The Fête At Coqueville | Page 3

he did not fly, he took
on an air gentle and melancholy which left her abashed, stifled, not
regaining her wrath until he was some distance away. Surely, if her
father saw her he would smite her again. But she boasted in vain that
Delphin would some day get that pair of slaps she had promised him;
she never seized the moment to apply them when he was there; which
made people say that she ought not to talk so much, since in the end she
kept the slaps herself.
No one, however, supposed she could ever be Delphin's wife. In her
case they saw the weakness of a coquette. As for a marriage between
the most beggardly of the Mahés, a fellow who had not six shirts to set

up housekeeping with, and the daughter of the mayor, the richest
heiress of the Floches, it would seem simply monstrous.
Evil tongues insinuated that she could perfectly go with him all the
same, but that she would certainly not marry him. A rich girl takes her
pleasure as it suits her; only, if she has a head, she does not commit a
folly. Finally all Coque-ville interested itself in the matter, curious to
know how things would turn out. Would Delphin get his two slaps? or
else Margot, would she let herself be kissed on both cheeks in some
hole in the cliff? They must see! There were some for the slaps and
there were some for the kisses. Coqueville was in revolution.
In the village two people only, the curé and the garde champêtre?
belonged neither to the Mahés nor to the Floches. The garde champêtre,
{2} a tall, dried-up fellow, whose name no one knew, but who was
called the Emperor, no doubt because he had served under Charles X,
as a matter of fact exercised no burdensome supervision over the
commune which was all bare rocks and waste lands. A sub-prefect who
patronized him had created for him the sinecure where he devoured in
peace his very small living.
2 Watchman.
As for the Abbé Radiguet, he was one of those simple-minded priests
whom the bishop, in his desire to be rid of him, buries in some out of
the way hole. He lived the life of an honest man, once more turned
peasant, hoeing his little garden redeemed from the rock, smoking his
pipe and watching his salads grow. His sole fault was a gluttony which
he knew not how to refine, reduced to adoring mackerel and to drinking,
at times, more cider than he could contain. In other respects, the father
of his parishioners, who came at long intervals to hear a mass to please
him.
But the curé and the garde champêtre were obliged to take sides after
having succeeded for a long time in remaining neutral. Now, the
Emperor held for the Mahés, while the Abbé Radiguet supported the
Floches. Hence complications. As the Emperor, from morning to night,
lived like a bourgeois [citizen], and as he wearied of counting the boats

which put out from Grand-port, he took it upon himself to act as village
police. Having become the partizan of the Mahés, through native
instinct for the preservation of society, he sided with Fouasse against
Tupain; he tried to catch the wife of Rouget in flagrante delicto with
Brisemotte, and above all he closed his eyes when he saw Delphin
slipping into Margot's courtyard. The worst of it was that these tactics
brought about heated quarrels between the Emperor and his natural
superior, the mayor La Queue. Respectful of discipline, the former
heard the reproaches of the latter, then recommenced to act as his head
dictated; which disorganized the public authority of Coqueville. One
could not pass before the shed ornamented with the name of the town
hall without being deafened by the noise of some dispute. On the other
hand, the Abbé Radiguet rallied to the triumphant Floches, who loaded
him with superb mackerel, secretly encouraged the resistance of
Rouget's wife and threatened Margot with the flames of hell if she
should ever allow Delphin to touch her with his finger. It was, to sum
up, complete anarchy; the army in revolt against the civil power,
religion making itself complaisant toward the pleasures of the
bourgeoisie; a whole people, a hundred and eighty inhabitants,
devouring each other in a hole, in face of the vast sea, and of the
infinite sky.
Alone, in the midst of topsy-turvy Coqueville, Delphin preserved the
laughter of a love-sick boy, who scorned the rest, provided Margot was
for him. He followed her zigzags as one follows hares. Very wise,
despite his simple look, he wanted the curé to marry them, so that his
bliss might last forever.
One evening, in a byway where he was watching