One summer day, happy and coy, the oyster yawned. Smuggled behind a rock the herring looked on, but all at once the desire to imprint a kiss upon his beloved became so overpowering that he could no longer restrain himself. And so he threw himself between the open shells of the oyster who in her surprise shut them with a snap, decapitating the wretched herring, whose headless body floats aimlessly upon the ocean. "'Twas so much the worse for the herring," said Mia laughing, "He was much too foolish. I too want people to tell me that I am pretty, not for fun, but so as we can marry..." And François des Ygrées noted for future consideration her curious peculiarities of syntax: "so as we can marry." ...And he thought further: "She doesn't love me. Macarée dead. Mia indifferent. Alas I am unhappy in love." * * * One day he found himself in the valley of Gaumates on a little knoll covered with skinny little pines. The shore trimmed by the white-blue of the waves stretched far out before him. The Casino emerged from the bank of splendid trees in its gardens. This palace looked like a man squatting and lifting his arms toward heaven. Near it, François des Ygrées hearkened to an invisible Mammon: "Regard this palace, François, it is made in the image of man. It is sociable like him. It loves those who come to it and especially, those who are unhappy in love. Go there and thou wilt win, for thou canst not lose in play, since thou hast lost all in love." Since it was six o'clock, the angelus tinkled from the different churches in the neighborhood. The voice of the bells prevailed against the voice of the invisible Mammon, who became silent, while François des Ygrées searched for him. * * * On the next day, François took the road to the temple of Mammon. It was Palm Sunday. The streets were littered with children, young girls and women carrying palms and olive-branches. The palms were either very simple or woven in a peculiar fashion. At each corner of the street, the weavers of palms were sitting against the wall, working. Under their deft hands the palm fibers bent, circled bizarrely and charmingly. The children were playing about already with hard eggs. On a square a troop of urchins were pummelling a red-headed kid whom they had found trying to consume a marble egg. Very small girls were going to mass, well dressed and carrying like candles the woven palms in which their mothers had hung sweet-meats. François des Ygrées thought: "The sight of these palms brings good luck and today, which is gay Easter, I shall break the bank." * * * In the game hall, he regarded at first the diverse throng which pressed about the tables... François des Ygrées approached a table and played. He lost. The invisible Mammon had come back and spoke sharply each time they erased a deal: "Thou hast lost!"