"Don't talk so much!" said his wife. "Give monsieur a chance to sit
down," and she handed Durtal a brimming glass aromatic with the
acidulous perfume of genuine cider.

In response to his compliments she told him that the cider came from
Brittany and was made by relatives of hers at Landévennec, her and
Carhaix's native village.

She was delighted when Durtal affirmed that long ago he had spent a day
in Landévennec.

"Why, then we know each other already!" she said, shaking hands with him
again.

The room was heated to suffocation by a stove whose pipe zigzagged over
to the window and out through a sheet-iron square nailed to the sash in
place of one of the panes. Carhaix and his good wife, with her honest,
weak face and frank, kind eyes, were the most restful of people. Durtal,
made drowsy by the warmth and the quiet domesticity, let his thoughts
wander. He said to himself, "If I had a place like this, above the roofs
of Paris, I would fix it up and make of it a real haven of refuge. Here,
in the clouds, alone and aloof, I would work away on my book and take my
time about it, years perhaps. What inconceivable happiness it would be
to escape from the age, and, while the waves of human folly were
breaking against the foot of the tower, to sit up here, out of it all,
and pore over antique tomes by the shaded light of the lamp."

He smiled at the naïveté of his daydream.

"I certainly do like your place," he said aloud, as if to sum up his