Denise is infatuated with Paul, our narrator. They spent a year together in his Paris apartment, a year of routine without much diversion. He goes to work in the morning and she stays home, for Denise is a good-sized dog, a four-year-old Bernese Cattle Dog. Between them, the ordinary, recurrent urban wanders are limited to three daily outings. With which she makes do. A year like that sets Paul fretting, so much so that they treat themselves to a four-day excursion. Denise on Mt. Ventoux. But what happened on the way down between Denise and her master, on the slopes of that beast of a mountain?