This woman thought that she couldn’t bear the beauty of that son’s face one moment longer — and that, in the old days, when he was still right, his face was never as handsome. No one would have turned to look at the son back when there was no need to keep from him where he was being taken. His face then had no reason to be as beautiful as it was now, since it expressed only ordinary thoughts. Nevertheless, thought the woman, rebelling, no one had the right to demand that she feel grateful or pleased at this change, no one could ask her to admire that face herself, however handsome and calm it may be.
She whispered in his ear: “I’ll be coming back to Corneville without you.”
“I know,” he said.
He smiled at her, amiable, reassuring. He went so far as to pat her arm, and then she couldn’t help confiding that she wished the bus would never stop, which the son, he told her, understood perfectly. Those other sons of hers wouldn’t have understood at all, it occurred to her, and she missed this one already. She’d be coming home alone, thank God: how she would miss him! g presence.