And suddenly Danielle became the little girl she had once been in the memory of flowery fields and seeing the faces of her mother and father. She was carried away by this flood of thoughts and cried a long time.
It felt good to cry and no one seeing her cry like that would have dared to call her a whore. And yet…
“I want to leave without regrets,” she thought several minutes later when she began to rise from her depression.
Without regrets? Could she ever release herself from the indelible imprints left on her by passionate males?
No! It was too late to go back. But she wanted to try this test. Perhaps she would be able to find the serenity she had longed for.
The next day she paid her landlord off and when he asked if she would be gone for long she replied:
“Forever!” Then she took her suitcases and carried them to a taxi. Several curious heads poked out of windows. A neighborhood in a big city has its secret police. All the activities of its inhabitants are known.
“The whore is leaving,” said a young man who had been watching her for a long time without daring to approach her.
“Good riddance,” answered his mother, “one slut less is always nice to see!”
Danielle returned to the village she had left ten years earlier. Everything seemed changed to her. She didn't recognize many of the people. Some had died, others had left the village and gone to the city, hope and tomb of so many country beauties.
She found the cottage she had inherited from her parents in such a state of dilapidation that it hurt her to see it.
As soon as she entered, she went up to her own room. Poor little once-loved room! An odor of dampness came from the walls, from the uncovered bed, from the dusty chairs.
Danielle sat down heavily in a corner, putting her suitcases next to her. She looked around the room and her gaze stopped at a photograph showing her at sixteen.
She was ashamed of that candid face which was no longer hers and she tore it into a thousand pieces.
Then she went to open the windows and saw a vision of paradise in the discovery of the immense fields of wheat, barley, and corn whose frail stems moved gently in the light country breeze.
Farther off, a farmer was seeding his ground, pushing a couple of heavy, massive oxen in front of him. Closer, in a path that she knew so well, a troop of sheep were coming down from the hill to return to the flock. The joyous song of the cock rose, followed almost immediately by a powerful baying.
The thousand sounds of the hills struck her ears, so unaccustomed to these restful noises.
“I should never have left all this,” she thought. “And this is what I've become: a depository for human excrement!”
But boredom won out. A woman like she, accustomed to satisfying her whims, used to men, couldn't remain in such a state of emptiness.
She recognized an old servant who often came to her parents' house and asked her to keep her company.
“I'll pay you, certainly. But you see, if I go on living with my memories, I'll be miserable and perhaps I'll become ill!”
The servant, who had known her as a little girl and who was all alone now, couldn't resist the young woman's charm. She said she would care for her. Danielle gave her a sum of money and had no household worries.
She ate the food that the old woman prepared, always having the heat of a dream in her veins that made her disinterested in eating.
Every day since her return to the dwelling in which so many regrets left her pensive, the young woman walked through the fields, through the streets of the village, and her proud bearing cut the villagers' whispering short.
As they saw this woman passing by, whom everyone knew was a native of the country, the people took joy in greeting her with a little wave which she politely returned.
But the days that dragged on were to bring a resurgence of her physical obsession.
And in Danielle's heart, a song of passion and love tried to cast its notes to the echoes of the hills for the last time.
CHAPTER NINE
As she walked through the streets of the village, the young woman gradually regained an almost simple mentality filled with ambition. As she watched those worn people, knowing only their native horizons, always following identical occupations, a puff of serenity exalted the woman's soul.
She felt herself becoming the dreamy, fearful child who had evaded the exigencies of society for so long, and there, in the bushes filled with the songs of birds, under the caress of the sun, the past returned to her, murmuring the existence of her ancestors.
These long walks and her provocative carriage had attracted the attention of several men. A woman represented a body to be enjoyed to these strange beings. Never having known anything but their village females, with their dry and wrinkled skin, the whore made them imagine forbidden pleasures they would never have dared to take with their regular women.
Among these country males there was one young man who was remarkably handsome, with a powerful musculature and a face tanned by the strong winds. He often waved to her, noticing her in her attractive little dress as she walked toward the fields.
She had noticed him and was proud of her success. A little wave of her hand put that clown in a sickening state of arousal.
One day he dared to stand in her way and, perhaps without understanding it himself, he spoke to her:
“Miss, the reason I'm stopping to talk to you is that my eyes have followed you everywhere you went ever since you've been here. Forgive me! I haven't had much schooling. My father didn't send me to school, but…”
“What's your name?” the young woman answered without letting him finish.
Happy that she hadn't repulsed him, he said:
“Anthony! Tony… to those who know me. It must seem funny to you to be talking to a farmer.”
“No! You're wrong. I lived here as a child. My parents had the same house I live in now and, like you, I often felt foreign to the people of the village. I played in the streets here for a long time. You were only a little boy when I left. But perhaps you had already noticed me?”
“Perhaps. I don't remember.”
They walked side by side, then parted with a handshake.
“A handsome man,” Danielle thought. “That's the kind of man I would have liked for a husband.”
And at this thought she smiled at her reflection in the mirror, for she knew that the dream she had had for so long was not impossible.
A month passed.
Then one beautiful morning the surprised village heard the announcement of the marriage of Anthony to Danielle!
The eve of the ceremony, Tony was at the inn with some friends. The severe father was standing in front of his wine jug, staring at his son who was talking to a group of three or four young people.
“Tony, you're being stupid,” said one of his friends. “Think of what you're doing.”
“I love her and that's enough. She's beautiful and sweet and if you knew how lovely her lips were…”
“Yes, you're making a mistake,” repeated his father… and he took a gulp of wine.
“I know that she lived in the city, but what difference does that make? Anyway, I've chosen her for my wife.
“Or she chose you,” said another friend.
“What difference does it make?”
“Enough, Tony. Do what you like. You're free. But we've warned you.”
The marriage took place without pomp. Some people laughed and said “that poor bugger,” as Tony was called from then on.
For Danielle, these official ties which she had so desired, protected her from her endless desires, from disgusting males who fucked her shamelessly.
The married couple went to live in the young woman's house. The first night, when they felt their bodies against one another, it wasn't the man who initiated the woman, but the contrary!