THE LANDLORD OF THE "PINEAPPLE"
Materne and his two boys walked for some time in silence. The weather had become fine; the pale winter sun shone over the brilliant snow without melting it, and the ground remained firm and hard.
In the distance, along the valley, stood out, with surprising clearness, the tops of the fir-trees, the reddish peaks of the rocks, the roofs of the hamlets, with their icy stalactites hanging from the eaves, their small sparkling windows, and sharp gables.
People were walking in the street of Grandfontaine. A troupe of young girls were standing round the washing-place; a few old men in cotton caps were smoking their pipes on the doorsteps of the little houses. All this little world, lying in the depths of the blue expanse, came, and went, and lived, without a sound or sigh reaching the ears of the foresters.
The old hunter halted on the outskirts of the wood, and said to his sons: "I am going down to the village to see Dubreuil, the innkeeper of the 'Pineapple.'"
And he pointed with his stick to a long white building, the doors and windows of which were surrounded with a yellow bordering, a pine-branch being suspended to the wall as a signboard.
"You must await me here. If there is no danger, I will come out on to the doorstep and raise my hat; you can then come and take a glass of wine with me."
He immediately descended the snowy slopes to the little gardens lying above Grandfontaine, which took about ten minutes; he then made his way between two furrows, reached the meadow, and crossed the village square: his two sons, with their arms at their feet, saw him enter the inn. A few seconds after he reappeared on the doorstep and raised his hat.
Fifteen minutes later they had rejoined their father in the great room of the "Pineapple." It was a rather low room with a sanded floor, and heated by a large iron stove.
Excepting the innkeeper Dubreuil, the biggest and most apoplectic landlord in the Vosges, with immense paunch, round eyes, flat nose, a wart on his left cheek, and a triple chin reaching over his collar—with the exception of this curious individual, seated near the stove in a leather arm-chair, Materne was alone. He had just filled the glasses. The clock was striking nine, and its wooden cock flapped its wing with a peculiar scraping sound.