Nothing more was heard of little Jean Vallin. The parents went to the notary every month to collect their hundred and twenty francs, and they were angry with their neighbors, because Mother Tuvache grossly insulted them, repeating without ceasing from door to door, that one must be unnatural to sell one's child; that it was horrible, nasty, and many other vile expressions. Sometimes she would take her Chariot in her arms with ostentation, exclaiming, as if he understood:
"I didn't sell you, I didn't! I didn't sell you, my little one! I'm not rich, but I don't sell my children!"
The Vallins lived at their ease, thanks to the pension. That was the cause of the inappeasable fury of the Tuvaches, who had remained miserably poor. Their eldest son went away into service; Charlot alone remained to labor with his old father, to support the mother and two younger sisters which he had.
He had reached twenty-one years, when, one morning, a brilliant carriage stopped before the two cottages. A young gentleman, with a gold watch chain, got out, giving his hand to an aged, white-haired lady. The old lady said to him: "It is there, my child, at the second house." And he entered the house of the Vallins, as if he were at home.
The old mother was washing her aprons; the infirm father slumbered at the chimney-corner. Both raised their heads, and the young man said:
"Good morning, papa; good morning, mamma!"
They both stood up, frightened. In a flutter, the peasant woman dropped her soap into the water, and stammered:
"Is it you, my child? Is it you, my child?"
He took her in his arms and hugged her, repeating: "Good morning, mamma," while the old man, all in a tremble, said, in his calm tone which he never lost: "Here you are, back again, Jean," as if he had seen him a month before.
When they had got to know one another again the parents wished to take their boy out through the neighborhood, and show him. They took him to the mayor, to the deputy, to the curé, and to the schoolmaster.