_pardi_! the one who made a fine marriage, and whose wife died--"

He stared at Maxime, seeming happy to find him already wrinkled at
thirty-two, with his hair and beard sprinkled with snow.

"Ah, well!" he added, "we are all growing old. But I, at least, have
no great reason to complain. I am solid."

And he planted himself firmly on his legs with his air of ferocious
mockery, while his fiery red face seemed to flame and burn. For a long
time past ordinary brandy had seemed to him like pure water; only
spirits of 36 degrees tickled his blunted palate; and he took such
draughts of it that he was full of it--his flesh saturated with it--
like a sponge. He perspired alcohol. At the slightest breath whenever
he spoke, he exhaled from his mouth a vapor of alcohol.

"Yes, truly; you are solid, uncle!" said Pascal, amazed. "And you have
done nothing to make you so; you have good reason to ridicule us. Only
there is one thing I am afraid of, look you, that some day in lighting
your pipe, you may set yourself on fire--like a bowl of punch."

Macquart, flattered, gave a sneering laugh.

"Have your jest, have your jest, my boy! A glass of cognac is worth
more than all your filthy drugs. And you will all touch glasses with
me, hey? So that it may be said truly that your uncle is a credit to
you all. As for me, I laugh at evil tongues. I have corn and olive
trees, I have almond trees and vines and land, like any _bourgeois_.
In summer I smoke my pipe under the shade of my mulberry trees; in
winter I go to smoke it against my wall, there in the sunshine. One