“Like papa,” do you remember how these two words warm the heart, and how many transgressions they cause to be forgiven.

My great happiness,—­is it yours too?—­was to be present at my darling’s awakening.  I knew the time.  I would gently draw aside the curtains of his cradle and watch him as I waited.

I usually found him stretched diagonally, lost in the chaos of sheets and blankets, his legs in the air, his arms crossed above his head.  Often his plump little hand still clutched the toy that had helped to send him off to sleep, and through his parted lips came the regular murmur of his soft breathing.  The warmth of his sleep had given his cheeks the tint of a well-ripened peach.  His skin was warm, and the perspiration of the night glittered on his forehead in little imperceptible pearls.

Soon his hand would make a movement; his foot pushed away the blanket, his whole body stirred, he rubbed an eye, stretched out his arms, and then his look from under his scarcely raised eyelids would rest on me.

He would smile at me, murmuring softly, so softly that I would hold my breath to seize all the shades of his music.

“Dood mornin’, papa.”

“Good morning, my little man; have you slept well?”

We held out our arms to each other and embraced like old friends.

Then the talking would begin.  He chatted as the lark would sing to the rising sun.  Endless stories.

He would tell me his dreams, asking after each sentence for “his nice, warm bread and milk, with plenty of sugar.”  And when his breakfast came up, what an outburst of laughter, what joy as he drew himself up to reach it; then his eye would glitter with a tear in the corner, and the chatter begin again.

At other times he would come and surprise me in bed.  I would pretend to be asleep, and he would pull my beard and shout in my ear.  I feigned great alarm and threatened to be avenged.  From this arose fights among the counterpanes, entrenchments behind the pillows.  In sign of victory I would tickle him, and then he shuddered, giving vent to the frank and involuntary outburst of laughter of happy childhood.  He buried his head between his two shoulders like a tortoise withdrawing into his shell, and threatened me with his plump rosy foot.  The skin of his heel was so delicate that a young girl’s cheek would have been proud of it.  How many kisses I would cover those dear little feet with when I warmed his long nightdress before the fire.

I had been forbidden to undress him, because it had been found that I entangled the knots instead of undoing them.

All this was charming, but when it was necessary to act rigorously and check the romping that was going too far, he would slowly drop his eyelids, while with dilated nostrils and trembling lips he tried to keep back the big tear glittering beneath his eyelid.

What courage was not necessary in order to refrain from calming with a kiss the storm on the point of bursting, from consoling the little swollen heart, from drying the tear that was overflowing and about to become a flood.