104 JOSEPH 



that time cannot heal it ; and, as Claudius King of Denmark 

 said to Hamlet on a similar occasion : 



.... Your father lost a father ; 



That father lost, lost his ; and the survivor bound, 



In filial obligation, for some term 



To do obsequious sorrow : but to persever 



In obstinate condolement, is a course 



Of impious stubbornness ; 'tis unmanly grief. 



Hamlet refused to listen to this advice ; but, as M. 

 Dumas afterwards said, in telling the story, ' We were 

 wiser than Hamlet. Besides, after all, Joseph was not 

 the father of any of us. If she was anything, she was 

 Gouj on's adopted child.' 



However, all missed her, and for two or three days 

 she was the subject of all our conversations. Then 

 her name was heard more seldom, and at last it dropped 

 out of our talk altogether. Only Gouj on would every 

 now and then lean over the parapet, and call softly 

 for ' Joseph,' and even he seemed to do this now more 

 as a matter of duty, than from the idea that it was of any 

 use. 



Things went on in this way for about three weeks, 

 when, early one morning, at the hour when Gouj on was 

 in the habit of drinking his cup of tea, I heard cries of 

 joy proceeding from the terrace. I ran to see what had 

 happened, and found Goujon wild with delight at the re- 

 appearance of Joseph (or Josephine as she ought properly 

 to have been called), who was basking in the sun with 

 two tiny little lizards about as long as needles and as 

 thick as quill pens, lying beside her. 



She stayed with us till the middle of November, and 

 then vanished as suddenly as before. Nothing was seen 

 of her during the cold days of the winter, but at the 

 beginning of March, when the sun was growing strong 

 again, we noticed one morning a lizard lying on the wall 

 of the balcony, staring hard at us. 



