I am too old now to feel very deeply; but how strangely painful a mystery is the death of a child!
To-day, the father and mother have come to pass six weeks under the old man’s roof. I see them now returning from the woods, walking arm-in-arm. Jeanne is closely wrapped in her black shawl, and Henri wears a crape band on his straw hat; but they are both of them radiant with youth, and they smile very sweetly at each other. They smile at the earth which sustains them; they smile at the air which bathes them; they smile at the light which each one sees in the eyes of the other. From my window I wave my handkerchief at them,—and they smile at my old age.
Jeanne comes running lightly up the stairs; she kisses me, and then whispers in my ear something which I divine rather than hear. And I make answer to her: “May God’s blessing be with you, Jeanne, and with your husband, and with your children, and with your children’s children for ever!”... Et nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine!