Page:Colas breugnon.djvu/115

 was my wife,—gentle soul!—shaking her fist at me out of the window! I fixed my eyes on the stream and made believe not to see her, but she was reflected upside down as if in a glass; I did not say a word, but shook all over with inward laughter, and the more I laughed the angrier she got. It was too killing to see her bobbing up and down in the Beuvron head first! At last she lost all patience; I heard doors and windows banging behind her, and she came rushing out after me like a whirlwind. She had to cross a bridge to get at me, and the question was which? Right or left, for we were just between the two. She made for the little foot-bridge to the right, and I naturally took the other, where I found Gadin planted on the very same spot where I had left him in the morning.

Night was falling as I came to my own door. Though I am not like that lazy Roman who was always complaining that he had lost a day, still I do not know where time goes, though none of this day has been lost, and I am content enough, but if only there were forty-eight hours instead of twenty-four! I do not feel that I always get my money's worth, for my glass is no sooner filled than it is empty; there must be a crack in it. I sometimes think I envy people who sip and sip without ever coming to the bottom. It cannot be that their