Thus, during the end of the month of December and the commencement of January, he succeeded in translating a dozen chapters which his father selected for him, giving illustrations of the text. This gave him a great desire to become acquainted with the buildings existing in his author’s times, and he examined attentively a set of engravings by Piranesi descriptive of ancient Rome, and which his father possessed. M. de Gandelau had advised Paul to write down the questions which his reading suggested to him, so as to submit them to Eugène on his return. Thus the days passed rapidly away: and although sadness and anxiety darkened every hour, yet, as M. de Gandelau was incessantly occupied in relieving the misery around him and organizing the struggle against the invaders, while Paul was working with energy and seeing his results accumulating, and Madame de Gandelau had organized a workroom in which the women of the village were engaged in providing linen for our unfortunate and destitute soldiers, when the evening arrived, the members of the family could still assemble with that feeling of secret joy which duty accomplished procures. Towards the close of January the inmates of the château learned from the newspapers that an armistice had been signed. Though this news announced the end of the struggle, it presaged the commencement of the severest humiliations. It produced, therefore, a sad, rather than consolatory impression.
A few days afterwards Eugène returned to the château. It need not be said that he was welcomed with open arms, and that Paul especially manifested his joy. They talked of resuming the works. The last letters of Madame Marie announced that she would be home again towards the end of the following winter. These letters, filled as they were with expressions of the anxiety—the anguish—felt by the writer in her absence from France, said nothing of the future house. If then it could be finished, the surprise would be complete. While Eugène was enjoying the rest he so much needed, he looked through and revised Paul’s translation, and corrected his sketches. A fair copy was made of the whole; and the first days of March drew on, when it was decided to recommence the works.
CHAPTER XXI.
BUILDING RECOMMENCED—THE TIMBER WORK.
Towards the middle of March, the weather being fine, the works were resumed, and instructions for executing the floors and roofs had to be given to the carpenter, that no time might be lost. Paul was beginning to understand his cousin’s sketches more readily, and to be able to make himself useful. Besides, he had acquired the excellent habit of asking for explanations when he had reason to suppose on a first view that he could not faithfully interpret a rough sketch; and Eugène was not sparing of explanation and commentaries. His patience was inexhaustible. Nevertheless, every time Paul was embarrassed and was unable to solve a difficult question, before putting him in the way to do so, Eugène used to let him try for a reasonable time.
“Reflect,” he would say to him, “and you will be sure to find some solution. If it is not the right one, I will help you; but you must get some result for yourself. It is impossible to have a clear understanding of a solution given by a person who understands the matter, until we have thoroughly considered it, and made some efforts to solve the given problem ourselves. This is a necessary preliminary exercise, and one which puts the mind in a right state for comprehending. Draw a general section of the main building through the billiard-room and your brother-in-law’s study: I mean a transverse section which will indicate the walls, the floors, the fireplaces, and roofs. You have nearly all the necessary elements. Endeavour to arrange the whole in proper order, that you may make all the parts of the building clear to yourself. I do not wish to see this section till you have finished it. Not till then shall I correct it; and that correction will be of advantage to you.”
Making use, therefore, of the details already drawn, Paul drew the transverse section, not without difficulty; but the roof-timbers were singularly conceived,—their composition appeared to him difficult and complicated. He did not know how to close the wide opening between the billiard-room and the drawing-room. The dormer-windows of the roof embarrassed him considerably. Besides, he had much difficulty in realizing the junction of all these parts. In spite of all his efforts he could not succeed in representing clearly their relative positions. He was not satisfied, and frankly told his cousin so.
“I am very glad,” replied the latter, “that you are not satisfied. It would be a bad sign if you were, for it would prove that you had not made any great effort. Your walls are fairly in their right place according to the section we have taken. But the timbers, the dormer-windows!—this could not hold together, and is wanting in simplicity. Why so many pieces of wood?... Have you assured yourself of their utility? We have walls; let us make use of them. Why not make use of the wall which separates the billiard-room from the study to bear the roofing timbers in part?—especially as this wall receives chimney flues, which must surely be carried up through the roof. You did not remember the chimneys; that is thoughtlessness, for you see them marked in the plans of the ground floor and of the first and second floors.”
“I certainly thought of them,” replied Paul; “but I did not know how to carry them up through the roof.”
“And so you did not draw them; that is certainly a way of avoiding the difficulty; but yet you know they must go up through the roof. That I cannot approve of; putting aside a question is not solving it. Come, let us revise all this together.”
