THE MOTHER.
I do not that there is anything in the world than the ideas which in a mother’s at the of her child’s shoe; if it is a shoe for festivals, for Sunday, for baptism, the shoe to the very sole, a shoe in which the has not yet taken a step. That shoe has so much and daintiness, it is so for it to walk, that it to the mother as though she saw her child. She upon it, she it, she talks to it; she herself there can actually be a so tiny; and if the child be absent, the shoe to place the sweet and her eyes. She thinks she sees it, she see it, complete, living, joyous, with its hands, its head, its pure lips, its white is blue. If it is in winter, it is yonder, on the carpet, it is upon an ottoman, and the mother it should approach the fire. If it is time, it about the yard, in the garden, up the the paving-stones, at the big dogs, the big horses, without fear, plays with the shells, with the flowers, and makes the he in the flower-beds and earth in the paths. Everything laughs, and and plays around it, like it, the of air and the of sun which with each other in among the of its hair. The shoe all this to the mother, and makes her melt as fire melts wax.
But when the child is lost, these thousand images of joy, of charms, of tenderness, which around the little shoe, so many things. The shoe is no longer anything but an of which the of the mother. It is always the same which vibrates, the and most sensitive; but of an it, it is a who is at it.
One May morning, when the sun was on one of those dark against which Garofolo loves to place his Descents from the Cross, the of the Tour-Roland a of wheels, of and in the Place de Grève. She was by it, her upon her ears in order to herself, and her contemplation, on her knees, of the object which she had for fifteen years. This little shoe was the to her, as we have already said. Her was up in it, and was more to it at death. The of the Tour-Roland alone how many imprecations, complaints, prayers and she had to in with that of rose-colored satin. Never was more upon a and more thing.
It as though her were more than usual; and she be in a loud and voice which rent the heart.
“Oh my daughter!” she said, “my daughter, my poor, dear little child, so I shall see more! It is over! It always to me that it yesterday! My God! my God! it would have been not to give her to me than to take her away so soon. Did you not know that our children are part of ourselves, and that a mother who has her child no longer in God? Ah! that I am to have gone out that day! Lord! Lord! to have taken her from me thus; you have looked at me with her, when I was her at my fire, when she laughed as she suckled, when I her up my to my lips? Oh! if you had looked at that, my God, you would have taken on my joy; you would not have taken from me the only love which lingered, in my heart! Was I then, Lord, so a creature, that you not look at me me?—Alas! Alas! here is the shoe; where is the foot? where is the rest? Where is the child? My daughter! my daughter! what did they do with thee? Lord, give her to me. My have been for fifteen years in praying to thee, my God! Is not that enough? Give her to me one day, one hour, one minute; one minute, Lord! and then me to the for all eternity! Oh! if I only where the skirt of your trails, I would to it with hands, and you would be to give me my child! Have you no on her little shoe? Could you a mother to this for fifteen years? Good Virgin! good Virgin of heaven! my Jesus has been taken from me, has been from me; they her on a heath, they her blood, they her bones! Good Virgin, have upon me. My daughter, I want my daughter! What is it to me that she is in paradise? I do not want your angel, I want my child! I am a lioness, I want my whelp. Oh! I will on the earth, I will the with my forehead, and I will myself, and I will you, Lord, if you keep my child from me! you see that my arms are all bitten, Lord! Has the good God no mercy?—Oh! give me only salt and black bread, only let me have my to warm me like a sun! Alas! Lord my God. Alas! Lord my God, I am only a sinner; but my me pious. I was full of religion for the love of her, and I you through her as through an opening into heaven. Oh! if I only once, just once more, a single time, put this shoe on her little pink foot, I would die you, good Virgin. Ah! fifteen years! she will be up now!—Unhappy child! what! it is true then I shall see her more, not in heaven, for I shall not go there myself. Oh! what to think that here is her shoe, and that that is all!”
The woman herself upon that shoe; her and her for so many years, and her were rent with as on the day; because, for a mother who has her child, it is always the day. That old. The may white and threadbare, the dark.
At that moment, the fresh and of children passed in of the cell. Every time that children her or her ear, the mother herself into the of her sepulchre, and one would have said, that she to her into the in order not to them. This time, on the contrary, she herself with a start, and eagerly. One of the little boys had just said,—
“They are going to a to-day.”
With the of that which we have itself upon a at the of its web, she to her air-hole, which opened as the reader knows, on the Place de Grève. A had, in fact, been up against the permanent gibbet, and the hangman’s was himself with the which had been by the rain. There were some people about.
The laughing group of children was already away. The with her some passer-by she might question. All at once, her cell, she a making a of reading the public breviary, but who was much less with the “lectern of iron,” than with the gallows, toward which he a and from time to time. She the of Josas, a man.
“Father,” she inquired, “whom are they about to yonder?”
The looked at her and no reply; she her question. Then he said,—
“I know not.”
“Some children said that it was a gypsy,” on the recluse.
“I so,” said the priest.
Then Paquette la Chantefleurie into hyena-like laughter.
“Sister,” said the archdeacon, “do you then the heartily?”
“Do I them!” the recluse, “they are vampires, of children! They my little daughter, my child, my only child! I have no longer any heart, they it!”
She was frightful. The looked at her coldly.
“There is one in particular I hate, and I have cursed,” she resumed; “it is a one, of the age which my would be if her mother had not my daughter. Every time that that in of my cell, she sets my blood in a ferment.”
“Well, sister, rejoice,” said the priest, as a statue; “that is the one you are about to see die.”
His upon his and he moved slowly away.
The her arms with joy.
“I it for her, that she would thither! Thanks, priest!” she cried.
And she to up and with long the of her window, her dishevelled, her flashing, with her against the wall, with the wild air of a female in a cage, who has long been famished, and who the hour for her near.
