At other times, on the contrary, I enjoy everything as an animal does. If my spirit, restless, agitated, hypertrophied by work, bounds onward to hopes that are not those of our race, and then after having realised that all is vanity, falls back into a contempt for all that is, my animal body at least, is enraptured with all the intoxication of life. Like the birds, I love the sky, like the prowling wolf, the forests; I delight in rocky heights, like a chamois; the thick grass, I love to roll in and gallop over like a horse, and, like a fish, I revel in the clear waters. I feel thrilling within me, the sensations of all the different species of animals, of all their instincts, of all the confused longings of inferior creatures. I love the earth as they do, not as other men do; I love it without admiring it, without poetry, without exultation; I love with a deep and animal attachment, contemptible yet holy, all that lives, all that grows, all we see; for all this, leaving my spirit calm, excites only my eyes and my heart: the days, the nights, the rivers, the seas, the storms, the woods, the hues of dawn, the glance of woman, her very touch. The gentle ripple of water on the sandy shore, or on the rocky granite affects and moves me, and the joy that fills me as I feel myself driven forward by the wind, and carried along by the waves, proceeds from the abandonment of myself, to the brutal and natural forces of creation, from my return to a primitive state. When the weather is beautiful as it is to-day, I feel in my veins the blood of the lascivious and vagabond fauns of olden times. I am no longer the brother of mankind, but the brother of all creatures and all nature! * * * * * The sun mounts above the horizon. The breeze dies away as it did the day before yesterday; but the west wind foretold by Bernard, does not rise any more than the easterly one, announced by Raymond. Till ten o'clock, we float motionless like a wreck, then a little breath from the open sea starts us on our road, falls, rises again, seems to mock us, glancing across the sail, promising at each moment a breeze that does not come. It is nothing, a mere whiff, a flutter of a fan; nevertheless it is sufficient to prevent our being stationary. The porpoises, those clowns of the sea, play about around us, dashing out of the water with rapid bounds, as though they would take flight, striking into the air like lightning, then plunging and rising again further off. [Illustration 024] At about one o'clock, as we lay broadside on to Agay, the breeze completely gave way, and I realized that I should sleep out at sea if I did not man the boat to tow the yacht and take shelter in the bay. I therefore made the two men get into the dingy, and when at a distance of some thirty yards or so, they began to tug me along. A fierce sun was glaring on the water, and its burning rays beat down upon the decks. [Illustration 025]