Fruitfulness by Émile Zola
page 8 of 561 (01%)
page 8 of 561 (01%)
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"No, no, I insist on your going to bed! You know very well that even if I
catch the quarter-to-eleven-o'clock train, I cannot reach Janville before half-past eleven. Ah! what a day I have before me! I had to promise the Moranges that I would take dejeuner with them; and this evening Beauchene is entertaining a customer--a business dinner, which I'm obliged to attend. So go to bed, and have a good sleep while you are waiting for me." She gently nodded, but would give no positive promise. "Don't forget to call on the landlord," she added, "to tell him that the rain comes into the children's bedroom. It's not right that we should be soaked here as if we were on the high-way, even if those millionnaires, the Seguins du Hordel, do let us have this place for merely six hundred francs a year." "Ah, yes! I should have forgotten that. I will call on them, I promise you." Then Mathieu took her in his arms, and there was no ending to their leave-taking. He still lingered. She had begun to laugh again, while giving him many a kiss in return for his own. There was all the love of bounding health between them, the joy that springs from the most perfect union, as when man and wife are but one both in flesh and in soul. "Run off, run off, darling! Remember to tell Constance that, before she goes into the country, she ought to run down here some Sunday with Maurice." "Yes, yes, I will tell her--till to-night, darling." But he came back once more, caught her in a tight embrace, and pressed to |
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