a bourgeois. They agreed very well together in their avaricious rage at
being unable to amass money by the handful without any great exertion,
and in their ambition to make their son a gentleman, since only a
gentleman could become wealthy. And thus, as Marianne was going off
after placing the eggs under a cushion in Gervais' little carriage, the
other complacently called her attention to Antonin, who, having made a
hole in the ground, was now spitting into it.

"Oh! he's smart," said she; "he knows his alphabet already, and we are
going to put him to school. If he takes after his father he will be no
fool, I assure you."

It was on a Sunday, some ten days later, that the supreme revelation,
the great flash of light which was to decide his life and that of those
he loved, fell suddenly upon Mathieu during a walk he took with his wife
and the children. They had gone out for the whole afternoon, taking a
little snack with them in order that they might share it amid the long
grass in the fields. And after scouring the paths, crossing the copses,
rambling over the moorland, they came back to the verge of the woods and
sat down under an oak. Thence the whole expanse spread out before them,
from the little pavilion where they dwelt to the distant village of
Janville. On their right was the great marshy plateau, from which broad,
dry, sterile slopes descended; while lower ground stretched away on
their left. Then, behind them, spread the woods with deep thickets
parted by clearings, full of herbage which no scythe had ever touched.
And not a soul was to be seen around them; there was naught save wild
Nature, grandly quiescent under the bright sun of that splendid April
day. The earth seemed to be dilating with all the sap amassed within it,
and a flood of life could be felt rising and quivering in the vigorous
trees, the spreading plants, and the impetuous growth of brambles and
nettles which stretched invadingly over the soil. And on all sides a
powerful, pungent odor was diffused.

"Don't go too far," Marianne called to the children; "we shall stay
under this oak. We will have something to eat by and by."

Blaise and Denis were already bounding along, followed by Ambroise, to
see who could run the fastest; but Rose pettishly called them back, for
she preferred to play at gathering wild flowers. The open air fairly
intoxicated the youngsters; the herbage rose, here and there, to their
very shoulders. But they came back a