for this feeling.

But all this passed through my mind in rather a confused manner, and
without my taking the trouble to fix or to formulate any ideas and
sensations, for I continued to dream, rather than to think effectively,
and it is very probable that, when my visit was over, I should not have
remembered much about it, not even with regard to Babette, if I had not
been suddenly awakened by the sight of her in the person, and been quite
upset by the difference that there was between my fancy and the reality.

We had just crossed a small back yard, and had gone into a very dark
passage, when a door suddenly opened at the other end of it, and an
unexpected apparition appeared through another door, and we could
indistinctly see that it was the figure of a woman. At the same moment,
the superintendent called out in a furious voice:

"Babette! Babette!"

He had mechanically quickened his pace, and almost ran, and we followed
him, and he quickly opened the door through which the apparition had
vanished, and which led on to a staircase, and he again called out, and
a burst of stifled laughter was the only reply. I looked over the
balusters, and saw a woman down below, who was looking at us fixedly.

She was an old woman; there could be no doubt of that, from her wrinkled
face and her few straggling gray locks which appeared under her cap. But
one did not think of that when one saw her eyes, which were wonderfully
youthful, for then, one saw nothing but them. They were profound eyes,
of a deep, almost violet blue; the eyes of a child.

Suddenly the superintendent called out to her: "You have been with _la
Frieze_ again!"

The old woman did not reply, but shook with laughter, as she had done
just before, and then she ran off, giving the superintendent a look,
which said as plainly as words could have done: "Do you think I care a
fig for you?"

Those insulting words were clearly written in her face, and at the same
time I noticed that the old woman's eyes had utterly changed, for during
that short moment of bravado the childish eyes had become the eyes of a
monkey, of some ferocious, obstinate baboon.

That time, in spite of any dislike to question him further, I could not
help saying to him: "That is Babette, I suppose?"

"Yes," he replied, growing rather red, as if he guessed that I
understood the old woman's insulting looks.

"Is she the woman who is so precious?" I added, with a touch of irony,
which made him