"Do you think so?" she said.

"Forward! forward!" he continued.

He "tchk'd" with his tongue. The two beasts set off at a trot.

Long ferns by the roadside caught in Emma's stirrup.

Rodolphe leant forward and removed them as they rode along. At other

times, to turn aside the branches, he passed close to her, and Emma felt

his knee brushing against her leg. The sky was now blue, the leaves no

longer stirred. There were spaces full of heather in flower, and plots

of violets alternated with the confused patches of the trees that were

grey, fawn, or golden coloured, according to the nature of their leaves.

Often in the thicket was heard the fluttering of wings, or else the

hoarse, soft cry of the ravens flying off amidst the oaks.

They dismounted. Rodolphe fastened up the horses. She walked on in

front on the moss between the paths. But her long habit got in her way,

although she held it up by the skirt; and Rodolphe, walking behind her,

saw between the black cloth and the black shoe the fineness of her white

stocking, that seemed to him as if it were a part of her nakedness.

She stopped. "I am tired," she said.

"Come, try again," he went on. "Courage!"

Then some hundred paces farther on she again stopped, and through her

veil, that fell sideways from her man's hat over her hips, her face

appeared in a bluish transparency as if she were floating under azure

waves.

"But where are we going?"

He did not answer. She was breathing irregularly. Rodolphe looked round

him biting his moustache. They came to a larger space where the coppice

had been cut. They sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and Rodolphe

began speaking to her of his love. He did not begin by frightening her

with compliments. He was calm, serious, melancholy.

Emma listened to him with bowed head, and stirred the bits of wood on

the ground with the tip of her foot. But at the words, "Are not our

destinies now one?"

"Oh, no!" she replied. "You know that well. It is impossible!" She rose

to go. He seized her by the wrist. She stopped. Then, having gazed

at him for a few moments with an amorous and humid look, she said

hurriedly-"Ah! do not speak of it again! Where are the horses? Let us go back."

He made a gesture of anger and annoyance. She repeated: "Where are the horses? Where are the horses?"




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