“I have not seen my mother for a long time,” she said.  “It is very hard to be separated like that,” and she directed her looks into the distance, toward the village in the north which she had left.

Suddenly, however, he seized her by the neck and kissed her again, but she struck him so violently in the face with her clenched fist that his nose began to bleed, and he got up and laid his head against the stem of a tree.  When she saw that, she was sorry, and going up to him, she said:  “Have I hurt you?” He, however, only laughed.  “No, it was a mere nothing; only she had hit him right on the middle of the nose.  What a devil!” he said, and he looked at her with admiration, for she had inspired him with a feeling of respect and of a very different kind of admiration which was the beginning of a real love for that tall, strong wench.  When the bleeding had stopped, he proposed a walk, as he was afraid of his neighbor’s heavy hand, if they remained side by side like that much longer; but she took his arm of her own accord, in the avenue, as if they had been out for an evening’s walk, and said:  “It is not nice of you to despise me like that, Jacques.”  He protested, however.  No, he did not despise her.  He was in love with her, that was all.

“So you really want to marry me?” she asked.

He hesitated and then looked at her sideways, while she looked straight ahead of her.  She had fat, red cheeks, a full bust beneath her cotton jacket; thick, red lips; and her neck, which was almost bare, was covered with small beads of perspiration.  He felt a fresh access of desire, and, putting his lips to her ear, he murmured:  “Yes, of course I do.”

Then she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him till they were both out of breath.  From that moment the eternal story of love began between them.  They plagued one another in corners; they met in the moonlight beside the haystack and gave each other bruises on the legs, under the table, with their heavy nailed boots.  By degrees, however, Jacques seemed to grow tired of her; he avoided her, scarcely spoke to her, and did not try any longer to meet her alone, which made her sad and anxious; and soon she found that she was enceinte.

At first she was in a state of consternation, but then she got angry, and her rage increased every day because she could not meet him, as he avoided her most carefully.  At last, one night, when every one in the farmhouse was asleep, she went out noiselessly in her petticoat, with bare feet, crossed the yard and opened the door of the stable where Jacques was lying in a large box of straw above his horses.  He pretended to snore when he heard her coming, but she knelt down by his side and shook him until he sat up.

“What do you want?” he then asked her.  And with clenched teeth, and trembling with anger, she replied:  “I want—­I want you to marry me, as you promised.”  But he only laughed and replied:  “Oh! if a man were to marry all the girls with whom he has made a slip, he would have more than enough to do.”