He mounted his horse and took the road to his house. Being for the first time in his life, sad for love, he found extreme melancholy in this same countryside which he had previously traversed. The sun had dropped low over the horizon. The grey leaves of the olive trees seemed as sad as himself. The shadows stretched out like waves. The river where he had seen the bathers was abandoned. The lapping of the water became unbearable for him, like a mockery. He threw his horse into a gallop. Then there was the dusk, lights appearing in the distance. Then night came; he slowed up his horse and abandoned himself to a disordered revelry. The sloping road was bordered with cypresses, and it was thus, somnolent with the night and with love, that Croniamantal pursued his melancholy way. * * * His master soon noticed in the days that followed that he gave no more attention to the studies to which he had been wont to apply himself with such diligence. He divined that this disgust came of love. His respect was mingled with a little scorn because Mariette was nothing but a simple peasant girl. The end of September had been reached, and one day Mr. Janssen led Croniamantal out under the laden olive trees in the orchard and censured his disciple for his passion, the latter hearkening to his reproaches with ruddy embarrassment. The first winds of autumn complained in the fields and Croniamantal, very sad and much ashamed, lost forever his desire to see again the pretty Mariette and kept nothing but the memory of her. * * * And so Croniamantal attained his majority. A disease of the heart which was discovered in him led to his dismissal by the military authorities. Soon after, his guardian died suddenly, leaving him by will the little which he possessed. And after having sold the house called _le Chateau_, Croniamantal went to Paris to give himself freely to his taste for literature; he had been for some time past composing poems secretly and accumulating them in an old cigar-box. X. POETRY