It does not rain; quite to the contrary, it is clear. When Arthur gets up it is late. The sun is beginning to be more powerful; his rays give color to the roofs, which seem to rob them of their brilliancy.
From the terrace in front of the studio a few square feet of sky are visible, but the little that the friends do see is of a beautiful, transparent blue; the air that they breathe is balmy and penetrating; that is as much as people who dwell in cities know of spring. The most magnificent festivals of nature, to the townsman, are no more than what the distant harmonies of the ball would be to the poor wretch dying of cold and hunger at the door of a splendid mansion.
It is enough, however, to set them thinking that the trees must be commencing to put forth their leaves, that the beeches and the maples, together with the hawthorn, are the first to assume their cloaks of green, that the cherry trees, by this time, must be nodding their rich plumes of white blossoms and that the birds of winter have hushed their thin, sharp notes, and the linnet, in the young foliage of the lilacs, is giving utterance to his full, resounding melodies. Upon the banks of the brooks the yellowish catkins of the willows must be bourgeoning, while around them are buzzing the first bees of the season.
Says Arthur to Eugène:
"We must be thinking what we shall do about our garden."
Their garden consists of three long wooden boxes stationed upon the terrace.
"What shall we plant in our garden this year?"
"I don't want any more vegetables, for my part;
