CHAPTER I THE BETROTHAL
Pere Merlier's mill,
one beautiful summer evening,
was arranged
for a grand fete.
In the courtyard
were three tables,
placed end to end,
which awaited the guests.
Everyone knew that Francoise,
Merlier's daughter,
was that night
to be betrothed to Dominique,
a young man
who was accused of idleness
but whom the fair sex
for three leagues around
gazed at with sparkling eyes,
such a fine appearance
had he.
Pere Merlier's mill
was pleasing to look upon.
It stood exactly
in the center of Rocreuse,
where the highway
made an elbow.
The village had
but one street,
with two rows of huts,
a row
on each side
of the road;
but at the elbow meadows
spread out,
and huge trees
which lined the banks
of the Morelle
covered the extremity
of the valley
with lordly shade.
There was not,
in all Lorraine,
a corner
of nature more adorable.
To the right and
to the left thick woods,
centenarian forests,
towered up from gentle slopes,
filling the horizon
with a sea of verdure,
while toward
the south the plain
stretched away,
of marvelous fertility,
displaying as far
as the eye
could reach
patches of ground
divided by green hedges.
But what
constituted the special charm
of Rocreuse
was the coolness of
that cut of verdure
in the
most sultry days
of July and August.
The Morelle
descended from the forests
of Gagny
and seemed
to have
gathered the cold
from the foliage beneath
which it flowed for leagues;
it brought
with it the murmuring sounds,
the icy and
concentrated shade of the woods.
And it
was not the sole source
of coolness:
all sorts of flowing
streams gurgled through the forest;
at each step
springs bubbled up;
one felt,
on following the narrow pathways,
that there
must exist subterranean lakes
which pierced
through beneath the moss and
availed themselves
of the smallest crevices
at the feet of trees
or between the rocks
to burst
forth in crystalline fountains.
The whispering voices
of these brooks
were so numerous
and so loud
that they drowned
the song of the bullfinches.
It was
like some enchanted
park with cascades
falling from every portion.
Below the meadows were damp.
Gigantic chestnut trees
cast dark shadows.
On the borders
of the meadows long hedges
of poplars
exhibited in lines
their rustling branches.
Two avenues
of enormous plane trees
stretched across the fields
toward the ancient
Chateau de Gagny,
then a mass of ruins.
In this constantly
watered district the grass
grew to an extraordinary height.
It resembled a garden
between two
wooded hills,
a natural garden,
of which the meadows
were the lawns,
the giant trees
marking the colossal flower beds.
When the sun's rays
at noon
poured straight downward the shadows
assumed a bluish tint;
scorched grass
slept in the heat,
while an icy shiver
passed beneath the foliage.
And there it was
that Pere Merlier's mill
enlivened with
its ticktack
a corner
of wild verdure.
The structure,
built of plaster and planks,
seemed as old
as the world.
It dipped partially
in the Morelle,
which rounded at
that point
into a transparent basin.
A sluice had been made,
and the water
fell from a height of
several meters
upon the mill wheel,
which cracked as it turned,
with the asthmatic cough
of a faithful servant
grown old in the house.
When Pere Merlier
was advised to change it
he shook his head,
saying that a new wheel
would be lazier
and would not so well