Ce matin les oiseaux mont eveille, he read. Il faisait encore un crepuscule. Mais la petite fenetre de ma chambre etait bleme, et puis, jaune, et tous les oiseaux du bois eclaterent dans un chanson vif et resonnant. Toute laube tressaillit. Javais reve de vous. Est-ce que vous voyez aussi laube? Les oiseaux meveillent presque tous les matins, et toujours il y a quelque chose de terreur dans le cri des grives. Il est si clairMiriam sat tremulous, half ashamed. He remained quite still, trying to understand. He only knew she loved him. 1 Sons and Lovers He was afraid of her love for him. It was too good for him, and he was inadequate. His own love was at fault, not hers. Ashamed, he corrected her work, humbly writing above her words. Look, he said quietly, the past participle conjugated with avoir agrees with the direct object when it precedes.

She bent forward, trying to see and to understand. Her free, fine curls tickled his face. He started as if they had been red hot, shuddering. He saw her peering forward at the page, her red lips parted piteously, the black hair springing in fine strands across her tawny, ruddy cheek. She was coloured like a pomegranate for richness. His breath came short as he watched her. Suddenly she looked up at him. Her dark eyes were naked with their love, afraid, and yearning. His eyes, too, were dark, and they hurt her. They seemed to master her. She lost all her self-control, was exposed in fear. And he knew, before he could kiss her, he must drive something out of himself. And a touch of hate for her crept back again into his heart. He returned to her exercise.

Suddenly he flung down the pencil, and was at the oven in a leap, turning the bread. For Miriam he was too quick. She started violently, and it hurt her with real pain. Even the way he crouched before the oven hurt her. There seemed to be something cruel in it, something cruel in the swift way he pitched the bread out of the tins, caught it up again. If only he had been gentle in his movements she would have felt so rich and warm. As it was, she was hurt. He returned and finished the exercise. Youve done well this week, he said. Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1 She saw he was flattered by her diary. It did not repay her entirely. You really do blossom out sometimes, he said. You ought to write poetry. She lifted her head with joy, then she shook it mistrust-

I dont trust myself, she said. You should try! Again she shook her head. Shall we read, or is it too late? he asked. It is latebut we can read just a little, she pleaded. She was really getting now the food for her life during the next week. He made her copy Baudelaires Le Balcon. Then he read it for her. His voice was soft and caressing, but growing almost brutal. He had a way of lifting his lips and showing his teeth, passionately and bitterly, when he was much moved. This he did now. It made Miriam feel as if he were trampling on her. She dared not look at him, but sat with her head bowed. She could not understand why he got into such a tumult and fury. It made her wretched. She did not like Baudelaire, on the wholenor Verlaine. Behold her singing in the field