It was their neighbor, M. Gerard, an engraver, who had also come to take breath upon his end of the balcony, having spent the entire day bent over his work.  He was large and bald-headed, with a good-natured face, a red beard sprinkled with white hairs, and he wore a short, loose coat.  As he spoke he lighted his clay pipe, the bowl of which represented Abd-el-Kader’s face, very much colored, save the eyes and turban, which were of white enamel.

The engraver’s wife, a dumpy little woman with merry eyes, soon joined her husband, pushing before her two little girls; one, the smaller of the two, was two years younger than Amedee; the other was ten years old, and already had a wise little air.  She was the pianist who practised one hour a day Marcailhou’s Indiana Waltz.

The children chattered through the trellis that divided the balcony in two parts.  Louise, the elder of the girls, knew how to read, and told the two little ones very beautiful stories:  Joseph sold by his brethren; Robinson Crusoe discovering the footprints of human beings.

Amedee, who now has gray hair upon his temples, can still remember the chills that ran down his back at the moment when the wolf, hidden under coverings and the grandmother’s cap, said, with a gnashing of teeth, to little Red Riding Hood:  “All the better to eat you with, my child.”

It was almost dark then upon the terrace.  It was all delightfully terrible!

During this time the two families, in their respective parts of the balcony, were talking familiarly together.  The Violettes were quiet people, and preferred rather to listen to their neighbors than to talk themselves, making brief replies for politeness’ sake—­“Ah!” “Is it possible?” “You are right.”

The Gerards liked to talk.  Madame Gerard, who was a good housekeeper, discussed questions of domestic economy; telling, for example, how she had been out that day, and had seen, upon the Rue du Bac, some merino:  “A very good bargain, I assure you, Madame, and very wide!” Or perhaps the engraver, who was a simple politician, after the fashion of 1848, would declare that we must accept the Republic, “Oh, not the red-hot, you know, but the true, the real one!” Or he would wish that Cavaignac had been elected President at the September balloting; although he himself was then engraving—­one must live, after all—­a portrait of Prince Louis Napoleon, destined for the electoral platform.  M. and Madame Violette let them talk; perhaps even they did not always pay attention to the conversation.  When it was dark they held each other’s hands and gazed at the stars.

These lovely, cool, autumnal evenings, upon the balcony, under the starry heavens, are the most distant of all Amedee’s memories.  Then there was a break in his memory, like a book with several leaves torn out, after which he recalls many sad days.