le her thoughts wandered away in the profound silence. But
the tapes were sewed on the little waists, she had even marked some new
wrappers, which she had bought the day before. And, her sewing finished,
she rose to put the linen away. Outside the sun was declining, and
only slender and oblique sunbeams entered through the crevices of the
shutters. She could not see clearly, and she opened one of the shutters,
then she forgot herself for a moment, at the sight of the vast horizon
suddenly unrolled before her. The intense heat had abated, a delicious
breeze was blowing, and the sky was of a cloudless blue. To the left
could be distinguished even the smallest clumps of pines, among the
blood-colored ravines of the rocks of the Seille, while to the right,
beyond the hills of Sainte-Marthe, the valley of the Viorne stretched
away in the golden dust of the setting sun. She looked for a moment at
the tower of St. Saturnin, all golden also, dominating the rose-colored
town; and she was about to leave the window when she saw a sight that
drew her back and kept her there, leaning on her elbow for a long time
still.

Beyond the railroad a multitude of people were crowded together on the
old mall. Clotilde at once remembered the ceremony. She knew that her
Grandmother Felicite was going to lay the first stone of the Rougon
Asylum, the triumphant monument destined to carry down to future ages
the glory of the family. Vast preparations had been going on for a week
past. There was talk of a silver hod and trowel, which the old lady was
to use herself, determined to figure to triumph, with her eighty-two
years. What swelled her heart with regal pride was that on this occasion
she made the conquest of Plassans for the third time, for she compelled
the whole town, all the three quarters, to range themselves around her,
to form an escort for her, and to applaud her as a benefactress. For, of
course, there had to be present lady patronesses, chosen from among the
noblest ladies of the Quartier St. Marc; a delegation from the
societies of working-women of the old quarter, and, finally, the
most distinguished residents of the new town, advocates, notaries,
physicians, without counting the common people, a stream of people
dressed in their Sunday clothes, crowding there eagerly, as to a
festival. And in the midst of this supreme triumph she was perhaps
most proud--she, one of the queens of the Second Empire, the widow who
mourned with so muc