Je la trouvais si belle que j’aurais voulu pouvoir revenir sur mes pas, pour lui crier en haussant les épaules: «Comme je vous trouve laide, grotesque, comme vous me répugnez!» Cependant je m’éloignais, emportant pour toujours, comme premier type d’un bonheur inaccessible aux enfants de mon espèce de par des lois naturelles impossibles à transgresser, l’image d’une petite fille rousse, à la peau semée de taches roses, qui tenait une bêche et qui riait en laissant filer sur moi de longs regards sournois et inexpressifs. →
I knew her to be so beautiful that I should have liked to be able to retrace my steps so as to shake my fist at her and shout, "I think you are hideous, grotesque; you are utterly disgusting!" However, I walked away, carrying with me, then and for ever afterwards, as the first illustration of a type of happiness rendered inaccessible to a little boy of my kind by certain laws of nature which it was impossible to transgress, the picture of a little girl with reddish hair, and a skin freckled with tiny pink marks, who held a trowel in her hand, and smiled as she directed towards me a long and subtle and inexpressive stare.