It was a book belonging to her youth, one of those poets of nature whom her father had taught her to love. And she perceived the whole past of her life as a young girl rising up from the pure white of the stanzas as well as the fresh and penetrating impression of the books one has read first in life.
La belle aurait pu sans souci
Manger ses fraises loin d’ici
Au bord d’une claire fontaine
Avec un joyeux moissonneur
Qui l’aurait prise sur son cœur,
Elle aurait eu bien moins de peine.
(In happy ease that damsel fair
Her berries might have eaten where
A fountain plashes o’er a stone;