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Updated: August 4, 2024
"At last," she said, "the day has come when you can take the place that belongs to you." I looked to her to ask her to explain. She went over to a door and opened it. Then came the grand surprise! Mother Barberin entered. In her arms she carried some baby's clothes, a white cashmere pelisse, a lace bonnet, some woolen shoes.
But in the midst of my confusion I felt a great satisfaction to know that Mother Barberin was still alive, and in the course of the questions that were put to me I learned that Barberin had gone back to Paris some time ago. This delighted me. Then came the question that Mattia had feared. "But how did you get all the money to buy the cow?"
Perhaps one day I should see Mother Barberin again, and that would make me very happy, but I could not call her mother now, for she was not my mother.... I was alone.... I should always be alone.... Nobody's boy.
I had wanted to kiss him and he had pushed me away with his stick. Why? My mother had never pushed me away when I went to kiss her; on the contrary, she always took me in her arms and held me tight. "Instead of standing there as though you're made of wood," he said, "put the plates on the table." I nearly fell down in my haste to obey. The soup was made. Mother Barberin served it on the plates.
He wrote to the hospital where they had taken Barberin, and a few days later received a reply saying that Barberin's wife was not to go, but that she could send a certain sum of money to her husband, because he was going to sue the builder upon whose works he had met with the accident. Days and weeks passed, and from time to time letters came asking for more money.
"Oh, but we'll get ever so much more with Capi," I insisted. "That's enough," replied my father briefly; "when I say a thing I mean it. No arguments." I said nothing more. As I laid down in my bed that night Mattia whispered in my ear: "Now to-morrow you write to Mother Barberin." Then he jumped into bed.
And Mother Barberin, poor Mother Barberin!... "In my opinion, they are not trying to rescue us," said Uncle Gaspard, breaking the silence at last. "We can't hear a sound." "How can you think that of your comrades?" cried the professor hotly.
In fact, he'd mentioned this side line of his before. Barberin' for commuters left him more or less time for such enterprises. But it might have been Angora goats he was raisin', or water buffalo, or white mice. "You no lika da dogs, hey?" asks Joe, kind of hurt. "Eh?" says I, starin' critical into the mirror to see if he hadn't amputated more from the left side than the right. "Oh sure!
I couldn't think, for just at that moment Mother Barberin put her big wooden spoon into the bowl and was pouring a spoonful of the paste into the pan, and it was not the moment to let one's thoughts wander. Somebody knocked on the door with a stick, then it was flung open. "Who's there?" asked Mother Barberin, without turning round. A man had come in.
"But think," cried Barberin; "this child's parents will show up one day or the other." "What does that matter?" "Well, those who've brought him up will get something. If I hadn't thought of that I wouldn't have taken him in the first place." Oh! the wicked man! How I did dislike Barberin!
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