ready prepared. She was no longer the light-haired, insipid
girl I had seen in church fifteen years previously, but a stout lady
in curls and flounces, one of those ladies of uncertain age, without
intellect, without any of those things that go to make a woman. In
short, she was a mother, a stout, commonplace mother, a human breeding
machine which procreates without any other preoccupation but her
children and her cook-book.

She welcomed me, and I went into the hall, where three children, ranged
according to their height, seemed set out for review, like firemen
before a mayor, and I said: "Ah! ah! so there are the others?" Simon,
radiant with pleasure, introduced them: "Jean, Sophie and Gontran."

The door of the drawing-room was open. I went in, and in the depths of
an easy-chair, I saw something trembling, a man, an old, paralyzed man.
Madame Radevin came forward and said: "This is my grandfather, monsieur;
he is eighty-seven." And then she shouted into the shaking old man's
ears: "This is a friend of Simon's, papa." The old gentleman tried to
say "good-day" to me, and he muttered: "Oua, oua, oua," and waved his
hand, and I took a seat saying: "You are very kind, monsieur."

Simon had just come in, and he said with a laugh: "So! You have made
grandpapa's acquaintance. He is a treasure, that old man; he is the
delight of the children. But he is so greedy that he almost kills
himself at every meal; you have no idea what he would eat if he were
allowed to do as he pleased. But you will see, you will see. He looks at
all the sweets as if they were so many girls. You never saw anything so
funny; you will see presently."

I was then shown to my room, to change my dress for dinner, and hearing
a great clatter behind me on the stairs, I turned round and saw that all
the children were following me behind their father; to do me honor, no
doubt.

My windows looked out across a dreary, interminable plain, an ocean
of grass, of wheat and of oats, without a clump of trees or any rising
ground, a striking and melancholy picture of the life which they must be
leading in that house.

A bell rang; it was for dinner, and I went downstairs. Madame Radevin
took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we passed into the dining-room.
A footman wheeled in the old man in his armchair. He gave a greedy
and curious look at the dessert, as he turned his shaking head with
difficulty from one dish to the other.

Simon rubbed his hands: "You w