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From the bridge over the Yeuse on certain days one could hear oaths and blows flying about. And here again was family life destroyed, strength wasted, and happiness spoilt. Carried off by perfect anger, Mathieu continued: "To think of it; people who had everything needful to be happy! How can one be so stupid? How can one seek wretchedness for oneself with such obstinacy?
In three minutes we shall be at home and able to make fine sport of those laggards when they arrive in another quarter of an hour." They had just crossed the Yeuse bridge, and they swept on side by side, although the road was far from easy, being a continual ascent for a thousand yards or so between rows of lofty poplars. "I assure you that we are doing wrong," the young man repeated.
Just fancy! we two being the millers why, we should be very rich and very happy!" This made them both laugh, and for another moment they remained seated there, watching the dark massive mill beside the Yeuse. Between the willows and poplars on both banks the little river flowed on peacefully, scarce murmuring as it coursed among the water plants which made it ripple.
The worst was that for some months past all the gossips of Janville had been relating that he had renewed his former boyish friendship with Therese Lepailleur, the miller's daughter, and that they were to be met of an evening in shady nooks under the pollard-willows by the Yeuse.
They were always to be met, holding each other by the waist, on the secluded paths in the woods; and at night they loved to stroll across the fields, beside the hedges, along the shady banks of the Yeuse, delighted when they could linger till very late near the murmuring water, in the thick shade of the willows.
"What is the good of it if there is no more love?" murmured Marianne. "Then, too," continued Mathieu, after a pause, "I went down to the Yeuse, and from a distance I saw that Gregoire had received the new machine which Denis has just built for him. It was being unloaded in the yard. It seems that it imparts a certain movement to the mill-stones, which saves a good third of the power needed.
"No, no, my boy," said she; "there are no other rivers than the Yeuse, no other forests but our woods of Lillebonne, no other sun but that of Chantebled. Come and kiss me again let us all kiss once more, and I shall get well, and we shall never be parted again." The laughter began afresh with the embraces.
A rush of blood warmed Mathieu's heart when, all at once, he thought of Marianne, so strong and healthy, who would be waiting for him on the bridge over the Yeuse, in the open country, with their little Gervais at her breast. In certain regions which devoted themselves to baby-farming the mortality among the nurslings was fifty per cent; in the best of them it was forty, and seventy in the worst.
But nowadays when, thanks to us, corn overflows on all sides, surely he ought to have pulled down his old wheel and have replaced it by a good engine. Ah! if I were in his place I would already have a new and bigger mill there, making all use of the water of the Yeuse, and connecting it with Janville railway station by a line of rails, which would not cost so much to lay down."
That was his sole idea; it took no more precise shape; at the thought of realizing it he was carried off into splendid dreams. The Froments had been in the country fully a month when one evening Marianne, wheeling Gervais's little carriage in front of her, came as far as the bridge over the Yeuse to await Mathieu, who had promised to return early. Indeed, he got there before six o'clock.
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