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 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

Chapter 7 Exercises

1. Briefly explain the differences between seek time and search time. In your opinion,
why do some people confuse the two? ANS: Seek time is the time required to position
the read/write head on the proper track (from the time the I/O request is received).
Search time is the time to rotate the disk from its current sector or location to the
desired sector or location. There are many reasons for people to confuse the two.
Well-reasoned suggestions are acceptable.
2. Given the following characteristics for a magnetic tape using linear recording as
described in this chapter:
Density = 1600 bpi
Speed = 1500 inches/second
Size = 2400 feet
Start/stop time = 4 ms
Number of records to be stored = 200,000 records
Size of each record = 160 bytes
Block size = 10 logical records
IBG = 0.5 inch
Find the following:
a. Number of blocks needed
ANS: 20,000 blocks (200,000 records / 10 records per block)
b. Size of the block in bytes
ANS: 1,600 bytes per block (10 records per block * 160 bytes per record)
c. Time required to read one block
ANS: 0.00066 sec = 0.66ms
(density = 1600 bpi, 1 block = 1600 bytes, therefore 1 block = 1 inch
Time = 1 inch / 1500 inches per second = .00066 sec = 0.66ms)
d. Time required to write all of the blocks.
ANS: 93,200ms or 93.2 sec to write all blocks
(0.66ms to write one block + 4ms to start/stop
= 4.66ms as the total time to write one block.

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 1

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

20,000 blocks * 4.66ms per block

= 93,200ms or 93.2 sec to write all blocks)
e. Amount of tape used for data only, in inches
ANS: 20,000 inches
(density = 1600 bpi, 1 block = 1600 bytes, therefore 1 block fits in 1 inch)
f. Total amount of tape used (data + IBGs), in inches
ANS: 30,000 inches
(number of IBGs = 20,000. 1 IBG = .5 inch, therefore
total inches for all IBGs = 10,000 inches.
Total amount of tape used = 20,000 + 10,000 inches).
3. Given the following characteristics for a magnetic disk pack with 10 platters yielding
18 recordable surfaces (not using the top and bottom surfaces):
Rotational speed = 13 ms
Transfer rate = 0.15 ms/track
Density per track = 19,000 bytes
Number of records to be stored = 200,000 records
Size of each record = 160 bytes
Block size = 10 logical records
Number of tracks per surface = 500
Find the following:
a. Number of blocks per track
ANS: 11 blocks
(1 track = 19,000 bytes,
1 block = 1600 bytes,
number of blocks per track = 19,000/1,600) = 11 blocks
b. Waste per track
ANS: 1,400 bytes
1 track minus (number of blocks * size of each record)
190,00 - (11*160)
=1,400 bytes of waste per track

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 2

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

c. Number of tracks required to store the entire file

ANS: 1,818 tracks
number of blocks to be stored = 20,000, at 11 blocks per track,
number of tracks needed = 20,000/11
=1,818 tracks required to store the entire file
d. Total waste to store the entire file
ANS:
2,561,000 total wasted bytes
(1400 * 1818 = 2,545,200 wasted bytes. The last track has more waste because
only 2 blocks are stored there. Waste for the last track = 15,800 bytes.
Total waste = 2,545,200 + 15,800 = 2,561,000 total wasted bytes
e. Time to write all of the blocks (Use rotational speed; ignore the time it takes to
move to the next track.)
ANS: 260 seconds,whick is 260,000ms
(using rotational speed of 13ms: 20,000 blocks * 13ms = 260,000ms to write all
blocks)
f. Time to write all of the records if they’re not blocked. (Use rotational speed;
ignore the time it takes to move to the next track.)
ANS: 2,600 seconds
(using rotational speed of 13ms: 200,000 records * 13ms = 2,600,000ms to write
all records)
g. Optimal blocking factor to minimize wasted space
ANS: 118 records per block
(19,000 bytes per track / 160 bytes per record
= 118 records per track, yielding 120 bytes of waste per track)
h. What would be the answer to (e) if the time it takes to move to the next track were
5 ms?
ANS: 269.07 sec, which is 269,077 ms
(per track it takes 11 * 13 + 5 = 148 ms, this writes 11 blocks. 148 * 1818 tracks =
269,064 ms, plus 13ms for the last track yielding 269,077 ms total time)

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 3

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

i. What would be the answer to (f) if the time it takes to move to the next track were
5 ms?
ANS: 2,607.73 sec which is 2,607,730 ms total time
(per track it takes 118 * 13 + 5 = 1539ms, this writes 118 records. 1539ms * 1694
tracks = 2,607,066 ms. Plus 702 (54 * 13ms) for the last track yielding 2,607,730
ms total time)
4. Given that it takes 1.75 ms to travel from one track to the next of a hard drive; that the
arm is originally positioned at Track 15 moving toward the low-numbered tracks; and
that you are using the LOOK scheduling policy: Compute the total seek time to satisfy
the following requests—4, 40, 35, 11, 14, and 7. Assume all requests are initially
present in the wait queue. (Ignore rotational time and transfer time; just consider seek
time.) ANS: Students should explain their reasoning here. As shown in the illustration
of the tracks traveled below, the time required for each request is a multiple of the
difference between the two tracks. Therefore for the first request, it moves 11 tracks
(15-4), which takes 19.25 ms. The total for all movement is 140 ms.

5. Describe how secondary storage differs from primary storage and give an example of
each. ANS: Primary storage is temporary in nature because data there is lost when
power is turned off. For example, it is also called “main memory” and is used by the
CPU to process jobs. Secondary storage is more permanent in nature (data there
remains even when power is turned off) and is used by the operating system to keep
data and applications over time. Two examples of secondary storage are hard disk
drives and solid state drives. This group also includes flash drives (because they are
more permanent storage) even though flash drives can be used as temporary memory
by some operating systems.

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 4

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

6. [Eratta: On page 225, Figure 7.12 is described as a system with a search time (time
to rotate the cylinder) of 5 seconds. It should read 1 ms. Table 7.5, on the next page,
shows the correct calculations if the search time is 1 ms. The error will be corrected
in the next printing. AMM]
Consider a virtual cylinder identical to the one shown in Figure 7.12 with the
following characteristics: seek time is 4 ms/track, search time is 1.7 ms/sector, and
data transfer time is 0.9 ms. Calculate the resulting seek time, search time, data
transfer time, and total time for the following Request List, assuming that the
read/write head begins at Track 0, Sector 0. Finally, calculate the total time required
to meet all of these requests.

Track Sector Seek Search Time Data Total

Time Transfer Time
Time

0 0 (Starting Place)

1 0 4 ms 0 ms 0.9 ms 4.9 ms

1 4 0 ms 3 * 1.7 ms 0.9 ms 6 ms

1 0 0 ms 1.7 ms 0.9 ms 2.6 ms

3 1 8 ms 0 ms (because the head is already 0.9 ms 8.9 ms

at the end of sector 0 & beginning
of sector 1)

2 4 4 ms 2 * 1.7 ms 0.9 ms 11.7

ms

3 0 4 ms 1.7 ms 0.9 ms 6.6 ms

ANS: Notice that Figure 7. 12 shows a virtual cylinder with exactly 5 tracks,
numbered from zero to four and 5 sectors, also numbered from zero to four. And
while the read/write heads can move in both directions, the cylinder does not rotate in
both directions. Therefore, if the next-requested sector has already been passed by, the
entire cylinder must rotate almost the entire way around to reach it. Remember, too,
that when the device begins, it is at the beginning of the sector. Thereafter, after
reading a sector, the head is at the end of that sector and the beginning of the next

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 5

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

sector. For this reason, the very first request appears to pass over an extra sector
(Sector 0, in this case).
7. Using an identical environment to the previous question, calculate the resulting seek
time, search time, data transfer time, and total time for the following Request List,
assuming that the read/write head begins at Track 3, Sector 0. Calculate the total time
required.

