Nadasi moved back.
Notwithstanding the rain, Benassis appeared to be pleased; he said that that day a large swarm of wild geese had arrived from the north; that they had lighted on the ponds of the Three Sawmills; that he had spied them afar off, and that the shooting on the marshes was about to begin. Benassis laughed and rubbed his hands as he emptied his glass of brandy and water. Every one was listening to him. Uncle Eustache said, if he went to shoot them, he should go in a little skiff; for as to putting on high boots and going into the mire, at the risk of sinking in above his ears, he would not fancy that much. Then every man had his say, and old Jeannette musingly murmured to herself: “I also owned marshes and ponds!”
“Ah!” cried Nadasi, with a mocking air, “listen to that: Dame Jeannette used to own marshes....”
“Certainly,” said she, “I did!...”
“Where were they, noble lady?”
“In La Vendée, on the sea-coast.”
And as Nadasi shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say, The old woman is crazy! Mme. Jeannette ascended the little wooden staircase at the back of the hovel, and then came down again with a basket filled with various articles, needles, thread, bobbins, and yellow parchments, which she deposited on the table. “Here are our papers,” said she: “the ponds, the marshes, and the château are there with the other things!... We laid claim to them in the time of Louis XVIII., but my relations denied our rights, because I had married a republican. We would have gone to law, but we had no money to pay the lawyers. Is it not so, Coustel, is it not true?”
“Yes,” said the turner, without moving.
The persons assembled took no interest in the thing, not any more than they would have done in the packages of paper money of the time of the Republic, which may still be found in old closets.
Nadasi, still mocking, opened one of the parchments, and was raising his head to read it, in order to laugh at Jeannette, when suddenly his countenance become grave; he wiped his spectacles, and turning towards the poor old woman, who had sat down again to her spinning.