er arms to poor men, and who made them forget everything in
the profusion of her kisses. She knew dark matters, which nobody in the
world besides herself should know, which her sealed lips would carry
away inviolate to the other world. She had never yet loved, and would
never really love, because she was vowed to passing kisses which were so
soon forgotten.

I was anxious to escape from her as soon as possible; no longer to see
her pale, green eyes, and her mouth that bestowed caresses from pure
charity; no longer to feel the woman with her beautiful, white hands, so
near one; so I threw her a piece of gold and made my escape without
saying a word to her, without waiting for any change, and without even
wishing her good-night, for I felt the caress of her smile, and the
disdainful restlessness of her looks.

The carriage started off at a gallop to Formigueres, amidst a furious
jingling of bells. I could not sleep any more; I wanted to know where
that woman came from, but I was ashamed to ask the driver and to show
any interest in such a creature, and when he began to talk, as we were
going up another hill, as if he had guessed my sweet thoughts, he told
me all he knew about Glaizette. I listened to him with the attention of
a child, to whom somebody is telling some wonderful fairy tale.

She came from Fontpedrouze, a muleteers' village, where the men spend
their time in drinking and gambling at the inn when they are not
traveling on the high roads with their mules, while the women do all the
field work, carry the heaviest loads on their back, and lead a life of
pain and misery.

Her father kept an inn; the girl grew up very happy; she was courted
before she was fifteen, and was so coquettish that she was certain to be
almost always found in front of her looking-glass, smiling at her own
beauty, arranging her hair, trying to make herself like a young lady on
the _prado_. And now, as none of the family knew how to keep a
halfpenny, but spent more than they earned, and were like cracked jugs,
from which the water escapes drop by drop, they found themselves ruined
one fine day, just as if they had been at the bottom of a blind alley.
So on the "Feast of Our Lady of Succor," when people go on a pilgrimage
to Font Romea, and the villages are consequently deserted, the
inn-keeper set fire to the house. The crime was discovered through _la
Glaizette_, who could not make up her mind to leave the looking-glass,
with which her