Here is the stool; I am going
to put it before the fire, so, and you shall sit upon it and watch the
pot for me. Don't move, and don't look behind you, and then, by-and-by,
you shall have a basin of the soup. If only I had something to put into
it, something good, for bread and onions are not too fattening. However,
there is plenty to be thankful for. Remember, Perine, you must not take
your eyes off the soup."
The girl, who seemed to have the faculty of obedience, sat down where
she was directed, and fastened her stolid gaze upon the pot. For a time
there was absolute silence in the garret, a ray of cold winter sunshine,
cold but bright (for this was Paris), streamed in through the little
window in the roof, and fell on Perine's slouching figure and coarse
hair. Less than five minutes, however, had passed, when the chintz
curtains of the alcove shook, parted, and from between them looked out
a pale and haggard man's face.
It will be guessed that this third inhabitant of the sixth floor attic
was no other than Jean Didier, whose name had been entered in the
_bureau_ of police--when they tried to get some imperfect statistics of
missing men--as "Jean Didier, glazier; fought with the insurgents,
wounded at the barricade of the Rue Soleil d'Or, May 28th, 1871;
denounced as Communist by Andre Fort; executed on the spot.
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