CHAPTER xxi
§'
/CHRISTMAS came and went, the mistral subsided,
V^/the sea grew placid and warm in the sunshine.
The vines showed illusive suggestions of green, and
the mulberry branches began to make leaves where-
with they would nourish industrious silk-worms. The
sturdy, peeled brown trunks of the cork-trees appeared
to take on a more intense colour, so that they matched
the people's tanned limbs, and the brown honest face
of Goundran who smiled — always smiled, these
days, because his wife had presented him with a fine
infant daughter —and the brown, monkey face of
le tout petit Loup, and the brown sardonic face of
Eusebe.
Eusebe was feeling lazy this spring; he dawdled
about a great deal in his vineyards, neglecting his
work and his clients alike, while his bedroom became
unspeakably dirty. He drank deep of red wine and
thought many deep thoughts of a somewhat undesir-
able nature: cAh, this wonderful land of my birth —'
he would chant, 'this wonderful land of vines and
plump women. Is there anything lacking in this
Provence of ours? We have grapes, also plump, and
the grapes have juices and the juices are squeezed
into casks ^of our making. Why, the very trees strip
themselve^' of their clothes in order to provide us
with corks for our bottles! Only look at her beautiful
naked brownness — she resembles a woman that
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