Nature had done much, but art had seconded her with great taste and judgment. The sloping ground was diversified by innumerable picturesque irregularities, and an abundant spring, bubbling up among the rocks, sent forth streams in all directions, keeping all things green under the superb trees.
The valley and the slope on the other side, which also belonged to the marquis, were covered with a dense vegetation which partly concealed the division walls and hedges, so that from all the elevated points, which afforded views of a beautiful and extensive landscape, the park seemed to extend to the horizon.
"This is an enchanted spot," said Emile, "and one needs only to see it to be sure that you are a great poet."
"There are many great poets of my sort," replied the marquis, "that is to say, people who feel poetry but cannot express it."
"Is the spoken or written word alone interesting, I pray to know?" exclaimed Emile. "Is not the painter who nobly interprets nature a poet too? And if that is incontestable, does not the artist who actually improves upon nature, and modifies it in order to develop all its beauty,—does not he produce a grand poetic result?"
"You express that very well," rejoined Monsieur de Boisguilbault, in a tone of indolent indifference, which was not, however, wholly devoid of kindliness.
But Emile would have preferred discussion to this careless assent to everything he said, and he was afraid that his main attack had failed. "What can I invent to vex him and make him come out of his shell?" he said to himself. "There is no one of the famous sieges in history that can be compared to this."
The coffee was served in a pretty Swiss chalet; the exactness of the copy and the scrupulous neatness aroused Emile's admiration for a moment; but the absence of human beings and domestic animals in that rustic retreat was so noticeable that it was impossible to maintain the illusion. And yet nothing was missing: the moss-covered hillside studded with firs, nor the thread of sparkling water falling into a stone basin at the door, and flowing from it with a gentle murmur; the chalet, constructed entirely of resinous wood with a pretty arrangement of balustrades and built against huge granite rocks, the pretty overhanging roof, the interior furnished in the German fashion, even to the service of blue earthenware—all new and clean and glistening and deserted—resembled a dainty Fribourg toy rather than a rustic dwelling.
Even the stiff, lifeless figures of the old marquis and his old majordomo gave one the impression of painted wooden images, placed there to complete the resemblance.
"You have been in Switzerland, I presume, monsieur le marquis," said Emile, "and this is a reminiscence of some favorite spot?"