son of her weak intellect that she was drawn
towards animals. She was never happy save with them; she understood
their language far better than that of mankind, and looked after them
with motherly affection. Her reasoning powers were deficient, but
in lieu thereof she had an instinct which put her on a footing of
intelligence with them. At their very first cry of pain she knew what
ailed them; she would choose dainties upon which they would pounce
greedily. A single gesture from her quelled their squabbles. She seemed
to know their good or their evil character at a glance; and related
such long tales about the tiniest chick, with such an abundance and
minuteness of detail, as to astound those to whom one chicken was
exactly like any other. Her farmyard had thus become a country, as it
were, over which she reigned; a country complex in its organisation,
disturbed by rebellions, peopled by the most diverse creatures whose
records were known to her alone. So accurate was her instinct that she
detected the unfertile eggs in a sitting, and foretold the number of a
litter of rabbits.

When, at sixteen, Desiree became a young woman, she retained all her
wonted health; and rapidly developed, with round, free-swaying bust,
broad hips like those of an antique statue, the full growth indeed of
a vigorous animal. One might have thought that she had sprung from the
rich soil of her poultry-yard, that she absorbed the sap with her sturdy
legs, which were as firm as young trees. And nought disturbed her
amidst all this plenitude. She found continuous satisfaction in being
surrounded by birds and animals which ever increased and multiplied,
their fruitfulness filling her with delight. Nothing could have been
healthier. She innocently feasted on the odour and warmth of life,
knowing no depraved curiosity, but retaining all the tranquillity of a
beautiful animal, simply happy at seeing her little world thus multiply,
feeling as if she thereby became a mother, the common natural mother of
one and all.

Since she had been living at Les Artaud, she had spent her days in
complete beatitude. At last she was satisfying the dream of her life,
the only desire which had worried her amidst her weak-minded puerility.
She had a poultry-yard, a nook all to herself, where she could breed
animals to her heart's content. And she almost lived there, building
rabbit-hutches with her own hands, digging out a pond for the ducks,
knocking in nails, fetchin