"Leaving the coast, I reached the hamlet, which was hemmed in by great
trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.

"She was an old, wrinkled and stern peasant woman, who seemed always to
receive customers under protest, with a kind of defiance.

"It was the month of May. The spreading apple trees covered the court
with a shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon people and
upon the grass.

"I said: 'Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?'

"Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:

"'That depends; everything is let, but all the same I can find out."

"In five minutes we had come to an agreement, and I deposited my bag upon
the earthen floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed, two chairs, a
table and a washbowl. The room looked into the large, smoky kitchen,
where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm and the
landlady, who was a widow.

"I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman was making a
chicken fricassee for dinner in the large fireplace in which hung the
iron pot, black with smoke.

"'You have travellers, then, at the present time?' said I to her.

"She answered in an offended tone of voice: