Page 209 sur 788

The bell still pealed, and, as an echo, from the depths of the

quiet woods there resounded a thousand cries and shouts; this was

the uproar of people searching for one another and calling, the

signal that the mushroom-gathering was over for the day: the

uproar was not at all gloomy or funereal, as it had seemed to the

Count, but a dinner uproar.57 Every noon this bell, calling from

the gable, invited the guests and servants home to dinner; such

had been the custom on many old estates, and in the Judge's house

it had been preserved. So from the wood there came a throng

carrying boxes, and baskets, and handkerchiefs with their ends

tied up-all full of mushrooms; each young lady carried in one

hand, like a folded fan, a large pine-lover; in the other

tree-fungi tied together in a bunch, like field flowers, and

leaf-mushrooms of various colours. The Seneschal had his

fly-bane. With empty hands came Telimena, and after her the young

gentlemen.