ts of the street sellers.

A narrow path went beneath the trees, so they took it, and when they
came to a small clearing, they sat down.

Swarms of flies were buzzing around them and making a continuous, gentle
sound, and the sun, the bright sun of a perfectly still day, shone over
the bright slopes, and from that wood of flowers, a powerful aroma was
borne towards them, a breath of perfume, of that sweat of the flowers.

A church clock struck in the distance, and they embraced gently, then
clasped each other close, lying on the grass, without the knowledge of
anything except of that kiss. She had closed her eyes and held him in
her arms, pressing him to her closely, without a thought, with her
reason bewildered, and from head to foot in passionate expectation. And
she surrendered herself altogether, without knowing that she had given
herself to him. But she soon came to herself with the feeling of a great
misfortune, and she began to cry and sob with grief, with her face
buried in her hands.

He tried to console her, but she wanted to start, to return, and to go
home immediately, and she kept saying as she walked along quickly: "Good
heavens! good heavens!" He said to her: "Louise! Louise! Please let us
stop here." But now her cheeks were red and her eyes hollow, and as
soon as they got to the railway station in Paris, she left him, without
even saying good-bye.

III

When he met her in the omnibus next day, she appeared to him to be
changed and thinner, and she said to him: "I want to speak to you; we
will get down at the Boulevard."

As soon as they were on the pavement, she said: "We must bid each other
good-bye; I cannot meet you again after what has happened." "But why?"
he asked. "Because I cannot; I have been culpable, and I will not be so
again."

Then he implored her, tortured by desire, maddened by the wish of having
her entirely, in the absolute freedom of nights of love, but she replied
firmly: "No, I cannot, I cannot." He, however, only grew all the more
excited, and promised to marry her, but she said again: "No." And left
him.

For a week he did not see her. He could not manage to meet her, and as
he did not know her address, he thought that he had lost her altogether.
On the ninth day, however, there was a ring at his bell, and when he
opened it, she was there. She threw herself into his arms, and did not
resist any longer, and for three months she was his mistress. He was
beginning to gro