From the tawny flowers, speckled with purple, there came a penetrating odor which scented the whole room. Then Hélène, with a passionate movement, drew Jeanne to her breast, while the nosegay fell on her lap. To love! to love! Truly, she loved her child. Was not that intense love which had pervaded her life till now sufficient for her wants? It ought to satisfy her; it was so gentle, so tranquil; no lassitude could put an end to its continuance. Again she pressed her daughter to her, as though to conjure away thoughts which threatened to separate them. In the meantime Jeanne surrendered herself to the shower of kisses. Her eyes moist with tears, she turned her delicate neck upwards with a coaxing gesture, and pressed her face against her mother’s shoulder. Then she slipped an arm round her waist and thus remained, very demure, her cheek resting on Hélène’s bosom. The perfume of the wall-flowers ascended between them.
For a long time they did not speak; but at length, without moving, Jeanne asked in a whisper:
“Mamma, you see that rosy-colored dome down there, close to the river; what is it?”
It was the dome of the Institute, and Hélène looked towards it for a moment as though trying to recall the name.
“I don’t know, my love,” she answered gently.
The child appeared content with this reply, and silence again fell. But soon she asked a second question.
“And there, quite near, what beautiful trees are those?” she said, pointing with her finger towards a corner of the Tuileries garden.
“Those beautiful trees!” said her mother. “On the left, do you mean? I don’t know, my love.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Jeanne; and after musing for a little while she added with a pout: “We know nothing!”
Indeed they knew nothing of Paris. During eighteen months it had lain beneath their gaze every hour of the day, yet they knew not a stone of it. Three times only had they gone down into the city; but on returning home, suffering from terrible headaches born of all the agitation they had witnessed, they could find in their minds no distinct memory of anything in all that huge maze of streets.