Tragic thoughts. But they could not depress the ardent Annette. It is the inspiration within that gives joy or sadness, not ideas. Under an untroubled sky an anæmic soul perishes of melancholy. A vigorous soul, exposed to storms, wraps itself as happily in shadows as in sunlight. It knows quite well that they alternate. Annette came home sometimes crushed with fatigue and the feeling of a dark future. She would go to bed and sleep; in the middle of the night some ridiculous dream would wake her up laughing. Or, more often, in the evening, as she sat with her brow bent over her work and the fingers followed their path, her brain, following its path in turn, would suddenly pick up some absurd thought and she would be full of merriment. She had to take care not to laugh too loudly in order not to awaken Marc. "I'm an idiot," she said, as she dried her eyes. But her heart was lightened. These childish relaxings, these sudden reactions, were a wholesome heritage that came to her from her family. When the heart is full of clouds, the wind of joy rises and drives them away. No, she had no need of distractions, books. Annette had enough to read in herself. And the most thrilling of books was her son. XXIV He was approaching his seventh year. He had adjusted himself to the change of his surroundings much more readily than might have been expected. Disagreeable or not, it was a change. He had cast his skin like a little snake. Ungrateful childhood! All Sylvie's indulgences and all her petting--she was so certain of her power over him!--were as if they had never been. After forty-eight hours he no longer even thought of them. What pleases or displeases a child is never what you expect. The first thing Marc appreciated in his new life was the school whither his mother sent him pityingly--and the hours of solitude when there was nobody to watch him. Annette had established herself in a little apartment on the fifth floor on the populous Rue Monge. A steep stairway, small rooms, noise from without; but there was space above the roofs, and she needed this. The noise did not disturb her; she was a Parisian, accustomed to movement; it was almost necessary to her; she could think all the better in the midst of the hurly-burly. Perhaps her nature had also been transformed with maturity: the plenitude of physical life and regular work had given her a poise, a nervous solidity, which she had never known, but which would not endure forever. The apartment consisted, on the street side, of Annette's bedroom, which served as a sitting-room (the bed formed a divan), Marc's little room, and a narrow recess, a sort of corner-closet. Across the passage, which was dark at midday, was the dining-room over the court and a kitchen that was practically filled by the stove and the sink.