Monsieur Réquine listened to the translation of this impassioned credo with the expression of judicial consideration which was evidently the habitual one upon his face. At the end he stroked his beard meditatively and looked into space for a time before answering. When he spoke, it was with a mildness and quiet which made him indeed seem much the older of the two, a certain patient good humor which would have been impossible to the other man. "Mr. Hale, you say that my conception of life looks like laziness to you. Do you know how yours looks to me? Like a circle of frenzied worshipers around a fiery Moloch, into whose maw they cast everything that makes life sweet and livable, leisure, love, affection, appreciation of things rare and fine. My friend, humanity as a whole will never be worth more than the lives of its individuals are worth, and it takes many, many things to make individual lives worth while. It takes a mixture, and it needs, among other elements, some quiet, some peace, some leisure, some occupation with things of pure beauty like my roses, some fellowship with great minds of the past...." His eyes took on a dreamy deepening glow. "Sometimes as I dig the earth among my fruit-trees, the old, old earth, a sentence from Epictetus, or from Montaigne comes into my head, all at once luminous as I never saw it before. I have a vision of things very wide, very free, very fine. Almost, for a moment, Mr. Hale, almost for a moment I feel that I understand life."
The American stood up to go with a gesture of finality. He put his hat firmly on his head and said in pitying valedictory: "Monsieur Réquine, you're on the wrong track. Take it from me that nobody can understand life. The best thing to do with life is to live it!"
The Frenchman, still seated, still philosophic, made a humorous gesture. "Ah, there are as many different opinions as there are men about what that means, to 'live life'!"
In the cab going back to Paris the American said little. Once he remarked almost to himself, "The thing I can't get over is that his damned cream is better than anything we make."
The French official emerged from a thoughtful silence of his own to comment: "Mr. Hale, the generosity of that remark is only equaled by its perspicacity! It makes me more than ever concerned for the future of French commerce."
That evening Monsieur Réquine was stooping over a dwarf-apple tree, string in one hand, pruning shears in the other. He was clipping away all except one of the vigorous young shoots. That one he then laid along a wire, strung about a foot from the ground and tied it fast at several points so that in growing it would follow the exact line traced by the horizontal wire. When he finished he gathered up all the clipped shoots, put them under his arm, and stood looking at the severely disciplined little tree, which did not look in the least like a tree any more. The sight apparently suggested an analogy to his mind, for he said in the tone of one who makes an admission: "It's true one does it for apple-trees and vines." After considering this for a moment, he shook his head with decision, "But not for human beings, no."
And yet his brow was far from clear as he betook himself to the stone bench at the end of the garden.
When his wife went out later to join him, she missed the glow of his pipe and inquired, a little troubled, "Why, René, you've forgotten to light your pipe! what's the matter?"