Night; fire; lines of shadow blended with shadows of lines; fire; humid thickness of fields; fire; crimsoning and reddening of clouds; poplars; whiteness which must be a village. Water again, water, and shadows of water.... A wagon passes. The lantern lights up only the rear of the horse, all else is night. When I was a child it was this which astonished me--this light which was quenched again. Another wagon...One sees only the rosy bust of a girl. It slips into the night.... * * * * * I return from a journey. The recollection of a maroon reflection of a boat in the canal, the color of gray fish, makes my memory quiver. I dream of white tulips. I have returned at night. The croaking of frogs has greeted me from the depths of the damp meadow. My heart, do not burst!... Do not burst like the lilacs of the flower-garden whose fragrance I alone have touched.... Will hope be born again? I am afraid. Is this one more disillusion? The wasp has hummed. I love none but the violet lilacs, I love none but the blue violets. It is Sunday, and I hear in the depths of my soul the droning of the harmoniums of poor churches. My life, behold my life, ardent and sad like a flame which burns through too warm a summer night beside the open window. An imperceptible breeze has suddenly swelled out the curtain of muslin like my heart. * * * * * In the garden the perfume of the lilacs suddenly make me feel ill because I am horribly sad. Nevertheless, lilacs, you are dear to me since childhood. Then I thought your clusters were the beautiful polished images of a box of toys. And you, oh lilacs, have also haunted an orchard which I knew well in my youth. In this orchard there were hedge-hogs. They glided along old beams. How innocent and gentle the hedge-hogs are in spite of their quills! I remember my emotion one winter's evening, when I found one of them at the threshold of the kitchen; it had taken flight from the snow, and was poking its little nose into the refuse left there.... * * * * * I love the creatures of the night, the screech-owls with their graceful flight, the bats, the badgers, all the timid beasts which glide through the air or in the grass and of which we know so little. What festivals do they hold amid the plants, their sisters? At the hour when man is at rest, the rabbits, silvered by the dew, bound over the mint of the furrow and hold their conventicles; the frogs croak in the marsh and make it ripple; the glowworms filter their soft and humid yellow light; the mole bores the meadow; the nightingale sobs like a fountain; the owl utters sad laughter as if it too, however timidly, were trying to have a share in the joy of God.