These young wives, as he watched them approach and pass on, wereso many passing reminders of his Clotilde and made him feel sadwithout his quite understanding why, for he was not much givento thinking.
Time slipped by, and little by little his dead wife grew to be atender, vague memory in the bookbinder's mind. One night he triedin vain to recall Clotilde's features; after this experience,he told himself that perhaps he might be able to discover themother's lineaments in the child's face, and he was seized witha great longing to see this relic of the lost one once more,to have the child home again.
In the morning he wrote a letter to his old sister, MademoiselleServien, begging her to come and take up her abode with the littleone in the _Rue Notre-Dame des Champs_. The sister, who had livedfor many years in Paris at her brother's expense, for indolencewas her ruling passion, agreed to resume her life in a city where,she used to say, folks are free and need not depend on theirneighbours.
One autumn evening she arrived at the _Gare de l'Ouest_ with Jeanand her boxes and baskets, an upright, hard-featured, fierce-eyedfigure, all ready to defend the child against all sorts ofimaginary perils. The bookbinder kissed the lad and expressed hissatisfaction in two words.
Then he lifted him pickaback on his shoulders, and bidding himhold on tight to his father's hair, carried him off proudly tothe house.
Jean was seven. Soon existence settled down to a settled routine.
At midday the old dame would don her shawl and set off with thechild in the direction of Grenelle.
The pair followed the broad thoroughfares that ran between shabbywalls and red-fronted drinking-shops. Generally speaking, a skyof a dappled grey like the great cart-horses that plodded past,invested the quiet suburb with a gentle melancholy. Establishingherself on a bench, while the child played under a tree, she wouldknit her stocking and chat with an old soldier and tell him hertroubles--what a hard life it was in other people's houses.
One day, one of the last fine days of the season, Jean, squattedon the ground, was busy sticking up bits of plane-tree bark inthe fine wet sand. That faculty of "pretending," by which childrenare able to make their lives one unending miracle, transformed ahandful of soil and a few bits of wood into wondrous galleries andfairy castles to the lad's imagination; he clapped his hands andleapt for joy. Then suddenly he felt himself wrapped in somethingsoft and scented. It was a lady's gown; he saw nothing exceptthat she smiled as she put him gently out of her way and walkedon. He ran to tell his aunt:
"How good she smells, that lady!"Mademoiselle Servien only muttered that great ladies were nobetter than others, and that she thought more of herself withher merino skirt than all those set-up minxes in their flouncesand finery, adding:
"Better a good name than a gilt girdle."But this talk was beyond little Jean's comprehension. The perfumedsilk that had swept his face left behind a vague sweetness, amemory as of a gentle, ghostly caress.