Since the
family had been at war she had kept the doors closed, intent on opening
them only to her children when they became reconciled, if they should
then seek to make her happy by coming to embrace one another beneath her
roof. But she virtually despaired of that sole cure for her grief, the
only joy that would make her live again.
That evening, as Mathieu came to sit beside her, and they lingered there
hand in hand according to their wont, they did not at first speak, but
gazed straight before them at the spreading plain; at the estate, whose
interminable fields blended with the mist far away; at the mill yonder on
the banks of the Yeuse, with its tall, smoking chimney; and at Paris
itself on the horizon, where a tawny cloud was rising as from the huge
furnace of some forge.
The minutes slowly passed away. During the afternoon Mathieu had taken a
long walk in the direction of the farms of Mareuil and Lillebonne, in the
hope of quieting his torment by physical fatigue. And in a low voice, as
if speaking to himself, he at last said:
"The ploughing could not take place under better conditions. Yonder on
the plateau the quality of the soil has been much improved by the recent
methods of cultivation; and here, too, on the slopes, the sandy soil has
been greatly enriched by the new distribution of the springs which
Gervais devised.
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