elled with horror, and as she struggled she
felt against her chest the thick hair she had already felt against her
leg, and she drew back in dismay. Tired at last of entreating her
without effect, he lay still on his back; then she could think. She had
expected something so different, and this destruction of her hopes, this
shattering of her expectations of delight, filled her with despair, and
she could only say to herself: "That, then, is what he calls being his
wife; that is it, that is it."

For a long time she lay thus, feeling very miserable, her eyes wandering
over the tapestry on the walls, with its tale of love. As Julien did not
speak or move, she slowly turned her head towards him, and then she saw
that he was asleep, with his mouth half opened and his face quite calm.
Asleep! she could hardly believe it, and it made her feel more
indignant, more outraged than his brutal passion had done. How could he
sleep on such a night? There was no novelty for him, then, in what had
passed between them? She would rather he had struck her, or bruised her
with his odious caresses till she had lost consciousness, than that he
should have slept. She leant on her elbow, and bent towards him to
listen to the breath which sometimes sounded like a snore as it passed
through his lips.

Daylight came, dim at first, then brighter, then pink, then radiant.
Julien opened his eyes, yawned, stretched his arms, looked at his wife,
smiled, and asked:

"Have you slept well, dear?"

She noticed with great surprise that he said "thou" to her now, and she
replied:

"Oh, yes; have you?"

"I? Oh, very well indeed," he answered, turning and kissing her. Then he
began to talk, telling her his plans, and using the word "economy" so
often that Jeanne wondered. She listened to him without very well
understanding what he said, and, as she looked at him, a thousand
thoughts passed rapidly through her mind.

Eight o'clock struck.

"We must get up," he said; "we shall look stupid if we stay in bed late
to-day;" and he got up first.

When he had finished dressing, he helped his wife in all the little
details of her toilet, and would not hear of her calling Rosalie. As he
was going out of the room, he stopped to say:

"You know, when we are by ourselves, we can call each other 'thee' and
'thou,' but we had better wait a little while before we talk like that
before your parents. It will sound quite natural when we come back after
our honeymo