ds toward a wood he saw a little way off.

He felt alert, strong, light-hearted, glad of what he had done, and so
nimble that he sprang over the enclosure of the fields at a single bound,
and as soon as he was under the trees he took the bottle out of his
pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as he
walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew dim, and
his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the old popular
song:

"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."

He was now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet under
his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels as he
used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault, got up
and began over again. And between each time he began to sing again:

"Oh! what joy, what joy it is,
To pick the sweet, wild strawberries."

Suddenly he found himself above a deep road, and in the road he saw a
tall girl, a servant, who was returning to the village with two pails of
milk. He watched, stooping down, and with his eyes as bright as those of
a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him raised her head and said: "Was
that you singing like that?" He did not reply, however, but jumped down
into the road, although it was a fall of at least six feet and when she
saw him suddenly standing in front of her, she exclaimed: "Oh! dear, how
you frightened me!"

But he did not hear her, for he was drunk, he was mad, excited by another
requirement which was more imperative than hunger, more feverish than
alcohol; by the irresistible fury of the man who has been deprived of
everything for two months, and who is drunk; who is young, ardent and
inflamed by all the appetites which nature has implanted in the vigorous
flesh of men.

The girl started back from him, frightened at his face, his eyes, his
half-open mouth, his outstretched hands, but he seized her by the
shoulders, and without a word, threw her down in the road.

She let her two pails fall, and they rolled over noisily, and all the
milk was spilt, and then she screamed lustily, but it was of no avail in
that lonely spot.

When she got up the thought of her overturned pails suddenly filled her
with fury, and, taking off one of her wooden sabots, she threw it at the
man to break his head if he did not pay her for her milk.

But he, mistaking the reason of this sudden violent attack, somewhat