Winter had come, and they no longer spent their evenings upon the balcony.  One could see nothing now through the windows but a dull, gray sky.  Amedee’s mother was ill and always remained in her bed.  When he was installed near the bed, before a little table, cutting out with scissors the hussars from a sheet of Epinal, his poor mamma almost frightened him, as she leaned her elbow upon the pillow and gazed at him so long and so sadly, while her thin white hands restlessly pushed back her beautiful, disordered hair, and two red hectic spots burned under her cheekbones.

It was not she who now came to take him from his bed in the morning, but an old woman in a short jacket, who did not kiss him, and who smelled horribly of snuff.

His father, too, did not pay much attention to him now.  When he returned in the evening from the office he always brought bottles and little packages from the apothecary.  Sometimes he was accompanied by the physician, a large man, very much dressed and perfumed, who panted for breath after climbing the five flights of stairs.  Once Amedee saw this stranger put his arms around his mother as she sat in her bed, and lay his head for a long time against her back.  The child asked, “What for, mamma?”

M. Violette, more nervous than ever, and continually throwing back the rebellious lock behind his ear, would accompany the doctor to the door and stop there to talk with him.  Then Amedee’s mother would call to him, and he would climb upon the bed, where she would gaze at him with her bright eyes and press him to her breast, saying, in a sad tone, as if she pitied him:  “My poor little Medee!  My poor little Medee!” Why was it?  What did it all mean?

His father would return with a forced smile which was pitiful to see.

“Well, what did the doctor say?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing!  You are much better.  Only, my poor Lucie, we must put on another blister to-night.”

Oh, how monotonous and slow these days were to the little Amedee, near the drowsy invalid, in the close room smelling of drugs, where only the old snuff-taker entered once an hour to bring a cup of tea or put charcoal upon the fire!

Sometimes their neighbor, Madame Gerard, would come to inquire after the sick lady.

“Still very feeble, my good Madame Gerard,” his mother would respond.  “Ah, I am beginning to get discouraged.”

But Madame Gerard would not let her be despondent.

“You see, Madame Violette, it is this horrible, endless winter.  It is almost March now; they are already selling boxes of primroses in little carts on the sidewalks.  You will surely be better as soon as the sun shines.  If you like, I will take little Amedee back with me to play with my little girls.  It will amuse the child.”

So it happened that the good neighbor kept the child every afternoon, and he became very fond of the little Gerard children.