A Mummer's Tale

pression when passing tramps, worn out with fatigue, on the high road, when her mother fearing that her lungs were affected, had taken her to spend the winter at Antibes with a wealthy a

ng. She thought this feeling of prostration was due to the fact that it was two days since she had see

to the theatre this

ther, she was in the habit of m

but don't come

the country, remained in an incredible state of ignorance as to what went on in his own house. But Madame de Ligny was determined that the decencies of life should be observed in her home, and her son was careful to satisfy her requirements in the matter of outward appearances, since they never probed to the bottom of things. She left him perfectly free to love where he would, and only rarely, in serious and expansive moments, did she h

ow, at the quiet pace of their aged hack, through the streets and b

aving seen her

e till t

Boulevard de Vill

tory to stepping down from the

he trees. He has seen

, th

e one I do

bell, and, nestling in Robert's fur coat, waited, trembling

e upstairs, I

patience, he follow

the cab stop in front of the door he had concealed himself behind a tree. He knew very well that she would return with Ligny; but when he saw them together it was as if the earth had yawned beneath him, and, so that he should not fall to the ground, he had cl

d a certain pleasure from the sense of the icy drops of water on his forehead. He was vaguely con

st; he had formed a resolution. It was an old idea, which he had now driven into his brain like a nail, which pierced it through and through. He no longer examined it. H

big, long-haired farm dog, with eyes of different colours, which were full o

not happy. Poor fellow, I

valier stopped in front of a deep trench which cut the road in two. Against the bank of excavated earth, under a tarpaulin supported by four stakes, an old man was keeping vigil before a brazier. The lappets of his rabbit-skin cap were down over his ears; his huge nose was a flaming

, old fellow?" asked Cheval

g was not quick, and courtesies astonished him. Final

say no

r; the other was swathed in rags. Slowly, with hands numb with the co

and he slipped under the tarpaulin a

ime they excha

en we

this season. Winter's

er the job at ni

estioned. Before he spoke his throat

ay; another thing ano

not a P

year the Prussians and other foreigners came. There were thousands of them. Can't unders

t for a long spel

my lad. You don't feel like

tor," repli

did not unders

s it, yo

ous to rouse the o

he said. "I am one of the principal ac

now the Odéon. After a prolonged silence, he

on the loose. You don't want

ier re

after to-morrow, you w

e words, but it was too difficult; he gave it u

the loose, it is sometim

. He walked on at haphazard. The spectacle of the city's reviving life made him feel almost cheerful. On the Pont des Arts he stood for a long time watching the Seine flow by, after which he continued on hi

, an ab