M. Ducros' father had been the Protestant pasteur of Nyons for
forty-four years. He was eighty-six years old, and on week-days
the old gentleman dozed in the sun all day, and was quite senile
and gaga. On Sundays, no sooner had he ascended the pulpit than
his faculties seemed to return to him, and he would preach
interminable but perfectly coherent sermons with a vigour
astonishing in so old a man, only to relapse into childishness
again on returning home, and to remain senile till the following
Sunday.
The Ducros lived in a large farm-house on the outskirts of the
town. It was a farm without any livestock, for there is no grass
whatever in that part of France, and consequently no pasture for
cattle or sheep. Every one in Nyons kept goats for milk, and,
quaintly enough, they fed them on the dried mulberry leaves the
silkworms had left over. For every one reared silkworms too, a
most lucrative industry. The French speak of "making" silkworms
(faire des vers-a-soie). Lucrative as it is, it would never
succeed in England even if the white mulberry could be induced to
grow, for successful silkworm rearing demands such continual
watchfulness and meticulous attention as only French people can
give; English people "couldn't be bothered" to expend such minute
care on anything they were doing.
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