In the provinces no one pays much attention to a fine view, either because provincials are blases on the beauty around them, or because they have no poesy in their souls.

If there exists in the provinces a mall, a promenade, a vantage-ground from which a fine view can be obtained, that is the point to which no one goes.

Athanase was fond of this solitude, enlivened by the sparkling water, where the fields were the first to green under the earliest smiling of the springtide sun.

Those persons who saw him sitting beneath a poplar, and who noticed the vacant eye which he turned to them, would say to Madame Granson:-- "Something is the matter with your son." "I know what it is," the mother would reply; hinting that he was meditating over some great work.
Athanase no longer took part in politics: he ceased to have opinions; but he appeared at times quite gay,--gay with the satire of those who think to insult a whole world with their own individual scorn.

This young man, outside of all the ideas and all the pleasures of the provinces, interested few persons; he was not even an object of curiosity.