He continued to eat, but more slowly, and dipping his bread into the soup.  His skin had become burning, and especially his forehead, where the veins were throbbing.  But suddenly the church bells began to ring; Mass was over, and instinct rather than fear, the instinct of prudence which guides all beings, and makes them clear-sighted in danger, made the carpenter get up.  He put the remains of the loaf into one pocket, and the brandy bottle into the other, and he furtively went to the window and looked out into the road.  It was still deserted, so he jumped out and set off walking again, but instead of following the highroad, he ran across the fields towards a wood which he saw a little way off.

He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so nimble that he sprang over the enclosures of the fields at a single bound and as soon as he was under the trees, he took the bottle out of his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew dim and his legs as elastic as springs and he started singing the old popular song.

    Oh! how nice, how nice it is,
    To pick the sweet, wild strawberries.

He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss and that soft carpet under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels, like he used to do as a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault, got up and began over again.  And between each time, he began to sing again: 

    Oh! how nice, how nice it is,
    To pick the sweet, wild strawberries.

Suddenly he found himself on the edge of a deep road and in the road he saw a tall girl, a servant who was returning to the village with two pails of milk.  He watched, stooping down and with his eyes as bright as those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him, raised her head and said:  “Was that you singing like that?” He did not reply, however, but jumped down into the road, although it was at least six feet down, and when she saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she exclaimed:  “Oh! dear, how you frightened me!”

But he did not hear her for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by another requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more feverish than alcohol; by the irresistible fury of the man who has been in want of everything for two months, and who is drunk; who is young, ardent and inflamed by all the appetites which nature has implanted in the vigorous flesh of men.

The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his half open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.

She let her two pails fall and they rolled over noisily, all the milk was spilt and then she screamed, but comprehending that it would be of no use to call for help in that lonely spot and seeing that he was not going to make an attempt on her life, she yielded without much difficulty, and not very angry neither, for he was a strong young fellow, but really not too rough.