"Our fashion of going in search of adventures is quite primitive. Peyraque has a little cart, which he is pleased to denominate a carriage, because it has an awning of canvas, which somewhat ambitiously pretends to shelter us. He harnesses to this vehicle now an intrepid little mule, and now a pony, spirited but gentle, all skin and bone like its owner, but like him, too, never flinching at anything. So, while Justine's eldest son, just returned from the regiment, where he has been shoeing artillery horses, continues his trade under the paternal roof, his father and I wander over hill and vale without regard to the weather. Justine pretends this does me so much good that I must stay with her 'always,' and vows she will find some way for me to earn our livelihood without humiliating myself to serve any great lady. "Alas! I never felt humiliated so long as I knew I was loved; and then I loved so sincerely in return! Do you know it saddens me no longer to receive a blessing every morning from that poor old Marchioness, and not only so, but I am quite uneasy, alarmed about her even, as if I felt she could not live without me? God grant she may soon forget me, that my place may already have been filled by one less fatal than I to her peace. But will she be cared for, morally speaking, as I cared for her? Will her fanciful whims be understood, the dulness of her leisure hours charmed away, or her children spoken of as she loves to hear them spoken of? On my arrival here, I drank in the free air with long breaths; I gazed at this grand, rugged scenery which I had felt so strong a wish to know. I said to myself, 'Here I am then free! I shall go where I please; I will talk as little as I please; I shall no longer write the same letter ten times a day to ten different people; I shall not live in a hot-house; I shall not breathe the sharp perfumes of flowers distilled by chemical processes, or of plants half dead on the windowsills; I shall drink from the breeze hawthorn and wild thyme in their real fragrance.' Yes, I said all this to myself, and I could not rejoice. I saw my poor friend sad and lonely, perhaps weeping for having made me weep so much!