poor Jansoulet, to whom the money he was bringing might save honour and life, of his dear Aline, her whose remembrance had not quitted him a single day of his journey, no more than the portrait which she had given him.  Then he was inspired to hire one of those four-horse calesinos which run from Genoa to Nice, along the Italian Corniche—­an adorable trip which foreigners, lovers, and winners at Monaco often enjoy.  The driver guaranteed that he would be at Nice early; and even if he arrived no earlier than the train, his impatient spirit felt the comfort of movement, of feeling at each turn of the wheel the distance from his desire decrease.

On a fine morning in June, when one is young and in love, it is a delicious intoxication to tear behind four horses over the white Corniche road.  To the left, a hundred feet below, the sea sparkling with foam, from the rounded rocks of the shore to those vapoury distances where the blue of the waves and of the heavens mingle; red or white sails are scattered over it like wings, steamers leaving behind them their trail of smoke; and on the sands, fishermen no larger than birds, in their anchored boats like nests.  Then the road descends, follows a rapid declivity along the rocks and sharp promontories.  The fresh wind from the waves shakes the little harness bells; while on the right, on the side of the mountain, the rows of pine-trees, the green oaks with roots capriciously leaving the arid soil, and olive-trees growing on their terraces, up to a wide and white pebbly ravine, bordered with grass, marking the passage of the waters.  This is really a dried-up water-course, which the loaded mules ascend with firm foot among the shingle, and a washer-woman stoops near a microscopic pond—­the few drops that remained of the great inundation of winter.  From time to time one crosses the street of some village, or little town rather, grown rusty through too much sun, of historic age, the houses closely packed and joined by dark arcades—­a network of vaulted courts which clamber the hillside with glimpses of the upper daylight, here and there letting one see crowds of children with aureoles of hair, baskets of brilliant fruit, a woman coming down the road, her water-pot on her head and her distaff on her arm.  Then at a corner of the street, the blue sparkle of the waves and the immensity of nature.

But as the day advanced, the sun rising in the heavens spread over the sea—­now escaped from its mists, still with the transparence of quartz—­thousands of rays striking the water like arrow-heads, a dazzling sight made doubly so by the whiteness of the rocks and of the soil, by a veritable African sirocco which raised the dust in a whirlwind on the road.  They were coming to the hottest and most sheltered places of the Corniche—­a true exotic temperature, scattering dates, cactus, and aloes.  Seeing these thin trunks, this fantastic vegetation in the white hot air, feeling the blinding dust crackle under the