h the lamp.
As my eyes follow her, the room awakens more and more. My groping gaze
discovers the tiled floor, the conference of chairs backed side by side
against the wall, the motionless pallor of the window in the background
above the low and swollen bed, which is like a heap of earth and
plaster, the clothes lying on the floor like mole-hills, the protruding
edges of tables and shelves, pots, bottles, kettles and hanging clouts,
and that lock with the cotton-wool in its ear.

"I like orderliness so much," says Mame as she tacks and worms her way
through this accumulation of things, all covered with a downy layer of
dust like the corners of pastel pictures.

According to habit, I stretch out my legs and put my feet on the stool,
which long use has polished and glorified till it looks new. My face
turns this way and that towards the lean phantom of my aunt, and I lull
myself with the sounds of her stirring and her endless murmur.

And now, suddenly, she has come near to me. She is wearing her jacket
of gray and white stripes which hangs from her acute shoulders, she
puts her arm around my neck, and trembles as she says, "You can mount
high, you can, with the gifts that you have. Some day, perhaps, you
will go and tell men everywhere the truth of things. That _has_
happened. There have been men who were in the right, above everybody.
Why shouldn't you be one of them, my lad, _you_ one of these great
apostles!"

And with her head gently nodding, and her face still tear-stained, she
looks afar, and sees the streets attentive to my eloquence!

* * * * * *

Hardly has this strange imagining in the bosom of our kitchen passed
away when Mame adds, with her eyes on mine, "My lad, mind you, never
look higher than yourself. You are already something of a home-bird;
you have already serious and elderly habits. That's good. Never try
to be different from others."

"No danger of that, Mame."

No, there is no danger of that. I should like to remain as I am.
Something holds me to the surroundings of my infancy and childhood, and
I should like them to be eternal. No doubt I hope for much from life.
I hope, I have hopes, as every one has. I do not even know all that I
hope for, but I should not like too great changes. In my heart I
should not like anything which changed the position of the stove, of
the tap, of the chestnut wardrobe, nor the form of my evening rest,
which faithf