o whose mouth the
woman who minded him every now and then put a little morsel which he
nibbled at. And the old man suffered more from the few mouthfuls sucked
by this little chap than from all that the others swallowed.

The meal lasted till evening. Then every one went back home.

Cesaire raised up old Amable.

"Come, daddy, we must go home," said he.

And he put the old man's two sticks in his hands.

Celeste took her child in her arms, and they went on slowly through the
pale night whitened by the snow. The deaf old man, three-fourths tipsy,
and even more malicious under the influence of drink, refused to go
forward. Several times he even sat down with the object of making his
daughter-in-law catch cold, and he kept whining, without uttering a word,
giving vent to a sort of continuous groaning as if he were in pain.

When they reached home he at once climbed up to his loft, while Cesaire
made a bed for the child near the deep niche where he was going to lie
down with his wife. But as the newly wedded pair could not sleep
immediately, they heard the old man for a long time moving about on his
bed of straw, and he even talked aloud several times, whether it was that
he was dreaming or that he let his thoughts escape through his mouth, in
spite of himself, not being able to keep them back, under the obsession
of a fixed idea.

When he came down his ladder next morning he saw his daughter-in-law
looking after the housekeeping.

She cried out to him:

"Come, daddy, hurry on! Here's some good soup."

And she placed at the end of the table the round black earthen bowl
filled with steaming liquid. He sat down without giving any answer,
seized the hot bowl, warmed his hands with it in his customary fashion,
and, as it was very cold, even pressed it against his breast to try to
make a little of the living heat of the boiling liquid enter into him,
into his old body stiffened by so many winters.

Then he took his sticks and went out into the fields, covered with ice,
till it was time for dinner, for he had seen Celeste's youngster still
asleep in a big soap-box.

He did not take his place in the household. He lived in the thatched
house, as in bygone days, but he seemed not to belong to it any longer,
to be no longer interested in anything, to look upon those people, his
son, the wife and the child as strangers whom he did not know, to whom he
never spoke.

The winter glided by. It was long and severe.

Then t