I know all right I was getting
violent, I was getting out of control.
"Mark me. I don't want to say more about it than I have said. She's
a good lass, Clotilde. I know her, and I've confidence in her. I'm
not far wrong, you know. If I were done in, she'd cry all the tears
in her body to begin with. She thinks I'm alive, I admit, but that
isn't the point. She can't prevent herself from being; well off, and
contented, and letting herself go, when she's a good fire, a good
lamp, and company, whether I'm there or not--"
I led Poterloo away: "You exaggerate, old chap; you're getting
absurd notions, come." We had walked very slowly and were still at
the foot of the hill. The fog was becoming like silver as it
prepared for departure. Sunshine was very near.
* * * * * *
Poterloo looked up and said, "We'll go round by the Carency road and
go in at the back." We struck off at an angle into the fields. At
the end of a few minutes he said to me, "I exaggerate, you think?
You say that I exaggerate?" He reflected. "Ah!" Then he added, with
the shaking of the head that had hardly left him all the morning,
"What about it? All the same, it's a fact--"
We climbed the slope. The cold had become tepidity. Arrived on a
little plateau--"Let's sit here again before going in," he proposed.
He sat down, heavy with the world of thought that entangled him. His
forehead was wrinkled. Then he turned towards me with an awkward
air, as if he were going to beg some favor: "Tell me, mate, I'm
wondering if I'm right.
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