For a month the hot sun has been parching¹ the fields. Nature is expanding beneath its rays; the fields are green as far as the eye can see. The big azure² dome³ of the sky is unclouded. The farms of Normandy, scattered⁴ over the plains and surrounded by a belt of tall beeches⁵, look, from a distance, like little woods. On closer view, after lowering the worm-eaten wooden bars, you imagine yourself in an immense garden, for all the ancient apple-trees, as gnarled as the peasants themselves, are in bloom. The sweet scent⁶ of their blossoms mingles⁷ with the heavy smell of the earth and the penetrating⁸ odor of the stables. It is noon. The family is eating under the shade of a pear tree planted in front of the door; father, mother, the four children, and the help—two women and three men are all there. All are silent. The soup is eaten and then a dish of potatoes fried with bacon is brought on.

 

From time to time one of the women gets up and takes a pitcher⁹ down to the cellar to fetch more cider.

 

The man, a big fellow about forty years old, is watching a grape vine, still bare, which is winding¹⁰ and twisting like a snake along the side of the house.

 

At last he says: “Father's vine is budding early this year. Perhaps we may get something from it.”

 

The woman then turns round and looks, without saying a word.

 

This vine is planted on the spot where their father had been shot.

 

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