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knocked out of place every time the flat was spring-cleaned. A man, even Désiré, would never notice a little thing like that.
    It did not matter that the streets were empty, with icy winds sweeping them from end to end, squalls of rain, and that deserted, useless look of a winter afternoon, Désiré still had the feeling that as he walked along he was being accompanied by a band which only he could hear and with which his regular stride was keeping time. Under his moustache, his thick lips were parted in a vague smile which expressed nothing but an inner satisfaction. He crossed the Meuse, came in sight of the Place Ernest-de-Bavière soon afterwards, with its terreplein of powdered brick, and went towards some groups of civic guards.
    â€˜It’s a boy!’ he announced, making no attempt to conceal his joy.
    He was happy to be chaffed, happy about everything, happy about the handshake which his captain, the little architect Snyers, thought fit to give him on this occasion before the morning’s drill. The square and not particularly handsome church-tower which could be seen a hundred yards away was that of Saint-Nicolas, the church of his parish, the parish where he had been born, where he had always lived, and the narrow street which ran into the square was his street, the Rue Puits-en-Sock, where his family still lived.
    â€˜Shoulder arrrrms!’
    Désiré was too tall, or the others too short. He tried his hardest. He saw nothing ridiculous in playing soldiers with these men, nearly all of whom he knew in everyday life, family men, clerks, workers, and local shopkeepers.
    â€˜Stand at ease!’
    In the Rue Léopold, Valérie was peeling vegetables and glancing every now and then at the fire.
    â€˜Valérie, do you think I’ll be able to feed him?’
    â€˜Why shouldn’t you be able to feed him?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    Wasn’t she the thirteenth child? Hadn’t she always heard people say … She knew that there had been a misfortune in the family, not simply bankruptcy but something shameful: her father, towards the end at least, had taken to drink and he had died of a cancer of the tongue.
    Ã‰lise’s brothers and sisters had never regarded her as a normal person. A little thirteenth child whom nobody had expected, and who had turned up to complicate everything.
    Louisa, the eldest, had been the only one to call the day before, and she had come empty handed. Désiré’s brothers and sisters, and mere acquaintances had all brought a present, even if it was just a bunch of grapes.
    â€˜I prefer to give him a really good present for his First Communion,’ Louisa, whose hair was prematurely grey, had said. ‘I knew you’d have plenty of everything. As for all these things’—she was referring to the bibs, the silver spoons, the oranges and cakes—‘you never know what to do with them and they just get lost.’
    â€˜Yes, Louisa.’
    And yet Louisa was a prosperous shopkeeper at Coronmeuse.
    She had stayed there half an hour, watching and shaking her head—and indeed, she must have found fault with everything. She could not stand Désiré.
    â€˜Dr. Van der Donck promised to look in today,’ sighed Élise. ‘I’m glad he’s coming. The baby still seems too hot to me.’
    â€˜Don’t think about that any more, silly. Look, try and read the paper to take your mind off it.’
    â€˜What a lot of trouble I’m giving you! If I hadn’t had you to help me … Poor Valérie!’
    Valérie who was always bustling around, a tiny little thing with her round head adorned with a big bun, and who did her best to help everybody! She lived with her mother and her sister at the top of the Rue Haute-Sauvenière. The three of them occupied a two-room flat, an old-maids’ flat full of shadows and warmth. Marie, the elder sister, was a dressmaker and worked by