We are in a smoky kitchen, dimly lit by a single candle placed on the table. From a line across the room hang stockings, handkerchiefs, swaddling clothes, drying above a stove. The chairs, scattered here and there, are all encumbered with a heterogeneous collection of things--a wash hand basin, a pair of pants, dirty dishes. Beneath one's feet one crushes certain soft things, remains of food probably, or chewed tobacco. Our host is still a young man, sickly, pale, thin as a skeleton, his moustache and hair light-coloured. He offers us his hand with a tired gesture; it is a feverish hand, in which one can discover no bones, but only cartilages; and which, when you release it, leaves some of its moisture on your palm. "We have been awaiting you," says the man. "My wife has prepared beds for you in that corner there, against those sacks of bran." The woman, who is also a blonde, but swollen and paunched, leaves her chair near the stove, shakes off three or four urchins hanging to her skirts, and raises the candle from the table. We can see clearly now. Along the sides of the plastered wall sacks are stacked. In these sacks the miller has placed a plentiful litter of straw, and, what is still more important, of an even depth all over. On the top of the straw she has placed a feather mattress, blankets and sheets. To-night we're going to have sheets, a real bed, a complete bed. We're going to undress ourselves, to instal ourselves between two sheets, wearing nothing but our shirts. I steal a glance at Porchon from the corner of my eye; his face plainly expresses his unfeigned delight and joy. Suddenly he turns towards me, places his hand on my shoulder, and regarding me with warm, affectionate eyes, says: "You brick!" Our bed that night was a thing never to be forgotten. Undressed in a twinkling of an eye, we plunged into its depths. And instantly it wrapped us from head to foot in a sweet, gentle embrace. Then in our turn, little by little, detail by detail, we took possession of it. There was no end to our surprise; each second produced some new discovery; in vain we sought with the whole of our body for some hardness, but there was no corner that was not soft and warm. Our bodies, which remembered all the stones of the field, all the gaps in the soil, and the greasy humidity of the woods, the harsh dryness of the stubble-fields; our bodies, bruised by nights of bivouac, by the straps of our equipment, by our shoes, by the weight of the knapsack, by all the harness of wanderers who know no roof--our bodies at present were unable swiftly to accustom themselves to so much softness and pleasure, all at one and the same time. And we broke into shouts of laughter; we expressed our enthusiasm in burlesque phrases, in formidable pleasantries, each one of which provoked new laughter which knew no end. And the man laughed at seeing us laugh, and his wife laughed, and the urchins laughed; the hovel was full of laughter.