Gilt pins were stuck into tattered cravats. List slippers were held up by stitched straps. Two or three rough-types who held in their hands bamboo canes with leather loops, kept looking askance at their fellow-passengers; and family men opened their eyes wide as they asked questions. People chatted either standing up or squatting over their luggage; some went to sleep in various corners of the vessel; several occupied themselves by eating. The deck was soiled with walnut shells, buttends of cigars, peelings of pears, and the droppings of pork-butchers’ meat, which had been carried wrapped up in paper. Three cabinet-makers in smocks stood in front of the bar; a harp-player in rags was resting with his elbows on his instrument. Now and then could be heard the sound of falling coals in the furnace, a shout, or a laugh; and the captain kept walking on the bridge from one paddlebox to the other without ever stopping.

Frédéric, to get back to his place, pushed forward the gate leading into the part of the vessel reserved for first-class passengers, and in so doing disturbed two sportsmen with their dogs.

What he then saw was like an apparition:

She was seated in the middle of a bench all alone, or, at any rate, he could see no one else, dazzled as he was by her eyes. At the moment when he was passing, she raised her head; his shoulders bowed involuntarily; and, when he had seated himself, some distance away, on the same side, he glanced towards her.

She wore a wide straw hat with pink ribbons which fluttered in the wind behind her. Her black tresses, curving around the edges of her thick eyebrows, swept down very low, and seemed to lovingly caress the oval of her face. Her robe of pale, spotted muslin spread out in numerous folds. She was in the act of embroidering something; and her straight nose, her chin, her entire person was silhouetted against the background of the luminous air and the blue sky.

As she remained in the same position, he took several turns to the right and to the left to hide from her manoeuvres; then he placed himself close to her parasol which lay against the bench, and pretended to be looking at a sloop on the river.

Never before had he seen more lustrous dark skin, a more seductive figure, or more delicately shaped fingers than those through which the sunlight gleamed. He stared with amazement at her work-basket, as if it were something extraordinary. What was her name, her home, her life, her past? He longed to become familiar with the furniture in her room, all the dresses that she had worn, the people whom she visited; and the desire of physical possession yielded to a deeper yearning, a painful curiosity that knew no bounds.

A negress, wearing a silk kerchief tied round her head, made her appearance, holding by the hand a little girl already tall for her age. The child, whose eyes were swimming with tears, had just awakened. The lady took the little one on her knees. “Mademoiselle was not good, though she will soon be seven; her mother will not love her any more. She has been pardonned too often for being naughty.” And Frédéric heard those things with delight, as if he had made a discovery, an acquisition.

He assumed that she must be of Andalusian descent, perhaps a creole: had she brought this negress across with her from the West Indian Islands?

Meanwhile his attention was directed to a long shawl with violet stripes thrown behind her back over the copper support of the bench. She must have, many a time, out at sea wrapped it around her body; drawn it over her feet, gone to sleep in it! Frédéric suddenly noticed that being dragged down by its fringe it was slipping off, and it was on the point of falling into the water when, with a bound, he caught it. She said to him:

“Thank you, Monsieur.”

Their eyes met.

“Are you ready, my dear?” cried Arnoux, appearing at the hood of the companion-way.

Mademoiselle Marthe ran over to him, and, clinging to his neck, she began pulling at his moustache. The strains of a harp were heard—she wanted to see the music played; and soon the musician, led forward by the negress, entered the section reserved for saloon passengers. Arnoux recognized him as a man who had formerly been an artists’ model, and spoke to him in a familiar tone to the astonishment of the bystanders. Finally the harpist, flinging back his long hair over his shoulders, stretched out his arms and began playing.

It was an Oriental ballad all about daggers, flowers, and stars. The man in rags sang it in a piercing voice; the thumping of the engine broke the rhythm of the song unevenly. He played more vigorously: the chords vibrated, and their metallic sounds seemed to send forth sobs, and, as it were, the plaint of a proud and vanquished love. On both sides of the river, woods extended as far as the edge of the water. A current of fresh air swept past them, and Madame Arnoux gazed vaguely into the distance. When the music stopped, she fluttered her eyelids several times as if she were starting out of a dream.


The harpist approached them humbly. While Arnoux was searching his pockets for money, Frédéric stretched out towards the cap his closed hand, and then, opening it discreetly he deposited in it a louis dor. It was not vanity that had prompted him to offer such charity in her presence, but the idea of a blessing in which he thought she might share—an almost religious impulse of the heart.

Arnoux, pointing out the way, cordially invited him to go below. Frédéric declared that he had just had lunch; on the contrary, he was nearly dying of hunger; and he had not a single centime in his purse.

After that, it seemed to him that he had a perfect right, as much as anyone else, to remain in the cabin.

Ladies and gentlemen were seated at round tables, lunching, while an attendant went about serving coffee.