My men had warned the innkeeper, and he was expecting me. My table was set in the white-washed room, by the side of another at which were already settled my love-stricken couple, face to face, with eyes fondly gazing upon each other. I felt ashamed at disturbing them, as though I were committing a mean and unbecoming action. They stared at me for a few seconds, and then resumed their low-toned conversation. The innkeeper who had known me for a long time took a seat near mine. He talked of wild boars, and rabbits, the fine weather, the _mistral,_ about an Italian captain who had slept at the inn a few nights before, and then, to flatter my vanity, he praised my yacht, the black hull of which I could see through the window, with its tall mast, and my red and white pennant floating aloft. My neighbours, who had eaten very rapidly, soon left. As for me, I dawdled about looking at the slight crescent of the moon, shedding its soft rays over the little roadstead. At last I saw my dingy nearing the shore, scattering lines of silver as it advanced through the pale motionless light that fell upon the water. When I went down to my boat, I saw the lovers standing on the beach gazing at the sea. And as I went off to the quick sound of the oars, I still distinguished their outlines on the shore, their shadows erect side by side. They seemed to fill the bay, the night, the heavens, with a symbolic grandeur, so penetrating was the atmosphere of love they diffused around them, so widespread over the far horizon. [Illustration 027] And when I had reached my yacht, I remained seated a long while on deck, overcome with sadness without knowing wherefore, filled with regrets without knowing why, unwilling even to decide on going down to my cabin, as though I would fain absorb a little more of the tenderness they had diffused around them. Suddenly, one of the windows of the inn was lit up, and I saw their profiles on the bright background. Then my loneliness overpowered me, and in the balminess of the springlike night, at the soft sound of the waves on the sand, under the delicate crescent shedding its rays over the sea, I felt in my heart such an intense desire of love, that I was near crying out in my envious distress. Then, all at once, I became ashamed of this weakness, and, unwilling to admit to myself that I was a man like another, I accused the moonshine of disturbing my reason. I have moreover always believed, that the moon exercises a mysterious influence on the human brain. It fills poets with vagaries, rendering them delightful or ridiculous, and produces on lovers' affections, the effect of Ruhmkorff's pile on electric currents. The man who loves in a normal manner under the sunlight, adores with frenzy under the moon.