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Doctor Pascal by Émile Zola
page 57 of 417 (13%)
only with puny almond trees and dwarf olives, constantly cut down and
pruned, whose branches twisted and writhed in attitudes of suffering
and revolt. In the distance, on the bare hillsides, were to be seen
only like pale patches the country houses, flanked by the regulation
cypress. The vast, barren expanse, however, with broad belts of
desolate fields of hard and distinct coloring, had classic lines of a
severe grandeur. And on the road the dust lay twenty centimeters
thick, a dust like snow, that the slightest breath of wind raised in
broad, flying clouds, and that covered with white powder the fig trees
and the brambles on either side.

Clotilde, who amused herself like a child, listening to this dust
crackling under her little feet, wished to hold her parasol over
Pascal.

"You have the sun in your eyes. Lean a little this way."

But at last he took possession of the parasol, to hold it himself.

"It is you who do not hold it right; and then it tires you. Besides,
we are almost there now."

In the parched plain they could already perceive an island of verdure,
an enormous clump of trees. This was La Seguiranne, the farm on which
Sophie had grown up in the house of her Aunt Dieudonne, the wife of
the cross old man. Wherever there was a spring, wherever there was a
rivulet, this ardent soil broke out in rich vegetation; and then there
were walks bordered by trees, whose luxuriant foliage afforded a
delightful coolness and shade. Plane trees, chestnut trees, and young
elms grew vigorously. They entered an avenue of magnificent green
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