t the children,
so comical and so graceful, as they made their little grimaces! Then the
husband glanced at his wife, and the wife at the husband, and both burst
out into hearty laughter.

There never was any laughter in the apartment of the Violettes. It was
cough! cough! cough! almost to suffocation, almost to death! This gentle
young woman with the heavy hair was about to die! When the beautiful
starry evenings should come again, she would no longer linger on the
balcony, or press her husband's hand as they gazed at the stars. Little
Amedee did not understand it; but he felt a vague terror of something
dreadful happening in the house. Everything alarmed him now. He was
afraid of the old woman who smelled of snuff, and who, when she dressed
him in the morning, looked at him with a pitying air; he was afraid of
the doctor, who climbed the five flights of stairs twice a day now, and
left a whiff of perfume behind him; afraid of his father, who did not
go to his office any more, whose beard was often three days old, and
who feverishly paced the little parlor, tossing back with a distracted
gesture the lock of hair behind his ear. He was afraid of his mother,
alas! of his mother, whom he had seen that evening, by the light from
the night-lamp, buried in the pillows, her delicate nose and chin thrown
up, and who did not seem to recognize him, in spite of her wide-open
eyes, when his father took her child in his arms and leaned over her
with him that he might kiss her cold forehead covered with sweat!

At last the terrible day arrived, a day that Amedee never will forget,
although he was then a very small child.

What awakened him that morning was his father's embrace as he came and
took him from his bed. His father's eyes were wild and bloodshot from
so much crying. Why was their neighbor, M. Gerard, there so early in
the morning, and with great tears rolling down his cheeks too? He kept
beside M. Violette, as if watching him, and patted him upon the back
affectionately, saying:

"Now then, my poor friend! Have courage, courage!"

But the poor friend had no more. He let M. Gerard take the child
from him, and then his head fell like a dead person's upon the good
engraver's shoulder, and he began to weep with heavy sobs that shook his
whole body.

"Mamma! See mamma!" cried the little Amedee, full of terror.

Alas! he never will see her again! At the Gerards, where they carried
him and the kind neighbor dressed him, t