Yes, it _is_ good wine, but there is little profit in it, when one
thinks in _milliards_.
The landowner lights his pipe and seats himself cross-legged against the
trunk of the big chestnut. Back of the house the vineyard slopes away
toward the distant woods in straight, green, trellised alleys. A dim
haze hangs over the landscape sleeping so quietly in the midsummer
afternoon. Down the road comes heavily, creaking and swaying, a wain
loaded with a huge tower of empty casks and drawn by two oxen, their
heads swinging to the dust. Yes, it is hard to _comprendre_ twenty-five
hundred million francs.
It was this way. Madame Lapierre was a Tessier of Bordeaux--an ancient
_bourgeois_ family, and very proud indeed of being _bourgeois_. You can
see her passing and repassing the window if you watch carefully the
kitchen, where she is superintending dinner. The Tessiers have always
lived in Bordeaux and they are connected by marriage with
everybody--from the blacksmith up to the Mayor's notary. Once a Tessier
was Mayor himself. Years and years ago Madame's great-uncle Jean had
emigrated to America, and from time to time vague rumors of the wealth
he had achieved in the new country reached the ears of his
relatives--but no direct word ever came.
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