My child looked rosy and happy, and her large eyes were bright. Oh, she
is so pretty! I drew her towards me; I raised her in my arms, and
placing her on my knees, kissed her dear hair. I asked, “Why is her
Mother not with her?” And I learnt that she was very ill, and my poor
old mother also.
Mary looked at me with astonishment. Caressed, embraced, devoured with
kisses, she submitted quietly; but, from time to time, cast an uneasy
look towards her Nurse, who was crying in the corner.
At length I was able to speak.
“Mary,” I exclaimed. “My own little Mary!” and I pressed her violently
against my breast, which was heaving with sobs. She uttered a little
cry, and then said, “Oh, you hurt me, Sir.”
“_Sir!_” It is nearly a year since she has seen me, poor child! She has
forgotten me, face, words, voice; and then who could know me with this
beard, this dress, and this pallor?
What! already effaced from that memory,--the only one where I wished to
survive! What! already, no longer a Father, am I condemned to hear no
more that word, so soft in the language of children that it cannot
remain in the language of men, “Papa”?
And yet to have heard it from that sweet mouth, once more,--only once
more,--that is all that I would have asked in payment for the forty
years of life they will take from me.
“Listen, Mary,” said I to her, joining her two little hands in mine. “Do
you not know me?”