Jean stopped very often to eat leaves or grass, despite the blows with the switch which his mistress bestowed on him.

"Do you know," said Auguste, "you are not very agreeable, my lovely child? You are so pretty that I thought you would be gentler, less savage."

"That's just it! monsieur thought he was going to turn my head with his flattery! But I'm used to meeting young men from Paris; it's always the same old song; they think they can make themselves welcome just by telling me I'm pretty! Oh! you're a parcel of flatterers! but I don't listen to you, you see!"

"I should like to hear anyone deny again that virtue has its home in the village!" said Auguste to himself. "It is clear enough to my mind that the country is the place where we find the pure morals of the ancient patriarch, the models of virtue celebrated by the poets, the--That devil of a Bertrand needn't have driven Bébelle so fast; he must have done it from pure mischief! And when I said that we were almost there I was lying. It's at least three-quarters of a league farther!"

To complete the young man's discomfiture, the milkmaid turned aside from the high road into a path that led through the woods. Auguste stood for a moment hesitating at the entrance to the path. Should he follow his cabriolet? or should he follow the girl? The first course was the more sensible, and that was his reason no doubt for deciding in favor of the second.

The time that Auguste had passed in indecision had allowed the milkmaid to get some distance ahead of him; she walked along the path, and, thinking that the young man had followed the highroad, she sang as she drove White Jean in front of her:

"You love me, you say,
Then prove it, I pray;
But dandies like you,
Would hoax us, I know."

"Very pretty! although the rhyme isn't first-class," said Auguste, quickening his pace to overtake the girl. She turned, and seemed surprised to see the young man in the path behind her.

"What! you coming this way?" said the milkmaid, in a somewhat uncertain voice.

"To be sure; this path is lovely."

"Ain't you going to overtake your carriage?"

"I couldn't make up my mind to leave you."

"Oh! you're wasting your time, monsieur, and I promise you you'd do better to go after your carriage."

"But I much prefer to walk by your side, although you treat me so harshly; however, I have an idea that you're not so unkind as you choose to appear."

"Well, you're mistaken; I ain't kind at all; ask all the young fellows in Montfermeil how I treat them when they try to fool. Oh! Denise Fourcy is well known hereabout, I tell you."

"Denise Fourcy? Good, now I know your name."

"Well, what then? How does that put you ahead any?"

"It will help me to find out about you easily, and to find you again when I choose."

"Pardi! I ain't lost, and anyone can easily find me."

"Do you mean to say, Denise, that at your age, pretty as you are, you haven't a lover?"

"Is that any of your business?"

"Oh! very much!"

"Here in the country we ain't in such a hurry as your city ladies."

"Haven't women hearts in the country as well as elsewhere?"

"Yes; but they don't take fire the way yours does; it seems to me to be a little heart of tinder."

"Upon my word, she is really amusing!" said Auguste, laughingly.

"_She!_" repeated the milkmaid in an irritated tone; "how polite these fine gentlemen are! _She!_ Anyone would think we had known each other a long while."

"It depends entirely on you whether or not we shall be the best friends in the world in a moment. And to begin with, I must give you a kiss."

"No--no, monsieur--none of that sort of thing, if you please.--Oh! look out, or I'll scratch you."

Auguste, accustomed to defy such prohibitions, seized the little milkmaid by the waist, and tried to put his lips to her fresh, ruddy cheek; but she defended herself more vigorously than the city ladies do; to be sure, a peasant is less embarrassed by her clothes, she isn't afraid of rumpling them, and her corsets are not so tight that she cannot move her arms; that is the reason no doubt that a kiss is much harder to obtain from a peasant.

The kiss was taken at last; but it cost Auguste dear, for he bore below his left eye the marks of two nails which had drawn blood from the Parisian dandy's face. Thus each of the combatants was beaten, for each bore a token of defeat. But the war seemed not to be at an end. Denise, twice as red as she was before the battle, arranged her neckerchief, glaring angrily at the young man; while he put his hand to his face, and, finding blood there, wiped it with his handkerchief, looking at the girl with a less sentimental expression; for those two digs with her nails had cooled his ardor to an extraordinary degree.

"I'm glad of it," said the girl at last; "that will teach you to try to kiss a girl against her will, monsieur."

"I certainly didn't expect to be treated so. The idea of disfiguring me--just for a kiss!"

"If all women did the same, you wouldn't be so forward."

"Thank God, they don't all have the same ideas that you have. You hurt me terribly!"

"Oh! what troubles you the most is that it will show; you're afraid you won't be so pretty to look at."

"No, I assure you that that isn't what I am thinking about. I am sorry that I really made you angry. I realize that I was wrong. Come, Denise, let us make peace."

"No, monsieur, no, I don't listen to you any more."

