s Brisbille, with a horrible grimace, when Crillon
has disappeared, "that the scamp is a town councilor! Ah, by God!"

He foams, as a wave of anger runs through him, swaying on his feet, and
gaping at the ground. Between his fingers there is a shapeless
cigarette, damp and shaggy, which he rolls in all directions, patching
up and resticking it unceasingly.

Charged with snarls and bristling with shoulder-shrugs, the smith
rushes at his fire and pulls the bellows-chain, his yawning shoes
making him limp like Vulcan. At each pull the bellows send spouting
from the dust-filled throat of the furnace a cutting blue comet, lined
with crackling and dazzling white, and therein the man forges.

Purpling as his agitation rises, nailed to his imprisoning corner,
alone of his kind, a rebel against all the immensity of things, the man
forges.

* * * * * *

The church bell rang, and we left him there. When I was leaving I
heard Brisbille growl. No doubt I got my quietus as well. But what
can he have imagined against _me_?

We meet again, all mixed together in the Place de l'Eglise. In our
part of the town, except for a clan of workers whom one keeps one's eye
on, every one goes to church, men as well as women, as a matter of
propriety, out of gratitude to employers or lords of the manor, or by
religious conviction. Two streets open into the Place and two roads,
bordered with apple-trees, as well, so that these four ways lead town
and country to the Place.

It has the shape of a heart, and is delightful. It is shaded by a very
old tree, under which justice was formerly administered. That is why
they call it the Great Tree, although there are greater ones. In
winter it is dark, like a perforated umbrella. In summer it gives the
bright green shadow of a parasol. Beside the tree a tall crucifix
dwells in the Place forever.

The Place is swarming and undulating. Peasants from the surrounding
country, in their plain cotton caps, are waiting in the old corner of
the Rue Neuve, heaped together like eggs. These people are loaded with
provisions. At the farther end, square-paved, one picks out swarthy
outlines of the Epinal type, and faces as brightly colored as apples.
Groups of children flutter and chirrup; little girls with their dolls
play at being mothers, and little boys play at brigands. Respectable
people take their stand more ceremoniously than the common crowd, and
talk bu