us and perplexing
need of such association. Since Madame Renardet's death he had suffered
continually without knowing why, he had suffered at not feeling her
dress brushing past him, and, above all, from no longer being able to
calm and rest himself in her arms. He had been scarcely six months a
widower and he was already looking about in the district for some young
girl or some widow he might marry when his period of mourning was at an
end.

He had a chaste soul, but it was lodged in a powerful, herculean body,
and carnal imaginings began to disturb his sleep and his vigils. He
drove them away; they came back again; and he murmured from time to
time, smiling at himself:

"Here I am, like St. Anthony."

Having this special morning had several of these visions, the desire
suddenly came into his breast to bathe in the Brindille in order to
refresh himself and cool his blood.

He knew of a large deep pool, a little farther down, where the people of
the neighborhood came sometimes to take a dip in summer. He went there.

Thick willow trees hid this clear body of water where the current
rested and went to sleep for a while before starting on its way again.
Renardet, as he appeared, thought he heard a light sound, a faint
plashing which was not that of the stream on the banks. He softly
put aside the leaves and looked. A little girl, quite naked in the
transparent water, was beating the water with both hands, dancing about
in it and dipping herself with pretty movements. She was not a child nor
was she yet a woman. She was plump and developed, while preserving an
air of youthful precocity, as of one who had grown rapidly. He no longer
moved, overcome with surprise, with desire, holding his breath with a
strange, poignant emotion. He remained there, his heart beating as if
one of his sensuous dreams had just been realized, as if an impure
fairy had conjured up before him this young creature, this little rustic
Venus, rising from the eddies of the stream as the real Venus rose from
the waves of the sea.

Suddenly the little girl came out of the water, and, without seeing him,
came over to where he stood, looking for her clothes in order to dress
herself. As she approached gingerly, on account of the sharp-pointed
stones, he felt himself pushed toward her by an irresistible force, by
a bestial transport of passion, which stirred his flesh, bewildered his
mind and made him tremble from head to foot.

She remained standin