by the smell of potatoes frying.
Sometimes it is the perfume of clematis which decides you in your
choice, or the naive glance of the servant at an inn. Do not despise me
for my affection for these rustics. These girls have soul as well as
feeling, not to mention firm cheeks and fresh lips; while their hearty
and willing kisses have the flavor of wild fruit. Love always has its
price, come whence it may. A heart that beats when you make your
appearance, an eye that weeps when you go away, these are things so
rare, so sweet, so precious, that they must never be despised.

"I have had rendezvous in ditches in which cattle repose, and in barns
among the straw, still steaming from the heat of the day. I have
recollections of canvas spread on rude and creaky benches, and of
hearty, fresh, free kisses, more delicate, free from affectation, and
sincere than the subtle attractions of charming and distinguished women.

"But what you love most amid all these varied adventures are the
country, the woods, the risings of the sun, the twilight, the light of
the moon. For the painter these are honeymoon trips with Nature. You
are alone with her in that long and tranquil rendezvous. You go to bed
in the fields amid marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide
open, you watch the going down of the sun, and descry in the distance
the little village, with its pointed clock-tower, which sounds the hour
of midnight.

"You sit down by the side of a spring which gushes out from the foot of
an oak, amid a covering of fragile herbs, growing and redolent of life.
You go down on your knees, bend forward, and drink the cold and
pellucid water, wetting your mustache and nose; you drink it with a
physical pleasure, as though you were kissing the spring, lip to lip.
Sometimes, when you encounter a deep hole, along the course of these
tiny brooks, you plunge into it, quite naked, and on your skin, from
head to foot, like an icy and delicious caress, you feel the lovely and
gentle quivering of the current.

"You are gay on the hills, melancholy on the verge of pools, exalted
when the sun is crowned in an ocean of blood-red shadows, and when it
casts on the rivers its red reflection. And at night, under the moon,
as it passes across the vault of heaven, you think of things, singular
things, which would never have occurred to your mind under the
brilliant light of day.

"So, in wandering through the same country we are in this year, I came
to