which he recalls many sad days.

Winter had come, and they no longer spent their evenings upon the
balcony. One could see nothing now through the windows but a dull, gray
sky. Amedee's mother was ill and always remained in her bed. When he
was installed near the bed, before a little table, cutting out with
scissors the hussars from a sheet of Epinal, his poor mamma almost
frightened him, as she leaned her elbow upon the pillow and gazed at him
so long and so sadly, while her thin white hands restlessly pushed back
her beautiful, disordered hair, and two red hectic spots burned under her
cheekbones.

It was not she who now came to take him from his bed in the morning, but
an old woman in a short jacket, who did not kiss him, and who smelled
horribly of snuff.

His father, too, did not pay much attention to him now. When he returned
in the evening from the office he always brought bottles and little
packages from the apothecary. Sometimes he was accompanied by the
physician, a large man, very much dressed and perfumed, who panted for
breath after climbing the five flights of stairs. Once Amedee saw this
stranger put his arms around his mother as she sat in her bed, and lay
his head for a long time against her back. The child asked, "What for,
mamma?"

M. Violette, more nervous than ever, and continually throwing back the
rebellious lock behind his ear, would accompany the doctor to the door
and stop there to talk with him. Then Amedee's mother would call to him,
and he would climb upon the bed, where she would gaze at him with her
bright eyes and press him to her breast, saying, in a sad tone, as if she