Here and now, at all events, carrying their cheerful tumult through
all those quiet ecclesiastical places--the bishop's garden, the great
sacristy, neat and clean in its brown, pensive lights, they seemed of
a piece with the bright, simple, inanimate things, the toys, of
nature. They made one lively picture with the fruit and wine they
loved, the birds they captured, the buckets of clear water drawn for
pastime from [37] the great well, and Jean Semur's painted conjuring
book stolen from the old sorceress, his grandmother, out of which he
told their fortunes; with the musical instruments of others; with
their carefully hidden dice and playing-cards, worn or soiled by the
fingers of the older gamesters who had discarded them. Like their
elders, they read eagerly, in racy, new translations, old Greek and
Latin books, with a delightful shudder at the wanton paganism. It
was a new element of confusion in the presentment of that miniature
world. The classical enthusiasm laid hold on Gaston too, but essayed
in vain to thrust out of him the medieval character of his
experience, or put on quite a new face, insinuating itself rather
under cover of the Middle Age, still in occupation all around him.
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