He tied the remains of his last pocket handkerchief round his neck, to prevent the cold water from running down his back and chest; but he soon found that it was penetrating the thin material of which his clothes were made, and he glanced round him with the agonized look of a man who does not know where to hide his body and to rest his head, and has no place of shelter in the whole world.

Night came on, and wrapped the country in obscurity, and in the distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark spot on the grass; it was a cow, and so he got over the ditch by the roadside and went up to her, without exactly knowing what he was doing.  When he got close to her, she raised her great head to him, and he thought:  “If I only had a jug, I could get a little milk.”  He looked at the cow, and the cow looked at him, and then suddenly giving her a violent kick in the side, he said:  “Get up!”

The animal got up slowly, letting her heavy udders hang down below her; then the man lay down on his back between the animal’s legs, and he drank for a long time, squeezing her warm swollen teats which tasted of the cow stall, with both hands, and he drank as long as any milk remained in that living well.  But the icy rain began to fall more heavily, and he saw no place of shelter on the whole of that bare plain.  He was cold, and he looked set a light which was shining among the trees, in the window of a house.

The cow had lain down again, heavily, and he sat down by her side and stroked her head, grateful for the nourishment she had given him.  The animal’s strong, thick breath, which came out of her nostrils like two jets of steam in the evening air, blew onto the workman’s face, who said:  “You are not cold, inside there!” He put his hands onto her chest and under her legs to find some warmth there, and then the idea struck him, that he might pass the night against that large, warm stomach.  So he found a comfortable place and laid his forehead against the great udder which had quenched his thirst just previously, and then, as he was worn-out with fatigue, he fell asleep immediately.

He woke up, however, several times, with his back or his stomach half frozen, according as he put one or the other to the animal’s flank.  Then he turned over to warm and dry that part of his body which had remained exposed to the night air, and he soon went soundly to sleep again.

The crowing of a cock woke him; the day was breaking, it was no longer raining and the sky was bright.  The cow was resting, with her muzzle on the ground, and he stooped down, resting on his hands, to kiss those wide nostrils of moist flesh, and said:  “Good-bye, my beauty ... until next time ... you are a nice animal ...  Good-bye ...”  Then he put on his shoes and went off, and for two hours he walked straight on before him, always following the same road, and then he felt so tired that he sat down on the grass.  It was broad daylight by that time, and the church bells were ringing; men in blue blouses, women in white caps, some on foot, some in carts, began to pass along the road, going to the neighboring villages to spend Sunday with friends or relations.