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swinging their clasped hands. Capucine felt a surge of romantic ecstasy as saccharine as a greeting card. They arrived at a large clearing bathed in sunlight. Capucine began looking for a spot for their picnic.
    “ Arrête! ” cried Alexandre. Capucine froze. “You’re about to crush a whole bunch of agarics des jachères . I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many in one spot.” Lunch waited as each mushroom was separated from its base with surgical care.
    Eventually Capucine managed to spread the blanket and remove the napkin that had been secured to the top of the luncheon basket with kitchen twine. It contained a huge hunk of pain de campagne, an abundance of pâté and rillettes, and an exceptionally creamy Camembert, each wrapped in crinkly waxed paper. There were two bottles of cider that were opened by twisting off the wire and popping the cork, just like champagne. For dessert, Odile had provided two tablets of chocolate—one with nuts, the other without—to be followed by a thermos of strong coffee and, inevitably, a small decanter of Calvados.
    Capucine snuggled into Alexandre’s side and relaxed so completely she felt her shoulders fall away from her neck. It was appalling how tense Paris made her. Alexandre’s arm draped over her shoulder as comfortably as a well-loved cashmere shawl. He kissed her gently; she responded ; he kissed her more ardently; she moved her body even closer to his; he responded even more passionately. She knew full well where they were headed. And why not? They were a million miles from anywhere. There was certainly no one to see.
    The situation progressed apace. And continued to progress. A young deer, a buck with small antlers culminating in two little points like serving forks, bounded across the clearing with broad leaping strides. Alexandre nuzzled Capucine’s neck. “I was just thinking that with your luscious breasts and dainty feet you look like you’ve come straight out of one of Fragonard’s rustio-erotic scenes, and that joyous little deer completes the picture.”
    Capucine put her index against his lips.
    “Shhhh. He’s not joyous. He’s trying to escape.”
    The sound of hounds baying angrily rose in a crescendo, and thirty or so large black, tan, and white dogs loped across the clearing, howling a deafening caterwaul.
    They were followed by a troop of splendidly tailored horsemen in bright green seventeenth-century outfits, complete with short swords and boots rising over their knees, looking for all the world like escapees from some Hollywood film set. One of the riders smiled at Capucine and bowed deeply from his saddle. Capucine felt her cheeks burning in a deep blush. She tried to hide her open blouse and undone bra by dropping behind the ferns but succeeded only in falling backward into a depression and waving a shapely foot at the passing hunt.
    “Good Lord, what a spectacle!” Alexandre said, getting up.
    Capucine, still flustered and red cheeked, pulled Alexandre back and dug as deeply as she could into the undergrowth. “Get down. There’s more to come.”
    As promised, a procession of bent heads could be seen traversing spectrally over the ferns, moving forward, ghostlike and soundless, with no bobbing motion at all.
    “It’s the bicycle followers. As soon as they’ve gone by, we’ll get out of here,” Capucine said.
    As they escaped down the lane, Capucine somehow felt she was being driven out of the forest by a hostile dinosaur released from the distant past. The hunt had been her passion as a child, but now it felt alien, an anachronistic ogre with a thousand eyes searching for her secrets, probing out her faults. As she plodded down the path, she sought Alexandre’s hand, unsure if they were lost orphans or Adam and Eve cast out of Paradise. She told herself she really should avoid Calvados at lunch.
    A burst of horns warbled through the wood. Alexandre looked at her inquiringly.
    “They tell each other what’s happening with the