“Let them all come!” cried Ambroise, in a jocular way.  “Let’s have the family complete, a real meeting of the great privy council.  You see, mamma, you must get well at once; the whole of your court is at your knees, and unanimously decides that it can no longer allow you to have even a headache.”

Then, as Benjamin put in an appearance the very last, behind the three sisters, the laughter broke out afresh.

“And to think that we were forgetting Benjamin!” Mathieu exclaimed.

“Come, little one, come and kiss me in your turn,” said Marianne affectionately, in a low voice.  “The others jest because you are the last of the brood.  But if I spoil you that only concerns ourselves, does it not?  Tell them that you spent the morning with me, and that if you went out for a walk it was because I wished you to do so.”

Benjamin smiled with a gentle and rather sad expression.  “But I was downstairs, mamma; I saw them go up one after the other.  I waited for them all to kiss, before coming up in my turn.”

He was already one-and-twenty and extremely handsome, with a bright face, large brown eyes, long curly hair, and a frizzy, downy beard.  Though he had never been ill, his mother would have it that he was weak, and insisted on coddling him.  All of them, moreover, were very fond of him, both for his grace of person and the gentle charm of his disposition.  He had grown up in a kind of dream, full of a desire which he could not put into words, ever seeking the unknown, something which he knew not, did not possess.  And when his parents saw that he had no taste for any profession, and that even the idea of marrying did not appeal to him, they evinced no anger, but, on the contrary, they secretly plotted to keep this son, their last-born, life’s final gift, to themselves.  Had they not surrendered all the others?  Would they not be forgiven for yielding to the egotism of love by reserving one for themselves, one who would be theirs entirely, who would never marry, or toil and moil, but would merely live beside them and love them, and be loved in return?  This was the dream of their old age, the share which, in return for long fruitfulness, they would have liked to snatch from devouring life, which, though it gives one everything, yet takes everything away.

“Oh! just listen, Benjamin,” Ambroise suddenly resumed, “you are interested in our brave Nicolas, I know.  Would you like to have some news of him?  I heard from him only the day before yesterday.  And it’s right that I should speak of him, since he’s the only one of the brood, as mamma puts it, who cannot be here.”

Benjamin at once became quite excited, asking, “Is it true?  Has he written to you?  What does he say?  What is he doing?”

He could never think without emotion of Nicolas’s departure for Senegal.  He was twelve years old at that time, and nearly nine years had gone by since then, yet the scene, with that eternal farewell, that flight, as it were, into the infinite of time and hope, was ever present in his mind.