Track Sector Seek Search Time Data Total

Time Transfer Time
Time

3 0 This is the Starting Place = Beginning of Sector 0

2 5 4 ms 5 * 1.7 ms 0.9 ms 13.4 ms

1 2 4 ms 2 * 1.7 ms (because the head is 0.9 ms 8.3 ms

already at the end of sector 5 &
beginning of sector 0)

1 0 0 ms 3 * 1.7 ms 0.9 ms 6.0 ms

2 3 4 ms 2 * 1.7 ms 0.9 ms 8.3 ms

2 4 0 ms 0 ms (because the head is already at 0.9 ms 0.9 ms

the end of sector 3 & beginning of
sector 4)

1 0 4 ms 1 * 1.7 ms 0.9 ms 6.6 ms

ANS: Notice that Figure 7. 12 shows a virtual cylinder with exactly 5 tracks,
numbered from zero to four and 5 sectors, also numbered from zero to four. And
while the read/write heads can move in both directions, the cylinder does not rotate in
both directions. Therefore, if the next-requested sector has already been passed by, the
entire cylinder must rotate almost the entire way around to reach it. Remember that
when the device begins, it is at the beginning of the sector. Thereafter, after reading a
sector, the head is at the end of that sector and the beginning of the next sector. For
this reason, the very first request appears to pass over an extra sector (Sector 0, in this
case).

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 6

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

8. Minimizing the variance of system response time is an important goal, but it does not
always prevent an occasional user from suffering indefinite postponement. If you
were the system designer, what mechanism would you recommend for a disk
scheduling policy to counteract this problem and still provide reasonable response
time to the user population as a whole? What argument would you use with the
system management to allow your changes? ANS: Students should present a well-
reasoned, original answer here. Such an answer with logical supporting reasons as to
why it is better is acceptable.
9. Describe how implementation of a RAID Level 2 system would be beneficial to a
university payroll system. In your own words, describe the disadvantages of such a
system, if any, in that environment, and if appropriate, suggest an alternative RAID
system and explain your reasoning. ANS: RAID level 2 is an expensive and complex
configuration because all disks must be highly coordinated. It offers excellent
correctional ability should one disk fail. Students should present a well-reasoned,
original answer here. Such an answer with logical supporting reasons as to why it is
better is acceptable.

Advanced Exercises

10. Explain in your own words the relationship between buffering and spooling. Suggest
reasons why some people confuse the two. ANS: Buffering means data is written to a
temporary area while it waits to go to an I/O device (such as a monitor). Buffers are
often used to pair one fast resource with one slow resource. If the program is
constantly faster than the device, there could eventually be an overflow. The buffer
loses its data when the hardware is powered off.
Spooling uses the disk as a very large buffer. A typical example is a print spooler,
which collects data to be printed and stores it on the disk. The spooler does not send
the print job to the printer until it knows that both 1) the job is ready to be printed and
2) that the printer is ready for it. The spooler may not lose its data when the hardware
is powered off.

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 7

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

11. Under light loading conditions, every disk scheduling policy discussed in this chapter
tends to behave like one of the policies discussed in this chapter. Which one is it?
Explain why light loading is different than heaving loading. ANS: Under very light
loading conditions every disk scheduling policy presented would approximate FCFS
because the request queue would not have many entries and requests would be
satisfied as they occurred. The different policies described in this chapter really
differentiate themselves under heavy loading conditions because then the variations
among the requests can favor more efficient allocation of the computing resources.
12. Assume you have a file of 10 records (identified as A, B, C, . . . J) to be stored on a
disk that holds 10 records per track. Once the file is stored, the records will be
accessed sequentially: A, B, C, . . . J. It takes 1 ms to transfer each record from the
disk to main memory. It takes 2 ms to process each record once it has been transferred
into memory and the next record is not accessed until the current one has been
processed. It takes 10 ms for the disk to complete one rotation.
Suppose you store the records in the order given: A, B, C, . . . J. Compute how long it
will take to process all 10 records. Break up your computation into (1) the time to
transfer a record, (2) the time to process a record, and (3) the time to access the next
record. ANS:

Record Position Access Transfer Process Total

I.D. In track Time Time Time Time

A 0 0 2 1 3

B 1 8 2 1 11

C 2 8 2 1 11

D 3 8 2 1 11

E 4 8 2 1 11

F 5 8 2 1 11

G 6 8 2 1 11

H 7 8 2 1 11

I 8 8 2 1 11

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 8

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

J 9 8 2 1 11

Total 102

Note: remember that the disk continues to rotate so that when record A has been
processed and the next read command is issued the read/write head is not positioned at
the beginning of record B. As follows:

Read A

Processing with this record takes 2ms so the disk has rotated and the read/write head
is at the beginning of record D.

So now it has to wait for D, E, F to go by (8ms) until the beginning of record B is

positioned under the read/write head.

Now B can be read, and the whole process repeats itself.

13. Given the same situation described in the previous exercise:

a. Organize the records so that they’re stored in non-alphabetical order (not A, B, C,
. . . J) to reduce the time it takes to process them sequentially in alphabetical order.
ANS:
Position 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Record A H E B I F C J G D

b. Compute how long it will take to process all 10 records using this new order.
Break up your computation into (1) the time to transfer a record, (2) the time to
process a record, and (3) the time to access the next record. ANS:
Record Position Access Transfer Process Total
I.D. In track Time Time Time _ Time
A 0 0 2 1 3
H 1 0 2 1 3
E 2 0 2 1 3
B 3 0 2 1 3
I 4 0 2 1 3
F 5 0 2 1 3
C 6 0 2 1 3
J 7 0 2 1 3
G 8 0 2 1 3
D 9 0 2 1 3

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 9

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

Total 30
14. Track requests are not usually equally or evenly distributed. For example, the tracks
where the disk directory resides are accessed more often than those where the user’s
files reside. Suppose that you know that 50 percent of the requests are for a small,
fixed number of cylinders.
a. Which one of the scheduling policies presented in this chapter would be the best
under these conditions?
ANS:
a. It depends on where, on the disk, these heavily requested files are stored. For
example, if they are located in the mid-range numbered cylinders (in the case of
cylinders numbered 0 399, mid-range could be defined as cylinders 150 to 250), then
LOOK would be the optimal scheduling policy because the arm travels twice through
the mid-range cylinders: once on its way toward the center of the disk, and a second
time on its way toward the rim of the disk.
b. Can you design one that would be better?
b. Any reasonable answer is acceptable if it has logical supporting reasons as to why it
is better. Consider the probability factor in the design of the scheduling policy. It may
be possible to flag requests to those highly used cylinders, making them high priority
requests thus satisfying them first. Or, it may be possible to always position the
read/write heads at those cylinders after a long list of requests has been satisfied,
again giving them special treatment.
15. Find evidence of the latest technology for optical disc storage and complete the
following chart for three optical storage devices. Cite your sources and the dates of
their publication.
Type Transfer Rate Storage Average Access Cost in Dollars
(bytes per second) Capacity Time

CD-RW

DVD-RW

Blu-ray

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 10

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

ANS: These answers will vary as technology improves the design of each device and
lowers costs. Look for evidence that the student evaluated the available research
thoughtfully and has evidence of rigorous research.
16. Give an example of an environment or application that best matches the
characteristics of each of the following RAID levels:
a. Level 0
b. Level 1
c. Level 3
d. Level 5
e. Level 6
ANS: Answers will vary but some guidelines are shown here.

a. Level 0 transferring large quantities of non-critical data, such as document archives

b. Level 1 data-critical, real-time systems, such as space flight monitoring
c. Level 2 data-critical systems, not real-time, such as government record maintenance
d. Level 3 data-critical systems, not real-time, such as corporate financial records
e. Level 6 data-critical systems, not real-time, with extra error correction, such as
hospital record maintenance

Programming Exercise

17. (old question 15) Write a program that will simulate the FCFS, SSTF, LOOK, and C-
LOOK seek optimization strategies. Assume that:
a. The disk’s outer track is the 0 track and the disk contains 200 tracks per surface.
Each track holds eight sectors numbered 0 through 7.
b. A seek takes 10 + 0.1 * T ms, where T is the number of tracks of motion from one
request to the next, and 10 is a movement time constant.
c. One full rotation takes 7 ms.
d. Transfer time is 1.2 ms per sector.
Use the following data to test your program:
Arrival Time Track Requested Sector Requested

0 45 0

23 132 6

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 11

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

25 20 2

29 23 1

35 198 7

45 170 5

57 180 3

83 78 4

88 73 5

95 150 7

For comparison purposes, compute the average, variance, and standard deviation of the
time required to accommodate all requests under each of the strategies. Consolidate your
results into a table.
Optional: Run your program again with randomly generated data and compare your
results. Use a Poisson distribution for the arrival times and uniform distributions for the
tracks and sectors. Use the same data for each strategy, and generate enough requests to
obtain a 95% confidence interval for the mean access times. Recommend the best policy
and explain why. ANS: This assignment is best explained with a paper-and-pencil model
while the corresponding scheduling policies are presented in class. FCFS does not present
any problems but the other three require some up front time and practice before the
programming logic can be designed. For SSTF, LOOK and C-LOOK the time spent in
servicing a request impacts on which request will be satisfied next because several
requests may have arrived (see arrival time) while one was being served.
The fact that the sector requested may not be directly under the read/write head provides
the opportunity to address the problem of rotational delay. The students need to be
reminded that the disk continues to rotate while the arm is performing a seek. This is
important because it determines on which sector is the read/write head positioned, which
is one of the factors used in computing rotational delay.
Rotational delay can be computed using modulus 8 on seek time. For example, if the
read/write head is positioned at the beginning of sector 2 on track A and the arm is
moving toward track B with a calculated seek time of 24ms, then seek mod 8 will yield a
remainder of 0, which means that the read/write head is still positioned at the beginning

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 12

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

of sector 2 when the arm arrives at track B. On the other hand. using the same set up as
before but with a calculated seek time of 27, then seek mod 8 will yield a remainder of 3,
which means that the read/write head is positioned at the beginning of sector 5 (2 + 3)
when the arm arrives at track B.
The following equations were used to compute Service Time, Wait Time and Turn
Around Time:
1. Movement between tracks (MBT)

MBT = absolute value( Previous_Track – Current_Track)

2. Seek = 10 + 0.1 * (MBT)

3. Rotational_Displacement = REM(Seek / 8) [or Seek MOD 8]

4. Extra_records = Rotational_Displacement + Previous_Record

IF Extra_Records > 7

THEN

Extra_Records = REM(Extra_Records / 8) [or Extra_Records MOD 8]

END IF

5. Rotational_Delay = REM {[Current_Record + (8 – Extra_Records)] / 8}

[or {Current_Record + (8 – Extra_Records)} MOD 8]

6. Service_Time = Seek + Rotational_Delay + Transfer_Time

Sample output from FCFS:

Arrival Track. Sector Service

Time Requested Requested Time

0 45 0 17

23 132 6 22

25 20 2 28

29 23 1 15

35 198 7 30

45 170 5 14

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 13

 Understanding Operating Systems, 7th edition

57 180 3 14

83 78 4 25

88 73 5 17

95 150 7 18

Average service time = 20 ms

Variance (service time) = 27.2

Standard deviation (service time) = 5.22

Sample output from LOOK:

Arrival Track Sector Service

Time Requested Requested Time

0 45 0 17

23 132 6 22

45 170 5 15

57 180 3 14

35 198 7 12

83 78 4 25

88 73 5 13

29 23 1 20

25 20 2 13

95 150 7 29

Average service time = 18 ms

Variance (service time) = 33.5

Standard deviation (service time) = 5.78

UOS, 7e Ann McIver McHoes Chapter Seven, Page 14

Other documents randomly have
different content
"They are in love," he said to himself. "Hervart has a genius for
making love. I am twenty-eight, which is my only point of superiority
over him. And even that is very illusory, for it is only women who
know something about life, whether through experience or through
the confidences of some one else, who pay any attention to a man's
age. A woman is as old as her face: a man is as old as his eyes.
Hervart has a pair of fine blue eyes, gentle and lively, ardent. But
what do I care? I don't desire the good graces of this innocent."
While reflecting thus, he had answered M. Hervart, "I quite agree
with you. People tend too much to-day to confound the curious, rare
or antique with the beautiful. The æsthetic sense has been replaced
by a feeling of respect."
"The process was perhaps inevitable," said M. Hervart. "In any case
it suits a democracy. People have no time to learn to admire, but one
can very quickly learn to respect. The intelligence is docile, but taste
is recalcitrant."
"But aren't there such things," Rose asked, "as spontaneous
admirations?"
"Yes," said Leonor, "there's love."
"Then is admiration the same as love?"
"If they don't yet love, people come very near loving when they
admire."
"And is love admiration?"
"Not always."
"Love," said M. Hervart, "is compatible with almost all other feelings,
even with hatred."
"Yes," replied Leonor, "that has the appearance of being true, for
there are many kinds of love. The love that struggles with hatred
can only be a love inspired by interest or sensuality."
"One never knows. I hold that love, just as it is capable of taking
any shape or form, can devour all other feelings and install itself in
their place. It comes and it goes, without one's ever being able to
understand the mechanism of its movements. It lasts two hours or a
whole life....
"You are mixing up the different species," said Leonor. "You must, if
we are to understand one another, allow words to keep their
traditional sense with all its shades of meaning. Love is at the base
of all emotions either as a negative or positive principle; one can say
that, and when one has said it one is no forwarder. Do you think
there's no point in the way verbal usage employs the words 'passion,
caprice, inclination, taste, curiosity' and other words of the kind? It
would surely be better to create new shades, rather than set one's
wits to work to dissolve all the colours and shades of sensation and
emotion into a single hue."
Like a village musician plunged into the midst of a discussion on
counterpoint and orchestration, Rose listened, a little disquieted, a
little irritated, but at the same time fascinated. They were speaking
of something that filled her heart and set her nerves tingling; she
did not understand, she felt. She would have liked to understand.
"Xavier will explain it all to me. How silly I look in the middle of the
conversations where I can't put in a word."
She pretended to desire a rose out of reach of her hand. M. Hervart
darted forward, reached the flower and set to work to strip the
branch of its thorns and its superfluous wood and leaves.
"That was not the one I wanted," said Rose.
M. Hervart began again and the girl looked on, happy at having been
able to interrupt a serious conversation by a mere whim.
Leonor examined them with a certain irony. Rose noticed his look,
felt herself blushing and slipped away.
M. Hervart and Leonor continued their stroll and their chat; but they
talked no more about love.
 CHAPTER IX

