“Morin asked himself:  ‘I wonder who she is?’ And a thousand conjectures, a thousand projects went through his head.  He said to himself:  ’So many adventures are told as happening on railway journeys that this may be one that is going to present itself to me.  Who knows?  A piece of good luck like that happens very suddenly, and perhaps I need only be a little venturesome.  Was it not Danton who said:  “Audacity, more audacity and always audacity”?  If it was not Danton it was Mirabeau, but that does not matter.  But then I have no audacity, and that is the difficulty.  Oh!  If one only knew, if one could only read people’s minds!  I will bet that every day one passes by magnificent opportunities without knowing it, though a gesture would be enough to let me know her mind.’

“Then he imagined to himself combinations which conducted him to triumph.  He pictured some chivalrous deed or merely some slight service which he rendered her, a lively, gallant conversation which ended in a declaration.

“But he could find no opening, had no pretext, and he waited for some fortunate circumstance, with his heart beating and his mind topsy-turvy.  The night passed and the pretty girl still slept, while Morin was meditating his own fall.  The day broke and soon the first ray of sunlight appeared in the sky, a long, clear ray which shone on the face of the sleeping girl and woke her.  She sat up, looked at the country, then at Morin and smiled.  She smiled like a happy woman, with an engaging and bright look, and Morin trembled.  Certainly that smile was intended for him; it was discreet invitation, the signal which he was waiting for.  That smile meant to say:  ’How stupid, what a ninny, what a dolt, what a donkey you are, to have sat there on your seat like a post all night!

“’Just look at me, am I not charming?  And you have sat like that for the whole night, when you have been alone with a pretty woman, you great simpleton!’

“She was still smiling as she looked at him; she even began to laugh; and he lost his head trying to find something suitable to say, no matter what.  But he could think of nothing, nothing, and then, seized with a coward’s courage, he said to himself: 

“‘So much the worse, I will risk everything,’ and suddenly, without the slightest warning, he went toward her, his arms extended, his lips protruding, and, seizing her in his arms, he kissed her.

“She sprang up immediately with a bound, crying out:  ‘Help! help!’ and screaming with terror; and then she opened the carriage door and waved her arm out, mad with terror and trying to jump out, while Morin, who was almost distracted and feeling sure that she would throw herself out, held her by the skirt and stammered:  ‘Oh, madame! oh, madame!’

“The train slackened speed and then stopped.  Two guards rushed up at the young woman’s frantic signals.  She threw herself into their arms, stammering:  ‘That man wanted—­wanted—­to—­to—­’ And then she fainted.