open behind me; I hastened my steps; I reached a large patch of beans growing up on sticks, into which I flung myself as did Gulliver in his wheat-field, with Muphti hidden between my legs, his neck held between both my hands, ready to be able to intercept the slightest sound he might wish to make--and there I waited. It was indeed one of the inhabitants to whom the passage belonged: he had heard the noise. In order to find out what caused it, he took a turn in the garden, passed within a couple of steps of me, without seeing me, coughed as though he were beginning with a cold, and went indoors again. I let Muphti go; I made for the palings; I leapt to the other side of the wall; I straddled over the two hedges, and I ran to the shutters. But I did not need to knock. Before I reached them, I heard someone breathing, I saw a shadow, I felt two trembling arms stretch out to enfold me and drag me inside the summer-house, and the door shut behind us. Oh! had I only been a poet in those days, what ravishing lines I could have made in honour of those first flowers which flourished in the garden of our love! But, alas! I was not a poet then, and I had to be satisfied with repeating to Adèle Parny's and Bertin's elegies, which I believe only bored her. I have already remarked, _apropos_ of _Vêpres siciliennes_ what good taste this little girl possessed. I left her, as usual, towards two or three in the morning. As usual, also, I returned by the park, and reached home by a roundabout way. I have explained the way I took, and how I had to leap a wide ditch so as to reach the park from the open country. In order to avoid making the same jump three or four times a week, which was a very perilous feat on dark nights, I made a very big heap of stones in one corner of the ditch, so that I had only to make for this particular corner and then make my jump in two leaps.