zard. He was five years old then
and trotted along like a little man. Heavens! it is five-and-twenty years
ago. We went up the narrow lane strewn with damp black leaves; the tall
gray poplars stripped of their foliage allowed a view of the horizon, and
we could see in the distance, under a violet sky streaked with cold and
yellowish bands, the low thatched roofs and the red chimneys from which
issued little bluish clouds blown away by the wind. Baby jumped for joy,
holding with his hand his hat which threatened to fly off, and looking at
me with eyes glittering through tears brought into them by the breeze.
His cheeks were red with cold, and quite at the tip of his nose hung
ready to drop a small transparent pearl. But he was happy, and we skirted
the wet meadows overflowed by the swollen river. No more reeds, no more
water lilies, no more flowers on the banks. Some cows, up to mid-leg in
damp herbage, were grazing quietly.

At the bottom of a ditch, near a big willow trunk, two little girls were
huddled together under a big cloak wrapped about them. They were watching
their cows, their half bare feet in split wooden shoes and their two
little chilled faces under the large hood. From time to time large
puddles of water in which the pale sky was reflected barred the way, and
we remained for a moment beside these miniature lakes, rippling beneath
the north wind, to see the leaves float on them. They were the last. We
watched them detach themselves from the tops of the tall trees, whirl
through the air and settle in the puddles. I took my little boy in my
arms and we went through them as we could. At the boundaries of the brown
and stubble fields was an overturned plough or an abandoned harrow. The
stripped vines were level with the ground, and their damp and knotty
stakes were gathered in large piles.

I remember that one day in one of these autumnal walks, as we gained the
top of the hill by a broken road which skirts the heath and leads to the
old bridge, the wind suddenly began to blow furiously. My darling,
overwhelmed by it, caught hold of my leg and sheltered himself in the
skirt of my coat. My dog, for his part, stiffening his four legs, with
his tail between the hind ones and his ears waving in the wind, looked up
at me too. I turned, the horizon was as gloomy as the interior of a
church. Huge black clouds were sweeping toward us, and the trees were
bending and groaning on every side under the torrents of rain dri