The entire company resolved to pay a visit to the celebrated poetess Madame Bergali upon Ascension Day.
When the hour came to return to Paséan that evening, the newly married lady made a show of stepping into a carriage for four, wherein her husband and her sister were already seated.
I found myself alone in a light two‑wheeled chaise.
I protested at once, declaring that such a marked distrust wounded me deeply; the others joined their remonstrances to mine, and she found herself obliged to take her place beside me.
"Take the short road," I told the postillion.
He nodded, cracked his whip, leaving the other carriages to follow the high‑road, and turned his horses toward the Cequini forest.
The sky had been pure and cloudless when we set out.
Yet scarcely half an hour had passed before the sirocco began to blow, thick masses of cloud gathered overhead, and the world grew dark.
It was one of those sudden, violent tempests so frequent in that region, which seem bent on overturning heaven and earth in their fury, yet which pass as swiftly as they come, leaving behind a cleansed sky and a refreshed, cool atmosphere, so that they often do more good than harm.
"Oh, heavens!" cried my companion, "we shall have a storm."
"So it appears," I replied. "And though the chaise is covered, the rain will spoil your pretty dress. I am truly sorry."
"I care nothing for the dress," she said, her voice already unsteady, "but the thunder frightens me terribly!"
"Then close your ears."
"And the lightning?"
I leaned forward. "Postillion, is there no shelter at hand?"
"Not for a league, signore," he called back over the wind, "and long before we reach it, the storm will have spent itself."
No sooner had he spoken than a flash of lightning tore the sky in two.
A brilliant, jagged wound of white fire.
The thunder that followed was not a distant rumble but a single, massive detonation directly over our heads, as if the firmament had cracked.
The chaise jolted; the horses reared against their harness, whinnying in panic.
My companion shuddered and clutched my arm.
When the next bolt struck the earth not twenty paces ahead, she cried out and fell bodily against me, trembling like a leaf.
I threw my cloak forward to shield us from the driving rain.
With every peal her fingers tightened on my sleeve.
The downpour now swept sideways into the chaise; the wheels bumped over gnarled roots.
Another blinding flare illuminated the forest, and she buried her face in my shoulder, breathless with terror.
Her sudden collapse had thrown us both off balance.
The rocking of the chaise, combined with the lurching of the horses, pressed her fully against me in a manner that was at once awkward and intimately suggestive.
Seizing the opportunity which fate and meteorology had so generously provided, I let my hand, which had been steadying her, slide to the folds of her skirt.
She attempted to pull them down, but another deafening crash seemed to deprive her of every particle of strength.
Covering her with the cloak, I drew her toward me; she fell across my lap in the most favourable position.
I lost no time.
Under pretence of securing my watch in my fob, I prepared myself for the assault.
On her side, conscious that unless she stopped me at once all was lost, she made a convulsive effort; but I held her firmly, whispering that if she did not feign a fainting fit the post‑boy would turn and see everything.
I let her enjoy the satisfaction of calling me an infidel, a monster -anything she pleased- but my victory, when it came, was the most complete a champion could desire.
The rain, however, continued to fall; the wind, which was very high, blew full in our faces, and, compelled to remain where she was, she murmured that I would ruin her reputation, for the postillion could see it all.
"I keep my eye upon him," I answered.
"He is not thinking of us; and even if he turned his head, the cloak shelters us entirely. Be quiet, and pretend to have fainted, for I will not let you go."
She seemed to resign herself then, her body relaxing incrementally against mine.
After a long moment, she asked in a tone of wonder mixed with lingering resentment, "How can you be so calm? How can you set the storm at defiance for… for this?"
"The storm, dear one, is my best friend today."
She almost appeared to believe me.
Her earlier terror had vanished, replaced by a dazed, post‑climactic languor.
Feeling the unmistakable evidence of my continued rapture, she enquired in a small voice, "Is it over? Have you done?"
I smiled and answered in the negative, stating that I could not release her until the tempest had passed.
"Consent to everything," I said softly, "or I let the cloak drop."
"Well, you dreadful man, are you satisfied, now that you have insured my misery for the remainder of my life?"
"No, not yet."
"What more do you want?"
"A shower of kisses."
"How unhappy I am! Well … here they are."
"Tell me you forgive me, and confess that you have shared all my pleasure."
"You know I did. Yes, I forgive you."
Then I gave her liberty, and, treating her to some very tender caresses, I begged her to show me the same kindness.
She set to work with a faint smile upon her pretty lips.
"Now tell me you love me," I whispered.
"No, I do not—for you are an atheist, and hell awaits you."
The weather had cleared as abruptly as it had darkened; the elements were calm again.
I kissed her hands and assured her the postillion had certainly seen nothing, and that I trusted I had cured her forever of her dread of thunder though she was not likely, I added, to reveal the secret of my remedy.
She answered that one thing at least was certain: no other woman had ever been cured by the same prescription.
"Why," said I, "the same remedy has very likely been applied a million times within the last thousand years. To tell you the truth, I had somewhat depended upon it when we entered the chaise together, for I knew no other way of obtaining the happiness of possessing you. But console yourself with the belief that, placed in the same situation, no frightened woman could have resisted."
"I believe you," she replied; "but for the future I shall travel only with my husband."
"You would be wrong," I returned, "for your husband would not have been clever enough to cure your fright in the way I have done."
"True again. One learns some curious things in your company but we shall not travel tête‑à‑tête again."
We reached Paséan a full hour before our friends.
We alighted from the chaise; my fair mistress fled at once to her chamber without a backward glance, while I lingered to settle with the postillion.
As I fished for a crown in my purse, I noticed the man was grinning broadly.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Oh, you know, signore."
"Here, take this ducat and keep a quiet tongue in your head."
At supper the conversation turned entirely upon the storm.
The official, who knew his wife's weakness, declared with a knowing look that he was quite certain I would never travel with her again.
"Nor I with him," his wife remarked coolly, "for in his dreadful impiety he exorcised the lightning with jokes."
After that evening, she practiced an artful disappearance whenever I entered a room. A talent, I admit, for which she had natural aptitude.
I never secured a second moment alone with her.