Athénaïse went away in the morning to make a visit to her parents, ten miles back on rigolet de Bon Dieu. She did not return in the evening, and Cazeau, her husband, not a little. He did not worry much about Athénaïse, who, he suspected, was resting only too content in the of her family; his chief was manifestly for the she had ridden. He felt sure those “lazy pigs,” her brothers, were capable of neglecting it seriously. This Cazeau communicated to his servant, old Félicité, who waited upon him at supper.
His voice was low pitched, and even softer than Félicité’s. He was tall, , swarthy, and altogether severe looking. His thick black hair waved, and it gleamed like the breast of a crow. The sweep of his mustache, which 40was not so black, outlined the broad contour of the mouth. Beneath the under lip grew a small tuft which he was much given to twisting, and which he permitted to grow, for no other purpose. Cazeau’s eyes were dark blue, narrow and overshadowed. His hands were coarse and stiff from close acquaintance with farming tools and , and he handled his fork and knife clumsily. But he was looking, and succeeded in commanding a good deal of respect, and even fear sometimes.
He ate his supper alone, by the light of a single coal-oil lamp that but faintly the big room, with its bare floor and huge rafters, and its heavy pieces of furniture that dimly in the gloom of the apartment. Félicité, ministering to his wants, about the table like a little, , restless shadow.
She served him with a dish of sunfish fried crisp and brown. There was nothing else set before him beside the bread and butter and the bottle of red wine which she locked carefully in the after he had poured his second glass. She was occupied with her mistress’s 41absence, and kept to it after he had expressed his solicitude about the pony.
“Dat beat me! on’y marry two mont’, an’ got de head turn’ a’ready to go ’broad. C’est pas Chrétien, ténez!”
Cazeau his shoulders for answer, after he had drained his glass and pushed aside his plate. Félicité’s opinion of the unchristian-like behavior of his wife in leaving him thus alone after two months of marriage weighed little with him. He was used to , and did not mind a day or a night or two of it. He had lived alone ten years, since his first wife died, and Félicité might have known better than to suppose that he cared. He told her she was a fool. It sounded like a compliment in his , voice. She to herself as she set about clearing the table, and Cazeau arose and walked outside on the gallery; his spur, which he had not removed upon entering the house, jangled at every step.
The night was beginning to deepen, and to gather black about the clusters of trees and that were grouped in the yard. In the beam of light from the open kitchen door a 42black boy stood feeding a of , hungry dogs; further away, on the steps of a cabin, some one was playing the ; and in still another direction a little negro baby was crying lustily. Cazeau walked around to the front of the house, which was square, and one-story.
A belated was driving in at the gate, and the impatient driver was swearing at his oxen. Félicité stepped out on the gallery, glass and polishing towel in hand, to investigate, and to wonder, too, who could be singing out on the river. It was a party of young people paddling around, waiting for the moon to rise, and they were singing Juanita, their voices coming tempered and through the distance and the night.
Cazeau’s horse was waiting, saddled, ready to be mounted, for Cazeau had many things to attend to before bed-time; so many things that there was not left to him a moment in which to think of Athénaïse. He felt her absence, though, like a dull, pain.
However, before he slept that night he was visited by the thought of her, and by a vision of her fair young face with its lips 43and and eyes. The marriage had been a blunder; he had only to look into her eyes to feel that, to discover her growing aversion. But it was a thing not by any possibility to be . He was quite prepared to make the best of it, and expected no less than a like effort on her part. The less she revisited the rigolet, the better. He would find means to keep her at home hereafter.
These unpleasant reflections kept Cazeau awake far into the night, notwithstanding the of his whole body for rest and sleep. The moon was shining, and its pale reached dimly into the room, and with it a touch of the cool breath of the spring night. There was an unusual stillness abroad; no sound to be heard save the distant, tireless, notes of the accordion.