And the milkmaid, thinking that the young man intended to try to kiss her again, ran to her donkey, and, in order to fly more rapidly, leaped on White Jean's back, and beat him with redoubled force. But it was the animal's custom to return placidly to the village, browsing on whatever he found by the roadside, and not to bear his young mistress on his back. Disturbed in his daily routine by this unexpected burden, White Jean broke into a fast trot, and entered the woods despite his mistress's efforts to make him follow the beaten path. Auguste heard the girl's cries as she tried in vain to hold her steed, dodging with much difficulty the branches which brushed against her face every instant. Forgetting the marks that Denise had left on his cheek, Dalville followed the milkmaid's track, in order to lead the ass back into the path; but when he heard running behind him, the infernal beast went faster than ever and rushed heedlessly into the densest part of the wood. Soon a stout branch barred the milkmaid's path. While her mount ran beneath it, she was swept to the ground; and as she fell another branch caught her skirt; so that poor Denise fell to the ground, face downward, with her skirt over her head and consequently not where it usually was.

Auguste came up at that moment. You can imagine the sight that met his eyes; and what the skirt no longer covered was white and plump and fresh. But we must do the young man justice; instead of amusing himself by contemplating so many attractive things, he ran to Denise. She shrieked and wept and gnashed her teeth. He succeeded in rescuing her head from her petticoats, and quickly covered--what you know.

Denise rose; but she was covered with confusion, she dared not look up at the young man, who, far from taking advantage of her embarrassment, inquired solicitously whether she was hurt.

"Oh, no! it ain't anything," said Denise, still blushing. "I should have forgotten all about it before this if that cursed branch--Pardi! I must be mighty unlucky."

"Why so? because you fell? Why, my dear child, that might happen to anybody."

"Yes, but it's possible to fall without showing--without--Never mind, you're the first one that ever saw it, all the same."

"Ah! I would like to be the last one, too.--Come, why this offended expression? I promise you that I didn't see anything; I thought of nothing but helping you. I was so afraid that you had hurt yourself! It would have been my fault; for, if it hadn't been for my nonsense, you would have gone your way in peace, and this wouldn't have happened."

As Denise listened to Auguste, her anger passed away, and she even smiled as she said:

"I ain't cross with you any more. You're more decent than I thought; if I'd fallen like that before the village fellows, they'd have laughed to begin with, and then they'd have made a lot of silly talk, and there wouldn't have been any end to it. Instead of that, you picked me right up, and you looked so scared!--I'm sorry now that I scratched you. Come, kiss me, to prove that you forgive me."

Auguste made the most of this permission. Denise was so pretty when she smiled! and a woman who defends herself so sturdily makes the favors that she grants seem the more precious.

So peace was made between the milkmaid and the young man. But White Jean was no longer there; overjoyed to be rid of his burden, he had kept on through the woods.

"Oh! I ain't worried," said Denise; "I'm sure he's gone home. Let's take this path and we shall soon be in the village."

They walked on; the milkmaid beside Auguste, who once more considered her a charming creature, since she had smiled upon him and had allowed him to kiss her. In truth, Denise's face was no longer the same; an angry expression is not becoming to a pretty face, and features that are made to inspire love should never express wrath. But they soon emerged from the woods and descended a hill, at the foot of which lay Montfermeil.

"There's my village," said Denise; "and look, do you see my ass trotting along down there? Oh! I knew he'd go right home.--Have you got business in the neighborhood?"

"No, not exactly. I am going to Monsieur Destival's country place. Do you know it?"

"To be sure; I carry milk to them, when Madame Destival stays there in summer. She always tells me to be careful about her little cheeses. You see, I make nice ones. I carried them a bigger one this morning, because Mamzelle Julie, madame's maid, told me they expected company from Paris."

"That being so, I probably shall have the pleasure of tasting your cheeses."

"But if you're going to Monsieur Destival's, you mustn't go to the village. I'll show you what road you must take."

"It will be much kinder of you to go with me and show me the way; as you are not anxious about your ass, there is nothing to hurry you."

"Oh, no! monsieur! I see that you're all right, but you're too fond of kissing the girls. Besides, my aunt is waiting for me. It's after noon, and our dinner-time.--Look, monsieur, take that road that goes up the hill yonder, then the first turn to the left, then the grass-grown road, and you'll find yourself at the place where you're going."

"I shall never remember all that. You will be responsible for my losing my way."

"You shouldn't have left your carriage."

"It was your lovely eyes that turned my head."

"Ah! you're going to begin again. Go along, quick, or they'll eat the cream cheese without you."

"I should be very sorry for that, as it was you who made it."

"The road up the hill--then turn to the left--then the grass-grown road. Adieu, monsieur."

"One more kiss, Denise."

"No, no; that sort of thing shouldn't be repeated too often; you'd soon get tired of it."

And Denise hurried down the hill toward the village. Auguste followed her with his eyes for a long while, saying to himself:

"She's very pretty, and she's bright too! What a pity that she doesn't live in Paris!--What am I saying? If she were in Paris, she'd look like all the rest; it's because she's a milkmaid that her face and her wit have impressed me.--Well, I will follow the directions she gave me, and arrive as soon as possible. I am sure that they are impatient for me to come; poor Bertrand won't know what to say, and Madame Destival will pout at me--how she will pout!--And great heaven! these scratches! how in the devil am I to explain them? Faith, I scratched myself picking nuts. It's a pity that nuts don't have thorns. But no matter, they may think what they choose."

So Auguste decided to resume his journey; but he cast another glance at Denise's village, and murmured as he walked away:

"I shall come again and make Montfermeil's acquaintance."