fermentation of her blood, seemed
to pervade her whole body, and she was also a little agitated by this
tete-a-tete on the water, in a place which seemed depopulated by the
heat, with this young man, who thought her so pretty, whose looks
seemed to caress her skin, and whose eyes were as penetrating and
exciting as the sun's rays.

Their inability to speak increased their emotion, and they looked about
them. At last he made an effort and asked her name.

"Henriette," she said.

"Why! My name is Henri," he replied. The sound of their voices calmed
them, and they looked at the banks. The other skiff had gone ahead of
them, and seemed to be waiting for them. The rower called out:

"We will meet you in the wood; we are going as far as Robinson's,[1]
because Madame Dufour is thirsty." Then he bent over his oars again and
rowed off so quickly that he was soon out of sight.

Meanwhile, a continual roar, which they had heard for some time, came
nearer, and the river itself seemed to shiver, as if the dull noise
were rising from its depths.

"What is that noise?" she asked. It was the noise of the weir, which
cut the river in two, at the island. He was explaining it to her, when
above the noise of the waterfall they heard the song of a bird, which
seemed a long way off.

"Listen!" he said; "the nightingales are singing during the day, so the
females must be sitting."

A nightingale! She had never heard one before, and the idea of
listening to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart. A
nightingale! That is to say, the invisible witness of the lover's
interview which Juliette invoked on her balcony[2]; that celestial
music which is attuned to human kisses; that eternal inspirer of all
those languorous romances which open idealized visions to the poor,
tender, little hearts of sensitive girls!

She wanted to hear a nightingale.

"We must not make a noise," her companion said, "and then we can go
into the wood, and sit down close to it."

The skiff seemed to glide. They saw the trees on the island, the banks
of which were so low that they could look into the depths of the
thickets. They stopped, he made the boat fast, Henriette took hold of
Henri's arm, and they went beneath the trees.

"Stoop," he said, so she bent down, and they went into an inextricable
thicket of creepers, leaves, and reed-grass, which formed an
impenetrable retreat, and which the young man laughingly called "his
private room."

J