The Captain exclaimed ardently:
“What does it matter, Mathilde? How I love you; you must come to me, Mathilde.”
But she struggled and resisted in her fright.
“No! no! Just listen how he is crying; he will wake up the nurse, and what should we do if she were to come? We should be lost.
“Just listen to me, Étienne. When he screams at night his father always takes him into our bed, and he is quiet immediately; it is the only means of keeping him still. Do let me take him.”
The child roared, uttering shrill screams, which pierced the thickest walls and could be heard by passersby in the streets.
In his consternation the Captain got up, and Mathilde jumped out and took the child into her bed, when he was quiet at once.
Étienne sat astride on a chair, and rolled a cigarette, and in about five minutes André went to sleep again.
“I will take him back,” his mother said; and she took him back very carefully to his cradle.
When she returned, the Captain was waiting for her with open arms, and put his arms round her in a transport of love, while she, embracing him more closely, said, stammering:
“Oh! Étienne, my darling, if you only knew how I love you; how—”
André began to cry again, and he, in a rage, exclaimed:
“Confound it all, won’t the little brat be quiet?”
No, the little brat would not be quiet, but howled all the louder, on the contrary.
She thought she heard a noise downstairs; no doubt the nurse was coming, so she jumped up and took the child into bed, and he grew quiet directly.
Three times she put him back, and three times she had to fetch him again, and an hour before daybreak the Captain had to go, swearing like the proverbial trooper; and, to calm his impatience, Mathilde promised to receive him again the next night. Of course he came, more impatient and ardent than ever, excited by the delay.
He took care to lay his sword carefully on the arms of a chair, he took off his boots like a thief, and spoke so low that Mathilde could hardly hear him. At last, he was just going to be really happy when the floor, or some piece of furniture, or perhaps the bed itself, creaked; it sounded as if something had broken; and in a moment a cry, feeble at first, but which grew louder, every moment, made itself heard. André was awake again.
He yapped like a fox, and there was not the slightest doubt that if he went on like that the whole house would awake; so his mother, not knowing what to do, got up and brought him. The Captain was more furious than ever, but did not move, and very carefully he put out his hand, took a small piece of the child’s flesh between his two fingers, no matter where it was, the thighs or elsewhere, and pinched it. The little one struggled and screamed in a deafening manner, but his tormentor pinched everywhere, furiously and more vigorously. He took a piece of flesh and twisted and turned it, and then let go, only to take hold of another piece, and then another and another.
The child screamed like a chicken having its throat cut, or a dog being mercilessly beaten. His mother caressed him, kissed him, and tried to stifle his cries by her tenderness; but André grew purple, as if he were going into convulsions, and kicked and struggled with his little arms and legs in an alarming manner.
The Captain said, softly:
“Try to take him back to his cradle; perhaps he will be quiet.”
And Mathilde went into the other room with the child in her arms. As soon as he was out of his mother’s bed he cried less loudly, and when he was in his own he was quiet, with the exception of a few broken sobs. The rest of the night was quiet and the Captain was happy.
The next night the Captain came again. As he happened to speak rather loudly, André awoke again and began to scream. His mother went and fetched him immediately, but the Captain pinched so hard and long that the child was nearly suffocated by its cries, its eyes turned in its head and it foamed at the mouth. As soon as it was back in its cradle it was quiet, and in four days André did not cry any more to come into his mother’s bed.
On Saturday evening the lawyer returned, and took his place again at the domestic hearth and in the conjugal chamber. As he was tired with his journey he went to bed early; but he had not long lain down when he said to his wife:
“Why, how is it that André is not crying? Just go and fetch him, Mathilde; I like to feel that he is between us.”
She got up and brought the child, but as soon as he saw that he was in that bed, in which he had been so fond of sleeping a few days before, he wriggled and screamed so violently in his fright that she had to take him back to his cradle.
M. Moreau could not get over his surprise. “What a very funny thing! What is the matter with him this evening? I suppose he is sleepy?”
“He has been like that all the time that you were away; I have never been able to have him in bed with me once.”
In the morning the child woke up and began to laugh and play with his toys.
The lawyer, who was an affectionate man, got up, kissed his offspring, and took him into his arms to carry him to their bed. André laughed, with that vacant laugh of little creatures whose ideas are still vague. He suddenly saw the bed and his mother in it, and his happy little face puckered up, till suddenly he began to scream furiously, and struggled as if
