"Rather. How could you imagine one would not be, surrounded by such a forest? Oh, stop! there is a water-hen!"
I pointed it out to him with my finger, flushing it with my stick as it swam among the reeds of the pond.
"Of course it is. Where do you come from not to know a water-hen?"
"I was indeed born in Paris; but in 1815 we left Paris, and we lived in Brussels until three years ago, when my father and I were compelled to leave."
"William? He is King of the Netherlands. Didn't you know that the King of the Netherlands was called William?"
"Well, then, it oughtn't to seem so odd to you now that I do not know a water-hen."
Indeed, as it appeared, we were both ignorant on some points; and my ignorance was more culpable than de Leuven's.
He grew another cubit taller in my estimation. Not only was he a poet, but he was of sufficient importance in the world for this King William to be uneasy about him and his father, to the extent of banishing them both from his realms.
"And now you are living at Villers-Hellon?" said I.
"Yes. M. Collard is an old friend of my father."
"As long as the Bourbons will allow us to remain in France."
"Ah! then you have fallen out with the Bourbons too?"
"We have quarrelled with most kings," said Adolphe, with a laugh.
This phrase, uttered with magnificent indifference, quite finished me off. Luckily, at that moment, our fair companions appeared on the threshold of the farm, a bevy of pink and white damsels. Two or three _chars-à-bancs_ were in readiness to take them to the appointed place. The gentlemen were to go on foot. The rendezvous was barely a quarter of a league's distance from the village. A long table of thirty covers was laid under a leafy canopy, ten paces off a limpid, clear purling spring called the _Fontaine-aux-Princes._ All these young folks, maidens, mothers, children, seemed like so many woodland flowers opening to the sweet-breathed breeze: some pale, that sought for shade and solitude; others of brilliant hues, seeking light and stir and the sunshine of admiration.
Oh! those glorious woods, those shady depths, the haunts of my cherished moods of solitude, I have revisited you since; but no shade glides now beneath your green vaults and in your dark alleys.... What have you done with all that delightful world which vanished with my youth? Why have not other generations come in their turn, pale or rosy, lively or careless, noisy or silent like ours? Has that ephemeral efflorescence disappeared for ever? Is it really wanting, or is it that my eyes have lost the power of seeing?