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 cheekbones.
It was not she who now came to take him from his bed in the morning, but an old woman in a short jacket, who did not kiss him, and who smelled horribly of snuff.
His father, too, did not pay much attention to him now.

When he returned in the evening from the office he always brought bottles and little packages from the apothecary.