might well have confirmed the truth of my words to him.

"However, the freshness of the night and the exercise of walking did not
fail to change the directions of my thoughts. When away from the objects
which had awakened such lively disgust in me, I felt it gradually
diminishing. I began to smile at the susceptibility of my feelings,
and then, in proportion as the rain became heavier and colder, these
strictures on myself assumed a tone of ill-temper. I silently accused
myself of the absurdity of mistaking sensation for admonitions of my
reason. After all, were not the farmer and his sons free to live alone,
to hunt, to keep dogs, and to kill a pig? Where was the crime of it?
With less nervous susceptibility, I should have accepted the shelter they
offered me, and I should now be sleeping snugly on a truss of straw,
instead of walking with difficulty through the cold and drizzling rain.
I thus continued to reproach myself, until, toward morning, I arrived at
Montargis, jaded and benumbed with cold.

"When, however, I got up refreshed, toward the middle of the next day,
I instinctively returned to my first opinion. The appearance of the
farmhouse presented itself to me under the same repulsive colors which
the evening before had determined me to make my escape from it. Reason
itself remained silent when reviewing all those coarse details, and was
forced to recognize in them the indications of a low nature, or else the
presence of some baleful influence.

"I went away the next day without being able to learn anything concerning
the farmer or his sons; but the recollection of my adventure remained
deeply fixed in my memory.

"Ten years afterward I was travelling in the diligence through the