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eyes.
    Meeting her in the corridor, he had embraced her without her protesting, and an hour later he had been surprised to hear her singing like a happy woman.
    Madame Harnaud must have understood, for she took to going up to her room very early, leaving them alone. Berthe would read in the dining-room, while he finished his work in the kitchen, then went round closing the shutters and doors. After a moment's hesitation, he went up behind her and took her in his arms.
    He was disconcerted to find her a woman troubled by emotions, who seemed to expect something more than mere kisses from him. It was she, first, who seized Emile's hand and put it to her breast, and after several days this girl, whom he had believed to be unfeeling, was behaving like a real female.
    The most embarrassing part was the mother's latent complicity. She could not have been unaware of what was going on. Emile was convinced that she was waiting for the irreparable damage to be done so as to be reassured concerning her own future.
    Now the irreparable could not be achieved on the ground floor, where all the rooms were public ones. Emile had no pretext to go into Berthe's room, and she never went up to the attic either.
    It was the period when they were converting some old stables, separated from the main part of the house, in order to put up two or three extra guests during the summer.
    As with the rest of the building they turned it into a typical Provencal place, too much so in fact, and it had already been christened the Cabin.
    One went down a step and the floor was made of large paving-stones like those in old churches. Pascali, the mason, had built a rustic chimney and the windows had small old-fashioned panes, while the ceiling kept its open beams.
    Wooden stairs, which looked rather like a ladder, led to an upper floor divided into two small rooms beneath the sloping roof.
    Tourists enjoy this kind of place, unlike anything else, where they have the impression of being separated from other people. They could house a family with several children there, or young married couples on their honeymoons. On the ground floor the bed was replaced by a large divan covered with flowered cretonne.
    It was in the Cabin that it happened. The alterations were not yet completely finished when Emile had taken to going there after lunch for his siesta.
    He used to lie down for an hour, fully dressed, like most people round about, hearing only the clucking of the hens, from the direction of Maubi's shed, and nearer at hand, the cooing of the two pigeons.
    One afternoon he had just lain down and was only half asleep when he became aware of the sun suddenly streaming in through the open door. Then semi-darkness reigned again. With his eyes closed, he could sense a presence in the room.
    Finally Berthe's voice had stammered:
    'Emile . . .'
    It was in March, he recalled. They were hurrying ahead with the alterations, so that everything would be ready for Easter, which more or less marks the beginning of the season.
    He knew why she was there and, all things considered, it did not displease him.
    He had sat up on the edge of the divan, while Berthe went on:
    'I came to tell you that Mama . . .'
    He preferred not to hear the story which she had prepared, and to spare her a difficult moment.
    'Come here.'
    'But…'
    He had pulled her to him and forced her, without her offering much resistance, to lie beside him.
    'Hush!'
    'Emile . . .'
    'Hush! . . . I'll go and tell your mother presently that it's yes . . .'
    Afterwards he had preferred to remain alone for a while in the Cabin, for he did not want her to see his rather gloomy expression. Berthe must not think he was disappointed.
    Was he really? To tell the truth, he had felt no emotion at all, scarcely the pleasure he could get with any girl, and it had all happened with a kind of embarrassment which spoilt everything.
    Berthe did not leave any impression on him to speak of. Nor, in those days, did she displease him