ows me a passage
in the maternal epistle: "'When you get my letter,'" he spells out,
"'no doubt you will be in the cold and mud, deprived of everything, mon
pauvre Eugene'" He laughs: "It's ten days since she put that down for
me, and she's clean off it. We're not cold, 'cos it's been fine since
this morning; and we're not miserable, because we've got a room that's
good enough. We've had hard times, but we're all right now."

As we reach the kennel in which we are lodgers, we are thinking that
sentence over. Its touching simplicity affects me, shows me a soul--a
host of souls. Because the sun has shown himself, because we have felt
a gleam and a similitude of comfort, suffering exists no longer, either
of the past or the terrible future. "We're all right now." There is no
more to say.

Biquet establishes himself at the table, like a gentleman, to write a
reply. Carefully he lays abroad his pen ink, and paper, and examines
each, then smilingly traces the strictly regular lines of his big
handwriting across the meager page.

"You'd laugh," he says, "if you knew what I've written to the old
woman." He reads his letter again, fondles it, and smiles to himself.

------------

[note 1:] Pity to spoil this jest by translation, but Biquet's primary
meaning was "You're cross because you've a throat like a lime-kiln."
His secondary or literal meaning is obvious.--Tr.

[note 2:] See p. 34 ante; [chapter 5, note 3] another reference to the
famous phrase. "Pourvu que les civils tiennent."--Tr.

[note 3:] Every French village has a plaque attached to the first house
on each road of approach, giving its name and the distance to the
next.--Tr.

VI

Habits

WE are enthroned in the back yard. The big hen, white as a cream
cheese, is brooding in the depths of a basket near the coop whose
imprisoned occupant is rummaging about. But the black hen is free to
travel. She erects and withdraws her elastic neck in jerks, and
advances with a large and affected gait. One can just see her profile
and its twinkling spangle, and her talk appears to proceed from a metal
spring. She marches, glistening black and glossy like the love-locks of
a gypsy; and as she marches, she unfolds here and there upon the ground
a faint trail of chickens.

These trifling little yellow balls, kept always by a whispering
instinct on the ebb-tide to safety, hurry along under the maternal
march in short, sharp jerks, pecking as they go. Now the train