"That will have pleased him, my boy. He belongs to the very old Alsace, that country which seems almost fabulous to you, and to which I also belong, although I am much younger than M. Oberlé. It was wholly French, that Alsace, and not a man of that time has changed. Look at your grandfather—look at old Bastian. We are the generation who suffered. We represent grief—we others. Your father embodies resignation."
"And I?"
Uncle Ulrich looked at the young man, with his far-seeing eyes, and said:
"You—oh, you are Romance."
They would have smiled, both of them, but they could not, as if that word had been too perfectly accurate, which is not always the case with human judgments—as if they felt that Fate was there in this room, invisible, who repeated to them at the bottom of their hearts at the same time: "Yes, it is true—"this one is Romance." The grief which was oppressing them was only to be explained by the imminence of life's mystery. It faded away. M. Ulrich reached out his hand to his nephew, more gravely than he would have done if that word had not escaped him, which he did not regret, but which remained present with him.
"Good-bye, dear Jean. I would rather not wait for my brother-in-law. I do not know what attitude I should take up towards him. All you have told me would embarrass me. You will wish him good night for me. I will go home through the woods by moonlight. What a pity I have not my gun with me and the good luck to come across a brace of grouse in the fir wood."
To reach the staircase he took some careful steps on the carpet in the passage.
"Uncle," said Jean, in a low tone, "if you would go to my grandfather I am sure he would be pleased—I am sure he is not sleeping."
Uncle Ulrich, who was walking in front, stopped and retraced his steps. Jean turned the handle of the door near which he was, and going first into the room, said, in a lowered voice:
"Grandfather, I bring you a visitor—Uncle Ulrich—who wishes to see you."