“It is wrong, monsieur, to couple my name with that of Madame de Fleurel.  When I returned from the war-without my feet, alas!  I never would have permitted her to become my wife.  Was it possible?  When one marries, monsieur, it is not in order to parade one’s generosity; it is in order to live every day, every hour, every minute, every second beside a man; and if this man is disfigured, as I am, it is a death sentence to marry him!  Oh, I understand, I admire all sacrifices and devotions when they have a limit, but I do not admit that a woman should give up her whole life, all joy, all her dreams, in order to satisfy the admiration of the gallery.  When I hear, on the floor of my room, the tapping of my wooden legs and of my crutches, I grow angry enough to strangle my servant.  Do you think that I would permit a woman to do what I myself am unable to tolerate?  And, then, do you think that my stumps are pretty?”

He was silent.  What could I say?  He certainly was right.  Could I blame her, hold her in contempt, even say that she was wrong?  No.  However, the end which conformed to the rule, to the truth, did not satisfy my poetic appetite.  These heroic deeds demand a beautiful sacrifice, which seemed to be lacking, and I felt a certain disappointment.  I suddenly asked:  “Has Madame de Fleurel any children?”

“Yes, one girl and two boys.  It is for them that I am bringing these toys.  She and her husband are very kind to me.”

The train was going up the incline to Saint-Germain.  It passed through the tunnels, entered the station, and stopped.  I was about to offer my arm to the wounded officer, in order to help him descend, when two hands were stretched up to him through the open door.

“Hello! my dear Revaliere!”

“Ah!  Hello, Fleurel!”

Standing behind the man, the woman, still beautiful, was smiling and waving her hands to him.  A little girl, standing beside her, was jumping for joy, and two young boys were eagerly watching the drum and the gun, which were passing from the car into their father’s hands.

When the cripple was on the ground, all the children kissed him.  Then they set off, the little girl holding in her hand the small varnished rung of a crutch, just as she might walk beside her big friend and hold his thumb.

A STROLL

When Old Man Leras, bookkeeper for Messieurs Labuze and Company, left the store, he stood for a minute bewildered at the glory of the setting sun.  He had worked all day in the yellow light of a small jet of gas, far in the back of the store, on a narrow court, as deep as a well.  The little room where he had been spending his days for forty years was so dark that even in the middle of summer one could hardly see without gaslight from eleven until three.

It was always damp and cold, and from this hole on which his window opened came the musty odor of a sewer.