se,
showing the curves of her figure as she hung up the towels. He remained
there, concealed by the hedge, for more than an hour, even after she had
left. He returned home more obsessed with her image than ever.
For a month his mind was full of her, he trembled when her name was
mentioned in his presence. He could not eat, he had night sweats that
kept him from sleeping.
On Sunday, at mass, he never took his eyes off her. She noticed it and
smiled at him, flattered at his appreciation.
One evening, he suddenly met her in the road. She stopped short when she
saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with fear and
emotion, but determined to speak to her. He began falteringly:
"See here, Martine, this cannot go on like this any longer."
She replied as if she wanted to tease him:
"What cannot go on any longer, Benoist?"
"My thinking of you as many hours as there are in the day," he answered.
She put her hands on her hips.
"I do not oblige you to do so."
"Yes, it is you," he stammered; "I cannot sleep, nor rest, nor eat, nor
anything."
"What do you need to cure you of all that?" she asked.
He stood there in dismay, his arms swinging, his eyes staring, his mouth
agape.
She hit him a punch in the stomach and ran off.
From that day they met each other along the roadside, in by-roads or
else at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with his
horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.
He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his
heart and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her,
eat her, make her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence,
impatience, rage, to think she did not belong to him entirely, as if
they were one being.
People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were
engaged. He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she
had answered "Yes."
They, were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about it.
But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He
did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only catch
a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the
sermon, the priest actually published the banns of marriage between
Victoire-Adelaide Martin and Josephin-Isidore Vallin.
Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained
off. He had a buzzing in the ears; and could hear nothing; an
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