The beneficent source had begun to flow once more,
as if it were inexhaustible. The trickling milk murmured unceasingly. One
might have said that it could be heard descending and spreading, while
Mathieu on his side continued opening his trench, assisted by the two men
whose apprenticeship was long since past.
He rose up at last, wiped his brow, and with his air of quiet certainty
exclaimed: "It's only a trade to learn. In a few months' time I shall be
nothing but a peasant. Look at that stagnant pond there, green with
water-plants. The spring which feeds it is yonder in that big tuft of
herbage. And when this trench has been opened to the edge of the slope,
you will see the pond dry up, and the spring gush forth and take its
course, carrying the beneficent water away."
"Ah!" said Marianne, "may it fertilize all that stony expanse, for
nothing can be sadder than dead land. How happy it will be to quench its
thirst and live again!"
Then she broke off to scold Gervais: "Come, young gentleman, don't pull
so hard," said she. "Wait till it comes; you know very well that it's all
for you."
Meantime the blows of the pickaxes rang out, the trench rapidly made its
way through the fat, moist soil, and soon the water would flow into the
parched veins of the neighboring sandy tracts to endow them with
fruitfulness.
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