er, very often it is not a man that we love, but love
itself. And your real lover that night was the moonlight."

THE FIRST SNOWFALL

The long promenade of La Croisette winds in a curve along the edge of the
blue water. Yonder, to the right, Esterel juts out into the sea in the
distance, obstructing the view and shutting out the horizon with its
pretty southern outline of pointed summits, numerous and fantastic.

To the left, the isles of Sainte Marguerite and Saint Honorat, almost
level with the water, display their surface, covered with pine trees.

And all along the great gulf, all along the tall mountains that encircle
Cannes, the white villa residences seem to be sleeping in the sunlight.
You can see them from a distance, the white houses, scattered from the
top to the bottom of the mountains, dotting the dark greenery with specks
like snow.

Those near the water have gates opening on the wide promenade which is
washed by the quiet waves. The air is soft and balmy. It is one of those
warm winter days when there is scarcely a breath of cool air. Above the
walls of the gardens may be seen orange trees and lemon trees full of
golden fruit. Ladies are walking slowly across the sand of the avenue,
followed by children rolling hoops, or chatting with gentlemen.

A young woman has just passed out through the door of her coquettish
little house facing La Croisette. She stops for a moment to gaze at the
promenaders, smiles, and with an exhausted air makes her way toward an
empty bench facing the sea. Fatigued after having gone twenty paces, she
sits down out of breath. Her pale face seems that of a dead woman. She
coughs, and raises to her lips her transparent fingers as if to stop
those paroxysms that exhaust her.

She gazes at the sky full of sunshine and swallows, at the zigzag summits
of the Esterel over yonder, and at the sea, the blue, calm, beautiful
sea, close beside her.

She smiles again, and murmurs:

"Oh! how happy I am!"

She knows, however, that she is going to die, that she will never see the
springtime, that in a year, along the same promenade, these same people
who pass before her now will come again to breathe the warm air of this
charming spot, with their children a little bigger, with their hearts all
filled with hopes, with tenderness, with happiness, while at the bottom
of an oak coffin, the poor flesh which is still left to her to-day will
have decomposed, leaving only her bones lying