ue ended these words; she mounted
her horse and signed to Farrabesche to mount the other.

"Guide me," she said, "to the place where the waters spread out in pools
over that waste land."

"There is all the more reason why madame should go there," said
Farrabesche, "because the late Monsieur Graslin, under the rector's
advice, bought three hundred acres at the opening of that gorge, on
which the waters have left sediment enough to make good soil over
quite a piece of ground. Madame will also see the opposite side of the
Roche-Vive, where there are fine woods, among which Monsieur Graslin
would no doubt have put a farm had he lived; there's an excellent place
for one, where the spring which rises just by my house loses itself
below."

Farrabesche rode first to show the way, taking Veronique through a path
which led to the spot where the two slopes drew closely together and
then flew apart, one to the east the other to the west, as if repulsed
by a shock. This narrow passage, filled with large rocks and coarse,
tall grasses, was only about sixty feet in width.

The Roche-Vive, cut perpendicularly on this side looked like a wall of
granite in which there was no foothold; but above this inflexible wall
was a crown of trees, the roots of which hung down it, mostly pines
clinging to the rock with their forked feet like birds on a bough.

The opposite hill, hollowed by time, had a frowning front, sandy, rocky,
and yellow; here were shallow caverns, dips without depth; the soft
and pulverizing rock had ochre tones. A few plants with prickly leaves
above, and burdocks, reeds, and aquatic growths below, were indication
enough of the northern exposure and the poverty of the soil. The bed
of the torrent was of stone, quite hard, but yellow. Evidently the
two chains, though parallel and ripped asunder by one of the great
catastrophes which have changed the face of the globe, were, either from
some inexplicable caprice or for some unknown reason, the discovery of
which awaited genius, composed of elements that were wholly dissimilar.
The contrast of their two natures showed more clearly here than
elsewhere.

Veronique now saw before her an immense dry plateau, without any
vegetation, chalky (this explained the absorption of the water) and
strewn with pools of stagnant water and rocky places stripped of soil.
To the right were the mountains of the Correze; to left the Roche-Vive
barred the view covered with its noble trees; on i