the eighteenth century. I think this temple must have been originally dedicated to Urania. Three of the pillars had fallen, carrying a part of the architrave with them, but the fragments had been cleared away and garlands were hung between the remaining pillars; such was the restoration of this modern ruin, for which the paganism of Boufflers or Chaulieu was responsible rather than that of Horace.

It may be that the crossing of the lake had been devised to call up the memory of Watteau’s ‘Voyage à Cythère’, and the illusion was complete but for our modern costumes. The great bouquet of the festival was taken from the wagon that carried it and placed in one of the largest barges, the customary escort of little girls in white dresses took seats around it, and this graceful procession, re-created from that of another day, was mirrored in the calm waters that lay between it and the island. The thickets of thorn, the colonnade and the brilliant foliage glowed red in the afternoon sun, and when all the barges had landed and the bouquet had been carried ceremoniously to the centre of the table, we took our places, the more fortunate of the boys sitting next to the girls. To obtain this favour it was only necessary to be known to their families, and I managed to sit by Sylvie, for her brother and I had been together in the procession. He reproached me for never coming to see them, and I spoke of my studies which kept me in Paris, assuring him that this time I had come especially to pay them a visit.

‘No, he’s forgotten me,’ Sylvie said. ‘We’re village people and Paris is so far above us!’

I wanted to close her mouth with a kiss, but she kept on pouting until her brother intervened and she offered me her cheek in a very half-hearted fashion. It was the sort of kiss she had often given to others and I did not enjoy it, for in that old country, where one speaks to everybody, a kiss is no more than a politeness among well-mannered people.

The directors of the festival had arranged a surprise for us, and when the banquet was over, a wild swan rose up out of the depths of the basket where it had been confined beneath the flowers. Wreaths and garlands were lifted upon its strong wings and they fell all about us, and each boy took possession of one of them for the adornment of his companion’s brow, while the swan took joyous flight towards the glow of the sinking sun. It was my good fortune to get one of the finest of these wreaths, and this time Sylvie was smiling when I kissed her, so the memory of that other day was blotted out. My admiration of her now was complete, for she had become so beautiful. She was no longer the little village girl whom I had scorned when my eyes fell upon another, taller and more used to the manners of the world. She had improved in every possible way: the spell of her black eyes, so captivating even as a little child, had now become irresistible; there was a gleam of Attic intelligence in her smile when its quick light spread over her calm regular features—a face that might have been painted by an old master. With her white, well-rounded arms, her long delicate hands, and her slender figure, she was no longer the Sylvie I had known, and I could not help telling her how changed I found her, in the hope that she would forget my former faithlessness.

Every circumstance was in my favour; I had the friendship of her brother, the atmosphere of the festival was alluring, and the time and place for this echo of a gay ceremonial of bygone days had been chosen with tasteful discrimination. We escaped from the dance as soon as we could, that we might talk of our childhood, and dream together as we watched the sunlight fading from the foliage and the still surface of the lake; but Sylvie’s brother put an end to our meditations, telling us the time had come to go back to Loisy.

V. The Village

I left them at the old guard house at Loisy, and returned to my uncle with whom I was staying at Montagny. Turning from the road to go through the little wood between Loisy and Saint S—, I soon found myself following the deep path that skirts the forest of Ermenonville, expecting every moment to come upon the convent walls which would cause me to go more than half a mile out of my way. Every now and then the moon was hidden by clouds, and I had great difficulty in avoiding the grey rocks and the tufts of sweet heather on both sides of the way. The path branched neither to the right nor to the left, and