ully returns.

* * * * * *

The fire alight, my aunt warms up the stew, stirring it with the wooden
spoon. Sometimes there spurts from the stove a mournful flame, which
seems to illumine her with tatters of light.

I get up to look at the stew. The thick brown gravy is purring. I can
see pale bits of potato, and it is uncertainly spotted with the
mucosity of onions. Mame pours it into a big white plate. "That's for
you," she says; "now, what shall _I_ have?"

We settle ourselves each side of the little swarthy table. Mame is
fumbling in her pocket. Now her lean hand, lumpy and dark, unroots
itself. She produces a bit of cheese, scrapes it with a knife which
she holds by the blade, and swallows it slowly. By the rays of the
lamp, which stands beside us, I see that her face is not dry. A drop
of water has lingered on the cheek that each mouthful protrudes, and
glitters there. Her great mouth works in all directions, and sometimes
swallows the remains of tears.

So there we are, in front of our plates, of the salt which is placed on
a bit of paper, of my share of jam, which is put into a mustard-pot.
There we are, narrowly close, our foreheads and hands brought together
by the light, and for the rest but poorly clothed by the huge gloom.
Sitting in this jaded armchair, my hands on this ill-balanced
table,--which, if you lean on one side of it, begins at once to
limp,--I feel that I am deeply rooted where I am, in this old room,
disordered as an abandoned garden, this worn-out room, where the dust
touches you softly.

After we have eaten, our remarks grow rarer. Then Mame begins again to
mumble; once again she yields to emotion under the harsh flame of the
lamp, and once again her eyes grow dim in her complicated Japanese mask
that is crowned with cotton-wool, and something dimly shining flows
from them.

The tears of the sensitive old soul plash on that lip so voluminous
that it seems a sort of heart. She leans towards me, she comes so
near, so near, that I feel sure she is touching me.

I have only her in the world to love me really. In spite of her humors
and her lamentations I know well that she is always in the right.

I yawn, while she takes away the dirty plates and proceeds to hide them
in a dark corner. She fills the big bowl from the pitcher and then
carries it along to the stove for the crockery.

Antonia has given me an appointment for eight o'clock,