“More articles about you,” she cried, “in the Clarion des Alpes and La Savoie Républicaine. Do you want to read them?”
“No, please not,” begged the captain.
“Some invitations,” Paule went on. “The men of your year are giving a dinner in your honor. A season-ticket for the Aix-les-Bains Casino. Another for the Villa des Fleurs. The Baroness de Vittoz is at home on Tuesdays.”
“What is all this to me? I want to see nobody, absolutely nobody.”
“You have become fashionable! You must play your part. They are disposing of your liberty. That’s one way of sharing in your laurels.”
“Let’s agree not to talk about it, Paule dear.”
“But everyone is talking about it. Glory is the rage to-day. Some day soon the Dulaurenses will call upon us, and other people too whom we have not seen since the story of our ruin got about.”
Her smooth forehead, overshadowed by dark hair, still wore the furrow which testified to the bitterness of that time of trial.
Marcel said nothing. He let himself be carried away by the multitudinous memories connected with the land which was his forefathers’. In his mind’s eye he could see the shadows of the past springing up from the ground about him and hovering round him like a flock of birds. Only the members of large families can know the happy exaltation of spirit which has its birth in an environment that is fresh, gay, and frank. This blessing, which changes childhood with a stroke of the wand into fairyland and is able to shed its sweetness throughout middle life right down to old age, is the reward of those who have had the courage to live and to perpetuate life. So Marcel now smiled upon another tiny Marcel, whom he could see distinctly scampering over the neighboring fields with a merry little troop of brothers and sisters. Then began with Paule the series of “Do you remembers.” He plunged back into the far away years when the soul is still wrapped in mystery, and finally he said:
“Do you remember.... But no, you were not born then. We were lying on the grass. They were our first holidays, I think. Father used to tell us about the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,” and we straightway translated the stories into action. I was in turn Hector and the cunning Ulysses. But at that time I preferred Hector, for he is generous and of that tragic courage which impresses a child’s mind. Since then reading Homer has been to me like visiting a friend. Who can tell whether or not I owe to these influences my taste for adventure?”