A Cock Crowed
Madame Bertha d'Avancelles had up till that time resisted all the prayers of her despairing adorer, Baron Joseph de Croissard. He had pursued her ardently in Paris during the winter, and now he was giving fêtes and shooting parties in her honor at his château at Carville, in Normandy.
Monsieur d'Avancelles, her husband, saw nothing and knew nothing, as usual. It was said that he lived apart from his wife on account of a physical weakness for which Madame d'Avancelles would not pardon him. He was a short, stout, bald man, with short arms, legs, neck, nose, and very ugly, while Madame d'Avancelles, on the contrary, was a tall, dark, and determined young woman, who laughed in her husband's face with sonorous peals, while he called her openly "Mrs. Housewife." She looked at the broad shoulders, strong build, and fair mustaches of her titled admirer, Baron Joseph de Croissard, with a certain amount of tenderness.
She had not, however, granted him anything as yet. The baron was ruining himself for her, and there was a constant round of fêting, hunting parties, and new pleasures, to which he invited the neighboring nobility. All day long the hounds gave tongue in the woods, as they followed the fox or the wild boar, and every night dazzling fireworks mingled their burning plumes with the stars, while the illuminated windows of the drawing-room cast long rays of light on to the wide lawns, where shadows were moving to and fro.
It was autumn, the russet-colored season of the year, and the leaves were whirling about on the grass like flights of birds. One noticed the smell of damp earth in the air, of the naked earth, like one scents the odor of the bare skin when a woman's dress falls off her, after a ball.
One evening, in the previous spring during an entertainment, Madame d'Avancelles had said to Monsieur de Croissard, who was worrying her by his importunities: "If I do succumb to you, my friend, it will not be before the fall of the leaf. I have too many things to do this summer to have any time for it." He had not forgotten that bold and amusing speech, and every day he became more pressing, every day he pushed his approaches nearer,—to use a military phrase,—and gained a hold on the heart of the fair, audacious woman, who seemed only to be resisting for form's sake.
It was the day before a large wild-boar hunt, and in the evening Madame Bertha said to the baron with a laugh: "Baron, if you kill the brute, I shall have something to say to you." And so at dawn he was up and out, to try and discover where the solitary animal had its lair. He accompanied his huntsmen, settled the places for the relays, and organized everything personally to insure his triumph. When the horns gave the signal for setting out, he appeared in a closely fitting coat of scarlet and gold, with his waist drawn in tight, his chest expanded, his eyes rcdiant, and as fresh and strong as if he had just got out of bed. They set off; the wild boar bolted through the underwood as soon as he was dislodged, followed by the hounds in full cry, while the horses set off at a gallop through the narrow
