square and full of roses, and a terrace
extensive enough for you to walk along it in ten steps, are my
drawing-room, my study, and gallery. My bed-room is rather
large--it is decorated with a red cotton curtained bed--a real
peasant's bed, hard and flat, two straw chairs, and a white wooden
table. My window is situated six feet above the terrace. By the
trellised trees on the wall I can get out and in, and stroll at
night among my thirty feet of flowers without having to open a door
or wake anyone.

Sometimes I go out riding alone, at dusk. I come in towards
midnight. My cloak, my rough hat, and the melancholy trot of my
nag, make me pass in the darkness for a commercial traveller, or a
farm-boy.

One of my grand amusements is to watch the transition from night to
day; it effects itself in a thousand different manners. This
revolution, apparently so uniform, has every day a character of its
own.

The summer that had set in was unusually hot and sultry. Writing to
Madame d'Agoult, July 10, 1836, she thus describes her enjoyment of a
season that allowed of some of the pleasures of primitive existence:--

I start on foot at three in the morning, fully intending to be back
by eight o'clock; but I lose myself in the lanes; I forget myself
on the banks of the river; I run after butterflies; and I get home
at midday in a state of torrefaction impossible to describe.

Another time the sight of the cooling stream is more than she can
resist, and she walks into the Indre fully dressed; but a few minutes
more and the sun has dried her garments, and she proceeds on her walk of
ten or twelve miles--"Never a cockchafer passes but I run after it."

You have no idea of all the dreams I dream during my walks in the
sun. I fancy myself in the golden days of Greece. In this happy
country where I live you may often go for six miles without meeting
a human creature. The flocks are left by themselves in pastures
well enclosed by fine hedges; so the illusion can last for some
time. One of my chief amusements when I have got out to some
distance, where I don't know the paths, is to fancy I am wandering
over some other country with which I discover some resemblance. I
recollect having strolled in the Alps, and fancied myself for hours
in America. Now I picture to myself an Arcadia in Berry.