measured bodily movement and slow steps that
left my spirit free. I discovered then the ineffable pleasure of an
external labor which carries life along, and thus regulates the rush of
passion, often so near, but for this mechanical motion, to kindle
into flame. I learned how much wisdom is contained in uniform labor; I
understood monastic discipline.

For the first time in many days the count was neither surly nor cruel.
His son was so well; the future Duc de Lenoncourt-Mortsauf, fair and
rosy and stained with grape-juice, rejoiced his heart. This day
being the last of the vintage, he had promised a dance in front of
Clochegourde in honor of the return of the Bourbons, so that our
festival gratified everybody. As we returned to the house, the countess
took my arm and leaned upon it, as if to let my heart feel the weight of
hers,--the instinctive movement of a mother who seeks to convey her joy.
Then she whispered in my ear, "You bring us happiness."

Ah, to me, who knew her sleepless nights, her cares, her fears, her
former existence, in which, although the hand of God sustained her, all
was barren and wearisome, those words uttered by that rich voice brought
pleasures no other woman in the world could give me.

"The terrible monotony of my life is broken, all things are radiant with
hope," she said after a pause. "Oh, never leave me! Do not despise my
harmless superstitions; be the elder son, the protector of the younger."

In this, Natalie, there is nothing romantic. To know the infinite of our
deepest feelings, we must in youth cast our lead into those great
lakes upon whose shores we live. Though to many souls passions are lava
torrents flowing among arid rocks, other souls there be in whom passion,
restrained by insurmountable obstacles, fills with purest water the
crater of the volcano.

We had still another fete. Madame de Mortsauf, wishing to accustom
her children to the practical things of life, and to give them some
experience of the toil by which men earn their living, had provided
each of them with a source of income, depending on the chances of
agriculture. To Jacques she gave the produce of the walnut-trees, to
Madeleine that of the chestnuts. The gathering of the nuts began soon
after the vintage,--first the chestnuts, then the walnuts. To beat
Madeleine's trees with a long pole and hear the nuts fall and rebound on
the dry, matted earth of a chestnut-grove; to see the serious gravity of
the little