was
no longer the light-haired, insipid girl I had seen in church fifteen
years previously, but a stout lady in curls and flounces, one of those
ladies of uncertain age, without intellect, without any of those things
which constitute a woman. In short she was a mother, a stout,
commonplace mother, a human layer and brood mare, a machine of flesh
which procreates, without mental care save for her children and her
housekeeping book.

She welcomed me, and I went into the hall, where three children, ranged
according to their height, were ranked for review, like firemen before
a mayor. "Ah! ah! so there are the others?" said I. And Simon, who was
radiant with pleasure, named them: "Jean, Sophie, and Gontran."

The door of the drawing-room was open. I went in, and in the depths of
an easy-chair I saw something trembling, a man, an old, paralyzed man.
Madame Radevin came forward and said: "This is my grandfather,
Monsieur; he is eighty-seven." And then she shouted into the shaking
old man's ears: "This is a friend of Simon's, grandpapa."

The old gentleman tried to say "Good day" to me, and he muttered: "Oua,
oua, oua," and waved his hand.

I took a seat saying: "You are very kind, Monsieur."

Simon had just come in, and he said with a laugh: "So! You have made
grandpapa's acquaintance. He is priceless, is that old man. He is the
delight of the children, and he is so greedy that he almost kills
himself at every meal. You have no idea what he would eat if he were
allowed to do as he pleased. But you will see, you will see. He looks
all the sweets over as if they were so many girls. You have never seen
anything funnier; you will see it presently."

I was then shown to my room to change my dress for dinner, and hearing
a great clatter behind me on the stairs, I turned round and saw that
all the children were following me behind their father--to do me honor,
no doubt.

My windows looked out on to a plain, a bare, interminable plain, an
ocean of grass, of wheat, and of oats, without a clump of trees or any
rising ground, a striking and melancholy picture of the life which they
must be leading in that house.

A bell rang; it was for dinner, and so I went downstairs. Madame
Radevin took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we went into the
dining-room. A footman wheeled in the old man's arm-chair, who gave a
greedy and curious look at the dessert, as with difficulty he turned
his shaking head from one dish to the other.

S