instant!9 Sitting down she took her son onto her lap
and began,, with all possible speed, to undress him.
Christophe gazed at his cousin with pale, intent
eyes in which there was more than a little interest.
Then __ as if he himself had never been known to
scream, whatever the provocation — he suddenly
smiled a broad, placid smile, and staggering across
the bedroom to Jan, he touched him with a doubtful
and experimental finger. As though by a miracle
Jan stopped screaming.
The girl from the country gaped in surprise :cHe has
howled without ceasing ever since you left him, yet
now he is quiet and friendly again. Can it be because
he has seen his cousin? Ah, Dieu, but this Christophe
has the look of an angel!5 she babbled to the worried
and preoccupied mother.
CI cannot find so much as the trace of a pin; perhaps
he has wind in the stomach/ sighed Madame Roustan.
And handing her offspring back to the girl, she went
down to the shop to attend to business.
But if Christophe had appeared to be as an angel,
then his subsequent behaviour was a fall from grace,
for he also resented the girl's clumsy hands and was
soon at some pains to express his resentment. From
her post behind the well-worn counter Madame
Roustan would hear sounds of squealing and wailing.
First one, then the other baby would begin, and after
a while there might be a duet, partly owing to colic
but partly to temper. Moreover, since the cousins
had now learnt to walk, they found plenty of ways of
tormenting their elders; so the girl from the country
must quite often weep —not infrequently all. three
of them would be weeping.
Madame Roustan was soon to be further distracted
by the sudden appearance of Mireio one morning.
There she stood with her muzzle pressed close to the
door, making loud, blowing noises that were very
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