Although I had told my mother that my return was only a provisional one, to use M. Lefèvre's expression, she had very little doubt at heart that it was really final. Her doubt turned to certainty when she saw Sunday, Monday, Tuesday pass by without my speaking of returning to Crespy; but, poor mother! she never said a word to me concerning this catastrophe: it had cost her so much to part with me, that, since God had sent me back to her, she opened her maternal heart, arms and door to me. I had some hope left me: Adolphe had promised to make overtures to M. Laffitte, the banker, on my behalf; if M. Laffitte made me an opening in his office, where they worked from ten to four, there would be the whole of the evening and early morning to oneself for other work. Besides, it was time I should earn something. The most important thing was to get to Paris, to light our poor candles at that universal, vast and dazzling fireside, which was a light to the whole world.
A fortnight after my return from Crespy, I received a letter from Adolphe. His request had come to nothing, for M. Laffitte's offices were over full of clerks as it was: they were talking of clearing some out. So I decided to put in action at the first opportunity a plan I had settled upon during the last sleepless night I had spent at M. Lefèvre's. This project was perfectly simple and, by its very simplicity, seemed likely to succeed.
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