but it preserved within it
the warmth of its last labour, displaying its robust charms, free from the
weeds of spring, more majestically beautiful, like that second youth, of
woman who has given birth to life.

My uncle Lazare remained silent; then, turning towards me, said:

"Do you remember, Jean? It is more than twenty years ago since I brought
you here early one May morning. On that particular day I showed you the
valley full of feverish activity, labouring for the fruits of autumn.
Look; the valley has just performed its task again."

"I remember, dear uncle," I replied. "I was quaking with fear on that day;
but you were good, and your lesson was convincing. I owe you all my
happiness."

"Yes, you have reached the autumn. You have laboured and are gathering in
the harvest. Man, my boy, was created after the way of the earth. And we,
like the common mother, are eternal: the green leaves are born again each
year from dry leaves; I am born again in you, and you will be born again
in your children. I am telling you this so that old age may not alarm you,
so that you may know how to die in peace, as dies this verdure, which will
shoot out again from its own germs next spring."

I listened to my uncle and thought of Babet, who was sleeping in her great
bed spread with white linen. The dear creature was about to give birth to
a child after the manner of this fertile soil which had given us fortune.
She also had reached the autumn: she had the beaming smile and serene
robustness of the valley. I seemed to see her beneath the yellow sun,
tired and happy, experiencing noble delight at being a mother. And I no
longer knew whether my uncle Lazare was talking to me of my dear valley,
or of my dear Babet.

We slowly ascended the hills. Below, along the Durance, were the meadows,
broad, raw green swards; next came the yellow fields, intersected here and
there by greyish olive and slender almond trees, planted wide apart in
rows; then, right up above, were the vines, great stumps with shoots
trailing along the ground.

The vine is treated in the south of France like a hardy housewife, and not
like a delicate young lady, as in the north. It grows somewhat as it
likes, according to the good will of rain and sun. The stumps, which are
planted in double rows, and form long lines, throw sprays of dark verdure
around them. Wheat or oats are sown between. A vineyard resembles an
immense piece of striped material, made of the gree