A Romance of Youth | Page 3

blue eyes, always
carrying her head on one side, as if the weight of her lovely chestnut
hair was too heavy for her to bear, and smiling the sweet, tired smile of
those who have not long to live! She made his toilette, kissed him upon
his forehead, after brushing his hair. Then she laid their modest table,
which was always decorated with a pretty vase of flowers. Soon the
father entered. He was one of those mild, unpretentious men who let
everybody run over them.
He tried to be gay when he entered his own house. He raised his little
boy aloft with one arm, before kissing him, exclaiming, "Houp la!" A
moment later he kissed his young wife and held her close to him,
tenderly, as he asked, with an anxious look:
"Have you coughed much to-day?"
She always replied, hanging her head like a child who tells an untruth,
"No, not very much."
The father would then put on an old coat--the one he took off was not
very new. Amedee was then seated in a high chair before his mug, and
the young mother, going into the kitchen, would bring in the supper.
After opening his napkin, the father would brush back behind his ear
with his hand a long lock on the right side, that always fell into his

eyes.
"Is there too much of a breeze this evening? you afraid to go out upon
the balcony, Lucie? Put a shawl on, then," said M. Violette, while his
wife was pouring the water remaining in the carafe upon a box where
some nasturtiums were growing.
"No, Paul, I am sure--take Amedee down from his chair, and let us go
out upon the balcony."
It was cool upon this high balcony. The sun had set, and now the great
clouds resembled mountains of gold, and a fresh odor came up from the
surrounding gardens.
"Good-evening, Monsieur Violette," suddenly said a cordial voice.
"What a fine evening!"
It was their neighbor, M. Gerard, an engraver, who had also come to
take breath upon his end of the balcony, having spent the entire day
bent over his work. He was large and bald-headed, with a good-natured
face, a red beard sprinkled with white hairs, and he wore a short, loose
coat. As he spoke he lighted his clay pipe, the bowl of which
represented Abd-el-Kader's face, very much colored, save the eyes and
turban, which were of white enamel.
The engraver's wife, a dumpy little woman with merry eyes, soon
joined her husband, pushing before her two little girls; one, the smaller
of the two, was two years younger than Amedee; the other was ten
years old, and already had a wise little air. She was the pianist who
practised one hour a day Marcailhou's Indiana Waltz.
The children chattered through the trellis that divided the balcony in
two parts. Louise, the elder of the girls, knew how to read, and told the
two little ones very beautiful stories: Joseph sold by his brethren;
Robinson Crusoe discovering the footprints of human beings.
Amedee, who now has gray hair upon his temples, can still remember
the chills that ran down his back at the moment when the wolf, hidden

under coverings and the grandmother's cap, said, with a gnashing of
teeth, to little Red Riding Hood: "All the better to eat you with, my
child."
It was almost dark then upon the terrace. It was all delightfully terrible!
During this time the two families, in their respective parts of the
balcony, were talking familiarly together. The Violettes were quiet
people, and preferred rather to listen to their neighbors than to talk
themselves, making brief replies for politeness' sake--"Ah!" "Is it
possible?" "You are right."
The Gerards liked to talk. Madame Gerard, who was a good
housekeeper, discussed questions of domestic economy; telling, for
example, how she had been out that day, and had seen, upon the Rue du
Bac, some merino: "A very good bargain, I assure you, Madame, and
very wide!" Or perhaps the engraver, who was a simple politician, after
the fashion of 1848, would declare that we must accept the Republic,
"Oh, not the red-hot, you know, but the true, the real one!" Or he would
wish that Cavaignac had been elected President at the September
balloting; although he himself was then engraving--one must live, after
all--a portrait of Prince Louis Napoleon, destined for the electoral
platform. M. and Madame Violette let them talk; perhaps even they did
not always pay attention to the conversation. When it was dark they
held each other's hands and gazed at the stars.
These lovely, cool, autumnal evenings, upon the balcony, under the
starry heavens, are the most distant of all Amedee's memories. Then
there was a break in his memory, like