different natures. The thought of death is called up by
a churchyard, but a deserted village puts us in mind of the sorrows of
life; death is but one misfortune always foreseen, but the sorrows of
life are infinite. Does not the thought of the infinite underlie all
great melancholy?

The officer reached the stony path by the mill-pond before he could
hit upon an explanation of this deserted village. The miller's lad was
sitting on some sacks of corn near the door of the house. Genestas asked
for M. Benassis.

"M. Benassis went over there," said the miller, pointing out one of the
ruined cottages.

"Has the village been burned down?" asked the commandant.

"No, sir."

"Then how did it come to be in this state?" inquired Genestas.

"Ah! how?" the miller answered, as he shrugged his shoulders and went
indoors; "M. Benassis will tell you that."

The officer went over a rough sort of bridge built up of boulders taken
from the torrent bed, and soon reached the house that had been pointed
out to him. The thatched roof of the dwelling was still entire; it was
covered with moss indeed, but there were no holes in it, and the door
and its fastenings seemed to be in good repair. Genestas saw a fire on
the hearth as he entered, an old woman kneeling in the chimney-corner
before a sick man seated in a chair, and another man, who was standing
with his face turned toward the fireplace. The house consisted of a
single room, which was lighted by a wretched window covered with
linen cloth. The floor was of beaten earth; the chair, a table, and a
truckle-bed comprised the whole of the furniture. The commandant had
never seen anything so poor and bare, not even in Russia, where the
moujik's huts are like the dens of wild beasts. Nothing within it
spoke of ordinary life; there were not even the simplest appliances
for cooking food of the commonest description. It might have been
a dog-kennel without a drinking-pan. But for the truckle-bed, a
smock-frock hanging from a nail, and some sabots filled with straw,
which composed the invalid's entire wardrobe, this cottage would have
looked as empty as the others. The aged peasant woman upon her knees
was devoting all her attention to keeping the sufferer's feet in a tub
filled with a brown liquid. Hearing a footstep and the clank of spurs,
which sounded strangely in ears accustomed to the plodding pace of
country folk, the man turned to Genestas. A sort of surprise, in which
the old woma