Pappa wanders ahead at an unreasonable pace with Mme. la Comtesse. Thérèse and I set about gathering daisies and poppies, with which the green is starred. The dogs come out from the neighbouring farmhouse; and Thérèse, who fears dogs horribly, has to be adequately protected.
We come up with pappa on the river-bank. We all set off dawdling single-file along the brush-hemmed river-path.... The Normandy twilight has settled down; but it will last till ten. La Bouille lies on the other shore under the cliffs that gleam through their foliage. The river gleams beneath them. There is a long track of light leading to the ridge at the bend where the tottering battlements of the castle of Robert le Diable stand against the sky-line. A hospital ship, now faintly luminous, lies under the shadow of the la Bouille ridge. The village lights have begun to twinkle on the other shore. The soft cries of playing children creep over the water. The cry of the ferryman ready to leave is thrown back from the cliffs with startling clearness. The groves that fringe the cliff are cut out branch by branch against the ruddy sky.
We don't want to talk much after coming on the river: neither do we....
It has darkened palpably when we turn to enter the village, an hour after. The hedged lanes are dark under the poplar-groves. The latticed windows of the cottages are brilliant patchwork of light. The glow-worms are in the road-side grass and in the hedges. We pluck them to put them in our hats. Thérèse weaves all manner of wistful fancies about them. We pass under the Henry VIII. église to the house, and enter quietly.
Thérèse sits at the piano without stupid invitation, and sings some of the lovely French folk-songs, and (by a special dispensation) some German, that are almost as haunting. The old man watches his daughter with a sort of fearful adoration, as though this creature, whose spirit gleams through the fair flesh of her, were too fine a thing for him to be father of.
Between the songs we talk. There is cake and wine—that and the common-sensed sallies of Mme. la Comtesse to restrain the romance and the sensuousness of the warm June Normandy night.
I left at midnight. We said an au revoir under the porch; and far down the road came floating after the dawdling wheel a faint "Au 'voir ... à Dimanche"—full of a sweet and friendly re-invitation to all this. I registered an acceptance with gratitude for the blessings of Heaven, and wandered on along the white night road for Rouen. Why hasten through such a night? Rouen would have been pardoned for being twice ten miles distant. The silent river, the gleaming road, the faintly rustling trees, and the warm night filled with the scents of the Forêt de Roumare, forbade fatigue and all reckoning of hours.... And that was the blessed conclusion of most Sabbath evenings for three months.