When they came in front of the crib, the father adjusted his eye-glasses, the daughter took her opera-glass, and for a few minutes they gazed on this scene, new to them.
After gazing a little while, the gentleman shrugged his shoulders and asked:
"What are all those dolls?"
"Papa," replied the daughter, "that is the Stable of Bethlehem, and a simple representation of the birth of Jesus Christ."
"Simple?" exclaimed the father, "you're indulgent to-day, Azémia; you should say grotesque and buffoonish; that it should be possible to push bad taste so far! It is not enough that their mysteries are incomprehensible; here they're trying to make them ridiculous!"
"Goodness, papa," said the young lady; "just think! for the common people and peasants"—
"I tell you, Azémia, that it is absurd and shocking, and that the peasants and the natives themselves must laugh at it. Let us go! I feel myself catching cold here, and dinner must be ready."
They had hardly left the church, when a lady entered with a charming four-year-old baby. The child ran to the crib where the mother joined him after a prayer which seemed to me less summary and more serious than that which the young lady had said.
"Oh! mamma," the child said half aloud; "look at the little Jesus, and the Blessed Virgin, and St. Joseph. See the kings and the shepherds. Oh! mamma, see the star the kings followed and that stopped over the Stable of Bethlehem."
And the child stood on tip-toe and looked with wide-open eyes.