The farm,
the homestead, had sprung up and grown in the centre of the estate like a
prosperous township, with inhabitants, servants, and live stock, a
perfect focus of ardent triumphal life. And what sovereign power was that
of the happy fruitfulness which had never wearied of creating, which had
yielded all these beings and things that had been increasing and
multiplying for twelve years past, that invading town which was but a
family's expansion, those trees, those plants, those grain crops, those
fruits whose nourishing stream ever rose under the dazzling sun! All pain
and all tears were forgotten in that joy of creation, the accomplishment
of due labor, the conquest of the future conducting to the infinite of
Action.
Then, while Mathieu completed his work of conquest, Marianne during those
two years had the happiness of seeing a daughter born to her son Blaise,
even while she herself was expecting another child. The branches of the
huge tree had begun to fork, pending the time when they would ramify
endlessly, like the branches of some great royal oak spreading afar over
the soil. There would be her children's children, her grandchildren's
children, the whole posterity increasing from generation to generation.
Pages:
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430