with scattered clumps of gorse and fruze copse, and
sprinkled with pink harebells and nameless yellow prairie flowers.

One felt that this iron-grey sky; this starving soil, empurpled only
here and there by the bleeding flower of the buckwheat; that these
roads, bordered with stones placed one on top of the other, without
cement or plaster; that these paths, bordered with impenetrable hedges;
that these grudging plants; these inhospitable fields; these crippled
beggars, eaten with vermin, plastered with filth; that even the flocks,
undersized and wasted, the dumpy little cows, the black sheep whose blue
eyes had the cold, pale gleam that is in the eyes of the Slav or of the
tribade; had perpetuated their primordial state, preserving an identical
landscape through all the centuries.

Except for an incongruous factory chimney further away on the bank of
the Sevre, the countryside of Tiffauges remained in perfect harmony with
the immense chateau, erect among its ruins. Within the close, still to
be traced by the ruins of the towers, was a whole plain, now converted
into a miserable truck garden. Cabbages, in long bluish lines,
impoverished carrots, consumptive navews, spread over this enormous
circle where iron mail had clanked in the tournament and where
processionals had slowly devolved, in the smoke of incense, to the
chanting of psalms.

A thatched hut had been built in a corner. The peasant inhabitants,
returned to a state of savagery, no longer understood the meaning of
words, and could be roused out of their apathy only by the display of a
silver coin. Seizing the coin, they would hand over the keys.

For hours one could browse around at ease among the ruins, and smoke and
daydream. Unfortunately, certain parts were inaccessible. The donjon was
still shut off, on the Tiffauges side, by a vast moat, at the bottom of
which mighty trees were growing. One would have had to pass over the
tops of the trees, growing to the very verge of the wall, to gain a
porch on the other side, for there was now no drawbridge.

But quite accessible was another part which overhung the Sevre. There
the wings of the castle, overgrown with ivy and white-crested viburnum,
were intact. Spongy, dry as pumice stone, silvered with lichen and
gilded with moss, the towers rose entire, though from their crenelated
collarettes whole blocks were blown away on windy nights.

Within, room succeeded glacial room, cut into the granite, surmounted
w