Is it because of Jean? But he'll soon be your son, Mama, and he should know you as well as I do. I so want Jean and me to live together the way you live with Papa. I'm positive you've never had a fight."

"It's not Jean I'm embarrassed about, but these great oafs," said Helene, nodding towards her sons with a smile. They were sitting on the floor, throwing pine cones into the fire; they had pockets full of them; the cones burst open in the flames with a loud, crackling sound.

Georges was fifteen and Henri thirteen. "If it's because of us," they replied, "go ahead, don't be embarrassed."

"We're not interested in your love stories," Georges said scornfully. He was at that age when a boy's voice starts to change.

As for little Loulou, he'd fallen asleep.

But Helene shook her head and was reluctant to speak. "You have the perfect marriage," Colette's fiance said shyly. "I hope that we too ... one day ..."

He was mumbling. He seemed a good lad, his face thin and soft, with the beautiful anxious eyes of a hare. Strange that Helene and Colette, mother and daughter, should have sought out the same type of man to marry. Someone sensitive, considerate, easily dominated; almost feminine, but at the same time guarded and shy, with a kind of fierce modesty. Good Lord, I was nothing like that! Standing slightly apart, I looked at the seven of them. We'd eaten in the sitting room, which is the only habitable room in the house, except for the kitchen; I sleep in a kind of attic room under the eaves. The sitting room is always rather gloomy and, on this November evening, was so dark that when the fire was low, all you could see were the large cauldrons and antique warming pans hanging from the walls, whose copper bottoms reflected even the dimmest light. When the flames rose again, the fire lit up their calm faces, their kind smiles, Helene 's hand with its gold wedding band stroking little Loulou's curls. Helene was wearing a blue silk dress with white polka dots. My mother's shawl, embroidered with leaves, covered her shoulders. Francois sat next to her; both of them looked at the children sitting at their feet. I picked up a flaming twig from the fire to relight my pipe and it illuminated my face. It seems I wasn't the only one observing what was happening around me for Colette, who doesn't miss a thing either, suddenly exclaimed, "Why, Cousin Silvio, you have such a mocking look sometimes. I've often noticed it."

Then she turned to her father. "I'm still waiting to hear all about how you fell in love, Papa."

"I'll tell you about the first time I ever met your mother," said Francois. "Your grandfather lived in town, then. As you know, he'd been married twice. Your mother was his child from the first marriage and her stepmother also had a daughter from her first marriage. What you don't know is that I was supposed to marry the other young lady, your mother's half-sister."

"How funny," said Colette.

"Yes, you see how chance comes into it. So I went to their house, trailing behind my parents. I was as keen on getting married as a dog is on getting whipped. But my mother, poor woman, insisted I settle down and she told me that, after a great deal of coaxing, she had managed to arrange this meeting, with no obligation, of course.