I began to think about Sister Marie-Aimée, and my thoughts went back to Sophie, who used to come and wake me up every year so that I should hear all the bells ringing in Easter together. One year she didn't wake up. She was so upset at that, that next year she put a big stone in her mouth to keep herself from sleeping. Every time she nodded off her teeth met on the stone, and she woke up.
I sat and thought about High Mass where Colette used to sing in her beautiful voice, and I could see our afternoon on the lawn, and Sister Marie-Aimée busy with the special dinner which they gave us on feast days. And that evening when dinner-time came I should see, instead of sister Marie-Aimée's sweet loving face, Madame Alphonse's hard face and her husband's glittering eyes, which frightened me so. And as I sat and thought how long I should still have to stay on the farm I felt deeply discouraged.
When I was tired of crying I saw with astonishment that the sun was quite low. Through the branches of my shrubbery I watched the long thin shadows of the poplar trees growing longer than ever on the grass, and quite close to me I saw a long shadow which was moving. It came forward, then stopped, and then came forward again. I understood at once that somebody was going to pass my hiding-place, and almost immediately the man in the white smock walked into the shrubbery, stooping to get out of the way of the branches. I felt cold all over. I soon got control of myself, but I could not help trembling nervously. He remained standing in front of me without saying a word. I sat and looked at his eyes, which were very gentle, and I began to feel warm again. I noticed that, as Eugène used to, he wore a coloured shirt and a cravat tied under the collar, and when he spoke it seemed to me that I had known his voice for a long time. He leaned against a big branch opposite me, and asked me if I had no relations. I said "No." His eye ran along the branch covered with young shoots, and without looking at me he said again, "Then you are all alone in the world." I answered quickly, "Oh no, I have Sister Marie-Aimée!" And without leaving him time to ask any more questions I told him how I had longed for her, and how impatiently I was waiting and hoping to see her again. Talking about her made me so happy that I could not stop talking. I told him of her beauty and of her intelligence, which seemed to me to be above everything in the world. I told him, too, how sorry she had been when I went away, and of the joy that I knew she would feel when she saw me come back.