When I see in the morning in the anteroom my baby's little shoes standing
proudly beside the paternal boots, I experience, despite myself, a return
toward that past which is yet so near. Yesterday swaddling clothes,
today boots, tomorrow spurs. Ah! how the happy days fly by. Already
four years old. I can scarcely carry him, even supposing he allowed me
to, for his manly dignity is ticklish. He passes half his life armed for
war, his pistols, his guns, his whips and his swords are all over the
place. There is a healthy frankness about all his doings that charms me.

Do you imagine from this that my demon no longer has any good in him? At
times he is an angel and freely returns the caresses I bestow upon him.
In the evening after dinner he gets down into my armchair, takes my head
in his hands and arranges my hair in his own way. His fresh little mouth
travels all over my face. He imprints big sounding kisses on the back of
my neck, which makes me shudder all over. We have endless talks
together. "Why's" come in showers, and all these "why's" require real
answers; for the intelligence of children is above all things logical.
I will only give one of his sayings as a proof.

His grandmother is rather unwell, and every night he tacks on to his
prayer these simple words, "Please God make Granny well, because I love
her so." But for greater certainty he has added on his own account, "You
know, God, Granny who lives in the Rue Saint-Louis, on the first floor."
He says all this with an expression of simple confidence and such comic
seriousness, the little love. You understand, it is to spare God the
trouble of looking for the address.

I leave you; I hear him cough. I do not know whether he has caught cold,
but I think he has been looking rather depressed since the morning. Do
not laugh at me, I am not otherwise uneasy.