pot," "A jugful," "Two brandies," "A
raspail," and began to play at dominoes, noisily rattling the little
bits of black and white bone. Mother Duroy kept passing to and fro,
serving the customers, with her melancholy air, taking money, and wiping
the tables with the corner of her blue apron.

The smoke of clay pipes and sou cigars filled the room. Madeleine began
to cough, and said: "Suppose we go out; I cannot stand it."

They had not quite finished, and old Duroy was annoyed at this. Then she
got up and went and sat on a chair outside the door, while her
father-in-law and her husband were finishing their coffee and their nip
of brandy.

George soon rejoined her. "Shall we stroll down as far as the Seine?"
said he.

She consented with pleasure, saying: "Oh, yes; let us go."

They descended the slope, hired a boat at Croisset, and passed the rest
of the afternoon drowsily moored under the willows alongside an island,
soothed to slumber by the soft spring weather, and rocked by the
wavelets of the river. Then they went back at nightfall.

The evening's repast, eaten by the light of a tallow candle, was still
more painful for Madeleine than that of the morning. Father Duroy, who
was half drunk, no longer spoke. The mother maintained her dogged
manner. The wretched light cast upon the gray walls the shadows of heads
with enormous noses and exaggerated movements. A great hand was seen to
raise a pitchfork to a mouth opening like a dragon's maw whenever any
one of them, turning a little, presented a profile to the yellow,
flickering flame.

As soon as dinner was over, Madeleine drew her husband out of the house,
in order not to stay in this gloomy room, always reeking with an acrid
smell of old pipes and spilt liquor. As soon as they were outside, he
said: "You are tired of it already."

She began to protest, but he stopped her, saying: "No, I saw it very
plainly. If you like, we will leave to-morrow."

"Very well," she murmured.

They strolled gently onward. It was a mild night, the deep,
all-embracing shadow of which seemed filled with faint murmurings,
rustlings, and breathings. They had entered a narrow path, overshadowed
by tall trees, and running between two belts of underwood of
impenetrable blackness.

"Where are we?" asked she.

"In the forest," he replied.

"Is it a large one?"

"Very large; one of the largest in France."

An odor of earth, trees, and moss--that fresh yet old scent of the
wood