The pig waddled in; he was no longer the little pig of former days--pink as a newly painted toy, with a tiny little tail, like a bit of string; but a fat wobbling creature, fit to be killed, with a belly as round as a monk’s, and a back all bristling with rough hairs, that reeked of fatness. His stomach had grown quite yellow from his habit of sleeping on the manure heap. Waddling along on his shaky feet, he charged with lowered snout at the scared fowls, and so left Desirée at liberty to escape, and take the rabbits the few scraps of green stuff which she had so strenuously defended. When she came back, all was peace again. The stupid, ecstatic-looking geese were lazily swaying their long necks about, the ducks and turkeys were waddling in ungainly fashion alongside the wall; the fowls were quietly clucking and peaking at invisible grains on the hard ground of the stable; while the pig, the goat, and the big cow, were drowsily blinking their eyes, as though they were falling asleep. Outside it had just begun to rain. ‘Ah! well, there’s a shower coming on!’ cried Desirée, throwing herself down on the straw. ‘You had better stay where you are, my dears, if you don’t want to get soaked.’ Then she turned to Albine and added: ‘How stupid they all look, don’t they? They only wake up just to eat!’ Albine still remained silent. The merry laughter of that buxom girl as she struggled amidst those greedy necks and gluttonous beaks, which tickled and kissed her, and seemed bent on devouring her very flesh, had rendered the unhappy daughter of the Paradou yet paler than she had been before. So much gaiety, so much vitality, so much boisterous health made her despair. She strained her feverish arms to her desolate bosom, which desertion had parched. ‘And Serge?’ she asked again, in the same clear, stubborn voice. ‘Hush!’ said Desirée. ‘I heard him just now. He hasn’t finished yet---- We have been making a pretty disturbance; La Teuse must surely have grown deaf this afternoon---- Let us keep quiet now. I like to hear the rain fall.’ The shower beat in at the open doorway, casting big drops upon the threshold. The restless fowls, after venturing out for a moment, had quickly retreated to the far end of the stable; where, indeed, with the exception of three ducks who remained quietly walking in the rain, all the pets had now taken refuge, clustering round the girl’s skirts. It was growing very warm amongst the straw. Desirée pulled two big trusses together, made a bed of them, and lay down at full length. She felt extremely comfortable there. ‘It is so nice,’ she murmured. ‘Come and lie down like me. It is so springy and soft, all this straw; and it tickles one so funnily in the neck. Do you roll about in the straw at home? There is nothing I am fonder of---- Sometimes I tickle the soles of my feet with it. That is very funny, too----’ But at that moment, the big yellow cock, who had been gravely stalking towards her, jumped upon her breast.