Thick willow trees hid this clear volume of water where the current rested and went to sleep for a little while before starting its way again. Renardet, as he appeared, thought he heard a light sound, a faint smell which was not that of the stream on the banks. He softly put aside the leaves and looked. A little girl, quite naked in the transparent water, was beating the waves with both hands, dancing about in them a little and dipping herself with pretty movements. She was not a child nor was she yet a woman. She was plump and formed, while preserving an air of youthful precocity, as of one who had grown rapidly, and who was now almost ripe. He no longer moved, overcome with surprise, with a pang of desire, holding his breath with a strange poignant emotion. He remained there, his heart beating as if one of his sensual dreams had just been realized, as if an impure fairy had conjured up before him this creature so disturbing to his blood, so very young this little rustic Venus, was born in the waves of the sea. Suddenly the little girl came out of the water, and without seeing came over to where he stood looking for her clothes in order to dress herself. While she was gradually approaching with little hesitating steps, through fear of the sharp pointed stones, he felt himself pushed towards her by an irresistible force, by a bestial transport of passion, which stirred up all his flesh, stupefied his soul, and made him tremble from head to foot. She remained standing some seconds behind the willow tree which concealed him from view. Then, losing his reason entirely, he opened the branches, rushed on her, and seized her in his arms. She fell, too scared to offer any resistance, too much terror-stricken to cry out, and he possessed her without understanding what he was doing. He woke up from his crime, as one wakes out of a nightmare. The child burst out weeping. He said: "Hold your tongue! Hold your tongue! I'll give you money." But she did not hear him, she went on sobbing. He went on: "Come now, hold your tongue! Do hold your tongue. Keep quiet." She still kept shrieking, writhing in the effort to get away from him. He suddenly realized that he was ruined, and he caught her by the neck to stop her mouth from uttering these heartrending, dreadful screams. As she continued to struggle with the desperate strength of a being who is seeking to fly from death, he pressed his enormous hands on the little throat swollen with cries, and in a few seconds he had strangled her so furiously did he grip her, without intending to kill her but only to make her keep silent. Then he rose up overwhelmed with horror. She lay before him with her face bleeding and blackened. He was going to rush away when there sprang up in his agitated soul the mysterious and undefined instinct that guides all beings in the hour of danger.