The courtyard smelled of clover and of cows. Multitudes of white pigeons fluttered about the old thatched roofs of the grange, where the hay was stored in the gable, and corn hung drying in golden festoons, and the dust of the threshing floor was deeply fragrant. The wine vats smelled of grapes. And odours of lavender and wild thyme came close down from the mountain side.
The entrance door stood open, across the grass and cobbles of the court, to whosoever might trouble to go in.
There was a great chestnut tree on either side of the door, and the ground about the door was strewn with brown burrs and golden leaves.
A little old peasant woman, who must surely have been the Nounou long ago, came to the door, in sabots and the white stiff winged cap of the country.
She said that Madame had gone down to the black wheat fields.
The waxed, black, shining stairs came straight down into the red-tiled hall.
Across the hall there was a fine carved and painted room, that lay all along the length of the terrace. That room was closed because of the war. "Madame had it closed," explained the little old nurse, "since the day when Monsieur Xaxa went."
In the dining-room there was a big table pushed back to the wall, with many chairs crowded out of the way against it. The old nurse said, "We do not use this room, now that Monsieur Xaxa is gone."
She would show us the kitchen with its red-brick tiles, and dark, great beams, and earthen jars and coppers, and its old stone hearth, like an altar.
She said, "Nothing is kept as beautifully as it should be. Madame and I are quite alone."