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Once more the summer drew to an end; it was the fourth spent at Bennecourt. In reality they could never be happier than now; life was peaceful and cheap in the depths of that village. Since they had been there they had never lacked money.
Isn't it too stupid, to be we two together, to be growing old already, and to torture ourselves, and fail in every attempt to find happiness? Oh! the grave will take us soon enough, never fear. Let's try to live, and love one another. Remember Bennecourt! Listen to my dream. I should like to be able to take you away to-morrow.
They had paid fifteen hundred thousand francs for it, and had just spent more than a million in improvements. 'That part of the country won't see much of us in future, said Claude, as they returned to Bennecourt. 'Those monsters spoil the landscape. Towards the end of the summer, an important event changed the current of their lives. Christine was enceinte.
A bridge had been built to connect Bennecourt with Bonnieres: a bridge, good heavens! in the place of the old ferry-boat, grating against its chain the old black boat which, cutting athwart the current, had been so full of interest to the artistic eye.
Why shouldn't they go and surprise him there, since he seemed so desirous of renewing the old intimacy? But in vain did Sandoz repeat that he had promised Dubuche on oath to bring Claude with him; the painter obstinately refused to go, as if he were frightened at the idea of again beholding Bennecourt, the Seine, the islands, all the stretch of country where his happy years lay dead and buried.
All his hopes of immortality were shaken by his excursion to that ungrateful country village, that Bennecourt, so loved and so forgetful, where he and Claude had not found a single stone retaining any recollection of them. If things which are eternal forget so soon, can one place any reliance for one hour on the memory of man?
And they watched him walk back towards the house, pushing the perambulator, and supporting Gaston, who was already stumbling with fatigue he, Dubuche, himself having his back bent and the heavy tread of an old man. One o'clock was striking, and they both hurried down towards Bennecourt, saddened and ravenous.
It seemed to them as if evening would never come. At ten o'clock they alighted at Bonnieres; and there they took the ferry an old ferry-boat that creaked and grated against its chain for Bennecourt is situated on the opposite bank of the Seine.
He knew, beyond Mantes, a little village called Bennecourt, where there was an artists' inn which he had at times invaded with some comrades; and careless as to the two hours' rail, he took her to lunch there, just as he would have taken her to Asnieres. She made very merry over this journey, to which there seemed no end. So much the better if it were to take them to the end of the world!
Autumn came, then winter, a very wet and muddy winter, and he spent it in a state of morose torpidity, bitter even against Sandoz, who, having married in October, could no longer come to Bennecourt so often. Claude only seemed to wake up at each of the other's visits; deriving a week's excitement from them, and never ceasing to comment feverishly about the news brought from yonder.
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