n who had brought her up died, leaving her little property
in Berry to the Clerambaults. The mourning was a good excuse for
quitting Paris, which had now become detestable, and for tearing the
poet from his dangerous surroundings. There was also the question
of money and of Rosine, who would be better for change of air.
Clerambault gave in, and they all three went to take possession of
their small inheritance, and remained in Berry during the rest of the
summer and autumn. It was in the country, a respectable old house just
outside a village. From the agitation of Paris Clerambault passed at
once to a stagnant calm, and in the long silent days all that broke
the monotony was a cock crowing in a farm-yard or a cow lowing in the
meadow. Clerambault was too much wrought up to adapt himself to the
slow and placid rhythm of nature; formerly he had adored it and was in
harmony with the country people from whom his family had come. Now,
however, the peasants with whom he tried to talk seemed to him
creatures from another planet. Certainly, they were not infected by
the virus of war; they showed no emotion, and no hatred for the enemy;
but then they had no animosity either against war, which they accepted
as a fact. Certain keen, good-natured observations showed that they
were not taken in as to the merits of the case, but since the war was
there they made the most they could out of it. They might lose
their sons, but they did not mean to lose money; not that they were
heartless, grief had marked them deeply, though they spoke little of
it; but after all, men pass away,--the land is always there. They at
least had not, like the _bourgeois_ in cities, sent their children to
death through national fanaticism. Only they knew how to get something
in exchange for what they gave; and it is probable that their sons
would have thought this perfectly natural. Because you have lost
someone you love, must you lose your head too? Our peasants did not
lose theirs; it is said that in the country districts of France more
than a million new proprietors have been made by the war.

The mind of Clerambault was alien to all this; he and these people did
not speak the same language. They exchanged some vague condolences,
but when he is talking to a _bourgeois_ a peasant always complains; it
is a habit, a way of defending himself against a possible appeal
to his pocketbook; they would have talked in the same way about an
epidemic of fever. Clerambau