Behind the bath-house is a high hill, covered with admirable trees, where wind sequestered walks. Thence you see under your feet the city, whose slated roofs reflect the powerful light of the burning sky and stand out in the limpid air with a tawny and leaden hue. A line of poplars marks on the great green plain the course of the river; towards Tarbes it strikes endlessly into the vaporous distance, amidst tender hues. Opposite, wooded and cultivated hills rise, round-topped, to the very horizon. On the right, the mountains, like so many pyramids, descend in long regular quoins. These hills and mountains cut out a sinuous line on the radiant border of the sky. From the white and smiling horizon, the eye mounts by insensible shades to the deep burning blue of the dome. This whiteness imparts a tender and delicious sensation, mingling of revery and pleasure; it touches, troubles and delights, like the song of Cherubino in Mozart. A fresh wind comes from the valley; the body is as comfortable as the mind; one finds in his nature a harmony hitherto unknown; he no longer bears the weight of his thought or of his mechanism; he does nothing but feel; he becomes thoroughly animal, that is to say, perfectly happy.
In the evening we walk in the plain. There are in the fields of maize retired paths where one is alone. The tops, seven feet high, form, as it were, a copse of trees. The great sheaf of green leaves ends in slender little columns of rosy grains, and the slanting sun slips its arrows of gold among the stalks. You find meadows cut by streams which the peasants dam up, and which, for several hours, overflow to refresh the fields. The day declines, the huge shadow of the mountains darkens the verdure; clouds of insects hum in the heavy air. The whisper of an expiring breeze makes the leaves to shiver for a moment. Meanwhile the carriages and the cavalcades return on all the roads, and the courts are illuminated for the evening promenade.
[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
