Valmond was alive to it all, almost too alive, for at first the
flamboyancy of his spirit touched him off with melodrama. Yet, on the
whole, he seemed at first more natural than involved or obscure. His
love for children was real, his politeness to women spontaneous. He was
seen to carry the load of old Madame Degardy up the hill, and place it
at her own door. He also had offered her a pinch of snuff, which she
acknowledged by gravely offering a pinch of her own from a dirty twist
of brown paper.
One day he sprang over a fence, took from the hands of coquettish Elise
Malboir an axe, and split the knot which she in vain had tried to break.
Not satisfied with this, he piled full of wood the stone oven outside the
house, and carried water for her from the spring. This came from natural
kindness, for he did not see the tempting look she gave him, nor the
invitation in her eye, as he turned to leave her. He merely asked her
name. But after he had gone, as though he had forgotten, or remembered,
something, he leaped the fence again, came up to her with an air of half-
abstraction, half-courtesy, took both her hands in his, and, before she
could recover herself, kissed her on the cheeks in a paternal sort of
way, saying, "Adieu, adieu, my child!" and left her.
The act had condescension in it; yet, too, something unconsciously simple
and primitive. Parpon the dwarf, who that moment perched himself on the
fence, could not decide which Valmond was just then--dauphin or fool.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30