He was deprived of all joys as well as of all the attractions of childhood.  He was oppressed because he was weak, and laughed at for his deformity.  In vain the little hunchback opened his arms to the world:  the world scoffed at him, and went its way.

However, he still had his mother, and it was to her that the child directed all the feelings of a heart repelled by others.  With her he found shelter, and was happy, till he reached the age when a man must take his place in life; and Maurice had to content himself with that which others had refused with contempt.  His education would have qualified him for any course of life; and he became an octroi-clerk—­[The octroi is the tax on provisions levied at the entrance of the town]—­in one of the little toll-houses at the entrance of his native town.

He was always shut up in this dwelling of a few feet square, with no relaxation from the office accounts but reading and his mother’s visits.  On fine summer days she came to work at the door of his hut, under the shade of a clematis planted by Maurice.  And, even when she was silent, her presence was a pleasant change for the hunchback; he heard the clinking of her long knitting-needles; he saw her mild and mournful profile, which reminded him of so many courageously-borne trials; he could every now and then rest his hand affectionately on that bowed neck, and exchange a smile with her!

This comfort was soon to be taken from him.  His old mother fell sick, and at the end of a few days he had to give up all hope.  Maurice was overcome at the idea of a separation which would henceforth leave him alone on earth, and abandoned himself to boundless grief.  He knelt by the bedside of the dying woman, he called her by the fondest names, he pressed her in his arms, as if he could so keep her in life.  His mother tried to return his caresses, and to answer him; but her hands were cold, her voice was already gone.  She could only press her lips against the forehead of her son, heave a sigh, and close her eyes forever!

They tried to take Maurice away, but he resisted them and threw himself on that now motionless form.

“Dead!” cried he; “dead!  She who had never left me, she who was the only one in the world who loved me!  You, my mother, dead!  What then remains for me here below?”

A stifled voice replied: 

“God!”

Maurice, startled, raised himself!  Was that a last sigh from the dead, or his own conscience, that had answered him?  He did not seek to know, but he understood the answer, and accepted it.

It was then that I first knew him.  I often went to see him in his little toll-house.  He joined in my childish games, told me his finest stories, and let me gather his flowers.  Deprived as he was of all external attractiveness, he showed himself full of kindness to all who came to him, and, though he never would put himself forward, he had a welcome for everyone.  Deserted, despised, he submitted to everything with a gentle patience; and while he was thus stretched on the cross of life, amid the insults of his executioners, he repeated with Christ, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”