_Our_ way is downward; but we form--they above and we below--one and the same mass, all visible together.
"It's fine!" says Marie, "it looks as if they were galloping over us!" They are the shining vanguard that protects us, the great eternal framework which upholds our country, the forces of the mighty past which illuminate it and protect it against enemies and revolutions.
And we, we are all alike, in spite of our different minds; alike in the greatness of our common interests and even in the littleness of our personal aims.

I have become increasingly conscious of this close concord of the masses beneath a huge and respect-inspiring hierarchy.
It permits a sort of lofty consolation and is exactly adapted to a life like mine.

This evening, by the light of the setting sun, I see it and read it and admire it.
All together we go down by the fields where tranquil corn is growing, by the gardens and orchards where homely trees are making ready their offerings--the scented blossom which lends, the fruit which gives itself.

They form an immense plain, sloping and darkling, with brown undulations under the blue which now alone is becoming green.

A little girl, who has come from the spring, puts down her bucket and stands at the roadside like a post, looking with all her eyes.