with a bed, two chairs, a
table, and a wash-stand. The room looked into the large and smoky
kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm
and the farmer, who was a widower.

I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman fricasseed a
chicken for dinner in a large fireplace, in which hung the stew pot,
black with smoke.

"You have travelers, then, at the present time?" I said to her.

She answered, in an offended tone of voice:

"I have a lady, an English lady, who has attained to years of maturity.
She is going to occupy my other room."

I obtained, by means of an extra five sous a day, the privilege of
dining out in the court when the weather was fine.

My cover was then placed in front of the door, and I commenced to gnaw
with my teeth the lean members of the Normandy chicken, to drink the
clear cider, and to munch the hunk of white bread, which was four days
old, though excellent.

Suddenly, the wooden barrier which gave into the highway, was opened,
and a strange person directed her steps towards the house. She was very
slender, very tall, enveloped in a Scotch shawl with red borders, and
one might have believed that she had no arms, if one had not seen a long
hand appear just above the haunches, holding a white tourist umbrella.
The face of a mummy, surrounded with sausage rolls of plaited, gray
hair, which bounded at every step she took, made me think, I know not
why, of a sour herring adorned with curling papers. Lowering her eyes,
she passed quickly in front of me, and entered the house.

That singular apparition made me yearn. She undoubtedly was my
neighbor, the aged English lady of whom our hostess had spoken.

I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had installed
myself to commence painting, at the end of that beautiful valley, which
you know, and which extends as far as Etretat, I perceived, in lifting
my eyes suddenly, something singularly attired, standing on the crest of
the declivity; one might indeed say, a pole decked out with flags. It
was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I re-entered the house
at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make
the acquaintance of this old original. But she did not respond to my
polite advances, was insensible even to my little attentions. I poured
water out for her with great alacrity; I passed her the dishes with
great eagerness. A slight, almost imperceptible movement o