One afternoon in this very month of May,--our summers must have been hotter in those days,--the air was like an oven, a furnace seven times heated; for hours black threatening clouds had been coming up, big with the storm which still held off, so that we melted under the heat, and the very tools stuck to our fingers. Belette had been singing in her garden, but after a while I could neither see nor hear her, till at last I caught sight of her sitting on a stone under the shed roof, asleep; her lips parted, her head leaning back against the door-post, one arm resting on the big water-can, as if she were overcome by sudden lassitude. There she lay, half exposed, defenseless like Danaë, and I her Jupiter!--I dropped over the wall, crushing the cabbages and lettuce in my haste, and took her in my arms, putting my mouth to hers. How sweet she was! all warm and half asleep! She seemed to yield, and returned my kisses, but without opening her blue eyes.--My blood burned in my veins, and I strained her to my breast with delight; at last, the ripe fruit had dropped into my longing mouth!--but in spite of my joy, some strange scruple now restrained me; I don’t know what queer notions held me back,--great fool that I was!--but I felt that I loved her too much,--I could not take advantage of her so,--half asleep, not knowing what she did. My proud beauty! I would not have her unconsenting, and so,--I tore myself away from my happiness, untwining our linked arms and our lips, not without trouble, for man is fire, and woman tow: but I left her trembling, like that other simpleton you have heard of, who conquered Antiope. I too conquered, that is, I took to my heels:--I fairly blush when I think of it, at thirty-five years’ distance. Foolish boy! yes, but what would I not give to be capable now of such folly? From that time Belette treated me as if she were possessed of the devil, never twice was she in the same mind; one day she would launch some insult at me, or ignore my very existence, and the next she would meet me with languishing sheep’s eyes, and cajoling laughter. When my back was turned, she would hide behind a tree, and hurl lumps of sod at my neck, or hit me on the nose with a plum; and worse than all were her goings on with any man that she could pick up, when we were out on Sundays. She took it into her head,--chiefly to annoy me, I do believe,--to flirt with Quiriace Pinon, a great chum of mine. He and I were like Orestes and Pylades, you never saw one without the other, and wherever there was anything going on, a fair, a fight, or a wedding, there we were in the midst of it. He was short and thickset, as sturdy as an oak, a good straightforward worker, and as for friendship! it would have gone hard with any one who interfered with me when he was by.