"Children! René! Alain! Georgette!"
The children looked round. They were trying to find out what it all meant. Where men feel terrified, children are simply curious; he who is open to surprise is not easily alarmed; ignorance is closely allied to intrepidity. Children have so little claim upon hell, that were they to behold it, it would but excite their admiration.
The mother kept repeating,—
"René! Alain! Georgette!"
René-Jean turned; that voice roused him from his reverie. Children have short memories, but their recollections are swift; the entire past is for them but as yesterday. When René-Jean saw his mother, it seemed to him the most natural thing that could happen, surrounded as he was by strange things; and with a dim consciousness of needing support, he called, "Mamma!"
"Mamma!" said Gros-Alain.
"M'ma!" repeated Georgette.
And she stretched out her little arms.
The mother shrieked, "My children!"
The three children came to the window-ledge; fortunately, the conflagration was not on this side.