very beautiful stories: Joseph sold by his brethren;
Robinson Crusoe discovering the footprints of human beings.

Amedee, who now has gray hair upon his temples, can still remember the
chills that ran down his back at the moment when the wolf, hidden under
coverings and the grandmother's cap, said, with a gnashing of teeth, to
little Red Riding Hood: "All the better to eat you with, my child."

It was almost dark then upon the terrace. It was all delightfully
terrible!

During this time the two families, in their respective parts of the
balcony, were talking familiarly together. The Violettes were quiet
people, and preferred rather to listen to their neighbors than to talk
themselves, making brief replies for politeness' sake--"Ah!" "Is it
possible?" "You are right."

The Gerards liked to talk. Madame Gerard, who was a good housekeeper,
discussed questions of domestic economy; telling, for example, how she
had been out that day, and had seen, upon the Rue du Bac, some merino:
"A very good bargain, I assure you, Madame, and very wide!" Or perhaps
the engraver, who was a simple politician, after the fashion of 1848,
would declare that we must accept the Republic, "Oh, not the red-hot,
you know, but the true, the real one!" Or he would wish that Cavaignac
had been elected President at the September balloting; although he
himself was then engraving--one must live, after all--a portrait of
Prince Louis Napoleon, destined for the electoral platform. M. and
Madame Violette let them talk; perhaps even they did not always pay
attention to the conversation. When it was dark they held each other's
hands and gazed at the stars.

These lovely, cool, autumnal evenings, upon the balcony, under the
starry heavens, are the most distant of all Amedee's memories. Then
there was a break in his memory, like a book with several leaves torn
out, after which he recalls many sad days.

Winter had come, and they no longer spent their evenings upon the
balcony. One could see nothing now through the windows but a dull, gray
sky. Amedee's mother was ill and always remained in her bed. When he was
installed near the bed, before a little table, cutting out with scissors
the hussars from a sheet of Epinal, his poor mamma almost frightened
him, as she leaned her elbow upon the pillow and gazed at him so long
and so sadly, while her thin white hands restlessly pushed back her
beautiful, disordered hair, and two red hectic spots burned under her
c