For she was sealed from us- from everyone- with such fierceness that I had thought her incapable of yielding. That this stony and prosaic woman should in her secret moments harbor such thoughts. It is a whimsical touch, which surprises and troubles me. I knew their haunts and breeding grounds. I knew the meaty scent of the bolet and the dry, earthy smell of the brown-cap mushroom. Mother always told us to take our mushrooms to the pharmacy to ensure we had not gathered anything poisonous, but I never made a mistake. I could smell those mushrooms out, the gray chanterelle and the orange, with its apricot scent, the bolet and the petit rose and the edible puffball and the brown-cap and the blue-cap. Still am, to tell the truth, but in those days I had a nose like a truffle pig's. It was the mushroom season, so after I had brought my catch back to the farm and cleaned it out, I took some bread and cheese for breakfast and set out into the woods to hunt for mushrooms. I sang as I lifted my traps, and my voice bounced off the misty banks of the Loire like a challenge. There are maybe three such days in a year. “It was one of those red-gold early October days, the air crisp and tart as heady as applejack, and even at dawn the sky was the clear, purplish blue that only the finest of autumn days brings.
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