“Just fancy, my dear fellow,” said Beauchene, “we haven’t seen a single duck!  It’s no doubt too cold.  And you can’t imagine what a bitter wind blows on the plateau, amid those ponds and bushes bristling with icicles.  So we gave up the idea of any shooting.  You must give us each a glass of hot wine, and then we’ll get back to Paris.”

Seguin, who was in even a worse humor, stood before the fire trying to thaw himself; and while Marianne made haste to warm some wine, he began to speak of the cleared fields which he had skirted.  Under the icy covering, however, beneath which they stiffly slumbered, hiding the seed within them, he had guessed nothing of the truth, and already felt anxious about this business of Mathieu’s, which looked anything but encouraging.  Indeed, he already feared that he would not be paid his purchase money, and so made bold to speak ironically.

“I say, my dear fellow, I am afraid you have lost your time,” he began; “I noticed it all as I went by, and it did not seem promising.  But how can you hope to reap anything from rotten soil in which only reeds have been growing for centuries?”

“One must wait,” Mathieu quietly answered.  “You must come back and see it all next June.”

But Beauchene interrupted them.  “There is a train at four o’clock, I think,” said he; “let us make haste, for it would annoy us tremendously to miss it, would it not, Seguin?”

So saying, he gave him a gay, meaning glance.  They had doubtless planned some little spree together, like husbands bent on availing themselves to the utmost of the convenient pretext of a day’s shooting.  Then, having drunk some wine and feeling warmed and livelier, they began to express astonishment at their surroundings.

“It stupefies me, my dear fellow,” declared Beauchene, “that you can live in this awful solitude in the depth of winter.  It is enough to kill anybody.  I am all in favor of work, you know; but, dash it! one must have some amusement too.”

“But we do amuse ourselves,” said Mathieu, waving his hand round that rustic kitchen in which centred all their pleasant family life.

The two visitors followed his gesture, and gazed in amazement at the walls covered with utensils, at the rough furniture, and at the table on which the children were still building their village after offering their cheeks to be kissed.  No doubt they were unable to understand what pleasure there could possibly be there, for, suppressing a jeering laugh, they shook their heads.  To them it was really an extraordinary life, a life of most singular taste.

“Come and see my little Gervais,” said Marianne softly.  “He is asleep; mind, you must not wake him.”

For politeness’ sake they both bent over the cradle, and expressed surprise at finding a child but ten months old so big.  He was very good, too.  Only, as soon as he should wake, he would no doubt deafen everybody.  And then, too, if a fine child like that sufficed to make life happy, how many people must be guilty of spoiling their lives!  The visitors came back to the fireside, anxious only to be gone now that they felt enlivened.