Jouse would exclaim on a note of impatience. 'Strike
more firmly; you will ruin that excellent wood! Do
you think the saints send us our timber for nothing?'
So Christophe would steady his chisel and strike:
"Tell Jan . . . tell Jan . . . tell him what you have
seen . . . tell Jan . . . tell Jan . . . tell him what
you have seen . . .' With a kind of despair he would
start hammering wildly in an effort to break that
intolerable rhythm.
Marie said to her husband: cOur Christophe is
ailing, he eats little, and I do not like his strange
silence. Houi, if our Christophe also becomes ill,
he who has always had such perfect health ... It
would seem that indeed the kind saints desert us!5
And she looked as though she intended to weep.
cDo not be so ridiculous, Marie!5 snapped Jouse,
The boy is maturing — it is natural enough — your
golden Saint Loup himself cannot baulk nature. . . .
At Christophe3 s age I also felt glum, but that was
because I had so many boils. I remember quite
well how conscious I became of everything that per-
tained to my body. Beyond this there is nothing
wrong with your son. But keep a sharp look out in
a few years from now —he may then catch the
deadly distemper called women/ And he laughed,
remembering his own precocity, patted her cheek,
and went about his business.
But that night when the boy was already in bed,
his mother made her way up to the attic; and she
smoothed his pillow, and straightened his sheet, and
carefully tucked in his old brown blanket. Then
she suddenly folded him close in her arms calling
him many endearing names — little kind, foolish
names that she had used long ago when he greedily
sucked his life from her bosom. For her heart was
heavy at the thought of this child who was daily
drawing further away from childhood towards a