"
"Then seeing there's nothing, we'll be off." We right-about face. At
least we have enjoyed for a moment the warmth which pervades the
house and a sight of the lamp. Already Volpatte has gained the
threshold and his back is disappearing in the darkness.
But I espy an old woman, sunk in the depths of a chair in the other
corner of the kitchen, who appears to have some busy occupation.
I pinch Paradis' arm. "There's the belle of the house. Shall we pay
our addresses to her?"
Paradis makes a gesture of lordly indifference. He has lost interest
in women--all those he has seen for a year and a half were not for
him; and moreover, even when they would like to be his, he is
equally uninterested.
"Young or old--pooh!" he says to me, beginning to yawn. For want of
something to do and to lengthen the leaving, he goes up to the
goodwife. "Good-evening, gran'ma," he mumbles, finishing his yawn.
"Good-evening, mes enfants," quavers the old dame. So near, we see
her in detail. She is shriveled, bent and bowed in her old bones,
and the whole of her face is white as the dial of a clock.
And what is she doing? Wedged between her chair and the edge of the
table she is trying to clean some boots. It is a heavy task for her
infantile hands; their movements are uncertain, and her strokes with
the brush sometimes go astray. The boots, too, are very dirty
indeed.
Seeing that we are watching her, she whispers to us that she must
polish them well, and this evening too, for they are her little
girl's boots, who is a dressmaker in the town and goes off first
thing in the morning.
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