But ivy had grown; all sorts of clinging plants
stopped the too-wide chinks and threw a green cloak over the ancient
building. The young ladies who passed by sketched Pere Merlier's mill in
their albums.
On the side facing the highway the structure was more solid. A stone
gateway opened upon the wide courtyard, which was bordered to the right
and to the left by sheds and stables. Beside a well an immense elm
covered half the courtyard with its shadow. In the background the
building displayed the four windows of its second story, surmounted by
a pigeon house. Pere Merlier's sole vanity was to have this front
plastered every ten years. It had just received a new coating and
dazzled the village when the sun shone on it at noon.
For twenty years Pere Merlier had been mayor of Rocreuse. He was
esteemed for the fortune he had acquired. His wealth was estimated
at something like eighty thousand francs, amassed sou by sou. When he
married Madeleine Guillard, who brought him the mill as her dowry, he
possessed only his two arms. But Madeleine never repented of her choice,
so briskly did he manage the business. Now his wife was dead, and he
remained a widower with his daughter Francoise. Certainly he might have
rested, allowed the mill wheel to slumber in the moss, but that would
have been too dull for him, and in his eyes the building would have
seemed dead.
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