Luncheon passed agreeably for Rose. She was the centre of looks,
desires and conversation. M. Lanfranc gallanted without bad taste.
She would laugh and then, with sudden seriousness, accept the
contact of some gesture of M. Hervart's, who was sitting next to her.
Leonor confined himself to a few curt phrases, which were meant to
sum up the more ingenuous remarks of his fellow guests. He had
thought he could treat this girl with contempt, but her eyes, he
found, excited him. By dint of trying to seem a superior being, he
succeeded in looking like a thoroughly disagreeable one. Rose was
frightened of him.
"How cold he is," she thought. "One could never talk or play with a
man so sure of all his movements. He would always win."
Several times, with innocent unconsciousness, she looked at M.
Hervart.
"How well I have chosen! Here is a man who is younger than he,
nearer my own age, and yet each of his words and gestures brings
me closer to Xavier. I feel that it will be always like that. Who can
compete with him? Xavier, I love you."
She leaned forward to reach a jug and as she did so whispered full
in M. Hervart's face, "Xavier, I love you."
M. Hervart pretended to choke. His redness of face was put down to
a cherry stone; Lanfranc gave vent to some feeble joking on the
subject.
As luncheon was nearing its end, she said with a perverse frankness:
"M. Hervart, will you come with me and see if everything's all right
down in the garden?"
"I am having coffee served out of doors," Mme. Des Boys explained.
Lanfranc expatiated on the beauties of this country custom.
As soon as they were hidden from view behind the shrubbery, Rose,
without a word, took M. Hervart by the shoulders and offered him
her lips. It was a long kiss. Xavier clasped the girl in his arms and
with a passion in which there was much amorous art, drank in her
soul.
When he lifted his head, he felt confused:
"I have been giving the kiss of a happy lover, when what was asked
for was a betrothal kiss. What will she think of me?"
Rose was already looking at the rustic table. When M. Hervart
rejoined her, she greeted him with the sweetest of smiles.
"Was that what she wanted then?" M. Hervart wondered.
"Rose," he said aloud, "I love you, I love you."
"I hope you do," she replied.
"Oh, how I should like to be alone with you now!"
"I wouldn't. I should be afraid."
This answer set M. Hervart thinking: "Does she know as much about
it as all that? Is it an invitation?"
His thought lost itself in a tangle of vain desires. But for the very
reason that the moment was not propitious, he let himself go among
the most audacious fancies. His eyes wandered towards the dark
wood, as though in search of some favourable retreat. He made
movements which he never finished. Raising himself from his chair,
he let himself fall back, fidgeted with an empty cup, searched vainly
for a match to light his absent cigarette. The arrival of Leonor
calmed him. His fate that day was to embark on futile discussions
with this young man, and he accepted his destiny.
Every one was once more assembled. The conversation was
resumed on the tone it had kept up at luncheon; but Rose was
dreaming, and M. Hervart had a headache. It was all so spiritless,
despite the enticements of M. Lanfranc, that M. Des Boys lost no
time in proposing a walk.
"If you want us," said Leonor, "to draw up a plan for the
transformation of your property, you must show it to us in some
detail. Is this wood to be a part of your projected park? And what's
beyond it? Another estate, or meadows, or ploughed fields? What
are the rights of way? Do you want a single avenue towards
Couville? One could equally well have one joining the St. Martin
road....
"Do you intend to lay waste this wood?" asked Rose. "It's so
beautiful and wild."
"My dear young lady," said Leonor, "I intend to do nothing; that is to
say, I only intend to please you...."
"Do what my daughter wants," said M. Des Boys. "You're here for
her sake."
"For her sake," Mme. Des Boys repeated.
"Oh, well," said Leonor, "we shall get on very well then."
"So I hope," said Rose.
"I am at your orders," said Leonor.
"Come on then," said Rose.
With these words she got up, throwing M. Hervart a look which was
understood. But as M. Hervart rose to his feet, Mme. Des Boys
approached him:
"I have something very interesting to tell you."
M. Hervart had to let Rose and Leonor plunge alone into the wood in
which he had, during these last few days, experienced such
delightful emotions. Mme. Des Boys took him into the garden.
"I have a question to ask you," she said. "First of all, is architecture
a serious profession?"
"Very," said M. Hervart.
"But do people make really a lot of money at it?"
"Lanfranc, who was a beggar when I first knew him, is probably
richer than you are to-day. Leonor will go even further, I should
think, for he seems an intelligent fellow and knows a lot about his
business."
"You're not speaking out of mere friendship for him?"
"Not at all. Far from it; to tell you the truth I'm not very fond of
either of them."
"But they're thorough gentlemen and very good company."
"Certainly, Lanfranc especially."
"Isn't he amusing? His nephew is more severe, but I prefer it."
"So do I."
"I'm glad to see that you agree with me."
She continued after a moment's reflection. "He would be an
excellent husband for Rose."
Hervart did not reply. He had grown pale and his heart had begun
beating violently. His thoughts were in confusion; his head whirled.
"What do you think of the idea?" Mme. Des Boys insisted.
He withheld his answer, for he knew that his voice would seem quite
changed. He murmured; "Hum," or something of the sort, something
that simply meant that he had heard the question.
But bit by bit he recovered. The happy idea came to him that time.
Des Boys was a nullity in the family and had little influence over her
daughter.
"Nothing that she says has any importance. I'll agree with her."
"I entirely agree with you," he pronounced,
"My daughter's a curious creature," went on Mme. Des Boys, "but
your approbation will perhaps be enough to convince her. You have a
great deal of influence over her."
"I?"
"She's very fond of you. It's obvious."
"I'm such an old friend," said M. Hervart courageously.
His cowardice made him blush.
"Why shouldn't I confess? Why not say, 'Yes, she does like me, and I
like her, why not?' Isn't my desire evident? Can I go away, leave her,
do without her?..." But to all these intimate questions M. Hervart did
not dare to give a definite answer.
"What I should like is that the present moment should go on for
ever...."
"They have hardly spoken to one another, and yet," Mme. Des Boys
continued, "I seem to see between them the beginnings of ...
what?... how shall I put it?..."
"The beginnings of an understanding," prompted M. Hervart with
ironic charity. "Why not love? There's such a thing as love at first
sight."
"Oh, Rose is much too well bred."
The silliness of this woman, so reasonable and natural, none the
less, in her rôle of mother, exasperated M. Hervart even more than
the insinuations to which he had been obliged to listen. Ceasing, not
to hesitate, but to reflect, he said abruptly:
"I shall be very sorry to see her married."
Mme. Des Boys pressed his hand:
"Dear friend! yes, it will make a big difference in our home."
She went on, after a moment's hesitation:
"Not a word about all this, dear Hervart; you understand. And now I
think that the tête-a-tête has perhaps gone on long enough; it would
be very nice of you if you'd go and join them."
M. Hervart, impatient though he was, made his way slowly through
the meanders of the little copse. Like Panurge, he kept repeating to
himself, "Marry her? or not marry her?"
His head was a clock in which a pendulum swung indefatigably. He
sat down on the little bench where, for the first time, he had fell the
girl's head coming gently to rest on his shoulder. He wanted to think.
"I must come to a decision," he said to himself.
Leonor had noticed that, from the moment their walk had begun,
Rose was on the alert at the slightest noise.
"She expects him. That means he'll come. So much the better. I care
very little about this schoolgirl. We're alone now; no more
compliments. I'm simply a landscape gardener at the orders of Mlle.
Rose Des Boys. What a name!..."
He looked at the girl.
"After all, the name isn't so ridiculous as one might think. She is so
fresh, she looks so pure. How curious they are, these innocent
beings who go through life with the grace of a flower blossoming by
the wayside.... But let's get on with our job....
"The taste of the day, mademoiselle, inclines towards the French
style of garden. Some compromise, at least, is necessary between
the sham naturalness of the English park and the rigidity of
geometrical designs....
"Tell me what your compromise is."
"But I don't know the ground yet."
"It isn't big, you know. In a quarter of an hour you will have an idea
of the place as a whole."
Leonor continued his dissertation on the art of the garden for a little,
but he was perfectly aware that he was not being listened to. Finally
he said:
"Nature must obey man; but a reasonable man only asks of her that
she should allow herself to be admired or to be loved. Those who
wish to admire are inclined to impose certain sacrifices upon her.
Those who love ask less and are content, provided they find an easy
access to the sites that please them. But I should imagine that
women demand more. They want nature to be tamer, they want to
see her utterly conquered; they want landscapes in which you can
see the mark of their power...."
"What a curious conversation," Rose said to herself. "Here's an
architect who would get on my nerves if I had to pass my life in his
company...."
This idea made her think more urgently of M. Hervart. She turned
her head, questioning the narrow alleys where the sunlight filtered
through in little drops.
"She's thinking of her dear Xavier," thought Leonor. "What subject
can I think of to hold her attention? Obviously, my remarks have so
far interested her very little."
A man, however cold he may voluntarily make himself, however self-
controlled he may be by nature, is scarcely capable of going for a
walk alone with a young woman without wishing to please. He is
equally incapable of keeping his presence of mind sufficiently to be
able to look at himself acting and not to make mistakes. But how
can one please? Can it be done by rule, particularly with a young
girl? Women are hardly capable of anything but total impressions.
They do not distinguish, for instance, between cleverness and
intelligence, between facility and real power, between real and
apparent youthfulness. If one pleases them, one pleases in one's
entirety, and as soon as one does please them, one becomes their
sacred animal. Leonor had an inspiration. Instead of expounding his
own ideas on gardens, he set to work to repeat, in different terms,
what Rose had said that morning:
"What I have been expounding," he said, "doesn't seem to interest
you much. But you see, I must do my job, which is to back up M.
Lanfranc. Personally, I agree with you. If there are weak spots in
your house, the nearest mason can put on the necessary plaster,
stone and mortar. As for the garden and the wood, I should do
nothing except make a few paths so that I might walk without fear
of dew or brambles."
"Now you're being sensible. Very well then, I shall tell my father that
I shall make arrangements with you alone. You will come back here
and we will do nothing, almost nothing."
"I shall come back with pleasure and I shall do nothing; but if I have
not made you dislike me I shall consider that I have done a great
deal."
"But I don't dislike you. When people agree with me, I never dislike
them."
"But how can people fail to agree with you when you say such
sensible things?"
"Oh, that's very easy. M. Hervart doesn't dispose with disagreement.
He contradicts me, laughs at me."
"Good," thought Leonor, "she's in love with Hervart; then she likes
being contradicted and even laughed at a little. Or perhaps she's
lying, so as to make me believe that Hervart is indifferent to her.
Let's try and get a rise."
"At this age that sort of thing is permissible."
"That's why I don't get cross."
"And besides, he's very nice."
"Oh, so nice; I'm very fond of him."
"It doesn't take," thought Leonor. "Hervart, to her, is a god and we
might go on talking till to-morrow without her understanding a single
one of my insinuations or ironies."
He went on, nevertheless, picking out all the spiteful things that can
be said with politeness.
"Old bachelors often have manias...."
"That's what I often tell him. For instance, his taste for insects.... But
it amuses him so."
"She's invulnerable," said Leonor to himself.
"And then he knows life. He has lived so much."
"That's true. Sometimes, when he's speaking to me, I fed as though
a whole world were opening before me."
"He knows all there is to be known, the arts and the sciences,
friendship and love, men, women.... He's seen a lot of them and of
every variety."
This time it was Rose who paused a moment to reflect, then:
"That's why I have such immense confidence in him. It's a real
happiness for me that he should come and spend his holidays here. I
have learnt more in these few weeks than in all the other years of
my life."
Leonor looked at Rose. He felt a powerful emotion, for to be loved
like this seemed to him the height of felicity. He had never believed
that it was possible to inspire a young girl with such ingenuous
confidence. And how frank she was! What a divine simplicity!
"How does one make oneself so much loved? What's his secret? Ah!
if only I dared ask more! But now, I don't even want to try and
violate an intimacy so charming to contemplate. I'm looking at
happiness, and it's such a rare sight."
He glanced at Rose once more.
"And with all that she's very pretty. How graceful she is under this
aspect of wildness! What suppleness of form! Everything down to
her complexion, gilded and freckled like an apple by the sun, looks
lovely in these country surroundings. How well a wife like this would
suit me; for I belong to this country and am destined to live here.
Why couldn't Hervart have stayed among his Parisian women?"
"He must be very fond of you," he went on, "and I envy his
happiness in being allowed to be your friend. I shall come back,
since you so desire, but I would rather not come back."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to displease you."
"But it won't displease me; far from it. Do explain."
"If I come back, perhaps, I shan't have the strength of mind not to
grow fond of you, and that will make you angry."
"But why? How odd you are! Make yourself a friend of the house. I
shall be very pleased."
"But then I shan't be able to like you as you like M. Hervart."
"Oh! I don't think that would be possible."
"And you won't like me as you like him."
She broke into such ingenuous laughter that Leonor assured himself
that she had not understood anything of his insinuations. However,
he was wrong, and her laughter proved it. She had laughed just
because the idea had suddenly come to her that another man might
have played Xavier's part in what had happened. The idea seemed
to her comic and she had laughed. But the idea had come, and that
was a great point.
It was such a great point that in her turn she looked at Leonor, and
this time she did not laugh; but she had no time to make any
comparison, for at the same moment she pricked up her ears and
said, "There he is."
M. Hervart did not arrive till quite an appreciable time had passed,
and Leonor said to himself:
"She scents her lover as a pointer scents the game. Love is
extraordinary."
He abandoned himself to reflection, astonished at having learnt so
many things in half an hour's walk with a young and simple-hearted
girl.
Rose was staring with all her eyes in the direction from which the
sound of rustling leaves had come. Leonor stooped down behind her
and kissed the hem of her skirt.
 CHAPTER X

