The Sin of Abbé Mouret

by Émile Zola

‘Oh! if you only knew, you would tell me to carry you off, you would bind your arms round my neck so I couldn’t go away without you... Yesterday, I decided to see the garden again. It’s even bigger, more profound, and more unfathomable than ever. I found new scents in it, scents so exquisite they made me cry. In the avenues, I met showers of sunshine that drenched me with a shivering of desire. The roses spoke to me of you. The bullfinches were astonished at seeing me alone. The whole garden was sighing... Oh! come, never have the grasses unrolled such soft beds. I have marked with a flower the secret place to which I want to take you. It’s deep in the shrubbery, an open patch of greenery as wide as a large bed. From there you can hear the garden living, with its trees, its streams, and its sky. The breathing of the earth itself will lull us to sleep... Oh! come, and we shall love each other in the love of everything around us.’