each step, imagining a thousand dangers that might arise if Melchior were
allowed to return alone....

In the bed by his mother's side the child was stirring again. An unknown
sorrow had arisen from the depths of his being. He stiffened himself
against her. He twisted his body, clenched his fists, and knitted
his brows. His suffering increased steadily, quietly, certain of its
strength. He knew not what it was, nor whence it came. It appeared
immense,--infinite, and he began to cry lamentably. His mother caressed him
with her gentle hands. Already his suffering was less acute. But he went on
weeping, for he felt it still near, still inside himself. A man who suffers
can lessen his anguish by knowing whence it comes. By thought he can locate
it in a certain portion of his body which can be cured, or, if necessary,
torn away. He fixes the bounds of it, and separates it from himself. A
child has no such illusive resource. His first encounter with suffering is
more tragic and more true. Like his own being, it seems infinite. He feels
that it is seated in his bosom, housed in his heart, and is mistress of his
flesh. And it is so. It will not leave his body until it has eaten it away.

His mother hugs him to her, murmuring: "It is done--it is done! Don't
cry, my little Jesus, my little goldfish...." But his intermittent outcry
continues. It is as though this wretched, unformed, and unconscious mass
had a presentiment of a whole life of sorrow awaiting, him, and nothing can
appease him....

The bells of St. Martin rang out in the night. Their voices are solemn and
slow. In the damp air they come like footsteps on moss. The child became
silent in the middle of a sob. The marvelous music, like a flood of milk,
surged sweetly through him. The night was lit up; the air was moist and
tender. His sorrow disappeared, his heart began to laugh, and he slid, into