layed two small and rather pudgey
hands, quite firm and yet pleasantly soft, neither hot nor cold, nor dry
nor damp, but agreeable to the touch and cared-for to perfection.

As he was, his father and mother would not have exchanged him for the
Apollo Belvedere. They embraced him rapturously, overwhelming him with a
thousand questions, most of which he, of course, failed to answer. Some
old friends of the family, a doctor, an architect, and a notary, had run
to the depot with the good old people; each one of them in turn gave him
a hug, and asked him if he was well, and if he had had a pleasant
journey. He listened patiently and even joyfully to this common-place
music whose words did not signify much, but whose melody went to the
heart because it came from the heart.

They had been there a good quarter of an hour, the train had gone
puffing on its way, the omnibuses of the various hotels had started one
after another at a good trot up the street leading to the city, and the
June sun seemed to enjoy lighting up this happy group of excellent
people. But Madame Renault cried out all at once that the poor child
must be dying of hunger, and that it was barbarous to keep him waiting
for his dinner any longer. There was no use in his protesting that he
had breakfasted at Paris, and that the voice of hunger appealed to him
less strongly than that of joy. They all got into two carriages, the son
beside his mother, the father opposite, as if he could not keep his
eyes off his boy. A wagon came behind with the trunks, long boxes,
chests, and the rest of the traveller's baggage. At the entrance of the
town, the hackmen cracked their whips, the baggage-men followed the
example, and this cheerful clatter drew the people to their doors and
woke up for an instant the quietude of the streets. Madame Renault threw
her glances right and left, searching out the spectators of her triumph,
and saluting with most cordial affability people she hardly knew at all.
And more than one mother saluted her, too, without knowing her; for
there is no mother indifferent to such kinds of happiness, and,
moreover, Leon's family was liked by everybody. And the neighbors,
meeting each other, said with a satisfaction free from jealousy:

"That is Renault's son, who has been at work three years in the Russian
mines, and now has come to share his fortune with his old parents."

Leon also noticed several familiar faces, but not all that he wished to
see. For