This birthday of Spring seemed to me a little precocious. In the Engadine it takes place on the eve of Shrovetide, and the formidable uproar is intended to drive away the winter, to give it its rude dismissal. Possibly that is necessary in a country where the winter is prone to fall asleep and never depart. If one did not scream in his ears “Go away” he might remain throughout the year. Therefore in that country they pray to Spring in the midst of cold and darkness. At the Sleeping Woods such a hubbub is not necessary. Things happen differently. But that day is so important to me that, reluctant to recall it, I have interposed some other recollections. Still, nothing happened to me on that day. Nothing happened to me on that day, and yet that day is the brightest of my life! Little girls and boys, all of them barefooted--for those who had shoes carried them in their hands in order not to wear them out on the hard roads--appeared at the end of the avenue of oaks. I stood astonished at the window. “What does that lot of brats want?” I thought. They marched along singing, and very quickly, too, for their little legs. When they reached the arches of the cloister, just below me, they entertained me with a song. It was an old folk song, which I had once heard sung at a concert, but had not imagined to be genuine; by that I mean to say I did not know that it was really sung in the country. Out in the open air, bursting from these youthful lips, it soared in swift flight far higher than in any theatre. “Who taught you that?” I asked, when they had finished. “Nobody.” “Did you all know it when you were born?” “Surely.” I have kept the words of the refrain. Whoever thinks them commonplace, does not grasp their real significance: Awaken, sleeping beauty! Awaken, if you sleep. To me this beautiful sleeping one is Nature, who stretches herself after the winter’s sleep and smiles in the woods and in the gardens. After this the children ranged themselves on the lawn, the girls on one side and the boys on the other, and danced--upon my word--a pavane. Perhaps it was not really a pavane, but I will not call it otherwise. It deserved that beautiful name, for it included some complicated steps, embellished with graceful bows. I threw them some coppers and even some silver pieces. They scarcely thanked me, which impaired their success with me, and ran away toward the lodge. Why several moments later did they burst out into such clamorous joy, a joy that piqued me? I came down from my room and approached them. Seated at M. Mairieux’s table they were eating, drinking and laughing with their mouths full. Then they went off with red cheeks and full stomachs to other houses and other villages.