square oars rang in the iron thwarts, and, in the stillness, seemed to mark time, like the beating of a metronome, while at the stern the rudder that trailed behind never ceased its gentle splash against the water.
Once the moon rose; they did not fail to make fine phrases, finding the orb melancholy and full of poetry. She even began to sing—
“One night, do you remember, we were sailing,” etc.
Her musical but weak voice died away along the waves, and the winds carried off the trills that Léon heard pass like the flapping of wings about him.
She was opposite him, leaning against the partition of the shallop, through one of whose raised blinds the moon streamed in. Her black dress, whose drapery spread out like a fan, made her seem more slender, taller. Her head was raised, her hands clasped, her eyes turned towards heaven. At times the shadow of the willows hid her completely; then she reappeared suddenly, like a vision in the moonlight.
Léon, on the floor by her side, found under his hand a ribbon of scarlet silk. The boatman looked at it, and at last said—
“Perhaps it belongs to the party I took out the other day. A lot of jolly folk, gentlemen and ladies, with cakes, champagne, cornets—everything in style! There was one especially, a tall handsome man with small moustaches, who was that funny! And they all kept saying, ‘Now tell us something, Adolphe—Dolpe,’ I think.”
She shivered.
“You are in pain?” asked Léon, coming closer to her.
“Oh, it’s nothing! No doubt, it is only the night air.”