Annette would come home in the evening. She would be famished. All day she had walked in a waterless desert, a world without love. All day she had walked with her eyes turned towards the spring which, in the evening, she would find again. She heard it rippling; in anticipation she would dip her lips in it; a passer-by in the street might have taken as intended for him the smile which this beautiful woman who was hastening along addressed to the image of her child. As she approached Sylvie's house, her steps quickened like those of a horse that scents the oats; and when at last she entered, laughing with greedy love, no matter how tired she was she went upstairs at a run. The door opened; she dashed in and threw herself on the child; she caught him up in her hands, squeezed him, devoured him furiously, his eye, his nose, under his nose, wherever she happened to alight, whatever part she could reach, and her mad joy expressed itself noisily. As for him, as he played about or amused himself soberly, comfortably settled on the padded sofa, drawing lines with a piece of chalk or mixing up threads of various colors, he was none too pleased by this invasion. This great rough woman who came in without any warning, seized him, pulled him about, shouted in his ear, stifled him with kisses . . . he didn't like it at all! To be disposed of without his permission made him indignant. He wouldn't allow it. He was cross and he struggled; but this only made her shake him, fondle him, laugh and cry all the more furiously. . . . Everything about her displeased him: this lack of consideration, this noise, this violence. . . . He quite understood that she ought to love him, admire him and even kiss him. But she should have had better manners! Where had she come from? Sylvie and her girls were more ladylike. When they played with him, even when they laughed or exclaimed, they didn't make such a racket and seize you and hug you in this brutal way. He was astonished that Sylvie, who knew so well how to give her subjects a dressing down, should never give this ill-bred person a lesson in deportment, that she did not protect him from such familiarities. On the contrary, Sylvia assumed with Annette a tone of affectionate equality which she did not have for any one else, and she said to Marc, "Come, be good! Kiss your mother!"