and face were afire, and he felt quite giddy. The odour
of the fowls and rabbits, the goat, and the pig, all mingled in one
pestilential stench. The atmosphere, laden with the ferments of life,
was too heavy for his maiden shoulders. And it seemed to him that
Desiree had grown taller, expanding at the hips, waving huge arms,
sweeping the ground with her skirts, and stirring up all that powerful
odour which overpowered him. He had only just time to open the wicket.
His feet clung to the stone flags still dank with manure, in such wise
that it seemed as if he were held there by some clasp of the soil.
And suddenly, despite himself, there came back to him a memory of
the Paradou, with its huge trees, its black shadows, its penetrating
perfumes.

'There, you are quite red now,' Desiree said to him as she joined him
outside the wicket. 'Aren't you pleased to have seen everything? Do you
hear the noise they are making?'

On seeing her depart, the birds and animals had thrown themselves
against the trellis work emitting piteous cries. The little pig,
especially, gave vent to prolonged whines that suggested the sharpening
of a saw. Desiree, however, curtsied to them and kissed her finger-tips
to them, laughing at seeing them all huddled together there, like so
many lovers of hers. Then, hugging her brother, as she accompanied him
to the garden, she whispered into his ear with a blush: 'I should so
like a cow.'

He looked at her, with a ready gesture of disapproval.

'No, no, not now,' she hurriedly went on. 'We'll talk about it again
later on---- But there would be room in the stable. A lovely white cow
with red spots. You'd soon see what nice milk we should have. A goat
becomes too little in the end. And when the cow has a calf!'

At the mere thought of this she skipped and clapped her hands with glee;
and to the priest she seemed to have brought the poultry-yard away with
her in her skirts. So he left her at the end of the garden, sitting in
the sunlight on the ground before a hive, whence the bees buzzed like
golden berries round her neck, along her bare arms and in her hair,
without thought of stinging her.

XII

Brother Archangias dined at the parsonage every Thursday. As a rule he
came early so as to talk over parish matters. It was he who, for the
last three months, had kept the Abbe informed of all the affairs of the
valley. That Thursday, while waiting till La Teuse should call them,
they strolled about