Читать книгу The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard - Anatole France - Страница 14

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Her manners had shocked me. I left her to arrange herself in her lettica, and I made myself as comfortable as I could in my own. These vehicles, which have no wheels, are carried by two mules—one before and one behind. This kind of litter, or chaise, is of ancient origin. I had often seen representations of similar ones in the French MSS. of the fourteenth century. I had no idea then that one of those vehicles would be at a future day placed at my own disposal. We must never be too sure of anything.

For three hours the mules sounded their little bells, and thumped the calcined ground with their hoofs. On either hand there slowly defiled by us the barren monstrous shapes of a nature totally African.

Half-way we made a halt to allow our animals to recover breath.

Madame Trepof came to me on the road, took my arm, and drew me a little away from the party. Then, very suddenly, she said to me in a tone of voice I had never heard before:

“Do not think that I am a wicked woman. My George knows that I am a good mother.”

We walked side by side for a moment in silence. She looked up, and I saw that she was crying.

“Madame,” I said to her, “look at this soil which has been burned and cracked by five long months of fiery heat. A little white lily has sprung up from it.”

And I pointed with my cane to the frail stalk, tipped by a double blossom.

“Your heart,” I said, “however arid it be, bears also its white lily; and that is reason enough why I do not believe that you are what you say—a wicked woman.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” she cried, with the obstinacy of a child—“I am a wicked woman. But I am ashamed to appear so before you who are so good—so very, very good.”

“You do not know anything at all about it,” I said to her.

“I know it! I know all about you, Monsieur Bonnard!” she declared, with a smile.

And she jumped back into her lettica.