made itself felt
in all the accessories of this household, the very air of which was
charged with the stern and upright morals of the provinces. At this
moment the son and mother were together in the dining-room, where
they were breakfasting with a cup of coffee, with bread and butter and
radishes. To make the pleasure which Suzanne's visit was to give to
Madame Granson intelligible, we must explain certain secret interests of
the mother and son.

Athanase Granson was a thin and pale young man, of medium height, with
a hollow face in which his two black eyes, sparkling with thoughts, gave
the effect of bits of coal. The rather irregular lines of his face, the
curve of his lips, a prominent chin, the fine modelling of his forehead,
his melancholy countenance, caused by a sense of his poverty warring
with the powers that he felt within him, were all indications of
repressed and imprisoned talent. In any other place than the town of
Alencon the mere aspect of his person would have won him the assistance
of superior men, or of women who are able to recognize genius in
obscurity. If his was not genius, it was at any rate the form and aspect
of it; if he had not the actual force of a great heart, the glow of such
a heart was in his glance. Although he was capable of expressing the
highest feeling, a casing of timidity destroyed all the graces of his
youth, just as the ice of poverty kept him from daring to put forth all
his powers. Provincial life, without an opening, without appreciation,
without encouragement, described a circle about him in which languished
and died the power of thought,--a power which as yet had scarcely
reached its dawn. Moreover, Athanase possessed that savage pride which
poverty intensifies in noble minds, exalting them in their struggle with
men and things; although at their start in life it is an obstacle to
their advancement. Genius proceeds in two ways: either it takes its
opportunity--like Napoleon, like Moliere--the moment that it sees it,
or it waits to be sought when it has patiently revealed itself. Young
Granson belonged to that class of men of talent who distrust themselves
and are easily discouraged. His soul was contemplative. He lived more
by thought than by action. Perhaps he might have seemed deficient or
incomplete to those who cannot conceive of genius without the sparkle
of French passion; but he was powerful in the world of mind, and he was
liable to reach, through a series of emot