It was impossible for me to mistake the nature of the impression I had just produced; there was nothing flattering about it.  However, I am thirty-five years of age, and the more or less kindly glance of a woman is no longer sufficient to disturb the serenity of my soul.  I followed with a smiling look the flying Amazon.  At the extremity of the avenue in which I had just failed to make her conquest, she turned abruptly to the left, to go and take a parallel road.  I only had to cross the adjoining thicket to see her overtake a cavalcade composed of ten or twelve persons, who seemed to be waiting for her, and to whom she shouted from a distance, in a broken voice: 

“Gentlemen! gentlemen! a wild man! there is a wild man in the forest!”

My interest being highly excited by this beginning, I settle myself comfortably behind a thick bush, with eye and ear equally attentive.  They crowd around the lady; it is supposed at first that she is jesting, but her emotion is too serious to have been causeless.  She saw, distinctly saw, not exactly a savage, perhaps, but a man in rags, whose tattered blouse seemed covered with blood, whose face, hands, and whole person were repulsively filthy, whose beard was frightful, and whose eyes half protruded from their sockets; in short, an individual, by the side of whom the most atrocious of Salvator Rosa’s brigands would be as one of Watteau’s shepherds.  Never did a man’s vanity enjoy such a treat!  This charming person added that I had threatened her, and that I had jumped at her horse’s bridle like the specter of the forest of Mans.[A]

The response to this marvelous story is a general and enthusiastic shout: 

“Let us chase him! let us surround him! let us track him! hip, hip, hurrah!”—­whereupon the whole cavalry force starts off at a gallop in the direction given by the amiable story teller.

I had, to all appearances, but to remain quietly ensconced in my hiding-place in order to completely foil the hunters who were going in search of me in the avenue where I had met the beautiful Amazon.  Unfortunately, I had the unlucky idea, for greater safety, of making my way into the opposite thicket.  As I was cautiously crossing the open space, a wild shout of joy informs me that I have been discovered; at the same time, I see the whole squadron wheeling about and coming down upon me like a torrent.  There remained but one reasonable course for me to pursue; it was to stop, to affect the surprise of a quiet stroller disturbed in his walk, and to disconcert my assailants by an attitude at once simple and dignified; but, seized with a foolish shame which it is easier to conceive than to explain—­convinced, moreover, that a vigorous effort would be sufficient to rid me of this importunate pursuit and to spare me the annoyance of an explanation—­I commit the error—­the ever deplorable error—­of hurrying on faster, or rather, to be frank with you, of running away as fast as my legs would carry me.  I cross the road like a hare, I penetrate into the thicket, greeted on my passage with a volley of joyous clamors.  From that moment my fate was sealed; all honorable explanation became impossible for me; I had ostensibly accepted the struggle with its most extreme chances.