The horse then stopped, and the man in a jeering voice called out: "So
this, then, is your work, Monsieur Froment?"
Mathieu and Marianne thereupon recognized the Lepailleurs, the people of
the mill. They were well aware that folks laughed at Janville over the
folly of their attempt--that mad idea of growing wheat among the marshes
of the plateau. Lepailleur, in particular, distinguished himself by the
violent raillery he levelled at this Parisian, a gentleman born, with a
good berth, who was so stupid as to make himself a peasant, and fling
what money he had to that rascally earth, which would assuredly swallow
him and his children and his money all together, without yielding even
enough wheat to keep them in bread. And thus the sight of the field had
stupefied him. It was a long while since he had passed that way, and he
had never thought that the seed would sprout so thickly, for he had
repeated a hundred times that nothing would germinate, so rotten was all
the land. Although he almost choked with covert anger at seeing his
predictions thus falsified, he was unwilling to admit his error, and put
on an air of ironical doubt.
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