temper, her promptness
to lose her head, to fly into a rage, to breathe fire and flame,
mademoiselle said nothing. She acted as if she saw nothing. She
pretended to be reading when Germinie entered the room. She waited,
curled up in her easy-chair, until the maid's ill-humor had blown over
or burst. She bent her back before the storm; she said no word, had no
thought of bitterness against her. She simply pitied her for causing
herself so much suffering.

In truth Germinie was not Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's maid; she was
Devotion, waiting to close her eyes. The solitary old woman, overlooked
by death, alone at the end of her life, dragging her affections from
grave to grave, had found her last friend in her servant. She had rested
her heart upon her as upon an adopted daughter, and she was especially
unhappy because she was powerless to comfort her. Moreover, at
intervals, Germinie returned to her from the depths of her brooding
melancholy and her savage humor, and threw herself on her knees before
her kind heart. Suddenly, at a ray of sunlight, a beggar's song, or any
one of the nothings that float in the air and expand the heart, she
would burst into tears and demonstrations of affection; her heart would
overflow with burning emotions, she would seem to feel a pleasure in
embracing her mistress, as if the joy of living again had effaced
everything. At other times some trifling ailment of mademoiselle's would
bring about the change; a smile would come to the old servant's face and
gentleness to her hands. Sometimes, at such moments, mademoiselle would
say: "Come, my girl--something's the matter. Tell me what it is." And
Germinie would reply: "No, mademoiselle, it's the weather."--"The
weather!" mademoiselle would repeat with a doubtful air, "the weather!"

XXIX

One evening in March the Jupillons, mother and son, were talking
together by the stove in their back-shop.

Jupillon had been drafted. The money his mother had put aside to
purchase his release had been used up as a result of six months of poor
business and by credits given to certain _lorettes_ on the street, who
had left the key under their door-mat one fine morning. He had not
prospered, in a business way, himself, and his stock in trade had been
taken on execution. He had been that day to ask a former employer to
advance him the money to purchase a substitute. But the old perfumer had
not forgiven him for leaving him and setting up for himself