Little Amedee did not understand it; but he felt a vague terror of something dreadful happening in the house.

Everything alarmed him now.

He was afraid of the old woman who smelled of snuff, and who, when she dressed him in the morning, looked at him with a pitying air; he was afraid of the doctor, who climbed the five flights of stairs twice a day now, and left a whiff of perfume behind him; afraid of his father, who did not go to his office any more, whose beard was often three days old, and who feverishly paced the little parlor, tossing back with a distracted gesture the lock of hair behind his ear.

He was afraid of his mother, alas! of his mother, whom he had seen that evening, by the light from the night-lamp, buried in the pillows, her delicate nose and chin thrown up, and who did not seem to recognize him, in spite of her wide-open eyes, when his father took her child in his arms and leaned over her with him that he might kiss her cold forehead covered with sweat! At last the terrible day arrived, a day that Amedee never will forget, although he was then a very small child.
What awakened him that morning was his father's embrace as he came and took him from his bed.

His father's eyes were wild and bloodshot from so much crying.