At the end of the establishment they suddenly perceived the orchestra under a Chinese _kiosque_. A fair-haired young man, frantically playing the violin, was conducting with movements of his head. His hair was shaking from one side to the other in the effort to keep time, and his entire torso bent forward and rose up again, swaying from left to right, like the stick of the leader of an orchestra. Facing him sat three strange-looking musicians. This was the _maestro_, Saint Landri.
He and his assistants--a pianist, whose instrument, mounted on rollers, was wheeled each morning from the vestibule of the baths to the _kiosque_; an enormous flautist, who presented the appearance of sucking a match while tickling it with his big swollen fingers, and a double-bass of consumptive aspect--produced with much fatigue this perfect imitation of a bad barrel-organ, which had astonished Christiane in the village street.
As she stopped to look at them, a gentleman saluted her brother.
And Gontran introduced them: "My sister--Doctor Honorat."
She could scarcely restrain her merriment at the sight of this third physician. The latter bowed and made some complimentary remark.
He did not go farther with the matter, and changed the subject.
"You are aware, my dear Count, that you will shortly have one of the most interesting spectacles that could await you on your arrival in this district."
"Père Oriol is going to blast his hill. This is of no consequence to you, but for us it is a big event."
And he proceeded to explain. "Père Oriol--the richest peasant in this part of the country--he is known to be worth over fifty thousand francs a year--owns all the vineyards along the plain up to the outlet of Enval. Now, just as you go out from the village at the division of the valley, rises a little mountain, or rather a high knoll, and on this knoll are the best vineyards of Père Oriol. In the midst of two of them, facing the road, at two paces from the stream, stands a gigantic stone, an elevation which has impeded the cultivation and put into the shade one entire side of the field, on which it looks down. For six years, Père Oriol has every week been announcing that he was going to blast his hill; but he has never made up his mind about it.
