His warm, moist breath brushes the hand that is supporting him.  Then I wrap him up snugly in my turned-up skirt, hide his little feet under his clothes and watch my darling.  I have him there, all to myself, on my knees.  There is not a quiver of his being that escapes me or that does not vibrate in myself.  I feel at the bottom of my heart a mirror that reflects them all.  He is still part of me.  Is it not my milk that nourishes him, my voice that hushes him off to sleep, my hand that dresses and caresses, encourages and supports him?  The feeling that I am all in all for him further adds a delicious charm of protection to the delight of having brought him into the world.

When I think that there are women who pass by such joys without turning their heads.  The fools!

Yes, the present is delightful and I am drunk with happiness.  There is also the future, far away in the clouds.  I often think of it, and I do not know why I shudder at the approach of a storm.

Madness!  I shall love him so discreetly, I shall render the weight of my affection so light for him, that why should he wish to separate from me?  Shall I not in time become his friend?  Shall I not when a black down shadows those rosy little lips, when the bird, feeling its wings grown, seeks to leave the nest, shall I not be able to bring him back by invisible ties to the arms in which he now is sleeping?  Perhaps at that wretched moment they call a man’s youth you will forget me, my little darling!  Other hands than mine perhaps will brush the hair away from your forehead at twenty.  Alas! other lips, pressed burningly where mine are now pressed, will wipe out with a kiss twenty years of caresses.  Yes, but when you return from this intoxicating and fatiguing journey, tired and exhausted, you will soon take refuge in the arms that once nursed you, you will rest your poor, aching head where it rests now, you will ask me to wipe away your tears and to make you forget the bruises received on the way, and I shall give you, weeping for joy, the kiss which at once consoles and fills with hope.

But I see that I am writing a whole volume, dear Marie.  I will not re-read it or I should never dare to send it to you.  What would you have?  I am losing my head a little.  I am not yet accustomed to all this happiness.

Yours affectionately.

CHAPTER XXV

FOUR YEARS LATER

Yes, my dear, he is a man and a man for good and all.  He has come back from the country half as big again and as bold as a lion.  He climbs on to the chairs, stops the clocks and sticks his hands in his pockets like a grown-up person.

When I see in the morning in the anteroom my baby’s little shoes standing proudly beside the paternal boots, I experience, despite myself, a return toward that past which is yet so near.  Yesterday swaddling clothes, today boots, tomorrow spurs.  Ah! how the happy days fly by.  Already four years old.  I can scarcely carry him, even supposing he allowed me to, for his manly dignity is ticklish.  He passes half his life armed for war, his pistols, his guns, his whips and his swords are all over the place.  There is a healthy frankness about all his doings that charms me.