My uncle went to the bottom of the walk, without altering his step and without turning round.  Once there, he stopped, and I kept beside him, understanding that the terrible moment had arrived.

The river made a sharp curve; a low parapet at the end of the walk formed a sort of terrace.  This vault of shade opened on a valley of light.  The country expanded wide before us, for several leagues.  The sun was rising in the heavens, where the silvery rays of morning had become transformed into a stream of gold; blinding floods of light ran from the horizon, along the hills, and spread out into the plain with the glare of fire.

After a moment’s silence, my uncle Lazare turned towards me.

“Good heavens, the sermon!” I thought, and I bowed my head.  My uncle pointed out the valley to me, with an expansive gesture; then, drawing himself up, he said, slowly: 

“Look, Jean, there is the spring.  The earth is full of joy, my boy, and I have brought you here, opposite this plain of light, to show you the first smiles of the young season.  Observe what brilliancy and sweetness!  Warm perfumes rise from the country and pass across our faces like puffs of life.”

He was silent and seemed dreaming.  I had raised my head, astonished, breathing at ease.  My uncle was not preaching.

“It is a beautiful morning,” he continued, “a morning of youth.  Your eighteen summers find full enjoyment amidst this verdure which is at most eighteen days old.  All is great brightness and perfume, is it not?  The broad valley seems to you a delightful place:  the river is there to give you its freshness, the trees to lend you their shade, the whole country to speak to you of tenderness, the heavens themselves to kiss those horizons that you are searching with hope and desire.  The spring belongs to fellows of your age.  It is it that teaches the boys how to give young girls to drink—­”

I hung my head again.  My uncle Lazare had certainly seen me.

“An old fellow like me,” he continued, “unfortunately knows what trust to place in the charms of spring.  I, my poor Jean, I love the Durance because it waters these meadows and gives life to all the valley; I love this young foliage because it proclaims to me the coming of the fruits of summer and autumn; I love this sky because it is good to us, because its warmth hastens the fecundity of the earth.  I should have had to tell you this one day or other; I prefer telling it you now, at this early hour.  It is spring itself that is giving you the lesson.  The earth is a vast workshop wherein there is never a slack season.  Observe this flower at our feet; to you it is perfume; to me it is labour, it accomplishes its task by producing its share of life, a little black seed which will work in its turn, next spring.  And, now, search the vast horizon.  All this joy is but the act of generation.  If the country be smiling, it is because it is beginning the everlasting task again.  Do you hear it now, breathing hard, full of activity and haste?  The leaves sigh, the flowers are in a hurry, the corn grows without pausing; all the plants, all the herbs are quarrelling as to which shall spring up the quickest; and the running water, the river comes to assist in the common labour, and the young sun which rises in the heavens is entrusted with the duty of enlivening the everlasting task of the labourers.”