ecay, where an old
maid-servant stood waiting beside a young fellow, who took charge of the
horse.

We entered the farmhouse. The smoky kitchen was high and spacious. The
copper utensils and the crockery shone in the reflection of the hearth. A
cat lay asleep on a chair, a dog under the table. One perceived an odor
of milk, apples, smoke, that indescribable smell peculiar to old
farmhouses; the odor of the earth, of the walls, of furniture, the odor
of spilled stale soup, of former wash-days and of former inhabitants, the
smell of animals and of human beings combined, of things and of persons,
the odor of time, and of things that have passed away.

I went out to have a look at the farmyard. It was very large, full of
apple trees, dwarfed and crooked, and laden with fruit which fell on the
grass around them. In this farmyard the Norman smell of apples was as
strong as that of the bloom of orange trees on the shores of the south of
France.

Four rows of beeches surrounded this inclosure. They were so tall that
they seemed to touch the clouds at this hour of nightfall, and their
summits, through which the night winds passed, swayed and sang a
mournful, interminable song.

I reentered the house.

The baron was warming his feet at the fire, and was listening to the
farmer's talk about country matters. He talked about marriages, births
and deaths, then about the fall in the price of grain and the latest news
about cattle. The "Veularde" (as he called a cow that had been bought at
the fair of Veules) had calved in the middle of June. The cider had not
been first-class last year. Apricots were almost disappearing from the
country.

Then we had dinner. It was a good rustic meal, simple and abundant, long
and tranquil. And while we were dining I noticed the special kind of
friendly familiarity which had struck me from the start between the baron
and the peasant.

Outside, the beeches continued sighing in the night wind, and our two
dogs, shut up in a shed, were whining and howling in an uncanny fashion.
The fire was dying out in the big fireplace. The maid-servant had gone to
bed. Maitre Lebrument said in his turn:

"If you don't mind, M'sieu le Baron, I'm going to bed. I am not used to
staying up late."

The baron extended his hand toward him and said: "Go, my friend," in so
cordial a tone that I said, as soon as the man had disappeared:

"He is devoted to you, this farmer?"

"Better than that, my dear fellow! It