and had then died also. Thus there was no one
left to recall just how Mathilde had looked at her
wedding, or how she had looked when she had come
to Saint Loup as the youthful bride of a prosperous
saddler.
For some reason she had never returned to the
North, and when Goundran had asked her about
this one morning: 'Tante Mathilde, tell me why you
have stayed on here,5
Mathilde had replied: "Because I am waiting/
And when he had persisted: 'But for what do you
wait?5 Mathilde, as was sometimes her way, had not
answered.
Well, and so now she wished to know Ghristophe,
and Elise did not think it wise to oppose her; nor
could Goundran see any reason to refuse:
'I will certainly bring the boy to you,5 he promised.
§4
Three days later Christophe stood holding Goun-
dran's hand and staring wide-eyed at the oldest
person that he had yet seen in his short existence — a
person who appeared so incredibly ancient that he
thought she must be the statue of Saint Loup come to
life, and he suddenly felt rather frightened. For the
statue of Saint Loup, which still stands in the church
and is carved out of wood, has time-blurred features,
so that it really does resemble Mathilde as she looked
when she was well over eighty, since all that is old
has a strange resemblance.
Mathilde was sitting in a small wheel-chair, for her
limbs had become intolerably feeble; while her eyes
were even less bright than the saint's, being heavily
filmed by approaching blindness. Her olive skin,
grown darker with age, had mellowed as had the
venerable oak which Jouse collected and set such great
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