"Thank you, Henry. Pardon the trouble I have caused you.... You will laugh at me; but if you had not brought him, I should have gone to the convent myself to-day.... I should have scorned the doctor's regime and prescriptions.... You do not know, Georgie.... I have not been very well.... Oh, a mere nothing; a small ailment, a neglected cold.... A slight cold, was it not, Yana? ... I have lost it, as you see.... Ah! my boy, what good it does me to see you! ... What fun we shall have! We are going out into the country at once.... I have prepared a surprise for you."
I listened enchanted—oh the selfishness of childhood! The promise of this expedition made me deaf to his cough—a dry, convulsive cough which he tried to stifle by holding his silk handkerchief to his mouth. Neither did I notice—or rather I did notice but attached no importance to—the bottles of medicine and pill-boxes which stood on the chimney-piece and on the bed-table. A bottle of syrup had just been opened, and a drop remained in the silver spoon. Yana held a prescription in her hand, which had been written that morning. A heavy odor of opiates and other drugs filled the room. These details only recurred to me afterwards.
My uncle took leave.
"Above all, no imprudence!" he said to my father. "You promise me? Be back in town before the dew falls.... I will take George to school again to-morrow morning."
"Set your mind at rest; we will be wise!" replied my father, excited and preoccupied, thinking only of his child.
I believe that he was not sorry to find himself alone with me, and as the prospect of returning to M——, evoked by the old officer, had saddened me, he took me on his knee.
"Courage! little one," he said. "It is not for long. I feel too lonely since the death of your poor mother. I have told my family that in the future I do not intend to be separated from you ... You have made your first communion, ... you are big, ... you shall go back to school for a week, just time to pack up and to settle in our new quarters.... Come, there, I am betraying the secret ... Never mind, after all, I may as well tell you everything now. I have bought a pretty little house, almost a farmstead, three miles from here.... We are going to live in the country, like peasants, to wear sabots and smocks. Hey? That will make you grow.... What do you say to it?... We shall be always together."
I clapped my hands, and jumped round the room.
"What joy! Always we two, is that it? Then we shall be always together. Is it really true?"
"Really true."