He had not dreamt of the fact that an active, living and vibrating man grows tired as soon as he has comprehended the stupid reality, unless indeed, he becomes so brutalized that he understands nothing more whatever.
What would he be like when I met him again? Still lively, witty, light hearted and enthusiastic, or in a state of mental torpor through provincial life? A man can change a great deal in the course of fifteen years!
The train stopped at a small station, and as I got out of the carriage, a stout, a very stout man with red cheeks and a big stomach rushed up to me with open arms, exclaiming: "George!" I embraced him, but I had not recognized him, and then I said, in astonishment: "By Jove! You have not grown thin!" And he replied with a laugh: "What did you expect? Good living, a good table and good nights! Eating and sleeping, that is my existence!"
I looked at him closely, trying to find the features I held so dear in that broad face. His eyes alone had not altered, but I no longer saw the same looks in them, and I said to myself: "If the looks be the reflection of the mind, the thoughts in that head are not what they used to be formerly; those thoughts which I knew so well."
Yet his eyes were bright, full of pleasure and friendship, but they had not that clear, intelligent expression, which expresses as much as words do, the value of the mind. Suddenly he said to me: "Here are my two eldest children." A girl of fourteen, who was almost a woman, and a boy of thirteen, in the dress of a boy from a Lycée, came forward in a hesitating and awkward manner, and I said in a low voice: "Are they yours?" "Of course they are," he replied laughing. "How many have you?" "Five! There are three more indoors."
He said that in a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and I felt profound pity, mingled with a feeling of vague contempt for this vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species, who spent his nights in his country house in making children.
I got into a carriage, which he drove himself, and we set off through the town, a dull, sleepy, gloomy town, where nothing was moving in the streets except a few dogs and two or three maidservants. Here and there a shopkeeper standing at his door took off his hat, and Simon returned his salute and told me the man's name; no doubt to show me that he knew all the inhabitants personally, and the thought struck me that he was thinking of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream of all who have buried themselves in the provinces.
We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden, which had some pretensions to being a park, and stopped in front of a turretted house, which tried to pass for a château.
"That is my den," Simon said, so that he might be complimented on it, and I replied that it was delightful.