banks of the Lizotte, and on the other side of the little stream
stretched the fields belonging to the two farms; then, still farther off,
rose the dark woods of La Mionne.

Divided! The domain was going to be divided! The heart of the poor
priest was rent by this bitter thought. All that for thirty years had
been inseparable, indivisible to him. It was a little his own, his very
own, his estate, this great property. He felt at home on the lands of
Longueval. It had happened more than once that he had stopped
complacently before an immense cornfield, plucked an ear, removed the
husk, and said to himself:

"Come! the grain is fine, firm, and sound. This year we shall have a
good harvest!"

And with a joyous heart he would continue his way through his fields, his
meadows, his pastures; in short, by every chord of his heart, by every
tie of his life, by all his habits, his memories, he clung to this domain
whose last hour had come.

The Abbe perceived in the distance the farm of Blanche-Couronne; its red-
tiled roofs showed distinctly against the verdure of the forest. There,
again, the Cure was at home. Bernard, the farmer of the Marquise, was
his friend; and when the old priest was delayed in his visits to the poor
and sick, when the sun was sinking below the horizon, and the Abbe began
to feel a little fatigued in his limbs, and a sensation of exhaustion in
his stomach, he stopped and supped with Bernard, regaled himself with a
savory stew and potatoes, and emptied his pitcher of cider; then, after
supper, the farmer harnessed his old black mare to his cart, and took the
vicar back to Longueval. The whole distance they chatted and quarrelled.