Why have I forgotten Sylvie for so long, Sylvie whom I loved so well? She was such a pretty little girl, much the prettiest in Loisy. Surely she is still there, as innocent and as good as she was then. I can see her window now, framed by creepers and roses, and the cage of warblers hanging on the left; I can hear her whirring spindle and she is singing her favourite song:

She is still waiting for me. Who would have married her? She was so poor! There were only peasants in Loisy and the neighbouring hamlets, rough fellows with toil-worm hands and thin, sunburnt faces, so when I came to visit my uncle who lived near by, she loved me, a little Parisian. My poor uncle is dead now and for the last three years I have been lavishly spending the modest legacy he left me, and it might have been enough for the rest of my life. With Sylvie I would have saved it, and now chance brings to my mind this opportunity before it is too late.

What is she doing at this moment? She is asleep—no, she cannot be, for to-day is the Festival of the Bow, the only one of the year when they dance the night through.…She is at the dance.

What time is it now?

I had no watch, and my gaze wandered over the extravagant collection of furniture with which an old- fashioned apartment is usually given its proper atmosphere. My Renaissance clock of tortoiseshell surpassed all the other objects with its quiet richness. A gilded dome, surmounted by the figure of Time, is supported by caryatids of the Medici period upon half-rampant horses, and Diana, leaning upon her stag, is in bas- relief beneath a dial inlaid with enamelled figures of the hours. But I did not buy this clock in Touraine that I might know the time, and, though an excellent one, it has probably not been wound up for two centuries.

I went downstairs, saying to myself that I could get to Loisy in four hours. The porter’s clock struck one as I passed out into the Place du Palais-Royal, where there were still four or five cabs waiting, no doubt, for fares from the clubs and gambling houses. I mentioned my destination to the nearest driver.

‘And where is that?’ he asked.

‘Near Senlis, about twenty miles.’

‘I will take you to the post-house,’ he said, less absorbed than I.

How dreary the Flanders road is at night, until it enters the forest! Always the double rows of trees, monotonous and vague in the mist; meadows and ploughed land to right and left, with the grey hills of Montmorency, Écouen, and Luzarches beyond. And then comes the dreary market town of Gonesse with its memories of the League and the Fronde; but, beyond Louvres, there is a short cut to the villages where I have often seen apple blossoms shining through the darkness like stars of the earth. While my carriage slowly ascends the hill, let me try to call those happy days to life.

IV. To the Island of Venus

Several years had passed, and already my meeting with Adrienne in front of the château was no more than a memory of youth. I had been at Loisy on the patron saint’s day and took my accustomed place among the Knights of the Bow. Some young people from the dilapidated châteaux in the neighbouring forests arranged the festival, and from Chantilly, Compiègne, and Senlis joyous companies came trooping to join the rural cavalcade. After the long walk through towns and villages, and when mass was over and the prizes for the sports had been awarded, a banquet for the prize-winners was held on an island, covered with poplars and lindens, in one of the lakes fed by the Nonette and the Thève. Barges adorned with flowers carried us to this island, chosen for its oval temple which was to serve as banqueting hall. There are many of those delicate structures thereabouts, built by rich philosophers towards the end of