And the light trickling of the mother's milk also continued
with the faint murmur of an inexhaustible source, flowing from her breast
into the mouth of her babe, like a fountain of eternal life. It ever and
ever flowed, it created flesh, intelligence, and labor, and strength. And
soon its whispering would mingle with the babble of the delivered spring
as it descended along the trenches to the dry hot lands. And at last
there would be but one and the same stream, one and the same river,
gradually overflowing and carrying life to all the earth, a mighty river
of nourishing milk flowing through the world's veins, creating without a
pause, and producing yet more youth and more health at each return of
springtide.
Four months later, when Mathieu and his men had finished the autumn
ploughing, there came the sowing on the same spot. Marianne was there
again, and it was such a very mild gray day that she was still able to
sit down, and once more gayly give the breast to little Gervais. He was
already eight months old and had become quite a personage. He grew a
little more every day, always in his mother's arms, on that warm breast
whence he sucked life.
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