Madame—Yes, my religious wool. (She gives him a little pat on the cheek.) Why do you part your hair so much on one side, George? It would suit you much better in the middle, here. Yes, you may kiss me, but gently.
Monsieur—Can you guess what I am thinking of?
Madame—How do you imagine I could guess that?
Monsieur—Well, I am thinking of the barometer which is falling and of the thermometer which is falling too.
Madame—You see, cold weather is coming on and my mat will never be finished. Come, let us make haste.
Monsieur—I was thinking of the thermometer which is falling and of my room which faces due north.
Madame—Did you not choose it yourself? My wool! Good gracious! my wool! Oh! the wicked wretch!
Monsieur—In summer my room with the northern aspect is, no doubt, very pleasant; but when autumn comes, when the wind creeps in, when the rain trickles down the windowpanes, when the fields, the country, seem hidden under a huge veil of sadness, when the spoils of our woodlands strew the earth, when the groves have lost their mystery and the nightingale her voice—oh! then the room with the northern aspect has a very northern aspect, and—
Madame—(continuing to wind her wool)—What nonsense you are talking!
Monsieur—I protest against autumns, that is all. God's sun is hidden and I seek another. Is not that natural, my little fairhaired saint, my little mystic lamb, my little blessed palmbranch? This new sun I find in you, pet—in your look, in the sweet odor of your person, in the rustling of your skirt, in the down on your neck which one notices by the lamp- light when you bend over the vicar's mat, in your nostril which expands when my lips approach yours—