I got into a carriage which he drove himself, and we set off through the town, a dull, sleepy, gloomy town where nothing was moving in the streets except a few dogs and two or three maidservants.  Here and there a shopkeeper, standing at his door, took off his hat, and Simon returned his salute and told me the man’s name; no doubt to show me that he knew all the inhabitants personally, and the thought struck me that he was thinking of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream of all those who bury themselves in the provinces.

We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden that was an imitation of a park, and stopped in front of a turreted house, which tried to look like a chateau.

“That is my den,” said Simon, so that I might compliment him on it.  “It is charming,” I replied.

A lady appeared on the steps, dressed for company, and with company phrases all ready prepared.  She was no longer the light-haired, insipid girl I had seen in church fifteen years previously, but a stout lady in curls and flounces, one of those ladies of uncertain age, without intellect, without any of those things that go to make a woman.  In short, she was a mother, a stout, commonplace mother, a human breeding machine which procreates without any other preoccupation but her children and her cook-book.

She welcomed me, and I went into the hall, where three children, ranged according to their height, seemed set out for review, like firemen before a mayor, and I said:  “Ah! ah! so there are the others?” Simon, radiant with pleasure, introduced them:  “Jean, Sophie and Gontran.”

The door of the drawing-room was open.  I went in, and in the depths of an easy-chair, I saw something trembling, a man, an old, paralyzed man.  Madame Radevin came forward and said:  “This is my grandfather, monsieur; he is eighty-seven.”  And then she shouted into the shaking old man’s ears:  “This is a friend of Simon’s, papa.”  The old gentleman tried to say “good-day” to me, and he muttered:  “Oua, oua, oua,” and waved his hand, and I took a seat saying:  “You are very kind, monsieur.”

Simon had just come in, and he said with a laugh:  “So!  You have made grandpapa’s acquaintance.  He is a treasure, that old man; he is the delight of the children.  But he is so greedy that he almost kills himself at every meal; you have no idea what he would eat if he were allowed to do as he pleased.  But you will see, you will see.  He looks at all the sweets as if they were so many girls.  You never saw anything so funny; you will see presently.”

I was then shown to my room, to change my dress for dinner, and hearing a great clatter behind me on the stairs, I turned round and saw that all the children were following me behind their father; to do me honor, no doubt.

My windows looked out across a dreary, interminable plain, an ocean of grass, of wheat and of oats, without a clump of trees or any rising ground, a striking and melancholy picture of the life which they must be leading in that house.