He called: “Annette! Nane!”
The young girl's voice replied from outside, where she was giving sugar to the horses:
“Yes, yes, I am here!”
“Come in here!”
She entered quickly.
“Here, stand close beside your mother.”
She obeyed, and he compared the two, but repeated mechanically, “Yes, it is astonishing, astonishing!” for they resembled each other less when side by side than they did before leaving Paris, the young girl having acquired a new expression of luminous youth in her black attire, while the mother had for a long time lost that radiance of hair and complexion that had dazzled and entranced the painter when they met for the first time.
Then the Countess and Olivier entered the drawing-room. He seemed in high spirits.
“Ah, what a good plan it was to come here!” he said. “But it was your husband's idea that I should come, you know. He charged me to take you back with me. And I—do you know what I propose? You have no idea, have you? Well, I propose, on the contrary, to remain here! Paris is odious in this heat, while the country is delicious. Heavens! how sweet it is here!”
The dews of evening impregnated the park with freshness, the soft breeze made the trees tremble, and the earth exhaled imperceptible vapors which threw a light, transparent veil over the horizon. The three cows, standing with drooping heads, cropped the grass with avidity, and four peacocks, with a loud rustling of wings, flew up into their accustomed perch in a cedar-tree under the windows of the castle. The barking of dogs in the distance came to the ear, and in the quiet air of the close of day the calls of human voices were heard, in phrases shouted across the fields, from one meadow to another, and in those short, guttural cries used in driving animals.