he warm
egg of springtide. Albine, remembering certain remarks of Doctor
Pascal, felt terrified at seeing him remain in this state, 'innocent,'
dull-witted like a little boy. She had heard it said that certain
maladies left insanity behind them. And she spent hours in gazing at him
and trying her utmost, as mothers do, to make him smile. But as yet he
had not laughed. When she passed her hand across his eyes, he never
saw, he never followed the shadow. Even when she spoke to him, he barely
turned his head in the direction whence the sound came. She had but one
consolation: he thrived splendidly, he was quite a handsome child.

For another whole week she lavished the tenderest care on him. She
patiently waited for him to grow. And as she marked various symptoms
of awakening perception, her fears subsided and she began to think
that time might make a man of him. When she touched him now he started
slightly. Another time, one night, he broke into a feeble laugh. On the
morrow, when she had seated him at the window, she went down into the
garden, and ran about in it, calling to him the while. She vanished
under the trees, flitted across the sunny patches, and came back
breathless and clapping her hands. At first his wavering eyes failed
to perceive her. But as she started off again, perpetually playing at
hide-and-seek, reappearing behind every other bush, he was at last
able to follow the white gleam of her skirt; and when she suddenly came
forward and stood with upraised face below his window, he stretched out
his arms and seemed anxious to go down to her. But she came upstairs
again, and embraced him proudly: 'Ah! you saw me, you saw me!' she
cried. 'You would like to come into the garden with me, would you
not?---- If you only knew how wretched you have made me these last few
days, with your stupid ways, never seeing me or hearing me!'

He listened to her, but apparently with some slight sensation of pain
that made him bend his neck in a shrinking way.

'You are better now, however,' she went on. 'Well enough to come down
whenever you like---- Why don't you say anything? Have you lost your
tongue? Oh, what a baby! Why, I shall have to teach him how to talk!'

And thereupon she really did amuse herself by telling him the names of
the things he touched. He could only stammer, reiterating the syllables,
and failing to utter a single word plainly. However, she began to walk
him about the room, holding him up and leading