But at this le tout petit Loup would grow enraged:
I am nearly as old as you are/ he would splutter,
and moreover it is only that I hate this walk which is
itupid — that is why I have an ache in my middle.'
\fter which he might suddenly burst into tears, half
>f anger but certainly half of exhaustion.
Then Christophe would heave a large, tolerant
igh, for although he and Loup had nothing in
:ommon he was usually patient with this ailing
Brother: filf you will now try to walk on and stop crying,
rou shall have a fine present,* he might start to bribe,
perhaps even my wooden bear made by Anfos.3
But one day le tout petit Loup replied promptly:
I will cry and will have your wooden bear also.3
^or he had the acquisitive instinct of the weak, who
n sheer self-defence must take all and give nothing.
Christophe laughed: 'Very well, but then you
nust cry a long time —you must cry until we get
iome!3
Whereupon le tout petit Loup ceased to cry: CI
vill nevertheless have your bear,3 he mumbled.
Dear God, but he was a contrary child with his
ace and his eyes of a sick marmoset, with his rickety
imbs and his stubborn temper. His scant brown hair
tuck out in a wisp for the reason that it could not
>e properly trimmed, so loudly would he yell at the
ouch of the scissors; while his clothes always looked
listurbingly loose, so thin was the body that he had
o put in them. Marie spoilt him because he still
emained fragile, because as an infant she had
o nearly lost him, and because she had named him
ifter Saint Loup. None of which were entirely
t-dequate reasons for condoning her younger son's
:ndless whims, but then as she sometimes remarked
o her husband: cYou are only his father, whereas
am his mother.3 And since there was no gainsaying
his fact, Jouse must shake his large head and fall
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