“Yes, I complain that you are not sufficiently impressed by the fact of its being Christmas Eve. The ding-ding-dong of the bells of Notre Dame fails to move you; and just now when the magic-lantern passed beneath the window, I looked at you while pretending to work, and you were quite calm.”
“I remain calm when the magic-lantern is going by! Ah! my dear, you are very severe on me, and really—”
“Yes, yes, jest about it, but it was none the less true that the recollections of your childhood have failed.”
“Now, my dear, do you want me to leave my boots out on the hearth this evening on going to bed? Do you want me to call in the magic-lantern man, and to look out a big sheet and a candle end for him, as my poor mother used to do? I can still see her as she used to entrust her white sheet to him. ‘Don’t make a hole in it, at least,’ she would say. How we used to clap our hands in the mysterious darkness! I can recall all those joys, my dear, but you know so many other things have happened since then. Other pleasures have effaced those.”
“Yes, I can understand, your bachelor pleasures; and, there, I am sure that this Christmas Eve is the first you have passed by your own fireside, in your dressing-gown, without supper; for you used to sup on Christmas Eve.”
“To sup, to sup.”
“Yes, you supped; I will wager you did.”
“I have supped two or three times, perhaps, with friends, you know; two sous’ worth of roasted chestnuts and—”
“A glass of sugar and water.”
“Oh, pretty nearly so. It was all very simple; as far as I can recollect. We chatted a little and went to bed.”