I used to go out, walk through the village and seat myself on a stump on the Quimper road, at the foot of a long acclivity, waiting for the postman to arrive. The road, laid out in the midst of rocks, is flanked on one side by a long embankment topped by fir trees, on the other side it dominates a small arm of the sea, which winds round the heath, bare and flat, in the midst of which puddles are shining. Here and there cones of grey rock rise up in the air; a few pines spread their blue crowns in the foggy atmosphere. Over my head, ravens never cease flying, strung out in a black and endless line, hastening toward I know not what voracious feasts, and the wind brings the sad tinkling of bells hung on the necks of the scattered cows, grazing upon the niggardly grass of the heath. As soon as I would see two little white horses and a coach with a yellow body descending the hillside in the clatter of old iron and bells, my heart would start beating faster.... "There is perhaps a letter from her in that coach!" I would say to myself. And that old, dilapidated vehicle creaking on its springs appeared to me more splendid than a royal carriage, and the driver with his crush hat and his red face looked to me like a deliverer of some kind. How could Juliette write to me when she did not know where I was? But I was still hoping for a miracle! Then I would go back to the village, walking hastily, assuring myself by a succession of irrefutable arguments, that on that day I was going to get a long letter, in which Juliette would let me know of her coming to me, and I was reading in advance, her tender words, her passionate phrases, her repentance; on the paper I saw traces of tears wet as yet, for all this while, I thought, Juliette was passing her time in crying. Alas! Nothing came from her. Sometimes there was a letter from Lirat, admirable, fatherly in its contents, which bored me. With heavy heart, feeling more than ever the crushing weight of loneliness, my mind excited by a thousand projects, one more foolish than the other, I would return to my dune. From this short-lived hope I would pass to keenest sorrow, and the day would pass in invoking Juliette, in calling her, in begging for her from the pale flowers on the sands, from the foam of the waves, from all this insensible nature about me which denied her to me and which ever revealed her indistinct image, marred by the kisses of everybody. "Juliette! Juliette!"