take the foot-warmer
and sit upon it, so that I might not catch cold in that large, chilly
room under the roof.

She told me stories, while mending the linen with her long crooked
nimble fingers; her eyes behind her magnifying spectacles, for age had
impaired her sight, appeared enormous to me, strangely profound, double.

She had, as far as I can remember, the things which she told me and by
which my childish heart was moved, the large heart of a poor woman. She
told me what had happened in the village, how a cow had escaped from the
cowhouse and had been found the next morning in front of Prosper Malet's
mill, looking at the sails turning, or about a hen's egg, which had
been found in the church belfry without anyone being able to understand
what creature had been there to lay it, or the story of Jean-Jean Pila's
dog, who had been ten leagues to bring back his master's breeches, which
a tramp had stolen while they were hanging up to dry out of doors, after
he had been in the rain. She told me these simple adventures in such a
manner, that in my mind they assumed the proportions of
never-to-be-forgotten dramas, of grand and mysterious poems; and the
ingenious stories invented by the poets which my mother told me in the
evening had none of the flavor, none of the fullness nor of the vigor of
the peasant woman's narratives.

Well, one Thursday, when I had spent all the morning in listening to
Mother Clochette, I wanted to go up stairs to her again during the day
after picking hazelnuts with the manservant in the wood behind the farm.
I remember it all as clearly as what happened only yesterday.

On opening the door of the linen-room, I saw the old seamstress lying on
the ground by the side of her chair, with her face to the ground and her
arms stretched out, but still holding her needle in one hand and one of
my shirts in the other. One of her legs in a blue stocking, the longer
one, no doubt, was extended under her chair, and her spectacles
glistened against the wall, as they had rolled away from her.

I ran away uttering shrill cries. They all came running, and in a few
minutes I was told that Mother Clochette was dead.

I cannot describe the profound, poignant, terrible emotion which stirred
my childish heart. I went slowly down into the drawing-room and went
and hid myself in a dark corner, in the depths of a great, old armchair,
where I knelt and wept. I remained there for a long time no doubt, for
night came