She was teaching me a little humanity, after all the art that I had thought to teach her! I did not care for it at all, and profited very little from her lessons. It is the same with most of those who screen themselves behind agents in the administration of their estates: they ignore the sweat and labour which all production exacts, and the money which labour makes for them, so far from putting them in contact with other men, only succeeds in keeping them apart. The sovereignty which Raymonde exercised on my estate made me uneasy. Of a certainty, I refused to confess it to myself, but was not the sympathy she showed and inspired in all these worthy people in itself a criticism of my disdain and indifference? With the intuition which she possessed for my slightest, my most secret annoyances, she perceived my state of mind. Thereafter she cut short her conversations with these people, contenting herself for the most part with a courteous greeting from a distance, which yet managed to cheer them, even if they hoped for more. And so again, without benefit to myself, I turned aside a source of joy. Our daughter Odette, whom we afterwards called Dilette, was born in October. In the face of Raymonde’s sufferings I was less courageous than she. And if I dare confess the whole truth to myself, a horror of anything which attacked the ordering of my life mingled with the compassion which I felt for her. After the birth of the child, when my own nerves were shattered, I was surprised at the long shudder which shook the mother. She suffered no more, but trembled before the life which she had brought into the world. It was the mysterious prelude to maternal love. * * * The autumn advanced. Tired of “the desert” of the Sleeping Woods, and of the incessant attention which a new-born baby demands, deprived by my own act of the strong ties which bound us to a region where we directed the labour and endeavoured to create prosperity, I was eager to return to Paris after so long an absence. Our apartment in the Avenue du Bois was in readiness for us. We had nothing to do but depart. “Whenever you wish,” consented Raymonde. We arranged our departure for the first of December. The baby could travel then without danger. The milk of her nurse agreed with her wonderfully. For a child of two months, she showed good strength. Raymonde suggested a last walk, and a pale, cold sun enticed us. It scarcely melted the white frost in the fields and on the weed-grown paths. The grass crackled under our steps as we entered the woods. We went deep into them. Along the edge, the leaves more exposed to the wind had already fallen. Deeper within there were still a few, especially on the oaks and maples. Copper-coloured or golden, they clung stiffly to the branches, and with the least breath of wind sounded like toy bells. At the Green Fountain, where our horses had drunk that day, they nearly stopped the basin.