He asked her, however, to change the position of his left leg, for he could not move it himself.
'The villain is all on fire to-day. Put it further away; push it. There, that will do, thank you. What a lovely day! Oh dear! oh dear!'
With his eyes turned towards the far-spreading panorama, he continued to groan quite unconsciously. His moan of pain had now become quite as natural to him as breathing itself. He was wrapped in a heavy blue woollen rug, and his poor deformed hands, that looked so pitiable in the bright sunshine, lay helpless on his knees. It pleased him to sit and look at the sea with its infinite azure, over which white sails flitted as over a boundless highway, open there before him who could no longer put one foot before another.
Pauline, feeling anxious at the sight of Paul's little naked legs, knelt down again and covered them up with part of the rug. For three months past she had always been intending to take her departure on the following Monday. But the child's feeble hands held her back with a force she could not resist. For the first month of the boy's life they had each morning feared that he would not live to see the evening. It was Pauline who had kept him alive from day to day, for his mother was long confined to her bed, and the nurse, whom they had been obliged to procure, simply gave him the breast, evincing the gentle stupidity of a cow. The most devoted, constant care and attention were needed, and Pauline had to keep perpetual watch over the child. By the end of the first month, however, the boy had happily acquired the strength of a child born in due season, and gradually developed. Still, he was but a little creature, and Pauline never left him for a minute, more especially since the weaning, which had been attended by much trouble.
'There!' she said, 'he can't take cold now. See, uncle, how pretty he looks in this crimson rug! It makes him quite rosy.'
Chanteau painfully turned his head, which was now the only part of his body which he was able to move.
'If you kiss him,' he murmured, 'you will wake him. Don't disturb the little cherub. Do you see that steamer over there? It is coming from Havre. How fast it is cutting along!'
Pauline watched the steamer in order to please him. It looked like a black speck on the boundless waters; a slight streak of smoke just blurred a point of the horizon. For a short time the girl stood there, perfectly still, gazing at that sea which slumbered so peacefully beneath the clear sky, and enjoying the beauty of the day.
'But, while I'm stopping here, the stew is getting burned!' she exclaimed at last, hurrying off towards the kitchen.
Just as she was about to enter the house a voice called from the first floor: