am that crept to the edge of my desk, like
an invitation to the feast at which I could not myself arrive before
three o'clock, until the moment when Francoise came to fetch me at the
school-gate, and we made our way towards the Champs-Elysees through
streets decorated with sunlight, dense with people, over which the
balconies, detached by the sun and made vaporous, seemed to float in
front of the houses like clouds of gold. Alas! in the Champs-Elysees
I found no Gilberte; she had not yet arrived. Motionless, on the lawn
nurtured by the invisible sun which, here and there, kindled to a flame
the point of a blade of grass, while the pigeons that had alighted upon
it had the appearance of ancient sculptures which the gardener's pick
had heaved to the surface of a hallowed soil, I stood with my eyes fixed
on the horizon, expecting at every moment to see appear the form of
Gilberte following that of her governess, behind the statue that
seemed to be holding out the child, which it had in its arms, and which
glistened in the stream of light, to receive benediction from the
sun. The old lady who read the Debats was sitting on her chair, in her
invariable place, and had just accosted a park-keeper, with a friendly
wave of her hands towards him as she exclaimed "What a lovely day!" And
when the chair-woman came up to collect her penny, with an infinity of
smirks and affectations she folded the ticket away inside her glove,
as though it had been a posy of flowers, for which she had sought, in
gratitude to the donor, the most becoming place upon her person. When
she had found it, she performed a circular movement with her neck,
straightened her boa, and fastened upon the collector, as she shewed
her the end of yellow paper that stuck out over her bare wrist, the
bewitching smile with which a woman says to a young man, pointing to her
bosom: "You see, I'm wearing your roses!"

I dragged Francoise, on the way towards Gilberte, as far as the Arc
de Triomphe; we did not meet her, and I was returning towards the lawn
convinced, now, that she was not coming, when, in front of the wooden
horses, the little girl with the sharp voice flung herself upon me:
"Quick, quick, Gilberte's been here a quarter of an hour. She's just
going. We've been waiting for you, to make up a prisoner's base."

While I had been going up the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, Gilberte had
arrived by the Rue Boissy-d'Anglas, Mademoiselle having taken advantage
of the fi