's time with that nonsense!" he would have
thundered.

For the patriarch was not given to joking. I can still see his serious
face, his unclipped head of hair, often brought back behind his ears
with a flick of the thumb and spreading its ancient Gallic mane over
his shoulders. I see his little three-cornered hat, his small clothes
buckled at the knees, his wooden shoes, stuffed with straw, that echoed
as he walked. Ah, no! Once childhood's games were past, it would never
have done to rear the Grasshopper and unearth the Dung beetle from his
natural surroundings.

Grandmother, pious soul, used to wear the eccentric headdress of the
Rouergue highlanders: a large disk of black felt, stiff as a plank,
adorned in the middle with a crown a finger's breadth high and hardly
wider across than a six franc piece. A black ribbon fastened under the
chin maintained the equilibrium of this elegant, but unsteady circle.
Pickles, hemp, chickens, curds and whey, butter; washing the clothes,
minding the children, seeing to the meals of the household: say that
and you have summed up the strenuous woman's round of ideas. On her left
side, the distaff, with its load of flax; in her right hand, the spindle
turning under a quick twist of her thumb, moistened at intervals with
her tongue: so she went through life, unwearied, attending to the order
and the welfare of the house. I see her in my mind's eye particularly on
winter evenings, which were more favorable to family talk. When the hour
came for meals, all of us, big and little, would take our seats round
a long table, on a couple of benches, deal planks supported by four
rickety legs. Each found his wooden bowl and his tin spoon in front of
him. At one end of the table always stood an enormous rye loaf, the
size of a cartwheel, wrapped in a linen cloth with a pleasant smell
of washing, and remained until nothing was left of it. With a vigorous
stroke, grandfather would cut off enough for the needs of the moment;
then he would divide the piece among us with the one knife which he
alone was entitled to wield. It was now each one's business to break up
his bit with his fingers and to fill his bowl as he pleased.

Next came grandmother's turn. A capacious pot bubbled lustily and sang
upon the flames in the hearth, exhaling an appetizing savor of bacon and
turnips. Armed with a long metal ladle, grandmother would take from it,
for each of us in turn, first the broth, wherein to soak the brea