A glance sufficed for the rest of the books, most of them being pious works, Latin and French Bibles, an Imitation of Christ, Görres' Mystik in five volumes, the abbé Aubert's History and theory of religious symbolism, Pluquet's Dic
tionary of heresies, and several lives of saints.
"Ah, monsieur, my own books are not much account, but Des Hermies lends me what he knows will interest me."
"Don't talk so much!" said his wife. "Give monsieur a chance to sit down," and she handed Durtal a brimming glass aromatic with the acidulous perfume of genuine cider.
In response to his compliments she told him that the cider came from Brittany and was made by relatives of hers at Landévennec, her and Carhaix's native village.
She was delighted when Durtal affirmed that long ago he had spent a day in Landévennec.
"Why, then we know each other already!" she said, shaking hands with him again.
The room was heated to suffocation by a stove whose pipe zigzagged over to the window and out through a sheet-iron square nailed to the sash in place of one of the panes. Carhaix and his good wife, with her honest, weak face and frank, kind eyes, were the most restful of people. Durtal, made drowsy by the warmth and the quiet domesticity, let his thoughts wander. He said to himself, "If I had a place like this, above the roofs of Paris, I would fix it up and make of it a real haven of refuge. Here, in the clouds, alone and aloof, I would work away on my book and take my time about it, years perhaps. What inconceivable happiness it would be to escape from the age, and, while the waves of human folly were breaking against the foot of the tower, to sit up here, out of it all, and pore over antique tomes by the shaded light of the lamp."
He smiled at the naïveté of his daydream.
"I certainly do like your place," he said aloud, as if to sum up his reflections.