Renardet, standing up, his head bare, gazed at the vast tract of country before him, the meadows to the left and to the right the village whose chimneys were beginning to smoke in preparation for the morning meal.  At his feet he saw the Brindille flowing amid the rocks, where he would soon be crushed to death.  He felt new life on that beautiful frosty morning.  The light bathed him, entered his being like a new-born hope.  A thousand recollections assailed him, recollections of similar mornings, of rapid walks on the hard earth which rang beneath his footsteps, of happy days of shooting on the edges of pools where wild ducks sleep.  All the good things that he loved, the good things of existence, rushed to his memory, penetrated him with fresh desires, awakened all the vigorous appetites of his active, powerful body.

And he was about to die!  Why?  He was going to kill himself stupidly because he was afraid of a shadow-afraid of nothing!  He was still rich and in the prime of life.  What folly!  All he needed was distraction, absence, a voyage in order to forget.

This night even he had not seen the little girl because his mind was preoccupied and had wandered toward some other subject.  Perhaps he would not see her any more?  And even if she still haunted him in this house, certainly she would not follow him elsewhere!  The earth was wide, the future was long.

Why should he die?

His glance travelled across the meadows, and he perceived a blue spot in the path which wound alongside the Brindille.  It was Mederic coming to bring letters from the town and to carry away those of the village.

Renardet gave a start, a sensation of pain shot through his breast, and he rushed down the winding staircase to get back his letter, to demand it back from the postman.  Little did it matter to him now whether he was seen, He hurried across the grass damp from the light frost of the previous night and arrived in front of the box in the corner of the farmhouse exactly at the same time as the letter carrier.

The latter had opened the little wooden door and drew forth the four papers deposited there by the inhabitants of the locality.

Renardet said to him: 

“Good-morrow, Mederic.”

“Good-morrow, Monsieur le Maire.”

“I say, Mederic, I threw a letter into the box that I want back again.  I came to ask you to give it back to me.”

“That’s all right, Monsieur le Maire—­you’ll get it.”

And the postman raised his eyes.  He stood petrified at the sight of Renardet’s face.  The mayor’s cheeks were purple, his eyes were anxious and sunken, with black circles round them, his hair was unbrushed, his beard untrimmed, his necktie unfastened.  It was evident that he had not been in bed.

The postman asked: 

“Are you ill, Monsieur le Maire?”

The other, suddenly comprehending that his appearance must be unusual, lost countenance and faltered: