“Ah! yes, it’s true I was forgetting you,” said Marianne gayly; “you shall have your share.  There, open your mouth, you darling;” and, with an easy, simple gesture, she unfastened her dress-body; and then, under the sunlight which steeped her in golden radiance, in full view of the far-spreading countryside, where all likewise was bare—­the soil, the trees, the plants, streaming with sap—­having seated herself in the long grass, where she almost disappeared amid the swarming growth of April’s germs, the babe on her breast eagerly sucked in her warm milk, even as all the encompassing verdure was sucking life from the soil.

“How hungry you are!” she exclaimed.  “Don’t pinch me so hard, you little glutton!”

Meantime Mathieu had remained standing amid the enchantment of the child’s first smile and the gayety born of the hearty hunger around him.  Then his dream of creation came back to him, and he at last gave voice to those plans for the future which haunted him, and of which he had so far spoken to nobody:  “Ah, well, it is high time that I should set to work and found a kingdom, if these children are to have enough soup to make them grow.  Shall I tell you what I’ve thought—­shall I tell you?”

Marianne raised her eyes, smiling and all attention.  “Yes, tell me your secret if the time has come.  Oh!  I could guess that you had some great hope in you.  But I did not ask you anything; I preferred to wait.”

He did not give a direct reply, for at a sudden recollection his feelings rebelled.  “That Lepailleur,” said he, “is simply a lazy fellow and a fool in spite of all his cunning airs.  Can there be any more sacrilegious folly than to imagine that the earth has lost her fruitfulness and is becoming bankrupt—­she, the eternal mother, eternal life?  She only shows herself a bad mother to her bad sons, the malicious, the obstinate, and the dull-witted, who do not know how to love and cultivate her.  But if an intelligent son comes and devotes himself to her, and works her with the help of experience and all the new systems of science, you will soon see her quicken and yield tremendous harvests unceasingly.  Ah! folks say in the district that this estate of Chantebled has never yielded and never will yield anything but nettles.  Well, nevertheless, a man will come who will transform it and make it a new land of joy and abundance.”

Then, suddenly turning round, with outstretched arm, and pointing to the spots to which he referred in turn, he went on:  “Yonder in the rear there are nearly five hundred acres of little woods, stretching as far as the farms of Mareuil and Lillebonne.  They are separated by clearings of excellent soil which broad gaps unite, and which could easily be turned into good pastures, for there are numerous springs.  And, indeed, the springs become so abundant on the right, that they have changed that big plateau into a kind of marshland, dotted with ponds, and planted with reeds and rushes.  But picture a man of bold