“Yes, yes, I know, we are very, very hungry.  But it is all right; the soup is on the fire, and will be served to Monsieur smoking hot.”

On awakening that morning she had made a real Sunday toilette:  her superb hair was caught up in a huge chignon which disclosed the whiteness of her neck, and she wore a white flannel lace-trimmed dressing-jacket, which allowed but a little of her bare arms to be seen.  Propped up by two pillows, she laughingly offered her breast to the child, who was already protruding his lips and groping with his hands.  And when he found what he wanted he eagerly began to suck.

Mathieu, seeing that both mother and babe were steeped in sunshine, then went to draw one of the curtains, but Marianne exclaimed:  “No, no, leave us the sun; it doesn’t inconvenience us at all, it fills our veins with springtide.”

He came back and lingered near the bed.  The sun’s rays poured over it, and life blazed there in a florescence of health and beauty.  There is no more glorious blossoming, no more sacred symbol of living eternity than an infant at its mother’s breast.  It is like a prolongation of maternity’s travail, when the mother continues giving herself to her babe, offering him the fountain of life that shall make him a man.

Scarce is he born to the world than she takes him back and clasps him to her bosom, that he may there again have warmth and nourishment.  And nothing could be more simple or more necessary.  Marianne, both for her own sake and that of her boy, in order that beauty and health might remain their portion, was naturally his nurse.

Little Gervais was still sucking when Zoe, after tidying the room, came up again with a big bunch of lilac, and announced that Monsieur and Madame Angelin had called, on their way back from an early walk, to inquire after Madame.

“Show them up,” said Marianne gayly; “I can well receive them.”

The Angelins were the young couple who, having installed themselves in a little house at Janville, ever roamed the lonely paths, absorbed in their mutual passion.  She was delicious—­dark, tall, admirably formed, always joyous and fond of pleasure.  He, a handsome fellow, fair and square shouldered, had the gallant mien of a musketeer with his streaming moustache.  In addition to their ten thousand francs a year, which enabled them to live as they liked, he earned a little money by painting pretty fans, flowery with roses and little women deftly postured.  And so their life had hitherto been a game of love, an everlasting billing and cooing.  Towards the close of the previous summer they had become quite intimate with the Froments, through meeting them well-nigh every day.

“Can we come in?  Are we not intruding?” called Angelin, in his sonorous voice, from the landing.

Then Claire, his wife, as soon as she had kissed Marianne, apologized for having called so early.