When he perceived that his father,
now full of his dream of an opulent life, no longer seemed to notice that
he was there, he gave one of his enigmatical smiles, in which melancholy
was tinged with malice. "But what about me, father?" he asked.
M. Vigneron started, like one aroused from sleep, and did not at first
seem to understand. "You, little one? You'll be with us, of course!"
But Gustave gave him a long, straight look, without ceasing to smile with
his artful, though woeful lips. "Oh! do you think so?" he asked.
"Of course I think so! You'll be with us, and it will be very nice to be
with us."
Uneasy, stammering, unable to find the proper words, M. Vigneron felt a
chill come over him when his son shrugged his skinny shoulders with an
air of philosophical disdain and answered: "Oh, no! I shall be dead."
And then the terrified father was suddenly able to detect in the child's
deep glance the glance of a man who was very aged, very knowing in all
things, acquainted with all the abominations of life through having gone
through them. What especially alarmed him was the abrupt conviction that
this child had always seen into the innermost recesses of his heart, even
farther than the things he dared to acknowledge to himself. He could
recall that when the little sufferer had been but a baby in his cradle
his eyes would frequently be fixed upon his own--and even then those eyes
had been rendered so sharp by suffering, endowed, too, with such an
extraordinary power of divination, that they had seemed able to dive into
the unconscious thoughts buried in the depths of his brain.
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