While he was alone, M. Hervart had done his best to make a

decision, as he had promised himself to do; but decisions had
fluttered like capricious butterflies round his head and would not let
themselves be caught. He was neither surprised nor vexed at the
fact.
"Rose," he said to himself at last, "will do all I want."
This certitude was enough for him. The moment he had a will, Rose
would acquiesce.
"Provided my will agrees with hers, that's obvious. Now Rose's wish
is to become Mme. Hervart. Dear little thing, she's in love with
me...."
He dwelt complacently on this idea, but a moment later it alarmed
him and he felt himself a prisoner. A hundred times over he
repeated:
"I must have done with it. I will speak to Des Boys this evening, to-
morrow morning at latest.... He will laugh at me. But that's all. He
will have to give in afterwards. My will, Rose's will.... I shall carry her
off and take her to Paris. Is it my first adventure? If it's the last it
will at least be a splendid one."
He pictured to himself all the details of this romantic enterprise. He
would, of course, reserve a compartment in the train so as to insure
a propitious solitude. It would not be at night, but in the evening.
After an amusing little supper and some thrilling kisses, Rose would
go to sleep on his shoulder and from time to time he would touch
her breast, kiss her eyelids. She would be, at this moment, at once
his wife and his mistress, the woman who has given herself, but
whom one has not yet taken, a beautiful fruit to be looked at and
delicately handled before it is at last relished. What an exquisite
creature of love she would be. How docile her curiosity! What a
pupil, like clay the hands of the sculptor. An elopement? Why not a
marriage tour? No, no elopements! no romantic nonsense! Des Boys
will give me his daughter when I want....
But suddenly he had a curious vision. He was standing on the
platform of Caen station, amusing himself by peeping indiscreetly
into the carriages, and what did he see?—Rose and Leonor huddled
together, mouth against mouth. The train moved on, and he was left
standing there, looking at the red light disappearing in the smoke....
He got up, full of jealousy; he ran, then slowed down, listening for
possible words, questioning the silence. Without his knowing exactly
why, Rose's laugh, heard through the leaves of the wood, reassured
him. He saw Leonor stoop down and rise again holding a little pink
flower in his hand.
"Sherardia arvensis," he said, taking the flower. "It has no business
to grow here. Its place is in the field next door. Arvensis, you see,
arvensis. But there are lots of plants that lose their way."
"He knows everything," said Rose. "You see, he knows everything."
Leonor, who had understood the allusion, did not answer. He walked
away, under the pretense of continuing his botanical researches in
the wood.
"If love were born at this moment in my heart, it would be most
untimely, it would have chosen its place very unfortunately. Does he
love as he is loved? That is what I should like to know. Is he capable
of perseverance? Who knows? It may be, Rose, that you will one day
lie weeping in my arms."
All three of them made their way back, Leonor walking a little ahead.
M. Hervart kept silence, for what he had to say demanded secrecy,
and commonplace words were impossible. Rose did not notice the
silence; she herself did not think of talking. She was happy, walking
dose to her lover. Sometimes, furtively she stretched out her hand
and squeezed one of his fingers. M. Hervart allowed his left arm to
hang limply on purpose. Leonor did not turn round once, and Rose
was grateful to him for that. M. Hervart, who felt that his secret had
been guessed, would have preferred a less deliberate, a less
suspicious discretion.
"What have these architects come to do here?" he wondered. "It
looks as though it had all been arranged by the Des Boys with a
view to getting off their daughter. Will they come back? Leonor
certainly will. And shall I be able to stay?"
His perplexities began again. When Rose's hand touched his own, he
felt himself her prisoner, her happy slave. As soon as the contact
was removed, he was seized by ideas of flight and liberty. He would
like to have called Leonor, flung Rose into his arms and made off
across country.
"I have never been so much disturbed by any amour. It's the
question of marriage. What complications! I hate this fellow Leonor.
But for him.... But for him? But is he the only man in the world? If I
don't take her, it will be somebody else." Suddenly he drew closer to
Rose and whispered frenziedly in her ear a stream of tender and
violent words, "Rose, I love you, I desire you with all my being, I
want you."
Rose started, but these words responded so exactly to her own
thoughts that she was only surprised by their suddenness. First she
blushed, then a smile of happy sweetness lit up her face and her
eyes shone with life and desire.
They soon rejoined Lanfranc and M. Des Boys, who were
confabulating over a glass of wine. A few minutes later the architects
got into their carriage.
At the moment when the groom let go of the horse's head, Leonor
turned round. Rose realised that the gesture was meant for her; she
slightly shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm going to do a little painting," said M. Des Boys.
"I caught sight of an interesting beetle at the top of the garden,"
said M. Hervart.
"I'm going up to my room," said Rose.
Five minutes later the two lovers had met again near the bench on
which M. Hervart had meditated in vain.
Without saying a word, Rose let herself fall into her lover's arms. Her
drooping head revealed her neck, and M. Hervart kissed it with more
passion than usual. His mouth pushed aside the collar of her dress,
seeking her shoulder.
"Let us sit down," she said at last, when she had had her fill of her
lover's mild caresses. And taking his head between her hands, she in
her turn covered him with kisses, but mostly on the eyes and on the
forehead. Desiring a more tender contact, he took the offensive,
seized the exquisite head and after a slight resistance made a
conquest of her lips. There was always, when they were sitting
down, a little struggle before he reached this point, although she
had often, when they were walking, offered him her lips frankly. On
the bench it was more serious, because it was slower and because
the kiss irradiated more easily throughout her body.
"No, Xavier, no!"
But she surrendered. For the first time, M. Hervart, having loosened
her bodice, touched the soft flesh of her breast, fluttering with fear
and passion. He kissed her violently, and when the kiss was slow in
coming she provoked it, amorously. A simultaneous start put an end
to their double pleasure; and there, sitting close to one another,
were a pair of lovers, at once happy and ill satisfied. One of them
was wondering if love had not completer pleasures to offer; and the
other was saying, what a pity that one is a decent man!
At the moment M. Hervart considered himself very reserved. Later,
when he had recovered his presence of mind a little more, he felt
certain scruples, for he was delicate and subject to headaches as a
result of indecisive pleasures. He felt proud of the at least partial
domination, which he could, at scabrous moments, exercise over his
nervous centres with his well-constructed, well-conditioned brain.
"Do you love your husband, little Rose?"
"Oh, yes!"
She roused herself to utter this exclamation with energy. M. Hervart
felt no further indecision. Furthermore, he began almost at once to
give a new direction to his thoughts. He wanted something to eat;
Rose acquiesced. As she was slow in getting up he wanted to pick
her up in his arms; but his arms, grown strangely weak, were
unequal to the light burden. M. Hervart felt, too, that his legs were
not as solid as they might have been. He would have liked to eat
and at the same time to lie down in the grass. He let himself fall
back on the bench.
"You look so tired," said Rose, inventing every kind of tenderness.
"Stay here, I'll bring you some cakes and wine."
But he refused and they went back together.
Cheered by a little sherry and some brioches, M. Hervart asked for
music. Rose, inexpert though she was, soothed her lover with all the
melodies he desired. She even sang to him. The songs were all
romances.
"Joys of the young couple," he said to himself, half dozing. "A picture
by Greuze. Nothing is lacking except the little spaniel dog and the
paternal old man looking in at the window and shedding a few quiet
tears 'inspired by memory' at the sight of this ravishing scene.
There, I'm laughing at myself, so that I can't be quite so badly done
for as might have been thought. Not so close a prisoner, either."
"Go and see my father," said Rose, leaving a verse half sung. "I'll
come and find you there later."
And she went on with her music.
"More and more conjugal, for I shall obey her after having, of
course, gone over: I kissed her in the neck. Dear child, she's waiting
for the surprise, shivering at it already...."
Everything went off as M. Hervart had predicted, but there was
something more. Rose turned round and said, after offering her lips:
"Go along, my darling, and mind you admire his painting a lot, more
than yesterday."
"Yes, my love."
"How charming it all is!" he said to himself as he knocked at the
studio door. "Delightful family conspiracies. Shall I be able to play
this part for long? Suppose I announce my intentions to my
venerable friend. Obviously there can be no more hesitation. Come
on!"
They talked of Ste. Clotilde. M. Hervart was loud in his praise both of
the historical knowledge as well as the pictorial skill of the master of
Robinvast, and at every word he uttered he felt a longing to make
the conversation touch on the conjugal virtues of that honourable
queen. Then the desire passed.
Dinner time came. Afterwards, as usual, they played a game of
whist. M. Hervart retired to bed with pleasure and, wearied by his
kisses and his thoughts, went to sleep full of the contentment that
comes from a pleasant fatigue.
"I shall have to warn Rose," he said to himself as soon as he woke,
rather late, next morning, "of her mother's schemes. They might
make her fall into some trap."
He soon found an opportunity. In the morning their kisses were
more reserved, still somnolent. They frittered away the time
pleasantly. M. Hervart would sometimes make a serious examination
of some rare insect: Rose worked at her embroidery with conviction.
They did not venture into the wood, because of the dew, but
remained in the neighbourhood of the house. At this hour of the day
M. Hervart was always particularly lucid. He discoursed on a hundred
different topics and Rose listened, without daring to interrupt, even
when she did not understand. She enjoyed the sound of his voice
much more than the sense of his words.
Rose was not surprised to learn of her mothers schemes. She
confessed, furthermore, that she had divined in M. Varin's attitude
the existence of quite definite intentions. It was therefore decided
that M. Hervart should make his request that very day in order to
forestall circumstances. Rose spoke so resolutely and her words
were so lyrical that M. Hervart felt all his absurd hesitations melt
away within him. She knew her parents' income and gave the figure,
very straightforwardly, like the practical woman she was. M. Des
Boys had an income of sixty thousand francs of which, she imagined,
he hardly spent half. There was no doubt that he would willingly give
the greater part of the other half to his only daughter. As she had
also calculated, though with less certainty, the value of M. Hervart's
fortune, she included decisively:
"We shall have from thirty to forty thousand francs a year."
M. Hervart calculated the figures again with the details that were
known to him personally and found the estimate correct. His
admiration for Rose was increased.
"She has all the virtues: an aptitude for love and the sense of
domestic economy, intelligence and very little education, health
without a striking beauty. Finally, she adores me and I love her."
At the first insinuations of his friend M. Des Boys smiled and said:
"I thought as much. My daughter has received but the vaguest
education. Her mother is incapable. As for me, I am interested only
in art. She needs a serious husband, a husband, that is to say, who
is not in his first youth. If she wants you, take her. I'll go and ask
her."
M. Hervart was on the point of saying there was no need. But luckily
he checked himself and M. Des Boys questioned his daughter.
"I should like to," she said.
M. Des Boys returned.
"She said, 'I should like to,' She said it without enthusiasm, but she
said it. Now go and arrange things yourselves. I shall go on with my
painting."
M. Hervart admired Rose still more for her astute answer.
The girl was waiting for him as he came towards her, serious,
scarcely smiling, but beautified by the profound emotion that she
could scarcely contain. She gave him her hand, then her forehead;
and when M. Hervart drew her into his arms, she burst into tears.

