eak, and laughed at for his
deformity. In vain the little hunchback opened his arms to the world: the
world scoffed at him, and went its way.

However, he still had his mother, and it was to her that the child
directed all the feelings of a heart repelled by others. With her he
found shelter, and was happy, till he reached the age when a man must
take his place in life; and Maurice had to content himself with that
which others had refused with contempt. His education would have
qualified him for any course of life; and he became an octroi-clerk--[The
octroi is the tax on provisions levied at the entrance of the town]--in
one of the little toll-houses at the entrance of his native town.

He was always shut up in this dwelling of a few feet square, with no
relaxation from the office accounts but reading and his mother's visits.
On fine summer days she came to work at the door of his hut, under the
shade of a clematis planted by Maurice. And, even when she was silent,
her presence was a pleasant change for the hunchback; he heard the
clinking of her long knitting-needles; he saw her mild and mournful
profile, which reminded him of so many courageously-borne trials; he
could every now and then rest his hand affectionately on that bowed neck,
and exchange a smile with her!

This comfort was soon to be taken from him. His old mother fell sick, and
at the end of a few days he had to give up all hope. Maurice was overcome
at the idea of a separation which would henceforth leave him alone on
earth, and abandoned himself to boundless grief. He knelt by the bedside
of the dying woman, he called her by the fondest names, he pressed her in
his arms, as if he could so keep her in life. His mother tried to return
his caresses, and to answer him; but her hands were cold, her voice was
already gone. She could only press her lips against the forehead of her
son, heave a sigh, and close her eyes forever!

They tried to take Maurice away, but he resisted them and threw himself
on that now motionless form.

"Dead!" cried he; "dead! She who had never left me, she who was the only
one in the world who loved me! You, my mother, dead! What then remains
for me here below?"

A stifled voice replied:

"God!"

Maurice, startled, raised himself! Was that a last sigh from the dead, or
his own conscience, that had answered him? He did not seek to know, but
he understood the answer, and accepted it.

It was then that I first knew him. I ofte