The slender grasses, with their flowers of grey dust, spread over the ground a deep, scarcely palpable covering into which the feet sank, and the last moths, at the end of their evening's exercise, plunged one after another into the thickness of this herbage, to take their sleeping posts on the slender stems.
And darkness came, slow and tranquil, with an air of mystery.
Passed a young Breton lad who carried a knapsack on his shoulder. He was returning rather tipsy from Lannildu, a peacock's feather in his hat. (I do not know what this has to do with the story of Yves: I relate at hazard things which have remained in my memory.) He stopped and began to address us. Finally, by way of peroration, he showed us his knapsack, saying:
"Look here! I have two cats in this." (This had no sort of relation to what he had been saying to us before.)
He placed his burden on the ground and threw his hat upon it. Thereupon the knapsack began to swear, with the strong voices of angry tom-cats, and to move in somersaults along the road.
When he had convinced us in this way that they were indeed cats, he put the whole on his shoulder again, saluted, and went his way.
[CHAPTER L]
17th June, 1878.
We rose early to go into the woods and gather "luzes" (little blue-black fruits which are found in the deepest of the thickets, on plants which resemble the mistletoe).
Anne no longer wore her gay festival attire: she had put on a large smooth collarette and a simpler head-dress. Her Breton dress of blue cloth was ornamented with yellow embroidery: on each side of her bodice were designs imitating rows of eyes such as butterflies have on their wings.