"What are you talking about? It has been fairly felled with an axe: you can see the gash from here."
"So I can ... so I can...."
She stood up and shook her head:
"That makes the third time this year.... It will mean more unpleasantness."
"Fiddle-de-dee!" he exclaimed. "All they've got to do is to put up a solid post, instead of their old bit of wood." And he added, in a tone of pride, "The French post, two yards off, doesn't budge, you know!"
"Well, of course not! It's made of cast-iron and cemented into the stone."
"Let them do as much then! It's not money they're wanting ... when you think of the five thousand millions they robbed us of!... No, but, I say ... three of them in eight months!... How will the people take it, on the other side of the Vosges?"
He could not hide the sort of gay and sarcastic feeling of content that filled his whole being and he walked up and down the terrace, stamping his feet as hard as he could on the ground.
But, suddenly going to his wife, he seized her by the arm and said, in a hollow voice: