Leaning against that giant tree Mathieu and Marianne became merged in its
sovereign glory and majesty, and was not their royalty akin to its own?
Had they not begotten as many beings as the tree had begotten branches?
Did they not reign there over a nation of their children, who lived by
them, even as the leaves above lived by the tree? The three hundred big
and little ones seated around them were but a prolongation of themselves;
they belonged to the same tree of life, they had sprung from their love
and still clung to them by every fibre. Mathieu and Marianne divined how
joyous they all were at glorifying themselves in making much of them; how
moved the elder ones, how turbulently merry the younger felt. They could
hear their own hearts beating in the breasts of the fair-haired urchins
who already laughed with ecstasy at the sight of the cakes and pastry on
the table. And their work of human creation was assembled in front of
them and within them, in the same way as the oak's huge dome spread out
above it; and all around they were likewise encompassed by the
fruitfulness of their other work, the fertility and growth of nature
which had increased even as they themselves multiplied.
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