Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From this, and the fine clothes you wore when he found you, we think your parents must be rich. "Then Jerome said he had to go off to Paris," she continued, "to find the musician who hired you. This musician said that a letter sent to Rue Mouffetard to a man named Garofoli would reach him." "And haven't you heard from Barberin since he went?" I asked, surprised that he had sent no news.
Despite the reassuring sign that Mother Barberin had made, I felt that something was going to happen to me and I wanted to run away. I tried to lag behind, thinking that I would jump down into a ditch where Barberin could not catch me.
"Let us get all we can," said Mattia, forcing me to take my harp, "for we don't know if we shall find Barberin at once. One would think that you had forgotten that night when you were dying of hunger." "Oh, I haven't," I said lightly, "but we're sure to find him at once. You wait." "Yes, but I have not forgotten how I leaned up against the church that day when you found me.
So now I ought not to harbor any bitterness against him. I soon reached the Hotel du Cantal which was only a hotel in name, being nothing better than a miserable lodging house. "I want to see a man named Barberin; he comes from Chavanon," I said to a dirty old woman who sat at a desk. She was very deaf and asked me to repeat what I had said. "Do you know a man named Barberin?" I shouted.
The old man, who without appearing, had evidently been listening, suddenly pointed to me, and turning to Barberin said with a marked foreign accent: "Is that the child that's in your way?" "That's him." "And you think the Home is going to pay you for his keep?" "Lord! as he ain't got no parents and I've been put to great expense for him, it is only right that the town should pay me something."
I have not forgotten how he sold me for forty francs, and it was my fear of him, the fear that he would sell me again, that kept me from writing to tell you news of myself." "Oh, boy, I thought that was why," she said, "but you mustn't speak unkindly of Barberin." "Well, let's have the pancakes now," I said, hugging her.
A few steps behind my mother comes an old woman dressed like a French peasant and carrying in her arms a little baby robed in a white pelisse. It is dear Mother Barberin, the little baby is my son Mattia.
In the stream I could just make out the drain that I had had so much trouble in digging, so that it would work a mill made by my own hands; the wheel, alas! had never turned, despite all the hours I had spent upon it. I could see my garden. Oh, my dear garden!... Who would see my flowers bloom? and my Jerusalem artichokes, who would tend them? Barberin, perhaps, that wicked Barberin!
I had often wondered what was going on behind the red curtains, I was going to know now.... Barberin sat down at a table with the boss who had asked him to go in. I sat by the fireplace. In a corner near me there was a tall old man with a long white beard. He wore a strange costume. I had never seen anything like it before.
As we were about to pass the tavern, a man who was standing in the doorway called to Barberin and asked him to go in. Barberin took me by the ear and pushed me in before him, and when we got inside he closed the door. I felt relieved. This was only the village tavern, and for a long time I had wanted to see what it was like inside.
Word Of The Day