It is we (do you see?) who should be taught politeness; and the task
would be such a difficult one that Hercules himself would not be equal
to it. You speak to me about Etretat, and about the people who indulge
in "tittle-tattle" along the beach of that delightful watering-place. It
is a spot now lost to me, a thing of the past, but I found much
amusement there in days gone by.

There were only a few of us, people in good society, really good
society, and a few artists, and we all fraternized. We paid little
attention to gossip in those days.

Well, as we had no insipid Casino, where people only gather for show,
where they talk in whispers, where they dance stupidly, where they
succeed in thoroughly boring one another, we sought some other way of
passing our evenings pleasantly. Now, just guess what came into the head
of one of our husbandry? Nothing less than to go and dance each night in
one of the farmhouses in the neighborhood.

We started out in a group with a street-organ, generally played by Le
Poittevin, the painter, with a cotton nightcap on his head. Two men
carried lanterns. We followed in procession, laughing and chattering
like a pack of fools.

We woke up the farmer and his servant-maids and laboring men. We got
them to make onion-soup (horror!), and we danced under the apple-trees,
to the sound of the barrel-organ. The cocks waking up began to crow in
the darkness of the outhouses; the horses began prancing on the straw of
their stables. The cool air of the country caressed our cheeks with the
smell of grass and of new-mown hay.