months later, when the Beauchenes and the
Seguins, keeping their promise, came--husbands, wives, and children--to
spend a Sunday afternoon at Chantebled. The Froments had even prevailed
on Morange to be of the party with Reine, in their desire to draw him
for a day, at any rate, from the dolorous prostration in which he lived.
As soon as all these fine folks had alighted from the train it was
decided to go up to the plateau to see the famous fields, for everybody
was curious about them, so extravagant and inexplicable did the idea of
Mathieu's return to the soil, and transformation into a peasant, seem
to them. He laughed gayly, and at least he succeeded in surprising them
when he waved his hand towards the great expanse under the broad blue
sky, that sea of tall green stalks whose ears were already heavy and
undulated at the faintest breeze. That warm splendid afternoon, the
far-spreading fields looked like the very triumph of fruitfulness, a
growth of germs which the humus amassed through centuries had nourished
with prodigious sap, thus producing this first formidable crop, as if to
glorify the eternal source of life which sleeps in the earth's
flanks. The milk had streamed, and the corn now grew on all sides with
overflowing energy, creating health and strength, bespeaking man's
labor and the kindliness, the solidarity of the world. It was like a
beneficent, nourishing ocean, in which all hunger would be appeased, and
in which to-morrow might arise, amid that tide of wheat whose waves were
ever carrying good news to the horizon.

True, neither Constance nor Valentine was greatly touched by the
sight of the waving wheat, for other ambitions filled their minds: and
Morange, though he stared with his vague dim eyes, did not even seem to
see it. But Beauchene and Seguin marvelled, for they remembered their
visit in the month of January, when the frozen ground had been wrapt
in sleep and mystery. They had then guessed nothing, and now they were
amazed at this miraculous awakening, this conquering fertility, which
had changed a part of the marshy tableland into a field of living
wealth. And Seguin, in particular, did not cease praising and admiring,
certain as he now felt that he would be paid, and already hoping that
Mathieu would soon take a further portion of the estate off his hands.

Then, as soon as they had walked to the old pavilion, now transformed
into a little farm, and had seated themselves in the garden, pend