“Her whole frail being had trembled, vibrated, been overcome.  I knew it.  She walked away before I had time to say a word, leaving me as surprised as if I had witnessed a miracle and as troubled as if I had committed a crime.

“I did not go in to breakfast.  I went to take a turn on the edge of the cliff, feeling that I would just as lief weep as laugh, looking on the adventure as both comic and deplorable and my position as ridiculous, believing her unhappy enough to go insane.

“I asked myself what I ought to do.  It seemed best for me to leave the place, and I immediately resolved to do so.

“Somewhat sad and perplexed, I wandered about until dinner time and entered the farmhouse just when the soup had been served up.

“I sat down at the table as usual.  Miss Harriet was there, eating away solemnly, without speaking to any one, without even lifting her eyes.  Her manner and expression were, however, the same as usual.

“I waited patiently till the meal had been finished, when, turning toward the landlady, I said:  ’Well, Madame Lecacheur, it will not be long now before I shall have to take my leave of you.’

“The good woman, at once surprised and troubled, replied in her drawling voice:  ’My dear sir, what is it you say?  You are going to leave us after I have become so accustomed to you?’

“I glanced at Miss Harriet out of the corner of my eye.  Her countenance did not change in the least.  But Celeste, the little servant, looked up at me.  She was a fat girl, of about eighteen years of age, rosy, fresh, as strong as a horse, and possessing the rare attribute of cleanliness.  I had kissed her at odd times in out-of-the-way corners, after the manner of travellers—­nothing more.

“The dinner being at length over, I went to smoke my pipe under the apple trees, walking up and down from one end of the enclosure to the other.  All the reflections which I had made during the day, the strange discovery of the morning, that passionate and grotesque attachment for me, the recollections which that revelation had suddenly called up, recollections at once charming and perplexing, perhaps also that look which the servant had cast on me at the announcement of my departure—­all these things, mixed up and combined, put me now in a reckless humor, gave me a tickling sensation of kisses on the lips and in my veins a something which urged me on to commit some folly.

“Night was coming on, casting its dark shadows under the trees, when I descried Celeste, who had gone to fasten up the poultry yard at the other end of the enclosure.  I darted toward her, running so noiselessly that she heard nothing, and as she got up from closing the small trapdoor by which the chickens got in and out, I clasped her in my arms and rained on her coarse, fat face a shower of kisses.  She struggled, laughing all the time, as she was accustomed to do in such circumstances.  Why did I suddenly loose my grip of her?  Why did I at once experience a shock?  What was it that I heard behind me?