“I have an incessant restless, distressing longing to see him, and the sight of him causes me intense suffering, as I look down from my window and watch him for hours removing and carting the horse manure, saying to myself:  ‘That is my son.’

“And I sometimes feel an irresistible longing to embrace him.  I have never even touched his dirty hand.”

The academician was silent.  His companion, a tactful man, murmured:  “Yes, indeed, we ought to take a closer interest in children who have no father.”

A gust of wind passing through the tree shook its yellow clusters, enveloping in a fragrant and delicate mist the two old men, who inhaled in the fragrance with deep breaths.

The senator added:  “It is good to be twenty-five and even to have children like that.”

THAT PIG OF A MORIN

“Here, my friend,” I said to Labarbe, “you have just repeated those five words, that pig of a Morin.  Why on earth do I never hear Morin’s name mentioned without his being called a pig?”

Labarbe, who is a deputy, looked at me with his owl-like eyes and said:  “Do you mean to say that you do not know Morin’s story and you come from La Rochelle?” I was obliged to declare that I did not know Morin’s story, so Labarbe rubbed his hands and began his recital.

“You knew Morin, did you not, and you remember his large linen-draper’s shop on the Quai de la Rochelle?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“Well, then.  You must know that in 1862 or ’63 Morin went to spend a fortnight in Paris for pleasure; or for his pleasures, but under the pretext of renewing his stock, and you also know what a fortnight in Paris means to a country shopkeeper; it fires his blood.  The theatre every evening, women’s dresses rustling up against you and continual excitement; one goes almost mad with it.  One sees nothing but dancers in tights, actresses in very low dresses, round legs, fat shoulders, all nearly within reach of one’s hands, without daring, or being able, to touch them, and one scarcely tastes food.  When one leaves the city one’s heart is still all in a flutter and one’s mind still exhilarated by a sort of longing for kisses which tickles one’s lips.

“Morin was in that condition when he took his ticket for La Rochelle by the eight-forty night express.  As he was walking up and down the waiting-room at the station he stopped suddenly in front of a young lady who was kissing an old one.  She had her veil up, and Morin murmured with delight:  ‘By Jove what a pretty woman!’

“When she had said ‘good-by’ to the old lady she went into the waiting-room, and Morin followed her; then she went on the platform and Morin still followed her; then she got into an empty carriage, and he again followed her.  There were very few travellers on the express.  The engine whistled and the train started.  They were alone.  Morin devoured her with his eyes.  She appeared to be about nineteen or twenty and was fair, tall, with a bold look.  She wrapped a railway rug round her and stretched herself on the seat to sleep.