A Romance of Youth | Page 4

a book with several leaves torn
out, after which he recalls many sad days.
Winter had come, and they no longer spent their evenings upon the
balcony. One could see nothing now through the windows but a dull,
gray sky. Amedee's mother was ill and always remained in her bed.
When he was installed near the bed, before a little table, cutting out
with scissors the hussars from a sheet of Epinal, his poor mamma
almost frightened him, as she leaned her elbow upon the pillow and
gazed at him so long and so sadly, while her thin white hands restlessly

pushed back her beautiful, disordered hair, and two red hectic spots
burned under her cheekbones.
It was not she who now came to take him from his bed in the morning,
but an old woman in a short jacket, who did not kiss him, and who
smelled horribly of snuff.
His father, too, did not pay much attention to him now. When he
returned in the evening from the office he always brought bottles and
little packages from the apothecary. Sometimes he was accompanied by
the physician, a large man, very much dressed and perfumed, who
panted for breath after climbing the five flights of stairs. Once Amedee
saw this stranger put his arms around his mother as she sat in her bed,
and lay his head for a long time against her back. The child asked,
"What for, mamma?"
M. Violette, more nervous than ever, and continually throwing back the
rebellious lock behind his ear, would accompany the doctor to the door
and stop there to talk with him. Then Amedee's mother would call to
him, and he would climb upon the bed, where she would gaze at him
with her bright eyes and press him to her breast, saying, in a sad tone,
as if she pitied him: "My poor little Medee! My poor little Medee!"
Why was it? What did it all mean?
His father would return with a forced smile which was pitiful to see.
"Well, what did the doctor say?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing! You are much better. Only, my poor Lucie, we
must put on another blister to-night."
Oh, how monotonous and slow these days were to the little Amedee,
near the drowsy invalid, in the close room smelling of drugs, where
only the old snuff-taker entered once an hour to bring a cup of tea or
put charcoal upon the fire!
Sometimes their neighbor, Madame Gerard, would come to inquire
after the sick lady.

"Still very feeble, my good Madame Gerard," his mother would
respond. "Ah, I am beginning to get discouraged."
But Madame Gerard would not let her be despondent.
"You see, Madame Violette, it is this horrible, endless winter. It is
almost March now; they are already selling boxes of primroses in little
carts on the sidewalks. You will surely be better as soon as the sun
shines. If you like, I will take little Amedee back with me to play with
my little girls. It will amuse the child."
So it happened that the good neighbor kept the child every afternoon,
and he became very fond of the little Gerard children.
Four little rooms, that is all; but with a quantity of old, picturesque
furniture; engravings, casts, and pictures painted by comrades were on
the walls; the doors were always open, and the children could always
play where they liked, chase each other through the apartments or
pillage them. In the drawing-room, which had been transformed into a
work-room, the artist sat upon a high stool, point in hand; the light
from a curtainless window, sifting through the transparent paper, made
the worthy man's skull shine as he leaned over his copper plate. He
worked hard all day; with an expensive house and two girls to bring up,
it was necessary. In spite of his advanced opinions, he continued to
engrave his Prince Louis--"A rogue who is trying to juggle us out of a
Republic." At the very most, he stopped only two or three times a day
to smoke his Abu-el-Kader. Nothing distracted him from his work; not
even the little ones, who, tired of playing their piece for four hands
upon the piano, would organize, with Amedee, a game of hide-and-seek
close by their father, behind the old Empire sofa ornamented with
bronze lions' heads. But Madame Gerard, in her kitchen, where she was
always cooking something good for dinner, sometimes thought they
made too great an uproar. Then Maria, a real hoyden, in trying to catch
her sister, would push an old armchair against a Renaissance chest and
make all the Rouen crockery tremble.
"Now then, now then, children!" exclaimed Madame Gerard, from the
depths of her lair, from which escaped a delicious odor of bacon. "Let

your father have