CHAPTER XI

Meanwhile Leonor had received a wound which he could not support

with patience. A hundred times a day he thought of Rose. He was
not in love with the woman, he was in love with her love. He saw
her as she had appeared to him in the wood at Robinvast, with her
whole desire, her whole will, her whole body, turned innocently
toward M. Hervart and he felt no jealousy; on the contrary, he
admired the ingenuous force of so confiding, so powerful a love. By
having been able to inspire such a love M. Hervart evoked in him an
almost superstitious respect; he would willingly have helped him in
his amour.
"I should like to know him," he said to himself naively; "I should ask
him for advice and lessons. I should beg him to reveal his secret to
me."
He would spend hours dreaming on this theme: to be loved like that.
In these matters the most intelligent easily become childish. The ego
is a wall that limits the view, rising higher in proportion as the man
is greater. There is, however, a certain degree of greatness from
which, when a man reaches it, he can always look over the top of
the wall of his egoism; but that is very rare. Leonor was not a rare
character; he was simply a man a little above the ordinary, capable
of originality and of learning from experience, clever at his
profession, apt at forming general ideas, sometimes refined and
sometimes gross, a peasant rather than a man of the world, a
solitary, cold of aspect, full of contradictions, ironic or ingenuous by
fits, tormented by sexual images and sentimental ideas.
He was not one of those in whom a budding love, even a love of the
head, abolishes the senses. The more he dreamed about Rose, the
more disquietingly tense grew his nerves. His desire did not turn
towards her; he caught himself one evening spying on the wife of
the Barnavast keeper, who was showing her legs as she bent over
the well. It made him feel rather ashamed, for this big Norman
peasant woman, so young and fresh, could boast, he imagined, of
nothing more than a peasant's cleanliness—wholly exterior, and he
would only, could only tolerate woman in the state of the nymph
fresh risen from the bath, like the companions of Diana.
Besides, he noticed that Lanfranc was making up to this good
creature and doing it in all seriousness. Sure of giving him
satisfaction by taking himself off for a few days, he drove to
Valognes and took the Paris train.
Leonor, without making pretensions to conquests, would have liked
to have certain kinds of adventures. He wanted to find one of those
women whom some careless husband, whether through avarice or
poverty, deprives of the joy of fashionable elegance or who, adorned
by a lover's prodigalities, dreams of giving for nothing the present
which they none the less very gladly sell. He had experienced these
equivocal good graces in the days when he lived in Paris. He had
even succeeded, during the space of eighteen months, in enchanting
a very agreeable little actress who fitted marvellously into the
second category, and he remembered how he had taken in a very
pretty and very poor young middle-class woman who had
surrendered herself to him because he had given himself out to be a
rich nobleman. At the moment his mistress was Mme. de la
Mesangerie, a local beauty; but he had never really possessed her as
he desired.
What Grand Turk ever ruled over such a harem? Paris, the cafés, the
concert halls, the theatres, the stations, the big shops, the gardens,
the Park! The women belong to whoever takes them; none belongs
to herself. None leaves her home in freedom and is sure of not
returning a slave. Leonor had no illusions with regard to the results
of his sensual quest He knew very well that he would captivate none
but willing slaves, slaves by profession, slaves by birth. But the hunt,
if the game came and offered itself graciously to the hunter, would
still have its attraction—that of choice; the fun would be to put one's
hand on the fattest partridge.
"No," he said to himself, as he walked down the Avenue de l'Opera,
"this child from Robinvast shall not obsess me thus hour by hour.
Any woman, provided she is acceptable to my senses, will deliver me
from this silly vision. Is there such a thing as love without carnal
desire? It would be contrary to physiological truth. If I love Rose, it
means that I desire her.... If I desire her, it means that I have
physical needs. Once these needs are satisfied, I shall feel no desire
for any woman and I shall stop thinking of this silly girl. Hervart can
do what he likes with her; I shan't mind; and, after all, will the
satisfaction which he derives from her be so different from that
which some unknown woman will lavish so generously on me? A
little coyness, does that add a spice? The sensation of a victory, a
favour is better. Shall I obtain a favour? Alas, no. But by paying for it
one can have the most perfect imitations. Ah! why am not I at
Barnavast, gauging cubes of masonry, with glimpses of Placide
Gerard's podgy thighs? Now I know just what will happen.... Does
one ever know? It's only eleven in the morning and I've got a week
before me."
Still pursuing his stroll and his reflections, he entered the Louvre
stores. Here, provincials and foreigners were parading their
requirements and their astonishments. One heard all the possible
ways of pronouncing French badly. It was an exhibition of provincial
dialects. He jumped on moving platforms and staircases, passed
down long files of stoves and lamps, went down again, traversed an
ocean of crockery, went upstairs, found leather goods, whips and
carriage lanterns, tumbled into lifts, was caught once more in a
labyrinth of endless drapery, and after having wandered for some
time among white leather belts garters and umbrellas, he found
himself face to face with Mme de la Mesangerie, who blushed.
"Is it a stroke of luck?" he wondered.
Perhaps it was, for she said to him very quickly:
"I'm alone. My husband has just gone back. I was going to wire to
you."
Then in a lower voice:
"Well here you are! I don't ask how it happened. Shall we profit by
the opportunity?"
"It seems to me that I was looking for you without knowing."
"I have two days," she said, "at least two days."
They left the shop, making their plans, which were very simple.
"Let's go," she said, "and shut ourselves up at Fontainebleau for a
couple of days."
"No, at Compiègne. It's more of a desert."
She wanted to start on the spot. Her provincial prudery seemed
suddenly to have flown away. She was no longer the calm mistress
who had never yielded except to the most passionate entreaties.
The proud-hearted woman was turning into the lover, full of
tenderness, a little reckless.
As he packed his bag, Leonor felt very happy, though still very much
surprised. He decided, however, that he would ask no equivocal
questions. The woman he was looking for, and whom he would not
have found, had just fallen into his arms. What was more, he knew
this woman, he was in love with her, though without passion; he had
derived from her furtive but delicious pleasures. She inspired him, in
a word, with the liveliest curiosity: he trembled at the thought that
he was now to see her in all her natural beauty.
"Is she as beautiful as she is elegant? Suppose I were to find a farm-
girl under the dress of the great lady."
Less than an hour after their meeting they were together in the
refreshment room of the Gare du Nord. They had time to eat a hasty
luncheon, then the train carried them off.
"I'm quite mad," she said, kissing Leonor's hands. "What an
adventure! It's I who have thrown myself at your head."
"I have thrown myself so often at your knees!"
"Very well, let it be understood that I am yielding to an old entreaty
—and to my own desire, my darling boy, for I love you. Haven't I
done what you would have liked often enough? But do you think I
didn't want to as much as you? A woman has so little freedom,
especially in a country place. How many women are there who
would dare do what I have done, even that little? Getting lost when
we were out shooting—that was all right for once. How frightened I
was when you got into my railway carriage, against orders, one
evening at Condé.... Many's the afternoon I've spent dreaming of
you, you wicked boy.... There, you make me quite shameless. I'm
glad."
And she took Leonor's head between her hands, kissing it all over, at
haphazard. Leonor had often seen her kissing her little boy or her
dog like that.
Hortense was thirty. She owed her name to certain Bonapartist
sentiments which, in her family, had survived by a few years the
events of 1870. Certain elegant habits of thought and manners had
also been preserved. Her father, M. d'Urville had been one of the
actors of Octave Feuillet's comedies, in this same Compiègne where
they were now arriving. At the age when girls begin to forget that
there are such things as dolls, she had read the complete works of
