rose to her feet, confused
at having been found thus, fixed on me eyes as terrible as those of a
wild cat, surprised in open day.

Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly descry
her on the banks of the Falaise like a semaphore signal. She
passionately gazed at the vast sea, glittering in the sunlight, and the
boundless sky empurpled with fire. Sometimes I would distinguish her at
the bottom of a valley, walking quickly, with an English, elastic step;
and I would go towards her, attracted I know not by what, simply to see
her illuminated visage, her dried-up, ineffable features, which seemed
to glow with interior and profound happiness.

I would often encounter her also in the corner of a field sitting on the
grass, under the shadow of an apple tree, with her little Bible lying
open on her knee, which she looked at meditatively at the distance.

I could no longer tear myself away from that quiet country neighborhood,
being bound to it by a thousand links of love for its sweeping and soft
landscapes. At this farm I was unknown to the world, far removed from
everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good, healthy,
beautiful and green soil. And, must I avow it; there was something
besides curiosity which retained me at the residence of Mother
Lecacheur. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss
Harriet, and to know what passed in the solitary souls of those
wandering old, English dames.

II

We became acquainted in a rather singular manner. I had just finished a
study, which appeared to me to display play brain power; and so it must,
as it was sold for ten thousand francs, fifteen years later. It was as
simple, however, as that two and two make four, and had nothing to do
with academic rules. The whole of the right side of my canvas
represented a rock, an enormous rock, covered with sea-wrack, brown,
yellow, and red, across which the sun poured like a stream of oil. The
light, without which one could see the stars concealed in the back
ground, fell upon the stone, and gilded it as if by fire. That was all.
A first stupid attempt at dealing with light, burning rays, the sublime.

On the left was the sea, not the blue sea, the slate-colored sea, but a
jade of a sea, as greenish, milky and thick as the overcast sky.

I was so pleased with my work that I danced from sheer delight as I
carried it back to the inn. I had wished that the whole world could have
seen it