“What is this? Why do you want to—you have not been unfaithful to her?”
“Yes, at least just the same as being untrue, for it did not depend on me. I was ready to do so. I was hindered, or else I should … now. I do not know what I should have done …”
“But please, explain to me …”
“Well, it is like this. When I was a bachelor I was stupid enough to have relations with a woman here in our village. That is to say, I used to have meetings with her in the forest, in the field …”
“Was she pretty?” asked his uncle.
Eugène frowned at this question, but he was in such need of external help that he made as if he did not hear it, and continued: