We were greeted with the inevitable exclamations, pitched in a whole range of keys and timbres and rhythms, “Ah! There you are!”

“What happened to you?”

“We were so worried!”

“Were you indeed! It was you that dumped us there!”

“It was the wretched donkeys!”

“Oh, come now, sor, ‘tis plain them on donkeys travels faster than them on foot.”

“And my saddle slipped.”

“Yes! We caught it just in time.”

“We picked raspberries.”

“What a view!

“God, it’s beautiful!”

“No, sor, I bain’t stayin’! We be ‘avin’ to get back to Plombié d’rec’ly. I be awaited fer goin’ to the Fox Spring. I ‘ave to be gettin’ back wi’ me donkeys!”

“Well, be off with you then, my fine donkey-wallah, we’ll return on foot. Do you think we’ve struggled all this way up just to spend two minutes and leave without seeing anything?”

In the end we were allowed to enjoy the view, and to admire the Vale of Ajol, which stretches wide and deep below Mlle. Dorothée’s house. It is a vast cradle of greenery, with a reddish-coloured village set at the bottom of the cradle like a child’s toy, and a thousand arabesques delineated by variously hued clumps of fir, beech, birch and ash—that elegant tree which is the pride of the Vosges vegetation; the whole so fresh and peaceful, covered with a light blue veil and well framed on all sides.

On seeing it, the first inclination of the spectator standing at the edge of the terrace is to launch himself into space to swim luxuriantly in this great lake of pure air.