this shy passionate writer; her mother did not forbid her to look at
the Vie Parisienne, in which her happy frivolity had never seen
anything that might be dangerous for a well-bred girl. And so, when
she married, Hortense knew that though marriage may be a garden
surrounded by a wall, there are ladders to climb over this wall; the
only things she thought of in her husband were rank, fortune and
the conventions. Her first lover had been a young officer, with
whom, as with Leonor, she had lost her way hunting; only with him
it had been a stag-hunt. Leonor had participated only at an ordinary
shoot, M. de la Mesangerie, in view of the present hard times,
having broken up his pack of hounds. That affair had been of the
most fugitive character. Afterward she had received the advances of
M. de la Cloche, a once celebrated member of the Chamber of
Deputies; but M. de la Cloche voted the wrong way, and under the
cloak of political reasons M. de la Mesangerie closed his doors to
him, in spite of his wife, who concealed a real though momentary
despair. Finally M. Leonor Varin came to stay at La Mesangerie to
superintend certain repairs to the fine Louis XIII house. In this chilly
young man, so cold and yet so romantic as well as sensual, Hortense
had found a more durable love, which greatly increased her
happiness. Under a very skilfully calculated reserve, she adored
Leonor, who had, on his side, always shown himself obedient,
respectful, adroit and tender. She realised that the furtive pleasures
which she was able to give him without compromising herself did
not altogether satisfy her lover. She too, in whom the avid sensuality
of the woman of thirty had begun to wake, desired pleasures of a
less rapid and more complicated nature. Leonor's kisses and the
words he whispered had little by little filled her imagination with
images which she wanted to see in real life. How often she had
thought of running away! Two days in Paris! And now her husband
had given her these two days himself.
When she said, "I'm glad" she was confessing to the existence of a
happiness in which it still seemed impossible wholly to believe. She
pressed herself close to Leonor.
"Is it true? Are we really both of us here, alone and free?"
In a whisper she added, her bosom heaving with precipitate waves,
"I shall be yours, absolutely yours, at last."
"All mine, all?" asked Leonor, touching her mouth with his own.
"I belong to you."
She had the wisdom to withdraw, and looking out of the window she
asked:
"Where are we?"
"We are coming near our happiness," said Leonor.
They crossed the Oise, calm and gentle; then came the first houses
of Compiègne and in a moment the station. They felt a strange
emotion.
She did not wish to go to the Bell Hotel. A cab took them quickly to
the Stag. Leonor was paying it off, but Hortense, wiser than her
lover, kept it to do a round in the forest. She was pitiless and
laughed, but with passion in her laughter; she changed her clothes
and came down again.
They passed, without seeing it, before that elegant casket of stone
which is the town hall. Following the fringe of the Great Park they
reached the Tremble hills, where oaks and chestnut trees emerge,
like the sails of ships, above the green ocean of bracken. They got
down from the carriage with the intention of losing themselves for a
moment in this bitter-smelling sea. The woman's white dress and fair
hair left a luminous track as she advanced, for she was flying, like a
laughing nymph before the hoarse laughter of the faun.
"It was about time," she said when the carriage picked them up to
take them on to the Beaux-Monts.
"Time? what do you mean?"
"Yes," she went on, "I was too entranced.... We'll come back. Would
you like to? We'll come back every year.... One needs a lot of virtue
to resist the persuasions of the forest."
"Virtue," said Leonor, "consists in being able to defer one's pleasure
or one's happiness.... I should like to see you in this scented sea, a
nymph, a dryad, a siren...."
"Do you want to?... You're driving me crazy."
The climb up the slope of the Beaux-Monts calmed their nerves. The
carriage, which had come round by the circular road, was waiting for
them at the top. They stood for a little while looking at the mist-grey
distances.
They drove back by the Soissons road; they looked at nothing now
and, since it had grown cool, they drew closer together and sat with
clasped hands.
Leonor was thinking of the curious chances that had transported
him, in a day or two, from Barnavast into the forest of Compiègne
and had changed his profession from architecture to love. In spite of
the fact that it seemed absurd and almost indelicate, he began,
sitting in this carriage with his mistress's hand in his, to think of his
walk with Rose.
"Rose is the cause of it all. It is she who brought me here, not you,
poor darling, who sit dreaming at my side. It is she who made me
hungry for the kisses I reserve for you?? kisses that any other
woman might have received in your place.... Yes, squeeze my hand,
you may do it, for I really think I love you. I love you more than
chance, I love you more than the woman I was looking for, because
you are the woman I found. Besides, the perfume of your soul will
make sweet your own pleasure without thinking at all of mine. In
love, egotism is a homage; it is also a sign of confidence."
The moment came. Silence fell with the night. She strove to hide her
shyness under an impudent smile.
"Must I be a statue to please you? Am I a statue?"
"Your beauty would enchant me," he said, "even if it were not you.
Statue, are you made of marble?"
"You know I'm not."
She called to mind, though the moment seemed most inapposite,
her husband's pudicity, his discreet entries into the conjugal
chamber, the timidity of his caresses, the decency of his words, and
the sudden savagery after his almost brotherly conversation. M. de
la Mesangerie had explained to her that the final formality was
necessary for the procreation of children. "God," he added, "has so
ordered it, and we must bless his divine providence." He seemed to
regret the obligation of going so far and, whether through natural or
acquired foolishness, or whether through hypocrisy, he encouraged
his wife to believe that sensual pleasures were contemptible. "They
are," he even said, "a means and not an end." Following these
principles, he had deprived her of them as soon as her first child
seemed imminent. M. de la Mesangerie was very pious and prided
himself on the possession of a most enlightened and methodical
religion.
"That's the way," she said to herself, as she looped up her hair, "to
train up a wife for adultery."
Under the pretext of sticking a pin into her hair, she stood admiring
herself in front of the glass, and at the same time, at the risk of
offending her lover, who shouldn't have doubted the fact, she said,
"You're the only person who has seen me like this, you and I...."
When Leonor went to sleep she knelt beside his adored body and
pious words came to her lips: she had found the living god at last.
They had two days. They decided to finish the last hours at Paris
and they returned to shut themselves up in a hotel in the Rue de
Rivoli. Hortense was indefatigable.
"What shall we do to recapture this?" she asked.
The idea of taking a little house at Carentan seemed to them a good
one. Mme. de la Mesangerie would always have the pretext of going
to see her mother at Carquebut; her husband accompanied her
there only once a year.
"Yes," said Leonor; "there's the time between two trains, one hour;
then one misses one train. That makes two hours. Plenty of things
can be done in two hours."
"Lovers learn the art of using every moment."
To Hortense it seemed as though she had begun a new life, her real
life. She began consulting time-tables, fitting in her connections.
Then she tossed the booklet aside, saying:
"Bah! It would be much simpler to get divorced."
"Your husband's virtue stands in the way, my dear."
She did not insist. Nevertheless, at this moment, she would have
abandoned everything—family, children, house, fortune, honour—to
follow Leonor and become the wife of a little architect with a still
uncertain future. And then she would be the niece of Lanfranc,
whose mother used to sell cakes to the children in the Place Notre-
Dame at Saint-Lô! She had bought them from her when she was
ten. Her aristocratic instinct revolted, but she looked at Leonor and
reflected that the demigods were born of the peasant girls of Attica.
She pursued her idea.
"Your mother must have been very beautiful."
"Who told you so? It's quite true."
She wished to go to the station alone, refused to be seen off.
"When shall I see you? You're not going to stay on in Paris?"
"No."
Leonor kept his word. He saw Hortense starting for the station, with
red eyes, and an hour later he left in his turn.

