"Let us go to the little wood on the _Ile aux Anglias_!" he called out, as he rowed off. The other skiff went slower, for the rower was looking at his companion so intently, that he thought of nothing else, and his emotion paralyzed his strength, while the girl, who was sitting on the steerer's seat, gave herself up to the enjoyment of being on the water. She felt disinclined to think, felt a lassitude in her limbs, and a total abandonment of herself, as if she were intoxicated, and she had become very flushed, and breathed shortly. The effects of the wine, which were increased by the extreme heat, made all the trees on the bank seem to bow, as she passed. A vague wish for enjoyment and a fermentation for her blood, seemed to pervade her whole body, which was excited by the heat of the day; and she was also agitated by this _tete-a-tete_ on the water, in a place which seemed depopulated by the heat, with this young man who thought her pretty, whose looks seemed to caress her skin, and whose looks were as penetrating and pervading as the sun's rays. Their inability to speak, increased their emotion, and they looked about them, but at last he made an effort and asked her name. "Henriette," she said. "Why! My name is Henri," he replied. The sound of their voices had calmed them, and they looked at the banks. The other skiff had passed them, and seemed to be waiting for them, and the rower called out: "We will meet you in the wood; we are going as far as _Robinson's_[13] because Madame Dufour is thirsty." Then he bent over his oars again, and rowed off so quickly that he was soon out of sight. [Footnote 13: A well-known restaurant on the banks of the Seine, which is much frequented by the middle classes.--TRANSLATOR.] Meanwhile, a continual roar, which they had heard for some time, came nearer, and the river itself seemed to shiver, as if the dull noise were rising from its depths. "What is that noise?" she asked. It was the noise of the weir, which cut the river in two, at the island, and he was explaining it to her, when above the noise of the waterfall, they heard the song of a bird, which seemed a long way off. "Listen!" he said; "the nightingales are singing during the day, so the females must be sitting." A nightingale! She had never heard one before, and the idea of listening to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart. A nightingale! That is to say, the invisible witness of her lovers' interview which Juliette invoked on her balcony[14]; the celestial music, which is attuned to human kisses, that eternal inspirer of all those languorous romances which open an ideal sky to all the poor little tender hearts of sensitive girls! [Footnote 14: Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene V.] She was going to hear a nightingale. "We must not make a noise," her companion said, "and then we can go into the wood, and sit down close to it."