willows, and Clochegourde.  All was silent and palpitating, as a landscape is at midday in summer.  The still foliage lay sharply defined on the blue of the sky; the insects that live by light, the dragon-flies, the cantharides, were flying among the reeds and the ash-trees; cattle chewed the cud in the shade, the ruddy earth of the vineyards glowed, the adders glided up and down the banks.  What a change in the sparkling and coquettish landscape while I slept!  I sprang suddenly from the boat and ran up the road which went round Clochegourde for I fancied that I saw the count coming out.  I was not mistaken; he was walking beside the hedge, evidently making for a gate on the road to Azay which followed the bank of the river.

“How are you this morning, Monsieur le comte?”

He looked at me pleasantly, not being used to hear himself thus addressed.

“Quite well,” he answered.  “You must love the country, to be rambling about in this heat!”

“I was sent here to live in the open air.”

“Then what do you say to coming with me to see them cut my rye?”

“Gladly,” I replied.  “I’ll own to you that my ignorance is past belief; I don’t know rye from wheat, nor a poplar from an aspen; I know nothing of farming, nor of the various methods of cultivating the soil.”

“Well, come and learn,” he cried gaily, returning upon his steps.  “Come in by the little gate above.”

The count walked back along the hedge, he being within it and I without.

“You will learn nothing from Monsieur de Chessel,” he remarked; “he is altogether too fine a gentleman to do more than receive the reports of his bailiff.”

The count then showed me his yards and the farm buildings, the pleasure-grounds, orchards, vineyards, and kitchen garden, until we finally came to the long alley of acacias and ailanthus beside the river, at the end of which I saw Madame de Mortsauf sitting on a bench, with her children.  A woman is very lovely under the light and quivering shade of such foliage.  Surprised, perhaps, at my prompt visit, she did not move, knowing very well that we should go to her.  The count made me admire the view of the valley, which at this point is totally different from that seen from the heights above.  Here I might have thought myself in a corner of Switzerland.  The meadows, furrowed with little brooks which flow into the Indre, can be seen to their full extent till lost in the misty distance.  Towards Montbazon the eye ranges over a vast green plain; in all other directions it is stopped by hills, by masses of trees, and rocks.  We quickened our steps as we approached Madame de Mortsauf, who suddenly dropped the book in which Madeleine was reading to her and took Jacques upon her knees, in the paroxysms of a violent cough.

“What’s the matter?” cried the count, turning livid.

“A sore throat,” answered the mother, who seemed not to see me; “but it is nothing serious.”