"Quite the contrary," replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault in that voice, utterly without inflection, which made it impossible to estimate the bearing of his replies. "Martin," he added, leaning toward his old servant who bent himself double to hear him, "you can take all this away. Are there any workmen left in the park?"
"No, monsieur le marquis, nobody."
"In that case, close the gate when you go away."
Emile remained alone with his host in the solitude of the vast park. The marquis took his arm and led him to a seat on the cliffs above the chalet, where there was a lovely view.
The sun, as it sank toward the horizon, projected the shadows of the tall poplars from one side to the other of the ravine, like a dark curtain intersected by brilliant streaks. The violet rays shot up into an opal-hued sky, above an ocean of dark verdure; and as the sounds of toil in the fields died gradually away, the voice of the mountain streams and the plaintive note of the turtle doves could be heard more distinctly.
It was a magnificent evening, and young Cardonnet, turning his eyes and thoughts upon the distant hills of Châteaubrun, fell into a pleasant reverie. He was reflecting that he might venture to indulge in that mental recreation before making another assault, when his adversary suddenly made an unexpected sortie and broke the silence.
"Monsieur Cardonnet," said he, "if, when you told me that you felt a sort of sympathy for me despite the ennui that I cause you, you did not say it simply to be polite, or by way of jest, this is the reason: we profess the same principles, we are both communists."
"Can it be true?" cried Emile, astounded by this declaration and thinking that he must be dreaming. "I thought just now that you answered me as you did simply to be courteous or by way of jest; but am I really so fortunate as to find in you a justification of my desires and my dreams?"
"What is there surprising in that?" rejoined the marquis calmly. "May not the truth make itself known in solitude as well as in a crowd, and have I not lived long enough to be able to distinguish good from evil, the true from the false? You take me for a very matter-of-fact, very cold man. It is possible that I am; at my age a man is too tired of himself to care to examine himself; but, outside of our individuality, there are general realities sufficiently worthy of interest to divert our thoughts from our ennui.
"For a long time I retained the opinions and prejudices in which I was reared; my natural indolence was content not to scrutinize them too closely, and then I had internal anxieties which kept me from thinking about them. But since old age has set me free from all pretension to happiness and from every sort of regret or special interest in anything, I have felt the need of obtaining an insight into the general life of my fellow-men, and, consequently, into the meaning of the divine laws as applied to mankind.