to sell my needles
and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain never said
much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also understood quite
well, that I also no longer appealed to anyone!

"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed an excursion into the country
to him, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed
without any distrust, and we arrived here this morning, about nine
o'clock.

"I felt quite young again when I got among the corn, for a woman's heart
never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is at
present, but just like he was formerly! That I will swear to you,
Monsieur. As true as I am standing here, I was intoxicated. I began to
kiss him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him.
He kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning!
What is the matter with you?...' I did not listen to him, I only
listened to my own heart, and I made him come into the woods with me....
There it is.... I have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole
truth."

The Mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and said:
"Go in peace, Madame, and sin no more ... under the trees."

A FAMILY

I was going to see my friend Simon Radevin once more, whom I had not had
a sight of for fifteen years. Formerly he used to be my most intimate
friend, and I used to spend long, quiet and happy evenings with him; he
was one of those men to whom one tells one's most intimate affairs of
the heart, for whom one finds, when conversing tranquilly, rare, clever,
ingenious and refined thoughts, which excite the mind and put it at its
ease.

For years we had scarcely been separated; we had lived, traveled,
thought and dreamt together; had liked the same things with the same
liking, had admired the same books, comprehended the same works,
shivered with the same sensations, and very often laughed at the same
individuals, whom we understood completely, by merely exchanging a
glance.

Then he married; quite unexpectedly he married a little girl from the
provinces, who had come to Paris in search of a husband. How ever could
that little, thin, insipidly fair girl, with her weak hands, her light,
vacant eyes, and her clear silly voice, who was exactly like a hundred
thousand marriageable dolls, have picked up that intelligent, clever
young fellow? Can anyone understand these things? No doubt he had hoped
for happiness, simple, quiet an