CHAPTER XII

Satiated, languid with that fatigue which is a blessing to the body

and a joy for the lightened brain, Hortense was thinking. She was
not sorry to be returning home. The journey—what better pretext
could there be for the headaches which demand darkness and
silence, or long morning hours in bed, for siestas?
"I must sleep off my love, as drunkards say that one must sleep off
one's wine. But what a horrid comparison! I shall dream deliciously.
My lover, I have only to shut my eyes to see you, happy in my
happiness, and to feel your dear caresses. Tell me, are you pleased
with me? What must I do to be still more your mistress? Yes, I ought
not to have gone away; I ought to have stayed with you, at your
orders, forgetting everything that is not you. You should have run
and overtaken me, kept me, locked me up! But listen, I shall go and
see you every week. Oh! how gladly I shall tell lies! How pleasant it
will be for me to look M. de la Mesangerie in the face while he reads
around my eyes only the innocent fatigue of a long journey!"
The delirium of the senses invaded all her life. She scarcely
remembered the events that had preceded her trip to Compiègne.
She had spent more than an hour wondering if there were round
about St. Lô, or in the forest of Cerisy, any of these oceans of
bracken. She could not think of any; but she would look....
M. de la Mesangerie, who was waiting for her at the station, thought
she looked tired. She was not tired; she was in a state of
hallucination. However, she had enough presence of mind to
reproach her husband for having deserted her. Thus, she hadn't dare
fix definitely on the furniture which they had almost chosen
together; she had spent two days of indecision in the Louvre stores,
tiring every one, including herself.
"You must go back there by yourself," she said, "it will be your
punishment."
M. de la Mesangerie was flattered. But there was another
misfortune: the toys for the children had been forgotten. Hortense
felt rather ashamed when she confessed this; she also inwardly
regretted such an oversight.
"I am a lover, but I am also a mother."
For the first time the possibility of a conflict between two tendencies
of her heart occurred to her. A few minutes' shopping in the town
repaired her omissions, and meanwhile gave opportunity to send a
post card to Barnavast. After that she abandoned herself, with a
certain pleasure, to the re-discovery of familiar landscapes: they
were not so different as she might have thought.
Leonor went back with no lyrical ideas in his head, but none the less
very well satisfied.