The young man continued, his head still resting on the older man's shoulder: "That is why I cannot live over yonder--across the Rhine--and why I shall live here!" "Well might I say 'poor boy'!" answered M. Ulrich. "All is changed--alas! Even here in your home. You will suffer, Jean, with a nature like yours. I understand everything now--everything." Then letting his nephew go: "How glad I am I came to-night. Sit down there quite close to me. We have so much to say to each other--Jean, my Jean!" They sat down side by side, happy, on the sofa. M. Ulrich stroked his pointed beard into its habitual well-groomed neatness. He recovered from his emotion, and said: "Do you know that by speaking of France as we have spoken this evening, we have committed misdemeanours such as I delight in? It is not allowed. If we had been out of doors and Hamm had heard us, we should have been speedily dealt with--there would have been an official report!" "I met him this afternoon." "And I saw the son pass by in the depths of the wood just now. He is a non-commissioned officer in the Rhenish Hussars--the regiment which will soon be yours. Is that the carriage I hear?" "No." "Listen, then!" They listened, gazing out of the window at the park, which was lit up by the full high moon; at the lawn in the shape of a lyre with its two white avenues, at the clumps of trees, and farther on the tile roofs of the saw-mill. Not a sound could be heard save the fall of the brook at the factory sluice, a monotonous sound which seemed now near, now far, according to the direction and strength of the freshening wind which was now blowing from the north-east, "from the Cathedral platform," as Uncle Ulrich said, thinking of Strasburg. "No; what you hear," said Jean Oberlé, after listening for a while, "is the noise of the sluice. Father told the coachman to go to Molsheim to wait for the eleven-thirty train. We have time to chat." They had time, and they made good use of it. They began to speak softly, without haste or difficulty, like those who have recognised that they agree on essentials and who can now safely open up all other questions, even the smallest. They spoke of the year's voluntary service Jean had been allowed to postpone until he was twenty-four, and of that new life he was going to begin at Strasburg--of the ease with which he could come nearly every Sunday to Alsheim. Then, this dear name having been repeated, uncle and nephew took pleasure in their recollections of the country, first of Alsheim, then of Sainte Odile, of the forest-dwelling of Heidenbruch, of Obernai, of Saverne, where the uncle had forests, of Guebwiller, where he had relations. It was Alsace they evoked. They thoroughly understood one another. They smoked, their legs crossed, seated one in each corner of the sofa, letting their words flow freely, and laughing often. Their conversation was so prolonged that the Black Forest cuckoo clock hanging over the door struck midnight.