Jeanne assented with a sigh: "Yes, if you think so." But this name,
"Mediterranean," had wrung her heart afresh, sending her thoughts back
to those distant lands where her dreams lay buried.
Instead of returning home by the woods, they walked along the road,
mounting the ascent slowly. They were silent, sad at the thought of
the approaching separation. As they passed along beside the farmyards
an odor of crushed apples, that smell of new cider which seems to
pervade the atmosphere in this season all through Normandy, rose to
their nostrils, or else a strong smell of the cow stables. A small
lighted window at the end of the yard indicated the farmhouse.
It seemed to Jeanne that her mind was expanding, was beginning to
understand the psychic meaning of things; and these little scattered
gleams in the landscape gave her, all at once, a keen sense of the
isolation of all human lives, a feeling that everything detaches,
separates, draws one far away from the things they love.
She said, in a resigned tone: "Life is not always cheerful."
The baron sighed: "How can it be helped, daughter? We can do nothing."
The following day the baron and his wife went away, and Jeanne and
Julien were left alone.
[CHAPTER VII]
JEANNE'S DISCOVERY
Cards now became a distraction in the life of the young people. Every
morning after breakfast, Julien would play several games of bezique
with his wife, smoking and sipping brandy as he played. She would then
go up to her room and sit down beside the window, and as the rain beat
against the panes, or the wind shook the windows, she would embroider
away steadily. Occasionally she would raise her eyes and look out at
the gray sea which had white-caps on it. Then, after gazing listlessly
for some time, she would resume her work.
She had nothing else to do, Julien having taken the entire management
of the house, to satisfy his craving for authority and his craze for
economy. He was parsimonious in the extreme, never gave any tips, cut
down the food to the merest necessaries; and as Jeanne since her
return had ordered the baker to make her a little Norman "galette" for
breakfast, he had cut down this extra expense, and condemned her to
eat toast.