smile, but it is enough to warm your heart. The cloud begins to disperse,
he sees you, he hears you, he knows that papa is there, your child is
restored to you. His glance is already clearer. Call him softly. He wants
to turn, but he can not yet, and for his sole answer his little hand,
which is beginning to come to life again, moves and crumples the sheet.
Just wait a little, poor impatient father, and tomorrow, on his
awakening, he will say "Papa." You will see what good it will do you,
this "Papa," faint as a mere breath, this first scarcely intelligible
sign of a return to life. It will seem to you that your child has been
born again a second time.

He will still suffer, he will have further crises, the storm does not
become a calm all at once, but he will be able now to rest his head on
your shoulder, nestle in your arms among the blankets; he will be able to
complain, to ask help and relief of you with eye and voice; you will, in
short, be reunited, and you will be conscious that he suffers less by
suffering on your knees. You will hold his hand in yours, and if you seek
to go away he will look at you and grasp your finger. How many things are
expressed in this grasp. Dear sir, have you experienced it?

"Papa, do stay with me, you help to make me better; when I am alone I am
afraid of the pain. Hold me tightly to you, and I shall not suffer so
much."

The more your protection is necessary to another the more you enjoy
granting it. What is it then when this other is a second self, dearer
than the first. With convalescence comes another childhood, so to speak.
Fresh astonishments, fresh joys, fresh desires come one by one as health
is restored. But what is most touching and delightful, is that delicate
coaxing by the child who still suffers and clings to you, that
abandonment of himself to you, that extreme weakness that gives him
wholly over to you. At no period of his life has he so enjoyed your
presence, has he taken refuge so willingly in your dressing-gown, has he
listened more attentively to your stories and smiled more intelligently
at your merriment. Is it true, as it seems to you, that he has never been
more charming? Or is it simply that threatened danger has caused you to
set a higher value on his caresses, and that you count over your
treasures with all the more delight because you have been all but ruined?

But the little man is up again. Beat drums; sound trumpets; come out of
your hiding-places, br