We returned to the Champs-Elysees; I
was growing sick with misery between the motionless wooden horses and the
white lawn, caught in a net of black paths from which the snow had been
cleared, while the statue that surmounted it held in its hand a long
pendent icicle which seemed to explain its gesture. The old lady herself,
having folded up her _Debats_, asked a passing nursemaid the time,
thanking her with "How very good of you!" then begged the road-sweeper to
tell her grandchildren to come, as she felt cold, adding "A thousand
thanks. I am sorry to give you so much trouble!" Suddenly the sky was rent
in two: between the punch-and-judy and the horses, against the opening
horizon, I had just seen, like a miraculous sign, Mademoiselle's blue
feather. And now Gilberte was running at full speed towards me, sparkling
and rosy beneath a cap trimmed with fur, enlivened by the cold, by being
late, by her anxiety for a game; shortly before she reached me, she
slipped on a piece of ice and, either to regain her balance, or because it
appeared to her graceful, or else pretending that she was on skates, it
was with outstretched arms that she smilingly advanced, as though to
embrace me.
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