They both began to laugh, looking straight into each other's eyes quickly—less for what the customs officer had said than because of a certain sympathy which they felt for each other.
"We have no time to lose," said the brigadier, "the sun is dying down."
They went on under the vault of pines, turning round a cliff of bare rocks on which were planted at some distance two posts marking the spot where Germany ended and where France began, and at the end point, which was like a spur in the green, on a straight platform, which had its bed down in the forest, they found a watch-house of heavy planks of pines nailed on to the beams. From there one could see an immense landscape, which went on and on, sloping down—as far as human eye could see. In this moment and in the setting sun a pale golden light bathed the terraced lands, forests, villages, and rivers, the lakes of Retournemer and Longemer, softening the reliefs, and casting a colour like that of corn on uncultivated lands covered with heath. Jean remained standing, drinking in the picture to intoxication, and kept silence, while his emotion increased. He felt that the whole depth of his soul was full of joy.
"How beautiful it is!" he said.
The brigadier of customs, who was observing him from the corner of his eye, was flattered by the other's unstinted praise of his native district and answered:
"It is tiring, but in summer it is good to walk—for those who have the time. People come from Gérardmer, and from Saint Dié and Remiremont and from farther still. Many people come from over there——"
Over his shoulder, with his thumb reversed and turned backwards, he pointed to the country beyond the frontier.
Jean was shown in which direction lay the three towns of which the Custom House official had spoken. But he only followed his own thought with attention. What delighted him was the clearness of the air, and the idea of the illimitable, of the sweetness of life and of fertility which came to his mind at the sight of the French land. It was all he knew of France, what he had read, and what he had heard his mother, grandfather, and uncle Ulrich talk about, what he had pictured to himself, memories buried deep in his mind, which rose again suddenly like millions of grains of corn to the call of the sun.
The brigadier was seated on a bench, along the side of the hut; he had taken his short pipe from his pocket and was smoking.
When he saw the visitor turn towards him, his eyes full of tears, and seat himself on the bench, he guessed Jean's feelings; for Jean's admiration of the picturesque had escaped him, but the tears of regret at once made the brigadier grave. Those were from the heart, and a sublime equality united the two men. However, as he did not dare to question he stiffened his neck, until the muscles were visible, and began to study the horizon silently.