There were seven of us on a drag, four women and three men; one of the latter sat on the box seat beside the coachman. We were ascending¹, at a snail's pace, the winding² road up the steep cliff along the coast.

 

Setting out from Etretat at break of day in order to visit the ruins of Tancarville, we were still half asleep, benumbed by the fresh air of the morning. The women especially, who were little accustomed to these early excursions, half opened and closed their eyes every moment, nodding their heads or yawning, quite insensible to the beauties of the dawn.

 

It was autumn. On both sides of the road stretched the bare fields, yellowed by the stubble of wheat and oats which covered the soil like a beard that had been badly shaved. The moist earth seemed to steam. Larks³ were singing high up in the air, while other birds piped in the bushes.

 

The sun rose at length in front of us, bright red on the plane of the horizon, and in proportion as it ascended⁴, growing clearer from minute to minute, the country seemed to awake, to smile, to shake itself like a young girl leaving her bed in her white robe of vapor⁵. The Comte d'Etraille, who was seated on the box, cried:

 

“Look! look! a hare!” and he extended his arm toward the left, pointing to a patch of clover. The animal scurried⁶ along, almost hidden by the clover, only its large ears showing. Then it swerved⁷ across a furrow⁸, stopped, started off again at full speed, changed its course, stopped anew, uneasy, spying out every danger, uncertain what route to take, when suddenly it began to run with great bounds, disappearing finally in a large patch of beet-root. All the men had waked up to watch the course of the animal.

 

Rene Lamanoir exclaimed:

分享到：