It was nine o'clock.

    The little town of Vauchamp,
           dark and silent,
          had just
              retired to bed
                   amid a chilly November rain.

    In the Rue des Recollets,
           one of the narrowest
               and most
              deserted streets
                   of the district of Saint-Jean,
         a single window was
             still alight
                   on the third floor
                       of an old house,
           from whose damaged gutters torrents
               of water
            were falling into the street.

    Mme Burle was sitting up
         before a meager fire
               of vine stocks,
        while her little grandson
                 Charles pored
               over his lessons
             by the pale light
                   of a lamp.

    The apartment,
           rented at one hundred
               and sixty francs per annum,
          consisted of four large rooms
              which it
                was absolutely impossible to keep
                     warm during the winter.

    Mme Burle
        slept in the largest chamber,
           her son Captain
               and Quartermaster Burle
              occupying a
                  somewhat smaller
                       one overlooking the street,
         while little Charles
            had his iron cot
                   at the farther end
                       of a spacious
                 drawing room with
                mildewed hangings,
           which was never used.

    The few pieces of furniture
          belonging to the captain
               and his mother,
           furniture of the massive style
               of the First Empire,
         dented and worn
               by continuous transit
                   from one garrison town
                       to another,
           almost disappeared from view
               beneath the lofty ceilings
             whence darkness fell.

    The flooring of red-colored tiles
        was cold and hard
               to the feet;
        before the chairs
            there were merely a
                   few threadbare little rugs
                       of poverty-stricken aspect,
           and athwart this
              desert all the winds
                   of heaven
            blew through
                   the disjointed doors and windows.

    Near the fireplace
        sat Mme Burle,
           leaning back
            in her old yellow velvet
                     armchair and
           watching the last
              vine branch smoke,
         with that stolid,
           blank stare of the aged
             who live within themselves.

    She would sit thus
           for whole days together,
         with her tall figure,
         her long stern face
               and her thin lips
             that never smiled.

    The widow of a colonel
         who had died just as
             he was
                   on the point
                       of becoming a general,
           the mother
               of a captain whom
             she had followed
               even in his campaigns,
         she had
              acquired a military stiffness
                   of bearing and
                  formed for
                       herself a code of honor,
           duty and patriotism
              which kept her rigid,
         desiccated,
           as it were,
      by the stern application
              of discipline.

    She seldom,
           if ever,
         complained.

    When her son had
         become a widower
              after five years
                   of married life
         she had undertaken the education
               of little Charles
             as a matter of course,
           performing her duties
               with the severity
                   of a sergeant
              drilling recruits.

    She watched over the child,
           never tolerating
               the slightest waywardness
              or irregularity,
         but compelling him
              to sit up
             till midnight
               when his exercises
                were not finished,
           and sitting up herself
             until he had completed them.

  Under such implacable despotism
                Charles,
           whose constitution was delicate,
         grew up pale and thin,
           with beautiful eyes,
         inordinately large and clear,
           shining in his white,
         pinched face.

    During the long hours
           of silence Mme Burle
        dwelt continuously
               upon one
                   and the same idea:
        she had been disappointed
               in her son.

    This thought
        sufficed to occupy her mind,
           and under its influence
             she would
                  live her whole life
                       over again,
         from the birth
               of her son,
            whom she had pictured
             rising amid glory
                   to the highest rank,
         till she
            came down
                  to mean
                       and narrow garrison life,
           the dull,
         monotonous existence of nowadays,
           that stranding
               in the post
                   of a quartermaster,
         from which Burle
            would never rise and
             in which
                 he seemed
                      to sink more
                           and more heavily.

    And yet his first efforts
        had filled her with pride,
           and she