“Well, Monsieur César?”
He kept staring at her. Her face was livid with anguish; and she waited, her hands trembling with fear.
Then he took courage.
“Well, Mam'zelle, papa died on Sunday last just after he had opened the shooting.”
She was so much overwhelmed that she did not move. After a silence of a few seconds, she faltered in an almost inaudible tone:
“Oh! it is not possible!”
Then, on a sudden, tears showed themselves in her eyes, and covering her face with her hands, she burst out sobbing.
At that point the little boy turned round, and, seeing his mother weeping, began to howl. Then, realizing that this sudden trouble was brought about by the stranger, he rushed at César, caught hold of his breeches with one hand and with the other hit him with all his strength on the thigh. And César remained agitated, deeply affected, with this woman mourning for his father at one side of him, and the little boy defending his mother at the other. He felt their emotion taking possession of himself, and his eyes were beginning to brim over with the same sorrow; so, to recover his self-command, he began to talk:
“Yes,” he said, “the accident occurred on Sunday, at eight o'clock—”
And he told, as if she were listening to him, all the facts without forgetting a single detail, mentioning the most trivial matters with the minuteness of a countryman. And the child still kept assailing him, making kicks at his ankles.