And Matilda went into the other room with the child in her arms.
As soon as he was out of his mother's bed he cried less loudly, and when he was in his own he was quiet, with exception of a few broken sobs.
The next night he came again. As he happened to speak rather loudly, Andrew awoke again and began to scream. His mother went and fetched him immediately, but the Captain pinched so hard and long that the child was nearly suffocated by its cries, and its eyes turned in its head and it foamed at the mouth; as soon as it was back in its cradle it was quiet, and in four days Andrew did not cry any more to come into his mother's bed.
On Saturday evening the lawyer returned, and took his place again at the domestic hearth and in the conjugal chamber.
As he was tired with his journey he went to bed early; but he had not long lain down when he said to his wife:
"Why, how is it that Andrew is not crying? Just go and fetch him, Matilda; I like to feel that he is between us."
She got up and brought the child, but as soon as he saw that he was in that bed, in which he had been so fond of sleeping a few days previously, he wriggled and screamed so violently in his fright that she had to take him back to his cradle.
M. Moreau could not get over his surprise. "What a very funny thing! What is the matter with him this evening? I suppose he is sleepy?"
"He has been like that all the time that you were away; I have never been able to have him in bed with me once."
In the morning the child woke up and began to laugh and play with his toys.
The lawyer, who was an affectionate man, got up, kissed his offspring, and took him into his arms to carry him to their bed. Andrew laughed, with that vacant laugh of little creatures whose ideas are still vague. He suddenly saw the bed and his mother in it, and his happy little face puckered up, till suddenly he began to scream furiously, and struggled as if he were going to be put to the torture.
"There must be something the matter with the child," and mechanically he lifted up his little nightshirt.
He uttered a prolonged "O--o--h!" of astonishment. The child's calves, thighs, and buttocks were covered with blue spots as big as halfpennies.
"Just look, Matilda!" the father exclaimed; "this is horrible!" And the mother rushed forward in a fright. It was horrible; no doubt the beginning of some sort of leprosy, of one of those strange affections of the skin which doctors are often at a loss to account for.