"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, isn't that so? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my life. Look at me now--or rather don't look at me! But how handsome you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street, I would have cried, 'Jaquelet!' Now sit down and let us, first of all, have a chat. And then I'll show you my daughter, my grown-up daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or rather how I resemble her--no, it is not quite that: she is just like the 'me' of former days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend." He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never seen her before. What had he come to do in this house? Of what could he speak? Of the long-ago? What was there in common between him and her? He could no longer recall anything to mind in the presence of this grandmotherly face. He could no longer recall to mind all the nice, tender things so sweet, so bitter, that had assailed his heart, some time since, when he thought of the other, of little Lise, of the dainty Cinder-Flower. What then had become of her, the former one, the one he had loved? that woman of far-off dreams, the blonde with gray eyes, the young one who used to call him "Jaquelet" so prettily? They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled, profoundly ill at ease. As they only talked in commonplace phrases, broken and slow, she rose up, and pressed the button of the bell. "I am going to call Renee," she said. There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; next, a young voice exclaimed: "Here I am, mamma!" Lormerin remained scared, as if at the sight of an apparition. He stammered: "Good-day, Mademoiselle." Then, turning towards the mother: "Oh! it is you!..." In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won twenty-five years before. This one was even younger still, fresher, more childlike. He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart again, murmuring in her ear: "Good-day, Lison!" A man-servant announced: "Dinner is ready, Madame." And they proceeded towards the dining-room. What passed at this dinner? What did they say to him, and what could he say in reply? He found himself plunged in one of those strange dreams which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a fixed idea in his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea: "Which is the real one?" The mother smiled, repeating over and over again: