Father presently came home, warm and tired. He had had the honour of being chosen to hold one of the cords of the dais, and though he was bald, he had remained bareheaded, at the risk of a sunstroke. “Dear wife!” he said simply, pressing mother to his heart. He had never given expression to his love for her before me, and that is why I remember this. He too was stirred with high enthusiasm. Then came grandfather, smiling, spruce, his frock coat buttoned awry and his black hat a little on one side, but except for these minor matters dressed with almost irreproachable care. “Well!” mother asked him in gentle triumph, “were you there this time?” It appeared that in former years he had gone out for a walk and had not returned before evening. I had already perceived, from a thousand slight indications, that there was not absolute agreement in religious matters in our house and that the subject was usually avoided. Grandfather could not repress the little sardonic laugh which he seldom bestowed upon my mother: “Superb, superb!” he said. “One might have thought oneself at the festival of the sun. The pagans could not have done it better.” Mother’s face crimsoned. She turned and sent me away on some pretext of an errand. As I was going I heard my father’s clear voice: “I beg you not to jest upon this subject before the children.” And the sarcastic voice replying: “But I am not jesting.” In the street the nearest extemporised altar was already lying on the ground, like the useless shell of a firework. Everything had disappeared but the scaffoldings, crosses of flowers, moss. Candelabra had been hastily put under cover because of the threatening rain, for clouds had suddenly overspread the sky, and also because every one had gone home to dinner. My enthusiasm had fallen too, beneath a word of doubt. At the Feast of the Epiphany every one had to imitate the acts of the king who had been designated by the bean. If he drank every one cried, “The king drinks,” and each one seized his glass. If the king began to laugh every one burst into laughter. Ought not a king to know when one should laugh and when he should keep his face straight? III THE ENEMIES THERE was one Saturday evening, I remember.... I can not fix the precise date, but I know it must have been a Saturday because on coming home from school I met at the door Oui-oui, shaking his head, and Zeez Million counting the amount of her interest, on her open palm.