II

The widower, who from the Beauce country, sent his son to his
native village in the Eure-et-Loir to be brought up by kinsfolk
there. As for himself, he was a strong man, and soon learned
to be resigned; he was of a saving habit by instinct in both
business and family matters, and never put off the green serge
apron from week's end to week's end save for a Sunday visit to
the cemetery. He would hang a wreath on the arm of the black
cross, and, if it was a hot day, take a chair on the way back
along the boulevard outside the door of a wine-shop. There, as he
sat slowly emptying his glass, his eye would rest on the mothers
and their youngsters going by on the sidewalk.

These young wives, as he watched them approach and pass on, were
so many passing reminders of his Clotilde and made him feel sad
without his quite understanding why, for he was not much given
to thinking.

Time slipped by, and little by little his dead wife grew to be a
tender, vague memory in the bookbinder's mind. One night he tried
in vain to recall Clotilde's features; after this experience,
he told himself that perhaps he might be able to discover the
mother's lineaments in the child's face, and he was seized with
a great longing to see this relic of the lost one once more,
to have the child home again.