course of fifteen
years!

The train stopped at a small station, and as I got out of the carriage,
a stout, a very stout man with red cheeks and a big stomach rushed up to
me with open arms, exclaiming: "George!" I embraced him, but I had not
recognized him, and then I said, in astonishment: "By Jove! You have not
grown thin!" And he replied with a laugh:

"What did you expect? Good living, a good table and good nights! Eating
and sleeping, that is my existence!"

I looked at him closely, trying to discover in that broad face the
features I held so dear. His eyes alone had not changed, but I no
longer saw the same expression in them, and I said to myself: "If the
expression be the reflection of the mind, the thoughts in that head are
not what they used to be formerly; those thoughts which I knew so well."

Yet his eyes were bright, full of happiness and friendship, but they had
not that clear, intelligent expression which shows as much as words the
brightness of the intellect. Suddenly he said:

"Here are my two eldest children." A girl of fourteen, who was almost a
woman, and a boy of thirteen, in the dress of a boy from a Lycee, came
forward in a hesitating and awkward manner, and I said in a low voice:
"Are they yours?" "Of course they are," he replied, laughing. "How many
have you?" "Five! There are three more at home."

He said this in a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and
I felt profound pity, mingled with a feeling of vague contempt, for this
vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species.

I got into a carriage which he drove himself, and we set off through
the town, a dull, sleepy, gloomy town where nothing was moving in the
streets except a few dogs and two or three maidservants. Here and there
a shopkeeper, standing at his door, took off his hat, and Simon returned
his salute and told me the man's name; no doubt to show me that he knew
all the inhabitants personally, and the thought struck me that he was
thinking of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream
of all those who bury themselves in the provinces.

We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden that
was an imitation of a park, and stopped in front of a turreted house,
which tried to look like a chateau.

"That is my den," said Simon, so that I might compliment him on it. "It
is charming," I replied.

A lady appeared on the steps, dressed for company, and with company
phrases all